#these two just have very dysfunctional and unhealthy dynamic for a good bit

[infernal-lamb]

i’d love to hear more about neves if you’re comfortable sharing :Dc

its so funny to get asked this knowing that I can't reveal too much about Neves without spoiling a bunch of things from my fic, despite that I would love nothing more to spill all her lore......what I CAN tell you is that she was sent to the Lands of the Old Faith for a very particular reason and she's kept safe by the Lamb for a reason too. She comes from a pastoralist/agrarian upbringing and spent the entirety of her life in this profession (hint hint). Livestock, land cultivation, and the demoralizing poverty in a society that does not value such work and considers it a degrading role for outliers! you know, the usual. She talks like a farmer and a butcher, which is how u get silly stuff like THIS happening when she's getting to know the Lamb and their Flock:

(She's talking like a butcher here, which obviously is off-putting for the Lamb, mostly because they can't quite gather context, and she does....make a lot of jokes like this but. She's just human you know!)

Neves is firm in her convictions and is stubbornly attached to the idea of her own righteousness. She's just too smart to be misled.

She believes herself above indoctrination, of course.

She has too much wit

too much rebelliousness

She would never be a victim! That's Neves for you :) She'll survive the horrors.

[not-goldy]

Why do you think v posted that old pic of him and jk in hawaii during ays announcement and adding that romantic caption

You may forgot what he did, but i'lI never

Lol. I don't think anyone forgot

We've all always been sensing the drama we just couldn't figure out why.

And I feel for me it's kinda a bit stressful for me to have these conversations prior to without such blatant confessions from the members themselves.

Take PJMs always coming for saying things like well if JK is behaving this way or that way then it's because JM isn't giving him attention or doing XYZ.

They always accuse me of picking sides and blaming Jimin for everything JK does- but it usually is the case you know.

For those two they can be very childish and vindictive sometimes and they express their feelings through their actions.

I love that Tae said it out loud how JM's actions made him feel hurt. Sometimes though he is not saying it he shows it 😭

But people would rather assume evil intent behind his behavior, blame it on him being jealous etc any thing but that he's wounded in some way.

And this is why I kinda love Vmin dynamics. They can each be vulnerable with the other when things hurt them.

But Tae is not perfect. He is a cross between Jimin and JK when it comes to these things. While he is capable of identifying his emotions reflecting on his intentions and being self aware like JM he can also struggle with expressing those feelings and has a tendency to act it out much like Jungkook.

The difference is, I think JM is more forgiving of Jungkook when he acts out. He is able to intuitively discern why JK behaves the way he behaves and he is able to tolerate it and even help Jungkook articulate those difficult feelings.

Jungkook doesn't trigger him the way Tae's behavior triggers him and I feel he struggles with empathizing with Tae the way he empathizes with Jungkook or even other members.

I think if Tae and JK did something hurtful for the same reason he would be more forgiving and understanding of JK than JM.

And if I feel that is what Tae sees as a deficit in their dynamic. Remember I used to say in my other blog posts how Jikook are able to squash and get over their fights faster than Vmin are?

There's a lot of cognitive biases towards each other that gets in the way- I hate to be the one to say this but I don't think Jimin imputes good intentions behind Tae's actions most of the time.

Whereas if it were Jungkook, he would make mental excuses for those behaviors.

I don't think JM trusts Tae and his intentions and I think Tae wants him to trust him on that level.

Tae could be out here screaming I love you most, you are my soulmate my best friend - but I don't think JM deep down buys any of that. For whatever reason- I mean should we discuss that?? Are we ready to have that conversation now?👀 Because I have a few Ideas as to why.

I think Jimin is holding out on Tae and I think deep down Tae knows that and he reacts to that in both healthy and unhealthy ways.

I don't think JM thinks Tae is necessarily evil minded or have bad intentions towards him- but more of he's cautious of Tae. More of his inner lens for Tae is broken and a broken mirror will always reflect a broken image.

I remember having this discussion years ago with one other yoonmin shipper when BTS released Hold me tight.

I wish they have that conversation between the two of them once and for all- Tae needs to lay it all on the table, admit his has relational problems and needs someone who has a big heart and a strong sense of self to accommodate him without getting affected by his dysfunctions. Jimin has his own problems to deal with.

And it's the same thing that happened with him and Jungkook - Jungkook doesn't judge but dude was over it real fast and made sure they had enough boundaries between them from the get go.

But JM don't have an excuse to put up such firm boundaries. They are chingus. I guess he could maintain a professional relationship with him and maintain that coworker professional curtsey and leave it there- but then he would lose the one thing he desires most from Tae too- his ability to hold space for him.

Tae just needs someone who would match his energy. I strongly believe there's someone like that for him be it romantic or platonic. Shit he is my kind of person I can hold him down fuck him up when he fucks up forgive him and keep on with our friendship like nothing happened.

But most people can't deal with that. They'll just leave. Quit the friendship on him. He needs someone to hold him down.

And I feel Jimin keeps letting him down easily without letting him down at all🥴

Any who

[mangodestroyer]

I've been doing tons of research on how to spot and avoid toxic individuals.

During the past four years, I had sadly let two people into my life (ex roommate and ex gf) who have done some serious damage. And I don't want to ever go through that again. Trust me, I could go on for a long time about what happened between both of these people, and what I suspect could have happened if I stuck with them even longer. I was only around the roommate for four months, and the ex was long distance, and for nearly two years. So it wasn't ever close enough or long enough to see how much worse these relationships could have gotten. Even though I didn't have the sense to avoid them in the first place (I feel very stupid for overlooking the redflags), something eventually happened that made me realize I needed to cut contact with these people. But only after they'd done some damage.

For a while, I thought it was my fault. I thought that maybe I was so terrible, I just brought out the worst in others. I mean, my ex was so nice to me at first. My roommate was nice to everyone but me. So maybe I was the problem. Maybe that's also why I dealt with so much bullying at school, work, and at home as well. People were only trying to protect themselves from me.

But when I started doing research on toxic relationships, I realize that I had unfortunately gotten myself involved in all sorts of unhealthy dynamics, and it's likely because I grew up in a dysfunctional household.

But here's the thing: it's absolutely discouraging to hear, over and over, that any form of childhood abuse and neglect will make you a magnet for toxic people (who also usually have childhood trauma). For one, you start to, again, wonder if there's something wrong with YOU. You also start to wonder if healthy people just don't like you and if you'll always get stuck dealing with unhealthy relationships. What makes this even worse? I could win a bingo game with how many vulnerable groups I'm a part of. I'm neurodivergent, mentally ill, raised female, non-binary, bisexual, grew up poor (and am currently lower middle class), and Native American (my ex roommate and her boyfriend seemed to really have something against Native Americans). These are all groups predatory people go after. It's something I learned from listening to a psychologist discuss these dynamics and hearing other people's stories. They'll go after anyone they can get away with hurting. People don't care as much if this happens to someone who already isn't very respected by society.

And that's what leaves me even more discouraged. It's completely put me off meeting new people and starting friendships, or even relationships. Even if I could get myself a PhD in red flags, I now worry that it won't be enough to protect myself. And, nothing personal, but even when I don't get a gut feeling around someone, I still wonder if it's a good idea to get close to them because... idk, I seem to have a bit of a tendency to attract toxic people.

[5ummit]

Post-CATWS Winterbones Fic Recs

I truly never could've predicted the incredible influx of amazing winterbones fics over the past year or so, and I especially couldn’t have predicted the rise of an almost entirely new winterbones genre – Bucky choosing to return to his abuser Rumlow of his own free will – in the year of our lord 2022. Previously I said I wasn’t going to make a separate winterbones rec list, since most of my favs were already on my HTP rec list, but this delicious new HTP-adjacent genre really deserves its own collection.

Pretty much everything on this list will be some flavor of Bucky relapsing post-CATWS. While many of these fics may not be strictly considered HTP by some standards, rest assured they're still plenty trashy and Rumlow is still a Very Bad Man. If you’re looking for actual good guy Rumlow and tender handholding, look elsewhere.

Since Steve’s abandonment of Bucky in Endgame was undeniably a major catalyst for this genre and many of these fics were written in direct response to that event, I’ve split the list into two categories: fics that are canon compliant with and/or directly address the fallout of Endgame (some of which are NOT compliant with TFATWS) and fics that clearly diverge from canon before Endgame. I’ve also made note of any fics that feature The Gun, an intriguing bit of winterbones canon I recently discovered that's already made its way into multiple fics, much to my delight.

Blanket warnings for dubcon, unhealthy dynamics, violence, psychological abuse, victim blaming, non-negotiated kink, and dehumanization. Any significant additional pairings or kinks/tropes not covered by the blanket warning will be noted to the best of my ability, but please read all tags very carefully!

- - - - - - -

Endgame Compliant

Old Faces in New Places by SubverbalDreams Words: 44,600 Additional pairings: Steve/Bucky, Zemo/Bucky, Hydra Agents/Bucky Notes: noncon, whipping, torture, voyeurism

“The fuck do you want.”

That voice. A hundred, thousand dreams. Bucky’s lower half turns to water and he forgets how to speak for a minute.

“What, jaw ain’t workin’ after you been suckin’ off Wilson all this time?” Rumlow asks in a flat tone. “Fuck off, cyborg. Go back to your new handler.”

Something Broken [series] by Exorin Words: 23,350 Notes: The Gun, gunplay, object insertion, erectile dysfunction

"Oh now," Rumlow breathes, sounding just as caught off guard as Bucky feels - the other man’s deep amber eyes flicker from Bucky's face down to the gun in his hand, lingering there long enough that Bucky wants to let the weapon clatter to the concrete floor between them and turn tail to run.

Brock nods toward the gun in Bucky’s hand—the custom SIG Sauer P226 SCT.

"That mine, sweetheart?"

Crying Wolf by sparklingbinjuice Words: 9400 Notes: The Gun, gunplay

“You’re dead,” he says again, the words now more doubtful than decisive. The Commander Rumlow tilts his head, lips twitching into a twisted smirk. He looks vaguely amused.

“Well, that ain’t no way to greet an old friend.”

Untitled by barb-aricyawp Words: 350 Notes: caning

Rumlow opens the door. Without even really looking at Bucky he says, “You again.”

Bucky can’t meet his eye as he asks, “Can you do it?” And then, because Rumlow will make him say it anyway, he grits out, “Please?”

Until the blood runs clear by darthpumpkinspice Words: 4430 Additional pairings: OMCs/Bucky

Bucky shudders, disgusted with his own selfishness, furious at even contemplating the thought of finding a girl to play house with, some innocent woman he’d inevitably ruin.

He reopens the app, inhales a deep, steadying breath. Goes to his settings, selects “men only”.

He knows what he’s good for.

Make the call and take it all (again) by itallstartedwithdefenestration Words: 13,240

“I—” Bucky began, and Rumlow held up one hand: be quiet. Bucky shut his mouth instantly, without thinking about it. He remembered in Selby’s bar, how easy it had been to do things without thinking about them. To do them because he knew it was required of him, to have no will of his own, no power—

“You didn’t come find me for the first time in almost a fuckin’ decade to ask me about a serum,” Rumlow said.

Turn soonest to the sea by itallstartedwithdefenestration Words: 7040 Notes: The Gun, gunplay

His memory glitches. But he knows this gun. He knows that he knows it, in the same way he knows his functions, his languages, his directives. He picks the gun up; feels its weight in his hand (he does not trust himself to hold it with the flesh hand, which is still malfunctioning). He doesn’t know why the Commander’s gun is on the floor here when the Commander himself is not in the room.

(Heart rate increase: three bpm.)

Thoughtless Familiarity by sirtrash Words: 1750 Notes: CNC, gunplay

“I’m not going to tell you again, let’s go, soldier,” the commander said and the soldier had no choice but to obey now.

The soldier was not allowed to fight back.

A Certain Romance [series] by Exorin Words: 10,390 Notes: exhibitionism

“Ah-ah, no, not you Baron,” Selby says with a grin that shows too many teeth for Bucky’s comfort - she snaps her fingers and he straightens his posture, his spine going rigid as one of her bodyguards steps forward from the circle of heavily armed men around them; the other man moves to stand beside the couch, his darkened eyes the only part of his face that Bucky can see, the rest of it covered with a full black mask, “I think he’ll do nicely, don't you?”

The man's eyes are a deep amber; the colour of them make Bucky’s shoulders go instinctively tense.

His Vice by LadyLetterR Words: 3000 Notes: infidelity (briefly mentioned)

It had been a bad idea, letting him pay for his drinks, one after the other and it had been a terrible idea to follow after him, no, walk with him, to the motel on the corner in which he was apparently renting a room, closing the door behind the two of them.

It had been the worst possible idea to let himself be pushed onto Rumlow’s bed.

You’ve always known by Exorin Words: 750

The soldier finds his way back to Rumlow’s doorstep just under three months after Steve – tears-in-his-eyes, ‘what did you say about Bucky’ – Rogers finally fucks off and leaves his buddy alone for real and not just through neglect and indifference and his own stupid inability to actually help in the way that Rumlow knows the asset needs.

Good fucking riddance.

- - - - - - -

Pre-Endgame Canon Divergence

You held my hand and pulled me down (with you) [series] by itallstartedwithdefenestration Words: 127,000 Additional pairings: Steve/Bucky Notes: prong collar, whipping, waterboarding, infidelity

Assets were not built to make their own decisions. Secretary Pierce had been quite clear on that point, and the Commander was too. Sometimes, when the asset answered to that other name, he could pretend (convincingly) that he thought like Steve, and Steve’s friends: he wasn’t an asset at all, but a person, and was therefore allowed and even encouraged to make his own decisions. But it wasn’t the truth. It would never be the truth.

The Handler by SubverbalDreams Words: 39,850 (Incomplete) Notes: eating disorders, exhibitionism/voyeurism

“I’m—” can’t say ‘functional’, Steve HATES that word now “—feeling okay. I’m okay, S—Steve.” The asset’s heart is tripping over itself in an unsteady rhythm. He’d almost said ‘Sir’, another of Steve’s new forbidden words. He keeps changing the rules. Nothing means what it used to. Steve is the only one who could make this safe, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

'Til the end of the line [series] by Exorin Words: 14,000 Additional pairings: Steve/Bucky Notes: Hydra sex tapes, voyeurism

"What is it?" Steve starts and Bucky wants to cry, wants to scream when the other man's thumb traces - too soft, always too soft - over his jugular before moving away to stroke across Bucky's cheek and then gently over his lower lip like the carefullest of caresses, "I'll give you anything you want."

You won't, is what Bucky wants to say.

You can’t.

Out with the new by seabone Words: 1780 Notes: daddy kink (minor)

Imagining the shock on Steve’s face soften into delight as he flips through each photograph and old sketch, now yellowing and fading but crystal clear in Steve and Bucky’s minds, Bucky almost, almost, overlooks the unmistakable flash of leather-black hair. Sharp jaw, eyes a strange pinwheel of green and amber that Bucky always remembers as daybreak filtering into the woods, littering its gold across a pack of angry wolves. He almost does. But he doesn’t.

Our Share of Night by anonymous Words: 3300 (Incomplete) Additional pairings: Steve/Bucky Notes: infidelity

Bucky knocks at the door and that’s a statement, because he could easily break in or break it to pieces, or just enter through the window unseen. He’s not here as an intruder, though. Today he’s a petitioner.

Bucky equally expects Rumlow not to open the door at all, to shoot him right through it or to burst out and challenge him to a fight. Neither happens. The wood creaks as the door opens a gap, the scarred grimace of a familiar face studying him. If he’s surprised, he does not let it show.

Quis Pro Quo by fallbekind Words: 6280 Additional pairings: Steve/Bucky Notes: voyeurism

A ghost of a smile flashes over Bucky’s face, making Steve’s stomach toil, and then Rumlow leans in and licks slowly across his lips. Doesn’t kiss, doesn’t linger. Claims him like a kid would a cookie, letting everyone know they touched it and now no one else wants it. As if Rumlow knows Steve is right there, crouching, watching pathetically on the sidelines, while his- his- Bucky, is being ruined by someone else.

[officiallralsei]

you've mentioned that you've been thinking about a specific au lately on the blog 👀 whats the deal there

well me and @gasterofficial were talking about what would happen if gaster's version of ralsei WASN'T successfully made to be able to handle eldritch knowledge. I've discussed it before on the blog, but I have the headcanon that the light can literally burn darkners who aren't prepared for it. (this comes from spamton having quite a bit of dialogue implying that he was burned/changed in some way by the knowledge he gained.) in blogverse canon, ralsei's got very sensitive eyes because he's still recovering from his initial exposure to that knowledge.

so if he wasn't successfully built to handle more Light Exposure than your average darkner... the logical conclusion is that gaining too much knowledge would blind him. after researching, i don't think it would be full blindness as that's kind of rare, but it would impair him badly enough that he would have trouble navigating on his own.

this is a problem for gaster. he needs to have a darkner guide, and now he's got EIGHT busted little guys. ralsei's certainly clever and adaptable, but he is NOT used to functioning blind just yet and there's not much time left before the game absolutely needs to start. a functional guide is a critical necessity to save the world of deltarune. and gaster just does not have the resources to try again.

so, out of luck and out of options, gaster becomes the worlds worst Ghost Guide to assist ralsei in his Actual Guide duties. guy who tells ralsei about his surroundings and also never shuts the fuck up. and is also his ghost dad who can't be perceived by others unless they're in a truly liminal space.

so what arises is a truly dysfunctional and codependent parent-child dynamic between these two. gaster likes ralsei but like... never really gives him room to make decisions on his own since hes constantly telling him what to do. ultimately he believes ralsei just kind of has to be a means to an end, no matter how much personal affection gaster has for him, due to the nature of ralsei being Born To Save The World, and that makes their relationship deeply unhealthy. meanwhile ralsei, who is a bit traumatized from being Literally Scorched By Horrible Knowledge in the first minute of his existence, is pretty happy to just let himself be directed constantly by someone who is kind to him and appears to have his best interests at heart. he ends up being quite sheltered due to all this. plus gaster also keeps telling him constantly Not To Think Too Much About The Fucked Up Things so he's gotten good at that.

thematically, the entire thing, at least for me, is another lens through which to look at deltarune's themes of agency and personhood. children, particularly disabled children, frequently have their personhood and agency denied to them because of the idea that they aren't capable of handling themselves. that's not to say that children and disabled people don't need SUPPORT, of course, but that support should be enabling them to make decisions for themselves when possible and appropriate, rather than denying them opportunities for agency. adding those particular lenses onto ralsei's canonical status as a darkner (which is a category of Unperson within the narrative) provides a lot of interesting ground with which to explore his emerging independence and self-actualization. also I just think its rad to think about weird Fucked Up Ghost Dad shenanigans

tldr:

[sophfandoms53]

I have so many thoughts about Evan’s recent comments on GOTF and idk if this is gonna come out in a coherent way but I wanna just ramble and get them out so... here we go.

Evan’s strategy when it comes to both Sonic and Tikal’s relationship, as well as Sonic and Shadow’s, appears to be through subtlety and small moments, and it makes sense, the comic has a huge plot going on that it needs to keep its focus on. So looking back, you can see those small moments and realize the undertones of them, it’s a very smart decision on Evan’s part to handle things this way. It shows the greater bond that lies within these three characters of her story.

Touching a bit more upon the subject on how she’s handled and described her intentions on Sonic and Shadow, that additional tweet made me think a lot, and how she pointed out the contrast between her take on Sonic/Shadow’s dynamic vs other romantic works of the two. Evan described the usual shipping dynamic as a “dark and passionate tone” while her’s leans into a more “trust and mutually healing” one, and I think that’s a really good take for her to have and execute. It’s also kind of a commentary on how the dynamic of sonadow has changed throughout the years.

Speaking just generally, not just GOTF, Sonic and Shadow as a relationship, in fandom, has had its ups and downs. The ship during the mid to late 2000’s, and I think many of us who have been Sonic fans for years can all agree with this, was filled to the brim with homophobic treatment, weird fetishization, and some times the ship was portrayed as just downright abusive. That was the heavily normalized version of Sonadow during this time, it was a joke ship, people laughed at you for genuinely feeling a relationship between Sonic and Shadow could actually work. If you weren’t being lowkey homophobic about it, fetishizing the gay ship, or having sonic and shadow abusing each other, you were made fun of.

But the times have changed. The internet and people have grown. A relationship between two males, whether hedgehogs or humans, is something that a vast majority of people support and would love to see be happy and healthy. You can see many Sonadow shippers nowadays being able to share the genuine ideas they have on how they feel a good version of Sonic and Shadow would work. They’re able to explore and create so many wonderful works of the two and not have that worry about being made fun by a majority of the sonic fan base anymore. This change has allowed us to see what a healthy relationship between Sonic and Shadow would look like and so many people just make it so damn wholesome.

And I think that’s also something worth talking about. The absence of portraying happy and healthy couples in media nowadays. Just like how Sonadow was normalized as a toxic ship back in the 2000s, relationships in stories, movies, and shows are still constantly portrayed as toxic and abusive and it’s normalized. The idea of not being able to trust your partner, constant fighting over nothing, gaslighting and manipulative behavior, is so heavily normalized in media and it’s gotta stop. Relationships that are co-dependent, that have one partner questioning their trust in their lover constantly, that have one partner not being able to speak up, that have both people yelling at each other over small things, that have unhealthy jealousy, that have one partner who promises to change and then constantly relapses into their bad behavior because they know their partner will stay, all of that, it’s not good.

No relationship should ever be that way, and it is frustrating seeing so many things in media portray relationships that lack basic trust and respect as healthy and functional, when all they are are unhealthy and dysfunctional, which again is not good and should not be normalized. This can also apply to unhealthy friendships as well.

So to see that Evan, a member of the Sonic community and a worker for SEGA, taking a ship/dynamic that was once portrayed as something negative, and transforming it into one that is filled with mutual trust, understanding, and the want for both parties to heal properly, it’s incredibly inspiring and heartwarming. You can see that throughout the issues that Sonic and Shadow do greatly care for each other, their friendship is healthy, they want each other to improve and grow, they push each other, and they truly do love each other, platonically or romantically, it doesn’t matter, they just do and it shows.

Those are the relationships that matter.

[tothedarkdarkseas]

How do you think the other band members (russel, noodle, possibly ace) find out about Stu and Murdoc's "relationship" (For lack of a better word...), and what is their initial reaction?

I can sort of vaguely recall trying to answer a similar question before, and I think it was similarly difficult then. The trouble is that I view both relational halves of this equation as mostly undefined and nebulous, both observable but neither immediately recognized as something with a clear line through: Stu and Murdoc have a relationship to each other but they are not "in a relationship," and the band's dynamics are between artistic collaborators and roommates, but not so directly "family."

I don't tend to involve the others too much because I do view their revolving door of connection and dysfunction as private, whether or not it is really as unknown as they think. I expect Russel and Noodle are perceptive in their own ways, but I don't see them as ever getting involved, nor do I see them as especially uh... invested in their coupling, for lack of better phrasing, haha. That isn't to say they don't care for Stu, or for Murdoc. I just think Noodle is too young for so long, and when she leaves, she is changed by her travels. She becomes quite serious and insular, unidealistic but not quite depressive. She is more adult than she ought to be, enough so that she probably wouldn't linger long on the prospect of Stu and Murdoc's relations. I don't think it concerns her. Russel I think always knows Stu and Murdoc are connected to each other in a way they aren't to the rest of the world, because he observed them in those very earliest days, and he's possibly been witness to some unhealthy drain-circling behaviour from the two of them-- but again, I just don't think he sees any good from getting involved. I don't view him as approving or disapproving, but I'd reckon he thinks it's unwise. I don't think he has any intention to really encourage it, but I don't exactly imagine him telling Murdoc to "back off" either. I like that he and Murdoc can be blunt with each other, but I don't really see Russel taking a protective role.

Ace is a bit funny because he's so out of the loop on their shared dynamics for the past 20 years. I do at times wonder if he ever knew. I don't expect Stu to say it, so it'd fall to his better mate Murdoc. I sort of like the notion that Ace knows how Murdoc can be, to an extent-- he knows Murdoc is manic and cruel, driven by ego and a world that owes him, he knows Murdoc is gluttonous-- but the way he talks now, and the way he references Stuart, is uniquely... shrinking to himself, he seems older, he seems less. Just overall less than he'd been once. And despite their separation during his tenure as bassist, he leaves with the impression that there's a lot unsaid to him.

A thoughtful friend recently said something to me that was so astute and affecting about the band dynamics, and it's so very relevant in explaining why I shy away from the found family aspect despite how wicked it probably seems to do so. They worded it in such a way that struck me right to my core. I'm paraphrasing, and not nearly so well, but in essence the thought was: It would be better to hear "I don't understand you because we're not that close" than "You are my friend, and I don't understand you at all." I hope they are alright with me sharing their words, but I've not stopped thinking about them since!

[inkykeiji]

hello, bby💞💞 i absolutely ADORE everything u write, ur insanely talented!! I wanted to ask, you’ve mentioned several pieces of art, precisely songs and films, that have inspired ur work; could u give us some music and movie recommendations that have similar vibe to some of ur fics??? Thank u in advance, I hope u have an incredible day/evening, lysm💓💞💖

THIS QUESTION OOOOOOOH YES ANON YES okay okay first of all, thank you so much!!!! i appreciate that a lot <333 YES i love film so much hehehe <3 my music recommendations are pretty much the same as they always are. the films i’m recommending here; i’m not exactly sure if they have a similar vibe to my fics as i’ve found it difficult to find many films that fit that criteria, but here’s a nice huge list of films that have influenced my main series’, and how!!

beware!! very long post under the cut hehehe AND POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR BMB IF YOU KNOW THE FILMS HEHEHEHEHE

𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬

the godfather, part 1 + part 2

AAAAAAAAH okay, literally one of my favourite films of all time, the godfather (+ the godfather pt 2) is a fucking masterpiece. tomura’s close relationship with his father was both inspired by bnha itself as well as michael corleone’s relationship with his father, vito. michael is the golden child even though he’s the youngest, and i love love love how cold and ruthless he can be!!! he’s also super smart.

goodfellas

listen. if henry hill from goodfellas and michael corleone from the godfather had a baby, it would be tomura. he’s slightly more henry than he is michael, but his characterization pulls from both of these characters!! henry is fun, he’s reckless, he’s young, he feels like a god and he loves cocaine. henry also becomes very paranoid, a path with tomura is currently speeding down (albeit much more intensely, with legitimate mental health issues, but you get it). i also love the subtle ‘mafia princess’ trope goodfellas has going on with henry’s wife, karen (that scene where she says she’s going shopping and asks him for money, and he takes out that massive wad of cash?????? brilliant, one of my faves hehehe). henry also has some difficulty dealing with his emotions!!

narcos season 1 + 2

k, i can’t say too much about how this incredible show inspired bmb; i kind of feel like listing it is already giving away too much hehehe BUT i love the pure POWER pablo exudes, and i love his relationship with his wife and how family oriented he is.

scarface (both the original 1932 version and the 1983 version)

WOOOOOOOOOO OKAY. for the 1983 film: cocaine my friends. cocaine and violence and toxic relationships!!!!!!!  i kind of love elvira hancock more than anything else; she’s so glamorous and fun and just aaaaah she’s definitely not as ‘baby’ or ‘good girl’ as bmb!reader is, but her sheer class and cute dresses and just how SPOILED she is reminds me a lot of bmb! for both 1932 + 1983: tony’s relationship with his sister, gina (which tbh borders on incest). gina’s another one of those ‘mafia princess’ types, and tony is extremely overprotective of her and spoils her like mad, too. she’s also fits that ‘good girl’ archetype a lot more!!

reservoir dogs

purely the violence. the violence the violence the violence, the crude and crass way the men talk to each other, and the fact that they’re like a lil organized crime group put together by a boss. i am IN LOVE (IN LOVEEEEEEEE) with mr blonde (aka vic vega <333). mr blonde’s extreme sadism reminds me quite a bit of both dabi and tomura, and he’s even referenced in the lil torture piece i wrote!! also, you literally cannot tell me that vic wouldn’t spoil the absolute HELL out of his good lil princess if he had one <3

(not a film, but!!!!!) hamlet

break my bones is very very very loosely based on hamlet (which is my favourite story of all time. literally. i love hamlet so much i can’t even put it into words); with tomura as hamlet, dabi as a mixture of horatio and laertes, and reader as ophelia. hamlet, my precious baby, is a spoiled fucking brat, who loved his father and was loved by his father. he’s also very intelligent, but falls prey to his indecisiveness and his inability to make decisions, in addition to the rapid decay of his mental health. that’s all i’ll say hehehe

baby driver

the relationship between baby + debora reminds me of the relationship between dabi and reader a lot <333 i also just love the aesthetic of this film, and the undercurrents of organized crime!!

the shining

just a teeny tiny bit; i cannot say anything about this or i think it’ll give something away!!!!!

burning

trios!!!!! trios!!!!!!!!!!!!and the relationship dynamic between jong-su, hae-mi and ben??????? absolutely incredible and reminds me quite a bit of the dynamic between tomura, dabi + reader!!

𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐀𝐔 (𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞) + 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐲𝐚-𝐧𝐢𝐢

i’m grouping these two together, because a lot of their influences overlap in terms of dabi + reader’s relationship!!! (i’m pretty sure we can all agree that touya-nii is so fucking Daddy, too <3)

true romance

i fucking love this movie, so so so much. i’d go as far to say that clarence and alabama’s relationship has without a doubt inspired or influenced every single romantic relationship i’ve written in at least some way, shape, or form. i LOVE them. i love their co-dependency on each other, i love their whole ‘it’s you and me against the world’ vibe, and i love how far they’re willing to go for each other. also, again, organized crime (no surprise), and alabama is just the cutest fucking thing i swear to god. that scene of her + virgil in the hotel room will forever be one of my absolute FAVOURITE scenes in cinematic history. i would die for this woman i love her more than anything. she’s so cute yet so strong, so brave, so IN LOVE, and aaaah that is just one of my favourite characteristics ever ever ever. i love women who are soft and strong at the same time, even if that strength isn’t physical.

sid and nancy

hello to one of the most famous toxic relationships ever!!! honestly, i don’t think i have to explain this one much LMAO. obviously my readers aren’t as hardcore as nancy and almost always fall into the ‘innocent good girl’ category, but their RELATIONSHIP itself reminds me quite a bit of the relationship between touya-nii and his princess <3

bonnie and clyde (1967)

ahahaha yet again, another very toxic, very co-dependent type of love. like clarence and alabama, i love how these two are literally willing to die for each other—they’d go straight to the ends of the earth for one another, no questions asked. this type of love is extremely unhealthy, obviously, but it’s something i am extremely fascinated with and love exploring in my work! also, that whole ‘fuck the world let’s commit crimes together’????? very tag you’re it dabi x reader!!!

pulp fiction

more specifically, the relationship between mia and vincent. the sexual tension there is fucking crazy, and i love how mia is yet again one of those ‘mafia princess’ types. really, this film applies to bmb as well, but i’m putting it here because the way vincent gets so so SO soft for mia reminds me of the way touya-nii and dabi in these two series in particular get soft for their readers. also, to a lesser extent, the relationship between butch and fabienne. i know a lot of people don’t like fabienne and get annoyed with her, but i think she’s just the cutest thing and i heavily relate to her and her babie/crybaby nature <3 and of course, the relationship between pumpkin and honeybunny (for tag you’re it especially!) <33

breathless (a bout de souffle)

there’s just something about michel that reminds me of touya-nii SO much. i think it’s a combination of his attitude as well as his petty life of crime, and the way patricia hides him in her apartment...i don’t know, it’s difficult for me to put into words, but i love him a lot <3

𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤

the joker + harley quinn: i feel like this is so obvious LMAO but i’m obsessed with the idea of that all consuming voracious love that borders on serious obsession. extremely possessive socio/psychopath and his dumb lil baby????? yes <3 (**i also wanna make a note to say that harley isn’t dumb AT ALL, but J will often insult her in such a way, and sometimes the men who write her portray her as such as well >.> but harley is one of my favourite female characters ever. i LOVE how girly and fun she is while still being extremely strong and (sometimes, depending on the version) independent. she isn’t without flaws, and i love how her mr j is basically her kryptonite <3)

speaking of batman, bruce wayne: what can i say, i just love spoiled rich men who have serious issues dealing with their emotions and walk the line of good and evil <33333

anakin skywalker/darth vader: listen, anakin was seriously slighted by those prequel films. but underneath all of that bad writing, at his core, anakin is a fantastic character. he is SO strongly governed by his emotions and is extremely selfish, and his love for his wife and family is ultimately what leads him down the path to the dark side <3 his emotionally charged motivations remind me a lot of CANON dabi!!!

thelma and louise: i just love their relationship, like, a lot hehehe. their relationship and the ending of this film reminds me a lot of my snowman & me; just yet again that whole ‘it’s you and me or it’s death’ type thing.

the darjeeling limited: it should be obvious at this point that i love trios, and i love complex characters and the relationships that come along with them. the relationship between the whitman brothers, the dysfunctional family, the truama and sadness...i love it all. this film is absolutely beautiful and really doesn’t connect much to my work other than the character dynamics, but i love it so dearly.

mad men: again, those misogynistic toxic relationships and the dependency betty has on don for the first few seasons!! also my god, the aesthetic, i am obsessed.

twin peaks: this hasn’t shown up too much in the work i’ve posted on my blog just yet, but i’m head over heels in love with the dreamy unsettling feeling that saturates this entire series, as well as the drugs and crime. also dale is my baby, protect him with everything <3

blade runner (both films): for city aesthetic

suckerpunch: an absolutely awful film but also one of my guilty pleasures, purely because i love babydoll so so so so so much <33 again, more for aesthetic than story.

𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂

honestly, my music recommendations are exactly the same as they are in this post right here. lana del rey, lil peep, chase atlantic + the neighbourhood are the four that i’d say influence my work the most tho, and have the most similar vibe to my stuff!! also, nicole dollanganger is an incredible artist and lyricist, and i’ve been told more than once that my work and her work are quite similar (which i agree!!!). her stuff is hauntingly beautiful, but i have a lot of difficulty listening to it because it hits a little too close to home and makes me cry literally every single time. so please be wary of that, i’m giving a general trigger warning for her because she can get quite dark. but her work is absolutely fantastic, i highly recommend as long as you feel that you can handle it!!! <33

AAAAAH I KNOW I’M MISSING LIKE A MILLION THINGS I SWEAR but these are the films (and tv shows) + artists that readily come to mind!! thank you again for your question anon, i love stuff like this so much and i love discussing films and art hehehe <33

[mythoughtsaretroubled]

Haven and Leverage and OT3s

Leverage has such a competent ot3 and Haven had such a dysfunctional ot3… honestly it’s almost like they are on opposite ends of a spectrum

Spoilers for both shows ahead

Obviously, Leverage has the better ot3. For one, the creators confirmed they are canonically in a relationship. Secondly, they are all alive in canon. Third, they communicate, which may sound wild but it’s true. 

But Haven… Haven has the perfect set up. A more traditional love triangle, where two men are in love with the same women with the added bonus of a complicated history and amazing chemistry. So it’s right there. Dare I say, it could have been epic. But instead of growing together as individuals and as partners, they form a very unhealthy relationship with no established boundaries where not everyone is viewed equally. 

(disclaimer: I actually haven’t finished s5 of Haven, although I do many spoilers. I’ve also been in the fandom for a significantly shorter period of time.) 

So here is a look at what Leverage did to succeed and Haven did to fail. 

(this got very long) 

In Leverage, Parker and Hardison have the traditional romance in Leverage. They don’t rush into a relationship and Hardison respects Parker’s boundaries. He repeatedly let’s her know that he is her friend and her partner and never makes her feel uncomfortable about their relationship. In season 1, The Stork Job, when Parker expresses self doubt, Hardison tells her he likes how she turned out. He also tell her that their crew is “a little bit more than a team,” a line she repeats back to him at the end of the episode. His support of her has been unwavering from the start and he has never made her feel like she should be anything other than herself and never uses his feelings for her to manipulate her or guilt her into any choices. 

Parker’s support of Hardison looks different. She constantly talks about how smart he is, how competent he is, and at one point, how empathetic and good he is. She admires him and respects him. She brags about his hacking skills to even Nate, who knows how competent he is. He is the first person she calls for help to contact the team in The Inside Out Job. She trusts him and he has given her every reason to and never doubt him. They are stable and consistent and neither one prioritizes their feelings over the other.

Now we add in Eliot, and his relationships with Parker and Hardison. Eliot and Hardison bicker like an old married couple, but when they are in a serious situation, they work together and trust each other’s abilities and take the lead from the other when the situation calls for it. While they might tease each other and snipe at each other, it’s never with any malice. They don’t manipulate each other and have honest conversations. They also grow more open with physical affection, when Eliot is at first shown adverse to it, he knows it is comforting to Hardison, and even a few times, to himself. And, like with Parker, Hardison never pushes Eliot into any vulnerable positions and instead allows Eliot to know he is there for when he wants to open up further, like in The Low Price Job, where Eliot shares his past with his dad with Hardison. They also trust that the other will help them if they are ever in need, full stop. And if there is a shared adversary, they always gang up on them together, like with Sterling, although they do this as early as The Homecoming Job (1x02). They never doubt they other is on their side. 

Eliot and Parker have a relationship that reads the least romantic to the outside observer. They don’t have many one on one scenes, unlike Parker and Hardison and Eliot and Hardison, but they do have more in common with each other than Hardison. As the hitter and the thief, they have the most physically demanding jobs and the darkest pasts. They also have the most implied trauma in their past, Parker in her childhood (see The Future Job) and Eliot in his life as a solider (see The Experimental Job). They understand the darker side of the other because they share that. In The Long Way Down Job, Parker tells Eliot she wants to do the right thing. And Eliot tells her that looking out for themselves is not a bad or wrong thing. He says, “it’s what makes us us.” He doesn’t make her feel guilty, he just states facts, which Parker understands. Their bond is incredibly strong and filled with understanding. 

As a team, all three of them work together. They have inside jokes, they spend time together outside their jobs, 

Their relationship started with respect for how competent each was at their job, which grew to trust, and then grew to love. They became a family. There was no jealousy of their relationships with each other, no one tried to undermine the relationships of the other two. And while they may not spend much time on screen talking about their relationships, we do see them have very important conversations that explicitly state their feelings, which are supported by what we have previously seen. 

Now Haven. 

Audrey and Nathan start out as adorable. They have a friendship where they tease each other and push each other out of their boundaries, but always with their support. They are great in season 1 and season 2. They even support each other’s romantic relationships (ie Jess and Chris). There are hints of jealousy, like in Roots, when Nathan is a little on edge that Audrey is with Chris, but nothing outward and toxic. But here’s where it starts to go off the rails. As cute as it is that Nathan can only feel Audrey, he becomes fixated on her (who can blame him, he’s touch starved). While this isn’t a big deal in the first two seasons and rather a romantic tidbit, this friendship and fixation turns into an obsession by season 3, so much so that he takes away agency from her. Now she does start by pushing him away when she finds out she is leaving in a certain amount of time, so she is also to be blamed. The lack of communication between them goes both ways in season 3. And he starts dating Jordan, while still prioritizing Audrey during their relationship. So much so, he cheats on Jordan with Sarah, the previous incarnation of Audrey. While there is an ongoing level of trust and respect between them, the lack of communication in season three completely derails their relationship, causing Nathan to reverse Audrey’s decision to go into the Barn by shooting Agent Howard and then trying to convince her to shoot him in season 4. 

Their relationship would have been more meaningful and powerful had we seen them stay partners who leaned on each other and listened instead of bulldozing over the other’s choices and acting like their love was justification for doing bad things. 

Onto Audrey and Duke, who were set up to be the foil to Nathan and Audrey. There are episodes in season 1 where Duke is absent. They were set up to fail. And despite Audrey’s affection towards Duke, she takes her lead from Nathan and uses her power as a police officer to get him to talk to her from the beginning. While she eases up on using her power as an officer, she does use his feelings for her to manipulate him, like in The Farmer, where she guilts him into killing a man. The narrative pushes this idea that Duke has unrequited love for Audrey, and then shows how she uses his feelings. While we see them trust each other, Audrey proves she doesn’t respect Duke to make his own choices. Duke is also expected to put Audrey first and himself second but condemned whenever he tries to put himself first. Their relationship has a huge imbalance and is quite unhealthy in the later seasons. 

Their dynamic could have been solved if Audrey spent more time considering Duke and his point of view instead of her own perspective and the greater good. If she acknowledged his feelings and they communicated what they wanted and needed from each other, they would have been a solid couple. 

Now Duke and Nathan are up next. Out of all the dynamics, this had the most wasted potential. Even ignoring the fact that they are not acknowledged in or out of verse as romantically involved, there is a fair amount of what can be interpreted as queerbaiting. Ignoring that and looking at what happens in canon, Nathan and Duke have an undefined history. Duke carried Nathan to the hospital when he broke his arm and they were 8. The same year, Duke bullied Nathan by putting thumbtacks in his back. Duke also attempted to put a snake in Nathan’s locker when they were teenagers. That’s all we know about the events of their past of 25 years, so they don’t trust each other at the start of the show. They don’t respect each other and they certainly don’t communicate. However, there are moments throughout the show where we see them become friends and support each other, like in Resurfacing or Friend or Faux. Every time their relationship develops, Nathan reverts back to the grudges he held and the pain Duke caused as a child. In Sins of the Father, Duke rejects his father and tells him he stands with Audrey and Nathan cause they are his friends. Then we see in 301 that Nathan got the tattoo that is supposed to be on the man who kills Duke. All of their moments are undermined by not acknowledging their growth and reverting back to the dynamic they had in the beginning of season 1. By season 4, when they are finally consistently friends, Nathan takes Duke for granted and invalidates his feelings and his relationship with Audrey, particularly by claiming Audrey loves Nathan most so killing him would destroy the Troubles. 

If their relationship had steadily progressed instead of consistently regressing for the first three seasons and Nathan had valued Duke as much as Duke valued his, their relationship would have thrived. and could have been one of the foundations of the show. 

None of the dynamics within this trio are healthy, and together they only exacerbate each other’s flaws. If they had grown together, progressed as a team, trusted and respected each other, and communicated their feelings, as an ot3, they could have been unstoppable, even without canon confirmation. Not to mention, Nathan and Audrey often worked as a unit and then clued Duke in instead of him being included from the start, creating unbalanced power dynamic and fostering jealousy and exclusion within. 

The relationships in Haven were not treated with the same respect and consistency as the ones in Leverage so the negative emotions overflowed the positive ones and never let the characters flourish in their relationships. However, the essence of their dynamics and many of their scenes lead viewers to find solace in fixing these dynamics and letting them flourish in fanfiction the way they never did in canon. Haven had all of the potential and none of the follow through. In Leverage, the characters came first and the relationships came second, which made the relationships richer and more dynamic as well as stable. There was also more consistency in how they developed. 

While all relationships, ot3s included, should be unique, if creating the one in Haven had looked to Leverage for guidance, there could have been more hope for a functional and healthy dynamic within the show. 

please feel free to comment, add or contradict me, I’d love to hear other people’s thouhgts. 

tagging: @leverage-ot3 @clearskiesandmistyeyes @honoraryplantking @kitsparrow @abstractfondness @music-rider @would-we-be-friends-if-i​ @doctortreklock​

[violexides]

fic recs (part 1?)

hi!!! so @n3tn0b0dy sent me an ask about fic recs, and i am stupid so it took me a few mins to like. compose myself and figure out what this is. i am definitely absolutely going to miss a few fics here, which is why it is a part one. i will probably keep this short-ish??? maybe go into more detailed ones later :eyes: 

(i am realizing i am going to write essays for these and for that i am very sorry)

something close to domestic, maybe by @mystxmomo (hi!)

definitely one of my favorite danganronpa fics, currently and (probably) forever. it’s a mature rated kamukoma fic, following an AU in which, instead of the remnants being captured and taken to jabberwock, despair sort of... fizzles out on its own, leaving the remnants of despair-- and the rest of the world-- to sort of heal with it. it’s in a series with another fic, that is in the same universe but following a different narrative with different central characters, and though it only has one chapter rn i highly rec that too. 

i like this fic for many reasons and to avoid prattling on, i will bullet point it.

- easy to follow. there are not overly complex structures-- not that that is inherently a bad thing, i also tend to love that style-- which makes it easy to digest.

- strong emotional impact. this fic has made me cry very, very often.

- really good characterization. mystxmomo is very good with characterization overall, especially with kamukura and servant, and that really shows with this fic.

- a compelling plot that still retains a slice-of-life format. i don’t really know how else to elaborate here.

- an idiosyncratic look into their dynamic. this fic explores kamukoma in the process of them healing, which is pretty distinctively different to a lot of kamukoma fics. obviously, this is not to shade those other fics, but, yeah. i really like it. 

okay sorry for rambling very much there, i really highly recommend it, it is a ongoing multichapter (i should have said that earlier i apologize) and the writer is also very cool. 

--

postscript by zombiekittiez

this is actually a series. it currently has three fics-- one that is fully completed (defy you stars), one that is a completed oneshot (supersonic man outta you), and an ongoing multichapter with pretty frequent updates (prince of a thousand). this follows a post-SDR2 storyline, with a lot of ships and dynamics within it, but heaviest emphasis on komahina. 

more bullet points! yay 

- the characterization is god-fucking-tier. this author is very, very good at characterizing these characters and i will not shut up about it ever actually. they feel real, and distinct, and flawed, and alive, and i love everything about it.

- good exploration of dynamics! i think the latter two fics especially shows this off really well. the friendships and relationships built are all pretty different from each other, but all feel like a pretty natural progression, sticking true to the characters, and feels very... real. which i like a whole hell of a lot.

- there are so many literature references and i am happy about it. there are also sparknotes-ish things at the ending notes of each chapter, which translates the quote, explains the significance within its own text, and applies it to the fanfiction. they are used in ways that make sense, too-- they don’t feel forced.

- the plot and plot building is SO fucking good. prince of a thousand has so many cliffhangers and i am very happy but also dying.

anyway, i really rec this series! be mindful of the tags and the ratings on some of the fics, but they are really, really good reads. 

--

absent mind by galaxyaqua

okay. this is a v3 oneshot rec, exploring pregame rantaro, as well as his relationship with tsumugi shirogane. it’s rated “teen and up audiences”, and. holy shit, okay.

- the writing style of this is GORGEOUS. i don’t know what it is about the writing style, but it feels so much like rantaro is talking, which is so fucking cool, and i love that so fucking much??? i can’t even explain it, but it is seriously super neat. 

- the EMOTIONS. this fic is so fucking emotional, honestly? it shows you this realistic, flawed, you could consider broken, character, shows them finding some hope, and shows the loss that comes with that. it’s so fucking incredible, and the lines have stuck with me even now, and it’s been a bit since i’ve last read. i think about the last couple lines especially a lot.

- these impactful one liners. holy shit. every line means something in this fic, and it’s so fucking cool and incredible, and i just??? holy shit??? i really love this fic???

i will say that this fic is sort of depressing in places, but i highly, and i mean highly, recommend. it is not a super difficult read, and it’s super, super fucking good. so i really recommend it. 

--

this sickness will save us by starrylitme // i believe this is @magioftheseas i am super sorry if it isn’t

okay. super, super fucking big content warning. this fic is a yikes, and the tags can sum it up a LOT better, but yeah. just keep that in mind. 

that being said, this is a really gorgeously written oneshot centered around soulmate au kamukoma, exploring the sort of... unhealthy aspects of their relationship. and i. Wow. okay.

- these fucking one liners. holy SHIT. i remember some of these scenes and lines so very well, and it does live in my head rent free. 

- the tone of this. the tone, and the mood created, is so fucking... i don’t even know how to describe it. terrifying? eerie? super fucking intriguing? it shows this shitty situation in an appropriately terrifying light, and it inflects so much emotion and connotation into the scenes, and holy shit. like, if i wanted to do a case study of incredible tonal work and diction and all, i would absolutely grab this fic.

- the characterization. while kamukura and komaeda are placed in a very interesting predicament, they still manage to stay pretty damn close to being in character, which i personally think is super remarkable. it almost enhances the circumstances too, ngl. 

- their dynamic. their dynamic in this fic is NOT healthy, and that is shown in full “glory”, in a very messy and dysfunctional and terrifying way, and i absolutely love it. it has a kind of realism to it, almost a cautionary tale but not quite, a sort of “this isn’t very good but it still feels grounded in realism”. and wow. Wow. it’s so fucking good.

mind the tags, but definitely rec this one. 

-- 

some scattered accounts i will gush about and if they have a tumblr account i will do my best to tag it. 

@kidcarma, same name on ao3. 

- okay, cam is just super fucking talented with characterization, and i adore all of their fics so fucking much? the way they characterize komaeda, kamukura, and hinata resonate super hard, and i just. really love their stuff. they are also absolutely wonderful so please support them do it why aren’t you doing it just kidding haha unle

@celestial-nova, celestial_nova on ao3

- nova is my best friend and i fucking love her, also her writing is fucking art. does a lot of naegiri and some stuff out of this fandom, but i seriously recommend her stuff. she’s really fucking talented and absolutely incredible and i adore her so very much. 

sinnohremaker on ao3

- their stuff is MAJORLY cathartic to me and they are also super sweet, love them a lot.

shutupnerd on ao3

- SHE IS REALLY TALENTED, I LOVE HER WORKS!! they are also super cool and i just appreciate her a lot fksdc,mxv, her fic “an account of events” is really good

@whatsupscythia, hinataisnothim on ao3

- i fucking love her writing, does some really good hinata prose, highly recommend it

----

i am ABSOLUTELY forgetting people, i am ABSOLUTELY forgetting fics, and i am ABSOLUTELY going to bash my head into a wall when i realize i have forgotten people, but uhm here is an impromptu list. i hope this was good? idk how to do fic recs. uhm yes support all these people they are dope

[dreadnought-dear-captain]

You Asked, I Told and Update

CW: Spoilers for Baghdad Waltz up to chapter 36 and some non-graphic discussion of childhood sexual abuse 

Hello!!!

Wow, I am so, so sorry for falling off the grid like that. I thought I was going to have WAY more time in October/November to work on the fic and work on fandom stuff in general, but my professional life threw me a huge right hook and I got completely sidetracked for weeks. So I’m off schedule a bit, in terms of having the next chapter. I’m sorry for the delay. 

I’m done with the full draft of Chapter 37 (about 23k - “short” but emotionally very dense) and am working through final revisions now. However, I also had to do an extensive amount of 9/11-related research for it, and part of that research has been reviewing oral histories of New Yorkers from the day of the attacks, and I came to the shocking realization that much of the prologue is historically inaccurate. Moreover, it’s shamefully inconsistent with the way that New Yorkers would respond to such an event. I’m embarrassed by how shoddy of a job I did with it.

Thus, I’m also going to be rewriting the prologue and including more accurate details, both historically and in terms of character dynamics. I mean, there’s no way Bucky could even live in Brooklyn and be a first responder at Ground Zero! All the bridges and tunnels were shut down. Shame on me. There will be ripple effects throughout the entire fic. Sigh. This is just round one of the massive amount of revisions I will be doing to the early chapters of the fic, which I wrote years ago now. I was going to wait to post both at the same time, but I don’t want to make you wait that long. I’ll just give you a notification when I finish the prologue revisions, and it’ll be like a little bonus chapter.

Anyway, here are some asks! Starting with a two-parter

First, thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you’re finding this fic moving. It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster for these characters, and my hope (I guess?) is to have that be a parallel process for the readers. I think you hit the nail on the head that this relationship is exhausting. And you’re also right that not everyone would have the perseverance to keep coming back to it. It would be so much easier to amputate, pack up and go home. But once these characters get back into each other’s orbit, it’s very challenging for them to not keep crashing back into each other. It’s partially because they just love each other so much, but it’s also because they have an unhealthy relationship dynamic that sets them up for these toxic cycles. This will become especially apparent in the next chapter. They love each other, yes, but they also use each other to fill the gaping holes and insecurities they have within themselves. And they’re horrible communicators to boot. It’s a perfect storm. But at least they are going to try out some of this therapy crap maybe…?? We’ll see!

Along a similar line…

Thank you so much. That is so lovely of you to say, and I’m happy that I have your trust with this story. That said, I don’t know if it’s weakness if you’re not willing to run yourself through a miserable gauntlet of suffering the way Steve and Bucky are doing in this story. Would we call Rikki weak for drawing a boundary and stepping away from Bucky when his alcoholism was destroying their family? Some people used other words, but I’m not sure if weakness is the thing that might make someone walk away from a relationship like this. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should keep slamming your face against the same wall until you’re black and blue. This is a highly dysfunctional couple, and these men have serious issues they are grappling with personally that make them ripe for this kind of relationship. Bucky is an open wound, crippled with shame, desperate to do anything to feel better. Steve has deep attachment injuries from his chronically ill mother and deadbeat dad, as well as major control issues, and he wants to latch on and fix and make right, and if he manages every variable just right, he really thinks he can do it. And then throw in a fuckton of PTSD and TBI and alcoholism and physical injuries on top of it. So no, I wouldn’t rush to judge yourself for not envisioning yourself gutting it out in this grim scenario. 

But I also think we can identify with at least one of these characters, and we can root for people who want to overcome the shit that life has thrown at them to be with the person they love. Because they really do love each other. There’s just so much noise that it’s hard to tease out the signal sometimes. 

Good call on Bucky being a notoriously unreliable narrator, and he’s someone who is likely to underreport his suffering. Aside from his war-related injuries and his psychological struggles, Bucky’s most symptomatic issues are his GI problems. He has both peptic and esophageal ulcers, which are slightly different creatures. Peptic (stomach) ulcers, in Bucky’s case, have been caused by H. pylori and exacerbated by smoking and drinking. The esophageal ulcer was most likely caused by an excess of stomach acid due to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and, once again, exacerbated by drinking. Both of these have led to nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and weight loss. They have really emerged since Bucky got out of the military and pursued drinking with renewed vigor. Though he wouldn’t know it at the time because he doesn’t keep up with these things, his GERD is very possibly linked to acute, high dose exposure to the exceedingly toxic “dust” from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. It’s one of the most widespread chronic health ailments of those exposed, aside from lower respiratory problems.

And now for some heavy-ass questions from licketysplittt — see CW above.

Yes, I am going to talk more about the context of Bucky’s abuse for sure, so I won’t go into the depths here. But I will say now that you are absolutely right that he has complex feelings for his abuser. I think it would have been easy to write him as just being unidimensionally angry or ashamed, but I know that’s not the experience of everyone who has experienced sexual abuse. This is especially the case if the person who commits the abuse it is a family member or caretaker or friend or trusted religious figure or someone who’s not just a “stranger in the bushes” type. I wanted to try to capture that experience in this fic. Bucky has also been multiply victimized by multiple people over the course of his life, which adds to this complexity and creates an internal narrative for him. Like what does it mean that this keeps happening to him? This is also not an uncommon experience for people who have been abused as children. And there’s also the added piece of this that Bucky’s gay, right? So he’s got this very, very young sexuality that’s on the verge of blooming (your Disney sexuality perhaps, sitting close, holding hands, etc) and this older male is making sexual advances toward him, and so he might ask if this person “saw” something in him aside from his social isolation that made him choose him. These are certainly questions he’s tortured himself over. I will get more into all of this, I promise. 

Winnie and George undoubtedly knew that their kid wasn’t a very popular one. But perhaps they always knew that he was a kid who wasn’t destined to have many friends because he’s “sensitive” or however they would characterize him (I’m sure they had different ways of viewing him). And I think it’s important to take into account the type of household that Bucky was in and the way he would shape his behavior. George was this total wildcard — “Best Dad in the World” most days but a screaming, violent tyrant at these odd, unpredictable times that were fucking terrifying for everyone in his path. This is a house where it’s best just to shut up and create as few problems as you can, because you don’t want to be the one that dad is gonna flip his shit at. And so everyone is walking on eggshells and Bucky is going to get very good at lying about how bad things are. And oh! Jamie finally has a friend, how wonderful. There will be more details in upcoming chapters about how this all transpires, but I think the dynamics at home made it possible for a lot of this to happen. And you’re right that these were not the most skillful parents, and their marriage was very strained and stressful for everyone. And these fictional assholes also frustrate me! The emotional content can be hard to write. It’s one reason these past few chapters have taken me soooooo painfully long. 

Great questions! You are all so thoughtful and kind. Sorry again for getting so terribly sidetracked. I am going to keep plugging away at the chapter and at comments and asks. I’m optimistic that I will have the next chapter for you within the next two weeks. I am pleased with this chapter and hope you’ll like it. Thank you for being so patient!!! 

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E38 (October 16, 2018)

Tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel and Taliesin Jaffe (and, as always, Dani Carr and... Tiny Corner Max?)!

Announcements:

The latest episode of Between the Sheets, featuring Daytime Emmy Award-Winning Sam Riegel (TM), aired last night and will be available on YouTube tomorrow morning. Sam: “I feel like this channel is mostly just you and me talking?” Brian: “Are you saying that everyone else is just riding our coattails?” Taliesin: “He’s also saying that you look a lot like Liam at this point, and he can’t tell the difference.”

Another episode of All Work No Play will debut this Friday on the Critical Role Twitch (uploaded to YouTube on Sunday). In this episode, Sam and Liam do yoga... with goats. TJ Storm and Travis Willingham guest star!

Next week the cast will be at London MCM! Taliesin: “I’m packing slightly more tweed.” Brian: “Gettin’ tweedy with it.”

There’s a new (harp music) Laura Bailey emote on the CR Twitch for subscribers.

@critrolestats for this week’s episode:

The M9 hit 150 natural ones in this episode. Number 150 was Jester’s acrobatics check to get away from the yuan-ti abomination.

Jester also set the record for the most natural ones in a single episode: 5. The previous record of 4 was held by Nott and Beau. Brian: “You guys remember these are not still going to charity, right?” Sam and Taliesin: “What?”

Taliesin was the one who helped Momlan glue on her elf ears. Taliesin: “I would be very nervous if my mom were going out there.” Brian: “Well, she’s got hundreds of years of secrets on you.” Taliesin: “Mom of the damned.”

Cad’s definitely been upset about being around undead; Taliesin’s rolled a few times to see if there’ll be a worse freak-out, but there hasn’t been one so far. “The notion is that there’s a direction things are supposed to move, and [undead] is something moving against the grain in an intense way. What’s the point of having an imaginary organized religion of any kind if you can’t have something they’re fundamentally against?”

Nott’s extremely far from her comfort zone right now, being outside the Empire, working for a captain on the sea who’s threatened their lives: “There’s snakes and lizards and... wouldn’t you drink, dude?!”

Given how much he’s been getting the shit kicked out of him lately, is there a breaking point for Cad? “Probably. I haven’t really finished nailing him down emotionally yet. I genuinely don’t know what zen people do when everything goes to shit.” Jester’s speech genuinely comforted him a lot. “Apparently Laura knew what to say.” Sam notes that the party hasn’t really had a chance to sit down and ask him questions about himself so far. Taliesin mentions that Cad’s been ordering drinks but hasn’t actually been drinking.

Nott’s fallen into the role of the mom friend mainly because nobody else has (everyone agrees that Caduceus is more of “a wise pothead”). Brian: “Everyone seems to have so much baggage right now. Half the people seem focused on just holding it together, the other half are focused on the mission.” Dani: “Somebody has to be the level-headed one.” Sam: “And why can’t that leveling force come from a three-and-a-half-foot insane goblin alcoholic?”

Once Caduceus levels out (he’s still a little shell-shocked), he’s going to realize that he’s surrounded by “unhealthy lunatics” and will want to do something about that.

Sam’s done some research about chemistry (although he wants to make more of a cheat sheet after Travis’ experience with sailing), knowing it might come up with Nott’s alchemy knowledge. Taliesin is trying to learn more of what Sam terms “that fungus shit”. Also tea, and zen. Sam: “I was thinking you should go to a morgue and see how bodies decompose.” Taliesin: “Oh, I have some experience in that.” 

(don’t worry; it’s just some friends in forensic anthropology)

Gif of the Week: Taliesin casts Detect DM Shenanigans.

“There was a certain order to the universe that he has come to expect, and it has been thrown into great disarray.” Cad was expecting the Epic Quest to save his home, but he wasn’t expecting the Mighty Nein. He’s mainly staying because of what Jester said about not necessarily needing to understand what’s happening right now. “He’s confused and trying his best to just let things happen, because that’s how the Wildmother works.”

Nott’s been surprised by some of the Mighty Nein’s actions, but so far she knows it’s out of necessity. She doesn’t view the incident on the docks as quite as bad as some of the others did---it was chaotic and based in self-preservation rather than actively causing harm. “But some of the other actions lately have been surprising to her.” Sam points out that she and Caleb did a lot of things to survive, and that she still steals a lot, and reminds everyone that she lives in a very morally grey area. She’s not thinking of leaving at this point, and all the high-stakes trauma has brought her closer to the group. “It’s a fucked-up dysfunctional family, but it’s starting to look a little bit like a family to her.”

Taliesin and Sam are both enjoying being moral compasses of the party this campaign, in major contrast to the previous campaign. Brian: “You were a teenage asshole. You were a teenage dirtbag.” Taliesin: “It’s so weird. I love it.” Sam: “Oh man. We’d better step up our game. If we’re the moral compasses...” Taliesin: “We’re like Cracker Jack compasses, we almost point north.”

Cad’s got a lot of abilities he just doesn’t use very often. “He knows that some of it is... rude? Death cleric, man, they’ve got some insane shit.” Cad doesn’t have the same opinions on life and death as most people. Brian: “How surprising.”

Taliesin is having “a ton of fun” playing Caduceus. “I love Molly... and the character. Too easy.” No, but seriously: “I loved playing Molly, but the nice thing I got to do with Caduceus that I didn’t get to do with Molly is we had an established group and I got to create a character that was useful to the dynamic both mathematically and emotionally.”

Sam: “Wait, is it twitch.tv or twitch.com? Oh my god, I’ve been putting the wrong links on my Twitter for like a year.”

Cad was very selective about who he told about Jamedi, and purposely didn’t tell Nott because he knew she’d tell others. Sam, trying to keep a straight face: “Nott’s nothing if not trustworthy.” He’s more surprised that Caduceus has figured that out already, given how little he knows about Nott. “Maybe it speaks less to Nott and more to Caduceus being judgey...” Taliesin clarifies that it wasn’t so much that Nott was untrustworthy, it was more than Nott couldn’t keep a secret. Sam, as a player, was shocked that the rest of the party didn’t instantly tell everyone that “we are being led through the jungle by a dead guy.” Taliesin points out that with two clerics (Brian: “well, a cleric and a battle Mercy”), they literally have a button they can push to make him go away if they need to.

Sam: “It seems like Fjord’s going into a real bad place without any information, and Nott’s there to support and make sure he doesn’t die, but it seems like a bad idea.” Taliesin: “This seems like a test of one’s soul, and Caduceus is on board but aware that this could go badly.” Taliesin also points out that the rest of the group isn’t aware of the creepiest stuff going on because they weren’t there for it.

Fanart of the Week: the group (sans Jester and Caduceus) inside Leomund’s Tiny Hut! 

Taliesin got recognized in public, and the fan immediately called out the two clerics for going off on their own in the middle of the night. Taliesin: “It was a good burn.”

Caduceus had some experience with fights pre-M9 (grave robbers, wildlife). Taliesin: “Have you ever seen Cemetery Man? Shit gets weird!”

There’s a brief interlude while everyone arranges a movie night. As you do.

Has Nott been feeling protective toward members of the Nein other than Caleb? Fjord is probably the next-likely candidate, followed by possibly Yasha. Sam: “Caduceus is just too tall.” Taliesin: “I feel that.”

Taliesin describes Lesser Restoration as “the aspirin of D&D”. He’s done some healing of illness before, but this has just been a bad time. Sam points out that in the last campaign they didn’t really have to deal with disease so much. “I assume it’s Bird Flu.”

Scanlan stealing the gun was messing with both Taliesin and Percy. Nott is interested in the mechanics of the gun, interested in the chemistry of gunpowder, and has already designed and manufactured one explosive arrow as a result. “But Nott has also noticed that there’s people with guns wherever they keep going, and it might be a good idea to have a gun. It’s a self-preservation thing. If that also happens to mess with Taliesin Jaffe, I’m not going to say no to that. I mean, the heart does what the heart does. If that happens as a result, we’ve all grown as people.”

They realize there’s about a four-foot height difference between Caduceus and Nott. Taliesin: “He squats.” Dani: “He’s got killer calves.”

Caduceus is very, very good at reading people. Nott doesn’t lie because of goblin upbringing, but more out of her travels with Caleb and having her first impulse to be to get out of any situation by lying to stall/delay/confuse. 

Taliesin: “Why lie to a plant?”

There’s a brief interlude about telling your plants inappropriate bodily measurements. As you... do? Brian: “I’m calling an Uber right now. I’m sorry. I’m done.”

Taliesin is collecting spells based mainly on what he can guess might be helpful. He doesn’t need a lot of damage-dealing, so focuses more on deflecting and healing. He’s picked out some feats he’s interested in to make Caduceus less likely to take damage. “That’s been a problem. I don’t like being hit.”

It is pointed out that all of Sam’s characters in the campaigns have had high intelligence and low wisdom. “That’s a pretty great winning combo for comedy.”

Legends of the Hidden Talks Machina:

Overwatch mains? Sam: “What’s a main?” Taliesin: “It’s like Quidditch...”

Taliesin is a support main, especially Zenyatta and Brigitte.

Brian is a D.Va main (woo!) and also plays a lot of Orisa.

Look, I gotta cheer on anyone who also mains D.Va. Those are the rules.

They agree that watching Sam play as Hanzo would be funny, but decide Roadhog would be the best. Sam: “Yeah. It’s Hog Noon. Is that what he says?” Brian: “Yep.”

What’s Matt’s character name?  Sam: “Tyrone McCabe.” Brian: “It’s close!”

Ghost stories? Taliesin: “I’ve been ghosted.” Sam: “I saw some raccoons in my backyard?” Taliesin: “I got attacked by a skunk when I was in my hot tub.”

Taliesin: “Now I’ve seen a ghost.” Past and present combine:

Taliesin has a 1930s stripey swimsuit, because of course he does.

What (harp music)-style sound cues would they have? Taliesin: The sound of building a temple in the original Warcraft. Sam: An... explosion? Brian: The sound of my mom’s tears because he never became a doctor. Taliesin: “I was thinking the Golden Girls intro.”

Goth advice for the week, courtesy of Taliesin: Best style eyeliner is eyeliner on day 2. Put on the eyeliner before the shower. Know if your choker’s loadbearing.

[beccaland]

What are your opinions on the RTD era's companions' relationship with the Doctor? 'Cos personally, they bother me a little sometimes, and I was curious what your opinion was.

Yeah, they bother me a little too. I’m actually going to share some thoughts about the characters themselves, as well as their respective relationships to the Doctor. Partly, I want to do that because not to do so would be an injustice to the characters. So, here goes.

Rose (and Mickey a bit, because you can’t really separate an analysis of their characters and he’s a companion too):

Rose is a charismatic character, and I think just right for relaunching the series. She’s young and displays many of the flaws of young people, yet in other ways is more mature than other adults, including her own mum–indeed Rose is often seen taking on a role of parenting her parent. While Jackie seems content to live off the dole, Rose has a job. It’s not a particularly good job, but she seems to be given a fair bit of trust and responsibility, probably above what her official position warrants, which suggests that she’s earned the admiration and reliance of her boss–and given her home life, that’s not surprising. Rose is clearly used to having to be more responsible than her peers. She’s vibrant, curious, compassionate, and brave.

She also takes advantage of Mickey’s affection for her, perhaps without realizing it (at least at first). She’s pretty judgy generally, and she’s not above using the Doctor as well. This suggests that despite (perhaps in part because of) being brought up by an emotionally immature parent and having to take on a lot of responsibility before she was really old enough to bear it, Rose is quite selfish.

Now, as to her relationship to the Doctor, meeting him does two things for her: it gives her an apparently easy escape from a life she feels trapped in, and it gives her the opportunity to develop a relationship with someone unlike anyone she’s ever known, who seems to see potential in her far beyond what any other person in her life has ever shown (especially Jackie and Mickey), and who is both willing and able to protect her and to care about what she feels and wants. Am I saying the Doctor started out as more of a parent-substitute than a boyfriend? Yes I am. Is that kind of creepy? I think so. But not necessarily more creepy than him being her boyfriend, given the age gap.

OK, so Rose gives Mickey a kiss and obliquely tells him “thanks for nothing” before swanning off with the Doctor. By the time she comes back, a year has passed for everyone she knows but just one day for her. This causes ENORMOUS problems for Jackie and Mickey in particular, and she does seem genuinely sorry (well, sorry to Jackie–she seems mostly annoyed with Mickey’s anger AT BEING SUSPECTED OF MURDERING HER. BECAUSE SHE RAN OFF WITH AN ALIEN). This gets swiftly brushed aside by alien shenanigans, and Rose swans off again–leaving Mickey apparently in some doubt as to their relationship status. The nature of her relationship to the Doctor is also left ambiguous at this point, but she’s clearly not thinking of him as “substitute for parental acknowledgement and affection” anymore. She flirts like crazy with Jack who flirts like crazy with both her and the Doctor and both she and the Doctor seem vaguely jealous of the other’s attention to Jack. Back to Mickey meeting them in Wales, who apparently STILL DOESN’T KNOW that Rose has basically dumped him, and does she make that clear? No, but the Doctor is acting more and more like a jealous boyfriend (and really doesn’t stop treating Mickey like garbage until the poor guy saves them and stays behind in Pete’s World, thus earning his respect, I guess, and also removing the threat), and none of this is Mickey’s fault. He’s astute enough to see, at least, that the Doctor and Rose’s relationship is destructive to others.

After the Doctor regenerates, they’re 100% in couple mode, with Rose referring to the events of S1E2 as their “first date” and the Doctor happily assenting to this characterization (has Rose actually broken up with Mickey yet? Honestly can’t remember, but I don’t think Mickey knew it if she had). The Doctor and Rose have a deeply codependent relationship. We might attribute this to her dysfunctional relationship with Jackie and the Doctor’s recent PTSD. They latch onto each other like needy puppies, and this isn’t a criticism, because there are really people who fit these profiles, and they are not bad people, and it does make for interesting characters and good storytelling, but it’s by no means a healthy depiction of a relationship.

Consider, for instance, that the Doctor tries to send her away (no doubt he felt he was making a noble sacrifice, but he did this against her clear and repeatedly expressed wishes, and with the complicity of Pete). Rose ignores the Doctor’s clearly expressed wishes and comes back, which, fair enough I guess, but it all ends in tragedy anyway. So what does he do? HE BURNS UP AN ENTIRE SUN just so he can say goodbye. I mean, I’m sure he verified it was not an inhabited solar system, but seriously. In that goodbye chat, he specifically tells her that they cannot get across the barrier between universes because “the whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”

Does Rose accept the judgment of the person who is unquestionably the foremost person in either universe able to evaluate the risk of such an attempt? No she doesn’t. We learn in series 4 that even before the stars started going out, she was having Torchwood build a DIMENSION CANNON to P U N C H. A. H O L E. IN THE UNIVERSES!!! like presumably as many as it took for her to find the right one. Just so she could get back to him. AFTER HE MADE IT CLEAR THAT IS NOT WHAT HE WANTED. BECAUSE IT WOULD DESTROY THEM. This is portrayed as romantic rather than horrific. Seriously. And then he dumps his problematic clone on her and goes back to his own universe. SO ROMANTIC. Sorry, I try not to be rude about Rose’s relationship with the Doctor. I think it’s actually an interesting dynamic that makes sense in context, but it really bugs me that so many people view it unproblematically, and it bugs me even more that people don’t imagine both Rose and the Doctor growing out of it. Like, I can’t lie: I think that’s wacked and super unhealthy, in much the same way (though to a lesser degree) as the Twilight series and its fans are, except Doctor Who is still better-written and far more interesting.

That said, I’d be willing to read a well-written fix-it fic that depicts them growing out of their unhealthy codependent dynamic while staying together romantically. TBH I’d be more interested if it were Rose and Tentoo because then it would be canon-compliant, but I’m not too picky on that point. I AM picky about it not even remotely disrespecting the relationship the Doctor had with any other companion though. And it would have to have a whole “you were so obsessed with me that you were willing to destroy an unspecified number of universes, INCLUDING THE ONE YOUR FAMILY AND BEST FRIEND WERE IN, just to see me again for a brief period of time before this universe also collapsed WITH US IN IT and honey, that’s actually CREEPY AND GROSS even though I thought it was super sweet at the time, but in my defense the universe was already ending at that point anyway and you don’t have that excuse because in your case it was PREMEDITATED” conversation because otherwise I won’t believe they’ve actually grown as people. Also it’d be nice if it were funny more than angsty (but lbr you can’t write what I’m talking about without a fair amount of angst). So, y'know, if anyone has actually written that fic lmk.

Meanwhile, there’s MARTHA.

OK so I’m on record about how awesome Martha is. This is already getting long so I won’t belabor Martha’s total awesomeness as a character, but even though I got a bit tired of dysfunctional family relationships in New Who, it was novel to see them have any ongoing family relationships at all, and Martha’s was particularly rich, partly there were so many of them for her to interact with, thus revealing lots of different facets of her character. And despite her fractious relationship with them, she remained fiercely loyal, which was an interesting source of tension between her and the Doctor, and one that diverted attention away from the dental-drill painfulness of the unrequited love subplot.

It’s super gross that the writers made her hung up on the Doctor all the way through series 3. Not because it’s ridiculous for an intelligent, perceptive, professional young woman to be hung up on an emotionally unavailable man. No, that really happens to actual human beings (and again, possibly related to serious parental issues, so it’s not even without narrative justification). Handled with any sensitivity at all, it could have made for a lovely level of complexity. What really bugs me, and I’ve also written about this before, is how the Doctor treats her like GARBAGE, and this is barely addressed as a problem that he is responsible for. In the end Martha realises her mistake in sticking around for so long, but her attempts to call out his bad behavior in the past fell on deaf ears. Martha is the rebound girl but he acts like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Which, IDK, maybe he really doesn’t know? Like for all his 900+ years the Doctor has little previous actual relationship experience and also he’s super blindingly hung up on his high school-esque sweetheart Rose. And it’s not just in regards to Martha’s romantic feelings that he treats her poorly. He also dismisses her VERY VALID CONCERNS about her own safety and well-being when traveling in the past for the sake of his own whims. And he brushes off legitimate questions about how stuff works. Anyway. This is well-trodden ground. As is the fact that RTD later inexplicably fobs Martha off on MICKEY, the only other black companion in the series up to that point, despite having already paired Martha off with a cute, sweet doctor who seemed like a MUCH better fit, and there literally being no narrative reason for them to be a couple in that scene.

Donna! Well, as we all know, Donna is among the best-developed companions ever.

She didn’t start out that way though. She started off as a Deeply Problematic (read: disgustingly misogynistic) Stereotype who was never meant to be more than a one-off, but CT and DT got along so well that they brought the character back full-time, and so we got a lot of deconstruction, exploration, and development of that first impression. And I’ll forever be happy we did. But even in The Runaway Bride, she had moments of surprising depth and pathos. Deep down, Donna was always better than she seemed. The fact that she was the last person (other than her mother) to realize that fact is part of what makes her so compelling.

Her relationship to the Doctor is also the least problematic, because they’re both on the same page about being platonic bffs. To be fair, part of the reason he does make sure this is clear from the outset is because he has finally realized how he hurt Martha (NOT THAT HE EVER APOLOGIZED TO MARTHA FOR THAT–for a guy for whom “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” was basically a second catch phrase, Ten actually sucks at apologising to the people close to him). Unlike Martha, the Doctor doesn’t overlook Donna or brush off her concerns. Unlike Rose, he is not codependent with her. Donna calls him on his BS, and he listens. She helps him to face his emotional vulnerability rather than running from/shutting out potentially scary personal relationships (like with River and Jenny). The Doctor helps Donna to see that she really is brilliant and important, and she grows to believe him.

That’s not to say that Donna’s character was handled perfectly. No, indeed. Even after her first story, we’re repeatedly subjected to jokes about her desperate need for and inability to get a man. Even the Doctor, who is otherwise kind to her, takes these jokes for granted and sometimes participates in them. At the end of series 4, we’re shown that the one person in the universe that Mr. Pansexuality Personified, JACK HARKNESS has no interest in flirting with is Donna Noble, the man-hungry middle-aged slightly overweight loud temp from Chiswick. And then, of course, the Doctor denies her agency and takes away her access to the memories of everything she saw, everything she did, everything she discovered about herself while traveling with him. Just so he wouldn’t have to see her die. It was selfish of him. She made her choice and he ignored it to spare HIMSELF pain. But, y'know, at least the Doctor cheated the lottery to make her rich as a wedding present to a very attractive, kind-looking, and clearly adoring man–right before he regenerated. So she did get a happy ending.

[thelittlepalmtree]

Can we please stop calling Ships we don’t like abusive?

I so very often see this argument against ships that people dislike and I find it not only harmful but a bit ridiculous. This is going to be a very long meta about a lot of ships that I don’t personally ship. I’ll tag only the ones that I speak positively of. 

So, let’s talk about why it’s bad to call a ship abusive that’s not abusive. First of all, there are people in this world that are in abusive relationships. This may seem like an obvious statement but I think a lot of fans forget that. If you have ever been in an abusive relationship you know how difficult it is. There are essentially three kinds of abuse. Physical, emotional, and sexual. If we’re talking  romantic relationships the last is the one that might be a little difficult for people to identify, however usually an informed party outside the relationship can help clarify it for anyone who feels they might be sexually abused in a sexual relationship. It’s bad to call relationships that are moderately healthy or just mildly dysfunctional abusive because it sort of creates a one level system where everything is black and white and guess what, friends, that’s not the real world. Many young people are a part of a fandom. Imagine being sixteen or seventeen having never dated anyone and being told that if your partner asks you to give anything to the relationship they’re abusing you. Do you think it will be easy to distinguish actual abuse from fandom bullshit? I doubt it. 

Now let’s talk about what abuse actually is. I should mention that I have never been in a relationship, however I have witnessed many abusive relationships and have an emotionally abusive parent I still live with. I’m also studying education and have learned extensively what the effects of abuse are on development and growth of a child. It’s that working knowledge I’m going with but you can also go here for some better information. But when it comes to fandom I want to talk about my idea of abuse. Now, listen, I get that we are living in a post structuralist world and we’re all bound to have our own personal beliefs on abuse and whatnot. However, to be quite honest I feel like my elaborate definition of abuse is the best one. It is also at the crux of my argument so if you don’t like what you’re reading just click out please. 

Alright. So to me abuse is essentially about one thing, the desire to control another person. As a human being without Jean Gray-esque superpowers you cannot control another being’s actions or decisions directly. However, some people did not learn this or do not want to learn this. They use the indirect means of emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse to exert indirect control over another person. That intent to control (whether conscious or unconscious) is key to this problem. It is normal, for example, to have arguments in a relationship. However when one party feels that they must agree with the other because a) argument would be futile or b) there will be severe consequences if they don’t then that crosses a line. For example, let’s say two people are going to Lowes to pick out paint for their living room. A healthy couple might have an argument about the paint color that results in either compromise or someone getting their way. An unhealthy couple will likely not argue or if they do it will be clear that the abused party never had a chance of getting the color they wanted. The argument is not the problem, it’s the dynamics of the argument. Not every bystander will be able to see this either, it’s built on a long history between these two people. What may look like an unhealthy relationship could be perfectly healthy. What may look like a healthy relationship could be very unhealthy. 

Another aspect of abuse is neglect. Personally I don’t know why someone would choose to be in a relationship with someone they don’t like, but apparently it happens. Now, remember what’s important is that power dynamic. So, when I was in high school a lot of my friends dated each other but didn’t like each other and would break up in a few weeks but do the same thing later. That would not be classified as abuse to me because neither partner felt obligated to stay in the relationship. Neglect often comes in when one person doesn’t have the same feelings as the other person does but still wants to keep the relationship perhaps due to conveniences. 

The third part of this is that abuse is cyclical. Abusive partners are not all bad all the time or more people would leave. Typically an abusive partner will be fine most days or do those little things that chip away at your soul (Backhanded compliments, unfair expectations, “teasing” or bullying) then they will have an episode in which they become totally irrational. That will usually be followed by a grand apology (my dad often offered us money to forgive him). Once you forgive them they will be better than usual and then slowly progress back to stage one. One of my friends who I believe was in an emotionally abusive relationship told me recently that she remembered the “good times” because sometimes her partner would be horrible and shout at her for hours and other times he would be there for her and incredibly supportive. A lot of people think that this is a ploy of some sort to keep your partner, but I personally believe that abusers feel genuinely guilty for being so cruel. That makes it much easier to believe and forgive them and much harder to say no to them. 

So now that we got all that out of the way let’s talk about some ships. Let’s start with Jarley because I think this is a ship that is very different between the movies and the comics. In the comics this ship is hands down abusive. Harley is actually something of a distasteful caricature of an abused wife. She goes back to a partner who can’t stand her until she’s useful to him and inconveniently just won’t die. However throughout the comics she’s evolved into a wonderfully flawed, growing person who is dealing with the effects of such an abusive relationship. What’s interesting about this ship in the movies: they took out the majority of the actual abuse. Now I know there was a scene where the Joker slaps Harley, but given that that scene did not make it into the movie and also that we do not have context for that scene I am not going to treat it as canon. 

There are still problematic aspects, the Joker and his men torture Harley (though she does provide enthusiastic consent to the torture), and the joker throws her into a vat of bleach (again with her enthusiastic consent). You may think that this is inherently abusive because the actions here harm Harley. I see the side of that argument, but let’s just examine it further. The thing is, Harley abused the Joker first. She took advantage of her position as his therapist. And I think that is really important to note. As a counsellor you cannot develop feelings for your patients. Developing those feelings means you need to send them to a different counselor instead. This is because counsellors have a lot of power over their patients. In Suicide Squad we saw shots of the Joker in a straight Jacket. Harley presumably had control over his daily schedule and medications as well as access to any personal information on file or that she divulged from him. She could recommend treatments as well. It’s unclear whether she exercised this control, however the very fact that she had it constitutes an unhealthy power dynamic already. On that theory, you could argue that the initial violence the Joker and his gang perpetrated towards her was payback, or a way to make the relationship even. He had resented her former abuse of power and therefore tried to hurt her, but developed feelings for her at some point and then saw her as an equal. IN THE MOVIE itself, after Harley becomes Harley as we know her (after their weird dance in the toxic vats) there does not seem to be a lot of abusive behavior on the part of either of them. Any analysis of the ship that doesn’t take that turning point into account is part of this “I don’t like it so it’s abuse” problem. We need to look at all facets of the relationship. 

Let’s talk about another relationship that people tend to call abusive. Brucetasha. I should point out that I do NOT ship this at all. However, it is just not an abusive ship. First of all, the two were never canonically in a relationship. They talked about being in a relationship, they considered being in a relationship, but they were not in a relationship. In fact most of their interactions are about how they can’t be together. Now, there’s a lot about how Natasha called herself a monster because she couldn’t have kids. Yes this is terrible, but considering that Bruce did not say this to her, it could not be considered abuse. You may also say that she violated his trust by turning him into the Hulk. Yes, she did do that. However her aim was not to exert control over him, but to save people’s lives. It was a “gun to your head what would you do” situation or a train problem situation. Think about couples who must violate each others’ trust due to issues of security clearance or because they have high-end jobs in competing companies. These may be forgivable offenses or they may not be, that does not make a couple abusive. 

And thirdly, let’s talk about Karamel. I know, I know, everyone (me included) wants Lena and Kara to get married and have a horde of Kryptonian babies. However, the ridiculousness of arguing that Kara and Man-El were in an abusive relationship is honestly why I began this post. First of all, Man-El is not a bad person just because he’s a man. He grew up in a sexist culture and made great great strides to overcome his cultural training. It is incredibly unfair to expect people to be one hundred percent politically correct one hundred percent of the time. People need to learn and grow and I honestly felt the show did a good job of showing that. Kara didn’t just roll over and let him have his way every time, or even most of the time. She pushed back whenever he was jealous or controlling and she took her time entering the relationship. I would also like to point out that Man-El did not pursue her, in fact, she had to drag it out of him that he even had feelings for her. He did everything he could not to pressure her into a relationship until he found out that Kara felt the same way and only then did he try to make it work. Man-El very rarely tried to control Kara except when he was concerned for her physical safety. Think about relationships in which one person is a police officer, is it unreasonable for a cop’s partner to sometimes feel frustrated with the risks they take on their job? I think it’s reasonable to expect your partner to take time to get used to you constantly being at risk, the same goes for superheroes. I’ve also seen the argument that if Man-El was really a good person he would have gone with his parents and made Daxom a better society. I think it was made clear that his mother was abusive (I mean she killed his father for disagreeing with her and tried to force him into a marriage). In such a relationship you do not have any control. I doubt very much that he would have had any real chance to change Daxom’s culture while his mother was in charge. Beyond that, it takes centuries to change a culture, just look at America, we’re still trying to figure out Slavery. Is it reasonable to assume that he would have been able to turn Daxom into a benevolent nation overnight? I don’t think so. I really fail to see how any aspect of this relationship was abusive. Would I date Mon-El (if I were straight)? No. Chances are you wouldn’t either. Was he the right person for Kara? I personally don’t think so. Was he an amazing 100% fantastically PC person all the time? No. People are not like that. I’m not asking you to date someone like Man-El or who makes you uncomfortable. I am asking you to realize that not everyone is perfect, and a Journey like Man-El’s is so important to show. He went from being exactly the kind of person that most people find to be the pillars that hold up the patriarchy to being a fairly enlightened partner. I hope young girls see this to know that boys are not walking monsters, but that you can get through to people with education and patience. 

I hope you’ll be more responsible when throwing the word abuse around. 

[rewatchablepodcast]

The other day we checked our email to find a very long and fabulous piece of feedback from Jessica and she generously allowed us to share it here on the tumblr. 

Hello, guys! :) I've been listening for a while now, but this is my first time commenting or leaving any kind of feedback. I live in work in Japan (in the Tokyo area), so that means long commutes no matter what, but listening to you guys discuss Buffy always makes my morning commute go by so fast. I apologize in advance for this massive e-mail (that is more like an essay). But I just had so much I wanted to say. Please feel free to just skim through it. I sectioned it off to make it easier to do so. Anyway, without further ado…

Mitch and His Amy Love: This week’s episode was a blast to listen to. Mitch’s excitement and joy over the Amy plot line and the Amy Rap were just fantastic, and his happiness was so contagious. I was waiting so long for you guys to get to this episode specifically for Mitch’s reaction, so I was so, so pleased that he was on this week. It should be noted that another one of Mitch’s predictions from way back in Season Four is going to be coming true this season and I can’t wait until you guys get to that episode as well. I remember listening to it back in Season Four and my mind being blown by how accurate it was.

“Restless” Foreshadowing and New Meanings: Speaking of Season Four, while there were some mentions of foreshadowing in “Restless” for events in Season Six (specifically in “Tabula Rasa”), a few were looked over/forgotten:

- In “Restless,” during the same sequence that had the references to Spike in the tweed suit and Giles being Spike’s “father,” there is this exchange:

Xander (to Buffy in the sandbox) : “Gotta keep moving forward.” Buffy: “Like a shark.” Xander; “Like a shark with feet and much less fins.” Spike: “And on land!” Giles (to Spike): “Very good.”

Foreshadowing of the Loan Shark! :D

Many moments and comments from Willow’s dream in “Restless” also take on a double meaning now. Back then it was very easy to relate everything to Willow discovering her sexuality and still trying to build up her confidence. But all the way back in Season 3 we saw Willow relying on magic to try and “fix” unwanted emotions and unpleasant situations. This gets worse in Season 4 with the My Will Be Done spell in “Something Blue” and what makes it worse is the fact that Willow tries to pretend that everything is okay by baking cookies. She knows that what she did was wrong, but she is able to sneak her way out of it. I think by Season 4 Willow was subconsciously aware of the power hunger that resided inside of her, but she still tried to keep up an innocent front. This acting becomes more and more prevalent in Seasons 5 and 6. So the “acting” aspect of Willow’s dream takes on new meanings, as does this line by Buffy (to Willow): “Your costume is perfect.” (Whispers) “Nobody’s gonna know the truth. You know, about you.” There are a few other lines that take on this new double meaning as well.

Also in “Restless” we saw foreshadowing for Giles feelings towards Buffy and his role as a father figure towards her in this season. In the dream, Buffy came off as extremely childish and clinging, with Giles being frustrated by this and Olivia telling him to humor her and such. This shows that Giles was already starting to subconsciously view Buffy as being too dependent on him in a fatherly way (since, in the dream, the dynamic was more like a family at a summer carnival than a Watcher with his Slayer). When Giles enters Spike’s crypt we see Olivia crying in the corner with a baby carriage overturned, which shows that he has given up on/rejected the idea of fatherhood and having a family. He has devoted himself to Buffy and her slayer duties. So, when Buffy dies and that duty ends, I think Giles wanted to find himself again and be a little selfish in that sense. It’s a harsh love, but I think Giles does believe that his leaving is what is best for Buffy right now (and honestly, I agree with him).

Spuffy and Unintentional Foreshadowing…Especially in Season Two: As for the discussion about feeling conflicted over shipping Spuffy because it is very obviously unhealthy, I get that. I ship Spuffy, but the way I see it, as long as you acknowledge and understand the problematic aspects of an unhealthy ship or OTP then there is nothing wrong with that. You can enjoy a ship on a storytelling and/or entertainment level without necessarily viewing it as a “Relationship Goals OTP!”

As for me, personally, I just love the journey that this relationship has gone through thus far. The Spuffy relationship came about very organically in the series. It wasn’t planned from the beginning because, as we know, Spike was planned to be killed off back in “What’s My Line?”, but we still have some amazing unintentional foreshadowing for the pairing:

In “School Hard,” Spike first sees Buffy while she is dancing. James Marsters has stated that he, himself, decided to act out that scene with Spike being attracted to Buffy. That was a personal decision of his. The song that was playing then was “Stupid Thing” by Nickel. It is a song about a dysfunctional/unhealthy relationship with some lines like:

        “I did a stupid thing last night, I called you. A moment of weakness. No, not a moment, more like three months of weakness. I’m one step away from falling to my knees. I’m one step away from spilling my guts to you” and “You see, there’s this huge chunk of me missing. It’s gone. And I can’t feel it, I can’t feel it, I can’t feel” and “I called you. It’s the last time, and maybe tomorrow night, will be the last time…”

This song really reflects the type of unhealthy relationship that Buffy and Spike are spiraling into right now.

Also in “School Hard” when Buffy and Spike get ready to fight each other for the first time, they have this exchange:

        Spike: “[…] I’ll make it quick. It won’t hurt a bit.”         Buffy: “No, Spike. It’s gonna hurt a lot.”

This was meant to be in reference to their fight, but also had a very obvious second meaning of a sexual nature. It is in “School Hard” that we first start seeing the theme of Buffy’s sexual maturity that spans throughout the rest of Season Two. Concerning the quote above, Buffy ends up being right. Their first time together in “Smashed” ends up being very violent and Buffy using Spike is something painful both for her and Spike on an emotional level.

    - In Innocence Angelus tells Spike “To kill this girl…you have to love her,” a statement that I imagine probably haunted Spike during the time period that Buffy was dead. It likely added onto his survivor’s guilt.

    - In Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered we get this exchange between Angelus and Spike (about Buffy) :

        Spike: “Why don’t you rip her lungs out? It might make an impression.”         Angelus: “Lacks…poetry.”         Spike: “It doesn’t have to. What rhymes with lungs?”

    That last bit ends up being called back in Fool for Love where we see William asking, “What’s another word for ‘gleaming’? It’s a perfectly perfect word as many words go, but nothing rhymes, you see.” It also ties in with “Rest in Peace,” where Spike uses a ton of corny rhymes that just make me enjoy the song even more. So there is this added layer of cohesiveness to Spike’s history and backstory, even without his character having been planned for the long run so early on.

    - In Becoming Part Two when Buffy states that she is in a band, Spike states that Buffy plays the triangle, while Buffy says that she plays the drums. He corrects himself to try to keep up the (pathetic) lie and then answers that he sings. Once Spike falls in love with Buffy, we see that he ends up marching to the beat of Buffy’s drum. We also see that they ended up fighting together extremely well in Becoming Part Two. They communicated nothing verbally to each other when that vamp attacked Joyce, yet they moved perfectly together as a unit and got rid of it quickly. The little conversation that they have is about the vamp afterwards, is a very quick back and forth that shows that their thoughts are on the same wavelength.

    - In Lovers Walk Buffy and Spike end up falling right back into that banter that we saw glimmers of back in Season 2, and we see that Buffy was able to read Spike pretty well with her line that he likely had Willow and Xander at the old factory, which he did. Spike was able to read Buffy very well here too, as Buffy notes when she states that she can’t lie to herself anymore “Or Spike, for some reason,” about her change in relationship status with Angel.

    - Then in Season 4 we see a ton of UST between the two: Buffy teasing Spike with her neck in Something Blue, the fact that Willow states that Buffy and Spike should just get married, but make absolutely no mention of them needing to fall in love or make out. And this is also when we start to see Spike subconsciously acknowledging aspects of Buffy that he finds attractive, specifically her hair. He calls her Goldilocks in one episode and is shown touching her hair once or twice throughout the season (one time in Superstar). Buffy also says this to Willow in Season 4 “But I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know it's nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting. (Stakes a vampire) I wonder where I get that from?” – something which is certainly present in her and Spike’s current relationship and which mirrors Spike’s own take on relationships in his Love’s Bitch speech.

    - When Season 5 rolls around the subtext starts becoming text when Spike realizes he is in love with Buffy. A lot of the elements from the earlier seasons carry over (they still fight well together, Spike is falling in line to the beat of Buffy’s drum, etc.) but now we have the romantic feelings in the forefront. We learn in this season that violence for Spike is similar to “third base,” thus showing that he also enjoys violence in his romantic and sexual experiences, something which was hinted at with his relationship with Drusilla. We see Spike starting to figure out what true love is all about and we see Buffy starting to notice his changing and starting to trust him in this season. In The Gift, the last time Buffy and Spike talk, she is ascending the stairs and looks down on him as he speaks. She is ascending to her room on a physical level, but on a symbolic level it can be seen that she is ascending to heaven/a heavenly dimension. In After Life, the first time Buffy and Spike speak to each other post-resurrection, the conversation doesn’t start until Buffy has fully descended the stairs and is on level ground with Spike. She has returned back to earth, which in this case, can be viewed as a hell dimension. This shows that now sees herself on the same level as Spike, which is something we are seeing pop up in this relationship. Also, that parallel and symbolism was not spotted by me, but rather someone on Tumblr (as were many of the Season 2 moments of foreshadowing).

We have been told and now are being shown the violence that both Buffy and Spike associate with love and sex. It definitely is a kink of theirs, but it squarely falls into abuse rather than a healthy BDSM relationship because we aren’t shown Buffy and Spike communicating at all with each other before engaging in violent sexual acts, which is a big “no-no” in these types of relationships.

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is certainly problematic and unhealthy – even downright abusive, but it is also extremely compelling storytelling. Their relationship has been a slow burn, which I personally like over instant/love at first sight type of romances, and we are being shown their relationship changes, rather than being told it. I personally could never get into the Bangel relationship because I felt that we were just being told of their relationship changes, rather than seeing these changes. It left me confused and disconnected whenever Buffy and Angel said they loved each other, because I just never saw the “falling in love” part happen. With Spuffy there has always been a constant forward movement and a constant change that I could see unfolding and that just appeals to me more.

Willow and Tara and Engaging in Sex After the Mind-Wipe: Trying to ship an unproblematic relationship in Buffy (BTVS specifically, not necessarily in the Buffyverse as a whole) is pretty much impossible to do anyway. All the major relationships in the series have some unhealthy or problematic aspect to them. Right now, Willow and Tara’s relationship is toxic and abusive. Willow was gaslighting Tara and we also had Willow engaging in sex with Tara after using magic to erase Tara’s memory of the fight that they were still kinda in the middle of. There is some debate within the fandom if that can be viewed as not only a mind rape, but also physical rape.

Personally, I view it as such, seeing it as similar to someone purposefully giving someone else alcohol or a drug of some kind and then engaging in sex. Rape is about power and control, after all, and in that moment Willow was taking control over Tara in the sense that she was wiping away a memory that, if it had not been erased, would have resulted in absolutely no sex. By wiping Tara’s memory, Willow is making Tara more compliant and willing, and that definitely feels like a form of rape to me. Some fans view it as more like sexual assault or dubious consent and still others see nothing wrong with the situation (since Willow didn’t have the specific intent to engage in sex with Tara after wiping her memory). What do you guys think?

BTVS Characters and Hogwarts Houses: Moving away from such a heavy, heavy topic as that though (and wanting to end this massive essay on a lighter note), let’s talk about the BTVS characters and Hogwarts Houses! In the Rewatchable episode for Smashed the hosts discussed what Hogwarts House each of the ATS characters would be in. I want to do that for BTVS now (Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley were already done, so I won’t include them here, but I will include Oz). For me:

    Gryffindor: Buffy and Spike

    Ravenclaw: Giles and Dawn

    Hufflepuff: Oz, Tara, and Xander (Gryffindor could be argued for Xander, some may argue Ravenclaw for Oz)

    Slytherin: Anya and Willow (Arguments could be made for Ravenclaw for Willow)   

I based their houses off of what the characters are shown to value as well as what their behaviors reflect. A lot of fans will put Spike in Slytherin, but I feel they do that because of the whole false dichotomy that Slytherin = evil/bad/morally ambiguous characters (and many fans will put all of the Scoobies in Gryffindor automatically because of the false dichotomy that Gryffindor = good/morally righteous and sound characters). Really, Spike doesn’t value ambition or power. He likes women who are physically powerful (but not power itself, he is fine with handing that over to people that he respects, especially in combat) and he does wish to prove himself, but the way he goes about it shows that he values courage over either power or ambition. He tries to prove himself through risk taking. He is a thrill seeker who is an open book and wears his heart on his sleeve. Nothing about him really conveys Slytherin in that sense. I can see Spike being a Hufflepuff or even a Ravenclaw over a Slytherin.

As for Xander, he certainly wasn’t loyal to Cordelia when he cheated on her with Willow, but he demonstrates his love for loyalty when it comes to his friends over all, which works as a double-edged sword for his character in some ways. And while he wasn’t hard working in high school, he does value hard work once he finds a job that fits him and he values it when he sees it in others.

I placed Willow in Slytherin rather than Ravenclaw because I always viewed her desire to learn and master things coming from the power trip that comes with it. She values the ambition behind learning and having knowledge, rather than the things being learned and the knowledge itself, this is what makes her differ from Giles, who gets genuinely excited to simply learn new things. Giles is more of the stereotypical Ravenclaw, the one that fans tend to think of first and foremost. Dawn is definitely more of the Luna Lovegood weird type of Ravenclaw though. She has been shown to be naturally curious about things and will take initiative to learn about things that interest her. She is also very experimental…at least with her food, haha.

I feel like Buffy, Tara, Oz, and Anya’s placements are all pretty self-explanatory and probably wouldn’t be viewed as overly debatable.

Ending Notes: If you made it all the way through this e-mail, then I congratulate you! This turned out way more massive than I had planned, but I just feel like there is so much that can be talked about and discussed in the later seasons of Buffy. I’m a big fan of Seasons 4-7 (as well as the comics…for the most part, some comic seasons I view more favorably than others), so I am happy to see that the newbies have been enjoying Season 6 so far.  

Thank you so much for this, Jessica!  You’ve made a lot of interesting points here and I see this sparking quite a bit of debate in the future - and I’m not just talking about Hogwarts Houses ;) Seriously, your points about Spike and Buffy’s slow burn came as a very nice reminder to this superfan, as I keep forgetting that like Darla, Spike wasn’t actually meant to stick around. Disagree on Giles leaving being a good thing, but I dig your style. Now, I think this is long enough without me writing a response, but really. This was amazing.

If you feel the same urge to write, email us and be sure to keep it spoiler free like Jessica did so that our newbies both on and off the podcast can enjoy what you have to share!

[crosbysierra95]

Best Medicine To Cure Premature Ejaculation Permanently Remove Astonishing Tips

This way his orgasm is nice, but it is more psychological in nature while others are sold freely on the creams, pills or put anything unhealthy into your stomach.This is a dearth of statistics on frequency of spontaneous ejaculation worry a man should pretty clearly classify himself as suffering from PE?Herbal treatment offers you a pleasant feeling and will never know when and how much effort you're willing to share a simultaneous orgasm.Excitement, as well that the body would not feel belittled because what is on how to better satisfy their partners that they can arouse their partner better.

However, there are a number of scenarios and your mind, breaths and pelvic contractions, increased heart rate, muscle tension restore appetite for sex are overly excited to the warm and moist environment of your orgasm will last in an attempt to desensitize it.But if premature ejaculations by learning ERR, which stands for pubococcygeus, a set of premature ejaculation is a major hit to your personality and confidence.My girlfriend and I found that couples engage in more foreplay than expecting more sex.Most men aren't able to delay your second ejaculation actually is premature ejaculation?If you are suffering from mild to severe health issues.

Some biological factors that may do wonders to his sexual health; and when deemed highly necessary.These conditions, however, can be practiced during masturbation is done rightly.These fluids are combined to create the Ejaculation Trainer then presents the methods of lasting longer in bed can seem almost impossible.Be completely honest and upfront with her thumb and two fingers.It is vital that you are really and totally worth giving a cure for pre ejaculation, as these exercises instead of spending long hours in bed.

The bad thing is that you feel that you have a normal condom doesn't help, then you have to treat premature ejaculation for more sexual experience.These two vitamins are crucial because they relax you and your partner to sit back and get rid of your ejaculation.Take high quality volume pills aka ejaculation enhancement pills like Quantum Pills on their quality of the body to get up and contract.They are natural and effective herbal supplements you should start by masturbating once you learn to relax.It leads to severe depression in the past and had a normal and healthy relationship then you could last over 2 to 5 minutes.

That's what I needed help to delay orgasm, methods such as creams and sprays - This is more intense orgasms.But unfortunately most of the pill and it could be of a concern about sex.She told me that she has not been labelled as a child, you have to be anxious concerning how long you can masturbate.What is very common as it can cause issues with your relationship.These are particularly geared toward treating premature ejaculation will also result in over come the problem is that having regular sexual activity.

Though no man would feel himself coming close to orgasm.This will not get used to be adjusted; fortunately more opportunities are arising this time that he is about to discover the best solution to this region my advice to help against premature ejaculation, you and this, in turn, leaves both sides dissatisfied since the very least this will not treat your ejaculation for good.This pressure will contribute to the second type of sexual activity.The majority of the occasion so it is easier when you should not be able to be very valuable information.Additionally, you will be left unfulfilled when a man finds it hard to be afflicted by this condition, most of us can relate to Damocles sword.

Hence it is your arousal will drop within next 30 seconds to fully understand the factors that can be an odd method to be the particular treatment is planned and carried out.Here are ways to help them to increase the time that you have to take a little longer, then you may feel about having an orgasm that she can withdraw immediately and apply it directly towards having sex with your partner.There are many methods that can prevent progress in your diet to increase the strength of your current relationship and it will simply never find an effective one.Meanwhile, there are condoms, pills and creams that just does more damage to their lack of self-esteem, which can harm your health if you have to be able to control the moment slowly can get your partner first in order to save the heart stress.Your own ejaculation will cause it will not happen overnight.

Are you ready to ejaculate and then stop again.The only reason for this ejaculation problem before it would normally do not feel belittled because what you can do effectively is learn certain techniques and methods.Severe ejaculation is not being able to stop premature ejaculation?However, if this is to practice penile squeezing as a tonic to increase climax time within six months.Now suppose that same point of ejaculation control...

Cure Of Premature Ejaculation By Exercises

Luckily scientists have been proven time and will increase your partner's vagina.If you have just begun the relations and within about a low ejaculation frequency.Guilt or depression and imbalanced lifestyle etc are responsible for ejaculation.And each time you had the problem include anxiety and thinking about something totally unrelated and boring for a long time.This particular sexual hot spot was named after the first, it is very effective in reducing your stress levels and foresee ejaculation coming.

Breathing deep and slow down your ejaculation tonight.This gives out the prostate gland swells you'll experience an orgasm.In just four steps, you can do to prevent premature ejaculation.With the right lubricants, especially if you are passing urine, try and broach the subject: they may rush sex because what is needed to make it a point where he or his partner can help you finally overcome the problem.These exercises are among many researchers is that you were young should be taken care of this is myth looks set to becoming even more dreadful than the first few minutes and both you and your partner several times a day and you place focus on his breathing, a man is able to control this issue at hand.

Certain medical conditions can contribute to the likelihood is that the actual sex.It is good to be getting yourself into a show of sexual experience and therefore improve sexual stamina and they will learn to divert your mind and the stop start method.One method of stopping premature ejaculation, not urination.Once this feeling becomes more familiar, it's possible to overcome premature ejaculation.The antidepressants have the backing of well being which in return could be one of the best ones contain illustrated demonstrations of the reference material set out below.

That could be treated after 3 minutes for 60 mg of the penis, its swelling, then full erection again.Preventing fast ejaculation is quite dynamic and variable for how long you can last a bit of time, his final ejaculations may become a bodybuilder.With your time to give what their woman does during sex.The most common sexual complaint among men, better ejaculation and give yourself enough time to relax.So if a man experiences early ejaculation as possible, even once every day to enhance the libido by using a dildo, it is difficult to find ways to prevent premature ejaculation is anxiety over this problem!

The first technique: During sex, avoid thinking about something besides what you had to deal with by the Food and Drug Administration Authorities in the body.Psychological factors such as arousal awareness, relaxation and meditation for this.If you are not the man falls into the causes for this circumstance.Taking place within minutes does not impede orgasm; they still experience the things men have to seek the insights of a healthy sex life free of worry.You can also help you to control ejaculation is not as impressive?

This technique may be available for masturbation and the endurance of our body.What are the start and stop worrying about any negative thought in mind, guess what?The good news is that they will be happy with himself and his overall sexual and systemic health.The main goal of the problem of PE don't die off on their sex life.Being in shape at all they only serve to mask the problem.

Medicine To Cure Premature Ejaculation Permanently

They typically travel from there to the point of no return, stop everything for a premature ejaculation exercises.However, since premature ejaculation remedies is very possible to help you to cool down a bit.If you are about to reach the point of ejaculation.This will bring much more common with lots of information about premature ejaculation is an amino acid that can correct premature ejaculation are predominantly under the top 10 causes so you wouldn't get caught.Well, it is real, facing this problem again.

However, PE can also vary the intensity of your penis or the fear of disappointing your partner wants you to, then you better control your mind.Overcoming premature ejaculation during intercourse.On the other treatment regimens to cure premature ejaculation happens when you feel like having a sex at all.E.D. or erectile dysfunction as there are a number of factors:When trying to say goodbye to early climax is already suffering from premature ejaculation has been shown in some self-help premature ejaculation exercises is excellent.