#what tonal whiplashes all around

[violentlydefending]

guess who decided to play dead souls before 5. guess who's really bad at third-person shooters. guess who's using a ps2 controller wired through an xbox controller emulator to play a ps3 game. guess who's having one of the times, ever.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

We had one of Steff's comedian friends staying with us on the weekend, lovely lad called Sam from Singapore. He had never been to Wales before, and he requested that we take him to a Welsh restaurant so he could try Welsh food

That's surprisingly difficult, actually. Like a lot of Welsh culture, our culinary traditions have not exactly been applauded over the years, so you don't really see them. But a lucky Google search revealed a brand new one has just opened in SA1 called the Welsh House, so great! Away we went.

Fuck me, they went all in.

It wasn't just the menu (though fuck me, what a menu - one of their 'for the table to share' options was little mini leek and cheddar Welsh cakes with salted butter and they were paralysingly good). It wasn't just that every alcohol was Welsh, even including the wine (surprisingly good btw, called 'Naturiol'.)

The table centerpieces were daffodils. All signs for the toilets were Welsh only. The walls had photos of Wales, modern and historical; the windows had the fleur de lis; the specials board (pork belly in Welsh cider and damson sauce with honey and wild garlic glazed carrots) had dragons on. I realise this is probably normal for country-themed restaurants, but I've never been to one for Wales before.

But the best bit, see, was the music

I clocked, when we walked in, that they were playing If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next by the Manic Street Preachers (you always clock the Manics). Ah, I thought. A Welsh song! In a Welsh restaurant! Ho ho ho.

As they seated us, it became What's New Pussycat. Ah! I thought. Another Welsh song! Fu fu fu.

Then they played Monster by the Automatic and I was like my god are they only playing Welsh music?? That's so cool! What an eclectic mix that's going to be. We should suggest to them they should look into Welsh language music too, really mix it up.

And then they played Anrheoli by Yws Gwynedd and lads, Steff and I lost our shit. We lost our fucking shit. Sam's sitting there, utterly bewildered. The staff are nervously edging away from us. We don't care. It's the first time I have ever heard a Welsh language song played outside of a Welsh language setting. We're so excited.

"They're playing Welsh music!!!" says Steff. "Holy shit!!!"

"Imagine if they played Sebona Fi!" I say, humorously.

"Nah," says Steff. "You can't in a restaurant. There'd be a riot, it's faerie music."

"...what?" says Sam

We explain the cultural phenomenon that is Sebona Fi. The song changes: Primadonna Girl, by Marina and the Diamonds.

"She's Welsh??" says Sam.

"She's from Abergavenny!" we beam.

"I don't know what that means," nods Sam, who is from Singapore.

Next: The Bartender and the Thief, by the Stereophonics. We're in high spirits. The extraordinarily Welsh wine arrives, as does the rarebit on sourdough starter. Sam, a gay man, delightedly orders the faggots and peas.

They play Ben Rhys by Gwilym Bowen Rhys, and we lose our shit again. Sam is now used to this, because comedians are adaptable. "They even have daffodils!" I say, misty eyed. "Is that relevant?" Sam asks, fascinated.

They play Hiraeth, by PLU. Hard to explain that one. Very hard to explain the effect it has when it's played in a restaurant, but Sam looks around the suddenly muted room and whispers "Are we in church?"

"It's about Hiraeth," whispers Steff. "So kind of."

Next: the Masses Against the Classes, by the Manics. Utter tonal whiplash. This playlist is not remotely restaurant appropriate. It's perfect.

"You'd think they'd pick like... a genre," Sam says dreamily. "We just went from church to the barricades."

The faggots arrive. "I forgot it would be a western sized portion," Sam says morosely, of what to me is a normal sized plate of food. He tries one, and brightens.

They play Sebona Fi.

The place erupts.

[theoddest1]

Okay so this new episode that came out (Episode 4) was poorly handled.

TW /// SA

- No warning before the show starts...why? And even if there is no way for Viv to add one, for some stupid ass reason, why didn't she announce to the fandom properly "Hey, this will have very deep topics and imagery that may not be suitable for all audiences."? Why have arguments on threads and fail to do this very easy thing. At least if the episode came out, people would get a heads up, and the word would spread faster PLUS people would see that you at least TRIED

- The episode opens up with a scene of CNC porno played for laughs in an episode that tackles SA. Complete tonal whiplash. Why did it have to open up with Angel showing everyone a porno? It serves no purpose other than to get a cheap laugh (that never came) out of me or anyone else who watches and because of the topic of the episode revolved around it. I'msure that if the episode WASN'T ABOUT SA, that joke would not have been there....but it is. There was legit no good reason to start this fiasco off with such a tone deaf opening.

- Charlie is actually fucking useless and a burden in this episode, serving no other purpose other than being the gateway to further the issues that befall Angel when "trying" to help. This all screams forced. Worse of all, Charlie does nothing to actually HELP Angel out of this, even though he has a clear black eye thanks to it all and literal mirrors breaking as a result of the abuse. We never see an actual development between the two thanks to her foolishness and garbage writing, and it's resolved easily as if this is some early Disney cartoon season that's on a strict deadline. Regardless of whether she apologized or not, she essentially caused the issue and did NOTHING to actually clean her mess. The goddamn B A R T E N D E R had to be used to salvage the pieces. So far, Charlie, as a character, is utterly pathetic and has been a burden to the cast twice so far. Vaggie, who tried to prove herself (moreso Vaggie's fault for going the extra mile for no reason but an obstacle nonetheless), also had an issue that involved Charlie's utter lack of a backbone. Hey, what was it that Charlie said in the pilot that her dad taught her and one of the only thingsshe learned from him? "You don't take shit from other demons"

- Only one scene from the abuse shown was handled well, and it was when Charlie visited, screwed everything up, and Val asked Angel to come to his dressing room. Aside from that, the whole SA imagery is jarring. While this time, the fast pace of it all is not bad, the quick shift into it all with Angel switching from enjoying to hating, to smiling, to frowning, ALONG with the quick pace of it all with the PRIOR KNOWLEDGE SHOWN and the SONG PLAYING, I am getting mixed messages here. Imagery? Shows Angel getting assaulted multiple times with either a forced smile or for some reason ENJOYING sex with Val and the role play situations showcased, is he INTO his abuse? Lyrics? He seems to find arousal in Val controlling him. The song legit reads as follows

"Addicted to this feeling, I can't help but swallow"

This doesn't read like he is "forced" it reads like he is yearning the toxic relationship. Now if this was one of the main issues with the abusive relationship, where it was a codependency built on romanticising the abuser and Angel learning to break free from that horrible view of someone who never loved him and actively harms him, this lyric would make a lot of sense....but that's not what we are shown at all. From the jump, we are shown that Angel HATES being with Val, to the point of him straight up avoiding his texts and voice messages, they actually do an okay job (despite the shoddy voice work) on showcasing how manipulative Val is and his outright explosive temper through this scene in episode 2. We see that Angel does NOT wanna have association with Val, is tired of it all, and even got drunk to down his sorrows. Yet these lyrics present it all as though it's just a very rocky love life like those songs you hear on the radio with the singer lamenting about how awful their relationship was but still miss their toxic boo-boo. It just...doesn't read like an SA song and could mean anything regarding the type of abuse he is facing. It's kinda vague in hindsight. That's MY take on the lyrics, though.

- Husk's song is a trash fire. He sees Angel is down in the dumps and proceeds to talk shit about him pretty much relaying his sorrows, saying it's okay to feed into your vices, and downplaying the actual situation at hand. So let's get this straight.

Angel- A sexual abuse victim forced into sex slavery to appease all sorts of people's sexual desires whether he likes it or not, including pleasuring his pimp who physically abuses him often all cause he sold his soul

Husk- Gambled his life away and lost his title as overlord, serves under Alastor all cause he sold his soul.

How is this even...the same at all? Even if Husk is lacking some context, he SEES that Angel normalized drinking roofied drinks and works for Val SOMEONE HUSK SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AND WHAT HE DOES but nah, screw Angel. Even if he honest to God (irony) wanted to actually help, why tf would Husk think this was sound advice? Why does Husk just SUDDENLY care? No build up, no memorable dynamic, no nothing. Realistically, CHARLIE should be the one singing with Angel or maybe Vaggie because she heard the story from Charlie. Not Husk. He is self aware enough where he knows this "advice" wouldn't work but nah. Nothing about the song makes sense. Telling someone going through it that "you're a loser" pretty much a no one, an insignificant individual, when VAL has made it clear that Angel would be nothing without him...yeah no the only reason why this whole song "worked" was cause the writers wanted it to, so Angel is happy with being a loser for being a victim of SA and selling his soul to someone who abuses him in various ways consistently.

This episode is terrible

Jarring for any newcomers

Who have no idea who these characters are

[stickyspeckledlight]

Sunrise, Sunset, My Destroyed Body in the Onset [Yan!Aventurine x GN!Reader]

The cotton in your mind protects you.

Ao3

word count: 11.4k

TW: Stockholm syndrome, implied/referenced noncon, suicidal thoughts (not detailed but reader does mention having them and thinking about the act), mild gore (little actual gore but the prose uses gory language), reader goes through it and let’s just say aventurine is a terrible influence, tonal whiplash for my own sanity, wow aventurine are you really this emotionally constipated

Note: My first ever yan work! This is a bit of a mess, but I’ll bet five dollars and janitorial duty at Taco Bell that it’s a good mess 👍

(Written before 2.1)

The sun sets as you both bask in the afterglow. Clouds streak the baby blue sky, hued in soft yellows, calm oranges, and blushing pink. 

(And it reminds you of his eyes) 

Sights like these made nights spent in a casino a bit more bearable. You take a deep breath, sighing in contentment and exhaustion, and you wish you could shut your eyes and stretch this moment for an eternity. To remain in the setting eye of the sun, softly breathing as you press against the gentle beating of his heart. To have his hand lazily draped over your waist, the other caressing your head, fingers softly entangled with your locks. Your tears have dried, too. Yes, you’d like to live in this singular moment, divorced from everything else.

But as you’ve learned during your time with Aventurine, time is a rapid to move with.

You shiver a bit. Noticing this, he pulls up a thin blanket. The difference is small. But still, the serenity of the moment is shattered. The soft silk is meant to cage you in for whatever happens next. You don’t mind, anymore. Or, when you’re more lucid, when you let the torrent that is your mind flow, that’s what you decide.

You’re not stupid, but you wish you were. If you were stupid, you wouldn’t ever be forced to trek away from your home. Wouldn’t grab the attention of anyone smart and shrewd (though you did hear about one ‘Dr. Ratio,’ committed to remedies of ignorance). Even if you somehow did and ended up where you were, maybe your mind would be filled with cotton rather than thoughts. That you could enjoy everything all the time. 

But you’re not stupid, nor are you a genius who could hope to outwit the man who holds the aventurine of stratagem. Knowing how normal you are compared to him only makes you more hopeless, so you do your best to fill your mind with cotton again. You feel your inner voice berate you for your willing ignorance but it also cries at its necessity. 

Cotton. You needed to fill your head with cotton, because if you didn’t in time (and that time was short when you were with Aventurine) you might just sob again then and there. You think too much. So you won’t think. At least around him. Because…you still don’t want to acknowledge it in your mind. You protect yourself from the brunt of it and effectively live a lie.

“You’re clenching your jaw,” Aventurine’s voice possesses a perpetual drawl, but in moments like this it softens a little. Almost like he’s talking to a person and not something to use. “Just what could it be you’re thinking about?” 

Could you even be called a thinking creature right now? Cotton absorbs color, and right now the sun, so big it could engulf you, is so beautiful. You tell him the truth. “The sunset’s beautiful. Really, really beautiful. A lot more beautiful than the others.”

He hums. He knows you’re not lying, but you haven’t answered his question. “You’ve made your affinity for the sight quite clear,” he says, and you only notice that odd edge in his voice from your sheer exposure to the man. Whatever Aventurine has against this sight, you’re not sure. He seems to like sunrises, though, if you can trust the times you’ve woken up and see him watching it. And whenever there is no sun, you wake up to him gone or kissing you awake. Though lately, you’ve been steadily receding from your habit of oversleeping, so you more often wake to the sound of his morning rituals. The hand in your hair tightens, and there’s a small tug, firm but not painful, at your roots. He still wants his answer.

Your mind, chosen to be wrecked with cotton, doesn’t know what to think. You say the only other thing in your absent mind. “This one looks like your eyes.” 

You think he likes that because you feel him shift to look at it. You can’t see his face, but you assume he’s taken off his usual smile. Smiling all the time sounded torturous, and you rub your cheek at the phantom pain of your own imagination. 

“Hmm…” and you feel him shift again, and you really have no idea what he wants. From the intonation, he’s about to do something either mischievous or ‘flirtatious.’ “You know, sweetheart,” he purrs, the word heavy on his tongue. He shifts, so you lay on the bed and he lays directly across from you. If this were earlier in your relationship you’d fantasize about ripping his throat for robbing you of the sunset; and he’d tut and make sure to evaporate those thoughts. His hair is messed up, his smile soft but still unreadable. The sun shines on the mark on his neck, and something about the sight makes you a bit…happy. And angry. He takes your face in his hands and locks your eyes. You tense a bit out of instinct. Aventurine’s full attention on you was intense and overwhelming, like a bright sun and a feral beast; the bit of dried blood on his lips is proof of it. You make a note to yourself to do more work on hammering your justified instinct away. Your heart feels like it will burst, as his gaze bores into your own. From apprehension or anticipation, you’re not sure. “If that’s the case,” one of his hands trails down your jaw, the ghost of his touch fluttering against the marks he’s painted on your neck. He’d have no issue finding more all around your body. He softly, lovingly holds your neck like he’s prepared to snap it and equally prepared to drown you in his affection. His thumb finds and lightly presses on a mark, one he drew blood from. “Why not take in the real thing, hm?” His thumb presses harder, and you blink back a wince at the pain. He notices, eyes softening impossibly further before relinquishing his thumb and kissing the irritated skin. “Sorry,” he says, but it’s said the same way a cat licks a mouse’s carcass. But you don’t mind. You’ve made sure you don’t mind a lot of things, and it’s made you equally content and miserable. Maybe you hold onto that latter feeling in stubborn defiance, because losing that shred of yourself would turn you into something that You wouldn’t necessarily hate if it were anyone else, but when it’s You becoming that—that, that, You hate.

But you do enjoy being close to someone like this, and hum contentedly to try and focus on that instead. But Aventurine is perceptive, and though his head is below you, you feel as if you’ve been chained up when you once again lock eyes. “I can hear your thoughts, darling,” He returns to his former position, “I hate seeing you all stressed out,” he says, as if his veins weren’t running with anticipation when you were saddled with debt and when your parents got hit with unfortunate ‘accidents’ that insurance couldn’t cover and he didn’t love the day you became his. “Didn’t you say that open and honest communication is important in a healthy relationship? I’m rather fond of our little romance, and I’d hate for it to crumble.” He nearly pouts—doesn’t surprise you much anymore, but there’ll always be a little bit of whiplash that doesn’t quite go away. Though, You feel a slight hint of bitterness—‘crumble?’ Some cotton burns away. Did he mean that for himself? …Or might it have been a vague threat to you…? You think, but you’re quick to fill your head back up with cotton. The process isn’t immediate, however.

“Our relationship is the furthest thing from healthy,” you point out. You don’t add in that you never sought out romance in the first place, “and it hasn’t exactly been built on a sturdy foundation.”

“You’ve got me there,” He chuckles. “Well, let’s put it like this,” he brushes a lock of hair from your face, “I see that my lover’s been saddled with all these thoughts, and it’s gotten them so awfully quiet,” Lover? No, that’s hyperbole. He tucks his fingers underneath your chin, stroking the soft, unmarked skin; the only area spared from his assault. “Makes a guy worry, you know? The last time you were this quiet was when you first moved in.” 

Yes. It was mostly because You spent the majority of your free time sobbing, leaving your voice all but spent by the time he got back. And it wasn’t like you could be the goofy and sometimes witty and sometimes not buffoonish person You were when You were so miserable. When you wanted to do everything you could to retreat into your own skin—but Aventurine simply ripped you out, exposed, bloody, and sniffling. After that thought, the cotton has completely grown back.

“…And…?” Through the cotton, you can only wonder what he’s talking about.

His smile becomes sharper, and you wonder if he might feel insulted. Does he think you want to leave him, see him get what he deserved and some actual help like You used to? “C’mon don’t you…” you blink a little vacantly, and he seems to realize something. “Or, maybe you’re…” but his voice suggests something knowing. Suggests experience. And the gears in his mind click. “Oh, I know that look!” He laughs, delightedly or derangedly, you don’t bother to differentiate. Either way it makes you shiver. 

“Huh? What look?” You asked, filtered through cotton. He doesn’t answer and cuts to the chase.

He playfully flicks your forehead, and you imagine a bullet going through it, “Riddle me this: what do you want, sweetheart?”

You blink. What do you want? When you first got here, it was security and his or your death. After some time had passed, it was peace. But now…you want whatever storm that’s inside of you to stop. But he doesn’t need to know what you want deep in your soul. So you tell him the truth, filtered through cotton. 

You do something that would’ve been unthinkable to You, and worse, it’s subconsciously without a second thought. You push him back down on the bed by laying on him—flopping on him like a fish, You think, for your mind is such a silly little thing—lay your head over his heart, and take in the sunset. The sun’s nearly below the ground. “…If it’s fine, and only if you want…” you ask, because You detest the idea of being controlling, “I’d like you to…” you flush, “…h-hold me, um, like you are right now, until the sun’s down and, um…” your heart is going to burst and there’ll be a hole of viscera through your chest and maybe Aventurine will admire your pathetic, desperate corpse before burning it, “we can take a bath. And,” you look up at him, “I’ll look into your eyes, as much as you want…” You tell yourself it's because you need to appease him. But you know of the primal thing that lives in your chest. 

It’s true. But Aventurine puts it perfectly.

His smile speaks of years of clawing his way up with honeyed words and masked expressions. “You’re not lying. Thank you. That’s such a sweet wish,” he says kindly (you’re no longer scared of his kind voice), stroking your head like you are an obedient dog, one that he adores and veers on despising, and then wraps his other arm beneath your thighs, “but you know I’d like the truth.” He then says, primally, ready to carve out a space in your body to inhabit, “To know what storm’s brewing in that little head of yours,” he takes in a shuddering breath, and his eyes light with perverse excitement, “if it’s begun to…crack and burn up.” He sits up and carries you away. You’re slightly disappointed you won’t be seeing the sunset in its entirety, but you’ve gotten good at forgetting. Aventurine sighs wistfully. “But…” he grasps your chin, forcing you to look at him, “I don’t mind that second proposition of yours,” his voice is husky, and he kisses you. You flush, and the cotton is the only thing that prevents you from tearing into him with your canines.

As the sun moves further and further away, You think yourself a fool for thinking it would engulf you. Aventurine wouldn’t leave anything left of you, whenever he decided he was done with you.

—

This is your only choice, and it was everything you could do to not shut down the instant you realized. 

You were in denial, at first. It was all just a coincidence, right? You’d always feared this sort of thing—financial struggle—and so getting hit with it should be something you take in stride, and come out of it either in a wreck or just barely getting by. And, if you wanted to get a little nerdy, capitalist economies have to crash into recession eventually, so maybe now was just that time of the era. No place was hiring you, and your parents were getting buried in bills they couldn’t pay. 

But, if anyone with half a brain took a step back, they’d call out the bullshit excuse you concocted in your mind, to deny the ridiculous truth. Because whatever recession was happening, it seemed to only affect you; not to mention that this wasn’t even how recessions worked. The truth that you, you, were the apple of someone’s eye (for lack of a better term—you aren’t delusional—you’re just as disposable as the next person, as much as you wish for the universe to cease operating like it). 

Preposterous! Scandalous! You, a complete idiot, catching someone’s fancy? How the fuck did that happen?! Were pigs flying now? …You take that back, there are indeed flying species of the hog persuasion gallivanting about in the cosmos. But this does not detract from your point. One might say “bimbo vibes,” but you know for a fact, even taking into account your own bias and self-perpetuation of your self-esteem issues (which makes you still having them even worse, but you’ve already gone down that spiral more than you could count), that you do not have anywhere near enough bimbo energy to attract anyone with that kink. Or the looks. This was your knee-jerk reaction to the situation. And to an extent, still is, because thinking about it like that gives the situation a bit of levity you desperately need. You can’t wrap your head around it in the slightest. But you can’t dispute fact. And the fact is that you are wanted by someone else, and you can’t even begin to understand why. Least of all the person who wants you.

The man who hides behind the name ‘Aventurine.’ That fact alone already makes you not want to be so closely associated, and it makes everything more insane and stupid. An IPC executive has no use for you. If he wants to extort you for unpaid or cheap labor, he’s already got a vast selection of underpaid grunts to do his bidding. If there’s one thing the IPC knows how to do, it’s keeping those desperate enough or arrogant enough trapped. You’re not either of those things; though you admit you’ve adapted the former trait in light of recent bullshittery, but you digress. 

Most of what you come up with is met with an easy counter. Aventurine, a sleazy businessman obsessed with sex? He has money—he can just hire a prostitute; hell, you’re sure there are plenty of people who’d throw themselves at him for no charge. Sure, most of them would be coming into it with their own agendas, but he’s sharper than that. Aventurine, a man with insatiable greed? Again, he’s already rich as fuck, and the only way he’s getting any more money is if he looks up the pecking order. Whatever wealth you offer as an asset (the thought churns your stomach) is barely a drop in the bucket. Aventurine, a gambler who loved seeing his opponents fall into ruin? That was actually plausible to some extent, but you’ve made it very clear you’re no gambler (not in tangible matters at least, but you keep your card close to your heart). Then maybe he wants to try and push you over the edge? Try to make you take a risk bigger than yourself? 

So, you’ve settled for this: Aventurine, a man who cannot stand to be sober from the drink called “power.” Desiring complete domination over someone. A personal matter, and briefly you hear the echo of a quote: “We desire that which we do not have.” What doesn’t Aventurine have? 

…A relationship? Well, you shoot that down easily. Whatever kind of relationship this leads to ends with you ruined and him hunting after his next prey. 

He’s a bit like a serial killer, you muse, and you just so happen to meet his criteria for victimhood. But unlike a killer, he’s merely going to make you wish you were dead. If you wanted death, it’d have to be at your own hands. If he gave you that option at all. Another thought you have is that he might use you for snuff or something else equally or more horrific. That’s…you haven’t pursued the thought any further.

You’ve been robbed of much of your control, but you still control the hand that knocks at the door. If you’re going down, it’ll be on your own terms. This is your last, desperate attempt to pretend you have any control at all. You make sure your bangs cover your eyes. 

You just wish your heart didn’t feel like it would explode. You wish that you weren’t actively holding back from breaking down into a sobbing mess. You wish you were made of the same steel heroes were, but you cannot be what you are doomed to not be. 

Aventurine opens the door, giving you a grin that makes you retch. He’s dressed in his usual peacock-esque finery, and something about it makes you frown. Maybe it’s because he’s dressed in the colors you love—forest green, the blue of the sky, the black of where the moon does not shine—and it feels so wrong for something that wants to destroy you to be clad in them. “Sweetheart!” he coos out the wretched (and cringe-worthy) pet name with faux surprise; it propels you to roll your eyes even now. He knew you were coming; otherwise, you’d be detained by hotel staff. It didn’t quite help that you didn’t really bother to dress up either. It made you stick out like a sore thumb, and you’re glad that this is the only time you’ll be at a gaudy hotel. “You’ve come to visit little ol’ me! I’m charmed.  Aren’t I a lucky man?” 

You fantasize about his guts strewn about on the floor, accompanied by your maniacal laughter and sobs of elated despair. “...You could say that, Mr. Aventurine,” you aren’t foolish enough to be curt, so you settle for polite and cordial. Professional and businesslike, though you know that gives him a slight advantage. “There’s something I wish to discuss with you. I think that’s best accomplished behind closed doors.” 

He clicks his tongue playfully. “No need to be so cold. We’re friends here, aren’t we?” 

“I suggest you drop the ‘sweetheart,’ then. Friends don’t call each other that, Mr. Aventurine.” 

He raises his hand in mock surrender, and you want him to get to the fucking point before you lose your nerve. “Oh, fine. Then,” he gestures to the lion’s den. If only he were the gentleman he was pretending to be. “Walk on in, darling.” You cannot suppress the groan that comes out of you. His smile widens; you're sure he gets some kick at riling you up.

You don’t have the energy to deal with him, and you certainly don’t have enough to suppress the sigh of irritation you let out. He seems to look like…some sort of positive emotion that you don’t know what to name. You’re not sure if you want to name it.  

The sunlight catches his predatory yet enrapturing eyes. His eye twitches, clearly trying not to shut. Maybe, you muse, the sun hates him as much as you do. It brings a weak smile to your face. You make sure to take your sweet time to enter. You won’t take off your shoes, either. He can deal with a bit of tracked dirt, you think, but then you notice that he’s wearing his shoes as well. In his own place. And here you thought he was monstrous enough.

But when the door shuts, any semblance of levity you could summon dissipates, and you’re reminded of what you’re here to do. Aventurine’s hand snakes up on your shoulder, and you want to rip it off and feed it to the birds. Thankfully, he just leads you to the living room. The sun is cast overhead. 

“So,” he circles till he’s in front of you, “What could be so important that you’ve come to see me this time of day?” The cat purrs to the mouse, petting it with claws retracted; for the time being. It makes you abandon courtesy for curtness. 

“Don’t act like you didn’t cancel some business meeting to make this happen.”

“Oh! You’ve got me!” he chuckles, “My, you’ve already gotten to know me so well. Don’t you think we’re like two peas in a pod?” He teases, and you know he specifically means for it to piss you off. Not to mention it’s an incredible reach. But to his credit, it works.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you spit, and his hand lets you back away from him. “I was thinking about…” you take a sharp breath—you can’t lose your nerve now, “...the ‘deal,’ you gave me a little while ago. The gamble, to be more precise.”

His smile stretches so wide it seems to crack his face, and you feel phantom pain radiating along your own mouth. His eyes, those alluring and dangerous rims of pink and electric blue, are spiked with adrenaline. You wonder if his eyes are dilating, but you don’t want to look at his eyes any longer than you have to. “I knew you would come around. But I see it in your eyes—you want to discuss the terms, right?” 

He’s right. “Yes.” 

“Admirable,” he says lazily, “but before you start, you should know that I’m not budging on my reward.”

“I know,” you bitterly say, “this is about my reward.”

Interest ignites, burning the blue of his eyes hot with intrigue.

“If I win, then I want you to reimburse my family, and then some, for all of the shit you’re making them go through. And then I want you to leave them the hell alone and not harm them.”

You can’t tell if he looks more interested or disappointed. “That’s hardly different from our original deal. The only difference is that you’re not getting any compensation.” At least he doesn’t deny that he’s the one the source of your family woes this time. Likely because you two already jumped through that point. You may not be sharp, but there are things even you can’t be gaslit on, and you think Aventurine realized this and decided not to bother. “Do you really hate the idea of getting money from me? You do remember that I told you that you can use me however you want, right?” 

Money that’s sourced from less than savory grounds, you think. You hate how he wants to use you, and you equally hate using anybody. “Yes. You made that very clear. I know what I’m doing. Now, come on.”

“Don’t be so hasty. I’ll have to modify my will so—”

“No need. Get the gun already.” You aren’t too worried anyway. Businessmen like him know to honor their deals. He’ll probably dismiss it easily and assume you’ll either donate it to charity or give it to your family.

He laughs, not so dissimilar from nails digging into a chalkboard, “You’re that eager to kill me? And you were so against it too! I wouldn’t have expected your morals to shift so quickly.”

You bite your lip. “You don’t seem to be all too worried about dying,” you point out, “You were the one who proposed this in the first place.” Another reason you don’t want to associate with this man. He treats his own life far too callously, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that whatever there is to unpack, it’s bursting at the seams. Normally you would’ve been sympathetic, but this is the manner of man that wants to seize you. You don’t want to know what would happen to you, under his dominion. 

Still, at least you know that he prizes adrenaline above all else. Why else would he risk his life for a hit of it? It’s useful info and also the only wrinkle in your plan…but you’re not banking on this entirely.

Aventurine doesn’t respond, but his eyes accentuate his mirthful grin. It reminds you of yourself, muttering a joke under your breath. You do like inside jokes, but you cannot say the same for the ones you’re left out of. No matter how demented this man’s humor is, knowing what he finds funny would at least give you more to glean on him. A part of you does enjoy piecing together puzzles, even ones you can’t solve.

He produces a simple revolver from his jacket. Sleek and as dark as a moonless night, even you can tell that its craftsmanship is more than deserving of admiration. But it spikes your anxiety. You want to dig a hole and suffocate, to feel your lungs burn like lava and to have your fingers raw when you have second thoughts and desperately try to claw your way out. You blink back tears, but you know what you must do.

He takes his sweet time with the gun, but you don’t pay attention. Your eyes are trained on the ground as you try and fail to psych yourself up. You know what you're doing. Your parents would tell you this was a bad choice, and you agree, but you weren’t given very many good choices.

A shot rings out. Glass shatters from behind you. The coffee table. Your breath halts. Something searing and hard digs into your chin, forcing you to look up. Your gaze is misty from the pain, for you’re more resilient to the cold, not the heat. 

“Sweetheart,” he smiles kindly, “I don’t like being ignored.” Despite your best efforts, a tear has rolled down your cheek. Your chin feels like it will be seared and forever be fiery hot. You need to get this over with before your mouth starts to uncontrollably twitch into a frown. He roughly lodges the gun from your chin, but replaces it with a kind touch that sends spiders crawling down your back. “Aw…” he coos, his cheeks faintly dusted with pink as he begins to lean in, “there’s no need to cry, dear.” 

You can’t stop it. You let out something that sounds like a growl, and shove him off of you. “You don’t get to touch me,” you hiss, a sound you didn’t know you were capable of, “Hands to yourself,” For some indiscernible reason, another tear falls, “you haven’t won anything yet.”

He’s not fazed. “Ah, I suppose I’ll have to concede there,” for now, “Here you go then, friend,” Despite his claim of concession he yanks your arm up and forces it in your grip, “Let’s see who luck favors.”

You shake, a little, but you’re not shaken enough to lose all your rationality. “Is there still a bullet in here?” 

“Yep,” he pops the p, like you two were old pals, “though I suppose I should roll the chamber again. Give me a second.” He takes the gun away and gets to work. You’re both thankful and sobbing on the inside. At this rate, your ribs will be dust from how your heart hammers into them. 

It’s back in your hand after what feels like an eternity and a microsecond. “Now there shouldn’t be any problems. Feel free to start shooting,” he purrs, adjusting it to point toward his chest. He moves to secure the barrel to his chest, and you must act now. You’re shaking and you want to die—

Ah. 

Good. 

You won’t lose your nerve then. 

“Actually,” your words shake with imminent tears and ramping fears, “there’s another term I wanted to discuss.” Your words aren’t threatening, but it’s ominous enough to give Aventurine pause. Now that he’s given you the inch, you’re taking the mile. You take a deep breath. It could be one of your last.

You’ve forced the barrel against your forehead. You’ve either gasped or Aventurine’s breath has hitched. You feel tears welling up, but you’ve made it too far for things to end here. You will yourself through your terror. “If I get shot, I win. If I don’t, you win.”

A tense silence whistles about. The air is almost electric from shock. But you know what you’re doing. You know it’s stupid, but you’re hopeless and this is the closest thing to a shred of hope you can grasp. See, you did a bit of research (on a library computer; you weren’t taking your chances). You found out that there are a few stories (very few, buried underneath the announcements of a music video and interviews and what-have-you) about Aventurine playing roulette—and even more about how he’s made numerous casino goers lose everything. In other words, he’s a lucky bitch. 

And you’re not that lucky. You doubt your luck is good enough for a regular gamble, but for your life? You treasure it, and sealing the gun to your head leaves you on the cusp of a breakdown. This is what you’re banking on: you’re not lucky enough to win a gamble, but you’re unfortunate enough to lose your life over something so inconsequential. Your parents would murder you if they saw you. Say you owe them nothing, and you do agree—but you can’t shake your habit of overpaying them. You’ve left a note at home for them to dig up, but it wouldn’t be an apology. If there’s an afterlife, you’ll apologize for eternity. You think the only way you can apologize is by searing your soul in the hells till nothing is left of you. 

You do have a more selfish reason for taking this approach, but it’s also incorrigible and unreasonable. You don’t need to dissect it. 

You think he’ll take it up. Sure, maybe the adrenaline he’ll get won’t be as great if he were the target, but so far he’s been the type to take pleasure in pushing others down a peg. He smiles at your distress, after all. So surely your quivering, sniveling form is giving him a kick? And surely, surely he’ll want to see your eyes glassy, your expression forever contorted in a fearful, desperate sob?

But Aventurine’s voice is missing its usual lilt. It’s hard, no longer deceptively light. Not playfully pushy but demanding. Maybe this is how he speaks to his enemies, you think, suppressing the urge to crawl into yourself. “…What?” A shard of ice is lodged in your back and makes your heart skip a beat from the surprise. But you can deal with the cold. It helps that it numbs the piercing pain in your back.

“I said what I said,” you push the terrifying thing harder into your skull, “these are my terms.” You’re more adamant than ever to not look into his eyes. You fixate on your shoes. You won’t speak more than necessary.

He seemingly contemplates for a moment. You’re about to push further when he finally speaks. “Do you remember what I said when I first proposed this gamble?”

Your mind is too fear-stricken for recollection. “You say a lot of things. C-can’t remember all of them.” Shit, your mouth has twitched a bit.

Shockingly Aventurine doesn’t poke fun at that, and is unusually focused. “I don’t take deals where I’m on the losing end. You’ve skewed this far too much in your favor.”

No. Oh, no. You were wrong about something. Lava starts to sting at your eyes. If you were wrong about this, then what else were you wrong about?!

“W-what? You’re not the one risking your life!” You exclaim, and it makes you look up at him, “How are you on the losing end?!” You shriek, because you aren’t a composed person at heart.

His eyes, lifeless and intense, widen as they bore into your own, pinning you down. If you squirm, you think he would stab knives in them to keep you down. You’re afraid of even blinking. He isn’t smiling and your knees want to shake. “Let’s go through this one by one, so you understand. One: what do I want?”

“W-wha?”

He repeats himself, harsher. “What. Do. I. Want?”

You settle for the safest answer. Your heart feels dead. You’re sure it will wither to dust. “M-me?” 

“Bingo.” It scares you that he’s not saying that with a lilt. It scares you that he’s not trying to manipulate you. It scares you how there’s only a thread between him ripping you in half. “And here’s something very, very important to know about me,” his hand caresses your cheekbone, positioned to catch any tears that fall, or to crush your skull, “I do whatever it takes to get what I want.”

“Then how is this different?! You’re still taking the risk of not getting what you want no matter how you slice it!”

The smile he gives you is all at once angelic and biting. “I don’t like it when I don’t get what I want.” His pupils dilate. Your eyes well up looking into the malice and…something, that plunges you in ice water. “If I can’t get what I want…hm, how do I describe it?” his voice begins to regain its lilt, fueled by your increasing distress. He smiles like he’s teaching a child a lesson, but you swear his eyes are growing duller. “Well, it’s like being trapped in a land without dawn,” his other hand softly holds your shoulder and it feels so wrong because you swear he’s holding back from brutalizing you, “there are chains around your neck, ankles, wrists, waist, eyes…” he chuckles sardonically, and a vindictive grin spreads as he leans in, till you can feel the ghost of his breath, “your life is a living hell, but the cold of the metal seeps down to your very bone.” You yelp; his grip has tightened. “Something stirs in your chest,” the hand caressing your face comes to rest over your heart, “begging to destroy everything and everyone that’s made you suffer.” His fingers dig into your chest, as if he’ll rip out your heart. “Tell me, my friend, do you want a man like that alive?”

You want to close your eyes so badly. Your mind is an inky landscape, blackening every single thought you hold. A soft flutter to your cheek knocks you out of your stupor. You register expensive perfume, something tickling your skin, and soft lips kissing away your tears. Immediately you shove away the opportunistic beast and stumble in your escape.

You’re in too deep. You need to make this work, because as much as you're terrified, something deep within you purrs at the weakness he’s given you.

But it’s good to know how spiteful he is. You already feel much better about your own plan. Both parts of you purr in delight: one knows you must twist the knife, and the other has been waiting for the opportunity.

“Coward,” your mouth is faster than your mind, “you coward!” Your meager wit and anguish over the past few months begin to tumble out uncontrollably, “I don’t care about your shit—you’ve hardly given me any say about anything. You’ve had the upper hand this entire time, and now you want to backpedal? This is too much risk for you?!” You heave, and you’re too enraged to care about how disgusting you must look, “You said to me there’s nothing you like more than a good gamble. Well, I’ve got a GREAT gamble for you, and if you’re upset you’ve got no one but yourself to blame! You wormed your way into my life, you orchestrated its steady decline, and you pushed me right here! You don’t get to back out of this like a coward!” You’re breathing heavily, and your vision is watery red, and you throw the gun in what you think is his general direction, and your vitriol spills out of you, “Take it and take whatever fucking risk exists! Languish for a month or a day or an hour because you didn’t get what you want like a little baby! If I’m going down, you’re coming down with me!” You’re heaving at this point, and you absently lean on the couch so you don’t collapse. Your composure is in shambles, but you’ll try to save a complete breakdown for when your choices catch up to you and you’re choking on your own blood. 

You hear a slow, rhythmic clap, and it shocks you that your ears aren’t flooding with blood at it. You hesitantly look up to see Aventurine grinning like a beast. 

“You, dragging me down…” the lilt has come back, and you realize that he likes something about this; that he’s schemed a part of it, “...so I see.” He drawls. He tilts his head, regarding you with the interest one has in an animal displayed in a zoo. “I’ll admit,” each slow step he takes toward you makes you sink further into the couch, “I was expecting you to cave with that. Yet you still insist…sweetheart,” should you be glad he’s calling you that again? “Let me be the first to tell you that it’s a great honor to push people like you into a corner. You were correct to fear me to try and avoid this.” So you were right on one thing, but it’s only a single thing. He’s inching ever so closely, and before you can start getting away he’s pounced on you. 

You yelp in surprise and begin to thrash, “You—get, get off of me!” You attempt to be intimidating, but your intense terror makes you seem like nothing more than a child scared to get a shot. Perfume burns your nostrils. More tears are shed, but he’s merciful enough to not lap them up just yet. 

He giggles and just pins you down. He waits until you're humiliated and exhausted before continuing. Your mouth twitches, and against your better judgment a sob brews in your chest. Your mind floods with ink, now. You try to tell yourself to keep it together, but the more you repeat it the more terrified you become. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d change the terms like this,” you squirm and look away—you don’t have the bravery to look at him directly right now. He lets you. “I was sort of expecting you to try and stand up for yourself, or maybe even demand I put in two bullets…but, you’ve run counter to my expectations. For one, I didn’t have you pinned to be this spiteful, nor this willing to give up your life.” You flinch and make a hateful sound as he starts to pat your head, continuing on as if this was the most normal conversation in the world, like he was the most normal person in the room, as he smiles so warmly—you’re a frog being boiled, but you’re too tired and afraid to retort, “Heh, this must’ve taken all of your guts to do, right?” The affection in his voice forms a lump in your throat. “I’m proud of you. Take pride in that,” he wipes away a tear, “and you’re right.” Suddenly, all warmness is gone and you’re blasted with heat. His grin shows his teeth, and for a moment you think you’ve really died. “I’ve always loved the thrill of going all in.” He laughs, a depraved sound of hedonism and complete despair, “If I win, it’s the jackpot. I get you, and you get me.” Get him? “And if I lose,” your head is tipped up by the cooled barrel of the gun to look into his eyes—

You whimper. The only thing that registers in your mind is that you’ve found yourself in a fox’s jaw about ready to clamp down.

“I live with my loss at the hands of a nobody. And it’ll gnaw at me from the inside…” he says breathlessly, “Yes, that’s a risk I can see myself getting behind,” Ink has made your soul quiver further. “And only taking deals on the winning end…I do that enough for business. That's to say…” he suddenly pulls you up, causing you to stumble and lean into him. He chuckles as your addled mind and body reorient, but the arm slung around your waist prevents you from straying too far. It’s the pillar you must rely on, but one wrong step and it will crumble to dust.

It scares you. 

But.

There’s another side to your fear. What sort of things do we fear, you think? These months have taught you that people hate that which they fear. When the fear amps up, so does the hate. You aren’t blind to how he looks at you. He’d vivisect you if it got him what he wanted. Your teeth grind. Oh, you hate him, you hate him so much. But your hate doesn’t burn, nor does it freeze. It’s a part of you; it hums through your veins; it thrums with the beat of your heart. There is nothing special about what is merely a fact of life. You are its vessel, and for that it sustains you.

You won’t see the fallout of your victory, but the mere idea sends a wave of ecstasy through you. 

The barrel of the revolver presses against your heart. 

“I accept your terms.” His voice edges with adrenaline and delight, but, and rather exquisitely, your instincts think, an edge that he must be the one to win this gamble—that in this moment, for him to live with loss is completely undesirable. It pleases you greatly, that you seemed to have ever so slightly peeled off his mask. But unfortunately for him, you’re not lucky enough to avoid a stupid death. You quiver, but not with fear; not entirely. Still, a part of you wonders if he’s just been testing you with his easy agreement. Should you be glad if you got full marks? Or should you hope you’ve failed?

Still, a brief feeling of levity blooms in your chest, and you seize it immediately. 

You did it. And unexpectedly, rather than further terror, relief washes over the heat and ink, because now that you’ve felt dead so often in such a short time, death is salvation. But just as quickly as the water came, a blizzard freezes the sea. 

Click. His lips are against yours. 

Of course. He wouldn’t let your final moments be pleasant. 

He takes advantage of your inexperience to entangle your tongues, and his hand against your head pushes you deeper and deeper as he tries to devour you. You gasp and tear up when he bites and bruises your lips. You’d like to fight back, but you want to get this over with. Even if it means being taken advantage of in your last moments, mother death’s repentance is merely a chamber or two away.

But still, no matter how demented you are in the moment, you are human, and the instinctual desire to survive makes you recoil.  The eye contact exacerbates it. His eyes hold a sea. On the surface, you can freely see the coral and starfish, difficult to understand but beautiful. But deeper, where the sunlight does not shine, the predators have taken to hunting one another, having wiped out the prey. And when only one is left, then it can only move up and up, until it’s the only thing left standing. And now it looks to consume you to satiate its unending appetite. Your lungs burn. 

You’d love to shut your eyes, but doing so feels like losing. At least when you do so, you can see yourself be devoured. Your awareness of yourself is the only agency you have right now. 

Click. He pulls away, and you take in a greedy breath. You feel a deep imprint on your lips; a bite, just barely not drawing blood. Your heart beats and a tear trickles; you’re not dead yet. That’s ok. You’ll be dead in a moment. 

“You look so certain you’ll win,” he observes, “it’s a good look on you.” 

You scrunch your nose. “Pull the trigger. I’m getting sick of looking at you.” 

“But, if I do, then you might breathe your last,” his eyes narrow, though you’re not sure if it’s predatory or softening, “can’t I take the sight of you in?” 

“Ha!” You cough it out. “For a man who dresses to the nines, you sure have bad taste.” 

“Aw, don’t demean yourself like that,” he mockingly reassures, “I’ll have you know you’re perfectly enchanting.” 

You decide to play along because banter is banter, and no matter how spiteful you are, you’ll take comfort and levity where you can find it. “And you’re a Knight of Beauty.” Absently, you wonder how terrible you must look. You feel your eyes still well with tears, still sniffling back bits of snot every now and then. 

You’re not sure if everything’s just catching up to you, or if the thought has propelled you to the realization, but you’re so, so, so tired. It does make your tears dry, a little, and your muscles relax. 

You see he’s starting to lean in again, and you immediately put a hand between you and his lips. “Don’t.” You growl. “Just…just shoot,” you sigh in exhaustion, “I’m tired. Just shoot. If you’re not satisfied, then you’ll have my corpse.” The implication is disgusting but he’s disgusting, and you really just want to sleep. You’re pretty sure he would’ve done it even without you saying. 

His hand drifts down to your waist. “Can’t say the image is pleasant.” Is his voice colder? Tired? Distant? Or are you finally losing it? 

“I’m already a teary mess. It’ll just be colder and a little stiff.”

He scoffs, “If I wanted someone steely, you wouldn’t be here.” True.

You bite your cheek and look at your feet. “Shoot.” 

There’s a pause in the air. You wonder if he’s contemplating on saying something to you, or just getting it over with. Both would make sense. You close your eyes. You will yourself to not think, because you know if you do that your life will just flash before your eyes. And if that happens, you’ll die completely miserable.

Click. 

You’re breathing. His hand is on your waist. The gun’s pressed to your chest. Nothing’s changed. Why aren’t you on the ground choking on blood? 

“I win.” You hear. You shut your eyes when sunlight gets into them.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

You’re still here. 

It didn’t work. It didn’t pay off. Your knees give out as you finally are no longer able to keep your tears at bay. You feel fluttering around your eyes, and you dare not open them. Shhh, shhh, you hear, but you only cry more. Everything has come to impale you, and you cry as you feel your organs spill. You’re his. You’re his. You want to die. Everything is coated in ink. You process nothing but the terror and rage and fear and despair and laughter and anything and everything you’ve ever experienced. You try to curl in on yourself, but you’re stopped by a beast’s hold, warm and predatory. 

“Shhh, it’s alright…” a hand strokes you to soothe, but it’s more akin to sandpaper rubbing on raw skin, “Let it all out…we have plenty of time. I don’t have to hold back and neither do you,” he reassures. It makes you sob harder.

You heave and sob. All you can think about is the unknown future that awaits you. You barely register being placed on a plush surface.

When your sobs finally quiet, you’re forced to look into his eyes. There’s a flush on his cheek, a slight inconsistency in his breathing, and his eyes have dilated with adrenaline and…and…you’ve never seen that emotion before, whatever it is. 

You wonder what face you’re making, as he smiles ferally. “You were right. That was great,” he hisses with elation and laughs. “Oh, you’re beautiful.” 

The world spins. You’re lying, and he’s on top of you. 

Oh…oh no…You begin to flinch and twitch uncontrollably. You aren’t thinking. You flail, kick, and cry even as you exhaust your meager energy, but he doesn’t budge. You need to get away get away get away get away—

“One last thing, to really seal the deal,” he smiles, insidiously kind and horrifying, “to commemorate my victory and your defeat.” 

He bites into your neck, and you scream. 

The fox swallows you whole.

—

He lets you roam freely, whenever he’s gone. To say you were baffled and suspicious was putting it lightly, so you refrained from taking advantage of it for a long, long time. In fact, when you found out his spaceship-apartment-thing was mounted with surveillance in every nook and cranny, rather than walk out the door, you found a cramped closet to hide in for a few days. Curling into a ball all day wasn’t easy on the joints, but you were taking any semblance of privacy you could get. But Aventurine, petty and cruel, forced you to seal off your haven with your own hands before he tore into you. If he wants you in his sights or roaming about, he should just make up his mind already.

But, for this one occasion, you choose to abuse this privilege. You usually come back around the same time he does to appease him, but you finally decided you needed a vacation after he forced you into one of his stupid gambles and forced you to fulfill another of his especially perverted fantasies; on top of forcing you to help him get acquainted with a gacha you played—and he’d be the direct cause of your cake turning out burnt. Sure, there are those big moments where lava and ink converge, but it’s the little things which sting and nick that pile up. The real kicker was when he forced you two to share a plate of pasta one night and when, of course, you two landed on the same noodle, he had the brilliant idea to suck it up at the speed of light; likely hoping it would get him to your lips sooner. How romantic, making out while you both had half chewed food in your mouths; you truly could not commend this man’s genius enough! Unfortunately for his plans and your sanity, you couldn’t keep up, and that is why you know what it’s like to have tomato sauce in your eyes. Not to mention that there were pepperoncinis in there. You were washing it out for days. At least he seemed genuinely apologetic over it, but copious amounts of jewelry don’t supplement how he never asks if you even want or like it.

So, yeah, you’re no fan of how he fucks with you. You gladly made this choice, and all the risk it came with. 

“So, this is where you’ve been.” You think he’s still a little surprised, just as you are. You haven’t done much in the way of defiance, both because you wanted nothing more than to remain within yourself, and because you feared his retaliation (very, very much). The few risks you have taken never pay off. Even this one didn’t pay off in full: for you didn’t even go to see your parents. You tried to tell them the horrible truth and because they deserved to know their child’s fate, but every time you approached their house, something stopped you. Shame, fear, embarrassment, sheepishness…you don’t know. You almost laugh. To think, a quarter of why you’re here is because of the danger they were placed in, yet you can’t even muster the courage to talk to them. Maybe you want them to think you’re dead, because then that’s the version of you that’ll be eternal in their minds: loving, goofy, brimming with potential and optimistic pessimism; and not the pathetic wimp you truly are. The mere risk of seeing disappointment shine in their eyes (they wouldn’t but what if they did? What if?) was enough to scare you off. You dismiss them from your mind because you have to deal with Aventurine, unfortunately. You wonder if you’ll forget them, if you cast them out of your mind enough. “I’m charmed. Our special place.” 

You scoff. “Don’t flatter yourself. This was mine before you ever came here, and it still is.” 

You met each other here on a moonlit night. You couldn’t see each others’ faces, but it didn’t stop you from conversing. You don’t bother to think about it more, because what started as a memory that made you feel warm now enshrouds you in a volcanic blizzard. You’ve already mulled over it plenty anyway—on how such a mundane conversation started all of…this. 

Now, the sun is setting. It calms you down.

“Darling, this is a national park. You don’t own it.”

You tsk. “Shut up. I don’t feel like dealing with you right now. And you literally called this place ‘ours,’ you conniving bastard.” 

“Unfortunate,” his arm slings across your shoulders, “because it’s been such a lonely week without you…” you don’t share the sentiment. His other arm cages you by the waist. You imagine his body rupturing and exploding, showering blood and guts that you’d dance in. Or would you soak yourself in his organs, to savor his defeat? Maybe you’d open your mouth, let your mouth and throat be coated in his blood so you— 

Huh. Something’s off again. You are no stranger to violent thoughts, but lately, at rare times, your fantasies get accompanied by something strange you can’t quite put your finger on.

You make a face, as you look at him over your shoulder with a deadpan glare, “And you’ve let me parade about.”

He giggles. “What? I had no clue you were here till a few hours ago! Honest.”

“Says the surveillance freak.” You wave your phone, “Not to mention I’ve so conveniently kept this tracker with me.”

He drops the act. “You didn’t even try to cover up your tracks.” He sighs, “I must say, your defeatism is probably the least attractive part of you. Can’t say I really understand.”

Then why does he still keep you around? It’s already been nearly half a year.

“You and I have no illusions that I can escape you, and I lost a bet. I try not to be a sore loser.” 

“And yet you so often cry when you lose our games. Kick and scream sometimes.”

Your chest feels hollow, and you hate the feeling so much that you want to die right then and there. “What, should I be jumping for joy when you rape me?” 

Silence. You can almost think he’s a little remorseful. But then his fingers snake up to pull at your collar. Peeling back your skin, to try and coax you out of it. More like tear you out.

You scoff, but your eyes heat up. “Seriously?” Your voice carries a mix of disappointment, anger, fear, and despair. It cracks, “Hardly three minutes and right after I—”

“Relax,” he’s so soothing that your muscles tense up and your heart beats to the nines—what a reassuring boyfriend! He continues his ministrations until he has a good view of your neck, and hums in pleasure, “I can’t say I’m entirely peachy with what you’ve done, but you haven’t been that bad—” you feel yourself slightly relax, “—so we’ll get a room first.” And your heart drops, but you did expect this. He hums, and you can practically hear the grin in his voice, “Unless…you’d like to really make this our special place?” 

No. He can’t he can’t he can’t he can’t he won’t—The slightest bit of life crosses your relatively lifeless face. “Don’t you fucking dare—!”

He covers your mouth, silencing you, and squeezes tight when you try to speak; you feel something in you wither. “Alrighty, I get the idea,” He casually concedes, but you doubt he was all too adamant if he dropped it so easily. “We’ll both save ourselves for later. In the meantime, let’s keep quiet, mhm? We really wouldn’t want anyone to just interrupt us.”

You seethe, but then his grip becomes near painful. Humiliation wells in your chest, as the muzzle tightens. You forcibly relax, and reluctantly nod. Fresh air has never been sweeter. A drop of sweat trickles down your face.

“Good. Very good,” he purrs. “You’re always so good; thank you. I’m glad you see the mutual benefit in doing so.” He brushes a spot at your neck. It’s the spot he first bit you in, and thinking about it still makes you shake in pain. And he’s always sucking or biting at it to stake his stupid claim. You brace yourself. And right on cue he’s latched on, and your scream is muffled by your hand. You’d like to say you’ve gotten used to it, but you’ve never had a good tolerance for pain. Against your wishes, tears fall. Aventurine lunges at the opportunity, sensually licking them and leaving behind a disgusting trail of slime to dry. He kisses your cheekbone, leaving behind a weeping crimson flower, “You really are a crybaby…” his voice sends spiders crawling into your ear.

You desperately wipe your cheek with your sleeves, mostly because you know shoving him away doesn’t work when he gets like this. And then your short lived adrenaline fades.

“Shit!” He’s drawn blood. Again. And you liked this shirt! But you can see why he doesn’t—it was a high collar and a long sleeve, able to cover the mural of bites and bruises he leaves on your body. The majority were faded, but some of them were just a little more permanent. You briefly wonder why he’d ruin your shirt; he’s made it very clear that the mural is for his eyes alone. You suspect he wanted to create an excuse so you’d be forced to wear some jacket or shirt of his.

“Sorry,” he kisses the spot, but each kiss burns you. You don’t understand why he bothers to say the word when you both know he’s not capable of feeling remorse, at least, not for you. He keeps stinging your tender flesh.

You groan, blinking back mist. “You’re making it worse.”

“Sorry,” he repeats, giving you a bloody peck on the cheek, “but can you blame me? You’re not wearing any of my gifts. Makes a guy a little jealous, y’know?” He kisses your cheek again, firmer to imprint his bloody kiss.

“Yes, I can blame you for making conscious decisions,” you coldly snap, but you’re already tired, “Once again, jewelry is overrated and I reaffirm that your taste is shit.”

“I recall my jewelry and clothes were some of the first things you complemented.”

“Aye,” it’s true, but you see an opportunity for levity and take it, “but I have since evolved from my follious self.”

He’s getting that feral look in his eye again. Why?! You didn’t even do anything! You snap. “What is it? Spit it.”

“You’re doing it again.” 

You can’t stand his touch any longer. “Doing what?” You hiss, shoving him away from you so you can face him. But you almost wish he didn’t let you, because there are few things he would trade for you in his hold.

He whistles. It feeds your frustration. You assume that it’s what he usually wants from you. “If this is some weird sexual innuendo then it’s fallen flat on its ass, you affluent horndog. I thought you said to wait later, anyway.”

He blinks in brief shock, before laughing—his canines shine in the orange sunset, “No, no no, not this time around. Let’s put it this way, and I’ll be very clear, just for you,”

As he calms down, an angelic smile spreads in his face, and you know you’re looking straight at damnation. 

“I’ve learned that defeatists succumb to themselves. Pushing them past their limit helps, but it’s not entirely necessary.”

…In the back of your mind, you make a horrific realization. 

You have tilled fields, so You may eventually sow them with cotton.

—

What does your face look like, right now? If you hazard a guess, it might be bestial. You only know your eyes are wide open and not flooding.

In an unexpected subversion, it is you who pins Aventurine to the ground. You don’t pay much mind to his expression: parted lips, breathless, glimmering interest and fulfilled desire in his eyes; it’s unusual and you would’ve drank it in if not for the tornado in your mind. It’s torn through some cotton, leaving the field barely clutching to life.

“What. Were. You. Thinking?” You do not recognize your own voice. You feel your body shaking and find that you’re breathing heavily. 

He smiles. “You watch me gamble all the time, dearest.” His head tips in faux questioning, “I don’t see how that’s gotten you so worked up—and you’ve been so sweet lately.”

You grind your teeth. He hasn’t answered you. “You played Russian Roulette.”

The body of his opponent is slumped on the table across from you two. Their blood continually drips, crying out in defeat. You couldn’t care less about that, because there’s a thought playing on repeat in your mind. 

That could’ve been his body.

His eyes twinkle as he smirks, “Are you jealous?” He cruelly teases, “Did you want to kill me, or were you hoping to take the bullet yourself?” 

“No.” You’re not being sensible. The cotton in your mind is shredding. You want to balk at the idea, and You want to jump at the opportunity. “Answer my question.”

“Mmm,” he hums, and his nonchalance makes you shake, “well, I suppose I’m in no position to refuse. It was a good gamble with a good thrill, of course! I thought you knew this.”

He’s right. You know just how much pleasure he takes in putting everything on the line. Your question is answered, but for some reason it’s still not satisfied. The few surviving patches of cotton are still in your way.

That depraved feral look in his eyes only grows at your internal battle, and his gloved hand cups your cheek. “What’s wrong?” He goads. “Or have you finally come around to just how irresistible I am?”

For a moment, the cotton has come back, regrowing into a beautiful field. But then the scent of blood wafts to your nose, and all of your senses have increased tenfold. The drip of blood sounds like pouring rain, poking numerous holes; the tile below your palms are lifeless slabs of ice, sticking itself to you so you’d have to rip your skin off to get away; blood and perfume and spilled champagne root themselves into your sinuses, bleeding 

them out; chocolate and salt roil on your tongue, scraping along like a rusty iron blade; and Aventurine, beautiful, cruel, loving Aventurine, has never looked clearer, so enthrallingly vivid and colorful you are tempted to sob at the beauty alone.

Hell hath flourished, and it burns the cotton to dust.

You begin to unravel. 

“I want to hollow out your chest.” You admit maddeningly, and you wonder how much your insanity bleeds out. “And burrow into it, so I can listen to your heartbeat and feel the expanse of your lungs pressing into me with your every breath,” you think your breath has grown more erratic, “I want to breathe in your blood, taste your heart, blood, sustain myself on nothing, on nothing but you!” You’ve leaned closer till your breaths fan over each others’ faces. Small patches of water begin to drop onto Aventurine’s face—his face that is so breathtakingly and satanically beautiful without the cotton obstructing it—your breath hitches and your mouth twitches, as you take in a quivering breath. “If you die…I might just join you, because…there’s really nothing else for me…” and then something ugly sparks in your chest. “If you die…I’m pulling the trigger, not some random sap in a casino.”

The puddle of blood begins flowing toward you. 

It completely burns the cotton, and that is the moment You are no longer safe. But hell is beautiful, you find, and you so gladly drench yourself in its flames. You are still painfully aware of how wrong it all is…but, the storm within you is starting to calm, you don’t cry with your every free moment and you no longer agonize about your parents. You…you think this is peace. To harbor obsession for the man who trapped you in this hell and tortured you and then drowned you in affection and obsession.

You sob, a sound of euphoric despair, and you confess the terrible truth,

“I love you, Aventurine,” you take in a shuddering gasp, “I love you…” you cough, no longer able to hold back as you break down, “I love you, I love you,” you hiccup and sob, “I love you I love you I love you I love you!” You’ve collapsed, curling in on yourself but resting your head atop his heart. “Don’t throw me away…don’t l-leave me…I need you, and it’s your f-fault I’m like this…please, please Aventurine, tell me you love me and won’t ever let me go!” Oh, you feel so ugly and you feel so much lighter and, and—

His breath shudders, and then swiftly takes you in his arms. You flinch out of your daze, but his grip doesn’t cease, like he wants your bodies to meld into each other. His grip is tight, almost biting, but in your mind free of cotton, it feels secure and adoring. He sits up, shifting so you straddle him. Red dusts his cheeks, a similar shade to the crimson pooling beneath you two. His eyes hold a hunger satiated and a new voracity, gleaming with animalistic intent that makes you shiver. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he shudders, grounding himself to hold back, “that was beautiful—you’re beautiful,” he’s panting, “how could I refuse such a heartfelt and adorable confession?” Your heart soars. “You’re so perfect. You’re the other side of my coin…yes,” he groans, “I’d love to bring you down with me, and to tear you apart if I’m back in that dawnless land.”

As the dawn shines on you both as he kisses you, it clicks.

He wanted someone just as desperate as him.

The whisper against your lips is almost reverent, “I knew you were the one,” His eyes are like a meadow, where you dance and sing and never leave, even as your feet howl in pain brushing against poison ivy and oak hidden amidst the grass and flowers. Now you recognize the emotion that drowns in them: an all consuming affection which threatens to erase your existence to everything but him. “Thank you, for destroying yourself for me. It’s truly an honor, sweetheart.” 

Your tears flow, but the corners of your mouth twitch upwards. Insanity has sunk its claws into you, your stress and limits explode in a desperate supernova, and your very being trembles with ecstasy. Aventurine joins you, standing up and spinning you around in his firm hold as you both laugh and laugh in the dawn’s sunlight, with red not trailing too far behind. This is a spectacle you burn and freeze and drown in, witnessed by your spectator in rot.

Then you're devoured, but you’ve grown your own claws and fangs.

Driven by nothing more than instinct, in the throes of your tryst, you bury your head in the crook of his neck,

And bite.

[sky-fire-forever]

Okay, a lot of people are calling Izzy Bury Your Gays or saying the show is saying certain kind of queers don't deserve a happy ending and I absolutely disagree with those takes. Plus, not all queer media has to have a happy ending for every single queer character

That being said, I... hated Izzy's death narratively. The tonal whiplash of having the wedding immediately follow it aside, the death just felt... so disconnected from his actual arc

Him saying "I want to go" after having a whole arc of surviving a suicide attempt and finding a community that loves him and who he loved in return feels.... so fucking weird? The way the crew who did so much for him to keep him alive just kinda... stand around as he dies?

Like, I understand the symbolism. Hecwas a pirate at his core and the Golden Age of Piracy is over. It works symbolically.

But symbolism still has to make sense for the actual character and story. He is a character and a symbol. He can't throw away his character arc just because of symbolism or it's still gonna be unsatisfying

Like it was genuinely just an incredibly unsatisfying end to his arc. For him to have a speech about how piracy is his community, how it's his family, and then... the age of piracy is over. If we're going for symbolism, what does it mean that the symbol of piracy dies immediately after piracy is said to be a symbol of queer community?

It just falls flat to me. It feels like they were so focused on the Themes and Symbolism that they forgot they had actual characters to write.

And the tonal whiplash is... so much. Like Izzy barely gets to be mourned. Ed barely seems upset afterwards. And everyone just kinda moves on and no one really seems all that upset despite Izzy having such an arc about how he matters to the crew

I dunno. It just felt... unsatisfying. That's the best way I can describe it

[ingravinoveritas]

hey, if you watched comic relief, did you think david looked unbearably tired? he sounded near tears at times and idt it was just bcs of the charity videos

Hi there! I'm not in the UK, so I wasn't able to see Comic Relief while it aired, or any clips until now.

I didn't notice the tiredness at first, but it definitely seemed to become more visible later in the show, as did the sounding near tears. This moment (which I got from a fan on Twitter who compiled all of David's bits) in particular really got me, as it's so apparent here...

As to what could've been causing this, I think there are several things that could have been happening, possibly even all at once. Up until I got into Good Omens/David/Michael, I wasn't at all familiar with Comic Relief, but having watched the show for a few years now, there are some really striking things I've noticed about how it's structured and what it involves.

On the one hand, you have lots of famous actors and comedians and musicians putting on a show and telling jokes...and then on the other, you have emotional videos of people in dire situations, both in the UK and abroad. And because Comic Relief is live, it's much harder to build in transitions between these two things, so you end up dramatically shifting from lighthearted to serious and back, and it leaves you with a bit of whiplash as a result.

So if those abrupt tonal shifts are difficult for us an audience, they must be even more challenging for the host(s), including David. I think the live aspect of the show makes it very similar to theater and how David might have reacted in differing moments during Macbeth, because we're seeing emotional reactions in real time, without the benefit of editing. Tonight was also the last occasion of Comic Relief that Lenny Henry was hosting after nearly 40 years at the helm, so I feel like that probably made David emotional as well, given how much he has worked with and admires him.

As for the tiredness, it seems there were at least a few interviews that David did prior to the broadcast, so he was probably running around all day trying to get everything done. Then you add to that the chaos of multiple hosts on stage and everyone trying to find their marks (which seems to have been something David was stressing out about a bit in one of the interviews today), plus the charity videos, and it's no wonder that he looked so drained.

(Another thing I also wonder is if David's demeanor had anything to do with sharing the stage with Davina McCall, who was allegedly outed as a TERF last year. Given the attacks from the anti-trans loons that David and Georgia have endured over the last several months, I can imagine that he might not be comfortable co-hosting with someone who espouses such views. And for the record, there was something about Davina that inexplicably annoyed/seemed off to me long before any of the TERF stuff came to light. It seems like my instincts have been confirmed in that regard...)

So yes, those are pretty much all of the things that came to mind regarding David's demeanor at Comic Relief. He's probably been running himself ragged lately with new projects since Macbeth ended (the Genius Game hosting gig, for one, and an appearance on the SmartTV game show, plus multiple upcoming Comic Con appearances), so hopefully he can find some time to relax and breathe in between all of this, because he more than deserves a break.

I hope this helps to answer your question. Thanks for writing in! x

[ot3]

I mean this in entirely good faith, I promise, but I'd love to hear the "shortcomings" you think those shows have

she ra i mostly just found boring i don't think i could point to a single thing it did (out of what i watched, that is. i didn't finish the show) that i found to be an objectionable writing choice, but it just didn't do anything to keep my interest. which is a shame because i went into it REALLY excited!!! i had long been a fan of nimona so hearing that ND stevenson was getting the chance to make a cartoon i was SO prepared to be all over it. and i watched it and it all just fell pretty flat for me

steven universe and the owl house i feel like are shows with some pretty major structural issues. i really think they try to have their cake and eat it in terms of episodic moments vs overarching series narratives that are kind of at odds with each other.

with steven universe i feel like this manifested in some pretty bizarre tonal whiplash that prevented either of the shows angles from sticking its landing. i think if steven universe had either been an epic space opera about a kid inheriting his mother's war, it would have fucking banged. i think if steven universe had been a more slice-of-life oriented show about a boy coming of age by realizing he's sort of the living manifestation of the war trauma of the people around him and learning to navigate and help people heal from that through fantastical, alien super-powered twists on mundane life that would have banged in a completely different way. but as it stands i think trying to do both at the same time detracted from the overall experience.

it feels weird to have them fucking around at the barn when there is something that is going to literally hatch from the earth's crust like an egg and destroy the entire planet and theyre just ignoring it. it feels weird in a different way to have them visit an alien zoo full of human beings and know that the structure of the show means we will absolutely not be taking the time to fully unpack that one. for me this cognitive dissonance really reached its peak an episode where steven explicitly calls his mother a war criminal, but that was a throwaway line because the A plot was that lars, the guy who works at the donut shop, bakes as a hobby and is embarrassed by that. to be perfectly clear i don't think it's impossible to balance more mundane slice of life moments with big adventures to combat existential threats. but whatever that balance looks like is not what steven universe was doing

the owl house on the other hand i don't feel like was ever really willing to commit to a particular vibe long enough to get invested in it. it's trying to be a show about a girl who is a witch's apprentice, but that doesn't really feel quite fully realized because it's also trying to be a show about a Magic School, but we don't spend enough time at the Magic School to get invested in that setting as a framework for the character interactions and narrative events, but then it also starts trying to be this big adventure/questing show. and then before too long luz is the one teaching magic to everyone else? it refuses to really commit to any one thing it's trying and just kind of throws everything at you with out actually getting to spend time with its concepts

in general i also think luz was a weak protagonist. in terms of writing. i think she wasnt given enough meaningful flaws, didn't make enough mistakes, and didn't really have to learn any hard lessons or make decisions that fundamentally went against who she thought she was. her whole thing is basically being Nerdy and Kinda Weird which i think is kind of an outdated substitute for meaningful character writing in the current zeitgeist. im sure she is an absolutely fantastic power fantasy for a lot of 12 year old girls who consider reading books to be their main personality trait and i absolutely do not fault that for existing. i think that's a critical thing to exist and all those 12 year olds really deserve it. but it has no appeal to me as an adult woman who has grown out of that phase, yknow?

i feel like once again the comparison to akko from little witch academia invites itself very easily, and anne from amphibia too, which was also a disney teen girl isekai airing at the same time. i loved both of those two as protags a ton and i think its because they really fumbled repeatedly and went through the wringer in a way luz didn't

[everysongineverykey]

i feel like we didn't give the mansion basement enough of a look because what the fuck. what the fuck. just purely from a game design standpoint the tonal whiplash of going from the fast-paced brightly colored noisy antics of the mansion to the dingy, dark, abandoned halls all alone- even your friends suddenly disappear from your side- is fucking insane.

it's comparable to the true lab in undertale, except at least the true lab had some closure at the end. the amalgamates were revealed to simply be well-meaning lost souls who didn't really want to hurt you, they were just hungry. alphys took everyone home. sure, there's the freaky flowey phone call, but that's undercut soon enough by the uplifting and jazzy beginning of the asriel fight and seeing all your friends again. in deltarune's basement, you get no resolution. spamton gives you a supremely off-putting fight in a strange setting, he collapses to the floor, and you walk out still feeling like that was just... wrong. even susie acknowledges it. there are no ordinary encounters in the basement. you don't even have enemy npcs to keep you company. the only people who live in the basement are the strange plug monsters and... that weird face in the dark. that place has been completely forsaken by the rest of cyber world. swatch talks around it, clearly not enthusiastic to go too in-depth. when you check the dark spots in the room with the machine, the flavor text reads "there's nothing interesting". nothing interesting? that doesn't mean nothing at all! there might be tons of deleted data and drawings in there, and we have no. idea. what any of it looks like. the empty, dusty chests that no one knows the previous contents of. what did they used to hold? the teacup rides, oddly well-maintained and shiny, clearly out of place among the rest of the decrepit place. it's like they and the plug guards are the only things in the basement anyone takes care to repair and maintain anymore.

coincidentally, they're also the main lines of defense against someone sneaking in to get to the machine. the only ones, in fact. shouldn't an artifact like that have, i dunno, sentient, mobile guards? but they don't. the machine is extremely powerful, and they know spamton wants it, but they don't do all that much to protect it. it's so fucking weird. the basement is so wrong on a fundamental level that's so out of place with typical toby fox fare that it really makes you realize that the next chapters aren't going to be all sunshine and rainbows. it sets the TONE. i feel like that was confirmed by some of what we saw in the spamton sweepstakes- the basement is bad, but the worst is surely yet to come.

[moonshynecybin]

you cantttt just say rosquez feminization and not elaborate…. penny for your thoughts

shout out to @lestelledreams who sent me another ask like this but tumblr ATE my response when i tried to post it. luckily i draft in notes app…okay so it would be easier to list thoughts i DONT have about rosquez feminization… under the cut bc we do in fact get a lil nasty here

so i’ve talked a bit about some of the non-racing oriented things marc does for his body like his hot girl routine (laser hair removal. skin creams. slutty workout videos) like my girl enjoys being SMOOTH he enjoys being conventionally SEXY (personally. bush til i die but whatever live your truth marc) and the first time he’s doing it as. okay i’m famous and photographed all the time AND around my hot older crush/idol who has fucked more people than i’ve ever even met in my lifetime… like a little insecure part of marc is like this is what vale wants… and one thing about my man marc is he will COMMIT. so he waxes himself hairless the entire time they are fucking the first from 2013-2015 (and beyond) and frankly vale would like him either way but MARC gets off on it so hard… making himself pretty for vale… and maybe vale says something like that in the moment, just like mindless dirty talk about how good he looks how he made himself all pretty like a girl, and marc jolts like he’s been electrocuted and whines and comes right then even though vale had like JUST got inside him… and he’s curled around vale panting eyes shining leg hitched around vale’s hip asking him to keep going and it’s SO clear he liked whatever that was a LOT.

so vale uh. catalogs that information. and starts to test some hypotheses #olditalianmeninSTEM by which i mean the next time marc is blowing him he curls his hand into marc’s hair and tugs a little until marc looks him in the eye and vale just sends it like they’re whipping 310km/hr around the track— like breathless mischievous confidence… starts feeding him a stream of dirty talk, calling him gorgeous telling him nasty stuff about his tits riding that lovely edge of complimentary and degrading and getting sooo gender about it, and he watches marc’s eyelashes flutter and his hand on vale’s hip tightens and then marc like. literally chokes himself on valentino’s dick he’s clearly so so into it and vale feels crazyyyyyyy… SORRY..

and then it’s onnnnn baby it is. using the feminine forms of italian endearments in bed. playing with his tits. losing the condom. weird roleplay where they laugh so much. it is delightfully horny and slightly goofy gender transgression that they are both SO obsessed with… like the sex whiplashes through tonal dissonance it is simultaneously the most intense thing they’ve ever felt and like. lethally campy. at one point they are BOTH the baby girls bc they love being hot and are not serious people

that being said it culminates with vale just like. buying disgustingly expensive neon yellow designer lingerie and leaving it in marc’s motorhome with a lil note that has like. a dumbass turtle doodle on it instead of his signature. like something very silly and valentino. and then they have the WORLD’S most insane sex about it where vale says all kind of nasty stuff about marc being his best girl and spits in his mouth and tries to get him pregnant. hashtag catholic weirdo moments. crucially it is never formally discussed until like. genuinely ten years later when vale is like impish nervous smile WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE TALKED ABOUT THAT EH? and marc’s like ? best sex of my life? wdym?

[linkspooky]

Any theories as to why Sukuna suddenly remembers Yorozu’s words looking at Gojo? Is he like suddenly having a “finally a worthy opponent” moment? Or is it actually about love?

While I don't think it is explicitly about romantic love, I think it is Sukuna having a premonition about Gojo fulfilling Yorozu's statement. That Gojo is the only person in the world that could understand the isolation that Sukuna feels as being the absolute peak of the sorcery world.

Which is why we get such tonal whiplash as Gojo supposedly fighting the final battle against Sukuna who is currently in his student's body, and yet despite what should be a high stakes situation Gojo and Sukuna are both palling around like they're buddies.

@ Lightning446 at twitter clarifies the translation of Sukuna remembering Yorozu's line in this tweet.

Yorozu clearly meant this statement in a romantic fashion. While her love is twisted, one-sided and played off mostly as a gag it's important to remember the thing which inspired her love was seeing Sukuna completely isolated while being worshipped by everyone.

Her love for him comes from a desire to provide him compansionship and remind him that he's not alone. Whether or not Sukuna actually feels lonely because of his position in the world, or if this is just a projection on Yorozu's part hasn't been revealed to us yet.

Despite Sukuna's importance in the story we don't get inside of his head a lot, and when we do he mainly talks about battle and fighting. When others refer to Sukuna they only talk about him as a calamity, or a force of nature.

Sukuna also doesn't seem to care much about relationships, his entire identity is formed around being the strongest, and he even says that if he were to lose he'd just be a corpse.

Yorozu herself seems to perceive that the only person that Sukuna would ever listen to or acknowledge is someone just as powerful as he is, which is why she tries to show her heart to him through battle. Sukuna does not care for the weak, and he doesn't live outside of the constant warfare between sorcerers so that's the only language he understands. Yorozu's desire was to win against Sukun to force him to try understanding her or seeing her as an individual, but it didn't work simply because she wasn't strong enough.

Which implies that the only person that Sukuna would ever treat like another human being, rather than food, or a servant like Ura Ume is someone equally as strong as him. Which Gojo has the potential to be. Sukuna even refers to everyone as food.

At the moment all he sees Gojo as is another meal to consume. He doesn't even consider him a fish, he's a nameless fish, because to Sukuna the individuality of other people does not matter. Sukuna is the ultimate ego, and in comparison to him everyone else may as well be faceless. However, I think saying Gojo can be the only one who teaches Sukuna about love comes from the fact that Gojo sort of views people the same way. He's not tyrannical like Sukuna, but he still views himself as someone standing above the crowd.

Gojo Satoru is in his element when he's alone. Gojo who when everyone around him is asked to describe him, all they say is "He's the strongest."

The only person that Gojo ever acknowledge in his entire life as an equal and called a friend was Geto, and that was also because Geto was the only person who could provide a challenge to him in a fight. Not only did he acknowledge Geto as a friend though, he also listened to him. Gojo developed a stronger moral thinking because he talked to Geto and learned to come and see things through his point of view especially the responsibility that Jujutsu Sorcerers have.

Gojo's not an innately good or bad person, he's formed and taught by the relationships he's had in his life, and Geto arguing against him and speaking with him helped him form a stronger moral identity and changed him as a person. As opposed to Sukuna who's never acknowledge anyone other than himself.

Does Sukuna crave companionship though?

That's the big question here, because Sukuna seems perfectly content on his throne, and to him losing to someone or being weaker than someone is the same as death.

In Gojo's case he clearly does crave companionship and admits this part about himself. His desire not to leave anyone alone again probably comes from two sources, number one his guilt he didn't reach Geto in time before his downfall, but also his feelings that Geto left him alone by choosing to side on an opposite side of the conflict and then eventually die. They were the strongest together, and without him Gojo is the strongest alone.

However, Shoko also points out that Gojo and Sukuna's shared belief that the only person in the world who could understand them and provide some kind of companionship for them is someone as equally strong as them is a false one.

Shoko was already there for Gojo all along, it's just Gojo ignored her. Gojo is so hung up on this idea of strength, that being strong makes him some kind of special person, too far above others to ever be understood that he doesn't even notice he's the one choosing to be alone. There are people in Gojo's life trying to support him and he either ignores them, or just doesn't let them be close.

He may trust Ijichi, but he also constantly bullies him and reminds him of how weak he is. Shoko is a constant companion but he acts like she's not his friend. Utahime is also someone he belittles constantly despite needing her help with things. Gojo is the source of his own isolation.

Which speaks to Gojo and Sukuna's shared ego. They're being a little buddy buddy while trying to kill each other, because they both have the same kind of egotistical belief that the only person who could understand them is someone just as strong.

Gojo and Sukuna may also be all ego, but they're both lacking in identity because of this choice to just not see anyone else as their equal. As I said your identity is influenced by the people you meet in your life and interact with on a daily basis. You know the contours of your soul by bumping up against others. So, Gojo who is in complete isolation who is he exactly? We know what he's capable of, we know his talent as a sorcerer, but do we know who he is?

For both of them, in order to be a person and have relationships with other people on equal footing they would have to let go of their title of being the strongest. So maybe that's the lesson. That as long as you're the strongest, you're always going to be alone because you have to be human to have relationships with other people. That the only way that Gojo and Sukuna could learn this lesson though, is to lose.

As a final note, it's possible Gege is trying to parallel the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh is the king of Uruk who rules his city as a tyrant taking the first right to every wife. The citizens plea to a sky god for help, so they create a man out of the earth Enkidu to be a counterbalance to Gilgamesh.

When Enkidu hears that Gilgamesh takes brides on their wedding night, he goes to Uruk to challenge him. They wrestle each other to a standstill, and when Gilgamesh is his equal they becoem friends. Gilgamesh learns humblness through his relationship with Enkidu, and then when he dies he learns his own mortality. At which point he goes on a journey to find eternal life, only to lose both eternal life and eternal youth.

At the end of the story he returns to his city as a proper ruler. Sukuna is also someone who thinks he is a godlike person, and someone who tries to defy death and return to life a thousand years later. However, in his story he never was humbled, and never met an equal like Enkidu so Sukuna remains a tyrant.

While I doubt Sukuna is going to learn the meaning of love and friendship, he does provide an image of what Gojo could have been like if he had never met an equal in Geto. Which is a pretty scary picture all things considered.

[chaifootsteps]

tried watching that vid about s2 and had to give up when they claimed it wasn't that much worse than s1 and that they didn't think it rewrote/retconned Stella

here's the thing. The common response to criticisms of S2 is that S1 Stella was also as bad. the evidence is usually 'she didn't want to get up to Via, she hogs the blankets, she's a rich classist jerk who hates Stolas slept with an imp not that he cheated, she hired a hit on him'

Going point by point, ep2 Stella is a jerk at worst. She's not necessarily a bad mother for not wanting to get up to Via (couples argue about domestic responsibilities all the time) and the blanket thing suggests she's selfish at worst (it's also a bad shorthand to use for her being a bad wife, 'who hogs the blankets' is a thing couples argue about in a lot of shows and it's sometimes treated as a cutesy joke about how well they know one another if they tease each other about it - it's too small stakes, in other words). her other scenes she does ignore Via, but it's not enough to suggest she doesn't care for her daughter at all because Via came into the kitchen when she was angry that Stolas cheated - which she had every right to be.

the 'just because it was an imp' thing is more complex - for one thing she says 'our bed', not 'my bed', so they were still making the effort by not sleeping in separate beds despite it being a literal palace. for another the worldbuilding is so poor we don't know at this stage in s2 if it's just because she views imps as beneath them both or if she's also worried about reputational damage. after all, in situations where the husband cheats the wife also tends to be equally pilloried, and you could easily imagine a scenario where people talk about Stella as 'such a bad wife her husband cheated with an imp'. not to mention that this argument completely falls apart as making Stella worse than Stolas because Stolas also is classist and looks down on imps; that he fetishizes them enough to sleep with them doesn't make him any better than Stella here

in ep5 Stella escalates to ordering a hit, but we don't know how common this is in Hell. Blitzo mentions he used to take hits on targets in Hell itself, and there is a mafia, but again the worldbuilding is so poor we don't know if 'trying to murder your cheating spouse' is a normal thing in this setting or not. the show has already dialled it up to 11 and left itself nowhere to go. What's worse is if this moment is supposed to get it across to the audience that Stella is Evil then they completely messed it up, because ep5 plays the reveal that Stella was the one who ordered the hit as a black comedy joke. You can't joke to the audience that her taking out a hit on him is meant to be funny and then turn around in s2 and have a dead serious domestic violence storyline; it's complete tonal whiplash and in pretty bad taste imo.

Stolas is usually the focal point for the show's lack of planning but Stella is almost as bad imo. She wasn't so much rewritten as she was flattened and shoved into whatever mould necessary for s2

It's completely head-banging, but not surprising, that the Viv fandom considers "steals the blankets from Stolas" as egregious as "orders a hit on Stolas."

It's all so very poorly planned, and in very poor taste.

[homestuckreplay]

what kind of sick freak bakes cakes

(page 82-87)

THINGS ARE HAPPENING! THINGS ARE KICKING INTO HIGH GEAR! I'm so blown away by this update, it's definitely the one that's left me the most excited of any so far, for two main reasons.

First, THE TITLE CARD. This is it. The introduction is over, we're done messing around in the tutorial level, we've seen the title screen come into view and now we're ready for John's big boy birthday gamer adventure. I like how simple the animation is, with the slow zoom out as John gazes at the sky as though it's the first time he's realized how big it is, and the rushing wind and tinkling chimes behind it; it captures the banality of John's neighborhood. I just have one question - is the word Homestuck actually in the sky far above the house?

The streets are empty. Wind skims the voids keeping neighbors apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed, or say, a plundered mailbox. A familiar note is produced. It's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

The narration beneath the panel is so different from the irreverent jokes of most of the comic; it's got a sincerity that I think we have seen glimpses of before but never really leaned into. I'd like to, because I'm interested in John's inner life, and I'm interested in knowing who this narrative entity is who knows John's inner life.

According to the adventure map (/map/6) this is Act 1, titled 'The Note Desolation Plays', which means this is a title card for both the act and the comic. I really want to dig into this being the act title - it really suggests that this is the page to pay attention to, and that John running around his house playing pranks on himself is a distraction from a much larger feeling of boredom and dissatisfaction. This is a great starting point for a character, especially the 'something feels missing from your life', and I'm bookmarking this page for future thoughts.

Second, we've tripled our number of fetch quests and confirmed that the Sburb Beta is here, in John's house. We also now have the red and green packages, and enough attention is drawn to them that I desperately want to see what's inside. John's dad left one birthday present in John's room and one in the living room, so I'd believe he's doing a treasure hunt (or prank setup) by also putting one in the kitchen and one in the car, except 1. there wasn't one in the study, and 2. those presents were white; these packages are colored.

So of course, I took inventory of all the other green and red things in the comic so far.

Green: John's shirt, Sburb logo, check mark, flashing available captchalogue cards in interface, leaves on tree, 'Typheus', ^CAKE, grass, CD rack interface, strife specibus card, GREEN PACKAGE

Red: 'TRY AGAIN, SMARTASS" error text, GameBro logo, calendar doodles, blood capsules, captchalogue card error, RANCOROUS, TG's instant messages, mailbox lever, car harlequin, RED PACKAGE

Obviously a lot of these are typical associations of red as stop/error and green as go/success, but some are interesting. My best guess is that the green package has something to do with Sburb, because green has been linked to both Sburb and John himself since page 1. There's an outside chance that it's to do with the strife specibus - that's a more similar shade of green to the package, and I love the idea that when you allocate a hammer to your strife specibus, you immediately get a hammer delivered to your house.

The red package could be a cease and desist from GameBro Magazine for slander, but I think it's something to do with TG, as he's our most prominent use of red. If I'm right, I bet it's some sort of gag gift, since he doesn't seem the type to send a sensitive and thoughtful birthday gift.

Big things are coming. I can feel it in the air when John takes off his disguise for a moment to gaze into the sky over his house. Even if we get immediate tonal whiplash when he's tempted to leave a surprise for the mailman - it can't hide the real sense of anticipation to these pages.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Doctor Who, but Chronologically: 46

Well. Tonal whiplash.

We advance three years, to 1986, and therefore we go from an almost aggressively mid Gatiss story on a Russian submarine to World Enough and Time, the Capaldi season finale that opens with the Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS mid-regeneration (which we've seen! It was a WW1 story with Mark Gatiss as an actor! He's a much better actor than writer), then cuts back in time to show us lovely companion Bill being horrifically cyber-converted on a Mondasian colony ship. I wish we were still on that submarine.

LOADS of plot though WOW. We get so many answers! Can't wait to update the list. The story proper starts with Bill, the ever-confusing Nardole ("I should go back to being blue" he muses at one point, because what the fuck is he), and of all people, Missy. They step out onto a 400 mile long colony ship stuck by a black hole which therefore has fun timey-wimey stuff going on whereby the top of the ship is moving much more slowly in time than the bottom. This is, to be clear, an absolutely fantastic concept to base a sci-fi horror story around, but only if you have a writer capable of spotting plot holes big enough to drive a bus through, which alas we do not have, so the whole thing is permeated with a constant urge to scream "JUST GET BACK IN THE ELEVATOR YOU FUCKING IDIOTS" at the screen.

So. They arrive, and Missy is pretending to be the Doctor while he listens in from the TARDIS. She describes Bill and Nardole as "Exposition and Comic Relief."

"Those aren't our names," Bill says.

"They aren't names, they're genders," Missy replies.

We are then treated to a flashback in which the Doctor says Time Lords don't care about genders and their associated stereotypes. This juxtaposition seems to be entirely unintentional.

BUT! So many answers. The Doctor explains that Missy is his oldest friend and a fellow Time Lord (our first Other Time Lord! Interesting, since we've been told repeatedly that the Doctor is the only one left.) They were friends together in the Academy, they've both changed gender since, and she's very like him so he wants her to be good.

"She's a murderer" says Bill, and the Doctor straight up compares sapient people to animals in an analogy I suspect Moffat thought was Really Clever, but I suppose it's a very Colin Baker response. In any case, this is presumably why Missy was living in a vault in the TARDIS, and could fly a TARDIS, and it confirms now that she is not, in fact, another regeneration of River. Origins for both! Huzzah. Let's see what's happening back on the ship.

A blue man immediately shoots Bill for being human.

Ah.

He does this because as soon as they arrive, the lifts start moving and rising to their current floor, and whatever is inside is specifically attracted to humans. The Doctor could in fact have prevented him shooting, but rather than actually stressing to the blue man that he will just put Bill back in the TARDIS to hide her, he instead chooses to go on an extensive self-aggrandising monologue about how great he is and is still mid-sentence when the lifts arrive so blue guy just fucking blasts a dinner plate sized hole right through her chest. Some patients in bandages step out, and take Bill's cooling corpse for 'repair'. They go down in the lift.

So at this point two things happen, to whit:

Bill wakes up in a hospital with a sort of coffee maker strapped to her chest, and spends the episode variously befriending a weird fake Russian (why so many fake Russians atm?) with a nakedly rubber face. His name is Mr Razor, and he does provide excellent comic relief. It turns out that the bottom of the ship has been here for generations and so is decaying - the air is engine fumes, the walls are rust, so some medical personnel are trying to upgrade everyone so they can move up in the lift and escape to a higher floor.

The Doctor realises the time difference as the lift with Bill is still going down. Rather than immediately following, he spends ten minutes explaining how black holes warp time to the blue guy who is not even going to be coming with him, and whom they ultimately abandon. This means Bill is down there for years.

Still, good to know the limitations of the TARDIS, eh? I mean, everything would have been solved if they'd simply been able to, I don't know, materialise outside the ship at a safe distance and then tow it away from the black hole. Clearly black holes must defeat the TARDIS. Got it. I shall remember this for future stories.

Anyway, here are several issues:

Of the 50 odd staff who were running this empty colony ship, many went down to the bottom floor when they first got stuck by the black hole. At this point, they did not bother going back up in the lift. Instead, for reasons that are entirely unexplained, they decided to stay down there and form a society, so the ship is now filled with their descendants. We literally know the lifts work; the people came for Bill immediately. There is no reason for the original staff to have done this.

The only difference it should make is that the blue guy would appear to the crew to have not moved in the ten minutes they were down there. They absolutely could still get back, though.

Like I have had days when I have felt 1000% done with my job but I have never decided to just build a house where I'm standing and start a colony so I don't have to go back to the office.

Perhaps, Tumblrs, you are wondering, like me, why the people on the bottom floor now can't just. You know. Get in the lift. Once again, in order to get Bill, several patients immediately got in the lift and came up for her, and then returned with her. So they do literally know it's possible. Bill asks this of Mr Razor. "We sent up an expedition to the higher floors once," he says. "But we never heard back from them."

Yes, that is blatantly the time difference, isn't it.

If there are still humans on those middle floors, why haven't they been retrieved by the patients? They came immediately for Bill, and she was on the top floor.

...and on, and on...

ANYWAY then Mr Razor BETRAYS Bill and has her cyber-converted. There is, fair play, an excellent reveal that these are Mondasian cybermen, which admittedly I did guess but still, credit where it's due. The conversion is shown to be more horrific than you can imagine, too. Semi-converted patients at one point are on a ward, repeatedly pressing speech buttons that say "Pain" and "Kill me", and the nurse who comes in just turns off the volume so they can't be heard. It is, imho, way too fucking dark for this show, actually, but that largely sums up Capaldi's era.

And that's the cliffhanger! The Doctor and Nardole staring in horror at crying Cyber-Bill (apparently she's still flesh inside the suit, though, that sure does imply it's reversible). BUT!

Also Mr Razor finds Missy and he peels off his rubber face.

"I had to wear this mask because I used to be Prime Minister on a different planet," he declares, which is baffling to us as we have not seen this, and also that doesn't make sense. "I'm a past incarnation of you and also the Master."

SO THAT'S THE MASTER! A character we have only heard named in passing. SO MANY answers in this episode.

I also still don't understand Nardole.

“She” (an unknown person) is returning (NEW INFO: perhaps River returned as Missy. River and Missy are separate! Could be either of them I suppose. Maybe Me? Maybe Clara???!)

There is something on Donna’s back

An entire planet, Pyrovilia, just… disappeared, somehow. (Maybe because the TARDIS is exploding??? Saturnine was also lost, and that WAS because of the TARDIS exploding. The lion man’s planet was also lost but he was a bit of a knob about it if I’m honest. The Thijarian planet was destroyed by some sort of impact). Is this the Flux?

Amy is maybe dead (she’s not)

The Doctor has been cubed (he’s out, but how?)

River is possibly blown up  (NEW INFO: unless she’s Missy. She's not Missy. Nope: she is definitely not blown up)

The TARDIS has blown up  (It’s fine now. Except it’s sort of melting now because it’s corrupted, but it’s fine again. NOPE, back to not working.)

The universe appears to have ended  (the universe is back again)

The Doctor has employed(?) Nardole

(And Nardole was “reassembled???” Nardole had glass nipples and invisible hair?? NEW INFO: he used to be blue, and could apparently go back to it??? WHAT THE FUCK IS HE)

NEW INFO: There’s a vault in the TARDIS and it contains Missy but we don’t know why (sometimes she knocks for the bants) She's a murderer and a fellow Time Lord and he's trying to rehabilitate her.

There’s an immortal Viking girl now. Her name is Me and she’s now looking after the people the Doctor abandons

Why was Rory entirely unconcerned by the entire world suddenly going silent when that is Not Normal and should have been, at the very least, extremely disconcerting?

What did the Doctor do to Queen Lizzie One?

Why is Amy seeing a one-eyed woman in a vanishing window? (She’s with the Silents, but we don’t know why Amy saw her)

Why is Amy’s pregnancy inconclusive? (Maybe because the baby had Time Lord DNA?) She’s deffo pregnant and the baby becomes River, but why inconclusive?

Who is Sarah-Jane Smith?

How is the Doctor Bill’s teacher and why/where does he have an office?

What is going on with the Cyber War and the Cyberium???

What happened with the Other Cyber War?

What happened with the Third War that deleted the void?

Why does Rose seem particularly important?

What order do these Doctors go in? (Eccleston, Tennant, uncertain, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker)

Which companion just… forgot the Doctor, and how?

Yaz and Vinder are about to die as Mori/Mwri/Muuri (Not anymore, somehow)

There is a Lupari shield around Earth.

What’s a Time War?

What’s the Rift?

What’s Bad Wolf?

In which war did the Doctor become a war criminal, and how?

Who is the Master? NEW INFO: This is now resolved! The Doctor's oldest friend, a fellow Time Lord, but also a murderer.

Why has Amy forgotten Rory? How did she forget a Dalek invasion?

Is Rory plastic or not? Yeah, must be, he couldn’t possibly remember being plastic otherwise

Why is the Doctor sulking on a cloud?

How exactly does the Doctor have a cloud?

What exactly happened with Strax to, uh, tame him?

Which friend killed Strax?

Which friend brought Strax back?

Where did this lesbian lizard and human couple come from?

What happened with Clara as Souffle Girl and the Daleks?

How does Clara actually join?

Why so many Claras? A psychic midwife says she’s just normal human

Why is Missy apparently in robo-heaven?

Why is probably!Missy pushing Clara and the Doctor together?

What is Trensilor and what happened there?

Who is Handles?

The Doctor is about to be dissolved by a beautiful geode man

The universe is being crushed by the Flux

Will the Doctor open the fobwatch?

Sontarans are invading Earth again

Who is Kate?

Who is Osgood? Another name of Clara’s again?

The fuck is the deal with the Grand Serpent

Does Martha get to go to an ice cream planet with 12-fingered massage aliens?

How did the Doctor forget Clara?

Who is Bill’s puddle girlfriend Heather?

How did Nardole die?

When does Bill get Cyberman-ed and die? NEW INFO: Resolved! On a colony ship stuck by a black hole

When does the Doctor shrink and enter a Dalek called Rusty?

Whittaker is falling to her death rn

Was that ring relevant?

Does anyone know the Doctor’s name?

When did Yaz talk to Dan about fancying the Doctor?

When did Dan talk to the Doctor about fancying Yaz?

What’s happening with the bees?

What happened with Donna’s ex and a giant spider?

What war wiped out the Daleks, and is it one of the ones already mentioned?

What did the Doctor mean when he said “The (Daleks) always live, while I lose everything?”

If Dalek Caan is the last Dalek left why are there more now?

How did the rest of the Time Lords die?

How and why did Amy melt?

What’s the question that will make silence fall?

Why do the Silents… want silence to fall?

How and why are Silents at war with the Doctor when he… hasn’t even heard of them?

How does Hitler get out of the cupboard?

What’s the significance of fish fingers and custard?

Why does the Doctor feel guilt about Rose, Martha and Donna?

What happened with the space whale?

When does Rory defend Amy for 2000 years? Since Roman times, it seems

How does the Doctor survive River? He doesn’t, apparently

How does he erase himself from history

Did Captain Jack lose his memories to the same people as the Doctor? What did he lose?

When did the Doctor send the Daleks into a void to save the universe?

What’s with the weird crack in the wall and is it affecting memories?

Why do Amy and Rory think the Doctor is dead? Is it because of River as an astronaut?

Is Matt Smith’s Doctor a tree racist?

Why is the beautiful geode woman stealing people into a Passenger form?

River says she’ll die one day when the Doctor doesn’t remember her, let’s hope she doesn’t mean it

Why doesn’t the TARDIS like Clara?

When was the Master Prime Minister?

[doodle17]

Okay I gotta ask what's your opinions/thoughts on Helluva boss and Hazbin Hotel?

Short and frankly nicest answer I can think of: I'm glad it makes at least someone out there happy

Long and frankly honest answer: I don't like them. And no, it's not because I'm Christian or anything like that. I actually enjoyed the pilots for both, and the ideas themselves are very interesting! But, I mean... Just look up Vivziepop/HH/HB critical on here and see for yourself... it'll save me a lot of ranting...

Viv herself isn't the best person, which really sucks cause she was a big inspiration for me when I was younger and saw her old animations, and zoophobia comic. Its really one of the things made me want to become an artist, so seeing how she acts these days is really heartbreaking.

The pilots were both very good imo. I loved the characters in the Helluva Boss pilot, especially Moxxie and Stolas. It's sucks what they've been turned into. I loved Moxxie as this tired employee who disliked his boss and was constantly on the verge of having a panic attack and was just- so grumpy yet enjoyable to watch! Now, he's a whiney, pathetic wet-cat who wants validation from his boss and everyone around him, is afraid to get angry and now is absolutely hard to watch without cringing. I'm not a fan that he's a character associated with one of the GODS OF VOICE ACTING Richard Horvitz, Because he has voiced waaaay better characters...

And Stolas! What in the hell happened there? I would've been all in for him being an obstacle/minor antagonist in the series (like he was supposedly revealed to be in the pilot) but we once again got another pathetic depressed guy who just wants love.

I thought the show was supposed to be a spinoff from HH that followed a bunch of demons who assassinated humans for money? That premise would be absolutely hilarious if it was done right, and with the RIGHT AMOUNT OF ADULT HUMOR,that wouldn't make me physically flinch, I would've watched that show ASAP! If it the episodes were just about the hijinks they get up too, and it wasn't treated as it's own series once again, I would've enjoyed it.

But no. It's crude and not in a fun way, the jokes to emotional scenes, back to jokes, will give you such tonal whiplash it'll make your neck hurt, and it's constanly being watered down by its relationships.

And I'll just come out and say it: the animation and character designs are not as good as I think everyone makes em out to be. The animation is nothing to shake a stick at, but it isn't horrible. But the designs are just... Ouch

[respectthepetty]

What are some of your favorite novelas, Petty? I grew up loving them too and personally I will ALWAYSSS show up for anything Fernando Colunga is in!

Anon, I'm not giving you some of my favorites. No. I'm giving you my favorite - If you know this bitch (affectionate and derogatory), you KNOW where this is going!

For all the BL people, this is why @italianpersonwithashippersheart, @lukaherehelp, and I are having no qualms about Twins or Playboyy.

Telenovelas, soap operas, y lakorns have trained us well for these shenanigans and hijinks.

Why y'all can't remember twenty-two people's names is beyond me, but I had them down the first episode.

Why y'all don't like the tonal whiplash is odd to me because for me, ten minutes on one couple is TOO MUCH TIME. Six minutes, TOP, and move on to the next one.

Someone getting stabbed in one scene then the next scene being someone celebrating at a birthday party is the way I like my shows, and don't let that person be getting stabbed AT that birthday party because that is my bread and butter.

Oh, and TWINS!

My favorite show includes all of these fine points, and it's the 1998 Mexican telenovela called

La usurpadora

Somewhere in fictional hell, Soraya Montenegro from María la del Barrio is pissed as fuck.

The plot: Paola is a rich bitch and wants to leave her husband for her evil lover but can't figure out how.

¡Sorpresa, cabrona! She meets a worker who looks just like her while on vacation or some shit.

Paulina is the other woman and she is too poor to contour. Therefore, rich bitch Paola convinces kind and caring Paulina to be her stand-in. Paola tells Paulina she will live the best life and be rich, while Paola can be free. It's a win-win.

¡MENTIRAS!

Paulina refuses! So Paola blackmails her into doing it, and with her mother dead, her fiance gone, and no job (since she was fired as part of Paola's blackmailing scheme), Paulina is forced to take the offer. This is like episode 2 out of 102.

In the next 100 episodes, we get forty-five other characters who are all important to the plot, amnesia, cheating, murder attempts, Paola pretending to be paralyzed, Paulina GOES TO PRISON, someone discovers they are actually twins (no duh!), and a crap ton of more drama.

Oh, and the car crash!

But God got Paulina, so she good. Even in the sequel when she had cancer, pero no, she was just pregnant.

The show is based on a 1971 Venezuelan telenovela that was adapted from the book La Intrusa, and has since had several remakes. One was in 2019, which made Paulina Colombian (or was she always Colombian?), and A MUSICAL THIS YEAR!

It holds a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes because the people know this was a 🎁🎁🎁 from God, and it is not up for debate because it featured men dancing around singing Celia Cruz's "La vida es un carnaval" y Selena's "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." This movie is the moment.

The lead is Cuban actress Isabella Castillo Díaz who played in America and México's co-produced telenovela ¿Quién es quién?, which is basically the boy version of La usurpadora because of the twins plot. Do you see the theme?

But back to the musical, which also features Drag Race superstar, Valentina. If you know this bitch (affectionate and derogatory), you KNOW!

The 1998 version and musical both embrace the camp of it all. The music in the original 1998 version was peak telenovela, and even if you don't speak Spanish, readers, just watch the first minute of this video. I promise you it will be worth it, and it will give you three perfect examples of the *vibes* I'm always rambling about.

So, yeah, Anon, I hope this explains a lot of about my taste in BLs. I'm here for a show, not the show. Soraya understands.

[zahri-melitor]

I’ve got to say, I hate the ‘it was funny’ excuse that gets thrown around for a lot of Damian’s early writing. Because one of the big problems with Damian’s introductory stories was the absolute tonal whiplash they were from what preceded them.

Like, yes, ‘the 10 year old has a sword and is violent and foul mouthed! And gets away with (literal and figurative) murder! Isn’t that amusing!’ is a genre for stories. However, it’s a genre aimed at ADULTS not teen readers premised on the incongruity of a small child doing unchildlike things. And actually I do think trading in the teen character who was noted for having relatable school based arcs and friends for a book about a hyperviolent 10 year old had…issues. I was here reading Robin. If I wanted to read Kick-Ass I would have been reading Kick-Ass.

Especially when I’m picking up a book with the word ‘Robin’ on the cover. I mean I can point to sections of Tim’s Robin run that I would rather not hand to a 12 year old (the back half of Willingham particularly, but that’s because it’s just boring propaganda), but for basically all points up until Batman & Robin 2009, books with ‘Robin’ on the cover were a safe pick to grab for the preteen in your life and often came with a bit of an accompanying moral. Since then? It’s been all over the shop.

Things did pick up once Tomasi got control and there were far more moments where I was fondly exasperated with Damian rather than just exasperated, but early Damian, particularly written by Morrison, is a TRIAL.

Just. Maybe I’m square, but I don’t find Damian’s early violence against criminals and Tim to be funny or charming. I mostly find it to be something that I sigh at.