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fellcharas · 3 years

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my deltarune theory(ies?)

DISCLAIMER: i am not an actual theorist and i wrote this all from memory! this is taking into consideration the possibility that chara is involved in the making of deltarune (1, 2) as well as other widely believed theories (gaster being involved)

putting a read more because this shit is LONG so buckle up

start with the basics?

something i was thinking about last night is how it’s interesting that we don’t know very much about susie’s home life or her reason for being “the bully.” while there are certainly hints that point to it not being great at all, there’s nothing directly confirming what it’s like.

however something that many people have pointed out is that through the numerous odd similarities deltarune and undertale have, there is the clam girl. for those who don’t know, clam girl is a NPC that you encounter if your game’s fun value is between 80 and 89 and you’re not playing a no mercy route. she talks of her neighbor’s daughter, suzy, and tells frisk that they should become friends with her. but she notes the fact that frisk would have no idea where suzy is yet fate will find a way for them to meet.

in the true pacifist epilogue of undertale with a fun value of 81, clam girl explains that the time frisk (or we, the players) will meet suzy is “fast approaching.” this specific term is yellow in text and her sprite becomes grayscale. then she abruptly vanishes, the noise as she does so being the same noise used for the mystery man and gaster follower 2 sprites when interacting with them. interestingly, her grayscale sprite is “spr_clam_goner”, not much different than goner kid. this dialogue was also added right before the release of deltarune.

so... who is suzy? while it is possible that suzy could just be susie with a different name for undertale’s sake, it’s also possible that suzy could be susie’s sister, likely younger. catty, returning from undertale, has a little sister in deltarune named catti. there isn’t much significance that i could add that would make it likely suzy is susie’s little sister other than this, but i felt it was worth mentioning so do with it what you will.

so... what else?

after interacting with clam girl, if you do the work necessary to access sans’ basement (or “lab”), you’ll be able to find a description of a photo inside one of the drawers that points out there are “three smiling people” with the text “don’t forget” written on it. this has been pointed out several times before due to the fact “don’t forget” is the deltarune song that plays at the end of ch1 (and ch2 although remixed?). if i recall correctly there is no other way of finding this flavor text except for interacting with clam girl. interesting.

lots of people believe that the covered machine in sans’ lab is a time machine. with sans’ many connections to gaster, it’s also possible that this could be a machine gaster made and had broken. it is said to be unfixable.

gaster is confirmed to have created the core. but i don’t believe this is what he fell into. it’s never specified what he fell into, just that it was his creation. so i believe that gaster fell into the time machine. and by taking entry number 17 into account, we are met with the possibility that the time machine might involve a black hole. fortunately for you guys black holes is a special interest of mine, so i can explain this easily.

basically, the anatomy of a black hole, or the structure, consists of the following:

event horizon

singularity

photon sphere

ergosphere

the event horizon of a black hole is the shadowy dark sphere that we see in images. it is a boundary in spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. once having crossed the event horizon, the nature of spacetime begins to deform, causing space’s usual three dimensions (length, width, height) to form only one dimension (movement forward) and time’s usual one dimension (into the future) to form three dimensions (past, present, and future). spacetime is what makes up our reality. remember this. and, as predicted by einstein’s theory of general relativity, mass bends spacetime (imagine our universe as a flat plane, and the mass of our earth causes a dip in the space underneath it), so a black hole’s mass warps spacetime so strongly that any direction you try to go in once having crossed the event horizon will lead you to the singularity. (at least... for a non-rotating, non-charged black hole.)

the singularity is a gravitational singularity, a region that may lie at the center of a black hole wherein the curvature/deformation of spacetime becomes infinite. because all black holes spin (due to their last moments as stars involving very fast rotational speeds), the singularity in a rotating black hole’s mathematics smears out to form a ring singularity (ringularity) that lies in the plane of rotation. in this case (as well as the case of a non-rotating black hole), the region has zero volume. and because of all of the black hole’s mass being held in this region, the singularity can be thought of as having infinite density. within a rotating black hole it is possible to avoid the singularity, and extending this solution as far as possible reveals the hypothetical possibility of exiting the black hole into a different spacetime (region of reality) with the black hole acting as a wormhole.

the photon sphere is a spherical boundary of zero thickness in which photons (elementary, electromagnetic radiation particles, associated with light) that move on tangents (the tangent line to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point) to that sphere would be trapped in a circular orbit about the black hole. while light can still escape from the photon sphere, any light that crosses the photon sphere on an inbound trajectory will be captured by the black hole.

lastly, the ergosphere is a region of spacetime found in rotating black holes in which it is impossible to stand still. basically, it’s like a whirlpool, and any object near the black hole will tend to start moving in the direction of rotation.

okay, so... what does this have to do with entry number 17?

WELL, here’s the dialogue from entry number 17. i’ll bold the key parts that i feel tie the possibility of this being a time machine to the time machine involving a black hole:

ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN DARK DARKER YET DARKER THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS VERY VERY INTERESTING ... WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK

as you can probably tell by now, it’s possible that this description of growing darkness, no photons, is similar to that of what a black hole is like.

but why would gaster create a black hole as part of a time machine? well, my idea is that he didn’t mean to do so. he likely concentrated enough energy or mass that caused a black hole to accidentally form. this black hole would have been small in diameter, thus having an incredibly short lifespan, its evaporation being violent. this would have broken the machine entirely. however, for the sake of undertale being a video game, it’s understandable why sans (and possibly papyrus or alphys) would be okay and why the machine is still relatively in tact.

it’s unclear to me why gaster would want to make a time machine. because time travel in the sci-fi sense (involving the grandfather paradox) is likely impossible without breaking the fabric of our reality, this could also be explained for why it went so horribly wrong for gaster. and - fun fact - once you cross the event horizon, you are lost to the universe forever. every particle you are made of, every little bit of energy you hold within your existence, is lost to the outside universe. forever. this is called the black hole information paradox. however, realistically, those who are outside of the black hole will still remember you, but in gaster’s sense... i don’t think this is what happened.

it’s possible that gaster managed to avoid the singularity, if the black hole he crossed was rotational. however, because he couldn’t leave the black hole, he could have traveled to different points in spacetime. this is why he was shattered across time and space as his followers describe, because undertale confirms that within its world, this possible existence of a black hole allows for wormholes to exist.

but... but wait. no, no, no. we can’t think of undertale as space-time. why? because sans himself confirms that the continuum of undertale’s reality is a time-space continuum. he puts time before space, which could be intentional and thus swapping their roles. within undertale this means that time is 3-dimensional, explaining the existence of save points and the ability to reset and load. space, on the other hand, is 1-dimensional, meaning you can only ever go one way which is to the end of the game. even if you load previous save files, you’ll still end up finished.

so if gaster was shattered across time and space, it’s possible that he was also shattered beyond. it’s believed that he had some sense of awareness, that he found out he was in a game with multiple different timelines, thus starting his “experiment.” he created the blueprints for the determination extraction machine, and because it’s also widely believed that he and chara were in cahoots with each other, maybe gaster wanted to extract some of chara’s determination and make something for himself. and maybe he succeeded in some way, not by extracting chara’s but by making his own somehow. it’s unknown right now to me. (though if he acquired determination somehow, that would make sense if the mysteryman sprite was him, considering the weird markings or drippy things on his face as well as the general blob-like look.)

so this implies that deltarune’s reality is a time-space continuum as well?

yes. gaster was smart, brilliant even, but it’s likely he didn’t know much beyond the nature of his own reality. when creating deltarune he made the reality of its universe something similar to undertale’s, with 3-dimensional time and 1-dimensional space. if gaster had the determination or something more, enough to persist even as a remnant of a shattered being outside his own reality, then this makes sense as to how he’d be able to create deltarune. if he’s forgotten to everyone within the world of undertale, and (in some abstract way for the sake of kris, jevil, spamton and possibly others) known to nobody in deltarune, yet he created deltarune, he isn’t dead. he’s something else. he’s a god.

and this is why chara is in cahoots with him, even now.

see, chara has determination. they didn’t fall into the underground intentionally; they tripped (1, 2). given these facts and theories it’s likely that chara had determination, or hope, the ability to persevere and keep going no matter what. chara had a red soul like frisk’s, which is what made their essence attach to frisk’s body. that’s why they are tethered to us via name and stats and narration. and as we all know, the red soul symbolizes determination. power.

but while chara is very much their own person, they are still what their name was meant to imply: a character. chara reflects the will of the player; they are not the player theirself, they are their own person, but due to their attachment to frisk (and by extension, us) they act as a mirror for what we do in undertale. and sadly for them, gaster is much more powerful due to his circumstances. gaster is more like us than chara is.

and given deltarune’s theme of nobody’s choices mattering, nobody having any real control over what they do or say, if we take into consideration the fact that chara speaks in the no mercy route about destroying "this" world and "moving onto the next" and asking "when were [we] the one in control", then it’s clear that they have something to do with the theme of deltarune. chara has only ever wanted control, whether that be a good or bad thing is currently out if the question. they wanted control over their own life when they were alive in undertale, and now they want control over other people. anything they feel is a good thing for them to have control over, they will reach for it.

the gonermaker sequence in chapter 1 is abruptly cut off by someone who speaks VERY similarly to chara, in contrast to the person from before who we all agree is gaster (in both japanese and english, it is very chara-esque way of speaking). now, why is this called the gonermaker? my guess is because chara has been discarding all these vessels, making gaster’s experiment much more difficult to start off and get going.

all the gaster followers from undertale, including goner clam girl and goner kid, show up in deltarune. they are fully colored sprites. the only goner character who doesn’t show up in deltarune is the one WE create in chapter 1′s beginning sequence. and i think that’s because they are set up to reappear, at some point in one of deltarune’s future chapters.

so, chara has been discarding all of the vessels, all the followers, all the now-goners because they know that these people will never have control over their lives. as long as they are shallow vessels meant to worship and serve our (the players’) and gaster’s desires (to play a game and experiment, thereby affecting an entire world/universe), they have no autonomy over themselves. and this resonates with chara for a multitude of reasons we can tie back to undertale. they state that "no one can choose who they are in this world," because it’s true. no one can choose who they are. not in a world dominated by gods like us and gaster. and that’s why chara discards these vessels and characters who were probably once their own real persons, as a means of sparing them from what they lacked for theirself: control. and no matter what, even if chara didn’t interrupt, we would have still ended up as kris because again No One Can Choose Who They Are In This World. chara was making gaster’s sick joke plain and simple for us, that it applies to us in some way too.

so then... what’s the deal with spamton and jevil?

well, i think they are people who encountered gaster (this is widely believed anyway) and convinced themselves that they were significant for this knowledge that they are in a game, knowledge gaster told them of, driving them both insane and robbing them of who they were meant to be. and because nobody can choose who they are in deltarune, when they try to break free nothing changes or has a happy outcome, because it’s sadly just not possible to change your fate in deltarune.

this presumably-fact becomes clearer with spamton, though. and that’s why kris becomes so afraid, both at the end of spamton neo’s pacifist battle and his snowgrave battle. because kris can’t choose who they are, either. kris is like spamton, a puppet. a heart on a chain. they don’t have full control over who they are and trying to break free only hurts them more, as we see whenever they tear their soul out of their body and disable our input. but, maybe it’ll be different for kris, because they ARE the protagonist. but right now it feels like they’ve given up on the idea of having control over theirself. the only rebelling they do is work to open a dark fountain, thereby continuing the story of deltarune and, really, only helping us more in terms of playing the game.

and i mean, it’s also obvious that gaster holds influence over kris, too, considering the weird hidden encounters where you interact with something and see a man smiling or waving at you or giving you an egg. and this egg doesn’t change into a ball of trash like every other dark world item once you return to the light world. it stays the same. i can’t really remember the significance of eggs when it comes to gaster other than his whole existence being left as an Easter Egg but i do know that on the date with papyrus in undertale, there’s an egg on the side with the dating hub so, whether that’s there for funny points or lore is unknown, but interesting too.

i also want to say that i don’t think gaster and chara are being pitted against each other in terms of "these are 2 different types of gamers." while that would make sense simplistically, i feel like toby would be much more in depth and nuanced with it, as he usually is with his method of storytelling. because even though chara is kind of god-like, considering their death in undertale and their soul being the same as ours, leading to them being attached to us like some kind of angel (and angels have lots of significance in both undertale and deltarune), they’re still only a character and not at all on the level that gaster is.

i personally think gaster and chara are, on a more hidden level because toby isn’t being very direct at all with these two, meant to represent a different side of the "player vs character" perspective. and that’s something that undertale and deltarune have both tried to convey to us in the no mercy and snowgrave routes, but unfortunately in undertale’s case it was widely misinterpreted in both ways. i think it’s a bit more sensible to go about it this way, because gaster is not us, as in we don’t control him like we can other characters, and the symbolism of what he’s meant to represent is there.

ok, one last question: how did chara access wherever gaster’s in?

that part is still very foggy. i can’t come up with a definite reasoning, but for now i’ll take a wild guess and say that maybe chara grew tired of being a ghost with no real autonomy. maybe they decided they wanted to break free for theirself, and by doing this their essence became detached from frisk’s body (and by extension our control), thus causing them to be shattered similarly to gaster or winding up in the void gaster has. however that happened.

there’s a lot of uncanny resemblance between chara and kris, though, especially if this is the case. chara breaks free and winds up in the void with gaster, and kris realizes that breaking free for theirself may not be all that they think it’s meant to be. given spamton neo and all. aside from the fact that chara and kris look similar, have the same family (though in different universes of course), and strangely both have a sweet tooth, this is especially odd to me.

i can’t quite put it into words, but it feels like, to me at least, chara is very much present in the world of deltarune. and they share similarities with kris that are hard to ignore.

so that’s it, then.

for the most part... yes. a lot of the theories i’ve linked here and there explain things i agree with, so you can read them as you see fit. i especially recommend nochocolate’s posts on chara if you’re interested, such as the ambiguity of freedom in undertale (and, though this was never mentioned in their post, by extension now deltarune).

but. there is one character that seems to be involved in some (or a lot) of this. and that’s papyrus. the only problem is, i can’t figure out what’s going on.

at first glance papyrus is just a very charming guy. but you know, he’s actually a lot more mysterious than sans. he shares similarities to chara and flowey/asriel, and holds weird possible connections to gaster. he’s also the only major character from undertale (aside from asriel) who hasn’t made a physical appearance in deltarune. while checking sans and papyrus’ house will have you met with narration describing “a distant trousle of bones”, it’s worth noting that in chapter 2 it’s described as getting farther and farther away. so... why? is this world’s papyrus just shy, or is there a deeper reason?

again, i can’t tell what’s going on with papyrus, if there even is anything at all. but there’s a lot of weird and mysterious little oddities involving him that i don’t think are unintentional or accidental.

anyways... there. hoo boy. that’s my theory. or theories. i don’t really know. like i said, i’m not a theorist, i don’t know everything and i don’t expect any of this to be true. it’s just what makes sense to me. and it’s important that if you believe this, you also recognize that toby is the creator and he does what he thinks is best when it comes to the story of deltarune and the possible connections it has to undertale (even though toby’s said that the two have no connections, it’s not uncommon for him to be untruthful about things).

if you read all of this... thanks! let me know your thoughts!

#inkling.txt #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune analysis #deltarune meta #deltarune theory #undertale #undertale theory #wd gaster #chara dreemurr #w.d. gaster #chara undertale #ok to reblog

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dameronology · 3 years

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one hell of a mandalorian {din djarin}

summary: actions speak louder than words - which is good for din djarin, because he's not very good at words. (this was a commission for an anon! i hope you enjoy).

warnings: language

enjoy!! if you're interested in commissions, you can find out more here :)

- jazz xx

Din Djarin was a man of few words.

That had become clear not long after you'd met.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking, or that he was rude - he'd just never had the need for it. The Mandalorian could spend days and days in hyperspace, on his own with nothing but a frozen bounty to keep him company. And they were hardly chatty, even before they were thrown away into the trawling depths of carbonite animation. There were a few select geniuses who tried to make conversation with him in a last-ditch attempt to appeal to his humanity and beg for mercy, but so far, they'd had a zero-for-zero success rate. It wasn't that he didn't have any humanity to appeal to it - because he did, and his weird, green surrogate kid was an absolute testament to that - but it just took a little bit for it to come out.

The beskar made him seem a little...robotic. Like a droid, which was ironic, because he wouldn't have gone near the things with a ten-foot-barge pole. Din had just become so used to people seeing his mask and his intimidating posture before him that having human traits, like feelings and thoughts and opinions, had never been any use. Having defining traits and a personality was all well and good, but nothing helped you through the galaxy quite like the ability to put the fear of God in people.

The Mandalorian was something, but Din Djarin was somebody. He was good; not necessarily pure and golden-hearted like a typical comic book hero, but he had a strong moral compass. Sometimes, it pointed in opposite directions, but he helped those who needed it and he paid his dues. That was probably a lot more than anyone in the galaxy could have said for themselves. In the fight of good and bad, in a world that existed entirely and black and white, there was nothing more grey than an honest man. Somebody who refused to pick a side held the power of both. For that, Din could have either been extremely smart, or extremely dumb.

Sometimes, he was extremely dumb. Made the wrong moves in combat, or got too cocky, however out of character it was for him. It was the losing fights that truly brought out the human side of Din, and it took a very, very specific eye to see it, sometimes to the point where even he missed it. It never went over your head, though.

You'd joined the crew on the Razor Crest as a mechanic - then you became a baby sitter, and his partner-in-crime, and the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. His non-verbal nature meant that most of his emotional cues came in the physical form. It went over the heads of everybody else, but between your intuition, and the time spent in such a cramped space, it quickly became like a second language to you. Helmet tilts when he was confused, and little nods when he was pleased; tensed shoulders when the Mandalorian was nervous and balled fists when he was about to absolutely lose his shit.

Today was one of those days. Even though you were both in one piece and the baby was - by some absolute fucking miracle - asleep, it almost hadn't been that way. Nevarro had been quieter than usual, and Din had let his guard down; finally convinced himself to relax a tiny bit and ever-so-slightly loosen the stick that was firmly up his backside. His sudden lack of awareness for your surroundings had meant that someone managed to track the Crest, however briefly. The kid had barely noticed, and you weren't phased by what had been a simple, human mistake. Din, true to nature, was already beating himself up for it.

That was evidenced by his heavy footsteps, and the way he'd immediately retreated to the cockpit and slammed the door. Common sense would have entailed that he wanted to be left alone, but you'd long surpassed the point of any of that. Common sense didn't exist in a galaxy like this one. Doing the obvious thing was, nine times out of ten, usually the wrong way. Expecting the unexpected was the right way to go.

You'd paced outside the door for the better part of fifteen minutes - to go in, or to not go in, that was the question. You were torn between wanting to give Din space and wanting to be there for him; a cranky Din was often an unbearable one, but you cared deeply for him. Maybe a little too much, but that was a can of worms to open later.

"Din?" You gently called. Nothing. "I know you're brooding, or whatever it is you do under that helmet, but talking is good."

"I'm fine."

You sighed. "The scale goes great, good, bad, awful, world-ending and then fine."

"I've never heard that before in my life."

"Yeah, I just made it up on the spot." You murmured.

Resting your hand against the doorknob, you pondered for a moment. Did you want to risk it by going in? Making him mad when he was literally shutting you out? It was hard to know what to do with Din - it wasn't like he came with an answer key, or even a vague manual that could point you in the right direction. It was all just guess work.

"Is the helmet on?" You softly asked.

"Yeah."

You took that as a sign - with a deep breath, you gently opened the door and stepped inside the cockpit, shutting it quietly behind you. The tense atmosphere inside was almost enough to swallow you whole. The man practically radiated angst.

"Talk to me." You took a seat beside him.

"There's nothing to say."

"Bullshit." You murmured. "You might have a thousand inches of beskar hiding your face but your body language is a dead giveaway."

"I'm meant to protect you and the kid." He replied. It wasn't much, but it was better than silence. "It's my job to catch bad people and outrun them when I need."

"You did outrun them." You reminded him. "I'm safe. You're safe. The kid is safe. Does anything else matter?"

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place." Din said. "I was relaxed-"

"- you allowed to relax." You cut him off. "Despite your best efforts, you're a human being."

Reaching out, you gently placed your hand over Din's ungloved palm. He didn't resist or try to brush you away. His hands were soft and callous in equal measures, which felt like a fitting metaphor for him on the whole. You tangled your fingers in his and held on tightly, perhaps in a sad attempt to remind him that you were there.

But Din knew you were there - he could feel it constantly, and he thought about it just as much. Every day of his life prior to you had been filled with rigidity and angst, then you'd come waltzing in and for the first time in years, he'd untensed his muscles and stopped looking over his shoulder. Learnt to take a breath and enjoy the simple things in life, like Grogu laughing or you accidentally tripping over a tree branch. You'd become so important to him that the prospect of losing you was too much for him to even fathom. He'd come close today - too close - and it had been an eye-opener. The irony was that telling you why he was so fucking scared was more frightening than the entire thing itself.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." The gentle pull of your voice lulled him back to reality. "Please?"

His grip on your hand tightened. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." You breathily smiled. "You don't have to apologise."

"I never thought I'd have someone like you." Din admitted. "Coming so close to losing you was terrifying, even if it wasn't that close at all."

He'd never been so open about his feeling towards you before. Obviously, you knew that he viewed you in a way he didn't see anybody else, but that knowledge had been based entirely on physical cues and mere guesswork. You'd never expected him to vocalise the way he felt, or even acknowledge them. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, or even something you considered to be detrimental. The words came as a nice surprise.

"You mean a lot to me, Din." You said. He'd always loved the way his name sounded when you said it; nobody had used it for years, not since he'd lost his parents. It was something to vulnerable and personal. You were the only one he trusted with it.

"I do?"

You didn't mean to laugh at that - you really didn't, but it just came out. A low snort of disbelief; shock at his absolute inability to read the fucking room. Din was as intuitive as they came, with the ability to read criminals like a bedtime story he'd been rehearsing since he was a kid. Then it came to you, and he knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. To call him clueless would be the understatement of the century.

"Maker." You murmured. "Of course you do - more than anyone or anything."

"You're special to me." Din replied. "It scares me sometimes."

Din was straight forward with everything he said - it was just finding the courage to say it. He'd gone into battle with Imps and Republic Rangers alike; fought krayt dragons and droids and fellow Mandalorians and yet this entire thing shook him to his very core more than anything else.

You didn't know it, but you were perfectly holding his gaze. Staring right through it and looking right into his soul. He forgot he had one sometimes. It was probably a little dusty and covered in cobwebs, but it was there, and you were bringing it right out of him and back to reality.

Din used his grip on your hands to pull you a little closer - a moment later, he gently pressed the cold metal of his helmet to his forehead. It was the closest you'd ever been to him, even if it wasn't that close at all. You could hear his soft breathing through the modulator, the sensation acting as a stunning reminder that there was a person underneath there. There were times when you forgot, or felt a little disconnected from the idea entirely. You'd never felt the need to see his face, though - you hadn't a clue what he might look like, but at the same time, you had an image of him in your head. It was as clear as day; as bright as the suns on Tatooine and as persevering as the kid's insistence that he receive all your attention, all the time.

You knew what the action was; a Keldabe kiss. The Mandalorian had recounted its meaning to you not long after you'd met - he'd finally let his barriers down and let you plague him with questions about his culture and the creed, and you'd stumbled on the subject. Initially, you'd been entertained by the fact that it two such vastly different meanings. On one hand, it could be a headbutt. A beskar punch to knock the daylights out of anyone who particularly annoyed you. On the other hand, it was almost a romantic gesture; a way that Mandalorians could show their affection to one another without having to remove their armour.

Din had the latter meaning in mind, but also so much more. He was giving you a piece of his culture - including you in the very thing that defined him as a person.

"It won't happen again." The Mandalorian gently said. "I'll never let you get hurt again. I promise."

"I know." You softly smiled. Your eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool metal against your forehead. "For what it's worth, I have your back too."

He softly chuckled. "Thank you."

You gently pulled back, eyes meeting again (not that you could tell).

"Seriously!" You said. "I can be a bad-ass."

"You can be a lot of things." Din replied. "You're one hell of a girl."

"And you're one hell of a Mandalorian."

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem! reader #din djarin x you #din djarin imagine #din djarin imagines #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x you #mandalorian imagines #mandalorian fluff #din djarin fluff #star wars x reader #star wars characters #star wars x you #star wars imagines

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panda-noosh · 3 years

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Poor Little King {BotF Mini-Fic}

Words: 3.4k

Summary: Takashi is ill, and you are determined to keep him in bed - meaning you have to take on the jobs he usually does himself.

Genre: Fluff

Notes: masterlist - well hello there everyone.

+++

Takashi groaned, rolling over as he attempted to bury his head in your skirts.

Once again, you were forced to push the poor king away, folding your arms over your chest; you had work to get done. You had merely dropped by to check up on your ill husband before you were due to head out and, once again, get back to work with helping Coran sort through the trading agreements.

Nonetheless, you couldn’t help but deny the slight flicker of disappointment that came with the realisation that you would have to leave Takashi like this. It had only been a few days since he had come down with the flu, and yet it was ripping him apart by the looks of things.

“How are you feeling?” you asked, winding your fingers through his in your attempts to stop him grabbing onto your skirts again.

He grunted into the pillow, answer enough for the question you had asked.

“Oh, Takashi,” you tutted. “I wish I could do something to help.”

“You can stay with me,” he suggested, voice muffled by the fabric covering his face.

You smiled sadly, reaching down and gently running your fingers through his shock of black hair. A low grumble rumbled up from his chest at the sensation of your fingers brushing deep into his scalp, and you had to bite your lower lip to stop yourself from giggling.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” you replied. Takashi frowned, finally turning his head to meet your eyes. “You’re ill. Takashi, but there’s still a kingdom to look after. Plus two children that need attention all the time.”

“Coran and Esmay are fine,” he said. “I, on the other hand, am far from it. Which is why my lovely wife should-”

“Oh, stop trying to charm me.” You swatted his back, to which he groaned and went back to burying his head in the pillow. “I’ll be back later on to make sure you’ve eaten, okay? You just stay bundled up and rest.”

“I don’t sleep well without you beside me.”

“You don’t have to sleep. Complete a crossword puzzle or something.”

“Honestly, with how little you know of me, it’s amazing that we’ve been married for nearly six years.”

You grinned, leaned down and pressed a gentle but risky kiss to the space just below his ear. He grumbled at the sensation, turned his head just enough so you could see the small and grateful smile that he had put on specifically for you.

You smiled back, and with a heavy heart, span on your heel and exited the bedroom.

You hated seeing him that way, so defenceless and weak. The illness had stemmed from a trip to Voltron he had taken with Coran Jr only a few days prior; apparently a bug had been going around during his trip, and it was only by the good grace of the Lions that Coran Jr hadn’t gotten the illness; it had instead went straight to Takashi.

He had come home to you and Esmay Jr a few days later, sniffling, bones aching, barely able to hold himself upright. You had ordered him to bed almost immediately, despite his protestations and his insistence that he was fine. Anybody with two eyes and a bit of common sense could see that he was far from it, though.

However, now that Takashi was bundled up in bed for the next few days, you had the added task of actually being Queen for a little while - a task which you did not see yourself being thrown into. Though you had legally been queen for a very long time now, the duties that came with the job were very rarely actually given to you - Takashi was aware that he had thrown you into the role of queen purely against your will, that you had absolutely zero knowledge of what it was like to run a kingdom. He had been nice enough to take the burden of royal life off of your shoulders, instead trying to make you as comfortable as possible.

You were confident that you would be able to figure it all out in the end, though.

You wandered into the office with your shoulders pulled back and chin held high; anything to radiate a confidence that you did not have. Coran Senior looked up when you entered, raised a ginger eyebrow as a smile of amusement pulled across his features; having been closer to you than a brother for the majority of your life, Coran could certainly tell when you were faking your emotions.

You frowned at him.

“Takashi hasn’t dropped dead yet, has he?” Coran asked, ignoring your faux confidence for now. You had no doubt in your mind that he would tease you for it later on.

You sauntered up to his side and started shuffling through the trade contracts littering the table top. “Nope. He’s still kicking.”

“Kicking is a strong word,” said Coran. “Whenever I went to check on him, he was more rolling than anything else.”

You hollowed your your cheeks, shaking your head slowly “He doesn’t look like he’s getting any better.”

“Because he isn’t letting himself get any better,” Coran pointed out, tossing a piece of paper onto your pile for later inspection. “He just complains all day and then goes to sleep. He isn’t even drinking the orange juice that Esmay told him to drink.”

“He doesn’t like orange juice.”

“Lions, my heart breaks for him.” Coran shot you a blank look. “I bet he likes having the flu even less.”

“Well, yes, but-”

“We’ve all got to make sacrifices. Honestly, the man is as stubborn as his father was.”

You snorted, shaking your head despite your agreement to the statement. Akihiro had been a vile man, but he was still Takashi’s father at the end of the day - you would be a fool to claim that Takashi had gained absolutely nothing from his fathers side of the family - and the stubbornness was definitely that attribute.

You and Coran continued working later than you had originally expected. Hunk had come in and asked if either of you wanted any food, but his offer was politely declined as the two of you got lost in a mountain of contracts that had long since started to jumble into one huge heap on the edge of the table; Takashi would have an aneurysm if he were to see the state the two of you had left it, him so tedious with his organisation.

It was getting dark by the time Coran finally looked up and yawned. He glanced towards the clock in the corner, and his eyes immediately widened.

“Oh, Lions!” he hissed. You started, hand clenching around the piece of paper in your hand with the suddenness of his exclamation.

“What? What is it?” you demanded. He was bolt upright now, his papers thrown left right and centre as he struggled to remove his coat from the back of the chair he had previously been seated upon.

He darted his eyes towards you. “I promised Thace I’d be home by dinner time.”

You glanced at the clock; dinner time had long since passed.

“Oh, right,” you said, calming down now that you were assured nothing was really wrong. “Well, get yourself off then. I’ll stay in here for a little bit longer.”

Coran paused, his coat half on his body. You looked up at him, giving him what you hoped was a reassuring smile; you still had a fair bit to get done, and you weren’t prepared to leave it all until the morning. You had promised Takashi that you would have everything under control whilst he took his bed rest, and you were determined to keep that promise.

“Y/N,” Coran said gruffly. “It’s nearly ten o clock at night. You need to go to bed and check on your husband.”

You waved a dismissive hand. “He’s fine. He’s either reading to Coran and Esmay right now, or he’s asleep. Either way, I’m perfectly fine staying in here for another few hours.”

It was clear in his hesitation that he was not fully prepared to leave you here on your own, but he had a husband to get home to, a family that you were well aware would always have his attention first and foremost.

Once again, you waved a dismissive hand. “I promise you, Coran, I’ll get some sleep later on. I just want to finish a bit more of this and then I’ll go to bed.”

Although he did not believe you, he left the room nonetheless. After giving you a comforting peck on the cheek and a final warning glare, he sauntered off and disappeared for the night, leaving you to your own devices.

You would be lying to claim you weren’t exhausted. You had been up at six am that same morning, seeing to Esmay who had decided to climb up the bed sheets to check on her father, bright and early. She had recently turned two, and the phrase Terrible Two’s was really being proven in the way she refused to sit still now that her legs were strong enough to hold her up, now that she had finally figured out that she could indeed stand up and scatter anywhere she wanted to.

But you refused to leave just yet; the work would be finished at the end of the night, and then you could curl up next to your ill husband and get some well-needed rest. But until then, you had duties to see to and a kingdom to care for.

All on your own.

+++

You weren’t entirely sure what time it was. In all honesty, you weren’t even sure who was awake anymore. The inhabitants outside of the office had long since gone quiet; you could no longer hear the scuttling of maids outside the door, the happy humming of the cooks as they packed up the kitchen for the night. The outside world had seemingly gone silent, though you couldn’t quite complain. It gave you more room to concentrate on the very, very tedious task of filing away the trade agreements you had just read through.

They were stacked in their hundreds, surrounding you in messy heaps on the desk. You had to read through each of them, label them with what kingdom they had come from, and then file them away into their appropriate place.

You couldn’t quite understand how Takashi had done this so quickly in the past.

You grunted, slumping against the desk once and for all. Your vision was starting to go a little blurry, and you could barely keep your head up, let alone stand to read the papers around you. You closed your eyes for only a minute, allowing yourself that moment of solice until you would force yourself to get back to it and finish the job you had been assigned. If Takashi could do it-

“Mummy?”

Your eyes snapped open, motherly instinct immediately driving the exhaustion from your body. You hastily stood up, peeked your head over the desk towards the door where tiny little Esmay popped her own head of large black curls round the doorway.

Your heart immediately lightened at the sight of her, and you couldn’t stop the smile forming on your face.

“I’m here, sweetheart. Are you okay?”

She slowly crept in, still teetering slightly but managing to close the door and clamber towards you nonetheless. You sat back down on the seat behind you, held your arms out just in time to catch her and scoop her up onto your knee. There, she nuzzled her head into your neck and started sucking deftly on her thumb.

“Are you alright, Esmay?” you repeated softly.

“Daddy’s ill,” she replied.

You stiffened. “Yes, he is. Have you seen him today?”

She shook her head. “Uncle Thace said me and Coran would get sick if we went and saw him, so we’ve stayed away. But I miss him, Mummy. I miss you, too.” She looked up then, grey eyes so like her fathers. “You look tired, Mummy.”

You pursed your lips; coming from any other person, and perhaps you would have grown hostile. But Esmay was definitely telling the truth, and you knew that much simply from the drag your body was currently experiencing.

You reached up and awkwardly patted down your hair, which was growing frazzled with the growing heat in the room.

“So do you, baby,” you replied. “It’s late, you know. You shouldn’t be out of bed at this time.”

“But you’re out of bed,” she shot back.

You chuckled. “Well, i can’t argue with that. But you’re much younger than I am, which means you need all the rest you can get.” Slowly, you set her back down on the floor. She teetered on her heels, giggled when she finally caught her balance. “You go off to bed and I’ll come down and see you later on to make sure you’re asleep, okay? I’ll be in here if you need me - tell your brother that, as well.”

Esmay nodded vigorously, overjoyed with the idea of having a task to fulfill. You watched as she darted towards the door, flung it open and fled the room, yelling out her brothers name as she did so. You chuckled, closed the door behind her and got back to your work.

The productivity did not last for long, however, before the door was creaking open yet again. You sat still, waiting for the telltale name of “Mummy?” being called out into the darkness, but it didn’t come.

You frowned, glanced over the stack of papers - you didn’t need to stand up to see who was standing in the doorway, though. Not whenever he towered over the desk, leaning against the door frame with a frown pulling on his face.

Your eyes widened and you hastily stood up. “Takashi! What are you doing out of bed?”

“I could be asking you the same thing,” he replied, kicking the door quietly closed behind him. “It’s nearly one in the morning, my love. You should be in bed.”

“So should you,” you hissed, completely hysterical that your ill husband had decided to risk his health, yet again, to come and check on you. “Oh, Takashi, what are you doing? How are you ever going to get better if you refuse to rest?”

He raised a brow down at you when you finally managed to clamber over the array of files littered beside the desk. You grabbed onto his arm, attempted to pull him towards the door, but he was much stronger than you and the attempt was fruitless at the end of the day.

You sighed in defeat, slumping against the wall and glaring at him through your eyelids. “You are a pain in the backside.”

He didn’t grin like he usually did, but merely continued frowning. “Esmay came in and told me that you were still working in the office. She even added on that Mummy looked particularly tired.”

You pursed your lips. “Well, you know how two year olds get. Exaggerating everything and -”

“She most definitely was not exaggerating.” Takashi reached an arm out, inviting you into his embrace. Part of you wanted to pull away, to walk back to your seat and get stuck in the paperwork again - you had so little left to do. Another few hours would see you finished.

But when it was a matter involving Takashi, you found yourself unable to resist. And so, you stepped forward and hugged him round the middle, him wrapping his arm around your back and gently rubbing his fingertips along your spine in that way that always managed to send shivers coursing through your entire body.

“You don’t have to get all of this done in a day, you know,” he mumbled, lips pressing into your hair.

You cuddled closer to his warmth, inhaling the scent of cough medicine which was strongly radiating off of him right now. “I want to. Then you don’t have to do it later on.”

He chuckled, the noise vibrating in his chest. “You do realise that it’s my job, don’t you? I’ve been doing it for a good number of years by now.”

“But you’re ill, and I-”

“And I’m extremely grateful for your help, but I’d much rather have a wife who is well rested and healthy than a free schedule.” He pulled away then, keeping one arm on the small of your back as if afraid you would scatter back behind the desk if he let go.

You looked up into his grey eyes, a slight pout on your face; you were disappointed. You had wanted to get things finished for him, to clear his schedule so he could rest up without worrying about the tasks awaiting for him when he was finally at full health again. Even looking at him now, his grey eyes were sunken with illness and his skin was pale, his black hair sticking up from where he had laid funny on the pillows; he didn’t look like himself.

“I know I say this all the time,” he whispered suddenly. “But I truly am confused as to how I got so lucky with finding you. And then finding you again.”

You closed your eyes, laughing breathily at the memories of your and Takashi’s extremely wild love story - how you had gone through a forbidden romance for a while, before you were exiled from the very country you now ruled over. You had broken the law to come and see Takashi be crowned king, only for him to find you and wed you then and there.

“I think I’m the lucky one,” you replied. “I could have easily been imprisoned on the day of your coronation.”

He scoffed. “You think I’d allow that to happen?”

“I don’t think the kingdom would have given you much choice.”

He shook his head slowly, continuing to stare down at you as if you were the stars and the moon and he was holding you in his hands so tight and safe. You felt safe, tucked up against him despite the heaving of his chest and the slight rattle to his breathing, the stuffiness in his voice.

He sighed and leaned forward, pressing dry lips to your forehead. “I don’t want to get you sick. Just come to bed so I don’t have to drag you there myself.”

You closed your eyes, leaning your head on his chest. “I only have a few more-”

“Are you going to make me drag you?”

“Takashi, if you-”

“Well, if you insist on being stubborn.”

Your eyes snapped open, panic darting through your system as Takashi immediately swept his hand by your knees and scooped you up bridal style. He grunted with the effort, his weakened body straining, but he still managed to pull the door open and start down the hallways towards your bedroom.

If it weren’t for the sleeping children in the other room, you would have been making a fuss. Instead, you had no choice but to wrap your arms around Takashi’s neck, whispering curse words in his ears that did nothing but make him grin and chuckle.

He kicked open the door to your shared bedroom and set you down upon the double bed, kicking the door closed again behind him. You landed on the mattress and continued to glare up at him as he made his way towards the bed again, undoing the top buttons of his night shirt as he did so.

“See, that’s better, isn’t it? You can get comfortable now, if you like.”

You shook your head slowly. “Once again-”

“You are a pain in the backside,” he quoted, raising his voice in mock impersonation of you. He grinned at your glare, tossing himself onto the bed and wrapping his arms around your middle. “Truth be told, my love - I also just can’t sleep without you beside me, and I’m getting very tired.”

You grunted, trying to squirm away from him. Despite his illness, he managed to hold onto you until you finally gave up and slumped back against the pillows. He hummed in approval, laying his head on your stomach and nuzzling his nose into the fabric of your shirt.

“Much better,” he whispered. “I might just be revived back to full health after tonight.”

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simplybakugou · 4 years

Text

Shut Up and Kiss Me

↝ Working side-by-side, Bakugou felt himself become encaptivated by you the more he spent time with you. After a failure of a first date, he can’t help but be drawn to you even more under the unruly night sky.

PROMPT: “Can I kiss you?”

⋆ PAIRING: prohero!bakugou x female!reader ⋆ WARNINGS/TAGS: swearing ⋆ WORD COUNT: 5019

A/N: Here’s my submission for the @bnhabookclub event! I changed the prompt a little to “I wanna kiss you” to fit Bakugou’s character a little more. Here’s the link to the event!

✐posted 05.16.2020✐

Bakugou, one of the most self-assured pro heroes in the world had never felt so emotionally flustered until he met you. He always found himself observing you whenever you were at the agency, even if it was rare that the two of you were in the building at the same time. You were a rookie hero who was excited as well as determined to make your way to the top. You had a strong quirk and if there’s anything Bakugou recognized, it was a suitable rival. Through numerous training sessions and working your ass off, you slowly climbed up the rankings and eventually became the number two hero, working at the same agency, one that Bakugou owned himself.

On that particular day, Bakugou had finished a mission earlier than expected, luckily dodging any reporters who always invaded his personal space and pissed him off. He had gone back to his agency, wanting to change out of his hunk of metal of a costume and return home to get some rest. He couldn’t ignore the disappointment he felt when he scanned the room and didn’t see you around.

Nonetheless, he continued walking down the street, thankful that his agency wasn’t located in a socially attractive area like other top notch agencies. As he turned down the street, something caught his eye and he couldn’t help but stare at the sight.

There you were on the corner of the intersection, looking practically unrecognizable. Bakugou had never seen you without your hero costume on, usually ending up as a sweaty mess with your hair tousled and your costume ripped and torn at times. But there you were in a dress and heels, makeup perfectly painted onto your skin, and your hair pinned neatly. You were practically radiating an aura that commanded everyone to have their attention drawn to you. Bakugou never really cared about looks but seeing you now looking more beautiful than any person he had ever seen, he couldn’t help but stare.

With looking so stunning, that aura of yours attracted the attention of others other than Bakugou. He felt his fists tighten when from across the street as he was waiting for the light to change, a grubby man approached you, smirking as he looked down at you.

“I’ve never seen such a pretty little lady in these parts of town.” He grinned even wider at you. Even passerbys couldn’t recognize you without your costume.

You rolled your eyes, ignoring him. “Get lost, dickwad.”

The man narrowed his eyes at you, reaching down to feel you up. Right as Bakugou felt his body move towards you instinctively to help you, you turned around, twisting the man’s wrist in your own. The impact sent him falling down, hitting his head on the stop sign behind him. Bakugou couldn’t help but laugh, feeling a sense of relief knowing you were strong on your own, not having to rely on anyone to protect yourself.

As you began crossing the street, Bakugou absentmindedly crossed the other way, not wanting to run into you. He didn’t understand why at first but he didn’t want you to know that he was watching you. He saw that you were heading towards the agency and he began going through the shortcut that he often would go through if the press would hover outside of the building at times. Bakugou was able to get to the building before you did and he let out a sigh of relief, beginning to unlatch the gauntlets around his wrists.

“Hey, Ground Zero, great work out there today,” Haru, one of the secretaries from the front desk stated.

Bakugou nodded in response, moving to the back to quickly change out of his hero costume. He wanted to leave immediately and not have to run into you on the way here. He began to recall the way you were dressed and how you looked, closing the door behind him to not only change out of his costume but also hide the blush that was evident on his cheeks.

A few moments later, you pushed open the doors to the building, going towards the front desk. Haru looked up, surprised that you were here so abruptly as well as your change in attire. “(H/N), what’re you doing here? It’s your day off.”

You sighed. “I know. But I’m bored out of my mind so please give me work to do.”

The other receptionist, Aiko, looked you up and down with a grin. “Ooh, I see someone’s all dressed up! Did you go on a date? Was that why you wanted a day off?”

You rolled your eyes at her. “No, my mom made me go to some shitty brunch with her boyfriend’s family. They’re all pestering me so I got out of there and now I have nothing to do.”

“I can go through some reports and see what you can do,” Aiko said with a wink and you thanked her.

“Man, can’t believe our two biggest heroes are in the building. You guys are usually never here at the same time,” Haru commented, looking at you in awe.

You raised your brows, perking up immediately. “Ground Zero’s here?”

Haru nodded, pointing down the hall. “He’s in the back.”

You smirked, pulling out your phone and typing something in your web browser as you made your way to the back. You pushed open the door without any warning and Bakugou, who was in the midst of changing his pants, was taken aback, his face burning up as you stared at his half naked body. Only his briefs were covering him and he held his pants up to shield his legs from your eyes. “What the fuck?!”

“Just wanted to pop in and say ‘hello.’ And to show you this.” You held your phone up to an article covering your new ranking. “I’m in second place now. So just you wait; I’ll be number one soon enough!”

You slammed the door behind you as you made your own dramatic exit, leaving Bakugou utterly speechless and stunned. Just when he believed he couldn’t be more intrigued, you proved him wrong once again. You reignited his burning desire to be the best, wanting to show you exactly why he was the number one hero in the first place.

Since that day, you worked twice as hard as you did before and with your handwork, Bakugou wasn’t going to let you beat him so easily. He had to make sure to work twice as hard as you did, ultimately leading to him staying on top. As time progressed, you were often asked to accompany Bakugou on various missions and with the time the two of you spent together, you became close.

“I can’t believe I’m still ranked number two,” you grunted in annoyance as you walked with Bakugou side by side back to the agency.

Bakugou smirked. “Hah, like I was just gonna let you surpass me without a fight. Dream on.”

You sighed, crossing your arms over your chest and pushed open the large glass doors. Bakugou made his way all the way to the back like he usually did while you stood in front of Aiko’s desk, pouting profusely.

Aiko snickered, recognizing that look of defeat on your face. “Let me guess: the rankings came out and you’re still number two?”

You clenched your fists, slamming them on the counter in frustration. “He’s just too damn good! I don’t know how to beat him!”

“Come on, you can’t tell me you thought it would be easy, right?” Aiko sneered playfully. “He does work with you, too.” You stuck your tongue out at her as she got up to go to the filing cabinet.

“(H/N)? Could you fill out a report from today’s patrol?” Haru asked in a tone lower than normal.

“Sure!” You said, grabbing the clipboard from him and filling it out on the counter in front of his desk. Being drawn to your work, you didn’t notice Haru fidgeting in his seat as he took shy glances at you. Although you weren’t aware of it, Bakugou sure was as he came out of the back room, glaring at Haru from a distance as he looked at you nervously.

“(H/N), I was wondering if you were busy this weekend?” Haru asked, rubbing the nape of his neck as he began to sweat apprehensively.

You looked up as you were writing, tapping the ballpoint pen against your chin as you began to think. “Hm, I’m pretty sure I have Saturday off and I’ve got nothing to do. Why’d you ask?”

Haru let out an anxious laugh. “Oh, you know, I was wondering if you wanted to go out--”

“She’s going out with me,” Bakugou butted in, leaning down on the counter in front of Haru’s desk, a frown printed on his lips.

“I am?” You asked in confusion in unison with Haru’s, “She is?”

“You’re gonna have to try another day ‘cause she’s all mine Saturday,” Bakugou grumbled, loud enough for you and Haru to hear. He pushed open the glass doors in aggravation, mumbling incoherently under his breath as he left.

You stood stunned as you watched his figure become smaller and smaller. Haru snapped you away from your thoughts, whispering, “So are you really going out with Ground Zero?”

“Hm?” You turned your head to face him, smiling widely. Seeing as his social skills were pretty low to begin with, you were intrigued with the thought of spending time with Bakugou outside of the work setting. “Yeah, it sounds fun! It’s not everyday I get to go out with Bakugou instead of Ground Zero!”

***

Bakugou never knew the day would actually come where he would be able to take you out. Despite being the proud man he was for everything hero related, he was hesitant to approach you with the intention of taking you out. And now the time had arrived where Bakugou, in his own unique way, managed to ask you out.

However, Bakugou had no idea where to start planning a first date. His friends, specifically Kaminari, Kirishima, and Sero gave him different ideas, ultimately not being helpful at all for Bakugou. In the end, he decided to make his own plan, no matter how shitty it may end up being. The most difficult part about all this was that Bakugou didn’t really know much about you, having to rely on the help of Mina as she was a woman herself and had the most insight out of his friends. With her help, Bakugou based his planning on Mina’s interests.

Bakugou started off the date with dinner at a restaurant, a recommendation made by Mina herself. However, to Bakugou’s disappointment, the food was probably one of the worst things you’ve ever consumed in your life. Despite this, you didn’t want to be rude or make Bakugou upset by addressing the awful food. Bakugou knew you were just trying to be nice and nevertheless, he didn’t want this to ruin your evening. He strived to redeem himself with the rest of the night.

“What movie are we watching again?” You asked as Bakugou handed you your ticket.

“Some rom-com. I wasn’t sure about which movie you would wanna watch so I guessed and chose one.” Bakugou shrugged. In actuality, Mina had been talking nonstop about this movie and had begged Bakugou to show you it, guaranteeing that you would love it. He didn’t want to admit that he had Mina help him out to plan this date since he had no idea what to do.

You and Bakugou gave in your tickets and went into the theater you were instructed to enter. As you chose and sat in your seats, the screen began changing to the title sequence of the movie.

As the movie continued into the last quarter, Bakugou couldn’t help but feel bored out of his mind. Everything about the movie was awful: the cinematography, the directing, the acting… it was simply a shitshow. Finally, the movie had come to an end and so was Bakugou’s misery as he forced himself to sit and watch the movie in its entirety instead of running out and hiding in the bathroom. The two of you got up, making your way out of the theater.

“How was it?” Bakugou asked, throwing out the empty bucket of popcorn.

If possible, you actually hated the movie more than Bakugou did. But similarly to the dinner, you didn’t want to hurt his feelings, especially since he planned out this whole evening. “It was… good.”

Bakugou sighed. He knew that you were just trying to spare his feelings but he didn’t want to call you out either. The one time he actually plans something like this out and it completely blew up in his face. You smiled sympathetically at him, throwing your empty buckets of popcorn out as you exited the theater. It was evident that Bakugou, who was quite obviously talented in other areas, was lacking experience in planning an amazing night out for a date.

As if the night couldn’t get any worse, the minute the two of you stepped outside, you heard numerous screams from a few blocks down. Low and behold, a giant rock-type villain was attempting to rob a bank and even had hostages in both of his hands.

“We can never just get a fucking day off,” Bakugou muttered.

You chuckled and the two of you began making your way towards the site, running in the direction of the chaos without a second thought. You threw your shoes off to the side, cursing at yourself mentally for deciding on wearing a skirt and heels. But you couldn’t help yourself; you wanted Bakugou to see you on a day that you weren’t a sweaty mess. To your misfortune, it seemed that your perfectly pinned hair and makeup would be ruined within a few minutes.

Bakugou didn’t hesitate to maneuver himself towards the villain using his quirk for mobility and sending a blast to his face. The villain screamed, letting go of the hostages as he began wailing and covering his eyes. You jumped up and caught both hostages, safely setting them down to the ground.

They looked up at you in awe, two teenage girls who had met their first pro hero. “Thank you, (H/N)!”

“Don’t mention it! Now get back before you get hurt!” You called out as you maneuvered your body upwards using your quirk.

“Get behind him!” Bakugou yelled towards you. You nodded and moved to the villain’s blindspot, Bakugou following suit. The two of you sent blasts at his neck, causing him to fall onto his face with a thud. You held down one of his arms and Bakugou held the other, waiting for the police to arrive. The small crowd that was watching in awe began to cheer and clap, all of them getting excited to have gotten the chance to see the top two heroes in action. Truth be told, after spending numerous missions with him, you began to understand Bakugou’s fighting style and incorporated your own moves to suit his as well and he did the same, too. Alone, you were both strong in your own ways and can manage yourselves efficiently. But together, you were a force to be reckoned with.

Finally the cops showed up, piling out of the cars and taking the villain into custody. They thanked you and Bakugou repeatedly and you returned their thanks while Bakugou watched as they took care of the villain. You waved at the crowd as Bakugou started walking in the opposite direction of the crowd, patiently waiting for you to follow. You caught up with him, letting out a sigh once you were away from the commotion.

“It’s too bad tonight didn’t go like we wanted,” you said, frowning at the state of your now tattered clothes. You could already feel your makeup being smudged and your hair tousled, not bothering to fix it now. The pain in the soles of your feet only increasing with every step you took with your bare feet. You could even feel bits of gravel stabbing at your heels.

Bakugou paid no attention to his own attire, taking off his button down due to the various rips and tears and sticking to his black tank top underneath his clothes. “Even if that villain didn’t show up, tonight was still a fucking shitshow.”

He glanced down at your bare feet and bent over to remove his own sneakers. You shook your head. “No it wasn’t! I mean the food could’ve been better and the movie wasn’t as good as we expected but I still had a great time!”

Finally taking notice of his removing his shoes, you rose a curious brow at him. “What’re you doing?”

Bakugou scoffed, shoving his sneakers into your hands and started making his way towards your apartment where he had picked you up from when the night started. “You think you can walk home fucking barefoot?”

You let out a small smile, thanking him as you bent over to slip his shoes on. Although they were obviously large and difficult to walk in, it was better than walking without any material protecting your feet. You caught up to him as Bakugou shoved his hands into his pockets. “Plus you don’t have to spare my feelings. There’s no point in lying, I know that tonight was a fucking mess.”

You looked towards him as he had his signature frown etched onto his face. “It doesn’t matter what we do. I always have a great time when I’m with you, Bakugou.”

Bakugou felt a tug in his chest as he glanced over at you, looking away immediately once making contact with your (E/C) eyes. You laughed at his reaction, taking notice to the slight pink tinting of his cheeks. “It’s still weird for me to not call you ‘Ground Zero.’ I mean, you’re still my boss technically.”

“We’re co-workers, I’m not your boss,” Bakugou insisted. “It’d be weird for a boss to be going out with his employee.”

“Either way, it’s odd, but just because we’re heroes doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly.” You glanced over in his direction, watching as he continued to trudge down the path towards your apartment. He could feel your eyes on him, not wanting to acknowledge them as he felt himself grow nervous under your intense gaze. “Speaking of, why did you become a hero?”

“Simple,” Bakugou started, “I wanted to become the best, the indisputable best.” He glanced over to you, smirking. “And I’m gonna keep it that way.”

You rolled your eyes at him. “We’ll see about that.”

“And you?”

“Why I wanted to become a hero?” You reiterated, Bakugou nodding as the two of you turned the corner. “I’ve never really told anyone this but to make it straightforward, my sister was hurt in an altercation with a villain when we were kids. She wasn’t hurt too bad but she was hospitalized for a few weeks. Ever since then, I’ve vowed to save as many people as I can, sort of like I’m trying to compensate for not being able to save her all those years ago.”

Bakugou glimpsed at you, his attraction towards you only increasing with this new found information. Although his desire for becoming a hero seemed subpar compared to yours, he admired you even more than he already did for taking a situation that wasn’t even your fault and turning it into your driving force for your profession.

“And now you’ve saved more people than any other hero,” Bakugou said.

You shrugged. “I’m trying to at least.”

The conversation took a turn as you continued to talk about your personal lives, getting to know Bakugou in a different light. It was odd to see him talk about himself in a manner that wasn’t related to heroism. You had grown accustomed to hearing the various news stories about the brash number one hero that wasn’t as kind-hearted or catered for the crowds like All Might or other previous pro heroes but you never really cared for that. Being a pro hero wasn’t about one’s ability to present themselves in an attempt for the general public or media to like them but to use their quirks to help and protect as many people as they can. And Bakugou has done just that, protecting and saving people left and right without looking for any critical acclaim from anyone.

He really was the indisputable best.

The walk to your apartment finally came to a close as you stood in front of your complex, turning to face Bakugou. “I know you think that today was shitty but I don’t think it was at all. And I mean that.”

Bakugou scoffed. “Whatever. You can say that shit all you want, but I know how today went.”

You chuckled, shaking your head at his stubbornness. “I just liked getting to know more about Bakugou. Ground Zero’s cool and all but Bakugou’s pretty interesting if you ask me.”

You slipped his sneakers off, raising them up in front of them. “Thank you for these. I know most people say that you’re an asshole or they say all this crap about you being inconsiderate but I think tonight showed me that you’re actually a sweet guy. I think I’m liking Bakugou Katsuki more and more.”

Bakugou felt his face heat up, looking off to the side in an attempt to not let you acknowledge his blushing as he took his shoes from you. “Shut up, don’t say dumb shit like that.” He turned around, feeling like he would explode if he saw you for more moments than he already had. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You laughed again, waving as he knelt down and slipped his shoes back on and began to walk away from the building. You couldn’t help but watch on as his figure grew smaller and smaller, finally deciding to go inside once he turned the corner. A sigh you didn’t know you were holding in escaped your lips, your feet aching from the momentary period of time spent running after the villain barefoot. Ignoring the pain, you made your way to the bathroom, frowning at the sight of your physical appearance. Just as you predicted, your hair and makeup were a mess, streaks of black blotting around your eyes and locks of hair knotted together as your neatly pinned hair had fallen apart. Your clothes that you had spent so much time figuring out were a tattered mess and you felt slightly embarrassed for a moment for looking like this in front of Bakugou. But that embarrassment dissipated as quickly as it came as you knew Bakugou has probably seen you looking like a sweaty mess more than he has seen your appearance on your best day.

You removed your makeup with a wipe and let your hair loose, the locks cascading down your shoulders. Just as you changed out of your clothes into something more comfortable, the sound on rain droplets pelting your windows echoed from the outside. Within a few minutes a downpour hit the city and you sighed, thankful that you had gotten inside before getting caught in the mess outside.

That was when you realized that Bakugou was still outside, on his way to his own house. He was also most likely getting drenched. Without thinking twice, you grabbed two umbrellas and ran out in an attempt to spare Bakugou from the harsh weather.

***

Bakugou’s phone began to buzz in his pocket, groaning incoherently as he saw Mina’s name on the screen requesting for a video call. He answered it begrudgingly, Mina, Sero, Kirishima, and Kaminari’s faces popping up on the screen.

“Well if it isn’t the romance master himself,” Kaminari teased.

Bakugou rolled his eyes at him. “If you idiots are here to just fucking make fun of me, I’m gonna hang up.”

“No!” Mina called out. “I just wanted to know how it went. Did my suggestions help?”

“No they fucking backfired on me,” Bakugou huffed. “The food tasted like fucking cardboard, the movie was the shittiest thing I’ve ever seen, and to top it all off, a villain popped up outta nowhere and fucked everything up even more. I just walked her home and now I’m going home.”

Mina frowned. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out well, I really tried hard to help you out!”

Kirishima patted her shoulder. “I’m sure it’s not your fault, and Bakugou and (H/N) just don’t have the same tastes as you do. But cheer up, man, I’m sure she had a good time.”

“Yeah, (H/N) seems like a chill girl,” Sero added.

“Whatever,” Bakugou let out a sigh, “I’m just glad it’s over. I didn’t wanna embarrass myself more than I already did.”

His friends said goodbye, trying their best to cheer him up before he hung up and shoved his phone back into his pockets. Bakugou felt defeated, not knowing how to rightfully come across with his feelings without being too direct. You were the only person he’d ever met that caught his attention immediately after the first encounter. Since the beginning, he found himself wanting to spend more time with you but after spending time with you outside of work, he was afraid that you wouldn’t want to be around him after the failure of a first date. Despite hearing you say how much you enjoy being around him and how you didn’t care what it was you were doing with him, Bakugou couldn’t help but feel as if you were only saying those things to make him feel better. He felt like he failed you.

Before Bakugou could even think about other ways the night could get worse, a drop of water pelted his nose. He looked up at the gray sky, the clouds rumbling as the water droplets increased in size, speed, and amount as it started pouring. This is just fucking great…

Bakugou didn’t bother running or seeking shelter as he was drenched in a matter of minutes. He was only a few blocks from his house and just as he was about to turn the corner again, Bakugou stopped at the sound of his name being called. He spun around, bewildered at the sight of you running towards him with an umbrella over your head and another opened in your other hand.

Once you caught up to him, you raised one of the umbrellas over his head, breathing heavily to attempt to catch your breath.

“(H/N)…” Bakugou muttered, still in shock to see you again so soon. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I saw that it started pouring and I just thought about how you didn’t have an umbrella so…” Your voice drifted off, gesturing to the umbrella.

“You didn’t have to…” Bakugou mumbled and you laughed.

“I came because I wanted to. And because I wanted to tell you again that I really did enjoy tonight.” You smiled. “Knowing you, you’re probably beating yourself up over dinner, the movie, and not to mention that villain showing up, but I don’t care what we do. I like being with you, no matter where we are.”

Bakugou felt his heart beating out of his chest as he stared at you. He brought his hand up to grab the umbrella from your hand, his own fingers curling around yours and around the stem of the umbrella. You gasped inwardly at the sudden contact, your own heart palpitating vigorously.

In the darkness of the night sky and the droplets pouring down from the gray clouds, Bakugou’s crimson eyes shined against the dullness of your surroundings as they pierced right through you. “Listen up ‘cause I’m only gonna say this once.”

Bakugou’s fingers gripped yours as he took a deep breath. “I like you, (F/N).”

Your eyes widened as Bakugou muttered your name through his lips. It was the first time he had addressed you by anything other than your hero name, let alone your first name. You smiled gently. “I like you too, Katsuki.”

Your lips parted as you began to speak, talking about how much you admired him and his ambitious ways. But Bakugou couldn’t hear a word, just watching your lips moving. Despite the bleakness of the weather, your skin was practically glowing, the same aura radiating off of you like it always had. Your locks were slightly wet from the rain as they hung against your shoulders. But your lips, red and plump, were the only thing Bakugou could focus on.

“Shut up, would ya?” Bakugou murmured. You were taken aback, staring up at Bakugou as he sighed once more and abruptly said, “I wanna kiss you.”

You were puzzled, wanting to ask why until you sucked in a breath as his warm lips planted themselves on yours. The umbrella hovering over your head fell to the floor with a thud along with the umbrella in Bakugou’s hand. The rain pelted both of you, drenching you within seconds but neither of you paid any mind to it. Bakugou’s warm lips compensated for the coldness in the air and he snaked an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. Your hands held fistfuls of his tank, being completely drawn into his touch.

Bakugou pulled away, a blush tinting his cheeks as he looked down at you, your own face heating up from the aftermath of the kiss. You giggled, brushing away some blonde hairs that were stuck to his forehead. “You know I brought two umbrellas for a reason, right?”

Bakugou smirked, picking one up and holding it over your head. You smiled, grabbing the other umbrella and closing it, wanting to be close to Bakugou huddled under one umbrella rather than two. Although the night hadn’t gone to plan and wasn’t what Bakugou or what you were expecting, it was safe to say that both of you left that night feeling more satisfied than you could’ve ever been.

#bnhabookclub #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia #my hero academia imagines #boku no hero academia imagines #boku no hero academia #boku no hero imagines

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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 4 years

Text

Moral Support | Diego Hargreeves x Reader (Oneshot)

Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Words: 1572

Warning: TUA Season 2 Ep 6 Spoilers

Diego told you to wait in the car, but of course you weren’t going to listen and he knew that. He had even rolled his eyes when you said you will, followed by the slam of the car door. You waited until they were all inside before you made your way in. You knew what floor it was, so you could just simply use the stairs and your abilities to catch up.

As you walked into the grand lobby, you looked up and smirked. Or you could just fly up. You closed your eyes and concentrated, your long coat turning into wings and as you opened your eyes, they were black like an eagle’s. With a bend of the knees you jumped up with your arms wide open, feeling yourself fly past the floors until you reached your destination. You landed on the railing and made your way to the elevator.

You were planning a grand entrance, but as the metal doors opened, a strong stench flooded the corridor. You shrunk back and cough, making way for the others to flee the confinement.

“Happy that you came?” Diego teased.

“Shut up,” you muttered, shoving his shoulder.

“Come on, let's go. And let me do all the talking, alright,” Five said, walking ahead towards the Tiki Lounge. “And, (Y/n), this is a family matter-”

“I’ll stay out of it for as much as possible,” you said, raising your hands, “No problem, old man.”

“Thank you,” he said, fixing his jacket, “Though I highly doubt that you’ll follow through, at least you're the sensible one. I know you won’t say anything without reason.”

“Whoa,” Luther said defensively.

The others debated who should talk first and how to go about facing their father while you stood to the side, sitting yourself next to Diego. You sighed when Diego chucked the conch that Vanya suggested to use across the room, already getting a bad feeling about this meeting.

“You tried,” you told Vanya, “And I think it would have worked with an even tempered group.”

With the slam of the doors, the group fell silent, watching a younger Reginald Hargreeves stride over towards the head of the table with a book in hand. They all took their seats, an uneasiness washing over them. It had been years since they’ve faced their abusive father, so you couldn’t blame them. Yet, this version of their father doesn’t even know the trauma that he had brought to them in the future.

You kept your promise so far and stayed silent, listening in to their discussion. That is, until Hargreeves wanted them to prove their powers. For a while, you thought you could get away with it by sitting back, but he turned to you.

“And you?” he asked.

“Thankfully, I’m not one of your adopted children,” you said, sipping on your pina colada.

“Then why are you here at this important meeting?” he demanded, staring you down condescendingly. “You have no business here.”

“Moral support?”

Hargreeves scoffed and was about to retort when Diego snapped. He leaned forward. “Look, we know that you’re involved in the plot to assassinate the president,” he started.

You sighed, shaking your head. You told him that Hargreeves being there didn’t mean that he conspired JFK’s assassination. Correlation does not prove causation, but Diego was dead set sure that his dear old dad was up to no good.

“You were recently hospitalized, isn’t that correct?” Hargreeves said. Diego shook his head, knowing where he was going with this. “You still seem to be suffering with delusions of grandeur and acute paranoia.”

“Am I?” Diego took out the photo taken from the Frankel Footage and pointed at it. “Explain this. That’s you. That’s two days from now on the grassy knoll at the exact same spot that the president is gonna get shot.”

Hargreeves took the photo and eyed Diego critically. “Well… I suppose you solved it, then. You single handedly unearthed my nefarious plot. Is that what you want to hear?”

You grabbed Diego's arm, urging him to sit back down, but he shrugged you off. You looked towards his siblings for help, but they were as silent as you were, watching the scene unfold. There was no need for your powers for the extra boost in your senses to tell that Hargreeves was getting to him. Hearing him continuing to criticize Diego might also be getting to the others as well, even Vanya, who was lowering her head.

As the insults kept hitting, the cold hard truths in the form of knives stabbing Diego over and over in the wounds that hadn’t quite healed, he slowly slunk down in his seat. This time, you gripped his arm and he let you as he shook.

“-A man in over his head!” Hargreeves concluded.

“Y-y-you’re w-w-wro-ng,” Diego managed to reply.

You knew Diego had been cut deep when he started stuttering again.“Okay! Time for my role as moral support,” you said, setting down your drink. “Listen, Reggie. Diego is someone who wants to save people and save the world because he’s a kind and compassionate person that wants to do good, not because he’s a calculative soldier following orders from a man who shows more affection to his experimental ape than his own adopted human children. The fact that the apocalypse could have been prevented had you been a goddamn father for them says a lot about you and what you think you’re achieving, so I suggest you hold off your tactless psychological analysis, that is clearly not going to give you any positive results, to yourself and listen to them for once. Thank you.”

“(Y/n),” Five said, reaching over to grab your shoulder.

“What?”

He pointed up at lights hanging over the table. Small black dots were falling down and landing on the table, crawling towards Hargreeves. Black widows. Your tongue tapped your incisors, confirming that fangs had grown. You looked around at the table, no one but Five and Diego meeting your eyes. You took a deep breath, feeling the fangs retreat along with the small spiders.

It was Diego’s turn to pull you down and you let him. He squeezed your arm in a sign of gratitude. You nodded, then looked back at Five. Once he knew you were calm, he pushed the discussion forward about the upcoming Doomsday.

Hargreeves was condescending as ever, acting as if it wasn’t his problem to deal with. Klaus began to act weird and you closed your eyes, switching them to cat eyes. Although cats can’t see ghosts as clearly as Klaus, they have an awareness of where they are. Ben was here.

You rushed over as Klaus collapsed, managing to let out a faint confirmation that Ben was trying to possess him. After Luther’s outburst, showing Hargreeves what he had done to him, Hargreeves simply dismissed him and walked around you as you heaved Klaus up. He eyed you curiously before continuing forward, requesting to speak to Five in private.

“Come on, big guy,” you said, “Help me?”

Luther stood there, dumbfounded, before snapping out of it, picking up Klaus with ease and dragging him all the way to the elevator. He propped him against the back wall and the others piled in, Diego being the last one and the nearest of the door.

“Congratulations,” Allison said to Luther.

“For what?”

“I think that was the first time ever that you stood up to dad,” she said, sounding impressed and Luther hadn’t realized about that until now.

“Are you okay?” Vanya asked Diego.

He was silent for a moment, looking at you, then glancing at the others over his shoulders. “So much for having my back in there,” he muttered, “Team Zero, my ass. At least (Y/n) said something, and they haven’t even met the guy before.”

“Dee, I’m pretty sure the only reason I could say anything, that I was the only one that could say anything, was because I never met him before,” you said, defending the others. “It’s not completely their fault. I wasn’t the one that had to grow up with his toxic bullshit, okay? You guys did. I give you guys credit for even coming all the way here in the first place to face him.”

“Well, you gave us too much credit,” he said, walking out as soon as the doors opened.

You muttered your farewells to the others before rushing after Diego. You stopped him outside by the curb, grabbing his arm. He whipped around and pointed a finger at you in warning.

“Diego, he’s an asshole. That’s a massive understatement,” you said, “but all those things he said does not change all that you’ve accomplished on your own. You survived with the cards that you were dealt with. You saved people.” Diego shook his head, turning to walk away but you held firm. “You saved me, remember?”

“Thought you said that you had that situation handled,” he said, his cheekiness slowly getting back.

“I’m not afraid anymore to admit that I needed a little help back then,” you said, “I’m always here if you need to talk, Dee.”

Diego sighed, closing his eyes and pressed his forehead against yours. “I know.”

He opened his eyes and saw a familiar figure moving in the parking lot. Just like that, he was off. And, like always, you made sure he didn’t go and get himself killed.

#WritersMonth2020 #diego hargreeves x reader #diego hargreeves #The Umbrella Academy #tua #the umbrella academy s2 spoilers #tua s2 spoilers #oneshot #Diego stuttering again made me mad at Hargreeves again #how dare you do that to my boi #and I understand why the others couldnt speak up #though i wished they did #he really needed someone to stick up for him for once #since no one ever did he stuck with the lone wold mentality

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ziracona · 4 years

Note

please bless me with all of your dbd headcanons even just a crumb would satisfy me,,,,, lmao. Fr tho ur hcs are godly pls give me all of them especially for og 4 and wraif

Thank you!! I’m glad you like my hot takes!

Let’s see, og4.

Jake grows facial hair pretty easy (that part is just canon). Usually he either lets it grow and ignores it till it gets long, or stays cleanshaven, but the in-between stage is physically painful for everyone else at the campfire bc you wake up and see rugged 2day scruffy woodsman stretch and he sees you staring and goes, “What?” Looking thoroughly unimpressed and Meg sheds a tear and Claudette pretends to not be looking and stares at her journal and Dwight gets heart palpitations it’s just bad for the whole group. When he shaves he’s an edgy dumbass and does it with a sharpened hunk of metal he made into a knife for himself and Dwight saw him shaving once and had to go sit down.

Jake has a soft spot for many of the survivors he’s known longer (honestly at this point, he’s pretty attached to the lot of them though), but especially the ones who work really hard at protecting other survivors. Double points if you’re younger than him. He would kill for Claudette, and take a bullet meant for Quentin, but would not convey this to them at all. Jake puts almost zero effort into making sure people knows he likes them. The people he has a soft spot for especially are also not always the ones he prefers to spend time with. While they’re survivors he spends less time with personally, Jake respects Feng Min for being the snarky little gremlin she is, and Tapp’s dedication to his job even here. Weirdly, while the people he likes often aren’t aware of affection, the ones he respects but isn’t as close to usually are aware of the respect. Jake also thinks he doesn’t like having friends and spending time not alone, but he does.

If asked point blank his thoughts on a survivor he likes, he’d probably just shrug or say, “They contribute to the team,” or “She works hard,” or “He’s fine,” because Jake just be like that. He had a hard time getting close to anyone initially because of how he grew up. Jake’s very guarded. He’s used to people manipulating and using each other, which makes keeping anything vulnerable close to his chest just necessary as he sees it. Boy doesn’t trust easy. Or open up. Ya need a can opener. Boy also does not like getting pushed around. Least favorite killers (aside from Nightmare) are probably Doctor and Ghostface, because he cannot stand being forced to do things or used. He’d rather take a chainsaw to the back than have someone lord power over him. He’s also got a looong memory, so if you fuck him over, he is not the kind to forget and forgive. He is the kind to resent and remember. Not that he never forgives people, but boy would have to really believe whatever happened was regretted and the person wasn’t like that anymore to let something that made him very angry go. He’s quiet angry though. Bide your time and get vengeance kinda angry. Would never let someone push him around. If a killer tried to fuck with him, he’d do everything in his power to kill them.

While Jake is tough and likes to hike just to be out and moving, and enjoys toughing it out, Meg enjoys being outside more as a fun thing than a wildnerness lifestyle thing. She has a lot of energy, and even in the realm, all that adhd can be a bitch. It would be easy to focus on the shitty stuff happening and drown in that, so she likes to keep moving, like she has since she was a kid and started running. Meg loves hard, and if she cares about you, she’ll make sure you know it. Not good at shutting up or realizing if she’s been going on for too long, girl has passion for everything.

Meg talks a big game, but does not have as much confidence as she pretends to have. She has abandonment issues, but they’re less, ‘my dad abandoned me’ and more ‘everyone but my mom, from him to grade school friends, hasn’t stuck around,’ so she does worry about that and coming on too strong, which she is aware she often does, but she can’t get herself to turn down the power settings on herself even when she tries. She’s never been good at making friends, so all of this in the realm is kinda new to her, since no one can leave. Meg would tell almost no one those things about herself. She cares hard though, and will try to distract other people from realm despair any way she can, because it’s what she needs and she assumes what they must need too. And to be fair, she ain’t wrong. Good at cultivating activities and drinks loving her friends juice.

Big goofball. BIG goofball. Also big gay. Well, bi af, but w a pretty strong preference for the ladies. She is simple of heart. Sees a girl, loses ability to think. Bonded with Nea over this problem. High int, low wisdom, big dumbass. Her weaknesses include girls’ eyes, voices, accents, freckles, scars, stomachs, legs, ass, titties, hair, hair dye, laughs, hands, eye contact, and cute accessories. Not great at expressing her feelings when she catches them, but tries hard. Actually pretty good at romancing once she gets into the groove. It’s just getting there she sucks at. Loyal as hell. Will go to bat for her friends and would rather die than betray them.

Meg has a real temper, especially when she feels like something being done to her or someone else is unjust/unfair, and will always try to fix those things even when it’s hopeless. Can and will weaponize her anger extremely effectively. Ridiculous memory for pop culture, shit memory for homework and things she was supposed to be doing. Memelord, but with some class.

Idk if this is because I identified with Claudette really strongly when I first started playing dbd or not, but I have always seen her as Asexual & Panromantic. Attracted to kindness.

She gets overwhelmed fairly easily, but has been improving that by necessity since arriving in the realm, and can tap into the mom-friend override to fix problems for people who aren’t her. Has a hard time telling when people are teasing her/joking, but everyone knows this so they take it easier on her than each other.

Like Meg, had no friends before this, so it’s exciting and new, and a little scary, but mostly really good. She worries about other people a lot, and doesn’t always know how to help, but she tries. Very relieved Dwight volunteered to be team leader.

Enjoys recording things and studying. Would be fascinated by the Entity’s world if she wasn’t always being killed. Seems small and weak and easy to take down, but she has the strength of will to kill God herself if backed into a corner, especially when fighting for someone she loves. Sweet does not mean she will not fight back, and since being in the realm, and getting over her initial freezing up at the sight of horrifying murderers, she has worked extremely hard to be brave and take an active roll protecting people whenever she can. She is still terrified a lot, but has learned to push through that to help her friends and herself.

Loves animals, including ones a lot of people don’t like (bugs, snakes, rats, etc) and would and has definitely tried to snag a scorpion and a cockroach from trials to study before, and tried to befriend the realm rats now that they exist. Tries to get Jake to show her how to get birds to like you but does know how to ask him right.

Nervous about interpersonal relationships and unsure of herself. Really likes everyone but horrible at telling how other people feel. Feels like she always comes off wrong and can’t put words to things well even when she understands them super well. Does her best 24/7. Incredibly smart and talented. Knowledgeable about her passions. Is always thinking 4th dimensionally and has saved the team many a time by pulling off wild bullshit that makes sense kind of just barely but no one else would have thought of.

Dwight was a loser and kind of a douche growing up, kind of selfish and entitled and weak, but is no longer that person after a few years in the realm. He works hard to make good on his promises to look out for everyone, and cares about them very genuinely. Great at thinking on his feet and sounding like he knows more than he does, wonderful at regulating tasks to people efficiently, and not a bad strategist.

Being the kind of person now who would not have liked the person he was a few years ago causes a little cognitive dissonance and self-doubt, but he’s trying. Genuinely enjoys hearing about people’s days and interests even when he’s completely lost.

Not a fan of heights. If the fear of heights was not vastly overpowered by fear of sharp object, he would actively avoid the old ironworks in trials, but alas.

Used to play video games a lot. Thought he was good at them. Was not. Was definitely not.

Self-improvement king. Works hard and is a really decent dude. A very good sport. Used to be an asshole, so now that he’s nice he’s pretty damn forgiving if other people put in the work to improve too (my boy’s no hypocrite). Has mellowed out a lot and is pretty chill and nice but the damn fool will break his own heart by taking things people say the wrong way, or things they mean as a joke literally, if it’s something he thinks is true about himself, and will totally miss context and vocal inflection and just be like, “I know but I’m trying TuT.”

Big gay but in denial and confused

Just at this point really does want people to get to go home and be ok. Loves hearing stories and listening to his friends talk at the campfire because it makes him feel like things might be okay. Get the same result just by being near his friends, especially the other og3 who have been with him forever. If they’re all still there, things have to turn out okay someday. :’ ) Has never really told them that, because he’s supposed to be the leader, and thinks they’d feel less secure if they knew he depends on being able to sleep close to them at night to feel like he’ll be okay himself. Not in a they’d judge me way, but in a I really don’t want to let them down way. He wants them to think he’s got a handle on things even when he really doesn’t.

I was gonna do Philip too but I got this this morning and this post is already ridiculously long TuT, so here you go. Plus one mini Philip one.

Philip feels responsible for the young man he saw his boss kill the day the Entity got him. He knows that he killed scores of people unknowingly for Azarov, and those weigh, but he thinks sometimes late at night that if he could have just saved that one, it might have been enough to make him feel absolved someday for all the other deaths on his head. He remembers his face very well, and how terrified he was, and the moment of confusion and relief, and almost gratefulness when Philip let him go. He thinks over and over that if he’d just talked to him–assumed something was up, and gotten him to be quiet. Seen Azarov in time and stopped him. So many little things, and the young man would have lived. Even if the others were things he was completely blind to, he feels like that one is especially his fault, and that he could have stopped it. That one really haunts him.

#long post #dead by daylight #dbd #Philip Ojomo #Dwight Fairfield #Jake Park #Claudette Morel #Meg Thomas #I love doing these but I have like 6000 headcanons and I'm not good at picking one TuT I'm happy to do more but please help me give me an #area to focus on I'm dyin' scoob I'm boo boo the fool #Too many thoughts head full #the wraith #ask #anonymous #In Living Memory #In Living Memory (fic)

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galleryfake · 4 years

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BIG OL’ KORTOPI INFO & HEADCANON DUMP ! ;

( aka the cliffnotes version of all the headcanon legwork i’ve done for this chara in the span of roleplaying him for five years )

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BACKSTORY / PRE-CANON :

Kortopi originates from Meteor City, like the original members. The residents discovered him as a very small, clearly premature and sickly infant amidst the piles of garbage they regularly sifted through, not at all an uncommon occurrence, and took him immediately to the caretakers to try and save his life.

While he was able to be saved, it would be years before he would ever reach a “stable” level of health -- he was incredibly sickly and required nearly constant care all throughout his childhood, resulting in his care shifting hands a multitude of times due to the immense time and resources sink that it required. Because of this, Kortopi learned at a very young age to not grow attached to anyone, and that certain people - such as himself - were viewed as disposable by everyone. By the time his health had stabilized in his early teens, he had grown fed up with such suffocating conditions of being under constant care by people who - he thought - didn’t actually care about his life, and would simply pass him over again, and ran away to the fringes of the city to fend for himself.

His life, from that point on, had become purely survival-based, even as his developing brain sought to accrue more knowledge about the world and the people in it. He hid in the shadows, using his small size & adjacent speed and dexterity to rob people blind before they had even realized what was happening, and using his remaining time to people-watch from an assortment of hiding spots, learning about the nature of human interaction, pursuing subjects that interested, and even learning about Nen this way.

Once he had adequately self-trained in Nen and developed his Divine Left Hand, Demonic Right Hand technique accordingly, this newfound ability caused an upset in Meteor City that eventually even reached the elders. Suddenly, people’s possessions were disappearing left and right, as if from thin air, and nobody knew why -- completely unaware that it was Kortopi’s doing, or even that the young boy existed.

Enter the Phantom Troupe. Skilled Nen users themselves, they managed to set up a trap to catch the culprit in the act of using this strange ability, and Kortopi took the bait. While the legs discussed amongst themselves on the matter of killing him or just leaving him be, Chrollo noted that Kortopi was appearing to keep the original objects he stole, and saw in him a thief, just like them, and decided to try and recruit him.

Kortopi was then cornered by the various legs of the Spider, and then approached by the Head. Though he was distrustful at first, Kortopi sensed a level of genuine compassion from Chrollo that he had never seen before in anyone, finding himself trusting in the words he spoke without question, surprising himself. Lulled in by this newfound sense of security and potential ‘belonging’, Kortopi accepted Chrollo’s offer, becoming leg #12 of the Spider.

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GENERAL INFO / PERSONALITY :

Kortopi doesn’t know his last name ( or at least, what it would’ve been had he ever reunited with his parents ) or how old he is. As of the events of the Yorknew Arc, he is 19, and when asked, he usually defaults to saying ‘same age as Shizuku’, since he’s aware that their timeline of entering child & adulthood seem to match up almost identically. He’s actually older than her by several months, a fact he’d find amusing if he were to ever find out his exact date of birth.

Due to the troubled nature of his upbringing and the kindness that Chrollo showed him in allowing him into the group, he is fiercely protective of Chrollo and everyone within the Spider, and values their individual lives over the preservation of the group as a whole. This puts him directly in opposition of the group’s main principles and, as a result, of some of the founding members’ beliefs, as can be seen when he sides with Machi and is prepared to fight against Feitan and Phinks during the Chain User hostage dilemma.

The Troupe is the first group of people he’s ever cared for and desires validation and acceptance from, and as a result, he often finds himself at a crossroads -- wanting to be by their sides at all times, yet too shy and afraid of making them upset to ever meaningfully reach out to them himself. Often times, he harbors his affection for them quietly, choosing to watch their group activities from a high perch or sit nearby, observing them. He never outright asks to be included, but very much enjoys when he is, and loves both giving and receiving physical affection.

Outside of the Troupe, Kortopi has a very nihilistic view of people and life as a whole. As was demonstrated to him when he was young and seemingly chronically ill, he believes that people will always seek to cast out the ‘other’ or anyone who causes too much trouble, and therefore feels justified in taking the lives of normal people, knowing they’ll eventually try and do the same to him. People outside of the Troupe are meaningless to him, and he will generally take their acts of kindness towards him as superficial no matter how good their intentions.

Kortopi, like most members of the Troupe and most akin to Chrollo, does not fear death whatsoever. Having been on the edge of death countless times from both illness and the harshness of lone survival, he has an acute awareness that his time is limited, especially in the context of the Spider’s rule of new members being inducted by the killing of a current member. Because of this, he has no qualms doing things that may end in his death, or taking risks that may seem unwise. The future doesn’t exist to him - there is only the ‘now’.

His Spider tattoo is located between his shoulderblades, obscured by his long hair. He keeps his hair long both to obscure his tattoo and his face, keeping his identity hidden through both of these avenues. However, he’s not particularly self-conscious about his face ( as people often assume ) and he will often keep his hair behind his ears while he’s alone, eating, or around the Troupe in a private location. The appearance of his face isn’t a secret amongst anyone who knows him -- it’s rather average-looking, only made minorly off-putting by how large his eyes are, but otherwise nothing special.

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INTER-TROUPE RELATIONSHIPS :

Chrollo is the first true figure of authority that Kortopi’s ever had in his life, and he regards him with immense respect and devotion, unable to be swayed from this by anything. He feels honored to be a part of his plans, and is always eager to show off his abilities and prowess to the leader, hoping to be praised. 10/10, would love headpats from Danchou at all times.

Shizuku, Bonolenov and Shalnark are who he would consider his closest friends within the Troupe. These are the three he is most consistently able to overcome his shyness towards, and he can often be seen by their sides, a friendly presence that is always willing to listen to them and assist them in any way he can.

Machi and Pakunoda are both very calming presences to Kortopi, and he’ll often sit watching them read, sew or do other mundane activities, basking in their innate kindness and acceptance of him.

He desires to grow closer to Feitan, who he sees as someone similar to himself, but concedes to respectfully give him the space that he needs. He takes particular interest in observing his actions and attempting to analyze him past his cold and emotionless demeanor, and will jump at the chance to accompany him places or spend time with him in any capacity, hoping to see him open up with any luck and patient persistence.

Phinks, Nobunaga, Uvogin, and Franklin are all members with prickly outer demeanors and hair-trigger tempers, he’s found, but he’s witnessed them all to show care and affection to those they care about, and he finds them interesting to watch, often making a fun activity out of trying to predict their actions amongst Shal, Bono and Fei. He also feels gratitude whenever they show kindness to him, often reciprocating the gesture himself and taking amusement from their embarrassed reactions.

Hisoka and Omokage give him a strong sense of unpredictability, contrasting with the rest of the Troupe’s firm resolves. He trusts them, as an extension of his trust in Chrollo, but finds their actions and demeanors mysterious, often interrogating them with curious questions to quell his own interest.

Kalluto also gives him a sense that he may have hidden intentions, but this feeling is passed over in favor of feeling sympathetic to the young Zoldyck’s plight, as the only child in a group of highly skilled adults. Kortopi often tries to give him tips for navigating the Troupe, acting as a friendly big brother-type.

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SKILLS AND ABILITIES ;

GENERAL COMBAT & TACTICAL SKILLS: [ found here ! ]

NEN ABILITIES: [ found here ! ]

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MISC. INFO :

He enjoys intellectual board games and is quite good at them, only being bested within the Troupe a small handful of times, usually by Chrollo. He is humble about this, and has no problem with stopping to explain any rules or mechanisms about the game should his opponent need such a thing.

In terms of sexuality, Kortopi is gay, but very, VERY demi and equally as shy. Even if he catches feelings, it takes a small eternity for him to be brave enough to distinguish them as such, and another one to actually act on them. Also, his chances of catching feelings outside the Troupe are pretty close to zero. Like, probably about %0.0001. Don’t count on him looking your way at all if you’re an outsider.

His vocal chords are damaged, resulting in a deep, scratchy voice that tends to give people a fright when they first hear it. As a result, he can’t raise his voice very much, and avoids doing so unless absolutely necessary. It doesn’t hurt, but it results in a small fit of dry coughing that he finds unpleasant.

The skin of his hands and feet are permanently colored a more pink-purple hue due to poor blood circulation throughout his entire body -- the rest of his skin is otherwise normal.

#; man i've written a lot for this guy in the past few years #; a lot has changed since i first started writing him but there's definitely some stuff that's persisted #; neon ami jamie & req yall might recognize some stuff from my old blog hehehe #; but yeah when i say this is the cliffnotes version...#; i left a whole bunch of stuff out because this was approaching 2k words already WHOOPS #✧ headcanons — illusionary spider #📒 independent writing — a well worn journal

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years

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Watchmaker

WATCHMEN #4 DECEMBER 1986 BY ALAN MOORE, DAVE GIBBONS AND JOHN HIGGINS

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

On Mars, Dr. Manhattan drops the photograph of himself and Janey Slater on the Martian soil and revisits various turning points in his life.

In August 7th of 1945, a sixteen-year-old Jon Osterman is in the middle of assembling a watch when his father, a watch-maker, shows him the news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Confronted with the undeniable facts of the theory of relativity, the elder Osterman declares his profession outdated and throws his son's watch-making parts out the windows, urging Jon to instead pursue a career studying nuclear physics. Jon does so in which he attended Princeton University in 1948, and graduating with a Ph.D in atomic physics in 1958.

By 1959, Jon is employed at Gila Flats in Arizona, where experiments are being performed concerning the 'intrinsic fields' of physical objects. He meets Professor Milton Glass, his colleague Wally Weaver, and his love interest Janey Slater. During a trip to New Jersey, Jon and Janey visit an amusement park. There, Janey's watchbrand breaks and is accidentally stepped on by a fat man. Jon decide to fix the watch and finally consummate his relationship with Janey.

One month later, on August, shortly after his thirtieth birthday, Jon plans to give Janey the repaired watch, only to discover he has left it in his lab coat which is inside the intrinsic field experiment test chamber. When retrieving his coat inside the chamber, he is accidentally lock in. Once Professor Glass and the others found Jon, they are shocked and horrified. Glass tells John that the chamber's door has locked automatically and the generators have already began warming up to begin an experiment: removing the intrinsic field from cell block fifteen. Jon is locked in and the door cannot be open or override the countdown. Jon could only accept death and examines the watch he has put back together while his colleagues - except Janey, who cannot bear to see the last moment and flees the room - watch in horror as the countdown reaches zero. Jon is disintegrated in a flash of light.

A month later, a series of strange events occur at Gila Flats involving the apparitions of a disembodied human circulatory nervous system, a circulatory, and a muscled skeleton which last for seconds. The residents believed the facility to be haunted until on November 22nd, Jon returns as a tall, hairless, naked, blue-skinned man with incredible abilities. Jon return to his life with Janey, but remains somewhat emotionless and distant among his peers.

A year later, on February 1960, the American government recruited Jon as their military asset and touted him before the public as "Dr. Manhattan," the first super-hero. He is also provided with a costume which he grudgingly accepts, though he refuses to accept the icon design which is provided for him (this being a stylized orbital model of the atom). Instead, Jon chooses as his emblem a representation of a hydrogen atom, whose simplicity he declares to be something that kindles his respect; accordingly, he painlessly burns the mark into his forehead. Despite being considered America's greatest weapon, Jon wasn't able to prevent certain disasters such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, even though he is aware it is going to happen as he meets the President.

By 1966, during the first and only meeting of the Crimebusters, Jon fell in love with the then sixteen-year-old Silk Spectre, Laurie Juspeczyk, and bitterly ending his marriage with Janey. By 1970, Jon's true name is revealed to the public as his father had passed away in 1969 and there is no reason to conceal it.

In 1971, Jon was requested by President Richard Nixon in intervening in the Vietnam War alongside the Comedian. Within two months, the United States had won the war and forever tipping the balance of the Cold War in the West's favor. In 1975, Nixon proposed a new constitutional amendment that would allow the President to have an extended term in office. Amidst all this, Adrian Veidt publicly reveal his identity as Ozymandias and announcing his retirement from costumed heroics. Veidt invited Jon and Laurie to visit his Antarctic retreat Karnak. During a conversation between Veidt and Jon, the world have radically changed since the last fifteen years from quantum physics to transportation all thanks to Jon.

During the Police Strike of 1977, Jon and Laurie handled the riots in Washington, D.C. in which the former dispelled the rioters by teleporting them back to their homes. This caused two people to suffered heart attacks. Following the riots, the U.S. government passed an emergency bill (the Keene Act) proposed by Senator Keene which made vigilantism illegal and exempting registered adventurers such as Jon and the Comedian. Laurie and Dan Dreiberg retired their identities of Silk Spectre and Nite Owl, while Rorschach remains active in which he respond his feelings towards compulsory retirement by leaving a note on the dead body of a multiple rapist outside police headquarters. In 1985, Jon recalls walking in New York with Laurie and buying a Time magazine commemorating Hiroshima Week, and finally the events that lead him to leave for Mars.

Jon construct a giant, glass structure that rises from the soil while wondering if events had gone differently if he didn't become Dr. Manhattan. He then stands on the balcony of his structure to watch a meteorite shower.

DR. MANHATTAN: SUPER-POWERS AND SUPERPOWERS

In his book Doctor Manhattan, Super Powers and the Superpowers, Professor Milton Glass, the director of Gila Flats and sponsor of Dr. Manhattan, discuss his misgivings of Dr. Manhattan. Prof. Glass dispel the myth that he was the one who came up with the popular phrase "The superman exists and he's American" that described Manhattan in his public appearance by the American media. He instead said the chilling quote "God exist and he's American."

Glass states that the god-like Manhattan proved valuable as a pawn for the United States, in which his powers would allow him in defending the country from Soviet retaliation with ease and arguably forcing the Soviets to never risk a full-scale global conflict. Despite Manhattan's presence which have curbed Soviet adventurism, this does not spell global peace but only to exacerbate the Cold War.

To understand the mindset of the Soviet Union, Glass looks to the Russians' contributions in the Second World War and conclude that the Soviets would do anything to protect their nation from threats such as Manhattan no matter what the cost. This is supported by the sharp increase of Soviet and American nuclear stockpiles since the advent of Manhattan and making the possibility of Mutually Assured Destruction. Unfortunately, the Nixon administration does not share Prof. Glass' concerns and have become intoxicated with having a superhuman being to continually promote American interests unopposed.

Aside from affecting the international sense, Manhattan had also changed the domestic sense in which he contributed advanced technology such as electric cars and clean, economical airships. Thus, human culture have contort itself to accommodate Manhattan. Glass conclude that "We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan."

REVIEW

Some things work in Watchmen, that shouldn’t. One of those cases is this issue. It looks like a big departure from the murder mystery of the first issue, but all the story elements introduced here are essential to understand “the plan”.

This is also one of the chapters of Watchmen you will remember.

The script for this comic is filled with little gems, and paired with the art it takes into a different level. It is hard to tell how much Moore or Gibbons is in the art. Moore’s scripts are too detailed, but every now and then, Gibbons would improvise over the less detailed panels. Details may be Moore’s script, but the vision and everything we remember, comes from Gibbons.

This issue also explains why history on this Earth is so different than ours. This would be later explored in Tom Strong (by Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse), where the existence of a super-hero changes history (in that case it’s a more classic super-hero).

To be continued...

#alan moore #dave gibbons #john higgins #watchmen #dc comics #comics #review #1986 #modern age #doctor manhattan #vertigo comics

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dahniwitchoflight · 5 years

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Alrighty, So I got through the beginning prologue of the epilogue and through the first 5 pages of Meat.

Even though I did stream my stream of conciousness on twitch, im probbaly not gonna be posting that on youtube

Instead what I’ll be doing is writing down my thoughts and notes on tumblr after I stream each time

Speaking of, the next time I will be streaming is tomorrow April 29 at about 8pm EST for about an Hour again here: https://www.twitch.tv/dahnimae

the way my life schedule is now is I can probably do this for about an hour a day after work, so I think I can get through the epilogues quickly in nice digestible chunks

At least for Monday and Tuesday anyway, after that Ill have to make sure im not doing anything else

but anyways, here are the rough thoughts I had during the epilogue, up to the first 5 Pages of Meat:

First off, I got some thoughts from Rose about how the Heroic versus Just death system for immortals is apparently derived from an emotional value of what is “Good” or “Bad”, what is good or what is bad ultimately being derived from what someone or something “feels” is good or bad, so theres some subjectivity in that judgement, which makes sense considering how individuals are able to affect that judgement in homestuck canon, Aranea proposing her own individual morality onto the clock, as well as Caliborn just destroying the clock/idea of dividing things into good or bad

because Rose describes the system of describing what is canon or not canon or outside canon as being less emotional in nature than that of the of the god tier death clock

her exact words are “Good and bad are words that don’t mean anything, beyond a certain threshold of mortal consideration.” its not said outright but its basically implied

Speaking of, so Canon is made up of three “Pillars”

Truth

Relevance

Essentiality

now, truth is easy to distinguish from the other two, it’s the idea of reality. If something is true, that means it really happened. If something is a lie, that means it didn’t happen, or it wouldn’t happen, it does not exist.

Basically an idea of Hope versus Rage

Relevance and Essentiality are a little harder to seperate, and Rose doesn’t do much to seperate them either

but Relevance is tied to an idea of Context, it’s something that has meaning or importance to what is “currently” happening, the idea of the present conversation one is having, the current thoughts someone is thinking about, the object they are currently looking at or viewing, or just the exact point of focus of the current moment in time

something that is irrelevant is something were not looking at currently, something were not focusing on, or something that’s just not improtant or meaningful right now

basically an idea of Light versus Void

Essentiality is then an idea of a “must”, and idea, no matter when or where or how it happened. It Must have happened or it Must happen in the future. Its the one most closely tied to an idea of destiny, fate, or prerequisites for a more down to earth definition. In order to grow a plant, you MUST plant the seed.

The planting of the seed is essential to the plant ever growing in that spot, if no one plants the seed, the seed will never grow, and the plant will never exist. The plant’s entire existence depends upon that seed being planted.

something that is non essential, can still be true and relevant, the plant is a rosebush, or a tree with apples, or has green leaves versus purple leaves etc but if that exact property were to change into a different one, the core requisites of it’s existence does not change, it’s seed was still planted, it still grew into a plant. (within reason of course, but how essential something is does depend upon the context for why its essential, if its essential because its roots hold the ground together in the future allowing another event to happen, then it must be a plant with strong and deep earth fastening roots, what it is and why, is relevant to its essentiality, so the two are interwoven in a sense)

Basically an idea of Time and Space, but Rose doesn’t seperate them as neatly from Light and Void (she could have easily glossed them over into a single “importance” factor, but she didn’t)

it may be that the distinction itself is needed, but not necessarily a requisite to getting John to understand what she meant.

Essential, but not entirely Relevant to her current circumstances :)

but then she goes onto describe the different combinations of those three pillars and what they are and do

Inside Canon = It is True, it is somewhat Relevant, It is somewhat Essential

Relevance and Essentiality being treated as like percentages from 0-100%, inside canon requiring nonzero amounts for both, while Truth is more black or white, it either is True or is not True

Outside Canon = True

so the amount of relevance and essentiality can be nothing, or essentiality zero, but is must be True

and then Not Canon sort of overlaps what might have been two other categories, I guess the distinction of which doesn’t really matter for now, since were dealing with what is canon, not what isn’t canon

Not Canon = Untrue, with varying percentages of essentiality/relevance

I have my own ideas of what happens to other combos within the Homestuck mythos, theyre not complete but basically as follows:

True, Essential, Relevant (Canon Homestuck)

True, Not Essential, Relevant (Paradox Space Comics)

True, Essential, Not Relevant (Hiveswap)

True, Not Essential, Not Relevant (Outside of Canon)

Not True, Essential, Relevant (”Not Canon” = The Epilogues)

Not True, Not Essential, Relevant (”Not Canon” = Fanfiction/Audience Generated Content)

Not True, Essential, Not Relevant (”Not Canon” = FriendSims)

Not True, Not Essential, Not Relevant (Not Homestuck)

That’s basically how I’m divvying up the majority of distinguishable homestuck aligned content into those three pillars anyway

Rose did also Call Truth the foundation for which Relevance and Essentiality can do their thing, and that did go into how in order for the Friendsims to flip from being not canon to really canon (Hiveswap) it just needs to flip the switch into True

same for Fanfiction of Homestuck/Audience generated content in general, flipping the switch into True makes the Paradox Space content, which is essentially ascended Fanfiction content

and then for things Outside of Canon, they have a tenuous position, because while as long as they remain True, they are still Canon, their Truth value remains conditional upon their values of Relevance and Essentiality, since the closer they dip into zero or negative values, the closer they drag True from flipping to Untrue.

To remain true, or better yet, to integrate into Canon proper, they need to prop up their Relevance and Essentiality values

They need to become the centre of attention, the point of current focus, and they need to have some impact on events in other parts of canon

and all who understand this also understand that characters inside the story don’t get to decide directly how relevant or essential they are to the story, the Audience (and the Author) do

Rose has the idea that the answer lies in the Audience and their expectations, and the audience’s expectations for any story boils down to: the Hero must defeat the Villain.

John is the Hero, Lord English is the Villain. John must defeat Lord English for those outside of Canon to become Canon once again. It’s self explanatory in both ways.

sidenote though, the way John must defeat Lord English is also hilariously self explanatory in both ways.

John will use the cursor Juju to defeat Lord English since it is the only thing that can defeat him. John won’t have to think about how to use it or when or where. Since the cursor Juju is essentially just a plot hole that John fills suddenly out of nowhere perfectly and with ease and immediately will solve the problem no real effort needed.

John will defeat Lord English using the power of a literal Deus Ex Machina. (but a Deux Ex Machina that’s been symbolically hinted at being the secret weapon all along and which the audience is entirely aware will be the thing used to defeat LE it was more a matter of when then How, making it actually a Chekov’s Deus Ex Machina. And I guess the opposite nature of those two things equals out pretty nicely, The Deus Ex Machina is exactly that, an easy and simply solution to all of canon’s ills, but it feels earned instead of handed out randomly like a Chekov’s Gun would feel earned, while simply losing the difficulty of properly using a well set up Checkov’s Gun. Best of both worlds, worst of none)

But,

Different characters seem to have different thoughts on how best to solve the problem. Characters like Dirk it seems

Dirk seems to be operating under a sort of opposite position to Rose, that instead of propping up the audience’s expectations of the Hero, Dirk wants to prop up expectations of a Villain.

Though I’ve only gotten to page 5 of Meat, it seems pretty clear that Dirk’s intentions are to make either himself or Jane a Villainous character.

The reason being is because he may be aware that people can stick to stories for various reasons, including, either liking the villain a lot, or wanting the villain to Go Down.

lots of people like Game of Thrones because of how much they hated Joffrey, I know I was that.

and so far, Lord English hasn’t actually been that much of passionately hated villain? Like that’s pretty clear to the story and characters themselves, why even go fight him? Oh because its technically necessary okay fine whatever I guess

Meanwhile, we have a figure in Homestuck that’s already a pretty untapped source of Passionate Villainy, that covers quite a lot of the bases of canon and not canon, Paradox Space, Hiveswap, Homestuck, Fanfiction, Friendsims (and I wouldn’t be passed saying probably these epilogues as well)

Doc Scratch.

And Doc Scratch is pretty much a parallel of villainy of Lord English

Because where Lord English seems to physically embody certain characters, Doc Scratch seems to mentally embody them.

Caliborn, Equius, Gamzee and Dirk.

and with all this talk of Ultimate Selves already happening, what happens when one small part of your ultimate self is tainted by this kind of existence? This being, this apparent ultimate villain, tainted by villainous desires, something you know should be rejected

Do you embrace it fully, and see no difference between this being and yourself, internally incorporating it into your ultimate self (Caliborn)

Do you submit that part of yourself to it? Essentially, “giving up” that part of yourself, excizing that slice of your ultimate self as “someone else’s ultimate self” and therefore cutting off it’s influence “Here have it, it’s yours if you want it”? (Equius)

Does your Soul get torn through it’s middle, split like a broken piece of glass? Half on one side, half on the other. A mirthful broken pair of ultimates. Dissociated from eachother enough to be considered seperate yet two halves of the whole, inseperable yet divided. (Gamzee)

Or do you allow “yourself” to be entirely overwritten by the other? Does one bad apple spoil the bunch? Does it infest and infect, slowly, piece by piece, cell by cell, like a virus spreading, changing, overlapping, until everything that was You, your ultimate self, your essential Being, is no longer what is was.

Will your Heart be Broken Dirk?

You make jokes about cutting pieces off yourself before it’s too late, like it’s the only solution. That piece of you is gone, it’s rotting, and it’s spreading fast.

But you need someone else to do it for you now. Somehow, right now, you’re not building up the resolve to cut off your own head like you might have done before. Have their insidious roots taken hold in you that deeply?

Destroy “Yourself” or be Destroyed by Yourself Dirk

But I guess it’s different when you’re just cutting off a piece of flesh representing “you”

Are you more hesitant to cultivate or destroy your ultimate self itself? To suddenly force yourself to decide what kind of person you are? How does a computer program itself while it’s running?

Ignorant of that fact that everyone is constantly doing that to themselves all the time with the choices they make, what they choose to do, or the kinds of people they decide to be?

People decide who they ultimately are with their own choices, they may not have access to directly fiddle with their ultimate selves as if it were a physical being under a microscope, but what most people do or what Dirk has the ability to do are functionally identical. He’s just overthinking it and getting too caught up in the pretentious philosophy of it all

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy #Epilogues #UPD8 #Dirk Strider

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yandereshit · 5 years

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707 x Reader: chance encounter.

It’s my piece for the @2019loveforallseasons. A big thank you to the mods for making up the title becuz I was just SO UNCREATIVE ON THAT DAY.

And of course an even bigger thank you for making this zine. I’m so proud to be a part of it!

“Ever considered you are a piece of trash yourself? You can’t imagine how much it would explain.”

Unwelcoming voice brought the man back to reality. He stared forward blankly, trying to get back to his casual self.

A futile attempt, really.

“Do I stink that much?” he shared a doubt, finally moving to check if the shirt he was wearing for the past few days was still somewhat fresh.

“I think there are flies living in your trash hoodie.”

“Excuse you. It’s my best hoodie.”

“Its trashness suits you.”

Seven rolled his eyes.

It’s easy to insult him when he’s like this, a realization came. When he literally feels like a trash. When his head throbs and every line of code he writes makes close to no sense. So he has to rewrite it at least twice before it does. And once he writes the whole text it turns out it doesn’t work anyway and then he’s forced to rewrite it once more. IT specialist? More like IT loser.

Now, he sat in front of his computer with his legs curled up under his chin and stared at the screen that was already covered in cat memes he set as his screensaver.

How long has he been staring before Vanderwood put a plate in front of him and told him to turn the computer off because he’s being useless anyway? He wasn’t even sure what time of the day it was until he spotted the numbers on his phone’s screen.

“Don’t even think about it” Vanderwood muttered, snatching his phone away. “If you take a break from computer, no way you’ll be texting these RFA guys instead.”

“But that’s a good break…”

“Your eyes are so red I’m surprised you haven’t gone blind yet.”

Seven huffed, looking away and then at the plate in front of him. Its content looked like some kind of meat. He took a fork and suspiciously poked the surface.

“You haven’t poisoned it, have you? It looks too good to be sincere” he noticed.

“If you want I can splash it on your face. Will it look sincere enough?”

“No, thanks. I like it how it is” Seven muttered, taking the plate and spinning on his chair so that he wouldn’t have to face Vanderwood anymore.

Instead, his eyes fixated on the wall in front of him as he took the first bite of the food.

Walls, walls, walls. A red wall with thick, yellow stripes all over its lower half. Walls thick enough to not let a single sound outside. To separate him from the outside world. To make him believe he’s alone here, so that nothing ever bothers him.

But it was only the theory. He still would get bothered. By everything. By cats, photos, RFA, Vanderwood. And now by…

By the hopeless girl on the chat, the one who tried to break his peace, who felt like his opposite. Bright and innocent, with no dark past to haunt her, nor ties to some fishy organizations.

A complete opposite of himself.

He had no idea why it kept bothering him.

But he knew much enough to be aware that he won’t focus until he manages to get it all off his head.

“You’re really hopeless, you know?”

“No, you” Seven muttered, putting down the empty plate and glancing up at the other. Vanderwood stood in the doorstep of his working space, with his arms crossed. “Give me back my phone” the redhead ordered, but his colleague only snorted in response.

“Not until you rest.”

“That’s incredibly touching you suddenly started to care about my well-being but I still would rather you give me back my phone.”

“You’re addicted and not getting it back until you look like a human in the first place. I don’t want you to waste your time on being useless so at least spend try for once to look less vulnerable.”

“You’ll call me useless no matter if I-”

“Seven Zero Seven. Get your ass off the damn chair and get out of this house.”

“...Out?”

“Yes.”

“Out… like outside…?”

“Yes.”

Seven pressed his lips together, his face twisting in unease.

“But…”

“When was the last time you were outside? Was it like, in this century?”

“Oh excuse you, now you’re trying to insult me” Seven huffed, crossing his arms. “I was outside two months ago, don’t you remember?”

“Great! Then you don’t have to worry!” The mean apparently brought out his whole sarcasm supply. “You’re used to it, right? Or should I taser you and just throw your limp body out the door?”

A single bond of cold sweat ran down Seven’s neck.

“I-I will leave on my own” he mumbled, still not convinced but pretty much ensured that it’ll be safer for him this way.

But his doubt only grew stronger as he thought about what weather there is outside.

With no windows to look out through, he didn’t even know what season it was until he checked the date, and even then he wasn’t sure just how much of said season was visible outside. All he ever saw was Vanderwood dripping wet when he escaped the rain, or his red face when the sun was way too strong and the poor guy cursed all the clothes that were his usual attire.

For Seven, every day of the year was the same. He’d go out if there was a need to, and if there was none, he usually didn’t have time to take walks either. His load of work increased greatly since a few months ago a few other IT specialists have been fired due to… various circumstances Seven preferred not to know about. Ever since then, even Vanderwood was more stressed and usually decided to restrain Seven from making breaks even when the hacker was clearly overworked. He only ensured the redhead had some nutritious (not necessarily good-looking) food that made him able to stay up longer and work… till he fainted.

That’s how Seven’s life looked like and no matter how suffocating it was, he had no right to deny it. The realization was so strong that he managed to convince himself that he doesn’t want any other life. That it’s the best to just stay and work till the end of his miserable life.

However, on days like this, he got painfully reminded that food and work was not all he needed to live. Puffy eyes, increasing headache, a will to just faint so that he doesn’t have to deal with reality – that was his life now.

“...How long do I have to stay out?”

“...What?”

“Will you count the time? Is five minutes enough?”

Vanderwood’s eyebrow twitched dangerously.

“You’re kidding, aren’t you? I’m letting you leave and do whatever but you don’t even want to? You’re really hopeless.”

“Yeeah…”

“I don’t want to see you here before dinner.”

Pushing himself off the chair, Seven yawned and stretched, as if he just woke up from a nap. Not longer than five seconds later, he tripped over his own pants sprawled on the floor and fell down the short stairs that led from his workspace to the main room.

Vanderwood stared with his eyebrow raised, as the guy slowly stood up and limped to the main door, acting as tough as it was only possible with his ankle probably almost strained.

“You’re leaving like this?”

“What do you mean like this.”

“You know it’s autumn, don’t you?”

“What, already?” The man looked sincerely surprised.

His colleague rolled eyes.

“Put on a scarf or something. And don’t kill yourself while trying to walk. Good luck.” With these words, Vanderwood disappeared in the kitchen’s door, as if completely losing interest in Seven’s vulnerability.

Opening the closet next to the door, Seven started throwing everything out until he found a scarf – the only one he had. He couldn’t care less, but if it turned out to be cold outside, maybe the scarf would save him from catching a cold? Because a cold would definitely be the last thing he’d like to catch during this cursed walk.

The world inside was always different than outside. No one changed their bedroom depending on the weather or even season. So when you were inside, you could spend long days in a perfectly stable temperature, where it never rained, where you could focus on what wanted to because the weather wouldn’t absorb you.

The world outside was always different than inside. It was full of life, full of changes. One moment, you could be standing in the sun rays and the next – rain was dropping onto your head and you would ought to accept this fact. It was more difficult to focus on what you’d like to, because the surroundings would always somehow attract your attention. Their changes, moves, cycles.

That’s how the girl felt, walking among the trees slowly losing its colors and leaves. More and more, the world was fading to reds, yellows and blacks. Slowly, but constantly. And yet the changes were made in silence. Low whistling of the wind was nothing in comparison to what one heard outside the park. Here, everything was quiet and relaxing.

So when she went forward, ridden of her worries, hiding among a hat, scarf and ear warmers, the sight of a weirdly familiar silhouette was what she welcomed with peace. It didn’t disturb her at first, only brought out some curiosity, like a soft accent that rid her off the first signs of boredom.

The man sat on one of the benches, not really standing out. Among other people passing by or sitting on other benches, he looked really average. Maybe except for his intensively red hair and the childish scarf, but in the end, no one seemed to pay attention to him.

The girl did.

For a long while she stood in her place, subconsciously tilting her head to the side as she thought. Was it him, she asked herself. Pieces of images started roaming through her head, her eyebrows furrowed as she wondered, unsure whether the feeling she had was true or not. But once her eyes landed on the man’s hoodie, she recognized it in an instant, and it was enough to convince her.

She went forward, confidently at first, but when she came closer, she started noticing more and more in the other’s silhouette.

He was hiding his face’s lower half in the scarf tied tightly, but messily around his neck. His hands were tucked into the hoodie’s pockets, and behind a pair of glasses, she saw his eyes closed as the man just sat there, with no intention to even look around.

It was one of the colder days this Autumn. She made sure to not get cold herself, but the other apparently didn’t care much enough. Or maybe he didn’t notice it was that cold outside? He should have checked it. Or went back home when it turned out it’s colder than he predicted. How irresponsible of him.

She had to take this matter in her own hands and at least try to soothe his misery.

Sitting on a bench without as much as a phone to busy himself with was just boring. Boring as hell. He wanted to go home, but he left barely a quarter ago and he was afraid Vanderwood wouldn’t even let him back in.

The man didn’t let him even take a car (or more precisely – he blocked the garage’s door). He’d rather go to someplace warmer than that, but he didn’t take a wallet either. However, what he was lacking of the most, was a hat. His ears were so cold he flinched when he touched them with his hands. Oh, gloves would be nice too.

He closed his eyes, kind of wishing to just take a nap, completely ignoring how irresponsible it’d be. The coldness around, soft wind, everything was like a lullaby.

And when he was already about to give up and fall asleep, the steps of a person passing by suddenly stopped, pulling him out of the trance.

He heard many people passing by and steps were nothing out of ordinary. It’s just that the steps actually stopping were what brought out his uneasiness.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the silhouette in front of him.

Just a girl, he thought. Not a danger, he more of prayed than realized.

“Um… hi?” the girl spoke, smiling kindly. She extended her hands to him, showing him a cup of coffee, steaming and smelling. “Here, take it. You look like you need something to warm up.”

He stared back, dumbfounded. What did this girl want him to do? To take this cup? Was she giving him coffee?

Wait… Was it poisoned? Was she an enemy?

Or just someone who enjoyed poisoning innocent passers? No one just comes to a stranger and hands them a coffee. Things like this… just don’t happen. And he didn’t look like he’s homeless or something. So there was no reason to show him pity either.

He couldn’t let her know how suspicious he was though, could he? She’d think he’s smarter than her and that’d make the situation more dangerous. That’s what his instincts were telling him.

So he took the cup. It was warm, very warm. So warm he decided to just hold it in one hand for no longer than five seconds and then switch to the other. She probably didn’t feel it that strongly because she had gloves.

She has no idea how lucky she is, Seven thought.

“Er… thanks” he mumbled, trying to sound natural. He looked down at the cup, but his attention would never leave her silhouette.

“Can I… um… sit with you?” she uttered.

He shrugged.

“Sure.”

The girl sat next to him, in a safe distance, yet not awkwardly far. Her eyes were focused on him for some time as he tried to smell the coffee. She probably thought he was going to try it, but he more of wanted to find out what kind of toxin could be inside.

She didn’t look too bothered and just rested back, glancing up at the clouded sky.

“You don’t look prepared for Autumn, you know?” she chuckled.

He frowned, not responding. Was she trying to distract his attention? He wasn’t going to give in. For his own good.

The girl tilted her head to the side, a bit concerned.

“Are you feeling alright? You look upset” she noticed, pointing at his face. The man quickly hid himself in the scarf, welcoming the slight warmth it gave him when he exhaled and his own breath hit his face.

“I’m… fine. It’s just the weather, I guess” he mumbled.

“You should have taken something warmer than that” she scolded him.

“I… uh… guess so” he stuttered, unsure if that was the right thing to say. No one besides Vanderwood ever scolded him before. That was a weird feeling. “I was just in hurry, I guess.”

“Where were you hurrying if you’ve been sitting here for the last ten minutes at least?”

He frowned. Did she watch him before she approached? Suspicious.

“I was… hurrying out” he precised, even though he felt like he had no obligation to. What kind of conversation it even was?

The girl tilted her head to the side, clearly confused. Should he explain that? Probably not. But on the other hand, what harm would it be?

“Well… My maid said I should breathe with fresh air for once” he said, shrugging. The hotness of the coffee cup in his hands became unbearable and he put it on the ground next to the bench, hoping so that he doesn’t accidentally knock it over. Or… should he? So that he spills the poison… if there’s one… the girl won’t be able to urge him to drink it… Was it even poisonous in the first place…? Just what kind of situation it was?!

The girl laughed, as if he just said a good joke. But he didn’t. Why was she laughing?

“It’s hard to imagine it. But your maid must be a very specific person” she noticed, smiling cheerfully, which he knew from the wrinkled skin around her eyes, as the lower half of her face was hidden underneath that thick scarf of hers.

“Well… yes, she’s specific” he only admitted, afraid of spilling any more. Staring at the girl for a few long seconds, his thoughts started to stir. Something in his mind started to shuffle, as though there was some kind of thought, begging for him to hear. Something deadly obvious he couldn’t quite put his hands on.

“Do I… have something on my face?” the girl asked and he quickly shook his head, pushing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and looking down as he was doing before. “Hm… What are you going to do? You know like. It’ll start getting dark soon, and even colder, do you have to stay here? If your maid doesn’t want you back at home, we can go to some cafeteria at least. You shouldn’t risk catching a cold like this. She surely wouldn’t like that either.”

He shivered at the thought of Mary Vanderwood 3rd yelling at him for getting sick on his day off.

Somehow, the girl’s attempt to lead him somewhere else calmed down his mistrust. He glanced down at the cup of coffee, slowly cooling down on the ground. The girl looked like she completely forgot about it.

“And how about you?” he asked, picking up the cup and warming his hands on it again. It was already cold enough to hold it normally. The coffee inside must have been good to drink by now, but there was something still holding him back from doing so.

“Hm?”

“Weren’t you on your way somewhere? Is it normal for you to just… stop by and buy strangers coffees?”

Strangers.

What Seven could not, by any chance, be aware of, the girl merely smirked at the remark. She was very well aware by now that the man just didn’t recognize her.

“That’s not a bad thing to do, you know” she smiled. “Especially when you see someone freeze because of their own stupidity” she added with such kindness in her tone that he was dumbfounded for the next few seconds, torn between did she just diss me and no way she would do that.

He must have made a really funny face because the girl suddenly started to laugh. And he just kept staring, unsure what else to do.

“Come on… I didn’t think you’d be so gloomy in real...” he noticed slight hesitation in her voice, when the girl corrected herself. “Laugh will help you warm up!”

“...I’m warm” he mumbled, taking a sip of his coffee.

Did he really just do that?

He panicked slightly, staring down at the cup. The coffee was still somewhat warm, with a perfect amount of sugar, maybe a bit too strong for his liking, but the milk was making up for it. But overall, it tasted just normal. He was aware some kinds of poisons had no flavor and he wouldn’t be able to recognize them. Yet…

It was just so tempting to give in. The girl didn’t look like she was a bad person. All she did was… just too sincere to be a cover-up. Because she made herself so suspicious in his eyes he just didn’t believe it all would be to make him give in. That would have to be some twisted kind of double bind.

He took another sip.

“You’re dumb” she exclaimed in such a straightforward voice he had no space there to disagree. He just pressed his lips together and took yet another sip, as though filling the stagnant silence with coffee.

“Yeet.”

The silence that took over from the next moment was way more relaxing and the two didn’t bother either looking at each other or even moving much. They both just stared forward as they sat, eyes glued to the world around. Seven, a bit warmed up already, felt more willing to actually look at anything besides his own feet and only then he started to notice how Autumn had started to take over the park.

Seasons were something quite weird to him. He never really saw them change. He just saw the results. In his childhood, he didn’t get to look outside too often. Once he grew up a bit, his house didn’t even have windows to peek through.

Yet when he looked up, he felt some kind of longing. The Autumn sky held some sort of nostalgia, as though he’s been waiting for the whole year to see it.

“It’s time for me” the girl suddenly announced. Seven glanced at her and although unwittingly, he felt quite disappointed with the fact he won’t get to sit with her anymore. They haven’t talked much. It was each other’s presence that kept them there, not some kind of conversation. “It’s quite cold already.”

There was no kind of mutual feeling connecting them, and no bonds.

Barely a few days of vague knowing, not enough to set anything for sure, and not enough for the one to recognize the other on a street. Not enough for the other to see through the sadness that dwelt in the man for over twenty years of his life.

Enough to enjoy the touch of weather, to rest in the soft colors, as though nothing else in the world existed, besides wind and leaves.

“Thanks for the coffee” Seven said, staring as she stood up, fixing the scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Sure. Don’t want strangers around me to get sick” she hummed, sending him a sincere smile.

Seven smiled against himself, but hid it in his own scarf.

“Well, anyway. Get going soon too, or you’ll get sick” she added, pushing hands in her coat’s pockets. Another smile lightened up her face. “Have a good day, Luciel.”

With these words, she walked away, quickly disappearing behind the trees where the park alley turned.

Seven stared forward dumbly for a few long minutes, as though unsure how to proceed this whole situation.

Luciel.

His name he never shared with the strange girl, yet the one she knew.

She knew.

She knew him.

The man, with his face completely unmoved, finished the last sip of coffee and threw the cup perfectly into the nearby trashcan. Now he could say that with hundred percent certainty.

She had to be a spy.

#mystic messenger 707 #mystic messenger seven #mystic messenger saeyoung #saeyoung choi #707 x reader #saeyoung x reader #707 #seven #seven zero seven #mm luciel #luciel x reader #mm 707 #mm saeyoung #mm fanfiction #mystic messenger fanfiction #mm ff

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sunshinehighway · 5 years

Note

82. “Just breathe, okay?” (Robert to Aaron 😊?)

{if you don’t feel comfortable reading about panic attacks give this one a swerve}

Aaron is the strongest person Robert knows.

He’s the kind of strong people shouldn’t have to be.

At least not good people.

And Aaron, well he’s the best of them all.

He’s survived a countless number of battles in his life. Battles that are evident on his stomach and wrists, jagged scars of all the unimaginably tough times he’s won - a constant reminder of how delicate Aaron can be, but how courageous he is that he’s never given up.

No matter how many battles he’s been through, he’s never lost the war - never let the fight seek out of him.

And he’s in the best place now - he’s happy, really fucking happy. Robert sees it in the way he holds his head high with a sense of pride, sees it in the way his eyes smile along with his mouth, sees it in the way he walks around the village with a spring in his step, as if he’s finally found somewhere he belongs.

He has. They both have. They belong together.

Robert knows that he could go anywhere with Aaron and feel at home, but he reckons they’ve got everything they need here in Emmerdale - a far cry from the two troubled teenage boys who were so desperate to be wanted, to be loved and to have a home.

—

But Robert soon came to realise that the calm and content routine they’ve found themselves in wouldn’t last forever.

He supposes that’s the honeymoon period over. Literally.

Because that bastard Billy just had to rear his ugly head, didn’t he?

It doesn’t sit well with Robert, that the man who made his husbands life hell in prison is allowed to swan around the village, doing what the fuck he wants.

And that’s the thing with this damn village, news travels fast. It can work in your favour, you can make someone public enemy number one with just a few hushed whispers in the cafe - Robert should know, he’s been on the receiving end of those whispers countless times.

But the damage can be undone just as quickly as it’s caused.

He’s not sure there’s anyone else in the world you can go from zero to hero quite so timelessly.

Sometimes Robert thinks he lives in a village full of fucking goldfish.

Considering Billy is now living with Marlon and working at the factory, as if he’s some pillar of the community.

So much for village loyalty, Robert thinks.

—

It’s hardly been a week since Billy showed up and Aarons lost that happiness, that sparkle, that was shining so brightly. It’s been replaced with a dull ache.

He’s blood, sweat, and tears again. It reminds Robert of a time he wished didn’t exist.

Haunted by the memories, held captive by the fear.

But he loves him all the same.

The nightmares have come back with a force that knocks them both down, they fester and grow and make all the good things seem a world away.

And he’s doing all he can to help Aaron, but when he’s refusing to leave the house it’s easier said than done.

Because this is so much more than fear for Aaron now, it’s terror. Terror and fear, Robert has learned, are two different emotions. Fear is what you feel when something might happen. Terror means it already has.

And right now, he knows Aaron is terrified.

—

It’s taken Robert three whole days to help Aaron out of the house. He’d called ahead, made Chas promise that Billy wasn’t in the pub and nor will he be ever again - if she anything to do with it.

The weather outside was calm, a hint of sunshine trying to peek through the thick January clouds and the wind was gently blowing, making the grass dance.

Robert hoped that the stillness somewhat calmed Aaron - made him feel slightly more at ease.

They’d only just left the house, still in that state of holding onto the warm home comfort before the chill seeps into your bones, when they see him.

Billy.

If looks could kill, Billy would be 6ft under the mill driveway by now and they wouldn’t have a single thing to worry about.

But unfortunately Robert doesn’t hold those kinds of superpowers so instead, he gives Aaron’s hand a reassuring squeeze, in the hope he can send some strength pumping up Aaron’s veins.

He’s trained in Aaron.

Aware of every trigger and tik.

Therefore Robert is more than aware of what’s happening now.

Aaron was turning his head frantically, and it was a matter of fight or flight, but Roberts not sure Aaron has any fight left in him - he could only stand motionless in the driveway, breaths huffing like that of an angered bull, trying his best to hide the tremors in his fingertips.

He was screaming in silence.

And Robert, well his mind was awash with riptides, clogs turning ten to the dozen - and he’s been here so many times, helping Aaron through - but it’s usually in the darkness of their bedroom. Not out in the open, exposed to everyone.

Exposed to Billy.

Billy who was still fucking standing there, staring.

If he had a single brain cell he’d of scarpered by now.

But Robert reckons people was cold as Billy don’t give much thought to anyone but themselves.

Unlike Aaron, who is still shaking. Tremors consuming his whole body.

With his hand still in Aaron’s he gently tugs his husband towards him, bodies turned inwards in the hope of reaching Aaron’s eyes, fingertips shaking beneath Robert’s hand.

“Look at me. Look at me, Aaron. Shh.”

Robert isn’t all that surprised when Aaron keeps his head cast downwards, breaths still rapid.

He wishes it was that easy.

“Aaron it’s me, it’s Robert. You’re safe, I promise.” Robert speaks with a calmness that contradicts the fear that’s persistent inside him.

He’s thankful his hand was already in Aaron’s, it means touching him won’t shock Aaron into further panic. He gives it another reassuring squeeze before lifting his free hand to Aaron’s face, “It’s going to okay Aaron, I just need you to work with me and we can go back home, okay?” Robert explains, words softly spoken and touches tentative.

And Roberts never felt relief like he does when Aaron’s glossy and bloodshot eyes met Robert’s own, while he nods his head slowly.

“Just breathe, okay? Breathe with me”

“I c-can’t -“ Aaron stutters out between breaths.

Robert cups a hand around the back of Aaron’s neck. “Breathe, Aaron, come on,” Robert pleads.

He could feel the bile begin to rise in his throat. The fear and trepidation that one day he might not be there to help Aaron, that one day Aaron might not be strong enough to come out the other side.

“Do you know where we are, Aaron?” Robert questions.

Aaron’s eyes search his surroundings frantically as a whimper slips through his cracked lips. And Roberts thankful Billy finally found an ounce of common sense and made himself scarce.

“Yeah that’s it, we’re just on the driveway, we’re home Aaron,” Robert reassures.

It was then when Aaron seemed to calm down slightly with the realisation he was safe. With Robert.

“Copy my breathing Aaron, nice and slow, yeah?”

Robert registered Aaron taking one complete breath, which seemed to fill him all the way to his toes. He let it out slowly, counting to five, eight, ten… twelve, fifteen.

“Okay? I’m here. It’s just you and me.”

Aaron visibly sags against himself, shoulders drawn in, making himself seems as small as physically possible.

“I’m sorry Robert,” Aaron says, voice sounding wreaked, and it breaks Robert’s heart.

“Hey you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, do you hear me? Nothing,” Robert emphasises as he pulling Aaron into his chest, and he’s still shaking slightly, body trying to catch up with him. He wraps his arms tight around his waist, fingertips drawing soothing patterns on his back.

And he knows it isn’t enough, he knows Aaron is still going to spring awake in the night, plagued by another crippling, all-consuming nightmare. But it’s all Robert has to offer right now, himself exhausted from the constant thrum of worry.

“I tried, I really did,” And with those five words, Robert feels his heart shatter into a million tiny piece, unsure of how to stitch it back together.

“I know, I know,” Robert voices gently.

“I love you,” Aaron whispers.

And God does Robert love Aaron. So much.

And that’s why he’s going to phone Aaron’s counselor tomorrow, see if she can help Aaron, help the both of them, through this.

prompt list

#not such a happy one for once #still soft though #aaron dingle #robert sugden #robron #emmerdale #my words #fic #panic attack cw

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markoberposts · 5 years

Text

Special AFFECTS ;)

I just caught up watching this week's remaining episodes of the reality TV series Love Island (on CBS) for the week of 7/15-->7/19/2019, and I'm now simply feeling a desire to report on the emotional affects that it's having upon me. Perhaps it's due to the good way that they edit the show--their producers bringing those things out in it that seem to effect me the most--because it does indeed have an impactful emotional affect upon me that lasts for a good amount of time afterword. They make the show so well that a person can't help but to feel like they are actually there with the participants sharing in with everything as it is happening to them all...and causing us viewers to feel all of their same emotions concerning everything. And for some reason, I like this happening to me. I admittedly like to at times be made to feel some strong emotions, being that normally I don't feel them very often from real-life type events (for unknown reasons). But I don't like feeling these types of emotions for very long, so they go away relatively quickly afterword for me each such time (normally in much less than an hour's time). So anyway, this show is good at bringing these feelings out in me, so for this reason, it keeps me interested in it. There's also the part about it having good-looking people in it as well...but that isn't really enough whatsoever to keep me watching the episodes from day-to-day. It's seriously only the emotions that it evokes that can accomplish such a thing...otherwise I'd get bored really quickly, just as I never watch any of the beauty pageants or anything of that nature anymore due to my lack of interest. And although it is admittedly the physical beauty that both gets and keeps my strongest attention, it nevertheless requires a special kind of beauty to keep me from feeling bored right away. In other words, I actually need to develop a crush on a woman as well in order for me to remain interested...which then makes her beauty last seemingly indefinitely for me...and then I'm able to avoid becoming bored. And I guess that for this particular show, there is one woman who's fun to watch (Caro) and then there is another one who I do have an actual growing crush on and feel strongly drawn to (Elizabeth). So my interest in this show remains strong enough to keep me from feeling boredom at any point in it so far (with it supposedly now being about half way through their season, I believe).

So today, while I was watching the show and starting to feel somewhat emotional from it, I suddenly started feeling strongly sorry for myself as well. The reason is because when comparing my life to theirs, I end up seeing how each of them shows each other a lot of respect from the get-go...from first meeting each other...which is made evident by their great level of always having fully open, frequent, and civil communications with each about everything, whereas I've never really experienced that type of a condition with people in any type of a group-setting environment within my life so far. Sure, there have always been a few people here and there nice to me throughout my life, but for the most part, either people showed no interest in me or they treated me rudely/poorly from the first time of interacting with me. And so the majority of my memories have involved far more of these negatively-emotional events caused by people treating me poorly and with a complete lack of any form of respect whatsoever. So although I do have my own strong type of self-esteem, when it comes to how I feel about myself socially, I have nearly zero self-esteem in pure social environments and always have had. And I really don't think that this has been due to anything that I've ever done of a negative variety around anyone. In fact, I've always been shy and quiet by default and yet nevertheless friendly whenever others have actually talked to me; so their lack of respect for me certainly hasn't been due to my having ever been rude to any of them. So I've always felt confused by this and as a result somewhat persecuted in general on the purely social level (meaning where business-matters aren't also somehow involved at which times I seldom feel this way). I know that this started effecting me early on in my life, and as a result, the negative self-esteem has kept me from ever feeling comfortable in purely social situations. And after that, any negative social occurrences--such as my recently-mentioned issues of being made to feel as though I'm viewed as a creepy type of guy by young attractive women in particular--has thereby strongly added to these initial feelings. Case in point, I can't help but to frequently ponder why exactly a perfect stranger (guy) who knows nothing about me would suddenly tell me that I'm way outside the league of a girl that I was choosing to show some interest in, when this guy who had told me such a thing was obviously not interested in pursuing her himself (which I knew because of the circumstances at the time). So these types of negative events have all-of-my-life served to strongly reinforce how things have always been for me throughout my life, logically keeping me from ever really developing any type of social self-esteem as a result.

And in all honesty now, in looking back, my problem has always been that I'm so incredibly slow at things. I mean, when I analyze these things more carefully now at this point in my life, especially compared to shows like this as I've been doing, I can see how--when I was younger at least--I could have improved my physical looks and actually attracted women as a result. But thanks to how people had always treated me so poorly, I never even considered trying such a thing or showing any interest in even there being such a possibility for me. I've just always accepted myself as being a victim in this sense, and as a result, I didn't know that I could change this about myself and cause things to likely be different for me. In other words, I can see now that if I would have improved my looks as much as possible back then, I actually could have probably gone onto a show like Love Island MYSELF back then and would have very likely become accepted by them as being one of them...belonging there with them. So I know that most of my problem throughout my life has been due to my negative self-image socially-speaking from early on in my life, this having kept me from ever even considering or trying such things. And the odd thing is that although I do get sad for myself at times as a result of this fact, I don't ever really feel any regret from it, oddly enough. Instead, it feels like there's been some actual pre-planned (but not yet understood) "reason" for it all as such. This probably sounds odd, but I simply feel like I'm where I am at at this time because of some "pre-planned" type of reason of some sort, and that I just haven't been made aware of whatever that reason is yet. Part of it is that I really do feel happier being able to work on my own stuff virtually all of the time rather than having had to sacrifice it as I would have mostly needed to do with having my own family situation. But still, there are times, like tonight, where I nevertheless do feel sorry for myself a bit for my never having felt the same types of social respect from others that I see them giving to each other on TV shows such as on Love Island, which I know isn't the way that it always is with everyone constantly out there in the real-real world but still does nevertheless happen more often than not among people in group settings.

And I think that most of my problems with this have come from my having misunderstood about how people normally do react to other people--and thereby to me as well--all of my life. The mutual respect that I both notice and long for on the social level concerning others--as evidenced by there being frequent, open, non-abrasive communications between people--isn't really missing for me because of a lack of strong physical attractiveness on my part--as I'd always thought it had been--but rather due to the way that I present myself to others...the way that I project myself outward around others. So if, for instance, I would have instead learned to feel comfortable in my own skin and to not care that others might be negatively reacting-to or judging me, then I would have been able to act just like they do within this Love Island show, exhibiting fully self-confidence, and--along with such a projection of myself--thereby would have become accepted as one of their equals I strongly believe, gaining their full respect just as they all show toward each other on this show (and on the former prior Paradise Hotel for the most part as well). So the real problem all of my life hasn't been my looks, but rather my having always instead wrongly accepted that my looks were so poor that I shouldn't even try interacting with people socially because they wouldn't want anything to do with me due to my lack of physical attractiveness (especially having concerned both my size as well as my problems with severe acne back then). But if, for example, I would have instead walked with my head-held-high into a social gathering and said to anyone giving me a "you don't belong here" type of look that had always seemed to come from most people: "I may be short and small and not a very attractive guy but it means nothing to me and it won't mean anything to most of you in the long run either", then things would have virtually-for-certain been quite different for me within my life in these regards.

And the evidence to prove such a statement regarding myself does seem to be there, even though the negative events still have always had a greater emotional impact on me, unfortunately. And as one example of some positive evidence that seems to prove my assertions here regarding what could have instead been for me in the positive direction, there was this one time regarding a party that I'd gone to because I felt forced to. It was a party held by the Society of Physics Students at ASU that I'd been a member of during one semester. I hadn't planned on attending it--as is normal for me to not go to parties due to feeling as though I won't be accepted within them (as evidenced on lots of other past occasions concerning various parties)--but for this particular one I'd ended up feeling like I needed to return something that a male member of our group had given to me when I'd driven him to his apartment at his request that day, it having been some type of offer to do some work for him that afterword I thought wouldn't be too good. So I felt that I had to get the thing back to him ASAP (which I can't currently recall exactly what it had been), in order to let him know that I didn't want in on the work after all...which I can no longer recall what it was), especially being that it was the end of the semester so we wouldn't be seeing each other any longer after this in regard to normal schooling. So I knew that he would be at this party this night, so I made a special effort to go to it, for a change, for the sole purpose of getting this thing back to him, although this isn't what I told anyone there about why I'd come to it. In fact, as far as they all knew, it wasn't anything unusual for me to go to parties even though it actually in fact was extremely unusual and made me feel really weird and uncomfortable. Yet, because of my strong need to return the item, this apparently came off as making me project myself as a confident type of person to the cute women there that were in our group...one of them in-fact being rather pretty and outgoing (whose house the party was actually at). And there was even a point within the party where I'd actually gone outside with them in their courtyard and played some sand volleyball with them, which had really been out-of-character for me concerning both this and all of everything else at the time. So to make a slightly longer story short concerning this particular event, she was a strong socialite-type living in a really nice apartment, and yet she later let me know that she'd almost expressed interest to me in HER actually wanting to go out with me (even though I'd never even once acted or felt interested in wanting to go out with her at the time), if it wouldn't have been that this other member of our group had first shown strong interest in her--according to her--before she had gotten the chance to do so with me!!! So this experience has been my ONLY time in my life so far--due to my having been misread concerning my appearing to be the confident type socially--that I'd actually been thought of as an equal to other people in a group in a way that had actually drawn them to me at the time, thereby serving later as proof that such a thing could have in fact been possible for me if I would have really wanted to focus on changing how I'd been projecting myself to others back then.

And I can always still do this type of thing and probably still will eventually, but it won't be the same now, meaning that the rewards for doing so won't include much if anything on the relationship level for me, being that I'm now actually "old"--as hard as this is for me to truly accept--with my being 61 years old and fast-approaching 62. And even though my mind fights against this notion, my body nevertheless does enjoy reminding me that it is getting older each day whether I want it to or not...which I admittedly do NOT want it to do. But I simply have to compare it to growing up as a child, where how my body was changing at the time had little if anything to do with ME and what I was either thinking or wanting at the time. It was all a completely automatic process that I had no control over...just as it is now with it continually looking and becoming older and older each moment. (And there went some more youthful body cells dropping away!!!...LOL)

So in conclusion, I've found that in my watching this show--although pleasant--it does at times bring up some comparative-type feelings such as these regarding myself and what I never had when I was younger. But like I said, although I've always felt some sadness over this fact all of my life, I've never really felt any strong regret over it, being that it's always somehow felt to me like it has been what has SUPPOSED to be happening to me for some bizarre reason...as though some inner-part of me actually knows why and that I just can't know this consciously yet for whatever reasons. So I go on living my life as such and NOT feeling ever too either sad or depressed or regretful over these things, my instead knowing that for some reason, I had chosen at some level for things to work out this way for myself. As a result, I am indeed happy and content with my life as such, even though I will likely be changing certain things about myself shortly in this regard, being that I think it is time soon now and that I simply wasn't supposed to be in a serious relationship in my life (at least not yet), because it would have served as too much of a distraction for me for whatever is yet to come for me I believe...whatever that may be. And in this regard, only time will tell.

#life #Love Island #personal #aging #social #socializing

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pass-the-bechdel · 6 years

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Homicide: Life on the Street season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

65% (thirteen of twenty).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

32.96%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Three (episode three ‘Extreme Unction’ (40%), episode sixteen ‘Law and Disorder’ (52%), and episode eighteen ‘In Search of Crimes Past’ (43.47%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Two (episode eleven ‘Cradle to Grave’ (18.75%), and episode seventeen ‘The Old and the Dead’ (19.04%)).

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Fifty-nine. Seventeen who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and ZERO who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Ninety-four. Twenty-four who appeared in more than one episode, seven who appeared in at least half the episodes, and five who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Strong. The show maintains a powerful awareness of the society it is situated within and the varied experiences of those within it; the analysis of racial issues - systemic and individual - is particularly impressive, and though it is not the subject this blog was created to explore, it seems wrong to talk about this show at all without acknowledging the good work it is doing on that front (average rating of 3.1).

General Season Quality:

While not quite as strangely, darkly real as the beginning of the series, it’s still good, compelling, and meaningful television, and it does make the most of itself in terms of telling new stories which enrich and expand the world of the show; it does not rest on its laurels and repeat the same narrative patterns as earlier episodes, and it is the better for it.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

For the record, I regret the decision not to write individual episode posts for this show. Not quite enough to go back and write them after all, but enough to complain about how I’m not doing it. This is a note to my future self, in case I try to convince myself that summary-only is a good idea after all: it isn’t. It’s just a way to guarantee that you’ll end up leaving things out and being less thorough than you want to be. It’s a dumb idea. Don’t do it.

To business: the season literally opens with Bolander watching a love scene on the tv in the break room and complaining about all the gratuitous sex on tv shows these days, prompting a conversation with Lewis and Munch about how ‘the networks make them put that stuff in’. It’s essentially a written-in apology to the audience for the fact that there are romantic subplots in this season; they might as well have broken down the fourth wall completely and had the characters look straight into the camera, that’s how transparent they are about it. The network demanded sex appeal as a condition of renewing the show for a third season, and the writers were NOT happy about it; I appreciate both their convictions, and the fact that they made this slim compromise which gave us more of this wonderful show to enjoy, even if there is a bare minimum of unnecessary sex in there. It’s a worthy trade. (the sex-on-tv discussion segues into a prediction from Munch about how the future will include a trillion different channels to watch, everyone communicating online, and never having to get out of your chair for anything. Bolander then says that he wishes they’d bring back Hawaii 5-0, which of course has since happened. It’s eerie).

Anyway; the sex mostly involves Felton, whose slightly-unhinged (and, in mercifully one scene only, gratuitously undressed) wife Beth has kicked him out of the house at the beginning of the season, to which Felton has responded by promptly jumping in bed with a new woman: that is, with the new woman, Megan Russert, whose presence in the main cast brings us to a grand old two women in the regular rotation. The show gleefully ditches the Felton/Russert romance three episodes in (but not until after we’ve been subjected to Daniel Baldwin in his little nineties underwear:

cheers network, I hope that’s what you were aiming for when you demanded more sex appeal), and the whole business manages to play out with relative grace, being blatant network-service but avoiding the common pitfall of useless hetero romance wherein the female character ends up seeming like she only exists to be sexy.

Russert’s introduction isn’t entirely smooth - and the romance angle doesn’t help there - but despite being a much more traditionally-feminine and traditionally-attractive character than Howard is, and despite having the confrontation of sexism in the workplace laid on a little thick in those introductory episodes, Russert is still successfully established as a person in her own right, and not defined by her womanhood any more than Howard is. Like Howard, Russert can’t escape the way that the department and the men within it treat her gender as a conspicuous and dominant trait, and like Howard, Russert is not interested in letting the preoccupations of other people impact the way she goes about her work; unlike Howard, Russert refuses to engage with the idea of being a good example for other women because she feels that doing so means participating in making gender an issue when it shouldn’t matter in the first place. Howard - delighted to be working with an accomplished woman who meets her personal standard of conduct, and willing to openly defend Russert’s service record against her sexist detractors - is affronted by Russert’s refusal to fight the good fight on behalf of her gender, but the show wisely does not take a side. Both women’s approaches to their womanhood have merit, and neither is perfect; rather than pitting them against one another over their differences, the show acknowledges that Howard and Russert are, each in their own way, doing the best their with a situation that has been stacked against them and in which there are no absolute ways to ‘win’, only ways to play.

This season is much stronger on women than those preceding it, as evident in the statistics: over 12% better in the female:male ratio, and 57% better on the Bechdel (they were doing shockingly well with that one until they went and failed in the last four episodes all in a row, but still. This is far, far better than I had expected). It takes a broader, more detailed look at the way women exist (and are forced to exist) within the structure of society, and there is evidence of clear comprehension of the imbalances, the contradictions, and the illogical expectations and judgments that come with that. The serial killer Annabella Wilgis from the opening trilogy of the season asserts that she murdered eight women because she blames women in the workplace for ‘ruining everything’ by upsetting the strictly-gendered status quo of Wilgis’ childhood; Howard catches a killer back in her home town because the guy was so much of a sexist chump he wouldn’t wash his own shirt to get away with murder (as he is arrested the guy screams at his wife for not ‘doing her job’ and washing his shirt for him, and the lack of self-reflection is as bizarre as it is believable); the fantastic ‘Every Mother’s Son’ sees two women - both unaware that they are at the police station for the same case, one’s son having been murdered by the other’s - commiserating about the state of the men in their neighbourhoods and the lack of good father figures and role models for their boys (both women are black, and as they discuss also the number of funerals they have attended for their early-teen son’s friends, the conversation serves as a double-whammy observation of both gender, and systemic racial inequality. It’s powerful and sobering); Russert intervenes in the private life of her former detective partner when she discovers that he’s been beating his wife, and takes no excuses from either party about ‘the stress of the job’ or any other such tragically familiar lines; Beth Felton’s behaviour, while erratic and hurtful, finds some sympathy from Howard and Russert as they consider the dire lack of options open to Beth as a potentially-single mother of three small children. With the exception of Wilgis the serial killer, there is altogether an underpinning thread of women understanding and supporting each other, a factor which helps to give the women’s narratives a sense of their own gravity through recognition from outside; something particularly important when set against the ignorance and even complicity which can arise even from seemingly forward-thinking men.

Network-mandated sex brings us Emma Zoole, and with her, reflections upon the attitudes of some of our male characters, some of it good, some of it bad. Lewis makes a pushy fool of himself trying to chat her up, but he’s harmless enough and once he plays out his chance and is rejected, he respects Emma’s choice and declares unequivocally that he will not pursue her further (a declaration prompted by Felton suggesting that he just needs a new strategy). That said, there is a possessive streak at work when Lewis learns that Bayliss has hooked up with Emma instead; if Lewis didn’t feel some sense of ownership for having called first dibs on Emma, he wouldn’t have anything to feel ‘betrayed’ about. For the most part, laughs are had as Bayliss literally falls over himself and clutzes around Emma’s apartment in the least-sexy way possible - it’s funny, it’s realistic, and it’s a solid fuck-you to the network - and the fallout as the entire workplace learns of his exploits (”what is a cuffoon?”) is a great time. But, on the other side of it all, things are less bright. Lewis is smothering his sorrows by eating cous cous, and Felton delivers a diatribe about how the idea of health food and men thinking they need to watch their weight is all about ‘women trying to dominate men’ (a double-standard view if ever there was one; at least Lewis ain’t buying it). Meanwhile, it turns out Emma has a boyfriend named Andy who takes it poorly when he hears about Bayliss; Andy knocks Emma down - Bayliss is aghast when Emma tells him, and his anger does feel like it is at least mostly coming from the right place, but under the circumstances one also wonders if there’s an extent to which he goes out to give Andy what-for as a possessive pissing contest and not in genuine concern. Emma breaks up with Bayliss for interfering with her relationship with Andy, and Bayliss...goes off the deep end and robs a convenience store at gunpoint after he comes up eleven cents short trying to pay for beer and cookies. Pembleton bails Bayliss out so that he winds up not suffering any significant ramifications for his actions, and the comedic tone of the whole piece feels decisively off, as if the writers have hit a major blind spot wherein they think men lashing out dangerously when a relationship falls apart is normal and understandable on its own, and therefore not worthy of harsh scrutiny. I mean, if the guy hurts or kills his former lover, that behaviour is condemned, but if he just threatens to shoot a store clerk for voiding a sale, that’s funny, right?

The idea of that unscrutinised blind spot is reinforced throughout the rest of the series so far; while none of the other central male characters have reacted quite as wildly as Bayliss, they do form a cohesive track record for refusing to do their own emotional labour in working their way through romantic disappointments. Felton is a slightly different case since his relationship woes are also tied up with custody of his children, and as such his spiralling alcoholism is not necessarily a consequence of the end of his marriage itself so much as it is about the messy way that plays out (it is very, very messy, though, and he does lean on the other women in his life throughout rather than taking control of his situation himself). Bolander was a total bear throughout the first season after separating from his wife, and Munch I already flagged in my previous review for his attitude toward his now-ex Felicia throughout the final ups and downs of that relationship. Lewis may just drag himself off to eat some cous cous all alone, but he still wallows over a relationship that never even began; Gee does the same thing after being rejected by Russert’s friend Amanda (though there is an additional factor there in which Gee - this guy:

- feels that Amanda - this lady:

- has rejected him because he’s blacker than she is, sparking what remains the only discussion on colourism within the black community that I have ever seen on tv. It’s an illuminating subject that deserves discussion, though we never find out if it really is the reason for Amanda’s rejection or if she was just not interested in Gee for any number of other, completely legitimate reasons). As Bayliss forgoes all self control, as Felton spins his ridiculous opinions on health food, and as Bolander commiserates with Gee about how ‘the way a woman feels about a man, that’s the way he’s going to feel about himself’, there’s a consistent theme of this notion that women have a responsibility to prop men up and protect their fragile egos, and it’s a theme that the show - for all that it is mostly very self-aware - doesn’t seem to challenge at all.

While I’m griping, there are more imperfections this season than there were last time around: Munch makes a lot of jokes about women, not necessarily in disparaging ways but definitely in an othering fashion which lends itself to a perception of women as objects of desire rather than, um, people. His nihilistic attitude about pretty much everything combined with his regular gendered commentary can make him pretty hard to enjoy as comic relief, especially when you’re viewing the show with a deliberately critical eye (he also makes a joke about prison rape at one point, and rape jokes of any kind are a surefire way to vault straight into my bad books). Pembleton gets embroiled in a political quagmire involving one Congressman Wade: a closeted homosexual, Wade has filed a false police report to try and cover up his affair with his male assistant, fearing that said assistant might expose him by filing assault charges after Wade beat him up. While everyone involved rightfully agrees that being gay should not end Wade’s political career, they all kinda ignore the fact that committing assault probably should, and I’m not ok with the way that detail gets shrugged off. And the episode ‘The Last of the Watermen’ not only uses the cliche of having a character just-happen to catch a case while on vacation, it also repeats the cliche of having a former flame of Howard’s as a suspect, something we already did in season two (less than ten episodes ago, to make it even more egregious that we’re doing it again); the show is better than that kind of contrivance.

To wrap this on a good note though, there were also some real gems in the piece: the episode ‘Colors’ delivers a great guest star in David Morse and tells a confronting story about the insidiousness of subconscious racism; it’s very easy for shows to do stories about racism that acknowledge it in a very obvious surface-level way (i.e. this person treats that person badly because of the colour of their skin, and that’s wrong), but it’s more difficult and more important to explore the subtleties of the ways racism can manifest both individually and systemically, and that’s what this show does so well. On the topic of great guest stars, Steve Buscemi is used to magnificent effect in ‘End Game’ as a character who is so very, very wrong in such very, very obvious ways, and yet so superciliously convinced of his correctness that he’s impossible to argue with (we all know at least one person exactly like that). Buscemi’s turn comes at the culmination of the three-episode arc surrounding the shooting of three of our detectives, which is masterfully handled both in the immediate shock and the ensuing tension, as well as in the complicated miasma of emotional fallout for the rest of the squad as they struggle and rally. The fallout from that arc continues to permeate the rest of the season, in much the same way as the suicide of our beloved Steve Crosetti does at the beginning of the season: the episode ‘Crosetti’ is the highlight of the season despite fierce competition, and watching Lewis bawl his eyes out while Bolander holds him still gets me every time, but it’s nothing compared to watching Pembleton provide a one-man Honour Guard for his fallen comrade at episode’s end. The heaviness of the episode has some serious emotional staying power, and while the ditching of Crosetti was another network-mandated dick move designed to up the show’s sex appeal, the writers well and truly made lemonade by crafting the loss into a powerful narrative which emphasises and reinforces the core of the series itself: the horror and the battle to overcome the darkness of a truly thankless job, and find the good glimmer of life that lies beyond it.

#Homicide: Life on the Street #Homicide: Life on the Street season three #HLOTS #Bechdel Test #full season review #female representation

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syradith · 6 years

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Tyrande in War of Thorns

It’s been a bit since the pre-patch War of Thorns event was released, but even after the novellas came out, I still saw people who were everything from confused to angry about Tyrande and her role in all this and her supposed desertion, even though this was not the case at all. I am aware that the majority very likely either don’t read/experience content outside of the game itself, or are unaware of its existence, or perhaps some other reasoning. Additionally, I think a lot of people forget (especially considering this is a video game centered around war and combat) that there is a lot more to leading and supporting your people than just fighting alongside them, which may have aided in this outlook as well.

Regardless, thanks to a friend’s suggestion, I’ve decided to post a summary of this topic (along with a few of my own opinions, of course), as I absolutely and completely -love and adore- this character and jump at any chance to discuss her or other Kaldorei related things. Plus, I want to just help get this info out there.

As a disclaimer, I will be using quotes from the book itself, and an article from Wowhead discussing this topic this as well.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=286153/the-role-of-tyrande-whisperwind-in-war-of-the-thorns-and-elegy

In the game:

As everyone knows, WoW itself shows her...pretty much not at all until the last minute. She suddenly appears out of nowhere, rescues her husband (again), decides not to take vengeance on Saurfang, and just peaces out with a Stormwind hearthstone. There was zero build up or explanation to any of this, so I fully understand why people would see it in a negative light.

However, her role in it was equally as important and just as involved as those fighting on the battlefield.

In the ‘Elegy’ novella:

She's already currently in Stormwind when all this stuff starts happening in Silithus. She's meeting with the other leaders to discuss war strategies with them on how to best handle the Horde and how to keep them from getting all/more Azerite (not because they want it for themselves. Alliance wants to help heal Azeroth, but know the Horde likely only wants the Azerite to make weapons and conquer...which they do). They note the army looking to head out to Silithus to secure it for good. With Night Elves and Draenei being the closest to do anything about it --and Draenei being too weakened and depleted of all resources in fighting the Legion-- Tyrande offers to pull/gather a large force to send to Shandris to wait, then to Silithus when needed. Anduin agrees and the force is gathered mostly from Darnassus/Ashenvale, leaving the areas with minimal forces to stay to defend themselves.

It's only after they start to head out from Feralas to Silithus that Ashenvale is attacked and the Horde makes their way from the Barrens through Ashenvale towards the World Tree; cutting down every and all settlements/outposts they come across. Malfurion and Tyrande (and the other leaders), upon realizing the ruse, recall the reinforcements.The Horde army is much, much larger (about 8 to 1 at least, if I remember right), so knowing they can’t win from the start and that both the reinforcements from Feralas and Stormwind would arrive far too late, they have the defenders simply hold the lines while they start evacuations for Darnassus and Darkshore to get as many people out as they can and while they still can.

Malfurion joins the fray and helps defend. Tyrande almost leaves Stormwind to help several times, but is convinced thanks to a Sentinel who arrived to tell her what’s happening (we, go figure, don’t know what was specifically said because it’s from Anduin’s perspective and he obviously doesn’t know Darnassian) to stay there to help the refugees fleeing to Stormwind through portals and be a strong, comforting, reassuring anchor and leader for them when they need her most.

Eventually, she does finally leave briefly to aid Malfurion when she receives a letter from him saying Darnassus was to be lost and he was going to fight the Banshee Queen as a last stand and bades her farewell in the case he doesn’t return. Anduin tries to dissuade her, and obviously fails; so instead, he gives her a hearthstone to return to Stormwind quickly once her task was complete. Stepping through one of the portals, she is, of course, greeted with cheers and signs of relief as the Kaldorei spot her arriving. After reassuring her people and calling upon Elune to bless them and lift their spirits, she continues on.

As she’s flying over the battle and fleeing citizens on a hippogryph, she deeply laments so badly wanting to join them, but is also quite aware that risking her life and leaving her people leaderless would only make things much, much worse. So she keeps going and, using Elune’s guidance, finds Malfurion, nearly killing Saurfang in the process (as well as displaying how -extremely-, immensely powerful she is without even doing a huge display. Like holy shit is she scary and impressive. By the goddess, it was one of those things that reminded me why I love her so damn much). In the end, she lets him survive in the hopes that due to his talks of honor, he would be compassionate to the prisoners and, as we know, uses the hearthstone to take herself and Malfurion to safety.

Case in point, from the article, and as I stated to friends and RP guild mates as soon as I saw it when it was released:

“Some players were also concerned that Tyrande was cowardly for escaping and should have stayed and fought. However, at this point in the battle, all hope for Darnassus was lost. As Saurfang warns her, she would be killed if she were to return to Darnassus, leaving her people without a leader.”

When they return to Stormwind, they start to see smoke coming in through the portals (flame even threatens to reach them through it at one point). They think burning some of the city is part of the occupation process and don’t yet have any idea that Sylvanas changed her plan and, in fact, burned the entire tree down.

Genn goes to save his wife, Mia, who went to Darnassus early on to help with evacuations. He finds that she nearly died protecting an infant from falling debris. Astarii calls to Elune and the goddess finally seems to answer her childrens’ prayers, giving the priestess the ability to heal the queen and child. Genn thanks her and returns with Mia through the portal at the last second before they are forced to close them. The priestess Astarii, two other remaining priestesses and all those too injured, weak, or arrived too late have been left behind to their fate in order to keep all they’ve saved and accomplished from being in vain. Astarii gathers up those around her, taking up a mother and son in her arms, and begins to sings the elegy the book is named for (and a section of which starts off each chapter) to them. Elune gives those about to die yet one more final show of her presence: a sense of calm and blocking them from feeling pain as they all simply fall asleep peacefully before the fire consumes them.

Shifting back to Stormwind. Tyrande takes up the infant Mia was carrying in her arms as the latter and Genn collapse, exhausted and grieving. Mia tells her the news about the world tree which leads to:

“Tyrande closed her eyes. “I said the tree would not be…” Her voice broke, She opened her eyes and looked at the child she held in her arms, covered with soot, but whole. Healthy. Alive. Tears slipped slowly down her cheeks. “What is her name?” She asked softly.

Mia shook her head weakly. “I don’t know.”

“Then, little one, I shall name you Finel. ‘The last.’ For you are the last Kaldorei to escape with your life.” ”

It then ends with the leaders grieving for the World Tree, Anduin steeling himself for war, and Tyrande singing an elegy to the baby (different from the one Astarii sings).

TLDR (as taken from the Wowhead article):

“Tyrande in Elegy has a much larger role than in the Alliance quests. She acts pragmatically, remaining in Stormwind to survive, heal the refugees, and rule instead of rushing into battle. While she doesn’t fight much since her duties are required elsewhere, we do see how powerful she can be in her interaction with Saurfang. Perhaps due to the limitations of in-game quest animations, it was hard to convey the sheer power of Elune and how Saurfang was at the brink of death. As the Alliance questline doesn’t really convey that they knew Darnassus would always fall, Tyrande’s choice not to rush into the city and avoid capture and death makes more sense. When she does return to Darnassus, en route to rescuing Malfurion, the novella makes very clear how conflicted she is that she cannot stay behind with her people and fight, even if she would die. If Tyrande was responsible for Elune’s sudden renewed presence at the end of the novella, that could have implications for later in Battle for Azeroth. Sylvanas, towards the end of A Good War, hints that her ultimate goal is not Stormwind or Darnassus, but one that much larger forces would protest—including Elune. Perhaps Elune is dampened in Sylvanas’ presence naturally, and as we learn more about Sylvanas’ ulterior motives, conduits of Elune like Tyrande will play a larger role in the conflict ahead. Hopefully if you were disappointed about Tyrande’s absence in War of the Thorns, this look at her role in the novella shows that she still played an important role.”

So there you have it. A complete and total 180 from how she was portrayed in-game. I have a lot of opinions regarding Elune’s lack of action until the last minute. How the Night Elves are displayed as weak and seem like they’re just not fighting at all in-game vs clearly putting up a solid, hard won fight in the book (yet still failing and falling for every tactic at every turn). How the Horde so easily manages to get all the way to the World Tree with seemingly little to no real losses in both medias (despite the clear disadvantages and constant difficulties of their conquest). How the Horde in its entirely seem to be perfectly okay with everything that’s happening, and apparently agreeing to start all out, honorless and unprovoked war that neither side can afford considering the whole world just fought and came close to losing to the Legion (again). And, of course, yet another display of storytelling that is starting to convince me that Blizzard seems to just flat out hate the Night Elves. I mean, I’m all for tragedy. They make just as good a stories as overly happy ones. I also know they aren’t the only race to be forgotten/used as opposing faction target practice/etc. But Night Elves are the ones I can speak for the most, and this sort of treatment has been building up and ongoing for some time now. This, however, was just...a little too much for me and took a long time to come to terms with.

Anyway, rant of my insignificant opinions aside, I was immensely glad to see some depictions of Tyrande and Malfurion actually getting to be useful and show off their importance and power for once. After the War of Thorns questline (obviously prior to the books’ release), I was highly concerned that it would end up a repeat of Legion where the pair were largely either ignored or displayed in a manner that most players heavily misconstrued their actions and motivations. I mean, I guess it’s still happening since Blizzard has started relying heavily on outside sources for major storytelling (a very poor choice if you ask me), but at least the information is in fact out there.

While I am extremely anxious and hesitant regarding the direction the Night Elves are going to be taken from here on out, now more than ever, I am still curious to see what happens next and if they will receive some sort of comeback in the future. Or if they will be mostly forgotten like the Gilneans they were supporting and had given a home. If nothing else, it would be nice to at least see more of Tyrande helping lead the Alliance (and even more of the powerful, decisive, fairly competent Malfurion that was displayed in ‘Elegy’ that we haven’t seen since...well probably Warcraft 3).

#World of Warcraft #Tyrande #night elves

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sulietsexual · 6 years

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Its been a while since I asked you meta related things so I just had a random idea - top 5 characters which you just dont understand, top 5 ch which are well writen but you cant connect or like, top 5 ch storylines you would like to alter, top 5 traits of your disliked chracters that you like, top 5 traits of your loved characters you dislike, top 5 ways your disliked characters contributed to the main storyline that youre fine with. For males and females separately so theres room for thought :)

Top 5 Characters I Don’t Understand

Male

Wesley Wyndam Pryce - okay, so this is only from mid-Season 3 onward, but I cannot fathom Wesley’s actions in stealing Connor, consulting with Holtz and doubting/not believing in Angel to the point where he didn’t realise that Angel would do everything in his power to protect Connor. Then his self-righteous attitude post-kidnap is appalling, the fact that he acts like the wronged party and refuses to acknowledge his own wrongdoings and never apologises for his actions all drive me crazy. Just can’t.

Luke Danes, I mean, buddy, pull it together. You say you want Lorelai, yet never make a move and then bitch about her boyfriends and act like a jerk. You say you’re “all in” and then you run at the first sign of trouble and make Lorelai feel like she did something wrong. You tell Lorelai you want her to be honest with you and then you hide your daughter from her for two freakin’ months. You say you want to spend your life with her, yet you shut her out of it. Like, wtf??

Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III, omg, why is he such an abusive asshole? Why does he treat every woman he’s with like crap? Why does he treat Mellie as if she’s insignificant and stupid? Why does he act entitled to everyone’s time and affections? Why does he continually try to give up the most powerful position in America? Why doesn’t he have any ambition? Why does he resent anyone who does??? I don’t understand.

John Winchester. Dude’s always going on about how he “did the best that he could”. Nope. The best he could would have been to raise his boys in a stable freakin’ environment, not push adult responsibility onto his eldest, not treat his youngest like an outcast/freak for wanting a better life and actually being an adult and being there for his boys. How does he justify the way he treated his sons? Don’t get it.

Finn Collins. Dude, you cheat on your girlfriend, neglect to tell the girl you’re cheating with that you even have a girlfriend, don’t tell your girlfriend you cheated on her and expect both girls to still want you? Plus the whole massacring eighteen unarmed people and then ignoring their bodies as the girl you want walks in horrified and look at her as if she’ll love you for your actions? Yikes.

Female

Lorelai Gilmore, she constantly puts her mother down for her privilege and sense of entitlement, yet displays the exact same behaviour. She rejected Chris, then bitches about how he “wasn’t ready”. She thinks all her behaviour is cute but it’s actually really annoying. And she honestly seems to believe that her parents were the absolute worst parents in the world, when it reality they were really good to her and always try to be a part of her life. Pull it together, woman!

Octavia Blake, why does she blame her brother for everything? Why is her solution always violence? Why does she proudly cannibalize people? Why does she think she knows more about a culture she’s been a part of for two seconds than the people actually raised in said culture?

Nancy Wheeler. Why does she want Jonathan so badly? Why does she screw over Steve? What makes her neglect her brother and run off with the guy she just banged? Why doesn’t she think through the consequences of her actions? Why did she offer her brother zero comfort when his friend “died”? What made her think it was okay to chase down Jonathan while he was picking out a coffin for his brother’s funeral to talk about Barb? Girl drives me bonkers.

Joey Potter, so many of her actions make no sense. She pines after Dawson for years and then breaks up with him for literally no reason. She blames him for telling her the truth about her father, after repeatedly saying they need to be honest with one another. She can’t decide between two guys for years. She constantly rejects Pacey yet picks him in the end. She believes she’s entitled to be a bitch to people just because she’s had a tough life.

Aria Montgomery, if your creepy-ass relationship really so important to you that you would lie to your friends and family, threaten your parents, risk your partner going to jail, threaten to walk out on your family and basically cease to exist outside of your boyfriend? Yikes.

Going to put the rest under the cut, otherwise we’re going to end up with a post a mile long.

Top 5 Characters Who Are Well-writen But I Can’t Connect To or Like

Male

John Locke, a great-written character who drives me up the wall with his over-zealousness and delusions of grandeur.

Spike, he really does have a great character arc and characterisation but his over-exposure and the fandom’s adulation of him drive me crazy, plus I hate how his narrative overtakes Buffy’s.

Jack Shepherd, such a great arc, such an amazing journey but his douchey behaviour and the way he treats certain characters means I just can’t like him.

Perry Cox, I find him amusing and do occasionally like him but his lack of self-awareness and overall mean attitude and sexism bugs me.

Dean Winchester, so well-written with a great arc but also abusive, violent, self-righteous, sexist and overall annoying as hell.

Female

Regina Mills, her redemption arc is sloppy but her characterisation was always strong and she’s a fantastic villain, which is why I love to hate her.

Robin Scherbatsky, very well-written with a great arc (until the finale) but I just cannot like her, probably due to her arrogance and meanness.

Rachel Green, now, I don’t hate Rachel or anything but she’s one of my least-favourite Friends characters and I’ve never been able to connect with her.

Katniss Everdeen, a great-written character whose personality I find very hard to reconcile and who I just cannot connect with.

Kate Austin, great arc, great characterisation, full of traits I can’t stand and makes choices that make me want to throttle her.

Top 5 Characters Storylines I Would Like To Alter

Male

Neal Cassidy, he was done so dirty by that damn show!

August Booth, another one screwed over by OUAT and there was so much left to explore with his character!

Dean Forrester, I really hate how much Gilmore Girls dumbled down and assassinated his character.

Boyd Langton, Dollhouse’s weird out-of-nowhere reveal that he was the bad guy completely changed his character and he didn’t deserve that.

Jake Ballard, he deserves better than being second-choice for Olivia Pope.

Female

Laurel Lance, who deserved the fucking world and got nothing, I would change so much about her storyline and eventual fate.

Mellie Grant who, like Laurel, deserved so much and got shit.

Emma Swan, who was character assassinated in order to box her into a toxic ship which decimated everything about her.

Juliet Burke, who should have lived and had a happy life and finally made it off that damn Island!

Effy Stonem, who deserved better than to be sandwiched between two guys who treated her like a prize and blamed her for their rivalry, not to mention the shitty “friends” who used her as their scapegoat.

Top 5 Traits Of My Disliked Characters That I Like (I’m not going to pick my absolute most disliked characters for this, but just 5 characters I dislike in general. Also, probably can’t come up with five for each, so I’ll go with as many as I can list).

Male

Going with Wesley again - love his intelligence, his surprising confidence when he allows himself to show it, his thirst for knowledge and his goofiness.

Spike - I like his bravado, his confidence and his loyalty.

Dean Winchester - similarly to Spike, his bravado, his loyalty and his confidence, as well as his humour and love of fun.

Luke Danes - I like that he’s good at the big gestures, I like his snark and his homebody nature.

Jess Mariano - I like intelligence, his snark and the fact that he sorts himself out later on in life.

Female

Anya Jenkins - love her work ethic and the fact that she handles money well and knows how to budget, save and invest.

Betty Cooper - she’s got gumption, I’ll give her that and she is intelligent and hardworking.

Felicity Smoak - like Betty, she’s intelligent and has gumption.

Cassie from the Animorphs series - she’s compassionate and does try to understand people, which I like.She also has a lot of empathy.

Alison DiLaurentis - she is ruthless and strategic and highly intelligent, all of which I admire, even if her actions are truly sociopathic.

Top 5 Traits Of My Loved Characters I Dislike (again, this may not reach five but I’ll do my best)

Male

Angel - his tendency to make decisions for others, his jealousy, the way he can completely cut off those he cares about.

James Ford - the way he lets his self-hatred affect others, his self-centredness, the way he can be deliberately cruel at times.

August Booth - he lies way too much, his self-hatred, his selfishness.

Neal Cassidy ………….. nope, I love Neal too much, can’t think of any traits I dislike.

Charles Gunn - the way he diminishes himself for others.

Female

Prue Halliwell - that damn pride, her self-righteousness, her judgmental streak.

Juliet Burke ……………. nope, as with Neal, love her way too much to dislike anything about her.

Lana Lang - her Mary Sue traits (this lies more on the writing of her character than her), her tendency to project her own feelings onto others.

Lilah Morgan - well, she’s an evil bitch, but you’re supposed to hate her for that, so I more hate her actions than her herself, such as when she gives Cordy the visions which almost kill her or when she sends people to drill into Lorn’s head.

Jo March - her lack of propriety at times, her judgemental streak, her refusal to adhere to convention (at times)

Top 5 Ways My Disliked Characters Contributed To The Main Storyline That I’m Fine With (I am running out of steam and not sure if I can come up with 5 males and 5 females, so gonna combine them for this last one and again might not make it to Top 5)

Alison DiLaurentis - I like her as a villain, her murder kicks off the whole series which worked well, and I liked that she works as a foil for all the girls, in particular Hanna and Mona.

Spike - love him as a villain in Season 2, love that he works as a foil for Angel in AtS Season 5, liked him stirring things up in Lovers Walk in Season 3.

Regina Mills - love her as a villain, love her as the Curse Caster, liked her dynamic with Emma, liked her as a foil for Snow and Emma.

……. I actually might be out, as usually when I hate a character it’s because of the way in which they negatively impact the storyline.

Whew, I’m knackered. Hope you enjoy my answers, even if they’re not 100% what you asked for!

#psychoticdelena #answered

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