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jemmahazelnut · 1 year

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Juvia for the character bingo?

I adore Juvia, I’m the only one who can speak about her and I know her better than anyone, even Mashima himself.

No, ok, of course I'm kidding, but premise: if you are a Juvia-and-Gruvia stan, this post is not for you, because I don't care about the version of a perfect and adorable Juvia who deserves the world because she's pretty and never done nothing wrong in life etc. Likewise, if you're a Juvia-and-Gruvia hater, this is no place for you, because I literally don't care if you think she's a horrible canon person who deserves to die and disappear off the face of the earth.

If you are Juvia stan and Gruvia hater (I know you exist somewhere), this is the place for you (or if you are indifferent to Gruvia, or if you like it but you are not avid shippers proclaiming Juvia as the ideal girl. Actually, idfc what you think about the ship, I just know that shippers and antis generally think in compartments and don't want to question anything, so if you belong to one or the other category, go on and see other posts).

So, now let's make two things clear before starting the discussion.

Juvia is not a lovely girl, nor is she a good person. Juvia is a fucking messed up person who has good intentions, but having not lived in a good place most of her life she has unhealthy relationships with many people, highly questionable behavior, and a very bad relationship with herself. She is also a strong and cruel woman who can kill, she will and she has already done. And despite all that, she deserves the love, but more importantly, she deserves a fucking painstakingly detailed development arc (and no, if you tell me there's no forgiveness for her, Ill get pissed, everyone have had a development arc, Jellal, Laxus, Gajeel, Cobra, Sting, etc. but Juvia doesn't deserve it? Don't even talk to me).

I won't explain all my ideas about her in this post, otherwise it would get very long because trust me, I have an Odyssey in mind, but basically:

Juvia is a girl in love with the idea of love. She has lived her whole life alone and desperately wants to make friends and find her life partner, so as soon as she meets someone who is even a little bit nice to her, she becomes morbidly attached, as indeed she did with Gray. But she doesn't just do it with him, she also does it with her friends, so Lucy, Cana, Erza, and other people in the guild. As soon as someone extends a finger of hers, she takes the whole arm and craves that affection that she always sees in others. At the same time, she's not good at showing affection in the normal way, so she does weird things, and usually she's overly pushy and willing to literally go out of her way to get anyone to accept her. She sacrificed herself for Cana, so yeah, she would literally do anything, and she doesn't understand the limits of people, so as long as someone gives her something, she takes, takes and takes. She is also very insecure of herself, so it doesn't take much, a miserable 'no' and she risks going back to being the lonely rain woman and that she annoys everyone with the weather she brings with her. When this happens, she leaves the guild because she is afraid to annoy her guildmates and return alone (Lucy and Natsu always join her and stand by her in those moments).

She has a complex relationship with Gajeel, but he's also probably the only real friend she has, at least in the beginning, because she doesn't feel this need to continually affirm her affection for him. She's not even afraid of him leaving, because Gajeel has already seen the worst of her in Phantom Lord, and he's stayed, and she knows that he will stay by her side because he's one of the few people who understands her. (Then Cana will also become friends with her in a similar way).

She is an unnervingly strong sorceress, let's not forget that she was an S-class level in Phantom Lord. She was cruel too, she killed people with the Water Lock, and she wouldn't hesitate to do it if she saw something that reminded her of her childhood.

Speaking of her childhood, she was awful. From an early age she was considered a cursed child because she brought rain everywhere, for this reason her parents put her in an orphanage. She had no idea, and after spending her early years in an orphanage with everyone staying away from her and bad-mouthing her, she went looking for her parents. She hoped to reunite with them but when she found them, they did not recognize her, and badly kicked her out of the house saying never to be seen again. She moved to a village and tried to live alone, but still everyone annoyed her and told her to leave. One day someone annoyed her so much that she seriously injured him by trapping him in a water bubble and suffocating him. Since then, she has escaped from there.

She tried to remove the magic herself, with dangerous methods that put her life at risk, but it was unsuccessful (I have a whole arc in mind on this omg). She even pushed herself too hard with her magic that she nearly died. Probably in a very dark period of her life she also thought about ending it. This until she entered Phantom Lord. There, for the first time, she found a place that accepted her, and she immediately understood that the stronger she was, the more she was accepted. That's why she trained hard and became ambitious, she wanted to surpass all wizards, she thought that as she got stronger, she would have more friends. And more or less, that's how Phantom Lord worked. She was also able to use her power to its fullest, because nobody cared to use good methods, she could kill and she did it without hesitation, especially when she saw cruel people who reminded her of her parents or the people who they bullied. She felt somehow at home.

She then entered Fairy Tail, and for the first time she saw the sun thanks to Gray, which is why she thought that Gray was her life partner and so she became attached to him.

From here my version completely changes from the canon, or rather, initially it's similar with her becoming obsessed with Gray (but not only with him, also with Lucy and Cana and the other guildmates), then as she goes on making mistakes, understands how to actually build a true and healthy friendship. She learns to love herself and to understand what she really wants other than 'not to be alone', and discovers that she is actually very ambitious, she wants to be strong, she likes to be strong, not just because she likes admiration, but precisely because she likes to be able to protect her loved ones. She's always fucking creepy when someone touches her loved ones, like, you know the scene on Tenrou where she's fucking creepy when Meredy talks about killing Gray? Well, yes, Juvia is like that, only not just with Gray, but with everyone in the guild, touch someone dear to her and she will kill you, absolutely and without remorse.

She also remains a romantic, a person who adores small gestures of affection, a clumsy, she loves children but never knows how to behave with them, she is a very manual girl, she knows how to paint, but above all she knows sewing clothes or building accessories, girls always come to her and she is always happy to give them gifts. She is also a mega emotional and sensitive girl, when she feels an emotion, she feels it to the nth degree. When she's happy she gets loud, and infects everyone with her happiness showing it to the world, when she's sad no one can cheer her up, when she's angry you better run.

She understands that her relationship with Gray is complicated and one-sided, and she tries to act better and walk away from him when he tells her he's not comfortable with her. When she does that, Juvia discovers that in reality she is happy even without him. Like, she's a friend of Gray, a close friend, but she understands that her love was in her head. Then they cultivate a beautiful friendship, which if you want can also become true love (or not, you decide, but there must be that passage of self-understanding first. Actually, I'm a bit indifferent to the ship but whatever).

And then I'll stop here, even if I have things to say about the relationships she could have with other people, primarily with the Thunder Legion (in my opinion she gets along very well with all of them and also with Laxus), with Gajeel (their friendship is complex and that's okay), with Lucy (they are bestie fight me), with Erza (Juvia admires her), with Lisanna (Juvia listens to what the Edo version of Juvia was like and thinks about herself), with Cana (a bestie much more sincere than Lucy, she doesn't mince words when she has to make it clear when Juvia acts like a bitch), with Mira (these two girls are actually more similar than it seems), and that's it, now I stop.

It would have been faster to write a fanfiction.

(However I don't think this version is very far from the canon.)

#juvia lockser #fairy tail #I'm a little scared to post this because there is so much hate from both sides of the fandom but whatever #in any case this is my version if anyone is interested #this post has gotten incredibly long but i'm not surprised #i've been wanting to write a fanfiction about her for a long time #I don't think my version is very far from the canon actually #I just think it's more thorough

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nefariousrat · 1 year

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chainsaw man deep dive: chapter 1

warning: there will be spoilers for the entire manga since this is a rereading. all aspects of csm will be discussed in full detail.

two words basically sum up chapter 1: "poor denji".

the first thing i noticed that i didn't pay as much attention to during my first read through is how fujimoto added the physical details of denji's less than ideal condition: he's thin and bony, and has undereye circles. it fits where we find denji at this point of time; starving, sick with the illness that killed his mother, and recovering from illegal organ extraction procedures to cover his late father's debt.

beyond that, we're immediately introduced to the 3 important themes in denji's life summed up briefly here: the things a person wants and the things a person needs in order to live well and happily.

these themes are:

money

stability

love/acceptance/validation, which I'll just shove under the umbrella of "unconditional love"

these three needs motivate every interaction denji has with the world around him.

money

denji is essentially a slave to the yakuza who will kill him if he tries to escape the immense debt his father left him with. he has no family, no role models, no education, and yet he doesn't seem as bitter as you'd think someone in his situation would be. and that's because of pochita, who is not only a devil contracted to him but loyal family. they live together, work together, and dream of a better life together.

despite all of his troubles, denji's characterization is made known to us through the words of the people around him. he's obedient (and described as such numerous times in chapter 1 alone) and grateful even when he doesn't need to be.

he's also naive and loyal, and is aware of the inevitability of his situation.

stability

this goes without saying. denji wants what most people would consider the bare minimum. a roof over his head, basic food (toast and jam), and to act his age (stay in his room and play games).

but he has none of this, so pochita listens to him intently, doing what he can to ease denji's burdens. pochita is awesome emotional support.

unfortunately, to make matters worse, denji's life gets cut even shorter when he suddenly starts coughing up blood. he doesn't even have time to process that he's got his mother's terminal illness before he's called over by his yakuza handler to hunt another devil.

this is precarious balance between denji's idealism and his inevitable short, brutal death is shown really poignantly in the panel below. all denji wants is to just be able to hold onto the illusion that things can be alright as long as he keeps chipping away. it doesn't matter that he'll most likely die young, whether it's because he's an amateur devil hunter, or at the hands of the yakuza, or by his mother's sickness, or his body giving out from the starvation and surgeries. he only wants his three basic needs met.

unconditional love

fujimoto is clever about how he portrays this, in that he never explicitly states what denji wants. maybe it would be more accurate to say that he doesn't allow denji to know what he himself truly wants. fujimoto leaves it to us to do the math.

this is refreshing since a lot of manga, shounen in particular, are afraid to let the audience think.

fujimoto's choice to introduce denji this way serves to beat an important trait that foreshadows a twist we see at the end of part 1.

it tell us that denji isnt very self aware, and that its in some ways unintentionally, but in other ways it absolutely is.

denji is young, naive despite his exposure to the worst of the world, and he's the type to put the worst experiences into a tiny little box deep within his mind.

or, more accurately, lock it behind a door.

this is how denji copes with his life. this is how he's survived. and so far it's served him well. if he were to think hard on the terrible things he's done and has been forced to do, he'd crumble. fujimoto expresses this from the very first chapter in a very unique, humane manner.

im going to go so far as to say its particularly refreshing to see such depth given to a male protagonist. it defies genre tropes and expectations.

now, to slightly shift gears a bit, denji's sexual desires are, from the very beginning, indistinguishable from any other desire he has to connect, particularly with women. fujimoto's usage of the pervert trope is a fantastic way to introduce denji's complex, heavy, and tragic character to an audience without boring them with angst. it also allows for maximum usage of the medium to show the various ways human connection can be explored. even more significant is that we get to see this through the lens of someone who has limited social conditioning, a high degree of plasticity, and little understanding of what himself and what he ultimately desires.

I'll continue to expand on this later.

denji the dog

funnily enough, everything we've been shown about denji are classical traits of dogs. i didnt think much of these comparisons during my first read because "mongrel", for example, is a fairly common insult thrown around, especially in anime. but fujimoto chooses his words carefully (although i unfortunately cant read japanese so im relying on translations), and these choices are multifaceted with long-reaching narrative implications.

basically, if you know you know. since this is only the first chapter I'll just move on until there's a more appropriate time to elaborate.

the warehouse

denji's life could not get worse, except it did because he died. and it was NOT a peaceful death.

i get that this was necessary for the plot to move forward but for all the shit the yakuza made denji go through, this just feels like a piss poor call.

i guess if he's really sure he can make that much more money giving up his bodily autonomy to the zombie devil for some level of strength, go ham. knowing the public safety bureau would get on his ass would be enough deterrent if i were him, though.

either way, denji dies, and pochita is tossed with him like garbage into the dumpster. pochita, loyal companion that he is, uses his energy to permanently merge with denji as his heart. pochita is now denji's life force. and for the second time, they form a contract.

pochita grew to truly love denji and selflessly wishes for him to realize his dreams and live happily.

once they're fused, chainsaw man is born.

and then we get a hilarious reaction from the ZOMBIE devil, who is unironically disgusted as denji's zombified state:

a great moment of levity.

also this dude:

classy.

now we get some incredible, gory shots of what's essentially chaotic ultraviolence as denji rips through the zombies like paper.

and finally, as denji stands alone in the darkness of the warehouse, tired and victorious, the sun begins to rise and in comes makima.

makima the angel?

i really love this panel. the way the men are standing behind makima, the long shadows, the chaos of the battle. its just really well done.

most importantly though, is this last panel:

denji in the darkness, makima stepping into the shadow with him.

the pages leading up to this play with light in a fantastic way. fujimoto uses the visual medium of the manga to show us that makima is eerie, sinister, and even confusing. she's charming but cruel, and she doesn't care to hide it.

she doesn't need to. everyone loves her anyway.

and now that makima is about to make all of denji's dreams come true, so does he.

#chainsaw man #csm #csm manga #chainsaw man manga #denji #pochita #makima #csm zombie devil #csm deep dive #csm chapter 1 #god i had to write this twice #chainsaw man theory

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phlve · 10 months

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EF(N) — Extraverted Feeling supported by Intuition

Friendly, tactful, sympathetic, always able to express the feelings appropriate to the moment. Likes to tease, to play a character, built like an actor or actress. Concerned with the human relationships around them, with people's emotions and inner state. Easily gets trusted as a leader, a mentor. a partner. significant other. Calm and composed demeanor, but can be dramatic and theatrical, playing multiple plots, living a story. An approachable person, maternal Smiles a lot, but it is often fake. A little pessimistic, having attitudes dictated by the possibilities, the unreal; "not always here". Fixes issues between people, makes someone closer to another, unites them. May hold grudges and resentment, but never will speak about it, ignores all of his feelings and adapts to the external world, the objective situation. Sensitive to praise and criticism, anxious to conform to all expectations and idealisms. Persevering, harmonious in small matters, detail oriented, loyal to a goal, a cause, a social movement, sticks to the society's needs. Tries to be the person everyone needs to have. Changes his own personality often, creates multiple personas and masks. May act like a thinker, a logical and analytical person, then in the other day or the next second, cries about the doom he perceives, reflects on the meaning of his journey, distracts himself with work and love. Displacement from psyche, uninhibited behavior, seeming sincerity, living into a role, impulsive reactions, need for recognition, vain behavior, attracts attention to self, self-pity, the martyr pose, gesticulation and mimicry, thoughtless line of conduct, "Penelope's complex". Penetration into the psyche of a person, ability to adapt to others. work in services sector may be a success. Suppression of own "I", ability to balance relationships, artistic abilities, sociability, willingness to serve. Egoistic strivings, failures and breakdowns in relationships, self-confidence, "escape into illness". Pathos - a form of behavior, emotional excitability, imaginative, may find recognition by outstanding creative achievements Thought without restraint or limit, plays many roles in life. Bragging, adventurism, quackery, false marriages, charlatanism. Affectivity, theatrality, pretense, self-glorification. Histrionic, hysterical, imagines illusions and deceits. Characterized as a person of immoderate emotion. It's not without a reason that there are many producers, artists, and musicians among them. "The world - is a stage, and all people in it - are actors". Able to present boring material to an audience in an amazingly vivid, interesting, and involving manner, deceives people, inclined to sugarcoating, lies and omissions.

These are the most aristocratic people - true "princes" and "princesses"; kamidere. Indifference, lack of attention to his posing and outward affect can be disastrous for him. Not finding the right audience, his enthusiasm fades, his behavior becomes dry and constrained, resentment towards his listeners appears. They may wear both red and green colors together, explaining it by fashion and their own idiosyncratic style. Painful inability to follow logic and efficiency; sometimes hypertrophies as an accentuated desire to be taken as a serious, logical, business-like man or woman. Some manifestations are so self-conscious that they study about complex theories, gets into chess, many games of logic, tests its own reasoning, wants to be able to explain evervthing. Attracts the attention of people. makes questions to them. strives to answer all questions. People of this type may be found in uncommon places, jobs involved with programming and analysis. May have many notebooks, calling cards, and piece of notes in his pockets, which he will present at the slighted occasion. Poorly tolerates physical pain and poor health. Dentists are their arch-enemies. The smallest scratch or bump may unsettle them for a long time. while their luxuriant imagination mav attribute terrible consequences to it. Has a weakness to moments that deeply affect him, avoids events that makes them react to it, relate to it. Taste for books and academic insights. tolerance for theor. vision and mathematics. He does well and pertectly on many fields. Conservative in estimates of how someone who belongs to, including him, if only this ratio did not change - it can cause irritation in it, and the fact that someone does not agree with him on this. Strongly rejects those who treat them badly or general acts from base motives, they are for it - like a red rag to a bull. Affectionate to people, he sure is cute. Relationship perceived as permanent and if the person has changed, they are never in it do not believe, as the relationship for them - a zone of conservatism. "Good" should be "good" and “bad” - "bad." If they begin to behave on the contrary - it is an irritant. Gets troubled when people make decisions without his presence. Knows very well how to plan, he perceives the process of things, the transformations and the evolution. Works hard, some versions are oriented to multitasking. Able to balance all the lifes they have, the professional life, the romantic life, the superhero life, bla bla bla. A model of perfection. Able to impersonate someone else's expressions and traits, becoming another person. Good insight about human psychology, this type manifests in many ways, he is too variable. Some manifestations are calm, collected, reserved and pacific. Other manifestations have a complex of superiority and divine relevance. Some manifestations are mathematical, non-stereotypical. But one thing is regular: All versions see through people, and manipulate.

The most important thing in life to be rich, powerful, beautiful, successful, skilful. Take it as a challenge and this depends on his self-esteem, so it is very much worried about it. It something does not add up - it takes on the character of the disaster. Often loves to dress up bright, catchy, provocative, as a way to challenge others, to prove her beauty and success. Ruin, old age, social failure, ugliness in terms of social standards for a man sometimes can become a reason for suicide. In the protection of self-esteem in the negative - may cease contrary to monitor the appearance, go unkempt. In general, they tend to believe that the profession needed to go on time, so as not to disgrace. Be careful not to look weak and loved to show himself brave, strong, why can often, for instance, engage in martial arts, "the show" to learn some dangerous stunts and wherever possible, to show them, as well as sports. Man needs to be constantly taking new heights and that, oddly enough, their weak point. Sometimes, if everything went smoothly in their lives at some point can drop everything and go to another city, to "start over", thus improve self-esteem. Very strongly socially determined, if someone needs something - then automatically it becomes necessary for some reason, and to him and he starts to try to get it by any means. The fact that the best way is for him and lies close, only to reach out enough, it is usually not just wondering it it is not necessary to win. Hence it may be similar problems in personal relationships. constantly turning the race for the unattainable. And as soon as it becomes achievable, and all interest is lost, the paradox. To be able to overcome everything and win - the main motive of their activity. "To be or not to be?" - some versions have fear of realization. of concretization, of definiteness, and therefore irreversibility of a made decision. Even if it is clear that it is absolutely necessary to move to another place, or clean up and organized one's living space, or legally formalize something, somehow there is never enough time. He never organizes other people's things, and hardly ever organizes his/her own belongings.

#personality theory #personality types #typology #cognitive functions #jung #jungian typology #ef #fe #ef(n)#enfj

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iimpavidwrites · 3 years

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Benzaiten Steel and the Fragility of Perception

or: reasons why setting boundaries is important #1283

I’ve figured out a reason why Benzaiten Steel stayed with his mother instead of doing the “sensible” thing and moving out. I think that it’s possible, too, that Juno has always been aware of the answer but, in the scope of Juno Steel and the Monster’s Reflection, he isn’t able to face it head-on because it contradicts his black/white, either/or sense of morality.

TL;DR: Despite Juno Steel’s unreliable narration we are able to see clearly the enmeshed relationship Benzaiten had with their mother Sarah and the ways in which that unhealthy family dynamic shaped Juno Steel as a person.

Sources: 50% speculation, 20% lit crit classes, 30% my psychology degree.

Juno’s perception of Ben is shallow and filtered through the limitations of human memory. We all know by now, too, that Juno’s an Unreliable Narrator™. In light of this, we need to ask ourselves why it is that Juno remembers Ben as happy, supportive, and only ever gentle in the challenges he poses to Juno. Throughout the episode, Ben’s memory is clearly acting as a comforting psychopomp: he ferries Juno through the metaphorical death of his old understanding of his mother (and also himself) and into a new way of thinking. He does this through persistent-but-kind questions, never telling Juno what to do or how to do it. This role could have been played by anyone in Juno’s life (Mick and Rita come to mind first) which makes it telling that Juno’s mind chose Ben to fill this role.

Juno’s version of Ben is cheerful, endlessly patient with Juno and Sarah, and above all he is compassionate. He acts as a mediating presence between Juno and Juno’s memory of Sarah and he doesn’t ask a whole lot for himself. If this is Juno’s strongest memory/impression of Ben’s behavior and perspective, then we can draw some conclusions about the roles they each played in the Steel family unit: Juno was antagonistic to Sarah and vice versa, and Ben was relegated to the role of mediator for the both of them.

Juno: She’s just evil. Ben: That’s a big word. Juno: “Evil”? Ben: No, “Just”.

We can see in this exchange that Ben is a vehicle for the compassion Juno needs to show not only to Sarah but to himself, too, in order to move on and evolve his understanding of his childhood traumas.

This is not necessarily an appropriate role for a sibling or a child to hold in a family unit.

In family psychology, one of the maladaptive relationship patterns that is discussed is enmeshment. Googling the term you’ll find a lot of sensational results (e.g. “emotional incest syndrome”) that aren’t necessarily accurate in describing what this dysfunction looks like in the real world. This is in part because enmeshment can present many different ways. So, in order to proceed with this analysis of Benzaiten Steel’s relationship with his mom, I need to define enmeshment.

Enmeshment occurs when the normal boundaries of a parent-child relationship are dissolved and the parent becomes over-reliant on the child, requiring the child to cater to their emotional needs and to otherwise become a parent to the parent (or to themself and/or to other children in the family). This is easiest to spot when a parent confides in a child as if they’re a best friend, disclosing details of their romantic life, expecting the child to give them advice on coping with work stress, and similar. Once enmeshment occurs, any kind of emotional shift in one member of the enmeshed household will reverberate to the others; self-regulation and discernment (e.g. figuring out which emotions originate in the parent and which ones originate in the child) becomes extremely difficult for the effected child and parent. When an enmeshed child becomes an enmeshed adult they often have issues with self-identity and interpersonal boundaries. For example, they may struggle to define themselves without external validation and expect others to be able to intuitively divine their emotions. After all, the enmeshed adult could do this with their parent and others easily due to hypervigilance cultivated by their parent and they may not understand that such was not the typical childhood experience. These adults are often individuals to whom the advice “don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm” is often relevant and disregarded. They may perceive their own needs as superfluous to others’-- and resent others as a consequence.

Another layer of complication is added when the parent in an enmeshed relationship is an addict, as Sarah Steel was. The enmeshed child often times becomes the physical caregiver to their parent as well and must cope with all the baggage loving an addict brings: the emotional rollercoaster of the parent trying to get clean or the reality of their neglecting or stealing from their child to support their habit or their simply being emotionally absent. Enmeshment leaves children with a lot of conflicting messages about their role in the family, how to conduct relationships, and how to define themself.

We only get an outside perspective on this enmeshment in the Steel family. It’s clear in the text that Juno’s relationship with his mother was fraught. He jokes in The Case of the Murderous Mask that she didn’t kill him but “not for lack of trying”, implying that Ben’s murder wasn’t the first time Sarah Steel lashed out at Juno-- or thought she was lashing out at Juno but hurt Ben instead. During the entire tenure Juno’s trek through the underworld of his own trauma, Juno asks the specter of Benzaiten over and over, “Why did you stay?”. This is a question that Juno himself can’t answer because Ben, when he was alive, probably never gave him an answer that Juno found satisfactory. There are a few possibilities, which I can guess from experience, as to what the answer was:

Ben may never have been able to articulate that his relationship with their mother left him feeling responsible for her wellbeing.

Or, if he ever told Juno that, Juno may have simply brushed off this concern. After all, as far as Juno was concerned, Sarah was only ever just evil. To protect himself from his mother’s neglect and codependence, Juno shut down his own ability to perspective-take and think about the nuances that might inform a person’s addiction, mental illness, abusive behavior, etc.

It is likely that Ben thought either his mother needed him to survive or, alternatively, that he couldn’t survive without her-- as if often the case with children who are enmeshed with their primary caregiver. It was natural and necessary for him, from this perspective, to stay. Enmeshment is a very real psychological trap.

It is often frustrating and hard as hell to love someone who is in an enmeshed relationship because, from the outside, the damage being done to them seems obvious. See: Juno’s assertion that Sarah was just evil. Juno is, even 19 years later, still angry about Sarah Steel and her failures as a parent and as a person. His thinking on this subject is very black-and-white. He positions Sarah as a Bad Guy in his discussions with Ben-the-psychopomp and the childhood cartoon slogan of “The Good Guys Always Win!” is repeated ad nauseum throughout Juno’s underworld journey. This mode of thinking serves two purposes:

First, it illustrates the role Juno played in the household: he was opposed to Sarah in all things and Sarah did not require any compassion or enmeshment from Juno. Juno was, quite possibly, neglected in favor of Ben which would create a deep resentment… toward both Sarah and toward Ben. This family dynamic would reinforce Juno’s shallow moral reasoning and leave him with vague, unachievable ideals to strive for like “Be One of the Good Guys” or “Don’t Be Like Mom” -- ideals that he can’t reach because he is a flawed human being and not a cartoon character, creating a feedback loop of resentment toward his mother and guilt about resenting Benzaiten. That guilt would further bolster Juno’s shallow memory of Ben as being infallibly patient, kind, loving, etc.

Second, Juno’s black/white moral reasoning is an in-text expression of the meaning behind Juno’s name. When “Rex Glass” points out that Juno is a goddess associated with protection, Juno immediately has a witty, bitter rejoinder ready about Juno-the-goddess killing her children. Juno was named for a deity who in some ways strongly resembles Sara Steel and he resents that he is literally being identified as his own mother. Juno-the-goddess has one hell of a temper, being the parallel to Rome’s Hera. Juno is not a goddess (detective) who forgives easily when she (he) knows that a child (Benzaiten Steel) has been harmed. This dichotomy of “venerated protector” versus “vengeful punisher” causes psychological tension for Juno that is only partially resolved in The Monster’s Reflection. The tension is not fully resolved, however, because Juno never gets a clear answer for the question, “Why did you stay?”

The answer is there but it is one that Juno doesn’t like and so can’t articulate: Ben is enmeshed with Sarah who named him, of all things, Benzaiten and that is why he stayed. We’ve already seen that names have intentional significance in the text. Benzaiten is hypothesized to be a syncretic deity between Hinduism and Buddhism, is a goddess primarily associated with water. Syncretic deities are fusions of similar deities from different religions/cultures; their existence is the result of compromise and perspective-taking and acceptance. Water, too, is forgiving in this way: it takes the shape of whatever container you pour it into... not unlike a child who is responsible for the emotional wellbeing of their entire family unit. Not unlike Benzaiten Steel.

Ben stayed with his mother because his relationship with his mother was enmeshed, leaving him little choice but to stay, and this ultimately led to tragedy. Sarah Steel’s failures as a parent are many and Juno still has a lot of baggage to unpack in that regard, especially where Ben is concerned. It’s unlikely that we’ll get the same kind of “speedrunning therapy” episode again but I know that The Penumbra is committed to a certain amount of psychological realism in its character arcs so I am confident in asserting that Juno Steel isn’t finished. Recovery is a journey and he’s only taken the first steps.

#juno steel #benzaiten steel #meta #the penumbra podcast #benten steel #sarah steel #psychology #enmeshment #bad parenting #iimpavid writes #chatter #the monster's reflection #the case of the murderous mask

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bestworstcase · 3 years

Text

i’ve been thinking about this post from a couple days ago and how i shared my four questions of character development but didn’t actually give an example of what my answers look like and it’s bugging me a bit because it occurs to me that it’s kinda just. lobbing a tool out there without documentation on how to use it properly rip

so uh. further details with examples ft. the bitter snow cast.

#1: what are they looking for?

all characters have an UNFULFILLED DESIRE that motivates them to action. the more central to the story the character is, the harder this must be to attain, as a general rule. this is, ideally, NOT an exterior goal. instead, it is the intrinsic wellspring from which the character’s goals and aspirations emerge.

EXAMPLES:

cassandra: it’s complicated. she is a character defined more by what she lacks than what she wants, per se; she does not feel secure of her place in the world, she craves trust because she feels she is distrusted, she craves respect because she feels she is overlooked, she craves love because she feels unloved. she doesn’t want to be a servant. she is terrified of insignificance, of being forgotten. she does not fit, and this hurts her. she is riddled with self-loathing and self-doubt because of the discrimination she has endured due to her saporian heritage. but if pressed to explain what she wants… she can’t summon a true answer. she doesn’t know what she wants, so what she is looking for fundamentally is to figure that out.

rapunzel: complicated again. she is a character defined in large part by what other people want from her. a people-pleaser who becomes anxious, persistent—even forceful—in her efforts to make everyone happy. she isn’t accustomed to paying attention to her own desires, and tends to neglect them unless she is acutely unhappy. i think she is looking for herself, more than anything.

varian: he is searching for answers. he wants to understand how the world works, to discover what it has to teach him. simple.

caine: she is looking for freedom. her life has been a long succession of horrific losses: her father was brutally taken from her, her mother became horribly ill, poverty and familial obligation robbed her of what remained of her childhood, she became disillusioned with the faith her aunt tried to share with her, her best friend died in her arms. she wants vengeance, and she also wants to stop carrying these ghosts with her, and she also wants to stop looking over her shoulder all the time and waiting for the next loss to catch up with her.

zhan tiri: she is looking for peace. she is the oldest living being in existence, and she came from nothing, and every single significant moment in her unfathomably long life has been soaked in blood and pain and death. her intrinsic nature is to hunger—always needing, always restless, always empty—and more than anything, she longs to break this endless circle of want.

#2: what’s stopping them?

every character must have an OBSTACLE which DISRUPTS their pursuit of what they’re looking for. it is the thing standing in their way. this is NOT the antagonist—it is the reason the character cannot easily overcome the antagonist. ideally it is something intrinsic.

EXAMPLES:

cassandra: she has, again, a complicated answer—because the very thing she is looking for is the same thing that stands in her way. how can she discover her basic, most primal want if she can’t even articulate her goals? she wants, at the beginning of the story, to join the watch—but not because she wants to join the watch, so much as joining the watch is a proxy for cassandra assimilating fully, for being coronan through and through, for scrubbing herself clean of the stain of her parents’ legacy—and that proxy is itself merely a proxy for her desire to belong—and her desire to belong is, in turn, a proxy for the agony of not knowing herself. she is piling bandaids on top of bandaids on top of bandaids on top of hemorrhages.

rapunzel: she is trapped in her own story. an evil witch kidnapped the magical lost princess, who escaped and came home; a miracle. the sundrop gifted its power to the lost princess; destiny. she a peacemaker and a mediator; it is her job to fix problems. narratives piled on narratives and she’s lost—or rather, never had—the insight to recognize that there is more to her than the stories people tell about her.

varian: his crushing need for approval is the key thing standing in his way. it isn’t just that his father’s disappointment or his village’s distrust make him warier of free experimentation; it is also, and perhaps even more so, that he is afraid of finding the wrong answers. answers that won’t help people. answers that his friends and allies won’t like. answers that change his basic view of the world in ways that feel antithetical to who he is. this fear holds him back from pursuing the truth.

caine: she is looking in the wrong direction; she is trying to not care, as if by not caring she can trick the universe into not taking anything else away. she is someone who cares so deeply trying to sever herself from everything she cares about without actually letting it go, which is of course an exercise in futility.

zhan tiri: what she wants is, quite simply, impossible. this is not a human answer because she is not human. contentment is and will always be something she is not capable of feeling, and chasing it is nothing but another exercise in insatiable hunger.

#3: what are they going to do about it?

this is about ACTION. it is not an option for a character to do nothing; the nature of the unfulfilled desire is that they are COMPELLED to seek it, somehow, by some means. if the answer to this question does not involve the character DOING SOMETHING, you need to return to question number one and fix the answer there.

EXAMPLES:

cassandra: she is going to fling herself headlong and without hesitation after whatever concrete goals feel like they might “fix” the lack she feels. even if a short term goal (like helping rapunzel sneak out) clashes or is contradictory with a longer term goal (like joining the watch). even if it is an obviously stupid idea (like her secret correspondence with rosalia morcant). even if it is an impulse with little if any rational basis (like fixating on finding varian, or joining the fight in socona). she is, essentially, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, because without knowing what she wants, she can’t form a coherent “quest” for herself.

rapunzel: she is going to follow the path of least resistance with whatever narrative feels the least restrictive to her at any given time. when she is fresh out of the tower, reconnecting with her real family and throwing herself into becoming a princess is that narrative. later, taking adira’s and xavier’s advice to pursue her destiny by questing for the moonstone replaces that narrative. since none of these narratives fully suit her—they are all boxes she tries to fit into—she will eventually grow discontent and cast them aside to try something new, until she finally breaks this cycle.

varian: he is going to fall into a cycle of hesitant side-stepping leading to crisis leading to frantic charge forward until he identifies this pattern and chooses to step calmly but courageously into unknown territory. his instinct is to try to go around, to find an oblique solution, but to get what he wants he will ultimately need to just face his fear head on—and deep down he is willing to do that.

caine: she is going to run, and fight, and keep running and fighting until her legs give out beneath her. vengeance appeals to her, and she’s going to chase it with everything she’s got while trying to protect what she has; her intense drive is tempered by caution, which manifests in a pragmatic approach to pursuit of her exterior goals.

zhan tiri: she is going to continuously and experimentally refine and broaden her definition of “hunger” with the aim of hitting on something that allows her to feel satiated. she is going to line up goals and systematically chew threw them until there’s nothing left. she is, eventually, going to devour the whole cosmos and then probably die.

#4: who do they think they are?

this is a question about the character’s SELF-IDENTIFICATION. how do they PERCEIVE themselves? how do they choose to DEFINE themselves? what do they see when they look in the mirror?

EXAMPLES:

cassandra: she is untrustworthy. she is ignored. she is likable but not lovable. she doesn’t fit anywhere. she’s empty. she’s unsure. she’s drowning in doubt. she is insignificant, unimportant. she has been wronged, somehow. she wants to be a hero. she is someone who wants to do the right thing. she never stops trying. she’s stupid and reckless and incapable and doesn’t deserve any of the things she wants. she probably cares too much.

rapunzel: she is good. she is kind. (she is better than other people, in some small way. she sees the potential for goodness that other people can’t, or won’t.) she is worthless. she exists to make the world a better place. she is a princess, so she has to lead. she is the sundrop, so she has to heal. she is strong. (she is weak.) her determination to be kind and willingness to trust are her best qualities.

varian: he’s probably a lot smarter than most people he knows. he doesn’t know anything, but he wants to. he’s reckless. he’s not good enough. he can’t replace his mom. he’s accident prone. he’s a disappointment. he moves too fast. he thinks too fast. he doesn’t really need to sleep. he’s better with chemicals and formulas and machines than people. he’s not someone people want to be friends with. he could do great things if people—especially his dad—would just believe in him for once.

caine: she is an asshole and there is nothing wrong with her. she’s callous. she’s selfish. she’s out for her own interest first. she’s fine. (it was her fault cornaīn died. it’ll be her fault if her mom dies, or if neasa dies, or if any more of her crew dies, or if cassandra dies.) she isn’t afraid, she isn’t hurt, she’s angry. the only person she can rely on is herself, and the only person she wants to rely on is herself. she’s not anxious, she’s being smart.

zhan tiri: she loves, and it hurts, and she loves anyway. there is a way to break the circle and she is going to find it; it isn’t over until the end; but nothing lasts but hunger. she has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life. she has so many regrets she could drown in them if she weren’t immortal. she is beautiful, stop screaming.

…and that’s the bedrock of a character.

every individual action, every specific goal, every thought and feeling, is ultimately guided by the clash between this internal core with the realities of the setting, plot, and choices of other characters. cognitive dissonance between answers #1-3 and answer #4 is a breeding ground for inner conflict, and answers #1-3 are the raw material from which the spine of the character’s arc is sculpted.

[bonus round: this method comes from a scene in the pre-broadway houston run of the musical wonderland, wherein a character poses these questions to alice; her answers are:

#1: “i’m looking for my lost child.*”

*this being both literally her child who is lost but also metaphorically her own sense of wonder and discovery, which she has lost touch with.

#2: “i do! i keep getting in my own way, it’s all i do!”

#3: “i’m trying to figure that out!”

#4: “i’m chloe’s mother. i’m married to jack. these people are my friends. i’m a writer. i’m a teacher. i’m the dreamer of this dream. i’m lots of things; i’m my own invention!”

and when i first listened to this audio i was blown away by just how perfectly this distilled the character of alice down to her purest essentials so i immediately adopted it for character building purposes and i have never looked back because it is simple and it works.

in this scene there is also a fifth question, “what are you afraid of?” (paraphrasing: “losing the people i love”) which i have over time sort of just lumped in with how i answer the other four, because i find it to be less evocative on its own. however, it is useful information to know about a character and i recommend keeping it in mind when answering the other four.]

#[flings writing advice into the void at 5:30 am] hello

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txdoroki · 3 years

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I was wondering if I could ask for a request where the reader is a fashion designer and is hosting like a runway show to show off their designs but a model couldn’t make it/ was sick and they were panicking cause they needed someone to fill in for thier favorite outfit. And so they get either bakugo, Tenya or aizawa (whoever you want to write) to fill in. And after the show, the reader was like 🥺 wow you did such a good job, we should work together again 😊 and the charecter is like sure, but you gotta go on a date with me :))

This could just be like a quick drabble, I just though it would be interesting

I hope this isn’t too much to ask :)) and if you don’t want to do it, no problem. This is my first time requesting anything, so I hope it’s clear enough! Have a nice day, thank you!!!

of course! this is a really fun idea i hope you like what i wrote! it isn’t too much to ask, thank you for the request! have a nice day aswell :)

(includes bakugou, iida, aizawa)

desc: you’re a fashion designer hosting your first show, and the man who was going to showcase the best outfit you had planned called in.... he can’t make it.

warnings: none

words: 1,275

- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - ---- - - - - - -- --- -- - - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- -- - - -

your dream of becoming a fashion designer was finally coming true. tonight!

you’d worked so hard for all of this, saving up money since you were 15. 7 years of money saving kickstarted you to your dream, a runway show.

it had a mix of masculine, feminine, and androgynous outfits for your models.

the outfit you were most excited for others to see was one you’d been working on for ages, collecting bits and pieces for it over the years.

while daydreaming about how amazing the show would be, you got a call from the model who would be showing that outfit’s manager. ah fuck.

“hello, miss y/n. i’m sorry to inform you in such late notice that (name of model) has caught a cold, and cannot come in. good luck with your show.”

oh shit. what will you do now??

*now this splits into each character’s section*

-bakugou-

the model that the agency came up with instead of the planned, was none other than bakugou katsuki himself. he had a widespread reputation of being aggressive, but he was more just pissy when he showed up.

“the names bakugou. now, who do i owe the pleasure to?” he scoffed, “y/n? cute. for a goddamned puppy.”

what is that even supposed to mean?

you didn’t have time to retort back, instead getting a call that your show will soon be beginning.

“yeah yeah, i know the drill,” he winked, turning away, “hope i don’t disappoint or whatever. not that i give two shits.”

you nervously walked to the seat you saved for yourself, a crowd of people surrounded the runway, including some very famous designer agencies that were on the lookout for new designers to employ.

you took a deep breath as your show began, and so far it all was going to plan!

all of the outfits had the crowd gasping in surprise, taking in the small details that’d be missed if they were not fashion enthusiasts themselves.

when bakugou was next, you were silently wishing and hoping that he’d pull off the outfit. you knew it’d look amazing on him since he’s good looking anyways, but you swear if he fucks up you’ll yell his ear off.

“last outfit for tonight folks, worn by the firey model himself, bakugou katsuki,” the announcer said as bakugou walked out.

he looked better than the original model, and you had to dig your nails into your hand to stay quiet.

once he got to the end of the runway, he struck a pose and walked back.

afterwards, he walked up to you. this was confusing to you, you’ve never heard of models really doing that.

“i made that outfit look so hot, nice designing skills,” he complimented, bringing a small blush to your cheeks, “what? i just told you you had skill, not like i told you you’re hot.” he snickered, “you are anyways though.”

“um yeah thanks,” you figured now would be a good time to ask, “you did very good, you wanna work together again sometime?”

his eyes gleamed with satisfaction, “sure, but you gotta let me take you out to dinner.”

“huh??”

“you heard me,” he winked and pushed a piece of paper with his phone number into your hand before walking away.

-text-

you: hii

bakugou: hey;) ill pick you up tomorrow at 7

-iida-

the agency told you their other models were busy, so you had to have one of your models do their original outfits plus the favorite.

you, obviously, chose the most talented model you had. tenya iida. his family had a long long line of models (see what i did there;)) and he was most definitely the best in your eyes.

when you offered the job to him, he agreed instantly, saying it was good for him to help you as he wanted to convey how responsible he was to his family.

he took the agreement a little far, even saying that he’d never let you down as that is his duty to fulfill, but you just let him get determined to succeed. it was nice that he was so passionate about modeling, he always made sure to give things his very best.

“this outfit is very creative and well-crafted. good job, miss y/n.” iida gave you two thumbs up before running to get into his first outfit for the night.

iida was extremely talented, always getting the best ratings and reviews from the public. a few times he was put on the front cover of a magazine, gaining him a lot of followers.

during the few times he walked, he got many cheers from the crowd. many people found him to be insanely attractive, some even came to shows with him in them just for him. you found him so lucky, and it shocked you to find he didn’t have a girlfriend at all for how many people thirst for him.

the way he looked in the ending piece was just- arf arf awooga sexy. you could’ve gotten a nosebleed from how hot he was.

after the show you looked for him, wanting to thank him for the favor.

when you finally found him, he was arguing with one of your other models about how they were there two minutes later than told. it’s very important to the public to be responsible and good at timing. you cannot succeed with trashy expectations, was around what we was saying, but you weren’t really tuned in.

“hey, iida! good job tonight, i really appreciate you working with me so kindly,” you smiled at him.

“of course, y/n! it’s my duty. would you wish to collaborate with me in future business ideals?”

“hmmm.... on one condition,” you smirked, “you have to go on a date with me!”

“i would love to, thank you, y/n.”

-aizawa-

none of your other models would agree to wearing the outfit, saying their schedules were too packed to fit it in.

you figured you might as well call your friend aizawa, he was hot and good at looking like his ego was too big.

“what do you want, y/n?” he yawned into the phone.

“please, shota, do you mind being a guest in my runway show?”

“what’s in it for me?”

“huh?”

“let me take you out on a date and i’ll agree to being in the show,” you could tell how absolutely serious he was. made you lowkey happy cause you’d been thirsting for him for a while.

“yeah yeah, now get here asap dummy,” you chuckled when he whispered a maybe too loud yay, hanging up the phone.

“y/n, have you got a fill-in for the finishing outfit?” your assistant asked.

“yes, add ‘shota aizawa’ to the list.” you ordered, your assistant immediately scribbling down his name, thanking you as they hurried away.

you knew aizawa would rock it, he was actually the inspiration for the entire piece. many people were confused as they’d never seen him before, but were hoping they would again sometime.

he looked so handsome in it, and you were really happy he wanted to take you on a date.

after the show you were lost in thought, wondering what kind of date he’d take you on. would it be dinner? or the beach? or the park? or target? you loved target. truly it didn’t matter to you where he took you, even if you would just be at his place for a few hours you were still super hyped.

“let’s go, y/n,” aizawa walked up to you and took your hand, dragging you to his car.

“you’re lucky i took the subway here,” you scoffed, clicking your seatbelt on.

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courtlyharlequin · 4 years

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Hello! Can I request the Octavinelle boys crushing on a great white shark mermaid who is way bigger than them, with a mouth full of long and sharp teeth but is a sweetheart who lives secluded from other merfolk and loves to collection human things and has a treasure trove like the little mermaid and is fascinated by the world above. Pretty please?

Treasures and Truths Untold

A/N: I already have a request in which the reader is a shark so this request became headcanons of the boys with a Little Mermaid-like reader! I hope that’s okay with you. Also, what is a title anymore....

Azul Ashengrotto:

Color him intrigued.

Azul is not that into human culture, but seeing you get all giddy over it piques his interest by a small margin.

In other words, he appreciates it more than he did before meeting you as well as being more observant of the things you fawn over.

Truthfully, he doesn’t understand your little obsession that much. I mean they’re just land creatures aren’t they?

Azul is more into you than he is into humans.

He tries not to be obvious though, keeping it professional like a student-teacher relationship with no foresight as to how it’s going to progress.

And Azul feels like a fool for it.

But when you always rush to him with questions when he returns home for breaks, Azul tries his best to quench your thirst for knowledge.

Your enthusiasm is oddly refreshing for him as it reminds him of his own eagerness to study and do better than all of his childhood bullies… except yours sparkles radiantly while his flickered like a candle in the wind.

He sees it as a sort of deal— you get your answers and he gets to spend time with you and feel good about it.

It’s not ideal… as the relationship is platonic at best but a certain octopus is a bit shy.

Heck, he’s still not over the fact that you approached him so willy-nilly with no ill intentions whatsoever?

Ahhhhh is it love or simply fondness that he latched onto because nobody had ever given him this much attention?

For sure overthinks it but also finds it endearing that someone would go out of their way to ask him about his life in such detail.

Your curious nature would be good for deals keeps Azul on his toes? His tentacles? Ah, he’s having trouble keeping up with you but the catch is sure worth the chase.

Jade Leech:

Oya oya?

You’re of those merfolk who want to go on land that badly?

He doesn't understand the appeal aside (from hiking and mushrooms) but he indulges you if you beg him to take him to your grotto. Is he that special to you?

Ara ara~

Jade definitely doesn’t get it. He thinks people on land are quite troublesome and the transformation was more pain than gain. Azul does seem happier up there than down here, but that doesn’t mean he is.

Jade… finds no greater joy than to swim freely in the ocean. After all, swimming is much easier than flying or even running.

The thrill of a chase in water for prey is much more satisfying than a chase on land. He doesn’t get exhausted. He gets high off that addictive adrenaline.

But you… you’re so docile especially when you’re just as a threat to other fish in the ocean as he is— if not more of a threat.

Seeing you fondle over forks makes him pity you. It’s such a shame that you utilize your physical prowess to wander around shipwrecks to collect kitchen utensils. Kitchen utensils for crying out loud!

Oh, but Jade would never say that to you out loud and in such an impolite tone. He would coax you into a hunt.

If you stood your ground and refused nonetheless, then he would help you clean and organize your treasures albeit he’ll be a little reluctant.

His face shows discomfort and strain but you can’t ever truly tell because he waves it off as being tired and insists that it’s his duty to help you out as a dear old friend.

Ahhhhh. Friend. That word sort of bothers him. Did he really become that attached to you? A little naive fish in the sea who values human culture over mer-culture. How lamentable.

This must be what you call a crush…

Fufufu~ this actually might be some fun, keeping you down in the sea and coming back to you with treasures from land.

A pitiful love, but it could be fun. Go, entertain him!

Floyd Leech:

What’s this? A pile of junk from sunken ships?

Boringggg! But adorable! Very, very adorable~

Floyd can’t turn that cute face of yours down especially when you make those futile puppy eyes at him. They don’t work on him, but he relishes in the fact that you’re begging him to spend time with you, that you deem him close enough to take him to your hidden treasure trove.

The teasing knows no end. Well, you think it’s teasing but it could honestly be a threat…

He doesn’t see how it’s interesting but seeing you jump up and down about music boxes or clothes from land is fun.

After Floyd returns from NRC, he understands you now! Humans and their culture is super interesting! Why didn’t you tell him dancing and running after prey would be this thrilling?

From then on, he joins you on your little excursions to abandoned ships.

Floyd’s personal favorite items to look for are socks and shoes as he finds them fun to sport on land.

He says they’re great and he enjoys dancing on land more than he does in the ocean.

He even teaches you while trying to wear shoes on his tail... which didn’t work out.

There were these two pairs that he wanted bring to land because they looked perfect for a night out at the Mostro Lounge with you.

Granted, the chances of him being able to bring shipwrecked shoes back to school are slim but he entertains the thought nonetheless.

If you clear up an extra space for all of his own finds, he will be touched. Again, you think he would be…

And if you want something in particular, just ask when he’s in the right mood. Most likely, Floyd would bring it back if it means you never stop being entertaining, but you have to remind him because sometimes his moods make him forget about it.

Write and text him often if you can to remind him! There are times where he’ll ignore you but eight out of ten times he won’t.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland imagines #twst imagines #twisted wonderland headcanons #twst headcanons #azul ashengrotto x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #octavinelle

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pollylynn · 3 years

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Title: Hapax WC: 900 Episode: Little Girl Lost (1 x 09)

He has about a million questions about Will Sorenson, but he doesn’t know who to ask. It’s a mystery that collapses those million questions to the neutron star of questions: Who would she talk to—now or then—about him? And that question, in turn, collapses to an absolute black hole: Who would she talk to—now or then—about anything?

That’s heavier lifting than he feels capable of right now, which is fairly terrifying. As she astutely observed, with hurtful and unnecessary glee, there’s cover art out there for his new heroine. Everyone in the Richard Castle-verse assumes that the book is going great guns and will be on shelves in a jiffy, yet he genuinely has no idea who Nikki Heat’s real-life counterpart talks to about anything. Against that panic attack–inducing backdrop, the secret identity of those whom she would talk to about Sorenson seems like a surmountable sub-problem. With an emphasis on seems like.

Surely the Captain is a starting point. The man was on the phone to him at the absolute crack of dawn, commanding his presence at what had turned out to be the strangest of scenes. And much as he would like to believe he’s here courtesy of the Captain’s confidence that he would make an ideal Feeb-pissing-off ally, to say nothing of the man’s flattery on the out-of-the-box-thinking front, he’s pretty sure that the summons was less about federal presence in general than about the presence of one very particular Fed.

But all that really establishes is that the Captain is in possession of some pretty basic evidence: Sorenson exists. Sorenson-plus-Beckett once existed. Sorenson-plus-Beckett no longer exists. Beyond these basic facts, which honestly he could have arrived at himself, he has to exercise some artistic license: The Captain knows that the parting was not entirely amicable. He suspects that Sorenson’ request for Beckett—plausible thought it may be on the grounds that she really is the best in the city—represents an unpleasant ambush for his star detective, and as her boss he is . . . pissed? concerned? outlook hazy, ask again later? He suspects the Captain himself might not know why or in what way he thought Beckett might find herself in need of a plucky sidekick this fine Sunday morning.

One of the more disconcerting things about his already stalled investigation is the fact that the boys seem to be a complete dead end. He rolls out of the elevator with completely unexpected information straight from the source and has immediate plans to grill Ryan and Esposito for every single detail they have about the six months of Sorenson, but it becomes immediately clear that there’s no point.

His first clue is that there is absolutely no needling of Big Sister by either of them. Not even all the shit the three of them give Ryan over his hideous anniversary tie draws any kind of foot-in-mouth retort about recently returned old flames. Later, when Sorenson himself arrives in all his swaggering, ill-tempered glory, he’s no longer wondering how much the boys know about Beckett’s relationship with Special Agent Pressure Interview, he wonders if they even knew the man existed.

He wishes Lanie were around, then quickly smothers that wish. There’s a missing two-year-old girl, and he definitely does not want there to be any call for Lanie’s expertise. But surely everyone in New York would vote Lanie the most likely recipient of late night phone calls from Beckett immediately after locking lips with her recently returned ex. But most likely might not be saying much, because she might not be likely at all to talk to anyone.

It’s beyond professionally frustrating. It’s . . . sad. He thinks it’s sad that there might be no one that she talks to about things like this. About the profoundly weird parts of it, like an ex—possibly her most significant ex—slinking back into town and only looking her up when a child abduction lands in his lap, and the unfortunately not-that-weird parts of it, like an ex slinking back into town, not calling for months, and all the rest of it.

He thinks it’s sad and realizes too late that he may have played a part in the silence surrounding it. He’s watching from the wings as Sorenson makes his hey-baby-let’s-give-it-another-shot full-court press. He, himself, settles in to sell her his you-two-would-never-have-worked-anyway bill of goods, because if she’s not going to talk, he feels like someone ought to. So he takes up the mantle as usual. She tolerates it, briefly at least. It’s an opportunity to study the flicker of well-schooled emotions across her face. And as he does, he suddenly remembers her awkwardly clearing her throat in Angela Candela’s bedroom

Look. About last night, what happened in the kitchen . . .

He steps outside himself. He watches the scene replay in his mind and hears his own voice, swiftly cutting in.

Oh, listen. You don’t need to explain that . . .

Here and now, he watches her set off on the date she may or may not really have and wonders about that exact moment.

You don’t need to explain . . .

But maybe she wasn’t trying to explain. Maybe she just wanted someone to talk to. A/N: Can anything be amorphous in the presence of Will Sorenson’s mandible? This can.

images via homeofthenutty

#Castle #Caskett #Castle: Season 1 #Castle: Little Girl Lost #Kate Beckett #Richard Castle #Roy Montgomery #Javier Esposito #Kevin Ryan #Lanie Parish #Will Sorenson #Fic #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Fan Fic #Fan Fiction #Writing #Tell Me More

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alwaysthesideofwonder · 3 years

Text

A slightly different take on Shouto’s response to Fuyumi dating/getting married (though the Todoroki brothers going into over-protective mode over their sister remains one of my favorite set of fics), given that she’s been his surrogate mother for most of his life and assuming that he doesn’t have his brothers around to guide him on what the normal response would be to this (and of course his not very good frame of reference for normal and some underlying abandonment issues...)

***

It comes up during one of the visits Shouto has been able to make to his mother since all the students had been moved onto the campus. Usually they send letters back and forth but he does like to try to see her in-person after they had spent so many years apart.

The visit starts the usual way, where his mother tells him some of the activities that her doctors and therapists have her doing (this week had been painting vases, including the light yellow one that she now has brightening up her room holding the paperwhites that he brought her). Then he fills her in on how school has been going with some light (and sometimes not so light) fudging of the details. One of the downsides of being in the hero course at UA is the amount of media coverage of some of the incidents that generally do not make mothers feel better about their sons becoming heroes. On the upside, Midoriya is his classmate so when pressed he can always tell her about what happened to him and how at least her son hasn’t broken most of the bones in his arm.

Lately though, they’ve added on a new segment where his mother gets the chance to reveal the recent ongoings of his siblings’ lives. While Fuyumi usually has already shared most of the news with him by text or their weekly phone call, there’s this little spark of happiness that runs through him as his mother moves to the edge of her seat, her eyes becoming brighter and even her hands becoming expressive as she shares each story. For so long she had remained at the periphery of her children’s lives that she is understandably thrilled to finally get to be a messenger between them.

After the announcement of Natsuo possibly (which definitely is the key word there) bringing his girlfriend to meet her, she starts to wonder.

“Soon enough it will be Fuyumi bringing her husband and starting a family of her own! Oh, and grandchildren!”

He feels something starting to grow inside his throat, closing it up, quickly joined by his stomach that starts churning without explanation. His body feels untethered, as if the slightest breeze is going to knock him out of his chair, and a tingling sensation runs up his hands and feet as well. At least he has enough strength to nod in response as his mother drifts off to her own musings on the grandchildren she would have someday. Talking simply is not an option with every breath taking extra effort to take in while trying to appear normal.

It takes her a minute to come back to herself, which is thankfully enough time for his body to calm down from whatever it is that happened. She switches off instead to tell him about a new recipe Fuyumi had brought for her to try and with that the conversation is carried away as if she never brought up that particular hypothetical.

It’s only after bidding his mother goodbye that he has the time to try to figure out what had just happened.

Perhaps it had simply been surprise? It wasn’t exactly a topic that was ever broached in their household, though he wasn’t entirely sure whether that was simply neglect on Endeavor’s part regarding his weak daughter or because it was simply a topic that no one felt Shouto needed to be present during the discussion of. Given his father’s own part in a Quirk marriage though, he felt he would have heard of it by now if he had the idea to set up an arranged marriage meeting for Fuyumi. They had lived in the same house after all and most recently it had just been the 3 of them. More likely, his father had deemed his sister’s Quirk to be too weak and didn’t have the patience to wait for a grandchild who was more than likely to have an even more diluted Quirk, especially when he had a son with the ideal Quirk already, and so didn’t care what happened in that particular arena.

Still…if it was just surprise, why is the uneasiness coming back again?

***

A few minutes sitting in the hospital lobby is enough time for his body to settle again and to determine that he needs to talk to someone who can understand this better than him. And really, who better to ask than Yaoyorozu?

Unfortunately, he doesn’t bank on how popular Yaoyorozu is and thus how difficult it would be to find her alone to talk to since they were all living on campus. In the meantime, he settles on the temporary solution of not thinking about the actual reason why he needs to talk to her since that seems to make him feel ill, instead focusing on figuring out when he could talk to her without an audience of some of the nosiest classmates one could ever ask for.

After a week and multiple failed interceptions, he has the good luck to be bringing down his laundry right when she is emptying the dryer of hers.

“Yaoyorozu!”

She looks up and smiles, “Todoroki, are you doing your laundry today too?”

Of course, with all the effort he’s put into trying to find her, he hasn’t considered what exactly to say to her.

“Yes?” he answers, not sure if this is one of those times that he should elaborate further because he figures that was obvious given the basket of clothing he’s carrying.

Also, how much small talk is necessary before getting into an awkward conversation about your really dysfunctional family?

“That washer should be empty. Uraraka just started a load in the other one,” she shares, gesturing at the one at the end of the row. He walks past her towards it but comes to an abrupt stop halfway, finally coming to a decision on what to do say next.

“Could I…ask your advice about something?” He glances at her from the corner of his eye before looking back down at his laundry basket.

She pauses, putting down a neatly folded blouse, before practically bouncing over to him, stopping just inches from him with an enthusiastic “Of course!”

He turns and stares at her expression of pure focus for a moment before realizing that she’s waiting to hear what he has a question about.

Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to keep looking at her, he starts.

“I was talking with my mother…and she mentioned something about my sister getting married…” The uneasiness starts but he’s aware of it now and it’s easier to keep it tamped down.

“That’s so exciting! Have they set a date already? Have you met her fiancé yet?” He feels his eyes growing wider with every question. He really should have rehearsed this before he found her…

“Oh no, it was more hypothetical,” he clarifies, “I think, at least? She said someday.”

Yaoyorozu tilts her head to the side, pondering what he said.

“So your sister isn’t seeing someone? Or she is but they’re not at the point of marriage yet?”

An excellent question really. He doesn’t really know all that much about his sister’s social life but if there was one thing that was guaranteed in his life (other than his father being so focused on becoming number 1, he didn’t care how badly he destroyed his family on the way there), it was that come 8 pm on any night, Fuyumi would be at home, grading papers, packing up leftovers from dinner or coming to check on him, especially if he hadn’t made it out of the training rooms by then. He doesn’t think that Endeavor had been making her do this given how surprised he’d look whenever she showed up, softly calling out that dinner was starting to get cold, but for all he knows a rule was put in place when he was young that no one remembered to rescind.

That isn’t to say that she never goes out with friends. It’s just that she always schedules her outings in the morning or afternoon so she’s home by evening. And while he thinks she has both girl and guy friends, he figures a boyfriend would want to take her out to dinner or other activities that generally don’t mesh well with an 8 pm curfew (but most of what he knows about dating comes from shounen manga so he’s not sure how reliable that is).

“I don’t think she has a boyfriend?”

Although that begs the more important question that’s been mulling in the back of his mind.

“The getting married thing…is that something girls typically think about?” Is that something she would be thinking of? Has she been thinking about it this whole time?

He’s never entirely sure what exactly is normal when it comes to girls and honestly, he really hopes that Hagakure’s giggling is an anomaly rather than the norm, at least for the nice, logical girls like his sister and Yaoyorozu.

The energy in the room seems to calm down as Yaoyorozu considers him quietly (likely because this is one of those stupid questions that he should know the answer to), before she finally answers.

“Most girls do from when they’re young, you know? They start planning out what their wedding looks like, who their husband will be, kids,” she drifts off.

Husband? He’s already starting to get an idea of what the guy would look like – average in every way, not the sort to stand out at least. Definitely a civilian, with some sort of harmless Quirk if he even had one. Even-tempered. The sort of guy who puts Fuyumi’s needs first and always dotes on her.

And the children – there would be 2 (though maybe…maybe she would want 3 or even 4?), a boy and a girl. They would be a perfect mix in looks to their parents, one with each parent’s Quirks.

Dinnertime would be a cozy affair with plenty of praise for his sister’s cooking, everyone sharing how their day went, ceaseless encouragement for the children while gently scolding them for their antics at the dinner table.

No yelling, no glares, no insults, no tension so thick you could cut it with a knife mixed with an almost painful silence filled with the unique terror of even allowing the slightest break in it.

The uneasiness explodes and his stomach starts to churn bad enough that he finds himself pressing his basket against it and leaning forward. Yaoyorozu starts to reach for him, asking what’s wrong, and that triggers him to shout a quick “Thank you! I’m fine!”, racing back up to his room with his undone laundry, whatever she has to say next fading down the hallway.

Well, he finally has some answers. They just happened to make everything worse.

***

It takes another couple of weeks before he decides on the next step.

Yaoyorozu tries to check in on him after his abrupt departure, which he blames on fish going bad that he had for lunch. It only sort of works though, so he’s glad to finally tell her that he got permission to visit his sister, if only to stop the worried glances she kept sending him in class. Midoriya has definitely intercepted a few of them and it’s only a matter of time before Iida catches onto one, after which he’s pretty sure he has no hope of keeping this all quiet. Iida in class representative mode is no laughing matter.

It’s awkward enough asking his sister if he could visit. He almost types the request into the family group chat (which mostly consists of messages from Fuyumi and some funny video links from Natsuo. Shouto’s primary contribution is pictures of what he thinks is some of the nice scenery on campus mixed with a rare picture here and there of his classmates not doing hero-related activities, which he’s pretty sure makes a rather pathetic showing on his part but both of his siblings still send appreciative replies, so he hasn’t stopped sending them yet).

He briefly considers talking to Natsuo about it but he’s not sure if it’s the sort of conversation that they would have when their relationship mostly consists of erratic text messages and sighs and shared rolled eyes whenever Fuyumi drags them into some sort of family bonding activity. They’re not quite to the phone call stage and he’s pretty sure that this isn’t something to be shared by text given how the talk with Yaoyorozu went.

Thankfully Fuyumi doesn’t think too much about him wanting to visit home. She offers to come to UA so he doesn’t have to request permission to leave but ever since Bakugou had started talking up Fuyumi’s cooking in front of everyone, she’s become a little too much of a curiosity to his classmates for him to want her to actually meet all of them.

She’s perceptive enough to know that this is a visit where he doesn’t want Endeavor around and manages to time it with a weekend where he is out of town on a team up. She does try to turn it into a sibling bonding night with Natsuo, which he should have expected, and so that does take a little more work for him to talk her out of. Thankfully Natsuo’s thriving social life (love life?) would have made it complicated to find a date to meet and there is of course the fact that Natsuo generally avoids the house like the plague to help him out there.

He still ends up having to promise that they will have a sibling bonding night with food and activities of her choosing. However, he at least manages to negotiate one veto for him and Natsuo each so they can survive the night in general peace.

Fortunately (he thinks), Aizawa seemed to have also managed to pick up on Yaoyorozu’s worried looks and so getting the permission itself to visit was not as hard as he thought it would be, even without Endeavor there to supervise. Thankfully his teacher did not seem to want to delve into the question of what was bothering him any further than an oblique mention about “worried classmates” and simply set up a plan for Aizawa to wait outside while he visited with the requirement that his teacher enjoy some of his sister’s home cooking during the wait (even Aizawa was learning that there were certain battles you simply do not fight, especially with Fuyumi).

Setting foot in the entryway, Shouto can feel the warmer atmosphere that comes along with Endeavor’s absence. Funnily enough, no one manages to win against Endeavor in this house. Everyone has to leave to gain some sort of victory, to become themself – Natsuo to college, himself to UA.

Touya to death, though it’s a pyrrhic victory if anything.

Fuyumi is the only one to be able to stand her ground here and he can’t tell if that’s because her goal was completely different from theirs in her demands for a normal family or if she’s able to hit a level of stubborn that none of her brothers ever could.

He finds her in the kitchen, just finishing up the soba (and the many additional side dishes she’s prepared. No matter what he tells her every week, she remains certain that he’s trying to live off of only cold soba without someone watching to make sure he eats everything else on his plate).

He moves to the sink to start cleaning up. Fuyumi’s particular (or maybe Endeavor is) that the kitchen is cleared up before she starts to eat and he’s lost count of the number of times when she’ll come join them for dinner after he’s already halfway through because of it.

She asks him how school has been, how Midoriya, Bakugou and the rest of his friends are doing and the replies come as easily as they do every week during their phone calls. It’s nothing like those times when they first used to have these sorts of chats, back during his later years of elementary school and Endeavor was gone for the night and she would invite him to come sit with her to watch a show as she did the last of her homework and later on her marking. Back when he didn’t know what to tell her when she would ask these questions and he would have to sit there as she gave him that pitying look he hated while she scrambled to find easier questions for him to answer.

Now he has a running list of his classmates’ antics to share (and even some of his own) that always seem to please her with a smile crinkling her eyes. There are still the handful of ones that make her worried (unfortunately she does watch the news) but he’s learned how to tuck them into a series of other harmless stories to try to distract her (being a teacher also unfortunately means the fudging details plan doesn’t work as well).

She disappears briefly to move the food to the table and the conversation lapses with this. He starts working on trying to figure out how to broach the conversation he needs to have at dinner when she suddenly appears beside him, grabbing a towel and starting to dry his neatly washed dishes. He jumps a little at this and almost drops the dish he’s washing as it starts to slip from his hands but he’s quick to catch it, trying to act as if it was an issue of too much soap more than anything else.

“Is something bothering you?” This time the wooden spoon he picked up does clatter into the sink as she continues to carefully work around the edges of a glass dish with a towel, never looking up at him, barely a question in her voice.

He really shouldn’t have expected that he’d get away with it.

She lets the silence sit. They’ve grown from those early days of fumbled questions and with each second he feels everything that has been building since that day in his mother’s hospital room bubbling up to the surface.

“Mother was talking about you getting married the other day…” Suddenly the little flecks of vegetables trapped in the well-worn grooves of the spoon are the most interesting thing in the room.

He sees her turn to look at him through the corner of his eye as he continues his inspection, nodding in encouragement.

“And…and Yaoyorozu said that it’s something that all girls think about…the whole getting married and having a family thing…” he drifts off, not entirely sure how to voice what his actual question is.

He is not one for praying but he finds himself coming close, hoping that she’ll understand what he really wants to ask, the real reason for why his stomach is churning like a whirlpool is in there no matter how hard he presses it against the counter to make it stop.

Do you want to get married and have a family of your own?

And when you do…what happens to me?

Because that was the new fear he had discovered that day as his mother was becoming overjoyed at the thought of Fuyumi’s husband and children.

Mother leaves. Touya leaves. Natsuo leaves. But Fuyumi? Fuyumi is always there. Even with him now at the UA dorms, here she is, right at home, waiting for him with open arms. Yes, she wants a normal family, but it’s their family that she wants to be normal. Endeavor, Mother, Natsuo, him- there was never a moment when it occurred to him that if they failed to fix themselves that she could give up on them and make herself a new family, a better family. He hadn’t really considered that society had already had an alternative in place for her, and in fact, even expected her to go ahead with it.

And if she gave up on them…if she found herself the nice average husband and the two darling children…why would she want him around? She knows perfectly well what having a hero in the family can do to it. And they’re all dysfunctional, hell, he had to go ask a classmate to figure out if girls wanting to get married were normal. Why would she want him tainting her perfect new family?

If there is anyone who deserves happiness, it’s Fuyumi. The one who made sure that he was eating, that his homework was getting done, that his bruises were iced after their mother was taken away. The one who would record his favorite shows and sit and watch them with him even though she was too old for them the second their father was away. The one who cared if he got to experience the normal aspects of teenage life, who patiently tried again and again to understand him, to connect with him. How could he ever want to stand in the way of her dreams if in the end, they didn’t include him?

He’s not sure how much time passes as he spirals. It breaks as he hears her put down the dish, the rustle of her sweater as she turns towards him and his mind goes blank because what else was he supposed to expect it to do when one of the very few certainties of his life has been turned on its head?

“Shouto…” She tries to catch his eyes but he continues to stare at the handful of remaining dishes and utensils at the bottom of the sink. She sighs but she doesn’t stop looking at him as she continues.

“I have thought about it a bit…like your friend said, a lot of girls think about getting married, especially as they get older.”

He starts biting on the inside of his cheek. He’s certain at this point that he doesn’t want to hear what she’s going to say next and that he’s going to feel a whole lot worse.

“I was thinking…it would be nice to have a husband…a nice one I promise! He won’t be like our father, especially the way he was when we were younger!”

His stomach starts going into overdrive because, in all of his worrying, Fuyumi ending up like Mother, trapped in an abusive marriage, hadn’t really occurred to him and now he has one more thing to worry about in addition to his existential crisis.

She reaches towards him and gently holds onto his right shoulder. She seems about to start to turn him towards her but stops, letting him look away.

“Shouto, I promise, I won’t end up like our mother. The way we grew up…that’s not normal and it doesn’t mean that we’re going to go the same way. We know better.

“When I get married it will be to a good man, who will be a good husband and a good father to our children. They’ll have a better childhood than ours was, we’ll make sure of it.”

He nods along, his stomach loosening up a bit at the promise.

“They’ll get to be kids. To be friends with each other and have friends of their own.” She smiles at the thought of this and he starts to think that she is going to be lost to her own daydreams soon enough.

“And of course, they’re going to love their favorite hero uncle who comes every week for dinner. Though of course then they’re liable to also decide that soba is their favorite food and I’ll have no chance of ever winning that fight ever again!” The smile becomes a grin as she strokes her thumb over his shoulder, giving him a moment to think about this new future, this one that he had never thought of existing.

It’s a struggle. He still has trouble placing himself in that house, at that dinner table.

“Are you…are you sure…” He finds the words hard to get out still, lodging in his throat no matter how hard he tries to force them out.

She does turn him towards her at this and he goes without resistance. There’s a gentleness over her face that is pure Fuyumi and that alone starts to set him at ease as he finally meets her eyes.

“Of course. You are going to be the fun hero uncle who plays all the best games with them. Natsuo is going to the favorite doctor uncle who lets them mess with his tools and fixes up all their cuts and bruises. And T…and they are going to love you both to pieces. Just watch, I’m going to have you on speed-dial for babysitting requests!” The edges of her mouth draw higher while her eyes crinkle with a different emotion that he can’t quite place.

Still, he tries to imagine it. Imagines those two children (they’ve become almost terrifyingly life-like in his mind, dark haired with flecks of white and red, at least one with glasses and both sporting Fuyumi’s grin and a scary good impression of her puppy dog eyes) running up to him, grabbing each of his hands to drag him inside, babbling on about all the games they were waiting on his arrival to play.

And he pauses, finding himself looking at his left hand. He remembers the special exercise from his supplemental classes, using his ice quirk mostly to create the play structure. The fire had been more for special effects and he had made a point to be careful that it stayed far away from the children. But a child holding onto that left hand…

“You know, when you were born, you loved it when…when Touya held you.”

He looks back up to her, uncertain about where this is going. He’s not sure if Fuyumi and Natsuo have an agreement but he can probably count on both hands the number of times either of them have talked about Touya with him outside of mentioning his death day anniversary. They were both much closer to him than he was and he can’t imagine what losing him must have been like, especially for Fuyumi who had lost the only older sibling she had. Whatever pain she felt, she kept locked up with all of her memories of him, sharing only the crumbs when she could seem to bear it.

“Sometimes you would be crying so hard we thought the roof would come down on our heads and it seemed to be for no reason. And then Touya just had to come near and you would get quieter and then we’d get him to hold you and you were suddenly the happiest baby in the world. We figured it was because of the heat he gave off since all the rest of us run cold. You would just be so happy snuggling up against him…

“So…that fire side of you…you don’t need to be afraid of it with the kids. If anything, I’m going to be calling you even more than Natsuo to help me with them because of it!”

And then…it becomes a little easier to think of them, these two children beaming up at him, trying to swing on his arms as he heads for the dining room, Fuyumi and her husband setting the table, her husband helping to extricate the kids from him while insisting that he sit down and drink something at least before Fuyumi has both their heads, Fuyumi sighing and laughing at all their antics.

It leaves him feeling a little warm inside and he finds himself smiling at the thought of it as well.

“And Shouto,” she locks eyes with him and there is something fierce lurking in them as she says in a voice of absolute certainty, “someday, we are going to have this. But not yet. We all have things we need to take care of first. And I promise, I will let you know when that time comes.” Her voice softens, “I think you’ve enough surprises with this, don’t you agree?”

They’re not a particularly tactile family but he doesn’t know what else to do with himself than pitch forward towards his sister and let her sweep him up in a tight embrace. He feels too many emotions welling up inside of him but Fuyumi is there and somehow she figures it out the way she figured everything else out and things finally settle down as she strokes his hair, murmuring that it’s alright, that everything will be okay.

He’s still not sure what his hero name should be in the end but he know that he’s working his way towards becoming the sort of hero that would do proper justice to all that was All Might. He definitely hasn’t thought about what his life outside of hero work will look like though he’s sure that Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka, Yaoyorozu and even Bakugou will be a part of it.

And now he has a new puzzle piece to fit into the picture and he finds himself looking forward just a little more to seeing what the finished product will look like someday.

And of course, no matter what, no matter where either of them is, he knows his sister will be there and ready to help him realize it, even the parts he hasn’t figured out yet.

Notes:

A few assumptions made: -Rei is getting to know her children again and doesn't necessarily know what all they're talking about with each other. So she wouldn't have thought that Shouto would be surprised by the idea of Fuyumi dating/getting married, especially since Natsuo dating is common news, or that he might react differently between the two -Regarding Fuyumi and the 8 pm curfew - this is more my head canon that Fuyumi self-imposes it on herself more to be there in case something goes really wrong when Endeavor is training Shouto. She's well aware there is very little she can do but at least if she's there then maybe she can come up with something and at the very least use dinner as an excuse to keep training from going long - being an elder sister can sometimes involve having very unrealistic expectations for your ability to keep your younger siblings safe. -Fuyumi also has a knack for fudging details that Shouto hasn't figured out yet - he's seen a lot of the worst of his family but she isn't going to let him discover all of it, so this could be considered canon compliant in regards to what all has come out about Touya/Dabi in the more recent chapters (or we can go with a different version of Touya not wanting to hold his super squirmy brother that he's pretty sure he's going to drop and everyone making him so they can have some peace and quiet)

#todoroki shouto #todoroki fuyumi #bnha #pre-PLF battle #shouto is a teenager and is allowed to panic like one #especially when it's more like getting a stepdad trying to take your surrogate mother away #thankfully fuyumi is understanding and well-versed in shouto-speak by now

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simprisottowriter · 3 years

Note

Do you think you could do the same fluffy headcanons but for formaggio and Melone 👉👈

I'd be more than glad, anon!! ♡ La Squadra deserves so much love and appreciation! They're a 'one of a kind' group! When you first see them, you feel like there is something more. They’re not just a team. They’re a family, full of trust, with a past that we may never know. That’s what makes them shine! Especially Melone and Formaggio! Both very interesting and lovely choices! As always, hope you like these headcanons!

°Fluff Headcanons°

◇ Melone is a very private and guarded person. Would casually overshare details that better be left unsaid, but he’d never speak openly about anything serious. He treasures memories he has made with his loved ones, and wouldn’t really want other people talking about them.

◇ Programming takes up a lot of precious free time of his day. It saddens him that he might not have enough time to spend with you. So, while working, he'd be so focused at what he is doing, so it wouldn't bother him if you messed with him a bit. Braiding or brushing his hair, painting his nails or drawing on his arm are some of the things he'd let you do on him, to cure your boredom. Though, if you start annoying him by poking him on his face, he'll stop concentrating on the screen, giggle at your silly antics and start poking you too.

◇ Has a distinctive aroma of cheap perfume, paired with the faint smell that computers emanate, like when the chemicals start to burn when the hardware gets warm. Though, his hair has a sweet and clean aroma, probably from the melon-scented shampoo he uses.

◇ No matter what time you wake up, you'll find a warm cup of coffee left for you. You have noticed it's never scorching hot or very cold, no difference if you wake up too early or a bit late. Melone saves each time how many hours you sleep in Babyface's database, and it always predicts what time you'll wake up next day, with incredible accuracy. When it's almost 10 minutes before you rise and shine, he takes a break for once and prepares your coffee. Leaves it neatly with a cute printed card from Babyface, with hand-written words of affirmation for you!

◇ His sleep schedule is messed up. Like, really messed up. One day he might wake up when dinner is ready, and the other he might not even sleep at all. When waking up early, you have seen him numerous times in the living room area, working endless and inhumane hours. His expression is weary and tired, but when he notices you walking in, he sits straight up. His eyes light up and his smile warms your heart, as he waves at you and gently calls your name. You mention to him that you're genuinely worried about his health, but he keeps insisting that it's not a big deal. Generally, it's random for him at what hour he wakes up. He never can follow a schedule. Might not show it, but the pressure and uncertainty of his job fill him with anxiety. It's hard to maintain a normal sleep schedule when you are so unsure of the future.

◇ Affection is a confusing thing for him. The first time you'll meet him, he'll seem like the most affectionate and touchy-feely person. Will keep asking the weirdest and most intimate stuff just to mess with you. Though, when being by his side for a long time, you realize he's actually a bit awkward. When he falls for someone, he’s afraid that he might weird them out. And he doesn’t want to lose them so easily. He will respect your personal space a lot. Verbally, he'll drown you with the strangest and sweetest compliments. But whenever he wants your attention and affection, he'd rest his head on your shoulder or hold your hand. Doesn't seem like the most easily flustered person, but he turns really bashful with just an affectionate touch. Once he becomes comfortable enough in your presence, get ready for surprise hugs! ♡

◇ Doesn't really cook, but would definitely do the chores before you even mention them. In La Squadra, they split the chores evenly, and each member does their share. He would always finish them first and early in the morning, so that he would have time to work on his computer. Bless his little workaholic heart.

◇ Following the above, he would be so concentrated on finishing his job, that he wouldn't even take breaks. Melone doesn't have the best connection with his surroundings, or his needs. He would appreciate so much having someone remind him to take a break for once from work.

◇ Whenever he’s tired, he leaves Babyface in your care. It’s very close to a computer, but the trick is that it charges from being used. As Babyface fills with energy, Melone does too. So he lets you watch series, search whatever you want, or play any old school games he has downloaded (Like Pinball Space Cadet and Minesweeper. He’d probably have the Oregon Trail too.)

◇ He has Clippy on his computer. That’s all.

◇ Extremely honest and blunt. Melone might be adorably weird and constantly giving effusive praise to his close ones, but he never sugarcoats any serious issue. He doesn’t mix his work with his personal matters. At whatever he is doing, he is always extremely professional and does his best in the time he’s given.

◇ During winter, he randomly makes pillow forts from the couch pillows. When returning from work, you might find him lounging under a pile of carefully placed pillows, huddled in blankets and such. The more stern La Squadra members might discourage this behavior, but truth be told, you rarely see the pillow fort without Risotto or Prosciutto chilling in it. They insist that they’re not enjoying something so childish, but it’s difficult to move them away from it. Especially when Formaggio brings over his kittens and lets them loose in the pillow fort. They’ll make up any excuse not to leave.

◇ With this man around, a diagnosis from a doctor would be useless. Whenever you are feeling a random pain or cannot understand if your symptoms link to something, you'll just have to tell him. He’ll usually answer to you in an enigmatic way, with a question, hinting on what you will need to check.

◇ Babyface completes this ability of his. One of the things his computer can do is sensing the symptoms of every person that is close to Melone, and interpret their meaning. Whenever Melone tells you subtly that you have to give a little bit more care to a part of your body, it is because Babyface is predicting some possible but harmless illness, like a cold. This is how he shows his love for you. He hates this ability much more than he would like to admit. It pains him that he has sensed so many serious and incurable illnesses, on people that were full of life and joy.

◇ His typing speed is 600+ characters per minute. Agile, and precise typing. Rarely misspells anything. His fingers look like they’re almost floating while he’s typing. He doesn’t even have to think where to press next. It's almost automatic for him. You find it extremely impressing, but he insists it isn’t that difficult to achieve.

◇ Has collections of old computers and phones, some of which are just spare parts of them. Refuses to throw the parts out, since he insists he might need them for the devices he makes.

◇ His ideal date would be staying at home, playing video games or just cuddling. Melone enjoys quality time the most. Though, he wouldn't mind going to a technology museum or to a planetarium with you. He finds it very sweet that you acknowledge his interests. (Also would love a karaoke night.)

◇ He isn’t fond of using pen and paper. For him, typing in his computer is the easiest way of writing. But whenever he has to finish paperwork, his handwriting is so distinctive and easy to recognize. Clean, sharp and evenly spaced. Just like it was written on a typewriter. Not slanted, with relatively large and slim letters. The exact opposite of graceful cursive letters. His signature is fairly simple, and easy to the eye. Whenever he doodles, Microsoft Paint is his go-to software. Likes making random lines with the pen, and then filling the spaces with the paint bucket. Usually also doodles criss-cross lines and spirals.

◇ In his work, he’s always expected to be very distant and leave his emotions aside. Laconic, aloof and giving off a “crazy scientist” vibe. Though, he’s not stern and ruthless like Risotto, neither as assertive as Prosciutto and is by far different from Ghiaccio's lunatic attitude. He doesn’t believe he has a role that shines in the team, but he couldn’t care less. He goes at his own pace. That makes people put the “careless and cold” tag on him. But Melone is more than just that. He feels a lot, but internalizes his emotions, since it’s unexpected of his character to show what he feels. Every sensation is so repressed, it will take patience and time to reveal them. Very similar to the closed nature of Babyface, a device full of data that he can only decipher. A stand is the manifestation of someone's soul. Babyface's haunting existence lurks behind unspoken, soul-wrenching events. Unknowingly, he represses all these painful memories. Diving deeper in his past could bring you pain but also understanding for his behavior.

◇ About privacy, Formaggio wouldn’t be very similar to Melone. He wants to flaunt what he has (this also includes the relationship you two have!), but will immediately stop if it puts you in danger. Though, he loves you so much and he likes to show this all the time! Sounds cliche, but he would be the guy to put his arm around your shoulder while walking outside.

◇ Usually, he's the last to rise and shine, so he appreciates waking up to a cup of coffee prepared for him. The fact that he goes to bed way too late might be at fault. Others believe that, during the night, he's probably in missions or out doing dubious stuff. In reality, he just binge-watches movies, plays video games or searches cat videos till early in the morning. Typical guy stuff.

◇ Ideal date? Genuinely anything. Formaggio loves hanging out with you, and is a big fan of the outdoors. From going for a drink, bowling or even to an amusement park, it's no different for him. He just likes going wherever would make you happier the most. But would definitely enjoy a night watching sports or staying home and playing with the kittens he owns.

◇ Very physically expressive and observant! He is in tune with his and other people’s emotions. It’s very easy for him to recognize whenever something is bothering you. He won’t ask directly what’s wrong, but he’ll lead the conversation to that subject. He’ll give you space to express how you feel, and try his best to support you and immediately find a practical solution to the problem!

◇ Just because he is the most cheerful and energetic in the team, that doesn't mean he can't be in low spirits sometimes. When full with negative emotions, he never makes them clear. He maintains his carefree persona, since he doesn't want to make you worry about him. Won't express his feelings, unless he is cornered with questions. And when you call him out on these white lies, he just hugs you. No words spoken. Silence full of love and care. Formaggio's way of showing love is physical, and he heals this way. Whatever bothered him is gone from his thoughts after a long and supportive hug from you.

◇ Incredibly good at betting games. Wins almost every time because he is good at reading the body language of his opponent. When the situation is dire, he’d use Little Feet to his advantage, and with simple and unnoticeable movements he’ll ensure that the game ends well for him. At the worst situation, he might do that, but he’s skilled enough to not go through with cheating. He brings you with him whenever he can, and finds it cute how you are so impressed by his every move.

◇ If this wasn't clear enough, this man loves pranking others. Especially harmless call pranks. Even to the rest of the La Squadra members. Would be the person to call any number that is written on random places, like on bathroom stalls or any wall. The pranks would be more successful if he wasn’t dying of laughter each time. His main victim is Ghiaccio, since he takes every joke and prank personally and starts continually ranting about them!

◇ Has a strong smell of alcohol, paired with the scent of leather and body spray.

◇ Doesn't have the money to buy you a real mansion, but he would use Little Feet on you and make you small enough to pass time in the giant dollhouse he has. It is a very frilly and girly dollhouse! The detail he has put, in decorating it, is admirable! Would definitely use the doll brushes to style and brush your hair. Can you just imagine the amount of doll clothes and accessories he has for you? My heart!

◇ Cat father. Takes so much care of all the cats in the neighborhood, that they gather around him and overwhelm him with meows while he is just chilling outside. Plus, it would be impossible for him to not have a few kittens of his own. He showers them with affection and care, and he’s never bored to play with them! Especially elderly cats. He wants them to have the happiest memories in their remaining years. Frequent visitor in animal shelters, and has always some cash aside to donate, to ensure that the animals are well-fed and properly cared for. You’re the only one that knows about this soft side of his. Has never revealed this to the rest of his teammates, since he wants to maintain the bad boy™️ image.

◇ Bold, spidery and often illegible handwriting, that is all over the place. Very fast and precise at note taking. Prefers pen over pencil, as he never uses an eraser, and always crosses out any mistake. I’m not really sure if he is the one that finishes paperwork in La Squadra. Though, he draws the silliest sketches on whatever paper he gets his hands on, or even on his desk! The paperwork he “borrowed” (from Pesci, probably) is also filled with unfinished hangman and tic tac toe games he played with you, during serious La Squadra meetings.

◇ Formaggio's stand continually shrinks things, with intensity that becomes clear only in the end. Minimizing their value. This could be the idea he had of himself in the past. But now, Formaggio lives in the moment. He wants control over things that he couldn’t control in his past. He showers you in compliments and affection, since he never wants you to feel the loneliness and worthlessness he lived through. Maintains a very excited attitude and is very cheerful all around, because he never wants to waste a moment in his life. He wants to shape a new, better life by your side.

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mmvalentine · 3 years

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Home is Where You Are pt 4 | Feysand

Girl next door AU. CW: domestic and family violence. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

Rhys pulled up outside Feyre's apartment block, and killed the engine. But for a moment, he didn't look at her. He wanted to draw out this moment, because spending the day with her was never enough time.

They had walked slowly around the house, Feyre wanting to touch every wall and surface to say goodbye. Most of the stuff they had just dropped off at the local op-shop, since it had been there for ten years and obviously wasn't needed now. A few times Feyre had packed into a box and taken with her, found treasures of their childhood. There was even a photo album, full of Feyre's family before they had fallen apart. Her father had always shied away from those early memories. In one particular photo, Rhys and Feyre stood in the garden with their arms around each other's shoulders, best-buddy style. Feyre had laughed at them, the same height and missing teeth and in ill-fitting hand-me-downs. It had been such a lovely time, and now Rhys had brought her back to her own apartment. To Tamlin.

He had to say something, didn't he? Rhys wrestled with the dilemma. He wanted to respect her life choices. He wanted her to know someone noticed. He wanted her to be safe.

"Thanks for driving," Feyre said. "I had a great time with you." She grinned. "And you do drive like a maniac." "I always have a great time with you," Rhys said. Feyre smiled, and went to get out of the car. Rhys put his hand on her arm, and she stopped.

"Just... take care of you, okay?" Feyre smiled again. "I always do," she said. "If you ever need.. anything. If you want some company, or some hot food, or a spare room. You're welcome to come to mine, okay?" Feyre tilted her head. "Why would I need a spare room, Rhys?" "No reason," Rhys said. "I'm thinking Tamlin snores, or something." Feyre rolled her eyes. "This again." "No!" Rhys said quickly. "I just... maybe everyone needs some place where no one can find them. Maybe your house used to be that for me and I'm feeling nostalgic because you've sold it."

Feyre looked at him for a long time. "Okay, Rhys," she said eventually. They sat for a moment longer.

"Well, I guess I've got fat cheques to write to my sisters," she said. "Goodnight, Feyre." "Goodnight Rhys."

And then she was gone.

Rhys didn't see Feyre for a while after that. He still texted her every now and again, but he figured if he talked to her too much it would be kind of weird. After all, she was engaged, and he was pretty sure the stupid, bubbly feeling he got when her name flashed up on his phone was not the response you were supposed to have to platonic texts.

So he gave himself boundaries- tried to wait for her to initiate most contact, tried hard not to flirt, and even tried to sound interested when she told him Tamlin's latest health craze.

The work project she was working on wrapped up and was a roaring success. The company hosted a small event to launch the campaign, but Feyre didn't end up being able to make it. She sent him an apology, saying she was too sick to come. He told her to feel better soon, and to let him know if she wanted anything brought over.

She wasn't missing out on much, actually. Rhys found these corporate events dreadfully boring, and they all blended into one after a while. He worked for a political magazine and he truly believed in its ideals- but every so often they had to peddle to people with money, and it made him feel dirty. He stayed as long as was polite, drinking white wine he did not enjoy, and then slipped away when he thought no one would notice.

Back in his apartment, Rhys hung his jacket on the back of a chair, and undid the first few buttons of his shirt. He poured himself a glass of brandy, and sat on the couch, trying to overwrite the taste of small talk and champagne. On his coffee table, early sketches Feyre had made were still scattered about. Although he despised the events, it had been a shame that Feyre had not been able to attend, if just to get the recognition for her work. He sat up, and picked up one of the drawings.

Feyre really was an incredible artist. There was something so soft, and tender in the strokes of her brush, even in these rudimentary impressions. If he stared long enough, he could almost imagine the way her fingers smudged the page, the crinkle in her brow as she concentrated on some of the finer details. The movement in the design somehow had him imagining the sound of her laugh...

Rhys put the drawing down, and rubbed his eyes with his palm. This line of thinking was entirely unproductive. He needed to go to bed.

And then there was a knock at his door.

Rhys looked up, then looked at his watch. It was a little past midnight, who was looking for him at this hour? He set his glass down, and padded to the door. And there stood Feyre.

"Don't say anything," she said, before Rhys could open his mouth. He leaned against the door frame, and took in the woman standing there. At her feet, was a stuffed duffel bag. Her eyes were red, and she was too thin. Across one cheek bone, an angry bruise had bloomed purple and red. Rhys' heart dropped into his feet, but as she asked, he didn't say anything.

"You still got that spare room?" she asked.

Rhys picked up her bag and moved it inside. Feyre stepped in, Rhys closed the door behind her, and then very gently, wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, as her arms came up to his back and she leaned into him. "I'm so sorry."

****

Th angst is reeeaallll but seriously my dudes we made it and I am about to get REAL fluffy on your asses. That's right, it's an angst-fluff-smut parade.

TAGLIST: @ghostlyrose2 @highladysith @stardelia @feysand-babies @tillyrubes10 @ratabrasileira @live-the-fangirl-life @maybekindasortaace @annejulianneh111 @asteria-of-mars@booksmusicandgoodvibes @burritowithfeels

#feysand #feysand fic #acotar #acosf #rhysand #mine #angst

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mkstrigidae · 3 years

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Okay so I'm making my way through your masterlist and I'm in love?? Like let's start off with Winter's Child- a masterpiece. You make Sansa a loving and relatable character and interweave the powers into cannon in a way that actually makes cannon make more sense (preconceived biases and such). Jon and Sansa's relationship is SO SWEET and they way they bonded was absolutely adorable (and the backstory with the houses and the powers they have make so much sense) 1/3

(2/3) Neon Rain literally the best Cyberpunk AU! I've ever read. Like what you did with the world building?? The stark class differences (haha see what I did there?), the choices in SOUND, and I could FEEL myself there! I love the family dynamics between the Starks and I'm loving the little details you're dropping with the Greyjoy's , Jon's parentage, and all of the medical procedures. Jon is dramatic af and I love it and Sansa is a bamf AS SHE SHOULD. Nothing but love for this

(3/3) A Past Worth Having has a special place in my heart. You build up this setting like a tapestry, just seeing more richness and depth the longer you look. I'm proud of Sansa for holding her composure, just FEELING in the angst that the older Starks feel at her return, and loving the relationships with Robin and the rest of the Starks + Jon Arryn. The detail that you're putting into the investigation/Oberyn is awe inspiring and I can't wait to see what you do next with the trial + Jonsa

Haha thank you so much!!! This is such a sweet ask to get! My response is under a cut, because this might get kind of long! (lots of my own meta below, bc i accidentally had a lot to say, haha)

With ‘Winter’s Child’ I’ve really enjoyed weaving in fantasy elements to the world because I like to look at stories and pick at loose threads until they unravel and asking ‘what if?’. I thought it would be a super interesting concept to take a character like Sansa, who in ASOIAF is exactly what she is supposed to be as a noblewoman of her class and conforms very well in that role, and put her in a position where she was essentially a societal outcast in a lot of ways! In WC, Sansa has a lot of similar coping mechanisms to ASOIAF Sansa, in that she sort of romanticizes society to avoid thinking about how absolutely awful it is. In ASOIAF, Sansa holds tight to the notion of knights and chivalry and courtly love to cope with the fact that she essentially has no control over her future and, as a woman, is basically property. In WC, I have her really struggling to make herself into that perfect lady and using that as a sort of shield to the fact that, without a gift, there isn’t anything she can do to improve her lot in life. Sansa has these ideas about becoming a perfect lady and hoping that being perfect in other areas will ‘make up’ for what society perceives as deficient about her, but is more jaded than ASOIAF Sansa due to her age and her earlier exposure to the ills of society. So you get a Sansa who gets along better with Arya and Jon as a result, in part because she’s had that exposure to what it’s like to be an outcast in society. I think that the best fantasy has a really strong emotional backdrop (a really great example is ‘Fruits Basket’ which starts by hooking you with this wacky, fun premise about people in a family turning into animals when hugged by a member of the opposite sex, and slowly builds into a point where you can see that the family ‘curse’ is a representation of generational and familial abuse- of bonds that should be broken, and of bonds that may kill us even as we cling to them- it’s extremely complex and rich and if you haven’t read or watched it, I can’t recommend it highly enough), and so while I really love writing about the fantasy aspects, and writing scenes where Sansa does really cool things with her ice powers, the core of the story is really about Sansa coming into her own, and learning that she was a person who was worth something even without any sort of gift. Sort of overcoming societal stigma and realizing your worth and forcing others to see it. It’s so much fun to write, but i’m stuck at the moment, because i need to reread the books, and my roommate is borrowing them right now haha!

God, APWH is like, indulging my inner world-building suspense-narrative loving writer persona. It’s literally my all time favorite trope- which is of someone growing up to find out that they’re a long-lost somebody or have family they never knew about- combined with a lot of research on trauma (which i’ve been doing for academic and other reasons for a while) and a lot of slowly growing psychological horror courtesy of Petyr Baelish (trust me, it’s going to get WAY more intense). There are so many pieces of media that I love, but I think that GRRM has so many characters and such a well fleshed out world that it’s very fun to dive into his worlds and create something there. Inherently, I love a slowly unraveling mystery and morally gray characters, and this is allowing me to indulge in both!!! World-building is my favorite, because i tend to be fairly detail oriented, and i’ve been laying bread crumbs in so many places throughout the story to hopefully build up to a decent conclusion! I know sort of how it ends, and I think people are going to absolutely lose their minds if I execute it correctly. We have a few chapters to go until we get to anything in the semblance of a trial- there’s some more emotional aspects that I think need to get addressed first, and so I’m so grateful that people are so supportive of being willing to wait for the Jonsa, because they really start spending a lot of time with each other during the trial and prior to the trial (i’m a big believer in bonding via long car rides and so there’s a lot of that!). I’m just so humbled and awed by the response to it- I never dreamed that people would enjoy the story this much- when I started it, I was writing a light-hearted family piece that wouldn’t be too long, and, uh, it kind of evolved from there. Clearly, I am not good at keeping things concise haha.

I left Neon Rain for last, because your comments on this one really made me smile! Of all of my stories, oddly enough, Neon Rain is actually the most deeply personal for me, and I’m just so flattered at your kind words! I spend a lot of my time thinking about the flaws inherent in our society, and without getting too detailed, Sansa’s experience with a family member struggling in the medical system is not unfamiliar to me. There’s a weight that comes with the realization that a system that is supposed to care for people is based on capitalistic ideals of profit maximization, and as someone who has experience working in the healthcare system- no matter how bad you think it is in the US, I can promise you it’s actually worse.

Neon Rain actually just started out as a series of mental images from listening to music that I had to get down on paper, and evolved from there. I actually really love the ‘soulmates’ and ‘class differences’ and ‘mastermind art thief’ tropes, but am incapable of writing fun stories without thinking about the reality of those tropes (see APWH for another extreme example of this haha), and so as I was writing and trying to capture this mental image, the rest of the world began unfolding around me. Jon is different because of a different upbringing here, and so is Sansa, and to see the formerly idealistic Sansa become so jaded by the time she meets her soulmate is just catnip for me. You have this interesting dynamic between them, because Jon wants nothing more than to have Sansa in his life, and give her everything she wants and needs, but where the old Sansa (who was arguably middle-class and somewhat naive, as financially secure teenagers understandably tend to be) would have swooned over that, the Sansa who meets Jon when the story begins is seeing the world and all the unfair and unequal systems in it. She can’t just live happily ever after with him right away- there’s a sense of guilt there, of sansa not feeling like she deserves nice things, and there’s also Sansa’s deep sense of compassion and kindness that won’t allow her to just live life as the well taken-care-of girlfriend of a wealthy man, because she isn’t able to just put on blinders and pretend that all the injustice in the world around her doesn’t exist, simply because it wouldn’t affect her that way anymore.

I think that the core to writing Sansa, for me, in any universe, is that she is a kind and compassionate person who is capable of feeling sympathy towards even the people who have done horrific things to her and her family- that emotional awareness and empathy is a harsh thing to have in a world like Neon Rain, and in our own world, honestly. I’m so glad that you appreciate Sansa’s BAMF-ness in the story- I think that her chapters demonstrate that she is capable of doing extraordinary things when she’s doing them for people she cares for, to be kind (The scene where Alayne helps Robin down from the eyrie is most indicative of this I think), and so in this world, I just love having Sansa be a complete badass out of necessity. Also, it’s fanfiction, and I really wanted to give Sansa a cool motorcyle, because no one else was gonna do it!!!

Also, my characters like to run away with me, and before I knew it, Rodrik Greyjoy had a huge adorable crush on Sansa in the story that I immensely enjoy writing. The Greyjoys are fun because they’re all absolutely insane, and i’m a total sucker for ‘gruff dangerous character is completely a sucker for the kind sunshine-y character’ trope.

God, this accidentally got really long??? I’m sorry- thank you so much for such a kind ask!!! I love hearing what people think of my stories, and this was so sweet :)

#my writing #joanofarkansass #ask answers

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wlfkssd · 3 years

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Midnight Caller

based on the prompt ‘hvithelred + midnight / early morning hugs’ sent in by @issadoragreen <3

summary : after a rough week, and with hvitserk not answering his calls, aethelred (thel) visits the lothbrok house at midnight to see him.

warnings : smoking, brief mention of ragnar yelling at hvitserk, mentions of divorce and a bad impression of gimli from lotr. a little bit of angst, not much though.

pairing : hvitserk x aethelred. small appearances from alfred, rollo, ubbe. as well as a tiny flirtation between ubbe and thel.

words : 2,380.

notes : aethelred is referred to as thel a lot in this fic. just because it’s a little more modern.

The dial tone continues in its monotony and Thel shakes his head, lowering the phone from his ear before he hangs it up again. He stares at the screen and his brows instinctively pull close and tight.

Why aren't you picking up, Hvitserk?

"Any luck?" Alfred, his younger brother, stands in the doorway. He looks anxious; hands buried so deep into the single, long pocket of the oversized, borrowed hoodie to keep him from picking at his fingers in worry.

"No. It just keeps ringing." Thel's defeated and to pretend otherwise would be idiotic. Perhaps Hvitserk doesn't want to talk to him. Perhaps he doesn't want to see him anymore. "I should go over there and see if he's alright."

"At this time of night? What would mum say?"

That's hardly a threat and they both know it. Life at home hasn't always been plain sailing, especially with Alfred's illness and the fact that it's clear he's the favourite. But Thel doesn't mind. Quite the contrary; sometimes that leaves him free to do just about whatever he likes without much fear of repercussions.

Still, this? Maybe his brother is right. It's no time to be showing up unannounced.

"You're right, Alfie." That garners a smile from Alfred - nickname having been with him, practically since birth - and he turns to leave for his own room just as the dial tone strikes back into life.

Some seconds pass, long and unnecessary in Thel's opinion. He can only imagine what the excuse will be.

"Hello?" Ubbe's voice is quiet, softer even than usual and something about it sends a tingling jolt straight up Thel's spine. They're best friends - more like brothers, really - but some things just can't be denied.

"Is Hvitserk alright? He's not answering his phone."

There's a silence and Thel hears the heavy sigh come through loud and clear. In fact, it's far too close to the receiver for comfort.

"Our father came home." Four short words that set the scene for the whole conversation and the coming night. So easily let out and yet their weight now holds itself in the space between the two boys. "He has a way of speaking that isn't always what you would call nice."

And that's putting it lightly. In truth, Ragnar had come home after three long years of globe-trotting and demanded to know which of his sons intended to take over their family business. It was sudden and off-putting and had ruined the last of everyone's Sunday night.

He'd barely spoken to Ivar, choosing instead to focus on Ubbe and Bjørn as his successors. And why not? They are the oldest of his sons. Why wouldn't they want to inherit his empire, his wealth, his standing in Scandinavian society?

Because, for one, Ubbe had told him, he was still in school and wanted very much to become something other than what had come before him. Bjørn had said much the same; giving details that he was going into business with their uncle Floki for a while.

That left Hvitserk and Sigurd and being faced with a father he hadn't seen for years, yelling into his face and asking if he's man enough, wasn't the ideal reunion.

It also explains exactly why none of the brothers have been at school for the past two days. Now Thel understands and his heart eases off its hammering just a little.

"Do you think Hvitserk would see me, if I came over there?"

For the first time in the conversation, Ubbe seems to relax. The sigh slips into something more amused and he hums, lowly. "I think so, yes. It's a shame you like him so much. I could use someone like you right now. Calling at midnight and asking to come over, just to see me."

Shame indeed. Were it not for the fact of Ubbe's younger brother's charm, Thel might have eventually fallen out of friendship and into love with him, instead. But both know it's not to be and there's a moment of comfortable silence.

"I'm on my way, then."

They hang up and Thel takes a deep breath, relieved that the sudden silence isn't anything he's done.

Dressing warmly, Thel makes his way down the stairs and out into the night with a single thought; how can he cheer up his boyfriend?

Several different ideas run through his mind as he walks the short distance from one house to the other. He could pick a flower from each of the gardens on the way and present them to Hvitserk. He could jog to the 24-hour corner shop and buy him some sweets or a large bag of popcorn. Or he could just bring himself and the space between his waiting arms that so perfectly encompasses the one he's chosen to show and give his heart to.

That sounds about right. Sappy as it is.

Coming to the Lothbrok house, Thel slows and considers his ways of entrance.

Knocking on the front door is definitely out. That's far too obvious, isn't it? Plus, he doesn't know who might be sleeping. There is a light on in the living room but the windows blinds are all the way down and disturbing whoever is inside might not end well. Especially if it's Ragnar.

As he's standing there, looking at the house, a throat clears and sends him almost out of his skin.

"Staring won't get you anywhere." Flame of a lighter flickers into life and, for a few seconds, the identity of the voice shows itself. Then it's gone. Thel stands his ground, though, relief filling his veins now instead of fear.

"And scaring the shit out of teenagers won't get you anywhere, either."

Tongue kisses teeth in a gesture of disappointment at the language and Rollo stands up, causing the lamp above the side door to come on, illuminating him. The sterile shade reminds Thel of a hospital.

"What are you doing here, Aethelred?" Rollo asks on the exhale of his cigarette, smoke blown in a steady stream as his eyes focus on the boy before him. "It's a little late for studying, isn't it?" His expression holds so much knowing.

"I'm here to see Hvitserk." And that's all the explanation he's going to give.

"So it's true then? The two of you-" Rollo cuts himself off as he takes another drag on the cigarette, which now looks as though it's due to be snubbed out any moment. He holds in the smoke to delay but lets it out as he comes closer, towering over Thel the way one does when he should be feared.

Flicking away the cigarette gives a single notion.

Threat.

Instead though, it's an embrace that passes between them. A hefty one in which Thel is lifted quite literally off of his feet. And a hearty laugh bellows uncaring from Rollo's chest, still rumbling as he lets go and claps both hands to the teen's shoulders, looking him over.

"You're both terrible at hiding things, you know. Anyone with eyes can see your affection for each other." Maybe in the dark it's easier for him to say things like this; the veil of night covering all manner of distress at discussing affairs of the heart. Lagertha and Siggy have both torn him apart in their own ways but love spreads just as much as anything else. "Now," he sniffs and clears his throat, squeezing one of Thel's shoulders. "Do you need help getting into his window?"

"What?" What, indeed. Thel blinks up at Rollo, brows coming together as they had earlier over the screen of his mobile phone. "I was going to use the front door." He lies and hopes it's convincing.

It isn't.

"Nonsense. You English need to have more adventure." Rollo observes, all the while leading Thel towards the overhang beneath Hvitserk's bedroom window.

They come to stand, looking up at it together. From on the ground, it doesn't seem too daunting but Thel isn't keen on breaking a bone when he's got a big game at the end of the week.

"You expect me to climb up there?" Thel shakes his head, wishing he had asked Ubbe to wait up and let him in. Better than risking life and limb for the sake of adventure. In fact, he's sure Hvitserk would prefer he arrive in once piece and upset Ragnar than show up and immediately have to spend the next day and a half in the hospital with him because he fell.

"Come on. I'll help you."

Bending at the knees, Rollo widens his stance and lays his hands palms up in front of him, interlocking his fingers. He gestures for Thel to come closer with a jerk of his chin. Silently his eyes say he'll never forgive Thel if he doesn't find the courage to at least try it.

"Oh, fine. Fine." Thel huffs and, putting one hand firmly on Rollo's shoulder, he lifts a foot and places it into the waiting hands. One swift motion sees him launched up and onto the overhang. No problem whatsoever.

Rollo gives him a thumbs up for good luck and disappears, presumably to smoke some more.

Then it's just a glass pane that separates him from the one he loves. It feels strange to think, let alone to say, especially given that each of them is so young but, apparently, when you know, you know. And he knows.

Crawling on his hands and knees, uncaring as to the scuff to his black jeans, Thel gets close enough to see his own breath fog up the window and he pauses to peer inside. One hand cups over his eyes, blocking out the light of a nearby streetlamp.

Hvitserk is on his bed, curled around his blanket. One leg on top, one beneath. He wears only a pair of bottoms - Thel's, he notices. They're a loose fit and black and the pull strings are frayed from years of play and fretting. They're old but, somehow, Hvitserk makes them new. He makes everything new; vibrant.

The catch is unlocked so he doesn't even have to struggle with it before he's pushing up the window and slipping through. Hvitserk would say he's like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible but that's difficult to believe.

Cool air moves the curtains and breathes life into what is otherwise a morbidly still room. Hvitserk's mobile phone lays dormant on his bed, placed in the concave created by his rounded position. As though he just watched Thel calling and calling and chose to ignore it.

No.

Maybe he couldn't bring himself to answer. Shock does strange things to people. Aethelred's own parents almost divorced when his father found out Alfred wasn't his. But they worked through things, eventually. So he's all-too-aware of just how debilitating that emotion can be.

"Hvitserk?" Thel whispers into the dark. It's the softest he's ever spoken and thinks, perhaps, he didn't actually make any sound at all. So, he tries again, not wanting to startle Hvitserk too much if he wakes.

"Mmm?" The noise is an obvious sign of exhaustion and Hvitserk doesn't turn over, immediately. He clearly thinks it's one of his brothers; come to disturb what little sleep he's managed these past few days. "What is it, Ubbe?"

Chancing the gesture, Thel sits on the side of the bed and tentatively lowers a hand onto Hvitserk's exposed shoulder. "It isn't Ubbe. It's me."

"Hello... me." For the first time in days, Hvitserk smiles. His eyes are still closed but that simple touch to his shoulder - naked skin prickling at it - is enough to lift his spirits from even the deepest of depths. "How did you-?"

"Your window was unhooked. I've told you about leaving it that way. Strangers could get in." The hand moves from bare skin to sandy braids and Thel's long fingers gently sweep through, earning him a contented sigh.

A contented sigh that precedes Hvitserk's eyes opening heavily. He blinks, adjusting to the light. "Did you climb up here?" His brows furrow at the thought and he turns over fully now, onto his back. The side of Thel's face that is visible looks to be smiling but it's hard to tell.

"Your uncle tossed me." Doing his best impression of Gimli, Thel ducks his face and laughs. It's almost silent but the moment is one of utter closeness, despite the humour, and after a minute, even that dies away, leaving nothing but the gaze of a sad boy looking into the face of the one he knows can rescue him.

Abruptly, Hvitserk embraces Aethelred's waist; not sitting fully but no longer laying as still and placid as he had been.

"I'm sorry I didn't answer you before. My father-" The very fact that Hvitserk buries his face tells them both all they need to know about the life of that conversation. It needs to be cut short.

"Ubbe told me everything. So you don't have to explain."

It isn't made clear exactly what it is Hvitserk has to do but by the way Thel directs him steadily with a hand at the back of his neck, the other having moved now from soft hair to rubbing at the space between his shoulder blades, and kisses him, it doesn't appear to be anything too taxing. Just be kissed. Even he can manage that now.

For a long moment, there's nothing in the world but them and it's blissful. All the heavy decisions in their futures and all the things they've done wrong in the past just melt into nothing. They're living for the moment.

Lips leave their tender mark on one another as Thel pulls away, briefly, nose bumping Hvitserk's, along with a touch of their foreheads to bring about the signal of parting. Not that it lasts long. Tiredly, Hvitserk shuffles further towards the wall, letting the blanket tangle itself even tighter into his legs and Thel kicks off his shoes and strips down to his shorts.

As they get comfortable, skin presses against bed-warmed skin; the soft, downy hair of Thel's soft tummy tickling the small of Hvitserk's back. Naturally, a groping hand reaches and finds an arm to pull over and a hand to hold in the darkness. The same lips, too, now part and breathe as one, chests rising and falling together.

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?" The question comes around a yawn and Hvitserk hugs Thel closer to him, looking back briefly and offering himself up for another kiss. Aethelred gives it, freely, leaning in for a series of small, affectionate pecks. Each brings about a satisfied sigh.

"I will stay until you fall asleep."

#hvitserk #aethelred #hvithelred #vikings fic #issadoragreen #requests #/ finally posting this !!!!!!#ubbe #rollo #alfred

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radamazard · 3 years

Text

From Me to We

This is my piece for the DJWifiZine! Everyone who contributed to it is honestly awesome and so talented, so you should go check it out at @thedjwifizine

You can download it here!

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The lights flickered in time with a tired sigh, throwing darkness over pages that had already left Nino feeling increasingly frustrated. What was it about old timey books that made them so… so obtuse!

Had it's previous owners meant to mock him? If so then he guessed they ought to congratulate themselves. Never before had anything left him feeling so completely and utterly defeated.

With that thought and a heavy groan, Nino let the tome hit the cushion beside him.

“Waaaaayzz,” he whined, earning a dry look from the kwami. “How the sweet heck am I meant to read this crap? No offence. I know this is, like, your idea of fun and all, buuuut…”

“None taken,” Wayzz replied, drifting down to sit upon his holder’s shoulder. “I understand that it is a rather…” he paused, seemingly taking a moment to choose his next words carefully. “...dull and dense text. But you were chosen to inherit this role, and with it comes certain responsibilities. Such as-”

“Readin’ old books drier than the Sahara Desert?” Nino scoffed, leaning back into the worn comfort of his couch.

“At least you’re allowed to read them!”

Ah, he was wondering when she was going to join the conversation.

Across the room from him, grumbling to herself from her squeaky desk chair, sat Alya. Her legs were crossed and her form hunched, a sure sign that she wasn't quite over being scolded by the tiny god of protection earlier this evening.

“Aww, come on, babe.” Nino attempted to assure her. “I promise, you're not missin’ out on anything exciting here!”

Well, not anything that he himself would find exciting. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't sure why he'd had the title of guardian thrust upon him. Hero stuff wasn't really something he was passionate about. It was just something he did outta a sense of duty.

Alya though? Now SHE was someone who woulda been squealing at the opportunity. She dug this kinda shit.

Thick, boring books full of lore and secrets that had to be decoded and unravelled?

The responsibility of deciding who was worthy of the same power they wielded, and who could never be allowed even near a miraculous?

The weight that such a position held, and the changes it would bring with it?

That was right up her alley!

It was the ultimate hero's life, all stress and life altering decisions and sooo much information that it made his brain wanna shrivel up and roll right outta his head. This was her dream, not his.

Yet here they sat, neither of them pleased with the cards they'd been dealt.

Man, was life ever a bitch.

“.... Okay, so maybe it'd be exciting to you,” Nino conceded as his girlfriend threw him an irritated glare, one that only softened as she took note of how exhausted he seemed.

Alya pulled herself away from her desk, crossing the room in a few quick steps before she dropped herself next to her beloved with a graceless thump.

“I know you're not trying to make me feel like shit, boo,” she assured him, although with how he slouched into her side Alya was getting the feeling that, perhaps, he felt he had failed in that. “It's just…”

A strong arm wrapped itself around Nino’s shoulder, and with one smooth motion he was pulled into the warmth of Alya’s embrace. It was a comfort, a silent reassurance that no ill feelings were shared between them. That even if the situation was less than ideal, they refused to let it sour their bond.

“Sucks major ass?”

“Couldn't have said it better myself, Neens~”

Alya felt the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips, one that was awfully contagious as she caught sight of the same beauty blossoming upon her boyfriend's gorgeous face.

“You know I'd give ya the damn title if I could, right?” Nino said with a slight shrug. “I wasn't really gunning for something like this. Or even remotely wanting it.”

“Maybe that's why the old fart gave it to ya,” Trixx chimed in, his sudden presence making the couple jolt comically. Alya threw a pointed look at her kwami, one that went entirely ignored by the mini master of mischief.

“Just saying! I mean, isn't that what boring old humans do? Give power to those that don't want it?”

“As much as I disagree with his choice of words and blatant disrespect for my former master,” Wayzz retorted with an air of annoyance. “Trixx does have a fair point. I do believe that Mas- that Fu’s choice, or at least part of it, was based on a lack of desire. One that does not desire power is far less likely to abuse it.”

Wayzz’s own lack of tactfulness earned him a nasty look, from both his chosen and his fiery partner. Unlike Trixx though, he at least had the decency to appear guilty, knowing that he lacked a certain level of social savvy. The fox instead had whizzed off to find a new place to nap. How typical of him.

“I did not mean anything offensive by it,” the kwami quickly added. “I do not believe that Miss Alya would ever abuse such power! You have proven to be a hero of great honour and responsibility, and I would never wish to besmirch your name with such dirty implications…”

“I'd hope not, little dude,” Nino said firmly, the sternness in his gaze starting to melt as Alya relaxed beside him, along with her grip that held his lanky frame. “I love ya, but Als is my frickin’ Queen. I ain't about to let anyone talk smack about her, not even you.”

“I would never. In fact, if it would assure your fears, I will let it be known that Miss Alya was Fu’s second pick.”

A beat of silence passed, broken only by the slight cry of shock that fell from Alya's slackened jaw.

“You… You can't be serious! Was I- I could of- What?!”

“Oh, but I am. You possess a brilliant mind, and a passion for knowledge and the history of us kwamis that is both pure and unrivalled by anyone alive today. To be completely honest, the perfect guardian lies somewhere between you both. It made the decision terribly hard…”

As he trailed off the silence returned. Unlike last time though, it stretched out, filling several long lasting minutes.

Nino felt Alya’s cheek come to rest upon his head, and even from where he rested, his face pressed into the crook of her neck, he could hear her heart race. Was it excitement, the idea that she was thought of so highly by someone she deeply respected? He hoped so. She deserved at least that.

No, she deserved so much more.

“You right there, Als?” Nino whispered against her skin, laying a gentle kiss to her thrumming pulse. To his delight he felt her shiver beneath his lips, egging him on to smother her in a flurry of feather light affections.

“I will be once you stop being such a damn lovable DORK,” Alya shot back, her cheeks ablaze. It wasn't often that Nino managed to catch her off guard as such, not that she was complaining of course. She loved him dearly, with his sweet tenderness and near endless patience for her more… wild ways.

But right now was meant to be serious talk time!

“Well excuuuuuse me, Princess!”

Oh, how her eyes rolled.

“Anyway, back to the topic at hand. You know, the one where I was ALMOST THE GUARDIAN? I seriously can't believe that I was this close to being allowed to read the same book that you wanna throw in a fire!” Up went her hands, and with them Wayzz, who hopped out of the way of any further hand shenanigans and took refuge on the arm of their couch.

“Like, come on universe! I'm sorry that we can't just fuse or mind meld or be co-guardians or something equally as ridiculous!”

“Man, that last one woulda been hella sweet. Could you imagine? This shit would be so much easier if we could tackle it together. That damn book would be halfway understood by the end of the year if you were actually allowed to read it!”

Together they sighed, almost dreamily, as though the idea was but a wish, one fit only for fairytales. Or perhaps a low budget rom com, like the ones they enjoyed playfully mocking every Friday evening. Ah, for their lives to be so stupidly simple.

“Don't even say it, babe. Don't give me dreams that can't be fulfil-”

“Co… Guardians?” Wayzz interjected, drawing their gazes to his suddenly pondering form. “I hadn't thought of that option. Neither of us had. It certainly isn't traditional, but Ma- but Fu has never been one to follow tradition. Does that truly matter now in the scheme of things?”

His tiny brow creased in deep thought, so much so that they feared he may give himself a headache. Then, without warning, the kwami was zipping across the room, coming to rest upon the coffee table where Nino’s phone lay.

“What are yo-”

“I am contacting Fu. This new guardianship is only days old, you see. We should still be able to make amendments. With this new idea presented I believe we may be able to reach a more agreeable situation for all.”

“You… You mean…”

“Yes, Miss Alya. Now please, a moment of silence.”

The couple shared a look of bewilderment, one that swiftly morphed into giddy delight as the meaning of Wayzz's words and the hushed conversation he was having, started to settle in.

“You don't think…?” She started.

“Heck yeah I think!”

“I wasn't even being- well okay, I HAD thought of it before, but I didn't seriously think that it could happen! But now it’s- Neens, I might-!”

Excited giggles burst forth between them, both barely able to contain the jittering joy that flourished between them. What once had seemed like a sore point now pulsed with a new life, promising a future that held them together closer than ever before.

Strange, how quickly one’s night could turn from a grouchy sort of sour to a sweet, bubbly delight.

Together they tittered, their conversation an excited mess of hardly hushed whispers and tightly gripped hands. The energy was punctured by a familiar, yet sharp throat clearing, which snapped their attention back to the awaiting kwami.

“Although our conversation was brief, and we will meet at a later date to discuss the details, we are both in agreement. A Co-Guardianship is something we are willing to trial. If you will both agree to this arrangement, that is.”

Wayzz watched with a delighted chuckle, already braced for the squeals and hollering of joy that were soon to follow. Ah, to be young and so wonderfully human, to find such happiness in something shared.

“Are you kidding, little dude? Of freaking course I agree to this shit! Als, did ya hear what he sa-”

“SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!” Alya shouted in pure, unfiltered glee. Within seconds she was reaching across her boyfriend, grabbing the tome that had been the source of so many nasty feelings not even half an hour ago.

Nino’s easy laugh filled her ears, and soon it vibrated against her lips, gobbled up by a kiss of pure, vibrant glee that left them both more than a little love drunk.

“I swear, I- no, WE won't let you down!”

We.

Yes, that had a nice ring to it.

We, as in friends.

We, as in lovers.

We, as in heroic partners.

We, the Co-Guardians of the Miraculous, together until death do us part.

#the djwifi zine #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #DJWifi #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #wayzz

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