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duskyashe · 2 years

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NaNoWriMo Day #2

[masterlist] [part two] [part three] [part four]

Prompt found here

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The thing about being the half-ghost protector of a small Midwestern city whose rogues gallery consists of both the inhabitants of a parallel dimension intrinsically linked to the "living" one as well as goons from the government, is that you tend to get a bit lonely. There's never any representation for him or others like him among the well known heroes of the world, he's really got no one to model how he should fight his city's crime. Sure, Superman has a lot of powers that are similar to his own, but he's a beloved alien not a hated eldritch entity. And sure, Danny loves knowing there's other sentient life out there, but when the government is one of his rogues, it's kinda hard to look up to government approved heroes.

Though Captain Marvel was pretty cool, not gonna lie.

But his point was, as far as Danny knew, he was the only eldritch being/cryptid to have taken up heroics, ever, and that… that hurts sometimes, that he was the only one out of a rather large cast of possible "other" beings in the world to decide that protecting others was worth more than his own potential safety. He was both the frontrunner and the sacrificial lamb. If he succeeded in changing the narrative, in convincing humanity that supernatural beings and entities couldn't be defined by a few really well known bad nuts, then others would publicly fly his banner, but if he didn't, if he failed, then, well, no ectoplasmic skin off their metaphorical noses, y'know? It was isolating.

Danny honestly expected the rest of his existence would be defined by that loneliness, by being the only hero to be of a supernatural flavor others were actively terrified of. Until, that is, Sam and Tucker nearly broke his bedroom door down one Sunday morning, breathless and beaming, which was so out of character for Sam that Danny was kinda expecting his ghost sense to go off signaling she was being overshadowed. But no, she wasn't. She was genuinely excited about something, enough to act like the daughter her parents wished she was, not the down-to-earth goth beauty they actually had.

"Woah, guys, what's up?" Danny asked, sitting up from his sprawled out position on his bed. Tuck shut and locked his door while Sam pulled her phone out and showed it to him. He stared at the screen in shock for a few minutes as his friends got their breathing under control. "Is… is that… is that what I think it is?"

Sam nodded, grinning like a loon. "Tuck double checked everything. There's multiple cases with enough correlation between them, buried deep enough in the web, that for it all to be one big hoax or just a huge coincidence would be functionally impossible. This is real, Danny. You're not alone anymore." On her phone was a website, which looked like a newspaper of some sort, with a headline reading, "The Cryptid Known as Batman Strikes Again! Twoface Back in Arkham!" It was posted just last week. Danny took Sam's phone and looked through the open tabs. There were articles and blog posts and Reddit pages and YouTube channels dedicated to what seemed to be a whole clan of cryptids who made Gotham City their home. All of them praised the elusive clan. Thanked them for protecting them. For saving them.

Danny started tearing up. He couldn't help it. Here was proof that what he was doing wasn't all for nothing. It was possible to be a hero loved by those he protected while being a member of the supernatural, part-time though his membership may be.

It was at that point that fourteen year old Danny "Phantom" Fenton decided the entity called "Batman" was his hero, his idol, the being he looked up to most of all. His method of fighting crime was a tad too violent for Danny, but his style was perfect. He couldn't change who or what he was, not without some serious side effects, but if "Batman" and their clan could turn the public's favor to their side despite being so obviously not human, something even literal aliens didn't attempt to do, then screw it, Danny was going to do the same thing. He would embrace his ghostliness as Phantom, instead of trying to pretend he was still human in that form. Maybe that was his problem, anyway? Could others tell he was pretending to still be human as Phantom? It didn't really matter at the moment, but it would be interesting to test that going forward…

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In the end, a year and a half is all it took for everything to completely fall apart. Danny would say he was surprised, but honestly, he'd seen this coming as far back as that incident with Pariah Dark, which ended with him ascending the ghostly throne. The way Amity Park reacted to that whole ordeal was rather telling. Although a number of the younger crowd had started shifting their views of Phantom, too many of the adults still saw him as a threat and vilified him, even after he saved all of reality.

Living in Amity Park had quickly become too dangerous for him and his team—Sam, Tucker, and Jazz—, but while Jazz was fairly easily able to get custody of Danny and get the two of them away from the boiling cauldron of tension, Sam and Tucker didn't have that option. His core protested leaving members of his fright behind in such a hazardous situation, but with no idea how things would go down where Jazz and Danny were running to, they had to leave them for the time being. If everything went to plan, then Jazz would call the rest of their fright to them.

Thankfully, with him being the ghost king now, his ghostly rogues had cut back on their attacks on his haunt during the past year, instead scheduling time with Jazz to teach him more about ghost culture, as well as other supernatural beings and their cultures. Due to these lessons, Danny, Sam, and Tucker would often debate what kind of beings Batman's clan had and how many beings the clan contained instead of finishing their homework.

Batman was obviously an entity loosely tied to shadows that had ascended to minor divinity over the past few years, while Robin had to be some sort of fey being, considering their eternally youthful appearance. This theory was backed by Robin's ability to mimic the voices of seemingly anyone. Raven, the next oldest member of Batman's clan, had to be eldritch in origin, though it was interesting that they claimed a name so closely related to death and prophecy. Danny and his friends couldn't quite agree on what kind of eldritch being Raven was, just that they were one.

Condor was an interesting being to debate, as the name also had strong ties with death, as well as rebirth. Sam thought that meant Condor was a Phoenix that wanted to stay on theme with the rest of the clan, while Tuck thought Condor was some kind of zombie. Jazz was actually the one to propose Condor may have been a lich, which honestly kind of made sense. Condor was known to have looser morals than the others in the clan, which fit with the general idea of how liches come into being, especially if those they killed came back as undead servants like some rumors claimed.

Around the same time Condor showed up, whisperings of a being named Oracle started showing up within the forums Tuck had hacked. While there was no confirmed record of appearance for her, there were multiple accounts of the other members of the bat clan sending words of thanks to her, so she might have been the actual spirit of the Oracle of Delphi, which would be so cool.

Ibis was definitely some sort of trickster spirit, possibly even a kitsune. With their tendency to dance around an opponent until victory was assured and their tenuous grasp on the humanoid form, they couldn't really be anything else. Black Bat had to be another entity loosely tied to shadows, though they seemed more eldritch than Batman was. Starling could literally only be a banshee, what with her death shrieks every time she attacked. Weirdly enough, Signal seemed to already have a supernatural theory attached to them, said theory being that they were the bat signal given sentience and humanoid form, though Danny thought they might be more of a vengeful spirit.

There were likely others, those not as well known or even ever seen. There always were. For Danny's fright, that was Ellie, who was constantly on the move, especially now that she'd mastered teleportation and portal making. While most of his former ghostly rogues knew of Ellie, the only humans that knew of her were members of his fright and Valerie.

At the time, spitballing ideas about the members of the bat clan in Gotham was just all fun and games, a way to practice the knowledge they were learning in a more practical and entertaining way than just bookwork. Now, though, Danny couldn't be more grateful they had spent so much time on those debates, countless nights they stayed up late trawling through the deep web to stay up to date on the latest on Gotham's guardian deity and his clan. Because they had such solid guesses on what beings made up the bat clan, they'd be able to appeal for sanctuary in a more appropriate manner than if they had no clue at all.

As his and Jazz's bus drew closer to Gotham on the horizon, Danny anxiously checked that the duffle with their offerings was still secured. He hoped the bats liked their gifts; they had barely any concrete info on any of the more public members, let alone the lesser known ones. He wasn't sure what they'd do if Batman refused their appeal; with the schematics to rebuild the Fenton portal within easy access of the GIW, they couldn't risk hiding out in the Infinite Realms for fear of drawing Danny's subjects into a fruitless war.

Please, he prayed to Gotham's guardian deity, please don't turn us away. You're our last hope.

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As Bruce was getting ready for patrol that night, he felt the creeping rise of anticipation. Something was going to happen tonight, something extraordinary. He just wasn't sure if it was going to be a good thing or not. Like usual.

For the past year and a half, Bruce had noticed an odd trend. Whenever something big was going to happen, something that would affect the entirety of his city, he'd feel antsy all day, right up until whatever was going to happen happened. It certainly helped cut down on the number of times they'd been caught with their metaphorical pants around their knees, but not being able to tell if the nebulous something was going to be good or not was annoying. Though, to be fair, there weren't a lot of good things that had happened since he started noticing his new sense.

"Listen up," he sighed as he stalked over to the conference table in the cave. "Something's going to happen tonight, something big. As usual, that's all the information I have, so you know the drill; if you see anything unusual, call it in." Bruce looked over his brood of children, most of them adults in their own right by now. Goodness, the years have flown by fast. "Try to stick relatively close to each other tonight, please. I want to be able to watch each other's backs in case whatever it is manages to get the drop on us."

Dick nodded with a grin. "You got it, B," he said, slinging an arm over Damian's shoulder. "C'mon, baby bird, let's run through our stretches one last time before heading out, yeah?"

"Tt, it is Todd who needs those stretches most, was he not the one to strain his knee last week?"

"You listen here, you little—"

"He's not wrong, Jay. You sure you don't want my stretch routine? It'd do you wonders, y'know."

"You mean your torture routine, Replacement? How you can get your body into some of those shapes and still call it stretching, I'll never know—"

Bruce shook his head, a small smile playing at his lips. He wasn't quite sure when that change had happened, but he'd be forever grateful it had. It pained him when his sons fought each other.

A small hand came to rest on his shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts. He glanced down at his daughter and smiled at her look of concern. "I'm alright," he reassured her, "just thinking."

Cass looked at him thoughtfully before nodding. "It will be alright. Tonight will be good. We will stay safe. You stay safe, too?"

Bruce was nodding before she finished speaking. "Of course. We should head out, any longer and Stephanie will try banshee striking the first shady person she sees," he said, an amused glint in his eye as Steph cried out in indignation from over by the batmobile.

An hour into patrol, and Bruce's anticipation skyrocketed. Whatever was happening tonight was happening soon. "Everyone, check-in."

"Raven here, checking in, all clear here." Dick.

"This is Condor, everything's normal on my end." Jason.

"Robin, checking in, nothing is out of place." Damian.

"Starling here! Just some run-of-the-mill muggers, currently crying for daddy!" Steph.

"Black Bat. Clear." Cass.

Where's—? "Ibis here. B, I think I found the source of your feeling. Sending Oracle my coordinates now." Tim.

"Understood. En route now. Do not engage without backup, understood?" Bruce demanded, taking off toward the beacon indicating Tim's location.

"I'll try, B, but I get the impression they know I'm here."

The anticipation rose again. Whoever Tim was watching definitely knew he was there. "We'll hurry."

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Tim clung to the gargoyle overlooking one of the many rooftop shrines to the Bats and the Birds. There, sitting cross-legged about a foot in the air next to the shrine, was a glowing teenaged boy with snow bright hair and Lazarus Pit green eyes. He was wearing a black and silver armored suit, similar to the suits he and his siblings wore, with a flowing cape that blended into the night hung from his shoulders and a greenish black crown floating just above his head. In his lap was a black, gray, and green duffle bag that looked to be rather full, and in his hand was a beat up looking photograph. He couldn't make out what it was a photo of from this angle, but he'd recognize a well-loved photograph anywhere.

"In position, IIbis, you may initiate contact." Bruce said over comms. Tim didn't bother acknowledging he heard and instead carefully unwound himself from his hiding place in the shadows. Carefully, he danced down the side of the building he was on, contorting himself into inhuman looking positions as he went, until he could silently drop onto the roof with the shrine. He slowly slunk forward, keeping low and accentuating his curiosity. That was the key, here, he really was curious about this kid. That was what sold IIbis as something other, something not human.

Tim was about five feet from the shrine when wide, glowing green eyes suddenly found his own, covered though they might be. Tim froze, holding the slightly exaggerated pose he'd found himself in, crouched and arched in a way that screamed wary curiosity. Cautiously, he rolled his head to the side and chirped slightly.

"You really do exist," the kid breathed in awe before he shook himself and straightened, grabbing the duffle from his lap before letting his feet meet the rooftop. "Hi, um, I was wondering if I could possibly meet with your clan leader, Batman?"

Tim stared at the kid for a long moment as Bruce silently made his way to the shadows of the shrine. At Bruce's signal, a soft tap on the comm, Tim shifted and rolled and contorted until he was standing in a much more human-like fashion, then purposefully turned only his head to look directly where Bruce's beacon said he was. The kid whipped his head around right as Bruce seemingly melted out of the shadows, his size and sheer presence seemingly dwarfing the kid, who sucked in a surprised breath but barely moved an inch. Impressive.

"Yes?" Bruce growled softly, not the unpleasant, gravelly growl reserved for criminals, but the warm, gentle rumble reserved for kids and victims.

The kid's awe only grew more pronounced, but somehow he still managed to pull himself together enough to speak. "H-hi, my name's Phantom, I'm not sure if you've heard of me or not. I'd like to ask for sanctuary for myself and my fright-mates. Our previous haunt has become rather hostile towards us, and I'm not strong enough to keep them safe. Um, I've got some gifts for you and your clan, I wasn't sure how large your clan was, so I'm sorry if I offend you or anything with the lack of gifts for everyone. M-may I pull them out?" He asked, lifting the duffle slightly to indicate what he meant.

Bruce was silent as he waited for the rest of the bats and birds to form a loose circle around Phantom, stances mostly non-threatening, and stepped forward into the glow coming from the kid. At this point, the kid's awe was nearly palpable, glancing at as many of them as he could but always facing Bruce and not moving more than his eyes.

After a further moment, Bruce tilted his head slightly and nodded, causing the kid to outright beam.

"Right! Well, first, for yourself, I have a set of ghost steel batarangs, enchanted to return to their case once they leave a hundred yard radius. They're tied specifically to the case, so you can lend them to someone else, but it's recommended you be the only one to use them for the first ten uses in live combat. Next, for Black Bat, a cloak made by the best undead tailors this side of eternity. Made from the shadows themselves, whoever wears it becomes functionally invisible in low light conditions and beyond. I was also told it grants slight shadow manipulation, as well. For Robin, a shape shifting sword from the fey realms themselves, fitting for a changeling child. All curses and tricks were totally removed, as we weren't certain you wouldn't share it with some of your clan mates, and we didn't want to accidently cause any problems that could have been averted—" Phantom kept going, pulling something from the bag, naming who it was for, and explaining a little about it, before putting it back in the bag and moving on. But what drew Tim's attention, time and time again, was the fact that Phantom seemed to be under the impression they were actually members of the supernatural—he all but called Tim a kitsune, and definitely implied Damian was a changeling! It was both amusing the kid honestly thought they were members of the supernatural, and rather concerning at the same time. They were all human, weren't they? They were method acting every time they suited up, heck, Tim was nothing more than a self trained contortionist that could mimic a few bird calls and knew a bit of self defense. Why did this kid, who was possibly an actual ghost, think they were supernaturally inclined? Were they really that good at method acting? Or was there something more to it than that?

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Hey, guys! I literally stayed up working on this until midnight, so already in pushing my self proclaimed boundaries (⁠；⁠^⁠ω⁠^⁠）I had so much help from my friends on the @batpham-discord-highlights discord server, I'll look into tagging everyone that helped in the morning when I'm not struggling to stay awake (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠) I hope you enjoyed this long fic, guys, cuz I was NOT expecting to write 3,266 words today! Good night, good morning, good day!

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alitherandom · 1 month

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Bad Batch is almost over so I'm going to ramble. If anyone can relate, please reply or reblog. Share what this show has meant to you, share your thoughts, share theories, tag people. Let's give it a send off.

Star Wars has been a massive part of my life for years.

I loved everything about the Clone Wars, the world building, the character development for the jedi, but most of all the clones. As someone who finds it hard to read faces, it was fun getting to know each of the clones as individuals with their own personalities and I actually never had any issues telling them apart. It hits hard, I think that's what makes their stories even more tragic.

Echo and Fives are my favourite Star Wars characters so I was really happy when Echo came back in Clone Wars season 7. That was why I decided to watch the Bad Batch- it then became my favourite series.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do when this show ends. I think the hardest part is not knowing what the galaxy has in store for the batch and where it could go from here. Whatever happens I’ll always be grateful for the experiences I've had as part of this community over the last few years.

I think that's what's great about being part of a fandom. Seeing all the different ideas and projects that get put out there every day as well as knowing everyone else is in just as much suspense as I am. I haven't interacted on here that much until the last few months, but I check the tags a lot and all the fanart has been immaculate. The writers and artists are crazy talented and work so hard, I admire the level of dedication and aspire to be like that. 😂

I'm also really grateful for the three seasons we got with Clone Force 99.

Seeing Echo go from a shiny in the Clone Wars to becoming who he is now. (I could talk about that for ages, but I'll save that for another post.)

Seeing Crosshair regain his trust in the batch and get to change.

Seeing Hunter step up for his brothers and Omega.

Seeing more sides to Wrecker's strength.

Seeing Omega go from that kid who'd never seen dirt before to learning from her brothers and proving how brave she is.

And lastly, seeing Tech make the choice he did back in season 2. It wasn't easy to watch, because he deserved more time and there was definitely a massive hole in season 3 without him.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to any of them.

My favourite episodes in season 1 were the last few, when Kamino fell. It was the end of an era as well as a new beginning.

My favourite episode in season 2 was episode 8. I was really proud of Echo, plus he got a hug from Omega which I have admittedly rewatched far too many times.

My favourite episodes in season 3 were episodes 13 and 14. The stakes have been so high and it's been great seeing Echo's ARC skills in action again. (Plus the dialogue with Rampart was top tier. Hate that guy, but it was hilarious.)

I'm well aware of all the theories for the finale. I'm choosing to ignore most of them, but I’d like to present my own.

I hope Echo gets to finish what Fives started and the clones can finally be free, including Tech if he's CX2. I hope the batch gets to burn Tantiss to the ground and fly off into the sunset with Omega and the kids from the vault, and then I hope they continue a lifetime of bullying Rampart. I also hope Emerie gets to whack Hemlock with a steel chair, and then the Zillo beast can eat him.

…After all, Star Wars is based on hope, right?

If anyone actually ended up reading this to the end you're a real one- have a great final Bad Batch eve, and may the force be with you.

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clonehub · 2 months

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The bad batch has some of the shallowest writing I've seen in ages. The wrong character interactions get the attention, while the audience is left with a "tell, don't show" style of narrative storytelling that just leaves people unsatisfied left right and center. Hunter is upset because he feels guilty (a generous read imo) for letting omega get captured while Crosshair was the one to escape with her. Hunter is not mad at Crosshair for his decision to choose the Empire, which led to Tech's death. Hunter is not mad that Crosshair joined the regime that literally mind controlled him into attempting to set them on fire.

Omega afaik never had a solid, positive interaction with Crosshair the way she did with the rest of the bad batch all during seasons one and two. Crosshair tried multiple times to kill her, under influence of the chip. He objectively knew this and still chose the Empire. Omega also objectively knew this and forgives him anyways? And still has faith in him? She was hurt over his decision to stay, but never harbored any fear or resentment. Just pure and total love. And now she's guiding him through dealing with his trauma by meditating on sunset-lit beaches.

Wrecker is still a non-character who doesn't lead and hardly participates in any meaningful way in conversations. I don't recall him having any extensive conversations with any of the other batchers. I remember Tech being snappy with him, and Crosshair saying he has a tiny mind back in season 1. He has cute moments with Omega, but doesn't get developed outside. He doesn't get developed at all, really, besides following the narrow track of the trope set out for him.

The entire emotional arc of the series is dedicated to everyone around Crosshair forgiving him for his choice to join the Empire, but...he's never once thus far actually seemed remorseful. Does he condemn the Empire's violence? Does he look sad or regretful that he got so many of Howzer's men killed on Ryloth? Does he say "I hate what the Empire did to clones, I hate that they used chips on us, I hate that they made me oppress people throughout the galaxy, I hate that the Empire is a violent oppressive regime hurting innocents"? No. He says "The Empire wasn't loyal to me." He doesn't justify what he did, but he definitely doesn't regret it.

(Which is funny because soon afterwards, Rex is able to sow the seeds of doubt into Wolffe's mind that the Empire is bad because they're making him hunt a child.)

And the writers do the laziest thing in the world by having this potentially massive conflict between two characters and using rescue/saving their life as a stand in for a real conversation. Crosshair saves Hunter from the ice worm, they nod, and now they're chill/more chill. They present this as if anything else was a viable option, as if Crosshair would have reasonably or realistically left Hunter to get eaten by the giant ice worm. Then they frame Hunter and Crosshair's mistakes (for the former, I have no idea what) as on par with one another. After their non-argument, Crosshair saves Howzer's life (?), they nod, and that's it. Forgiven.

Halfway through the season and the writing still feels just as unbalanced as it did in season 1. Multiple people keep talking about how they feel like coworkers and roommates with guns rather than brothers. The writers do a better job saying the word loyalty than actually showing it. The majority of the emotional burden is being put on Omega, the only prominent female character in the series and a child. Why is she the emotional support group for a group of grown men? It's just classic misogyny. I'm amazed that type of trope even reared its head again, it's been so long since I've seen it.

Even the writers don't seem to know how to express the batchers' supposed love for one another. No, saving each other's lives is not proof of a deep love or even respect for one another. That's bare minimum. That's SoP. Them leaving each other to die would be the extreme thing, not the other way around. They hardly mention Tech. They had a forced-feeling "hang our heads in silence at the mention of tech's name", and every time after that he's been mentioned as far as his usefulness to the squad. Maybe the second half of the season will have people actually confront Crosshair about Tech. The "Don't have the heavy emotional conversations" thing has been a problem since The Clone Wars, unfortunately. Pretend Teth didn't happen. Pretend Umbara and the Kadavo arc didn't happen. Don't show Rex's reaction to Ahsoka leaving at ALL. Don't show Omega informing Crosshair of Tech's death, which is WILD to me.

Some people claim that the Bad Batch have had six or so months to grieve and mourn, and they're seasoned soldiers who've experienced loss and death before, so they're used to this. The former I can see, but the latter? Who would they have been losing? They're not connected to other clones, rarely worked with them, and never liked them. What losses have they fielded beforehand? They don't even act like 99 or share his values.

I know I'm not alone in this, and at this rate I'm probably beating a dead horse, but it bears repeating: Crosshair hasn't condemned Empire violence, he's only condemned how they treat him in particular. This is a dangerous way to present fascism and why people choose fascist organization/regimes. There's absolutely a personal element to it. Arrogance. Ego. Material or emotional insecurity. But there's an external part as well: desire for control, hierarchy, order, violence. Fascists understand that the ideology is violent. That's why they join the regime. They want and support the subjugation of those they believe deserve it. In real life, this is people of color, women, disabled people, immigrants, the "degenerates" of society, and others. In Star Wars, that's the aliens and the enslaved, the "traitors" and the Rebels. Fascists being "lead astray" or "misguided" by thoughts of loyalty or personal power come secondary to oppressing others.

Maybe they'll address that in the second half of the season. It's a generous read, but I don't want to make any calls til I've seen everything. Unfortunately, every interaction Crosshair has with people has been designed to service their forgiveness of him, all without him actually apologizing for anything. Yes, he must explicitly apologize. He joined a fascist regime after they made him do terrible, heinous things. The text tells us that Crosshair only left because the Empire wasn't loyal to him. Anything other than a clear apology would be bad and frankly dangerous writing.

#ch posts #tbb critical #tbb negative #tbb spoilers #long post #its so like. status quo. generic. regressive in a way? so many words but i feel like im still not being clear #persistent writing issues from s1 #legacy writing issues from tcw #somehow #its so. weird to see.#shallow empty vague show v tell problems racist ableist #goes out of its way to retcon the clones and then doesnt even make the central characters interesting?#like huh #tbb neg #tbb crit

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sokkastyles · 9 months

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Speaking of poor takes on Zuko...

What do you think?

Well, first of all this isn't so much of a hot take as it is straight up abuse apologism. It's not new, or cute, or smart or unique. It's abuse apologism. If you really feel "disgusted" by seeing an abuse victim empowered because you believe the lies their abuser said about them, then you are an abuse apologist.

Second, if you really feel disgusted at Zuko being a powerful bender and being firelord, maybe you shouldn't be watching the show.

Third, I've addressed this before, but it's funny that Zuko is the "salty" one when this entire post is the saltiest rant from someone who is mad that the show ended with a heroic character becoming powerful and a villainous character getting their comeuppance. Surprise, I guess?

Like, seriously, does this person know how fiction works? This post reads like it was written by a cartoon villain, and not the genre savvy kind of villain, the kind that is too dumb and/or too evil to realize why they caused their own downfall.

I am so tired of this. "But power is all she has!" Power is all Azula has because that is all she cared about, and she doesn't have that in the end because that is what happens when you forego actual values in pursuit of power, and when you abuse the power you have

Azula was born with power that she didn't deserve, a natural talent which caused her father to single her out so he could boost her ego and encourage her to be selfish and cruel and obsessed with controlling other people so that she could gain more power. But this is also what caused her to have a poor relationship with her brother, who she mistreated for being perceived as less powerful. It's what caused her to have a poor relationship with her mother, whose lessons she ignored because Ursa had no power, especially compared to her father. It's what caused her to have a poor relationship with her uncle, who she disdained for being a "quitter" and a "loser." It's what caused her to have a poor relationship with her friends, because she had to have power over them, had to control them with fear rather than having a real relationship where she's equal and vulnerable. Her need for power literally destroyed her entire life, and because of that, she ended up losing the power she had, to boot, because people who use their power to harm others do not deserve to have power.

That's the entire point. I can't even believe that someone would actually type that paragraph and think it was a good idea because if you said it to someone in person, you should probably expect to get smacked in the face.

Zuko gets to be powerful in the end because he dedicates his life to using that power to help people. If that disgusts you, then you deserve that smack in the face. I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

I also don't want to hear about how Zuko only redeemed himself because of "luck" or because he had help, because Azula didn't want any help changing and never made any steps to make any of those things happen. She didn't care about her mother trying to teach her right from wrong (until it was too late and she realized that she had becomes someone she didn't like, but too little too late). She didn't try to stop hunting the gaang. She didn't try to stop waging war on the rest of the world. She didn't try to listen to see her friends as real human beings instead of chess pieces she could control. Ditto with her brother. The reason she's alone and freefalling in "The Southern Raiders" is because she went there with the purpose of killing her brother and the gaang after her friends abandoned her because she tried to kill them, too. That's why she's alone. That's the purpose of that visual juxtaposed with Zuko having the gaang to help him and rescue him, because he also cared about them and tried to fight off his sister to save them.

And you know what? Zuko almost feels sorry for her, because she is alone. Because it is sad. It's a tragedy. But it's a tragedy of her own making, and when she looks back at Zuko, does she express any regret for her situation? For what she did to him? For how she hunted him down and also almost killed his new friends because he had the gall to leave his abuser?

No. Instead, she looks like this:

The whole POINT of that scene is that it is a tragedy, but that Azula already made her choices long ago, and that's why she ultimately can't change her fate. She doesn't want to, she doesn't even realize she needs to. At this point, she's not even sad about her situation because she still thinks she's on top, she still thinks she's better than literally everyone around her, still grasping at that power that she thinks will fulfill her, without any understanding at all of the responsibility that comes with power, and that's also why she ultimately does not deserve it, either.

#zuko #azula #azula stans acting like fascists again

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typellblog · 7 months

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Kizumonogatari - An Analysis

You could consider Bakemonogatari as a template of sorts for what a Monogatari arc ‘should’ look like.

There’s Koyomi, our protagonist, and then there’s a girl, and the problem faced by her in the form of an oddity. There’s Koyomi’s fumbling attempts to help her, contrasted by Oshino Meme’s actually useful advice. Oddities appear for a reason. She’s not a victim, not exactly. Koyomi always figures it out a little too late, and in the end all he can do is watch as she just goes ahead and saves herself.

Nonetheless, his presence is key. He’s the one who reaches out, who actually makes the attempt to help. Oshino would never solve such problems of his own volition, not when the situation is so neatly balanced with oddities that act according to their functions and people who conjured them out of their own wishes. Koyomi is the one that recognises people’s desire to be saved, even if they try to push him away at first.

There are some quirks to this within the Bake arcs themselves, but when you line up Kizu next to them, the way it transforms this fundamental formula is like night and day.

Koyomi Vamp

For one thing, this time the one that encounters an oddity is Koyomi himself.

The encounter itself was random, but as Koyomi puts it, the following events were only made possible because it was him. There aren’t many humans that would give up their lives for a dying vampire.

He’s motivated, in part, by a sense of worthlessness. His own life is that little of a thing. He thinks he’s ruined it already, and hopes to do better in his next reincarnation. But the way he puts it is interesting. He’ll be someone glib, who dances around relationships, who doesn’t feel guilt, who doesn’t worry about things, who insists on getting his way and blames his problems on other people.

We see a contrast being developed between being a ‘good’ person and a happy one. To Koyomi his conscience, his attentiveness to others, his overthinking are all burdens. They’re the reason why he can’t easily form relationships.

Making friends would ‘lower his intensity as a human’. If having friends allows one to share in their happiness, he points out that we must also share in their unhappiness, take their suffering upon oneself in some way or another. Anything less would be shallow – at least to Koyomi, whose loner attitude conceals a shocking ability to dedicate himself to others.

This contradiction drives him to suicide.

It is, functionally speaking, suicide. He doesn’t express any suicidal ideation before meeting Kiss-Shot, things aren’t so bad for him that he’s actively considering ending it, but nonetheless when put in a situation that allows him to give up his life, he does so.

This is really what is being referred to when he calls it a ‘hellish’ summer break. Just purely looking at the events that took place, one might question whether it really deserves that title, especially compared to some of the experiences we see him go through in Bake. After all, he’s not in much real danger for most of it. The vampire hunters are scary, but not the most difficult opponents.

No, where the summer break of Kizumonogatari really earns the moniker of a ‘hell’ is in how Koyomi is so thoroughly isolated from humanity. Vampires walk at night, they exist within a different world, they aren’t treated as human, their very presence is a danger to humans, and into that situation is thrust Koyomi Araragi, who is already so hopeless about his ability to interact with others that he freely offered up all the blood in his body.Traditionally, though, the question that vampirism asks about this situation is how do you feel about it? Isn’t it great not having to worry about stuff like that anymore? Being isolated from humanity is also a freedom from responsibility, restriction, limitation – as represented by the vampire’s supernatural abilities. But from beginning to end, Koyomi desires none of this. His goal of returning to being human doesn’t change.

Iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded

This is where the three vampire hunters are interesting.

A sentence I never expected to type going into this, honestly.

Why, though? In theory they’re important antagonists to this arc. But as characters within the overall Monogatari series, they languish at the bottom of the faves tierlists.

No doubt being men doesn’t help. They’re not ‘arc characters’, their relationships with Koyomi never get developed in the same way those of female characters do. Men are reserved for antagonists almost entirely in this series, and if you’ll permit me to be a bit speculative I would argue that it’s because women represent an ‘other’ that he’s trying to connect to, while the men are alternative versions of himself.

Take Episode, for example. Like Koyomi, he’s trapped between two different worlds. He resents both humans and vampires, and that emotion is what motivates him to hunt. He’s hot-blooded, if you will. Hanekawa is hurt during their battle, and Koyomi’s emotional response almost brings him to the point of killing Episode.

On the other hand, we have Guillotine Cutter. Unlike the other two, he’s fully human. He’s also far more vicious and underhanded. Cold-blooded, if you will. To defeat him, Koyomi must become literally inhuman. Becoming a plant is something that he’s been thinking about for a while, long before he became a vampire. Koyomi wanted to become something inhuman, to be free from his social responsibilities, for a long time. But now that he’s a vampire it’s precisely his connections with people like Hanekawa that make him want to turn back.

The progression where Koyomi becomes more vampire-like to defeat increasingly human opponents feels like it’s commenting on how the more vampiric he gets the more callous he becomes until you realise the exact opposite holds for the hunters.

Dramaturgy, the full-blooded vampire, is the most reasonable of the bunch. He offers a path forward for Koyomi, the opportunity to become like him. The fact that Koyomi turns him down regardless shows that this was never about how humane the opponent, nor how many parts vampire they were. ‘If you want to stay human, then you’re human,” Oshino says. Iron blood flows in them all, and from the beginning to the end this was about nothing more than protecting Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade.

Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade

Koyomi says that Kiss-Shot is someone whose meaning changes based on the observer. To the vampire hunters, she is a monster that ought to be killed. To Koyomi, she is a victim that ought to be protected. To Oshino, she represents a disruption to the balance between humans and oddities.

Probably the most important way in which Kiss-Shot's mercurial nature is demonstrated in Kizumonogatari is through the various physical forms she adopts, growing in apparent age as she regains her lost limbs.

It's easy to see her as a child, perhaps even in her adult form. She's whimsical, prone to sudden bursts of emotion. There's a lot of things she lacks experience in. Koyomi meeting her bleeding out on the street might have been the first time she ever feared for her life. It's explicitly stated that Koyomi giving up his life for her is the first time another person did something for her sake. And as a result her decision to spare his life and make him a thrall seems to be one of the few times she's ever cared for the life of another person. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why Koyomi seeks to protect her.

On the other hand, her disregard towards human life is not feigned. She asks Koyomi to come and give her his blood without really considering what his motivations might be for following such an order. Humans are essentially bugs to her - Meme's stealing of her heart is forgiven instantly. She doesn't hold a grudge, the only thing that matters is whether she has it back or not. Eating Guillotine Cutter was not a deliberate strategy to make Koyomi want to kill her, she simply did so as if it was the most natural thing in the world. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why the vampire hunters seek to slay her.

Kiss-Shot is in many ways set apart from the oddities of Bakemonogatari. They derive their existence from humans, appear when they’re called on. They exist for a reason, and in doing so form their own kind of uneasy balance with the afflicted person. In comparison Kiss-Shot feels more real, affixed more firmly to the world, a character in her own right. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why Oshino wants to balance her.

In doing so, he forces her to latch on to Koyomi Araragi, to offer him a ‘solution’ for his problems in the same way as any other oddity, and to become dependent on him to achieve her goals.

Oshino successfully mediates between Koyomi, who wants to save her, and the vampire hunters, who want to kill her, through the simple fact that she herself has reached a perfect balancing point between these two goals. She wants Koyomi to rescue her from the vampire hunters so she can die on her own terms.

I mentioned Koyomi's suicidality earlier, but this story is also driven by how it manifests for Kiss-Shot. She became bored. It's the most common killer of vampires. When she talks with Koyomi on the roof, she says she has nothing interesting to talk about. Her long life has simply consisted of running around and fighting vampire hunters. The fact she wants to talk to Koyomi at all is significant, here. Not about anything in particular. She just wants to chat to someone.

For all the differences between them, Kiss-Shot, too, is driven to suicide by an inability to connect to those around her, even if she doesn't consciously recognise it as such.

With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why Koyomi forces her to live, at the very end.

Hanekawa Tsubasa

Last time, with Tsubasa Cat, one element of the openings that I didn't touch on was how they show Hanekawa in positions that seemed like she might be about to take her own life. High places, train tracks. I didn't bother bringing it up, because it was getting late and also it didn't really seem to feature outside the openings, but here in Kizu it becomes more apparent.

She says, directly, that she wouldn’t call someone a friend if she wasn’t ready to die for them. This is a lie, she's talking about Koyomi specifically, but at least in his case she does die for him, intervening in his fight with Episode and having her torso blown apart by his giant cross. She offers to let Koyomi drink her blood. She intervenes again when he's fighting Kiss-Shot, with seemingly little regard for her own life. Both Oshino and Koyomi can agree that it's honestly kinda creepy.

The motivations behind her behaviour can be distinguished from Koyomi and Kiss-Shot, but there is another similarity: lack of friends.

It's somewhat inconceivable, after spending so much time in Koyomi's perspective, given such an idealised picture of her, but it seems apparent that she struggles with a similar problem to his own. She might be on good terms with a lot of people, she certainly knows a lot of people, but how many of them really know her? There's a reason why she's always alone on her night-time walks.

She says she wanted to meet a vampire. The idea of something beyond human, something that isn't limited in the same ways she is, is an exciting idea to her. According to Kuro, at least, it's a way of breaking her out of her ordinary everyday life.

The thing about Hanekawa, I am slowly beginning to grasp, is that just because she tries to act normal, that doesn’t mean she has normal reactions to things. Rather, she treats the situation she finds herself in as if its normal and acts accordingly, leading to lines such as ‘he only hit me once, it’s perfectly understandable’, or acceding to requests to see her panties with almost zero hesitation, or treating someone sucking your blood and killing you as a totally normal thing to let your friend do, even when she’s clearly motivated by some special consideration towards Koyomi.

It’s a facade that doesn’t just mask her true feelings, but twists them into something else. She says that she never lies, something which is obviously untrue, but in a sense she’s always convincing herself, on one level or another, that she genuinely believes the things she’s saying.

This interacts interestingly with the series’ approach to fanservice. So far it’s mostly been played straight - with Hachikuji it’s a gag, with Nadeko it feels gratuitous, and stuff like Hitagi undressing in front of Koyomi is just that - here’s her naked body, look at it if you want. There’s a reason why she does that, but it doesn’t really connect to any deeper themes, it’s just there.

With Hanekawa in Kizu it is again gratuitous, it is again used for comedy, it is again just there because Nisio just wanted to do it, but the way Hanekawa’s brain works adds an interesting level to it. She’s surprisingly unbothered by the first instance where the wind flips her skirt, going so far as to deliberately engage Koyomi in conversation afterwards.

By the time of the second main incident, we’ve developed the idea that Koyomi is ashamed by his lust for her. He tries to push her away on the grounds that he’s too dangerous to be friends with, and the bluffed request for her to show her panties again feels in line with this, somehow. He’s trying to prove to her that he isn’t really the sort of guy she should bother herself with.

She nonetheless takes the request completely seriously. It’s not that she’s just that literal-minded, she clearly knows what’s going on in Koyomi’s head (better than he does, sometimes), this is just her general pattern of behaviour when responding to him. Rather than setting boundaries, she indicates that she doesn’t really have any. This successfully shocks him out of the idea that he actually presents a danger to her. When it comes down to it he’s not actually going to look at a girl’s panties after being so brazenly presented with them. He’s kind of a coward.

Hanekawa, on the other hand, Koyomi considers cool, someone who can decide on a course of action and stick with it. She isn’t swayed by silly whims like he is. In one sense, it’s true, but it’s also a reflection of the way he idolizes her. Hanekawa herself states that it’s not self-sacrifice, but self-satisfaction. Her actions, in this novel, aren’t directed towards any particular sort of justice, a particular perspective on Kiss-Shot, like Koyomi, Oshino, and the vampire hunters are motivated by. She is more or less just trying to help Koyomi, to be liked by him, even if it requires her to do absolutely ridiculous things like let him grope her boobs.

One line I want to emphasize from that scene is Hanekawa’s offhand remark that she was prepared to lose her virginity. It’s presented as a joke but I’m fairly sure she’s not lying! It doesn’t present a particular desire to have sex with Koyomi, just a sort of resignation to the fact that this is the inevitable consequence of letting him do whatever he wants with her. I’m not saying she’s not attracted to him at all - I mean, she does feel up his muscles a bit earlier - but her vision of how this relationship will progress seems to be entirely on Koyomi’s terms. Which proves to be a bit awkward for her when Hitagi enters the picture later, but I digress.

Her reaction to Koyomi’s hilariously stupid reasoning for why he needs to cop a feel (so that he doesn’t get distracted by Kiss-Shot’s enormous breasts when fighting her) is that it was even stupider than she was expecting. Because she was expecting a stupid justification, and is preparing herself to accept it regardless!

He doesn’t end up going through with it, which is probably better for the both of them all things considered, but does once again establish Koyomi as a massive coward.

In any case, I really think these fanservice scenes help establish Hanekawa as a character who is willing to objectify herself for the sake of approval from others. That’s not to say she’s easily influenced, but rather that the self-satisfaction that she’s chasing, the life she’s chosen, is one where she’s constantly required to sacrifice her self.

Self-sacrifice and self-satisfaction

Again, this contrast between being a good person and a ‘happy’ one. The hypothetical ‘truly’ self-sacrificing person would do so to satisfy the desires of others, not just their own.

What Koyomi did for Kiss-Shot may have been beautiful, he says, but it wasn’t right. He saw the situation in the way that was most convenient for him, only chose to help the person that looked like she needed saving and ignored the consequences to anyone else.

As long as I was weak, Kiss-Shot says. As long as they’re weak, as long as they look like they’re suffering, Koyomi would save anyone.

Like Hanekawa puts it, he just doesn’t like it when people die. Even though he wouldn’t mind that much if he did.

Previously I've discussed how Hitagi's oddity led to, and in doing so came to represent, her isolation and inability to connect with others. Koyomi's vampirism does something similar. He talks a big game about how having friends might increase the burden on him, but isn't the thing he's most worried about here that he might become a burden on his friends, that they would give up too much for him, that his selfish, vampiric nature would influence him into draining them dry?

Vampirism doesn’t represent a freedom from social connections, it makes you far more reliant on humans than you were already. Not in the sense of having a mutual relationship with them, but a one-way predator-prey dynamic.

This is why Koyomi barely even considers Kiss-Shot responsible for her actions. It's only natural that she, as a vampire, would eat humans. It's necessary for her survival. She herself doesn't understand it to be evil, so the only one he can blame is himself for enabling her to do so.

It's a dysfunctional relationship. He takes Kiss-Shot's burdens upon himself precisely because of his intensity as a human. She herself doesn't feel burdened by the deaths she causes at all. Because she's a vampire.

It's Hanekawa that saves him by saying that it would be running away from his responsibilities and that the only solution is for him to be the one to defeat Kiss-Shot. For him to die here would just be self-satisfaction, the sacrifice wouldn’t achieve anything.

But look at how she approaches this.

She sees Koyomi's fear of becoming a danger to people around him and accepts it instantly. He can eat her, if he wants. It’s a similar thing to the fanservice scenes. Setting no boundaries, reminding Koyomi that he, in fact, isn’t that willing to hurt other people.

Koyomi isn't put in the position of needing to understand Hanekawa, of desperately trying to connect with her. She's the one that insists on helping him. He's the one that tries to throw her off, act as though her kindness isn't needed.

To Koyomi, Hanekawa is the one doing an unwanted favour, one that he eventually realises is what saved his life.

Because Koyomi, unlike the previous arcs, isn’t the one that has to help a person dealing with the oddity. The one dealing with the oddity is him. Hanekawa is the one who supports and reaches out to him. But she can’t solve the problem for him. She can’t make the decision.

In the end, all he can do is go ahead and save himself.

Kizumonogatari

Why do vampires even work like that, anyway?

That thralls are made by default when sucking blood, and to avoid turning someone, the vampire can consume them entirely, makes sense. It allows for the drama of realising that Kiss-Shot deliberately kept Koyomi as a thrall. It also ensures that Kiss-Shot’s existence is, no way how you go about it, a crime. To feed she must kill, or else turn more people into vampires.

But the only way of turning back to a human - the way that Hanekawa could apparently find by looking it up in the library - is to feed from the one who turned you, and kill them. A symbolic act of defying their control. (In the same way that patting Kiss-Shot’s head is an important proof of subjugation?)

Here, though, it’s presented as something that Kiss-Shot was planning to do to Koyomi, a technique of freeing one’s thrall that she gained the ability to use since her first died.

It all goes full circle. Being a vampire is about dying. For Koyomi, who was killed by Kiss-Shot to become one. For Kiss-Shot, who seeks to die in order to change him back.

There’s a sense of balance to it. No doubt Oshino was pleased. Vampires are the Kings of Oddities, beings powerful enough that they don’t really have to follow the rules, but at the same time, they’re self-balancing. 90% of vampire deaths are by suicide.

Oddities are, by nature, self-balancing. It’s why Oshino doesn’t go seeking them out of his own accord. Perhaps he can’t. He’s just an intermediary between here and there, after all. He has to be contacted by one side to start the process. There has to be some evidence of unhappiness, of a desire to change the situation.

Koyomi is put in this position time and time again in Bakemonogatari, asking Oshino to intervene on the behalf of the people he encounters.

Yet in Kizumonogatari, he is, from start to end, not on the side of any person. He’s on the side of the monsters. It’s on Kiss-Shot’s behalf that he begs Oshino to intervene, because a balance that forces one party to suffer alone is not a balance he can abide.

He can’t save Kiss-Shot. He can’t end her suffering. If anything, you can argue he made it worse.

What he can do is take a portion of her burden on himself, literally lower his ‘intensity as a human’ by retaining some of his vampire traits, and keep her alive. He keeps traces of the wound she inflicted on him, in exchange for the wounds he inflicts on her lasting forever as well. “Damaged goods both, we sought out each other.” They each have a bit of themselves missing now, something they can only find in each other.

It’s selfishness, unquestionably. He’s fine with that. He knows he’s doing something that will hurt her. He’s fine with that.

That’s the difference. The fear of his own vampiric selfishness is gone now. For better or worse, from this point he’s okay with being a bit insistent in getting to know people, not afraid of possibly hurting them in an attempt to help.

He’s persistent in pursuing Hitagi, not just because his vampire abilities allow him to recover from the wounds she inflicts, but because his experience as a vampire reminds him how low someone can be dragged by isolation, and how much someone stretching out a hand can help.

Coming into Kizumonogatari it feels like Bakemonogatari’s vampiric inversion, but by the end it’s clearly more like a prototype, at least when it comes to Koyomi’s attitude. His first stumbling attempts at helping.

And that’s all for now. No funny anime pictures this time! It was a deliberate choice, I promise, not because I just forgot to take screenshots while rewatching the movies (oops . . . ). But, I mean, I barely touched on the adaptation in this essay anyway, preferring to work off the text of the novel where possible. Considering the level of artistry on display in the movies, they probably deserve their own post. Which I will not be making any time soon, because oh my god I want to get to Nise already.

#monogatari #kizumonogatari #araragi koyomi #kiss shot acerola orion heart under blade #shinobu oshino #hanekawa tsubasa #monogatariposting

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erikiara80 · 1 year

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Will and Jonathan

To celebrate Will’s birthday, long post dedicated to my favorite brothers and their beautiful bond.

Season 1

The most terrifying week of Jonathan’s life. First, he thought that if he had been at home, nothing bad would’ve happened to Will. Then, if you think about it, he is the only one who thought for at least two days that Will really died. His worst nightmare. He failed to protect his little brother.

But he’s always there for Will. And if he had been there that night too, the Demogorgon would’ve killed him and taken Will anyway. And Will would’ve have been lost.

When Will is sad, Jonathan can always make him smile and feel better:

I have a brother, eight years younger than me. We are very close. I basically raised him. You know, single mom (divorced parents when I was 13 and my brother was 5), night shifts. And we were also poor.

I relate to the Byers so much. In my family, I am Jonathan. It’s so painful to imagine what he felt when Hopper told him that they had lost Will

When he saw Will’s small body on that table

Season 1 is a roller coaster of emotions. But they all love Will too much. And their love saved him. This is one of the most precious moments in the whole show, imo. I love it so much.

Jonathan is so emotional. He holds Will’s hand as if he wants to be sure that Will won’t go away again. Also, wonderful performance from Charlie. I can feel all Jonathan’s love, happiness and relief

Season 2

Another big season for the Byers brothers. And another time Jonathan risked to lose Will. The crazy thing is that this time Will is there but something is trying to erase everything he is. Another nightmare (army of monsters aside, lol)

Once again, the season starts with Jonathan taking care of his family (I really hope tho that at the end of the story, he can finally live his life and find his happiness, knowing that his family is safe. It’s so unfair -Lonnie’s fault- that he has all those responsibilties at such young age)

Fortunately, he also has Nancy. He’s starting to find something for himself. Problem is, Henry doesn’t care. So, the moment Jon leaves town... oops, Will gets possessed. No wonder he thinks he can’t leave him and his mom.

But before that, we get another beautiful moment where Jonathan encourauges Will to be himself and be proud of it (Jonathan is just a wonderful person, ok?)

Will is so upset about everything. He knows nobody can understand how he feels. At first he doesn’t even want to talk with Jonathan.

But Jonathan knows him so well and always knows what to say. Being a freak is actually the best. Normal people never accomplish anything important in this world.

And then this. So sweet. Aaaand we also have little shit Will, who always reminds his siblings that they are friendless, lol. I love him

And of course, Will smiles again

Then, sorry Jonathan. The real nightmare begins. I love S2, because there’s so much love for Will in every scene. From Mike, Joyce, Jonathan. What an amazing season! I’m so happy that S5 will include big S2 ideas but also have S1 vibe. The two seasons where Will and the love people have for him are central.

The last episodes are incredible. I just love everything.

The shed scene is absolutely one of my favorite scenes of the show, and imo, one of the best. Stellar acting, perfect shots, amazing dialogue, and oh, the emotions. It’s simply perfect. And different from what we usually see in Stranger Things.

They love him so much

But then this moment kills me every time. Jonathan is desperate. He can’t hear Will screaming and being in such pain without helping him. I’m glad Nancy was there. In fact, a few minutes later, he tries to help Will, but it was a mistake.

Jonathan couldn’t think anymore. He was sure Will was dying. He had to save him. But Nancy, as always, helped (yeah, she hurt Will, but it was the only way) This scene!

And then, he got his brother back

Season 3

There aren’t as many scenes as in the previous seasons, but the love between them is always there.

Always protective

And even when he doesn’t say anything, Jonathan always see his brother’s pain, like Charlie said.

Season 4

Both brothers are struggling a lot now. They’re older and for a while they probably thought they weren’t as close as they used to be. And that hurt and must have felt so strange. Jonathan is almost adult now. He feels all the weight of his responsibilities. He feels like living his life means abandoning his family. So he’s stuck. So glad he has Argyle!

And Will is dealing with feeling different, his feelings for Mike and the fear that he will never be happy. He’ll never find love. It doesn’t help that for the first time he doesn’t feel his brother’s support. Jonathan seems different and distant. Maybe Will, who’s more aware of his sexuality now, even believes that it’s his fault if his brother doesn’t spend much time with him anymore.

That’s heartbreaking.

But of course it’s not true, it will never be true. Jonathan never stops caring, or being protective. No matter what.

Oh, and this moment. This moment...

This is the season where both Will and Jonathan have much less scenes than in any other season, and yet S4 is where they share probably their most emotional and beautiful moment. This is the only scene in the show, along with when they find Will’s fake body in the quarry, that made me cry.

It’s so beautiful. Many people criticize it and say it wasn’t clear enough. That the writers were cowards. But I think it’s the opposite. It’s so delicate. And so in character. Jonathan was so sweet.

He didn’t push Will, because he didn’t know if Will was ready. He knows Will is afraid of losing the people he loves, that they won’t accept him. So he didn’t explicitly say that he knows. He just let his little brother know that he will always love him. That he will always be there. He made Will understand that he is important and special to him, and he will always be.

And NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will ever change that.

And Will’s little smile and tears when he hears those words. Jonathan hasn’t forgotten about him. He wasn’t distant because he knows and doesn’t approve.

He’s just dealing with his own problems. And I love, love that here Will also wants to reassure Jonathan that he will always be there for him too.

This has never happened in other seasons. It was always Jonathan the one who offered support. And it makes me hope that in S5, the season of Will’s coming of age, he too will reassure and protect Jonathan, and tell him that he deserves happiness.

Jonathan’s always been there for Will, and I’m sure he will do everything to protect him again in S5. But Will will protect his brother (and mom) too. Jonathan will see him become confident and find love with Mike. He’ll see his mom with Hopper, and El happy too. And he’ll finally know that he can live his life and that his family is safe and happy.

#will byers #jonathan byers #the byers brothers #jonwill #will's birthday #the byers #the byers family #brotherly love #stranger things

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badoccultadvice · 1 year

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So like, I have been having this weird experience analyzing the Harry Potter books lately, and please indulge me while I talk about J.K. Rowling's weird writing.

My goal was simple: read the Harry Potter books to find which parts were influenced/inspired by actual magic that people do in real life. My theory was that there was a lot more magic in the earlier drafts of the books, and that she took a lot out due to fear of backlash from America's ongoing reenactment of the Satanic Panic. For instance it's quite obvious some of their magic lessons got dumbed down so that very little of what's in the books could actually be tried in real life, and I think she took out a lot of astrology.

I also wanted to do a couple errands along the way, one of which was to check and see if it's explicitly written in the books that Harry is a cis man. I'm a trans man, SO I'D KNOW. (I'm a slow reader so all I can say for now is: the FIRST book does not explicitly state Harry is cis, but if he's trans, there's some implied worldbuilding with items like the Sorting Hat that comes into play. Also I'm fairly sure the Dursleys would have gone along with him being trans because that meant Petunia could reuse Dudley's old clothes instead of having to get girl stuff. I'mma save any other explanations on the topic for a video on it.) The reason I'm doing this read-through is because I think J.K. doesn't know anything about trans people and didn't think to make sure her wizard world was trans exclusionary. AND IT TURNS OUT THAT WE TRANS MAGIC USERS HAVE A WAY OF WIGGLING INTO MOST PLACES UNDETECTED BY NORMAL MEANS.

While I was doing the re-read I encountered two sort of broad revelations:

There's a lot of old stuff in there like Latin and Greek and tradcraft stuff, but also modern magic of the more recent era... but the incorporation of modern magic cuts off somewhere before the 80s. These books read like they were written by a early 70s magician. Like they honestly read like J.K. is a magical practicioner who just didn't read any magic books written after 1972 and never discovered what Chaos Magic is, (and also, never heard of most of what happened in the Cold War). I have never found a writer, in fiction or non-fiction, more dedicated to referencing magical stuff that most magicians alive today just don't care about anymore.

J.K. Rowling's knowledge of child abuse laws and general social mores regarding treatment of children also ceased to update itself by about the 80s. I keep getting distracted by this and having to make more side-notes about corporal punishment and researching stuff like when caning was banned in England. (HInt: it was banned before Harry went to school, so in Book 1 it's fuckin weird that he assumes that Wood is the name of a cane he's about to be whipped with.) Like, this woman raised children in the modern era, she should know when canes stopped being used.

So like, when I mention that I'm doing some research in this area, this is the sort of stuff I'm reading for and the sort of stuff I'm encountering. I haven't been talking much about this journey because it seems like any time anyone brings up anything Harry Potter up whatsoever, we've got to talk about how J.K. is a terf in every other sentence. But like, y'all: I hope you slow down and re-read the books, because J.K. Rowling is a terf who is also a child abuse apologist and normalizer. She is a terf who is also a horrible fat-shamer. She is a terf who is also an ableist with a huge problem writing about mental illness. And she's a terf who's also a sexist who undermines feminism with her actual writing of female characters.

And I honestly think she double and triples down on the terf stuff so that people will only talk about that. I think it's worth talking about the fact that not only is she an awful person in the terf way, but like, every other way imaginable too. I think it's worth talking about the fact that with all the obvious biases she has, the group she CHOOSES to publicly marginaiize is trans women, and I think she makes that choice because she thinks that she'll get more allies that way. That if she wore all of her issues on her sleeve like she wears the terfness, that she'd lose a lot of allies, that a lot of prestigious charities would stop having anything to do with her. That she uses the identity of "terf" as a shield because she knows that certain people will protect a terf, and she does this specifically so people won't notice how much of a sexist, abuse apologist, ableist, fatphobe etc she ALSO is. Opinions that could lose her a lot of money and clout if people remember them enough.

She's trying to pick on who she thinks is the most unpopular kid in the class out of the hopes that the bullies in class will be her friends instead of pile up on her, but if the bullies knew what she really thought of them, THEY wouldn't even be her friends.

Also like... I just want someone else to read the actual words in these books and see what fucked-up choices she made as a writer. I think a LOT of people remembering these books are actually remembering the movies, which are way more different from the books than you might expect.

#this got long and rambly #every time i try to read the books i find a new thing that is weird #i had to look up when milk bottle delivery stopped in england #i know so many things about knickerbockers now #it seems like the only reason platform 9 3/4 is used is for the parking and that's so weird #why would you name something futuristic a 2000 when that's only 9 years from when the first book is set #who leaves a one year old on a doorstep #how come the dursleys are so affluent to have late-era milk bottle delivery at the doorstep #yet no 4AM joggers in the neighborhood who would have seen Harry before Petunia did #these books are an assault upon all logic and I am mad and angry that there is a theme park based on them that fails the ADA #you're telling me wizards can hide an entire castle yet they can't add a ramp to a shop's doorway #oh gods i'm never going to stop get me out of these tags I need a snack and a hug

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the-torchwood-archive · 5 months

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The first time I listened to Dissected, I was a little turned off by the dynamic between Gwen and Martha. They were so antagonistic that I had trouble reconciling it with what we had seen on tv and in Lost Souls. But then it occurred to me that, actually, it's probably the most accurate portrayal of what their relationship would be like.

In work contexts, they get along famously, but the moment they start trying to form a personal friendship, it simply isn't there. It's because, in many ways, they are too similar.

Two women who had dedicated their lives to helping people, only to be burnt again and again. Two women who loved men that they put on a pedestal, only to be reminded how far people on a pedestal can fall. Two women who joined organizations they once would have reviled in an attempt to make them better, only to have their lives destroyed around them.

Both women are ruled by their hearts, but Martha moves through life guided by her mind while Gwen is guided by her soul.

While saving the world, Gwen will chose to return to her family because they are what she's fighting for and she will be by their side to protect them. While saving the world, Martha will leave her family because they are what she's fighting for and if not being by their side keeps them safe, then so be it.

And that is why, on the surface, they get along famously but could never manage to bridge that gap into being real friends. They look at a situation and have the same instinct to assist, but go about it in completely different ways.

They're so similar and yet so different and I don't think they would ever be able to really overcome that.

The alternate universe where Martha had joined the Torchwood team after Owen would have been brilliant, but I doubt that the tv writers would have had the guts to write them as anything other than good friends.

#torchwood #gwen cooper #martha jones #dissected #meta

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tiredstressedemotionalmess · 8 months

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hihii do you have ideas for writing the fab four as ghosts? also what do you think halloween would be like in the zones? i'm attempting to write fanfiction for like the first time ever and you're basically the killjoys fanfiction mutual so i'm coming to you lol

i am absolutely honored to be considered the killjoys fanfiction mutual!! sorry this took forever to get to ive been battling a headache all day 😅

the fab four as ghosts is an interesting concept that ive never really thought about before!!! i mean i wrote one fic once kind of abt party as a ghost but that wasnt really the main focus.. anyways, there's a tooooon of super cool ways to explore that concept just in how they died alone. like is this a post sing thing where they all died together saving the girl? if thats the case i could easily see them following her around over the years, using what limited connection to the physical world they have to influence minor things and keep her safe as she grows up alone in the desert. or maybe (bc im a sucker for ghosts who dont remember their mortal lives) they have no memory of the girl or each other but they all decide to stick together bc they're scared and confused and There and they just kind of wander around together until they stumble upon the girl and they feel this strange pull to Protect Her

or if it's not post sing and they've all died in different ways, maybe this is an au and they meet as ghosts and they become known as this phantom crew, legends that wander the zones and take out dracs in the dead of night, only to be seen by those already well aquatinted with death

as for individual behaviors, i think taking the name fun ghoul literally would be really fucking cool. im pretty sure the general consensus abt ghouls is that they haunt graveyards so maybe ghoul specifically hangs around grounds where lots of death occurs, like common grounds for bli ambushes and firefights and shit. it's absolutely br the most annoying ghost ever, going out of his way to spook people by doing alll the classic horror movie shit. that motherfucker is howling and making weird noises in the dead of night, he is levitating objects and moving shit that shouldn't move and flickering lights and just being a general menace to the living

i think party would take a LONG time to accept the fact that they're dead, if they ever even admit it to themself at all. i feel like they have this sort of bitter, jaded relationship with death and the witch and the whole concept of the afterlife, and admitting that they're a ghost would be admitting that all the shit they weren't sure if they believed in was real the while time. and too, depending on how they died, i could easily see them having a sort of bitter breakdown over the fact that they've just been allowed to die with no fanfare. they've literally given their life for this cause and now that theyre dead and nothings changed or is changing it feels like they lived their whole life for nothing, like they lived their whole life wrong almost.

jet and kobra im having less immediate thoughts on. out of all of them, though, i think jet would be the most likely to try and find a way back to life. idk if youve read ttid but uh. yeah. i see her a bit like that, where she refuses to accept that this is the end of her story and she tries whatever she can to make it continue

kobra as a ghost i think would change a lot depending on how he died. if it was something out if his control like illness or a bad run on the crash track i think hed be more "go with the flow it is what it is" about it. if he was killed though he would dedicate his afterlife to revenge, and maybe actually no matter how he died hed end up becoming vengeful after long enough bc hed star thinking about why he was even put under the circumstances to die in the desert and hed think about his hatred for bli... yeah actually no matter what i think hed become a vengeful spirit!! hed go and hun down whoever killed him and make them fucking suffer, and then hed go and do the same for every drac and ever crow, every exterminator he can get his hands on. his mortal life was horrible and he is going to spend his afterlife making sure the ones responsible for his suffering get what they fucking deserve

uhhhh this has turned out wayyy longer than i meant it to so im gonna make the Halloween in the zones part its own post and I'll tag you in that when its done!! i hope at least some part of this was helpful or inspiring in a way, cant wait to see what you end up writing :]

#asks #danger days #my headcanons #danger days headcanons #danger days the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #fun ghoul #the kobra kid #party poison #jet star #ddttlotfk #ttlotfk

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cosmicnuisance · 1 year

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thinking about how endeavour is thirsted after so badly and it seems the majority of the fandom are willing to forgive because "he's attractive" and "b-but he is atoning for his mistakes!!🥺💔" like first of all those weren't "mistakes", that was flat out abuse. Secondly, some actions cannot be atoned for.

Like this is a man, a man who violently abused and neglected his children, neglected his wife, isolated them from each other and from the outside world. This happens in real life far more than it should ever, and people are simping and stanning him because he's hot? Because they think he is attractive? This is literally how so many people get away with abuse, because they trick others with their appearance or charisma and that is how so much abuse goes unnoticed or people don't believe victims who speak up.

I feel, Shoto's arc is about making peace with his past and realising that anger and denial will not make anything better and will not help him heal. Its about connecting with his brother and sister who were also victims, and healing. Its creating his own family and knowing what happened was not OK, but that it happened and he can't change that.

I think that one of the reasons I really love the relation between Dabi and Shoto is because Shoto is seeing what he could of become is he hadn't decided to consciously work to let go of his anger towards Endeavour and work through his trauma, rather than letting it consume him. He internalises, Dabi projects. Killing Endeavour, killing Enji Todoroki will fulfill Dabi's goal. And once he does that, I'm hoping, he's freed finally from that anger, and he can rest finally. I honestly hope Dabi does kill Endeavour: I want him to die as a result of his actions, to face up and apologise and realise that nothing he ever does will resolve or make up for what he did. To die staring his son in the face. To die staring into the direct result of his abuse.

And even more, how each of Endeavour's victims is working through it differently, really is just amazingly portrayed by Horikoshi. I just really appreciate how it's showing the multitudes of people's reactions to trauma and how it can shape their entire life; Dabi giving himself up to revenge and anger, Fuyumi dedicating herself to protecting children to make sure that what happened to her brothers never happens again on her watch-making sure she can protect them this time; Natsu becoming a med student so he can literally help heal people and help them, and Todoroki becoming a hero to save those who need it the most, to become a real hero unlike his father. It's so raw and realistically portrayed, my heart aches every time I think about it or how it could've turned out differently.

Tl;Dr: the love I have for mama Todoroki and her children is actually insane and here is how I feel about Enji's abuse on his kids

#todoroki siblings #todoroki family #enji todoroki #keeping up with the todorokis #bnha #mha #bnha theories #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my hero theories #shoto todoroki #dabi #touya todoroki #fuyumi todoroki #natsuo todoroki #fuck endeavor

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the-kr8tor · 1 month

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KATYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

I JUST READ CHAPTER 15 (SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT)

AAKSHYAHDINDUDHD THAT WAS A ROLLERCOASTER OF A RIDE. MY FRICKING HAPPY ENDING, AKANSHAJHSJD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH (RESPECTFULLY)

OMG OMG OMG I CRIED. I CRIED REAL TEARS. I CRIED REAL TEARS AND MY EYES ARE WET.

BUT THE ENDING AKAJAHVSISMKDKDJRJ I'M SOBBING WITH JOY AND SADNESS IT'S SO BITTERSWEET

THIS IS MY NEW ADDICTION. WHEN I SAW THE NOTIF I LITERALLY SCREAMED AND MY SISTER TOLD ME TO SHUT UP

AJWJAJJSJDJ GHOSTFLOWER/GWILES MADE ME SOB. AND HOBIE OMG I CAN'T ANYMORE I FEARED FOR HIS LIFE. And MIGUEL OMG I KNEW I COULDN'T HATE HIM THAT MUCH. Lyla my bae AND YURI UGHHHH I LOWKEY ADORE HER. I can't stop squealing and giggling and kicking my feet OMG omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg I'm gonna kms

STOPPPPPP CAPTAIN STACY????? GWEN'S FATHER???? THERE FOR HIS LITTLE GIRL??? I'M GONNA CRY I HOPE SHE RECOVERS. AND MILES' FRICKING REACTION I'M LITERALLY DYING OVER HERE

HOBIE ALMOST GETTING EXECUTED GOD SAVE ME I WANTED TO MURDER SOMEONE. OF COURSE HE'S GOING DOWN WITH SOME SNARKY LITTLE COMMENT LIKE THAT

And I wanted Mathias to be killed in the harshest, painfullest, bloodiest way possible omg you did not disappoint

That queen istg I hated HER GUTS

I am never getting over this fic. Y'know when u read a really really REALLY good book and you get book hangover and you google everything related to it and make Pinterest boards for it (i totally don't already have a board dedicated to ur fics)?? Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do. Literally drunk on this fic. I'm gonna end up writing unpublished fanfic about this fanfic. That's how obsessed I am. Like I need all sorts of stuff I need to see R and Hobie grow old and experience the world together I need to see the twins in the BDAS universe- OMG I NEED TO SEE BILLIE AND RAMONA AS PIRATES OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

Honestly worth the wait, my heart is satisfied ❤😭

I think that just about covers it, if you've read this review all the way through I'm actually so happy 🥺😊

Literally crying real tears rn I can't believe it's over 🥹

Sending loads of love ❤🌾

BDAS SPOILER ⚠️

THANK YOU SO MUCH, ANGEL!!!!

HAHAHHAHA I got u all with the miguel fake out 😂 Yuri is wifey material ngl

Yeeesss captain stacy did a magician move and appeared from nowhere 😂 now they've got an actual adult on the ship

I always knew mathias needed a very painful death! I was debating whether he accidentally gets hanged ala tarzan villain or drowned in shallow waters but I'm still glad I went through with what I wrote bc r gave him a beating lol

ONG YOU HAVE A BOARD FOR THEM?! THANK YOU THAT'S SO CUTE 🥺

They deserve so much happiness 🥺 can you imagine the babies in bdas?!!! Oh Hobie would have his hands full with them onboard

Thank you!!! I cannot express how much I appreciate your love and your thoughts ILY ❤️❤️❤️

Lots of love to you, my love!!!!! (⁠｡⁠♡⁠‿⁠♡⁠｡⁠)

#ask answered #chatting with lovelies #bdas thoughts #🫶🫶🫶#ly #bdas spoiler

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prodlaw · 2 years

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MONSTER TRIO + LAW & ACE AS GENSHIN PLAYERS

luffy is an ar 43 childe main

childe main luffy !!! mayhem !!! maniac !!! cannot use bow mode for shit!

basically explores his overworld like crazy ... has 100% exploration on dragonspine because he said fuck sheer cold we die like real men :D aka a 100 times until he realises .... fire .... fire good

does not use healers. what are they. whats this wack 1000+ hp increase. is it free? do the game gods suddenly like him?

can't build characters asks law for help who fucking busts a blood vessel seeing all the 5 stars hes sacrificed on shitty artifacts (DEF% circlet on diluc, cries real tears)

has bad luck on pulls though its crazy

he doesnt even save primos,,,,

ust pulls and didnt know about losing the 50/50 he'd just be happy either ways

"haha look a character!"

THIS IS YOUR 5TH QIQI BRO

also randomly joins worlds and steals stuff . he has no etiquette Smh

does not do abyss or if he does its just a headache he has no idea he doesnt read the opponents info he has no team synergy he is just random bullshitting go in this sanji is an ar60 yae main

has raised all thee waifus but he has a thing for being humiliated by women so ... yeah .. yae

yae defender since day #1 !! he has fought whole wars for her on twitter when people were saying her kit is shit ... he started not one but 3 fan accounts

his team is basically yae, raiden, jean and lisa (whos going to tell this man theyre all girlfriends)

is now getting ready to ascend to the title of no.1 yelan main in the whole wide world .. is sacrificing his sanity to give her 300% crit damage

like luffy he does not give a fuck about the storyline, just plays for the characters (ahem.... ladies .... is also subtly growing on ayato)

hes also a big whale. does that surprise anyone? no?

r5 donut c6 kokomi and is trying to get her to deal big damage #RoadTo100K

skips dialogue

tries to cook some ingame dishes, his almond tofu and sweet madame are actually kind of good! robin and nami have benefitted from this one

zoro is an ar56 ayaka main

got into the game because luffy and sanji were heavily into it and he's fallen into a deep whirpool of genshin ayaka impact

does not give a fuck about the story + dialogue

initially played it for funsies but as soon as he saw ayaka Goddamn

compares sword styles with her secretly its so Cute

has raised her shes insane crazy 500k when he coops people clap they scream they shout

too bad shes the only built character he does not give a fuck about anyone else

ayato came and hes building him also but everyone else is irrelevant. THIS IS AYAKAS WORLD!

does not like traveller since hes not interested in ayaka

wants to punch the shit out of him

generally annoys him

keeps on whining about how traveller uses a shitty ass blade, how ayakas much better than him etc etc.

takes boss fights very Seriously is very Good at them also

does not know how hes gotten to ar 56 but will #grind until shes c6 (hes f2p and benefitted GREATLY during the ayaka banner)

ace is an ar60 eula main

whale whale whale whale

needs to touch grass hes spent his LIFE INSURANCE MONEY on this game

loves everything about it

follows the story, loves the characters, worldbuilding everything

surprisingly dedicated a lot of braincells to it! built his characters fr

he streams it also does stupid challenges n shit, ie. i die i roll

it's him and his eula against the world! he loves a woman that can kick serious ass

very fun to coop with. will go to heart island with you. will carry you.

36 stars spiral abyss like bro is full mental illnessing it he wants the primos even though he can go to the shop and basically go batshit

his luck is very bad though like he has NEVER gotten a character before 60 pity

his c6 mona speaks for herself! and so does c6 keqing!

would have mained childe but heart of depth domain sucks 4 years out of his lifespan per run (1 like = 1 decent crit piece for ace)

has hit 1mil with eula . but at what cost?

law is an ar57 xiao main

im sorry he instantly connected with him

the emo fatherlessness is universal

basically built the entire team around xiao, eg. xiao/jean/albedo/zhongli

also admires zhongli and would have mained him but he saw emo boy first

has primordial and him at c1 but he has never paid, he's not that deep in yet

just has decent luck and saves pragmatically

like luffy he has his evil moments and steals stuff from players (has gotten threats of doxxing/being cussed out)

but other than that his genshin routine is doing dailies, event and then hes out!

follows lore actively though, finds the various cross cultural references very fun

would probably pull for baizhu if he becomes playable

#genshin impact #one piece #law x reader #zoro x reader #one piece headcanons #sanji x reader #luffy x reader #ace x reader #one piece fluff #one piece x reader #monkey d luffy #straw hat pirates #portgas d ace #if this flops im going to kms ... also genshin girls add me 😍😍 !!#[ tracklisted ]

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glamsmine · 6 months

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[unnamed/prompt| MHA/BNHA]

{Mitsuki convinces Inko to finally try out online dating and gets her on Tinder💀}

Mitsuki decides that Inko has been single for far too long after her husband passed and wants to help her find her next soulmate, however Mitsuki was very daring and that on its own was what got Inko in these situations in the first place. Inko reluctantly let her friend create an account for her after taking a photoshoot of her trying on Masaru’s new clothing line that he was working on. (Which Mitsuki happily tagged and sponsored in her bio) If she had to hand over her designer clothing and accessories to make it happen, then she would not hesitate to just give her a set of bags and clothes, she had plenty to spare and was well aware Inko could pull off any look.

It wasn’t until Mitsuki started swiping like crazy at every attractive and or rich man that popped up, Inko had nearly passed out and given the fact that Mitsuki had purchased the premium version for her, she was going at it for but half an hour before Inko finally managed to regain control and beg her to stop from the embarrassment she felt.

Fuyumi really thought of it as a joke first but it all changed when she got a taste of the romantic drama she had put her father in. Endeavor, or in this case Enji, was pulled into an online dating app that Natsuo had suggested to Fuyumi at first and she relayed it to their father. He frankly didn’t care or expect anything to come out of it since he didn’t view himself as “dateable” to begin with, so he was confident nothing would happen. However, he forgot to factor in that Fuyumi is the hopeless romantic type and would become dead set on seeing the task through, even if she had to force him to go on at least one date.

Bubblegirl only got it to pass her time and see just how many people Sir Nighteye could pull, had he been interested in dating. He refused at first, but let her manage and make him an account since he could care less about whether or not he would end up having a one night stand or going on a small date he would make sure to have no interest in and let it end before a relationship could take off. Things like these weren’t what concerned him and he was far too busy in the hero world to even consider it as an option.

Tsukauchi was getting real tired of All Might being stressed over the crimes happening recently and just wants him to enjoy his retired life, but he honestly had no clue why he thought he knew what he was doing. Getting Toshinori to relax was one thing, but DATING??!? He didn’t even think he had any experience in that field since he had dedicated his life to being a hero and saving others. So when he finally manages to get him “out there” and on a dating platform, he utterly regrets creating the profile, sure, there were some good people on there, but with having the premium version and seeing all the people that had swiped on him only for quick hookups was draining and honestly disappointing(not to mention that some of them weren’t a good fit with his personality and others seemed sketchy). So when he finally managed to snag him a date with an adorable woman (Inko) he was about to go insane with his attempts at getting Toshinori to show up and give him confidence he never before needed in his life, Toshi was beyond embarrassed, way too shy, and inexperienced to have a grasp on what a relationship consisted of, his refusal to go through with the simple date had Tsukauchi sleepless for an entire week before Toshi finally gave in and agreed to the meeting (he could thank Grand Torino scolding him for that later).

Hawks had the app because he was really only in it for the hookups, but when an older woman catches his eye his mind is sent into overdrive. Admittedly he had a thing for older women, the hookups were just something he kept as an option because he never had the time to actually have a stable relationship. He found his heart skipping a beat and his hand had moved before he could process his actions and he was now matched with a cute lady five cities over. {Inko} He was pretty tame around older women(he acts like a dude-bro around women his age or younger)and she was no exception, he probably looked like a lovestruck teen right about now. His tastes were really only known by Jeanist, who had shared a similar preference(👀) , and had ruthlessly made his secret a topic of conversation when there was no one else around. Jeanist is really forward with how he speaks so he really just points out Hawks’ flaws that women would find unappealing and he should consider working on, other than that he has also /slightly/ teased him for it. All in good intention, but Hawks dreaded when he brought it up during a mission or casually after a meeting.

There really was no reason for Aizawa being on the app in the first place, he hated dealing with people in general, so a relationship was out of the question. It was Midnight who was bored out of her mind from the lack of juicy stories she gets to hear in the office at school. Sure, Mic was not the type to shy away from risky topics that satisfied Midnights dose of curiosity and drama, and Snipe had an interesting enough life to share crazy stories at work. It was the lack of hearing about romantic failures and adventures that really did her in. She wasn’t the romantic type and it wasn’t her intention to pry into their lives, but it was okay to bother Aizawa to this level at least once a year and now was the chance she wanted to use. Nevermind the details, there were so many locals that admitted to wanting to get down with the underground hero and an endless supply of options to actually pair him up with a decent date. Forget about the part where he has to consciously know about himself being put on such a public platform and potentially having to go on a date without his knowledge of it not being a casual outing he usually goes on. He should’ve known something was off when Midnight and Mic kindly suggested he join them in dinner at a nice restaurant, promptly ditching him to “go to the bathroom” at the time before someone sits down at his table and introduces themself.

I wrote this YEARS AGO and decided to post it, it was kept in my drafts and is probably the goofiest idea I ever wrote but it would be hilarious if somebody managed to take this idea and make an actual fic with it. I was going to but never did and I no longer feel like writing it anymore lmao. The main was going to be Nighteye, I considered having Aizawa be in the final considerations too but the fact that he’s Izuku’s teacher complicates things and makes it weird😂. Everyone else was just random options that amped up the goofiness.

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microwaving-tesilid-argente · 10 months

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s-class heroine fills me with some extra specific feelings of grief and i can't believe i'm getting this from what i thought was a silly hehehahaha shoujo isekai.

tesilid lives in a world where everyone constantly betrays and walks all over him. anyone who looked out for him probably died real fast. nothing good he does ever matters because it resets, but any and all grief he ever experiences stays with him. do you think he has cried for himself before? has he cried for himself yet? i don't think we've seen him cry yet. the only externalisation of grief i remember is the outpouring of rage when he discovers the truth. until ailette, has he ever had anyone who could cry for him? we haven't seen ailette cry for him either. 150 chapters and we've gotten like no emotional catharsis. (but honestly it's definitely worse for tesilid so i don't even feel like i have a leg to stand on.)

and there's the way that both ailette and tesilid are such well-written and complex characters, and yet after almost a month turning them over in my head i can't be sure of my reading of tesilid (how much of his kindness is because of his stigma restrictions? how much of his evil is out of desperation and understandable but admirably repressed rage?) and i actually cannot get a reading on ailette's motivations at all, despite her being our POV character. her goals and short-term motivations are very clear, but i can't figure out why she's doing so much for tesilid's comfort. she dedicated her new life to giving him a more comfortable life. she does so many little actions to get him to eat well and to minimise the harrassment from the vatican and to reduce his wounds and yet respect his autonomy. idk i think it's too much consistent and heartfelt care for someone you simply pity, or someone you need to save for the survival of everyone else you love. it's not that she had a crush on tesilid the character either, because she never considered tesilid a potential lover up until she started obsessing over money again for the genre-change ticket. what is tesilid to her? she mentioned reading the original novel when she was in middle school and really into edgy stories. the original novel had no catharsis. it's implied by omission that she had read until the end nonetheless. was tesilid a character she projected onto, back during the days when everyone walked over her and she had no one to stand up for her? was tesilid a character who helped her live through each day? i don't know. and tesilid certainly doesn't. there's a grief in never truly being able to understand another person. no matter how loudly they say from their actions that they love you. if you're insecurely attached it's still definitely going to scratch at you. but humans aren't mind readers and even if we do our best to communicate we always change so we can never be 100% sure all the time. you gotta take a leap of faith and that's scary.

#s-class heroine spoilers #i think that part of the reason i can never be sure of my readings of the MCs is bc it's on purpose orz #ailette rodeline #tesilid argente #cant believe i got this much out of like idk half of the novel #what turning a story over in your head over and over does to a person

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ssreeder · 10 months

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THIS IS GOING TO BE AN INTERESTING READ SREEDIE BC IVE GOT VAVAVOOM BY NICKI MINAJ STUCK IN MY HEAD RN

hey handsome ;)

I’m back bc you can’t get rid of me ever <3

katara is so real for finding comfort in arbitrary routine. like I’m not following the politeness rules for YOU I’m following the politeness rules for ME so that I feel better >:(

ALSO what I think is really important to remember and usually gets lots in fanon, the fact that zuko like.. literally IS the face of the fire nation in the war for katara. like she has nobody else to project on OF COURSE it’s going to be fucking Rough to overcome her hatred for zuko when he’s literally synonymous with genocide for her. unless there’s somebody else she can realistically focus on (ie. the fire lord is too abstract a concept for her rn), it’s never really gonna get better AND YOU CANT BLAME HER bc how else are you meant to process fear and anger if you have nowhere to direct it (does this line of thinking mean I need therapy sreedie?? answer honestly)

OHOHO look at that sreedie. I’ve gone an anticipated katara’s own musings. I’m so psychic today.

also really depressing that zuko actually does canonically look like his father so like… katara isn’t exactly Wrong to imagine his face

aaaaaand he’s back to normal with the monosyllabic responses !! and anger !! he’s healing so well.

trust zuko to argue about the semantics of life saving lmfao

CRYING WHEN ANGRY IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING I FEEL YOU SO HARD KATARA

not katara accidentally predicting the zukka relationship out of anger T-T

NOT THE “I will be back” NOTE ZUKO PLS

SLAY AANG ILY AANG YOURE THE BEST ZUKKA WINGMAN EVER

ughhh FUCK OFF IROH just say you’re homophobic jfc

YES JEE I’m always in the I Love Jee camp so this is nothing new BUT YES CRITIQUE IROHS HANDLING OF ZUKO

jee is TOTALLY a literature nerd with all the analysis of implications of zukos outfit that he’s doing and I am so here for it

HAIR RUFFLES WIDNWLDNQPXBWFORN THE HAIR FRHDKWE AODKW I am completely calm and reasonable about this.

sokka is like “I’m so good at being subtle about being in love with zuko :D” and zuko is like WE JUST FUCKED IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY MAYDAYMAYDAY

LMAO jee is like FINALLY some drama to become invested in

I LOVE CULTURAL CUSTOMS AHHHHHH I’m such a goddamn nerd ohmygod

YAYYYY TOPH I love toph she’s a ride or die fr

nooooo now I’m emotional about jee. the whole being fire nation first and human being second is a really nice touch though, in terms of world building and reasoning behind why fire nation citizens are so committed to the war effort despite their own suffering bc of it

wait wait maybe I’m going insane rn but WAIT a moment please… so this is what I’m working with: when zukka got separated, sokka became like Both of them?? like they didn’t have each other to balance themselves out, so sokka adopted zukos personality (without the zuko skill set Unfortunately) and conversely, zuko like… Had Neither personality bc he was fucking Dying so he had other priorities. and now both of them are out of whack bc their personality divisions are fucked

OMG RASU telling sokka he groped zuko in front of everyone T-T he’s doing the lord’s work

ohohohoboho rasu knowssssss ʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉʰᵉ

THESE BITCHES ARE ENGAGED OMG

DADKODA AND CHANGGGGGGG oh I’m so happy rn. I’m genuinely going to squeal when chang and zuko reunite AND FUCK IROH HE CAN GET FUCKED JEE GET A BETTER LEADER TO DEDICATE YOURSELF TO

anyways :D

I’m expecting zuko and chang to have the most magical long awaited airport reunion imaginable, and if these two bitches DONT hug I’m going to cut all your electrical wires and clog your toilets

KISSES XXXXXX

I have accepted I’ll never be rid of you, so I’ve stopped trying. <3

Haha, I think we could ALL use some therapy lol <3 but as for Katara I think she is allowed to be upset and dramatic because she is 15 and tired. So stop being an asshole Zuko.

I think both Zuko & Katara left that interaction feeling less than satisfied.

I love writing Jee as the man who notices shit. Haha. Why is his collar so high? IDK JEE WHAT DO YOU THINK?!

fucking love Jee

I’m a sucker for details, and unfortunately I can’t always get them all out into the writing but I wasn’t going to CUT (hahahaha GET IT??) the hair lore mwahaha.

Dude Chang and Zuko reunion is long over due but also I might be a dick and just bomb everything before Chang gets close

Why not right?

KISSSSSSESSSSS XOXOXO

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