#(also Ben's her kind of a mentor because I said so)

[nadiajustbe]

HMC modern AU but it focuses on Lettie who is interested in magic and tarot cards, and "Sophie, my dear, you and Howell Jenkins are ABSOLUTELY mismatched, you don't even have zodiac signs, let alone your card spread-"

[fist-of-vengeance]

thinking about how essentially every relationship john locke formed in the early seasons of lost has completely disintegrated by the time of his death.

of course there's his relationship with jack, which starts tense but manageable and culminates in jack pointing a gun at john's head and pulling the trigger. but even his smaller, less narratively prominent relationships either implode or drift apart. he bonds with walt in season one but then walt leaves the island, which is itself a severing of their bond since it was mainly based on being the only two people who wanted to stay. still, he goes and visits walt off the island so this is probably john's most successful relationship. I dont think i need to explain how he fucked up with boone, "the sacrifice that the island demanded." charlie viewed john as a mentor and claimed to trust him more than anyone on the island, but after the events of fire and water, that trust is destroyed and charlie despises him. at the same time we get john bonding with claire and having a pseudo-paternal dynamic with her, but their closeness basically drops off the face of the earth as he gets less and less involved with the other survivors.

his arc in the series is essentially a gradual distancing from everyone around him. it starts when he abandons hunting (providing for the others) in favor of trying to get the hatch open (it's extremely clear his primary motive isn't any survival applications but getting answers to the mystery). when they do open the hatch, he spends more and more time inside, underground, cut off from other people. he spends more and more time interacting with ben, a human mystery box that he's obsessed with cracking even if it gets him killed. he follows the proverbial white rabbit deeper down the hole and leaves his connection to humanity behind. the island and its mysteries become more important to john than anything or anyone else.

then in season three we get him claiming to go undercover with the others only to unceremoniously tell sawyer that he's actually going to join them. and it doesn't feel shocking, it feels inevitable. because john has spent the entire series becoming less and less connected with the people he arrived with. in that sense he actually makes a fascinating foil to juliet, who is introduced as one of the others and yet never really fits, she's increasingly sympathetic and kind in a way the rest of them aren't, her redemption arc feels so natural that she actually starts referring to her old people as "the others" like she's been one of the crash survivors from the beginning. her and john basically have inverse arcs, which is probably accidental but very neat.

in season five john tries to convince everyone to go back to the island, and fails spectacularly. and of course he does, because he was so consumed by obsession that he stopped maintaining his relationships, and in many cases actively alienated people (this is also basically what happened with helen) and now he can't wrap his head around why they're all so hostile to him. i am forever obsessed with the scene where he confronts kate and she brutally calls him out for wanting to return to the island because he doesn't love anyone. it actually struck me on rewatch how well the two of them got along in season one, and how badly their relationship has degraded by this point. john repeatedly casts aside interpersonal relationships in favor of his obsession with destiny, so when said destiny actually involves persuading the people he once shunned, he's at a loss. this is because john treats purpose as a supplement for connection, destiny as an alternative to love.

as an aside, this aspect of john's character kinda ties into my opinion that several lost characters can be read as allegorically neurdivergent under a certain lens. i know this was absolutely not intended, but as an adhd former gifted kid who struggles socially, there is something uncomfortably familiar about a character who allows their relationships to burn around them because of a single-minded obsession, especially as a result of being promised the fickle status of "special."

tl/dr: john locke is a doomed idiot and i love him

[dearophelia]

best of sara's fic, according to her

Because I’m feeling some kind of way about my cancer lately and wanted to put together a Sara’s Greatest Fic Hits while I’m still around to do it (which is a morbid thing to type, but see the intro: been feeling some kind of way lately).

These range from my most popular fics, to the ones lost to weird posting hours, and everything in between. If I counted correctly, there are 14 fandoms on this list: from Mass Effect and Dragon Age, to Grey’s Anatomy and Stargate SG-1, to The West Wing and Calvin & Hobbes.

I’d appreciate reblogs on this (I am not ashamed to pull the stage iv cancer card here) so it can reach as many people as possible.

I have been writing fic for over 15 years; this is not a short list.

All are rated T or lower unless otherwise indicated. All stories are at or under the 3k mark unless otherwise indicated.

Stargate SG-1:

waves are universal (the heaven in hiding remix) (Sam/Jack; I’m very Normal about this fic; time travel and alternate realities, a host of OCs (and some familiar faces from Norafic if you look closely), oh and the Sam/Jack kid from the alternate reality! Only she’s an adult and working on a way to save the world! This has it all, folks: humor, romance, angst, action! I told you I’m Normal about it; 40k)

strange is the night where black stars rise (Sam; horror! A low creeping sense of doom! The King in Yellow! No, seriously, fuck that planet; 10k)

#sg1wedding (Sam/Jack; their wedding turned into An Event against their will; bets are going down about who would win in a fight: Bra’tac or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; also Jack loses his socks; twitterfic from 2012 and technology has definitely Marched On, just read it like an unhinged group chat fic)

phoenix (Sam/Daniel/Teal’c, Sam/Jack, Sam/Jack/Daniel/Teal’c; apocalypse (that I consulted a real live geologist on!); rebuilding in the wake of said apocalypse; team family feelings, kids, and some really shitty neighbors; 38k)

Dragon Age:

joy cometh in the morning (Ariadne; rated M; a host of OCs; mind the warnings; friendship; worldbuilding galore; friendships and mentors and first loves; did I mention friendship and worldbuilding?; 56k)

through the rude wind’s wild lament, and the bitter weather (Ari+Cullen; quiet magic, kind magic, good magic is still new to Cullen)

as the sun kissed the horizon (Ari/Josephine; a relationship in ten moments)

‘til we meet again (Ari+Cullen; platonic sleeping together!)

so hold my hand, consign me not to darkness (Ari; her faith is the core of who she is and, for the first time, Andraste isn’t there; post-Trespasser)

raise your fists up to the sky (Kylie/Krem; it’s Krem’s first day with the Chargers and there’s a naked elf in the middle of camp)

every demon wants his pound of flesh (Krem+Bull; Krem was in the Fade with the Inquisitor and the fear demon had some Things To Say To Him)

black dove (Anaya) & strange little girl (Anaya+Dagna) & dissolving clouds (Anaya+Cullen) (because neurodivergent Inquisitor, friendship, blossoming romance, and three very different takes on blood magic)

skeletons (Zahara+Bull; she is saarebas, he is Ben-Hassrath, and language is important)

children shouldn’t play with dead things (Juliette Amell; she’s always had an easier time with the dead than the living; cw for bugs)

a sorta fairytale (Josephine/Cassandra; flower shop & tattoo parlor AU; 8k)

Mass Effect Trilogy:

gonna set your flag on fire (Nora Vakarian, Liv/Garrus, James/Liara, Liv+Liara, Livfam; action! Humor! Angst! Worldbuilding! OCs!; I am Super Normal about this fic too; I promise everything’s okay in the end, promise, even though it isn’t written yet; Nora is an N3 and has an inactive control chip in her head. She and her team are ordered to investigate a Cerberus facility. It goes, shall we say, awry; 40k)

anthem (Liv/Garrus, Hannah/Zaeed, Liv+Liara; eight months is a long time without each other; angst with a happy ending (I promise); post-Destroy; 13k)

holy ground & dress (Liv/Garrus; ficlets from the night he gets sworn in as Councilor)

brightly shone the moon at night (Liv, Liv+Liara, Liv/Garrus, Livfam; five Christmases in Olivia Shepard’s life; 5k)

the pieces of gold, they light up your eyes & now we’re alone, now we’re alive (Liv/Garrus; the evolution of a relationship)

fighting is said to have reached palaven (Liv/Garrus; please, please let him be alive)

and some things you just can’t speak about (Quentus+Nico; the war)

‘cause i know that it’s delicate (Liv/Garrus; pre-wedding!)

nosce te ipsum (Nico; he likes boys and fanfiction and he didn’t think he’d get his little italicized oh moment)

i will write you love letters if you tell me to (Liv/Garrus; Hannah gives him one of Liv’s notebooks before he goes off to Omega; Garrus does the only thing he can think of with it)

i really need you (Liv/Garrus; James POV during the reunion scene in Priority: Palaven)

you look really tired (Liv/Garrus, Liv+Liara; post-Thessia, Olivia’s not doing well)

hey, so, ground rules (Liv+Zaeed; it’s a lot weird now that he’s dating her mom)

and all the scars you bear are from a previous war (Liv+Quentus; Mom!Liv)

you can hear it in the silence (Liv/Garrus; just a moment, post-war)

this all started because of a bad day (Liv/Garrus; from first meetings to matching rings)

combat, i’m ready for combat & turn on your favorite nightlight (Hannah; she’s a civilian and her daughter isn’t, and she’s bound and determined to know what Liv goes through when her boots hit the ground; Hannah, Zaeed, Liv, and Garrus hit up Armax)

four quarians who never made it back to the fleet (and one who did) (kinda what it says on the tin, honestly. Oh, Tali’s in this!)

everyone’s lost, the battle is won (Evangeline; somewhat predictably, my experiment in getting as many of my team killed as possible resulted in Feelings About It)

across the sky (Susan/Liara; how to make the Control ending feel good)

and yours is in red underlined (Vanessa; The Illusive Man has pissed her off for the last time)

i’m headed straight for the castle (Vanessa; renegade control ending; kneel before your queen)

Mass Effect Andromeda:

for saviours (Tori; ten scenes from a pre-Andromeda life; 10k)

ringing joyful and triumphant (Tori/Liam/Jaal; just some morning fluff)

the thing with the baby angara (Tori/Liam/Jaal; thinking about the future)

the undone and the divine (Tori/Liam/Jaal; the lone single solitary explicit fic on here, give it props for that alone; Liam gets absolutely railed by his partners. That’s it. That’s the fic.)

you’re like the thing that makes the universe explode (Sara Ryder/Suvi, Drack; kid, the only people who don’t know that you like Suvi are people who haven’t met you and Suvi)

this one’s for the torn down, the experts at the fall (Tori+Garrus; one night in the intersection of Victoria Ryder and Archangel; maybe they’re better friends than they both thought)

The West Wing:

a great revelation sigh (CJ; she’s Chief of Staff; ten steps to the apocalypse; the apocalypse source probably didn’t age well, heads up)

it’s in my blood and i won’t give up ‘cause it’s running through my veins (Amy+Andi; it’s Election Day in the future and Amy has nothing to do)

Grey’s Anatomy:

dropsonde (the singers in a lower choir remix) (Addison/Alex, Derek/Meredith, Addison+Derek, Addison+Mark, Mark+Derek; the one that kicked off all the remixes; absolutely off the rails from canon somewhere in S3; budding romances and kidfic and my theory about people being storms and lighthouses; 40k)

scarlet city (Mark/Addison, Burke/Cristina; film noir gangster and detective AU; Addison’s the gangster, Burke’s the detective; literally everyone I could fit into this fic shows up; also Denny is comic relief; 18k)

Misc:

access records (Star Trek Voyager; Naomi Wildman’s holodeck access for the past week; worldbuilding!)

in this twilight our choices seal our fate (the song in the house of night remix) (SVU; Olivia/Elliot; rated M; on the rise and fall of partnership; probably a little too much religious imagery but what the hell else am I gonna do with a minor in religious studies?; 4k)

the end of days job (Leverage; Parker+Eliot+Hardison; the apocalypse job, basically; this one ages well!)

let the only sound be the overflow (D&D; Calia/Kelpie/Edal, aka ot3: fathoms below; the ocean is big and they are not)

we are golden stars above silver seas (we hear echoes from another galaxy) (Calvin & Hobbes; Calvin+Susie; throughout all those years, she never gave up on him; this one went viral on tumblr [LINK] and I cleaned it up for the AO3 version)

lift her, pull her, from the orchids (Grace and Frankie; Grace/Frankie; the one where I invoke the spelling bee)

rocket queens (Babylon 5/Pacific Rim; Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters; look, they’re jaeger pilots, I really don’t know what else to tell you)

the great gig in the sky (Battlestar Galactica; Six; rebirth is painful, she forgets this sometimes)

[hamliet]

Never Have I Ever... Been So Grateful For a Show

Well, NHIE finished strong after the fourth season got off to a rocky start. The first three episodes were... messy, honestly, but then the story picked up steam. By the time we got to the final two episodes I was bawling pretty much the full way through.

NHIE also continued to flex its mature understanding of nuance, its appreciation for cultural differences, and its determination to keep its characters flawed and realistic. And including a game of Never Have I Ever in the finale? Fab.

All in all, it's a great ending to a great show. I loved it.

Ben and Devi

I've seen people complaining that the end relationship was predictable, or that Devi should be single, and kindly: no. <3

It fit Devi's character to end up in romantic love with someone, because the entire show has been about love for her. Love for her family, love for those who have died, love for her friends, love for her mentors, and yes, romantic love in all the aspects that entails (physical, intellectual, emotional).

The other thing that I think is beautiful about their relationship is that they both push each other in all these ways--physical (obviously), emotionally (Ben's final realization in New York was chef's kiss), and intellectual. They both get to go to their dream schools in part because of each other. Not only have they been pushing each other to excel since before the show started, but Devi helps Ben finish his schoolwork, and Ben encourages Devi to write that final letter to get into Princeton.

Ben's early acceptance to Columbia, which seemed a given given, well, his father and nepotism (I appreciated the show behind upfront about this), ultimately still almost gets sabotaged by his own repressing of other aspects of his life (which parallels Paxton, Blair Quan, and more, and isn't exactly new--see Ben's physical issues last season). This contrasts him with Devi, whose self-sabotage is always doing too much too suddenly. She's been trying so hard all along, but sometimes you need a final cheer to push you over the finish line.

Ben and Devi, Ethan and Margot

Ethan is dark!Ben. Margot is dark!Devi. On paper it's great.

Except... Margot was really, really annoying. I'm sorry, I found nothing remotely redeeming about her. Ethan at least served a purpose. The reason I think the first three episodes are so rough is that they focus on Margot but seem to not know what to do with her. But more about that later on.

Ben's speech about why he chooses to be with Margot in the first episode is well done and shows how much growth he still has to do. Because an essential part of love--of a mature kind of love and relationship--is that you are challenged to become a better version of yourself. Ben and Trent, in episode 2, shy away from this. Trent breaks up with Eleanor because he's afraid she'll break up with him, and he wants to do it first. Ben stays with Margot because she offers him superficial challenges, but nothing substantial in terms of his flaws.

That said, Devi making peace with Margot (numerous times) was narratively necessary because, of course, Margot's kind of a literary shadow (just not really well done). It also showed how much Devi's grown.

Trent + Eleanor

Trent's character is also really well done. That's how you deepen a comedic character. (Ethan was also dark!Trent in some ways; hence, Eleanor's crush on him.) Yeah, Trent's a stoner and not so bright. But, he loves Eleanor. He adores her, and he wholeheartedly believes in her. It's heartwarming to see.

I wasn't surprised they broke up early on, but was relieved they got back together. I think it was a funny inversion of what you'd expect, because El moving on to bigger and better things seemed like a natural progression. Yet, as the scene with El's mom showed... that's not what bigger and better is for Eleanor.

Yes, Eleanor still wants to grow. Yes, she still wants to be an actress and a director, and she's good at it.

But she doesn't want to leave her family and loved ones behind.

Eleanor knows what it's like to be left behind. And obviously it's not the same to leave a teenage boyfriend as to leave your own child like her mom. But, Eleanor ending up back with Trent was, frankly, narratively perfect for both their characters. Because Trent was helping her in her growth, and always had been from Season 3.

I also think they handled Eleanor's dreams and her complicated mother relationship well. The dream itself, even if it is far-fetched, even if it is unlikely to happen, is not bad. Pursuing it also is, in fact, positive (they paralleled this with Devi's dreams of Princeton). But, one of the best parts of dreams? Is the people you meet along the way, the people who cheer you on. It's a metaphor for life.

Paxton (and Lindsay)

Paxton's arc I think is one of the best in the series. I loved his journey from boy who was considered "hot guy" who sucked at school to the point where it was comic becoming a teacher. The episode where he helped Eric join the swim team was actually really powerful.

And, I didn't even roll my eyes when Devi told him he was an even better friend than boyfriend. On paper it's a cliche line, but it totally works within the characters' arcs (and of course the actors' portrayals!). Lindsay also seemed like much more than just a consolation prize to the guy who ends up outside the triangle--their relationship paralleled his with Devi, and quickly got me invested.

His final advice to Devi: "don't reinvent anything" also fits really well, because when Paxton at first refused to be Devi's boyfriend it was because Devi's image wasn't acceptable after the two-timing thing. Then, Devi's anxiety during their public relationship, the anxiety that actually ruined their romance, was because she didn't think she fit with Paxton or "made any sense" with him. But, she does fit with him. As a friend, and as herself.

Blair Quan + College

Blair Quan was also dark!Paxton--someone who lost themselves because they were always the Best in high school. The best student, the most popular. And then at college, everyone was the Best. And suddenly you're nothing.

The situation with Blair Quan was really realistic for how college can be for people, and in how the show (admittedly briefly) addressed the fundamental unfairness of college admissions. I work in higher ed, and... it's not fair. Nothing about it is fair. Professor Warner telling Devi outright that she "should have" gotten into all the Ivies actually meant a lot to me, because it's true.

For any readers of this who are applying to schools, there's a degree to which your merit matters, and there's a degree to which it's up to sheer luck. If they reject you, it's almost certainly not because you're not on par with other applicants. Hard work does not get you into prestigious schools. That's a lie. It gets you to a point, but it also gets a lot of other people to that same point, and then there is nothing at all you can do. It's up to luck.

Fab (and Addison. Kind of).

Fab's arc was interesting, but I feel like it peaked in season 2. I did like her conflict this season though, particularly with messing up about lying to Devi. The scene where she and Devi reconcile was beautiful, and the show handled it really well--giving empathy for Fab as for why she kept it a secret, while also pointing out that the lying was the fact greater problem than the initial applying.

The negative is that... I like Addison, but I wanted more. It kind of sucks that the queer character is the one whose romance doesn't come with two complex characters getting development. And sure, Fab isn't as important as Devi, Ben, or Paxton, but the fact that they wrote a compelling romance between Trent and Eleanor and gave Trent some damn deep character development despite him being a comedic character shows they were more than capable of writing a complex character romance for Fab. Addison is really just... kinda there, and we get no development for them at all.  Which sucks because I would like to have learned more about them! They had potential, especially as a parallel to Trent!

Nalini and Andres

Nalini and Andres were a little more out of left field... that said, Nalini clearly has a type! She likes guys whom she argues with first. I still preferred the hot doctor from Season 2, but that had less to do with Andres and more to do with the fact that I found Margot so irredeemably annoying. Still, I appreciated Andres' growth in realizing that he'd been spoiling Margot by catering to her every whim. This was itself a nice contrast to Nalini, who hurts Devi by being too hard on her.

That was especially a flaw in the early seasons, but Season 4 really showed how much Nalini has grown. She does mess up with her response to the college debacle, so her flaws are still there, but she's so much better than in Season 1. For example, Devi lashing out at her mom after she got deferred was irrational; Nalini really didn't deserve any of that, and yet Nalini still met Devi where she was at: with a chip salad, addressing her fears. It was heartwarming.

Even when Nalini then does mess up with the "stupid" comment, we know she didn't mean it in the same way Devi fears she did (that that's all she can be, rather than that yes, Devi did a dumb thing). When she comes to help Devi pack, it's genuinely heartwarming. I honestly think Nalini and Devi's relationship is one of the best in the show, if not the beating heart at the center of it.

Pati and Len

Now, Pati. Pati and Lens' relationship parallels Kamala's romantic drama--not just with Manish in Season 3, but also with Steve in Season 1. Pati is also very clearly where Devi gets her drama from, and I stan.

I also liked the parallels between Len and Pati and Ben and Devi. They are both Indian-Jewish couples, and Pati and Len's wedding of course marks a grand romance for them... and a grand romantic gesture for Ben, who arrives to tell Devi he loves her.

Kamala (and Manish)

Kamala's arc this season was good as well; I just wish we had seen more Manish than just in the finale. Still, at least Manish did have an arc in the previous season. Though, it was a nice twist to have Kamala's arc be not about romance, but about her career.

Where Art Thou?

I also missed some other side characters, like Rebecca Hall-Yoshida and Jonah.

Margot & Aneesa

The overall show was filled with callbacks to past seasons that were really well utilized, in that they showed the character's growth. Unfortunately, in one instance, this came back for the worse when they repeated one of their biggest writing mistakes from Season 2.

Devi is, simply put, absolutely not morally responsible for reporting Margot to have lied about her alibi for vandalism. Yeah, Margot ultimately didn't do it--but Devi didn't do anything wrong by reporting that. In fact, the principal should have actually done her job and checked the alibi with the teacher; it's like 101 common sense.

Clearly this is a callback to Aneesa (the episode even has Devi reclaiming the nickname "crazy Devi," which started there). However, the shame is that the writers didn't learn from how they bungled the Aneesa plotline, and they did. Here again they hold Devi responsible for something she frankly is not morally in the wrong for. The show also mentions the Aneesa incident and calls Devi "a liar and a bully" for it, but she objectively didn't lie? And frankly Aneesa bullied Devi more than Devi bullied her and was never called out for it.

While I think it's a flaw, it COULD theoretically work from a psychoanalytic theory in that really all that Devi can control is herself. She can't force others to do what she wants, even if it's unfair. And that's part of maturing is realizing that (and it's not the same thing as selfish focus). You can't control the world, even when it's unfair and even when other people are frankly wrong.

I did like more or less how Margot was resolved in the end; namely, that she was not there among Devi's friends at the end. I also liked that Aneesa did defend Devi in the final episode from someone mocking her about the Clean Sweep. It just would've matter more if Aneesa's actions had ever been addressed.

The Principal + Professor Warner

Also, while in general the show is great in its portrayal of teachers and satire of other teachers, the principal sucks and she's not actually funny. She acts like another teenager, but unlike some of the other teachers/adults who are framed well, she's framed as being more or less fine instead of with the critical lens of the others. And she isn't.

Professor Warner stands in stark contrast, because she is wise even though flawed. The principal is just... awful. I'd never liked her, but this season made me hate her.

The Therapist + Grief

Now that I've gotten my salt out of the way, let's end with a positive and a theme.

The therapist's final session with Devi in the penultimate episode--I bawled.

“When I first met you, you were a closed-off, angry little thing... But look at you. Look how far you’ve come. You faced your trauma, and you came out on the other side.” 

They used this to emphasize the show's main theme: grief. Despite how this quote makes it sound, the show doesn't actually frame grief as something to move on from. Instead, it's something that accompanies you.

Grief is like chasing a dream. Grief is part of life. It is love itself, but a painful part of it, and grief never, ever stops. You never "get over" someone's loss. You never stop loving them.

But, you learn to see them around you, and in you. In the dreams you planted together, like Devi's dad telling her about Princeton. In the loved ones you shared, like how Devi yells at her imagination of her father that he's not here, but then Nalini arrives to help her pack.

Just because someone's gone doesn't mean they stop influencing you, or stop being a part of your life.

There will always be moments of pain, like Devi in the final episode with the imagination of her dad. But, there will also be moments of feeling them again.

[favesgrave]

since i am so normal i started up an earthspark warrior cats au and then my friends (hi friends @echoblaze5 @benadrylcandlewhack @velvety-vixen @badgerdigsbones @satellitedish38) brainstormed more ideas for it so big thanks to them. anyways here's the stuff under the cut:

okay so i'm still chipping away at actual plot but the current sort of story is that megatron (he's called stoneheart in this au and badger came up with that name so ty badger) led his own clan that was basically the decepticons and went to war with the autobot clan. at a certain point he has a bit of a change of heart and is like "so guys. maybe this fighting isn't worth it"

his warriors are understandably like "dude what the fuck do you mean. we've been fighting for YOU and now you're backing out. traitor" and he ends up getting chased out. optimus (who i havent thought of a name for yet) is like "oh you silly goose. if you want peace then come on over and live with us!!!"

it's. a big adjustment.

he goes from stonestar to stoneheart and literally no one but optimus trusts him because they used to be pretty tight

also this has no big impact on the plot but i thought it'd be cool if autoclan (that is NOT their actual name i am working on it!!!) lived in a cave on a mountain and decepticlan (again not their name) lived on an island in a lake to sort of resemble how things were in g1. you know with the ark in the mountain and the nemesis underwater. yeah you get it

ANYWAAAYSSS. decepticlan's a bit messy after they drove out stoneheart because they didn't really think that far ahead, it all just kind of happened. starscream (who i'm gonna call finchshriek for now) is like "guys i'm the deputy so duh i'm the leader"

back in autoclan barn cats dot and alex join with their apprentice-aged kits robby and mo!!! most of the humans r probably kittypets (suggested by echo) but the maltos are barn cats and they r small enough to lay on fluffy ears

everyone loves fluffy ears

eventually dot and alex have two more kits, twitchkit and thrashkit! because yeah if we can have kits with the prefix "flip" then they can keep their names

stoneheart's been a warrior in autoclan for a while now and optimus is like "hey. hey watch this" and makes him twitchpaw's mentor when the time comes

okay pretty much everyone was talking about this (except me cuz i was drawing) but miko is a hardcore kittypet with a spiked collar and her owners put pink streaks in her fur. she follows bulkhead around a lot and talks his ear off. and we came to the conclusion that bulkhead is also a valid warrior name!!!!

also elita is the deputy of autoclan. i might name her something like rosethorn

twitchpaw and thrashpaw's warrior names r twitchflight and thrashkick

nightshade, jawbreaker, and hashtag also exist. nightshade already has a warrior name so that one was easy. jawbreaker might be called something like boulderjaw (or who knows might just say fuck it and keep jawbreaker) and for hashtag, we settled on the prefix "flash"

jawbreaker's mentor is gonna be grimlock. hashtag's will be rosethorn

i just thought of this while typing but i think the dinobots could all just be a random litter of kits wheeljack found abandoned in the wounds and he'd adopt them

speaking of wheeljack!!! he is missing an ear and has a bobtail because velvet said so and is absolutely correct. that's kinda it for him for now

bumblebee is called beestrike!!! as an apprentice he was friends with breakdown (who i might call blueleap or blueskip cuz he's got a fearless attitude or whatever) and they'd meet up at gatherings and sometimes in secret by sneaking out of their camps. ben was like "bee could be like how graystripe was whenever he saw silverstream and make little cat biscuits" and yeah that's pretty much him. once the war breaks out their friendship becomes strained and even when there's peace, it's gonna be a little awkward at first

i dont know if i'd bring knockout into the au but he was easy to think of. he's decepticlan's medcat and is named scarletshine

this was probably unintelligible but i had to make the post somewhere

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — I first met Alice Shalvi, the mother of religious feminism in Israel, in the mid-1990s during a meeting of ICAR, the International Coalition of Agunah Rights, a coalition that she founded to advocate for women denied a religious divorce by their husbands. She was in her early 70s at the time, and had been fighting for agunah rights for 20 years.

I was in my mid-20s, and new to the cause. I was there as co-chair of Mavoi Satum, which a group of us founded in 1995. This coalition was meant to be advancing systemic solutions to this awful problem. But, of course, we were stuck. As stuck then as we are now.

At one point in the meeting, Professor Shalvi started to cry. “I am 72 years old. I have been talking about this for so long,” she said, “and nothing is changing.” She was crying because the suffering of women didn’t seem to matter to our people. Then she turned to me and said, “It’s up to you and your generation to fix this.”

At the time, I felt her passing the mantle, and I didn’t want to let her down. But I’m sure I did. At least on this front. On others, too, despite our best efforts.

Shalvi, who died Monday morning in Israel at age 96, fought crucial fights decades before the rest of the world caught up with her, before the religious community had any kind of language for what she was doing, before there was any kind of feminist movement to speak of in Israel. 

She pioneered feminist ideas in Israel in the early 1970s when there were only a handful of women doing such work — Marcia Freedman, Naomi Chazan and a few others. And she was the only one coming from the religious world, and able to see the need and potential for change before everyone else. 

Starting in 1975, Shalvi began running the Pelech School for Haredi Girls, a religious feminist school, before Orthodox feminism existed as a movement — before Women of the Wall, before women’s tefillah (prayer) groups, years before Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and Kolech, Israel’s Religious Women’s Forum, existed, before anyone even dared to put the words “feminist” and “religious” together in a sentence. Before even the Conservative movement had women rabbis. Everyone else is still catching up.  

She also worked in the non-religious arena, creating, in 1984, the first feminist lobby in Israel, the Israel Women’s Network, which still pioneers on many fronts.

She also dared to work on issues of peace, taking positions that were considered pas nisht, or “unsuitable,” in the religious world — and for the most part still are. She dared to see Palestinians, especially Palestinian women, as equal human beings. This was not a position that religious Israelis, or Israelis in general, were comfortable with. It’s still an uphill battle.  She spoke and acted from a place of humanity first. 

And she could remarkably work on a multitude of  fronts, all at once, including education, academia, advocacy, politics and peace.

Alice Hildegard Shalvi was born in Essen, Germany, on Oct. 16, 1926. She, her mother and brother joined their father in London in 1934, and she later earned degrees in literature and social work. She immigrated to Israel in 1949, taught at Hebrew University and led efforts to create an English department at Ben-Gurion University. Denied the deanship because she was a woman, she mobilized female faculty members in protest.

Professor Shalvi was my formal mentor when I was on the Jerusalem Fellows, a program in Jewish education. We would meet regularly and talk about feminism, politics, religion and Israel. It was a privilege to spend those hours in one-on-one conversations. Prof. Shalvi always talked to me with complete honesty, passion and belief in what she was working for. She entrusted me with her vision, and made me feel like she believed that I would hold it for her and continue to birth it in the world.

By the time changes started to take place in Orthodoxy for women — evidenced by Shira Hadasha, a Jerusalem congregation dedicated to halachah (Jewish law) and feminism, and Orthodox women in clergy roles — she had already moved on to the Conservative movement, serving as rector of what is now the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, a graduate school and seminary associated with the movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary. She needed to go where her vision was valued and welcomed and celebrated, instead of where everything was a fight. She was highly criticized for that decision and was treated by some as a sort of traitor to the Orthodox feminist cause. But she deserved to be in a place that supported her and brought her comfort and respect, and she had earned that right.

She offered words of support for me when I took a similar leap and enrolled in Reform rabbinical school. Even though I am no longer in rabbinical school and do not associate with the Reform movement in any meaningful way, I do not regret the decision to step away from an Orthodox version of feminism and try on other hats. She inspired me and so many others to take leaps, be courageous, live from the heart and ignore the haters.

I am so glad that she found her well-deserved place in the world, and that she received many well-deserved honors and accolades along the way, including, in 1991, the Ministry of Education’s Education Prize in 1991 for teaching Talmud to girls and insisting that Pelech alumnae serve in either the IDF or the National Service. In 2007, she won the Israel Prize for her life’s work, and in 2019 a National Jewish Book Award for her memoir, “Never a Native.”

She left an incredible legacy of activism that has birthed generations of change agents in Israel.

I have often thought over the years that I wanted to be Alice Shalvi when I grew up. I loved her unstoppable courage, her ability to wear many hats, her resilience in standing up to the haters and naysayers, and her constant belief that she could make a difference. I’ve tried to follow that kind of path, though I have not had nearly the kind of strength and fortitude — and successes — that she had. But her personality and vision continue to have a permanent resting place in my heart. And I will continue to endeavor to carry her torch in this world.

[askmadison]

𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗰𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵𝘆.

𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗴: yuck, charlie xcx .

" shh, if you’re going to say things like that to me you need to use your psychic inside voice. "

wait, is that MADISON MCCARTHY? they kinda look a lot like SOFIA CARSON, don’t they? i heard the TWENTY year old is known as the CHEERLEADER TWIN around mckinley. it seems like they auditioned to be in NEW DIRECTIONS which is so lame? people at campus have said they’re +NURTURING, but don’t be fooled since they’re also -CONTROLLING. rumor has it, you can find them at CHEERIOS, DANCE/BALLET, DRAMA, INTERNATIONAL CLUB when they aren’t belting show tunes. their entire vibe revolves around CHEERLEADING POLYESTER UNIFORM, FIELD OF SUNFLOWERS, CARPOOL KARAOKES STUCK IN TRAFFIC but no one pays attention to that here in ohio.

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ 𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗡

full name: madison mia mccarthy . pronouns: she/her . nicknames: mad/mads, maddy . hometown: lima, ohio . birthday & age: may 3rd / twenty years old. relationship status: single . sexuality: bisexual . occupation: student at mckinley arts college . sports/clubs: drama, dance/ballet, international club . glee club: new directions . major: drama .

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ 𝗕𝗜𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗬 & 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡𝗦

madison lives and breathes cheerleading. her parents signed her up ever since she’s practically watched “bring it on” for the first time at age 12 (although she got in trouble right after considering it wasn’t that suitable for kids). she absolutely loves any sort of competition, especially when she knows she’s a shoe-in for the win.

madison is the oldest twin by 12 minutes, making her being the main one “in charge” when it comes to her brother. she loves mason so much that she can’t imagine a life without him. she’s known for being bossy at times, especially when things don’t go her way.

when she found glee club was starting back up, she immediately signed up to be part of the new directions. she originally wanted to sign up for the troubletones (because girl power, obvi), but due to the fact where she physically doesn’t want to be separated from her brother, she stuck with the new directions instead.

madison can seem quite intimidating sometimes, but don’t be deceived by that. she’s kind-hearted and will do anything to make you smile.

when it comes to any sort of relationship, madison is completely terrified of commitment. maybe it has to do with the fact she doesn’t want to abandon her other half; but in reality, she doesn’t think anyone could love her. but, she’s definitely a hopeless romantic.

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

psssttt... come fill these connections for me!

platonic —

best friend / ride or die

mentor / tutor ( could be with music, cheerleading, dance, etc. )

wing woman

former exes to friends

cheerleading besties

family friend

romance —

blind date

summer romance / fling

unrequited love

exes

fake significant other

negative —

frenemies

negative influence

ex best friends

competitors

other —

college project partners

neighbors

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ 𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

hookup/secret best friends: madison meeting jacob was a unexpected turn of events, especially hooking up one night. although it was nothing more, madison thinks it's fun spending time with him outside of campus. — taken by jacob ben israel.

crush/yoga buddy: on her freetime madison loves winding down and relaxing her nerves by doing yoga with sam. in fact, she loves spending time with him to the point she feels something more. — taken by sam evans.

mentor/mom friend: simply, wwqfd? someone madison looks up to and can ask for advice whenever she needs it. — taken by quinn fabray.

kissed/made out: trying to figure herself out, madison ends up having a sleepover with her kitty, only to get caught by kitty's parents after kissing. — taken by kitty wilde.

[mk-wizard]

Miles Morales: In the defense of the next Spider-Man

Hi, friends. Today, I want to finally do what I have meaning to do for a while which is make a solid case as to why Miles Morales is not a token replacement for Peter Parker as well as how he truly is Spider-Man too.

Firstly, the biggest accusation Miles gets is that he is just a token alternate universe version of Peter Parker which is and has been nonsense since he was introduced. In every timeline and reality where Miles resides, there is also a Peter Parker existing alongside with him. I think that alone is proof that Miles is not even an alternate universe version of Peter because there already is one who he always winds up meeting, so the writers make it extremely clear from the get-go that while there is an AU of Peter where Miles lives, Miles himself is his own person.

Secondly, Miles is different from Peter and not just visually. Sure, they’re both nerds, they both excel at science and they’re both every-men, but even all that is not cookie cutter. Just to give you an idea, while I relate to both Spider-Men, I relate significantly relate more to Miles than I do Peter because like Miles, I grew up in an immigrant household and our family culture played a huge role in our upbringing, lifestyle and values. Miles represents the other type of everyman; the one who comes from a different world yet doesn’t choose between that and the American one. Also, Miles’ lifestyle is different in terms of standard of living. Peter was just above the poverty line, while Miles tends to be just below being well-off though his family lives frugally and humbly which again is very common in families with at least one immigrant parent. Also, he’s an artist, he adores music and is kind of a fashionista as he is always well dressed even when he is going casual. Even his field of study in science is night to Peter’s day since Mr. Parker tends to delve into medical science and genetics. Miles is more into robotics, electronics (a foreshadowing of his electrical powers) and renewable energy. Most notably, Miles’ parents are alive, and they are nothing like Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Ben and May were quiet and just other faces in the crowd, while Jefferson Davis (dad) and Rio Morales (mom) are people of action and outspoken. Jefferson is a cop and in the video games, Rio runs for mayor of her community. So even on the inside in his household, Miles is clearly not a copycat because while he is similar to his predecessor (and in some realities, mentor), he is very different just like how each of the Flashes of DC (Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West) are similar yet different from each.

Thirdly and most importantly, Miles’ struggles, impactful relationships and challenges are different. In most versions of his life, despite his dad being a good well-meaning father, he and Miles do not see eye to eye due to both being stubborn, hardheaded and having conflicting views (this is also another reason I identify with Miles as I went through this a lot growing up with one of my parents). Then he faced the hard reality that his beloved Uncle Aaron who he looked up to and really understood him in ways even his dad didn’t was a criminal known as the Prowler. I don’t think Peter ever had a relative who turned out to be a criminal. Sure, the father of his best friend Harry turned out to be the Green Goblin, but it is not the same and you cannot compare that how much Miles loved his uncle Aaron and how terribly the truth broke his heart. Eventually, Prowler dies and though Miles tried to save him, he could not because his uncle willingly sacrificed himself to save him. I should also mention that this loss impacted Miles in the opposite way Peter losing Uncle Ben did. Miles initially wanted to quit being Spider-Man anymore because he thought he failed and needed convincing to keep donning the mask. And even after he did, Miles constantly struggled with his confidence and whether he had the right to bear the mantle. With that said, Miles’ struggle wasn’t “with great power comes great responsibility”. It was “get back up when you fall” which was also the message in his movie debut Into the Spider-Verse. With the support of his mentor and after finally finding common ground with his father, he found the confidence to keep going.

So there you have it. He is not a racebend, he is not a token AU, he is not a copycat, and he is not a knock off. He is Peter Parker’s successor, and I will let him say it as he said it best...

Now, I will give my theory on why people are really so resistant towards him. Also, I mean it as a friend who has made that mistake too, so I’m not being hard on anyone. I think what people really mean when they say Miles isn’t really Spider-Man is that he’s not Peter Parker and they don’t want Peter Parker replaced, but even that is nonsense. Miles will be the next Spider-Man one day, but Peter Parker will always be Spider-Man too and he will always have a place in the lore. After all, going back to the each of the different Flashes in DC, even though only of the three men can wear the mantle, each of them is still the Flash and each of them still appear, get referenced, get honoured and are adored. Accepting Miles doesn’t mean we’re crumpling up Peter and throwing him away in the bin. It means Peter had an influence, so powerful and so positive that when the day comes where he can’t be there to protect New York anymore, someone else will be and that is a good thing. In fact, I think it’s a great thing.

Now... if you still like Peter Parker better, that is a different story and that is ok. I just hope I convinced people to not to be so hard on Miles and to see him being different as something to celebrate rather than frown at.

Thank you for reading and as always, stay safe.

-Mary

[oakantony]

why didn't it work for you?

cracks knuckles. (this post contains spoilers)

my biggest issue is with characterization: they really got spider-man entirely wrong.

the movie presents a literal trolley problem--either uncle ben/captain morales/aunt may/gwen staci dies, or else the multiverse explodes and kills thousands.

the thing that makes spider-man spider-man is that he looks at the trolley problem and goes, "i'm going to fucking stop that trolley before it kills anyone on the tracks--or die trying." that is it, period. that's how he operates. he's good in a very simplistic, self-destructive, and often unsuccessful way. because the thing with the trolley problem is that you CAN'T stop it and someone WILL die. but fuck if spidey is not gonna try. HE ALWAYS TRIES.

this movie proposes that not only is there one spider-man who isn't this way--a spider-man who thinks "well, sacrificing one life is okay if it means many people will be safe"--but that there are hundreds. THOUSANDS. of spider-mans who think this way.

this is SO at odds with his characterization in the first movie, in all the other spider-man franchises, that i legitimately sat with my jaw agape in the theater when miguel explained the situation at the 3/4 mark.

it doesn't make sense. like i said, maybe one. maybe two. hell, maybe, in a world of infinite universes, there are a few hundred spider-mans who think, "sacrificing one person is cool."

not this many. absolutely not.

it's not surprising that hobie was my favorite character in the movie. i went into this expecting to hate him (based on the spoilers i'd encountered online, i really thought i'd roll my eyes at his "stick it tha MAN" schtick and his sorta "love triangle" situation). but no, i loved him. and why? because he was the only fucking spider-man in the movie who ACTED LIKE SPIDER-MAN.

okay, and some of the other complaints i have:

the pacing was actually kind of poor.

i get why we started with spider-gwen--but jumping from her to miles was the first of many "jarring" beats in the plot. we spent so much time on some things and not enough on others--

the chase/swinging around town/look at him goooo sequences were too many. and they were too long. we had...what, four? five? six??? I think we had six chase sequences in this movie.

but for peter b parker--we get a literal ten second reintroduction to his character ("haha look at me in a bathrobe with a BABY, aren't I a GOOFY GUY with ZERO DEPTH because we don't have time for that this movie?!?"). insert marge grumbling noise

and, yeah, it's only half a movie. the other half comes out next year. i really dislike that, generally, and i don't think it works here. the movie just...ENDED. it was so unfinished, lol.

peter b parker is another complaint. he gets his own section right here.

they went to great lengths in the first movie to demonstrate that he was--maybe IS--the most powerful spider-man to exist, despite his depression, his not-traditional-spidey physique. he's still incredibly capable and great at his job.

this movie dumbed him down to a single, lazy trope. this is definitely partially a pacing issue, as mentioned above, but i also think it's a characterization issue--they couldn't make him more capable, because if they did that, there'd be NO excuse for why he was following miguel. a smart, capable, well-characterized peter b parker never would have been in that position.

also, they mention he's miles' mentor three times, but he doesn't actually do any mentoring in the film. at least not successfully. (again, i suspect this is because they had to sandbag his character to make the miguel plot make any sense.)

okay, let's talk about what i did like, for a sec, just so everyone knows i'm not a hater-ass bitch.

obviously it is the most visually stunning movie i've watched in YEARS. absolutely blown away by the art.

miles morales is an angel. well-written, well-established, and i love his lanky growin' boy design. ANGEL

spot is an amazing antagonist. wow

i DID enjoy seeing all the different iterations of spider-man, though i do think it got boiled down to a punchline rather than a fulfilling experience... (ahem, this is supposed to be things i enjoyed......AHEM)

spider-gwen is a trans icon and we stan

okay that's all. thank u for asking ily. bye!

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Death to All Might, Rebirth to Yagi Toshinori

So about All Might. I’ve been extremely wary of talking about what could happen to him because straight up saying “I don’t think he’s gonna die” is asking the universe to spite me. Plus it also feels like a room full of people turning to stare at me as if I said the Sun isn’t a star. Man has death flags everywhere, I know. 

But, okay, *Bill Nye voice* consider the following:

Mr. Yagi here, if he overheard everything, just received the final nail in the coffin on his career. His time as the symbol of peace is not only over, it was in fact partially responsible for the current state of things, since he once did so much on his own that his absence now makes heroes and civilians alike ill-prepared to cope. I think it was very apt for that one guy to be wearing an All Might shirt--he was acting as a mouthpiece for the latent societal problems embedded in All Might’s legacy. 

We know already that he’s been feeling useless. I love this scene and although I’m not gonna talk about it right this second, remember what Aizawa says about just “being here” being enough:

And we know from conversations with Inko that Toshinori is also reframed his purpose around looking after Izuku. But in the end, Izuku rejected his help, and it was his classmates instead who were able to save him. Now the very progress of humanity is rejecting him too. You may me wondering how on Earth I don’t see the logical conclusion of all this being his death. Hold on. It actually has a lot to do with the fact that we’re all expecting it. Nighteye himself saw it, and despite any contrary convictions anyone might have, the plot doesn’t seem to be veering away from that end. All Might Is Gonna Die, says absolutely everything. 

It’s occurring to me that I have previous experience with this kind of plotline that probably little to no one else in this fandom shares, being that I’ve read a certain book series in which the main character is told in no uncertain terms that he will die (no, I’m not talking about hp). The series in question is T*e Und*rland Chronicl*s (censoring so it doesn’t get put in their side of tumblr) and I’m sorry but I’m about to go on a shameless tangent about it and spoil the ending for you.

So in this series there is a prophecy in every book, each one having something to do with war and conflict, and so far all of them have been right. In the last book [mc] finds out that it’s prophesied that he will be killed. Lots of the things in the prophecies are convoluted and metaphorical, but no, this one literally says “when the [mc’s title] has been killed.” He spends the whole book coming to terms with this, and he gives into it, only to find himself waking up in the hospital instead. “Wow, plot twist. /s” you may be thinking, and yeah sure, the mc in a kids book survived, big shocker. But it doesn't end there. After the war, there are peace talks, but they escalate until the two sides are on the verge of declaring war again. And [mc], bless him, has just been caught in the middle of all of this the entire time. He’s sick as shit of fighting, of watching the suffering and death of people he cares about. He draws his sword against both of them angrily, gives a speech saying he won’t take a side, and then promptly breaks his sword across his knee: “There. [mc’s title in the prophecies] is dead. I killed him.” He’s giving a huge middle finger to everyone there, to the man who wrote the prophecies, to the entire fucked up culture of it all. And so something that was taken literally turns out to be metaphorical. That is, if you still believe in the prophecies at all.

Hopefully you’re catching my drift here. What I’m saying is, even though this other series has nothing to do with bnha, it goes to show sometimes it’s the most absolute certainties that are red herrings, and a “death” can consequently be a symbolic one. In All Might’s case, it could be the death of hero society and a rejection of his own past. In other words, character development for Toshinori himself that reflects on the way the world is changing, too. Also there’s the fact that the mc from that other series I’m trying not to name has an honorary title, and I’m imagining that role he occupied “dying” could correspond to something that amounts to, “All Might is dead. I (Yagi Toshinori) killed him.” 

And here’s another thing: we also have to ask ourselves what good a dead Toshinori is to Izuku, narratively speaking. Yes, Izuku has spent his whole life idolizing even the more toxic parts of All Might, and his idealized vision of his hero does need to “die.” But how about Toshinori as a father figure?  Izuku regretting that his last interaction with Toshinori was to reject his help may drive home the fact that he shouldn’t go off on his own, but at this point it’s kinda redundant. If anything it would negate some of the progress that was just made because it’d make him extra paranoid about losing other people too. To be honest, the whole “Uncle Ben” trope, the mentor/father figure who dies and gives the mc a reason to do better, is so tired. Experiencing the death of a loved one really doesn’t deserve to be romanticized like that. I might as well admit that I’m speaking from experience, and let me tell you, losing someone you love suddenly, when you weren’t around, and with unfinished business--it makes you paranoid as hell that it will happen again. It literally gives me nightmares. Y’all, I cannot stress enough that trauma does not equal character development. Granted, just because I know this doesn’t mean Horikoshi does, but in general he does seem to lead his characters toward healing.

Okay, back to the present. Toshinori is turning away from UA. He likely feels useless and rejected. We can infer that what happens next will involve Stain, and we have a couple of extra clues to go with it: Stain considers All Might a true hero, and has stated that he would let All Might kill him. And since Horikoshi loves his parallels, we also have this fight between Endeavor and this random villain who admires him so much that he wants to die by Endeavor’s hand:

This suggests a confrontation in which Stain challenges All Might to live up to himself as he once was, so that as a hero he can vanquish Stain and symbolically overcome society's perversion of that role. But based on what All Might has learned about the system he upheld, Stain is wrong. All Might is not a “true hero” in the sense that the societal issues Stain witnessed exist not in spite of All Might, but (in part) because of him, because he took too much of the responsibility for himself.

Stain probably had no idea about the personal cost of All Might’s lonely burden until after the fact. Maybe he’s seeing it now. So then perhaps the confrontation would be more about Stain claiming he’s just as fake as the rest. Either way, Toshinori has the opportunity to denounce himself and be rid of “All Might,”  to stop living in his own shadow. Nighteye’s vision has been defied before, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the combination of society shifting + Toshinori’s own conviction is enough to do it again and work fate in his favor.

He is not All Might. He is Yagi Toshinori: quirkless, worn down, and directionless except for his dedication to Izuku. If he survives his interaction with Stain, he can resolve his imperfect mentorship by confessing about his shortcomings and simply supporting Izuku as a part of his family, not as his teacher (as Aizawa said, just “being there”). And that’s how you really get character development, for both of them. I mean, shit, imagine Toshinori straight up telling Izuku to stop calling him All Might.

[non-plutonian-druid]

hi taking my opportunity to ask you about your snicket five au

I don't know anything about that universe bc I never got around to reading it but I am very interested

Hello!!! i am glad i mentioned it in that one ask i got bc i got a few people asking me about it!! and i am so happy for the interest, thanks yall so much

TBH i debated how much i wanted to give away since not everything is decided and i kind of wanted to reveal it alongside art i make for it? but that's been slow going, so i shall reveal some of my cards now

first. the posts that exist: five invades elliott's shop and ben gets experimented on (cw for medical horror). Those posts, this post, and any future posts will be under my snicket five au tag

Most of the time I've been assuming people are at least aware of A Series of Unfortunate Events' whole deal, but given that you said you don't have any, I'll explain the relevant bit quickly: Lemony Snicket is the pseudonym of the author, but is also a character within the narrative, researching and telling us the story of the Baudelaire children after their parents are killed by the "villainous" section of a secret society called VFD. He's a very unreliable narrator, and is a part of the "good" side of VFD, kind of. My au is of the prequel series, All the Wrong Questions, which stars Lemony Snicket as a snarky asshole child instead of a snarky asshole adult

A collection of other relevant bits:

VFD, at this point in Lemony's childhood, is divided and the cracks are showing, but has not yet actually Schismed. That happens later.

Daniel Handler (the author) is Jewish, and I know just enough about that to know that it has a huge influence on the themes and texture of both atwq and asoue (things like "the eldritch monster is a metaphor for death, but specifically a very jewish concept of death"), but nowhere near enough to then take those themes and play with them in an interesting and informed way. I wanted to mention it because, lacking the ability to do that part of the series justice, i wanted to at least inform you all about it bc I think the au would be more interesting if i could

VFD is a cult. yes, all of it. yes, even the side that puts out fires.

I actually need to go through and do a ton of work revamping the premise and making events shake out differently, because at the moment it follows ATWQ really closely and I'm not fond of that. Things need to be different! But for the moment, the following is what I have.

Five is an actual 13 year old who has just completed his training with the Commission (a mysterious organization with mysterious purposes but which, in this case, probably doesn't involve teaching a child to murder) and is now an apprentice! He has to pick a chaperone, a word which here means "someone like a mentor except without the obligation to actually teach him anything or really to take care of him in any meaningful way". He picks the Handler, hoping she will leave him to his own devices enough that he can carry out a heist he has planned with his associate and not at all his friend, Delores (who gets to be a real person! good for her).

Unfortunately, the Handler immediately drags him out to a dying town that has the interim name DS, to leave him to his own devices enough that he could carry out a heist in that location instead. Too bad that's not where the heist is planned.

(Delores proceeds to try to do the heist on her own anyway, and spends the rest of the series arrested)

DS are the initials that i will be using to refer to the small town of the au. It is replacing a town in the series by the name of Stain'd By the Sea (you'll notice that is a parody of a naming convention in New England, because This Noir Flick Has Lovecraft In It, Baby). I haven't decided what D.S stands for because TUA has unhelpfully not given me anything to work with, but the town is a dying company town that used to manufacture umbrellas. In it, there is a now-defunct school that used to teach the children of the workers/citizens. Like some kind of.... umbrella academy.

(The school is plot relevant in ATWQ too! I'm not just having fun.)

Nowadays, DS is dying and most of the inhabitants have left to set up lives in The City, leaving their children behind to close up shop until things are more stable, which results in Just So Many undersupervised children. Meanwhile, a mysterious villain called the Monocle is doing mysterious villain things.

'Mysterious villain things', at the moment, means committing a series of seemingly unconnected crimes across DS and also reopening the school, saying that tuition is free for citizens of DS! The kids that go there don't come out.

That is our setup; now what are our beloved characters up to?

Luther in this au is an adult (barely). He was a boxer in the city but had to retire after an injury and left to DS where it was quiet. Since then he’s made friends with Allison Hargreeves, an up-and-coming actress who has returned to DS because she feels obligated to help her parents get ready to leave.. Luther lives in a refurbished observatory on the outskirts of town, and  spends many of his mornings at the local diner, Griddy’s, where he frequently sees and occasionally chats with Five. He gets first embroiled in the plot when Five asks him to come along to look intimidating while he solves a mystery. He gets worried about this little guy!

Diego and Patch are approximately 15. Patch’s dad used to be a police officer before he retired, and she and Diego are very unimpressed with the current state of the police department, which is made of two mean and unhelpful people named Hazel and Cha Cha. So they’ve taken matters into their own hands! They’ve set up a detective agency-slash-vigilante-justice and are Determined to solve crime in DS. Diego is VERY suspicious of Five. He definitely knows more than he’s letting on! Why won’t he tell us! Diego does NOT want to be his friend shut up Patch!!

Allison’s parents want to shut down the company they run, but to Allison that’s quitting! She wants to revive it. This, combined with the fact that her plan actually has a chance of succeeding, means that she is a threat to the Monocle’s plan. He needs the town to be dead and full of children that nobody cares about! The Monocle is trying to get rid of her, but with the help of Five and Luther in particular, she’s been thwarting him thus far.

Klaus and Ben are a pair of unsupervised children, but unlike most children in DS they’ve been unsupervised for a very long time. Klaus takes an assortment of odd jobs at different times, and Ben likes to read in the library (and has a giant and obvious crush on the librarian). Normally they're inseparable, but the school recently opened! and its free! Ben has always wanted to go to school. He promises he'll write Klaus every single day.

Klaus hasn't heard from Ben in months. At first he was angry, but now he's getting worried

Viktor's parents run an instrument store. Well. Used to. Now they have left to set up their life in the city, leaving behind what they think is their dutiful daughter to close the store. Viktor's real passion is writing, and he's never seen without his typewriter. I'm not decided on how many people Viktor is out to. Everybody? Only Five because this is a new person to introduce himself to with his chosen name? To Be Determined.

Lila is searching for her father. She will do anything to find him. The Monocle kidnapped him, she’s certain of it. He was a professor of quantum mechanics at a university outside the city and he’s been gone for almost a year. She’s tracked him to DS, and she’s certain he has to be here somewhere. Has Five seen or heard anything about him? His name is Reginald Hargreeves and she misses him so much.

Elliott is a nervous 20-something who runs a nearly-closed television store in town. The character he’s a replacement for is actually a librarian, but I like the aesthetic of the television store, so someone else is the librarian. He has conspiracy-theoried his way into figuring out that the Commission exists, but is wrong in some key way. Five breaks into his house and forcibly adopts him and now the store is Five’s hideout, and Elliott is kind of his adult supervision and kind of thinks Five is an alien. Elliott makes good coffee, is very mousy but likes Five a lot,

Since the librarian man is now a television salesman, we need a new librarian. I nominate Jill! Shes a college student working at the library as part of her internship, except she doesnt have any supervisors on location so shes just… running the place. Five is trying to recruit her for the Commission.

Griddy’s was once run by a woman named Agnes, who has since retired. Now it’s being run by a woman named Grace, who is her… sister? Daughter? Sister in law or niece? Five can't figure it out; everyone seems to have a different idea of who she is. She’s very pretty, and at first seems perfectly normal, but at some point, something about her seems… off. Is she okay? If Five didn’t know any better, he’d say it's like she’s malfunctioning.

While Five is running around solving mysteries and meeting all these people, the Monocle is enacting his evil plan. He’s trying to grow a tentacled eldritch monster called the Horror, and he’s been using kids as dirt to grow little tentacle monster sprouts in. He’s based his operations in DS because it’s a dying little town that no one cares about, full of kids left on their own while their parents move out. He reopens the old school, and promises to educate any of the kids in the town for free (and also inject them with baby horror growing particles). Despite his many experiments, all of his attempts to grow the horror so far have eventually failed and the Horror died before it was big enough to use for world domination or whatever (or even before it was big enough to kill one measly human). But Ben…. Ben has been promising...

[havocmadden]

this is another of my ‘i wanted uma and melody to interact’ fics, much like ‘it took me all of my fire to make it out alive and you left me dead in the water.’ but this one involves fewer curses. i think i also wanted this to be like, kind of a series of various movies' aks and vks meeting each other similar to ‘it runs in the family (we're bad in the blood).’ but i never got past this one so. and also this fic was like. i want to talk about daddy's little angel, which my favorite song in the little mermaid musical and my favorite origin story for ursula ever. also all of ariel and eric's girls have musical names — elle is short for acapella — bc i think that's fun. tw for mentioned child abuse and murder (mostly magic murder, but like, they still died, so).

uma meets melody in a coffee shop. harry and gil had wanted to come with her, but she’d told them no. this was something she had to do on her own. besides, ben and gil are already thick as thieves because ben couldn't hold a grudge if his life depended on it and gil is the human version of a golden retriever. and harry and jane had already bonded over what an asshole harry’s father was, so. they don’t have anything to worry about. not like she does.

melody is tall and willowy, with an undercut with long hair. she has dark hair that uma is sure she inherited from her father. she takes a seat across from uma, a mug of something that smells like cloves in her cup. she smiles apologetically, and uma twists one of her braids around her finger nervously. as part of the agreement with king ben, all villain kids were to be mentored by their hero’s kids as they acclimated to auradon, to ‘forge an atmosphere of peace’. melody, the eldest of ariel and eric’s daughters, had offered to take uma under her wing. uma knows they have a few daughters — she’s seen aria and elle around auradon prep's campus and they share some classes — but it was easier, she thought, to be mentored by melody. at least if this went completely sideways and entirely exploded in their faces, uma didn’t have to look at melody’s face every day in their history of auradon class. ‘ just her sisters, ’ a small voice in her head reminds her, and she shoves it down. 

“i’m melody,” melody says, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “but you knew that already, didn’t you?” uma nods, suddenly stuck silent.

“uma celaeno,” she manages finally. “daughter of ursula. it's, um — ” she struggles to find the right words, the ones that are right in auradon and won't upset anyone. not that uma minds upsetting people, per se, but it has more to do with staying in auradon. even the worst place in auradon is a damn sight better than the isle, and uma wasn't about to step wrong and fuck this up for harry, for gil — hell, for her entire crew. “it's nice to meet you.”

melody smiles, patiently. “do you want something?” she asks, gesturing to the tea she has cradled in her hand, and uma shakes her head. sure, they assured her it was perfectly safe, but the isle was still embedded in uma's bones, in her heart and in her mind, and on the isle, you didn't eat food that wasn't fresh from the barges — well, as ‘fresh’ as auradon's trash could be — or that someone you trusted with your life had brought you. apparently that wasn't how things worked in auradon, but uma wasn't about to take any damn chances. not with melody here. they were.... cousins, sure, but her mother had tried to kill melody's, and uma wasn't about to eat anything in melody's vicinity in case melody had some kind of deluded revenge plot. sure, king ben said ‘this was auradon’ and ‘they didn't do things like that here, uma’ but uma wasn't about to take him at his word — she'd've had some questionable revenge plot if melody had showed up on the isle one day. 

“no, i'm good,” uma says. she twirls one of her braids around her finger absentmindedly. 

melody smiles slightly, though her expression looks vaguely peeved. “suit yourself,” she says, taking another sip of her own drink. “what was life on the isle like? are you adjusting okay?”

“um, it was — ” horrifying. violent. isolating. hungry. “it was. well. it wasn’t great, but...” uma trails off, shrugging. “but i got out.” melody quirks an eyebrow at uma, silently urging her to go on. uma feels self-conscious, suddenly, as though she’s on some kind of trial. “mom didn’t like it much... she’d known what life was like, not on the isle, and i think that made it worse. the isle was all i’d ever known, so... wasn’t much to compare it to, really.”

“your mother got what she deserved.” the words hiss out of melody's mouth like a prayer or a curse. 

“she didn't even do anything wrong!” uma spits in response. she hates her mother, absolutely she does, but she'd been fucked over by triton and melody and uma both knew it. “she was ousted from her throne and then made a deal which your mother tried to break.”

“your mother killed her sisters,” melody spits quickly, and uma pales. melody keeps going, a fire in her eyes. “didn’t she tell you? she told that to triton. spat it in his face when he tried to tell her the people weren’t happy with her rule. she says he took her kingdom from her, but it wasn’t hers. it never should’ve been.” uma watches as melody swallows, hard, before continuing. “their eldest sister cordelia... she spelled her to turn into sea salt, limb by limb, and your mother watched as she drifted apart, feeling her body turn into millions of grains of salt. she could feel every grain of salt that once was her body as it swirled in the ocean. she caught nerissa in a whirlpool and laughed as she spun helplessly around until her head smashed open on a rock. she trapped viola and valeria in a tidepool on shore and let them starve to death. and she wouldn’t tell him what she’d done with nymeria or miranda, but they’ve never been found, so it's a pretty safe bet to assume she murdered them like she did the rest of them. and sure, she didn't kill morgana, but morgana was younger than triton, so there was no point in killing her. she wasn't in your mother's way. and do you know what morgana grew up to do? she tried to kill me.”

“i didn’t know,” uma murmurs without fully meaning to. she hadn’t. her mother had never told her that. only said that her bastard brother had stolen her crown and painted her as a villain in everyone's mind. not that she'd done something to deserve it. not that she'd murdered her own sisters. uma was the only one of ursula's children, something her mother had resented. the isle's magic had prevented her from conceiving, since the barrier around the island kept ursula from entering the water and thus conceiving. when uma had asked how she'd been born, her mother had told her that she'd been concvied when the isle was only a concept, in an attempt to keep king beast from imprisoning her there. maleficent, she'd hissed, had done the same. but it hadn't worked for either of them, and so uma, born to a family with a legacy of many children — ursula had been one of nine; melody's mother had been one of seven and, frankly, uma was sure she'd've had more siblings if melody's grandmother hadn't been rammed on the bow of a ship like the wooden mermaids they crucified there — was an only child. it was something her mother held over her head constantly. she'd never wanted children, no, but she couldn't stand to lose to her brother in anything, and one child was far less impressive than seven. 

“she never told me that part. she just said that her brother stole her crown and painted her as a villain after her niece backed out of the deal.” uma can almost hear her now — ‘does keeping my end of the bargain make me a villain? does it make me evil?’ she'd croon, before flying into a rage and smashing plates against the wall, screeching that it wasn't fair, what had been done to her. and uma had agreed. it hadn't been fair, not at all. it had been wrong, she'd said. wrong that he'd stolen her throne, that beast — technically his name was king adam, but uma had never heard anyone from the isle call him that. to them, he was a monster, the worst kind of beast — had locked her up on the isle.

but how much of that was survival? how much of that was because her mother was screeching at her and throwing plates?

“well, she did,” melody says, running a hand through the non-shaved half her black hair. there's a long beat of silence before she speaks again.

“did you know our cousin tried to kill his nephew?” she asks, half of a half-bitter laugh coming out of her mouth before she continues. “it makes me feel a bit better — at least it's not just our branch of the family that's all fucked up.” uma blinks. she didn't know. she wouldn't have even known she was related to melody and her family at all if her mother hadn't always been going on about her bastard of a brother. 

“no, i didn't,” uma says. “what happened?”

“you haven't heard?” melody asks, her voice low. “honestly, i'd've thought that hades would've been all over the isle, complaining about his punishment.”

“wait, i'm related to hades?” uma asks, confused. hades had never given uma any indication that they were related. granted, he spent most of his time down in the mineshafts, and the interactions anyone had with him other than his children — the triplets, hady, heath, and holly — were, well, few and far between. frankly, if uma hadn't seen his dogs roaming the streets on the regular, she wouldn't even be sure he was still alive. 

melody sighed. “yeah. your grandad — my great granddad — is poseidon, who is hades's brother. which makes him your great uncle.”

“huh,” uma said, and thanked her lucky stars that she'd never done anything with the hades triplets. not that she hadn't thought about it, but they'd run with different circles, and, well. now even just the memory of the thought makes uma's stomach squirm as though it had been turned into eels.

[hit-me-with-a-ladle]

Ch.11 Creepypasta x Fem! Reader

Four days had passed since their first brawl. Toby had observed her staggering improvement and powerful determination to learn. He hadn't seen that kind of behaviour in a long time. As nightfall came they began to clear up and head back. Both tired from the long day of training, Toby walking in front of her as they went on their way. The walk was peaceful, the night sky illuminating from the dense array of trees as the crickets chirped their lullaby. The sky was littered with beautiful stars and the girl couldn't pry her eyes away from them, looking up in amazement like a child on Christmas day. Toby on the other hand wasn't paying any attention to anything around him, with his hands in his pockets and head down, eyes focused on the patchy road ahead.

The walk to the cabin was beginning to feel longer than usual, the air now becoming tense from all the silence, but the girl still didn't bother to speak up as she knew it was futile. Toby was a man of few words, always keeping to himself, there would be days where they would only say two words to each other. This was a drastic change from what she was usually used to with the others, especially Ben. " So." Her thoughts were cut off as she looked at Toby, who had now slowed down and was walking in since with her. " Um yeah." She sighed out, looking ahead both hands in her large pockets. " Ab-about the necklace." He continued still trying to put his thoughts into words. " What about it." Her eyes widened a little, not expecting him to bring that up as she looked at him pulling it out from underneath her jumpsuit and holding the tiny bottle between her rough fingers. " D-di he tells you wh-why he gave y-you it?" He asked in his usual bored tone. " Yeah, he did. It's for safety and protection. He gave it to me almost two weeks ago and I usually wear it most of the day." She answered honestly softly smiling as she looked at the pretty plant inside of it. It calmed her looking at it. " Interesting." He said to himself not wanting her to hear him but she still managed to.

Her eyebrow raised, why was he so interested in the necklace all of the sudden. " So...do you and Ben get along or...?" She said trying to further the conversation while they walked to the cabin. Toby was hesitant with answering the question, as he took a moment to think of the right response to such a subject. " Yes a-and no. But more n-no. I te-nd to avoid that blab-blabbering idiot but h-he has his moment at ti-times. Very few a-a-and in between but st-still there non the l-less," He answered simply glancing at her direction as he did.

The girl was intrigued by his answer, she assumed he despised him as they were the polar opposite. The assumption wasn't unprompted either, as Toby didn't seem to like most people. " But then ag-again, he tries t-to hard. He acts too m-uch like a child. It's frust-rating." He finally finished his thought, looking back at the road and softly closing his eyes as he walked, admiring the cool night air. He hadn't felt this clam in a while, he enjoyed the feeling. So much so as a small smile crept up his lips. It wasn't noticed by the girl standing next to him but he didn't mind.

In the distance, they could make out the cabin, relief washing over both their bodies like a title wave. " Almost there, finally I can rest." The girl announced dramatically, sighing. It made Toby eye her watching her hunched form drag her feet while walking. Almost close to collapsing. He grunted, at this rate they'd reach it till next morning, clearing his throat he hunched down sweeping her off her feet. She was startled by the sudden action as her eyes widened in surprise, now settled in his arms bridal style. " WHAT! What the hell are you doing? Put me down." She shrieked flailing her arms. But it was to no use as she was too tired to do any harm. Toby grunted as she thrashed, waiting for her to stop and when she did, he smiled softly picking up his pace.

The girl was surprised at how he was able to hold her weight, as he looked quite thin, but as her back pressed against his arms she could feel the defined muscle. Toby didn't say anything, he seemed like the extra weight didn't even affect him. She could hear his heartbeat, it was slow and quiet. The soothing rhythm made her relax even further melting into his arms. They finally reached the cabin, but Toby didn't bother to put her down, no he managed to open the door with her in his hands and she barely noticed. Walking inside, warm air hit his face making him sight. Going to the living room he carefully set her down on the couch and stepped away.

The girl sat upright, her whole body resting as she softly smiled. It had been a while since she could get some rest. Toby had walked to the kitchen slowly lowering his mask and pouring himself some water, looking into the living room while he drank it. He could see the back of the girls head. " Did you also have to train as I do?" The girl's voice broke his peaceful trance. He cleared his throat pondering on his answer as he usually did. " Not r-really." He simply said rinsing the cup and putting it back into the self. " What do you mean by that?" She perfused, wanting to know him better. " Well," He sighed putting his mask back to place and walking towards her, sitting down on the armchair next to the couch. " You have y-y-your duties so you ne-need a different type of trai-ning and mentors. M-my mentor was much wo-worse than we a-a-are."

The girl let out a snort when hearing the last part, looking at him with a curious look. " Really, how so?" " He i-i-is a being co-comprised of pure e-evil so you could imagine it your-yourself." " Pure evil? Is this the Operator man everyone is talking about?" " Bingo." Shed started to get frustrated by how short his answer always was, shed has to ask multiple different questions to know the smallest thing. " What's up with this Operator fella? If he's so powerful why does he need a human guarding his forest?" " Easy. A human is a b-b-basic, morally grey, being. F-for example, you we-were chosen be-because you weren't all t-that good bu-but not all that bad, in the mi-ddle aka The middle-man. So it d-doesn't matter how po-powerful h-he is if there's no real ba-lance in the fo-forest and your j-j-job is to hold that balance." He finished taking a big sigh and slouching on the couch, making it clear that he didn't feel like talking anymore. Soon he would fall asleep.

The girl watched him thoughtfully, eventually getting up. They had finished a little earlier than usual, at this time she would be heading back to eat and then go to bed but something was telling her to look around the cabin, something she wasn't able to do. There were no bookshelves. Its walls were all very sterile and plain. Same for the kitchen. But something in her gut was telling her to go up the stairs, slowly approaching the railing she sighed, with every careful step she would look behind her to make sure Toby was asleep. Reaching the final step she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, the narrow hallway felt longer than before, and she felt strange not immediately heading to the left.

Turning her body to the other side of the dimly lit hallway at the end was a door, she hadn't noticed it before. ' Was that there?' She asked herself approaching it and reaching for the gold knob. The door was painted in a thick layer of black paint, scratches and carving covering its whole surface, one of the larger carvings was crossed out circle. A chill when up to her spine when she noticed it quickly pulled back her hand. Taking in another harsh breath and mustering up the courage she turned the knob, but it didn't budge. She pressed her whole body on the door and began to push but it still wouldn't work, finally, she got frustrated and began to hit and thrash the door handle. But it still didn't move, so she had to reluctantly give up.

There was something important they were trying to hide and she made it a point to find out what it was.

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[farfromharry]

The one without the suit | Peter’s girl

Summary: Peter doesn’t know where to go when Mr Stark takes his suit away from him after the ferry incident so he comes to you. You spend the rest of the night comforting the distraught boy.

Word count - 2746

Warnings - language? i don’t think there’s anything else

A/n - i’m gonna try and do regular updates for this again, but it probably won’t happen😳

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It all kept replaying in Peter’s head, all those people he’d put in danger just because he couldn’t let this go. Even you had told him he needed to stop, so why couldn’t he?

He sat and stared into the water with a frown, his legs dangling over the side of the building while his mask sat beside him on the ledge. God how had he messed up so bad, Mr Stark must be so angry.

Speaking of, he heard the suit before he saw it, his eyes squeezing shut as he braced himself to get yelled at by his mentor. Swinging his legs over the side and beginning to head in the direction of where the iron man suit stood, probably empty of the real Tony Stark, just like the time at the lake.

The words he was saying- yelling, weren’t really registering in the boy’s head, Peter was wanting nothing more than to skip the lecture and just apologise to the man for everything he’d caused. He didn’t even really care how this was going to affect him, not while he didn’t know the aftermath of the boat. 

“Is everyone okay?”  That was all he really cared about, knowing that no one had gotten hurt all because he screwed up, again. 

“No thanks to you.” 

The next few minutes had been a blur of Peter raising his voice angrily, finding it very difficult to believe that even after all that happened where he’d just tried to help, Mr Stark was still blaming this entirely on him. He remembered apologising profusely, not seeing the anger in Mr Stark’s eyes falter for even a second.

“I’m gonna need the suit back.” He felt like his entire body was shutting down, his heart shattering and a lump building in the back of his throat. Peter begged him, trying to change his mind with empty promises that meant nothing.

“F-For how long?”

“Forever.”

That one word kept repeating in the boy’s mind.  Forever. He was never getting the suit back, God he fucked up again. Walking down the streets of New York in clothes that weren’t his own was probably mortifying on a normal day, but he felt like there was a cloud of shame hanging over his head that everyone could see, and that was much worse.

He didn’t know where his feet were taking him at first, making the subconscious decision that he wasn’t yet ready to go home to his aunt in this state. Peter wasn’t sure if he’d ever been this disappointed or embarrassed with himself. He managed to fuck up so bad that the Tony Stark, his idol, his mentor, took away his suit. 

He was disappointed in him. 

Granted Peter was only a kid, heck he was still a teenager, but he felt like he owed it to Tony to be the best, to be better and apparently Mr Stark thought so too. 

He was growing increasingly self conscious walking through the streets of Queens in clothing they’d gotten from lost and found at the ferry dock. He probably should’ve gone home. May was definitely worried sick about him right now, but he didn’t have the strength to go and face a lecture when all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and let his emotions out.

He had to stop for a minute to realise that he’d been walking to your apartment on instinct. 

It felt like a second nature for Peter now to go to your window every time he was in need of help.

But it hurt him in a way he couldn’t explain when he realised he was unable to swing his way up there, not having either of his suits or his web shooters. The boy sniffled quietly, deciding he was just going to have to show up at your front door, hopefully not disturbing your parents.

He took the elevator up, giving him a chance to think everything over again, the boy deciding he needed some kind of distraction at least to ease his mind. His feet carried him from the elevator to your apartment door, the boy knocking before he'd even registered he was doing so.

“I’ll get it,” you yelled. You paused the movie you were watching on the TV, getting up from the couch. You didn’t bother to check you looked presentable, assuring yourself it was probably just your neighbour, she was a very old lady that often forgot the keys to her apartment and would always ask if she could use your spare that your parents had made just for this situation.

You grabbed the key that resided in a bowl beside your front door, pulling it open with a small smile on your lips. “Forgot your keys again Mrs Ka- Oh, Peter hi.” 

You furrowed your eyebrows slightly as you stared at the distraught expression that had overtaken your friend’s face. He sniffled slightly, his head raising from where his eyes were locked on the floor. You stepped forward and carefully placed your hand on his arm.

“Pete, what’s wrong?” you asked. His eyes were bloodshot and dark when he looked at you, the boy looking like a kicked puppy. Your heart ached just at the sight of him.

“He took my suit,” he whispered, so quietly you didn’t hear him. You stepped closer, placing your hand on his cheek gently.

“What?” 

“Mr Stark took my suit, I let him down.” 

That was the final straw for him. He let out a heart wrenching sob, falling into your arms utterly broken. You weren’t sure what you were meant to do, having never seen him in such a state, so you simply wrapped your arms around him and cradled his head against your chest.

With all the hugs you’d shared with Peter, he’d never held you so tightly, but he’d also never been so upset in view of another person, not even May. Not when his parents died and not when his Uncle Ben died, his tears were restricted to the eyes of him and him only. 

His crying had obviously alerted your mother, seeing her head pop in to look in the living room where you were cradling a crying Peter. She raised her eyebrows, her eyes softening out of motherly concern.

She took your word for it when you just shook your head, promising you’d help him and stay with him until he calmed down.

“Come on, Pete.” You helped the boy up off of the floor and towards your room. He’d been in your room plenty of times over the past few weeks so he took it upon himself to crash on your bed instantly. You didn’t know what to do, you’d never had to deal with consoling a superhero that got their suit taken away from them, so you didn’t fully understand what that suit meant to Peter, even if you did know how much he enjoyed being Spiderman. 

“Peter, I-“ you sighed, sitting on the bed beside his exhausted body. “I’m sure you didn’t disappoint Mr Stark.” 

He scoffed, running his hands over his face exasperatedly. His heart was aching. “You didn’t see it in his eyes. You didn’t hear it.”

Your heart ached listening to the words muffled by the covers of your bed. You could hear his quiet sniffles as he tried to calm himself down, the deep breaths not doing much of the sort. You took a seat beside him awkwardly, your nose scrunching up when you caught a whiff of the boy’s unusual scent.

Your mind told you that a hot bath might help him, as it was always a comfort to you when you were having one of your days. You gently laid your hand on his back, rubbing over the material of his shirt softly for a few moments before you suggested your idea. 

“Why don’t you go take a hot bath? They help me when I’m down,” you said, seeing him turn his face to the side on the bed so he could look at you. “Plus you smell like garbage,” you teased. 

He clearly wasn’t in much of a joking mood when he simply stood up with a nod of his head, his eyes still morphed into puppy dog eyes. You flashed him a tight lipped smile, mentally scolding yourself for how badly your attempt at lightening the mood had gone. 

»»——⍟——««

You’d generously offered to wash Peter’s hair for him when he stated that he didn’t think he was up to it. He was flustered as he agreed, listening to your promises about just washing his hair for him, no peeking or anything, and then you’d be out of there. 

“You promise you won’t look?” he asked, a stern look in his eyes as he wasn’t sure he could do this if you even took as much as a tiny peek. You rolled your eyes, cursing him for having no faith in you. “Peter, I don’t even want to look.”

He seemed to take offense to those words too, his nose scrunching in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

You huffed at his childish behaviour, telling him there was not a single chance you were about to have this discussion with him about why you didn’t want to see his dick, that was a whole other story.

Eventually he took your word and headed for the bathroom, calling you in when he was ready and sure you wouldn’t be exposed to anything you didn’t want to see.

“Thank you,” he whispered, sending you a genuine smile as you lathered up the coconut scented shampoo on your hands. You shook your head, dismissing his thanks by telling him it was just what friends did. Maybe not all friends, as you couldn’t imagine too many people had to console their superhero friend after their hero suit was taken away from them by their billionaire mentor. So maybe it was just a you and Peter thing. 

He hummed quietly as your fingers threaded through his locks, gently tugging when your fingers would encounter some kind of tangle. You muttered apologies under your breath but they went unheard by the boy who looked as though he was in complete bliss.

“Pete.” It took him a few seconds to hear you calling his name, his eyes snapping up to yours with a shy, apologetic smile. You giggled at his shyness, gently guiding his head to tip backwards so you could wash the soap from his hair.

You repeated the process of washing and rinsing one more time to ensure he no longer smelled like dirty garbage, before leaving him to finish up and dry off in your bathroom.

You started to worry when he began taking his time, scared that something bad had happened, even though you knew he was able to take care of himself.

But your worries died down when he came out of the bathroom with the same clothes he’d worn earlier, pulling a small amused smile from you at the sight of him in hello kitty pyjamas.

“You okay?” you asked, noting that he hadn’t yet said a word since emerging from the bathroom. His voice came out slightly scratchy, a sign of all the sobs that had wracked his body. “Yeah, jus’ need a hug.” 

Your heart warmed in your chest, arms opening for the boy to crawl into. “I can do that.” 

»»——⍟——««

“I’m so tired,” he mumbled, harshly rubbing at his still teary eyes with his fists. You frowned, taking his hands in yours and moving them away from his face so he couldn’t hurt himself. He’d cried so hard and so much in such a short time that he was physically exhausted. 

You wrapped his arms around your waist, letting him lay his head on your chest so you could hold him. Your hands threaded in his freshly washed hair, the scent filling your senses much more pleasant than the one he’d originally arrived with. You gently untangled any knots that had developed in his curls over the course of them drying from the water, the boy humming softly. 

The feeling of your fingers gently scratching at his scalp and playing with his hair was almost enough to soothe him completely to sleep, but you could feel that his body was fighting it off as he probably didn’t want to feel like he was burdening you with another thing.

“Peter?” you whispered. He hummed tiredly in response, nuzzling his face closer to you. “You’re kinda heavy.”

He gasped, finding the energy to raise his head and gape at you as you held back your giggle. He couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful for you trying to put a smile on his face, even if that was through an insult. 

“That was so mean,” he whined, a smile threatening to form on his lips. The first smile you would see from him today.

“M sorry, but you are. Are you forgetting you’re literally built like a God?” He rolled his eyes, cheeks flushing a soft pink at the hint of a compliment. You let out a loud laugh, trying to shuffle away from him as you muttered his name repeatedly. He was laughing now too and the sound, after everything you’d seen from his attitude tonight, was music to your ears.

“Pete, stop!” you squealed. He collapsed down beside you on the bed, the two of you catching your breath as your stomachs began to ache from all the laughing. He still had a grin on his face when you turned your head to look at him, smiling softly as you noticed that familiar sparkle in his eye.

“Pete?” you asked, after your laughter had died down into a comfortable silence. “Yeah?” 

You sighed. “Does May know you’re here?” 

He didn’t respond for a few minutes, answering pretty much everything you needed to know. He could feel your eyes on him, making him feel even more guilty about the whole situation.

“No, she doesn’t,” he finally admitted.

You took his hand in yours, the action still making Peter’s breath hitch even after the many times the two of you had embraced recently. “You should call her, she’s probably worried about you.” 

It took a bit of convincing, but after a while he did call May. He moved out into the hall so he could have a little bit of privacy, not wanting you to hear the earful he was about to get from her.  She was angry, and rightfully so, scolding him for leaving her in the dark, but she was still mainly more worried about her nephew’s safety.

He came back with a rather sullen look on his face, phone in hand as he stood awkwardly in your door frame, like he was uncomfortable.

“I-I have to go, May wants me home,” he mumbled. You nodded your head, flashing him an understanding smile. You’d already guessed that May was going to be upset with him, so you could only pray for him for when he got home. You took a deep breath, pushing yourself up off of your bed and heading straight to Peter to hug him.

“I’m sorry,” you started. “About everything that happened tonight. It’ll all be okay,” you promised, rubbing your hand up and down his back. He pursed his lips, nodding as he pulled away.

“Thank you, Y/N.” 

You followed him from your room to the door of your apartment, seeing the way he dragged his feet sadly along the wooden floorboards. He sent you one last look over his shoulder, and in the light the rings of redness around his eyes were accentuated. 

You watched him walk out of your apartment with a small frown on your face, waving goodbye to him with a rather quiet, “Bye Peter.”

You closed the door with a sigh, your heart aching at the situation Peter had been put in. You knew how much he loved being Spiderman and you knew this wouldn’t stop him, which would probably only cause him more harm, but you trusted him and you hoped that Stark would be able to see he made a mistake.

“Did Peter leave?” You turned and looked at your mother, nodding your head. 

“Is he okay?” she asked. You plastered on a fake smile, nodding your head and pretending as though your last few hours consoling the teenager hadn’t happened. 

“Just some family problems, but I'm sure everything will be fine.” 

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peter’s girl taglist → @sunsetholland @captainamirica @tomsirishgirlx @givebuckyhisplumsnow @lou-la-lou @slutforsr @tayyx @gog0juice @minejungwoo @creatorofthegalaxy @annathesillyfriend @paninipress @bvttercupbby @peterswebshooters @whoeveniskendall @itsallyscorner @hoodpankow @sunwardsss @hallecarey1 @writingrem @mamaparker28

[anxiouspotatorants]

Whoopsy daisy I made a Shadow and Bone random thoughts post:

The costumes in this show are impeccable. I was drooling over all the keftas and the ball gowns in 1.05 and the crow outfits. Hell, even the winter-camo outfits that Mal, Mikhael and Dubrov wore in 1.04 were amazing.

Am I the only one who isn’t surprised by the kruge pronounciation? Because I thought it would sound like how English people say Scandinavian words and I wasn’t wrong.

Coming in to this show as someone who had only read the Six of Crows duology, I expected to at least tolerate Malina based on the trailer clips. I kid you not: less than five minutes into the very first episode they owned my ass. That might be a new record for me.

Seriously the friendship? The pining? The finding home in each other and being able to acknowledge their faults and apologize to each other? Both of them having massive “fight me” energy and protecting each other? Hugs?? Why am I surprised that I ship this?

Some of those scene transitions/flashback edits were so good! Like I know they repeated that meadow scene a lot throughout the season, but the cuts from kid-Mal looking at the rabbit to grown up Mal psyching himself up for the fist fight? Poetic cinema.

The Darkling was horrible and I love it. He wasn’t a carbon copy villain, nor did his complexity redeem him. He was a perfectly complex and understandable monster and I am living for it. I have not been so happy to despise a character in ages and I genuinely bow in gratitude to both the writers and Ben Barnes, because I finally got to enjoy watching a character I did not for one second root for ( #writevillainswellagain)

Look I already loved Jesper in the book but his on-screen translation elevated him from a fave to the fave. I was worried that they would push him into a comedic relief-role, but he got to keep both his heart, his depth, and his humour. Kit Young did an amazing job bringing what was already a great character on page to an even greater character on screen and I once again applaud.

Am I a bit bitter that the casting had some interesting choices for certain roles (aka hiring light skin and mid-size actors for explicitly darker skin and plus-size roles)? Kind of. Do I think there are important discussions worth having about this? Yup. Do I also think that every actor hired for Shadow and Bone did an amazing job and deserve zero hate and massive amounts of love? Also yes.

I had Alexei for one episode and one episode only, and I still miss that poor sucker. This show did a surprisingly good job with making me care about a massive amount of characters considering the screen time they had and the amount of episodes this season had. Good job.

For some reason I expected Inej to be a lot more brooding based on how I perceived her in the books but I love what Amita Suman did with her. Her translation completely recontextualised everything I remember from the books and just brought this truly fresh character to life. Assassin with a conscience indeed.

Also I did love the Kaz we got in this season but I can barely contain myself as I wait for season 2 to be made and for a certain flashback to take place because that moment in the book was visceral and it stayed with me for a long time and I knew before the show announcement that this flashback could become a television moment. 

Speaking of Kaz the crows were so chaotic and messy and I’m here for it. Their interactions with each other and their improvised back-up plans were everything. I somehow didn’t expect the crows to become the comedic relief of the season but it honestly makes so much sense.

A couple episodes in I still didn’t get the Zoya hype (remember I haven’t read the books) but was a massive Genya fan. By the end of the season I was like “oh both of these girls are getting redemption arcs and I am here for it”.

Speaking of redemption I still don’t like Matthias. I’m sorry but I just don’t. I get that he is important to many and that they like his relationship with Nina, but I just don’t have the patience for him and feel like Nina can do better. I still want him to get a redemption... but maybe not through a romance with the grisha woman he repeatedly slutshames, is bigoted towards and chokes at least once (twice if that SoC scene from book 1 happens). That being said this is just how I see him, so feel what ever you feel about him and ship to your heart’s content!

Alina’s journey through this season made complete sense to me. It hurt to see certain things, but they were necessary in my eyes. Seeing her go from this essentially insecure but brave girl to a manipulated pawn to an even stronger and more self reliant girl in spite of everything was amazing. It did feel like a well-written hero’s journey and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes next.

Apparently a lot of book-readers don’t like Mal (and I am not here to change anyone’s mind about that) but the Mal I saw on the show was amazing. I actually kind of wish we had seen more of who he was outside of his relationship to Alina (f.ex. other flashbacks than the meadow, maybe something about any of his missions while separated from Alina pre-show), but I also loved what we got of him with Alina. We still got to see a guy who was brave, stubborn, flirtatious, a bit judgemental but with a strong sense of humour, and a lot of loyalty (to Alina but also to his friends). I can hardly wait to see what’s next for him.

Milo the goat. Where do I even begin. Not only did we get that Jesper-scene, but their farewell actually became a Chekhov’s gun for Mal in 1.07? Milo is the true hero of the season.

Speaking of 1.07 I loved the tent scene between Alina and the Darkling. She both got to be realistic about her feelings for the Darkling and stand up for herself and for others and call him out. The way I interpret the Darkling, he is the kind of villain who creates a saviour narrative around himself but cares more about power than anything else. He’ll say he’s doing everything to protect his people but is the first to kill the very people he claims to love. And Alina’s tent-speech really hammered that in for me.

I adore Baghra. Is she morally dubious? Yes. Was she incredibly mean to Alina during training to the point where it might have been excessive? Yes. Did she not take any of the Darkling’s bullshit and act as the proper mentor for Alina when the Darkling had said that he was going to train her? Yes. Am I kind of a Baghra stan now? I mean maybe.

The antler-collar was so evil and gross but from a visually narrative stand point it was perfect. 

Also I still have no idea who David is but I want redemption for him too. Honestly I feel like half the supporting cast is gearing up for redemption arcs next season and I am excited for most of them.

Nina’s reaction when she hears Kaz on the boat? Priceless. Actually the whole boat scene from when she goes up on deck again to the cut back to the fold was priceless.

That being said the final scene had me even more ready for season 2.

Jesper kind of gave me messy period-fantasy James Bond? Does that make sense?

And Mal kind of gave me Lois Lane energy? As in he’s the mortal love interest that many assume is the hero/heroine’s weakness but actually functions as their emotional strength and inspiration? Am I reaching here or am I getting somewhere?

Mikhael and Dubrov. What a duo. Absolute madlads.

Also I’d like to see more Nadia if that is possible? Because the few scenes we had of her had me intrigued but then she sort of disappeared? Is she going to be important or was she just more of a temporary supporting character? 

I entered this show a casual Six of Crows fan with mild interest in Kanej and I finished this season a mess. A mess who ships Kanej and Malina and Genya with that David guy even though they had about 30 seconds of screentime together and Zoya with redemption and Jesper with main-character status (hey we’re not getting Wylan until season 2 at least) and kind of those two Ravkan army guys and Nina with anyone else and Matthias with a better redemption storyline and the Darkling with karma! Also, a mess with a whole new set of comfort characters!