#Also I could probably write a huge essay about this I have so much to say about it and I am willing to cite my sources

[gayghostrights]

thinking about John Doe and the dark world as a metaphor for addiction/relapse.

How circumstance and trauma pushed him to do something he told himself he’d never do again, and how he has to live with the consequences and the memories, even though he’s working to not be that person anymore.

And how much shame he carries about the things he’s done, because even if he was pushed to do them, he still did them. To him, he still made that choice, and he has to bear the weight of that.

Thinking about 43, in particular, where the witch is trying to tell John that all he was is all he’ll ever be. That, despite the work he’s put into bettering himself, he’ll only be seen as his mistake in the eyes of some.

And it just feels really meaningful that Arthur’s love is what saved him, in this context. That being forgiven and loved unconditionally, even though he’s made mistakes and hurt people, is how he can cope with the memories of what he’s done. It’s how he can stop himself from slipping back into being someone he doesn’t want to be, even when it’s hard.

love isn’t what makes him better, but it’s what makes him want to work to be better. It doesn’t undo what he’s done but it allows him to live with it.

I just think it’s interesting to read this as an addiction narrative, because so often addicts are dismissed because they’re addicts. Regardless of how much we’ve healed or how far we’ve come, there are some people who will never see beyond our addiction and will force their perspective onto us. Some people hold no compassion for us because they think we’ve made the choice, and think that the harm that resulted from that “choice” makes us unredeemable.

and to see John receiving Arthur’s support and love despite what he’s done, or what he was pushed to do, really reflects how important support is to recovery. Arthur doesn’t absolve John of his mistakes, he doesn’t dismiss the harm he caused, but he doesn’t hold it against him. He knows John is more than what he’s been, he knows John is capable of change and a good person in spite of it, he knows John is capable of being better. Only John can do the work of becoming who he wants to be, but Arthur’s love and support makes the work a little more bearable.

[popsicle-stick]

it is unfortunate that you can say you see a dogshit take by an american with 50k+ notes and that absolutely narrows nothing down whatsoever. for that i can only apologize 😔

well the original post was too long to screenshot succinctly and i didn't really want to put All That onto anyone's dash. doing us all a favour to be fair

[astriiformes]

Okay as promised earlier, a post about Marty McFly and gender.

The reason I find a trans reading of Marty specifically so compelling beyond some of the superficial things--like the fact that he's smaller and wears a lot of layers and generally looks the way a lot of younger trans men do--is because if you interpret him as trans, there are other parts of his character that become extremely interesting.

Because, like, Marty is a decent guy. I am not the first to comment on the fact that, when compared to a lot of other young, male 80s protagonists especially, he comes across as much kinder & more empathetic, generally a lot more earnest, and less complicit in certain kinds of toxicity. But a huge huge aspect of that is that he is generally pretty respectful of the female characters in the series. Which is pretty noteworthy considering most of the other male characters have some pretty big blips in that department -- George spies on Lorraine, Doc is dismissive of Jennifer and treats women like a mystery to be solved, Biff is, well, Biff.

--And I will say that I could write a completely separate essay on masculinity in Back to the Future in general, because the other male protagonists, at least, do end up having whole character arcs about this (George coming to Lorraine's rescue at the dance and Doc realizing that he has a lot in common with Clara are both genuinely good examples of how men who have certain flaws courtesy of the patriarchy can learn to be better!) But Marty has a totally different arc related to masculinity, that stems from something else entirely, and it's a very interesting contrast!

Marty's problem is that he's insecure about being seen as weak or cowardly, which is why he's so easily goaded into doing dangerous, stupid things just because another guy dared him to (and it's very noteworthy, I think, that it's always other guys). His character arc revolves much more around accepting that it's okay to follow his conscience in those situations, and also learning to let go of other people's perception of him.

So like. You could very easily read him (as was intended) as a young cis man who has generally been raised to stand up for and treat women well but still has some very teenager insecurities. BUT. There is so, so much going with him on if you instead look at him through the lens of transmasculinity. Suddenly what you have instead is a character who probably has personal experiences with misogyny that make him sympathetic towards the women he knows, but who has very complicated, deep-seated insecurities around being seen as "enough" of a man. It explains why being a jerk to women is not only a line he won't cross, but something he actively calls other people out for, while still being deeply entrenched in other toxic ideas about what being a man looks like -- of course a trans Marty would be insecure about being seen weak or less masculine compared to other guys! He's had to fight to be seen as a man in the past, and doesn't know when and where to draw the line!

I just think it's a reading that has so much rich, interesting stuff going on--in part because the Back to the Future movies, as I said in my other post, are actually extremely full of Gender and so Marty is caught up in that already--and I am rotating him in my mind constantly. Do you understand.

[noodle-is-unstable]

I DONT REMEMBER WHAT I ASKED FOR ORIGINALLY FOR KINKTOBER BUT I HAVE A BETTER ONE I ALREADY KNOW ITS BETTER

*AFTER CARE SMAU*

NO! YOU'LL GET HEAD CANNONS AND YOU'LL LIKE IT (affectionately). I also don't remember the original but I remember it was good 🥲

How the JJK Characters give aftercare

(Head Cannons)

Ft ~ Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Kento Nanami, Toji Fushiguro, Ryoumen Sukuna, Choso, Takuma Ino, Shiu Kong, Uraume, Yuki Tsukumo, Shoko Ieiri, Mahito Kink ~ Aftercare (not a kink but needed) Synopsis ~ How the JJK Characters would give you aftercare Content Warning ~ 18+, talks of cum, being sore, post sex things. Idk adult stuff

Gojo ~

General: 7/10 Does his best but is loopy himself after fucking his own brains out. Is attentive and caring though Clean Up: Brings you a warm towel and will whipe you down. Feels it's more intimate than a bath Cuddles: STAGE 5 CLINGER. After Gojo unloads he needs 30 minutes just to snuggle into you before clean up can even commence. If he could fuse with you he would Communication: Talks non stop about how much he loves you, how good it was, asking if you had a good time. A love sick puppy Unwinding: Enjoys ordering takeout and scrolling on TikTok with you. Will not leave your side

Geto ~

General: 8/10 He will make sure you're take care of and you know you're loved but can't wait to clean up Clean Up: Runs you a bubble bath with candles and oils. Will wash you without you asking him Cuddles: There's probably some hand holding and hair brushing but not much actual cuddling after. Your both sticky with sweat and need to clean up Communication: Will always ask if you're okay, how you're feeling and if he can do anything for you. Just tell him what you want or need and he's on it Unwinding: Existing near each other. Some body part has to be touching, legs, hands, feet, anything. Reading or on your phones beside each other

Nanami ~

General: 9/10 Does exactly what he should to make you feel safe and loved. Almost perfect Clean Up: Once you can stand he'll have you in the shower, cleaning you up. He'll probably have a chair for you to sit on while he washes your hair and body Cuddles: Absolutely holds you tight after. Kissing the top of your head while you use him as a pillow until you're both coherent enough to move to the shower Communication: KING OF COMMUNICATION. Asks if you're okay, sore anywhere, can he massage you, did you have a good time, anything you want to try next time? He will be able to write an essay about each of your sex sessions Unwinding: Reading on the couch together, some music playing. Your heads probably in his lap and you both have tea he made

Toji ~

General: 6/10 I don't care what anyone says, Toji is a HUGE CARE BEAR! He does the best he know how to show you care and affection after he wrecks you Clean Up: Toji will clean you up with a warm, soapy cloth then run you a bath where he'll massage you. He knows he puts your body through it so he's going to care for it too Cuddles: Not a huge after sex cuddler but will kiss any bruises or marks he left Communication: Shit communication, but he tries. Asks how you're feeling and if you can walk. Will carry you if you can't Unwinding: Watching a movie or TV show and here's where the cuddles come in. He'll pull you into him on the couch and play with your hair or rib circles on your back

Sukuna ~

General: 10/10 FIGHT ME! oh you think Sukuna will just ignore you? WRONG! He will move mountains, boil the ocean, do anything for you. You aren't just some concubine after all, you're HIS minx, strong and worthy of the king so he'll treat you like royalty Clean Up: Carries you to the hot springs to bathe. You won't have to move a muscle. Sitting between his legs or on his lap he'll use two hands to wash you and the other two to massage you Cuddles: You won't leave his grasp for two hours minimum. You won't walk anywhere, not just because you can't but because he won't let you. He'll be holding you with all four arms Communication: Talks you through everything. Cooes about how good you are. Makes sure you aren't hurt and you know he loves you and thinks you're strong. Praises you SO much

Unwinding: A feast will be had. All of your favorite foods and drink, ready for you. Most likely just talking and laughing together but sometimes you'll watch a movie or TV when you eat

Choso ~

General: 5/10 mostly because let's be real you're the one doing the aftercare. This poor man is so overstimulated and fucked out Clean Up: You share a bath together and probably have a rubber ducky named Rupert. You have to set up the bath and help him in though Cuddles: Big cuddle bug. Needs to have as much of his body pressed to you as he can. Nuzzling into your neck and maybe even laying on top of you to get closer Communication: He needs reassurance and you give it. Always asks if he did good, did you enjoy yourself? Can't stop talking about how good you felt and how amazing you are Unwinding: Staying in bed and continuing your binge show. He still needs to get his cuddles out and uses you as a pillow. If he could curl up on you, he would

Ino ~

General: 6/10 he tries his best to give you aftercare but he always ends up more fucked out than you Clean Up: Shared shower where you both wash eachother off. Normally hugging and dancing to soap eachother up instead of using hands Cuddles: A whiney little cuddler. If you move a way an inch he'll pout because he just wants to be beside you Communication: Not great. He'll ask if you had fun and are okay but not much more than that Unwinding: Gaming together while eating trash snacks. Either your in his lap or he's in yours while you okay some multiplayer game

Shiu ~

General: 9/10 This man knows how to care for you. Definitely a gentle love after treating you like a whore Clean Up: Will gently shower you off and wash your hair before running you a bath with epsom salt, candles, bubbles and fresh flower petals (he picks them up fresh from a florist daily) Cuddles: Holds you for as long as you want, even if it's the rest of the night until morning. He won't stop holding you until you're ready Communication: Amazing communication. Specifically asks you if any part hurts, if you're okay, if he went too far at any point. He'll praise you to the gods too and make sure you know how amazing you are and how good you did Unwinding: A home cooked meal together. Singing and dancing in the kitchen while you make food together because you're both starved after

Uraume ~

General: 5/10 still shy about everything even if you've been together 1,000 years. Just adorably awkward but still wants to care for you Clean Up: Runs you a bath but will leave you to enjoy it alone. Will leave you're favorite soaps out for you Cuddles: Absolutely no cuddling until you're both clean. Just doesn't like the feeling and the mess. After though cuddles are fair game Communication: They're shy and a little timid so asking if they did okay or you're okay is always hard. They still do though. Unwinding: You sitting on the kitchen counter just talking while they make a snack. You'll probably go to cuddle and read while you eat it

Yuki ~

General: 8/10 fuck hard care harder. Yuki knows she's a beast in the sheets and needs to care for you after Clean Up: Warm washcloth is her go to. You don't even have to get up, she'll clean you up Cuddles: After you're cleaned up she'll hold you and pet your hair. Holding you tight to make you feel safe Communication: Needs to make sure she didn't go too hard. Constantly checking in on you and praising how good you did. You'll absolutely know how loved and cared for you are Unwinding: Interlocked while on your phones. Doing separate things but doing them together

Shoko ~

General: 7/10 Decent. Acceptable really, not the best but could be worse Clean Up: Let's you shower first, will sometimes join you but not every time Cuddles: Shower first, cuddles later. The second you're both done she's starting up the shower Communication: She will absolutely check in and make sure you're okay and you know you're loved. Could whisper sweet nothings to you for hours Unwinding: Cuddling on the couch, a movie in the background. Shoko is probably knitting or something while you're on your phone

Mahito ~

General: -3/10. Trash after care for a sewer man. To be fair he just doesn't know better or understand Clean Up: None. He's fine being dirty especially after doing the nasty. Wants to bask in the smell of sex for as long as he can Cuddles: CLINGY! SO CLINGY! Careful he will try to crawl under your skin. He can't get close enough to you and koala wraps around you Communication: Bad. Shitty and bad. He doesn't want to talk he just wants to cling to you Unwinding: Good luck, you'll be carrying him around for the rest of the day/night. There is no unwinding, only Mahito clinging to you

About the Kink: Aftercare while not a kink is very important when participating in kinks or sex in general. It's the practice of giving care after sex. Normally through cleanup, cuddling and communication. How to Practice the Kink Safely:

With any kink it's important to have a safe word, action and sound. The action is in case it's not possible to be verbal. The sound is incase it's not possible to make words or move. Pick something easy to remember and wouldn't come up naturally. Eg. Red, 3 fast taps, 3 repeating grunts

Before anything occurs you should communicate your aftercare expectations, giving and receiving. Clean up is dependent on the person, some prefer a washcloth and others prefer a full on shower. Cuddles and non sexual intimacy are important after sex to feel closer, a deeper connection and help relax. Communication is also important to make sure both parties enjoyed themselves, and helps with emotional bonding. Spending non-sexual time together after sex helps to build a stronger relationship and helps unwind from sexual activities. Taking care of your partner and being taken care of us important to a healthy and happy bond.

[colleendoran]

Misunderstanding

I received a note from someone who was upset I “failed to cite Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics” in my research for my work on Neil Gaiman's Chivalry and the essays I wrote about it. 

I really appreciate that people want to make sure credit goes where it's due, and I have a lot of respect for Scott McCloud's accomplishment with his wonderful book.  

I haven't read it myself in some years, and didn't cite it in my articles because I didn't reference it. I don't even know where my copy is so I don't know what McCloud referenced, either. 

The information in my articles re: illuminated manuscripts and the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as other theories about the development of sequential art from prehistory, not only predate McCloud's work (and in fact, predate McCloud's birth,) but they are so common and so well known in comics circles that asking me to cite them seems as weird to me as asking me to cite the information that George Washington was the first President of the United States.

A part of me wonders if someone is trying to play, "Let's you and him fight." 

No.

But I’m happy to bring to your attention some reading material.

Stephen Becker in his 1959 work Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons was among the first to discuss the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art. I read that book sometime in the 1980’s. I think a lot of people assume the Bayeux tapestry as comic art was McCloud’s idea, but we don’t all walk around with a reference library in our heads, so there you go. I can’t find my copy of Becker’s work to quote, but I did find an article by Arthur Asa Berger with a mention of the Bayeux Tapestry as comic art in the summer 1978 issue of The Wilson Quarterly.

My first exposure to the idea of comics as descendant of fine art was Maurice Horn’s 1976 The World Encyclopedia of Comics which was my first read re: comics history. I still have my tattered 1976 edition. 

While Horn scorned the idea that tapestries and manuscripts could be comic art (see, it was a matter of discussion way back then, so much so that authors were writing snarky asides to one another about it,) he believed the origin of sequential art was in the Renaissance sketches of Leonardo da Vinci - which I think everyone now agrees is kind of a bonkers idea.

I think Horn was just intent on elevating the comic art form by hooking up with da Vinci.

You go, boi.

Comics as descendant of art on scrolls is a very common theory, the easiest to trace being in Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics by Fred Schodt published in 1983 when I was still a teenager. I can't find my copy to show examples, but this text is still in print and you can go read it for yourself. 

I was introduced to manga by cartoonist Leslie Sternbergh and bought Schodt’s book at Books Kinokuniya on (I think) a trip to New York around the time of first publication of Schodt’s work. And years later took a trip to Japan with Fred Schodt and a group of cartoonists including Jeff Smith and Jules Fieffer, Nicole Hollander, and Denys Cowan as the guests of Tezuka Productions.

Here we all are.

So, I’m familiar with manga, see.

As for comics as descendant of cave paintings, hieroglyphics and ancient art in general, Will Eisner’s 1985 Comics and Sequential Art not only made all of those points, but made those points with comic art examples. Like these.

And this.

And this.

And more than a few words on this:

I find it amusing that someone is questioning why I didn’t cite McCloud when what you should probably be questioning is why more people don’t cite Eisner who produced his book eight years before McCloud published his and who is well known to have influenced McCloud.

Whatever. My book's autographed.

I also danced with Eisner. Eat your heart out.

Understanding Comics is a terrific work with huge advantages over every book (that I know of) about comics that came before: it taught comics entirely in the language of comics. 

But the discussion in it about the origins of comics and my work especially re: illuminated manuscripts/tapestries, did not originate with McCloud. I research illuminated manuscripts because it’s my hobby and it informs my art. 

I encourage everyone to read Understanding Comics because it is an outstanding work.

But it’s not the book that introduced me to the concepts of the development of comic art. It’s not even the point of origin of those concepts. So, there is no reason to cite it.

Also, shocking as it may seem, I occasionally come up with ideas on my own. While I'm younger than McCloud, I've actually been a comics pro longer than he has. So I've had plenty of opportunity to, you know, read things and toss things around, and decide for myself.

When I first read Chivalry and first begged Neil Gaiman to let me adapt it, my head full of the work of Alberto Sangorski and his art for Tennyson’s Le Morte D’Arthur, Understanding Comics hadn’t been published yet.

It's been a good twelve years since I last read McCloud's work, and I don't think I've spoken to him five times in the last three decades. But I'm pretty sure he never mentioned Sangorski.

I hope that clears everything up, and maybe introduces some of you to some works you might not be aware of.

Have a great day.

[island-ofthelost]

House MD hot takes

-Transmasc Chase > Transfemme Chase. Obviously everybody's headcanons are VALID AF but I feel like the only reasons people give is that "he likes to be pretty" when trans dudes can be pretty too :(. I can see both sides but transmasc chase just makes a lot more sense to me. I could write an essay.

-Wilson isn't autistic. He didn't "match House's autism UwU". Don't get me wrong there's definitely something going on up in that man's brain, but I'm thinking more on the mental health condition/personality disorder range than autism/adhd/etc.

-Foreman is sort of the least compelling member of the original team? I'm almost to the Taub/Thirteen/Kutner arc and so far I just haven't seem that much from him? I think House only hired him out of genuine respect as a doctor, which great obviously but not as interesting. He remains the same stoic, respectable doctor the whole time which is fine but not as interesting to watch as Cameron and Chase, with their "moral compass so strong it explodes" and "opportunistic traumatized yes man attitude" respectively. He's great as a guy, but just okay as a character. tbh I think the Euphoria episodes were made for the sole purpose of adding interest to the character.

-House was probably exactly the same before his injury, just not high all the time. I feel like that actually been emphasized in the show, but I always hear people talking about how he was probably much sweeter and a more lighthearted asshole beforehand and I think he just wasn't? People are allowed to have congenital jerkassery. I think he would still be a jerk even if he had a perfectly normal childhood.

-In a similar manner, I don't think House is as manipulative and cunning as people who view him as an edgy sigma tumblr sexyman like to think. I mean, obviously he is, but I think some of the stuff he says isn't with manipulative intent. I think he just genuinely lacks a social filter. He isn't Light Yagami for gods sakes.

-I doubt House and Wilson have ever fucked. SORRY. I'm a huge Hilson shipper but I just don't think it happened. pre series ending (yes I do know how it ends), even when they were living together, there was more important things for both of them, both in and out of their relationship. Also, at this point I'm guessing they both considered themselves heterosexual. It could have happened after the series ended I suppose because at that point I'm pretty sure they realized they were in love with each other, but Wilson was probably too busy dying of cancer.

-Start with Chase, end with Chase. I don't think Chase was very religious after he left the Catholic church. I mean he still sees himself that way which is valid and on the wiki and stuff, but I think most of his actions that point to that, like delivering last rites to a dead baby, are a byproduct of trauma if anything (trust me because religious trauma)

[bireggiemantle]

Would Transitioning Save Her: A Sliding Scale of the Impact of MTF Transition on Riverdale Character

(Ranked from Best impact to Worst Impact)

1. Archie - should've been a dyke from the get go. I could write a billion essays about this

2. Reggie - being freed from toxic masculinity would fix her

3. Moose - considering how deeply repressed she is I think seeing the tv glow would save her.

4. FP - transitioning could save her marriage. this would not improve her alcoholism. BUT ! it might help her stop bottling so many of her issues up

5. Munroe - transitioning just fits into her plot of self acceptance to me. wlw prison archie + munroe would fuck crazy

6. Sweet Pea - this is solely based on vibes

7. Original/50s Dilton - big cock t girl representation for the win!

8. Hiram - this would make veronica leagues worse. could you imagine if her daddy issues became mommy issues

9. Clay - relatively unaffected by transition. I think she's already pretty open and honest about who she is, and it wouldn't take much for her to admit this about herself

10. Fangs - no impact. already a lesbian in my eyes

11. Jughead - canonically transgender but also it would absolutely make her worse and more insufferable. this could save s1 jughead (and briefly s5 jughead) but s2 jughead on is the queen of repression and it would take a lot of force to get her to come out. if she's repressing something after all

12. Chic - win for weird girls everywhere. would drastically improve her relationship with betty

13. Bret - stonewall prep plotline but it's toxic lesbians bret and jughead. she would try to fuck donna but donna would NEVER stoop so low

14. Kevin - considering how much of her sense of self is reliant on her identity, transitioning could either really help her or force her further into a world of identity politics. she'd be the world's worst kind of white feminist for sure though

15. Charles

16. Dilton - also vibes

17. Hal - sorry betty

18. Fred - not saving her marriage but would allow her to connect better with archie and I believe she'd be a better parent to her

19. Uncle Frank - could free her but would probably do irreparable damage instead

20. Sheriff Keller - this is a cisgender man

21. Jason - I don't even want to imagine what his relationship with cheryl would have looked like if he was a woman. huge win for incest freaks I guess

22. Julian - five steps back for lgbt rights

[chvoswxtch]

hello! I hope ur having a good day! I have a request if you’re up to it! we’ve always had Professor matt so to spice things up can we have a college!matt x professor!reader? he’s actively trying to gain the pretty professor’s attention and she’s slowly falling for it. you can make it fluffy or spicy or smutty. its all up to you!

hi nonnie!

I hope you're having a good day as well! I genuinely loved this idea bc we all know matty is a flirt but I feel like college!matty is a HUGE flirt and would totally go after the pretty professor. and honestly, she would eat that shit up, let's be real. but who wouldn't???

thank you so much for the request! ❤️

warning: contains mentions of sexual content (minors please dni), swearing word count: 3k

office hours.

When Matt was reminded by his advisor that he needed to take a literature course to satisfy his degree plan, his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head. He had been continuously putting it off, but with one final semester left of undergrad, he couldn’t graduate without it. It wasn’t that Matt didn’t enjoy reading, he simply just wasn’t interested in taking anything that didn’t have to do with his program. He’d read enough “classic literature” and written enough analysis essays in high school, and he wasn’t looking forward to going through that agonizing process again. Reluctantly, he signed up for the last course available.

Taking a seat in the very back of the small classroom, Matt set up his laptop and plugged an earbud into his ear, prepared to appear engaged while he got started on a project for another class. All around him seats filled up with other students, but it wasn’t until he caught the sweet scent of pink grapefruit and blue wisteria that his fingers stilled over his keyboard. He turned his head slightly to the side towards the wall as the scent rushed down the hall, accompanied by a racing heartbeat. Matt’s head snapped towards the front when you walked through the classroom door slightly out of breath, heat in your cheeks from the run, and also a twinge of embarrassment. 

“Probably not the best first impression to be late on the first day of class, but in my defense, I’m still learning how to navigate New York. I can’t promise I won’t be late again, so we won’t be counting tardies in this class, to a reasonable limit.”

An anxious giggle left your lips, and luckily everyone seemed to find the humor in your admission. Matt’s lips parted slightly at the sound, and he quickly ripped the earbud out of his ear as you introduced yourself.

“Hi everyone. My name is Y/N Y/L/N, please call me Y/N. This is my first year teaching, and you guys are my second class, so we’re figuring this all out together.”

Another timid giggle left your lips, and Matt clenched his fist tightly as the sound settled in his ears. 

“I don’t expect perfection, I just want you guys to do your best. We aren’t reading things some arrogant ‘expert’ decided was a classic, or writing mind numbing papers identifying every literary device to prove you know what they are. I want to show you works that move you and make you think…make you feel. And I want to know what they make you think, and how they make you feel. The only way to fail this class is to not try.”

God your voice. It was as sweet as your perfume and had a velvet cadence that stuck to Matt’s ears like honey. He wanted to listen to you talk for hours, about anything. Your heart continued to beat wildly in your chest throughout the duration of class, and you fiddled with the rings on your fingers as you paced slowly around. You were incredibly nervous. Matt could feel it in the tremble of your fingers, hear it in the slight shake of your voice, and feel it in the rush of blood that never left your cheeks. He found it endearing that you were so anxious, and could hear how passionate you were in the way you spoke. Everything about you drew him in, and before he could stop himself, he was marching up to your desk once everyone filed out of the room to introduce himself.

“Excuse me? Hi, my name is-”

“Matthew Murdock, right?”

Matt abruptly paused, and he swallowed the sound that threatened to come out of his mouth at the way you said his name.

“J-just Matt, uh…yeah.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Matt. I’m Y/N.”

Your hand was so soft and small clasped in his own, and he could faintly smell the scent of blackberry from a lotion you’d smoothed over your body the previous evening. 

“It’s nice to meet you as well.”

“You have perfect timing, I was actually just about to come to you.”

Matt’s ears perked up at that, and he stood up a little straighter, already missing your touch as you slowly let go of his hand.

“You were?”

“Yeah, this is for you.”

You lightly wrapped your fingers around his wrist, carefully guiding his hand to a folder that you had outstretched in your hand. Matt cocked his head to the side slightly as he let his fingers glide over the folder, pausing as they ran over a braille label that had his name on it. Taking the folder into his hands, he opened it to find stacks of paper in braille on the inside.

“It’s the syllabus, a list of the works we’re studying, and the first section of notes we’re going to go over. I wasn’t sure if you were able to access the digital copies. I’m still trying to figure out how the portal works, honestly.”

There was a timid smile that stretched across your mouth, and Matt could hear a slight bit of nerves in your confession. For a moment he was stunned silent by the kind gesture, swallowing thickly as he closed the folder and offered you a small smile in return.

“I-uh…yeah, I was able to. But um…I-thank you. For this, I uh…I appreciate it.”

“Of course. I like to have tangible copies of things, myself. Helps keep me organized. Or, at least I think it does. Maybe it’s a sensory thing and I’m just tricking myself into thinking it’s making me more productive.”

Matt couldn’t help but chuckle as you giggled softly, nodding his head in agreement.

“I can understand that.”

“Well if there’s ever anything you need, any help or accommodations at all, please don’t hesitate to tell me. All my information is on the syllabus, and I practically live here since I never go home, so my office is always open.”

“Good to know.”

From that day forward, Matt sat in the front row for every single class. He blitzed through every single text on the syllabus, always prepared to participate in the discussions, and approached every assignment early. He wanted so badly to impress you, and his chest swelled with pride every time you complimented one of his thoughts or ideas, or stayed behind after class to offer your positive verbal feedback on one of his assignments. 

Matt knew he wasn’t the only one that wanted the pretty, young professor’s attention. He could hear the way the other students in class talked about you, which caused a tide of possessiveness to rise in his chest. Matt could also feel your affect on them as you smiled in their direction, or offered a compliment to one of their remarks, and it made jealousy simmer in his bloodstream. He was determined to be your favorite.

He found himself constantly stopping by your office hours to feign needing help or a second opinion on his approach to a paper, mainly as an excuse to talk to you alone, but also to scratch that itch of praise when you confirmed he was on the right track. Matt knew he was smart, and he knew he wrote incredible papers, but he liked hearing that come from you. 

He loved when you complimented his intelligence. Was it wrong to fake being unsure just to hear you say, “That’s exactly right, Matt” or “I hadn’t even thought of it that way, but I love that idea”? Probably. But it didn’t feel wrong. It felt good.

Matt had to be careful playing dumb. You both knew he was smart, so he had to switch his tactics up. He found himself asking for other recommendations for reading material from you, wanting to know what your favorite works were, going out to buy them and consume them just to get a glimpse into your head, and then listen to the passion in your voice as you explained why they meant so much to you. He liked that you asked him questions too, questions he didn’t hear you ask any of the others when they stopped by. You asked him about how his other classes were going, how his day had been, about himself and his friends, and he could tell you genuinely cared about the answers. Every second he spent with you, he felt the crush he had on you getting stronger and stronger. He knew the way he felt about you was wrong. You were his professor, and he shouldn’t be having the thoughts about you that he did.

He shouldn’t feel like his heart was going to beat out of his chest every time you smiled in his direction and showered his mind in praise. He shouldn’t feel the spark of something more when you let him hold your arm as you guided him towards your office, reveling in the feeling of your soft skin beneath his fingertips. He shouldn’t stroke his cock to the sound of your voice from a recorded lecture, waiting to let himself come until it got to the part of the recording where you said his name so sweetly. He shouldn’t be waking up with a wet patch on his sweats after yet another wet dream about fucking you over your desk. All of this was wrong, and the good Catholic boy in him knew that.

But he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Because every time he started to feel guilty about what he was doing, he reminded himself of the way your body reacted to him.

Matt was careful with his flirting, crafting his sentences in a way that could be played off as casual conversation or banter, but riddled with undertones that could only be understood by the person given the cipher. The blood that rushed into your cheeks when Matt complimented you back or said something teasing that made you giggle only fueled his confidence to get bolder and bolder as the weeks went by. 

He heard the uptick in your heart rate when he mentioned how soothing he found your voice, and the way it pounded beneath your ribs when he “accidentally” brushed his hand over your exposed thigh to reach for his backpack. He felt the warmth that pooled in your cheeks when he stopped by with your favorite coffee, and when he confessed that you were one of the best professor’s he’d ever had; definitely “his favorite”, he had said. He should’ve felt bad that he could possibly ruin a career that you were clearly very passionate about, but the selfish part of his brain was screaming that you felt it too. 

With spring break approaching soon, and the thought of going a whole week without being around you, Matt devised a plan to finally make you his.

The building was empty considering most professors and students had left the previous day to get a head start on vacation plans, but Matt smiled to himself hearing your familiar heartbeat coming from your office. You had made class today optional, in case anyone was traveling or needed the break, and Matt had hoped that he would’ve been the only one to show up. To his disappointment, about half the class was there, but he knew he would get you alone soon enough. Matt waited until your office hours were just about to end, in case any other student had some last minute question, and when he was certain that it was just the two of you alone, he raised his knuckles to knock softly on the worn wood of your open door.

A quiet gasp left your lips, clearly surprised by the company, and Matt had to stop the cocky smirk that threatened to take over his mouth at the way your heart started to beat faster noticing his presence.

“Matt, hey.”

“Hey. I didn’t miss your office hours, did I?”

“Uh…nope. You have exactly a minute.”

Matt’s mouth split into a wide toothy grin at the playful tone in your voice, chuckling as he followed the familiar path from the door to the chair that was directly in front of your desk.

“Well, I’ll make this quick then. I know you have very important spring break plans to get to.”

“Oh yeah. Super important. I mean, my takeout isn’t gonna order itself.”

Matt dropped his backpack on the right side of the chair, folding up his cane as he sank back into the plush cushion and tossed it down by his feet. He pulled off his glasses and set them on your desk, a habit he had gotten into since you’d let it slip that you preferred it when he didn’t wear them.

I feel like you hide behind those, sometimes. It’s nice to get to see all of you, Matt.

His tongue darted out to quickly wet his lips as he fixed his gaze in your direction, a timid smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“I actually need to ask a favor of you.”

“Of course, Matt. Whatever you need. What can I do?”

Matt gripped onto his own thigh to steady himself, your immediate response and sweet voice hitting his cock before they even reached his ears. His lips parted slightly when you sat up a little straighter in your chair, leaning in closer over your desk with a warm smile on your lips.

“I need a letter of recommendation for the law program.”

“And you’re asking me?”

Matt couldn’t help but laugh at the surprised tone of your voice, shaking his head slowly as he leaned in closer to your desk and rested his elbows on the surface.

“I already have a few from my other professors, but my advisor mentioned having one from a professor outside of my main area of study would make me seem more…well rounded.”

Matt should’ve felt horrible about lying. He didn’t actually need a letter of recommendation from you. He’d applied to the law program months ago, and had already gotten in, but he would confess that later.

“Mm, so I’m next in line to make you look good?”

“Well, you are my favorite, and you have a way of making everything sound beautiful. If I’d taken your class a long time ago like I was supposed to, I probably would’ve asked you first before anyone else.”

Matt didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath you took, or the way your face instantly became a few degrees warmer.

“You wouldn’t have been able to take my class earlier, Matt. This is my first year, remember? You would’ve been stuck with someone else.”

“I guess I forget sometimes because you’re so good at this. But, that’s true. I don’t think I would’ve liked who I got stuck with as much as I like you. I’m glad I waited for you.”

Matt did his best to stay calm as he heard you swallow thickly, your breathing becoming a little more shallow as your heart rate drummed loudly in his ears.

“That’s…really nice of you to say, Matt-”

“I mean it.”

A blanket of tension suddenly surrounded the two of you, and his lips parted slightly as he caught a faint shudder course through you. Your fingers clutched the hem of your dress where it settled high on your thighs, digging your nails lightly into your palms through the fabric. Matt was waiting for your body to give him a signal, indisputable proof that you wanted him just as much as he wanted you, before he crossed that line the two of you had been dancing around.

“Um…when do you need it by?”

“The earlier the better, I’m a little behind. But, take your time. I’d like this to be as…real and honest as possible.”

“I…um…I can have it ready for you by the time we come back from spring break.”

“That’s perfect, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this for me. I appreciate everything that you do for me, truly.”

“O-of course. It’s my job, Matt.”

Matt’s voice dropped an octave lower as he cocked his head to the side slightly, running his tongue along his bottom lip before the corner of his mouth curled upwards into a devilish smirk. 

“No. I think it’s more than that.”

Bingo.

The second he felt you press your thighs together under the desk and the enticing scent of your arousal hit his nose, Matt knew he had you. He rose from the chair steadily, gliding around the side of your desk slowly like a predator circling in on its prey, grabbing onto the sides of your chair as he bent over so that your faces were merely an inch apart.

“I think you know that too, sweetheart.”

“Matt-”

“I think if I put my hand between these pretty thighs, you’d be just as wet for me as I am hard for you.”

A shocked gasp flew past your lips as you sank back further into your chair, fighting the urge to spread your thighs to let Matt test his own theory, and averting your gaze from the prominent bulge in his jeans. 

“We can’t-”

Matt lightly grasped your chin in his hand as he forced you to look at him. He delicately traced his thumb along your bottom lip, leaning in ever so slightly to bump his nose against yours as he inhaled your scent deeply.

“You’ve done so much for me. Been so good to me, sweetheart. Shown me so much kindness. I’d like to repay that kindness, and show you how much I appreciate you. You gonna let me do that?”

A soft whine of desperation sounded in your throat, and a huge grin split across Matt’s mouth as you leaned further into his touch. He had you exactly where he wanted you.

“Yes you are. Because you’re my girl. My good girl.”

tags: @yarrystyleeza @little-miss-dilf-lover @neverlandcity @charmedkim @queenofthenoobs @stilldreaming666 @messymissy @dark-academia-slut @strawberry1042

[kotir-propaganda]

Mossflower has so much going for it, like I’m not even being biased because my blorbo is in it. I will die on the hill of it being Best Redwall Book for several reasons.

-It’s as early Redwall as you can get without actually being Book 1. As such, it avoids a lot of subjects and patterns that would later become repetitive tropes... but it also avoids the Book 1 jankiness of horses and human structures and the implied existence of Portugal. The world as we will come to know it feels more or less fully realized here. The abbey’s not here yet, but its foundation literally is- and we also get our first look at Salamandastron and the extent of Mossflower Wood as a whole.

-It has some of the most solid protagonists around. The legendary hero Martin is here, but he’s at a low point for most of the story and has to work his way up to that legacy! And this is where he does it, this is what future Redwallers remember him for, not the events of Martin the Warrior. Also, Gonff is here? Hello? Maybe the single most charismatic character in the series? Not to mention Dinny, how often does a humble mole actually get to go on a quest in these books?

-This isn’t even getting into how badass all the rest of the woodlanders are, too, but... they absolutely are. This is a small band of rebels that’s been driven from their little houses, they don’t have the luxury of those huge sandstone walls to protect them, but they’re still fighting like hell and outsmarting their enemies to boot. Some of them are seasoned fighters, but some of them are just ordinary families, all banding together to take back their homeland. And they keep it up the whole time! They’re not just waiting around for a guy with a sword to tell them what to do!

-The villains are probably the most nuanced in the whole series. Seriously. There are four whole wildcats here (don’t forget Sandingomm!) and only ONE of them is unquestionably evil. It’s absolutely implied that Verdauga was a fearsome warlord in his day, but if nothing else, he raised ONE kid who turned out to be about as Lawful Good as you can get, and he actually scolds Tsarmina for being mean to her brother!! I wish we could have spent a little more time with Verdauga, honestly, I have so many questions for this man.

-There are a decent handful of morally grey characters here, actually. Chibb spies for the woodlanders, but he’s not the most dependable and is motivated by payment more than sympathy to their cause. Snakefish allies with our questing heroes, but he minces no words in warning them that he’ll just as soon eat them if it comes down to it. Even Argulor is really just out here looking for a bite to eat and can you really blame him, because ashleg is a snack

-Tsarmina herself is irredeemably cruel, but even still there are multiple facets to her. On one hand, she’s scary- big and powerful and ready to rip into anything/anyone with her bare claws. At the same time she can be a clever strategist when she wants to be- poisoning her father and framing her brother, and later manipulating two of her obstacles, Argulor and Bane, into taking each other out. And still yet it can be kind of funny to watch her in action, as she gets humiliated by the resistance on multiple occasions. And maybe there is even a little pathos there, as we see her mind start to slip, and get some glimpse into the deep fear and paranoia that completely overtake her at the end.

-There are just great supporting characters on both sides. Mask is amazing, Fortunata is fantastic. And yeah, Blorbo Supreme Ashleg is here, and I don’t NEED to write a whole essay about him to promote Mossflower as a whole but... having him here is nice! It helps!! May we all follow his example and pursue happier lives for ourselves!!!

-Mossflower laid the foundation for so many events and characters of later books. I mean yeah, it’s a prequel. It’s there to support the first book and by extension, everything that comes after. But so many other great titles in the series have a direct line to Mossflower, from Outcast to Long Patrol to Lord Brocktree and more. Did you enjoy those books? You’re welcome. The threads were already there, just waiting to be expanded upon.

-at one point a wooden leg gets used as a projectile weapon and if you don’t think that’s the best thing ever, I don’t know what else to tell you buddy

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Do you think you could do like a characterization of the Familers?

Everytime I try to think about their personalities and how they would interact with each other, or M6, or Mc I just feel like I don't get it right. Like I've got like the very basics but that's like it

Malak is a crazy

Chandra is spoiled

Faust is a wildcard

Ianna is protective

Pepi is energetic

Idk Lucio’s familars ( i cant spell one of their names) but they are kinda like wild dogs, they do whatever they want

EVEN THEN, I still feel like some of these are wrong or don't cover most of their character or I'm mischaracterizing them on accident.

Could you maybe do some more Familers mini headcannons?

Like what do the Familers do when M6 is sad?

What do they do when Mc is sad?

How do they interact with each other on a day to day bases?

( I think you might have done one of these actually )

But I have more

What do they do when M6 or/and MC gets hurt?

What do they typically do during the day and/or What do they do when they aren't with M6?

How would they respond if M6/Mc was in a dangerous situation/attacked | How are they when M6/Mc is ill?

Some of these are probably answers in their routes but it's hard to remember/recall. I do wish they were in their respective routes just a little bit more than they are so I could get a could grasp of their personalities.

What I really want is just like a written out basis of what they are like? I don't even need the Mini headcannons ( but I do like them) Their personalities is just what I have a hard time grasping because it not like right in front of me or I'm not constantly reminded of it like the Li’s that I just forget or mischaracterize them.

So if you ever have the time and or patience, I would love if you could just write about their personalities or just more about them in general. They are right hand to the Li’s and I love them so much and I tried using the wiki but I don't trust it because apparently some of the info is just flat-out wrong. I love reading you headcannons and mini headcannons because I feel like you do the Li’s justice and this account is keeping the Arcana fandom alive. I'm very sorry that this is a really long ask and my grammar my be wrong in some areas.

I'd like to thank you if you've read through everything. I hope you keep making Arcana content in the future as me and many others really do enjoy your content and takes on the characters.

-🃏

Hi friend!! I hope you're ready for the full scale essay under the cut XD

(also, you are more than welcome to request some mini-hcs with the M6's familiars - please feel free to submit them individually so I can sort and try to answer them ^.^)

The devs don't go hugely into detail about how familiars work, exactly, but here's what we know: First, how in-tune to magic you are does affect how involved your bond is, but people still have familiars whether or not they have a lot of magical ability. Second, the bond makes the most sense if you think of it as being similar to a "soulmates AU" setup. The person and animal involved have a natural connection with the potential for a full-fledged familiar bond, but how that manifests changes depending on the effort and type of bonding that happens.

There's also a consistent pattern when it comes to vibes and personality, with the familiars being very similar to their respective humans. I'll go familiar by familiar from here ^.^

Malak:

Julian and Malak are (unfortunately) not very in touch with each other. Julian doesn't speak of him much beyond referring to him as "the raven", and while it's clear that they're more in sync than the average human and animal would be, Julian tends to find it more uncanny than comforting. Malak, in turn, tends to get quickly annoyed by this when his genuine attempts to help and protect and connect get consistently thwarted. He shares Julian's values and habits, constantly keeping watch (anxiously or otherwise) over his person and the people important to him, and often flying beak-first into situations that seem out of control with little regard for his own well being. Malak and Julian have the capacity to cover each other's blind spots. Julian is quicker at analyzing and navigating social situations that sometimes send the bird into a frenzy, while Malak is aware of magical happenings that Julian is completely blind to.

The two of them share an anxiety about the world being a constantly dangerous place and noble mindset focused around doing the right thing and protecting the people they love. The big difference is that Malak doesn't doubt his own abilities - as generally anxious as he acts with all his ruffling feathers and screeches, the raven doesn't hold himself back because he thinks someone else could do better. If anything, he's often pushing Julian to get over the self-deprecation and join him already. Unfortunately, neither of them has figured out how to listen to each other yet, which means more often than not they just get on each other's nerves. Given MC's ability to help Julian navigate things of a magical nature, they could very easily become the communication bridge between the two.

Faust

It's pretty heavily implied (if not canon) that Faust is the child of Asra's parents' familiars, Chimes and Flamel. She was given to Asra as an egg and hatched on one of their birthdays, and the two have been inseparable ever since. They have an incredibly strong bond, enough for them to send memories to each other, have conversations, communicate across long distances, and even share emotions. Faust loves Asra, herself, and MC almost equally, and in Asra's route she happily becomes MC's companion when Asra isn't around to do so. She also appears to have her own capacity for magic, frequently blipping from one realm to another as she pleases.

The best way (in my head) of describing her vibes are that one honorary younger sibling who is also the instigator best friend. While she's borne witness to Asra's toughest moments, she's received such excellent care and attention that she doesn't seem to have nearly the same levels of trauma - or maturity. Reading about her feels a lot like what I imagine reading about a teenaged Asra with a much kinder life would feel like - whimsical, mischievous, creative, impulsive, unpredictable, and carefree to the point of recklessness. She's still learning what it means to have limits (re: going off on an unannounced adventure, only to be caught and held hostage by the Devil) but when push comes to shove she's suprisingly dependable (re: sabotaging the ritual, right under the Devil's nose).

Due to her being so accessible to MC's character, she has a level of plot influence and general content that comes closer to a main character than the other familiars. It gives fan work more content to work with, but also less space to take its own creative liberty.

Chandra

Chandra is always hovering, and yet rarely directly involved. We know that Nadia used to be able to speak with her similarly to how Asra speaks with Faust, but she doesn't remember how. There's a wall between the two of them that they both seem to want to breach, but given the circumstances, they just haven't found the time and resources to do it yet. However, it's clear that they know how important they are to each other - Chandra seems to live at Nadia's beck and call, despite seeming so distant, and Nadia dedicates much of her personal time and interests to caring for her. They rely heavily on each other as allies in uncertain times (re: Nadia trusting Chandra in multiple routes to be her eyes and ears and carry her most important messages).

Chandra certainly has Nadia's independence, initiative, and desire for companionship. She's often seen on alert on the fringes and ready to step in and help take control of chaotic situations. However, where Nadia responds to a desire for companionship by initiating connection, Chandra is more reserved. She's present, she's paying attention, but she's not actively connecting until she's invited. She, like Nadia, has become accustomed to living in a Palace filled with with intrigue and uncertain loyalties, and it plays out in her reticence. She's much more likely to communicate interest by watching intently from a distance than by approaching and interacting. Over time, if MC is able to help Nadia find the way to communicate with Chandra again, they'll likely become her confidante in her efforts to be a good familiar.

Inanna

The best way to describe her and Muriel is trauma bonded. (Which, given Muriel's past, is arguably the bond that lets him receive the support he needs from her best.) They're both loners, both uninterested in connection until it's proven to be worthwhile, and both deeply distrusting of other people's motives. Inanna is Muriel's breaking point twice. First, when he's expected to kill her in the Coliseum (how they met), and second, when she's horribly injured trying to protect the heart of the forest. Both of those moments with her push Muriel to recognize his priorities and actually act on them. As a result, they have a deep mutual respect for each other - and a stubborn emphasis on still being their own people (or wolf). Muriel refers to her as his friend more easily than as his familiar.

Inanna as a character, however, seems to hold onto some of the traits that Muriel has buried under his trauma. She's more adaptable than he is, quicker to accept change, and considerably more hopeful and optimistic. She's faster to act (often the one prompting Muriel to follow through, when he'd rather continue thinking), and she's nosier. Where Muriel analyzes and then quietly judges while respecting someone's decision, Inanna analyzes and then does her best to assist any kind of good change. Whether that's leading MC to Muriel when he's injured and would rather be left alone, or expressing the affection towards them that he's still trying to hide, she acts like a big sister. Independent, a bit of a bully, fiercely protective, and loyal beyond measurement. She doesn't need to bond with MC through Muriel, she can do that herself.

Pepi

Portia met Pepi on Mazelinka's ship, as she was on her way to hunt down her older brother and beat some sense into him. The two of them bonded instantly, and when the time came for Portia and Mazelinka to part ways, Pepi gave up the life of a ship cat to stay by Portia's side. Portia doesn't seem to be fully aware of Pepi being her familiar and sees her as more of an uncannily well-bonded pet. At least, until her own route, where Pepi learns how to speak. Up until that point Portia just seems to see Pepi more as an unusually intelligent cat that she likes to talk to. The two of them are each other's family, Pepi always ready to lend a helping paw with unruly birds, and Portia always happy to spoil her with snuggles and treats.

Pepi has Portia's optimism, love of mischief, and dauntless attitude. However, they differ somewhat in how they view themselves. While Portia struggles to see herself as the main character of her own story, often fading into the background in order to support someone else, Pepi is more than happy to take center stage. This cat can and will prioritize her own needs and preferences if she thinks nobody else is going to do it, and it often lands her in trouble (re: stealing your heartsong festival gift, seeking out nap places that give her access to forbidden fishies, etc). She's quick to make her own friendships, and when you and Portia start your new life together, she'll consider you one of her family as well. Thanks to her retained ability to speak (upright ending) you'll never have to go without a conversation partner again.

Mercedes & Melchior

Lucio, unfortunately, didn't realize these two were his familiars until after he'd met you. While a large part of his menagerie building was his search for a familiar, he failed to notice how those two in particular were so attached to them. Thankfully, they're never on their own given how closely they stick to each other. Their lack of a strongly developed magical connection with Lucio doesn't really stop them from being able to communicate. They vibe with him on a similar act-first-think-later wavelength, having such little interest in impulse control that it's impossible not to know what they want. All you know is that they're hellbent on accomplishing it and on getting out of whatever consequences they invite with a pair of large, shining puppy eyes.

Besides their impulsiveness and chaotic nature, Mercedes and Melchior share Lucio's tendency to live in the moment and focus on life's pleasures. However, they also have the emotional intelligence and undying loyalty all good dogs do. When Lucio was "dead" they spent three years guarding his wing and trying to find help for him, and when you join him in his search for answers, they'll remain with you and empathize with you regardless of the dangers involved (re: one of them going with Lucio to get help, the other staying next to you and whining when Valdemar has you strapped to a gurney). They instinctively track your emotional state and are often the reason Lucio notices how you're doing as quickly as he does. For all their bratty behavior, their doggy bodies are overflowing with love for the people they care about and nothing makes them happier than being with them. Don't mistake love for respect, though - they take orders from nobody.

[gamerstar111]

Makoto & Nagito’s Survivor’s Guilt

i have many thoughts ab why makoto and nagito would have an interesting dynamic but today i’m thinking abt how their history parallels a little (like a lot of things ab them. they’re foils of each other i cld write an essay about it)

this is just a very long (kind of disorganized) tangent about lucky duo’s traumas and how they shaped their mindsets (and how they might understand each other better than people think at first)

i kind of get nervous anytime i put my analyses out there for people to percieve, but that’s okay. we’re facing fears today. LOL

——————————————————————————

i don’t think many people think about how makoto probably understands the survivor’s guilt nagito deals with better than anyone could, because he also has the mentality that he didn’t deserve to survive the things he did, and that his luck had a lot to do with his survival. they cope in very different ways, but at the core of their emotions they both feel that same “i don’t deserve to live” guilt.

——————————————————————————

Makoto’s Survivor’s Guilt

makoto doesn’t attribute as much of his trauma (which is the killing games he went through) to his luck, it doesn’t factor into his thinking as much as it does for nagito. junko says it at some point in the anime: makoto’s luck isn’t like nagito’s! he wouldn’t ever be able to utilize it like nagito can, because it isn’t consistent, it comes and goes super randomly. it keeps that mf alive and that’s IT 😭

(/j. it does more for him than that but im not talking ab his luck rn so BACK TO HIS SURVIVOR’S GUILT.)

he leaves the first killing game with this huge unofficial responsibility. he lost 10 of his classmates and it’s said that he was able to get his memories back after leaving, so that means he remembers the two years he spent with them. they were his friends :,)

and some of them did more than him to contribute to surviving. i know it’s for comedic effect in the game, but makoto is kind of consistently told by byakuya (and sometimes kyoko & others) that he’s stupid or unhelpful. + he already struggles with feeling like he’s not interesting, memorable, or unique in any kind of way (mr. “i’m average at being average”)

but nevertheless, he survives the games, (after basically convincing his remaining classmates to NOT sacrifice him. a second time.) and when he does get out, he joins the future foundation, where his nickname as the ultimate hope starts to push him to do as much as he can. and because he’s so determined to save as many people as he can, he opposes the foundation’s plan to kill the remnants, and takes them to jabberwock island. he’s so determined to do as much as he can because he feels like if he doesn’t, he’s wasting the life he was given. it’s implied a few times that he would have killed himself if he didn’t feel guilty throwing away the life that was taken from his friends! people don’t talk enough about how makoto is NOT as endlessly optimistic as everyone thinks

he isn’t completely immune to despair. i honestly feel like his main motivation in helping people and spreading hope isn’t that he lives by it, it’s that he has to do as much as he can to to spread it to OTHERS because if he doesn’t, what is he doing with the life he has that his friends were robbed of? i could get into the nuances of makoto’s character and how he isn’t just “hope enthusiast #1” but that’s more fitting of a makoto exclusive character analysis. coming soon/hj

the point of that is that he wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t feel like he had to make something of the fact that his classmates died and he didn’t. that’s what motivates him to try and save everyone, no matter who they are or how terrible they are (him saving the remnants, trying to save junko even though he hated her for what she did, and trying to save the future foundation members in the second game, even though they want him dead)

and when he already has this mentality, he goes through a SECOND killing game, where one of his closest friends (i forget if it’s canon they were dating or not, but you get the point) dies as a DIRECT result of him surviving. and instead of breaking down and giving up, he takes it and becomes more determined to end the game. but his despair video shows that he feels so guilty that he survived, even if he doesn’t ruminate in that feeling.

but nagito is the polar opposite

——————————————————————————

Nagito’s Survivor’s Guilt

most of nagito’s character revolves around two things:

His self-loathing

His twisted perception of hope, and his obsession with the concept

putting aside the fact that he has been diagnosed with dementia that definitely warps his perception of reality as it is, when you look into his backstory it makes sense why he thinks the way he does. his childhood pet died in a car crash when he was a little kid, then, when he goes on vacation with his parents (still in elementary school), the plane taking them back is hijacked, and then those hijackers are killed by a meteorite that also kills his parents right in front of him.

he has no other living relatives, so he’s given all of their inheritance, and is said to be free to live on his own. so he’s been alone since he was a kid, and then during middle school, he’s kidnapped by a SERIAL KILLER that held him for ransom, and then let him go after realizing no one was going to come for him. (which is actually so distressing to me like r u kidding me that’s so SAD HE HAD NO ONE WILLING TO EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE HE WAS MISSING?? UGH. ANYWAY.)

any chance at happiness Nagito has had was ripped from him in that cycle of good and bad luck. he starts to become fixated (and eventually, unhealthily obsessed) with the concept of hope, so that he could try and find some meaning to his life beyond killing anyone who'd ever shown him any kindness or cared about him. and then after ALL OF THIS, in high school before hope's peak, he gets diagnosed not only with CANCER, but also DEMENTIA. Which, typically, only affects people over 65!!!! he was probably not older than 16 when he got diagnosed!!!! he's then told that he probably has less than 6 months to live. he tells hajime this whole speech about how he realized all he wanted his entire life was to be loved by someone, and he didn't want to die alone, but then says that he was just quoting something, curious to the sympathy it would get him (i don't really believe that, but THAT is a nagito analysis topic. back on topic again…)

then he gets invited to hope's peak. he tries to refuse, but they insist, and so he finally agrees. but then, during his second year, junko starts to ruin things, and yet ANOTHER person he started to care about is killed right before his eyes (chiaki). of course, then, he goes on to bring as much pain and despair to anyone he can under junko’s brainwashing

he's fully convinced that he's a curse, and that he's not worthy of living.

——————————————————————————

"ok….. what’s your point??" you didn’t ask???

the difference between nagito and makoto is that makoto took his grief and made it into motivation, while nagito took his grief as a personal reflection, and spiraled down into a mental decline.

i think the main reasons for this difference is that, first of all, nagito's trauma has been his entire life. since he was a little kid up to even currently (when he's around 21-22), all he's done is cause or witness death anywhere he's gone. watching your childhood pet AND parents die before your eyes has to impact development in some kind of way (not to mention he was entirely alone since ELEMENTARY SCHOOL)

makoto had a very average, but nice life to that point. he had nice parents that were together and happy, his little sister that he's super close to, and while he didn't have any super close friends, he wasn't on particularly bad terms with anyone (as shown by his reaction to seeing sayaka, and sayaka's reaction to knowina him). all of the trauma and death he experienced happened to him when he was an adult (even though he thought he was 16-17 when the first killing game happened, he was most likely 18-19 and junko can erase memory but not alter brain development. so.)

second of all, makoto had support from his friends! he had the other 5 survivors, and then during the second game, he had kyoko and aoi to support him and get him through it. nagito grew up experiencing all of this grief and guilt and trauma entirely alone, even during the killing game he was in. his classmates treat him awfully even before he has his mental break doing incredibly unhinged shit like blowing up the gym (it's so. hard. to defend him sometimes.)

i still haven’t gotten to my point oh my god i talk a lot. BUT THE POINT IS they cope extremely differently, and arguably have different levels of trauma, but they experience the same survivors guilt. both of them feel like they don't deserve to be alive, and that others around them deserve so much better than they do. i really feel like makoto would be able to empathize with nagito's struggles with survivor's guilt and self worth, because he feels the same things! clearly, not to the same extent, but again, that goes back to the support makoto got during his experiences. it's one of the many MANY reasons i think makoto and nagito would be able to help each other heal, instead of being unhealthy like a lot of people say. (of course it depends on when because obviously, servant nagito meeting ff!makoto would not be healthy. that man would skeeve makoto out MASSIVELY but that dynamic is also an interesting one to explore.... ANYWAY.)

nagito's obsession with hope would give him an unhealthy attachment/idolization of makoto at first, but i really do believe that after he recovers a little more from junko's influence, a few days with the guy would make nagito realize that they're way more similar than he thought and that respectfully, makoto isn't as amazing and godly as he thought LOL

——————————————————————————

TLDR: they have very similar experiences, the only difference between them is that makoto had support that reminded him he wasn't to blame for the deaths of those around him, while nagito was isolated from EVERYONE from a very, VERY young age, and it led to his mental decline. i really believe they would be able to help each other heal a lot and that's why i love them so much :(

side note: genuinely nothing makes me as sad as nagito and his dog 😞 every time i mention them i get so upset

[archaiclumina]

I am sappy atm and this post will likely not stay up forever, because I am nothing if not notoriously fickle about sharing facts about my life with the old world wide web. But, I miss my brother and I wanna talk about him. The rest is under the cut <3 to avoid upsetting folks. tw include cancer and death

I truly do believe the dead only die when we forget to remember them. And while I remember my brother all the time, I rarely talk about him with strangers on the internet. But today, I want to. So I will tell you a bit about my brother, and share some of my family photos with you all!

People in my day to day life, and a few online friends who have gotten to know me really well, (and some folks who saw a post kinda like this one but a bit sadder at the start of the month you guys know who you are c':), already know how much I love my brother. He is gone now, but that doesn't stop me loving him at all. I speak of my love for him in present tense, because it didn't die when he did. Nearly every day I see or learn something that I wish I could share with him and tell him about. I wish I could tell him that David Byrne made new music with Montaigne. Or show him the Monster Hunter Rathalos Telecaster that Fender released. I wish I could tell him I got into my PhD! Because life is strange and maybe a little bit ironic, I found out about the approval for my PhD proposal on his birthday this year, so maybe in some strange universal way he does know about these things, even if I can't tell him. I like to think of it that way sometimes and sometimes, it is comforting to think that might be the case. But most of the time I am cold, and hard, and logical. I know my brother doesn't know anything anymore, because he is dead now. In those moments, I remind myself it's my job to learn about the things he loved still, to keep him close in an abstract way. I suppose in another way, it's also my job to tell other people about the things he loved, and the sort of person he was, to keep his memory alive. And I guess that is why I am writing this essay thing right now.

My brothers name was Marco. I used to call him Marcy. When I was 5 I apparently explained to him this was because "Marc" was for short, and "Marcy" was for long c': His friends called him pumpkin seed <3

My brother was 12 years my senior. We didn't really grow up together. Our home life was not great and he was a homeless youth due to those circumstances. But despite our big age gap and the fact neither of us got to spend our childhoods together, we were probably as tight as sibling could be in adulthood. We saw each other regularly, we texted regularly, we went to the movies together, went shopping together, we browsed second hand bookshops and scoured for occult classics from AE Waite, or epic fantasy from Le Guin. We sat on the grass in the park and looked up at the trees and he could tell me their names just by looking. My brothers love for plants is a huge part of why I worked plants into Oli's character concept tbh.

He was the person there for every important milestone. Graduation, birthdays, all that stuff. Funny story, digital cameras didn't exist when I turned sixteen and my bro spent a whole evening snapping pictures of my birthday with the lens cap on c': we don't have any photos from that birthday, but the memory of discovering all the blank photos when we developed them still makes me laugh a lot c: Here's a picture of us the day I graduated from my Masters.

I get emotional to look at it because you can see how happy I am and how proud he is of me. He always told me he was proud of me, I am sure most, if not all, big brothers are like that. And I know he would still be proud of me today if he was around, but gosh, wouldn't I give anything to be able to hear him say it again in the flesh instead of just in my memories. He was so supportive of me, and my dreams, "I never want you to stop writing," he used to say to me, I really wish I could tell him the book I was working on when he was sick is not only going to get read by people, it's going to form an entire academic work on the journey of authorship in the digital age.

When he was dying of pancreatic cancer, he was really adamant he needed to take lots of selfies for us all of him being silly, and joking around, often with silly snap chat filters, so no matter what, we'd remember him that way. Here are some examples of the ones he would send us c':

He was an amazing self taught guitarist. One of my favourite things in the world was listening to him learn a song by ear. He would pluck his way through it, learning the notes perfectly for each bar of the tune. Like my husband, metal was his main love, but he also was eclectic in tastes like me. He loved that "Enter the Ninja" song by Die Antwoord so much it's what we played when they cremated him. We made a playlist together when he was dying so I'd always have music to remember him by and he asked me to put on Betty by Taylor Swift because "it's a nice melody". He was a man of diverse and discerning tastes c':

When he was dying, his muso friends all brought their amps and instruments around, and our neighbours in our apartment complex were all beans who never complained once about the noise. (Obviously we had explained the situ before we let a bunch of metal heads rock up with marshall stacks c': ) Here's a photo of him playing just after the selfie he took during his chemo that I posted above!

He was the best and coolest brother I could have ever asked for. Even though his life was so hard, he was nothing but gentle and compassionate. He taught me how to be kind to others. Please know that every time I am writing a nice tag on your stuff, it's because he showed me how important it is to do that. The way he lived and the way he died taught me to say the kind words, to tell people how you feel, to take chances to connect with others, because time is so, so short, you know?

Sorry to maybe be a bit of a downer to folks, I know it's not great to hear about people dying of cancer. But he was so special to me, and I miss him a lot and it's been four years without his laugh and his jokes, and four years without him telling my husband he is the best cook, and four years without him asking me "where's my zucchini bread!?" (He was a vegetarian for nearly all his life and very fond of zucchini in just about every form you can cook it c': )

My husband knew my brother since he's known me, they were great friends, even before we dated, when we were just neighbours! (yeah my husband used to be my neighbour, but that's another story c': ) My brother and my husband were so tight they used to hang out together when I was living in the USA!

Here's the three of us together in October 2020 at a cool nature spot near where we used to live. He was so sick he couldn't go far from home really, but this place was super close and had a Japanese garden there too, which he loved, because I love Japan. We had a picnic there by the river the day we took this photo, it was about two weeks before we found out the treatment hadn't helped his prognosis and he only had two weeks left. Actually they told him he had a week left, but my brother was a resilient mother fucker and outlived their estimate by an extra seven days!

I know my husband misses him as much as I do. He was like a brother to him too. An unofficial brother-in-law, because he could only be there in spirit on the official day.

Boopoween day was an amazing blessing, I usually spend Halloween looking at photos like these and crying. But for the first time in a long time, I spent the day laughing and feeling connected to the world, instead of all alone with my grief. So thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who indulged all my silly spam boops that day. You really don't know what a gift you gave me. Halloween was our favourite holiday, it's another really strange, and ironic, and hard thing to deal with, that he died on that day. His birthday was October 2nd too, so the whole month is a bit of a write off for me honestly and why I don't spend much of it on socials.

This past few days my husband decided he would put some positivity into the universe and use his talent to do some nice things for people because he thought it was something my bro would have liked, and because it is nice when you're feeling sad to find a way to make someone else smile c: and, It really made both of us smile to see how happy everyone was with his little gifts, so thank you all!

And thank you for reading a little bit about my brother. It was nice for me to share some stuff about him with folks <3

[mantequillamcwhoremick]

Hi! I ended up reading through Choas Plan in pretty much two days (your writing is actually phenomenal) but I was actually curious on your inspirations to write it? Did it come from any other particular works or maybe episodes from sp?

WHAT NO WAY😭😭😭😭😭😭WHAT THE HELL THAT'S SO NICE HOLY SHIT THANK YOU SO MUCH <33333

You can't just ask me shit like that dude I will respond with a huge fucking essay I LOVE questions like that!!!!

I honestly have several inspirations, many come from the show itself and some I've drawn from cyber crime documentaries and books I like (namely the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo, you might recognize the scene with Mysterion and Harris in chapter 3 is very VERY similar to the one between Kaz and Jan Van Eck at the beginning of the book), but if you've read the notes in the fic you might have seen that the story idea was initially born when I was playing TFBW.

The Idea

The U-Stor-It scene where Butters/Chaos locks the C**n and Friends in the facility and talks to them through a screen was just so fascinating to me, it reminded me a lot of Jinx from Arcane and the Joker in The Dark Knight (especially because of the flashy decorations and graffiti). Mainly the story evolved from the question I posed to myself in that moment, which was: "What needs to happen for Butters to become someone like Jinx?" and that's how I started brainstorming the backstory.

The Backstory

Obviously that was inspired mainly by Linda's behavior in Butters' Very Own Episode, but it features elements from stuff all over the series and the games that prove just how fucked up Butters' parents are and treat him.

(Remember when in TFBW he mentioned that they bought an electronic lock system to keep him in his room because he left the bathroom once while grounded? yeah, that convinced me Butters' home life probably would only get worse with the years, especially with him entering his teens & puberty, and Post Covid honestly just confirmed that.)

The Villain/Hero Concept

I hadn't yet watched much more of South Park than up until seasons 15/16 so I didn't know about Post Covid's Vic Chaos yet, I mostly just wanted to do something with Mysterion and Chaos that had a darker and serious tone without either of them having any Marvel-esque powers or tech-organizations aiding them, something closer to the South Park lore at hand and realistic enough to feel like it could happen in our world.

Chaos' Methods

With Butters having a knack for Internet-related shit and him being able to hack into a baseball stadium screen to broadcast his evil plans in the Professor Chaos episode, and ofc his whole thing in TFBW and the episode of him becoming a pimp, I figured he has the stuff to be a hacker and entrepreneur.

I started getting spoilered a lot on the whole Vic Chaos and NFT scammer thing so even though I hadn't watched Post Covid I drew a lot of inspiration from that as well. I've been watching a lot of documentaries on Cryptocurrency scams and other cyber crime related stuff, so yeah all that shit also gets my brain generating a bunch of ideas as well.

Mysterion

As for Kenny/Mysterion's side of the story- I'm a huge fan of the "criminal who gets paid by a shitty pig/capitalist who would normally never hire them to take on a job" concept in Six of Crows, so that's how I got Harris involved, later further fueled by his Thin White Line arc in TFBW.

The way Kenny used his death powers in the C**n & Friends episodes I found very intriguing, and I absolutely LOVE playing around with them, so I included my own interpretation & spin of it as an active "superpower" he uses in order to be successful enough as a vigilante to be taken seriously. His canon powers separate him from your average humanbeing. It's a way to show the audience "hey look, Kenny really is just some guy, but also no one else could take on this role, ever. He may not have super strength or speed or money for equipment backing him, but he can get into places and out like no other person ever."

Coming up with a kryptonite-type weakness was also super fun, because I didn't want things to just be too easy. Mainly it's his need to remain anonymous, but the biggest reason for that need is because he needs to keep up his ability to financially support Karen. That, I obviously got from the show-, namely episodes like Mysterion Rises, The Poor Kid and City Part of Town, but his dynamic with Karen got increasingly more interesting and influenced in the fic after I played the TFBW DLC From Dusk Til Casa Bonita. The fact that he's so obsessed with keeping her safe the best way he knows how but completely overlooks to consider letting her have a say in it, is absolutely delicious. Like fuck yes, let's go complicate these character relationships (rubs hands evilly)

TL;DR

Inspirations come from all over, but of course the main ones do come from the show and games. Kenny and Butters have always been increasingly fascinating characters to me the more I watched the show, so the fact that Kenny canonically is the only kid Butters respects (source: s16, Ep "Going Native"), to an extent that in the future Butters funded his entire career, I thought had a shit ton of potential. Hence their friendship in the fic before "the incident", and the way Butters goes about Kenny now that he's taking over the town >:)))

Thank you SO SO MUCH for the ask!!!! I hope I didn't ramble too much for what you actually wanted to know, but I just absolutely love sharing my inspirations for this fic. Really gets my brain go brrrrr heheheh I'm so so grateful that this interests you <33333

[plusultraetc]

👀👀 you mentioned a sports festival rant?

YES Sports Festival rant!! When I answered this ask about MHA favorites, I 'jotted down a couple of notes about the Sports Festival' which turned into like. A 1.5k word essay. In my defense, this arc truly does have it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's so much to talk about here that 1.5k words doesn't even begin to cover it!!

The Good:

So until now I have been a predominantly anime fan who occasionally reads the manga when I need a quick refresher on something, or I just want to reexperience a chapter through a slightly different lens. That being said, I haven't read through the Sports Festival arc in its entirety, so my opinions are based on the anime, and in the anime, this is genuinely such a fun arc to watch. It has a similar low-stakes-high-energy vibe to Joint Training; the audience is properly introduced to so many new characters and their quirks; and there are some really great emotional beats throughout (shoutout to Todoroki vs Sero. I am HAUNTED by the entire stadium in awe of Todoroki's instant-win juxtaposed with Midoriya thinking 'In that moment, he looked very sad to me.' That split-second moment where Todoroki wonders if not using his father's quirk really makes him any less Endeavor's son? HAUNTED.)

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE PART OF THE ARC: Aizawa & Present Mic's stand up comedy routine in the commentator's booth. They had no reason to be as funny as they were. 'There you have it folks, Eraserhead is a terrible teacher' I mean. I did write a fic about the circumstances leading up to the comedy routine and it is,, not super lighthearted but let's ignore that for now and focus on the silly. I WILL SAY, something else Sports Festival does is constantly remind me that characters like Aizawa, Mic, Midnight, and All Might are products of UA and, in turn, of pro hero society. Those first three especially are products of an All Might-centric pro hero society, which adds another messy layer to the things they are willing to accept and even encourage. Huge brainrot about the pro hero house of cards balanced on the wobbly table that is All Might forever!!

Midoriya is really at his most Midoriya in this arc also. I personally think Izuku is at his best when his ingenuity and empathy are the focus (these are character traits that imo become less and less prominent as the show goes on and his focus shifts to becoming stronger. You can probably pinpoint the exact moment where his priorities change (at least I think so?) and then you could probably write an essay about trauma and responsibility and cry). ANYWAY, early Midoriya is Very Worried All The Time about doing exactly as All Might says, which is why it is so so important that he does not win the Sports Festival. The Festival is kind of a microcosm of the pro hero world, with the medal ceremony being the parallel/precursor for hero rankings. Coming in first place/being Number One is a big big deal in this arc, as always. Izuku's most impactful moment is when he prioritizes something (or someone) else over that coveted first place medal, in spite of how badly he wants to impress All Might and be worthy of his legacy. He was just a really good bean in this arc okay???

The "Bad" (but no less interesting!):

As wonderful as it was to see the pro heroes come to the rescue at USJ, the Sports Festival is here to remind us that, in so many ways, this world is a dystopia. It's not just because of the Hunger Games-esque nature of watching children fight each other & broadcasting it worldwide for entertainment and profit. When you think about it, the Sports Festival is kind of like college-level sports, just with superpowers and high schoolers (there's even a recruitment aspect. It's literally like MHA college football). And sure, fighting each other with superpowers is considerably more violent than your average sport, but they do have people with healing quirks like Recovery Girl on standby. Even serious injuries can literally be undone in seconds. What makes the college sports-ification of hero school so weird is the 'hero' part. Like, not only are you already indoctrinating your future heroes (who have so much relatively unchecked power & responsibility as pros) into the hero/celebrity culture super early on, but the students are competing to impress current pros, secure a good internship, and further their careers. Like. You're essentially teaching them that being a good hero = putting on a good show. Maybe if the point wasn't to 'win' an internship it wouldn't be so strange to me but as is? Wild. Really fun bit of worldbuilding. I am spinning it in my head like a carnival prize wheel.

I also want to take a minute to talk about the medal ceremony here. I thiiink that Bakugou being chained to the podium is meant to be comedic(?), kind of a 'look how mad he is, they literally had to drag him out here' moment, but the conflation of hero/villain imagery in this scene. Omg. Again, the medal ceremony is like a mini hero ranking (that he has won!!!) but the only other time we've seen a muzzle-like thing like the one Bakugou is wearing is on a villain in the first episode. To bring that back at this moment?? The bars of my enclosure. The bars of my english degree. Agh.

I actually mentioned this around the time I posted that very silly Sports Festival fic for Monoma’s birthday, but can we talk about how 1-A IMMEDIATELY turns on each other during this arc? Like?? They’re a MESS. Obv the writing reason for this is that there needs to be competition to make this competition arc interesting (and it succeeds!) but 1-A’s immediate willingness to go for the jugular gets Really Awkward when you realize they are literally the only class that does this—and, what’s more, that there is literally no reason for them to do this. Unnamed 1-C student #3 is right: the other first year classes are only participating in the Festival to make the hero students look good. We know this because the first challenge—the obstacle race—is literally designed to eliminate non-Hero Course students from the competition. Even if hero students didn’t have (generally) more powerful quirks and more training than everyone else, the very first obstacle in the race is the Hero Course Entrance Exam robots—ie, a challenge the hero students have already beaten, but that disqualified students from other courses from admission. Even deliberately hanging back and doing recon, 1-B is able to get all of their students through the obstacle race. Then, after the Cavalry Battle, we see 1-B once again demonstrating a level of maturity and support that the vast majority of 1-A severely lacks. I know I sound like Monoma rn, but I think this has a lot to do with the fact that, as we continue to see throughout the series, 1-A takes a lot of their cues from Midoriya and Bakugou and, to a lesser extent because he’s so quiet, Todoroki. Later, this is a good thing, because the mini big three pushes their class to be the best they can be, but here, these three characters are in shambles—insecure and off-kilter and desperate to prove something, and that energy very much spreads to their peers--which I personally think is great bc it makes for good TV and leaves lots of room for character growth!

The Ugly:

You have no idea how tempted I am to just put a picture of Stain here. He would deserve it for what he did to my man Tensei. I actually love Stain as a villain but SPEAKING OF WHAT HE DID TO MY MAN TENSEI.

The show tells you how important the Sports Festival is. Everyone treats it like it’s the Olympics, except fifty times more important. UA students are scouted by pro heroes and agencies during the event, and putting on a good show can literally change the course of your career (just as doing poorly can ruin it before you even get a chance to graduate). More sports analogies! This makes sense. But the thing is, countless pros show up to watch the event in person. Even more provide security. Literally my first thought was, if I was a criminal I would commit so many crimes during the Sports Festival. Who tf would be around to stop me? And then I had a good laugh because we actually see Shigaraki watching the Festival and I was like ‘oh, there isn’t a spike in villain attacks because the villains are watching it too lol.’

But THEN, Tensei gets attacked by Stain ON THE DAY OF THE FESTIVAL. So there are still heroes out hero-ing and villains out villain-ing, and it’s probably way easier to do the latter when everyone from All Might to Endeavor and beyond are watching teenagers beat the tar out of each other. But you’ve gotta scout those future interns and sidekicks so what are you gonna do!! Once again, the Sports Festival is a microcosm of pro hero popularity society—it’s this insulated little bubble where everyone is so worried about how they look, where they ranked, who they beat to that podium, while the real world carries on outside. Iida himself is distracted by that shiny first place medal until Stain attacking his brother body slams him back to reality.

[homestuckreplay]

Violin Concerto in the Key of Meteor Strike: Who Is Rose Lalonde?

Character Deep Dive 2 - 6/2/2009

Homestuck’s narrator formally introduced us to John Egbert right as the comic opened, but our getting to know Rose Lalonde has been slower and more natural. From her earliest conversation with John on p.63, to her becoming a ‘playable character’ of the comic on p.139 when she and John begin playing Sburb, to our switch to following her in person actions on p.214, we already knew a lot about Rose before we had her name and list of interests. She’s just as weird as John but with a spooky gray filter applied, she’s a regular kid who will probably summon a demon, she’s an absolute control freak who’s still kind of a failure at video games, and she is our second Main Character, set up as a contrast to John as well as a friend.

Much like with John, I’ve used Rose’s list of interests to group the information we know about her, and to discuss her relationship with the other characters and with some themes of the comic so far.

Essay below the cut - about 3.6k words.

Quiz here - 13 multiple choice questions.

1. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE.

If this was the first thing we learned about Rose, I might see her very differently. I’d definitely take her more seriously. But I saw her destroy the plumbing and put the bunny back in the box, so learning this now comes off very differently.

With John’s ‘passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES’, we were given posters to illustrate his taste, and based just on critical reception, ‘really terrible’ is a huge oversimplification. So we know that the narration isn't completely objective, and we know from other clues that Rose's interests in psychoanalysis and games are fairly surface level, which makes it an easy leap to ‘Rose reads a lot of HP Lovecraft and thinks of that as way more obscure than it is because she’s 13 and gets book recommendations from forums’.

There are two posters on the left of Rose’s wall that could be book characters - they look like amateur art of regular, non-tentacled people. I wonder if they were birthday presents from one of her friends, whether it’s John or TG sending her original concept art made by the author of a book she likes, or fanart if one of her friends is a visual artist (GG, perhaps?)

John not only loves movies, but imagines himself in their stories (for example, p.223) and the things that happen to him reflect his movies in response. Without any specific titles, it’s hard to say if the same is true for Rose - but if so, it raises questions of genre. John’s story has been lighthearted action-comedy with darker themes below the surface, light fantasy and countdowns leading to an explosion that’s almost comically absurd even while it has our hearts racing. Rose’s story is already darker both in literal color and in tone. Her inventory system is still terrible but she uses it more pragmatically and she’s far more skillful about skulking around her own house. This, the design of her house, and the sudden flashes of lightning illuminating the sky red or revealing a shadowed figure give her story a survival horror feel. If that’s her taste in literature, it would make sense that she’d imagine herself in that type of story.

2. You enjoy creative writing and are SOMEWHAT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT.

Where a normal person might say ‘hey I heard you got the sburb beta’, Rose Lalonde says ‘I understand you have recently come into possession of the beta release of "The Game of the Year", as featured in respectable periodicals such as GameBro Magazine’ (p.63). It’s the first thing we hear from her, so we learn immediately that she likes the sound of her own voice. She’s the only kid in her friend group who uses perfect capitalization and grammar in her messages, and she criticizes game walkthroughs as ‘horrendously written’, suggesting a focus on the technical aspects of writing.

Her creative interest is seen in ‘I think I will write my own walkthrough’ (p.204) where she moves beyond criticism and at least believes she could make something better, and ‘It’s not especially practical. But I think they are elegant’ (p.154) which shows an interest in the style and aesthetics of things. We also get great glimpses of her prose in lines like ‘Its lurid glare has moved on to younger timezones’ (p.174) - I can imagine Rose writing fanciful mood and setting pieces that focus on description over dialog.

In her eccentric verbosity, Rose’s character voice is more similar to the narrator’s than any other character’s is. The narrative text on p.82, for example, feels more comfortable in itself than Rose’s messages do, but it’s not a million miles away. I’ll come back to Rose as a narrator figure in the section on knitting, somehow. 

Rose is not only secretive about her creative writing, she’s secretive in general. On page 164, she tells John not to investigate after she rips out his toilet. She asks him for ‘space’ to fix it and sends him away, and clearly prefers to work unobserved especially when she’s uncertain. She also shuffles her purple package into the closet (p.218) and her writing journals under her bed (p.220) when she feels the narration’s scrutiny. The narrator states ‘You would only resort to such an embarrassing activity while no one was watching’. Rose is clearly ashamed of some of her interests and personality, and hides a lot of herself from observers to make herself seem cooler and more mysterious than she is.

(I have to note that this does not work, at least not where her friends are concerned. Before we hear from Rose directly, we learn about her from TG, who says ‘maybe you can play with TT shes been pestering me all day about it. shes mackin on me so hard all the time i start to feel embarrassed for her’. Definitely not the way she’d want to be introduced to a mass audience).

3. You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, [...]

The 'bestially strange and fictitious' is what's being referenced in the tentacle of tentacleTherapist, not an innocuous interest in marine life. This is one of her shared interests with John, who apparently liked paranormal lore. It's interesting that these beasts are 'fictitious' according to the narration, but Rose's grimoire is specifically for 'summoning' the zoologically dubious, not just learning about them. This positions Rose as a more active character than John (summoning instead of learning lore) and as someone who has grand designs and fringe beliefs - kind of an Ellie Arroway in Contact figure.

I've talked about Rose and John as scientists based on their chumhandles, versus TG and GG as religious. We now know that Rose lives next door to an impressive sized lab broadcasting from an antenna. Depending on how good their security systems are, she might have explored here, or at least peered through the windows at the strange, unethical science experiments they're surely doing (aka the extremely routine lab work that she's interpreting as mad science). Growing up with scientists as her only neighbors might have inspired this interest and got her started on weird experimentation of her own. As it's unlikely she has formal training beyond middle school, it makes sense she'd be into weird tentacles in jars instead of a more academically accepted field.

I've been wondering how many of Rose's interests are from childhood and how many go further back. The cuddly Cthulhu plush and the very cartoonish monster on her shirt suggest this was a childhood interest, even if the specific monsters she likes have changed over time - some of her more unsettling posters might be recent additions. We don't know enough about her mom's parenting style to guess if she was mostly unsupervised on the internet and able to look at horror from a young age, or if she was held back from something she had an interest in until her mom felt like she was old enough, and how that might have impacted her either way.

4. [...] and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS.

This is the 'therapist' half of Rose's chumhandle, and the easiest interest to guess based on her early appearances. Psychoanalysis, to Rose, appears to be the idea of knowing people better than they know themselves and guessing their underlying motivations and thought processes - therapy through telling people what's going on in their head instead of talking it through with someone. From what we've seen so far, the vibe is 'she's read Freud's Wikipedia page and cares more about putting her basic knowledge into action than reading more theory'.

In Rose's first chatlog on p.63, she accuses John, 'You're wearing one of your disguises now, aren't you? You are typing to me right now while wearing something ridiculous.' She says this right after John mentions going to get the Sburb beta from his dad - 'mom' and 'dad' are activation words to someone with an amateur interest in Freud, and she's immediately putting herself in John's head and making assumptions about his life. (She's right, but probably only because they're already good friends).

On p.160 she tries to pull a similar move, saying 'Is this how your pent-up frustration with your father manifests itself?' and John shuts her down. But in her efforts to analyze other people, she tells on herself more than she wants to - her previous message was 'I am not sensing a lot of regard for the personal property of others' and considering this message comes as she throws John's personal property around his house, leaving his things on the roof and in the backyard, I'm going to call this one projection.

Rose's only direct statement about her mom is on p.174 - 'I'd rather not risk an encounter with my mother. I battled through her cloud of gin and derision once already this evening.' In this same pesterlog she compares her situation to John's, suggesting that she thinks John's situation of 'cake, jesters, unfaltering love and support' isn't really that bad. While she's not wrong, it's a very unproductive thing for a so-called therapist to say, and it shows a lack of self awareness - Rose seems like she would hate being coddled with cake and having a business clown cramping her goth style.

I really think Rose is more of a lab scientist than a therapist, but being able to perfectly understand and predict people is such a helpful skill for someone who is insecure and wants to project an image - if you can understand how someone thinks, you can influence what they think. She definitely wants to control how she's perceived, and likes to have information in general (see: immediately looking up GameFAQs when she couldn't figure out Sburb right away). Psychoanalysis is also used in literary criticism, so it's also possible that she uses this to advance her creative writing, if she's open to any kind of self reflection.

5. You also like to KNIT, [...]

Knitting stands out from Rose's more esoteric and highbrow hobbies. It's not something we've seen her mention, but her sweaters, scarves, socks and hats scattered on her floor look finished, so she has skill and commitment (but lacks a good storage space). I bet she knits while listening to audiobooks. It's a hobby that needs some perfectionism and attention to detail, which seem like traits Rose prizes even if she doesn't possess them (see p.170 where Rose reveals that she placed the Cruxtruder without rotating the room to check if she was in the way of the door).

Rose calls her shot about Sburb's punch card alchemy on p.157, and doesn't confess to reading walkthroughs until p.178. While it's possible she was reading them sooner, it's also possible that she's familiar with punch card knitting, maybe even has a knitting machine somewhere in the house. Knitting is fundamentally the same principle as (punch card) alchemy - taking an abstract image or code laid out on a 2D card, and using it to generate a physical object. The totem lathe and alchemiter could function similarly to a knitting machine, using build grist or cruxite instead of wool, but creating patterns in similar ways.

Following this logic, knitting is a generative hobby, as is creative writing. Rose makes things in a way that John really doesn't (he's clearly never finished coding anything) and has been doing so before playing Sburb. It's interesting to associate her with creation in light of her underlying god complex. Frankenstein is another 'obscure' book Rose has probably read and loved. She is a Dr Frankenstein type of scientist, she is going to knit Fluthlu and bring them to life. The Sburb server player is such a godlike role, and she slides into it so naturally, immediately taking full control and giving orders.

When she's the player character but we haven't seen her yet (p.139-201), she feels like an invisible but omnipresent narrator one layer below the actual narrator, a watchful presence that John can't escape. On p.145 she tries to select John with the Sburb cursor. It doesn't work, but what the hell was she going to do if it did? Drop him outside? I keep coming back to how she seems aware she's being watched by the narrator on p.218 and p.220, in the same way that John knows he's being watched by Rose (but doesn't seem aware of the narrator, despite reacting to their commands). Is it possible, even, that she's (consciously or unconsciously) trying to emulate the narrative voice with her messages in her efforts to take on a similar role?

Her conversation with John on p.204 is fascinating. John tells her there's a meteor heading for his house, and her response is 'I see'. She stays cool and collected and completely unattached throughout the conversation, trying to solve the problem through citing GameFAQs, talking about how much smarter she is than other people, and refusing to compromise on her incessant use of inconveniently elongated words. She fits the stereotype of the Objective Intellectual scientist so well, too concerned with what's possible to care about its fallout, taking notes on John's reactions in her lab notebook while feeling no emotions about the whole thing. It sure is interesting that a video game might be able to cause a meteor strike. Sure would be an intellectual exercise to figure out how to stop that. She is so perfectly above it all.

6. [...] and your room is a BIT OF A MESS.

I never realized John was neat until we had Rose, who definitely isn't. On p.160, she says she's 'tempted' to clean up the mess in John's toilet for him, but everything she does actually makes his bathroom worse. We've actually seen John clean (p.67) and the only out of place things in his room on p.4 are things his dad left there, if we assume that Dad left the hammer and nails for John to hang the painting. All his mess comes from accidental sylladex misuse - he even makes his bed. Rose will simply leave an expensive violin balanced precariously against the wall, drop a pre-punched card on the living room floor instead of placing it on the coffee table, and fail to return John's magic chest to his room even after she's 'got a feel for the controls' (although this last one could be her being silly on purpose). I can't decide if Rose is being an asshole by leaving John's house in a complete state or if she's just Like That and doesn't even notice.

Rose has an inventory system that she knows how to use, so it's easier for someone to be clean if they want to be. Maybe she just doesn't. The rest of Rose's house is empty besides dope ass wizards - on p.230-235 we see that Rose's house is filled with long, expansive corridors, has at least three floors, and is large and modernist with strange towers and extensions and bubbles. If Rose's mom is minimalist and Rose feels like her house is missing something, of course she would expand to fill that space, with her physical possessions as well as her personality.

7. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.

John has a poster of the Problem Sleuth heroes on his bedroom wall, as well as a copy of the game, and Rose has a poster of the Problem Sleuth beasts and demons. It would be cute as hell if they played it together. Rose playing a video game has been most of what we've seen of her so far, so I've kind of covered that in other points - I want to talk about the 'with your friends' part, and specifically, how she and John met.

They seem so different, and based on Rose's strong reaction to the intelligence of GameFAQs writers, if she just encountered John on a forum she would not give him the time of day. John definitely isn't stupid, but I think he can come off that way in a first interaction, and I think Rose makes quick judgements about people. John can definitely banter with Rose - my favorite early interaction of theirs is 'TT: Can a disorder also be a complex? EB: in your case, probably!' (p.160) - so all it would take is getting over the initial hurdle of starting a conversation. So I have three theories.

The first is that they did meet on a forum, and John was just so charming in his silliness that Rose eventually warmed on him. Maybe John got stuck on the loading screen of a game and couldn't figure out how to press start and Rose helped him out and John just kept liveblogging his game in the thread. Maybe John asked a question about Slimer from Ghostbusters on a cryptozoology forum and Rose gave him a weirdly anatomically detailed answer that referenced a worrying home use of concentrated sulfuric acid. Maybe Rose posted some of her writing online and John left a glowing comment.

The second is that they met through TG. He seems to have a fair bit in common with both of them - on the surface, more than they do with each other. He could have noticed one of their shared interests and put them in contact, or he could have been trying to fuck with them by setting them up to hate each other and it backfired. Either feels plausible from what we've seen of him so far.

The third is that Rose just used to be different. John has the childlike spirit of the clown and I get the sense that he's always been the same, whimsical on the outside with a malaise hovering within. But Rose is trying to put on such a sophisticated affect, which could be recent. Rose could have been bubbly, accepting and open to talking to anyone a few years ago. She's changed as a person, but stays loyal enough to her friends to brave the evil red storm for them.

Final Thoughts

I find Rose easier to analyze than John - she's not less complex, but her complexities are made more obvious in the text. We also don't get the luxury of sitting with Rose and learning about her organically like we did with John. The meteor countdown is flashing in my mind even when it isn't on screen, and the text needs to take shortcuts, telling us about Rose instead of just showing her. As such, I don't have as many questions hanging as I usually do, but there's still a few.

What's up with both John and Rose being really talented at music, but this not being listed in their interests or directly acknowledged by the narrator? Does the narrator fucking hate music? The narrator of a webcomic which has so far included five original music tracks??

Is Rose consciously aware of the narration? Is it something that just began for her when we saw her, or has that been part of her life before? Is this why her personality is so cultivated, because she feels like she's always being watched?

What exactly is Rose's relationship with her mom? Is her mom a mean alcoholic who mocks Rose's grief over her cat, or is this a story Rose is telling herself about her very average mom?

Is Rose a weird kid who actually has a pretty normal life, like John, or is her life weird for real? Does she live in a massive haunted house or are we getting her exaggerated perspective?

More broadly, what sources of information in Homestuck are reliable? The narration and chatlogs are both biased perspectives, but what about the images? Are we seeing the characters' worlds as they actually are, or are we seeing things as the point of view character perceives them?

I love Rose. She and John have both been really easy to connect to, are extremely likeable, and feel like real people I could run into on the internet. I love how average they seem and how they really have more flaws than strengths - it adds to the realism, and sets them up with a lot of cool options for story arcs. A Rose who's a loser and kind of sucks is so much better to me than a Rose who's actually good at the things she claims to be, and my only hope is that we solve the imminent crisis and see more of her being truly silly.

[foxwitchaine]

Question

Which characters from other media, do you think is a better version of miraculous ladybug characters?

I'm gonna take this question with a huge pile of salt. Because there's more than one show that does this concept better than what MLB does. That also includes how they handle the cast. I'm also gonna sound like a broken record with the upcoming "buckle up", but buckle up and hold on tight, everyone. It's gonna be a rollercoaster.

1.) Mr. Freeze

I know for sure I'm cheating just by mentioning him, but Mr. Freeze is what Gabriel Agreste should have been in regards to his quest for Emilie. Mr. Freeze isn't just a sad man mourning for his wife. He is broken. Shattered. Screwed over by people higher on the corporate ladder than himself (doesn't that sound familiar). Thing is, Mr. Freeze's story resonates with people and is part of the reason why he is still talked about today. He's also shown a kinder side, like the time he made it snow during Christmas in one issue of The Batman Adventures comics. All for the simple reason his late wife would have been sad if there had been no snow that year.

His demise in Batman Beyond left many viewers heartbroken, as we're left wondering what could have been.

Gabriel Agreste, on the other hand, is utterly and thoroughly selfish and thinks of no one but himself. This is best seen in how he treats his son throughout the show. Disregarding Season 5 (I have no idea how they thought they could pull it off), Gabriel has not shown one ounce of humanity. Not towards Nathalie, not towards Adrien, not even towards his wife, who he supposedly loves. Other than the show telling us how much he loved her (this is a recurring problem with MLB's writing), we never would have known.

Gabriel's death in Season 5, as a result, is much less impactful than Mr. Freeze's death in Batman Beyond.

2.) Madoka Kaname

Now this is a more recent show that I still think holds up. For those not in the know, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a 12-episode anime series that aired in 2011 and, for lack of a better word, changed the game in magical girl anime. While one could argue that it tears down rather than celebrates women in power (as magical girl shows are supposed to do, Astruc), and it's not the most original concept (what is, nowadays), one thing most can agree on is the character writing, especially for Madoka.

Madoka, just like Marinette, is a selfless sweetheart who performs the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. What separates her from Marinette, tellingly enough, is how her sacrifice is written. Throughout the anime, Madoka watches helplessly from the sidelines as her best friend Sayaka sacrifices herself for a boy. And then Sayaka gradually loses herself as the truth about magical girls comes to light. We aren't just told how Madoka feels about it. We see and feel it ourselves. I could write an essay on how well-written Sayaka's tragedy is, but that's beside the point. The point is, Madoka chose the sacrifice rather than having it forced on her by the writers.

Sound familiar?

It should.

Gen Urobuchi, despite his reputation, took the time to respect Madoka's agency as a character. Thomas Astruc tears down Marinette every chance he gets. You can't get more telling than this.

3.) Prince Zuko

You're all probably gonna get tired of hearing me talk about Avatar: The Last Airbender. But then again, I'm pretty sure every ATLA fan has heard that in the years since the original show ended. I've mentioned him before when talking about Chloe's botched redemption, but I feel this is the perfect place to expand and discuss more.

Prince Zuko is what Chloe Bourgeouis should have been in the show. And no, his redemption didn't come out of nowhere. It was consistently foreshadowed throughout the show all the way from the very first episode. This is an essay all in itself, so I'll refrain from diving into detail. But the fact of the matter remains that Zuko is the gold standard for writing a villain redemption. I could point out Darth Vader as another example of a villain redemption. But where he had to die to redeem himself, Zuko didn't.

Zuko also had a better-written backstory that explained (not excused, there's a difference) his behavior at the start of the show. I can't claim to know what the MLB writers had in mind when writing Chloe, but I'm pretty sure Audrey Bourgeois was supposed to be the Ozai figure in Chloe's backstory. Which leads me to my next point:

Zuko wasn't forgiven right away.

Yes. You heard that right.

Zuko had to work to be forgiven by the people he had wronged. And guess what? He failed. If anyone remembers when Azula critically injured Aang and Zuko betrayed Iroh to the Fire Nation, you'll all know what I'm talking about.

Zuko fell during his redemption arc. But he got back up again. And he apologized — genuinely apologized — to the man he betrayed.

4.) Odd Della Robbia

Code Lyoko is a relic from the early 2000s eras of cartoons. And boy, could I write essay after essay on this show. But since we're talking about characters and such, we'll be focusing on this lovable jokester from the show.

Odd Della Robbia is what Chat Noir should have been if he had been in the hands of competent writers. Odd isn't just the perpetually hungry jokester of the group who chased the first pretty girl who caught his attention. He pulled his weight in the battles against the malevolent AI X.A.N.A. Be it through helping Aelita reach the Towers, fighting Specters in the real world, heck even fending off Sissi during her worst moments. Perhaps even more damning is how Odd, despite his less pleasant actions and habits, was more of a true friend to his group than Chat Noir is to Ladybug.

Yes, writers. You can write a jokester character beyond what comes from his mouth.

No, this doesn't mean you can let them harass everyone they come across.

Perhaps, I'm gonna say this a lot, even more damning is how Odd responds to the rejections from the various pretty girls he chases. He actually takes no for an answer. Shocking, isn't it. He chases a skirt, they say no, he moves on. And no, this isn't portrayed as romantic or heroic. It's portrayed just as it is. A hormonal teenage boy being prone to doing stupid things.

What teenager hasn't done something stupid thanks to their hormones?

5.) Susan Ashworth

(Content Warning: mature themes such as suicidal depression)

I'm venturing into mature video games here, admittedly. I couldn't quite find one from my childhood that stood out, so I browsed through some game playthroughs I watched years ago. Ultimately, I settled on Susan Ashworth from the 2012 game The Cat Lady. Astruc being a man shouldn't be an excuse for him writing Marinette and other female characters so poorly. Why? Because Susan Ashworth, and by extension the game she is from, was written by a man.

Funny. I know.

What's even more amazing is how the developer Remigiusz Michalski, who publishes his games under the label Harvester Games, tackled such serious topics such as depression and suicide. No, he didn't use them for shock value, as that's very commonly done very tactlessly. He handled them with maturity and grace. Susan isn't defined by her depression even though she successfully committed suicide in the opening of the game. She has moments of humor and snark, like in the scene where Mitzi is showing her how to use social media. It also helps that Michalski... actually knows what he's talking about, as it's stated in interviews that he worked as a nurse before he created the first game Downfall in 2009.

I can't stress enough the importance of research before writing. Astruc clearly has a lot of ideas he wants to shove into Miraculous Ladybug, but they all fall flat due to a glaring lack of research and preparation. I'm not saying go do gruesome things for your craft and stick to "write what you know". I'm saying know what you're getting into before you dive in. One glaring example I think everyone can agree was poorly handled was Qilin, thanks to plot with the racist ticket inspector.

Michalski clearly knew what he was doing when he wrote Susan's story. Astruc continues to flail in his attempts to keep Miraculous Ladybug relevant.

Honorable Mentions:

Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter - This is how you write snarky hero and sidekick duos

Jerry, from Totally Spies - Come on. You all knew as soon as I mentioned Code Lyoko that this guy would come up

Mandy, also from Totally Spies - She's very entertaining despite being the high school queen bee archetype. It also helps that she consistently faced punishment for her actions

Sissi Delmas, from Code Lyoko - I was gonna use her in place of Zuko just for the fact she showed other traits, such as her protectiveness of Milly during the zombie episode

Uncle Iroh - Do I even need to say it out loud?

KOS-MOS, from the Xenosaga trilogy - She's an excellent example of how to slowly unveil a character throughout the story

Tidus and Yuna, from Final Fantasy X - A really good example of how to write a romance into the story without dragging the plot down

Fiona Belli, from Haunting Ground - A bit polarizing, I know, but Fiona's friendship with Hewie is so heartwarming and grounding. Basically what Chat Noir should have also been to Ladybug