#And with how different their coping mechanisms are it would have been nice to see how they get around that

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[steddiewithachance]

I'm Here on Business

Wayne is a regular at the bookstore Steve works at and badgers Steve into going on a blind date with his kid.

For @extocancer Happy New Years!!! I hope you enjoy your presents ◡̈

***

It's a quiet night in the little bookstore on the corner of Brinks and Williams. Steve is sitting behind the check-out counter flicking the leaf of a potted pothos placed next to the register. Soft music plays from the radio behind him.

Steve likes taking the evening shifts at the shop just to see the place warmly lit up by all of the eclectic and ornate lamps that Amber, the owner, has collected. The store doesn't give him migraines from obnoxious fluorescent light, which has been an issue at previous jobs.

Ever since Robin moved out of their apartment for Grad school, it's been upsetting to be at home alone at night. Without her company, the couch feels longer. And without her unhinged apartment decor, the walls feel taller and colder. Consequently, Steve has taken on more work hours instead of being home.

Plus, he has kind of fallen in love with reading. It came as a shock to him that he could enjoy it as much as he does. It started when his all-female team of coworkers began ranting to each other about these romance novels they were all into. He felt a little left out and decided to give one of them a try. It turns out that reading was actually a really great coping mechanism for dealing with his temporary loss of Robin.

The nicest, and most surprising thing to come out of this job though, is probably Wayne. A one-time customer turned regular, turned tentative friend for Steve. He's got a caring, parental energy that Steve's own parents never had.

The guy looks like he'd have a gruff or standoffish personality. His face naturally rests in a frown and he's got receding grey hair. He wears a flannel every day without fail; he's got a million different colors of them and Steve has even made a game of predicting which one he'll be wearing when he comes in.

"Did ya guess right today, boy?" Wayne will ask.

"No," Steve often admits glumly. "The universe told me you'd be wearing your green and blue one."

So anyway, Wayne comes around a lot to make small talk. He often mentions how he misses his son, Eddie. He's so stiff with personal information about his kid, but one time he let it slip that Eddie was on tour with his band. Steve had a field day afterward colluding with Google to find out exactly who Wayne's son was.

Eddie Munson, lead singer and guitarist of rock group Corroded Coffin.

Steve hadn't heard of ‘em but they certainly have a following. He listened to some of their stuff, to give himself some context for the next time Wayne brought up Eddie's music. It was nice enough, the guy has a good voice.

Steve's been waiting for Wayne to come in tonight. He's later than usual and it would be ridiculous for Steve to worry about a man who probably just thinks of Steve as that one kid who works at the bookstore. He may not come in at all tonight, and that would be fine too. Steve's still holding out on him pulling up in his... yellow flannel.

Steve's about to cave and start the next book in the current series he's reading when the door jingles. Wayne pushes inside in his mother fucking yellow flannel.

"Yellow Flannel!" Steve exclaims. Wayne chuckles and drops a book on the counter followed by a receipt.

"You got me right today?" Wayne asks fondly.

"Yup. It's been a while. I was aching for a win." Steve starts returning Wayne's book for him without giving him slack this time. Wayne treats the store like a library and Steve doesn't have the heart to tell him it's not allowed.

"Was this book any good?" Steve throws Wayne's receipt back at him and starts moving around the counter to put it back on the shelf for some other historical fiction lover to purchase.

"It was just alright." Wayne follows behind him languidly, eyeing the rows of colorful book spines for something that catches his eye. "But actually I'm here on business tonight."

Steve leans on the shelf and waits impatiently for Wayne to tell him what sort of business he's on.

"I think you ought to go on a date with Eddie. I think you two'd compliment each other."

Well, that's... not what Steve was expecting to hear.

"That's business to you? You came here to set me up on a blind date with your famous kid? I think he's gonna be a tad underwhelmed by a bookstore employee, Wayne." Steve's not gonna lie, he's a little intrigued by the prospect of dating a musician. He read a romance novel about one, not that long ago. Concerts, greenroom intimacy, targeted lyrics: Steve could be into it, in theory.

And ultimately, Steve did see photos of Eddie on Google and he's attractive. He looks good holding a guitar.

"He's gonna be home for a while so I figured now's a good time. Just go on one date. He's a big softie, you'll like him." Wayne pulls a book off the shelf and squints to try and read the title. He holds it further from his eyes before giving up and pushing it back into its slot.

"What happens if he doesn't like me? Will you still come around?" Steve runs a nervous hand through his hair. It wouldn't be the end of the world if Wayne stopped showing up, but it would probably hurt a little. It might fan the flame of his fear of abandonment.

"Of course, unless you break his heart. I know where you work, young man." Wayne pats his shoulder good-naturedly.

"Okay old man, you need my number to hand off?"

***

A day later, when Steve feels his phone buzz against his thigh, his instincts already know who it is. His heart gives that anticipatory squeeze he often gets before a first date with someone he finds attractive.

The text reads:

Hi Steve, this is eddie. Wayne swears we're soulmates. Wanna get dinner on friday?

It's a funny text to receive out of nowhere. Steve doubts Wayne actually used that word, but he imagines that Eddie is probably getting more of an earful than Steve got about this whole blind date. He also wonders what kind of person calls their dad by their first name.

Hi Eddie. I'd love to get dinner on Fri and discuss our soulmate status. I'm pretty sure he expects us to be married by the end of the night. Should I bring my tux? Also do you have a time and place in mind?

The master of puppets (Wayne) suggested we go to Maggiano's, are you okay with Italian? 8 maybe??? Tux optional but I think I will not be wearing one.

Haha. That sounds good Eddie, it's nice to hear from you. I'll see you soon.

***

Steve has to ask Amber to change his shift for Friday to work in the morning instead of the evening.

"Steve has somewhere other than work to be on a Friday night? Unheard of!" She slaps her palms down on the book display she was laying out.

"I know. I'm surprised too." Steve fiddles with his lanyard and gives her a 'please say yes' smile. She sighs.

"Yeah, I'll cover you. You can take my morning slot."

"Thank you! I owe you, boss."

***

When Friday arrives, Steve has the nervous jitters. It's been about a year since his last date, it didn't go very well. He's flattered that Wayne thinks highly enough of him to set him up with his kid.

Steve picks up a few small gifts for Eddie on his way home from work. He always brings his first dates a little something. He likes to see the way their faces light up. He thinks maybe he should get Eddie something music-related. So he walks into a little music store he's never been in and asks for small gift ideas for guitarists. He walks out wearing a smile, and hoping Eddie digs what he bought him.

And he's all smiles and confidence until he pulls up to the restaurant at eight and realizes he didn't send a confirmation text this morning. That's like, a rule, right? What if Eddie doesn't show up?

Steve steps out of the car and is equally anxious and relieved to find him leaning artfully against the restaurant near the front door with his hands in his pockets.

His curls are haloed by the warm light spilling out of the restaurant window. He's wearing a dark button-down with the sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos on his forearms. And yeah, okay, he's hot.

The fact that Steve's going on a date with someone sort of famous hasn't fully sunk in. He's not sure he needs the added nerves though. He approaches as casually as possible and smiles when Eddie looks over.

The man does a double-take when he sees Steve. His eyebrows shoot up and he pushes off against the wall to stand straighter.

"Hi, Eddie?" Steve steps up onto the curb with a little wave. Eddie gives him a thorough once over.

"Oh, damn. Hi." He pulls a hand out of his pocket to shake Steve's.

Eddie is pretty up close. He's got long eyelashes and a bridge of little freckles across his nose. Steve notices all the little details that the on-stage photos didn't capture. He wonders if Wayne described what he looked like to Eddie who was at an informational disadvantage.

"I don't know what I was expecting you to look like, but my uncle didn't mention you were model pretty." Eddie tucks one of his big curls behind his ear and then steps forward to open the door. Steve's face gets warm at being called "model pretty", but he's terrible at taking compliments. He tries to redirect the conversation.

"Your uncle?" Steve asks.

"Wayne? My uncle?" Eddie motions towards the open door and follows after Steve once he's inside.

"Oh. You know he tells people that you're his son?"

Eddie's face softens and he scratches at his cheek. "Oh. Yeah well, I basically am. Maybe I should start calling him dad, I don't know."

"We don't take walk-ins." The hostess of the restaurant announces, breaking up their small talk. Steve looks over to see a tall woman with a slicked-back ponytail mad-dogging them. She has a cold demeanor, she kills the mood with one look between them. Steve knows the look, he's sure Eddie does too.

"Good to know! I have a reservation, though." Eddie responds.

"What's the name?" The woman pulls her iPad closer to herself like a shield.

"Munson." Eddie glances at Steve nervously.

"Hm. I don't see it." She pretends, tapping around meaninglessly. Eddie is getting agitated and maybe embarrassed too. He's scratching at his arm, unsure of how to proceed. First dates are already so awkward, especially blind ones. And if there's one thing about Steve, it's that he's gonna try to lighten the mood.

"Don't you know who he is?" Steve asks offendedly. Eddie whips around to look at Steve with wide, panic-filled eyes. The hostess raises an eyebrow and looks more closely at Eddie. It makes Steve chuckle. "I'm just kidding, let's go get burgers or something." He grabs Eddie's hand and pulls him back out the door.

"Holy shit, you scared me. I didn't know you knew who I was." Eddie has a hand on his chest and a wild grin. "She definitely didn't."

"I was just messing around. She did not want to seat our gay date." Steve sticks his hands in his pockets and then remembers Eddie's gift. "Oh but hey! I got you something."

Steve pulls out a nice bar of chocolate and a little tin of black pearly guitar picks. He offers them to Eddie with an open palm.

"Oh, what? You didn't have to do that." Eddie grabs them eagerly and slides open the tin. "This is so nice! How'd you know I've been needing picks? Now I feel doubly bad about dinner falling through."

"Hey, if I'm honest, sit-down dinner dates kind of give me anxiety. Too much pressure to keep the conversation going." Steve pulls out his keys, "You like burgers?"

Eddie huffs dramatically. "My palette is far too sophisticated for greasy burgers, Steve. I'm a chicken nugget man, obviously."

"That makes sense. You look like one." Steve teases. Eddie pouts.

"I'm taking that as a compliment."

"If you want nuggets we can just walk down the street. Unless you want me to drive?" Steve points in the direction of the row of fast-food restaurants.

"Yeah, let's walk."

Steve slowly turns and starts walking, glancing invitingly over his shoulder.

"So you know me." Eddie rattles the tin of guitar picks and looks a little worried by the prospect that Steve is some sort of fan.

"Only through your uncle, really. And maybe a short Google search. Sue me." Steve holds up his hands guiltily.

"Oh yeah, Wayne's my marketing manager. I send him out to spread the good word."

"Well I don't know who you've been instructing him to market to, but he's spending all his time in my store making me read book summaries to him because he conveniently forgets his glasses every time he comes in." Steve deadpans. Eddie chuckles and shakes his head knowingly.

"Yeah, It's this new long-con form of marketing. We decided to go all in for just one new fan." Eddie's got these sweet little dimples on either cheek when he smiles.

"Kinda worked, I dunno. I'm charmed by the Munsons." Steve and Eddie are veering towards each other as they walk. They're set to collide like two little asteroids. When they do end up bumping shoulders, it's soft. They stay close after that.

Steve hears a truly horrible sound coming from a bar a few meters ahead of them.

"Oh shit! Karaoke bar!" Eddie exclaims and speeds over. Eddie stands in front of the fenced-off patio and looks in while someone butchers Guns N' Roses. He looks absolutely delighted.

"What, you want to go show off in front of these poor, tone-deaf drunkards?" Steve rests his arms on the little fence and leans forward. Eddie vehemently disagrees.

"God no, I just like hearing all the very talented Midwestern voices." Eddie wiggles his eyebrows to express his sarcasm. "In other words, I enjoy making fun of bad music. I'm only human."

They sit there and give each other pained looks at the bad voices for a few minutes until someone starts trying to drunkenly stumble over the verse to a Nicki Minaj song and then Eddie drags Steve away in anguish.

"Can't take it anymore, Steve. Spare me."

***

The two of them have a good rapport, Steve thinks as they sit on a curb and share a big box of chicken nuggets. Maybe Wayne was right. It's playful. He can see how Eddie and Wayne share a handful of mannerisms and a sense of humor.

"Let's intertwine our arms like newlyweds do when they drink champagne," Steve says with a ketchup-covered chicken nugget in his hand. He wraps an arm around Eddie's and then takes a bite. Eddie follows his lead and giggles.

"I didn't know they did that. I've never been to a wedding." Eddie swallows and reaches for his soda.

"What? Never?"

Eddie shakes his head and looks up at the night sky. It's too cloudy to see any stars, unfortunately.

"My tux is in the car, by the way, should things pan out tonight." Steve jokes.

"I think they're panning." Eddie winks and leans in slightly.

"Oh yeah? Have I lived up to Wayne's description of me?" Steve bats his eyelashes and gives Eddie a sweet little smile.

"You've exceeded it, sweetheart." Eddie picks up Steve's hand and presses a chaste kiss to the inside of his wrist. Steve's heart jumps. When Eddie pulls back, he doesn't pull back far.

"Do you ever kiss on a first date?" Eddie whispers and squeezes Steve's hand. He glances at Steve's lips.

"Mmm, I could be persuaded." Steve feels a heady rush at the fact that he has somehow won the interest of a successful musician who probably meets loads of people every day. Steve reaches forward and tugs at one of Eddie's loose curls. He twists it around his finger and looks up with big doe eyes.

The tension is cut from Eddie's body when Steve looks at him like that. The move has a pretty good success rate at this point. And it doesn't fail him tonight. Eddie rests a hand on the base of Steve's neck. He strokes his thumb back and forth against the hollow of Steve's collarbone and leans in slowly.

Eddie's warm lips press against his own gently, experimentally. Their lips make a sweet sound when the suction is broken and Eddie's immediately reseal against Steve like he's irresistible. It's been forever since Steve kissed anyone, especially anyone worth kissing. He forgot how sweet and floaty it feels.

The hand on Steve's collar slides up so it's lightly holding his neck, it feels quietly possessive. It makes Steve's face heat up. Eddie's free arm wraps around Steve's waist pulling him closer. He lets himself be pulled.

Eddie starts getting more confident and hums softly when Steve weaves a hand into his long hair.

Steve could keep this up for hours, he wants to. But as dark as it is, he doesn't love the idea of continuing this so out in the open. He pulls back with regret.

"Damn, how are you not already taken?" Eddie wipes at Steve's shiny lips with his thumb.

"How are you not already taken? You're the accomplished one." Steve counters, squeezing one of Eddie's knees.

Eddie gathers their trash around them and stuffs it into the paper bag. "Well, I'll be home for a while if you'd want to do this again sometime. I can take you to a nice restaurant next time, I promise." He stands to throw away the trash. "Damn, I don't want the night to be over..."

"It doesn't have to be, you're welcome at mine." Steve leans back on one of his hands and bats his eyelashes up at Eddie.

"My New Year's resolution was to not do first date hookups, though."

"We don't have to, just come hang out." Steve holds an arm out to be pulled up to his feet from where he’s still sitting on the curb.

"Oh, yeah okay. You want me to?" Eddie pulls him to his feet with more force than necessary. It sends them both stumbling and giggling.

"Obviously I want you to."

***

The walk back to the restaurant is much faster than it was at the start of the night. They regretfully have to split at the parking lot, each having their own ride.

"Wait, call me so we can still talk on the way there." Eddie requests before jogging off to Wayne's truck. There really isn't much need to talk on the phone since Steve lives so close, but it's kind of cute that he wants to. Steve hits the call button on Eddie's contact.

"Hello, to whom am I speaking?" Eddie asks in a formal, over-the-top voice.

"This is Steve Harrington. I'm contacting you regarding your car's extended warranty." Steve backs out of his spot and waits for Eddie to do the same before driving out of the parking lot.

"Oh wow, what a coincidence. I was just wondering if my car had an extended warranty." Eddie always plays along, he digs into all of Steve's jokes and finds his own spot to grow there.

Steve drives slower than he normally would so that he doesn't get separated from his date. Eddie doesn't appreciate the sentiment.

"You drive like a grandpa. Has anyone ever told you that?" Eddie laughs and honks his horn. Steve hears it both over the phone and from his window.

"I'm only driving slow so we don't get separated, asshole."

"There's barely anyone on the road tonight to separate us, but it's fine, Steve. I value your safety. Drive at your comfortable geriatric pace."

When they pull up to a red light, Eddie instructs Steve to roll down his window so they can stick their hands out and play Rock Paper Scissors. Steve is so distracted watching Eddie's hand through his side mirror that he misses when the light turns.

"It's green, honey," Eddie alerts him softly through the phone, and Steve apologizes.

He's smiling real big the whole way there and when Steve eventually gets out of the car, Eddie comes up and grabs him from behind.

Eddie plants a few eager kisses on the side of Steve's neck. "You're fun, Steve."

"I'll show you real fun some other time." He jokes and pulls Eddie towards his place.

As soon as Steve opens the door to his apartment, he feels self-conscious about how dull it looks inside. Eddie looks around quietly. His eye catches on a picture of Steve and Robin.

"That's my best friend, Robin." Steve clarifies, just in case Eddie reads it wrong like dates have in the past.

Eddie smiles and pulls Steve back against his chest. "She looks nice."

"Looks can be deceiving." Steve laments which has Eddie chuckling into his shoulder. Eddie rubs at Steve's tummy.

What Steve really wants, what he's been desperate for, for months and months is human touch. He just wants to cuddle so badly. And Eddie doesn't seem the type to cuddle, but looks can be deceiving, so Steve's gonna ask anyway.

"Wanna cuddle and watch trash reality TV?" Steve's shoulders rise to his ears, it's a defensive gesture and he's expecting to be rejected. Eddie looks slightly amused by his offer, but he nods.

***

"So you liked him alright?" Wayne asks smugly patting the counter. Steve nervously watches the back of the store where Amber is reorganizing. Steve shouldn't be having a conversation like this at work while she's around.

"Yes, Wayne." Steve rolls his eyes. "Your nephew is lovely."

"I told him he should come here with me next time. Maybe we'll both visit ya." Wayne looks happy. The corners of his default frown have been pulled upwards by the return of his nephew. He's a good man. Steve thinks if his kid was only home a few weeks he'd want to hoard all of his attention, surely not set him up on dates.

And that's the thing about Wayne, it seems like he puts the people he cares about first. Steve wonders if Wayne is all that lonely when Eddie's gone, or if he just comes into the store so often because he knows Steve is.

"I'd love that." Steve hopes things work out with the Munsons.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

Thinking about being a demigod as a metaphor for neurodivergency

Thinking about demigods fighting monsters no one else can see, thinking about the mist, how mortals just can’t see it. Thinking about Mrs Dodds, and how everyone told Percy he was crazy for remembering her. How ableism and insults are just so typical in places like a high school and yet if you’re neurodivergent and remember it years after school, you’re called crazy and obsessed because “it wasn’t that bad” and “you need to move on”. How Nancy Bobofit called Percy special. How Chiron (a centaur) was the only teacher to be actually nice and understanding of Percy, since he too wasn’t a mortal. How mortals can’t see the monsters and swords, how they can’t see the struggles we face and our defense mechanisms/ways to cope. How demigods just trying to defense themselves against monsters are seen as “evil” or a threat by mortals, because they can’t see than the reason they made that thing explode was to survive, than the bump on their car wasn’t actually made on purpose, but by a monster throwing them against it. How the world is dangerous to demigods, how they always have to stay alert, how there was always something off about them growing up. How they might have known they were demigods since a young age, or if not demigods, they knew something was different about them. Like Annabeth, who kept attracting monsters and decided to run away at just 8. She knew, her father knew, her family knew. There was no point in hiding it, no point in pretending it wasn’t there, everyone could see it. Thinking about Percy, how his mom knew, and how she made sure to help Percy no matter what, how she never cared. Thinking about Leo, who didn’t know until he was a teenager, who figured out on his own, who’s childhood was traumatized by his powers, how being a demigod completely ruined what would have been a lovely childhood. Thinking about Percy’s time in school, thinking about the demigods having adhd and dyslexia, thinking about how “their brains are trained for ancient greek/latin” and how they have trouble understanding what everyone else can easily read. Sure, it’s dyslexia, but it can also be something else. Their brains are not trained for neurotypical social cues, that’s not a language their fluent in, they have their own language, which neurotypicals can’t understand. How if they tell someone they’re a demigod, they won’t believe them, and think they’re weird. How it’s not something they can mention unless around the right people (other demigods, gods, mythological creatures, or parents of demigods kids, which in this scenario, is anyone with a connection to neurodiversity). How the parents sometimes are aware their kid is a demigod (like Sally), because they know the other parent was a god, in this scenario, they’re aware of the possibility of a neurodivergent kid because they slept with a neurodivergent person. Except sometimes they don’t know the other parent is a god, they don’t know their kid is a demigod. How someone can have neurodivergent kids, who’s neurodivergency is passed down from their other parent, except the other parent is not diagnosed. How, even still the neurodiversity community, there’s still stigma and stereotypes. How they treated Nico, even if he was just like them, simply because he didn’t fit. How the more visibly demigod you are, if you’re the child of one of the big three, the more monsters you attract, the more dangerous life becomes, how the moment a demigod realizes they're a demigod, they can't hide it, they attract more monsters, there’s no turning back.

Thinking about being a demigod as a metaphor for neurodivergency

[sombreset]

I’m still not over Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII. At all.

(Spoilers, also cw for blood and gore and just. Weird imagery)

There’s SO much stuff that happens in this comic, way more than I am posting here, that really digs deep into why Wade and Logan are so intertwined. They both suffered horribly. They’re both near immortal. They’ll both outlive everything they know. They both have rage that doesn’t ever seem to go away, they just have very different coping mechanisms.

This comic LITERALLY intertwines them, in more than one way.

First example is the one most people talk about, which is the whole thing where Logan cuts off a chunk of his own leg and cooks it for Wade so he has at least something to eat (is it gay to make the decision to cut off a piece of yourself and give it to another man so he has something to eat, even tho you both technically don’t need to eat, it just helps? Who knows)

Second example is the end of the comic, which I wish more people would talk about. While they’re fighting a big bad, Wade gets torn apart. Like… crushed. Into pieces. Past the point where Logan thinks regenerative healing can save him. And Logan is, despite all his complaining of how much he doesn’t like Wade, destroyed. Scared, and as the big bad points out— afraid.

Logan then goes into an absolute blind rage. He’s in pain. He’s scared. He genuinely thinks he lost Wade, and he loses it.

All the while, a small voice can be heard telling him to stop. Begging him to stop. He’s lost control. The antagonists of the comics wanted this, and while Logan is thrashing around they intentionally teleport him in front of a mother and child, fully expecting Wolverine to not tell the difference between friend or foe and kill them. Logan certainly cannot tell what he’s doing at this point. He can hardly see.

And then…

Suddenly, Wade. Because some of Wade’s blood got into Logan, he literally grew OUT of him, just in time to stop him from murdering innocent people. Because Logan had fully lost control. Wade pleads with him to stop, and in the end he literally pulls out one of Logan’s bones and shoves it into his face to get him to actually snap out of it. Afterwards, they have a lot of really good conversation, but to avoid clogging this post more— tldr Wade calms Logan down, and tells him “Nobody can decide we’re monsters but us.” Which… I love.

Later on after the fight, there’s this funny panel (and a few before) where Wade’s like dude we are sharing your ass AND dick rn isn’t that crazy and then yeah he makes the comment about being “in” Logan which. Nice

Anyways crazy b/c by the end of this comic, parts of Logan have literally been inside of Wade (chunk of Logan’s leg eaten by Wade) and ALL of Wade has been in Logan (he fucking grew out of him)

This comic is VERY good go read it if you haven’t

[slashers-and-rats]

the need to gnaw.

brahms heelshire x fem!reader | nsfw | oral fixation, titty sucking, somnophilia

rat chat: I’m in a bit of a creative rut, so don’t be mad if this isn’t the best piece of writing i’ve ever done. I’m trying.

brahms had many a bad habit.

you had credited it to the fact that he lived in the walls of his childhood home for nearly 30 years. it had been something that you struggled with at first. the very idea that he had been seemingly packed away, thrown into the crawl spaces like some discarded family heirloom, made your heart ache. it was even worse when he had come out, and you had to see all of the different coping mechanisms he had developed to stay alive. he never ate a full meal, and hid scraps away in his pockets as he didn’t know when he’d be out of hiding to get food again. he went as long as he could without changing his clothes, because there wasn’t often an option for something clean. he was selfish with his things, scared that if he put them down he’d never find it again, or it would be taken from him. he slept in a near nest of his favourite dolls and collectibles, even some of your own clothes had found their way into the pile. stealing had been another point on your list.

these were all things you had worked to ween him off of. you encouraged him to sit and eat a whole meal with you, reassuring him the food wouldn’t go anywhere. when he was full, you would stop him from taking the extras, stating that you could always make him more later. it didn’t have to be scraps for snacks, he was allowed to be in the kitchen whenever he wanted. you had even set up special cupboards for him, so that he knew that anything inside he could take without asking, and you made sure to stock it with his favourite treats.

you got him new outfits. it was one of the first things you did, after seeing him wear the same thing over and over for a week. you explained that there wasn’t much point in bathing him every night if he was going to put back on the same stuff, and so you ordered him nice, comfy clothes (wifi being something you had also gotten around the same time). you had to compromise with his sweater, as it was something he was quite attached to, and so when he would take it off for bed, you’d stay up and get it washed and dried right for when he was up in the morning. you did the same thing with his mask during these times, scrubbing and rinsing it in warm water, drying it carefully with a cloth, before setting it back exactly where he put it. you did it once every week, deciding that spending one night up passed bedtime was worth making sure he was taken care of.

you cleaned up his space, and taught him to not hoard the things he had. this had been more difficult. he was a selfish boy, it was a trait he learned out of necessity. he was scared to lose what little things he had. this even applied to you too, as whenever you’d leave to go do some shopping, or someone would deliver something to the house, you’d have to stop him from having a tantrum. you started off small. he had invited you into his crawlspace one day, and by the next evening it had been tidied and his things had been organized. the trinkets and bobbles he played with were put into bins, and you had to explain to him that holding onto everything wasn’t good. he was especially scolded for stealing your own favourite clothes, and you tried to ignore when you pulled a panty or two out of the piles around his little sanctuary.

he didn’t like some of these changes. he didn’t like it when you cleaned up his nest, because the feeling was new and uncomfortable. change was odd. but, whenever he saw how happy you looked, he felt as though he could handle it. it quickly became a routine for you both. you’d do something new, and he’d adapt at a slow but steady pace. over time, he pushed back less and less, and soon you had him being a fairly well-behaved, as healthy as possible, grown man.

some habits stayed. after all, you didn’t want to change him completely. you only adjusted what wasn’t good for him. things like wearing the mask, sneaking treats when you weren’t looking, whining when he had to take a bath at the end of the day- these were things you could handle. he may ruin an appetite, or prolong the inevitable cleaning, but you could handle that.

one habit, though, seemed to be getting worse and worse as time went on.

when brahms had first slinked out of the walls, and had refused to even give you a peek of his face, it wasn’t noticeable. you couldn’t see his features, or the way his teeth would chew the inside of his cheeks and on his lips. he’d retreat back into his sanctuary at the end of the day, and you wouldn’t know he was sucking on his fingers as he slept, or gnawing on a random toy you had bought him.

you didn’t ever notice his oral fixation until it began to directly affect you. it started small. as you lived in the house, and grew accustomed to having this odd version of a roommate, you two became more comfortable with each other. the second brahms had learned physical affection was on the table, it was all he wanted. you’d find yourself preparing lunch, with his arms wrapped around your middle and his face pressed into the crook of your neck. when you were reading, he’d have his head in your lap, and cheek pressed tight to your stomach. he held your hand when you two walked through the halls together, he urged you to kiss him more and more every time you tucked him in.

he slept in his own room, but you knew that sometimes he’d sneak into your bedroom when he thought you were asleep, and he’d just run his fingers over your cheek. he was too nervous to do anything else, but it always seemed to make him so flustered anyways. such simple things seemed to overwhelm him, and you supposed that after years of being alone, you’d be the same way.

these two things collided over time; his oral fixation and his need for human contact. or, more specifically, you’re contact. he had never thought to touch anyone else before, but when you had come around… he wondered for a long time if the magic spoke of in books were real, and if you had cursed him. it was a long conversation when that had idea had been poised to you.

it had started slow. one day, as you were cuddling with him, you felt his lips mouthing over your collarbone. it wasn’t hard enough to be noticeable, it was soft and light, and you had assumed it was just his breathing. when you kissed him goodnight, and your thumb rubbed over his mask, he’d get brave and slip it underneath the chin of the porcelain, and kiss the pad of your finger. you never noticed, but right before you’d pull away, he’d try to slip it past his teeth and against his tongue. when you held him as he was fretting over something, he’d bite down on your shirt, as it was the closest thing to your skin he could find. he didn’t want to hurt you, he was afraid that would scare you off, but he wanted to feel you in between his teeth. he wanted you to fill his mouth and relieve this constant urge he had. he couldn’t take it. something about you, and how soft you were, and how sweet you looked- he wanted to devour you. but, at the same time, he just wanted to rest his lips around your fingers and suck on them as one would a pacifier.

there had been one night in particular where you finally felt the extent of his obsession.

the moon had been high in the sky, and small streams of its light trickled in through the window. it shone across you both. you were wrapped tight in brahms’ arms, legs tangled like intricately tied knots. his upper limbs coiled around your torso, and pressed your chest tight against his cheek. his mask had been discarded the second the lights went out for the night, and his sweater had been shucked off in exchange for his boxers and tank top for bedtime. he was comfortable, and felt safe being with you like this. he didn’t want to let go.

that was posing a personal problem to him. as you slept soundly, brahms became restless. he needed something in his mouth. the empty space was becoming a distraction for him, and it made him wriggle and squirm in frustration. if he moved his hands, though, he wouldn’t be able to hold you as closely. it wasn’t an option. after all the work you had done to ease him out of his more selfish traits, he still found that same fear of loss looming over him. to him, if he let go of you now, you might wake up, and scold him for being up so late into the night. you’d tell him sleeping in the same bed as you was a distraction, and that he should’ve been resting long ago, and that he’d have to go to his room. he didn’t want to. the very thought made him tighten his grasp around you.

he swallowed thick, the sound echoing through the near silent room. all that could be heard was your gentle, rhythmic breathing, and brahms’ own worrying. it came in the sound of shifting sheets and small whimpers. he was growing impatient. he didn’t like it. he was tired, admittedly, but that wouldn’t be enough to numb his urges. he needed something, anything.

as he was quietly squirming, looking for any solution to his ever growing problem, his cheek brushed against your breast. as it slid over his skin, he felt a small bump skid past the corner of his lips. brahms had rested his head on your chest many a time before, but you usually had multiple layers on, or weren’t so vulnerable. this time, as you slept unaware of the current situation, your body had reacted to something he didn’t understand. maybe it was the contact with his face, or the press of his body against yours that entire night, but your nipples had grown hard.

he had to pull back his head to get a better look, surprised. you had been taking certain “anatomy lessons” slowly. he didn’t know much about your body, or his own for that matter, but he had heard you vaguely mention your nipples getting hard when it was cold. the few times you two had gotten intimate, he had caught you squeezing them in between your fingers as he ground his hips in between your thighs, and he’d take over for you, ever the one to please.

this was different, though. in this moment, when he was overrun with this eagerness to be full, something so simple and cryptic before was seeming to make total sense to him now. he examined your chest for a moment, watching the way your shirt rose in perfect little dots around the centres of your tits. it made him lick his lips. his eyes darted up once, twice, three times, and when he found you were still deep in rem, he took a chance.

he was slow, his face creeping up to your chest until his lips wrapped around the clothed bud. for a moment, once he was attached, he didn’t move. he waited, listening through the dark to make sure you hadn’t begun to stir, and when he didn’t hear anything he continued. he licked tentatively, wetting the fabric of your pyjama shirt and playing with it between his teeth. he stayed gentle, at first, barely moving.

it felt right. he liked the way his breath warmed the area around your nipple, and the damp heat felt good on his lips. the wetter he made the cotton, the more he could see through to what he was playing with. he pulled away every once in awhile to examine his work, and gaze down at the transparent fabric where your nipple lay hard and quickly swelling for him. it made him lick his lips, wanting more, and so he’d dive back in, continuing to lap softly over this new found toy.

quickly, though, he found it wasn’t enough. the shirt was scratchy against his skin, and it turned cold quick whenever he pulled away to catch his breath. he could feel your warm skin trapped underneath the confines of your clothes. he wanted to save you from it; he could be a knight, like in one of the books from the library, and release you from the ivy you were wrapped in.

he was careful as he dipped his head down. he at first used his nose to nudge the fabric up, wrinkling it enough that he could grab the end with his teeth and hoist it up past your tits. they fell out against the bed, and the very sight made him whimper quietly in his throat. this was a new feeling. sure, he had taken you before, but the act had always been a little restrained. he didn’t understand all the movements and strides yet, and he found it was easier when you simply told him what to do and he followed along. you weren’t awake right now, though, and instead he had to figure this all out himself. at the same time, his oral fixation was something that never tended to get very sexual. usually when he chewed on things it was a necessity, otherwise he’d be belligerent and at unease. but this… it had started as a need, but became a hunger.

brahms pressed his face into the squish of your boobs. he ran his lips up and down them for a moment, feeling how the skin rippled and shifted against his own. you were so warm, so comfortable. he breathed in your scent deep, wrapping himself even further in your aura. it all felt so nice. his heart had truly been soothed.

he pulled away once again, blinking a few times to adjust his eyes better to the dark, before looking up at you. you looked peaceful, seemingly dreaming of something pleasant. he wondered if you were dreaming of him. he pressed his body closer to yours, one of his thighs sliding in between your own and pressing taut up against your clothed pussy. he could feel heat, and a growing dampness. maybe him playing with you was making you react? he liked that idea. he liked the idea of toying with you, and making you feel good even when you weren’t aware. it made him feel somewhat powerful. but, he knew he could never rise above you. you were his everything, and for this very moment, he was only mimicking what he knew you could do to him at any moment.

he wanted to continue to make you unknowingly react, and he wanted to continue to fill his mouth. so, he did both. he licked a stripe over your hard bud, shivering when he felt your warm skin searing his tongue. your lower half moved, barely noticeable if you hadn’t been so close, and dragged along his thigh. he gasped quietly against your skin. the breath against your nerves seemed to make you twitch slightly, and he caught it. he liked that little twitch, a small sign of sentience within you. you weren’t just some silly toy he hoarded in his walls, and you weren’t just something to play with. you were a living, breathing, beautiful woman. but still his.

he opened his mouth and blew hot against your chest again, watching as your muscles tightened and released yet again. it made him shudder. he couldn’t resist much more, and wrapped his mouth back around your now bare nipple. he filled his cheeks with as much surrounding flesh as he could, sucking and tonguing over your breast.

he felt somewhat nervous. if you woke up and saw him like this, indulging in you so shamelessly, he didn’t know what you’d think. would you kick him out of the room and punish him? or would you push his head firmer against your chest and moan out pretty like he’s heard before? he wondered if you’d even bat an eye, and just opt to going back to sleep and thinking it was all a dream.

it felt as though brahms brain was a blender, and as the thoughts plopped one by one into the container, they were shredded away and turned to nothing but mush. he didn’t have the room in his brain to think of anything but your body, and how perfectly it fit against him. he held you fast, and suckled hard at your tits, and moaned soft around the skin. he ground his hips without thinking into your hip, and purred and whimpered with every movement.

he pulled away with a soft pop after a minute or two of this, once again looking upon his masterpiece. a hickey was forming on your chest, quickly becoming a deep burgundy colour. at first, it worried him. if you saw that, surely you’d know what he had done. but then, it settled in his stomach, and fed into that burning desire that crackled there. he liked seeing you marked up as his, he liked being able to use you when he pleased, he liked being able to play you like an instrument even when you were asleep. he liked it all. he especially liked the way you seemed to release him of all his tension without even trying. you didn’t have to do anything, and yet you did everything.

he pressed his face in between your tits, letting the weight rest on either side of his cheeks. he rubbed his cock softly up and down your upper thigh and waist, panting hard and heating up the space underneath him. he didn’t even care his clothes were still on, if he focused hard enough, he could imagine what he wanted to truly do to you.

he wanted to flip you onto your back, and squeeze every bit of skin he could find. he wanted to watch as your flesh poured through his slim fingers, and how you squeezed your soft thighs around his waist. he wanted to hear you tell him he could do what he wanted, and give him that gentle permission to ravage your chest and cover it in bites and marks. he wanted to gnaw on you, and treat you like a dog treats a bone. but he wouldn’t destroy you, no, he’d be decorating you, claiming you as his own. every drag of his hips and buck against your body made the fantasy burn brighter.

in his head, brahms was being animalistic. he was rutting into you hard, and growling, and he was the one shoving his fingers into your mouth to keep you quiet. but in reality, he was the exact opposite. he sobbed quietly into your breasts, gathering up your nipple in his mouth once again to keep his sounds quiet, while humping your leg. he was feeling the same amount of pleasure as he would then, it just stayed subdued deep in his chest. he didn’t want to wake you, not when he was enjoying this so much.

he pulled you closer, flattening his hands against your lower back and pressing your hips flush against his own. the shift must have stirred something in you, because while you may have continued to sleep, you tightened your grip on the man beside you. it made brahms groan, squeezing his eyes tight at an attempt to not scream right then, and bite down hard on your nipple so that you’d scream too. he thought he’d like that sound, but would prefer if it was out of pleasure.

you held to him tight, unconsciously pressing his face deeper into your tits. he wrapped his mouth just around your nipple, suckling on it and muffling his quiet moans. he came in his boxers from barely anything. he shivered against you, trembling and gripping onto you, holding you close as he tried to quell the waves of pleasure running up and down his body.

his mind had emptied then, nothing inside except for the thought of you and his new found teething toys. as he shuddered, rutting out the last few shocks of an orgasm, he popped his mouth from your chest. he was satisfied for the time being. he was too spent to clean himself, too relaxed and comfortable to even dare untangle himself from you. no, he didn’t even try. he tucked his face under your chin, and shut his eyes, finally able to find peace and sleep.

in the morning, when you woke up, you were a bit surprised to find your shirt pulled up, and brahms still attached to you. often he got up before you, and put his usual comforts back in place, before starting his own day of roaming the house. but he remained at your side that morning, face hidden in your shoulder.

you took note of the wet spot in his underwear, and the dried saliva on your chest, and the purpling hickey ironed onto your skin like a patch. at first, you felt a bit confused. how had you not woken up…? but then, seeing him so content and calm, you didn’t feel all too bad. secretly, deep down, on those nights he entered into your room and touched you like a delicate flower, you had wanted him to take you in a more physical way. your wish had been granted in some regards.

[afsosville]

Spreading some Shen Jiu positivity coz I need it lol.

You know what's so great about Shen Jiu? It’s that we don’t have a clue what Shen Jiu would’ve been like if he had a chance to heal from his trauma or was equipped to deal with it. (That includes learning coping mechanisms that don’t involve lashing out on other people and getting the TLC he deserves.) We have already seen him at his worst, I wanna know what he’s like at his best!! The world nerfed him with trauma and angst coz it knew a Shen Jiu with mental stability would be a force to be reckoned with. He embodies the quote “Jupiter was meant to be a star but failed.” This is why I love Shen Jiu fics so much (at least the ones where he heals and all that). No coz I'm not getting over the fact that he used a powerful sword flying technique during the burning of the Qiu manor without practicing it first and only saw it once before just straight up pulling it out of his ass like- Or that he become a peak lord despite every fucking disadvantage thrown at him. Also! I'm pretty sure his spirit roots and cultivation talent was equal to, or even greater than Yue Qingyuan as a kid before it got ripped away from him LIKE WHAT- 

Everyone has their own interpretations of Shen Jiu’s character and it's nice to explore. Ofc I don’t like the way he is in canon. If he was a real person, yall would hate him too. I like Shen Jiu for the potential he had as a person and who he could’ve been. And I like coming up with AUs and ideas for how things could've gone differently for him because, for me, there's something so therapeutic about seeing/writing characters break cycles. Shen Jiu not having done so in SV had a narrative impact by emphasising how people display problematic and violent behaviours in response to trauma. That is why the protagonists and male leads of MXTX novels are written the way that they are, to contrast the villains. Characters like Xie Lian, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are examples of people coping with their trauma positively (semi positively if I'm being honest but the point remains). So excuse me for making Shen Jiu the protagonist in practically all the fics I'm working on lol.

Technically you can’t even say Shen Jiu is OOC for these kinds of SJ fics, coz, again, we don’t know what he’s like if he actually got the help he needed. There's this fic called Residing Over Autumn Leaves, where Shen Jiu’s personality is so malleable that he completely reflects the environment he was around in his earlier years. He suffers through a Qi deviation that actually erases his memories and he becomes a white lotus Jiumei. It’s because he was in Qing Jing peak most of the time and all his disciples and martial siblings protected him. And then there’s fics like The Hidden Flower, and the Memories Remembered series. Those speak for themselves. I'm assuming yall read them coz they're pretty much the most popular Shen Jiu fics on AO3 lol. 

Btw, I am NOT looking to argue with anyone over smt like this. Like YES I know what he did, and made sure I had that info (coz the spreading of misinformation is wild).

But I hope it's at least undeniable that he deserved to heal for what the Qiu's and Wu Yanzi put him thru??

[forever-and-whats-left]

I saw someone make a headcannon post, so why not?

Erik:

• he knows pressure points, human weaknesses, etc. basically my excuse to say Erik would know how to disarm Meg in LND because what was that.

• good at everything to an infuriating level. (Everything psychological not so much)

• has an arsenal of dad jokes he uses in increasingly insensitive ways.

• has some weird thing about size. Type of guy to call you “small” as a flirtatious move…

• easily hurt, both physically and emotionally, but refuses to take a break or admit it. Unless Christine is concerned, then he’ll do nothing but wail about it for attention.

• his hands are both cold and smelly, take that translation truthers!

• if he were an ordinary man, he’d still be a complete snob.

• when he’s going crazy he vents his emotions out on a Carlotta-esque toad puppet. There is a tiny wooden stick he beats it with.

Christine:

• would love Fiona Apple.

• her love language is tolerating you.

• people call her “nice” because they rarely speak to her at all. Not that she isn’t, but I’ve always thought she was a bit asocial.

• extremely empathetic to animals. She can’t even kill a spider. (Ahem)

• dislikes being touched.

• moved around with her father a lot, so she has some pretty severe attachment issues. She had good reasons to leave Erik, but Raoul(while he can be a jerk) takes the brunt of her poor coping mechanisms.

• In another life, had Erik not been so pushy and murder-y, they would’ve been very very close.

• Asexual. Yeah. Take that.

• Or she at least would dislike the very potent closeness and intimacy the devils tango brings. In other words sex repulsed.

• After the book, I imagine she took a small break from opera. She'd spent so much of her life doing things for others, and now it was time to do something for herself. Maybe she started singing what she wanted to sing, or maybe she pursued something entirely different. My idea: she began writing stories. After all, her connection to them had always been strong.

• a private woman, thus why she didn’t speak with leroux.

Raoul:

• can be an asshole, but more willing to admit it that others. I choose to interpret the fact that he so readily admitted how cruel he was(to a man who would publish this no less!) as an admission of guilt.

• would never take away music from her.

• a bit pudgy, but has some real muscle beneath it. He can’t be a twink doing sailor work I don’t think. (That rhymed!)

• hates Erik for taking his brother from him. He has a hard time watching Christine mourn Erik because of it.

Daroga:

• becomes Christine’s friend after the plot of the book. How, you ask? Beats me.

• I don’t have many headcannons about him I’m so sorry. Please, pitch your own id love to see em! He’s such an interesting character I feel so bad!

[shakingparadigm]

Hiiii!!! I’m relatively new to ALNST (as in I watched it all in one go in one night and cried) and I was wondering if you have any opinions or information about this,

What do you think about Till and Sua’s relationship? Do you think they’d share anything in common? Do you think they’d like each other? I’d like to think there’s at least one thing they share in common that’s led to be on good terms.

Sorry this is a bit long, thank you!

First of all, thank you anon. I've had thoughts on this for a while! Thanks for giving me a chance to talk about it!

Till and Sua don't often interact in canon, so it's pretty easy to assume that Sua would hate Till's guts because of his crush on Mizi (especially since that art of Mizi playing with Till includes Sua looking jealous on the side, sulking in the next page).

But something to note about the characters in ALNST is that they're actually quite respectful of each other despite the crush conflict (further seen by Ivan and Mizi being very friendly despite Ivan knowing Till loves Mizi). Everyone in the garden knew Till had a crush on Mizi, the goodbye notes state that it was very obvious.

Yet despite that one instance of Sua pouting at Mizi and Till together, Sua is never shown to dislike Till. In fact, she seems to be more conflicted with Ivan instead. In the few official arts we have of them together, they seem pretty neutral.

(Sua's collar is green, showing she's comfortable/doesn't mind Till. Till's collar is orange most likely because he's a little nervous/awkward.)

In the official Anakt Kit goodbye letters, Till and Sua write messages to each other. They're short and seem more of a polite gesture than an actual goodbye between friends, but nothenless it shows that they're pretty amicable. Till writes that Sua has a nice voice and that he hopes she gets a high score in Alien Stage, while Sua tells him to take care and that she'll see him there.

I think that Sua and Till actually have the potential to be pretty good friends, strangely enough.

As for similarities, there are quite a few!

The most significant similarity I see between Till and Sua is that they're both deeply sensitive. Due to this, they've developed different defense mechanisms in order to protect their feelings.

Till is actually known to be timid, rather closed off and "cold" to others. In an early stream, he's even stated to be the most timid character of the cast. He only reveals his energetic and fiery side when he's putting his full passion into something like performing his music, when he's provoked, or whenever Mizi is involved (she makes him "strong", the creators say). Of course this standoffish and aggressive behavior is a front for his softer, more vulnerable feelings. He was heavily mistreated as a child, which led him to become distrustful of most people. This plus other factors regarding his rebellious nature and more eccentric personality result in him being a "friendless idiot". Of course, once people get to know him they'll find that Till is actually quite the sweetheart, albeit a bit awkward.

Sua is quite similar in this way. The creators describe her as soft-hearted, which is why she tears up so quickly in the IvanSua comic and the aforementioned art of Till and Mizi playing together.

Sua, just like Till, seems to be mistreated by her alien guardian. Although to a less violent extent than Guardian Urak, Sua's parent is seen to aggressively handle her without care, grabbing her by the head and shoving her forward. She's also placed in uncomfortable clothing and neglected without consideration for her own feelings. It may be due to this cold and lonely upbringing that Sua learned to hide her emotions as a coping mechanism.

It's been said that getting to know more about Sua is very difficult, as she's closed off and only ever opens up to Mizi. She seems cold on the surface, but the truth is she is hiding her sensitivity so that she won't get hurt. Sua is also very timid in nature, seen in how she only writes in the corners of people's yearbook pages with small font, putting in extra effort to not take up too much space.

But just like Till, Sua has her bolder side. Occasionally she's known to say very blunt and suprising things that other people would not expect of her, and she feels very deeply for the people she cares about. Sua may be the more cool and collected half of MiziSua, but we must not forget that she was tender-hearted to the point where she could not imagine living a life without Mizi in it, thus her sacrifice.

Both Sua and Till's original colors are white, and both are the only characters in the main cast who have ear piercings/earrings. They're both prone to tears and play the role of "god" in their respective relationships.

Something I really like about the ALNST offrec/actor AU is that among all the characters, Till and Sua were chosen to be the seniors!! I found it really cute! Sua, who is the most petite and smallest of the cast + Till, who in canon is the youngest in age. These two are actually the experienced seniors of the actor AU! It's so fun to me lol

Anyways, sorry for all of this, maybe it was a bit much, haha. Till and Sua are my two favorites, and I've always seen similarities between the two of them. I think there's similarities across several of the characters in ALNST, actually, which I hope to talk about in the future!

Thank you for the ask!!

[arrowfleur]

Sam fandom thoughts

Although I can honestly see both sides of what the fandoms been saying about the recent Sam developments I think it’s important to remember that Sam and Darlin are both extremely traumatised characters. Their relationship isn’t going to be ‘normal’. Their coping mechanisms, their timing with events, everything to do with their relationship is different to one of non-traumatised characters if that makes sense?

There are definitely a lot of ways to look at how they handle things, like how Sam being ready for sex and biting with Darlin were both after life-altering events. Would it be nice for them to come to these points in there relationship in a ‘healthier’ way? Yes it would.

But that’s literally not how their brains work. I’m not trying to patronise their characters. Their actions are still their actions, they are grown adults and shouldn’t be minimised to just what’s happened to them. But the things they’ve gone through aren’t just side story’s or plots for comfort audios.

Trauma scientifically changes the way your brain works, it can literally change who you are as person. And for Sam in particular he’s canonically never been in a healthy situation besides his relationship with Darlin (and the Shaw pack).

So if the way they do things kinda seems off to the average folk, that’s normal. Sam literally says ‘it’s not weird, it’s us.’ It’s how THEY handle things.

There’s nothing wrong with disliking it, with wishing it was different or with completely enjoying it. But I think it’s something we don’t keep in mind in this context enough.

I’ve been an avid Sam fan since he got a playlist on the channel and even to me some things seem rushed or ‘strange’ but that’s because I’m not the characters, I haven’t gone through what they have, and in some lights it’s kind of refreshing to see how relationships between different people with different pasts can develop. Instead of a character going through something horrendous having a cry about it and then going back to their old self.

Plus both of their main traumas come from their past sexual partners so yeah sex is gonna be involved in how they deal with things makes sense

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

one of my batfam hot takes is that alfred having a very kind and understanding grandfather-like role is a boring spin on the character and lacks a lot of nuance around his backstory.

like he is a classically trained british butler which means he very likely comes from a working class family. and like, as a working class brit myself, i sometimes find the kindly, well-mannered grandfather thing grating because, a lot of white, working class men his age are unfortunately not nice people. some of them are like my great grandad was a really great guy, but hes really the only one i know who is or was not awful.

because their generation werent as exactly raised with ideals about mental health and emotional regulation. a lot of them were traumatised due to ww2 either because they saw it firsthand when they were like 15, they were old enough to remember things like rationing and the blitz, and a lot of them lost their dads in the war.

i dont expect american writers to understand how much ww2 affected britain (modern britain is still so steeped in it, its insane) and that generation specifically, BUT id love to see that explored more with alfred. like depending on where he grew up, he would likely have been separated from his family during the blitz and sent off to the countryside like most of the kids in cities were, (this is how narnia starts) and like, a lot of them were horrifically abused or used as free labour. a lot of them also lost parents and never got to say goodbye to them. many came back to destroyed homes. some kids also remained in the city or their parents requested them back so theyd experience the blitz first hand and would know the sign of air raid siren meant they might die that night.

you can see how a lot of that generation were permanently scarred. and for a few decades now, alfred would have been part of that generation.

plus he was also a secret service officer which is just like more opportunities to be traumatised and more reason for him to not be this gentle old man whos in touch with his emotions.

and like, as a classically trained butler, he would likely be more reserved because you know, thats how he was trained. also british men that age would also likely be very hands off in regards to emotions.

but the biggest reason as to why the gentle, kind grandfather take doesnt really make sense is that he raised bruce wayne.

like bruce has a whole slew of emotional issues and problems, and obviously some of that is going to come from alfred raising him because you know, thats kinda how that works. i know a lot of batfam folks want bruce to be this great dad, so i guess their take on alfred fits that, but canonically, bruce wayne is an emotional mess and not the best father figure at the best of times.

you cannot look at that bruce wayne and tell me alfred did a good job.

listen, this shouldn't even be a hot take. it's just an opinion that differs from the most popular interpretation of Alfred as an endlessly giving grandmotherly old man.

the thing about Alfred is that more than anything you have to recognize that he's an enabler. and I love the man to pieces, but at absolute best he was extremely negligent in Bruce's upbringing, if not actively encouraging the world's worst coping mechanisms.

I hate to give Gotham credit for anything, especially when it comes to Alfred since I hate their Alfred, but the show was bang on in its insistence from day one that Alfred should not have been Bruce's primary guardian. it's painful to watch how often Alfred encourages Bruce to tough it out and suck it up, and it never really stops. in one of the latter seasons (four, I think) he hits Bruce hard enough to give him a black eye during an argument, and this is ultimately written as a situation in which Bruce needs to apologize to Alfred for being a bratty teenager, rather than Alfred owing Bruce an apology for hitting him when he's a grief-stricken teenage boy cracking under stress.

and like, listen, I understand there are Watsonian and Doylist layers to this. Alfred fundamentally can't have been a good enough guardian to stop Bruce from channeling his trauma into fursuit vigilantism, because then there's no story. I get it.

but jesus christ.

I don't think characterizations of Alfred as a stoic caregiver are wrong, but I do think people don't want to think about how he got there. when I see the aged Alfred patching up Bruce's wounds and nagging him to eat, or doing his best to offer advice to the kids who have gotten mixed up in Bruce's crusade, I see a man who realized a long time ago that he dropped the fucking ball and has dedicated his life to doing as much damage control as possible. okay, so, completely failed step one (raise a well-adjusted child). can we at least make sure that this basket case adult man doesn't go completely over the edge? can we make sure he doesn't become a killer? can we encourage him to take off the mask and be Bruce Wayne sometimes? can we keep the children safe?

I do think Alfred loves all of them, for whatever its worth. his care for Bruce is real, that is his son, the Batgirls and Robins are his extended family. he'll cook their uneaten meals and clean the entire, massive house himself and stitch them up every night forever. he would die for them. hell, he'd kill for them. he loves them. but none of that means he raised Bruce right.

that's kind of the thing I like most about the Bats: they all care so, so much. but the way they love is terrible.

[koiimii]

𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐱 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

𝘾𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙄𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙚…

- 𝙉𝙎𝙁𝙒

- 𝙁𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛

- 𝘼𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙃𝙞𝙢

- 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙨𝙩

————

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐇𝐢𝐦

- Alex loves reading. Both books and the paper. He carries his reading glasses on the collar of his shirt, or in his coat pocket.

- If he weren’t in a band, he would own a really nice bar and lounge. Live music, a reading area, and he’d be a bartender as well. It would probably have a soft of rustic, modern-baroque style.

- He chews cinnamon gum. He enjoys how it makes his tongue burn a little.

- Alex sometimes prefers for feminine scents when picking perfumes. They mix well with his natural lingering cigarette scent.

- He always keeps a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

- Twisting and tugging his rings has become a coping mechanism for his anxiety.

- Alex has a big sweet tooth for desserts and pastries. Especially homemade ones. Red velvet is a particular favorite.

- Aside from his favorites, a guilty pleasure of his when picking films are period pieces. He adores them. Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Dead Poet’s Society, Dorian Gray…

- Alex really wants to learn French.

- He loves vintage pieces when choosing fashions. Jewelry, leather, belts… he likes the timeless feel.

- Alex is actually a very good cook. Baking, and bartending too! He loved a homemade margarita or a Moscow Mule

- Usually in an interview where Alex is wearing sunglasses, he’s dozing off.



𝐅𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟

- Alex loves when you wear the things he bought. He absolutely adores it. Especially things like dresses or lingerie.

- Alex secretly has a bit of a green thumb and loves to keep plants around the house, all named after his band mates, and you.

- He has a very naturel pout when he’s deep in thought, and likes when you kiss it to snap him out of it.

- Alex secretly enjoys being the little spoon when the two of you cuddle. He’s want you to press your chest to his back, and wrap your arms around him.

- Alex always likes to keep some extra sweaters, hoodies, and dress-shirts out for the finding of you. He loves seeing you roam around his house in his clothes. Drives him crazy.

- Alex loves making you worked up and mad. He likes your little bossy fits and your silent treatments, because then he can go out and fix them with gifts and things.

- Alex stutters quiet a bit when it’s just the two of you. He says it’s because no matter how long the two of you have been together, your still make him so very nervous.

- His favorite thing about you is your legs. He loves when you oil them on date nights, and they shine. He love how soft they are. He loves when your thighs thicken when you sit down. He loves when you wear heels. He likes to kiss your calves and up when you two are in bed together. He just loves your legs.

𝐍𝐒𝐅𝐖

- Alex is very hyper-sensitive. The little things turn him on or arouse him.

- if you could photograph Alex after sex, you’d have multiple photo albums. You’ve never seen such a pretty afterglow..

- His hair is disheveled and sweaty, stuck to his forehead.

- His lips are glossy and parted while he tries to catch his breath.

- His eyes are sleepy and low, yet they still get all big and doe eyed when you speak to him…

- Alex gets super lazy after sex. His aftercare is cuddles and kisses. - He just gives soft, dazed praises while you clean the both of you up, patting your thighs and kissing your exposed parts.

- His flush cheeks and nose are heart wrenching. You especially like how flushed he gets while he’s buried between your thighs.

- He loves when you caress or scratch his chest and back. Especially with longer, freshly done nails. If you don’t do it yourself, he’ll take your hand and guide it down his body to where he wants it the most.

- Alex has two very different moans. Usually, they’re very vocal. Long, drawn out groans and strained curses under his breath, or there’s the more breathless, whiny like moans you’ve come to favor. The way he cries out your name and his voice cracks before he hits that pinnacle of pleasure.

- Your neck is his go-to, especially your collarbone. It’s always his first target. Kissing, biting, licking, he just loves your reactions.

- There was no in between when you and Alex made love. In the mornings, soft sex was perfect. Both still very sleepy, his strong arms holding you close, holding your leg in the air as he buried his nose into your neck. Keeping his thrusts slow and lush. His cheeks puffed and rosy, fluffy disheveled hair and doe eyes staring up at you as you ride him lazily, or sometimes he’d hold you close to his chest until you both spilled over. Soft breaths and whimpers exchanged, the sweet nothings he whispered in your ear when he got close. It was all amazing.

- Rough sex was another story. When Al was pent up or frustrated, that’s when you knew you were in for it. Your wrists clutched firmly in his hands as he pounded into you. He especially loved it when you started to cry from the overwhelming pleasure. He’d kiss your tears but his rhythm never faltered or softened. He loved taking you from behind too, forcing you down into a cat-like arch and gripping your hips so hard he left imprints.

- You two came to agreement and made your safe word “Rosie.”

- Knee socks. You thought they were childish at first, but when Alex first saw you wear them to one of his concerts, he took you right there in his dressing you. Now you have a thousand pairs.

- On the rare occasion that Al us still energized after sex, he’s the King of Aftercare. Water on a tray, tea, a warm bath, a hot meal on the way, his clothes freshly out of the dryer so they’re warm when you wear them, he wants nothing more than to make you feel completely safe with him, especially after more intense love making.

- On stage, Alex is very immersed in his performance. When on-stage, he transforms. There was something erotic about the way his body moved, usually on its own. Grinding and rolling his hips, caressing his mic stand, getting down on his hands and knees… Alex couldn’t count the amount of times he’s found himself turned on during a performance or concert, having to quickly hide his erections the best he can.

𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭

- When you first made it official, Alex desperately tried to get over it, but there was this mind eating feeling he had that he didn’t deserve you.

- After disagreements that are exceptionally bad, he’ll come find you afterwards like a timid child.

- “Are you still upset with me, love…?”

- He hates waking up alone. He just feels like once he’s off stage, no one cares for the real Alex. He always need you in bed with him.

- He’s a terrible sleeper. He gets no where near enough sleep and so he tries to nap whenever he can.

- He’s tried to stop smoking so many times, but he really struggles with anxiety.

- You had been shouting at him once and quickly stopped when you realized he was having a panic attack.

- “I’m not good at this relationship thing am I?”

- When Alex realizes his accent is “too much”, he tries to correct so it’s easier to comprehend.

- When faced with chances to open up about his own emotions, he automatically brushes it off or gets distant.

- “I don’t know, does anyone really care what I think?”

- “I’ve just gotten used to not having the last word…”

[wilcze-kudly]

I really like the constant powerplays we see from Kuvira. Like of course we have the big bombastic ones like dangling Varrick out of a moving train, hijacking a coronation, bringing her whole army to Zaofu, using her adoptive mother and brother as props for a speech, along with just her entire penchant for afformentioned speeches.

But there are smaller things that fall into this too. Of course there's the physical intimidation. Kuvira knows she's an intense person, I believe, and she uses this to her advantage, often pushing into boundaries, because that is a very good way to get people to panic and agree with you.

Oh and also she tried to choke out one of the followers she essentially abandoned, so um. Take that as you will.

We of course, have the iconic shoulder touch. This can be interpreted as benign, even nice, but this gesture can also mean so many other things. This can be easily interpreted as a gesture of establishing dominace, invading another persons personal space (especially a person who isn't comfortable with you, which Opal and Bolin most certainly were at the moment). Putting essentially a weight on them, pusbing them down.

We also sew Kuvira's control over people manifest in the more nebulous action of controling their movements and placements. One of my favourite of Kuvira's powerplays is her olacing Wu in the Juniour Suite. Another aspect to this could be Bolin having been seated in a small metal chair as opposed to This once again, sows confusion, doubt and stress, making people more susceptible to Kuvira's manipulation. Though Wu being placed in the Juniour Suite kinda stands out here as an action that doesn't immediately carry any benefit for Kuvira. So she's either being a dick, really wanted that presidential Suite, or perhaps was trying to rattle Wu before the ceremony.

We can also see verbal belittling, especially coming out with Suyin, calling her weak ans a coward and also branding her and the twins as traitors. I do find it interesting that Suyin is such a target of Kuvira's derision, but I suppose it makes sense due to their difficult relationship.

You can also clearly see how much being in Kuvira's surroundings affects people, and how her actions and powerplays affect people very strongly. Varrick and Bolin being perfect examples of this. Bolin was already mentally unwell so he was an easy target for Kuvira, but evem Varrick was still terrified of Kuvira even in the comics.

I think one of the perfect examples of the hold Kuvira had on people is when everyone is gonna have some tea to celebrate furthering the reuinification of the Earth Kingdom and Kuvira refuses to drink the tea herself so everyone just.... puts their teas down too.

And this may seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, it's the little things. I think it sets the tone perfectly for the type of person Kuvira is.

And see, Kuvira's obsession, be it subconscious or concious,with asserting power and control has some strong basis in her backstory.

In a huge amount of Kuvira's childhood flashbacks, we see Kuvira in situations of helessness and lack of control. Most poignantly being literally dropped off by her father in a completely different city

You can totally understand why Kuvira would want to and need ro establish a sense of control over the new environment she'd been tossed into. We can see this later in the comic where a young Opal sets a boundary ("get out of my room and don't rouch my stuff") and Kuvira reacts by breaking the object she wanted.

Here she is effectively having the last say in the situation and taking control of the situation, even if the outcome isn't the one she desired initially. This shows us that this was always Kuvira's coping mechanism.

This honestly, if I were to interpret Kuvira in extremely bad faith, may imply that the main recipients of the beginnings of her manipulative and forceful streak would be the baby Beifongs. So um. That's some angst fic material.

I really need to make a longer post about Kuvira's manipulative tendencies and just how good she is at it.

[everythingannoyingpjo]

I hated everything Bob the Titan. Like I was a PJO super fan, so I read all the books (so I did know who Bob was BEFORE reading HoH), but that doesn't excuse having him be such a titular part of Percy and Annabeth's Tartarus experience while being introduced in a side book. In what world does that make sense?

This isn't even mentioning how strange it is to blame Percy for not wanting anything to do with Bob/manipulating him. Sure, perhaps Percy MAY have been a little out of line there (truly, I don't think so, though, it IS an argument), and it also didn't help that he was being blamed by the narrative for Bob and Calypso, as if either were ever really HIS fault.

(Finally, Percy has ALWAYS been like that. Bob wasn't needed to show him to be a slightly manipulative person. There were much more interesting ways to go about introducing Tartarus and exploring both Percy and Annabeth as characters. Percy especially).

Not much for me to add here. Bob being in the book never bothered me personally, but I can see how it would be annoying to have the focus taken away from Annabeth and Percy. Percy's POV is actually largely absent in Tartarus, and I think the reason for this (the only reason I can think of) is that Percy's PoV was probably quite dark during this part of the narrative, especially since it's the lead up to his break down when confronting Akhlys.

Percy has always been prone to blaming himself for others misfortune, so the fact that he blamed himself for what happened to Calypso, Bob, and Nico is not surprising to me, what did surprise me is that the narrative played it completely straight. Honestly the scene with Leo and Percy also really bugged me and I know I'm not alone in this. I honestly think Rick bit off more than he could chew with HoO trying to balance the arcs of about 10 different characters with conflicting viewpoints. (I'm counting Reyna, Nico, and Misc side characters here too.)

I think Leo suffers the most from this since his character arc required the most development imo, but so do Hazel, Frank, Piper, and Jason. These characters all have relatively "healthy" coping mechanisms so they didn't need as much focus and were pushed to the side as a result. Percy, whether because we know him better or because he's easier for Rick to write (experience will do that to you) didn't have as much of a problem, except again for those things which required a certain amount of nuance, which is a weak point in Rick's writing already!

I never considered the point of Bob's character was to show that Percy could and would mislead people in order to survive, but it's an interesting point and I like it. I slightly disagree, but only because I'm of the opinion that Percy was being honest with Bob when he said he would let Bob bring Hyperion back if he really wanted to. And we never find out if he is, because that scene is from Annabeth's point of view and she admits she isn't sure if he's lying or not. Another one of those things it would have been nice to come back to. ALAS!

But also we already knew Percy was willing to trick people to survive, didn't we? He tricks his opponents into doing stupid shit all the time in the first series. I guess this is just the first time we as the audience feel sympathy for the character he is potentially deceiving so it FEELS like a betrayal. Definitely something for me to think about. Thanks for your submission.

[that-ari-blogger]

Content. Warning. (Poison)

Hazbin Hotel has a predicament that I haven’t really come across anywhere else. The episode that I would use to recommend this series is also the episode that I would use to recommend people away.

I would recommend another tale for the characters and the storyline and how the writers weaved in a dissection of subject matter more nuanced than I expected. But Hazbin Hotel is, in my opinion, at its best when it deals with that material front and centre.

There’s a reason I have titled this post what I have. Episode four of this series isn’t shy about what it’s talking about. But there’s an interesting difference between the idea of something being subtle and something being nuanced, and there’s also another weird thing about this episode and especially the first song contained therein.

Masquerade feels like it is written by a comedian, and I mean that in the most straight faced, complimentary way possible.

Let me explain.

CONTENT WARNING: (Mention of Abuse, Mental Health, Sexual Assault, Addiction, Bodily Harm)

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Hazbin Hotel, Six)

I am an absolutely awful judge of the cultural zeitgeist, but I have observed that the music I like rarely gets described as “pop”. Partially, this is because I see a bunch of people liking a specific thing and I walk in the opposite direction, but partially this is because my musical taste isn’t limited to any specific genre.

My main musical tastes are centred around the emotionality of the song, rather than the musical distinctions. I will look at Harry Styles’ Watermelon Sugar and think it’s nice to listen to, but I will gravitate towards Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire because of the emotional journey that song takes me on. The former of those two makes you want to dance; the latter makes you want to shout your rage at the sky.

Naturally, this leads me to ballads, songs that tell a story. The Crane Wives are particularly good at these, Curses is the archetypical example of a tale of personal guilt. But, for the sake of a constant thematic, let’s talk about Bitter Medicine for a moment.

“I bite my tongue to keep the worst of the words in So they don’t hurt nobody but me Swallow the poison I wanna spit Bitter medicine I think it’s making me sick Don’t look up to me I’m not as tall as you think You see, I talk a big game But it’s bullshit”

Bitter medicine is about bad coping mechanisms, kind of. The Crane Wives excels at exploring powerful emotions but leaves the scenarios open to interpretation. It’s not how you got here that matters, but where “here” is.

This is why the same few of their songs have gained popularity in Asexual spaces as well as in spaces for those recovering from their own actions. Reformed abusers and aces don’t tend to share much, except for a feeling of guilt.

It’s an unfortunate part of the ace experience that the realising of who you are feels like a betrayal. It feels like you have strung someone along with promises you can’t keep. I’ve been there, and it feels awful.

I do want to stress that this isn’t betrayal in reality. Being ace does not make you a bad person, you haven’t actually strung someone along. You are valid, end of argument.

The issue is that the mind isn’t always a rational thing. Sometimes it internalises things in an unhealthy way. Odds are the partner who you think you betrayed wouldn’t agree with you on that. People that like you have a habit of supporting you.

Essentially, part of being ace is that self-imposed guilt. Not every ace goes through it, but for those who do, that feeling is difficult to overcome.

But that idea of being the reason a relationship fallen apart has a lot of other applicable situations, hence the diversity of popularity.

Bitter Medicine isn’t about that, its about guilt for feeling bad. Its about the type of trauma response that is selfishness masquerading as selflessness.

The emotion on display is pain, with a song about bottling up everything until it explodes. You can’t be angry, you can’t be sad, you can’t let people help you because "there’s nothing wrong". You just have to keep things tight to your chest and let other people suffer. This is a song about becoming distant from those who can see you hurting and can’t do anything to help you.

It's about how bad coping mechanisms act as a poison that can’t be escaped, almost like an addiction.

The music video centres around the idea of others getting caught up in the crossfire of internal emotions. It’s monochromatic so you can see the stains left behind even more starkly, and those stains get everywhere. The protagonist has to be rescued by these others, but she has to let them.

You will notice that ballads don’t usually tell you the events of their stories. Everything is a metaphor; everything is a symbol. Sometimes a song will tell you outright what’s going on. That’s a strength of the medium, not a plot hole.

Which leads me to a song called Poison, a ballad that is entirely centred around the metaphor of its title.

Poison was written by Alice Cooper (with help from Desmond Child and John McCurry) and released in 1989 as a single, and it is surreal.

It’s about Cooper’s alcohol and drug addictions, which is weird considering the lyrics are ostensibly about someone he’s in a relationship with, and that’s the point.

The song depicts Cooper’s addiction as an abusive relationship, dedicating the song to that part. It’s singing to “you”, as if he’s in conversation with it, telling it to its face all the damage that he has taken.

This is personification, ascribing a will to an inanimate object, although its more than that. In this case, it’s ascribing an attraction to the object, a seductiveness. He blames himself for falling for a trap and frames the song as his own realisation of his agency. He got himself into this situation, he recognises what the problem is, he decides where to go from here.

I want to highlight that the central metaphor is used differently in both songs mentioned above. That’s part of the fun of literary analysis. Everything works together to provide context for everything else.

Poison is a song about alcoholism, so it uses the titular concept to focus on the realisation and consequences. Bitter Medicine focuses on how the poison masquerades as a cure to emphasise its point about bad coping mechanisms being traps. Hazbin Hotel’s Poison is the opposite of all these things.

The song in Hazbin Hotel is about an abusive relationship, and it uses the poison to step in for the addictiveness of that. It’s a reverse of Alice Cooper’s song, comparing a person to a drug rather than the other way around.

It is also gloriously unsubtle in a way that is really difficult to explain, so I’m going to have to use another, wildly different example.

I recently read a book called This Gilded Abyss. It’s by Rebecca Thorne (@rebeccathornewrites), and it struck me as a book that was graceful in the same way that a person can be “cool”. It’s not pompously dancing around clever wordplay. The book feels like the art is in the tale, rather than the telling, and I mean that in the best way. It’s more art than form.

The reason I bring this up is because that is the same feeling I get from listening to Hazbin Hotel’s Poison. There are cool details in the presentation, sure, but they are outshone entirely by the emotion on display. I don’t listen to the song or read the book to dwell on the fine details, not because they aren’t there, but because the story has me in a death grip and I am too enthralled by it to pay attention.

I could talk about how Poison uses high notes to ground itself, I could talk about how the songs instruments imply a fakeness. But that doesn’t seem like the point to me. Instead, I want to elaborate on what I said earlier about this song and comedy writing.

The song isn’t funny, per say. If you were insincere, you could point out that this is about a spider singing to a moth, so haha jokey joke joke. But that’s the key. Sincerity.

The golden rule of comedy is “commit to the bit”. It’s less funny to draw back and undercut yourself than it is to subvert expectations or do something dumb and go for it, despite seeing it coming a mile away.

I was a theatre kid (if you are shocked by this, welcome to the blog), and I remember being told by the theatre sports coach that for a joke to be funny, it can never be acknowledged as such. I don't know how much I agree with this, but it's a useful idea.

Hazbin Hotel does this in a big way with its entire design. It’s set in hell, and the main character is the most optimistic person you will ever meet. Pentious is a villain, and also a goober, and the show does not acknowledge the inherent silliness of this for a moment.

As such, the punchline of Poison is the final verse, which is a tour de force of Blake Roman’s acting skill. Everything cuts away and you get the emotional centre of the entire song. It’s like the dick joke you can see coming, but instead of making you laugh, it destroys you.

This is how the final scream in All You Wanna Do works. The song part of the musical Six, which I hope to cover on this blog at some point and follows the breaking down of Katherine Howard. She is seeking a kinship without any preconceptions, but everyone around her views her as nothing more than a vehicle for sex.

At the end of the song, she screams out into the stage:

"Bite my lip and pull my hair as you tell me I'm the fairest of the fair."

Six is a tragedy that has already happened. The characters know their fates, but the audience gets to learn them in real time, and is powerless but to watch with joy that turns rapidly into horror.

In this case, Howard hasn't been allowed to complain. She's been something pretty for people to look upon, and she has to be happy, right? She's married to the king. But she isn't, because nobody has at any point asked what it is that she wants.

So, she screams, letting all that rage and frustration out, letting the audience know how she really feels, and displaying her complete vulnerability in the face of history, and then she is gone, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Poison also does this with each chorus. There are mini punchlines, mini beats that make you react and keep you interested.

“What’s the worst part of this hell? I can only blame myself.”

This forms a bridge to the chorus, drawing you back like an arrow in a bowstring to send you rocketing forwards into an aggressively upbeat flurry of music. The same thing happens later on in the song.

“So far beyond difficult, To resist another gulp.”

This is use of the titular metaphor, but its also ascribing blame. Angel has been abused and sexually assaulted by Valentino, and this is the song about how he has internalised that. Namely, through condemning himself.

There are two things to note here, and I think the series disagrees with Angel on both accounts.

First up, there is the importance of proportionality. Falling for someone with more red flags than a beach in shark season wasn’t a good decision, I think we can all agree on that, but it doesn’t condemn someone to abuse.

Especially since this is the internet for Pete's sake. You only have to imply that a character is attractive, and you will have a collection of people who will defend their every move. Part of this is the "I can fix him" mentality and the fact that fictional characters aren't real, but still. Come on.

Second up, is Angel really to blame? More to blame than, say, Valentino? The victim is blaming himself for his victimhood, in order to deflect from the person who has put himself in that situation.

Episode four has one scene in it that is both my favourite and my least favourite, the one in which Charlie sets fire to the set.

This was a scene that made me reflect on the difference between something being good craft and something being enjoyable, as Valentino’s switch in tone when moving between Angel and Charlie is so viscerally uncomfortable that it made me pause the episode to sit back and take it in. It’s intentionally jarring, and it's not trying to present this character as benevolent.

What it is trying to do is present Valentino as seductive, someone who has two modes that he can switch between. Angel fell for the nice Valentino who got the gifts and was kind and charming and was blindsided by the more aggressive version of this character.

In other words, the highs were what he was drawn in by, the lows caught him off guard. Valentino is like a drug.

This truly is the opposite of Alice Cooper’s song. Where that personified the drug to give it agency, Angel dehumanises Valentino to place the agency on himself and take the blame.

“Because I know you’re poison, you’re feeding me poison. Addicted to this feeling I can’t help but swallow up your poison. I made my choice and every night I’m living like there’s no tomorrow.”

If we focus on the line I put in bold, there’s some similarity to another song, previously in the musical.

“Hell is forever, whether you like it or not. Had their chance to behave better now they boil in a pot”

The idea that choices are final and that everyone gets one chance that they must then commit to is a key antagonistic force in the series. The show is about hope, and the desire for things to get better, but Heaven and Angel say that if you make a decision, the rest of your life must be dedicated to the follow up of that.

If you got into a bad relationship, sucks to suck, you’re stuck there. If you got into a bind and had to do dark things to stay alive, sorry, no redoes.

There's a word for this: "Damnation".

Committing to the bit here is making the bit your entire deal. The theme is the dichotomy between change and stagnation, and every source of conflict comes from that one concept. It’s milking the joke for all its worth, but again, repurposed.

Although, there is one other advantage that comedians have in storytelling, an advantage I like to call the “What’s My Mother’s Name?” Moment.

Sam Riegel is a voice actor and a regular cast member on Critical Role. He is famous for being incredibly funny, but also for his relationship with humour. Several times across the series’ three campaigns, it has become clear that Riegel was being fully serious, and neither the audience not the cast saw it coming until far too late.

There’s an obvious example here but let’s get topical and talk about the latest episode of the series, as of writing this.

“He had a perspective and a goal and he laid it out very clearly. He wanted to get his family back and assume power. He did not set out to kill a city, to destroy a city. He wanted to get back with his family. The others prevented him. He gave them a choice to sit down at a table and they said, ‘No, we'd rather kill a city.’”

Riegel is playing Braius Doomseed, a minotaur champion of an evil deity, and in episode 102, there is a discussion of what has gone before. Braius starts to make a case for one of the villainous deities, and the rest of the cast assumes he’s just joking and committing to the bit. Instead, Reigel commits to the bit so thoroughly that he bypasses humour and plays it straight. This is someone genuinely making a case for the lord of the hells.

The question isn’t about when Reigel started beings serious because he’s always been that. The question, is “when did he stop being funny?”

Hazbin Hotel does this with Poison, and it causes the audience to reflect on what has gone before. All of Angels’s actions up to this point have now been recontextualised, and it's far too late to do anything about it. Angel has always been serious, the show has always been aware of this character as a damaged person, but now the lighting is different, and you aren’t shielded by the joke.

The punchline is the commitment to the bit.

Final Thoughts

I’ve seen a lot of praise online for this song, and while I agree that this song’s grip on you is unbreakable, I think that it gets outdone by the very next number.

I also want to point out why, in my opinion, episode four is the best in the series.

The show has a pacing problem, it’s in a hurry to tell its story because it’s had artificial constraints put upon it. But Masquerade takes its time and gives you a story without compromises and without outside input. In my eyes, this is a flawless episode of television.

Next week, we will stick with the episode, and look at Loser Baby, and how hope becomes triumph. Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[frozen-spaghetti]

Papyrus' Heaven Theory - I Swear It's Not Card Friends

Updated June 4th, 2024. Currently probably the definitive version of Papyrus Knight.

Part 1 - The Flaws with Papyrus Knight

a. "It's out of character"

Well, this is the main flaw that Papyrus' Heaven is made to address. However, this section is to run through the argument, so let's see here:

Papyrus is often seen as a simple, happy, and whimsical guy. And on the surface level, in Undertale at least, he does seem to be.

He also has one core difference when compared to the rest of the main cast: He cannot kill you. Toriel can kill you if you're not careful. Sans can kill you in his battle, though it's hard to reach. Undyne and Asgore have essentially made it their job to do so. Mettaton lives in a killer robot body designed to murder humans, a body created by Dr. Alphys. Flowey is a genocidal maniac who will kill you, only to revive you and do it over and over again.

But Papyrus? The only instances of him being able to kill you were a rare glitch in older versions of Undertale, which appears to now be an impossibility.

Now, someone this nice surely cannot have been an evil Knight in another timeline, right?

Well, let me present you a mini-theory within this theory:

Papyrus' Disremembrance Theory

There is a LOT of evidence that Papyrus is intentionally making himself forget many things, many important things.

Dialogue from the King Papyrus ending as well as the Lost SOUL battle paints a dark picture for Papyrus' backstory. Him saying absolutely nothing during part of the fight is haunting, and could imply that he's unable to remember what he would've said at that point. This is especially relevant as it comes at the same time Sans says "you'll never see 'em again," which is a very likely reference to his time in Deltarune's reality. The King Papyrus ending is quite terrifying too, it alludes to his "usual encouragement" not always working, which seems to imply there are past coping mechanisms of his.

This—coupled with the evidence that he's from the DELTARUNE reality—implies he is deep in denial and has forced himself to forget nearly everything. By the way, if you're not aware of said evidence, check out my post detailing the evidence Sans and Papyrus are from the DELTARUNE universe. It's fairly good, but I did not address the sun argument...so I will now.

A major argument against the Papyrus Deltarune theory is that he doesn't know what the sun is. Clearly, he cannot be from Deltarune's Light World if he does not know what the sun is!

Well, my answer to this is fairly simple. He likely has beaten the Deltarune reality out of his mind so hard that he doesn't remember what the sun is. He has to strain himself to even remember there was grass, after all. He does use the term "sun on my skin" but I believe he isn't fully aware of the connection between "the sun" and a big ball in the sky.

To wrap up Papyrus' Disremembrance theory, I'd like to point out that it nicely contrasts Sans' whole "don't forget" thing. This is even reflected in the Lost SOUL dialogue; Sans is clearly grieving while Papyrus has fully made himself forget.

Now - back to the main point!

Since we have established Papyrus is in denial, and has made himself forget practically everything that occurred in his time in the DELTARUNE reality, we can now treat his Undertale incarnation as a "soft reset" of sorts. Many traits of his shine through, but he is a fairly different person.

For example, I believe one of his core traits is his "I WILL BE THE ONE!" mentality.

If Papyrus really is the Knight, him being obsessed with a goal of causing a world-changing event to happen would add up. The core motivation for both would be to become worshipped and to achieve what he perceives as the greater good.

It would also be consistent with how Asriel—the Angel in Undertale's world—deceived him into doing his bidding. Assuming that the Knight is working for Deltarune's Angel, that could be a recurring theme for Papyrus' story.

Lastly, I will mention how most Papyrus Knight theories mess this up. They often claim he does not know about the Roaring, or that he makes the Dark Fountains just to get some Darkner buddies. And, while that may be on the surface level closer to his Undertale characterization, it does not add up with the in-game evidence. Queen makes it clear that the Knight goes by 'Roaring Knight' and King implies he was ordered to fight the other kings by the Knight. This clearly implies they are devoted to doing the Angel's bidding, regardless of if it's morally wrong.

b. "He's from Undertale, so he can't be the Knight"

I won't spend too long on this one since it is absolutely unchangeable, but I will bring up a counterpoint, one that I explained earlier.

Papyrus is kind of a Deltarune character???

If anyone who first appeared in Undertale counts, it would be the skeletons.

Hell, W.D Gaster in Deltarune is very heavily implied to be the same Gaster who built the CORE in Undertale's reality.

It appears the skeletons are strange, interdimensional beings. Gaster exists everywhere at every possible time, and Sans and Papyrus are known to have hopped realities.

Essentially, this argument is a bit weaker for someone like Papyrus than someone like Undyne who isn't the same character across both games.

I do get it, though. However, I do think there is room to debate he's being treated weirdly compared to nearly everyone else.

This line about Papyrus.

This damn line about Papyrus.

I don't think it proves he's the Knight at all, but Toby Fox is totally conditioning us to wonder where the hell Papyrus is.

And given the way the newsletters have been using Papyrus, it's honestly odd to imagine he won't have some strangely major role in the plot.

I could easily use something like this GIF as "evidence" but it really isn't. I could argue it ties Papyrus to a future Dark World location, I suppose. But really, the main takeaway is that Papyrus is treated extremely weirdly when compared to the rest of the returning Undertale cast.

c. "Nobody knows who he is"

Well, this flaw is near-unfixable. However, it is possible to turn it into a slight strength.

Firstly, though, there are ways for him to be more known to the main cast.

Deltarune has teased a Papyrus hangout in a similar vein to Undertale's date. Not only has Sans directly told you that you'll hang out with him soon, but the Steam page hints that Papyrus is busy—implying he will show up later.

This could easily pay off in a hangout later in the game, which causes the Fun Gang to familiarize with him. Hell, it's possible there's a Dark World adventure with him later on. However, I have a question to pose to you:

Does it really matter?

Well, likely, yes. Though, it is potentially not as much of a flaw as you would think.

Consider, for a moment, who else do we know for sure has created a dark fountain? Kris. And, tell me if this sounds familiar.

"Antisocial person lacking friends, who—in the grand scheme of things—lives under the shadow of their older brother."

Sure, this isn't exactly that unique of a character archetype, but if the two Dark Fountain creators share those traits, it could mean something.

Kris isn't as unknown as Papyrus is, but still— many people do not know them very much. Some don't even know their name; Undyne addresses them as "Asgore's kid" and even the ones who do know their name are not quite familiar with them.

Some More Weird Parallels Between These Siblings

Kris and Papyrus are both compared to Luigi from the Mario series.

Yes, I get it's stupid to bring up Luigi in an essay about Papyrus being the Roaring Knight, but hear me out here.

In debating Papyrus Knight since I wrote the original draft of this essay, I've mostly encountered the response that it's a basic trope and cannot be considered as an intentional parallel.

However, knowing Toby Fox directly acknowledges it and considers both of them to be Luigi-like characters...that makes it far more plausible of a comparison to make. Both of them are younger siblings who, despite their circumstances, wish they were "as good" as their elders, being Asriel and Sans. Just LOOK at Kris' room.

Papyrus and The Fun Gang

Papyrus is absolutely one of, if not the best character to make the Knight in relation to the Fun Gang.

I know that sounds odd. How? The Mayor is a character who they all at least know exists, and a similar thing could be said about Alvin, or even a more out-there candidate such as Alphys.

But...one thing nearly everyone else has in common is that they are figures of authority. Figures not nearly comparable to the teenagers who were pulled into a universe-defining story which puts fate into their hands.

This could apply to Kris (albeit limiting the affected parties for obvious reasons) and arguably Dess, but Papyrus really does work the best from the perspective of an "equal" antagonist.

This becomes especially clear when you consider the main antagonists so far.

A king, a queen, some criminal mastermind guy. To have their creators and ultimate superior be just another sad teenager like the Fun Gang could work as a better story.

Now.

The main issues with Papyrus Knight have been fairly addressed.

They will be hard to correct, but I have gotten them out of the way in order to pave the foundation of my theory. If the Knight is creating these worlds, why? They don't just want little Darkner buddies...if so, why would they order Spade King to overthrow the other kings?

Well, the motivation comes down to one word.

...

Okay. This is a bit funny. When I originally made the theory, I considered Dess was controlling him to create an Angel's Heaven. But now i go against said idea. But I'm too lazy to change the title, so pretend that nothing happened.

Part 2 - Papyrus' Heaven Theory

The General Idea

If you just want the key details of Papyrus' Heaven, here you go.

Papyrus doesn't want the Dark Worlds for friends, for fun, for adventure, or whatever. He is fully convinced that whatever he is doing is working toward a great new future.

In Undertale, we see his "I WILL BE THE ONE!!!" mentality with his ultimate goal of saving monsterkind, by capturing the final human. I believe he felt that very way about being the Knight. That he is ultimately a legendary hero.

This parallels the Fun Gang, who are also a group of inexperienced teenagers lacking friends who have been turned into prophesied heroes of the world.

Papyrus is aware, in some way, that a Roaring exists and believes it's either a necessary evil or the key to the perfect end for the world. He is not going to have a Berdly moment where Ralsei tells him it's bad and he stops.

What he did hurt him so much that he repressed the memories and vowed to be a better person.

Now, let me look at a few of these points in further detail.

"Papyrus doesn't want to make fountains for friends, fun, or adventure. He believes he's bringing a grand future."

Well, I can sense a counterpoint coming.

If he is aware of the Roaring, and believes it could be used to help save the world, why would he not just start the Roaring right then and now?

Well, I feel the easiest way is to connect this to Gaster.

Sans is fairly obviously connected to Gaster, but what many people don't consider is the strange level of meta knowledge he possesses. Not only does he wink at what we can only conclude is the Player, but he fairly accurately knows the release window between chapters of Deltarune. (2 years to describe the window between Chapters 1 and 2, which is correct if you don't round upwards.)

Given he says you'll most likely see Papyrus again when Asriel returns, we can infer this will likely be around when a major story moment occurs. This is probably sometime between Chapter 5 and Chapter 7, however it is most likely during Chapter 5 proper, as that chapter may take place in the Flower King shop for various reasons. These include but aren't limited to the likely placement of the Church in Chapter 4 based on various context clues, the potential for a Flower King area to serve as a pseudo-endgame with Flowey characters and the like, and the May 2024 newsletter giving us some content regarding the Flower King shop a while after Chapter 3's development completed.

There are also many reasons to believe Chapter 5 will end with the Roaring beginning and heavily feature the Knight, such as Chess Theory and the original release schedule.

Regardless though, given that Papyrus is known to have some form of relationship with Gaster, I could see him having some level of fore-knowledge. It'd be interesting if Gaster actually needs the Knight for the Legend to come true, and thus is affiliated with them.

"In Undertale, we see his 'I WILL BE THE ONE!' mentality which may carry over into his attitude as the Knight."

Papyrus is strongly devoted to his goals in Undertale. Sometimes, painfully so. He is very, very committed to making sure Frisk is captured. Even after they become friends with him, he continues to aid Undyne in capturing him.

And yes, he is very aware of what he's doing.

Papyrus very much knows the consequences his actions have, and does not cease even despite the fact he is friends with the person who is going to be murdered; their blood would be on his hands. Yet he is unrelenting.

I imagine this is a personality the Knight could have.

To endanger children by placing Dark Worlds in a school and a library, and to continue creating these Dark Fountains even after having learned of the Roaring (if he didn't already know of it) is something I cannot see many characters doing. Of course, that can be addressed with others, but Papyrus in particular is very stubborn, or to put it another way, determined.

Regardless of whether a Knight Papyrus would want recognition or love, I believe he absolutely considers himself to be a hero. Perhaps he is misguided. And, if the Delta Warriors are also misguided, then it'd be a double misguide. Two opposing sides, and yet both manage to be wrong in a sense.

Does Papyrus Want Recognition Again?

Speaking of, though, it is entirely likely that Papyrus wants to be hailed for his work as the Roaring Knight.

Perchance Sans is being truthful when he says Papyrus wants friends, and Papyrus takes that in an unhealthy direction using Dark Worlds.

While Kris used the Dark Worlds to make new friends with Lancer, Ralsei, and Susie, as well as improving their bond with Noelle and Berdly, the Knight has been shown to have manipulated the chapter bosses in order to worship them. Maybe not directly, but they absolutely have displayed behaviour that implies that the Knight feels like a god to them.

It is presumable that Papyrus may also want to gain praise from other Lighters in this manner as well, but he certainly has taken the role of a 'god' to some Darkners.

"Papyrus is aware of the Roaring and considers it necessary to fulfill his grand goal."

Given Queen calls the Knight the Roaring Knight, this is a pretty clear-cut case.

As I mentioned in the last section, Papyrus absolutely does know his actions have consequences, and it's very hard to change their mind. In Undertale, thankfully, most of his actions were benevolent. But in this case, he is really acting in a dangerous manner which is bound to hurt many people.

"What he did hurt him so much that he repressed the memories, and vowed to change and improve as a person."

I already covered this earlier, during the Papyrus' Disremembrance segment.

However, I do want to expand a little more on a specific argument against it here.

I've seen Papyrus' ignorance at what a human looks like being used as a point against him being from the Deltarune world, or a point against him having met Kris.

Now, if Papyrus' Disremembrance theory is correct, that explains that argument away.

Next, I'll cover more tangible evidence for the theory.

Part 3 - Some Potential Evidence I Guess

Susie Is QC Lmao

When talking about the Roaring Knight and the Dark Fountains, Susie says this:

"The Roaring Knight…

(...)

Since they started showing up,

Everything’s gotten a lot more interesting, hasn’t it…?"

This is odd. It's very, very similar in wording to the way QC describes Sans and Papyrus being new in town. She says the following:

"There’s two of ‘em…

Brothers, I think.

They just showed up one day and…

… asserted themselves.

The town has gotten a lot more interesting since then."

The focus on the Fountains being new and the very similar choice in wording leads me, and others, to believe this may be an intentional parallel. Of course, there are other Knights who could be 'new' like the Vessel, but Papyrus fits the best by far, because of the fact the original statement was about him and Sans.

Papyrus and Dreams

Papyrus is weirdly frequently connected to dreams.

If you take even a casual glance at Deltarune, it's pretty clear dreams are significant to this game.

"This robot was the embodiment of a lightner’s dreams."

“The edge of shadow, where reality and dream meet.”

In the Undertale 5th anniversary alarm clock winter dialogue, Papyrus talks about how he let Sans sleep despite wanting him to help to clean up after the holiday party, and adds that this dream was his gift to him.

"SO I LET HIM SLEEP.

HE BETTER NOT EXPECT ME TO CLEAN UP BY MYSELF NEXT TIME! THAT GOOD DREAM WAS MY PRESENT TO HIM! NYEHEHEHEHEH!!!"

In Papyrus’s room, upon inspecting his bed, he talks about his dream of driving down a highway:

THAT’S MY BED! 

(…) 

OF COURSE, THAT’S JUST A DREAM. 

SO INSTEAD I CRUISE WHILE I SNOOZE.

Papyrus and the IcePalace Maze

Now, I'm including this one more for the hell of it rather than because it's really evidence. But, regardless, here it is.

On the Spamton Sweepstakes website, clicking on the black door of the blue and white d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a page leads us to Noelle’s blog.  https://deltarune.com/icepalace_glaceir/. In her blog entry, she talks about the cross shaped maze in the ice area from the game Dragon Blazers. If the player wasn’t accompanied by a specific character to guide them, they got lost and became stuck forever.

In the Undertale 5th anniversary alarm clock winter dialogue, Sans describes how Papyrus threw a holiday party for everyone and made a maze out of snow and ice, in which Asgore got lost:

"this winter, papyrus threw a holiday party for everyone. 

[...] oh yeah, he even made a, uh, a “welcoming puzzle” for the party.

a giant labyrinth made of ice, snow, and musical ornament, 

you, uh, had to get through it to get to the front door.

think asgore got lost in there for a while.

undyne had to go save him."

Mettaton refers to it as a "mind maze" which is extremely interesting if it truly is referencing a Dark World.

To be clear, though, my claim is that it is a parallel to Papyrus' previous actions, not that they really created a Dark World here. That would be silly.

The True Meaning of the Word Font

There is a very compelling case that the word 'font' means 'Dark fountain.'

Papyrus (as well as Sans and Gaster) use the more common modern definition of 'font' which is essentially just a computer typeface.

However, the more traditional definitions oddly line up with a description of a Dark Fountain.

Don't put too much stock in this one. It's mostly a fun coincidence!

"A receptacle in a church for the water used in baptism."

This one should be fairly obvious.

Darkness is compared to water a lot. Down to the word 'fountain' being used at all. The filename for the background in the intro is "IMAGE_DEPTH" and the sound effect when Kris and Susie fall into a Dark World is called "ocean."

The 'baptism' part is especially interesting though.

A 'holy fountain.' Not only does King describe fountains as Holy, but so does the soundtrack. The theme of the Dark Fountains is called THE HOLY. Given it is in all caps and fairly reasonably connected to Gaster, it's interesting that a skeleton who uses a strange font himself would describe them this way...

"A reservoir for oil in an oil lamp."

Not much to say on this, other than the fact oil is VERY dark. A very dark liquid such as Darkness may be comparable with oil.

"A source of a desirable quality or commodity, a fount."

Now this really just describes the Dark World.

Not only does the Dark World act as a form of 'Dream World,' but it actively amplifies the skills and powers of those who enter.

Monsters are able to use magic, or at least harness it more powerfully than normal.

Given the way Dark Worlds work, you could very much consider them to fit this definition of font.

Papyrus' Heaven - Conclusion

This is my first long-form theory, and I hope you liked it. Please point out errors or holes, and I'll go back and edit them!

Updated June 4, 2024 to reflect changes in my, and other people's, visions for how it should go.

[godtierwallflower]

Given unlimited motivation and time, what is the one fanfic that you would write?

In one of the fillers, there's a flower called the Jofuku flower. It's a medicinal herb Gai uses often.

And importantly, it has a defense mechanism where, when it's plucked, it summons a pollen manifestation of whoever the plucker was thinking of at the time to fight them off.

I had this idea where, while Gai's been in a coma for a while, Kakashi waits by his side and replaces the flowers in his vase. And this time, he decides to go out and get a Jofuku flower for him, and of course what manifests is a pollen clone of Gai.

And the clone doesn't have his personality, but it does have his moveset,

Imagine the sort of feelings Kakashi would have, fighting a clone of Gai to get this flower while real Gai was still comatose. The feelings are indescribably painful. But also, he can't help but almost morbidly look forward to going to get new flowers, because he'd get to see some form of Gai for a bit?

Their fights were so important to them, so integral to their bond over the years. Sparring was one of those ways Kakashi and Gai had always just intrinsically connected.

He can't hear Gai's voice or see Gai's smile or know if he's ever going to again, but he can go to this forest and pluck one of Gai's favorite flowers as an excuse to spar this apparition of Gai. It's disappointing every time, because even though it has Gai's moves, it doesn't have the perfect way Gai can read Kakashi down, and it doesn't have the witty banter or gleam in his eye. It doesn't get frustrated or cocky. It was more hollow than a fight with a henge shadow clone would be, and it just hurts even more.

But every time Kakashi sits by Gai's hospital bed and looks at this lifeless, quiet body that he can hardly believe was once his boisterous friend, he can't help but go back to the forest with thoughts like, "It's supposed to take the form of whoever I'm thinking about, right? Maybe I wasn't think about him hard enough. Maybe this time it'll fight a bit more like him. Maybe this is the closest I'll ever get to seeing any approximation of Gai in motion again. I just have to think about him harder this time, I just have to make the fight last longer this time. This is all I have."

Honestly, there are lots of flowers Gai loved, and a sunflower would probably suit him more on the windowsill. But Kakashi has already decided on getting this flower, and although he could theoretically just replace it with a different flower, he keeps going back to get a Jofuku flower whenever that one needs replacing while Gai is still unconscious, more as an unhealthy form of almost self-harm at that point? Just a desperate attempt to cope with the loneliness of how long it's been since Gai has even moved.

And the emotions spiral from there, I guess?

I dunno. Just a WIP idea I had a while back that would be nice to get the motivation to fully flesh out.