#Because I don't think it was supposed to be this long

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[theorphicangel]

maybe I’m thinking about the moment sukuna sits yuji down and finally tells him the truth about him and reader

( full fic before this is here but not needed to read this drabble!!)

sukuna finally sits yuji down, it’s only the two of them in the living room with sukuna’s twin brother, Jin, away at work.

yuji was busy playing with his fire truck in front of the couch until he hears his uncle to come sit next to him.

'hey yuj' come here for a sec'

the little one comes by, his toy fire truck that sukuna had gotten him for christmas still in hand. his eyes are wide and curious, giving his uncle his full attention. just at this sight, sukuna feels his stomach drop.

how the fuck was he supposed to break it to a six year old that you won't be around anymore? yuji practically worshipped you, from the first time that he introduced the two of you, yuji got obsessed. he followed you around and bombarded you with questions, asking every little thing about you. he gave you his shitty drawings and you kept them, putting them on your fridge. you'd make time to sit and play with him, diving into yuji's imaginative world a whole lot better than sukuna ever did.

you were patient and caring around him which sukuna appreciated a lot, it made yuji look up to you and treasure you greatly.

but now...well it's not the same. you haven't come by in weeks and yuji's began to question your disappearance.

'well...' sukuna hesitated, his tongue suddenly caught in his throat. what were the right words? how should he phrase this correctly so that his nephew doesn't end up in complete tears?

'yuji, you know-'

yuji cuts him off, stating your name.

sukuna lets out a dry cough, 'yes...about her' he can't bring himself to say your name. '...well we broke up. a couple weeks ago.'

sukuna lets his words digest. yuji looks down at his lap, fiddling with his truck, trying to comprehend. 'broke up?'

'yeah,' sukuna sighs, 'we're not seeing each other anymore.'

silence forms in the living room excluding the clock on the wall suddenly loud in its tick-tick-tick-tick.

'so...she won't come over anymore?'

'no, she won't'

'oh, okay.' there's clear sadness in the six year old's voice, immediately disappointed and now sukuna understands what his brother meant when he said that it would hurt yuji more than it would hurt him.

sukuna throws a hand at reassurance. 'it's okay bud because you still have me... and-and we'll do fun things together alright?'

yuji nods before speaking again, reflecting a little.

'but aren't you sad?'

sukuna wasn't prepared for that question. he struggles to come up with a quick answer, hesitating. 'yeah...i am.'

'i don't want you to be sad 'kuna' yuji mumbles, kicking his feet.

'it's okay yuji, i'm-'

sukuna's words are cut off by yuji coming in for a hug. his toy is discarded with yuji now focused on the task of wrapping his tiny arms around sukuna's large frame. sukuna shifts yuji onto his lap and returns the hug.

sukuna barely hugs his nephew, only in circumstances where he knows he won't see yuji for a long time.

'i hope you feel better soon.' yuji mumbles, his voice muffled. sukuna says nothing more as suddenly his throat is caught and words fail to escape from his lips. if it didn't hit him before then it sure does hit him now.

he hopes yuji doesn't notice his eyes getting blurry.

[pricegouge]

Thinking of nanny!reader x daddy!price once again... You really ate there, damn

[fic]

oh ms. messy... wonder what she's been up to...

"fuckin' call me messy," you grumble under your breath, the pre-wetted wipe in your hands going dry with overuse. emily squirms, her chubby little cheek gone red with the attention.

"not s'ppose'ta say tha'word." face squished in your hand as it is, the accusation comes out too muffled to hold her usual attitude. like this, she's almost cute. or would be, if not for the garish colors still staining her eyelids.

"and you're not supposed to use markers like makeup, but here we are."

she rolls her eyes, the brat, smudgy purple lines fading up into her eyebrows raising with the effort, as if everything in her tiny little body was put into the motion. "wha'ss'a diffr'nce anyway?"

"well for one, makeup comes off with makeup wipes," you snark, tossing another stained towelette into the bin, tie-dye collection starting to overflow. "for another i don't think 'bluetiful' is really your color."

"blue is a primary color," she informs you, apropos of nothing, as if that should explain why she'd tried using it as as a highlighter.

you pause in your endeavor, the bright red 'blush' on her cheek bleeding down the crease of her nose. "that is true," you agree sagely, and then damn near jump out of your skin when a gruff voice behind you asks if she knows her other primaries.

emily lists off a good fourteen colors - far too many from your understanding, though it had been a long time since you were in preschool; maybe they'd added some. you used the time to check yourself out in the bathroom mirror covertly, though you catch him catching you, eyes meeting somewhere around the fourth shade of yellow. "mr. price," you greet him casually, voice too meek in your effort not to interrupt emily's learning.

he doesn't even nod, eyes heavy on you as he lets his daughter prattle off every shade of the crayolla box she'd become overly familiar with. you'd say he's getting worse but he's always been like this - too intense, too direct - and saying as much felt like a jinx, like a dare to the universe at large to make him, impossibly, more driven. "ms. messy," he drawls quietly, the title a low purr as he lets his eyes drag over you. you'd worn shorts today, confident and cheeky in the privacy of your room. he always managed to wrangle that control from you this easily, with barely more than a pointed look that set you back to basics, suddenly remembering the game you're playing. who with.

attempting to save face, you turn back to emily and whisper to her, thick as thieves. "coulda told me he was right behind me. now i look bad, not using this as a teaching opportunity."

emily tells you it's actually your job to know when her dad's home because she's a little shit, but you barely hear it because john takes that opportunity to assure you you don't look bad, doubles down when he sees how flustered he's made you. "emily, doesn't ms. messy look nice?"

and maybe there is a reason you keep coming back for more (other than her hot father and his seemingly bottomless pocket) because she just nods animatedly, sloppy bun you'd piled her hair into bobbing. you start to murmur your thanks, but she ruins the moment just as suddenly as she'd started it, motioning to her colorful face and proudly announcing she'd been trying to look like you.

"oh," you hedge, unsure how you feel about a child thinking drunk drag makeup was the key to stealing your look.

john, thankfully, comes to your rescue. "oh, munchkin. you know ms. messy doesn't need all that to look pretty."

well, maybe 'thankfully' was a strong word. "and neither do you. you're pretty just the way you are," you assert, trying to steer the conversation into something more manageable just as you steer the girl before you back your way, tilting her head so you can get a particularly well saturated bit on her brow.

"prettier than you?" she asks, cheeky, and you roll your eyes much like she had, far too exaggeratedly. let her dad have fun with that bad habit.

"well of course!"

she giggles, turns to face her father as best she can when you've got her whole jaw cupped in your hand. "daddy, am i prettier than ms. messy?"

you don't think he's mean enough to give his kid a complex in the name of flirting with someone half his age, but your breath catches anyway, waiting in anticipation as he lets the moment drag on.

surely your heart's racing because you want him to say no. right?

"now that you mention it, ms. messy sure could use some sprucing up, hm?" you scoff and flick the dirty towelette at him and huff when he catches it easily, palm completely engulfing it without even really trying. he's unbearably smug when he continues, whiskers practically twitching with a barely contained grin. "what do you think, munchkin? a pretty necklace? a bracelet?"

unfortunately, he looks perfectly serious. "maybe a ring?"

if emily responds, you don't hear it, too busy side eyeing him, trying to figure out how serious he is. if you get tipped with a tennis necklace next time you watch his kid, you might just drop out of school.

divider by @/cafekitsune

[peachsayshi]

PEACH YOUR BABY DADDY!SUKUNA.....

He distanced himself bc he's not a good guy, he's got a shit job, can barely pay child support but he does what he can. And he always looks after your daughter when you're busy, takes every moment to be with her that he can, even tho he knows that you're the more capable parent. You were always too good for him, and he was your bad boy fling, your mistake.

"I think you love momma more." His daughter told him, bless her unfiltered thoughts. She was probably right. Somehow, after all this time, he still found you completely stunning. He felt guilty for the way he treated you, seeing you persevere and thrive as you've gotten older. If anything, you got more beautiful with each passing day, and he couldn't be happier that his child was being raised by you, even if that meant he had to be out of the picture.

"maybe I do." He chuckled, a tinge of regret to his words. He remembered the ways he hurt you, the look on your face when he made you cry. His selfishness. It was always his selfishness that got in the way. "But I'm not good at it."

// brutally soft // III. 

baby daddy!sukuna x reader 

tags: non curse au; tension; reader and sukuna are co-parents; girl dad sukuna; mentions troubled past with sukuna; alludes to significant size different; mentions drug use and drinking; mentions cheating; sukuna being soft; unrequited love; angsty | | read this for more context & this & this

note: (I am so sorry this took me so long to respond to) but!! you don't get to leave something like this and not expect me to sweetly return the favor by meddling with your feelings the way you did mine. because holy shit, nyx, just hearing sukuna say "I'm not good at it" in a hushed, sad voice made me want to take my own ribs out.

dni if your blog is blank / ageless / or are a minor

"mama! guess what!" your daughter says. "I have a secret!"

you smile to yourself because she always has a secret to share these days. little, innocent things that capture her attention which seem worthy of keeping confidential.

"you know," you say as you help her into her dress. "you're not supposed to tell secrets when you have them..."

"but I tell you everything, mama!"

you lift her up in your arms, the weight of her body getting heavier by the day and reminding you of how fast she's growing.

sukuna is taking her to visit her uncle yuji, and she has been over the moon about it. you place her on the seat of her vanity, and proceed to fix her hair since sukuna will be arriving in twenty minutes, and you want to make sure that she's all set once her dad gets here. you giggle at her response, "okay, okay, what's the secret?"

she looks at you from the mirror's reflection and covers her mouth as she chuckles.

"hey, what's with the sly face?" you prod, holding a chunk of her hair gently between your palm.

"do you know ms. kiko?" she asks, referring to her pre-school teacher.

"mhmm, what about her?"

she giggles again. "well, she told told mrs. chiyo that she thinks daddy is cute!!"

your heart thumps. oddly.

you're not immune to the way that the women look at the father of your child. it's the same alluring, seductive energy that drew you to sukuna in the first place.

but it's been years since you've both been intimate together in any capacity, you're sure that he's probably got someone on call if and when necessary. considering he has more spare time than you do without a child running around, you're pretty sure that sukuna is satisfied with whatever situationship he's in. you've learned to swallow the discomfort of the idea of sukuna with other women. just like how you had to bury the hurt of the very one who tore your relationship apart.

you hum at her observation, your fingers idly braiding her hair.

it's not like you were single anymore either. you've been casually dating a lawyer on and off. it wasn't serious per se, but it wasn't a fleeting relationship where it made you feel like you were entirely free of the attachment.

he's even met sukuna at this point.

granted those dates are few and far between, but you were a single mother who worked full time.

trying to commit to a relationship is hard.

even though, you would love to share all this with...someone.

"anyway, I had to warn daddy to be careful..." your daughter interjects.

"warn him?" you repeat with a smile, her choice of words adorable.

"yeah! so, I told daddy that ms. kiko was in love with him, and asked him if I should tell her to stop..."

"stop?"

"being in love with him!" she responds with a grimace.

that makes you laugh. "and why would you do that, hmm?" you question gently for fun.

"because I know that daddy loves you more, mama!"

your heart thumps again, harder this time. so hard you feel it nearly knock the wind out of you. you clear your throat to ease the apprehension while your daughter kicks her legs with anticipation.

"and how would you know that?" "because," she insists, "daddy told me that he loves you more than anyone else in this world"

her words spill out of her, a glass of water that's been carelessly knocked over. you scrunch your brows as each word registers into your brain, soaking over your to do lists and mental checks.

"what?" you whisper as you stare at this little girl who has already carried on the conversation.

"after me, obviously," she presses - because no one can take her place when it comes to the love that you and sukuna both give her.

"wait-wait..." you say a little breathless, your hands suddenly trembling as you do your best to finish the job you started. "what did your daddy tell you? I didn't quite-"

"he said he loves you more than anyone else in the world..." she repeats, her focus on the rogue hair brush that sits at her small vanity. "so, yeah, that's why I asked daddy if I should tell ms. kiko to stop saying he's cute..."

"your...your daddy is just being silly..." you murmur, trying to underplay the statement. you slip the hairband around her second braid to secure the style in place.

impossible, you think. that's impossible.

so much time has passed between you both.

you buried that part of your past long ago.

left it and refused to look back-

"nu-uh. he said that I don't have to say anything to ms. kiko. that it's okay because he loves momma more, anyway. but daddy also told me once that he's not that good at it," she adds on, her fingers picking at the bristles of her bright purple brush, "whatever that means..."

"when did you and your daddy have this conversation..."

the realization hits her then, and she stares up at you before covering her mouth. "oops," she states, glancing from side to side, "I pinky promised daddy I wouldn't tell you that..."

before you can fish out anything else from her, she hops off her seat, her feet pattering away as she moves across the room towards her pile of plushies.

"who should I take with me?" she says loudly, brushing aside the fact that she said far more than she should. she stands with her hip jutted out and her finger pressed against her lips, her back facing you.

you have to lean against her closet to steady yourself. you do your best to rationalize sukuna's words, trying to decipher the pieces in this game of whispers.

your mind flashes to the horrid break up five and a half years ago. a memory that exists hazily in the back of your mind, to the moment of you standing in sukuna's dingy old apartment holding a lacy white bra between your fingers.

it was not yours.

"what is this?" you gasped, your breath straining as your chest rose and fell with unease. "what the fuck is this..."

it's the only time you've ever seen sukuna panicked.

your memory only captures his words in blurs.

of him drinking too much.

way too much.

of him not waking up alone but swearing that he thought he was was you.

of him not recollecting his own thoughts because he blacked out that night.

of him being just as shocked when he realized the warm body next to him was not his girlfriend.

he begged you to forgive him.

"Baby, I swear. I fucking swear I will clean up my act. I-I'll never fucking drink again. Fuck, I went too far last night. One of the guys was passing around these pills I shouldn't have fucked around with them..."

you couldn't.

you couldn't accept any of it.

you already tolerated so much with him.

the drinking, the recreational drug use, his inability to keep a job, and him nearly ending up in jail for causing fights.

but you saw so much more in that man - and yet, he proved you wrong.

this betrayal spoke volumes.

this betrayal proved to you that you were expendable to him too.

that you just weren't that important.

that shadow of that man doesn't exist anymore. not with this new version of sukuna in your life.

he almost makes you forget the past. this man; your daughter's sunlight. her knight in shining armor. the source of her joy.

he may not have been good at loving you, but that little girl has him in the palm of her hand.

and he loves her with all his might, it feels like his absolution.

"mama?" your daughter calls out, snapping you out of your thoughts.

she's standing right in front of you now, holding a rabbit plushie in one hand and a penguin in the other.

"can I take both?" she asks innocently, her wide eyes glittering brightly as she remains oblivious to your own personal drowning.

"n-no," you stammer out, and affectionately poke the small dimple in her cheek. "just one, my love. we all know your uncle yuji will have more for you when you see him..."

her eyes widen, "that's right!" she exclaims, "he always finds the best and softest ones!"

the bell rings, and you abruptly stand on your feet.

your throat tight, your stomach fluttering.

"daddy's here!" your daughter cheers, and instantly runs out of the room.

you pick up her weekend bag and sling it over your shoulder. you pause and exhale softly, telling yourself to relax before following in her footsteps.

sukuna's deep voice greets you first.

"look at these braids on you..."

you find them both at the foyer, your daughter already scooped up in her father's big, muscular arms. his hand is tugging at one of her braids and she's smiling wildly in his direction.

he's wearing an oversized leather jacket, the fit only bulking up his stature. your daughter is gripping his black tee between her hands, and she yanks it gently before asking: "can we go now?"

sukuna smiles and your spine shivers.

age has done wonders for him too.

"easy, princess, let me say hi to your mom first..."

your fingers grip onto the strap of her weekender bag nervously. you don't know why you suddenly feel very aware of how you look.

of the fact that you're completely barefaced and running on five hours of sleep. that your choice in clothes is a pair of unflattering sweats and hoodie which has some coffee stains on it. you desperately need to wash your hair, and are due for a manicure appointment.

sukuna turns to face you, "hey you, I didn't notice you standing there..."

you clear your throat again, "hi! sorry...I uh-I didn't want to interrupt..."

sukuna adjusts the hold on your daughter, allowing you to approach him as he couldn't take off his boots.

"she all ready for me?" he asks.

"mhmm" you answer quietly, at a complete loss for words because all you can hear is "daddy said he loves you more than anyone else in the world."

you hand off the bag to him, which he takes with ease.

"it's not too late to join us," he offers, but you give him a small smile and shrug of your shoulders.

"trapped with work unfortunately,"

sukuna glances in your daughters direction, "I tried..."

she pouts your way. "you sure, mama?"

"yeah, my love, I am sure."

you slide into sukuna's frame, doing your best to carefully not touch any part of his broad canvas. you stand up on your tip toes and place multiple kisses on your daughter's cheek.

"I love you and I am going to miss you like crazy these next two days," you state sweetly, feeling her wrap her arms around your neck to give you a hug and a kiss in return. "promise me you'll be on your best behavior..."

"I promise!!" she answers.

you find the courage to meet sukuna's soft eyes, the ease on his face doing nothing to help your shattering state.

"I guess you're both set then," you say with a sigh.

he furrows his brow at your tone, and leans forward to make direct eye contact toward you. your lips part slightly at the close proximity of his face with yours, and he tilts his head like a curious cat before asking: "you okay?"

your heat burns so naturally. your heart ready to climb it's way up your throat. you blink back in surprise at his question, and stutter out a "I-I'm fine..."

"you sure?" he presses as he casually stands upright again, like he didn't just pop the bubble of your personal space. "you seem a little off..."

"I am okay," you reassure with a firm nod, before dropping your gaze down at your feet as you shift your balance. "I-I just have a lot on my mind today is all..."

there is a gentle tap just underneath your chin, your attention lifts up to look back at sukuna. his expression is stoic, but you can see the concern in his tense jaw. he taps the space just beneath your bottom lip, your insides turning at the gesture he used to do to you countless times before.

"anything I need to be worried about?" he asks calmly, his choice of words a veil over his obvious unsettlement.

you feel like you really can't breathe then.

your mind spins to when you carelessly kissed him. to when he returned the gesture at your daughter's play.

what seemed so innocent now feels like a serious overstep.

your hand circles around his wrist and you pull him away from you. "I'm fine, Ryomen," you acknowledge politely, trying to keep your words detached but kind.

after you see them both off and shut the front door, you find yourself pressed against the wooden frame. your back weakly glides down the surface until you're sitting on the floor. you bring your knees close to your chest, shaking at the prospect not because you don't want it to be true, but because you are terrified of allowing yourself to even open your heart to sukuna again.

he broke you. he hurt you. and yet, he somehow was the only thing that healed those wounds.

he is the reason why you were able to bring your daughter into this world. he treated her with immense love and supported you in every capacity to build this imperfect little family with you.

ryomen sukuna - your dark angel. the source of your deepest pain, and the reason for your happiest joy.

the wall that you've kept between you and sukuna exists as a safety barrier. you can peek over whenever necessary, but it doesn't mean you ever have to cross that boundary.

and yet, you've caught yourself with the consideration of sitting on the ledge, or maybe even stepping onto the other side.

all it takes for you is to then see the cracks and damages of the past as a reminder of what keeps stopping you.

"get a grip of yourself" you mutter out loud.

you let go of that love. you remind yourself, and you both are better for it.

sukuna is a completely different individual now, and you are in a much happier place than you were before.

the whirlwind romance, the intense passion and addictive excitement fizzled. the sparkle having faded the moment his betrayal was revealed.

maybe your love for each other is just too destructive when intertwined so closely. but existing loosely as small strings, and tethered to the singular entity that lives and breathes because of it...

maybe that should be more than enough for you both.

and you don't know why the thought breaks your heart a little.

[webslingingslasher]

j! its been so long but omg hi

i was super obsessed with ur frat!peter hows he doing?

i just saw a tiktok that was about a frat boy yelling at a party “if youre not a brother or fucking a brother, then get the fuck out!” has this been brought up in the frat!peter circle?

i have so many scenarios in my mind like at the different stages! when they first started and trouble isnt super stable in the relationship and she goes to head out but peter (or ethan omg) grabs her arm and hes like ur part of that demographic trouble. im melting 🫠

or when theyre like broken up/taking a break and she goes to leave and peter goes all sad puppy dog eyes :((

omg yes queen::

*a little something ya'll can wake up to. <3

---

'if you're not a brother or fucking a brother, then get the fuck out!'

you hold in a sigh, the party's over. ally won't make it home with you tonight, she ditched you thirty minutes ago to 'go with matty,' aka, you won't see her again until tomorrow.

you glance down at your drink and debate chugging it, if you do you know you'll leave with a woozy stomach. you take two sips and dump the cup in the kitchen trash, it sends two empty beer cans falling, you shrug at the mess and keep walking.

a girl stumbles into your shoulder and profusely apologizes with tears in her eyes, you keep telling her it's okay but she doesn't let it go until her boyfriend nudges her out of the house.

the house music cuts, any stragglers were just seriously kicked out. you follow the crowd and prepare for the cold walk home, a hand loops around your upper arm before you can get through the threshold.

'where do you think you're going?' you turn around and grin at your friend. 'home? where are you going?'

'also home. i'm just waiting for everyone to clear out first.' ethan pulls you away from the dwindling party. 'you know, brother duties.' he sends a wink your way, you nod along like you understand.

'yeah, but i'm not a brother so i don't think i should help with that.'

ethan stops you again. 'parker is a brother, yes?' he is. he's also not there tonight. something about going to queens being more important than the typical friday night party. 'he is.'

'and you're fucking him, right?' you love when ethan has a little liquor in him. 'i am.'

'okay, so then you fit the requirements. hang back with me and we can go to my place together.' it's not a hard sell but you'll act like it is. 'are you sure? peter's not even here, do those rules still apply?'

'i'm a god damn chapter officer, i get to make the rules and it's everyone else's job to follow them. how about that?' you pat ethan's shoulder, you're not arguing one bit.

'can't fight you on that, can i? you twisted my arm good enough, lorax. i'm yours until peter gets home.' ethan holds out his hand, you shake it like it's a business deal.

'good. he told me to make sure you stayed.' he says it with a wink, a gentle suggestion he wasn't supposed to tell you that but you're glad he did. it makes you warm thinking peter didn't want you to feel excluded, especially because he was missing in action tonight.

'well... i am fucking a brother, right?'

'you are. and you know what that means? you have to stay here after every party.' he says it like it's a bad thing but you can get used to being on an exclusive guest list.

it feels nice. so, ‘hell yeah.’

-- vs. after the breakup--

'if you're not a brother or fucking a brother, then get the fuck out!'

hearing it makes you sad. no one's going to make you stay or tell you that those exceptions still apply to you. ally gets to stay here and you have to tuck your tail between your legs and scoot out the door.

'i can leave with you.' your best friend is kind for offering, you're an even better friend for saying no. 'that's okay, stay with matt.'

'are you sure? you shouldn't have to walk out of here alone, that kinda blows.' it does and you don't like the reminder. you'd prefer if ally stays, actually. you don't want her pity.

'it's fine. beats the alternative, right?' she looks at you to say what the alternative is, you do it with a sigh. 'fucking peter. that's my other option.'

'who said it had to be peter? there's like forty guys in the frat and you're buddies with at least five, take your pick.' you've thought about it but frat boys, especially the ones from sig nu, make you queasy.

'it's fine, ally-cat. i'll walk back with one of the other girls in our dorm.' the same faces you see in the hallway at your dorm are gathering their stuff to leave, they'll have no issue with you tagging along. 'boo. i miss when we would have frat house sleepovers.'

'good. blame peter.'

'and i do. he hates to see me coming his way, he really does.'

another brother screams out the same line, you frown and decide to leave while you still have friends in eye-distance. when you reach the door you look behind one last time to send a wave to your best friend. ally sends one back and blows a kiss with it. you catch it and slam it to your cheek, she giggles, you grin. your eyes flit up to the stairs, someone's already watching you.

peter sends you a sorry smile, he hates that you don't get to stick around anymore either. you match his melancholy and give him a shrug, more like a 'whatcha gonna do?' vibe. rules are rules and you're no longer a fitting member for the requirements they need.

'you can stay.' peter mouths it, you pretend not to know what he just said. 'wait.' you're still pretending, you turn around and walk a little faster down the steps- peter catches you on the bottom step.

'i said you can stay.' you have no reason to stay behind. you're not a brother and you're no longer involved with one. you point to an imaginary watch on your wrist, 'i'm about to turn into a pumpkin.'

'yeah, you almost left a shoe running out of here so fast, cinderella.'

you grin, 'i'm just following the rules.'

peter wavers his stance, he doesn't care who said what- he wants you to hang around a little bit more. he likes seeing you around. 'you're still included. i mean, we're involved, aren't we?'

you look at him like he's crazy, you swear you see him blush before he starts fumbling over his words. 'i just meant that i'm not moving on and you're not moving on and i'm trying to get things back to how they were- no, wait, i'm trying to get things better than they were before. not that they were bad! well, i mean they were bad but not... trouble, help me out here, you know what i mean.'

you do. you just like ignoring it. 'you're cute when you grovel for me.'

'i'll get on my knees right fucking now.' he's not even drunk and he's willing to beg for you in front of his party goers. you have to hold in a smirk of pride. 'to ask me to stay or to convince me with your mouth?'

peter's eyebrows raise, 'if you're asking me to go down on you the answer is yes. it's very much a yes, my place or yours? fuck it, let's go to the bathroom.' you're halfway back inside before you realize what you started.

you rip your hand away from peter, you refuse to go back to what it was. you need more than a few apologies to make you crawl back into his bed, you need a real confession. 'nuh uh, not happening. not in a damn bathroom.'

'okay, that's fine, my place is closer.'

you have to stop yourself from following him a second time. 'no, wait! i meant no, it's not happening. period.'

'i don't care if you're on your period, i'll still do it. that's how committed i am to you.' you manage to keep from gagging at the visual, instead you shove peter's shoulder. 'ew! you're so gross! i'm not on my period, you dolt. i'm just not having sex with you.'

'cool, don't have sex with me, let me just show you i can still make you come in under five minutes.' he has no idea how tempting it is. you're being braver saying no than he is for asking, post-breakup included.

'go find another girl, i'm sure there's a whole line-up waiting to get picked on.' peter's nose wrinkles, he doesn't even think of it as a cheap shot. 'gross, other girls are icky.'

you shut it down. 'peter, i'm not a brother and i haven't touched you in two months. there's no reason for me to still be here, goodnight.' you try to leave, a whine follows behind you.

'but you're still-'

but you're not, no matter how much he says it.

'if you changed the rule to 'if you're not a brother, fucking a brother, or used to fuck a brother, then get the fuck out!' how many girls would stand around and wait on you?' peter looks at you, he doesn't say anything and silence always screams that you're right.

'mhm. rules are rules, goodnight.'

there's a sense of succeeding when all you get is a wistful goodbye behind you. it lasts until the next week when the routine friday night party comes to an end with the normal call.

'if you're not a brother, fucking a brother, or go by trouble, then get the fuck out!'

ally squeals and tells you 'that's you!' but you're too busy glaring at peter's smug face to celebrate. it's his turn to shrug, his mouth forms four words that fuck you over.

'rules are rules, trouble.' 

[rosenclaws]

Could I pleasssse request a smut/fluff fic with Logan where he secretly likes the reader and doesn't like the readers bf? The reader is in their early to mid twenties and has been best friends with Logan for years and he snaps one night when her bf is being an asshole 👀 thank you so much 😭

warnings: Angst to fluff, asshole boyfriend, he's mutant hating low key, threats, fighting

a/n: Hehehe i fucking LOVE a good jealousy fic, also I based the asshole ex on multiple asshole exes of my own lol.

Things were well and truly complicated. You always knew what being a mutant meant for your relationship life. Having to dip your toes into the water to see if they the kind of person who wanted your kind dead or if they were more open to the idea of mutants.

Even then you ran into all kinds of assholes. If you could even get past the first date then you'd have to drop the bomb that you work at a mutant school with mutant children. Safe to say your dating life was pretty empty.

"You here again sweetheart?" You roll your eyes when you hear Logan's voice. It's Friday night and you're sitting in the living room of the mansion with a root beer.

“Yeah, so are you.” You bite back. He just chuckles and takes a seat next to you. Spreading his legs until his knee knocks into yours.

“Weren’t you supposed to go out with that kid, what was his name Jacob or…”

“Jason. Yeah he canceled when he saw the pick up address.” You remember the absolute terrified voice he spoke to you in, afraid you were going to melt his bones through the phone or something.

“You really know how to pick em.” You shove Logans shoulder as he laughs.

“Fuck off, I don’t see you getting any action lately either.”

“That’s because I’m not interested in dating some stranger.” He grumbles.

Truth is Logan hasn't been interested in anyone except for you for a while now. Its been years and as pathetic as it sounds Logan was too afraid to say anything. But there's no reason to mess up a good thing right? Plus it's not like you've been showing any interest in him.

“Look, any guy would be lucky to have you sweetheart, you just need to find the right one."

"Feels like I've been searching forever. Feels like I should make a marriage pact or something." You say with a groan.

"A marriage pact?" "Logan questions.

"Yeah you know, if we haven't found someone by the time we're forty we just, get married."

"We?" Your eyes widen and you start to flounder. The last thing you want is for Logan to think you're a creep or something. It's not like you fantasize about Logan or anything. Totally not.

"Not you, I mean if you wanted to then sure but I was just talking hypothetically you know. I mean god could you imagine you and I?" The words tumble out of your mouth with no filter. You just can't stop yourself. Logan cocks and eyebrow and you pray for something, anything to happen to help you shut up.

"Yeah...hard to picture you and I" Logan's face hardens as he talks.

Like he thought before, you don't want him. You could just burst into flames right here and now. The tension is palpable. Logan has been your friend for a long time but he never fails to make you a little nervous. He shouldn't have this hold over you but god he's just so big and intimidating.

"You know what? We should go out." You say abruptly.

"What? Hey give that back!" You grab the beer out of his hand and he looks at you confused.

"It'll be fun please, I'll buy the first round." You offer and he thinks for a second.

"Fine."

You don't really know what drove you to want to come here. It was loud and crowded and you and Logan had gotten separated after the first drink. Maybe you just wanted to avoid the odd feelings you get whenever you're alone with him. Plus that last conversation was awkward as hell.

You sigh as you swirl your drink around. You spot Logan across the room. He's leaning against the wall while a very pretty red head is all in his space. Your heart clenches as you notice the cocky smile on his face and how he's not pushing her away. Guess someone is getting lucky tonight and it isn't you.

"Hey, couldn't help but notice a beautiful girl all by herself." You look to your side to see a guy slide into the seat next to you. He seems nice enough. He's cute and all.

"Oh I'm here with a friend." You say looking back at Logan.

"Yeah, he seems busy to me. The name's Carter. Let me buy you a drink, no strings attached I swear." He offers. You take one last look at Logan, that woman's hand snaking up his arm. Fuck it.

"Alright deal."

Things since that night have been, a little off. You went home with Carter after Logan had disappeared. Carter was nice enough, at least he was at first. He treated you nice, bought you flowers. He didn't care you were a mutant or that you worked at a mutant school. He was the perfect gentleman. For the first couple months.

It happened so slowly you didn't even notice at first. You spent less time at the mansion, instead now spending it with him. The kids started to miss you and so did your friends but you were happy and they were happy you were happy.

You rarely saw Logan anymore. Ever since you came home from the bar he had been avoiding you, or something. Carter would come by the mansion but his nice guy persona seemed to fade the more he spent with everyone. It didn't help that one of your students accidently lit him on fire once. That's when the fights started.

He didn't trust the kids there, said they were dangerous. He would tell you that he liked mutants but h was worried for your safety. And he really didn't like Logan. The first time the two of them met it ended in a fight on the car ride back to his place. Logan was a strong personality and the two men clashed.

Soon every time your job got brought up it ended in a fight. He'd talk bad about your students, about your friends, about Logan. Carter wanted to keep you away from there because he loved you but they were your family.

He loved you, you had to believe it was all because he loved you. I mean you had spent so long looking for a man who didn't care about your job or your mutant abilities and Carter was that guy. At least you thought he was. You won't find anyone better. Carter liked to say that. It's hard to come by someone who's okay with what you are. So you just had to believe he did it all because he loved you.

"Do we really have to go to this stupid thing? Can't we just stay in..." Carters hand snakes up your leg but you bat his hand away making him huff.

A pissed off look on his face as you drive to the mansion. It was a simple staff party but it had been too long since you got to relax with all your friends. Carter had insisted on coming along but right now you wish he had just stayed home, especially if he was going to complain the whole time.

"This is really important to me. We don't have to stay long I promise." You say in a cheerful tone but Carter just rolls his eyes.

"Whatever." It was exhausting. To Carter anything he wanted to do was fine but as soon as there was something you wanted to do it was a chore.

"Don't understand why you're so obsessed with being around these...people." He mumbles under his breath. Not this again. You plaster on a fake smile as you pretend you didn't hear him. He loves you for who you are right?

The party was in full swing by the time you get in. You greet your friends, trying to hide your feelings as Carter says something about getting a drink.

"You finally made it." You turn to see Logan standing behind you.

"Logan! Didn't expect to see you here." You tease. Parties were never Logan's thing.

"I heard you might show up, can't miss that now can I?" He opens his arms and you don't hesitate to hug him. You missed this. Your nights used to be filled with movie nights and late night snacking with Logan. It's been so long since you got to do any of that.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Logan clocks the fake smile immediately. He's noticed the ways you've changed. You're deflated, tired. It's all that assholes doing and he knows it.

"Yeah every things fine," Logans hands rest on your arms, he's about to press you a little further but Carter comes back.

"Hey man get your hands off my girlfriend." Carter almost seems to puff out his chest as if he was trying to appear bigger than Logan. Logan rolls his eyes.

"Calm down bub, just saying hi to my friend."

"Well she's my girlfriend."

"Yeah she's also a person not a fucking object." Logan growls and you step to get in between the two of them. The last thing you wanted was a fight right now.

"It was great seeing you again Logan." You smile as Carter wraps his hand around your wrist.

Logan reluctantly lets go of you as you're taken away by your boyfriend. He feels this anger burning inside of him. Every time he sees that bastard touch you he wants to rip off his damn arms. Every time he sees your smile fall or hears your fake laugh.

"Jealous much?" Scott comments, a smirk on his face as Logan turns to glare.

"I ain't jealous." Logan snaps as he stalks away.

Yes he is, he's very jealous. He's jealous that asshole is your boyfriend and not him. He's jealous that he's not the one who gets to hold you at night and call you his girl. But he was too late. So he's got no one to blame but himself.

Carter hadn't left your side since your moment with Logan. Normally you'd be happy about this but he was doing nothing but complain every chance he got.

"Can we just fucking go home already. You saw your little friends."

"It's barely been an hour Carter. All I asked for was this one thing! These people are my family would it kill you to try and act interested." You snap, finally fed up with his attitude. He scoffs and crosses his arm.

"I am trying. It's not my fault your family are freaks! Especially that fucking monster." He says with an extra glare towards Logan. Heads start to turn as he raises his voice.

"They're not freaks and don't call Logan that! He is not a monster!" You hiss. You've had it up to here with Carter. Everything you thought about him was crumbling down. If this is what love was then you'd rather be single.

"Of course you come to his defense. What are you fucking him on the side?" He spits.

Logan looks ready to pounce but he's being held back. If he could he'd maim this guy until he's nothing but blood and bones. He doesn't care what insult this guy spews his way but the second he disrespects you, all bets are off.

"He's my friend that's why I'm defending him. I will not let you talk about anyone of these people like that! You are nothing but a hateful asshole. You can go home and don't wait up because you're done."

You're seething with anger but there's a sense of relief that washes over you. You can feel every ones eyes on you but you don't care. You turn around to walk away but Carter grabs onto your wrist.

"Don't fucking walk away from me!" You wince at how hard he grabs you and that's when Logan snaps. Like an animal he's on Carter in an instant. Claws out and a murderous look on his face.

"Get your fucking hand off her before I slice it off." Whatever arrogance Carter had was gone in an instant. He lets go of your wrist and grabs at Logan's arm but Logan is unmoving.

"Listen here bub, you're going to get your sorry ass out of here and never come back." Logan leans in, just close enough that Carter is the only one who can hear his next words.

"If you even think of contacting her again I'll find you and I'll rip you limb from limb." Carter scrambles out of Logans grip and falls to the ground.

"You're all fucking insane." He yells as he runs out the door.

There's a weight that falls off your shoulders the second he's out of your sight. You let out a sigh as you turn to face everyone. Some of them were looking at you with pity and others were happy he was finally gone.

"I am, so sorry for ruining the party."

"You didn't ruin the party sugar, we're glad he's gone. Now we can really party." Rouge says with a smile, you're grateful for her as this breaks the awkward tension.

Things seem to go back to normal but you slip outside, not really feeling a party mood anymore. You hear the door open and foot steps behind you. A root beer is placed in front of you and you gladly take it. Wordlessly Logan takes the spot next to you. Man you can't remember the last time you got to sit down with Logan.

"Thank you, and I'm sorry." You say. He shrugs and throws an arm around you, pulling you closer.

"Nothing to be sorry for sweetheart, asshole had it coming." He takes a sip of his beer and you sigh, leaning a little closer to him.

"How could I be so stupid, things went south way before tonight. I just...didn't want to see it."

"Hey, you're not stupid. You were in love." Love makes you do a lot of things. Turn a blind eye or in Logan's case. Pretend like the feelings aren't even there.

"No I wasn't. Not really. I think...I was so afraid of never finding someone that I latched onto the first guy to give me an ounce of attention." You groan. What's so wrong with wanting to be loved huh? Nothing. But you deserve a guy who isn't a complete asshole.

"There will be other guys, anyone would be lucky. to have you"

"Yeah? Like who?" You say with a snort.

"Like me." Logan says simply. Your eyes widen as you taken in what he just said.

"What?" You ask in disbelief.

Logan shifts where he sits. Fuck this isn't how he imagined telling you, in fact he thought he never would. But Carter made him so angry and he'd be dammed if he let another dick come and take you away again.

"Like me, I want to be the lucky bastard."

"I...Logan how long have you felt this way." You ask, a hand coming to rest on his chest.

"It doesn't matter,"

"Yes it does, please. I need to know how much of an idiot I've been." You beg and Logan frowns, he doesn't like it when you call yourself an idiot.

"Years sweetheart, I've been in love with you for years." He confesses.

All this time. He's been there. As your friend, as something more. Too wrapped up in his own shit to say something at first and then by the time he worked out some of it, it was too late. He hates to admit it but that asshole did one thing right, it pushed him to stop hiding how he really feels about you.

"Logan..." You whisper as your lean in close to him.

His hand snakes around your waist and pulls you closer. Your lips ghost each other for just a moment, before he leans closer and kisses you. Your lips move together slowly. Logan groans against your lips as he pulls you even closer, if anyone were to look outside they'd see you practically crawling onto his lap.

His other hand cups your cheek, keeping you right there for him to kiss over and over. A part of you is kicking yourself for not saying anything to Logan sooner. So much pain and annoyance could have been avoided had one of you just confessed, but the other part of you is too happy to care. Too happy knowing that he felt the same way and that he was finally yours.

"I wish we had done this sooner."

"Me too sweetheart, but you have me now." He says as he kisses you again. A thought lingers in your mind and you pull away from Logan much to his dismay.

"Fuck, I need to get my shit from Carters place." You say with a groan.

"Don't say his name ever again," Logan grumbles and you laugh.

"I'll take care of everything so you never even have to think of that asshole." Logan buries his face in your neck, kissing every bit of skin he can reach.

"Now, lets ditch this party and make up for some lost time." Logan purrs.

God there's so much time to catch up on, you mourn what could have been but Logan taps your cheek. Snapping you out of your spiraling thoughts.

"You alright sweetheart?" You nod, shaking your head free of those thoughts. That's all in the past now, it took a while but you found your way to Logan and that's all that matters.

"I've never been better. Now, take me home."

[impish-baby]

A few glimpses into 'both arms cradle you now' reader's childhood in no particular order

"Why do birds suddenly appear evertime you are near.." The wet tears running down your cheeks are gently brushed away, whatever nightmare plaguing your sleep seems so far away now that your dad is here. "Just like me, they long to be close to you.." Damien hoists you into his arms, still humming that familiar lullaby as he carries you to the kitchen.

"Why do stars fall from the sky every time you walk by.." You're set on top of the counter, Damien ruffling your hair softly before walking over to the fridge to fetch a carton of milk. "Just like me.. they long to be.. close to you.." The warm glow of the stove makes the quiet night more cozy, the shadows along the walls retreating as well as any lingering fear.

You can feel you eyes start to droop, a small yawn leaving your lips making the man chuckle fondly. "One sec, ok? Daddy has some angel milk for you so you don't have anymore bad dreams, then we'll get you tucked back into bed."

-

"Do you want to hold him, sweetie?" Not really, but a nudge to your shoulder has you taking a reluctant step forward anyway. You're not sure how to feel about him, he's your dad's but not your mom's.

Mary scoots over a little so you can climb up on the hospital bed next to her, a tired but kind smile on her face. "Here, it's ok, you just need to make sure you're supporting his head.." She helps guide your arms into the right position, placing the tiny buddle into them, a pair of equally tiny disgruntled blue eyes soon staring up at you.

When you were first told that your stepmom was pregnant, you tried really really hard to just be happy for them. You promise. The sinking dread never went away though, no matter how much you berated yourself for feeling that way.

Babies are a blessing, but the announcement only cemented the fact that the world as you knew it was ending. Your dad isn't just your dad anymore. Even then, he hasn't acted like one to you in a while. Maybe you were just denying the inevitable.

"Ohh, I think he likes you.." Mary's head rests on your shoulder suddenly, distracting you from your sullen thoughts. "See? You're a natural with little ones!"

"He's glaring at me.."

She laughs, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek as she sits up. "No, he's just getting used to the world, darling. He loves you, he knows he has the best older sibling he could ask for."

-

"What's even the point?" You're both supposed to be sleeping even though it isn't a school night, Aunt Lisa is strict when it comes to things like that. What she doesn't know won't hurt her though.

"Because they look cool," Avery shrugs, carful of the fact you're currently snuggled under one of his arms. "And you get bragging points for catching them." You still don't get it, they're the same thing just a different color. "You've watched me play for like an hour, and now you're bored?"

"You were actually doing stuff before.." You huff, "You've been going around in a circle for fifteen minutes."

You scoff at his comment, now filled with spite to actually beat the game. You've barely moved an inch before the battle music plays, a black and purple pumpkaboo greeting you. "Oh, um..

"I

Well, excuse me," Avery sniffs playfully, "You play since I'm not entertaining enough." The console is handed over to you, the older boy simply holding you closer. "I bet you lose the first match you try."

"Huh?" Avery sighs, quickly pouting when he looks back at the screen. "Seriously? Damm, you're lucky." He pokes your cheek, "You catch it for me and I'll buy you some fries tomorrow."

-

"You're so annoying!"

With how hard you hit the ground, you know you're going to bruise. You weren't even talking, you just wanted to hang out with them.

"Seriously, who even wanted you to come over? I sure didn't!" No matter what you do, Lizzie doesn't like you. Doesn't matter if you're as friendly as can be or give her some space, you're always doing something wrong. "You're wasting good air, you know?"

"M' sorry, didn't mean to bother you." You won't cry, you're too old for that. "Liz-"

"You didn't mean to? Yeah, right!" Lizzie scoffs, kicking dirt into your face. Dust immediately stings your eyes. "You're a pest! No wonder everyone calls you bug, you're clingy like a tick, a parasite."

Your feeble attempt to rub the dirt away isn't really helping, you can barely hold your eyes open enough to look up at her. Miles isn't going to do anything to help either, silently supporting his sister.

"No wonder your dad left you! And your mom, she must be insufferable if you're her kid-"

You don't know when you managed to get up on your feet or when you grabbed a handful of Lizzie's hair. On the bright side, it makes her shut up.

"Hey!"

Your dad emerges from the house, miles trailing behind him. Of course.

"What has gotten into you?" You've let the older girl go at this point, she wasn't even crying until he came outside.

"Ow, dad.." Lizzie hides behind Damien, flashing you a smirk. "I wasn't even doing anything and they decided to be mean.."

Any inking of doubt you had evaporates in an instant. You don't have a dad anymore, you haven't in years.

"God.." He crosses his arms, the stern look would have made you wince if you weren't already shaking. "Don't even try to give me any excuses, Miles told me what happened. You can wait out here for your mom to pick you up since you can't behave yourself. I thought you knew better."

-

"Can you at least try to eat half, please?"

Your plate sits almost entirely untouched, having just been picked at over the course of dinner. Your mom's worried frown won't leave her face. "You're still a growing kid, I don't like how many meals you've tried to skip."

"I'm not hungry." You really aren't, there's always a nauseous feeling in your gut these days. "I'll eat a snack later, don't worry, mom."

"Baby.." She pinches the bridge of her nose and you feel a pang of guilt for how stressed she must be. "Please? For mommy? Or at least talk to me about what's going on.. i- it hurts seeing you so sad all the time."

What are you supposed to say to that?

Against your will, there's tears starting to drip down your cheeks. You don't think you've ever seen the women move so fast, her chair clattering to the floor in her rush to go to your side. "Oh, my baby.."

"I- I'm sorry.." For what you don't know, maybe the fact that she's stuck with you. "I- I'm so sorry, mom-"

"Oh, hush.." You're too big for her to carry, you both know, but she still scoops you into her arms. "There's nothing in the world you need to apologize to me for."

You sniffle, tucking your head under her chin. "I- I don't want to see dad anymore.. or.. or hear about him or-"

"Shhh.." She runs a hand through your hair in an attempt to soothe you, "you don't have to, alright? We'll figure it out. If that's what you want, you won't ever have to see him again."

(a/n: some ramblings while I start writing the second part to the series..reader will continue to go through it)

[keepthedelta]

#in general i find the whole racing versus winning thing to be very interesting#and the way some drivers believe in the sanctity of racing and others believe in the sanctity of winning fascinates me

Deltinha can you expand on this concepts? I got fascinated by them after reading the tags.

Thanks!

it kind of started when i listened to some of the sky sports podcasts where they were talking about the mclaren team orders situation. and i found what jenson said versus what nico said to be very interesting.

jenson was defending mclaren's policy of just letting their drivers fight it out on track, arguing that the racing was what the sport was supposed to be about. but then when nico was asked about it (on a different episode) he argued that mclaren should be using team orders to help lando because the point of the championship was to win, and you have to take every advantage you have because you don't know if or when you're going to get another chance.

and it made total sense to me that each of them was making that particular argument given who each of them is. jenson's whole thing is racecraft, he has such a unique driving style and was so admired for his racecraft even when he wasn't the fastest driver that it made sense for him to value the actual racing element above anything else. when he was talking about the team orders and mclaren's history of not issuing team orders, he said that he and lewis took wins off of each other, and if they'd been given team orders one of them probably could have won a championship [during the vettel/red bull dominance years]. but i think jenson could only say that because he already got his fairytale championship in 2009, and because he has canada 2011 to his name. if he didn't have those, particularly the wdc, i think he would look at his mclaren years very differently. and although jenson beat lewis across a season, lewis was overall the stronger driver, and if mclaren had given team orders, it's quite likely jenson would have been the one ordered to help lewis rather than the other way around. so in that sense, mclaren not having team orders and prioritising the "racing" helped jenson out a lot.

equally i think it makes total sense that nico values the winning over the racing. he spent a very long time being a very good driver in very bad cars, and when he finally got a good car, he had to face off against the most successful driver of all time. so it makes sense that the racing is not enough for nico, because it was never enough to be good, or even great, it was important to win. all of the effort he put in, the extremes he went to were not about becoming a better racer, they were about winning, and being able to call himself a champion. since retiring he's said that the only part of formula one he missed was winning, and although he's remained a part of the racing world, he's never raced again, unlike jenson who has raced in multiple other series. in the end it was the winning that fulfilled nico, and once he had that, he felt able to explore other worlds. additionally, i think nico's insecurities/self-esteem issues really affect this. he said in an interview that he didn't believe in himself at all throughout his career. while other drivers have talked about the need to view themselves as the best driver, and believe that given the right circumstances they can be champion, nico talked about how he never believed that, and so the thing that kept him going was his commitment to it. he committed to that championship 100% because he believed in the value of it. and that's why i think he argued that mclaren should have given team orders to help lando because he believes in the inherent value of a championship and of winning, and believes that you should commit to that, even if you don't win, rather than hoping the win comes to you.

there are some drivers that talk about racing as a priority and some that talk about winning as a priority, and i think it's interesting to see which is which, and why they've come to that conclusion. and with charles specifically, i think it would be incredibly interesting to see him choose between winning with anyone for the sake of winning over the possibility of winning with ferrari because of the ferrari of it all. what matters more to him, a championship, or a potential championship with ferrari?

[laseracronym]

Bakugou/Loner!Reader

(Thinking about Bakugou having a crush on a loner from the Gen Ed course.)

You definitely think he's trying to pick a fight when he first approaches.

What could one of the top students in the Hero Course want with a Gen Ed loser like you? Not even the kids in your own class really hang around you, and that's by design.

He's not clear with his intentions and is awkward in his own aggressive way. You take it for genuine animosity and respond in kind. You're feisty when you want to be.

You start having little snarling matches with him when you bump into each other in the hallways, which is becoming more and more frequent as of late. This guy really has it out for you.

Your classmates wonder if you have a death wish, challenging a guy who can blow you up and is currently receiving combat training. Bakugou's classmates wonder what that poor Gen Ed kid did to piss him off so much, though some (especially Kirishima and Midoriya) suspect something else is going on.

You're starting to become known around the school because of these exchanges. You don't like it, you liked it when no one looked at you and you had your peace. You start to ignore him, hoping he'll get the hint and leave you alone if you stop reacting to him.

He doesn't like that at all.

At first he's confused, completely thrown off by the change in energy from you. But if you think he's just going to let you ignore him... Him? Oh hell no.

"Hey," he barks, when you try to pass him without a word yet again. He catches your wrist in a calloused hand, grip firm yet not as rough as you thought he would be. The contact sends a rush through your nervous system, and you're so caught off guard that you don't even think to shake him off. He tugs you a little closer, his voice gruff yet soft, red-eyed gaze intense yet earnest, "don't ignore me. Look at me."

"What do you want from me!?" you finally burst out, after all this time, all these encounters, you still have no idea what the hell he wants from you.

"You, you stupid asshole!" he barks back, exasperated and face aflame with irritation, embarrassment, and longing. He clenches his jaw, nostrils flaring like an angry bull, before he huffs out what is supposed to be a calming breath. His next words are no less frustrated, but at least they don't echo off the walls. "I want you, I want to be with you and shit, why can't you take the hint!?"

You flounder, your jaw working but no words come out for a second, before you're spluttering, "don't call me stupid! How was I supposed to know that's what you wanted!?"

The argument devolves from there, but he's still got a hold of you and you have yet to turn him down, there's a change in the tension, the fire, now. It seems like you two might finally be on the same page.

(Currently taking requests for drabbles and headcanons!)

[factual-fantasy]

I've just finished reading your response for the first time,

First off, thank you very much for the GIF and Video, as well as the explanations. I can definitely work with this.

I've downloaded and installed FireAlpaca for myself so I can start comparing what I'm seeing vs what is supposed to happen.

Immediately, Something stood out as weird to me: You're selecting multiple tools at once. That's... not supposed to happen. I tried it myself, Opened like 20 tabs and just started throwing colours at each canvas. This doesn't happen for me At all.

So I'm gonna give you some more instructions. (Tl:Dr for the instructions at the bottom, just above my little rant)

Backing Up your Brushes

FIRST let's make sure you don't lose all of your beloved brushes. from what I'm about to suggest.

in FA, I want you to go to Help > Open Config Folder

That will lead to a folder that, for me, looks like this

Keep in mind that it could look different for you, I have a fresh install with no cool special brushes. (also I can't draw to save my life)

Now simply Ctrl+A (select all) and copy it to another folder. go to like... Documents or Downloads or something, Make a folder called "Brushes Backup" and Paste all of it in there.

Alright, now to the actual thing I want you to do.

2. and 3. Uninstall and Reinstall FireAlpaca

There is some weird glitch I cannot Reproduce. So Just Reinstall FireAlpaca. this is the reason I wanted you to back up your brushes. Deleting the program and reinstalling will nuke all of the settings you use, so by copying the Config folder, you can easily reinstate your settings.

4. Testing

After you have reinstalled the program, I want you to open it, and mess around for however long you think it will take to trigger the glitch. (which sounded like only a few minutes) and see if something happens.

If not: Great!

If yes: You might want to reach out to https://firealpaca.com/report/ and fill out a bug report, and tell them that you have no way of reproducing the bug. (although I really think reinstalling will work)

5. Reinstating your brushes

Now, after you've made sure that FireAlpaca works, only then do I want you to Open the config folder again and put your brushes back. (simply close FireAlpaca after you've opened the folder, delete everything that's in it, and then copy everything from your "Backup Folder" into the config folder. )

6. Testing Part 2: Electric boogaloo

Then if you re-open FireAlpaca I want you to once again mess around a little and pay attention. Because the Bug might come back.

If it DOES come back, It might be one of your settings/brushes that is causing it. Which in that case I unfortunately have to suggest starting over with your brushes.

To recap: I'm asking you to:

Back up your brushes

Uninstall FireAlpaca

Reinstall FireAlpaca

Test to see if the weirdness is gone

Restore your brushes

Test to see if the weirdness is still gone

--- Rant Below ---

I have no clue what's happening to your program. This looks like some bug in the code that just causes FA to say "Nope" and stop responding to the side bar.

This acutally reminds me of a bug I've been encountering in Unity where the program refuses to open one of the UI pages in the Program's settings, which just completely shuts me out of the settings for one of the input libraries. Funnily enough it actually printed an error in my console, and the error was thrown so incredibly deep into compiled code that I was pretty sure I was reading Unity Source Code at that point.

I still don't know what's happening. Luckily I have Other People to interact with that settings page for me.

(This ask is in response to this post)

So once again I took sometime to test all this out, but unfortunately it didn't take me very long to come back with bad news.

So this is exactly what I did in this order:

I went to my config folder and copied everything into a new folder I created in my Documents tab. Then I went to my settings > apps > FireAlpaca and uninstalled. I then went to the official website and reinstalled it.

I opened up what should have been a fresh FireAlpaca and found this,

The red numbers are brushes that I have adjusted/used. And the "Fire roller (multiple colors)" and "twisted ribbon" are brushes that didn't come with FireAlpaca by default. I downloaded them afterwards from their little brush shop. For some reason FireAplaca remembered my brushes..

And of course, FireAlpaca was still breaking in the way that I've described in your last ask.

So I thought "Okay, I don't care if I lose my brushes and settings. I just want FireAlpaca to work." So I deleted that copied folder from Documents that I made, I unpinned FireAlpaca from my taskbar and deleted the desktop shortcut too just to he extra safe I guess..? Then I went to settings > apps > FireAlpaca and hit uninstall. Then went back to the website, reinstalled the latest version and wouldn't you know it,

All the exact same brushes, in the same order with the same settings. And FireAlpaca continued to break the same way.

So now I'm wondering if I did something wrong.. why does FireAlpaca keep remembering my settings? Did I do the uninstall process wrong? I wondered if that cache thing might be holding data or something? I've heard about that before. But with the help of a friend recently I cleared my Google Chrome and Laptop's caches. And FireAplaca didn't change at all and I didn't lose any of my settings. So that cant help me here..

I wonder if somehow my pen could be a problem? I've dropped it on the hard floor 100s of times. Could it be contributing? And what did I do wrong in this process for FireAlpaca to remember all my brush settings?

If anyone has any advice I would love to hear it <:(( Please and thank you very much 🙏🙏🙏

[letmeoutofthebasementt]

SKZ getting cheated on (Hyung Line + Han)

(How long it’ll take them to find out on their own, how they’d react, if they’d break up or not)

Chan

Honestly, it'd probably take him a while to realize. Because, for one, he'd probably feel very stable in his relationship and his place in his partner's life. He has that "They'd never because they NEED me" kinda mentality. The longer they've been together the less likely he is to find out organically unless he full-on catches them in the act. He also feels like his relationships are very solid at their core. Another big issue is to be entirely sure his partner is cheating, he needs to break free of delusions. It would also just be far too much for him if he did suspect it because he'd be afraid he'd lose his partner for even daring to think something like that. I think he'd also...Take things for granted? Like, "I have you there's no way you'd ever leave or want anything more/else" type of thing. Everything's familiar. And he doesn't take into account that anything could possibly happen.

If he finds out he got cheated on, he'd immediately tell his friends and seek comfort in them. I'm also getting he's the type who'd cheat on his partner to get his lick back or something. Cheating is something Chan can't get past, so he'd definitely leave them. He'd feel hopeless, and his entire life would probably momentarily crash and burn. I think he'd also be really frustrated and it'd ruin his trust in everyone in his life. He'd also push down and suppress a lot of things. Because of that, the feelings of hurt and anger and resentment can easily fester because he didn't allow himself to acknowledge them or hash them out.

Lee Know

Idk why I immediately thought of ice spice

Specifically that like "You think you the shit, bitch? You not even the fart." I don't even like her or that song

BUT ANYWAYS

He'd know quickly. You can't HIDE that from this man. Trust he'll find out ASAP. Because, one, his intuition is on a whole other level. Two, he'd immediately know if something's off. Whether that be your location being off or somewhere it's not supposed to, etc. Even if you think you're slick he'll FIND a tell one way or another. I'm also a firm believer he goes through phones. I'm talking every nook and cranny of that phone including your EMAILS. He's finding that shit one way or another and you're lucky if there's a 24 hour window of time where he doesn't know about it. He'll find a way to figure it out.

In terms of how he'd react...He'd definitely find out on his own, so there'd be this 'Aha!' moment. Because he knew he wasn't going crazy. He's going to figure out every nitty gritty detail of the cheating with PRINTED OUT laminated receipts with copies just incase. He's definitely gonna confront his partner. And trust he's going to have a boost of confidence figuring it out. Definitely not the type who blames himself. He's also probably telling everyone and their mother. And YOUR mother. He sees it as a battle won and everyone needs to hear about the victory.

He has a 50/50 chance of leaving, though. On ONE hand, while trust is very important to him he'd also feel a sense of...I don't want to say ownership but that's the only word I can think of over his partners. So, he simply wouldn't want to let them go. I feel like the love would also linger a lot because he feels very deeply. So, he may just stay with his partner and fall into some toxic habits of keeping them on lockdown, being all hovery...The type who's calling his partner every 5 minutes, showing up to their job to make sure they're there, getting their Apple login so they can receive every single message and notif they do...He's keeping them on LOCK. But on the other hand, he could very well just...Fall out of love in an instant. It's very contradictory. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin and he has a very large capacity for hate, especially when betrayed. Probably just moved onto the next. So yeah, he's either dumping you rather cruelly then moving on like you never existed, or keeping you uner lock and key.

Changbin

He'd probably FIND OUT fairly quickly, because he'd kind of have this gut feeling. But he'd suppress those feelings and convince himself he was insane until he finally catches his partner red handed and realizes he's right on the money. Because he's very passionate about his relatinship and doesn't want to be imposing on his partner or doubting them for no reason. That's not his intention nor something he's comfortable with doing. He also wants to trust in his partner. He'll probably lose faith in himself and just be very on edge until he realizes he's right.

His entire life would fall apart when he finds out. He falls into destructive tendencies. Probably self-sabotages a lot. He feels like a failure, and he's so afraid of being made fun of or looked down on because he got cheated on. He'd probably fall into a depression and just be very negative. He'd feel like he wasn't enough, and couldn't be good enough. And feel he just couldn't be all his partner needed so they found it in someone else. But he'd also regain some of his trust in himself. Because he realized his intuition was right and he wasn't just losing his mind. Would definitely need a lot of kindness and comfort from friends and family, and a lot of self-expolration. May fall into delusions to help himself cope.

He'd also definitely break up with his partner if they cheated. Because they're obviously not his person, and he'll find his person.

Hyunjin

I haven't even pulled yet and I already know this'll affect my mental wellbeing

But also...MY MAN MY MAN MY MANNNNN I haven't read on him in a while (I'm saying this because he's my bias not because i'm delusional enough to think he'd want me don't @ me)

FIRST OF ALL, he'd believe he's being cheated on long before he actually is. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if he's already been in a situation where he dreamed of being cheated on and then a few weeks later got cheated on and was convinced he was a prophet or something. Not literally but you catch my drift. But I also feel like the amount of time it'd take to figure it out is considerably lengthened by the fact that he looks at everything through rose-tinted glasses of hopeless romance. He has a love for life and is more focused on that than anything else. Plus, he's near perpetually convinced he's about to be cheated on or is being cheated on so once he genuinely DOES see the red flags it's less...Impactful? To him? Because he sees them in everything. He's sensitive, though, so i feel like he'd sense it if something was off. Like, if his partner was cheating because of lost feelings he'd realize the lost feelings. And then, his imagination would take the wheel and suddenly it's a joyride off a cliff and into a mental spiral. I feel like deep down he'd also know like "Oh shit, this is different. They may actually be cheating for real." I feel like he has the emotional maturity to know that other times he was overreacting and being delusional. But this is more than that. I feel like the moment he open his eyes, he'll immediately know.

And he's getting the hell up out of there.

He'd be CRUSHED if he found out he got cheated on. He'd probably throw his money away doing stupid shit with it, fall into certain bad habits. He'd feel hopeless, and feel like everything he worked so hard for during the relationship was a waste. Like he's failed. But he'd also 100% publicly expose his partner. I also think he'd drown his sorrows in another relationship or fling or whatever. I'm talking within the hour of finding out he's under someone else for the sole purpose of distraction. He'd also 100% use this to fuel his general anger/crashoutery for the next few months. Like he'll be another level of volatile and emotionally unstable. He'd probably reflect a lot on the relationship. He'd withdraw from a lot of things and just want to be by himself and recover from the pain. Definitely would avoid anything that could potentially stress him out.

He'd also break up with his partner. Surprisingly. I was honestly expecting him to stay. But I feel like his energy has changed? He has more trust in himself and his value and he's not just content sticking around through mistreatment anymore. Good for him.

Han

Shawty bae

I don’t think he’d notice? He’d just very much be blinded by everything. He idealizes his relationships, and he’d be so happy he just genuinely wouldn’t notice if something was amiss. He’s also just generally an overthinker and has a very scattered mind, so I think if he did pick up on something he wouldn’t notice AT ALL he’s not being delusional.

I think he’d still love them if they cheated. But I also think he’d be the type to…Cheat back? If his partner were to ever cheat on him. He’d definitely also get closer with friends and family for emotional support and find happiness there. Mask the sadness with more happiness and drown himself in pleasure. I think once he finds out everything will suddenly connect. All the puzzle pieces will fall into place and everything will suddenly make sense.

I think he would want to but I don’t think he would. It’d be a big inner conflict and he’d really have to force himself to. He’d need to think on it and his friends and family would have to push for it. Because he’s like “Well I’ve put so much effort into this why throw it away?” And just values the stability relationships and having his ‘other half’ brings to him.

[tenebrius-excellium]

I may not be qualified to comment on this because I don't know Wolfwood as a character very well, but I've always hoped that he'd still believe, somewhere, somehow, while outwardly completely mocking and parodying the whole religious attire...

Like, that it would be a completely ironic yet deadly serious exhibition of what harm a cultist religion can do while using many of the same expressions of faith in a completely sincere, genuine and devote way of worship.

Idk if I can explain it well but Aramis from the BBC's Musketeers has been the object of my pondering for sooo long now, again and again. The show is cheesy but I love how he lives his faith. He starts out as a playboy, a womanizer, knowing that his "flesh" is weak and feeling guilty and repenting for it daily, but he grew up in a brothel so that whole behavior is just part of his story and how he understands the world to be. He then gets involved with Queen Anne, gets found out and vows to God that he will finally devote himself to a godly life (aka becoming a monk) if he makes it out of this scandal alive. Since he does, he has to pay up and joins a monastery. Only to be deeply, wildly unhappy and turmoiled by inner unrest there. Being a monk does not suit him, but he thinks he has to uphold his promise.

One day, he meets his best friends again and discovers that fighting for justice is what makes him happy. Wrestling with God and with his vow, he comes to the conclusion that he was born to be a musketeer. That's his purpose. That's how he serves God best. And so he returns to being a warrior, but interestingly, the times of being a bon vivant and a rake are over. Aramis has shed the outer skin of "things he thought he was supposed to do to follow this religion and be a 'good' person" and has found genuine faith and his actual gratifying purpose underneath. Now, if he repents, it's because he takes death - and a loving God who values every life - very seriously and knows that he is accountable for his actions. Not out of some wrong kind of sense of self-deprecation, spawned from the belief that God must despise him.

Aramis traded religion for real faith. Now he is free to use religious means to express that faith as he sees fit. He can use established patterns, or he can make up his own ways of honoring God. The point is that it's not strict tradition anymore. It's not about the decorum, it's about utilizing decorum to worship in reverence. But if everything becomes about the pressure of upholding decorum, the point is lost.

Back to Wolfwood, he's clearly in the 'dismantling decorum' stage, which is healthy. He's dealing with his tremendous trauma through irony. I just always wanted to interpret an awareness for genuine belief into him as well. Though I really can't be sure if his character has been written that way.

very unpopular trigun fandom opinion but. i really Don’t like when people write/draw wolfwood as being genuinely religious. like wearing rosary and praying every night and saying grace before eating and shit. HE SHOOTS PEOPLE AND KILLS THEM and smokes and drinks and curses and wears his collar as wide open as possible and is a Literal Hitman who was kidnapped by a religious cult as a child. do you guys sincerely believe he’s a good christian boy or something

[a-tato-box]

I LOVE YOUR COLLAPSING VECTORS AU!!! if/when Ford finds out about Stan being homeless for the past however-long how will he react?? if you don't mind answering :D

Thank you so much!!! :D So sorry for my late response, tumblr loves not giving me a notification whenever an Ask comes in so they sometimes sit in my inbox with me entirely unaware they even exist. I like to think that Ford would be devastated, but show it by getting angry at Stanley for not reaching out at first - big emotions aren't his forté. And, maladjusted as these two are, there has to be at least some yelling :) (There was supposed to be a doodle to accompany this ask, but I cannot find it because stars forbid I name my csp files anything other than "doodle nr 56" or something even less helpful like a string of letters.)

[max1461]

There's something about like old school American culture uh, like, imagine the archetypal notion of a teacher, from like, 1920 or whatever. Imagine what a Kansas city pre-Great Depression guy thinks of when you say "teacher". Well she's a girl who is teaching you the alphabet, right, you've gotta know the alphabet. Your ABCs. It's important to know your ABCs. Where did the ABCs come from? Probably god, like everything else. You're not a scholar and neither is she. You're probably a Mormon or an Evangelical. Shit came from god, the ABCs came from god, or maybe you don't even think about it and the ABCs just are, right, they just are. You're not supposed to think about it, or ask questions. These are the ABCs, which you must know, and the teacher is here to teach them to you. "Science" means, you know, invention, which is really getting off the ground lately. A lot of new inventions making us richer. Gotta know your ABCs so you can set up a snake oil stall so you can buy the knew inventions coming up all over the place these days. Gotta go to church because you're a good christian. I mean, you're not that good a christian. You drink and fuck around. But the important thing is you don't question it, you don't question the church, you're more concerned about learning your ABCs so you can sell snake oil and buy new inventions than anything the church has to say but you don't question the church and so you're a good christrian. The ABCs were created by jesus 6000 years ago and as long as you know that it's ok to get drunk and have sex with prostitutes. But it's not very advisable because that's your invention-buying money but you might do it anyway.

This is very, this is the modern Saudi royal family to me. This is modern Saudi Arabia to me I think. There is a deep spiritual connection between 1910s Kansas city snake oil salesmen and Mohammad bin Salman they're one and the same guy.

[merriepy]

DATING ACHERON!

•. Acheron x gn! Reader

tags: headcanon, fluff (+ small angst)

cw: /

summary: A few headcanons about what your relationship with Acheron would look like!

a/n: I'm currently experimenting with new layouts/formats so please don't mind the new look! No third person pronouns used for the reader

•. Acheron, an introverted and forgetful Galaxy Ranger who walks the cosmos on the path of Nihility. As her track intertwined with yours, she developed feelings long forgotten and buried - together with her distant memories of home.

•. Dating someone like Acheron would be quite an interesting experience. She's not your average romantic lover who showers you with kisses, but rather with hugs and gifts! Since she travels the cosmos a lot she knows that seeing you might be hard, since some destinations are too dangerous for you, or maybe you're not as nomadic and her and want to stay in one place. Acheron would 100% bring you little souvenirs that always align with your taste - whether it's new clothes that are rising in popularity on the planet she was just at or a little plushie of the regional animals. As for touches, I think she's someone who's just really casual about pda as in always holding your arm or waist, or leaning against you when she's exhausted. She loves to do that, her chin either resting on your shoulder or head depending on your height.

•. And of course, since she likes to spoil you, you'd do the same!! You'd always make sure to have peaches at home since it's her favourite food. When Acheron is actually home or you two get to rest during your travels, you'd always make sure to prepare peaches for her alongside breakfast to make her happy!

•. In return, Acheron would totally remember your favourite food and where to get the right ingredients for it. She even tried very hard to remember the way to your favourite takeout place, though she still gets lost from time to time. The embarrassment in her voice when she calls you, asking for you to pick her up and admitting that she wanted to treat you to a nice meal but doesn't know the way back home always makes you chuckle.

•. Acheron thinks a lot about your first meeting. She knows how she seems to others: cold, distant, maybe even dangerous. But you approached her, and gave her a chance. She would've never guessed you that two would become more than friends, and neither did you. But even after your first meeting where you two exchanged numbers you kept checking up on her, asking how she was doing, and offered so many times to be there for her if she needed someone to talk to. Of course, Acheron's struggles are far greater than that of average people and she was never completely honest with you about her backstory. She still isn't honest but how are you supposed to bring up something like her story? She just hopes you'll never hold it against her if you do figure it out eventually.

•. One thing she did tell you though was her actual name. You never wondered about it, if Acheron was her actual name or just a coverup. Even after she told you about it you felt weird to not call her Acheron anymore but rather Mei. You got around to it eventually and kept giving her nicknames like Mei-Mei, something she reacted very casually to.

•. I think domestic life with Acheron is chaotic. She isn't used to settling down anymore, not even for a short time. She'd also lose her belongings everywhere in the house because she forgot where she had put them. Cooking isn't one of her strengths as well but she's very willing to learn and she's actually able to become a great cook with enough practice!

•. She's really encouraging and always makes sure to tell you about how great you're doing and that she's proud of you. I think your relationship includes a lot of encouraging and praising from both sides (as it should be!).

•. Something you like to do that Acheron isn't aware of is to keep track of her make-up. She always carries it with her which sometimes leads to the makeup being damaged, so you like to replace or fix it, depending on the damage. She isn't aware that you're the one who replaces it: she thinks she did it herself but forgot.

•. Nights with her are beautiful, though not easy. She likes to get lost in your touch as the soft starlight illuminates the room, but her dreams are usually filled with terror - dreams of those who succumbed to her blade and of those who she couldn't save. Being with you doesn't get rid of the nightmares, as much as she would like to, but the comfort you give her is enough to calm down after the night has felt especially long.

•.Acheron, an introverted and forgetful Galaxy Ranger who walks the cosmos on the path of Nihility. As her track intertwined with yours, she developed feelings long forgotten and buried - together with her distant memories of home. But when she's with you, her heart feels lighter, the pain easier, and maybe - soon - she'll be able to heal under your grace before going on her last journey.•

[jaelami]

Love and Deepspace: Caleb and Bad Writing (Long, LONG Rant)

I might be in the minority here but I'm not liking Caleb at all. (Edit 1: I said the wrong thing here, I do like Caleb. I think he has the potential to be a good character. The hate comes more from how Infold has done his story. Well, the story in general.)

I'm not bothered by the childhood friend thing. So that's not the issue I'm having. I'm just not liking the story. I feel like it was rushed which I know it probably wasn't but it feels that way. And it shows the bad writing of LaDS when it comes to the main storyline.

The way the MC is glossing over some huge red flags and blaring warning signs, it pisses me off. We get a tease of her fighting Caleb's yandere tendencies but she still lets it happen anyway. Infold really wanted to rush the relationship. They sure as hell don't know how to write a slow burn or even a medium burn.

Even Sylus, who has had less story and less everything, had more back and forth with MC than a supposed dead guy. MC hated and was annoyed being tethered to Sylus. Was annoyed when he appeared when she was with friends or with other hunters (conveniently when Xavier is not around).

Back to Caleb: Then there's the fact he is the only LI that wants to baby her in every aspect. The other LIs knew she could kickass and let her. Do they want to protect her? Yes. Do they protect her? Yes. But do they know she could do it on her own if needed? Hell yes. Caleb still thinks of her as the little girl who was afraid of thunderstorms. He constantly thinks of her as the girl who made childhood promises to him. And let's not forget, he drugs her to "keep her safe". He uses his evol to keep her in place. He locks her in her room. That is horrifying. And she glosses over it!!!! Everytime!!!! When she wants to "go out with friends" and he won't let her. He finds ways to keep her there. She doesn't question it.

Do I mind dark romance? No. I read dark romance but at least the FMC doesn't fall for MMC immediately. She thinks shit through. MC on the other hand doesn't bat an eye. Caleb has returned from the dead. Great, be happy. But don't just ignore that he's returned with issues and secrets. We can obviously see that he is not mentally all there. Don't just tell him everything and not be concerned that he's not reacting to shit. She's not really questioning the fact he is still alive. Not a priority, I guess.

She proceeds to tell Caleb everything about the papers that Grandma gave to Zayne (not Caleb btw) to give MC in the time of her passing. MC is not at all concerned about the consequences of doing that. She sees and hears Caleb being involved with the Professor and she still doesn't consider that a huge neon red flag. Instead she does everything in her power to excuse his behavior. What? He even tells her, "You think I have a chip in my brain?" He knows she's worried about it and still manipulates her into moving on from the question. And she does!!!

And then there's Zayne, who is also in Skyhaven, because of course he is, and still she doesn't tell him anything about Caleb even tho he was Caleb's childhood friend too. Or she doesn't go to him to ask for help. She was drugged by Caleb and she doesn't tell Zayne, her doctor. Zayne is literally there for no real reason in the story of Caleb and MC. He was used as a plot device for a different part of the story. How has Zayne not heard of Colonel Caleb? It seems that Caleb is a big deal in Skyhaven. Yet he doesn't know? I feel like Infold isn't going to have these two characters interact at all which would make no sense story wise.

We have these characters existing in one timeline/storyline together and we are supposed to believe they don't know about each other or MAYBE know about each other. Xavier literally lives in the same building as MC. He can enter her apartment at any time. She told him his fingerprint will let him in. She gave him the permission to literally barge in. He's her partner at the HA! And yet!!!! He never sees any of the other LIs come to her apartment? And he's conveniently missing when hunters are involved in the other LIs storylines. It's always another male colleague that she works with. It's getting old and stupid real quick.

The theory of the LIs being each other's antithesis makes no sense when they never acknowledge each other. Xavier/Sylus, Zayne/Caleb, Rafayel/LI6, really falls flat. It can't be they are different timelines or parallel universes when the storyline plainly connects them. In chapter 4, Caleb and Grandma talk about Zayne. They want to invite him over for dinner. And that's not the only time when the story connects the LIs. Zayne goes to check on the guy who has a mermaid skeleton in his living room. Rafayel gave the collector his painting that was slowly killing him. They all know about Onychinus which means they should know who Sylus is. And let's not forget Tara has met Sylus. Does she not mention him in front of Xavier?

I mean, come on. Math is not mathing.

Either Infold is purposely making MC dumb, because let's face it she makes some of the worst decisions, to explain the bad writing or they don't really know how to connect the storylines at all. (Edit 2: MC isn't dumb per say she lacks critical thinking skills sometimes. Maybe that's a better way to put it.)

I don't count the many 4/5 level special cards as a part of the main storyline because if that was the case the girl's evol should be teleportation or multiplication. Cause they all conveniently happen at the same time.

I know all of Caleb's cards aren't out and his storyline isn't complete (most of his cards are from the past) but that doesn't matter right now. It doesn't excuse the rushed feelings MC has in the present. Also in chapter 4, it is implied to us, as viewers, that MC didn't have romantic feelings for Caleb. They treated each other as siblings. (I know they aren't. I'm talking about how MC treated him in chapter 4.) Did Caleb have feelings? Yeah, that was obvious.

I don't know. Time will tell, I guess but so far the main story update has been disappointing for me. I want a VILLAIN romance but, please, do it well. I have the morally grey storyline with Sylus (kinda). Give me a well written Villain love interest. Don't rush it. Give me, present timeline yearning not past. Give me a slow-ish burn. Let MC and Caleb fight. Give me, knife to the throat romance. Don't make MC so gullible and naive. Let her ask other LIs for help when Caleb is stepping out of line. Have her question if he loves or is just obsessed with her.

Viper literally says that Caleb is obsessed with MC not in love with MC. He, a mentally unstable man/robot person, can tell the difference. MC is twiddling her thumbs and pretending not to see it.

Was Caleb in love at one point? I think so however with time it has twisted into obsession. (Edit 3: I'm not saying Caleb doesn't love MC now. I'm saying those feelings have twisted more to obsession. Like maybe whatever the Professor did, did something to his feelings for MC. And I know MC will enable him like MC does with Xavier. MC be freaky that way. That's not a bad thing for a FICTIONAL scenario.)

Also Kevi and Mia?! That storyline pissed me off. She literally sees something is wrong with the twins and does nothing. Mia doesn't give info to anyone because she doesn't trust them. Unfortunately for Mia, she put her trust in MC and that was a mistake because, as mentioned, MC is stupid. MC goes to where Kevi is hiding and doesn't take Zayne?!?!!? Doesn't take Kevi to Zayne immediately even tho he's ill. Why the fuck not?!

Kevi tells her point blank he was afraid of the Fleet and not to be trusted and she doesn't think it's bad when the Fleet got to him? No, because it's okay cause Caleb was involved? He was conveniently found by Caleb? That's not suspicious, that's not weird. Kevi must be okay. But wait, there's more! Mia conveniently dies right after. Neither Zayne or MC does anything beyond mentioning it was a weird coincidence. Not at all suspicious, apparently.

What the actual fuck? (Edit 4: I am aware that more happens than just casually mentioning the situation. I did, in fact, read the story. I just think certain choices leading up to Mia's death and Kevi's forced adoption could have easily been avoided or at least better written.

MC puts her trust in Caleb to do the right thing even tho she knows and acknowledges he's not the same anymore. I don't think I'm wrong for saying that it's a stupid choice story wise. It's obvious Caleb doesn't put his full trust in MC, but MC does. It causes an imbalance. We know MC can be and has been a badass; why diminish that?)

How is anyone not annoyed with the storyline? It makes Caleb a really bad character and LI, it further proves MC is dumb as shit. She's so easily manipulated and so impossibly naive.

No. No one cares because he's the Winter Soldier. Omg if real money is going to be spent on this godforsaken game make it worth it.

I was so excited for Caleb too. It's just sad.

(Edit 5: Because someone mentioned this 🙄, I'm aware that this is a Reverse Harem. I don't know where I said it wasn't. Besides this rant is based on the MAIN STORYLINE ONLY. NOT THE INDIVIDUAL CARDS.)

Also a random note, I don't like the voice of Jenna. It doesn't fit her at all. Not bashing the VA at all. She has a great voice. It's just not a strong voice for Jenna.

(Reminder: Before someone calls me easily manipulated, please note I was able to piss you off for criticizing a mobile game and a FICTIONAL character. I don't mind having adult discussions about LaDS but be an adult about it. I enjoy different perspectives and I'm not set on my opinions about the game. My mind can change depending on what comes next. It makes discussing/ playing the game more fun. I am allowed to express my opinions and feelings on what is out. If my opinion makes you so angry to the point of name calling, maybe you need to stop playing. A parasocial relationship to pixelated men is not a good thing for your mental health.)