#Deep Backstory

[harbingerofsoup]

garashir is incredible because you have an exiled spy for an oppressive state with fucked parentage who doesn’t want to let himself be happy, but also can’t resist temptation; then you have a genius doctor who comes across as naive and too optimistic, but has had an ongoing identity crisis since the age of 15 because he learned his parents’ solution to his childhood disabilities was eugenics

and yet somehow they are so lame, just so embarrassing

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[gremliinsart]

Dude this car kicks ass and I can watch Wreck-It-Ralph while I'm driving

[clarisimart]

So, given the revelations that came with The Book of Bill, and all the intentional parallels they've drawn between Ford and Bill, and even the way we can kinda infer that Bill either saw something of himself in Ford or at least thought he found someone that could potentially really understand him...

With all that in mind, the insistence of Bill of having Ford being the one that opens the portal even after Ford realizes what Bill really is and what he wants, and rejects him... at that point it might have been easier to try and get anyone else, to possess someone and just break into the lab and open the portal that way, right? The portal was complete, he needed someone to open it, but he didn't need FORD to do it...

But, and I am not the first one to point this out by a longshot, I subscribe to the theory that Bill WANTED FORD to be the one to do it, he wanted Ford, the one person he had arguably a genuine connection with in a trillion years, to make the same mistake he did... he wanted to break Ford like he was broken, by making him the architect of his dimension's destruction.

And then he would truly have someone that would understand him completely.

Someone as damaged as him.

This concept is explored beautifully

in this fic by Caspercryptid (FaiaHae) and theneonpineapple:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58948018/

[starry-bi-sky]

Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!

And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.

Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?

Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.

Can't say the same for Danny.

Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.

"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.

When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.

That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.

Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.

TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[kunikiiida-kuuun]

Those who haven't read Dazai's entrance exam LN don't even know that Fukuzawa literally entrusted the exam to Kunikida alone and Kunikida himself approved him and Fukuzawa took his word for it without any questions.

Dazai wouldn't even have been in the agency if it wasn't for Kunikida's trust in Dazai.

[wszczebrzyszynie]

Moja matka z którą mieszkam i która najwyraźniej dalej wierzy że będę mieć dzieci z pięknego heteroseksualnego związku vs mój ojciec którego widzę raz na miesiąc który sclockował mnie od razu i spytał się czy jestem homo (zaprzeczyłem) po czym powiedział że jak coś to ok miłość jest super i trzeba za nią podążać nie ważne co tak jak on np zdradził swoją ówczesną żonę z moją matką

[thranduel]

astarion, the man who was dying and offered eternal life, but had no idea that it meant becoming a slave to a sadistic master.

astarion, the man who had his freedom and bodily autonomy ripped away from him.

astarion, the man who was forced to befriend, seduce and sleep with people to lure them back to his master, resulting in severe sexual trauma and the struggle to form any sort of intimate relationship.

astarion, the man who was horribly punished whenever he refused his master’s orders (one punishment being sealed away in a dusty tomb, starving, for an entire year. he scratched his hands raw trying to carve his way out).

astarion, the man who was forced to eat rats.

astarion, the man who hasn’t even been able to see his own face since he turned.

astarion, the man who had his body mutilated as cazador carved scars onto his back, which he later found out was to bind him to a ritual.

astarion, the man who is so severely traumatised that he admitted he doesn’t know how to say “no” or ask for help (and he feels guilty when he does).

astarion, the man who waited two centuries to be helped and freed from torture, but no one came.

astarion, the man who was always treated like a monster when all he wanted was to be treated like a person.

astarion, the man who came up to you in the middle of the night just to thank you for defending him and allowing him to make his own decisions.

astarion, the man who said that no one ever looked out for him or showed him kindness, and that you’re the only one. “other people don’t have a heart like you. you’re you. no one is like that.”

astarion, the man who broke the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago thanks to the love, care and compassion that you showed him when no one else did.

astarion, the man who confessed that he loves you and feels safe with you; something he has never felt with anyone before.

[chelshiart]

In 2011 I drastically reduced my DWJ book intake to dripfeed levels, so it was only in the 2024 new year that I finally decided to read Deep Secret. My god - out of all her books this seems targeted at me personally? Stressed late-20-somethings, making fools of oneself in vicinity of fav authors, artist alleys?? Also, blatant unmistakable LGBT-rep??? I can't believe I slept on this one for so long!!! Definitely putting it on the upper tiers of my DWJ bookshelf.

Anyway, here's some designs I've whipped up for the characters! As always, might tweak 'em if ever I draw more in the future, but that's what's fun about figuring out character designs. Rob in particular is a joy to me.

btw Zinka plsplspls let me table with you

[sashisuse]

hm… thinking about childhood best friend!suguru…

you saw him for the first time when you moved away from the city after the unfortunate passing of your parents. your grandmother stuffed you into her car and drove off, taking you to a little town where doves were stuffed into cages so that they may never spread their wings. you are sad and lonely on the day you move in, and right away, you spot a gloomy looking boy your age watching you from the window of your neighbor’s house. despite everything, you smiled and waved at the boy next door. he seemed surprised at first, but he smiled and waved back.

(you don't think you would ever regret smiling at him, no matter where you would wind up twenty years from then.)

you properly meet him only a few days later, when you are looking for a quiet place to sit outside of the house. he is there, too, and you approach him with the same smile you offered him days prior. you introduce yourself to him and ask him for his name.

“geto suguru,” he told you. suguru stared at you for a moment after that, observing you silently. you would come to learn he often did that. “would you like some tea?”

(you don’t think you’ll ever regret accepting his invitation, either.)

in that miserable town filled with miserable people, you and suguru just clicked and stuck together. you two were practically conjoined at the hip, despite the fact that suguru had a reputation for being so strange. you never minded or understood where that came from. you heard from your grandmother, who spoke with suguru’s mother from time to time, that he was just a strange boy. that he made stories up and blamed things on ghosts. that he was unfairly gloomy and difficult to raise. you never understood why people were so mean to him. he was quiet and polite, the best friend you had ever had. you followed him everywhere, and that made you a bit strange, too. but there wasn't a single thing anyone in the world could say that would make you not want to follow suguru around. you would follow him to the end’s of the earth if he asked. he was your best friend, after all, and you were his.

you both could talk for hours and hours about anything and everything. books, movies, tv shows, games, school... you laughed together and played together and that was the way it was. the way it was always supposed to be. you and suguru. suguru and you.

you remember the day everything changed oh, so clearly. the cold weather nipped at your nose while the air felt dry and cold in your lungs. you were trailing a bit behind suguru as you both ventured home from school. he was looking off at something in the forest but quickly diverted his attention away. the action did not go unnoticed and your eyes moved to the forest as well, trying to see what suddenly made his expression sour.

your feet stopped moving the second your eyes laid upon the thing in the woods. it stood out amongst the gray and brown of the cold trees — that strange, ugly beast. it twisted and curved in what should have been an impossible way with seven eyes, each of them oozing some green liquid.

"suguru?"

your fearful cry of his name caught him off guard as you reached forward, grabbing at the sleeve of his sweater. he looked at you in concern. you looked like you want to cry and he hated it. he hated that you looked so fearful, that you sounded so fearful. he wanted nothing more than to make it better, than to fix the problem that he wasn’t even aware of yet.

"what is that thing?" you asked with a quiet whimper.

suguru almost didn’t believe it at first. up until that very moment, he had lived his life hearing that something was wrong with him. something was wrong with him, because he saw things no one else could see. monsters, ghosts, creatures — whatever word you wanted to use. he saw them. his parents never understood. they seemed more disturbed by the fact that suguru never grew out of it, rather than the words he was saying. instead he kept it to himself. he learned to lie about it, so his parents stopped looking at him with such disdain. and at some point, maybe he began to lie to himself. maybe he began to believe that he was driving himself crazy. that he really was just seeing things.

but in that moment? in that moment, when you, his best friend, the one person in the world who had never once looked at him like he was strange or treated him as such, were seeing it, too?

you saw it. you saw it, too. you saw the monster. he’s not crazy.

he was not a liar.

and then, none of it really mattered. not when he snapped back to reality and realized just how scared you were. he couldn’t have that. he couldn’t let that happen. what kind of best friend would he be if he let you hurt like this? you saw them, too, which meant they wouldn't leave you alone like they did most people. they never left suguru alone once they realized he was watching them. so, he decided. he decided that from then on out, suguru would be your protector. because he may be young and he may not fully understand the concept of love, but suguru geto understands that he loves you. he loves you so much that he cannot bear to see you hurting. he loves you enough to decide he will bear it for you, and if he cannot take it all away from you, then he will still be right by your side to bear as much as you will let him.

by the time you are both teenagers, you have both become acutely aware of the things you could each do. magic or perhaps superpowers. you both had your theories, but you couldn’t think of any superhero that had to eat monsters and get sick from the taste of it. you would hold suguru’s hair back as the contents of his last meal threatened to come back up after he had to eat one of those things. suguru would hold you up as your vision blurred and darkened, as your body grew tired from the strange abilities you had. but you did these things to protect one another.

to take care of one another.

[toasty-self-shipping]

Giving your s/i some lore can end up in two ways it either go like this “haha silly self insert is getting a backstory:3” or this

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[dandp]

Tumblr said what if we curated the most bizarre assortment of phannie posts that don't fit one theme and require so much context to understand that we will not be providing. and then call it a day.

[scribefindegil]

"Only in the darkest depths of fear can true courage shine" is obviously about Mob but I keep thinking about it in reference to Dimple's actions in Mogami arc. He was so scared! He started shaking like a leaf as soon as he recognized Mogami and he begged Mob & Reigen to leave, but he STILL faced Mogami head-on in Mob's body as a distraction and voluntarily entered Mogami's mindscape to get Mob out! The trust conversation hits even harder when you remember that this isn't an abstract danger they're up against; it's an entity that Dimple has very specific trauma about!

[snailsaresnails]

Hello I’m insane

Closer up

Oh also bonus <3 @yourlocalangelkin

(Rambling and context in tags :3)

[boku-no-anime-phase]

Some evil FMA AUs etc that I think are fun

Riza Hawkeye creating a squad of flame alchemists loyal to her and using them for her own (or Mustang's) purposes

Mustang's body used as a host for Greed instead of Ling's

Rose joins the military to try to watch over Ed, a la Hawkeye to Mustang

Sibling homunculi defect from Father together with Greed (bonus: to Ed's chagrin, they view him and Al as something like uncles); now they're all on the run from their dads

Ling not feeling easy in his own mind after Greed leaves - it's too quiet in there

Scar gets his brother's reconstruction arm instead

Winry gets adopted & trained by Hawkeye

Re-embodied Al donates his armor to a cat rescue so it can always hold cats hehe

Olivier as the boys' parent figure instead of Izumi

Found family for the boys comprised of Mustang, Hawkeye, the Mustang Gang, and Mustang's family (his "sisters" and Madam Christmas)

Mustang dies instead of Hughes, and Hughes carries on his work to honor his memory, despite not being as ambitious as Mustang was

The boys as Ishvallans