#Honestly its just a great outlet

[matt-erialgirl]

Consider this

I find time to write again soon 👀

[star-sim]

"nooo! she's taken!" ☆ enha maknaes

☆ non-idol! bf! enhypen maknaes x celebrity! fem! reader ☆ summary: you are a very well-loved celebrity, and your relationship is finally revealed to the public. ☆ genre: fluff, another poor attempt at humor, it's very silly ☆ warning(s)? none! lmk if you'd like to see this w the hyungs! hyung ver.

sunoo ☆

so youre a famous actress

you have your official instagram account

and then your personal one, that you only allow family and personal friends to follow

sunoo, your bf, also has an account on instagram

since most of you friends and family know him, it's not uncommon for him to take your phone and post on your personal account

one of those "hai guys i stole her phone 🤭"

all in good fun

so one night, you and sunoo and cuddling

it was one of those vibey nights

the lights were dim, candles lighting up the room with their orangey hue, light music playing in the background

laying on you and sunoo's shared bed, his face buried into the crook of his neck while you run your fingers through his hair

its honestly so soft and warm and comfy :]

the two of you aren't really talking to each other, just basking in each other's presence

and eventually you begin to doze off

at first sunoo was like "baaaaabee!! why did you stop touching my hair"

but then he realized you were asleep

so after givng your cheek a soft peck, and tucking you into the soft blankets

sunoo physically goes >:]

he takes your phone and decides that he's going to spam your personal account

because tbh he does this a lot and it's funny for everyone involved

sunoo takes very silly pictures of you and him

pictures of you sleeping, ones at very silly angles (ik he takes the most FOUL 0.5s)

on your story he posts them with also very ridiculous captions

theres one of you sleeping with the caption "mimimumuimuiu"

another fisheye lens one of sunoo with the caption "hai i stole [name]'s phone 😈"

but he also posts some sweet ones

like one where you're dozing off in his arms w the caption "she's so cute"

sunoo gets mushy at some point

like his captions go from funny to "im so happy that i get to call myself [name]'s boyfriend, i feel so lucky to be with such a beautiful and talented woman"

that's great!

really!

that's wonderful!

but.

there's just one problem

one

teeeeeeensy

weeeeeeeeeensy

problem

he was using the wrong account.

he was posting all this on your official, business, 7.8 million follower, instagram account.

and not your personal account.

!!!!!

😱😱😱

he doesn't notice until 20 minutes later his phone blows up with articles and text messages

and when he notices

sunoos like OH SHIT

he shakes you awake

and poor boy is so apologetic :(

"baby i'm so sorry i didn't mean to out our relationship like that i should have been more careful-"

but when he explains it to you

you kinda just laugh

and go back to sleep

HELP

sunoo deletes the stories but people already screenshotted them

yeah... so this blows up

i feel like they would become memes

like the ones of you sleeping become reaction memes or even worse part of those tiktok meme slides LMAOAOAO

a lot of people think it's adorable

and you do too

but sunoo is so embarrassed

poor boy

he was writing out entire think pieces on your instagram story oml

OH MY GOD I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING TERRIBLE

there's definitely articles that come out about this

and yk how on articles theres a title page with images

one of the images is of you ofc

all these news outlets use your super professional HD MODEL pictures of you

like ones where youre a goddamn SMOKE SHOW, the "who is she?" ones, the ZOOWEE MAMA ones...

and then they use one of the foul images that sunoo takes of himself that are like 3 pixels

like the 0.5 lens ones 😭

nevertheless, there is a happy ending

everyone thinks its so sweet

including you

and when people bring it up on interviews you're able to just laugh about it

<3

jungwon ☆

we joke abt jay and sunghoon and sunoo having mad side eyes

but i think we forget the FATHER of INSANE SIDE EYES

YANG JUNGWON HIMSELF

you're a singer/artist

and you just released a new EP!

on tiktok, you're making promotional videos to promote your new songs

looking like a cutie, popping off, as you always do!

anyways in many of them

you're in front of a glass door

or a mirror

so as youre being an absolute cutie promoting your song, in the background in the reflection you can see jungwon making faces

NOT BECAUSE HE'S MAKING FACES AT YOU

but bc sometimes there's ppl walking by and being judgy

jungwon is giving them mad stink eyes and it's caught in the reflection of your videos

i don't think a lot of ppl notice it until someone points it out

and when they do

theyre like

WHO TF IS THAT 😭

ppl are making tiktoks simply zooming into his face LMAOAOAO

and then a few days later

the paparazzi released pictures of you walking with jungwon, holding hands and on a date

and when ppl see it

theyre like

hmm...

that guy looks a lot like the guy in the reflection...

and then the dots connect

like sunoo, i think jungwon is embarrassed

everytime someone brings it up jungwon hides his face in your neck

and he wears that cute little bashful grin

but honestly it's cute

so just hug him and kiss his lil cheeks and he'll be okay

it kinda becomes viral on tiktok

so you make a few video stitches about it

you stitched the og video that pointed out jungwon's face in the background

your stitch was just a video of jungwon being embarrassed and freaking out

like bro was on the floor, hands in his hair

jungwon was in the trenches sorry 😭

there's another stitch where jungwon explains himself

he's dressed in a suit and tie and speaking so formally like he was making an apology video or something

"i would like to address a recent clip of me making inappropriate facial expressions-"

"babe you don't need to be so formal, it's a tiktok"

"you shant say that, i must do this for this is my will"

BRO WAS FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE ☠️☠️☠️

#freejungwon

riki ☆

youre an actress that's very popular

except some ppl hate you bc they think hating popular people makes them interesting *eye roll*

safe to say.... riki is your NUMBER ONE DEFENDER

like he is the ring leader to all of those [name] stan twt group chats

he's the one leading those discord raids on your hate groups OH MY GOD 😭

he has multiple accounts and he fights every person that dares tarnish your name

twitter is his battlefield and the keyboard is his sword

anyways one day riki is so deep into an internet fight that he GETS DOXXED 😭😭

like it wasn't even graceful

i think he'd make fun of one of your haters

and the hater goes "wanna see something funny? :)"

and BOOM

ADDRESS

IP ADDRESS

FULL NAME

PERSONAL EMAIL

PHONE NUMBER

dont actually dox people guys its not funny

when riki gets doxxed they get his full name right

and the hater, his assailent, and their little posse start searching his name on social media to further dox him

and BOOM #2

THEY FIND HIS INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

now riki isn't stupid

so his ig acc is private

however.....

the profile picture of his acc is a selfie of you and him kissing

they also did research on him and found out that you and him went to the same high school...

in fact they found miscellaneous pictures posted online of you and him a few years back... holding hands n shit....

OH

SHIT

this goes viral over night

like

its so bad that even news headlines are covering it

"TWITTER USER @[NAME]LUVER1209, HOT ACTRESS [NAME]'S MOST NOTORIOUS INTERNET DEFENDER, IS REVEALED TO BE HER BOYFRIEND 😱😱😱"

i feel like the public's reaction to this would be really light-hearted

like i think mst ppl would be cheering riki on

"he's so real"

"oh my god i think i was mutuals with @[name]luver1209"

"this is what true love looks like"

you have super loyal fans and riki's mutuals so they support you too

except i do think theyd be in shambles, but in good fun

"i just found out [name] has a bf im going to flush myself down a toilet"

"i can't believe she chose @[name]luver1209 when his fancams are so shit... THAT SHOULD BE ME!!!'

"i've been here waiting in line for three years and this random @[name]luver1209 swoops in and takes my woman..."

riki's stan account gains a lot of followers

and so with your permission

he posts a selfie of you and him

probably with a cheeky caption like "KISS MY ASS!!!!"

i feel like people go back and watch old talk show interviews and stuff

and if you zoom in

you'll see riki in the front rows cheering the loudest 😭

bro is everywhere

in the future there's def a moment where like

you're at a live talk show

and the host asks you about the fiasco

and you can literally just point to him in the audience like

"yeah my boyfriend's right there-- hi baby!"

and riki from the audience, behind his phone that he's using to record you like its a fancam, is like "hi baby!" back

i dont think the media even calls him riki, he's stuck as @[name]luver1209 forever

not that he minds

😭😭😭

hyung ver.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side B

Propaganda below ⬇️

Matt

Matt's faith in the show is really important and well explored; one of the first scenes of the show is Matt going to confession (or, well, talking to his priest since he's not really confessing at that point). Matt struggles a lot with what he's supposed to do; everyone's telling him to kill the villain and he kinda wants to, but he literally says: "I know my soul is damned if I take his life". He struggles with his faith and goes with his doubts to his priest, and it's beautiful—also when he finally gets a costume for his vigilanteing he chooses to dress as the devil, lol. (His priest tells him that nothing makes people run to Church faster than the feeling of having the devil on their heels.)

a lot of the show is about how he justifies his vigilante actions with his faith, and whether he's doing the right thing in trying to help people or just using it as an outlet for his anger. the literal first scene of the show has him in a confession booth talking to his priest (who is a really interesting character too). this is not the scene I was talking about but it's such an excellent scene with matt talking to his priest: https://youtu.be/XHZ3NbEIDdw

canonically catholic but dresses like a demon to be quirky

honestly i dont wanna type too much but i feel that matt is a great example of someone who battles with his faith because he rarely loses his faith but rather fights with why he was made the way he was and put through what he was. He believes himself to have the devil inside him but believes that God put him there

ok in the comics barring the most current run matt has Mostly been a non-practicing Catholic that very rarely actually does any catholic Activities but ends up falling back into the Mindset and very occasionally dramatically taking confession (ex. in that one issue where he takes confession, basically tells the father that he is uniquely terrible and is thinking about violently murdering someone and when the father says "you can be forgiven" hes like "AUGFH-- NO!!!!!!!!!!" and runs out) when he's gone through some shit. and i love that its so relatable

hello its me cct organizer. i have to come clean, i made this tournament because i need matt to win something. i dont think hell win the sadboy and he lost the ginger tournament and >:( hes my favoritest guy ever. Also @ who said he has religious trauma is wrong and i will fight u about it (nicely) on my main @usaigi

This guy so catholic he spends an ungodly amount of time just chilling in the church. And goes there whenever there is a moral conundrum about killing people being Bad even though it would solve a lot of problems and stop said people from killing other people. This happens every other episode. Matt is the Catholic Guilt Guy. There's actually a lot of catholic stuff in the show as a whole. Just a compilation would be like three whole episodes long.

Hes great hes catholic enough to not outrught murder people but not catholic enough to not fuck before marriage hes a bisexual disaster at all times hes besties with a priest might i add hes great hes my special little guy

his catholicism is a huge piece of his characterisation he was raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage, the first scene we ever see him (as an adult and not a flashback) is him going to confession, he is good friend with his priest and has regular debates with him, etc also in s3 he has a huge crisis of faith after he lost A Lot where he stops believing for a while and it's linked to his identity crisis where he actually wants to kill another person (a hard line he previously chose never to cross) and wants to be only daredevil and not matt murdock, when he is both and needs both to exist also when he was a kid his grandmother used to say "watch out for the murdock boys, they've got the devil in them" and it created a surprising lot of his issues

So he's both catholic in the comics and the show but he's More Catholic in the show. Like, raised in a catholic orphanage by nuns (ONE OF WHICH IS HIS *MOTHER*), second scene in the show has him in a confession box kind. Matt Murdock goes out and gets the shit beaten out of him nightly and also beats the shit out of other people and purposefully leaned into devil iconography as his theme. When his nurse friend says, he takes a lot of punishment without one complaint he says "That part's the Catholicism." It is a Core Aspect of his character (at least in the show). He makes me insane. Also the same chemicals that blinded him created the teenage mutant ninja turtles and everyone should know that.

They went to confession to a priest who they had saved as their costumed counterpart and the guy recognized them by the voice, proving that it's possible and everyone else is just dumb

he takes "i wanna fight god" to new and incredibly violent levels, while also being a sweetheart and a goofball

Actually strictly WILL NOT kill criminals. Goes wayyy out of his way to avoid it. Fights with the Punisher about it. Goes to confession booth after nightly vigilante excursions. Feels so much guilt. "How have you been holding up?" "Like a good Caltholic boy" "that bad huh" - actual conversation with his priest

So Daredevil struggles with his mission as a crime fighter because killing criminals goes against his faith. He makes it a point to not kill criminals, believing that even bad people deserve a second chance. This philosophy puts him at odds against The Punisher, who is a relentless killer. As a Catholic myself, while I love the concept of a morally conflicted superhero, I think the worldbuilding around Daredevil is lacking. If he struggles with violence and killing, why doesn't he pray to warrior saints like Saint Michael, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (a former knight), or Saint Joan of Arc? Why isn't there a community of other Catholics he can turn to for guidance, considering New York City has a sizeable population of Catholics? And why are the churches he goes to always empty? Doesn't he know that the Catholic Church supports the just war theory? I think that would have made his burden more bearable.

He goes to church and confesses to punching people and says "imma do it again can i apologize in advance" and the father dude says "no you're meant to stop now" and Matt says "no" and they do this everyday. I'm not remembering it properly but this is a canon interaction i swear

HELLO HI YES I LOVE HIM AND WILL INFOR DUMP ok so. he is a vigalantty and he got named daredevil and he is an orphan and after the age of 12 was raised in an orphanage at a Catholic church and his therapist is his priest via confession abd. also his mother is a nun he has a whole mental breakdown over god and called Job a pussy because he liked god until he got better and liked god again he said "I'm dearedrvil and not even god can stop that now" and he's so cool

matt is a freakish little babygirl who was raised by nuns and definitely has religious trauma. i hate him so much (affectionately)

he’s literally fucking insane about it i don’t know what to say here. he thinks he’s chosen by god to go on some sort of holy quest to save hell’s kitchen. joan of arc ass.

i already know hes in by default j just wanted to give him a personal shout out i love this angsty catholic dweeb

how practicing he is depends on the run, but in my favorite he is quite literally confessing to a member of the last extant order millitant who happens to be a priest at a church in hells kitchen.

i love him for having the funniest version of a trope i usually hate (person gets into confession booth and asks forgiveness not for what they've done, but for what they're about to do). usually this trope just looks silly to me bc like. the priest would just say "i can't do that" and you would have to either awkwardly explain yourself or just Leave. it's funny when matt does it because fr. lantom is probably like "what are you gonna do???" and matt's like "lol. lmao. 😊 hehehe." anyway we love this angry catholic man who dresses up like the devil to beat people up in hell's kitchen

Harrowhark

I'm pretty sure you've already got plenty of submissions for her so I'll just say she was raised in what is basically a cult (technically a nunnery but let's be real) dedicated to keeping the body of the thing that will kill God behind the rock. One of their prayers is actually "I pray the rock is never rolled away". Harrow is extremely devout as penance for her earlier heretical actions in the tomb as a child (spoiler!) so the Catholic guilt really comes through

imagine being a catholic nun and you meet god, but it turns out he’s a twitch streamer from new zealand who became god because everything got a little bit out of hand. and just before you met him you gave yourself a diy grief-fuelled lobotomy with the help of your best frenemy. imagine how insane you’d be. now multiply that insanity by nine. that’s the fictional love of my life right there.

she meets god. she’s not inspired

she’s number one practitioner of space Catholicism. The locked tomb is chock full of Christian (catholic) imagery themes metaphors etc. just look at her she’s got a bone rosary

They're Catholicism with extra bones. Everyone is a nun. They have what is basically a rosary made from knuckle bones. They technically worship the same God as everyone else, but they're waaaay more focused on The Body in the Tomb (Mary) and we get a moment where we find out that while everyone else prays the equivilent of The Lords Prayer, they're doing the equivilent of Hail Mary. And they paint their faces with skulls.

She thinks leaving dry bread in a drawer is taking care of someone. She's in love with a 10,000 year old corpse (the same one they worship). She spent ALL NIGHT digging with her bare hands to make sure a field had bones every 5 feet so she could fight her girlfriend - I mean, greatest enemy. Spoiler territory: She's been puppeting her parents corpses since she was 8 years old. Instead of grieving her dead girlfriend, she gives herself a lobotomy. She makes soup with bone in it so she can use the bone IN THEIR STOMACH to try and kill them.

The author is/was Catholic and the entire series had heavy Catholic overtones. https://www.tor.com/2020/08/19/gideon-the-ninth-young-pope-and-the-new-pope-are-building-a-queer-catholic-speculative-fiction-canon/ A good breakdown of how it's Catholic

[myfandomrealitea]

Honestly I'm getting really tired of how people treat celebrities.

People act like they're circus animals that exist solely to dance for their entertainment, and that being a celebrity means they don't deserve to have any boundaries or dignity or privacy.

Like I always see posts going "Oh boo hoo people are being mean to the poor celebrity, maybe they can wipe away their tears with their money while the rest of us starve :(" and it's like what the fuck are you talking about.

Them being famous and having a lot of money (although a lot of celebrities aren't actually super rich, which no one ever wants to acknowlege) doesn't give people the right to treat them the way they do.

Being rich means nothing if people are stalking you and breaking into your house and sending you unhinged love letters.

Being rich means nothing if people are taking pictures of your fucking children so they can sell the pictures to magazines.

Being rich means nothing if people are following you every time you're in public (or even in private!) so they can try and take a picture of you doing something embarassing or scandalous.

I'm honestly surprised there aren't more cases of celebrities having mental breakdowns and losing their shit due to the amount of harassment, stalking, and invasion of privacy they face.

Leave these goddamn people alone for fuck's sake.

I always see people saying:

"Its what you sign up for when you become famous."

And I just. No. So much no. No?? Non??? Nada.

Like yes when you're famous a certain amount of your privacy erodes because you become a public figure. Its in the name. But the way celebrities are literally treated like nothing more than creatures that exist for us to consume and observe and dictate and judge is fucking insane. We learned nothing from Britney Spears, apparently.

Celebrities have become such a disconnected reality from 'general living' that we are so fucking out of touch with the fact that they're literally just human beings. Eminem made a song about it and people just laughed it off as a great musical plotline and 'haha funny Stan lets turn it into fandom culture slang.' One Direction had to hide in unmarked trade vans and book out entire airports (which then got hacked) just to try to travel without getting mobbed. Toby Maguire got branded as 'rude and aggressive' for yelling at paparazzi who literally surrounded his car and blocked him from leaving a car park so they could take photos of him.

Celebrities should not have to take out contracts and protection orders and press gags just so they can raise their children in peace or take them on a fucking walk. Celebrities should not have to cover tattoos honoring their dead mother because some clown who thinks it'll turn into a Y/N moments replicates it without any care for its actual meaning. Celebrity nudes and sex tapes get hacked and leaked and the celebrity is simultaneously blamed for it and sexualised to absolute hell for it.

"Sources" are constantly selling-literally selling- private information about people and their lives and families and its just?? Considered so fucking normal?? Imagine having a miscarriage and finding out three days later that your co-worker sold that information to a news outlet and its now front-page news globally?

Imagine organising a secret, small wedding so you can have that special day with the person you love without it being ruined and you find out the fucking priest told the Daily Mail it was happening so your special day consists of hoards of photographers yelling at you while you try to speak your vows?

Honestly I believe we do need stricter regulations and laws regarding this kind of thing. I firmly believe in the freedom of photography in public spaces but I also firmly believe that should absolutely not cover paparazzi literally stalking people, mobbing them, blocking them in alleyways and parking lots, using telescopic lenses to take photographs inside their houses, ect. It simply shouldn't.

People need to start imagining themselves and their family members in these types of situations and recognise that its fucking inhumane.

[bullet-prooflove]

If you’re still open to writing for Douglas Hamilton:

“You lean in closer and my heart starts to pound”

Tagging: @kmc1989 @lucymalfoy18 @ashrionest @mimi-8793 @glamourous-eloquence

Companion piece to:

Mississippi Meanders - Douglas doesn't expect to meet the love of his life.

Your first date takes place surrounded by a myriad of art supplies. Douglas is standing amidst the mess with his sleeves rolled up and his hands on his hips as he surveys the task at hand.

These, you think, are the moments his PR person should be documenting. The ones where he’s genuinely immersed in the community instead off the staged bullshit she puts together.

It’s been a couple of days since the two of you ran into each other during another charity event. You’d given your number to Douglas last month and not heard a thing from him, you didn’t understand why.

“Why didn’t you call?” You’d asked him when you’d found yourself standing beside him at the bar.

“Because you were too good to be true.” He’d told you frankly.

Its in that moment you gain an insight into the Mayor that you’ve never really considered. Douglas, he comes from a world where everyone is vying for his attention, his favour. Every single one of them takes from him, but they never give. You can’t imagine what that must do to a person’s psyche.

“I could list some faults if you’d like.” You’d suggested as you’d taken a sip from your drink. “Take a step down off that pedestal you’ve put me on.”

He’d laughed then, not that wry chuckle he usually does to appease a constituent but a real one, one that comes from somewhere deep down in his chest. He relaxes after that, you can see the pressure of his position slip away and for a moment he’s just Douglas, the man, not the Mayor.

It’s the appearance of Martha, his PR person that changes things again. She appears by his side, taking his arm, drawing him away and he sighs before he casts you a longing look.

You don’t expect to see him again after that, his mind seemed made up when it came to the nature of your relationship and there’s no point chasing someone who doesn’t want to be caught.  

When he turns up at the museum the next day you’re surprised. You’re setting up for a kids art program you’ve been running the last few weeks, clad in jeans and an old t-shirt that declares your love for Frida Kahlo instead of your usual power dress and high heels.

“I thought we could have lunch together.” He declares, leaving his entourage at the door and you gesture to the space around you regretfully.

“What if I helped you?” He’d asked you, already stripping out of his jacket. “We can eat after?”

“I’d like that.” You tell him before you get to work.

It’s a quicker and easier task with the two of you working on it. You finish up with thirty minutes to spare and find yourself sitting on the sensory blanket you’ve laid on the floor eating sushi with the Mayor.

“What changed your mind about me?” You ask him, setting the empty tray aside and popping the complimentary mint in your mouth.

“I made a list of your faults.” He teases you as he sets his own meal aside. “Honestly though it was the fact you say what’s on your mind. I never have to second guess what you’re thinking, or look for the barb in the nicety. You’re upfront and I like that, it’s rare in my world.”

“It’s rare in my world too, there’s a lot of subtext in the art world.” You tell him as you organise the litter into a neat pile. “It’s exhausting.”

“It is.” He agrees, his elbows coming to rest upon his knees as he studies the mobile above him. It’s one the kids have made out of coloured tissue paper, glue and glittery string. “The reason I got into politics was because of programs like this, my home life wasn’t exactly stable growing up and art was great outlet for me to vent some of the stress I was feeling. It was something I could lose myself in when…”

He stops himself then because he doesn’t do this. He doesn’t talk about the past, about the fact his father, a well-respected police man used to beat the hell out of him and his mother.

“…When you didn’t have a safe space.” You finish and he inclines his head, neither confirming or denying your summation. “I get that, art for me was…”

It’s at that second that the clack of high heels on tile interrupts you because Martha the PR Rep is back, already moving him on to his next appointment. He sighs remorsefully as he raises to his feet, helping you to your own.

“Don’t let yourself lose that safe space.” You tell him as you raise up on tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “No matter how busy you get.”

It’s later that evening he calls you, you’re just closing up the museum, when your phone rings with an unknown number.

“Hello?” You say as you cradle the phone against your shoulder whilst attempting to twist your keys in the lock.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night.” He requests and you can hear the vulnerability in his tone. “Maybe we can talk about safe spaces some more.”

Love Douglas? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[jamiesfootball]

On the one hand Roy breaking up with Keeley was deeply rooted in his own insecurities and it’s heartbreaking because they both clearly still love each other.

On the other hand, while it’s easy lambast him for being stupid about it and not staying together to work it out, he may have accidentally done a very good thing for himself.

We saw in season two how Roy tends to get a bit clingy in a relationship. Some of that is probably just who he is - a guy who feels things very very very strongly and wants all the quality time with people he loves - but I suspect that some of it is also an outlet for the fact that Roy doesn’t easily make strong, honest emotional connections.

He gives people PARTS of himself. He gives the yoga ladies a bit of his silliness, but not the passionate core of himself that loves football more than anything. He gives the coaching team… more than he used to, but he holds back from being a Diamond Dog. He clearly loves the lads on his team, but they’re not allowed to comfort him about his break up. That’s a step too far.

Outside of his family, Keeley really was like the only person he let inside. And it’s easy to point at Roy’s sense of self worth as the reason for the break up, but on a deeper level I think part of him also felt devastated by the possibility that maybe Keeley didn’t feel as strongly. She didn’t need him the way he needed her, didn’t want to be attached to him the same way. She was fine on her own. Preferred it sometimes.

She loved him. He knows that. But Roy is a man in progress, and god only knows how low his reservoir of being loved was before the series. In some ways, Roy was a starving man when it came to Keeley, and honestly good on him if he realized that wasn’t the healthiest thing to bring into a relationship.

While he might have gone about it in a messy way, in a way that didn’t use enough words because he didn’t know how to make the words mean exactly, I think Roy asked for what he needed. (And Keeley might’ve hit the nail on the head when she called it a ‘break’ instead of a ‘break up’, but Roy is not a man of half measures. If they’re not together then it’s a break up. He’s stringing no one on here.)

Roy is emotionally a fucking mess post break up, but we do see signs now that this is a Roy Kent who is becoming comfortable with his life. He’s warmer with the boys, he’s joking with the coaches, he’s having a great old time during practice and personal training. He’s even made Jamie Tartt into a friend- dare I say, a close friend.

These are the support structures he needed in season two but wouldn’t let himself have. Now that he’s forcefully put himself out to pasture, he’s in a position where he has to let them in or it’s going to get very cold out there. Of course like a sheepdog he has found himself surrounded in cozy things.

This is a Roy who’s gonna be more secure in a relationship. Boy really just needed some time to work on himself. Its the good idea hiding behind the facade of a bad one. He’s gonna be just fine.

[brucebocchi]

Ranking every new anime I watched in 2023, Pt. 3: #10-6

hey, i just started a ko-fi for my writing and possible other creative outlets. this post will also be available there, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i'm currently between jobs. the tumblr version of part 1 can be found here and part 2 here.

I didn't mean to drag this out quite so much, but I ended up writing a TON for the top 10, so for the sake of everyone's attention spans (and so I can buy some time to finish my top two) I broke it up into two more posts.

​ALSO! I've embedded a link to each show's OP in the title of each entry. I wanted to give more of a visual element to each show outside of the header images, plus there have been some incredible OPs this year. I've gone back and edited them into the prior posts as well.

10. Trigun Stampede

It’s funny, I had fond memories of watching Trigun on Adult Swim in my adolescence, to the point where I used to count it among my all-time favorite anime for a while, but I didn't realize until this year that I hadn't actually sat down and watched it from beginning to end. It’s honestly a very uneven watch, and it’s clearly split into two parts: The first, a dieselpunk western revolving around a mysterious goofball with a big-ass gun and a bounty on his head, and the second a slightly more somber revenge quest as he is forced to survive his way past a rogues gallery while vowing not to take any lives. Still, it was a hit among western anime fans for a reason, and it was formative to me even back when I thought anime was kinda cringe.

Trigun Stampede is far from a faithful reinterpretation of Yasuhiro Nightow’s manga nor of the original Madhouse production. Meryl Stryfe is no longer a jaded veteran insurance adjuster but a much younger muckraking journalist. She’s no longer tailed by the gentle giantess Milly Thompson, but rather following her senpai, the gruff, bleary-eyed Roberto De Niro (the names in Trigun have always rocked). Nicholas D. Wolfwood isn’t an affable priest with a dark past; he’s all dark past now. And Vash the Stampede, now rocking a fuckboy undercut, is less of a mercurial wisecracker with a soft side and more of a reluctant gunman freaking it in a sensitive style. 

Stampede wastes no time differentiating itself from any previous version of Trigun. Vash’s history is no longer a mystery waiting to be uncovered; it’s a driving factor of the plot as his brother Knives seeks revenge on humankind for their use and exploitation of “plants,” an alien race to which the two seem to be connected, as an energy source. This was always an element of the original anime that I felt went unexplored, so it was fascinating to see Stampede dive right in. It’s a great introduction to the story for people who haven’t seen the original, and full of unexpected turns for existing fans. It’s still built on the bones of Trigun as we know it, but it is very much its own thing. 

People made a lot of hay about Vash’s new appearance, but I think it works. The huge pleather trench coat, spiky flat-top, and tiny glasses remain an iconic 90s design, but I believe the 90s is where it belongs. This take on Vash is just as capable but much more self-effacing, tortured, and averse to violence. This is a younger Vash, and it’s clear that his history with Knives is a much fresher wound, rather than the dull, nagging ache in the original. This is a gentler (but no less talented) Vash, so I think the softboy look suits him this time around.

I also spent most of the season quietly insisting to myself that the original version of Meryl is much better (and cuter) than the Stampede variant, and I still stand by that, but the updated version definitely grew on me. I mean, just look at that hat. But it’s clear from the jump that Stampede’s first season is very early in this version of the Trigun story (you may notice that the bounty on Vash’s head is much, much less than the famous 60 billion double-dollars), and Meryl has some growing to do (and presumably a whole lot of professional frustration) before she becomes something like the one we knew and loved around the turn of the 21st Century.

I’m still yet to watch Beastars, but it’s immediately apparent why Studio Orange was entrusted with the Trigun IP. This show looks incredible. This is some of the best CG animation I’ve ever seen outside of a Pixar or Spider-Verse movie. Characters are amazingly expressive and oscillate between naturalistic, weighty movement and cartoony flailing. Action scenes are inventive and dynamic and stand up to even the wildest sakuga. And yet, it still looks like an anime. It still retains the classic 24fps look and even occasionally trades in the CGI for hand-drawn animation for effect. We are long past the botched Berserk revival: This is what CGI anime should look like.

It’s plainly obvious that Trigun has always carried influences from landmark western media like Mad Max and Dune (not to mention Fist of the North Star, but that one always wore its Mad Max influence on its sleeve), so it’s been an unexpected delight to see those influences take a new shape now that both franchises have seen major updates since the last iteration of Trigun went off the air. For all of the alien technology and technicolor glowing lights, Trigun takes place entirely in a desert setting, and it’s impossible to see these chase scenes and not immediately think of Fury Road, or halfway expect to see Villanueve’s take on the Fremen popping out of the dust clouds. 

Stampede is a very welcome entry to a franchise long believed to be well and truly over, and the more eyeballs on Trigun, the better. It’s evident by the end of this season that this take on the story is only just beginning, and it has already taken unexpected departures from the story as we already knew it. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here, but that’s mostly because we have confirmation that Milly will be in the next season. It can’t get here quickly enough.

9. Insomniacs After School

I watched and read a frankly absurd amount of romance-centric anime and manga this year, especially of the slice-of-life variety, to the point where even by the early summer I thought I'd had my fill. I'm overjoyed to say that Insomniacs After School proved me dead wrong.

What a treat this was. It's a simple enough premise: A boy with insomnia is sent on an errand to his high school’s abandoned observatory, where he finds a classmate sleeping because she suffers from insomnia as well. They quickly find out that the observatory is a perfectly quiet environment for the both of them, and that they actually get restful sleep around one another. In order to get away with making use of the area, they resurrect the school’s astronomy club and find a genuine love for astrophotography and, you guessed it, one another.

You couldn’t have picked a more apt studio to adapt this work than Liden Films. Call of the Night made a splash last year for its saturated, vibey nightscapes, and Insomniacs’ gorgeous astral visuals carry that mantle. The nighttime backdrops of the quiet suburbs, wide-open beaches, and lush countryside are nothing short of stunning, and Isaki’s adolescent wonder at the world’s hidden beauties reminded me, and I do not say this lightly, of something Miyazaki would’ve animated.

On a couple of occasions this year, I’ve been able to step back from an anime, take a breath, and simply say “That was beautiful.” Insomniacs gave me one such occasion. Even putting the visuals aside, the story itself is lovely and would have made this the feel-good anime of the year, if not for the next entry on this ranking. I would have more to say, but Insomniacs After School speaks for itself. Give it a shot.

8. Skip and Loafer

There are so many standalone adjectives I could use to describe this one, and most of them are ones that would normally make me want to impulsively run the other way like “comfy,” “feel-good,” “wholesome,” what have you, but I think the most comprehensively I can boil it down to a single word is “lovely.” Everything about it just gives you the warm fuzzies, and almost makes me think that the “I want more stories with no conflict” dorks might actually be onto something.

It’s a simple one: Mitsumi, a dorky teenage go-getter with her entire life planned out, moves to Tokyo from her no-horse beach town to attend one of the country’s best prep schools, but much like everyone who played the first two hours of Persona 5, she quickly gets lost in Shibuya’s subway station on the first day of school. She runs into Sousuke Shima, a laid-back boy from the same school who’s also running late, because that’s, like, what he does, and manages to wrangle him into running to school with her.

Mitsumi quickly draws attention from her classmates, not only from delivering a speech as the incoming class representative (and subsequently barfing all over her teacher), but because she inadvertently made fast friends with the hottest, most popular first-year in the school. This attracts the attention of social climbers and jealous hangers-on, but Mitsumi hardly notices. She’s used to knowing everyone in her school back home, so she wastes no time reaching out and seeing what’s up with anyone who’ll give her the time of day.

A lot of Skip and Loafer revolves around the roles for which we think we’re destined in a controlled social environment like high school, and how easily the preconceptions you have of other people can be shattered if you just get to, like, talk to them for 20 seconds. Mitsumi’s friend group quickly fills itself out with people who wouldn’t give each other so much as a passing glance at first, but come together so naturally that you almost can’t believe they weren’t friends already.

Shima, for his part, also struggles with those preconceptions; for as laid-back as he seems on the surface, he’s a habitual people pleaser and is constantly playing a role. He’s so caught up in the performance that he doesn’t quite know what’s going on half the time or how he really feels about most things. Mitsumi is so naturally magnetic, though, that he does seem to genuinely enjoy his time with her, and vice versa. You can see where this is headed, if the gorgeously-animated dances they do together in the OP weren’t enough of a tell.

Everything about Skip and Loafer is just downright pleasant. Character models are simple and sketchy, the color palette is awash in pastels and neutral tones, and the soundtrack is peppy and whimsical. It’s a warm hug of a series, and at no point does it feel cloying or manipulative. High school slice-of-life is pretty bloated as a genre, and I watched a ton of those this year, but there’s just something so charming and magnetic about Skip and Loafer that instills in me a sort of false nostalgia for the ideal high school experience I never had.

Also: Nao-chan. Exceptional trans representation. We do not get enough of that in anime and she is a breath of fresh fucking air. I would die for her.

7. The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You

And now for something much less wholesome.

I really don’t seek out harem anime. Tenchi Muyo was formative to me as a tween, and a rewatch last year ended up being a major catalyst in getting me back into anime, but despite it being widely considered the second-ever harem anime, it hasn’t left much of a legacy in the ones that followed. Harem anime from the 00s onward has largely been formulaic wish-fulfillment slop that runs itself in circles as a perpetual money-making machine rather than developing any sort of plot (see: Hina, Love and Girlfriend, Rent-a-). I know I covered Girlfriend Girlfriend earlier, and while that’s nothing like Tenchi either, it does scratch an ever-present itch for stupid, madcap, relentless anime bullshit.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, [...] Really Love You, meanwhile, sees that itch and takes a fucking chainsaw to it. To say everything about it is over-the-top would be an understatement: The top is Hyakkano’s floor. This show gives you everything you could ever want in a harem comedy, but to the extreme: It is your dad making you smoke the whole carton. It is Hell’s donut machine, and you are Homer Simpson. Satire is often at its best when it pushes the boundaries of absurdity, and 100 Girlfriends revels in that push like a horny bulldozer. This is not genre subversion, it’s genre explosion.

The headcount isn’t the only wildly outsized element of this series; every single member of the titular harem, each a tick on the checklist of every -dere archetype you can imagine, pushes the slider of each of their character tropes so far to the right it’s breaking the track. The deredere is a ball of deranged horniness, the tsundere betrays her intentions so compulsively that she’s functionally incapable of lying, and the kuudere is so robotically devoted to pure efficiency that it’s salient to mention that her name is literally pronounced “Nano A.I.” If you can think of an anime girl archetype, she is in this (or will be in future seasons), and she is the apotheosis.

And yet, this show still bothers to make each one of them an actual character. Harem anime has such a low bar to clear on that front, yet most entries in the genre still bang their dicks against it. Hyakkano's titular girlfriends, at least the ones introduced in the first season, are actual characters with actual backgrounds, actual motivations, actual growth, and actual reasons to like the protagonist beside the premise. They’re all founded on stock anime tropes, to be sure, but the original manga’s author actually put in the work to give them, you know, personalities. And above almost all else, they actually like each other too! This isn’t exactly a full-on polycule (though two of the girls are prone to making out with each other on occasion), but for as deeply weird as this family unit is on paper, they actually come across as a group of people who love and care for each other rather than everyone cattily jockeying for the same position. 

And not for nothing, but Rentaro is easily one of the best harem protagonists I’ve ever seen, and again, this is coming from a Tenchi Muyo fan. I do enjoy Naoya’s over-the-top earnestness in Girlfriend Girlfriend, but Rentaro is the gigachad version. He is exceedingly patient, kind, and understanding of each of these girls’ unique quirks and qualities and quickly grows to learn to manage them in conflict and help them work through their insecurities, and he loves them back in kind and puts in the work to make equal time for each of them. He doesn’t want to “fix” these girls; he sees them for who they are and proactively does everything in his power to accommodate them. He's like if Tadano from Komi Can’t Communicate actually got the harem he deserved. Putting aside the fact that he’s, y’know, 100-timing his girlfriends, he comes across as just a really good partner.

I also want to be clear: For its rampant, fanservice-laden anime bullshit, this show is genuinely hilarious. It’s not some kind of “how did this shit even get made” trainwreck; it is a comedy first and foremost, and the comedy hits exactly as intended. The comic pacing is buckwild, the visual gags are so rampant that they’re almost difficult to keep up with, and the translators, at least in the version I watched, did an outstanding job of localizing the constant wordplay. It’s also so unapologetic in its horniness that you can’t help but admire it a bit; 100 Girlfriends knows exactly what it’s about, and it dares you to say something.

There’s a very good chance this won’t be for you. 100 Girlfriends is constantly pushing the boundaries of good taste, but never in an offensive way and never truly at its characters’ expense. Geoff Thew calls it the “most 'harem' harem anime,” but I'd argue that it’s the most "anime" anime: It is every trope you’ve ever seen in romcom anime cranked up to a thousand and smushed up against your nose. This shit hits like Panera lemonade. It is peak trash. If you have a tolerance for anime bullshit, this show may very well test that, but I still cannot recommend it enough.

6. Heavenly Delusion

Didn’t think I’d be getting into more than one post-apocalyptic anime this year, but I’d seen this one recommended so many times that I felt this list would be incomplete if I didn’t watch it. Don’t ask me about Pluto.

Heavenly Delusion (Hulu lists it under its Japanese title, Tengoku Daimakyo, for some reason) splits its runtime between two different stories: The first, a pair of young travelers making their way across a ruined Japan in search of nebulous goals neither is sure even exist; the second surrounding a group of adolescents in an unnervingly idyllic walled garden in some sort of school setting. The narrative flips between these two sporadically, rarely ever showing its hand in how they are even remotely connected.

On the post-apocalypse side, we follow Maru and his bodyguard-for-hire, Kiruko, as they trek across the country to deliver Maru to someplace called “Heaven,” while at the same time, Kiruko is in search of a pair of men from their youth. They are often beset by bandits, cults, and most crucially, horrifying monsters called “Man-Eaters,” which Maru has the unique ability to kill. On the school side, we see a group of gender-ambiguous kids in an enclosed space, constantly monitored and kept in a very controlled environment. Everything feels… wrong. Nobody seems entirely human. There is a lingering and seemingly taboo curiosity about what lies outside the walls. I hesitate to say any more.

There is phenomenal human drama in here, and sparks so many conversations about transhumanism and human nature, gender, trauma, community, all things I’m not smart enough to really dive into. But to even address these topics here is to give the game away, and Heavenly Delusion is a story better left unspoiled, even if, a full season in, I’m still not 100% sure what’s going on.

This show is gorgeous in ways I’m still struggling to articulate. The character designs, animation, lighting, and cinematography are so immaculate that I repeatedly had to remind myself that I wasn't watching a movie. Heavenly Delusion looks like a grungy Shinkai film: Character models are immaculately realized and fluidly animated, the light and shadow effects are some of the best I’ve ever seen in TV animation, and action sequences are visceral and unpredictable. Maybe all I needed to say is that it was made by much of the same Production IG staff in charge of Psycho-Pass.

I want to say as little about what happens as possible, because the mystery is the main draw of Heavenly Delusion, but I feel the need to warn that there is a very dark and sour turn near the end of the season in the form of some strongly implied sexual violence. It was thematically unnecessary, and once that side of things is resolved, everyone just kinda… moves past it. It doesn’t ruin the show, I still recommend it heartily, but be forewarned. I found it upsetting, but more in the “did this REALLY need to be in there?” sense. The mounting tension and slowly-unfolding existential horror in this series are otherwise expertly woven into the narrative, and this part landed with a wet thud.

This is a much longer story than most of the season would have you believe, and it ends with far more questions than answers. One side of the story leaves off with an open end, and the other with a massive cliffhanger, which left me a little cold but with interest piqued for the next season. For what it is right now, though, Heavenly Delusion is a nearly perfect, endlessly thought-provoking mystery and one of the most gorgeously ugly things I’ve seen this year.

[former-general-geshu-lin]

((love love love your reblog chain with jiyan, what are your thoughts on geshuyan?? cuz im torn and need opinions..))

(Glad to see that someone else is enjoying the interaction, it’s really fun to be a bit of a menace to Jiyan honestly (apologies to the Jiyan mod))

(As for the ship, I do like it, I think it has a lot of depth— Geshu himself has this sort of obsession with dragging Jiyan down with him, saying that they’re “two desperate souls doomed to be forsaken” (quote from Jiyan’s showcase) in Geshu’s mind I think he likes it that way, it may be his personal view of what being a general means, and how war digs its claws into you but he’s definitely got some sort of attachment to Jiyan.)

(Geshu doesn’t want to think that he himself failed in his role, and he takes it out on Jiyan because Jiyan assumed his responsibility and his role as general. The negative part of him overrides the positive part, and is likely haunted by the soldiers that died under his command.)

(In Jiyan’s character showcase and in the cutscene, he asks how Jiyan will respond to the dead’s pleas and cries— Geshu is very emotionally charged in these lines and I think that’s perhaps because he feels an inkling of guilt for how things turned out, and Jiyan is an outlet for that anger at himself.)

(When he was alive, I also think it’s entirely possible that he was fond of Jiyan. In the cutscene at the beginning of the quest Great Warstorm, we see that Geshu valued Jiyan’s opinion as a medic, and acknowledged that he may have even been right about the retroact rain— but that trust in Jiyan’s judgement was overridden by the fact that it was their only chance to launch an attack at the Threnodian, leading Geshu to sacrifice himself.)

(Geshu Lin by no means thought little of Jiyan, he was likely the closest person to him, and I can’t say much for Jiyan, but since the phantom of Geshu haunts him, it isn’t a completely unfounded belief to say that he feels some sort of attachment to the former general too.)

(This turned into a mini study, so my apologies for that. What I mean is that I do like the ship, I think it’s angsty and has a lot of potential… but in terms of the interaction I have with the Jiyan mod, I just like terrorizing him. We’ll see where it goes.)

[goldfades]

important post regarding cc & my blog!!

hello my lovelies!!

i wanted to address something important today regarding my blog. as many of you know, my blog has always been a place where i aim to spread love and kindness within our community. it's a space where i want everyone to feel welcomed and appreciated.

i wanna start by make one thing clear ─ my blog is and will not be for any discourse regarding any player. i do wanna spread awareness and be open-minded and if anything comes to my attention that i think is harmful and/or something i should talk about, i will. my blog is for spreading love/kindness throughout the community and will not be outlet for any of that (after this post) i'm sorry, this is my personal preference because i am an incredibly anxious person and that will make this blog less enjoyable for me

these last couple weeks, i've been seeing a lot of discourse about caitlin clark and i had been an avid supporter of her for a couple years now ─ she is why i began watching basketball and my first instinct was to just ignore it and hope it'll pass. i didn't wanna cause any issues because i'd already created a tight knit community here and didn't want anything to disrupt it.

however, my silence on the matter has unintentionally caused more harm than good. caitlin clark should have spoken about these issues way earlier and she has not. her silence and dismissal has told me a lot about her character and honestly, opened up my eyes.

her recent actions, or lack thereof, regarding certain issues have led me to reconsider my stance. i believe that her silence speaks volumes about her character, and it's something that i wanna discuss openly. this is not about starting a debate or spreading negativity; it's about being true to my values and promoting accountability where it's due.

caitlin's handling of these recent issues has led me to reconsider my stance. her silence and apparent dismissal have been disappointing and have caused me to reevaluate my support. as someone who values honesty, i wanted to speak up. i've realized that sometimes addressing issues is necessary, even if it's uncomfortable or risks upsetting some. its important to me that my blog remains a positive space, but it's equally important not to shy away from discussions that are relevant and impactful.

after this post i will not be writing for caitlin and/or speaking about her not just because of the discourse, just to give me a peace of mind.

thank you so much for taking the time to read, i love you all so much!!!!!!! have a great night/day/afternoon 💘

mwah mwah mwah mwah, with SOOO much love, evangeline 🫶🏼

[feralwetcat]

I haven't been very sappy on main so *throws sad shit at you* (aka me thanking the fable community and cast again, cuz goddammit you guys are so neat and cool)

Fable smp was, and is probably one of my favorite things I've discovered, i clicked on one of heyhays vods one day on a whim and gods im so glad i did, the way Fable has shaped me as a person and helped me improve is honestly crazy, its how i got into doing art, how i improved, how i met most of my friends, its genuinely been an amazing journey.

For me as a person, my home has always been an odd environment, without getting into too much detail my family has lots of trauma circling around, my brother and dad especially, so the way Fable comforted me through bad days, or when my dad would burst out at me or my mum, its genuinely such a crazy thing that these little block guys have helped me through so fucking much, the way they've helped me discover who i am, to feel represented through so many characters, heck even just hyperfixating with others, its amazing

Its helped me become more confident in my own skin, able to accept my body and how fucked up it is, from the rep with disabilities to identities, seeing something like "hey i have that!" Or "i experience that!", even the small pieces, its so fuckin awesome to see such cool people that are honestly like me

To all the cast: thank you, if not for making Fable, but for representing people, for showing us how much of an outlet being creative can be, and everything in between, all of this is so crazy how cool and detailed it is, truly.

To the fandom: you all are so fuckin cool, the way i get so excited when you guys interact with my stuff, art, silly posts, or just jokes, it's just so cool to interact with y'all, I've made so many friends and i know I'll make more, especially with all the smps y'all promote, keep doin that, i love your stuff guys<3

(now for specifics that have made me feel seen ayo)

To Athena: thank you, genuinely, for making a space that i feel seen in, i feel welcome in, the rep with C!Athenas disability and still having a great time, having a fulfilling life, which I've been told so many times I can't have due to my disabilities, its so amazing, even if its sleepy stardew, lore, or anything in-between, your community and self is so inviting and comforting. Your voice has always been so comforting (like a chill pink mixed with a light coffee brown feel:]), and i genuinely can't thank you enough, if not for representing me, but for becoming a comfort streamer for me

To Ghosty: Caspian as a character was so cool to see, his story was like a good book really, one you could pull up and watch with some tea or hot coco and a blanket, one that was so interesting, I've experienced some of the issues he worked through and it felt so amazing to see, especially a trans character whos entire personality wasn't that he was trans, or a character who struggled with grief but was still happy and able to be *alright* sometimes, thank you.

To Sherb: the way you did lore, and continue to do lore, always excited me, got me feeling genuine emotions, which I've always struggled with, it made me get into storytelling, something I've always enjoyed, it made me get into telling my own stories, its been so enjoyable, and will continue to be ! Icarus as a character made me feel seen in the way that you can care for someone, trust them fully, but they can still be a good person, but the way they treat you makes you believe they're a good person, and thats really important to me. Thank you Sherbert

To Connor: gods your writing is so cool, your fics motivated me to start writing again, and Ulysses as a character as well is such an interesting character, his writing is so neat and his story again made me feel so seen in many ways, and your writing is so good

Finally, To Beck: Arisanna was and continues to be a character i resonate with, always working for someone, never for yourself, feeling alone at times even with many people, having to or feeling like you have to provide for your friends and family, i grew up feeling like i had to protect my older brother, make sure he was alright, and Ari made me feel seen in that way, thanks for that, really

Thank you everyone, for supporting me, through my art, pickup lines, or just dumb jokes

Signed, FeralWetCat (Kai)

[sporkberries]

Tim Drake and Red robin

 Aka the whole identity problem.

So there’s a lot of discussion over Tim and what identity he is going to take up- this is by no means recent, it's been going on for over a decade. So for a lot of people who are newer to comics I want to explain why Red Robin isn’t really an option as a permanent identity for Tim, and what Red Robin means to Tim personally

So first off, for expositions sake, Tim didn’t create Red Robin. The costume nor the identity.  It originated in the Kingdom Come Storyline and belonged to Dick Grayson

(Dick Grayson, Earth-22) Honestly i don’t want to get into the can of worms of Kingdom Come and it’s not that important to my point so just know this is where Red Robin comes from.

Okay now the first appearance of Red Robin in Main Continuity was in Countdown to Final Crisis where the mantle was taken by * drum roll*

Countdown #14 Jason Todd!! This is also not very important because Jason mainly does multiverse shenanigans that isnt important to my overall point. I just find it very funny that Jason was Red Robin before Tim. Also he kills an alternate universe version of the joker- Good for him!

Now into the stuff that actually affects Tim and why he chooses to don the Red Robin Mantle in the first place-towards the end of Tim’s robin run. Where we see Red Robin stalking Tim around Gotham.

Red Robin in Robin(1993) #177 This Red Robin ends up being Ulysses Armstrong( a gang leader and recurring baddie from Tim’s Robin run) and to say the least he does some not very nice things!! Said things including luring Tim into a warehouse and blowing him up(what is up with robins and warehouses seriously?) anyways looking good tim!

Robin(1993) #181

After this injury Tim wears the Red Robin cowl to hide/protect his identity while he takes care of Ulysses. And in the ensuing fight a bunch of children get blow up- it’s great and definitely good for our protagonists declining mental health, Now for a bit more exposition after this incident Tim helps break Jason out of prison who then dons a cringe batman suit and kills a shit ton of people- the infamous Battle For The Cowl storylines ensues. With Dick Grayson taking the mantle of Batman and Damian Wayne being gifted the Robin mantle. Though Dick wasn’t wrong to do this(which is a whole other thing to argue about) it upset Tim and he needed a new costume to wear on his quest to bring Bruce back. He chooses Red Robin, as it’s an identity he considers dirty and disconnected from both his previous titles and the rest of his family.

Red Robin(2009) #1

Tim is at a VERY dark place in his life during the Red Robin run. A lot of fanon characterizes Tim as pretty depressed and sad and almost all of that stems from this period of time exclusively- and it makes sense. Tim underwent a series of very serious and brutal losses under a pretty short period of time( Steph[briefly],his dad, Conner, Bart, and Bruce all dying). And though pretty much everyone was right to doubt him about the whole Bruce being alive thing that rejection definitely didn’t help things. For Tim Red Robin offers a sort of outlet he doesn’t have to be Tim he doesn’t have to necessarily be a good person he just needs to do what needs to be done( I’d argue for the beginning of Red Robin that’s his main philosophy)

Red Robin(2009) #2

Red Robin(2009) #4

In Adventure Comics(2009) #3 Tim reunites with Conner while he’s in Paris, where in Conner says this

Conner knows Tim better than anyone, keep that word Punishment in mind. As it comes back up again in** Red Robin(2009) #9**

And okay this being brought up again is a joke but i still think its true. Tim IS punishing himself. He hates he situation he’s in he hates that he can’t save anyone he hates that he keeps making the wrong decisions(having the children be near the bombs, helping Jason get out of prison, and basically everything that’s happened in Red Robin as well) Tim IS a good person and he has a very strong moral compass- so betraying any aspect of his conscience- pretending to be someone he’s not HURTS him.

At the end of Red Robin(2009) Tim tries to kill Captain Boomerang, the man who killed his father( see: identity crisis) , or he very nearly tries to anyways. He wants to kill him, HE IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM. but he doesn’t.

Red Robin(2009) #26

Tim is at a crossroads. He’s hurting but he still WANTS to be good. He ends up doing the right thing but is that what Tim wants? Tim is changing he’s not Robin anymore he’s becoming his own person his own individual.

So you may ask, what happens after this? Does Tim figure out who he wants to be? Does he make a decision? HAHA silly you!! NO!! Dc resets the whole universe, retcons Tim’s backstory erases all his character development then un-retcons his backstory etc etc leaving Tim Drake in character limbo for essentially a DECADE.

So all this backstory withstanding why do I think Red Robin is a bad choice for Tim as an identity(discounting the fact he’s not even RR anymore but just robin which is stupid and also dumb) ? Well Red Robin was never MEANT to be permanent- Red Robin was a temporary means to end, a tool to get to his destination. I see Red Robin as a chrysalis of sorts. Tim as Robin was the caterpillar, red robin was the chrysalis and his next identity would be who he becomes, or rather who he DECIDES to be. Having Red Robin as Tim’s main identity is a disservice to his character but also doesn’t allow him to complete his arc. Tim doesn’t have an identity he chose and wanted for himself; he hasn't even moved on from ROBIN. In order to develop as a character Tim NEEDS to discover an identity for himself, abandoning the robin mantle entirely.

I think there is hope, a lot of Tim’s content since and including Urban Legends have been largely about him discovering himself and searching for his identity. Let’s just hope DC actually follows through.

[lonelyroommp3]

u dont have to answer this but i was wondering if u could elaborate on ur opinions about rpf -- bc i kind of agree with you that it's like, it's fine and it's not morally wrong or anything but it def is a little weird? idk ive never been able to rly explain my feelings about it so im curious what u think

honestly my main view on rpf (whether of the y/n self insert variety or the gay shipping variety) is it's literally fine as long as you're not putting it anywhere the people involved are going to see it. like when you boil rpf down to its bare essentials it is just fantasising about a famous person (or multiple famous people, in varying combinations), which is something human beings have been doing in their brains since people first started becoming famous. and i think expressing those fantasies through creative outlets like fic, art, 2013 polyvore outfit boards about going on a yacht trip with harry styles, etc is an entirely natural progression of that impulse

and in that way i sort of view it as similar to any other fantasy you might have about another human being: it is totally normal and essentially morally neutral, i hope you'd agree, to daydream about a person you fancy, whether those daydreams are PG-13 or heinously X-rated, whether they're a friend or acquaintance or stranger or celebrity. where it would become weird is if you went up to said person completely uninvited and said "hey, would you like to hear in elaborate detail about the things i thought about you doing to me while i was masturbating last night?" - and so i think the same applies to rpf. like obviously don't send your rpf to the person in question, don't show up with BLINK TWICE IF THE BABY IS FAKE signs to a louis tomlinson concert, archive lock your rpf on ao3, don't proudly post about it on websites that the people in question are active on especially in this age of algorithm-based social media where unless you lock your account you have no real surefire way of ensuring they'll never see it, etc etc. every time i see people talk shipping in the comments of an official f1 post a part of my soul dies

i think another big thing about rpf to me is that all celebrities are essentially playing a fictionalised version of themselves. no matter how authentic they seem to their fanbase, when you combine things like media training + PR/marketing obligations + building a Persona + the pressure of competing in a sport (for athletes) + the level of code switching inherent to being in what is essentially a public facing job, we as fans & observers are not seeing the real harry styles or taylor swift or charles leclerc or whoever else. we are seeing the version of that person that they want us to see (or, in the case of historical rpf, you're writing about a ghost reconstructed from fragments distorted through the lens of missing evidence, potentially biased historians, potentially even more biased first and third party accounts, etc), and so i don't really view rpf as inherently invasive because you're not really writing about the real person, moreso the constructed image of Celebrity Of Choice.

of course, that is not to say that rpf can never become invasive: the clearest example would be ship truthers harassing the people involved due to what they perceive as "evidence" of some great forbidden love story, but i'll be real there is a lot of F1 rpf specifically that i side eye from a distance because of how it will use drivers' intensely personal real life trauma as a plot point, which is a line i'm not really comfortable crossing with real living people, especially not when it comes to dangerous sports lmao. but i think that is an issue with some rpf enjoyers' boundaries and not an inescapable root problem with the very idea of rpf imo

[frozenjokes]

A Matter Of Fairness Or Maybe Fear

the next part of the mumbomaid au is four separate mini stories that will be posted as one chapter on ao3, but I thought it might be cool to post them separately here (and since this one’s done, I thought I might post it earlier before the rest goes up on ao3 >:D)

This call marked Scar’s 129th over the course of two days, and quite frankly, his persistence was starting to wear at Etho’s resolve. Maybe ‘resolve’ wasn’t quite the right word actually- patience might be better. This marked the sixth day Etho had been stuck in a little outlet away from home, burying himself in the mud day in and day out, and he was really getting sick of it- sick of Joel, actually, and Scar calling him every free moment of the day was getting quite frustrating when he was waiting on messages from Joel.

Etho let it ring. It wouldn’t stop Scar. Yesterday while sending Joel a very long and very angry message, Etho had accidentally declined Call 4 before the first ring concluded, so Scar knew Etho had his phone. Since then, Etho had also accidentally declined Call 7, 68, 70, and 103.

Call 129 ended and Call 130 began. Call 130 did not end before Bdubs rang at the same time, and that hurt, so Etho submerged himself to avoid it. Soon enough, it too was over. Scar’s insistent calling replaced Bdub’s ringtone without pause.

131. 132. 133.

Finally, it stopped, Scar probably running out of time on his work break. Thank god. Etho had enough on his plate without Scar breathing down his neck, but if he was really being honest, being bitter about Scar’s knowledge on his and Joel’s split souls probably wouldn’t change his behavior today. Scar had a habit of spam calling, and Etho did not know him to give up.

Call 134 just a couple of minutes after the 133rd snapped the last remaining thread of Etho’s patience.

Etho pounced on his phone, picking up with a wrathful hiss, “Stop calling me,” before hanging up. After Call 173, Etho was pretty sure this would never end until he grew a pair and answered the phone. With great disdain, he accepted Scar’s call.

“Hello? Etho? Are you there?”

Etho didn’t respond for a while, too busy fuming to speak. “I’m here.”

“Are you in immediate peril? Do you have time to talk?”

“I have time.” Etho spoke every word through gritted teeth. Scar was quiet for a long moment.

“Then hang the fuck up and call Bdubs you fucking asshole. He’s one more anxiety attack away from filing a missing person’s report, and I’m honestly shocked he hasn’t already! He’s convinced you’re dead in a ditch somewhere or kidnapped or something, and I don’t blame him. If you have your phone and you’re not bleeding out on the fucking rocks, there is literally NO REASON you haven’t called him.”

The wind of Scar’s anger left a heavy silence in its wake. Etho wasn’t quite sure how to break it, but he had a feeling Scar wasn’t going to just let him hang up without another word.

“I can’t call him,” he said instead, all too aware that Scar’s assault of his ears would only continue.

“Give me one good reason why you can’t call your best friend and tell him you’re okay. It’s nearly been a week, Etho, come on. The longest you’ve ever been gone at a time is three days, and you told us beforehand. And I swear to god if you say-“

“Scar, I can’t just call him, I’m not human.”

“You don’t have to fucking video call him!”

“I sound different, Scar. I can’t,” Etho insisted, desperation spilling through in sick waves. Scar didn’t get it. How could he make Scar understand? “What if he asks where I am? What am I supposed to tell him? I can’t call him.”

“You do not sound different! At all!”

“I do.”

“I didn’t notice! It can’t be that bad. Over the phone it won’t even matter- I can not believe you’re fighting me on this. Come on.”

“I can’t, Scar,” a soft whistle broke through behind the words, making Etho feel all the more pathetic. He didn’t want to be here. He’d give anything to be home right now, not worried about being seen or overpowered or caught- he’d give anything to go home, eat normal food- He had work too, he had deadlines! He didn’t want to be in this position at all! Etho didn’t- he didn’t want to upset Bdubs either, of course not, but how was he supposed to explain?

“When are you going to be home then, Etho? Because I need to tell him something. I’m going to tell him- at least that you’re okay. Do you even understand what you’re putting him through right now? Would you really rather let him think you’re in trouble than have a difficult conversation with your best friend?”

“I don’t- I don’t know, Scar. This isn’t my fault- it’s not like I want to be away at all! Please don’t.”

“I’m not mad that you’re not home, Etho. I’m mad because you have a phone to call your roommate with and you’re not using it.”

“He’ll ask questions.” Voicing the thought sounded so much worse, so irredeemably meager. He was being selfish, wasn’t he. Scar was right. But Scar didn’t- Scar didn’t understand the fear- the anxiety- How easy it must be for Scar to stand by the sidelines and tell Etho what was right and wrong. He had no idea.

Scar interrupted his train of self righteous anger before it could build further, “Bdubs has every damn right to ask questions! And even then, he probably won’t. He’d do anything to keep from stepping on your toes on issues like this, even when you treat him like shit. I’m serious. This is fucked. This is cruel. Cleo’s worried sick as well- we’re all worried.” Scar stopped with a huff and Etho heard him mess with his hair over the line, “You know what, this is a waste of time. I’m just going to call him.” Scar hung up without another word, lighting a sharp panic in Etho’s chest. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this. But he didn’t want an angry Scar telling Bdubs anything about his situation much more.

He fumbled over Bdubs’ contact, pressing several wrong buttons before finally dialing his number. The phone didn’t even pass the first ring.

“Etho? Hello?” Bdubs spoke, drying the words off Etho’s tongue. Not that he had anything to say in the first place. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for this. His mind seemed to dry up as well, leaving nothing but static in the wake of his panic. “Are you there? Etho?” Bdubs’ voice was faint. Terrified.

Sudden guilt wracked his body, physical in its pain like being caught in the middle of a head-on collision. “I’m here,” his voice shook, but he was hardly aware of it, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Bdubs was quiet, the silence crushing, “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

Neither of them spoke, tension thrumming through the air just as clear as audible sound. Etho didn’t think he’d ever be able to breathe again. This was so much worse than he’d ever imagined this conversation going, and he had imagined it.

…

Bdubs sobbed, and all at once Etho crumbled. Mermaids didn’t have the right anatomy to cry, but Bdubs didn’t question the strained noises of distress that bubbled out of Etho’s throat. Bdubs never did question anything, did he? Not to do with Etho’s disappearances. Not for years.

That wasn’t really fair at all, was it.

That wasn’t fair at all.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Quarter Finals - Catholic Character Tournament

Propaganda below ⬇️

Matt

Matt's faith in the show is really important and well explored; one of the first scenes of the show is Matt going to confession (or, well, talking to his priest since he's not really confessing at that point). Matt struggles a lot with what he's supposed to do; everyone's telling him to kill the villain and he kinda wants to, but he literally says: "I know my soul is damned if I take his life". He struggles with his faith and goes with his doubts to his priest, and it's beautiful—also when he finally gets a costume for his vigilanteing he chooses to dress as the devil, lol. (His priest tells him that nothing makes people run to Church faster than the feeling of having the devil on their heels.)

a lot of the show is about how he justifies his vigilante actions with his faith, and whether he's doing the right thing in trying to help people or just using it as an outlet for his anger. the literal first scene of the show has him in a confession booth talking to his priest (who is a really interesting character too). this is not the scene I was talking about but it's such an excellent scene with matt talking to his priest: https://youtu.be/XHZ3NbEIDdw

canonically catholic but dresses like a demon to be quirky

honestly i dont wanna type too much but i feel that matt is a great example of someone who battles with his faith because he rarely loses his faith but rather fights with why he was made the way he was and put through what he was. He believes himself to have the devil inside him but believes that God put him there

ok in the comics barring the most current run matt has Mostly been a non-practicing Catholic that very rarely actually does any catholic Activities but ends up falling back into the Mindset and very occasionally dramatically taking confession (ex. in that one issue where he takes confession, basically tells the father that he is uniquely terrible and is thinking about violently murdering someone and when the father says "you can be forgiven" hes like "AUGFH-- NO!!!!!!!!!!" and runs out) when he's gone through some shit. and i love that its so relatable

This guy so catholic he spends an ungodly amount of time just chilling in the church. And goes there whenever there is a moral conundrum about killing people being Bad even though it would solve a lot of problems and stop said people from killing other people. This happens every other episode. Matt is the Catholic Guilt Guy. There's actually a lot of catholic stuff in the show as a whole. Just a compilation would be like three whole episodes long.

Hes great hes catholic enough to not outrught murder people but not catholic enough to not fuck before marriage hes a bisexual disaster at all times hes besties with a priest might i add hes great hes my special little guy

his catholicism is a huge piece of his characterisation he was raised by nuns in a catholic orphanage, the first scene we ever see him (as an adult and not a flashback) is him going to confession, he is good friend with his priest and has regular debates with him, etc also in s3 he has a huge crisis of faith after he lost A Lot where he stops believing for a while and it's linked to his identity crisis where he actually wants to kill another person (a hard line he previously chose never to cross) and wants to be only daredevil and not matt murdock, when he is both and needs both to exist also when he was a kid his grandmother used to say "watch out for the murdock boys, they've got the devil in them" and it created a surprising lot of his issues

So he's both catholic in the comics and the show but he's More Catholic in the show. Like, raised in a catholic orphanage by nuns (ONE OF WHICH IS HIS *MOTHER*), second scene in the show has him in a confession box kind. Matt Murdock goes out and gets the shit beaten out of him nightly and also beats the shit out of other people and purposefully leaned into devil iconography as his theme. When his nurse friend says, he takes a lot of punishment without one complaint he says "That part's the Catholicism." It is a Core Aspect of his character (at least in the show). He makes me insane. Also the same chemicals that blinded him created the teenage mutant ninja turtles and everyone should know that.

They went to confession to a priest who they had saved as their costumed counterpart and the guy recognized them by the voice, proving that it's possible and everyone else is just dumb

he takes "i wanna fight god" to new and incredibly violent levels, while also being a sweetheart and a goofball

Actually strictly WILL NOT kill criminals. Goes wayyy out of his way to avoid it. Fights with the Punisher about it. Goes to confession booth after nightly vigilante excursions. Feels so much guilt. "How have you been holding up?" "Like a good Caltholic boy" "that bad huh" - actual conversation with his priest

So Daredevil struggles with his mission as a crime fighter because killing criminals goes against his faith. He makes it a point to not kill criminals, believing that even bad people deserve a second chance. This philosophy puts him at odds against The Punisher, who is a relentless killer. As a Catholic myself, while I love the concept of a morally conflicted superhero, I think the worldbuilding around Daredevil is lacking. If he struggles with violence and killing, why doesn't he pray to warrior saints like Saint Michael, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (a former knight), or Saint Joan of Arc? Why isn't there a community of other Catholics he can turn to for guidance, considering New York City has a sizeable population of Catholics? And why are the churches he goes to always empty? Doesn't he know that the Catholic Church supports the just war theory? I think that would have made his burden more bearable.

He goes to church and confesses to punching people and says "imma do it again can i apologize in advance" and the father dude says "no you're meant to stop now" and Matt says "no" and they do this everyday. I'm not remembering it properly but this is a canon interaction i swear

HELLO HI YES I LOVE HIM AND WILL INFOR DUMP ok so. he is a vigalantty and he got named daredevil and he is an orphan and after the age of 12 was raised in an orphanage at a Catholic church and his therapist is his priest via confession abd. also his mother is a nun he has a whole mental breakdown over god and called Job a pussy because he liked god until he got better and liked god again he said "I'm dearedrvil and not even god can stop that now" and he's so cool

matt is a freakish little babygirl who was raised by nuns and definitely has religious trauma. i hate him so much (affectionately)

he’s literally fucking insane about it i don’t know what to say here. he thinks he’s chosen by god to go on some sort of holy quest to save hell’s kitchen. joan of arc ass.

i already know hes in by default j just wanted to give him a personal shout out i love this angsty catholic dweeb

how practicing he is depends on the run, but in my favorite he is quite literally confessing to a member of the last extant order millitant who happens to be a priest at a church in hells kitchen.

i love him for having the funniest version of a trope i usually hate (person gets into confession booth and asks forgiveness not for what they've done, but for what they're about to do). usually this trope just looks silly to me bc like. the priest would just say "i can't do that" and you would have to either awkwardly explain yourself or just Leave. it's funny when matt does it because fr. lantom is probably like "what are you gonna do???" and matt's like "lol. lmao. 😊 hehehe." anyway we love this angry catholic man who dresses up like the devil to beat people up in hell's kitchen

I'm sure Harrow is lovely and I respect the space lesbians but listen to me. Listen.

Matt Murdock is the Catholic character of all time, and if you make him lose, I am blowing up this website and everyone in it.

He is Catholic. His mother is a nun. He grew up in a catholic orphanage. Half the episodes in the show include him going to confession. When he needs therapy, he talks to his priest. He dresses up as a devil partly because of the Catholicism.

One time he got godly powers on loan from Heimdall (see below), and he did a lot of good with it, and then the second it was over he just... well. Also see below!

This man's every coping mechanism is Catholicism.

Please vote for Matt in the @catholic-character-tournament because he's the best and most realistic representation of what it means to be Catholic. Someone who's been punched and bet and crushed by life but still gets up every day to try. No, he's not a nun like his competition but he's not less devoted because of that. Not everyone is called to service. In the day he works at a defense lawyer to help people. Not for the money but to help people not get screwed over by the law. And at night, he dons a mask and beats up assholes when the law fails them. Is he perfect? No, that's the point. Matt is a broken man who is just trying his best to do well and live like Jesus.

He fully embodies the Catholic doctrine of faith and good works. He has faith in what he's doing even if others challenge him. He believes in forgiveness and repenting even when going up against "the devil."

"The people you murder deserve another chance." ... "No, Frank. To try again, Frank. To try. And if you don't get that, there's something broken in you you can't fix, and you really are a nutjob." "You think God made you a one-man firing squad. But you're wrong. There is goodness in people, even in you. And you're gonna have to kill me, 'cause I'm never gonna stop coming for you, until I take you down."

Daredevil Season 2 Episode 3

He (tries) to love his enemy. He believes in Elektra and Frank and maybe Dex and their ability to change. To be good. And when he can't, Matt refuses to compromise on his morals. While not quite "turning his cheek" he never scoops to their level. Because they don't get to destroy who he is.

Daredevil Season 3 Episode 13

All he does is for the love he has to his neighbors, his community. He loves New York. Not for self-fulfilling needs or for the money or for the fame. He does it because he believes in justice. Because the law was created by humans and is inherently sinful.

"But his competition met God and was disappointed and blah blah"

Daredevil is more grounded (at least the show, maybe less the comics). So now, Matt doesn't met God. But he sure gets mad at him. All of season 3 he angry at God for all the trauma he expired.

"You see, that was me, Sister. I suffered willingly. I gave my, uh... sweat and blood and skin without complaint. Because I too believed I was God's soldier. ( chuckles ) Well, not anymore. I am what I do in the dark now. I bleed only for myself. ( scoffs )" ... "You might hate God right now, but the feeling is not mutual." "No, I don't hate him. I've just seen his true face, is all."

Season 3 episode 1

As a Catholic I don't really want to fight God in a parking lot. Well I do but not in the same way that I've understood (primarily Jewish people but probably other Abrahamic religions) want to fight God in a Denny's parking lot. I want to yell and scream and cry at God and for the feeling to not be mutual. For Him to never stop loving me. As long as I have faith, He will reach out his hand.

Homura

she is a catholic lesbian whose girlfriend became god. she has been through so much.

shes such a lesbian for amdoke

Catholic guilt literally turned her into a demon

she literally watches everyone she knows die over and over and over again just so she can save madoka, the one girl who showed kindness towards her. when madoka ends up basically becoming god in order to stop the cycle of death and violence, homura RIPS AWAY THE HUMAN PART OF HER SOUL so that she can create a world where she and Madoka and their friends can live happily, effectively becoming the devil to madoka’s god

She has so much religious symbolism when it comes to her relationship to Madoka. Madoka is God and Homura becomes Lucifer so that she can save Madoka and give her happiness. She literally rips God from heaven and rewrites reality though. The way she sees her self and shapes reality is through the lense of Catholicism.

most fucked up little catholic girl. we love that for her.

Okay homuras entire fuckin arc is stemmed from the fact she is Catholic. Look at her trying to save Madoka over and over again and suffering for it because she thinks if she suffers enough and works hard enough Madoka will stay. Normal people do not go into time loops willingly. Catholics will.

[crybaby-bkg]

sᴄᴏʀɴᴇᴅ | ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ғɪғᴛᴇᴇɴ - ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ (ɴsғᴡ)

Bakugou x f!reader Warnings/Tags: NSFW, slow morning sex, biting, unprotected sex Word Count: 2k Minors/blank/ageless blogs DNI!

Main Masterlist AO3

A year later…

If someone were to ask you where you thought you’d end up two years after fighting Dynamight for the first time, you would’ve guessed either dead or in jail. Or maybe dead in jail. Never would you have imagined this life that you live now, with him, your friends, and a society still actively taking you in with gentle arms. 

A couple months after your press conference, you graduated from your accelerated hero courses, and became a full-time licensed hero. With that degree and your background, you started up a foundation to help integrate kidnapping victims back into society. In that foundation, it helps house those who have nowhere to go, provides jobs, and there’s a program within that helps victims and vigilantes alike find legal work. They get jobs in the system, some even converting into becoming a hero, and are provided different outlets to help them find their place in society again. 

It’s a lot of work, but its more than worth it to see peoples’ transformations over the course of just a few months. Vanity is a partner in the company, after slowly but surely giving up vigilantism to work alongside you. It was a struggle (it always is) but its refreshing and so beautiful to see her still kicking ass, just without the worry of being caught by police. It’s also refreshing and totally new to see her cozying up to Kirishima little by little. They haven’t put a label on anything yet, but you promise to root for them as much as possible, and shoot his kneecaps out if he were to ever hurt her, though you doubt the big guy was even capable of anything cruel. 

Your program has helped integrate more heroes into shadier neighborhoods, keep patrol going twenty-four-seven. Nobody is too small to be left behind, is the motto that you preach, and try to ingrain into everybody’s head. Nobody is too tiny to be seen, to disappear into the shadows with no one to ever look for them. You help find the people no one cares about looking for, and you help them in every aspect that you can. 

But, even as great as everything has been for the past year, you’re still haunted by Mercy. You never got your answers on why she did that to you, what her motives were, how you could make her feel better about everything. If she reached out, you would’ve been happy to put her into your program, help her find somewhere stable to live, work through her trauma, although you don’t have a clue to where she’s at now. You heard she moved a few cities over, is quiet there, but you can’t be bothered to search for her. If she wanted to be found, she would be. 

Eddie ended up being transferred to another agency after the whole debacle with Mercy. Turns out, she had reached out to him, convinced him that you two were friends, that you wanted your dress tailored but was too busy to actually reach out to him. He knew he shouldn’t have believed it, but he claimed to love you so much as a client, that he didn’t want to upset you. Still though, he transferred out all on his own somewhere else, guilted by what happened to you that night, how it never would’ve happened if he finished with the original design. 

You thought that you would be more upset finding that out but honestly, you’re content with everything. It all happened (as fucked up as it sounds) for a reason. Even in the moment if you couldn’t understand why, you see it all now, as you bask in the room surrounding you. 

After you graduated, you and Bakugou moved into an actual home a little further out from the city, somewhere quiet and quaint. You made the home both of yours, not just a place of his that you moved into. It wasn’t too big, not some overdramatized mansion too spacious for just two people. 

And also—a dog! You had found the tiny little thing, shivering and whining on your way home from work one day. You didn’t even have to ask Katsuki if it was alright, because the little thing clung to him the moment you dropped her in his lap. You remember how shocked he was, how stiff he became, the wordless trip to the bathroom as he started scrubbing her down in dawn dish soap to clear the fleas clinging to her skin. After that, even though you technically saved her, she became a daddy’s girl. There was never a question on whether or not she would stay, but instead whose last name she would take (she was a Bakugou, of course, with her spiky hair and bratty personality once she was fed and cleaned. How could she be anything but?) 

You would’ve never imagined a life so kind to you, after everything you went through. You just knew you were destined to live a hard and strenuous life, knew that it would end quick and abrupt with you at your angriest, at your unhappiest. 

But, as you lay here in your king sized mattress with your pro hero boyfriend across from you and your dog sleeping in her little cot at the end of your bed, you think that this is what you were destined for. The ability to help people in life, to love others with everything you have, to be cared for, to be looked after, to be adored. 

Katsuki’s eyes slowly blink open, as if he could tell that you had been watching him, dark blond lashes fanning over the apples of his cheeks. He smiles faintly at you, his face softer in the gleam of light casted in from the window over your shoulder. His skin is golden, a peachy hue softening the contours of his muscles where he lays on his bicep, stretching, his joints popping. 

“What’re you staring at, perv?” He slurs, yawning loudly, maw wide like a lion’s before he smacks his lips a few times. The picture of him makes you laugh, scooting forward a little until you share his pillow and his nose brushes yours. He tilts his head softly, mouth nudging your own in a barely there kiss, his lips sweet. 

“Something real ugly in front of me,” you bite at him, nipping the plumpness of his bottom lip. Katsuki laughs at that, husky and deep, wrapping his arms and legs around you until he traps you against him. You act like you’re trying to escape, but you meld into his embrace when he squeezes you against him, become putty on the warm mattress. 

“Can’t say the same.” He smiles, voice soft like the pillow you share, something easy to sink into. You roll your eyes playfully, wrapping your arms around his neck until his front presses against your own, his morning wood thick and heavy against your leg. 

“Now who’s the perv here?” You ask, eyebrow raised as his cheeks get muddy and his mouth twitches in a devilish little smile. You laugh heartily when he suddenly bites at your cheek, pulling him away by the hair sweeping the back of his neck. 

“You talk so much shit,” he snarls at you playfully, his bites soothing into something gentle on the skin—a kiss, a suckle, a nibble, a peck—until your giggles fade slowly into breathy little noises. Soft moans escape you, your eyes fluttering shut as you start to feel your hips slowly press into his, becomes his turn to make those sweet noises. 

“You fuckin’ love it.” You mutter to him, grinning when he pulls back, lips pink and a little swollen. He eyes you, lids lowered and his gaze mellow, mouth silky where he licks his lips, a smile tilting the corner of it. He takes all of you in, before he pulls you into another honey-sweet kiss, his tongue working slowly against your own, uncaring of how messy it becomes in such little time. 

“Yeah,” he says breathily, barely pulling away from your mouth as he speaks. “Yeah, I really do.” He speaks against your teeth before kissing them, too, wanting to taste each and every piece of you that he can get his mouth on. 

Wordlessly, Katsuki shuffles out of his boxers, and you do the same with your own underwear. He rubs the leaking tip of his cock against your clit a few times, tapping it until your breath hitches and you claw at his naked bicep. He laughs at how needy you get before hissing when you take him in your own hand and guide him to your leaking hole, biting at his bottom lip all the while. 

He angles his hips to help guide you in, pushing forward, both of you pausing as you suck in the others breath. His eyes flutter open to watch your face contort in pleasure when he eases himself in with no prep, though he’s not sure if he needs it with how many rounds you two went last night. He slips inside with little resistance, but the wet and soft feeling of you takes his breath away every time, anyway. 

You sigh out an expletive, eyes rolling ever so slightly when he fully nestles inside of you, takes up so much space, feels like he’s knocking at the back of your throat. Your head falls back onto his pillow, gives him access to your love bruised neck, makes an even bigger mess of your skin there as he gentle rocks his hips back and forth. He barely moves, barely ever leaves the confines of your warmth, and you don’t want him to. Don’t want him to ever leave you, to ever part from you. You want him to stay nestled inside of you forever, make a home within your ribcage, find all of his needs and comfort within the walls of your skin. 

“I love you,” you breathe out heavily, emotional, eyes welling up with tears as you’re already creeping up on your orgasm. Katsuki holds you against him, tight, one arm wrapped around your waist, the other underneath you to hold you by your nape. He presses his forehead against your own, his own breath dewy and warm where it fans over your skin, the hair at his base rubbing against your clit with every rock inside of you. 

“I love you. So fuckin’ much,” he confesses, eyes squeezing shut the same way your walls squeeze around his cock. You hold him just as close, bury your face into his neck, breathe in the musky smell of something sweet lingering on his skin as it always does. You inhale until you can’t anymore, your exiting breath a shaky cry as you cum around his cock, still just barely even moving inside of you, pressing in all the right spots. 

Katsuki curses under his breath at that, tries to hold off, barely lasts even a minute before he spills inside of you. Fills you up, warm and thick, until it starts to spill around where he still plugs you up. You both lay there in each other’s embraces, holding and holding, kissing and loving, searching and finding everything you have ever needed. 

In this place, your worries about who may hurt you next are gone. In this place, you’re loved wholeheartedly, and forever more. In this place, you’re seen, you’re listened to, you’re valued. But most importantly, in this place, you are loved, damn your past, fuck your future because in this very moment the only thing that matters is the person in front of you. The person that saw the hurt and put down his fists and embraced you, who saw through everything, who chose you day after day, anyway. 

In this place, everything is right, and in all honesty? Even though you wished that everything bad would’ve never happened to you, you’re still grateful that, even through the hurt, it led you here, in Katsuki’s arms. It led you exactly where you belonged, and will stay forevermore. 

thank you all so much for joining me on this journey of writing SCORNED. this was such a personal piece for me, being able to rework my own trauma and share it with others. I am so grateful to have you all here with me. I am so appreciative of every single one of you who read, commented, liked, and followed along. thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. I love you all!

tag list: @endlessfreaky@iamaconfusedpan @blueshome

[inventors-fair]

Emergence: Hope Contest Winners

Our winners this week are @hypexion, @melancholia-ennui, and @wildcardgamez!

@hypexion — Lochthwain Dawn

I think this flavor text caught me off guard a little bit, but it's something vitally important to black's color identity that we don't get to see a lot of in a positive light: endurance. Green and black have that overlap of endurance that's even given rise to the elemental namesake. The difference is that the contextualization of black's endurance is often portrayed at the expense of someone else. Here, we have the knights of the realm fighting for the realm in a manner that shows a type of single-minded devotion eschewing selfishness. We take those pleasant surprises when we can, especially in the context of it being well-justified on top.

Obviously in various cheesy formats this card can go infinite with sac triggers, but Commander is in a place right now where I don't really care about taking it seriously. As a five-drop curve-topper in aggro decks, this card makes your opponents have strong reconsiderations for combat, and I love how the math changes. Swinging in becomes, well—more hopeful! Honestly, where the flavor is excellently executed, the gameplay fits more with the theme of the contest, in my opinion. And in a good way! You can always let your creature turn into chump-blockers if you need to make your swings, and that's the kind of strategy that I like to see rewarded.

@melancholia-ennui — Enduring Legacy

Lol @ the "Enduring" cycle from Duskmourn. I was just trying to think of where that cycle came from as I was looking at this card, and then it struck me. Not that this has anything to do with that, but all the same... I was thoroughly impressed the first time I read through it and I'm still impressed with it now. Of course, I think that it's an absolute nightmare to deal with, but that's also because I'm a hatebears fan, and I want to chain together Skyclave Apparitions and tutor with a sac outlet for my Adelines and Thalias. The more I talk about it the more I feel that this card could use a little less power somehow but for the time being, be thankful you can get away with me wanting to be evil. So, so evil.

Does that have anything to do with hope? Conceptually, not really, because this card may be a come-from-behind kind of deal but it's less about that and more about the celebration of life, I feel. The death is not so much death as it is a passing-on, and the representation here just happens to align with a gameplay strategy that my brain wants to, ah, "inflict on" other people more than "play with." That's okay, power is okay! Children and parents and society's passing-on of information and strength is indeed vital to the concepts at large. No knocking ya there.

@wildcardgamez — Tomorrow

What is Tomorrow? Tomorrow comes on a thousand thundering legs through the clouds. Tomorrow breaks the storm and the fog, devours the cold of night and whatever restlessness comes with its snapping predators. Tomorrow is the element that marries the celestial presence of awe and the solemn inner meditation of time's passage. Tomorrow bears eyes that always look forward and wings that always push yesterday's breath behind. Tomorrow will not last, but it will always return, even if you can't see it, even if sight has left you, even when the stars have traveled to other worlds, broken their paths, gone out with the moon and the towers and the hands that swore to you, silently, that they would be with you when Tomorrow arrived upon you and you alone.

But why a finality counter? I think a replacement effect might've been a little better for that one line of text; otherwise, yeah, it's a great card that speaks to a cycle (kinda, by past precedent) and makes me feel real good about opening it if I ever did. Miracles in various formats never really took off past that one Legacy deck, but hell, why can't we try again with bodies and whatnot? Creatures are the lifeblood of their formats. I love the sheer power put into this card, sincerely. It feels great to look at and great to play, I imagine. Miracle's a tough mechanic but it's so awesome here. Hope indeed! Hope indeed.

Runners on the horizon. @abelzumi