#I can’t keep up with the evolution of the fandom anymore

[purplesurveys]

1630

Describe your hometown. What’s it like there? Very urbanized and convenient; everything you need is a quick drive away. But as urbanized as it’s gotten, I think it also lacks culture. We have one museum and the nightlife isn’t felt because even though there are many(!!!) independent cafes and restaurants, the quality of food is super so-so that people don’t really linger here. It’s convenient enough that I could probably live here for the rest of my life if it can’t be avoided; but of course I do want to move to Metro Manila sometime just so I can get a taste of how Actual City Life is like.

What did you do yesterday evening? I FINALLY reorganized my closet and got rid of the clothes I either wanted to throw out altogether, or hand over to Reena so she can sell them (she was recently scammed a ridiculous amount of money :( and I had volunteered to let her sell some of my clothes), and am just glad I finally got it over with because I had been putting it off for months lol.

Right after that I had a corndog and mac and cheese, watched the newest Suchwita episode with Tablo, watched a few old Return of Superman clips because said Suchwita episode made me miss Haru, and then spent the rest of the evening watching Cong’s vlogs.

Are you comfortable with leaving the house without any makeup on? That’s what I do every single time I leave the house anyway, unless the reason I’m going out is a work event where I have to be more dressed up than usual.

Do you have any expensive hobbies? It’s not technically a ‘hobby,’ but being a K-pop fan is definitely expensive. A bulk of my salary went to merch until BTS went on hiatus, then these days it’s been all about saving up for Yoongi’s tour (my friends and I have since decided we’re going to shoot for Bangkok tickets!) and supporting the boys on each of their solo activities, like albums and such.

What length do you like to keep your nails at? Short, or at least up til a certain length where it’s not bothersome when I type.

Have you ever felt physical pain in a dream? Yeah. Very rarely though.

What is the oldest online account that you still use? That would be my Twitter which I’ve had since 2010, but that account isn’t even my first; I had an even older one that I made in 2008 but ended up deleting since I wasn’t active in that fandom anymore.

Have you ever had Christmas carolers come to your house and sing for you? Yep that was commonplace at the duplex we previously lived in because we lived close to the entrance of the subdivision, which made it easy for the carolers to get to us. Where we live now we’re SUPER far from the main gate so we’ve never had to entertain any carolers anymore.

Do you know anyone whose family has lived in the same house for…3+ generations? Yeah Angela lives in an ancestral home.

What was the last video game you beat? ...In the Seom, if we’re counting that? Hahaha I always want to beat the weekly updates so that I get to be caught up with the latest storyline.

What’s your favorite Studio Ghibli film? Grave of the Fireflies.

What did you learn from your last failed relationship? The moment you feel as though you have to ‘fix’ the other person, just turn away and leave.

What country does your favorite band hail from? If we’re being loose with the definition of ‘band,’ South Korea.

What’s something on your to-do list that never actually gets done? Driving to Tanay to go to this Thai place that I’ve been wanting to check out for months. The driving route just seems so risky haha.

Have you ever been really passionate about something but then lost interest? If so, what was it? Yeah, reading. I just don’t really do any of it anymore. < Yeah, same. I went from smuggling novels to school to struggling to get past a chapter. But then again I feel like my relationship with reading is also just an evolution of preferences – for a long time I thought I grew out of reading when it was really just realizing that works of fiction stopped being my thing. I still like to read and enjoy non-fiction and essays the most, but I definitely am not as passionate in general as I used to be.

Do you sleep with the TV or the radio on? I don’t have to sleep with the TV on but it has happened in the past. It literally did just last night.

What’s the worst thing about being male/female (whichever you are)? Being a constant target of harassment; the discrimination; the unnecessary pressure to find a husband and have kids.

What movie has the best special effects? Considering the period in which it was made, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

How many work hours per week is too much for you? 70, which is basically working until midnight for five days straight. I’m used to OTing in my line of work, but I think consistently having to stay up until midnight would so quickly crush my soul.

What habit is essential to your daily life? Going through social media before I go to sleep.

What is your favorite documentary? Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

When did you last have a vision test? In 2021 when I was getting new lens for my glasses. I need to get a new prescription though :((

What do you typically eat for breakfast? I just prepare a cup of coffee and that alone is usually what gets me through the day.

What are three things you need to do tomorrow? Relax, have fun, enjoy the remaining hours of the weekend.

[amysteryspot]

What in the hell does yandere mean 😆😆😆😆 it’s like all over tumblr now at least with the peaky blinders stuff I’ve seen hahaha

Okay, maybe little old me is not exactly the best person to define this, so let’s use the dictionary definition:

A yandere is a character, most often female and in anime, who become violently possessive of a love interest.

And yes, there’s a lot of it appearing around the peaky fandom, don’t know about others because I haven’t been that involved. As @murderousginger said, I’m too old for it, and I’m leaving the kids have their fun with it 🤣

If anyone has a better explanation, please, feel free to do it. I’m all ears (and eyes) here.

[south-park-meta]

I must say, you must be one of my favorite South Park meta bloggers! I also think Stan is best boy, and I relate to him so much. I just can’t get enough of your analysis. I’m curious though, why do you ship Style, and what are your thoughts on how the fandom portrays the ship? Style is a ship that means dearly to me. I’ve always found the evolution of their friendship in-canon so fascinating, and I remember how back in the day, Style was literally booming with so much content, but there are definitely some portrayals of the pairing in fan-content that has me feeling “weird”.

Aw thanks!

I do disagree with a lot of Stan (and Style) portrayals. I think the big thing is that Stan or Kyle are probably going to be the two most people relate to, especially if they ship Style. So when they relate to one or the other it comes with inherent biases. Like I relate to Stan much more than I relate to Kyle, so it's easier for me to see his perspective, so it's easier for me to be biased in his direction. I think writing them neutrally is pretty hard for a lot of people, especially when Stan and Kyle have caused each other pain. Because of that I think it's pretty common to veer into one or the other just constantly being a huge dick no one should ever put up with. Instead of what they both are which is just, dicks the way most normal people are dicks. Good people, but fallible.

Stan and Kyle have the potential to be genuinely good for each other. With them fighting/not relying on each other as much, it's easier to forget that they make a good team. And with South Park being as it is, it's also easy to forget they probably haven't been fighting for that long, even if it feels like forever.

I think a lot of their problems come down to the fact that they actually love each other so much that they have a hard time communicating. Stan's been more closed off and telling Kyle less than other friends post-Ass Burgers. Kyle's been more critical of Stan's behavior post-Ass Burgers. And it'd be easy to chalk that up to them just not liking each other anymore, but that's not it. When it comes to Stan being depressed:

Stan's not bringing it up because he's scared if he does, it will make Kyle hate him again, the way he thinks Kyle started to when he said everything was shit. Kyle's not bringing it up because he's scared that if Stan's still cynical, it means Stan (still) hates him the way he seemed to the whole time he was saying everything was shit, because he was one of the things Stan saw as shit. There's a lot of hurt that they haven't brought up with each other. They're kids and they love each other, and they hope that not-talking about it will make it go away like the little rifts they had before did. The problem is that those smaller fights are things that, maybe, they actually could get over on their own without needing to have a whole conversation about it. This isn't. They're pushing each other away, involving each other less, trusting each other less, because they actually don't want to lose each other.

This is the kind of thing I think can get healthier with age, with experience, and even with time apart-- I don't necessarily think that taking a break after the Vaccination Special is bad for them. They're both too close and have too much invested to keep digging at the issue while it's fresh. It's a way for them to grow while apart, but HOPEFULLY come back together in a way that's healthier, after they've really worked out who they are alone.

I like a lot about Stan and Kyle's relationship. When they're operating at their absolute peak, they love each other but still call each other on their bullshit. Or they even don't call it out, and instead let the other figure out that they disapprove without even saying one word about it, and that's enough to set them back on the right moral path. They aren't the same person, they have different goals, different motivations, different flaws and strengths. But they get each other. They love each other. When one's trying to do something and it makes sense, they'll support it even if they wouldn't do it on their own. Because it matters to their best friend.

When one's struggling, they'll try their best to fix the problem, even if it's a problem they wouldn't have, either. They've supported each other through good times and terrible times. They've even in a marriage cliche been there through sickness and health-- Stan's depression has thrown a curve ball due to the toll it took on both of them, but when Kyle needed a kidney, Stan was there. When Stan was struggling with his freemium game addiction, Kyle was there (even AFTER them not being as close as they were before). They can and have helped each other through terrible times that could have put a strain on relationships before.

They want the other person to be the best person he can be, and they in turn want to be a better person for him. They have plenty of things both together and apart that they need to overcome, but they honestly have a very strong foundation. I think as they get older, more aware of their feelings and how to discuss them, and more secure in their individuality as they prepare to leave South Park, their relationship has the potential to be very low drama and very happy.

[johnbroutledge]

fyeahbuddie >>> kelly-severide

rambling about fandom/the future of this blog under the cut.

first things first, cause i know it’s gonna be a question: no, i am not leaving 911 fandom. i still love the show and i will still be talking about it and creating things for the fandom. 

that being said, a lot is going to change.  to be completely honest, i haven’t been happy with my tumblr in a while. i’ve been doing a lot of stuff because i feel like i should, because i think it’s what people want, and not because its what nikki wants and it’s high time i quit doing that. i’m a people pleaser by nature and i genuinely would rather be miserable myself than upset or disappoint other people, and honestly, that attitude re: fandom is making me hate it. 

i’ve put a lot of pressure on myself in this fandom. i felt obligated to gif every new episode and to liveblog and to keep everything up to-date as best i could. i reblogged everything i was tagged in without question, even if if was something that i maybe, personally, wasn’t all that interested in. even when i’d already reblogged 15 of basically the same thing, even when people who don’t follow me and have never spoken to me started tagging me in things and never interacting with me otherwise. i took every single request. i never wanted to be the person who said no. 

i was miserable. 

i literally measured out every single post i made, did i post enough 911? is that too many posts about other fandoms in a row? did i an answer an ask in a way that could possibly upset someone? am i taking too long to respond, will people think im an asshole who ignores them? 

it was around christmas i guess, i was sick as fuck with covid and i was in bed, going through multiple daily panic attacks about my health and rather or fucking not i needed to be in the hospital, and still beating myself up about the fact that i hadn’t made gifsets, that i realized how awful my experience had become. 

don’t get me wrong, y’all, please, i love every single one of you. i am so fucking eternally, crazy grateful that 900 of you decide to be here everyday. but i can’t do this anymore. 

as some of you know, ive been struggling with writers block and it’s one of the big things that i’ve wanted to work on getting through this year. the thing that got me through covid and christmas was this incredible special outer banks fic idea that @daisiesandmoonlight and i have built, that i love so incredibly much, but i literally have talked myself out of even trying to write it because i felt like my first fic back into writing had to be buddie. 

i’m over that too. so, here’s how the future looks for this blog. 

-this blog is multifandom. completely. it will no longer be 99% 9-1-1. i will still be posting/talking about, and creating things for 911 fandom, but it is no longer my sole priority. my interaction will probably go way down as incorporate my other fandoms in earnest.  -i will be making gifs, but when i want to, for what i want to. i will no longer be holding myself to a strict “i’ve gotta live gif every episode” schedule. i will no longer be taking every single request. in fact, i will most likely not be doing 95% of what was in my inbox pre covid. i just, i don’t have the inspiration for it. those of you who have asked for requests via discord, i will still be doing yours for sure.  -i will not be reblogging every single thing im tagged in, if it’s not something im personally into, if im overwhelmed or i feel like there’s just been too much going on, i won’t be reblogging. im sorry, y’all. i really am, i love you and i love being this positive light who always hypes people up, but my tags are insane, especially on show nights, and it’s honestly too much a lot of the time. -if it inspires me, im going to let it. if that means i post 8 gifsets from one fandom in a row, or my first fic back into writing isn’t buddie, that’s okay.  -i will be adding admins to @thebuddielibrary to help take the stress off there. hopefully that is a positive growth for that blog as well <3 -i will continue to be a positive blog in all my fandoms. i will still not be interacting with drama or ship wars or ship or character bashing. that isn’t me and it’s not the vibe i want to cultivate on my blog. 

basically, i’m prioritizing my own self for once. i’m cultivating a blog that makes me happy. i don’t know what that looks like yet, honestly, but im going to find out. and i love all of you, but if you no longer want to follow me, i completely understand. you’ve all gotta shape your own experiences too, and i get that. 

in short: this may not be my final form, but it is my first evolution.  thanks for listening guys. and thanks for being here. tagging some mutuals so maybe i wont get lost. 

@ashavahishta @maygrant @taylor-kelly @briinstardust @sopheliza25 @bvckleydiaz @burzekbrettsey @gilbxrt-blythe @selenaurrr @matan4il @tylerhunklin @deareddie @doctornineandthreequarters @buttercupbuck @hennwilson  @siriuslyjamie @tarlosbuddie @whattarush @evanbuckleyed @evaneddie @herodiaz @nymika-arts @firefighter-diaz @maurawrites @malikjavaddzayn @captaincasey 

im sure i forgot someone so please signal boost this!!! 

[procrastinatorproject]

Fic writer review, thank you to @thelaithlyworm  for the tag <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

Ten? Oh no, it’s actualy 12 now!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

86,468

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Grand total of 1: Star Trek: Picard - although my latest offering might branch a bit into other Trek as well.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Passengers”

“And a Barrel of Gagh”

“CMO’s Log”

“Preparations”

“Game Night”

Which is actually kinda interesting. I wrote Passengers, Preparations, and Game Night while the fandom was still a lot more active (especially in the Aramis in Space corner), so that makes sense. The CMO’s log has had chapters added every few months, giving it probably the most exposure of any of my fics. Barrel of Gagh, though? I think I’m gonna attribute that to Thimblerig turning it into a truly, TRULY brilliant piece of podfic. Also the fact that it’s whump involving a character played by Santiago Cabrera. ‘tis A Thing..... :D

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to! I love talking with people in the comments and just... thanking the people who found the time and energy to leave comments. But especially in the last few months I have gotten very bad at keeping up with the comments and now there’s about two dozen that I have neglected to reply to for a painfully long time 🙈

But I will get there! Because I love that kind of interaction!

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

So far, none of them have had angsty endings. Angsty middles, yes, but not endings. I’m just a sucker for everyone being happy in the end. Or at least on the way to being better, and supported and cared for on that way.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t yet, but I’m definitely not opposed. One of the threads of my 200k unpublishable whump scenes takes place in a continuity that has existed in my daydreams for... I wanna say six years at the very least, probably longer. It’s mostly straight-up Star Trek, but with the twist that it involves the Wraith, the telepathic, hive-minded alien race from Stargate: Atlantis that suck the life force out of you with their hands? Or, well, at least a variation thereof.

I once typed up the world building for that particular setting and it took me three hours to try and make it all make sense. So it’s... involved. But not necessarily “crazy”. And I’m not sure I’m ever actually going to publish any of the stories I have set in it (not least because that would envolve finishing any of them and bringing them into a form that is interesting to read for anyone but me...)

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hm, not yet. I do enjoy reading smut, but only under very specific circumstances. I think I may eventually try my hand at smut, but the inner prude is still very strong. Writing about Rios and Xyr making out (which, honestly, was really tame, all things considered) made me melt in a puddle of blushing embarrassment, so full-on smut is probably beyond me at the moment. One day!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Though litigating that in a fandom like ours would be... tricky. ST:Pic is way too small to steal stories outright. But similar or the same ideas pop up all the time. And it’s a complete coincidence. Reading the book that recently came out and that has a kinda similar setting to a lot of my stories (pre-season 1, early in Rios’s history as captain of Sirena, dealing with original characters, holo shenanigans, friendship with Raffi, etc.), I was struck by just how many elements, both scenes or story beats and little details, were similar to things that have cropped up in my writing. And it is entirely coincidental, because I am beyond certain that the author doesn’t read fanfic. Just... for legal reasons. Not to mention I wrote a bunch of the things I saw parallels to while the book was already in production, and some of them are only in my drafts.

So there is a ton of convergent evolution going on in this particular section of the fandom, and trying to litigate who came up with certain plot ideas or character beats when would be a sysiphean disaster. Some things are clear and whenever I use any of them I give credit where I can, but people will have very similar ideas. It just happens. So no, I haven’t had either a full-on story or “an idea” stolen, and I might change my tune if it ever does happen, but so far, I’m trying to practice equanimity, so I’ll be better at it should I ever need it.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly no. My dad keeps complaining that all my fic is in English so he can’t read any of it, but honestly? I’m kinda glad for this very convenient excuse. Maybe if I ever feel like I want to practice my interpreting skills, I will give translating the stories into German a shot. We’ll see. Otherwise, if anyone feels inspired: Have at it! Just let me know, okay?

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not quite. I have a draft of off-the-cuff worldbuilding that I wrote on Discord with @curator-on-ao3 and that I would love to turn into an actual short fic (letters from a conference on holo-ethics), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do shipping.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT!!!! One day, I will write the next installment of Star Trek: La Sirena! I have so many ideas for that continuity and those characters. I’m not going to abandon them!

what are your writing strengths?

Hmmmmm. Probably detailed worldbuilding? Ask me something about, say, a technological or cultural aspect of Star Trek and chances are, I have thought about it in the past or will come up with three different sets of intricate lore within half an hour. (Things like... the architecture of San Francisco, or Will there still be taxi drivers? or the treaty between IKEA Intergalactic and the Borg Collective, or the Universal Translator, or Emergency Services or Why There Are Very Few Ambulances On Earth Anymore etceterah etceterah...)

I’m also good at slapping together off-the-cuff plot ideas (if, say, you need an explanation for how Seven and Agnes ended up stranded on a desert island, I could probably give you three different scenarios pretty quickly. Just don’t ask me to make them poignant or actually write them.

I’m also very, very good at beginnings.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Everything that isn’t a beginning. Especially endings, or rather: finishing something, but also just... keeping momentum.

I think my dialogue is somewhat samey and not distinct enough between characters. (Also my witty banter is... let’s just say it doesn’t come to me naturally...)

And I also struggle with keeping things brief and to the point. I can write you 30k of whump covering a span of three hours, but fitting a whole story in the same space? Much more difficult!

I have also avoided writing full-on action so far, but where it has crept in it has always been a struggle and been workshopped a lot with the indefatigable beta.

Otherwise, I don’t know. My self-perception is always a little warped, so I’m not sure what other people would say my weaknesses are.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oof. Well. I have used Spanish sentences in my fic and done the thing where they’re translated in the end note, but I’ve mostly done it sparingly. I’ve also done the ‘“What do you want?” he said in Spanish.’ It’s tricky. But I will likely keep doing it in some instances, even if it’s a bit annoying.

(It also really helps to have a native speaker of Spanish as a beta, even if it’s Spanish from a different region than you’re character.)

Speaking of regional: I’m also torn about the whole “phonetically writing out accents” issue. Some people love it, some people hate it, I’m really unsure because I’m not a native speaker of English, so I’m not even sure I’m consistent in my narrative voice’s regional quirks. So far, I’ve mostly gone with describing that an accent is happening, and only writing out when phrasing actually differs from standard English. Like Ian (Scottish) saying “dinnae” but not writing “I” as “ah” as you’d see on, say, Scottish twitter.

Though it can be a very useful tool if, for instance, you want to indicate a characters accent getting stronger as they get tired or upset. 🧐

Anyway, I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here and everyones milage will vary.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Published? ST:PIC

Actually first? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Pretty much simultaneously, though I did write more for LotR. On graph paper, mind, with my fountain pen turned upside down so I could write smaller. I still have folders worth of those stories that I urgently need to digitize before they fade and I lose them forever...

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m going to quote @thelaithlyworm here: I Love All My Children Equally! I honestly couldn’t say. They are different and I love them for different reasons but I love them all.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’ve kinda lost track of who all has done this already or has already been tagged, so feel free to ignore me! But I tink I’m tagging @curator-on-ao3, @aini-nufire, @29-pieces, @flowers-creativity, @highfunctioningflailgirl, @cristobalrios and @the-goofball. And anyone else whom I forgot or who feels inspired to do this!

[myhumanweakness]

Destiel/Cockles analysis s/p 15x18

Okay, so... This is gonna be a mishmash of thoughts, but if you stick with me maybe you’ll get what I’m saying. 

I’ve been seeing a lot of shit condemning Jensen as a homophobe because of his previous actions/statements about Destiel and also (for some ungodly reason) because of his performance during the confession in 15x18. And I have this theory that I needed to get out because it’s been there for a while, and now is the perfect time to explain it. 

This show started out in 2005 as a show about two manly, Midwestern men that  got pulled into a life of hunting the Earth’s worst creatures, tapping ass, and drinking beers (while also giving you a play-by-play on how to repress emotions), and there was also A LOT of love buried in the plot. A lot. 

The world was a completely different place in 2005. The own creator of the show didn’t expect the show to go past 5 seasons, so when the longevity came they were forced to grow. We watched this show go through a very human process/experience of growth and acceptance and evolution, and we got to grow along side it. Was it always a neat, beautiful process? Hell no. There were a lot of potholes along the way. But, growth isn’t linear. The point is that they (the writers, producers, actors, etc.) kept pushing themselves to grow year after year. 

So now, back to Jensen. Jensen has shown this fandom time and time again not only how grateful he is that we adore him and helped him to cultivate a life beyond what he has dreamed of but also that he is attentive and considerate to our feelings/thoughts. Has he disagreed with us at times? Hell yes he has. Has be bluntly stated that “Destiel doesn’t exist.” Hell yes he has. And it’s been hurtful and frustrating and invalidating. But, take a step back for a moment. 

Jensen is so connected to Dean. His friends and even his own wife has stated that he sometimes forgets that “he’s not Dean.” Dean has informed so much of who Jensen is for the last 15 years. And Jensen has admittedly seen a lot of himself in Dean. So who was Dean at the beginning of this show? Dean was the guy who made gay jokes, slept with plethoras of woman to fill a void (and also for pleasure), was so out of touch with his feelings because he was too busy being the person his father wanted/needed him to be, and had a very clear idea of what it meant to be a man. That’s the brain Jensen lived in for years while playing Dean. And honestly, it’s been speculated and discussed here, that Jensen’s brain might not have been too far off from that mindset outside of Dean. 

But just as we watched the show grow, I truly believe we watched Jensen grow. And we all know Danneel is a big part of that because she is wildly herself and big and fierce, especially about the things she believes in and loves, and she is open-minded and just pushes people to grow. And he has said those things about her. But I also think that a lot of Jensen’s growth came from Misha because as much as Danneel has influenced him over the years, I firmly believe Jensen needed to see/meet/form a relationship with someone like Misha in order to truly/permanently break down those walls about what a man should/could be. 

Cockles fans have long dissected and held up microscopes to Jensen and Misha’s relationship, so much so that there are pages and pages of theories about how their love bloomed, their break ups, their tender moments, and the growth of their relationship in general. But one thing that I think Jensen frequently struggled with is this idea that he needed to keep Dean true to who he is as a person, and that any growth and evolution in Jensen’s life (ie his relationship with Misha) couldn’t influence that. All of those moments he was denouncing Destiel seemed to be out of a struggle to keep those two people separate- Jensen vs Dean. Because in Jensen’s head, Dean was still this super straight, rough and tough, Midwestern monster hunter. 

But over the years, the Destiel fandom was comforted by Misha’s outspoken love, admiration, and agreement. Misha truly championed this fandom with reckless abandon. But while Misha was comfortable (to a degree) with himself and his relationship with Jensen, we really watched Jensen struggle. We watched Jensen grow. 

So, fast forward to the last couple of years. Destiel is subtextually canon- the writers have confirmed this at this point. Jensen is less negative about Destiel at panels insofar as to talk about their “break ups” and “domestic disputes” and “relationship” with a validating tone. Is he fervently talking about Destiel safe words and bondage and having sex/making out? No. But that’s not who Jensen is. He’s much more conservative with his emotions than Misha... at least publicly. 

This fandom has watched Jensen grow, not only in his dealings with/approach to Cockles but also with Destiel. So, while Jensen has long been adamant that Dean is not bisexual and couldn’t end up with Cas, I think there was potentially a moment where Misha (and potentially Danneel) were like, “Well, why can’t Dean be bi? Why can’t he finally realize that about himself after years of breaking down barriers and fears and conditioned notions? You did.” 

What came first, Cockles or Destiel? That’s been the debate right? The chicken or the egg? I truly think without Cockles coming first, we would have never been able to have Destiel. In fact, in my head, I can make the argument that without Jensen growing and going through the process of falling in love with Misha, Destiel would have never become canon. Jensen needed to first separate himself from Dean (which we are all privy to), grow and fall in love [again] as Jensen, and then give Dean the permission to grow and fall in love too. 

As we have seen from this week’s episode, Destiel has been there for years. YEARS. But Dean has always had to deal with two struggles: accepting himself and Jensen accepting him. We heard Jensen say at a panel that when he read the script for the final episode, he had a hard time coming to terms with what happened. People have long speculated that was referring to Destiel. Now, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t (I guess we’ll find out in two weeks), but it would make a lot of sense if it was. 

As everyone (the writers, actors, fans, etc.) has validated and acknowledged Destiel and particularly Dean’s love for Cas, Jensen has continued to struggle with it. But I don’t think it’s because Jensen is homophobic or anything like some people are saying. I think it’s because Jensen has worked tirelessly to separate the romantic lives of himself and Dean. Jensen convinced himself that Dean loving Cas and them having a relationship would be out of character, when in reality it followed this pattern of growth that both the show and bi (& LGTQ+) men/individuals around the world followed. Because Jensen is so connected to Dean, he can’t have 2020 vision until it’s hindsight because as Dean was coming out to himself and accepting himself, Jensen was accepting Dean simultaneously. It’s actually a beautiful thing. And it doesn’t make Jensen homophobic... it makes Jensen human. 

As many LGBTQ+ people will tell you, the path to realization and acceptance is fraught with struggle (internal and external) and doubt and denial and even self-hatred. There are no two characters that embody that more than Cas and Dean. So, I think that once Jensen realized that he went through a similar process as Dean it wasn’t that crazy anymore that Dean was in love with Cas. And Jensen loving Misha didn’t force Dean to love Cas- Jensen didn’t make Dean bi- Jensen loving Misha gave Dean the permission to love Cas and become one of the most human characters (especially male characters) to ever exist because we got to watch Dean find love and accept love through repression, struggle, self realization, and self acceptance. 

And for that, Jensen Ackles will go down in history as one of the best actors of this generation. Because he truly brought life to Dean Winchester.

Thank you for attending my TedTalk. I wanted to be much more thorough with this and include gifs and video evidence, but this is already lengthy and I doubt anyone even made it to the end. 

[9worldstales]

MCU Loki: Is character development what we see in episode 1 or not?

I’ve discovered there’s a debate if what happened to Loki in episode 1 can constitute character development or not so I felt like sharing my two cents about it.

So, character development.

Character development IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE refers to the changes a character undergoes over the course of a story as a result of their experiences (positive or negative) and actions (successful or unsuccessful). Change can be positive or negative as the character can improve himself but also can sink into an abyss of depravity. It’s worth to remark changes is not necessarily always triggered by something they did, it can very well be something that happened to them that caused them to change… but the point of character development, IN THIS CASE, is that there has to be a change in the character. He can’t remain the same.

So… I’ll pick Tony Stark because his situation in “Iron Man” presented plenty of parallelisms with Loki in “Loki” and not just because some like to consider Tony too a narcissist.

So, same as how Loki was taken captive by the TVA, Tony Stark too was taken captive by the Ten Rings. For three months. There Tony is forced to see how the weapons he produced were used by terrorists to kill other Americans and who called him “the most famous mass murderer in the history of America” and were honoured to have him in their hideout. They originally were meant to kill him but since they realized he could be of some use to them, they’re willing to keep him alive because they want his help, not to search a Tony Variant but to produce more weapons. Tony though, understands once they have finished using him, they would dispose of him. Tony also has the major problem of being told to have only a week of life due to the wounds he suffered.

In this part of the story Tony is just a victim, he doesn’t really get to do something, negative things are merely poured onto him.

It parallels what happens to Loki for most of episode 1.

He’s beaten, taken captive, informed he’ll be killed, his execution is postponed because they decided he could be of use, he’s told he’s a murderer, a liberator of eyeballs who wasn't born to be king but to cause pain and suffering and death, all so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves. He’s also told he caused his mother’s death. And, all right, Mobius won’t immediately tell him what he wants him for, but it’s pretty clear he wants him for something.

So, back to Tony, when we have his character growth? When he reacts to all that was poured on him and react not just by fighting back in a typical Tony style (using his brain to create something that would allow him to fight the Ten Rings and escape) but also by changing things. Once he’s back home Tony announces he won’t produce anymore weapons.

The man who said...

Tony: Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind, I humbly present the crown jewel of Stark Industries' Freedom Line. It's the first missile system to incorporate our proprietary repulsor technology. They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it. That's how America does it. And it's worked out pretty well so far.

...becomes the man who say...

Tony: I never got to say goodbye to Dad. I never got to say goodbye to my father. There are questions that I would have asked him. I would have asked him how he felt about what this company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels. I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability. I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be.

This evolution makes sense. It feels believable. Why is that?

Let’s go back to Tony Stark.

Tony stark didn’t mean to be ‘the most famous mass murderer in the history of America’, he was sure his work was protecting people, he didn’t realize it was used by the bad guys, likely because he just accepted his legacy of son of Howard Stark and didn’t bother to think at it any further.

When he discovers things aren’t how he assumed, after a moment of discomfort in which Yinsen had to motivate him...

Yinsen: I'm sure they're looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life's work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it? Tony: Why should I do anything? They're going to kill me, you, either way. And if they don't, I'll probably be dead in a week. Yinsen: Well, then, this is a very important week for you, isn't it?

...he started fighting to change them. It fits with Tony’s personality, it makes narrative sense, it’s well presented, it’s believable on a psychological standpoint (yes, a person like Tony Stark would do this) and from an empathic standpoint (yes, if I were in Tony Stark’s place I would do the same).

When Tony gives his speech in which he shows he has changed, he surprises the people who have no idea what he went through, but not the viewers. For the viewers his reaction is perfectly believable.

So why, for a part of the fandom, what happens to Loki doesn’t feel equally believable since his experience parallels Tony? Why part of the fandom feels there was no character growth at all?

Well, I can’t answer for everyone, everyone probably has his own reasons but merely by keeping up the comparison with what happened to Tony Stark we see how the thing doesn’t work the same.

A premise here, I know there will be people tempted to think Mobius is the stand in for Yinsen because Mobius is likable and, ultimately, he’ll become Loki’s friend.

He’s not.

Yinsen was held captive by the Ten Rings, his life in danger same as Tony. There’s a moment in which they even threaten him and Tony has to stand in to save Yinsen’s life.

Mobius, as far as Mobius and Loki know, is not another prisoner of the TVA, he’s there willingly. Yes, he’s operating under the false belief he has been created by the TVA but he’s not aware of it. In that moment, as far as Mobius is involved, he’s a willing operative of the TVA, someone in with authority, in control of Loki’s life...

Mobius: Mmm... Luckily, he believes in himself enough for the both of us. And, hey, if it doesn't work, I'll delete him myself. He's really arrogant.

...and the TVA is his purpose, his life and he believes it to be real.

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.

He doesn’t feel threatened by the TVA, coerced. He’s doing what he does because he believes he’s playing the good guy.

Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.

So no, Mobius here is not the equivalent of Yinsen, he’s the equivalent of Abu Bakaar, the guy who tells Tony he’s ‘the most famous mass murderer in the history of America’ and wants to persuade him to cooperate with the Ten Rings, in the same way Mobius wants to persuade Loki to cooperate with the TVA. Keep this in mind because it’s relevant and easy to forger since we know how things will develop in other episodes.

And okay, now let’s go back on track.

Let’s talk of the motives that caused the change in Tony Stark.

Tony is shown by Abu Bakaar something he previously wasn’t aware of, how his weapons are used to kill Americans, that, by building them, he became an accomplice in killing Americans, which was something he didn’t want, hence the change.

Loki is shown… the events of “The Avengers” which he was aware of and which, of course, doesn’t impress him much…

Loki: No. And I remember. I was there. Anything else?

…as the show didn’t play the card of the sceptre influencing him as they say in the official web. Mobius doesn’t tell Loki ‘you did this but you weren’t in control of yourself, you were manipulated by the sceptre’ no, Mobius tells him ‘you did this’ and Loki’s answer is basically ‘yeah, I know, so? Why should I care?’

So Mobius moves to the events of “Thor: The Dark World” and, more specifically, to how Loki ‘caused’ Frigga’s death.

This is something that, in theory, can work as equivalent of Tony Stark being told his weapons are used by the Ten Rings to kill Americans. Loki clearly didn’t want any harm to befall on Frigga, whom he loved dearly. We know that in “Thor: The Dark World” he sufferd a lot for her death, blamed himself and changed (or better, in the authors’ original intentions, he mostly reversed back to how he was before “Thor” but this is a topic for another meta).

For who doesn’t remember the movie in “Thor: The Dark World” after Frigga’s death Loki:

- agreed to help Thor

- brought him and Jane to Svartalfheim

- put up a show for Malekith according to Thor’s plan without betraying Thor

- protected Jane TWICE, the last time risking his own life to save hers

- stopped the Kurse from killing Thor by stabbing and killing him and, in the original plan for the movie, he was also meant to die doing so. Even if you go by the ending the movie ultimately had, Loki has protected a human, cooperated with saving the universe from the Dark Elves and saved his brother’s life instead than letting Thor get killed.

It’s quite a change from how he was in “The Avengers”.

Then great, we’ve something that could push him to change, right?

Wrong.

For start because what Mobius says had happen to Frigga in truth hadn’t happened yet and wouldn’t have happened to THIS LOKI as he wasn’t carried back on Asgard because he escaped with the Tesseract. THIS LOKI has escaped and so wouldn’t end up captive on Asgard, wouldn’t be jailed and wouldn’t be there when the Kurse would intrude in Asgard’s prisons so there’s no way he can do something that would lead to Frigga’s death. Problem solved.

We continue with the fact that Mobius can’t prove to Loki this would have happened had Loki been carried on Asgard. Let’s forget how the version of what happened he gave to Loki is wrong and misleading. Even if he’d been absolutely truthful, what he does is to show Loki a video... but how can he prove this is the future that was meant to happen and not a lie he’s telling him in order to manipulate him? Tony saw his own weapons being in the hands of the Ten Rings, one of them exploded in front of him, wounding him, he disassembled some of the others, he’s sure the Ten Rings has them. But how can Loki be sure what Mobius is telling him is true and not just an illusion? A lie?

But whatever, the series tries hard to sell us through Loki’s reaction that he believed Mobius’ words about this being true because he totally loses his cool at that scene. So, okay Loki believes so will this change him the way it changed him in “Thor: The Dark World”?

Nope.

Tony changes because he does something to actively prevent Americans from being killed by his weapons, he shuts down their production and he involves himself personally in the fight against terrorists with a weapon only he controls, the Iron Man suit.

What does Loki do to prevent Frigga’s death?

Nothing.

His attempt at escaping might have been made more urgent by this piece of info but was something Loki had tried to do from when he’s been taken to the TVA… and in the following episodes Frigga’s fate will be completely forgotten, as if Loki has stopped worrying about it entirely. When talking with Sylvie about Frigga in episode 3 he doesn’t use it as a motive to explain why he wants to gain control of the TVA, to change his mother’s fate… nor it’s something that inspire him to fight the TVA, because that role belongs to Sylvie and Sylvie only. When he’ll try to persuade the other Loki Variants to help him, again he won’t mention Frigga, just Sylvie. Frigga won’t get mentioned not even when Loki will reach The Citadel at the End of Time and Miss Minute will try to tempt him. She’ll offer him glorious power and Sylvie, nor her nor Loki will try to bargain for his mother’s life instead. No, from episode 2 onward what Loki learnt in episode 1 goes forgotten, so let’s focus solely on episode 1.

Some believe Loki in episode 1 changed because he admitted he didn’t like to hurt people, that he’s a villain and helped to cooperate with Mobius.

Mobius: Loki? Nowhere left to run. Loki: I can't go back, can I? Back to my timeline. I don't enjoy hurting people. I... I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to. Mobius: Okay, explain that to me. Loki: Because it's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. Mobius: A desperate play for control. You do know yourself. Loki: A villain. Mobius: That's not how I see it. You try to use that? Loki: Oh, several times. Even an Infinity Stone is useless here. The TVA is formidable. Mobius: That's been my experience. Listen, I can't offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better. A fugitive Variant's been killing our Minutemen. Loki: And you need the God of Mischief to help you stop him? Mobius: That's right. Loki: Why me? Mobius: The Variant we're hunting is... you.

Only… this doesn’t really work.

Why?

Loki has tried escaping and has been forced to realize he can’t, that’s why he cooperates, that’s why he gives Mobius an answer to what he asked for...

Mobius: Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small? Making them feel afraid?

... why he agrees with his accusations...

Loki: I know what I am. Mobius: A murderer? Loki: A liberator. Mobius: Of eyeballs, maybe.

...and ultimately accepts to work for the TVA.

This parallels Tony refusing to build armies for the Ten Rings, being tortured and, ultimately agreeing to build weapon for them, at least verbally. And let’s remember if it wasn’t for Yinsen’s words Tony might have given up. It’s Yinsen who encouraged him to fight back.

Yinsen: I'm sure they're looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life's work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it? Tony: Why should I do anything? They're going to kill me, you, either way. And if they don't, I'll probably be dead in a week. Yinsen: Well, then, this is a very important week for you, isn't it?

So this doesn’t constitute Loki changing, just accepting he’s powerless against the TVA and must play along with them. Playing along with someone isn’t something new for Loki, the episode even lampshades it.

Mobius: Well, let's start with a little cooperation. Loki: Not my forte. Mobius: Really? Even when you're wooing someone powerful you intend to betray? Come on.

So no, him being forced to accept the TVA is powerful and therefore deciding to cooperate with them is not a change. This series sets it as a normal Loki behaviour… as well as the fact it’ll immediately turn out he intends to betray them.

Loki: Very nice. I mean, it is adorable that you think you could possibly manipulate me. I'm ten steps ahead of you. I've been playing a game of my own all along. Mobius: What, charm your way in front of the Time-Keepers, hustle them, and seize control of the TVA? Am I getting warm? A double cross by history's most reliable liar.

And what for? Power, glorious power.

Loki: I'm going to overthrow the Time-Keepers. And, uh, cards on the table, I could use a qualified lieutenant.

Loki: Oh, yeah? What about you? Your years-in-the-making plan was to tear the place down, create the ultimate power vacuum, and then just walk away. I'd never have done that.

Nothing of what happened on this episode changed what the “Loki” series claimed to be Loki’s character prior to the “Loki” series. At the end of it he’s cooperating with someone more powerful than him so that he could betray him and take the power from him, which is how this series claimed all the Lokis (except Sylvie) were.

There’s no change.

There could have been, what happened in episode 1 could have worked for Loki in the same way it worked for Tony Stark but it didn’t. The authors even stated that his friendship with Mobius started in episode 2, not in episode 1, likely when Loki believed Mobius was sticking out his neck for him and offering him his sympathy.

Loki: Okay. Why are you in there sticking your neck out for me? Mobius: I'll give you two options, and you can believe whichever one you want. A, because I see a scared little boy, shivering in the cold. And you kinda feel bad for that ice runt. Or B, I just wanna catch this guy, and I'll tell you whatever I need to tell you. Loki: I don't need your sympathy.

So we’ve a problem.

The authors rambled more often than not on how much episode 1 changed Loki, how what they called ‘Mobius’ therapy session’ was good for him… but failed to show it in a way that would make sense with the settings set by the series.

If the series states Loki is one who, prior to arriving to the TVA, was used to cooperate when intended on wooing someone powerful he intends to betray and ends with him being willing to cooperate with the TVA after discovering it’s powerful so that he can betray it later, we go exactly back to the starting point. There’s no change, not in this episode.

His words about not enjoying to hurt people but it being merely a play feel like a forced admission of a truth he couldn’t possibly not know and his admission of being a villain isn’t followed by any genuine attempt at changing something in himself. He just acknowledged the role the TVA wanted on him… because he’s trying to woo them so that he could betray them later on.

If we want to stretch things A LOT we might assume seeing Frigga’s death worked for him in the way being told Odin died worked for Thor in “Thor”. It made him more determinate to protect the person he loved, a.k.a. Sylvie… but it stands up poorly, in part because Loki completely forget Frigga, and how she’s going to die in the TVA approved timeline, in part because, although the Loki and Sylvie love story has cute moments that make you wish you could root for them, in truth that too is poorly constructed, with Loki falling for Sylvie for hazy reasons in less than 12 hours (according to the series because she doesn’t want glorious power, according to the authors because she’s a female variant of himself), in part because… well, it doesn’t really feel consequential, it feels more like it’s me forcing such reading because I’ve heard over and over that what happened in episode 1 is supposed to matter, it’s supposed to have changed Loki somehow and so I’m grasping at straws to fit it in the story when it’s actually just forgotten.

So, the real problem is that the series doesn’t bother showing us Loki changing as a direct consequence of what happened in episode 1 in a way that’s relevant and directly consequential.

Sure, it made many happy to have Loki confirm out loud what many in the fandom already figured out, how he doesn’t enjoy hurting people, that it’s all a play.

Sure, it seems self reflection to have him admit he was a villain.

Sure, since many were deluded into thinking the people at the TVA were on the good side, it might feel like an improvement to see Loki agree to side with them.

Sure, the episode, with its parallelisms to what happened with Tony Stark, made us hope it would lead Loki to ultimately do like him.

But when all is said and done, if you look at the scenes in contest and then watch the following episodes, none of this goes anywhere and it couldn’t go anywhere.

We know originally episode 1 was planned to be very different and end just the same, with Loki accepting to cooperate with the TVA. This means the only things that were relevant in the plot that had to be in episode 1 for the series to work were Loki being captured by the TVA, being forced to acknowledge its power and accepting to work with it.

The so called and overly incensed ‘Mobius therapy session’ wasn’t something so fundamental to the plot the story NEEDED it to work and, ultimately, the story forgot it, to focus on Sylvie and on how SHE was the one who changed Loki (as well as Mobius, albeit Mobius changed him in a smaller measure) turning what happened in episode 1 into some sort of ‘Eastern egg’ for who needed to have his mind refreshed on what happened in the other movies in which Loki starred, albeit as the scenes are decontextualized, if you don’t remember well the movies, you’ll end up drawing the wrong conclusion.

It’s sad because Tom Hiddleston’s performance as he watched those scenes was great, possibly the best in the whole series, I mean I heard plenty of people who totally felt for Loki, me as well, because his pain was so raw, so palpable, and this episode just had this BEYOND HUGE amount of potential to turn Loki into another Iron Man… so it’s so very sad to see that in the end it was all dissipated like a soap bubble, never used so that Mobius and Sylvie could be the ones to cause the change in Loki. Which yes, it’s understandable as the story wanted to give them more relevance but feels like a complete waste of an otherwise good opportunity to have Loki decide for himself, due to what he had learnt, a different course in his life.

But whatever, that’s it. Sad, a waste, but that’s the story they decided to tell us, so it comes to no surprise some weren’t sold there was character development here, while they were willing to buy it in “Iron Man”. The story just didn’t build up on what happened in episode 1; it used it like a filler.

Of course though, people can have other reasons than the ones I’ve listed not to see character development. I can’t speak for everyone who didn’t see it… but I’ll say the ones I listed still could work for many.

Lastly, it’s worth to remark this doesn’t mean episode 1 isn’t enjoyable... it is. Hiddleston’s performance is so damn awesome I’ll never get tired to remark it, Wilson does great and this episode brims with potential. But the sad thing is that it remains unfulfilled, episode 1 just doesn’t deliver what he seems to promise, a change in Loki.

[yikesharringrove]

(( Soooo Pokemon AU? Idk if you’re a fan of Pokemon but given all the cool snippets and stuff you’ve written I figured I’d return the favour in a way and write this and submit it to you! I included some notes at the end! ))

– Unstable Genes –

Billy knew Steve would have a preppy, rich boy Pokemon. He just knew it. Granted he expected it to be something more powerful and less, cute.

The Eevee was always at Harrington’s side, matching brown doe-eyes observing the school. It didn’t shy from the larger Pokemon that approached it, nor did it act sickeningly sweet. It stood it’s ground, head held high, matching Steve’s general disinterest in the bustle of the school or the gossip around it. It was so weird to see such a small ball of fluff regard bigger, tougher Pokemon with such little concern. Billy didn’t know a lot about Eevees but he knew Steves was… off. For one thing, the aloofness. For another, it was (apparently) strong as fuck according to Tommy and half the school. Tommy in particular wouldn’t shut up about the battles the little Eevee had won, helping to secure old King Steve’s crown before he lost it. The other thing was that it hadn’t evolved, despite Steve apparently having it since he was ten.

Billy knew an Eevee’s DNA was extremely fucked. They evolved if you so much as looked at them funny. Buy some expensive stone and shove it in your Eevee’s face? it’ll evolve. Take them aboard to some fancy place and rub it on a stone in a specific place? It’ll evolve. Give it a ton of cake and pet it a bunch? It’ll evolve. It’s not hard to get those things if you can afford the Eevee in the first place. There were no wild Eevee’s anywhere; they were all from breeders and cost far more than anyone should pay for a Pokemon, so if you could afford the Eevee, you’d evolve it. If you weren’t keeping it for a pet.

It just made Billy all the more curious. Curious about the once King Steve and his un-evolved Eevee. And Klaus - his Luxio, the only Pokemon he had managed to keep from Cali - was equally curious. It wanted a decent fight. It saw the little Eevee, heard the stories, and licked it’s teeth, eyes gleaming. Klaus always looked for that Eevee, always trying to catch it’s gaze, caught between growling for it’s attention and purring, letting eelctricity crackle in it’s fur with every step. Billy couldn’t blame Klaus. He saw Steve and ached for the fight. To see his eyes focus on them and them alone, take charge of the battle, hear him issue commands to that Eevee. To get Steve’s skin under his fists, under his hands, to scratch, to grip, to grapple. To feel him sweat and bleed. To press him down with his body.

Then came the Night. Billy got to face King Steve, staring him down after being sent on a bullshit mission to find Max. He’d wanted this for so long but not like this. Not when it was backed up with the shit from his old man. Not when he saw Max peered from the window. Not when Steve fucking lied to his face about his sister being there with a bunch of weird boys. Klaus snarled, and Steve’s little Eevee puffed up, digging kitten claws into the earth.

It was criminal Billy couldn’t remember the fight that followed, thanks to the drugs Max had shot into him (that shit was crystal clear - the rest of the tape, the good shit, was covered in static and fuzz). He remembered throwing a punch. He remembered getting punched back. He remembered smashing a plate. He remembered feeling a pair of canines sink into his ankle as the little furball bit him, evading his attempts to kick it off. He remembered Klaus lunging, electricity crackling in his teeth as he lunged at the Eevee. And then, jackshit. But he saw the results of it the next day.

Steve was bruised, deep purple splotches darkening as his body worked to recover. On his pale skin they were beautiful, vivid proof that Billy had gotten his hands on King Steve and left a mark. Steve glanced over and for a moment, their eyes met. Billy didn’t look away. Steve didn’t either. Billy resisted the urge to lick his teeth. To make it another challenge. It was when his Luxio gave a deep, rumbling noise beside him, caught between a growl and a purr, that Billy turned, following his Luxio’s gaze to the Pokemon at Steve’s side. Billy wanted to punch something. Steve’s Eevee was no longer an Eevee. Steve’s Eevee had evolved, during or just after their fight, and he couldn’t remember it.

Billy didn’t know a lot about Eevee’s aside from them evolving at the drop of a hat. He didn’t know what it was, but it was not a preppy little furball anymore. It’s fur was sleek and black, with yellow rings on it’s legs and forehead, matched by bands around it’s ears and tail. The doe-like, black eyes were gone, replaced by knowing, red eyes. It looked directly at Billy. For an eternity, Billy stared at it as it watched him. The yellow rings glowed and dimmed in a hypnotic pulse rhythm. Yellow on black, like every caution and warning sign Billy had seen. Finally, it turned, following Steve down the hallway.

It didn’t take long to find a book on Eevees in the library, to find out what the hell Harrington’s Eevee had become. He found the page with a picture of the Pokemon, reading through it and freezing, ignoring the dirty look from the libraian as Klaus stood on his hind legs to look at the book, as if he could fucking read (Really, he was just staring at the picture).

“Umbreon, the Moonlight Pokemon. A well trained Eevee with a strong bond to it’s trainer can evolve into an Umbreon under the influence of the Moon.

A nocturnal hunter, it blends in with darkness by dimming the markings on it’s body. When excited and ready to strike, the markings shine brightly, startling it’s prey. It’s possible that it uses the glow of it’s markings to communicate with others… Not much is known about this Pokemon; Umbreons (and Espeons; see page 196) are unknown in the wild, and few trainers evolve their Eevees this way. Most cite that it is easier to evolve their Eevees through other means and train them appropriately according to how they evolve, rather than spend the time to attain these forms and then hone their training. Fewer still are willing donate their Pokemon for research on this elusive species…”

Billy looked down at Klaus, snapping the book shut. He knew Max had told him to stay away from her little weirdo friends. Which apparently included Steve. Which was still extremely fucking weird. But he wanted to know. He wanted to know what the fuck happened that night. Why Steve was there. What the fuck Max and those kids were doing. How Steve’s Eevee had evolved from some little bundle of fluff into a literal Pokemon of the night. “Klaus. We got some training to do.”

—

(( Steve’s Pokemon is an Eevee! It’s a rare Pokemon; in earlier games it couldn’t be found in the wild at all, and you’d only get one given to you. They can evolve into a total of eight different Pokemon, depending on what method you use, and each evolved Pokemon is a different type with different stats and abilities. So it’s very popular! It feels like the kind of thing Steve’s parents would give him and think “yep, we’re good parents, back to work/never being at home”. And given how listless Steve generally is, he wouldn’t have decided how to evolve it. Until it evolves in response to…well, the everything happening! Steve’s evolved into an Umbreon, a dark type, which has high defensive stats. Eevee evolves into Umbreon when it had a strong bond with it’s trainer and levels up at night-time - I feel like the events of Stranger Things would cause Steve to develop a very real bond with it and cause the evolution. And I can’t decide what he would name it or if it would be a boy or a girl (girls are much rarer than males - it’s like a 1/8 chance of obtaining a female Eevee).

>>>

Billy’s Pokemon is a Luxio! It’s essentially a teenage lion, and an electric type. They’re not super rare but they look extremely rad and channel electricity into their claws/fangs when they attack! They also develop the ability to see through walls when their eyes gleam a golden colour, which they use to trakc prey or lost cubs of theirs… It evolves from a Shinx (a cub basically) and then evolves into a Luxray (the adult lion). It feels very Billy to me! I imagine he had another pokemon that was a water type/fish, so he had to leave them in the sea when he ended up going to Hawkins. I also took the name Klaus from the lead singer of the Scorpions cos I am not that good at coming up with names.

God this ended up being massive, I completely understand if you don’t post this. I don’t really know how to sign this off cos this is literally my first contribution to the Harringrove fandom despite lurking for a while. But again, thank you for all the stuff you write! I hope that even if you don’t like Pokemon, this makes ya smile. I guess I should leave a name or something, URM

- that guy who made the stupidly long Pokemon AU submission

-

I LOVE pokemon this is so fucking good. I’ve definitely thought about Steve having an Eevee before, and I love it evolving That Night, especially into Umbreon, that’s so GOOD and POWERFUL. I also love the idea of Steve with Mimikyu for,,,, angst reasons. And I love Billy with Luxio. I totally see him with electric or fire types because he would really like the strength and energy those types bring. I’ve thought about him with Cubone (also for angst reasons), or even Growlithe/Arcanine mostly bc I’m more familiar with gen 1 and 2. Seriously, I love this SO MUCH and if you ever wanna write more 👀👀 I would LOVE to read it.

[cami-chats]

The Pattern Of Sleep

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Tony Stark/Natasha Romanov

Warnings: None

On AO3

"Do you never sleep?" Natasha asked, lounging in a spare rolling chair a few feet away with her wings over the back and leisurely falling so the tips of her feathers skimmed the floor. "It has been quite some time since I last had a charge, but I think you are still supposed to sleep more than this."

"You're only guessing," Tony said.

"I am creating a hypothesis based on what I remember. Staying awake for fifty hours seems a little extreme."

"You're fine," he pointed out. Because where he was mainlining coffee, Natasha didn't require food, water, or sleep and she wasn't flagging in the slightest.

"I am not a human," Natasha said. "I sleep when my charge sleeps."

Okay so maybe she did sleep. And come to think of it, he'd seen her snacking on an apple the other day, but he was pretty sure she didn't need it regularly the way humans did.

"And I think you are sleeping less than you are supposed to."

"A good guess, but you're wrong," Tony said. She'd probably believe him, but she wasn't as trusting as he thought guardian angels should be. Although, with how much he lied to her in an attempt to not have to change how he worked, maybe it was for the best that she didn't always take him at his word. If nothing else, he could appreciate how hard he made her job and the way she seemed to have magically nudged him into making better decisions on occasion. Magically, he was sure, because he did not decide to stop drinking all by himself.

Natasha hummed and said nothing.

*

"Do you survive solely on coffee?" Natasha asked, peeking over his shoulder to look at the four empty coffee cups on the cafe table in front of him.

"You've seen me eat."

She turned to start pacing around the table. The coffee shop wasn't very busy, so she had the space to circle the table without bumping into anyone. "Not as much as other humans eat. Are you a different species than them? Perhaps evolved to require more caffeine and less nutrients?"

"Sit down and stop being snarky," Tony said.

"No. Perhaps this is the same evolution that lets you sleep once every three days instead of once a day the way everyone else does."

"Natasha," he groaned. "Can you bother me about this when I'm not on a deadline?"

"You're always on a deadline."

"All the more reason to stop being snarky altogether," he muttered lowly, but he knew that she heard him.

"Have you considered lightening your workload? Less coffee, more sleep, and an all-around better life for you."

"If I had less coffee and more sleep, I would get nothing done."

"You said the same thing before you stopped drinking alcohol," she said.

"And it was true." He didn't regret giving it up, but there was no denying the fantastic waves of inspiration he'd gotten while drunk off his ass. The resulting hangover had balanced him out by making him incapable of doing anything but laying in bed, but he did sort of miss those days. He wasn't going to say as much to Natasha, though. She probably already knew what he was thinking because of the whole guardian angel thing. Or maybe that wasn't a power they had and she was just that good at reading him. He didn't really know, and he wasn't sure he cared.

"Yes, how dare I make you more healthy? A tragedy, to be sure."

"It kind of is."

Natasha's wings snapped close against her back like they did when she was aggravated with him. He didn't look up, but he heard it happen. "Why are you so insistent on fighting me? I'm trying to look out for you."

"Not because you like me," he muttered, not really meaning to.

"I may have been sent here, but do not think for a second that I do not love you, Tony. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't be here."

At that, Tony did look over at her. She'd stopped opposite him, arms crossed over her chest. He took a gulp from his newest latte. "You're not allowed to leave me once you've been assigned, right?"

"Wrong. I can request a transfer at any time."

"Oh." He blinked at her, and she stared back stonily. "Good to know." He started to turn back to his work, but he glanced back up at her a scant moment later. "When I first asked you about this-" years ago "-you told me that I was stuck with you."

"Because I already knew that I had no interest in being reassigned."

"You could've said that."

"And deal with you acting out to try and get rid of me?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony opened his mouth to deny it, then he closed his mouth again. "How many other half-truths have you told me?"

"Only as many as you've told me," she said evenly.

"So a ridiculous amount, then."

"I'm just trying to keep things even."

Tony snorted, but he wasn't actually very bothered by it. Like she’d said, fair was fair. "Does that mean that if I stop lying to you...?"

"I will follow suit."

"You're a lot sneakier than I gave you credit for."

Natasha grinned, her wings finally returning to a more normal position. "Did you really think you would be assigned a run-of-the-mill angel?"

"Not to sound too ignorant, but yeah, I sort of did."

"Well, you're only human. Some mistakes in logic are expected."

"What mistake in logic? Is there some sort of hierarchy for guardian angels that are supposed to be considered common knowledge?"

She looked puzzled for a moment, then cleared her expression and said, "You really should stop piling so much work on yourself."

*

Tony was used to ignoring his feelings, so he wasn't agonizing over it very much when he realized that he liked Natasha. He had a habit of finding the absolute worse person to develop feelings for, and then falling in love. So yeah, he'd gotten pretty good at ignoring his feelings over the years.

He couldn't deny it anymore when Natasha sat in his lap one day, though. He only had so much self-control. He didn't even have to do anything because she kissed him; all he had to do was kiss her back. He got used to being with her like that in a hurry. He got used to the way she would drape one wing over him as they slept, even though it tickled him at first.

They weren't together like that all the time. Hell, he still didn't go to sleep every night, and more often than not, Natasha was too busy trying to make sure he didn't hurt himself that there wasn't much time for romance or cuddling-- because being together hadn't made him listen to her anymore than before.

"Finally going to sleep?" Natasha asked.

"Mm," Tony said, because forming words was too much. He'd written far past the point that his hand hurt. It was completely cramped up, and he knew that he should do something about it before going to sleep, but he felt like he was going to fall over.

Natasha put her hands on his shoulders. "Deep breath," she instructed, and he did so.

He felt warmth seep into his muscle and down into his writing hand. When she pulled her hands away, the pain was gone. He flexed his fingers experimentally. "Thanks." He rubbed at his eyes. He was so tired that they itched, which was annoying, but it's not as if he could stay up longer and wait for it to go away.

"Of course. Come on, I'll help you change."

Tony yawned so wide that his jaw hurt. "Is that normal guardian angel behavior?" he mumbled.

"Each situation is different. 'Normal' is incredibly subjective." She pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

*

Tony blinked. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm your new guardian angel," he replied.

"Where's Natasha?"

"I have no idea, man. I just go where the boss tells me. My name's Sam, by the way."

"Well, what happened to her?"

"I don't know."

"Can you ask?"

Sam blinked. "I... could try, but I don't think you'll get an answer. Normally, when one guardian angel leaves, you don't hear from them again."

"Yeah, but did she leave? Or was she taken off my case by your boss?" 'Your boss' because Natasha had insisted it wasn't god how he thought of it.

"Like I said, I don't know." He shifted in place, wings ruffling uncertainly. Natasha's wings were black; Sam's were white. Tony didn't know if that meant anything, but the white was practically blinding. "Look man, are you okay? You look kind of devastated. I know that she was your guardian for like ten years, but this seems kind of extreme."

"She was my guardian for ten fucking years and you don't see why I'm upset?" Tony asked incredulously. If Sam was here to stay, this was not going to go well. He folded his arms over his chest. "I want to talk to her."

"That can't happen," Sam said immediately.

"Why not?"

"It's against regulation."

"So?" Natasha had said the regulations were for people that didn't know what they were doing.

"So I'm not doing it."

"Seriously? You're being serious right now."

"Uh, yeah," Sam said.

Tony stared at him. "What the fuck. Me and Natasha were paired together for ten years, and now you're telling me that I can't talk to her?"

"Yeah..." Sam said with trepidation, clearly not having anticipated this kind of reaction.

"That's bullshit. I want my old guardian angel back. Or a new one, if that can't happen." But personally, he didn't believe that getting Natasha back was impossible. There was no way that she had asked to be reassigned. Could guardian angels get sick? Maybe she needed to get back home and recharge or something; she'd said that his case was an unusually long one.

"I'm afraid you don't get to request for her to come back."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Regulations."

Tony rolled his eyes, hard. This wasn't his usual fond annoyance that he had for Natasha and Rhodey. This was more like the way he used to roll his eyes at his father when he wasn't looking and all his professors when- well, when they said pretty much anything to him. "Fine."

*

He felt kind of bad about it since it wasn't Sam's fault, but he ignored him all the time. He didn't listen to a damn thing he said. Any time he tried to do something for Tony, Tony shoved him away-- sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. It only took two times for Sam to stop trying to touch him, but the rest stayed. After all, he was Tony's guardian angel; he was trying to do his job.

"When was the last time you slept through the night?" Sam asked.

"Last night, or haven't you been paying attention?"

"That was three hours."

"How would you know? You were still asleep when I got up."

"I know when you wake up even if I decide to keep sleeping."

"I thought guardian angels didn't need to sleep."

"I don't need to, but I like it," Sam said. He was a lot grumpier than Natasha had been.

"Natasha never complained when I got up in the middle of the night."

"Then maybe she wasn't doing a very good job of guiding you."

Tony glared at him. "Natasha was the best. You never could've handled me five years ago."

"It shouldn't have taken her that long to make progress with you," Sam said. "I'm not blaming her; we all have our own timelines for how things will progress and our own methods, but-"

"Do you think that insulting her is really going to make me like you more?"

"No," he said easily. "But I am trying to understand why you're so attached because it seems to me that Natasha overstepped and made you rely on her too much. It's what makes her so good, to have her charges care about her the way they do, but on an assignment this long, she should've known better."

Should've known better, perhaps, but Tony wasn't going to blame her for that. God knows he made more than his fair share of mistakes; she should get to make a few of her own. That being said, Tony didn't actually think of it as a mistake. He loved Natasha. She'd always been there. Even when he screamed and tried to get rid of her, she'd been there. Even when she'd gotten mad at him, she'd been there. When Tony had no one else in the world that cared about him, Natasha was there. Part of that was because she was assigned to him, but after a few years, Tony had learned that she truly wanted to be there, with him.

That was the start of when Tony started ignoring Sam altogether. He knew he was being an absolute dick, but he would do far worse to get Natasha back.

He started hosting parties. He let himself seep back into his work and kept the hours he wanted with no regard for anyone else. It was childish, he knew, but he didn't stop. Sam never stopped trying to get through to him, but it was clear that he didn't expect anything to come of it-- his patience had long since run out.

He walked into a liquor store and stared for a very long time at a bottle of whiskey. It was the cheap shit. The kind he'd be able to swig and drown the bad taste with more of it. He looked at the bottle, and his fingers itched. In the end, he walked out empty-handed. He wasn't willing to give up the sobriety that he'd worked so hard for-- that was still a struggle to maintain. It might get Natasha back if he proved that Sam wasn't doing a very good job, but he wouldn't want to see the disappointment in her face if it did work. Besides, he couldn't. He couldn't do that to himself. There was a curl of shame to him as he headed home, and he didn't know if he was more ashamed that he had tried, or that he hadn't been able to go through with it.

*

"I know it wasn't your main goal," Sam said one day, "but you have successfully accomplished getting rid of me. Your replacement will be here in the morning."

Tony thought about continuing to ignore him, but that seemed cruel. "It wasn't anything personal," he muttered.

"I know. I think I would've preferred if it was, though. At least then I would've deserved it."

"Sorry," Tony said, because he could be gracious in victory.

"Eh, I'll get over it. I once had a charge that tried to kill me, so you're not that bad."

"Shit."

"Right? So you're not my favorite charge, but you're also not the worst. I still don't get why you're so intent on getting Natasha back. Now that you're getting rid of me, would you care to share?"

"Nope."

Sam sighed. "Yeah. Didn't think so."

*

The next guardian angel was a woman named Sharon. Evidently, their boss thought that Tony would be more receptive to a woman.

She was gone a hell of a lot faster than Sam. The one after her was Steve, who lasted a similar amount of time. Tony had completely shattered his sleep schedule, but it's not like he was going to meetings or something. He made his own hours, which meant he could screw them up and not face consequences other than craving food from a joint that wasn't open-- which, not to be dramatic, was absolutely soul crushing at times.

After that was Bucky. He reminded Tony of Natasha in some strange way. At first he thought it was because his wings were black as well, and then he realized that it was because they moved the same way. Held themselves the same way. Spoke with a similar cadence. Reminded him of certain tasks without sounding demanding. Tony started listening to him without really meaning to, and he thought about backtracking, but Bucky and Natasha had to know each other if they were this similar.

"Do you know Natasha?" Tony asked, shortly after figuring it out.

Bucky glanced at him. "Yes." He didn't say anything for a moment, then added, "I was her mentor."

"So you're close?"

He nodded.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Doing time, as it were," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. He and Natasha had the same lounging position.

Tony frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Certain regulations are mostly for show, and others are comparable to crimes in your society."

"What crime-comparable regulation could she have possibly broken?" Tony asked incredulously. He was pretty sure he'd know if she'd done something, and he hadn't noticed a damn thing.

"Officially, I don't know a damn thing."

"Are guardian angels allowed to curse?" Tony wondered aloud.

Bucky raised an eyebrow, looking amused.

"I'm going to interpret that look as 'yes, we can curse if we're fun'?"

He snorted.

"Unofficially, what do you know?" Tony asked.

"That it was a real dumb move of her to fall in love with you." Tony's stomach dropped. "Not judging," Bucky continued. "I've fallen in love with a charge before too. When you know someone that well, you're going to love them in some way. Sometimes it fucks you over."

Tony swallowed thickly. Bucky already knew, and he didn't seem to care one way or the other about it. It had been a dumb move for Natasha to fall in love with him, much less act on it, and Tony had known that before Bucky put words to it. "That doesn't tell me where she is."

"Like I said, doing time. At the home office, on probation. She won't be allowed to leave for a while."

"How long is a while?" Where Tony had gotten older, she hadn't changed. He figured guardian angels had a ridiculously long lifespan if they weren't out and out immortal.

"I dunno. They didn't let me leave until he was dead. They might do the same here. It depends on how cooperative Natasha is," Bucky said evenly, then he sighed. "I wouldn't count on seeing her again."

"They never let you see him again?"

Bucky didn't respond. He didn't need to.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Who would've looked out for him better than you?"

Bucky scuffed his foot against the floor. "His attachment to me made him care less about the world around him. I imagine they're trying to avoid the same thing with you."

"It's none of their fucking business."

"They make it their business."

"So what are you saying? I should forget about her?"

"I wasn't giving you advice; I was telling you what happened. It didn't work out for me, so I don't know why you'd listen to any advice I could give you anyways."

"How to do it better than you, maybe?" Tony suggested, but internally, he was thinking that he had no fucking idea what he was going to do. He didn't believe in not doing anything. He just needed to make a battle plan.

*

In the end, Natasha was the one who took care of it. She showed up on his doorstep, looking oddly off-balanced without her wings.

"What the hell happened?" Tony asked. Then he got his wits about him and pulled her inside. He gave her a slightly awkward hug because he was used to working around her wings, and they weren't there anymore. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." Then, "A little off. Everything feels different now."

"You can tell me about it later."

"Not now?"

She sounded too down-trodden to want to talk about it, so Tony said, "Nah, I've got to get used to you again. Bucky's here, by the way."

She snorted. "Only he would've finagled himself into this position."

"How dare you. I am a delight." He wasn't going to tell her about the other guardian angels he chased away. Not for a while, at least. Maybe a couple years from now, when they settled into whatever their new normal was going to be. 

[imaginedigimon]

If the Adventure kids and their digimon's ever became evil/dark Digidestined, what will be your headcanons on the kids personalities or evolution lines and stuff like that?

Ah, I should’ve seen this coming.

The evil DigiDestined question.

Adventure Kids... BUT EVIL

Tai [Taichi]

This is where the canon comes in handy (and makes my job easier), because at the very least, we know we’d see SkullGreymon a heckuva lot more. While SkullGreymon is kind of the embodiment of the not good things in the Digital World, Tai as an evil kid would be... hilarious? Like think of any cartoon villain (Gargamel from The Smurfs and Robbie Rotten from LazyTown come to mind), and that’s Tai.

And then he’d end up taking over the world because no one took him seriously. Not that we have to worry, he just wanted to be able to sleep longer and eat a lot.

Matt [Yamato]

Now Matt... Matt would be that villain that causes entire factions of the fandom to scream “IF HE’S EVIL WHY IS HE SO HOT”

He’d also be the type of sympathetic villain that you can’t help but think has a point and then you start to wonder about the implications of your own moral code if you sorta see what the VILLAIN is getting at. And then you realize he’s cuckoo for Coco Puffs cuz he’s going way too far and oh no, we need to stop his ass.

Gabumon’s evolution chain would probably go the Dobermon route thank you Wikimon for being a pal since, you know. Big scary dog. He just wants cuddles tho

Sora

Honestly, why hasn’t Sora turned evil yet in the Adventure continuity? Tai and Matt never listen to her and insist on being her canon love interests xD I love them dearly, but seriously---

In all seriousness, Sora probably takes the “every human is garbage” sort of route were she evil. Just generally done(tm) with everyone’s bullshit and is basically gonna raze the world to the ground and start anew. Not a TERRIBLE idea, but could we NOT use Digimon to do it----

Most likely, Biyomon takes the Cockatrimon route. What better way to take down all humans then freeze them like Medusa?

Izzy [Koushiro]

He was already a genius, but as an evil genius, he’d be TERRIFYING. Like there would seriously be no hope of stopping him unless, like...Mimi? I guess? But anyway, he would definitely succeed in taking over the world. And why did he do it? Because he can (and because kids bullied him as a child for being different). Kinda like Moriarty taken to a super extreme level I guess.

*shudders*

Tentomon in this instance would warp to Tyrant Kabuterimon, which I definitely didn’t decide because of the “tyrant” in the name.

Mimi

Like Matt, Mimi would give the “oh no she’s hot” vibes to the fandom. She’d be a lot like Lust from FMA and I don’t know how to feel about that. She just wants to be queen, is that so bad? Reminds me a bit of Queen Levana from The Lunar Chronicles to be honest. Scary stuff. Probably relies on her looks to trick the “heroes” into thinking she’s harmless and then sends Palmon after ‘em. Those poor heroes.

Palmon goes the Sunflowmon route here, and I swear I’m not just saying this because Sunflowmon always freaked me out a little. I mean, come on--A FLOATING SUNFLOWER WITH A FACE AND TAIL THING

Joe [Jou/Jyou]

He’s got the glasses and the dark hair if he was evil he’d basically be a darker version of Kyoya from Ouran High School Host Club. Funny cracks aside, Joe would possibly become a villain because no one ever took him seriously, and his inferiority complex basically whooshed out of control and warped him a bit. Happens to the best of us, am I right? Yeah... and he could probably get pretty far with his schemes, too. Man studied hard for a reason.

Gomamon goes Gesomon route. Because what else screams “EVIL” but squid tentacles coming out of nowhere to restrain you while the villain gives his monologue?

T.K. [Takeru]

Wasn’t... wasn’t T.K. already evil? Or was that just me?

T.K. went villainous for one of two reasons: something happened to Matt, or he started hating the world because of being separated from Matt. If, say, he didn’t have the privilege of seeing his brother like he did in Adventure, he might decide the world doesn’t really deserve to exist anymore because it dared keep him away from Matt. Scary stuff. Let’s pretend it was the first option. Revenge is a dish best served with a cute face.

Oh... oh, this is interesting. According to Wikimon, Patamon can evolve to Devimon.

Now wouldn’t that be just perfect?

I hate this, I hate this so much

Kari [Hikari]

Hm. Kari’s hard, because of the Crest of Light and all, but she’d probably go evil for similar reasons to T.K. Someone messed with Tai, and that wasn’t cool. She’d probably have more of a mental breakdown about it that would result in some waaaaaay bad cruelty, and it would be like the Digimon Emperor ratcheted up about five notches. Honestly? Horrifying stuff.

Well APPARENTLY Ophanimon is a dark Digivolution that’s bullshit but WHATEVER but (and I’m using Gatomon here because old habits die hard) for shits and giggles, let’s say we get Lady Devimon. Because it’s not a party unless you hate irony at least once a day.

All at Once

Now if ALL of the Adventure kids were to turn evil at once, chaos would ensue. However, I’d like to think they’d at LEAST be the type of villains to stick by each other...hopefully. They would most likely collectively turn evil if the human world continued treating Digimon like creatures that should be stopped/eradicated or are too dangerous to coexist with. Hard to say what the order of their “fall” would be, but eventually all of them would be a little in too deep to get out...

--------

....I’m going to end up writing fics about this, aren’t I

[apharine]

Evolution Day

Pairing:  None - Gen Urshifu & Reader

Fandom: Pokemon

Rating:  T

Read on AO3

My writing commission info

Summary:   You've taken on one of the Towers of Two Fists, defeated Master Mustard, and evolved your Kubfu at the Scroll. But going from being a two foot tall teddy bear to a big Urshifu in a matter of moments is quite the adjustment, and Urshifu finds himself struggling with his new size and strength. It's up to you as his Trainer to help him adjust - and to reassure him that everything is going to be okay.

Notes:   Welp I bought the DLC not really 100% sold on Kubfu at first but man, let me tell you, after beating the Dojo story line that little teddy bear and Urshifu are now literally my favorite Pokemon! Move over, Mareep, a tiny bear has stolen my heart.  I'm supposed to be writing a whole lot of other things, but why be responsible when you can write fluff about your favorite Pokemon, right? Anyway I love the fact that we can let our Pokemon out of their balls on the Isle of Armor but after seeing my Urshifu stand by me, and thinking about how tiny Kubfu had been, I knew I had to write something about it. So here we are!

                                           _____________________

You had expected Kubfu to get bigger when he evolved - most Pokemon do, after all. But you hadn’t imagined that he would go from a two foot tall teddy to a six or seven foot tall beast of a bear.

“Urshifu?” He asks, glancing down at his own big paws, then his large body. As if bewildered, he then looks over to you and Mustard, and starts when he realizes he’s towering over you.

“Look at you, buddy!” You grin, moving towards your newly-evolved Pokemon. When he sees your enthusiasm, his expression changes from tentative to excited, too. “You got big and strong!” You pull him into a hug, and can’t help but feel a little surprised yourself when you find your head only comes up to his chest.

“Urshi!” He exclaims back, embracing you in return. He hugs you with as much enthusiasm as he can muster, the same way he used to when he was a Kubfu - except now, he’s got muscles as big as your head, and you can’t breathe. In fact, you think he might just crack your ribs, he’s squeezing you so tightly.

“Oh - Urshifu - too tight,” you manage to gasp, trying to squirm out of his grasp. He realizes what’s happening and lets go of you suddenly, making a concerned rumble as he holds his paws together nervously. “I’m okay, buddy. I just couldn’t breathe,” you laugh. But Urshifu drops his head sadly, sitting back on his haunches, making a sorry cooing sound. “Hey, c’mon now,” you say, approaching the big bear, who is increasingly huddling in on himself. He’s always been sensitive and shy - you’d learned that about him the first time Dojo Master Mustard had introduced you to him, and it’s honestly one of the things you’ve grown to love most about your newest partner Pokemon. “Hey, buddy, there’s nothing to be sorry about,” you coo at him gently. “You’re not used to your new strength yet, is all. I’m okay.” You set your hand on Urshifu’s big shoulder, and he looks up at you, making a tentative sound. You smile at him; you know the last thing he’d ever want is to hurt you. “I’d love another hug, you know. Just…a little gentler.”

Urshifu unfolds himself from the ball he’s huddled into, standing up most of the way, though he stoops down to meet you this time. When you embrace him, you’re able to put your chin on his shoulder, and he folds his arms around you carefully.

“Fu?” He asks nervously.

“That’s much better,” you affirm, reaching up and ruffling the fur on the top of his head as you pull away, just as you had when he was a Kubfu. He squeals a little and, like always, smooths down the mussed fur with his paws, so much bigger now than they had been. You smile playfully up at him; so much about him has changed, you think, yet so much has stayed the same.

“C’mon, buddy,” you say, reaching your hand up to him. When he had been a Kubfu, you’d had to stoop a little to walk hand in paw with him - but it’s apparent that that won’t be a problem anymore. “Let’s get back to the dojo, okay?”

“Urshifu!” He agrees with a nod, folding his big paw carefully around your hand.

                                          _____________________

To say that your fellow students at the dojo were impressed would be an understatement.

“Wow! He’s evolved into an Urshifu!”

“He looks really tough now!”

“He’s so much bigger!”

He’s bigger, yes, but he’s still your shy little teddy bear in a lot of ways, you think to yourself as you set a hand on one of his paws. He’s holding onto your shoulders tightly from behind, stooping to hide behind you - all the attention really isn’t his thing.

It never has been.

“It’s okay, buddy, they’re just all excited for you,” you tell him, giving one of his paws a squeeze. He makes an uncomfortable grumbling sound, and you know that even though your dojo family has the best of intentions, he’s not going to relax until the hubbub dies down.

And then you get an idea. There is one thing that will help him feel more comfortable around everyone, and satisfy the dojo family’s curiosity about your newly-evolved partner.

“I’m really proud of Urshifu,” you tell your dojo family, still squeezing his paw reassuringly. “He’s trained really hard to get to where he is today. I can’t wait to see some of his new moves!” You smile at him over your shoulder, and Urshifu’s ears flick forward, suddenly interested.

If there’s one thing he’d never been able to resist, it had been fighting and training and showing off his moves. It’s all in his blood, after all.

“Yeah, I bet his moves are amazing!” Someone calls.

“I can’t wait to see them, either!” Another student adds.

“What do you think, little bear?” You ask him, still smiling fondly over your shoulder. You’d called him little bear when he had been a Kubfu - and though you’re tempted now to change it to big bear, which would be more accurate, in most ways, he’s still proving to be the same little bear you knew. “You think you can show us some of your moves?”

Urshifu draws himself up to his full height finally and nods. A cheer goes up around the dojo as Urshifu walks into the middle of the floor. He stretches his arms across his body, then touches his toes quickly to limber up, and finally begins to move. The first time you’d met him as a Kubfu, he had hopped out of Mustard’s Pokeball, showing off with some dazzling strikes, rapid punches, and a tremendous kick onto one of the padded posts in the dojo. This time, he’s a little more refined. You both had spent hours of every day learning and practicing various wushu forms over the past few months, and he begins executing one of his favorites now, his movements confident, graceful yet powerful, quick yet strong.

He’d been pretty tough as a Kubfu, but now, standing close to one of his punches, you realize that he’s downright formidable now. His big fist flies past you, and you feel the swoosh of air from the strike. He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, pausing for just a moment, and you smile and nod encouragingly up at him. His lips twitch upwards just a little, and he turns to continue the form, moving away from you this time.

Then, just as abruptly, he reverses direction yet again, executing the part of the form that requires a flying kick. The floorboards shudder a little under the force of his steps as he prepares to launch himself - and then, as is customary in the dojo, he leaps into the air and lands the flying kick on one of the big padded posts.

But when Urshifu’s big paw makes contact with the post, it splits in two with a tremendous crack.

Urshifu lands near the post, the floorboards again shuddering under his weight, and his paws fly to his face, covering his eyes as he backs away.

“Urshifu!” You cry, rushing forward to him, your only thought that you had to keep him safe in case anything - the ceiling, the stories above - caved in. He’s peering out of his fingers as he looks for you, and you grab him by one thick-furred forearm, intent on dragging him away from the broken post.

There’s a general cacophony of confusion and alarm among the students, which isn’t doing much to help Urshifu’s anxiety - he almost seems rooted to the spot.

“C’mon, buddy,” you insist, tugging on him harder. This seems to get him moving, and he finally runs away, joining the other students by the entrance of the dojo, everyone pushing to get out.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Mustard’s voice is calling from inside. He lets out a hearty laugh, and everyone finally turns around. “The padded posts aren’t loadbearing. If you all think Urshifu is the first one to have broken a post like that, you didn’t see me in my younger years!” He laughs again, and a collective sigh emanates from the group. Urshifu finally relaxes, dropping his other hand, though he hangs his head in shame.

“Hey, little bear,” you coo to him, running one hand up to his shoulder. The students all move away from the entrance, instead congregating around the split post and taking pictures of it. You’re sure your Pokegram feed will be filled with various images of the thick split wood tonight.

Urshifu makes a grumbling noise of dissent at the nickname, and you laugh, standing on your tiptoes and looping both your arms around his neck instead.

“I know you’re not really a little bear anymore,” you murmur to him in response, stroking the fur under your hands. “But you’re always gonna be my little bear, no matter how big or strong you are.”

Urshifu is silent for a moment, then lets out a deep breath and wraps his arms very gently around you.

“Thank you for being careful with me,” you tell him.

“Fu,” he mumbles in response.

“You’re getting the hang of things. And that kick was brilliant, by the way. You just didn’t have any way to know how strong you really are. But…we better go apologize to Master Mustard,” you add, drawing away from Urshifu. He nods and approaches Mustard first, sinking to his knees and kowtowing, grumbling his apologies. You kowtow by Urshifu’s side, and add your two cents.

“He’d never do something like that on purpose, Master Mustard,” you explain. “He’s such a good bear. He just has no idea of his strength yet. You know how it can be when a Pokemon evolves.”

“I do know,” Mustard laughs. “And I accept your apology, Urshifu. It’s a good thing you’re big and strong, now, though! With all your strength, you’ll be the perfect choice to help me replace that post with a new one sometime,” he says, and when you sit up from your kowtow, there’s a sparkle in his eye. Urshifu sits up, too, and nods his willingness to help. “In the meanwhile, we better sweep up some of this mess. Urshifu, why don’t you take your Trainer outside and practice sparring? It’ll be good for you to get a little more energy out, and in the meanwhile, I’d like to talk to the rest of the students about the meaning of strength - including hidden strength.”

Urshifu nods again, then stands and bows, one hand over his fist. You do the same, and Master Mustard bows back before trailing off to the students, who are now posing with the post.

“Urshi?” He asks, reaching one big, yellow paw out to you.

“If Master Mustard thinks it’s a good idea, let’s go,” you affirm, taking his paw and allowing him to guide you through the back doors of the dojo.

                                          _____________________

If you said you weren’t a little nervous to be squaring off against Urshifu, you’d be lying. But you’d fought him countless times as a Kubfu - always holding back, neither of you ever hitting at full force, just practicing the movements and how it felt to react and block and duck or strike in real time. You know how valuable the art of sparring is to improving one’s training - and you have to trust Urshifu sooner or later in order to continue to advance your training together. It might as well be sooner, you figure.

“Ready?” You ask Urshifu. He nods and grunts. “Okay. Take it easy on me,” you remind him with a playful smile. Urshifu nods again.

“Fuu,” he adds. It’s clear to you what he means - of course.

You start off slow, moving in for Urshifu with a very straightforward open-palm strike. He parries it at half speed, his forearm thick and solid against yours. It feels weird to be fighting him on your own two feet - when he had been only two feet tall, you’d had to fight him on your knees to make it manageable for him.

Urshifu moves in with the next strike, again moving slowly and carefully, and you duck out of the way and change your position, gearing up for a kick.

The two of you fall into a slow but steady rhythm of strikes, parries, dodges, and kicks, moving a little more quickly as you each adapt to the other. When you finally sneak through Urshifu’s defenses enough to land a punch on his chin, you hold back, only making the lightest of contact and freezing. He freezes, too, aware that the sparring match was over - you’d landed the first head strike.

“Nice work,” you tell him fondly, opening your hand and instead giving him a gentle chin rub. He was always ticklish there as a Kubfu, and you’re happy to see he still is, his chin tucking down and his shoulders coming up as he lets out a deep rumbling noise akin to laughter.

“Urshi, urshi,” he insists, stepping back out of reach of you.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” you relent, laughing almost as much as he is. You make the hand over fist pose and bow to him to conclude the match, and he does the same back to you. “That was a good match. Do you want to try again, just a little faster this time?”

Urshifu nods eagerly, settling into a deeper stance and raising his hands.

“Okay, little bear, let’s do this!” You grin, and move in again with the first strike. This time, you allow your movements to be a bit quicker - but still not at full force or speed. Again, you find it easy to fall into a steady pace with Urshifu, the rhythm of your movements almost soothing to follow. Urshifu’s growing increasingly comfortable with himself, striking just a little faster and a little stronger each time.

And then his big fist clocks you unexpectedly in the chin, whipping your head sideways. You don’t know how you didn’t block it, but you didn’t, and the force is actually enough to send you twisting and reeling to the floor. You land on your hands and knees, a throbbing pain shooting through your jaw and neck and the scraped skin in contact with the ground. For a moment, the world goes fuzzy and dark, and you wonder if you’ve been struck so hard, you’re going to pass out. Tears jump to your eyes, and the world swims for a moment, but you manage not to faint.

You’re vaguely aware of some low, moaning wails behind you, and the sensation of a gentle touch at your back. The world begins to come into focus again, and as it does, the pain in your jaw sears back again more fiercely than ever. As much as you don’t want to, you let out a quiet sob, immediately settling back on your heels and freeing your hands to wipe away your tears.

“Uuuurrrr,” Urshifu wails, his paws cradling your shoulders gently.

“I’m okay,” you sniffle, but Urshifu can see very clearly that you aren’t, and he wails again, distraught. He’d never hurt you before, and you know how much he loves you… “I’m okay, little bear,” you insist, wiping your tears away again and then turning to face him. You wrap your arms around his neck and he immediately gathers you up in his arms, pulling you close to his large body.

Urshifu wails again - he’s crying, too, you realize, as some of his hot tears roll onto your skin. Ironically, this only makes you cry all the harder, and your tears roll down your face, falling into his thick black fur.

He stands with you in his arms, holding you carefully, like you’re made of glass, and begins to lumber his way into the dojo. He lets out another wail as he slides the shoji doors open and steps into the building. Though you can’t see because of how you’re positioned, you’re sure he’s attracted quite a lot of attention based on the noises he’s making alone.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” a soft female voice is saying - Honey, you realize. “Give her here, give here here, that’s a good Pokemon,” she croons as Urshifu passes you off to her. Her arms are surprisingly strong as she balances you in her lap. “What happened?”

She asks Urshifu. He grunts and groans through his sobs, sitting down beside you, cross-legged as he explains.

“I’m really okay,” you assure Honey, wishing your voice sounded a little more steady. “It was a good hit, but it just took me by surprise more than anything.”

“Well, at least she’s making sense when she talks,” Honey says, smiling at you and Urshifu. “I’ve seen some students take hits that left them fuzzy for a couple hours!” Your eyes widen at this; you’re sure that can’t be good. You wipe away the last of your tears, realizing that many heads are turned to you, though Mustard is continuing to talk with his students as if nothing has happened, likely intent on keeping them from adding to the spectacle. “Urshifu, could you go get her some ice from the kitchen? That’s a dear,” she encourages him as he stands and rushes off.

“I feel so bad for him,” you sigh, rubbing the spot on your jaw where his big fist had made contact. “He’s having an awful day, and it’s the day he evolved. It should be a great day for him.”

“Evolving is so often such a difficult thing,” Honey sighs. “It’s a whole new phase of training, with new challenges and difficulties. But as long as he has you, I’m sure he’ll get through this and figure out how to control his strength in the future.”

“He will,” you agree. It’s just a matter of time. “He’s going to be amazing in battles when he can really go full blast, though.”

Urshifu returns, making a small grunt as he tries to hand Honey the ice. But she shakes her head, shifting you off her lap and back to him.

“Oh, no, no,” she tuts. “I’ll need you to take her back. I have to go get dinner started for everyone, and she’ll appreciate you taking care of her more than anything.”

Urshifu makes a whining sound, and you smile at him, reaching back out to him.

“Don’t be silly, of course I will,” you insist. He takes a steadying breath, but finally gives you a tiny nod and sits down, pulling you into his lap. His thigh is thick and well-muscled beneath you, his body warm and soft as he maneuvers you tenderly to rest against his chest. He holds the ice against your jaw carefully, and you smile, pressing your hand over his paw.

“I can hold that there, if you’d like,” you offer. Urshifu shakes his head, though, grumbling something very quietly.

As well as you know him, you’re not entirely sure what he’s saying - though you think it’s something along the lines of I did this to you, so please let me take care of you. But you’re not certain, so instead you relax against him, letting him continue to help you as best as he can.

“Here, this will help,” Honey says, suddenly reappearing. She hands Urshifu what looks like some sort of potion cream, uncapping it for him and spreading some on one of his outstretched fingers. “Just put that over the sore spot, and she’ll feel better quickly. We use this stuff all the time when there’s contact injuries in the dojo.” She moves back to the kitchen, and Urshifu pulls the ice away, gently spreading the cream over the side of your jaw where the ice had been and breathing the quietest little sigh as he goes.

“It’s really okay, my little bear,” you insist. He holds you just a little tighter, and the pain in your jaw begins to quickly fade away. “I’m feeling better already,” you tell him, but he looks at you with such sad eyes, you almost want to cry again.

                                          _____________________

“Dinner’s ready!” Honey calls, and with that, you and Urshifu stand, joining the crowd of students filing into the dining area. Urshifu puts the ice away in the freezer as he moves past it, and you wait for him, the pain in your jaw entirely gone at this point. The potion cream really had worked wonders.

You move to go take a seat at your usual spot at the table, and Urshifu walks up beside you, one of his hands setting down onto your lap.

When he had been a Kubfu, he’d always climbed into your lap and had dinner there. Muscle memory must have taken over, and he’d put his big paw on your thighs as if he was going to scoot onto you like old times.

But it’s clear that he’s much too big for that now.

“Ur,” he says, snatching his paw away.

“Here,” you say, standing and grabbing the chair next to you, which is still, mercifully, empty right now. You pull it a little closer to you. “I think it’s safe to say that you get your own seat now, Urshifu.” He nods as he sits, his sheer breadth somehow making the chair look really rather small underneath him, although it’s the same size as yours.

You wolf down your food, as does everyone else - with Urshifu being no exception as he chows down. But the food goes fast, and he hasn’t even had the chance to get a second bowl before all the servings of the main meal are gone entirely.

A single bowl would have more than filled him up when he was little. But now he must still be starving.

Urshifu’s ears flatten against his head, and his shoulders slump just the slightest bit, though he doesn’t complain, just helps gather his and your empty bowls together to be washed.

“Hey,” you murmur, touching your hand to his forearm. “You must still be hungry.”

He shrugs, not meeting your gaze.

“Ordinarily I’d say let’s stay and help everyone wash up, but there’s more than enough hands taking care of that,” you tell him, casting your gaze over to the sink. “Why don’t we grab our camping gear and get out of here? Just you and me. We can cook up some more curry over a campfire. What do you say?”

Urshifu’s ears slowly drift forward, and he turns to look at you tentatively. Then he nods.

If there’s one thing that should feel safe - that you think will bring back a sense of normalcy to Urshifu’s day - it’s camping. You two had camped out together most days of the week for the past few months, after all.

“Great,” you grin, standing up and pushing your chair back. “Last one to grab the camping stuff is a rotten egg!”

Urshifu stands, too, making a playful noise and chasing after you.

                                          _____________________

One unexpected benefit of Urshifu’s size is that he’s more than happy to carry your camping pack.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” You ask him. But he shakes his head, making a happy grunt. “Well, thank you, then,” you smile. You’re sure that after everything that’s happened since evolving today, he’s glad to be able to put his newfound size to good use for a change. “In that case, I think we have everything. Let’s go!” You exclaim, punching the air just like he so often did as a Kubfu.

“Rrrr,” he trills, mimicking you and punching the air, too. Except he doesn’t just hit the air - he’s so tall, his reach so high, that he actually hits the eaves of the dojo, his fist cracking a piece of wood. “Urk,” he grunts, pulling his hand down and looking up at the slight damage he’d caused.

“Uh,” you stammer for a moment, then grab one of his paws. “We just won’t tell Master Mustard about that. C’mon,” you laugh, tugging Urshifu along.

The two of you set off at a comfortable pace, though you notice Urshifu is taking smaller steps, controlling his movement. Where you used to have to slow your pace for your little Kubfu, now it’s Urshifu obviously slowing his pace for you.

“Okay,” you say as you jog, thinking out loud. “How about the plan is to start off by checking in at Brawlers’ Cave to see if more of those Max Mushrooms have grown back? And then, let’s make our way over to Challenge Beach. I’d like to camp by the ocean, if that’s okay.”

“Ururu,” Urshifu says agreeably.

“Great,” you grin back at him.

                                          _____________________

Brawler’s Cave is, unfortunately, devoid of all Max Mushrooms.

“These things are turning out to be impossible to find,” you whine, wiping some sweat off your brow. “I need two more of those big clusters? We’ll be looking all week!”

“Fufu, urshi,” Urshifu grumbles.

“Hang on, Urshifu, I can’t look yet,” you answer him. “I’m trying to check behind this boulder - was it this one, or the other one? Do you remember?”

“Urshishi,” Urshifu repeats himself, sounding more stressed.

“Wait - it’s - nope, not it,” you sigh.

“Urshifu!” He demands, grabbing your sleeve and pulling you away from the cranny you were reaching into. He spins you around, and what you see makes your heart stop.

There’s probably nine or ten Golduck, all crawling out of the water on all fours, approaching you slowly, muttering and hissing.

“Oh, shit,” you curse, grabbing for your belt for a backup Pokemon to help you out.

But then you remember - you had no backup Pokemon. The whole point of the Tower challenge had been to go in with just Urshifu. And you had been so focused on Urshifu all day, you hadn’t added your usual Pokemon back to your party afterwards. They were probably all still in Postwick, chilling with Hop and eating his mom’s barbecue.

“It’s just us, Urshifu,” you admit. He makes a whimpering sound, grabbing onto your arm - at the same time that you turn to grab onto him, burying your face in his chest. You just need a moment without the hideous sight of those encroaching Pokemon to think - you can figure out a way out of this, you’re sure of it - even though they’re between you and the exit -

And then Urshifu’s arm winds around you, giving you a gentle squeeze. Carefully, but still firmly, he pries you away from him. When you open your eyes, you’re surprised to see him stepping in front of you, all his fur on end. It makes him look even more enormous than he really is, and he takes two big steps into a wide squat, moving so heavily the rocks on the floor tremble.

His arms stretch out wide, his sharp claws exposed, and he throws back his head as he lets out the most tremendous roar you’ve ever heard. It’s so loud, you actually have to cover your ears, and it reverberates throughout the cave, shaking the stalactites on the ceiling.

Most of the Golduck freeze, suddenly having second thoughts, but one - the one nearest to you - apparently isn’t yet dissuaded, as it rushes Urshifu, its own claws extended. You cower behind your Pokemon, waiting for the rest of them to rush in, too - but the moment never comes. Urshifu grabs the Golduck by its throat as soon as it’s close enough, raising it in the air and letting loose another tremendous roar, somehow even louder than the first. He throws it back in the water, hard, and the Pokemon strikes the surface, where it floats, stunned for a moment, before silently retreating into the depths.

The other Golduck watch the spot where their apparent leader had disappeared, then turn back to Urshifu, who beats his chest and bellows again, this time more gutturally than before. The Golduck look at each other, than back to Urshifu - and then turn and disappear into the water, too.

“Oh, Arceus,” you breathe, touching your hand to Urshifu’s back. “That was beyond creepy. Let’s get out of here.”

Your heart doesn’t start to slow down until you’re out of the cave.

“Urshifu,” you breathe, sinking down onto a nearby rock. He makes a small coo of worry, kneeling down next to you and putting his paw on your shoulder protectively. “I’m okay,” you smile, though it’s shaky. “Thanks to you. What you did back there - it was incredible.” You reach out to your Pokemon, wrapping your arms around his neck, and he pulls you into his embrace with a happy hum. “Thank goodness you were able to look and sound so big and scary! If you were still little, we would have really been in for it,” you breathe into his fur. Urshifu makes a noise of consideration, then stands up, still holding onto you. Your feet are lifted clear of the ground, and he shifts you in his arms so that you’re being carried princess-style. “Urshifu!” You squeal. “What are you doing?”

“Urshi,” he answers noncommittally as he begins to walk towards Challenge Beach.

You’d carried him so many times when he was a Kubfu. To have him carry you now, to be just a little protective of you after defending you so impressively -

You don’t really mind it at all.

                                          _____________________

By the time you’ve got the tent pitched, a campfire going, and more than enough curry for dinner and breakfast tomorrow made, the sun is starting to go down. It’s a beautiful sight on Challenger Beach, painting the ocean in gorgeous pinks and purples.

“Curry didn’t come out bad,” you hum, taking a bite.

“Urrr,” Urshifu sighs contentedly. You laugh a little at his response.

“Guess that’s better than not bad,” you beam. “Take as much as you need. Seconds, thirds, whatever. We have more than enough for today and tomorrow, and I want to make sure that that big belly of yours gets full.”

Urshifu hums, and takes another bowlful at your encouragement.

After you put away the camping cookware, you and Urshifu wander the short distance down to the shoreline. You kick off your shoes and step into the ocean, letting the waves lap at your ankles. Urshifu follows you in, standing in just slightly deeper water than you. You give him a soft smile and reach your hand out for his paw.

“Fu,” he breathes, closing his big fingers around your hand carefully. He’s warm compared to the cool evening air, you notice, as you two start to walk down the shoreline together.

“What a day it’s been,” you muse out loud. “I hope you know, I am really proud of you for taking on the entire Tower and winning against Master Mustard. You fought brilliantly - it’s something I’ll remember forever.”

Urshifu mumbles something shyly.

“I really will, though,” you laugh, then grow serious again. “At the same time, I know today has been really difficult for you. Adapting to an entirely new form is hard enough for any Pokemon, but it’s always really hard for the ones who get so big so quickly, like you. I hope you know, I think you’ve actually done a really good job adjusting.”

Urshifu grumbles his dissent, mimicking the punch that had knocked you nearly senseless, then shaking his head.

“That was a one time thing. I know you’re not going to let that happen again, and neither am I,” you protest, giving what little of his paw your hand can wrap around a squeeze. “And besides, you were so kind to me afterwards, and took such good care of me. I could tell you were really upset, too.”

He nods, turning to you, a deep sadness reflected in his eyes.

“Listen,” you say, squeezing his paw again. “I know you might feel like being big has been more of a curse than anything today, but I think it’s been a good thing overall. You were able to carry me into the dojo and get me treated, for one. You held me and supported me when I needed your care. You can carry the camping pack now, which was really heavy for me, and you scared off that entire horde of Golduck like it was nothing. You looked so huge and in charge when you did that - you made me feel really safe and protected. And I know you’re gonna keep protecting me, big bear.”

He starts a little at the new nickname, his expression surprised.

“You’ll always be my little bear,” you tell him fondly. “But you’re my big bear, now, too, and that’s a great thing in its own way, you know.”

“Shii,” he says, sounding pensive but agreeable.

“Plus, you know, now that you’re so big, you give the most amazing, warm hugs,” you add, grinning up at your Pokemon. His ears flick forward, and he pauses in his tracks, the waves lapping at his ankles. You stop just a moment after him and turn back to face him.

“Urshifu?” He asks, dropping your hand and opening his arms to you.

“Yes, I definitely want one now,” you laugh, running to the big bear and letting him sweep you up in his arms. He lifts you off the ground again, holding you gently yet firmly, and spins around with you a couple times. You laugh in delight and hold tight to him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that this big sweep-me-off-my-feet hug was something you always wanted to do with me,” you say playfully into his fur.

“Shi shi,” he says, and there’s no mistaking what he means when he says it.

It is.

                                          _____________________

After a couple hours stargazing and chatting, you decide to turn in for the night, unzipping your tent. You settle into your sleeping bag without thinking, and Urshifu lingers by the entrance, cocking his head in confusion.

He usually slept on your chest, huddled up under your chin. You’d typically fall asleep on your back with him, but at some point during the night you’d inevitably turn onto your side. He had always gone along with you, still snuggled up against you on his side, too.

But snuggling up on your chest isn’t really an option for him anymore.

“Here, I can move,” you say, scooting to one side to make room for Urshifu’s larger frame. He enters carefully, zipping the tent shut after himself, but to your surprise, he doesn’t lay down next to you. Instead, he gathers you up in his arms, lifting you off the ground. He lays down on his back and places you gently on his chest, tucking you under his chin.

It’s surprisingly comfortable. He’s much softer and warmer than the ground, and his arms encircle you protectively.

“Is this comfortable for you?” You ask quietly. He nods.

“Fu?” He asks in return.

“I’m very comfortable. If I start to feel heavy at any point, though -”

He shakes his head with a rumble of dissent, and you smile up at him.

“Well…thank you.” His breathing is deep and steady and slow, and as you set your head back down on his chest, it immediately begins to soothe you to sleep. It’s been a long day, and you’re tired. But before you go to sleep, one last thought strikes you.

“Urshifu?” You ask him.

“Hm?” He rumbles.

“You know that no matter what shape or size you come in, no matter what difficulties you face, and no matter what we have to learn together in our training, I’ll always love you, right?”

Urshifu’s arms squeeze tightly around you, and he sits up a little, burying his muzzle in your hair. He stays there for a long moment, and you hold him tightly, noticing that his breathing is becoming a little deeper and more erratic. For a moment, you wonder what’s wrong - and then a teardrop lands in your hair, and you realize he’s crying quietly.

It must feel like a lot for a Pokemon, to have their body completely change into something entirely different in a matter of moments during evolution - especially when they suddenly became many times their original size. If anything like that happened to you, you’re sure it would be an enormous challenge to your self-identity, possibly even your self-worth. And, of course, you’d heard horror stories of Trainers who discarded their Pokemon entirely after evolving, often for no longer being small or cute or easy to manage. You’re sure Urshifu has heard these stories at some point, too - as upsetting as they are, they’re not terribly uncommon - and he must have been so afraid of losing your love, especially after hurting you.

But you can’t imagine ever not loving any of your Partner Pokemon, Urshifu included.

“I mean it, Urshifu,” you murmur to him. “I’ll always be proud of you, and I’ll always love you.”

Urshifu mumbles a few noises through his tears, holding you just a little more firmly. Even as muffled as it is, you know what he’s saying, and you know his words are something you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

After all, with everything you’ve been through - from a nervous introduction and months of vigorous training to tackling the Tower and managing the changes evolution has brought - you’re unable to put into words how happy it makes you to hear Urshifu say he’ll always love you, too.

“I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to hear that. Now, shhh, big bear,” you soothe him, wiping his tears away and kissing his cheek. You press against his chest, pushing him back down onto your pillow gently, then reach up and wipe away the new pools of tears in his eyes that threaten to spill over. “Let’s get some rest, okay?” You murmur to him, giving him a gentle smile. “It’s been a big day, but there’s no need to cry. We’ll always have each other, okay? Go to sleep, big bear,” you murmur, and he hums quietly, closing his eyes.

“Tomorrow will be a new day,” you tell him, closing your eyes, too. “And we’ll have new adventures then.”

Urshifu lets out a content hum.

“And we’ll have new adventures every day we’re together after tomorrow, too, for as long as we’re both alive,” you promise him, drifting off to sleep, safe and protected and warm.

[incomprehensiblelentils]

@dollsome-does-tumblr​ does this and opened it up to anyone and I am feeling chatty today SO!

Because I co-write a lot with my lovely wife, I might answer some questions including those co-written stories, or I might not, depends on how I feel when I get there.

name:

Megan but I go by Lentils most places on the internet, Shadowcrawler over on AO3

fandoms:

at the moment: MCU, especially Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil; Terminator: Dark Fate; Halt and Catch Fire. Oh and I wrote Dollhouse fanfics a thousand years ago. Sometimes I will watch a movie/show and think “those two girls should be gay” and bang out 2k of fic about it and then never write for that fandom again. (I THOUGHT this was going to be HACF but as it turns out, no, it’s not done with me yet.)

where you post:

AO3, at Shadowcrawler. I also have a tumblr @lentils-writes​ where theoretically I post links to fics/advertise them in the tags, because I used to be real precious about not putting porn on this blog, but fuck it.

most popular multi-chapter fic:

Co-written, it’s definitely mallverse, which is I think the reason most writers definitely hate us because it’s very long and there are a lot of tags lmao. The problem is that every tagged character HAS shown up in a significant fashion at some point so we can’t just...untag them! It doesn’t update weekly anymore because we’re exhausted by life lmao so at least there’s that???

As for a multi-chapter fic that was just me, I don’t tend to do that so much, so actually it’s say you will, my 3-chapter Endgame fix-it where Clint dies instead of Natasha and Natasha and Laura have a past. It actually has over 1000 hits which is very exciting! I feel like it’s...niche in a way that is frustrating but understandable lol. I put a lot of my heart into it and some people really liked it, so that’s gratifying.

favorite story you’ve written so far:

Co-written, I think our SHIELD Dollhouse AU is very underrated for the amount of work we put into it. Author bias evident here because I love Dollhouse warts and all, and it’s a lot of fun translating episode plots as well as the general trajectory of the show into stuff that will work with SHIELD characters. We don’t just rewrite episodes, we really try and rework them as needed. Also it features both Skimmons and my beloved rarepair Bobbi/Kara, though of course they won’t get together until later.

Of my own stuff, I’m still really really proud of the AU where Kara Palamas didn’t die. I think that was a pretty severe misstep of the show and I think I did a good job of fixing it. (I haven’t forgotten Kara, promise!)

fic you were nervous to post:

lolololol I wrote some uh. Terminator pornography last year and. They are very porny! I had co-written a bunch of smut obviously, but that was the first time I’d posted like, PWP all by myself on purpose??? and that was TERRIFYING. Also I was very nervous to post the Engame fix-it because that was my own personal goodbye/tribute to Natasha.

how you choose your titles:

They are always either song lyrics or jokes (such as Three Lawyers and a Baby, my Daredevil Accidental Baby Acquisition fic). My WIP docs are always titled either obvious shit like “RoseJannah horse girls” or memes like “what if we belonged to a fire cult and we fucked haha just kidding unless...?” or “Morgan has two mommies.”

do you outline?:

B and I typically outline for the co-written fics, although it’s more often chapter-by-chapter outlines since that’s how we write them. On occasion we’ve fully planned multi-chapter stuff out in advance but that’s less common. Oh and the one-shots are nearly always outlined as well, just to keep ourselves organized.

When I have written planned multi-chapter fics in the past I have used outlines - particularly for the Kara one and I had to do that for the SHIELD Kill Bill AU because I was trying to follow the format of the movie. For things that are allegedly supposed to be one-shots I almost never outline, which turns out to be a terrible idea when they inevitably balloon beyond my control and become 45k like say you will. That one, I wrote out a list of scenes I thought needed to be in it and then I wrote about 75% of those scenes and then I wrote a bunch more scenes I hadn’t planned for. Don’t be like me, kids!

complete fics:

According to AO3, 89 as of right now. Uh, you do not want me to list all of them, here’s a link, I guess!

in progress:

I don’t understand what the difference is between this question and the WIP questions lmao help????

posted WIPs that I have active plans to continue at this time:

Cowritten: mallverse as I said, and its femslash smut oneshots spinoff and character flashbacks spinoff and older characters/teachers spinoff (these get updated, uh, irregularly), the first half of a Piper/Snowflake SHIELD s7 fic that we are planning on finishing the second half of soonish, SHIELD Dollhouse AU, SHIELD Teen Beach AU, SHIELD Buffy AU. You may notice a pattern!

By myself, I have: Have Your Elf a Merry Little Christmas, a Terminator Hallmark Christmas fic that I ambitiously posted the first chapter of in 2019 and then lost steam immediately (I am going to go back to it sooner or later bc I had some cute ideas for it); the SHIELD Fate of the Furious AU that has one chapter to go and which I do intend on finishing eventually; Three Lawyers and a Little Lady, the Daredevil Accidentally Baby Acquisition AU that is literally just cute kidfic and poly avocados and which I have a bunch of ideas for and just need to buckle down and finish some.

posted WIPs that I have given up on:

Lol so there’s a Dollhouse Caroline/Bennett Doctor Who AU that I wrote purely as idfic and which nobody ever cared about except me, and I think that ship has sailed! RIP darlings. I also had an ongoing Skimmons series waaaay back when where I posted oneshots that were like missing scenes or gay readings for each s1 episode, and I just feel like it would be inauthentic to even try and finish it at this point. (It does include the first ever Skimmons fic to be posted on AO3! Really truly, there’s one fic that shows up as older but it’s an ongoing fic and was updated with the tag way after I posted mine.)

exchange fics due soon/unrevealed:

I haven’t done an exchange since like 2015 lololol I am so bad at them. I am currently working on finishing up my MCU Femslash bingo card, very late, and I do have plans for almost all of the remaining squares!

WIPs that live in my fanfic folder and are incomplete and who knows when they’ll be finished:

“RoseJannah horse girls,” which has been put on hold temporarily but is literally just Rose and Jannah being gay while riding orbaks

half of a Daisy/Gwen fic from Marvel Rising because I know they’re not making any more of those but I stg those two were really gay

multiple fics about Elise Nelson-Page including: avocados Halloween with smol Elise, Aunt Elektra very reluctantly taking smol Elise shopping until she realizes smol Elise also likes weapons (she buys her a fake katana), Uncle Frank is a pushover and spoils the shit out of Elise, and baby Elise has a high fever and everyone freaks out but then she gets better and smile at them for the first time (inspired by baby me lol).

coming soon/not yet started:

“Morgan has two mommies,” yet another Endgame fix-it where Maya Hansen did not die in Iron Man 3 and she resurfaces and she and Pepper kiss and eventually she adopts Morgan

Claire and Colleen go on a nice date to get coffee/tea where Danny doesn’t interrupt them goddammit

Bobbi/Kara Warehouse 13 AU which is sort of like “For the Team” but gayer ft. grappling hook

X-Men: Evolution Tabby/Amara fluff

Cameron/Donna character study disguised as smut

Grace proposes to Dani with a ring made out of the metal from her power source and Carl officiates the wedding 

Dani gets horny watching Grace eat a peach and jerks off and Grace ends up hearing her and then they fuck (I have been calling this “the peach fic” in my head but I gotta stop being delicate about it lmfao it is just porn)

B and I have plans to do a Nico/Karolina Jasper in Deadland AU but we keep forgetting

I MUST WRITE FOGGY AND KAREN SADLY FUCKING IN A CHURCH WHILE THEY MOURN MATT THIS YEAR I STG

do you accept prompts:

uhhhhhh I have on occasion written a prompt for someone before but it’s pretty rare and I have enough trouble writing the shit I come up with in my own head lol. but never say never?

upcoming story you are most excited to write:

I’ve got a bit of the Bobbi/Kara Warehouse fic written and it’s nice to go back to that world. Also I’m weirdly excited about the Cam/Donna smutty character study I mentioned above, I have a lot of what I think are good ideas for it and it’ll be fun.

tagging @unwind-myself @swiftzeldas @swashbucklery @loved-the-stars-too-fondly and, if you want to, you!

[marvels-phoenix]

Headcanon that the reason Leon is referred to as the "unbeatable champion of Galar" is because even if he did lose know one would know or remember because he lived his life in video game mechanics!

HERE ME OUT PLS! also it's only a headcanon lol....anyway let's get to the point before I don't make sense anymore 😅!

________________________________________

- when Leon starts his Pokemon journey he slowly starts to realize that he is different than the other Pokemon trainers. It freaks him out a little bit because (1) he's only ten, and (2) literally this happens to no one else!

- finding randomly placed pokeballs, evolution stones, and heal potions in the middle of the forest,wild area, and everywhere he goes? He's still pretty thankful that he has them when in a battle, but creeped out. Know one else seems to notice these strange instances going on. When Leon tries to talk to anyone else about this ( be it Raihan, Sonia, or any adult/trainer/etc.) His mouth suddenly freezes up and he can't speak. His mouth feels like it's suffocating him and his eyes water and all he feels is pain. Until after a moment feeling like he only have 2 other options to say something else he finally gets a word out to finish the conversation but not the words he wants. ( Because of that I think that Leon is selectively mute unless someone speaks to him first because of the traumatic instances where he couldn't speak what he wanted to, afraid that he would say the wrong thing.)

- another instance that kind of traumatized him as a 10 yr old ( which the video game mechanics kicked in only when he started his journey, but neither him or anyone else knows that.) Is when he was fighting in the wild area, and after his last Pokemon faints he blacks out, only to wake up in nurse joys pokecenter. After a few more instances like that and not knowing anything of how he got there or what happened after he blacks out another handful of times he ends up going weeks, and sometimes up to a month instances where he doesn't sleep. Afraid that once he closes his eyes he will wake up somewhere else he doesn't know, alone. ( Hence why he can be horrible at directions. )

- as he goes so much time without sleep he quicky realizes that there's no after effects on him. He's not feeling drowsy or hungry or anything that he should be feeling after going a month without sleep. It scares him even more and he even stops eating because of it, finding it useless. ( He misses his mom, his baby brother, he doesn't know why or how this is happening but he can't tell anyone! ) There is no backlash by not eating, and he only feeds his Pokemon from then one.

- one of the most prominent things that Leon noticed right from the start is that when he loses no one remembers him or his loss. It's heartbreaking, it tears at him. Why does no one remember him? Everyone remembers the losers, don't they? Why is that they act like they never met him before and why can't he do anything about it? Sometimes he just wants to crawl out of his own skin.

- he realizes that he is only remembered if he wins the battle, and that motivates him to win even more because even though it's happened before he can't stand the thought of people forgetting him again. ( He can't help but think that with every loss his family and friends might forget him too. They don't travel together for the battling of the champion cup, but when he does he his two best friends, Raihan and Sonia he clings to them so much. Even if he can't say what he wants. )

- so as he wins more battles, and gets more badges, and eventually wins the champion cup he finally thinks it's over. As much as he loves battling and pokemon, he knows deep down that by the next year someone is gonna beat him and maybe he'll be free from this other power controlling him. ( Maybe he can eat, sleep, and just speak how he wants to again! )

- the next year Rahain is the only one person that has gotten close enough to beat him, he's the one person that gives him a real challenge anymore, and most importantly battling Rahain makes actually Pokemon battling in general, fun for him. Leon loves him so much. God he loves him. He loves his so much that he wants him to win. ( Leon just turned 11 a couple months ago, and Rahain is 14 now. ) Leon can't help but think that Rahain, more happy, emotional,and older would be a better fit as champion anyway.

- But he wins. A year later he wins again. And again, and again, and again. He can't stop winning and as he gets older he can't help but feel like a puppet. Other than being chairmen roses puppet that is. He is just so, so tired. He can't seem to get hurt either. He tries hurting himself but nothing happens. He is untouchable in both psysical feeling and battles. He just wants to stop. Raihan, Nessa, Milo, and the other gym leaders, along with his family are starting to get worried about him. He stops talking to them all together and instead finds company in the chairmen. ( If he doesn't know what higher power is fucking with him, then at least put another higher power to give him directions. At least he knows where the fucking source of that is. )

- so he withdraws, but keeps the happy facade around everyone because he can't be to he wants to be. Eventually after year ten of being the unbeatable champion of Galar, the chairmen decides to give other people the fighting chance. he says that Leon can indorse however many people he likes for. The champion cup this year.

- he meets Leon's best friend Gloria. After he gives them their starter Pokemon and after he sees his brother lose in his battle against Gloria, he notices something about her. Something that just pulls him to her. It's her very first Pokemon battle and she's won. She doesn't speak much but what she does say sounds scripted to him. ( He distantly wonders if she is like him. )

- so he watches her as she wins. Again and again. He remembers her losses tho. He's the only one but he remembers every time she lost a battle. Only to win the next time. He feels some sort of kinship to her. He knows she going to make it to the champion cup and hopes that she beats him. For his own sanity he needs to lose. Winning can't be an option for him. He so, so tired.

- and then she wins. She beats him. As the rest of the audience is silent and the wind slows down everything seems to have come to a standstill. He tilts his hat and grits his teeth for a moment. ( Is is finally over? Can I be free? ) But that doesn't matter right now. He so happy. He got what he wanted. He throws his hat up in the air and smiles brightly, a real smile in what seeme like forever. He runs over to Gloria and picks her up spinning her around. Their both laughing and smiling and he's crying happy tears at her victory and his loss. He doesn't care about the tabloids commenting on his tears or anything other than her. She is like the little sister he's never had and he so grateful that he got to meet her. As she is on his shoulder, waving at the people sitting in the arena he finally has some peace. ( Is it finally over? )

- he gets his answer in the empty locker room. The battle is over. Gloria is celebrating with Hop. ( He will definitely be happy to spend more time with his friends and family ) he gets his old poketknife he found on the road when he was ten and slices the palm of his hand.....

He bleeds.

"Leon?"

It Rahain.

Can he tell him? Everything? Why he's so messed up?

He looks back to se Rahain with shock all over his face. He must've come in to try and talk to him about the battle. ( They made a promise that Rahain would be the one to beat him.)

Leon smiles lightly befoe putting the knife back down.

He slowly walks up to Raihan...

He does something that also wasn't allowed before.

He hugs him. Tight. And cries.

{ P.s - cue explanation, confessions, and emotional sex featuring bottom Leon ; ) }

---------------------------------------------------

Whew! That was fun to write. I really hoped you liked this headcanon/mini fic! It's been something I've been thinking about ever since I've become obsessed with Leon.

I do not have the time to right a full fledged fanfic of this but if anyone wants to take this as inspiration and write a fic based on this please do! ( Also credit me for the idea lol and let me know cause I wanna read it! ) We already have alot of talented writers from this fandom that have posted on AO3 and I would love to see someone write about this and use their own creativeness with it! : )

[procrastinatorproject]

Previously on Lili reads Rogue Elements: [1] [2]

Remember how I always go on about how we all in this fandom share about 2.7 braincells and constantly come up with the same ideas? Well. TURNS OUT IT'S UNIVERSAL!

(Slightly spoilery details under the cut. tl;dr: I was really worried I wouldn't agree with how the author writes Rios’s character, and his friendship with Raffi, and the origin of his ship, but so far, I AM DELIGHTED!!)

Remember when the show first came out and several people (though I can't say who anymore) said that the holos' accents were a little over the top because they're not "a person with an Irish/English/Scottish/American accent" but "Cris Rios doing a not-super-convincing Irish/etc. accent"? Turns out: Miller had exactly that same idea! Completely amazing!

I still haven't met the holos, but... Rios gets supremely drunk one night, drunk enough he doesn't remember anything the morning after, and... I am VERY certain we're gonna find out soon that on that fateful night, he made certain... additions to his ship. I have to admit I was glad to be in a car on the highway while it was happening, because I was scream-queeing about it SO LOUDLY 😂🤣

Context for those not aware:

https://href.li/?https://archiveofourown.org/works/31753207/chapters/80130544%23workskin

Raffi, of course, is the one getting Rios a bunch of his assignments and trying to get him to meet people and so far, their interactions have been "bickering over the subspace comms" and... see what I mean about the same things cropping up again and again?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23702563/chapters/56910463

It's like... yes, these are very low-hanging fruit. These scenes aren’t at all far fetched or exotic, they are very straightforward given what we know about the characters. But the fact they're showing up in the book shows that everyone, from the RPers to the fic writers to the "professional" fic writer reads these characters similarly and it makes me extremely happy!

There's a bunch more moments where I thought "ah yes! This scene is very similar to that particular fic, or this WIP of @regionalpancake​ 's I was privileged enough to get a glimpse of, or this WIP of mine that has been languishing in the drafts for I-wanna-say-an-age...” And it's not even because we're inspired by each other, it's just parallel evolution, people coming up with the same ideas, but they are AMAZING ideas, so it's just wonderful to see!!

On a slightly more broad note: It's humbling when you're listening to an "official" story and can go "hmmmmm no, there is no loading ramp there. Actually those wings are somewhere else. When you say the ship 'isn't that old', do you mean in like... the galactic sense? Because 50 seems old, even for a freighter starship...."

I just... look, I have invested a ludicrous amount of time into investigating every little snippet of this ship. I have no expectation any writer do even remotely the same, write Sirena however big or small you want! It's just kinda fun to realize that I actually know a lot of this stuff and notice when someone is, say, working from an old set of images :D

(The Engine Room Door Is A Lie!)

Also: MY GOD THE BANTER IS EXCELLENT!!! There is so much banter! And it is so frigging funny! I love it so much!

And finally: Raffi is friends with the main crime boss and so far, everyone has been a bit vague about what exactly their relationship is. Then the crime boss shows up and she's a very refined older lady who keeps calling Rios "honey" and "sugar" and "baby" and who knows her own mind and has fun but won't take any shit. And I'm sitting here like: "Oh. Raffi and her are friends. I see what she would see in her..."

Anyway. I'm fairly sure I'm gonna end up reading through the night 🙈 Sooo much book still to go!!

But so far, I'm having a phenomenal time!

[ogamagirl]

WELL friendos, it looks like it’s gonna be a stressful week. I did a little think last night to de-stress myself, so I figured I’d share it here with y’all as well; maybe it’ll be fun for you to look at too.

It's been a while since I've documented The Plush Hoard, so I went through it this evening!

A few notes before we begin!

-Before the "but where do YOU sleep" comments come in - I move them around when I sleep lol. The vast majority of my plushies are up on my top bunk nowadays (which u purposefully cannot see because after I was done taking pictures I just started tossing em up there and didn't feel like making them look nice jskdhgf;;; ) - I only keep my very favorites with me. Every time I blog about my plushies I get that comment and it's not funny anymore ;; -I am not a collector that keeps my plushies on shelves or behind glass cases; one of the primary reasons I love collecting plushies is because I love soft textures, so I love hugging and cuddling with them. So some of them are pretty beat up at this point! I also have a cat and if you have a cat, you know cat hair Everywhere is just a fact of life, so if you happen to see any...sorry! I cannot possibly de-cat-hair my entire apartment at all times. -I am not a photographer and my bedroom has crappy lighting, so these pictures aren't ~the prettiest~; the point of this is for me to just have some fun talking about one of my hobbies! -I have cultivated this collection over years and years and years; as I said, it's one of my hobbies, and it just brings me joy!

That said, THIS GON BE A LONG POST LMFAO, so if you're on board, hop under the read more and we'll get started uvu

We shall start with the non-weeb plushies skdjfhldfg, which is the smallest cohort |D;;; of special note are the baby penguin from Sunshine City Aquarium in Ikebukuro, the moose my parents got for me in Alaska, the big doofy red panda my college roommates got me for my birthday one year, and the dragon. THE DRAGON IS WEIGHTED. The dragon is delightful oh my god all plushies should be weighted;;; 

Ghibli plushies! I got the vast majority of these while I was physically in Japan - the only two that I didn't were the foxsquirrel and the Totoro on top of it. The soot sprite I got at the Ghibli Museum itself uvu 

Digimon plushies! I wish there were more decently sized Digimon plushies TAT;; (I like bigger plushies because they are easier to hug ok) The Culumon and Viximon (? I think I'm remembering that name right: Renamon's in-training form, the yellow fox blob sdjfgdfg) are bootlegs I am very sorry ;;; My Digimon Plush Goal is to somehow find an official Culumon someday TAT;;; I rlly like Culumon there was a period of time in elementary school where I drew nothing but Culumon so lol. 

Random fandom plushies! Lessee, what's represented here...Sanrio, Hamtaro, Madoka, Heartcatch Precure, Higurashi, OneShot, Made in Abyss, Re:Zero, Undertale, and Deltarune! Ralsei's hat and glasses obviously come off...I, full disclosure, do not know where they are. They are probably under my bed somewhere sjkdfghsdg;;;; 

OK HERE WE GO: most of my plushies are Pokemon plushies. What can I say...they're just so much fun to collect TAT;;; first up are a couple groups of miscellaneous babbies; you will soon see I like collecting some Pokes over others... 

Miscellaneous babbies part two! See the lil Riolu? When I lived with my parents still, that Riolu was Joji's favorite plushie to steal |D;; she would semi-regularly come into my room and take plushies from me, but that one she took far more often than any other. She's such a small dog no damage was ever done, but still...Joji these are mine, not yours! 

Miscellaneous babbies part three! This was originally meant to be legendary/mythical Pokes but then I remembered Raboot and Galarian Ponyta and was like "OH NO I HAVE TO INCLUDE THEM" I am not very good at this jsdhfglsjfdg 

'pixs! (and two Ninetales) I have a very vivid memory of watching the first episode Vulpix appeared in in the anime and wanting a plushie of one so bad, but alas they were certainly not readily available to me yet, so I carried around a Simba plushie I had that evening pretending it was a Vulpix xD so if little me could see my Vulpix collection now she'd be very happy!! 

'vees! ...I like me an Eevee, what can I say. There's actually one Eevee that's missing from this pic - I told you I'm not very good at this |D;;; 

...oh there were TWO Eevees missing and I stuck them in this pic lol I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT I TOOK PICTURES OF HOORAY anyway, Eeveelutions! I obviously favor certain evolutions over others |3 Eventually I would like to get at least one Espeon, Glaceon and Leafeon, just to say I have them all. But there is one more Eeveelution that I couldn't fit here... 

...cause she BIG. My life-sized Sylveon takes the prize of biggest plushie I own. She hangs out at the foot of my bed uvu (also her ears are top heavy/don't have any wires in them so they've clearly flopped backwards...but she cute any way you slice it TAT) 

THE PIKAS. ...Somehow I thought I had more Pikas than this. (Oh wait, I DO...they're just coming later cause they're in a special category |3 ) this is still a good amount of Pikas! Detective Pika is extraordinarily soft he's very good TAT;;; also two Raichu cause I don't have enough Raichu to take a separate pic of. 

Mimis! I have a couple other Mimis that are also in the special category coming up hehe. Big Mimi was stuck in customs for a month after I got him so I'm glad he made it home eventually TAT;;; 

HERE WE GO I have...a lot of Litten. Litten is my baby. Best Poke-kitty for me. I love my Litten TAT///// 

PICHU PICHU PICHUUUU!!! My ultimate baby TAT///// Pichu so good...so happy to have so many Pichu...aaaa///// but wait, there are Absol here too?? Well, yes, of course. For I am a Pichu and my love is an Absol. So. I had to take pictures of the plushies together uvu 

Some Large Friends that got their own picture. That rolly Charizard was the first thing I ever won from a crane game; I was ridiculously proud of myself |D;;; 

SPECIAL CATEGORY: Halloween Pokes!!!! The PokeCen always has an Extremely Good Halloween campaign and it makes me angry...they're all so good...TAT//////// 

Aaand! Best for last!! SE plushies T//u//T The middle two Souls are very beat up, ahaha....I've had the smaller one for over a decade and the bigger one for almost a decade, so...they've gotten a lot of love//// (plus it is also funny to tease Soul - u know I'd give u a hug over the plushies any day baaaaaabe u3u) I really want to get Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki too, but Tsubaki is SUPER hard to find and I don't want to get Liz and Patty and not her TAT;;; there are also Excalibur plushies...............but I think I'm ok without an Excalibur plushie sjdkfghsdfg OH also not pictured; I do have a plush Shinigami glove |D

So! There it is! The hoard! If I were a dragon this would be my treasure hoard! It was nice to go through this so if you went through it with me I hope you had fun too!

[miggydiaz]

for the salty ask: 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 27 for spn

I had to do this one today because I have a LOT of Supernatural feelings and so a lot of these are even longer than my CK one. But thanks for the ask @wonderwolfballoon!

UNPOPULAR SUPERNATURAL OPINIONS AHOY: INCLUDES ANTI-DESTIEL SENTIMENTS AND OTHER UNSAVORY ELEMENTS

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 100000000% I have unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion in the SPN fandom. SPN was the fandom that taught me to make JUDICIOUS use of the blocking feature tumblr offers in order to curate my experience. I would actually encourage anyone and everyone to use the blocking feature if they disagree with people. Honestly, we don’t owe anyone our time or energy, especially on the internet! It is much healthier than sending or responding to hate, IMO. 7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* This is actually a hard one for me to answer, so let me start by saying -- I have not seen a SINGLE episode since 9x05? I think? Whichever episode was the Dr. Deanlittle one where he talks to animals. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first 5 seasons, and they are all I watch anymore and I pretend nothing else exists after that (except The French Mistake because that episode is hilarious). But uh... I guess the simple answer is when I was originally watching it, I really loved Dean. He was brash, snarky, rough around the edges... but kind of soft in a I’m too toxically masculine to deal with my softness sort of way that I love seeing characters grow out of as they mature. But when I go back and rewatch now, much older than I was in 2006 when I first started watching, I see how awful a lot of his older behavior truly was. I still love Dean, and I will be a Dean girl until I die probably, but sometimes you gotta remind yourself that your faves have been problematic in the past so you don’t put them up on fandom constructed pedestals.

10. Most disliked arc? Why? AND AS A BONUS, MY ANSWER to 11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I could write a literal essay about all of the problems I have with the later seasons (the ones I watched, which encompasses 6, 7, 8, and a few episodes of 9). But by far and away, the thing I hated most, was the Men of Letters.

Okay, this is where I am going to recognize my love of certain characters is at FUNDAMENTAL ODDS with how that character develops later and what history and background we get later on them. I RECOGNIZE this character is problematic, and I would NEVER STAND for his shit IRL, but fiction is complicated and nuanced, and fantastic circumstances do not make for normal behaviors. That being said, with all warnings I could possibly give, and with the full understanding that what I am about to say is basically fandom blasphemy of the highest order...

I like John Winchester’s character.

I know, I know. If you wanna stop reading and block me now, you are free to do that. I will not hold it against you. I am not about to apologize for anything he has done. I just need to contextualize why I have such an issue with the MOL storyline and it starts with the simple fact that I liked John Winchester as he was originally presented.

To me, and with the full understanding that I am answering this from the perspective of someone who DOES NOT regard anything past season 5 as personal canon, John Winchester is the perfect example of a truly complicated character. Here’s a parent who, if we take the pilot and the original s2 Djinn episodes at face value, could have been a great parent, who then got shoved into a fantastically impossible situation and made terrible choices that he thought were necessary in order to keep himself and his sons safe. That does not EXCUSE the heaps of abuse that he piled onto Dean in any way. We know John and Mary didn’t have a great marriage. But we also know from the pilot that John was at least a caring and present father, mostly,  for the 4 years he got to parent in a normal world, and that if Mary had lived, John would’ve been a softball playing dad who raised his kids and had a loving marriage with his wife. (Again, I need to reiterate, I did not watch anything past the early episodes of s9. If there is later canon that negates this, I do not know about it, nor do I want to because I don’t think of anything past 5 as canon) This is all important to me because these things emphasize that John was “NORMAL”. He was a mechanic, from a family of mechanics, whose father didn’t bail on him (a man in the episode where Dean is transported back in time to Lawrence tells John to ‘say hi to your old man for me’ or something to that effect). He was just a midwestern dude. Giving John Winchester a fantastical background through this Men of Letters bullshit made me SO MAD. First of all, I hate when later canon negates previous canon. I cannon TELL you how much I hate it. And the later seasons of Supernatural are riddled with stuff that doesn’t make any damn sense in the context of original, Kripke written canon, which is exactly why I stopped watching. That’s not ~Evolution of the show.~ That’s conveniently forgetting stuff that made your show and its premise so successful to begin with in order to keep filming episodes so you can keep making money. It’s the sacrifice of art for capitalism and yes I know this is a stupid TV show but as a writer myself it PISSES ME OFF.

/rant

ALSO, the idea that this toxically masculine family was set on this path by Heaven, and inherited this curse that put them on this path from their mother was such a good plot twist in its heyday. We spent four seasons thinking of Mary Winchester as a victim of circumstance, whose fate could not have been avoided because she was the mother to Sam, who is effectively cursed. And then, we learn that its BECAUSE of Mary that this ball even got rolling in the first place. IDK if you were around for that time in the fandom but at least in my circle, this was a big fucking deal. There had been so much (rightful) discourse about John before this, and what kind of parent he was, that Mary became almost deified in the same way Dean deifies her. And then we find out that this whole story gets set in motion by a decision she made because this was the life she found herself in. This was great. It was interesting. And even though the MOL doesn’t negate any of this, it does give John this weirdly fantastical that isn’t necessary. Let this guy be just some Joe Schmoe who fell in love with a kick ass hunter and had no idea any of this even existed. Let Mary and her want to be ‘normal’ be a complicated moral choice that fundamentally altered the paths of her husband and sons. It’s good tv!

Also, I fucking hate the bunker. The best episodes are Dean and Sam having moments in the car, or while in motel rooms on their cases, or whatever. I don’t mind them having a home base. I’m fine with that. But if a building could ever be a Mary Sue character, the bunker is it. I hate all of the MOL storyline, starting with this place.

I may not even tag this as Supernatural, I don’t need angry later season stans in my inbox.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

There’s nothing good about anything that happened after season 6. It’s all a bunch of retconning bullshit. Season 6 had its moments where it was interesting, so I cut it a little bit of slack, but as far as I’m concerned, the show ended in season 5. I’m not sure that’s necessarily unpopular, but it does feel that way on tumblr, so. 

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Aside from ending it in season 5?

Oooh, I’m about to blaspheme again. I am definitely not tagging this as Supernatural.

I would never have introduced Castiel, and I would’ve given that entire storyline to Anna. Or, alternatively, I would’ve flipped their story lines.

Look, for whatever it’s worth... I agree with the idea that Dean Winchester is a repressed bisexual. His Dr. Sexy love, the entire storyline with Benny in season 8, etc. I just don’t think he feels romantically about Castiel. And like, that’s okay! Just because you’re not into someone who is into you doesn’t mean you owe them a relationship or anything, no matter what the fandom thinks.

But I also think Dean has a big problem when it comes to women. Again, obviously later on in the series, Dean shifts and Charlie happens and Claire Novak and I know all of these things from gifs okay, context is not applicable here because I have none. But early on, Dean struggles A LOT with thinking of women as A) capable and B) trustworthy. He exists in a perpetual state of identifying women along the Madonna/Whore binary. Even Jo, however you feel about her, and to be clear, I loved Jo, but he doesn’t stop thinking of her really as a kid until they’re about to shoot the devil. Up until then, he’s genuinely surprised Ellen lets her out of the damn house.

Giving him a strong, capable woman who rebels against Heaven for HIM would have fundamentally altered Dean’s perceptions of women much earlier on than we get and would have forced him to examine some of that misogyny head on.

Dean has no problems trusting men. This is why the entire Gordon fiasco happens, right? It was less work for him to trust Castiel because Castiel is the inverse of Ruby. Angel to her Demon. Angels and demons don’t really have genders, but for the sake of presentation of vessels, man to her woman. Not even getting me started on the problematic parts of having significant demons mostly symbolized by women (Meg, Ruby, Lilith) and having significant angels mostly represented by Men (Castiel, Michael, Lucifer, Zachariah, Gabriel, Raphael), and how that ties into the idea of Original Sin and yada yada, but just like it’s interesting to have Mary and her decisions be the catalyst for the story, it’s interesting to have this badass warrior angel in Anna who marches down to Hell to yank Dean out, and through her interactions with him, decide to rebel against the ultimate patriarchy, while Dean gets an equally strong female counterpart to Sam’s Ruby, a woman for all intents and purposes that he respects as a soldier and an ally and not just a potential piece of ass.

Also, Castiel fans being literally unbearable is why I left the fandom. Nothing against Misha or anything, and not even anything against Cas as a character (who I very much enjoyed in seasons 4 and 5), but his fans have always been the worst and they try to insert him into everything.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Castiel/Destiel fans, which even though I also hated the direction the show was going, drove me out of the fandom. Not like, personally or directly, but just the sheer mental hoops they had to jump through in order to make their ship work and I just got tired of seeing all of the contrived meta on my dash. Oh, and the rampant misogyny that came out of those early Castiel fans. I didn’t appreciate it from the Wincest corner, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it from the fans of the new guy. Gross.

22. Popular character you hate?

Oof. I don’t know. I don’t really hate Castiel, because again, I liked him a lot in seasons 4 and 5. Even 6 was interesting, even if I don’t regard it as my own personal show canon. I don’t think there was a popular character in those first five seasons I ever really hated. I didn’t fundamentally hate a character at all until the MOL stuff came around. Um. Yeah, I don’t really have an answer for this.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Pretty much every female character ever. Jo, Ellen, Ruby, Meg... although Meg became more popular as the series went on, Anna. Um. OH, BELA. Bela ESPECIALLY, I recently rewatched season 3 and I cannot emphasize how MUCH I love Bela. She was the best purely human foil ever. Bela is hands down the character I love most that the fandom had frothing at the mouth hatred for. It doesn’t help that I legitimately think Lauren Cohan is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. But seriously, Bela. Hands down.

24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? 

I have! Many of times, and ALWAYS WITH THE CAVEAT to stop at the end of season 5. Not a single one of them has listened to me and almost all of them came to me at the end of the finale and were like WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME, and I don’t want to say I told them so, but like, I explicitly in neon colored text once told them so, so like, idk what to tell them. But yes! I think if someone is interested in some classic mystery television that has an overarching theme of family and forgiveness and striking out against the boxes that life tries to put us all into, SPN is a great show. But only the first 5 seasons. Also, be prepared for some thematically problematic parts of the show because there’s a lot of cishet toxic masculinity in those early seasons, and we should examine our media critically. There’s also a lot of good though too, and IMO, the good outweighs the bad.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

I would’ve ended it at season 5. I would’ve had Sam escape the pit and seen him standing under the street lamp, but then I would’ve had him walking away to leave Dean with Lisa (btw, side note, I DIDN’T like Lisa because I don’t think Dean would ever be truly happy with someone completely outside the life). Not because Sam doesn’t love his brother, but because he *does* love his brother, and because he would want Dean to be happy, even though Dean and Sam’s ideas of what makes the other happy have always been a little bit screwed up.. but that’s a different story.

27. Least shippable character?

Probably Zachariah. God, could you imagine? And... maybe Alastair, but I’m sure there are fics out there that I do not want to think about.