#I genuinely had no faith in this squad

[gerrydefault]

WE WON FINALLY LAVER CUP IS BACK TO EUROPE I AM SO GLAD THAT HAPPENED BECAUSE OF BJORN LAST LAVER CUP😭❤️🙏🏼

[afreakingdork]

Soft Spot - Chapter 24

RotTMNT Donatello x Reader

I'm going ham depicting all the OCs this time around so here's everyone's favorite phone obsessed peep, Eugene! Obviously they were captured at their most flattering by the magnanimous @grumpytheunicorn

Rated: Explicit

Warnings/Tags: Romance, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, Aged-Up Mutant Ninja Turtles, Villain Donatello (TMNT), Love, POV Second Person, Babies, Pregnancy, AFAB reader, Vaginal Sex, Rough Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Creampie, Breeding Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Fertility Issues, Pregnant Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Reader-Insert, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, Cum Eating, Turtle Noises (TMNT), I have a Biology Degree and I’m Using it, Menstruation, There WILL NOT be any Miscarriages

Synopsis: First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes the next step about as smooth as the others arrived. The baby-oriented sequel to Weak Spot.

Also available on Ao3

NOTE: So my secular ass that was raised without religion genuinely had no idea that godparents was a religious concept. I curse the christian-centric values bred into the American zeitgeist. Like obviously, it has the word 'god' in it, but no one said this dork had a high IQ (I very much don't). I was genuinely inspired to even do a godparent story line because of the movie Life as We Know It (2010). My deepest apologies if this misstep alienated anyone. Please know that it does not come from a place of faith and instead is meant only in the non-religious terms which is a guardian who takes custody of a child should anything happen to a child's parents.

First 💜 Previous

You wanted to say you marched into the arena. In a tight, single file formation, double doors were shoved open in front of you. The leaders of your group paved the way for the opposing team’s imminent loss. Another set of doors were breached and the suction seal of sound was broken. Fanfare erupted as the first challengers were seen. Flickering lights danced around mimicking paparazzi and within a few steps, you too had entered the building. Your husband was the heavy on the end, the last force to back up your intrepid part and from the front, your general spoke.

“I am here…” Eugene threw a thumb at their person over the host stand. “… for the 100 wing death challenge.”

“Party for Eugene.” The woman double checked her notes before chirping through the illusions of grandeur. “Right this way!”

You were now simply a group of friends who had walked into a sports bar and were led to a table that accommodated your numbers. While you had been incubating a baby, your friends’ lives had continued. Eugene had picked up an interest in eating competitions after binge watching some competitive eating show. They had scoured New York City for a reasonable enough challenge and relied on their spiced upbringing to win them a particular gold. This bar had recently opened and no one had been able to achieve the goal as of yet, so Eugene marked themself down to be the first. This gave them precedent and they took a seat at the head of the table to face their cheer squad.

Kaleb was fast tracking for a promotion and hadn’t had much time for antics. He was a little all work and no play, though you bet everyone at his job still considered him the quintessential jolly man. You heard he had been driving out of the city for some curry place as his only extracurricular as of late and he manned the second seat to the head of the table.

Coral sat immediately across from him with her usual poise. If this were any other event, she might have been the one executing, but she had deferred along with her taming. Exercise had fallen off of her interest list and mimosa flights had moved in. Bubbly was her means of celebration as she and Nelson had been dating for almost three whole months.

You headed for the seat next to hers since said man was on a work trip. Besides a label, very little had changed in their dynamic. Both Coral and Nelson would have been here to cheer Eugene on, had he been available. He was probably texting the group chat asking for updates and you meant to check, but you struggled to fit into the slot she had tucked into. She had chosen a route along a wall and your little one was feeling especially not so little in your 28th week.

“Shit.” Coral noticed and clicked her tongue. “Sink, switch!”

“No way!” Kaleb slapped his belly. “You think I’m squeezing my ass in there? Bring that baby to the open side.”

He gestured to the seat next to his and how his row had space as it butted up to walkway.

“I want to sit next to Y/N!” Coral broiled.

Donnie paused at the end of the table to select whatever was leftover.

“Okay.” You caught a chair and put some weight onto it. “I can fit, I just need a second…”

Kaleb looked right at Donnie. “Colonel, let’s just move the table.”

“I can fit!” You snapped.

Donnie stayed especially still.

Kaleb blinked.

Eugene grinned pre-gamed shit.

Coral’s frown lined her cheeks.

You took a single breath to keep the next line out of your mouth at bay. You sympathized heavily with a particular woman who had just wanted ice cream. Now far removed from easily concealed bump days, your supposed helplessness was on the rise. There was always someone trying to make way or, worse yet, trying to touch you, and your mate often picked up the slack. An irrational part of your brain said your friends should know all this, but you had been just about as scarce as they were in life updates.

You were glad when Eugene had asked you to come.

They had made sure to ask specifically you.

They said they wanted you there.

They said they wanted to catch up while they suffered.

A gauntlet, they had joked, referring to yet another program.

It meant something.

It all meant something.

Coral’s care.

Kaleb’s assumption.

Donnie’s patience.

It was all equally irritating.

Your feet ached.

Your lower back was incessantly sore.

Your calves would throb from this short pause.

You were in a never ending battle between sitting down and your bladder.

You breathed in and out again before you tried to meaningfully look over your options. Kaleb’s mind for engineering argued his course was best and it would be nice to be able to easily get in and out of your seat when you inevitably had to hit the restroom next.

“Move the table.” You admitted trying not to be too sad about it.

The hoist took less than a few seconds and no one made further notes.

Donnie eventually sat across from you and beside Kaleb. Waters were passed out and other, more paltry orders were taken. Eugene’s serious air kept the table from falling into much catch up and eventually a team of employees approached the table.

“Welcome!” The first spoke as the hostess from the front. “I have a whole spiel, are you ready?”

“Born ready.” Eugene looked up with a fiery gazed they hoped matched the wings.

“Alright.” The woman bowed slightly. “Welcome to The Vertigo Venue, home of the 100 wing death challenge, where you won’t leave without your head spinning. As the reaper implies, you need to finish 100 of the world’s hottest wings in under 45 minutes. They will be brought to you in groups of 10 with the last 5 beings made with some of the hottest peppers in the world. Do you think you can stand up to the heat or will you be running from our kitchen?”

A man beside her who looked like he had come from the cook staff nodded appropriately.

“I’m here to win.” Eugene stared straight on.

“We’ll see. We’ll need you to sign a standard liability waiver.” The perky woman took an offered piece of paper from the third member of their trio and passed it along with a pen.

Kaleb and Donnie both tried to eye it as Eugene signed it without reading.

“Perfect. The rest of your food will be out soon. Our server, Monica, here will monitor you. You’re not allowed to drink water, use dip, or get into anything else that might cleanse your palate between wing sets. Still sound good?”

“Let’s get it going!” Eugene hollered.

The rest of the table minus Donnie cheered alongside.

The two others bowed out and Monica took the far seat opposite Eugene.

“Monica.” Kaleb immediately leaned forward to see her. “Scare the pants off Eugene. Tell us all about the losers.”

Monica jumped a little. “Uh… I only just started last week…”

“Aw!” Kaleb sank back in his chair.

“Pathetic.” Eugene sneered.

“Though… I heard the first guy who tried it fainted and was taken away in an ambulance…” Monica continued on.

Eugene hiccupped.

“The second and third didn’t make it past 50 and the last one…” Monica thought hard. “I think I heard they threw up or burned their sinuses or something. That also might have been a lie for the newbie…”

The rest of the table was now staring at her.

“I mean think about it!” She squeaked.

“Can I get a copy of that waiver?” Coral oozed malevolence. “I want to hang it over Eugene’s hospital bed.”

“Shut up!” Eugene swatted at her.

Conversation opened up and broke apart. From the table to smaller parties, you chatted with Coral about how she thought the celery and carrots were a waste of time. Eugene went on to speak about their utility which went on until Monica stood. It was a signal and you all quieted as a server came around your table. Food was dispersed to everyone else in a way that made Eugene stand out.

They were center stage when that cook from earlier walked out to personally deliver the first ten hot wings.

He spoke of some insane number of Scoville units, which measured the spice.

Eugene seemed unimpressed and the man departed.

Monica pulled a digital clock out from somewhere and readied it. “I’ll start it when you take your first bite.”

Eugene nodded once.

Kaleb was already through a few of his own wings as he watched.

Everyone else waited.

Eugene picked up a flat and leveled their gaze at Monica.

She found some courage and returned it with a hand over the button.

A few wild west seconds ticked by before they took a bite and she pressed the clock.

“Oh!” Eugene immediately perked up. “That’s pretty good.”

They ate at a steady pace with a relatively impressed expression.

“What’s the math on that?” Kaleb tipped his head to Donnie.

“For 45 minutes, 2.2 wings a minute.” Donnie answered, having yet to eat anything.

“The point two wings part is the real challenge.” Kaleb spoke like a joking sage.

Your spouse nodded without further mention.

Kaleb examined him with a creased brow.

The cook came out with the next basket.

You sort of heard the new Scoville number, but really you smelled the spice.

You salivated.

Your own wings were something basic.

Your gastrointestinal system had been particularly active.

It didn’t help that your child was kicking.

Dr. Kuro had you doing what she called a ‘kick count.’ While she admitted the egg shell made it a bit odd, she cautioned that the larger the baby grew, the more active they would become. You figured they got Donnie’s smarts because soon after that they seemed to realize they could get a reaction out of you only if they kicked the malleable placenta. You would find yourself struck at odd hours and heaving when your organs were attacked.

Counting out your abuse was a given.

Donnie, who apparently could hear the movement, was always nearby for a hand to squeeze. You guessed you considered that a forewarning of birth, though that was still a tossup. Dr. Kuro said she was waiting to see something specific before she made a final determination on whether you’d be up for natural birth or not. You quaked at the thought of passing the plastron, but your doctor seemed confident it was soft enough. You found that hard to believe when she seemed to only be able to tell that by sonogram, but you had no choice but to defer to her centuries of knowledge.

If the knocks to your insides weren’t bad enough, your heartburn picked up the slack.

You had never particularly noticed any cravings. If anything you developed aversions, but they always seemed to make sense. Eating a constant diet geared toward your health often put you in food ruts. There were only so many ways vegetables, fruits, and lean proteins could be prepared for maximum benefit and you hit those walls fast. You did your best to rotate the crops. An attempt was made so you didn’t deplete your reserves in each food group, but it had been a neverending balance act.

Acid reflux hit you hard in week 27.

Without obvious cause or culprit you were burping up boiling oil. For the first time in your pregnancy, you felt the ache of nausea. Churning guts had you reaching for antacids. You had to check which were safe when all you wanted was to stop the burn. You tried to hastily switch your diet in an attempt to offset it, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the burn.

You ate a banana one day with no problem.

The next it caught in your throat a second time after swallowing.

You moved swiftly through your meal plans and it all culminated in a little pregnancy oddity. There were tons of these as far as Dr. Kuro was concerned and she likened them to the babies themselves. She said cravings and the like were all the baby deciding what they liked best, even if there was no evidence to support it.

You were sick enough to agree, but your mate had been hung up on the lack of science.

He had researched what he could, but abandoned it with relative swiftness. Pools of data were riddled with error and emotion. He likened it to the source of his ninpo as if he hadn’t taken to his new power like a moth to a flame. After his display of grandeur in the living room, his constructs were soon things he made without second thought. You figured it was an extension of those holograms that were linked to his brain. Ninpo bypassed some microscopic lag that supposedly came from his chip and had far greater application.

With a touch, he had a mug warmer keeping your tea the right temperature while you agonized over getting the minty aid down. With a tip of his head, a prop would appear if you needed to rest. He had even whipped up a neck pillow, though it was unusable. Tests found that while he understood organic compounds, he couldn’t recreate them with his power. The polyester he tried to manifest had been itchy and coarse. Though he was annoyed he couldn’t help you, knowing that mysticism had its limits seemed to soothe your mate.

They were caps on the intangible and he saw the rules as physical concepts. For moving mass, they were the calculations for friction and he loved parameters. He moved within them and wove throughout. You saw him create new battle shell prototypes in blinks just so he could see the components. He would turn the manifestations with flourishes and burst them into pieced blueprints so he could walk amongst the parts.

If you hadn’t been so sick as of late, you could have seen him revel more.

As it was, those glimpses had been few and far between. You wanted to encourage him because you loved to watch, but as of now Donnie barely spared time to practice. He only seemed to work with his ninpo to make sure his handle on it was a safe one. You and your child were his greater focus. He cared little for some great power as he deemed it unnecessary with the current state of his life. He had other things he wanted to do and, even if his ninpo could have helped, his plans were to do things with his own two hands, so he did.

The lumber for the crib had arrived a few days ago.

He was still reworking the perfect blueprint.

Tending to your tender stomach had kept him from long stretches of design.

The closing in of all you needed to do further upset your stomach.

So much of the time you thought should have gone to preparing for the baby had been used to instead see what shape the baby would take. It was difficult to think about buying clothes when you weren’t sure how sharp the carapace would be. You didn’t know how to account for diapers if there was a tail or not. Bottle types were a stalwart until one considered if formula was even necessary.

As far as you noticed, you hadn’t even produced milk or whatever precursor concoction it was called.

It was head-spinning.

You were already neglecting your friends as it were. Falling behind in regards to your kid which was the one thing you were supposedly putting all your energy toward felt like the ultimate failing. The thoughts might have consumed you had you not heard but opposition.

From Dr. Kuro, who had immediately picked up on the faintest hint of your anxiety, to Donnie, who was the king of over-preparations, neither party allowed for your doubts. Contingencies were always possible, but, as most of these things went, it didn’t matter how prepared or unprepared you were; a baby was coming. You would be ready because you had to be. Whatever you needed would be acquired and, if it had to be something different, then you would get that instead. Without the economic bars, that should have been settled for you, but the admonishment for thinking with such privilege in the first place came as a countercurrent.

It felt like a resurgence of the inadequacies you had long overcome. Years had gone by since you berated yourself in that way and the feelings had crept in to poison your heart and mind before you knew it. You decided that they were the leak of acid upsetting your stomach to absolve you and your baby of blame. It was the bad thoughts making you sick and not any infantile kicks. A change of mindset wasn’t something that happened immediately, but you had seen a turn as soon as you started to dismantle that train of thought.

Except now you were heavily debating on sucking the clean bones Eugene left behind.

Two more baskets had cycled through in that time and people were talking. Coral had left you behind to debate something with Kaleb that seemed to relate to Eugene. Said person sat at the center of a storm and seemed to be faring well. There was the faintest flush to their cheeks, but they continued eating at an even pace.

The smell of spice was in the air and tucking back into your nostrils. Waves of it wafting into a manifesting cloud that beckoned you forward. You moved by your nose alone as you leaned against the table. Your baby held onto the metaphorical edge to peak themselves at the treat unknown to them because you wanted one of those wings.

A level four spice couldn’t have been that bad.

You were turning toward Monica before you realized it. “When does the waiver kick in?”

Monica was schooled enough that she didn’t look away from Eugene. “It’s for overall consumption and the last fifteen.”

“Are the other sauces…” You glanced at one of the discarded baskets that had yet to be picked up and felt that drive hit you. “… on the menu normally?”

“Y/N…?” Coral caught wind of what you were doing.

 “Huh?” You couldn’t pull your gaze away.

“You gonna do the challenge? You think eating for two gives you an edge?”

“What? No.” You finally blinked away.

“You’re eye fucking the bones.” Coral’s smile quirked.

“I don’t-!” You shook your head.

“Craving!” Eugene gulped out a fiery breath. “Mom did that with me! I was a spice baby!”

“You are good with spice.” Kaleb was inclined to agree.

“How’d that work out?” You felt a little guilty asking since it took Eugene’s attention away.

Eugene thought while they chewed.

You could feel Donnie eyeing you.

“Ever had heartburn so bad you couldn’t move?” Eugene finally animated and pointed a set of bones at you.

You sort of wanted to lean forward and bite the sinew on the joint.

“Haven’t you been dying with heartburn already?” Coral leaned suspiciously into your person.

“What’s another?” You found yourself saying.

Eugene laughed right into a choke.

Kaleb and Monica both shot to attention.

“Spice! Throat!” Eugene coughed out. “M’okay!”

Coral whacked their back and was cursed out for it.

Another set of wings for level five arrived.

You watched with a dropped jaw as your coveted bones were removed.

The new set scorched your nostrils from two seats away and your baby kicked with demands.

“C-can I-?!” You tried to call out to the cook, but his back turned and he was gone.

Donnie fluidly stood from his seat and chased him down.

“Ah…” You sounded your displeasure.

“There’s something!” Eugene took his first bite of wing 50. “Thought they were going easy on me!”

Coral glanced at the clock. “Might do it… Huh!”

“Non-believer!” Eugene shared spittle.

“I’m siding with the winning team.” Kaleb cheered.

“Fair-weather fan!” Coral cursed.

Donnie returned.

“You know what a fair-weather fan is, Dee?” Kaleb went to share the joke.

You sort of saw your husband shake his head, but you were staring at some napkins.

An insane part of you wanted to snort their red blotches.

Not only was that patently gross, it also would have been bad for your skin.

Craving or not, the thought of hot sauce swallowed your rationale.

You wanted it.

Your own food was completely unappetizing.

You only wanted something of that spice caliber.

Nothing else would suffice.

Heat.

Tongue burning.

Gasping for water.

You wanted to choke on it.

It would be all you could taste.

You sucked back up literal drool to wash your mouth out.

“Excuse me.” There was a tap to your shoulder.

You jumped as far as your belly allowed.

Everyone paused at your yelp.

You turned to find a server equally shocked, but still holding onto a small basket of 6 wings. “I-I’m so sorry. Are you alright? You couldn’t hear me, I just thought-!”

You meant to apologize.

Take blame.

Anything.

Except right at eye level was oozing lines of heat.

You could see the steam warping the air.

It came with a scent.

That spice that had been dropping down Eugene’s gullet at a dangerous pace.

The server was still talking and you only looked up at them. “Those are mine?”

“U-Uh! Y-yes!” They offered you the basket.

You smacked the untouched set you had ordered before away.

You heard Coral clear her throat from behind her hand.

You felt Eugene stare.

You didn’t care.

You yanked the wings down and let the smell wash over you.

Your eyes watered.

“Uh…” Kaleb drawled out concern.

“Shh!” Coral hissed.

You selected your first wing and everything else fell away.

There was clearly more than one flavor in the basket, but you didn’t care. Whatever wing was closest was your first choice. If you had been a better friend, you might have paid attention to spice level explanation. You were sure you had an excuse.

Tender flesh reached your lips and you tore into it indelicately. 

A moan escaped you.

The lapping heat licked your tongue right back.

You took another bite.

You skirted bone.

The sauce scorched your lips.

It felt divine.

Hellfire washed you clean from inside out.

Each bite siphoned more of that spit down your throat. It burned your esophagus and went further down. Through winding tubes and whatever transformed that mash into something your baby could use. It sucked up the residuals in a form palatable for their development and satisfied that kick count for whatever high reaches it met today.

The basket was empty before your eyes rolled back from their journey to find your brain.

You must have put on quite the display from the state of your tablemates.

Coral was visibly shaking from withheld laughter. The only part of her facing you was her phone and it was clearly taking video. Eugene had fully stopped their challenge to outright gape with a full mouth. You skirted the wad to find Kaleb wearing a frown that was levied by how high his brows were. Even your mate, who had surely seen you at your absolute worst, was staring with uncharacteristically wide eyes per his public persona.

You meant to excuse yourself, but a small burp came out.

It was a feather light topping that offset the scales.

Everyone laughed.

Even Monica, who you had almost forgotten was privy to the party.

“A t-true g-glowing vi-vision!” Coral cackled as her phone shook.

“Give me a break!” You tried to take it.

She snatched it away. “Gross hands! No!”

“I’m not a dog!”

“Don’t eat like one then!”

You went to touch her shirt.

She shrieked.

“The time!” Kaleb suddenly shouted.

Eugene squeaked and dove back into his basket.

“18 minutes left.” Donnie remarked.

“What’re they at?” Kaleb turned back and forth.

“67.” Monica spoke, ready.

“Is that-!?” Kaleb continued to whip back and forth.

“Ahead of schedule.” Donnie said. 

“Oh! Fweh!” Kaleb sank into his chair, dropping all concern. “False alarm.”

With a full mouth, Eugene grunted out unintelligible complaints.

Your mouth was on fire.

You wouldn’t have it any other way, but breathing was becoming a bit of a curse. 

Each bout of life-sustaining oxygen fanned the embers on your tongue.

It hurt, but you loved the burn.

You thought about asking for another basket.

“Ugh.”

You could barely register what was happening before a napkin smashed into your mouth.

It was your turn to grunt into it.

“You’re drooling!” Coral wiped your chin.

“What the fuck!? I’m not a baby!?”

“Stop acting like one then!”

“Is this some ploy for godparentdom?!”

Coral buckled with guilt.

“Coral, you’re joking.”

“Ha! Ha! Yeah!” She curled away with your used napkin.

“It’s wasn’t a thing!”

“You put me with the hippo!!” She snapped.

“A mutant!” You swatted at her.

This time you made contact.

“This is not me being prejudiced! Don’t you hold that against me!”

“I am and I told you: it wasn’t that serious! Yes, we want godparents, but it was a spur of the moment decision! Mikey asked and I said the first people that came to mind!” 

“You don’t just pick based on feeling! I want you to pick me because it should be!”

“If you think it should be you, why are you mad?!” 

“I want to earn it!” 

“That doesn’t make sense!” 

“Yes! It does! It means something!”

“I know it does! Donnie and I have been discussing it!” 

“So you already decided!?”  

“I didn’t say that!” 

“Oscar the Grouch doesn’t discuss. He debates! I know what he thinks of me! He argued against me, I know it!” 

“World revolves around you, huh!? That wasn’t even on his mind!” 

“So now I’m not even worth considering!?” 

“Coral, I swear-!!!” 

“Final five!” Kaleb whooped, seemingly unaware.

You and Coral had hands on each other, but both turned in time to see Eugene take their first bite of the spiciest wings in the challenge.

You watched in slow motion.

Their lips hit the meat.

You had to lick your own vestiges.

Eugene tore away and chewed a single time before they appeared to light up.

In something out of a cartoon, you swore you watched the heat travel straight through their face where it bled steam out their ears.

“WHAT THE FUC-!?!” Eugene snorted and the lava must have gone elsewhere because their eyes went wild.

They scoured the table.

“No water!” Monica announced.

Eugene looked up with tears running down their face.

“I m-mean-!” Monica tittered nervously. “Of course, you can, but it would violate the rules of the-!”

“No water!” Kaleb slapped a hand down to the table. “You got this!”

Eugene turned the weepiness toward their captain.

“3 minutes.” Donnie added.

Eugene swallowed and it apparently went down like glass because they wheezed.

“Eu-gene! Eu-gene!” Kaleb started up a chant and stared expectantly across the table.

You and Coral unwove from one another to pump your fists and join the encouragement.

Donnie only joined in only after Monica participated.

Eugene wobbled through their 95 wing.

They sobbed through 96.

By 97 they were dry heaving.

98 came with another choking fit.

Their hands were quaking around 99.

Splatters of the sauce shot out threateningly from the shake.

You swore you could see them burn holes in the table.

Time moved slow and fast.

Eugene was out of pace.

The clock sped by while they lagged.

“10 seconds!” Monica suddenly yelled.

All of Eugene’s speed caught up with them and they deep-throated 99.

The ensuing wretch was heard around the restaurant.

They disappeared from their seat and the only marker of where they had gone was a sauce print on the wall.

The alarm clock beeped out the final time.

Instead of looking after Eugene, everyone looked down at the one untouched wing left in their basket.

The plea bargains came immediately.

“Throwing up is a caveat!”

“Where’s choking on your waiver?!”

“You cannot hold this against them!”

“It’s one wing!!”

As Monica’s hands lifted, the hostess who had set this in motion appeared.

“I’m sorry, everyone. Rules are rules…” She spoke law.

There were grumbles shared.

Eventually Monica departed.

Kaleb eventually coaxed Donnie up to go find Eugene.

Your husband shot you a look and you nodded for him to go.

There was a moment of silence for the failure.

Coral spoke as soon as the quiet set in.

“Wanna eat it?” Coral pointed to the final wing that had been Eugene’s demise.

“You eat it.”

“You were horfing these down a minute ago.”

“Like one through six, not the waiver ones.”

“I’m surprised the restaurant left it here.”

“Isn’t it a liability for the rest of us?”

“Totally must be.”

“Godparent duties if you eat it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fine, don’t be godmother.”

“Fuck you.”

You laughed.

“I do not care that you’re pregnant. That’s bullshit.”

“You never care.”

“I care about this and you’re being mean about it.” 

“Yeah, I don’t really get why.” 

“You don’t.” Coral leveled with you. 

Her look took your words. 

“You don’t.” She repeated with a different inflection. 

“You make me want to apologize.” You squirmed in your seat. 

“It should be obvious.” 

“Coral-”

“Yeah. I get it. It’s not.” She sighed. “Maybe I haven’t tried to talk to you enough. After we stopped doing the pilates together…” 

“You got a boyfriend…” 

She relented a little. “It’s not like I stopped caring.” 

“Of course.” 

“I want it. I’m not huge on kids, but this’ll be your kid. I’m in your corner, always have been. They’re gonna be a little extension of you. If anything happened to you…” 

You looked her over. 

“I’d do it right.” She decided. “Raising them how you’d want.” 

You gave her an earnest smile. 

She gave her usual awkward air at sincerity. 

You gave the moment time to breathe before ruining it for her sake. “Wiping my mouth and trying to get me a booster seat is not a great way to show it.”

“I did not!” She lit up at the shift. 

“You did!”

“There’s no booster seat for the current size of your ass.”

“FUCK YOU!”

Coral laughed maniacally.

You elbowed her.

She sent one right back.

Two calm seconds panned out before you were bumping each other’s chairs.

The scraping summoned a server who was clearly too scared to interrupt and ask if everything was alright.

They also spied the wing.

They turned tail for the kitchen.

“Last chance!” You pointed and almost got her eye.

She swatted you away at the last second. “Not on your unborn spawn!”

“Rules are rules!” You mocked.

“Who else besides Hypno!? I know you aren’t giving it to him with that husband of his!”

“Don’t worry about it!”

“I will because I’ll be stuck with them!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Uh huh!”

The kitchen doors opened in a telling way.

You both went rigid as the cook came out and headed in your direction.

“Lick it and it’s yours!”

She sat out a beat and the man disappeared behind a pillar on the way.

You kept lookout.

“One lick!”

You watched her reach out.

A single digit emerged from the rest.

You waited for the bluff.

It never came.

She made contact and hid the sauce laden finger back on her person, just as the cook arrived.

“Apologies! Let me get this for you!” The man took only the one basket.

You both watched him go with the intent of prey animals before looking at where Coral had cradled her hand to her chest.

You heard her gulp.

You saw her shudder.

She inhaled deep to steady herself before bringing her hand up.

You caught her wrist before it got too close to her extended tongue. “I was joking!”

“You were?!” 

“Yeah! I didn’t think you would-! That sent someone to the hospital!”

“It’s pretty hard to tell!”

“I would not make you eat some death wing to make you my kid’s back-up plan!”

She pointed the poison at you.

You caught a napkin and wiped it away. “Careful!”

She frowned for a moment before it turned into a pout.

“You can ask.” You wadded up the napkin and safely tucked it away so no one might accidentally use it. “Officially.” 

“Does that mean-?”

“Of course, you’re the godmother.”

“Thank fuck!” She threw her arms up and lolled into her chair with a clanging of its legs.

“There’s two positions anyway!. Hypno was up for the other, you realized that, right?”

She made a face.

“What is with you?! I thought you liked him!”

“I do! I just-!” She made a disgruntled noise. “Like I don’t want it to be Nelson. He’s not cut out for it and also I feel like that’s us going too fast, but I guess I thought it would be… I don’t know…! That… your stupid hubby got his pick too. You too are always so gross with your shared grossness. He’s been branching out. Making friends and being almost a person, so…” Her mouth went as small as it could. “I know he’s not picking Hypno and he’s like… inspiring or… something… I guess…”

You blinked.

“It’s whatever! Goals! Ugh! Is that what you want to hear?!” She folded her arms.

“Goals… as in…?”

“You two! I don’t know!”

“Like…?”

“Like relationship. Through all the shit. It’s crazy how you two are. Parent goals. I wish my parents were one tenth of the Grinch.”

“The Grinch being Donnie.”

“Hell, I’ll take the cartoon guy. He treated that dog pretty well.”

“Coral…” You moved to hug her.

“Gross! Don’t!” She gave no actual resistance.

You had to twist your body to reach.

Gas moved.

You felt the bubble.

A harmless burp.

Until the bile chased it.

The noise you made was gaseous and made Coral actually flinch away.

“Oh shit, are you gonna throw up too?!”

“N-no!” You covered your mouth and could smell the spice.

It burned straight up as it mixed with the battery acid of your stomach.

“Ugh… Heartburn…” You choked it down and went for water.

“They have to have milk.” Coral looked around. “Or ice cream?”

“Yeah…” The acid retreated without the threat of coming out, though sometimes you wished it would.

Instead, you would be burping like this for the next few hours.

Or days based on the level of heat on those wings.

You didn’t curse your baby, but a small part of you groaned at its insistence on pain.

You burped again on your own terms to try to circumvent the next one and groaned.

“They’re avoiding us, I swear.” She looked around.

You sank back into your chair and felt the usual pressure of your bladder.

Getting up was going to exacerbate things.

There was no fighting it.

“I’ll be right back.” You told your companion.

“To throw up?” She checked earnestly.

“Nah, gonna pee. Get me ice cream though.”

“As soon as someone comes!” She huffed. “What flavor?”

“Vanilla’s fine.”

“I’ll see if they have better.”

You smiled and left. You sort of registered the others hadn’t returned, but focused more on the trip. You had to weave through tables and groups to get across the bar. There weren't any sports events that you knew were playing and the TVs seemed to confirm that. They sat on and useless, showing replays with sportscasters talking over smaller images. You paid them little mind as you found the break in the wall that clearly led to the restrooms.

Down the hallway leading to them, you saw the family stall was propped open and the sound of a tap running full steam leaked out.

“You okay, man?”

It was Kaleb’s voice and you slowed.

No one responded and the soft rush from the sink continued.

“I can’t be sure, but you’ve been weird since I mentioned the big guy…”

You didn’t chance peeking and only crept closer.

“Raph can crack bones with his jaw pressure right? I thought he’d be a beast with wings.” Kaleb went on. 

Even with the static, you heard the exhale of your husband.

“Something happened…” Kaleb spoke his realization. “I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t realize things had gone south again.”

“No… That’s not-” Donnie tried. 

Something beeped. “Switch eyes.”

You heard a babble of Eugene and the water pitch shifted as something was moved under it.

You really wished you could see.

“All good, we’ll get it all out. Just hang in there.” Kaleb ushered.

Eugene gurgled a response.

Your friend must have had their head in the sink.

“But, yeah. Sorry. I won’t bring him up again.” Kaleb continued.

“We… No…” Donnie struggled. “It was… me. I was excessively cruel.”

“I mean-”

“I was.” Donnie pressed.

Kaleb relented with a popped vowel.

“I don’t know what to do.” There was a thump against a wall.

“Yeah?”

“How do I…? How can I… apologize?”

“It’s not like they apologized to you.” Kaleb spoke knowingly.

“Raphael did.” Donnie said simply. “Raph…”

There was some quiet.

“He did.”

You heard a clap like a hand on a shoulder.

“Our acquaintance was fragile. No fixing disrepair.”

“From engineer to scientist, we both know that’s not true.”

You didn’t hear a response.

“It’s all about creative solutions in our line of work. So what are we thinking?”

“Kaleb…” Donnie sounded exhausted.

“I know you’ve thought of something.”

“It’s unreasonable. You understand unusable theory. Hypothesis best kept-”

“Donatello.”

Your mate went silent.

“Just hit me. Safe space. It’s a bathroom. The safest of spaces. Holiest of tiles!”

Eugene made an affirmative noise.

You could almost see Donnie taking in the definition and adding it to his notes on behavior.

You didn’t disagree, but you might amend that one.

“I would need a gesture. Something meaningful.”

“Mhm…”

“The godfather position…”

Only the water droned on.

“But that entails my child, mine, falling in with the Hamato! That can’t possibly-!”

“Raph… he’s… good with kids, right?”

Donnie said nothing.

“He runs those dojos. He, like, exclusively works with kids. We went to that one city-wide match. It was crazy. The kids loved him. The parents loved him.”

Eugene’s hair would have been soaked through.

“Didn’t he quit the family? I mean obviously he didn’t, but like he put his foot down. He’s had enough of it. I don’t know him like you, but I don’t know… I can see him… If something happened to you… giving up everything. Dropping it all to take on that new duty. I’m not vouching for it, you can do whatever, but it’s not that bad of an idea. It’s a big gesture. He goes soft at the slightest thing. You offer him this and he’s definitely going to cry. ”

There was quiet again and the rushing water was getting to you.

Your bladder ached.

You shifted stance to try to alleviate pressure.

It did little.

It rarely did these days.

Your limit was your limit.

“I admit I’ve… considered such…” Donnie murmured.

You pulled the closest bathroom door and ducked inside.

You checked and saw that there was a mechanism to close it quietly and did your business.

You emerged in time to see a soaked wet cat of Eugene send you a blood red glance.

“What happened?!” You quaked to fuss over them.

“Vomit in my eyes. I do not want to talk about it.” They glared as much as their swollen eyes could before continuing along and leaving drips behind.

“We got most of it.” Kaleb was next in line.

Donnie nodded and looked worn.

You smiled at him and he came to join you.

“You good? The wings get you?” Kaleb wondered, not put out by third-wheeling.

You slipped your arms through Donnie’s. “Nah, classic gotta pee business.”

“Truth.” Kaleb’s head bobbed and you headed back to the table.

Eugene was there with their face in a bowl of ice cream.

Each place setting had a specific scoop set and Coral smirked over her dominion.

“Nice!” You dropped down hard in your seat and grabbed a spoon.

Eugene sighed dreamily.

“They… good…? They look like shit.” Coral asked with a thrown thumb before she got eyes on Kaleb and Donnie. “Are you guys good? You look like shit too.”

Kaleb popped the wet prints on his shirt with pride before taking his ice cream bowl. “It’s called friendship. This is mine. Wiping drool is yours.”

“Like you were in the running! Shoe weirdo!” She teased.

“Do not besmirch cutie baby booties in front of my ice cream!” Kaleb pretended to cover his dish’s ears. “Don’t worry. Mean old Cor’ didn’t mean it.”

Coral rolled her eyes.

Donnie reviewed his ice cream like a child given some kind of consolation prize for being good at the dentist.

His metaphorical drilled tooth hurt too much to enjoy the treat.

You took your bite while toeing for him under the table.

His long legs weren’t too hard to find.

He looked up at you tepidly. 

You sent him a smile that held all your thoughts on the matter you had both discussed already.  He reviewed you with a steadying breath before moving to take a bite of his own.

💜 NEXT 💜

🎵I just want to celebrate ᶜᵉˡᵉᵇʳᵃᵗᵉ my betas @tmntxthings and @unrestrainedhotsoup 🎵

[captainclickycat]

So while we're on the subject, here are some other thoughts.

I found Neil Gaiman's online presence - and the more overzealous members of his fanbase - annoying. And please stay with me here, I promise this isn't me trying to be smug or claim I "knew all along" or anything. There's a huge gulf between finding someone a bit annoying and thinking that their behaviour online is less than stellar occasionally and suspecting them of being a sexual predator. I don't think there could have been any way of me "knowing all along" without reading everything in the worst possible faith, which I'm not willing to do and which I maintain is not a good or helpful approach in general. And to people who genuinely looked up to him and felt completely blindsided by the news, I'm really sorry. It wasn't your fault and I hope you can do something kind for yourself today.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I didn't like the way he handled criticism of his work, a lot of the time. I don't think creators are obligated to personally listen to and address every negative opinion of their work, or explain every individual aspect of it that someone disliked. But I felt like a lot of his responses to feedback tended to lean into and encourage praise, while being a little disingenuous and sometimes belittling towards criticism. (And really, why feel the need to respond to everything when you could just ignore it?)

I didn't like the way he always felt the need to weigh in on fandom debates or throw out "word of god" explanations for this or that thing, including when nobody even asked. (Want to know who inspired the "I don't care what the author said" comment in my bio? Take a guess.) Especially when some of them felt engineered to paint him and his work in the best possible light.

Again, I'm not drawing attention to all this in an attempt to claim any one thing was a blatant red flag or must have been down to some sinister motivation. That's not the point I'm trying to make.

But it is one of the reasons that I was always deeply uncomfortable by the culture of hero-worship and "touch not god's anointed" that always seemed to exist around him. Like regardless of whether or not you thought this or that criticism against him was warranted, the way people would treat him like some kind of messiah who deserved nothing but praise and lose their absolute shit whenever anyone said anything remotely negative about him was absurd. Nobody deserves that, regardless of what they've done.

But at the same time... you know, I liked his work. Not just "I liked the stuff he co-wrote with someone else" or "I liked the films and TV shows he worked on with a whole bunch of other people." I liked the books he wrote by himself. They had some parts worth criticising, sure, what doesn't. But overall I thought they were well-written and funny and thought-provoking and I enjoyed myself when I was reading them. Neverwhere is the first book I had a crack at re-reading in a different language, which should tell you how much I liked it. And I didn't even dislike everything he posted on the internet. I thought some comments were pretty funny and/or insightful. I even reblogged the odd post.

And I wasn't all that vocal about any negative feelings I had towards him, because... well, frankly because a lot of the negative feelings I'd seen expressed by other people about him tended to look like "he's the devil incarnate, his work sucks, he's the worst person alive and he secretly hates every marginalised group and people should feel ashamed for sincerely liking his stuff."

And I didn't agree with that either! I didn't want to be roped in with those people. I didn't feel comfortable around them, any more than I felt comfortable around the Neil Gaiman Defense Squad, Working Tirelessly Day And Night To Aggressively Stamp Out Any Criticism Of Our Lord And Saviour.

And honestly I'm not entirely sure what kind of broader point I'm trying to articulate here, or whether I'm just working through stuff in my head. But I will say that this kind of polarising, zero-sum-game approach to criticism is... bad. It's just bad. It makes it so people are reluctant to put forward any kind of nuanced stance, for fear that they'll end up getting pigeonholed into one oversimplified category or another, or it ends up pushing people towards one extreme stance or another out of sheer frustration or contrariness. And it makes it incredibly difficult to have any kind of actually productive debate when it comes to criticising media, or criticising creators. Inevitably people's hackles are going to be up whichever side they lean towards more, and a lot of people with valuable input will inevitably end up going "yeah, I can see how that's a good point, but also the last person who brought this topic up with me deemed it appropriate to send me a barrage of messages telling me to kill myself about it, so forgive me if I'm not interested in engaging any further."

Obviously a culture of hero worship inevitably makes it a lot easier for predators to operate, and I have no doubt that being inundated with messages about how wonderful you are and how everyone who's criticising you is in the wrong must make it a lot easier to rationalise your actions. But I feel like this tendency to paint everything in terms of "are they a pure uwu blameless smol bean angel OR the devil incarnate" is incredibly unhelpful regardless of what side you come down on. The "devil incarnate" crowd can be part of the problem too.

[unlikablefemaleprotagonist]

i don't really want to get too logical about it, but perhaps another "above the table" reason for this battle not being centered around getting redemption for the ratgrinders is because this is a show meant for public consumption and "persuade your enemies to desert their cause and join you" was literally the trick of the final combat for the last intrepid heroes season. maybe there was an implicit understanding among the cast that the same gimmick would be perceived by some as being repetitive

and honestly?? i think the neverafter team had a helluva lot better shot converting the princesses to their side than any of the bad kids had in this battle. key members of the squad (okay, not tim, rip his conversation with rapunzel) made inroads with the princesses through good faith interaction with many of them earlier in the season. elodie and mira were the easiest gets because of elodie's history with gerard and mira's lack of true devotion to the cause, but ylfa had a genuine SHOT with la bete and pinocchio got very close with cinderella (who i think may have come over anyway once her allies were down, if i remember right?)

but there isn't a single ratgrinder they have that kind of relationship with. they've been pretty out-and-out hostile, despite moments such as adaine saving ruben from disintegrate and kristen offering maryanne gifts. maaaaybe you could make an argument for ruben and wanda, but brennan pointed out that once wanda showed up with his enemies and ATTACKED ruben's friends, it was over. oisin seemed like a potential option earlier in the season, but then he pulled the rug out from under adaine and tried to murder the entire student body via nepotism. there was no friendly relationship left to capitalize on after that. and maryanne has been characterized as having such an impenetrable mental wall that it's hard to guess where's she's at, even for the other ratgrinders.

plus, there's the whole basic conceit that the ratgrinders' minds are not completely their own. their agency has been traded away to a nameless god of rage. who's to say any persuasion check could overcome that? honestly, i think if it was a realistic play, brennan would have encouraged the players to try it, like he explicitly did for neverafter, laying out a mechanic for it. maybe we'd know more if kristen hadn't gotten a nat 1 on her buddy insight check, but i think that was the moment that any diplomatic level to this combat went out the window, because the dice dictated that kristen couldn't see buddy in there, and to willfully push ahead with that line of thinking would have been close to meta-gaming. they are playing characters as faithfully as possible, and those characters are stressed-out kids! they don't have the same emotional maturity of a 32-year-old divorced frog prince who really wants to be amicable with his ex-wife

[croissantk]

So I've thought about it a lot, and I think I've figured out how I would "fix" whatever direction shinoa's character is going right now, and how it would support an overarching theme between her and yuuichiro without sacrificing shinoa's own agency

Warning for manga spoilers ofc and lots of ramble under the cut ^^;

So to start off, I have two main points to my thought process. One to stay faithful to the arc with, and one I believe the arc is lacking.

1. Keep shinoa's motivations yuu-influenced

2. Let shinoa's actions center more on herself outside of her attachment to him

There's a whole other conversation to be had about the trend in ONS of female characters holding little-to-no agency outside of a man. In this particular case, I don't think yuu being the catalyst for her current arc is an entirely bad writing choice. Yuu is the main character, so he's going to have a big impact on the story and the trajectory of other characters. It also serves as a reminder to an early shinoa line:

Which I do believe is one of the best pieces of dialogue in understanding shinoa's character & how she parallels yuuichiro specifically.

As we know, shinoa grew up feeling that she was incompetent enough that her family 'abandoned' her, insignificant outside of her family name, that she has no actual will or value of her own. And we know this was mainly influenced by mahiru's abuse in order to protect her from the hiiragi family's curse.

Because of these emotional walls that shinoa has put up since she was little, she stands out in ONS as someone without any big goal/plan/desire. It's made a point in the series that characters have something they desire in their life, and that is their reason to stay living, despite how horrible the world has become. Whether that be to protect, save, or avenge a loved one, to be in control, or free to live their own life.

There is also obviously a link between desire & love in the series (familial, platonic, romantic, whatever) and shinoa is someone who has stated herself to have never known or crave any kind of love or validation. Yuuichiro was the one to break her out of that. Subconsciously or not, shinoa starts to crave the love and validation she never had before.

Much later in the story, shinoa learns about how much mahiru sacrificed for her. This didn't seem to change her belief that her life had value, as she still seems to put herself down in comparison to mahiru, but I do think it could've been a push in that direction. Or at least I wanted it to be.

Now, where my biggest hang-up starts with her arc. I do not agree with the insistence that shinoa's sudden motivation for living is because of yuu only. Yes, she admires him, he was the first person to make her feel genuinely valued. But I think it would be so much more meaningful to the story if her sudden "motivation for living" reflected this exact sentiment—

Furthering their parallels and allowing shinoa's struggle with validation to be explored outside of her attachment to yuu.

Again, it's very much what shinoa's arc is going for

She simultaneously believes she does not deserve any kind of love, yet she craves it all the same, and that's hurting her.

I just don't understand why this notion couldn't have extended to her squad. It could be so much more impactful in tying together a theme between her and yuuichiro, and her screentime would not revolve around lusting after him— because she has a whole friend group who value her just as much. She is their leader after all.

The whole "all girls fall in love at some point" thing that they're going for is flat and dumb from a writing standpoint, because I know it's just plain sexism and the author is not intentionally writing commentary on amatonormativity. I can't even tell if this is trying to be a love interest sideplot because yuu has not been shown to reciprocate anything other than friendship for her. So for my own sanity, I like to read it as a "the feeling was friendship but she had never experienced it before" type of thing.

If I were the writer, "all girls yearn for love" would be "all humans yearn for love", and it would not just mean romantic love.

Yuu would not be shinoa's motivation to live, but the catalyst to her finding it.

Shinoa's arc would still be about the human desire for love and validation, despite how undeserving you think you are of it. And it would not just cater to a love interest.

Thank you for reading and I hope this was comprehensible enough >_>

[franki-lew-yo]

An 'A-ha!' fandom moment, ft. The Owl House

These comments I screencapped from a user I watch elsewhere really hit like a brick in the face to me. I'm blotting out OP's name, mostly cuz this was just a shower thought they had rather than any meaningful open discussion with people, but it ended up making me realize something (also NO they're not some contrarian AntiSJW type or even hate TOH; they're a very gay+trans writer themselves. Sorry if youknowwhoyouare sees this and recognizes ur posts but you don't allow reblogs or comments and I wanted to present it on my own):

The Owl House was always hampered by being killed halfway through, writing wise and that will always be it's greatest 'sin'. However, OP's comment made me realize how much the show kind of tells you it's characters are flawed rather than actually give them arcs to suggest it, especially in season 1. When I say flawed I don't mean lacking quirks that are relatable but human: Eda is a recluse criminal; King thought he could kill people and acted like it; Luz is a genki girl; Amity starts off as a bully; Hunter...is unfortunately Hunter, ect. Those ARE flaws, character wise, but in the presence of the complete story (as complete as the show will ever be) they really aren't actually flawed, bad people in anyway.

Before I go further, two things: 1, IN ALL FAIRNESS, this is why myself and others particularly LOVE the characters and why TOH was a comfort show for me rather than a 'high-tension narrative'. The characters are a lot of what you want and hope to be like and I think that's really sweet and enjoyable, especially for horror and especially for kids.

2, NO! I DON'T think any particular bad faith cartoon reviewer opinions about coddling certain characters and punishing others IS WHAT DANA and co did at all here! Steven Universe and certain crap-reviewer's takes ON Steven Universe and how it's characters were flawed but overly forgiven by the fandom the show itself are NOT the b-all end-all of this discussion, nor are they the reason The Owl House is the way it is!

The context op was talking about was how in the upcoming hate crime The Last Airbender live-action show the showrunners are going to tone down Sokka's sexism because they think it's 'unlikable'. Even though, we all knew as children that this was an arc for him and it was WRONG, so axing it because we the audience lack nuance to recognize characters we love doing problamtic-sisms is BEYOND annoying.

Op's point is how The Owl House in particular doesn't actually expect much or want much out of it's characters. Or audience. For any infighting early on about how much Amity should 'die' because of reasons, that's really just fandom infighting when you get right down to it. There's nothing on par with the disagreement people have over, say, the Diamonds from Steven Universe and how Steven 'totally forgave them or 'should have murdered them in cold blood' about The Owl House. And like...from a fandom point of view that's good, but otherwise the show is pretty concrete the way you're supposed to see certain characters vs other shows which allow you to make up your own mind.

Avatar, Star vs the Forces of Evil (pre finale), Centaurworld and Amphibia all showcase your protagonists being genuinely, intensely flawed. Sure, maybe some neckbreather crap-pseudocritic complains that they 'made the unlikable' or whatever (i.e. me with Friendship is Magic) but overall the actual point is HOW the characters actually have grown and have ended up with the ending and morality they need. The villains, no not Zukos or 'redeemed' villains who joined the protagonist squad, VILLAIN-villains, will always be at least one serious step behind the protagonists and that's what give the protagonists the cautionary wherewithal to end them like they should and not 'be like them'. It's such a fufilling narrative, there's a reason people like it so much because it's really good when it's delivered well.

Removed from my fandom gaze; the Owl House feels like it's saying it has that ultimate messaging and character arc when it actually doesn't. Your protagonists have the endearing aspirational-part totally covered, but as far as the actual 'edge' and nuance? Well...

Eda is, at most, naughty. She really isn't any kind of morally sidetracked character. She's an outlaw because literally her society is awful to her and she's in the right to be against it. She's cursed but she's not addicted to her potions or hiding it or not really taking care of herself or her loved ones because of it. Her actual biggest flaw is that she's been 'running away' from problems rather than dealing with them, but I'd be lying if that wasn't suggested more than it's actually portrayed; or at least, dealt with fast enough in "Eda's Requiem". A bigger issue I see, even if it's what's also endearing about her, is that she REALLY isn't a flawed caregiver at all. It's portrayed as her most redeeming feature that she's otherwise a good mom and mentor, but Eda having virtually no problems in raising Luz and King just, again, makes her feel ONLY aspirational. All of the angst about 'failing' to parent and making up for it is moved all onto Camilla and sadly all of that angst for her is mostly within an already bloated episode. Eda, while an absolute mood, lacks any real kind of edge. Does she need it or not? I don't know. Discuss, kids.

Luz, like OP says, is treated like this high-energy super-optimist. She's like Star Butterfly in that her fangirlism and impulsivness are supposed to get her in trouble. But, she absolutely just isn't one when you break it down. Besides episode 2, Luz really is never that inconsiderate or lost in her fantasies ever again throughout the show. She never has anything like what Steven goes through where he hops into Larz' body and makes things worse for people by trying to fix things- which is not only good filler but it calls forward to the ultimate ending of Steven's arc for the series - Luz is just sort of adorable. Luz has blindsided by hype moments of weakness, like when she accidentally hurts Owlbert or messes with Amity's secret room, but still always level headed and down-to-earth. Her impulses are always kind of treated like...excusable? Because, again, they usually are. This is a large part about what makes her self-hatred at the end of the show about accidentally helping Belos' feel 'forced'. Even MOREso than what Hunter and Daddy Titan explain about Belos using her, we the audience never see Luz's choice to go back in time and try and get answers from Philip as being anything other than just, you know, logical. Because it is. The show acts like what Luz did was reckless and bad and that she was SOOO overtaken by her fangirlism about Philip and now just how much she has to live with the guilt and regret of helping being duped by him...it just doesn't come off that way at all. She was only so much excited about meeting him and her interest was getting home to her mother. In terms of comparing her to Philip, that's all fine and good, but again it's not 'flawed'. Not really, anyway.

Lilith absolutely has it the worst...but I kinda think people know that. She arguably does have the most morally-gray turning point in the show given what she did to her own sister. But neither the characters nor her nor the show really hold her accountable in any lasting way for cursing Eda. Lilith is the closest we get to that 'Diamond'-dilemma. She does 'make things right way too quickly and it's obvious to even her biggest fans that her character is really rushed in this area. They lampshade what Lilith did and that she was their villain in season 2 and 2B, but lampshading isn't the same thing as progress. As a result, as a Lilith fan you kind of never really forgive her for what she did. None of that's her fault, cause' you know...she doesn't exist, but it makes it frustrating that you the fan watching the show is doing the heavy-lifting in your mind in this area.What you come away from is this feeling of loving the characters for being able to work everything out. They're engaging and nuanced in theory, but you also feel robbed, w or w/o the Disney interference, of them being fully rounded or WHOLE. It kinda feels like 'and suddenly, he wasn't racist, anymore' all the time with every character ever with except Amity's mom, the Titan Trappers and Belos.

The reason everyone dunks on Star vs the Forces of Evil's finale, (besides being salty over ship wars and declaring THAT'S the reason for the drop in quality) is that 'Cleaved' could have not only worked but REALLY worked. It just needed to be better written and processed as an ending. Instead people reviled Star, the protagonist we're supposed to be rooting for, for what feels like impulsive apathy and cruelty towards everyone else by destroying magic, as opposed to it being an actually selfless sacrifice that makes her different than Toffee. Ultimatley, I do prefer The Owl House, unfinished as it is, to any of that. But yeah... I can now never unsee the characters as being what they are: fun but indulgent when they're supposedly complex. Indulgent is never bad u guys, but the problem is when you only have that to go on while insisting you have fully developed characters, there's a lot of the show telling you how to feel and how to come away from it rather than letting you, the audience, make of that yourself. As annoying as fan-wars can be over this stuff and when people are either WAAAY to forgiving of their villain blorbo or form hate-campaigns over Glub Shitto for ruining their life, it is ultimately a good thing that shows give you that chance to really see the characters that way at all.

The Owl House is, as OP calls it, "tumblr feels" not for being gay and magical and fun and wholesome and indulgent like that stuff is GREAT. It feels 'tumblr oriented' in that it all kind of feels too easy even when it's not for your protagonists. It's never actually "challenging". I guess, in as far as 'good' indulgence is concerned, it's as warm and fuzzy and a happy AU fanfic you found but not so much the Pacifist Ending of Undertale where you really do feel bad if you rectify the good ending in anyway. It's fun and it's comfort food, but not entirely lasting as you want it to be???

Amphibia, I think, was also way better than Owl House in this respect. It wasn't perfect cause nothing is but you really got a feeling for HOW flawed Marcy, Sasha, the townsfolk and even Hop Pop throughout their arcs-- which made it so SO rewarding to see them get their happy endings and come together to defeat the core and be the better people they needed to become.

The Owl House is my favorite where I think Amphibia is the better of the two.

[phoenix-before-the-flame]

I’m watching one piece, and now I’m wondering do you have any hcs on the world building in the fairy tail universe ? Do you think theirs some crazy kingdom’s , advanced technology in some lands ? Love to hear your thoughts 💗

hmmmmmmmmmmm kinda a bit of a deep question tbh.

Structurally FT has good bones for its world. And that's kinda it lol

There's a fleshed out map of all the countries within the continent that fiore is found on (Ishgar, which has 16 named countries apart from fiore itself) and expanding wider than that we know that there are about 3 named continents (Ishgar to the east being a peninsula connected to the mainland that we know nothing of, Alakitasia to the west where Alavarez is and Guiltina to the north) and a fourth unnamed continent further east that exists within earthland.

But while we have all this info, nothing in particular comes into play as the series had progressed, the majority of the series' arcs all more or less take place within the same country, which for a series that has it's characters constantly travelling for missions looks particularly bad, especially when even the known locations all visually seem indistinct from each other in terms of stuff like architecture. It's a reason why I appreciate edolas in particular because it at least offered something that visually stood out and an insight into how that culture functioned. (and in Phoenix Priestess for the small montage the squad in the city of Rose Garden and showing a bit of the country Veronica)

Like it is frustrating to me whenever I think on it because the solution would be just to change the locations of where they travel to just to expand the background of the places travelled, wouldn't even have to change arc structures or anything to give some life to the named countries like:

Joya despite its small size as a country is the main manufacturers of trains and exports the majority of the transportation other countries use as well as weapons. Wizards are less found here, with treasure hunting being a more popular job choice.

Sin, despite the ironic name, is a deeply religious and faith driven country. Magics that have connection to nature and celestial bodies are particularly revered here.

Desierto mostly deals with trade, having constantly active shipping ports. Enchanted items such as brooms and carpets are popular and easy transport choices within cities and are more widely used than vehicles.

Iceberg's largely uninhabited due to the weather with most of the population sticking closer to the country's borders.

Like this is all just purely flavour text examples to just try and bring some life to these otherwise lifeless locations but you get the general gist of it.

There was clearly this effort to establish these locations by giving then names (and drawing a full on map) so it always boggled me that they were never properly used as a backdrop for the arcs within the story. (Tower of Heaven? Move that arc to Sin, Lucy's arc with Loke? Takes place in Stella, That arc with the giant village? Put it in Minstrel).

Like shifting around major arc locations would easily open up avenues to naturally expand the world as the story moves. And not even just big arcs, but smaller less grand filler arcs (which jesus christ did ft rlly need because it defs need breathing room between all the big events. It's why the story moves at such a breakneck speed without things really feeling as though they've changed in any meaningful ways) would do wonders to make earthland feel like a genuine lived in world (like how it is within the world of one piece that you cited as an inspo for this ask.)

[dallina17]

Headcanons about the Chaggie-Emilette group?

So Emily and her protection squad-

Sorry for how long it took to answer this, but thank you for asking anon!

And yes, basically Charlie, Vaggie and Velvette are the protection squad of Emily, and help her in different ways.

Charlie is the heart, she helps Emily to have a purpose, and encourages her not to lose faith or give up on her dreams.

Vaggie is the mind, she helps Emily to adapt to hell. Where to go, how to deal with demons, which measures take, etc. Vaggie is a guide through hell.

Velvette is the soul, it's due to her that Emily finds herself again, what kind of person (seraphim) she wants to be and what she really wants for her life.

These three would give their life for Emily, and are the ones that Emily feels more like a family. But it's a very messy family 😂

To begin with, Emily is sort of Miguel's daughter, so before fallings she calls Lucifer her "uncle", and calls Charlie her "cousin" (more it an affecionate way)

Vaggie on the other side is her sister. Maybe Emily is a seraph and Vaggie an ex-Exorcist, but Emily loves to call her sister (or sis, more specific, again, affecionate)

But then Emily falls and she gets adopted by Lucifer, so eventually she calls Charlie her sister too. I like to think that Emily sees Vaggie and Charlie truly as her sisters.

The same comes from Charlie and Vaggie, Emily becomes a sister to them.

But then Velvette comes to the picture, and she doesn't know how she fits in this family. Is she just the girlfriend of Emily? Is she really part of the family? Can she ask anything from Charlie ir Vaggie? Should she be away from them? Velvette has the hardest time becoming part of the family, and part of this is due to her own self doubts and not really believing that she should be part of that family.

Between Charlie and Vaggie, Vaggie is the one most reluctant to accept Velvette, mostly when she was still friends with Emily (because when Emilette starts dating, Velvette would have at least some trust of the hotel, but it's difficult at the beggining). So Vaggie always has an eye on Velvette, and is very skeptical of her. She thinks that Velvette means trouble, and she doesn't want Emily suffering. But when Emilette starts dating, Vaggie is chiller and friendlier with Velvette, she still has an eye on her but mostly because she is still a Vee and they can't never be too careful with the Vees as a whole, but outside of that, she likes Velvette and even cares for her. Eventually she won't have doubts about Velvette's feelings, would know for sure that she won't hurt Emily and will accept her completely, so Velvette will become one of the person she looks the most after (the other ones being Charlie and Emily, of course)

On the other side, Charlie is the one who tries the most to integrate Velvette, first to the hotel and then to the family. Like, before Emily and Velvette start dating, when they are friends, she invites Velvette to be in the hotel not like, a resident, but just to pass by and hang out. Then, when Emily and Velvette become a couple, Charlie is the most excited and is like "yup, you are part of mi family now, you are another sister and therefore I am going to treat you like one, OK?". She is still careful because again, Vees, but she is more welcoming and genuinely thinks that Velvette is not so bad, and that she is the best person for Emily.

Velvette has always had a fucked up family, and she already has a hard time accepting that someone like Emily loves her. So imagine what she feels like having Charlie treating her like a sister the moment she finds out she is dating Emily, being even more affecionate than she already was. And then Vaggie, who despite her doubts, cares about Velvette in her own way. She is like WAAAAAA. IS THIS A TRICK?!

But eventually Velvette will realize that no, it isn't a trick, and will accept the love she is being given by Chaggie and start to think them as family, I don't see Velvette calling her sister to either of them, but their relationship will be very sister like.

So yeah, is a situation of "the sister of my girlfriend is also my sister". Charlie and Emily are more vocal about it (Charlie calling Velvette sister, and Emily calling Vaggie sister, thou it's kinda of rare then because of messy families but nvm). And while Vaggie doesn't call neither Emily or Velvette sister, and Velvette doesn't call Charlie ir Vaggie sister, they definetly have that bond. Plus Lucifer is like "the girlfriends of my daughters are also my daughters what do you mean by that is not how it works" so yep.

Chaggie and Emilette are basically the royal couples of hell. And hang a lot together.

They even hanged out before Emily became a fallen angel. When Velvette was in the hotel the times that Emily was visiting, Charlie tried to encourage Emily and Velvette to set up their differences (because when they just met they had a lot of problems) and get along

But of course Vaggie was nervous to leave Emily alone with Velvette, so not wanting to let down the hopes of her girlfriend, she proposed that the four of them hanged out and Charlie thought it was BRILLIANT. And so that's was the predecessor for their double dates, and how the friendship between of them grew.

Of course Vaggie eventually trusts Velvette more and doesn't mind Velvette and Emily hanging out alone. But they still liked to hang out together, so... DOUBLE DATES!!! They love doing double dates, trying new things together.

Usually they take turns to choose, Chaggie chooses, then Angelic Vogue, then Chaggie, and so on. Somehow the spots that Angelic Vogue chooses end up being more chaotic, but they still have fun.

Their double dates include: going to La La Land, have picnics, shopping sessions, spa, do sports competitions, do high risk sports, go to a restaurant, pillow fight, camping, movie and boards game night.

When Velvette has problems with Emily, or doesn't know what to do about something, she usually goes to Vaggie for advice. Like she trusts Charlie a lot, but she is too optimistic, Vaggie is more pragmatic and Velvette has a better time with her advice.

But when looking forward to give Emily a surprise, Velvette always goes to Charlie for help and she is so happy to help! This happens viceversa too. Velvette and Charlie can spend HOURS looking for gifts, it's their favorite activity to do together.

One of the most fun times Vaggie and Velvette have is hearing Charlie and Emily sharing ideas to make something. They get so happy, they jump, and high five, and end the phrase of the other, and all Vaggie and Velvette can do is smile and think how lucky they are.

Vaggie and Emily have flying sessions together. Like of course they like to carry their respective girlfriend while flying, but that is more private, so Chaggie-Emilette has never had a double flying date. But Vaggie and Emily do enjoy flying together, compete or just have that freedom, and while waiting for them to come back, Charlie and Velvette talk.

What Emily loves to do with Charlie, outside of making plans for the hotel, is practicing magic. Emily basically has to relearn magic, and Charlie has never really got into learning how to control their powers, so they basically learn together. They pull pranks on the other, compete for who can do something best, teach the other, and overall have a fun time learning together.

Vaggie and Velvette like to train fighting together from time to time. Not that Velvette is super fond of fighting without reason, but their fighting styles are very different and thus, complementary. Vaggie is a meele fighter, while Velvette is a short distance figther and never uses her body to fight, just her weapon. So Vaggie focuses a lot on her opponent and ignores what happens around her, while Velvette is basically fucked if someone manages to get to her and the fight becomes physical, so they help the other to overcome their failings on their fighting styles.

Angelic Vogue was very involved in organizing Chaggie wedding and viceversa. They weren't the only ones of course, but still, they were the most excited about the weddings.

For Chaggie's wedding, Velvette made the dresses for Vaggie and Charlie. While Emily made the cake and some other cakes.

For Emilette's wedding, Charlie played a song in the piano, and Vaggie did the decorations.

And that's about it! I love the bond this four share, they are a family through and through ♥️

[hyperesthesias]

König x Female Mexican Intelligence Agent

Author's Note: Don't look at me, I need to jot down some ideas for a story I will never write. I love this idea so much that I may actually change a few things and publish it as an original work somewhere down the line. If I actually wind up deciding to do that, I will probably delete this at some point. But for now -- I need to get this out because I am gnashing my teeth. This idea won't leave me alone.

Potential Warnings: Fictional depictions of war violence (I mean...obviously.) ; Secret Relationship ; Pregnancy ; Hostage Situation ; Attempted Murder ; Coma ; Unformatted, mostly just an outline/ideas.

Word Count: 4,847.

The first time they meet is at the chapel before an extended assignment. They haven't been officially introduced, they barely speak at the chapel anyway -- he can't keep eye contact with anyone for long. Especially with her. She looks beautiful under the array of colors from the stained glass windows. She smiles at him, and even if he didn't have a balaclava on, he's not sure he'd be able to return it. His heart's already in his throat, the last time he set foot inside anything remotely religious was back home in Austria -- many years ago. But the assignment ahead of them promises nothing but terror, and he's been having thoughts on whether he'll retire by choice or by bullet. He watches as she crosses herself, and he wonders what faith she claims. The chapel houses anyone seeking refuge, and maybe all he's wanting is a quiet space where his mind doesn't have to compete for attention. His leg bounces, his fingers wring together -- he's not looking at anything in specific, his thoughts wander this way and that, but the quiet and absence of prying eyes keeps him centered.

The woman leaves, glancing at him with another smile -- it's such a pretty smile. He thinks such a pretty smile shouldn't be anywhere near the stench of death. And he knows he reeks of it.

The squad gathers for mission ready and assignments, and he's stunned to see the woman from the chapel. She isn't as weighted down as the others of 141, but the gear strapped around her middle and her legs make her ready for anything. He knows she'd never recognize him -- he looks incredibly different from their passing encounter: the entirety of his bold frame is covered from face to feet, even more than when she smiled at him the first time.

She smiles at him again as the comms crackle with instructions -- and for a brief moment he wonders if she recognizes him. It's an impossibility. But it's a nice thought nonetheless.

They're paired together for the first portion of the assignment. It's then that he learns she's Mexican Intelligence. A spy. An asset. She's meant to draw out and extract information from another asset who'd gone underground almost a year prior. He's meant to give her cover, to offer additional persuasion should they encounter resistance.

She isn't intimidated by him, she doesn't mention his mask neither his size. It relaxes him. He's used to the relentless teasing from his brothers in arms, to the deluge of questions and comments that usually come from people who'd never met him. She came to the middle of his upper arm, but she made no remark about his towering stature. It's hard for him not to wonder if she accepted him genuinely without judgement, or if she was putting him at ease on purpose in some effort to manipulate trust between them. Spy craft was never something he was interested in, he doesn't like double talk. But her soft spoken words are truthful, upfront, as honest as she can be. There are things she can't tell him -- operational things that are need-to-know; things about her life outside the tangled mess of international underhanded dealings. He wonders what her life is like: she was graceful, eloquent, she had a natural talent of mediating conflict -- it garnered trust between informants and enemies alike. With a stern word and a soft smile, she had contacts in the palm of her hand.

Without noticing when or how it happened, he suddenly comes to the realization that he, too, is in the palm of her hand. They've spent long nights talking in their shared language of English, occasionally laughing trying to find a way of saying some untranslatable concept. She has a mother in the United States, he finds out. She also tells him she has no time for love. Neither does he. All of his nights are spent looking out windows in search of a target, or hiding in darkened corners. He expected her to make a joke about how difficult it must be for him to hide. But she didn't. He didn't make sniper, he tells her, a sadness in his voice.

"You have my back," she tells him. "That is what matters."

The moonlight looks sweet on her lips -- and the purr of her voice mingling with her accent, it's enough to drive him mad.

He finds out he loves her while he's peering at her through his scope. He's perched on the roof of a building opposite of the one she's in -- she's passing intel to another informant inside a hotel lobby. It feels off -- something feels wrong. He's done this long enough to know what it feels like in his bones. She glances to him, watching for the spark of the scope on the rooftop, knowing he's there, knowing he's watching her like a hawk. She has the same uneasy feeling.

As she's about to bail and call off the drop, she's double crossed -- stabbed in the leg, they only missed her stomach because she pulled her body away in time.

A shot comes from nowhere -- breaking through the daylight, shattering the glass doors of the hotel. The bullet sinks itself through the enemy, plummeting him to the ground in a pool of blood and matter.

She limps away in the cacophonous mess of people that descend on the man, sputtering his last breath. König meets her at a rendezvous point in an alley not far away. He helps her limp back to the base camp they've commandeered in a safe house a few blocks away.

He's angry at himself for not catching the set-up sooner. Swearing in German under his breath as he patches up her leg. His hand swallows her thigh as his deft fingers sew up the knife wound that missed an artery.

"It's not your fault," she breathes heavily, trying to keep herself sane through the searing pain in her leg. "It's not mine, either. These things happen. We learn, we correct, we move on."

He glances up at her through his hood and sighs, tying off the suture. "I thought I lost you," he says. He shakes his head and growls at himself quietly. He should learn to never get so attached to his partners. "I have lost brothers before..." he trails off for a moment, busying himself with the bandages. He wraps them around her thigh gently -- he's always so gentle. He ties it, sets the roll back in the kit, and looks up at her. "This was different." His accent is thicker, heavier; he's tense.

Her bloody hand reaches to his masked face and caresses what she believes to be his cheek despite that she cannot see him. "I know." She swallows, dizzy with adrenaline and uncertainty. "It is for me, too."

He didn't know she felt the same. He's still unsure now as she's speaking the words. He's convinced he misunderstood.

But as she caresses him, and as she leans to kiss his helmet, his body relaxes at the thought that he understood perfectly.

"Thank you for having my back," she breathes as she pulls away from him.

He sits there, very still. Wanting to do something, but not knowing what or how. He can't look at her, the same way he couldn't look at her when he saw her in the chapel that day.

Quietly and without a word, he takes off his helmet. And his hood. The balaclava is all that's left. He takes a breath and hesitates before he nudges it down his bare face. He's fair skinned with soft blonde hair, a long and bitter scar jagged across the diagonal of his face. He still isn't looking at her -- his eyes darting from her this way and that. It's everything in him to keep his head up. "We...have met before. In the chapel."

"I know your eyes anywhere," she says and smiles at him -- the same way she smiled at him that day.

"You knew?"

"I figured," she chuckled.

König lets a weighted breath. She was a spy, of course she knew. He pulls himself up and even on his knees his frame seems to envelope her -- he leans and gives her a kiss on the head. "I am glad you are okay."

She holds his head, staining his skin with the blood on her fingers. "I am now." She presses a kiss on his lips.

He has never been comfortable sharing his body with anyone, it requires that people see him. He doesn't like to be seen. He doesn't like to be touched. But the way she touches his face -- it does not hurt. It does not make him recoil. He melts under her fingertips, letting himself sink into the bed beside her, with her.

The 141's assignment progresses, as does their relationship. They're more than partners, they're something deeper. Something only they know of, something only they understand. Confidants who have each other's backs, lovers who know each other from stolen glances alone. They keep it secret. Almost afraid to jinx it.

But where he was afraid of jinxes, König notices she's become distant. Where they would steal a moment of time to even say 'I love you', she avoids him. He wonders what he could have done wrong -- he wonders if the images of him slitting another man's throat, or eviscerating another with brute force was enough to push her away. He would not hold it against her if that is the case. He can't track her down enough to even ask her what he had done.

He finds her in their safehouse after a briefing, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. He believes it is starting to make sense: the job is difficult, the blood is never ending, and the mind can only take so much. They've been at it for longer than most, with another few months added to the total time they'd be in the field of their current assignment.

"Meine Liebe," he whispers and kneels in front of her. "What is it? What bothers your mind?" He puts his hand on her back and her arm. It looks as though she has been crying -- her eyes and her nose are swollen. He's never seen her shed a tear, even with a knife wound.

She struggles to look at him. She swallows and feels a pain in her throat. She can't speak over a whisper: "Ich bin schwanger..."

His body goes numb and his eyes fall wide. He's staring at her without any air in his lungs. She's pregnant. He is the father.

She wanted to tell him in words he would understand without any doubt. She's practiced how to tell him in her head for two days. The pain in her throat grows.

"Schwanger?" he says again. The energy returns to him, and he can't sit still. He can suddenly hear his heartbeat in his ears. His hands go to each of her arms, he wants to hold her, embrace her -- but he doesn't want to hurt her. He's bobbing up and down, a smile starting to grow on him. "You are having a -- a baby," his brain can hardly translate it coherently.

She watches as his eyes speak to a smile that spreads and stretches against his hooded face. "No se que hacer..." she whispers to herself. "If they find out, I will be off the team," she sniffles. "I have to see this through," her accent sharp and hard.

"We will -- We will hide it," he says, definitively. He's convinced himself already -- he's already thinking of a plan. "We will make sure they do not know."

She shakes her head. He doesn't understand all of the risks. "It is dangerous. For all of us." Her arms wrap around her middle. "And for the others," she nods as if pointing to the rest of the 141. "We cannot lie to them."

"We are lying already," he shrugs.

She stares at him.

He centers himself at the sight of her glare. "What I mean is, they don't need to know everything, ja? It is...'need-to-know'. For right now, they do not need to know."

That she could work with, at least for now.

König wraps her in his arms, being careful not to hold her too tightly. "We will think about it, Meine Liebe. 'La resolveremos', ja?" His hand cradles her head as he leans his veiled cheek on her hair. "I have your back."

They want to tell the 141, they keep trying to find the right time to do it. The more people they have on their side, the better -- the more people there are to protect her, in König's mind. But she worries they won't be as forgiving. Weeks pass, time lapses -- the job is always more important. They can never seem to find just the right moment to reveal such a secret. But König's spirits are high, his desire to be around her, with her, beside her stronger than ever. He puts her at ease, reassures her -- spends nights with her talking about the days they would have with their new life. They make a promise to each other, to their baby: they wouldn't retire by a bullet, it would be a choice. One they would make together. She wonders what kind of life this new little life would have -- something different, something better than theirs. She would make sure of it.

Ghost is perceptive, despite his quiet nature. He picks up more than what people give him credit for. He can feel something is different. But the job is hard, it's lonely, it's difficult to find intimacy, harder to find someone who understands what the job means, what it takes. If they find comfort in each other, he wouldn't say anything. As long as it doesn't affect the mission, it's not his place to butt into anyway. But he can feel something...deeper, something much more serious. He hasn't quite figured it out yet.

That is, until he watches as she pats cold water on her forehead at a utility sink in the warehouse turned makeshift base. She hasn't looked well, but whenever anybody tells her as much it earns them a stark answer of "female trouble", and nothing more. None of the other men want to know anything more than that, they figure they wouldn't comprehend it anyway.

Ghost hands her a towel, and when she reaches for it, the layers of coats that have been wrapped around her for weeks briefly part enough for him to see a reason for her so-called 'female trouble'.

"When are you due?" he asks.

Her eyes close as she holds the towel to her head. She knows her time is up. He's going to tell on her -- she'll be off the case, and all the work she'd put in, the vendettas she'd garnered, it'd all be for naught. She swallows and sighs, turning to him. "Four more months." She plops the towel on the edge of the sink. "We should be through by then."

He stares at her, quickly glancing at her stomach. "Why'd you lie about it?"

"I have worked too hard to throw all of this away. I can do my job. I am not an invalid."

"You don't want off the team."

"I don't want you to say anything."

"Honesty is the best policy."

"It is my honesty to share."

"And König's?"

She stops and straightens. She doesn't say anything. But it's all that needs to be said.

The rest of the 141 find out later that evening. Both she and König come clean. The men are upset, worried, but know that complicated is part of the job. She's deep cover. If she disappears, it would wreck the mission. They've all worked too hard to throw it away. They keep it secret. Besides, pregnant women make for easy confidants -- a natural response to witnessing a maternal figure, she could use it to their advantage.

König dotes on her as well as he can, sacrificing water, rations, and sleep rotations for her. The others do the same to an extent. But König's excitement supersedes them all -- he smuggles some of her favorite homeland snacks from the field. He struggles to focus when a rifle isn't in his hands. But that is to say, he focuses often, for weeks.

She's guiding them through a chokepoint with cameras and coms from a van. Leading them to the stash of WMDs and intel that they've been hunting for a year. She's out of the line of fire, but never out of danger. She's due in a few weeks. She's tired, they all are.

"You boys almost finished out there?" she asks, watching from Soap's camera as they tag and bag what they came for.

"Just about," Soap radios back.

"Ja, everything is here," König is looking at a tablet in one hand, with his rifle in the other.

"Claro," she exhales sharply. "Because my water broke an hour ago. Get back to base."

"Copy. We are RTB," Soap says -- keeping calm not only for the men with him, but for her sake.

König itches to get back to her, his leg bounces, his fingers wringing. Would the infant be born by the time they got back? Or did it take more time than that? He suddenly realizes he knows nothing about anything -- at all. His mind is blank. But the moment he barrels through the door of the safehouse, seeing her sitting at the table, wincing, he knew one thing: he had to help her. He takes her in his arms and carries her to the bedroom. The med kit on his breastplate has nothing of use for her, he orders his brothers for towels and water.

The night wanes and the pain grows more intense. But he never leaves her side. The others are outside the bedroom, unsure what to do with themselves. She forgets they're there altogether. All she can think about is what will happen after that night. And by morning, after his final encouragement for her to push -- the night has ended, and a new life takes a breath. A small cry breaks with the dawn.

He helps both her and the newborn recline on the bed, and presses his bare face to them both. They are both so beautiful -- so unlike him.

"It's a girl," he says as he greets his brothers, his voice fogged with tiredness and emotion. His eyes tell of his happiness behind the hood. His brothers are happy for him, they congratulate him, pat his back, but silently share the fear of uncertainty.

She has to be on her feet in two days, to move up and out. Everything is sore, she moves slower than she did when she first went into the mission. She's charged with writing the reports and packing the computers -- all between nursing her newborn daughter. The rest of the 141 are loading the munitions and tac-gear, they would be back for her when it was almost wheels up. They had to figure out a way to smuggle the infant out of the base first.

König returns with news that they've paid off a guard to ignore the newborn. But when he approaches the safehouse, the sound of the infant's manic crying can be heard from the street -- the door is slightly ajar. He enters with a weapon drawn, and sees the computer smashed and scattered across the floor. The baby is in her blanketed drawer -- her makeshift crib, alone.

His lover is nowhere to be found.

Cool rage sets in before panic. The nervousness in his mind goes quiet, everything goes still, his face flushes with cold. She's missing. There's no one better than to find her. König wraps the baby in her blanket and positions her snugly inside his body armour before he radios the 141.

She's taken by a double-spy, an informant she burned in pursuit of the WMDs and the intel they chased for a year. He lost everything -- he no longer exists, cannot exist anywhere. A life for a life, he says, it sounds fair. He explains, there are more of her enemies gunning for her -- but if he takes her, he'll fetch a handsome reward, one he is unwilling to share. All she can think of is her newborn, of König, of the life they promised themselves. Somewhere far away. Her body fights against her and weighs her down as she struggles to escape the ties he has her in. She manages to headbutt him, disorienting him giving her enough to snap the ties around her wrists. She takes his radio and forces her body to run as fast as it can out into the open. She doesn't know where she is, how she got there -- but she knows König will find her.

The 141 track a coded radio message four miles away. They know it's her. They don't know if they'll get there in time.

She's on the flat roof of a three story house, having been held in the attic. Her enemy advances through the window she escaped; she searches for a way off the roof. She hears the 141's vehicle as it screeches to a halt, the men already pelting bullets in her assailant's direction. The man grabs her as a shield. She can feel her body starting to rebel against her, she's dizzy, starting to see double.

The men stop their hail of bullets and fan out, Soap and Ghost breach the house through the rear. König watches helplessly from the ground, she sees the outline of the baby in his clothing. Whatever happens, she knows he wouldn't break his promise of a better life for them -- even if she couldn't hold up her end of the bargain.

Her attacker wraps his arm around her neck, threatening to pull them both off the roof and to the pavement below. He has a weapon to her head. Ghost and Soap come up through the attic and appear on the roof with them. The man's finger bounces against the trigger, his feet dance against the roof's gutter.

I want to finish what I started, she thinks. Ignoring the yelling, the clatter of weapons, and the gravel beneath her feet -- she takes a single breath.

With a twist of her body, she wrangles herself out and under the grip of his arm -- she violently pulls his shoulder backwards. Wrested free, she uses what little strength she has to kick him over the ledge -- three shots come flying from behind her, pitting themselves inside the assailant's chest. He goes over the edge. She takes another breath, her shoulders sinking with relief as she watches him begin to fall.

Before she can take another, she feels something grab her wrist. Suddenly being pulled backwards, she careens over the edge with him. Ghost lunges forward, but it's too late. She watches as her partners -- her friends -- are left behind on top of the roof. The sky above her, the ground below -- she takes one more breath.

She lands on top of her enemy, crushing his lifeless body.

König runs to catch her -- he kneels at her side. Desperately, he looks for a pulse. She is unconscious, but alive. Her head made impact with her attacker's skull. He lifts her over his shoulder and seeks refuge in the vehicle.

They return home from their assignment with more secrets than answers.

Before their infant is one month, König is on a civilian flight to the United States. His daughter in his arms, a pack with everything she could ever need or want for their travels slung over his shoulder. He's shrouded in a large hooded jacket and a balaclava. He gets his usual stares as he boards the plane: his height, his stature, but the stares at the baby in his arms is new. She's tiny compared to him, born slightly premature, she's small. He thought she might inherit the genes of his height and width, but he figures she will take after her mother. She flies mostly without incident, but dislikes the bottle. She prefers her mother. He speaks to her in his native tongue: "I know you want your mother, but right now I am all you have," as if it would convince her to take it. An older woman on the flight shows him a trick on helping an infant take a bottle.

"Is she yours?" she asks.

He hesitates, he still can't look anyone else in the eye. No one except his lover. But he nods. "Meine Tochter," he manages a small smile beneath the mask.

"She is beautiful."

"Ja, like her mother."

He simply means to leave her on the front porch of her grandmother -- his lover's mother. Her and the pack. But when he gets there, he finds himself out of his element: out of his gear, in the suburbs, toting a baby -- on the porch of his mother-in-law. That, combined with his size, gets him caught. The woman comes to the door with a broom and begins beating him with it.

"I know your daughter," he finally manages.

She notices the crying baby in his arms. Something is terribly wrong. She invites him in.

He is sitting on the couch -- it feels strange to sit in a place so calm, so daintily decorated. It feels like a trap. But the woman holding his daughter is calm and kind, cooing with her. It was the best decision to bring her here. She'd be safe.

"I thought she might have blonde hair. Like me," he mutters, his whisper almost being swallowed by the balaclava. He extends a finger to his infant. "But...she has so much hair. None of it blonde," he smiles and laughs.

The woman chuckles. "My daughter had such thick hair when she was born. It looked like this." She begins to tear, but does not cry. Much like her daughter. "Is she safe?"

He nods. But he cannot look at her. "A hospital. She will be okay, they told us."

"Do you believe them?"

He looks at her now.

"They say things sometimes...Sometimes they are not true."

He sighs. "Ja, I believe them. Because..." he struggles to find the right words. "Because I believe her -- that she is strong."

A silent tear falls from the woman's face. The baby fusses.

"She will be okay," he says again. He feels as helpless now as he did when he watched her fall.

"Will you catch the men who did this to my daughter?"

"I will." His tone turns dark -- darker than he meant it. But it is the truth. "This one will need a place to stay for now," he caresses his baby's face.

"Mi angelita," she sings sweetly, and kisses her head.

"What does this mean?"

"My angel," she says again.

König looks at his child, her face glowing in the warm daylight peering through a window. She is heavenly -- just like when he first met her mother in the chapel that day. They are both perfect. So beautiful. He feels a pang in his throat, and he takes a calculated breath. His hands go to his face with apprehension, and he pulls down his mask, revealing the large scar that mars his features. But also a soft smile, and wet eyes. "Meine Liebling," he whispers, and places a kiss on her soft skin.

A day later, he places another kiss on the forehead of his lover, who lies in a hospital bed at a nondescript location. She's resting, asleep. The soft tissue damage has all but resolved. It's the swelling in her brain that worries her physicians. And him. And the rest of the men. Her superiors are threatening to disavow her. But none of the 141 will let that happen. Not him. The attempt on her life won't be swept under the rug. He'll find all of der Ficker who want her head -- and he'll take theirs.

His thumb caresses her hair as he nestles his masked face against her temple. "Meine Leibe." His eyes close as he draws a breath. "I have your back."

[lorelite333]

thank you to @sclairereject for the inspiration for the post, because i never have anything to post about half the time. however as someone who does do tarot (i'm spiritual), i wanna put my own twist to this. (ppl have their own interpretations, but the cards still have definitions)

Redacted Boys (includes Alexis) Major Arcana Tarot Cards:

I'd also like to say that these are just my takes, and things that I've noticed and felt. I don't have everyone on here, as I got tired writing this halfway through, so I don't have everyone on here.

SHAW PACK:

David Shaw is the Magician, specifically because he was trying to find his power and voice as leader, in which he did.

Milo Greer is the Chariot, because of sense of direction and will power. He tries his best to do what's right, even if it hurts him in the process.

Asher Talbot is the Strength card, due to his overcoming self-doubt, his compassion, and his bravery in situations. In reverse, this card represents self-doubt, lack of confidence, and vulnerability.

SOLAIRE CLAN

Vincent is the Lovers card, standing by his personality alone, resembling unity, balance, partnerships, and choices.

Sam is the Justice card, associated with fairness, truth, balance, and legal matters. I feel like Sam genuinely cares about what's right, and wants to help no matter what, even if he says he wants to stay out of things. He has this sense to try to make things right, even if things may get rocky. He's a healer by heart, and tries his best to do what's best for everyone in a situation.

William is the Hierophant, it is associated with education, knowledge, traditions, and institutions. I dont really have a reason for this one other than vibes.

Alexis the Judgement card, due to her past actions as well as her personality. This card represents reflection, rebirth, transition, and decision-making. In reverse, this card represents self-doubt, poor choices, stubbornness, blame, and confusion.

Porter is the Tower card. It represents trauma, destruction, unexpected change, revelation, chaos, awakening, and warning. We know that Porter is in fact "The Blade" of the Solaire Clan, and we know that he somewhat regrets it in some way, as well as him having trauma from this and his maker.

DAMN SQUAD

Gavin is The World, as it symbolizes success, fulfilment, and an end of a cycle. I feel like this represents him due to his change with the Freelancer, him being able to open up and enjoy his life with them and his friends. Gavin never really considered Aria his home, but more so just a place he lived at. In his SBW, he talks about how Dhalia has become his home, as Freelancer and the DAMN squad had helped him change his view on it (as well as change him).

Damien is the Sun, mostly in reverse, this academic over-achiever has a little bit of an ego. He's also quite pessimistic and has unrealistic expectations that were set on him by other people. However, the Sun is also associated with positivity, happiness, freedom and vitality. Which I think Damien has learned throughout his years of being friends with the Freelancer, that it's okay to take a break sometimes and just have fun.

Huxley is the Star, as he tries to maintain his happy and positive self for everyone else, turning to inspire others and give them hope with their problems. However Huxley also experiences negativity, hopelessness, failure. I think Huxley somewhat feels like the things in life get too repetitive, and he sometimes loses interest in certain things or just becomes bored with them from a tedious routine.

And finally Lasko, is the Fool, mostly from vibes, however The Fool is an air element card, which represents new beginnings, a leap of faith, and loyalty. Lasko sees the DAMN squad as family, in which he's very loyal to. I feel like during his time at DAMN, he's experienced time after time a new beginning, from Damien and him becoming friends to him and Coworker having a relationship.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

We're Back To UCMH!

I have been waiting for this book for literal months, and I am SO HAPPY that it is finally here. I'd have read it in one day, except that I got 1 hour of sleep in two days, so I did actually crash before getting to finish Halle and Henry's story. It was worth it though, because watching the dynamics between a neurodivergent-coded love interest and a demi-coded love interest was absolutely fascinating. I had so much fun with Halle and Henry, and it was nice to have Nate, Stassi, Russ, and Aurora around a little too. Like, the "adopted by a gang of hockey-playing golden retrievers" vibe that I loved from Icebreaker was still here, but we also get how Henry and Halle navigate a deeply gregarious group that loves them. Let's talk Daydream.

Hey, so this is your SPOILER WARNING because I'm going to SPOIL THE HECK out of this book. You were warned, proceed with caution.

Soooooooo...the fact that Henry DIDN'T take a swing at Will because he was so worried about how Halle would feel about a) what her dickhead ex-boyfriend said and b) about Henry's response just makes Henry the bigger man in so many ways, and that was just deeply satisfying to me as a reader. That and Halle letting her mom HAVE it because her mom has been using Halle as a third parent in the household since Halle was a kid. Hannah Grace has a knack for making character arc climaxes immensely satisfying and avoiding cliches, and I really appreciate that. I also loved how Halle and Henry both get climaxes that work WITH their character arcs. Halle learns to say no and prioritize herself, and Henry gets to BE himself and be loved and supported in his needs.

So I'm not neurodivergent, and I'm not always good at seeing it in books and book characters where it's not explicitly stated in the narrative, so I was grateful for the letter that my copy had about how there was explicitly NOT going to be a diagnosis. I will say I'd probably have caught it in Henry's case from the text and the context, but I appreciate the clarity and I also appreciate the opportunity taken to highlight that nobody needs a diagnosis to be valid or to explain their experiences and needs. Just the matter-of-fact acceptance Henry gets and the patience people in his life have to let Henry explain what he needs and then GIVING THAT TO HIM with no questions asked was lovely. I also love that it wasn't always perfect. People made mistakes in good faith when they were trying to help, and there cannot be enough good said about modeling communication, accepting new information, and doing better the next time.

Listening to and believing people when they tell you about their needs and experiences should not be groundbreaking, but holy crap do people still struggle with this, so I love that Henry never had to. He is surrounded by people who listen, hear, and support.

Which is extra nice narratively because Halle is not. Her dickhead ex-boyfriend is ten kinds of jerk, her family basically uses her as a stage manager/extra parent, and she was honestly super isolated and lonely before she got pulled into the house full of hockey playing golden retrievers (seriously, that wonderful lost keychain in a frat house tumblr post about how wonderful "boys will be boys" can be as a vibe when it isn't toxic absolutely applies here). I was never a Halle, but I have KNOWN Halles, and I cannot tell you how lovely it was to watch her learn how not to people please and to find herself in a girl squad that genuinely loved and valued her in addition to having Henry around. It was lovely and happy.

I also (and please feel free to correct me on this) read Halle as demisexual coded, and that's a dynamic that I'm not used to seeing in romance novels, but it was also one that I really enjoyed. It's never bad to reiterate that pressuring someone to do something they're not ready for or don't want to in bed is SUPER BAD, ACTUALLY, and that that behavior includes bullshit like trying to enforce arbitrary timelines or calling someone cold for not wanting sex. Also, asexual spectrum identities are entirely valid, and deserve more representation in romance.

Overall though, the thing that made this book for me was Halle and Henry's communication. They're really good at the communication thing and they're really good at BEING together, which does not mean sex, it means that they are good at existing in the same space while being aware and accommodating of each other's preferences, needs, and boundaries. AND THEY HAVE FRIEND SQUADS FOR SUPPORT. Because it is normal and healthy (and often hilarious) to have multiple sources of support in addition to your partner. I adore that Henry and Halle have that, and the side characters (both new ones and ones we know from other books) are still wonderful.

Other things I adored in this book in no particular order:

Henry being a fine arts major. That was such a fun alternative side to an MMC after Nate and Russ were SO sports-focused. Henry having that extra dimension was great.

Halle being a writer. This is very much a "ooh, it me!" moment, so your mileage may vary, but I do love me a writer character. (Yes, this is why I still have a deeply soft spot in my heart for Rick Castle. No, nobody asked. You just know this now.)

Henry being so worried about Halle being sick that he takes her home to his mother who is a literal doctor. Henry was correct, Halle needed to take care of herself, and honestly, this was the sweetest thing.

Halle getting to have her girl squad preparatory periods. As someone who also used to adore getting ready for stuff with her girl squad, there is something really wonderful about this dynamic, and it was a treat to see Halle get to experience it.

The sex painting. I was not expecting to do anything but roll my eyes at this scene, but actually? It was well handled, it was cute, it made sense in the context of their characters, and y'know what? Sure. The book not self-cringing at this also helped, and I was willing to let these two adorable college kids have their fun and make some art together.

Henry's gift giving. I am a Halle, I am SO BAD at gifting, but I appreciate the skill in others. And Henry NAILED it. A+, no notes.

Halle admitting to Gianna that she wasn't sorry she and Will broke up. That was big for Halle personally, and hot damn did it model something important to her little sister. Just excellent.

I had a delightful time with this book overall, and I'll be sad to leave Maple Hills. If we are lucky, there will be more Hannah Grace books in the future though!

[floatiesmx]

Do you think it’s time for Madrid to have a new coach?or do you think the issues will pass with time?I don’t mean this with any disrespect to Carlo but he doesn’t seem to know how to handle this team,have any structure,tactics or anything that would help this team.Defense is in the trenches,midfield did not develop at ALL,and the only reason it does look like it at the first glance is because the players are insanely talented on their own,the attack has issues as well,youngsters are sitting on the bench,it’s like the academy players seem to not even be there and with the players that he has to his disposal it’s pure embarrassment how they play and what position they play in.I mean our right back isn’t a right back and I mean that for both Jude and Vasquez,because Lucas just doesn’t do well at all there and Jude is an offensive player and shouldn’t even be there and he’s not a player that does well on the right as well,Mendy also doesn’t seem to know how to play recently,rodrygo sits on the bench as well,kylian misses,vini sometimes does well sometimes there’s issues,arda had exactly ONE minute in the last three games,Fede gives his all and has no rest,there’s pure chaos on that pitch every game.That video from celta match is just ridiculous,for players to be that confused and come up to ask questions one by one?what flick did with those teenagers and players in general,this is what I think this team needs just to develop them and get them to their best ability,at least with midfield and do something about the defense,and someone who can tell the board how idiotic they are by not signing any defenders.I’m not really sure what to think because from one side you can’t deny him what he achieved but in the other side how can you make players like that play so terribly?

I think the issue is solvable cause half is on the tactics and the other half is the players underperforming like as much as i get mad carlo is displacing some of the players he is only doing that to make up the laziness of some other players. I do think if they refuse to get a rb in the january transfer there is something severely wrong with the board like genuinely but Ill wait it out to see before writing carlo off completely. But one thing ill say is he needs to have faith in the youngsters of the squad and he is awful at developing majority of these players and i think he is too nice to not force tactics on them like he should say either step up or be benched and that should go for everyone so maybe this could be his last season but idk

[mariacallous]

Of course there's zero self-reflection among the far-left why they lost last night in New York. It's always everyone else's fault but their own. But Cori Bush is going to lose in a landslide, too, possibly by even more points than Bowman (because she also voted against the infrastructure bill, is also antisemitic, and is also a conspiracy nutjob who thought she could faith-heal tumors away; and Missouri is an open primary, so Independents and Republicans can vote her out, too).

The real moment of truth tho is going to be with Ilhan Omar's election. That one's tight. But between Omar's moment of insinuating Jewish students are either Good Jews (want Israel destroyed) or Genocidal Jews (don't want Israel destroyed), her husband's extremely shady business practice, and her also voting against the infrastructure bill, and the fact that she only won her primary last time by two points, she could very well lose her seat; especially now that there's momentum among voters to kicking the Squad out. If she loses, that's going to be what really devastates the far-left. Really hoping Democratic voters in Minnesota come through for Don Samuels.

People should also put a pin in AOC's very low turnout last night, despite her victory.

If I remember correctly, AOC’s had issues with her vote margin in her previous elections, too.

I genuinely think the infrastructure bill vote is such a big deal that doesn’t get acknowledged enough, tbh

[thygoddessouijathicc]

Interpreting all the DSAF characters personalities and motivations because I’m bored

I will only be interpreting Flipside squad characters as well as Henry but if this gets enough attention I might come back and do the DSAF side characters.

Spoilers for everything and if you have different interpretations please do share <:

Jack

I had to of course start with my all time favourite character and the main character of the series. Jack is a character so frequently misinterpreted that I jump for joy whenever I see a fanfic who portrays him with any degree of faithfulness to his personality.

As Doggo himself has said Jack is very childish, and we see this ingame. Yes, while often Dave is far more childish and wacky Jack can be just as chaotic and manic from time to time. He’s shown to be immature but capable of realizing the consequences of his actions and growing from them.

Jack is frequently portrayed as a tsundere which is simply not the case. While Jack is as stated by Doggo himself bad at expressing his feelings leading to him bottling them up, as well as being described as a man who doesn’t take shit from anyone, Jack is at no point mean to people he loves to deny that he loves them, he just isn’t good at saying that he does. Jack doesn’t lie about his feelings, he just doesn’t express them.

He’s also not soft as he’s frequently portrayed as, and is very capable of being able to take care of himself, as immature as he is. He doesn’t take shit, he fights his own battles, and he tells people off when needed.

He rarely has his own autonomy ingame as most routes have him following other characters but we still get a feel for his motives in each one although since he varies so fucking wildly from saving all the souls and putting Freddy’s to rest, to having fun and doing drugs, to running a business to just having a thirst for blood I can’t declare definitively what motivates Jack.

Dave

After the Tangerine himself I had to of course talk about the fan favourite secondary protagonist of the third game in the main routes, Dave Miller aka William Afton.

Dave is a pretty clear cut character shockingly. It’s not difficult to understand him. Dave is a manic, chaotic neutral/evil sociopath who acts the way he does due to being raised by Henry who we know from a thing written by Doggo in which he hits a presumably adult Dave with a wrench to be abusive. The abuse, brain damage, and encouragement of negative behaviours led Dave to become what he is in the games.

Dave is highly codependent and once he forms an attachment to a person it’s unbelievably hard if not impossible to sever this attachment, which is notably true because when Jack won’t help him he always defaults to being an enemy in an attempt to maintain the relationship in a weird way. Flipside Dave is codependent as well as Davetrap, but Flipside Dave is far less so and is very capable of severing attachments to people he no longer wants to associate with. The attachments he forms can be platonic or romantic, platonic with Henry, romantic with Jack although they both fill similar roles for him.

Dave is also incredibly stupid and easily manipulated which is why he’s as redeemable as he is as we know for a fact that unlike the FNAF William Afton and even some other characters in DSAF who kill, Dave genuinely didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. He’s a character who is endlessly loyal to those he bonds with even if they treat him badly or make him do things he doesn’t want to. Flipside Dave is again not quite as bad in this regard but he still is pretty bad and maintains for a lot of the plot that Henry isn’t evil. Dave thought the kids he killed would be happier dead and never questioned it due to his endless loyalty to Henry.

He is still however responsible for what he did because it was to a degree willful blindness. Dave didn’t want Henry to be the bad guy so he ignored any indication that he was. Regardless of how much Henry is the problem Dave still actively refused to question his orders. Something we do in fact know he could have done because he did at one point blow up and question Henry after killing Dee because Henry’s reasoning wasn’t quite as on point as for the previous kills. However it still took Dave two children dying to notice killing children to make them happy and make animatronics more lifelike doesn’t really make sense when honestly killing children bad should just be a given. However Dave does redeem himself for what he did and it can be argued his willful blindness wasn’t entirely willful because Henry removed parts of his brain to make him more loyal. While I don’t think brain damage excuses serial child murder Dave’s crimes can be looked past due to his redemption, Henry’s character, and the fact he was taken in at a young age by an incredibly manipulative character.

To briefly touch upon his stalking and obsessiveness it’s a feature of his character that is very much explained. Henry frequently watched him on cameras, and used him as a tool so Dave would see stalking Jack as a normal expression of love, and would also not see the issue with letting Jack take the fall for his actions because Henry would do the same thing and that must be normal. It’s still not ok, but once again, Flipside Dave isn’t quite as bad and the relationship is clearly not one sided. In addition Flipside Dave redeems himself and if given the opportunity, likely would not continue this. He does these things because he thinks they are normal and would likely stop if given enough context to know they aren’t.

As for motivations, Dave has some pretty depressing ones actually. At his core, Dave just wants someone to care about him and is willing to do anything to make that happen. He doesn’t care if this is positive or negative attention as he’s very much willing to fill an enemy role for the same purpose. Everything he does in the story is for someone else, usually Henry. He tries to keep Henry’s dream alive without even actually knowing what it was, only knowing what Henry acted like it was. Dave spent his childhood alone and once he met Henry he was groomed to be incredibly codependent so when left isolated he struggles. The only ways he seems to manage isolation seem to be through chasing serotonin via his many crimes and vegas, acting for someone else, or telling himself that there is someone who cares about him who will come back for him, for instance Davetrap waiting 30 years for Jack to return for him.

Dee

You may or may not know this but Dee is probably my third favourite character after Dave and Jack, and the most clear cut one left so she’s next.

We objectively do not know as much about Dee as we do the other characters, most of what we know coming from other characters and her appearance in the third game unlike with Dave and Jack who are in every game prominently and the phone guys who each have their own game in which they impact every route.

From what we do know of Dee’s personality is that like her brother, she doesn’t take any shit. Dee says what’s on her mind and doesn’t care how it affects others which you have to respect. She’s shown to definitely have a degree of sass to her, but more than that it comes off more as a frustration. While her jokes and attitude are just that, jokes and attitude, they actually do tend to tell a different story when read the right way. Dee is angry about how things turned out for her, probably the second most angry of all the characters. The most angry being Blackjack.

Dee died incredibly young and then directly after her horrible death she was pushed into a position in which she was responsible for helping others who died. She was still, as I’ve said, just a child with no idea how to handle this. Dee was then forced to mature incredibly quickly, and as we know from Jack, the dead don’t mentally mature, so Dee actually does still have the mind of a child, but takes in the personality and responsibilities of an adult, which is an aspect of her character I wish was more explored but I know couldn’t have been ingame because when exactly would it have been?

Dee was also not raised by adults, she was raised by her older brothers who even if Peter was an adult at the time, he was a young one and definitely not in a place to take care of a baby. It’s likely that even before her death Dee had to mature quickly because they all did, but definitely not to the same degree before her death.

Dee and Dave have a strange dynamic, she most definitely hated him for most of the series but was open to being proven wrong about him when she found out about his past and that he was manipulated by Henry. Their relationship is more of a sibling rivalry by the end.

As for her motivations, Dee is motivated by anger and justice. She’s angry about what happened to her and the other children, fuelled by rage for her killers, she set her goals as stopping the killings and freeing the souls. Although as benevolent as this may seem, I do think there is a point to which it’s more about her own suffering and her own justice than it is about the other children’s. Still, she’s a better protector than Fredbear because she does something about the situation rather than waiting until it’s too late.

Peter

Ok I’ll come out and say it, I don’t remember the DSAF 2 Peter routes as well as I remember the rest of the game series, so this particular section may be subject to change, however I do think I have enough of a grasp on his character to write an essay.

Peter is the oldest of the three Kennedy siblings and yet another contender for “who has it the worst in the games” the answer of course being either everyone or Jack depending on how you see the third games good ending. Peter spends most of his time in his debut game brainwashed into thinking he’s Scott.

He spends that game living in a state of confusion as he’s getting dreams with his own past memories, particularly of his beloved wife Caroline. He deep down knows he is Peter but isn’t quite sure and has been told he isn’t. Depending on the ending you can either save or kill him or simply get close to saving him but not actually manage it and have him be killed by the factory.

Peter is far less of a coward than his predecessor Steven, willing to directly attempt to take down the infamous kiddie strangler and in the true ending succeeding. While he never fully recovers all his memory he recovers enough to return home to his wife. In the bad route we see even more of Peter being a fucking badass with his speech to Jack before firing him. Peter tells Jack to cut the shit, calls him out on everything he’s done, correctly guesses his lack of a soul, and goes on to talk about the true situation with the dead kids being that they are really dead kids with families mourning them. Peter is unable to help these families and it eats away at him, he has to carry the burden of the deaths while watching Dave and Jack get away Scott free. He then proceeds to break his own code for the sole purpose of telling Jack to fuck off.

As for his backstory, we don’t know quite as much about alive Peter as we do phone guy Peter. We can however infer from context that Peter was forced to take on a parental role at an age he was not fit for parenthood causing him to not mature properly, once he met Caroline he left Jack to take care of a still quite young Dee all on his own which is understandable since he was starting his own family and surely thought Jack could handle it, but he didn’t take into consideration that Jack actually couldn’t, which led to Dee’s eventual death because Jack was not an equipped caretaker and left her unattended which isn’t anyones fault truly but Henry’s because if he had left her at a place besides Fredbear’s she wouldn’t have been kidnapped and subsequently killed.

Peter’s motivating force is curiosity for who he is as well as a sense of justice like his sister. He spends most of his time trying to rediscover himself after being brainwashed into being a slave for Freddy’s, however unlike Steven he doesn’t just play by the Freddy’s code and actually makes attempts to stop the killings and refuses to send employees to the factory instead insisting on proper burials as he knows it’s not right. He has a strong sense of morality which motivates his actions to end the killings but his primary motivator is still to find out who he is.

Steven

Steven is a tragic character, in most series other than DSAF he would be one of the most tragic, however in DSAF where everyone is pretty equally fucked he’s around the same level.

Steven is a first generation phone guy, which means he has little to no recollection of who he is, all he knows being how he died and his name. Steven died standing up to Henry which is objectively one of the bravest things he’s done in the series, in fact, one of the braver things you can do in the series, however beyond that, Steven is a coward. And that’s not even against him, I love Steven, it’s simply a very central part of his character.

Steven has shown he’s willing to throw anyone and everyone under the bus for his own survival which is understandable knowing he’ll be killed if his business goes under as he has a psychotic purple himbo trying to make his business go under who he unfortunately can’t accuse of this crime because of fear so he has to settle on the new employee. That’s not to say that trying to pin everything on Jack was a moral decision, but given the corner Steven was backed into it was practically the only one he could have made. We do know he could have gotten Dave arrested because you can get him to get Dave arrested by calling in a favour, but he likely was only willing to do this because in this context if he did he has Jack as an ally and thus is less likely to get murdered by Dave.

Steven also doesn’t seem to care very much about the murders, which is a little less excusable than his throwing Jack under the bus because Steven is very willing to just let the murders go unsolved and seems to care absolutely not at all about it. Steven doesn’t care much about death in general actually unless it’s his own. He’s more than willing to kill Jack for the stupidest reasons, he was the guy who sent Peter to the factory so we know he doesn’t care what happens to people who end up there, and honestly I can’t blame him.

As I’ve said before Steven was put in an incredibly bad situation where he knows he’ll die if he steps out of line, accuses Dave, or let’s his emotions control him in any way. Thus he’s willing to kill or frame Jack as long as it keeps his business going, he’ll frame anyone for the murders as long as he doesn’t think they’re a threat to him (thus why he doesn’t accuse Matt, Matt is a threat to everyone), and he doesn’t care about the deaths because he’s caught up trying to prevent his own.

Steven in the Flipside continues this pattern of survival at all costs despite actually being dead. He has others fight for him and runs from his issues until he can’t anymore at which point he tries to fight. After joining the squad he changes his tune slightly deciding he does care about what he did and wants to be saved.

As for motivation, as said, Steven is motivated by an overwhelming urge to survive. He’s put in a position where one wrong move could have him dead and behaves as such, putting himself first and ignoring all others out of not just selfishness, but desperation. Everything Steven does is because if he didn’t he be killed and thus he’s not just a “bad boss” he’s a bad boss who wouldn’t be quite as bad if he weren’t stuck between an Aubergine and a Factory.

Blackjack

There isn’t much to be said about Blackjack, people say he’s underrated and while I agree he has his strong points, Blackjack is easily the weakest member of the main cast, and not in personality or lore as always he’s an intensely interesting character because Doggo is amazing, rather because Blackjack simply doesn’t get enough screen time to be a full character, he doesn’t get an arch because he can’t. Blackjack is introduced at the very end of the third game right before the conclusion of the final battle after which he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue, so he’s underrated yes, he’s a good character, but I think his being underrated is kind of fair. We didn’t get to know him very well. It’s incredibly hard to introduce a character so late into the story and have them be popular, because everyone is already so attached to the other characters and the new one doesn’t have time to be established.

As for his character he’s kind of full of himself which is interesting in its own way but is again a bit of a weak point because he acts like he should have an arch but he doesn’t. He treats the other characters kind of like tools going as far as to basically call them freaks and want to use their trauma and emotional turmoil as punishment for Henry. You can understand why he’s this way of course, he was murdered and is processing it. However everyone was murdered and so he comes off a little whiney given that absolutely none of them made as big of a deal of it.

His backstory is just Jack’s backstory with the addition of turning into a dog and doing more than Fredbear ever could with locking Henry in the void. However due to his rage and selfishness Blackjack decides not to kill Henry, and instead to torture him while letting him grow in power by accident. He’s eventually convinced to kill Henry but he should have done it a long time ago.

As for motives, Blackjack is motivated like Dee by anger and justice, but it’s far more clearly selfish. I wish we got a moment at the end with Blackjack apologizing for everything, particularly his behaviour towards Jack but we didn’t and that’s fine honestly. He’s a flawed character who takes out his rage on Henry believing himself to be worthy of dispensing justice to all who wrong him.

Henry

The man himself Henry, the one who caused every single bad thing to happen in the entire series, he’s actually a very interesting villain who while he isn’t physically present for most of the series his impact is very felt and from what we see of him he immediately became the most hated character.

Henry is as evil as they come, this is without question. At every opportunity in the series he does whatever hurts the most people. He’s someone you love to hate. Henry is far more than simply evil. He’s cruel, psychopathic, manipulative, abusive, delusional, and far more, and it’s goddamn interesting.

Henry is like the other characters in the sense that his backstory explains exactly why he is how he is. Henry is a man abused as a child, who grew up to become a Machiavellian member of the military, and then lost his wife and child somehow. Henry experienced nothing but death and suffering his whole life and sought to end death entirely out of his own fear and potentially to bring back his wife and child. We do know he cared about them because of how mad he was at Dave for taking his son’s name. Despite all his suffering however Henry has done so much worse than what was done to him.

In his pursuit of his goal of beating death Henry murdered countless innocents, mostly children, as well as manipulating Dave into becoming a serial killer by basically grooming him into codependency, telling him he would be doing something good, and messing with his mind as well as very likely putting Dave in a situation where he felt he couldn’t question Henry’s authority, he then springlocked Jack, Steven, and if I recall Peter, allowing them to die in agony without even putting them out of their misery, and capped it all off with showing absolutely no remorse. These actions tell ten story of a man who doesn’t care who he hurts to get what he wants. Henry sees what he’s doing as for a good cause and thus it doesn’t matter if he does something bad because more good comes out of it in the end. He has a utilitarian view of the world seeing others as a means to an end.

As for motives, Henry is motivated by fear, selfishness, and narcissism. He’s afraid to die, afraid of the unknown, and will do anything to escape fate, in a similar way to Steven he just wants to survive, but Steven only did what he had to, Henry hurt people he didn’t need to at all, and dragged on others suffering in ways he absolutely did not have to do. Henry is a horrible narcissist who sees himself as the protagonist of the story with the cards all stacked up against him, when really, he’s the one who stacked the cards in the first place, and is just suffering the consequences.

[motorghost]

"Why did Din mansplain manipulate malewife his way into giving Bo the Darksaber when he wouldn't give it to Paz?" 1) Paz Vizsla—who up to that point had solely been presented by the narrative as a loyal Mandalorian and Professional Din Djarin Hater (we love him for it)—rolled up to my man Din like "maybe you suck at the Darksaber because it belongs to me because my ancestor made it." (tBoBF, S1E5.) Then he directly challenged Din to a duel. If you think Din wouldn't respond to that with "hell yes let's fucking go," then you don't understand Din.

2) Bo-Katan had already refused to accept the Darksaber from Din and did NOT challenge Din to duel for it even though she had ample opportunities to do so. She could've challenged Din in her own throne room. It certainly would've helped her get her squad back so she could retake Mandalore! But she'd given up. She lost faith.

3) By the time Din and Bo are before Axe and the fleet, Bo has proven herself a capable leader many times over. She's had a genuine come-to-Mythosaur moment, she rescued Din, she's performed the highest of Mandalorian services by rescuing a child, AND she's been honored by the covert's leader (Din's leader) to work to bring other Mandalorians back to the Way. Also she was literally trained as a leader from birth (not JUST born to it, which Mandalorians *SHOULD not care about.)

4) Din cares about two things: Grogu, and being a good Mandalorian. Being a good Mandalorian in that instance meant following his alor's word and ensuring that Bo-Katan be successful in her appointed mission to bring Mandalorians together. It didn't matter to him up until that point because the Darksaber ONLY matters to the people who believe it matters. "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!"

5) So my boy (who demonstrated throughout that episode—and even before—that he's very good at sussing out the reasoning methods of an individual/group and utilizing those methods to further his own goals,) thought about it for 5 seconds and figured out a way to convince Axe and the others (and Bo, for that matter) that, actually, this stupid shit I mean super important symbol belongs to Bo. He used the group's own programming (lol droids) against them.

6) "But using that logic it would ACKCHULEE belong to—" Great, you've figured out how stupid the Darksaber bylaws are. That's the whole point.

*There are some Mandalorians who do care about bloodlines but they suck and it goes against OG Mandalorian culture.

[thoughtfullyrainynightmare]

Could you answer #1, 11, and 23 for beloved Fue?

FUE FUE FUE!! GDASFDRAF

*dusts clothes and clears throat* Yes

Why do you like or dislike this character?

Okay! So! We've talked about this a lot on this blog lately, and perhaps I'll add them to my Vermillion Master post. But, let's give a ... somewhat brief summary of it.

I very much like him. I really do. Because I think that him as a character is someone that is easy to admire. He has high morals and lives by the virtues and values he has found for himself, granted that they lie greatly in the scheme of what is good and law abiding. However, he's also capable of letting mercy serve as justice at time. What I mean by it, is that sometimes the law isn't to be followed to the letter, but evaluated on a case by case basis. If he didn't believe in that, then he wouldn't have stopped Asta's trial along with Nozel.

He's someone who tries to do good, and sometimes, at his own expense. If he didn't, then he wouldn't be putting such a huge toll on himself to be the very best leader to the CLK that he could be, but also, why he didn't pursue (not that we can see anyhow) any further consequences to William for his betrayal. Of course Julius' orders would have weighed a lot, but I'm sure that, if Fue had wanted to, he could have emphasized his standing in the socioeconomical system, and perhaps even try to put pressure on Julius for William's dismissal if nothing else through the King/Law department.

But instead, Fue decided that the kingdom has already suffered greatly, and the loss of a Captain might be too heavy of a toll, both in man power, and the unrest it might cause, along with people losing even more faith in the MKs as a whole. I mean, some of them being possessed was bad enough, but one of them being, kinda, the leader of the cult that made it all happen? That would be too big of a blow.

Yes. It's a great tragedy on Fue. But it's a personal tragedy. One life, his own, in the place of many.

I really think that he is someone who believes in... how those at positions of authority are servants of the people. They make decisions for the good of the people, and he tries to abide by that.

Can Fue ever trust William? Fully at least? I think not. But... I think that in his mind, the scales tip towards him not pursuing justice for himself. Because he wants the good of the people.

I'm not sure if I can, still, fully formulate the gravity of this decision, and what an incredible decision it is, because I'm not sure, if I could, in a similar situation, make the same call. I'm not sure how many could.

Fue is a character who's very essence is in the growth, safety, and well being of others. Yes, sometimes it comes in the form of telling them to grow stronger on their own accord, because there'll come a time when they need to stand on their own two feet. But if everyone is as strong as they can be, then the system is much more solid and safe to everyone. Everyone needs to do their part. But he wants to help people achieve that.

However, I also think that, since he has been known to dismiss people from his squad (due to good reasons), he's not naive, and he won't forgive or look to the other way with just anything. So, the person's wish to be better, needs to be genuine. They really need to try and be good, be better, from the bottom of their hearts. Abide to at least similar ideals as he does.

And as my "somewhat brief description" isn't brief anymore, I think I'll end here.

(But as a bonus, he's also fine to look at, so... a little icing on the cake)

11. Would you date this character?

I think that he only reason why I wouldn't date him, is his royal status. I imagine that it'd be quite restrictive, and it'd be a lot to get accustomed to. But... it'd, probably, be doable. So... yes, yes I would date him.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

(Do I really have to choose?) You get top 3 (last ft. Mereo)