#I’m trying to have as different as a response I can though (hence the lack of crying)

[buysomecheese]

Someday soon I’m sure I’ll write about the power that hurricanes hold over my love. I do believe in making things work for myself by myself, but I’m also a reader at heart- I cannot ignore parallels in any circumstance, and my own life is no exception. To live in the state of Florida is to live in the state of nostalgia, always, and hurricanes only add.

[allieebobo]

While I am salty abt Rayyan’s lack of faith in our MC, I am also absolutely endeared by their consistent dedication to tennis and being the best ❤️ Their passion for the sport is definitely one of the reasons I’m attracted to them, and same goes for my MC. Their reaction to the doubles pairing is upsetting, but if you were aiming to make these characters feel real and authentic, then you nailed it! I’m happy Rayyan doesn’t change or give up their passion for the sport just because they’re starting to gain feelings for the new freshie. Tennis is their first love, not anyone else 😆 Rest assured though that my MC will still try to make them eat their words 😉

Ahh I'm glad Rayyan's response is something folks are thinking about and enjoying(?) To summarise, I think Rayyan has this almost obsessive fixation on tennis because they know how good they can be, and a lot of their self-worth is derived from that, for better or for worse. To the second anon, you're absolutely right in that this gives them a "standing at the edge of a cliff" feel to their frenetic, almost all-consuming passion/ambition.

Very long answer below hahaha :p do I psychanalyse all of my characters? Unfortunately... yes 🤣🤣 it's a blessing and a curse 😂

Tldr; Tobin and Rayyan have grown up with different family backgrounds and different experiences of being "othered", and this informs the way they react to big events.

Rayyan's family, as one of the only Egyptian (and Muslim) families in their neighbourhoods, are inevitably more isolated and insular--their family does their best to cling on to their traditions and religious beliefs and history, but this doesn't always help with assimilating to a new country. Rayyan has always felt alone, different, and have grown up learning to be independent, often with the mindset of taking on adversity alone. Hence their instinctive response to MC, and their dislike for doubles.

Being born into an immigrant family, Rayyan has also always felt as though they've had to prove themselves twice over: first to the outside world, then to their family--especially their father and grandmother who want nothing more than to see their child/grandchild succeed. Rayyan, as the oldest of the youngest generation, bears the responsibility of being the family's 'proof' of successful assimilation into America in some ways.

Rayyan is consumed by the need to do well at tennis and at school because it is tied not just to their own self-worth, but also their family's, by extension. So, they've always found it hard to accept anything less than perfect from themselves--there's just too much riding on them for them to "fail".

Tobin, in this IF, is a foil to Rayyan in that they deal with similar, but very different pressures of being a black athlete, but they respond in a very different way. Rayyan tends to focus on one thing and one thing alone: winning - the classic "I let my tennis do the talking". Tobin, on the other hand, has always prioritized people, over anything else.

Tobin's parents have always been very active and plugged into the African-American community where they live, and so Tobin has always felt like they belong squarely in the world they inhabit, unlike Rayyan. Tobin's parents are also big proponents of solidarity and kindness, so Tobin's stance has always been: the world's fucked up, but we're all in this fucked up world together.

Then there's also the dimension of their personality. Rayyan is hot-headed, almost brash, and they're also proud, fiercely independent, and distrustful of anyone not in their inner circle. On the other hand, by virtue of their charisma and more lighthearted demeanor, Tobin has always commanded/attracted/built their own "tribe". They're also far calmer and more laid-back than Rayyan, and their responses are always measured, thoughtful, and almost slow to act/anger--there's a con here too though, they often end up losing their own gut reaction in the midst of all that careful deliberation, not just of their own feelings, but everyone else's.

So in conclusion, CT:OS will always have its characters at the heart of it, and I've tried my best to give these characters rich and unique experiences and histories and ways of relating to the world.

That's not to say these characters aren't contradictory at times, and they will evolve through the course of the IF--MC will even have a big part to play in that, through their actions and words and the way they choose to interact with the characters.

As another ask mentioned, now that the characters are more fleshed out, I'm hoping a lot more of these dynamics can come into play! :) (oh dear, that got very long!)

[writing-for-life]

I sat with this for a while and thought about it. I agree that he comes across kinder in the show. I think that’s

a) down to the medium. People in the flesh come across differently, plus (very important consideration): People need to empathise with the MC in some way for a TV show to be a success, and it’s a lot harder (of course not impossible) to do that if someone is just an arsehole 24/7

b) especially the added last scene, where he basically forgives Gault (I personally think they shoved it down our throats with that one a bit, especially when he says he’s now trying to listen. I also get why they did it though, because it makes the beginnings of “being changed” really obvious, even for people who haven’t read the comics).

And he has kindness in him. Most of all though, in both the comics and the TV show, he tries to be just and do what he thinks is right. And sometimes, that happens to be kind. Because yes, fairness can be kind, even if being fair doesn’t always mean we get to hear what we want to hear. But sometimes, his take on just and right isn’t kind. Is he good at his core? Yes, absolutely. Is he truly kind at this stage? I’m really not sure. Because kindness has one important quality, the most important one of all:

Forgiveness.

And I would say that we only see true forgiveness at the end with Gault. In all other instances, forgiveness is the one thing he absolutely struggles with at this point, in both the series and the comics. And someone who can’t forgive can certainly still be good deep down, but are they kind? I really don’t know…

In my view, personal as it may be, he would have been kind to Lyta if he hadn’t taken Hector in front of her. Serious lack of empathy and shit move, dude (compassion and empathy are also building blocks of kindness btw, and he struggles with both at times. Not because he doesn’t feel, because he does. A lot. Rather because his forgiveness is still wonky). He didn’t have to let her witness that, no wonder Rose was pissed off—rightly so. He did what was right, not what was kind. He didn’t let her have Daniel for now because it was kind. He let her have him because he already has a plan at this point. So while I get it might look kind on the surface, it’s really (dare I say it?) selfish, and hence actually cruel in the long run for Lyta. She never truly recovers from everything that’s related to being Daniel’s mother. It destroys her life.

Other prime examples of no forgiveness at this stage:

Punishing Alex with eternal waking/sleep. That’s vengeful, especially since Alex wasn’t a truly horrible person in the show (he was much worse in the comics).

Sending Gault to the darkness. That’s insisting on authority (plus punishing someone who is totally in the right because she has pushed his buttons).

Walking away from Nada in hell and leaving her there. That’s being a petulant child.

There are other small instances of not being exactly kind, but these are the most prominent ones.

We see him offer kindness to Rachel, yes. But that was really Johanna telling him off. He was ready to walk away, and he would have if she hadn’t set his head straight. So while that was kind on Rachel in the end, he really had no empathy for her to start with and needed a human to explain to him why he was basically a shit bag for just grabbing his sand and going: “Got what I need, she’s broken, so what, let’s move on.”

The one scene where we see compassion is when he spares John Dee. But he does that in the comics as well. And I can’t help but think that this is not just because he’s kind here, but mostly because he feels a degree of guilt. He knows it’s not really John’s fault, as despicable as his actions might have been. It’s because John had his ruby, and because that power corrupted him. So he feels a degree of responsibility. And we all know how heavy responsibility weighs on him—it’s the one thing he can’t let go of, and it’s the very reason his whole arc develops the way it does.

But he also loves humanity. Deeply. How could he not? He gives them dreams, and he is so connected to their unconscious that he actually hurts himself in the process sometimes. There is a true selflessness here when he attends to his function in that way. But there is also a self-centredness when he’s Morpheus, the anthropomorphic personification. And he’s aware of it (if you haven’t read Overture yet, you’re in for a treat in more than one way).

So yes, I see him a bit softer around the edges in the TV show, and I think it’s a deliberate move to make us like him more. But I personally didn’t once get the impression that he wasn’t exactly the same Morpheus as in the comics underneath it all (one of the reasons I think they did such a great job bringing it to the screen).

And we need the flashes of no empathy and lacking compassion here and there to make his change truly meaningful. Personally, I didn’t need the ramrod forgiveness at the end of S1 because I know how the arc develops, and I know that he truly changes and rectifies a lot of stuff along the way. But I can also truly understand that it was a clever move for those who haven’t read the comics.

He’s multi-layered. That includes flashes of kindness, but he’s not always kind. His whole arc is about becoming more human in a way, and that’s the beauty and tragedy of it all.

Some thoughts

Morpheus is kind. I know a lot of folks say he isn’t or he is but only to those who matter, but… hear me out: he’s the personification of dreaming. He’s literally king of The Dreaming. And we see time and time again how kind he is. And how powerful.

I remember watching about the first half of the season - or, say, the very first few episodes - and thinking “wow, maybe some of these characters are right, dreams do seem pretty useless.” That’s where I realised, at first, the kindness. The kindness of a pleasant dream while you die in your sleep to ease a horrible suffering. The sort that perhaps not many understand. But it is still a kindness in the only way Morpheus can do. I thought he was still sort of weak then, but kind. He could do this for people. Give them peace and temporary joys.

Morpheus genuinely seems to mourn Lyta’s loss, as much as she and her accidental involvement in The Dreaming due to the vortex damaged his realm. Now, I haven’t read the comics or graphic novels, so I don’t know anything beyond Netflix’s first season so far. It is with regret that he has to send back the ghost of Lyta’s husband and tell her she could not come to The Dreaming pursuing a life in it anymore. In the moment, it feels horrible, but he lets her keep the baby, I think, as one last favour. The idea that he was cruel in stating the baby belonged to him because it was conceived in The Dreaming and that he would come for it (unknown when) is fair, and maybe it would be perceived as a twisted sort of kindness. And unless I’m mistaken, he did not specify when he would take the child. He may yet either change his mind or retrieve this child much later down the track after a full life (you can argue with me on this as I’m not entirely sure about any background lore or if I’m forgetting something from the episodes). But I consider this another demonstration of the kindness that he is allowed to show, that follows the rules of dreams.

As an aside, I think that’s pretty incredible, the way the writers were able to convey the subtlety of Dream’s power. There are rules, of course, that the Endless seem to follow, but also limitations for each of their purposes (Death can only deal in death, Dream only with dreams, Desire with desire, and so on). This has all probably been said before, I didn’t dig deep enough yet, but I still wanted to express my admiration and awe over all this.

Anyway, back to subtleties and power and small acts of kindness. It wasn’t until Morpheus, Dream, was facing down Lucifer Morningstar in Hell that I really understood his power. At first, I was very afraid for him, because I also did not see how Dream could win out against all that Hell represents, no matter if Dream also includes nightmares. (Honestly, the episode title ‘A Hope In Hell’ should have been a dead giveaway for me, but hush, I was thinking of a song by that title instead at the time.) Of course, there was Matthew’s kind of cheesy line that “dreams don’t fucking die”, and then Morpheus’ winning move against Lucifer was “hope” which is very much the essence of dreams that I really understood the level of his power. Hope is what persists, as is famously known to do so with teeth bare and knuckles bloody, and maybe it was simple but it really hit me then. There is a lot that can be done to crush hope, but look to yourself: even in the most hopeless points of your life, there are dreams. A dream of something better, something different, something else, something full of revenge maybe, something that is beautiful and soul-saving - whatever it is, I believe, there will always be that. There will always be a hope in hell. And I know I’m just spelling out the whole idea behind that episode, but the simple power of hope, and the kindness of dreams giving that hope to you - the kindness of Dream himself - is pretty fucking powerful.

Perhaps Morpheus was not always this way. We hear from many characters that he has changed since his containment. We hear often, too, that he is selfish. But there is so much commentary from others about who he is, what he’s like, his true ugly self and yet… all I see is kindness. The kindness, perhaps, that these otherworldly only know how to do. They do not know of human acts of kindness as they do not have the luxury of being human. But they understand a sort of mercy. And gentleness. We see many struggling to understand over the course of the show that the Endless only exist because of humans, and we see Morpheus learn this, and that is perhaps where he finds this deep respect that fosters his kinder side.

Nightmares are awful. But Dream removes those too for those who do not deserve the torture of them in the show. If I recall correctly, he does at one point address nightmares as being challenges that dreamers have to face to overcome their fears, and it is in that way he is trying to do them a favour. For he also works in revelations too, to aid in a dreamer’s understanding. But when a nightmare is focused on a trauma or horrible event, we see Morpheus provide comfort where he can and, in some cases, remove these nightmares. We can also see him alter people’s entire perspectives too, through various means, and again, I am just amazed at this subtle power. He does not have to use thunder and lightning like some god, he does not have to hold a knife to anyone’s neck, he does not have to speak very loud at all or deliver threats of dismemberment. No, he works in smaller ways. And I absolutely love that.

Look, I’ve only done one watch through over the course of three days. There’s probably a ton I’m missing and this is just the very on-the-nose, tip of the iceberg sort of thing. There’s probably stuff I’m forgetting, background things I don’t know, and overall, this is probably just a very basic look at obvious key themes. Whatever. The point of this was to express my excitement and enthusiasm for this new discovery I’ve made. I think this show is brilliant in so many ways. Morpheus is a fascinating character. I have a feeling him and this story will be on my mind for a while.

[mochikeiji]

Exact Replica

Request: "Hi! I really love you're writing and was wondering if you could do prompt 25+29 for Kuroo Tetsuro from Haikyuu? And could it be angst to fluff? (Maybe Kuroo was ignoring the reader due to lots of work/stress so reader feels neglected?) It's totally up to you tho! Ty so much!!"

25. "Would you notice if I was gone?"

29. "I didn't mean it."

↠ Pairing: Kuroo Tetsuro x F!Reader

↠ Warning: angst to fluff, mentions of pregnancy and kuroo's sad childhood

↬ Word Count: 3.7k

↠ a/n: okay this is my longest one yet. I swear the prompt screams angst to fluff so much that I go into it.

↳ from Go! Go! Gogatsu Event

Kuroo Tetsuro achieved many great things in life after graduating from his university, with multiple acknowledgements and honors. Landed a position as a young CEO from a sports association at the age of 24, he had enough money in his pocket and bank to stable both of you financially. Life was good to him after having to build from the roots  of his ruined childhood; the only years of defeat Kuroo doesn't ever want to repeat. His father and mother were in the same position as you both are; owning your own shared house, good working environment, investments and stability, married.

Up until this day Kuroo questions why his parents split. They were fortunate that they had every thing completed, sadly it was the family and love that wasn't taken care of. You could be the happiest person, yet the void inside would still be there, Kuroo thought. Foolish people were to neglect something more valuable than any object that is given. Whether it was his father or his mother that stopped nurturing what they both bonded for the longest time, they were both fools to let each other go over something simple. He vows to never let history repeat itself.

But now the tables seemed to have flipped for the both of you. Your lives not far from what he had ran away from. If Kuroo could eat his words back, he would've now that he was running late yet again to coming home, forgetting about the promise he swore to about joining you after a full month of being occupied in his office. Coming home to have you already tucked in bed, but suffering in silence.

Most days he didn't bother greeting you in the morning and night. As a good wife, you understand. He was a busy man with an important position to maintain.

There were times where you'd be tapping your foot down on the floor as the clock strikes at an ungodly hour with your messages still not bothered to be replied to or even read. But you understand. He's working! Always doing what he can for the both of you like the good husband he wanted to be.

Even if sometimes he'd come home without a kiss or a simple, "I missed you." you understand. He's drained. No time for silly, endearing affections. You've done them a lot before back when you were younger. You're adults! Married! A married partner shouldn't be feeling so needy when the other was only doing their part.

Even when sometimes your insecurities would kick in whenever you'd visit your husband to drop his forgotten lunch again, only to see him flocked by different women; probably secretaries, interns, and assistance.

You understand. You always did took such good care of what you two have.

Well had.

His home office door slams shut, awakening you from your nap on the couch. Didn't Kuroo notice you when he walked in? Looking at the clock you noticed it was near 11:30 PM since he's arrived. Late again, maybe he hasn't eaten anything? No worries, you thought sadly. Stretching your aching muscles, you made your way to the dining area. So far dinner was left untouched once more. Just how many times has it gone to waste because you continued on cooking for two?

Or rather, three.

You beam at the sudden reminder while preparing your husband's plate. You'd always miss him whenever he'd come home, never had the chance to surprise him at the right time of your little discovery about a week ago. Fear did struck you because of the possible reactions he'd give, but you were so excited in sharing the news that a couple would share the equal happiness from, you couldn't contain it any longer.

Maybe you should've chosen another time unbeknownst to you how your husband was hunched over his desk, clearly in displease of the previous events that had occurred during the meeting back in his office. Hence why his work stack added more piles of predicaments, only fueling his headaches more wishing he could just lay down peace and quiet without disturbance.

He grumbles at the knock on his door, only typing furiously with emphasized taps on the keyboard. You, not sensing the emitting aura from the room took it as a response for you to enter. It surprised you a bit on how disordered his home office had become. It was obvious his coat had been thrown carelessly as it lays on the floor, wrinkled. Carefully placing the plate full of food on the small coffee table at the side, you gingerly picked up the article of clothing. Lightly trying to smoothen out the lines before hanging it behind his door and turning back to your husband.

"Tetsu?" cautiously calling out his name, you were kind of wary at the fact he didn't turn to see you unlike he does before whenever you'd enter the room. "I brought you your dinner. You came home pretty late." you tried to maintain the light hearted tone of your voice to hide how nervous you were in telling him the big news.

The atmosphere was kind of eerie when all he did was hum meekly from your words. Feeling a bit disheartened from his lack of attentiveness, still forcing a smile, you padded a little closer behind him with your hands clasps together. "I also wanted— well needed to tell you something." averting your eyes away from him as you prepared in your head. With a small hope he'd turn around for once after a long time.

"Can it be another time? I'm in the middle of stuff here."

Another time.

Why is it always next time? It's frustrating enough to not see him or have him speak to you even for a moment, but this made your stomach churn in an unpleasant way. Frowning at his poor reply, you gulped a few of your sentence back. Not fully trusting your emotions getting in the way, "You never really talked to me before, Tetsu.. I get that you're busy, but it wouldn't hurt for you to give a little minute for me."

Even just a second as long as he'd finally notice you.

"(Y/n) if you understand then why bother? You can clearly see I'm busy." chest huffing out a harsh sigh, still not bothering to turn around. Gripping your hands tightly, your patience were starting to snap. "You're always busy, Tetsu! I never had a proper conversation with you again." raising the volume of your voice a little made his actions come to a halt. Chair revolving around to face you. His appearance made it obvious how exhausted he has been; tousled hair that he usually takes longer to style, the light forming bags underneath his eyes from the screen and lack of sleep. The visible annoyance marked in his expression. But couldn't he say the same for you?

"Fine. Here, you have my attention now. Are we talking properly now?" his way of provoking you wasn't in the right place. It only made you look at him in disbelief because you've grown to never meet such side of your husband before. The news you had originally planned to share vanished from your head, replaced with the restrained emotions that has been building up inside your heart, tipping over.

"Tetsu, what is wrong with you?" looking at him now seemed like you were talking to someone else. His words were curt and short with no intention of prolonging the conversation, itching to get back to work so he could be done with it. "I already you I'm just busy. I would be done by now if you didn't want to talk properly with me." he says as if he's the one in distraught. "Seriously, nothing's wrong but I think you aren't. You're never like this."

"That's because you never cared to noticed in the first place!" wailing out the collapsed emotions that has weighed you heavily. It was too late to stop yourself from voicing out the things your husband left aside. A full month of being a good, understanding image of a wife thrown away to the rubbles without even appreciating the the long nights of you waiting up for him, cooking meals even though the next day they'd end up being in the trash, tolerating the coldness of the used to be warm sheets, putting up with the insecurities you took upon yourself to hide to avoid troubling your husband further when all you wanted was for him to assure you that he still loves you and only you.

The fascade you put up just for him crumbles. And it infuriates you more of how he still doesn't notice.

"(Y/n), you know I've been working! There's so much stuff that needs to be attended for just so you and I could live normally!"

"Tetsuro, we are stabled, it's okay to slow down a bit. How is this any normal to you when you don't even realize how this affects me?!"

The chair slides back roughly against the floor with a loud creak as he towers over you. Glowering eyes with a dark expression looming over his face, clearly now enraged. "You're being selfish right now. I'm here doing what I can to support us and all you could think of was you, you, you. Can't you see I'm doing this for you as well? God what else do you want from me, the world?"

"I only wanted you to give me your time and attention even just for a second, Tetsuro! I've been doing my best for you all this month and I never said anything to trouble you!"

It hurts when he said how you were being the selfish one when it was the opposite. It dawned to you that all those days of giving your all for him wasn't once noticed. "Will you ever grow up already? Attention? Really? We're adults, (Y/n) not teenagers for fucks sake. My time is just wasted because of you!" he doesn't stop there even if you've had your mouth already shut from how he portrayed you as. His words were beginning to leave a deep scar in you as you quiet down to the next line.

"If you think that nothing is troubling me, there is! And you just happen to add in for crying out loud!"

There were no words exchanged after his meltdown. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looks away from you— who's eyes were already watery. Unable to even tell your side anymore at the ache of your heart. "So..I'm just troubling you then?" quivering out your words, Kuroo clenches his jaw as the bubbling frustration was being held back with the last bit of restrain he had.

"Would you notice if I was gone, Tetsu?"

Instead of being alarmed by your chosen form of sentence, you watched with sad eyes as your husband pulled back his chair and faced his workload. He didn't even noticed you're already crying silently, "Not now, (Y/n). We'll talk later."

He doesn't even noticed how you walked out sobbing with a shattered heart nor the door in the living room closing. Leaving him alone for the next few hours in peace like he wanted.

Time went on quickly when one doesn't take their eyes off from their consecutive workaholic state. With a groan, he almost slams his laptop shut before stretching his bones, slowly relaxing the tense muscles. It's up to his co workers and assistance to deal with the load he's prepared to dump onto them after they threw all theirs to him. Hoping to freshen up his face, Kuroo tidies his desk up before making his way to the door. Stopping in realization of the now cold dinner that was left on the coffee table.

His stomach growled loudly at the lack of food it's digested in the longest run. It was still good if he heats it up, he does miss eating home made meals than his stale ones back in the cafeteria of his workplace. Grabbing the plate carefully he first made a short journey to the kitchen to heat up his food. Unusual it was to have all the lights out in the house. You'd always leave some opened when he was awake. Then again the guilt started to crawl up to his chest knowing he's the cause of why you'd forgotten.

Now entering the bathroom with water running down his face, he plans ahead the apology he owes you when he wakes up tomorrow morning. He could reschedule his own time since he is the boss. He closes the faucet right after he was done rinsing. Looking around for the towel his eyes caught something below the small organizer you put up next to the sink. Grabbing the towel above the first part of the organizer, bending down slowly to avoid getting cramps, his actions were quick to grab the object that caught his attention the moment it seemed so familiar and surprising.

Pregnancy test. Two lines for positive.

Having a child with you was the last thing he's yet to accomplish from his list, and here it was. As much as he wanted to be in denial, it all felt like surge of contentment drowns him in because he was going to be a dad. However his body began to tremble whilst still holding the test and staring intently at it. The previous guilt that was crawling beneath his bones became a dark, desolated hole of anxiety and fear that ate him whole. The things he's said and done will never be taken back no matter how he apologizes to the past events a few hours ago.

Hours ago. It was already 2:25 when the fight had ceased. Deep down he knows he couldn't wait until the next day to plead for forgiveness. After all, he did vow to never leave you both a day feeling heavy alone. Kuroo felt nauseous of how much of an asshole he had treated you. Like starting a game of volleyball once more, he was beyond nervous when he approached your shared bedroom. There was no excuse of his actions indeed as he solemnly enters the dimmed room. He sighs a little shaky when he closes in your bed, "Baby?" he starts, "Baby, are you awake?" it was one of the little things he's memorized that you'd do when you both aren't in good terms. You never really slept, just pretended because you always had the heart to wait up for him.

When he gets no response he reaches out to pat you, only coming to the sense that the sheets were left untouched; no warmth traced behind. You weren't there, any where. His blood runs cold and immediately fishes out for his phone in his pocket, speed dialing your number while he circles the entire area of the house in case you'd be there. Now he was more terrified when he hears the familiar voice mail from the living room couch where you had slept while waiting for him.

You left your phone. His wife wasn't home— his pregnant wife.

"Fuck." running a rough hand through his tangled hair. The lump on his throat grows but he refuses to let out a string of sobs. It was his fault you were gone at such an ungodly hour. Kuroo felt more than a bigger asshole than before he's made you come to the point of leaving home. Just as his mother did and never returned. The one thing he swore you two would never be the same came to life, only thought now is Kuroo doesn't know whether you've left him for good after being a neglectful husband and to have dishearten his own beloved wife like that.

"Would you notice if I was gone?"

Rang in his head as he stood outside the neighborhood, running. Chasing after a hallucinated image of you any place he tried to remember you'd be in. A fool he has been to have left you in a loveless marriage. He loves you, he really does. He can't imagine a life without you in it. Just as it was about to become the happiest he's wanted, he pushed it all too soon. A bad husband, he cries. "(Y/n), please come home." legs aching and panting from having to study all areas. It was pitch black; there were no opened spots for you to even go at an hour of slumber and chaos. The only convenient store did not even have you in it. You were no where to be seen and Kuroo breaks.

Of course he'd notice when it was all too late. The past he's ran away from was still the place he's returned now that the house was only occupied by nothing but rotten memories of the love he didn't took care of. The exact replica of a married life he desperately tried to dodge. "I'm so sorry." for the lonely nights he's left you to sleep, over thinking of what may have been your fault and always figuring him out tirelessly. For the small efforts of adoration he didn't took a glance at and gone to waste. For the words that were never even meant for you to ever feel. For being a neglectful husband. He was sorry he noticed too late how he ruined his precious wife.

Now he's left you on your own out in the dangers outside. If anything horrible happened to you he will forever be crushed. But the world thinks that second chances are given to those who truly deserve them after you came in quietly, slipping off your sandals and waving back to your friend who had dropped you off home. Your short break to the convenient store changed when you met up with her and drove back to her place to rant about what happened. Being the sluggish person you are whenever sadness hits, you never noticed how long you've over stayed. It wasn't like your husband was going to know if he still was working.

Much to your surprise that he wasn't, you stifled a gasp to find him with his hands holding his head that was leaned down on the table. His shoulders were lightly jolting with escapes of audible sniffles, indicating that he was in fact crying. If he looked exhausted before, it wasn't enough to describe his current state; as if he was a man who'd lost every thing as he sat there with all hope lost. Your foot padded on the creaky part of the floor in attempt to tiptoe over his hunched back to comfort him. Squeaking in the awkward situation you've put the room in when Kuroo turns his head behind to see you standing there a bit frightened, but concerned when you saw how disheveled his face looks.

"Tetsu—" his name got cut off short from when you almost tripped over your balance at the sudden impact of Kuroo throwing himself into your arms with his weight. You couldn't make out what he was mumbling on about, but you melt to his embrace even if he squeezes the living day lights from you, afraid that he was going crazy and you weren't real. "Thank God," litters of kisses were placed on your clavicle, "You're back."

He repeats, slowly convincing himself that you are indeed home in his arms, safe, no harm detected. Just home. "I'm so sorry.."

"I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of what I said, I-I'm so sorry." your bodies swayed gently to the sound of your hushes and his cries of apologies. "Please don't leave me like that again. I was so scared."

"Shhh, it's okay, Tetsu. I'm sorry. I'm okay— we're okay." leading him to sit down at the couch, you placed the bag of different brands of sweets and junk on the table before facing your husband. You had to stifle in a laugh watching him wipe his nose, you couldn't help but be reminded of a mini Tetsuro by looking at him. The argument that stung you faded when he took a hold of your hands and mumbled another apology.

"You shouldn't be sorry for anything. I should be.." flickering his eyes from your belly to your bloodshot eyes from your own fiasco back in your friend's place, he slides in closer next to you where your shoulders touched. "I haven't been a good husband lately, have I?" he looks at you expectantly. Frowning, you still nodded. Tired of hiding your own feelings from him.

"I know you're busy most of the time, Tetsu. But I just wanted you to recognize me as your wife." thumbs quick to swipe away the tear that had shed from your eye, "We're in this together, remember?" he pulls you right from the arm, shoving your face to his chest in need to hold you for all the times he should've. Ignoring the dampness of his white long-sleeved polo, breathing in the scent of your sweet shampoo. You were still so forgiving and understanding despite on how equally tired as he was you are.

"I'm so sorry I've made you feel as if I never cared anymore. You never deserved that." his lips found it's way to the crown of your head. "I don't deserve you, and I really don't want to lose you after me being stupid." giggling through tears, fist connecting a soft punch on his chest, bubbling a chuckle to the surface as he lightly pulls you away from hiding.

"I really didn't mean all of those things I've said, baby. I love you and only you." stroking ever so lovingly your cheek, you don't catch on to the fact that his other hand was placed over your stomach protectively. Making a silent promise to not only you, but the soon to be new addition to the family that he will never again neglect what he should've cherished more and looked after than the constant worries at the back of his head.

Because he will never again repeat the replica of a broken family he once was born in.

© all content belongs to mochikeiji. Please do not repost or copy, ありがとうございました!! (=^･^=)

[linkspooky]

Eren Jaeger’s Final Words

So there are many people unimpressed with the final statement given by Eren’s character, either finding it inconsistent with the build up to this point, or too ambiguous a motivation for trampling all over the world. I’m not really here to talk about the quality of the story, whether it was good or bad, because I don’t really care. However, I think it’s fascinating what the text is trying to say about Eren’s character and his motivation. 

This is why, “I don’t know, shrug” is both an answer and not an answer to why Eren did what he did in the end. For making my point in this analysis, I’ll be talking about Eren’s character from Marley on showing both the Eren that appeared before Reiner, the one that talked to Zeke, and finally the one Armin saw are all the same person. 

1. And Now for Something Completely Different

Before I even begin though, let’s talk about something entirely different. My favorite episode of Doctor Who is from the 4th Doctor Era, entitled “Genesis of the Daleks” first broadcast around 1975. What makes this episode my favorite episode is both the premise, and the question it asks. If you haven’t watched Doctor Who the basic premise is the main character is a time traveler who can go everywhere and everywhen in the universe. One of his common enemies is the Daleks, a race whose goal is to kill everything else in the universe. The Time Lords order the Doctor to go back in time to the era the daleks were created, and prevent their creation in order to prevent every person they would eventually kill. 

He goes do the Dalek homeworld, and meets the scientist who created them Davros. Eventually, the doctor fails enough that he’s not able to prevent their creation, but he could, wipe them out when they were just newly born children and completely innocent. The doctor decides not to kill them right then because that would be a pre-emptive genocide, and the Doctor is a pacifist. When Davros witnesses him making this choice it prompts this conversation one of my favorite in all of television. The link to the clip is here if you’re interested. [Source.]

Davros: "Now, future errors will be come victories. You have changed the future of the universe, Doctor." Doctor: "I have betrayed the future. Davros, for the last time, consider what you're doing. Stop the development of the Daleks." Davros: "Impossible. It is beyond my control. The workshops are already fully automated to produce the Dalek machines." Doctor: "It's not the machines, it's the minds of the creatures inside them. Minds that you created. They are totally evil." Davros: "Evil? No. No, I will not accept that. They are conditioned simply to survive. They can survive by becoming the dominant species. When all other life forms are suppressed, when the Daleks are the supreme rules of the universe, then you will have peace. Wars will end. They are the power not of evil, but of good." Doctor:"Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory, something contagious and infectious that killed on contact, a virus that would destroy all other forms of life, would you allow its use?" Davros: "It is an interesting conjecture." Doctor: "Would you do it?" Davros: "The only living thing, a microscopic organism reigning supreme... A fascinating idea. Doctor: "But, would you do it?" Davros: "Yes... yes..." [ Davros raises a hand as if holding the metaphorical capsule.]

Davros: "To hold in my hand a capsule that contains such power, to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure of my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything... Yes, I would do it! That power would set me above the gods!

Davros’ motivations seem at first brush look one-note and evil, just another mad scientist playing god. However, what makes the conversation great is the context it takes place in. Here is the choice offered to the doctor, kill a race that he knows will go on to make war and kill innocents in the future in their infancy before they have done anything wrong, or don’t kill them and ensure the future you know will happen. 

The Doctor isn’t saying that his choice is the right one. He’s not saying he’s doing good by choosing not to slaughter an innocent race. He’s saying, he can’t bring himself to make that choice. In that situation he chooses not to choose, because it would be against his pacifist believes to choose either way. Which Davros at first, takes to mean the Doctor siding with him. However, when they begin to debate it, notice how they’re not talking about what is the philosophically correct choice to do. The doctor hammers in this point, would you do it? Would you do it? After getting Davros to admit that yes, he would do it, his motivation becomes much clearer, he doesn’t actually care whether his actions result in a good thing or a bad thing, he simply wanted to be the one who got to choose. 

What does Davros want? The power that surpasses a normal human being’s ability to choose. Davros himself is basically written to be pure evil, but his desire itself is a little more complex. Davros is a person lacking in agency, if you tear him away from his support system he’ll die within thirty seconds. He designs what he believes is the perfect race capable of conqueringthe universe which are reflections of him. They’re soft little squid creatures in mechanical shells which are inpenetrable. Davros himself cannot seize that power, he is inferior because he’s attached to the life support system (in his own mind), so the power he wants instead is the power to make the choice to unleash them upon the world. 

If the Doctor by failing to make that impossible choice in the situation, by not wanting to even hold the capsule in his hands and have that ability to choose remains a man, then Davros chooses to throw away his humanity (which he ties to his inferiority and weakness) and becomes a god instead. To tie my long tangent which just shows how much of a geek I am back to Eren, Eren’s choice wasn’t actually about bringing a good result or a bad one at all. He simply wanted to choose. People who are lacking for agency, who feel powerless and inferior to tend to grasp for it. They try to fix external circumstances instead of internally facing what is within them, because they can’t bear to face it (hence the complex about being inferior in the first place). 

People often compare Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul to Eren because their stated motivation bears some resemblance “we were doing this all to protect our friends”, however, it’s important to grasp that Kaneki and Eren are liars and unreliable narrators both. Their stated motivation isn’t necessarily true. I don’t think the final chapter is as clear as it could have been in nailing down the finer points of this, but Eren does in fact change his stated motivation from “I was doing it all to set up you as heroes of the world” to “I would have done it anyway even if you didn’t come to stop me” to “I don’t know. I just wanted to.” So, the fact that Eren will directly lie about his motivation and try to rationalize his actions and even switch stories in the space of one conversation is at least established. 

So to bring the comparison back to Kaneki, both Eren and Kaneki lie about their external motivations that they are doing this for their friends when really they act because of unacknowledged internal motivators. They are secretly selfish, while presenting their actions as some kind of great sacrifice they’re making for the sake of others. The deepest we ever dig into Kaneki’s head he makes this statement. 

I’m going to do something that will make everyone love me. Good, bad, it could be anything. After that, I wanna die heroically!

Eren and Kaneki aren’t the same because they’re brave people who fight for their friends, it’s because internally they’re pathetic and unlovable. They’re so starved for agency and attention that they’ll do anything for it, and they just don’t care about the consequences for their actions. Kaneki also, later on in the manga engages in mass slaughter for once again what is a pretty bad reason. It’s not to protect someone or for the sake of someone else. It’s because he’s lonely and wants comfort. 

Kaneki doesn’t care about what he’s doing or the consequences of his actions, he’s desperate and wants to do what will immediately gratify him in the moment. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing will unleash mass slaughter and have greater consequences because he’s not thinking about that. 

Compare this to the doctor’s choice. The doctor knows the direct result of his actions, if he does not abort the daleks he will fail to prevent the deaths of innocent people. Knowing those consequences he says he still won’t make the choice because he believes his pacifist principles are something he won’t bend on. Kaneki, and Eren both have on principles, or no reasons. They just do whatever in the moment, and make up a reason after the fact. For Touka, For his friends, because he wanted to, because of freedom, because why not? 

Kaneki and Eren can construct no good reason for their actions, and no principles behind their actions, because unlike the doctor, they don’t have a developed enough and they’re not capable of making measured choices. They steal away agency because they’ve been deprived of it, they want the feeling of power and control that comes with making the choice, but they don’t want the responsibility for it. The doctor knows if he doesn’t choose to wipe out the Daleks he’s responsible for that choice, but can’t bring himself to kill. His actions are pacifistic. However, Eren and Kaneki choose to kill in the same situation, and their actions inevitably cause the conflict to accelerate. The Doctor remains a man, Kaneki and Eren do not. 

What kind of person would want to become a god anyway? 

A person pathetically, incapable of feeling alright as a human being. 

That’s why Kaneki and Eren make the choice to become monsters, because they’re incapable of living with themselves, or their actions as people. Either way they can’t live with it, hence why, Kaneki’s stated motivation is I’ll make everyone love me and then I’ll just die. Hence why the person who is making this statment is a childish version of him. 

There is no good reason for what Eren does. That sounds like a cop-out answer after making you read all this long, but what is a good reason for killing people? This is a lot of rambling but I hope I’ve at least established that Eren’s internal reasonings make no sense, his internal mechanisms at least do. The reason he doesn’t come up with a reason is because he didn’t actually care about the result of his actions, he just wanted to be in the position to choose. He wanted absolute agency because he was denied agency like a child, and as a forever stunted child, he never grew up to realize that most people in the whole world eventually make compromises and live on with sadness instead of getting to do whatever they want. 

Words that Eren was told again and again but failed to listen to. He’s not the only person that suffers in the world. He’s not the only person that’s lost people. He’s not the all-suffering protagonist of reality, he’s just one personin the greater scheme of things. However, the ability to compromise like that. To realize that other people exist besides you, that they have feelings separate from yours, that you are not the protagonist of reality is what an adult does, and what Eren can’t do. It’s easier to become god apparently, throw his whole life away as a child soldier making the ultimate sacrifice then just try growing up. 

What’s the point of writing a character with such a pathetic motivvation? It’s because it’s human. 

To badly misquote Jung, most people assume they are nice people when really they are in fact jerks. The reasons can be very complex, but sometimes it’s just as simple as not being able to look past your own ego and understand people feel differently than you do. Eren cannot accept other people, whether they be his friends, the comrades he’s fought with this entire time, the adults trying to guide him, he is just so incapable of accepting them that he regresses into a child making selfish demands of the world. It seems inhuman but imagine Eren in a completely different setting. What if Eren were just a shut-in? Just a teenager who didn’t leave his room. A fundamental ability to accept other people would sabotage all his other attempts to grow up and leave his room, and he’d choose to remain a child forever. The stakes are different, the situation is different, but the internal mechanisms are unmistakably human. 

2. All Erens is the Same

Okay, here’s where I actually try to prove that Eren’s character arc is consistent with the story. What was revealed in 139 at all wasn’t a 180, and wasn’t a reveal that secretly Eren had good intentions all along. He never had good motivations, or selfless one. From beginning to end he was a selfish child, and his reasoning was always that of a stunted individual unable to understand the feelings of others but placing his own feelings as far more important.

What Eren does in 139 is rationalizing and changing his answer, which he has done several times before that point anyway, and is therefore consistent with his behavior up until that point. It’s important to acknowledge that Eren models himself, not after Grisha, but rather Eren Kruger. The foil to Grisha and the reaction to Grisha’s bad parenting is Zeke. The person who Eren makes similiar choices to is Kruger says the reason he picked Grisha is the eyes he possessed in childhood. 

The thing about Kruger is, textually, Kruger fucking sucks. He says it himself. He claims he was doing it for the sake of helping others, and yet, all he ever felt like he was doing, was torturing people, and throwing them to the dogs. He kept saying he had good motivations, but his actions were repeated brutal violence, over and over again. He contributed more to the conflict than he helped to resolve it. 

At the end of his life, Kruger says once again he doesn’t believe what he’s done has changed anything, and doesn’t believe he himself hs changed. He’s still the child with hatred in his eyes. His reason for passing it onto Grisha is because he knew Grisha wouldn’t grow up either, and would keep that inside of him. Kruger failed to grow, Grisha failed to grow, in a way that mattered, in time to make an actual change. They only ever made things worse, and that is, the model we are supposed to parallel Eren to. 

Now this is at the same time that the Attack Titan’s future vision powers are shown to us. The question a lot of people are asking is if Eren had free will in his choice, or he was fated to make that choce all along. The answer is. No. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not at all. The fact that Eren was destined to do it, is yet another excuse, the like seventh change of motivation that Eren gives us. “I saw it happen in the future so I did everything I could to make it happen, but I didn’t think I had a choice this was the only way to make you guys hero,” Eren says, and then five seconds later. “I didn’t know what would happen , I probably  would have done it anyway even if I knew you guys were all going to die and fail to stop me.” 

Eren is once again making excuses, and avoiding all kinds of responsibility. If he is the chosen one, if his actions are controlled by fate, if he’s a god, if he’s a devil, he is not human and therefore he is not responsible. Eren wants the power to decide the fate for the world, but will do anything but accept responsibility for that choice. Eren wants to be Eren the bloody conqueror, but he’s not even self-aware enough to see himself as a bad person he can’t even own that so when confronted on his actions he reduces himself back to a child, and evades responsibility. Eren’s own motivation, his stated motivation is for no reason, however, the reasons he avoids the guilt like this are complex in their mechanisms as I wrote about above. The simple question is if Eren saw this future why did he not try to stop it? The simple answer is because he did not want to. 

There are a million and one excuses Eren has for why he thought the future could be avoided, but his actions tell a different story. He didn’t lift a finger to try. He spent the next four years making rationalizations for what he eventually would do. I will now establish, Eren was actually given several oppurtunities to stop, and then he just did not stop. 

In the Reiner and Eren scene while Tybur is speaking in the background, Eren is offered a choice. Quite literally, Tybur is narrating the same story that Eren wants to set up. Become the devil that tried to destroy the world, so the heroes (his friends) will defeat him. He’s given the chance to be genuine and talk things out with Reiner and what does he choose. 

He chooses to accelerate. He could have stopped. Remember how Reiner was practically begging him to talk things out? Not only that but Eren sees that Reiner’s stated motivations for doing what he did were, completely fake, just rationalizations made up in the moment. 

Eren is presented with the reality of who he really is, a child who hates himself, who wants to kill himself rather than take responsibility for his actions, and he chooses the narrative Tybur offers him. Rather than be hismelf, stop the story here, he chooses to move the story forward.And the conflict accelerates when they could have reconciled. Not because there was no other choice, Reiner was begging, crying, and holding Eren’s hand at the same time asking for peace and forgiveness but because Eren chose to accelerate the conflict. 

Eren’s choices are always that of an accelerationist. When given the oppurtunity to stop, he chooses instead, to always make the conflict worse. That is, the result of Eren’s myriad of choices made throughout the arc. Everything is worse now, and more people are dead. Nothing good is achieved through these means because Eren wasn’t trying for good. Eren didn’t care about good results, he just wanted to be doing something. Easier to be an all powerful demon, than a powerless child which is what he sees Reiner as in the moment.

The only time I believe that Eren was putting on an act was when speaking with Mikasa and Armin. The rest of it wasn’t acts, it was just who Eren is, who he sees himself to be. The thing is most people don’t read Eren’s kind of behavior, constant masculine posturing, war mongering, accelerating the conflict, throwing himself into fighting, as childish and toxic when it is. The point of Eren’s masculinity is it’s a performance. Reiner crying and begging in front of Eren is embarrassing and pathetic yes, but it’s also how he felt in that moment, it’s a human vulnerability. Whereas, Eren’s outer persona is entirely empty of love and vulernability, of every emotion besides anger, and violence. However, because it’s empty, he just acts, empty... Great wording there I know. Eren when posturing in front of others basically has no personality. He is just guy who fights. 

Eren performs the role of a ruthless soldier in front of others, because it prevents him from being vulnerable. Remember who Eren is posturing in front of, Reiner, and then later Zeke. What were they doing? They were both at the moment trying to appeal to his human side, Reiner by crying and begging for forgiveness a show of vulnerability, and Zeke by tryig to show Eren what their father did to them was wrong.

Calls for violence, posturing, warmongering and rhetoric, Eren’s every response when Zeke tries to examine his humanity. Eren insists over and over again, you see I’m not actually a human being. It was impossible for father to reach me because I was simply born that way. However, the kind of person Eren pretends to be is empty, someone incapable of feeling anything. The only way he knows how to be strong, is to simply not have feelings, to deny all human emotion and become something else and that’s just lame. We also know, that Eren himself is not like that because he contradicts his stated motivation that the only reason he killed those slavers was for the concept of freedom itself when he takes too long trying to look at Mikasa.

Eren denies himself empathy, he denies himself udnerstanding, and therefore no one will ever see his emotional wounds. That way, he can be invulenerable forever, but at the same time he denies MIkasa and Armin.

We return again to the motif of the story. It’s the same repeated image, someone tells Eren to stop, Eren says that it must not stop, the story must continue. 

Both of Eren’s foils and family members,Zeke and Grisha  tell Eren to stop this. That they do not want this. The whole world yells at Eren to stop, and he does not stop. Stopping would mean, accepting some measure of helplessness so Eren does not stop. 

To be honest, what Eren says in 131 is far more telling than literally any of the excuses he came up with in 139 which is why I think it should be interpreted not as the final word on Eren’s character but rather, showing what his waffling actually looks like to an outside observer - not heroic at all but rather pathetic. 

Eren’s childish desire to be this powerful, to stand up above everyone like a god while ignoring the suffering of the world around him - is pretty telling enough of Eren’s true motivations that he needs no further elaboration. Eren does not become god for the sake of his friends, he does not do it because he thinks it will make the world a better place, he does it because of childish delusions of grandeur and his inability to let go of his childish feelings of entitlement. The world isn’t the way he wants it to be and he can’t comrpomise with that in any way. Eren is more like a caricature of the most petty person on earth when you put it that way, but this is... a fictional story. Thematically Eren is a good example why ideals are ideals, and people are in fact, people, ulitmately very disappointing and falling short of those idealse. So once again moving past this. 

Eren, you can literally just stop. Eren is basically given every choice in the world to stop, everyone else in the story tells him to, and he just doesn’t. The author does go to a painstaking extent to show that Eren in fact could have stopped. Every single time he is given the oppurtunity to stop he instead chooses to accelerate the conflict.

It is interesting to show the one time Eren actually did stop though. It wasn’t for Mikasa, it was Mikasa’s decision. 

When Eren puts the decision on someone else, he can stop. Eren has feelings for Mikasa, but rather than confessing to her he makes her speak up about what her feelings are, even when everyone around him just, straight up tells him. 

Why is he capable of stopping when it’s someone else’s choice? In those cases, Eren succesfully avoids responsibility. When he makes the decision to run away in the possible alternate reality he’s doing what Mikasa wanted. 

The other time is when he decides to accept the result of whatever Mikasa decides. In both cases, Eren rather than accept responsibility for his actions and the results of his actions, just, puts it all on Mikasa. 

Is he doing this for Mikasa’s sake? To set Mikasa up as the hero of the world? No, he can’t even face Mikasa and explain himself or his feelings. Eren makes the choices to... put the ultimate decision on Mikasa, and run away without explaining himself because, that’s easier than taking repsonsibility for his choices. Every choice Eren makes, is to either make the conflict worse, because stirring the pot makes him feel powerful and in control, or throw control away to someonee else or some other reason (predestination whatnot) because he can’t bear the responsibility of what he’s doing. He wants to kill a bunch of people, but like... he doesn’t want to feel like a bad person about it (hence the excuse, he was doing it for his friends and yet later in the same conversation him saying that if he had killed his friends and they failed he still would have done it anyway). 

Therein lies the rub. Eren is not doing this for his friends, because he takes the one path that is guaranteed to take him out of their lives. He doesn’t do it for Mikasa because he does the one thing guaranteed to destroy her. 

I love this girl so much, that I created this elaborate scenario where the only way she could save the world was to horribly behead me, the one family member left from her childhood after she spent her entire life trying to protect me from fear of losing her family - yeah that sounds completely insane.

It is meant to be. Eren is thinking jack all about what his friends are feeling. His feelings for Mikasa, his desire to keep her safe and away from everything else trump everything even the idea that his love might be returned. He loves at Mikasa. He’s not in love with her, he’s projecting his love upon her. “Why didn’t he just tell her about his feelings if he secretly loved her all this time?” the point was, he couldn’t. Eren’s ego isn’t developed enough to love another person, that requires actually caring about their feelings which Eren doesn’t do to well.

 There’s a reason Eren and Mikasa’s connection keeps lingering back to the small kindness they showed each other as childhood,it’s because literally despite spending their entire lives growing up together, their connection hasn’t grown at all since then, because they can’t grown. 

At the end of the series however, Mikasa makes the opposite coice of Eren. If Eren’s choice has been to remain a selfish child all this time, to make other people suffer rather than face his own hurt feelings. Mikasa makes the choice of selflessness, to grow up, beyond the child who loved Eren into the adult who knows that even if you love people, one day you might lose them. 

Eren’s choices only ever make the conflict worse. Mikasa’s choice finally stopped the conflict that Eren kept accelerating. It didn’t save the world, it saved the world from Eren. 

I think it’s important to remember that Eren didn’t see what MIkasa was going to do, that her actions were going to end up breaking the curse. He literally had no idea what was going to happena fter the massacre, all he saw was the massacre and decided to do what he could to bring it about. 

“I did all of this for you guy.” 

Backtracking, five seconds later, and making excuses it all would have happened anyway. 

It’s the same behavior consistently shown throughout. Eren could have stopped. Eren did not stop. Afterwards, Eren wants to reconcile the guilt and believe that his motives were good, when his actions were the actions of a bad person. It’s the same as Reiner’s crying and begging after years of guilt and failure to reconcile his acitons with who he is. Eren can’t understand why he did what he did, he just knows he did it, and he can’t accept responsibility for any of it. So that’s why Eren throws the choice away. 

Eren can’t understand his father’s words, because in the end, being born, living his life, growing up, falling in love, making friends, losing some of those friends, growing older, getting weaker, all of those things are things Eren doesn’t want to do. Eren begins his life with “You were born into this world, you’re free to live hwoever you want” and ends his life wishing he was never born, and that’s the utlimate tragedy of his character arc. Not that it was inevitable he would eventually do these things, but beause it wasn’t and Eren chose to do them anyway instead of choosing literally anything else. Therefore, despite claiming Mikasa and Armin as the reason behind all of his actions, they weren’t, because he was inacapable of making the simple choice to be with them and grow up with them which is all they ever wanted from him. 

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

okay, I want to hear about your thoughts on Renesmee wanting to eat Edward?? What's up with that. Also would love to hear about your opinion on this child in general. All the people in her life are hardcore projecting on her, what's the alien child's perspective on all this shit. Thanks for all the twilight meta its wild.

Thank you, glad you enjoy my rambling, strange, thoughts.

What’s Up With Renesmee Devouring Her Enemies?

So, this one’s actually a bit of headcanon on my end, not really supported by anything directly. We’re going way into left field with this.

But I do have this. Renesmee is a highly efficient predator, perhaps in a way more so than the vampire (although she is weaker and slower than vampires) and Renesmee is... not human, for whatever that means.

Everything we see of Renesmee’s early biological development, and what we see happening in Nahuel and his sisters, makes a lot of sense from a biological standpoint.

The mother is turned essentially into a hybrid incubator, such that even if she wanted to abort she likely would not be able to or would not survive it. The child grows at a rapid rate in the room and has to eat itself out, at which point it has a starter meal of the human mother. The child then grows absurdly rapidly to the point where, mentally and physically, it can survive on its own. Growth then slows and then stops when sexual maturity is reached, presumably for reproductive purposes.

Vampires cannot do a few things. They are a half-sterile race, only able to reproduce through humans and the previously male half of the human species. They also need external help to kill a fellow vampire. In other words, they have to light a fire.

Until you burn the pieces, the enemy vampire isn’t dead. Now, using fire as a tool is to date something only the human species has figured out. It is not intuitive and an odd coincidence that vampires had this prerequisite knowledge (I have thoughts on what vampirism even is and where it comes from). 

I imagine, just as Renesmee presumably has reproductive capabilities that vampires lack, she also a has a toolset that vampires lack: the ability to kill a vampire without the need for fire. 

Given that Renesmee’s able to eat human food, this implies she has a digestive that is able to break down nutrients. The reason vampires can’t eat other vampires is they lack this. Edward swallows pizza, he’s vomiting that shit back up three hours later and it’s going to be very solid and very gross. Whatever venom did to his innards, most of his vital human organs aren’t working anymore.

Given that Renesmee’s this mix of venom and who knows what kinds of fluids I believe her stomach is capable of breaking down and digesting vampire flesh. This seems to me the most obvious way to eliminate an enemy vampire when no tools are otherwise available.

Hence, instinctively, if Renesmee wants to murder Edward she will eat him.

(Also, as you can tell, the image is just horrifyingly delightful to me, and so it’s my go to response.)

As for why she would want to eat him, see here and here.

The Family and Renesmee

As you note, everyone in Renesmee’s life projects someone else onto her.

Not so much Carlisle, he just seems very bewildered and overwhelmed by everything at first, and one of the few who openly notes how not human Renesmee is and the implications of this (given the chromosome experiment, I’m sure Carlisle was expecting a squid).

Even in the early stages though we see Edward, Bella, Alice, and Rosalie as primary offenders. (I’d list Esme except Esme is... being Esme about it, so, she’s just floating through Renesmee’s life like her Cullen ghost self and not even at the point where she can project anything onto her. Besides, that’s what Edward’s for.)

Edward sees the best of both himself and Bella in Renesmee, a little intellectual who reads War and Peace at a few weeks old when she has no understanding of the concepts of War, Napoleon, Russia, or Peace. As Edward always does, he so obliviously projects onto her, that I imagine it doesn’t matter what Renesmee says or does around him and she quickly figures that out.

Bella’s left the planet. Renesmee’s this beautiful thing, that looks like Edward, that is her daughter. Bella has no idea what parenting is. She’s floating through life preparing herself to become Esme 2.0. It’s not so much that she projects onto Renesmee but that she... completely fails to connect her to reality. Renesmee is a concept to Bella. Renesmee might figure this out, but given her feelings for her mother, I imagine she’s far more conflicted about it. She probably wishes things could be different between them, and often tries to find ways to make it so, it just never works.

Alice treats Renesmee much as she treated Bella, as her little doll that she can dress in cute clothing. Beyond that, Renesmee is a nuisance who messes with Alice’s gift. Oh, Alice likes her well enough, but I don’t see them having an actual meaningful conversation or connection.

Rosalie’s probably the wort offender in the projection domain. She is absolutely projecting the ideal human child she never had onto Renesmee. When Renesmee inevitibly fails to live up to these perfect standards, which even a human child wouldn’t, I imagine Rosalie will get increasingly upset. Acknowledging Renesmee isn’t what she wanted either would probably break Rosalie, so she’s not going to do that, and instead try to get Renesmee to behave correctly. For however much she cares about Renesmee, I imagine Renesmee sours on her growing up, as she knows she will never be what Rosalie wishes she was. Grateful that Rosalie helped keep her alive, of course, but... she would also probably wonder, as fandom does, just how much Rosalie was hoping Bella would die in birth (for the record, I think this might have been an idle fantasy of Rosalie’s, but I don’t think she’d go this far.)

Then of course, there’s Jake. Woof, Jake. As I linked above, I think Renesmee will slowly become more and more disenchanted with Jake. She’ll either learn about or suspect her own gift, have no interest in having a romantic relationship with him, or learn about his checkered past with her mother. More Jake is...

Imprinting, at a very large distance, sounds nice but imagine what that means. You have this person who is utterly dependent on you, who will do whatever you want and be whatever you wish them to be. In other words, you have this codependent person you can never get rid of who is never authentic. They will never say no to you, will always do what you wish, and if you dare to tell them you want a little time to yourself they will probably combust into flames.

That’s not a good relationship for anyone: imprinter or imprintee.

Jake, in a sense, ceases to be a real person when it comes to Renesmee. Renesmee will figure that out and then... why should she live her life just to make this miserable man who once tried to murder her happy?

What Does This Do to Renesmee?

I imagine Renesmee grows up feeling very isolated.

She doesn’t really belong in the Cullens, for all that they’re the best fit she has. She certainly doesn’t belong with other imprintees in the tribe (and whatever occasional function she goes to with the Quileutes is probably a complete disaster), and she’s not human either.

I imagine her strongest relationships are Charlie Swan (who beyond the surrealness of his life I imagine takes Renesmee at very face value), Carlisle Cullen (who also seems to not project onto Renesmee and takes her at face value), and Bella (who she desperately wants a stronger relationship with but Bella’s not listening).

Well, Charlie at some point will die. He will not choose immortality. I imagine Renesmee never quite understands why he was allowed to choose death or what the purpose of the human species even is. To her, they are caterpillars who never went into the chrysalis. Given to Renesmee the Cullen diet is the norm, to her it would seem obvious that, yes, everyone in the world can turn into a vampire and if they ration animal resources correctly there’s no problem. Or, if not everyone, then certainly her grandfather need not die.

I’m sure Charlie tries to talk to Renesmee about this but given that he’s one of her few strong relationships in this world the talk of “I’m going to die some day, sorry kiddo” doesn’t go well.

So, I’m sure it takes Renesmee a very long time to recover from that blow, if, in fact, she ever really does. I’m sure a part of her will always grieve Charlie.

In time, I think she’ll leave the coven to go on a journey of self discovery. The coven will just be too damn suffocating and she needs to find out who she truly is. Now, if that’s before or after the inevitable collapse of the Volturi and destruction of human society is hard to say.

I will say that whatever the future holds for Renesmee, just like everyone else’s, it is unbearably bleak.

[itadorisgf]

Hello! I dont know if your event is already full or not because your last update was a few hours ago. If it still has a slot for one more, may i please request megumi touching you (not in a sexual way, just like platonically / romantically) to get your attention? I think this was from the first promt. Thankyou!

— fushiguro megumi + touching you to get your attention

⤷ anonymous asked: Hello! I don't know if your event is already full or not because your last update was a few hours ago. If it still has a slot for one more, may i please request megumi touching you (not in a sexual way, just like platonically / romantically) to get your attention? I think this was from the first prompt. Thank you!

note: this turned into a whole fic…the part where gumi touches you to grab your attention is rather brief, but i still hope u like this!!

ft. fushiguro megumi

warning: gn!reader, second-year!reader, fluff, blood, pre-relationship so pining!reader

⤷ the flower shop

You are going to kill Gojo-Sensei.

Your mouth flattens into a tight line, brows pinching together to form a deep crease, as your grip on your phone tightens. The bright image pulled up on the screen of your handheld device is the cause for your ire. It’s one of a series of images that Gojo-Sensei has sent to your group chat with your fellow Second-Years of Fushiguro Megumi looking worse for wear. Though the images are all rather blurry, you can clearly make out the injured state Fushiguro’s in: his uniform is dirtied and his face is scraped up with what looks like fresh blood streaming down from his hairline. You’re sure Maki will get a kick of Fushiguro getting his ass handed to him, but you’re more concerned about Fushiguro’s current physical state.

He must not be too severely injured if Gojo-Sensei is texting you Second-Years pictures of Fushiguro all beaten up. This should help alleviate your stress, but it doesn’t. Your gut still churns uncomfortably at the thought, at the image, of Fushiguro injured, seriously or not.

You exit the images to view the chat. You roll your eyes at Gojo’s text message, which accompanies the many pictures he sent of Fushiguro.

Gojo-Sensei: Look who got beat up!!!

As a teacher, he really shouldn’t sound so thrilled at the prospect of his student getting injured, but then again, Gojo-Sensei’s not exactly a respectable teacher in your eyes. Your eyes scan the rest of the messages from your classmates. Given the time difference, you would guess that Yūta is most likely busy with his day right now all the way on the other side of the world, hence his lack of response. You make a mental note to shoot him a text soon and check in on him. You know Yūta well enough to know that he’s probably running himself ragged. Toge’s in the middle of a mission right now, which only leaves Panda and Maki available to reply to Gojo-Sensei’s message.

You were correct in your assumption that Maki would be pleased with the pictures, her text asking if Gojo-Sensei managed to get a video of Fushiguro getting beat up. Panda echoes that sentiment by responding with arrows pointing upward underneath Maki’s text. Your thumbs hover over your keyboard, contemplating if you should reply or ignore the chat.

“Is Fushiguro alright?” You hit send before you can overthink and toss your phone onto your nightstand. When your phone loudly pings, you scramble in the dark to grab it, unlocking your phone to view the response. You flip onto your stomach, burying your face into your pillow with a loud muffled groan.

Maki: Aw, are you worried about your lover boy?

You should’ve never confided in Maki about your small crush on Fushiguro. Well, it’s not like you were the one to bring it up. When Maki had casually slipped into your conversation that it’s gross how much you resemble a lovesick puppy around Fushiguro, you were taken aback and attempted to refute her observation. However, your best friend knows you like the back of her hand and bluntly stated that it’s obvious you’re pining for Fushiguro. You winced when she told you that. Was it really that obvious? The pointed look she gave you in return confirmed that yes, it was that obvious. Luckily for you, Fushiguro is one of the densest people you know when it comes to the realm of romance so to your knowledge, he’s still completely clueless to your feelings.

Your classmates all know of your feelings for the First-Year, but they don’t meddle in your love life. The most they do is tease you or give you knowing looks, which you brush off as quickly as you can while you try to rein in the resulting heat that floods your face. No, it’s not your classmates you have to worry about. It’s your idiot of a Sensei who has nothing better to do with his life than to concern himself with his students’ love lives despite being the strongest Sorcerer there is. If you could, you’d sock him right in the gut for the number of times he’s attempted to push you and Fushiguro together. The awkwardness that came from those experiences still makes you want to crawl into a hole whenever you think about it for too long.

The vibration of your phone in your hand draws you out of your thoughts. You grimace when you read the text message.

Gojo-Sensei: Don’t worry!!!! Your lover boy is alright, but I bet he’d feel better if you checked in on him. ;)

You can clearly envision Gojo-Sensei’s glee on the other end of the phone. The man feeds off of embarrassing his students. You opt not to respond anymore, clicking out of the application and turning off your phone. Gently placing your phone onto your night stand, you tug your comforter up to your chin and close your eyes for the night.

Perhaps, you will check in on Fushiguro later.

“Oi, quit zoning out.”

You groan in pain when Maki sharply jabs you in the stomach with the end of her wooden bo staff. She gives you an unamused look when you toss a harsh glare her way.

“I’m not zoning out,” you mutter, readjusting your grip on your respective staff to continue the light sparring session you and Maki are engaging in. She doesn’t bother to restrain herself from rolling her eyes as she counters your strike, easily knocking your staff out of your hands. You’re quick in your attempt to grab your staff again, but Maki cleanly sweeps your legs out from under you, sending you crashing face first in the dirt.

“Right, and Mai and I have a wonderful relationship,” She sarcastically says, digging one end of her bo staff into the ground and leaning her weight against it. “He’s fine, you know? You shouldn’t worry so much about him. You should be more worried about me kicking your ass.”

You loudly whine when Maki brings him up and flop onto your back to gaze up at her. “Who said I’m worried about Fushiguro?” You childishly huff, propping yourself up and leaning back onto your forearms. Your expression scrunches up in distaste as dirt uncomfortably sticks to your sweaty skin.

Though you’re attempting to deny it, of course, you’re worried about Fushiguro. Although Maki already knows how you feel about the First-Year, you’d rather skirt around the subject and pretend that you’re much better at hiding your emotions than you actually are.

“Who said anything about Fushiguro?” Maki innocently cocks a brow, but smirks to herself as you murmur a low fuck underneath your breath. Damn, you walked right into that one.

“I hate you, you know that?” You deadpan, staring straight into Maki’s eyes.

“Yeah, I hate you too.”

The corner of your lips twitch up into a hint of grin as Maki offers you a hand, pulling you up onto your feet.

You wrap up your training session not long after that since Maki claimed that she didn’t see the point in continuing to spar if you’re not going to give it your all. “There’s no fun in beating someone over and over again,” she sighed as you were knocked to the ground for what felt like the hundredth time that day. You gave her a half-hearted glare in response to that comment.

Freshly showered, you’re now lounging on one of the benches placed near the dorms, occupying your time by scrolling through social media. You try to convince yourself that you’re hanging around outside because you want to enjoy how nice the day is, but you, and everyone else, know better. Fushiguro, and presumably Gojo-Sensei, should be coming back from their mission soon. Although you know that Fushiguro wasn’t seriously injured, you also know that the tight coil of worry in your stomach won’t go away until you see it with your own eyes that Fushiguro is, indeed, okay.

“Senpai?” The sudden noise startles you and you scramble to sit up straight. You unconsciously smooth out the creases in your clothing as you meet the eyes of the person who called you.

“Fushiguro,” you breathe out, relief heavily laced in your voice. You push yourself off the bench to stand on your feet and quickly scan his form for injuries, brows furrowing when you see the numerous bandages littering his face. It’s only when Fushiguro shifts underneath your intense gaze that you realize how long you must have spent staring at his face. Great, now he’s going to think you’re some sort of creep, you think to yourself. “H-how are you feeling?”

You internally wince at your slight fumbling over your words. You’re just glad nobody else is around to witness this encounter, Gojo-Sensei and Maki would find way too much delight in your distress.

Fushiguro brings a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. A hint of redness seeps out from underneath his bandages, staining his cheeks, as he reflects on how badly his simple retrieval mission turned out. He’ll leave it up to Gojo-Sensei to explain to your class about Itadori and how he’s Sukuna’s new vessel. He wonders how you all will take it.

“I’m fine, Senpai,” he replies, grimacing as the pads of his fingertips run along the gauzy material of the bandage firmly wrapped around his head. Heat floods his cheeks when he looks up to see the genuine concern in your expression. Fushiguro’s thankful that the bandage on his cheek manages to partially conceal the flush of his skin. “Really.” He adds on for extra emphasis. You still look unconvinced, but you nod along as if you actually believe Fushiguro’s words.

“Well, that’s a relief. I was worried about you when Gojo-Sensei sent us those pictures of you all bloodied up,” you say with a sheepish grin.

“You were worried about me?” Fushiguro questions with a slight raise of his brow.

Oh fuck. For a moment, you say nothing: frozen completely still as your brain attempts to process the fact that you just told Fushiguro, to his face, that you were concerned about his well-being. Maybe, he’d interpret your words in a friendly way. Perhaps, he would think that you were just being a good upperclassman and looking out for him. If you were lucky, Fushiguro would think nothing of your comment.

“Senpai?” A sudden weight on your shoulder pulls you out of your internal panicking. Fushiguro’s hand lightly rests on your shoulder as a concerned expression lies on his face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Fushiguro,” you assure him. There’s still a slight frown in place, crinkling the bandage stuck on the corner of Fushiguro’s mouth. You inhale deeply in order to muster up as much courage as you can for what you’re going to do next. “I promise.” Your voice softens as you gently place your palm over the back of Fushiguro’s hand.

Fushiguro stills underneath your touch and you have to restrain yourself from giggling at the intense redness that floods his cheeks. His flush deepens even more when you find yourself unable to completely suppress your amusement, your quiet laughter filling the air. He’s quick to draw his hand off of your shoulder to rest by his side.

“Good. I’m going to go rest in my dorm now. See you later, Senpai.” His words nearly slur together with how fast Fushiguro spits them out. You don’t even have the opportunity to say goodbye in return as Fushiguro swiftly turns around and rushes inside of the dorm building.

He’s awfully cute when he’s flustered, you muse. A silly grin crosses your face unconsciously as you attempt to sear the image of Fushiguro blushing into your memory. Maybe, your feelings aren’t as unrequited as you think.

“Ah, young love.”

You jolt, spinning around to face the owner of the voice. Your grin falls as soon as you make eye contact with the individual.

“Gojo-Sensei,” you deadpan. Your brow twitches in annoyance at his elated expression. Knowing him, he probably eavesdropped on your entire conversation with Fushiguro. “If you took any pictures or videos, I am going to kill you.”

His grin only widens at that.

“Too late.”

[hamliet]

Dabi’s Missing Heart

So I’ve been seeing two main responses to Dabi’s character as portrayed in BNHA 292, both of which I feel touch on a very surface understanding of his character and role in the story despite seeming like opposite takes.  

Take #1: 

Dabi is an unfeeling monster created to show the redeemability of Shigaraki and Enji in contrast with his true eeeevil villainy! He will never be redeemed! 

Take #2: 

Dabi is a sweet softy who did nothing wrong! He will never be redeemed because of this chapter which is so out-of-character! 

Note how they both have the same endpoint. I’m not actually gonna address the redemption question much because I can’t fathom what this panel foreshadows if not Touya’s salvation (alive): 

I’m not looking to debate this either; I’m just putting it here because I know it’ll come up if I don’t.

Instead, I wanna address Dabi’s character. He’s my favorite, and I’ve been asked a few different times whether I enjoy him as a villain or as an uwu poor baby, and my answer is always both. 

Dabi is a villain. This chapter’s rampage is, in my opinion, not remotely out of character for him. But neither is it the summation of his character, and he surely is not meant to make Enji look good by comparison. 

So, who is Dabi? 

Dabi is kind of a flaming jerk, and that’s why I like him. He’s an abuse victim who gets to be angry and crass and sharp. He pushes people away because he doesn’t want to open up to them and get burned (heh). He’s just like Shouto in that, except with a dose of murder. 

Believe it or not, this is a very realistic response to abuse, and very common too. It’s good to see that representation. If the writing was indeed just “he’s bad get rid of him,” well, that would of course be a terrible representation. But seeing a mean victim get redeemed? Now that’s some good sh*t I’m here for. 

If you want a sweethearted, misunderstood soft victim, there is one in MHA, and that’s Shigaraki. Dabi is not these things, but that does not mean he’s not a victim or that he’s somehow an unfeeling monster.

You see, Shigaraki is a heart character. Dabi’s the mind. (Heart and mind characters are a literary pattern that is utilized in literature across the globe; it’s not an eastern/western cultural thing. It has its roots in alchemy.) The problem is that you can’t have a heart without a mind nor a mind without a heart. If you lack one, you’re missing half the picture, and you won’t accomplish anything. 

We see this with Shigaraki in his quest to look for ideals, something to believe in, purpose to justify/enable acting on his feelings/emotions. 

Dabi, in contrast, has conviction and ideals, but eschews any kind of personal connection and care. 

So, both Shigaraki and Dabi struggle to unite heart and mind--but they need to do precisely this. 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki expressly envisions both Dabi and Himiko when musing on what his purpose is. 

Yet Shigaraki is able to unite more easily with Himiko as opposed to Dabi because Himiko is also a heart character. She claims to be motivated by extreme empathy that warps around to become a lack thereof (wanting to be who she loves).

Shigaraki’s motivations are basically revenge for hero society not saving him--which encompasses both a deep internal and external (societal) need for empathy and a need for better ideals. Shigaraki needs Himiko and Dabi. They’re a trio, and all of them need each other to grow. But Himiko, being similarly driven expressly by emotions, is easier for Shigaraki to understand and work with. 

The irony is that Dabi is actually a very, very emotional character as well. But what he does (as is typical for a mind character) is repress them, compartmentalize, dissociate. He constantly pushes people away, yet admits privately, to himself, that he’s primarily (and paradoxically) motivated by family. This is emotional, yet Dabi claims he “overthought” and, according to other translations, “snapped” can be actually be read as “went crazy” as a result over overthinking (note: both are mind allusions). 

Dabi repressing who he is--Todoroki Touya--is symbolic of him repressing his emotional side, because again, family and emotions are tied together for his character. Now his identity is acknowledged, and Dabi claims to be losing his mind (again), claims that he can’t feel, and yet is completely consumed by emotions. Like, does anyone think he’s being methodical and calculating this chapter? 

It’s not just negative emotions (rage, hate) that drive Dabi in response to his family. His seeking belonging and emotional connection is present even in a chapter where he tries to murder two members of his family and laughs off the risk to the life of another. 

See, Dabi first asked Shouto to validate his pain:

But like, given the circumstances, of course Shouto doesn’t really respond well. How Shouto responds is this: 

Shouto’s words are triggering. And keep in mind I am not blaming Shouto: he’s in shock and he’s a kid. I’m merely trying to explain how it likely comes across to Dabi. 

You’re crazy. Your feelings don’t matter. You don’t really care about Natsuo! You’re a villain and that’s ALL you are. Not a brother or abuse survivor. Just a villain. 

So, uh, yeah, Dabi then retreats back to being unable to feel, dissociating as has always been his coping mechanism. But that’s not all: Dabi’s been repressing for so long that of course he’s gonna go a little insane in response to the dismissal of everything he’s trying to point out. Why wouldn’t he? His family dismissed his pain back then and now again, and so, without that heart, without those emotions, principle is all Dabi has. This has been present since long before Stain’s ideology came into his life: 

Now, he answers this question of existence through Stain’s ideology.  Purpose is all he has, and to him, Shouto and Best Jeanist are dismissing that too. Why are they dismissing it? Best Jeanist dismisses him for an ideal: the overall good of hero society. Shouto has a mixture of this ideal and also like, genuine shock and pain. 

Back to Dabi. Dabi’s summation of himself and his purpose is incorrect and harmful to himself and others. I’m not excusing him or justifying, just explaining. It’s a tragic reflection of what Endeavor raised both Touya and Shouto to be (and thereby ironic that BJ uses an ideal to dismiss him): 

Instead of being raised to be the symbol of hero society--as Endeavor intended--he exists to destroy it. The root is the same: Dabi assumes he exists for hero society, as a tool. He dehumanizes himself, hence why his quirk physically harms him (which also fits his almost religious zeal for Stain’s ideology). But it is not all Dabi is. He’s not a tool, he’s a person, but to acknowledge he’s a person involves acknowledging his heart/emotional desires, and that gets to my next point.

Dabi’s not a reliable narrator about himself. At all. I’ve written about Dabi and dissociation before. So let’s look at Dabi’s devotion to his ideals, the ideals he puts above people and claims he only cares about... because there are moments where Dabi goes against those ideals. 

For one example, Dabi’s gone against those ideals when he’s allowed his personal need for revenge (an emotional/heart motivation) to overcome his longterm plan. Like, he was fully about to get himself killed here, even though that would likely mean no one would know the corruption of the Todoroki family and hero society, just for the chance to prove to his father that he hurt him. 

In addition, I’ve talked before about how Dabi’s the only character in the entire damn manga to comment that maybe using child soldiers is not okay. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s reasonable to conclude that Dabi considers the abuse of children in hero training a sin of hero society that ought to be purged (hence, part of his ideals). 

That said, I have also pointed out that Dabi has gone after children in the past when it benefits his mission (Bakugou would like a word). So let’s look at four examples of Dabi and his principles concerning kids--since, after all, he claims to be motivated by heroes who hurt kids. 

Firstly, Dabi’s “save the cat” when he spared Aoyama. 

Why did he spare Aoyama? We can only speculate, but it seems quite likely there are two reasons: 1) hurting Aoyama would not add anything to his overall goal of downing hero society, and 2) a terrified, cowering kid might just have been a teeny bit familiar to Dabi. Here, his ideals--destroying hero society--either take a backseat to a reflection of his personal pain (and)/or his ideal of not abusing kids directly contradicted his ideal of bringing down hero society. But the important part is that in this instance, Dabi chose mercy and the goal of bringing down hero society was jeopardized as a result. 

So then why did he attack Tokoyami, Nejire, and Shouto this arc? Well, Dabi does things he knows are wrong for the sake of accomplishing his overall purpose. He does things he knows hurt himself for this purpose. This isn’t new. If he can’t be acknowledged, can’t exist as a person with emotions, then he at least will ensure he still has a purpose.  

In addition, let’s look at what sets Dabi off in all of these instances. (Again, this isn’t me saying “well actually Dabi’s justified.” He’s not. I’m just pointing to what’s in the text to explain the machinations beyond “bad guy do bad.”)

Dabi tries to reason with Tokoyami, pointing out that Twice was doing essentially what Tokoyami is doing: trying to save his friend(s), but Tokoyami doesn’t listen (also again: not me saying Tokoyami should have listened--realistically, in this situation, it makes sense Tokoyami trusted his mentor!)

Only after his reasoning was rejected did Dabi go to flames mode. He could have just let Tokoyami save Hawks, but instead he really wanted to kill Hawks and that overrode his other principles. Was this just because of his furthering his goal--killing the #2 hero would help destroy hero society--or because of a sense of personal revenge for Twice? That’s open for interpretation (in my opinion, it’s likely a mixture, because again, it tends to intertwine more than Dabi likes to think it does). His principles and/or emotions are brushed aside, and Dabi Does Not Like That. 

Dabi does this again with Shouto this chapter, asking him where he stands on their family issues, and gets brushed aside, and then Shouto goes into his rage mode and Dabi responds. Again, not saying Shouto is rational here or that he should side with Dabi’s murderous plan, but like, his words really don’t come across well to Dabi. 

Dabi going after Shouto after explaining things, asking Shouto for help, and then having his pain dismissed is pretty much a repeat of Tokoyami. When Dabi’s pain is dismissed, he says fine, let’s aim for the highest principle possible: making Stain’s will a reality, and damn any emotional ties. 

Dabi’s obsession with ideals, you might say, is a smokescreen to cover his own pain. Far from feeling nothing, he feels very deeply. (I promise I’m getting to Nejire.) 

So what does this indicate? Well, that Dabi does have a heart and a conscience. But when he lets his heart act, when his heart reaches out, he gets burned. His heart jeopardizes his overall purpose, so he most often dissociates himself from it. But by pretending he doesn’t have a heart, he dehumanizes himself, and he projects that dehumanization onto others (see: seeing Shouto as an extension of Endeavor, when that’s actually the precise image Shouto is trying to shed). 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki has been unconscious during the entire confrontation with Endeavor, nor is it a coincidence that Himiko has been MIA. But, Shigaraki wakes up a bit this chapter not only when hearing Dabi spout about how hero society needs to burn, an ideal/the thing Shigaraki lacks, and through a less important but still-ideal-driven character in Spinner asking him to accomplish his supposed ideal of destruction, but when Dabi saves Shigaraki and Spinner. 

Dabi doesn’t burn Nejire for lols (not that this makes it better because it doesn’t) or even for ideals. He burns her to save Shigaraki and Spinner, because they are his links to full humanity right now. 

(Again, this is also dissociation and projection: Endeavor did this! No, Dabi, you did. You’re perpetuating violence against kids rather than stopping it.)

But anyways, when Dabi calls upon heart, Shigaraki wakes. He lends Gigantomachia and thereby Dabi and the league power. 

Dabi can only grow and actually accomplish anything related to his ideals (fixing hero society) through accepting a heart--even though that will likely mean some painful surgery to shift his ideals to accommodate said heart, because pure ideals don’t leave much room for humanity. He needs to feel to actually change anything, because right now he’s just making things worse (hence, the need for saving and redemption).

I know the League aren’t the protagonists of the serIes, but their complaints aren’t exactly incorrect either (if anything they’re almost a little too valid). But through growing together, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko might actually be able to accomplish something, and get themselves in a place where they can be reached and saved by Shouto, Deku, and Ochaco. Because to be saved, the kids will have to acknowledge the villains’ pain and complaints, and do something about it. 

[cheegu3]

~ Yandere Jaemin - The jester ~

[hi babies, this is one part of my nct fairytale series this one based on Alice in wonderland with jaemin <3, it had influence from both the original book and the book by marissa meyer centred in the universe + a lil of my own stuff]

I love alice in wonderland and jaemin so I’m so sorry how long this is lmao also yes I did write all of this on the same day ;-;

wc: 3.6k

summary : you live in wonderland, and everything is normal until a stranger shows up - a jester who says he’s looking for you, he seems innocent and sweet but is he really?

TW / trigger warning: yandere themes, mentions of - violence, murder, swearing, blood/gore, 18+ (suggestive), etc

The yearly mock festival was coming to an end. Humans and creatures alike were slowly making their way to the stairs and to the comfort of their homes. A stranger was also making their way over but not to his home, to the crowd. He slipped through it unnoticed and stopped, bowing in front of the queen.

She looked at him in curiosity but also in fascination. He was very much used to this, having people stare at his beauty and the way he presented himself - elegant and cocky. 

‘‘ My majesty. I come to seek refuge in your town ‘‘ the stranger said.

The queen raised her eyebrow at him and waved at the deck of cards close by, almost stumbling over their own feet in fear of displeasing the queen. 

‘‘ Show this gorgeous stranger that empty house ‘‘ the queen demanded to the cards in a shrill voice.

‘‘ Yes ma’am. Come this way! ‘‘ they answered in union.

The stranger followed them in silence but kept his distance. They went far and near, up and down the crossroads and curvy paths until they reached a small cottage. It was far from the other houses and the village but he liked it immediately.

‘‘ Here we are sir! ‘‘ the cards exclaimed in union again and turned like robots ready to go back the way they came and serve the queen, it was all they knew after all.

‘‘ Excuse me ‘‘ the stranger had had one thing and one thing only on his mind throughout the whole trip there.

The reason he was here in the first place

You

‘‘ Do you happen to know where...y/n is? ‘‘

The deck of cards looked baffled, one of them even chuckled.

‘‘ y/n? Why would you want to see her sir, she’s so very eh- ‘‘ one said

‘‘ -mad ‘‘ another filled in.

‘‘ Who are you anyway? ‘‘ said another

‘‘ Jaemin, I’m a jester from far far away ‘‘ he said with clenched teeth, growing impatient at the lack of answer he was getting.

‘‘ Why would you like to see her? ‘‘ said one

‘‘ She’s not special ‘‘ said yet another

‘‘ I have to ‘‘ he said firmly and was now clenching his fist.

‘‘ She’s not far from here sir. She lives in the cottage opposite this forest ‘‘ said one card with cloves on his front.

‘‘ Thank you ‘‘ Jaemin exclaimed in relief and watched as the deck of cards turned and walked down the path.

On the outside it looked like an old cottage like any other, with broken windows and an overgrown garden. The jester wasn’t surprised, they must’ve given him the most ugly and worn out house since he was still a stranger but with a few snaps of his fingers, the inside would look a lot better than the outside.

As he had finished snapping his fingers three times he saw the familiar white cloud in the window but before he walked in he had to check around the area. He thought he heard the rustling of leaves and twigs being broken.

Looking to his right, he saw in the distance how a girl was walking towards him. Instinctively his heart started to beat faster because what if it was you? The girl was wearing a dress which was blue and she had a white apron tightly wrapped around her which was full of flour. In her right hand she was holding a basket filled with something and her hair shone bright in the sunlight that was peeking through the thick trees above.

// YOUR POV //

You were just about to walk past your favourite abandoned cabin when you noticed, it was no longer abandoned. A handsome young man, about the same age as yourself was standing outside it. You being all alone though, this far out from other people made you scared so you kept your head down right when you passed by him.

‘‘ Hey! ‘‘ you sighed in disappointment, all too often creepy men or creatures would try to stop you and flirt which made you very uncomfortable.

You tried to put on a fake smile before you turned to face him.

‘‘ Hi! ‘‘

‘‘ You’re y/n ‘‘ he stated.

You probably looked very confused to the stranger. How did he know your name? In this wide land, you were a nobody and this random man you just stumbled upon seems to know who you are - by the look of his curious brown eyes studying you - maybe he even knew everything about you.

‘‘ Yes..sir. Can I help you? ‘‘ you asked hesitantly and wanted to punch yourself for sounding so small and helpless.

The boy took some time to answer, suddenly looking a bit nervous the way he fumbled with his hands.

‘‘ Oh, I just. I’m your new neighbour, Jaemin. The cards said I might meet a young woman here who lived close by ‘‘ 

Shit, you were really too paranoid sometimes, this was just a harmless boy who had moved in right next to you.  

‘‘ Oh! Yes of course ‘‘ you smiled at him with more genuine warmth now           

 ‘‘ Welcome to the neighbourhood then I suppose ‘‘

They boy nodded and chuckled. He was very attractive, and you were pretty sure he knew it. Tall, dark and handsome with puppy like brown eyes and fluffy hair. He had a defined nose and rosy lips that matched his smooth and beautiful skin. But the most attractive thing about him, to you, was the way he carried himself. 

That smile could just about make any girl fall for him, maybe even worship him. As he stood there looking at you become entranced with his beauty you began to wonder if he was using magic on you so you put your guard up again slightly.

‘‘ Thank you. I hope to see you around, where do you work? ‘‘ he asked and you almost bit your lip at the look he was giving you, it was very intense and his smile yet again so charming.

‘‘ Oh! ‘‘ you exclaimed suddenly, you had forgotten to answer and had just stared at him getting completely lost. You saw him smirking at this.

‘‘ I-I work at the bakery in town, hence- ‘‘ you gestured to your flour dusted apron and dress with a sad smile.

He laughed heartily but assured you,

‘‘ You look fine, trust me ‘‘

You smiled shyly in response. It felt like he was kind of flirting, he was giving you that look again that both turned you on and made you creeped out, it said

I know everything about you 

Nevertheless if that was the case, you felt very much intrigued with this new stranger and you didn’t want him to be a stranger for long.

‘‘ I suppose I’ll see you around then ‘‘ you said suddenly when the tension had built up even more and you started remembering all the responsibilities you had at your work.

It felt like you had been here for about an hour and you had muffins to bake and customers to please.

‘‘ I suppose you will ‘‘ he answered with an amused glint in his eyes.

You decided to turn even though your body and heart really wanted to stay. Your intuition and head however won over the battle inside you and told you to get the fuck away from him.

You kept your back turned as you made you way past the mysterious boy. You had a feeling that he was still watching you as you went, eyes never leaving you and it freaked you out a little, making you shudder.

The rest of the day went on as if it was like any other day. Tons of baking and getting your hands dirty, chatty customers and delicious desserts. By the end of the long workday your muscles were aching. You cleaned up and did your usual routine of locking up the store when everyone had left.

Usually you wouldn’t think twice about walking home in the dark, your bakery closed at midnight so it was way past sunset. It was practically pitch black outside and no one was on the streets, they were all at home probably sound asleep. For some reason the queen had decided that all houses be soundproof in the village. So the fear was increasing when you thought about the stranger, the dark and walking home alone because if something happened no one would help you - they wouldn’t hear you scream or hear you cry out for help.

You turned the key that locked the bakery with shaky hands but tried to compose yourself. You had a very odd and naive thought in your head,

If I don’t get attacked tonight I can trust Jaemin

It truly didn’t make any sense but just about every cell in your body wanted to trust him, and wanted him to like you, like the way you were so attracted to him.

‘‘ y/n? ‘‘ a voice behind you said interrupting your thoughts.

You shrieked and jumped in surprise, throwing your arms up in some pathetic attempt at defence in case you’d need it.

‘‘ It’s just me, your neighbour ‘‘ 

You lowered your arms and smiled at him apologetically.

‘‘ Sorry ‘‘

‘‘ Don’t be I get it. It’s dark, no one’s around and I just startled you like that, I should be the one to apologise ‘‘ 

‘‘ No no, it’s just that I don’t like walking home in the dark ‘‘ you assured him, now feeling really guilty.

‘‘ I can walk you home ‘‘ he offered with a friendly smile.

You were silent for a bit, thinking to yourself before making up your mind.

‘‘ Yeah, I’d like that. Thank you ‘‘ you returned back the smile even though you still felt a bit uncomfortable.

Jaemin joined your side and waited for you to step away from the shop and decide the pace.

You walked in silence beside each other. You felt a bit nervous, not really being sure if you were supposed to start a conversation or not but then it dawned upon you, why the fuck was he alone there in the village anyway?

You glanced at him quickly to see if it would give you a clue to this mystery but he looked as he always did, nothing was different. So you decided to drop it and thankfully you didn’t have much more time to overthink about it because your house had now appeared in sight. 

He still had a chance to take you if he wanted to, it was dark, quiet and no neighbours were close except for well...conveniently enough, him. But he didn’t. He kept his distance all the way up to the house and stepped back when you got up on the porch.

‘‘ Thank you ‘‘

‘‘ My pleasure miss ‘‘ he said with the same amused glint in his eyes.

You turned around and walked in, closing the door and locking it. Well inside you leaned on the door allowing yourself to calm down a bit. 

He didn’t do anything

You shrugged and went upstairs, getting ready for bed and falling asleep not long after your head touched the pillow.

-

The next day he was the first thing you thought about in the morning before you jumped to your feet and rushed to put on your clothes and get to work.

You broke into a sprint constantly mumbling fuck to yourself and basically bursting in the bakery. The few customers inside and the cashier you had hired looked at you in shock. 

You stopped for a bit to catch your breath before explaining, still out of breath to the cashier.

‘‘ The-Ball-I-Have-To-Bake ‘‘ you managed to press out between every breath.

The cashier gasped and immediately left the desk.

‘‘ I’ll bring you the ingredients ‘‘

You swallowed and nodded to the customers when you walked past them disappearing into the back room where you did your magic. 

You put down your stuff and put on your apron already in action when the cashier came in, put the ingredients on the table and hurried out again.

You ended up making several pastries and cakes to the queen’s liking and by the end - about six hours of straight baking, you were so exhausted you decided not to go to the ball.

The cashier peeked her head in about an hour before it was to start.

‘‘ I’ll send these up? ‘‘ she walked up to the finished products and you just nodded at her, drying off the sweat that had formed on your forehead. 

After that you spent the rest of the hour leading up to the ball cleaning up all the mess you had created.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

You sighed, it was already closed but you have had to deal with customers knocking anyway wanting treats when you weren’t open. You put down your cleaning supplies and hurried to the door. Through the glass door you saw the outline of your neighbour.

‘‘ Jaemin? ‘‘

He shook his head and tutted at your state when you opened the door.

‘‘ Do I really look that bad? ‘‘ you said and glanced down quickly.

‘‘ For a ball, yes. Otherwise, no you look exceptional ‘‘ he said

You snorted at his flirty comment.

‘‘ I’m not going, too busy ‘‘ 

‘‘ What? No way. I won’t let that happen ‘‘ 

You turned to face him again, having walked up behind the desk to count today’s money. He leaned over the desk and tried to give you his puppy eyes.

‘‘ I can’t go like this Jaemin, sorry ‘‘ you said and shrugged your shoulders.

He scrunched his nose and stopped trying to use his puppy eyes on you now.

‘‘ I have magic ‘‘ he tilted his head when he saw this caught your attention.

‘‘ Really? You’re a jester? ‘‘ you rolled your eyes.

‘‘ What, is it not cool enough for miss or something? ‘‘ he jumped over the counter effortlessly and was now standing very close to you, closer than he’d ever been before.

They way he was towering over you basically looking down on you made you chuckle unexpectedly. 

‘‘ Yeah sure it’s cool enough I guess ‘‘ you answered playfully attempting to push him out the way so you could walk past.

He put his arm out, not letting you.

‘‘ Do you use it a lot on the ladies? ‘‘ you added and held the eye-contact

He snickered and made a very cute expression which made your heart melt.

‘‘ Of course. Every time ‘‘ he said sarcastically ‘‘ Now, will you let me ‘‘ he waved to your messy state.

‘‘ I guess why not ‘‘ you said and closed your eyes.

When it was silent for a few seconds you opened them again and you saw white clouds surrounding you all around, when it had cleared and disappeared completely you could finally see his work.

You were wearing a champagne coloured silk dress that was quite tight at the top with spaghetti straps and flowed out at the bottom, highlighting your curves. Looking at you hands, they as well were polished and clean and you hair was in a sleek ponytail, feeling as if it had been washed.

‘‘ I’m impressed ‘‘ you said at last when you noticed his worried expression, anxiously waiting for your opinion.

He exhaled deeply.

‘‘ Thank god ‘‘

You giggled at his cuteness.

‘‘ Shall we go? ‘‘

‘‘ Certainly ‘‘ he answered and extended his arm for you to take.

The walk this time was also pretty quiet, the castle wasn’t too far away you could already see it from here but you just couldn’t help yourself,

‘‘ Hey Jaemin? ‘‘

‘‘ Yeah ‘‘

‘‘ What were you doing so late at night in the village yesterday? ‘‘ 

Although you didn’t look at him, you could feel him get a bit uncomfortable.

‘‘ Browsing I guess ‘‘ it was your turn to feel uncomfortable now, all the stores closed a lot earlier than your bakery and everyone in town knew that but he hastily added, ‘‘ The villagers told me your bakery closed very late so I thought I’d go by and buy something. Unfortunately it was closed though ‘‘ he laughed and looked down shyly when you looked at him in surprise.

‘‘ Why’s that, horrible sweet-tooth? ‘‘ you said

‘‘ No, just wanted to support my neighbour. That’s all ‘‘

You nodded and felt a bit guilty for being suspicious of him. If your guards hadn’t been down before they sure were now, basically in hell. You felt incredibly comfortable and at ease with Jaemin and you did for a moment think you were starting to fall in love with him. 

This feeling would arise again when you had finally reached the castle and were greeted by the white rabbit.

‘‘ Invitations and names please ‘‘ he said in a stressed voice, his eyes all the time looking back and forth, darting between guests.

The jester gave the rabbit one of his charming smiles and you watched as he interacted with other people, even that was attractive, god what was wrong with you?

He fixed everything for the two of you, showing both of your invitations and names and you leant back letting someone else do the work for the first time in your life. It was nice, this weird feeling of being taken cared of.

He took your hand when the rabbit let you through and he lead you towards the dessert table. You raised your eyebrow at him when he started basically inhaling entire pastries of yours.

‘‘ I have to see how talented you are ‘‘ he defended himself when he saw your judging look. 

You rolled your eyes and waited for him to finish, eyeing the other guests as you did. When he finally was done - after eating half the table you noticed - he dragged you out on the dance floor. 

It was a slow song. You gave him a shy look, not sure if you wanted him to see how much you liked loved him or for onlookers to see that either for that matter. But he insisted, pulling you close to him and starting to rock slowly to the beat of the music. He gave you a big childish grin and you laughed, starting to move as well and letting you be drowned in this feeling. 

It felt like it truly was just you and him in this world, and he would protect you and love you forever. He could do you no harm, he was amazing. 

You probably radiated these feelings through the lovingly eyes you were giving him and he looked at you the same way. Everyone else faded away and it felt like you were in a fairytale, just how magical it all felt...until it didn’t,

The music was abruptly stopped and murmuring filled the hall. You didn’t have the energy to worry about it so you leaned your head again Jaemin’s chest feeling sleepy. In the distance through your dazed eyes you saw the white rabbit approach you, until he wasn’t very blurry anymore, he was clear and right in front of you clearing his throat. 

‘‘ Miss you need to come with me right now ‘‘ the rabbit said in a shaky voice.

‘’ Hm? ‘‘ you said sleepily not yet leaving Jaemin’s arms.

‘‘ What’s going on? ‘‘ Jaemin said in a worriedly.

‘‘ It’s uh, something very terrible has happened to her parents sir ‘‘ the rabbit looked down on the ground under the intense stare of the jester.

‘‘ Let’s go, y/n ‘‘ he whispered to you gently and took your hand.

You had no idea what was going on but followed like a lost puppy. The rabbit lead you to a carriage which you were put in and sent off. It stopped outside your parents house, a mansion closer to Jaemin’s house than it was your own - on the outskirts of town. 

‘‘ Wait here. I’ll see what’s wrong ‘‘ he said and stepped out.

Your head felt heavy, like you’d fall into eternal sleep any minute now - that’s how tired you felt, like you hadn’t slept for decades.

‘‘ y/n dear? ‘‘ the carriage door opened again and two hands extended to take your weight. You walked up to it, staggering and let yourself be lifted down.

Everything was a bit blurry but you could make out the familiar outline of your parents on the ground. They were in front of their front door and they didn’t seem to be moving. Blood was flowing out from their necks and their limbs were twisted in weird, unnatural angles.

Oh

This must’ve been the terrible thing the rabbit had been talking about...

You tried to walk towards your parents but your foot hit something. You looked down and jumped back in surprise. It was another body, no - you looked around, it was several bodies of the guards.

‘‘ What happened to them? ‘‘ you asked Jaemin in a horrified voice.

‘‘ I don’t know ‘‘ he said and bit his lip, lowering his raised right hand and entwining his left one with yours.

‘‘ Look at me y/n ‘‘

You turned to look at him, starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and scared of everything going on. You felt crazy, like you had no idea what was real and what wasn’t.

‘‘ You and I, we’re gonna live together. Far far away from here and we will be happy forever because you love me right? Say it! ‘‘ he roared the last words but you weren’t scared. You just looked at him with loving eyes.

‘‘ I love you ‘‘ you said like a robot, 

completely entranced 

you were his 

forever

[nabrizoya]

honestly would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the nikolai duology because i really only see blanket praise or blanket hate for it whereas I see a lot of wasted potential. Bardugo's actual writing was beautiful as ever for the most part, but the choice of the plot/beats feels baffling to me. I love Nina, but her parts felt so separate from the rest of the book until the very end, and even that felt off. I liked the first 2/3 of KoS enough, dealing with the monster, political tensions, 1/2

and even the cult of the starless saint was at least interesting because dealing with people trying to rewrite the narrative of their greatest enemy (who hurt these young leaders in deeply PERSONAL ways) was really compelling (making him literally come back was. a choice) but I feel like somewhere in the last third, KoS went in a wholly differeent direction, and RoW has this vibe of feeling like she definitely wrote it after reading the show scripts or even seeing some footage. idk. 2/2

I will try to be brief (1/12)

Hey anon! Thank you so much for asking this even though it took 38756588247834 years to answer this I’m so sorry !! The Nikolai duology was good—wonderful too maybe because of the myriad of themes and topics it discussed and explored, all in addition to how beloved these characters are. For me, it’s the end of KoS as it is for you, and the entirety of RoW in particular that irk me the most.

I have very little issue with KoS, and I agree with everything you’ve said. The political tensions, the sort of urgency in trying to secure a country at the cost of personal reservations, preparing for a war that seems unforgivably near the door, etc. was all thrilling. After all, it is the first installment in the duology, and it’s supposed to set the course for the upcoming books.

KoS managed to introduce the stakes and the circumstances, lay the rails for what the characters will face and what it might mean to a vast set of entities connected to the events. And it’s hardly out of sense to expect Rule of Wolves to pick up where the previous book left off and carry forward the themes and plot points introduced in the first book.

Except, RoW failed spectacularly in that aspect.

Rule of Wolves: the second book, and the supposed finale to the Grishaverse and the Nikolai duology; it fails to continue the other number of threads that KoS set up for it, effectively compromising the characters, their characterizations, the themes and other political tensions and stakes. The due importance that should be given to the heavy set of topics that get brought up in the povs are not through, nor are the small details that Leigh added to the conversations evolve into something worth talking about, which are the actual points that could have been given some more page time to explore than just making them facts or points of nostalgia for the characters.

If you take a step back and analyze the whole timeline, events, characterization, objectives of the arcs and the plot points etc. etc., all the way from Crooked Kingdom to Rule of Wolves, there’s so much that is left out and tied in, quite haphazardly, which leads me to believe that Leigh wanted to attempt writing a duology that is more plot-driven than it is character driven. And we know that Leigh writes character driven stories brilliantly, and SoC, CK and TLoT are testament to the same. Heck, even TGT has more consistency than whatever TND has.

So, objectively? Plot possibilities? Characterization? Potential? Personal goals? Addressing the very serious themes it brought up, in little or major light, but give no proper elaboration about them?

The lost potential readily compromised the characterizations of many characters, and it all amounted to their arcs being very underwhelming.

I’m dividing this into four parts and here’s the basic outline.

Writing and Plotting

The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Remedy (what I think would've worked better to tie this all up)

This can get very looong, so be forewarned.

I. Writing & Plotting

Now, Leigh Bardugo’s writing is exceptional, no doubt. The sentences are short and flowy, and convey the tone, psyche, environment and the setting and its effects on the pov character marvellously. It's also immersive. It’s the same in Rule of Wolves, except, a little or a lot weaker.

The two main parts of this is that one, that Leigh slightly overdid showing a lot more than telling, and two, that the RoW (and perhaps KoS too), was more plot driven than character driven, the latter of which is actually Leigh’s strength.

In Rule of Wolves, Leigh’s writing seemed very choppy and snappish. The descriptions were lacking, or maybe that’s just me wishing for more internal conflict and dilemma, and going back and forth in one's own head for a bit. It felt like she showed more than she told.

Example being how Zoya ‘snaps’, ‘drawls’, ‘scoffs’, or ‘scowls’ less, and even if that’s supposed to be show Zoya beginning to be a little less unpleasant than she usually is, the tone in those chapters was not strong enough to distinguish how and why the character was acting a certain way. Nor pinpoint an explanation on what brought that change about. (And there were many instances like this with many other characters), which resulted in the characters themselves feeling so off to me.

Leigh’s characters are important to the story. They carry tremendous weight and actively contribute to the plot. Except, by focusing a lot more on the plot, some parts of these characters’ relevance was not up to the mark. It is greatly due to how weak the plotting and pacing of the book was, tbh, more than just her writing.

Consider: Mayu Kir Kaat. She is integral to the story, but she is thrust into responsibilities, and that doesn’t give us much time to see her as a person, and then as a person with a duty, like we see with most other characters. Whatever parts of her we did see were very circumstantial and timed, which is probably the reason why not many we’re unable to appreciate Mayu as much as we should. (Maybe fandom racism also plays a part, so, well,,,).

Like, we know from Six of Crows and with The Language of Thorns, how great care went into describing the characters’ state of mind, which further heavily influenced their choices and decisions. This time though, I think she wanted it to be more plot driven, hence the whole crowded feeling of the book and general worry about oh my god too much is happening, how will all this be solved and all that.

And this, I think, greatly hampered Leigh's writing, leading to unsettling and rather unsatisfying character arcs. Not to mention that there was quite little space given for the characters to develop or let them grow in a satisfying way which touches on most of the elements and themes that get brought up with regard to their powers and potential,,, and when it was indeed brought up, it was all in vain since they were never followed through.

That's one of the biggest problems for me in RoW: Plot points brought up in KoS were not brought forward in RoW.

II. The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Phew. Truly buckle up because this train has too many coaches. And to discuss them all, let’s keep the starting point as Crooked Kingdom.

a) Parem

Now, by the end of Crooked Kingdom, we know some important things about the parem.

It's dangerous asf for the Grisha who have to sacrifice their will and capabilities for a short time superpower high that they didn’t even ask for

Which means they are more often than not forced to consume the drug

Shu Han is the creator of the Parem and are also creating a new kind of soldiers called Khergud (who additionally require Ruthenium, but we’ll talk abt that later)

Fjerda snatched the formula after kidnapping Bo Yul-Bayur, keeping him away in the Ice Court and in their possession, and used the Parem to further their own heedlessly heinous agenda

I think it’s easy to understand how KoS started off on the right track, considering that Kuwei Yul Bo is mentioned, the antidote and jurda is brought up and so come the political tensions alongside it (what with the impending war, the demon, the lack of funds in the coffers and security and peace for the country alongside safety for the Grisha).

The point is, parem is a character of its own. CK was its inception, and its fate was decreed along with its lifespan and its doom. Ideally, by the end of RoW, parem should have been vanquished while addressing its nature as a deadly drug, the addiction and aftermath, and the key person who will guide the plot: Kuwei Yul Bo.

Parem is a political tool that pitted countries against each other, making one another their allies or enemies. (Though parem is not the only one factor). Ravka doesn’t yet know about Kerch’s neutrality. The Shu made their move to assassinate in the end, just as Fjerda cleared the air about their goals.

Point is, parem is weapon, a new kind of warfare that keeps getting alluded to in KoS. The first book gave a glimpse of how the Shu and Fjerda are using parem, thereby exploiting, prejudicing etc. the Grisha in their countries. Khergud whose humanity is washed away with parem + ruthenium, and the Fjerdan Grisha (are targeted) drugged and exploited while be subjected to torture, training and imminent death, parametres of these outcomes being severely gendered.

Ravka too wanted to weaponize it and create a usable strain that would still give the Grisha their powers but at a minimal cost, until Nikolai’s conversation with Grigori convinces him out of it and to use only the antidote for the Grisha.

And when are the contents of this conversation brought up again?

Never.

Another aspect of parem (that the conversation also covers) is this: that what was once merzost, parem is its strange cousin. Parem parallels breaking the bounds of Grisha norms unnaturally, while merzost takes it a step further to break the bounds of nature itself, which comes with a heavy price. They're both the same with little differences. Amplifiers are in tune with this discussion, hence the conversation between Zoya and Nikolai about how, and whether or not the abomination in him, the parem, and the amplifiers are tied together. This gets brought up again in the conversation with Grigori.

Parem parallels the superpowers, something that Zoya too manages to achieve once the corruption of the amplifier business is resolved, which makes her realize how in tune with nature the Grisha must be, and how limited the Grisha powers until then had been. And why the amplifiers were a corrupted piece of magic.

Zoya was supposed to be the conduit in that sense that she reversed the Grisha norms and understood the importance and nature of small science. This is alongisde parem getting abolished or resolved in the least, be given a redressal.

Yet instead in RoW, we barely see any of Zoya’s powers, nor even her experimentation and hunger for power which would give her protection. We don't see how she begins to realize that while power was indeed protection, it was also a responsibility. Not clearly, anyway.

So like, not only is this entire discussion thrown away in Rule of Wolves, but no matters are resolved either. Parem did not reach its end like it was supposed to. Merzost with regard to parem would have been an excellent thing to address, with or without the Darkling being present, because the blight is there. But that doesn’t happen.

What happens instead? We get one chapter of Grisha getting the antidote during the face off at the start of the book, the women in Fjerda are not brought up again and instead we jump to Shu Han. Kuwei is also conveniently forgotten because hey, the Zemeni are here so it’s all sorted!

RoW could have (should have actually) sought to address both the political and medical (?) aftermath and implications. Maybe it did succeed in showing the political side of it, with regard to Mayu, Ehri, Makhi and Tamar’s storylines. But that’s only in Shu Han, whose state of affairs we had NO idea of until RoW. No idea, so much that it was completely out of the blue.

And what we did know (get to know about in KoS) is Fjerda and the affairs there remained… unsolved.

(...sorry).

b) Grisha Powers

Re: From the conversation between Nikolai and Grigori, and Juris and Zoya, about how parem and the amplifiers are parallel to each other in terms of being abominations, a corruption of Grisha powers. Now the theory of it is not entirely explained, but we do know that the parem and whatever Zoya learnt from Juris was meant to move along in the same direction.

But we don't see another mention of it, except maybe we could dig a little deeper and realize that it all adds up because Zoya is the Grisha Queen of Ravka, Summoner, Soldier, Saint, all of it rushed and unnecessarily magical in a war so dire and realistic in RoW.

Welp.

c) Spy business

Just… genuinely what even was Nina up to in RoW? A spy, sure, but only to garner information on the pretender?

Why couldn’t there have been two responsibilities for her to uncover: the lies or truths about the pretender while the Apparat causes hindrances, and Nina trying to seek out more documents of the locations and labs where the Grisha women are being tormented and the other Grisha being weaponized? It could have been a leverage to discredit Fjerda in front of everybody in the Os Kervo scene. Imagine if Nina whipped out the documents of Grisha labs and brought the truth of the exploitation and killing and kidnapping etc. in front of the convention of all nations. All of it together would have upped the political tensions by quite the notch.

Even then, there’s a possibility that it wouldn’t matter either because the Grisha aren’t exactly valuable to all the nations. But killing and exploiting is still wrong so maybe it might have worked? Or see, even if it wouldn’t have, the slow and sluggish realization of Mila’s identity by Brum, and alongside writing it as a tragedy where Nina’s efforts seem to have gone to waste, or where Nina is telling Zoya about not accounting for Prince Rasmus’ word and she informs her about the documents she has snatched? Something could have been done here?

The point is, KoS focused on Fjerda and its unraveling, and it wasn’t continued with and through in Rule of Wolves. Instead it sought to find the problem in a whole new country, Shu Han, and fixed it within the same book leaving the other country as it is.

d) Ruthenium and the Blight

Ruthenium, the metal that is an alloy of regular metal and Grisha made steel, could have been utilized more significantly in the books.

I mention it in association with the blight because while on one hand it is true that the blight is an area full of nothingness, ruthenium as a metal could have been utilized to show the effects of rushed industrialization that is leading to the ground losing its essence. This is supposed to be advanced warfare after all. Besides, Makhi loses someone very dear to her. Perhaps ruthenium is more dangerous in Shu Han because the Shu use it to create the khergud, so the constant manufacturing of it has been leading to the metal leeching the lands of their fertility, along with the blight.

And so also to broker peace, Ravka could have provided aid in some ways. :

1) The Darkling sacrificed himself, as a result of which the blight vanishes. While the blight took away her niece, the possibility of a blight persisting despite the ending of RoW could be attributed to ruthenium.

2) Ravka could provide the reversing effect to the alloy of ruthenium and metal using Grisha and otkazt’sya engineering and ingenuity to replenish the lands.

All in addition to whatever will be Shu Han’s policies to bring lushness to their lands.

e) Women and War:

Holy fucking Shit, where do I start with this?

Whatever we saw in Fjerda was haunting, and we see it from Nina’s chapters. There’s literally no resolution for it, nor is it ever brought up again, at all. In Zoya’s chapters, we see through her eyes the brunt that Grisha faced with the war, and in a country that has refused to recognize Grisha as the citizens and considers them expendable.

Add to it her own narrative of how the women are never mentioned, let alone the ones that she has lost or has known to suffer, at the hands of the war, at the Darkling's torture and powers. The description of these women suffering, often being forgotten and thrown aside as mere casualties… where or when was it ever going to be brought up again?

Like, switching between such horrifying things happening in Fjerda to whatever was happening with Zoya and Nikolai and Isaak is such a contrast, horrifyingly demeaning and insulting, even more so when it failed to align with the importance of parem and offer a solution to both these problems.

Now switch to Rule of Wolves, where the Tavgahard women immolate themselves on Queen Makhi’s orders. Not only is that such a cheap and insensitive thing to do, it gets treated a simple fucking plot point in the book, and it barely gets addressed afterwards. Women in Asia have a vastly complex and complicated history with fire, and this is a serious criticism that culturally affects readers in personal ways. And what gets done about it? Fine, Zoya feels baaaad, sorry oops why would the women do that?!?!?

Where is the adequate sensitivity to the topic? Where is the continuation of the pain Zoya feels for many people, despite them being the enemy? How does she honour them? Where is all that dilemma and pain? Why does she not think of them or just get a line or two to talk about them?

Where is the due importance for this suffering given? Structurally and culturally?

f) Soldier, Summoner, Saint / Yaromir the Great

We never really get any explanation for why Zoya deserves to be the Queen, and why she is the best. But we do get to see why Nikolai isn’t the one supposed to be on the throne, and it’s not just because of his parentage but also because of his failings and doubts and the need for acceptance with the secrets he carried.

Here's the thing though; it’s not just about her showing mercy. It’s very subtle, and in good sense, should actually have been given a little bit more importance that be loosely brought up at random times.

Keeping aside the fact that Zoya is representative of Ravka—a woman, a Grisha, a Suli girl who changed the course of war and who knew what it was like living in poverty, being as an underprivileged person of the society in addition to the trauma from then and the state of living at her aunt’s place—which is meant to be covertly apparent, the other reason tracks back to Yaromir the First, who with the help of Sankt Feliks of the Apple Boughs—the one who raised the thornwood—lead Ravka at that time into the age of peace.

The Darkling testified that in his POVs, that while Feliks and Yaromir worked in tandem for Ravka, Aleksander worked for safeguarding the Grisha. In one sense, Zoya is supposed to reflect that moment in history in the present moment, except she is Queen and Sankta, and Grisha, all three at once.

It is brought up in one of the Darkling’s POVs and once in the conversation with Yuri in KoS. Other than that, we never actually get any more hints of this explanation in the text, which is the reason why the entire ending felt so so rushed, and like a fever dream, that even if it was a plot twist, it was kinda very baseless when it should have been more ohhhhh sort of a thing.

g) The Starless Cult and Saint Worship

This cult had immense potential to blossom into many things, some of which were indeed touched upon in KoS when Zoya says that she saw a bit of herself in Yuri, and brings up time and again how easily she’d been led and had not been aware enough of what’s right and wrong, just as she supposes Yuri is too. And to some extent, there is truth there, because in the Lives of Saints, we do see why Yrui comes about to hail the Darkling and how it parallels Zoya’s, of being helpless and ten being saved by a different power/ their own power, respectively.

That’s where it forks, that Zoya is older and realizes the path that Yuri has chosen and understands that it won't happen until he realizes it himself because the Darkling’s crimes are so obvious.

Even then, there’s still more potential: This cult could have been the mirror that would make Zoya reflect on the questionable methods of the Darkling, and the ways in which she might be mirroring them, despite or not it is the necessity because of the war. How she is training soldiers too, just as the Darkling did, and while the need to take children away from their homes just as soon as they were discovered Grisha was abolished, it was war, and they needed soldiers.

So like, there’s quite a big narrative going on here, how mere children are pushed into one path of becoming a soldier and the whole system that was that the Darkling followed to train the Grisha and all of that. All of this in addition to the juxtaposition to the Grisha being seen as elite despite them being hunted, and the people who are not Grisha frowning upon them. This is also the work of the Darkling, which actually paves the way to see how there can be a world where the Grisha are not feared or seen as abnormal, despite or not they are given a Saint-like narrative.

This cult could also have been the segue to discussing Yuri and his brainwashing, and the sort of cult-ish behaviour of believing in something firm when you couldn’t believe in yourself, or not seeing the magnitude of the crimes of their supposed Saint, alongside always staying focused on becoming a soldier only and never actually thinking beyond what is told.

Some of these are very subtle and some are brought up, but never given too much of an explanation.

Genya brings up another good point in the funeral chapter, about how Fjerda seemingly taking into the whole Saints thing could mean that if the Darkling moved there, he could very well sprawl his influence there to bring in supporters. Which leads to another discussion that gets brought up towards the end of the book: about Nina telling about the Ravkan Saints to Hanne and therefore to the Fjerdans,,, which doesn’t exactly sit right with me. It’s still a very nascent topic, and I think SoC3 will explore this path of faith and personal beliefs etc. but leaving it just there, while talking so much about Saints in both the countries,,, don’t exactly know how to put it into thoughts here.

But regardless, the cult of the Starless had different potential to talk of (blind) worshipping of an ideal without critically examining why the person must be put on the pedestal in the first place (and if it is simply power, then there is actually a narrative right there, which RoW gets right, about the people valuing the power still, as a result of which the monarchy still persists at the end of RoW. Even then, there’s more discussion awaiting there).

Not sure if any of this makes sense, but I’ll leave it at this here for now.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I think what I was trying to say here is that we do not have any kind of narrative evidence to seeing how and why it seems right that the Fjerdans will worship Ravkan Saints; is it merely because they are all Grisha? Or is it because of the segue explore this path of faith and personal beliefs and all of that, of the talk of the monastery and the Grisha there being of all identities, that a monastery is in Shu Han, that it has Djel's sacred Ash tree so far away from Fjerda... much to think about.

III. Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Mostly going to be about Nina and Zoya, but I’ll bunch up the rest of them at the end.

a) Nina

*head in hands*

I severely mourned how poorly Zoya was written in RoW, but then I realized that more than Zoya, it’s Nina whose potential was severely undermined and wasted. On one hand, I’m glad she uses her powers and quick thinking,observation and her own tactics to analyze the population and opt for the best way to make them see the truth she wants to show them (eg: making Leoni and Adrik and Zoya saints and also showing that the Grisha are the children of Djel via people’s belief to Joran and Rasmus’s mother).

But then, it’s like you said; her parts were so offbeat and outpaced and completely disjointed, when in fact, Nina is the thread that ties all the characters, their plotlines and potential, together. Nina is connected to Zoya and Hanne, two equally important characters and main characters of the duology. Whatever scope Nina has, they are greatly in parallel to Zoya and Hanne. And it’s all literally there, in the text! What a waste.

Though keeping aside these parallels, Nina’s own journey from Ketterdam to Ravka to Fjerda, while is spoken about, doesn’t touch some other parts that I see potential in. Or this is just meta.

Nina has grief not just from Matthias’ death but also from the loss of her powers as Heartrender. So much of the Second Army was built on being a soldier, and perhaps the Darkling was not outright disdainful of racial differences in his army, yet he still stripped every part of the children away until they weren’t children anymore in his view. They’re all soldiers… (albeit his soldiers, preparing them to do his bidding because hey, give and take right?). Nina was a soldier, and she is a soldier still under Zoya’s role as a General, but an ‘other’ of a soldier. That’s her only identity, and the loss of her powers means that she’s a different kind of soldier.

I imagine that this entire time, some small part of Nina longed for normalcy, or whatever settled as normal for a life like hers. In the sense that she wants to go back, but what is back and where exactly did she want to go back to? What was the before and after and where did things go wrong or change? There’s tragedy in the realization that whatever you were before what you became is not a place you can return to, and that’s a different kind of loss that she has to bear, and all by herself. She has powers over the dead now, a strange power she learns to grow to, but all the places she has been, all the lives she has led and people she had been, everything might seem like they’ve all been locked away in some strange place leaving her barren and indisposable.

She’s off to Fjerda as someone she isn’t, figuratively and literally. In KoS, Nina brings up many times how odd she feels as Mila and in some capacity longs to be Nina Zenik again. This ties in with the previous point of returning to somewhere, but where?, but is also a segue towards body dysmorphia, the thing that Nina and Hanne’s storylines parallel and connect too with in a small way. It’s a great line to follow to discuss what her discomfort with her body means to herself while it means something entirely different to Hanne, who is also not entirely comfortable being who they are. (This discomfort further which leads to gender dysphoria, while for Nina, it will be about learning to accept her powers. I’ll add on to this in a bit,).

I'm mourning the lost potential of that experience being a parallel to Hanne’s own feelings, of a discussion between people being uncomfortable with their bodies, something that can mean multitudes to each person and on their own accord.

In parallel to Zoya, I like to draw it from the fact about Nina wanting to go back to who she was, while Zoya actively tries to lock her past away and drown it somewhere or throw it to the storm, never to hear of it again. She has no identity other than being a soldier, and that’s enough for Zoya, because who she was before she was a soldier is not pleasant. But moving from being just another expendable shell of soldier under the Darkling’s rule, Zoya becomes the one third of the Triumvirate, and then the King’s general, all of which bring self-awareness of Zoya’s capabilities and challenges that are bound to excite her. But all of these also compel Zoya to be many other people to others as she slowly grows to realize that power is not just protection but also a responsibility, and it will inadvertently mean confronting her past of her lost identity, realizing the how of the Darkling, and how harmful it was. As Genya puts it perfectly in Rule of Wolves, that they were all taken away when they were young kids, not even barely children, and then thrust into responsibilities that didn’t allow them to be anything else other than what the Darkling told them to be.

Back to Nina; a few other great parts about Nina’s arc could have been about her connection to languages, as language being a mode of strengthening identity, in addition to growing to her powers. In RoW, there’s this line that goes ‘how sweet it was to speak her language [Ravkan] again’, and the feeling of homesickness. Like, Nina is trying to connect to Ravka through what she knows best—language, and then stories. In that, Nina realizes a part of her identity, which could also act as a segue to Zoya reclaiming her own heritage and ethnicity. Not only that but Zoya and Nina’s stories are literally so intertwined that it’s hard not to see how their choices and line of thought affect one another’s arcs, in the grief they have and how they choose to treat it, and also show why Zoya is particularly protective of Nina (and keeps wishing that she doesn’t become the monster Zoya had become, in the sense that Nina is more mature in handling her grief than Zoya was and the entire mercy plotline ties Nina, Zoya and even Genya together. More meta, haH).

And that’s why the ending doesn’t make sense. Even though the part about her not being comfortable as Mila is not brought up many times in the continuing chapters (and that’s why perhaps naming Nina’s discomfort as body dysmorphia may be wrong), there’s still the part of Nina readily accepting to be who she was a Mila and remain in Fjerda that seems iffy to me. Especially when Nina and Hanne literally a few chapters ago think about running away (it may be just another alternative they might be fantasizing about, but I think it still means that they both want to be their true selves without hiding any parts of it away). So her staying as Mila… well, it doesn’t exactly add up.

I’d also add the part of Nina’s story mirroring Leoni’s, and how she is from Novyi Zem and being a part of the Second Army meant that she had little to no connection with her past, her culture etc. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part that Leigh went for that arc.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I don't agree with my point anymore about Nina not having the kind of ending I assumed she might have, considering that it is very well possible for Nina to treat her identity as Mila as a fresh start, as a Grisha with a command over the the dead and begin a new normal that is suited for her. You can read more here.

b) Zoya

For one, white passing Zoya is not canon to me. I simply pretend I do not see it.

See, her race was handled very badly. Making her half-Suli was supposed to show the struggles and the trauma that the ridiculing of her identity by other people has caused to her. Except, not enough time nor text is given to thoroughly discuss it. Not to forget how problematic of a narrative in itself it is to make Zoya white passing.

It would have made more sense to make her dark skinned and predominantly Suli-looking than whatever yt bs she was put through. Her not being white-passing would have led to conversations about tokenization, or people caring little about her and not giving her any respect because she is Suli. Or being called beautiful to the face and praised just for it or a harmless tumble in their point of view.

So like, instead of making the ‘mistake’ of seeking for acceptance, seeking appreciation and love, from her mother at first and then the Darkling, Zoya instead makes herself someone to be feared, if respect was not what she deserved. The iciness is a part of her and has always been, but all of it soon became a shield, an armour that she vowed to harden her heart with. Just the sheer impact of this narrative and her reluctance, and seeing Nikolai love her for beyond who she thinks she is… if all of this was canon, I’m pretty sure I’d have built a shrine for this duology.

Let’s now talk about her grief, and...

…

Okay it’s not for me to point fingers at how Leigh chose to write about grief because there’s no one way or one proper approach to go through that pain, and if that’s how she chose to write about grief for Zoya, fine! But I really wish we’d have gotten a little more into her head to see how the trauma has affected her thoughts and how she struggles against why and what exactly it is that Juris wants her to do. That enough time and text was dedicated to Zoya’s feelings and the mayhem it caused her, as a result of which the dragon’s eye took its cue and made things more unbearable to her because she was the only one to bear them all.

Like, I feel like Zoya was overwhelmed throughout the book and in between she had some skyhigh responsibilities to discharge and it’s all so inconsistent and poorly woven,,, it completely dissolved her character from KoS and made it 10000000x more miserable for me to read her POVs. And honestly, what even were her assignments that the Kirkus review mentioned? Never an inch of text in RoW is given to decipher her complications of her mind, the muddled sense of hopelessness and fear that grips her time and again. Why overwhelm her so much that you fail to do her mental state and capacity any justice?

I’m not going to be harsh about how much David’s death bothered me-- no actually fuck that; what’s the point? Fine, he died. All because you wanted to make his death a plot device to make Zoya reconcile with loss and deal with it? Where was Genya’s grief? Literally no point of having a death in the book at all, and it didn’t even achieve anything. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around why David’s death was important and maybe if I find some straws, I’ll consider…)

There were so many other ways around it; could have brought back Lada and killed her off, or have the Darkling piss her off so badly or just. Something. Instead of whatever happened with David. I think this is too harsh and insensitive of me to say about Leigh, but still… there’s a myriad of other ways to have gone about it. Helping Zoya deal with her grief with Nikolai at her side, to understand that the rage that was fueled from her loneliness, like it had been in the past, could now be a weight that Nikolai was willing to carry with her… Helping someone with their grief, staying and choosing is also a love language you know?

So in that regard, I won’t regret saying how flat the garden scene was to me. Zoya’s lines, though tinged with grief, were so out of what I would expect KoS Zoya to say. Maybe it’s also because of how bitter I was reading about David's death, despite that part being spoiled for me.

The cost shouldn’t have been David’s death, especially not when his death too wasn’t properly handled at all, and Genya’s grief was never spared a second thought beyond bringing Titanium.

+

Now let’s talk about how Out of Character Zoya was throughout the book. Her punchy attitude was missing, and even if she was warming up to her friends, we see little of the iciness she continues to retain. Another part of this is about exploring her relationships, particularly with Nikolai and her growing feelings for him. I wish we’d have seen them grapple with more of their confusion and propriety, if only for the yearning™. Besides, no matter how cute their scenes were, they were mostly (like maybe some. 70%) awful to read them, simply because it felt so odd to see Zoya be so open with Nikolai, all of a sudden.

A part of this definitely has to be the fact that we don’t know just how much time has passed between the end of KoS and the start of RoW, and we never, never see any description of they regarded their feelings for each other and how they understood it themselves. I don’t actually know how exactly I can put this into words in a manner that will make sense, but the only scenes where I appreciated Zoyalai were in the Ketterdam chapters, ONLY. The rest was… bleh lmao. Their scenes were so cute and brilliant, and if only we’d seen more of the internal conflict and had given some more time for them to practically approach their feelings but still end up in the puddle of it. If only.

Their scenes apart were the good ones, because that’s where we finally see Nikolai feeling the loss, no matter how temporary (on the verge of being permanent since it’s the war), of not having Zoya with him, of not being there with Zoya because who else would it be if it wasn’t her? Zoyalai had good scenes but they barely lived up to the mark lol. Their feelings are never thoroughly explored, nor their mental capacities.

While we’re talking about Zoyalai, let’s also talk about how lame it was for Zoya to say that Nikolai was the golden spirited hero all along, from the very start, when canonically we know Zoya had little to do with him in the earlier books, that she may have only been physically attracted to him and never saw him as more than just some guy with a responsibility to manage, and had sooooooo much distrust about him. And that it was only in the next few years of working with him and alongside did she grow to recognize his efforts and relish in the hope that he was building for Ravka, inadvertently making Zoya hopeful too.

Nope. Instead, we’ll just throw in some destiny bs that he was the one all along rather than show that the beauty of their relationship did not stem what they perceived of each other, but was instead built on strong respect and admiration for one another and their capabilities. 100% destroyed their relationship for me.

+

Some good parts about Zoya’s arc in RoW was how she acknowledged her past mistakes, and the nuance that was touched upon in seeing sense in becoming a soldier from the start, that offered her a chance to be anything other than a bride. That some part of her was grateful for the Darkling for teaching her how to fight, while still keeping Genya’s words in mind about how they were mere kids, children who had only one path to traverse because the Darkling (who wanted their acceptance and loyalty) nor the Kings of the country let the Grisha be anything else other than pawns of the war. That she recognizes her mistakes as a teen and how self centred she was, that her being snotty had at times cost some peoples’ lives too. And she doesn’t take the blame all up on herself, because it’s not hers alone to bear. Super good.

Also, the way Zoya comes to view power as responsibility instead of merely as protection was something cool to read about. It’s not clear in the books, but Zoya actively tried to not be the Darkling while still continuing to build an army for the war out of necessity, and actually sharing some parts of the dream that the Darkling had for the Grisha. I can’t articulate this so perfectly, but the point is, Zoya trying to avoid becoming a tyrant like the Darkling was an active process that she was constantly trying to change, and where Zoya could not recognize her own feelings and inherent thoughts about warfare that in some ways did mirror the Darkling’s, by the end of book, Zoya is much more self-aware and conscious of herself and her power than she was at the start of the book. And this was well done.

+

Now, what is up with YA and making people turn into giants or animals lol wtf. Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya use her dragon powers in a way that symbolizes the conditions of her dragon amplifier and the power of the knowledge she obtained from Juris? She is a Saint, and we’ve seen that their powers allowed them to cause ‘miracles’ and such, as we see at the start of KoS and at the end.

Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya dabble with her newfound powers and completely lose her shit in anger during the wae, only to rein back in mercy, just as someone from Fjerda begs for forgiveness since they see her then as a Saint? Adrik and Leoni used their powers in Fjerda, so having Zoya bring about a conundrum of all orders and do something about it would also have been cool, wouldn’t it? In the funeral scene we see her turn water into ice, thereby making a path for Genya. Why couldn’t we have had more exploration of the importance of the dragon’s eye and the general nausea of being overly empathetic every. damn. time? Why didn’t we get to see her powers? Why couldn’t we have seen her fail in them and realize that the reason she was not perfect was because she was trying to be strong on her own and was not relying on others and joint effort?

Her turning into a dragon was genuinely the most baffling part bc here’s a war that’s so serious and dire with metals and bombs, and then here’s this magic that will solve all of it entirely. Like I’m not saying it was bad, (I am actually saying just that) but I also don’t know what I am saying, except that the ending felt like a fever dream.

…?

Not sure if I’ve managed to convey it properly, but well. Zoya felt out of character throughout RoW, and that the only place I saw KoS Zoya was in the final Os Kervo scene where Zoya finally agrees to be the queen.

c) Nikolai

Nikolai’s arc was very satisfying and brilliant to read about in RoW. In KoS, he seemed very much like a passive character, one of the reasons why his stunt with the Shu in RoW was appreciable, no matter how ill-timed of a plot turn it was. His journey throughout this book was also introspective to see why others deemed him unfit as the King, and even if they were his enemies who thought that in want to dispose him from the throne, Nikolai realizes that him being on the throne is not of much value and that this book was entirely about him seeing his privilege and making decisions to counter and correct the mistakes he’s made. That was nice. Oh, also his father not being an antagonist was a pleasant surprise.

I don’t have many complaints about him, except perhaps wanting some more internal conflict and elaboration about his feelings for Zoya. Them being apart was where it was satisfying, and then in the Ketterdam chapters. His arc could have been better in KoS, but that’s to blame the plot for the characterization.

d) Hanne

Now, from the very start, their arc was super good and it only got better and better until… the ending. Except it’s so odd that Hanne, a poc, has to now live as white person, while feeling comfortable in their transmasc identity. Icky, no? That you need to eliminate one part of your identity in order to feel safe and comfortable about another? Add to this the whole white-passing Zoya thing,,, doesn't exactly send off the right message.

Together with Nina, the ending seems uncharacteristic for both of them. Them coming to accept their powers and knowing to use their powers on their own accord was brilliant, though the entire husband business felt very,,, eh to me, even if it did make sense. The ending about their name and their new identity was too vague.

e) Genya, Leoni and Adrik, Kuwei, Mayu,

Genya is the one who faced the most disservice along with David. While there were exceptional parts to both of their plotlines, it's still sad that even if David's death was necessary, we don't get to see the entirety of her grief and the possible anger, and that her kindness is simply used as the justification for lack of portrayal of grief.

It really did take me by surprise, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the original Shadow and Bone book, but seeing David's conscience and self-awareness, along with Genya's (and Zoya thinking of how she wouldn't let any harm come to them, which shows a bit of her development towards her character development), was plenty refreshing. David and Genya were genuinely the highlights of the book and to kill David off was just. doesn't sit right with me.

Leoni and Adrik deserved more page time. They’re saints and immensely capable (no wonder they’re now the Triumvirate), but a few more pages for them to shine would not only have been nice, but also a necessity.

And now, Kuwei...

....

I mean,,, parem should have been the plot, alongside the entire weaponry and the discussion of making a city killer. But uh… that didn’t happen.

There's not much I have to say about Mayu, Tamar and Ehri, except that their plot was superb, only very badly timed.

There's more to talk about them in the remedy tho.

IV. Remedy

Here’s the deal. Before KoS release, there should have been a Nina novella.

Nina is a very important character. All of her potential, alongside many other parts of her personality--from dealing with grief, to accustoming to her powers, to growing stronger--there could be so much to do with her as a protagonist, alongside another character: Mayu.

A whole book dedicated to Nina in Fjerda with Hanne? Brilliant. Show Stopping. Mind blowing. It gives SO much page time to explore not just Nina and Mayu, Hanne, but also Zoya, Leoni and Inej. All together.

How?

Nina’s plotline carries the entire medical effects of the use of parem, just as Mayu’s will carry the pain she feels about her brother being a part of the khergud program. The novella will give ample time to flesh them out as characters and protagonists, each dealing with plot problems and problems of their own--like the loss of ones powers and newfound responsibilities, and the shared loss of a beloved person in parallel, even if neither Nina or Mayu interact on page.

Fjerda and Shu Han could be tied together with one chapter as a POV from Zoya (or maybe two), who, along with the Triumvirate and Nikolai, are completely at loss with the political scenario in the country, and are debating over what should be the course of action. Zoya receives news from the scouts, and missives from Nina, and Tamar takes care of the information she garners from the rest of the network, including Shu Han.

Like, the entire surprise of finding a Zoya POV, from a character whom until CK we’ve known as cold hearted and stern and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone, be humanized in that one chapter, thereby building up the anticipation for her arc,,, the very potential,,, *chef's kiss*.

And by the end of book, we could have an POV--or maybe a cameo if not a POV--of Inej meeting Nina on one of her travels of slave hunting. Inej could help take care that the women that Nina has rescued (as Nina does in KoS) reach the Ravkan shorelines safely. But, for a price.

The entire parallels between Leoni and Hanne and Nina could be set up, while also building up the narrative for the Saints’ plotline with Adrik's, Leoni's and Nina’s powers (like it was at the end of KoS). KoS and RoW would thereby continue it by tackling the weaponization and the antidote, Sainthood and the rest of the politics of it all.

Coming to Shu Han: one key aspect that I’d love to have explored would be the importance of art, during or despite the war. Of how war or pain chips away culture, while detailing on the ill effects of it from the commoners' perspectives, from the soldiers etc. Art is integral to Shu Han and could be portrayed by Mayu’s pain finding balm in poetry, of seeing glimpses of Ehri poring over poetry also mayri ftw, of politics that Makhi is weaving against Ravka, etc.

Or also add some more length to Zoya’s POV and explore a bit of Tamar and Tolya and Kuwei’s interactions and perspective added to it, of missing a home that they seemed to not know, or know; of discussing culture and differences on the basis of where they’re from (maybe the twins are from the borders, while Kuwei grew up near the capital or somewhere distant from the borders etc.), all while directly pointing at Zoya’s heritage and how it ebbs at her conscience, no matter how much she wants to bury it.

POTENTIAL !!!

Like,,, Nina novella would have been too powerful. It would have been perfect. I think I’d excuse bringing back the Darkling too if this was the case. (Or maybe not).

But welp.

Hey, thanks for reading! Not sure if you could make it this far, but if you have, you honestly deserve a medal for sitting through this all. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be to read through this, considering it seemed to take it more than month to compile this there’s also me procrastinating on it too so i’,mbhbdhshfsdn

Drop an ask if you want to talk more about this!

Sincerely, thank you!!!

[gh0st-patr0l]

ADHD in DSMP

So about a week back, I made a post about Karl Jacobs (a bit of a passive aggressive one, I’ll admit, but I think it was justified), complaining that a lot of the ‘criticism’ I see about Karl is actually rather insensitive towards his ADHD. I got a lot of responses to that post, and the most common sources of confusion I saw were:

People not understanding what I was saying they should avoid being judgmental of, or-

People who didn’t know that Karl had ADHD or didn’t understand which behaviors were caused by it.

First of all, Karl has confirmed that he has ADHD.

(NOTE: Yes, I know he said ADD. ADD and ADHD used to be categorized as separate disorders, but in the most recent edition of the DSM, it was decided that they are both simply subtypes of the same disorder- ADHD is the correct technical term. ADD is still sometimes used as shorthand by some practitioners to diagnose primarily-inattentive ADHD, but it's a bit outdated.)

Secondly, that original post made me realize that a lot of people who may be well-meaning may genuinely not fully understand ADHD and its symptoms as well as they want to or think they might. If you aren’t aware, Karl isn’t the only one in the DSMP with ADHD- to my understanding, both Technoblade and Dream have confirmed that they have it as well. So, I thought it would be helpful to put together a comprehensive crash-course on ADHD symptoms and how they effect people’s behavior!

Now, before we go further, I want to address something- as I said earlier, I saw some people unsure of whether certain behaviors are ADHD or “just his personality”. I feel the need to point this out above the read more so people will see it. To answer this question, as someone with ADHD;

A lot of times, it’s both. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that it’s caused by the way your brain developed from birth. A lot of the symptoms and effects of ADHD are extremely influential towards the way we think, act, and behave, to the point where “symptoms” and “normal behavior” really don’t have a clean differentiation. This is why it’s technically classified as a ‘disorder’, instead of an illness. While certain aspects of it can require treatment, the condition itself as a whole is not something to be mitigated or eliminated- it’s a part of who we are as a person. This is also why sometimes, even if you don’t have ADHD, you’ll look at certain specific behaviors or experiences and go “Oh, but I do that too!”. A lot of ADHD ‘symptoms’ are just a bunch of normal traits or behaviors, but in combination with each other and some actually problematic aspects, form the appearance of the disorder.

So, what are you allowed to nitpick about it? Well, there’s no real ‘authority’ on this, and even if there was it certainly wouldn’t be me. But if you want my opinion? Nothing.

See, here’s the thing- what I was trying to say when I made that post was not that you can’t be critical of Karl. If you want to say something about his Actions, his Ideals, or the content he creates- sure, go for it, that’s fair. I will agree that there are some very valid and constructive points to be made. But when you post ‘criticism’ about the way he speaks, his interests or preoccupations, his personal behaviors? That’s not criticism. That’s just judging someone.

And you’re allowed to think that stuff! Nobody can control what annoys or bothers them. It doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. But you don’t need to be vocal about it. You can keep your mean thoughts to yourself. And if you do make posts or communities or whatever about judging someone for things they can’t change about themselves, don’t call it “criticism” or try to morally justify it. It’s not productive or righteous, it’s just rude. Nothing else.

Anyway. Back to Education!

The following will be a descriptive list of visible ADHD behaviors, using Karl’s behavior as examples.

I feel the need to add a disclaimer here- I am not a mental health professional. However! I have ADHD myself, I have taken some psychology courses and done a Lot of research into this stuff, and I’m the daughter of a therapist with access to a DSM. While I’m not an expert, I’d like to think I’m fairly well versed and knowledgeable on at least ADHD. (That being said, if by chance anyone who Is a professional sees this post and notices mistakes, by all means let me know and I’ll fix it!!)

WHAT IS ADHD?

You’re here for the behaviors more than the science, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Known in the past as Attention Deficit Disorder). Despite its name, the root problem of ADHD is not in the person’s ability to pay attention, but their brain’s capability to manage itself. In simple terms, people with ADHD have a lot less control over what their brain does and wants. This results in some behavioral differences along with some personal challenges, namely a difficulty with attentiveness and self-discipline.

Now, onto the symptoms!

ATTENTION

This is perhaps the most visible and pervasive of the ADHD symptoms, hence why it’s the namesake. Inattention is a lack of focus and an inability to stay present and occupied with certain tasks or thoughts.

Because ADHD impairs self-management of the brain, people with it have an extremely hard time directing themselves anywhere but where their brain instinctively wants to go. This results in inattentiveness and the easiness of distraction that is often mocked or stereotyped for people with ADHD.

Here are some examples of how Karl can sometimes display his inattentiveness;

When he has an idea that he seems passionate about, only to drop it or switch to something totally different without warning soon after (either forgetting or getting bored of his original idea).

When he sets out to do something like a build, works on it for a short amount of time, and then immediately gives up or gets someone else to do it.

When someone else is talking and he totally zones out. (NOTE: While I wont make a whole section for it because it’s not easily observable, maladaptive (constant and intrusive) daydreaming is a common ADHD symptom as well!)

It’s important to remember that the whole problem with ADHD is that we can’t control when or what we focus on. When someone with ADHD zones out during a conversation or activity, it doesn’t mean they’re doing it on purpose, and they likely don’t mean any offense! We often are trying our best to listen or participate, but our brain just wont cooperate.

However, inattention is not the only way ADHD effects our focus. There’s also what’s called hyperfocus or hyperfixation, which is when we are so absorbed into a single subject, task, or idea that it is extremely difficult to get us to think about or do anything else. This is usually because our brains have found something that is getting those satisfaction chemicals flowing, and it’s clinging to that with everything it’s got.

People with ADHD will often experience brief periods of hyperfocus. Think of how Karl talks about spending hours straight working on a build or project without eating or drinking, or how he’ll sit down to play a game with someone and end up going six hours without even noticing.

There are also hyperfixations, where someone with ADHD becomes extremely preoccupied with a certain subject, topic, etc. for a period of time. These can be short term- personally, my hyperfixation can sometimes change as quickly as a couple weeks at a time. However, it can also be long term. Karl has been obsessed with Survivor since the second grade- not to mention his memorabilia, rambling, and constant references to Kingdom Hearts.

HYPERACTIVITY/STIMMING

This is a BIG one for Karl. I should clarify; ‘stimming’ is not a technical term, and in professional situations these behaviors are just referred to as Hyperactivity. However, I personally like the term stimming much more and find it far more accurate to what the behaviors actually are, so I’ll be using that instead for this post.

If you’re not already familiar, ‘stimming’ (derived from ‘stimulation’) is an unofficial term used to describe consistent and abnormal patterns of physical and vocal behavior typically expressed by people with ADHD and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). This includes things that people usually call fidgets or tics.

(NOTE: There are differences in how people with those two disorders stim. This post will explain stimming specifically from an ADHD perspective! ASD stimming is caused by very different factors and presents itself in much different ways. Do your own research if you’re curious!) 

There are two major observable forms of stimming- physical and vocal. Karl expresses both VERY often! I’ll use examples for each type;

Physical Stims: Flapping his hands/arms, jumping up and down when he’s excited, twisting around into odd positions in his chair, throwing, hitting, or tapping things, standing up and pacing around when he’s hyped up or laughing, twisting his rings, etc.

Vocal Stims: When he gets excited and repeats a certain phrase incessantly (Think any variation of “I’m popping off”), making certain repetitive noises while he’s focused on something or bored (”la la la”, the meow-noises, the weird heart-beat noise, etc.), singing or humming, tongue clicking.

It should be noted here that it’s pretty common for people with ADHD to get “stuck” on certain phrases or noises, and be unable to stop repeating them (reminiscent of echolalia, a symptom of ASD, but not the same thing). Think of how Karl might sometimes keep making a weird noise for an extended period of time even though it’s not that funny, or that one time he was physically struggling to keep himself from singing the Bakugan theme. These repetitions are completely impulsive and trust me, we usually know how annoying it is while we’re doing it, but we physically cannot stop.

ADHD stims are caused by the fact that the barrier between our brain and body is much weaker than a normal person’s. Because of this, most ADHD stims are actually very positive expressions of joy, excitement, or enthusiasm! Y’know how when you get excited, you feel like you wanna jump or dance? The ‘hyperactivity’ of ADHD is basically just that, but we don’t have the self-control to Not do it.

Stims can be caused by negative feelings like overstimulation, but in ADHD this is not nearly as common. Usually, the most negative reason we’ll stim is when we’re bored- in that case, our brain isn’t getting the Constant Stimulation that it naturally wants, so stimming is a way to make our own.

Whatever the cause, stimming is natural and impulsive. While different people experience it to varying degrees, those who regularly stim typically have little to no control over it. Suppressing stims is very hard and very frustrating to do.

Besides that, like I said- ADHD stims are often an expression of joy, excitement, or enthusiasm. They’re a beautiful thing that shouldn’t be seen as shameful or annoying!

BEHAVIORAL DIFFICULTIES

ADHD is a disorder which causes a lack of self-control. Naturally, this means that people with ADHD are inherently reckless, impulsive, and struggle with a lack of self-discipline that they cannot fix.

Of course, people with ADHD do still have some level of self-control, and they are still responsible for conscious, long-term behavioral patterns and decisions. However, in regards to most things, they are much, much less capable of controlling themselves than an average neurotypical person is.

These are some examples of how this will often present itself in Karl;

Excessive rambling, dragging on a joke or conversation when it could and should probably have been dropped, etc.

Speaking over or interrupting other people (NOTE: As someone with ADHD- THIS IS ALMOST ALWAYS UNINTENTIONAL. I know it can seem rude or annoying but I promise, 90% of the time if someone with ADHD talks over you, they either didn’t realize or physically couldn’t help it. Please try to be patient!)

Lack of awareness towards social cues (NOTE: Unlike ASD, in which the person is incapable of/has problems fully understanding social cues, ADHD results in a lack of awareness. For whatever reason, we’re often just not paying close enough attention to pick up on things like body language, tone of speech, and facial expression as well as we would normally.)

Indecisiveness and overthinking

Bluntness, lack of subtlety

Unintentional dismissiveness, accidentally ignoring things/people (NOTE: Again, this behavior is purely accidental. In this case, it’s usually just the person genuinely not hearing or processing things.)

Making noises, speaking, joking, etc. at inappropriate times

There’s probably more, but I think you get the idea by now. A lot of the time, behavior which results from ADHD can be seen as rude, lazy, dismissive, or otherwise intentionally harmful. In reality, we just aren’t wired to navigate common social interaction with grace.

In Karl’s case, he’s clearly an incredibly sweet, empathetic, and kind-hearted person, if the various close friends who have talked about him are to be believed. Just because he talks over people or makes a poorly timed joke, that doesn’t mean he meant any harm. 

I think that’s about it for how much I wanted to point out! You can do more research if you’re curious, but I feel like this post should be enough to tell you what to keep in mind and be understanding about when talking about/making judgements on Karl, and other people with ADHD.

[stillness-in-green]

MVA In Memoriam (2/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia)

Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party

Chapter 224 – Revival Party

• Mr. Compress’s side comment about how the distance Re-Destro wants them to travel means he must know they have warp capabilities. Also shortens his subsequent line, removing the bit about how their position has been locked onto, leaving only the marveling about the dude on the phone being the kind of person who has access to a satellite camera. Not a major cut, but it did strip out a bit of reiteration on how very Seen the League is. The warp line is another nod to how the MLA’s been doing their research—in particular, it ties in nicely with RD’s observations about the Noumu. He talks, there, about something Dabi said after the High End fight, which means he must also know that Dabi was warped out by an “Ujiko-san.”

• Also Mr. C’s observation that they haven’t broken Machia yet, and his posed question about what to do. Mr. Compress, I’m so sorry that you’re so wordy and lose so many quips and asides because the anime was set on brutally scything out every line of non-essential dialogue it could find.

• Ujiko’s extremely hilarious, “Listening to Villain Radio is my new favorite hobby,” line. Why would you cut this; this line is hysterical.

• The bit where Mr. Compress has the bright idea to use a High End Noumu like the one Dabi used, Ujiko rejects the suggestion out of hand, citing production woes, and Shigaraki says that he wasn’t going to ask for one of them anyway. Aside from being more cut Compress content (or “Comptent,” for short), it helps center the timeline somewhat at a point where the manga is jerking it around all over; it also shows that the League has been keeping up with news from the outside world. It also shows that at least one of them thought about using the Noumu—and since we know Re-Destro did some rationalizing on that scenario too, it’s good to see that it is at least briefly on the table.           Further, Ujiko provides a few rare details about the Noumu creation process. Firstly, that AFO is normally involved, so his absence makes the procedure much more difficult (though not, apparently, impossible). Secondly, that Hood-chan was the only Noumu who’d actually reached the testing stage. This will be important later, for Ujiko’s agonizing about unleashing them early/Mirko having to fight four of them at once.           Also, I just miss Mr. C’s funny little head wilt when Ujiko immediately turns down his “use some Noumu” idea. Ditto Shigaraki’s blasé shrug and little grin. Again, not to harp on the art too much, but man I wish the anime had kept all the fierce little grins and tight, incensed smirks Shigaraki has through the majority of this and the phone call sequence.

• Spinner’s line, “Without knowing squat about what we’re up against?!” A minor cut, as these things go, but it reiterates that there’s a chance RD is bluffing and the League has no way to know one way or the other, and demonstrates that the League can give Shigaraki some pushback on his decisions without having to worry about getting dusted for the temerity.[1]

• Takes one of Spinner’s lines—“Wait. I get it. Wherever you go, Shigaraki, he’ll sniff you out and hunt you down.”—and gives it to Shigaraki instead. Because fuck Spinner’s growing understanding of Shigaraki and the way his mind works, I guess! It’s especially notable that Spinner figures this out when Mr. C had completely the wrong idea about Shigaraki’s intentions—it demonstrates the way Spinner is gradually aligning himself with Shigaraki’s way of thinking, which we’ll see even more clearly during the War Arc. Also, again, it’s good to see the moments where the League weighs in on Shigaraki’s plans.

• The visual of Twice lashing out at Dabi with his razor-edged tape measure over Dabi’s dismissal of Giran, though all the relevant dialogue was there. Possibly this is because, having cut the CRC bit, the audience has no way of knowing that Twice’s tape measure is razor-edged, so why bother raising the question, “Why is Twice trying to attack Dabi with a tape measure..?” Possibly it’s because showing that attack would require animating movement, and MAN ALIVE, did Episode 109 ever want to do everything it could to avoid animating movement.

• Slidin’ Go’s line about how Deika isn’t usually his turf, but today is a big exception. This makes the hearty affirmative with which Trumpet announces himself a response to Shigaraki’s half-phrased observation about the reason behind the city’s emptiness, rather than a response to Slidin’ Go. It works, more or less, and probably even flows more clearly, all things considered. I’m always sad to lose lines from the vanishingly few named/characterized MLA members we have, though. I like, too, that it hints at the machinations that have to have been involved with setting things up for the Revival Party, and the way those plans were carried out with confidence that Re-Destro’s “bait the League into coming for their broker” plan would work despite the total absence of a response from the League in any of the time Giran was missing/his fingers were cropping up on the nightly news reports.

• A few shots of cameras in the city, which foreshadow Skeptic’s watchful eyes and ability to track the League through the city. In retrospect, this isn’t surprising, since the anime went on to cut basically any indication of Skeptic’s entire plan re: the footage of the League attacking, so why bother keeping the cameras? (Oh, right. Skeptic’s whole thing is cameras and information/disinformation. Skeptic for second-most screwed-by-the-anime MLA member.)

Additions

• Showed Toga having stood back up somewhere during Shigaraki’s explanation of their throw-Machia-against-the-MLA plan. A simply appalling choice. In the manga, she stays crouched down by Twice the entire time Shigaraki has his mask pulled off, because Toga cares about reassuring Jin-kun when he’s in a bad way.

• Rephrased Compress’s dialogue somewhat, also giving him a new line about the MLA’s forces in Deika when the League was still in the hills looking down at the city: “The so-called Meta Liberation Army has a force of 110,000 here.” I assume it was because the scene falls in a different episode than the tactical discussion did (in the manga, they’re the same chapter), so the anime was reminding the viewer of the stakes, but it’s potentially awkward because, er, no, the MLA categorically did not bring their entire army to Deika. We’ll find out as much for sure later, with the note that the regiment advisors weren’t in attendance because they were occupied at the bases they command, but even with only the knowledge we have here, Re-Destro’s statement about his numbers is that they’re scattered all over the country—hence the shot of Japan with a bunch of lights scattered across it to represent said numbers.           That said, to be (briefly) charitable, there’s no particular reason for the League to assume that, and they did discuss the possibility that there were going to have to fight 110,000 people. So it makes sense that Mr. C might state as much when recapping for the audience.

Chapter 225 – Interview with a Vampire

• Re-Destro talking about Deika’s geography and why they chose it strategically. The anime dropped so much about the MLA’s planning and information-gathering beforehand; it really made the MLA look ludicrously overconfident. And while they don’t lack for that trait, certainly,[2] this is also an organization that has meticulously grown its membership for generations right under Hero Society’s collective nose; you don’t get to where they are by being unduly foolhardy. Erasing so many scenes demonstrating their caution and forward-planning undercuts the threat they represent to both the League and society at large.           Also too, the descriptor of Deika as a nice, quiet, isolated little town in the mountains gives us some hints about how the MLA has avoided notice for so long, when you consider how the Hero business works: because so many people who get into heroism want to make it big, like celebrities, they don’t want to stick around small-town beats, and so the rural areas are understaffed.[3] That’s presumably why groups like the CRC and the MLA grow their numbers out in the boonies: much less attention from the Powers That Be. You can guess at some of that from how Spinner describes the place—“not too small, not too big”—and what Trumpet says about the percentage of the population that’s MLA, but RD adds that key “isolated” descriptor, and says that it’s a place where they “lay low.” That gives us some potential insight into how many—likely the majority—of the MLA came to their beliefs: by being raised to them, because their hometown was infiltrated by the MLA generations ago and they have literally never known anything else.

• RD’s phrasing, “Counter to point one,” when he makes his second point about the Noumu. He acknowledges that it’s counter-intuitive to his first argument, that he knows it would normally be an argument against that opening point, not in support. It’s just conversational padding, really, but “conversational padding” like that does a lot to distinguish character voice, so that not everyone talks the same way.

• A panel showing a trio of unnamed MLA warriors strategizing about how to divide their forces now that the League has split up. It’s the little cuts like this that gradually remove the agency of unnamed characters, such that they’re left looking like unthinking puppets instead of real people with the ability to register and respond to their circumstances. It also points towards the truth of what the MLA warriors are and one reason they’re so dangerous (for all that the manga itself will neglect this most egregiously later on): they’re trained in regiment tactics and accustomed to working in groups. This contrasts them both with villains, who might group together, but certainly don’t usually fight that way, and heroes, who are so unaccustomed to working in groups that it’s cited as part of the reason to have named super moves.

• Curious’s little pageboy-cut middle school kid line telling Toga to back off when Miss Curious is on the job. This is an early example of how defensive the MLA are of people above them in the hierarchy, an important thing Spinner will pick up on and attempt to use against Trumpet. Again, it’s little moments like this that both add some welcome notes of individuality to the MLA warriors (if only by virtue of Horikoshi and his assistants’ traditional talent for distinctive character design) while also fleshing out who the MLA are as a group, and contrasting them with the League.

• Deleted Toga’s line IDing her “on-the-go suck-suck mask,” but did insert a nice little bit of her expression shifting when she whipped it out. It lost a bit of the self-conscious silliness of her support item name in exchange for a cool little animation beat. I don’t dislike it, particularly, but I am, as previously stated, very leery of edits that make the League more polished in their villainy at the cost of their human foibles.

• Curious’s line about having come prepared to counter Toga’s moves, which was supposed to further reiterate that the MLA has done their research on the League; they didn’t just decide out of the blue to target the most notorious Villains in the country without studying up on them first and planning accordingly!

• Curious’s line about how she’s going to get started with some background info while her people use their meta-abilities to keep Toga and her buddies on the ropes. A marvelously characterful line! It speaks especially to that edge of formality the MLA brass observe that even as she’s ringleading this attack, Miss Curious is still set on going through her interview process step by established step.

Framing Shifts

• Made some of Curious’s lines spoken dialogue instead of internal monologue. That’s probably fine for when she’s waxing enthusiastic about Toga’s lack of hesitation in committing murder or how she’ll use Toga’s story to further the MLA’s agenda. It’s less fine when she’s rattling out the entire name, brand and patent status of her support item for no particular reason when Toga is already halfway through trying to knife her (that’ll be next chapter).

• The anime implied pretty firmly that Curious’s bombers died. And like, yeah, that’s always made more sense than the idea that anyone could survive something like that, but I hate it anyway. For one thing, it makes it even harder to credit the idea that Toga’s still on her feet afterward if Curious’s supposedly not-very-lethal explosions merk all her own people. People in this series survive ludicrous amounts of damage, and these random MLA devotees are no exception! For another, it leans into the narrative that the MLA higher-ups throw away the lives of their minions without the slightest care. It’s a lot harder to make that case when it’s explicit in the manga that Curious’s people survive the blood explosions—the blonde in the tracksuit is unharmed enough to snicker about it, and the noodle chef is even doing well enough to continue attacking! I’ve always been of the opinion that the MLA are, yes, willing to spend the lives of their underlings on attaining goals, if that’s what they think is necessary, but that is not at all the same as gleefully throwing them onto the pyre to watch them burn.

Additions

• Some individual shots of Mr. Compress, Dabi and Twice fending off or fleeing from various MLA types. A nice try on getting the group split up, but it feels kind of budget save-y, when we could have gotten actual animation of those fights instead.

• Inserted a quick shot of a headline about Toga’s first attack as Curious was rambling on about why she’s interested in Toga but not the League in general. Actually a fairly reasonable insertion, given how much text is crammed into her talk bubble in the manga while the dude standing next to her is already getting a knife in the neck.

Chapter 226 – Bloody Love

• A panel of interviewees talking about Toga’s first victim being sociable and popular. It gives a bit of context on what he was like, what people thought of him, but given that we know enough about Toga at this point to know that his popularity was entirely incidental to what she liked about him, it’s not a huge loss.

• The detail of the broadcasted interviews censoring Toga’s name. Considering how Japanese media normally treats minors accused of crimes, this is an eyebrow-raising change—the manga censors it because Japanese media outlets would have done the same. No idea why the anime didn’t, unless it’s another of those places where it would feel too “real,” to have something that so closely mirrors real life treatment of criminals?

• Everything about quirk counseling, and whoo boy, that is a loaded cut. There is exactly one other mention of quirk counseling anywhere in the manga, and, curiously enough, it also comes up in relation to a villain: in the U.A. faculty meeting after the USJ attack, Midnight muses that maybe Shigaraki never received quirk counseling in elementary school. It’s a weird little non sequitur there—exactly what sort of program did she expect could single-handedly make the difference between a well-adjusted adult and a gleefully murderous manchild with aims on killing Japan’s Number 1 Hero? Just over two hundred chapters later, we get a hint: a program designed to fit people “neatly into society’s little boxes.”           Quirk counseling, then, is not about helping children find healthy ways to process their quirks, but rather, about teaching children what is and is not acceptable in terms of quirk use—and as Curious says, Toga’s admiration of blood was never going to be acceptable.[4] This explanation doesn’t just tell us a lot about Toga—that she wasn’t only failed by the hysterical condemnation of her parents, but also by a society that had no interest in helping her if it didn’t see a use for her—but also provides some insight on the viewpoint of the Meta Liberation Army vis-à-vis mandatory state-funded programs that dictate what “normalcy” looks like to impressionable children.           Curious is, of course, not a particularly trustworthy narrator in this, as one might expect of someone who uses language like “society’s little boxes,” but it does track with Midnight’s earlier musing of, “Maybe the anti-social dude never took the program intended to make sure he was a functioning member of society.” That kind of statement—“State-sponsored educational programs are there to program children into becoming unthinking cogs of society, actually.”—is one that it’s all too easy to imagine the people with an eye on broadcast standards taking issue with, even coming as it does from the mouth of a villain.

• Curious’s line, “Let’s turn your death into a legendary tragedy, shall we?” and its accompanying visual of two different papers with imagined headlines. The dialogue doesn’t strike me as crucial—Curious’s fervent belief in Toga’s story is amply demonstrated elsewhere and her intent to turn that story into a legend reiterated in the line immediately following—but it is a shame to lose the headlines. They tell us, in Curious’s own words, exactly the tack she was planning to take in telling Toga’s story to the general public, without the constant namedropping of the Liberation Army that she does when talking about it in person. One headline in particular—The Price of Suppression: A String of Bloody Murders—is an especially useful reference for discussing whether the MLA actually wants, as is popularly claimed, completely unhindered quirk use, even for people like e.g. Muscular who want nothing more than to murder people with their quirks.[5]

• Curious’s initial wait what response to getting Floated, and her people’s focus shifting away from Toga and onto Curious instead. On a surface level, that focus shift helps explain why Toga’s able to zip around the ground and touch nearly twenty people before they even react: because they’re afraid for Curious. It also hurts the ongoing characterization of the MLA rank and file as being fanatically devoted to their higher-ups which, again, is something Spinner is supposed to notice later. It’s the worst kind of plot device if that devotion is completely told to us rather than consistently shown!

• Toga’s internal reflection that she’s seen Ochaco use her quirk, and knows how to use it. It’s obvious from the panel that she knows how to use it, but the manga implies that Toga transforming doesn’t automatically grant her an understanding of peoples’ quirks; it’s only in observation (and possibly love) that she can reach this particular unlock. Leaving out that information leaves open the possibility that she can just do this all the time now, with anybody she transforms into.

• The reaction from the surviving crowd to Curious’s death. See above re: STOP FUCKING ERASING HOW MUCH THE MLA CARES FOR EACH OTHER.

Framing Shifts

• When Toga bolts, Curious in the anime sounded serious, her expression alarmed, like she was actually worried that Toga might escape, even though her dialogue said just the opposite. Maybe you could say that she was afraid Toga would die before she got her statement, but given that she tried to kill the girl herself moments later, I’m skeptical of that claim. Regardless, in the manga, she never loses her smile, and she flashes a Liberation salute as she stands up to give chase. It’s a characterization note, that she’s so wildly confident about this that she never stops being completely enthralled with whatever Toga has to show her.

Chapter 227 – Sleepy

• The last of Toga’s conscious dialogue, about how she’s lost a lot of blood, is fading out, can’t move—but more notably, the way that this state of things makes her feel closer to “them,” that it’s “the same sensation.” And who is “they” here—her victims? The people she loves? More alarmingly, why does the line sound like she’s been this beat-up before, and remembers the sensation? Does that tie into e.g. her comment during the training camp that she doesn’t want to fight too many hero students at once because she doesn’t want to die? Has she actually been subject to this kind of violence before in the past? Does that tie into her still-unexplained ability to erase her presence? It’s an interestingly loaded little line, for being so vague, and illustrative of Toga’s mentality on becoming the people she loves. Which also lets the scene segue nicely into Re-Destro’s observation that, in Toga Himiko’s world, there’s no such thing as “other people.”           On which note, guess what else the anime cut?

• The entire fucking scene where Re-Destro actually reacts to Curious’ death, the motherfuckers. This lost:           1. RD’s talk about the way Toga sees the world and how that led to society casting her out, which he points to as evidence of said society clinging to old ideals even though the nature of humanity itself has changed. It calls back to his methodology with Detnerat, marrying his lines from the commercial to his overarching ideals; it also shows that he understood very well what Curious saw in Toga, and demonstrates that he can express that understanding and empathy even in the face of losing one of his closest allies.           2. Skeptic’s reaction to Curious’s death, which is pretty sparse, but at least present. He says she never should have been on the front lines—an excellent reminder to the people who’re always going on about how the MLA brass thinks themselves so above their followers: Curious was on the front lines, against the wishes of some of her peers!—and calls her a valuable resource.[6] You can theorize about Skeptic not caring for her beyond her usefulness to the cause, or just that Skeptic is a huge autist who processes his emotions differently than most, and isn’t going to stop to do that when there’s still a battle going on, but either way, you need this scene to do it accurately.           3. Speaking of people who process their emotions in unusual ways, as I said above, this scene also shows Re-Destro openly crying over the deaths of Curious and each and every warrior diving into battle with their hopes for the future. They’re not crocodile tears, either. As was the case with Miyashita, there’s no one in this room that Re-Destro would need to perform grief for: Skeptic clearly doesn’t see a use for tears right now, so I don’t see him expecting them from Re-Destro, and the only other person in the room is Giran, a hostage who the MLA—very probably Re-Destro himself—maimed! It’s not like RD’s tears are going to change Giran’s mind about him (indeed, Giran gets a comedic reaction beat at the absurdity of the dude who started all this up here crying about it)! But RD says life is precious and he cries anyway, briefly, before he ruthlessly turns it off.           RD’s valuing of human life—especially his own peoples’ lives—crops up in roundabout ways twice more, both leading the fight with Shigaraki (“It angers me.”) and ending it (“Any more would bring about meaningless death.”). This, though, is when he’s most open about it, to the degree that—as with Machia’s grief—it’s kind of off-putting and strange. Cutting it makes it that much easier for people to get entirely the wrong impression of RD as a character.           4. The delightful scene where Skeptic berates Giran about asking brainless questions and then answers his question anyway. Fuckin’ hell, why cut this?? So much of Skeptic’s character is in this scene! You get moments of his neuroticism later on, but never in so concentrated a burst as this (there’s one other sequence that could compete, but—spoilers—the anime cut that one, too). The exchange also explains the cameras placed throughout the city—which are visually referenced early on—and what the MLA is planning to do with their footage. Without that explanation, the audience has no idea how, exactly, the MLA was planning to use wiping out the League as a springboard for their grand return to the spotlight. That footage is the crucial part of how the rest of the country reacts to Deika in the Endeavor Agency Arc, and the anime never even mentioned it! The audience was just left to assume that all the media came in afterward, not that there was the slightest whiff of footage from the battle itself.           5. Once again brings up Re-Destro’s belief in the power of the heart to move other hearts. We get a bit of that in Curious’s flashback, but here he says it in his own words—as he will also bring it up to Shigaraki. Once again, Shigaraki is going to be challenged about his conviction, which ties back into what Spinner and Ujiko demanded from him earlier in the arc. With so

many people set to be grilling Shigaraki on this front, it tells us again what the arc is for: Shigaraki’s conviction, and him demonstrating it to the people who think he lacks it.

• The panel of Spinner asking how long they’ve been at it and Mr. Compress responding. This line helps manage the pacing, giving the audience an idea how much time is passing as we cut around to different places. It’s also, you know, more cut Spinner dialogue, and shows the beginnings of Shigaraki and Spinner getting split off from the rest by Shigaraki’s sleep-drunk staggering angling him off in a different direction. The rest of the scene is moved to after Toga’s fight with Curious, but not otherwise tampered with.

• The other big reaction to Curious’s death, which is Trumpet using it to rile up the crowd. The group that attacks Shigaraki isn’t just some free-roaming mob—they’re coming at him in a grief-stricken frenzy, which they’ve been goaded into by one of their leaders.           This sequence also introduces the campaign van—a vehicle that will have several more appearances—to events, and hints at Trumpet’s meta-ability. Further, it’s one of the scenes that outright states that the MLA is less an army than a religion, in Mr. Compress’s line about how Trumpet is like a preacher rallying his flock. That understanding—that the MLA may style themselves as an army, but what they really are is a cult—is key to the way the MLA members act, from the very bottom to the very top.

• Trimmed Shigaraki’s flashback down, cutting—among other things—the very first lines Hana speaks, and her namedrop. This moment is the first one Tomura gets back, and the very first thing we find out is that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. The anime also failed to identify Shimura Nana’s relation to Tenko/Tomura and Hana—helpful to remind the audience of a plot thread they haven’t heard about since Kamino. It also cut out the silhouette of chubby baby Tenko and Tenko’s first line, asking why Hana’s showing him this, a line which clues us in that Hana was the impetus here, not Shigaraki as he was back then. Still not satisfied, it also cut the phrase, “Daddy said all that stuff,” which is a clear and ominous warning that there was some conflict going on between young Shigaraki and the Father whose dismembered hand he now wears on his face.

• Left the dialogue but cut the silhouette of an airborne Geten with his enormous ice fists coming in hot behind Dabi when he was smarming about it not being his style to take the pacifist route. It’s not crucial, since we see the fists again shortly (it’s the end of the chapter page, whereas the anime rolls right on into the continuation of the scene), but it’s a shame, since framing Dabi from below with this sudden presence behind him is a much more fun, dynamic angle than the dead-boring medium shot the anime used. Also too, it’s good foreshadowing for the fact that Geten can fly, since he certainly didn’t get that kind of air by jumping off the roof of the mini-mart across the street.

Framing Shifts

• The crowd attacking Tomura came at him from the back of the shot, whereas in the manga, they’re surging forth from the front; that is, the anime had Shigaraki between the crowd and the POV of the viewer, whereas the manga has the crowd interposing between the viewer and Shigaraki. It makes a huge difference in the impact! Running up from a nebulous background distance, the crowd looked small and futile. Crossing directly in front of the viewer as they attack Shigaraki makes them look like the crashing human wave that they are. But, you know, coming in from the front would mean they’d have to be animated with more detail, and again, Episode 109, more than any other episode in the arc, clearly didn’t have the budget to spare on such things.

• The moment Shigaraki first uses the spreading Decay is horrifically clear in the manga. It’s full of speed lines, Shigaraki moving so fast he decays a dude mid-word, but the impact itself is spread over two pages. We watch his hand literally cleaving through the leading attacker’s face, and then are encouraged to linger on the oversized panel below, the intricately drawn crowd, full of individual faces, still intact on the left, scattering to dust on the right, all fully lit, with Shigaraki—still drawn with speedlines to emphasize his movement—the focal figure in black at the center.           The anime rendered this moment in two stills—Shigaraki’s hand about to hit the lead attacker’s face, and then the crowd already decaying. There was virtually no movement to it, the crowd was so heavily silhouetted against a glare of daylight that it was difficult to tell what was going on, and the moment stayed on screen for only two seconds before Shigaraki landed and threw up, both actions favored with more animation than one of the signature moments of the entire arc. Hell, it even left the walls on either side of the alley intact, when the manga shows them dissolving into ash as well, decay traveling through the ground in a deadly, destructive radius around Shigaraki’s attack.           The anime ever-so-graciously allowed Spinner his line to explain to the audience what just happened, but I think that’s mostly because it would be genuinely difficult to parse if he didn’t. It also gave him a flashback to what we had literally just seen, except this time it wasn’t silhouetted for some reason, so at least the audience got another chance to look at it, I guess?           “Am I seeing things? Just now, his decay effect spread to people he wasn’t even touching!” Well, I guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Spinner.

Additions

• A quick shot of a camera, there and gone almost too fast to register. I want to compliment the anime for adding a camera back in, since it removed the shot of the cameras earlier, but honestly, given that it cut all the scenes about how and why the MLA was gathering footage, I really don’t know why it even bothered. Also too, the camera was gone so fast it felt more like a marker for a scene change—which it also was, segueing the scene from Toga collapsing (only to cut back to her later staggering down an alley) to Spinner and the rest still trying to hold their own—than it did something the audience was supposed to really notice.

Chapter 228 – Wounded Soul

• Twice in the opening pages left out scattered members of the MLA that were around for the start of the Dabi/Geten fight. Leaving them out raises the question of where all the people attacking went, but it’s also the first demonstration that Geten is a danger to his own allies. We don’t see any of them dying on-panel or anything, but we do see them having to dive frantically out of the way because Geten demonstrates no care to the collateral damage of his attacks.

• Cut a small flashback, presumably from Twice’s perspective, of finding the site where Toga and Curious’s fight concluded. You can see the ground covered in blood, and a body that looks a bit like Curious if you squint (distinguishable by the sleeves of her jacket), as well as a small group of people kneeling on the ground in various poses suggesting mourning and a paying of respects. Yet another shot demonstrating the depths of care these people have for their leaders, that they’ve completely let the battle fall by the wayside in favor of their grief.

• Drops the “those zealots” phrase from Twice’s, “I’ll rip those zealots limb from limb for this!” line. Damn, the anime really was determined to erase everything that even hints at the Liberation Army being something much creepier and more damaging than just an underground militia, huh?

Framing Shifts

• For all my complaints about the material, I generally like the voice acting quite a bit. I don’t love the first exchange between Dabi and Geten, though. It’s not a fault of the voice actors themselves, but rather the delivery. Geten was very cool and level-headed throughout, which is all right to a point, but he’s a gremlin under that troll parka, and this fight is where we hear him as close as we ever will to how he is before the multi-layered humbling he’s subject to over the course of this fight. It’s a bit of a shame to play him totally straight, without any of the snark he’s so clearly capable of—and without the tick upwards in vehemence his talk bubbles indicate in his last lines.           Meanwhile, it’s fine for Dabi to get more heated as the scene goes along, and indeed he does, but he also plays it pretty cool at first. You can tell in the shape of his talk bubbles that he’s completely unruffled during his delivery of that, “Consider this a freebie, just for you: ice melts,” line. The anime had him raising his voice for it, and it just loses a lot of the humor of Dabi’s own snark to have him yelling it instead of just laughingly stating it, voice barely raising enough to give his talk bubbles some straighter lines instead of being all undisturbed curves. (For comparison’s sake, it’s about the same level of angular as Geten’s, “You’d best not think your little campfire can melt my ice!” line, but the anime had Dabi shout his line, while Geten continued at the same unperturbed volume he’d maintained since the beginning.)

• As with Shigaraki’s first mass decay, the shot of Geten’s ice dragon did not make the impact on me in the anime that the manga did. I think it’s mostly the way the ice was colored? The claw’s pretty good, but the head looks blobby and indistinct, more like blue soft-serve than the shifting, sharp-edged, brilliantly bright sculpture-in-motion of the manga.

• Twice’s voice actor did his best to sell the scene of him finding Toga, but I wish they’d kept that tight close-up on his mouth when he says, “Give it up. The girl’s dead.” They animated him leaning closer to the camera, but that doesn’t have the sharpness of that sudden cut to being right there on his lips, like some malevolent thing is using them to speak words so terrible that they can’t even be associated with the rest of his face.

                                                          ---

Come back next time (and hopefully in less time) for Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade.

FOOTNOTES

[1] We would, of course, have an even clearer idea of that had the anime not cut the scene of Spinner shouting in Shigaraki’s face.

[2] It seems particularly strange to me that Curious and RD both mention quirk evolution as a thing they know can happen in extreme circumstances, but didn’t predict that backing the League into a life-or-death corner might provoke one or two members to undergo exactly that evolution.

[3] Mount Lady is the obvious example, but you can look to places like the island in Heroes Rising, too: one hero, and when they retired, a group of high school kids had to go sub in for a while until a replacement could be arranged. It’s not like retirements just happen overnight; the Commission had to have known it was coming. Still, they had to scramble to find someone. It doesn’t suggest they had anybody just champing at the bit to take the post, you know?

[4] In Chapter 140, we see a young Tamaki Amajiki in a class called “quirk training.” It’s uncertain how connected this P.E.-like class is to quirk counseling, but Toga wouldn’t have been getting much help there, either, seeing as it’s all about figuring out how to use one’s quirk in a way that’s “useful to society.” I can think of some ways, but nothing that I expect would be very popular or liable to be explained to a grade schooler in a country with as long a history with ritual cleanliness as Japan. To a Shinto mindset, Transformation isn’t just off-putting or unhygienic; it’s spiritually unclean.

[5] The answer there being, no, obviously not, or Curious wouldn’t, in all apparent sincerity, be trying to characterize Toga using her quirk to murder people as an undesirable outcome, a cost society is paying for its current stance on quirk use. Yes, you can gather that much from her calling Toga a tragic girl, and Re-Destro concurring later, but listen, I will take every line I can get that I can use to push back against the wretchedly widespread idea that the kid whose name means Apocrypha is the be-all-end-all source on MLA ideology, somehow more reliable and trustworthy than every other MLA character combined, including Destro himself. I would very much like it if the anime had not deleted a bunch of my talking points while making good and sure to leave all Geten’s most damning lines intact.

[6] Not that an anime-only person would fully understand why some random reporter was all that valuable a resource, since the anime cut the explanation of what Curious actually does for a living.

[realcube]

rq; could you possibly write a one shot about the reader having AD(H)D and has a really hard time focusing on core academics (math, science, english, history) because they feel scared about stimming and/or fidgeting in front of people and so they ask tamaki for help?

tw; very mild angst, fluff, stimming, i use the word ‘embrassing’ too much, swearing

words; 2.7k

it only took a moment of skimming over your latest progress report for you to understand the situation.

you continued to thrive in practical subjects like physical education, graphic design and manufacturing — the three main reasons you managed to secure your spot in the support course — but your core subjects seemed to be lacking.

for the last two years, you managed to score flying colours in all your subjects. but now, it was starting to appear as though your golden era was coming to a close. what was once a report with only scores greater than 90%, was now a range of totals anywhere from 90 to 50%.

this meant you were still passing all of your classes but these grades were only indications of how you were doing now; you knew that if you continued to struggle in all of your core courses, you might not finish your third year of UA highschool.

you simply wouldn't allow for your grades to decline further, so like any good student would, you made a list of ways you could improve.

number one was, of course, study more. however, you were almost certain that discipline and diligence aren't the causes of the issue.

number two was to ask for help from your teacher and although this was a completely valid option, you still felt like the problem ran deeper than your ability to comprehend the material. after all, you had made it this far without having to do so.

before you could even ponder number three, your pen ran out of ink. with a huff, you reach out to grab a new one from your pencil case, until you noticed that in the spot where your pencil case usually sits on your desk, there was nothing.

it was as though the void had caused all your memories of yesterday to come crashing down on you in an instant; it was almost nauseating. yet it, ironically, provided some clarity as to the location of your stationary.

two days ago, after school, you paid a visit to tamaki's house to deliver the gear he had commissioned. however, what was initially meant to be a casual interaction, somehow turned into a game of pictionary (with mirio and nejire there too, of course), for which you needed to bring your pencil case out of your bag. amidst your awkward goodbyes, you must've forgotten to put it back into your bag, hence your pencil case is probably lying dejected on tamaki's coffee table.

this left you with no choice but to throw on your jacket and begin your journey to tamaki's house. fortunately, he only lived a bus ride away from your home, yet you still mentally rebuked yourself for the whole length of aforementioned bus ride due to the fact that every time you would interact with tamaki, it felt like you were digging a deeper grave for yourself.

partially because you always found yourself oversharing with him — not that it was a one-sided ordeal — and you couldn't begin to explain why; he kinda just had a comforting aura about him. albeit you haven’t said anything embarrassing yet but the possibility of that happening was way too large. plus taking into consideration your complicated feelings for each other, leaving your pencil case at his house was a disaster waiting to occur.

or perhaps you were overthinking it. either way, you were now standing in front of his door with your school uniform and backpack on during a saturday afternoon because you had no idea what else to wear.

after ringing the doorbell, you stood as a patient statue in the cold until tamaki reluctantly opened the door and only poked his head out. “hello?”

emphasis on ‘only’, because he was truly committed to not allowing you to see him in his casual-wear, for some reason. a part of him reasoned that there was no way you would expect him to be wearing his school uniform on a saturday, but the majority of his brain was screaming about how he had to hide his clothes from you at all costs. especially since he was wearing socks, comfy trackpants and — most shamefully — a sweater with a small octopus design on it. and what would you think of him if you saw that his choice in loungewear was so childish?! it would be utterly humiliating.

completely unaware that tamaki was having a crisis behind the door, you pulled your most authentic smile and said the line you had been rehearing on the bus, “hi, tamaki. sorry for coming unannounced, but i think i left my pencil case on your coffee table when we were playing pictionary with mirio and nejire.”

“oh.” tamaki was almost too panicked to process what you just said but once he did, he immediately recalled the moment he noticed that you had left behind your pencil case. at the time, he planned on calling you to ask if he could drop it off at your house, but his nerves got the better of him and he decided to keep procrastinating the call until he completely forgot.

though, if he remembered correctly, the pencil case should be lying on his desk after he moved it there in hopes that the convenient location would remind him to return it; which it evidently did not.

“yeah. uh, i’ve got it. i’ll just go get it.” his face tingled with warmth slightly as he retracted it from the doorway, resulting in him finally realising how cold it is outside. in fact, since the eaves of his house shielded you for the climate, he didn’t even notice that it was snowing!

the polite bone in him got to work before the rest of him could react, as he blurted out, “come in, make yourself at home.”

fuck! i mean, it’s not that he doesn’t want you in his house — quite the opposite actually — but rather now he had to dart off to his bedroom before you could catch a glimpse of his sweater. but at least now this gave him an opportunity to change into something less embarrassing.

closing the door behind you, you were now left alone in tamaki’s living room. your eyes followed his figure as he dashed towards his bedroom, “odd.” you murmured to yourself. you weren’t exactly tamaki’s BFF but you were close enough to him that you could tell when he was acting weird.

but you didn’t think to much of it. actually, you were slightly grateful for this weird spike in tamaki’s behaviour because if he doesn’t want you around, that just means you are less likely to overshare and catch feelings, which means better outcomes in the long run, right?

after changing into a plain blue sweater and collecting your pencil case, tamaki strolled into the living room and handed it to you with a weak smile, “here you go.” he almost whispered, patiently waiting for your response so he could mentally prepare himself for goodbyes or another hour (or so) of conversation.

“thank you!” you basically squealed, pulling off your bag to stuff your pencil case back inside. while adjusting the straps on your shoulders, you took a moment to appreciate tamaki’s familiar attire, “oh, i love your sweater; i have a similar one with a cute little octopus on it.”

tamaki concluded that neither of you would be saying goodbye for a long while.

“thank you.” he responded with a soft smile, folding his arms over his chest as he made his way towards the kitchen, “um, so how are you?” he inquired, assuming that it was a pretty harmless question that would simply help get the conversation off the ground while he prepared tea.

“i’m good. but i don’t think i can say the same for my progress report.” you said with an awkward chuckle, standing aside as you watched tamaki put the kettle on. “and how are y--”

“what do you mean?” tamaki asked, disregarding the fact that he didn’t answer the question himself. although, simply put, this was because he found that conversation came more naturally to him when he was with you; or perhaps that is a slight overstatement. he tended to be more curious and inquisitive when talking to you and it wasn’t hard to tell.

until now you and mirio simply brushed it off as tamaki’s interest towards the support course, since you were the one who manufactured most of his gear. yet nejire always teased him as she believed that tamaki’s interest was caused by a different sort of passion.

nevertheless, regardless of tamaki’s motives, you still found yourself consistently answering his questions, “eh, well, i’ve just not been performing as well as i hoped.” you replied plainly with a shrug.

“is that all?”

no matter how many questions he asked, each one still managed to catch you off-guard. “um,” your throat ran dry, which might’ve been a sign from a deity to stop talking, but your swallowing was your way of proving that you did not care. although you will probably regret it later, talking with tamaki always relieved you.

“well,” you started, the lump in your throat growing by the second, “i guess i have a bit of trouble focussing in some classes too. but i mean, maybe it is because i drink too much caffeine? i’m not even sure to be honest.” that was lie, you were  90% sure of what the problem was, but you wanted to hear tamaki’s response before you proceeded, to determine whether he’d be open-minded about it.

“there is no such thing as too much caffeine.” he joked, handing you a cup of tea while he sipped on his own. “so it’s probably something else.”

he’s too good. it’s as if he knew you were withholding information.

“well,” you began once more, trying your best to appear clueless, “i guess moving helps me focus, but no once else in the class does it so wouldn’t it be embarrassing if i was the only one?”

“i don’t think it would be embarrassing at all.” he spoke softly, leading you back into the living room and offer you a seat on the couch beside him, which you graciously accepted. “but if you think it is, then i have something to help.”

before you could say anything, tamaki got up and headed towards his bedroom; leaving you to drink his heavenly tea while he searched. though, only a few minutes passed before you felt his arms slither over your shoulders to hook two clips together by your neck.

“there.” he said with a proud smile, “this is one of my cloaks that i use in my hero costume. you can tie it together so it covers the whole front half of your body.”

observing your reflection in the blackened TV, you smiled upon seeing for your own eyes that everything he said was true. it was like wearing a cape that goes around your whole body, and it had a nice hood! “wow, this is so adorable!” you cheered, then paused, “but how is it going to help me focus?”

“well, you can do whatever you want underneath it and no one will notice.”

ignoring the shady implications of that sentence, you moved your hand around underneath the cloak and he was right! no one would see you fidgeting underneath the cloak, and hopefully the professor’s voice would cover any sounds you made. plus, it looked pretty badass.

“this might work! are cloaks included in dress-code?” you joked, but you weren’t laughing for long as you turned to look at tamaki who was wearing an upset expression with his head hung low, “no.”

“oh.” you sighed, unclipping the cloak and handing it back to tamaki with a slight smile, “it’s fine. thank you for your help, and the tea. it was delicious, but i’ll probably have to start cutting back on the caffeine.” you gave it a chef’s kiss yet he didn’t even chuckle like he usually does. it was almost scary how your true emotions reflected onto him, as it seemed like the whole atmosphere had changed.

“(y/n).” tamaki uttered with a much more serious tone; eyes filled with determination yet trained onto the cloak in his hands. “you shouldn’t be embarrassed-- or at least, I, um, don’t think you should be.”

your eyes widened at how sternly he said the first part; granted, he became flustered when it came to the second part, but it really showed you how firmly he stood by what he was saying. you nodded for him to continue as he looked like he still had a lot on his mind.

“it’s unfair that you have trouble focussing because of what other people think. so my two cents is that you should do whatever you need to do, and, um, not care about other people... well, i mean, you should care about them, but just not what they think about you. because like, you can’t really control that--”

he found himself having to abruptly shut his mouth to stop himself from prattling on any further. especially since most of what he was saying was probably none sense that he mistook for inspirational, or at least that is what he gathered from the shocked look you wore; it was ironic how humiliated he was.

“that’s nice to hear.” you hummed, a kind smile gracing your features in place of the previous stunned expression, “though it’s hard to believe coming from someone as cool as you, tamaki.”

“cool?”

“yeah.” you chuckled, rolling your eyes at his baffled look which he must have been faking. surely he knows how highly thought of and respected he is throughout the whole school. he is in the big three, for fucks’ sake! “there is probably a better word to describe it, but you are one of the most badass people i know.”

“badass?” it was as if all he was capable of doing was repeating these words to you with an innocent yet confused gaze.

“yes!” you enthused, “so, is there anything you even have to be embarrassed about?”

“i do!” he almost whined, and without thinking, he stormed to his bedroom only to grab the sweater he cast aside earlier to show it to you, “look! an octopus sweater, isn’t this embarrassing?”

you deadpanned, unsure as to whether he was joking or not. “stimming is very different from a octopus sweater but go on.” however after a few moments of actually analysing the design on the article of clothing, you exclaimed, “oi, i have that exact same sweater! how is a cute little octopus embarrassing? plus, it would be extra cute on you because you have tentacles.”

in a moment of frustration and wanting to prove a point, he threw the sweater aside and began to sheepishly grab at the ends of his sleeves, “well, you know what’s even more embarrassing? having a crush on someone for three whole years and not having the balls to ask them out! and on top of that, being to nervous to return my crush’s stuff after you left it at my house.”

you weren’t sure if he meant to switch out ‘my crush’ with ‘you’ on purpose or if he was just confused. either way, you found yourself leaning in to wrap the poor boy in an overdue embrace, smiling against his chest as he hugged back. “that was..” you faltered, allowing tamaki to interject with “mortifying” but you were quick to correct him, “i think that was a very unique way to confess, and i'm just glad you did.”

your chuckle that followed was left to echo around the room as tamaki stood still and silent, simply enjoying the comfort in your arms as feeling the pleasure of time escape him. until eventually he whispered close to your ear, “so since i know more about embarrassment than you thought, will you take my advice now?”

you snickered, gently tracing shapes onto his back, “i was going to take your advice either way because if i don’t get good grades and remain in the support course, how will i graduate with you?”

“good point.” he hummed, not-so silently enjoying the relaxing sensations near his spine, “but we are not wearing matching octopus hats.”

how did manage to shoot down your idea before you even proposed it?

[wisteria-lodge]

bird primary (system in progress) + burnt badger secondary (really loud bird model)

Howdy! I’m still trying to figure out my own houses and was wondering if you could provide some insight. I haven’t exactly mastered the system so I don’t know how accurate/inaccurate my claims are, so bear with me.

The “why”/Primary: I am extremely motivated by knowledge. I want to know things, not just out of intrinsic curiosity (though that does play a role), but because knowing why things work helps me protect myself more effectively.

One of the trickiest things about this system is separating motivation from method. Because yeah, they are related, but they're also really different. Like this example: "I protect myself by learning things." That's a how, that's secondary stuff. (Bird secondary of course.)

A recent example is this— a group of my former friends all ditched me because I discussed a heavily stigmatized mental disorder that I show symptoms of. And my first response (other than bawling) was to ask them why. And when I got the answer, I was hurt, but I understood. I don’t say this for you to show me pity, but rather because it illustrates this model in action.

This is a really interesting example. Your friends acted in a way that emotionally hurt you. First you processed your feelings (which you talk about in a dismissive, lighthearted, jokey way) then you asked them for more information... which hurt you, but also made you more secure. This is very Bird primary. You feel feelings, but they're whatever. What actually bothers you is not having the data.

(I suspect you're going to end up being a Double Bird. And Double Birds are unique in that their morality and problem-solving are SO interconnected, that they think I'm crazy for saying that for most people, they are in fact two very different things.)

When I got the why and processed my emotions, I cut off ties and realized that their severe judgy-ness had hindered my life for 2 years. And now that I know the “why”, I won’t bring up said disorder again until I know it’s safe. It might never be, but I still have hope.

You updated your system, and you cut away the parts that aren't serving you anymore. Bird primary.

Morally-speaking, I am very sensitive to the views of others around me.

External primary.

I’m not proud of this. In fact, it’s a detriment.

A lot of Birds feel this way. It's a big part of why they tend to like Lion primaries. Lions are much more able to dismiss things with "sounds like that's a them problem."

I won’t go into details, but my parents are… bad. Not wholly, but they are bad. I’ve tried for years, and still do, to escape their opinions because I know it’ll influence mine.

Parents are sticky. They do that. I've been a happily UnBurnt Lion primary for a while now... but I still sometimes hear that voice in my head that sounds like my mother.

And, much like them, I tend to get over-passionate in what I stand for. Unlike them, I’m willing to change if evidence supports this change. I always, however, carry the burden of my former hatred. I always feel guilt over my old beliefs. Even if I’ve changed, the pain I’ve done can never be reversed. And this guilt eats me alive, this shame of being fundamentally wrong.

Okay. You got really emotional on me really quickly here. This could mean a couple things. Your parents sound like fairly toxic Idealists, either Exploded Lions or Exploded Birds (I'm sort of leaning Lion due to the more emotion-heavy words like "passion" and "hatred.") Birds can feel bad, feel guilt, feel shame when looking back at an older version of themselves that they now consider morally repugnant. (Birds are human.) Idealists struggle with the angst of worrying that they are fundamentally wrong about the world. So you could be a guilty Bird, especially if your emotions feel wrong or unhelpful somehow. But you could also be a very Burnt Lion modeling Bird - because Bird seems safer, and you don't want to be a Lion the way your parents are.

When the friend-event happened, I thought that I was in the wrong, and that I had once again fucked myself over because of my passion and sureness in what I have.

"I thought I was wrong because I was acting like an Exploded Lion primary." Yeah, I'm thinking there's some sort of outside influence here that needs to be unpacked.

It took a lot of convincing and evidence for me to see that they were the assholes (albeit I wasn’t pure either— I was their friend, after all).

I'm definitely leaning Bird for you. A bird surrounded by Lions maybe, who sometimes uses Lion terminology. But Bird.

I am a planner and system-lover at heart. I’m not proud of it, but it’s just part of me.

What's with all this negative language? Being a planner and a system-lover is a wonderful thing to be. There's some Burning here.

The caveat— I have autism, so I’m not sure if it’s due to that or not. Hence the shortness of this section. Take it as you will, regardless of if it’s evidence or not.

I have autism and I'm a Lion Badger. People are different. The only real pattern I've observed is the way nerodivergent people disproportionately build Bird secondaries as coping strategies.

Honesty is maybe not the best policy, it’s still an admirable one. I wish, frankly, that my moral system was more honest. I feel like I have no set morals. That it all comes from elsewhere. Lion primaries have this set, intrinsic morality that I envy. My friend is a lion primary, and while my views have radically changed, hers haven’t inched. She’s always been honest about herself and what she holds true.

I'm doubling down on Bird primary for you. This is the perspective of a Bird looking in on a Lion. Lion morality isn't set or intrinsic - it's built, and it changes, but it builds and changes differently than a Bird's does (more slowly, usually). But there really is a pattern of Birds seeing it as more moral/easier/better.

And I’m still trying to figure out what “truth” means to me. I mean, yes, I’m a dry and blunt asshole, but that’s not really the same as gut morality. Internal honesty is what I want, and external honesty is what I have to some extent.

It sounds that you are going though a lot of very intense shifts in your life right now. You've got a diagnosis that has you questioning your place in the world. You've followed your parent's system all you life, and are now deciding that you don't want that. But now comes deciding what you do want, and that's a lot harder (especially for a Bird, who has to build it from the ground up.) You like the way Lions do things, but Lion primaries do not feel accessible.

I’m very clear with who I like. I can admit their faults, and even get annoyed or angry at them, but not even betrayal can stop me from loving them. I’d compare myself to the Twelfth Doctor from “Doctor Who” and Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders in that regard.

So maybe you are building a system with very Snake values.

Loyalty is one of my weaknesses. I get overly-attached to people, and so if/when they leave me, it shatters my world. But my brand of loyalty is mostly to people, not philosophical ideas.

... but you're not *really* comfortable with Snake either, if you consider it to be a "weakness."

I would consider myself somewhat philosophical (well, as much as a fucking teenager can be)

Teenagers are *extremely* philosophical, stop being so down on yourself.

but I can be somewhat vague in my beliefs.

Because you're still building them, give yourself a *second.*

If I were to rate the likelihood of what primary I think I am, it’s something like this:

Bird: 9/10 probability (maybe burned)

Snake: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability (maybe burned)

Lion: 2/10 probability

What is it with Birds and numbered lists?

The “how”: I feel like I change in order to fit in. I mean, to some extent, we all do, but it’s far more drastic for me. With the lion primary friend, I act as a “Jason Todd” to their Batman. I challenge them, egg them on, crack jokes and become violently passionate and act like a nerd, and she simply watches, usually adding her own comments but mostly sitting on the sidelines by choice. We also joke that I’m the Ferris Bueller to their Cameron Frye. But, with another friend, I’m a parent figure. I listen most of the time, and sometimes jump in with creative ideas and we talk for hours about it.

I'm guessing Actor Bird, both because you can specifically list out the qualities that you "act" out. And because you're invoking and basing your performance off specific [fictional] characters. Which is a HUGE Actor Bird thing.

I go with the flow of a given situation as best as I can (with the added caveat of being autistic, because that does affect how well I can read a room). However, that’s where the adaptation ends.

Huh. I'm hearing Burnt secondary language here. "I'd like to go with the flow and read the room - but I can't, because I'm autistic." You can definitely *learn* how to read a room. Why do you think I'm so interested in (and good at :) personality systems? This is how I learned to use my Courtier Badger. I used to model Bird secondary like crazy, and I kind of don't bother anymore. I don't need the training wheels.

Planning: like I stated before, I’m a planner. I try to learn the most about a situation before jumping in. Sometimes, however, I stall the inevitable and miss my chance, so I jump in and wind up nearly drowning. And this dichotomy repeats. I overcompensate for a lack of knowledge in a situation by micromanaging, or I wind up sitting bored when I’ve already done everything I need to do. And yes, stress and boredom are equally as destructive for me. I try so hard to plan to avoid both of these outcomes, but it only works half the time. So, I guess I’m a bit of a “planster” overall.

I want to learn about a situation... but sometimes I "stall" or "drown" (Burnt language.) But planning also leads to "micromanaging" and "getting bored" (model language.) I think you've got a really loud Bird secondary model... but there might be something else underneath.

Collecting things is fun. Postcards, candles, lighters, crystals, rocks, 1940s hats, knowledge, stories, music, (original) characters, the list goes on. I’m a collector of whatever I can get my hands on. Hell, by this point, I can’t tell what’s my special interest and what I just enjoy (again, autism).

Oh my goodness gracious 'my special interest' and 'what I enjoy' are not two different categories!

But my systems and collections are my coping.

Figured.

I can’t say, though, that they hold any weight outside of emotional release. There’s nothing practical about knowing how they shot The Outsiders movie, or how crows have a flat tail and ravens have two main sections on theirs. All of this knowledge almost feels useless to me. I mean, sure, I’m great at school, but what else? Nothing, it seems like. And being good at school and nothing else makes a person go crazy when they can’t achieve their academic goals. But that’s a bit besides the point— I’m a collector, but I’m unsure how well this really fits into a secondary beyond a model.

Bird secondary model.

I invest in others more than I care to admit.

Oh man, are you a Badger secondary like me?

I genuinely believe in the goodness in humans, no matter how impossible it becomes. Even those who I don’t see any good in aren’t wholly evil. My perception isn’t law.

^ That's primary stuff. Maybe a more Badger-flavored system is going to work better for you than a Snake-flavored one.

But some people trust me: with their secrets, with homework, with relationship issues, with their religious struggles. And I try to help. I might not be good with it, but I do try to help as best I can.

Kinda sounds like a Badger secondary.

I use my planning and my categorizing skills and my knowledge to benefit others. I show up, I do what I need to do, and I don’t usually expect much to come of it. It’s nice when something does, but it’s not expected. And sometimes, these investments into others' lives and grades and relationships do pay off. I make friends. Those friends stick by me, and I trust them. I continue to invest in others, because I am a lover even though I’m cynical.

I think you're a Badger secondary.

And when that trust is broken, like the example in the beginning, I go to people who won’t abandon me to get a second opinion. When I say that I love someone, I mean it. So it hurts when they leave. It always does.

Oh that's your friends leaving hit you so hard. It's not an abstract morality thing at all, it's practical. You're a Badger secondary, and they were your base of support.

I’ll be frank on this— I’m almost entirely sure that I’m not a lion secondary. I’m fiercely efficient and some people see me as a good leader, but that’s it.

Lion and Badger are the two Inspirational secondaries. They're the one who sort of manage to collect armies or families as a side effect of existing.

Even with the leader example, I prefer interpersonal relations or to be alone. I’m not a big fan of group settings.

That's fair. I am also a Badger who really, really likes my own company. Or small groups of interesting people.

If I were to rate the likelihood of what secondary I am, it’s like this:

Bird: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability

Snake: 5/10 probability

Lion: 0/10 probability

Other systems for comparison: I’m aware that MBTI and enneagram are, at worst, pseudo-science, but I still enjoy them regardless. At best, they’re fun self-help tools, and that’s how I try to use them.

MBTI: INTJ (Ni-Te-Fi-Se)

Enneagram: 5w4, tritype 514

Sagittarius sun libra moon cancer rising in astrology

FLEV or LFEV in attitudinal psyche

sx/sp (sexual and self-preservation) in instinctual variants

MBTI, Enneagram, and astrology are all fun in their own ways. (I don't actually know the last two!) And I can talk about them on their own terms. But this system was the best, and the most useful, when I went looking for words to describe myself.

I hope this is enough information, and thank you again if you do happen to do this! If you don’t, that’s totally okay. Have a good day!

Thank you for writing in. That was a journey! Thanks @thesketchykid for the submission.

[iamanartichoke]

just some thoughts, based on @iamnmbr3's post here (I didn't reblog bc I didn't want to seem like I was trying to disagree with you, though our opinions on this do somewhat differ) which included a quote from a recent interview with Mike Waldron.

I was just thinking today about all of the mixed reactions of the fans, and how extremely different some fans' response has been to others, and taking into consideration a lot of the interviews w/ the showrunners (when I say showrunners I mean Mike, Kate, and anyone else who made final decisions) and the conclusion that I, personally, have come to is that it's not so much a hatred of Loki or, like, a personal vendetta against his character as much as it is just a lack of empathy and a fundamental misunderstanding of him as a character - and I bring this up bc this quote (or interview) is a great example of that.

" ...opposite our guy, who has been doing things throughout his life somewhat selfishly, driven by his own trauma."

On the one hand, you have verbal acknowledgement from the writer that Loki's actions are driven by trauma, which is what we've been saying all along - that if you consider the context in which Loki committed most of his misdeeds, you see not a villain motivated by evil but an "anti-hero," in a loose sense of the word, motivated by trauma and pain. This acknowledgement is not nothing.

But on the other hand, Mike recognizes "driven by trauma" as a motivation and misinterprets it or doesn't understand quite it. He sees Loki's actions as selfish bc they are self-serving, on the surface - Loki feels Not Good Enough, Loki wants a throne and power to feel Good Enough = hence, Loki is a narcissist whose inferiority complex is his motivation to do evil things and/or betray those who love him.

I think this general mindset can be applied toward how he views Loki's life - and, by extension, Loki - in general. He recognizes the trauma and that growing up a prince of Asgard wasn't all sunshine and roses but, at the same time, he seems to be approaching it from a position of "nothing you went through is that bad, considering the privilege you had, especially compared to a child abducted from her family who then grew up homeless and on the edge of one apocalypse after another, scavenging to survive and having to teach herself everything she knows." Strictly on a surface level, Loki's upbringing does look pretty good compared to that.

There's no real empathy there, though; this mindset says "you can be privileged or you can be destitute and if you're the former, it could have been worse and you should be grateful for what you did have, and if you're the latter, it's made you tough and leaves you with little sympathy and/or patience for privileged people."

It's very black and white, but it's not an interpretation that he's alone in coming to. How many times has the conversation (argument) been had on this website, where some careless person is like "Loki is just evil" or "Loki isn't evil but he did bad things, stop apologizing for him" or "Loki literally killed hundreds of people but lol go off I guess" - like, that mindset (and by extension, lack of empathy for Loki in particular) is shared by significant pockets of the fandom (or at least the audience in general).

Kate, on the other hand, has expressed not only a love for Loki but a somewhat more empathetic understanding of Loki's trauma and kind of the root of all these issues that drive his villainy in the first place, but for whatever reasons, as director, she chose not to have the narrative reflect those roots and to be honest, I'm not really sure what to make of that except that it would seem her interpretation of Loki is more in-line with those parts of the fandom who absolutely love Loki's portrayal here.

I don't know, I'm just kinda rambling at this point, just trying to express some things I was thinking as the show's run comes to a close. Ultimately I think that the showrunners probably feel that they've done Loki justice as they understand him, and wrote a story/characterizations that were accurate to their perception of him, as opposed to having any malicious intent or intense dislike of him (I kinda think Mike doesn't really care for Loki as a character, but that's purely my own speculation). And, I mean, fiction being so subjective, it's like - it is what it is, really.

Disclaimer - I do not know Mike Waldron or Kate Herron and speculation about their perspectives and storytelling choices is coming as an interpretation of things they've said themselves in interviews, and is not reflective of them as people or even how I feel about them as people (pretty ambivalent, ftr).

[xiaomomowrites]

home

Genshin Impact | TartaLi/ZhongChi

Summary:  “Home isn’t always a place,” he taps Zhongli’s chest, “home can mean a lot of things to different people. For me, my home is my family. Wherever they are is where my home is. And maybe that’s in Liyue, maybe it’s in Snezhnaya, or maybe it’s in Inazuma. Either way, wherever my mother is, wherever my siblings are, that’s what I call home.”

As Childe trails off, he’s suddenly aware of how he’s fidgeting with a button on Zhongli’s coat now. The tips of his ears turn red. He meets his gaze abashedly. “Does that answer your question?” 

Zhongli smiles fondly at him. “I believe it does. Thank you for indulging me.”

Or; Zhongli struggles to define what exactly “home” means to him.

Find it on Ao3!

This part takes place between act V and Zhongli, Come Down. I know I posted this series totally out of order, please forgive me for my lack of organization :,D

A/N: First of all, I finally have a beta reader!! She’s helped me through the process of writing this and I’m incredibly thankful for her support. I accidentally made her cry with this fic though, even if it wasn’t necessarily sad?? Regardless I appreciate her feedback haha. 

Oh my, I feel like I’ve been writing these two being really soft for too long. After this, I really need to face the music and write these two fighting. The time has come. They won’t be in the honeymoon phase forever!! I’m gonna vibe check all of you. 

Also, do yourself a favor and listen to the songs Home by Michael Buble and Sparks by Coldplay after or during you read this. You’re welcome.

Lastly, you can find me on Twitter @/xiaoscribbles where I’m extremely active and talk too much about Genshin. I love making friends there!

Enjoy <3 -u.n.

--

Zhongli never had a place to call home. 

Or rather, he never bothered to find one of his own and commit to it.

He was always too mobile, too nomadic. He had places to be, people and adepti to see, contracts to see through. Zhongli never found himself settling into one place for too long. Sure, when he was Rex Lapis, he had nested many times. He was a beast whose presence was too large to be confined into one space, so he would glide to the highest mountain in Liyue with ample space for a dragon like him, and settle. Zhongli remembered how he would make it as comfortable as possible for himself using all kinds of things he would pick up on his travels. A deep purr of satisfaction would rumble through him as his scaled belly would make contact with the coolness of the earth, and Rex Lapis would allow himself to relax against the stone, body sinking as if he were weightless. Although, no matter how he shifted, tossed and turned when he tried to rest, something was always missing. 

Even the familiar feeling of the Liyuan ground was not enough to fill the void in his chest.

It was satisfying, sure, but never completing. 

Hence, his lack of understanding of the human desire to settle down in one home for the rest of their short, yet meaningful lives. 

Were they not itching to get up and go somewhere else? See the world? Appreciate the land beneath their feet in all its entirety? Zhongli failed to comprehend. Even an ancient being like him fell short in understanding the idea of a “home”. 

Well, what consisted of a home, anyway? Four walls and a roof over their heads? A kitchen filled with food? A soft bed with layers and layers of sheets? What was the meaning of all that, when the true beauty of the world was beyond those four walls, high into the sky, and deep beneath the sea? What kind of pleasure could possibly come out of being domesticated? 

Nevertheless, Zhongli did make an old promise to try to understand humans as they were. So sure, Zhongli supposed he could appreciate the art of architecture. He saw how hard people worked to build these beautiful houses with intricate designs to maximize safety for the residents excited to inhabit them. It was endearing, Zhongli thought, how enthusiastic humans got about a house. The idea of settling down with their loved ones would give them so much serotonin, so much drive. It was inspiring to him. Zhongli had always hoped that one day, he could feel the same way about someone.

So why couldn’t bring himself to understand the joy in this “home” everyone spoke of? What was he missing? Was he missing the duvet? The one thousand thread count sheets? Was he missing the fine China he saw peddlers selling on roads far from town? Because he had tried his best, living in his mortal form, to find the simple pleasure in decorating his home. 

But no matter what he did, no matter how many throw pillows he placed on the couch, he simply could not deny the gaping hole in his chest when he went to bed at night. He had reached a point where even cooking for one every night upset him so, and he would go to bed disgruntled and hollow. The vast margins left on the king sized bed in the middle of the night kept Zhongli awake.  Though he did not even need sleep, he had tried his best to form what the humans called a “proper sleeping schedule”. Apparently, according to Hu Tao, sleeping at four in the morning and waking at seven for work was “not suitable”.

But in truth, what was he supposed to do? Pray tell, what could he possibly do to absolve the issue of the chasm growing in his chest with each passing night? 

“Xiansheng!” A jovial voice snaps him out of his reverie. 

Zhongli looks up from his mundane paperwork to see a familiar head of red hair bounding toward him languidly. Oh, what a sight for sore eyes.

“Childe,” he greets, “did you pester Miss Hu Tao into letting you back here again?”

“Pester?” Childe brings a hand to his chest to mock his hurt, “I hardly have to bother her to come back here. A simple ‘you look fantastic today’ is always my ticket in.”

Zhongli scoffs fondly. “How can I help you, Childe?” He sets his pen down and leans back in his chair, amber eyes following the Harbinger curiously.

“Well your break is in ten minutes, so I figured I’d come grab you for lunch at Wanmin?” Childe plants two hands flat on the cherry red oak desk and leans forward into Zhongli’s space. There’s his signature teasing smile spreading slyly across his face, the one he knows Zhongli won’t be able to resist.

Zhongli hums in approval. “Sure, let me just wrap up this last form and I should be ready to go shortly.”

Childe drops down to his elbows in response and rests his face between his palms. “You sure? We could just go now, you know. I got Hu Tao consulting Ying’er about the new fragrance for the next hour or so.”

Zhongli leans forward and meets him in the middle. “I must be responsible, Childe. If my lunch break is at noon, then I will not leave my post until then.”

Childe pouts, jutting his bottom lip out cutely in an attempt to convince him otherwise. Zhongli, immovable as ever, simply leans forward and captures his lips between his own. The Harbinger makes a happy noise in the back of his throat and presses closer, positively humming when the ex-Archon reciprocates. But the older man is quick to get back to work, pulling away as quick as he came, but not before he nips at Childe’s bottom lip. The ginger whines petulantly at the loss of contact. 

“Have a seat, Ajax.” Zhongli speaks, a hair’s width away from kissing him again. Childe grumbles, but agrees regardless. He seats himself in one of the plush armchairs located in the corner of the office and makes himself comfortable for the next ten minutes. 

Zhongli readjusts himself in his seat and picks his pen back up, glancing back down at the form he had already completed. He blinked owlishly at it. He must have finished signing it while Childe was talking without realizing what he had done. Regardless, he moves onto the next document to peruse silently. Mid sentence, he scoffs playfully, shaking his head at the thought of the ginger distracting him so. Is he even surprised at this point? Not even a little bit. The ginger has an incomprehensible hold on his heart, one that he doesn’t really want to shake off.

“Something funny, Xiansheng?” Childe teases from his seat. He’s reclined in his chair, relaxed, head lolling against the cushioned headrest. His eyes are closed and his shoulders are drooping into the leather. He’s relaxed, for once, and the thought of Ajax allowing himself to let his guard down in his presence makes Zhongli’s heart thump happily in his chest.

“Not particularly,” Zhongli pushes himself up with a groan. Goodness, his joints are getting tired. He pads over to where Childe is seated and forcefully makes room for himself on a chair that is clearly made for one person. Childe lets out a surprised yelp at the sudden intrusion but scoots over to make room, anyway. Zhongli makes himself comfortable by angling his body to where it’s being cradled by the junction between the armrest and the back, and opens his arms as a silent invitation.

Childe takes it happily and launches forward to burrow into Zhongli’s chest. He rests a gloved hand over his heart and snuggles closer, inhaling the deep scent of silk flowers and leather. Zhongli’s arms come around to strap him against his chest, gloved hands petting his sides as he presses a kiss to red hair. The contact immediately vanquishes the discourse in his mind. He squeezes him tight for good measure, forcing a grunt out of his Tartaglia. 

“Xiansheng,” he calls. 

“Hm?”

“You’re working too hard again.”

“Am I?” He questions absentmindedly. “And here I thought I was pulling my weight just fine.”

Childe snorts. “Pulling your weight? You know I make enough for the both of us. You could retire and stay at home, relaxing and reading books, or whatever it is you do at home.”

Ah, there it is again.

Home.

For the second time that day, Zhongli is struck with confusion.

“What is home to you, Childe?” He asks, voice soft and far away. Childe frowns against his chest in confusion.

“Home?” He parrots.

“Yes, home. What is ‘home’ to you, Tartaglia?” 

“Hmm,” the Harbinger hums, tapping a gloved finger against the ex-Archon’s chest idly as he speaks. “I suppose home is Snezhnaya. Home is what I grew up in. The unbearable cold and the old cottage house. Ice fishing with my siblings, massaging my mother’s back. Those things are all home to me.”

Zhongli ponders. Of course that is what home means. Familiarity, yes? So, technically, his home was Liyue. The hustle and bustle of trade by the harbor, the loud sizzling woks at the food stands, the loud marketers on the street that work hard day and night, the enthusiastic story tellers spewing exaggerated lies— that was all home to him. 

So why, then, was Zhongli still dissatisfied with this conclusion? Home should obviously be Liyue. He created this land with his own two hands. Gave people the very drive that keeps them alive today; he gave the idea of mora and fair trade and economic prosperity. He’s watched countless faces pass him every day, every year, every century. He’s seen new faces, young faces, old faces, familiar faces, too, the ones he had seen on older souls. Reincarnated souls. Zhongli knew those souls. He’s had dinner with many of them on multiple occasions. 

And it was no secret that Zhongli was well known in his hometown. Every business owner was familiar with his eloquent way of speaking and ambitious ways of buying. With the arrival of Childe, every business owner all but doubled their enthusiasm now that Mister Zhongli finally had a means to pay. People knew Zhongli, they adored him. They admired his amber eyes and long, beautiful hair, the ends of it looking like it had been dipped in melted mora. When he walked, people’s eyes followed. They would stare longingly at his beautifully crafted coat, his single earring, the fine leather gloves that cover his deft hands, and they would admire the way he walked with purpose, and with fire. A confidence so set in stone, it was almost difficult for one to even approach Mister Zhongli. For so long, he was considered Liyue’s most handsome bachelor, until of course Tartaglia came along and swept him off of his feet, capturing his attention in a way no one else could ever imagine imitating.

Yet, despite all the attention his people lavished upon him, there was always a nagging feeling of isolation nipping at him in the back of his mind. Despite creating the very ground beneath their feet, he simply felt like he did not fit in. Only when he was with Tartaglia did he truly feel like he belonged anywhere. It was rather inexplicable. There was something about the way Tartagali’s presence wrapped around him with a level of tenderness he had never experienced. It covered him like a gentle embrace, welcomed him without judgement, and loved him without expecting anything in return. The thought of Ajax himself made Zhongli’s heart swell

Speaking of which, the said man was now pressed tightly against his chest tracing lazy patterns into the fabric of his coat. Their long legs were tangled where they were dangling off the seat, with Tartaglia’s foot rubbing affectionately against the older man’s ankle. 

Oh, how far they have come. 

“But,” Tartaglia suddenly interjects, jolting Zhongli out of his thoughts. “If my family were to come here to Liyue to stay, then I suppose Liyue would be home, too.”

Zhongli hums. “Naturally. I’m sure they would find the variety of houses here in Liyue nice and peaceful, perfect for a new home.”

At that, Childe lets out a light laugh. “Honestly? They could live in a cardboard box in Inazuma, and I would still call that home.”

Zhongli frowns. Well now he’s even more confused than when he started. Since when was a cardboard box a suitable home for a human? It completely lacked all the appliances the houses here in Liyue had. Why would Childe settle for that? He of all people was aware of the love he holds for his family, there simply was no way he would call that a suitable home for his family. 

“I don’t understand,” he says instead, “a cardboard box, Tartaglia? You do not strike me as the type to settle for such an...unbecoming home. Especially for your family.”

“No, no, Xiansheng,” the Harbinger chuckles, sitting up slightly so he can look Zhongli in the eye. “I was just exaggerating. And, home isn’t always supposed to be a house, you know. Those two things can be mutually exclusive. Maybe not all the time, but, definitely most of the time.”

Well this was certainly new. Now he truly did not understand what it meant to have a home.

“Apparently I do not know.”

Childe sits upright to look down at the ex-Archon.

“Home isn’t always a place,” he taps Zhongli’s chest, “home can mean a lot of things to different people. For me, my home is my family. Wherever they are is where my home is. And maybe that’s in Liyue, maybe it’s in Snezhnaya, or maybe it’s in Inazuma. Either way, wherever my mother is, wherever my siblings are, that’s what I call home.”

Childe is aware he’s rambling, but he can’t help it. Once he starts talking about his siblings, he simply cannot stop. “It wouldn’t matter where I was if I couldn’t hear my siblings from the other room. If I didn’t wake up to Tonia’s loud blow dryer every morning, or if I didn’t hear Anthon trying to talk to her over the blowing, then it isn’t home. If I can’t hear Teucer’s footsteps coming toward me asking about a new Mr. Cyclops toy, it isn’t home. Not to me. But like I said, it’s different for everyone.”

As Childe trails off, he’s suddenly aware of how he’s fidgeting with a button on Zhongli’s coat now. The tips of his ears turn red. He meets his gaze abashedly. “Does that answer your question?” 

Zhongli smiles fondly at him. “I believe it does. Thank you for indulging me.”

Childe pushes himself up and off the chair, stretching and yawning obnoxiously. “Great,” he replies once his jaw finishes unhinging itself from that yawn, “let’s eat, I’m starving.”

—

To put it simply, Zhongli rethinks his definition of home all night. After he gets home from his dinner date (Tartaglia tugged on his sleeves until he agreed to leave his shift early in favor of a new restaurant that had popped up recently), he closes the door behind him to take in the composition of his home. Tartaglia had been the one to pick out most of the furniture, so although it lacked many of the traditional Liyuan decor Zhongli would have furnished the place with himself, it had a nice touch of Tartaglia everywhere he went. 

His couch, for example, was a deep mahogany leather that stayed cool to the touch despite the hottest of summers. Zhongli’s dresser was nice and tall, a deep chestnut brown cut from the forests of Snezhnaya to match his bed frame. His bed was elevated by an incredibly grandiose four post frame that hung a beautiful golden translucent curtain all around the bed, draping the perimeter and creating an ethereal atmosphere for when he sleeps at night. 

(“It’s kinda sexy, don’t you think?” Childe had asked one day, while he was pondering which bed frame to buy for his boyfriend. Not that he needed to, considering Zhongli finally has a stable salary, he just wanted to.

“Ajax,” Zhongli had said disapprovingly, “what about it is sexy to you? 

“I don’t knowww,” the Harbinger hums, “maybe it looks like I would feel like I’m on cloud nine when we’re, you know…”

“You can say sex, Ajax, I believe in you.”

“Oh stop that!” Childe whacks him playfully with the catalogue, “I’m being a good boyfriend and getting you a beautiful bed frame cut from the finest oak tree and sheets woven with high quality silk! You could be nicer to me, you know.” He’s pouting, and he knows it. Zhongli’s eyes soften.

Zhongli shakes his head, laughing. “You know you don’t need to do that, you know.”

“I want to,” Ajax persists, “this is your first actual living space as a mortal! I want it to be perfect. I refuse to have my boyfriend, who is a literal god, sleeping on a bed with no bed frame. Unacceptable.”

Zhongli smiles and watches him as he continues to ramble about all the different bed frames he could buy. Oh, his love for this boy knows no end.)

The hints of Ajax everywhere he goes is how he keeps himself sane each night. His possessive urge to be around him every second of every day (courtesy of being a dragon deity his entire six thousand year life span) is soothed with the smell of him on his sheets and the extra toothbrush by the sink. One of Tartaglia’s scarves is folded neatly on the arm of his couch, and during those nights where he truly feels Ajax’s absence, he’ll hold the red fabric close and breathe the scent in deeply. The smell alone is enough to rock him to sleep on some nights, but on others, it simply is not enough. On those nights, he finds himself reading book after book about Snezhnaya culture until he passes out from exhaustion. 

One would think that it would be better for them to just live together. Given that they spent every second outside of work with each other, even going so far as walking the long route home just to avoid saying goodbye, a person would look at the way they held each other close in public and think that they’ve been married for quite some time already. 

But alas, they had agreed to take their relationship slow in the beginning. The both of them had much to adjust to, given that one of them was a notoriously fierce Harbinger, and the other was an ex-Archon adjusting to the world without his gnosis. They both had complex schedules that they were much too familiar and comfortable with to just up and leave for another person. There was a certain period of time that they had agreed to spend apart, well, as “apart” as they could be, before they decided to do anything drastic, like move in together. 

There was too much to consider, anyway, Zhongli reflects as he gets ready for bed. Would their living habits even align? Would Tartaglia even be a good roommate? Would he take out the trash responsibly? As much as he loves the ginger with his entire heart, he doesn’t think he could do it for long if Tartaglia was the type to walk around with shoes on. Such an act should be considered illegal, anyway.

Waiting was the right thing to do. 

Right? 

The nights Tartaglia spent with him were the nights he could sleep a full, uninterrupted eight hours. They were the nights that Zhongli felt himself truly relax into the sheets and sink into a blissful sleep, knowing his beloved was being held impossibly close. And if nighttime was therapeutic for him, mornings felt ethereal. The mornings where he rose with the sun to be met with the sight of Tartaglia next to him were the mornings he felt like he could fly again, and soar through the open Liyue skies in his rawest form forever, so long as Tartaglia was with him. 

In fact, more often than not, Zhongli thought about the way it would feel to have Childe by his side as he explored the skies again. He would think about the way he would have to strap him down, nice and close so he doesn’t fall off his back, and then take off high into the sky. Not too high, lest he accidentally give his boyfriend a heart attack, but high enough to hear those delightful shrieks Childe will let out when he’s excited. He thinks about the way Childe could grasp onto his mane for security, hands threading through golden locks, legs tightening around his torso to avoid falling. Oh, he thinks about this a lot. 

But, waiting was the right thing to do. The last thing he wanted was for Childe to feel uncomfortable with the pace that their relationship was going and make him uneasy. Besides, just because he was a possessive dragon at heart, it didn’t mean Ajax was willing to cater to his needy tendencies. So, he promised himself that he would create a reasonable distance between them for the time being.

Why then, did he hate this distance with every fiber of his being? 

Why is the distance so unbearable, especially at night? 

Why is he so unsettled with the very few miles between them? It’s not like Zhongli is in Liyue and Childe is in Snezhnaya. Tartaglia is literally only at the inn. 

Yet he craves nothing more but to be close to him at all times. Zhongli’s skin itches with the desperate desire to feel him by his side when he goes to bed, when he wakes up, and all the moments in between. Does that make him clingy? Maybe. But old habits die hard. 

Zhongli huffs and looks down at his flattened pillow with disdain. No amount of fluffing will restore it to a state that is suitable for his likes. Even the elegantly woven silk night robe wrapped around his body offers little to no comfort. 

He glances at the clock. 

It’s only half past midnight. If all went well with Tartaglia’s shift, he should be home now, fresh out of the shower. 

Without thinking twice, Zhongli throws together an overnight bag and rushes out the door. 

—

“Coming, I’m coming,” Childe calls to the incessant knocks at his door. The knuckles continue to rap against the barrier, though, and Childe’s fingers itch to summon a water blade in the case that things go south. Considering that there is rarely anyone that would dare to disturb him at this time of night, Childe would say his precautionary measures are reasonable. He had summoned an angry water god, after all. It was only a matter of time before the angry mobs got to him. 

The knocks sound again, and Childe angrily ruffles his hair against the towel. If they could just wait one second, he could answer the door with dry hair, but no. Peace was not an option, apparently, and neither was a perfectly fluffed head of hair.

He stomps toward the door and swings it open, ready to scold whoever had—

“Xiansheng!” He startles when he sees Zhongli standing in the doorway, donning a simple black t-shirt tucked into high waisted pants that were loose and slightly flared at the bottom, and his feet were covered by simple strappy sandals. Childe vaguely remembers purchasing those pants for him when he had mentioned wanting more loose and liberating clothes. The ex-Archon looks good like this. He looks… impossibly soft. Vulnerable, almost. There’s a distant look in his amber eyes that has Childe mildly concerned, though. Childe tries to ignore the sudden urge to protect him to his last dying breath.

“What are you doing here?” He sidesteps and reaches out to drag his boyfriend in. “I thought we had already discussed you sleeping so late! I know you’re an adeptus, you don’t require sleep, blah blah blah, but still, you—“

“I missed you,” Zhongli stated so matter of factly. “I wanted to see you. So I came here.” 

Childe gawks at him and closes the door slowly. So he had just walked all the way here?! At this hour?! Goodness, the audacity—

“Xiansheng,” he whines instead, dragging the older man into an embrace. He wraps his arms around his neck and presses his cheek into his hair. “You can’t just say those things. It’s impossible for me to love you more.”

Zhongli holds him with desperation, welcoming the hug so enthusiastically that Childe knows there’s something to be said. 

“Can I stay the night?” The adeptus asks once they pull apart. 

Childe looks at him, dumbfounded. “You don’t even need to ask! Go, make yourself comfortable. Are you hungry? Have you had dinner?” 

Zhongli drops his bag by his side of the bed and takes a seat, still watching Childe with careful eyes. 

“I’ve eaten,” he answers carefully. “I just couldn’t seem to get comfortable at… home… so I came here.” 

Childe frowns, and joins him on the bed. He flips the covers open and clambers in, resting back against the headboard. “Not comfortable? Is something wrong with your place?” 

“Maybe,” Zhongli tries, “I really don’t know. Frankly I’ve been conflicted about… many things… recently, and I feel as if I have reached an impasse. I don’t know where to go from here.”

“Zhongli,” Tartaglia says, suddenly serious, “how come this is the first time I’m hearing of this?” His voice drops an octave, the worry seeping into his tone. 

Zhongli reclines and rests against the headrest, too. “I did not know how to express my troubles to you, mainly because I’m having trouble defining it myself.” 

Well, that’s fair enough. Tartaglia can’t find it in himself to be mad at that reasoning.

“Well,” Tartaglia begins, reaching for Zhongli’s hand and hugging his arm to his chest. He scoots closer and uses Zhongli’s shoulder as a pillow. “Why don’t you just start rambling and maybe it’ll come to you.”

“I think I have a vague idea, actually,” Zhongli adjusts himself to make himself more comfortable for Ajax. The both of them find themselves staring up at the ceiling as they converse. “Remember when I asked you what ‘home’ means to you?”

“Of course,” Tartaglia answers. Oh, he has an idea of where this is going.

“Well, I’m unsure of what it means to me.”

Bingo.

“What it means to you?” The Harbinger asks, craning his neck to look up at him. Zhongli hums, affirmative. 

“Yes, I’ve been struggling to define the term for myself. I’ve been observing others much more closely and how they define their own home, but I’m afraid it has made me more confused.”

Tartaglia juts out his bottom lip in contemplation. “What do you mean?” 

Zhongli takes a deep breath, a long explanation at the tip of his tongue. Tartaglia braces himself, as he usually does.

“Today you told me home was your family. Miss Xiangling told me home was her father, and the smell of their kitchen. Young Xingqiu told me his home was within whatever book he was reading, even describing it as his safe space. And Miss Ningguang, most peculiar of all, had told me home was when she was out at sea, but only when Captain Beidou was by her side. Mind you, I had fully expected it to be the Jade palace, considering the built it from the ground up.” Zhongli rambles, “and I just found it strange how so many humans find different definitions for the word home. Such a simple word, too, so imagine my surprise when I discover it’s true complexity.”

“I’ve encountered many things in my life, Ajax. I have met so many people in this lifetime and watched them grow, watched them die, and even watched some be reincarnated. But I think…” he trails off, and the warmth in his eyes glimmer as he reaches an epiphany. “I think I am struggling to define the term because I have never been presented with the idea of stability. Things are always changing. The world around me continues to warp and I have noticed, in my time so far, that humans find the need for stability and reassurance because of the nature of their short lives. That is where I am lacking.”

—

Try as he might, Tartaglia takes slight offense to his statement. 

Lacking stability? The thought was bitter on his tongue.

Was… was Childe not enough? 

No, no, he forcefully derailed that train of thought, he came here tonight because you’re the only thing he can rely on in his life right now. Show him that.

“Well,” Childe starts carefully, and thanks the stars that his voice is steady. “What about me?”

Zhongli makes a confused noise. “What about you?” 

“Do you consider me as a stable thing in your life?” Childe prods, digging his cheek deeper into his shoulder.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Zhongli snorts. 

Childe unironically feels an ache in his chest. He stills against Zhongli. Ouch. 

Luckily, Zhongli is at least able to pick up on his sudden discomfort, and he’s quick to follow up his statement. 

“You misunderstand, Ajax, you being wildly chaotic is a beautiful thing in and of itself.” Zhongli gently pries Childe off his arm to look at him directly. As expected, Childe is upset. He’s got the same glassy eyes he always dons when he’s upset, but doesn’t want to admit it, and his bottom lip is red and obviously bitten in an attempt to keep himself from feeling unreasonably angry. 

“Oh,” Zhongli coos at the sight, “I’m sorry my love, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” Childe blinks hard, “I’m just being dumb.”

“You’re not being dumb,” Zhongli is quick to negate his self-deprecative tendencies, “I must have come off very harsh just now. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Childe thumps a fist against his chest, “it’s fine, really.”

“As I was saying,” the Archon continues, “nothing about my life so far has been stable, Ajax. Things are constantly changing. Time continuously flows, and it simply does not wait for any man. Unfortunately, I have seen many people come and go. And unfortunately, one day you will become one of them--”

“Zhongli stop,” Childe interrupts him. He’s angry, now. His brows are furrowed and there’s an evident frown on his face. There’s a slight scowl across his lips where there used to be a precious smile just moments ago. “What the hell?” He asks angrily. 

“Ajax,” Zhongli scolds softly, “it would be in your best interests if you let me finish.”

“Well, not if you’re just gonna talk about death,” Childe retorts. He’s aware that he sounds childish, but such a topic is not to be taken to lightly. Especially when it revolves around him, and what he would be leaving behind. The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

“Whether or not you’re stable, whether or not you’ll be here forever, you are the most important thing to me, probably ever.” He speaks with a certainty that makes Childe shiver. “You are the first person in a very long time that has made me want to try to grasp at the fleeting seconds I have with you, Ajax. You drive me crazy. And I love you for it, because never in my six thousand years have I had as much fun as when I am with you.”

Dammit, Childe is crying now. Zhongli has such a way with words, how could he not? Dating him is just one, huge, glorified emotional rollercoaster. Zhongli brushes a stray, reluctant tear away with the pad of his ungloved hand. 

“Frankly, stability is overrated,” the ex-Archon smiles at the soft giggle that escapes his beloved’s lips. “I have found, albeit slowly, that I would rather have someone loud and rambunctious than someone slow and settled. That is my role, if anything. There simply cannot be two of us, can there?”

A soft “no” is huffed as laughter from Childe. What a boring relationship that would be, truly.

“But if it is stability you seek, Ajax, let me be that for you. Let me be here, solid as stone and steadfast. Let me be the pillar of strength you need to turn to in times of trouble. Okay?” He brushes a knuckle gently across his skin.

Childe makes a sound that sounds a little broken and a little delirious. “When did this become about me, Xiansheng?” 

“To me, it’s always been about you,” Zhongli smiles fondly. Childe feels as if he’s been shot in the heart.

Childe gives him a shaky smile and nods. He can’t seem to control his heart at the moment, so instead, he says, “You’re my home, Zhongli.”

--

The gears seemed to finally click somewhere in Zhongli’s chest. The hollow feeling inside suddenly swelled with a sense of nostalgia, bringing with it a feeling of peace and serenity. Zhongli’s eyes widen, and the ex-Archon looks down at Childe with a sudden air of solid certainty. Childe almost shrinks at the intensity of his gaze. 

“Of course,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “Of course it’s you.”

“What?” 

“How could I be so blind?” Zhongli cups his face with both hands, and Childe reciprocates by placing both palms on his wrists. Confused, but following along. Cor lapis eyes stare straight into his soul, unforgiving as it digs deeper and deeper into what makes him whole. 

“Xiansheng?” Ajax asks, dazed by the intensity of Zhongli’s stare. God, his eyes are so golden.

“It’s you, Ajax,” for once, his voice cracks and he loses composure, “you… are home. You are home. To me, that is my definition of home. I only ever feel-- I only ever feel like I belong when I am with you. It was so obvious, and I--”

“Zhongli,” Ajax gently pries off the hands cupped around his face. His heart can’t handle this right now. It’s too much. He’s too in love, he needs to do something or he’ll explode. He stares directly into those beautiful, mesmerizing golden eyes. Ajax cradles Zhongli’s hands in his own, petting over his knuckles, when he asks, “Marry me?”

His eyes widen comically, as if they weren’t already the size of saucepans with his first epiphany.

“Oh.”

So that’s what he was missing. 

“I know we said we would take it slow, and I know I’m young, or whatever” Childe begins to ramble, “but fuck going slow, Xiansheng, it’s been months and all I want to do is go to sleep with you next to me. I know what I want and it seems like you do, too, but if I misread that then--”

Zhongli hushes him with an incessant press of his lips against Childe’s. It is a loving kiss, yes, but it is filled with a desperation that only the both of them understand. It is a kiss that is so different from the others; one full of certainty and ambition, a kiss full of overwhelming commitment. The longing behind the contact is an answer in and of itself, but he pulls away to speak regardless. 

“Yes,” he breathes, pressing his forehead against Childe’s, “yes.”

That night, Zhongli finally comes to the conclusion that home does not have to mean four walls and a roof. It doesn’t pertain to any kind of fancy kitchen appliances, or four post bed frames. Zhongli quickly learns that it doesn’t have to be about a place, and all the stories it tells. It’s not even Liyue, the very land he built himself. It has nothing to do with any of that. In fact, the sheer ridiculousness of Zhongli’s inner conflict has him rolling.

Instead, it has everything to do with the red head beneath him. It has to do with the way he calls his name in the middle of the night, claws his hands down his back and juts his hips forward, desperately seeking friction. Home has everything to do with swollen lips, red from being kissed, cheeks hot pink from the heat slowly filling the room, and strong thighs clenching and unclenching around his waist. Home has to do with his precious Snezhnayan soulmate.

Simply, home is Ajax.