#Seriously this guy does nothing but belittle his sister

[enixamyram]

Okay, this has been bothering me for a while because despite having so many people blocked and so many things muted, I'm still seeing a lot of anti complaints. So:

When, exactly, does Andrealphus "flirt" with Stella?

I keep seeing "criticism" that he's supposed to be gay but he keeps flirting with Stella, or that the shows pushing an incest joke with him and his sister or yadda yadda ya- Bullshit. Nothing that he does can legitimately be called flirting.

Andrealphus brings up Stella being attractive for one of two reasons. To insult her or to brag to others about his family being in some way better than others.

Whenever he calls her attractive, it is in the same sentence of either implying or all out saying that her looks are all she has going for her. He constantly refers to her or even straight up calls her stupid to her face and I can't remember the last time saying someone was dumb was the same as flirting with them.

Or he'll refer to her looks to others as another way of bragging about his family (note; he rarely refers to her by name and instead says "my sister", a manipulative tactic that constantly relates her positive points back to him somehow). Even this is insulting her though as, again, as far as he's concerned all she has is her looks and nothing else. That's why it's the only thing he talks about. In his mind, Stella is nothing but a pretty face and so when he talks about her, he needs to remind everyone about her one good quality as another ego boost for his relation to her.

Is it still creepy the way he talks about her? A bit, sure. Is it as creepy as some people make out/undermine him as a gay man? Not even a little.

[themoomoorn]

Scarlet Blaze Salt Mine Highlights Because I Feel Like It(tm)

There's going to be so much petty salt that you'll probably need to get your blood pressure checked. Enjoy!

EDIT: Finished Scarlet Blaze, so I added more images. Part 2 is here.

The Sun Should Have Never Set on Our Empire(tm)

Somehow they made Faye but even worse. And unlike Faye, Monica is a garbage unit. Seems hard to pull off in a Musou game, but her spell list is a mess, as are her stats, and her personal skill is even worse.

They tried to erase her wanting to kill Rhea, but then she still says she wants to kill Rhea anyway. But devs said she's happier and nicer guyz.

Lorenz has siblings now I guess. Note that in his Lysithea Support, Hubert also mentions having a brother and a sister. but he's still the eldest. So why was he stuck to Child No. 9 again???

Labrunda was found in the Stockpile of Convenient Sacred Weapons That Exist Now(tm).

Not only does she still belittle the guy and think him unworthy of her time like in Houses, but come Chapter 14 (providing you kill Byleth's disaster dad), she apparently genuinely was upset that he betrays her. But then again, he happily licks her feet on Golden Piss, so meh.

...am I supposed to feel something right now

I'm beginning to suspect that the Koei devs were pissed that Byleth the Local Churchgoer was more popular than Edelgard.

Aegir has claim to a stretch of sea that doubles up as their trade route to Morfis. This specific trading relationship is also mentioned in one of the books that shares details about the Empire's territories.

Claude: "BUT FODLAN HATES FOREIGNERS AND THE MEANIE CHURCH SCREAMED AT THEM TO NEVER INTERACT WITH OUTSIDERS Now shut up Dimitri and let me raid your treasure vault you're only being ignorant of my customs."

Only Edelgard's feelings are allowed to be hurt, remember?

Also, whomever calls Byleth a block of wood again should probably take a look at Shez on SB, because calling SB!Shez a block of wood would be an insult to wood.

There's so much disturbing dehumanization of the Nabatean characters (and Byleth by extension), but sure, Arval's soooo sympathetic because he cares about his War Boys, I guess. Oh, and he denounced Thales! What a good lad! /s

Duma take the wheel

Cry about it

Look, I know a macaron is technically a type of cookie, but can't you just call it a goddamn macaron!? Bear in mind that this is the same game that conflates coffee with teff, and the localization actually made a good change by just calling the stupid drink coffee.

I murderkilled Byleth's disaster dad for this go-around and Byleth tips off Claude about...something. Of what, I don't know, but it makes Claude opt for an ill-fated betrayal. He lays it on thick with Byleth, and while Edelgard may get an extra chapter and a marginally better outcome by letting Walmart Greil live, the "what-if...ing..." if you will, is played up the hardest with Claude, which is really saying something considering the original game. And honestly, the what-if-ing does make a level of sense with Claude...but then, you have aspects of him that have nothing to do with Byleth at all perverted by the narrative, as detailed in this post.

Like seriously, even with something like having to murder a half-sibling who repeatedly says to your face that you're a mongrel who deserves to d*e looming over you, like...instead of making something potentially interesting, they derailed him so badly. Honestly, I feel for his Japanese VA struggling to get a good read on the character.

Anyway, end rant.

Even Byleth thinks he's laying it on thick.

I feel like this alleged duress of signing a pact with the Empire would've landed better if it actually was done in the span of days or even weeks, but GW and SB both state it took about four months, which would've been well after any dust settling from Shahid's second raid of the Locket.

Claude, the country you rule has like...almost zero culture.

Sigh.

No shit.

Fuck off, Claude.

Pictured: A "commoner's revolution designed to overthrow an opresuve sistum"

...seriously, why does this dude hate the Nabateans as virulently as she does? It's actually pretty ironic - folks will haw about Dedue or Catherine having no minds of their own, but it's Hubert who's really the most mindless one of all. He mostly lacks the rich inner lives and backstories the other two have.

Sylvain, 90% of the time, is C-Tier. 10% of the time, like right now though? SSS-Tier. Absolutely brutal. Wish we had even more of him.

YA THINK!?!?!?

Because I couldn't be bothered (and because the only Deer with exclusive Eagle Supports/incentives are Lysithea and Lorenz), I only got Shez whining about Claude betraying Egg. Most of the other Deer have unique dialogue doing the same. It's kind of sad how little most of them think of Claude, but then again, he can be a massive dick.

TBC Since I hit the image limit!

[yu-gi-oh-bishies-imagines]

Ideal types of S/O for the Barians

*I got this request and I feel like writing for it! Though it’s been too long since I watched Zexal and I may not have a tight grip on all Barians, so please forgive me any wrong headcanons *bows*

Oh and I didn’t included Vector, I am sorry. I just can’t see this guy in a relationship at all..

Nash / Shark

Shark has a lot of pride, still after the events happened in Zexal. So no matter what you do or say, never, I repeat never, belittle him. He has a hard time with his sister pretending that she is the older and stronger one and has to protect him. He doesn’t need anyone who protects him. Instead, he wants to feel that he is the one, who could protect you. So.. show him how much you rely on him (without being too childish)

Talking about childish, Shark actually could fall for someone mature for their age. Someone who is not as silly as his other friends and someone who gives him a relaxed time when he is annoyed by being around the others for too long..

In terms of appearance, I think he could like long hair, because I imagine him relieving his stress while his fingers brush your long hair while you are lying in his lap. Something about feeling your hair calms him down

I think Shark’s ideal partner is someone who is mature enough to let him have intelligent chats, but sweet enough too to make him feel you’re an actual couple. But also very understanding for his comfort zones and a rather slow pace in your relationship.

Marin / Rio

Rio doesn’t have a certain taste for an ideal partner, because she has way too much own facets in term of her personality. She has a quite wild and dominant side, which cannot be handled by anyone. So, she needs someone who can read her mood changes and react accordingly to them.

Even though, Rio is a quite strong and independent woman now, she may have a soft side for romantic gestures, like receiving flowers, love letters and other gifts. She also enjoys cute dates too, but shoosh. Don’t tell her brother that she is into the girly stuff from magazines.

She is also fun loving. So she needs someone who is as adventurous as she is, enjoying to discover new stuff together and never running out of stamina or willpower. With this girl, it never gets boring.

But the most important thing, her ideal partner has to get along with Shark. Because she could never accept someone who is hated and hates Shark. It won’t get well to separate you two from each other you know.

In terms of appearance I actually think she would like someone taller than her, maybe some muscles she can lean on (or when she is feeling cheeky, to jokingly fight them to test who is stronger). Or maybe just to annoy the hell out of her brother with teasing and keep stating why he doesn’t have muscles like you. Poor Shark.

Alito

Alito totally prefers a romantic person. Someone who actually cherishes every little thing he does for them and make every day special. Liking flowers would help actually too, because we would literally DROWN you in roses and other flowers every single day.

He needs a sweet, kind-hearted and friendly person who is easy going around everyone. Of course, he could make himself a challenge by finding someone he keeps failing to woo but seriously, he would lose interest quite quickly when his avances are ignored for too long. Especially for someone who falls in love that easily like him..

He prefers someone who is smaller than him - or at least his height, because he refuses to be a little spoon while cuddling. And because he would love to ruffle your hair all day. That’s easier with a smaller partner. Because Alito is not the tallest man either.

And that is all to make him happy, really. Just be a cute, sweet thing he can carry like a queen and give him the love that he deserves. (And he wouldn’t mind, if he would see you in a cheerleader costum while you’re cheeing him on on his duels and fights)

Girag

To be a person, Girag will fall for and being happy, the most important thing is something every single person in this fandom has to offer; Being an Otaku - or at least show some love for Mangas and Animes. Because Girag is a big fan of those and if he could talk and read mangas with his partner, it would make him happy.

Imagine you are sitting in his lap while he helds a manga in his big hands and you both can read in blissful silence and he always asks if you finished reading the pages until he turn over the pages.

You might guessed it from the previous headcanon, a smaller partner is prefered for this giant. But not too small, because he would be afraid to break you if you are too fragil.

He has no other big preferences, because in all honesty, he is completely inexperienced with love matters and he never thought about stuff like that for a single second, You have to teach him but after that, he is going to be your teddy bear.

Dumon / Durbe

Similar to Shark, Dumon would prefer a rather mature partner. Someone smart, but still not arrogant about their smartness. He needs someone calm and silent person at his side. Someone where he knows, you’re waiting for him, no matter how long his work make him absent.

As a former knight, Dumon has a great sense of chivalry and gentleness, so romantic gestures from his partner would make him happy too. Though, he is not as romantic as Alito, but Dumon knows how to treat a lady very well and it would help, if his partner is ladylike (in personality and appearance.)

Actually I see him with an author, because he loves to read and I am positive, that he would love to read his s/os books and chapters as soon as they are finished. Imagine a romantic atmosphere, dim light, maybe candles, a chimney fire that quietly spit while you are reading your newest chapter to him, while he takes a little nap on your shoulder, because he overworked himself, again.

Aside from being ladylike, he would prefer longer hair, with ponytails. Something like Anna in Frozen 1. It would be cute if you wear glasses too though.

Mizar/ Mizael

Not going to lie, this one is quite tough, Actually I can’t see Mizar in any romantic relationship as barian. I can’t say how he is after being reborn, but I will try,

Mizar is a loner. He always had his dragons being the only creatures he trusted. He never had someone in his life, he grew feelings for, So love is something completely new for him.

To catch his interest, you have to be not an annoying brat that makes him cringe when he sees or hear you. So, yeah another mature partner for this guy. Someone who knows when to be silent or just wordlessly fullfill his wishes. That’s not that easy, but you’ll learn to read him.

Being fond of Dragons will help too, of course. It hadn’t to be YGO Dragons, if you like dragons in general, you have a small sympathy place from him. Though he would still be very cautious, because he never learned to trust others aside from his fellow Barians.

Mizar is a really complicated character when it comes to romance and a partner. He needs to learn the human kind of having a relationship and he may not like it a first. He may even push you away at first when you try to approach him. What you need is a good share of patience for him. Patience and showing him that having a partner is nothing bad. He eventually let his guard down and you tame this dragon.

[evakuality]

Mia, episode seven

Sorry, don’t read this if you like Mia.  I am not a fan of hers in this episode.

1.  Ugh.  I do not like that there is no recognition here of the conversation with Kiki.  I don’t get it - if you’re going to have that conversation and make it feel like a wrench for Mia to ‘give up’ Alex, why not address it properly?  Even if this comes up again later, I dislike that when she arrived there was no discussion about the Kiki thing, and now it’s all about sex with no recognition that she is now literally lying and going behind Kiki’s back.  Worse, it was Mia who told Kiki she would do whatever it took to keep her friendship, so she lied about that too.  I’m really disappointed in where this went.  She didn’t have to tell Kiki she would give Alex up - they were having a really honest conversation and she could just have said ‘I fell for him even though I know I shouldn’t’ and I don’t understand why they made that choice.  I don’t remember the og on this at all so I don’t know if they got it from there, but even if it is in there, they could have chosen to not have Mia deliberately and specifically lie to Kiki’s face and then act like she has no compunction about it at all.

2.  Okay so they’re finally talking about Kiki, but Mia dismisses that with ‘it’s not about Kiki’ and ‘I already talked to her’?  When that conversation literally ended differently, and now she’s lying to both Alex and Kiki?  Yeah, this isn’t doing it for me at all.  And to think, I actually did like Mia before this.  But the end of the last episode and the start of this one has really revised my feelings on her.  It’s not just Alex who’s being a dick in this situation.  I also don’t like that we’re supposed to be feeling sorry for Alex here because he has ‘problems with his parents’.  I know, assuming this is like the og, that there is a deeper thing here with the sister, but even so.  How on earth can they have a relationship when it’s based on lies and hating each other’s family circumstances?  I still don’t understand what they see in each other.  If it’s only sex, then there are SO many more people out there and nothing so far has sold me that either of them genuinely likes the other as a person.

3.  And yet another clip with Mia knowing she’s being an asshole and choosing not to address it.  I know she has this need to be in control and I know she’s doing something that’s for her for once and that’s probably both exhilarating and scary, but ugh.  The amount of lies is really building up.  Most of the other couples in our little world have communication issues etc, and many are hiding things, but actually lying on purpose like this isn’t as common and Mia is just casually throwing them out there like it’s easy.  Also ‘why me?’ ‘because you know who I am’ - ummmm, no she doesn’t Alex.  You’re literally hiding stuff from her as well!!  Unless you mean, she knows you’re an asshole and gives you the time of day anyway?  Plus, it’s not believable - Alex clearly started stalking/pursuing/gaslighting her well before she showed that she ‘knew’ him.    Like it’s nice that they’re trying to ‘communicate’ here, but if they’re just going to keep lying it’s not actually going to help.

4.  I get what they’re going for with this little bubble the two of them are in.  But Mia literally is avoiding her life and the more time she spends not connecting with her friends, the more likely they are to be concerned.  This bubble can’t last and I dislike that this whole thing is built on such a fragile and unbelievable base for them as they pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.  It’s strange that I’m okay with it with Matteo and David and their fake vs real thing, but I think it’s because the issues are different and there were no specific promises to other people not to connect.  Keeping things private is different from lying outright.  Plus, neither Matteo nor David was an actual asshole and I still don’t believe that Alex isn’t the guy he showed through 1.5 seasons, and the one who was so awful to Kiki.  

5.  And of course, as expected, Kiki finds out when she’s trying to do something nice for Mia.  And of course she’s now more hurt than she was before.  So, now Mia thinks ‘I can’t do this to Kiki’?  Not a few days ago when Kiki was vulnerable and open with her?  No, it has to be now after she made things 500% worse.  It’s funny - I don’t usually find myself in a situation where I dislike the PoV character in these shows.  But here I am.  I actually dislike Mia in this episode.  I can usually get where a character is coming from even when I can see them totally stuffing up, but here she’s made conscious and deliberate choices and I don’t have any sympathy that they’ve come back to bite her.  I usually have some sympathy for the struggles, but not today.

6.  I know, from things that I’ve seen around, what this bunch of all-caps texts from Alex are about.  But again, Mia has no reason to know and respond the way she does.  It might have helped if we knew ahead of time what is going on with him, even if it was mentioned casually before maybe.  But instead, we have her jumping to her feet and rushing off to him for no real reason.  This is, again, the big problem Druck always has - pacing and making the story beats believable as an entirety rather than as discrete clips.  Even looking at the time for this episode - we had the entire build up and destruction of their relationship within the space of half an episode and now less than a minute later it’s all back on because of this panic attack.  It’s too fast, no time to breathe.  Skam and its offshoots always work best when things are allowed to develop organically and at a pace that isn’t this rushed.  The clip format is half to blame for this, but even with that it should be possible to develop this whole thing at an easier pace that builds tension and makes sense.

7.  Pacing, pacing, pacing.  Ugh.  Just this episode Mia explained why she’s not ready for sex, and now when Alex is or has been in a vulnerable state, she’s all ‘hey you know what would be a great idea?  Sex’  Why does all this stuff all have to be in one episode?  Why did we need so much of Alex being an asshole at the start of the season only to cram so much of the important relationship development stuff into one short episode?  I know they had to cut it down from the og (thank goodness, that one was far too long), but there are ways they could have done it while letting all these plotpoints breathe a bit.  It’s too crammed into one episode when it didn’t have to be.

8.  Yes Hanna, express this stuff for me: ‘all this happened in the last 3 days?’ Exactly.  Also this scene proves once again why Mia and Hanna should be a thing.  They have real, genuine conversations in which no-one ends up feeling belittled.  And they have great chemistry.  Seriously, Mia should have looked in this direction.  But honestly, in terms of pacing, Kiki finding out at the end of this episode and then this whole part being the focus of the next one would work better.  This whole business with Carlos is cute and all, and his advice is actually pretty decent, but again it’s all so rushed.  Again, I know this was released clip by clip and so the format is a bit different, but it should probably also work in an episodic format.  I feel like I’ve lived 3 episodes all in one go and now we have the other girls showing up and being disapproving as well; it’s too much.

9.  I don’t like that two episodes in a row (and after such a LOT in this one) we have a ‘Mia trying to be open with Kiki’ scene.  This excuse ‘I wanted to protect you’ is unkind and we already saw on more than one occasion how Mia protecting Kiki was a bad thing for Mia.  Also ‘I didn’t understand that it’s something serious between Alex and me’ is such a huge problem for me.  She literally lied to Kiki’s face and then went to Alex immediately afterwards.  So either she did know how serious it was or she didn’t really care that much and didn’t need to go back to him at all.  This is so frustrating because we’re supposed to accept all of this at face value when actually on any sort of consideration it doesn’t hold up.  So even though Kiki’s little speech is really good and does highlight all the issues I have with Mia, unfortunately a) I already disliked her because of it and b) because it’s all so rushed, I don’t care about any of it.  Except Kiki.  Which, considering how awful and racist etc she has been is a huge feat.  And effectively, Kiki has moved herself aside and allowed Mia to have Alex if she wants.  All of this in one episode!  

Basically I did not enjoy this episode, there was too much crammed into it (I have this same issue with some of Nora’s in s5, and it is one of the biggest issues I often have with Druck compared to the og) and so while Kiki’s speech should have been a turning point allowing us to see a way into Mia’s future, I am actually left disliking our main character and not all that inclined to watch the rest of the season.  

[journeyofbell]

Guys, I'm so tired of feeling sad. This entire month has been nothing but jolly Christmas everywhere, everyone is supposed to have a good time and relax with their family. To enjoy each other's company and not focus on conflict.

I've been awake for the past 3 hours, sobbing quietly and then had a silent panic attack in the bathroom. I hate how dysfunctional my family is, not even Christmas can get them to behave nicely. I was naive enough to believe that I could have an actual peaceful Christmas eve, just for once.

Instead, I've spent the entire day watching my uncle belittle, criticise and ignore his son, my cousin. Meanwhile, he's sweet and polite towards his daughter, the sister. The kid has done nothing wrong, btw. It's terrifying to see how my uncle won't even look at his own son when the latter is talking to him. Instead, my uncle wandered off to look for something stupid, interrupting a story my cousin was telling only to him, and no one said a damn thing. I asked my uncle to come back and listen but no, apparently he does that all the time.

I'm upset because my uncle is angry at my mother for doing the exact same to me. He thinks he's better than her yet every sentence towards my cousin is like listening to my mother speak through him. My cousins are bloody adults now but my uncle insists on talking to his son like he's an idiot. Not to his daughter, only his son.

And I'm not only sad, I'm angry and disappointed. I thought my uncle knew better, working with kids for a living and all. But he still treats his son like a troublemaker who can only do wrong. It hurts so much to see because my cousin has autism, like me. He's known since he was 6 or so. He's such a good kid, he's doing so well but my uncle is still bothering him every second of the day. No matter what he does, it's never good enough for my uncle. This kid just wants his dad's attention and approval for a bloody minute and he'd be better off talking to a fucking wall.

My family has come apart at the seams because my grandmother was like this. Her children (my mother and uncle) cut her off years ago due to her extreme lack of support and no empathy for her own children. Both claim they want to be better than her yet neither have tried to self-reflect and consider, for once in their god damned lives, that we're not here to please them.

My grandfather on that side committed suicide when I was 2 years old due to depression. I'm the only out of his now 5 grandchildren he got to meet in person. How can that loss and sorrow have taught my family absolutely nothing? Why is no one noticing the pattern of misery tainting each generation? Why is it that my cousin and I (and my youngest brother) are working so hard to catch up yet get scolded as the enemies because we're "different"?

I am sick to my stomach right now. I broke and paid dearly for trying to appear neurotypical in a family that despised my differences. Now my cousin, and youngest brother, are going down that same road. I'm not fucking having it, it'll be over my dead body that these two boys have to break in order to get taken seriously. I am not accepting this disgusting behaviour towards us, I'm more than done. We're the ones working so hard to fit in but our parents take the victim role and blame us for being problematic. Just like their mother did with them. How the fuck are they so blind that they can't see that?

I'm done being nice about this, period. I'm not the glue of the family, that didn't work last time and it's still not working now. It's not my job, as a fucking neurodivergent person, to tell a bunch of grown ass people that they have to treat all of their children with respect. We shouldn't have to appear neurotypical to get treated with respect, our siblings never worked for that a day in their life. No matter how accomplished we are, we are pushed aside so that our parents can praise the others for the most mundane shit.

They got lucky and now they're reaping the love and respect our parents failed to give out evenly. It's not their fault but it isn't ours either. I'm done taking the blame for how our family is broken. I can't break something that has been fucked from day one. I'm not bending and breaking myself anymore for their convenience so that their generation can stay in their comfort of never having to change. Neither should my cousin or brother, for that matter.

That generation above us are changing this time because it's their mess to fix, not ours. My mother won't do it so lord help me that I'm cancelling that part of my family if my uncle can't see this himself. I'm fucking tired of excuses with no actions behind them. They need to step up or get fucked.

Make that my New Year's Eve resolution for 2022, if you will.

[doudecim]

I mean, I don't want to sound bitter or anything, but what fuckiting fucking kind of stupidity Tite Kubo has to not at least dedicate a goddamn chapter to Kurosaki Karin? My dudes, seriously.

We first see Karin as this little scrawny thing of dubious gender eating peacefully with her sister, completely unconcerned about the quarrel of her father and brother at her back, and, out of nowhere, within the first seconds of the long, tortuous life of Bleach, says something that sums up and gives a slap to the face of the whole thematic of the series — "Whether you can see them [ghosts] or not, as long as you don't believe, it's the same as them not existing.". She's serious, caustic, observant, demanding, and realistic. She is not easily bothered and could not care less about everything else, except the important things, like caring for her twin sister, killing Hollows with a soccer ball, video games and earning some $$ at the expense of her brother's spiritual prowess (as seen by this, she also has an entrepreneur bone in her body).

The same Karin, an eleven-year-old, has, very unhealthily, forbidden herself from crying and exposing her problems ever since the early death of her mother, something that scarred deeply her other siblings as well. She does it because she feels like a burden in her house, she does it because her steady source of comfort and security is dead. She, as shown in the manga, remembers her mother very vividly and misses her very much — she is terribly lonely, and, pretty much like her older brother, resignedly unhappy. Except that, unlike Ichigo, no shorty Shinigami comes up to give her powers and make her feel useful, which means coping with her problems by throwing herself at every chance of danger and terrible sacrifice, thus saving the day. She has to be strong, she must be self-reliant, because she cannot overload her household, because Yuzu does all the housework, because Ichigo is an angsty teenager and has his shitload of things to do at the streets, because her father works to sustain them, but also because he cannot cope well with his loss and appears to be insane and unreliable 94% of the time.

But, even with this armor, she puts around her, Karin is a very empathetic, compassionate and surprisingly kind person. When her sister cries before their mother's grave, she holds her and allows her to cry. She taunts and tease, yes, but she never belittles anyone, even her coward friends who hide behind her. When the whole parakeet thing came to be, Karin kept her pain to herself and bore the awful memories of Yūichi Shibata, who saw his mother being murdered in front of him. Think about Karin seeing this, having lost her own mother and being a child. She cried and asked her brother to help the poor boy, to cease his suffering. She worries constantly about her brother and is not content in seeing him disappear and then come home broken. She sees Kon taking up her brother's body and Ichigo's moronic efforts to hide his identity as a Shinigami from his family and friends and kindly says nothing to them, even though she is very skeptical and they both are terrible. When Ichigo loses his powers, a thirteen-year-old Karin is ready to stand up and protect him and her precious people and all the innocents that are suffering — this seemed to be the beginning of a very good Karin arc since she had some focus on the initial chapters of the Fullbringer Arc and had some moments all to herself in the beautiful ending 29. But, of course, in good ol' Bleach fashion, Ichigo got new powers and saved the day.

It is important to be noticed that Karin is a lone wolf, and that can be proved by her alarmingly small quantity of friends, which are the kids that play soccer with her. They all seem close, that's true. But none of them knows the real Karin — the one Karin that talks with the dead and can see sanguinary monsters that like to devour people and hunt spiritual aware humans; like her! :D And, well, you also have Jinta and Ururu, but they are shown interacting so scantily that I seriously doubt that they have deep bonds. (Although this should be a thing because God knows how much they need it. And Jinta & Karin are the best duo out there, and no one can change my mind). And we also see that Karin isn't very popular at school since one of her classmates almost shitted her pants by simply talking at her when she was throwing up in the bathrooms.

I think what made Karin very remarkable was also the pent-up power she had within herself. She had large reiatsu, she could sense spiritual energy even from a distance, and, of course, the fact that she fucking saw the memories of some dead kid trapped inside a damned bird. It was a feat never explained and never repeated. Unusual abilities are not strange to Bleach characters, and by that I mean Yoruichi, who can turn into a talking cat. And, of course, she is Isshin and Masaki's daughter, and, therefore, you can't tell me she doesn't have the same potential as Ichigo.

We were just robbed of a Shinigami!Karin, or even a Quincy!Karin, for fuck's sake. Why does God like to shit on Karin's lovers' dinner, huh?

I mean, it's no news that Bleach has lots of wasted characters, but damn boy! Karin holds number 1 place along Tatsuki, no buts. We could've had it all, guys, but, of course, Kubo can't seem to realize that making Ichigo share the spotlight won't hurt his position as protagonist. This can be seen in those novels (which really try to fix the imense fucking mess that the manga left behind) that shows Hisagi as its main protagonist. And, talking about that, I have to announce something, my dudes: Soul Society is very aware of Karin's existence, and Yuzu and her are considered members of the Shiba Clan. Yes, bitch, yes.

I wrote a damn bible, but I also wrote the Truth. Kubo, you ass, give my girl her damned spotlight.

[polina-93]

Wishful Thinking: Part III

Title: Wishful Thinking Part III

Series Overview: Y/N is called up by Sam and Dean for help on a case. Y/N has real feelings for Dean, but has never been able to say it out loud. Will Y/N ever be able to tell Dean? And will Dean reciprocate?

Author: polina-93

Characters: Dean Winchester x Reader (Unrequited), Sam Winchester

Word count: 1535

Warnings: Angst, unrequited love (is that a warning?)

Author’s Notes: Shoutout to my girl @wonderfulworldofwinchester for being kind enough to proof this one. It’s been a long time coming since Part II so I’m really excited to share this with ya’ll. <3

MASTERLIST

You made your way back through the stacks, trying your absolute hardest to keep yourself together. You found Sam sitting at the same table you had earlier.

“Hey, Sam any progress?”

Sam gave an exasperated sigh. “Well, looks like you were right – restless spirit is what I’m thinking, too.”

“Alright, well that’s a little progress.” Your stomach growled suddenly.

“Hungry?” Sam chuckled lightly.

“Yeah, guess it has been longer than I thought since we got here. Want to go to the diner by the motel?”

Sam pulled out a couple of protein bars and a bottle of water. “I’m set, actually. Kind of feel like I’m on to a few things here so I’ll stay.”

“I’ll go,” Dean said, stepping out from the bookshelves, unbeknownst to you.

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m fine, actually.” The thought of being alone with Dean for any amount of time longer than 45 seconds suddenly had your normally sturdy legs shaking.

Of course your stomach took this opportunity to growl like it had some kind of monster living inside of it.

“Really? You’re ‘fine’? …C’mon, let’s go, you need fuel and so do I.” Dean started moving towards the door before you could protest.

“Okay…I guess we’re going. You want anything?” You asked Sam, trying your damn-dest to waste as much time as possible.

“Like I said – I’m good.” Sam gave you small smile, trying to silently encourage you. And with that, you followed Dean out of the library and to the passenger side of baby.

The car ride was painfully quiet, Dean tapping his fingers on the wheel trying to make himself busy in the radio silence. His body language seemed to be telling you that he wanted to say something, but was on edge, unsure of if or when to speak.

“You know, I’m really sorry about earli-”

You cut him off, not wanting to extend the pain you were in past what it already was, “I said it’s fine. We really don’t need to talk about this anymore.”

“Y/N,” he said with a little forcefully. You look up at him, not offended but a little taken aback by his abrasiveness. He takes a deep breath, “Please…just…accept my apology for my sake, if nothing else. I would feel so much better if you could please just accept my apology.”

“Fine. I accept your apology,” and you do mean it. Your sincerity must come through because Dean’s body language immediately relaxes.”

“Thank you,” he says.

You would never admit it out loud, but you also feel suddenly less angry, less awkward, and more comfortable again. Maybe forgiving Dean out loud was something you really did need to do.

You pull up to the diner and head inside. Dean, always the gentleman, opens the door for you. You slide into a booth, your back facing the kitchen and bar top, Dean opposite of you. And right when you are starting to feel at ease again with Dean…

“Oh shit,” Dean whispers under his breath, wide-eyed and looking over your shoulder at something (or someone) behind you.

“What is it?” You follow his gaze only to see the busty blonde from Dean’s motel room this morning. You were so wishing you would never have to lay eyes on her again.

“Seriously, this is just my goddamn luck,” it was your turn to whisper under your breath.

“I’m so sorry Y/N.”

“I thought you’ve never even been to this diner?! I assumed you met her at the bar!” you exclaim under your breath, leaning in towards Dean.

It took busty-blonde all of 5 seconds to notice Dean, immediately making her way towards your table.

“I DID meet her at the bar. She must work at the diner.”

“Back for seconds already? ….I mean thirds?” Busty-blonde bluntly states, as if you weren’t even at the table, although you were staring down at your menu, wide-eyed in shock at her boldness.

“Uhh..” It’s clear Dean is feeling as awkward about this as ever. He clears his throat, collecting himself quickly. “Actually, we’re here to grab some lunch.” You don’t miss how Dean emphasized “we’re,” which makes you feel the slightest bit better.

This forces her to recognize your existence in the world. You force yourself to make eye contact when she says, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there.” She glances down at her notepad, whispering under her breath, “although I’m not sure how I could’ve missed you at that size.”

You whip your head up at her, suddenly feeling anger much more than embarrassment. You stand up, looking her straight in the eyes, using your size to your advantage.

“You are EXACTLY what is wrong with society.” You get a little closer to her, she shows real fear in her eyes, clearly not knowing what you are capable of in the hunting world. “You know, you and I should be allies in this world, but you’re clearly too busy putting your sisters down by belittling them for how they look, to have any time to lift them up.”

You push past her and out the door, enraged still by the nerve of that woman. Little did you know that Dean wasn’t far behind.

“What’s her problem?” Busty-blonde rolls her eyes, turning her attention back on Dean, as if he would be okay with the little show she just put on.

“You. YOU are the problem.” Dean shoves his way past her, jogging out the door trying to catch up to you.

“Y/N! Hey Y/N, stop!”

You show no sign of stopping, basically power-walking your way back to the hotel.

“Y/N!” Dean finally catches up to you, gently pulling on your arm to stop. “Look, I’m sorry about her, she was a real bitch back there.”

“YEAH, DEAN. SHE WAS. SHE WAS A BITCH. And you know what sucks even more than the way she treated me?”

He stares at you, confused, trying to figure out where you were going with this.

“The fact that you STILL chose her. You will ALWAYS choose a girl like her over a girl like me, no matter how much of a bitch she is. Because she looks like THAT,” you point to her in the window as she cleans a table, “and I look like this,” you reference to yourself, your voice losing its intensity and strength. Tears start welling up in your eyes, despite how hard you try to stop them.

“Y/N…I, I don’t know what to say…except I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, wiping away the tears. “It’s fine, Dean. There’s nothing for you to say. The fact of the matter is…” and it all starts spilling out, “I love you. I love you, and I see you in a way that a girl like that never will. I see your strength, and patience, your thoughtfulness, and selflessness, and -and I SEE you. But it doesn’t matter does it? Despite how much I care for you and how well I understand you, you will always choose a girl like that and she will ALWAYS get to have a part of you that I never will.”

“I’m-I- Y/N, I’m so sorry. I love you, you’re family, but I-I…” His voice falters, losing it’s own strength. He summons the courage to continue, even if he admits to himself that what he’s about to say is not completely true, “I just don’t love you in that way.”

You feel like the entire world has been pulled out from under you, even though you can’t say you are completely surprised by his response. You knew that the chances of Dean having any sort of feelings for you in a romantic way were pretty much zero, but there was just the smallest, tiniest, inkling inside of you that hoped you were wrong.

You continue wiping the tears from your face, trying to get them to stop but it’s not happening for you. “I know…” you whisper. “I mean, obviously I didn’t know for sure, but I knew…After all, why would a guy like you EVER want a girl like me?”

You turn and start walking away, and of course he tries to stop you.

“Y/N, wait. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know, Dean!” You yell, exasperated. “Pretty much anywhere but here.”

“You can’t just –”

“Yes, yes I can. I’m going to need you to let me go because this is quite possibly both the bravest and most embarrassing moment of my life.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know… maybe Jody’s? Or Donna’s?” You pause, taking another breath, composing yourself as best you can. “I’ll call when I get to wherever it is I’m getting to. I’ll call Sam. I promise.”

You finally turned to go, forcing your legs to leave the spot they were planted to during this unplanned and very heavy conversation.

And as badly as Dean wanted to call out, to chase her down over every county line that she would pass, he knew he couldn’t. Dean wasn’t sure what he was feeling in any way shape or form when it came to Y/N, but he knew that what he had to do right now, in this moment, was let her go.

To Be Continued…

THANKS FOR READING! Tags are open, so please let me know if you'd like to be added.

TAGS: @deanssweetheart23 @havlindzk @gripmetight-raisemefromperdition @mirandaaustin93 @shadowdepthsblog @supernaturalenchanted @wonderfulworldofwinchester

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Wait when did makoto go like "I didn't care enough" in regards to kamoshida? Last I recall the stuff before the 3rd palace was pushing pretty hard into the idea that officials like the principal strictly kept makoto into doing what they wanted rather than what she wanted

P5: It’s not Makoto’s fault! It’s the adults they stopped her! :( Also P5:

2nd pic especially right there. 

And, I know you didn’t ask for it, but mini rant under the cut explaining why this is a big sack of rotten bananas (aka the messiness of her arc) (also “what Makoto wanted” what Makoto wanted was not to investigate the PT, it was a burden to her to even look into them, hell it seemed like everything was a burden to her, with the exception of that one little blurb in Royal after Shiho’s jump it’s all an inconvenience. You talk to her in the Library? She’s like don’t bother me. Has to investigate the PT? Not worth my time, also I’ll take my frustration out on the PT. Now I have to solve a mob thing? Well I’ll just force the PT to do all the leg work, but I’ll also be very sad when they call me useless for doing nothing but making a lead run away :( Her way or the high way, can’t be bother. A bit of a user....at least towards the PT, ironically she won’t tell her student council guys what’s going on.....but I’m not sure what that says about her character since she is def fine dumping work onto us....just more contradictory info I guess. I mean I’m down for a haughty and/or manipulative person not wanting to help others and learns as the game goes on but they didn’t do that....also not saying the wrote a haughty/manipulative person....but there is some groundwork laid there)

Anyway actual rant:

Makoto point planks says she knew and didn’t do anything. And what’s worse it tries to change the events of Anne and why she feels guilty about Shiho to put her on the same level as Makoto. Anne didn’t know Shiho was being harassed by Kamo (or about his other stuff iirc), the reason is because Anne misread Shiho’s signs of distress (she thought it was about her place on the team). So Anne was worried about fixing that because she thought that was the issue, not the other thing. And she can feel guilty, she’s the victim, and if she wants to feel guilty she can.

But what isn’t ok is freaking Makoto coming up and blaming Anne (who, as the victim, had every right ask Makoto, who was stalking her, if she knew about the abuse via a rumor she was hearing, and Makoto decided to be defensive and blame a victim, probably cause she didn’t want to confront the shitty thing she did), you don’t get to do that Makoto. 1) You know Anne’s situation because Kamo confessed the whole damn thing to the whole school, 2) You had enough suspicion that you could’ve done something but didn’t, 3) Not only were you in the perfect position to do something (you aren’t really someone he can target or was on his radar due to not being associated with the team, but you also have the influence of other teachers thinking highly of you AND you have a sister who is a VERY SPECIAL LAWYER). 4) Anne didn’t know any of this BUT YOU DID (so you aren’t the same, no where near the same, and it’s bullshit the game tries to act like it is). 

Listen game, it’s not that hard to show Makoto was a good person but we had the wrong idea. But you didn’t do that. You wrote a shitty person who gets away with stuff and is rewarded. You could’ve written Makoto as knowing about the abuse AND TRYING TO FIX IT BUT BEING ROADBLOCKED (which goes in line with your bs narrative about her listening to adults, what adults Makoto? Your sister who is asking reasonable demands from you[aka do well in school, and not even like restricting her freedom or being a “tiger mom”]? Or the principal who is asking such a cartoonish thing from you that you actually just get to say no to at the end, but regardless if this game had an integrity it wouldn’t have gone with the principal narrative to begin with cause it was just stupid)

Or they could’ve just, you know, had her not known, and her and Anne could’ve bonded over being blind (tho Anne was blind cause she was too close to Shiho and misread signals Makoto could’ve been something else, maybe too busy studying or something to notice the people around her?). 

But here’s the thing, the game ALSO wants her to regain her justice she lost sight of (which we don’t know what that was, or what it is now), which means she.....probably needs to have known. Which means they need to fix what we have so it doesn’t come off as “yeah you stalked us, belittled us, got us involved in a MOB-90% of all these issues were because of your EGO to boot-and now you give a quick, disingenuous, even gaslight-y apology (seriously she’s like “I’m sorry so can we just DROP IT???” no bitch we had to put up with you now you get to put up with us), but yeah you can join our team you like...are TOTALLY LIKE US!” Which she isn’t?????

If I had to rewrite Makoto (usually I just remove her but if I HAD to keep her >.>), I’d make her believe that all authority figures are correct (I mean she grew up with a cop, not completely out there imo). She doesn’t go on some BS goose chase cause of the principal, but because she doesn’t believe Kamo could do anything wrong and wants to take down the PT because yadda yadda her own justice (maybe she thinks they caused more chaos than good?). She believes the PT made him lie, or something. Over the course of the game (I’d have her join later like Haru time instead btw), she slowly sees her viewpoint of the world crumble, and have the confront the idea of siding with the PT. To which she would have to give a genuine apology (that she starts, not have to make you know the victim of her tantrums have to sit them down for a sincere apology). It’s an arc, not wishy washy (tho all of P5 is wishy washy so eh), she takes responsibility, and it’d be handled with a lot more time and grace that it needed to have. 

But yeah as for the adult thing, I hate it. There’s like 2 adults, Sae is literally not THE WORST person out there. Not perfect but not who you should be holding up as an antagonist for Mako’s arc (esp since they plan on making her an accomplice later, which ends up downplaying a lot of Sae’s negative aspects that could’ve flourished but instead she’s just.....watered down? And not treated with the respect she should have). And then we have the principal and his whole thing is juuuuuust bullshit, like do you want to deconstruct that the Student Council President isn’t all powerful (which some people argue she’s a deconstruction of Mitsuru, I mean she is at least Mitsuru is competent and if anything gets by her it’s cause she wasn’t aware of it but always makes sure to take responsibility and resolve it)? Then don’t give her bs chores like this. And don’t make it so she can just boss Kawakami around (”I can’t believe I’m doing errands for a student....” or something to that effect). She’s either a normal prez (and at most she can gain favor from teachers to use to her advantage but nothing else within school limits), or she’s OP like Mitsuru/other anime prezs. You can’t have a middle ground, pick one logic otherwise everything falls apart. Since P5 tries to be “realistic” (aka stuff in the real world is grounded, not supernatural stuff) the principal should’ve never had that idea cause it’s not realistic. It’s also poor I can’t really name a single teacher outside the Principal (and obvie Kamo....actually maybe lil Kamo and his friend? So I guess I should say “any teacher outside a CoOp” instead) that knew of Kamoshida and didn’t help. Sadayo didn’t know, and the english teacher I think acts like a batman so she either didn’t know and wants to make sure it never happens again, or she feels guilty and is trying to save face (I’mma assume it’s the former cause I haven’t found anything contradicting that and it seems more likely). There’s also the fact Mako literally admits that she didn’t do anything cause she didn’t care, so regardless of what I said about the teachers, they weren’t blocking her cause she didn’t even approach them. 

So uhhhh yeah, mini analysis of why there’s issues tied to Mako’s arc and why it’s a mess. 8U I don’t get why Royal even doubled down on the narrative that Mako was pushed around or something, when we 1) still never really see it realistically (principal is really the only one that does it, and as stupid as the whole idea is, it’s also not good to you know....have only one real problem when like......there’s implied to be many? “All these adults held me down” Who Makoto? Humpty Dumpty??????, 2) it completely ignores her own faults as well as inconsistencies they also created. You just pull on this little thread a little and it unravels with like 1000 questions (which is basically all of P5 but still.....just cause it’s a norm of P5, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pointed out. XP)

(btw I loooove how the entire game is always tries it’s damndest to devalue Kamo’s arc, just at any point it’ll try to contradict it. I’m being sarcastic there. I hate it. Esp since it’s the best arc, by which I mean it’s the most solidly/competently written, like it establishes itself well, no real contradictions, just solid, nothing really to fix, can still improve if they want but nothing broke. Next....I think would be the last dungeon in Royal....but I do have some issues with it hence why I rank Kamo just above it).

[enchantedbyhiddles]

I just hate Arthur in Cursed and I had to get it off my chest, why... Because girls deserve better love interest than him. So here be spoilers. 

Arthur in Cursed is just absolutely the worst. He is obviously from a wealthy and respected family. Even though his father was a lothario they haven’t banished him or anything. His rich and powerful uncle would offer him support, if he swallowed his pride. But no, he has to be a stubborn idiot and he is convinced that if he becomes a famous rockstar -sorry – wins a tournament, everyone will love him. Until then he’ll steal and be a lying scoundrel, because… I don’t know? Obviously work or anything like it, is beneath him. And to everyone that didn’t ask, he tells how nothing is his own wrong-doing. People are only going at him, because of his father. Nothing to do with him hanging out with shady people. He even whines to his sister, who clearly works hard, that he has it worse than everyone. Never ever considering that the problem is him. Oh, and he truly deserves a castle. Why does no one see that? Why is everyone so mean to him? Even the Fay are mean to him. The Fay got butchered in a genocide and then he – a known ne‘er-do-well, who at one point stole their holy possession – ends up on their doorstep. What do they do? Treat him like a guest and some look at him warily, but overall friendly and they invite him to a big party. What does he whine about? Oh, they are so racist and hate him, because he is human. Never once does he think that he is from the privileged race and they have a lot of reasons to mistrust him. Yet none of them is ever hostile or anything.

Then he finds himself in the battle with the last army of all the Fay to defend their last food – so it’s winning this battle or all will die or be enslaved. And what does he do? Being a knight and say „of course I’ll offer you my help. It’s a knightly duty to defend the innocent against evil.“ Of course not. He argues with the commander „Hey, that girl. Promise me that you never look at the girl and that I’ll have her. I won’t fight for you, unless I get the girl.“ Seriously??? That hast o be one of the worst scenes of a hero ever. In all of fiction history about knights. Ever. He wants to be a knight, but would never ever do a honorable thing, because it is the right thing. Never mind it totally takes away any agency that Nimue has, given that he doesn’t think at any moment that it is her decision who she dates and that she isn’t a price to win.

The whole Arthur-Nimue thing is super problematic even moreso that he changes to being a better person through her. Still she suffered through him, he abused her, and now he changes to be a better person and they become an item. He pretended to safe her, then stole the most important thing from her (knowing how much it meant to her), constantly belittled her, mansplained to her and in general treated her like a little girl, while he painted himself as a valiant knight. That is a classic circle in abusive relationships. „You need me. You can’t manage without me. I might have hurt you this time, but I promise I will be better in the future. Just give me another chance. I’ll proof myself to you.“ It perpetuates the believe that a person will change for love and that they just have to be loved and they’ll be good. Of course people can change and do change through their experiences and men that have been assholes in their youth can grow up to be better men. They hopefully will learn from their mistakes in relationships. That here the woman who got hurt should take back the now „improved“ version though is wrong. They force the female character that got abused to be the one that is the better person and educate and raise Arthur to be a better person as well (like she has to be grown up and be a parent to a love interest) and then she is forced to be in a relationship with the bully. That is a whole trope that has to die.

So even though they made Nimue the undisputed heroine of the story, she’s still the one who is reduced to a tool in regards of Arthur in that he has to change to win her. That is the typical „nice guy“ trope, where a character isn’t nice, because he wants to be or thinks it is the right thing to do, but mainly to win the girl.

Obviously he isn’t bad or evil as the bad characters. I mean, there are truly evil and despicable characters in Cursed. Those that are irredeemable. Arthur isn’t a lost case. It’s just that the heroine deserves a better guy. They deserve a guy that respects them and treats them right. A guy that is nice without wanting something in exchange for it.

Please writers, DO BETTER! Nimue deserves better. 

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

Damien Marsh is Amy’s ex-boyfriend who she met in America and fell in love with but later dumped and threw him out of a glass window. He arrives to UA in hopes to reconcile with Amy.

Name: Damien Marsh Hero Name: Hirudo Species: Warlock Special Power: Drain Weapon: “Sentio Wand”

Damien: These A-holes don’t know nothing. They’re too obsessed being perfect little goody goodies that they don’t know that you just gotta do what it takes to win and get what you need. But oh well... makes it easier for me.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM

TRIGGER WARNING: References/allusions to sexual assault.

He’s got a very approachable disposition, is highly intelligent and good at social situations as he can read people, and he’s also quite attractive too which makes him come off as a very nice, savvy and likeable guy. However this is all merely a façade, as Damien is actually extremely manipulative, deceptive and callous as he sees himself above everyone he interacts with and just weasels his way into things just so he can benefit himself.

Damien was inspired by some of the nastier boys I had the misfortune of growing up with, and the idea for him came to me when I listened to Christina Perri’s song ‘Jar of Hearts’ and Damien was born and it gave me an idea for his special ability of draining the power and energy out of people. I also thought about Amy’s history and I thought that she’d be the type to get into a bad relationship, because she has had bad relationships, whether it was familial or romantic.  

And the thing about Damien is that he’s a very insecure guy who thinks that everyone is so much better than him at everything, but to the point where he’s not very sympathetic because he lets all of his insecurities get to him and goes to extreme lengths to mask them by boasting about himself, presenting himself as this amazing and perfectly poised young man, and also taking credit for what others have done. He’s become like a leech, he sucks the positivity out of others if it means he’ll feel good about himself, because he does that. 

He literally sucked the joy and happiness out of Amy by draining her of her magic and rendering her powerless because it made him feel good, made him feel stronger and like he was above her in every way. Every time Amy couldn’t use her powers and magic, was because Damien made sure that she had no power while he did. So, he ultimately represents a toxic person who drains the life out of people around him like a parasite all for his own benefit and because he wants to feel good about himself, but resorts to hurting other people to do that so he doesn’t have to feel bad about himself. 

And he’s as slimy as he looks, seriously he’s one of the worst guys I’ve ever made, at least in terms of personality since he’s a total douche and makes BNHA jerks like Bakugo, Monoma and Shindo look like sweethearts.

Damien is a Jerkass incarnate, he’s emotionally abusive and manipulative to Amy, and also a complete jerk to Shinsou, Izuku and Todoroki when he meets them, and is a tool to boot since he’s such a faker and a shameless ass-kisser when he needs to be. However, people who are close to Amy such as Shinsou, Bakugo and Ashlen can see right through him, commenting that he absolutely stinks of bullshit and even Amy’s other classmates such as Jirou, Tokoyami and Tsuyu aren’t fooled by him and note that he’s a liar and a phony. 

Needless to say, many of Amy’s peers are not very fond of him when some of them greet him, Shinsou, Bakugo and Todoroki despise him, and Ashlen grows to quickly despise him since he’s as fake as the people from her old school and is well aware that he makes her best friend uncomfortable.

Their fears and concerns are all proven to be very founded since Damien’s intentions come to light and it urges Class 2-A to act and fight him since he threatened and harmed some of their classmates and even killed one. Sadly though, Damien actually shows that he’s a force to be reckoned with in his own right since he already knows everything about the class both from the news and his step-sister’s Divination power allowing her to know everything about anybody she focuses on. Damien’s also a very powerful warlock and considered a dangerous person to fight and he proves it…

Personality:

At the very beginning, Damien was initially an introverted and shy young man with a lot of insecurities over his powers and feeling weak in comparison to his peers. And he treated Amy very kindly, feeling shy around her, but was also happier when he was around her and had a great time when they first started going out.

Unfortunately, this quickly changed when he started a relationship with her as he grew possessive, jealous and later on almost emotionally abusive and neglectful towards her as he flirted with other women despite being with her and disregarded all of her words and did what he wanted because he felt like it.

Becoming increasingly famous also made him much more entitled and pompous, but Damien showed that he also lacked empathy as he had no problem hurting Amy’s feelings and failed to see why she was so hurt by his actions or when he deliberately lost her favorite toy as he merely told her that she’s too old for toys anyway. Damien seems to enjoy fame and riches more than anything, as he has no real desire to be a hero or help anybody as he merely claims that he wants to help people, but is simply interested in only helping himself.

To other people, he seems like a nice and collected young man, but soon it quickly becomes clear that he only acts polite to others when in reality he’s very judgmental, petty and arrogant. Having no qualms insulting others and mocking them, as he insulted Shinsou many times and mocked Izuku’s process as a student at UA, while also insulting others such as Todoroki and Tokoyami.

Damien is a parasite both figuratively and literally as he latches himself onto others so he can take their power and life-force to make himself stronger until there is nothing left for him to take. Almost everything he does isn’t on his own merit, as he made Amy do all the work for him and perform rituals that would benefit him. Not only that, but even his main weapon the ‘Sentio Wand’ is something he crafted using a strand of Amy’s hair so he can use the power flowing in her DNA for himself.

Because his power allows him to take and absorb other’s powers/energy and steal them for himself, he developed a superiority complex as he loves to brag about how powerful he is even though his power relies on him stealing other people’s powers just so he can have any strength at all. He’s also callous and cruel, as he had no problem putting Amy down just to see her down and make himself feel better about himself and seemed to enjoy doing this since it felt good for him, which also shows that he’s a hedonist who does things that he enjoys simply because it feels good, whether it’s moral or not.

Due to his superiority complex, he’s also a chronic harasser and an entitled ass who believes that he deserves anybody he wants and deserves to get whatever he wants from people, as he not only forced Amy into trying to give him oral sex, but also forces her to kiss him by using Concilium on her and allowing him to forcefully kiss her. He also does this to Shinsou, Izuku and a majority of Class 2-A by forcefully kissing them without their consent so he can absorb their life force and put into himself. 

Damien also has something of a misogynistic streak, or at least it’s only towards women he particularly dislikes as he makes misogynistic remarks towards Amy and her female friends, especially Ashlen and Madison as he noted that he needed to get Amy alone and away from them because he knows that ‘bitch friends always stick together’. He also made some pretty sexist remarks towards the other UA girls by calling them weak since neither of them have stood out in comparison to Amy, yet also says that Amy’s too much of a ‘bitch’ to get good attention, like Cordelia and the other Robichaux witches.

Ironically, he thinks highly of his younger stepsister because of her expertise in magic, intelligence and devotion towards him, but this may be because she’s the only human being that Damien has any love for and his only real redeeming quality. But Damien proves to be a bad influence on her as while he loves her very much, his worst qualities rubbed off on her she ultimately has no empathy for other people other than him. Damien is partially aware of this, but it’s why he’s protective of her, to the point of begging Papa Legba to keep her alive, although he got terrified when Papa turned over to murder him instead and it urged him to immediately offer to kill Amy instead of having either him or his step-sister die. Which shows that Amy didn’t mean that much to him because he had no problem trading her life for his own.

His lack of empathy extends to everyone else, as he looks down on everyone and humanity in general, insulting and belittling all of Amy’s peers. Damien is something of a sadist, as he enjoys going for a person’s weakest and sorest spots to provoke them into a reaction, as he lures Amy in and abuses her catatonic state when he reminds her of the hardships and personal feelings of abandonment she experienced from both Fiona and Hero Society, which allows him to drain her of her magic and kill her by drowning her in the bathtub.

His sadism extends to Amy’s other friends, as he makes fun of them when he’s fighting with all of them and mocks their grief over Amy as they discovered that he killed her. As he insults Todoroki by bringing up his traumatic childhood and friendship with Amy and also mocks Bakugo for his relationship with Amy, and pretends to sympathize with Izuku about his own past complications with the former. Damien also takes joy in making the others weaker than him and exerting his power over them by taking their power away for himself and appears to enjoy putting himself above others and crushing them afterwards simply because it makes him feel better about himself.

But despite his arrogance, Damien is a coward at heart as he pathetically pleaded for his life when Papa Legba was going to kill him and was willing to murder Amy if it meant that he could stay alive a little while longer. However, he also threw away lives of other warlocks who were his friends and who were helping him in his quest to find Amy, sacrificing them and letting them die or get thrown into jail by pro-heroes if it meant he could keep breathing air a little while longer. And finally, when he was killed, he tried to appeal to Amy as he begged and cried for her to call off the burning until the very end.  

He’s also a foil for pretty much all of Amy’s closest friends Shinsou, Ashlen, Madison, Bakugo, Izuku, Todoroki and Kaminari.

While Shinsou’s been Amy’s best friend since childhood, she only met Damien about 3 years ago. They both felt like misfits and underestimated by their peers due to their supposedly ‘evil’ powers but Shinsou wants to use his powers for good while Damien has no qualms with using his powers for his own selfish desires. Likewise, Shinsou’s friendship with Amy is genuine as they bonded over their powers and feeling like misfits while Damien feigned bonding with Amy just to get her to do his bidding.

Ashlen and Amy became very fast friends as Damien did, but Amy had no idea about Ashlen’s origins nor did she know about her witch heritage and developed a genuine friendship made up of love between each other but Damien was well aware of Amy’s connection to the Supreme and used her for his own benefit as he faked a bond and had no real love for Amy. They’ve also both turned off her powers, but Ashlen did it as a means to keep Amy from going overboard, and from hurting others and herself, while Damien did this to keep her under him and to feel like the dominant one of their relationship.

Madison’s a bad influence on Amy as was Damien, but for all the way she bullies and pressures Amy, she genuinely loves her and wants her to be happy and make her feel good while Damien is more interested in his own feelings and is more content with putting Amy down if it means he’s happy.

Izuku was Amy’s first love, although she convinced herself that it was Damien, and that he reminded her of Izuku when they first met, however, they’re both extremely different. Damien and Izuku were both bullied by their peers for being different from others with Izuku being quirkless and Damien being one of the ‘weaker’ warlocks, but the difference is Izuku always had the desire to help other people and kept his kind nature even after gaining his powers while Damien ultimately just wanted to help himself and his growing powers gave him a sense of entitlement. And then there’s their relationships with Amy, while they’ve each gone downhill before, Izuku always treated Amy with genuine respect and valued her as a good friend that he can learn from and truly made the effort to apologize to her when he hurt her, while Damien’s fondness for Amy was real in the beginning he started to instead see her as someone he can benefit from and he never felt apologetic for hurting her, and saw no fault in his actions towards her.

Bakugo and Damien have both been in a relationship with her, and unlike Bakugo, he initially treated her kindly and politely while Bakugo and Amy started off as enemies. However, their relationships are starkly different as Amy and Bakugo have a close, somewhat belligerent but passionate relationship and he does respect Amy and genuinely cares about her happiness. But Damien instead faked a good guy persona and used his charm to woo Amy and has no real respect for her nor does he care about her happiness. 

Damien and Todoroki bonded with Amy over sharing similar sad pasts, but Todoroki grew to appreciate and love Amy as he could truly understand her trauma and even began looking out for her when her past started to haunt her. And while Damien felt connected to her in the beginning, his selfishness showed as he started to only use Amy for his own comfort and couldn’t truly empathize with her and made no effort to do so. 

Kaminari and Damien have dated Amy, but Kaminari and Amy only went on one day and remained very good friends who absolutely love each other’s company and have a lot of genuine fun with each other and make each other smile and laugh, while Damien continued to date Amy but started to mainly do what he wanted to the point where Amy had to pretend she wasn’t miserable with him. 

Abilities/Super Moves:

Damien is a very powerful warlock, although physically he’s not very strong at all as he is very lanky and scrawny like most warlocks, with very little muscle and a very thin and skinny frame. But he becomes much physically stronger when he drains someone of enough energy and power to fuel himself. He also passed the Warlock examination by being able to perform Scrying, Transmutation and Stricidium. But Damien also showed to be quite proficient in at least four of the seven wonders such as Telekinesis, Concilium, Pyrokinesis and Vitalum Vitalis.

In fact, much like Amy, Damien has a very unique power that is a stronger form of one of the seven wonders due to having a parent who had a quirk that mutated into a unique, more powerful version of this wonder. He calls this power ‘Drain’ as it’s a much stronger version of Vitalum Vitalis, as Damien can balance the scales between life and death, but Drain allows him to also absorb his victim’s life-force, power, energy and vitality to make himself stronger and render them unable to use their power as Drain completely weakens them both physically and mentally. Drain is a very powerful and effective ability as anyone who falls victim to it is left powerless and unable to fight back to the point where some pass out from the drain in energy, or even die if Damien drains them of all of their life-force. And he can do so with numerous people as he drains one person, and uses his newfound strength to move onto the next on in a feeding frenzy he calls ‘Super Drain’.

But Damien appears to be only able to use this power through oral means by kissing his victims so he can drain and suck out their energy so he can take it in for himself. However, upon fighting Tokoyami, Damien realizes that he can’t kiss him to drain him, but instead uses his fangs that are also available for him to use to bite into someone to steal their life force as he bites Tokoyami on the neck instead to drain him of his energy, akin to a vampire. This move he would call ‘Vampire’s Kiss’ since he likens it to giving a hickey while draining his energy, much to Tokoyami’s great disgust. 

Although according to Damien, Drain can also allow him to completely drain out the power of a victim if he drains them entirely of their life-force and takes it in for himself, which explains why he has gotten even stronger over time because he’s taken the life-force and power of other warlocks and witches. 

Drain is also strong enough to take even some of the most dangerous powers from others that Damien attacks. In the form of a super move he calls ‘Leech’s Kiss’ as Damien realized that Izuku had some great powers upon kissing him and nearly killed him and stole his power by draining him of his entire life force because he had no idea it was the power of One For All that he was trying to absorb until he was stopped by Ashlen.

When Damien is draining someone of their life-force, his victims turn pale and sickly, but some also turn skeletal and hollow if he’s trying to absorb all of their life-force and energy, complete with hair turning dull, and their muscles going weak and almost atrophied.

While taking this life force makes Damien look healthier, younger and increasingly attractive, but this power comes at a cost to his own health as using Drain way too much has taken a toll on Damien’s body. He is mostly healthy and attractive on the outside but when he uses the power too much, his appearance drastically changes as he reveals himself as a pale, emaciated and sickly young man who looks constantly exhausted and has to rely on other’s life force just so he can replenish himself and regain his strength back.

Despite these flaws, Damien is still a very powerful and dangerous opponent in battle as he took down almost all of the 2-A students by himself using his magic and Drain alone, and absorbed their power and energy to make himself stronger and harder to beat. In fact he was even able to take down and drain the energy of strongholds such as Todoroki, Bakugo and Tokoyami once he caught them in his traps, and would have successfully killed Midoriya by sucking all of his life-force had Ashlen not saved him.

So while he’s a leech and a horrible person, he’s really not someone you want to fight in battle because he KNOWS how to lure people in, trick them and go for the kill since he’s an expert with Concilium, Telekinesis and Vitalum Vitalis.

It’s implied though that while he was burnt to the stake, that he’s not exactly dead-dead and could possibly make a return.  

[cruzrogue]

Worth Fighting For

#Fictober19 @fictober-event

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for fanfiction:

Prompt number: Prompt:28 “Enough! I heard enough.”

Fandom (AU if applicable): #arrow fanfiction #olicity

Rating:PG13

Warnings/Tags: exes clashing with one another

Roy Harper makes an appearance

Summary: Oliver vs Laurel (defending himself and his team) Very AU

Notes: Dedicated to Bluedove who supplied earlier prompts to Fighting Words (ch6) & Fighting Actions (ch20) This is for you… Worth Fighting For... Hope you like it. To everyone I hope you enjoy. Thank you!

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Worth Fighting For on A03

There has been a delicate air of balance amongst the team members slowly building up. Between Ra's al Ghul, the surge of criminals trying to make their name in the city, and still figuring out the deal with Sara’s death. With Laurel Lance in the mix there is a sort of resentment that’s creeping among the morale within the foundry walls. The lawyer still hasn’t found her niche within this group and now seems to belittle Roy who is trying his best not to snap. His annoyance best used to go out on patrol or beefing up on his training. He misses Oliver’s sister so when Laurel speaks to him in a matter-in-fact tone about knowing Thea so well it just pisses him off to no end.

Case and point is what she is doing right now. She’s sitting on a stool looking at an array of gizmos Oliver is working on. Little trick arrows that he and Felicity have measured and designed to fit properly. None of them yet properly tested. He’ll be doing that with Roy later on.  

“Does she know?”

Roy hitting the Wing Chun Dummy one last time before turning his attention to Laurel. “What?”

“I said, does she know?” Roy not having the slightest clue to what she is talking about gives her a blank stare. His thoughts turn to Felicity who he’s been hanging out with. She’s cool. Like a sister cool. “How dense are you?”

“Lady, I’m about to lose it if you don’t get right to the point. Are we talking about Felicity?” He’s in love with Thea and as much as he enjoys her company she’s already spoken for. She’s great in the sister role. Loves her to death. “Because I don’t get what you are hammering about?”

“Thea, but wait you hang out with Felicity? Oliver is okay with that?”

“Seriously? What is your problem?”

“Here I thought your every waking thought was on Ollie’s sister but…”

“Hey! Don’t go there!” He’s seriously giving her a scowl. She just smirks. The boy just admitted that Felicity isn’t so squeaky clean. She raises her hand to signify she’s done. Felicity not only has the eye for her new boss but spends her extra time with Roy. How convenient? How this girl got all these guys eating out of her paws.

“Actually I was in the midst of asking does Thea know of you extra activities?” Making sure to point to the arrows.

“No. Oliver isn’t keen on the idea.”

She just is bemused. “You’re really allowing the brother of the girl you supposedly love from the truth from a man who has perjured himself, cheated, and killed.”

“He has his reasons.”

“That’s it. You’re just going to allow him to dictate how you live your life?”

Roy grumbles lowly at her. He doesn’t need her to point out anything. He understands Oliver’s reasons after joining the crusade sometimes keeping people in the dark keeps them safe. He understands from John at least that Laurel finding out was never the intent of team arrow. Instead of Laurel trying to help people in a courtroom she’s here bothering him.

“You looked smarter than that.”

“Really?” He shakes his head. “Your using psychology on me? I’m out of here.” He grabs his jacket and books it. Leaving Laurel to just sit there and look at the empty foundry.

This is the first time that’s she’s really down here alone. With no other member of this ragtag group. She decides to really take stock of the place she has been hanging around more frequently as to show she isn’t going anywhere.

Its crazy how much work it seems it takes to make arrows. She gets the gest of why he uses that form of weaponry even though John using a gun seems more likely a better bet. She’s seen the petite blonde using this section it seems its her domain. She doesn’t like that this techie even has a domain. She learned her lesson to not underestimate Felicity. It seems the petite has a meaner streak. Sitting in the woman’s chair she takes the vantage point of what Felicity gets to see and notices the salmon ladder that Oliver always seems to not do when she is around.

She is about to start the middle computer when she hears a voice from the staircase, “I wouldn’t touch her babies.”

Her fingers pull back and she glanced at the computer monitors. “Oh God, she probably even named them.” Laurel looking disgusted.

“She might have but that is her story to tell. Why are you down here? Specifically, why are you in Felicity’s domain?”

“I was actually taking a look around everything and landed here. It is the focal point of the foundry.” She actually never really thought about it before but Felicity is the center of the crowed basement of Verdant.

“We don’t touch the computers or servers down here. Not without some sort of approval.”

“You are pulling my leg.”

“No! These aren’t your standard computers anyhow.”

“Wow! She really makes herself be indispensable. No wonder you guys bow to her.”

“Felicity isn’t like that and you know that well enough. The woman knows she’s smart but she is also humble.”

“What she stopped telling you she’s a genius?”

“As much as I’ve refrained from telling her I’m an archer. We both know each other.”

“She really has you wrapped around her finger.”

“She’s wonderful, she’s kind, she’s a real asset to the team. She’s just someone… She’s just special.”

“You sound like you were trying to sell her. Now that she is only your friend.”

“Her safety, happiness means the world to me. Even if I can’t be the one, I want her happy.”

“Yet, you say your friends but she barely has time for…” Her hands scope the foundry as she finishes, “For any of this.”

“She’s busy. She needs to work. I understand that.”

“Though she used to follow you around at QC.”

“Well we worked together. She would have been a better C.E.O.”

“Yea, I bet. Then the money would have trickled down into her pockets.”

“I’m not as rich but I still have plenty of money.”

“Well maybe that is why she isn’t here.”

“You know she’s at her job.” He gives her a funny look. “It is working hours. Unlike you I suppose she doesn’t make her own hours.”

“Are you inferring to something?”

“No, not at all. I don’t have a nine to five job so I can’t begrudge anyone.” He just shrugs.

“I was just pointing out that now that you need her the most she’s shacking up with someone who can buy her stuff.”

Oliver takes a deep breath he is actually expecting this from her. Felicity is a grown woman who isn’t bound to him. He is pushing the woman he loves away and as much as its making him miserable it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want Felicity to be happy. If Ray can give her what he surely lacks comfort, stability, and it pains him to say it but if the man can love her right he isn’t going to begrudge that relationship.

“Oliver she is a teammate. I admit she’s really good at this tech stuff but she’s doesn’t really know you. Like I do.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Deep in my bones I know that there is nothing that truly stands between us.”

He closes his eyes. This moment couldn’t get any worse. He’s losing the woman he loves. Seemly has a woman he can’t ever shake off. He knows there is something off about his sister. Ra’s al Ghul is a tremendous opponent. The SCPD is out to get him. Life just sucks all around.

“Laurel, I’m not into you.”

She shakes her head slightly amused, “Oliver, you know you need me. I’m the fixture in your life that has always been constant. It’s fate.”

“I really don’t know what I need to say or do for you to understand I’m not that guy. You aren’t in love with me.”

He gets taken aback when she screams at him. “You don’t know what you are saying!” Her finger points at him her voice rising in pitch, “I’m the woman who has been there for you. Always there. Don’t you dare tell me how I feel. You’re the one who doesn’t know how to feel.”

“You are right.” He pauses, “I don’t feel anything for you.”

“You lie.”

“I really don’t think we should…”

“Shove it! You and your indecisive tendencies to never commit. I feel pity for her thinking you’d…”

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what? Talk about how much of a jerk you are? You left with my sister. Disappeared and have the gall to waltz back and now decide what others can and can’t do?”

“If that is the case you wouldn’t be here. Your sister loved you. You have no idea the savagery outside these foundry walls. I get you’re mad at me. I can live with that. That is my guilt to carry.” With the look she gives him he continues, “I don’t love you Laurel, not in the way you deserve. That I will not apologize for… Ever!”

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“No. I beyond serious. If you want to stay. Fine stay. Just know that there is nothing between us but some past history that doesn’t define me anymore.”

“You are going to stand there and once again lie to my face.”

Oliver now beyond annoyed, “That’s the thing Laurel. I’m not lying, for once hear me tell you at face value that I’m totally over any semblance of an us.”

“Its because of Felicity, right?”

His hands go to his head. This woman is unbelievable. When it comes to him her brain short circuits. Then again, she always was around for the prestige and now that he doesn’t have the wealth, he hoped she’d move on. Finally letting him live his life unattached to a Lance.

“Laurel, let it go.”

“Like I let Tommy go?”

“I just can’t with you!” He just wishes she would stop. Tommy is dead. There is enough guilt to go around. She has her own demons to deal with and he told her he was done chasing after her. He meant it. It doesn’t mean he can’t be cordial because like she stated they had history but more important he wants to do right by Sara’s memory. “I really can’t. I can’t be any clearer that there is no us. I can’t be any clearer that you trying to walk in your sister’s shoes won’t end badly for you.”

“You just hate that I’m excelling in boxing under Wildcat’s tutelage and that Nyssa is showing me some moves.”

“Do you even listen to yourself?”

“How am I different than Roy? Or John and Felicity?”

“You know darn well John’s equipped and Felicity stays behind the scenes and yes you do have some parallels to Roy. The difference is Roy isn’t charging against league taught Merlyn. Like you insanely did. He could have killed you without blinking an eyelid.”

“Well he didn’t.”

“I don’t know his reasons nor do I care. You’re just lucky to be alive until the next villain.”

“Then train me like you are doing with Roy”

“No! Roy needs an outlet.” Oliver not moving in his opinions. “You need to step back and go back to using that law degree.”

“Like I said, you think you can make up the rules and every one follows I’m not like that I will honor my sister.”

“Fine, you are going to do what you want anyways. Sara’s sacrifice created the Canary Mantle, the discipline, attitude, honed skills from surviving which she had to do to stay alive.” He doesn’t need to add the obvious that some midnight boxing classes won’t cut it. That her pompous living style is far from reality of what’s in store. That he’d have his team and himself look out for her because Felicity would never let them live it down. She may have a chip with Laurel but she’d always do what is right. That is what being heroes is all about.

Laurel isn’t done yet, “Enough! I heard enough.”

Oliver not backing down is about to add more choice words when both Oliver and Laurel turn to Felicity that has both her hands on her hips.

“I heard more than enough! Both of you step away from this space or…” Looking at Laurel first, “I will knock you to kingdom come and don’t even try my patience.” Then looking at Oliver, “You better have more than a pint of ice cream to calm me down. You know exactly how much these babies cost and how much blood, sweat, and tears I’ve given to them.” Without any words both Laurel and Oliver move out of the designated Smoak space. “Now we are all adults here. We have a common goal. We don’t always have to like each other but let’s get something straight.”

“Felicity?” Oliver tries to interject.

Just as Laurel says, “Get what straight?”

“You want to be a part of Team Arrow?” She hears Oliver deject that team name but she doesn’t really listen or care right now to that objection. “Then figure how to work with us and not against us. We aren’t into power plays. We are a family...” She takes a moment to gaze at Laurel. For once the woman is taking in what Felicity is saying. Somewhat amazed that Laurel hasn’t said a word, she adds, “Worth Fighting For.”

That was the last time that there was a big riff with Laurel versus each member as they began to synchronize as a team. The Canary title changed as Felicity dubbed her the Black Canary, sweet homage to the original.

Nothing is ever simple in the lives of vigilantes there are always highs and extreme lows and somewhere in the middle there is a mending road that the past can stay there and a future of promises can make its footing. The old script that time changes things moves them all along. Some people believe in happily ever after. The notions that heroes deserve to flourish. Well in this case, Oliver Queen gets the girl. John Diggle gets to add two more little ones to his family. Laurel Lance is finally happy with her life choices. Roy Harper loves being an uncle with Thea by his side. Felicity Smoak loves bossing people in her own company… Unfortunately, she gets bossed at home by a few prodigy fair-haired angelic offspring that are more like their dad each coming day as archery truly is becoming a family trait.

[utterlyhopeful-fics]

Prospect

Request from Anon:  Nestor doesn’t know you’re part of the mc he feels betrayed that you didn’t tell him, “I trusted you y/n, I don’t just let people in” (you used to be best friends with Em n the Reyes brother, you took with ez side over em) and you see her in public one day and you have you’re kutte on and she calls you over to chat and you say to her “this isn’t the life you wanted em” (first part to request cause it’s so long)

Nestor Oceteva x Reader 

Warnings: language, angst

Word Count: 2.3k 

Summary: Emily and Y/N were once best friends. Y/N was in love with Nestor. Y/N supported Ezekiel after Emily’s abortion and disappeared from her current life close to the cartel to now be the first female prospect for the Mayans MC. 

-There is a part two request that I am finishing up and will post early this week! This story was legit one of my favorites to write, thanks anon! 

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Stillness encumbered her fragile bones, her heart throbbed to a chaotic march forcingly reminding her mind of the goodness of the man now standing in her path of beautiful obliteration. Nestor stared blankly into her icy blue eyes; just like a vicious predator hunting his unfortunate prey. Her chin quivered slightly as Y/N bite her bottom lip restraining herself, any attempt at maintaining a shard of control still placed within her reach.

Tilting his head to the left, a questioning glare reflected off his features before he dared to interrupt the impending muteness trapping the young couple.  

“I trusted you Y/N. I don’t--I don’t just let people in.”

“Ness let me explain, please.

He sighed loudly unable to further detach the emotions he allowed to overwhelm his senses again, especially when it all came down to the girl before him. He adored his nickname when it fell off her lips, and only hers.

“Explain what? That you conveniently forgot to mention you just so happen to hang out with the fucking Mayans? I haven’t seen you in years, and then this Mayans shitstorm bounces the cartel’s way, but by accident we meet on opposing sides? Worst of all, you eagerly manipulated me into giving us another lousy chance, but I don’t fucking know this girl.”

“I think you’re getting confused. We agreed on fuck buddies, with your rules might I add. I am sorry that you persuaded yourself that things would be just like old times. Don’t get it twisted Ness. We aren’t dumb kids anymore.”

His eyes scanned her from head to toe trying to memorize every inch she willingly showed him. It was at that exact moment that Nestor realized he was fighting for the old Y/N and not the bold woman in front of him. Unexpectedly, Y/N shoved him with all her brute strength as she reveled in his minor fall.

“Woah, wait. Fucking rewind -- I don’t just hang out with them you dick, I AM one of them, well a prospect currently.”

Flabbergasted, Nestor was left speechless as he wordlessly watched her lips open and close, but he heard nothing other than a piercing ring reverberating through his ear canals.

“You’re one of them…?”

She could only nod in agreement.

“So, when did they start letting bitches in the boardroom?”

Y/N’s chest suddenly weighed down upon her with heavy force. She knew she had to come clean. Better late than never, right? But, in her defense, they had agreed to keep their lives completely separate, careful to never intermix this time around.

“I’d watch my tone if I were you, Nestor.  I was the first female member to prospect, brought to the table, and voted. Fair and square. Don’t you dare demean me and my choices. It certainly wasn’t easy to prove my power, but I fucking did. What the hell have you done, take orders like the lap dog Miguel groomed you to be?”  

Her murderous smirk shone brightly upon her lips, a dark chuckle slipping through the cracks before returning her attention back to the belittling asshole she mistakenly loved..loves. This was supposed to be their second shot at happiness, but as always, it ended in calamitous flames dooming them to disastrous heartache. The usual tale of ill-fated star-crossed lovers.

“Does Em know about this?”

“You know I haven’t spoken with Emily since her and Ez’s fight behind bars. She only knows what you tell her, Nestor. Playing the fool doesn’t suit you.”

This caught him off guard causing goosebumps to prickle every surface of his skin. This wasn’t the guarded serene girl he had met so long ago but replaced with a resiliently fierce woman. Nestor wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was enthralled with Y/N, in awe of her ability to adapt to any curveball thrown her direction.

“You should call her. She misses you, believe it or not.”

The conversation strayed towards a lighter note as the room began to clear away any remaining ammunition between the conflicted lovers, both waving their white flags of peace; if only for an instance.

“I can’t, things aren’t not that simple nowadays… She asked me to choose and I did. It just wasn’t the answer she prepared herself for. And for that, I am truly apologetic, but I refuse to turn my back on the boy I’ve known since 3rd grade. It is what it is; an ended friendship.”

Some relationships mimicked broken glass, its unending fragileness, but at times it was better to leave them in shattered pieces than try and hurt yourself putting them back together again. Sadly, the risk isn’t worthy of its cause.

“I’ll pass along the kind words. Now enlighten me, did you ever seriously love me or was it all part of your warped game?”

Y/N’s checks blushed royally, anger taking hold of her persistent consciousness.

“Which time are you referring to? When we were 20 or now?” Only spiteful thoughts flooded her mind proving to be easier than sheer honesty. She thrived off knowing she could still upset Nestor down to his spiny core.

If she had done anything right in this complicated mess of a life, it was loving Nestor Oceteva, but all good things must come to an end, right?

“Well, there’s your answer. Your doubt is enough to prove just how much you didn’t trust me, and you’ve had these reservations for some time. I can only imagine how easy it was for you to paint me as the bad guy these last few years. Its your turn to be honest. Does it unnerve you to look at the man reflected back at you every day? Because if we’re sticking to being truthful, I admit I did see the advantage of seducing you, but I chose to let you in. Well, the first time around. And that obviously ended swimmingly.”

Stepping dangerously close to Y/N, their breaths intently intermingling; “You’re not the only person in a position of authority, Y/N. Miguel Galindo, our dear Emily’s husband wouldn’t even blink if you were to disappear. I’m very good at my job.”

Y/N refused to show fear especially to a man she fell for so purely, but that wasn’t her current reality, and he made sure of that.

“I loved you and I lost you. Cold case closed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Hasta luego, viejo amigo.”

*10 days later*

Emily heard the deafening noise of several motorcycle engines rapidly approaching before she braved a glance over her shoulder. She had just finished at the grocery store, marking one trivial chore off her never-ending to-do list all while trying to figure out how to work Cristobal’s newly installed car seat.

Fucking Mayans, it had to be.

She didn’t have time for this shit, not with the looming tension suffocating her husband. Besides, she left the Reyes brothers a long time ago, and didn’t want to risk a chance encounter even if they did live in the same godforsaken town. Ezekiel Reyes was her first love, but Miguel was a man of continuous passion.

Occasionally, she would find herself pondering what would have happened if she had kept the baby or chose the man she promised to love, but life had a different idea for the both of them.

The usual crew pulled their bikes into the adjacent parking lot heading towards the clothing factory. Gilly, Coco, Angel, and Ez came into view as they distractedly chatted, patiently awaiting as the last bike strolled closer.

Emily didn’t need the stranger to turn around before knowing exactly who was underneath that particular helmet on this particularly humid day.

Her laugh instantly gave her away, a laugh she hadn’t heard in what felt like forever. Y/N, someone she considered a sister before she enthusiastically leapt to the metaphorical dark side. Y/N made her decision; to betray Nestor and abandon Emily. She was fortunate Miguel was there to pick up the damaged edges’ Y/N left in her destruction.

After the longest pause in recent history, Emily decided against her better judgement to brave a simple hello to an old friend… acquaintance?

She yelled loud; “Y/N, HI., waving her hand discreetly wondering how the next few moments would transpire. Her nerves slowly trickled into her belly as her chest spasmed disobediently.

Y/N’s elbow was perched atop Ezekiel’s shoulder as he sat on the cool leather seat of his latest ride, her ears perking in response to the shrill noise coming from across the street. She squinted, the sun blockading her vision temporarily before meeting Emily Galindo’s incessant stare.

She locked eyes with Ez giving her the nod of approval before gracefully smiling back, squeezing his shoulder and taking the few steps away from her friends. As both females approached the other, neither were certain who would speak up first.

Y/N popped the bubble of surrounding awkwardness; “Emily, long time no see, stranger.”

Emily hated nicety but went with the flow keeping her existing irritation at bay.

“Y/N, I didn’t realize non-members could wear their boyfriend’s kutte?”

There was certainly a distinct, underlying competition to their complex friendship, and Emily was the kind of fighter that went straight for the jugular vein when her defense mechanism reacted.

Quietly chuckling; “Nope, but you’re allowed to wear it when you’re the newest prospect. Well, of course alongside Ezekiel. You remember him, hmm?”

“How could I forget. I was pregnant with his child at one point.”

“Look, drop the petty act and just tell me why you called me over here?”

Emily was silently stunned, unsure of what drew her to reach out, but she couldn’t let Y/N know that.

“I heard you caught up with Nestor or should I say broke up with him...again.”

“Not all of us can be the murderous power couple you and Miguel seem to be. I know how you get when faced with a rivalry.”

“You knew a façade, a previous version of me. You haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Emily Galindo at work, but you will, soon.”

Y/N gaze met the cold gray concrete they were both standing on, shaking her head; “This isn’t the life you wanted, Em, yet here we are.”

For a brief pause in time, Emily’s eyes teared up before wishing her tears away. This wasn’t the time or place to show weakness especially to the enemy.

“I wished for an exhilarating and purposeful life. I just happened to get a lot more than I bargained for. You don’t know Miguel like I do so don’t you fucking judge him.”

“Easy Emily. You don’t have to defend yourself to me. I could care less now.”

“For the record Em, I never wanted to pick sides. Sometimes I can’t even close my eyes without seeing the hurt expressions etched onto your face from that fateful night…and how heartbroken Nestor was. But you gave me an unimaginable ultimatum and I tried my damnedest to figure out the right path.”

“I know that now. I don’t know what it is about you that brings out the bitch in me today.”

“You’ve got that whole mama bear protective look now. It’s refreshing.”

“You should really think about calling Nestor. He isn’t doing too hot at the moment.”

“Part of me wants to but now I have the MC to take care of as well. I love him, I do. I just don’t think its our time right now.”

“At this rate, will it ever be yall’s time? I mean the boy has been drooling over you since you basically met, and you run away at the sign of anything remotely serious with him. Why?”

“He makes me feel too vulnerable. Conveniently, Nestor is also in love with a girl who no longer resides in this body or mind.”

“Just like he isn’t the same man you left standing there on the balcony all those years ago. It’s a double-edged sword, Y/N. You need to reconnect, get on the same page, and see if this is actually endgame worthy. Because if you ask me, I always knew he was going to be your person, even when you kept adamantly denying it.”

Distantly, Y/N heard Angel yelling for her signaling to hurry the hell up. She smirked back choosing to further test his lack of patience.

“Same things never change though. That’s my que, it was good to actually talk Em.”

“Agreed. Maybe next time we don’t wait so long, huh?”

“I’ll see you when I see you Emily Galindo.”

“Goodbye old friend.”

Emily turned to double check Cristobal’s seatbelt before opening the driver’s side of her car and launching herself onto its expensive leather. Briskly, the engine started, and she merely drove off. Y/N was left standing alone in a parking spot debating if the conversation that just occurred had been an uncontrollable dream she created out of thin air.

Y/N glanced at her watch questioning how she had let 15 minutes slip by before she heard the familiar voice of man clearing his throat. Someone new stood in front of her, his infamous braids in tow and tinted sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.

“So, I see you finally caught up with Em. Good for you.”

“Have you been hiding nearby this entire time or did you discover psychic abilities to eavesdrop while I was away?”

Y/N hand hugged her hip bone as she swayed her weight between her two feet, unable to stand still any longer.

“So, I guess we have some talking of our own to do. Whaddya say?”

 -----

Hasta luego, viejo amigo: Goodbye old friend 

[calliecat93]

RvB17 Episode 7 Review: Limbo

Time travel sucks. That's all I've got for an intro, it sucks. It's confusing and makes my brain hurt and... let's just get into this before I give myself a migraine.

Overview

We start where we left off, Huggins in what we can now confirm is the heart of a Black Hole. But she's not alone. Remember in S16 when Huggins mentioned that her parents were killed by a Black Hole? Well... they're alive! And named Gerald and Cheryl. So how are they and Huggins alive? Simple, they are light. Light is information, and you can't destroy information. They also ask where Huggins brother is, who as it turns out is Muggins. Weird that he only called her a friend last season, but hey I'll go with it. But the parents are confused as the rest of the universe should be there, and the only thing that could prevent that is some kind of time blockage. A paradox, if you will. Huggins realizes what this means and is told by her parents to go at light-speed to reach where she needs to be.

Back in Season 5, Sister is talking to Doc about how to deal with Tucker. Essentially, she plans on fucking with him for as long as possible. Doc is not happy about this since Tucker is still recovering... and the fact that it sounds outright nuts. Back with the others, well... we still have the whole 'Donut betrayed everyone' thing to deal with. Sarge wants to outright execute him for it. Wash points out that Donut tried to fix all of it, but it does little to help with Grif pretty coldly pointing out that Donut stole The Hammer. Of course, none of them know that Donut tried to use it himself, but they aren't really giving him the chance to explain either, so... oh and Caboose figured out how to Time Travel on his own, so he's gone at this point.

Tucker wakes up, and Sister proceeds to fuck with him in several ways while Doc just goes 'fuck this' and leaves. Back with Huggins, she arrives at Blood Gulch and is surprised by how shitty it looks. But no one is there as this was before the Reds and Blues were sent there, so she goes forward some more until she sees Caboose. At first, she thinks that he doesn't know what she means when she asks about the paradox... until Caboose explains that they did it to save Wash and how she got angry at Grif before flying off. So Huggins explains that essentially black holes make time loop, like a circle... just go with it people. Like me, Huggins is overwhelmed before asking Caboose if they can talk.

Back with the others, Tucker seems to have bought Sister's story and says goodbye to Doc. He goes to apologize to Donut for making fun of him and at this point utterly agitated by everyone, Donut does the 'how do you know x if you never met x' spiel to snap Tucker back to normal. What is surprising though is that this also snaps Doc back to normal, so we can confirm that he isn't dead. He does remember the S16 finale fight, and about how awesome it was. And it is listening to Doc recount those events that cause Donut to do what we have been waiting for him to do for so long now: tell everyone off.

Donut goes and finally, finally tells off everyone for how horribly that they have treated him. Sidelining him, belittling him, left him for dead, etc. And he doesn't hold back even a little. No innuendos. He fully curses, even dropping the F-bomb. He outright tells Carolina to shut up when she apologizes for breaking the universe. Yes, just told Carolina to shut up. Nd the best part? He calls his armor color pink when he mentions them making fun of him about it. Yes, no lightish-red people. He outright said pink, and he is owning it. And now, here we are after Donut died, tried to reunite with his friends, was the only one who gave a damn about saving time while everyone else fucked around, and then after his mistakes went out of his way to fix them, and what does he get? Sarge trying to suggest killing him with Shelia.

With all of that now said, Donut says that once he's explained how to time travel so that they can deal with Genkins, he's done. Everyone is left speechless and in shock, as Donut walks off. Wash tells them to go after him and to apologize immediately, which while they mumble about it, they all go off and do right away. Well... Sarge asks if they really can time travel first before Wash sends him on his way too. Hot damn, now that is how you end an episode.

Review

Okay.. so... I liked the episode, but God it's confused me so much. Let's get that part out of the way first.

Huggins being alive? Yeah, we all knew that at this point and her being made of light/information makes sense. I think most of us expected her parents to be alive after the last episode. They're... okay. You can see where Huggins gets her quirks form, but I think it's pretty clear that they've gone insane from being in the Black Hole for so long. They're mainly here for Huggins to find out how to go through time, which tbf Huggins did speculate about that in Episode 7 when debating her options on getting out of the 6th Century, so okay nice subtle foreshadowing. Muggins being Huggins brother, again, had little to no foreshadowing and comes off as weird since Muggins never referred to her as such, not even in his eulogy when he assumed her dead. He just called her 'friend'. IDK, that's very minor in the grand scheme of things.

But honestly this and Huggins other scenes just... has me confused. So... a black hole send her back to before the Big Bang? Yet her parents haven't tried to leave even though they can go through time? It kinda sounds like they were expecting Huggins so... maybe there's a reason? But this mainly makes me question the Everwhen and time travel. So... I assumed that the Everwhen was a simulation, but I guess not. It's legit the past. And Doc was also sent into it, even though he wasn't caught in the paradox. So how did Donut retain his memory? I know they said that he got brought back through Chrovos' essence, so is that why? How can the Reds and Blues shift through time when they haven't entered the Everwhen? Why was losing the Time Gun a big deal if they can just jump back to S16 Episode 14? How does a black hole causing time to loop make any sense at all? I just... I don't know anymore.

Okay... let's talk about something else that won't hurt my brain. Sister and Tucker... there's not much to talk about. Won't lie, I got a giggle out of the bizarre stories that Sister told Tucker just to fuck with him. My only real issue is that... didn't they resolve their issues at the end of S16? Then again I can see Sister still wanting some form of payback, so meh. Otherwise, no real opinion and I'm glad that we didn't drag out Tucker being out of the loop for too long. Donut just being so done with everything and going through the spiel as quickly as possible was definitely worth it. Oh and Doc is back... yeah calling it now, it's O'Malley pretending to be Doc. We saw that he can do it before in S16's finale...and depending on when he took over in S16 Episode 6. I could be wrong, but I don't know... I feel like something big is still waiting.

But enough of all that. Let us talk about Donut and the moment that we have all been waiting for. Now, I will say that the Reds anger over the betrayal is justified... somewhat. Sarge has zero room to talk considering his own actions in S15. Yeah, he did ultimately do the right thing and regret it, but he still did it and couldn't promise that he wouldn't again, so no fuck you, Sarge. You're great at speeches, but you have shit room to talk. Grif has far more justification in his reaction (helps that he wasn't threatening to kill Donut) because.. yeah if Donut didn't take The Hammer, they could have resolved this before anything happened. Mind you if none of them treated him like shit and outright called him 'an empty suit of armor' he may not have, but still Grif handled it pretty maturely I feel. And Simmons... actually he didn't do anything wrong and even asked Donut if he did save them all, so he's off the hook. My point is, yeah what Donut did was wrong, but remember why he did it: everyone treating him like shit. Sarge outright called him an empty suit of armor. Seriously man, what the Hell?

The reason that Donut's 'The Reason You Suck' Speech was so effective, aside from the previous buildup these past few episodes, is because... well, he's right. They mocked him about his pink armor, and even the standard Red one he had when he first showed up. They've always been nothing but annoyed and belittling of him. Sometimes it was justified, like when he showed up in S11 but send the pilot off. Other times, like Tucker asking why they would ever listen to him in S16 were just harsh. And yeah, in Recollection they did leave him for dead. Sure Simmons was concerned, but that didn't last long and none of them ever mentioned him or considered getting his body during S8 or S10 before they found him alive. There is plenty of canon evidence to support this, and it's something that fans have been pointing out for years. And even with the betrayal, the paradox is entirely on them, not Donut. They still chose to cause it, knowing full well what could happen, so they are just as responsible for their shit situation.

Yeah, Donut did betray the group and that was wrong. To some degree, he deserved being called out, hence why I'm more okay with Grif's reaction that Sarge being a hypocrite. And no, they don't know about Donut ultimately changing his mind and trying to stop Chrovos then and there, but was too late. But they weren't exactly allowing him to explain, as per usual, even with Wash backing him up. Which BTW, Thank God for Wash. He was fully on Donut's side, Donut didn't tell him to shut up when he apologized for the multiple shootings, and Wash immediately told the guys to go and apologize. It's the kind of support that Donut needs and I think the push form Wash, along with his own frustration, finally got him to stand up to the others and tell them off. But back to my point, Donut is justified in his anger. Donut is justified in wanting to leave once he's explained everything. If no one will ever give him any shred of decency or even let him explain how he tried to correct his mistakes, yet people like Wash and Sarge got forgiven with little argument, why the Hell should he stand by them?

Final Thoughts

This episode gave me a headache. I think it's so far my least favorite episode. But that being said, I can't call it bad. Huggins is alive, everyone (except Lopez) is back up to speed, and Donut finally, FINALLY got to tell everyone off for treating him like shit for so long. That moment alone made this episode a winner for me. What's going to happen now? Hell if I know, but I am ready for it! Migraine over time travel bullshit be damned!

[whattheheartwantsrevamp]

Chapter 11

It’s been a few days since Ciara’s mother passed away and she has been taking it hard, as expected. Nina’s parents graciously paid to give her mom a proper burial and since she didn’t have anyone but Ci left there was no need for a funeral. I know it’s going to take a while for her to get back to herself but seeing her like this really breaks my heart. She’s such a good person but she just can’t seem to catch a break. I pray that she doesn’t let this break her.

I send her a quick good morning text as I walk through the school doors. I make my way over to my locker where I see Nina, Earl, Deshawn, and Jermaine standing.

“Good morning.” I say greeting all of them as I open my locker and they all greet me back.

“Hey, are we still taking Ciara out for dinner tonight?” Jermaine asks and I nod my head. Nina and I thought it would be a good idea to take her out to try to get her mind off of everything. Nina told us that Ci was talking about how alone she feels now and we’ve been trying to do whatever we can just to help her see that she isn’t. That includes showering her with balloons, flowers and stuffed animals. We figured that we’ll try to do something different.

“How is she doing?” Deshawn asks Nina and she sighs.

“Not good. She has been staying in my room and she cries herself to sleep every night.” Nina answers softly and he shakes his head. I look towards the door and I see Ciara walking in with Doug.

“I didn’t know she was coming to school today.” I say to Nina and she nods her head. “She wasn’t supposed to be. The school gave her 5 excused bereavement days.” Nina says as they make their way over to us.

“Hey.” She greets us softly with a small smile as she gives everyone a hug. She gives me a small smile before hugging me tightly.

“How are you?” I ask before pecking her forehead.

“I’m here. I’m just taking it one day at a time.” She says and I nod my head as I let her go.

“I thought you were staying home today?” Nina asks and Ci shakes her head.

“I was but I couldn’t handle being there, alone, with nothing but my thoughts. I need a distraction.” Ci answers and Nina nods her head understandingly.

“We’re all happy that you’re here.” Jermaine says with a small smile and Ci thanks him.

“And we’re taking you out to dinner tonight.” Doug says and she shakes her head.

“You guys do not have to do that. Y’all have done enough already.” She says softly.

“We want to do this. We know you’re going through a tough time right now and we just want to try to make you feel better.” Earl says and she gives him a small smile.

“Thank you all for being here for me. I don’t know how I would have ever gotten through this without y’all.” She says sincerely and Nina hugs her tightly.

“You don’t have to thank us. I know that your mom was the only real family that you had and I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. We just want you to know that you’re not alone.” I say as Nina lets her go and she nods her head.

“Yea. You’re like a sister to us now.” Doug says as he drapes his arm across her shoulder and the guys agree. I feel a tap on my shoulders and I roll my eyes when I see Ashton standing behind me. Hey Russell. How are you?” She asks with a smile on her face. “I’m good. I’m kinda in the middle of something right now though.” I say as I motion towards Ciara and my friends. She looks at them and rolls her eyes.

“I’m sure whatever y’all are talking about isn’t important but I just wanted to invite you to my party this weekend, after the scrimmage game.” She says and I shake my head.

“Thanks for the invite but I’m not going to be able to make it.” I say as I go to turn back to my friends but she grabs my arm, stopping me. “You know what, ever since you started talking to that bitch, you’ve been blowing me off and I’m really getting sick of it.” She says referring to Ci. I look around and I see a few people starting to look our way.

“Seriously Ashton, now is not the time for this.” I say to her as I feel myself starting to become angry.

“He was blowing you off before we even started talking to Ci so you can’t blame her for this.” Doug says making him side eye her.

“What’s so special about her Russell? Are you just being nice because she has like 1 friend? Or do you feel sorry for her because she’s a hood rat?” Ashton says as she looks at Ci with disgust on her face.

“I’m really not in the mood for this.” Ciara says softly before as she grabs her backpack and tried to walk away.

“Don’t you dare walk away while I’m talking to you.” Ashton says as she grabs Ciara’s backpack hard, pulling her back.

“What is your problem?” Ciara asks with anger as her backpack hits the ground. Ashton raises her eyebrow as she chuckles.

“Well look who finally decided to speak up for herself.” Ashton says and she claps dramatically, causing a scene. I shake my head as I pick up Ci’s bag and grab her wrist gently.

“Seriously Ashton, back off. Today is not the day for this.” I say firmly and Ashton runs her fingers through her hair.

“Really Russell, you’re really going to stand here and defend this trash? She’s not good enough for you and you know it. She’s just using you as a way to get out of the hood and away from her crackhead ass mother.” Ashton says loudly and the students standing around gasp in surprise.

“Yea, I knew that was your mother begging for money a while back. It was really pathetic, honestly. Now correct me if I’m wrong but she is on crack right? Or is it heroin? Or does she do whatever drug she can get her hands on? Instead of trying so hard to get a guy that you know is out of your league, maybe you should be worried about taking care of your mother before she overdoses and dies.” She says with a smirk on her face. Before I can even fully process what she says Ciara gets out of my grip and charges towards Ashton, tackling her to the ground. Nina and other students cheer her on as she punches Ashton repeatedly in her face. Ashton cries out in pain as she tries to block the punches. Ashton reaches up and scratches Ci’s face and Ci slaps her so hard the sound echoes down the hall.

“Stop Ci.” I say as I wrap my arms around her waist and I pull her off of Ashton.

“What’s going on here?!” Principal Williams says angrily as he makes his way over to us, with a security guard trailing behind him.

“She just attacked me!” Ashton says as she wipes her blood lip.

“She did principal Williams. It’s like she just snapped or something. She’s dangerous.” Elise says as she helps Ashton up.

“That’s not what happened and you know it. If anything Ashton had this coming for a while.” I say and Ashton looks at me in disbelief.

“Seriously Russell?” She says softly and I nod my head.

“No matter how much we have told you to stop and leave her alone, you just kept pushing her. This was going to happen eventually.” I say and she rolls her eyes. Principal Williams looks at Ci who is still in my arms, shaking with anger as tears continuously fall from her eyes.

“Take both of them to my office.” Principal Williams says to the security guard. I let Ciara go and she wipes her face as best as she can before walking down the hallway with the security guard.

“Did that really just happen?” I ask our friends and they nod their heads, still shocked at what just went down.

“I’ve been waiting on that since Freshmen year. I always knew that girl was going to push her too far one day.” Nina says and I nod my head in agreement. “And I got it all on camera.” Doug says with a smile as he gives his phone to Principal Williams.

  ______________________________________________________________

Sitting in the principal’s office right next to Ashton, is giving me so much anxiety. I look down at my bruised knuckles and I shake my head. I can’t believe I let her push me to that point but I lost all control. I completely blacked out. I really can’t believe she said those things about my mama. She’s such a disgusting and ugly person. My eyes start to tear up as her words replay in my mind. Ashton hisses as she places ice on her bruised cheek.

“This is all your fault.” She says as she looks over at me.

“I never knew that just my existence could make someone hate me so much. I’ve never done or said anything to you to make you treat me the way that you.” I say as I cry a little and she rolls her eyes. A few minutes pass and Principal Williams walks in with the guidance counselor Mrs. Spearmen behind her.

“I’m pretty sure you both are aware that we have a zero-violence policy here and what happened a few minutes ago is unacceptable. I’m very surprised and slightly disappointed that our top student would be involved in something like this.” He says and I lower my head in shame.

“But we also have a no bullying policy here as well Ashton and your behavior was disappointing as well.” He says and Ashton looks at him in surprise

“Excuse me? What behavior? I was attacked by this person that y’all approved to go to school here. I’m the victim.” She says and shake my head.

“You’re not a victim Ashton. You’re an insensitive, spoiled brat. You think that you can say and do anything to people without facing the consequences and you can’t. That’s not how life works. I just found out that my mother died just a few days ago and when you said what you said about her, I blacked out but I don’t apologize for that.” I say through my tears as I wipe my face.

“Wh..what? I didn’t know she died.” Ashton says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“That’s the thing about people like you. You never think about what someone else could be going through. You just continuously belittle and pick on people until someone snaps and either hurts themselves or someone else. Then instead of taking responsibilities for your actions, you place the victim.” I say as I shake my head.

“That’s enough. We saw videos of you provoking Ciara and we’ve also heard from different students that you have been bullying her for a while. You started this fight Ashton and now you have to face the consequences. We’re suspending you for a week.” He says as he fills out her paper work.

“Suspension? Are you crazy? You can’t suspend me. Wait until I tell my father about this. You’ll be looking for a new job.” Ashton says angrily.

“We spoke with your parents already and they actually agree with your suspension. From this point on, for 7 days, you are not allowed on this campus. Can you please escort her to her car?” He says to the security guard and he nods his head before escorting Ashton out of the office.

“Now Ciara, although your actions weren’t the best we’re not going to suspend you.” He says and I look at him in surprise.

“Really?” I say and he nods his head.

“We know that you recently lost your mother and we are so sorry. It was a very brave decision to come back to school so soon but we don’t think you’re ready yet because you haven’t had time to properly grieve. So instead of suspending you we’re going to make it mandatory that you take your 5 days of grieving that is in our policy.” Mrs. Spearman says with a small smile on her face.

“How is this different from suspension?” I ask, confused.

“Well it won’t be on your record and you won’t be penalized for any classes, assignments, or tests that you miss. You really need to take this time to grieve and prepare yourself to be around others. Do you understand?” She asks and I nod my head.

“Can I leave now?” I ask and she nods her head.

“Yes. And if you need to talk or anything like that when you come back. Feel free to come and see me.” Mrs. Spearman says with a comforting smile. I nod my head before leaving the office and I’m instantly greeted by Russell and Nina.

“Aren’t y’all supposed to be in homeroom?” I ask as they walk over to me and Russell hugs me tightly. I close my eyes and take a deep breath as I enjoy the feeling of his arms wrapped around me.

“Yea but we had to check on you before we went.” He says as he lets me go. “How did it go in there?” Nina asks as she hugs me.

“Okay, I guess. They’re making me take 5 grieving days.” I say as she lets me go.

“I told you to stay at home today.” Nina says and I chuckle.

“Are you okay?” Russell asks and I shake my head.

“Not really. I just can’t believe she would say those things to me. And now I have to do what I didn’t want to do in the first place which is stay home by myself.” I say as I put my backpack on.

“Well when I get home, we’ll order pizza and watch all of your favorite movies.” Nina says and I chuckle before nodding my head.

“That sounds good. Y’all seriously need to get to class.” I say as I look at the time.

“Do you want me to walk you to your car?” Russell asks and I shake my head. “No, but thank you though.” I say as I give him a small smile.

“I’ll call you when I get out of football practice.” He says before pecking my forehead gently.

“Make sure you put some ice on your knuckles.” He says jokingly making me laugh.

“I will.” I reply before we all walk our separate ways. I get into my car and suddenly I’m feeling overwhelmed as tears begin to fall from my eyes. These last few days have been too much and I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this. I wipe my face as best as I can before driving off. With no intentions of going back to Nina’s house, I end up in my neighborhood at the alley that they found my mom dead in. I take a deep breath before getting out of the car and I slowly begin walking down the alley. I look around and all I can picture is her lying on the ground, dead. I cover my mouth as I begin to sob loudly. The pain that I’m feeling is indescribable and I wouldn’t wish this feeling on my worst enemy.

“Ciara?” A voice calls out to me and I turn around and I see August standing behind me. I run into his arms and I hug him tightly as I cry in his chest. 

“You don’t need to be over here torturing yourself like this.” He says softly as he rubs my back.

“I know how you’re feeling Ci. You couldn’t save her.” He says and I cry harder, knowing that it’s the truth. He holds me a little longer before pulling away and I try to calm down as I wipe my face.

“Where have you been staying?” He asks as he begins to walk me back to my car.

“At a friend’s house on the other side of town.” I say and he nods his head.

“Good. You don’t need to be over here anyways. I don’t want to see you back on this side of town, you hear me?” He says and I hesitate before nodding my head.

“I know it hurts right now but don’t give up. Keep your head up and keep moving forward. You have so much to live for.” He says and I nod my head again. He gives me a small smile before hugging me again tightly. He continuously tells me that I’m going to be okay but I’m finding that hard to believe.

[knightofbalance-13]

You Failed

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/163494770805/how-i-would-try-to-make-jaune-less-divisive

Like, epicly

Have. Someone. Call. Him. Out. On. His. Bullshit.

What? N-no! Jaune isn’t even that divisive anymore! he stopped being that way after Volume 3. The only people still attacking him are RWDE posters and spoiler: You guys don’t count due to the absolutely asinine reasons you come up with to attack people with. And, what bullshit? He hasn’t even done anything like that!

Like seriously, there are characters who have had it WAY WORSE THAN JAUNE but we’re supposed to sympathize with the scrawny blond kid?

Shake him up a bit.

Didn’t the white trailer begin with: "everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metric or form of measure. And all of it... irreplaceable"

Look, by the looks of it, the writers are trying to make Jaune the sympathetic one here, but that falls apart when he says that he’s “Tired of losing people.” in front of a person who has seen three people die right in front of her, has lost her mother, has had her team forcibly torn apart, had to leave her crippled and emotionally damaged sister behind, and has been given this weird destiny/power thing that basically means that she has the burden of trying to save the world. He’s also saying it in front of two ORPHANS.

Jauane also watched Penny die, Jaune watched Amber die, Jaune lost Pyrrha, the one person who ever believed in him, and at that time, saw a childhood memory of his being burned to the ground and their one chance of making it to Mistral fast destroyed. Yeah, I think he’s allowed some time to complain, especially since that’s the only time he does it.

Yeah, and Ruby has her family whereas Jaune’s never believed in him which incredibly crushing. Her sister is in the care of her father and she CHOOSE to leave, Ruby barely knew her mother, Jaune lost an important part of his team and unlike Weiss Blake and Yang, Pyrrha’s never coming back and Jaune is following her son he falls under that category as well.

And Ren and Nora have each other: Jaune has no one to lean on but himself. In these circumstances: Jaune has no one.

And you do realize you can be sympathetic towards more than one person in a show right? I-it’s just common sense here: they're ALL suppose to be sympathetic.

Jaune. The guy who still has both parents, seven sisters, and still has had enough money to be able to buy an unhealthy cereal, is tired of losing people.

You know Dudeblade, by that logic, Yang, Weiss and Blake cant be sympathetic as none of them have really lost anything by YOUR standards either. Might want to watch you say: Your words have a habit of biting you in the ass.

Now, if someone were to call him out on his attitude, that could shake him up. It could lead to better character development that would make Jaune MORE of an audience surrogate. Because I don’t want the guy representing ME to be bemoaning the senseless loss of life in front of people who each have a dead mom.

Dudeblade, you AREN’T the audience: You do not represent the audience as a whole. You do not even share this type of opinion with 1% of the audience: you just want everything to go your way: Evident by the fact that you think RT should Pander to you. News flash: they never will.

This is also why I want Pyrrha’s mom to NOT be okay with Jaune’s upgrade. Let me give an example that I read somewhere as to why this is actually insensitive.

No, dudeblade. the reason why you want Pyrrha’s mom to call him out is because you have a self admitted bias against male characters and within that, you have a bias against Jaune. You want him called out to feel validated by your feelings s you can keep going.

Action 1. Let/s say that your Significant Other died, so you wear her ring around your neck ala Nathan Drake to honor their memory. That/s one thing. That is actually respectful.

Action 2. But now let’s say that you melt it to be part of a pin or something. That ISN’T respectful. It just means that your other’s ring (and by extension, your Significant Other), were nothing more than an accessory to you.

Since what Jaune did was more akin to Action 2, I doubt that Pyrrha’s mother would be in ANY way okay with what he did.

Action 3: you melt the pin down and intergrate it into your family heirloom so that your Significant Other will always be a part of your family and will always be protecting them, just as they protected you. 

That is a great form of respect: Showing that jaune considered Pyrrha like family to him and wanted her to be a part of his family so he integrated her armor into his family heirlooms, which are inherited by a Great War Survivior meaning she is now also considered equal to Jaune’s inspiration to become a Huntsman.

But of course, you have to take the one that makes Jaune look bad.

Look, I’m not going to deny that Jaune has his moments, and that he’s not supposed to be a bad person, but the way he’s being written is pretty disgraceful. If the writers want people to stop bashing on Jaune, then they should stop making him the one in the right when he really isn’t. Jaune’s line of being tired of losing people would have carried more weight to it if he had personally lost more than just Pyrrha.

Jaune has been in the wrong before: Like with Qrow, were they are both in the wrong. Or in Kuroyuri where he was in the wrong for ignoring Ruby. Or in jaundice where he was in the wrong for not taking Pyrrha’s advice. Or in the Dance Arc where he is treated as immature and had to let go. In fact...I think jaune has been in the wrongt more times than any of the main girls.

You don’t want Jaune to be written in the wrong more; you JUST want Jaune written in the wrong. Dudeblade, you have literally said that you wanted Jaune to die a horrible death and never be mentioned again: No one should listen what you have to say about Jaune. Or any male characters. Or female characters. Hell, about RWBY at all.

But he didn’t. He hasn’t.

Meaning that line comes off as more insensitive than depressing.

You’d be the type of person to tell Shinji to shut up and get in the robot because Guts has suffered more: You are almost completely lacking in empathy.

The only one being insensitive here is you for saying that someone isn’t allowed to mourn or be frustrated at life for kicking them down because other people have had it worse, while ignoring all but the basic factors in their complaining to make them look more pathetic.

Now, if any of the OTHERS had said it, it would have carried more weight to it, but none of them DID say it.

No it wouldn’t. They were all being sad, jaune was just the only one vocalizing it. You just say that because Jaune said it. for no other reason than “it’s Jaune.”

It was Jaune.

The guy who doesn’t feel at all obligated to send what remains of Pyrrha to her mother, who is likely distraught over what happened.

And who has literally every other possession of Pyrrha’s, ranging from other pieces of her armor to her trophies to her pictures to her baby clothes and shoes and so on. You act like Jaune has everything of Pyrrha’s when that is literally the opposite of the situation: That is the only thing of Pyrrha’s that he has and making her mom demand it back just makes her mom look like a narcissist for demanding two things from a guy that is also mourning Pyrrha because he isn’t her.

So have Jaune realize what a good life he’s had compared to the others. Have him realize that his life was easy compared to the likes of Ren, Nora, Weiss, or even Emerald.

Have someone call him out on his attitude, because Yang and Tai have had it worse than Jaune. Ruby has had it worse than Jaune. And even though she was revealed to basically be the princess of Furry Australia, even BLAKE has had it worse than Jaune. Shake him up a bit (or a lot), and get him to change his attitude. Because at the rate he’s going, he’d probably throw a pity party for himself if he were to stub his toe, and claim that it was worse than when Yang lost her freaking arm!

Ren and Nora have always had each other and always have each other to rely upon and know that someone will believe in them and someone will love them.

Weiss has never had the illusion of her family believing in her and still has her team.

Emerald...is a god damn mass murderer, stop defending these people!

Yang can replace her arm, already has a mother, can punch Raven in the face and move on.

Blake can take back the White Fang.

The only two people in that sentence who are even comparable to Jaune in this situation is Ruby and Taiyang because Ruby was there when Pyrrha died and Taiyang has lost a team mate/emotional support. But both of them take into practice the words from the White Trailer and don’t try belittling someone else’s pain and sorrow.

At this rate: jaune could lose all but one arm, watch his teammates die in an extremely brutal fashion, be tortured, blinded by his eyes being gouged and his tounge removed and be the last surviving human on the planet and you’d tell him to shut up. Because in your eyes, jaune is always in the wrong. 

Well guess what? Hes not, what you said is not gonna happen and you’ll be stuck in your hate forever. Have fun.

[agent-murica]

S15E6

I had an AP test today and I decided the most logical thing to do was to analyze the fuck out of this episode. Beware: it’s rather lengthy- like that of an essay + I’m open for discussion about the points made. Spoilers under the cut:

Ok, I just want to start off by saying that I think Grif leaving has been a long time coming, and while it did initially surprise me, I have to say I’m not quite so much shocked about that than I am about everybody’s reactions to it. More clearly, I think everyone- including Dylan- reacted in almost entirely the wrong way.

-Starting with Dylan, personally, I think Jax should’ve been the one to go in and talk with Grif rather than her for a few reasons. The first reason is, he almost had no involvement with delivering the message to the Reds and Blues besides being there and saying at most two lines. The second reason is, he’s treated in the very same position that Grif is with the Reds, as Jax is for Dylan. They are both belittled, they both have their ideas shot down, and they have both been shot at for the purposes of their CO’s. I believe these aspects of Jax’s character would’ve made him a better fit to go talk to Grif than Dylan, but since he didn’t I’ll discuss why I think Dylan did the wrong thing and did “fuck something up.”

Dylan is probably the worst choice to go talk to Grif simply because her character is very similar to early Carolina, especially Season 10 Carolina. You know, the same Carolina who dragged them on a personal vengeance quest and was a major reason why Grif left and decided to not deal with her problems, and the rest followed. Personally, I can see parallel’s between Dylan and S10 Carolina (cursed WHAP exam and its synthesis’) and it’s hard for me not to see why Grif reacted the way he did.

Dylan is someone who just waltzed in on the Reds and Blues during their retirement, is dragging them on another Church quest. Not only that but she just waltz’s up to Grif talking as if she knows him, saying things about his character and what he’s really like. Grif is a character who doesn’t like having things be decided for him, and he probably doesn’t like someone telling him what he’s ‘really’ like (even if it’s 100% true; he just doesn’t want to see it).

But what I think Dylan did that really pushed him over the edge was mentioning Kai. I think that was a slap in the face for Grif because he’s still not with his sister- the reason why he hasn’t been with his sister is because of being dragged on quest after quest after fucking quest and that, I think that’s what made him finally decide ‘that’s it; I quit’.

But Grif can be easily swayed and has been in the past with proper encouragement, so I don’t think his decision was as set in stone as he thought it was, which is why the reactions from the Reds and Blues are absolutely atrocious to the mental dilemma Grif was having.

-First up, Washington. Listen, I love Wash, I really do and I can see why his first impulse when seeing Grif arrive late is to insult him- because that’s what everyone does in the BGC. But that was just another reminder to Grif that he doesn’t belong with them, because really, for him it’s one insult after another on an almost daily basis. So they’re already starting off on the wrong foot.

-Then we have Caboose (skipping the immediate reactions for a bit), who I think was the safest character to react to the news. His first reaction was to ask about Church, who he’s constantly focused about but it also gives Grif a chance to somewhat explain why he’s not going on this quest specifically as well as it gives him a chance to try and reason with the others. Caboose’s later reaction of having someone try to stop him is a little less ok as it’s just another reminder that until now Grif really hasn’t been given a choice on anything.

-Then we have Tucker, to which I found his reactions to be appalling. We have him from the start insulting Grif- by making fun of the fact that for once Grif was being serious and thinking about something concerning himself. Then we have him acting hostile when Grif initially says he quits, saying along the lines that he ‘can’t do that’- taking away Grif’s right to choose. And finally what I think really sealed the deal was him calling Grif ‘selfish like always’. Listen, I get that Tucker is angry and his grief about Church has been cut open like a wound but is that really the best he could come up with? Grif has given so fucking much to the BGC and this is exactly how he’s treated every damn time.

If Tucker was trying to get Grif to stay, this is the polar opposite of what he should’ve done. I’m not surprised that Grif says, “I don’t like you. Any of you” because when you have ‘you’re selfish’ being thrown at you and you’ve actually done so much shit for your so called ‘friends’ I’d proclaim a little more than ’I don't like you’ at them. Grif could’ve said so much worse than that, but he didn’t- because these people don’t deserve his time of day.

Tucker reminded him that he actually gets nothing from going on these quests; no respect, no admiration, nothing from his supposed friends.

-While Sarge’s reaction wasn’t as violent as one would expect from his character, it was still a reminder to Grif that he has a superior officer who wants him dead at every turn. Someone who has repeatedly shot at him, wouldn’t look over to cliff to see if he was dead and even mentioned that he would celebrate it, belittles him, questions his intelligence, has emergency plans where the first course of action is to always shoot Grif, and so on and so forth. It doesn’t matter that Sarge said, “Seriously, Grif. Turn around” after his whole charade of acting like they usually do because it doesn’t matter at that point- Grif has already made his decision and that’s just supporting it.

Sarge inadvertently reminded Grif of the physical and verbal abuse he faces on a daily basis when he’s with the BGC.

-Getting on to Simmons, he didn’t do much- and that’s the problem. When first hearing about Grif being ‘missing’ his first action was to go check the pantry. Really, the pantry? In the previous episode we were given a plethora of other places Grif could have been- down by the beach or over by the oasis, but no. The first place Simmons decides would be the logical place to look was the pantry. And then we have his reaction to Grif thinking, to which he says along the lines of “thinking about food”.

If that doesn’t say much about their relationship I don’t know what will. But that’s what their relationship is founded on- insulting each other- so I won’t focus too much on that because Simmons thought it’d be another one of their bantering moments.

Then we have his only reaction to Grif leaving; nothing. He just sat there and stared. He didn’t say anything to convince him to stay, didn’t chase after him; he just did nothing. And I can understand him being shocked speechless because he probably knows as much as the viewer that Grif’s never done that before- he’s never left. But from Grif’s perspective, it just solidifies one more thing for him:

Simmons, no matter how much he loves him, will never put Grif first or grow a backbone to go after him.

-In total, I feel like most of the reactions came off wrong and felt like attacks especially for Grif. But I think it’s the fact that no one really chased after him to get him back is the zinger here. Because here’s a group that will risk life and limb time and time again for a guy who can’t stay dead, and yet when one of their friends decides he’s had enough and leaves no one really puts their all in convincing him to stay. Most the attempts are lowered down to downright insulting him and just saying he has to stay. In comparison to Sarge’s speech at the end of Season 8, this attempt to get Grif to stay was seriously lacking.

And look, I have no doubt that they all see Grif as a valued friend, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Grif is treated like literal dog shit in this series but still comes back to the group and for what- to have them choose a dead guy instead of him.

Grif is probably feeling like nobody in the BGC has ever given a shit about him, and they did a great job not proving him wrong.

-Not only that but his role in the group has been replaced too. Grif from the very start of the series has been the designated vehicle driver. We’ve seen him be the primary driver of the Warthog, we’ve seen him manage to figure out an Elephant (not sure which season this was, but I’m sure it was Season 7), he’s flown a Pelican, a Hornet, and the list goes on.

Something that’s always bothered me about Season 13 was the fact that Grif was replaced- twice- as designated driver. First during the escape from Armonia and second during the flight to the Staff of Charon. It always rubbed me the wrong way and I really didn’t know why until now that is.

Believe me- I know there’s more to Grif than just his ability to be adept in driving/flying any vehicle, but to Grif, he probably doesn’t think he’s much more than that.

He’s not a strong fighter (Carolina, Wash), doesn’t have a magic sword that works only for him (Tucker), isn’t inhumanly strong (Caboose), he’s not a robot (Lopez), he doesn’t have an amazingly strong throwing arm (Donut), he’s not a hacker or a cyborg (Simmons), and he can’t do half the stuff that Sarge can.

He’s their driver, and even then he’s easily replaceable.

Grif probably has no place in the BGC anymore and that probably contributed to his deciding to stay on the island.

TL;DR: The Reds and Blues did a terrible job trying to get Grif to stay with them and I hope this leads to self-enlightenment and an arc designed for the development of Grif and the Reds.