#Which I didn't know if anyone would want to see

[brattyspence]

safe and sound | s.reid

summary: in which post-prison!spencer finds himself so comforted by your presence that he can’t help but fall asleep whenever he’s around you. (anyone else remember that tiktok trend abt how frequently falling asleep around certain people is a sign of someone feeling safe? no? just me?)

tags: fluffy! post-prison!spence (but its not rlly mentioned in detail)(just reminding u all that man is Traumatized capital T), gun mentioned, sleeping… that’s it i think

a/n: hey idk how to follow up my last fic so here is this??? its a drabble!

word count: 651

(a very short) masterlist here

You had been sitting on your couch, laptop open on your lap as you typed away the last bit of paperwork you needed to complete for the night. The TV was playing softly, some random documentary channel you’d put on hours ago. The room was dim, only the soft lighting from the table side lamp illuminating the space.

Even though your relationship was relatively new, you were at a point where simply existing in each other's presence was an acceptable reason to hang out. You didn't need to be doing something, you were just content to exist in each others orbit. 

In recent weeks, you’d observed a new phenomenon; nearly every time he came to your apartment, he would fall asleep within an hour. 

Not that particularly you minded. Sometimes you found yourself tangled somewhere in his arms, the book you had been reading slipping from your fingertips as you also fell asleep. Other times you were so busy with work and laundry and whatever else you were up to to notice that he had been sleeping at all. 

You shut your laptop and placed it on the coffee table in front of you. It was late now, nearly 11pm. 

“Spence…” you reached over to ruffle his hair softly, hoping to stir him. “It's past 11.”

He made a slight whine of protest before fluttering his eyes open. You watched him squint at the digital clock on your TV stand. “Ugh. I'm sorry. I’m going.”

“I wasn't kicking you out,” you reply. “I just thought maybe you didn't want to spend the night on my couch.”

He sat up, rubbing his eyes for a few seconds. “Yeah, that's probably not very smart,” he replied, a slight smile creeping across his lips. “I don't know why your apartment makes me so tired.”

He did know, in fact. It was no secret that the past year hadn't been kind to him. Prison had left him changed, and touched every part of his life irreversibly, including his own home. It was stupid, he knew. He was a fully grown man, a trained agent who owned a gun and knew how to use it, and he still could never feel as safe in his own apartment as he was in yours. You were the only person in his life who didn’t see him during that point in his life. You hadn't watched him change and expected anything from him. Being in your presence was the only time there was no weight to bear.

“It's more than fine with me,” you said. You shifted across the cushions enough to tuck your head against his shoulder. “You can sleep on my couch whenever you want. But you should probably consider the bed instead, if you don't want back pain for the rest of your life.”

He chuckled softly, sliding an arm around your side to settle you against him. “I’ll consider it.”

The air grew still again. You closed your eyes, savoring the feeling of his fingertips tracing lines up and down your side. Eventually you felt him place his cheek against your head. You were certain you’d also succumb to the temptation of sleep that had been creeping up on you.

“You should just stay the night,” you mumbled. 

“We both have work tomorrow, honey.”

You huffed. “But we’re so comfy right here. Please?”

“Maybe I can just get up extra early tomorrow to have time to go home…” he said. “Just because you asked so nicely.”

“Mhm. Do that.” You nodded. “And next time just pack a bag. Or I'll make space for you in my closet. Whatever will get you to stay.”

You felt him laugh quietly before he removed his arm from its position around you. He stood up before you could protest further, offering his hand to you. 

“Come on. Let's go to bed like adults.”

You groaned, accepting his hand anyway.

[balrogballs]

I'm still sad about this heartwarming and mildly amusing little section where feral adolescent Aragorn brings some joy to Maedhros in his unhinged little way, which I had to cut out of Cast in Stone for structural reasons, especially as I had gone to the trouble of illustrating it!

But I realised it reads perfectly fine standalone, so you guys can have my crumb of Maedhros-joy instead. No context required: Maedhros and Maglor are temporarily staying in the Shire during the late Third Age, Maedhros had a horrible night of traumatic dreams and was being maudlin — until young Aragorn, aka Elros II and the bane of his life, turns up like a bad penny, as he often does. Enjoy!

---

"You look unhappy," said Estel, sitting down before Maedhros, legs crossed. "Does your hand hurt? Surely it can't be as bad as when it got chopped off, can it?"

"No, but leave me be, Estel, I have —"

"All right, but let me ask just one question. I promise, then I'll go away. I just remembered something from my lessons, and every time I ask Ada he looks up at the sky and asks the Valar where he went wrong in raising me," Estel moved closer, looking around for eavesdroppers. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But I would like to know."

Maedhros frowned, swallowed the lump in his throat and dragged in a breath. "What?"

"Fingon rescued you on one of those enormous eagles, didn't he? On that mountain with Morgoth and all of that. It was one of those, right? Manwë's Eagles."

"Yes. He did. I do not wish to answer any further questions on the matter, clear off."

"And it was quite a long journey, wasn't it?"

Maedhros grunted.

"I've always had a question about it… and again, you don't have to tell me if it's too traumatising," Estel's eyes shone, as though he were about to hear a state secret. "And I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Spit it out, boy, or leave me now. I am in the mood for neither company nor memory."

"Did it… you know…?"

"If you're trying to ask me if losing the hand hurt, yes it did," Maedhros snapped. "Now leave me alone, I've had enough reminiscing for a damned century. Get off home, now!"

"Oh, shut up, I wasn't asking about your stupid hand, I don't understand why you think everyone sits around thinking about your hand," Estel scowled, pursuing his lips, before deciding his quest for scientific knowledge was more important than whatever had crawled up Maedhros' arsehole and died. He widened his eyes conspiratorily, looked around again. "My question has nothing to do with that! I just wanted to know, did the eagle… you know?"

"Estel, I am not going to repeat this, get out of my sight right this —"

"Did it take a shit?"

"Did… what?"

"Did it take a shit?" Estel flushed as he said the word, Elrond's parental touch finally taking hold, though in a predictably useless manner. "And if it did, how big was it? As in, was it normal bird crap, or was it, you know — like a bucketload of it?"

Maedhros blinked. Estel held his hands out to demonstrate.

"I've always wanted to know that about them, you know," the boy continued, stroking his chin like a philosopher. "Manwe's eagles, that is. Surely if they're big enough to carry two people, one being a towering beast like you, their droppings must be massive."

"What…?" Maedhros couldn't formulate words, a state of being Estel clearly had no familiarity with. "Their… what?"

"And yes, I know they're divine, all of that, but surely they can't be toilet trained, can they? I just don't see Manwë having enough time to toilet train an eagle, you know. Could you imagine just… going about your day, and having this massive tub of birdshite fall on your head? Oh, it could drown a person, I'm sure of it!" Estel grinned, as if said occurrence would be the best day of his life, had it happened to him. "So, did it? And if it did, did you see if it went on someone?"

Maedhros sat there blinking at the boy in complete silence before rising quietly, taking the now-extremely-familiar ear, and slowly — like he were a corpse — leading Estel to the village gate. He didn't say a word, only gestured weakly and put up three fingers, a signal the now sulky boy was very used to.

And as Estel, muttering darkly all the while, neared the completion of his first punishment-lap of three around the village green, he heard something that sounded like a donkey in immense pain. It was a sound so tremendous and unexpected that it brought Maglor running from the house, gaping at the source, having not heard such a thing in centuries. It was no donkey, but Maedhros in complete hysterics, sitting on the ground exactly where he was when he beckoned Estel to run, sobbing with laughter, actual tears pouring down his face, which itself was screwed up and flushed so pink he looked like he'd been badly sunburned. He was trying to explain the situation to Maglor (who had been glaring at Estel as if he had personally killed his brother, and now looked upon him like he was Iluvatar himself) but Maedhros was howling too hard to even stand, let alone form coherent words.

Estel pretended not to notice, and started on his second lap. Though objectively speaking, the laugh itself sounded like something between a foghorn, a pig and whatever noise he imagined Ungoliant would make — there was something rather lovely about it that brought an inexplicable little smile to his face.

[lukalnst]

Hi, could you write Luka from ALNST with a reader he absolutely loves to “discreetly” follow around during their anakt garden days ? Like he has a crush on them and badly wants to become closer but he sucks so much at relationships that the reader is the one that ends up speaking with him first 🫠

ENAMORED!LUKA X READER

Contains: Luka is whipped for reader, gn!reader, Luka is bad at socializing,,, but he's trying his best!!!, fluff

Luka loved to watch you.

It sounded weird to think about it, no? He couldn't help but hide in places where he thought you wouldn't find him just to observe your every movement. He liked to see you talking with other people, and he liked to see how you'd react to what they had to say, amongst other things.

Oddly enough, you stood up from the rest to him. He felt a weird sense of love for you, but it wasn't exactly that — It felt much stronger than love itself. Maybe it was an obsession? He didn't exactly experience what love really was, so he guessed it made sense for him not to know what it was.

Maybe you could show him what it was, though.

But, as much as he loved to think about you and imagine little scenarios about you in his head, he could never actually approach you. It was quite irritating, he had to admit.

He could imagine himself doing many other things, but talking to you wasn't one of them. As much as he tried to, he simply couldn't.

Perhaps it wasn't meant to be. Some people are better left off in your head. Some things are better left off in your imagination, no?

... That was what he thought, and that was what he tried to convince himself.

Luckily for Luka, you had noticed him staring at you from behind a tree that was only a few meters away from you. You were a bit confused at first. Did he really think you couldn't see him? He was basically peeking from behind the tree.

When he realized that you were taking a few steps closer towards the tree, he pretended to be doing something else. You surely wouldn't notice, his plan was perfect.

... Or so he thought.

"Hey... uhm... Do you want to be friends?" You gently asked as you observed him trying to act as if he wasn't just looking at you intently from a place which he didn't even bother hiding properly.

Luka turned around and was hesitant to reply. He didn't want to seem like someone who was desperate. "... I guess. My name is Luka, yours?" He questioned.

As you said your name, he had to pretend as if he didn't hear other people saying it repeatedly when talking to you. "That's a nice name. I'm glad to meet you," he smiled at you. It took basically everything in him to not start smiling stupidly. You had talked to him, you really had —

"Luka! Do you wanna play with me?" You gently tugged at his arm. His eyes were slightly open, and a smile made its way towards his lips. He simply tried to keep his act up as if it wasn't one of the best days of his life.

"Yes, I'd love to..." He gently murmured.

...

Something that you didn't have to worry about was about Luka finding another best friend. He seemed to only enjoy spending time with you, and he made it known.

Whenever other people tried to talk to him, he just glared at them and placed you in front of them, as a weird way to say, 'I don't want anyone else other than them'.

Other people thought he was odd, but he had grown into your best friend. Someone who you could easily rely on.

Someone who would love you no matter what.

[chloeapplepi]

as a victim it makes me really frustrated when people see yuri briar as incestuous. i'm not a fan of him and he makes me uncomfortable at times so i don't have all the information about him off the top of my head, but i just want to give a bit analysis in defense of him.

he is not in love with, nor attracted to, yor. he has not just childhood trauma but shared trauma with her. she is also his only family member, which is a fact that he is overly aware of and affects his mental state and actions deeply. he has unhealthy attachment and codependency towards her as she is the only family and also the only close connection he has, as well as because she took on a motherly role for him as the oldest sibling. he feels like he needs to work hard to protect her out of his own love and to feel worthy of having received her love.

i feel like people forget because of how he is towards loid that yuri genuinely wanted yor to have a boyfriend. he even offered to introduce her to someone. but even when you objectively want something, that doesn't mean you'll have only positive feelings when it comes to fruition. he wants for yor to be in a happy relationship but at the same time, he does not know loid. his very most important person is living with someone who is a total stranger to him, and didn't tell him about it for a whole year.

that alone would naturally make anyone somewhat suspicious. then you have to consider that seeing them married also hammers into yuri the fact that he cannot always be there with yor. he has to live with the fact that someone he cares about so dearly, his only person, is going to be alone a lot of the time with a man he doesn't know.

this would be difficult for anyone with childhood trauma and trust issues. and yuri isn't just anyone. he is SSS. he is trained to stay suspicious and untrusting, it is a requirement for his job. he spends hours and hours a week dealing with spies and is intimately aware of how well they can blend in and how they can have a completely unknowing family.

that's all, folks. and i don't want to hear any arguments, thanks. if u disagree just keep it to yourself or u will be blocked 🫶

[pinkyqil]

LOVING YOU FROM A DISTANCE [Ingrid engen x mapi lèon x reader]

Masterlist

Summary: You love her, but she's in love with someone else that isn't you and all you can do is love and wacht her from a distance but would you really accept it?.

A/n: this is one out of fives parts of my Ingrid x mapi x reader serie. Updates every Monday, if you have any suggestions/questions that you'll like to see in the serie let me know and as always feedbacks are appreciated and hope you guys enjoyed this one 🫶🏿

Contains: emotionally dependent reader, cunning mapi, angst, a lil bit of yander vibes from r, toxicity.

You recently joined the team a few months ago, Ingrid was apart of your teammates who had hosted a welcome to the team party for you and the other girls.

The moments your eyes meet hers you could feel the butterfly in your stomach. Understand what people meant by love at first sight.

But that any thoughts you were having where crushed. the moments your eyes landed on a brunette woman arms filled with tattoos greeting Ingrid with a kiss on her lips while staring at you.

She couldn't be dating anyone could she?. You thought .but then again, you know nothing about this tall goddess that was standing a few feet's away from you.

Deciding to get out of mapi's view and interact with your new teammates even though you only wanted to speak to Ingrid.

That night, you took it upon yourself to find her socials and followed her along with a few other teammates.

The next day at training, you made sure to be up bright and early for the new training session while hoping you could be able to talk to Ingrid.

Your plan consists of partnering up with esmee from what you gather. She was really close to Ingrid and the rest and could eventually help you get closer to Ingrid.

Every day, you would come in early and would plant in piece of flowers.where you know she'll sit at or slip in chocolate bars into her locker or love note.

But every day it looks like your efforts goes to waste because she'll either trash anything you gave her. Or it would've been mapi who had put it into the dumpster before Ingrid could notice them.

She was starting to annoy you really bad. But today happened to be your lucky day.

It was during a training session and you where placed on Ingrid's while mapi was on the opposing team.

Everyone was having fun and showing out their best skills when all of a sudden you stole the ball from mapi and was about to score, which earned a lot of ou's around your teammates until she had tackled you down hitting your ankles real bad.

Yelling and falling down while holding down your left, Ingrid was the first one to reach asking if you were alright.

"Come on she's alright I didn't even hit her legs that hard". The spenaird said but instead she got a cold glare coming from her girlfriend.

"Ai mapi, I don't think we need any of our teammates injured, so let's keep it down with the aggression". Patri voice yelled out.

Ingrid helped you up along with the medic, you where hopping on your left leg has they tried moving you inside the building.

"I'm very sorry for what mapi did she's normally not like this". She said sat down right next to you

"It not your fault we're all adults and if she wanted to apologize she would've". You told her

"I probably won't be able to play for a while the pains killing my ankle". You told her.

"That kinda of sucks if you need a ride home, please let us know, pretty sure it the least we can do."She told you and you took on that offer.

You knew that it only pissed off mapi way more when she saw Ingrid helping you make way to their designated parking spot. Ingrid sat in the back with you so that you wouldn't feel any lonely.

You didn't know if it was too much when you had laid your head on her shoulders and close your eyes but before you did. The look mapi gave you just made you feel 10 times better already.

[seat-safety-switch]

Have you ever thought about how weird it is that you can buy pineapples at the grocery store? Someone pulled this shit off a tree tens of thousands of kilometers away, and then sent it to me. If I don't buy it, they'll just throw it in the trash.

Global trade is a really remarkable invention of our species. My neighbour's Hyundai was born in South Korea, shipped here on a boat, and will never see its mother or most of its siblings again. Even so, it was only slightly more expensive than a locally-made Ford. Sorry, did I say "locally-made?" That was also made in a different country and shipped here under duress. We don't even notice such a miracle unless we check the registration.

My Volare was sent here from The America, a country which has been going through some rough times lately. I figured that maybe it would want to go back and see Missouri, its land of creation, at least once. That Hyundai would never get the opportunity: who would bundle an Elantra into a steamer ship? Driving there, though, was basically feasible. Well, feasible for anyone who wasn't operating a badly-maintained, 47-year-old example of one of Mopar's shittiest cars.

You guessed it: I broke down at the end of my block. There is good news, though. A couple months ago, I found a bicycle clogging the sewage drain near my office, and I was able to bang it mostly straight with a hammer. Ever since then, I've been throwing it in the trunk, and using it to ride home whenever one of my cars leave me stranded. It's been great for my cardio, but more importantly, it was built here. Plans changed. Volare out, whatever this bicycle is "in." I rode it to the bike shop that assembled it, stopping periodically to ingest fried food, craft beer, and ice cream so as not to unnecessarily improve my health from over-exercise.

Unfortunately for everyone, when I got to the bike store, the snooty repair-shop crew considered my quest incomplete. They didn't make the bikes there, just threw them together. The frame and wheels had come from China, they explained, a big integrated factory that punches out the parts, spitting out thousands of proto-bikes per second without any form of human involvement. You'd have to get on a plane and take it to go visit the mothership in Guangdong.

Confronted with the choice to either abandon my quest or willingly board a Boeing product, I decided to take the safer route and return home. Perhaps it was foolish to try and figure out the maternal bonds of soulless, inanimate methods of transportation. Or perhaps I just picked the wrong kind of product, I decided, picking up an apple at the grocery store on my way home. Surely, this thing came from here, I thought right before I read the label.

As soon as I figure out where "Northern Spy" is, you'll be the first to know.

[adhd-fandom-hyperfocus]

Secret Box

Sorry no fancy formatting or anything here. I got sudden inspired to write this from an anon @moodymisty got Tagging @kit-williams because I know Mr. Turbo is her man Warnings: Hints of NSFW stuff at the very end. Sorry if Turbo sounds ooc I haven't written him at all before so be kind. Also, did not proofread this. MINOR DNI

"Oh I don't know, I would be unhappy too if all I had to was tear things down and war. Maybe he wants to something else?"

"What do you mean? He seems quite happy breaking things."

He watched you frown so deeply, "My little bother was like that, everyone thought he like being mad. Just did not know how to convey his feelings, and felt like he had to stay under father's thumb. But he really just wanted to be an artist. I loved his art!"

"I didn't know you had a brother, where is he?"

"Dead. Died angry and lonely because father wanted a soldier."

His furious hearts stopped in his chest. You saw him. You did not realize it, but you did. It scared him, mad him want to rage and break you. It made him want to keep you close. Show you those things he wanted to forget.

***

"What in the Emperor's name is that?"

"Oh one of those puzzle boxes, some call them secret boxes because once you open them you can keep little important secrets in them!" your smile makes his head spin and his stomach lurch.

He wanted you to smile at him like that more. He needed you to talk to him about the silly little boxes.

"Why do you have so many? They seem pointless, we do not have anything to keep in them."

"Oh, I am far too stupid to open them, but I find them beautiful, each one looks different, opens differently, and all so complex, like people!"

***

Weeks he slaved over his workbench, keeping this secret to all, which was made easy when got the small chance to engage with you. Or most commonly, watch you interact with others, needed to make sure you didn't give his secrets away; at least he tried to convince himself of that.

You thought yourself stupid, but you figured him out in a way not even the damn Emperor himself could. What looked so simple was perhaps the most complex of all.

You wanted to see the art he could create that wasn't for war, how his mind could do if allowed to run free. Called his work art, like it was something to also marvel at.

The primarch looked over his newest creation, the small box was intricate in it's design, how he liked things. But it was what was inside that made his chest feel weak, and yet made him powerful all the same. The primarch of iron was feeling himself soften at the heat that had made a permanent home in his lower abdomen.

When he presented the box to you he did not say he made it, refused to. But as he explained his lie, the look you cast at him shocked him. You knew his bluff. Of course you did.

"Well, whoever made this is a true master! I have never seen something to beautiful before, thank you my lord," you smile up at him, letting him keep his pride and secret, "I know you are a busy man, but should you remember who made this could you be so kind to your serf and tell me?"

Prutabo grunted and nodded, "If I feel so inclined. Let me know if and when you open it."

***

Days and weeks pass and you keep him updated with your progress, he makes comments that hint he isn't too interested, after all someone of his genius would have opened it already. You agree, but you won't give up. You determination makes his hearts feel like they are in knots. How happy and joyful you are over his little toy. The fun you find in testing yourself only just to say you did it. The moments of you updating him live inside his dreams, where he is brave enough to hold your hand and smile back.

The crusade had called him away and like always it kept him longer than anyone else. While his brothers got to reap all the glory he was cleanup, or the brunt hammer to break wills. So of course when the Lord of Iron returned everyone scattered. Hid like cowards.

Not you. Even with him exuding even more of his dour demeanor you came running up to him. Puzzle box in hand.

"My Lord! I know you just returned, but I have been waiting for teran weeks for you to return." you were overflowing with excitement; practically vibrating with it.

It was like a disease that spread quickly, because as you spoke his ire cooled. You were happy he was home.

"Make it quick." though he hoped you took as long as you wanted.

"I am about to open the box, and I wanted to open it with you!" you grin up at him coming closer, "Exciting right?"

You...waited for him. Wanted to share in his happiness with...Throne he thought he was going to burst out of his armor and into flames.

"For someone who cannot easily solve things, I suppose. Well, open it." he grumbled, fighting to keep his mask on.

As you moved the last piece into place and opened the lid, a centerpiece rose up, and thereupon it was a metal sculpting of morning glories rising up and in bloom, the spun slowly as music played. And resting inside the main flower was a small ring, designed to look like vines holding a blooming rose the held a pink diamond.

Oh the look upon your face he would have waited lifetimes just to see it. It made this little box the greatest thing he would ever fashion.

"My Lord...I...forgive me, my words are failing." you whisper still marveling at the spinning flowers, "I love morning glories..."

Perturabo nodded, "I am aware. I do listen..." he wanted to know about the ring, wanted you to wear it.

Let everyone know you were his. That you wanted to be his.

Tears well up in your eyes as you so gingerly take the ring. Without needing to ask he gently holds the box so you might place it upon one of your fingers. He watches intently as you try various fingers before putting it upon your ring finger.

"My..."

"Perturabo. You can call me by my name...should you wish to continue to wear that ring." he spoke so very softly for himself.

Thorne, he needed you to keep it on.

"I will, Perturabo," you say his name to see how it rolls off your tongue and it sounds like heaven to him.

When this crusade is over he will fill this place with sounds of your and his children, and he will cast off all this cold machinery for things that truly mattered to him. Being a toy maker in one's spare time wasn't such a foolish notion. He would not die like your brother, and leave you alone.

"Are you sure you want...I mean... I am a serf, people will talk and I do not want to tarnish your name." you whisper to him, eyes fixed on the ring.

"They would be foolish to speak of it where I can hear." was all he offered.

Your small hands slip over his covered in his massive gauntlets, and he was trembling to get this armor off.

"My Lady, if it pleases you," his voice low and he leaned in close so no other could hear, "I wish to remove this armor, if you would wait for me in my chambers..." he couldn't believe he was doing this! Smoothness and words were not his strong points, but for you, he would try, "There is a puzzle I would like to get to know intimately, work with my hands, would you be willing?"

His face burned as he waited what felt like eons for you to reply. Was this all too much too fast? Was he being a fool?

You take the music puzzle box from him and when you pull back you are smiling with cheeks as flushed as his, "I would love that. Now go before your men see you this shade of red and not yelling. I do not want to ruin your reputation." you tease

Perturabo smiled, "You, I will allow to ruin me." he said before tearing off to get this damn armor off.

[penkura]

PENKURAAAAA

I love your writing, especially for Law and Zoro. I'm also a sucker for the parent fics you do. What if reader and Law/Zoris kids were to surprise reader on their birthday? What would they do? How would they do it? Maybe reader thinks everyone forgot their birthday but the crew is actually just in on the surprise? Thanks for reading friend, I would love to see what you think ^^♡

HIII THANK YOUUUU I'm so glad you like the parent fics, they're some of favorite to write. 😊

I didn't think I'd finish this in time to post on my birthday but I did!! I wasn't sure where to go at first so I just started typing and this is what I've got!! I'm pretty happy with it myself, so I hope you like it too!! 😄

Law

Law has never forgotten a birthday or anniversary ever since you first got together. His ability to remember every date leaves you impresses every time, especially after your son and daughter were born, he kept every important date in the front of his mind so her never forgot. He intended to celebrate every important, special day so you and your kids knew how much he loved you. You make sure to do the same for Law, even if he’d rather you not celebrate his birthday, the grins he gets from your children every year make it worth remembering the day.

That’s why it’s very strange to wake up on your birthday without Law in your bed with you, or even your son Rosinante yelling ‘happy birthday’ to wake you. Your daughter Cora is still learning to talk, but even she would already be in your bed and giggling to help get you up for the day. It’s odd, you’re not sure what to think as you start getting ready for the day, still no sign of your family or the other Heart Pirates around. Once you leave your room, it’s oddly quiet but you pass by a few of your crewmates on your way to Law’s office, expecting him to be there at least. None of them say anything about your birthday, Bepo and Ikkaku seem a little antsy when you greet them, though you don’t think anything of it, even when they try to guide you to the kitchen instead.

You don’t go with them, saying you’d like to see your family first, opening the door to Law’s office and being surprised at what you see. Law at his desk is normal, even with your daughter sitting in his lap, but what’s different is the amount of streamers across the walls and floor, wrapping paper pieces mixed in, your children busy scribbling away on paper likely making cards for you.

It's so early you can’t believe the two are awake, especially seeing how Law appears to he asleep, his hat over this face and leaning back in his chair, but still holding little Cora so she can sit up and continue coloring.

Of course he wouldn’t forget, he was probably trying to surprise you, keeping things a secret and bringing your children to his office so you could sleep in while he got things together. That would also explain why most of your crewmates seemed anxious around you, they didn’t want you to figure it out too soon.

“Mama!”

When Rosi sees you, he’s torn between excited and upset, you weren’t supposed to see anything yet and the five-year-old was doing his best to keep everything secret after Law brought up your birthday and making cards for you. He pouts a little, but still jumps up to hug you, which you return.

“You weren’t s’pposed to see yet…”

Quietly laughing, to not wake Law even though Cora is starting to whine when she sees you, you hug Rosi a bit tighter before kissing the top of his head.

“You’re so sweet! I’m sorry I saw everything, sweetie!”

Rosi whines this time, telling you that you’re hugging him too tight, before you let him go and move to pick up Cora, who squeals when you do so and kiss her cheeks. Law doesn’t even wake at that, you wonder if he actually slept last night or not.

“You’re all so wonderful, I’m so blessed to have you guys.”

Rosi makes you promise not to tell anyone that you know, and you’re still surprised later that day at how big the party is. Law tells you later that your son thought it up, he just helped put it all together with the rest of your crew. No one finds out that you knew, Rosi keeps it a secret too and even when your daughter nearly drops her piece of cake on your shirt, it’s still the best birthday you’ve had in a while.

Zoro

While Zoro isn’t the best at remembering dates, your birthday is one he never forgets, no matter how long you’ve been together or how many other important days come and go. You know your captain and crew well enough that anything worth celebrating gets a huge party, birthdays are no exception, especially so after your daughter’s birth a few years ago. Every first for little Kuina was celebrated as only the Straw Hats could, food and drinks galore, even though she’d be confused by what was happening.

When she’s four-years-old and your birthday comes around again, Kuina is adamant on you having a big surprise party, even when Zoro tells her you aren’t the biggest fan of surprises (your unexpected pregnancy with her being an exception). She’ll pout and fuss until Zoro finally agrees, enlisting Nami and Sanji to get everything planned but not tell him the details. He trusts them to get everything planned, Kuina being their biggest help, but Zoro doesn’t want to know anything, so he doesn’t potentially spoil you on the surprise.

Kuina is better at keeping the secret than anyone else. If you ask her what she’s doing, when she grabs all her paper and coloring supplies, she just tell you she’s going to make a map with aunt Nami. That’s not unusual so you don’t question it, she does bring you her own map later that day anyway.

When your birthday finally comes around, neither Zoro nor Kuina says anything, they aren’t even around when you wake up that morning. Not uncommon though, everyone normally lets you sleep in on your birthday, but usually Zoro is there and Kuina comes running in after a few minutes to wake you both.

Once you’ve dressed and gotten ready for the day, you head for the kitchen, but you’re confused when no one you pass says anything to you apart from a good morning. Usopp just grins and says it, Franky does the same. Luffy is barely audible as he runs off to wherever, dragging Jinbei along with him. It really makes you wonder if they’ve all forgotten what today is. You don’t see anyone else until you get to the kitchen, only to have streamers from party poppers hit you in the face, hearing Kuina say ‘oops’.

“You weren’t supposed to do it in her face, Kuina!”

“Sorry, daddy!” Kuina gives you an apologetic look before she smiles, “Sorry, mommy! Happy birthday!!”

Once you’re able to see the kitchen better, there’s streamers and balloons round the room, your favorite breakfast all made and ready, a cake in the middle of the table, and every member of your crew there, you figure Luffy and Jinbei had slipped in behind you. They all give you their birthday wishes, and it nearly makes you cry which makes Zoro smirk at you.

“Now don’t cry about it. It was all your daughter’s idea.”

“Shut up, Zoro.” You may be near tears but the smile you have tells everyone you’re happy, as Kuina comes out and hugs you with a pout.

“Mommy, don’t cry! I made you a picture!!”

It’s childish work of course, she’s only four, but it’s still an adorable picture she’s drawn of the two of you, making you hug her back and lift her off the ground.

“Thank you so much, Kuina. I love it!”

You never question if any of them have forgotten your birthday again, expecting it to be due to Kuina having her own little plans for your special day. You’ll have to do the same for her next year now.

[deeppenguinstudent]

I don't care. I will ALWAYS defend Thea muldani. You guys talk about the age range between Kevin and Thea, which is so dumb because Kevin was 18 and Thea was 21. That is basically Jerejean's age range (22 and 19), which is 3 YEARS. And I don't see anyone talking about Jeanne's age range? (19 and 24).

To the people saying that got mad that she said, "Are you sure ur not up to ur old tricks again?" literally just what? Please, please read her wiki because the reason she said that was because she thought tetsuji was the one who beat him up, NOT riko.

She was the ONLY one so far that even questioned riko's authority and acknowledged he was a bastard (somewhat). She's not fucking blinded by the Nest. She's JUST Exy obsessed like Kevin!!

Also let's talk about this?

The rumours had gotten so bad that both the master and Kevin also believed Riko's words? How the hell was Thea supposed to know anything? She was a victim as well and it just annoys me so much when people use this to just completely stain her character and make her a huge bitch. She's literally a dark skinned woman. Even tetsuji told her that she has to work twice as hard because people wouldn't take her seriously. If she even had an inkling of an idea knowing what they did to him, she would fuck them up

Also the reason why no one batted their eyes was because the Ravens fucking eachother is completely normal. It's some sort of screwed up thing that's been going on for generations, even before Riko and Kevin had joined Evermore.

To the people who say Thea does not care about Jean I will literally chew your lungs BECAUSE HAVE WE BEEN READING THE SAME BOOK.

Do you guys not realise how close Jean and Thea truly were? Thea and Kevin were the only two that Jean actually had a good relationship with in the Nest. Just look at the text!! Thea is one of Jean's weaknesses because he trusts her so much, and we know that Jean always blurts out shit he's not supposed to when he's beside people he really trusts (Neil, Jeremy, Kevin)

Her little parisian duckling! He literally followed her everywhere 🙁🙁 Gosh they mean so much to me. (Also, the reference to Elodie's duck dress and Thea's way of calling him?)

Last bit. I just find their relationship is just watered down SOOOO much because people hate Thea for unconventional reasons. You can dislike her character for sure, but I feel like a lot of people have so many misconceptions about her so I just wanted to clear it up!!

Please Nora give us more Thea and Jean in TSC2 😔😔😔

Edit: Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a minor under the age of consent and sometimes the child's family to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. This is the definition of grooming btw and it's confirmed that Thea dated two other people when Kevin was a minor and didn't think of him like that until he was a freshman in college ie 18 years old?? It's completely different because she wasn't even pursuing him at all??

[beanarie]

here's another scene for the fic i posted a day or two ago. alternate title: rip philip buckley.

the messenger part two

"I don't want to go," Evan said.

Tommy glanced up from the flight listings on his tablet. Since finishing his delayed shower (alone), Evan had perched on the far end of the bed with his back turned. "All anyone there knew was a nineteen year-old who failed at everything. It- It was never home."

Tommy put the tablet aside. "Evan, I don't give a shit if you go or not." That was blunt even for him, bordering on cruel, but Evan gave a watery laugh. He heard what Tommy didn't say. You're the only thing I care about. Make the decision that's right for you.

Evan made a sad sound and crawled into Tommy's arms. "She's going to be so much," he grated out, his head against Tommy's chest. It wasn't comfortable. Evan ran warm as a baseline. Tonight he felt like he had a fever. "I don't think I can handle it. But I can't- I can't do that to Maddie. What kind of garbage person would make her deal with that alone?"

Tommy ran his fingers through Evan's damp hair. "Maddie won't be alone." Her husband was literally one of the best people Tommy had ever met. Howie had grabbed her hands the instant she and Evan had separated, and hadn't let go of her the entire time. He'd still been holding on when they'd left, Evan bringing up the rear toting a sleeping Jee-Yun.

"Not the same," Evan said, which was true, but Tommy didn't care, not right then.

Tommy looked over at his buzzing phone. "Listen-"

Evan didn't shake. He vibrated, a low level hum throughout his body. "Just let me pretend for a minute that we're not going."

"Okay."

One hand made a loose fist, gathering the fabric of Tommy's shirt at the small of his back. "We're gonna stay here on the other side of the country while they bury my dad. I won't have to hear my mom crying like her heart is in worse shape than his was. No one will tell me I'm a bad son who never came to visit."

Tommy rested his chin on the top of Evan's head. An angle his neck didn't enjoy, but it was worth it. "If anyone so much as thinks that in your direction, I will punch them in the throat."

Evan ran his fingers down Tommy's forearm. "They didn't even tell us he was having surgery."

"Would it have helped?" Tommy asked in all sincerity. They'd both witnessed death numerous times. Was it better when loved ones could see the loss coming? Not always.

"I don't know," Evan admitted. "But things were- they were better, you know? We talked on purpose sometimes and it went fine. I don't understand why they didn't at least tell Maddie."

"Do you think she'll try to throw it in your face at some point?"

Evan flinched, proving Tommy's guess had hit its mark. "God, I- I hate thinking of her that way. She's my mom."

"Motherhood doesn't come with emotional regulation, unfortunately."

"She was better," Evan said again. He exhaled loudly. "Maybe it- it won't be so bad."

"Maybe. I'm here regardless."

After a moment of silence, Evan lifted himself up with a hand on either side of Tommy's hips. They kissed quietly, and he laid his forehead on Tommy's shoulder. "What did I do," he asked, almost to himself. "What did I do to deserve you?"

If pressed, Tommy could rattle off a list. But Evan didn't need to hear about his willingness to set himself on fire for someone he loved, or about how he could see in a glance that Tommy was having a bad day, about how quickly he'd learned what Tommy needed at times like those. "You were you. That's all you ever needed to be."

[lukalnst]

pretty pls with a cherry on top some hurt/comfort w/ luka from alien stage where him and reader were close as kids at anakt garden but as they grew up and entered alien stage he started to become more cold and mean which hurts reader :(( but despite that he shows he’s still the same luka they know and love :))

LUKA X READER (HURT/COMFORT)

Includes: Luka x reader, gn!reader, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, can be both read as platonic or romantic

Luka had changed, or so you thought.

You had noticed this, much more than anyone else. Of course, you couldn't help but notice the changes in his demeanor, not after you two had basically grown up being sewn together.

It hurt, of course. It hurt a lot — you wanted to be close with him again. You had gotten some chances to speak with him, but most of those conversations were nothing but small talk.

You wondered if he missed you the same way you missed him. Did you even cross his mind?

He seemed to be having so much fun with the other participants. Yeah, you were glad to see him happy and enjoying his new relationships, but you felt left behind. Still, it tore you apart to see him doing not so greatly back in your Anakt Garden days, but still, you missed his friendship, the ways he would latch onto your arm while you both laid down in the grass and he would whisper a small 'I love you'.

... You just wanted him back.

What an irritating feeling. He had grown distant, so if you were to ask him for any sort of affection, you'd probably just be greeted with nothing but coldness.

Strangely enough, you had asked him to meet you after a round with some participants who, being completely honest, you didn't really care much about. He just stared at you for a while, then hesitated before accepting.

...

It had been a few days since then, the round had just finished, and you both arrived at the spot where you told him to meet you. Surprisingly, he was pretty early, and he didn't seem too nervous about talking to you once again, something which you couldn't relate to.

"Hey, Luka," your lips trembled slightly as you spoke. You stood up beside him, and he just gave you a nod of acknowledgment. Did you mean nothing to him?

You didn't want to know.

After a few seconds of silence, which seemed to be nearly eternal, he spoke. "So, what do you want to talk about?" He questioned you but didn't make any eye contact with you.

"Well, I just wanted to catch up with you. It's been a while since—" You were cut off by his own words.

"... You still care about me, no? It seems like you haven't changed at all," Luka whispered your name after finishing that sentence.

He was right. When you both were younger, you were always worried sick about him. You made sure that he didn't get hurt or anything similar, something which he showed his appreciation for.

But now, he barely even acknowledged your mere existence. You were surprised that he even remembered your name.

Trying to laugh it off to lighten up the mood, you laughed softly. "I guess," you murmured. "That's not the case for you, though."

Luka's eyes finally met yours.

"Who said it wasn't?" His voice seemed genuinely confused. "Maybe we don't talk that much... but you're still someone who means a lot to me."

His cheeks seemed to have a small pink color dusting them. He had grown up now, so he felt sort of forced to be different from when he was a kid. "If you think I don't care, you're pretty wrong." He added onto his words.

"What... what do you mean?"

"We may not talk much, but you will always be completely and utterly adored by me," A small smile formed in his lips. "After all, you showed me what love really was."

The words that were being said made you feel weirdly emotional, so you latched onto his arm, just like how he did to you when you both were children.

"... I won't let you leave again, Luka."

[austenpoppy]

Personally I DO think the way he acted in the Outsiders was completely, 100% OOC, didn't make sense if you look at the way he acted in the Nightwing run and other books from the Batfamily in which he appeared at the same time (the exclusions being a few mentions of Dick being in the Outsiders, and one or two team-ups with the Titans), and has a timeframe that, literally, is impossible to combine with the rest of what was going on. Plus it deconstructs everything Dick's tried so hard not to do and chose not to do over and over again, it takes years of character development and shoves them in the bin.

I don't understand how anyone could read Nightwing (1996), Robin, Gotham Knights or Detective Comics and Outsiders, think they happen in the same continuity and not get wild whiplash, or not think Dick's got some serious personality disorder.

When are we supposed to think that Dick started mourning Donna, exactly ? Considering Helena's presence and the way they implied Dick and her had history, I assume this is supposed to be set after "No Man's land". The problem is, we never see Dick being seriously depressed in the Nightwing run, apart from that time he beat the Joker so hard his heart stopped. And even then, Dick never mentioned Donna at the time, it really was all about how his actions didn't match with his perception of himself and how that made him feel like the worst person on Earth.

The rest of the time, Dick is shown to be pretty happy, or at least rather optimistic and open - pretty much the whole point of Chuck Dixon's run is that Dick builds his own thing in Blüdhaven and starts to find his footing. It culminates in Dick declaring in the beginning of Devin Grayson's run that he's "happy" and that he feels "good about what he's been doing for a while now". And considering how quickly Dick's life unravels in that run, Dick is "supposed" to be with the Outsiders at this point.

And even then, let's say he wasn't at the time he said that - why would he still act generally happy up until he gets fired from the B.P.D. ?

How do we reconcile the idea of a Dick who's optimistic and builds emotional connections with his neighbours and with his coworkers at the B.P.D. (Amy then Gannon Malloy) and brings people into his life (Dave and Kesia Toussaint being the most obvious example of this), while making effort after effort to be there for his friends and family, and has no problem teaming-up with others (Babs, Tim, etc., and that's without the consideration that one of one of Dick's first thoughts after meeting Tarantula is that she might become one of his allies), with a Dick who's so deeply mourning Donna he decides to become distant with everybody (yeah, if you read Outsiders: Secret Files and Origins, Dick is said to hold Raven and Dick at a distance and barely care about them (!!!!!!) and tells Tim they should be working on their own) and to be closed off and apathetic ?

Am I supposed to believe Dick's happy to have his little family in Gotham and his circle of neighbours, friends and coworkers in Blüdhaven, but somehow whenever he goes to New York he suddenly becomes an ice prince who closes himself in his tower ?

Here's a glaring example of how drastic the changes are : Dick is sympathetic toward Helena when they first meet, and he still has affection toward her in "No Man's Land". At the very end of Gotham Knights, Bane has a revelation (he thinks he's Bruce's brother) and the family works with him cautiously. Helena sees that and is understandably furious at the hypocrisy. And yet Dick runs after her to try to justify what's going on. And then we have Dick in the Outsiders, who is very hostile to Helena and hates her guts, while Helena says he secretely wants to sleep with her. And yet when Dick's Renegade in Nightwing (at this point he's already "left" the Outsiders, but I'll come back to that later), the first person he turns to when he doesn't know what to do with Sophia Travis and Rose is Helena, and there is no mention of any hostility between the two.

No matter if you place Dick's interaction with Helena in the Outsiders before or after their discussion in Gotham Knights, you'd have to wonder if Dick's taking crazy pills if you truly believe he'd go from being sympathetic to someone to hating their guts openly without reason, then go back to trusting them without apparent reason either.

The truth ?

Dick was never written as mourning Donna in his own run or any of the Bat-related comics, and it shows. Thus Dick was never mourning Donna in those issues.

Then there's his "departure" from the Outsiders, that should give everyone a headache. If we were to believe "Identity Crisis", Dick was still with the Outsiders during the Crisis. Also he was back on his feet and running everywhere without crutches...while in his solo run Dick will be using crutches for weeks at least.

And that means that everything that went on with Blockbuster and Tarantula happened before he left the Outsiders. Yet in his solo run, after the events of "War Games", Dick decides to "make things right" and turn himself in with Tarantula. So...am I supposed to believe Dick got raped by Tarantula, got shot in the leg, was back on his feet for the battle that led to Indigo's death, decided to leave the Outsiders saying it'd gotten "personal" though in reality he just wanted to turn himself in for murder, then slept with Starfire before confronting Tarantula and spending the next weeks with crutches ?

Reeeeaaally ?

And then you know why Dick's behaviour is OOC ?

Dick spends the first half of New Teen Titans deciding he wants to be different from Batman in the way he acts, leads, deciding he wants to be comfortable with strong emotions after he embraces Starfire's way of seeing things, and being clear on the fact he never wants to be this emotionally closed off person who holds people at a distance not to get hurt, tries to get away from all emotion, and doesn't trust anyone. And he works hard not to do that, all the time.

Are there moments he gets depressed ? Sure. But even when he isolated himself and lashed out at Babs after the Joker's death, he still cared very much about people (his looking for Kesia after reading her letter happened around that time). And after Blockbuster and Tarantula, in War Games and after he was shown to care so much about Tim, and Steph's death. And like, don't you think it's weird that if Dick was depressed since he started being with the Outsiders, Alfred only saw it after Blockbuster and Tarantula ?

The entire point of Dick's character is that he cares, he works on being a better person and strives to have a life on his own, can have setbacks but they don't define him, he wants emotional connections, and his goal is to uphold his idealistic ideal of being a hero and he puts a lot of burden on himself to achieve it - if he doesn't he thinks he's failed and goes right to self-loathing for a while before pushing to get up, and he's a leader who takes his teammates into account.

Precisely zero elements of that are present in Outsiders. Zero. Dick is portrayed as unemotional and uncaring (except in regards to Roy), who's given up on working on himself, who is very much defined by his grief (oh, does it start to ring a bell ?), who pushes everyone away, who treats his teammates like soldiers, who becomes utterly pragmatic and is ready to use any means he deems necessary to achieve his goals. The same guy who was ready to sacrifice the planet to save Vic and who spends his time lecturing people on unecessary violence was written by Winick as someone ready to sacrifice dozens of lives and who justified the use of torture to a teammate, telling her that if she hadn't tried to save the other lives there wouldn't be any need to do this.

?????????

At what point does a character start being OOC ? You can't make a character lose most of his personality, keep his skills, and call it a day.

Thing is, Winick just wanted to write Batman Jr. Dick is not Batman Jr. The entire point of Dick's character is that he's not Batman Jr.

And Winick does not know how to write Dick Grayson. It turns out most panels or issues I hate regarding the man he calls Dick have been written by this guy.

Also don't get me started on how Jade replaces Dick as the leader of the Titans supposedly because he doesn't care enough/is too detached, yet the only remarkable action Jade undertakes after that is bringing Kory, one of her teammates's ex - which will have zero impact on the narrative, by the way, except for Kory and "Dick" sleeping together after "War Games" (still wtf). After that she immediately tells Grace they don't have time to care about the sex trafficking ring Grace was used by as a child because there are more important things they could be doing (!!), they understand there's a mole, Indigo dies and after the destruction of their headquarters Jade decides there should be no headquarters anymore and that they should have their meetings in parks like fifteen-year old squatters, and reminds everyone they're only colleagues.

Attempt at being a better leader : failed spectacularly.

So why does Dick being leader of the Titans 1999 work ? Well, simply because his life in Blüdhaven and Gotham was acknowledged. We see Dick running not to be late to the preccinct, or coming back for an emergency in his police uniform, or being taken up in Gotham and unable to help with the search for baby Lian. Simply put, it's not incompatible, thematically or logistically, with what was shown in his own run.

But I don't like the idea that Dick was an asshole in Titans 1999 ? Like, that's very unfair as far as I'm concerned (though to be fair I'm not faliliar with "Graduation Day", because I know who wrote it and after Outsiders I decided I had enough). First, I agree with OP that Dick was guilt-tripped (in a way that would've made me angry, really; why would you say that Dick's dependent on friends not to become an asshole ? Sure, like everyone else, Dick needs to have supportive people in his life, but that's not the same thing) into joining the Titans, when he'd said he had too much on his plate already. And putting more burden and responsabilities on Dick when they could've just hanged out together wasn't a great idea, either.

It's even more tragic that other teammates/friends (Gar and Kory, who to be fair weren't at the initial reunion) lashed out at Dick that he wasn't present enough. Worse for Kory to say it, though; Kory knows how much guilt Dick can feel all the time, plus she started lashing out at Dick when Dick wasn't the one who started a fight - like, sure, he wasn't happy she killed Adeline (complicated stuff), but he wasn't being mean either. At least in Gar's case, Dick was the one who started the fight.

There are also at least three instances of Dick being considered in the wrong that I thought were very unfair.

1) Dick and Vic's falling-out

The first has to do with Vic, when Dick explained to Vic he couldn't leave Titans Tower after what had happened when Vic'd turned into a toughtless killer machine, because he'd convinced the JLA not to bring Vic into custody and to leave him with the Titans instead.

Like, has everyone forgotten what happened ? Vic was creating earthquakes and floods, the JLA wanted to eliminate Vic, and Dick was the one who kept arguing with Bruce that Vic was a great man and that no sacrifice was ever acceptable (take that, Outsiders). Then he had a plan to bring back Dick and had the original Titans talk to him, and it was found that only the ship could be used to host Vic but that if the team chose to have Lilith do that they would probably not survive, since Lilith had come to get them in the first place. And without any hesitation Dick told Lilith to do it, because if she didn't all they'd done would be in vain.

And then Dick manages to make sure Vic isn't treated like a prisoner by the JLA, but can have time with his friends instead. How was Dick a bad friend at any point ?? He's not even the one who first mentioned Vic's name when they reformed the Titans, or the one who convinced Vic to rejoin.

Now I see people saying he should've talked to Vic about it. But frankly, was there any way Vic would've taken it well ? No, and we know it. He would've felt like a prisoner from day one. I'm not saying not talking about it was necessarily the best choice, but I'm saying it wasn't as easy and clear-cut a choice as some people make it out to be, and that considering everything Dick had done he deserved a lot more grace than he got. Truly throwing in Dick's face that the team he's responsible for was built for Dick so that he "wouldn't become like Batman" but implying he did anyway is one of the lowest blows you could throw at Dick.

And it certainly was not manipulative (the word's too strong). Dick didn't want Vic to react or behave a certain way. He wanted to protect Vic, wanted him to rebuild his life in a loving environment, while making sure everyone would be there if things went south (which...like...again Vic had created earthquakes and natural disasters ??).

It grinds my gears even more that Gar and people said that when you remember that in NTT, at Donna's wedding Gar had asked someone to create a special device to show "the true Victor Stone" without the cyborg part, without telling Vic, after Vic expressed he was afraid people would recognize him as one of the Titans and Gar said he'd found a solution, that it wouldn't be a problem. Personally I would've found that a lot more hurtful than what Dick did, but somehow Vic apologized to Gar ten minutes after lashing out at him, and told him he understood Gar only wanted the best for him and wanted Donna's wedding to run smoothly.

Well Vic was angry/moody at Dick for months. And all this time Dick worked tirelessly instead to provide Vic with a more human body, which is like...everything Vic ever wanted, after expressing multiple times he was very uncomfortable with his new body.

And yeah, okay, after Dick found out it could be done he could've explained the situation beforehand (yeah because mentioning it before he was sure would've been like getting Vic's hopes up and perhaps crushing them after). But it's such a minor detail compared to the effort and care Dick put into helping Vic all this time ??

But Vic lashed out again. And instead of being defensive Dick let it slide to let Vic vent and listen to him and reassure him that it was going to be okay.

I would seriously give half of my liver to get a friend like Dick. And saying Dick's manipulative is so freaking unfair. Dick can dupe criminals alright, but manipulating friends isn't something he's prone to do - the closest thing I can remember in NTT is Dick telling Gar not to go to Russia to help Vic the walking robot (they already had a team going) and telling him he needed him in the US instead, because he thought Gar was too unstable in regard to the situation (see the difference with Vic's situation ? There Dick said something to Gar to make him behave a certain way).

2) Dick not telling Jesse Quick his secret identity

For reasons unknown, this was framed as Dick not being trusting enough. And sure, there's a panel in a team-up between the Titans and the Outsiders in which Dick criticized Batman for not telling his team his secret identity. But the point was that no one in the Outsiders knew who Batman was. In Dick's case, most members of the Titans knew who he was.

When Terra came on the team in NTT, several members of the team including Wally didn't tell her their secret identities. The entire plot revolved around that; and Terra, much like Jesse later on, complained that she wasn't being trusted. It took months for the team/the members of the team who had secret identities to tell her their names. And like, okay, Terra had a bit of a strange story from the start; but she too was known by another hero (Geo-force).

The difference was that back in NTT, this was framed as a team issue; it was about Terra earning the team's trust and the others being comfortable enough to reveal their secrets to her. In titans 1999, it became solely Dick's problem, as if Dick was too secretive. Why was it acceptable for Dick to protect his identity in NTT but not in Titans ?

The point has always been that Dick's more secretive about his identity than others because it's not just his secret he'd be revealing. Back in NTT, he was worried about people knowing Bruce was Batman. In Titans, he was worried about that, and he was also worried about Tim.

3) Dick hiding an investigation he was doing

This was again presented as Dick hiding secrets and the others not liking it. And in some ways, I can get hiw Dick not telling the team about several things might make them feel that way. But you do have to consider the individual circumstances in which Dick did what he did.

In this case, he had suspicions a team member/guest wasn't saying the truth, which proved true later on (he was actually a kid possessing a body, and unfortunately the body belonged to a psychopath), and led an investigation.

But there was no good choice there. Either he raised his suspicions to the team and if he was wrong he'd be considered an asshole, either he waited until he had concrete evidence he was right and told them after (which is what he chose) - problem was he didn't have the opportunity to tell them until the occasion forced his hand

Generally people prefer the second option, but somehow it's only a problem when it's Dick doing it. In the same story arc, Argent had actually noticed "Epsilon" acting weirdly and conducted her own investigation without telling anyone anything (except Lilith because she wanted Lilith to probe "Epsilon"'s mind), yet you had Donna go on Dick's case about keeping secrets, while Dick reassured Argent (Toni) that her head had still been in the game when she blamed herself, and talked about Donna saying he should've said something when Toni said she should've warned him.

And Titans Tower got destroyed. And, right, okay, Dick was the one who started to lash out at Gar when Gar dismissed it as being funny (his joke was, anyway), telling Gar he never took anything seriously, bringing up a past decision he'd made in regard to the kids, and Dick doing that wasn't okay (and as usual, he hated himself afterward for doing that). But did Gar have to say Dick had let a maniac live with the Titans, implying it was his fault the tower was destroyed and he endangered everybody ? Of course, Dick got defensive too, and told him it was easy to judge when Gar was so far away. And then Gar told Dick people talked and he knew Dick wasn't present enough.

People say Dick's prone to self-blame and it's partly Bruce's fault, and they'd be right. But though his friends are great for him, they sometimes put waaaaayyyy too many expectations on Dick, too.

But I truly don't get it. You can't tell me Dick wasn't a great leader after what happened on the planet where everybody was addicted and basically mind controlled. Dick was dealing with Jess hating him, Argent thinking he didn't trust her because she'd taken drugs to enhance her powers (the same drugs fed off to human beings who were taken on the planet) and he'd asked her to do a drug test, Donna hanging up on him because Garth was hurting himself holding open a portal, Wally calling because he was worried, his own guilt in regard to the mission... And yet this man didn't lose his mind (I would've) analyzed Argent's drug test to see what it was about to protect her, managed to feed himself an antidote quickly, and saved everybody from killing Toni. And then he still had time to talk to Roy and check up on him twice while in the middle of a civil war, telling Roy he was still in control, still clean, and when Roy asked him angrily why Dick didn't give Roy the antidote to him (there was only one dose), Dick told him Roy would've killed him (he would've).

Half my liver, I'm telling you.

Hey, do you think everything about Outsiders vol 3 (Dick’s run as the leader) was completely in character? I personally see his asshole behaviour as extremely in character and wouldn’t expect anything else, but...not his leadership.

I think he would not take on any team, regardless of them being strangers, and that if he did he would be MORE careful and not less. (Mostly because he’s been a leader for a long time, great at compartmentalising and has always been stressed about being responsible for others lives and I don’t think those things would just disappear when people he cares for die). Like, he would still be a jerk and isolate himself but also plan ahead more and take the least risks possible (which would make him a worse leader than usual but not a downright bad one).

Idk just wondered how you see it.

Yeah, I actually view BOTH his time with the Outsiders and his time with the 1999 Titans lineup as being a case of like....characters configured into situations the editors and writers want them in, regardless of whether that makes sense for them at that particular point in time.

Tbh, I hate Dick being leader of both those lineups, and don't think he should have been on either team at those times, period. And I agree that his behavior in those periods made sense for all the shit he'd been through and was currently going on in his life, and like most importantly....

HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE THERE.

He repeatedly kept TELLING people he didn't want to be there, and that it wasn't a good time for him at EITHER point, and people who claim to know him best kept GUILTING and flat out manipulating him into being there, insisting they were doing so because it was for his own good, and they knew what he needed to snap him out of his funks, etc, etc....

EXCEPT THEN THEY KEPT GETTING MAD AT HIM FOR BEING MOODY AND AN ASSHOLE AND Y'KNOW.....NOT WANTING TO BE THERE.

Its like....hey guys, HE TOLD YOU. What did you expect? Its the same issue I have with the classic fight with Donna in NTT #19, where even if you leave aside the fact that he was brainwashed at the time, something that's always grinded my gears is how their fight takes place at Dick's apartment and before it escalates, Dick REPEATEDLY asks Donna to leave, and even tries to leave HIMSELF - from his OWN apartment - because he KNEW he wasn't in the right frame of mind to have the conversation or argument she wanted to have at that particular time.

And people NEVER listen to him! They never let him like have the definitive word on what HE needs, WHEN he needs it and what his needs look like.

And that bugs sooooo much, especially when coupled with how much flack he gets for being manipulative like Bruce or doing what he thinks is best without regard for what others are feeling or want.

Its like....if you're going to hold that against him, it needs to be acknowledged that people do this to him too, like ALL THE TIME. Including his closest friends like Donna, Wally and Roy.....with Wally being the one who pressured Dick to join back up with the Titans, after he'd literally been FORCED OUT of the group before the disbanding of the previous version, and like, still very much was not over all the deaths and injuries that had occurred during Titans Hunt, so reminiscent of previous disastrous events like Judas Contract and the Church of Blood......but Wally was CONVINCED that what Dick needed was to be back with the team again, back where he belonged, and he refused to listen when Dick repeatedly said he was under too much stress and pressure as is.

And like, Wally's intentions were good, but they have very different views of their times with the Titans because Wally has NEVER been in a position of leadership there! There's always been someone else to pass the buck off to when things go wrong, but there isn't that possibility with Dick! It stops with him, and he's always owned that.....which means like....joining back up with the Titans isn't a fun stress relief adventure time with old friends like Wally was picturing it as.....its stressful! Its life or death! Its the lives of his friends in DICK'S hands with nobody else to blame when shit goes south, as it always does.

And Dick KNOWS that, AND he knows his limitations, and so he tried to bow out gracefully from all that, but Wally kept pressuring him, made a big deal about only joining the team himself if Dick joined back up and acted like HE needed it for himself, and even though Dick CALLED him on this being bullshit and a blatant manipulation tactic, Dick still eventually joined up.....and just as he knew, Wally quit to focus on his family and the JLA within like ten issues, the second he was confident that Dick was at this point too INVESTED in the team to bail on it once Wally was gone.

And that's really shitty, tbh. And its not on Wally the character in the sense that they played it that way - the writers - because they wanted Dick back in the driver's seat of the Titans, but like.....the end result is still the end result, y'know? The takeaway is still that Dick was basically manipulated into taking up a job he no longer wanted, BECAUSE of how shit had blown up in his face with it before, and BECAUSE of how much else he had going on, and he KNEW it wasn't what he actually needed....but everyone else made it about what THEY decided he needed instead of listening to what he actually was saying and like....working with that instead.

Like, god bless the collective reasoning skills of Dick's friends and family who keep looking at everything the dude habitually keeps on his plate at his LOWEST settings, and thinks okay, what this guy really needs, I feel, is MORE responsibility.

Instead of like, trying to figure out how to help him take on LESS.

And then it all blew up in Dick's face exactly as he knew it would, and when more Titans died - Donna and Lilith this time - of fucking course Dick blamed himself for it, like literally anyone who knew him should have seen coming. But what were his friends and loved ones' reaction this time? What did they decide he needed?

The same thing they always do! More responsibility!

And again Dick tried to tell people this wasn't going to end the way they wanted it to - mostly Roy this time, as now it was Roy trying to get him to join up with the Outsiders using the specific pitch of them NOT being a family, like ENCOURAGING Dick to not get himself emotionally attached to the team so it didn't hurt as much if things went south with them -

Except again, this was blatant manipulation of the very same variety everyone gives Dick shit for, because in Roy's own words, the entire reason he did things this way was because he was convinced based on how well he knows Dick Grayson, that Dick wouldn't be CAPABLE of staying so unattached, and that he'd eventually invest in his new teammates despite his best efforts not to, and thus 'snap out of' his self-imposed isolation and like....form new connections via them.

But like....shockingly, it didn't play out that way? Dick deliberately tried to do exactly what he'd said he was going to do, KEEP himself from getting attached emotionally, with this being a very bad idea and absolutely something that led to teammates getting hurt, and yes that is on him and decisions he made out of an effort to focus on what HE needed rather than what was best for them - but like.....the problem I have here is like....this is precisely WHY Dick should NOT have been in a leadership position at this time, like you said!

And Dick was like the literal first person to make that argument?!??!

fahsklfhalfhalkfha

Roy was the one who pushed past it and said no I get it, and its okay, which HE shouldn't have done EITHER, not because Dick's choices were on Roy - they weren't, to be clear - but because Roy wasn't being straight forward about what his own intentions were. He wasn't ACTUALLY okay with Dick's approach to leadership of the Outsiders, he just didn't think it would ever actually get as far south as it went, because he was convinced it wasn't going to matter, because Dick was going to 'snap out of it' long before it became an actual problem. And THAT'S the part that's on Roy, because like....Dick TOLD him this wasn't a good idea, and WHY. And like, Dick literally just did exactly what he said he was gonna do, and that doesn't make it right, especially as a leader, but like......if people had actually listened to what he was SAYING rather than what they believed they KNEW about him and 'what he needed' then like.....they would have backed off and validated his concerns that he wasn't a good fit for a team right now and found some OTHER way to help him, rather than like...try and force it on their terms.

And so that's the part that bugs. Like, I don't think Dick's behavior during a lot of the team stuff of that period - even if it wasn't pretty - was like, out of character or even unreasonable - he was fucked up! He KNEW he was fucked up! He kept TELLING people, like hey guys, just FYI, I'm kinda fucked up at the moment.

But nobody would just....accept that. He's never allowed to just be HUMAN. Its the same thing with Dick as Batman and everything during Red Robin, like....other characters are so ready to jump on him for not being perfect the second he starts fucking shit up because he's reeling from stuff that hits EVERYONE hard, and him even more than most specifically BECAUSE of how much responsibility he normally shoulders (as well as how much blame others usually heap on him).....we barely ever see other characters being like okay, what do YOU need, how can we HELP.....

Instead of just....impatiently waiting for you to 'get back to normal' and be the Golden Boy we all both resent you for being while simultaneously EXPECTING you to be at all times, no matter what.

So no, I don't view his behavior with the Outsiders as OOC unfortunately, but I just think like....it would have been so different if he'd just been allowed to grieve in his own way at that time instead of being pushed and guilted and manipulated into getting back in the saddle right away or what the fuck ever, lol. Even his leadership fuck-ups at the time weren't out of character so much as they were proof that he SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN LEADING ANYONE at that time....

The trick of it is just like....he was 100% of that same opinion himself! Its just the writers wanted him as a leader anyway, and the characters were shoved into positions more about getting him to lead than getting him support.

[aihoshiino]

The babygirlification if Hikaru is crazy in this fandom... I can't believe that people seem to believe he did zero bad things when ch109 literally showed him standing over Yura and saying that she died so he could feel something...? Just because he's not the one who pushed her, doesn't mean he wasn't an accomplice! (I don't see how Nino would've known about the hiking trip without his help. Also don't see why he would be there monologuing unless he's also a hiking enthusiast who just happened to be there.) He could be both! He could be someone Ai loved but also be a person who became lost without her! Look at Aqua who literally went on a maniacal journey of revenge that saved literally no one & killed 2/3 people whom Ai loved. Because she's gone. The way I see Hikaru's character is that, he loved Ai and understood her as a person instead of the persona she presented. Yet her passing made that persona the only legacy she left behind (in his eyes). She was seen as "the idol closest to the Dome" even though she didn't care! That title wasn't given to any of the other Bkoma members, just her. And, he wasn't really allowed into their children's life because she said so. The only thing he's got left were the "lies" and despite knowing that killing people for her legacy is not what she would've wanted, she's not around to stop him anymore. I think he was a man driven to desperation and doing terrible things because his love was genuine yet no one taught him how to love properly. And her final "rejection" made him believe that being a terrible person was the only thing he could be. Which was why Ai's video became such a huge blow to him: he could've lived without her knowing that her as a person didn't let go of him, yet he went down this path thinking that the true her rejected him & the "lies" was the only thing he could take.

I don't think Ai's rejection broke Hikaru, per se. I think she made him believe that he was worthy of love and not broken (like he thought). And the way things unfold drove him into a spiral that was planted long ago. Humans don't need to be innocent to be worthy of love. The HKAI relationship was two traumatised children finding comfort in eachother. And Hikaru's crimes were about someone letting intrusive thoughts get to them. I don't like how Akasaka handled it at all, but I think erasing Hikaru's grief and the destruction it brought isn't a good way to read his character.

SO, for what it's worth, I do think the way you've analyzed Hikaru here is how he was intended to be read by Akasaka, at least by the end of the story, I don't blame anyone at all who went into this final stretch of OnK legit thinking we were going to get a reveal that Hikaru was not just a straight up villain or at least sympathizing with him and interpreting him as a slightly softer character, because the story basically spends the entirety of the Movie Arc beating you over the head with Extremely Sympathetic Hikaru Characterization.

Hell, it starts asking you to sympathize with him basically from the word go. The first concrete fact we learn about him outside of Aqua's insanely (understandably!) biased POV immediately throws every explicit and implicit assumption we have about him out the window. Not only does his age mean that he was one of Ai's peers and not, as Aqua seems to have been assuming, an older man who had victimized her but we learn this information in tandem with realizing - as Akane points out - this means Taiki was conceived when he was eleven years old, with all that implies. Akane's disgusted reaction pretty clearly telegraphs to the reader how we're supposed to take it and… idk, maybe this sounds cynical, but giving a character a backstory of CSA is like the Press To Make Audience Instantly Want To Protect This Character's Smile button. It very much primes you to want to feel bad for him.

109 does throw a spanner in these works and I do remember even at the time feeling very fucking uncertain about OnK potentially going for the grody old trope of "this character was a CSA victim and now they're Evil" (IF ONLY I FUCKING KNEW) but the more I re-read 109, I felt increasingly uncertain of what, exactly, we were supposed to take away from it. I actually had a suspicion for a really long time that 109 was so heavy handedly and overtly portraying him as a straightforward villain specifically to mislead the reader When They Cry-style and that he wasn't the one responsible for Yura's death at all.

Add all this to the fact that the Movie Arc centers Hikaru's victimhood and his extremely sad wet cat pathetic boy characterization literally at the expense of Ai's story in the movie that was supposed to be about her but what the fuck ever and it's really hard not to think that this is how the story wants you to feel about Hikaru. Hell, the Movie Arc even asks us to empathize with Airi, who is a fucking child rapist. I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone to assume that we were not supposed to think of Hikaru as a straightforward villain, especially when Ruby basically, like, looks into the camera when she's having her meeting with him and goes "nobody is born ontologically evil btw people get fucked up by their environments and blaming individuals for systemic issues isn't how anything gets fixed".

Also, like… I want to be delicate about this but I think it's also important to remember that Hikaru's motivations and supposed villainy as portrayed in OnK as of late are pretty outlandish and hard to connect with. But there are almost certainly people in OnK's audience who are also C/SA survivors who are able to resonate with a more grounded portrayal of him. I don't blame anyone at all for preferring a more sympathetic take on him in that case.

[l-in-the-light]

Why did Law break the heart of poor Chopper? 😭🥺

Did he tho? :D I assume you mean the infamous "shut up" scene at the end of Wano. Did you know this is actually not the first time Law tells Chopper to shut up? But let's start from the beginning!

"See you around, Torao!", "Shut up!". In the anime it comes off much harsher than in the manga, in which the flow is completely different, because it happens immediately after or even in same time as Law's conversation with Luffy:

Law is trying to draw the line here, they've been in an alliance, but now it's over, so they had to know this would be the result, now they're back to being enemies. But since Law kinda expects Strawhats to forget about that (he was with them in that alliance long enough to know how "uneccessarily emotional" they are most of the time, lol), he reminds them about that, making it a very "manly" and "cool" goodbye in the end.

Except, it would stay that way, if not for Chopper destroying it all with his affectionate "see you around, Torao!" because he understands they became friends, and you say that to friends when you're parting ways, right? Chopper isn't really known for being able to "read the room", so he totally missed the vibe Law was going for. In the end Law has to shut him up before Chopper goes on to say even worse emotional stuff.

(btw Kid is not having any of this, just look at his grossed out reaction there... "set sail", it's like he's trying to make them leave faster so he doesn't have to hear their sobby pretentious goodbye lol)

You might have missed it, but it wasn't the first time Law told Chopper to shut up. The very first time it happened was in Punk Hazard, on their duo mission in the lab. Law, slightly aware they might be heard or watched, insists on Chopper hiding already because they're almost at the door. He wouldn't say it in a nice way. Don't get me wrong, I believe he is rather tamely mannered, but I can't deny there are a few things he indeed is rather rude about (though definitely still tame in comparison to other pirates): never saying greetings, for example, and also never saying "please". Apparently he uses "shut up" instead now, lol. Anyway here he told Chopper to shut up because he is worried they will be spotted and he won't say "please stay in the bag" lol.

(Law doesn't say "please" anymore, not after his last request was to Vergo and he got betrayed and Cora-san suffered as the result. Law didn't say the word "please" not even once ever since.)

Chopper is actually the first out of Strawhats crew that Law kinda bonded with. Despite Law telling him to hide, they actually talk for a bit in this scene and Law is really open with him too (telling him he can't deal with Caesar on his own and that's why he needs the help of Strawhats - a rare moment of honesty and something he didn't tell anyone else, not even Luffy). In a way, you can look at their goodbye in Wano as a callback to Punk Hazard :D

We know already Law is bad with greetings (which means also saying goodbyes). The best you can get from him is silence instead of "hi" or "bye", the worst you can get is "shut up". In Law's novel we also could see Law saying goodbye to Wolf and he struggled soooo much with it. If you thought Sanji's goodbye with Zeff was awkward, Law's goodbye with Wolf is like ten times that, haha. I will use some quotes here from the end of the novel, so if you want to skip it, now would be your cue :D (you can skip to the next image from manga!)

*cough cough* yes, it's Law saying that line: "stop, you'll make me cry". Young Law is a mood, I swear. In a way you can take it as a clue, Chopper got silenced so he won't blabble out emotional monologue like Wolf up there, melting Law's heart and pretense of toughness away.

"I have to say goodbye to the locals, as well only to those who have treated me particularly well. I think that includes the doctor and Rad".

It's worth noting that he says that as well in the novel, despite the fact we never see Law saying goodbye to practically no one in the manga. Not to Strawhats, not to Kin, not to Bartolomeo, and he was indebted to them to various degrees as well (not counting Kin, that was actually reversed). Young Law could stand goodbyes slightly better than adult Law, it seems.

A tearful goodbye between Wolf and Hearts. This is how his goodbye with Strawhats could have looked like as well, I guess? But keep in mind, when Law said his goodbye to Wolf it was pretty much the same situation like when Sanji said it to Zeff. Both were indebted to their mentors and didn't know if they will ever see each other again (and if they will, then when). Novel's ending suggests Wolf and Hearts didn't meet again and after Law announced them leaving for the Grand Line, you can be sure they never had occassion to go back to North Blue ever since. This goodbye is pretty much definitive, they won't see each other for more than a decade. The casual goodbye with Strawhats might mean they will see each other sooner than not! Especially with Chopper's foreshadowing "see you around!". Though I still think Law doesn't plan on meeting them again.

Now, is Chopper's heart truly broken by Law's response? He got shocked because Chopper doesn't understand why Law told him to shut up instead of telling him "see you around" or "take care" back. But Chopper often misreads the situation and that happens even in the Strawhats crew. At Jaya, Nami told him to dig for gold, only to scold him for something she told him to do mere moments later:

Chopper is simply bad at picking up those hints or realizing when someone asks of something unreasonable that's better to be ignored. He's also quite silly and naive, and ends up taken advantage of as the result. But mostly, all those social cues are beyond his understanding, because he's a reindeer. Chopper is also very emotional, always easily touched by someone's sad story or when seeing people crying. You can say his empathy levels are really high. Perhaps, but take it with a grain of salt, Chopper thought Law is a bit sad, maybe he picked up on his emotions that Law wanted to hide so well, so he said "see you around" to make it sound like their seperation isn't going to last very long, to cheer him up, and since no one else said it, Chopper thought he should (besides he also simply likes Law, why wouldn't he like him? they're both doctors and spent quite a long time together).

It didn't end the way Chopper wanted it to end (he probably didn't cheer up Law nor did he get any nice reply back), but it's hardly the first or the last time it happened to Chopper in the story. He can handle it, he's a tough reindeer :) sadly he probably won't learn any time soon, if at all. Also, this...

Some goodbyes are harsh for the sake of the person left behind. Here Hiruruk kicks out Chopper so the reindeer won't have to watch him dying with his own eyes. He thinks it's better to part ways before Chopper gets even more attached, so it hurts him a bit less. Hiruruk knows how kind and caring Chopper is and doesn't want him to lose his heart again. Sadly the only alternative he had was to break his heart a little, hoping it will heal fast, but at least *he won't lose it* completely. Could this also be seen as a parallel to Law's goodbye with Chopper? It might be, because I think Law is totally the same type of guy who would push people away for their own sake.

(Still, the next time they meet, Law might need to apologize to Chopper, hehe. After all he must know by now that Chopper's rumble balls literally saved his life)

That's it about Chopper, but let's go back to Law for a moment. Where did he get his habit of saying "shut up"? He did not have it as a kid... well. I think the novel gives us the answer indirectly to that (no spoilers, just two short quotes):

Wonder no more, it seems he learned that from Wolf, lol. Quite fitting because Wolf taught him how to be a responsible leader/captain as well :) Wolf loved those kids, like we can see from his goodbye scene. He kept telling them "shut up" mostly because he was embarrassed and also because he didn't want to get too attached to them at first (he had some poor experiences in his life before), and he wasn't used to have people around his house all the time, living together, sharing meals etc. Last time he had it, he lost it and he became quite bitter as the result. But spending time with Law, Bepo, Penguin and Shachi changed him a bit, to the point he could tell them that heartfelt goodbye instead of harsh words.

Now, is it just a habit Law picked up from him? Or is there something more to it? For starters, he doesn't really say "shut up" to anyone besides Chopper (and once to Luffy in One Piece Red, but there is sounds almost affectionate lol). Not to Usopp who is panicking (even if it slightly irritates Law), not even to Luffy who is always noisy (he does call him idiot though, but it's always deserved lol). But he does say it to his lovely Heart Pirates when they kept nagging him about going to the New World and he tells them "to stop yapping, shut up and follow his lead". And we know how much Law loves his Hearts. If Chopper deserved to be said to "shut up" then it already shows Law puts him in same category as his Hearts and thinks fondly of him. Just like Wolf was fond of his "stupid brats" he constantly shouted at to shut up.

One last thing, because context matters a lot as well. It's possible that Law said that to Chopper in that moment because he was afraid to get too attached to the Strawhats. Is it stretching it too far? I will let you all decide that for yourselves :D

[tangledbea]

I'm seeing a lot of questions/comments on @syrasenturi's wonderful if brief analysis post, so I decided to throw in my take without clogging up their post.

No, I do not think Rapunzel was physically abused by Gothel, for the most part. Gothel wanted to keep her happy and complacent, and physical abuse is not the way to do that.

However, towards the end of the movie, after Rapunzel realized she was the Lost Princess, she was ready to leave. She turned her back on Gothel, intent to go out the window. To which Gothel uttered the infamous, "You want me to be the bad guy? Fine. Now I'm the bad guy." Mere moments before, Rapunzel proved she was physically stronger than Gothel. When she gripped her wrist to stop her from patting her on the head, Gothel had to really struggle to get free, and only managed to wrench her arm away when Rapunzel let go in order to walk down the stairs.

This leads me to conclude that Gothel had to physically attack Rapunzel, knock her out, in order to chain and gag her as she was when Eugene arrived at the tower. In my mind, Gothel hit once, but once was enough. (She did, after all, knock out each of the Stabbingtons with one swing of a tree branch each.)

Follow that up with Rapunzel knowing that Gothel had no qualms with stabbing Eugene. She probably realized in those moments that Gothel could have gotten physical with her any time she wanted.

In the series, Rapunzel flinching away wasn't a result of reaction to physical abuse, but a generalized reaction to trauma, to being afraid of angering people because Gothel would emotionally abuse her any ol' time she felt like it, but especially when she was displeased. Rapunzel had six months (at the start of the series) to process her entire relationship with Gothel, and you know she didn't come to any nice conclusions. She never showed any fear of Gothel until the series (with the exception of when Gothel was actively scaring her in "Mother Knows Best" and its reprise). Even as Gothel fell from the window, Rapunzel reached for her.

Six months of processing that relationship, processing that trauma, made Rapunzel fear Gothel and what she was capable of. And that, in turn, made her flinch away from anyone who might be upset with her.

[callsign-bunnie]

I don't have an opinion on ALL of the ships. There's just not enough for many of the characters for me to really have a sin in mind for many of his ships, and I'm not touching non-story operators with a ten foot pole. Furthermore, I'm applying these in a directly romantic sense.

Sadly, I think I've become a lot less fun in the last year that I haven't been making headcanons

PriceGhost is wrath - I am so deeply confused as to why Wrath has been watered down to like... extreme anger or anything. Soap NEVER shows a tendency towards wrath, even if he can be very angry. He makes snide remarks, maybe small threats, but to say he's ever committing an action out of his own anger is just... wrong.

If you go by old Price, it's pretty well implied in Ghost's backstory that Price picked him up because of what he did in Coahuila. Speaking of, that entire thing was wrath.

And for new Price, he kills Shepherd in cold blood, even though it's established that it was unnecessary. Just Price delivering on the "John Price guarantee" that if you cross him, you'll regret it.

To say that they'd be anything other than wrathful with each other and others while in a relationship would be honestly insane. I just can't see either as being willing to let small issues go. Maybe they won't confront each other so much, but they will fester, and they will lash out.

One person makes a snide comment at Ghost's expense. Ghost forgot about it, it wasn't even that clever, but Price remembers and now Ghost is going to be forced to remember that someone insulted him once. Price got the asshole discharged and Ghost doesn't care about that, but could he shut the fuck up about it? Ghost doesn't need Price mentioning that "asshole who thought he had something clever to say" every other fucking barracks dinner. It's embarrassing, he doesn't want people to know, but that person dared to cross Price- (he didn't even cross Price, HE CROSSED GHOST) and lived to regret it.

But Ghost is just as angry and he's even more willing to act on it. Price drills into him that Ghost doesn't have to completely eradicate every threat, but he doesn't care and he feels like he shouldn't have to. They piss Ghost off, shouldn't that be enough reason to kill anyone who wants to take a shot at the John Price? Why does he have to keep pointing out that they're threats. Sure, maybe that one didn't actually explicitly say he was going to kill Price, maybe he just joked about it...

They should know better.

Aleghost is pride - I had to debate someone that Ghost shows a lot of pride so I'm starting to wonder if you guys know what Pride means, either. Pride as a sin is about self-devotion, self-justification, or self-glorying in a way that is against God. I'll uh... take it more in the sense of morality.

Ghost's whole character is that he believes he's above the rules. Fuck, he makes them. That's self-justification. His constant on and on about how dark he is and how he's a lone wolf and he's so dangerous and evil and on and on, that's self-glorying. And the way y'all have him petulantly dedicated to his own woes? That's self-devotion.

I don't think I really have to explain Alejandro's pride but I will. Beyond the whole "nothing can kill Alejandro but Alejandro" thing, where is the Mexican government? No, seriously. Where the hell is it? At no point does any Vaquero voice concerns about the Mexican military or Mexican government cracking down on them. Now I know that it's common American propaganda to portray Mexico as this completely lawless, orderless place but it's pretty unrealistic to assume an active government would completely ignore the entire thing with Graves.

But nope, they're never mentioned. They're never even a threat. Alejandro and Rodolfo have no issue just killing narcos and AQ soldiers in their mission together. Granted, I did notice that the majority of times when Rodolfo seemed to be free to open fire tended to be when Alejandro wasn't there which is... interesting, but Alejandro still has his fair share of picking off enemies.

And at no point does Alejandro feel the need to justify a single action of his. Blowing up his own base just to get it back? Nope. He never justifies why he's never put in the effort to take down Valeria before, even though it was clearly fairly easy since she had to FLEE TO AL MAZRAH AFTER ESCAPING PRISON, and then he has NO justification for saying "fuck it" and up and leaving the city he's still actively rebuilding to chase her ass around.

Rodolfo doesn't question him and granted, we don't have much story surrounding this actual moment, it still is really fucking strange.

Soapghost is Sloth - No justification besides just that Ghost would never actually have to put the effort in to be better because Soap seems to just sort understand Ghost as Ghost. I could get into this from even a fandom perspective if I really wanted to, but from the perspective of canon, Soap never really gives Ghost any pushback on his more negative behaviors.

Ghost wouldn't have to go to therapy, he'd simply say he was uncomfortable with the idea and Soap would understand because look what happened to his first therapist.

Ghost would state that he barely communicates because it's scary and Soap would trip over himself to somehow make it less scary that would ultimately end up with less communication, somehow.

GhostGaz is Lust but I think I've rambled enough

Ghost ships but they’re themed as the seven deadly sins (PriceGhost is pride)