#a childhood genius so i imagine there was a lot of pressure placed on her

[squidkidnerd]

okay here’s my Big Bad Side Order Theory: Marina made the Tower of Order initially as her "perfect world" so to speak—a world where everything was stable, constant, and safe. She didn't have to worry about things changing too much or Pearl leaving her or whatever else she was worried about. At some point, Pearl likely gets involved in this too due to the concert dialogue. Things are fine and nothing ever, ever goes wrong... right?

Yeah, something goes wrong.

Basically, at the beginning of Side Order, the simulation got out of Marina's control. This caused the Square's bleached coral to appear, the enemies to spawn, and most importantly: sucked Eight, Pearl, Acht, and who knows who else (*cough* Four *cough*) in. I imagine Marina somehow ended up trapped somehow too, though not with the others and well, with at least some semblance of control over the simulation. I think this is why some of the menus and even a bomb of some kind have Marina's logo on them—they're her indirectly trying to help you. So, "ascending the Tower of Order" basically means getting to the tower, finding Marina, and taking back control of/shutting off the simulation.

I like this theory because it makes Marina involved in this whole mess without making her the outright villain, which I think is just too out of character. What is in character for her, though, is her anxieties leading her to create a simulated world that, like anxiety often does in real life, gets out of control. Getting it in control, then, is about Marina taking control of her anxiety—learning to trust Pearl and the other people in her life while also letting herself live a little at the same time.

[silvinlewis]

Matthew’s depression: explained

I don’t know why I wanted to do this, maybe because many don’t understand that Matthew’s real problem is not his alcoholism, it’s his depression and this is what takes him to different ways of self destruction. It could have put him into any addiction: drugs, cigarret, etc.

I have also read some comments of people saying that Matthew shouldn’t even feel that way, because “he has it all”. They say the same thing that James says in nothing but shadows “You could have noticed that life is less than ideal for me in this moment. So, stop making everything a tragic show of yourself for nothing” minimizing Matthews problems because he just “has it all”.

So, here is where this begins. I will explain as the psychologist I am, the reasons of Matthew’s depression. Besides, I remind you that the mental diseases have no distention in genre, social class or race. And we don’t know what happens in closed doors of a home that even though seems to be okay, is not okay at all.

Matthew was born in a “gold cradle”. Charlotte had been consul for eight years already when she gave birth to Matthew. The consul, being some king of president or minister, has a salary higher than the one given to the rest of shadowhunters. Even Cordelia says it, that she always sees Matthew with fine and expensive clothing. Maybe it doesn’t seem so important to mention but believe me, it is. As I said before, it is a popular belief that a boy born in a gold cradle would not have anything to complain about, but many times that gold cradle comes with defects: The pressure of the parents of being perfect of even the abandonment because of being so involved in their jobs all the time.

Here we will take this into account.

We know that Henry is a man that is all the time concentrated in his work. We know that his nature es being clueless and we can’t judge him. We can’t judge Charlotte either for being involved in her work as consul, because by being the first women in that position it is possible that she has to work the double.

So, we have our first problem: absent parents

Matthew had to grow up quick. In Cast Long Shadows, we see a little Matthew, only six years old, crying in his mother’s skirts. She asks her little son to go take care of his father. Matthew, being as protective as he is, takes his role seriously.

In Nothing but Shadows, Matthew explains that he always had been looking after his father, and Christopher. He had to grow up quick because he had to be from one way to another looking after his father and being alert that his father could eat well or didn’t caught fire. He went few times to meet with the other kids because he was home taking care of his handicapped father. If it weren’t because the Lightwood lived in Idris, he wouldn’t have met them.

Matthew didn’t live a normal childhood.

Matthew has a very bad perspective of himself. In Cast long Shadows, there were two phrases of Matthew that left me sad. “A pretty face, but not smart like the rest of his family” “You are a waste of space in a vessel, but at least your vessel is fantastic”.

In first place, you can imagine Matthew has an enormous ego, because he apparently does, but we find out, entering in this mind, that is actually the contrary of that.

Let’s see, his mother is the first female consul; his older brother longs to take her place and is very useful for his mother, to the point in which she gives him the position of subdirector in an institute and intern consul in London in her absense. He (Matthew) has a father that is a genius, that invented portals and the radar, and has as a pupil on of Matthew’s best friends.

Matthew is happy but wouldn’t doubt in feeling frustrated for not having anything special like the rest of his family. He doesn’t feel enough to fill in the places that his brother and parents fill. He thinks he is just a kid that likes art, but is not able to do art. (Nothing but shadows).

And then, when everything that happened with Charlotte happens, he thinks that all the doubts about himself are completely true. He is nothing.

We arrive to the most important part: the sin.

Before getting to that, let’s talk about the rumour:

Alastair didn’t create the rumour, it’s true, and like every kid, he repeated it with the intention of hurting Matthew. Yes, Alastair is not guilty of what Matthew did but you have to admit that he was an idiot that did not understand how powerful his words can be.

Many say: Why didn’t Matthew talk with his parents about it or simply didn’t believe Alastair? But, let’s get in context.

1900, a time where the simple fact of a women being alone with a man, could ruin her completely. Do you really think that if Matthew was actually Gideon’s son, his parents would have told him? Matthew himself knows that they would have lied, that is why he buys that potion.

Besides, imagine a boy grow up believing he is a bastard.

Matthew had a lot to doubt: Just like Alastair says, his physical appearance was very different to his parents and very similar to Gideon. Besides, he says it in CLS, that his parents were behaving in a very strange way (Charlotte was distracted, Henry was alert, and Charles was questioning him). And last of all: Gideon was appearing in the mornings to accompany Charlotte.

Cassie said that Charlotte’s pregnancy had been difficult, I guess it was because of her age so they hadn’t told Matthew yet, for him not to be worried (Charlotte had a husband, and older son, and an advisor worried about her already). No one imagined something like this would happen.

At last: Depression many times requires a detonating

The feeling of not being enough, of being a mistake, and over all, of having killed somebody you were going to love, was without a doubt Matthew’s detonating. This was the thing that put him in the bottom, and told him that he was a mistake, that did not serve, that he was a fail.

We know that he was tricked by the fairy (The Land I lost), but he doesn’t know it. In his mind he thinks he was an idiot for not listening to Jem. The thinks that thanks to his insecurities about not being his father’s son, poisoned his mother and killed his sister.

He won’t let Lucie touch him, he himself says he is not enough. He won’t tell anything to James because he is afraid he will judge and abandon him.

He gets into self-destruction by drinking, because it is the only thing that calms him. In some moment he must have had suicide thoughts.

And he holds on on what we could’ve called “lights”. I Have discovered that Matthew has been very attached to James. It is as if he wants to keep him close but also is afraid of hurting him.

Matthew’s depression is totally valid. We see that it is taking form slowly. They are little things that just explote in a moment and put us into an abiss where it is difficult to come out.

Translation by: @manuaristythgtmi

Art by: Cassandra Jean

@cassandraclare

[sakuatsutingz]

Hello loves! Can I request a childhood friends to lovers for Kita, Atsumu, and Suna?

ofc !! also i just made this a simple drabble since you didnt specify any type of req, but if you want hcs, feel free to request another ! enjoy <3 — jamie

let's pretend me and jamie's writing style matches well and it's not completely obvious who did what part. sorry for posting earlier than usual, but i wanna try to hit 100 before its new years in my time </3 - bri

kita, atsumu & suna with a childhood friend crush

masterlist here

request here

kita shinsuke !

mild s4 spoilers ahead !

“hey, shin ?”

the sound of your serene voice rang through the mentioned’s ears, the male’s left eyebrow quirking upwards as he turned to you expectantly with the sounds of the tv playing in the distance. 

“hm ?”

he hummed in the same manner of how you called out his name, yet still in the softest and sweetest tone you could hear, it’s basically honey to your two ears. 

“i love you. for as long as i could remember, i loved you, more than just a friend.”

you and shinsuke have been friends for as long as you can remember. you two met when you first moved in his neighbourhood, and his grandmother would always invite your family to have dinners in the kita residence frequently, leaving the two of you to spend a lot of time with each other, and thus, your close relationship starting to bloom.

when shinsuke told you about him joining the volleyball club in his first year, you had very mixed feelings. you were scared that he will soon be uninterested in spending time with you, his closest friend; you were scared he’ll lose his time for you; you were scared of the thought of him leaving you alone; you were scared of losing him, because you loved him.

but at the same time, you were always there to support him. the last thing you could ever possibly do is stop him from doing what he loves. and so you didn’t object his decision, supporting him from behind and cheering on him all the way to his third year — the nationals.

you thought he’d forget about you — he didn’t. he would always text you and tell you how practice went, what was going on in his team. he didn’t need to tell you how the match at the second day went in the finals, because you were there. you watched as the ball landed one last time on their side of the court, leading to their ultimate loss against karasuno.

seeing him so sad broke your heart, yet you still supported him until the end — and this was the end. yet, you still comforted him by visiting him later on, as he spilled to you whatever was going on in his head. it was a good fight, they had tried their best, but it wasn’t enough. and now you two were here, on the couch, watching the match replay for god knows how long.

now, as you impulsively confessed your undying love to your very best friend, you couldn’t help the smile on your face as you said those very words. the thought of him is already making you feel happy, feel loved, feel alive.

little did you know, those are the very same feelings you make him feel.

his eyes locked onto yours, a subtle blush dusted his cheeks as he spoke, cupping your face between his two hands as his lips softly kissed yours.

“i loved you too. for as long as i remember, and until the end of time.”

miya atsumu !

it was no secret to the people around you that atsumu and yourself had something more then just friends going on. everyone could see the way atsumu looked at you, treasured you as if you were the most precious diamond he knew. and for him, you were.

you were the only one oblivious to his advances. the flirting, gifts, random moments of affection; it didn't take a genius to know that he had some kind of feelings. yet, it seemed like no matter what he did, you blew it off. 'nah. i doubt he likes me, we've just known each other for forever. he's comfortable with me, that's all."

you only denied all of these people for one reason. you didn't want to get your hopes too high. over the many years, atsumu wasn't the only one who caught feelings. you did for him as well. you knew how he acted, you thought his actions were normal.

so you can only imagine the surprise that took place when one day you went to the gym to give the team some snacks for practice. it wasn't your plan to eavesdrop, it just happened to take place.

"'samu, what else do i need to do to get y/n to notice the way i feel? no matter what i try i can't get her to like me back."

the voice was one which you could recognise from everywhere - atsumu.

you placed down the bag of treats, clearly processing the words. apparently, osamu heard the subtle russel of the bag, looking back to where you stood.

"looks like you just told her, good luck."

was what osamu said, nodding towards the door - to where you are. atsumu looked like a deer caught in headlights, before looking down as he watched osamu walk off, leaving you two alone. you came out from your place behind the door, approaching the male. it was clear he was nervous, but at the same time disappointed.

this wasn't how it was meant happen. he wanted to ask you out with some grand gesture, tell you under the cherry blossoms in spring or during the winter season when there was many attractions to wow you with. not now, not here in the gym of your school.

"so, is it true? you like me?"

those words only made him freeze more, stumbling over his words while he tried to find what to say. it was so unlike him to act like this. usually he was the confident and loud one, not the shy one who struggled to form a sentence.

"yeah ... i'm sorry, i know how this must be. if you don't feel the same i can wait ... you don't need to return the feelings!"

you couldn't help but let a soft laugh leave the lips that atsumu had thought about so much. the action only seemed to rise his already sky high anxiety. your hand went to cup his cheek, gently pushing his head up to look at you. the next thing you did took both of you by surprise, placing a short kiss on the tip of his nose.

"idiot, i've waited long enough for you to say that."

guess you were both oblivious to each other's feelings, but right now both of you couldn't be happier. simply standing in the abandoned gym which the volleyball team was soon to have practice in, standing in the others embrace.

"can i call you my girlfriend then?"

rintarō suna !

you and suna were always seen as opposites, two who shouldn't get along. you were outgoing and loud, he was more quiet and deadpan. it was an odd duo, but you two made it work. many people didn't understand you two, but you never thought of it as a bad way. it was like you and suna had your own little world, away from the troubles of reality.

it wasn't an odd scene to see one at the others house, so it was no different then usual with you sitting on his bed, humming along to the music playing from the speakers. you had been in this room thousands of times, even had a small drawer of your clothes for how often you sleep over. your parents were hesitant at first to let such a thing happen, but over the many years the doubts they had about suna had faded.

you watched as he packed a duffel bag, only one way it could really be explained. he was going away to nationals for who knows how long. leaving you back here, to simply watch him from the tv. he offered to let you come with, but between your studies and club activities you didn't get the time for it. it was clear that it bothered you - the fact you were quieter then usual, on your phone mindlessly scrolling - rather than trying to help him as you often would.

"you okay?"

the question held no pressure as he moved away from his closet, sitting next to you on the bed. those two words was all it took for you to cave in, shaking your head as you pulled him into a hug which he soon returned.

"i'm sorry i can't be there to support you .. please don't be mad."

you mumble, clearly surprising suna. you always did attend every one of their games, always sitting in the front row of the excessive cheer group. you never did participate in their behaviour, but you did definitely cheer whenver you saw suna land a spike. ever since he started, you never missed a game. even if you didn't know what was happening half of the time.

"why would i be mad? i know you’re here for me, that's enough."

his fingers ran through your hair, a small smile on his face as he looked down to you. as much as you did appreciate the words, it's not like it made you feel much better. the sense of guilt was still there, even if there was no reason for such a thing. you felt his hand move from your hair, down the side of your cheek until it tucked under your chin. perhaps it was the atmosphere, perhaps it was the feelings you had for him that you pushed away for so many years - but you didn't pull away.

"you always have been here and i'll always love you for it."

suna's words came off no louder than a whisper, head touching yours. the shock never left your face as you heard those words leave his lips. sure, you had said it plenty of times before, but that was truly platonic. it didn't take a genius to know this was in the quite opposite way. you didn't say anything back, but the next actions were all he needed to know you felt the same.

what that action was? a simple tilt of his head, connecting your lips to suna's. that was all it took to know, your feelings weren't just one-sided.

[blogsanscontext]

A Closer Look at: Momoe Sawaki’s character arc; by a nonbinary (trans) viewer.

CW: Major spoilers for Wonder Egg Priority + mentions and discussion of sexual assault, transphobia, lesbophobia, self-harm; please proceed with caution.

Wonder Egg Priority came as a relatively pleasant surprise for me; I heard about it some time after the first few episodes aired, but I never actively went out of my way to ever try to watch it myself until, that is, a few days ago. I must say, I’m glad to have taken the initiative to experience such anime on my own.

With a stunning animation to accompany the heavy subjects this work touches on, I quickly fell in love with it; all the characters feel very grounded in reality, with their struggles (even someone like Neiru’s, who is a literal genius and CEO of her own company) feeling relatable in one way or another. Episode 7 became my favorite due to this very thing, Rika’s problems were things that not only have I seen in other works before, but that I know exist because of the stories told in the news every so often. It only helped, in my opinion, that they gave a character with her background such a hopeful ending.

That being said, Wonder Egg is not a perfect anime, and though I didn’t expect it to be in the first place, I do think talking about why some of the ways it handles a specific character of the main cast are problematic are worth the time. When I mentioned that “all the characters feel very grounded in reality”, I actually only meant three of them, a.k.a.: Ai, Rika and Neiru. The reason Momoe is not included in this group is what I will be discussing in the next paragraphs.

This anime lets you know, right off the bat, that it will not stray away from heavy subjects throughout the duration of its runtime; the show deals with suicidal idealization (and actual suicide as well as its aftermath; in fact, “female suicide” is at the very core of the show and is what essentially moves it forward), self-harm, sexual assault, same-sex relationships, transphobia, and being a gender noncomforming person in a society that punishes you for not adhering to the roles it has imposed on you since childhood. The last points are the ones I took issue with, however, and though they are mostly the show’s fault, they also took it upon themselves to make Momoe be at the center of all three.

See, when we are first introduced to Momoe, we can guess by context that she is a girl, however, the other characters aren’t aware of this fact yet, and so they seemingly go out of their way to call her a boy, which makes her deeply uncomfortable, and this (ie. her reaction to be treated or perceived as a boy) is a running theme throughout her arc. This, in itself, isn’t really the worst creative direction to take with a character, it’s a story that has been told time and time again, but there is a problem with the way Wonder Egg Priority specifically deals with it: Momoe is cisgender, and so far, there hasn’t been a sign of this changing whatsoever, so she will most likely remain cis until the show ends. Normally, a story about a gender noncomforming cis person wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the extraordinary, as I’ve mentioned before, but it seems that they wanted to… “innovate”, so to say, with her character. And it’s this innovation, in my opinion, that which makes Momoe’s struggles miss the mark for me.

Momoe is perceived, almost ridiculously so, as a boy by whoever even so much as stumbles upon her; her followers on Instagram most likely worship her because they’re under the impression that she’s a bishounen, and yet the show goes out of its way to deal with just how uncomfortable this makes her. This is the issue I take with her and her arc: the show has a keen awareness of AFAB people’s issues, and treats them with the respect they deserve (which is not to say some jokes at their expense aren’t made, but in general this tone is kept throughout the duration of the story), and yet the tone-deaf manner in which they deal with her issues feels… disappointing, to say the least.

Momoe’s struggles, though they are valid on their own, are not a societal issue, no matter how one may look at them; if she were a trans person (either a trans girl, boy, or nonbinary), the strong emphasis on her discomfort at being misgendered would have made so much more sense. The reason why ‘switching around’ the stereotype of a tomboy falls flat on its face is that there is no real pressure from society to present feminine, it’s what they want you to, or more accurately, force you to do if you’re perceived as being assigned female at birth; however, this is not where my issues with Momoe’s arc and character end.

At first, I imagined a variety of (albeit vague, still reasonable) reasons as to why this show couldn’t have just made Momoe be trans, and semi-understanding of this decision; that was, of course, until I watched the actual episode mostly focused on her struggles, and that’s when I got slightly mad. Being honest, I still think it was a good episode, and it definitely made Momoe seem way more sympathetic than any of her past appearances, but it also perfectly highlighted my problem with her, and subsequently, the show itself: using queer people’s actual, realistic, problems in order to push her, a cisgender character, forward.

The thing with Wonder Egg Priority is that I love how, despite all these girls literally risking their lives to save a specific person, they still seem to have conflicting feelings about them (ie. Rika’s mocking of Chiemi, Ai’s frustration towards Koito, etc.) but I also take issue with this when it comes to Momoe specifically; Haruka is very much intended to be seen as gay, yet when push comes to shove, we are supposed to be taking Momoe’s side in this conflict. We, the audience, see these events from her point of view, and are therefore made to feel, in one way or another, uncomfortable with Haruka’s attraction for her. Yes, Momoe has worked hard to bring her back to life, but the fact that she’s cis and heterosexual stands; this isn’t just exclusive to Haruka, however, but every egg she’s had to save in order to get her friend back. All of them express a clear attraction for Momoe, “despite her being a girl”, and it’s just very easy to read these attitudes as wlw-phobic, extremely so.

My biggest issue though lies within the very existence of Kaoru’s character, the trans boy she has to protect in the episode mainly focused on her; while he is an endearing and sympathetic character, and I like that despite him presenting ‘majorly female’, Momoe never misgenders him. The thing is: he’s made out to be almost a “parallel” of her own gender-related issues, and this is just a very tone-deaf statement to make; trans people fighting not to be misgendered, fighting to be called their chosen name (something Momoe, while being cis, can just freely enjoy) - trans people’s pain is very much real, which the show is aware of, but Momoe’s is very much an individual’s problem rather than the way society actually works, which Wonder Egg is seemingly unaware of, for whatever reason.

Before I arrive at my last point on why this comparison doesn’t work, I would like to quickly point out the fact that most, if not all, the eggs the girls have had to save until this point were specifically meant to be girls, in one way or another. Therefore, taking this into account, Kaoru makes me feel… a lot of things, the more time I spend thinking about it; the show acknowledges he’s a boy, though not cis of course, but still very much a boy, yet also places him in this very much ‘female’ space; no matter how I looked at it, I could find explanations both for an opinion in favor of this decision (the way a lot of trans men’s problems are defined by our patriarchal society seeing them as women) as well as some for an opinion against this decision (the fact that it could be read as the show ultimately deciding he’s ‘female-aligned’, etc.) and though I won’t be discussing this decision in-depth, I still possess that it’s an event worth examining from different lenses.

Now, onto the actual element that got me heated about Kaoru serving as a parallel to Momoe’s struggles: Kaoru was not only sexually assaulted by a man who’s always thought of him as a ‘pretty, delicate girl’, his death directly relates to the fact that he was abused and then impregnated by this man for not living up to his gross ideal of what a man and a woman are; contrast this to Momoe, who pretty much gets the treatment Kaoru would love to have: she’s pretty much right off the bat seen as a guy, she’s fawned over by women because of this fact as well, they literally call her ‘Momotaro’, etc. Taking all of this into account, it’s simply impossible for me to be okay with a comparison that ultimately decides a cisgender person’s discomfort is, in any sort of way, on equal grounds as a (might I remind you, dead) trans person’s basic human rights.

All in all, though her episode made me take a bigger liking to her character, it also served to almost perfectly highlight the very problem of her existence, as well as the “struggles” she’s intended to represent; I don’t hate Momoe in any sort of way, and though I know there must be someone somewhere who relates to her, I also think that they could’ve done something way more meaningful with her had they just made some changes that made her more realistic (as in, make her at least be LGBT rather than just cis and heterosexual); I will be patiently waiting for the finale, and who knows? Maybe something does change about her in the end, that would be even more of a pleasant surprise.

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

..been rewatching anime and.. uh.. MIRACUCLASS ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM AU BECAUSE FUCK YOUR SOUL

Idk who Koro Sensei would because even though I love Ms Bustier, no one can replace Koro Sensei. Well. Maybe Plagg. But probably not. Where Ms Bustier is in this entire au? No idea. Either dead, or in Hawaii enjoying a nice drink in the warm relaxing sun.

Also this is E class, they’re all here for a reason.

ANYWAYS ONTO THE KIDS HAHAHAHAAH

Adrien’s in the role of our baby boy Nagisa(this isn’t a drag and drop character au, but Adrien’s in the position as main man if you get what I mean). Mari is still the class rep/monitor/officer and prominent role though. Emilie is dead of natural causes and Gabriel is still an abusive ass. Not as bad as Nagisa’s mom, but still, we hate him. Anyways though, Adrien’s got that lovely blood lust but is still a precious boy. Why he’s here? I don’t know.  Maybe Gabriel is connected to the assignment and wanted his son in on the action for whatever reason.

Marinette’s got the Nagisa planning down and is surprisingly rlly flexible and swift, despite her random feats of impossible clumsiness. (Fits herself in small spaces to try and get the jump on Koro, also she can climb shit like you wouldn’t believe. Jumps down to scare people. It’s funny) Actually becomes a bit of a rival to Adrien as they both are very good at similar things, but also oppose each other. Doesn’t have a crush on him, but slowly develops one over time. Reason why she’s here? Stress caused her grades to fall, and the teachers were not kind or nurturing in the way she needed, and caused that stress to pile more on her, resulting her to fail more in a horrifying spiral that landed her a spot here. 

Alya is Marinette’s best friend, but also the karma to her nagisa, and teases her about her growing crush on adrien as much as he does in the show. She’s highly intelligent and it’s one the best aspects of herself. However her prideful and stubborn side is what has stopped her a lot. She stands for what she believes in, so it’s hard for her to let go of things she wants to have a grip on. Which is what she eventually has to learn. This pride got her sent to e class because she lashed out at others for hurting people, and those abusers turned it on her. She and Marinette are a force of nature together. 

Nino and Kim are childhood best friends to Marinette and, to save the earth, are probably one of the more enthusiastic about this. Brute strength and there for support. They aren’t ones to do their own plans, instead, they’re more part of plans. Kim’s got a very stressful and pressuring home that demands him to be successful, strong, manly, and the pride of their family. But he just.. wasn’t. And he suffered for that. Meanwhile, Nino’s parents are divorced and he and to focus on taking care of Chris, meaning his grades fell.

Ivan is the master of brute strength as well. I like to imagine he’s a big brother and protector of his family, so he really just wants to keep them safe. However, he feels as if he isn’t smart, and has one of the lower grades in the class.

Juleka and Sabrina are the literal masters of stealth, even casually. They will disappear and reappear as they please, spooking people when they don’t see them. However it does spark some insecurities to them. People forget Juleka’s existence, and people don’t see Sabrina as anything but a shadow. Juleka specializes in sniper abilities and Sabrina knife combat.

Roger put pressure on Sabrina being Chloe’s servant so he could be on Mayor Bourgeois’s good side, so her grades fell. Meanwhile Juleka had moments where she went violent, she was a misfit in general, was seen as a delinquent, and was framed for a lot of things. Whether the faculty knew she was innocent doesn’t matter, they were excited to throw her in E class. Juleka however, grows from her tricks of invisibility, and learns the art of infiltration as well, being able to master the art of disguise. Like Reflekta but reverse. Because she’s not just as blank slate for people to deface.

Why Chloe is here? She’s close to the principal for blackmail purposes and power, so she got the dig on Koro Sensei’s arrival and she wanted in on the action. Because.. if she saved the world.. that’d mean she was exceptional right? And maybe.. Audrey would acknowledge her again. She’s a mirror of Marinette except in exchange for flexibility, she has better aim.

At some point, she becomes desperate, as her father both urges her to continue and eventually, after some type of humiliation, she tries to pull a Karma cliff move. This of course, does not work.

Rose is the class chemist, makes bombs, poisons, and numerous other goodies. Not that her parents notice of course. She takes care of herself, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the bills while her parents work. And if they aren’t working. They still aren’t home.

Nathaniel is another sniper here, parents also have high expectations for him but sense he just doesn’t cut it, they push him harder into the ground. Because he was a pushover, people took advantage of him and forced him to do petty theft, earning him a shamed spot in e class. Good news though, he’s a master at traps and He’s working on a comic about the class.

Alix became friends with him when they joined together, she got stuck in the class for delinquent behavior. Simple as that. She’s just vibing while her friends have depression, rip. She’s smart, clever, laid back, and not afraid to take actions and dares into her own hands.  Max sees the world in calculations, numbers, and zeros. So despite being a genius in so much, everything just.. lacks. He kept hitting walls and he got stuck there, lagging behind. Like Alya, his pride and ego got to him, and he couldn’t get it in the perspective he was always in, ones and zeros, and so, the teachers threw him away in E Class. He specializes in plans, strategies, machinery, and well, hacking.

Finally: Lila is a mixture of Karma and Bitch Sensei. The manipulative and cruel side being part of Karma, and her technique a good mirror of Bitch Sensei. She’s a transfer student, who comes into class with an innocent personality. But in reality, she was a hired assassin. She shows her true colors when the class seems unhelpful to her and cuts to the chase. She’s here to kill Koro and leave with the money, and they should stay out of her way unless they want their fingers ripped off. She’s put in her place soon after by Koro and reluctantly becomes part of the class. She was trained from birth to be an assassin, so with the class, She gains a childhood! Hurray! Redemption!

[volvolts]

trying again. im gonna talk about my ocs. its pretty long and kinda incoherent idk

first start with robin

idk how to make the picture smaller so im sorry

- her name is robin wright and she’s 17

BACKSTORY

- her mom is a cyberneticist and her dad is a neurosurgeon. they do research on cyborg’s disease and have a company that makes prosthetics. they’re really rich because if it

- robin also had a twin brother named ronan (she’s the younger twin btw). he died when they were 15 because he had a rare case of cyborg’s disease in the brain. his death was so traumatizing for her that she doesn’t remember the months surrounding his death. she doesn’t even remember the funeral

- after ronan’s death, robin’s parents put her into isolation for two years. they pulled her out of her classes and activities and she barely got human interactions during this time

- eventually she had enough and begged to be allowed out which they do--as long as she has a bodyguard with her at all times. the problem? robin had a hard time getting along with most of them. in fact, ryuji is kind of a last resort. if she doesn’t get on well with him, she’ll most likely be isolated until further notice

random facts

- she’s really smart, a natural genius you could say. she was on her third year in college before she was pulled from it (she’s studying to be a neurosurgeon like her father). she’s one of those organized highlighter/color coded note takers too

- robin is a very compassionate person and is compelled to help others as much as she can. 

- stubborn and determined, she’ll pursue nearly everything and won’t back down until she has answers. sometimes she doesn’t know when to stop and accidentally oversteps her boundaries. it’s not because she’s needlessly nosy but because she wants to know the whole story before she can help them

- she has a overactive imagination and would end up thinking up outlandish ideas to fill in the blanks of things she doesn’t know

- robin is one of those people who’s polite and reserved if she doesn’t know you but will talk your ear off when she’s comfortable with you

- she closer with her father, which is why she’s studying the same subject that he works in

- both of her parents are incredibly successful and she’s expected to do something similar so she has a lot on her shoulders

- she hasn’t worked a day in her life but she has unusually strong endurance and stamina

- she has a dog! he’s a golden retriever and his name is beck. he’s an old dog and she loves him very much 

next is ryuji

- his name is ryuji lor and he’s 22

- he also goes by “ryder” (technically he’s supposed to go by that throughout most of my half-baked story because he never told anyone is real name but that’s beside the point)

- he’s a quarter japanese and three quarters se asian (not really sure what kind yet but im thinking somewhere within the vietnam/laos area)

BACKSTORY 

- a bit of TW: FAMILY ABUSE in this passage so skip if it bothers you:  his mom got pregnant with him while she was in college and because her boyfriend bailed on her and stress of the pregnancy and burnout she dropped out and went back to her family. she was seen as “the good one” of the family and was expected to get a good job to get her family out of poverty however when she came back they were incredibly bitter that she “failed” and would verbally and emotionally put her down. They also blamed ryuji because if he wasn’t born then she wouldn’t have dropped out and he was often ostracized because of it. 

- fortunately he and his mom left when he turned 5. they lived in a small apartment and had to get lots of help from neighbors and friends to make ends meet (mostly to babysit ryuji while his mom worked). ryuji vowed to get smart and get a good job to give his mother the life she deserves (and partly because he feels a part of her really does hate him and he wants to make it up to her somehow because if he doesn’t, was he just a parasite like what his aunts and uncles said?)

- when he turned 10, his mom got married and how he has two moms. they’re hard on him but it’s from a place of love so he tries his best to be a good son by studying and staying out of trouble

- at 17, ryuji has a bit of hope ahead of him. he has a part time job, good grades, and maybe a scholarship if he could qualify. suddenly he’s diagnosed with cyborg’s disease in his eyes and arm. they can’t afford either of his surgeries, let alone one. and that’s not going into the prosthetics and rehab afterwards. at night when they think he’s asleep, ryuji hears his moms arguing about how they’ll be able to afford any of it and what they’ll have to do to pay for it. 

- he can’t take it anymore. he runs away

- he ends up in a city he doesn’t recognize and is just allowing himself to die but he gets saved by irving, a back alley repair doctor. he gets prosthetics thanks to her but is now in a massive debt so he works as her assistant and also finds other jobs on the side to repay it

- his backstory is getting really long so things happen in ryuji’s attempt to make money and he ends up also working with ace, who leads an organized crime group, as a handler whose job is to fight/intimidate/kill whoever. 

- a sudden coincidence also ends up working as robin’s bodyguard which starts everything. honestly he’s didn’t want to do this job at first but robin’s parents are willing to pay a good amount of money and it allows him to have time away from his jobs with ace

random facts

- he’s left hand but learned to be ambidextrous, however he’ll usually default to his left hand

- he wore glasses when he was younger (near sighted; it was super bad but he didn’t like it)

- he’s afraid of dogs. it’s not a full on phobia but they make him uneasy because of a childhood thing. (he’s more of a cat person and maybe pets a few stray cats that come across his house every once in a while)

- he doesn’t like people staring at him. he feels self-conscious because of the scar on his face and the shadowed bags under his eyes and people staring at him don’t help

- ryuji is really good with prosthetics repair and can go into in-depth discussions about the mechanics of it all; he actually really enjoys working on it and actually helped design his own arm

- he’s really smart but he had to work really hard to get there and because he never finished his education, he doesn’t really think he is either

- ryuji tries to give off a “i don’t care about anyone” bravado to try and distance himself from everything. but he really cares. like a lot. the few people he has in his life right now, he’s ride or die for them

- ryuji works himself to death to ignore his problems. he’s afraid if he stops moving, he’ll buckle under the pressure and stop forever

- he has a knife hidden in his prosthetic forearm which he will use if he feels threatened. (it’s probably a stiletto knife or something idk yet)

- ryuji is an early riser; waking up at 9 am feels like sleeping in to him. he’s not even that much of a morning person, its mostly out of habit

then there’s castor

- his name is castor oda and he’s 24

- he’s japanese

BACKSTORY

- he lived in a really strict and controlling family who owned a business where he had his entire life planned out for him up to who he was going to marry. he’s always been angry about it because he has older siblings who will take over the company and it’s clear that more of a control and image thing than anything else

- when he went to college, it was his first time actually be away from his family and became friends with a guy named ben. 

- ben helped castor when his family kicked him out at 19 and gave him a place to stay until he could get back on his feet

- castor loved ben like a brother and is forever grateful for him

- ben mysteriously disappeared when they were 21 and everyone is pretty sure he’s dead but no one knows why

- castor wants to find closure on what happened because he’s definitely sure there’s something shady going on and he’s going to find out what.

- he’s an information broker, occasionally crossing paths with ace to relay and gather info but for the most part, castor has been working alone

- when he’s not doing that though, he works as a barista at a coffee shop

random facts

- he has cyborg’s disease in his right arm and when he lived with his family, he was deeply self-conscious about it

- he hasn’t spoken to his parents since they kicked him out but he still talks to his siblings sometimes; he’s the youngest child with two older sisters

- he always had an inkling that ben had romantic feelings for him, which was unrequited, and castor always felt a little guilty that he never reciprocated or that they never got to talk about it

- castor always wears his red scarf no matter the occasion or weather; he has more scarves but he just likes the red one the best

- people think he’s like calm and collected but in reality he’s an impulsive, emotional driven idiot just like the rest of us

- however he is the master of the polite business smile because of his strict upbringing

- he’s a rather disorganized person

next is irving

- her name is ellie irving and she’s 35

- she’s half black, half white

BACKSTORY 

- i don’t have that much solidified for her backstory yet so it might change fyi

- irving had been doing cybernetic research back in college but someone plagiarized her work and submitted their paper before she came forward

- because the paper was published before she published hers, SHE was initially hit with backlash of plagiarism

- eventually they try to sort it out but in the end, while she proved she didn’t plagiarize the other, she couldn’t prove that she came up with the research first and they just terminated the both her and the plagiarist

- she was barred from going into higher cybernetics research and honestly she’s still a bit bitter about it

- she went into prosthetics repair instead but still struggled to find work because of her alleged reputation, which many still believed she stole another’s work

- eventually she manages to open up a shop that specializes in prosthetic repairs and replacements

random facts

- she’s really harsh and aloof, however she cares in her own way

- honestly irving doesn’t believe herself to be a good person due to how she feels she let herself to bitterly sulk in her anger for so long

- she smokes a bit but she’s trying to cut back lately

- irving won’t pry if you come to her with a broken arm and you need help; she’ll fix you up and leave it at that and allow you to come to her yourself

- she’s incredibly observant and can tell if your lying with just a glance

- she doesn’t know that ryuji works for ace; she’s concerned when he seems more tired than usual but she doesn’t know how to pry

last one cuz im tired

his name is ace (i don’t have a last name for him) and he’s 32

- he owns an organized crime ring; im thinking he’s connected to something bigger and possibly something with the black market

- not much is known about him but he’s a charismatic man and has the intimidation factor 

- he flips his demeanor a lot. one minute he’s jovial and kind then the next he’ll give you thinly veil threats. he mostly does it to keep people on their toes so it’s a power thing

- begrudgingly he’s the closest thing to a father figure ryuji is gonna get

- also the jacket ryuji always wears? it’s a gift from ace

and that’s all i got so far! i have a lot more ocs but i don’t have have a lot of backstory for them yet. let me know what you think of these guys and feel free to ask questions!

[dontshootmespence]

Its Simplicity

Summary: After a chance meeting at a bookstore, Y/N and Spencer find themselves surprised again.

Words: 1,657

Warnings: Gross fluff.

A/N: My next entry for @cmbingo​ 2020! This fulfills my neighbors au square.

“My legs feel like lead,” Piper mumbled, following behind you with a giant moving box in her grasp.

It had to be your fifth trip up the stairs to your new second floor apartment, but it was worth it. Until you started your new job money was tight so you weren’t about to hire movers for something you and Piper could do - slowly but surely that is.

“Why didn’t you get movers?” She bitched. Her bitchy and whiney were very similar and you couldn’t help but laugh.

Backing into the door, you pushed it open and dropped the next box onto the floor before flopping onto the one piece of furniture you’d managed to get up the steps so far - the ottoman for your reading chair. “Because it’s a lot of money. I’m not rolling in it you know.”

“But I’m in pain,” she whined. “Can we at least take a break?”

You mumbled in response, though it was practically drowned out by the raucous gargling of your stomach. “Yes, we need food. Crappy Kraft?”

Somehow you managed to move your seemingly weighed down body off the ottoman and toward the kitchen, bare now, but would hopefully resemble a 50s style diner once you were finished. Dream kitchen. You grabbed a pot out of one of the boxes in the kitchen and boiled some water before pouring in a disgusting three boxes worth of Kraft Mac and Cheese. Triple bypass in no time.

“Okay, so tell me about the boy? How come you haven’t gone on another date? I feel like a matchmaker. I need details.” Piper got hyper when she talked about your dating life.

Spencer said he’d call when he could, but right after he did, he got called away on a case for work. He’d texted sporadically, but you hadn’t heard from him in half a day or so. Apparently, the case was harder to solve than he originally thought. “There’s not much to say other than what I told you about the bookstore,” you laughed. No one in the world could replace Piper, she was your one and only bestie for all of time, but occasionally you did like keeping things to yourself. “We’ve texted a few times since but he’s busy with work so he said he’d call when he gets back.”

Heavy footsteps told you someone else was coming up the stairs and Piper had left her box of your stuff outside the door. “Sorry about the box outside. Moving in! I’ll get it out of your way!”

You ran to the door while the water came to a boil only to see a familiar face. “Spencer!”

“Y/N? What are you doing here?”

An almost painful smile spread across your face. “Moving in. This is my new place.” 

Piper came running to the door, all traces of exhaustion from before gone from her face. “This is Spencer? Wait, you live here too? Oh my god, how cute is this.”

“Piper, Spencer. Spencer, this is my best friend Piper.”

“So you’re the one that peer pressured her into speed dating?”

“The one and only. I’m a matchmaker.” She glanced back and saw the water boiling. “Oh, I got this. You do your thing.”

As she ran off to prepare your shitty mac and cheese, Spencer laughed. “She reminds me of my friend Penelope. Also fancies herself a matchmaker.” A light-hearted silence fell between you for a moment before he pointed to the apartment across the hall. “That’s my place.”

“This is hysterical,” you said, almost unbelievingly. “Well, it’ll be easier for us to plan dates this way.”

“Speaking of, I just got home from a case. Would you want to grab dinner tonight?”

Piper screamed a resounding yes from the kitchen, which made you go beat red. “I would’ve said yes, too,” you laughed. “You going to rest for a little while? I can only imagine the case you had if it’s been five days.”

“I desperately need some sleep. Then I’ll read a book or two.”

“Show off.”

“Sorry,” he replied, thinking he overstepped.

You shook your head. “Spencer, I was kidding. I think it’s amazing, I’m just jealous.”

“Oh,” he chuckled nervously. “I have a hard time with social cues.”

“It’s okay. They’re annoying, I know. Maybe read The Graveyard Book so you can give it to me at dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Sweet dreams, Spencer. I’m about to go eat my weight in Kraft Mac and Cheese and unpack boxes.”

He yawned and excused himself. “That sounds amazing. We should do that sometime. Eat our weight in mac and cheese.”

“It’s a date.”

                                                              ----

Later that night, after convincing Piper that she could not in fact be your third wheel, you met up with Spencer...by opening your doors. “That was easy,” you giggled. “You get a good nap?”

“I slept for four hours. It was amazing.”

He still looked a little sleepy, but much happier and more comfortable, his muscles slack and his outfit more breezy. From what you imagined, he wore suits and similar formal wear to work, but now he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a black blazer on top. God, he was cute. You wanted to kiss him. “So where do you want to eat? You know the food around here.”

“There’s a Thai place down the block that has some amazing pad thai. Especially if you like spice.”

“I love spice!” You replied, immediately excited.

Talking with Spencer was effortless. You could indulge your inner and outer nerd; just able to be completely and utterly yourself, which was rare. Normally, you had to put on some type of pretenses with everyone. 

At the restaurant, Spencer told you about the case, though not in too much detail, for both him and you. “I just don’t want to put those images in your head, you know?”

You nodded, handing the menus back to the waiter after placing your order. “I get that. Just know that going forward, as long as this goes forward, you don’t always have to shoulder the crap you deal with alone.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, placing his hand over yours.

The somber moment lingered for a few more seconds, but then he switched the subject, asking about your childhood and your relationships with your family. Given his genius, child prodigy status, you imagined his childhood was less idyllic than yours and he was living through you. Then you ordered pad thai that was just a little too hot for you and you both devolved into uncontrollable laughter as you fanned your mouth and begged the waiter for some milk to quench the Sahara desert on your tongue. “Some dessert might also help soothe the burn,” the waiter suggested.

“You had me at dessert, Sir,” you said unabashedly. “I’ll have the mango sticky rice.”

“Same for me,” Spencer replied. The waiter walked away, giggling under his breath about the woman who couldn’t tolerate spice. “You feeling better?” He asked. “I thought you said you love spice.”

“I do! I’m just not great with it.”

Thankfully, the mango sticky rice soothed the remainder of the burn in your throat and then Spencer picked up the bill. You asked to go half and half, but he insisted the first real date be on him and from here on out you could go Dutch. “Do you know where the phrase ‘going Dutch’ comes from?” He continued excitedly when you shook your head. “The origin of the phrase ‘to go Dutch’ is traced back to the 17th century when England and the Netherlands fought constantly over trade routes and political boundaries. The British use of the term ‘Dutch’ had a negative connotation for because the Netherlanders were said to be stingy.”

“That’s actually really interesting. You know I actually thought about going into linguistics at one point, but I loved reading as a whole too much to focus on words rather than stories as a whole.”

Spencer’s credit card was returned and you got up to leave, your fingers slipping back into his own. “I actually work with a linguist right now named Alex Blake. I think you two would get along.”

“She’s a Ph.D. too? Oh my god, please introduce me sometime. I’d love to nerd out with her.” The walk back to the apartment complex was easy and transportive, your conversation bringing you back to childhood - in its simplicity. 

You’d been up and down the stairs a million times today, so the walk up hurt you more than it did him. “My body is going to ache in the morning,” you laughed, leaning up against him outside your door. You didn’t even realize you were doing it until you pulled away. 

When you met his gaze again, you saw something different than before. “You’re gonna kiss me, aren’t you?”

Spencer smiled and leaned forward, angling your mouth toward his. Your lips touched tentatively before you moved in closer, placing your hand on the side of his neck. He pulled away, his mouth tightening into that kind of smile where you’re trying not to grin like an idiot and failing. 

“You have nice lips. Do that again.”

Some time passed, how much you weren’t sure, but you only stopped when you heard other footsteps coming your way. “So, you think you might want another date?” He asked, his voice soft and dreamy. 

“Definitely. Do you have work tomorrow?”

“As of right now, no.”

“Wanna come over tomorrow morning and do breakfast? I have to unpack a lot still, but I make killer blueberry pancakes.”

“Looking forward to it. Eight o’clock?”

“Sounds good,” you replied, swallowing hard as he pulled away to return to his own apartment. “I’ll text you if anything changes with work.”

You nodded and grabbed your keys, hearing the jingle of Spencer’s own as you both opened your doors, glancing back toward each other with simultaneous smiles.

[daughterofelros]

Hey so I saw your post about Alex and his resilience and how he's rate on a scale and how this relates to his childhood trauma etc and was really curious to know/understand more on the topic and how it manifests with alex but also you mentioned rosa? And the other characters too. If you're happy to elaborate otherwise no worries of course. What interpretations do you make from what we've seen on screen? ☺

Oh my gosh Nonnie, thank you for the juicy, delicious ask!

The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Commonly abbreviated to CD-RISC) measures, in its full version, 25 different statements. Some of the ones that stand out to me in thinking about a bunch of the RNM characters include being able to adapt and change, having close and secure relationships, able to make unpopular/difficult decisions, know where to get help, but they’re all pretty important.

As established in my earlier assessment, Alex Manes = Super Resilient, and that definitely has an effect on the ways he handles the traumas he’s faced over his life.

Let me dive into Rosa little bit more first— Rosa, despite not enduring the specific type of abuse that Alex and Michael did as kids, might actually score in a lower percentile than either of those characters on the resilience scale. Part of this is because adverse childhood experiences, though cumulative, aren’t exactly ranked and scaled. Trauma impacts people differently, and you can’t really say whether growing up feeling abandoned by an alcoholic parent in an otherwise supportive context, or never having a safe parental figure, or having a parent die will impact someone “worse”—they’re all adversity, and they all have an impact on our health and capacity for resilience. (Also, inequality isn’t a fixed experience in our brains—for more reading on how weird our brains are in this regard, check out “The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die”  by Keith B Payne).So Rosa definitely has adverse childhood experiences that impact her relationships. At the point when we’re first introduced to her, she’s probably in about the worst place she could be there—Her friendships are being proven to be based on what drugs she can score, her relationship with her mother is shredded, and she’s just learned that Arturo isn’t her father. Even though Arturo’s love and support for her wouldn’t budge an inch, she feels separated from the most supportive relationship in her life, and she’s spiraling. She struggles to adapt, her coping mechanisms mess with her brain chemistry where she’s already contending with dopamine issues due to the mental illness she’s battling , and it’s pretty clear that she doesn’t have a strong read on where to get help (Though she’s willing to accept it—Valenti’s help getting clean, having met once with a therapist, leaning into her artwork).  Pressure doesn’t make her think very clearly, and she doesn’t seem like she takes high levels of pride in her achievements, or trust that she can achieve her goals if she works for them. Traumas are going to hit her hard. They’re not going to roll off her back easily. When she comes back to life, she gets a partial reset button, and handles some big trauma pretty well…but she also is terrified of messing it up, and breaks down if anything gets derailed (see: “I Ruined my Miracle”). I’d say she’s doing a great job coping with what she’s got…but her resilience score isn’t the highest. Things hit her hard.

Let’s look at Michael then. He’s got every reason why his resilience score might not be high. He’s dealt with so damn much. But the thing that’s helped him get through is that his resilience score actually seems like it would be pretty well up there. He doesn’t have good parental figure relationships (understatement of the year)—But he’s got a couple of relationships (Max and Isobel) that won’t abandon him, no matter how he pushes, even when everything is burning around them. Michael clearly believes that working toward goals means he can achieve them. He’s been trying to build the spaceship to take him back home since he was, like, eight. That’s goal-oriented right there! He’s not going to score well in the “getting help” vector at all, but he does work extremely well under pressure (his genius increases when he’s pissed off). Michael also clearly believes that he can deal with whatever comes his way, he ultimately doesn’t give up when things look hopeless (alien pacemaker in 7 hours), and I’d bet my bottom dollar that he would agree that coping with stress has made him stronger. He’d probably rank himself pretty high on the “Can make difficult or unpopular decisions” factor—choosing to take the blame and protect Isobel, volunteering to be the alien who gets turned into the authorities…there are flaws in his reasoning on the last one, and definitely some internalized feelings of his life not being as important…but he shows a clear propensity for being willing to make unspeakably challenging decisions. He probably won’t rank high in the “Pride in my achievements” vector, and that hits up against the things he’s internalized from the ACES he’s had piled on him—from childhood abuse and abandonment right up to Jesse Manes, crippling injury, and covering up murders. His resilience is high, but he’s coping with a lot, and he doesn’t have as many tools to keep coping as, say, Alex does.  We can also see that there’s a pretty debilitating impact when he shifts to the knowledge that his Mom was alive and he watched her die… and then starts to question why she didn’t take him out of the Pod to be with her in 1947. He starts to have thoughts about abandonment that he hadn’t had when he just thought his Mom died in the crash…and that paired with Max’s death really, really throws him. He rejects connections that have ever been tied up in pain and abandonment, and we see him spiraling. His resilience definitely dips when those circumstances occur…and as we see him trust in some of his relationships again, we see his ability to cope return as well. With the right tools and support, he can actually do a lot of healing yet too.

Isobel probably scores pretty high on the scale at the beginning of season 1. She’s had some adverse childhood experiences from waking up from the pods, from being attacked in the desert as a teen., but she’s made it through all of that without a ton of trauma responses (given that the blackouts turned out to be mind control) She’s confident in her goals, her relationships, she’s strong in her decision-making, she believes she’s built herself a good life. She has a supportive family, Max is her person, she’s got Michael, and her husband is amazingly supportive. We don’t see much in the way of friends, but she’s got a Boss-Ass support structure. Until she realizes she doesn’t. That Noah is a thread of rot through all of it, and she’s been deceived on an inconceivable level. And then she loses Max.

Isobel at the beginning of Season 2 would fill this assessment out very, very differently. And the sharp drop in some of the factors of her resilience really make her struggle. Her confidence in herself as a strong person is deeply under review, and she’s leaning a little hard into the god-like powers aspect of herself. Knocking Rosa out with a book is a really alarming manifestation of how her reasoning and coping skills are out of alignment. She’d probably use it as evidence for her ability to make unpopular decisions though. She’d score really high in the vector regardless though—because choosing to terminate a pregnancy in a town like Roswell…that takes so damn much resilience, ability to make decisions under pressure, etc.  She’s still got the resilience that comes from her goal setting and working for things she values though—her training with her powers shows that pretty clearly.

Isobel definitely isn’t going to score high in the “Knows where to get help” vector though. She refuses therapy, refuses help from family, doesn’t seek medical assistance, and almost dies as a result of her abortion, when she would have had all kinds of support from people around her if she’d been able to reach out. Even when she’s struggling, she has a history of resilience to draw on though.

Let’s talk Cam for a moment—we don’t have a lot of info on her childhood, but Cam actually seems to be a character with high scores across the board—for only having 2 years in Roswell, she forms connections pretty readily, goes to people for help, is focused on goals, takes pride in her work. She handles most things with aplomb, and isn’t easily manipulated. Jesse Manes has to work pretty hard on her to get her to bat an eyelash. That’s particularly interesting given the relationship that resilience has in attenuating depression effects and PTSD effects on people with combat experience.

Max is hard to talk about, because we don’t know a lot about where he is this season, and what the trauma of dying and being kept in a pod in constant pain is going to do to him. He seems reasonably able to deal with the hardships he’s faced prior to this, shows a propensity to be able to make unpopular decisions, and is probably the character who is most consistently and intentionally shown investing in relationships. I’d imagine that his resistance score is at least in the middling percentiles. Max is also pretty much the character it’s hardest to wrap my brain around when I’m writing, so that’s why I think I struggle in guessing how he’d assess himself here too.

Kyle is so interesting, because he’s a character who seems to know himself really well, and has maybe also changed the most over 10 years. Kyle these days really values and invests in his relationships—His Mom, Liz, rebuilding a friendship with Alex, trusting Cam. He’s dedicated in pursuing goals, takes pride in his accomplishments, has a reasonably good idea of where to seek help, works well under pressure. He’s had a lot of advantages in life, and while med school definitely tests his resilience and endurance, I don’t know how much his resilience has had to help him get through trauma before this.  I do know that the scene where he almost buys a gun is one of my favorites, because it shows him trying to cope with crisis and handle a lot of stress. I don’t think we’ve seen a full enough arc of how he’s coping yet though—I think there’s more to come.

Maria DeLuca strikes me as scoring relatively high on resilience assessments (or at least the high end of mid-to-upper range). She’s caring for a mother with dementia, runs a business, and deals with racism and misogyny in a town like Roswell, which it’s well-established is renowned for both of those things. Maria has really strong relationships—her Mother is a huge priority, her friends matter deeply to her (fandom drama over ships aside, and whether Alex should forgive her for dating Michael or not, Maria in canon expresses a lot of care for her friends, worries if she’s hurt them, and forgives when she’s hurt herself). She’s close with Arturo, she visits Rosa’s grave once a month. She does a lot of giving, not a lot of getting back, and feels pretty shaken when she’s deceived, but she still has a lot of stable relationships to lean into. She’s…not great at asking for help, or letting on that she needs it- she tries to go everything alone. But she also problem-solves, she pursues her goals, she believes that you get what you work for  (“No one ever accused me of a lack of hustle”),  and she doesn’t give up when she feels hopeless.  She’s probably middle of the road on handling unpleasant feelings—some she handles well, some she reacts intensely to, some she buries. It seems like when a crisis happens, she’s conflicted and struggling in the moment, but processes through things in a reasonably short time. I’d say one of the places that she doesn’t score that high on is the ability to adapt to change. She gets there eventually, but that’s where she struggles the most. The thing is, because of what she’s faced with in daily life, she’s constantly utilizing her resilience. It’s something she leans on all the time.

Liz is brilliant, and amazing, and it’s kind of hard for me to parse this out for her. Strong relationships, she’s got those. She’s great at adapting, great at problem-solving and pursuing her goals. She sees herself as strong, faces challenges, sees the humor in things, bounces back from setbacks, honestly, she would score pretty well in every category. I think there’s pretty clear evidence that with all the things she’s accomplished and all the things she’s endured, Liz Ortecho is a wellspring of resilience, and it definitely attenuates the long-term negative effects she might face from her experiences. She faces some of the same adverse childhood experiences that her sister does, but reacts very differently. Their resilience—despite the similarity of their contexts for nurture—differs substantially…and that’s even before we add in the trauma of Rosa’s death that Liz contends with.

Overall, the characters on this show are a resilient bunch. I’m watching some other shows right now as I make masks for my community, and it strikes me that most of the RNM characters would score higher on the CD-RISC assessment than the characters on those other TV shows (many of whom hold a relatively large amount of privilege).

But notably, the characters on RNM strike me as far more like the people who move through my community every day. Overwhelmingly, my community is comprised of queer people, people of color, homeless and unaccompanied youth, people dealing with mental health issues, sexual assault survivors, abuse survivors, folks with PTSD and DID, and people who would be considered low-socioeconomic status. My community is made up almost entirely of people who deal with adverse experiences, and had intense adverse childhood experiences. Resilience is the norm. Resilience ends up being a key word in almost every letter of recommendation I write. And one of the reasons I love RNM so much is that the characters are brought to life quite realistically. There’s a lot of different truths from experience, and a lot of different paths to similar truth. But overwhelmingly, their responses to these impossible events are grounded in realistic depictions. When it comes to character development, this might just be some of the best writing I’ve ever seen on TV. And for a show that’s solidly in the sci-fi realm…it’s possibly the most realistic show I’ve ever seen.

[ashleyspinelliburnbook]

S1E6: My Fair Gretchen/Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye

Me, literally one recap ago: “When are we gonna get a good Gretchen episode?”

Me, today, looking at the title of the next episode and refusing to be embarrassed: “WELL, FINALLY”

My Fair Gretchen

The most pressing revelation here is that “Recess” apparently takes place in Arkansas, as the episode begins with Miss Finster handing out the Arkansas Standard Achievement Test.

Beyond that, this is a lovely ~ironic subversion~ of the “My Fair Lady” trope. Let me explain: “My Fair Lady” is all about turning Eliza Doolittle into a more acceptable member of high society, right? Turning her from Cockney to, well, refined?

Here, we’ve got Gretchen, who’s by no means a member of high society, but the goal isn’t to get her there either. See, Gretchen is smart — very smart — to the point that she gets a perfect score on the ASAT. She’s called into Principal Prickly’s office, where she learns that she has the opportunity to go to Oppenheimer Elementary for the Incredibly, Extremely Gifted. (Of course, Prickly has a vested interest in this too. If two more of his kids go there, he gets that job at Spiro Agnew Middle School!)

But...Gretchen doesn’t really want to go to Oppenheimer. Her mom is excited to hear the news, but it just makes Gretchen sad. And when she tells her friends she’s on the fence about what she’s learned, they decide to take action.

After Gretchen takes one last walk around the school, saying goodbye to the swingset, the graffiti, and the rancid fish sticks in the dumpster, she gets home to find...the gang! And they’ve got a plan to de-smart her so that when she goes in front of the Oppenheimer review board the next day, they’ll have no choice but to turn her down.

“I’ve been trying to dumb myself down ever since kindergarten,” Gretchen says, to which TJ replies, “This time, you’ve got experts on your side.”

“Yo, Prickly,” New Gretchen says as she walks into the gym for her review. After a whirlwind day of trying new looks (courtesy of the Diggers, the Ashleys, the kindergarteners), she shows up in, um, I’m not a fashion person but she’s coming off as very...not this decade? Wow, helpful.

So yeah, instead of going for “refined,” we get, well, the opposite of that. But here, it’s also the socially acceptable landing point. Instead of being a super-genius who aces standardized tests, Gretchen is now...just like any other kid.

The board, pictured above, asks Gretchen a handful of trivia questions, and she gets them all spectacularly wrong (“Who was the 14th president of the United States?” “Dennis Rodman?”). From outside, the gang celebrates her achievement...until the plan backfires.

A humiliated Principal Prickly accuses Gretchen of cheating on the exam, and Gretchen can’t help but recite all of the correct answers to their questions, in order, with perfect accuracy. Albert Einstein (you see him, come on) asks why she was hiding her intelligence, and she explains she doesn’t want to go to the new school. The board banishes Prickly to the hallway, where he and the gang await Gretchen’s fate.

When they emerge, Einstein explains that Gretchen convinced the board that there's more to education than book-learnin’ (which sort of reminds me of “Bart the Genius,” where Bart initially tries to convince the gifted school he has cheated his way into to let him go back to his old school undercover, “to see what makes ‘em tick”).

The board suggests the school instead implement a tutorial program, and the episode ends with Gretchen teaching...a room full of teachers. As it should be.

Takeaway: Every time I see an episode about a gifted kid/genius kid, I think about all the memes that go, like, “if you were ever a ‘gifted kid’ in school, you’re depressed now,” and...yeah. Imagine having all this pressure to succeed in fourth grade, you know?

Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye

(Today in “trying something new on the blog,” I want to share something I wrote a few years ago that pretty much says what I would have written here anyway. The episode is about the class hamster, Speedy, dying, and how the kids react to it.)

In middle school, I had two opportunities to take part in Challenge Day, a day-long anti-bullying program meant to bring to the forefront all the deeply personal things that participants have in common, all while celebrating their diversity and inspiring them to dismantle the structure that causes these differences to drive them apart.

Being middle schoolers — 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds in the thick of maintaining childhood friendships, facing new encounters, and experiencing puberty — there was a wide range of expectations for the event and the reactions throughout it. Many students saw the day solely as an opportunity to be able to skip school, while several of us read the material given to us with our permission slips and at least vaguely understood that our emotions — and our beliefs — would be tested.

The first time I did Challenge Day was in sixth grade, and at first, my primary concern was that my best friend and had been separated, relegated to participating on different days. But when the 100 or so of us entered the gym, whose windows had been blacked out to avoid any interruptions from the other 300 students on campus, the specially-trained Challenge Day leaders made every opportunity to pull us out of our comfort zones right away. Suddenly, we were sprinting within a massive circle of chairs, instructed to find a new seat, and found ourselves sitting between two people we’d never met to whom we would then have to introduce ourselves.

Eventually, we split into small groups of 6 or 7 — similarly randomly assigned, paired with a parent volunteer — and talked more candidly about our worries, how we truly felt going to school every day, and even our personal tragedies. The point here was to prove that we were able to open up to a group of strangers following all of the icebreaker activities we’d completed. And, from what my friend had told me after completing her Challenge Day the previous day, this portion of the day was where everyone started crying. While a good number of the students who were just happy to have the day off from school didn’t take this part seriously, I really wanted to – and luckily, both times, my group was just as keen.

I don’t much remember what I shared at that first Challenge Day, but in eighth grade I was dealing with both that friend’s sudden move to a school two hours away and the death of my hamster, my first real pet, and I felt I had a lot to talk about. The students in my group were very receptive to what I had to say, and one even took me aside after we moved on from the small group activities and complimented my candidness, saying I was very brave to cry for my friend and my pet.

Unfortunately, the parent volunteer in our group was less sympathetic. On the Challenge Day website, it states that volunteers receive a quick overview of the day before students arrive, and that’s it. Sadly, you can’t teach sympathy in half an hour. When I almost immediately starting sobbing about my troubles and was met with kindness by my fellow middle school-aged group members, this woman promptly interrupted me.

“Are you sure you’re not just getting caught up in the emotions, sweetheart?” she asked, her attempted pleasantness pierced by skepticism. “At your age, you’re too old to be crying about hamsters and one lost friend. There are more hamsters, and there are more friends.”

What could I do? I was a shy, insecure 13-year-old who was clearly overwhelmed by my own hardships — albeit comparatively minute to what some members of the group had shared — and all this woman could do was point out my perceived weaknesses and trivialize feelings I thought were legitimate and sincere. So I gave in. I nodded.

“Mm-hmm,” she confirmed, her face lit up in victory. “You need to learn to be stronger. That’s what today is all about. Let’s move on to someone else.”

Of course, because of the quiet, non-confrontational person I was — and still, only 13, barely beginning to emotionally mature — I let her words sink in. I entirely believed that what I had shared was completely out of line, and rebuked myself for crying at all. Since early childhood, I was the type of person who cried whenever I felt worried or insecure, and this woman, in just a few sentences, had made me so worried and so insecure that I didn’t want to cry anymore.

For me, Challenge Day in sixth grade was exciting. Because my school had only opened that year, even the seventh- and eighth-graders who transferred from the middle school across town were open to making new friends, and it was a wholly positive experience. But after Challenge Day in eighth grade, I wondered if I’d become too comfortable being openly emotional two years before. And, not to place the entirety of the blame on this one woman’s speech, since I clearly had many reasons to feel down, eighth grade was when I first recognized that I might be depressed. Even still, I don’t think I should have had to say, “Look, lady, I appreciate your fake concern, but I’m clinically depressed” to avoid any further insult.

I know so many people whose feelings were invalidated as kids simply because, as kids, many of them just hadn’t been alive long enough to experience the type of pain that adults have. (And even if they have, the emotional differences inherent in both parties for the exact same tragedy or other life change can be profound.) When adults don’t understand that comparing the plights of a single 13-year-old to their own — or anyone’s — is completely unfair, their words and actions can quickly devolve into invalidation and, sometimes, abuse.

During that second Challenge Day, the main message conveyed by the leaders was beyond my attention. I thought I’d come away with the advice to not cry unless it was about something really important, and to “be stronger” — which was completely abstract to me at the time. (It still is, honestly. Is there a checklist I have to fill out to determine if I’m “strong” enough to…what? Be a living, appropriately emotional person? I mean, evidently not.)

I don’t want adults to be rude to kids who are expressing emotions of any kind, even if it’s about something they don’t think is worth expending energy to worry about. Children and teenagers have vastly different capacities to internalize the world around them compared to adults, and that doesn’t make their reactions to hardships wrong or invalid. We should all know this, having been kids ourselves, but obviously we don’t.

When adults can’t understand a world in which a hamster’s death is, for one day, the most important thing, perhaps the sole hardship on a child’s mind, then we don’t deserve their innocent happiness at learning on their own that there are, in fact, more hamsters.

If we can’t handle children’s emotions at their worst — the worst “worst” they’ve ever experienced — to what fate are we dooming them when the things they don’t talk about, their depression and abuse and appropriately hard hardships that are allowed to challenge their strength, get bad enough for us to care?

Takeaway: Let kids feel their feelings when they’re kids so they have a healthy relationship with their emotions as adults. (Please.)

[parabcllums]

⧼    natasha liu bordizzo, genderfluid, they & she & he   /   let ‘em talk by kesha   +   clothes strewn around an otherwise tidy room, with well worn pointe shoes placed with care upon the nearest soft surface. dark hair that’s pulled back into a messy ponytail with a pink scrunchie, lacy bralettes worn beneath warm wool jumpers in pastel colors. the soft, cracking sound of etta james coming through on a floral patterned record player.    ⧽   ━━   let me tell you a thing or two about MORGAN ANTONIA HAROLD STARK. the TWENTY FIVE year old child of ANTHONY STARK & PEPPER POTTS is a TEACHING ASSISTANT & GRAD STUDENT at paragon academy and PRIVATE BALLET INSTRUCTOR in town, and has sometimes been referred to as the FICKLE HEART they’ve always seemed very CONGENIAL & SAGACIOUS, though i’ve heard that they can be pretty PERTINACIOUS & ACERBIC, too. it’s common knowledge that they have the power of GENIUS LEVEL INTELLECT & LATENT EXTREMIS VIRUS ; guess we shouldn’t get on their bad side, huh? redirect HERE for her stat page and HERE to their pinterest board.

there was something SOFT & MOIST about them,                               a dare, a rage, an intolerable tenderness.

SECTION ONE OF FOUR : BIOGRAPHY

morgan antonia harold stark is born on a dewy winter morning, second child of tony stark & pepper potts. they are the connecting sinew of two completely different worlds ; one made of heroism and personal glory, the other of board rooms and professionalism. they spend much of their childhood travelling between all the different places their parents need be, at any one time - but new york is always home.

as for many children, summers are spent enjoying life. morgan gets to be the child that they are, soaking up their sun on the beaches of the exotic places they can afford to visit. summers are FREEDOM, in their books, from all the expectations of the rest of the year. burdens that certainly feel like so, though they try and act as if they don’t.

at home, they are privately educated and expected to excel. this is fine. they’re the child of TONY STARK ; of course there are expectations, and they can take the pressure on their shoulders with grace, they think, so long as they are always able to dance.

it’s an unexpected talent. in day to day, they are clumsy - even as a child, they bumped their head and scratched their knees in an all manner of avoidable accidents. they will never be one to wear heels in fear of toppling, and so, the insistence to be enrolled with a local company after watching a performance of swan lake makes their parents chuckle. they expect morgan to QUIT when they realize they aren’t capable of such delicate movements and graceful twirls, but six months later when they sit in the audience and witness them perform in don quixote, tony is not able to hide the tears that spring to his eyes. 

so begins a lifetime of ballet lessons four times weekly, recitals every other month. they swiftly become one of the company’s most prized students, a prima ballerina in all ways but title. they are known to be clumsy, and they laugh along with those that poke harmless fun - but when they tie on their pointe shoes and step onto a stage, they are something different. something beautiful. something world ending. 

soon enough, they get old enough to see their parents for WHO they are ; and to understand the way in which the world, at large, sees them too. they think of their mother as... powerful and groundbreaking, and almost everyone agrees. they think of their father as brave and strong and heroic, most of all - and they realize, over time, that there are those out there who simply do not see it. morgan thinks her father is the most SELF SACRIFICING man she’ll ever know. they lie awake a lot, when they’re little, worried about if he’ll come home - knowing that if the situation calls for it, he’ll sacrifice his last breath to save them all, and fearing the one time it will be required. tabloids and gossip websites call him things like vapid and selfish, and one day, morgan asks their mother to explain what it means when dad is called a womanizer by the press. pepper does not treat the subject as taboo, instead fixing a soft expression in place - the words she says forming a key part of morgan’s character : your father’s heart is simply a few sizes too big. that’s why he makes such a good hero, now ; because he cares so much. when he was younger, though, people saw him using it in ways they thought were wrong, and they’ll probably never let that go.

much later, they’ll think that they relate a little bit too much to that sentiment. that aside from natural confidence, they might just have inherited that too big heart from their FATHER, too. morgan is electric. growing close to others isn’t difficult when you’re a magnetic force, and morgan is never without company. they value deep connection, the most. they don’t think they could ever fall for someone who didn’t know them blind. but they learn, as they grow, that they enjoy fleeting romance. even if they know they won’t allow it last, it is nice to be entwined in another’s life, for a time. 

SECTION TWO OF FOUR : OVERVIEW

born on february 20th, 1994. second ( and middle ) child of tony stark and pepper potts. 

no real drama, life or parents wise. tony and pepper were very good parents who loved their kids a LOT, so morgan never knew anything but.

suffered bacterial meningitis as a child, resulting in a loss of hearing in their right ear. 

expectations were rampant - from themselves, and from many others in their life. they were, after all, tony stark’s child ; they were meant to be a chip off the block, so to speak. this was all well and good, given that they certainly had the capacity for greatness, but it has left them with something of a perfectionist complex in adult life. they’re one of their company’s most prized jewels, and holds the honor of being the student with the most starring roles under their tutu. their dance talent shocks EVERYBODY who knows them due their undeniable clumsiness in day to day life, but that doesn’t really matter.

they were an early bloomer, so to speak, and this has been a blessing and curse. they’ve always been comfortable with who they are. other people have not.

SECTION THREE OF FOUR : HEADCANONS

morgan loves love, but perhaps is not as built for it as they would like. they get a certain thrill from flirtation and they enjoy being with people. it isn’t a crime, they think, to date often and never truly commit. there have, of course, been those who have treated it as such. they’re not a stranger to slurs, and they know that there are certain rumors ( some of which there’s truth to ) spread of them, routinely. but no one raised in tony and pepper’s home has much SHAME attached to who they are.

they had just turned four when they were struck down with bacterial meningitis. their mother thought that it was nothing but a summer flu, but when their fever began to reach unheard of heights, the PANIC set in. the doctor who saw to them insisted they be brought to the nearest emergency room immediately, and they didn’t see the outside of that hospital again until two weeks had passed. they survived UNSCATHED, at least - in a sense. single sided deafness in her right ear, specifically. her parents were told that they were incredibly lucky that they were even alive, and that they should be grateful for such a small price. they didn’t feel the way they were told they should, but they certainly passed on the sentiment to their child when they grew and wondered why they were not quite the same to the other kids they knew. her parents learned asl and they learned enough to make their life that little bit easier. it was by no means easy - the learning or the life that followed - but they ereyoung and adaptable, and it served as a harsh reminder that sometimes, the world will take. in their mid teens, they underwent the surgery to implant a transcranial cros - a bone anchored hearing aid, to you and i, that provided a MARKED improvement.

they’ve never actually had a relationship ( by name ), completely by design. they’ve never DATED. morgan enjoys flings, they enjoy flirtation, they love sex - but they won’t put themselves in a position to disappoint someone when they can’t be what they want them to be. they’re open with anyone they find herself involved with. no strings attached, non exclusive, it’s never going to go anywhere. anyone who doesn’t listen, anyone who ends up hurt because they believe they’ll change her mind…. that’s on them.

they can be quite… vain, to put it mildly. you have to keep in mind that morgan is someone who has been set up from a young age as… a real beauty. their looks have been valued, even if they have not been. they’re aware that they’re conventionally attractive, and they’re aware that it makes their life easier in a lot of ways. it does not, however, help them to be taken more seriously in life.

their grade point average is in the top tenth percentile, a standing they’ve maintained for years. not only are they BEAUTY, but they’re also quite literally brains.

they’re all shorts and bralettes beneath soft knit sweaters. they smell of lavender and cedar, exclusively. they’re ONLY comfortable when they’re wearing their pointe shoes.

SECTION FOUR OF FOUR : WANTED CONNECTIONS 

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FORMER LOVERS TO FRIENDS / NO LIMIT connection who looks like JUSTICE SMITH, KATHRYN NEWTON / UP TO PLAYER and who are 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( she learned from experience that she should never mix friendship with romance, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t become good friends with people who started off as flings. she has a reputation for going through those quite quickly, but i find it VERY hard to imagine a world in which she hasn’t discovered a person or persons who was simply… interesting, to her. someone she grew attached to, allowing them become confidant and friend over time, even if she would never attempt relations with them again because of it. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her RIDE OR DIE connection who looks like ANYA TAYLOR JOY, CHELLA MAN / UP TO PLAYER and who is 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( the one person who simply… accepts morgan as is, the way a ride or die is always meant to. if morgan is in love with anyone in her life, it’s THEM. they know her in and out - including her first name, a secret she is otherwise taking to the grave. they know her hopes. her fears. her dreams. she knows THEIRS. there is no judgement, and instead, respect. probably are willing to throw down for her at a moments notice, and she’s more than willing to do the same for them. it’s VERY likely that they’re male / nb, as i imagine she’s never had too many positive relationships with women. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her #SQUAD / UP TO FIVE connection who looks like TATI GABRIELLE, ROSS BUTLER / UP TO PLAYER and who are 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( together, they form a no judgement zone… mostly. these would be people who are classed as ‘best friends’, but are not exactly on the same level as morgan’s ride or die. they study together, they hang out after classes, they eat lunch together, they have a text thread that has some dumb name on top. they’re probably all fundamentally different people ( morgan would fulfill either the archetpe of the one obsessed with fitness or the one with all the wild sex stories ), but they get along well enough in spite of it. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her UNEXPECTED FRIENDS / NO LIMIT connection who looks like ASA BUTTERFIELD, BILLIE LOURD / UP TO PLAYER and who are 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( there are multiple ways this could come to be! they could be people who are simply just… the chalk to morgan’s cheese, or they COULD be a villain kid who she’s befriended over the past while! either way, people don’t exactly see the reasoning behind their bond, and morgan wholly believes that it isn’t important that they do. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FATHER / TONY STARK connection who looks like ANY CHINESE FC and who is DAD AGED. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( morgan’s… a lot more like tony than anyone ever would have liked. bring their favorite [ sorry pepper ] parent! )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her MOTHER / PEPPER POTTS connection who looks like ANY WHITE FC and who is MOM AGED. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( bring the love of my life ! thanks )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FULL SIBLINGS / ONE OLDER, ONE YOUNGER connection who look like JORDAN CONNOR, REMI HII, PHILIPPA SOO, OLIVIA MUNN / UP TO PLAYER and who are YOUNGER THAN 25 / OLDER THAN 25. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( i like to think the stark kids are… pretty tight, but i’m not WILDLY attached to the idea ! i’m sure they have their differences and whatnot, so they very well might not get along at all ! they could also be adopted !)

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her HALF SIBLING / VIA TONY ( AT LEAST ONE ) connection who look like HAYDEN SZETO, AWKWAFINA, SONG WEILONG, HARRY SHUM JR  / UP TO PLAYER and who are OLDER THAN 25, PREFERABLY ( THOUGH COULD BE YOUNGER ). you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( i just kinda feel… tony could have more kids not necessarily with pepper, and think that could be a fun dynamic to play out. did they grow up together? did they know about one another always, or just find out? what’s their actual sibling dynamic? )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FLINGS ( EX, CURRENT, FUTURE ) / NO LIMIT connection who looks like LUCIEN LAVISCOUNT, LUCY BOYNTON / UP TO PLAYER and who are 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( morgan very strictly does not date - she never has, and she also never does the whole … “friends with benefits” thing. she enjoys flirtation, and her dalliances with others are usually fleeting. it is always made obvious they are not exclusive, and she always makes a point of informing them they won’t go any farther. whether people have always believed her or not is entirely up for discussion, and i think there are some really interesting dynamics waiting to be created ! )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her HEARTBREAKER connection who looks like LAKEITH STANFIELD, JANEL PARRISH / UP TO PLAYER and who is 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( she has never explicitly dated anybody, but this would be a connect for the one person she had almost considered doing so with. for whatever reason - on their shoulders ( perhaps they moved on, perhaps they gave up on her, perhaps they simply weren’t interested ) or her own ( she never made a move, she made herself cut it off ) - it didn’t work out, but her heart may always ache when she thinks of it. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her HEARTBROKEN connection who looks like LAKEITH STANFIELD, JANEL PARRISH / UP TO PLAYER and who is 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. (  all of the rules she has for herself, and she FUCKED UP. morgan never lets herself lead anybody on, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t get… comfortable, around her. that they don’t start opening themselves up to her - moreso than they do anyone else. usually, she’s good at spotting the red flags and running before it’s too late. the problem is that this time, she DIDN’T. she HURT them. and while she’s proud to say she doesn’t do messy exes ( hard to, when you don’t date )… they sure do feel like one. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for a PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN DICKS IN THE PAST / ANY AMOUNT connection who look like GAGE GOLIGHTLY, ALEX FITZALAN / UP TO PLAYER and who is 23+. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( would never request it be a current connect, solely because i believe in growth ! this could be very simply someone she doesn’t get along with for a whole host of reasons, but it could also be anyone who in the past - before we all, collectively knew better - joined in on the name / slur calling that has plagued morgan her whole life. vehement dislike until the day she dies is possible, but so is forgiveness. we were all dumb once! )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her BALLET STUDENTS / ANY AMOUNT connection who look like SYDNEY SWEENEY, JORDAN CONNOR / UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( morgan makes a living by instructing others in dance, and i think it’d be a mostly cute connect for her to have a student or two rocking around the place ! she’s destined for prima ballerina greatness, so learning from her now is, dare i say - HOT. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FELLOW DANCERS / ANY AMOUNT connection who look like ALEXA DEMIE, DREW RAY TANNER / UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( either in the same company, or not. they could practice together and support one another, or they could be HORRIBLY competitive, attempting to outdo one another at every turn. i’ve never seen black swan, but i feel as if that’s something i should reference here. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her SORORITY ROOMMATE connection who looks like PARK SOOYOUNG, AISHA DEE / UP TO PLAYER and who is ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( they can either hate her or love her, but i would love the latter the most! i have a vague headcanon that morgan rushed kappa kappa delta because of feeling as if she would never be accepted among the more elite sorority, and because of having a vague hope that she would find more female friends within the more down to earth house. morgan is a VERY neat girl, unless she’s running late or just in from a lesson. she’s also the sort to always have a tub of face mask and a pair of wooly socks to spare. they could be very wholesome !  )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FORMER LOVERS TO ENEMIES connection who look like ALBERTO ROSENDE, AMBER MIDTHUNDER / UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. (  this is the flip side to the ‘former lovers to friends’ connect, that i’m sure she’s experienced - people she was with for any amount of time, who she now has an unfortunately negative relationship with. )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her ASL STUDENTS connection who look like UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( let her teach them sign language ! )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her FELLOW DEAF STUDENTS connection who look like UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( unite ! )

MORGAN STARK, our NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO fc is looking for her STUDY BUDDIES connection who look like UP TO PLAYER and who are ANY AGE. you DON’T have to contact prior to applying. ( gotta get that bread ! )

[aiinsworths]

(xavier serrano, cismale) PARKER AINSWORTH, the ACE, is TWENTY-TWO and a JUNIOR. HE is majoring in MUSIC. In addition to being Quentin’s CHILDHOOD FRIEND, they are part of the Imperium Society. PARKER was probably selected because HE IS A LEGACY AND ALSO AN UP-AND-COMING JAZZ GUITARIST. They remind me of SCATTERED GUITAR PICKS, TEA-STAINED MUGS, DOG-EARED BOOK PAGES, STARGAZING.

hello hello friends !!! my name is riley ( she/her, 20 ) and i’m so so excited to be here !!! i’m super pumped to share my child parker w you guys, he’s a real sweetheart and a bean who’s just trying to navigate life and play a lil jazz music on the way :’) 

imma try and keep this short but lord knows i always write waaaay too much for these lmao help anyhow, smash the heart or dm me here if you’d like to plot, i am too much of a plot ho™ for my own good !!! ¡¡¡

* BACKGROUND.

Parker was born in London, England to a British father and a Spanish mother, both of whom came from relatively wealthy and successful backgrounds and met during their time at Ashcroft in the Imperium Society. His father became a board member of a large management consulting firm, his mother an activist and photographer for magazines like NatGeo and such. He was raised with a lot of love, and it shows in his day-to-day life. 

After spending his fetus years in London, his parents moved out to Yorkshire (where his paternal grandparents were from), believing the city to be too hectic to raise a child.

He was a curious and loving child, popular in school for having the goddamned biggest heart and the purest intentions. He wanted to be friends with everyone, the same way he saw his parents treat others with love and respect.

He was what you could call a ‘jack of all trades’ (or ... dun dun ... an ‘ace’) in school, always trying his best to do well in class even though he wasn’t a genius by any means. He worked hard, did his best to get his classmates involved, and never forgot his compassion. He played guitar for the jazz band at school, wrote for the school paper, and was part of few honor societies.

(tw: death, depression) When Parker was sixteen, his mother passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. He and his father were left heartbroken, and battled different stages of loss and depression for many months. His family moved back to London, his father choosing to occupy himself into his work again.

His father had always expected him to sort of follow in his footsteps, having shown him the perks of a life in consulting. Parker never specifically agreed to such a life, but was so grateful for his parents’ upbringing and wanted to honor his father, so he agreed to go to school to study economics, but secretly, his passion lied with music. He applied to Ashcroft to study music, and was accepted – but his father doesn’t know it. Due to the connections between his family and the school, it’s bound to come out to his father that he’s not studying economics anymore, but right now, he’s kind of just living this state of bliss and enjoying the ride.

* RELATIONSHIP WITH QUENTIN.

Quentin and Parker grew up together during his time in Yorkshire; both being sons of well-respected fathers who went to Ashcroft, they often crossed paths at dinner parties and the like. They related to each other, not only for being boys of similar ages, but for the inevitable pressure that arose from their upbringings.

They remained close friends who were able to balance each other well. Quentin always encouraging Parker to be a little more adventurous and risk-taking, Parker balancing him with his stability and calmness. When Parker went back to London, however, they lost touch a bit.

After reconnecting at Ashcroft and ultimately, the Imperium Society, they rekindled their friendship, just like it had been in their early teenaged years – them balancing each other. Parker wouldn’t have considered Quentin his best friend by any means, but he was almost like family in the sense that they knew much about each others’ lives.

(tw: death) He felt a huge pang of sadness and grief after Quentin’s death – Parker simply had no idea what to do, how to feel, even though he had lost a loved one before. He finds himself occupying his time with his studies, and playing jazz sets at the bars around campus to fill his time.

* PERSONALITY.

Parker is extremely warm and easy going, taking after his mother’s compassion. He likes to meet new people, understand their interests and passions, and is a great listener – his love could be his downfall, though, for he is very trusting and caring, and always sees the bright side, never once contemplating if anyone had ulterior motives. 

He likes a good laugh, enjoys making inside jokes with people as he feels like he has a deeper and more sound connection with people if he does, and is the type of person who would remember that you once recommended an artist to him, then four months later, ask if you heard that artist’s new album that had just been released.

He’s a little bit in his own world sometimes, unable to truly process complex emotions. He tends to just push them aside and focus on the areas of his life where he can find happiness, like his music and his friends. But of course, that means he’s often in a state of bliss, unaware sometimes of the pains and struggles of life. 

* AESTHETIC.

scattered guitar picks, tea-stained mugs, dog-eared book pages, stargazing, jazz music at a low volume in the background, messy bed sheets, incessant foot tapping, deep conversations about life, neatly ironed clothes, polaroid cameras, home-packed salads for lunch, strolls in the park, stolen kisses backstage, collared shirts, whistling through the campus grounds.

* HEADCANONS.

Parker is an incredibly talented jazz guitarist. He loves practicing in the music rooms until late at night, and can always be seen riding his bike around campus with his guitar strapped to his back. He is known on campus for playing live gigs at pubs and such, and loves kicking back and improvising on guitar when he hangs out with friends.

His favorite place to hang out is the rooftop of his building. Passersby can often hear him playing and improvising, even late at night beneath the stars. A few candles and his guitar, and that’s all he needs.

His fashion sense is what he deems as ‘simple sophistication’: of course, there are times where he’ll be lounging around in a graphic tee and shorts, but generally, he dresses decently well.

He has had his fair share of relationships because he’s such a huge romantic: his parents’ marriage made him hopeful of a future with the love of his life. Previous relationships probably did not work out because Parker was admittedly very naive, but he’s learning how to grow. 

* update ! He took a year off between his freshman and sophomore year (hence his age); he told his father he was interning at a friend’s parent’s firm in the United States, but really, he was traveling around, kind of finding himself, playing jazz in dive bars. I imagine he spent a couple months in New Orleans, jammin’ it up on Frenchmen St just having the time of his life.

He likes to cook, but probably isn’t great at it. He used to cook with his mother, but she typically gave him the easy tasks, like washing the vegetables or stirring the soup. 

He had thought of himself as heterosexual most of his life, but since coming to university, he’s realized he’s pansexual as fuck. He finds beauty in someone’s character, not their sex or gender identity. 

* POTENTIAL PLOTS

pls message me w things i am trash

[nctquiteroyal]

( ROME FLYNN, MALE, HE/HIM ) — ✧ that looks like T’CHARRA! they’re the TWENTY THREE YEAR OLD SON of T’CHALLA. [ they are also a POSTGRAD STUDENT at paragon. ] i hear they’re INTELLIGENT & INNOVATIVE, but tend to be RECKLESS & SELF-DESTRUCTIVE. his file says that his ability is ADVANCED COMBAT & GENIUS LEVEL INTELLECT. (portia frost mckenzie’s rich friends wc, kurt rogers ex flings wc, ava barton’s pseudo younger sibling wc, winifred banner-ross’ childhood best friend wc)

drug addiction tw, overdose tw

Age: 23

DOB: December 8th 1995

Hair colour: Black

Eye colour: Brown

Height: 6’1

Ethnicity: Wakandan

Sexuality: bisexual

Father: T’Challa

Mother: Unknown

For those of you who remember T’Charra from before, there are going to be some similarities but also some differences !

HISTORY ;;

You don’t know your mother. You never have. You were born from a fling when your father was young and travelling, studying the world Wakandans worked so hard to separate themselves from. When you were brought into his life, T’Challa insisted you grow up in Wakanda, as the son of the prince should, and your mother agreed, unable to take care of a baby at the time.

Your life has been nothing but royal, you’ve grown up in the halls of the palace in Wakanda, running the streets of your country, immersing yourself in Wakanda as any member of the royal family should, but your friends all had mothers and you couldn’t help but wonder what happened to yours.

Your father would tell you stories, embellished and romanticised stories but stories nonetheless, but he also explained that while your mother loved you, she knew your place was here, your home was here. That your life was infinitely better in Wakanda, with your father and the royal family, than it could never be anywhere else.

But the absence of a mother in your life was.. Difficult, especially when your father became king when you were still young. You found yourself searching for - something, someone who could help to fill that void. You found it with friends, with family - Shuri took you under her wing as best as she could, and you began to learn all about her world, too. The science, the technology, you found you not only had a passion for it, but also a gift. Seeing her work come to life to help your country sparks something in you you never expected.

You find friends you connect with, people both in and outside Wakanda who seem to understand you to some degree - but growing up as a prince is hard, especially when your father is king. The pressure, the life you’re expected to lead, the training, your future laid out before you, planned by people who don’t even ask what you want - it’s a lot. It’s too much.

You pull away, you look for anything that can give you a break from that life. You fight with your father, you’ve been arguing for years, clashing on ideals and hopes and dreams and habits and this just makes it that much worse, drives you further away, closer to all the things you shouldn’t want. And unfortunately there are plenty of people in the world who are happy to give you whatever you need.

Money is no object, it never has been - you can spend whatever you want on all the things you shouldn’t, and towards the end of your high school years you find that drugs are an incredible escape from the world you never quite felt you fit into. Your friends, family, everyone sees it happening, they see you fall and god they try to catch you but the more they reach for you the more you pull away, and before you know it you’re crashing into an addiction you were sure you had in control.

At twenty two, you almost die from an overdose and even you know - enough is enough. You go into rehab, spend some time getting clean, working through the reasons for your addiction, as hard as they are to face. And when they’re sure you’re safe - you go home. You mend some fences, you make amends with the people you pushed away - most importantly, with your father.

After a year of recovery, you make the difficult decision to come back to Paragon.

PERSONALITY ;;

T’Charra is a lot like he was before in general personality points !

He’s a little cocky and arrogant and generally makes a lot of jokes and uses humour as a sort of mask or distraction.

He’s very charming when he wants to be - years of royal training teaching him how he should behave to be able to entice the best response - and he has no shame in using it

In saying that he has matured a little - his spiral into addiction, overdose, and subsequent recovery has subdued and humbled him, made him value things a little more

Loyal to absolutely no end if you’re loyal to him, but he definitely doesn’t take betrayal very well

He is very careful when it comes to anything that could be addictive - drinking, drugs, smoking, definitely wants to steer clear of temptation. Recovery has been extremely difficult for T’Charra, especially while he was at home and facing some hard truths, so he’s determined not to fall off the wagon

Generally just a sweet misguided boy who loves tech tbh

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;;

Avengers kiddos obviously - give me all the Avengers kiddos! They’d very much be like family to him, he’d adore all of them and be very protective of them. Also very good friends with most of them I imagine!

Siblings/half siblings - I’d love some siblings and/or half siblings for T’Charra! He loves family a lot, and growing up even as he pulled away from T’Challa he would’ve stayed close to his siblings!

Former party friends - people he would’ve partied with/drank with/done drugs with! They could or could not know about his overdose and his time in rehab, we can plot that out depending on the character!

Avengers as mentors - being T’Challa’s son I definitely envisage he’s been close to the rest of the team! Maybe even sees some of them as mentors, especially now!

Former drug dealer - someone who used to be T’Charra’s dealer, they don’t necessarily have to interact much now or maybe they do because this character is trying to tempt him to use again? Again, we can plot this out!

Ex-hookups/flings - exactly as it says! T’Charra would’ve hooked up and had a lot of flings when he was in full party mode - maybe they’re looking for another hookup, maybe it’s just by chance and they’re seeing him for the first time since!

[miraculousagentsofkrypton]

I would assume you're a big fan of AoS and Supergirl. But which character on each show is your fave and why?

You guessed right! :P Sorry for the delay, I wanted to find the time to answer this properly, this is just my stream of conscience though and doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

Great question! Ok, so my favs are definitely Daisy Johnson and Kara Zor-El Danvers, but I love pretty much all the characters on both shows. I recently did a post on Daisy’s birthday about my favorite scenes in season 1. A lot of those scenes are what started my love of her. 

Both of these wonderful characters have been through so much of what the universe has to offer. They have suffered and suffered. Kara lost her whole world and Daisy never even found one to be part of. She got thrown from foster home to foster home, the protocol never allowing her to stay anywhere for even a year. Kara was an alien, hiding who she was, knowing that if she were revealed both her new family and herself would be in danger. Neither of them were ever accepted by the world, outcasts to their very souls. 

They had a right to be angry, to rage, but you know what they did? They took those experiences and learned to love the world. They developed a sense of empathy beyond compare. Both of them love deeply, they love total strangers, they care about even their enemies. Do you realize how rare and precious that is? 

Daisy found a way to understand Ward despite everything and she empathized with and tried to help Ruby. She became a Rising Tide hacktivist because it was her way of helping the underdog, helping the world become a better place. That was something, someway she was capable of influencing the world and she took it. When Coulson offered her a chance to make a bigger difference with SHIELD, she jumped on it. She learned what their purpose was and wholeheartedly worked to become a part of it. One of my favorite scenes in season 1 is when Daisy talks to Hannah. She has nothing in common with this lady. She doesn’t have the same beliefs, yet she forges a bond with her, finds a way to use her painful history to connect, and help comfort her.

Kara is unwilling to kill anyone, even the worst people imaginable.(inconsistency issues with the Martians and Non aside) She always, always tries to get through to the person before fighting them. She connects to them, tries to see the best in them. I will always love the scene in season 1 where she has no powers, but she still stops that robbery through her bravery and kindness. She sees each person in the city as a light, and whenever she helps someone, a little of that light becomes a part of her. She remembers the face of every single person she has saved; her super-heroism has absolutely nothing to do with pride, arrogance, or thinking that humans need saving, its just pure love.  

Then there’s their overwhelming love for those clostest to them. They created their own families when they had no one to turn too, and they devoted themselves to them. Kara would do anything for any of the superfam. She gave up her powers entirely, for years to protect Alex. She gave up the one thing that she thought would make her feel more normal, and only changed that in order to save Alex. Daisy barely knew the team before she was willing to do anything for them, she gave up opportunities to fulfill her lifelong goal of finding her family. They both risk their life time and time again to protect them. 

They are both so self-sacrificing and honestly self-depricating. Daisy gets told time and time again that death follows her. This idea haunts her so much. When HIVE happened, she wouldn’t allow herself to be comforted, the very idea of having hurt, and attempted to kill her family destroyed her, and she wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t her fault. She left the team, when she could have used the most help, because she wanted to protect them. She allows all the blame to fall on herself for so many things that are out of her control, and rarely places it on someone else. She was willing to sacrifice it all when she believed that she was the destroyer of worlds, to stay in a decimated future, to give up her powers she worked so hard to accept and control, to give up her life for everyone else. She doesn’t want to be the leader, even though she makes a brilliant one because sometimes she struggles to see and accept other peoples love and care for her. She denies the possibility of their trust because she doesn’t trust herself. 

Kara suffers from survivers guilt. She feels the weight of millions of lives on her shoulders. She failed in her purpose of protecting and teaching Kal-El, and she feels that blame, even if not of that is her fault. She fell under the effects of Red-Kryptonite, and similar to Daisy, she hurt those she loved and tried to kill her sister. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really the one to blame. She feels the blame for every injury or death around her. Kara puts so much pressure on herself to be perfect and feels like she’s weak if she isn’t. She couldn’t handle the idea of still suffering from her childhood trauma in “Triggers”, having claustrophobia was a sign that she had failed somewhere. 

Their coping mechanisms are similar as well. Daisy hides behind humour, when she’s scared or unsure, she turns to sarcasm, to jokes. She holds her feelings in, bottles them up, and doesn’t allow others to really see how she’s truly feeling. This is both to protect herself and to protect the other person. She doesn’t want to become a burden, so she avoids her feelings and issues. Kara has an entire persona to hide behind. Kara Danvers is a happy, innocent girl. Kara hides behind that idea, even when she isn’t pretending to be a normal human, even when in the presence of family. She can laugh and smile even when she’s dying inside. She pushes the idea of weakness away, ultimately forcing herself into denial. Sometimes she is so good at pretending that everything is a-ok that she fools even those closest to her, sometimes they almost forget she’s an alien from a fallen world. 

Not everything about them is so heavy. Daisy is always ready to be geeky with Fitzsimmons, watching Paranormal movies, or Doctor Who. She’s the biggest shipper of all the romances. She’s so amazingly clever, but I don’t think she always recognizes that, especially with the high school dropout thing always weighing on it. She may or may not be book smart, but she is definitely street smart, she picks apart and recognizes patterns really well. She has few possessions that she has kept through the years, but one thing that has always stayed with her is a hula girl. Daisy always falls for the broken guy, the one with issues that she can help, because she never stops being a hero, even in her romance. She lived in a van in an alley way for years, by choice. She loves Phil Coulson and Melinda May like parents, but she still loved her parents despite their many issues and flaws and wanted what was best for them. She has learned to accept her differences, because sometimes being different can mean making a difference. 

Kara is an artist, she probably uses it in a therapeutic way and to capture her memories to preserve them, since she has no photographs. She adores food, and gorges herself on pizza and pot-stickers. Chocolate Pecan Pie is apparently the best in the galaxy according to her. N'sync is her favorite band and she uses phrases like golly gee adorably. She’s good a Settlers of Catan and connects with kids really well. She initiates game nights and gets really competitive. She’s a genius on Kryptonian levels who learned calculus at age four, but had to leave it behind when she came to earth. She doesn’t understand or like Earth history. She’s horrible at spelling in English, but writes for a living. She’s not genuinely clumsy and will never feel normal, except when she’s with her sister, because the Danvers sisters? They should come with a warning.

[kairi-chan]

I Got You (II) - BoruSara

Chapter 2: The Dinner 

Genre: Romance/Humor

Rating: T

A/N: Guess who couldn’t concentrate at work because she was thinking about this fic all day? Teehee. 

Chapter 1: Childhood Friends

Chapter 3: Disconnect

Chapter 4: Spill It

Chapter 5: Nighttime and Bottles of Beer

Chapter 6: Sunsets and Ninbucks Frappes

Chapter 7: Past and Present Dates

Boruto looked at himself in the mirror. He was wearing a black coat over matching dress pants. The light pink long sleeved shirt he wore was slightly rumpled. A magenta colored tie hung loosely around his neck. He had no patience for these family dinners, more-so tying a tie. He shrugged the coat off and hooked it on his fingers before tossing it over his shoulder.

“I’m heading out, Mitsuki,” he said.

His roommate smiled and gave him a small wave. “Say hi to your parents for me.”

The blond nodded and walked out of their dorm. He made his way to Sarada’s dorm.

He heard two voices inside talking in the room. He knocked four times. One hard, two quick, and one light. He always knocked this way whenever he was sneaking up to her balcony back when they were only twelve. 

The two voices hushed, and the door opened. He came face to face with Sarada. She was in a wine colored dress, her raven hair flowed down passed her shoulders, and her glasses were gone. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s seen her without her glasses, but it always managed to make him forget his words. 

“What are you wearing?” She said. 

He blinked a few times and looked at himself. “Formal clothes?” 

She sighed. “You’re not even wearing a tie.” 

He fished out his tie from his pocket and gave her a wide and goofy grin. “Tie it for me?” 

She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “Honestly. What would you do without me?” She took the tie from his fingers and placed it around his neck. She began tying his tie when her roommate spoke up. 

“Tying the knot this early? I was expecting you to at least finish college first,” she snickered. 

Boruto laughed. He was well acquainted with Sarada’s roommate. She was a cool kid studying Fashion Design. He got along with her quite well. 

A light pink dusted Sarada’s cheeks. “Shut up, Chocho!” 

Her roommate giggled. “Whatever. You two have fun, now.” She winked. 

Boruto enjoyed teasing Sarada. He and Chocho especially got along well in that department. 

Sarada pulled the knot a little too tight around his neck. “Ouch!” He exclaimed. 

She picked up her purse and proceeded walking out of her dorm, with Boruto following suit. They walked in comfortable silence to the university’s parking lot, and he silently marvelled at how she could manage walking in four inch heels across the entire campus while keeping her posture straight, and her stride graceful. 

He opened the door the door for her as she slid in his red sports car. Boruto hopped in the driver’s seat and placed the key in the ignition. “Who’s going today?” he asked. 

“Everyone,” she replied nonchalantly as she crossed her arms. There was a subtle coldness to her tone. 

Boruto winced. He did not look forward to seeing her grandfather. 

It was a well known fact that Sarada’s family owned one of the biggest law firms in the continent. Despite her father taking over as CEO last year, everyone knew that her grandfather, Fugaku Uchiha, still pulled the strings. It was late last year when Uchiha & Senju merged with Uzumaki & Hyūga, now forming Uchiha & Uzumaki. 

The merger put a lot of stress on their familes, mainly Naruto and Sasuke. They treated each other like brothers, but when the competition came for whose name was going to come first, their old rivalry resurfaced. It was Hinata who placated Naruto to let Sasuke have it. She reminded him that a name wasn’t worth ruining their friendship. 

“Our bond is stronger than that,” Naruto laughed. “But yeah, I guess Sarada would make a better lead partner than Boruto, right?” he joked. 

Boruto gritted his teeth. Right before he entered college, his fate was sealed. He would become a lawyer and take over the firm one day. He never liked the idea. Unlike Sarada, who always seemed resigned to the profession. Ever since the merger, the pressure had been cranked up ten levels higher for for the both of them, but for her especially. Her grandfather in particular pushed her to become the best, as it was only expected out of an Uchiha. 

“Is Uncle Itachi going?” He asked as he drove out of the university grounds, trying to lighten the mood. 

“I hope he is,” Sarada replied quietly. “I haven’t seen him in months.”  

Boruto knew that she adored her uncle, and he adored her as well. He was the genius in their family. He finished his undergraduate course and law school in less than seven years, and he scored number one in the bar exams. Right after he passed, he pursued a career in music. He told his father he never wanted to be a lawyer, and pursued being a professional violinist. He admired him. It took a lot of guts to stand up to your father. It was just unfortunate that the burden of taking over the firm was then passed on Sasuke. 

He nodded in reply and continued driving until they reached the restaurant. He rolled his eyes when he saw the grandeur of the facade. “Why do we always have to eat at places like this?” He muttered. 

“Grandfather likes the steak here,” she replied. 

Boruto smirked. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that old man Fugaku loves to eat overpriced slabs of meat?” 

The whole family was there. They all sat in a huge, circular table. Minato, Kushina, Naruto, Hinata, Boruto, Himawari, Itachi, Sarada, Sakura, Sasuke, Mikoto and Fugaku sat together side by side. Everything was going well until Fugaku spoke to Sarada. 

“How are your grades, Sarada?” he asked gruffly. 

“Fine, grandfather,” she replied politely. “I’m enjoying my classes and—“ 

His eyebrows furrowed together and cut her short. “That doesn’t matter. You’re an Uchiha. You need to be the best. What is your standing?” 

His bluntness made her stiffen. Before she could open her mouth, Sakura placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Sarada gets good grades because she enjoys what she’s learning.” 

“I didn’t ask you, Haruno,” Fugaku barked. Everyone at the table exchanged looks. It was no secret that he didn’t approve of his son marrying the doctor. It had already been eighteen years, and it seemed like he was still not over it.

“Father,” Sasuke gave him an even, yet cold stare. 

“Sarada’s the top of the class without even trying,” Sakura replied with a devilishly sweet smile. Naruto looked at her with a slight smirk on his face. He knew she was going in for the kill. “Imagine what more if she did try? You would probably be running for your money.” 

Boruto snickered. All eyes snapped to him. 

Fugaku was turning red in the face. “Is there something funny, boy?” 

He laced his fingers behind his head and smirked. “I agree with Aunt Sakura. Can’t expect anything less from a Haruno, right?” There was a challenging and mischievous glint in his blue eyes as he stared Fugaku down. He loved his Aunt, and he knew she didn’t deserve that jab. He knew Sarada was brilliant not just because she was an Uchiha, but because her Haruno genes jumped in and made it even better. He then moved his gaze to Sarada who sat across from him. He grinned and winked at her. 

His grandparents were smiling, feeling a little nonplussed. Hinata looked worried, afraid that her son may have gone a little too far this time. Naruto and Himawari exchanged a quick, and knowing look. 

Mikoto placed her hand on her husband’s arm, trying to calm him down. Itachi averted his gaze, trying to hide the curl of his lips. A ghost of a smirk graced Sasuke’s face, yet he still kept his cool demeanor. Sakura on the other hand had a shit eating grin on her face. 

As soon as he saw the way she looked at him, with her cheeks flushed as she bit her lower lip and smiled, he knew the scolding that he was going to get later was more than worth it. 

A/N: I love it when Boruto acts like boyfriend material. Don’t you? Hihi. 

I wanted to continue writing this story because I had too much fun writing the one shot: I Got You. 

You can read more of my stories here. 

[thewyrdwritere]

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars I remember summer holidays in Cornwall spent obsessing over finding the Beast of Bodmin, alas I never did spot it. But what if the Beast was real? And what if the Beast was in fact something far stranger than an overlarge cat? That is pretty much the starting point of Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Doors of Eden a creatively world bending sci-fi thriller. Mal and Lee are two intrepid cryptid obsessives investigating a mysterious sighting on a farm in Bodmin, there they find the six brothers a stone circle that strangely only contains three brothers (stones). On the moors things go strange, snow fall in July strange and suddenly there are six brothers. Lee finds herself alone with only disturbing memories of a monstrous figure and Mal has seemingly vanished into the ether. Four years later Lee still grieving and still alone takes a phone call, the voice on the other end will change everything. Mal's shocking reappearance coincides with the attempted kidnapping of a prominent Trans Dr by far-right goons, an event that draws in the Home Office home security forces (MI5), a dodgy private security asset and decidedly strange foreign agents that are not quite as Human as they appear. Dr Kay Amal Khan a genius mathematician seems to hold knowledge that everyone wants, yet as these disparate forces and parties collide around her events get very weird very fast, as the cracks between worlds grow. I really like Tchaikovsky's sci-fi! The duology Children of Time and Children of Ruin, were both filled with fascinating ideas, hard science and social commentary creatively disguised by the use of anthropomorphic animals. Whilst not narratively related The Doors of Eden makes use of the same formula. Tchaikovsky starts chapters with some zoological what if, fascinating speculative essays succinctly detailing how different life forms could rise to sentience on alternate Earths. If, like me, you find evolution fascinating then these chapters are a real scientific treat. There's a whole kaleidoscope of earth life from the Ediacaran period to the Anthropocene on show that Tchaikovsky creatively develops and evolves to civilization levels. It's kind of brilliant really. Best of all it doesn't overshadowed or distract from narrative, in fact they play an integral part, so best to pay attention! The narrative is well handled having elements of noir mixed with hard sci-fi, the zoological speculation pairs well with a more elaborate take on the many earths, parallel universe type of scientific theories. The jargon and technical explanations sprouted by characters seem legit, at times very reminiscent of the techy expositions of Dr Who or Star Trek where a punchy deliverey helps dialogue sound plausible enough to keep the audience engaged. The narrative is cleverly told from the perspective of the outsiders, the characters who are without the knowledge of just what is going on. As these characters collide and become embroiled in each other’s lives they bring the reader along with them. The 'out-side' perspective is an effective way of managing the story, slowly revealing the mysteries and leading to some epic world bending moments for them as characters and us as readers. Beneath the noir and the sci-fi though is a subtle message of progressive ideals and something of a critique of the supposed culture war. The main conflict of the narrative is driven by the old school ultra-capitalist Denton Rove, who has his own nefarious self-interest at heart pitted against well everyone and everything else, but most of all diversity….and in a book about parallel Earths that’s a lot of diversity….Rove is the epitome of old school conservative values, pettily referring to the Trans Khan as him or Khurram (the previous male identity) just to show that he can. Rove is a total jerk and a rather pantomime fascist but it does lead to a rather surreal and totally non-subtle critique of anti-trans ideology. When the antagonist is hamming it up in his rat king airship lair (literally a rat king airship lair!!) surrounded by black clad Rat people Stormtroopers it's not hard to deduce what side you should be on. Characterization is also deftly handled. The lesbian couple Mal and Lee, two outsiders, Dr Who fans and cryptid obsessives with a fine line in pop culture references, form the emotional core of the story. Mal lost to another Earth when given the chance reconnects with Lee drawing her into a perilous journey where they will truly find their place, each other and cement their love. Hot on their heels is the pairing of Julian 'Jules' Sabreur an emotional dependent not quite James Bond MI5 agent and his 'work wife' analyst Alison Matchell. Their supposedly platonic working relationship, Jules is married, Alison divorced for being a workaholic, is subtly exposed as holding deeper more romantic yearnings that are revealed in the pressures of saving the world. But really who hasn't flown dangerously close to the flame of a work wife/husband….. Jules is particularly well drawn, far and away from the clichéd machismo of spy craft, dependent on Alison's shrewd and gifted analysis both professionally and personally but never himself coming across as actually lacking agency. They make a good team relaying on each other for support in a will they won't they cliché that is imaginatively resolved in a progressively modern way. Jules and Alison's arc felt like something of a gender role reversal, the old delineated sterotypes of masculine/feminine gender roles growing into something more interestingly modern. Even Lucas the right hand muscle, former military, now dodgy private security to Denton Rove finds time for some introspection and character growth away from the standard brainless thuggery of the henchman role. As the characters become more embroiled in each other’s affairs the sci-fi action gets a bit more spectacular and a bit weirder as an existential threat to the many parallel Earths materializes. As friend and foe pool resources the twisty hard science theories help to keep the plot twisting and turning right up to the mind bending finale. The Zoological speculation and hard science is balanced well with a thrilling plot and good characterization all wrapped around a progressive modern social commentary promoting diversity and unity. I really enjoyed The Doors of Eden it is bursting with fascinating science and adventure that takes me back to a magical childhood chasing monsters. View all my reviews

[13eyond13]

Do you have any headcanons about B? Like if B had an older sister what would their relationship be like? Sorry if that's weird but I'd like to think If he had a better support system he wouldn't have done the whole LABB thing

Hi Anon, thank you so much for asking! I love getting headcanonquestions, especially about B.This is such an interestingquestion! I’ve never imagined Beyond as anything but an only childbefore, just because B’s only relatives mentioned in the novel arehis parents. He was seemingly orphaned after their deaths, so you’reright, he likely didn’t have a good support network or other closefamily capable of taking care of him. We were only told a fewvague sentences about B’s past: We were told:

[1]B had a father who was murdered by a mugger.[2] B had a motherwho died in a train crash.[3] B had the shinigami eyes sincebirth, somehow.[4]B knew what the lifespans meant, and knew that he was incapable ofever changing the numbers.

I really do like the idea of Bwith a protective older sister, though, and how that might have changed things for him. I’ll run through how Iimagine this AU might have looked if he did:(this turned out VERY long and very in-depth lol, like approx. 2500 words, and I totally understand if you don’t want to read the whole thing! I’ll put it under a cut here):

B’s BABY YEARS:

B’s sister is seven years older than him, because he was a surprise pregnancy for his parents.

She hates him at first, because she’s so used to being an only child, but he’s actually a very pleasant baby – quiet and alert and cheerful, doesn’t cry much.

His sister still hates him until he’s about two. She sometimes stands over his crib whispering mean things to him, but he just gazes up at her adoringly and smiles and coos at her until she feels very guilty about it, and goes away again.

B’s TODDLER YEARS:

 B follows his big sister everywhere as soon as he can walk. He is very affectionate, always asking to be picked up and carried around. He snuggles into her neck and plays with her hair, and calls her a funny bungled version of her name, because he has trouble pronouncing his R’s. This melts her heart pretty quickly, and she soon forgets she ever resented him.

B’s sister finds she really likes playing mother with him – she loves getting him dressed and feeding him snacks, and teaching him things whenever he asks – which he does often, because he is a very curious & bright child.

B hits his childhood development milestones very early, and it’s speculated that he’s very intelligent, likely a certifiable genius. His medical checkups reveal nothing unusual about his brain or his eyes, but he always seems much older than he really is – about double his actual age, mentally at least.

B seems to daydream a lot, and to easily be distracted, especially if he’s in large crowds of people. He often says strange things that nobody can make sense of, but his family mostly writes it off as a personality quirk, or a byproduct of his big imagination.

His sister is very interested in nurturing B’s intelligence; their parents are always busy, both working hard to make ends meet, and so when she babysits B she starts teaching him to read and do math. He’s reading grade six level chapter books out loud to her by the time he’s three. B starts asking his family very strange questions soon after he becomes literate.

B’s EARLY CHILDHOOD YEARS:

B starts asking his family about all the floating numbers and the names. He points to the spot just above people’s heads and recites exactly what he sees out loud. He is shocked that nobody else can see them. He knows the name of anyone he sees, whether or not he’s ever met them before. “Why are your numbers so much longer than hers?” he might ask his sister, or “Why does the man’s name say this when we actually call him this?” “Why don’t I have any letters or numbers above my own head when I look in the mirror, or when I look at pictures of me?”

His family is astonished, and somewhat frightened. They quickly realize it is not just the strange imaginative games of a small child. 

They start doing little experiments with him to make sense of it, and find it seems to be related specifically to B’s vision; he has to see a person’s face for it to work. He can point to any person in any photograph and tell you exactly what their name and number is, as long as their features aren’t obscured. The people in photographs only have numbers sometimes, he says; for example, his family shows him a book of old black & white war photographs, and according to B not a single person in it has numbers. He says the numbers are always changing for people he sees everyday, but that their names never do; he says that the numbers only ever get shorter for everyone, not longer. 

B’s parents ask him about their own numbers. They ask about his sister’s, too, but B senses that the whole thing is making his sister feel very anxious. B trusts his sister’s intuition with all his heart and is very loyal to her, so he refuses to divulge any of his family’s numbers to anyone. His sister is very relieved by this, though she doesn’t fully know why yet; she is very proud of B and his unusual gifts, but something about the numbers part of it always gives her a queasy feeling in her stomach.

The whole numbers thing starts making sense for everyone once their elderly landlady dies and they attend her funeral. Four year old B says her numbers are completely gone now when he looks into the casket. He says the numbers are always pretty short for old people, but that hers were the shortest ones he’d ever seen.

B’s LATER CHILDHOOD YEARS:

Once it’s discovered what the numbers actually mean, B’s parents start fighting about it. His mother wants to use B’s abilities to make money, and pressures his father constantly about it.

B’s dad is just obsessed with finding out his own lifespan. He tries to coax it out of B nicely at first, then pressures him with guilt, but B will not budge on the matter, and remains very tight-lipped.

Theirparents start fighting secretly every night when B and his sister arein bed, and it’s always about whether or not they should attempt to make money off B’s talents. They try to be quiet, but the kids still overhear all of it. They could use the money to put both the kids through school and to move to a nicer neighbourhood, his mother says. It would be good for the whole family, if they were smart and careful about who they partnered up with, she says.

B and his sister become inseparable through all of this familial stress. B often asks to sleep in her bed with her when he has bad dreams, and so her pseudo mothering of B continues as he grows. 

B’s sister never asks him about the numbers or the names, and just treats B like a normal person. She tries to focus his mind on other things, and aims to keep him feeling good about his abilities instead of guilty or stressed whenever he mentions them. 

He confides in her during one of their sleepovers that he knows how to mostly work out the lifespan formula automatically now when he looks at people, but that it’s not totally flawless yet; the numbers are very tricky, but he thinks he can narrow the timeline down accurately to within a few weeks of the death date. He does these calculations automatically without meaning to every time he looks at people now, and he hates it. 

He is very sad about finally understanding the lifespans of their parents, and says he wishes more than anything he knew of a way to make people’s numbers get longer instead of shorter.

B’s PRE-TEEN YEARS:

B’s dad loses his job, and starts seriously considering his wife’s insistence that B is their ticket out of their financial struggles. They start seriously scheming about maybe contacting some talent scouts to meet with, secretly after B goes to bed. 

 B’s sister internalizes B’s morbid knowledge about their parents’ lifespans, and starts growing up very quickly as a result. She takes on two part-time jobs while finishing up her final year in high school and saves up a lot of money. 

B’s parents never end up actually monetizing his talents, but they do end up divorcing due to the constant fighting.

B’s sister moves out on her own as soon as she turns 18, into a crappy two bedroom apartment in the city near her work.

B’s parents both die soon after, within a year and a half of each other. It’s a very rough time for B and his sister, as they loved their parents dearly in spite of their flaws and have no other living family. Their parents left them with some debt, but B and his sister are each other’s emotional support all throughout the grieving, and manage to stay strong all throughout.

B’s TEEN YEARS:

B’s sister becomes his legal guardian, and he moves into her spare room. They happily stop talking about his strange abilities altogether.

They make a pretty good team when it comes to splitting the domestic duties. He loves to clean and does it for fun, so the place is always absolutely spotless. 

B’s sister is generally an awful cook, but she knows how to make a mean sandwich, and she always keeps the place cozy and smelling nice by burning incense, and furnishing the rooms with the perfectly good things she finds thrifting. She has a real knack for interior design, and plans on maybe pursuing it someday, once B is finished high school and able to better financially contribute to the household.

When B is about fifteen years old, his sister notices that he’s never once shown an interest in girls. He also is very curious about her morning routine, and watches how she gets ready for work very closely. She never lets on that she notices this, but she starts casually narrating the steps she takes to apply her makeup and do her hair.

One day, B’s sister finds some of her foundation and eyeliner missing. It’s replaced again the next day, and neither of them say a word about it.

B is consistently the top student in his high school in all grades. He’s generally well-liked, though very shy, and doesn’t have many friends. His sister senses he’s afraid of getting attached to people because of his eyes, and feels sorry for him. She encourages him to join some sort of extracurricular program, saying he’d definitely have a better chance of getting into his dream schools if he was more involved.

B joins the drama club at school, and it helps him come out of his shell socially. At first he just volunteers as a stage hand, helping the actors with their costumes and their stage makeup, but eventually he works up the courage to audition for a play, too. He is a natural, and gets the lead part. B’s sister tries to help him practice his lines when she gets home from work, but she’s often too tired. She suggests that maybe he could invite some of the other cast members over to practice sometime, instead.

B invites only one other cast member over to practice; a very cute guy with long blond hair, leather pants, and a rosary around his neck. This guy seems to have been under the impression that there were other people coming too, and looks very uncomfortable about the whole situation. B’s sister feels the awkward vibes between them immediately and wants nothing more than to makes herself scarce, but she feels too bad for the guy to leave. She hangs around all night despite B’s pointed glares, and makes a pot of mushy, overcooked spaghetti for them all to share. The cute blond guy chokes it down politely and leaves as soon as he can, saying he just remembered he needs to go pick up his best friend Matt from work.

B’s school play goes very well, and the student newspaper reports his performance as the stand-out highlight of the whole thing. B tells his sister that maybe he’d prefer to move to Hollywood someday and pursue acting. She’s torn between encouraging him to follow his less practical dreams, and wishing he’d make something of his incredible smarts and aim for an ivy league school, instead. She decides to hold her tongue and let him decide on his own.

Eventually, B’s sister gets a nice boyfriend named Stephan Gevanni, and he moves in with them after a few months. He’s a sweetheart, and a very good cook, and he fills that hole in their home nicely by making delicious suppers every night. B is very blushingly awkward around Stephan, and hides in his room all the time, writing in his diary, obsessively reading manga, and listening to dramatic movie soundtracks on repeat. He gradually stops being embarrassed about his interest in makeup, as his time as a stage hand helps him feel more comfortable about it. Soon he’s wearing subtle eyeliner and foundation every day, and it looks very good on him. That cute blond guy he invited over even asked B for tips on how he pulls it off so well, he says with pride.

At some point, B comes home from school saying he’s just had the oddest day at school. He was pulled out of class all day for some very cryptic testing, which he was told was a standardized government thing. B didn’t believe for one minute that it was, but he couldn’t make sense of what else it could be, either. He said the test was the hardest thing he’d ever taken in his life, but that he had a lot of fun with it, too.

Two weeks later, B gets an elegantly embossed letter in the mail. He’s passed the cryptic testing with flying colours, and is one of the elite few finalists being invited to meet with a man who runs some of the most prestigious private schools in the country. The one they think B would make the best fit for is called Wammy’s House in England, which they would allow him to attend on full scholarship, no questions asked. B reads the letter out loud to his sister and Stephan over dinner with shaking hands, though he claims to find it silly and acts like he doesn’t care at all.

B’s sister thoroughly researches this school for the gifted, and finds she can figure out very little about it outside of the fact that it indeed exists. She’s extremely proud of B for being selected as a candidate, but her sharp intuition is giving her a very nasty feeling about it, nonetheless. She chooses to hold her tongue and see what B will choose, deciding she will whole-heartedly support his choice either way.

B decides after a lot of agonizing to politely reject the offer from the mysterious school, saying he’s finally feeling at home in his own skin for the first time in his life, and would miss his new friends at school too much. He said he needs some more time to figure himself out, first, no matter how flattering the school’s offer is. His sister breathes a secret sigh of relief, and she and Stephan makes B a lovely cake with strawberry filling for dessert that night, because they knows it’s his very favourite.