#about two absolute bastards who would be genuinely horrible for any other person to deal with but together with each other it kind of works

[crysdrawsthings]

Okay, incoherent Skyrim ramble time. 

But the fact, that Dovahkiin is low-key forced to be enrolled into the College of Winterhold to get the Elder Scroll in the main quest is hilarious to me in the context of Elanor (for more context on who Elanor is, refer HERE. In short - a dragonborn altmer-shaped disaster). 

Because while it might be more reasonable and expected for her to try and force her way in somehow or circumvent this part of the quest entirely, I am not here to be reasonable, I am here to get as much quips and lols out of the story as possible, so it is far funnier if she just... enrolls there. Or, speaking more honestly, annoys her way into getting enrolled. 

After being tossed at Faralda by her dremora, of course. The only reasonable way for Val to put Elanor down after lugging her across the entire hold, through snow, bears, more snow and more bears. What is with all these bears as of late.

And honestly Elanor tagging along for the entirety of the College questline would be freaking hilarious. To me. So many possibilities. To lick the big forbidden orb, to get turned into a chicken, to blow something up (just like the good old time back on Summerset). Of course the classic show of “people in the backround being genuinely uneasy about Elanor being Elanor, because Elanor is not okay, now ft. College trio and Tolfdir”.

And bullying (affectionately, but violently) Ancano, of course. The main attraction. Honestly while College Trio does the most work in the questline these two could really just try to murder one another in the background in increasingly creative and unhinged ways, it would be entirely in character and give everyone else a good ten minutes of freedom from snooty advisor and his dumbass colleague. 

[heathneycanon]

okay so i ranked 113 total drama/ridonculous race ships based on how much i like them with explanations below the cut.. fair warning that i’m a lil mean to some of the ships lower on the list.

also i forgot to include dwayne senior and that one girl’s mom from rr because i literally forgot they existed until now, and i don’t want to manually add them in so i’ll just say that i think they’re cute but not super interesting.

EDIT: this has been updated post-roti-rewatch. i switched around the order of a couple ships, and added a new one. if i ever rewatch rr or pahkitew i’ll probably edit it again, but the likelihood of me rewatching either of those seasons any time soon is... ok i was about to say it was slim but it’s probably not

also i’m not ever adding in dwayne and the mom because i like it being a part f the description lmao. an afterthought. as it should be.

enjoy!

113. stephanie/ryan - i HATE the daters/haters. they’re like a weird, shitty mix of tda gidgette and duncney. like, they’re either annoyingly all over each other, or they’re toxic and fighting. tbh, they’re pretty toxic all the time. they stuck around for way too long imho.

112. jacques/josee - I CHANGED MY MIND IGNORE THIS

111. tom/jen - tom is canonically gay, and i hc jen as a lesbian. so i’m not a fan of this ship.

110. nemma - yeahh, knowing me, this is also a predictably low ranking. i hc noah as gay and emma as a lesbian, so again, i don’t vibe with this one.

109. coderra - i can only deal with this ship in rewrites. i’ve seen super well thought out rewrites of coderra and sierra’s character, but as it stands, i really don’t ship this at all.

108. davesky - dave is an incel lmao. anyway yea this ship initially seemed like bootleg zoke, which was kind of bootleg gwent, but then BOY did davesky get worse. i can’t stand dave and i can’t stand pairing him with sky, either.

107. leonard/sugar - why. i hate both of these characters. no thank u.

106. ella/dave - ok so u know i don’t like dave. i also hc ella as a lesbian, she hasn’t realized it and is dealing with comphet. i don’t like this ship.

105. topher/ella - i hc both of them as gay. they are friends tho.

104. macarthur/brody - in case you’re noticing a trend, i do in fact hc macarthur as a lesbian. i also don’t really care about her at all lmao. anyway, not a fan of this one. i really don’t understand why fresh thought this was a good idea.

103. noah/katie - again, i hc noah as gay, but this ship is more funny to me than anything else because these characters were shipped together so often early on, when they both a) barely had any characterization and b) had never interacted? anyway yea i don’t ship it.

102. cameron/sierra - this one’s weird? literally sierra had a crush on him or whatever because he reminded her of cody even though they’re… nothing alike? dude please get sierra some therapy oh my god

101. heather/justin - i knew someone who really, really shipped them once, which is why i’m including it. anyway i cannot see this ship at all, next.

100. amy/rodney - i guess this existed? i barely remember pahkitew, and i know rodney had a bunch of crushes, but this is the main one i remember so it’s the only one i can be bothered to include. anyway this relationship didn’t seem healthy at all.

99. max/scarlett - i don’t like max and i don’t really care about scarlett, but i also hc both of them as gay, so this is a no from me.

98. gwody - creepy and bad. i don’t trust people who ship this or davesky.

97. dashawn - shawn can do better. that one scene where they look at each other when dave has to kiss the person next to him is kinda funny tho.

96. topher/dave - marginally better than all other dave ships just because topher is there and i like topher. again tho, topher can do much better.

95. malejandro - why does this ship exist.

94. ezekiel/bridgette - not my thing at all. i don’t care about zeke too much, and i have a lot more ships with bridgette that i prefer over this one.

93. cody/beth - i only care about cody in certain contexts, and i practically never care about beth. i wouldn’t click off of a fic if this were a background pairing or whatever, but i definitely wouldn’t seek it out.

92. ezekiel/beth - again, don’t really care about beth or ezekiel that much. but in certain contexts, i can see why this would be cute.

91. courtney/jose - the only way this is cute is alongside aleheather, so that courtney and heather could marry into the same family. but also, why is this a ship that exists?

90. scourtney - i love both scott and courtney, but no thank u. they had absolutely no chemistry, and courtney was using scott both in the competition and as a rebound. not a fan.

89. gwen/cameron - is this a thing that exists? i found a screenshot of gwen kissing cameron on the cheek but is that edited? if it is real, i probably blocked it from my mind.

88. courtney/cameron - now i know this one exists in the weirdest, stupidest way the show could’ve gone about it. barely even qualifies as a ship, and it’s definitely not a good one.

87. duncan/zoey - i kind of see why others would like this one, but at the same time, it doesn’t really appeal to me.

86. alejandro/courtney - i love alejandro and i love courtney. but i can only see them as friends, tho i can see them like. kissing just because they’re bored. or to fuck with people. they did that in the show, right? kind of? i forget the specifics.

85. chris/blaineley - while i guess i can see why people ship this, chref is canon and blaineley is a lesbian.

84. katie and/or sadie/justin - why would katie or sadie date justin, when they’re in love?

83. gwuncan - maybe could’ve been good, but literally everything about how they got together and their relationship in canon has tainted my view of this ship. i definitely preferred them as friends in tda anyway. there’s a lotta cute gwuncan fanart out there so i do rb it sometimes tho. i see why people ship this, i get the potential, but for me it’s soured by world tour.

82. laurie/miles - who?

81. mary/ellody - yea ok they’re smart gfs, but also i literally don’t give a shit about either of them.

80. pete/gerry - they’re definitely dating but again i don’t care about them.

79. mike/cameron - not a horrible ship by any means, i just don’t really like cameron that much.

78. alejandro/justin - there are so many superior alejandro ships. and a handful of slightly better justin ships.

77. carrie/devin - wow they didn’t have a storyline that was original in any way! they’re pretty cute tho.

76. sanders/macarthur - would be higher but acab.

75. macarthur/josee - i really like the whole rivals to lovers thing, but again, acab. this is higher than sanders/macarthur because of the rivals to lovers, but mostly it’s because there’s only one bastard cop here rather than two.

74. owen/alejandro - i don’t really mind this one, but i see it as more of a one sided crush on owen’s side.

73. lightning/cameron - i don’t really care about cameron, but the jock/nerd dynamic is kinda good.

72. rockspud - they’re definitely a couple, but as the trend indicates, i really can’t bring myself to care too much about rr ships.

71. lindsay/beth - best beth ship, worst lindsay ship. i like one this better if lindsay is also dating tyler.

70. lindsay/lightning - a crackship i made up when i was eleven. i just think it’s really funny.

69. noco - not a bad ship, it’s just not my thing. i definitely see why other people ship it, i just ship both of them with other people.

68. ella/sugar - i see why people ship this as well, but i just really don’t like sugar. i can bring myself to see past that because this dynamic is genuinely good.

67. sierra/heather - i’ve seen this in au’s and rewrites of sierra’s character, and i see the potential. not bad.

66. bawn - they’re cute i guess? i just never really saw the appeal. they’re not bad by any means, it just seems kind of bland.

65. dakota/zoey - okay so i’m adding this one in as i’m reordering stuff because i rewatched roti. i didn’t have this here initially but their friendship was cute until zoey was all “she’s scary” and voted her off. just saying, if zoey wasn’t written as a hypocrite and was actually written as a COOL character that lived up to the potential of her concept, this would’ve slapped. also i love any combo of dawn, zoey, and dakota, because they’re cute. i’m not including poly ships on here because that’d make things wayy complicated, but i’d be here for a poly ship of these three.

64. scott/zoey - UPDATED. was originally “yea something about this rubs me the wrong way. i feel like if i rewatched roti i would remember what, but i’m not going to do that just for this list. maybe someday.” i ended up rewatching roti for unrelated reasons the next day, and honestly? this one is not that bad. could be cute, potentially.

63. dj/katie - i guess this one’s pretty cute? i don’t really remember them interacting, but i guess i can see why someone would like this.

62. dunhar - i see why people ship this one. i kind of like it? i feel like it would work really well in an au or a rewrite.

61. dott - UPDATED. was originally “i used to kind of like this ship, but now i really don’t. i do love the idea of dawn and scott as best friends who bully each other in the friendly kind of way, though.” but i rewatched roti and... this has potential. i kinda like it. still prefer the bullying friendship tho.

60. scott/mike - again, i see why people would ship it. i’m not sure if people actually do? but it seems like the sort of thing i might have shipped in middle school, so someone probably likes it. but meh, it’s not really my thing anymore.

59. topher/shawn - i don’t remember if these two interacted but i guess this could be cute? maybe?

58. sky/ella - yea it’s cute i guess? i don’t really have an opinion on this one beyond that.

57. dawn/dj - i mean… i get where this comes from. i fully understand. i personally see them becoming close friends, but i also see why people would ship them.

56. dawn/brick - again, i see them much more as friends, but i get why people would ship them.

55. geoff/gwen - this ship kinda interests me because it was originally going to be canon in camp tv, but because of that one gweoff friendship episode in island i see them as unlikely friends.

54. dj/bridgette - maybe you’re sensing a trend here, but i see them as friends. i could probably get on board with shipping them, though.

53. deather - i like them as friends more, but i do think a relationship between them could be fun.

52. ella/dawn - i feel like i’ve seen this ship? it’s not bad! i’m not the biggest fan of ella but this is pretty cute.

51. zoke - i really want to like them, and i wish they were written better. as is, i kind of ship them? there’s nothing wrong with zoke. but both as characters and as a ship, they could’ve been so much better.

50. noah/justin - this one’s interesting! i’ve never actively shipped it, but i can see it for sure. it’s cute!

49. owen/justin - again, not something i’ve actively shipped, but i like it!

48. carrie/kitty - i think they’re both in their late teens? like 18ish? appropriate ages for each other? if so, i like this one. they’d be cute

47. josee/jen - yea i like this. i feel like they would get along pretty well. they’re both successful in their own right. power couple for sure.

46. tom/jacques - again. power couple. i also think they’d go on double dates with jen and josee, which i like a lot. honestly both of these teams are the epitome of mlm/wlw solidarity. i like this one.

45. alecody - i like it! i don’t have much to say about them at all, but i like it.

44. brody/geoff - good ship! putting the romance in bromance. i like this one more when it’s combined with gidgette though.

43. anne maria/vito - originally i put “what is the appeal of this ship? genuinely asking.” as the description, and then an anon sent in this reply: “You wanted the appeal of anne maria and vito? Well here it is; they are both so dumb. Not a brain cell between the two of them. Imagine them trying to do anything domestic like. They could not assemble a bookshelf or make a pot of spaghetti without it turning into a horrible, but memorably fun, mess. They’re soft for eachother but would kick anyone’s ass for so much as looking at the other. Sorry im rambling lmao i just think they are so funny together”. i get the appeal now, so i’m moving this one up.

42. lindsay/courtney - lmao their dynamic is so funny. i don’t know how well a relationship between them would go, but i can see court realizing over time that lindsay is a lot smarter than she initially seems to be. idk courtney’s observant and lindsay is actually pretty smart. i can see it happening.

41. trent/justin - best justin ship, worst trent ship (that i can think of. i’m sure there are more trent ships but i can’t think of them lmao). i can see them getting along pretty well! i bet in universe a bunch of drama brothers fans ship them, because of course they do. i can see the potential here.

40. lindsay/heather - yea this one could be good. i’d like to see a post world tour version of this ship, or an island au where they get together. either way, i like the idea of this one.

39. lindsay/gwen - again, this ship is pretty good. gwen was kind of rude to lindsay at points, but i think after she stood up to heather, gwen gained some respect for her. idk i can see it happening.

38. lightning/scott - is this jock/farmer? jock/asshole? i’m not sure, but i really like it.

37. harzeke - tumblr user harzeke has opened my eyes. their posts are enlightening. the reason i kind of like ezekiel. harzeke is a good ship.

36. sadie/lindsay - remember in phobia factor when they were hyping each other up? yeah. they’d be cute together.

35. dundie - you know, i really didn’t expect them to make this one canon, but total drama dundie came outta nowhere. i wasn’t sure i was going to like them together, but fresh pulled together it’s first coherent plot in years and created a beautiful love story. very well done.

34. chref - chref is canon and u can’t tell me otherwise.

33. katie/sadie - after they got over their comphet, they realized they were in love and they end up having a really cute wedding.

32. ozzy - this ship is cute! they’re both bi and i hc they talk about cute people together because of course they do. also they would be so much fun to be around. i like them.

31. dj/geoff - djeoff? yea i like this. i think they’d both go out of their way to do sweet things for the other, but of course, they’re still geoff and dj. dj would probably bake a lot for geoff, but at least once, he’s gotten nervous and dropped it by accident. and geoff practices pick up lines and jokes before their dates but they’re like. the bad ones. dj loves them. anyway! this ship is good.

30. courtney/trent - i really, REALLY love them as friends, but i like them as a ship too! honestly i just love them getting along in any capacity. i think they’d be cute.

29. dawn/dakota - i made this up five minutes ago and i love it. i have no idea if people actually ship this but they should. just… think about it for a second. think about it and then try to tell me i’m wrong. u can’t.

28. alenoah - noah had a crush on alejandro during world tour, and u can quote me on this. i think they would be a power couple for sure. i like this one.

27. gidgette - season one gidgette is amazing. gidgette in the context of the killer bass five is amazing. season two and three gidgette is kind of meh to me, but not horrible i guess! i like geoff and bridgette and i think they’re cute together.

26. duncan/dj - i like the idea of this one. remember when duncan found dj a bunny? yea. they’d be cute.

25. jock - jock is good. rivals to allies to lovers. that’s the path i see this ship going down. i really like picturing them in any sort of au where they can kick ass together.

24. gwourtney - i used to like this one a lot more, but it’s still very good. i love the idea of them both mistakenly attributing their feelings for each other to duncan and accidentally ruining their friendship in the process. and by love i mean hate but also think is a good interpretation of the love triangle. i can see them together in an au, or after seriously reconciling in the future. or, honestly, in any universe where sundae muddy sundae doesn’t exist.

23. leshawna/gwen - did i hear u say best friends to lovers? no? well you’re getting them anyway. leshawna and gwen would be amazing i’m telling u. it’s a good ship.

22. tyler/alejandro - this is the third time i’ve said someone had a crush on alejandro during world tour, but. tyler had a crush on alejandro during world tour. i think they’d make a cute couple.

21. jashawn - this is a relationship built on respect and trust and i am here for that. they’re both a lil weird but neither of them mind, and they care about each other so much… i’m soft.

20. jasammy - i like this only marginally better than jashawn. honestly, i like all three dating the most. but anyway, jasmine was the first person who saw sammy as more than an extension of her sister… she stuck up for her. she was sammy’s first real friend. can i just reiterate… i’m soft.

19. evzy - they would light your house on fire together just cuz they were in the mood. eva bench presses izzy every morning. do not try to challenge them to any sort of competition, they will win by any means possible. eva picks izzy up at every opportunity. whenever they cook anything, they burn it. is this by accident or on purpose? i’m not sure. izzy likes lighting stuff on fire and eva likes eating burnt food for some reason, so it doesn’t really matter. i love their dynamic so much.

18. jomaria - if u were talking shit about either one of them, they would both get together and beat u up. they’re both legends and i love them.

17. gweather - total trauma comic has truly opened my eyes… i really like them in a future setting where they’re both more mature and can understand how they were both in the wrong at times during total drama, and ended up hurting people and were hurt themselves, and work through that together. so basically… in the setting of the total trauma comic.

16. heather/leshawna - rivals to lovers…. au where leshawna and heather get together during tda… i’m telling u it’s a good ship.

15. nowen - imho, this is both the best noah ship and the best owen ship. they complement each other so well. world tour nowen is just. the peak of their dynamic. i think enough has been said about nowen that you can understand why i would like it, so i’m just gonna move on.

14. trody - this one came outta NOWHERE a while back, i’m telling u. but i love it?? i liked their friendship in island, and i just. i love the idea of cody having a crush on both gwen and trent during island, misunderstanding that and thinking he just has a crush on gwen, and realizing after island at some point that he also liked trent. and then trent developing a crush on cody after the breakup with gwen and just… dijfalsfjla honestly i like them in so many contexts. thank u tumblr user gothcody for bringing the trody hype. anyway they’re a good ship!

13. bridgecourt - my favorite bridgette ship! idk i loved bridgette and courtney’s friendship in island, and i can see them having a best friends to lovers type of deal. i just think they’d be cute together, and their relationship would be really healthy and balanced.

12. gwoey - u can try and tell me there wasn’t a little something between these two in all stars, but u would be wrong. their designs compliment each other really well, they’re cute together… i’m a fan.

11. lesharold - SO valid. harold drinks his respect women juice every morning, except for that one time he rigged the votes in island to vote out courtney because he was mad at duncan smh. anyway this is a relationship built on RESPECT and CARE. they’re very cute together, and i love them.

10. dawn/zoey - the superior doey. listen the only reason these two weren’t friends is because fresh decided that zoey was going to think dawn was “weird”? but what if zoey just said that because she didn’t know how to deal with the fact that she found zoey cute… zoey is the epitome of that “i had a crush on a girl and i didn’t know how to deal with it so i sent her a letter that said ‘get out of my school’” tweet. n e way they would be such a good couple.

9. samkota - dafjlsflkaakf i think about samkota and i freak out i’m telling u. like is there anything. ANYTHING. better than a guy loving and respecting his girlfriend unconditionally? and mutual love and respect? … well i mean there are several more entries on this list, so okay, maybe a couple of things, but this shit is galaxy brain right here.

8. aleduncan - ok so apparently something i like slightly more than partners who are soft and even softer for each other is total assholes who care about each other. like alejandro is a gentleman… but he’s a manipulative jerk too. and duncan’s a fucking asshole and i love him for it. anyway when they teamed up in world tour, especially in that episode where they hunted ezekiel (??? what is total drama??) i really liked their dynamic.

7. lyler - ok back to love and respect. tyler and lindsay are so good!! tyler got so excited when lindsay remembered who he was right? and lindsay never stopped asking ppl if they were tyler ok. like she knew she cared about tyler enough to want to be with him even when she didn’t know who he was?? i feel like we don’t talk about the implications of this enough. honestly… i feel like people overlook how much the period in between tyler’s elimination and slap slap evolution must have sucked for both of them? like it was played for laughs but… that shit’s sad :( ok i’m done being sad they’re cute and they love each other and i love them.

6. gwent - yea u got me i still care about them. tdi gwent was really sweet! there was a lil pining. a lil outside meddling. and a lot of cute. and GOD during the finale when trent ran alongside gwen with that boulder? he cared about her so much!! of course action ruined it with the shitty portrayal of ocd and a healthy portion of not fucking communicating with your partner, but before that it was good.

5. truncan - you got me, i like the idea of trent serenading duncan with his guitar and duncan liking it a lot more than he anticipated. i think they’d have a dynamic that’s a little more turbulent than most other trent ships, but less so than most other duncan ships. they’d be a lot more balanced i think. i’m a fan of that.

4. scuncan - okay so u remember how i said i like to ship two fucking assholes together? scuncan is peak asshole/asshole rights. all stars totally missed their chance to have these two team up by dumbing scott down, whatever they did with duncan, and of course, introducing scourtney, i’m just saying. scott was actually playing the game pretty well in roti, and duncan was a veteran of the series. the two of them could’ve dominated the game. those fuckin assholes.

3. aleheather - okay now this ship was like, the only central ship that started out good and ended good in this entire series, except maybe jashawn but they don’t count because they were literally only in 13 episodes. anyway they did rivals to lovers right here. also, they simultaneously gave heather a great character arc and wrote alejandro super well. so the characters as individuals were great at the time they got together, and the couple was great together, so what i’m trying to say is… aleheather was and still is amazing.

2. duncney - in case u couldn’t tell from how high gwent is on this list, i am a fan of the tdi ships. another thing you might be able to tell from this list- duncan and courtney are two of my favorite characters in the series. so of course duncney gets a high placement on this list. not only that, but they go from disliking each other to really liking each other, which is something else that i really like. tdi duncney is opposites attract in the best way, where they compliment each other each other instead of clash. beyond that… ugh. eughhh. i don’t even want to think about that. but duncney in tdi alone earns itself number two on the list.

1. heathney - yes i love girls. yes this ship is pretty fucking basic. and no, there are no heathney fics on ao3. i will be attempting to remedy that. anyway, i could see them pulling a rivals to friends to lovers as well, which is one of my absolute favorite tropes. i think they’d be a total power couple. and to top it off, i love them both. a lot. so much. thank u for ur time.

[megalony]

My bad side- Part 5

Here is the latest part of my dad! murderer! Ben series which I hope you are all enjoying so far, thank you for the lovely feedback.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction @rogahs-drowse @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me @peterquillzsblog

Series masterlist

Summary: Ben and (Y/n) have four boys together who love and dote on him, despite his antics and ruthless ways. But no one wants to get on Ben’s bad side, especially not the neighbours.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turning her head, (Y/n) tried to control the way her limbs were shaking from the rage coursing through her like venom pumping through her veins. Her lips pursed, hiding the way that her teeth rubbed against one another causing her jaw to click.

"Hey sweetheart, you okay? Where are the boys?" Ben's voice sent shivers down her spine but the tone of innocence made a wave of frustration wash over (Y/n) completely. She felt his words tickling the skin of her neck and his arms wrapping around her middle but the moment they were around her like vines, she reached down and broke his arms free from her frame. Either he knew what he'd done and he was trying to play innocent and kiss his way out of this, or he genuinely didn't know. (Y/n) didn't know which was worse.

"Get off me."

Confusion swept over Ben's features as his arms momentarily recoiled at his sides, his mind trying to figure out what he'd done to earn this kind of response when he'd only just walked through the door one minute ago.

"What's wrong? What have I done?" Ben held his hands up as a sign of surrender but it only made (Y/n) feel worse. He genuinely didn't know what had gone on today, this was hardly ever the case. Ben always knew when he'd done something wrong because he was always bound to do something.

(Y/n) had a hard time processing Ben's work at first because he had no problems with being a murderer and raising a family with him was never going to be easy. But he swore to her from the moment Theo was born that work would never be brought home. There had been one or two times work mixed with home but he always rectified it and made sure home stayed as separate from work as he could possibly manage.

When Ben's fingers curled around her wrist, (Y/n) flung her hand back and wrenched her wrist free from his grip and continued to walk in the opposite direction of her husband who simply followed in suit. The more steps she took away from him, the quicker his stride became to keep up with her and the higher his temper started to rise.

"Would you stop walking away from me and tell me what the fuck I've done?" Ben followed her into the living room, trying again to reach out for her but (Y/n) wasn't having any of it.

"I don't know what you've done but I'm guessing you're bloody gun was involved. Who have you killed this time, or do you not even know?" (Y/n) finally spun round on her heels to look at him and the way his eyes darkened and the emotions seemed to overflow into his pupils made her stomach churn. Ben never got physical with (Y/n) no matter how angry they could get at one another.

He could grab her a bit too roughly and cause some bruising, he may push her here and there but his damaged fists never touched her in the wrong way. Ben made a point never to hurt (Y/n) because it was against his morals, the worst he would do was handle her roughly or put fright into her with the cruel words he could spit or the tone and volume he used in arguments. With the boys it was different, especially with Theo. If Theo stepped out of line or did something horrible Ben may hit him or handle him very roughly but it was the way he parented and he never hurt the boys badly, a slap was normally all it was.

"Do you actually want me to answer that because the last time I told you about that shit you almost kicked me out of my own house." Ben's hands moved to rest bruisingly on his hips as his knee bent forward like he was angrily posing or rearing for a fight which he seemed like he was right now.

(Y/n) pressed her lips together so tightly her blood circulation was almost cut off as her nails dug into her palms. How dare he be sarcastic right now and give her that look as if this was all her fault or like killing someone wasn't a bad thing or was a normal sort of work. (Y/n) knew the kind of work Ben got up to but she didn't want details, the information Ben knew could put her in danger or make it hard for (Y/n) if the police ever got involved, she had to be oblivious to his work other than knowing the outlines of what he did for a living. Now they had the boys (Y/n) definitely didn't want to know the ins and outs of his dodgy dealings and criminal activities.

"This is the last time I'm gonna ask you, what do you think I've done? If you're gonna act like this without even talking to me then I'm going." When Ben told (Y/n) about what he'd done last time he thought she was going to faint or try and hurt him. She'd gotten into a state because what he'd done was something she didn't think he had been capable of so Ben left to let her calm down.

He wasn't having an argument this time because their arguments could get heated and he wasn't letting (Y/n) get upset or a raised blood pressure right now with the baby on the way.

"Daddy-"

"Rowan not now get upstairs." Ben pointed at the doorway and clicked his fingers to signal for him to leave the room he had just walked into, not even turning his head to look at his boy. The six year old stood in shock, wondering how Ben knew which twin it was without even having to look at him but he didn't dwell on it too much. His eyes darted to (Y/n) before he turned and scuttled out of the room, his footsteps heard as he bounded up the stairs. He didn't want to be around if Ben's temper was going to make an appearance.

"Ben don't talk to him like that!" (Y/n) snapped, moving her hand to press to her forehead as her expression fell. Rowan feared Ben in the way he wanted him to even when he had done absolutely nothing wrong, talking to him like that would put the little boy into shock.

"Don't change the subject he's fine. Why does it matter so much what I've got up to at work this time? Any time I bring up the club you switch off."

"It matters because Theo had his social worker round today- who by the way, you were meant to be home to see. And just as she was in the middle of giving me a lecture, the fucking police turned up looking for you!" Reaching out for one of the games consoles on the sofa, (Y/n) picked it up and launched it Ben's way. A look of annoyance and utter frustration took over her face when Ben caught the console with ease when she wanted it to hit him to show him how angry she was.

His eyes bubbled over with anger as he caught the console narrowly in both hands before it whacked into his jaw. The muscles around his jaw tightened and his arms tensed as he threw the console which bashed into the radiator and let an awful vibrating energy wave through the air.

"Don't start throwing shit at me (Y/n)! You know what I do you've been fine with this for over ten years so don't act all innocent now." Ben walked closer to (Y/n) but when he pointed his finger at her she batted his hand away and took another step back. If she threw things at Ben it would rile him up to the point he'd end up grabbing her or walking away because he really couldn't let himself hurt her when she was six months pregnant.

"Don't turn this around you jackass, I'm not pissed you used that gun because we both know you'd never stop if I asked you to. I'm fuming that the police came round when all our children were here and the social worker was around. The bitch heard them asking about you and the club, they knew something and it was scaring the twins. The social worker is gonna be coming round again and she wants to talk to you because she thinks something's going on at home and Theo's acting out or acting in your footsteps!"

(Y/n) bashed her fists into Ben's chest until he gripped her wrists very tightly and pulled her arms against his chest to get her to stop.

"You promised me the police wouldn't come round here for you but they did and all the boys saw. Now the school is going to think you're a bastard who abuses his family and Theo's taking after you and he probably does have your mean streak in his genes."

(Y/n) felt a jolt running through her when one of Ben's hands let go of her wrists so he could grip her chin in his hand. The thought of Theo taking after Ben made both their hearts jump into their throats because neither of them wanted that. Ben didn't always like the way he was but he would never change, but he didn't want Theo taking after his bad footsteps in the way of killing people or even threatening them. He didn't even want Theo getting into boxing and the thought of a bad streak running through any of his boys made Ben shiver in fright.

"Sit down and calm down." Ben's words were seething and his eyes were on fire as he turned (Y/n) to the side before pushing her to sit down on the sofa. This was their fourth pregnancy, they'd had rows and very heated arguments when (Y/n) was pregnant but one time it hadn't ended well at all and Ben wasn't having a repeat of that.

When (Y/n) sat down, Ben took a step away from the sofa before he started raking his fingers through his hair. The police hadn't come down to the club to find him so it wasn't as if they had any concrete proof he was the one who'd killed someone. And they clearly didn't think he was deeply involved if they hadn't come back to find him or searched round the clock for him. This might not even be to do with the person he had killed, it could be to do with a few dealings he'd done at work. It didn't seem serious so this wasn't a reason to panic, at least not yet.

"Whatever the police came round for, it wasn't because of who got murdered or they'd have gone to the club and arrested me already. It'll be something from the club, don't worry about it, I'll sort it."

(Y/n) felt the need to scoff at his words but she held back, not wanting his anger to rise any more than this. He'd better get it fixed, (Y/n) wasn't having the police come round again and they really didn't need anymore trouble happening with the social worker who seemed dead set against them already.

"You'd better sort it." (Y/n) responded grimly, biting down on her lip before she turned her head to the side, looking away from him.

"What did the social worker say?"

"Nothing useful. We've got to work on Theo's anger issues which he probably gets from you, it's probably best you didn't see her today after all." (Y/n) rubbed at her forehead before she pushed herself to her feet and headed out of the room. Her frame shivering when she heard Ben's footsteps following after her, hitting against the wooden panels harder than normal meaning he was far from happy or calm.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ben followed (Y/n) up the stairs, his hand griping the banister so tightly he could almost feel splinters prickling against his palm.

"It means that if she met you today she would see where Theo gets his temper from and you'd most certainly say something you shouldn't to her." (Y/n) didn't bother to turn around to look at Ben when she spoke, she simply headed up the stairs and made her way over to Beckett's room to see if the toddler was awake from his nap or not.

"You make me sound like some cruel bastard who doesn't give a shit about his kids."

Before (Y/n) had the chance to open Beckett's door Ben had taken her hand and pulled her into their room instead because this conversation wasn't over yet and it most certainly would be if Beckett was awake and wanted their attention.

"You know that's not what I'm saying, I'm simply stating that if you talked to her you would either seem uninterested or very pissed off at her and you'd end up kicking her out. Don't you remember Theo's last parents evening?" (Y/n) tilted her head to the side, her tone a lot calmer than before and her eyes showed she didn't want to argue anymore.

The last parents evening they had gone to, Ben had looked very unimpressed and rather bored at being there. When it was brought up about Theo's rising temper Ben had said they were sorting it and it wasn't a problem and he clearly put the teacher in her place in a merciless kind of tone. Ben was a good dad, he just wasn't the best when it came to other people trying to tell him how to parent his kids or getting in his way. Ben had his methods and parented how he wanted, he didn't take kindly to people trying to get involved and he didn't like bothering with meetings or school talk, he didn't have the time or the capacity to sit and listen to any of it.

"Yeah, I probably would because we don't need her hassling us and hanging around, Theo's a little shit at times but I'll snap him out of it. Look, I'm gonna sort everything with the police and the club, they won't be coming around again I swear. Can we forget all this now, please?"

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes sceptically but when Ben advanced on her and cupped her face in his hands, a smirk pulled at his lips before his lips smothered her own. (Y/n) couldn't fight off the smile that pulled at her lips as she just knew this would happen. Whenever he'd had enough of arguing or was trying to get (Y/n) to stop being mad at him, Ben turned to affection and sweet talking her to try and rectify things. It was a cheeky habit but it was one that almost always worked and they both knew it.

"You're lucky you're charming." (Y/n) muttered quietly when Ben's hands moved from her face to her hips but she broke free from his intoxicating grip when Beckett's whines could be heard.

"I've got him, you go see what Rowan wanted earlier." Ben mumbled, pecking her lips again before he left the room to go and see to Beckett. They both knew Beckett was attached to Ben at the hip and Ben hadn't seen him all day.

Heading into the smaller room, Ben's lips curved into a smile when he locked his eyes on Beckett who was standing up in his crib, gripping the side of the crib that he was desperately trying to see over. The moment his baby blue eyes locked on Ben's form, the whines ceased from his lips and a grin took over his features. An excited gasp elicited from his lips and he moved his arms out to reach for Ben who quickly leaned down to scoop him up.

"Come here mister, did you miss me?"

[minaminokyoko]

A Love Letter to ‘Knives Out’

Disclaimer: This isn’t even a review. This is literally just me freaking out about what a great movie I just bloody watched and I just need to vomit words everywhere about it. Sorry in advance.

I think the best thing ever is I went into this with zero information. I remember seeing the original trailer months ago, but it wasn’t detailed. Just the short one of the premise, and to be honest, I’m not really into Whodunits. Clue is one of the exceptions and Castle is the only detective-related thing I’ve ever liked and followed religiously (up until the final godawful two seasons), so I have no predisposition to even care about murder mysteries. But then Rian Johnson dangled the juicy carrot of Chris Evans playing against type (because we all know the man is a sweetie and I can personally vouch that he’s great at hugs) and so I decided to add it to my watchlist. Then the reviews came pouring in that it was great, which surprised me, and so I decided to take a leap of faith to see if the hype was real.

Oh God, was it ever.

Y’all know me by now. I’m a hard, cynical old bitch. It’s tough to impress me, but fucking hell, I really loved Knives Out.

It’s not that it does anything new; it’s that it is a fresh, creative spin on tropes we’re used to and it’s also the strong performances that just make it a delightful film. It’s kooky and dark and offbeat. It’s charming. It’s wonderfully political. It’s irreverent. This is the niche kind of writing that I adore. It’s why I’ve loved shows like Frasier or movies like Snatch. I love the interwoven mess between the plot and the characters and everything coming to light in a big explosion.

Spoilers down below for my talking points, naturally.

I want to start with Marta, simply because I love how this movie framed the character as innocent, but not stupid, useless, or weak. I love that she had a great relationship with Harlan. I love that Harlan didn’t have any evil ulterior motives. It was simply a man who looked around and realized that he thought he was providing for his family but all he really was doing was supporting selfish, downright cruel people. That family basically just siphoned off of him and had the entitlement complex that is currently killing this country right this fucking second. It was very satisfying when he left them nothing and gave Marta the money and the choice of what to do. The final shot of the movie is genius.

Which segways into probably my second favorite thing about the movie: the commentary about the entitled upperclass versus the working class immigrant. The whole Trump debate during the party made me groan because we all just wrapped up three holidays, so I know that people were having to go home for the holidays and listen to the broken-ass logic of their Trump supporter relatives. Especially since they dragged Marta into the bullshit conversation. I LOVE the writing of having this girl who busted her ass, who listened, who was a genuinely good person, still being able to be a good person in the end after one hell of an ordeal. I loved how the movie poked all kinds of holes in the fake narrative of inheritance and immigration and patriotism. Fuck that. This country isn’t some holy land. This country was stolen from the people who were born here and then they built a fake fucking pedestal on top of the mass graves and proclaimed it theirs. Fuck that revision history and fuck the people who believe these lies. This movie is so satisfying because it’s a giant middle finger to those people and it’s a reminder that the future is these hardworking, kind people who care about society and they are the ones who have earned all the good things this country has to offer.

I also love the examples of bigotry and microaggressions that were more subtle. The WASPs in this movie don’t even realize the backhanded compliments and the truly insulting shit that they do since they’re so entitled. For example, Richard handing Marta his plate while he was arguing for Trump. That’s brilliantly done. He thinks of her as a servant while he pretends she’s on equal footing: saying one thing and yet his actions prove the opposite. There’s also Meg’s comment of “we’re his REAL family,” showing that those bastards all will smile and welcome you until the second you cease to be useful to them and then they show you just how truly ugly they are beneath those “civil” masks. When the will was read, it was the exact shitshow we all knew it would be. That was a great representation of the upper class. It’s not about being loud and racist; it’s all those subtle, hideous things they do to suppress people of color and the working class so they can stay on top where they think they belong. This narrative is powerfully woven in that regard and I really needed to hear this story in today’s climate, especially since we just started 2020 today, which could be the end of everything all over again. I applaud the writing. As a woman of color, I see this kind of shit every single day, especially now that I work in higher education, so I really hope it opens more eyes to the shit that not only immigrants but working class POC deal with on a daily basis. I likened it to Zootopia, where you came to the movie for one reason but then you were served an absolutely piping hot side dish alongside the entrée. Well done, Knives Out. Well done.

I need to give a nod to this powerhouse cast as well. I forgot Michael Shannon was in this movie so seeing him made me giddy, as I’ve always liked him since he’s so damn sinister. He’s a great antagonist actor and I almost wish he’d been given more to do. Jamie Lee Curtis did great as well.

But y’all know what’s coming. I mean, look at my profile picture. You know I have to stop and talk about my future husband’s performance.

Chris Evans as a villain.

Not only that, but Chris Evans as a GREAT villain.

Oh, God, pass me the cigarette.

We all knew from his work in the MCU that the man can act his fine America’s ass off, but boy, did I really like his role here. I compare it to Chris Hemsworth in the godawful movie Bad Times at the El Royale, because while that is one of the worst movies of the decade, it was extremely smart in casting Hemsworth in the villain role. Why? Because it sold the believable factor. Chris Hemsworth is so handsome and charismatic that he COULD in fact be a creepy ass cult leader. You take one look at that man’s chest and tell me you wouldn’t fight a smelly hippie to jump in his bed. Damn right I’d be in a Chris Hemsworth cult. Point being, Chris Evans as the handsome but cruel Hugh was phenomenal. I really enjoyed seeing everything unfold. He did such a great job. It’s all the more satisfying knowing that in real life, he’s the cutest, sweetest goofball on earth. I’m so delighted he took this role because he knocked it out of the park.

Which brings me to my next point.

I’m gonna be a basic fangirl bitch for a second here. Just hear me out.

I’d LOVE an alternate ending to this movie where Hugh didn’t do it.

I know, I know. That’s super basic and dumb and I know part of it is because I just wanted to like Hugh anyway, but it actually would be a great piece of storytelling if you changed the ending.

In this premise, Marta really did mix up the bottles and accidentally killed Harlan. Well, what I would change is that Hugh really did have a benevolent epiphany and he decides to come back to stick it to his shitass family and he figures out what Marta did and decides to help her so she’ll slip him his cut. Then the rest of the film is Hugh and Marta trying to cover the rest of their tracks so that Blanc doesn’t piece together Marta’s accidental crime. Over the course of helping her, Hugh gets to know her and they become friends, so by the time they pull it all off—mind you, I’m ambiguous in this AU, I’d be fine if the detective works it out but lets them cover it up or if they actually manage to just destroy all the evidence so he can’t convict her and he admits defeat—he’s now invested and doesn’t accept the money when she goes to pay him. Bonus points if he falls in love with her during the cover up. It’s not necessary, but I saw a couple little sparks, so I think it would be very cute if Hugh and Marta hooked up to protect each other from the horrible family and build their own empire together. But that’s me.

Trust me, this movie is brilliant as written. It doesn’t need that alternate ending. But I have to admit it got my mind churning about what a fantastic character arc it could be if Hugh hadn’t been the bad guy and he and Marta learned things about each other and formed a friendship. I’m a writer, it’s kind of a hobby, sorry. I hope I’m not the only one who thought that, but we’ll see.

I’m so glad I started 2020 with this film. It’s a rare gem. I can’t wait for it to get on DVD, because I am gonna snag it asap and watch it again. What a romp. It’s also gratifying in a petty way that J.J. Abrams went out of his way to undo Rian Johnson’s work in the Star Wars franchise and it’s backfiring majorly critically speaking meanwhile Knives Out is getting bomb ass good reviews, so good for you, Rian. Your revenge is at hand. #TEAMPETTY

I can’t recommend this hard enough. If you love murder mysteries or if you just love Clue-style quirky black comedy, please see Knives Out. It’s worth every red dime, to quote the movie.

Kyo out.

[legobiwan]

So i was just daydreaming of SW and fics & i was imagining two characters on opposites sides of light and dark both trying to turn each other bc they think they are right(don’t they all?). But i feel like sidious and maul and plenty of sith knew that they weren’t necessarily the ‘good’ guys, no matter their reason for why they ended up on the dark side. I think sidious knew he wasn’t a good person & was well aware of the ‘bad’ nature of the darkside and how it can corrupt a person entirely 1/

I think dooku was as well even though he thought he was doing the right thing & making change. Even Anakin knew in his own twisted mindset that despite why he turned, he wasn’t on the side of the good guys no matter their reason for why they ended up on the dark side.I think sidious knew he wasn’t a good person&was well aware of the ‘bad’ nature of the darkside and how it can corrupt a person entirely. I think dooku was as well even though he thought he was doing the right thing&making change.2/

But how would you convince someone that turned bc they thought they could keep it controlled. Revan himself turned thinking he could prevent the darkside from corrupting him entirely&we see how that turned out. What about people who just genuinely think that they are more free (they aren’t) on the darkside and just want to BE on the darkside and think that it’s not inherently bad. Bc some sith fics make it sound not that bad but we know that it actually really is very bad by nature ¾

I guess my question is how does someone who thinks they can have everything they want and not loose themselves, who is ruled by the dark side to the point of sith eyes, become convinced that going that far isn’t actually the right path to be on? 4/4 Sorry this is so long

Wow, anon, this is…a complicated question. (And off-topic, but daydreaming about SW fics totally got me through some horrible jobs a few years ago. Star Wars daydreaming ftw.)

For me, it comes down to what your definition of “light” (read, good) is. And I think either side, light or dark, taken too far to one extreme ends up wrapping back to the other, a kind of ouroboros. Too much light, as we saw with the Jedi, can lead to dark consequences. Too much dark, in a weird way, will lead to revolt, to a balancing. 

It’s thermodynamics, taken to a philosophical extent, where your variables seek equilibrium but there is only so much energy to share between them, as it cannot be created nor destroyed. 

But let’s extricate ourselves from such tangled webs, shall we, and take this analysis character by character. 

Sidious: Sidious is an unrepentant, manipulative bastard. I mean, the absolute worst, the whole shebang. I doubt there would be anyone who would have had the ability to pull him into the “Light,” just the ability to thwart his plans. Evil genius, psychopath, bereft of empathy, etc. Let’s just say Rey’s existence, at least from the first generation, was likely not an act of love. 

Dooku: Oh Dooku. My favorite bad guy is a lot more complicated. His motivations were idealistic and to some degree, justified. The Republic and the Jedi were failing certain underrepresented systems, the Republic bloated on corruption and the Jedi more and more backing themselves into a protective corner until they had no room left to move. His execution of the whole thing…well, that’s where his hubris (and nihilism) led him astray. And I still contend we see this darkening of Dooku between AotC and RotS, especially in TCW. The dark side won in Dooku, pulled him under its tide so perhaps by the time of RotS he just wasn’t able to see - or admit - Sidious’s plans for him. 

Now, would Dooku have been redeemed? Yes, but only under circumstances and I would say he would less be redeemed than returned to grey status. 

But what would possibly convince our resident iconoclast to renounce some of his ways? 

Or more, who?

Qui-gon or Obi-wan. Or both. Lineage is so important to Dooku, a man who felt the loss of his family, who felt he was alone in the universe, who, unlike Anakin, went out of his way to avoid close connections, to relieve everything of his past except his title and all the expectations that came with it. I mean, imagine that. You are raised a Jedi, taught to believe attachment is, if not bad, at least problematic. And then you leave that religious order to return to your homeworld where you inherit a title and presumably a million problems and identities and histories that come with said title. And Dooku knows none of these people but to rule them, but he does know the ones he has raised and the ones who they raised. Which leads me to believe that an alive Qui-gon (who, let’s face it, wouldn’t have been 100% light side) and/or a more convinced Obi-wan (who should have listened to Dooku on Geonosis but that is a whole other discussion because that was a Hail Mary by Dooku and the more I think about it, the more I believe it was a ballsy-as-ass move on his part) might have convinced him to realign himself.

Anakin: Ohhhh, Anakin. Anakin, who fell because he felt he had to, in order to save everyone he loved. Anakin, who was burdened with false expectation after a traumatic childhood. Anakin, who made so many bad choices and it’s both his fault and not his fault, a tragic combination of circumstance and proclivity. The thing is, we know Anakin is torn between the light and the dark, even after he turns. Anakin as Vader is kind of like the person who says, “Oh I ate 2 cookies, might as well eat the whole bag because nothing matters.” (Side note, I am a total supporter of eating the whole bag of cookies if that is the heart’s truest desire. Speaking as someone who has downed many bags of cookies in their lifetime.) Anyway, it’s the mindset that’s the problem. And Anakin does redeem himself in the end, when he finds something/someone to fight for and fight against and isn’t that so him, always fighting against something?

Look, dark side characterizations are fun. But there’s always something else behind it, and it is a big deal to abandon your principles, your ideals, your health, your everything to this festering, opaque disease that lives in your deepest gut and at times takes the controls, much to your horror (except if you are Sidious, in which case, the horrible darkness is always at the controls and that is by design). I, personally, like to explore the darker sides of these characters but also the why - what made them fall, why are they hurting, and what is the fallout of their actions?

Yes, it’s easy to hate, to fear - I mean, we see this in the real world on an everyday basis. What’s less easy is to be alone, and I mean truly alone. And I think minus extreme examples like Sidious (who, let’s admit, created clones to cheat death and kept a vast amount of servants so even he was not ever truly alone). If I might get a little existential for a moment, what I like about Jedi philosophy (and in all seriousness, I had a major breakdown about this a few years back and Jedi philosophy, weirdly enough, was a large part in saving my sanity) is that we are never alone, that we are all part of the Force, of life, of the breath and heartbeat of the universe no matter what corporeal form we take or not. The Sith see themselves as alone, but as we can observe, so many of them are motivated by connection, could possibly be spurred to change by connection in the correct circumstances. 

And by this, I don’t mean the Jedi were 100% correct. I feel like the version of the Jedi we got by TCW had been pushed to some extremes due to the Ruusan Reformation (gdi, that had better get recanonized, asap, because it is a pivotal moment and a HUGE explanation of why the Jedi ended up as they were by the time the Prequels rolled around and it makes So Much Sense), the emergence of Dooku, the war, etc.) There is something to be said about the Grey Jedi, not that they necessarily embraced light and dark - but perhaps so - but that they did not fall to one extreme or the other. And this is where I feel Qui-gon succeeded over many other of his peers, despite his myriad of other personality flaws. Possibly this was why he was able to access the Whills and pass on what he had learned, to the point of where we see Yoda in TLJ, who is a lot more philosophical about everything than he had been in life. 

So to answer your question - there is no making someone turn back to the light, as much as there is any way of forcing a sentient being to do anything. Once can only pave the way and forge relationships, and the rest is up to that person. I think a lot of our Sith friends knew they were going down a dark path but also saw no alternative and felt a need to vindicate themselves, to strike out in anger against their circumstances. I get it, I think we all have that urge sometimes. And I suppose the answer might come in having something to fight for as opposed to fight against, as ridiculous as that sounds. 

But then again, I am but a simple lego floating around the internet. :)

[linkspooky]

Thanks for the tags @jeanandthedreamofhorses

Rules:

Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people. 

I’m gonna tag @kenkamishiro @inumaqi @bloodycarnations @kaibutsushidousha @desmondneedshisscalpel @harostar @cirrocumulus-cloud @coromoor @sir-argues-a-lot (list your top 10 buff dudes conspic)

Hello my name is link and my faves for each series can be divided into two strict categories, white haired bastards, and black haired bastards. Blonde is just white haired bastard LITE. Herre are ten of my favorite bastards. 

1. Kumagawa Misogi - Medaka Box

 My favorite character of all time, Kumagawa Misogi is a fantastic character because he embodies every bad victim stereotype. He’s aggressive, he lashes out, he blames other people for his problems, he has a bad attitude, he’s pessimistic, he’s ugly, he’s mean. He has every single character trait that people traditionally consider bad, and yet underneath it all he’s still a good guy. By playing the bad victim (which is intentional act on his part because Kumagawa is very self aware especially of his own flaws and weaknesses), he makes the point that all victims even the ugliest ones are still human underneath. 

Like the reason Kumagawa is a bad person isn’t because he’s selfish, or because he doesn’t care about other people’s pain. He cares. He cares way too much, to the point where his emotions are so deeply ingrained in him and so illogical that he almost always acts on those feelings above everything else. At his heart he’s a person who wants to save others, especially those who are weaker and those who have been abused, but it always manifests in the most negative ways and his good intentions always go wrong. 

Yet through all of that we see Kumagawa continues living, and that’s the most important part of his character, even as the worst person ever, even completely useless, even as a disaster for everyone around you, you have to keep living and keep struggling to be better. Kumagawa finds identity in being a loser, and he comes to accept himself the way he is because that’s the only way for him to move forward. Not only that but Kumagawa is clever and genuinely subversive, not only is he capable of outwitting people because he’s so good at bluffs, lies, and he’s just so used to surviving every situation that his brain is stuck in permanent survival mode, but he also subverts the whole ‘weak character has to become stronger to protect the people around them’ trope. Because, Kumagawa is still weak but that never stops him from helping others. He never thinks becoming strong is the solution, and his character development is him leaving the mindset that it would be better if he was the one hurting others rather than being hurt by them. 

2. Enoshima Junko - Dangan Ronpa my favorite Junko is not actually her appearance at the end of DR1, or in DR3, or in DR2 as alter ego though all three of those are fanastic and fun to watch. My favorite reading of Junko is how she’s represented in Dangan Ronpa Zero, as this like, girl who has this incredibly overactive brain who literally makes a plan where she lobotomizes herself because the only way to stop herself from getting bored is to erase her own memory so she constantly forgets everything, and even THAT DOESN’T WORK. 

I’m not saying Junko is a tragic character in any way, but the fact that she can never escape her own head no matter how desperately she tries is what makes her interesting. Even her obsession with despair fails her in the end, because she was getting too bored of a world that was exactly what she wanted, pure chaos. If you read her that way there’s a lot of interesting subtext with her character and her actions. 

The best part about Junko is she’s not what is considered a fictional psychopath in a traditional sense, she actually has the ability to make connections with people and genuinely care about them. However, with Junko that just means you’re going to be worse off then if she did not care about you at all. Junko’s motivations are so simple, she really is just trying to enjoy the life everybody else does, but she can’t because her brain is a supercomputer. And she’s trying to feel something about the world, or create some meaning about the world, some reason to continue living in it and she’s willing to break the world and all her toys to accomplish that. 

3. Dazai Osamu - Bungou Stray Dogs No Longer Human, and The Rising Sun two of Dazai’s works are in my top ten favorite books of all time. Bungou Stray Dogs understands the writings of Dazai when they personify him in this character. 

What makes Dazai so fantastic a character is that he’s genuinely mentally ill and traumatized, especially from the way he acts he’s been suicidal since he was a teen and a person is not born that way. Yet, at the same time he’s also a bad person. Which is a fantastic bit of nuance. He’s not bad because he’s mentally ill, he’s bad because he runs away from responsibility, he abused Akutagawa as a way of venting his feelings for the port mafia then completely abandoned him, he doesn’t trust people and goes out of his way to manipulate and control his own allies. 

Dazai struggles the most with seeing people as people, and part of this is for what I call Junko Reasons when a character is smarter than everybody around them and therefore, can read them to a certain extent that they become predictable and boring and cannot relate to them in any way. Part of this however is also Dazai’s own fear of loss, which makes him want to control everything. 

Rather than an adult, he’s more like a child that’s far too smart for his own good. He is smart enough to predict and control situations far in advance, and yet he’s so emotionally vulnerable that just the idea of experiencing loss itself makes him scared to ever be emotionally invested in anybody. And Dazai will spout philosophy all day to make it seem like he’s simply too smart to have friends, but his one sincere friend was just an average person that became his friend because he treated Dazai like a normal human which is what Dazai wants ultimately. The human failure wants to be human and his story is his slow journey to that state. 

4. Shigaraki Tomura - My Hero Academia Horrible. Terrible. Baby. Infant. Shigaraki Tomura is a character I have loved since his introduction. Just like Kumagawa he’s a character always violently lashing out at the society around him. Also like Kumagawa, he’s always taking in victims of trauma around him who aren’t ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ victims and giving them an outlet and genuine friends. 

Shigaraki Tomura has scars that reach deep under his skin all the way to his bones. One of the most interesting things about his character is how much of a subversion he is from the way he’s originally presented. All Might reacts to Shigaraki like he’s a psychopathic manchild who does not care about a thing and destroys things for no reason. That is also what All for One raised him to be, someone who exists to be a symbol of destruction and fear and nothing else. 

Yet, we eventually learn why he is this way and how little sympathy the hero system has for a victim like Shigaraki. He’s a man-child because he was literally raised in All for One’s basement, only for the purpose of becoming a villain and nothing else. He’s deeply angry at heroes because he knows deep down none of them would save him, he’s a bad victim, and only the good looking victims get saved. 

Despite having every reason to turn into a heartless symbol of destruction, Shigaraki is very, obviously, not. He’s trying desperately to be All for One, but he can’t be that person, because Shigaraki cares about people too much. He wants validation, he wants freedom, and he wants the same for the people under his protection and that keeps him human and stops him from turning into the monster he was raised to be. 

5. Norman - The Promised Neverland so the exact opposite of a villain who cannot help but be good, we have Norman an undeniably good person who chose to become a villain instead because otherwise he was powerless and that was the only means of accomplishing his high ideals. 

Norman is the smartest of the gracefield children, and admired by both Ray and Emma and yet in spite of all of this, his self esteem is incredibly low. He has always put Emma on a pedestal and declared her a good person, and himself the bad person. Due to that he has almost no dreams of his own, and desires almost nothing for himself, putting absolutely everything into making the ideal world that Emma envisioned come true. 

Norman regularly denies that he is a human being, a common trend on this list, because to be human is to be fallable and make mistakes. He puts far too much pressure on his shoulders, and that turns sensitive, kindly Norman, into a card carrying manipulator that plays high risks games with people’s lives in order to get the best result. He is at the same time, an angel someone wanting to martyr himself for heavenly ideals, and a devil someone who wants to commit evil so Emma’s hands can stay clean and Norman is so complex because he’s simultaneously both at once. 

6. Orihara Izaya - Durarara!! Sometimes you just grow up and become an Izaya stan, and you reflect back and regret every single choice you made in life. Orihara Izaya is interesting not because he’s a card carrying mastermind, but because he pretends to be. 

Izaya’s image as someone who can manipulate all of Ikebukuro is something that far outstrips who he is as a person, which is just a very sensitive and lonely child. Izaya is basically too sensitive to love anybody as an individual, or even be an individual himself, so he denies the personhood of all of humanity and instead decides to love humanity. Because accepting everything about humanity and being happy no matter what the result is easier for him than having to deal with individual hardships. He basically wants to become an observer to everybody, and wants to no longer have a body, or be a person, or have to have feelings that aren’t a bemused smirk. 

Izaya is however, extremely transparent in his actions to the point where several characters can see through him. It’s interesting to have a mastermind-type character whose actually not that much of a mastermind, but still because everybody sees them as one things generally go their way. Izaya is great at lying, bluffing, and playing speed chess but he never really has the city in his palms as much as he claims. 

Another interesting quality about him is how complex he thinks and all these little rules he sets up for himself. Basically his only friend is Shinra because, Shinra is guaranteed never to love Izaya because he already has Celty, and yet at the same time Izaya also gets mad that 1) Shinra will always choose Celty over him and 2) Shinra is too detached to love anyone as a person. Even though, he also envies that detachment because Izaya is too sensitive basically to live. In short Izaya is petty. Petty, petty, petty, petty, petty, and he has to follow his own petty little rules to the letter. 

7. Takizawa Seidou - Tokyo Ghoul: Re he starts as a lovable, but repressed bastard who has all this resentment for his life, and the people around them, and constantly blames them and takes it out on them. Overall though, he’s someone you can see turning into a better person if he just grew up a little.

Then instead of getting better, he gets way worse and hits absolute rock bottom. All of the ugly emotions that Seidou was repressing come to the surface and he turns into a monster who makes other people suffer to take out his long held resentments about the world. Not only that but all of the flaws he shows as a ghoul were there to begin with, he always had an inferiority complex, he always resented others, he always lashed out, it was just they were brought to the surface instead of being repressed. 

Seidou however after hitting rock bottom gains awareness, and also the realization that even after he’s crossed the point of no return a long time ago, he can still continue to live and do improve himself. Not only that but it’s his resposnbility to improve himself for the sake of the others around him. 

One of my favorite parts about his character is he used to be an example of how great Ishida was at not playing Good Victim Bad Victim because Seidou is introduced to us as this monster who went insane because he was ‘weaker’ than Amon who stayed righteous despite being ghoulified. Until we learn that actually, Seidou went insane because he took a chainsaw to the face, and Amon was just saved by other people and never endured the same, and therefore never even attempted to come to terms with himself as a ghoul either. 

One of my reasons for liking bastards is because they are all objectively terrible, but most of them also have such a deep sense of self understanding so that the ones who have positive arcs, actually feel like they’re very honest about who they are as a person and grow from there. They just genuinely accept who they are and live as who they are not in denial about anything. Rather than following a narrative blindly laid out for them they break free and create their own. 

8. Kiryu Yoshiya - The World Ends With You If there is a death game for some reason I always end up liking the mastermind the most. Kiryu Joshua is this child, who is just, too smart, too creative, too much for the world. When he’s pretending to be human that just turns him into a pretentious tool. When he’s the demigod of Shibuya, that means he might destroy the entire city because the people aren’t growing in the way he wants them too.

Joshua is very unique because he’s basically the closest to what I call a “Junko Enoshima for Hope” he places people in terrible death game like circumstances, and shows little empathy at all for the ones who lose, but at the same time his intention is to give a second chance for people who have died, and also to steer people in the right direction. 

In a meta sense Joshua will basically force you to have character development. The fact that he sees himself as the author in other people’s stories means he has to control everything. It’s a unique character trait to have a god complex when you are a literal god. 

Despite his good intentions, he’s also very flawed especially in the way he treats people around him, even the ones he likes like Neku and Sanae. He enjoys pushing their buttons, and pushing them to their limits far too much, and makes attempts to control them like any other piece on the board. Joshua is also, suicidally depressed and a lot of his musings about the world in general are some of the most tragic but insightful thoughts I’ve ever read. The fact that Joshua changes his mind at the end, is basically just as impactful as watching someone give life another chance when they wanted to die, because for Joshua, Shibuya is his life. 

9. Jack Vessalius - Pandora Hearts it’s another mastermind yay. The fun thing about Jack is unlike most of these characters who are like, halfway broken, Jack is just this extremely broken person whose far beyond the point of no return. Not only that but he’s not interested in living as a person anymore anyway, even if he were given the chance to come back. 

Jack has worn masks his entire life, to the point where it’s made him an incredibly selfish person who is never genuine in any situation. A child who has told lies all of his life. At the same time Jack is not the one who got himself started on this path, he’s a victim to the cruel and uncaring ways of the nobility, as a bastard being raised with his mother destroying any sense of identity he had by only seeing his father in him. Jack is in a way for them, a reckoning. 

Except Jack does not care about any of that, because his entire goal is to go to extremes, and make the most convoluted plan in history, because he wants to find a reason for himself to keep living. When the person he was using as a reason to live dies, he decides to destroy the world for basically no reason at all, because the act of trying to destroy the world gives him something to do and a reason to keep on living. 

Jack needs to find identity in something, otherwise he’s entirely empty on the inside and he’s exactly the tool the nobility raised him to be. Which is why he ends up doing all of these things for basically no reason, because that is his reason. He wants to feel things like a person. He wants to desire things like a person. He wants to know who he is, and what he wants. And yet, he’s also so terribly afraid of being a person that he does not let anybody get close to being able to understand him.

In the end one person accepting Jack as a person in spite of all of his lies, and saying they were happy to meet him is enough for Jack to give up all of his plans and instead offer his body up to others. 

10. Accelerator - A Certain Magical Index Accelerator is such a fave for me that I will literally go out of my way to read a series that I’m not even a fan of because Accelerator is in it. 

What I like about accelerator is he is pretty much past the point of no return, and he knows he’s never going to be forgiven for what he’s done and yet that doesn’t stop him. He’s not doing this for atonement. He killed 10,000 sisters and he’s going to save the other 10,000 that are remaining. And he knows he should have done that from the start, but it’s too late to take back a single thing he did. 

Accelerator is just this fantastically messy character. He plays the villain, but secretly nobody desires more for heroes and justice to exist in this world than Accelerator himself. We see him finally motivated to help others, because even if he’s a bastard, and will always be a bad person marked for what he’s done, that’s no excuse not to do something when somebody innocent needs help in front of you. 

He’s also, genuinely traumatized, and also genuinely disabled. He goes from this untouachable character to like, someone who is very desperate, with a very fragile sense of ego whose constantly reliving his trauma and having flashbacks in the middle of fights. Accelerator is so genuinely plagued with guilt for what he’s done it almost destroys him several times. And he’s never going to stop feeling that way. He’s never going to stop being broken. And still he fights. 

11. Jacopo Bearzatti - House in Fata Morgana I know this is cheating but sssh, I wanted to talk about Jacopo. He’s the best bastard on this list because he’s not even a bastard. 

Jacopo is someone who breaks himself into fragments because he’s not good enough. He’s always born in an incredibly low position in life, and is always trying to make something worthwhile of himself. He views himself as a person lower than dirt, whose only good quality is how hard he can work. One of them is going to break, either the world, or Jacopo himself. 

Jacopo’s heart is either made of stone or glass and it’s impossible to tell from an outsider’s perspective, because he’s able to commit himself to doing incredibly heartless things, but at the same time Jacopo is far too kind and emotional and it’s something that destroys him over and over again. Jacopo is someone who always takes far too much responsibility, which means he will forgive other people who have betrayed him, see the humanity in his friends when they turn knives against him, but because of that he ends up being hurt over and over again. Jacopo kills his own heart not because he’s unkind, but because he’s too kind and empathic, and it’s something that will literally get him killed unchecked. 

However, the amount of responsibility that Jacopo takes is ultimately what turns his character from a tragic downfall to a redeeming one, because reincarnation Jacopo is willing to take responsibility for two lifetimes worth of mistakes that were not even his. Ultimately Jacopo does genuinely want to do right by the people around him, which means if they do not want him he would force himself to let go because it’s not just about his atonement but the victim’s feelings as well, but if they wanted him he would spend the rest of his life working for the sake of both of them. Jacopo’s realization at the end of this story, because I want to see it too. Is one of the most touching things I’ve read in all of literature. 

Honorable Mentions: Reiner - Attack on Titan, Akechi Goro - Persona Five, Subaru Natsuki - Re: Zero, Emiya Shirou - Fate Stay Night, Kaworu Nagisa - Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ryoji Mochizuki - Persona 3, ii-chan -Zaregoto, Squall Leonhar - (FF8)

[foxymuses]

an incomplete list of headcanons for sirius black:

there was a period of about 6-8 months between running away/being disowned and receiving his uncle’s inheritance when sirius had absolutely nothing to his name but the misc junk he’d shoved in a bag when he left the house to go to james. the potters, ignoring sirius’ claims they didn’t have to, bought him a moderate amount of items including but not limited to clothes, school materials, and various items for the room he’d already claimed at their house. when his inheritance kicked in, he tried to pay them back. they refused.

sirius was always more afraid of his father than his mother (which is the opposite of regulus). the reason is that his mother was more concerned with appearances outside the family, but was content to simply act as if sirius didn’t exist when they were at home, which was fine for both of them (and on some occasions, the worst that would happen is she’d scream and yell and be generally unpleasant, and true she’d be the one to force a hair cut or destroy his ‘revolting’ muggle/gryffindor items). however his father was the disciplinarian. his father rarely raised his voice, but was the first to raise a hand or wand to correct behaviors or punish misbehaviors, and though sirius would stand up for himself and was not scared into silence, there were many instances where he would show up to the potters in the middle of the night, or return from mandatory holidays during the school year, with signs of magically induced injury.

following that, sirius is always the first to jump to the defense of others, completely disregarding his own safety or the danger of the situation, and has been known to laugh in the face of those that think they can fight him, and generally doesn’t react to anyone who rises to attack him either verbally or physically, but whenever his father even shifted slightly, sirius would tense and brace, and there were several instances in public where a disagreement would start and though often the marauder’s were nearby and out of ear shot, they’d know things were going poorly because sirius, who never ever shows fear to anyone, would flinch

it’s clear from prisoner of azkaban that sirius could have escaped at any point. all he did was become padfoot and get past the dementors who weren’t looking for or caring about animals (literally his words). there is no true reason he had to wait twelve years except for dramatic story telling. that being said, the shock of the situation prevented any of this from logically settling in his mind for the first few weeks, and then after that, the dementors and their constant soulsucking presence did make it easier for sirius to blame himself for james and lily dying. he convinced them to make their secret keeper peter instead of him, he didn’t try hard enough to keep them safe, he should’ve actually killed peter, fuck what’s happening to harry, where is he, does anyone care about him, is he being taken care of, what’s remus doing, does remus think sirius did it, does remus hate him, is remus okay, it’s another full moon please let remus be okay, fuck if he gets out he’s going to strangle peter --- on and on, and it definitely gave him a huge amount of guilt on his shoulders, and regret, and despair, and while i personally don’t think it would have taken him 12 years to finally fucking decide to leave, it definitely did take several, especially since telling time within the walls of azkaban is near impossible

ON THAT NOTE, HOWEVER, it is this very guilt and anger that allowed him to muster the determination to finally fucking escape. even amidst all this guilt and fear and sorrow, sirius was strong enough to stay sane under the influence of the dementors and his own perceived failure, that he consciously made the decision to trick his way out. it was this very fury he felt towards peter and the injustice that he suffered because of his coward of a supposed best friend that fueled sirius’ ability to withstand the trails of being a prisoner at the worst wizarding prison. once his guilt subsisded enough for pure unadulterated hate to seep in, it was just a matter of deciding the best time to stage an escape

I REPEAT, I DO NOT BELIEVE IT TOOK HIM 12 YEARS at most, i would figure, personally, it happened in four or five. which, while following my canon divergent main verse, would still allow time for sirius to clear his name and fight for custody of harry, which he does successfully, by my canon, when harry is about seven. SO EVEN IF sirius isn’t instantly cleared as my main verse would like, he still winds up a single dad.

he has horrible nightmares after azkaban, regardless of when he gets out or how long he was there or whether he ends up raising harry. i personally would have it so that he and remus end up living together, both because sirius has his inheritance to support them, and because they’re the last two marauders and trusting others is hard for sirius to come by after everything, so living with remus is Safe and Easy, and he does everything he fucking can to make up for all the full moons he missed, but regardless of how Hard he tries to get back to some semblance of a normal life, he has severe ptsd from prison and he doesn’t sleep well and he doesn’t eat much and he drinks more (in verses where he doesn’t have custody) and he smokes a shit ton more and he spends more time as padfoot than he does as a human because being a dog is just so much simpler and he has fewer worries, and remus is fucking worried as shit about him because sirius was always the strongest of the four of them (fight me on this i dare you) and to see the confident, arrogant, and generally easy-going carefree rebel that was sirius black in school turned into a jumpy, irritable, shattered shell of himself is hard and sirius never truly recovers from that damage, he just gets better at hiding it, and he does a hell of a lot better at healing when he does have custody of harry because harry gives him purpose in a way that remus can’t.

when sirius inevitably comes across peter again, he does try to kill him. whether he genuinely fails or subconsciously stops himself because peter, as much as sirius resents and hates and would love to grind him into little rat pieces, was a friend and was someone sirius trusted and cherished and would have protected with his life, and no matter how much he very much wants to kill the bastard, he can’t

shifting gears a bit, but sirius had never and still doesn’t really see himself ever getting married. he never even wanted kids until harry came around, and even then, the only kid he’ll ever have is in my canon divergency where he raises harry himself. in that verse he is more open to a co-parenting relationship (re: when he’s with @gavrele‘s gabe, or if he were to be with remus or another marauder’s era character who survived either by au or in canon), which can be considered romantic or merely a mutual desire to raise this orphaned child, but in that instance, he still probably wouldn’t want marriage, because it makes him seriously uncomfortable just thinking about it, and at the very most he would just agree to mutually wear signifying rings but not actually make it official, so that way if at any point he does feel weird about it he won’t feel bad about taking the ring off for a few days until the feeling passes

he learns of regulus’ dying while he’s in azkaban and listen canon sirius was very ‘meh’ about the whole deal, which really pisses me off, so my sirius was very torn. and it doesn’t help that most people just write reggie off as disappearing, they don’t know the story, they just assume he died in the war or voldemort disposed of him or something, doesn’t matter, he learns that regulus is gone, and his father is gone, and his mother ends up dying shortly before he gets out, and sirius is alone really and truly, and when he returns home for the first time in years, he manages to convince kreacher to explain the situation because even if he doesn’t particularly like kreacher, they both loved regulus, and sirius crafts a makeshift grave for his brother which he visits reguluarly, and though he doesn’t usually say much except “hey reg”, the first time he broke down sobbing because he tried so hard to get regulus to see the right side of the war, but he didn’t try hard enough, and he should’ve worked harder to keep reg safe, what an awful brother he was, he only ever thought of himself, if he just took regulus with him when he ran away maybe they could’ve avoided this, fuck he’s sorry he fucked up, he’s so proud that regulus stood up to voldemort in the end, he doesn’t care if it was for selfishness or fear or whatever, he’s so proud, he wishes regulus would know how proud he is

he actively keeps harry as safe as possible, doesn’t let half the shit that happens happen to him, fully supports and listens to him whenever the kid says ‘something is going on”, talks with him through it, tells him all the stories of james and lily that he can, never treats harry as less than his own blooded son because to him harry is his son, but he also never tries to replace james with himself, and harry knows how much sirius loved james and lily and how sirius only wants harry to be safe and happy, and merlin did he cry the first time harry called him dad and told him that he knows sirius isn’t his real dad but its okay to have more than one dad, he still loves james too he just loves sirius as much, and when he saw sirius almost crying, he asked if that was okay, and sirius could not express how absolutely perfect that was and later when talking to remus, remus had to hold a conflicted sirius for at least half an hour because he adored the idea but god he misses james so much, he wishes this wasnt the situation but it is and fuck it hurts (remus is uncle, by the way)

he literally stands between snape and harry, and dumbledore and harry, and does not let lucius anywhere near harry (and only allows cissa after a tentative no-children meeting, where they agree to not be enemies but rather awkward cousins like they are, and sometimes even let draco and harry play together) and harry is raised knowing about the prophecy, and since he’s raised in the wizarding world he’s not a commodity, by the time he starts hogwarts, everyone has kind of gotten over the hype so he can be mostly normal, and yeah strange things keep happening but the second harry tells sirius (because harry is raised in an open and loving environment where talking about things is encouraged), sirius does shit about it, and yeah voldemort wasn’t vanquished, he is still waiting, and sirius can’t be everywhere, but when harry says voldemort is back, sirius fucking rallies and essentially one-man-armies the ministry into fucking doing something about it because he lived through that hell in his last few years of hogwarts, he lost friends to it, he is not going to watch it happen again and nothing is going to hurt harry period

naturally, this means he doesn’t die in the department of mysteries because when the dreams start happening, harry talks about them with him, and they work it out together.

sirius doesn’t get a job because he doesn’t need one, and all of harry’s inheritance from james is purely harry’s, sirius doesn’t touch an ounce of it, and in fact regularly adds to it of his own inheritance, but sirius is seen roaming random places offering assistance, usually in regards to muggle nonsense (think hands on mechanics stuff) because he’s good at it and he doesn’t know what to do with his time, but he never lets them pay

he helps fund the weasley’s prank store. ron is a little odd, and hermione is sometimes annoying, and boy does he have a soft spot for neville because sirius knows about his parents, and you can bet that rather than lifting the map from filch, sirius straight up gave it to fred and george, and remus later confiscated it from his now-permanent DADA position (or whatever position remus wants, tbh) and sirius got an earful before telling remus he knew the other would give it back to them, which he did

i could continue but i should probably start another post to do so SO THERE YOU ARE

[nyanzaya]

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Send Me A URL and I’ll Respond With My Opinions… Im a week late or something bro - Still accepting

Roleplaying/Writing

My favorite muse(s) of theirs and why: OH GOSH BRO. LISTEN. I don’t interact with like, a lot of your boys and I feel the bad but I really like Haru because uh, he’s your baby and you write him so well and I also like Makoto even though I like, forgot to reply to that starter... I ADORE IKUYA? HE’S ADORABLE? AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW HE ISN’T DONE WITH EVERYONE’S BS. SAME WITH THAT ONE GUY YOU HAVE AND THAT OLD MAN GUY WHO I SAID HIS VINE IS ’YOU CANT KILL ME IM A BAD BITCH” LIKE WHY ARE THEY SO FUNNY TO ME I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. I love love LOVE your Izaya like, I cry at night and work when I think about him and then I think about IzaIza and don’t...don’t ask me if I’m okay. Because I’m not. I’m not okay. My favorite interaction/thread of theirs: Bro... the interactions between Yukine and that one Izaya? It’s so amusing. Then literally anything with the otp3 you have I just-- can’t recall their blog names atm but it’s with Haru and Rin and you use Ikuya. Can’t even LIE anything with the old man guy and that one guy who was like ‘if you kiss more than 6 times you’s not friend an’more’ LOL LIKE PLEASE. For us like, I gotta say the Iza/Izaya interactions idk they are like our oldest ship, I think they are like 4 or 5 years old which is, uhm, wild? It feels like....they hadn’t actually gotten to do much together but that’s because Izaya just “Bye bitch” a lot and other things. Even though I also really liked the stuff we had with Haru/Iza too, it as pure. My thoughts on their unique characterization/interpretation of their muse(s): I’ll start with Haru because, what the fuck. What the FUCK BRO. I never, ever in my entire life watched Free! Never have, not sure if I will but literally you make me love Haru and I don’t even know his whole like, story bro. How you do that? Like; wtf. You got me to love a character I thought I’d never really care about because the way you write him is so? fucking? impressive? BELIEVE ME. I always thought Haru was just a stoic guy that every anime needs because ‘oh we need a silent type’ but bro... You write him to be so much more. He is still quiet/silent hell yeah but, holy shit. You actually make it fucking interesting? LIKE? EXCUSE ME? Your use of body language and soft sounds is amazing! I honestly really appreciate it a lot, considering the fact my muses (mostly Iza) rely on reading body language quite a bit to understand another person. You just know how to write it so naturally and beautifully into a character like Haru who doesn’t use much words. Then fucking Izaya. Holy fuck. I absolutely ADORE your Izaya so much because it FEELS like it’s Izaya? Like, listen. He probably is very different from how he was years ago but he still has the soul and heart of a true bastard sad man who loves humanity. He’s so fun to write with and I always get so happy to write with him like; it’s a god damn privilege to me to get to write with him? Like I never thought I’d ever get to write with him because ya know, I was a personal blog before I actually started Rping and lmfao our meeting was so funny. You spam liked my blog because it was literally just full of drrr and quotes and I was like “This has to be a sign. they gotta like me because they followed me right have WHAT DOES THIS MAKE US?” And I did it back I think. LMFAO IT WAS SO DUMB BUT THAT’S HOW WE GOT TO TALKING. Listen kids, if you want someone’s attention literally spam like about 40 posts and follow them right after. It’ll definitely send the signal that you want to talk to them.  My thoughts on their writing style as a whole: UGH PLEASE YOU BLESS ME AND EVERYONE WHO READS It. YOU MIGHT NOT THINK ITS GOOD BUT IT IS OKAY? ITS GREAT! YOU LITERALLY HAVE A GREAT WAY WITH WORDS BRO Situation(s)/Plot(s) I’d love to see their muse(s) in: Bro... I don’t even know... but maybe an AU Transitior, like you remember that game right? LOL Maybe Haru as Red? And Rin as the sword? or the other way around?? :eyes:  Someone else I love seeing them interact with: oh god I can’t even decide because all of them make me just aaaaaa but prob anything with freestyleharu Anything else I want to say about their roleplaying: BRO. Your writing is inspirational, easy to follow and it’s fun to read. You are definitely doing something right and I’m just?? Proud of you :”> 

If We Know Each Other

What I Think Are Their Best Qualities: fun to chat with? Crazy fun ideas. Communicative once comfortable. A meme lord.  What I Think Are Their Strengths: In terms of personality, I can’t even tell you because we are so ride or die I don’t even know. I just love how we can talk about anything and it’s not weird or awkward. In terms of Rp; being able to work with pretty much any idea. Good at winging threads, especially if it’s a first interaction. Super friendly! Unless you are their close friend then they mean, but in that good way. A Memorable OOC Interaction Of Ours:

This sums up our entire relationship 

Why Others Should RP With Them: If you want someone who would be as excited about a thread as you are, Vati is your boy. He has so many muses too from various fandoms so there’s so many things that could happen! All you have to do is just, know which muse you want to interact with and then jump in and Vati will literally return the favors right quick How Others Should Approach Them: Despacito memes in the DMs. That’s it. Or liking all their posts and then following them like they done to me then I guess that works too LOL be friendly with him and he’ll return it so fast it’s like you guys was friends from a past life. Other Roleplayers I’d Recommend To Them: Bro.... I don’t even know okay. I think you already follow everyone I rp with so I can’t recommend anymore LMFAO Anything else I want to say about them: I love you bitch, I ain’t never gonna stop loving you. Bitch. 

If We Have/Plan To Interact Together

A plot I’d like to write with them: Fuck plot lmfao. There isn’t really a plot I have in mind? I mean... I guess something with Iza’s v; grand finale verse but he does die in that one. I wouldn’t even know which muse would even deal like Izaya could but *laughtrack.wav* or maybe a plot with Iza and Haru but legit, no idea what plot. My brain keeps going back to Izabel LOL and that plot you kept sending me with the whole airplane crash and not revealing if Ringabel was on it or not. A muse I want to introduce to them: I think you already know all my muses? At least my active ones, like Zuo and our cursed content son Iza. There’s Aiko and Asher(zuo’s mom and then the kid he adopted) but i think you know them already. There’s also...Kata(Iza’s mom) but she’s like no where to be found lol. Iza’s kittens(Axel, Akira, Leon) But I don’t think any of your muses would want to deal with his kits LOL. Then there’s Mira who’s Iza in a future life and Vui who’s Iza’s pet cat. Course there’s Iza’s two life masters but i don’t really know about them xD A ship/broship I’d like to propose to them: I think Haru and Iza are kind of already a broship that could turn into something shippy probably and I think with Zuo and Gou they kind of are bros. Tbh I think either of my boys could be good or okay friends with any of your muses? Even the request ones but i don’t even know LOL Ship wise, like I guess Makoto and Iza would be cute AF tbh A thread with them I’m excited about: Our IzaIza one as always LOL then, because I remember you wrote me a thing with Makoto I have to respond to that one because I honestly just forgot-- I think that one would be cute even if Iza is hurt in that one.  Anything else I want to say: I’m really like, thankful for you because without you I wouldn’t be here writing Iza and Zuo. You don’t even know how much it means to me that you helped encourage the creation of this horrible dumb cat. I might of dragged you back to tumblr, but like I genuinely you’re having fun. We might not write much together and I understand the whole thing with muses needing to recharge or get in the mood so I can wait forever and wait my turn because I’d always be happy after month to get something from you. It just means more to me that you’re having fun because you kind of deserve to have fun anyway.

[steelfeather]

Do You Feel The Way I Do? - Part II (A Tom Holland x Reader Imagine)

Request: It’s actually a sequel, but I also combined it with this prompt from @spideychelle-romanogers: “After your breakup, Tom runs into you out on your first date since you split.”

Word Count: 1.4k

Summary: Tom has an epiphany. But is it too late?

Ships: Tom Holland x Reader

Warnings: Angst. Y’all already know. A little bit of cursing if that’s a thing you don’t like.

*A/N: I love reviews, even if they’re just “Fuck you Abs why would you do this to me”. ;)

Part I

Three Months Later

 You slip the fourth dress off its hanger, holding it against your body with your mouth pursed in consideration, before tossing it onto the bed with a sigh.

This is ridiculous, you conclude, picking up your most reliable black dress. It’s more than serviceable for a first date, especially if you accessorize well. Besides, you’re not sure why you’re so worked up about it.

It could be because you hadn’t expected to go out on a date with someone other than Tom. Not this soon, anyway.

The days and weeks following his pronouncement were a quiet, suffocating hell. He didn’t reach out, doubtless trying to give you the space you needed to move on, and you avoided all of your mutual friends because you just couldn’t face him. You barely slept or ate, going to work almost mechanically every day and spending your weekends on anything that would distract you from the boy who hadn’t meant to ruin you for other men.

As you look at yourself in the mirror, you’re distantly pleased to see that you’ve gained back the weight you lost during those days, and your skin is a healthy color again, eyes bright. You want to make a good impression.

You met Ben on a dating app, and he’s been charming so far. Respectful. He doesn’t demand dirty pictures, and he’s fun to converse with. Everything is easy with him. Peaceful. Tonight will be your first time meeting with him in person; you’re equal parts nervous and excited.

You take your time getting ready, so when you sweep out the door, you feel confident. Beautiful, even.

“Ben?” you ask, meeting his jade-green eyes. He nods, already standing, and hurries around to pull your chair out for you. You feel your cheeks heat a little, but smile at him. He’s just as handsome as his pictures made him appear.

As the evening goes on, you find yourself genuinely enjoying his company, firmly pushing away all comparisons to Tom. He’s funny and engaging, and he listens to you attentively when you speak.

“…I’m just saying, I think skydiving is more appealing as a concept than reality,” he tells you, and you feel your lips stretching into a smile just before you look over his shoulder, locking eyes with the last person you want to see at the moment.

Tom freezes, his eyes flickering between the two of you before a shadow crosses his expression, almost too fast for you to see. He squares his shoulders and walks in your direction as you try to compose yourself.

“Hey,” he breathes, and Ben looks up at him quizzically, but his eyes are fixed on you. You could swear there’s a strange light in them, but you’ve been down that road before, and your self-delusion ended horribly. You give him a polite smile.

“Ben,” you say, “this is my friend, Tom. Tom, this is Ben.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ben says amiably, shaking hands with a distracted Tom.

“Can we talk?”

“Ben and I are on a date,” you tell him, through clenched teeth. He almost looks pained to hear it, but that would make no sense.

“Please? I really need to talk to you. Just a few minutes?” Something about him is off, you decide. He seems on edge, very unlike his typical easy-going self.

You paste on a tight smile and turn to Ben, who looks mildly confused. “I’ll be back in five, okay?”

“Sure…”

You don’t hear anything else he might say, too busy pushing past Tom as you walk outside. The evening air is crisp, the type of temperature you would have enjoyed under less stressful circumstances. Instead, you turn to face him, keeping a tight leash on your anger and hurt.

“Talk.”

“I…” he hesitates, his fingers reaching for your arm absently. As soon as he notices, his hand drops back to his side. “I’ve missed you.”

You stifle a groan. “Tom, I really can’t do this right now. I’m busy.”

“Yes, on a date,” he nearly growls, taking a step toward you. “You already said that.”

You refuse to step back. “Was there anything else you wanted?”

A flash of near-panic shows in his eyes. “Please tell me we’re still friends,” he whispers.

Suppressing a flinch, you bury the pain deep. “Sure,” you tell him dully. “We’re still friends. I just need some space while I get over you.”

He looks at you for a long moment, expression unreadable, and then he leans in and kisses your forehead, so gently it takes you a moment to realize. He turns and walks away before you have a chance to react.

You watch him until his back disappears around a corner, frozen with your fingertips touching the skin his lips caressed.

When dinner is over, you kiss Ben goodnight, but neither of you mention extending the night, and you go home alone. It takes a very long time for you to fall asleep.

A knock at your door wakes you in the middle of the night, six days later.

You peek through the peephole, groaning, and see Tom. He looks absolutely frantic; his hair is disheveled, and you’re pretty sure he’s soaking wet, as if he walked here in the rain you can hear against the windows.

The moment you open the door, he walks in, pacing back and forth. You lock the door behind him, trying to kick your brain into a more awake state.

“Tom? What’s wrong?”

He stops, running a hand through his dripping hair. After a long moment, he turns to look at you, and your breath catches in your throat; his eyes are dark, filled with a languid heat.

“You,” he answers. “You’re what’s wrong.”

“I don’t understand…”

“I can’t get you out of my head,” he bites out. “I can’t sleep. And then I saw you with him, and now I can’t stop thinking about what we had.” Your eyes are wide as you watch him, waiting for him to continue.

“What we could have had, if I wasn’t so fucking blind.”

You suck in a sharp breath. “Tom,” you warn him, trying to forestall something you know will hurt you.

“I love you,” he says. “I’m in love with you, and it took me losing you to realize it. And I’m so sorry it took me so long.”

Your chest feels tight, a tidal wave of emotion rising and crashing against the inside of your ribcage, rising to a crescendo, words building until they burst from you—

“Get out,” you snarl.

His face twists in shock and hurt, but you barely register it through the haze of your rage. “I love you,” he insists, looking confused.

“No!” you shout. “You don’t get to do this to me, you bastard!”

“Do what?” he pleads.

“You don’t get to rip my heart up like you did and then come back telling me you love me. I can’t—I can’t—”

“It’s okay—”

“It’s not okay,” you practically growl. He opens his mouth. “No, Tom. It’s my turn to speak.”

You can practically hear his teeth clacking together as his mouth snaps shut.

“There are only two possible reasons for you saying this to me now,” you begin. “Either you got jealous when you saw me on a date for whatever weird reason, or—even worse—you think this is the only way to save our friendship, so you’re telling me a comforting lie.”

You take a deep breath, stuffing your emotions away for later. “If it’s the first reason, then I’m not sure what to tell you. It won’t sabotage our friendship for me to date, so you’re being irrational and possessive. And if it’s the second reason—” your voice wobbles as embarrassing tears begin to fall silently “—please, please don’t.” He looks stricken, but you aren’t quite finished yet.

“Tom, I’m learning to deal with the fact that you don’t love me that way. I’m going to find a way to live with it. But I can’t—” you stifle a sob. “I can’t handle it if you pretend. It’ll kill me. I can’t.”

His face is completely white, his eyes tortured as he sees just how deep his cuts went.

“So please,” you conclude through watery vision, “just get out and let me heal without hurting me any more.”

“Please,” he begs, lower lip wobbling.

“I can’t, Tom,” you tell him tiredly. “Just get out.”

You think you hear a soft, choking sob right before he leaves.

Taglist: @bethanystan, @cherrysoul, @curly-haired-holland, @dangerousluv1, @distressedhollandfield, @divosterfield, @fairydustparker, @feeling-straange, @friendlyneighborhoodgf, @im-finallly-clean, @kaciidubs, @karatyra, @lovemalikstyles, @maria96bvb, @marveltomjunkie, @mc-universe, @middlefingermichelle, @mrshollandparker, @oceanblueeyeslookingatmine, @peterr-parqerr, @quackmom, @quacksonss, @sarsmusings, @spideythewebsitter, @spocksandsandals, @stanbroughing, @tomhstories, @twiceinabluemoon, @wificactus   

[redrobin-detective]

Until Tomorrow

Happy Valentine's Day? This isn't my normal kind of story at all but it came to me the other night before I fell asleep and I just had to write it. It's also not my best work by any stretch of the imagination. Unlike TLWA which I've slaved over, this was written in 45 minutes and got a quick read through. I don't have the time nor the motivation to clean it up any more but please do enjoy it.

It’s the night before Midoriya’s wedding and Shouto is just drunk enough to have a last word with the groom-to-be.

The Bachelor party is a roaring success. Or at least Shouto thinks it is, even 6 years out of high school he still has trouble navigating social situations. Especially ones like this where he’s emotionally compromised but then again, Midoriya’s always had that kind of effect on him. He takes another long sip from his drink at the bar and scratches under the black wig he’s wearing. It itches something terrible but tonight of all nights he can’t afford to be recognized.

The whole world knew that pro heroes Deku and Uravity were engaged, after all, who could forget the tear-jerking proposal done on live television early last year? But no one knew when the actual date was set and the happy couple wanted to keep it that way. If nobody knew, no villains could attack and ruin the occasion. Shouto will shamefully admit he’s a little tempted to leak the information but he’d never to that to Midoriya… or Urakara.

“Todoroki!”  Midoriya says with a bright grin, his cheeks red with alcohol and excitement. Despite that, Shouto can still count all the freckles on his cheeks. “What are doing over here all by yourself? You gotta partner with me; I bet Kacchan a week’s salary we could smoke him and Kirishima in pool!” The soon to be Number One, if the rumors are to be believed, wraps an arm around Shouto’s shoulders and pulls him into a one armed hug. Shouto frowns and turns his head so Midoriya is out of his line of sight. He’s gotten used to Midoriya touching him and getting close and he’s learned to deal with it. But tonight, it’s all a little too much.

“I’m not much of a pool player,” Shouto says dully, swirling his nearly empty glass before draining it. “Why don’t you ask Iida, I think he’d be a much better partner.”

“Hey,” Midoriya says gently as he pulls back a little and sits down on the stool next to him, his cheer replaced by worry. “Are you okay? You’ve been kind of down all night.” Shit, Shouto scratches again at his wig. This is Midoriya’s night; he doesn’t want to ruin it no matter how miserable he feels. He puts on an awkward smile, frayed and strained at the edges, and looks at the man he’s been in love with since high school.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. You know how I get when I’ve had a few drinks,” Shouto turns towards the pool table. “Like I said, I’m not very good at pool but if you’re willing to throw away your rather sizable paycheck to Bakugou then who am I to stop you.” He starts to get up when Midoriya’s hand on his wrist stops him.

“No, come on, this isn’t like you,” Midoriya says, his brow wrinkling in concern and concentration. “It’s not just tonight, the last few weeks you’ve been more reserved than usual.” He pulls back his hand and rubs at his eyes. “I noticed but between planning the wedding, making sure everything was top secret, work… I just haven’t had time I’m sorry.” He looks up and smiles shyly. “But I’m here now, tell me what’s wrong and let’s see if we can fix things.”

Shouto looks into those deep green eyes and sees nothing but warmth and kindness. He knows he should brush off Midoriya’s concerns and drag him off to the pool table to lose all his money. He should let Midoriya live up his Bachelor party and be ready in the morning to marry the woman he’s head over heels for. But it’s late at night and he’s had far too much to drink

“Can we go somewhere more private?” He asks quietly.

“Sure, sure,” Midoriya nods seriously. “Kacchan, we’ll be right back. Next round I promise!” He shouts across the room before gently guiding Shouto out of their rented party room and out to a private waiting room. It’s small and it smells like stale beer but it’s quiet and secluded. Shouto takes the opportunity to pull off his wig and shake his hair.

“What’s wrong, Todoroki, you’re not sick are you? I know you’re my best man but if you don’t feel well enough, I’m sure Iida wouldn’t mind stepping in. You did have a couple of tough cases this week; maybe you should go home and rest-”

“I’m fine,” Shouto says sternly, already regretting this. He buries his hands in his hair; he’s drunk and emotional which is never a good combination.

“You don’t look fine,” Midoriya says gently, lightly resting a hand on Shouto’s arm. “Just talk to me, it can’t be that bad.” Midoriya’s warmth seeps into him. That casual contact, how freely he gives his touch and attention. It’s been a constant since they first became friends, it was a bit unsettling at first but soon Shouto began to tolerate, and then actively want it. He thinks that’s when it first started.

“I’m in love with you,” Shouto says plainly, “I’ve been in love with you for a very long time.”

“I know,” Midoriya smiles shyly, moving his hand to squeeze Shouto’s shoulder before letting go. “You’re uh not very subtle.” Shouto stares at him. He’d thought for sure he’d been very subtle. “I don’t know if this helps but I think uh everyone knows. Kacchan, and a few of the others, wanted to talk to you about it when Ochako and I started dating but I uh thought you’d gotten over it by then.” 

“I didn’t,” Shouto states, mildly disassociating over the fact that what he thought was his deepest secret was common knowledge among his old high school classmates. He’ll save that humiliation for later.

“Right,” Midoriya says awkwardly, looking like he wants to break eye contact but doesn’t. “You know this is a little late, I’m getting married in about uh 8 hours.”

“I know and I’m sorry to drag this out like this but I,” Shouto swallows and he feels a strong urge to cry for the first time in a very long time. “I think I needed to say it, just to get it out there. I don’t want to interfere, you and Urakara are very good friends of mine, the best. Seeing you together, so happy and supportive, it makes me happy.”

“Todoroki,” Midoriya says lightly, his hand on Shouto’s shoulder once more.

“I spent too long denying my feelings and then by the time I did, everyone could see you and Urakara were on the cusp of becoming a couple and I didn’t want to take that from you, or-or risk losing your friendship.” He’s not crying yet but he swipes at his eyes anyway as if to hold off any impending tears. “But I just wanted you to know that I care for you deeply, and I probably always will. You were the first one to see me as a person, beyond my father’s aspirations. Just being around you, being your friend, you’ve made me really happy, Izuku.” Shouto smiles and it’s absolutely genuine. “And that’s why I want you and Urakara to have a wonderful marriage and be as happy as you can be.

“Yeah, thanks, we will,” Midoriya says with a watery grin, looking on the verge of tears himself. He pulls Shouto in for a tight hug. Shouto leans into the embrace, rests his face on Midoriya’s broad shoulder just lets himself be for a moment. “That means a lot, so much, thank you. And thank you, for telling me. I can tell this has been weighing down on you since the date was announced but I didn’t know what to do.” He pulls back and eyes Shouto carefully. “Are you going to be okay? I’m serious about Iida filling in.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Shouto sighs. There will be time for regrets and embarrassment later but for now he feels as if a weight has been lifted off him and he can finally move on. “It would be my honor to stand by your side.” He says warmly, looking down at his friend. He briefly imagines soft kisses in the morning, casually holding hands over dinner and matching rings before mentally packing it in a box and putting it away. That time had passed but there’s still so much to look forward to. Any future with Midoriya in it is worth living.

“Hey!” Midoriya starts at the loud pounding on the door. “The hell are two doing in there? That half n’ half bastard better not be creeping on you the night before you get married!” Bakugou shouts.

“Don’t be rude; we’re just talking! We’ll be right out!” Midoriya shouts turning back to Shouto with an embarrassed expression but the moment has been broken. “Sorry, you know how impatient Kacchan gets.” He tilts his head and some of his curls bounce, “are you really okay?”

“Yeah, I am now,” Shouto smiles. “I’ll be horribly embarrassed when I’m sober and probably won’t be able to look you or any of our old classmates in the eye for the next month but yes.” Midoriya laughs at that and claps his shoulder again.

“Ready for some pool?” He asks.

“You really are throwing your money away partnering with me, but if you insist,” Shouto smiles. “Just give me a minute to get this stupid wig back on.”

“Alright,” Midoriya says with an understanding nod, “I’ll see you out there.” A look of indecision crosses his face before he gently stands on his toes gives Shouto a chaste kiss on the cheek. He falls back to the floor with wide, nervous eyes, assessing if he’d done something wrong.

“J-just so you know, I care about you a lot too and I’ll always be your friend, Shouto.” With that, Midoriya walks out of the room and quietly closes the door behind him. Shouto brings his hand up to the spot where Midoriya had kissed him. It had been light, barely enough to be called a kiss, but it tingles on his skin. It feels like a goodbye. He smiles in the dimly light room and it feels sad and bittersweet but not as heavy as it had once bee. Shouto then does the only thing he can do, he puts the black wig back on his head and goes out to help Midoriya waste his money.

That’s what friends did after all.

[tieflng]

chocobox 2020 letter under the cut, because i do things and participate in things now i think.

dear chocolatier: thanks for writing for me! my actual requests were sparse because they were. quite long. especially the pyre one, because it turns out i have a lot of thoughts about minor/historical background characters as seen in the book of rites. so my prompts are all here, along with the dnws just repeated for good measure. thanks for reading all of this, i hope you can find something to have fun with.

pyre -

oops!! all golathanian! i was just really drawn to him reading the book of rites; there's something about an ordinary (certainly flawed) human man making the choices that brought every event in the game to pass and turned him into a godlike eldritch basketball saint. also, 'you gave your freedom that i might yet have mine' is a line i've been thinking about for an entire year. also, the g in lgbt is for golathanian. i'm really into the idea that the man the commonwealth could lionize as the ideal of strength is admirable not as a conqueror or warlord, but as someone with commitments to others that make him overcome his flaws-- someone who does the cooking for the group and makes dry comments and lectures out of worry and has a stupid laugh and acts like a grouch when he is secretly a giant softy. (and someone who is visibly gay and gnc, because the base of my mazlow hierarchy of needs is gay/bi men presented as admirable figures of authority, and i think that's something that should have been in the game, even if the commonwealth in-universe was going to erase it.) the heart and idealism and earnestness is what makes him worthy of respect, and that he's human, even if technically he ends up as a demigod sports-omen star.

i'm firmly in favor of autistic scribes (solidarity with chae) and scribes as large-r Readers. aside from soliam and khaylmer who both have cis energy i'm very up for any of the requested characters as trans or nonbinary, and near and dear to my heart especially are transfem chae and triesta and a nonbinary/my-gender-is-just-gay gol. explicit lgbt identities in general are a plus. environmental details-- i adore the richness and mystery and wonder of the downside, but i'd also kill for some sahrian imperial court ambiance. adventure is good, character study is always good, shenanigans and mischievous escapades between friends, misunderstandings that work out or not, angst with comfort is fine, moral or philosophical dilemmas or conversations (perfect for this group). it'd be nice to see something about titans, about (r/R)eading, the downside as an eldritch landscape, the simultaneous decay and might of imperial sahr, about turning into celestial bodies, a good old fashioned slow burn/mutual pining.

ha'ub & gol - i've always imagined these two are best friends - the first two scribes, 2/3 of the og triumvirate, and both dealing with the fact that 'mercy' means they have to keep soliam murr's fool ass alive. ha'ub is a chaotic little bumpkin who's never belonged anywhere, gol is an increasingly long-suffering visitor to purgatory dimension-- i feel like for all that he knows more about survival here than his new Big Friends, ha'ub feels just as indebted to them for being able to relate to him. it can't be easy being the first imp with human-like intelligence, or at least surely the only imp you know. misunderstandings between different species, teaching each other about sahrian human and downside imp customs, teaming up against howlers (did the howler/imp distinction exist yet, if all imps were wild and drive imps didn't exist??), learning to communicate with someone whose speech and language are very different. gol standing up for ha'ub in the 'why does an imp get a triumvirate' debate. why is ha'ub accursed? too, if there's gol/soliam, there's an opportunity for 'just kiss him already', or whatever misunderstandings imps have about human relationships/will-they-or-won't-they tensions.

gol & chae - please call the vagabond girl chae! i loved her basically at the moment i saw her and her arc means a lot to me. she’s autistic coded but her belief in the scribes-- in actually hearing and speaking to the scribes-- is never undercut by the narrative. and she’s immensely strong! she’s survived in the downside by herself from 17-19! and imo at least the scribe known for being strong and resilient and untiring, not to mention idealistic and loyal, would admire the absolute fuck out of her. i’d like her childhood as moontouched/homeless and displaced, her topside ending as a religious leader and inspiration in the sahrian union, wandering alone in the downside, her role with the nightwings-- i just really want to see what conversations these two would get up to, i want them to learn from each other, i want chae to have support and encouragement and comfort from everyone’s favorite nomad scribe. what does she ask him? what does he tell her? passing messages from ti’zo or the heralds? looking for advice/help on behalf of the nightwings, or just comfort when she’s feeling out of place? god, the fact that she’s in the companion class that parallels khaylmer-- do they talk about that, or how does gol feel? there are so many damn good interactions here. please don’t infantilize her or portray her beliefs and reactions as nonsensical or weird.

gol/soliam - i have so many thoughts about these two that i almost don’t want to say everything. my sense is they didn’t get together until the downside, with a very long enemies > grudging allies > friends > lovers, at least on gol’s end. you don’t jump over the edge of the world to kill someone and immediately kiss and make up. topside before he gets disillusioned there’s potential for that good courtly love - gol pining hopelessly (and perhaps obliviously, depending on how soliam acts towards him) for his beautiful distant liege, sol who so very clearly did not feel anything genuine for anyone as emperor, but who maybe has some ‘oooh, master-general ;)’ poking out of the hedonism-flavored depression. and then he falls down the river and realizes he was a big idiot. i could do very early sweet moments, courtly aesthetic and accidental intimacy, seeing a tender side to the emperor that most people never get close enough for/soliam murr Almost having a real feeling other than physical attraction. i could also do rebuilding their trust and rapport in the downside, mutual pining, growing closer despite everything and wondering privately if they couldn’t actually work out. or established relationship tenderness and fluff. i could also very much do explicit content with these two.

gol & khaylmer - ahh, yes. enemies. i got the impression from gol’s account (and gol’s account is really all we get) that these two hated each other, to ‘put his picture on the bull’s eye of the dartboard’ levels of hatred-- but also, maybe, that they had more in common than they wanted. gol and khaylmer as the only two grownups in a decadence-obsessed imperial court? certainly as the closest advisers to the emperor, whatever that means when your emperor is soliam murr. i always got the impression that gol was a bit more of a bastard than he let on-- nomad masteries are very ‘now i’ve thrown him off his rhythm!’ and you can’t tell me ‘preferred to fall on his enemies by surprise under the cover of darkness’ Isn’t the trait of a highly slippery character. then again, their worldviews and beliefs might as well be from two different planets, but then again again, do we really get an unbiased opinion on khaylmer to know what his worldviews really is? two driven and idiosyncratic people, more similar than they think, who just deeply hate and misunderstand each other at a fundamental level. also, please a deep dive into khaylmer’s head. lot of opportunity for backroom dealing and court drama here.

scribes & scribes - scribe adventures! or scribe shenanigans and arguments! i see these eight as having strong and contrasting personalities, but fundamentally caring about each other, even if they can get into real drama and conflict. fighting titans, exploring together, writing the book of rites, becoming eldritch basketball gods. found family is great, early stages of found family that grouchily insist they're business associates is better. there is so much you could do with these losers as a collective and i love them with my entire heart.

dnw: fantasy homophobia or transphobia, dubcon/noncon including under the influence, hand/eye trauma, unsanitary things, angst without a positive/hopeful resolution. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain. fandom specific: don't undercut chae's feelings or beliefs or write her in an ableist way. i also see gol and soliam as gay, and milithe and triesta as lesbians, so i'd prefer no references to past/current m/w relationships for them-- not because having m/w history invalidates gay peoples' identities, but because for me personally that'd be a horrible experience and it makes me sad thinking about my favorite characters going through that.

hades -

i did not expect to like a large soft-spoken honor-bound minotaur who duels you in honorable combat as much as i did, but probably should have knowing basic facts about myself. anything asterius-focused is great-- i really want to see him well-received in elysium and with a partner who cares about him......! he deserves nice things! elysium as a setting is so lush, environmental details, moments of respite, greenery, the river lethe, the elysian stadium, the beauty of eternal paradise And the fact that the people who live here decide to just beat the tar out of each other for fun.

this game has a really strong cast, and i'd love to see mentioned or featured olympians/house denizens/run npcs other than the requested characters. patroclus is a strong possibility for a fic in elysium, but achilles, hypnos, hermes/artemis/athena, and eurydice are also favorites of mine. i'm always down for explicit gay/bi identities, and i've been toying with trans masc zag and/or nonbinary aster.

Asterius/Zag - the inherent romantic tension of having a standing date to fight someone in hand to hand combat. but also, meeting outside of the arena in some way - a peaceful moment in a fountain chamber? maybe aster helps zag in a tough spot with some exalted? they both meet up in patroclus's chamber? i like how aster respects you for your strength and ability and the comparison he draws between them both as having been born monstrous/in darkness could use some (gentle) exploration. both of them uncovering hidden depths or softness in each other.

Asterius/Theseus/Zag - the inherent romantic tension of having a standing date to fight two people in hand to hand combat. i very much see this as an aster-centric v-- i don't really buy these or zag being into each other on their own, but learning to get along for the sake of their mutual boyfriend is good, and the comedy that ensues. anything i like in aster/zag or aster/these would be good here. absolutely not opposed to an aster-centered threesome (he deserves it).

Asterius/Theseus - how did these persuade hades to move the bull of minos to elysium? how did they become champions in the stadium? fighting by each others' sides, aster discovering after a mortal lifetime confined to a labyrinth that he's into men, these feeling weirdly compelled to show off or impress him. theseus training him in 'heroic ways'. theseus's lines about ariadne felt needlessly gross/borderline misogynistic and i'd like for them either to not come up Or for aster to sit him down and give him a piece of his mind. that's his sister, you idiot.

Cerberus & Zag - just a boy and his dog! cerby comforting a younger zag when hades is on his bullshit, or kid zag sleeping all cuddled up with his pubby. growing up and watching the house change. zag venting to cerberus or asking for advice, like you do with your pets when you don't expect an answer (and maybe getting one??). something in styx would be good, or zag finding any other kind of treat or toy and smuggling it back in from one of his runs.

dnw: fantasy homophobia or transphobia, dubcon/noncon including under the influence, hand/eye trauma, unsanitary things (please light on the descriptions of the satyr sack, lmao), angst without a positive/hopeful resolution. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain. as far as fandom specific: please nothing that portrays hades as good or justified in any of his actions. nothing zag/meg or zag/than; i really prefer zag and meg to have acknowledged their feelings and decided to stay friends.

arthuriana/let’s be real i’m here for the gawain and the green knight - 

......i'm just in this for the inherent homoeroticism. explicitly gay/bi gawain and bi bertilak is great, bertilak and his wife both being in on it is great, threesome? more christmas games? courtly flirting? being cozy inside? going on a dangerous quest? anything sounds great, just have fun with it!

dnw: homophobia including period-typical (just not why i read fanfiction), dubcon/noncon including under the influence, unsanitary things, hand/eye trauma, cheating/negative feelings between the hautdeserts, angst. in terms of explicit content, please no humiliation or impact play/physical pain.

[littlebitofbass]

Artist management contracts have been known to contain some idiosyncratic clauses over the years, but the one buried deep inside Stuart Camp and Ed Sheeran’s contract at the artist’s behest is surely one of the most unusual.

“He’s inserted a clause that says I will be with him at all times, looking like I’m enjoying myself,” Camp laughs. “It gives the lawyers sleepless nights, like, Surely we could be in breach if there are pictures where I look grumpy? But I don’t have to actually enjoy myself. As long as I look like I am, that’s OK…”

Right now, his joy seems to be genuine. And he’s certainly been with Sheeran every step of the way during the singer-songwriter’s remarkable rise.

After his 2014 album X sold 2,948,802 copies, according to the Official Charts Company, Sheeran’s return was always going to be huge, but the innovative double-single release of Shape Of You and Castle On The Hill has turned it into a blockbuster event.

Both tracks broke the previous UK one-week streaming record, Shape Of You smashed the all-time Spotify record, while Sheeran became the first artist to have the Top 2 UK singles for five weeks in a row.

So no wonder Rocket Music Management’s Camp answers the door at his newly-done-up house in the nice part of Clapham with his trademark smile on his face.

His still-unpacked suitcase from his Grammys trip (Sheeran performed at the ceremony, as he did at the BRITs) is still in the hall, his house refurb is so recent he doesn’t know where the sugar is and he’s fighting off the effects of glandular fever, but he seems perfectly relaxed in what he terms “the eye of the storm” before the most anticipated album since Adele’s 25.

But then, Camp’s experiences with Sheeran have taught him to be unfazed where others might be daunted, as the ginger kid with the guitar and the loop pedal has made the impossible look pretty darn easy at every turn.

Camp actually started on the label side of things, first at Infectious then, when that was bought by Warner, at East West, which in turn became Atlantic.

He was product manager for a bunch of American rock bands and James Blunt when Rocket’s Todd Interland finally persuaded him to try life on the other side of the fence as Blunt’s day-to-day manager.

By his own admission, he “took to it pretty quickly”. Later, he looked after Lily Allen before taking on Sheeran in 2009. Sheeran was homeless and had been turned down by almost every label in the country, but Camp took him on, let him sleep on the sofa at his place (then considerably smaller than his current abode) and, slowly but surely, helped guide him to international superstardom.

Today, Sheeran is his only client, “the last thing I think of before I go to bed and the first thing I think about when I wake up”.

Right now, those thoughts are full of dizzying projections for global first week sales and touring plans that will take him and Sheeran up until at least summer 2018, not to mention the constant Sheeran-related questions from Camp’s own 119,000 Twitter followers.

But there’s still time for him to warn Music Week about his “potentially vicious” cats and sit down to talk streaming, stadiums and social media strategy…

Who actually had the idea for the two singles?

Me, [Atlantic president] Ben Cook and Ed were sitting in Ed’s house in Suffolk, arguing over which one should be the single.

We were just going round in circles, pros and cons, pros and cons. Then it was like, The album’s called Divide, why don’t we have both sides? It was a Eureka moment which, at any one point over the next few years, one of us will claim to have been solely their idea, but it was pretty mutual.

Had you been arguing for different singles beforehand, then?

Yeah. You can probably guess who wanted which. Ed wanted Castle, I was very much either/or. I could see the merits of both. But that’s why we weren’t falling out or coming to a decision, because everyone knew that the other was a very good argument as well.

How are you feeling about the album?

Very confident now. We know the market’s there, we know people want and are desperate to hear more music, so it’s now more a case of seeing where those numbers land.

Does it feel like an even bigger deal now?

It does to a certain degree, but there’s less pressure. We could have been worried if one of these singles had fallen off quite quickly, if they hadn’t been doing quite as well, we might have been, Ooh, how’s the album going to do? But we now know that there’s the demand there. I’m just desperate to get it out, we just want people to hear it.

Do you worry about fulfilling industry/retail expectations at all? I do worry that some people might be getting a little silly on what they expect. But I’m not worried about it. Does that sound horribly conceited? There’s someone very close to me and this project who thinks it’ll do 350K [in week one] and I’d be very happy with that. That’s one of your best band’s lifetime best sales.

Even the big sales are usually around 200K. So I’d be ecstatic. But really I’m thinking, What will we have sold by the end of 2018? It’s about the long game.

Has streaming changed the dynamics of selling an album like this?

Yeah. It might not necessarily be about the album sales and what they tot up to, but at the end of the day we just want as many people as possible to hear the music, because our primary business is still live.

If people are hearing it on whatever, I can’t feel too bad [because] they might buy a ticket. It’s about getting out there as much as possible.

The album will debut on streaming services on release day. Are you a believer in streaming?

Absolutely, 100%. Always. We were always over-indexing on streaming, even from the first record. We became the poster boys for Spotify to a certain degree, before anyone else really latched on.

In the years since the last record, it’s caught up and it’s now taken over for everybody. But we were always that act.

So far, your touring plans look relatively low-key. Are there bigger things to come?

Yeah. In 2018, we just do stadiums. I knew three nights at The O2 would be an underplay and create a bit of fuss, but I didn’t realise quite how much.

But to be fair, we wanted to play this year and we can’t do all the stadiums all the time, because they’re weather dependent, so we knew we’d do arenas first. But in summer ‘18 there’s a lot of outdoor shows, a proper stadium tour, even obscure stadiums!

Were you disappointed by the secondary ticketing furore around the dates?

It’s always a shame. We do what we can to try and stop the bastards putting them on the secondary market, but you’re always going to get it.

A load of people bought tickets on [secondary sites], even though we told them not to, quite explicitly and they were getting billed for three or four grand. Everyone comes back to us like, What are you going to do about it? It is frustrating.

I’d love to do a Glastonbury model where it’s names and tickets but even that is just a pain in the arse for everyone.

You’ve got to balance it with what’s actually a good fan experience for buying a ticket. It’s an on-going thing and we’ll be looking at it even further for the stadium shows. Hopefully we’re doing enough shows so that the people who want to see us can, and aren’t spending hundreds of pounds.

Why has Ed connected as well as he has?

The music’s great and he just comes across well as a person. It’s been the same since Day One, everyone has wanted us to do well and people have been cheering for him. That helps.

He’s not a jack of all trades, but he does go across genres, he gets so many different people championing him, from grime acts to hoary old rockers, everyone just gets it and he does tick a hell of a lot of boxes, but without weakening him in any areas or looking like we’re going for a compromise.

He’s crossing those barriers and he just does it perfectly. He is sometimes quite sensitive about it, especially for Sing and Shape Of You, that was a little out of his comfort zone, so will people think he’s jumping on a bandwagon? But with him, if it’s good there’s no barrier to it becoming an Ed Sheeran song.

Does it help that he came up the hard way? Will he be the last superstar to make it like that?

You’d imagine so. Everyone else is either looking for or expecting a quick fix in this internet age. But for years before I met him, he had CDs in his rucksack and was sleeping in railway stations and doing all sorts. He really slogged it from the age of 14.

Did you always think he was going to make it?

Yeah. Not that I put a limit on it in my head, but I never at the time thought he’d be playing Wembley Stadium or anything like that, but I always knew there’d be a market for him.

When he came to me, he’d exhausted his turning up at record labels, chubby and ginger and that’s when we just took a year out of it.

He did the No.5 Collaborations Project EP. When that first charted, we were out walking in Richmond Park and we were like, How do I screengrab this, it’s No.55 on iTunes, thinking that was amazing.

Twenty minutes later it was No.10 and by teatime it was No.1. That was a nice day. That’s when the labels started coming back to us. He thought the doors were all closed and that’s when he thought, Fuck it, I’ll just do it myself. He’d been around but bless him, he didn’t give up.

Have you ever fallen out with each other?

Never. It was almost unspoken, we knew the mission and we were making progress. There are certain things we disagree on, but eventually we come round to each other’s way of thinking.

I don’t care how we get there or who gets the credit, as long as we get there. I saw everything and anything in life [with previous clients]. Ed’s always like, Am I a pain in the arse? And I’m always telling him, Yeah, you’re terrible, knowing full well that I have literally put my head into the mouth of the lion. You learn a lot in those situations.

How would you describe your management style?

I think I’m very fair and understanding. I’m not a shouter, silence scares people more. Having been on the other side, I knew the managers I loved and ultimately you’d always work harder for them.

So you try and be that person. There were so many managers in the late ‘90s, mentioning no names, where you’d be like, You’re an arsehole.

That was before the spirit of [legendary Led Zeppelin manager] Peter Grant had completely disappeared and everyone was just going, I’ve got to be a complete c-u-n-t, that’s the only way to get things to happen. And it isn’t at all.

The managers I got on with were people like Tav [Alt-J/Wolf Alice manager Stephen Taverner] and CJ [Raw Power Management CEO Craig Jennings]; they have their moments, but they were still decent and fair and would listen to you, even when I was the 20-year-old kid.

Your bond with Ed sometimes looks less like business and more like friendship…

I think that’s important. Some people always refer to their acts as my client and I’ve never been one of them. Our bond comes from living together and, glandular fever aside, I do everything with him. If you want an act to get up at 5am to do bloody German breakfast TV that’s going to be hell, at least be standing next to him when he does it. You can’t expect otherwise. There’s no airs and graces between us, we speak our minds.

What’s different about managing him now, compared to the early days?

Not a lot to be honest. He certainly hasn’t changed as a person. There are bigger things and I’m spinning more plates but, as a whole, it’s no easier or harder. We’ve always had that same attitude. We want as many people to hear the stuff as possible.

His whole attitude is, If I’ve made a record I’m proud of, I will do anything and everything to promote it. He’s not one of those people who’s like, I’ve had two No.1 albums, you can fuck off. He was really looking forward to getting back on the promo trail.

Six weeks later he’s still like, eah, bring it on, two hours sleep, Dutch TV.

Meanwhile, you’ve become a cult figure yourself on social media…

I only ever went on Twitter so I could see where Lily Allen was when I was looking after her. And then when we put [Sheeran’s] first tour on sale after the album was released, we literally broke the internet at 9am and I couldn’t get hold of anyone.

I had to get on Twitter and put the fire out and it snowballed from there. So now, when people ask me sensible questions, I try and answer as many as I can. My father was trying to show my very elderly neighbour what I did for a living and he came across some [Tumblr] site entitled Stuart Camp Gives Less Fucks Than The Virgin Mary. I got in trouble for it. I was like, I’m 38 years old, why am I in trouble for this, it’s not my fault...

Do you have targets for this campaign?

I know Ed would love to do 20 million albums off this one record, that’s his personal one. We did 14m of X, so... Let’s see! Beyond that, we don’t know.

There are folders on Ed’s laptop that have the next three albums on them, though that might change. He has his little secret ambitions for every campaign, which he never tells anyone until after the event. The Wembleys were the last one, he hasn’t told me what this album’s are and he won’t until after we’ve done them.

Where do you see the two of you being 10 years from now?

We’ll be at the end of what may be Phase 1. He’s got a clear plan - he knows the titles for the next two records, it won’t take a genius to work out what they may be! I’d like to think we’ll still be relevant and I’m sure we will be. He wants to be [like] Springsteen, career-wise. He’s definitely in it for the long haul.

And finally, have they asked you to do next year’s Super Bowl yet?

No. I’m not sure we want to do it. It’s always been a strong point for us that he’s a solo act on stage but, for that, you really have got to have the fire-breathers and dancers. I’d love them to ask us. I’m just thinking what we’d do for a show like that, but I’m sure Taylor Swift’s got an album out this year...

Originally posted in [Music Week], February 27, 2017.

[distinctpersonalities-blog]

What's dating your muses like?

Undercut cause ya know, there’s a lot of em and I am a big rambling bastard.

Billy: Firstly, he a big fucking mess when it comes to real emotions but if you’re dating him it implies you have gotten him to actually trust you and like you back which is hard to do in itself, so- he’s more open with his real personality. So, while most of the time he acts rowdy in front of others, playing card games and drinking, with whoever he’s with he’s far quieter, and far more genuine.

He’s one of two things at all time due to finally trusting the person: extremely quiet with soft moments and showing small affectionate gestures like kisses to the forehead or knuckles at most, or a fucking tease who won’t stop until your face is so red that people think you’re ill and until you literally want to kill him for it. No in between. He tends to be the latter more than the former due to the fact that he’s the absolute worst but often when alone with whoever he is dating, they’ll sit quietly and do nothing or he’ll be humming absentmindedly while reading with them.

He’s more of a giver in a relationship, mostly because he’s never been in one that wasn’t purely sexual, so he’d want to make up for withholding sex due to him not wanting them to get the wrong idea about his feelings, so if they want something they’ll get it. Problem is, since he’s used to being betrayed- he’ll always kind of expect it from them, even if he does trust them, he’ll always assume the worst- even if he won’t say it. I don’t mean he’s jealous or will accuse them of cheating, by any means, I mean- he expects that one day they’ll use him as a pawn and leave when he is no longer useful but he thinks he should have fun with them until that day.

Elmott: Did someone ask to be mommed and looked after aggressively? No, well too bad you decided to date the cat dad. you will be taken care of, be it him wrapping up any wounds you receive or reminding you of things you must do like brushing your teeth. He’ll do a lot of things for you, though, such as cleaning your room for you although he will complain about it and he will do so a lot. Still acts like tough shit and puts on a faux arrogant persona on- but he will be pretty obvious with his low self esteem and how caring he is anyways, if you compliment him for one, he’ll snap at you but will be red in the face and smile while hiding his mouth with his hand.

Due to his “scary face” Elmott is used to being deemed unapproachable so he does genuinely appreciate someone who is willing to stick around him so much, meaning he’ll often cook for them, start small bonfires and just spend a lot of time with them despite his harsh exterior. He has gone through enough to admit to wanting to help kids and how he cares about them genuinely, so the longer you’re with him, the more open he’ll be and you’ll soon start getting the affection- kisses are probably going to take a while due to him worrying about his sharp teeth giving you a big old nasty cut.

He’d need a tougher partner to deal with him though, because despite being a caring guy, he’s still rude and brash- he doesn’t hold back from scolding someone but he’s much more lenient on someone if they’re obviously trying. However, you’ll have to face the army of kids he has accidentally adopted teasing the two of you, getting him super flustered and making him storm off....also his compliments are shit. “You’re as beautiful as fire burning down a forest.”

Yosano: The romantic savior! Finally, someone you can date without having to go through some form of unfair treatment. She’s a good girlfriend, even with her sadistic tendencies- which really don’t come out when around whoever she’s dating. She’s a sweetie, really, although, she’s lightly dominant in every relationship she’s in- with her often cupping their chin in her hands to force them to look at her before kissing them and such. You’ll often find yourself flustered by even the slightest of touches with Yosano and often times you two will often read stories/poetry together yet you get flustered?? She’s not doing anything it’s just that she’s got a certain aura around her.

Shopping dates are common - she adores buying many different things from medical equipment to clothes she deems adorable and more often than not you’d take detours to cafes and would sit together. It also doesn’t matter what type of shopping the two of you do, it could be a trip to the dollar store and it’s still like a date- wherever the two of you go, it always seems to feel like a date even if it only takes a few minutes.

Compliment her ability and how well she does her job; she feels horrible over the things she’s seen in her life, so if you tend to tell her she’s doing a great job healing others and saving them from death then she’s going to feel...okay about it, but your words won’t take the pain away, even if it soothes it. Never get injured though, you’ll be strapped to the sofa and she’ll pull out the chainsaw to fix you up- it’s terrifying. She’s a smart woman so she’ll be there for you during any emotional pain you may be going through, she’s a doctor, so she knows how to heal physical wounds but she isn’t going to ignore mental ones.