#and any time tI bring this up they just say it's a “self-fulfilling prophecy”

[bardic-tales]

2024 has been a stressful year for me in terms of writing and my life. It is when I decided to shelve a project that I worked more than a decade on and faced the fact that maybe my data loss of over 2 decades of writing in 2021 deleted some things that I just can't get back.

It's also been a year of rebirth for me. When I shifted my focus towards Fantasy Worlds Collide (FWC), I felt such a renewed passion for writing that I knew that this is what I needed: a change of pace and genre. It did help that my doctor told me a few years ago that I needed to leave publishing my work professionally, as I cannot have any stress in my life. So, I shifted focus from completely original work to this amalgamation of original and fan fiction that you find in FWC.

divider by @strangergraphics

Accomplishments

This year marked a significant shift in my creative focus, as I honed in on the developing Fantasy Worlds Online, delving into Bianca Moore's expansive journey. I embraced the complicated dynamics of her story -- where an eternal cosmic conflict and end of everything prophecy of angels and demons meets Final Fantasy VII. Bianca's tale evolved over time from her original idea of just being a Shinra Scientist in 1997 to the celestial being that she is presented as now. Key milestones include fleshing out pivotal moments, like her harrowing experiences with Sephiroth in the Shinra Manor to braving the fires of the Nibelheim Incident to try to bring him back to her but failing. It also included immense world building for the celestial realm.

Despite struggling with grief and a prolonged creative block that kept me away from seriously writing for over a year, I found my passion again mid-2024, allowing me to immerse myself in FWC once again. Though my other works still remain untouched, I am very proud of the depth and energy I've poured and still am pouring into this universe.

This year also brought an unexpected yet fulfilling new endeavor for me. In honor of a late friend, I started a Tumblr club (@creators-club) to celebrate creators across various mediums. The community's response has been very heartwarming, to say the least. As the holiday approaches, however, the club will take a brief hiatus from Dec 25 - Jan 25, allowing me the opportunity to focus on my family and recharge.

Creative Growth

I decided to embrace a more sensory-driven, character focused style of writing, so I tried to blend rich and vivid descriptions with very deep emotional undertones. I leaned heavily into contrasting imagery -- light versus dark, warmth versus cold, serenity versus chaos. This was supposed to mirror the duality of Bianca and the overarching themes of love, loss, and power.

I also explored new narrative perspectives and techniques, delving into intimate moments between characters. This approach allowed me to experiment with pacing, from slow, atmospheric build-ups to sharp, visceral contrasts, creating what I hope is a very dynamic storytelling.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Writing Bianca's character was a challenging yet deeply rewarding experience that required me to straddle a delicate balance between crafting original content and integrating her and this original content into the established world of Final Fantasy VII. One of the biggest challenges was ensuring that her journey felt authentic and compelling, especially given that I given her a dual role in FWC as the Harbinger of the End, as well as a character that is tied to Sephiroth's arc.

Balancing her deeply traumatic backstory with her progression into a powerful, self-aware agent of chaos that even a villain like Sephiroth loved and respected required careful thought to avoid overshadowing him or herself.

These challenges helped me grow as a writer by allowing me to sharpen my ability to juggle multiple layers of narrative complexity while staying true to a character's core identity. Developing her arc deepened my understanding of how trauma and loss shapes individuals, including myself, in different ways. Her transition from seeking redemption to fully embracing her darker nature alongside Sephiroth required exploring very nuanced themes of identity, love, and self-destruction.

This evolution not only enriched her story but also expanded my ability to weave original storytelling into an existing world without losing sight of what makes each aspect compelling. It reinforced the importance of taking risks and viewing challenges as opportunities for growth and creativity. Bianca's journey became a reflection of my own as an author: one defined by perseverance, transformation, and the pursuit of something uniquely impactful.

Friends and Mutuals

I just want to take a minute to shout out some friends and mutuals that made my time on Tumblr this year just a little bit brighter. Whether it's through their writing, crafts, or OCs, I enjoyed seeing and reading your work. Even if we do not interact. If I missed you, I still enjoy reading your work.

@abalonetea @the-bar-sinister @rosesonkittens @aalinaaaaaa @whatwedointhecraft

@serenofroses @tolliver-j-mortaelwyver @flowerwiththemachinegun @sapphirothcrescent

@megandaisy9 @writingamongther0ses @watermeezer @cardierreh15

@nightingaleflow @seastarblue @themaradwrites

Thank you everyone for your hard work this year. You all are inspirations. I can't wait to see where 2025 takes each one of you.

Goals for 2025

For the upcoming year, my primary goal is to focus on character development, particularly with Bianca and Sephiroth's complex dynamic. I aim to focus on refining their relationship, exploring the emotional aspects that drive their actions and shape their bond. A key project will be writing and finishing Blood & Stardust, the first fan fiction that will feature the couple. It is set to be 50k words and only 14 chapters. It will start with her falling into Gaia and end with her being captured by Professor Hojo, introducing Diana Ravenscroft: one of the major antagonists of FWC. I hope to explore themes of loss, grief, and destruction, pushing the boundaries of Bianca's emotional and psychological arcs.

This year's experiences have offered invaluable insights into how trauma and complex emotional bonds influence a character's choice and their end goals. By examining Bianca's struggles with identity, loyalty, and devotion, I've gain a better understanding of how those elements impact characters' relationships.

Moving forward, I want to continue to refine my storytelling by including the above themes into my narrative. The growth I've experienced in understanding my character's motivations and vulnerabilities will help me in my future work by providing a foundation to craft more compelling, multi-dimensional characters. I also plan to develop skills in world-building to ensure the settings for FWC feels as engaging and rich as the characters' storylines.

Also, I want to add a note here that I have come to embrace my self-shipping with Sephiroth. I won't go into the personal reasons why I ship myself with Seph and only Seph, but I will say that I can relate to his journey in a very, very personal way. For the first time, I no longer feel like it's 'weird' or 'outside the norm' for self-shipping. I have some followers who do this, too, and my husband is supportive of it. I've learned that this is part of my creative journey, as a way to explore my emotions and provide me comfort.

[sistersorrow]

Every time somone tries to make eme more hopeful by saying "you never know what the future holds," it really just comes off as an admission that they lack basic pattern recognition

Except for some small things here and there, the broad pattern of my life has gone the exact way I expected to with no signs of that ever changing or improving

[bluetimeombre]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐨L 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢e

Deadpool and Wolverine but your lady pool and an absolute SLUT for Wolverine.

[this is a complete self insert with just everything I was thinking about during the movie and since then I’ve watched it three times. It gets better every time. Snippets of the movie, will probably do a part two. SPOILERS!]

part two

Warning/disclaimer: femreaderxwolverine, sexual content, sexual language, offensive language, just being a whore the man, cursing, repeat daddy issues, never proof-read.

After digging up Logan and expecting to find a shirtless and oiled-up Hugh Jackman, you were a little more than disappointed to find the bones and metal. 'Damn it! Shit! Fuck! They Les Mis'd him!'

Eventually, you settled down next to the remains, against the same log that had impaled him. 'That was weird,' you chuckled. 'I'm much calmer now. Look, I'm not a woman in stem but you seem incredibly dead to me. Oh, you sexy lump of bones and metal. I would have let you slide them into me any day.'

'But it's good to see you,' you pat his knee. 'I gotta be honest, I've always wanted to ride you, Logan. Oh, whoops, I meant with you. Ha! Who am I kidding, no I didn't. Just you and me, getting into it. And I mean into it. Every style. Doggy. Sixty-nine. On the kitchen counter to the bathroom. Till my back broke. Yea, we'd have been good together.' You ranted, fantasies flying across your mind too quick to focus on one.

With your red-gloved hand, you jerk the chin. 'G'day mate, there's nothing that'll bring me back to life faster than a big bag of Marvel cash. Ha- I hear you, Hugh. But no, no, no, no you had to go and get all noble and die for real. I could really use your help right now. And a massage. Your big manly hands just rubbing all over me-'

Just as you were about to go into further detail about what you want him to do to you, the sound of portals opening and heavy boots stomping closer alerted you.

Quickly, you pulled the skeleton down on top of you.

'There are two hundred and six bones in the body. Two hundred and seven if i'm watching Van Helsing.'

Que the fucking montage.

You have a mission. Find a Logan to take back with you. First up you end up in a bar, catching an axe as it was thrown at you. 'Logan! I'm gonna need you to come with me.'

The Logan sitting at the bar slowly turned to you. 'Who's asking? ' He slipped from the bar stool to reveal a 5'3 Logan.

You coo. 'Well, who's this little ankle biter. Did you stick the landing little guy? Yes you did, comic-accurate short king. Such a cute little Wolvie.'

The little guy started stalking toward you.

'Que the fucking montage.'

You found a Wolverine for the seventies, or eighties, something close enough to that, one hand missing. 'Oh yea, sexy, you have anchor being written all over you.'

You found patch Logan. 'Oh hello, Patch. Should've worn my white suit.'

You found another old man Logan, sitting solemnly on his front porch. 'Howdy! Oh, I see, you're the daddy issues one. Good to see god has answered my prayers. So soldier, do I need to be a bad girl so you put me over your knee, daddy?'

Another was tied to a cross with red bloody skulls acting as a floor.

One was dressed in a tight yellow and brown suit, walking through the woods. 'Hubba hubba. Classic! Now, you fought the Hulk in this suit, right?' as he snicked his claws out, the green of the beast reflected from behind you. 'I am Marvel Jesus you dull creature and I will not be-'

One, your favourite, was working on a bike in a tight white vest and dark pants. You drooled. 'That's the whole goddamn package right there. You know from behind you look a bit- holy Shit!' he turned, and everything about him was Wolverine. Except for the fact he was Henry fucking Cavil. 'The Cavalry has arrived. The prophecy has been fulfilled. Can I say, sir, sorry, daddy- on behalf of all of humanity, this just feels right! We will treat you so much better than those shit fucks down the street!'

He took the cigar from his mouth, stalking to you. You had never been so aroused in your life. 'You were just leaving'

Giggling and twirling your hair, you hold a hand out, ghosting over his chest. 'Can I just, one- one touch. Oh my god! You're like Superman or something.'

He punched you right into the Logan you needed. Thank you Cavil.

'You two gonna fuck or fight?' asked the bartender. 'Both if i'm lucky,' you said.'

'Oh look at those sexy little jammies, that only took twenty fucking years!'

The trash heap was the last place you wanted to end up, but when you woke to Logan looming over you, a snarl on his face, you sighed in relief.

'Well, hello sexiest man alive, 2008. Wanna give me a hand? Or head?'

He sniked his claws out.

'Kinky! That's new for Disney!'

He dug his claws into your ribs and dragged you up with them. 'Where the fuck are we?'

'I dunno, but it looks a bit mad maxxy to me. But that would be IP infringement right?'

'Fucking jokes,' Logan uttered. He threw you over his leg, your back breaking.

'Till my back breaks, Wolvie!' you yelled out, quickly rolling yourself back up and shaking it off. 'Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'm a big fan. How about we strip off our suits, take a tumble in the sand, get to know one another you know. Personally, I'm more of a cowgirl fan but I'm willing to do whatever you want baby.'

'You're unbelievable,' he grumbled. It was still sexy. He turned his back to you.

'Oh, I see, is that what you did when your world went to shit!'

He paused, his head slowly turning to you. 'Say again, bub?'

'Oh, I am so horny right now.'

The two of you engaged in a fight, and not the sexy stradling fight that would happen later, but the guns firing, swords slashing kind of fight. that was only interrupted by a familiar voice.

The only other voice that could have you dropping your panties as quick as Wolverine. He was hooded, hidden, but you knew him from your sex dreams.

'Dear god almighty, it's him.'

'Who?' growled Logan.

'Don't be jealous baby, I have two holes for a reason. Don't worry gorgeous, you're gonna encounter some delicate language, a smidge of ass play but we've been prohibited from using cocaine, at least on page.'

He raised a hand. 'They're coming.'

'Who's they?'

The three of you watch cars and trucks drive through the waste, keeping you trapped. There were familiar faces, Pyro, Toad. And Sabertooth.

The mysterious figure jumped down and mastered the superhero landing that had you clapping your hands and jumping up and down.

'Oh my god! Oh my god!' you held onto Logan's shoulder as you jumped while he just glared at you.

'I've got this,' the man takes down his hood, showing the beautiful, hot, strong, handsome, hubba-hubba worthy, Chris Evans.

'Oh yes, you do sexiest man alive, 2022!' you cheer.

'Stay close,' Chris- or Steve- called back to you.

You stalk over to him. 'Aye aye, Captain.' you wrap your arms around his stomach, fingers trailing over his abs. He removes you and you groan, sulking. You walk back to Wolverine and jump onto the side of his hip.

Instinctively he holds your ass which makes you giddy before he realises his mistake and drops you.

'You're not gonna love what happens next,' shouted the captain.

Your jaw dropped from behind the mask. 'Holy shit, omg! No way, he's gonna say it! He's gonna say it!' you flick one of your swords that was still poking out of Wolverine's chest. 'Avengers-'

'Flame on!' Steve- no, Johnny- yelled and took to the skies in a ball of fire.

It was sort of stupid in hind sight as Pyro lifted a hand and extinguished him, causing him to fall from the skies and go crotch first into a billboard.

'No!' you screamed, rushing to him and rolling onto his back to get a look at him. 'No, no baby, stay with me. Let me take a look!' you tried to pull down his pants but Logan literally pulled you off him.

You were tied up with Wolverine on the front side of you and Johnny on the back. When you woke, you giggled. 'Woah, just like my dreams.'

Johnny woke to, lifting his head from your shoulder. 'How long was I out?'

You smirk under the mask, looking back to him. 'Not all of you was asleep, say Cap, is that a Glock in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

'Is that Chuck? Hey Chuck, over here! Hope it's you young, god, we got James Macovy in this?' you yelled as a wheelchair rolled out as you entered the thing that was apparently large Paul Rudd.

'Cassandra Nova. Charles's twin,' the villain introduced herself.

'Holy shit,' said Logan.

'How was anal birth?' you asked.

Cassandra smirked. 'You two are cute. I have a good feeling about this.'

'Right!' you cheered. 'Just wait till this ends, the smut is off the charts!'

She took the chain from around the two of you but you wrapped yourself around Logan's arm, he only grunted at you. He only pushed you off when you started to go off and off about what Johnny said about Cassandra. 'People think i'm a shit talker but this guy-' you chef's kiss. 'Next level!'

Cassandra, with a flick of her hand, shed the skin from him as he fell in a heap of bones and blood and skin,

You cried out, holding onto Logan for dear life. 'My favourite Chris!'

'You silly little bitch, you just got him fucking killed!' yelled Logan.

'Fine, spank me then! P.S. Do you know what he was doing to the budget!'

You were brought to Ultimatum with Cassadra, Oliath or the other British villain, but all you wanted was to save your world, bang Wolvy and go home.

'I didn't want it to come to this, either you help us or my boyfriend here is gonna perform the whole of Greatest Showman as a one-man show,' you warn.

'I'm not her boyfriend,' Logan grumbled.

Cassandra went on a trauma dump that had you groaning. 'Couldn't you just turn into accomplishment like the rest of us?'

But I'm not like the rest of you, except maybe the Wolverine, now we could be truly terrifying together.'

'Sorry lady, he's taken!'

'Not for long,' Cassandra smirked and as Logan attacked, she sent him in the ground and away from you. You only whined at his disappearance, a whine that turned into a groan when Cassandra's fingers entered you in the worst way possible. Through your head.

'What can I see here?' she asked. Cassandra gasped. 'Oh, you are a whore.'

Oh yes, she saw the million filthy things you wanted to do to Logan.

The two of you made it out and to the diner where Logan was intent on finding food and taking rubbing alcohol shots. When he sat across from you, chucking a tin of spam at you, you pulled of your mask.

Logan stilled, looking at you with finally something a little different than anger.

'What?' you asked.

'I thought you'd be ugly under there.'

'No- no, that's the Deadpool. I'm better, and a self-insert.'

The two of you took to walking through the rather nicer side of the waste. You had his hand in yours, swinging it happily like you were a couple before he threatened to chop your hand off.

'You said Logan was a hero, what happened?' he asked.

'You died. Technically you were chest fucked by a tree, but really you just ran out of batteries trying to save this girl- a kid really. Always wanted a man who's good with kids. The shit heels who grew her in a lab called her x-23, but she was just a kid. A smaller, cute and mean version of you. Yep, you saved her, very hero, very demure.'

The two of you were interrupted when a bark sounded over the hill and the BEST DOG EVER ran out to you, ears flapping in the wind, tongue out as it always was. The little boots. The collar. It was Dogpool.

You threw off your mask and picked her up, cuddling her close. 'She's coming with us.'

'No she's not!' he argued.

'Yes, she is!'

'No!'

You pulled out your puppy dog eyes and lifted the dog to your face and slowly the resolve in his face slipped.

'Sorry!' another man ran out, chasing after the dog.

'Fucking shit bag!' you cursed.

It was another dead pool, a good-looking one with long hair.

'What's Ryan Reynolds actually doing here, I thought I replaced him?' you said.

'In here everyone calls me Nicepool.'

'Can we have your dog?' you asked immediately.

He laughed. 'over my dead body!'

You nod, thinking about it but Logan holds out his arm before you can even move.

Whatever Nicepool was saying was you didn't care as you cooed and hugged the dog closer and Logan watched.

Fuck, he was paying attention to you.

'Why are you so nice?' you asked eventually.

'It costs nothing to be kind,' he said.

'Shutting the fuck up is also free,' said Logan.

You bite your lip in his direction. 'God I am so attracted to you right now. This is Logan, he's usually shirtless but he's let himself go since the divorce.'

Finally, the Nicepool took you to his ride to get you and Logan and the dog to the borderlands.

It was a honda fucking odyssey.

Logan wasn't willing to listen to your complaints. 'Get in the fucking car.'

'Make me, Daddy,' you said.

He took one step closer to you and you backed away with the dog. 'No, we're running away!'

Logan forced her from your arms and handed him back to the Nicepool.

'The corn was to dense girl!' you called after her, pouting.

Logan shoves you into the passenger seat while he takes the wheel.

You pull of your mask, hair falling around you like you were in an advert. 'So, what shall we do to pass the time...'

Honda Odyssey coming soon, that my friends, is called edging.

[miniaturemoonheart]

You should pay close attention to the moon and its phases. You should listen to the silent wisdom that she is revealing to you with the ebb and flow of that energy.

When people use the term, “Go with the flow,” it simply means flowing with one’s nature, cycles, and moving with the energetic flow. Some fight against the flow, and then it takes longer to reach their “destination.”

If you do not follow moon phases or planetary influence, that is fine. But, I am here to say it will make a difference even just recognizing them, especially the moon cycles – which are easier to grasp. So, I am posting this to just give a bit of flow if you are swimming against the tide.

The standard definition for the phases is as follows:

New Moon: New beginning, a fresh start, setting intentions, restart, starting over, endings, or tower moments that bring positive changes. Planning, strategizing, hermit mode, and looking within for answers.

Waxing crescent: Creative manifestation, planning, processing, germination process, taking root of an idea, the plan begins.

First Quarter: Strategy, bringing balance if there isn’t any, overcoming obstacles, and persevering through the process.

Waxing Gibbous: Refining the situation, enduring the process to see it through to the finish, preparing to accept victory, almost reaching completion.

Full Moon: Reflecting on the process that got you here, reaching a goal, completion, celebration, reaching its potential, fulfillment of a prophecy, hard work pays off.

Waning Gibbous: Releasing what is not working, letting go of what is not in line with your energies, taking stock of what you need to be rid of, and weeding it out slowly.

Third Quarter: Like the first quarter we are bringing balance but in a different way. We are setting up strong boundaries, we are cutting ties, clearing the air, getting rid of what we do not resonate with anymore, and doing it swiftly. Cutting through the BS, ending cycles, cutting the fat!

Waning Crescent: Take the time to recharge, have quiet time, catch up on self-care, spend time in quiet reflection, brainstorm for the next cycle, or just heal through the past process.

If you begin to flow with this process, you will see that it will work in your favor! Here are some witchy tips I use for the moon phases:

-Cut your hair on the New moon to promote hair growth

-Always show gratitude on a Full Moon night – make the time

-Any new job, new move, or new project should begin at the New Moon or a waxing phase never a waning dark phase

-If you are trying to rid yourself of bad habits, start on a waning dark phase and Saturday (Saturn) is the best day to begin

-It is said that if you capture the full moon in the reflection of water and then drink it or splash it on your face, you will be more youthful and glowing – plus your intuition will grow

-Beauty and love should be done on a full moon and Friday is best as Venus rules that day.

I hope you all will take into consideration the beautiful and powerful properties of the Moon and how She can help aid you in the flow of your life!! We all have cycles.

Blessings all and keep shining those lights!

[stygianoaths]

casually intrudes conversation If anything, to me this demonstrates Riordan's dilemma of justifying Thalia's decision to remain on the side of the Gods since everything that has happened to her in her life points to her joining the Titans.

Like think about it:

Thalia grew up with an unstable, alcoholic TV star mother who was obsessed with her father, a guy who was already hardly in the picture, to the point said mother couldn't take care of her or her little baby brother.

She would go on to lose her brother at the age of seven (the age Annabeth was when Thalia first found her, just think about it), because her mom decided to give him away with absolutely no context; and, as a result, had to call the police on her as an act of self-preservation and vengeance on Jason's behalf, before running away.

Thalia then had to fend for herself alone against monsters for a couple of, if not few, years until she ran into Luke, and then Annabeth.

On her journey as a demigod, she bore witness to the cruelty of the gods through Halcyon Green's and May Castellan's curse.

She was chased down by Hades's army of hellhounds, some cyclops, PLUS THE THREE FUCKING FURIES for symbolizing her father's broken promise despite the fact her birth was never a choice for her to make.

She perished in a battle at the age of TWELVE to protect her family, only to be stuck in limbo because her father "pitied" her, when he could have done something beforehand to help her (for reference: Hades ensured the safety of his children in the Lotus Casino.)

She wakes up disoriented years later, not quite fully aged, and has to grapple with 1) the fact the little girl she protected has grown up, and 2) that her best friend is on the Titans' side for reasons she knows more personally than anyone else but kind of has to overlook because EVERYONE at camp is saying he's the enemy and she just woke up.

Oh and said best friend poisoned her tree, which is something she doesn't know how to feel about, because she was dead but also not really.

Finally, she learns there is a prophecy about a child of the Big Three (just her luck, right?) who could bring about the fall of Olympus and then proceeds to get nearly blasted by lightning in the ONE, SINGULAR quest she takes to save Annabeth (which she rightfully, if not correctly, assumes is coming from a paranoid Zeus, who is known for maintaining his rule under any cost, including any cost to himself).

Now, we can give Rick the benefit of the doubt regarding Beryl and Jason Grace, since they don't come until the Heroes of Olympus series. Kind of squinting here because technically Halcyon tells Thalia about Jason being alive, but whatever, I'll still give some leeway.

But Thalia still goes through enough shit to tip her over to the Titan's side (in fact, five of the nine previous bullet points are things Percy likely knows about her), which is why her refusal to join them, without mentioning any prominent reason, makes her badass scene with Luke at the cliffside fall flat.

On one hand, in Riordan's defense, we could assume that Percy is an unreliable narrator and didn't want to entertain any thought of Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth having fulfilling familial ties anymore. We know he was deathly scared of Annabeth leaving him for the Hunters, so it can be similar in that he was scared about Thalia leaving him for Luke. So in his retelling of the events, Thalia stopped knowing Luke as soon as she died all those years ago. When she was revived, she no longer had any connection to the son of Hermes.

But personally, I think the easiest way Rick could have enhanced the scene, and therefore story, would have been to change the following dialogue:

"You aren't Luke. I don't know you anymore."

to

"It stopped being like old times the moment you hurt Annabeth."

Because here's the thing: Luke had never changed. Thalia and him both used to talk shit about the gods, because they lived their horrors. If Annabeth wasn't in the picture; if it had been only Luke Thalia fought for, she would have joined him in an instant, no matter how much Percy or Grover was kind to her. They didn't know the gods like she and Luke did.

It was Annabeth, however, who threw a wrench into things. She shifted their focus away, even if just for a moment. Rather than fester with personal enmity against the gods, they fought alongside each other to watch over their little girl who symbolized the innocence they lost. They loved her so much and they wanted to create a world that was safe for her.

And Annabeth is also someone who we can tie back into Percy's perspective; she is the common ground that everyone of interest stands on.

Another source of dissatisfaction I'd like to point out is the fact that, canonically, this shared love for Annabeth blinds both Thalia and Luke. They fight to make a better world in their own ways -- Luke builds an army to take down what he sees as the oppressive Olympians and Thalia joins the Hunters of Artemis to strike down monsters that could endanger demigods. But they don't realize that all Annabeth wanted from them was to be a family: a family with the two of them and a family with Percy and Grover (and her mom, no matter how unlikely that would have been).

To see them both abandon Annabeth in pursuit of their goals that were literally inspired by the daughter of Athena... well it makes for a disappointing arc, to say the least.

Why do you think Thalia should have been Luke's morality pet instead of Annabeth? While I have many grievances with Rick's writing, I'm fine with Annabeth and her role in the prophecy. Besides, Thalia has shown she hates Luke's guts in the end of Titan's Curse and Last Olympian. So,why would she still care about Luke beyond some enemy? I feel like Thalia was supposed to be this pragmatic person that sets feelings aside if needed. But your point of view sounds interesting.

I let this bad boy pick up dust in my drafts for a while because it’s such a difficult question for me to properly answer without going off into a 100 separate topics, but since we’re answering questions today LETS GO.

This is going to move a bit from what you asked but: one of Rick’s biggest faults, in my opinion, was not giving Thalia her due in her relationship with Annabeth, Luke, and Annabeth & Luke. Arguably their relationships are the most significant in this series, we could even go so far as to say they’re the cause of many of the events in the books (Luke’s anger at the gods + decision to join Kronos partly strengthened and influenced, respectively, by her death; Annabeth’s attachment to Luke made deeper by the death of someone else who was such an important figure in her early life).

So in summary my issue is that Thalia is such an underused character despite having such a profound influence in the story, and her relationships are squandered. We don’t see Thalia’s reaction to the person she knew for approx. 3 years, who she was on the run with, who she died protecting, suddenly siding with the villains. We jump from her resurrection in Sea of Monsters to her suddenly being super chummy with Percy and Annabeth — despite this taking just in-universe months after that book — people who she barely knows. Because she barely knew Annabeth before she died, and that’s a point we have to make.

And not just that but you would think that Thalia’s death, part of the reason for his bitterness at the gods (along with his mom, preexisting feelings and the failed quest + the additional pity it brought him), and her subsequent resurrection would allow us to see Luke having to grapple a bit more with his actions and any guilt he might have. He poisoned her tree and then discovers that she’s back to life, come on. That was ripe for the picking.

But all we have in terms of their interactions is Luke trying to get her to join him, and Thalia kicking him off a mountain — which,,,,, legendary,,,, but come on. And that little tidbit about the Huntresses of Artemis telling Thalia that Luke would betray her because #yesallmen except for Percy Jackson? 🤢🤮🤮🤮

This jump from “Thalia and Luke were best friends who were on the run together and Luke openly gets mad when told he’s betraying her memory because he blames the gods for her death” to “Thalia hates Luke’s guts and Luke never interacts with her anymore despite their shared history being ripe for picking” and that Luke only goes after Annabeth once he wants out also bothers me because it’s part of Riordan’s big insistence that Luke was a true romantic rival when Luke spends three books not caring about Annabeth and four books openly trying to kill her and other demigods.

Now morality pet isn’t really the word I’m looking for here, mostly because Annabeth doesn’t work as Luke’s morality pet either in canon. Luke is, like I’ve said, very much willing to manipulate and kill Annabeth if it means achieving his goals of overthrowing the gods, but he also cares for her because of the things they went through. So it’s complex, but she doesn’t have as much pull on his morality and behavior as “morality pet” implies. So no one’s a morality pet here, but if there was anyone who should have had some sort of influence of Luke’s attitude and be the one he tries to (unsuccessfully) manipulate both out of his own selfish need but also because of shared history, it’s Thalia.

At the end of the day my beef is mostly about how Thalia was such an important character to so many others’ backstories and development, and when she finally appears she’s unceremoniously shoved with the Huntresses of Artemis and then forgotten in the following series. This is exactly why I have issues with books that deal exclusively with a limited pov, and especially first person pov, you’re missing out on so many insights from other characters.

[mordigen]

Unpopular opinion: Christians are not witches

I said it. Fight me.

There has been a trend that has been growing ever more problematic recently: overbearing, hyper-zealous, hyper-vigilant "acceptance" This means the pagan community is an absolute free-for all, and you are not allowed to so much as even feign the possibility that you do not agree with absolutely 100% of everything, lest you be named a gatekeeping, ignorant bigot.

Whether you like it or not - there ARE paths out there that have specific rules...regulations...stipulations...tenets - whatever the hell you want to call or classify them. End. Period. There's no other colour that comes in - that's it. Sorry for you, but they DO exist. In fact, there are many of them.

If you do not follow those rules, tenets, etc..., then you are not of that path. Point. Blank. And there is nothing wrong with that - it simply means that you are of some other path. That's it! That's all that means! It may be *nearly* identical to the path in question - but it is not, hence the 'nearly'.

If you happen to be a part of one of these paths, there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying so. If someone claims to be a part of one of these paths, but are absolutely, blatantly not - there is nothing wrong with saying that, and explaining why that is. Some people just honestly don't know there is a difference, or that these certain prerequisites are indeed a definitive factor - so they learn something, they broaden their horizons. Everyone seems to be all about educating themselves about being sensitive to other cultures and customs - except the pagan community, apparently, because this mentality does not translate across that pagan/witch line. Instead of taking it as a learning experience, you are immediately pounced on with notions of 'there are no rules!' 'you can't tell someone what to do on their own path!' Or, simply, the name calling. Well yes, while all of that is true - it still remains that how ever you want to practice or whatever you personally decide to do, may just simply not be what you are claiming, or calling it. It may just be semantics - but semantics matter when dealing with nuance. And paganism is extremely nuanced.

You can call a tomato an orange all you want to - but that thing will never be an orange, no matter how much you believe in it. And people are not wrong for informing you that you may have the wrong name, that is in fact, a tomato. If you go on deciding to call it an orange, you can do that - but that is willful ignorance. So, in your fight to be unapologetically accepting of every ridiculous notion, you are perpetuating willful ignorance - whilst being directly in opposition of your goal and being, *GASP*, unaccepting to those who follow a path where distinction and definition matters. You are completely invalidating those people's paths and beliefs while trying to defend another's (another who may, in fact, actually be wrong) and actively using their path & beliefs as the very reason to berate and ostracize them. Pretty fantastically hypocritical of you. Now...on to the second problem. I do not, at all, in any form, believe in "ritual magick" - as perpetuated by Aleister Crowley hardons. And no, that is not a knock on Crowley, just the idiot followers that don't understand half of what he taught and latch onto the superficial.

When you look at the origins and make up of magical beliefs, and magic itself as a separate entity - no matter which particular branch - they were all created by religion. They all have roots in highly spiritual cultures and customs. So, I absolutely do not believe for one second that you can believe in magic without SOME form of religion - whatever one you adhere to is your choice, but you cannot have the first without the latter. You cannot. Even if you claim that you have no religion, or spiritual faith, your practices absolutely do. You are calling on elements and agencies that absolutely have divine ties and connections one way or another. Oh, how many atheists I see calling on the seals of Arch Angels.... are you fucking shittin me? Really?? So let's bring it all together now - with the fact that many faiths DO have prerequisites, AND the fact that magic is religious/spiritual -- Christians are not, and cannot be witches or pagans. They are mutually exclusive. Not only because so many various paths have such prerequisites, and very define religious/spiritual beliefs that are contradictory to others - but simply because Christianity DOES, very much, have very clear and stringently defined Do's & Don'ts, and obviously the religious aspect itself clashes with the religious beliefs of others. Their religious beliefs clash with people who believe in their same god - so how could they not with those who believe in other gods?? Considering this, no other path would even need such stipulations themselves for them to be mutually exclusive, as Christianity already covers that issue so completely, but the fact that so many pagan paths do only exacerbates an already existing problem. That being said - that does not mean you cannot believe in the Christian 'god', by whatever name you know him by - or that you cannot believe in Jesus, and also be a witch or pagan. In fact the latter has an even bigger argument for believing in both, as paganism, generically, in itself is polytheistic, so it is very fitting to simply have the Christian god and Jesus amongst the many deities being worshipped. But those two things alone is not what makes Christianity. A good start, yes, but that is not all it takes - in fact, there are many that are shunned, excommunicated, banned, condemned and moreso whilst having those very two qualifying factors. You can find this in *every single* sect of Christianity, so...the proof is in the pudding, as they say, that it is much more than simply believing in 'God' and Jesus that makes a 'Christian'. And if you take that to heart and follow all those rules - you cannot be a witch or pagan, many times over, as you would be in direct opposition, or violation, of a number of their teachings - both on the aspect of simple 'rules', but also on a much deeper spiritual level of the entire foundation of their faith. Cannot serve two masters, and all that... If you do not follow those rules, then sure, you could be a witch or a pagan - but then you cannot be a Christian. That is just the facts.

Many people like to argue the use of magic and mysticism in the bible - but the issue is what parts of the bible they are found, and all the amendments of the further books. Again, what really carves out being a Christian vs. any of the other sects of Abrahamic beliefs. As, news flash - there is far more than just Christianity. And some of them, do, in fact, do hand in hand with magic. The Kabbalah is an astounding example of that - and, in fact, where a lot of the so called *ahem* 'non'-religious 'ritual magick' comes from. In this same vein, I would like to note that I have never had any issue or seen conflict with the Hebrew or Jewish take on shamans, mystics and witches, as they really do go hand in hand - They have their own very in depth, detailed, spiritual and sentimental form of mysticism that was a natural progression from pre-Abrahamic religions and culture, and grew into their teachings and belief system, so it does not go against their core beliefs the same way it very stringently does in Christian theology. Considering their ethnical histories and cultural heritage - this is a brilliant example of the natural evolution and progression of faiths - not simply ripped from the hands of the brutally oppressed and rewritten as a mockery to wipe out the preexisting notion of faiths -- as the Church has a history of doing. The Book of Enoch is another shining example of Biblical magic, or Angelic magic. But, this also also turns my point into a self fulfilling prophecy, as in the fact that it is accepted amongst all denominations as heresy, and it is taught that these magics - though they do, in fact, exist, were for the angels and completely forbidden from mankind. So, thusly, if you are a follower of Enoch, you are not a 'Christian', by name and membership, as you are outright going against it's teachings. You are a heretic, a blasphemer. Perhaps you may be one of the many other forms of the Christian god's followers - but not a Christian, as being Christian denotes a very specific set of beliefs and tenets - end of story. Magic, and paganism, is in direct conflict with those teachings, and therefore, cannot coexist.

On top of the logic - there is also the emotional issue. Christianity has a long history of abuse towards various pagan, tribal and indigenous faiths, while stealing our beliefs as their own, and demonizing those they couldn't successfully acclimate into theirs. To now be expected to be OK with this faith, yet again, latching on to *our* sacred rites and practices as being a part of their own is a hard pill to swallow at best, a slap in the face to most, and flat out perpetuating trauma at worst. Once upon a time, people sought out these very same communities and groups within their pagan circles as an escape, a safe space, and a shield and guardian against the Christian onslaught, torment, oppression, or just exhaustion - and now, we must not only tolerate them invading our private spaces, but must now welcome them with open arms and expected to be happy about it? Forgive me if I don't sympathize....

If we are going to now be forced into being shoulder to shoulder with them, the very least you can offer us is neutrality. You can be accepting of all and still be neutral grounds - not taking any one side anywhere, all you have to do is be respectful to each other. Disagreement is not disrespectful. Could someone who disagrees with a certain viewpoint *become* disrespectful? Sure, of course they could. But simply the act of disagreement is nothing hateful or hurtful in any way shape or form - in fact, good discourse is how progress is made. So we need to remain neutral grounds and normalize the acceptance of different viewpoints - we need to recognize and accept that, yes, there are paths out there that do have specific requirements, expectations and limits - there are paths that are going to disagree, or just flat out not believe in something. Instead of name calling, when someone of those paths decides to speak up and enlighten and elaborate on information that may be inaccurately described or depicted, you need to LISTEN and learn, and not just bludgeon them with presumptive judgement. You also need to accept that there are many, various different closed practices out there - beyond Native American & Voodoo practices (as those seem to be the only ones the pagan community recognizes) and if someone of those closed faiths tell you - no, you are not xy or z, that is also not being judgmental or hateful or hurtful - that simply is. ....a very important side note here is that acknowledging closed practices is also not a carte blanche for screaming about cultural appropriation. Please shut the fuck up about cultural appropriation. Not being of a specific faith is not equivalent to cultural appropriation - Telling someone "no, you're not xyz" is very different from telling someone "no, you can't practice xyz" (looking at you smudge-Nazis) You can enjoy, practice, learn or celebrate anything you want of any faith you want while not actually being apart of it - that's the beauty of sharing and learning. And I think that is where all the trouble boils down from:

Yes, you can do whatever you want and can create whatever path you want for yourself...just don't misrepresent it, don't call it something it is not, and don't deny those who are more educated & experienced in that particular department. We get enough of that from outsiders to start doing it to each other.

[hekatekun]

The metanarrative’s grand narrative: Osomatsu-san’s characterization throughout the franchise

The growing cynicism throughout the entire Osomatsu-san franchise shows itself in season 3 with more prominence than anything prior. I think that’s pretty common amongst any “long-running” gag comedy - replacing a plot with spiteful commentary that’s admittedly pretty hit or miss at times. However, it invariably creates a negative but pretty funny character growth, and I love the way the show (I’m including the movie too as “canon” material considering season 3 has referenced it way too many times for me to disregard) has set up this metanarrative across seasons. Long post ahead.

Obviously, Osomatsu-san is self-aware and has a casual relationship with itself. No linear plot (though S3 seems to be trying it out and I’ve enjoyed it - I love that they’re willing to experiment), rather a collection of unrelated skits; and so it points out its own metanarrative because of this “lack of consequences.” With comedy comes impermancy and Ososan AND -kun will always bounce back from that week’s insanity. From the Oxford Dictionary, a metanarrative is “a narrative account that experiments with or explores the idea of storytelling, often by drawing attention to its own artificiality.” Basically: a story about stories.

On top of this, is what I’m calling the “grand narrative,” which is often used interchangeably with metanarrative, but here I’m making a distinction to make it less confusing. Of course, Ososan is a story about stories, but with that comes a story it’s not directly telling, which is where most of the (little) character development is taking place. This is what I’m going to call the grand narrative of a show whose premise is being a meta-aware comedy. I’ll admit I’m by no means an expert on these subjects, but storytelling methods are something I enjoy trying to analyze. As a media format, Ososan really utilizes the fact that it’s a tv show.

Right off the bat S1E1 makes it clear what to expect: Nothing. Not a damn thing. But, the show had already been cleared for this first season, so it has to be produced. This same episode’s preview is done by Osomatsu, which I’m just gonna quote instead screenshot because there’s too many.

“...we plan on properly starting the anime the next episode.” “...you ended up with an extra minute, so you need me to do something to fill it?! Actually, is this anime going to be okay with episode one being like this? I’m getting worried about how the rest of this is going to be...” “There, I used up a minute! [EPISODE ENDS]”

Episode one is not only batshit referential, but downright mocking the state of anime in 2015. Which, truthfully, I don’t have much to comment on in that regard, as I’m not an avid anime fan. However, it does this under the premise of being indecisive about what kind of anime they wanted the Osokun reboot to be. 

They’ll do just about anything to stay popular and relevant considering that is, quite literally, all they have going for them as characters in the series and just being characters in general. They may be pieces of shit, but they’re likeable pieces of shit. The dynamics they’ve built upon to be entertaining is encouraged, and they’re basically just roleplaying different skits and fucking around.

All the AUs! All the skits! They’re just playing! They’re just fuckin’ around!! They couldn’t come up with any interesting plot nor could they “graduate” from being anime protagonists and join the real world, so they just fuck around and make a gag anime!

Even if we follow both as the audience, the show makes a difference between the what’s them in their “normal life” (crazy begets crazy, no?) and what’s their “show.” But, really, that’s just one way to look at it, as they don’t really follow any rules as a show. I could say the Joshimatsus are separate characters from the sextuplets, and it’d be a “correct” interpretation. It doesn’t really matter - I’m choosing to examine it all as being the six of them just running around and playing, because being entertaining and having fun is all they know as characters. Besides, having it blended together beyond recognition reinforces how it prioritizes entertaining us, the audience, above logic. Storytelling doesn’t need to make absolute spatial-temporal sense for it to be enjoyable to fans.

In any case, that mentality really seems to be what pushes their character development negative, as they look to reinforce habits and rituals despite them being really detrimental for them in the long run. They know they’re popular characters as is, and with really everyone from staff to fans encouraging this behavior further, so they see no point in fixing what isn’t really broken.

I found this 4 year old article from Manga.Tokyo discussing the Ososan phenomenon in Japan because while the craze died off pretty quickly in American anime circles (which deserves a whole other post), Japanese fans went fuckin’ nuts.

This portion caught my attention, as it makes sense that entitled and enabled asshole children would grow up to be entitled and enabled asshole adults. The article also goes on to compare them to idols (even beyond the F6 spoof) and that they are rooted in being comfort characters above all else. 

It’s worth a read, especially because Japanese fan response is what drives majority of the content post-S1, and, inevitably, ties into their character development. 

They know that they’re Characters, particularly Protagonists. You know what happens to protagonists? Everything works out. Just about every single story created has stuff working out for protagonists. In fact, we have a whole genre made that separates stories with bad tragic endings from our Normal Stories. Ososan is a comedy, not a tragedy, so surely there’s gonna be some payoff somewhere along the road, especially as the seasons and other content are still being pumped out. To a self-aware, entitled, enabled protagonist, assuming everything is just gonna work out for you isn’t that far off from your narrative truth.

However, Ososan is a gag anime, and a lot of gag content (like 4koma mangas) is dropped for other projects before any emotional cathartic ending is provided for characters and fans alike. So, three seasons and a movie later, nothing has happened. It’s a great idol cash cow with a Family Guy filter, and the characters (and writers) don’t even bother to hide it anymore. And I know I’m being hypocritical concerning my definition of “canon material” but I think this portion from one of the drama cds “Choroplex” basically summarizes my point:

CHOROMATSU: Wait, don’t make this into a gag! You don’t even care about becoming employed, right? KARAMATSU: There’s no way that could happen... CHOROMATSU: What kind of future are you imagining? Is it nothing but this? [HUGE PAUSE BEFORE THEY MOVE ONTO SOMETHING ELSE]

They’re parodies of themselves and are running out of ideas. Stagnation and decay is normal, if not unavoidable, at this point in time for them. They’re just 20 somethings who’ve hit a wall but they’re too scared and insecure to bring about permanent positive change. It’s easier for them to fall back into normal patterns and joke off the rest.

They have an antagonistic relationship with expectations. They can’t handle a single iota of expectations, or responsibilities. They’ve never needed to worry before, so why bother now? Once the biggest hits on the block, now they’re just guppies in the ocean, and there’s nothing they believe themselves to be able to accomplish to keep up with this big brave new world. This is epitomized in S3E15, where old man Osomatsu tells a bastardized version of the Tortoise and the Hare, blatantly projecting his feelings onto it. Again, too many screenshots so let me pull more quotes (bolding for my own reference):

“The place that the tortoise thought was the goal was not actually the goal. His journey down the road of life still continued on. The tortoise was quite tired, but he continued running anyway.” “No one actually knew who was in front anymore. There are too many people above you.” “After the tortoise found out how society worked, he thought, ‘So this is the difference in talent? No amount of hard work is going to fix this. All right. I’m done competing with others.’”

S3 has left more questionable endings than its counterparts. The last 2 skits I referenced don’t even a gag to them, and the marriage skit doesn’t play music for the entire second half of S3E5. There’s more involved too. I haven’t even brought up the rice ball twins becoming actual entertainers in their universe, or how they introduced this whole AI subplot only to reject it because All Six Of Them aren’t interested in expanding their little corner of the world. Here’s a transcript of the ending preview from S3E1:

“Hey, hey, Osomatsu here. I thought we were saved from being replaced, but I guess we get new characters next week. Man, we’re busy. New encounters, changing surroundings... We’re NEETs to begin with because all that is a pain. I guess a lot can happen after three seasons. [EPISODE ENDS]”

The sextuplets’ mindsets are extremely self-centered, which is also an environmental thing (the parents don’t even really care that they’re NEETs, for one) and an understanding of what they ought to be (epic successful protagonists). They also have a very black and white mentality, all or nothing. They’re extremely sheltered, and once they realized where they stood in society at large, they just gave up. To them the world is divided between winners and losers, and somehow, “inexplicably,” they found themselves to have fallen from grace. But they’re protagonists, that has to count for something! Everything’s gonna end up okay, right? Well... what this show has told them: No, not at all. They are consistently compared and warned of Iyami, and are perfectly aware of this fact, and have come to internalize it as a truth rather than a reversible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Too many screencaps, taken from the S3S5 marriage discussion:

JYUSHIMATSU: I wonder if we’re gonna get married someday, too. CHOROMATSU: Well, I mean... probably? I’m not exactly sure, but... TODOMATSU: What? You’re gonna get married, Choromatsu-niisan? CHOROMATSU: Huh? Well, yeah... someday.

Surprise! They have commitment issues! The same group that couldn’t commit to a fucking plot! Though their personality issues have several factors involved, I can’t overlook the theater motifs abound. Life’s a stage, and they’re performing entirely unscripted and it shows.

Do I think all of this is 100% intentional on the writers’ part? No, probably not. There’s also an extra layer here regarding contemporary Japanese commentary that I’m not familiar with, so I just ended up focusing on the characters. I can’t be in the writers’ heads, but whatever decisions are being made by executives regarding censorship and “compliance” are reflected in these character changes that result in being significantly more bitter and defeatist.

In the all or nothing, winner-take-all mentality, the only way to save face at this point, in their minds, is to own up to it - act like it’s what they wanted all along. And, hey, it’s funny to watch, right?

“Why is Osomatsu all my examples”, you might be asking. Well, he’s the damn blueprint for it all. The leader of the bunch, the first personality to grab your attention, has had all his issues projected and ricocheted in their echo chamber.

Ultimately, my point here is that you could think their “canon characterizations” (though canon means nothing in a show like this) as being intertwined with the nature of their self-aware existence. They’ve shown you all their tricks, the smoke and mirrors are getting boring, and they’re stalling long enough the story seems to be moving on without them - in spite of them. And when something genuinely threatens their way of life, they don’t know how to respond.

You can play it all straight, of course. Remove the meta jokes and all the same plot points can be hit, but, as a slapstick comedy, it’s able to easily add this additional layer in that I appreciate. I’ve said it in my last post and I’ll probably say it in more, but with comedy comes sincerity - the caveat of all the cartoon violence is that, on some level somewhere, this is how they really feel.

[pikaflute]

hi, sudafed cleared my sinuses long enough to think so here’s a giant post about most of my charles headcanons

Playlist

OH btw here’s my 4 hour and 23 minute playlist for Charles. Enjoy. Yes I know I’m insane: https://open.spotify.com/user/pikaflute24/playlist/4DBxaaxbqsmJt9Fvl8AgwZ?si=OcXlYCdFRzOhuKa4p_HdUQ

General Headcanons

He was born November 24 1965. He’s currently 56, but I usually write him in his late 40s in most fanfic and content I make. So there’s this middle aged man....

He has hazel eyes. Sometimes they look green, sometimes brown. Sometimes they’ll be white but that’s when he’s using his magic so mind your business

Gear brand over his heart >:)c

:) i think he has piercings and tattoos, a skull (dead man teehee) on his upper arm, a tattoo of a date (the date pickles and him first met TEEHEE) on his left arm also has a tattoo on his arm of the day he “died” on his right. had his ears pierced when he was a teen.

Has a sweet tooth so hard. Smuggles in treats into the drawers of his desk just to snack on during the day and has a mini fridge just filled with ice cream and also sorts of other goodies. He loves brownies and cookies the most

Likes to work out and keep himself in shape. it takes his mind off of stressful things like work and the boys, and just take his morning practice sparring and doing various exercises in the mordhaus gym. 

he’s uh also very flexible so he does yoga a lot when he exercises. don’t. look too deep into that

cannot cook to save his life. he almost burned mordhaus down trying to make himself a sandwich

he can play guitar! he used to play it more often when he was younger but he rarely has the time to play it nowadays. when he does get to play it, it’s usually in private (and mainly songs by dethklok), or it’s to show off to a certain lead guitarist that yes he is playing that solo wrong

he’s ambidextrous but prefers using his right hand. he’ll use his left hand to spar in order to go easy on his opponents because hes a smug cunt

he’s 5′7 but intimidation factor adds a couple inches doesn’t it

has a scorpion named princess as a pet. he lets her sit on his desk sometimes and it scares the shit out of dethklok which makes charles laugh on the inside

hes also a cat person. one time toki brought a cat home and it settled on charles’ lap and he almost cried

loves to be a smug asshole and relishes in it. will not take shit from anyone, especially from some asshole who is trying to pull one over on him

he has no idea how social media works at all. will print memes out to show to dethklok, he’s very fond of cat memes specifically (i can has cheeseburger type beat)

he has no idea what any internet memes means he isn’t going to start learning. he is going to misuse internet phrases. are you boys, ah, finding the imposter? [cue five groans from dethklok]

knows a lot of languages. not a comprehensive list but: french, swedish, norwegian, spanish, italian, japanese, chinese, german, russian and korean

is very competitive. scarily competitive. once he starts losing in smash or mario kart all hell will break lose

very bad at showing emotions or affection, when he gets compliments he gets all red and quiet and mumbles a thank you. 

weird about being touched as well and will usually avoid it unless it’s with someone he trusts

speaking of, his love language is acts of service :)c

hates being called charlie or chuck, unless the right person calls him it ;)

he’s autistic. was nonverbal for most of his life and only talked to certain people, or anyone at all. he stims with his hands and uses his pens to fidget.

has a collection of novelty socks. he likes the ones that have polka dots or stripes

sleeps with a garfield plushie he had since he was younger. it helps him with the nightmares

when any of the boys need help sleeping (usually toki or pickles), he’ll sleep with them in his bed. after dying he had trouble sleeping some nights, so dethklok returned the favor and all piled up in his bed and helped him sleep. he didnt have nightmares after that night

hes nearsighted, and prefers to wear glasses over contacts

lactose intolerant, hes still eating mac n cheese and paying the price

metalhead but pretends to not be just to mess with his boys

crippling addiction to match 3 games. also loves to play minecraft.

overly self sacrificial. puts ones he love needs before his own, results in himself being very isolated and distant from those he cares about because he’s afraid of hurting them

his favorite colors are black and purple

coffee kinda guy. black coffee or bust

has a lot of cute novelty mugs to put his coffee in. he ones from places where dethklok tours, dethklok official ones (the only two that aren’t adorned with spikes), some cat themed ones, a couple that have ties and math references, and one from his boys that says “most brutal manager”. he drinks out of that last one the most

he has a couple of grey hairs and wrinkles, but he keeps them because they remind him that he’s human. also pickles said old men were hot but you didnt hear that from me

likes to play chess but he can never find a good opponent. all the klokateers are too scared if they win and dethklok is too distracted to ever play with him or they end up losing to quickly if charles plays against them

really wants kids. he babies his sister’s sons and daughters a TON (uncle charles always brings the best gifts :) ) and also treats toki like his own son in a way. toki doesnt mind, he really appreciates the love

speaking of, toki does call charles dad once and it makes charles cry for like. a week and a half

his favorite dethklok song is the gears :)

he likes to collect knives as a side hobby, his favorite of his collection is a sleek black one with skulls on the handle

he has a motorcycle and likes to drive it around sometimes to just be alone with himself. it’s all black with a red gear on it

lightweight but only if he drinks the amount dethklok drinks. can hold his alcohol fairly well if he drinks like a sensible human, prefers brandy and wine

he can smoke cigars to be sexy for me and me ONLY

likes to read in his spare time. he likes mystery novels and science fiction

he has soft spot for cheesy sitcoms, they’re his guilty pleasure

his favorite youtuber is lockpickinglawyer. yours should be too

usually sleeps in only his boxers but will wear a shirt if its’s cold. he tends to sleep on his side (also wants to be the little spoon when cuddled but he will never admit that)

takes vacations sometimes away from the boys despite his worry that something will go wrong (it will!). many of his vacations are usually going to visit his family and going to the shore with them, or travelling to somewhere new for a change (cue charles being a yakuza substory on his one vacation per year)

he can sew pretty well. learned from his mom and used to sew the whole his sister use to put through her soccer uniform.

can also do makeup, and usually does it for one of the boys of there’s no one else around to help

bites his lip when he’s nervous. which is a lot

likes chococat and gudetama. he’s a man of tastes

laughs really loud if you catch him off guard. he snorts sometimes too. he’s embarrassed by it, but i think its’ cute

loves law and order obviously 

he likes men

has a lot of pent up rage. very good at compressing it. sometimes

as high priest, he stays up very late trying to decipher the ancient prophecies that dethklok needed to fulfill. he doesnt sleep very much when he starts out because he misses home, so the band makes him come back (or else)

also as high priest he becomes more intune with magic granted to him after he died and he mainly uses his magic to protect his boys when they go back to being a band. also to fuck with them

the band he managed before dethklok was a band named savior who said they were a metal band with a unique sound, but that unique sound was actually just being a christian metal band that were bad at playing music. they also treated charles like shit and blamed him for them doing so poorly with sales and shows. had an unfortunate “accident” with a tour bus after charles had enough of their attitude towards him.  he denies he had anything to do with it (he did.)

Family/Childhood

He’s the baby of the family. Spoiled rotten to the max. He doesn’t admit it though but whenever he comes home you know he abuses the “:)c im the favorite” card

He has 4 older sisters: Caroline who is a high school civics teacher, Cynthia who is a librarian, Callie who is a coach for a soccer team, and Charlotte who is a lawyer/manager who manages Ladyklok, which gets awkward (and funny) when Abigail starts dating the lead singer Natalie

charles is actually one of the tallest in his family. his dad is 6’1 and his older sister Callie is 5’11. cynthia is 5’6, caroline is 5’6, and his mom and charlotte are 5’5.

his mom is a doctor and his dad is an accountant. his mom’s name is giovanna and his dad’s name is elijah

caroline is the oldest sister, followed by cynthia, callie, charlotte then charles.

Charlotte and Charles are sworn enemies since they were born on the same day a year apart and basically have the same job. They do love each other though

His father calls him Charles. Caroline and Cynthia call him Charlie. Callie calls him Chuck. Charlotte calls him Charles (derogatory). His mom calls him a whole slew of nicknames that she made up when he was young (she calls him cheese ball and he turns red)

caroline has a wife (lauren who is a chef) and two kids (evan and shelby)

cynthia is dating a coworker (viola)

callie has a husband (john who is a stay at home dad) and they have three kids (brenda, melissa, and jeff)

charlotte is dating ladyklok (and abigail). this is a weird flex on charles i think.

He had a race car bed when he was like 5

He also was also one of those kids at family game night. He almost killed Cynthia over a game of monopoly

Always got to lick the spoon first after his mom baked brownies

He grew up in North Jersey (derogatory) (also yes im projecting state shot)

He’s also Italian (derogatory)

He got bullied in middle school for a little bit but once his older sisters found out, oh boy did all hell break loose

Was in band in high school. He played flute (DONT TALK TO ME I LIKE PROJECTING), he was of course a soloist and incredibly smug about it

Took gymnastics as a kid. Can do a backflip on command. Also very flexible.

First manager gig was helping his sisters sell girl scout cookies. They raked in a lot of profits when baby bro was behind the scenes. His cut was eating thin mints for free

Loved Star Trek when he was a kid

Was incredibly gifted, and taught himself to read at a young age. didn’t talk that much though

was always sick when he was little. he would always get sinus infections and colds if someone even sneezed weird

was in mock trial in high school. one guy on his team was a jerk to him so charles made it a point to be this poor kid’s nemesis

was on the student council, treasurer of course.

was also in nhs, and he was treasurer there too

was that kid who insisted on doing the group project by himself because he didn’t want to wait on anyone to finish their part

was super rowdy as a kid, always got into trouble but his mom was a little lenient of punishment (hes a mommas boy)

when he was like super young he bit people cause he was just a little monster (charles' sisters: mom charles is biting again. charles, biting one of them: im not :/ sheesh)

wanted to be a lawyer since he was 7

put his own siblings and parents on trial and would win every trial and would always get the last cookie or a higher allowance

he shared his room with his sister Charlotte and they would set up a pillow fort on one of the beds and stay up late reading together 

loved going to the beach as a kid, his mom still has his collection of shells from the beach

on the boardwalk, he would dominate at claw machines anad carnival games. he won a bunch of plushies from himself (and his sisters obviously)

his dad and him have a super close bond. they watched star trek together and also like to watch how the stock market would do. his dad was also sometimes the judge in charles’ mock trials at home

they were very supportive when he came out as gay, he was also the first of his sibilings to come out of the closet

College

Got his masters in business management at rutgers and a JD (law degree) from seton hall law.

Started college when he was 18 (1983) and ended college when he was 26 (1991)

Wasn’t a party guy. Never got invited to many, but he never went unless a certain redhead was in town

Sustained himself off of ramen, coffee, and SSRIs to get his masters (hey man i feel ya)

Did weed like three times. Three of those times were because of, you guessed it, a certain redhead

Speaking of, his first time having sex was in his dorm with Pickles. Pickles also kicked him off of the bed (those beds are fucking tiny) while they slept, and almost burned Charles’ dorm down trying to make toast the next morning

Absolute did not do essays until the night before. Bad habit that made it’s way into Dethklok managing when he’s forced to write a legal brief before 12 am.

Loved calculus 2 for some reason. Nerd

Had a mullet. Pickles thought it was hot (still is) while Charles would rather die than remember anything about that horrid hairdo

Also went through his goth/emo phase while in Law School. He stuck out amongst the sea of sweater vests and polo shirts

Was in a band with his fellow college bandmates. The band was called Habeas Corpses and he was the lead singer who also played guitar. Their sound was kind of similar to TWRP’s first two EPs (The Device and 2nite). they had a grunge aesthetic, and yes charles dyed his mullet black (with a purple streak), for the band.

his bandmates were all fellow law students. dillan was on drums, margaret was their bass guitar, and nick was their keyboardist. all three of them also got tutored by charles while in law school. they are still best friends and write to each other sometimes

Was on the debate team, but uh kicked off due to be very competitive (he threatened to punch the opposing debater)

Was also in the chess club, also kicked off for being too competitive (lunged at a kid for cheating)

After being kicked from the two previous clubs, he joined fencing, his very competitive nature made him the best in the state

nick (the guy in charles’ band) was charles’ roommate the whole time they were in college. they may or may not have had a brief relationship before they realized they would be better as friends

nick also has a nes and charles loved to played zelda and wrote an entire guide for himself because he’s was that into the game (nerd)

occasionally would be found sleeping in the library on campus

wanted to be an RA but the resident association at his schools thought he was a little much. charles took this as a compliment

worked out a lot between studying and classes. a lot of jocks underestimated him because of his size but charles was just :) [casually lifts something heavy]

a lot of fellow classmates thought he was super cool cause of the leather he wore, and how cool and quiet he was, too bad they didnt know he was a huge nerd

tried skateboarding. once.

had a cadillac that barely started and drove like a piece of shit but that was charles’ baby

pickles tried to have sex with charles in said car btw, charles almost killed him for even daring to suggest to tarnish his beautiful baby

has damaged his back permanently because of all the books he used to carry around in his crappy back pack

did some modelling for one of his friends in college. he was very attractive and got some other modelling job through it. he tries to hide that from the boys in the future because he thinks it’s embarrassing

Relationship with Dethklok

Pickles - he’s known the drummer the longest out of any other member, and if you couldn’t tell by now, he had a brief relationship with the drummer back in the 80s (and maybe also still has a crush on him :)). charles respects and admires pickles’ talent as a musician and sometimes they play together when they have time alone. he tries to be there when pickles has a relapse in either emotions with his family or something else, but still tries to maintain a distance because he thinks that pickles doesn’t feel the same as he did in the 80s. (he does btw). nothing could break the bond these two share. not even death

Nathan - understands nathan’s quiet nature (nonverbal kings!) and strive for perfection in everything dethklok creates because he is the same way. their similarities allow them to connect on a level that allows nathan to open up about his feelings that he likes to lock away. nathan also gets charles to open his feelings up and actually care for himself for once in his damn life. charles also helps nathan with the depression he develops after charles dies and how to deal with it despite it being not brutal. nathan wants to give back and he does by becoming one of charles’ closest friends (and maybe even lovers hehehe)

Toki - charles has taken it upon himself to be toki’s father figure after seeing the way toki’s family has left him for essentially dead. ever since toki joined the band, charles has made it a point to be there for him whenever he needed it. even if it meant spending late nights reading to toki or sleeping over in toki’s room to help him sleep, he’ll do it. he blames himself for toki’s disappearance but toki assures him that he did the best he could. toki calls him dad a lot after doomstar. it makes charles cry.

Skwisgaar - unstoppable asshole meets immovable object. skwisgaar sees himself above everyone else like he does with the other dethklok members but with charles, skwisgaar knows that charles isn’t intimidated by him nor will he bow to the guitar god in anyway. this develops a game of cat and mouse between the two, with skwisgaar trying to no subtly push charles’ buttons and to see what makes him ticks, while charles resist him at every turn with a smug ‘:) is that all you got’ and it delights him to finally see the guitarist squirm under pressure.

Murderface - at first the two are very. distant to say the least. murderface used to see charles as unemotional robot and charles was fine with that and accepted the distance. overtime however, and especially after charles died, murderface warmed up to charles confiding in him things he hasn’t told the band, mainly things about his insecurities because charles is ‘fucking smart with crap like this’. and charles helps him and is happy to see him work out his problems and not bottle them anymore like the rest of his bandmates. charles also enjoys murderface’s company as a friend as well. and….he’s gonna help murderface the most with the whole traitor stuff too.

Abigail - mlm and wlw hostility. but seriously they’re good buds. he sympathizes with having to deal the moronic actions of dethklok on a daily basis and also thinks she’s really intelligent and overall fun to hang out with. they take lunch breaks frequently together and like to make fun of people at dethklok dinners together as a fun activity together. abigail will bully his ass once she finds out she’s dating charles’ sister and WILL bring up those baby pictures to get a higher raise thank you very much

Knubbler - can you say coworker besties! like abigail, he gets along because they both have to deal with dethklok being, well dethklok, but with knubbler, charles can relax a little more. the two cause problems on purpose just because they can. the two are also close friends and knubbler tries to get charles to relax for once in his life, and despite charles protests and objections, he sometimes caves and hands out with his friend (maybe boyfriend OOOOO who knows)

Sex Headcanons (IM SORRY)

um maybe he can have a giant dick (10 inches for me), it do be swinging though

daddy kink (everyone stay on this side, ill take care of him….come to daddy ;)c)

likes to do roleplay. he has a lot of costumes prepared for when his partner wants to do a scene with him

likes to bite and be bitten during sex. after a very long night, he’ll be covered in bite marks, it’s kinda hot

no gag reflex ;) he likes to deepthroat but good luck trying to get him to go down on you without him teasing

remember how i said he was flexible like eight times? yeah he uh, uses that a lot to his advantage. likes being fucked in weird positions because of it

the suit stays on during sex

he likes topping because he likes to be in control of everything he does all the time, but really wants to be told what to do sometimes and will let those he trusts do that for him

he has a dick piercing i know it

he's a very busy man, so he relies on his huge collection of toys he keeps in his bedroom and office

really good with his hands. as soon as those hands are on you, its game over

he loves to do it on his desk, makes him feel powerful. when he gets blown under his desk, it really takes all of his willpower to not cum immediately

really sensitive in weird places, specifically his ears

he likes to cuddle after sex, hes the little spoon :)

likes to be tied up, sometimes he’ll get tied up under his suit

mating press and riding are his favorite positions, giving and receiving

size queen, likes large toys and well ;)

has a private room that he sometimes goes to relieve stress, it has a fucking machine that he likes to use often when his job gets too stressful

he’s sucking people off at the klokateer glory hole, he’s uh, very good at what he does

likes to be spanked and like to spank

uses collars and leashes

maybe the klokateers can fuck him, if they’re good ;)

freeballing

likes cum on his face but doesn't seem to realize that means he’ll get cum on his glasses and will need to clean them

he can wear a chastity belt :) for me

likes being came in but will still complain about being gross after

pretty much up for anything, he’s not picky, he just wants to be in control and get off

[jacksgreysays]

Hisoka!AU of DOS, Rokudaime(whoever you pick to end up with that job in this verse), A Steady Hand (NOTE: For Hisoka!AU, see Recursive forum pg 489 #14,655 - Snapshots From The Past Of Hisoka by donahermurphy pg 489 #14,665 - A Meeting While Fleeing The Garden & Desert by Tirfarthuan pg 491 #14,716 - A Name & A Gift Passed On by Tirfarthuan)

A/N: Thanks for the biblio [1+2, 3], dona--I did not know who Hisoka was before this, so those helped a lot! I did, also, have to reread the Lone Wolf 'verse since from what I understand Hisoka is an AU of that 'verse specifically? If not, please let me know.

Anyway, on rereading Lone Wolf 'verse, here are the facts that I gleaned:

Danzo is Hokage

Hiruzen died of "natural causes" several years before canon

Kakashi "betrayed the village" somehow and is being called Comrade-Killer more prevalently than canon

Asuma is probably dead

Yuuhi Shinku isn't an entire dick (since Uchiha Uzume can think about him without an automatic insult attached)

Shin is still alive (but very slowly dying)

and Kurenai is helping the Uchiha at the very least cover up a meeting with Kakashi outside of the village.

The facts of the Hisoka!AU are:

Shikako was taken to be ROOT

in order to protect those she cared about she mentally/spiritually maimed herself to the point where she no longer counted as "a Shikako" to Gelel

her partner for the final exam was Sai

she escaped/convinced Sai that the point of the final exam was to fake her death and became a fishmonger on the coast of Wind

when Shikako!Prime leaves via Gelel she "wakes up" from said previous mental/spiritual maiming

Kakashi finds her and they're a lovely wolf and cub pair who aim to kill Danzo (and get rid of their loneliness and maybe heal)

... okay, now that I typed all that out, did you mean Hisoka!AU of canon DoS instead of the Hisoka!AU of the Lone Wolf 'verse? Because those are different things, I think. But I kinda figured Hisoka!AU was intrinsically tied to the Lone Wolf 'verse, so, uh, here's a couple of ideas I had in mind:

1) Akimichi Chouza as Rokudaime.

Because after the absolute worst sort of "warmongering, self-cannibalizing, Konoha first" bullshit that Danzo spewed, the village needs someone who recognizes that being the village leader means making and protecting a home worth living in, not just a harsh taskmaster sending his soldiers out to die.

I considered Shikaku!Rokudaime for a similar sort of reason, but it's not as thematic and, also on a personal level, he can't. In a Hisoka!AU, he has to reconcile the fact that he gave one of his children--willingly or not, even if Danzo wiped his memory later--to a man who he already knew would exploit her horrendously. Maybe he didn't know the full extent of ROOT's training (surely not the final exam) but the fact that he was apprehensive and still went through with it is not a good look.

Even if Hisoka and Kakashi do not return to the village proper (and part of me is like, hey! They shouldn't! And I will go into that more in a little bit) he has to make amends to at least her, if not both of them, and he can't be Hokage and bound to prioritize the village over her if he ever wants to succeed.

Chouza, on the other hand, is the only one of the three who never made that decision (I'm still a little side-eyeing the Yamanaka clan, because surely a clan whose whole deal is KNOWING WHEN MENTAL SHENANIGANS IS GOING ON should have seen that with Fu, especially since he was allowed to keep his name and also, probably, had to have clan training to learn the clan jutsu, but maybe it wasn't Inoichi who made that deal? Maybe it was his predecessor. Either way, still mega sketch. I'm a little hand-wavy with Shibi and the Aburame because I headcanon that the Kyuubi largely wiped out what power they had the most out of any of the clans and they were like. Desperate to survive. And didn't have allied clans to bolster them.) And yes, probably that's because as far as fighting styles are concerned, they rely on their clan jutsu which is very recognizable and thus not great for ANBU (in the same way that I imagine the Inuzuka aren't often recruited into ANBU) but it's still a notable fact. The Akimichi are trustworthy pillars of the village and have been since the beginning.

And it helps that of the Nidaime's team, Akimichi Torifu was one of two of the full six who didn't turn into an old corruptible asshole. Sure, we don't necessarily know what happened to him, but he wasn't specifically seen as an old corruptible asshole so I think he's winning. It reflects well on his clan as a whole. Also, given my headcanon of the Akimichi actively cultivating their ties with civilians and also possibly the Daimyo's family they have, alongside military might, financial and political clout.

Anyway, while a possible Tsunade as Rokudaime would have similar vibes (and does, you know, match canon and have those canon reasons for working) in terms of "healing the village" etc. etc. This is a Tsunade whose most bitter cynicism was proven right? And there's no inspirational Naruto to convince her otherwise. And also, Tsunade shouldn't HAVE to clean up Danzo's mess. Like, the minuscule obligation she had to clean up Hiruzen's mess does not apply to Danzo. (It's a little like... Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru were raised to be the ultimate team to take over for Hiruzen except they didn't know it and were dysfunctional. The fact that Hiruzen's death was by Orochimaru's hand and between her and Jiraiya she is the better choice is the only reason why she has that slight obligation to go back to Konoha. Whereas, with Danzo? FUCK THAT NOISE. That's a mess the village needs to resolve on their own. THEY'RE the ones who let it get so bad. THEY'RE the ones who need to deal with it)

And also, another reason why I don't really want Tsunade as Rokudaime is because I kind of like the idea of Kakashi and Hisoka sort of orbiting/paralleling her and Shizune. Like, there's a not-so-secret society of Konoha expatriates who aren't actually missing-nin and both love and hate the village and Tsunade is exasperatedly fond of those two disasters whereas she is sickened by the village. Maybe one day it will have fixed itself enough that she'll go back and visit and whip their Medic Corps into shape, but that is not any time soon!

Also, also, also, and I don't know if you remember this, dona, but in your In Which Someone Attempts to Kidnap Shikamaru, Instead, Inoichi brings up something called the Regency Protocol with Ino in regards to Danzo kidnapping Shikako and brainwashing Shikaku to forget and originally I thought it was some kind of Ino-Shika-Cho contingency plan where the three clans take over the village BECAUSE DANZO IS KIDNAPPING AND MURDERING CHILDREN AND THE SANDAIME WAS LETTING IT HAPPEN ON HIS WATCH? And of the three clans, the Akimichi really do have the traditional fighting prowess to wear the hat, so that's part of this too.

I just think an Akimichi Hokage would be pretty chill about it. Like. They wear power well and are good at managing people without crushing them in the fist of tyranny.

---

2) Maito Gai as Rokudaime.

This one actually for similar reasons as Chouza. Although, in terms of lineage, Gai could be Shichidaime, not that we're particularly holding to that Hokage teacher-student lineage so much.

In terms of semi-parallels where canon goes Tsunade to Kakashi, that means Gai also is a candidate. And in regards to showing the village/world a new kind of Hokage, he's as far from Danzo as one could get. He's straightforward and kind and draws out the potential from everyone and honestly real great but also wouldn't send someone into a mission he himself wouldn't do. Obviously, being a Hokage would mean delegating and sending shinobi on missions, but he would never send them out to die just because. Yes there are risky missions, but he would send those best suited to succeed with every tool available to them so they can succeed. Whereas Danzo would just throw bodies at a problem and kill the survivors for not doing it good enough.

The main difference between a Rokudaime Gai vs Rokudaime Chouza is that Gai's Konoha would rely less on the clan system. Of his three students, two were not from clans and the third is from the Hyuuga Branch (AND YOU KNOW FOR SURE THAT'S GOING TO BE SOMETHING FINALLY ADDRESSED BY A HOKAGE BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK). Yes, his sensei was Akimichi Chouza, but neither of his teammates were clan either. A Konoha under the rule of Rokudaime Gai is a Konoha that builds up those who don't have the same infrastructure as clans, who strengthens civilian-born and clan-born alike, who make sure that talented civilian-born students aren't only noticed by predatory old men who can sweep there existences under the rug.

Because truly one of the many ways that Danzo's weird self-hating megalomania harmed the village was by draining away the talented civilian-borns of Konoha. He who hated that the Shimura were a near-civilian clan, committed the worst crimes against those who could have proved that bloodline wasn't everything. He was so obsessed with the power of the Sharingan that it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Any talented non-bloodline student who could have proven a challenge were stolen and smothered before they could prove themselves.

Because imagine this: one day some random student with the ubiquitous last name of Satou or Tanaka or Honda beats Uchiha Itachi in a spar. Maybe its an accident. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe Itachi wasn't taking them seriously (after all, what could some no name civilian born do to him?). But those maybes don't matter. Satou or Tanaka or Honda gets in one good hit. Surprises the prodigy of the Uchiha clan. Knocks him out.

The teacher takes a note of it. Talks about it in the teacher's lounge. One of Danzo's spies brings news of that notable spar.

By the next week--maybe even the next day--Satou or Tanaka or Honda is gone. No one beats Uchiha Itachi in a spar anymore. And ROOT adds another nameless, faceless soldier to its ranks.

BUT NONE OF THAT HAPPENS UNDER HOKAGE MAITO GAI. Because it is civilians that make Konoha a village and not just a loose coalition of clans. Because a name and a bloodline are not necessary to make a person great.

3) And here's the angsty/semi-bleak option: Yuuhi Kurenai as Rokudaime.

And I wrote a little bit for it, but I'm a little... mreh... about it because it does revolve a lot around the various men in her life which I'm not exactly proud of, tbh, but aaaaaaaaaagh this is endemic to a lot of Naruto fic. D:<

Yuuhi Kurenai is nobody's first choice.

(She was Asuma's first choice, and he was hers, and that had nothing to do with either of their fathers. Except now Asuma is--)

Her father wanted a son. A proper heir. Someone to elevate the prestige of the Yuuhi clan.

(In another universe, Yuuhi Shinku will think the only way his daughter can benefit the clan is through marriage, not her own merits. In this universe Yuuhi Shinku is a little bit more open minded enough to make do. He's still a dick, but not as much of one as he could've been. This puts Kurenai in an interesting position.)

The Uchiha clan are pursuing another ally with a little more fire power, a little more name recognition, and all the intimidation and influence that entails.

(But look at where that got Kakashi, exiled and with his reputation in tatters. Look at Gai who so eagerly and overtly wants to follow. Look at Asuma who--)

The rest of the village would prefer someone who didn't look so much like the clan of would be traitors. Someone who didn't have black hair and piercing red eyes. Someone who didn't specialize in genjutsu, an art for liars.

(Oh, but they were fine quietly suffering under a man who lied and stole and murdered. A man who manipulated and cheated and framed others for his crimes. A man who ruined everything he touched and Asuma tried to stop him, gods, but then he--)

And the world doesn't quite know what to do with a Hokage like her. Or a Kage that is a her, for that matter.

Yuuhi Kurenai is nobody's first choice.

But that's fine. She can make do.

She can make miracles out of nothing.

So the thought process to get to a Rokudaime Kurenai went kind of like such. Obviously, the Uchiha would prefer an Uchiha Hokage. However that largely depends on whether they succeed in their coup or not. There's the distinct possibility that Kakashi plus Shikako!Prime or Kakashi plus Hisoka will just kill Danzo and then leave, forcing the rest of the village deal with the consequences... AS THEY SHOULD... and thus also sort of cutting the coup off at the knees.

If the coup doesn't succeed (whether out of failure or because Kakashi and a Shikako kills Danzo first before they're prepared to do the rest of the coup) then if the political climate actually matches the one they perceive themselves being in (although, I don't think the Uchiha are as hated as they think they are, but its hard for them to see that isolated as they've been forced to be) then they're unlikely to get an Uchiha Hokage especially if news of them actually seeking an alliance with Comrade-Killer Hatake Kakashi comes out. Much less the aborted/failed coup. 

Anyway, no Uchiha Hokage without a successful coup... although, if there were a successful coup, the three Uchiha I would think would be even feasible would be Fugaku--boring, bland, but that's what they know. Shisui--friendly, well liked by those outside the clan, has an international reputation. Mikoto--this is largely based on fanon/headcanon, but she was ANBU Captain? That's pretty neat.

But, uh, to get back to the no Uchiha Hokage... Kakashi's reputation is still in tatters. Maito Gai could be a good option, but while his lack of clan is a good thing for future Konoha, he doesn't quite have the political backing necessary to get there. (Namikaze Minato was an undisputed war hero. Maito Gai hasn't quite proven himself that level yet)

If its brought up that the Ino-Shika-Cho were compromised (ie, Shikaku would have worked closely with Hokage Danzo as the Jounin Commander and also one of Danzo's top ROOT agents is Yamanaka Fu) then even Chouza's candidacy would be suspect.

The village wants Tsunade. But Tsunade does not want it. I have no fucking idea what Jiraiya has been up to, but if he didn't want the hat after Hiruzen died he sure as fuck won't want it after whatever Danzo's done with it.

The Hokage's Council is suspect. Yuuhi Shinku, for all that he is similarly important to the infrastructure of Konoha while also not being part of Danzo's corruption (in another universe, he very well would have been, desperate for power), isn't actually that strong and is old, besides. (The village has had enough of old men entrenched in positions of power telling them what to do).

But he does have a daughter. Genjutsu specialist, yes, but with potential and room to grow. And Sarutobi Asuma loved her (and, fuck, what a shitty campaign to run on, the would-have-been-widow of the Sandaime's son, but you know Shinku would be ruthless in pushing that. Remember, not as much of a dick in other 'verses, but still a dick) so she has that tether to the old regime, tentative as it is.

No one really has any major objections, but no one is really all that gung-ho about it either (except for maybe Anko who will punch all detractors in the face and may very well be a one woman Hokage's Guard).

Kurenai least of all. Because she doesn't want to be Hokage, but she'd rather step up and do it than watch her village tear itself apart even further. And maybe she doesn't know who she is just yet, and maybe it sucks that she's going to have to discover that while also being Hokage, but gods she's going to try her best because at least she knows what Danzo was doing was wrong and that there's no way she can do worse than him unless she just actively slaughtered children in the street.

...

Hm, yeah, kinda bleak ending. But as I said. The Rokudaime Kurenai one is the angsty-bleak option. I mean, it gets more hopeful, but it is a struggle I think for both her and the village.

I know its not a proper ficlet fill, dona, but hope you enjoyed this brain storm / meta anyway. :D 

[elrondsscribe]

So! Let’s talk about this Jedi Code for a minute.

From what I have absorbed through social osmosis (I’m not terribly familiar with much of the EU material), the original Jedi Code went like this:

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.

But by the time of the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars, the Code appears to have been changed to this:

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

Unfortunately, the way the Jedi Order amended the Code and were practicing it is in many ways similar to my own evangelical/Calvinist upbringing. Let me illustrate, one by one:

There is no emotion, there is peace.

This point I feel has already been well talked over, so I won’t belabor the point too much, but there’s definitely a deep problem when you systematically raise an entire order to fundamentally distrust their internal compass (because that’s how emotions often function).

It’s also the most destructive kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Raising an entire subculture of people to be suspicious of emotion in the abstract leads to an environment where you can’t examine or interrogate your emotions. And, paradoxical as it may seem on the surface, a culture raised not to examine or interrogate their emotions (and whose primary way of dealing with them is to expel them -- I mean, ‘release them into the Force’) is a culture who will be up to its neck in self-deception, hypocrisy, and unacknowledged constant fear. On the other hand, a culture that is conditioned to be emotionally aware and intelligent is, paradoxically, in much less danger of actually being ruled by their emotions.

Trust me, I know a thing or two about being raised to deal with emotion by pushing it away in a religiously sanctioned manner. It does not lead to whole, healthy persons who are at peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

This point holds more interest for me than it seems to hold for most people, so I wanna park here for a moment. You know what it sounds like to me? A fixation with certainty. Now, evangelicalism does not have a monopoly on certainty, but the form it takes in evangelicalism is what I have experience with. I also think it’s quite useful and instructive in examining where the Jedi went wrong.

In an ideology that prizes certainty, religious advancement is closely correlated with acquiring correct information and refuting incorrect propositions. By the time of the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars, experimentation in using the Force was forbidden, or at the very least highly discouraged, at a systemic level. You do things one way because it’s the Right Way, and anything outside of the Right Way is automatically suspect and probably Bad. If the Right Way is painful or difficult for you, that’s because there’s something wrong with you, and it means that you need to work harder to conform.

For both the Jedi and evangelicalism as I knew it, actual curiosity and creativity are explicit threats. You don’t ask why we do things one way. You don’t ask what other ways there are of doing things. And you definitely don’t entertain the notion that a voice outside the approval of the order is capable of speaking truth. 

Actually, I’m going to have to do the unthinkable, and give the edge to evangelicalism here. At least evangelicalism doesn't say that if you so much as start down a ‘wrong’ road, it defines you and you can never come back. But so far as the Jedi are concerned, you can’t even touch the Dark Side without becoming irrevocably consumed by evil.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Basically, in my opinion, the hypocrisy-slip is really showing here. The Force is wild -- if it really is ‘that which is between all things,’ then it’s just as present in the storms and high seas and exploding nebulae as it is in stationary rocks. I don’t think it’s possible to interact with the Force at all without inviting some amount of chaos. And that’s not even touching the fact that some amount of chaos is just inherent in being human.

Also, as a piano major, let me let y’all in on a little music theory secret: there is no such thing as music that has no dissonance, no sonic ‘chaos.’ You can’t even have chords, the basic building blocks of harmony, without some dissonance between the notes. Part of what constitutes harmony in music is an agreement between composer and listeners (and performer/s, I guess) as to how much chaos is acceptable before the music becomes meaningless noise.

What I’m saying is, you can’t have harmony, you can’t have music, without inviting chaos.

And, infuriatingly, I think they know this. Both Obi-Wan and Yoda in ANH both tell Luke that when you tap into the Force, it flows through you. So it really looks to me like what they’re really doing is denouncing anything they can’t control and calling it ‘chaos,’ while allowing contact with whatever they can control by calling it ‘harmony.’ That’s really what it’s all about for them, it’s about control.

And oh boy, do I know what it is to live under a religious order that pays lip service to internal harmony, but is actually all about control.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Well, I’ll give the Jedi this much: unlike evangelicalism, they don’t bring up their littluns to believe that someone who doesn’t accept their version of reality is damned to eternal torment.

However, there is a larger problem where you’re refusing to let people deal with death honestly. At some point when dealing with a loss, you’re expected to be able to say: “Yes, I will miss them, but they’ve gone to be with Jesus and they’re in a better place now.” You don’t really have any help in processing the fact that, whether or not the person you lost is in a ‘better place,’ you still had to figure out how to move forward with that loss. Especially not long-term.

And that’s what I’m so painfully reminded of when Yoda tells Anakin in ROTS not to mourn or miss those who have died, to rejoice that they’ve joined the Force. Recall that, at that point in Jedi history, nobody had EVER heard of someone dead remaining personally accessible to the living in any way. ‘Become one with the Force’ holds about as much meaning for people in the Star Wars universe as ‘gone to heaven’ holds for us.

And hey, again with me grudgingly giving an edge to evangelicalism: they allow you to have human ties! At the very least, they let you cry at the funeral. They let you say “I miss them.” But the Jedi, for all their bleating about ‘compassion for everyone,’ are very un-compassionate toward their own chickadees when it comes to letting them process death.

Now why did I choose to say all this?

There is, floating around some corners of the PT/CW Star Wars fandom at least on Tumblr, a certain idea that we should withhold sharp criticism of Jedi practices and beliefs because some aspects of Jedi-ness as shown in the films nominally resemble some points of Buddhism. In the eyes of those who hold such sentiments, criticism of Jedi ideology as practiced during the PT/CW reveals our true colors as white Christian imperialists unable to conceive of any other way of life being functional.

Well, being a degenerate and a daughter of slaves myself with no love of white Christian imperialism, and being a survivor of some very specific forms of religious abuse, let’s just say I know a super dysfunctional religious subculture when I see one. And the prequel-era Jedi definitely fit that bill.

In other words, there’s a little more going on with my critique of the Jedi than the ‘no attachment’ rule. It’s a whole system that’s gone wrong, and I’ve only just gotten started in talking about how.

[hobbitkiller]

She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 2

*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*

For those of you just tuning in, I’m taking a deep dive into 3 female relationships in 3 of my favorite tv shows that all turned into toxic messes at some point. The point of this series of posts is to exam these relationships, where things went wrong, whether there’s a chance for redemption, and what conclusions, if any, we can draw from these relationships about media’s representation of female characters and female relationships.

Oh, and shipping, ‘cause this is tumblr after all...

So, in Part 1 I gave a summary of the female relationships in question in these three shows (Adora and Catra, Kara and Lena, Rapunzel and Cassandra). I also summarized how these relationships began and when they started to go wrong. If you already know that stuff because you love these shows too, you don’t necessarily have to go back and read it, but doing so is always encouraged.

In this installment, I will be exploring 3 themes related to the festering resentment within these relationships: Mother Knows Best, Chosen Ones, and Itty Bitty Boxes. Follow the jump to get started!

PART III: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

I’ve heard a few people claim that Mother Gothel is not a top tier Disney villain. She doesn’t have the following that characters like Scar or Maleficent have. However, at the same time, I’ve heard many people saying something along the lines of “This is my mother.” There’s something uncomfortably familiar about Mother Gothel in Tangled. I recognized the same putdowns and microaggressions that I used to get from my stepmom in Gothel’s targeted jabs at Rapunzel’s confidence throughout the movie...all done with a smile and “It’s for your own good” attitude.

A lot of media focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons. Mothers in Disney have historically been silent or dead. (Except Perdita. That bitch was awesome). 

This, of course, makes it interesting that 5/6 of these characters have verbally (and in some cases physically) abusive, manipulative mother figures. And for Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra, that mother figure is the same.

Here are our three abusive mothers:

Shadow Weaver who raised Adora and Catra:

Lillian Luthor who is Lena Luthor’s adoptive mother (and played by the absolute joy to watch that is Brenda Strong):

And, of course, Mother Gothel who kidnapped and raised Rapunzel for most of her life and is the SPOILER biological mother of Cassandra:

There are, of course, good mothers sprinkled in. Rapunzel’s biological mother, Queen Arianna is great once she actually gets lines in the TV show. Lena’s birth mother was also, by all accounts, a very kind and loving person. Kara has two moms, and while both have flaws, both are inherently good people (particularly Eliza Danvers, her adoptive mother).

However, in spite of the presence of some positive examples of motherhood, the relationships between all three of these pairs is heavily influenced by the three narcissistic women above.

All three of these women are dishonest, withhold affection only to give it away as a special treat, and actively manipulate their children. Yet, at the same time, the children can’t help but seek approval. Adora and Catra both feared and desperately sought approval and affection from Shadow Weaver. Lena tries to cut ties with her family, but keeps being drawn back in when Lillian admits pride at her accomplishments or that she does, in fact, care about her. Rapunzel sought affection from Gothel growing up because she was her one human contact, and, when Cassandra learned the truth of who her mother was, Cassandra desperately wanted some validation that the mother who abandoned her loved her on some level.

These mother/daughter relationships scarred 5/6 of our characters (Kara has her own hangups about her mother, but not on the deeply psychologically scarred level as the other five.) 

Adora is mockingly called paranoid by Shadow Weaver for understandably thinking the woman who lied to and manipulated her her entire life was up to something. Catra pushes everyone in her life away emotionally for fear of being hurt (only to create a self-fulfilling prophecy when they leave due to her behavior). Lena is constantly scared of being “betrayed” and manipulated. When she’s hurt by Supergirl asking Lena’s boyfriend to snoop on her, she says it was “something my mother would do.” When she and Kara first became friends, Lena was reluctant to do so because of the trust issues from her family (Lex Luthor is obviously also a manipulative, abusive jerk). Even Rapunzel, the embodiment of sunshine, has lingering trust issues. In the Season Three episode “Beginnings” she explains to Eugene that one of the reasons she likes Cassandra is because Rapunzel spent 18 years with someone who lied to her, whereas Cassandra was forthright and said what she was thinking.

Cassandra’s mother issues are a little more complicated. When she was four, Gothel abandoned her in order to kidnap Rapunzel and Cass was adopted by the captain of the guard. Cassandra has deeply repressed this memory by the time we meet her when she’s 22/23. Then, she’s given a glimpse of what life was like with Gothel:

Early in the series, Cass talks about how her father instilled in her the value of “earning my keep.” It’s clear here, though, that love as a transactional relationship had been instilled in Cassandra early in life: “And when it (love/affection) came, it came with strings.” 

This transactional view of relationships is something shared by all 5 members of our “bad moms” squad on at least some level. Adora constantly feels the need to fix things and be useful to her friends. Catra thinks if she just wins enough or is good enough, maybe Shadow Weaver will finally love her. Lena’s approach to relationships largely revolves around buying things for them and trying to unilaterally solve their problems for them without their input. Rapunzel has to go through an entire episode to learn that you can’t buy friendship through doing nice things, and that she doesn’t have to. Cass ties her self-worth deeply to her usefulness to others. They all struggle to find internal validation at times.

The other way mothers play a part in the downfalls of these relationships is the element of competitiveness. This is an issue with Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra. As previously stated, both of these couples share a mother figure. And, in both of these couples, there is a deep resentment on the part of the non-golden haired child toward the other. Shadow Weaver did not hide that Adora was her favorite. She frequently praised Adora while berating and abusing Catra even when both had done equally well. Even when Adora abandoned Shadow Weaver and Catra for the rebellion, SW was more concerned with getting Adora back than appreciating the loyalty and accomplishments of Catra. 

Mother Gothel literally gave up Cassandra to take Rapunzel.

Both Catra and Cassandra feel completely overshadowed by the blonde in their lives, and part of them can’t help but think that, if only Adora or Rapunzel were out of the way, or had never existed, maybe they would have been chosen as the favored one.

This, of course, brings us to our next topic:

PART IV: CHOSEN ONES

I’ve never been a big fan of Ron Weasley. I didn’t read the Harry Potter books until I was in my twenties (yes, compared to many of my readers, I’m old), and I think this lead to me being less charmed by his humor or bullying of Hermione than I otherwise might have been. I found his temper aggravating and he is just...the worst...in the sixth book. Like, he purposely starts dating someone to punish Hermione who had already asked him to Slughorn’s party because Ginny pointed out that Hermione had probably kissed the guy she was dating TWO YEARS AGO. No, seriously, read that book again. That’s what happened. Then the seventh book happens and it turns out Dumbledore KNEW Ron was going to ditch the team at some point...

That being said, as I sat down to write this novel-length meta, I found myself thinking about what it’s like to be the support team for the “chosen one.” In the seventh book, Ron could have stayed at home with his pureblood family. He would still be in some danger due to their involvement with the Order of the Phoenix, but it would have been a lot safer than traveling around with “Undesirable No 1.″ Yet, because he loves Harry, he chooses to go on this mission. 

In the three pieces of media we’re discussing, 2/3 have literal chosen ones--characters with specific destinies of supernatural origin: Adora and Rapunzel. Kara also largely fits into the trope as someone sent to earth from afar to “save us.” As I somewhat jokingly said in the first part, all three of these pieces of media feature a blond super-powered person who needs to save the world.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the best friend or “sister” of the person who’s “burdened with glorious purpose”?

On the one hand, it’s constant fear over that person’s safety and wellbeing. On the other, there’s a bit that can’t help but feel resentful. Imagine having a friend that overshadows every accomplishment you’ve ever had seemingly by virtue of just who they are.

Now, of course we know that it’s no easy road being a chosen one. There’s a lot you have to sacrifice, and it usually involves injury, near death, and a boatload of trauma. And the support teams know this. For some, it’s never an issue. But for others...

In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora, to Catra, always had the presence in her life of a chosen one, even before she got the sword and became She-Ra. Shadow Weaver had sensed something powerful about Adora when she was a baby, and thus treated her as the “Golden Child” to Catra’s “Scapegoat.” 

This idea of the “Golden Child (GC)” versus the “Scapegoat (SG)” rolls a bit into this issue with “chosen ones.” In toxic, narcissistic families, parents often hold up one child as the great one while the other is the one to blame for their problems. Think Olga and Helga in Hey Arnold! (Is that reference too dated for some of you guys? Man, I’m old. Also, I remember finally being old enough to realize Helga’s mom was an alcoholic and it blew my mind.) This also usually entails encouraging a level of competitiveness between the siblings.

In some ways, it’s like a “chosen one” is the whole world’s golden child. Anyone who researches this dynamic knows it’s abusive to both the GC and the SG, which is clearly displayed in She-Ra when Adora is stressed by the pressure of expectations and the knowledge that her mistakes will most likely be taken out on Catra. That doesn’t change the fact that Catra resents the positive attention (the adoration if you will) Adora gets--that, no matter what Catra achieves, it will be nothing compared to Adora.  This resentment is a big part of what fuels the escalation of their personal conflict leading to one of the saddest pieces of animation since Fry’s dog died sad and alone on Futurama. In the Season 1 episode “Promise.” (This is, by far, the best episode of the series), Catra airs all of her feelings she’d been repressing about what it felt like living in Adora’s shadow--how it made her feel like a “side kick,” something Adora never consciously tried to do and is shocked to discover.

Cassandra on Tangled:The Series has similar feelings about her role in Rapunzel’s life. Not only is her best friend the one with the magic hair and great destiny, but she is also her boss and monarch. Aside from the two songs I included in my last post, “Waiting in the Wings” and “Crossing the Line,” this conflict is best demonstrated early in Season One in the episode “Challenge of the Brave.”

Cass didn’t suffer abuse in quite the same way Catra did (though Gothel was the worst mom for her first 4 years), but she does feel disrespected and overshadowed by Rapunzel even before learning about Gothel. In “Crossing the Line”--a song many likened to “Let it Go” when they first heard it, Cassandra lays out these feelings further:

There’s a line between the winners and the losers.

There’s a line between the chosen and the rest.

And I’ve done the best I could,

but i’ve always known just where we stood.

Me here with the luckless.

You there with the blessed.

Now, when this song first came out, there were negative reactions from some fans. How could Cassandra call someone who had been kidnapped and locked in a tower with the neglectful and verbally abusive Gothel for 18 years “blessed”? But, from Cassandra’s perspective, Rapunzel still gets everything, power, respect, etc., purely because she was born a princess while Cass has worked incredibly hard her entire life to achieve one goal, becoming a guard, and is constantly denied.

With Lena and Kara in Supergirl, the resentment, again, is mostly between Lena and Supergirl for most of their relationship. Multiple times during the show’s run, Lena has expressed concern about human’s relative helplessness in the face of aliens like Supergirl who have power. This is why Lena sees some of her shadier actions such as making Kryptonite or trying to give humans super powers as justified. She doesn’t go to the extreme levels of hatred that her brother Lex does, but that distrust in those who are naturally more powerful runs throughout the family as does the resentment that aliens have seemingly usurped the leadership role among humanity that should have belonged to the Luthors.

What makes this interesting is that, in most of her relationships, Lena, as a billionaire, is the more privileged and powerful one. This is really best demonstrated in her relationship with James Olsen, whom she orders around as his boss while buying him expensive gifts and going behind his back to fix his legal problems. And for much of their relationship, this is how Lena sees her relationship with Kara. It’s not a manipulative or cruel thing. Lena just sees Kara as her adorkable reporter friend who is hapless in the face of danger.

Then, all of these preconceived notions come crashing down when Lena learns that Kara is Supergirl. Suddenly, she learns that her hapless friend was actually playing her the whole time--that she was stringing Lena along and pretending to be only human. 

Lena’s resentment may not be as explicit in this case as Catra’s or Cassandra’s, but it is layered within all of the emotions Lena Luthor is pretending not to have.

This, of course, leads us to our final subject for today.

PART V: “ITTY BITTY BOXES”

I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this novel-length meta the word “repressed.” Catra, Lena, and Cassandra are not good at expressing their emotions in a healthy manner. Much of this can be blamed on the aforementioned mother figures and the trust and intimacy issues that having narcissistic, abusive parents can lead to. 

Narcissistic parents often place the burden of maintaining the emotional wellbeing of the family on the children. It is your job as the child to make sure they don’t get upset. It is you who has to keep the cool head and maintain the facade of positivity. Parents like Shadow Weaver, Lillian Luther, and Mother Gothel do not see it as their responsibility to help their children regulate emotion or address it. To them, “negative emotions” are character flaws.

Of course, anyone who’s watched Inside Out knows that emotions aren’t inherently good or bad and feeling, addressing, and understanding them are vital to good mental health.

Too bad Inside Out wasn’t there for Catra, Lena, or Cassandra growing up.

Instead, each of these characters has learned to bottle up and hide emotions like sadness, fear, hurt, and true, deep anger. Lena even outlines her approach to such feelings when helping Brainy, an alien who is basically like an organic computer, solve a problem:

I was not the only person that was reminded of this gem after that scene:

Putting emotions away in an imaginary box is a real technique for keeping yourself from becoming overwhelmed in a situation where you need to focus. However, “forgetting the box existed” is not the appropriate use of the boxes. They need to be opened, and the feelings addressed. 

Catra is interesting, because in some ways she’s very vocal about her frustration and anger. Yet, that surface level frustration manifests in yelling at her friends and subordinates over their job performance or just being a general jerk. It’s not an expression of her true, deep feelings. Catra doesn’t let anyone see the deep levels of hurt she feels when Shadow Weaver manipulates her to join Adora. Instead, she just almost destroys the world...as you do. Season 4 in particular features a Catra who is more mean to her friends than ever before, yet she is still repressing so much of her true feelings to the point of mental and emotional collapse.

Cassandra also struggles to express her feelings, particularly to Rapunzel. Part of it might be because Rapunzel is her princess, and it’s not Cassandra’s place, but it’s also something she struggles with in general:

The above line occurs in an episode where Rapunzel knows Cassandra is mad at her and keeps pushing her to share her feelings. As we can see, Cass is not a big fan of that. Even though they talk at the end of the episode, it’s clear that there are still some hurt feelings on Cassandra’s side that she doesn’t express until she has electric blue hair and is singing a rock ballad about “Crossing the Line.” This is also fascinating because, as previously stated, one of the reasons Rapunzel likes Cassandra is her honesty. But, like with Catra, Cassandra can be honest about surface level annoyances, but intensely represses anything deeper.

All three of these characters let their emotions fester until they become deadly infections that poison their relationships, not just with their best friends, but with everyone. Many of these relationships could have been diverted from their dark paths if there had been more honest and open communication both between the characters and internally. If Lena acknowledged the real reasons why she was hurt when learning Kara was Supergirl, if Catra had been honest about feeling overshadowed and pitied by Adora, if Cassandra had expressed the pain she was feeling in her relationship with Rapunzel, things could have been different. Instead, those feelings have turned toxic.

NEXT TIME IN THE NEVER-ENDING ANALYSIS:

Blond Bulldozers 

I Don’t Care (I ship it)

Just going to do 2, because 3 subjects were a bit much.

Hope to see you there.

[whaq]

Fuck You, Animu (1/4)

A dumbass’ war of heart and mind A few months ago, I hit a creative block. Despite considering myself a jack of many mediums, I couldn’t for the life of me bring myself to make--well... anything. While I do have a Google Keep of creative ideas I’ve come up with over the years, I was unable to find the drive (pun shoehorned) to get started on any of them. This sent me into a bit of a spiral. A lot of creatives probably empathize: you find yourself lacking the motivation to create so it starts to negatively affect your self-worth, which is tied to your ability to make things, and this lack of confidence compels you to just succumb to melancholy, finding yourself the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy to become a slacker because you think you already ARE one.

I was a couple months into this when a buddy of mine hit me up asking if I heard about a call for local anime reviewers. At that moment, it almost felt like divine intervention from God, who I only ever felt in the burning sensation radiating through me whenever I was within 10 feet of a church. An anime news site, let’s call em Animu, with a relatively large following, was searching for writers who would join their staff to review anime being released in the winter season with a salary to boot. As an avid anime fan myself, who just so happened to have honed his critiquing skills over years of media consumption {that has since ruined my viewing experience for the foreseeable future (I legitimately suck the joy out of every piece of media I consume now)}, I saw this as my opportunity to be able to use my skills for some form of monetary gain; which was always a concern of mine throughout my life. Growing up, I was never really good at anything that could easily become a profession later in life. I was too awful at biology to become a doctor, not smart enough at maths to be the next Pythagoras, nor was I athletic enough to shoot a basketball, let alone make it in the NBA. I was good at talking in, and understanding, English... and that was it. At the time, I didn’t realize I had a knack for writing and oration, but even once I did, I found that the trajectory towards being a professional for either of those fields wasn’t so simple. Most people still have the childish idea that “Oh, writers write books and speakers do… speaking things!” but it waters down such a wide yet closed off section of the professional world. Writing alone has so many different specializations: journalism, screenwriting, book authoring, all such niches that don’t have as established a path as scoring high on the Bar exam or being scouted on varsity; it’s difficult to find a place in this world with that skill set, a fear that a majority of creatives have. So I needed some form of validation, an instance of acceptance that’ll allow me to finally believe that my work is worth something and, most importantly, enjoyed by someone. So I started working on my application for Animu by selecting three different series that I was interested in tackling: Re:Zero, Cells at Work, and Kaguya-Sama: Love is War. Starting from zero The posts after this contain these reviews in the state I submitted to Animu. I spent about a month working on these. Re:Zero’s review was close to my usual style of critique, which focuses on the technical aspects and their execution as well as commentary on any relevant subtext, minus the subtext. I wanted to seem as professional as possible with the first one and tried to keep to the proposed 1200 word word limit. With Cells At Work, however, I tried to have a bit of fun. There were many rumblings around the community about the series’ cancer episode which I was eager to capitalize on. That said, upon rewatching the episode, I came across some potentially problematic scenarios that could’ve been blown out of proportion by some headline-chasing media outlet; so that’s exactly what I did. No, I wouldn’t in my right mind compare chibified blood cells to Nazi sympathizers (then again, I’m never in my right mind). Lastly, was Kaguya-Sama, which became my favorite anime of the past couple years. This series was the first anime that got me to actively follow the source material as it hit two of my most identifying traits, being a cinephile and humor academic, as well as a side I’m slightly embarrassed by, my interest in romantic comedies. I wanted to attempt a review that was just hype-hype-hype as it was what the series sparked within me. Oh, and you SHOULD read Kaguya-Sama. Bleeding out After a modicum of proofreading, as well as some peer review from my closest confidants, I sent over my application and I waited. As my heart raced on the day of the announcement, my name was nowhere to be found. To add insult to injury, I was informed that I scored absolutely horribly by Animu’s criteria, my highest grade being one that’d flunk in the most forgiving of schools. While you’d expect me to be crestfallen, I was actually ecstatic to know that the community I’ve been a part of, a local one no less, had people with an even larger passion and greater skills than even I. As someone who went through childhood being made fun of for my interests that have somehow developed into geek chic and gone mainstream (something that, contrary to most of the community, I’m happy to see), I was glad to see how much people like me had developed from waifu worshipping weaboos to outstandingly ornate otaku. Hell, I was content to have made some content. I was looking forward to seeing the fruits of labor from those who were more deserving than me. So imagine my surprise when what I found posted a month later was absolute garbage. I’m not going to get into detail, seeing as said details could lead to someone getting doxxed just because they didn’t meet MY oh so high standards (/s), but what I will say was that the quality of the content indicated something more telling about the whole ordeal. I have taken part in two completely different student publications in my time, and I can say with utmost certainty that THE GRADE SCHOOLERS I MENTORED WROTE BETTER, AND THEY WEREN’T EVEN PAID. Still, it was nice to know I still had it in me to make something of substance. And on this commemorative day, I open up my blog by making public my entries for all to ridicule. As much as I talked down the winning entries, I don’t believe mine were perfect. Like most of my work, it’s rushed and rambly, full of tangents and misnomers. But, it’s very me, and I’m quite happy to see something from me see the light of day.

I hope you find some amusement in my bemusement.

p.s. Yes, the headers are attempts at relating to the three shows p.p.s.s. Yes, they’re BAD attempts at relating to the three shows

[gg-astrology]

Hi there! I hope you are having a great day! Could you please talk about Scorpio Sun Aquarius Moon? Thank you! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Hey there! 💕💕I’ll do my best ok!! 💕💕💕

[Below Cut: Scorpio Sun - Aquarius Moon 🌉] 

These people always amazes me with their mind

They’re smooth operators (especially to those who don’t know them) charming, gracious and affable. 

People may recognize you for exuding an ‘easy-going’ vibe (not completely, you have a ‘sharpness’ to you that is exact, but this ‘easy-going’ ness is because you consciously want to be seen like that) but it also brings attention to your stable/fixed nature tho (I’m telling you this just incase you don’t realize it yourself) 

You’re a smooth talker, someone who can easily convince others because the way you relate to things are both ‘making sense’ and ‘coming from what?? context?? space???’ at the same time (I know, see later.) But you always tend to surprise people when you talk, when you show understanding and compassion. Even when you think it’s perfectly normal (and expected of human beings) to do so!

The thing is, you may have less of an emotional face than you realize. That’s why people are thrown off-guard by you (*depends on the person). Some people who just got to know you, who are more emotional reactive may be nervous when it comes to you. People want to hear your opinion, but they are somehow always assuming you are going to be blunt/crass about it (doesn’t want to hear the ‘truth’ or get hurt) Many people admire you for your resolute answers, your clear decisions and your ability to explain and link others to it personally. They are always very much surprised by your ways of tolerance for people. 

In unexpected things, you tend to be more open-minded than others tend to be. And the way you make ‘narrow-minded’ people ‘open up’ is something that is done so smoothly, so openly. Because they trust you to give honesty to them (in a way, everyone trusts you to be honest-- but most don’t tend to think you’re NICE about it while you generally always are)

The way you speak, you tie common-sense/practical advice seamlessly into emotionality/compassion. You weave them together in a way that makes understanding ‘emotions’ something that shouldn’t be feared, something that we all can do, something that makes others rationally understand why/how it’s that way and not this.

They give off the impression of being ‘street smart’ -- because inherently, the way you tie these things together are both unconventional but practical at the same time.

You should realize that you are far more ‘artistic’ than you realize, you’re rational only because you’re creative. You’re imaginative and that fuels your reasoning for ‘why’ -- carries it down the rabbit hole to many different formulas until you find the ‘right’ answers. 

You’re very much adaptable, even when you don’t believe it in yourself. The reason you don’t is because you ‘feel’ this fixed nature inside of you. You may only sometimes see yourself in one perspective, and only through your own mental ‘flex’ can you get to where others sees you. 

There’s a precision to you when it comes to your self-image, like rather than what other people think of you this is more about what you think about yourself. You want to have it listed, want to have ‘concrete’  examples of why you’re this way so you can explain it to people if they asked.

See, the thing here is. Other people’s opinion vs your own opinion may not see eye to eye sometimes. You’re inquiring and also tend to ask ‘why’ inside a lot. You get an answer, but you’re already on the move to get the working method/explanation of where it starts and what’s the journey to get there. You may not realize that this can make you ‘doubt’ things, because your reasoning/seeking for answer can disregard the simplicity of it. (’It just is what it is’ but you might not get that) 

To you, naturally there’s a lil sense of ‘hmm is that true’ and will try to test it against many different  scenarios/circumstance to find the ‘overall’ result. It’s a very point A -> journey -> point B process. But you have the mental flexibility that if someone tells you the ‘point B’ -- you’ll work out the entire formular and process of the the ‘journey’ and ‘point A’ as well.

In another instance, if someone tells you the ‘journey’ part of something -- you mind can immediate jump to figuring out ‘point A’ and also ‘point B’---this might not be so good especially when it makes you a lil bit stubborn when it comes to your advice. 

You may tend to look at the worse situation that could happen and precautions against it (which might give them self-fulfilling prophecy) or you may be biased towards your own conviction/ideas (which gives you confirmation bias when things happen)

Try to keep a less ‘acute’ -- sometimes learning how to be vague, how to be openly perceptive to the possibilities of change (or see things optimistically more than realistically). Sometimes while you may have a hard time taking things ‘simply’ (but not dolling it out ‘simply’ to others) -- you can benefit a lot in learning how/why other people can get ‘simple’ perspectives on things as well!

(This you will have to learn, to ask someone else for experience/guidance in doing and see for yourself-- because you’ll always want to test it, or experience it-- so without ‘experiencing’ this you won’t know how to get ‘simplicity’ sometimes)

Scorpio/Aquarius tends to keep a large pool of friends, people they surround themselves with an engage with often. Yet most of the times, they have to evaluate how they connect to them. If they’re able to make any strong emotional ties to them at all. 

The thing is, you want those ties. Strong, pleasurable ones that are intimate and comes from the core (no reasoning, no logic, deeply soulful and without words).

You seek them out, yet at the same time-- nobody is ever ‘good’ for you because you have many varying list of ‘conditions’ they have to fulfill. It makes you autonomous and lonely sometimes, 

Evaluate, who you surround yourself with. While you may be drawn to those who complements you or is good to you-- you’re very proud of your own competence/value in your social group and may not take strongly to those who are too ‘different’ or criticize you.

The reason you don’t get your ‘emotionally fulfilled’ connections is because you don’t have challenges. Out right ones, from people or ‘developments’ you need to overcome.

It’s hard to see ‘enemies’ as someone who can bring you the most change, the most valuable thing to your growing. These ‘challengers’ are the ones who are going to make you the way you want to be --- modest, equal, simplier. They’re your counterparts, and ones you’ll eventually have to face (because it’ll be like facing yourself, facing your flaws and values and evaluating them.) 

Your connection to them is that they’ll have to face the same reflective challenge as you, and together. You both will have to navigate the relationship into equal self-growth (you’ll help/encourage and challenge them naturally) to the your best individual self because of your relationship.

I’m not saying ‘go find an archnemesis’ but I’m definitely saying you should find someone who makes your Scorpio/Aquarius feel something (maybe it’s uncomfortable, questioning itself, flares of emotions)--- just so you can learn how to use your natural mental powers for yourself as well.  

You benefit a lot from relationship that you have to abide to, to accept other people’s viewpoints instead of your own. It’ll work out, don’t worry! You’re not any ‘less’ than because of this, you just have to learn how to be ‘equal’ to someone and not keep distance to them (thus, a stimuli like the above)

I hope this is helpful!! 💕 Thanks for dropping by! 💕

[holographicthrones]

my identity has been washed away by the tides of starved men who've grown desperate for power

so hungry they began to claim the knowledge of the gods

they point angry fingers at everyone who wears the same history as me, point them into a corner,

herding us like cattle and caging us in with the shame they've written deep in the depths of our young hearts,

they own us like they've always owned us, the ironclad fist that never rusts or loosens, only grows tight enough to strangle the necks of the ones brave enough to feel angry at their oppression

and i've always been too much of a coward to ever be angry, fear of god is the wisdom of the righteous.

fear of god is the stroke of genius in powerful men.

young and innocent, i let them drown me out of my own life

now i am doomed to forever roam as a ghost until the afterlife in which i was predestined to serve eternity comes to restore the balance that i never disrupted

judgement day, the day of reckoning for sins i never chose to commit

is it not enough that any life i'll ever lead will always be tainted by the fingerprints the greedy men left?

i will be haunted by their promises of doomsday until i bring doomsday upon myself

i am a self-fulfilling prophecy.

they stole it all. grabbed at the hearts of the ones who trusted them, dragged me in with them, and drained away any soul and energy i had, any sense of individuality and direction, filled me with their lies.

spat on my pride and trampled my dreams, they plunged their dirty hands into my young mind and moved everything around until i could no longer see the world without their influence. until i could no longer hear my thoughts, no longer produce thoughts of my own.

they shoved me into their corridors and made me roam them into old age, stole my youth and my golden years, stole my birth and death, and everything in between. i roamed until i lost my mind

they said I'd finally found god when i decided to live in the shadow of their officials, propping them up on my shoulders and letting them say they were carrying the weight of the world, raising their children like the cattle I'd been herded as, silencing my mind until all that could be heard in it was the hymns they taught me.

they were the wolves they said they were preparing me to fight when my prophesied transgressions threw me down.

starving me of the knowledge my soul craved, feeding me hatred until i was stuffed and overflowing, spewing their lies to the rest of the world like the puppet I'd been raised to forever be.

i was sold a problem i never had, and now will forever live in terror of solutions.

forever jump at the sight of my shadows, forever prematurely burn any bridges built for me.

everything i've ever known is evil.

everything i'll never know is evil.

everything within and without.

i will live and die in the same hole they dug me.

will i find solace in the afterlife they promised?

if i obey enough, will i finally achieve the perfection they set up to be forever just out of reach?

i am nothing without their guidance, i am no one.

they chewed me up and spit me out and said the identity i was destined to have was an abomination.

before i could ever get the chance to form my own opinions, they were there, providing backbone in a time i needed my own to prop me up.

they placed the ground beneath my feet, and threatened to let me fall through any cracks in the foundation i asked about.

words were stolen from my vocabulary, thoughts ripped out of my brain, feelings forbidden from my heart, experiences corrupted from my life, years wasted from my youth.

things the angry greedy men will never return to me. damages that no lawsuit could ever repair.

they bred, birthed, and designed me by hand. picked out my personality and chose my destiny before i could even speak. even my deathbed was decided on.

i was their perfect creation, the perfect woman.

i am now a shell. lost in the storm of self-discovery.

but it's all a lie. there was never a me to be found.

i am the whims of the men sat upon their thrones on altars.

i will forever war against myself to determine where they end and i begin.

there is no end to be found in this inescapable path. nothing safe about the streets that run red with the blood of the children they've massacred in their righteous indignation. there is no happiness awaiting them in the afterlife they let their lives turn sour for.

i am not a pawn in a cosmic scheme, no plot device for a sinister child with too much power.

the shackles fell away from my ankles long ago, but i still feel the weight they made me carry, and the strength left in my bones is not enough to get me through this storm they doomed me to suffer through.

i fear that at any moment, i'll be swept up in the wind without the anchor they once had tied around my feet.

i fear that at any moment, i'll lose my way without their guiding hand.

i fear that at any moment, i'll go crawling back to the captors of my past.

they reach into my pockets, and strip me for all I'm worth.

press me into their mold, and dress me like the pretty doll they claim god needs me to be. force their scripted lines down my throat until i choke and cry for mercy.

survival is all i could focus on, and the mask i took from their molds was the safest thing i could ever reach for.

am i meek and soft, silent and obedient by nature?

i question every word i speak because i can no longer tell what is mine to say.

they stole me from myself.

they stole sincerity and kindness from me. they stole goodness from me.

rebranded it as holiness and sold it to me at the cost of my soul and sanity.

i will spend a lifetime trying earn it all back rightfully.

those greedy men with silver tongues have built empires off the backs of well-meaning people with trusting hearts.

run their wealthy businesses with nothing to hold them accountable except for those they've brainwashed into worshipping them.

traditions and authorities have never had my wellbeing in mind. not when i was born to threaten everything they've stood for.

their agendas and lies have torn up families, and caused wars, broken the hearts of children and warped the compassion of the old.

and I, like the generations before me, am caught in their web, being spun dizzy, until i die in the place i never left.

doomed.

[themurphyzone]

Oneshot: Mascot Murphy

“So what did you need me for again?” Milo asked, glancing over his shoulder at the water fountain Melissa had pulled him away from. A leak sprung from the side, covering the floor in a metallic-tasting liquid. “I hope we aren’t above the cooking class….”

Right on cue, screaming erupted from the cooking classroom.

“They’ll be fine. Mr. Ortega probably has a skill he got from ‘The War’,” Melissa said, trying to make a dramatic face, and Milo burst out laughing at her exaggerated pout. “Anyway, I just need you to establish a buffer zone so I can grab a few boxes from my candy stash. I wasn’t expecting sour gummy turtles to be so popular this week, but hey, profits are profits.”

“Okay, but why do you need a buffer zo-“ Milo wondered, almost stumbling into Mort’s back. He took note of the crowd that had gathered around the bulletin by Coach Mitchell’s office. “Sorry. Hey, what’s going on here?”

A dozen heads turned at the sound of Milo’s voice, and the crowd whispered nervously to each other and quickly stepped to the far side of the hall.

“Thanks,” Melissa grinned. “I’ll be right back.”

She slipped into the girl’s locker room from the pathway that had opened up.

“Coach Mitchell’s holding tryouts after school for someone to wear the gecko mascot outfit at the game tomorrow,” Mort explained. “You know, since Paulie’s really…not up for it at the moment.”

Everyone knew that Paulie was still recovering from the sewer rat incident. Since he still freaked out at anything that involved the rodent family, Coach Mitchell and Principal Milder had agreed to find a substitute Gecko for this week’s game. Mostly because the opposing team used a field mouse as their mascot and they didn’t want to terrify the poor guy into becoming a recluse for the rest of his life.

“Yeah, sounds reasonable,” Milo admitted. “Poor guy. Maybe I should try out for the position! I’ve always wanted to stick to walls like one of those cheap sticky hands you get out of the capsules from the grocery store!”

He eagerly scribbled his name on the bottom of the sign-up form. Many of his classmates’ eyes widened to comical proportions, and one of the 8th graders passed out. 

Then Melissa emerged from the locker room, her backpack bulging slightly with the corners of several boxes sticking out. She followed their looks of fear back to the sign-up form. “Oh, that explains it. Well if it cheers you guys up, I’ve got more sour gummy turtles. That’ll be two dollars a pack please.”

As several people dug into their pockets and bags for money, Mort simply watched them from the side. “I’m getting mixed signals from their aura. Their excitement for sour gummy turtles is punctuated by dread.”

The PA rang loudly, shaking Mrs. Murawski out of another desk-induced stupor. “Now I’ll never know what Oakley was gonna say!” she yelled. “I am so having a word with you, Elizabeth!”

Principal Milder’s voice crackled through the old speakers, and some people in the class covered their ears. “There’s been a change of plans. Because Milo Murphy was the only student whose name was not scratched out or colored over with red pen…seriously people. You’re in middle school. It’s possible to erase properly without tearing up the sheet of paper or getting red pen all over the bulletin. Anyway, he gets the part.” She didn’t bother disguising her deep sigh. “Look, if you’re participating in the game, try not to do anything that requires an ambulance or gets the attention of the school board. Milo Murphy, report to the gym after school for practice and the rest of you bring your personal shields just in case. Thank you.”

Bradley scoffed, glaring at Milo across the room. “So how are you gonna pull this one off? Covering yourself with merch from the other team won’t work this time since you’re our mascot. I predict we’ll lose by at least a hundred points.”

Melissa clicked her tongue at him. “Oh ye of little faith. The game hasn’t started yet and you’re already so certain we’ll lose.”

“I’m just being realistic,” Bradley said. “One little fluke’s not going to suddenly give us a winning streak.”

“Wait and see, Bradley,” Melissa smirked. “Prepare to eat those words tomorrow night.”

“Geckos! Geckos! We got class, we’re gonna climb right up your glass!” Milo cheered as he took a flying leap for the glass pane. It shattered before he could make contact, and Milo fell onto a spare blue mat.

“Yeah, we aren’t going to win,” Coach Mitchell muttered.

Principal Milder coughed from the bleachers.

A smile quickly spread across Coach Mitchell’s face. “Uh, I mean we’re gonna win! And I can’t think of anything peppy to say right now so please stop giving me that death glare!”

“I’m only going to stop sitting in on your practices when you stop giving your players self-fulfilling prophecies,” Principal Milder said. “In addition to seeing the cost of the damages Milo Murphy causes so I can fudge it with the school board later.”

“Sorry about that,” Milo said. “But look on the bright side! A limo didn’t plow into the gym at least!”

The cheerleaders and football players screamed as cracks appeared in the floor around them, jumping out of the way as the tiles collapsed. Just as everyone managed to scramble for safety, a mass of squashed milk cartons and tin cans rose from the hole.

“Hey, how do you like my subterranean submarine?” Scott shouted to the group. “With this vessel I will RULE! ALL! OF! SUBTERRANOUS! Terranous, terranous….”

Everyone stared at him.

Scott scoffed. “Fine. Tough crowd. I’ll go find someone who appreciates this kinda stuff.”

Then he disappeared back into the hole, taking the massive amount of garbage with him.

“Right, let’s ignore that and get back to practice,” Coach Mitchell muttered.

“Okay!” Milo cheered. “Geckos! Geckos!”

As he tried to leap over a hurdle, his tail caught on the frame and sent him tumbling head over heels into a wall. “I’m okay!” Milo yelled. The gecko suit did a good job cushioning the impact, even though his tail hog-tied all his limbs together so he could barely move. 

“Doom….” Coach Mitchell sobbed into Principal Milder’s shoulder.

“Milo, are you sure you don’t need any help?” Zack asked as he watched Milo hop around the empty bus as he tried to put on the gecko suit.

Milo tripped over a seat, his legs flailing in the air while he pulled up the fabric. “Don’t worry! If I can manage a huge, poofy ballroom dress, I can handle this just fine! Seriously, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get lost underneath several pounds of fabric.”

After several minutes, he managed to get his arms in the suit as well. Milo reached over his back for the gecko head, but found that he couldn’t get a grip on it. Zack pulled it on for him.

“Thanks!” Milo exclaimed. “To the field!”

“And you’ve got the detachable tail if you’re in a pinch,” Zack reminded him as they got off the bus.

Milo nodded. “I know, right! You guys are just full of surprises.” The tail popped off, thrashing wildly and tripping students who’d come to the game before taking out the tire of the school bus. The bus crashed to the ground, a fire springing from the engine.

“Moving on,” Zack said as they headed to the field. “Just try not to land yourself in the hospital this time.”

“I make no promises!” Milo exclaimed.

Zack joined the huddle of football players who were listening to Coach Mitchell run over the game plan. “Hey, Milo!” Melissa called from the stands. Everyone else had moved to the highest seats, nervously checking over their shoulders for any sign of Murphy’s Law.

“Melissa! What’s up?” Milo asked.

Melissa gave him the ‘I have a plan’ smile. “So, I did a little recon on the Field Mice of Fieldmouse Middle School. Which is a pretty uncreative name when I say it out loud like that, but that’s besides the point. Their mascot is Lola Sundergard, your female doppelganger we ran into at the recycling factory. At the end of the second quarter, you two will swap places. And the Geckos win yet another game! So what do you think?”

“Wouldn’t they notice the switch?” Milo asked.

“I’ve already met up with my counterpart, Melanie,” Melissa shrugged. “She’s agreed to facilitate the trade as well. Though if I know my counterparts, she’s probably got a plan of her own. I’m not really sure. She seemed a little too eager to make the trade. Oh, well. It’ll work. Just you wait and see.”

“Presenting the Jefferson County Middle School Geckos and the Fieldmouse Middle School Field Mice!

“Okay, meet up with you later! I’m on!” Milo yelled over his shoulder at Melissa as he did the traditional sprint around the football team. “Go Geck-ACK!” He tripped over a football that had been lying out in the field, sending him sprawling onto the turf.

“Geckos!” Milo cheered one more time before running off the field and joining the cheerleaders.

By the end of the second quarter, neither team had scored. Mostly because the goalposts being on fire, the bats occasionally diving into people’s faces to get an insect, and the giant robots which occasionally fired laser beams in random directions drove people away from the end zones.

While everyone else was distracted by the defunded marching band, Milo hopped over the gate to join Melissa. “Something’s up with the other team,” Melissa noted. “I don’t get it. They should’ve been mercilessly crushing us. Anyway, our rendezvous point is behind the concessions stand. We debated setting it by the restrooms, but I don’t think you’d appreciate nasty public restroom water all over the suit. Then again, I didn’t launch into the details of how exactly we beat the Tigers either.”

Melanie and Lola were already waiting for them behind the stands.

“So, you didn’t back out on our deal,” Melanie said. She leaned coolly on a railing, popping her gum at them. “Okay. Let’s trade mascots.”

“Now why would I back out?” Melissa asked innocently. “We both agreed this would be a hilarious prank on both schools once they realize the switch.”

Melanie shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“It’s like Melanie has a secret twin who’s just as clever as her,” Lola marveled. “So, we’re switching now?”

It took five minutes to get Milo out of the gecko suit since the zipper was stuck, but with a little teamwork from the girls and a generous amount of popcorn butter, they finally managed.

“Shouldn’t geckos have tails?” Lola asked, holding up the empty gecko suit. “What happened to it?”

“It’s an old suit and our school’s underfunded,” Melissa said. “It’s only natural for some parts to be frayed.”

“Here’s some popcorn butter roller,” Milo said, tossing Lola what appeared to be a lint roller. “It’s like a lint roller, but it absorbs popcorn butter!”

Thankfully, the mouse suit was a lot easier to put on. Milo and Lola stood side-by-side as Melissa and Melanie adjusted the heads to mask the slight differences in their facial features. By the time they finished, the football players were gathering on the field for the start of the third quarter.

“We’ll meet back here after the game,” Melissa said, winking at Milo as she led Lola back to their side of the stadium. “Well, you look like a fully hatched Gecko now, so I just need to make sure you know the main cheer so you’ll blend in.”

“Looks like you’re a field mouse now,” Melanie said. “How’s it feel to trade one prey animal for another?”

Milo tugged on his tail curiously. “Is this detachable too?”

“Nope, but it squeaks if you press the button on your hand,” Melanie said. “Try it out.”

Milo pushed it, only to flinch and hold his hand as far from his body as he could when the button emitted a loud, high-pitched sound. Everyone in the vicinity screamed and covered their ears as all of the lights blew out in the stadium.

“Everyone stay calm and don’t panic!” the announcer shouted. “If you need me, I’ll be in my secret totally not-a-panic-room.”

“Maybe we should check the power supply first,” Milo suggested, quickly crushing the small box to stop the sound.

“Everyone, grab hold of me!” Milo shouted to the Fieldmouse cheerleaders behind him. They latched on to him quickly, and he swung a rope up to the bleachers. He hauled himself into the stands, helping the other cheerleaders escape the feral cats below. “You girls okay?”

“We had no idea you could do that, Lola!” a blonde girl exclaimed. “Can you teach me someday?”

Milo chuckled. “Well, you see-“

Thankfully, Melanie came to his rescue. “Okay, ladies!” she clapped her hands and pointed down to the field. “You have some important cheering to do! Get down to the field and squeak like you mean it!”

The other girls glanced nervously at the feral cats, who were still circling the track nearby.  

“You might want to take these,” Milo suggested. He handed every cheerleader two balls of yarn. “Cause when the cats are away, the Field Mice will cheer during play!”

A blonde girl with braces giggled behind her pom-poms. “Ooh that’s a good one! Can we start using it?”

Milo nodded. “Yeah, go for it!”

As they watched the cheerleaders resume their positions on the field, Melanie gave Milo a thumbs-up. “Congratulations on besting the Kitty’s Curse,” she said. “We should be dealing with at least five more tonight. Six if the escargot vendor slips.”

“Five more?” Milo asked, ducking when a Gecko’s helmet flew over his head.

Melanie counted on her fingers as she lifted off a slew of various curses. “Lightbulb curse, country music curse, xylophone curse, pom-pom curse, and the one our team is banking on tonight, the Emu’s Curse.”

Milo whistled. “That’s a lot of curses.”

“Yup. Lola and I agreed on this switch so we could break the Emu’s Curse on our team,” Melanie said. “We’ve had it since the beginning of the season, when a herd of emus carried off our assistant coach. We’ll never be able to win a game unless we can break it.”

“So that’s why Melissa said she thought you guys were plotting something,” Milo mused. “And while we’re revealing secrets, this is the second time I’ve dressed as someone from the opposing school to win a game.”

There was only five minutes left in the game, and the teams were still tied with zero points each. It would probably be going into overtime.

Permanent overtime, Milo realized. The game would continue forever if nobody scored. And they would probably have to draft a new government, create the rules for a new society within the cheap stadium walls, try not to inevitably dissolve into anarchy….

“We heard about your victory over the Tigers. The news spread around the district like wildfire. We wondered how a team who holds the district record for a thousand straight losses and counting could even win against a group of sweaty adults,” Melanie paused, tapping her chin in thought. “Hold on. My school has never played the Geckos before tonight due to you being infamous around the city. They know all about the Emu’s Curse too. So why did they schedule us to play against each other?”

Milo shrugged. “Maybe someone forgot to look into it?”

Melanie raised an eyebrow. “That’s the best case scenario. But the staff of Fieldmouse Middle School are timid, much like their namesake. They wouldn’t take responsibility if someone was injured. There’s a third player somewhere. And we better find out who it is before this game goes on for an eternity. And believe me, that’s not a hyperbole.”

Tempers were running high and energy was nonexistent as the game dragged into the third overtime period. The cheerleaders from both sides were benched and refused to cheer anymore, and the tuba player on the Gecko side had keeled over from the sheer weight of his instrument.

“Just score and don’t die out there!” the Fieldmouse coach ordered.

Coach Mitchell picked Zack and Mort to provide enough water to Randy, who was too weak to drag himself over to the water tank.

Milo and Melanie used the opportunity to meet up with Melissa and Lola behind the concessions stand again. Melissa yawned loudly, not bothering to cover her mouth. Lola had lost the Gecko head somehow, but nobody was paying enough attention to notice.

“Sorry about the costume,” Milo said as he handed the tattered gray remains of the mouse suit to Lola. “A group of moths got hungry.”

“No worries!” Lola exclaimed. “Being a Gecko was fun while it lasted!”

“Same for being a Field Mouse,” Milo agreed. He decided against wearing the costume, since putting it on would take too much time. He stuffed it into his backpack for safekeeping, making a mental note to return it to the school later.

“We both know something’s up,” Melissa said, fistbumping Melanie for a job well done. “But who would benefit from the shameless exploitation of middle school football?”

“Shameless exploitation,” Milo repeated. “Melissa, we dealt with someone like that once. And if I’m right, you have to give me your cheese sticks at lunch for the next week!”

“I’m only agreeing to three days,” Melissa said.

The steps up to the announcer’s box were slick with oil, so they held onto the railings tightly so they didn’t trip. Milo took the lead, pressing on as his shoes were slathered in oil. Melanie and Lola were practically climbing on their hands and knees. Melissa was just a few steps below him.

“I knew the announcer was behind this!” Melissa exclaimed. “Don’t declare that you have a secret room on the mike if you don’t want teenagers checking it out.”

“And not just any announcer!” Milo added. He caught himself on the doorknob as he slipped on another patch of oil. “The real culprit is…”

He kicked the door open, only to land flat on his face when his foot slid too far from his body. The man at the microphone whirled around in surprise.

“The real culprit is Victor Verliezer!” Milo exclaimed, quickly getting back on his feet.

“You!” Verliezer shouted.

“Weird guy who cursed me at the grocery store for taking the last chocolate bar!” Lola yelled.

They stared at her.

Lola coughed. “Well, they had other brands. You didn’t have to curse my phones into failing every month.”

Verliezer hissed at them, clutching the microphone protectively. “That was the one of the few brands without peanuts and you know it!” He cleared his throat as he launched into his villain spiel. “We meet again, Murphy. After you and your little friends robbed me of my livelihood, I was forced to stoop to this! Just a common man in an idiotic school district. But lo and behold, I did some digging into the school files and discovered that you and Ponytail here happened to go to the schools that were never allowed to play against each other lest you be locked into a stalemate! Then I thought, why don’t I just let them play forever? You’ll be trapped, and I’ll make millions from the clueless masses who tune in mindlessly to a football game that goes on forever!”

“You do realize that nobody watches middle school football on TV,” Melanie scoffed.

“Or that you probably wouldn’t have a lot of ratings even if people did tune in,” Lola added.

“And everybody can hear you because you didn’t bother to turn the microphone off,” Melissa smirked.

Verliezer paled. “You all heard that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes we did,” everyone in the stadium chorused.

Verliezer stumbled past Milo, muttering about how another plot had been ruined. Milo waved at him as he slipped all the way down the stairs, straight into a group of police officers. “Feel free to take your sweet revenge on me once you come up with something that could actually work!” he shouted.

Melissa frowned, pointing out the window. The players were either lying on the turf or the benches, while the cheerleaders used their pom-poms as pillows. Even the coaches and referees were too tired to egg people on. The football laid in the middle of the field, completely forgotten.

“We should probably end this game,” Lola suggested. “I mean, all we have to do is just take the ball into the end zone.”

“Rock-paper-scissors for who gets to win,” Melanie suggested. “Best two out of three.”

“Bring it!” Melissa jumped at the challenge, and the girls engaged in a fierce game of rock-paper-scissors.

Milo yawned after ten minutes, realizing the game wouldn’t be going anywhere since they kept pulling the same hand gesture. “I’ll run the ball down myself,” he said to Lola. “And I don’t know which end is which because I wasn’t paying attention, so both schools have a 50-50 shot at winning. I’d say that’s fair.”

He used an inflatable pool ring to sled down the oil-coated stairs, crashing into the fence by the field. Then he hopped over the barrier and picked up the football. He glanced at both end zones, debating which one he should run to.

Then he decided to take his chances with the one that was swarming with alligators rather than the one surrounded by flocks of Canadian geese. As he passed the thirty-yard line, an exposed water pipe exploded, scattering metallic-looking water all over the field. The geese on the other end honked angrily, taking to the air. There was a scream from the stands, and Milo turned to see Elliot leaping over the students in his hurry to get out of the stadium.

Several birds smacked into Milo, almost making him lose his grip on the football. The alligators waddled after the geese, clearing a safe path in the end zone for him.

Milo cheered as he crossed the line, throwing the football to the ground for good measure. The crowd whispered and pointed to each other, and several people had to shake themselves out of a stupor.  

Then the visitor’s side erupted into cheers.

The Field Mice won the game.

Milo was immediately tackled by Lola as she excitedly led him around the field in a victory lap. The football players cheered weakly from the bench.

“Here. You take the attendance sheet down to the office,” Bradley scoffed to Milo, tossing a few pages at him. “And remember that the office is at the front of the school so that you don’t go to the wrong side like you did on Friday.”

“Lay off,” Zack muttered. “You would’ve been an eternal spectator if Milo and Melissa hadn’t foiled Verliezer’s plot.”

Bradley rolled a pencil back and forth across his desk, now utterly disinterested in the conversation.

“Paulie will be back as the mascot this week,” Melissa said. “Though he’s making a makeshift head and tail out of tin cans for the rest of the season. The school this week has a goat for their mascot, so he should be fine.”

Zack coughed. 

“Using a very loose definition of fine.” 

[veliseraptor]

Some musings on Loki's social awareness- You could say he's socially intelligent, but that honestly would be misleading. He's competent yeah but he's got this huge blind spot. Like, not just legally blind but true can't-see-shit blindness. To take emotions out of this (which yes is detrimental to the entire socio-awareness point, but) it's like he's bad at fractions. (1/4)

Like, he could be going along perfectly fine, solving a multi-variable differential equation but then he runs into a fraction and it's like "Woah oh god what is this it must equal this wildly incorrect answer", and watching this is a wild combination of suspense, a heart wrenching feeling, and just Loki what are you doing 

And that thing in the metaphor, the fraction, is kindness. Basic decency. It'd be both so much fun and so mean if someone (Stark? Clint?) just sort of poked at that issue

Anyway, your fics are enrapturing and gorgeous to read, I'll glance at it when going through tabs in safari and suddenly its two hours later and I'm quite enjoying the 4 chapters I just re-read. Just, thank you for writing them

you’re talking about basic decency from other people towards him, I’m guessing? I do think Loki has the capacity to be kind to others, though he often doesn’t exercise it. big prickly ball of spines. or knives, as the case may be. 

the thing is that Loki is very socially competent in a lot of ways - but those ways rely mostly on his grasp of other people, of general motivation and behavior, and knowing how to play people so they do what he wants. 

Loki does have, I think, a solid intuitive understanding of people in general, of others, and is pretty good at reading them: with, yeah, this big exception when it comes to himself. Loki’s self-image is so distorted in so many ways, and his perspective distorted as well, that when it comes to others he does tend to expect the worst and behave accordingly. the thing is, Loki’s reactions often become self-fulfilling prophecies in bringing about that worst, which for him only further confirms his beliefs about the way people function and what to expect: selfishness, cruelty, betrayal. 

so, given that point of view, given Loki’s low expectations of others (which are tied to both his cynicism in general and particularly how he thinks others will treat him - in Loki’s mind there’s a thought process that kind of goes “well if I were them this is what I would do to me, ergo”). which is what Hogun is going for in this fic when he says “You have always expected others to lie as you do.” Loki takes it as an insult, and it is that, but it’s also a comment on Loki’s inability to believe in kindness or affection from others. 

see also Frigga in “Gnosienne” when she says:

“You have always had a tendency to doubt that others love you. Even when you were young. I used to wonder if it was something to do with your being abandoned as a babe. That you remembered it, somewhere in your soul, and carried it with you.”

it’s something Loki struggles with a lot, and that doubt, that inability to accept or trust kindness, only grows worse over the course of Thor and The Avengers. you see it in the way he lashes out every time Thor extends a hand, because he can’t trust that it’s genuine. (I’ve written about this before, too. I...don’t know how to find it now, whoops.)

so yeah, that offering, when it comes, more often than not results in suspicion or even lashing out. I can actually think of a time that I did get into this (a little more obviously, it’s kind of there everywhere in early installments of Remember This Cold, for instance, and more recently in Mending. but explicitly, it comes up in Life in Reverse (chapter 30):

“I did not tell you,” Loki said, keeping his voice flat. “You hardly need apologize. My health is not a relevant topic of conversation.”

Foster looked back at him. “Isn’t it, though? You’re the only one with any kind of clue about what’s going on. So do you want an Advil or something? Because you do look a little peaky.” Loki stared at her until Foster fidgeted. “Advil’s a painkiller. People take it for headaches-”

“I know what Advil is,” Loki interrupted. Foster looked confused.

“Okay, so…”

You are acting as though you give a damn about me, Loki thought, and was not certain if there was more anger or bewilderment in the thought. You can stop. I am not fooled. But it was better than hostility, wasn’t it? Ms. Lewis snorted.

“Oh, man. Jane, you’ve got him all wrong footed because you’re being nice and polite like a normal person. I can’t decide if that’s sad or hilarious.”

because, yeah, there it is. 

(thank you very much for the compliment! and giving me this chance to ramble.)