#and i feel kind of like i’ve abandoned them bc i didn’t know abt until literally rn

[male-duckk]

just found out abt the last beatles song coming out. i’m emotional

[troglobite]

it may loosely be beginning to sink in that the reason i don’t want to let go of hating myself or being critical of myself or being in that headspace where like. offering myself kindness is repulsive.

is bc

if it’s that easy

then why did others not do it?

not sure i really want to reckon w a world where ppl treating me like shit for so long, and even continuing to do it, isn’t bc i’m inherently unlovable or awful or even just annoying. 

like if i’m terrible or awful and it’s my fault, then at least something makes sense. 

idk.

but also whenever i talk/think abt this shit abt how ppl treated me terribly or something i’m always like

“it wasn’t that fucking bad”

except

my parents had me moving schools repeatedly due to bullying and the fact that i was nearly sick every morning w dread bc i didn’t want to go to school

and my mom put me in therapy when i was young bc of my anxiety

and when the therapist said nice things to me i clung to them as tightly as i could

even when i insulted myself (as part of an exercise) she complimented me for how my brain worked, being specific and categorizing things

and thinking abt now makes me wanna cry lol

or y’know

that time where some girls who bullied me all the time made friends w my only Really Good friend at school

and she kept abandoning me for them

so they drew up a fucking contract for it

then immediately breached contract

and yelled and laughed at me

i ran crying to my math teacher

nothing was fixed

or--

yeah i’m just. uh. thinking abt it all. now. 

i really only got through most of that bc. i hated them right back. i didn’t...bully them. i never said/did anything to their face. i just. coped. alone. w my parents. by saying all the things i hated abt them. insulting their intelligence and their priorities. insulting them by calling them mean and petty and lazy. never to their face. but it was all i had to feel better.

and i heard the “stop reacting and they’ll leave you alone” bullshit so many times

but truly my mom tried everything to help

my parents talking to teachers and other parents only ever made it worse

teachers tried helping and it never stopped

past a certain point, teachers and parents stop intervening. 

so you kind of just have to cope. on your own. 

i both want to just Break and completely crumble bc i can feel myself holding everything together w fucking. scotch tape. and i’m tired. bc i can barely access my emotions anymore. i’m so far past the point of burnout. i just. 

idk.

and at the same time i’d like to just continue on in this bullshit and maybe find some productivity in here instead. idk. focus on things that Actually Matter. 

i say things in the past hurt me. i talk abt it. but i’m dissociated from it. i don’t feel it.

when i feel it, like when i talk abt my dad, i actually dissociate for days straight. if i think abt my childhood too long and too in-depth, i feel like i’m back there. and nothing feels....grounded. 

so on the one hand i want to Break, on the other i want to coast along in this fuzzy bullshit, and on another hand i know that looking into it. is dangerous. 

like.

my therapist now keeps saying--not recently, but has--that. looking to the past and picking everything apart can sometimes be helpful, but what’s most helpful is the here and now.

and i think. i just. 

i need to process trauma. idk what that means.

but it feels like i can’t move past it. it feels like i can’t even give myself permission to like myself or love myself or feel secure in any way until...it’s processed.

but idk what that means or looks like. so i guess i’ll have to ask her and talk to her.

bc the thing is like.

it’s just been trauma on top of trauma lately w the pandemic and everything.

i think i’ve processed my freshman year of college & the shit that followed it. i think i have. i’m not inherently afraid of school or classes anymore. 

but it’s hard to parse since i’m always afraid of ppl hating me, talking abt me behind my back, etc. 

and it really didn’t help that the woman i wanted to work w for my MA/PhD ended up just--hating me. immediately. she clearly didn’t even want me in the program. she tried to dissuade me from everything i loved. and it was. patently awful. and scrambling to get my committee for my MA exam bc she couldn’t be on it--not w how much she hated me (and she never even bothered asking abt it or checking in, she didn’t want to be there)--that sucked, too.

god bless the professor who helped me through the program, i owe him everything. 

idfk man.

idk how to PROCESS things. idk what that MEANS. it feels so vague. and i guess i should just read a fucking book abt it, huh? bc that’s clearly what needs to happen.

i can’t do anything until i’ve dealt w all that. 

bc ultimately i’m going to be incapable of allowing myself to do anything else in my situation until i remove the roadblocks. 

“do this dbt workbook” i’m sorry this presumes that i love and care abt myself, and i don’t

“well you’re fighting so hard to stay alive, that must mean something” it means i’m a coward and afraid of death, i have a very strong survival instinct, and v little will to live

“try making new friends, making connections, taking chances” i already have done that and it didn’t work or didn’t help, and doing it is fucking exhausting. i’m afraid to talk to new people. fuck, i’m even afraid to talk to people who are already my friend. idk if they really like me! idk if we’re REALLY friends! i’m constantly afraid of doing something wrong!

like. i cannot do or fix these things without removing the roadblocks

i hate myself

i cannot think abt my childhood without dissociating/derealizing/depersonalizing

i fundamentally do not think i am a good or decent person. i think i am awful, annoying, demanding, horrible. i think i am only redeemable through services i provide others. things have never gone well when i ask for the same in return--or even just respect and boundaries. 

i avoid people and i am desperately lonely

i’m just. tallying up. all the Big Things that make me not trust people. and it’s like.

fucking duh, you stupid bitch

like. multiple bullies and some scattered issues w teachers at first school

most of a year at a private christian school, i don’t even need to expand beyond that

so. many. bullies. at my third school. including the story above abt the contract. 

fourth school was huge. one teacher was actually responsible for bullying me. i still remember some things she said and did. i was forced to switch classes in the middle of the day when no one else had to. it was stupid. and some ppl were fatphobic, others were homophobic, some transphobic, some racist (i know how white i look, that’s just how awful this kid was), and one kid humiliated me in front of the whole class. though i also did that, myself, plenty of times.

i stayed here for the rest of middle school. got called all my first slurs here. 

and then finally i got to high school and things evened out. freshman year was bad, but things got better.

some teachers didn’t like me. which i hated. but my friends stayed consistent. even if i never belonged to a friend group, and had to rely on my friends--who were all part of other core groups, without me--taking pity on me and keeping in touch in other ways. i never quite. belonged. but at least people had other shit to do and left me alone. 

then college. the admin harassed me and chased me out of the school, while other students talked behind my back, and the ppl who should’ve been my friends called me annoying to my face. and my whole life was blowing apart thanks to failing classes, autistic burnout, and a miserable time w my mom.

then i left, we moved, that was Spider House. i’ve still never recovered.

online community college. most horrifying man ever as my prof. i still can’t think/talk abt it. i reported him. idk if anything ever came from that.

then finally here. an undergrad i enjoyed. made some friends who’d come and go. one person who tried to groom me into her target. i managed to ghost her before it got too bad. 

excitement. friends. a core group of friends.

then grad school elsewhere in the country. living on my own. terrified. 

and being gaslit and having my fear and anxiety shrugged off and ignored by friends who should’ve loved me and cared abt that. i was second class to them.

then the pandemic

i was going to quit school, but i stuck it out

then the prof who treated me like shit. “the” prof. there were two. and also some unfortunate stuff in my first semester poetry writing class. 

then i just--got abandoned by the group of friends for asking for reciprocal care, and wanting to talk abt how i’d been feeling. i didnt’ want to leave, necessarily, but i saw them move on without me so i had to just. stop.

and now. this other group of friends has been uncommunicative for months. i want to run this game w them and i’ve gotten responses from only half the group. and it’s just. looking harder every time.

and then of course everything since late august.

and also this whole year of fighting to keep my job and get any information, being discarded like so much trash. 

i still don’t have a job. 

is it any wonder i hate myself? even ppl who claim to love me just. don’t hear me. 

i read fanfics where a character in a relationship (or entering one) keeps going like “but...why me? i don’t get it” bc they’re used to being used or appreciated for what they can do, then tossed aside. no one caretakes them--until whoever it is they’re in relationship w in the fic. 

and every time i read a fic like that my stomach physically hurts from my lungs down to my hips. bc. i want that. i want to be wanted and loved and cared for. 

bc the other part of this is--

other ppl only want my care and love in certain ways. if i’m too honest and vulnerable and sweet--the way i want to be--it’s too much for them. 

it’s why i miss my dog so much and wish i had her back. on top her being my best most wonderful friend and dog and pet and family member, i could shower her w affection and be myself. she would lay on me and i could snuggle her and tease her and kiss/smooch her all the time. hug her. pet her. she’d sleep on top of or next to me, curled around me. she got excited to see me. she was comforted by me (though in her last few years she needed my mom, which i get). when we adopted her, she was afraid in the car and she hid behind my back. and she always slept in MY bed. the cuddle clone we have of her still sleeps in my bed. 

and i miss that.

everyone saw how weak and pathetic i am and decided to kick me for it. 

and that’s not to say i never had fun, or there weren’t wonderful people in my life. without them i’d probably have never made it to this point--i probably would’ve died/killed myself. 

but it does. hurt. to feel like no one really wants you around. they just enjoy your presence sometimes. but you’re an afterthought. or it’s conditional. just permanently stuck trying to figure out what parts of me they like or want, or who i have to be for them, to get them to stick around. 

and idk what to do with all of this.

admitting it all at once could maybe kill me. even now i’m not even crying. i got sad abt my dog, bc i always do. i miss her so fucking much.

but all of this is just like. i feel empty and pathetic. and stuck. and idk what to do abt any of it. 

and comparatively, so many ppl have had so much more bullshit to deal with. including so many of the ppl who’ve hurt me in my life. like why does it matter, that i hurt? 

that’s where i get stuck. my pain doesn’t matter. it just doesn’t. no one wants to take the time to listen to it or really let me feel it. 

they just want to stop it--or stop me talking abt it. bc it’s inconvenient. and it’s ugly. 

and part of me says it’s me that’s wrong and broken and i deserve this

and another part balks at the idea that that could be materially true, instead of morally true

as in--

what if i have a personality disorder? what if there’s something we’ve missed? what if all of this really is my fault, but not in the esoteric “i’m unlovable” way, but in the “i have materially fucked up everything in my life, within my own capacity and doing, and my suffering is my own fault” kind of way? 

my therapist mentioned that a couple weeks ago as i had a meltdown abt my mom seeming to disregard me and my feelings entirely. making me feel like i don’t matter at all. bc she chooses what matters, what feelings are real, and how she expresses her care for me.

and my therapist mentioned a group she’s in w audhd therapists who treat audhd clients, and how sometimes bc of everything else, you might miss something like a personality disorder. that could actually be responsible for some things.

and i shut down.

bc what if it’s all my fault? like actually my own doing? what if i did all of this to myself? how do i even come back from that.

she didn’t press the issue. she only brought it up bc i kept asking what’s wrong w me, why am i so hard to love, why don’t ppl listen to me or care abt me. so i’m not mad at her abt it. 

but i’ve just been stuck on it.

and i really just need to talk to her.

i’m sick of being in stasis.

i have no friends to really. TALK to. everyone has other things going on, and i don’t have the capacity to be there for them--and i can’t stomach the thought of going to someone to ask for help when i haven’t been there for them recently. bc i don’t like when ppl do it to me, i literally CANNOT do that to other ppl.

but i don’t have the energy. to be there for them. or be fun. or even be a person or a friend.

and i’m tired.

and i just rant and ramble in therapy abt how awful i feel.

and i just. need to DO something abt it. and i guess. this’ll be it. i’m going to push for this. bc maybe this is it.

i don’t need to pinpoint everything like a connect the dots. i just want to. process. it. whatever that means. idk what it means.

but it feels unprocessed.

it feels like i’ve lived my entire life coping, sublimating, suppressing, repressing. and then learning just enough stuff abt how to heal and adjust to convince myself that i did it, when i haven’t actually done jackshit. 

it’s all right there, really easy to access, hard to avoid. i just pretend i’m fine most of the time. and it’s getting harder to do that. i don’t have anything to fall back on. without distractions, a context, a purpose, a goal, friends, i’m just a fucked up piece of shit who’s still sad abt stuff that happened 20 years ago. 

and idk what to do to fix it. bc the thought of healing myself--i still hate myself. i don’t think i deserve to heal. it’s this constant argument in my head. and idk what to do abt it. 

so i guess therapy will be fun. how great that i have no income to pay for these appts anymore, so my savings are all just gonna whittle away until someone deigns to hire me, a complete fucking loser. 

i have to stop. idk. whatever. 

[myherowritings]

PART 7. WHAT’S BETTER THAN EATING THE RICH? THE RICH EATING YOU OUT

SUMMARY. Todoroki Shouto was a wealthy, young CEO who inherited his father’s enterprise. You were a barista at a local cafe who wouldn’t mind some extra cash. One day, Shouto came in during an early morning shift and tipped you such a large sum of money, you were certain it had to have been an accident. To your surprise and complete pleasure: It was not.

PAIRING. ceo!todoroki shouto x barista!reader

WORD COUNT. 4.7k

GENRE. ceo/barista au, fluff, eventual smut

WARNINGS. the filthiest thing i’ve ever written, fem!reader for this part and shouto uses “princess” an excessive amount of times, sir kink i’m sorry, cunnilingus, unprotected sex (just bc i totally forgot abt condoms ok my bad), too much foreplay?, shouto’s a soft dom i think?, very much so 18+!!! and the title is exactly what it sounds like

A/N. here we are !! the final part !! my first shouto series i didn’t put on hiatus LMAO,, the moment you’ve all been waiting for HFSJKG ;) this was very fun to write i hope it’s not too bad BHFBDSHS i’m so in love with ceo!shouto and this series was my fav to write in a while!! now without further ado pls enjoy some smut with feelings :3 xx sof

SERIES MASTERLIST

© myherowritings — all rights reserved. reposting, modifying, copying, or translating of any kind is not allowed. do not read my writing as asmr. do not plagiarize.

You almost didn’t make it into the elevator to Shouto’s penthouse before you wanted to pounce on him, but to your complete frustration, he was showing such restraint that the only contact he let you make was holding his hand. 

For someone who was so eager to kiss you earlier, he was showing a lot of patience now, you thought with a huff. 

You tapped your foot against the tile flooring as Shouto took his sweet time unlocking his suite. Even when he entered, instead of taking you straight to the bedroom like you anticipated, he pulled out two glasses and filled them with water. 

Handing you one, he asked, “Did you want something to eat?” 

“No. ‘M not hungry right now,” you mumbled, trying not to appear too pouty. 

Apparently, it didn’t work very well since he stifled an amused chuckle. “How about some water?” 

Your eyes narrowed but you begrudgingly accepted the glass. “Hmph.” 

“Someone seems a little tired right now, hmm?” he placed his glass down and led you towards his bedroom. “Maybe we should go straight to sleep—”

You couldn’t help yourself any longer. “Shouto,” you whined, drawing out the ‘o’ sounds, your lower lip jutting outwards in a frown.

“Yes, Y/N?” His tone was too innocent for the events he had in mind for the night. 

“If you don’t take me to bed and fuck me right now, I’ll…”

“You’ll…?” Shouto teased, but the darkened gaze in his eyes told you his own restraint was wearing thin. 

You turned away with a huff. “I’ll be upset!” 

“Well, we don’t want that.” He laced his fingers through yours, bringing your hands up to his lips to give them a kiss. You were slightly placated, but that was still nowhere near the amount of contact you desired. “But I think you’d find it more comfortable if we continue this with your dress off first. Come.” 

Your stomach clenched at the simple command and you willfully followed behind him into the second door to the right. You hardly had time to admire the design of his room and size of his bed before Shouto moved from his spot next to you to one behind you. He placed one hand on where your waist met your hip and the other on the small of your back, making your spine straighten at the touch. 

“Did you need help taking your dress off?” he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. 

“Yes, please, sir,” was your airy reply. 

His breath caught in his throat and his grip on you tightened. When he spoke, his voice was hoarser than normal. “Since you asked so nicely.”

So, he liked when you called him sir? You made a mental note of that with a smirk. 

But your cocky expression didn’t last very long when Shouto skillfully unfastened the top few buttons of your dress, softly placing his lips on your now exposed skin and gently planting kisses all the way down your back. He didn’t stop until he reached the curve of your ass, unbuttoning the final button and nipping a kiss right at the base of your spine. You jolted, hugging the fabric of the dress to your chest so you wouldn’t be completely exposed. 

“Finished unbuttoning your dress for you, princess,” he said, placing one final kiss on your spine before gently twirling you around to face him. At your flustered gaze, he smiled. “Now what would you like for me to do to you?” 

You lifted your chin despite your slight embarrassment at having to voice your desires. “I want you to kiss me.”

“Hm. Have I not been kissing you this whole time?” 

“On the lips,” you emphasized, tugging at his tie as you tried to pull him closer to you. You batted your lashes at him. “Could you please kiss me on the lips, sir?” 

A small chuckle escaped him, but he was happy to oblige. “You know, you’d be good in business. You certainly know what to say to get what you want, hmm?”

You answered with a smile as he finally—fucking finally, after a whole week of waiting—pressed his lips against yours. They were soft and warm and tasted like strawberries and ice cream, his favorite flavor of the candies the two of you stole from the gala. 

Delicious. 

Shouto must’ve thought the same thing since, not long after the start of the kiss, he coaxed your mouth open with his tongue, deepening the movements, one hand softly cupping the area where your head met your neck while the other was hot against your exposed lower back. He applied the slightest bit of pressure at the right time—just enough to make you sigh in pleasure. 

Your own hands found a way to tangle themselves in Shouto’s hair, completely abandoning their job clutching your dress to your body. Now, you were so tightly pressed up against him, the only thing that could possibly keep the fabric up was his chest against your own. One sudden movement and it might just…  

He nipped at your lower lip with his teeth and you jumped, gasping at how good the light stinging sensation felt. You felt your dress slip down your body to expose the swell of your breasts, but before it could fall any further, Shouto gingerly picked you up and laid you down on his bed. 

“Oh—” you managed to say as your head landed on a pillow and your back on the plush, silk sheets that covered the mattress.

His left arm rested on the pillow beside your head as he hovered over you. “Have something to say, princess?”

“Y-You may continue,” you sniffed, lifting your chin up. Your heart skipped a beat at the teasing pet name and then another beat when Shouto leaned down to give you a kiss. But instead of landing on your mouth again, he chose to leave an open-mouthed kiss on the sensitive part of your neck, gently biting and sucking at the skin. 

His feathery light touches tickled you, your nerves working on overdrive and every stroke feeling like it was amplified. You couldn’t help but giggle at his soft nibble and he paused to look at you questioningly. 

“Tickles,” you replied, laughing at his confused expression. “But it feels nice.”

Shouto hummed, the vibrations buzzing against your neck. “That’s good to hear.”

Returning to your lips, he kissed you with a smile creeping on his face and you returned it. His forehead rested against yours as you toyed with the fabric on the front of his suit. You unknotted his tie as your lips clashed against each other, the motion no longer soft and gentle but instead more fervent and intense. 

Finally getting his tie to come undone, you flung it off the bed and worked to unbutton his shirt collar, not caring if it got wrinkled in the process. Shouto reciprocated the eagerness by sucking the tip of your tongue with his mouth before pulling away from you completely. 

A whimper left your lips at the sudden loss of warmth and you couldn’t help but pout, grabbing at his shirt again to pull him back.

“Be a good girl and be patient, okay?” he said, running the tip of his index finger against your jawline. 

You huffed. “I’ve been plenty patient. I want you to do something now!” 

In other times, you’d probably be embarrassed about how whiny you sounded, but at this moment all you wanted was for Shouto to finally touch you more. 

He nipped at your collarbone before looking down at you. “Hm. Are you a princess or a brat?”

“I can be both. I’m very multifaceted,” you said haughtily, sticking your tongue out to let him know you were only joking. 

“You are,” he agreed. 

It seemed Shouto decided to finally listen to your pleas since his attention swiftly returned to that of your neck, dragging his lips down until he reached the swell of your breast. Over the fabric of your dress that was barely clinging onto you, he placed wet, open-mouthed kisses over your chest, his teeth accidentally grazing against your nipple. 

You cried out quietly and he felt encouraged by the sound, this time taking your peak into his mouth with purpose. He formed his mouth into the shape of an ‘o’ and softly sucked your nipple, the tip of his tongue making circles around the bud. His saliva wet the fabric of your dress, leaving you to shiver at the cold against your wet breast when he pulled away from you. 

“S-Shouto,” you whimpered, squeezing your legs together to relieve some of the tension. “More.”

“More? What exactly do you mean by that?” 

“I want you to…” You gestured towards your body. 

“To what? Take your dress off and fuck you? Or just continue playing with your breasts?” he asked, listing off suggestions in a low rasp. He kissed below your chest and down your stomach all the way to your navel. “Or maybe you want me to go lower until I reach that pretty pussy of yours.”

You nodded fervidly, not trusting your voice. “A-All of the above?”

He chuckled in amusement but was ready to dutifully continue his work.

“But…” you murmured, running your hands down his half-unbuttoned shirt. “I want to see you too.” You looked down at his crotch area then back at his face, biting your lip nervously. “And I want to make sure you’re also having a good time.” 

A guttural noise sounded from the back of his throat as he ran his hands down your body, giving you an appreciative look. “I’m having the best time.” He kissed you chastely. “Are you?”

You looked like a mess sprawled out on his bed, dress half hanging onto your chest and the fabric of the skirt only covering one of your legs. You didn’t know for sure the state of your hair and makeup, but you were sure it was thoroughly roughed up as well. “I think it’s quite obvious I am, sir.” 

Shouto smirked, caressing your cheek with his knuckles. “Good.” 

Instead of answering him, you brought your fingers to the lower-half of his shirt, unfastening the final buttons and untucking it from his suit pants. His shirt hung open, exposing his lean yet muscular torso. You ran your hands up and down his chest and abdomen, absentmindedly brushing against his nipples which caused him to shiver. When you reached his collar, you threw the fabric behind his shoulders and he got the message to take his shirt off. 

“So pretty,” you whispered breathlessly.

“Your turn.” Slowly, Shouto slid down the silky fabric that was just barely covering your breasts all the way to your navel. He tapped your thigh and said, “Up,” and you immediately obliged, lifting your lower body up so he could remove the dress completely. 

Taking his sweet time—much to your frustration—he folded the dress and placed it on a dresser near his bed. When he turned his gaze back to you, you were holding your arms over your chest, feeling bare in nothing but your panties with sheer detailings. 

His stare burned holes into you. You felt like his gaze was leaving a trail of fire against your skin. Shouto’s expression looked sensual but soft as he admired you, giving you enough confidence to lay your arms down by your sides instead of over your chest. He zeroed in on your breasts as he gave them a kiss. 

“Beautiful,” he whispered and your cheeks burst into flames. Your whole body felt hot as you folded one leg over the other so he couldn’t see the arousal gathering at your thin undergarments.

Noticing the movement, he raised a brow at you and uncrossed your legs with his large but slender hand, his grip firm on your thigh to prevent you from covering yourself like that again. Shouto pressed one of your thighs into the bed with his palm, and your other thigh with the gentle weight of his knee, holding your legs open for him. 

The cool air from his room hit your wetness seeping through your underwear and you felt yourself clench around nothing. 

You shifted under his weight, desperate for some release. “Shouto, please.”

It seemed he no longer had the restraint to tease you further since he nodded, moving lower down the bed so his face was hovering above your clothed pussy. “May I?” 

“Fuck— Yes,” you moaned, core heating up in anticipation. 

Shouto landed his lips on your fabric-covered cunt, licking a stripe across your slit. Your growing arousal mixed with his spit through your panties, a lewd noise sounding when he pried the fabric away from your pussy. He slid them off your legs, holding it up to examine the arousal slick on the garments. As if he had no shame, he politely folded it and placed it on top of your dress with a smile. 

“T-That’s not what a gentleman would do,” you managed as he returned to his position in bed in front of your now-bare cunt. 

“And what is it that a gentleman would do, princess?” he whispered dangerously close to your most intimate parts. “This?”

Without warning, he tenderly kissed the bud between your legs. You moaned, legs attempting to kick out in surprise and pleasure, but they remained immobile since Shouto held them down in place. 

“Or perhaps this?” Shouto ran his tongue down your folds and back up to your clit, rubbing small and steady figure eights against the sensitive nub. 

“Yes!” you cried out, canting your hips towards his mouth in pleasure. “Oh, god— Yes to all of it. Please… Don’t stop.” 

“I won’t.” He hummed as he continued his ministrations on your pussy, the vibrations shooting right up your core and causing more wetness to seep out onto his face, but he didn’t let that bother him. In fact, it only seemed to encourage him further. 

Not removing his mouth from your clit for even a second, Shouto hooked one of your legs over his shoulder while leaving the other flat against the silky sheets of his mattress. He dragged his opened mouth down to your dripping pussy lips and entered into your slit with his tongue. The new position sent ever more waves of euphoria through you and Shouto licked and sucked at your folds. 

You lifted your hips higher and he nuzzled his head deeper, his tongue reaching places you had only ever imagined. The lewd noises of Shouto’s mouth smacking against your slick cunt filled the quiet room. As you moaned, your hands threaded themselves into the base of his hair, lightly tugging him even closer than either of you thought possible. 

With his hand that wasn’t holding your thigh down, Shouto found his way to your chest, reaching up to palm at your breast all while still sucking your pussy. He flicked your nipple and gently rubbed it with his thumb and forefinger. Your breathing hitched at the mix of sensations, your core tightening and heating up as Shouto continued to eat you out. “Fuck— Oh— Shouto!” you cried, unable to hold back the volume of your voice. 

As if he knew what was coming, he removed his hand from your breast and briefly paused, though his face was still resting against your thigh and pussy. “Not yet, princess. Do you think you can hold on for me?” 

You whimpered at the thought of postponing your release, but you trusted that he would make up for the wait. “Okay, sir. For you.”

“That’s my good girl.”

Shouto continued his attack on your cunt with his lips, this time bringing his hand down to rub lazy circles around your clit. His tongue was deep in you, his nose teasingly bumping against your sensitive bud as his fingers flicked against it harsher. Rougher. He nuzzled his head from side to side to hit places far within you as you whimpered and moaned. 

The stimulation of both his fingers and his mouth on your pussy was almost too much to handle as your thighs quivered and your cunt clenched uncontrollably. 

“S-Shouto, please I—” Your voice broke off as a moan of pleasure ripped through you. 

“You can come now, princess,” he murmured into your folds, the vibrations only pleasuring you even further. 

And so you did. 

You felt yourself orgasm as Shouto continued to suck at your cunt and brush against your clit, moving slower and more gently as you came down from your high. 

When he finally looked up from your pussy, the lower half of his face glistened with your fluids, sending you into another state of desire. There was something about the way he looked at you that made you want more of him. 

Shouto smiled as he wiped the fluids of your arousal and ecstacy on his chin with his index finger. Instead of taking it into his mouth, however, he held it in front of your lips. “Look at the mess you made for me, princess. See how good you taste.” 

After only a moment’s hesitation, you brought his finger that was coated in your arousal into your mouth, swirling your tongue around and sucking him, giving him an idea of what you would do if that were his cock. You released his finger with a soft ‘pop’ and smiled innocently at him. 

“Are you going to fuck me now or should I suck you off first, sir?” you asked, tone of voice all too pleasant. 

His bulge strained against the snug fit of his pants and you wanted nothing more than to relieve some of his pressure. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities to take my cock into your mouth, but right now I just want to feel you around me. Is that okay?” 

“That’s fine with me!” You nodded eagerly, the thought of being filled up with Shouto now taking over your mind completely. 

He chuckled at your excitement, though he was feeling the same thing himself. Swiftly, he removed his belt and took off his suit pants. You helped by tugging his black boxer briefs down and watching gently stroking his erect shaft in awe. 

Was every part of Shouto pretty? He was just a gift that kept on giving. 

Your mouth almost watered in anticipation, biting your lip as he lowered you back against the mattress, your head falling onto the plush pillows. He positioned his member against your slit that was still dripping wet from his spit and your first orgasm. 

Shouto rubbed his tip against your already sensitive clit and your slightly parted folds, not yet entering deep enough to satisfy you. He moved his cock back and forth against your pussy as you both watched, the fluids of your arousal and his mixing for further lubrication. Your eyes were fixated on the sight, the thick head of his member disappearing into your sopping pussy lips before coming back out, slowly getting you prepared for his full length. 

It was sweet of him to be so patient, but you were on the verge of tears at the frustration you felt. “Please, Shouto! More.” 

“What should you call me again, princess?” he drawled, continuing the leisure movements of rubbing his head against your lips. The fluids smeared all over your pussy and dribbled down onto your thighs and his bedsheets. If you weren’t so aroused, you might’ve been a bit embarrassed. But there was no time for that when all you wanted at this very moment was for Shouto to fuck you silly. 

“Sir—!” you corrected yourself in a whimper. “Please, sir, I want your fat cock to fill me up.” 

He groaned at your words, pulling out of your folds until only the very tip of his dick was touching you and then thrusting forward into your wet depths as you let out a loud cry of pleasure. You felt a stretch inside you as you adjusted to his length, Shouto taking note of how you stiffened and giving you time to get more comfortable. 

He began to nibble at your breast, sucking and biting your perk nipples as your arousal built. He nipped you, causing you to gasp in surprise (a very pleasant surprise) before soothing the bite with his tongue. As you arched your back, he swirled the tip of his tongue around your nipple and you hooked your leg around his hips, pushing into his lower back with your calf to signal for more.

“Ready now?” 

You nodded fervently. 

“Words, princess.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” you managed, voice shaky from your gratification being filled by Shouto. “Use my pussy to make you feel good. Please.”

“You always make me feel good, Y/N,” he said sincerely, removing his mouth from your breast to kiss you on the lips. Your tongues intertwined and you tasted yourself on him. “You’re amazing, you know?” 

You smiled into the kiss. “Show me how amazing you think I am with your cock then.”

“Anything for my princess.”

With that, he pounded into you, holding you at the waist to steady your squirming. You hitched your leg higher and higher around his back, canting your hips to let him thrust into you at deeper angles until he hit the spot. 

“Oh—! Oh, god,” you mewled in satisfaction, his cock making you feel so good you were certain your eyes almost rolled back into your head. “Fuck, right there, Shouto— Yes!” 

At your vocal encouragement, Shouto pushed into you even deeper, his swollen tip rubbing into you at the perfect angle. Your head lolled to the side and your cheek pressed against the soft pillow as you salivated at the intense feeling of his cock thrusting in and out of your weeping pussy. 

“Mn,” he made a noise, softly tapping your cheek. “Keep your eyes on me, princess. Don’t look away.” 

You struggled to blink away how dazed you felt, feeling so good it was almost unbearable. Somehow, you managed to turn your head back to face him, trying to hold eye contact. “‘M sorry. You feel so good,” you sighed contentedly. “Like your cock was made for me.” 

He held your leg higher and you just about screamed from pleasure. “You feel so good too,” he said, one hand stretching your leg up and the other reaching down to toy with your clit. “Never want this to end.” 

With his fingers and thumb rubbing against your clit and his member hitting your g-spot, you were certain your throat was going to grow hoarse by the end of the night from all your screaming. You swore you saw stars.

“Want to,” you panted, thrusting your hips up to match his movements, “do this...with you...every...day.” 

“Please.”

When his lips found your breast again to tug at your nipple, you couldn’t help yourself any longer. 

“S-Shouto, I— I’m going to come,” you told him, voice pleading. You really hoped he let you come. 

He hummed in agreement. “Me too. Come with me, princess.” 

You lifted his head from your breasts to meet your mouth, kissing into him as you both felt the sweet release of pleasure coursing through your bodies, all the way from the top of your head to the curl of your toes. 

His pace slowed as he carried the two of you through your highs. Shouto removed his finger from its position of making circles onto your clit to let you cool down with him. In a state of euphoria, you kissed him, both of you riding your orgasms until you felt nothing but completely happy and thoroughly satiated. 

Still not taking his lips off of yours, he moved from being on top of you to lying beside you. Your eyes fluttered shut even as you kissed, nuzzling into his hot, sticky body and ready to pass out. 

“‘M sleepy,” you mumbled onto his lips. You just wanted to stay like this. Forever if you could. 

Shouto smoothed down your brow, his thumb moving in gentle strokes. “Let’s get you cleaned up first, princess. Then you can sleep.”

The rational part of you knew it would be best to clean up. But your overwhelming desire was simply to never let go of him. “Wait! I still want you.” Lazily, you murmured, “Let’s do it again.”

“You’re about to fall asleep but you want to have another round?”

You nodded. “I...might fall asleep during it, but yes. Want to do it with you again and again.”

Shouto smiled, shaking his head in amusement. But you pouted. It wasn’t a joke, you meant it. You just wanted to stay by his side. 

“We can,” he said and you instantly brightened up, “another day.” You huffed. “When you can stand on your own two feet without falling over.”

Your lower lip jutted out in a frown. 

“Don’t look so down, princess.” He kissed the top of your head. “It can be tomorrow or the next day.”

Slowly, you perked up again. “Or the day after that? And the next day after that?”

With a laugh, he nodded. “Anytime you want me. I’m yours.”

“I’ll always want you, Shouto,” you told him sincerely, gazing into his eyes.

His face was colored a light pink, his hair plastered to his forehead, and his lips were swollen and bright red. He looked beautiful. It was a sight you’d never tire of.

“I’ll always want you too, Y/N. More than anything. I...love you.”

And in that moment, there was nothing else in the world you would rather hear. No one else you’d rather be with. You were happy to have Shouto and that was better than all the money in the world.

“I love you too.”

— ✩ —

A few days have passed since the fateful night you exchanged ‘I love you’s with Shouto and now you were back at work. 

As usual, you were working the morning shift with some cranky customers, trying your best to make the start of their day go as smoothly as possible. And, as per usual, Shouto walked into the cafe a few minutes after rush hour to spend a part of his morning with you.

“Good morning, sir. How can I help you today?” you said teasingly, giving him a brief kiss over the counter, chaste enough that no one else would notice but you two. 

“Morning, princess.” He smiled. “I’ll have a medium flat white, please.” 

“Of course. And could I interest you in some of our fresh pastries?” you laughed. “Oddly enough, we have your favorite today.”

He perked up at your words. “Cheese danishes?” 

“Yup!”

“I’ll have five boxes of a dozen, please.”

Humming to yourself, you entered his order into the register and told him the price. “Your order will be to your left when it’s completed,” you recited, knowing he’s heard this plenty of times before. After he paid and got ready to walk away from the counter, you playfully called out, “So, no tip this time?”

Shouto smirked, glancing back at you with a teasing glint in his eyes. “Maybe I can pick you up tonight and give you a tip then.”

“A...tip?” you asked, stifling a giggle behind your hands. “Was that an innuendo?”

“Innuendo—?” A look of realization crossed his face and his cheeks colored. 

You grinned to yourself. As confident and well put together Shouto could be (which you very much enjoyed and found incredibly attractive), you also got extreme pleasure in seeing him blush and grow flustered. 

“No… I didn’t intend it like that.” He paused, thinking on it. “Well, I guess I did. But I didn’t mean to make a pun of it…”

Your laughter rang out across the whole store, smile spreading bigger and bigger. “You’re cute, Shouto. Thanks for the laugh.” 

He looked sheepish but nodded. “Thanks for letting me hear your laugh. It’s radiant.”

“Smooth talker.” You stuck your tongue out. 

“Just the truth.”

“Hmm,” you sighed happily, a feeling of contentment and euphoria settling within you. “But about your tip…”

Shouto blushed. 

“I’d love to come over tonight,” you told him. “Any excuse to see my lovely boyfriend.”

“You never need an excuse to see me. Because I always want to be with you too.” 

The two of you kissed again, unable to help yourselves. Though it was brief and light, it still sent tingles down your spine. 

Shouto was sweeter than any cheese danish or chocolate croissant you could ever make, better than any tip you could ever receive, and you couldn’t wait to continue your life with him. 

a/n: omg...this is the end ╥﹏╥ thank you to every who read and commented and sent asks and just supported this series in general ! it was very fun to write and i have a toothache from all of shouto’s sweetness and fluff hfjhggg tysm for reading ily !! xx sof 

[bloodycassian]

HARSH - Anon request reader x azriel

“ hey there , ngl i’ve had a pretty rough week and now in desperate need for angst to fluff, az x reader where reader had struggles talking through her life bc of a rough childhood and az helped her talk freely and helped her gain confidence when talking. Reader is talking abt something she loves and az is stressed and tells her to shut up and hurts reader alotttt but….. we can’t have a sad ending, fluff and cuddles after :)) “

"Keep going." He encouraged with a smile, his shadows tickling your cheek. It made you shy away, but you continued your story anyway. The book's pages didnt tremble when you held them anymore. You could see the pride shining from him with every new paragraph you read aloud.

  Reading was always step one of your consulting with him. It opened the connection you shared with him and his past. The poems or stories were never too long, but always held some significance to either of you. Usually the ones he read when you took turns were about darkness, or fire. Never about the hostility of others and the cruelty of nature. Nature was a relief to him in his past. In yours it was a punishment. 

Your families last words to you were as brutal as they had been your entire life. "Leave and dont come back." with nothing more than a satchel of silvers and coppers, you had no other choice than to fight to survive against the cold of winter court. Then you started travelling, far and wide. Until you met Az. 

The rest didn't matter after you met him. He was yours, and yours his. And that was the only thing you needed from then on. His chosen family welcomed you in with a loving embrace. and you learned a new kind of love. One full of understanding and patience. 

you finished your poems together and talked as long as you could before he got called away to a meeting with the high lord. You assumed it was about the forces to the east as he had mentioned earlier that week. But you left him to it, not wanting to have him more stressed than he'd already been about the threat that week. 

+ You rejoined him again in his room. You'd made both of you a cup of tea for winding down. He didn't take it when you offered, so you set it down on one of the few empty spaces on the enormous table in his room. He seemed flustered, poring over the map on his table beside a half polished sword. The dark marks under his eyes indicated another rough night. "You should rest." You said softly. He didn't move. Didn't even tear his eyes away from the map.

You stared at it with him, noting the natural limitations of troop movements. "You could get Illyrians to fly over..." You suggested, but to no response. Nerves twisted your gut. Whatever had him in such a locked state was something you likely should be worried about as well. 

His cold stare was like the one he wore on the battlefield. Some internal blocking to cope with the horror. You noted the worn book under his clenched fist. One of the ones he'd read from before. Many of its verses were about a quality of males, the infamous duality of man. How precious life was in the balance of good and evil.

You saw the doubt there in his eyes then. The anger, the guilt of everything he'd ever done in his centuries of life. The blood spilled, the words that left people broken that could never be taken back.

You desperately wanted to snap him out of his dismal state. You pulled at his arm, trying to get him to break the lock he had on the corner of the map. He didn't budge. Frustration began building deep inside you. You knew he wouldn't let you sit in silence like this. What would he do for you? 

You picked up an indicator from the map, and spun it. "Az, staring will not help it. You need rest." He was locked in though, in a trance almost. The concern pushed harder into you. Were you to get Rhys? You'd never seen Az so... cold before. With you he was always a welcoming open lover. Never this... closed off. 

His shadows slowed, but he didn't move. his eyes scanned the paper from up to down, over and over again. You rubbed your eyes. "When I was small, I would stay up late reading. Very late. My family would-"

"Just shut up for two seconds, I'm trying-" He sighed, his face going red. The fist on the book curled around it's spine. Whit knuckles bulging out. 

You blanched and stepped back. Stunned at the aggressiveness of his words. He finally looked away, his mouth pinching into a thin line at the sight of your wide eyes. He abandoned the table finally, and reached for you. His scarred hands trembled slightly. The tiredness left his features. Only regret was left there. 

You didnt know what to do. Your mind raced with the rejection. The aggression of his words. You turned and strode out of the room, shaken.

+ He found you deep in the library after giving you a few to cool down. Giving himself the verbal lashing of a lifetime. That accompanied with Clotho's harsh glare.... he didn't know if he'd ever live the words down.

He approached you slowly. As if he were approaching a spooked animal. "I'm fine." You announced. And truly, you were. You had gone to the library because it was a safe spot for you, where you could practice your breathing alone. 

You knew he didn't mean to hurt you. You knew he'd had a rough week. It wasn't an attack against you. You told yourself those affirmations over and over but they still didn't fully settle you. His presence was unmistakable. You knew he'd been beating himself up over the harsh words too. 

That didn't make you feel better though. You gave him a slight nod and he took the seat across from where you were curled up. You hoped he didn't notice the red spottiness of your cheeks, or the way your eyes were red rimmed.  By the tension in his body though, you knew he saw through your act. 

He sat at the edge of the lounge chair across from you. His looked absolutely ragged. His hair was a mess, the dark circles were back under his eyes that held all the regret in the world. "I am so sorry." He started, those dark brown eyes boring into yours. "I will never do anything like that again. I promise. I am so sorry." He continued, wringing his hands. "I dont know why I -"

"Stop..." You said, voice shaking. He obeyed, and tried to hide his own emotion. "Just.." You sighed, walked around the small table separating you and took his hands, wrapped them around your middle and sat in his lap. He held you, rocked with you while you took in his scent. The mix of it with the smell of the books was like a heavy blanket over you.

You didn't remember him taking you back to your room. But when you woke, there was a cool glass of water on the bedside table with a fresh vase of flowers. Az quietly snored beside you, blanket pulled up to his chin. 

You took a sip of the water and returned to him, wrapping yourself around his wings and sharing your body heat together in the cool room. He muttered once you settled. One small movement of his lips. "Love you..." 

[mondothebombo]

The Ninja’s Love Languages

For anyone who doesn’t know, the five love languages are...

Words of Affirmation

Physical Touch

Quality Time

Gifts

Acts of Service

I had this idea last night at 4 am and i’m gonna try and make sense of it so here we go...

Jay

Physical Touch

-this one’s super easy

-hands down this is 100% jay

-when isn’t this boy clinging onto someone (esp. nya and cole)

-i mean just look (there’s so many more but i got lazy, feel free to add on)

-his first response to comfort/fear is a hug, a hand on shoulder, etc.

-and when you think abt it it makes sense

-cuz first of all just look at his parents, ed and edna

-the most affectionate and loving ppl on this goddam planet

-they showered him w/ undying love and support his whole life, ofc this kid’s gonna turn out the same

-but then if you also tie in his abandonment issues and fear of being alone and it makes even more sense

-we find out abt those mainly in s12 when he talks abt his birth parents to unagami, but looking at what happened to him in s6 when he was alone for so long on the misfortunes keep and nya dying to top it off...

-he lost all his friends not once, but twice (and that’s not including all the separate times the ninja have died) plus he feels like his birth parents abandoned him, w/o him even rlly knowing for sure what happened

-so it makes sense he’d be more comfortable showing his love by clinging onto someone, giving a hug, high-fiveing, etc.

- i hope this made sense i’m so sorry

Nya

Acts of Service

-this also makes sense

-we all know nya is a very independent person, and she doesn’t usually like all the touchy feely stuff

-this is especially shown w her and jay’s relationship

-( i didn’t want to make this all abt jaya i’m sorry)

-we know they both are two very different ppl.

-nya’s strong and independent, while jay is a lot more sensitive

-you’ll notice in the earlier seasons nya almost never initiated the affection w jay, he always the first to mention it, also coupled w the fact that she’s never told jay “i love you” (at least not yet) and we can pin this on her childhood

-she and kai didn’t have it great as kids, they basically raised e/o and the only times nya ever heard “i love you” was from kai

-so if she wasn’t used to saying it growing up, why would she immediately jump to it now that she’s a teenager/young adult? even w someone she does love

-she expresses her love in what she does and says.

-the main example i can think of atm is this

-jay’s freaking out abt catching her for the dance move and with 100% confidence she just says “i trust you” and then fucking yeets herself at him

-there’s other examples of this w the others too

-she builds their mechs and vehicles, back in the earlier seasons she always made sure the boys were taken care of when they got back from missions, she was always the cavalry, she sacrificed herself for jay back in s6 when they were at the lighthouse, and kai mentions she’s always taken care of him

-not to mention how she adopted lloyd back when he first came in

-i could go on

-does this make sense?? i hope it does

Cole

Words of Affirmation

-i had a little more trouble thinking abt cole but now that i’ve decided i’m pretty sure WoA suits him best

-cole didn’t have the best childhood either

-we now know his mom, Lilly, died when he was fairly young, judging by the flashback, i’d estimate around 10-13 y/o

-we know it wasn’t too long before wu found him

-and she showered him in love much like jay was

-just in the flashback she tells him how proud she is of him and how much she loves him

-(also look how quick he was to try and justify why he got in a fight to avoid getting yelled at when his mom mentioned him getting in trouble bc he didn’t want to disappoint her)

-now we don’t know what Lou was like before his wife died, but we know he was definitely not as loving towards cole afterwards

-Lou ignored Cole due to his grief most of the time, coupled w him wanting Cole to follow in his footsteps, and their relationship overall sucks until after the royal blacksmiths ep

-so it all falls the same that Cole would want to keep seeking out the words he got from his mother in his relationships w others (especially authority figures)

-just look at all the times he absolutely lights up when getting praised by wu or even the others

-plus thx to day of the departed, we know he’s afraid of being forgotten

-hearing the others say they love him and want him around would appease that

-staying on this train, we have...

Lloyd

Words of Affirmation

-i was tied between this one and acts of service, but then i decided

-lloyd’s life, esp his childhood, has absolutely sucked

-he was abandoned at a very young age at darklys which we know the other boys there weren’t kind, and then when he finally gets a home and a family, the weight of the world is now on his shoulders bc he’s a prophesied savior

-morro’s possession says enough on its own

-the list goes on

-then we get s8-s10

-harumi goes and absolutely destroys his trust in everyone and everything

-(after she told him she loved him)

-but also...

- then boom. yeeted through a wall

-he’s been abandoned, rejected, and used his whole life

-why wouldn’t this kid need words of affirmation??

-the other ninja have been the one staple in his entire life, and after everything he’s gone through, he definitely needs to hear that they love him and want him around every now and then

-this kid’s also emotional (who can blame him)

-he always puts all his cards on the table, more so in s11 and onward

-and we’ve seen how he always gives encouraging words to the others, mainly while they’re fighting

Zane

Quality Time

-i had trouble w zane’s too lol

-but i think this fits

-this nindroid is the purest being ever

-don’t get me wrong, zane can definitely be a smart ass and sassy when he wants to, he’s not all innocent, but u catch my drift

-let’s look at his past too

-he was all alone and by himself, he didn’t even know who he was until he found his true potential

-and he gets a family, ppl who live and care abt him

-then he sacrifices himself and dies

-when he was imprisoned on chen’s island, he was alone

-then decoded happens and we find out he’s got intense trauma from that

-he thought he was alone in his internal battle

-then boom

-he’s the fucking ice emperor. alone for decades, committing genocide

-and when he finally snapped out of it, that had to of destroyed him

-he’s spent so much time being alone and facing so much trauma, that he always gravitates towards being in groups

-we’ve seen him and pixal spend time working together in the workshop, he enjoys family meals and cooking for everyone, he’s been shown to not like it when the others occasionally fight, and an overall loving guy

-he prbly doesn’t realize it, but he’s the glue that holds everyone together

-this one was so jumbled

and last but not least...

Kai

Gifts

-now not only does this fit his personality, it also makes sense with his bad childhood

-we all know kai is a very cocky and prideful person. he’s always showing off, flaunting his good looks, and can be sometimes arrogant

-ofc under all that is a very kind and loving big brother and friend

-but bc of this he’d not only love getting gifts from fans and the others, but giving them as well

-kai, like nya, didn’t have a good childhood

-he’s not an emotional person and he was never used to saying “i love you,” instead he had to take care of his sister while trying to run a business

-his way of showing love is giving things for his family

-there’re aren’t many instances of this in the show, but the gift giving doesn’t necessarily have to be smthg physical

-he’s sacrificed himself for the others on several accounts, he offers advice when needed, giving pep talks, helping raise lloyd, he even helped jay propose to nya, those things can be considered as gifts too

(again i’m sorry if any of this isn’t coherent i just had some thoughts. pls feel free to add on if i missed smthg)

The point of this is that these kids love each other and have different ways of showing it💙💜🧡💚🤍❤️

[magireco]

Would love to hear more thoughts on how these girls have understandable teenage motivations (A+ tag analysis by the way)

1. Thank you!!!!!!

2. ALRIGHT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS (shuffles my papers). i’ve gone off about homura’s motivations in depth before but i think it was only in dms/groupchats? anyways i’ll go in order with All the girls bc i think about this all the time as a teenager who grew up mentally ill and had their perceptions skewed because of it, and also i don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough for the others, at least on my blog... so, buckle up!!! this is REALLY LONG!!!! 

3. i tried writing like, an individual thing for every member of the quintet all together in this one ask, but i ended up talking a little too much about homura and now i’m going to split up all the different analysis stuff for each character into the reblogs and work on it every so often! you’re free to kinda skim of course because i really did write a whole novel but here we go!! read under the cut. :3 this is literally essay length btw. i did NOT expect it to get this long but if you want to read it all i’d recommend it but i don’t expect most people to

First: Homura Akemi

okay so i’m going to kind of summarize everything but from the perspective of empathizing with her so if you don’t want to reread a whole recap you can skip to the ending few paragraphs

Summary

first of all, in episode 10, homura’s past is explained for the viewer. she was a shy, unsure girl who had been bedridden for a long time. she was clearly unsocialized, not to mention she went to a catholic school and those can be brutal, esp in japan... that’s all we know about her in that episode, but it’s revealed in one of the drama cds that she was bullied as a child(& further at mitakihara middle), her parents never were mentioned ever (i assume them to either be dead or neglectful, considering she lives alone and unchecked), and in magia record, homura says to natsuki that she’s never had friends before, she hasn’t been on vacation before until the beachside bonds event, hasn’t ever celebrated valentine’s day, has never celebrated new years, etc... 

clearly, she’s missed out on a lot not only because of her sickness and hospitalization, but because of her isolation as a child at school. judging by her demeanor and the way she reacts when madoka comes up to her without being asked to, something like that had never happened to her before. it’s clear to me that madoka was many of homura’s “first’s”, her first friend, the first person who reached out to her, the first person to compliment her name honestly(validating her, disproving her dislike of her name), the first person to regard her so kindly rather than judging her based off of her appearance and demeanor (like other students had apparently done, this is also shown when the other students at mitakihara middle make fun of her for being tired after only being able to run one lap). AND, madoka (and mami, but homura knew madoka better at that time) saved her life, even though homura was so willing to die, just in that moment... i’d assume it made homura feel like someone believed in her even when she was at her worst. it’s really clear by the glimmer in her eyes that these are nice people that made her feel happy and welcome... and then walpurgisnacht came. she didn’t know much about magical girls and just believed in madoka and mami to be able to defeat the witch because she saw them as strong and saw the witch as defeatable, despite its size. and then mami died, right in front of her and madoka... 

this kinda seems headcanon-y when i phrase it this way but it’s practically proven in her actions but i really think homura is scared to be abandoned, especially by someone who was as overtly kind and nonjudgemental to her as madoka... it’s in the way she cries her name and says “don’t go” before madoka runs away to fight walpurgisnacht. OH ALSO, i need to address this one thing really quick because people like to assume that homura didn’t care about mami from the beginning and only liked madoka. it’s not that she wasn’t sad when mami died, she was clearly terrified and didn’t want the same to happen to madoka, also mami LITERALLY WASN’T IN HER CLASS OR HER GRADE so i assume she spent most of her time with madoka considering they were in the same grade and class and probably shared most of their periods with each other... but also, once again, mami is older than both of them and homura probably saw her as more of a mentor/teacher that she needed to impress rather than madoka who was more on her level, i guess?

anyways, moving on... homura had to see madoka die (& experience the crushing guilt she felt for “letting madoka go” even though there was nothing she could’ve done) and literally says “i’d rather you had lived than saved someone like me” ... her self worth is below zero. she makes her wish to be strong enough to protect madoka(because she sees madoka, her first friend, who saved her life which she felt had no worth, as so strong and noble) which causes her to go back in time, etc. etc., you know the deal. okay before i move on to talk a little more abt the timelines and the personality change i’m going to address why it’s reasonable that she’d be attached to madoka.

i mentioned before that homura said herself that she had never had a friend before. just like, put yourself into her shoes for a second. this girl has no idea how to make friends; it was never taught to her. it’s literally rational that she’d get attached to her first ever friendship. it’s not “normal” the way she views madoka, but how could it be? this is her first time having a friend, she’s afraid of being abandoned by her, but she’s had to see her die over and over again anyway. she doesn’t want to lose madoka. even if she doesn’t go about it in the right way, there’s no way she would’ve actually known how to Do relationships. no one taught her. i think that needs to be empathized with more...

i kinda feel like i need to summarize all this just bc if i word it right it kinda reminds you & puts into perspective just how terrible and scary all of this was.

anyway Again, i would skip straight to the end of timeline 3 (where a New Flavor of trauma is given to homura) but i need to first address timeline 2 for a second. it was homura’s first time repeating the timeline, she trained with madoka and mami again, she was still hopeful despite what happened, etc. kinda just bonding further with madoka Again... and then it’s at the end of this timeline that she watches madoka turn into a witch, just in front of her very eyes... and realizes the true fate of magical girls. when she resets the timeline again, it’s up to her to start anew and break the truth to the group when she sees them again. when she tries telling the truth, sayaka immediately shoves this aside, claiming homura was just trying to split everyone up. it’s clear that that hurts homura. (also the little shinies in her eyes were wavering which is anime-code for sad) her feelings were immediately disregarded by sayaka and she couldn’t defend herself, but madoka did for her, and mami tried to diffuse the situation. 

after they all find out homura was right when sayaka turns into a witch, mami kills kyoko and ties up homura in her ribbons and aims a gun at her, and this, rightfully, ignited a fear within homura... madoka is forced to kill mami in order to save homura, leaving only the two of them to fight together. then, when walpurgisnacht comes that time, The Promise is made... madoka tells homura to go back in time and save her from becoming a witch (because she doesn’t want to curse the world that way, she still sees beauty in it) and homura agrees, saying she’ll never stop until she saves madoka, and then... homura has to mercy kill madoka before she becomes a witch. she cries loudly and shoots madoka’s soul gem... it’s literally so heartwrenching and (usually) brings the viewer to tears, or puts something into perspective for them...

then we assume the personality change happens in the timeline right after. this personality change causes a lot of discourse because sometimes it’s seen as kind of irrational, but personally, i think even moemura had at least SOME resent for the world around her considering what she’d been through. it’s madoka’s repeated deaths that finally push her over that edge. i could get further into the coolmura arc but that’d take a WHILE, so i’ll just kind of explain something briefly though -- why homura ended up becoming even MORE focused on madoka. and i’m also going to debunk the claim that homura doesn’t care about her other friends as fast as i can before moving on.

also, ONE LAST side tangent, for those that think homura really did do a 360 degree personality turn are wrong. it’s shown explicitly in homulilly’s labyrinth that there’s this... “core” homura, a shadowy purple silhouette with braids. every time the series depicts homura’s internal self, it’s always glasses+braids, symbolizing her “child” self, who she truly is. she never stopped being that person. she doesn’t want to kill. ...but i can get into that in a rebellion analysis later! this is also shown in wraith arc bc the person inside her soul gem has glasses+braids. anyway let’s get to the next part i’m going to rant about

Homura’s Love for Madoka, but Otherwise Apathy

homura has seen many different, yet all similar, versions of her friends. the first claim i’m going to talk about which i saw brought up quite a few times before is in regards to homura and mami. first of all, homura absolutely still cares for mami, and not just in the “i only care about your life if it affects madoka’s” way. one part that always gets me is when mami ties her up in the series timeline after homura frantically warns her that this witch isn’t normal, to which mami IMMEDIATELY brushes this off, without even giving homura a chance. then, when mami’s ribbons fade away, homura looks horrified and just goes “oh no...” and it’s kind of obvious to me that it was in response to mami’s death rather than madoka’s reaction. this is arguably up for debate i guess because i’ve seen different takes on that reaction and it’s ambiguous, i guess? but i’m about to get into something extremely similar and that’s the sayaka situation, where madoka throws sayaka’s soul gem onto a moving car. homura gasps and immediately pauses time and disappears, running in literal open traffic and climbing on top of a moving car to retrieve sayaka’s soul gem. one could argue that this is ALSO only just because homura wants to save madoka (and kyoko) the fear, but don’t you think her expression would be different? if homura truly didn’t care for sayaka’s wellbeing, wouldn’t she be making an expression more similar to like, “oh, this shit again...” instead of the frantic one she was making in the scene? this kind of thing Also happens when kyoko asks homura to leave while kyoko’s about to sacrifice herself in oktavia’s labyrinth, and homura looks up sadly at kyoko and then back down at madoka, and once she knew kyoko was dead, she just quietly said “kyoko...” to herself. she usually refers to them as [last name, first name], but she dropped that during that moment... it otherwise sounds like a bare minimum thing to do, but keep in mind the timeline we’re shown in the series is implied to be like, the 110th timeline, i think? like, this is the last timeline, she’s worn down, but she still does have empathy -- or at least sympathy -- for the others. she still loves them. 

homura promised to be madoka’s protector, she dedicated her life to her, and also she doesn’t have a choice not to dedicate her life to her anymore, even though that’s not fair to her... homura is in a really hopeless situation and madoka is her hope, and madoka is the one that judges her the least out of the quintet (like saying “i’m sure homura is good” to herself) upon first impression. also okay i mentioned this already in my last post (which you saw) but i’m going to bring it up one more time, homura is not mentally 26!!!!!! she is still 14 mentally!! in order to be 26, you have to have experienced 26 years of new life experience. maybe you acquire that through school, maybe you aquire that through friends, whatever it takes. but homura just repeated the same month over and over, and it’s not like her body (canonically) ages ever. she just kind of gets transported back into her body in the hospital again considering she’s back wearing her braids and pajamas... so, yeah. no mental development there. i also mentioned this here but i’m gonna say it again, that just makes it even harder for her to actually age correctly... it stunts her to 14. imagine being 14 for 10-11 years...

In Defense Of My Own Claims

btw before you think i’m just going full-on radical homura apologist, i’m not explaining all of this to be like “homura made ALL THE RIGHT DECISIONS because her trauma gave her an excuse!!” because like, Obviously, she did a lot of bad things, she killed people, did a lot of callous things, a lot of thoughtless things, a lot of things that make her seem emotionless, etc. but i just have trouble blaming her considering how things ended up, and it’s not like she enjoys killing people. she’s not sadistic... she ends up becoming short with all the others not only because of her (extremely) weakened trust in them, but also because the amount of times she repeated the timeline. i’d imagine it makes her feel like the others can’t truly die because she can just go back and see them again. (this is also why wraith arc/post-tv series must’ve been hard for her because she can no longer turn back time, things are permanent now, deaths are forever) she’s become so worn down that she’ll do anything to escape the loops... also considering she has no choice but to continue? although it shouldn’t be, it’s technically her job as a magical girl to defeat all witches and walpurgisnacht counts. it kills magical girls and tears up the whole city and she’s usually the only magical girl left... her choices, when defeated, are either to give up and die or to go back and try again, and she made a promise to her first ever friend to do just the latter... i just don’t understand how this isn’t easier for people to comprehend, that all of this trauma and stress and responsibility on top of an already traumatized 14 year old does not mix well. ever. she had to figure out all of this by herself.

TL;DR:

homura was a previously traumatized, unsocialized 14 year old with (very)low self esteem & self worth whose first friend (and first love, really, let’s be honest) died in front of her in horrific ways and she watched as she (and the other friends she came to make) drifted slowly apart from her in her endless and futile attempt in saving her from what proved to be an inescapable fate. also she’s 14 and also she’s (canonically) mentally ill and a lesbian. not a monster, not evil, not “psycho”. and that’s that!

[catnippackets]

have you seen/would u recommend pacific rim 2? ive heard some things about newt and idk lol

I feel like Im in the minority that actually did think pru was fun but that being said it ended SO abruptly and with like three separate plotlines completely abandoned that I was really frustrated for days after watching it until I had processed everything and had time to think deeply about it lol it just seemed rly unfinished?? it feels like it was deliberately made as 1/2 of two sequels and there needs to be one more to tie everything up. actually I’m gonna ramble abt this bc I have a lot of thoughts (obvs spoilers under the cut)

the thing about the second one was that I genuinely was enjoying it right up until it ended because I swear to god the moment the end screen went up I yelled "what the fuck, that's it?" out loud into my bedroom bc I was so SHOCKED that THAT'S how it all ended, because it just seemed so incomplete?? Like it seemed like one half of a story, that will only be made whole if there's a third one to tie up all the plotlines that they didn't go through with in the second and if that's the case then I will be completely fine with it but if it doesn't or if they dont have a third one at all I will stay so frustrated lol. one silver lining to this is that the vibe of this movie was so different from the first that it almost feels easy to separate it and just imagine it as an AU if you prefer which is sort of nice; usually if a piece of media I like does something bad I feel all gutted and anxious and terrible that this is the canon I have to accept, but something abt this movie just made it feel like it was sort of a totally separate deal. maybe cuz only 3 of the original characters were in it idk

to start off: I felt like there were a couple of plotlines in it that were just sort of introduced and then never seen through which was very ????? Amara & Vik's weird hate-rivalry thing was one of them; Vik instantly has it out for Amara bc she’s jealous, which is a very interesting concept, and then this prompts Amara to become hostile right back at her, which is also a very interesting concept, and then it never got resolved at all? like they couldve done something really cool with those two but it just never went anywhere. and then there was sort of a weird love triangle thing happening between Jake and Nate and Jules that felt so weird bc it had no significance to the plot at all and it felt like it was only thrown in there for the sake of having ~romantic drama~ idk maybe I wasnt paying too much attention and there was more to it than that but it really just seemed like they wanted to put romance in there and didnt want to bother to put any work into it

BUT the thing about romantic sub plots is that THERE ALREADY WAAAAS OOOOOOOOONE which brings me to the biggest frustration I have w this movie because--and DISCLAIMER, this was also my favourite plot point of the movie bc it was by far the most interesting, the biggest reason for me enjoying the movie at all, and the bit I feel like should have had WAY more attention--Newt and Hermann were like legitimately in love in this movie I swear to god I was watching it and thinking “this is GENUINELY the most blatantly gay thing I’ve ever seen in a feature film and I know that straight ppl are very talented at writing gay romances completely by accident so it’s possible that they just accidentally did it this way but also it is REALLY goddamn obvious oh my gooood?” (and then I did a lot of frantic googling and found out that I was right and Charlie Day & Burn Gorman knew what the fuck they were doing and I felt so validated lol), and yet despite this, the movie had them speak for the last time almost at the halfway point of the film and then spend the entire second half apart and not talking at all and even at the post-credits scene where Jake and Newt talked for a bit Hermann wasn't there?? not even behind Jake to give Newt any searching glances?? Nothing??

dude...Newt being possessed by the precursors is a HUGELY interesting concept that actually makes sense and I wish it had had more attention. I’ve seen a lot of ppl say that pru butchered Newt’s character and I don’t 100% agree bc like...being possessed will change you lmao so while yes I’m obviously sad that he wasn’t himself, I feel like it made sense that he had a slight personality change, because it...wasn’t him anymore. we don’t really see the Newt we all fell in love with in the first movie. we THINK we’re seeing him, but halfway through we find out we’re wrong.

my critiques with that plotline are basically that I wish the reveal had happened a little bit later on, and I wish that it had been a little more obvious I guess?? like, we definitely get hints of it (when Hermann excitedly asks Newt to help him with a dangerous unorthodox project and Newt says “dude why are you doing something so risky when we’ve already got a good plan in motion? just wait for that to be done, it’s fine” and Hermann IS us, he IS the audience when he reacts, because this is a completely insane thing for Newt to say. Newt, who, in the first movie, was so obsessed with finding knowledge that he went behind the marshall’s back to literally risk his life doing something incredibly dangerous just to see what would happen? being given the opportunity to do the same kind of dangerous frivolous act and refusing? this is blatantly out of character, and Hermann is all of us when he’s shocked, “what, you mean you...won’t help me??” which means it wasn’t bad writing on their part, it was purposefully supposed to stand out as something that was wrong and something that we needed to pay attention to. that was a really good scene to hint that something was Not Right with Newt), and I wish there had been a bunch more like it. I think the reveal should have been saved for the end of the second act; I think that should have been the moment that act 2 of a story usually has, that dreadful event that happens that leaves the main characters feeling completely hopeless and unsure what to do.

I also wish that he had managed to break through more than That One Scene, I think it would’ve been more dramatic if he’d had a few moments where he managed to take control for a second to remind us that he’s still in there and still fighting, and I’m sad they didn’t do that. I saw a fan comic that touched on this idea and I think it’s brilliant, even the idea of him suddenly getting a nosebleed and acting distracted to show that that’s the Real Him trying to fight through would have been sooooooooo good.

I also feel like it didn’t make any sense for Nate to be the one to subdue him in the end, I dont even think those two interact at all so like, why was it him?? it would have been so much more dramatic and heartbreaking if Hermann had been the one to confront him so they could’ve had a little conversation on the roof where Newt could once again break through for a second before getting taken over and then Hermann could like idk have a taser hidden behind him that he uses to subdue him and THAT wouldve been a way sadder and more interesting way to do it. I also think Hermann shouldve been the one to speak to him in the post credits scene, or to have him in the background behind Jake just watching him sadly so we can get a couple shots of intense eye contact like UGH I just wish there had been more interaction between the two of them after the reveal happened!! When the movie was over and I realized they never spoke again I felt so upset!!! they're soulmates!! they're literally in love!! this has been CONFIRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and segueing in from the soulmate thing, another thing that made me sad was that nobody came in pairs anymore :( aside from Newt and Hermann, they were the only ones gjdfk but in the first one every character had another character that they were paired up with, both for drifting reasons and just for plot reasons (except Chau and Tendo but I’m pretty sure there's actually significance to that too), and in the second one it just sort of felt like everyone was drifting with each other with no strong connection needed and that made it feel way less special. granted, the movie takes place ten years after the first one so in that time maybe technology advanced to the point where you didn't need a strong neural connection to drift anymore, but for the sake of the story it would have been way better if they'd kept the whole soulmates concept from the first one, it made it way stronger and more special

so yeah in conclusion I did think pru was enjoyable and I probably would watch it again some time but also it definitely pales in comparison to the first one and I’m desperately hoping we get one more so they can tie everything together and FIX THINGS KFGH it’s not too late!!!!! I wish I could write Pacific Rim 3 I genuinely think I would do a good job I love storytelling and I’m very passionate about these characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ileolai]

[this context is probably important so i reccommend reading it first.]

More thoughts about the differences in Aziraphale / Crowley's personal spaces in the book vs the show, because the way they are both illustrated serves different purposes in their journeys, I think. 

and of course

so In the book, Aziraphale is outwardly polite but aggressively gaurds his little sanctum of misprinted Bibles and what-not from human people. If he absolutely has to, he'll reluctantly sell the books. ''Second hand book dealer'' is explicitly described as a cover-- an external image-- and the bookshop is mostly a big vault to store his valuable informations. This is, I suppose, how you would illustrate a celestial analogy for a  Cold War rogue agent. 

But in the tv show, Aziraphale’s story is less about that and more specifically about his emotional relationship to Crowley, to which his humanity, and his aspiration to be more human [previous meta] is a core factor. So the bookshop is more like a home, it's domestic and cozy, and the place he is absolutely at peace, his personal refuge.

and it's not just a disguise, or a vault, the bookshop IS Aziraphale, yes? A sort of outward reflection of himself and his internal world. All those scattered books and papers, the artwork that is ¡specifically! depicting the temptation of Eve, etc-- those are his memories he chooses to keep, his experiences, little pieces of himself. Same with Crowley -- in the book his apartment is about how he constructs his external self-image, it's mostly full of Real Actual Cool Person Stuff that he doesn't actually care about or even interact with, aside from the plants. But in the tv show it's about his internal world, and it's large and cold and spare and hardly a-real-human-persons’-apartment-like. Apart from being these Jungian reflections of their internal selves, the bookshop and the apartment are also the liminal spaces where their important decisions to move forward are made. Aziraphale finally severs his connection to Heaven completely in the bookshop, and Crowley in his ep. 4 extended panic attack repeatedly retreats to and emerges from his apartment, first deciding to run away, and then to murder Hastur and Ligur, etc. But I wanna focus on Crowley here, i’ve wrote reams about Aziraphale already- So Crowley's internal world, very unlike Aziraphale's, is all very boxed in and inaccessible-- the Garden Of Re-traumatizing Myself is in one concrete shrouded box, and the Probably A Wank Fantasy statue is in another box, and the bird statue is in its own little box, and they're all walled off from each other with little to no direct line of sight. And they’re sentimental objects or things specific to Crowley’s character, as opposed to Really Cool Actual Human Person stuff. And there appears to be no visible door in at first [until Hastur kicks it in], unlike Aziraphale’s shop. it just looks like a bunch of transitional hallways and no actual rooms. There’s almost nowhere to settle and say, appreciate your Wank Fantasy Statue, it’s just in this dimly lit claustrophobic little space. A good analogy for Crowley’s fractured / wandering thinking, these hallways.

everything is drawn and shuttered and closed off and dark, but especially during his extended freak-out episode when he is hurt by Aziraphale / having an existential crisis / having some kind of emotional flashback to the Fall / yelling at God all at once [because... shoving your emotions in little boxes doesn’t really... work... ever...]

So here’s one of my favourite little things and a good illustration of how this thing is laid out like a palatial memory space, i think. Immediately after his first attempt at dragging Aziraphale away fails, they break up, and he is considering abandoning the place on his own and hollering at God about it all, the Remember When We Killed Some Nazis In A Church bird statue is sort of hovering there in the background, just out of sight.

But the second time he goes back to his apartment-- which is when he decides to murder someone for his and Aziraphale’s sake again-- it’s looming right over him, and he enters from that space.

Ooh.

Back to his existential Why God Why freak out for a moment-- here he’s looking at the globe, but he’s not actually seeing anything of the actual world outside, right? He’s shut off, shut down and angry. And he bats this thing away-- but it returns, like an annoying thought-- bc as I talked abt in my previous meta, he is much more ambivalent to the Earth than Aziraphale.

Until. UNTIL. This is important! He opens the safe on the second round.

NOW those shutters are open again, and the place is lit up. 

Because this is abt opening the most locked-down and guarded part of himself... and the thing which represents Aziraphale's committment to him... opens up everything else, yes? And what he is doing in that moment, is making the commitment to go back to Aziraphale again, even though he was hurt twice-- and in a way he can never walk back from again, bc he’s about to murder someone to do it. 

So there's a whole lot more I could go into about why murdering Ligur but failing to kill Hastur is specifically important, why making this tremendous effort at vulnerability and being thwarted by the bookshop burning is what pushes him to the edge of giving up where book!Crowley didn't, etc. but the point I wanna get to is this--

It is only -after- all this, opening the shutters on his internal world and accessing that memory of Aziraphale's committment to him, going back to him, and finding his humanity and value for the world, that Crowley invites Aziraphale back to his apartment for the first time. Shows him all of himself that he keeps locked away, which is essential for them to pull off the swap at the end. He has apparently kept himself walled off and emotionally inaccessible since 1967, until he blurted it all out with ‘’we can run away together?’’ and spent the rest of the episode in frantic damage control.

So I would say it's not Aziraphale who needs to learn how to emotionally reciprocate, yes? Aziraphale made his can’t-walk-this-back committment in 1967 when he stole what is, effectively, the celestial equivalent of weapons grade plutonium. And his own world is always open to Crowley-- Crowley knows the bookshop intimately, and is more comfortable being there than in his own head. 

Crowley is kind and generous and loving-- and it’s not that he doesn’t know how he feels-- but returning that level of vulnerability and Being Known is terrifying for him, I think, and he has to face down that terror before he can, has to know he can survive it.

[zhuhongs]

When I was growing up I didnt understand why people shared food with others. I shared food with my mom and such, but that was it. I thought that sharing food was something people only did with those super close to them. I never once just considered sharing food with others like many families do.

I grew up as one of the only poor colored kids in a well off white neighborhood. My mom always had this weird complex. That she and the rest of our family "weren't like other Hispanic people" because we "didn't take handouts" and "didn't live like that" whatever that was supposed to mean.  I hate her internalized racism sm... it fucked me up so bad but i’m mostly over it and she is too thank god but that's a whole other issue for another text post) Thus she always ingrained it in me that I don't take food that other ppl are offering me. If a white person tries to give me food, they're probably just pitying me for being the poor girl. And if a poc gives me food, they need it more than I do, I should take it but pay them back later for it. To save face and not cause burden. I never thought twice abt it and it was rarely an issue. Most of my friends were white and their parents always thought it was kind that i offered to pay for my food but never let me. And my friends of color... well i didnt have many. I didnt have many friends growing up that I rlly remember. I was always just weird and quiet. I occasionally brought food on birthdays and got food for others on their birthday. But outside of special occasion I didnt go out of my way to give people food. If I didnt like something I'd give it to someone who did. And if someone was gonna throw something away, I ate it. I never let food go to waste. When I went out with people, I bought my food and they bought theres and we just ate. Nothing else. I never thought anything of it.

I remember a very distinct moment where I started to feel differently. I was in my second semester of university and my dance team was preparing for a performance over spring break. We had been practicing from 9am to 3pm and then decided to go to the mall to get food and just hang out for a bit. My university friend group is like.. notoriously bad at making decisions so I usually make the decisions for them bc theyre all so passive alkfjaslkfjd (THEY ALL HAVE OLDEST IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER OF COLOR SYNDROME like me too omg ik ur a ppl pleser but PICK SMTH, ily them... i’ll stop now) . SO we were deciding where to get food and settled on the food court and we all get what we want. So we did all that and sat a big table together and I just remember everyone putting the food in the middle and getting extra plates so we could take from each we wanted and have a little bit of everything. And at first i was like?? HUH!?? like I got what i wanted bc thats what I wanted and then planned to take my leftovers home to eat at work later that night. And that ended up working out, they could kinda tell that was my intention but ever since then I noticed that that friend group always does that. We all buy different things and share. I really used to find it dumb at first bc its my money and i paid for what i wanted. I didn’t want to take others food and I didn’t rlly want to give them mine. I thought that mentality was universal. I was always kinda on the outside with that group, we never fully meshed but I really wanted to make the effort to be friends with them because I knew it would be rewarding, even if we were just casual friends. And yea idk, just through them I began to kinda unlearn the way I used to feel about sharing food. It’s not about the money, it’s about the connection to others and about giving freely and letting others give to u. But money was always tight as a id. As I’ve started working and making money, thankfully i’ve abandoned this knee jerk reaction.

I read a chapter of a book for highschool english once called “Sharing Food as an Act of Communion” or smth along those lines and I got the concept but didn’t rlly think it was that deep. But in that moment, i started to understand it a lot more. Sharing food and sharing things in general isn’t about the object itself, its about what got u to that point to share something with someone. Due in part to way i was raised as I elaborated on earlier, I really wasn’t a loving or giving person. I was selfish. I was taught to be selfish. Because my parents had that mentality and passed it onto their kids. That was the cutthroat immigrant way of theirs. They were very much “pull yourself up by your bootstraps ppl.” My brother is still like that a bit. It’s very sad sometimes, I’m trying to get him out of it. Baby steps. My mom doesn’t understand why he’s so selfish. One of these days I think i’m going to sit her down and tell her that it’s her own doing. That how she raised us. But I know she doesn’t want to hear it, so for her sake and mine I just agree with her and let the issue pass without incident. I truly believe that kindness and community are the most radical things that humans have. I rlly do. It took me a long time to get there. I used to be so convinced I was better of alone. One man for themselves. I blame my father, i really do.

One time when things were really going to shit with my family, my dad came in my room and asked me how I could be so cruel to him when he was my father, completely unaware of the fact that I had been abused by him my entire life. He just didn’t register it that way bc it wasn’t physical. He said to me “You know Sage, I would expect this from your brother. But you’re a girl . I thought you’d be nicer, more loving and giving.” but it was his own actions that shaped this. And it wasn’t until I had stopped living with him at 18 that I was able to become more like how I am now.

Really, in the past I wasn’t a very nice or loving person. I wasn’t mean either!! I was just passive. A cold lake near a forest. I was nice looking on any surface level, but there was nothing warm or pleasant. A cold lake with jagged rocks underneath. With the help of others i’ve warmed, the rocks eroded down to something you would keep in a collection. I prefer it this way. I’ve healed a bit. I understand now what ppl mean when they say food is a love language. It isn’t one for me yet, but I recognize why it is for others. I get it now.

[benevadeca]

finally finished carmen!! thoughts abt it

player saying his "mom and dad" and me and my friend collectively groaning like! he has two moms!! sorry you're just wrong about this. his little gay laptop sticker tho :)c and he is. how old he is remains a mystery that shall never be discovered

boys night!!! ivy impersonating a very serious german lady uncannily. and i love them.

they sure did put a bit abt malstrom almost letting coach brunt get murdered for real and abandoning her and ADMITTING to it and then never followed up huh. i get they were rushed to wrap everything up within the season and were just kinda flinging plot elements into a wall but GOD

i got spoiled that the ending was disappointing and yeah :( carmen u rly left ur found family w a NOTE to find yr absent biological family like. girl i know you have issues but the moral you are sending to children. carmen what about zack and ivy who worried abt you for MONTHS

ok but the 6 MONTH time skip?? like every season happens and im like its been at least a few months right and its always like no everything happened This Week and im like bro.....also the whole condensing carmen's motivations into "she's an empath :)" what the fuck was that about. like i know children's shows rly go hard on the black and white morality and have never heard of nuance but.

actually i have more on that. the scene w malstrom milking his coffee when gray is like "yr evil" "i prefer to see the world in shades of grey" you LITERALLY call yrselves the evil villain league.

and again, carmen!! her motivations are so much more nuanced than "she's an empath" like it's because she was raised in a caring environment, however fucked up she later realized it it was, and grew to have genine connections with others. she grew up in a stable and caring environment, however misguided, and she learnt from a young age about care and value and about even the VILE-mindset of taking what you want from the world, even of privledge. but she made all of those things her own! and always had interest and care and openness to the world around her! i mean she didn't just turn against her original found family for completely do-good reasons, she as a scared resentful kid who was lied to for the majority of her life, and she's reckless and stubborn and wants to do everything on her own, and also even when she was stopping VILE (esp s1 era) she still like. had mixed feelings bc she rly did think of them as her family! it was kind of her own way of both rebelling and trying almost to? steer them into something better? like a "if you won't change for me i won't change for you" but she DOES want them to change! anyway again, nuance! her moral compass yes directed her to becoming carmen sandiego, but it wasn't the driving force really. there were layers!

oh how very little i care about gray. he really said "the only thing i've ever regretted was hurting you" YOU ALMOST KILLED A GUY!!!! like i'm glad you have one redeeming emotion or something but oh how you are just boring

also his VILE interview "opera is boring" BITCH! if he was a theater kid let's just say this never would've happened and he would've been a lot more interesting but as is he is really is just some guy

CHASE. i gotta say while a lot of the early scenes w chase during the first few seasons dragged on he really has become mr. i believe in female supremacy. he really is the most dynamic character of the show. we love one man with a character arc. also it really is just the Chase Devineux show like every time he appears it's rly HIS show that's happening. we were joking abt it but him meeting not-catra in egypt and her being like "remember me?" and him like ??? until he's >:0 !!! is so funny. this is HIS dramatic confrontation to save julia.

also wow. zari :) this is the zari show actually

that one fucking?? scene with shadowsan doing martial arts and it slows down and the music and everything else changes genres for a moment. wtf was that. i joked that actually everyone is living in a different genre and then immediately coach bulldozed through the boat into the ice wall and THEN got slingshotted into the air by a teeter-totter move like a fucking looney tune character. she is wiley e coyote is what i'm saying.

every scene w/ cleo and/or bellum :) gay people

[jpegjade]

ouuh i love hearin abt peoples crushes!! whatre they like???

S IS SO DUMB in the sweetest way. he’s smart in how he knows really random facts and I love hearing about them. he’s a welder so he’s really creative and good with his hand-eye coordination. he too has severe depression so he understands how I feel a lot of the time. he has stayed with me during really hard weeks and doesn’t judge me. he has a really nice voice and his laugh is so cute. he has a cat and a snake for pets (don't ask about the snake. i ask all the time and I regret asking most of the time). 

S is focusing on himself right now though bc he doesn’t have the greatest support system. he’s struggling through some things and we had a conversation where we agreed that we’re going to be friends for a bit until things get more stable. (and i didn’t cry about it! i understand and agree bc i’m not stable right now and he deserves to know that I can be stable and open. my trust and abandonment issues aren’t good for a relationship that has to be built on communication.)

but he’s been so supportive of me and I’ve been trying really hard to reassure him that he’s not what he thinks and support him because everyone deserves a little support. he’s such a kind, lovely, smart, genuine person and this hoe (me. hello. i’m hoe.) is falling hard for him but I’m willing to wait. take things slow. be a friend before anything else because that’s important for both of us. 

[blacknovelist]

sup ok here’s the promised details on uhhhhhh All for One in @guardianlioness​‘s and I’s Ageswap Mess, formed by collaborative headcanon jamming on discord and then roughly paraphrased via a run thru the unfortunate Quadruple Lengthening Filter that’s built into my brain bc I’m incapable of being brief.

(something of an expansion on this post and this ask. Nooooot spoiler free, actually pretty spoilers, idk, will pop it under a readmore bc who knows how long I’m gonna go on also)

ALSO!! I can’t at u but @randommly-passing-mia u asked forever ago about Toshinori and AfO’s relationship in this AU and i answered what I could then but I’m pleased to announce this goes more into that bc I knew Very Little back then. :)

So, All for One! Now, I feel it appropriate to note that the previous post I made regarding the history of OfA in Ageswap, as well as just about everything I’ve posted abt AfO and OfA for Ageswap (except for the linked ask above, obv) was made before the arc with the League of Villains and Shigaraki’s backstory all came out. Now that we’ve got some of those contexts, we can go a little further in fleshing everything else out, which we did, a little, today.

Pls keep in mind that Ageswap’s goal is not and never has been to make a direct 1:1 translation of adults to kids and vice versa -- good lord we’d have a lot of empty spaces if we were doing that. So, uh. Anyway. it’s time for “we make a mess of the characters and also the timeline and the plot because it’s Our City Now”

Student AfO is a different creature to small Toshinori of our au. For the purposes of this post we’ll call him AfO, because while I’d love to just jump into referring to him as Shigaraki there’s a lot of confusions that lie down that road. Also, again, we’re calling mr heckhands mcmike Tomura, because Shigaraki is a name with Weight.

Because canon parallels, Ageswap AfO has a little brother who we’re making Kyudai Garaki/the Good Doctor and also quirkless for our purposes (whether he’s AfO’s biological brother is up in the air, we haven’t settled yet). Garaki has something of an intense obsession with quirks, constantly studying and doing research, not unlike Izuku, and the age gap between him and AfO is... about six years. Now, because AfO had already manifested a quirk of his own and that quirk had fearsome potential, One for All was originally going to be passed on to his brother, because before Ageswap Izuku, OfA had strictly been handed down to trained members of the family.

Tomura was a member of the group that had, through the generations, been working to fight against the users of One for All. To hit them where it hurt, he attacked Izuku’s mentor’s (we’ll call them the Mentor) home with a group of League fighters. When he found out there was a quirkless boy, and a second one who was all but quirkless for all that he’d been told to avoid using his own powers, he quickly took them in under the League’s wing -- both in an act of cruelty against OfA and out of some misguided sympathy for the boys.

The fearsome thing is the toxicity of the relationships Tomura formed with the League, and eventually with the boys. He meant well, when he took them in, but whatever this version of him went through... well, just about all his relationships are some level of manipulative and unhealthy by default. See: his tendency for physical closeness and being tactile, as mentioned in the ask.

He’s firmly of an opinion along the lines of “if you’ve got the power, and you know you have the power, and you’re not using it to do whatever you can or want, then why do you even have it?” and, for all of AfO’s childhood, Tomura tried his hardest to share this with AfO and sway the kid to his side. With the Mentor having dropped off the grid and abandoned the Shigaraki name in grief, AfO and his brother had nowhere else to go, but AfO was a smart and cautious kid: he couldn’t just listen without a fight, or a reason.

(AfO didn’t know Tomura meant to kill them, that he attacked their home on purpose. When he eventually finds out, he firmly believes Tomura meant to save them)

But Tomura’s persistent, and he doesn’t stop, and eventually he points out: if All for One is a quirk that allows him to take and give quirks, does that not mean he can seek out the perfect quirk for his little brother? All the reasons he’s suffered, AfO has the power to fix that.

That’s the thing that sways AfO to their side, that convinces him to stay with the League and learn under Tomura. Because if it’s for family, isn’t it worth it?

(AfO sees Tomura as a teacher, as a friend, as someone beloved and important. Shigaraki was AfO’s name, but it can be Tomura’s too, if Tomura wants. Then everyone knows they’re family. And Tomura accepts it -- another spit in the face of an enemy, a welcomed token from a beloved student. Shigaraki is a good name for the rest of the world to use, but Tomura, Tomura is a name for the League and the League alone.)

AfO tries, at first, to find other quirks for his brother while he trains, while his brother studies (while Tomura tries to sway Garaki to their side also, because look at what you know, what you could do with that knowledge, combined with your brother’s quirk, you’re so young and so so smart-). OfA is gone beyond the League’s sight, in the hands of the Symbol of Peace, so there’s no point on dwelling on it, really, surely another quirk would work better?

But then One for All comes back around, in the hands of this blond... nobody. His brother’s quirk, running around in a stranger. AfO continues to hunt potential quirks down for his brother and his brother’s studies, but he has a new goal: to try and claim OfA back and give it to who it really belongs to.

the problem of course being that he can’t take it by force like every other quirk, and killing Toshinori would merely render it lost forever.

Essentially, AfO’s primary grudge against Toshinori is the fact that he’s the current bearer of a quirk that, in AfO’s eyes, should belong to Garaki. And Toshinori’s quirklessness, or past quirklessness... is easy to know when you know the secret of One for All.

Some good stuff gets said abt AfO vs Toshinori in this answer here I think, and I’m drawing on it: Toshinori’s more instinct and heart to AfO’s logic and strategy. That’s not to say, obv, that neither of them draw on the other quality, but it’s what stands out most to me about the two of them and just, kind of their general dynamic (or at least, that’s how it seems).

USJ was a subtle message laid beneath a louder declaration. Two-for-one, if you will. “Wouldn't it be so nice to have a quirk that fit better in your hands? that didn't fritz or go funky whenever you so much as turned your head? A quirk you might not even have to coax and strain and train and change your body for?”

But AfO does not confront Toshinori until much later, until after the sports festival. See, the mall incident in this AU is a scene on bargaining.

He confronts Toshinori at the mall -- his face is not known, and it’s a simple matter to pull him off to the side. But there won’t be fighting here today. No, he only came to talk.

Questions, first. About Toshinori, his experience with One for All, what he thinks of other people’s quirks. About what it was like for him, growing up quirkless, left abandoned by so many people for it. Eventually, his conversation circles back around. I have a little brother. He’s quirkless, just like you. You know what he went through, what he suffered.

All for One even did his research, is even willing to play by rules closer to Toshinori’s own: tucked under his arm is a folder, with lists upon lists of people. Villains with sentences for life, villains under the death sentence, people who would have no life of returning to the world ever again. People who don’t have a reason to use their quirks any longer. People for whom it wouldn’t matter if he took their quirks anyway. “Take your pick,” he offers Toshinori. “I’ll give you whatever quirk you’ve ever wanted. I’ll even take it from a villain so none of your precious civilians have to suffer the loss — but that one belongs to my little brother.”

And, well. We all know he says no.

Why would Toshinori hang onto a quirk that isn’t even his? All the people out there, bearing the quirks that his brother and even his greatest enemy were robbed of at birth, and AfO has the power to grant both Toshinori and Garaki the power that they’d dreamed of, that belongs to them. He knows what it means to suffer without a quirk. Why won’t Toshinori let him fix that?

and idk specifically what Toshi would say, but I think it’s something along the lines of “no one asks for what they're born with or given, but we make the most of it anyway. That's how we're supposed to live.“

Anyway Toshinori and All for One hate each other SO fucking much but. Unfortunately, also just kind of Get Each Other on some level. Like, they despise one another but also, if there’s one thing they can believe in, it’s that the other will always Be The Way They Are. Friendly Enemyship, if you will.

There’s some level of pity that AfO also holds on the percieved coldness of Toshinori’s relationship to his mentor, Izuku. Izuku is... really awkward, in his relationship with Toshi, and while Izuku loves his student very much he has a hard time showing it -- and Toshinori thinks so poorly of himself, it’s hard to grasp how close they are from the outside sometimes. AfO totally tries to recruit Toshinori to their side, even after he figures they’re Tight and also even though he knows Toshinori won’t ever say yes. Like, he hates the guy, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a kickass ally.

Tomura would like Toshinori and AfO says as much to his face. “You’re more like him than I am, anyway. You can act without overthinking. And he wouldn’t care if you were quirkless. He doesn’t with my brother.”

(Toshinori hates that. He isn’t, he isn’t he isn’t like him at all.)

Tomura has also more or less promised AfO that, at the end of his lifespan, his student should take on Decay. AfO, of course, doesn’t want that and is on the hunt for a good longevity quirk to give to his mentor

In the end, the way All for One is kind of being played in this AU is something not so far off from Anakin Skywalker.

In Lioness’ words:

Noble in his desire to keep his family alive

But horribly misdirected

[throwing-summers-at-the-walls]

Hello half valid anon here (i like my nickname 😂). I got through all your fics and they were all great. Right now im just reading a lot of poi fanfics and watch fanvids cause i can't accept that the series is over 😂 --- i know what you mean about fics affecting you negatively. I had this with 13rw (the Show and some fics) everything was so dark and hopeless that i had to stop watching it. I also love to seek out fics where someone is hurt so i can feel my pain through the characters (1)

But i try to read only fics with lots of comfort so it kinda feels like i get comforted as well (dont know if that makes sense). If it makes you uncomfortable or if its unhealthy for you to write about this i completely understand and i dont mean to come of as pushing you to write. I just hope whatever you do will be the right decision for you! As for you feeling suicidal im sorry to hear that. Let me know if there is ever anything i can do to help! I wish i could say sth more comforting but Im not super good with words :( i just hope you have people in your life that support you! 💛

maybe root will grow on you too? Or maybe you can skip her scenes and enjoy John, Harold and most importanly Bear! 😂 Yeah Shaw definately looks really good. She is a bit like Reese minus the caring. At first it seems she doesnt care about anything at all but thats not exactly the Case. There was an episode with Shaw and a little girl (3x5) and i really loved it (have you seen that one?).

I really think Shaw would grow on you (especially since in the beginning she does a lot with John) but then again a lot of her later scenes include Root so im not sure. Yes i love that there were never any romantic undertones with her and John!!

yeah the core four were great. I was so sad when Carter died! :(

i guess everyone sees chemistry different, i think Shoot and Rinch post have great chemistry ☺️

as for John being good with people: YES!! he is always so compassionate and such a great listener as well. I especially like him with children. John and the baby were so cute or John with the boy who offered to pay for him. John + Kids was always a great combination and i wished we would have seen it more often. Also regarding children we did we never got to see a John Taylor scene after Carters death? I needed that!

yes John the badass is also amazing! His character has so many different sides and i love him so much!!

i think Grace Harold was really cute but i dont really see a future for them, i mean he lied to her for so long! but then again they really loved each other so idk maybe they work it out. Im also not into John/Harold/Grace but like you said good for the people who like the ship :)

John and Zoe were great! i wish Zoe would have appeared more often!

I have so many things to say about John and the boring therapist but i think i better not say them :D i wish i could just erase their relationship from my mind!

of course he didnt die! i didnt see a dead body so i refuse to believe he is dead! i also just wanted them to be happy. what kind of an ending is it to let the main character die? i refuse to accept this! -- thank you for the rec i will check it out :) while i do like fluff i mostly read h/c (with the focus on the comfort) cause i just want John to get his much needed comfort :D -- i have no idea where season 1 is supposed to be boring. but idc the people can live with their wrong opinions :D

(today: tumblr user nourann3 discovers the option to indent text after almost 5 years on tumblr...)

Hiii !! It is a very valid nickname 😂 That's nice !! Hmu if you want more recs ! Lol same honestly, I can't believe it's been 4 years since the show ended ! I can give you a link to my poi/Rinch fanvids playlist if you're interested 👀

Oh boi 13rw is so cursed, can't believe I watched all of the 1st season 😬 I remember being afraid of the suicide scene making me uncomfortable but it was so cringe, unrealistic and just bad that I wasn't even that uncomfortable, I cringed when she cut her arms but that's it.

Yeah big mood I project a lot on comfort fics as well. For suicide fics, I think it also depends on how the fics adress the subject. It's something that is complicated to write. If I read a suicide fic with no recovery I'm gonna project but feel like shit. But with recovery, I can project into the recovery as well so it's better ! I read a really good ace attorney fic showing Miles recovering after a suicide attempt, it was thoughtful and didn't fall into the pitfalls of magical super fast recovery/love heals everything, and some lines stuck with me, it was really good and comforting. But yeah if it's just a suicide/suicide attempt then I don't think it's good for me (but sometimes I still read it bc I'm a Dumb Bitch).

Dw you didn't come off as pushing 💜 I'll see how I feel about continuing it or not. I have to figure out if writing about suicide is positive or negative for me 🤔 I mean I'm not portraying John's suicidal crisis as a positive thing, and he reaches out to Harold, and considers he might get better so I don't think it's bad for me ? Another problem is that I have a tendency to drop my wips to write a new shiny idea I get, and then I never finish anything gkgkffjfjf I dropped the suicide fic for the body horror fic which I dropped for the time loop fic, and there's also the hanahaki fic I started last year but I haven't touched in months, plus a bunch of random shit floating around OneDrive lmao someone stop me

What helps the most is venting, just getting that shit out is helping y'know. I appreciate your support ♥️ at least it's not as bad as it used to be

I doubt Root will grow on me, catch me watching her scenes at 1.5 speed lmao, also yes you bet I'll enjoy watching them !!

Yes I remember that ep ! Iirc the little girl tells Shaw she has feelings but the volume is lower than in other people or smth along those lines ?

I hope she'll grow on me bc she seems cool. I remember I was a bit afraid of her just becoming a sort of hollow copy of John, like "look we added another badass to the show". Seems to be more than that though ! Also I'm curious about their mayhem twins dynamic. But yeah if she has a lot of scenes with Root idk how much it'll annoy me

I feel like I wouldn't be able to get the Shoot chemistry bc I'm too biased against Root lol

Ikr the crossing hurt me so much. But thinking about it takes me back to my careese days and my first fics lol. I feel like the death of one of the core four + the abandonment of the library really alienated me from the show (did I already say that before ?). And here I'm gonna shamelessly derail from Carter to the library bc boiii do I have a lot of feelings about the library !! And you're here, talking about poi, so you're the perfect subject to throw these feelings at. This post really says what I feel about it (I'll put the link at the end as well if you wanna read it after you're done with this l o n g reply). It was in a way its own character and its forced abandonment/destruction really hit me (fucked me up when they broke that glass board). It says something that it's one of the few things I remember from S3 along with Carter's death and 4C. I loved it a lot, it was a cornerstone of the show. It was a safe place, a home for Harold and John (and Bear !). I love when they're together in there, I love this cracked glass board, this yellow stained glass in the windows !!! (at least I assume it's stained glass ?), these lights, Bear's cushion, the whole cozy/safe/isolated feelings, just absolutely everything. And yeah later they have the subway, idk when it's introduced I don't remember if it's early enough for me to have watched it. And maybe it's nice, I can't judge rn. But it's like trying to give me a new MC after a MCD, make him as nice as you want I'll be clutching the previous MC until I die. Gkfkfkff I went overboard and off topic but I just love the library ok

Ikr I love how he's badass but also gentle and understanding and nice to people ! I love him !!! Yeah wolf and cub is really good, also I love when John smiles to Darren at the end !! I use this moment as my pfp bc I love it so much. He's just so cute ! I wish he smiled more (did we ever hear him laugh in the entirety of the show ?). Baby blue is so great, Harold and him are such a married couple in this ep ! Yeah same more content with John and children would have been nice.

I never thought about how much we needed a John Taylor scene but yes !! We were robbed :((((

Speaking of John being a cool badass. Here's a badass John vid rec it's super good

Yeah they were cute in the past. I think it's good he went back to her bc it gives closure to both of them. But I don't see their relationship working again. She grieved, probably started to move on after all these years and knowing he lied all this time probably won't make her want to go back with him. I've never been in love so what do I know lol, but were I her I probably wouldn't want to go back with him and I'd just be happy knowing he's alive after all.

Same I need more Zoe (also she's hot)

Lmao let's just forget about that weird relationship shall we

Aren't we all the same, firmly believing he's alive and happy out there ! It was foreshadowed since the first ep and it made sense but do I care ? No, fuck that shit John is very much alive

You're welcome ! John needs all the comfort and the love !!! I think I have a preference for fluff bc he gets hurt enough in the show lol

Indeed they can, veryyy far away from us

Sry if this is shit I have like half a functioning braincell today

The post abt home bases I mentioned

[sunsetsover]

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Ben having BPD

ok WHEW you just opened a fucking can of worms this about to be the longest post i’ve ever made i hope you have your seatbelt on

let me just preface this by saying nearly everything i talk abt in this post will be based off of my personal experiences w bpd. some people experience it differently, some people might not agree w some of the things i say, but i can only talk abt my own pov. therefore, this just my own personal opinions on ben having bpd. so yh lmao

and disclaimer!! i’m not a doctor!! don’t take anything i say in this post as diagnostic criteria! i’m not an expert or mental health professional!! when it comes to your own mental health or the mental health of ppl in your life, do not consider me a source to reference like ‘oh well lauren sunsetsover said xyz’ like pls just don’t do that. do your own research. and most importantly consult a doctor!!!!!! i am not one!!!!!!!!!

also there are very few sources in this post bc most of this is just shit i’ve absorbed over the years from doctors and doing my own research lmao

now that’s out of the way let’s go! (this became part character study, part informational masterpost on bpd. also it got really fuckin long, hence the read more, so be warned lmao)

warning for potentially triggering content (abuse/mentions of suicide and self harm - nothin too bad but i do touch on ben’s behaviour and history, and this is a p serious mental health issue we’re talking abt here so! take care of yourselves!!)

ok so! some things to keep in mind before we even get to ben:

i believe (at least in the uk) borderline personality disorder is considered to be an outdated name, and one that essentially isn’t appropriate or fit for purpose anymore, so in my experience, a lot of the time now it’s referred to as eupd (emotionally unstable personality disorder) in medical settings. which is way more apt name imo, and tells you more abt what bpd actually is (but i still call it bpd bc it’s easier and ppl know what that is lmao). so like. emotionally unstable personality disorder. i bet that conjures up a way more vivid idea in ur head than borderline  personality disorder does.

no one 100% knows what causes bpd, though it’s thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors, like most things. but the general consensus is that bpd develops when something (usually traumatic, but not always in an extreme sense. ppl w bpd have often been victims of some type of abuse in their childhood, but that’s not necessarily always the case) happens in your childhood that impacts the development of your personality. kind of a bizarre metaphor but hopefully it will help u understand: u know how in finding nemo, the egg nemo was in got damaged by the shark? and even tho the damage looked minor, it actually meant that one of his fins was permanently damaged - it was malformed, it didn’t grow right, he couldn’t use it properly? well imagine the fin = the personality; that’s what happens to a person w bpd’s personality. smth happens to us in our childhood that permanently damages our personality, and so it doesn’t grow and develop properly as the rest of us does, making it less functional than an average person’s. u can imagine how that can lead to all sorts of problem (we’ll get to them later)

but bc it’s a mental disorder that affects the personality, you can’t be diagnosed w bpd until you’re 18, when your personality is basically developed fully (i believe it can be diagnosed slightly younger, but those are rare and extreme cases). however, symptoms can start to present themselves earlier, as ur personality begins to develop and mature. (mine started presenting in my early teens)

bpd doesn’t really go away, and treatment with medication generally isn’t effective for long periods of time. however symptoms can be treated with continued therapy, and symptoms sometimes can start to ease as you get older!!

bpd also gets misdiagnosed a lot bc a lot of the symptoms are similar to that of other mental health problems. the biggest one it gets misdiagnosed as seems to be bipolar disorder, which i get tbh. i’ve always considered bpd very similar to bipolar, just like… quicker cycles. there are even memes about it. also bpd has a tendency to coexist w other mental health issues, which makes it harder to recognise and diagnose.

so now lets look at this from a diagnostic perspective

in order to be diagnosed w bpd you basically have to deemed, by a medical professional, to be meet certain criteria, and to have been meeting these certain criteria for a significant amount of time. there are some variations to this criteria, and proposed subtypes and basically different flavours of borderlines but i’m not even gonna go there. i’m just gonna talk abt what i’m most familiar w and how i think that applies to ben.

i’m copying and pasting the diagnostic criteria part from here bc as far as i’m aware this is the criteria doctors use for diagnosis. there are 9 different ‘indicators’/’criteria’, and you have to display or meet at least 5 of them in order to be considered for a bpd diagnosis:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

this is one of, if not the biggest part of bpd. that trauma i mentioned earlier? often stems from or is related to abandonment, or perceived abandonment, in childhood, be it physical or emotional. for example, a child that’s being abused by one parent might feel abandoned by the other parent if they don’t do anything about it, even if the second parent has no idea the abuse is going on. sound familiar? a similar thing happened to ben, with stella. phil not doing anything about the abuse ben was facing at the hands of stella - even though he didn’t know it was happening, even though phil did do something once he found out - was an abandonment to ben. and that’s just the tip of the abandonment iceberg for ben - kathy faking her death and leaving him was an abandonment (even when he thought she was actually dead), phil’s own abuse was an abandonment, as was his reaction when ben came out, and so on. and abandonment like that skews your thinking so you believe that everyone is going to abandon you, sooner or later, that they must be abandoning you for a reason, you must be a terrible person, you must be unworthy of people’s effort/time/love etc etc.

even when paul died, that was an abandonment to ben! like logically we know - and ben probably knows too - that paul didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to leave ben, he didn’t deliberately leave ben. but that doesn’t matter. mental illness is illogical, bpd is illogical, esp when it comes to abandonment. e.g. my therapist had to cancel a few of our appointments once bc she was ill, and it felt like an abandonment. like it was personal somehow, like she wasn’t coming into work bc of me, bc i was too much work, too hard to handle. ofc that wasn’t true, but that’s how it felt. it’s illogical. so ofc my solution was to just not go to my appointments even when she came back, bc like what other response is there lmao. it’s just that everything a person does feels personal, like it’s because of/about you, even when it isn’t. even when it has nothing to do w you. that’s probably why ben can come across at selfish at times, like he’s making everything about him. because it is all about him, in his mind. everything is because of him, is his doing, his fault etc. his way of thinking is skewed into thinking like that, bc shit keeps happening to him and ppl keep leaving him, so it must be his fault.

and!! ‘frantic efforts’ isn’t necessarily what u think it is!! it can be desperate begging ‘i’ll do anything to keep you in my life’ type actions, but it just as equally can be lashing out and abandoning someone in order to prevent them from abandoning u first - a ‘get them before they get me’ mentality  (the whole scene where phil was in the hospital comes to mind - the ‘why doesn’t he love me back?’ was the more desperate part of him, tho it wasn’t necessarily an ‘effort’ per se, but then him trying to kill his dad basically in order to have the abandonment be at least on his own terms? that’s lashing out, and def qualifies as a ‘frantic effort’ lmao). and how often do we see that in ben? lashing out at jay in the hospital because he knew he was mad at him, and he’d rather hurt jay physically before he could hurt him emotionally? ben trying to support callum and showing him kindness, only to turn around and threaten to out him when he finds out callum asked stuart to sort him out? everything that happened w his dad, trying to fuck him over before his dad can get there first, trying to get rid of keanu so he can’t be abandoned in favour of him (although that didn’t really work, but it rarely does work the way u want it to lmao). and the biggest one to me, though probably one that people have already forgotten, is him breaking up w that guy he was seeing in newcastle even tho they were into each other bc he ‘had to, otherwise [he] would have ruined his life’. even tho we don’t really get details, that says it all to me. it’s v much a pattern that’s present in ben.

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as “splitting”)

i feel like this one doesn’t need much explaining lmao

here is a definition of splitting from here (which is a very good article on splitting imo if u wanna read more abt it): ‘Splitting is a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Some might say that a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing. It’s a distorted way of thinking in which the positive or negative attributes of a person or event are neither weighed nor cohesive.’

a little explanation of it from me: ppl w bpd can sometimes have very simplistic, all or nothing views on things. and splitting is basically when ur opinion on something or someone changes very quickly (sometimes instantly), often to an extreme (e.g. going from loving and idolizing someone, to absolutely fucking hating them, or from having a neutral opinion on something to suddenly becoming extremely angry abt it) sometimes without even having an identifiable trigger. it links into black and white thinking, which u may have heard of before - u either love someone and they can do no wrong, or u hate them and they disgust you. either something is amazing or it’s terrible. there is no grey area, no in between. it goes back into the whole ‘not being able to regulate ur emotions properly’ thing lmao there’s rarely nuances to our emotions or feelings, we’re all or nothing a lot of the time. so splitting is when ur opinion rapidly changes to one of these extremes. sometimes u can even go back and forth, splitting over and over on the same person/thing which is super fun.

ben splits on his dad all the time. all the fucking time. he doesn’t care about phil at all and wants to ruin him, then he wants phil’s approval and to be welcomed back into the family fold and the business. then ben hates him and wants him dead, then 5 minutes later he wants his love, wants to be a good son again. that’s splitting. u can also see it w jay, too, but no where near as extreme as w his dad. and i’ve seen it a couple of times w callum too, but again, it’s way more subtle. u probably wouldn’t notice it if u weren’t looking for it, whereas w phil it’s obvious.

but like i don’t need to explain ‘unstable and intense interpersonal relationships’, do i? just look at the relationships w phil, w jay, w lola, w callum, even w paul - they were unstable back when they first got together, and were arguably kind of intense too. (he settled a bit w paul, but his death/perceived abandonment fucked him up a lot beyond the expected ways). he’s always arguing w the ppl he loves. he tried to get poor billy killed, and yet since then he’s had no problem w him!! none of his relationships - apart from maybe his mum and ian (i don’t include lexi bc she’s a child) - are stable. and i would definitely describe his relationships as intense lmao

3. Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

u can see this most - as most things - in his relationship w his dad. he fluctuates between seeming to know his worth (and demanding other people know it too), knowing he deserves his dad’s love and approval (why else would he be so mad abt the fact hes not getting it, if not bc he knows he’s worthy of it? if he didn’t think so, he wouldn’t be so angry abt not getting it - he’d be accepting/understanding, wouldn’t he?) and being desperate to do anything to get his dad’s love/approval, even things that are below him, turning into a child, begging to know why his dad doesn’t love him, why he’s never been enough. that scene where phil had found out abt ben trying to frame keanu and leaving him for dead is the epitome of this. u can see ben fluctuate between a hurt, traumatized little boy, begging his dad for some answers, some explanation as to why he’s not enough, begging him not to start drinking again, and a man who is angry, angry at his dad, angry at himself for crumbling like this, bc he should be stronger than this. u see him change multiple times in that one single scene. go watch it again. you’ll see it too.

some more examples: his absolute certainty that he is better and more qualified than the likes of shirley and keanu for working with his dad, and then being like ‘my dad was right, i’m good for no one’ - they don’t line up. does he have self esteem and know his worth or not? also his entire relationship w callum is an example of this - all those changes in his attitude towards cal and their situation? he often treats callum like they’re equals who understand each other, yet sometimes it seems like he thinks he’s superior to callum (e.g. the scene outside the cafe), and others he behaves (keyword) as though he thinks he’s not good enough for callum (why else would he just take all that shit from whitney and not say anything in retaliation? why, if not because he deems it more important that callum has an easier time of it than he does; that he regards cal’s comfort more important than his own? and why would he do that, if he held himself in such high regards? i mean he certainly acts like it sometimes, so why not then?)

also like……. who is ben? is he the bastard who cares about no one but himself, who’s always causing trouble not only for himself but for the people he cares about? is he the guy who just completely folds when people he knows hurtle abuse at him, accepting it lying down, who thinks he’s no good for anyone? the guy who goes out all night and drinks himself silly and purposefully gets himself into fights? the guy who shows callum so much empathy even tho it brings him nothing but pain, who loves jay unconditionally, who tried so hard to help bobby when he came back from prison? which one is he? which one does he want to be? does he even know?

(and you could argue that people are just multi-dimensional, but there’s just such a vast gap between these different facets of ben’s character and he can flip through them so fast it’s jarring, which is why i think it’s more like he straight up doesn’t have a consistent sense of self. which is a big part of bpd)

4. Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

again, does this need explaining?

doing illegal shit, excessively drinking, becoming unnecessarily violent, fucking up his relationships, just generally doing reckless things regardless of the consequences - this has always been a part of ben’s character.

(his constant hook ups could be another one, but the jury’s still out on that one. if anything it’s less the sex that worries me and more the flippant attitude he has when meeting up w ppl - they could be anyone and do all sorts, at the end of the day)

it became most obvious recently around the anniversary of paul’s death - drinking himself sick, gambling all his money away, deliberately starting fights. but even before that and since then it’s been there.

it’s basically just a way to self sabotage.

i feel like this one isn’t a consistent part of ben’s behaviour like the others are, but it is undeniably there, so.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior

although ben (to my knowledge) hasn’t displayed any suicidal behaviour, he has at times spoken in ways that could kind of sway that way. (i’m no good for anyone, i’m not worth it, why do you care etc)

also self harming!!! just because he doesn’t hurt himself in a direct way doesn’t mean he doesn’t deliberately put himself in situations where he’ll get hurt, and that is self harm!! letting stuart beat him at pride was self harm!! picking that fight w those homophobes at e20 was self harm!!! drinking to excess is a form of self harm!!! putting himself in harm’s way, even if he doesn’t get hurt, is self harm!!!! just bc he might not be self harming in the traditional sense doesn’t mean he’s not hurting himself!!! this one has been on my mind for so long!!!! oh my god!!!!! he absolutely has a pattern of self harming/self destructive behaviours, and just a general disregard for his own safety and well being!!!! the fact that it doesn’t worry more ppl in his life is so upsetting to me!!!!!!

6. Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

aka the biggest part of bpd: pt 2

i feel like this definition doesn’t really do justice to this aspect of bpd. this is basically you literally having no control of your emotions. ‘day-to-day events’ have fuck all to do with it half the time. u could be sitting there minding ur business and all of a sudden you wanna smash up the entire room, for seemingly no reason. one time i was crying - like uncontrollably sobbing, a complete mess - and had been for maybe half an hour? and then all of a sudden, literally mid sob, it stopped. like it just stopped. i was done, i wasn’t sad anymore. i went from inconsolably crying to perfectly fine in a split second. can you even imagine that? it’s fucking crazy. that’s what having bpd is like. it’s like mood swings x1000 (that’s why i describe it like bipolar on a smaller scale - their mood swings last days/weeks/months, ours last minutes/hours, sometimes days but not often). you can be fine, then all of a sudden you’re not. or you can be not fine, and then all of a sudden you are. you can be ecstatic, then all of a sudden all the joy gets sucked out of ur body n u wanna die. then 5 mins later ur fine again. u can cycle thru every single human emotion in the space of a few hours with no warning whatsoever. u can go from feeling so many emotions u don’t know which one to focus on to feeling none at all. it’s exhausting. so yes ‘day-to-day events’ (this can be as minor as the way someone speaks to you, or not enjoying ur food as much as u thought u would, and it can make u terrifyingly sad or spark uncontrollable rage in u) can trigger it, but it’s like… at least that’s kind of justifiable. most of the time u just cannot regulate, control or predict ur emotions whatsoever. and often the emotions u do feel are not appropriate for the situation at hand lmao

on top of that, ppl w bpd have massive problems processing their emotions. while most ppl have the capacity to identify what they’re feeling and why, ppl w bpd often can’t. and bc they can’t identify it properly, they don’t know how to process it. that’s why emotions and feelings are so often black and white - we might develop the ability to recognise Big Emotions, like love and hate, happiness and sadness etc, but we can’t figure out the smaller, nuanced emotions. it becomes or, not and.

this is also why our emotions feel so big and all encompassing!! we can’t ignore our emotions!! they are our focus in a lot of ways. when ur sad, it feels like the world is ending, every single time. when ur happy, ur euphoric and nothing else matters, and so on. every emotion has the volume turned up to 100. that’s why our emotions sometimes come out in extreme or unhealthy ways - our emotions often feel so big we have such a hard time handling them. so we go to drastic lengths, whatever they may be, to cope.

(also bc most ppl w bpd are victims of abuse, we’re often hyperaware of other people’s moods, which can impact ours. someone can be annoyed for some innocuous, innocent reason, and yet bc we can sense it, we become scared or defensive and may lash out.)

and ben… little old ben, have u ever seen him have a rational reaction to anything in his life? how often have we seen him have an appropriate response to smth? my dad is shit, so i have to destroy him. failing that, i have to kill him. oh, my brother isn’t gonna let kill him? time to punch him in the face. my daughter ate all my cereal? it’s Overreaction Time. (this one in particular is Very Me like yes lexi is a child and he was unfair but my 7 year old cousin once drank all my j2os and i almost had a breakdown so i Get It) i’m feeling like shit? time to antagonise these homophobes until they beat me in the middle of the street. i sleep with this man once? time to get overly involved. he shows me a little bit of love and kindness? time to develop feelings for him despite him insisting he’s straight, the fact that he’s with a woman and i have been harassed and beaten by his homophobic family multiple times. but it isn’t going the way i wanted it to? time to impulsively hit him for not knowing what he wants, then immediately regret it.

and like. he went from crying his eyes out in his dad’s kitchen to threatening kat slater within the span of what, 10 minutes? he went from trying to kill his dad, to falling tf apart w jay, to trying to manipulate his dad - who had just woken up from a coma - for his own gain again, in the span of maybe an hour. if that doesn’t say rapid cycling, inconsistent emotions idk what does.

like idk enough about the old bens to say if this is a consistent characteristic of his or not (although based on the fact he killed a woman bc he was angry w his dad, i’d say it’s fairly safe to assume lmao) but ever since he came back his reactions and emotions have been pretty much never once been rational, stable or consistent.

(and like i wanna say i am saying all of this from the perspective of the bad days. so if you’re thinking ‘well, ben isn’t like that all the time’ ur right. neither am i. some days i’m fine, some days it’s not that bad, sometimes i can cope. but i still have bpd, even on those days. and imo, so does ben.)

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness

this is one i don’t really see in ben. we maybe see moments of emptiness, but certainly not enough to call it ‘chronic’.

also a lot of the moments we do see emptiness in ben, i feel like it’s forced emptiness, more for his own benefit or for the benefit of others rather than actual genuine emptiness. it’s not that he’s not feeling anything, it’s that what he is feeling he’s not showing. that’s very different from actually feeling empty.

8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

this! is! such! a! massive! part! of! having! bpd! and it’s a part that no one ever fucking talks about either!!!

and again, does this one need explaining?

ben is anger. he’s a ball of it, and he has been for a very, very long time. he’s angry at his dad, at the world, at himself. for all sorts of reasons, both complex and simple. if i sat here and tried to get into all of it this post would be twice as long as it already is. and i don’t think i really need to, anyway. it’s not as if any of us need to dig very deep to see it, is it?

‘frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights’ like i really don’t need to elaborate do i? bc what does ben do when he’s angry? his temper flairs up, he gets physical, lashes out, makes threats.

and he’s so often angry in response to emotional pain, which is the saddest (and for me, most relatable) part. just look at paul’s anniversary, how angry he was just in general, to everyone - even his mum, who is like the only exception to his anger since he’s been back - when he was just hurting and sad. how angry he got when he found out keanu had replaced him in phil’s will, when really he was just hurt. he gets angry and violent so people don’t see him as weak bc he’s hurting. he has been conditioned to get angry instead of getting sad. it’s not healthy at all.

there is so much more but i feel like it’s unnecessary for me to get into it. bc u know. ben’s not exactly subtle in his anger is he lmao

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

this is the only other one that i don’t see in ben at all, and it’s one that i don’t really experience myself either so i don’t even have any insight to offer lmao

so!! more or less 7/9!! that’s a passing grade for diagnosis!!! welcome to the club, mr mitchell!!!!

all of this, of course, has been purely from a medical, diagnostic standpoint (w some of my personal experiences sprinkled in lmao). there’s so much more to say from like a ‘living w bpd day to day’ standpoint but like, this post is already way too fuckin long so i’m just gonna hit on a few that i feel are important in regards to ben, and ones i have’t spoken abt yet

most ppl w bpd have a ‘fp’ or ‘favourite person’ (tho it can be multiple people), which sounds nice but it’s kind of a really complicated and difficult thing tbqh. here’s the best definition i could find: ‘When someone with BPD uses the term “favorite person” to describe someone else, they are typically insinuating that this is a person they cannot survive without. For BPD sufferers, the favorite person is the person who is a source of emotional support and dependence. This individual has the ability to truly impact the BPD sufferer’s day in either a positive or negative manner. The favorite person to someone with BPD holds a critical role in their lives by holding the power to ‘make or break’ the successful navigation of daily tasks and struggles.’ it’s a difficult thing to explain/understand (so please feel free to google ‘favourite person bpd’ to get a better understanding), and is not always as dramatic as it sounds, but it’s like… even if they aren’t a source of ‘emotion support’, ur mental wellbeing can hang on this person’s every move. (which is not healthy, i know, but it’s just a thing that happens w bpd!) and phil is absolutely ben’s fp. ben hates phil, and yet is still so desperate to be in his good graces, in his life no matter what that costs him… and ben’s self esteem, his actions, his moods are so dependant on phil. it just?? makes so much sense to me. i realize it may not make much sense to someone who doesn’t have any understanding of what a fp is, but like if u do, i’m sure u see what i see.

i think maybe jay was another fp of ben for a while in the past. i don’t think he is as much since ben has come back, but in the past?? maybe. like less in the ‘my happiness is dependant on u’ way and more in like a ‘i’m very very attached to u and need u in my life and would maybe go crazy if anything or anyone got in the way of that’ way.

and i think callum might be sneaking into territory now too tbqh. it would explain why callum’s actions and words have such an impact on ben’s moods despite not much really happening between them. and like i wanna say: someone becoming ur fp is not a choice. it just happens. it’s not like ben is going ‘oh im going to get overly attached to u just for a laugh’, no. this would be completely out of his control. and when it happens, it fucking SUCKS. so if that is what’s happening, it’s going to have a massive impact on ben - and it seems like it already is.

and like taking the whole fp thing out of it (bc i know it’s complicated and hard to grasp) bpd would explain why ben seems to be so attached to callum even tho very little has actually happened between them!!! like bpd will have u falling in love w someone who just shows you basic human kindness and decency, and i mean that very literally!!! bc like i said when you have bpd, you struggle to navigate and handle basic emotions, so all the nuances of romance and love? jesus christ. it goes back into black and white thinking - i either love this person or i hate this person, there is no in between. so callum, showing ben kindness? showing him support with what’s going on w louise and what happened w phil? not hating him and thinking he’s despicable and evil and all those things people say about him? and ben, having bpd? he probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend that maybe cal’s just being friendly, esp not after they slept together. so ofc he would latch tf on to that. i would latch tf on to that. his behaviour towards callum just seems very on brand for having bpd to me, genuinely.

and !! all those things whitney said the other night !! people complained about him not arguing back, but like… she’s almost saying what ben wants to hear, when it comes to callum. bc i touched on it before but like the thing is when, you have bpd ur thought process is like ‘i care about this person, they are good, i don’t deserve them, i am bad, i am going to ruin them, i’m probably manipulating them into spending time with me and caring about me, but i can’t let them go, i need them, i bet they don’t even like me, i don’t deserve them, i don’t want them to get hurt, i don’t want to hurt them, i am going to hurt them, in the end.’ (and eventually it spirals into ‘actually they’re probably going to hurt me first bc everyone always does so let me completely destroy this relationship so it’s unrecoverable and hurt them now so they can’t hurt me later’ but that’s another story) and whitney more or less confirms that for him!!! in essence, what she says to him is ‘you’re bad, he didn’t want anything to do with you but you manipulated him into it. you don’t deserve him, you’ve hurt him, you’ve hurt me, how could you do this?’ so like… ofc he’s not gonna argue w her. he’s already had a shit day, all of the fight is gone from him, and he agrees w her!! i’m sure he was thinking that he deserved what whit was throwing at him - not necessarily for what he’d done to her, but because he is Bad and callum is Good and he needs to stay away from him, otherwise he’ll ruin him. bc that’s just what bpd brain tells u, even when u’ve got no basis to believe it. (unless ur splitting or experiencing a big emotional high, but again, that’s a different story)

and that kind of makes sense as to why he’d go to the wedding. going back to the anger instead of sadness thing - he’s hurting, so he’s going to get angry and vengeful. he has been hurt, so now he is going to hurt in return. esp considering both callum and whitney have seen him in such a vulnerable state. it’s probably a pride thing, too.

also just to expand a little more on the ‘unstable sense of self’ thing - ppl w bpd (and also victims of abuse, but sometimes that particular venn diagram is a circle) tend to change the personality based on who they’re with. which is what most people do, yes, but i mean the Extreme version. it’s a trauma response thing - u’ll reflect parts of a person’s personality back at them, or even take bits from personalities of ppl u know they like in the hopes that they’ll like u more like that, as opposed to ur real personality (if u even know what that is). and sometimes those parts stick (esp when you idolize the person u stole them from/they’re your fp), and it’s like u all of a sudden realize ur entire personality is built of parts of other ppls personalities that you’ve stolen. so it makes sense to me that ben seems to have so many differing personalities/sides to his personality, bc he’s learned which parts to show to who, and in what situations - in response to his abuse as a kid, if nothing else.

(and before anyone can even go there: that is not an act of manipulation. it’s a trauma response. it’s something that happens without us consciously having any say in it, as a way of self-preservation. it’s like if i make myself likeable and appealing to u, you’re less likely to hurt me, physically or emotionally. and yes ben has a habit of manipulation, but this is not a part of it. none of ben’s manipulation is directly bc of his hypothetical bpd, it’s bc that’s just who he is. i don’t ever want to see the two equated, or see anyone say any shit like ‘ben must have bpd bc he’s manipulative’, ever.)

just for the hell of it, here are some spicy bpd memes, bc that’s how we communicate on the internet. (here are two in particular seem quite relevant to ben rn lmao + bonus one for phil!!)

so! there we are!!! i’m sure there’s some important stuff i overlooked and that this is not what u expected when u sent me this question, but there are so many misconceptions and stigmas out there surrounding bpd that i wouldn’t have felt right half assing it. and i hope, if nothing else, u learned something abt bpd that u didn’t know before :-)

if u read this far ur a trooper lmao but if anyone has any questions, be they abt ben having bpd or bpd in general please feel free to ask!! i’ll do my best to answer them to the best of my ability 💖💖

[devilgem-archive]

heya!! do you mind if i ask a bit abt ur kyokoswap au?? if u dont wanna thats fine but any info/hcs u have abt it wld be cool bc the au seems rlly neat!! tho again if u dont wanna def no pressure ^^; have a wonderful day!! :D

VIBRATES EXCITEDLY i’ve been waiting 50 years for someone to ask about this!!!!!kyoko magica is one my oldest and most developed aus, i’m more than happy to answer this!

aside from minor adjustments to better fit each character’s arc, the story itself follows canon’s exactly! starts with kyoko having a dream about mami, ends with mami tearing apart kyokami in a new world. ofc a lot of the girls’ original traits remain in tact. kyoko is more like her pre-tds self, kind but ditzy and reckless, mami retains her ladylike grace, homura her overprotectiveness and so on…i always prefer leaving aspects that makes characters…themselves in swap aus if u get me? or maybe that’s just me

KYOKO

swaps with madoka. madokyoko or kyokami, as i like to call her!

a simple christian girl with a plain, ordinary life. kyoko had everything she could ever ask for: a loving family, supportive friends, amazing teachers- just everything! all of that changed when she meets a mysterious blonde girl in a post-apocalyptic setting in a dream…and that very same girl appears in her life the very next day!

while she has a kind heart, she is known to be fiery and unreasonable at times. this temper was usually displayed in heated confrontations with mami

the sakuras used to be rather poor. their financial status improved when the akemis stepped in to assist them, and the two families had forged a close bond ever since

eating is practically her hobby. still hates wasting food and will call out anyone who does so

is a d@ddy’s girl through and through. her father is wise and caring, so she often seeks him out for advice

her wish varies from time to time. in the first timeline she wished to save a cat she named Amy, while others had to do with wishing one or all of her friends back or to be able to defeat walpurgisnacht etc. her final wish was to erase all witches from the past,present and future with her own hands, which caused her to ascend to godhood and leave no trace of her existence in the new world.

kyokami felt lonely when she first realized she had no way to get in touch with her loved ones on earth. it felt even strange to be god herself…she’d always been a girl of faith yknow? she eventually embraced her fate as the composer of the universe, and is perfectly happy in bring salvation to magical girls all over the globe.

ophelia is the witch of abandonment. unlike gretchen, who desires to save the world, ophelia wants to destroy it. kyoko’s faith in humanity died the second ophelia was born…and the all-powerful wudan witch stops at nothing until this cold and cruel world is nothing more than barren wasteland

MAMI

switches with homura! her nickname is homumami, but she’s usually mamicifer to me

i like to call her moemami (or moemi???) in her ‘moe’ phase

was orphaned at the age of 6 when a fatal car crash killed her parents and left her paralyzed from waist down. the hospital had practically been her home since, until she was officially discharged yeaaaaars later

used to wear her hair in drilled pigtails, complete with colorful flower clips that surprisingly correspond to her future friends’ colors. in later timelines she would let her hair down and replace the childish clips with her signature bronze ones.

used to be wheelchair bound before contracting. learned to utilize her healing powers so she could walk again; she used crutches and ribbons to assist her during the early timelines. in later timelines, she fully healed her injured spine the same time she changed her personality

she had a big crush on sayaka in the past…something she’d rather forget. it still flusters her

her wish ofc was to redo her meeting with kyoko sakura

her birthday falls on may 1st. more abt it here

mami has a major sweet tooth.

candeloro is a miserable witch, literally shackled with chains of despair, forever alone in this nightmarish prison- her eternal pity party. although she comes off as aloof at first, her true nature warm and inviting, almost needy even.

she has her own set of ‘clara dolls,’ known as delightful dolls. there’s four of them, each resembling the girls of the quartet but represent the hostess’/mami’s worst aspects: vexation (kyoko), disgust (madoka), cruelty (sayaka) and love (homura)– the youngest doll is the least favorite and looks suspiciously a lot like the good-for-nothing’s dolls (see sayamura for the answer)

HOMURA

switches with sayaka. i lovingly dub her sayamura

was kyoko’s friend from childhood. they attended the same catholic elementary school together before mitakihara middle school.

sported her ‘moe’ appearance pre-contract. after making her wish, she ditched the braids and glasses in order to look ‘cooler’ (@ which kyoko wld say she always looked cool in her eyes

kyoko had been her knight in shining armor for as long as she could remember, and homura really wants to repay that by protecting her as well! she is also hella gay for her bff 

her wish was to have the strength to protect others

her shield is very similar to the one seen in the original madoka manga, though it lacks the hammerspace storage. her firearms are formed via magic

her desire for kyoko, self loathing and jealousy are big big factors to her inevitable demise.

homulilly here is a mix of her nutcracker and mortal world forms. each and every one of the clara dolls still exist along with lotte, luiselotte, liese and lillia.

love is in fact, one of homura’s dolls; because homura and mami cherish the same person deeply, their feelings intertwined and therefore ‘share’ ai. post-rebellion, ai continues to pose as one of the delightful dolls and attempts to revive homura’s memories behind mamicifer’s back

SAYAKA

switches with mami. her nickname is mamisayaka here!

ghost and lonely are big inspos,esp for oktavia

came from a rather well off family, so she never really needed to worry about provisions when she was left on her own. still, all the money in the world could never fill the gaping hole in her lonely heart

knows how to play the violin

her parents and kyousuke and hitomi all perished when a theater collapsed on itself. old wounds reopened when madoka left her to live life her own way

is the ideal big sis! cheerful, sporty and has good grades…For A Sayaka. beneath the facade she’s a depressed slob who doesnt take care of herself as much as she should. its oke as long as she hides it all with a smile :)

oktavia von seckendorff is very highkey based off lewis msa; deadbeat-esque familiars, an abandoned mansion/concert hall labyrinth and a disembodied glass heart, which sits at the very bottom of her lagoon- that kind stuff. those she falls in love with, whether romantically or platonically, are never to leave her- she wont be alone, never again. one condition must be fulfilled in order to kill her successfully: stay. if she’s truly feels content, she will accept death without fail.

MADOKA

swaps with kyoko. kyodoka has a nice ring, doesnt it?

used to be exactly like the sweet and well-meaning canon!madoka in the past, a key difference was she would resort to stealing and breaking other rules to keep herself and her parents and little brother alive.

her mother was a businesswoman who wanted to take a more innovative approach to her work. alas, this would cost junko her entire career and the kaname family became penniless

madoka wished for her mother’s dream project to become reality. just as ur familiar with canon!kyoko’s story, it backfired horribly. disowned from her family, her mother became an alcoholic, dad gets pushed around and baby tatsuya doesnt understand whats going on. days later…press f for the kanames and madoka’s broken heart.

is vile, absolutely vile. can be sweet in one moment then violent and emotionally manipulative in the next like the two-faced bitch she is

rarely uses honorifics to address people anymore, unless she’s playing sweet to get something out of someone. uses ‘-chan/kun/san’ for those she sincerely cares for; she didn’t call homura ‘-chan’ before she began sympathizing with the latter

has a minor problem with booze and tobacco, namely the latter.

she loves loves loves melons!

knowing the value of being frugal, madoka hates wasting things that could be put to better use. she can be kind of a cheapskate in some sense, though she's sane enough to avoid resorting to ridiculous extremities.

kriemhild gretchen is exact the opposite of canon!ophelia. this towering witch continues oh so obsessively reaching for what she cannot; that one faraway glimmer of hope sitting at the endless skies of her labyrinth she calls paradise. shes stubborn as all hell, and will not let herself be destroyed UNLESS one convinces her the world is already a happy place in no need of saving

NAGISA

nagisa is nagisa.

the same charlotte that ate mamisayaka’s head is now a bapy that lives with her post-rebellion

her wish remains the same: to have one last cheesecake with her mother

not much to say here

thats all i can remember from the top of my head! if you want me to elaborate further, pls ask me @mahoutrauma!! 

[ask-shakespearehigh]

Q&A post with the Mods!!!!

This is going to be a long one oh boy

How strict is the delineation of creative control vis-a-vis characters/plays between the mods? (@pedanticlecturer)

We generally have the plays split up along lines of “what we know”— we have a list at the very beginning of the blog. Sometimes we’ll draw the others’ characters (mostly me drawing some of Star’s…) but even then the final say on characterization is up to the “main” mod for that play — mod aster

what aster said -- mod star

What is your favorite play? What is your favorite character in terms of how they were written in the source material? (@pedanticlecturer)

I think my favorite play overall is Macbeth, just because I like the vibes (and the fact that I too could kill Macbeth), the fact that you don’t say it’s name in theatres, and the fact that it’s a play I did a full read through and analysis of in class. Favorite character? Puck from Midsummer. — mod aster

uhhhh,, hmm. ive always had a soft spot for midsummer since i saw it with aster esp bc of how fun the costumes were. of the comedies it has the largest potential to be the most visually pleasing bc of the concept of fairies,,,and im gay and dramatic so i love that. id die if i got to costume design for midsummer,,,or be in it,,,yeah. fav character. hmm. probably mercutio?? i recently saw a version of romeo and juliet where mercutio was played by a woman and oh my god it was amazing!!! not to mention mercutio’s portrayal in baz luhrmann's INCREDIBLE version of r n j!!! (I based my mercutio design on him) he just spends the entire time making dick jokes. love that. -- mod star

How do you answer asks so fast? I mean it's great but I'm impressed 😂 (Anon)

Personally, it’s a mix of: notifications on, quick drawing speed, and using the blog to avoid my class work — mod aster

aster is fast and (as you can see from all of my answers) im lazey -- mod star

Are there any elements/characters of the plays you're covering that you would have liked to work into this blog's plot, but couldn't due to the constraints of the setting or the synthetic nature of the blog? (@pedanticlecturer)

I wanted to make everyone gay but unfortunately due to plot constraints we have to have some hets but that wont stop me from making it lgbt as possible. -- mod star

I did want to make The Tempest more of a central play, but it just didn’t translate well. Similarly, other supernatural elements like the witches in Macbeth. This isn’t so much a constraint mentioned, but my own time/energy means that I want to show the Macbeth backstory, in a specific format, but I can’t right now— mod aster

Is there a hierarchy of import when it comes to each play's individualized impact on shakespeare high's general arc? If so, what plays are crucial to the foundation of the story? Which ones did you do mostly for shits and giggles? (@pedanticlecturer)

This is phrased like an ACT question and i might not answer it right so sorry in advance but: mod aster and i only selected a few plays for each of us to do given we dont know all of shakespeare’s works, but we tend to put more emphasis on the the more well known. But it also comes down to 1. How much we have plotted out for each play and 2. What the followers ask about most. Our two most popular are hamlet and macbeth bc people are familiar w those but around march caesar always becomes relevant again. I didnt even have designs for some of the characters until someone asked about them. -- mod star

I would say the same as star— it generally comes down to what people ask about. I will say that the overall plot is sort of separated into “has happened” and “is happening”. Like, the human potion of Midsummer, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth are all in the “aftermath” portion, while Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, among others, are happening. We’re trying to incorporate as much as we can, and I don’t think any of them were really put in without some thought.— mod aster

What personal significance does shakespeare hold in ur guys' lives? (@pedanticlecturer)

I go to a theater school rn and so ive dealt w shakespeare (although not all of them) it also helps that i was in loves labours lost last year as moth and that i read hamlet and r n j. Theres also a theater in my state that always does One Big Shakespeare per season and they always do them super well!!! My love for shakespeare probably started w seeing midsummer at that theater w mod aster!!! So. Theater kid rights!! -- mod star

To be honest, I got back into Shakespeare Because of the blog. I’ve been friends with some people that got really Pretentious about Shakespeare, and it kinda put me off of it. I did have a book of abridged plays (the plays’ plots written out in prose, basically) that I read as a kid, which is what got me into not only the plots of a lot of the plays, but also the idea of having them illustrated. And, same as star, the theater in state does the One Big Shakespeare— and they tend to do some really cool things with the costumes, setting them in diff time periods. I haven’t been able to see any lately since I’ve moved, but they still slap. — mod aster

🥰😘💙🥰🥰💜💟🥰I 😍💗💚😍😍LOVE🖤🖤 YALL ♥️♥️🧡💛💚💝❣️💕💘💖💗💓💞💝❤️💛💜 okay now i have a question i swear— how long have the two of you been doing art??? and what were your first shakespeare plays??? (@hellaghosts)

Uhh i started drawing when i was like idk 12 and i have the giant boxes of sketchbooks to prove it!!! I moved to digital art at abt 14-15 but mostly stayed traditional until this yr when i got a Neat New Tablet so some of my sketchbooks are sitting abandoned rip. My first shakespeare was either romeo and juliet or midsummer nights dream and i love both of them v much!!! I have a very old piece of art that i did for r n j for my freshman class assignment on it and it hasnt aged well alsdjfjafd circa 2016 i think??? -- mod star

Oh man. I started drawing when I was about 10, but it was Bad. I don’t think I got much into drawing again until I was about 14? Sometime around the end of middle school/beginning of high school. I would say I started getting into drawing as more than doodling/coloring edits sometime around 2015-16? I would draw on my iPad with my finger, then I got a tablet for my computer, and now I pretty much stick to my iPad with an Apple Pencil. My first Shakespeare play was….. uh…… probably Midsummer???? I have No idea. We would go to plays when I was little, so I honestly don’t remember if I saw others before. It may have been Romeo and Juliet— I had that book where it was the original and the “modernized” with the little dog that explained things— which, if you know it makes sense, but if you don’t is probably a bonkers answer. — mod aster

Do you think this blog has like? An overarching thesis (be it b/c intentionally or simply b/c ur own take on the world has bled thru to the point where u believe it’s central to the piece at this point)? (@pedanticlecturer)

Not gonna lie, I had to read that like three times AND dm you to figure out what you were asking from us and all I have is “be gay, respect women, write your own happy endings”. — mod aster

This blog started with an ides of march shitpost and you think we have enough brain energy to write a whole thesis? I projected feelings of found family onto my half of the blog but idk if that counts. Be gay do crime 420 69 -- mod star

What’s the nature/rough dynamic of ur relationship? How do y’all know each other? (@pedanticlecturer)

Met mod aster when i was like 4 and even tho we didnt live close we became like, best friends although the Best part didnt start until we were like 13-ish and eventually we talked like non stop (about anime and homestuck. Yknow. 13 year old kid things) and we didnt see each other a lot bc of Distance and now its even worse bc aster is in colleg.,e but we consider each other siblings regardless of family bc we’re adopted into our own respective families so that bled over into our friendship and it would feel weird calling him anything other than my brother now. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst and if you really want a good insight on what we’re like as siblings watch griffin and justin mcelroy’s overview video of catlateral damage wherein i am griffin and he is the long suffering justin. -- mod star

Star is basically my long distance sibling and functionally the only cousin I recognize bc like their parents are basically an aunt and uncle and like our dads look enough alike that we’ve both accidentally gotten the wrong dad for a hug or similar so like. Anyways yeah Star is the Griffin to my Justin, complete with our absent middle brother who we love dearly— mod aster

Dubiously relevant q but what kind of music do y’all listen to when u do art (if that is indeed a habit either of u partake in) (@pedanticlecturer)

It can depend on the piece? I was working on some (unrelated) oc prints that were song-focused, and for those I just listened to said song on loop. Sometimes I have playlists. Sometimes I’ll just be in a Mood and throw a song on loop. But a lot of time for the blog, I’ll listen to The Adventure Zone for the billionth time, because I have Too Much Attention. I’ve also, on request from Star, linked the most recent “loop song”.— mod aster

I tend to obsess over the same like 3 songs every few weeks so those get listened to on repeat but it also depends on the tone of what im drawing or who im drawing i might genre switch bc of that. If im drawing ophelia i stick to lana del rey and if im drawing hamlet its the neighborhood, horatio is sufjan stevens etc. i have categorized,. Most of the characters i draw into different songs/genres/energies of music but not like i ever follow that. Sometimes i just pull up a really long nonsense video and forget to draw. Essentially: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -- mod star

How’d y’all come up with ur pseudonyms? (@pedanticlecturer)

I love space so much and my main blog is starryeydsailor space gay rights!! Im also tiny and full of energy and bright so basically i;m star -- mod star

Uhhhh i was like “hey i want to do uhhhhhh flower?” And then I google searched flower names until I found one I liked —- mod aster

How did you end up deciding the rough timeline of events in canon? (@pedanticlecturer)

It’s mostly determined by like. How we choose per story? If that makes sense. Like, we just take story by story, and decide “is it happening, has it happened, and when?” And then we fit them together in relation to each other just by dint of. All existing at once. Like, I knew I wanted Macbeth to be in aftermath, because like, even though there’s no murder, the way I’ve translated it to the AU is still kinda heavy, and it’s something that I don’t know that I could do properly if it were happening right now. Also, it’s more interesting IMO to have them at different times. Tl;dr we wing it per story and slot them together— mod aster (mod star agrees I just can word better, in theory)

If you could tell the story of shakespeare high in a different format than an ask blog, would you? Obviously y'all are making very good use of the format, but would you want to write this as a animated series or like? a comic book? or is the form inseparable from the story? (@pedanticlecturer)

I kinda wanted to do a webcomic or maybe to plot develop through like, animatics but the element of surprise comes from the asks we get and really makes us think so the blog is a good start. We didnt think we’d get this far -- mod star

Pretty much what Star said— there are certain elements where it’d be neat to do as a comic or as an animatic. Like, the fantasy dream is like, an anthology webcomic of each story, where you can like, see other characters in the background and stuff. But to be honest, we develop a lot by what we’re asked— there was a post about developing worldbuilding by being asked questions and then pretending you’ve thought about the answer, and it’s not far off. Personally, it’s hard to just lay out a story, because I have a whole WORLD and what’s relevant? What are people interested in? It’s by getting questions that I can then focus in on an area to develop. And yeah, we Super didn’t think we’d get this far lmao — mod aster

Any headcanons about your characters that you don't think will ever come up on the blog through asks or plot posts? (@pedanticlecturer)

I could make a whole separate post for this!!!!! Mostly its voice headcanons (and by mostly i mean like 1 or 2) or relationship hcs!!!! -- mod star

Honestly same. I don’t think I have voice headcanons for mine, though I bet I could find some. I’ve got a bunch of miscellaneous headcanons that just kinda float around, but like they’re scattered, too numerous for this post, and also not always things I’m sure are canon yet.— mod aster