#and i think their parents would want to encourage them developing more than one interest because they’d know what it’s like to be expected-

[le-agent-egg]

havin some thoughtsssss about how hope’s peak could look like after class 78 graduatessss that i didn’t feel like retypinggggg

realize the thing abt leon and mondo isn’t 100% accurate but fuck off it’s 11 at night for me

[cityofmeliora]

kinda late but here is the Terzo childhood headcanons AKA new yorker Terzo post. for @plaquerat <3

ok so. i don't really have a solid interpretation of the lore, and my headcanons aren't very detailed. i'm open to floating a lot of different ideas. here are some that i like:

i've liked the idea that Terzo was primarily raised by his mother ever since i first saw the interview where TF (as nameless ghoul) suggests Terzo may be nicer than Secondo because "he seems to have, i dont know, a kinder mother?" and then i found the official instagram post mentioning Terzo's mother attending his concert in New York, and i was like 'oh! maybe she lives there. maybe Terzo used to live there with her.' it got me thinking...

Terzo was born in california and then moved to new york with his mom after she and Nihil split.

seeing the skyscrapers in new york for the first time was a really formative experience for him. that sense of awe he felt eventually inspired his interest in art deco and futurist art. new york became the base for his imaginary city of Meliora. (this is partly inspired by my own experience as a native californian because we don't really have tall buildings in california and i FREAKED OUT when i visited new york and chicago and saw REAL tall buildings.)

Terzo's mother was an artist and he spent a lot of time in the studio with her and her artist friends. their apartment walls were covered with Terzo's own art.

art and music and culture have always been at the center of Terzo's life. he and his mom would always be listening to music or viewing art galleries or watching movies together. i think Terzo's dynamic with his mother was very much like this anecdote from Carly Rae Jepsen:

My mom and I would sit and meticulously go through Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell lyrics together. Even from a young age I remember her being like, “I’m playing this Leonard Cohen song called ‘Famous Blue Raincoat,’ and when it’s done I want you to tell me what’s going on in it.” She would give me like a fake glass of wine when I was 8, and I would listen and be like, “I think there was an affair.” Pitchfork - Carly Rae Jepsen on the Music That Made Her (2019)

Terzo turned out to be a gifted child. super smart and naturally talented at a lot of things, but he particularly loved to build with lego / blocks and play piano.

Terzo had a great relationship with his mom. she always supported him and encouraged him to pursue his interests and to do his best.

Terzo missed his dad though. his parents had been together long enough for Terzo to remember him. he was just a kid. he didn't know any better.

when Ghost debuted and Nihil became an internationally famous one-hit wonder, Terzo developed this idealized image of Nihil as a cool rock star cultural icon in his head. idolized him a bit.

after this, Terzo decided he wanted to get serious about becoming an entertainer / musician. started doing piano recitals and competitions. youth theater. film club. all the things.

if anyone asked Terzo why he wanted to become an entertainer, he'd tell them it's because it's what he's good at. and he's always wanted to be famous. which was true, but...

what he wouldn't tell them is that a part of him was trying to emulate [his idea of] his dad and secretly hoping that if he shared that interest / became famous his dad would want come back into his life.

he knew his mom was always there supporting him, but every time he went onstage he would look out into the audience hoping his dad might be there to surprise him. (he never was.)

Nihil was the first of many many disappointments in Terzo's life.

oops! i made it sad.

anyway here's a doodle of kid Terzo getting a postcard from his dad... he didn't hear from his dad again for a very. very long time after that.

there are a lot of details i haven't square hammered out, but it's okay because these headcanons are mostly for me to like, frame Terzo's character development over time. might post more later :)

[topazshadowwolf]

You said before that killer got all the 'parenting mistakes' and that nightmare now has more experience being a dad boss, so if one of the other nightmares from the multiverse said they were thinking of getting henchmen but didn't know what to expect, what kind of advice do you think he would give them?

Ha! You were likely expecting a quick and easy answer! Well no luck. I just thought this over and considered the situation this would occur. So you get you answer in a short fic! (With another Noot to boot! Try not to read the tags and guess who he is.)

—-

Another useless meeting. He should have left instead of standing in the back, arms folded, wanting to go home. Perhaps it was just seeing how others were and comparing how different he was that kept him in place. That, and he dragged a Nightmare he had gotten to know along with him.

Still, he tried to listen to the one who called the meeting prattle on and on about the need to rule his multiverse—a genuinely foolish notion.

“That is someone who likes to hear himself speak,” He mumbled to his friend. Were they friends? Is it possible for a Nightmare to make friends with another Nightmare?

“Thanks for bringing me along,” his friend replied. “I now know how glad I should be that I missed all this.”

Rolling his eyelight, Nightmare chuckled, “It is hit and miss for these. We can ditch in a bit. Call me nosy, but I am curious about how a few I remember and do not like are doing.”

“Need your gossip?” His friend asked with a smirk.

“Please, gossiping is infantile. This is silent gloating over the misfortunes of those I despise,” Nightmare grinned. He then looked over the crowd, chuckling to himself now and then when he noticed certain Nightmares that angered him were not doing as well as when he last saw them.

“What’s so funny?” His friend asked.

“If I tell you, then it is gossiping. Get your own enemies to silently gloat over,” Nightmare replied with a smirk.

They were about ready to leave when another moved closer to him. He remembered seeing this one before. If memory served him correctly, this one was from a younger multiverse. He was shorter and more slight in build.

“Were you listening?” The new one whispered to him.

“There is nothing to listen to other than mad ravings,” Nightmare whispered back, which got a chuckle from his friend.

“May I ask you something?” The new one asked.

“You just did,” his friend joked back.

The new one huffed a sigh, and Nightmare chuckled. “Come on, let’s step away from this lunacy and chat.”

The three walked a distance off, far away enough that the longwinded speech of one who called this meeting was nothing but a dull hum in the background. Nightmare looked at this other who looked younger than himself and his friend. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask?”

“Well, I… I remembered how healthy and… mentally stable your subordinate was, and I would like to take one in. Compared to many of the others here, you seemed like a good option to turn to,” The new one said.

Did this young Nightmare just call Killer mentally stable?

“I think he’s asking you for your fathering tips,” his “friend” said with a grin.

Nightmare shot him a glare then looked back at the other Nightmare. He could easily threaten and scare off this smaller and clearly younger version of himself from some small, developing multiverse. And perhaps some others would for bothering them with such matters. But no… this one ne was interested in learning and Nightmare could not push away that desire. Besides, if it meant alternate versions of his boys won’t suffer cruety, he will despense what he knows.

“I see… well, know that your subordinates will need you to provide them with direction after missions as well as during them. Most of my Killer’s distructive behaviors could be attributed to me thinking that he could simply entertain himself quietly. Some can, and some can not. Even Dust does better with metal stimulation and encouragement to participate in activities instead of sitting and wallowing in negative thoughts,” Nightmare said then folded his arms. “These were things I figured out later. Also, be alert to your subordinates wants now and then. Killer, for example, deveopled a some jelousy because he noticed the others getting things. Because he never asked I did not question his wants. Just ask every now and then. Some may feel they have done enough wrong that they don’t deserve to ask and only take what they get. So watch for that.”

“Huh, that’s two with Killer,” His friend mused.

“Yes, well, with him being my first subordinate, I did make a few mistakes with tending him. For example, monitoring what he ate and wellbeing. He was eating, but mostly junk food. The type of mortals we tend to take in are emotionally damaged, and those who are that way do not always tend to their own needs well. They may seem fine, but that is an act. A front to make it seem like they are coping when they are not,” Nightmare explained. Wanting to drive this home, he reiterated what he was getting at. “Pay attention to their mental needs, emotional needs, and the occational wants.”

“If you do that, you won’t be like this guy, who felt so bad about how he neglected Killer that he let his castle get over run by cats,” his friend chuckled.

“It is not over run… but there are too many,” Nightmare sighed then grinned at his friend, “perhaps it is time for your tiny brother to come visit again to make more feline friends.”

“No,” His friend stated flately

“Thank you…” The younger Nightmare said thoughtfully, despite the jesting among the older two Nightmares.

“We are about to head out, I suggest you do too. Meetings like this are only trouble, alright?” Nightmare said to the younger who nodded.

“I will,” He replied.

Nightmare watched as the younger formed his portal and left. He then formed one of his own and the two left.

---

How forgetful of me, I completely forgot to add that the other Nightmare (the friend) was the Nightmare from One Small Dream. That fic is by @calcium-cat

I do believe I have raved about this fic before, but just in case you STILL haven't read it, PLEASE do. Also, TY to Calluna (Calcium-cat) for reviewing this to make sure I did write her Nightmare correctly.

I will forgive myself this slight as when I posted this, I was on break at work and just couldn't wait to get home to post. So, I was rushing.

[lttleghost]

The Thematic Relevance of Jesse Pinkman as an Egg 🏳️‍⚧️

(I wrote this analysis awhile back and wanted to make a fresh post to update it!)

While not intentional, there is a lot in Breaking Bad that supports reading Jesse as an egg. This reading of Jesse has a lot of thematic and narrative relevance and also doesn't create any conflicts with the canon material. Jesse being someone who hasn’t realized he’s not actually a man yet could quite literally be canon.

This analysis is heavily based around parallels between Jesse’s character development and what Breaking Bad thematically associates with gender. It’s also heavily interconnected with the show's overarching theme of change, and also, at least for our two main characters of Walt and Jesse, the revealing of true self. There’s plenty of evidence that each of them already had the traits we see them with at the end of Breaking Bad. Jesse being this very kind and compassionate young adult and Walt being this egotistical monster.

But I would consider Walt's self-deception to be more shallow than Jesse’s self deception. While Walt did end up in a lifestyle that was opposed to who he truly was, he consciously knew what he wanted to some extent, whereas Jesse fully convinced himself that he was a different person than the one he truly is because he never really got the chance to actually figure out much about himself. 

There are a lot of examples of Jesse’s disconnected sense of self throughout the show, but the first one that comes to mind has to do with his superhero OCs-

EDIT: YO! if you find video essays more engaging than reading a bunch of text, this analysis now also comes in video form [link]

I think that Jane’s observation that all of them looked like Jesse was, in fact, correct. I wouldn’t consider him doing this as a conscious decision but I feel that he almost admits it. After initially denying that his OCs looked like him and after Jane affectionately teases him he ends up saying to her “like you never wanted a superpower.” And while you could interpret this as just a response to her teasing, I’m convinced that there’s an additional layer to it. Especially because when Jane leaves to check the door, there's a moment where Jesse looks at the sketchbook with his drawings and it seems like he’s considering something, and I’d bet you anything that what he’s thinking about is whether or not he had actually drawn himself and this is REALLY interesting since-

Jesse is a criminal right? And while superheroes themselves are technically criminals as well, as vigilante justice isn’t actually legal, they’re still typically known to be ‘crime fighters’, and Jesse describes his characters as being such. So with his OCs subconsciously being depictions of himself and them being superheroes (crime fighters) and his current life as a criminal, you get the image of someone who doesn’t know who he is or what he wants deep down. 

There’s no way that Jesse’s current delinquent lifestyle was his truly… preferred path. It’s much more likely it was the only thing he thought he could do successfully. It’s evidently been the one thing he’s made a decent living off of. He has no support from his parents, and doesn’t seem like he has had it since he was a highschooler. Jesse is shown to have no support outside of the drug trade. Most of his personal skills and interests are artistic or honestly domestic in a world that assigns more value to academics and he’s a highschool graduate who doesn’t have any job experience. 

I also believe Jesse is very aggressively ADHD coded, and the combination of having virtually no support, struggling with addiction, and having undiagnosed and improperly self medicated ADHD would make slogging through any “respectable” job that he has access to, or any job that his parents might encourage him to do, unbearable.

So the drug trade was his best bet, Jesse even views cooking meth as a form of art, something that he’s passionate about.

I can’t in good faith ignore that doing something that is... generally frowned upon, didn’t factor into what Jesse chose to do on some level, as society and the structures that it’s built on failed him and there’s an inherent sense of rebellion that often forms in a person when they’re failed like that. Granted, superheroes also tend to often contain some commentary on societies failings as well. Jesse just couldn’t actually be a real-life superhero. So with the few benefits it had in practice compared to any other job, Jesse played into the rest of the role of a criminal, and convinced himself that the aspects of it that conflicted with his personality... didn’t, probably without even noticing.

Even more to this disconnect; When Jane asks “and that’s a superpower?” in response to Jesse explaining Backwardo’s powers Jesse responds with “come on, I was a kid when I drew these, it was like four years ago.” And Jesse is 24 years old in that scene, meaning that he would’ve been 20 when he drew these characters, and when I first wrote this analysis I was wondering whether or not Jesse had gotten involved with the drug trade other than buying drugs by that time, but there wasn’t really anything I could confirm any theories with. 

But now I've got the Better Call Saul episode “Waterworks” where Jesse has his second cameo, where he is in fact, 20, and in that cameo Jesse accompanying Emilio, a person we know is his partner in cooking meth, to Saul’s office makes me certain he’s in it by that point. And I just have to wonder if Jesse’s superheroes were almost a… subconscious vent, a manifestation of how being a criminal in the specific way Jesse is, is not what he wants. Something that suggests that Jesse’s actual identity and his current view of his identity don’t line up.

Another thing to point out about the cameo that could be seen as additional evidence of Jesse’s discomfort with being more than just a customer of the drug trade is that he was hanging out outside of Saul’s office, and until Kim gave him one he didn't have a cigarette, so he wasn’t out there to smoke. And while there could be other explanations to why he was outside on his own, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say, other than just his general skepticism of Saul, he was just not particularly jazzed to be where he was at that moment and not comfortable going inside.

So relating all of this to gender; that narrative of convincing yourself that you are the person that you’re supposed to be for your best chance of survival instead of being able to truly be yourself already works pretty strongly as an allegory for being trans. But to add onto that even more, thematically Breaking Bad associates “manhood” with the drug trade in one way or another, and paralleling how Jesse realizes he doesn’t fit into the drug trade like he thought he did with how he might not be a cis man like he thought he was makes for a really solid queer reading.

The whole show is pretty explicitly about toxic masculinity. Obviously in real life masculinity and manhood do not have to be toxic, and in Breaking Bad’s original intended story Jesse is a cis man who ends up not fitting into those toxic ideas of manhood. 

Things that the rest of the male cast don’t blink at or at least have more mild reactions to, just tear Jesse apart. He’s also targeted at least a couple of times for having emotional vulnerability that is considered to be “not manly”. It’s much easier to point out the differences between him and the male cast than it is to point out similarities between them and this just gets more pronounced the longer the show goes on. He doesn’t really have any positive ties to being a man and I don’t think we can say we ever see Jesse actually reclaim his own sense of manhood. And I think that lack of reclamation gives even more legitimacy to the reading that, along with leaving the drug trade and all of its toxic masculinity bullshit behind, maybe Jesse just leaves behind being a man altogether, and maybe it was something that wasn’t really ever a true part of him, just like his life as a criminal.

Even at the start of the series Jesse’s attempts at hyper-masculinity come off as really goofy and performative. In episode one  Krazy-8 mentions that Emilio thinks that Jesse might’ve ratted on him Jesse first has a much more genuine response of “that’s bullshit” which makes sense with his strong character trait of being loyal, but then he goes to say “I should kick his punk ass for even thinking that.” and it just sounds like fake bravado to me. There’s no way Jesse actually thinks he stands a chance against Emilio since Jesse has a body type that resembles a small bird and there's no way he has that little self awareness. He's just playing out a script that wasnt even well thought through, and while some of his other performances of masculinity don’t come across as that fake, there aren’t many that feel like they actually come from Jesse himself, they just feel like something that he just thinks he should do.

And while not every experience with men Jesse has is negative, there always seems to be some distance between him and the men he does have good relationships with. Jesse forms a parent-child type relationship with Mike that is healthier than any other he’s had up to that point other than probably his aunt, but there’s a part of Jesse that Mike never seems to fully get. When Jesse doesn’t want Lydia to be killed Mike says that 'this woman deserves to die as much as any man' and I think he misses that Jesse just still isn’t that keen on killing people even with everything he’s gotten involved with. Even if there are some acts of violence and even some people’s deaths he is fine with and thinks are justified, Jesse never fully adapts to “the job” the way Mike does, and Mike is just not quite able to understand that, or at least not why.

Jesse and his friends have a distance between them as well. Though they’re arguably not as entrenched in toxic masculinity as any of the other prominent men in the show are, and aren’t nearly as involved in the violence of dealing drugs despite being in the trade. Yet still Jesse’s interactions with them most of the time feel different and more withdrawn than their interactions with each other. Like Jesse really wants their presence and company and wants to fit in but there ends up being something that he can’t connect with alongside them, and this also gets more prominent as the show progresses. There’s parts where Jesse seems to be withholding how badly his “high rank” in the drug trade is affecting him when Pete and Badger seem to sort of idolize him for it and want in on it. I think Jesse sort of considers saying something to them about it, but he hesitates and doesn’t. He repeatedly doesn’t confide in them even though, while his friends do perform some facets of hyper-masculinity, they don’t really seem to target or reject vulnerability in the way most of the other men in Breaking Bad do. And Jesse’s distance from even the more harmless side of the male cast makes it feel like it’s not just the toxic masculinity that he’s disconnected from.

Jesse’s relationships with women even further separate him from the men of the show. His romantic relationships with Jane and Andrea read much more as relationships between equals, compared to Walt and Skyler or Hank and Marie. While Jesse does throw the “nice job wearing the pants in the family” insult at Walt in episode two of the first season, after Skyler almost caught him moving Emilio’s body, in Jesse’s own relationships he never actually tries to take control and doesn’t have any problem with Jane honestly being the person making more active choices for the both of them in their relationship, which Walt comments on by throwing that same “nice job wearing the pants” insult back at Jesse.

Another interesting thing found within Jesse’s relationship with Jane that ties them to specific gender roles happens after Jane doesn’t really introduce him to her father. Jesse asks about it and after a bit this Jane ends up saying “What am I supposed to say? Hey dad, meet the stoner guy who lives next door and by the way I’m sleeping with him?” and Jesse replies “Is that all you think you’re doing?”

It’s been pretty common for “the guy” to be considered as the one who sees a relationship as just being sex and “the girl” to see it as being romantic, and this is a very very dumb aspect of traditional western gender roles that this scene even has to subvert, but I think in the context of Breaking Bad’s dealings with gender roles the fact that Jesse is put in the role much more typically associated with women could be viewed as significant. And this significance can be extended to the show’s most prominent dynamic, dealing with the relationship between abusive men and women, Jesse is a victim. I’m not implying men can’t be victims of other men's abuse, but it does make Jesse easier to associate with women in the story, and while the narrative association comes from a negative place, the negativity is directed towards men. But the connection it forms between Jesse and women is a sense of camaraderie and even comfort, at least on Jesse’s side.

and with those connections with women I’d say the most accurate egg interpretation of Jesse is that she’s specifically transfeminine in some way.

I think in this analysis its important to specifically examine Jesse's journey with gender questioning as I think it follows the rest of the ups and downs in her learning more about herself in the resr of her character arc. My personal interpretation of Jesse is that she is a non medically transitioning nonbinary transfem person. The not medically transitioning bit is largely because I enjoy bringing attention to the existence of no-med no-op trans people and to push the point that not seeking medical transition doesnt make a person any less trans, though I do feel that since Jesse's relationship with gender is focused on the societal side of gender roles that don't really relate to physical form that it's a reasonable interpretation that she may not medically transition. I think she uses he/him and she/her pronouns, and is maybe a futch lesbian. I’m saying all of this because it'll be the lens through which I’ll be talking about Jesse’s journey with questioning his gender and how that progresses during the timeline of Breaking Bad. However I don’t claim this to be the only version of transfem Jesse that works with my analysis, or that it's necessarily better than any others that do work. I’ll also be mentioning concepts of “offscreen” additional scenes. That being said, if you’re someone who likes to stick 100% to the text given to us, the “offscreen” scenes aren’t exactly necessary for this interpretation to work as a part of the existing story as the general emotions behind them still stand.

I don’t picture Jesse as having any definable Gender (™) experiences when he was younger other than just a general sense of not belonging, though gender wouldn’t be the only thing playing into that. But as Jesse got older and struggled more, he started to purposefully play the part of what he saw as “a man” to survive in the only role that he thought he could. I see the thought “I wish I didn’t have to be a man” crossing his mind every so often though. I think he just deals with his place in the world for awhile, but after Walt enters the scene and Jesse experiences shit he really didn’t bargain for because of his old teacher, someone who is settling into a personification of toxic masculinity, Jesse’s frustration with being a man becomes more prominent and harder to ignore internally. 

In my opinion Jane is the person that helped him start to solidify what exactly those thoughts were indicating. Her approach to relationships would be considered not traditionally cishet, and so is the way she presents herself in general, so I think Jane has some sort of knowledge about the complexities of gender, if she isn't actually queer herself in some way.

And she’s one of the only people we see Jesse truly, truly open up to and so I think at some point later in their relationship Jesse might actually say something about wishing she wasn’t a man around Jane, and I can see Jane saying that Jesse doesn't have to be a man if she doesn't want to be.

But then Jane dies, and I think as a result of that and the lesson Jesse learned from rehab “I’m the bad guy” he goes into just total repression mode. Embodying this new belief Jesse very much dips into the hyper-masculine behavior of the drug trade, he is much more concerned with money beyond paying bills and having nice things, and he plans to do the one thing in the entire show that makes me truly angry at him because of this whole thing, attempting to sell drugs to the rehab group. I don’t think he would’ve ever thought of doing something like that before. He’s trying very hard to be something that’s even further from his actual nature than we’ve seen up until this point.

Part of Jesse’s grief over losing Jane, a person who he confided in probably more than anyone else at that point, was to just completely close up, even to himself. Forget all of those parts of himself that resisted the rougher aspects of the drug trade he was getting dragged into and definitely forget about wondering if he really is a man or not.

At least until meeting Andrea and Brock, which snaps him out of that “I’m the bad guy” mindset, but by that time I think just, too much starts to happen for Jesse to have much time to question her gender. I wouldn’t consider her to be as actively repressing any sort of “I wish I wasn’t a man” thoughts but the amount of turmoil and danger that she’s in, just really really doesn’t lend itself to that sort of gender introspection as much. 

I’ve got some additional thoughts on Jesse’s journey with gender that are more headcanons than actual analysis of the show so I didn’t include them in the text above. But I still really wanted to share because I like them and think that they really add to the analysis, so here they are;

I mentioned that I don’t think that Jesse had any particularly notable moments that might’ve suggested that she was trans when she was younger other than feeling out of place, but maybe he did have some interest in playing with “girls stuff” and her parents discouraged it because as we know they’re the shitty type of people who value their child being “normal” at the price of that child’s happiness, but I can also see her being one of those kids who just didn’t even grasp the differences between boys and girls stuff for a longer time than others, or I can even see Jesse’s last connection to the "male" side of gender being from when she was a little boy, before he was aware of the concept of what being a man was, and that it would be expected of her.

But later, in his adulthood, after the idea and pressures of "manhood" became very present in his life, one of the more certain instances of gender questioning I picture Jesse having is at some point while hanging out with Badger, Pete and Combo, Jesse screws around and puts on a dress. And he's like “haha I look like such a queer don’t I?” but is internally thinking something more along the lines of “ I will die before I tell anyone how this makes me feel” (that being that it makes him feel happy). 

And then, as we enter into the timeline of the show itself; when Jane first tells Jesse that he doesn’t have to be a man if he doesn’t want to, I don’t actually think that Jesse would be receptive of it at first. I think it’s more likely that he’d decide he suddenly doesn’t want to have this discussion anymore and change the subject. Jesse would still have the misconception that you need to medically transition or at least be required to fit some sort of ‘criteria’ to be trans, instead of just identifying as a different gender than your assigned sex, and I think that would play some role in his not wanting to talk about possibly being trans. And even more because, while he could opt out of telling anyone that he’s trans, Jesse’s in a world in general that isn’t trans-friendly, but the drug trade he’s in specifically is very lgbtq-phobic. Jesse himself is definitely gonna have some internalized transphobia, we’ve seen his homophobia, and I definitely read that as a result of his environment rather than actual hatred considering at Jesse’s true core he’s a pretty caring person. But there are definitely people in the drug trade who would be violently homophobic and transphobic, and Jesse would know that, and would probably perceive even realizing that he is trans to be a threat to his safety. But, later on, further into her relationship with Jane I think she’d open up, even if only to Jane.

And that’s what I like to focus on the most with this analysis, all of the happiness and freedom and healing that Jesse gets to feel detaching himself from manhood, something that honestly contributed so much to every part of his suffering. And god does this girl deserve some happiness.

Then when for the most part too much is going on for Jesse to consider whether or not he’s trans, I still sometimes think of a situation where Jesse might’ve suggested? Her gender questioning to Mike, and while I don’t think Mike’s personal reaction would be technically negative, I think he’d tell Jesse to ‘please not share that with anyone else kid’. Which would be discouraging to Jesse, and she’d quickly backtrack, some because of the reaction on its own but also because he really already knows that it’d be stupid to say anything to anyone else, but it’s not until Jesse’s really free from the drug trade that she can finally crack that egg. I really like to think about the comfort and relief Jesse would get to feel no longer having to try and be a man, cause she finally realizes that she isn’t one.

[beeanca-writing]

That other anon was being an asshole, but I am curious about what you had planned for EfC? Not gonna lie, I'll miss the cast—would be nice to know what happens to who!

I'm still unsure what I'll do with EfC. I might come back to it once this current period of my life is over, though it'd likely be very different. First of all, it'd be a shorter story. I'd either get rid of some of the ROs, or find some way to better integrate them into the narrative (compare Harry, who you can have this huge, important backstory with vs Val, whom I love but is also just some guy, I guess?). It'd also probably be more focused on romance since that's usually what interests me the most in IF anyway.

I also might scrap a lot of it and stick to the storylines that interest me the most—mainly the Harry stuff. A shorter game dealing with The Hedonist returning to Court and having to face Harry sounds really fun to write, and it'd be a lot less complex to plan than this whole mess. Also, Harry is definitely a more developed character than some of the other ROs. For example, I love Camila to death, but she doesn't have much significance in the story other than "The Hedonist's friend" and I was never able to find her some meaning.

I'd also make The Hedonist even more of a fixed character by getting rid of all personality stats and focusing solely on their actions instead of worrying about personality. The stats were all carried over from CoG, and it's never been something I enjoy in their brand of IF. I was going to do this anyway when I first transferred the game to Twine, but stupidly asked Tumblr what they thought and, since most people preferred keeping the stats, I did that even though I didn't really want to.

As for to what would happen to the cast... In case I do come back to EfC, I don't think this would change much, so I'll put it into a read more in case someone doesn't want to know. If anyone has any more questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Grandma would die. Sorry!

Also, Cordelia was The Hedonist's twin who drowned in front of them, but that was a bit obvious, wasn't it? I'd definitely remove that from any rewrites, it's so unnecessary and cliché.

Henry would divorce Elizabeth to be with Nicholas. The Hedonist could either support him on this or not.

Due to the divorce, the rest of the family would be disgraced in Court. Evie's reputation is a little less affected if she's still with Harry.

As I mentioned in the past, The Hedonist can choose whether to stay in Court or not at the end.

The Hedonist and Evie can repair their relationship or not. Evie eventually makes an effort to become friends with The Hedonist, and you could choose whether to play nice or not. If The Hedonist romances Harry and you manage to have a good relationship, she forgives you, but asks for some time away from both The Hedonist and Harry.

I didn't really plan Camila's character arc well. She becomes a Republican rebel and can either still be friends with The Hedonist or have distanced herself a bit if they continue to be an asshole.

Sabina can choose to no longer be a nun if encouraged either by a friend or romanced Hedonist. If you romanced her but didn't encourage her to leave the convent, she dumps you. (Note: You later find out she was forced to become a nun by her family.)

Similarly to Sabina, Narcissa can choose to break things off with the Emperor if, again, encouraged either by a friend or romanced Hedonist.

Calvin's ending is the wildest one, actually. He finds out he's a father after the boy's mother passes away. The Hedonist can either tell him to abandon the boy or tell him to raise him (if Calvin is romanced, they kind of become a step parent).

Val can be encouraged to start studying to become a librarian. Also, his whole thing is that his father is the Emperor lol

Lastly, horse boy Harry will want to divorce Evie if romanced and marry The Hedonist instead. If you refuse to marry him, he divorces her anyway but doesn't stay with The Hedonist. A friend!Harry stays with Evie, I think? I don't know.

[she-is-ovarit]

Detransitioner news

I have been thinking about detransitioners lately and wanted to compile articles I have been seeing. This will be a longer post and reblogged for part II as I hope to copy and paste brief portions of the articles under each headline.

Law firm for detransitioners opens in Dallas

In all of the controversy around gender transition, there is one group that is persistently marginalized by both the right and left. They are known as detransitioners — people who decide that they want to return to their birth gender, often after receiving years of interventional care, including surgery, to treat their gender dysphoria. Now, the nation’s first law firm focused solely on representing these patients — many of whom feel abused by a medical system that encouraged their treatment — has opened its doors in Dallas. It could forever change how hospitals and doctors approach what’s known as gender-affirming care.

Archive link

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination. The case underscores an important clinical reality: gender dysphoria has multiple developmental pathways, and many who experience it will turn out to be gay. Even the Endocrine Society concedes that many of the youth who outgrow their dysphoria by adolescence later identify as gay or bisexual. Decades of research confirm as much. Gender clinicians in the U.K. used to have a “dark joke . . . that there would be no gay people left at the rate [the Gender Identity Development Service] was going,” former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes reported. Rather than help young gay people to accept their bodies and their sexuality, what if “gender-affirming” clinicians are putting them on a pathway to irreversible harm?

Due partly to Shape’s lifelong difficulty in accepting himself as gay, his lawyers are not taking the usual approach to detransition litigation. Rather than state a straightforward claim of medical malpractice or fraud, they allege that Fenway Health has violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “discrimination because of . . . sex” includes discrimination based on homosexuality. Citing this and other precedents, Shape’s lawyers argue that federal law affords distinct protections to gay men and lesbians—upon which clinics that operate with a transgender bias are trampling. Shape grew up in a Muslim country in Eastern Europe that he describes in an interview as “very traditional” and “homophobic.” His parents disapproved of his effeminate demeanor and interests as a child. They wouldn’t let him play with dolls, and his mother, he says, made him do stretches so that he would grow taller and appear more masculine. At 11, Shape had his first of several sexual encounters with older men. “I was definitely groomed,” he recounts. Shape proceeded to develop a pattern of risky sexual behavior, according to his legal complaint. He told his medical team at Fenway Health about his childhood sexual experiences, calling them “consensual.” The Fenway providers never challenged him on this interpretation, he alleges. They never suggested that he might have experienced sexual trauma or, say, explored how these events might have shaped his feelings of dissociation. (The irony is that Fenway Health describes its model of care as “trauma-informed.”)

Archive link

Ontario detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors

An Ontario detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners for failing to consider other treatments during her mental health crisis before ushering her on an irreversible journey she regrets. Michelle Zacchigna, 34, of Orillia, Ont., north of Toronto, names eight health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, a psychotherapist and a counsellor in a lawsuit filed in Ottawa. None of the defendants, who work or worked at various clinics and institutions in southern Ontario, responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit prior to deadline. Four of the defendants have filed notices of intent to defend against the suit in Ontario Superior Court, but no statements of defense have been filed. None of the claims have been tested in court. Zacchigna said she faces an uphill battle in her lawsuit. “I’ve been under the impression that all medical malpractice suits are challenging. Doctors win the majority of cases in Canada,” she told National Post. “It’s very much a David vs. Goliath undertaking.” In her statement of claim filed in court in November, Zacchigna says she had difficulty forming relationships with classmates in elementary school and was often bullied. By the time she was 11, she engaged in self-harming behaviour, including cutting her arm with a knife. This continued into early adulthood. When she was 20, she tried to kill herself and she was referred by her family doctor for psychotherapy, where she was treated for social anxiety and clinical depression. She remained unhappy and depressed, and her mental health decline led to her dropping out of university, according to her claim. About a year into therapy, she engaged with an online community around gender nonconformity. “Michelle came to believe that her biological sex of female did not match her true gender identity of male,” her claim says. “She further came to believe that this mismatch between her biological sex and gender identity was causing her feelings of depression, self-harming behaviour and unease in her body, a mental health condition commonly known as gender dysphoria,” her claim states. This was the first time Zacchigna felt she was born in the wrong body, and she had not previously identified as male, her claim says. “However, as a result of what she read on the internet, she became convinced that she was a transgender man, and that once she embraced this new identity, her depression would subside.” Zacchigna started attending a support group in Toronto for people considering gender transition. A counsellor there told her of opportunities to proceed through a medical transition, her claim says. Zacchigna was invited to apply for medical intervention in 2010. The counsellor wrote a recommendation letter outlining a medical history that didn’t fully match her real past, the claim says. The counsellor didn’t recommend any alternatives, or seek confirmation of Zacchigna’s own diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Her regular therapist also wrote a recommendation for transition treatment, saying Zacchigna was an “ideal candidate for hormone therapy,” even though the therapist had no previous transgender clients, according to the claim.

Part II incoming.

[nothorses]

follow up question because of your addition to that one post advocating SEL:

Do you know where parents and teachers can find resources to teach themselves how to better implement SEL in their homes and communities? Especially for people who don't have this kind of learning in their school system nor as a part of their own upbringing, I think this is something that's very valuable that people might still want to being into their lives, especially in underfunded red states which choose to politicize it and might never have this included within the official school curriculum.

(It also couples well with lessons I've seen students pick up in the after school martial arts program I teach, but I don't think we as a school have actually pursued this kind of learning with clear intentionality so much as the traditions and culture of this specific school defacto enforces social learning and a collectivist mindset. I would love to be more intentional about it.)

I think it really depends on your context!

I'm not an expert in SEL curriculum by any means, and really, my understanding of it is just that it's a model for teaching kids important social/emotional skills that we've previously expected them to be learning anyway- but that we've found is actually really inconsistent, with inconsistent-at-best results without more focus and thought put into a plan.

SEL curriculum is, ime, designed to help name and focus on key skills and values, and then teach them consistently across as broad an area as possible. With that in mind, my recommendation for trying to implement it on a personal/individual level (as opposed to a district/school level) is to read through the resources that already exist, identify the pieces that you can use in your context, identify the pieces you can use if you modify them, and go from there. Having an understanding of what those pieces are trying to accomplish is important, so you can make sure that what you're using and how you're using it makes sense.

The link I shared in that post is to CASEL, which is an organization that specializes in implementing SEL curriculum from the classroom level, to the state policy level. They have resources for folks who want to champion the implementation of SEL in their local schools, and for implementing SEL themselves at various levels, including their own classrooms.

I really encourage you to read through some of those! They might not apply directly, but in all likelihood you'll find things that apply more to a community in a broad sense than a school specifically, or practices designed for classrooms that will work in contexts like after school martial arts.

SEL is more effective when it's implemented on larger scales, but it's definitely worth doing on a smaller scale if you can't, and it's great that you're interested in trying! And if the online resources aren't enough for you, you might consider professional development (if you're an educator; even subs are often comped by the school/district for professional development) or researching and reaching out to SEL experts who can help you learn more, and tailor their advice to your specific context.

Good luck!!

[dark-side-blog3]

Screaming and crying wdym there’s no other platonic yandere ciel on ao3

I love yan kiddos in general!! I’m so sad there’s not more platonic yandere in the world. Give me yanderes that want to be your brother or your best friend >:( yans that want YOU to be their daddy/mommy and take care of them (and they will throw SUCH a tantrum if you don’t)

Ciel specifically appeals to me a lot because he’s old enough to be aware that what he’s doing isn’t morally correct, but also not old enough to actually care. He’s selfish like that but he thinks it’s deserved since he’s gone through so much.

I can’t say I’d mind too much. At first anyway. I’m sure it’d be nice for the first few months, but it’s when he starts getting pushy that it becomes a problem.

I lowkey loved how ciel passed off punishment to Sebastian in your fic and it’s so ic for him bc he prefers to be disconnected from the bits he doesn’t like. He wants a parent and you’re going to play the role or else.

Speaking of, you’re only one person. Do you think he’d try to find a romantic partner for you? Someone to complete his little nuclear family fantasy.

Someone that doesn’t particularly care about your predicament and maybe even prefers it because despite everything you still love ciel and would do anything for him, and if a second parent is what makes him happy, then at least it keeps Sebastian off your back for a while

Anyway this is getting long and rambly I’m going to cut myself off here

-Jojo

Ah, Jojo, you know the way to my heart~! I'm ecstatic that you have such an interest in this fic!

I doubt that Ciel would actively look for a partner for his parent. At least, not to fulfill a nuclear family fantasy. Ciel is too selfish to share his fantasy with more than one liability-- it's not like you want to be here, that much is clear. But managing a second one and having to make sure your relationship is working is too hard for Ciel to actually manage, considering he's a 13-year-old boy who could not care less about romance.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

You don't like the partner Ciel chooses for you, and he gets pouty and petty because you're "ruining the fantasy". Sure many noble families only tolerate each other, but you are supposed to be better than that. You're supposed to be like Ciel's real parents, and his parents loved each other. And you're not doing it right.

And if you do like the partner Ciel chooses for you, then Ciel gets jealous because you like them more than you'll ever like him, don't you? It doesn't matter that it's a different type of love, what matters is you look at them with affection and joy, and you only ever look at Ciel with barely masked contempt for kidnapping you and using his demon to keep you imprisoned.

I don't doubt Sebastian will encourage Ciel to try at least once, but it never ends up well. You might develop a theory that the real reason Sebastian even suggests getting you a partner is so he has a reason to punish someone at Ciel's command.

[rinny-rae]

I am obsessed with Gortash's psychological/emotional development throughout his life so uh yea, here's a writeup no one asked for

Part 1 - pre HoH

Early Childhood (toddler to 8 yo)

Family life

As a little kid he started out affectionate, cuddly & eager to please as most kids are.

His parents were cold toward him and would snap at him for seeking physical comfort and doing normal kid things. They were overly critical and harsh in correcting his "bad" behaviors. They weren't outright abusive as in they didn't beat/berate him for it's own sake. However, they didn't want or like children in general. Their marriage was that of convenience and their parenthood was an obligation. They were authoritarian - dismissive at best, outright hostile at worst when he voiced his ideas and opinions. This caused him to become increasingly quiet and awkward around other people since it didn't exactly nurture healthy self esteem.

Gortash was a precocious, curious kid. His parents, of course, didn't appreciate or encourage his budding intellect. They took his cleverness as an affront and outright disrespect. As he got a older, he learned to suppress his affectionate nature & withdrew into his "hobbies". This furthered the emotional disconnect between him and his parents as now they began to see him as sullen, defiant and, eventually, hateful.

Hobbies

These were twofold & fed into one another.

He learned that he didn't enjoy spending time around his parents and turned avoiding them and his household responsibilities into a game. He got quite good at sneaking away and hiding.

Since his parents had such disproportionately negative reactions to the smallest transgressions, he also learned to lie. At first he lied in a genuine effort to avoid punishment but eventually started to have fun with it and push things further to see how much he could get away with.

He spent most of his free time exploring the world around him. His interest in how things work is apparent even this early in life. He didn't have access to a formal education or many resources. It would be cute if he had some mentor adult in his life that taught him & showed him sciency stuff but that's more of a writing prompt than headcannon.

He delighted in taking things apart to see how they worked. That, of course, translated to some rather morbid pursuits. Let's just say he played with a lot of insects and small animals and leave it at that.

Initially he didn't understand that he was hurting living beings but as he got older, he began to find his acts of cruelty cathartic. He also began to savor the power he held over his play things and used it to feign a semblance of control over his own unstable life.

Friendships

I'd love to hear what others have to say about this cause my own ideas are all over the place.

My first instinct is to say he had no close friends his own age. Lower city had no formal daycare/kindergartens/schools afaik so he wouldn't be in any environment with a bunch of other children. Instead, he would interact with whoever was in the vicinity of the family's shop. That would have exposed him to kids all different ages. Also, I think he was shy and awkward which didn't lend itself to making friends easily.

Did he get bullied by older children? Did he meet durge and/or tav when both of them were young? Did he get in a lot of fights? Did he have adults that took care of him and mentored him? So many wonderful possibilities.

[sophieinwonderland]

do you have any tips on writing a plural kid character?

Ghost: I'm taking this one.

I'll assume that you mean kid-bodied rather than writing littles.

The first thing you want to do is learn how to write good children.

The second thing is to learn a bit about child psychology. Not every kid is the same and different ages will act differently. A good place to start is Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development.

Sprouts is a fantastic Youtube channel with tons of informative videos on psychology, especially child psychology, that break things down simply for audiences.

I couldn't recommend it enough as a starting place for research into writing children if you want to go a realistic route.

Or, you know... want to be a parent. But who wants to do that?

Now, after you've researched some child psychology and gotten advice on writing child characters in general, we can talk about plural children.

Their Plurality Will Probably Seem Normal

The main thing you need to keep in mind is that children aren't overly introspective creatures. They're incredibly intelligent and quick learners, but they tend to assume everybody thinks the same way they do.

A plural child won't usually realize they're plural.

From their perspective, it will be normal to have "imaginary friends" they talk to. It may seem normal to have selves they speak to in their heads. After all, everyone talks to themselves. And cartoons like Inside Out show them that it's normal to have emotions that are personified. (It's not, but a child will believe it is.)

And adults will probably think the same. Even witnessing a switch will be brushed off as the kid playing pretend because that's a thing normal children do.

An imaginary friend approach has a lot of potential for creating conflict. Young kids may not embarrass as easily. Shame typically really starts developing later. They may talk about their "imaginary friends" to other people. My mom as a kid told me how she used to play with her imaginary friends with her physical friends at the same time. (She also called them "invisible friends" instead of imaginary. She didn't like calling them imaginary and thought it would offend them.)

Supportive parents or role models might speak to imaginary friends to support the child, not realizing they're headmates. Others in the family could see this as harmful or encouraging delusions, and criticize them. Friends might play with them. Bullies could make fun of the host child for having imaginary friends, making the host child feel ashamed of them for the first time.

Play with how everyone reacts to them child's plurality. Keep the reactions different to keep the character dynamics interesting.

With negative reactions, the host child might be pushed into feeling like they're too old for imaginary friends and need to move on. This can lead to conflict between them and their headmates.

Or in a slight twist, an "imaginary friend" believes the child is too old for them and that it's time to leave while the host child urges them to stay.

One thing the video on Piaget's theory mentions is how young children might see everything as being alive and personified. It stands to reason that some headmates could be interpreted as the thoughts of other things. Maybe the child's headmates are perceived through the lens of talking toys or other personified objects.

Only when they're older would they realize that they might have been wrong. That things they thought were normal as a child aren't things everybody goes through.

Self-Discovery Should Be A Central Theme

The realization that they're different from other people as their cognition expands and they become more introspective can be a major catalyst for your characters' growth.

In most stories with children, self-discovery is a huge part of the characters' journeys. This is because children are in a state of constant growth and change.

Plural characters are no different. Most plural children will have lived a life thinking that their headmates were normal. The realization that they're different can be a huge revelation that drives the story.

And this isn't just true of the host. The other headmates who might have always viewed themselves as imaginary may have to grapple with being more. Or maybe the headmate who thought it was literally a teddy bear for all those years is realizing it's part of the child's system and isn't separate at all.

An existential crisis always makes for quality drama.

Adult Headmates

One other tip is to remember that adult headmates in child bodies aren't actually adults. They're a child's idea of an adult.

A real adult is good at projecting confidence and giving the illusion they know what they're doing to children all the time. A real adult does this while having no idea what the fuck they're doing, being insecure about everything, and falling apart on the inside where nobody can see them.

An adult headmate isn't going to magically skip the stages of development. They won't have more experience than a child. They won't have an adult brain.

What they probably will have is confidence. More confidence than even a real adult, because this adult headmate was created from the child's concept of what an adult is. The adult headmate may take on a parental role to the host child, but they won't actually have the experience of a parent, and won't have the same self-doubt that plagues many adults... in the beginning.

As a writer, I believe it's your job to look for ways to break your characters. A headmate who is the embodiment of unearned confidence with no life experience to back it up?

Have their advice lead the child or someone they care about to some sort of harm. That unearned confidence is something you can shatter, along with the character's entire self-concept. You can make them confront the fact that they aren't as all-knowing as they believed themselves to be. Then you can build them back up, learning from their mistakes.

For more tips on writing plural characters, you should check out @writing-plurals.

[slugdragoon]

Hello there!

I see that you do a lot of devlogs here on Tumblr. May I know if that's helped you with getting people interested in your game? I'm a beginner game dev and I currently only post my devlogs on Twitter/X. I only put long discussion-form logs in here once in a while.

Do you think it's worth putting my shorter devlogs in here as well?

Good question, one I ask myself while I'm doing it, and I think most people would give the advice that devlogs are more for other developers than potential players.

They, for most people do not serve as effective marketing, but it depends on what you're after. I personally have put out 16 video devlogs as well as 3 longer form pixel art tutorial videos since I've started 5 months ago, and I always post them here, on Twitter, and my Ko-fi page. The result is that I have almost 100 subscribers on YouTube, a dozen or so regulars that like my posts on Tumblr, and on Twitter excepting a few small interactions it mostly seems like people looking to trade promotions for their own games. So a very small following after 5 months.

The reason I do it now is that the best time to plant a seed was yesterday, the second best time is today. Better to have 100 followers excited when they see my prototype morphing into a real game down the line than try to show it off for the first time. The second reason is, even at small numbers I personally find it motivating. I feel accountable to even a small number of people that leave nice comments, and I want to make something new week to week to show them. In terms of sheer numbers no, you have to be a bit crazy to do this.

I'm also in a unique situation where I've been unemployed since the end of a contract, looking for a programming job but the market is shot, and I have a wonderful parter that encourages me to just be a stay-at-home parent for a while and take my one shot at building a game until I get another employment opportunity.

It's a balance though, I used to try to hit a devlog each week, but that was unsustainable. Recording and editing a video 1 out of every 7 days cuts seriously into dev time, so now I try to hit every 2, sometimes 3 weeks to try to make enough substantial changes to talk about. I started also by making a lot of posts about other RPGs while I was journalling my thoughts on class and party designs, and I thought I would go deeper into that, but those have dropped off.

Also, I haven't posted in longer than usual, but I'm a dev making a game directly inspired by Shin Megami Tensei - so you know Metaphor Refantazio has me locked in hard. I don't play as many games since starting my own, but this one is "research".

[shebeafancyflapjack]

Always get a bit frustrated whenever I see a comment on a kitty-edit that's like "Oh Kitty had such a sad childhood, but at least she has the Captain now."

Don't get me wrong, I love their relationship, it's adorable, he is definitely her dad as evident by how she views him as such in flashbacks the same way Alison is her sister.

But I feel like people forget that their relationship is actually fairly new? She outright says in the first series that she does not like him and that he's only got worse since Alison arrived. It's not until S3 they start to warm to each other and what makes it work so beautifully is how it coincides with Cap becoming more true to his (fabulous) self, rather than trying to be the bossy soldier. Basically he fits the mould of her real father, both good and bad, but the more he subconsciously reminds her of how cold and strict her father could be, rather than his sweeter moments, the less she wants to be around him. When he starts to let his real self show and become more the man she wishes her dad had been is when that bond starts to form. That's what I find interesting about them.

However the suggestion that Cap is the only one to care for her or even the one who cares the most I feel does a real disservice to the other ghosts. They all absolutely adore her in their own way.

Her friendship with Mary was adorable and I love how protective Mary was of her even before Kitty died, insulting her father for ruining her fun, then standing up for her when she stood up for Cap, them gushing over things together like the rice krispies and the snow globe, making up their inventory song, Mary comforting Kitty at the party and putting her to bed. How heartbroken Kitty was at losing her and desperate to believe she would come back.

Every scene she and Pat have together, him being her dance partner but also him being the one to take on trying to explain death to her and doing as a parent would, how he probably did the first time Daley had to deal with death, it's just so relatable how he didn't want to be harsh but needing to be honest.

Julian calling her a "dear, sweet thing", him being the only one to attempt to explain to her how baby's are made (graphic and disturbing as it was), how he's ready to tell her the truth about Santa but as soon as he's sees the look on her face it's enough to melt his Tory heart is the peak Christmassy scene of that episode for me.

Thomas hugging her at the panto (one of only two hugs we get in this show!) and being so grateful for having her as his manager, how gentle he is when he asks to inspect her hands for the spider bite.

Robin knowing her pregnancy shtick is nonsense but going along with it like a brother being roped into his kid sister's make believe, rubbing her feet for her and sitting with her most of the day, him leaving a party that he loves to take moment to encourage her to cry her feelings out and then helping Mary put her to bed, how she only has to call his name and he's jumping in to scare off the plaguers.

Everything with her and Humphey! How she's the one who is the most concerned about where he is and making sure he's in one piece so he's not left behind, these two have the most adorable Uncle and Niece vibes.

Fanny is the only one I feel the show let slide on having her bond with, I think the most progression they have is Fanny praising Kitty's speaking in S4. Kinda miffed about this one because without Mary and with Alison gone, they're the only girls left and it would have been nice if they'd developed a mother-daughter bond.

Last but not least her and Alison! Their relationship is so important to S3 and how it contrasts to Alison's storyline with Lucy. Even though Lucy turns out to be a fake, it's still a good show of the importance of found family as much as blood family, how Kitty is jealous at first but then becomes the catalyst for figuring out who Lucy really is and protecting Alison from being scammed. It's such an important arc for her character that gets sadly forgotten, how she's not smug with joy that Lucy is gone at the end but just expresses sympathy for Alison losing the sister she never had. "You're the sister I never had" was the line that I first choked up at in this show. Also props to Kitty for literally annoying someone into being a true. best friend, she gives the rest of us losers hope!

Overall just how lucky Kitty is at the end of the day, that yes she had this privileged but ultimately toxic upbringing and died very young - but now she's surrounded by these people who absolutely adore her and might not always cope with it the right way but they just want to protect her because she is so sweet and endearing. If I could add any scene to the finale I feel like Alison should have got to have one talk with Kitty where she assures her that yeah they'll be apart but she's always at the end of the phone and will visit often, but also assuring her that she still has SEVEN people who love her to bits which is more than a lot of us get.

[saline-coelacanth]

Gonna do a bit of oc rambling, this may get into part 2 spoilers but probably nothing too in depth. Gonna put it under the cut though just to be safe

So I've mentioned before that Leo has a very normal relationship with his parents. They're still around, Leo is still in contact with them, everything is pretty chill. The only type of drama he really has with them is the fact that they kind of over-encouraged him to get into painting to the point where he stopped doing it for the fun of it and started doing it because he was good and could make money, but that's about it.

I mean, he does also take a while to actually tell them he's an elemental master and that he's been training with the ninja, but that's mainly just because he forgot to bring it up to them. He told them he was staying with new friends and his parents are like "Ok, thanks for letting us know!" because his parents are super chill with him doing stuff like that (maybe they're a bit too lax with him but that's not relevant to this post)

So one thing I've been thinking about is whether or not Arin would end up resenting Leo a little bit over this. Because as we all know, Arin was super close with his parents and he lost them in the merge. And then Leo shows up and Arin finds out Leo also has a good relationship with his parents, but they're still around. Leo could visit them any time he wants but doesn't. He doesn't even tell them that he's a ninja. I think it could be a slight parallel to Rise of the Snakes where the other ninja get upset at Jay for not visiting his parents, although with Leo the circumstances are a lot different.

Idk I just think it would be interesting. Maybe Arin wouldn't get super upset about it right away, but maybe during the tournament when his feelings about missing his parents start to get more apparent, then he could get snappy at Leo. Like Leo tries to assure him that they'll find Arin's parents eventually and that he should try to calm down and Arin just kinda snaps at him and brings up the fact that Leo still has his parents, something like that. Idk I'm just throwing ideas out there.

Idk I've just kinda been thinking about Leo and Arin lately and I think there's potential for Arin to develop some jealously towards Leo, maybe even more than with Sora because he's known her for a long time but he's just met Leo recently. Because Leo has elemental powers that he constantly talks about being useless AND he has loving parents that aren't missing, yet he barely brings them up or talks about them. Those two things just seem like things Arin might start to get upset about over time, and especially during the tournament when he's going through the most stuff. Or maybe he wouldn't start to get upset about it until season 3, I don't know I'll have to wait until we get season 3 to solidify that idea.

[raphaelesbian]

Absolutely tickled by your Shredder/Splinter swap AU. Uh. Long ask warning. Like. Thinking about how in Lone Rat and Cubs Splinter's like, validly, "What did I do to deserve this? :(". Cinder meanwhile-- "What did I do-- oh wait yeah. What did the turtles do though?"

Young Raph and Leo getting super into training (taught for self-defense, I'm guessing), and Cinder just. Begging them to get a different hobby. Please. He'll even give the children noisy toys (the bane of many a parent) if they would just. Stop.

Michelangelo, already manipulative as a younger brother, being an absolute MENACE under this new parentage-- Cinder may not be a great manipulator, but he certainly had enough charisma to inspire a coup.

Cinder would probably be like, "Absolutely NOT," in regards to Donnie and April. (Romance is DANGEROUS, kids!!!) Which, since it'd probably be a harsh, instinctive reaction... would not be great for Donnie's character development.

Miwa meanwhile... her choices in teenage rebellion are either 1. be laidback in response to her father's seriousness, or 2. be murderhobo in response to her father's values. Since Saki's alive, #2 is looking really appealing... (Kinda reminds me of a crack AU of mine-- TL;DR Shredder realizes after killing Shen that he Done Fucked Up and wants to be better. Somehow this doesn't stop S1 from happening.

Point is, they share this vibe:

Saki: Look Yoshi, I understand you wanting me dead but could you stop sending teenager(s) to try and kill me? It's not good for their mental development!

Yoshi, who does not want Saki dead: My kid(s) are WHAT?)

oh my goddd I'm literally OBSESSED with this omfg???? you took that thought and RAN with it and I love it so much fhfashglk.

EXCELLENT point about the way lone rat and cubs would play out differently. Like, Cinder ABSOLUTELY believes he deserves his fate to be mutated and outcast from society, but his boys? They didn't deserve any of that. They don't deserve to have HIM as a father. But they do, so he does his best to care for them and not make them feel ashamed of what they are

(though, now that I think about it, I think he would do a much worse job of it than Splinter. Though Splinter ALSO is not a huge fan of being mutated into a giant rat lmao, he wouldn't have Cinder's belief that it's, like, a punishment. He talks positively about being a human, AND his life as a rat with his sons, and though they can tell he misses being human, I don't think he really gives much of an impression that his whole being-a-rat is a bad thing. Plus, Splinter leans into it a lot with his cheese phone and his cheesesicles and the rat wheel fhdaksghkasghlk.

Cinder would be different, I think. He may not outright state it, because he's not dumb lol, but I think it would come through more that he views his mutation as an overall negative thing (that he deserves), and he would not be one to encourage the rat jokes. So the turtles may be a bit less positive and comfortable with their status as turtles. Idk, sidebar fhadshksdglk)

FHALSGHKDSG, Cinder literally trying EVERYTHING to get them to stop being so interested in fighting. he gives them finger paint. he gives them loud toys (where raph gets his drum set fhdkasghkds). he scrounges up an old video game console. they still like sparring the most. what remains of his fur is going grey

oh man, Mikey would be DANGEROUS. which also, just another tangent, I do think it's so interesting that what we see of Shredder in 2012.... is NOT particularly charming or manipulative! which, like you said, he had to be charismatic and convincing enough to inspire a whole coup. What we see of his strategy seems to be mostly threats, which yeah, works NOW that he's super powerful, but in the beginning? nah. we see SOME charm in the tale of the yokai episode, where he tries to convince Shen to leave Yoshi, but that's p much it. So like, idk, it's interesting to think about. My interpretation (mostly) has been that, like, he just kind of loses control at the start of the show with the re-emergence of Yoshi, and the super-aggressive Shredder we see is kind of out-of-the-ordinary. Like, that's him when he's enraged beyond belief. but idk hfashgklskdgl I think it's very ambiguous...

ANYWAYS, omg the Donnie angst angle??? Literally that never even crossed my MIND but you're so fucking right. idk if you read my father/daughter one-shot but the description you gave of a harsh, instinctive reaction called to mind how he snaps at Karai in that one, which, idk. I like that thought a lot. it would absolutely drive a bit of a rift between Donnie and Cinder, that's for sure.

omg yes that's literally EXACTLY the vibe I had in mind for Miwa. To Yoshi she's like "I'm just here to support you, I really don't want anything to do with Uncle Saki" and Yoshi is like "I understand <3"

Meanwhile Miwa is sneaking out at night to attack the turtles and try to hunt down (and kill) Cinder. Meaning the turtles are EXTRA convinced this Hamato clan is up to no good, Cinder is SURE that Yoshi wants him dead, and Yoshi is just like ":(((( why won't my brother talk to me.... I just want to move forward and find a way to be a family again...."

Miwa: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk dad maybe he just sucks and we should go home

ALSO I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT THAT CRACK AU IF YOU EVER WANNA SHARE FHKASGHKSDGLK. literally I am obsessed with any potential for Saki to like, Try and Improve, bc it's something we really don't see ANY of in canon, but he's SUCH an interesting character.

[bnhaobservation]

I doubt we'll ever get it but I would love it if Horo gave us more information about Rei's thought process now that we know about her family. Did she want a second child because she wanted an ice baby to carry on the quirk or did she want a "failure" with a fire quirk to get away from her parents ideals once and for all? Was she happy or sad with her ice quirk daughter who inherited her quirk but not her fate of being married off for bigoted reasons? How did she feel when Natsuo came out as the perfect ice quirk baby boy her parents had most likely wanted Rei herself to be? Does she know about Natsuo's mouse eared girlfriend?

Oh, I would definitely love to have more info about Rei!

I hate how we don't even have her character profile contrary to other characters who have a much smaller role and yet have a profile, like Jiro's parents, the elementary school teacher or Kurumada to name a few...

I was really hoping her profile would be added to the new volume since in it we learn things about her family and she has a relevant role but instead... no luck.

She gets a color image (along with Natsuo) but... that's all.

To have more info about herself from her voice would have been definitely nice (I mean, why it has to be Geten the one who speaks about the Himura? It could have been her and Horikoshi could show us an image of Geten as she spoke/thought about it just to clue us in on how he too was an Himura if that was really important for future developments).

However, it could be he believed some answers were intuitive enough due to the story theme and structure.

I mean, I'm not Horikoshi but if we take your question and look at them from a Doylistic perspective...

1) Did she want a second child because she wanted an ice baby to carry on the quirk or did she want a "failure" with a fire quirk to get away from her parents ideals once and for all?

This is Enji's perspective, of course, but when the narrative doesn't try to counter it, the reader is generally expected to accept what a character say about another character as true... so likely Rei only wanted more children so that they could encourage each other (while Enji still yearned for the perfect Quirk).

The story never shows Rei as having an interest in Quirks, so she likely didn't care about her children's Quirks, she just wanted to love them, which fit with how the narrative wants to portray her as a loving mother... mostly in contrast with how Enji failed as a parent.

2) Was she happy or sad with her ice quirk daughter who inherited her quirk but not her fate of being married off for bigoted reasons?

Again, there's no reference to Rei's reaction to her children's Quirks, in contrast to how Enji is happy because, even though it's not perfect, Touya's Quirk has more potential than his own.

The narrative is likely trying to drive home how Enji is focused on his children's Quirks, so by contrast Rei isn't. Enji doesn't comment on his wife's reaction to their daughter's ice Quirk, the whole thing is likely meant to tell us that Rei instead, didn't care about Quirks because Rei is the good parent who loves children unconditionally.

So yeah, I think she was happy with Fuyumi regardless of her Quirk.

The anime drives this better home with this small addition that shows Rei smiling at little Fuyumi.

The interaction is meant to parallel Enji and Touya's but where Enji is happy because Touya shows him his fire, here Rei is happy because Fuyumi shows her flowers.

Mind you, a funny thing about BNHA that not always western readers seem to catch is that even if BNHA criticizes Quirk Marriage, arranged marriage is still a thing in both BNHA and real life Japan...

...and, I think, this is actually what Horikoshi is subtly trying to criticize.

Not the attempt to create a baby with a perfect Quirk, but the fact Enji wants to marry Rei for self interest and not love, and Rei's family is all in favour of the marriage because it's advantagious for them too.

This is still a thing in real life (though luckily it's slowly disappearing), and it's likely what Horikoshi is trying to criticize.

A more adult story "Umineko no naku koro ni" discusses the idea behind arranged marriages. Here I present you a bit of an exchange between a mother (Eva) and her son (George) when she wants to push him into an arranged marriage (as she had been pushed into). Don't be fooled by the western names, they're pure Japanese people, it's just the family which has an obsession for western names.

"Shouldn't marriage meetings be done at a more mature age...?! I still don't feel like I've become an adult..." "Of course, we have no desire to rush into an immediate engagement or marriage, right? It isn't a problem if you deepen your friendship, and then when you settle down as you age, have her moved to our family register." From Eva's forceful appearance, and George's somewhat lazy one, the others could catch a glimpse of the scheme behind this marriage meeting. They didn't know who this other person was, but it was surely someone profitable to Eva's family in a business sense. This whole thing about having them have an engagement relationship until they changed registers to deepen the connection between the two families felt almost like a political strategy. "Marriage isn't something you do after you start liking someone. You fall in love after you do it, right? If you marry just based on emotions, you'll definitely regret it. There's definitely nothing wrong with choosing a person with a secure background for your partner in life, and then building up emotions of love."

In case you're wondering the story (which is placed in 1986 so not centuries ago) isn't in favour of arranged marriages, it just presents the view on it of an important rich family.

Plus Eva, the mother, having been lucky and having been married to a really amazing man, doesn't see nothing wrong in what was done to her.

By having Rei's kids speaking against how Rei was sold, by showing how bad her marriage was, I tend to think this is what Horikoshi is subtly trying to speak against, arranged marriages, not so much just Quirk marriages.

Of course, we could argue that the Himura's tendency to marry among them isn't meant to parallel marriages for interest but marriages out of racistic beliefs... and it could be but Horikoshi tosses it so late in the game it feels like something he came up all of sudden. It was a perfectly valid point to make but it ended up being too rushed to be something that can be apprecciated.

I tend to wonder if the problem was maybe the "Dark Hero arc" was meant to be longer and in it the whole Himura family thing as well as Enji's father death were meant to play a bigger role... but the arc ended up being cut short and so Horikoshi had to salvage what he could when it wa too late for him to give it the space it needed.

(also, part of the Todoroki's story was retconned so it's hard to judge things correctly but more about this later).

3) How did she feel when Natsuo came out as the perfect ice quirk baby boy her parents had most likely wanted Rei herself to be?

The visual shows her smiling at baby Natsuo and "School Briefs" have Natsuo talk about her as a loving mother for him, one who compensate how his father didn't look at him, and in the manga interactions with Natsuo she just seem to love him so I would say she was happy with how Natsuo was.

I like to represent Rei as a single child in my fic, but in truth we don't know if she was a single child. Rei might have siblings, brothers, and she might not even be the firstborn. The main family could have had more children than Enji did for all we know, and, in truth, what they really needed was only a male heir to carry on the family... which they might have had. The Himura's thick blood narration is likely there to insure the readers the Himura children would all have an ice Quirk due to the Himura thick blood, to the point that even Touya, who apparently seemed not to have it, ultimately had it.

So in addition to the story showing Rei having no interest in her children's Quirks, it can be that her family already had a perfect heir and no expectations where put on Rei, as it can be she was just a second born child like Fuyumi (in a traditional Japanese family all the expectations are generally put on the first male child born in the family, not even on the second male child unless, for some exceedingly rare reason, the first male born child fails at being a suitable heir).

However Natsuo's birth came with a big problem tied with it.

Rei didn't want another kid, not so much because she didn't want more children, but because she figured Touya would be hurt by them trying to product another perfect Quirk child.

The story feds us with Enji's excuse, that they're having it because this will stop Touya from burning himself, this will make Touya give up.

There's a debate in the fandom if, at this point, Enji committed marital rape or if Rei let herself be persuaded and agreed reluctantly to have Natsuo.

(by the way, on June 16, 2023 the Upper House of Parliament in Japan passed passed unanimously a new law which, in addition to raising the age of consent from 13 to 16, defines rape as “nonconsensual sexual intercourse” and removes a previous requirement that the crime had to include physical force to be called rape. Until now, Japan’s laws on sexual assault did not mention consent, reflecting skepticism that anyone could be forced into sex without violence... and, even though it does not deny spousal rape, no court has ever ruled on such a case, except in situations of marital breakdown... meaning by the time Horikoshi wrote this scene he might have not concerned himself with the whole matter)

Regardless of which theory you decide to embrace, Natsuo having an ice Quirk doesn't fix things by either proving Enji right or wrong, which is what leads to Shouto's birthday.

So while the narrative doesn't show Rei as a woman interested in her children's Quirks, the narrative also tells us that Natsuo's ice Quirk is a problem because, with it, the situation can only stay unchanged or get worse while I think she had hope that Shouto's perfect Quirk would have solved things.

4) Does she know about Natsuo's mouse eared girlfriend?

Manga and anime translation seem to disagree but this is the text in the Japanese manga.

'Zemi de kanojo de kitan datte'

ゼミで彼女できたんだって

"I heard (from you/from someone else) that (you/he) got a girlfriend at the seminar."

The sentence doesn't say from who Fuyumi heard it (nor if she's talking directly to him or reporting what Natsuo is doing to Rei), so it can be she heard someone say so, but it's more likely Natsuo told her so, especially since Natsuo and Fuyumi talk about what Natsuo will do with his girlfriend to celebrate the new year.

The manga will also show Fuyumi meeting the girl... so it's not like he's hiding her from his sister, a sign they weren't educated into thinking Heteromorphs aren't someone they should associate with.

So I think that the idea is that with that sentence Fuyumi just informed Rei about how Natsuo has a girlfriend. As the topic immediately switches it's hard to say if Natsuo eventually said Rei more about her, like that she's an Heteromorph.

Would Rei or someone in the Todoroki family have problems because she's an heteromorph? Likely not. They're all city people and the manga established that in big cities Heteromorphs aren't discriminated in fact according to Shoji, Heteromorph kids kile Koda and Tokoyami and others who grew up in cities would only have read of such things in books...

...and even the Heteromprh guy of the MLA agrees that in cities discrimination is a thing of the past.

The overall narrative message was that, in addition to how education can win discrimination is that yes, the UA kids (Shouto, Mineta, Tsunotori) when talking to Heteromorphs called them by their animal Quirk but this doesn't mean they're racist, they just don't know any better, which yes, wasn't something that impressed positively many in the fandom as it seems a poor way to handle all that but, for the sake of it existing let's just say the narrative wants to tell us city people won't think ill of Heteromorphs so probably Rei, which I assume is a city person since she's from the main house, wouldn't see them any different from how she would see other people.

Plus, narratively, she's meant to be a good person.

Note though that this is all said from a Doylistic perspective. Because the author wants to say certain things or doesn't say certain things or has certain themes it's reasonable to assume my speculations could be the answer but... there's nearly zero canon proof of it so it's not like I can call all I've said as surely right.

Plus there's something to keep in mind about the narrative of the Todoroki story, something that can cause problems in interpreting Rei and the narrative around her correctly... which is that the whole Todoroki plotline was retconned, possibly even more than once.

In fact, we start with this bit in chap 44 in which Shouto says he NEVER went to see Rei (after she was hospitalized).

Note that Fuyumi's question seems also to hint at how it was Shouto's choice to decide not to go to her and she's surprised he's doing it after all this time but she's not worried about which consequences this could have on her mother, just if they would need her father's permission to do so.

Then we move to chap 250, which implies Touya died after their mother was hospitalized and THIS caused Rei to get worse to the point she couldn't see Shouto any longer.

So it's no more Shouto's choice and he never went to her. Now it's just Rei getting worse in hospital AFTER TOUYA DIES so Shouto couldn't anymore. And Fuyumi singles out just Shouto, which imply she and Natsuo could.

Then we jump to chap 302 magazine version in which Rei says how, after Touya was gone she began seeing Enji in her children, meaning this is what caused Shouto's burn, the visual supporting the idea... though the visual adds Natsuo too to the kids which reminded her of Enji, not just Shouto.

So no, Touya now didn't die anymore after Rei's hospitalization but before it, meaning Rei too was also responsible for not going after him when he went on Sekoto Peak.

This time though, someone warned Horikoshi of how he contradicted previous canon and so the whole thing was changed for the volume version. A page was added to make clear Rei was in hospital when Touya 'died'...

...and the image behind Rei's balloon was switched to one that showed her hospital room.

Narratively it would have probably been better if Rei's lines of dialogues had been switched so that those saying she was in hospital were placed where we can see the hospital door and the one in which she said she couldn't stand the sight of Enji in the new page but whatever.

Why all this is relevant?

In the very first part of the story Rei is, narratively, just a victim. She's a good mother, who suffered a lot, to the point Shouto forgets her smiling face when she told him he could be a Hero and remembers her solely crying...

...when in truth she also found the strength to smile and support him...

... never mention the times she would get between him and his father and get hit in his place...

It would stand to reason such a good mother would have protected and supported Touya too, and the fact she ended up hospitalized was why he ended up unsupervised, making the whole thing with Touya something due to which solely Enji was to blame.

But, when he fixed Touya's history in chap 301/302, Horikoshi likely decided the whole family had to be to blame.

So Rei isn't supportive of Touya's dream (which in BNHA is generally bad) but tells Touya to stop as well...

...and in the first draft was even meant to be at home and be as well responsible for not going after Touya when he was on Sekoto Peak and then burned.

The worsening of Enji and the consequent snapping of Rei would be caused by Touya's death of which they both were directly responsible as they didn't go after him.

Only... Horikoshi is then reminded Rei couldn't be at home when Touya burned as she was hospitalized before Touya's 'death'... so things... get changed.

And that's not the sole instance where the narrative change things.

Both Shouto and Touya points out how Enji forced Rei's family to give her up.

...only for Rei claiming that yes, her options were limited but she chose and could have refused (and the Himura family looking not forced at all but delighted to sell her off)... only for the story to late tell us hadn't the Himura family sold her to Enji, they would have handed her off in marriage to some distant cousin which basically it's insurance Enji didn't have to force her family at all to sell her. Selling daughters was standard practice for them.

And those aren't the sole instances where the narrative gives us mixed or retconned messages.

(Despite all this though I still love the Todoroki story!)

So... it's really hard to figure which message the narrative, for now, is trying to pass about Rei, beyond that they wanted her to be an overall loving mother and good person, who however made a mistake with his eldest and snapped when she saw her youngest.

As a result, since canon is so vague and the narrative changed way too many times, well, more CANON info about her would have been greatly apprecciated, at least as far as I'm involved.

Since Horikoshi isn't even showing her profile though, I fear he just isn't interested in doing so... which for me is sad as I TOTALLY LOVE THE TODOROKI FAMILY and really wanted to know more about them...

So yes, I join you in the wish for more info about the Todoroki family because speculating as I just this is fun but... it's not canon and my guesses might have been completely off track.

Thank you for your ask and sorry for the long reply but I love to talk about the Todoroki family!

[ssjumi]

It's been literally 20 years since I wrote the YGO fic that to some regard still defines how I view my favorite OC babygirl Aileen to this day 💕✨

So this is a gift for teenage me, who would've probably pretended to be too cool to care, but would have absolutely lost her shit seeing our girl in the style of the show (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

For those curious, here's a little (updated) character profile of Aileen:

Aileen Noda

18yo (half a year older than Seto, so a class ahead of him)

🇯🇵 (dad), 🇮🇹 (mom)

her dad got sole custody after her parents (never married) split; she's not close to her mom but they're on friendly speaking terms

—

heiress to a multimillion dollar software company that was in business negotiations with the Kaiba Corporation at some point when it was still headed by Gozaburo

moved around a lot as a kid before spending her tweens and most of her teenage years in South England, when business took them there

fluent in English and Japanese (although a bit rusty when it comes to not sounding too direct/impolite with latter) - had one year of German and almost three years of Mandarin before moving schools - knows just enough Italian to survive as a casual tourist

not rly interested in daddy's business at the time/shortly before our story, but figures she still has many years to live her own life and find her passions before she has to step up anyway

(spoiler alert: nope, she does not)

—

has a driver's license and drives just well enough to not get it revoked but not so well that it's a joy to sit next to her

pretty pragmatic with a dry humor

comes off as very confident and independent

loses her dad tho shortly after they've moved to Domino and went into new negotiations with the KC, which rly fucks her up since she hasn't made any friends there yet and her dad was basically her entire support system, which she never realized until he was gone

develops a socially encouraged kind of unhealthy relationship to food and working out, which is not helped by the smaller sizes considered standard in Japan

—

for some reason falls for Seto Kaiba of all people and even ends up with him unaware that she could do a lot better but alas, who am i to tell my daughter No

A while ago I gave rewriting the earlier mentioned fanfic a try, but since YGO isn't my active main fandom anymore, I'll probably never finish it and if I do, it will have a very different format than the original story.

But since we're already in Long As Fuck Read More territory, I've included the prologue and another tiny snippet here, for those who are curious:

Surprising as it may seem, given how his face is plastered all over the city they live in, Yugi and his friends don't really think much about Seto Kaiba in their everyday lives.

They're doing their thing and he does his. … Whatever his thing is.

Building theme parks probably? Yugi remembers him mentioning something like this the last time they spoke but he's not sure anymore. The fact that Kaiba's been gracing class with his presence for the past few days probably means that things are going well enough for him to have the spare time. Although he's spending most of that time on his laptop anyway, not participating in class at all and left alone by the teachers as well.

No, really. Neither Yugi nor his friends know what Kaiba's thing actually is.

So they're a little surprised when after class, during cleaning duty, a girl in another school's uniform slips through the door and makes a beeline for the desk in the far corner of the room where Kaiba, true to his famous team spirit, is still fully focused on his personal work instead of helping his classmates.

One of her long, black pigtails slips over her shoulder as she snatches a glance at his laptop screen. To which Kaiba just reacts by closing said laptop and shoving it into his schoolbag. Which in turn puts a slightly too sweet, almost teasing smile onto her lips. "Want me to give you a ride home?" He sighs and mumbles something that sounds a lot like "There are worse ways to die, I guess" before getting up and following her outside.

It finally becomes apparent why a few of the guys in the class have spent the past couple minutes at the window - the car Kaiba follows that stranger to is a red Porsche cabriolet that looks like right out of a Hollywood movie.

Jounouchi doesn't know what to be more scandalized about - that Kaiba of all people is getting picked up by a cute girl while he doesn't or that some of his female classmates seem completely unimpressed by all of this because "everyone knows he has a girlfriend, duh". He and his friends exchange confused glances.

Seto Kaiba is weird in occasionally dangerous but usually just a little annoying ways and overall just not that interesting. And, as far as they're aware, he's also completely uninterested in making friends or even just understanding the basic concept of friendship - or interpersonal relationships in general.

And yet.

Seto Kaiba has a girlfriend.

It went like this:

A girl had a friend who wasn't allowed to have friends, who wasn't even allowed to have a brother. But allowing him to spend time with her made her father more agreeable in business negotiations which in turn worked in favor of her friend's father. So he grudgingly allowed it for the duration of their business meetings.

Truth be told, it was a pretty one-sided friendship.

Her friend had already started to shut himself off from the world by the time she met him. He didn't start or even push forward conversations on his own accord, didn't answer most of her questions and didn't seem to have many, well, any hobbies. He was easy to taunt though, almost always falling for her dares, never willing to accept defeat and pretty blind to the fact that she usually didn't care who won - that ultimately, by the virtue of having gotten him to interact with her, she was the actual winner anyway.

It was a short friendship, lasting only a couple of weeks, and as soon as the grownups had concluded their business it was over again.

If you're still here: Congrats! You earned yourself the secret knowledge that this fic by the way isn't just Seto/OC but also YamiYugi/Seto, as in: Seto is gonna cheat on her with Atem, as soon as he finds out that he can not just play intense card games with the guy but also have sex with him - which never even occured to him until he already had Ati's hand between his legs.

Aileen will break up with him over it.

In the timeline of the original fic from 20 years ago they did end up back together and even marrying though and it wasn't even too bad for a while but became a very unhappy relationship over time, during which she fell for (and had one passionate night with) Seto's assistant Isono. She got pregnant from him and Seto is kind of aware that it is likely not his child and she knows that he probably knows... while Isono tries very hard to tell himself that this kid surely can't be his, nope, no evidence of this one night means it never happened and he never wavered in his loyalty to his Kaiba-sama, it's fine, he's fine, they're all fine.

(It's still mostly him raising the child since Aileen soon realizes she has no idea where exactly to fit a child into her life and Seto... to his credit did manage to not have Mokuba die on him while responsible for him in his teen years, but if we're all honest here that was not by virtue of him being a responsible and trustworthy parental figure.)

I haven't made up my mind yet if Aileen and Seto would also end up married in/after the rewritten fic tho.

Who knows.

Not me.

... Ah, yeah, and I also ship her with Ryou Bakura's dead sister Amane :D so there's that as well.

Anyway.

YAY @ drawing of her I'm very very very satisfied with （￣︶￣）✨💖