#anyway i love projecting onto characters to work through my own problems it's so !!!!

[schizononagesimus]

i have a disorder called gets a fic idea then blacks out until it's done

[peach-fiz]

I actually didn't even bother watching the second season of Loki because of the cheap marketing and inconsistent storytelling.

It just felt like the plot was lifted off somewhere it would have made sense, and a character with a similar ego was replaced with Loki and goes through an arc that might have made sense for a blank slate character, but not someone who already has a backstory.

Loki doesn't even feel like Loki after three episodes in S1. The whole point of having a show like that just seems to be about the TVA and Sylvie.

Also the whole genderfluid thing. They 'confirmed' it in the promo and had a line in the script that went completely against anything they just said.

I knew at once that the writers, directors and other parts of production were really just pulling it in different directions and it would probably sound like a jazz trumpeter and a metal guitarist trying to improvise after knowing each other for 15 minutes.

I've been meaning to watch it just so I can have educated opinions on all of it but it's just,, so hard to get into. I definitely agree the marketing was cheap, they did with the 80s McDonald's like they did DB Cooper!Loki and made it centric to the advertising because McDonalds was also getting something out of it which is kinda ass seeing as realistically Loki Laufeyson would burn 6 of them down before he ate in one 😭

I personally don't like either of the major ships in the show but the forced Sylki shit in season 1 really got to me. Like not only did she completely replace him as the main character in HIS show, she's also a variant of him who he wants to make out with and overall it just reads as lazy writing and it's extremely disappointing that Mike Waldron has been put in charge of Multiverse of Madness and The Kang Dynasty since, due to the popularity of the Loki TV show. I was talking to my boyfriend about this last night but it kinda reminds me of the complaints people had ab the last Indiana Jones movie but opposite? Like everyone complained his best friend's daughter was gonna replace him bc she's a Mary Sue and she rlly isnt, she's more reminiscent of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark she just doesn't wanna fuck him. But the difference is Indy is a character who's majorly blank for little boys to project themselves onto. Which is great!! It works for those kind of movies, but they're not character development centric like the individual mcu movies tend to be. Loki is characterized in a way that he's drowning in identity issues and family problems and he experiences growth in every installment whether it be positive or negative. It doesn't make sense to take the formula of an Indidna Jones movie where he meets up with a woman who's typically a love interest and has her own issues that are only slightly touched on because that's not the focus, and they go do the plot.

Sylvie is not an Indy Girl, they straight up are trying to replace Loki with Sylvie. And you can tell the character wasn't supposed to have as much importance as she does in the show bc the character was worked on more after the actress they chose was buddies with a producer ( and this is no hate to the actress I'm sure she's delightful everything I've seen her in in terms of interviews has been lovely ).

I also absolutely agree they should've just made a tva mini series to introduce the tva rather than bringing back a dead character who soon will not make much sense anyway because Tom Hiddleston is getting older (and also he deserves to branch out in his career).

The genderfluid thing was a cash grab and it sucks ass, they just want money for acknowledging things already canon in the comics, same with confirming him as bisexual.

My boyfriend is actually writing a fic on ao3 called Find Me that's rlly good if you want Loki content that isn't related to the show.

(YES this is shameless promotion sshhhhshshsh) but fr the loki TV show makes me more confident in my screenwriting bc t h a t got put on disney plus. I'm also working on a Loki show rewrite in my spare time!!

[kerryweaverlesbian]

I love your Daphne Allen posts; all of your posts talking about characters struggling with gender and sexual identity are so well written and thought out, especially genderqueer!Dean. Do you have any other thoughts on Daphne, no matter how small? I love hearing about your ideas ♥️

[Anon is referring to this fic and this poem]

:") everyone is nice to meeeee, thank you ❤️ I'm going to call Daphne he throughout this so don't get confused. I don't have bonus headcanons about him at the moment, I usually construct those for minor characters as I'm making a fic about them, but I'll talk broadly about my thoughts about him under the cut (it got long LOL).

I think Daphne gets to me in particular with gender, because:

a) Meet My Girlfriend by Transgenderism was the first time it really clicked in my head that you can just. Choose. To change your pronouns. If it makes you happy. And you can still be a lesbian. So he's linked in my mind with that revelation.

b) pulling some man out of a river and marrying him on the spot is PEAK compulsory (cis)heterosexuality. Like. Ah yes :) God has sent me a man to solve my problem and he doesn't know what Being A Man is so he's Safe plus 'this is normal heterosexual behaviour I'm pretty sure [it absolutely is not]'.

(Reading Adorned With Smoke For Clothes by lesbiansailor, where Daphne prays for salvation [from being a lesbian] and there stumbles upon "Emmanuel" and is like 'oh okay' really sank into my brain, that's definitely what happened.)

c) I've always loved 'teaching someone how to be human' but the sweet, sweet juice of "teaching someone how to be A Man when you are insecure and unhappy about your own gender role"? YUM YUM YUM. The act of finding yourself through the other!! That's how. To get a little introspective lol. That's how I tend to work through figuring stuff out about myself. There is someone in my life and I think to myself "ah they might be _. This explains me thinking about it so much." And then like 3-5 months later I'm like wait. I think I am _. Lol. So I can project that projection onto Daphne, but with bonus resentment because I love resentment it's so fun to write.

d) obviously him being partnered with Castiel, who I view as a secure trans man (he "became a father", he went from agender to man, he literally changed from a female vessel to a male one, many people in fandom have said this. He literally invented free will to choose to be a trans gay man ❤️*). Having someone SO sure that he's a man even when he lost ALL his memories and didn't even know how to use a toothbrush at first AND when he's doing manhood "wrong" and sensitively and queerly, to a transmasc Daphne that's got to feel like "he doesn't even care about what it means to be a man so I have to care about it for both of us and I still don't get to be one!!! I don't want to think about it!!!!"

e) the way prescriptive religion ties in with him, doubting his gender role means doubting God which means potentially upending his entire community and being so fucking lonely. We only see Daphne for like. 1 minute of screentime lmao so it is for the best that they didn't pile on more side characters but it gives the impression that he doesn't have any friends**, which makes me think about how Marge Simpson doesn't have any friends (highly recommend the Lola Sebastian video about Marge) which makes me think about (my) fear of becoming a housewife with no friends.

So, I think Daphne is afraid of being himself with the (justified!) fear of losing his present community, but in trying to avoid that, he can't get truly close to people and thus causes that lonliness anyway. A vicious cycle...

f) Daphne is a character firmly discarded by Supernatural - which is fine, I don't want every 3 second character to keep coming back or we'd have 100 Cole's and I couldn't stand 1 Cole - but finding love for minor characters in spn has become a particular fascination of mine ❤️ mostly due to the sapphicnatural community 🧡 With the meta context that minor characters are not only disregarded by the characters amd writers but disregarded by GOD, for a character like Daphne who throws himself so firmly into faith that he marries a man whom - I cannot stress enough - he found in a river, that dramatic irony is so delicious. He's putting his life in service of a guy who, if asked, might not even remember his name. JUICY.

And e and f together beg the question, if it doesn't make him less lonely and if God [who is also a misogynist just btw] doesn't care what he does. Why is he putting himself through the agony of the closest. If his life is so flimsy that he can marry a stranger like it's nothing, why can't he pursue a life that makes him HAPPY?

g) Johanna Marlowe's performance of Daphne....she [the actor] just looks so strangely afraid? Daphne had just been attacked, but even when he's safe and looking up at Emmanuel, there's something fearful there I think:

Like maybe that's just how her face looks, but there's also the way she decided to touch him glancingly, hesitant and fleeting. Look at her physicality choices in her one scene. If I were just attacked by a demon and my spouse came and untied me, I would probably, like, hug them and find reassurance in them? But Marlowe says no. I will touch his face as quickly as possible and then let him drag me around. They're not even holding hands!! He grabs her wrist and she makes a fist! I never noticed that before that's crazy. Anyway this may have been directorial just to get through the scene quickly, there's a lot to get through in the episode, but regardless of the practical reasons behind her performance, it is Text and it is Strange!

And finally. I realised I do actually have a small headcanon. I think Daphne's transmasc new name is one of three:

Emmanuel (he chose the name, he should get to keep it!); Samson (biblical, raised according to the instructions of angels, had his dark night of the soul from his beloved cutting his hair [PS I think Daphne grows out his hair through transition]); or he keeps Daphne. He can still be Daphne if he wants. You can do whatever you want forever!

I also think he keeps his faith in God. His logic is that he asked for salvation -> Emmanuel appeared -> Emmanuel's questioning of his life brought him to true understanding of himself, and this must be holy.

*(I actually think Cas can also be attracted to women personally but this post isn't about him)

** also the fact that no one talked him out of marrying Emmanuel lmao

***Also from the Wikipedia recounting of the bible version he might be really into bondage??? Get it Samson!!

[ladespeinada]

having finished watching the bear in the early hours of the morning, i have some thoughts rattling around in my head that i need to jot down because they keep distracting me from work, lmao. spoilers under the cut 

→ i had fun! it was emotional! it was stressful! i was entertained and then i had to suppress the feelings of familial relatability brought up in ep. 6!  → MARCUS!!! TINA!!! NAT!!! EBRA!!! RICHIEEEEEEE!!!!! All going through their own shit, changing, emotional, relentless, scared, nervous. I especially loved Richie this season and he had a speech in ep. 1 that broke my heart ("I'm 45, I've been here a long time, you feel me? I mean, you know what the fuck you're doing, you know. You love all this shit. It's fun for you. I don't have that. I'm afraid imma wake up and you guys are all just gonna cut—just drop this ass.")

→ Sydney, light of my life. Her fierce ambition, so obvious and strong in S1, got tempered by doubt and distrust in her partner, by the gradual recognition that she is doing so much, too much, by herself. I don’t think it bodes well that the last shots we get of her, she’s ralphing after opening night service—after an intense kitchen set-up that tests her limits and shows who she can and cannot trust. (Giving Carmy in NY, throwing up before service vibes). And honestly? I wouldn't be mad if she really, really starts doubting her partnership with Carmy and just dips. 

→ Anyway, I came back to add that Sydney, despite her doubts and not-unfounded fears, is such a positive source for those around her. We saw it in S1, when she gave Marcus a confidence boost, when Tina sought her approval after initially being very hesitant about her. And that faith in others just increased in this season, and god, to be around someone like that, who lifts others up no matter what, is so rare. I love her so much. (And her carrying around that book the whole season! Just holding onto courage and confidence, letting it shape her leadership.) 

→ I'm so happy Natalie wasn’t relegated to glimpses this time around. She's present and focused and involved in dismantling her family’s trauma and history, and I love that for her. I also love her and Syd's relationship (them almost being synchronised in saying Carmy Problem) and her interactions with Fak, lmao. 

→ Tina at culinary school! Tina with reservations about her place but thriving and finding inspiration. There's a moment where some of the people in her class all go out, and they invite her, and when she meets them at the bar, they've all got a nasty judgemental face (it's def an age thing) but then she EATS THEM UP at karaoke with a beautiful song in English & Spanish, TINA TE ADORO. 

→ I immediately re-watched Marcus's episode and I want a spin-off series where he stages at different world-renowned bakeries and lives his best patissier life. 

→ That Variety piece that said Carmy was the least interesting character in this show was RIGHT ("It’s no coincidence that these weaker points tend to involve Carmy, a character perfectly rendered by White who’s still the least interesting part of his own show.") 

→ Speaking of: the romance between Carmy and Claire (which we all unfortunately saw happening after the trailer, and is fucking annoying, and yes part of it is because I love Syd & Carmy together, but also because the showrunners pledged no romance in the show which would have been fine, too) is BORING. So boring. I know Claire is going to get a lot of hate and honestly, it's barely fair because she's just not developed as a character at all. Beyond being someone Carmy knew in his past, and who is now stealing his time and energy away from the restaurant, there's not much to her. She's written with so little dimension, and exists purely to be Carmy's lil girlfriend and it's disappointing. She could have at least been fucking interesting. 

→ Carmy's so angry around the time of the opening, and he projects it onto everyone else, and it's really his own fault that he's not aware of what's happening in the restaurant.  → Okay so another thing—Sydney talks about how much she wants a Michelin star, how it’ll make The Bear a true destination spot. And rudely, Carmy goes, “you really want one of these bullshit stars?” to which Syd says yes, I really do, and this fucking dickhead tells her: “you’re gonna to have to care about everything, more than anything” AND HE STILL LET HER DOWN!!!!!!!! The more I think about it, the more upset I get. 

→ Also, Michael doesn't haunt the narrative the way he did last season—his presence is so faint. There's moments, of course, but it just feels like something is missing or off. I had expected some sort of sentiment to come to the surface towards the end of the season at least, some sense of acknowledgement that maybe he would have loved The Bear, or hated it, or something, from literally anyone—Carmy, Nat, Richie, someone—but nope, nothing besides the cannoli.

→ Episode 6, man. Episode fucking six. Natalie Berzatto, you deserve peace. 

→ Anyway, overall there’s a sort of bite missing in this season. The looming threat of Cicero has been softened a lot and yes, obviously internal workings at The Bear are the new obstacles but it doesn’t feel quite the same. Maybe it's a lack of tension, or a lack of anxiety? I don't know how else to explain it.

[eeblouissant]

Catching up on new fics and need to say that I love how you used consent as this unspoken theme. I don't have a problem with other fics in the fandom, it's so cool that there's any fics at all still being made for a 40 year old show and I love what people are doing, so hopefully it doesn't come across that way but I feel like your Dorothy is truest to the show. And I really like how you explore her vulnerabilities but, if this makes any sense which it probably doesn't, in a loving way? Both in the tone of your writing, you can tell you care about the characters and their backgrounds, but also how she's always got a safety net with the others overall, so even if she breaks or falls she won't be left to hit rock bottom, but how that also means you can dig into those more traumatic themes and hints from canon and let her be less than angel or someone who needs those reassurances etc. Your fic that centers around Dorothy's smoking habit is one a constantly thing about that encapsulates all this, it's probably my fave fic for the whole fandom. not even 2000 words but there are so many layers and it's all so Dorothy and bittersweet and feels so true and it never feels rushed or forced or superficial.

anon 🥹🥹🥹 anon !!!!!! I’ve been smiling so much my face hurts !!!!!! Oh my god, you have absolutely no idea how much this all means to me, i don’t even know where to begin!!!!!! Thank you for the (very) happy cry :’) very very happy & very appreciative. I really can’t express just how much this means !!!

I can’t believe people have really seen beyond the surface of what I write (i thought I was insane, adding in so many layers but sorta kinda failing to articulate them properly, or so I thought? I was sure that I was kind of just living in my own head here 😅), but wow, it means the world to hear.

One of the shows biggest themes, and one of its most important imo, shows that women “of a certain age” can and do have healthy & active sex lives/a healthy relationship with sex. And while I’ve seen a good few (incredible 👀 by the way) fics talking about or portraying this between the girls, whether you seen them being platonic or romantic - i had yet to see fics touching on the topic while also displaying Dorothy’s trauma/how she would respond. The body always remembers, the mind may heal, and heal Dorothy has - but there will always be a sort of response, memories hidden just beneath the surface. I like to imagine it like crumpling up a piece of paper - you can unfold it and lay it flat, press it flat with a book if you like, but the wrinkles, those memories, will always be there. That piece of paper isn’t ruined, just wrinkled. A little more delicate. Dorothy’s just a little more delicate than the others. And that part of her is so so soooooo criminally underrepresented and glossed over imo. (Since we’re on the topic of vulnerability, everyone go read @/hecatesbroom’s essay on vulnerability in tgg RIGHT NOW !!!!!!!!! you will not be disappointed!!!!!! someone teach me how to link things neatly please 😭)

I don’t know if it means anything (or if this is too personal) but I write and speak about Dorothy as a survivor of very similar trauma, so I tend to project a little onto her (while also trying my best to stay true to her character, i have this thing about sticking to canon very strictly haha. But while I was working out my portrayal i definitely pulled from bits and pieces of my own healing journey). I like to take my negative experiences and use them in my art as a sort of coping mechanism, so at least I can make something good of them? Does that make sense?

Anyway - I’m really really glad that the consent theme has seemed to get through (to more than one person, too! ahh :’) ), and that it was clear there’re many more layers there. Dorothy is gentle, she really is so gentle. I think lots of us can be blinded by the facade she puts up, and I truly believe it is a facade - one very well perfected after years of putting up - but behind closed doors she really isn’t that. She presents herself as the “fixer”, “the great balloon pricker”, but she needs to have that safety net ready & known more than the others I think. Purely because of her experiences leading up to (now, canon, etc)

ahh & i had completely forgotten about that fic, oh my :’))) i really don’t have the words - you’re just too sweet 😭🤍🤍🤍🤍 i wish I had added more to that one, but I’ve never really enjoyed writing looooonnggg pieces like that. About 2000 words is all I’ll ever manage, if that 😂. It’s been a good few months since I’ve read that one over, i never read my work over after it’s published, so I can’t comment on it the same way I just did the last.

thank you thank you thank you for this you have no idea how much it means :’) i will be thinking about this for the rest of ever,,, truest to the show??!!! Watch me sob right now

[the-travelling-bitch]

but they are minor

i was honestly waiting to see when i'd get an ask like this; looks like i can cross it off my list for 2022

anyway, since i'm in a good mood and you've not been overtly rude, i.e. no slurs or death threats, i'll humour you

[i believe you’re talking about my bllk fic bc i don’t have anything else on here yet]

first of all, i'd like to stress that if we were talking about real life people, then i'm right there with you

but we are talking about fictional characters, not people but characters; both the defintion of fiction ("something invented by the imagination or feigned", merriam-webster) and of character ("one of the persons of a drama or novel", merriam-webster) support the idea that we are talking about made-up stories which are meant to be seen as a different entitiy or aspect from real life

the way i see it, fictional characters are merely a more defined blank slate with certain characteristics already set in place (although even those characteristics get thrown out of the window by some); they're a canvas the consumer of that medium can project thoughts or ideals or headcanons onto; that's why every character imaginable has been dragged into a hogwarts or soulmate au, characters who are canonically dead are suddenly alive and kicking again, etc.

i'd argue that authors are doing just the same with their characters as well; they create one and than just put them through all sorts of trials and tribulations like e.g. a post-timeskip era

take haikyuu!! for example (because it's also a sports manga/anime): the first 369 chapters were about the highschool volleyball team, so canonically speaking they were minors; but the second chapter 370 drops they are suddenly not anymore and that fic where 28 year old business man kuroo testsuro comes home to his partner and they decide to have kids is suddenly more appropriate than before? because the person with the magic pen drew the character at an age people already imagined them before? (also idk if such a fic exists, i'm making things up as i go... look at me using my imagination to expand upon a character /lh)

i think it's plausible blue lock will have a similar post-timeskip era some day, for all we know muneyuki kaneshiro might already have the characters’ futures planned out but we're just not at that part of the story yet

also, to bring this back to my content, when i say the characters are aged up in both my mind and the fic, then i mean it; and, i'd like to think you can also see that in my works, for example characters who own their own house, drive a car, move in with someone or have successfull careers... all things that are generally speaking adult things to do (because that is more appealing to me)

but that is just my opinion; fictional characters are canvases for people to project onto and if i want to live in our shared house with my professional striker boyfriend who loves me very much and occasionally rails me into the next year, then i will... here in my mind, on this page but unfortunately not in real life (the most unrealistic thing about this is being able to afford a house in this economy but i digress)

tl;dr characters are like schrödinger’s cat dead and alive at the same time /j

if you don't share that opinion, that's fine, we can both go our seprate ways and coexist; i just can't support people who throw slurs at others, mostly creators, or tell them to k*ll themselves over a piece of fictional literature written in their free time with no profit whatsoever (i'm not saying you are that kind of person anon, this is just a general statement because i've seen other writers receive much nastier asks)

if you are the kind of person who does that... i don't think i'm the problem here

to close this off, i'm willing to have a conversation about this as long as everyone remains civil and open for arguments from the other side; if you just come in my inbox to argue without even wanting to hear the other side out, i'm sorry but this is not the place for you

toodles ッ

[sansxfuckyou]

Lesion

Summary: Kyle is getting tired of Kenny dying every other day, and the only thing that can stop Kenny from going on his patrols is the wound he wakes up with instead of a scar, and even at that, it's not very effective

Warnings: injury, body dumping, Cartman calls them fags but thats expected, character death, panic, relationship problems intertwined with Kennys vigilantism/death curse, check Ao3 port for full tags

Authors Note: I woke up at four AM yesterday and chose violence, have some k2, Cartman is also here cause his dynamic with Kenny is fun to write. Anyways, if ya'll enjoyed consider dropping a reblog or checking out the Ao3 port, it really means a lot

"When do you plan on not getting fatally wounded?" Kyle asked from the passenger seat.

Kenny, who was still wrapped in his Mysterion outfit, simply shrugged from the backseat. His head was propped against the door and his blood spilling onto leather upholstery, "When the world stops being terrible."

"You two are so lucky I have truck," Cartman scoffed from the drivers seat, eyes locked firmly on the road, "Really, lugging around a dead body in a hyundai would not work."

"It's a subaru," Kyle corrects with an exasperated sigh.

"I'm not dead yet," Kenny snapped to the best of his ability, the gash in his abdomen made it harder to do that, "But really, thanks for helping Kyle with disposing of me."

"That's what friends are for," Cartman answered with, briefly raising his gaze to the mirror to catch Kenny with a smirk. The blonde tries his hardest to return it despite the agony coursing through him. He reaches for the stereo, "Any song requests? Otherwise we're just hoping the radio is playing something good."

"The Offspring," Kenny answered with, "Or Green Day, whatever you have a disc of."

Cartman hands the CD book to Kyle whose flipping through the pages already. The hum of asphalt and tires is comfortable enough to lull Kenny into a false sense of sleep. He's tugged from said semblance of sleep when the start of a track starts to play right beside his head. Kyle glances past the headrest and Kenny's breathing is starting to slow down, the constant rise and fall accentuating blood that shimmers in the low light.

He undoes his seat belt before awkwardly climbing into the back and trying his very hardest to not nudge Cartman. The last time he did he was forced sit in a pool of Kenny's blood on the ride home. He isn't quite sure how he manages to fit in the back, some of him is pressed against the back of the driver's seat, some of him is on the ground- it's uncomfortable, but he endures.

"I think this is illegal," Kenny said, he would gesture to how Kyle is 'sitting' but he can't.

"I think dumping your body off a bridge almost daily is also illegal Ken, whose keeping track?" Kyle asked as grabbed Kenny's hand, sliding his fingers under the hem of the wrist to rest on his palm. His hand is cold, Kyle's fingertips are warm, it's a contrast that would be worrying to anyone that doesn't know how often Kenny dies.

"Good point," Kenny said, he brought his other hand to rest on Kyle's, "Love you."

"Love you too," Kyle answered with quietly.

"Can you fags please shut up while I'm driving?" Cartman asked on a groan.

Kenny just grinned and look he met Cartman with was nothing but mischievous, "I dunno darling, can we?"

Kyle gives a hum, "I'm afraid not my love, we simply cannot shut up," He briefly pressed a kiss to Kenny's cheek and the blonde laughs a bit.

He winces after the laugh dies down, "Hurts to laugh," He keeps laughing though, because the fact it hurts to laugh is humorous in itself. Kyle's hands come to press on his wound and the mix of sweat against raw nerves stings like a bitch, he bites his tongue instead of screaming.

Cartman just rolls his eyes and turns up the stereo.

Kyle wraps his arms around Kenny's torso to the best of his ability and squeezes. Not super tight, he doesn't want to speed up the process of blood loss. Kenny weakly returns the gesture, knocking the side of his head against Kyle's.

"You are not patrolling tomorrow," Kyle said quietly.

Kenny gives a hum, "Maybe."

-/-/-/-

Kenny gives a wave as he goes falling off the cliff into the icy river below.

Cartman waves back, Kyle does not.

"See you guys later!" Kenny shouted up mere moments before his head goes under and he closes his eyes.

He swears he hears Cartman call back, "Don't be late for work!" before everything goes dark.

Kyle just watches as the air bubbles up and the near still water clouds with a deep red. It's washed away along with Kenny's corpse, it floats to the top, but most know to leave his body if they find it. Kyle leans against Cartman and he hates the fact he does but it's cold outside, and he's convinced Cartman is constantly running a fever with how high his body heat is. The brunette slings an arm around Kyle's shoulders but doesn't dare drop his hand anywhere lower than an upper arm or pull the redhead closer.

"Do you think he'll ever stop?" Kyle asked quietly.

Cartman shrugged, "He's been doing this since grade four, being a hero, dying, coming back, and repeating the cycle."

Kyle tensed, "He's been dying since grade four and you didn't tell us?"

"You didn't believe me," Cartman said, "I tried to tell you guys, I even had pictures. Still, you thought I was lying, and look at us now! Dumping your boyfriends body like a couple of chums."

"We are not chums," Kyle snarled out as he glared at Cartman, he shrugged.

"How dare I assume that doing illegal activities together would help us bond? How bold of me," Cartman scoffed, he lifted his arm and stepped away. Kyle simply pulled his jacket a little tighter, "Trucks still running, it'll be nice and toasty when you're ready to leave."

Kyle stayed to stare at the water until Cartman got impatient and started blasting the horn of the truck. Only then did Kyle begrudgingly sit up in shotgun, leaned against the window. Normally this is where Cartman changes the CD and sprays disinfectant on the backseat, he doesn't tonight, he just lets the tracks play and the scent of blood stagnate.

-/-/-/-

Kyle wakes up and the bed is empty, he can hear Kenny meandering about though. He rolls over to where he knows Kenny sleeps and the sheets are still warm, and wet. The sheets are wet. That snaps him awake, he sits up and sniffs the air, it has a tang to it.

He glances down to the sun bathed sheets to find a splatter of pooling red, it's splashed across the blankets and sinking into the mattress. It's saturated enough to cling to his clothing where contact was made, the splotchy hues trail across the carpet and the door handle has blood smeared across it. Failed suicide attempt? He knows that Kenny does that sometimes if he's having a really bad day, or if he knows Cartman is gonna be pissed off.

He drags himself out of bed and makes his way down the hall, he follows the bloody finger prints trailed across the walls. It's straight out of a horror movie but it does nothing to deter Kyle. The bathroom door is left open and he finds Kenny sitting in the bath tub with a once white towel wrapped around his abdomen while he hyper ventilates.

"Ken?" Kyle croaked out.

Kenny snapped up to meet his gaze and he eases right away, "Something is really wrong."

"I can tell," Kyle said as he rubbed his eyes, staring at the fluid along the base of the tub. He walked over and dropped down in front of Kenny, "You've never woken up and bled out in the bath tub."

"Can you call over Cartman, he's sort of the expert on this shit," Kenny asked desperately.

"Do I have too?" Kyle asked.

"He keeps records on this shit, he's being doing it since day one," Kenny said, "I don't remember all of my deaths man, if anyone would know if this has happened before it would be Cartman."

Kyle gave a heavy groan of annoyance, "Fine. Take off the towel and your jacket so I can look for shrapnel."

"I don't think there's any bullets left," Kenny said as he tossed aside the towel. The glistening gash was much smaller than it was last night but it still glimmered like uncut rubies. It went no deeper than the muscles, but the pulse of organs underneath was still visible. The heady scent of blood intensified.

"I still should clean it up a bit, wrap you up in some bandages," Kyle droned on.

"Call Cartman first," Kenny said.

Kyle rolled his eyes, "I'll go do that, if it's within arms reach get a towel ready."

-/-/-/-

"I've seen this before," Cartman said as he looked at the wound.

Kenny heaves a relieved sigh before pulling his shirt back on.

"Then what does it mean?" Kyle asked impatiently.

"Kennys gonna die and stay dead for a while," Cartman said, "This happened a couple times leading up the muscle deterioration when we were younger. I'd say he has five, maybe six, more deaths before he doesn't wake up."

"So I'm just gonna be dead for a bit?" Kenny asked.

Cartman nodded, "Shouldn't be longer than a month when it happens."

"Thank fuck," Kenny said.

"He's gonna be gone for a month?" Kyle asked, he sounded distraught at the notions.

"It's one month, you'll be fine," Kenny said, resting his hand on top of Kyle's.

"Stan's still gonna be here, I'll be here, but you hate me so scrap that, Craig and Tweek are gonna be here," Cartman listed, raising a finger for each name, "It's not like you'll be alone, just don't go chasing him into the afterlife."

Kyle nodded, "Okay."

"I'll be more careful, promise," Kenny said softly.

"Are we all good here now? Confusion cleared up?" Cartman asked as he started on his way to the door, stepping backwards as he went.

"Everythings good," Kenny answered with, "Thanks for dropping by."

"It's what friends are for," Cartman said.

The second the door shut Kyle leaned heavily onto Kenny, arms wrapped around his shoulders and holding him tightly. He yanked the blonde onto his lap just a bit.

"Hey, Ky, it'll be alright," Kenny said gently.

"Please don't die," Kyle answered with quietly, voice impossibly soft, just below a whisper.

Kenny took a stiff inhale and exhale, "You know how the curse works, it likes to strike me down."

"Don't go on patrol tonight," Kyle demanded, voice coming out frail despite the intention of sounding stern.

"I won't," Kenny lied, he needed to go on patrol, he needed to. He's not sure if he'd be able to sleep if he didn't.

"I need you man," Kyle said, knocking the side of his head against Kenny's, a mirror of the blondes usual motion of endearment. He heaves a shaky sigh, "It was rough last time you were gone for a month, don't do that to me."

"I'm gonna have too eventually," Kenny said as Kyle traced along scars from previous deaths, he had so many. Some were pale, some weren't, some bumped up others were flat, tracing them was something Kyle did frequently.

"I know," He answered with quietly, "Really wish you didn't have too."

"I'll stop going on patrols for a couple days," Kenny said, after tonight of course. He had to do one tonight, he needed too. Call it a compulsion, call it an obsession, he needed to do it.

"Thanks," Kyle said.

"Want me to make some waffles?" Kenny asked as he shrugged off Kyle's grip just a bit.

"Sure, I wanna help you out with that though," Kyle said as he lifted up Kenny and hoisted him over to the kitchen.

-/-/-/-

"Oh fuck you," Mysterion said as he glanced down to the knife jutting from his thigh, "Do you have any idea how hard it's gonna be to explain this one to my boyfriend?"

The assailant stood in shock, that usually worked.

"See, I promised him I wouldn't die tonight, or go on patrol for a little bit," Mysterion said as he paced around, "I have friends, Super Craig, Call Girl- they'll pick up the slack while I'm off duty, but explaining this to my boyfriend when I'm supposed to be sleeping beside him at home? Do you have any idea how much trouble you've landed me in?"

"You, you aren't worried about the knife?" The thug asked shakily.

Mysterion laughed, "No, god no, something like this? It's nothing pal," To prove a point he tugged the weapon from his limb and didn't even wince as it came out, "I'd suggest some barbs if you'd like it to hurt, maybe even get stuck," He trailed a finger along the sharpened and bloodied blade, it nearly cut open his glove, "It is rather nice as is."

The assailant just stayed silent, scared, intimidated- this was rather unexpected. They knew Mysterion was not to be messed with, but they didn't know it went this far.

"Two options bud," Mysterion said before pointing the tip to the bad guy, "You run, or you die; three seconds to choose."

They couldn't move, despite really wanting to live.

Mysterion gives a hum, "Tell Damien Kenny says hi."

Before they can even choke out a 'What?' there's a knife jammed between their eyes, digging so deep into cartilage it near instantly killed them. Airways blocked off, blood spilling into their lungs, skull ruptured, they die, just like that. And Mysterion is highly aware of how it feels, they should be thankful he didn't choose a worse death.

He watches them drop before kicking aside the corpse and leaving one of his many calling cards, this time it's a sticky note with his insignia on it. He heaves a full body sigh before starting on his way home, if he's lucky he'll make it back and Kyle won't be awake. If he's unlucky, Kyle will be livid and Kenny will be sleeping on the couch for the following who knows how long.

He walks down the streets and alleys with minimal limping as he goes. It's deep enough into the night that random civilians are somewhat minimal, and those that are out about are drunk, maybe even blackout drunk. He keeps his gaze lowered and he only lifts up his head when he hears the sound of a horn blaring right beside him.

He looks up to find a very disappointed Cartman glancing down at him from his truck window. He gives a nervous smile.

"Get in," Cartman barked as he popped open the door.

"Just crawl over you?" Mysterion asked, "Might get blood on your pants."

"I do not care, just get in," Cartman said, "It's the middle of the night in December, you're gonna freeze to death before you bleed to death."

Mysterion shrugged before hauling himself up, one hand on the door and the other at the side of the drivers seat. He flops his upper half onto Cartmans lap, awkwardly pressed between the steering wheel and his friend. The brunette yanks him the rest of the way with little to no care about the wound on his thigh.

He pulls the door shut and turns the heat on a little higher, "You weren't supposed to patrol tonight, Kenny. Kyle told me."

Kenny shrugged before pulling off the hood, slumped in the passenger seat comfortably. The hot air is blowing on his face and he didn't realize how cold he was, "He asked you to look for me, didn't he?"

Cartman nodded, "He did."

"Dude, how could you side with him?" Kenny asked venomously, "I'm gonna be in so much shit over this."

"You've seen Kyle mad, you know exactly why I did what he said," Cartman said defensively as he shifted into drive, "Unlike you, I do not come back from the dead."

Kenny gives an amused hum, "Fair point, fair point," He tugs off his gloves to rub them in front of the heating vent, "Thanks for picking me up man."

"Hey, it's what friends are for," Cartman answered with, reaching over to playfully punch Kenny in the shoulder. He held back a little bit of force, there could be a bruise there, and he would also be in shit if he worsened any of Kenny's wounds.

There's a sigh, "Fuck man, I swear, you're the most dependable person in our quartet."

Cartman just laughs, "The only reason I make sure you're getting dumped somewhere nice is because you lent me your playboys in grade nine," He's lying, he repaid that debt in cold hard cash on the same day it happened. He glances from the road to Kenny, "You are the only one that I've picked up from the strip club in a thong, covered in body glitter, I'd say that makes us a bit closer than the rest of the gang. Consider yourself lucky I still haven't told Kyle about that fiasco."

Kenny's face burns red at the memories of that downright outrageous event, "Fuck, that was a crazy night."

"Yeah, you told me all about it," Cartman said as he rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for everything," Kenny said quietly.

"It's my job," Cartman said, "Not really, but someone has to actually take care of you, unlike your boyfriend."

"Take that back," Kenny snapped venomously.

"You know what I mean, he makes sure you're feeling all happy and mentally stable, I pick you up from every event you don't want him to know about," Cartman explained halfheartedly, "I'm making sure that you're body rots somewhere with dignity, and that you don't freeze to death."

"I know," Kenny said, he rolled his eyes a bit as he spoke. There's a brief pauses, "Man it's fucking cold outside."

"That's why I was blasting the heat," Cartman said, giving a light chuckle, "I'll stick around in case he kicks you out."

Kenny refuses to look out the window, he knows what he'll see, "Well, wish me luck."

Cartman reaches over to place a hand on Kenny's shoulder, a familiar and silent affirmation, "You'll be fine."

"Thanks," The word comes out quietly before Kenny pops open the door and hops out.

He walks around the truck and he hates the fact his prediction was near entirely correct. The front door is open, golden glow of inside lighting shadowing out Kyle's form as he leans against the door frame. He's holding a mug of coffee and Kenny just knows that the redhead is holding a very disappointed look to go with it.

Kenny comes to a halt at the front step, a few feet of distance between him and Kyle. He can't bring himself to choke out a 'this isn't what it looks like' in a feeble attempt to sustain his dignity. It wouldn't even be worth it, there's still crimson oozing down his leg and he can't just say it's paint or some other bullshit excuse.

"Am I sleeping on the couch tonight," Kenny asked.

"You're sleeping in the bathtub so you don't get blood on the couch if anything," Kyle answered with, humor rested on his voice despite all odds.

"No blankets?" Kenny asked.

"I'm joking, but you better not have any more wounds than that one," He gestured vaguely to the gash in Kenny's thigh, "I'm cleaning you up and buying a padlock for the front door tomorrow morning."

"Ky, you know how important these patrols are," Kenny said, his defense was desperate and he hoped it showed on his voice.

"I do, thanks for not dying," Kyle said.

"You're mad, aren't you?" Kenny asked.

"Oh I'm absolutely fucking livid, you're lucky Cartman hasn't pulled out yet cause I would have your head mounted on a wall by now if he left," Kyle answered with, voice perfectly even and without a single waver in it.

Kenny gives a nervous laugh, "I just, there was a lead, and Wendy was on a date, and Craig is on vacation."

"Bullshit, and bullshit," Kyle answered with, "But, I'll let it slide tonight."

Kenny pursed his lips, "How much trouble am I in?"

"I'm not your mom, you tell me," Kyle scoffed.

Kenny stayed silent.

"You are in so much fucking trouble," Kyle answered with, "If you want me to leave reservations uncanceled then get your shit together and don't go on patrols for six fucking days- it's not that hard!"

"But I need too! It's, it's," Words dissolved in Kenny's throat, "I need too."

Kyle sighed, "Yeah, I thought so," He steps out of the way, "Put your bloody gear in the sink and wash off the wound."

Kenny hesitantly enters and makes his way upstairs. He tosses his gear in the sink and runs cold water and scrubs until the blood seeps into clear fluid. It stings when soap hits the wound and it feels wrong to be sitting in a fluorescent lit bathroom all by himself cleaning up the wound. Kyle's usually there with him, he feels like he's a teenager all over again, cleaning his wounds in the dead of night and hoping that he didn't wake anyone up.

Kyle knocks on the door frame and Kenny glances up, he looks like a deer stuck in headlights. Kyle tosses him a dry towel, the blood stained one. Kenny dabs away the excess soap on his leg, waiting for someone to speak.

"I still love you," Kyle said quietly.

"I know," Kenny answered with, "But, I gotta die for a bit, can't be avoided."

Kyle slid down the door frame till he was sitting on the floor, opposite so he could face Kenny who was leaned against the sink. He heaved a sigh, "Can you please try and last one week?"

"I will," Kenny said, "I promise that I won't miss our anniversary dinner."

"Thanks," Kyle said quietly, he slid over next to Kenny, "You're terrible at cleaning wounds."

"Well since we got together you usually help out," Kenny answered with as he held out the towel to Kyle.

"I've let you grow soft and weak, how cruel of me," Kyle said with a laugh. He dabbed at the edges of the wound carefully.

Kenny leans himself against Kyle, "Love you."

Kyle gives a hum, "I love you too Ken, I just wish you'd be more careful."

"I'll try," Kenny said quietly.

[neomedievalist]

hi aleph sorry for putting p5 in your inbox. im going to say shuake but Also I ask you (optionally) to consider it from the perspective of someone who merely played the game and didn't interact with the fan community

how do you even approach shuake in the year 2023. man. your point about the fan community is an extremely fair point to make bc like. like i was saying before SO MUCH of persona fanbase is so warped based on fan perceptions of characters and its like. distill it and wash that away what do you have left (a shit game) (sorry) but like.

okay this hardly needs to be said but obviously the way persona fandom approaches shuake is EXTREMELY yaoibrained. like, the things that the strongest most powerful fujoshi archmages on tumblr are concocting? What on earth. like. and this ties in to awful fan characterization of akechi, lol. i think there really is, to be honest, a particular inherent problem in fan characterization of shuake (aside from the standard) in which you sort of smooth out the edges of akechi and make him more palatable and acceptable to put him in a relationship. fanfic is wish fulfillmnt at its core and i think...its not unreasonable to say a lot of people are projecting onto him and the healing they wish they could have, but its at the expense of his own character. like, people datamined akechi in therapy and then fucking ran with it. im going to say it outright: shuake is a really interesting pairing that i dont see working in any way. but its the same, or similar way that i dont see jonwalt ever working in any way (yes i see your second ask :3) i think its fun to explore but if i see you writing about a domestic life with them im like, lol. Lol.

on that note, im gonna be completely honest, as much as i love marigolds, i think the actual shipping parts of it are boring as hell unnecessary and i do not care about them, and this is a fic that ive repeatedly said has the best p5 characterization and writing ive ever seen and singlehandedly fixes p5 writing lol. the marigolds author expertly crafted a situation in which shuake would work and would be healthy (not perfect, but a lot better) and it genuinely is just like.. i am not invested in this? i am invested in this because of akechi's healing but part of akechis healing is like, talking to people who aren't akira? Lmao? sorry bit of a tangent.

honestly, its kind of impossible for me to think about what it would be like without the p5 fandom. can you imagine playing through the entire game while never seeing a shitty persona 5 meme? well i can honestly say it probably would have occured to me and i'd like it as a ship but it wouldn't be really that significant to me honestly. at the same time my experiences are clouding it! so i really cannot say.

lots of text here. anyway. p5 fandomwise, theres never been a more yaoibrained ship in existance EXCEPT FOR SOUYO. however, in terms of actual p5 canon, just slightly to the side of yaoibrained, as its not unreasonable to see it by any means but you do have to be a specific type of person to build that up in your head to something larger

[dourpeep]

WAIT. I'm losing my mind over that friends to lovers post you reblogged. All I can think about is college Albedo + mutual pining, romantic tension, and friends to lovers OTL

- Leaving little post it notes in his bag or inside the cover of his textbook to tell him to have a nice day or remind him to take care of himself because you know he has a tendency to work too hard sometimes!! And what if he meets up with Sucrose and Timaeus because they like to catch up and sometimes discuss their research or homework, and they see Albedo hiding a grin behind his books and think that he's solved a particularly difficult problem but it's just a cute little note you slipped him when he wasn't looking

- You stay up studying for exams with Albedo and he dozes off on your shoulder so you sit there afraid to move because you don't want to wake him but you're also dying inside

- The two of you go to the library to work but eventually get distracted so it turns into the two you sitting close together on a couch and reading each other sections from your favourite books

- I can also see him as someone who rambles about labs or new research he's absolutely taken by. Weeks later when you mention something he said before, he's a little surprised but you just tell him that you tried your best to understand everything because you know it's important to him and maybe his heart skipped a little

- Going off your headcanons: Albedo looking for little specimens and deciding it could be a fun outing with Klee so she can get some sunshine and you find the two of them in the park. You end up joining them and Albedo's heart softens seeing you and Klee laughing and smiling together!

- I remember this little headcanon you had where he snorts when laughing sometimes and imagine Albedo letting one slip out while he's with you, and Kaeya teasing him later on.

- Eventually, his friends start asking if the two of you are together because of the silent affection and teasing between the two of you. Albedo knows he likes you but he's scared a relationship will ruin everything and you're too important to lose even if it means he never says anything, but little did he know, you have feelings for him too.

Anyway, I hope you have a nice day and week! Sorry about this monster of an ask lmao

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR ALBEDO

NEVER

Like... there are two characters that I seldom, if ever, turn down and that's my beloved Albedo and beloathed Scaramouche- If you don't want me to shut up about a topic??? Like just utter word vomit???? Bring them up. Bring them up, I dare you--

Okay okay okay okay now lemme just--

oops. 1.4k words. Enjoy your headcanon drabbles, courtesy of me being a hard simp for Albedo--

College au Albedo is pretty close to how he normally is! Brilliant, though having difficulties with making friends and keeping said friends, getting carried away with experiments (did you know if you're on good enough terms with the professors, they'll vouch for you so you can use the lab when there aren't classes using them?? Yeah)...so the friendship that you have with him is certainly the closest one he has.

It'd be the kind where you knock on his dorm or apartment door at 11:45pm with some takeout and your textbooks and he'll let you in without a second thought. You slip inside and settle on the floor next to the coffee table cross-legged, setting the food out as if you don't live a good walk away. He wasn't going to sleep any time soon anyway.

Like the kind of friendship where your hand instinctively slips into his to tug him towards something cool you found or to the café where you tend to go after classes.

Even after you get to your destination, you don't let go.

Now that that has been established--the little notes you slip into his bag or on his books really began as a little reminder. Despite his keen intellect, Albedo tends to easily forget things because his mind is always going onto the next thing. So, being the great friend you are, would just slip a note to remind him to take breaks, eat a snack, or that you're supposed to go and meet Sucrose and Timaeus after class to prep for the upcoming exams.

Neither of you really know when they began to turn into doodles or 'seemingly platonic declarations of adoration'. It's normal for friends to write a heart besides "Don't forget I love you!", right? Yeah.

The smile that makes it's way on Albedo's face is unmistakable the moment that Sucrose accidentally stumbles upon a sticky note carefully tucked in one of his notebooks.

-

Speaking of Albedo and his tendencies to get carried away with stuff, he often functions on...minimal sleep.

Those nights that you pop up at his place to study or just hang out, he often ends up dozing off, glasses sliding uncomfortably down the bridge of his nose and hair tousled out of it's usual style.

You never plan to stay the night (though even when he's awake he insists you do because it's not as safe at night to make the commute home), but you can't just disturb his sleep when it's the first time in a while that he's probably gone without taking a capsule or two of melatonin to help himself back into some semblance of a sleep schedule.

It's these moments that you remember just how soft his hair is and just how nice his shampoo smells.

Also that he's a cuddler.

You awake in the morning, back aching and eyes squinting against the sudden brightness of the world around you and limbs tangled with your best friend. He's unbothered because his face is half-shoved against the crook of your neck.

-

With the library, you often find yourselves in a little game. There's so much to learn and so, so many topics through the old vanilla-scent found between pages!!

So trips to the library end up with the two of you digging and sifting to find a topic you've never heard of, sit and read for 15 minutes, then proceed to explain said topic the best you can (without looking!!). It almost always ends up with a few chuckles from Albedo as you fumble explaining (and half-making up) information and Albedo's (unfairly) great short-term memory winning out.

Speaking of...between actually studying and your little topic games, Albedo turns to you to bounce off his current observations and ideas. Sucrose and Timaeus, though both in similar majors as Albedo, are busy with their own projects and research to the point that they don't really have the time to help with stuff as extensive as his research.

Annnnd, naturally, since you don't have anything better to do and are almost always by his side, you play that part!

You listen intently no matter how dense the subject may be and no matter if you do or do not have the background knowledge.

When you ask him to explain something you don't quite understand, he can't help but blink in surprise because you were listening??? And wanted to really understand? You prove time and time again (even days, weeks later) that you listened to every word that tumbled out during his rambles.

And of course you do! Albedo's one of the most important people to you, so it's only natural that you want to show interest in his interests.

Also it's pretty cool to find out those random bits of trivia (like lobsters and their repairable telomeres-).

--

Klee!!!

Oh man, the first time that you met Klee was a pretty hectic day for Albedo. Due to his Aunt Alice's incredibly busy schedule, he tends to care for Klee on days that he doesn't have class.

However, that particular day he just barely finished class before he had to go and pick her up from school.

With you in tow, that is.

Immediately, the little girl brightens up at your presence, no doubt excited from what she's heard about you (listening in to Albedo's conversations with Alice and the embarrassed tone in his voice when he realizes that he's let your name slipped again and now Aunt Alice wants to know about this particular friend who's captured dear little Bedo's attentions). He's relieved when Klee doesn't immediately reveal that.

From then on, Klee insists that Albedo invites you for every outing they have.

The cafe for a quick treat? The bookstore to sit and read a few books?

"Oh, please please please?? Can they come Albedo? Klee promises that she'll be good!"

Who is he to say no?

But above all, those park days are his favorite. You end up running around with Klee, lifting her up so she can reach a particular leaf on a branch, squatting down to see a bug or lizard that she's entirely enthralled by--all while Albedo sits under the shade of a tree on a blanket, sketchbook and pencil in hand.

You don't know it (even though there's many occasions where he's shown you his sketchbook), but the pages are filled with your smile.

-

Around you, Albedo's found that he's most comfortable.

There's no need to hide insecurities or hold his tongue when something particularly exciting comes to mind...nor does he hold back in his laughter. Especially with your insistence that his laugh is cute.

That scenario with Kaeya is entirely an accident, proof of just how used to your presence he's become.

It's a late night and you're out with a bigger group of friends than usual, some friends that Albedo's only known since the start of college, but definitely good ones.

With a drink in your hand you all sit at a large table, chatting about anything and everything when you crack a joke and Albedo snorts.

Not like a snort with his normally quiet chuckle, either.

Instead, he's laughing hard, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes and stomach hurting (and maybe it's because of the few sips of drink he's had) and he snorts. The moment the sound escapes him and he's trying hard to calm back down, Kaeya grins.

He's most definitely one of the first people to put two and two together.

After all, Albedo keeps to himself, even around them. But with you around? There's a certain spark of life that ignites.

-

It's no surprise that the two of you are close when all is said and done.

But that doesn't stop either of you from choking and cheeks from flushing when someone asks if you're a couple. It happens often--too often to count--and ranges between Kaeya's teasing comments and a few sweet words from an elderly woman passing by your table at the cafe.

And you laugh--you and Albedo--because no, no, you're just friends.

Right?

Then the light hits your features just right, illuminating you in a soft glow that makes your eyes shine and--

It's undeniable the way that he feels for you. The sudden quickening of his heartbeat is proof enough. You slide your drink towards him for him to try and he does the same, eyes unable to leave your lips as you take a sip and then smile.

Between the cracks of his appreciation, of this warmth, dread seeps.

Though...that was just over a week ago.

Sitting down back at his apartment, your head resting on his chest and your hands intertwined while you watch whatever's on tv, you shift. Your lips meet in a sweet kiss.

And Albedo wonders how neither of you managed to see it sooner.

[realcube]

characters dealing with a deep sleeper! s/o  (_　_)。゜zｚＺ

characters: bokuto, oikawa & saiki k 

tw// swearing, fluff, mentions of death, illness, funerals, sexual references 

Kōtarō Bokuto

he literally thought you died 

this was your first time sleeping over at his home and last night, y’all were stuffing your faces with treats until your stomachs ached

you had mentioned several times how you were feeling sick - even after bokuto took you out for a late-night run - but he just told you to take a pain-killer and sleep it off

but now he was kinda regretting not calling someone to help 

like what if the sickness was a symptom to a deadly disease which took you overnight?

plus, he had tried everything he could think of to wake you up: he shook you, he blasted music from his phone, he opened the curtains to allow blinding light to shine on you, he flicked spits of cold water onto your face and he literally wafted cookies around the room in hopes you’d catch the scent 

but it was no use as even after all that, you didn’t move an inch

he tried to check your pulse which he believed to be on the wrist but he couldn’t think it 

so either he was too stupid to find the exact location or......you didn’t have a pulse

he’ll admit, it was an eerie thought that there could be a dead person in his bed rn but even he considered that a rather outlandish idea 

how could a person as healthy as you just die overnight? so he did what any reasonable person would do in that situation-- no, not call a doctor

he held a funeral for his beloved s/o 💀

he gathered all five of the plushies laying around his room (all of which were owls) and lined them up on the foot of the bed 

‘we are all gathered here today to celebrate the epic life of my partner, (y/n) (l/n).’ he sobbed into the sleeve of the black blazer he had pulled out of his closet, ‘gone too soon.’

silence. but in his mind he was met by a chorus of ‘aww’s and whimpers from the crowd

‘i loved them. (y/n) was my rock; they helped me through some of the hardest points in my life--’

his speech was cut off upon hearing one of the audience members pipe up, ‘bo, what are you doing?’

a wave of excitement washed over him as he scurried up to the line of guests, closely examining each one, ‘i didn’t know y’all could talk!’

you rolled your eyes before leaning forward and gently tapping the back of his head, ‘it’s me.’

upon laying his eyes on you, healthy and alive, his lips curled into a foolishly large grin as he immediately pulled you into a tight hug, ‘(Y/N), you’re alive!’ he cried

you gasped at his rather dramatic reaction before slowly melting into his embrace, ‘yes, i am.’

as your lips parted from the skin of his jaw and he slowly let his arms fall from your waist, you finally inquired, ‘did you hold a funeral for me?’

bokuto’s eyes-widened at your ‘crazy’ suggestion, ‘uhhhh, nooooo.’

if his elongating of each word wasn’t enough to show that he was lying, the dead giveaway would have to be the sheet of A4 paper with ‘(Y/N)’S FUNERAL 😭’ written on it that was stuck to the door with blu-tac

ignoring his completely false reply, you leaned back on the bed and picked up on the owl plushies, gently stroking it’s soft fur, ‘are these the guests? why are there only five?’

bokuto shrugged, picking up one himself and absentmindedly attempting to balance it on your head, ‘seven; if you count me and you.’

you giggled, about to make a inquire about the names of each guest until bokuto suddenly through his arms around you again 

‘why didn’t you tell me that you are such a deep-sleeper before?! i was so worried - i thought you died! please never die on me again, (y/n)?’

you smiled, pulling back to plant a sweet kiss on his cheek, ‘i promise.’

Tōru Oikawa

he would take advantage of this opportunity lol

the first time y’all slept over together as a couple, he had no idea that you were as deep of a sleeper as you actually are

like he thought you meant ‘i sometimes sleep through my alarms’ deep-sleeper

NOT ‘IT TAKES A WHOLE NATURAL DISASTER TO WAKE ME UP IN THE MORNING’ DEEP-SLEEPER (/h)

anyway, at first, he’d probably just freshen up while you sleep: take a shower, wash his face, brush his teeth, floss etc so he’s no longer effected by that ✨morning crust ✨

but when he pokes his head out of the bathroom and noticed that your sleep asleep, he tries to blow-dry his hair bc he knows how much you like it when it’s all fluffy

but his blow-dryer was quite loud so he put it on for a few seconds to see if it’s wake you up and just as he expected, you were still sound asleep

so he blew-dry his hair until it was that soft texture that you liked so much- all while you were still like (∪.∪ )...zzz even though the blow-dryer was making a racket 

you were still sleeping and upon looking at the time, he realised that it was completely fair considering it was currently half past 8 and he had just woken up extremely early for some unknown reason

he didn’t want to wake you so he was just doing to go out for a run or make breakfast until he caught a glimpse of himself in mirror

o.O

despite his  puffy hair and pearly-white smile, he still looked sloppy

but it was definitely bc of his stained, torn, washed-out pyjamas tbh

he was just wearing an old T-shirt that he’s had for god-knows how long and a pair of grey sweatpants; it wasn’t a look

he had no idea what possessed him to wear such casual nightwear while you were at his house - especially when you chose to wear something so relaxed yet titillating - but he knew that he needed to change

after a while of rummaging through his nightwear drawer, the best he could find was a pair of white, silk, loose-legged trousers which he had bought for a halloween costume many years ago

it was pretty classy though :)) he was sure that you’d like it 

however, he still couldn’t find anything to wear on his top half but there is no fashion problem oikawa can’t solve 

thus, he went shirtless ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

he also threw on some jewellery too, just for the lols

you weren’t awake yet thought, so after he set up some candles to create a ‘mood’, he just sat next to you on the bed, scrolling on his phone and anticipating your reaction once you woke up

for a moment, he thought that he might’ve went when too far but upon taking a look at himself in his front-facing camera, he realised that there was no harm in spicing things up

once he noticed one of your eyes slowly flutter open, he quickly tossed his phone to the side and turned his body to face you, shooting you a kind smile and he gently ran a hand through his fluffy hair, ‘morning, angel~’ he cooed

you grumbled your greeting in response, then proceeded to rub your eyes to make sure you were seeing him correctly, ‘what are you wearing, tōru?’

‘can a guy not dress up for his special someone anymore?’

you rolled your eyes, playfully slapping his chest and going to hop out of bed until he pulled you back down against the sheets

a faint gasp escaped your lips but you were quickly hushed by oikawa pushing his finger against your lips, ‘you’re not going anywhere, (y/n).’

Kusuo Saiki

this was the first time you ever slept over at his house or next to him yet y’all had been dating for year and a half

he was just scared that he might accidently do something crazy in his sleep (bc of his powers ofc) and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt you 🥺

you were patient with him though but bc y’all had never woken up together before, he had no idea how deep of a sleeper you are

he thought it was cute at first bc you were laying there like the beauty you are, lookin’ all serene and calm and stuff

but after a while, he got bored on his own  #•̀ ︿ •́

also, you promised to bake macarons with him for breakfast and he was hungry as hell, still he didn’t want to eat without you but if he didn’t wake you up rn to make macarons, he’d surely starve to death while they were in the fridge

on any other day, he’d just try do it himself but when you helped him make food- it just hit different 😍

‘(y/n), wake up.’  he spoke into your mind using his telepathy, while light nudging your arm, ‘i’m hungry.’

you didn’t reply, seeming completely knocked out

he tried the next best thing, holding his annoying alarm noise near (but not too close) to your ear

still nothing, though

his last human attempt was aggressively pulling your blanket away but even after that you showed no signs of waking up so he realised that he’d have to resort to using his physic abilities

he considered using his astral projection to possess your body but he felt as though taking over your body might cross a few boundaries 

but he did try duplicating himself so he could shake you from many different angles but it was still no use

he continued to use his telepathy to try wake you up but it didn’t seem to work either

after multiple different attempts of using his powers to try wake you up; here he was, standing in the middle of some dystopian, apocalyptic scene - alarms ringing in the distant along with sirens, screaming, honking and wails. everything around him seemed to be engulfed by flames which created thick, smoky air 

he wasn’t really sure how he got here but he was pretty sure it started around the time he tried to form an energy ball 

whatever 🤷‍♂️ it’s no biggie

he jumped back in time so he was standing next to your bed once again, exactly where he left off before he created the energy ball

he stared down at your sleeping figure and let out an exasperated sigh as he realised that he’d have to employ one of his most dangerous tactics

he really hoped it didn’t have to come to this

‘(y/n), if you get up right now.’ his voice rung through your head, ‘i speak with my voice.’

just like that, both of your eyes shot open as you hastily sat up on the bed

‘do it, saiki!’ you cheered, a foolishly large grin plastered on your features

and he couldn’t help but smile too 

curse you for being so cute

[mariaiscrafting]

no, you know what, I’m going to stop vague’ing on the dash. my anger is about to get extremely direct and enraged, so fair warning, but I don’t care about anyone’s comfort right now. I’m going to get fucking mad, and you all will fucking deal.

not a single one of us has the right, or should even have the option, to guess about ccs’ sexualities. I’ve kept my mouth shut when it comes to people analyzing george/dream and guessing they’re some kind of queer, but I’m fucking done. I’m going to go into every single reason “truthing” about ccs’ sexualities is just so beyond fucked.

first of all, this is in response specifically to ranboo and tubbo truthing. being a kid and getting thrown into such a massive spotlight, where you will undoubtedly be subject to some fuck shit eventually because the internet is full of thousands upon thousands of people, is already terrifying and anxiety-inducing and damaging enough. but for their own audiencemembers - their own supposed fucking “fans” - to take it one step further and speculate about their sexualities? oh, for the love of god. I can barely believe I even have to explain how fucked that is. it is one thing to be friends with or close to someone in real life and recognize your own queer struggle in them, to approach them with sympathy and support in case they are questioning. it is another thing entirely to speculate about the sexuality of someone you don’t even know, and to then take it a step further and “truth” about your fucking theories. you are not an expert, you are not their friend, and you are not a fucking oracle. you can guess all you want about a cc’s sexuality, you can comment on how their actions or behaviors or words resonate with you when you were questioning or closeted, but to go ahead and take your own speculation as truth is arrogant, presumptous, and damaging as all hell. 

I can just imagine what it would’ve been like if I’d grown an online platform that ripped me of my privacy when I was a teenager and trying to figure out my own sexuality. if I had a section of my audience analyzing my every social media post, the inflection in my voice and the nature of my laughs, my every interaction with my best friend, you know what I would’ve done? retreated so far into the closet that I would probably have tricked myself into thinking I was heterosexual. I would’ve been so fucking terrified and felt so stripped of any privacy or control I had over my own goddamn thoughts; do you understand how fucking vile that is? have none of you ever been terrified of giving away your own sexuality through your mannerisms and facial expressions and words, while you were closeted? have none of you ever experienced that utter fucking terror when you notice someone start to question your sexuality, the immediate urge to retreat and back up and act and believe the complete opposite just to prove them wrong and go back to the safety and security of them believing you were straight? for fuck’s sake, now imagine that feeling amplified a hundred fold, applied not just to one instance or one person in your life, but to thousands. do y’all not understand just how a) morally fucked it is to inflict this same kind of practice onto someone you supposedly care about and support, and b) potentially psychologically damaging this could be to ccs who are closeted, especially the fucking minors? oh my fucking god.

that isn’t even to point out why people do this shit - which is to project and find solace and derive some kind of enjoyment out of cc’s. that’s what cc’s are there for; they are entertainers, first and foremost, which continues outside of streams and bleeds into fandom culture and the kind of enjoyment fans can make out of interacting with other fans and creating their own fan content. the problem with this fact is that fans take it too far, like 85% of the time. cc’s aren’t just there for our own enjoyment. they are fucking people, oh my lord. they are real people that we will never know, and while we may have our fun with our little theories and talking to other fans and making and watching cute compilations and writing fanfiction and making fanart, we are just deriving entertainment from the parts of themselves they choose to show us. that persona they put on for the stream, that is not 100% them. they are real, rounded, 3-d, full people who we only ever get the privilege of witnessing a small sliver of. and we need to fucking remember that, because we can’t just keep running with the ideas of ccs that we have in our heads and treating them like they’re malleable characters for our own entertainment. 

anyways, specifically about truthing (and mind you, this is the point in the rant where a little of my anger starts to seep out because I’m tired and it’s 1:40 AM and I have class tomorrow): there’s so many things that can be said about gaydar. I’m not here to argue whether or not it exists, or the details of the morality of straight versus non-straight people engaging in the practice of truthing. I’m just here to say that, even if you believe gaydar exists and can be accurate when employed by non-straight people, that still only applies to people you fucking know. what you see of a cc is not “getting to know” them. what you are seeing is one face of a multi-faceted jewel, cut in far more ways that you can ever hope to one day perceive. your theories are just those - theories. whatever you might think of the giggles you heard or the pickup lines you saw uttered or the softness you imagine between x and y, human interaction is far too complex and laced with meaning for some rando on the internet who watches youtube videos and twitch streams to fully grasp from two entertainers working from behind a screen. your gaydar is not going to fucking work through a screen, fuck off with that shit.

another thing that’s fucking bothering me so much is this assumption that comes with being at all open about queerness when you yourself are not queer. ik this is just one of the many factors “truthers” use to justify the findings of their totally infallible, prophetic gaydar, but it’s a factor nonetheless, and it bothers the fuck outta me. someone being willing to express support for lgbt people or donate to lgbt chairities or open to conversations with other lgbt people about lgbt endeavors is not evidence of queerness. to say that it is contributes to the harmful belief that cishets still have that they cannot be any of those things - that is, exceedingly open about and to queerness - without being perceived as queer themselves. 

anyways, and now we are at the bottom line, which is that, this entire conversation wouldn’t even have to be had if people just fucking listened to cc boundaries. ranboo and tubbo do not like being shipped. it is that fucking simple. i know that it is tempting to ship two people you think are cute together. i know it is tempting to indulge in a dynamic you find comforting. but idgaf. temptation is not an excuse. find some fictional characters to ship, and kindly fuck off.

[babyflash]

Firstly, mind dropping some fics about Wally's non hero friends(counting Hartley, and Frances, since they are not really heroes).

Second, I see your 'the team not believing Hart and Linda exist' and raise it to 'they know Hartley exists but don't believe Wally knows him' . After all, the Rathaways were/are an extremely rich family, and Hartley is quite an activist, so I do belive there would be atleast some news about him or his family.

edit: i didn’t realize you were aksing for FICS lmaoshjifghu i just talk a LOT in this. anyways lOL i will have to get back to you on fics anon, have my brain thoughts to tide you over! 

firstly, i never mind talking about wally west and his crew of loser dweebs!!!! i feel like wally has a bunch of friends, but he isn't very popular. like he's an academic decathlon kid for SURE. total science dweeb. plus he's younger than all his peers (at least in my little pea brain because he skipped a grade or was in some sort of accelerated program) so his friends are all sort of like him. kind of dorky, a little weird, kind of the worst but in a fun and loving way.

so obviously we have the incredible linda park, junior reporter extraordinaire! she's a highly curious kid, like asks a bunch of questions in class and expects serious answers from the teacher or her peers. total free thinker, total babe, wally's in love. he doesn't KNOW that's what he's feeling, he think it's totally normal to be platonically obsessed w ur homie. anyways, linda is like magnetic! she's kind of loud, but he's louder so it doesn't bother him, she talks a lot, but he talks more so he likes to listen to her, and she's just so smart!! like linda is so quick and sharp and witty! i think she probably doesn't have, like, insane grades because she's so invested in throwing herself into her "field work" (i.e. giving wally/kid flash a heart attack when trying to get the "scoop" mid battle) and because school simply doesn't interest her because not everyone has the same inquiring mind, but she also has this like deep sense of inadequacy if she doesn't do well in academics BECAUSE she prides herself on her mind. so she's like a solid A/B student.

HART!!!! HARTLEY!!!!! like what i know about hart is from. a bunch of different things that are all pretty different so i will do my best to talk about him. i like this sort of.... bitchy, sardonic, slightly pretentious theater kid hart. like i fuck with that sort of thing, especially when looking at him as a teenager (because i imagine they all get together in high school, but wallinda were childhood bffs :') but i'll talk more about that some other time) because... whoo boy. parent stuff, am i right teens? so hart's got this sort of chip on his shoulder and he doesn't really know how to interact with other people but that's okay because wally doesn't either!! you know how like in high school an extrovert will adopt a bunch of introverts? that's them. linda and wally have these wonderful personalities hart just couldn't stay away from so, much to his own chagrin, he wanted to be around them! he felt good and regular with them and he liked to just be in their presence. he also really finds himself through the stage and through music and musicals especially. he begins to sort of grow into his own thing as they grow closer to graduation and it's just lovely to see. and like, again, just stupidly fucking smart! he's an overachiever, due to pressure from external factors and also just like this sort of awful teenaged need to be better than other people (me too king. is this me projecting? i barely even know this guy and look at me shoving all my problems onto him). he's always thought of school as a bore and a waste of time, but then he meets these insane and wonderful nerds and school is a little exciting!!! he's excited!! idk if any of that makes sense. i'm also desperately sorry if it's ooc i don't know as much about him and his backstory as i do some other characters. (any recs of good hartley stuff?)

and YEAH LMAO!!! wally being like "oh that's my friend hartley :)" and robin being like "yeah okay nice try kid idiot" and wally's like i swear to god if people don't start believing i have friends i'm gonna riot

[froggy-frogz]

Perhaps some Brett and Andre trans headcannons ? I love projecting my transmasc onto them hehe

A/N: Anon your mind is so largeeeee- I love hcs characters as trans, not gonna lie, it's sort fun, in it's own way. Anyway! Hope you enjoy it!

Brett

I like this headcanon because it does help tie in with Brett's strained relationship with his parents.

His father didn't really want anything to do with him after Brett came out. Brett was also one of those kids that knew from a young age, and well, Brett's family, namely his father, didn't like that.

I like to hc that Brett had some extended family that helped him slowly with his transition when his parents were absent, but once his father and mother found out, that family member was cut off.

Sorry, Brett :(

He'd probably feel like it was his fault for a while.

That meant that Brett really didn't get to start his actual transition until years later.

I'd like to think that his parents sent him to some sleep-away high school, so that's where he started transitioning.

Brett actually had a decent time in high school. He passed well enough going in. It was difficult, cause this was like, the late 90s/early 00s, but probably thanks to his natural good looks, he managed to make it through high school.

He started testosterone pretty early, and once he was able to, and had the money [because hell, his parents weren't going to pay for it], he would get top surgery.

When he started working for Cognito Inc., he had a few issues when talking to J.R. Not that J.R.'s transphobic, but, he did have to dig in deep into Brett's past. If anything I can see J.R. asking a couple of questions to make sure Brett's comfortable with who he's working with.

Sure Cognito Inc. is morally evil, but that doesn't mean that the company is going to be actually evil to its employees.

Andre

Oh boy, Andre was fun to think about.

He already had strict Christian parents, so when he finally came to the realization that something was a bit off, he was a little fucked.

Que him not actually coming out until he was 18. This also got him kicked out, poor thing.

Thankfully, the college he went to was pretty good at taking care of him, and he had enough money to go and stay at a small 4-year college.

Pre-transition, I don't think Andre had it all too well, like in high school, I can see one of the bigger factors of why he started drugs is with stress not only due to his parents, but also his gender identity.

Though, thanks to that, Andre had no problems doing his t-shots every week.

It wasn't until after he sorta-maybe dropped out of college that Andre got top surgery. He just couldn't afford both college and surgery.

When he started working at Cognito, he found that a lot of the people there, that he worked with were some sort of gay, so that actually helped.

He did have a lot of anxiety leading up to working there. He wasn't ever comfortable in a workplace before then.

[trulyhumblenarcissist]

Abourt Rei Himura and BNHA Chapter 301

Now that I've read the official release of chapter 301 I can finally try to gather my thoughts. I think this time the particular rendition of dialogues and inflections provided by Caleb Cook is more crisp and clear than usual, especially in throwing "shade" upon Endeavor as a father figure. But let's do things in order...

Title: THE WRONG WAY TO PUT OUT A FIRE - a simple, but stark message that doesn't leave space for ambiguity. There was a fire, an imminent tragedy that could and should have been avoided, but whoever tried to fix it, did it all wrong and now we have to deal with a huge arson.

CARLESS HANDLING OF FIRE, on the other hand, doesn't quite cut it for me, because it seems like everything was caused by a foolish mistake. "I was carless and now I'm in a pinch"- type of situation, while it's perfectly clear that Endeavor and Rei decided purposefully which "strategy" to use with Touya. A BAD one to say it lightly. Rei's contribution and complicity is debatable, of course, and I'll touch on this later.

Let me get this clear though: I'm not trying in any way to critique the hard work of unofficial translators. I can't say anything relevant because I'm not a translator in the first place (I can barely understand English and my native language on a good day) and also because I am so grateful for everything they do in order to give us really good material FREE OF CHARGE basically a second after the release in Japan. I'm just interested about the different shades of subtext we can catch if we read the story through multiple filters. Every translation is unique because it carries the personal spin of the author even if the bias should be inexistent or ideally undetectable...

However, back to the chapter

REI'S CAGE

The first scene opens on a luxurious classic Japanese villa, with Enji, Rei and her parents discussing the motivation behind Enji's proposal. Or at least we initially think that's what's going on... Because in reality Rei's family couldn't care less about the motivation. Everything these people see is a wealthy, famous guy the next number one hero ready to take their daughter in marriage. I guess the Himuras are pretty broke, thight on cash, their old prestige is definitely gone and all they can do to save themselves from shame and poverty is "to sell" their only remaining asset.

During the whole ordeal, Rei is standing still, silent, cold as ice. She knows she doesn't really have a choice. How mortifying and sad is this? An adult, capable woman has no agency whatsoever, she is used again and again and she stoically accepts this treatment from every single dominant figure in her life until she can't be stoic anymore. I really hope Horikoshi's going to give her a much more proactive role in saving her family and it seems the narrative wants us to expect this type of character development.

I'd like to point out 2 panels in particular:

First one

In this scene the Todorokis are back from their trip to the doc, who clearly said they shouldn't try to conceive a child with a perfect quirk mix because it is dangerous (and morally questionable too). Rei understands this fact and tries to dissuade Enji, but he doesn't listen, because he's projecting all his pent-up resentment and frustration onto Touya. He knows how it feels to crush against an unbreakable wall, since he can't surpass All might and his son can't too. He had to learn this truth the hard way, so Touya needs to do the same. Enji is purposefully throwing upon his son years of failures, self consciousness and despair, just because the boy has to get it into his thick skull that he is a dud, just like his father. This is not a hopeless dad making a mistake bona fide, this is a broken man trying to destroy his self reflection by proxy, annihilating everything Touya is, swiping the kid's identity under the rug. He describes his son's dreams and sadness as something birthed from stubbornness. He is auto-convincing himself however (because Endeavor is not stupid). A little bit later he's basically saying: "Touya let's play make believe! We can go on like everything I had engulfed in your psyche never existed, you're a failed attempt so you don't exist. Your needs and wants are silly and useless, nothing worth dealing with now that I can't make you my prodigy. Why don't you go play with the other failures so that I don't have to look at myself while taking actually care of you. I don't want to see you, because it's too painful, because you're a remainder of my own inadequacy."

Note: If you want to read an incredibly well done analysis about Endeavor's motives and psyche, you can get it on @thyandrawrites , she's dwelt on everything extensively and way better than me.

I really want to talk about Rei though. In the panel I showed above, her expression is a bit tricky to analyse. At first she is very vocal about her position. She doesn't want to put Touya through useless suffering, especially since they have a scientific reason not to. They have no guarantee of success with other children, besides, they could possibly have to deal with other health related issues. However, all it takes to convince her in the end is Enji's half assed attempt at the "It's for Touya's sake" shtick. Is it really? Why doesn't she question her husband anymore?

Well... I think before Natsuo, she was probably hoping Touya would let go "naturally", with time and growth, maybe by taking interest in his other siblings. Rei said she wanted to have more children because in her mind they would have supported and loved each other. Maybe she was naive enough to think that a big family full of kids few years apart from each other was all Touya needed to distract himself from his purposes... BUT and here is the point I want to get across: She was deluding herself too, much like Enji. The ugly truth, in my opinion, is that Rei is a person prone to protect herself by going with everything other people want, especially if said people are capable of hurting her. Yes, she was hurt time and time again, but what would have happened if she really tried to stop Enji?

What I am trying to say is that Rei is the kind of person who endures to survive. She holds a "captive" mentality in which, by indulging her captor's desires, she can continue living with less possibile damage. If I stay still and silent, if I don't make a scene, I can go on, I can hold onto the few things I have that actually make me happy.

Let's think about it... Enji was so obsessed with his psychotic, power-hungry quest that he would have probably disown Rei. She would have been thrown away for a more compliant woman with an ice quirk, or something similar, this resulting in her probably losing everything, the respect and love of her family (the Himuras) and also her own children. Because we know Endeavor can definitely hold a grudge and is vendicative.

So, clarifying, Rei doesn't put up a fight because she is scared for herself in a way... She is scared to be hurt in the worst possible way (by losing her little bit of serenity), so her strategy is to endure and to keep up a facade of control and purpose.

Rei, ironically just like Touya and other characters in mha, doesn't really get what unconditional love is. Her family loves her until she can be useful to the Himura name and status, her husband loves her for her quirk. Her children, however, love her for who she is and she wants to stay with them... Only to be forced to leave them later anyway.

The few times Rei actually smiles are when she is with her babies. She is a deeply loving mother in her core, but her declining mental health makes her a very lacking caregiver.

This panel, in my opinion, shows the point of no return for Rei. She can't keep the glacial facade forever...

After Natsuo's turn to be deemed a failure, Endeavor is crazier than ever, because All Might is as popular and loved as ever and he hasn't make any progress into his eugenetic games. The last two images of Rei are very telling. She is exhausted, but she knows what her husband wants from her this time too. She looks like a lifeless doll and honestly I can easily see Shouto's conception as... Non consensual and I will stop here.

Then Shouto is born, the last, perfect specimen... And Rei isn't doing much for Touya, we can see she's apparently blind towards her eldest son's distress already after Natsuo's birth... But why?

Because she is actively avoiding to face the Touya's problems too.

If Touya is still suffering, is still feeling stressed and worthless, then everything Rei has endured, everything she pretended not to feel for the sake of her family has been completely useless. What Rei cannot look at is her own parental failure, is the concrete proof that while protecting herself and her peace she did not protect her children too, because the two interests were never really aligned, even if she really believed so. She never had a functional family to preserve in the first place and everything she accepted to do was all for the sake of a false sense of belonging.

However is too easy to say she should've rebelled against Enji and dumped his sorry ass. Abuse traps you and your abuser too in a cage tricky to escape.

What I imagine will happen next chapter is one of two things:

Enji stops Touya by using brute force, probably also saying something really scarring to reinforce the notion that Shouto is the only child he cares about.

Rei stops Touya by using her quirk. This act could be considered by Touya another confirmation that even his mother actually does something by her own accord only when Shouto's safety is at risk

Necessary conclusions

I don't blame Rei for her actions too much. She is a victim turned abuser by circumstances, but more importantly she's actually taken mesures to prevent herself from hurting her children again. She's trying to heal for her family's sake, really this time. Ten years spent dealing with guilt and having actual therapy seem a good plan to me. And now she's the one ready to snap Enji back to reality.

Enji, on the other hand, is trying too. It's too little too late, but if he stops avoiding reality and hardly works on understanding his family's point of view I don't think he is completely unredeemable. I don't see him surviving his last confrontation with Touya, thought... But I could be totally wrong.

Obviously everything I've said it's my personal analysis on Rei's character, as I interpret her actions and words, so feel free to contradict me and/or to add anything you might see fit.

[firelxdykatara]

You’re doing a LoK rewrite, correct? Would be really interested in hearing how you plan on fixing Suyin’s character and the Lin-Suyin conflict because……. oh boy. Man there’s a lot to unpack there. This is what happens when we don’t let Toph just raise her fucking kids for the sake of pushing a stupid as hell narrative about working women and single motherhood.

I am indeed!

In... you know, the way I'm doing most of my big potential projects, in that I have a folder with some documents that have plot notes and... some day I may actually get full, finished fics out of them (h2o AU is in there, as is my voltron!atla fusion AU, and uhhhh my book 3 atla rewrite, and a few other things), so... but I will say that the docs I have for my LoK rewrite so far amount to roughly 4.2k words of just Plot and Character Notes, which may some day turn into words of Story, hopefully.

ANYWAY, POINT IS: yes, this exists, and I have Many Many Thoughts.

Including how the Gaang kids would shake out! Cause I know I'm doing Zutara, and maybe Tokka???? Although I don't wanna just leave Suki out either... maybe a throuple??? Or Sukka having an amicable breakup before Sokka and Toph get together--maybe she already has Lin by then, and Sokka helps support her through the grief of losing Kanto???? Idk honestly, I haven't actually figured any of that out definitively yet except that Aang was perfectly happy to settle down with an Air Acolyte from one of the rebuilt temples because he grew up and out of his crush on Katara pretty easily once he hit puberty and matured a bit.

UHHH none of which is actually an answer to your question, because it's a valid one! Which is why I've been sitting on this a while (10 days I'm so sorry) bc I haven't made any solid decisions but I've been letting it percolate around my head a bit. And the more I think about it, the more I really like the Sukka -> Tokka idea (and I don't want to kill off Suki since the kids all deserve their awesome Kyoshi warrior auntie in their lives, and also I want a Sukka kid to be besties with Iara [zuko and katara's youngest] so maybe she gets with someone else after she and Sokka split? I could be talked into Ty Lee/Suki actually, the more I think about it....), but obviously having a stable father figure and a Toph who is... not what LoK made her out to be will dramatically change the Beifong family dynamic.

That said, I think I actually have a solution. (I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do.) Toph has Lin with Kanto--and he passes away when Lin is two or three, which is why she has very few memories of her father. (Although none of this 'she doesn't even know his name until she's 50+ cause Toph didn't tell her daughters about their fathers' bullshit.) Sokka is there for her through it all (all of the gaang is, of course, but you know that it sometimes just hits different when it's someone you're also starting to fall in love with, especially when there are older and much more deeply buried feelings there that are now resurfacing, because at least in my version Toph was deeply in love with Sokka when they were teenagers, but he was in love with Suki and she also loved Suki so she didn't want to mess up anything about their family or the group dynamics by making her feelings anyone else's problem), they fall in love, get married and have Suyin.

(Sokka may jokingly refer to it as a shotgun wedding, but the truth is he wanted to propose well before he found out she was pregnant, his attempts just kept getting messed up in increasingly comedic fashion.)

Throughout all of this, Republic City has been established, Sokka is Chancellor, Toph is something of a defacto police chief--mostly because, at the time, no one else was willing to volunteer, and she jokingly offered to whip the law enforcement, but unfortunately everyone else at the meeting took her seriously. However, she is also the founder of the probending league, and basically her feelings about law enforcement are complicated and she actively discouraged her kids from joining the force which is part of why Lin did. How else do you have a teen rebel phase with a parent like Toph? (Which, in this instance, means tough and firm but fair, with a 'you break it, it's up to you to fix it' attitude and very little desire to actually control her daughters and their behavior.)

Ah, but here's the rub.

Suyin is ten years old when Sokka dies, and Lin is sixteen. I'm not sure how he's killed--maybe by Yakone, to tie it into my plans for Amon and book 1. (Note that I'm not sure when the Yakone bloodbending trial happened in canon, but it doesn't matter. The timeline I'm gonna build will be completely different post-comet, and I'll eventually write it all down so that I can keep things straight.) Which would incidentally provide excellent means of having Katara have a very personal stake in the Amon conflict, and perhaps color the fight between him and Iara, but I'm getting off track. And I think Sokka being killed by Yakone, and Toph being unable to protect or save him, or deliver her own brand of justice to avenge him (because Aang is there to stop her and.... shit probably got ugly, I suspect she didn't talk to Aang for at least twenty years after Sokka's death--and this isn't to say I think Toph is particularly violent or murderous, but in that moment, she absolutely wanted to kill the man with her bare hands, and however much she may have regretted it afterwards, she took a very long time to forgive Aang for stopping her in the first place), is what results in Toph stepping down as police chief.

She didn't withdraw from her daughters or fuck off into the swamp or anything (words cannot express how much I hate that part of her canon history), but she did grieve for a very long time. Lin, meanwhile, felt like it was up to her to keep her family together, while also feeling a desperate need to... prove herself, I think. And because her mother was so adamant that she not join the police force, that's exactly what she does. I think Lin completely misread Toph's intentions, too, and believed that the discouragement was because her mother didn't think she had what it takes, when in reality I think Toph was scared of Lin losing herself in the job like she herself had begun to, and eventually coming up on something she couldn't change or fix and making the same mistakes she had.

(I think Toph and Lin have communication issues largely because they are both headstrong and willful, but where Toph thought she was giving her daughters the room they would need to make their own way, what Lin desperately craved was direction and she felt like that was something her mother simply couldn't understand.)

Suyin, on the other hand, fell in with a bad crowd like in canon. I think that what she desperately needed was attention, similar to Lin craving direction, and Toph was trying so hard not to be her own parents that she went a little too far in the other direction and Suyin began to feel like it didn't matter what she did, her mom wouldn't care, or get angry, or discipline her, or anything. Lin and Suyin butted heads a lot growing up, too, especially after Sokka's death, because Lin tried to rein in her sister's behavior and this was met with resistance and derision because Suyin felt like Lin was trying to be both mom and dad and she was neither but her big sister would never admit to being just as lost as she was and it made her furious.

So when Suyin is sixteen, and Lin is twenty-two and new to the force, The Big Rift happens. Lin catches Suyin and her gang, tries to apprehend her, gets a scar on her face in the ensuing conflict. But instead of abusing her power and sending her problem child off to her mother before fucking off to the swamp to avoid the consequences of her actions, Toph tries to actually fix things. Suyin cools her heels in prison for a while, because she was paralyzed by guilt at the time when she hurt her sister (a few inches lower and she could have slit her throat), and was still there when Lin's backup arrived.

Uhhhhhhhhhhh..... I'm so sorry I rambled for so long, BUT THE UPSHOT IS: I think Suyin learned a bit about culpability and taking responsibility for her own actions, Toph realized that her daughters had different needs than she did at their age (and I think a lot of the problem was that grief clouded her own ability to connect with her daughters, and in trying to not be her own parents she lost sight of how to be the parent her own daughters needed), and Lin, I think, had to realize that she had never fully processed the loss of not one but two fathers and had turned to her job in order to avoid actually confronting the grief that had overshadowed her childhood.

However, she did not forgive Suyin, at least not right away--and she wasn't forced or expected to. Suyin understood that she crossed a serious line, she took her lumps and did her time, and no one shamed Lin for her anger. I think, as a result, she had less reason to hold onto that bitterness, and perhaps by the time the story actually begins, she and Suyin are on much better terms, though I haven't worked it out exactly yet.

UHHH yeah I went on for days lmao. All of this is subject to change, too, depending on the needs of the story whenever I get around to actually writing it all down, BUT these are my initial thoughts, at least.

[kjscottwrites]

hiya, i am very interested in outlining techniques/habits. would you be willing to do a whole post about yours?

Sure! I love outlining and talking about outlining so bless u and sorry for this rambling in advance. Let me get into it with the caveat that by no means is this an instructional, I have zero professional experience, this is just the way I do it, and everything I learned I learned from ... fuckin film school lmao so it's unlikely to be optimized for writing novels anyway.

ANYWAY - I'll break it down into steps:

Step 1: The Dump

I always start with something loose and improvisational I'll call it a "scratch" or a "dump" outline, pretty much no rules with this one. Sometimes it'll be a free-write in a word document, sometimes a structured outline, sometimes just word bubbles and a bunch of bs scribbles on a piece of notebook paper. Whatever.

This is always focused on just the initial idea. I typically avoid granular character details like names and appearances and personalities at this point - I stick to general utilitarian figures, the bare minimum I need to move them through the story. Emotional arcs and defining traits and backgrounds come later - this way I can make each character weave seamlessly into the narrative, vs trying to make the narrative mold to a bunch of misc. preset characters.

At this point, my MAIN goal is to nail down three key things:

A) What's the central dramatic question?

B) What are the stakes?

C) What are the messages/themes I want to touch on?

For Cavernous specifically (and for a lot of my other projects) I used the snowflake method as a jumping off point. I'll start with a couple of sentences, expand that rough logline into a 2-3 paragraph summary, then expand that summary out into something between 2k-10k words that maps onto a rough beginning, middle, end. (I personally try to avoid strict 3-act structure, save the cat, heroes journey etc. but if these help you, use them!) If I'm not sure about a certain part of the story at this point, I just skip it and put in a placeholder like "and then something bad happens and they..." The point is making a vessel for the story, not necessarily filling that vessel.

ANYWAY this is getting long so I'll put the rest of the steps under the cut:

Step 2: The Actual™ Outline

Were I working on a screenplay, this part would be "breaking the story" but idk if y'all call it that for novels. Basically I expand things out into a more formal/traditional outline slash treatment, like probably between 8k-15k words? This is an action-to-action synopsis, broken up chapter-by-chapter (or scene-by-scene for a screenplay) without skipping anything. If there's unknowns, plot holes, or other problems, this is where I fix them.

My rule of thumb for outlines is mainly just "describe it on the page EXACTLY how you'd describe it to your friend who asked you what the scene was about." Hit only the important stuff, keep it informal/conversational, do NOT worry about specificity and good prose. Sometimes I put memes or emojis in these, it's like. Whatever captures it in the absolute easiest way.

I use bullet points: A) whenever I'm not sure what order I want things to play out in. This is especially useful for worldbuilding/exposition heavy scenes where I want a defined set of information to get doled out organically in the drafting. B) When a scene is complicated/action-packed/has multiple side by side storylines.

I use stream-of-consciousness paragraphs for pretty much everything else. Here's a little sample of the Cavernous outline for reference. This is pretty much how my outlines are gonna read on any type of project:

I'll also do a lot of character work in this step! Which i won't talk about a ton bc this is already long and that's a WHOLE topic on its own - basically this stuff:

(also making a lot of picrews like, so many fucking picrews)

If there's multiple parallel storylines, I decide at this point exactly what order they go in and how they're paced out. Logically you should write your A Line, B Line and C Line separately and weave them together after the fact, but for some reason I basically never do that - working strictly chronologically makes more sense to me. Why? Because I am smooth brained. I don't recommend it, it's a hassle. ANYWAY color coding for multiple storylines is *essential* either way. Cavernous has just an A and B line in the first half, and a diverging C line in the second half which re-merges with the B line by the end. I plan on having the second book structured similarly!

The other thing I do during this step is some of the more utilitarian stuff - I make decisions about format, perspective and tense, wordcount goals, target demo etc.

MOST importantly I lock in my logline and elevator pitch at this step. I know that if I'm struggling to write either of these successfully, something is amiss in the foundation of the story and I have to go back and find it and fix it (or chose to cut my loses and move on to a new project, even) before I ever start drafting.

Step 3: Being inconvenienced Usually this is where I start drafting until I start to get forgetful and sick of referencing back to my wordy-ass outline

Step 4: Making a technical outline to fix step 3

I'm not really sure you could call it an outline? Actually no, yeah I'd call it a beat sheet. It's an easily edited quick-reference version of the Actual™ Outline. Anyway I gave an example of the one for cavernous here - so I'll share a bit from a different project:

Some of these points are expanded for a bit of clarity but some of them are just shorthand - this isn't necessarily decipherable to a reader, but *I* know what "Lundis receives a sign" means and as long as I have it in this simplified structure I can easily rearrange and move that D line scene up so that it falls just after the titles if I want, for instance.

I typically force myself to stay on track, but IF shit starts going off the rails in the drafting stage in a way that I like, I always stop, go back, adjust the outline(s) accordingly, make sure everything still works, and then go back to drafting. Because I deadass can't write without a roadmap. I become completely helpless and grind to a halt.

So yeah. Maybe all this will be helpful to someone? Maybe it's not. My biggest piece of advice for anyone looking to hone their outlining/structure/planning skills is take 👏 a 👏screenwriting 👏 course 👏because even if you have zero interest or intention to do screenwriting, the discipline is SO technical and SO different and it'll at WORST offer a new perspective. That's my soapbox. Okay love u bye