#are there any more spoiler tags i need to use

[bnhaobservation]

@granny-griffin's tags say:

#I think “destroy everything” was an authentically shigaraki ideal#it might have been based on AFO’s influence#and shaped by tenko’s past experience#but AFO wanted a world to exist so he could rule it#shigaraki disagreed#anyway good meta OP#bnha#bnha manga#bnha spoilers#bnha manga spoilers#bnha meta

You raise an interesting point so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’ll tackle your tags.

Erase/destroy/make disappear what displease/disturb/hurt us is a basic human instinct. We just don’t want what makes us unhappy to exist.

Of course our wishes are part of the information we consider when taking an informed decision. However often they’re nowhere near enough information though to just be all we need to make an informed decision (otherwise back to the hospital example, all the doctor would need to get your informed consent would be to ask you if you’d like to be operated… and I doubt they would find many people who would like it unless they were to know the risks of not getting the operation).

That’s why, when one is a small kid, preschooler or even younger, they’re taught they can’t destroy/make disappear/murder/hit/erase what displease them and why. This is the INFORMATION a person needs to receive and that, when one is old enough to make INFORMED decision, influences said informed decision.

And this is where Tomura has problems because the information he was given was messed up from the start, from when he was Shimura Tenko.

In fact Tenko starts to have mixed information in his home, where we see Kotarou hates Heroes and his way to tackle the problem is to forbid the family from talking about it. Kotarou can’t really destroy Heroes but, in a way, he makes them ‘disappear’ from conversation, from his house. Also, if Tenko does something that displease him, he makes him ‘disappear’ from the house by closing him outside… and when he got really, really upset he hit 5 years old Tenko twice, hard enough to send him on the ground… and, as far as Tenko knows, no one said that was a wrong behavior.

When Tenko’s Quick kicks in, Kotarou, instead than worrying about his panicking kid like Nao did, is afraid of Tenko and hits him again with a garden tool giving Tenko a permanent scar (psychological and physical).

This time though, Tenko snaps and will answer in kind, repeating Kotarou’s behavior, and Kotarou will be the one to disappear (psychologically speaking a boy is taught to take his father as a role model and Kotarou just wasn’t a good role model).

Kotarou was already passing bad information to Tenko who, back then, was already aware his own hitch was tied to his father’s house (and therefore to his father in particular).

The information the other family members were giving Tenko weren’t great, as they fundamentally were all telling him to endure, which however didn’t solve Tenko’s problems at all. They weren’t bringing away a sense of distress so great it manifested in a psychosomatic hitch (it’s really a big deal when this happens, it’s not something that can be undervalued, basically it’s the brain’s way to scream “I can’t take this any longer, someone please help”).

When Tenko retaliates and Kotarou disappear, for a moment Tenko’s long standing problem is solved.

This is why he feels ecstasy, because his primary feeling is to feel joy at the resolution of such a problem. This is also the first information he receives from this experience, that removing something that gives you pain will bring you great joy, and that this will cause the hitch to disappear (as his source of psychological stress disappeared).

It won’t last. Once the euphoria for the disappearing of what hurt him is gone, guilt fills him because he has killed his own family. The information he was given by the other family members about how he should endure, tell him in no uncertain terms what he did was bad. The fact he has no more the rest of his family which he loves pains him. Tenko even thinks no one helps him because that’s punishment for what he did.

This would have probably been info good enough to counter the previous info he received. If destroying his father brought him joy because it seemed the end of his problems… well, he was mistaken, the hitch gets back (as now he has a new, BIGGER source of stress) and so the misery.

To destroy wasn’t the solution to escape pain, and so Tenko takes the informed decision of not destroying the people who doesn’t help him even if this hurt him, quite the contrary, we’ll see that when he remembers himself decaying his parents he feels sick, not euphoric.

Long story short, the information he collected from his experiences tell him destroying not only doesn’t chase away permanently the hitch but makes him feel guilty and sick. To destroy makes him feel much worse than not destroy.

If things were to stop here, Tenko would have never destroyed things again because even if he’s just 5 and his ability to take informed decisions is seriously limited, it’s enough to tell him that destroying would be the worse choice, the thing that would make him feel overwhelmingly WORSE, not better.

Things don’t stop here though.

Here is where AFO starts his work, reshaping the info Tenko has.

For start he worsen and keeps alive Tenko’s trauma, giving him his family’s hands and trying to force him to remember all that pain. Tenko’s brain can handle only so much pain, eventually, to protect itself, the brain represses those memories that hurt him (as you can see ‘erasing as much as possible what hurts us’ is a very ingrained mechanism in us). Eventually Tenko doesn’t remember anymore clearly what happened to his parents, so the info he collected, as they aren’t supported by experiences anymore (since he forgot those experiences), lose in strength.

AFO comes and brings things to the next level.

For start AFO reframes the hitch.

Tenko’s hitch was due to the stress he was feeling in his house, due to the pain that place gave him, due to the mistreatment he suffered.

AFO lies and tells him the hitch isn’t due to the distress he felt at home, no, it’s due to his inborn wish to destroy. If he doesn’t want the hitch, he has to destroy, it’s the only way to erase his suffering, he doesn’t have to endure. Likely this isn’t an one time thing, likely AFO repeated and expanded the idea over and over.

Eventually AFO sends Tenko to deal with some bullies. Tenko in the beginning endures, it’s not he doesn’t have the instinctive impulse to destroy whose who hurt him, as said before that’s an instinct that’s natural to have, it’s that he keeps it in check like any normal decent person as he subconsciously remembers the information his experiences led him to learn.

It won’t last because, as I said, he doesn’t have anymore the memory of those experiences that gave him those info.

AFO takes care to break his resistance, to fill him with info that say that resisting to such an impulse is wrong. He shouldn’t feel guilt, the fact such actions would be wrong is a mere fabrication, if he endures he’s the only one suffering.

AFO fills him with lies, takes advantage that the previous info that Tenko had are either forgotten or lie on forgotten memories and reshapes his beliefs.

Destroying is salvation, he’s born for it, he has the impulse for it, if he feels bad it’s because he has to let such an impulse free. He has to destroy what he hates or he’ll feel worse. His negative feelings fill Tenko but now he deals with them according to the info AFO gave him. He has to destroy what gives him pain and this WILL MAKE HIM FEEL BETTER. Hence he destroys and then he has mixed feelings over it because he says he feels sick but at the same time he feels calm and free (before, when he was rolling on the floor, he clearly felt only sick so this is an improvement). AFO’s brainwashing is starting to take over.

(and, of course in this scene it's raining because it symbolically represents the tears Tenko isn't able to shed anymore)

All this long speech to say that no, you aren’t wrong, Tenko, or better his adult version, Shigaraki Tomura, ultimately wished for the destruction of everything he hated and then he decided to carry on that wish.

Shigaraki Tomura’s informed decision, is based on what AFO taught him, that he has an impulse withing that tells him to destroy and that's why he has an hitch, that he must not endures his impulses, that doing so would make him pitiful and weak or he’ll suffer, that he shouldn’t feel guilty as the ideas that would make him feel guilty are fabrications, lie, that therefore HE MUST DESTROY what he hates.

This is no more a wish, this becomes the decision he takes and that's informed by all of AFO's lies.

But why would AFO encourage Tomura to pursue a path of destruction when AFO is clearly not interested in world destruction? AFO is interested in Tomura’s rage as somehow Tomura’s rage is fundamental to snatch away OFA.

So yes, Tomura’s wish to destroy the world was something AFO wanted because it kept him angry. It’s not that he’ll let Tomura destroy the world, of course he thinks he’ll possess him first, but this is another things he manipulated Tomura into.

I'll cut it here, otherwise I would end up repeating all I've said in the previous post on how ultimately AFO's manipulation ended up being internalized and became part of Tomura.

Sorry if before this part wasn't clear and also sorry if I took advantage of your tags to talk more about this topic, I hope it wasn’t a problem.

Where really Tenko’s choices not his own?

AFO ‘Yowai mama tsuyoku arou nado ā orokana Shimura Tenko. Omae wa ima made nani hitotsu erande nado inai noni.’’ AFO「弱いまま強くあろうなどああ愚かな志村転弧。おまえは今まで何一つ選んでなどいないのに。」’ AFO “Though you've become strong, you remain weak. Ahh, foolish Shimura Tenko. Even though until now you haven't chosen anything.’ [Chap. 418]

This is what AFO said to Tomura/Tenko at the end of chapter 418 and of course it sparked discussion because what is this supposed to mean? Of course Tomura/Tenko chose plenty of things, he had free will, hadn’t he? His body wasn’t always controlled by AFO, Tomura/Tenko took plenty of decisions or is this an attempt to take accountability from him?

To discuss this and what AFO really means I’m going to talk to you about something else.

Ever hear about informed consent?

When the hospital needs you to agree to undergo a certain treatment they don’t just need your consent, they need your INFORMED consent.

The informed consent process is an ethical and legal requirement for medical treatment. It ensures that you understand your diagnosis and your treatment options and agree to have specific medical treatment. This process involves ongoing and clear conversations between you and your healthcare provider. These conversations often lead to your decision to give (or not) consent for treatment. Informed consent protects your autonomy and your legal rights as a patient. Informed consent protects your ability to make your own decisions about medical treatment. It also protects your legal right to ask questions about recommended treatments.

And yeah, it also helps your healthcare provider but, for this discussion I’ll focus on what it does for you.

Basically, your decision to say ‘yes’ if you weren’t informed, is legally considered void of value. It doesn’t matter you freely said ‘yes’ if you weren’t informed your consent is not enough.

You might also have heard if you’re a minor even though you decide to give consent to some things, that consent holds no value.

Now you might wonder, where does this lead us?

Tomura/Tenko is not a minor nor he has to undergo under some medical procedure.

The mechanism behind decisions, behind choosing something, is always the same. We choose according to the information we have. Freedom of will isn’t the most important factor deciding our choices, it’s information and they dictate our choices to the point some can predict them.

We inform our decisions and opinions through experiences, be they personal or made just by observing others, through what people teach us be they our parents or our teachers or people we trust, through confronting with others be it in discussions or in arguments.

If you tell me I have to choose between eating a pear and an apple I’ll choose the apple because I know I hate pears but I like apples. This is my INFORMED decision.

If you however were to tell me the apple is poisoned I wouldn’t eat it because I don’t want to die, and this would also be my INFORMED decision.

If you were to lie to me and tell me the apple is perfectly safe to eat when it’s not, I would go back on eating the apple and this would be my INFORMED decision… and it would obviously suck because the information I was given was false.

In Tomura/Tenko’s case, what AFO is saying, is he’s behind each information about how the world work that Tomura/Tenko received.

He got his hands on Tenko when the latter was 5 but even before that age he began shaping the world around him, the experiences Tenko would make. When he took Tenko he told him to call him ‘sensei’ (先生). The English version translated it as “master” as it is a word with many translations but the more common translation is “teacher” which would fit more with how Tomura/Tenko asks him what will he teach him.

AFO taught Tomura/Tenko how he had to see and interpret the world, how he had to see and interpret himself and his feelings, how he had to see and interpret the others. He kept on filling Tomura/Tenko with information that were aimed at influencing Tomura/Tenko’s beliefs, perceptions, will.

AFO taught him that he had an impulse to destroy, that the itch is DUE TO IT instead than due to the abuse he was suffering in his home. That he shouldn't endure abuse or he'll be the only one to suffer, that coscience, morale, ethics are lies, fabrications.

Tomura/Tenko was a small kid, thanks to the trauma he forgot most of his past, which includes the teaching and experiences he had before, and AFO took care to keep always alive the trauma inside him.

Tomura/Tenko was mostly kept isolated, having solely the company of AFO, of Garaki and of Kurogiri. They were his source of ‘reliable’ information as he trusted them… only they were clearly not reliable.

But, you might say, what about the internet?

Tomura/Tenko has no net friends. AFO took care to give him a certain view of the world, so that every information Tomura/Tenko would receive through the web would be influenced by such view. Tomura/Tenko has no reason to doubt AFO, as far as he knows he’s his savior and caretaker and he has no one else.

If AFO tells him the net lies when it says All Might is a good person, that it’s wrong to destroy things, that it’s wrong to murder, why should Tomura/Tenko doubt AFO? Where are ‘reliable’ information telling him what AFO says is a lie, when the other people around him who take care of him (Garaki and Kurogiri) agree with AFO? Why should he trust the net, the people who abandoned him, over the people who’re so nice and caring toward him?

And the more time Tomura/Tenko is left in this world in which AFO is his main source of information the more those information become part of him, influence his perception of the world, his personality.

Remember when All Might first saw him and called him a ‘man-child’? It wasn’t a completely wrong definition, since Tomura/Tenko wasn’t really allowed to mentally grow by interacting with others who were his equal and presented different opinions and wills.

It's not he didn't have Quirk counselling what stilled his growth, it's not he didn't want to grow or something and that took advantage of the fact he had too much power which made him spoiled...

...what the Heroes didn't consider, mostly because they didn't really care WHY TOMURA/TENKO IS LIKE THAT was that it was trauma and manipulation that made him like that. Tomura/Tenko experienced the world and the battles through roleplay games not through real interactions.

AFO was always around him, shaping him, telling him he can do what he wants and that everything was for him and Tomura/Tenko has no reason to believe he was lying, has no reason to think his words though.

Tomura/Tenko decides, but as his choices are all informed by AFO and AFO lies to him, his choices are all dictated by wrong info and manipulated in a certain direction. Even if he's told he can do what he wants his choices aren’t really ‘free’ because he doesn’t really know what he’s choosing and what he’s rejecting, because he’s not informed correctly.

Yes, inside him there’s his own persona, he’s not a complete will-less doll, but this matters little when all the information he receives are manipulated and he has not the means to realize it and AFO knows it. He’s a master manipulator, he knows how to give Tomura/Tenko the belief he’s choosing of his own free will when it’s AFO who put such ideas and beliefs in his head.

Tomura/Tenko is 20 when he is first sent against All Might and can interact with people with a diametrically opposite mind setting compared to AFO.

Still Tomura/Tenko’s first confrontation with All Might is easy for him to dismiss, AFO raised him thinking Heroes and especially All Might are a certain type of people, so All Might’s words are easy to dismiss like empty rhetoric and pretty words (remember? one of the first things he was taught is that coscience, moral, ethics are fabrications that allow people [aka Heroes] to run the world smoothly) and All Might clearly didn’t act in such a way it would positively impress Tomura/Tenko.

Tomura/Tenko views him as a representative of state-sponsored violence and All Might can’t prove him wrong because… he has to use violence to protect everyone.

Tomura/Tenko wasn’t taught to care about the nobility of the mean, for him use of violence makes Villains and Heroes alike and yet they’re split in two groups… but most of what Tomura/Tenko says is something that’s not really coming from him but from AFO’s indoctrination. They aren’t really HIS ideals yet, even All Might realizes so.

What Tomura/Tenko has in that moment is hate for All Might and society. When Stain will force him to tell him which is his conviction, this is what Tomura/Tenko says, not all the rest. He hates All Might and society.

AFO’s indoctrination was meant to manipulate him into believing why he hates them, but the truth is what Midoriya will nail at the end, society and All Might didn’t save him when he was an innocent child, not yet a Villain, and left him miserable. His father, AFO, they all told him this happened because Heroes and society are fundamentally bad. Due to this teaching Tomura/Tenko hates them with a passion, because he feels victimized by them. They’re the cause of his misery.

Stain’s words are harder to ignore as Stain is no Hero and Kurogiri wanted them to join forces and yet Stain attacked him… but then let him live. All of sudden someone who’s not a Hero makes something unpredictable. Tomura/Tenko tried to compete with him and loses, everyone is impressed by Stain and not by him and makes wrong assumptions on them. Touya and Himiko comes to him but he doesn’t understand their behavior. Ultimately he talks with Midoriya.

The talk doesn’t dramatically change him, it merely helps him to reframe everything in a familiar contest. It’s All Might’s fault, he decides, and this is what AFO taught him, but he doesn’t realize he’s parroting what his master taught him.

Ironically, his talk with Midoriya actually helps him to internalize, to interiorized what AFO taught him, because now HE HAD TO PONDER OVER THE SITUATION AND CONFRONT WITH SOMEONE ELSE, which is the first step to makes ideas your own as now they would come from you… but since he tackles that confrontation using the tons of info AFO poured into him and Midoriya is just a kid who makes wrong assumptions of him… well, the result ends up being that now Tomura/Tenko doesn’t just merely absorb AFO’s information but embraces them as if they were his own ideas.

This is what AFO wanted when he said there’s no point in simply telling Tomura/Tenko  an answer but that he needs to reach the conclusion himself.

In a way it’s a test to see if all the wrong information he has given him for years now really live inside him and have become his own. AFO knows that now that Tomura/Tenko is a man, albeit one kept immature, if he has succeeded in influencing him then it would be difficult to completely change his mind after 15 years of manipulations.

He’s not wrong, to completely change Tomura/Tenko’s mind would be difficult… but it isn’t impossible to partially change it, especially since Tomura/Tenko will then keep on interacting with the League… and won’t interact anymore with AFO so that AFO won’t manage anymore to teach him how to interpret his experiences.

In this new contest free of AFO the little of Tomura/Tenko’s original personality kind of come back to life, the League become precious friends he wants to protect. Ironically Tomura/Tenko, who hates Heroes because they abandoned him, want to be a Hero for the League. He doesn’t want to be their master or their ruler, all things AFO wants to be, Tomura/Tenko wants to be a Hero.

AFO used to say everything is all for him but now Tomura/Tenko wants everything to be for his companions, when he’ll submit Re-Destro he’ll ask suchi for them because they wanted it, he won’t force Touya to do what he doesn’t want to do, he promises he won’t destroy what Himiko loves, he let Shuuichi get angry at him.

Tomura is taking some choices that don’t come from AFO and could have taken more if he were to be given more time as he already wanted to be different from AFO and AFO’s attempt to take over his body as well as the revelation he manipulated him likely would have pushed Tomura/Tenko to reconsider everything he knew that influenced his mind and his decisions.

However plenty of what he chooses through the story come from AFO, from how he had taught him to see and feel the world, from the experiences he forced him to go through. We see it in the first war. AFO fed Kotarou’s resentment for Nana, which lead to Tenko’s abuse, AFO made sure Tomura/Tenko wandered for the city while no one helped him and when Tomura/Tenko faces the Heroes he quotes what he learned from that experience, that Heroes hurt their families to save strangers, that society is trash he says as he thinks back at how no one helped him. Society would always reject him, he says strong of his experiences which were manipulated by AFO. AFO taught him he has to free his violent impulses his wish for destruction that whatever tells him the contrary is a lie fabricated by society (chap. 237). Tomura wants to destroy because that’s how AFO taught him he has to fight the pain inside himself. Because he thinks his decaying Quirk is a reflection of his own personality, of his own role. He’s born to destroy… and this idea, as well as his Quirk… well they both come from AFO (and society, to be honest, as society tended to judge people’s personalities tied with their Quirk).

So, where this leaves us?

Tomura/Tenko did make some small choices that didn’t come from AFO… but too much of him come from AFO to the point if AFO had never meddled with his life he would have likely grown into a completely different person, with a completely different set of experiences and information that would inform his decisions.

As we don’t know which experiences and information he would have had, we can’t tell who he would have become (for example AFO gave him the decay Quirk and this influenced him into thinking he’s born to destroy but we don’t know which was his original Quirk. If he were to have a Quirk which also destroyed, he could have come to the same conclusion). Maybe he would have turned into a Hero, maybe he would have turned into an ordinary person, maybe he would have turned into an even worse Villain. Wondering over this is material for fanfics not for meta.

What remains true though is that way too many of present Tomura/Tenko’s important choices come from AFO, from what AFO taught him, that he shaped so much of his persona and actions that what AFO says about Tomura/Tenko never choosing anything is only partially incorrect at the end of the story and probably completely true at the start of it.

So yeah, as unpleasant as it is there’s a huge part of truth in AFO’s words… but it could have turned into a lie had Tomura/Tenko been given more time because, first he was freed of AFO’s influence and free to interact with others and second because AFO revealed his game and made clear he wanted to take over Tomura/Tenko’s body so he wasn’t the caring and disinterested benefactor he painted himself to be for 20 years and Tomura/Tenko didn’t have to take his words as reliable anymore.

A complete turn over would have probably been hard without a positive influence in his life, but for sure Tomura/Tenko would have been free to revaluate all he’d been taught by AFO and judge it again through the lenses of those new info.

But well, in the end he died so we’ll never learn what he could have done, which is just sad.

So is Tomura/Tenko innocent because manipulated?

There’s a part of the world population that think that inborn in humans there’s still the ability to choose between right and wrong even if they’re manipulated… and in real life it’s extremely hard to establish how much manipulated can be a person and how much it was due to them. Many don’t want to think that you can take a perfectly normal child and turn him into a serial killer through carefully raising him as such.

Discussing about this would be a minefield that would require psychological and educational degrees and probably would still see experts arguing because we can’t really test this theory and check if a baby is perfectly psychologically healthy and then try to raise him as a psychopath, and repeat the experience until we’ve enough data to judge, can we?

Real life cases weren’t cases which were carefully observed from start to end as an experiment would require so they leave the door open to speculation.

Long story short… this meta isn’t here to tell you if a real person can be raised and manipulated that much all his choices come from another and he’s unable to take them for himself.

This is a meta to tell you that from what we know and what we could observe Tomura/Tenko was manipulated from young age and that the majority of his life choices, especially the ones that lead him to become a Villain, were due to this.

Not that it would have made any difference in the BNHA world where Aoyama, a teen acting under duress, is viewed as a terrible Villain because, when threatened to be killed and have his parents killed if he weren’t to comply with AFO’s wishes, he choose to comply.

[dredgesnails]

i really wanted more gem and mumbo interactions this series because they were so fun in secret life but i really didn't think it would culminate in mumbo spending the better half of his series desperately trying to kill gem to the point of begging and pleading only to end up dying multiple times himself. and yet it was still everything i wanted and more

[verenvuoto]

LONG TIME NO SEE!

Here's the next little comic in the Post-Game DR-Was-A-Simulation AU.

Comics in this series: 01 - 02 - 03 [this one!]

[aq2003]

has anyone gotten the idea that odysseus' storyline in hades 2 is a depiction/exploration of trauma over his SA and how he's blaming himself for things that were out of his control? because that's the impression i'm getting from what i've seen. he talks about "goddesses" as his "greatest weakness" and that "he's not one to say no to them"...

when mel invites him to the bath, he brings up mortals having different standards for intimacy than gods and how it usually has a more romantic/sexual connotation. she then asks if he's uncomfortable and he has a startled reaction and brings up circe and calypso again (but never actually by name)

(this isn't ship/romance bait btw. odysseus knew mel as a kid and they're stated in-game to have a sibling/uncle-niece relationship)

also he grew apart from penelope after his return, but the game makes a point of showing that his love for penelope and telemachus is what drove him on at all so that element of his character isn't brought into question

[iizuumi]

Side effects of wearing your Kaiju suit too often ,,,, Part 2

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

See, I think Charles’ annoyance and frustration with the Cat King really was just pure protectiveness and not any kind of jealousy - it’s understandable, because Edwin is not telling him what happened even though something clearly did, which is not typical for them. Edwin doesn’t usually hide things like this! Of course he’s worried!

Charles’ reaction to Monty, on the other hand, is difficult to explain in a way that isn’t jealousy. You could say he’s being protective again, but Charles shows no sign of distrust in Monty, and had no idea of who Monty was or that he might betray them - he was actually very chill with him, except in a select few specific scenes. You could say he just doesn’t like him because he got brushed off during their first meeting, but not only does that not seem like Charles at all, it also doesn’t make sense, since, again, in most instances, Charles is genuinely friendly and is happy when Monty compliments him and seems to have come around to liking him (it completely flies over his head that this is a petty jab at Edwin on Monty’s part but oh well hahaha). You could say it changes up their status quo a bit and that bothers Charles. I do think this bothers him a bit, but I think, unlike Edwin, Charles’ fear and frustration here is directed more at situations (the Cat King whisking him away for several hours, as an example) than others. He’s sociable and likes being able to talk to new people. There’s absolutely no way he’d begrudge Edwin doing the same - and he doesn’t… with Niko. Edwin and Niko hit it off and become very close and that never bothers Charles at all. He’s incredibly endeared to her, just like the rest, and for the most part, he’s chill with Monty too, and smiles pretty knowingly when Edwin confesses to him having awakened some feelings. The only exceptions, where he shows definite annoyance, are when Monty first shows up and gets really in Edwin’s personal space to show him the astrology chart he made, and when Edwin is so sucked into the book Monty gave him that he doesn’t hear that Charles is talking to him, to which he annoyedly says that they seem to have been “spending a lot of time together”.

You could say he’s unused to having anyone get in Edwin’s personal space like that, but, again, Niko. She’s very tactile with him and he doesn’t seem to mind all that much; they spend time together watching things. If it was just someone getting close with Edwin in general, not only would that be weirdly possessive for the character, but it would also mean he would show discomfort with anyone getting close, I think. Does Charles see Monty as more of a potential threat than Niko, seeing as he knows her and her personality and doesn’t know Monty? Well, maybe, but again, Charles shows no sign of distrusting Monty at all.

Monty is a boy. Okay. So something about seeing Edwin so close to a boy that is not him, getting lost in thought over something this boy gave him, really rubs Charles the wrong way. Charles appears to catch on just as quickly as anyone else that there is something (or it looks like something) between Edwin and Monty. He is not surprised when Edwin comes out to him in episode 6, and in fact, seems to have just been waiting for him to verbalize it. He smiles and is not bothered at all by Edwin showing (what he thinks is) a romantic interest in Monty - he just doesn’t like it when Monty clearly shows a romantic interest in Edwin. Um. Well. Well.

Charles is jealous. I really don’t know what else to say.

Look, when I first watched this show, I actually didn’t want them to end up together romantically - I love the idea of one having fallen in love with another who does not reciprocate and the two of them still loving each other just as much. That Edwin’s confession made them closer instead of making things awkward is such a beautiful outcome to this build up and I absolutely love it. However. On my two rewatches, I caught a lot more little details, and I think it would be very strange if the show did not follow up on this. That, plus the deliberate quality of these “jealousy” moments where the camera focuses on him, Charles’ Orpheus coding throughout the show, the fact that Edwin’s arc was far more about realizing his feelings for Charles specifically than just coming to terms with his sexuality, and that even the actors admit that Charles’ response to the confession kind of left things open, it really seems to me like the path leads to a romantic endgame for them, or at the very least, that this possibility will be explored in more depth.

**This is just my reading of it. Please do not use this post as a gotcha for anyone who loves them as a platonic duo or people who really love Crystal and Charles together (because let’s face it, they’re super cute too). I’m just doing my rambles. As per usual.

[clownsuu]

Have you been to the site yet bc the canon voices are CRAZY GOOD THEY WERE COOKING

Y E A A. A H H H H H H HH MAN I FUGGIN LOVE HOWDY'S VOICE DAWG UGGGHHH MY BOYYYYY ;;;;;;;;

[knightwhoisni]

concept: unromanced eleanor as drifter's romantic advisor and wingwoman. how successful she actually is at this depends on how serious she's feeling.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

lmao condal will be like 'noo why do people like d*emon he's not a good guy!!!' but he won't have the balls to make d*emon explicitly be the evil that he is in the book re: b&c lmao.

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[frenchonionsoop]

so the new chapter ahaahahahahahaa

[amplexadversary]

Completely self indulgent post but here's one of the post-canon scenarios I have in my head for G Gundam.

Maybe skip this post if you don't like dark themes. Not all of what I've outlined is dark (most of it isn't), but I do cross the line past what appears in the show in regards to DG cells and abduction.

The shuffles all get roped into restoration projects on Earth between the 13th and 14th gundam fights, partially to have something to do alongside their training, partially out of inspiration by the common points of the Kasshus' and Master Asia's goals, and partially because netting their countries some decent publicity is likely to earn them favors during the Gundam Fight's off-years.

Sai is contacted by Kyral about an effort to clear out the infamous buildup of trash and cadavers on Everest; he wants Sai to leverage Neo China's help as something of a reparation kind of deal and Sai goes sure why not.

Sai recruits Argo because Bolt Gundam is built to withstand the cold, and he thinks Argo and Nastasha could help reverse engineer that quality to enable the use of their Gundams as both heavy work equipment and protection from the harsh environmental conditions that normally prevent this kind of operation.

George gets involved because someone he knows has a distant relative who died on the mountain a century ago, and they wanted him to check in with the forensics team on the project. This detail is important because eventually it becomes clear that there is a mystery to solve (that I myself haven't figured out all the details of yet but broadly know the setup and conclusion); DG-infected people are disappearing and not being investigated due to stigma. Our heroes are naturally going to be pissed about this, and will need an "in" with the field if they want to do anything about it.

First massively self-indulgent element: The forensics/body identification team inexplicably includes the real-world author Kathy Reichs, who somehow exists in this universe, and there's a little side bit about her having written a Bones book right before the 12th fight that featured a cooked cadaver found inside a gundam after entry into the Earth's atmosphere. There are a lot of weird coincidences in the book that parallel the DG incident, which creeps everyone out, but the similarities are merely born of the writer threading the needle of being believable and interesting in a way that became very true to life.

What does become relevant is when the Shuffles eventually meet up, she's able to explain the implications of a bunch of weird shit the fighters discovered (also Marie Louise read her book, and one of the in-universe liberties Reichs took writing about the gundams' black boxes that she explains in the afterword leads to ML realizing something important; that Neo Germany does not have its gundam's remains.)

While the Everest project is happening, Domon, Chibodee, and Allenby all want to continue their training somewhere on Earth, and receive a proposal from (an OC of mine who is) a historic preservationist (and an acquaintance of Allenby's): she has acquired the grounds of an abandoned castle in Europe* after submitting a plan to restore it, and needs to hire people to help with the labor.

*the castle is probably somewhere in Germany because I also want this pitch to have drama over Schwarz (pre-13th fight), Schwarz (Kyoji), and Schwarz (the next guy who was supposed to inherit the mask when the older ninja retired). Also Germany is fucking pretty.

In exchange for the help of the three gundam fighters, they and Rain get paid, plus room and board anywhere on the grounds, plus full access to the grounds and miles of sparsely-inhabited countryside for training purposes, and the privacy and ability to practice with their gundams that comes with being in the middle of fucking nowhere. Rain sets herself up to work a clinic in the next town over as well as practicing pro re nata wilderness medicine (I'm convinced every medic supporting the gundam fight would need to be able to do this.)

The group involved in the Castle project sticks around for a time, makes some good progress, and engage in occasional Shenanigans that come up when you put a bunch of weirdos in a Situation.

They aren't in town a lot save for Rain, but when they are they eventually start to pick up on gossip and news about the Mysterious Disappearances correlated with DG cell infection (as well as details that turn out to be important later). Eventually Rain brings this to Domon and Chibodees' attention and they decide that, yeah, this is tied to the DG, this is their problem, they should convene with the rest of the Shuffle Alliance about it.

Also of course Schwarz is involved because I'm the one writing this; the culprits' DG-tissue harvesting operation relies on having him captured and helpless, using cells from his body to "update" other victims' DG infections to a less aggressive strain. One thing I haven't decided is whether I want a reinstantiated Wong to head this shit, or make up my own morally bankrupt opportunistic asshole looking to twist the DG to their own benefits. I also need to decide where on the planet the center of all this insanity is, and it needs to be a place that isn't going to have any unfortunate implications (because that's a genuine risk with dark story elements)

... That's about as much as I have that is thought-out enough for me to explain. I return to thinking about this scenario a lot because it puts most of the characters way out of their element (and has a bunch of details that appeal to me specifically), and it kind of evolved into an incomplete plot outline that I don't currently have any plans to flesh out.

I think it's an interesting enough direction to go, because it follows through with a lot of the themes present in G, but takes advantage of the genre shift to avoid DBZ-crazy power scaling and adjusts the conflict more to a matter of where the main characters' prowess is most effective (Both in and out of the gundams. I'm assuming there are a ton of guys similar to Michelo's gang that just need fighting interspersed with everything else I described. In fact, kicking Some Group of Douchebags out of their protection racket is probably how team Castle even gets ahold of evidence related to missing persons.)

[fallinglikemagic]

"I'm cursed with curiosity..."

Gif version under the cut (FLASHING WARNING)

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

-.-

[zukkaoru]

oh the soukoku of it all................

[id in alt text, please do NOT comment/tag manga spoilers]

[boinin]

my manifestation post didn't work... again... T.T

We still have next week (there's no way they're done with the reactions)

I demand a Barosagi confrontation, and a glimpse of the Ubers bench for echari3 ✨

Not as satisfying as seeing your mystery Ubers striker, but we did get Niou in his Manshine fitout!