#based on a real life actual true story my friend has told me lol

[bloggerspam]

So uh, hiya!

....I come back bearing another snippet because Naynay's children continue to amuse me.

This fic is still abandoned, for the most part--but when the muse strikes, it strikes i guess! I will be stopping tumblr updates, so if you would like to subscribe to the AO3, just in case there are more updates (no promises, honestly very unlikely) please head on over there!

(Please don't ask for more. there will also never be plot for this so, just FYI) Sorry, but theres no jon in this snippet either!

===

Marina isn't in class today, and Georgie isn't happy about it.

Georgie keeps calling for Marina, and Danny has to keep reminding him that Marina is out sick today, which makes Georgie terribly unhappy. He's been floating around listlessly and sniffling up a storm, which makes Luna unhappy, who of course decides to make it Jordan's problem, and Jon is always where Jordan is so—

The point is. Danny only has four children today, but it feels like the workload is doubled.

The classroom has little areas dedicated to certain themes with little pictures of the children doing thematically appropriate actions to illustrate what they're supposed to be doing where.

A little kitchen area with a picture of Jordan flipping a felt egg in a tiny pan.

A little dress up area with little costumes and soft props with a picture of Luna and Jon dressed up as a firefighter and a bat respectively.

The "STEM" area where the blocks and LEGOs and trucks magnets and all sorts of things with a picture of Marina stacking up a tower of blocks.

The locked cabinet full of art supplies has a picture of Georgie covered in paint trying to draw what looks like an abstract suggestion of Mr. Potato Head in green, but is supposed to be (according to Georgie) an accurate drawing of Danny.

Georgie has been staring forlornly as Marina's picture, as if to ask it when will Marina come back from the war?

Danny has been Going Through It, honestly.

But he survives, and that all that matters.

And then, two months later, when Georgie is out for a family matter, Danny only feels relieved and assured that Marina definitely won't act that way.

What Danny wasn't expecting, however, is for Marina to tromp her way to the art cabinet with Georgie's picture and immediately scream at it as if she's got a ten thousand year old Grade A Wagyu Beef with it.

Danny has to take the picture down, just so she will stop screaming at it.

He hid it in his desk, first, but Marina somehow finds it and lets him know by letting out a piercing scream.

He hides it inside his body for the rest of the day instead.

Thank Gods that Danny's Wail is unique to him, or they'd all be doomed.

Preschool teacher Danny au

Danny takes his class on a field trip to a local museum and makes sure the kids keep a hold of the safety rope. Well things go slightly wrong when one of his students starts floating so he rushes to get him back on the ground which does require a little floating on his part. He thinks no one saw him since they were in a blind spot for the security cameras until he makes eye contact with Clark Kent and is immediately trying to figure out how to bribe a country boy reporter while Clark is low key freaking out at seeing a whole potential class of metas with a meta teacher

.

[bittenbyyou]

Stolen Moments

High School!AU | MCU!Peter Parker x Best Friend!Reader

genre: fluff

description: You and Peter’s first kiss didn’t go the way you planned.

word count: 2.6k

warnings: references to Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter not knowing any fairytales/Disney princesses and being a lovable dork

a/n: Another snippet based on real life events of how my bf and i got together lol. Enjoy the fluff and please feel free to let me know if you liked it!

One thing you loved most about your best friend was his inability to remember classic fairy tales. No matter how many times you summarized them, Peter would find a way to botch it every single time. Even going so far as to invent alternative story lines, which never failed to crack you up. You would tease him endlessly for it, but then he’d grill you for having never watched Star Wars or any of the Harry Potter movies. That’s what we’d call balance in your friendship.

“Fairy tale pop quiz!” Peter groaned dramatically as he plopped down on his couch, phone in hand with your big grinning face on FaceTime. 

“Not fairy tales… anything but those. They’re my weakness,” he whined. You laid on your side in bed, giggling.

“The great Peter Parker who’s in band, robotics, and the decathlon can’t recall a few simple fairy tales?”

“Well, I actually quit those,” he shared, ruffling the back of his hair with a sheepish grin. Your face fell, eyes wide and concerned. 

“Wait, when? Why?”

It’s not like Peter could tell you he was Spider-Man even though he really, really wanted to. The less you knew, the better. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to you.

“I’m really busy.”

“Stark Internship?”

His eyes lit up when you gave him a reason. “Right, yes!” 

Thank god for your incredible memory. “Makes sense. It’s been a while since we’ve even FaceTimed each other. You’re usually so busy at night.”

He saw the way your lips pouted as your crestfallen eyes looked away from the camera, making his chest feel tight. “I miss you too.”

Your gaze flickered back up to meet his own. Peter gulped, wondering if he sounded too emotional. Too affectionate. Too… obvious.

“Touché, Parker,” you said, rolling onto your back. “Okay, no more stalling. Tell me… which fairy tale princess ate the poison apple?”

Peter shut his eyes tight, thinking carefully. You both went to LegoLand one time and there was a display case that had the poison apple. You had asked him the same question then, pointing at the apple excitedly.

“Before we’re old would be nice,” you teased. Peter lifted up his index finger and shushed you. 

“Hold on, I got it,” His eyes fluttered open after remembering there was a small sign next to the poison apple display. “Little Mermaid.”

“Why would The Little Mermaid eat a poisonous apple?!” You bursted out into laughter at his confidence. “Dude, you said the same thing back when we went to LegoLand. The sign was in the wrong spot.”

“Darn it,” he muttered with a snap of his fingers. 

“I’ll give you a hint. Weather.”

“... Tornadoes?”

“What princess has “tornado” in her name?!” you exclaimed, trying your best not to wheeze. Peter couldn’t help but join in the laughter, knowing he was making a fool of himself. 

“You snorted,” he said in a taunting voice. “Gross.”

“Shut up, you love it.”

It’s true. He loved your laugh. Mostly because you always laughed with your whole body and sometimes would keel over. Even in public. In fact, you were probably about to fall off your bed right this second because your face suddenly became blurry and shaky. 

“Did you almost fall?” 

You successfully caught yourself and your phone before it fell on your face. “No,” you readjusted your position and cleared your throat, “Try again. It’s cold weather.”

“It can’t be Frozen… I think I’d remember that. You’ve never said anything about an apple in Mulan the many times you’ve told me her story…” You nodded many times, appreciating the fact he remembered your love for Mulan. You saw how his brows furrowed in concentration, loving how serious he was taking this. “Snow White.”

“Good j—”

“Oh!” he shouted all of a sudden, almost giving you a heart attack. “She’s the one with the seven smurfs, right?!”

Oh Peter Parker….  You’re the cutest human alive, you thought. 

Another wave of laughter overcame you, which intensified tenfold once you saw the big dumb smile on Peter’s face. The boy really thought he got it right.

“No… honey, they’re dwarfs,” you said once the laughter subsided.

“... Same thing,” he said, followed by a shrug. “I knew that.”

“Oh, we’re in for a long night. How about Jack and the Beanstalk?” That one should be easy.

“Ooh! Um… wait, I got it, quit laughing, I haven't even started,” he said, chuckling at how you placed a hand on your mouth to refrain from laughing more. “A guy sells a dog or cow or sheep for beans that grow into a big bean stalk and climbs up there and I think there’s a giant in the clouds? I don’t know.”

“I like how you completely disregarded the part where he was persuaded to sell his animal for magical beans, but okay. Pretty good.” You gave him a wink, which he returned. 

“Told you I’m good at this.”

“Uh huh. Last one.”

Peter gave you a nod. “Go for it.”

“Cinderella.”

“Easy. She’s the one with long hair, with the glass shoes that’s supposed to be a perfect fit but somehow falls off and I think the guy uses her hair to find her and climb the castle before midnight when some magic wears off…”

You didn’t have enough energy to laugh and risk your abs becoming a liability, so you opted for parting your lips open slightly, shocked at how someone could be so, so wrong. 

“I think there’s some sisters or step sisters in it too!” he added, giving himself a pat on the back. “Nailed it.”

“Quite the opposite,” you said, shaking your head. “I love your dumbass sometimes.”

He knew you were using the word as a term of endearment, so it made him smile. He loved you too. So much. 

“What’s occupying all that headspace of yours these days that you can never remember the stories?” you teased. 

You are… and Spider-Man, Peter thought to himself. 

"Oh you know, there's an ongoing battle between my inner monologue and my stomach's incessant cravings for Aunt May's chocolate chip cookies. Spoiler alert: the cookies usually win."

“Oh my gosh, her cookies are the best.”

“Right?”

You both laid on your sides, a comforting silence blanketing the two of you for a few seconds. 

“So um…” you started to say, a twinge of nervousness in your voice. “Because your knowledge on Cinderella is so—”

“Awesome?”

“Awful,” you corrected, smiling at his lame joke. “I was wondering if you wanted to go see the school play this Friday. They’re performing Cinderella.”

Peter sat up from his couch. “You mean, you and me, g-going together?”

“Yeah. MJ didn’t want to go because seeing a damsel in distress who solely relies on a man saving her kills her vibe.” Peter chuckled at that. “Are you and Ned doing anything?”

“No.”

“Oh good,” You paused. “You can invite him to come too!”

Oh. 

Peter hid his disappointment by placing his phone down on the couch for a split second, gathering his thoughts. Why was he assuming that this was a date? Of course you’d ask Ned to come too. He was so silly.

“Peter?” you said. “Peter~, are you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m here.” He picked up the phone and gave you a thumbs up. “I’ll go. And I’ll ask Ned about it.”

“Cool. See ya then. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Peter was so nervous. Which he knew was ridiculous because this was not a date, yet he spent hours picking out an outfit. What does one even wear to a school play anyway? In the end, he slipped on a white button-up with some jeans and headed to the school. 

He saw you standing by the front doors, wearing a pretty blouse and shorts. Simple but cute nonetheless. You always looked pretty to him. 

“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” Peter said while running up the steps to get to you. “Were you waiting long?”

You shook your head. “Not at all. The play starts in five minutes, so you made it on time.”

“Good. Good…” Now that he was up close, Peter noticed how you styled your hair differently from what you usually did. “Did you do something to your hair?”

“Yeah… is it weird?”

Peter shook his head rapidly. “No, you look good.”

“Just good?”

“Great. Spectacular. Fantastic,” he said with exploding hand motions.

You giggled. “Okay Mr. Thesaurus. Where’s Ned?”

“Ned told me he didn’t want to go.” Which Peter was secretly thankful for, but he’d never let you know that.

“Okay. Then it’ll just be us two. Let’s go.”

The two of you walked to the front doors and you didn’t miss how Peter practically ran in front of you just to open it first. You thanked him and then made your way to the school’s auditorium. Peter always suggested sitting in the back, claiming it had the best view but in reality, it’d be the easiest for him to slip away if duty called.

You did notice his backpack, finding it slightly odd he brought it to school after hours. However, you didn’t think too much of it because Peter always carried a backpack. It was handy when the two of you hung out at the mall and snuck in snacks into the movie theater or when you accidentally bought too much stuff at Target after claiming you only needed one thing.

“I bet Betty is going to look so beautiful. She’s Cinderella,” you said as you sat down on Peter’s left side. 

You’re beautiful. 

“Really? And Ned’s not the prince? I wonder how he feels about that.”

“Oh, they broke up,” you informed him. “I found out yesterday.”

“What? Dang, we could’ve had a double date,” he joked, testing the waters with you. You playfully smacked his arm. 

“In your dreams.”

The lights soon dimmed, letting you and Peter know the play was about to begin. Honestly, the play was far more entertaining than expected because it turned out to be a parody of Cinderella, much to your horror. Peter was relishing at how upset you were, whispering to him every few minutes on how the story “wasn’t accurate.” Honestly, it was super adorable seeing you so worked up.

You leaned close to Peter’s ear, causing his breath to hitch. “This is so ridiculous. It’s supposed to be a pumpkin carriage, not pumpkin pie.”

“... There’s supposed to be a carriage?” he whispered back. 

“See, this play is tainting your mind.”

“But you can’t tell me you’re not enjoying it.”

“It is pretty funny,” you admitted, noticing his arm on your shared armrest. You were about to place your hand on top of his when Nick Fury’s stern voice echoed loudly in his ear.

“Parker. Are you in position?”

“No,” Peter said loud enough for you to hear. You immediately retracted your hand and Peter realized what you were about to do. 

“No…?” you said softly. The look of hurt in your eyes made Peter panic.

“And why the hell not?” Nick Fury interrogated. Peter slapped his ear/earpiece to shut it up. 

“I-I didn’t mean that. Um… I need to go to the restroom.”

“You okay?”

“I’m…” His mind raced for an excuse. “I’m feeling sick, um, I ate dairy and you know I’m lactose intolerant and all that.” He got out of his seat awkwardly, your eyes never leaving him. It pained him to see you so worried. “Oof, I’m feeling it now. Gonna be a while.”

He held onto his stomach to make for a convincing act. 

“Okay. Feel better.”

He apologized to you and then ran out of the auditorium.

“Parker, you better be on your way,” Fury’s voice warned.

“I’m coming,” Peter huffed, looking at the backside of your head one last time before disappearing. 

Peter finished his mission by the time the play had already ended. He saw you were sitting at the front of the school on the steps, so he had to go through the back and exit as if he had come from the restrooms. 

“Whoo~! That was painful,” Peter said as he approached you, hand on his stomach and backpack on his back. He let out a sharp exhale and watched your expressions to see if you were buying it. “I really shouldn’t have eaten that ice cream… I’m sorry. I left you all alone.”

“It’s okay. Betty says hi by the way.”

“Oh. Hi.” He held his hand up and waved at you as if you were Betty. That earned a chuckle from you. “I really am sorry. What did I miss?”

He took the seat next to you on the steps. “Well, it’s safe to say you’ll never learn the real story of Cinderella. Or at least the Disney version.”

“Was it that bad?”

“The worst.” 

He nudged his shoulder against yours, flashing you a warm smile. “Are you mad at me?”

“A little. I waited outside the restrooms for you, but you took so long.”

“... It really hurt my bowels. The battle was rough.”

You rolled your eyes. “Uh huh. You know what, I’ll forgive you if you can answer one thing. What’s something pretty much all the Disney princesses have in common?”

Peter pouted his lips in confusion, searching his brain for a possible answer. “They’re… girls?”

“No… they all get kissed by the end of the movie.”

“O-Oh… Oh. Oh~,” he shot you a perplexed look. “Have you… ever been kissed?”

You nodded. “Yeah. By my ex-boyfriend.” Ah, right. Peter was not fond of him at all. “What about you?”

“Me? No…” he looked down at the cement. “Not yet.”

“Didn’t you and Liz date? You guys didn’t kiss?”

He shook his head. “No. And I’d probably messed it up anyway.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Well in the movies and stuff it’s always perfectly well executed.”

You scooted a bit closer to him so that your knees would touch. “That’s only in movies. Most people’s first kiss is awkward.”

“Was yours?”

“Yeah. But I’d like to think I’m way better at it now.”

That made Peter’s eyes widen, but he still kept his gaze glued to the ground. “I-Is that so?”

“I mean… Do you want to find out?”

He finally lifted his head up to look at you. You reached your hand over, caressing the side of his face and he leaned into your touch right away. Was this a dream? Because his heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. Having his first kiss was one thing but having it with you? That’s all he ever wanted. 

“There’s no such thing as a perfectly executed first kiss. But I’d like to try to give you one if you want,” you said softly. 

“Y-Yeah… that’d be nice.” 

You smiled and leaned in closer, but Peter got too eager and pecked you on the lips first. He couldn’t help it. He’s been wanting to kiss you since forever. So yeah, it was sloppy and unplanned with zero technique. He honestly almost missed. You stared at him, too stunned to speak for a moment before your face twisted into frustration. 

“Peter!”

“What?”

“That's not how it was supposed to be! I was going to kiss you soft and sweet and slow and it was supposed to be romantic. You ruined it!”

“I’m pretty happy with it,” he said nervously. The look you gave him screamed murder. 

“Ugh. Well, that’s all you get. Your first kiss. Rushed and terrible.”

“I can live with that.”

You blushed for the first time that night and Peter had to stop himself from doing a backflip out of joy. 

[bamber344]

happy sts!

soooooo. Yap. About ur favorite OC. Right NEOW 💥🫵💥🫵💥🫵

(if you don’t wanna do that then what is the Weirdest Thing you’ve ever looked up for the sake of writing???)

<3

Wahoo sts!

This has got to be Roxy but my baby comes in a joined set with Sam so i'm gonna ramble about BOTH of them and you can't stop me >:)

so basically these two are my first ever true OCs and they've been with me for years and years. I've used them to process during hard times, exposed them to all sorts of wild situations, and honestly i owe my current identity to them. Back when they were still just a pair of character designs in my head, i assigned them each a half of my personality. I told a friend about them, and they asked a very important question

"Why do you think you associate both halves of your personality with two girls?"

anyway i'm trans now lmao

Over the years the two of them have alternated between who's the overall main character, but ever since I finally solidified them into real characters and put them down on paper in Direwolf, my first writing project, Roxy has held the lead (because she was the main character in that teehee)

As an actual character in a story, roxy is just the best. My girl has been through so much trauma and she's so skrunkly after all of it and she has an unhealthy relationship with the act of taking a life and rraarargargahrg.

Sam is a big muscly werewolf and she's so awkward and silly I also love her to absolute bits :>>

did i mention that these two are soulmates forever inextricably bound to fall in love in every universe no matter what au i put them in? because they are. Roxy at age 16 with no fighting skills saw a big wolf in a bear trap and instead of being sensible and getting help she decided to free it on her own. And she got a big fluffy girlfriend as a reward :)

Even post direwolf i still use these two as a base for pretty much all of my ideas before turning them into unique characters when i actually write it out, and some details definitely carry over lol. It's a bit of a design flaw of mine tbh.

Jordyn is built from Roxy's base. Madeline is built from Sam's. (don't take this as an indicator of how the romance in Project Genesis will pan out because i promise what i got cooking is SOOOO much more complex. Jordyn and Madeline were simply the first two characters I created for it (and tbh they do sorta be inextricably linked too thanks to all the fuckery surrounding jordyn but that's all i'll say teehee))

Addison is built from Sam's base. Dahlia is built from Roxy's.

no doubt in my next project something similar will happen as well.

Anyway these two are the greatest they are my actual children i owe them my existence as a person and one day i will rewrite their story with all of my learned writing skills because while I love Direwolf with all my heart, I've improved so much since I started it and my children deserve a story where they can truly shine to their full, beautiful potential.

TLDR: Roxy and Sam mean a whole lot to me, and I love them to bits :)

thanks for the ask @seastarblue!!!

[lemonkid396]

Arighty bois, it's time for the obligatory post episode discussion:

I think it's best to talk about Gangle's, and also a theory i very hastily developed lol

(Trigger Warning: Mentions of Suicide and Drug use)

I'm gonna be blunt: Gangle is an allegory for suicide and drug use. The literal mask is obvious, it's something Gangle obtains to hide or change her emotions, but slips and doesn't fully hide the pain. And when Gangle throws away her mask, it symbolizes her letting go, but this is clashed when she is "hit" by the truck. I think something that really stuck out to me is after this scene, in which Caine says, "Couldn't help but notice however that you seemed to cut your own shift short, went a little kooky, and ran into oncoming traffic." This mixed with the drug theme makes a story of someone who for tried to stop taking drugs, had a manic episode, and one way or another died.

However, I'd be remissed to not mention the growth we see. After being told that she had the ability to shift the blame of her manic episode onto another one of the players, she refuses, saying that it was "...her responsibility. [She] just cracked under the pressure." Later in the episode, Zooble tells her that maybe they'll find another way to make her happy. This also fits with the drug allegory, saying that one of the best ways to get out is to have others to help you. This mixed with the fact that Gangle has made a true friend, gives us the first real sign of growth in any of these characters.

This episode also sees other peoples masks slipping as well, with Ragatha starting to speak more of her mind and reveal some of her life details (I personally believe she was a country girl who also acted as a birthday princess actor, although I could be wrong), and Jax becoming less cocky than before, seemingly actually tired and stressed. I'm not sure narratively where these are going, but in due time I suppose?

And finally I'd like to just spitball a theory I quickly made up. So I'm not sure how common an idea this is, but I've always had the theory that the Digital Circus is a game designed to force therapy onto those in need, but with this context and specifically with Gangles allegory, I now believe that the Digital Circus isn't used just to give therapy to anyone, but those who at least attempted to commit suicide. And it's pretty easy to see with certain characters potential reasons for this. Ragatha, based on the way she spoke, seemed to be deeply upset with her job, only finding solice in the animals on her farm. Jax may have felt powerless in his life, which could explain why he craves so much control or freedom in the Circus. And perhaps most upsettingly, this theory could suggest that Kinger and Queenie commited suicide together, and both ended up in the Digital Circus.

This is just my (likely (Hopefully)) incorrect theory, and either way, this episode was still amazing. Absolutely phenomonal work from Gooseworx and Glitch. Can't wait for the next episode with....Ragatha? Oh boy....

[bisluthq]

Something I don’t like about the internet is that everyone seems to think that every single person should support you through your mental health struggles. It’s a nice thing to do and people who love you do usually stay by your side, but it can get to a point where you’re affecting their mental health and it’s fair and healthy for them to leave. So much of the discourse around Joe and Taylor seems to be that he didn’t support her based on the line “I know my pain is such an imposition”. But it’s totally fair if he can’t deal with it.

I would also like to add that, in my opinion, everything she says in that song (that line but also “I wouldn’t marry me either”) is what she thinks he’s thinking, not necessarily how he actually felt. It doesn’t sound like he said that to her, but whatever he did (or didn’t do) made her feel like her pain was an imposition and like he didn’t want to marry her, whether that’s true or not.

so I’ve been going to couples therapy (second time today, we’re doing a course of 5 and will then see) and she has a few things she’s said - she’s super great - that really stuck out to me. One of them is that we all have our own story and a lot of the time our story is informed by what we’re thinking and our pasts and shit and has fuck all to do with what our partner (or really anyone we have relationships with - broadest sense) is thinking. That’s been really powerful for us because we’ll say something to each other in the session and she interrupts like “so that’s the story you're (me for example) telling, what’s the story you (him for example) hear?” And like a lot of the time it’s vastly different stuff. With Taylor, I think the stories she tells herself are very powerful because the stories she tells us are lol and that’s a watered down version of what she’s thinking and feeling and believing. But they’re HER stories. And I think I’ve always been saying that but I’ve become more aware of it in this therapy bout right because I’ve never done a couples thing before and so I’ve pretty much always told my story only.

like to give a random example right one of the issues we’re dealing with in therapy is my tendency to binge drink and that’s something I’m dealing with on my own time also but some of the stuff he’s upset about didn’t make any sense to me when he got mad originally (which is why we’re in therapy now). For example, one time we were out with friends and he wanted to go home and I didn’t and he said “I’m cold, let’s go” and I said “I’ve still got half a glass of wine left”. What I meant is “I want to stay at this restaurant longer, I’m still having fun” and what he heard - because of his own cockroaches in his head and like his alcoholic SIL and BIL and actually his ex wife and shit - is “I’m prioritizing alcohol over you and your comfort because I want to keep drinking.” That genuinely wasn’t what I meant, but it’s what he heard and that’s valid right like because we all hear different shit. We all have these things right and our stories and whatnot. We only EVER hear Taylor’s story on her lyrics and that’s FINE but it’s not the absolute truth because there’s no such thing? Like in real life personal relationships there’s no objective single truth?

the other thing the therapist talks about a lot is how every relationship requires a lot of work. people all come into the relationship with their own baggage and preconceptions and ideas around shit and even if you don’t fight or talk about it, resentment grows. My bf and I do fight lol that’s why we’re in therapy and she says conflict is an opportunity to resolve that stuff instead of letting it fester and yeah I mean that’s why we went to therapy. I’ve been in prior relationships where there was no fighting but a GREAT deal of resentment on my side and no opportunities for growth or fixing it idk. To me, YLM sounds like that kind of relationship. “How can you say you love someone you can’t tell is dying” idk dude because you haven’t told him and he’s not a mind reader? And I say that with 0 judgment but like that’s legit a problem.

finally I think Swifties need to realize Taylor’s partners have their own stuff going on and like no they can’t just orbit around Taylor. That wouldn’t be healthy at all? You can’t exist in a happy relationship purely to satisfy your partner like you both need to do shit idk.

[azsazz]

okay i was reading through your blog and i saw this anon commenting on azriel in midnight muse and saying that they don't feel bad for him and that it's a "you made your bed now lie in it" situation but it really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason.

is azriel being petty and immature in the story? yes. is reader also being a little petty? yes. that's the trope. but besides that what i think everyone meant when they said they felt sorry for azriel is that he was completely ditched by his friends. regardless of the reason, if your friends know you're not comfortable in the same presence as someone else and then lie to you to get you to go hang out with that person then they're being bad friends. this is a story and the point of it is that they'll get together so it's kinda fine here but if in your own life your friends do this to you, no matter how petty or dumb the reason for not liking or wanting to be in another person's presence is, they're bad friends and straight up don't respect your boundaries. i think what the batboys should have done was just let him know she was going to be there and still invite him or even tell him that they really wish he would come if they wanted him to go and then he'd make that decision himself. same with being left behind at the end, obviously no one is obliged to their friend's time but it read as they usually spend that time together so azriel literally just assumed that was what they would be doing and it is sad to see him be left behind alone, maybe the anon that sent that never felt like that but it sucks to not be invited or even being told of your friends plans, being left out sucks and cassian barely gave him a goodbye or spared him a thought when he left. again, all they had to do was at least let him know. and what rhys tells him is true, they didn't give the girls a chance and should apologize but they don't have to be friends lol. the story is supposed to end up like that but if this was a real situation the only thing azriel is doing wrong is not apologize for the initial fight, he doesn't have any obligation to be reader's friend even if cass and rhys are. no one is obliged to be anyone's friend ever. and, again, it feels kinda shitty of rhys to basically tell him "either be alone or go put up with this person i know you don't like" to be able to spend time with them. honestly, i don't even think he was as sad at being alone but more that his friends just brushed him off like that. i don't know but it feels like lack of sympathy (that i unfortunately have had to deal way too often) to just say "well azriel was an asshole a couple times so he deserves for his friends to not respect his boundaries and leave him behind". also rhys is going more because he's trying to fuck feyre than bc he actually thinks they should apologize or get along with their neighbors. i swear im almost done but, unlike reader, we get an inside of azriel's mind and it's in absolute shambles. he just had something really traumatic happen to him 1 or 2 years ago and is still having a lot of trouble dealing with it, he had that dream of being a tattoo artist which he might have to give up on because of it. literally has to wear gloves and gets scared when someone grabs him from what is probably ptsd. so i dont know, i feel like he's allowed to have bad days and it's not like he's actually bullying her or anything, it's mostly a coupe of unpleasant conversations but they go both ways.

to finish, everyone in this story is doing things wrong in my opinion. aside from the initial moving and party thing which was pettiness all around. reader is probably the one less in the wrong but she also has a grudge against azriel based on first impression (which is the same one he has one her). azriel should have just moved the damn bike and shouldn't have been annoying when she got locked out either but he has no obligation to be her friend. rhys shouldn't have talked to azriel like that, yea az should apologize but he doesn't have to be friends w reader and feyre just because rhys wants to get in her pants. feyre is kind of doing the same thing with reader, she knows reader doesn't like rhys so she should have told her she liked him, that scene of her avoiding her gaze at the picnic.. come on. feyre also didnt tell reader that az was going to be at the picnic which again reader is not obliged or should be forced to hang out with someone she's uncomfortable with. and even cass isn't being at best in my opinion, he also didnt tell az reader would be at the picnic (or reader that az would) or that he'd be going to do whatever their plans were and (maybe im being a little petty for this) but going out of his way to be friends with fey and reader is fine for the story but if my bestfriend went to try to be friends with someone they know i dont like i'd be hurt and confused, with everyone in the world you seek out the person you know your friend doesn't like? it's a weird thing to do. i get the vibe that he didnt even consider this but considering your friends feelings i something you definitely should be doing.

also correct me if i'm wrong but i didn't think azriel was playing music loudly to annoy reader, i read it as he plays music loudly to drown out his thoughts and when he's drawing or whatever. which is still not a great thing to do when you know you have neighbors and he should invest in some noise cancelling headphones but it's not him being intentionally malicious.

I think the great thing about this is that we can look at it in so many different ways that more than one person can be correct about how they perceive what’s going on. Everyone is young and still learning how to navigate these relationships, and yeah, certain people might be approaching it all from the sense where they’re like, i want to date this person, of course i need to get along with their friends and i want them to get along with mine because i don’t want to sacrifice those relationships. Which is understandable as it is fucked up. Lust can be a bitch sometimes. 

There’s many ways that this could have all gone and who is going to say what or what they’re not going to say. I’ll say this, I’ve been in circumstances where once someone is in a new relationship i’ve seen and been treated like shit because of it. They’ll drop you, lie to you, do anything basically because they’re like head over heels for the new person they’re seeing. They’ll beg you to hang out with them even though you don’t care for them because they want you to be a part of what’s going on and they want you to get along with that person. And yeah, i’ve hung out with people i haven’t liked before for a friend because i’m her friend and i should want to support her. Even if I didn't like the person, it was later a mutual choice not to hang together because I didn't care for him. It sucks sometimes, but it for sure happens. 

Azriel has a lot of things going on in his head for him, the music does help him drown them out, but there have been some times where she’s pounded on the wall for him to be quiet and he’s made the music louder, so there’s a bit of both going on, but we can’t blame reader because she has no idea what’s going on in his life, nor does Az know what’s going on in hers. They’re just two people who had run into each other under the wrong circumstances, because initially we saw the reader think that he was a good looking guy, but his actions turned her off from him.

Yeah, everyone’s being a bit of a dick right now in their own ways and I'm sorry if that has upset you in any way. I thank you for bringing up your feelings as well because the different perspectives and how people are reacting to my work is very helpful to me, so thank you for sharing your thoughts! 💙💙

[itsclydebitches]

I kinda wonder, what could bakugou do (hori write bakugou to do) to make him less popular with the "anti" crowd. Like He was a horrid child no doubt and people who try to put blame on Deku or lessen the terrible shit bakugou did aren't great. But as we don't rly see it, we have to assume bakugous behaviour wasn't stopped, we only ever saw his mum "punishing" him when he was being rude after getting kiddnapped. Nothing will excuse what bakugou did, but he has stopped? He's overall a harsh person but he's not harrassing and bullying people anymore, specifically not deku, he's trying to attone for what he did to deku and has now apologised for it. His behaviour was never viewed as justified or good in the series, he's a scary figure in middle school, we're not meant to like his behaviour, so the series itself hasn't justified his actions.

As someone who relate to both bakugou and deku more than I'd like to admit (never told someone to jump tho, that's fucked lol) so I can 100% understand not liking or even hating bakugou but as someone who's not 15 anymore, looking back I also made a lot of really shitty decisions and like bakugou have tried to make up for it, and like deku I was 'friends' with people who hurt me.

Is there anything he can do for the "antis" to just dislike him rather that be "anti"?

(I'm very sorry if you've talked about this somewhere, you can just tell me to look for it if you have, I'll continue to look for your posts on the subject)

Hey there, anon! I think I’ve spoken about this only tangentially and/or in my main Bakugo meta, which is too big for anyone sane to read. So yeah, let’s chat here!

For me personally—and that’s all I can ever do: speak personally. I think it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single solution to please the “anti” crowd. Each fan will be looking for something slightly different in Bakugo’s character, much of which might contradict what a “stan” is currently enjoying. Given how charged a character he is, I'm not sure it's possible to get the entire fandom to like him—what I’m looking for hinges on having a different reading of the story than you seem to. Meaning, I think the series does justify his behavior. Not in any overt, super obvious way like having all the characters go, “Wow, Bakugo! I sure do love how you threaten people all the time. That’s super cool and heroic!” Things are rarely that straightforward. Rather, it’s in a more subtle, but consistent manner that paints a rather conclusive picture across hundreds of chapters.

Simply put, Bakugo is continually rewarded for his actions. Or, if not outright rewarded, his actions are ignored in a way that implies silent acceptance. Characters may not always like what he does... but they're willing to let it slide because Bakugo's heroism was always treated as a given, not something he had to earn and prove.

With the ever necessary disclaimer that I’m not fully caught up yet, here’s a list of some of the things that stood out to me in the first half of the series:

Bakugo’s bullying made him the most popular kid in school.

Bakugo’s bullying was ignored by/outright supported by the teachers.

Bakugo’s bullying did not hinder him from getting into U.A., one of the most prestigious hero schools around.

Despite acting horribly throughout his time at U.A. too, this behavior was continually ignored by the teachers and other authority figures around him.

Bakugo’s struggle to realize that other people aren’t “trash” doesn’t hurt his achievements in any way. He still gets top scores, still wins the tournament, etc.

Bakugo’s behavior gets him special attention from All Might, the greatest hero and Bakugo’s personal idol.

His behavior doesn’t make others dislike him in any manner that’s taken seriously. Everybody is still willing to not just put up with Bakugo, but—in time—start treating his behavior as a quirk (no pun intended lol) that they’re secretly fond of, rather than something he should legitimately be striving to change. Kirishima is the most overt example of this.

This is compounded by his behavior constantly being framed as humorous. Much like with Mineta’s perverted actions, characters might superficially go, “No, that’s bad!” but the story never demands any significant development because then we’d lose the “joke” of Bakugo screaming in rage at the slightest inconvenience, threatening to murder someone over nothing, constantly belittling everyone around him in a “funny” manner, etc. When fans talk about development of a manga character as archetypal and extreme as Bakugo, most don’t really want to see significant change to his base personality. Because then that would result in someone who doesn’t look like the “real” Bakugo: someone nicer, more even-tempered, more mature, etc. But for those of us who were never drawn to that personality in the first place, the continued acceptance of his rude, egotistical, and violent behavior is discomforting. The easiest comparison I can draw is between this and Bakugo’s mother slapping him. That slap is meant to be another “joke”—we see it constantly in shonen anime, something "humorous" you shouldn’t take too seriously because haha, it's just an overprotective mother—but many fans do take it seriously, using it as the basis for a whole “Bakugo was abused and this explains his behavior” reading. Well, I take the “joke” of Bakugo’s threats and insults seriously, especially in a story that starts with something like telling Izuku to jump off the roof. In the same way that many fans want others to treat Bakugo’s mother as a serious topic that has had a negative influence on his development, I want the series to take Bakugo’s everyday actions seriously as a negative influence on… well, everyone around him. But it doesn’t. His base personality is grudgingly adored.

The above two points are seen most overtly in Izuku, who never wavers in his respect for Bakugo despite how Bakugo treats him. Not just prior to U.A., but during their training too. Izuku, as the protagonist, is the emotional heart of this tale, so when he talks about how inspiring Bakugo is, it encourages the reader to see his behavior as inspiring too. Rather than, as said, something that needs to change. Izuku's continued friendship with Bakugo, his adoration of him, and his acceptance of the way he's treated has severely warped how the entire story sees Bakugo's actions. After all, if #pure Izuku can see the good in Bakugo, why can't everyone else? He must not be that bad after all.

I could get into detailed analyses of all the above—like how Bakugo was the one comforted after attacking Izuku outside the dorms at night and how the messed up relationship he has with Izuku is upheld as something to nurture; how the remedial courses he had to take were made to be rather silly, thereby undermining their supposed importance to his development; how Bakugo’s kidnapping had nothing to do with his flaws, but much of the fandom uses it as a way to dismiss any appropriate consequences because, “Hasn’t he suffered enough?” etc.—but in the interest of keeping this within a readable length, I’ll leave it at that. The point is that Bakugo has always been privileged when it comes to his behavior, resulting in others either outright praising it, ignoring it, or demanding that he change a miniscule bit, which always keeps him far below the standards of both his peers and the expectations of a hero. Everyone in 1-A must learn to be even better than the good people they already are... Bakugo needs to learn that other people aren't dirt at the bottom of his shoes. It's never been a particularly impressive development when pit against the rest of the class. All of which can make something like an apology feel pretty hollow. Yes, he’s apologized and I say with all seriousness that that’s great! But how does that apology stack up against 300+ chapters of content? As Bakugo’s words highlight, he's been a really awful person up "until now": he was consumed by Izuku being “miles ahead of [him],” he “looked down on [him]” because he didn’t have a quirk, he “didn’t want to recognize that,” he “hated that,” “grew distant,” “tried to beat you down,” “opposed you and tried to show my superiority over you,” and ends it all with, “it probably doesn’t mean anything telling you all this” before finally getting to the “I’m sorry.” This is basically a laundry list of how horrible a person Bakugo has been for the entire series, with an acknowledgement that this apology is coming really, really late. This is the moment where I could START to like Bakugo, depending on how he acts form here on out, but that pivotal moment arrived after six years of content and in the final arc of the story. It’s too late. Bakugo needed this kind of self-reflection and positive action 250+ chapters ago so he could (hopefully) grow into a better person across the story, not at the story's end. What we got instead is 322 chapters of him being a really horrible person, but the story going out of its way to excuse or even praise that behavior the majority of the time.

As a quick comparison to end on, I think what Bakugo needed was what Soo Jin got in True Beauty. You don’t need to have seen the drama to follow along. The tl;dr is that she has a lot of the core qualities of Bakugo: an all-consuming drive to win that was created due to abusive parents with high expectations, resulting in her bullying a peer to a pretty horrific extent. The difference between them is how the story frames their actions. When Soo Jin becomes the bully she loses everything. Rather than succeeding academically, her grades plummet, making it clear that this anxiety and self-doubt (things the fandom keeps insisting Bakugo is struggling with, but that rarely ever show up in the text) is actually impacting her day-to-day life. Her best friend drops her because she’s not going to support her choices. The boy she likes rejects her. She’s eventually forced to start over somewhere new - which importantly separates her from the girl she was bullying - and get some distance from her parents, resulting in the growth needed to become a healthier, happier, good person again. So when Soo Jin apologizes to the girl she hurt, it feels earned. The story continually recognized how horrific her actions were and put her into a place where she either had to change, or continue losing at everything else that was important to her. Bakugo? Bakugo doesn’t lose. Oh, he claims he does because he’s comparing himself to Izuku constantly, but that’s just him thinking in extremes. He still wins academically. Still wins many battles. Still wins at having friends. Still wins by maintaining the prestige of being a U.A. student. Still wins by getting All Might’s attention. Still wins by receiving Izuku’s respect and an agreement to maintain this rivalry that Bakugo is so obsessed with. Bakugo comes out well 99% of the time, he just thinks he's "lost" because he can't stand not being the absolute best.

For me, the story needed to have Bakugo face consequences for his behavior, not receive rewards and/or have others ignore it, and that revelation/apology needed to come way, way sooner. For me the issue is not a specific action that Horikoshi can have Bakugo do in the next chapter and them bam, I like him now. The problem is Bakugo’s entire concept, how he’s received by the entire cast, and his run across this entire series. "Entire" is the key word there. Which is why the “But he’s apologized. What more do you antis want?” reactions don’t sit well. What we wanted is a better written redemption arc across those 300+ chapters, not a single scene that’s meant to have us forget all the other problems inherent in the story. At this point it’s a far more complicated situation than, “Bakugo just needs to do X, Y, and Z and then we’re golden.” At the end of the day, Horikoshi failed to make me like him as a person and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to change Bakugo enough to make him likable to me. Bakugo was never the sort of character I’d be inclined towards without a serious, nuanced redemption arc, but sadly, a core, crucial part of that redemption arc took six years to arrive. At this point there’s no way to change the problems in Bakugo’s writing for that huge chunk of the series and not enough time left in the series, it seems, to do the work we should have seen across the entire run. Honestly, idk if the Bakugo we'll get going forward is someone I can just dislike as opposed to being really uncomfortable with, but my money is on there being too little story left and too much investment in upholding Bakugo's base personality for that to happen. I could absolutely be proven wrong! But I think the problems are structural and needed to be better dealt with from page one, not hastily patched over in the final hour.

[sketching-shark]

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.  

 I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends  that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading. 

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.  

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you. 

  But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens. 

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona. 

[blushing-titan]

My reasons to ship Erehisu

About two weeks ago, I got an anonymous ask that reads:

what made you ship erehisu? I don't ship anyone in the series (and defo not eremika lol) and I want to understand the reasons

...but when I tried to answer it on my app, it turned out that I can only post 10 pictures per post, so I decided to make a longer, regular one with my thoughts on this topic 😄 Erehisu remains one of my favorite ships in the series (...with the other ones being Yumi/hisu and Levi/han), so I really enjoy talking about it (...well, at least I did, before I started moving away from the series after that mess of a finale). Without further ado, my reasons to ship Erehisu are under the cut (just a quick warning: the pictures are obviously not mine, and there are some anti-eremika themes in this post).

They had an actual developement

As we know: in the beginning, Historia was pretending to be this good, selfless girl Krista. Later on, we learn that Eren was not particularly fond of her façade (...keep in mind he was the only person who noticed that she was acting off, too - obviously excluding Ymir, who was Historia's closest person and knew about her secret). As Historia chooses to embrace her identity and stop pretending, his opinion on her changes - he reassures her and appreciates the real Historia.

You’re just normal. Just a normal girl who’s absurdly honest. (Eren, ch. 54)

Eren...that day...the time you called me...normal. That made me really...happy. (Historia, ch. 65)

Later on, after Historia saves Eren in the Reiss cave, his thoughts on her change even further. There isn't just something that he likes about her anymore - instead, he starts to actually admire her strength and actions.

(ch. 68)

(ch. 70)

Even further on, he prioritizes her safety and hides an important piece of information that could help Paradis' cause - only because it could potentially put Historia in harm's way.

(ch. 89)

(ch. 90)

(ch. 106)

Keep in mind that there was a time skip in between these chapters, which means Eren kept this secret for years. He hid it even from Armin and Mikasa. After it's finally revealed, he strongly disagrees with, and fights against Historia becoming a titan for the sake of the island. Eren’s sentiment towards Historia is even noticed by Hanji on a few different occasions - it’s something that Hanji brings up while questioning him, later on.

(ch. 107)

Eren also meets Historia in secret, warns her of danger, and downright doesn't let her sacrifice herself - even when she assures him that she's ready to do it. 

(ch. 130)

She's also one of the only people with whom he shares the information about the rumbling. He also brings up her own words that she said to him back in the Reiss cave.

(ch. 130)

I believe he doesn't fight for her just because she's one of his friends. It's a natural progression that comes from the shared experience they had in the Reiss cave. Eren got to know and appreciate the real Historia, so whenever she reverts back to the Krista persona, he's there to remind her that she should live for herself and don't let others use her - just like Ymir told her, and just like Historia told him in the Reiss cave. When Eren stands up for Historia in ch. 107 and blatantly refuses to let her get sacrificed, she's actually touched to the point of tearing up.

Their relationship changes and deepens with time, and it's actually shown in the manga - not just as symbols or small hints, but actual, full-fledged conversations/actions. In my opinion, this should be the base of any well-estabilished ship. We have quite a few one-on-one moments with these two that illustrate this progression. There are also panels in which we can peak into Eren's thoughts on Historia, which makes for an unfiltered source of his opinions on her.

They can relate to each other

Something I find really important as well is that Eren and Historia can find each other very relatable, and therefore - understand each other's struggles better.

Both were used by their fathers, and both caused their demise. Both were fiercely protected by someone. Both felt like the world would be better without them, at some point. Both had a big role to play, despite having doubts if they can do it right (Eren, being humanity's titan; Historia, being the queen). Both wanted to sacrifice themselves for their people's sake - and both intervened, saving each other from actually going through with this decision.

Their relationship is well-balanced

Eren and Historia don't clash when it comes to their personalities. As their relationship grows, they mutually admire, protect and motivate each other, while still remaining two separate characters - with their own goals and traits. They freely talk to each other about their struggles; they also care about each other’s actual feelings on them.

(ch. 54)

(ch. 70)

I can easily see them as partners, which is something I've always had troubles with when it comes to EM. It's just hard not to make this comparison, since Mikasa's character has always been pretty much fully centered around Eren, which - in my eyes - made their relationship look unbalanced and toxic. I've already spoke about my issues with EM in depth in this post, so I won't elongate this one with repeating the same arguments - still, one of the reasons I started shipping Erehisu in the first place is the fact that I immediately saw it as a much more normal, healthy, and well-balanced alternative to EM.

Parallels and relevance to the story’s themes

Parallels are something that, for some reason, make a lot of people mad. I have no idea why - these things appear in the manga, so why not talk about them?

Aside from parallels between Eren and Historia (...please, keep in mind that I didn’t list all of them in this post), there are also a lot of obvious parallels between Historia and the founder Ymir - to the point, when the entire Requiem der Morgenröte ending revolves around this theme:

I've also already spoke about how Ymir/Historia parallels could possibly be tied to Eren in this answer.

(Historia on the cover of vol. 16/Ymir in ch. 122)

Aside from that, there are a few subtle Grisha/Dina and Eren/Historia parallels, as well. Historia is a royal, hiding as a regular person - just like Dina did, before joining the revivalists. Dina also tears up when Grisha stands up for Eldians, just like Historia does when Eren stands up for her.

(ch. 68)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 67)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 56)

(ch. 86)

(ch. 107)

(ch. 86)

Quite interestingly, in a lot of these parallels Historia and Eren act in an opposite way as to previous generations. While Frida teaches Historia to be a good, selfless girl, Historia ends up abandoning this persona to save herself and Eren in the Reiss cave. She doesn’t want to devote herself to fate - instead, she’s prepared for a showdown with it. While the founder Ymir’s children are ordered to eat their own mother to ensure her power’s succession (...and a few hundred years later, Grisha fights to return the founder’s power back to his wife - Dina), Eren does everything he can to ensure Historia and her children are safe and never even titanised in the first place. 

As the story unfolds, we learn about it’s leading themes - some of which are: oppression and fighting for freedom, desire to change history, the mechanism of circle of hate, and how it affects children who are a part of it. In my eyes, Erehisu just perfectly fit with these themes, especially considering how later on Historia’s pregnancy was handled in the manga.

There were countless ways to answer the who’s the father question? immediately, without even starting up conversation about it - for example, I don’t understand why it was needed to bring up the fact that Historia didn’t marry the farmer in the first place. What was it’s purpose, aside from stirring up theories - especially considering how in the last chapter it’s revealed that they are married, after all? Why end up the Eren/Historia flashback on the What do you think about me having a child? question, when the whole conversation they had beforehand was literally about Eren disagreeing with Historia wanting to get pregnant just to save herself? It doesn’t make sense, and led me (and many other readers - judging from opinions I read online and chapter reactions on youtube) to belive that there were other reasons, and that there was more to this conversation then was initially shown.

If the conclusion to this plotline was always supposed to be that she got pregnant just to save herself...then what was this mysterious built-up for? Why show this conversation in the first place, and in such a weird manner, too? Why not have Historia just say it out loud in ch. 130: yes, I got pregnant to save myself in the beginning, and spare us this whole I will not allow it talk...you know, instead of ending the conversation on the What do you think about me having a child? when the whole previous talk was about Eren fighting against it? Where’s the logic?

The truth is - from my perspective, Erehisu had a lot of logical build up that would benefit the story, and stay true to it’s already established themes and both characters’ previous developement. On top of that, I also think they simply had great chemistry.

That’s all from me today 😄 I apologize you had to wait so long for this, anon...life got in the way, and as I said - I think I’m just getting over this series. Hope you’re doing well anyway 😊

[levis-hazelnut]

Summary: when you and your best friend, Hanji, were younger, you had made up stories about your dream guys - what they would look like and how you would meet. What happens when the one you had made up appears to be real?

Warning(s): mentions of abuse (if you squint). Please do tell me if there are anymore.

Taglist: closed

Status: completed!

part 1 > part 2

series masterlist

(a/n: i love mikasa, she’s a queen. But I’m sorry because she’s gonna be a bitch in this lol)

"(Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N)!!!!!!!!" Before that call, I was peacefully eating lunch with my friends and didn't wish for any interruptions from my crazy, loud best friend. I was just sitting there with some of my calm friends that I was in the mood for; quietly speaking about life, no stress, no laughter, no loud talking - just nice conversation. Other times (most of the time), however, I would be in the mood for my best friend, wanting laughter, craziness and loud talking. But this wasn't one of those times... So why the hell was she here sprinting and screeching for me? "(Y/N)!!!!!!!" "For fuck's sake," I murmured. "What do you want, Hanji?" I asked when she pushed off Connie, who was sitting opposite me, and sat in his place. She leaned forward and caught her breath as her gaze was not at me, but behind me. Before I could turn around, she grabbed my head and forced me to face her which made me frown. "What the hell is going on?" "Okay, so... Remember about five years ago when we would talk about our dream guy and meeting them later in life. And remember when we said that you would find your dream guy in university..."

"Hanji--" "Don't talk. Let me finish the story of the past." *FLASHBACK* With the sun beaming down on me and Hanji as we ate our lunch together on the grass, we stupidly and crazily told each other about our dream husbands. The appearance of my dream guy was based on a character from a show I watched. And because we were still young, horny and stupid, we let our imagination create stories of how we would meet our dream guy. Let's forget about Hanji's and skip to mine... So, Hanji had thought of it with that extraordinary brain of hers. She said that, "We would be having lunch with our new friends, and maybe some of our school ones like Connie, Eren, Sasha, Jean and Armin. Anyway, you would be talking to someone as I sit next to you, quietly eating--" "Hanji, that's already not going to be true. How are you going to be quiet?" "Hush, let me carry on. So, I'll be eating, maybe not quietly, and then I look around the canteen and see him... walking with his lunch in his hand. Standing there in his handsomeness, with black hair, grey eyes, a light complexion, emotionless expression. I don't know what his personality is when he's there, but his appearance is pretty similar to how we imagine him to be. I gasp and smack your shoulder many times to get your attention which you click your tongue at. I point towards him and you look where I'm staring, which is when you gasp as well, trying to find the words but I already know what you're going to say. And we get up and stalk him. As we do that, I spot his keys in his bag and cleverly take them, passing them to you. When he sits down, I tell you to give it to him but you're too shy so I push you forward until you're in his sight. He looks at you and you shyly hold them out to him, saying: 'I think these are yours. You dropped them'. And then he thanks you and you live happily ever after." "... That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But, if that does happen, then I love you and your brain." And since that day, she kept on adding to the story which made me excited to meet my future husband. Of course, however, I knew this story of hers wasn't going to come true, no matter how young, horny and stupid I was. *END OF FLASHBACK* "Yes, Hanji, I remember that. But why are you telling me this?" "You idiotic fool! He's right there behind you!" "I swear, if you're lying--" "I'm not, I'm not!! Just look!" I slowly twisted my head to see the man I've wanted to marry for many years. Was he really there? Is Hanji just playing a prank on me? I took a deep breath and looked to see who she was talking about... And there he was, exactly how I had imagined. Well, maybe not exactly, but extremely similar. "Hanji, you already know what we're doing?" She vigorously nodded as both of us got up and raced towards him, and then slowed down when we got closer so we don't look like weirdos or creeps (which we technically were). He was holding no bag, but luckily, Hanji saw his credit card in his back pocket and somehow got it without him realising.

I never knew how much I loved her until this moment. This mysterious, kind of magical man sat down on a table with two of his other friends. But I could care less about them. Taking a deep breath, I tapped his shoulder and he looked up at me with the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. They may have had no shimmer or emotion in them, but they still entranced me. I didn't realise I was staring for too long until he spoke, "Are you just going to stand there and look at me, or actually say something, brat?" Maybe those weren't the first words I expected to hear, but at least it was something. His voice was deep and velvety and void of any emotion and I wanted to hear him speak more. It probably wasn't even that attractive to other people, but this was someone I had made up in my mind and he's right here in front of me, so I'm going to fall in love with every aspect with him. "Oh, sorry... Um, you dropped this," I said quietly and held out his card to him. He lifted an eyebrow at first before taking it from me, his fingers skimming my skin as he did that. "Hey, are you okay? Why do you keep staring into space like that?" "Uh, yeah, I-I'm fine. Just a little tired. Anyway, um... I'm going to go... eat my lunch. Bye." "Thank you, by the way, random person." I laughed lightly. "(Y/N)." "Thank you, (Y/N)." "So--" "Hey, (Y/N)!!" I mentally rolled my eyes when my name was called and my best friend appeared beside me, throwing an arm onto my shoulders. "What do you need, Hanji?" I murmured. "I just wanted to know who your new, little friend is. Looks like you were having fun." "Um, no. I just gave him his card since he dropped it." "Oh, so you're best friends now! Why don't you sit right next to him and have lunch together?" "Hanji," I said in a tone for her to back off. But she carried on anyway, pushing me onto the seat next to the man. "I'm so sorry about her. She's... insane." "I can tell," he said, eyeing both of us up and down. We were both definitely going to be the weirdos he should stay away from. "Well, you can go--" "(Y/N), I think you should stay! You seem like a delightful person!" the girl with pigtails opposite me squealed and I smiled at her. "It's nice to make new friends," a blonde male next to her stated with a polite smile. "Let her stay, Levi." "Oh, it's fine. My friends are probably wondering where I am," I stated, turning to find Hanji, but she wasn't there. "Shit," I mumbled. "What's wrong?" "Oh, nothing. I mean, I literally just came to give him his card and now I'm having lunch with you three. It's kind of weird." "'Him' has a name," he muttered bitterly. "It's Levi." "Sorry, Levi." I want to marry you, Levi. "You can leave now if you want." "Uh, yeah, I should probably go," I said and started to get up. "No, stay! Levi, you can't just push someone away!" the female with green eyes scolded him. "We barely even know her." "So? It's good to meet nice people and become friends." "Tch. You two can do whatever you want, then." "Maybe I can join you guys for lunch another time. Looks like Mr Moody doesn't want company." "Mr Moody?" he repeated and lifted an eyebrow at me. "You just met me and you're giving me that nickname?" "Uhh... I'm going to go now." "Bye, (Y/N)! I'm Isabel, by the way, and this is Farlan." "Bye, Isabel, Farlan. It was nice talking to you." I got up without addressing the raven-haired male and made my way back to my table, huffing as soon as I sat down. "I messed up bad," I complained to myself, causing the bald male beside me to inquire what happened. "It's nothing. Just me being stupid and childish to think that I'll magically be able to become some gloomy guy's girlfriend." "Who is this 'gloomy guy'?" "It's (Y/N)'s crush who's sitting right over there with that grinning girl and some other guy!" "Hanji, just forget about it. He hates me." "I've never seen him before," Connie stated, taking a secret glance at him. "We just saw him today as well." "And he's already your crush?" "Basically--" "Hanji, we promised that we won't tell anyone," I snapped. "It's stupid and I never want to talk about it again." "I mean, it's not really stupid if he's real. It could just be your fault because you were nervous and acted awkward around him. But then again, it could be my fault because I kind of forced you to sit next to him. Maybe I should let you do it your own way. So, for once, (Y/N), I won't get involved. I don't want this chance to go." "I doubt you'll be able to keep that promise." "I will! I don't want you to be annoyed and depressed forever. So you do whatever you want. And you can slap me if I get involved in the tiniest way." "Okay. Thank you, Hanji." "I'm still so confused," the baldie said. "Maybe I'll tell you one day, Connie. Maybe when I make progress." "Okay--" "Oh my god!! I just realised - he's actually real and right there!" I suddenly yelled, causing the canteen to quieten as students looked at me with confusion. "Ugh, I'm such an idiot. I need to stop making a fool out of myself. Did Levi look at me, Hanji?" "No. But he obviously still heard you." "God, I just want to die..." ~/~ Thanks to my roommate, I had to rush my morning routine and miss breakfast since I had to run to the university, which was about a five-minute walk away. Since I was running, however, it took me three minutes. I was definitely going to give Hanji what she deserves for not waking me up. I stumbled into the lecture hall to find that they had already started. I quickly apologised for being late and found a random spot to settle down and catch my breath. I took my laptop out of my bag and gulped on some water as I waited for it to load. And I soon got to work, focusing on the lecture and not taking notice of the people around me. As I was listening to my professor, someone beside me whispered my name and so I rotated my head to look at them. Act cool. Be calm, (Y/N). Just because you're taking the same course and you're going to see him more than you thought, doesn't mean you can freak out. "Do you have a pen I could borrow?" Levi asked in a hushed tone and I sifted through my clothes and bag to find a pen that he can use. After about a minute of looking, I found one at the bottom of my bag and passed it to him with a smile. He thanked me before both of us got on with our work. I could barely concentrate now that I knew who I was sitting next to, but I still tried my best. Towards the end of the lecture, which seemed like hours, my stomach rumbled and I froze and internally cringed. Why did that have to happen? Well, I didn't have breakfast so I guess it's understandable, but still. Shortly, I was able to leave, so everyone filed out and I packed my things away, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I made my way out. As I was leaving the hall, a familiar, husky voice called for me and I stopped. "You know, for someone that doesn't like people, you sure like saying people's names," I joked. "I was just going to give you your pen back and ask if you wanted to grab something to eat since it sounds and looks like you haven't had breakfast." "Shit, was my stomach that loud?" "I couldn't hear Professor Erwin," he said with no amusement, but something told me that he was just joking with me. I playfully rolled my eyes and let a small laugh escape my mouth before taking the pen from his hand and walking out with him following after me. "Hey, so yesterday, I was kind of in a bad mood which is why I acted like that. Though, I am usually cold and unfriendly and--" "What are you trying to say?" "Let's start over. Isabel and Farlan made me feel guilty, so let's get you some breakfast and know each other some more. All I know is that you and your glasses friend are weirdos." "Well, thank you very much for saying that, Mr Moody. We are weirdos, and we're proud." "Hey, Levi!" "Hey, (Y/N)!!" There were two different voices and two different names being called at the same time, yet they were coming from the same direction. Two sighs sounded when I saw Hanji and Levi saw Isabel. "What did I miss? Why are you two walking together?" Isabel asked. "We're going to get some breakfast. Since you, Hanji, never woke me up," I replied, arching an eyebrow and folding my arms over my chest. "I didn't know when your first lecture was, and I thought you would've put an alarm. How late were you?" "You weren't that late, you know. We started about a minute before you came." "So, I look like a mess and didn't make coffee for no damn reason? Ugh, I'm so glad I have no more lectures today." "Well, I need to head to my next lecture, so I guess I'll see you at home," Hanji smiled before fast-walking. "Me, too. Bye!" "Let's go?" I suggested and he nodded in response. Some words were spoken as we took our time in getting to a cafe that was a two-minute walk away. I told him a bit about myself, but he had very little to say as if he was hiding a shady past or something like that. Nevertheless, I didn't pry. "So you're not only a weirdo, but a perv as well?" "Hey! I'm not a pervert," I pouted, trying to fight back a smile. "It was a dare from Hanji... Though, I don't regret doing it," I muttered. "Perv." "Hush. Eren's ass is perfect to squeeze." "I don't want to know that," Levi said with a hint of disgust as he opened the door to the cafe, letting me go in first. We walked towards the queue and continued our conversation. "Well, if you want to start over and get to know me, then you have to know that I'm a weirdo, maybe a perv, and let's just say that you don't want to make me angry." "So you are a perv?" "Okay, fine. Yes, I am a perv," I announced. "And just like how I'm proud of being weird, I'm also proud of being a pervert." "Are you proud of letting your stomach rumble as well?" "Shut it, Ackerman." "Oh, hey, (Y/N)," the male at the register smiled. "Hi, Eren." I grinned back at him, seeing his gaze on the raven beside me. "This is Levi. I guess you could say we're acquaintances." "This is Eren?" Levi inquired and I saw a certain glint in his eyes. That is when I realised that I had told him I squeezed Eren's butt after getting a dare. Oh, why did I have a feeling that he was going to embarrass me? "Yeah. Nice to meet you, Levi. What do you guys want?" "You go first," I told the male and he nodded. "An Earl Grey, please." "Okay. And you, princess?" "Well, loverboy, could I get a coffee and pain au chocolat?" "Of course. Anything else?" "No, thanks," I replied, searching my pockets for my purse. Then my bag, but I couldn't find it. I bit the inside of my lip and turned to Levi. "I don't have my purse on me. Sorry. I'll pay you back." "You're too broke to do that, princess," he murmured and paid for our food. "Shut up. Thank you, Eren. Thank you, Levi." "No problem. I'll bring your drinks and food in a bit." I shot him another smile before strolling to a table with two seats facing each other. I took a seat, hanging my coat on the chair and dropped my bag to the ground, under my feet. "You and that kid in a relationship or something?" he randomly questioned after there was a moment of silence. "Me and Eren? No, no. We just have that kind of friendship where we act like a couple and call each other names. We don't actually like each other or anything. And he has a girlfriend, well, sort of." "What do you mean 'sort of'?" "It's not a stable relationship. There have been a few problems, and I've tried to tell Eren to just forget about her but he can't. I just want him to be happy with someone that truly cares for him and doesn't cause him any distress. He's come to me so many times just to cry over her." "What's her name?" "Mikasa." "What about Mikasa?" Eren spoke with a slight frown, placing down our things in front of us. "Oh, I was just talking about how she has the same surname as Levi and was wondering if he knew her." "Okay. Well, here's your coffee, tea and pain au chocolat. If there's anything else you need, just tell me." "Thank you." "... You're a good liar." "I'll take that as a compliment. Also, I'm surprised you haven't taken the chance to embarrass me yet." "Embarrass you? Why would I ever do that?" he remarked sarcastically, but obviously my dense ass couldn't sense that. "Because you know which boy's butt I squeezed, and you could expose me for being a pervert. Though, he already knows that I am. Everyone I know knows what kind of person I am." "A weirdo and a pervert," he stated after taking a sip of his tea. "I wonder what other traits you have." I snorted. "Are you sure you want to know?" He gave me a small glance, perfectly arching his brow. I felt as if I've known this person for longer than two days. Probably because me and Hanji have spoken about him for many years now. But, even then, I feel like we have a certain bond. And no, I'm not just saying that because he's the love of my life; I truly think we can create a strong friendship... and then, maybe something a little more. Even though he's a made-up person that became true, I sometimes forget who I'm talking to and just internally scream when I realise. But, seriously, how did this happen? I don't think I'll ever be able to believe that he became true (and maybe one day, I won't believe that I'm marrying him hehe). "Oi, you're spacing out again. Is that a habit of yours or are you just always tired? Or do you have someone on your mind?" "There's no one on my mind, I'm just always tired. Boys can piss off and leave me alone... apart from you, Levi. I love you-- Uhh, I mean, obviously I don't love you. We literally just met, I don't love you. It's just, uh, it's fun to hang out with you. You aren't like others... Ugh, I'm an idiot." I facepalmed the table and refused to look back at the male in front of me. "You aren't an idiot, you're a weirdo. Don't forget that. Anyway, I think we should head out because you look like you're going into a meltdown or something." "Sure. I'm just going to quickly finish my coffee." I gulped down the last few sips and left the mug on the table, thanking Levi for paying. He only nodded as I waved at Eren, who stopped us from leaving. "Could you wait like two minutes? My shift's over and I just want to relax at yours." "Yeah, sure. Levi, you can go if you want. I feel like I'm just dragging you around." "I'm the one that brought you here. I don't care about waiting for a brat." "Brat? He's the same age as us." "Yeah, I know. I just call people that, don't get offended, darlin'." "Darling? What's with these nicknames you're so generously handing out?" "Says that one that called me 'Mr Moody' in the first ten minutes we spoke." "Hey, you said yourself that you were in a bad mood." "Thanks for waiting. Should we go?" the teal-eyed boy beamed and I nodded, hooking my arm with his as he stuffed his hands into his pocket before all three of us left the cosy cafe. "So, where did Levi magically come from?" "He joined my uni yesterday, but we got off on the wrong foot and decided to start over. And since we're both doing biochemistry, he saw my miserable entrance, looking like a mess. And, my stupid belly chose to rumble so Levi kindly offered to get me breakfast. Now, we're just getting to know each other." "She's a pervert," Levi curtly said. "Yeah, that basically sums her up. Along with her being weird, tired, broke and an awesome friend." "You're lucky you added that last one before my fist was in your face." "Oh, she's also an adorable threatener. But, do not get on her bad side because she will be a monster towards you." "Yeah, Levi knows most of this already." "And I already regret talking to you," he teased. "Shut up, Ackerman." "Anyway, I'm going this way," Levi announced, pointing to the left as we were about to turn right. "We don't have any lectures tomorrow, so maybe I'll see you on Wednesday?" "Yeah. Bye, Levi." "See you later, darlin'. By the way, Eren, (Y/N) likes your ass." "Jerk," I muttered before looking at Eren, who just grinned at me. "And that's why you're a pervert." Both of us started to walk again but since I was holding onto him, I came to halt when he stopped in his tracks, pulling me to the side. "Tell me: why are you so comfortable around someone you just met?" "I'm not that comfortable. And you know I'm always friendly to new people." "Yeah, but not like this. What's the deal with you and him.?" "Nothing, Eren. Stop worrying. I'll tell you what this is all about one day." "... Fine. But, I have a bad feeling about him." "Levi? Why? He's perfect. I mean, I don't know that, but his friends seem to be really nice. And you can't get friends like that unless you're nice, too." "If you trust him, I'm going to have to trust you to not get into any trouble." "Yes, yes. Now, stop worrying." Eren rested an arm around my shoulders as we carried on going towards mine and Hanji's apartment. We walked there in silence, but my keys broke that serenity when they jingled against the door as I unlocked it and opened it, allowing Eren to walk in. We both took off our shoes as I locked the door behind us. Eren plopped down onto the sofa as I went to the bathroom to see my reflection. God, I looked like something out of a horror movie. How did people stand to look at me, or even talk to me? But I was home now, so I didn't bother fixing my appearance as I went to the living room and dropped onto the comfortable furniture next to Eren. "I would ask you if you want a drink, but we went past that stage of formality ages ago. Help yourself to whatever." "Thanks, but I just want to rest." "What's up? I know there's something you need to tell me," I said, ruffling his brunette hair like he was a little kid. "... I barely got any sleep last night. I was meant to go on a date with Mikasa yesterday after my evening shift. I reserved a table at some restaurant that has great reviews. So, after my shift, I dressed all nice and left to go to the restaurant. I took the bus and it took me half an hour to get there. She then called me as I walking up to the restaurant, saying she can't make it because she's sick. Obviously, being my stupid self, I just said okay and said that we can postpone our date. However, I was starving so I wasn't going to put that reservation to waste. When I got there and told them about the booked table under my name, they told me there were already some people that took the table, telling them that their name was Eren. I was so confused and looked over at a table, where I saw Mikasa and that jerk: Reiner." "And then you stormed off, went home and cried?" I asked, saying it like it was something ordinary. "... Yes..." "What's this, like the fifth time you've seen her with a different boy? I swear, it's not the same boy every time as well. I still don't get why you don't just break up with her. She doesn't deserve you, she doesn't make you happy, which is what you deserve. I say you break up with her sometime this week." "(Y/N), that's too soon." "I don't care. She's causing you into depression, and I don't like seeing you like this. I haven't seen you be happy once after you got into this relationship. And I don’t want to hear any excuses. You know that you aren't happy with her, so I don't get why you don't break up with her. Is she threatening you or something?" "..." "... Eren?" Shit. Eren, you better say something before that silence gives me the wrong idea. That bitch better not be hurting or threatening you, I thought, biting my lip as I waited for him to speak. "Eren, please say--" Once again, I pulled him into an embrace when he requested it and he quietly sobbed, nestling his face into the crook of my neck. This time, I truly felt sorry for him because he wasn't crying over another wrecked date, or another man he caught Mikasa with; it was something I've never heard about. I still haven't, but his silence implied it. I didn't want to say anything as I got lost in my thoughts. What kinds of things has this girl done to Eren - one of my closest friends? As I was in the middle of pondering, a phone's ringtone sounded in the room. It was Eren's and I didn't know if I should pick it up or not. When I saw the name of the caller, my bitchy side took over and I grabbed his phone which was on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I answered it with a sweet 'hello', waiting for a reply as I continued to hug Eren with one arm. He soon lifted off of me and tried wiping away the tears as he looked at me with an expression that destroyed my heart. "Who are you?" "It's (Y/N). You probably can't recognise my voice since I haven't seen you in so long," I said with fake politeness. "Oh, (Y/N)... Where's Eren, by the way?" "He's in the bathroom. I can take a message if you'd like." "No, it's fine. Just tell him to call me when he's free." "Yeah, like I'd do that, whore." "Excuse me? What did you just call me?" "(Y/N), what the hell are you doing?" Eren whispered angrily so I retracted the phone from my ear and covered the speakers. "Teaching her a lesson. How's she going to threaten you, cheat on you, reject every date, and still have the balls to call you? She's stupid to think that I'm going to let that slide. I don't like her, and neither do you, so I'm going to invite her here and you can talk to her." "(Y/N), please don't do this. I know you're doing this for me, but I don't know, I just can't break up with her. Even after everything she's done." "Eren, this is for your own good. You're always depressed and tired because of her. You need to let go and be free. This isn't how you're meant to be enjoying life." "... Fine. Bring that bitch over here." I smirked. "Good." I brought the phone back to my ear. "Sorry about that--" "What are you going on about? Why did you just call me a wh0re?" "If you want to know, come to my apartment. You know where I live. You can see your precious boyfriend as well." "I will. Because no one talks to me like that." She cut the phone and I passed Eren's phone to him. I got up and gave him some tissue to wipe his face that had some snot and tears. "Hey, I'm kind of nervous." "That's normal. Anyone would be nervous if they were about to break up with someone. Though, I feel bad. Did I just force this onto you?" "It's fine. I'm glad I'm finally getting it over with." "Also, was she threatening you?" "Yes..." "I would say you should've told me, but that was obviously something you couldn't say since she would do something. Damn, she's some messed up girl. Sorry. But I just had to say that." "No, I understand. I don't even know what I saw in her in the first place." "Don't beat yourself up about it. Everyone makes mistakes and you're going to learn from this for your next girlfriend. First of all, if she cancels a lot of your dates, break up with her. Second, if she cheats on you once, break up with her. And third, if she barely talks to you, or tries to avoid you, break up with her." "Okay. Thank you, (Y/N). I'd literally run back to her every time if you weren't here." "No worries, love. Just helping you with your problems." "Well, let me help you with yours, baby girl. What's on your mind? You've been acting a little distracted." "Mm... I guess I'm thinking about Levi..." "What's so special about him?" "... All right, I'm going to tell you this. But don't tell Levi, or anyone, because it's a stupid thing me and Hanji made up." "What happened to trusting me all the time? You always told me everything." "Yeah, but since you got with Mikasa, you've been a little occupied. Don't worry, though, you're still my second best friend," I grinned at the statement I had said years ago when I was around ten years old. I then changed the subject and told Eren about what me and Hanji created in our young, horny and stupid minds. "Wow... That's actually crazy. You guys never thought he was going to be real, but damn... Still, I don't think you should trust him too much. To be honest, that guy's suspicious, even supernatural if he was just someone made up." "That's what I was thinking. But, half the time I forget that he was someone I dreamt about. I feel like I've bonded with him before and we're just catching up with each other's lives." "I understand. But, unless he proves to be completely normal, don't get too attached to him." "Okay. And, it's been about twenty minutes since Mikasa hung up. I think she's going to be here soon. Do you know what you're going to say?" "Kind of. I've been thinking of a breakup scenario for a while, but I was never able to make it happen." "Hey, me and Hanji made up a guy and he happened. I think you can make this breakup happen; I believe in you." "Thank you so much, (Y/N). You honestly don't know how grateful I am for you." "Whenever you need me, I'll be here." I heard the buzzer echo through my apartment, meaning someone was asking for an entrance. I shot a glance at Eren before getting up and walking towards my front door, answering the phone and speaking a confident 'hello'. "It's Mikasa." "Oh, it's you," I spat with disgust. I pressed the button for the main door so she could come in and waited a couple of seconds before opening my front door. She barged past me, and I muttered: 'Never met someone so rude'. My bitchy side was locking in again and I locked the door before following her into the living room. Eren was now standing up, appearing as bold and someone who was ready to break up with Mikasa. "Eren, why did she call me a 'whore'?" "Well, is she wrong?" he pointed out.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

I’m guessing all Vmins were right Sweet night is about the past. I guess it’s why Tae give it for the movie instead of for his mixtape. I’m guessing JM gave him the ok to do so and why he’s been silent about it cause it’s over between them. TK are making it too obvious. jk treating JM like they aren’t friends suddenly. jk in purple/green all the time. v not shutting up about jk suddenly. JM is not handling it well. I guess it’s why v said he likes JM the most (guess as friend) cause he feels bad

Admin 1: “Sure, go and release a song easily identified as being about us and your hope of me giving you a second chance with a hopeful ending seeing as we aren’t together anymore, sounds like a nice idea to me. Go, Taehyungie, do it. Then also let me hold your hand on national TV and show it to the cameras happily, smile sweetly at you while we stand next to the president, talk about our song and memories and how much they mean to me, perform this song that's essentially a love letter to our bond in a live-streamed concert for almost 800k people, and when you tell me you like me the most, I’ll say I like you a lot as well. Because we’re over and not even friends anymore.” Sounds like some sound logic to me, and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible to humans.

Honestly, either I’ve just been around too long and all these asks are starting to sound the same and impossibly uncreative, or they are just getting more farfetched and bizarre. If you want a proper answer, I told you, bring something to the table that hasn’t been talked to dust yet, or leave it be.

To quote Tae, the man who knows best what he feels: 95z is love.

Until he (and Jimin) changes his mind, this is the answer I have for any and all Xkooker ask, as well as any other ship involving Tae or Jimin.

Also yes, I did see the hate against Jimin that exploded yesterday, we even have an ask about it in our inbox, and honestly these types of questions, anon? Yeah, you're not helping, in fact, you are part of the problem, just saying.

Admin 2: Man, man, man!

We didn't really want to answer these types of questions anymore, but this ask takes the trophy when it comes to delulu/nonsensical questions, so I decided to answer it after all. Because it’s hot and I need a distraction.

Also, this question basically confirms most of our suspicions we’ve had so far. Let me explain.

Folks, who is behind these kinds of stories which are being presented and preached as truth on various sns?

I don't believe this is any single persons invention (in this case, that anon came up with this idea “without help”), if anything it’s the result of delulu, and often times toxic, scenarios and stories created by a group of people intended to further a narrative and actively disrupt the “peace” within ARMY (or at least that’s what it feels like since all these things do is ignite hate and toxicity). Where is the origin of it all? Ship centric YouTube channels.

It is very evident that these "imaginative creators/shippers" behind those videos have no consideration of the consequences and harm their content does because, in my opinion, the more controversial and clickbait-y, the better. You know why? More views means more money, which is the goal of it all. We’ve spoken about this before, I believe, how these videos on “ship evidence” and “ship drama” for Xkookers are the most beloved topics of these videos and thus make up one of the easiest means of generating income, in some cases even something upward of $80k a year depending on the channels CPM, sub and view count.

The average person has to work hard all year round to make this amount of money, if they even have a job that brings in that much. So, it is not surprising that these content creators go very far in their fantasies to support their claims and keep their viewers/costumers engaged and coming back.

I wouldn't be surprised if the creators (or rather the whole lot of them) of both Xkook camps are basically the same people, because their ideas, conclusions and explanations all sound the same and follow the same nonsensical patters. Which is why we’ve already told you many times that the best thing you can do is stay away from this type of content altogether.

So! Let's analyze this ask a little more:

"…Vmins were right Sweet Night is about the past. I guess it’s why Tae give it for the movie instead of for his mixtape."

Ok, let's say Tae wrote "Sweet Night" for Jimin, but in the meantime he has changed his feelings (that's how I understand the question) so he gave the song to the Itaewon Class OST instead of putting it on his mixtape. I wanted to note that Taehyung's mixtape isn't finished yet and we will probably wait many more months for it.

It seems to me that Taehyung really wanted to show his feelings to the world, so he saw an opportunity with the OST, and therefore a quicker release for SN, and took it. The fact is that SN is about the past, but there is also hope for the future, hope for the fulfillment of wishes, which likely did come true judging by how Tae said he wrote SN during tour abroad (so sometimes summer/early autumn 2019 perhaps) and we saw vmin holding hands at the airport on Tae’s birthday in 2019 when they thought no one would see, just three months before SN was released (and likely long schedules for said release since these types of things don’t just happen overnight) and many, many other such things.

“I suspect that JM gave him his consent and why he kept silent about it because it was over between them, TK makes it too obvious. "

And I suspect that Jimin was very touched by Sweet Night and ultimately wrote Friends in which him and Tae sing: “Many promises and memories / and more to come / Someday, when these cheers die down, stay hey / You are my soulmate”

The fact is that BTS didn't say much about SN, but it was the same with many of their other SC releases as well, so it wasn’t unusual, especially since SN came out while they were promoting MOTS7. Also, in my opinion, the content of this song is too personal to be able to describe/discuss the song in detail beyond the bit that was mentioned during Tae’s vlive with Namjoon. During a Japanese interview, the members basically confirmed/pointed out how romantic Tae is and when SN came up, Namjoon “coincidentally” turned around toward Jimin who has a similar facial expression of pressed lips as he did during Let’s BTS.

"JK treats JM as if they suddenly weren't friends"

And here I have caught you, dear anon. I think you're not even looking at the original BH content, but that instead you are basing your conclusions and opinions on manipulative YT ship videos instead because if you would’ve watched the original content like RUN, the recent SOWOOZOO concerts, and interviews, you wouldn’t arrive anywhere near such thoughts and conclusions.

Jimin and JK are still close, also Jimin calls JK his little brother (dongsaeng) and JK describes Jimin (or associates these words with him) as charm and cute. Does there seem to be any kind of conflict between Jimin and Jungkook? Certainly not, no.

„JK always in purple / green. v not shutting up about jk suddenly."

You mean their microphone colors? I wanted to point out how Tae wore a yellow shirt during the concert, which is the same color as the chick emoji ARMY associates with Jimin as well as his mic color. LOL.

As far as I know, when Tae has something to say, he will say it, and if he is praising JKs songs, and especially You Eyes Tell which we know is a song Tae liked a lot, that is a good thing. It simply means Tae appreciates the song JK created, appreciates and values his talents and hard work. If the entire band praises Namjoon and his lyrics/contributions on their songs, does that automatically also mean all six are “not shutting up about him” and therefore must be in love and in a relationship with him, or it’s an indicator of it? If anything, it’s merely an indicator that Tae is an honest person and JK did a good job on those songs. Easy as that.

That's my favorite part of the question: "JM doesn't handle it that well. I think that's why I said he likes JM best (as a friend, I guess) because he feels bad."

Personally, I consider myself a person with a great imagination, but I wouldn't really come up with a scenario like that.

How cruel of a person do you think Tae is? Imagine they aren’t together anymore or close anymore, or whatever else you tried to insinuate anon, and then Tae would go on national TV and do this whole thing of asking for the card in his letter to Jimin to be blurred and then said “Jimin-ah I like you the most”? To do something as hurtful as that you either have to be a sadist or an asshole and I’d like to believe even you, anon, don’t think in such a way about Tae, of all people.

Perhaps that’s something dumb teenagers or kids would do, but not adult men in their mid-twenties who see each other every single day, are part of the same team and have to work with each other. This is real life, not a soap opera. If these types of dramas really would be happening within BTS, they would’ve stopped existing as a band a long time ago because no one would be able to live with such actions and people for a prolonged amount of time. BTS are grown men, best friends, even found family, and not actors on a badly written TV show for our entertainment where they act out increasingly stupid relationship drama in which JK somehow ended up being the toy going from hand to hand like he’s not even an actual person anymore.

In summary, this question was written by a child, teenager, or an emotionally immature person naïve enough to buy into outlandish ship narratives.

Anon, hear what the members had to say during FESTA 2021. Make your own conclusions and stop watching and believing the nonsense on YouTube. As Tae said: Get out of your imagination. It’s not good in there.

[mfuugh]

Can we just talk about the ending of KawoShin open discuss. *sort of spoilerish*

I feel like I’m the only one who’s like reallly disappointed LMFAO--ya’ll there’s so much “canon” alternative universe and merchandise for Kawoshin in Evangelion that it kind of makes me upset to realise this couple just went down the drain. Yeah, I can see how people were like, “Kaworu’s toxic” or “Kaworu has a hero complex for Shinji” to which I say are valid points. But the toxic thing I feel like can also be applied to pretty much everyone around Shinji tbh, except for Rei. I did NOT, like Asuka at all but I really love her character though, and I felt for her a lot throughout the series.

I did not ship them either because honestly, Shinji and Asuka seemed better off playing the sibling dynamic instead of trying to play bf/gf which honestly is kind of forced by their living situation. Also since they’re in a similar disposition non existent father and dead mother, you’d imagine they would rely on each other for emotional comfort. Though Asuka—her personality I feel like she can’t differentiate between familial love and romantic love and the affection she wants is a bit of both. But, her character tries to be “mature”; she wants romantic love more and does this through sexual means and romantic gestures e.g. like kissing. One of my friends told me that you can’t stay friends as a boy and a girl cause eventually you catch feelings. Which I say is kinda dumb cause I have a lot of male friends, and I definitely don’t harbour those feelings, but I guess it’s a common phenomena.

I think this is what happens in this case, of Asuka and Shinji. Even after rejection of instrumentality they actually are depicted as childhood friends. But knowing how they both were before to each other, it was not good tbh. Also to mention the choking like thrice— bro if anything, this showcases a really abusive relationship and I think this outstretches the idea of their character tropes. Which I firmly stand by saying they’re superficial to each other. AsuShin were never really there for each other and are using each other in a forced situation. However, you can’t deny that they didn’t at some point catch feels, also Shinji is pretty consistent how he still cares about everyone around him. Which I really like how they add that to his character because it reminiscent of Yui, because you see a duality of both his parents personality in Shinji throughout the series—it’s a really nice touch. But bruh, if we gonna talk about that coma scene—I’m out LOL.

Thoughhhh, she is a true definition of best girl I really like her arc, fighting drive, and her skills as an Eva pilot 😭💗--but bruh she’s still a toxic and sometimes annoying tsundere trope, but still she’s 14 what can you do. So I feel like Kensuke and Asuka are actually a pretty good combo, cause he’s always been pretty mature even without parents. Also Asuka was into older guys, so I guess this is a win win?? Also Rei and Shinji, I honestly cannot get my head around it cause that’s pretty much his mom—so in a way that’s like either his half-sister or mom-ish clone?? Idk but Yui is definitely the donor LOL.

Kaworu and Shinji I felt like brought a bunch of things out of each other. I don’t know which timeline begins first, but I’d like to think the manga, the anime (plus its movies), and then to the rebuild series. Because I think that order is kind of pivotal to observing Kaworu’s character development from being a person who’s trying to understand human feelings to then the kinder person we see in the final series. You can tell how he’s changed and he knows Shinji a lot more as well as being considerate to him e.g. giving him personal space or letting him work at his own pace. Also that “we’ll meet again.” Is an obvious nod to how he’s done this before.

His literal story in every timeline is always romantic LOL, like bruh I can’t remember which game it was but basically a bad ending of Kawoshin route is that you reject Kaworu and he starts the third impact 🤡. Also I don’t know why but I started to see a weird dynamic between those two, in the manga their interactions reminded me of Asuka and Shinji—which Shinji is the tsundere Asuka here. I don’t know if this is relevant but the older character relative to the character they’re with seems to play off a mature vs a childish person trope. Asuka is younger than Shinji and Shinji is actually younger than Kaworu. Then again I could be overseeing this but istg manga Kaworu and Shinji mirror the whole Asushin dynamic. Like he’s seriously agressive against Kaworu, then after killing him he admits liking him. 🤡 I don’t know which is funnier no homo Shinji, homophobe shinji, or just closet Shinji who needs to realise sexuality is a spectrum so he could’ve idk—come out as bisexual, but whatever manga Shinji lol that timeline is over.

Anyways the development of these two is real and I think the rebuild timeline shows them at their best bringing their own personage out from each other like how they both enjoy music together--WHICH I’M SO SAD WE NEVER GET TO SEE THAT CELLO AGAIN. Then there’s those feelings of humanity, love, kindness, etc. Which yeah an angel could represent those things, but Kaworu is still his own person, self-aware of a cycle and if you think about how he initially was there to USE Shinji, but ultimately turned on that plan set by SEELE because he loved Shinji (and a bunch of other things like him showing Kaworu humanity). I also can see the argument, how “ideal” Kaworu is to Shinji, but he’s more self aware of the time he has before he KNOWS he’ll die and knows how to act for himself in that duration to make the most of it. All with Shinji. At some point, I think he fell in love with Shinji tho I don’t know where it began tbh—considering that all those alternate universes do exist. Kaworu does romantically love Shinji--so, in some universe they both reciprocate their feelings to each other. 

In the last movie during that convo with Shinji. Like bREH it’s so emotionally moving because Kaworu remembers ALLLLL the timelines and how he’s been with Shinji and later Shinji himself recalls the events too. Where they show the scene from the manga and anime. Kaworu cries after being set free from the EVA cycle. Which, I definitely understood what he meant by him saying “it’ll be lonely” and how Shinji changed or that he’s actually different this time.

Either way, Shinji did right by him because it’s always Kaworu who has the purpose of “trying to save Shinji” but it always ends up the same. I thought that was really moving because Shinji tells Kaworu he’s gonna let him live a life for himself for once and he wants the same for everyone as well. Which was honestly so meaningful cause I think Kaworu’s character and like Rei too when they start to realise how to “live” like a person and not another puppet it’s truly liberating. Another thing I forgot, bruh Kaworu calls Gendo his father and ngl I feel like this is kind of a weird lore situation because I for sure don’t think he’s the donor. I think he calls him that as an insult because he knows Gendo’s whole doing and relative to Shinji—I kind of see it as a joke LOL. Like it’s equivalent to saying, “daddy chill”, or “hey look it’s daddy and his plans to end the world” also I kind of like to think of it as a father in law thing cause you know, Kawoshin *winks amirite*

The ending, I’m honestly hoping is just an open ending because it gives everything an actual start of their adult lives not being dictated by extraterrestrial forces. Though, I’m kind of wondering if the world doesn’t have EVAs does that still mean everyone else still has the same backstory, and do they remember? Maybe Mari really is just a coworker lmfao, and there’s still a chance for Kaworu and Shinji cause ngl, they did have a convo (presumably from the spoilers) about still remaining close afterwards and that stare at the ending seems very hopeful.

I call bs from Anno saying, “oh Shinji is based off him and Mari off of his wife”, like honestly any OCs made theres always some part of yourself made into that character. Which is probably why a lot of people relate to the characters in EVA because they’re based off real things (e.g. those war machines characters are named after and people around them). I think why Kaworu and Rei are together at the end, is bc they’re very much the same. They’re mass produced dolls—which oddly enough that’s the case for all the children except they don’t recall the loop. Kind of funny also how both Kaworu and Rei became farmers lmfao so ig it runs in the family (yes that’s right I like the idea that they’re siblings it was always noted that they’re like “the same”).

Another thing, i think why the rebuild really did well for Kawoshin and in my opinion canonised it—the convo with elder Ryoji Kaji (Misato’s baby daddy) that there was a time he felt incredibly lonely and depressed thinking Misato didn’t love him and so he started looking out for himself. So self love and found himself a hobby in farming which he suggests to Kaworu—basically saying he might feel like Shinji doesn’t love him but he’s gotta remember to take care of himself. if I go thru a breakup ill feel like it’s the end of the world but Kaji says y’a gotta self love broe and take care yo self gad dam fam 😭 💗.

Though, that look at the end from Shinji to Kaworu—I’d like to believe there is still hope that one day when they’re a bit stable in their adult lives, they’ll run into each other.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

99% Sure Leah is a Hallucination

Okay, I REALLY wasn’t going to post anything else. I know the two template posts I gave you yesterday were a lot to chew through. But something happened last night that made this come together for me and my buddies, and I just couldn’t sit on it. I promise I’ll keep this brief, though.

After watching the episode yet again last night, @frangipanilove found an article in which Norman says something interesting about this episode. Well, maybe interesting isn’t the right word. More like BOMBSHELL.

Remember how we at first thought she might be a hallucination? Well, we moved away from it because we learned that Carol knew about her. That, and I thought it was safer for us all to make our peace with the idea of Daryl having a relationship with this woman. Just accept it and move forward, you know?

But after watching the episode, yes, Carol knew about her, but only what Daryl seemingly told her. She never met Leah. Not a single soul in the world other than Daryl ever saw her. Hmm.

So, here’s the article @frangipanilove found:

I honestly wouldn’t have gone back to the hallucination theory, if not for reading this. But now Norman is saying that nothing in this episode is what it seems. And he’s specifically referencing Daryl’s relationship with Leah.

(P.S. I have to laugh that fans are asking him what’s wrong with him. Um...he’s not Daryl? He’s Norman. And he doesn’t write the show. The writers do. Lol. But also notice that he talks about staying true to Daryl, and we all know that this Leah thing is the opposite of that. Unless....)

So, let’s look at some weirdnesses in the episode. And @wdway deserves most of the credit for this. Once we started discussing the article and brainstorming, she came up with most of this.

1.  When he meets Leah. My fellow theorists and I were actually talking about this before the episode aired yesterday. Why does he just run into her cabin? He follows Dog, but the funny thing is, Dog doesn’t run into the cabin. Only Daryl does. How does he know there’s not 47 walkers in there? How does he know there aren’t a dozen armed people? You’d think he would stop and observe and evaluate. But he doesn’t. He just charges in. And that’s very unlike Daryl.

And of course we could come up with some sort of explanation. Like maybe he heard Leah yelling while fighting the walker in the back bedroom and thought she needed help. Maybe, but the show doesn’t actually suggest this. There aren’t any subtitles or anything that give us any clue as to what his thought process was for just charging in.

2.  When he brings Dog back to her, when his eye scar has appeared, if you listen to the dialogue between him and Leah, it’s a little bit odd. Maybe not quite as odd as him charging into her house at first, but still it leaves some questions. About the eye scar, she says, “looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” He just says, “yeah.” Well, that scar isn’t jagged or shaky at all. It’s very straight. Clearly made by a knife, not a walker. So, it’s a little strange that she doesn’t ask what happened. If she wants to be left alone, wouldn’t she be concerned that there might be someone else out there. Why doesn’t she just ask about it? Why doesn’t he just tell her about it? In a way, it almost sounds as if Leah knows more than she’s saying in this scene.

3. When she opens up to him about her family and her past, all the stories she tells are almost like amalgamations of Daryl and the characters on TWD. Obviously everyone noticed the similarities to Carol. That’s a big one. But the story of the blood and the running could be them running from the prison, or the deaths of a lot of different people Daryl has had to say goodbye to. When she talks about meeting and fighting with her squad and how they gave her hope? TF in a nutshell. And even that she hints at having an abusive family. Daryl. Carol, too. But mostly Daryl.

4. It’s still odd that no one else ever met Leah. Yeah, she said she wanted to live out there alone. And we talked about how this makes it an unhealthy relationship, because if she really loved him, she would want to go meet his friends and family and know about every part of his life. Into this, I’m going to lump the fact that she never seems to have gone with him to search for Rick. Once again, if you love someone, you participate in their lives. And she’s just alone at the cabin anyway. Why not go with him?

5. Outside the show Weirdness: Look at that top pic I used for when he met Leah. Remember when we discussed that there is someone kneeling behind her? I assumed it was her son, because spoilers didn’t reveal when or how he would die. But that’s not the case. This person looks to be a teenager or an adult (much older than Matthew was) and we never learn who it is. 

People have said it might be a set person or a mic guy who accidentally made it into the shot, but I don’t buy that. They scrutinize these pictures and could easily have fixed that with the computer if they’d wanted to. I don’t know if we’ll ever find who it is. It might just be a hint that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

But then I found this pic:

There’s someone lying dead on the ground behind them, and we didn’t see this in the episode. @wdway thinks it’s just Leah. That she was dead when he arrived, but he made up this story about how she was this strong, survivor woman and could have become his companion. I think that’s a super-viable theory, but of course we won’t know the details until they actually show us.

There are more weirdnesses than this, but I’m sure you get the idea. The more we think about it, the more sure we are that she’s a hallucination. And obviously that would make more sense anyway from the “why would the writers handle Daryl’s love life this way and piss off the entire fandom” perspective.

One thing we also noticed was that on TTD, the writer emphasized that this story is told from Daryl’s perspective. We’re seeing his PERCEPTION of it, and that’s important. I heard her say that, and wasn’t quite sure of what to make of it. Before realizing the hallucination thing, I thought she might be hinting that there was more we hadn’t see, or Leah might not be who he thought she was. Something like that. But if she’s not real, that makes way more sense, doesn’t it.

So, some things to consider. The strong parallels to Carol. The exact ones, actually, like spear fishing and all the identical dialogue. That’s because he’s taking those things from his time with Carol and incorporating them directly into Leah’s story.

Everything I said yesterday still applies. Mostly because that’s the symbolic template and here, we’re talking about the reality of what’s happening, so the two don’t affect each other directly. But while Leah’s personality is based on Carol’s (probably because that’s who he spends the most time with these days) the romance element is definitely molded out of his time with Beth.

Real:

Hallucination:

The cross that represents the grave? The one Chris Hardwick said would make some people think Leah is dead? Yeah, we think that really is her grave. We do think she probably really existed, and he met her, but she died relatively quickly, and the rest of the relationship didn’t happen. It’s all in his head. I’ll give you some more possibilities on that in a minute.

We think she’s the one who gave him the eye scar. If we’re right about that, I’m sure they’ll show it to us eventually. I mean, if she’s a hallucination, they’ll have to tell us that eventually, but probably not until S11. Think about the dialogue. “Looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” Daryl: “Yeah.”

This is also why the ending makes little sense. His argument with her about where he belongs is really him arguing with himself. That’s why he cries when she asks where he belongs, and he says he doesn’t know. But then later, we see him charging off to look for Rick, and not seeming at all sad or conflicted about anything. It’s because there is Leah. There never was. He’s just looking for Rick.

@frangipanilove also said something insightful about Carol. I think I took most of my mentions of the Carol flashback scenes out of my meta yesterday. Only because it was already so long and I wanted to focus on laying out the symbolic template for you. But while watching the episode, I actually felt kinda bad for Carol. Every time she came to see him, she seemed so upset. Like she felt as abandoned by him as he does by her. And I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve a taste of her own medicine, but I guess that sadness from her kind of surprised me.

But what @frangipanilove said is that maybe her worry for him really was warranted. Because he’d been out there on his own so long, it started to mess with his head and he really was losing his sanity. Carol might have been starting to see that, and she really was terrified for his mental health, which is why she kept trying to get him to come back.

And you know, it creates an interesting sort of irony for Daryl and Carol’s fight at the end in present day. He says that when things get tough, she runs, and he’s sick of dragging her back. And that’s true. We’ve seen that he’s right and Carol does do this, so I was 100% behind what he said to her. Was it harsh? Sure. But it still needed to be said.

But the irony is that during these 6 years after Rick, Daryl was doing exactly the same thing. Him staying out there to look for Rick, when after years, it would have become clear that he wouldn’t find the body, was him running away from the pain of what happened. Carol kept trying to drag him back, but he wouldn’t go with her.

Also, the two of them on opposite sides of the river here could represent the divide between reality and Daryl’s hallucinations.

The note. It’s a little hard to know exactly how to interpret the note from a PTSD perspective. Symbolically, I’d say the note he left was for Beth. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that in the episode, but with all the Beth parallels, it’s just about him wanting to belong somewhere. He wants to belong with someone who loves and needs him.

But I talked yesterday about how the cabin was trashed, and the picture was gone, right? By the time he wrote that note, Leah was long gone. Dead, I mean. The fact that the picture wasn’t there is especially significant. Why would the picture have disappeared, unless it wasn’t real to begin with.

Another thing I noted was Carol’s somewhat bizarre reaction when Daryl suggested they go down toward the river to hunt. She looked worried about that, but agreed. At the time, I was thinking she was worried because he’d spent so much time down there before looking for Rick, and she didn’t want the obsession to resurface. And that’s probably still true, but it’s even more interesting now, isn’t it? And maybe that’s why she’s always wanting to go out with him when he goes hunting or looking for supplies or whatever. She just doesn’t want him falling back into that mindset and disappearing again.

And it will make what I said yesterday about what will happen in the spinoff—her wanting him to stop looking for Rick and come with her—make more sense, too, won’t it?

Okay, I’ll stop now. I really haven’t covered everything we could possibly talk about with this. I’m sure you’ll all think of tons more. But you get the idea. And remember, this isn’t just my theory or our theory. I wouldn’t have come back to this at all if I hadn’t read that article where Norman hinted at it. And he would know, right?

And hey, if this turns out to be incorrect, I’ll be okay with that. I’ll eat my words (not literally 😉). But Norman is referring to SOMETHING here, and given how few characters were in this episode, and that he was directly talking about Leah in that quote, there really aren’t many things he could actually mean.

Special thanks to both @frangipanilove​ and @wdway​. Honestly, they did way more work on this one than I did.

Thoughts?

[redxblueihateloveyou]

You know it's always really funny to me when mhs say that had it not been for swimming Haru and Rin would've never become friends bc I'm like, that's how relationships work???? You initially connect bc of something you have in common and go from there???? In that case you can also apply it to mh bc if Haru and Makoto had not been neighbors since they were young they probably would've never become friends either, but nobody wants to mention that bc then their argument crumbles lol

Anyways, your blog is literally the best and your rh (and general) takes are always so nice to read

I'm... same, I just do not understand what’s new about this? Like my mom and dad met while they were both working at school, if I started talking with a guy cause he told me that he liked my chibi Akashi bag and anime, is this not allowed? This in no way means that that’s all we like about each other or smth, this means this one thing brought us together.

This is the reason why I dislike mh fans so much. Because the majority of them instead of posting some canon facts and truthful arguments, they either twist some words into something unrecognizable, either try to change a rh moment into mh. I just always thought ppl ship things for what they are, not what they are not...

And the main problem in this happening and the error in their equation is Haru. Cause they’re trying so hard to sew him into that but with everything he says and do he constantly falls off and they end up with mako-haha. It’s like they say that Makoto is the reason that Haru walks into his future, which is hilarious tbh, and the next movie airs and what do you know Haru is yelling at Rin’s face how “he only walks towards the future and wants it bc of him”, they say that s2 relay teams are what they truly want which everyone knows ain’t true and boom drama airs and Haru and Rin are talking how it’s not the same if they’re not together on the team. They air all the birthday stories and oh no, Rin is special again. I remember how they were running around after that frfr! episode, where Rin tries to make Haru laugh and Makoto says he actually already heard it before and turns out it was kid Haru’s evil laugh in his sleep at school. Like what is so special about that? And how is this mh related? Haru was cutely laughing watching Rin sleep and just reading his text.. that’s yeah, that’s the reason to fuss.

Their problem is always Haru, he never fits their mh plan like ever. But do they listen to him? No. Because we have a moment IN THE ANIME, where Haru says “RIN, I WANT TO BE LIKE YOU, TOO.” meaning he wants to be as brave/daring/passionate, etc. cause Rin represents freedom for him. Okay, I’d get why some needed me to post an arguments list for “Rin doesn’t like Haru only for his swimming”, which is still hilarious to me, but okay, he does have a kink in books about Haru moving in the water and goes about it for several pages, but with Haru this is actually not the case. 

I don’t know if anyone noticed it, but swimming is not what attracts Haru the most about Rin and never was. It’s his character and state of mind and the way he makes him feel aka free. It doesn’t matter what they do, like whether they eat their rolls or draw new years fortunes. Haru said his whole body is on fire just when he looks at Rin and he doesn’t even notice how he starts smiling when Rin talks to him. It’s just the way he makes him feel. And swimming has nothing to do with that. Sorry, guys lmao.

Did they seriously just erase this moment, when Rin writes how he wants swim as fast as Haru in his letter, but Haru looks at the sky and he has this kaleidoscope of Rin’s pic in his mind and what he says next is "Rin, I want to be like you, too.” 

And he means what he says. It’s not about the swimming truly, he admires the fact that Rin follows his dreams with such passionate determination. Mind the fact that moments of Rin that flash before his eyes in this moment a) when Rin openly gushes about Haru’s swimming in front of everyone; b) when he yells in front of the whole class that if he wants a relay with Haru, he will bloody get it; c) his swimming; d) when he tells Haru that he’s a sight he never saw before he’s gonna show him the sight he’s never seen before. It’s about how what Rin wants, Rin fights for until he gets it. Haru is in love with his passion, always was, always will be.

Haru doesn’t want to “swim like Rin” although they did compliment each other by saying “I find your strength amazing” “but I find your stamina amazing”, and Haru always drools about the power behind Rin’s strokes, but Haru swims in his own beautiful way. And while he adores the way Rin swims, that’s still not his favorite thing about Rin and never was. Every time he talks about Rin it’s always about his personality and surprisingly... it’s rarely about swimming. When he thinks about Rin it’s always stuff like... how he is so colorful and intense and full of life and passionate about his dreams and how he stands out among everyone else to him, not about his swimming skills. 

So this argument is dumb AF tbh. I’m like.. yeah, and Lan Zhan loves Wei Ying for his demonic cultivation skills. Not because of his strong character, daring heart and his incredible ability to tick him off and light his cold ass on fire.

P.S. Seriously tho this is the first shipping base I see who just always for some reason does this stupid thing with finding a crumb and actively trying to make it into a bread but then realise it’s realistically impossible so they just replace it with a plastic one and pretend it’s real. This in fact makes your ship ridiculous. You can’t try to push the line that Rin is abusive (thats still lol) and how Makoto is better for Haru, since Rin did everything to make Haru reach his dream and made him happy and he’s the only one who can help Haru, when he feels down like in s2 and then with Albert and etc. Makoto can’t. It’s the truth, just let it go. I know there are not much positives sides in mh relationships to be honest in my opinion, but there are still some (?). Why not base your arguments on truth? Like at least it’s gonna be mh, not some imaginary thing. Either love mh for mh or don’t. Like yeah, Haru doesn’t resiprocate, but maybe one-sided stuff is your kink, ok, explore this, fine, but don’t try to make Haru into somebody else. Then it’s not your ship anymore.

It’s just funny to me like that Rin here writes poems about Haru and openly flirts with him in restaurants and plans their future together and I don’t even need to exagerate anything, it’s just how it really is and meanwhile mh is like “remember how 7 years ago Utsumi said that Rin and Haru wouldn’t be friends if it wasn’t for swimming, so mh is the shit”.. like I’m sorry, but I think I’m allowed to laugh at this. Sometimes you just have to let it go, seriously. Or at least like idk think before you post (and I know that it has like 3 retweets and no one cares, but still 3 ppl agreed and it reached me somehow, so..). My policy is when I create posts about my ships is validation. Like my last Rinharu facts youtube post got 5K likes, I didn’t post my thoughts, just their moments and at the end I specifically said “I have links/translations to all of this, so name thing you want to read, I’ll link you” and I linked everyone whatever they wanted. 

This is how you tell ppl a story of why you love this ship and make them fall in love with it, too. Not by making up lies about what’s not there and twisting someone’s words (like this person wrote “thats what she really meant *adds complete nonsense*). And I know mh do not have any of this stuff that rh have, but if you really ship mh, find something real and go from there. Seriously, it’s better if you have smth small, but real, than a huge lie.

Also I still think ship is about two people, not just one. Why mh don’t want to listen to anything Haru says or wants like at all? That’s just sad. 

P.P.S. Thanks for liking my blog, this makes me so happy <3<3<3

[arizona-trash-bag]

I can totally explain a bit of my thinking behind seeing lwj as autistic and wwx as autistic/adhd!! Before I get into specifics though, let me preface with where I’m coming from. I first saw CQL and then read the EXR translation of the novel. I prefer MDZS to CQL, but also want to acknowledge that because I do not read/speak Mandarin I am inherently experiencing this story second-hand and therefore am probably missing out on a lot of nuances. I am trying to learn Mandarin, but it will be a long time before I am even a little close to fluent lol.

Another preface- obviously not all autistic people present in the same way, and many of the things that I will mention are not solely specific to autistic people either. It’s one of those things where all of it added up together points towards asd, but each one individually would not on its own indicate asd, you know? Also, I will say that many of the things I picked up on for both characters are autistic traits that many autistic people have vs the clinical characteristics (much like most of the case I could make for wwx’s adhd would be adhd traits he has rather than symptoms that would lead to a real-world diagnosis.) Edit: OH! I almost forgot to say, that also all of these traits I’m listing are from a western perspective, and I would LOVE to read more about how autism presents in different cultures and to see conversations between autistc Chinese people specifically, so as to see if these traits are specific to western autistic people or not, but again, I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect, so that’s a little inaccessible for me atm.

Ok, SO, for both characters I would list: strong sense of justice, lack of care for society’s opinion (I feel like it could be argued that lwj does to a certain point, but imo he operates more from what he morally considers to be correct and from a place of familial duty vs catering to the opinion of society at large), and then more vaguely, they both seem to be “nerdy” (this doesnt feel like the most accurate term, especially because it's not like being scholarly is specific to their characters, especially in ancient fantasy China- it’s more that their particular hmmm, flavor?? of love of knowledge feels very neurodivergent to me, vs like, being scholarly because it’s the thing that is expected of a Young Master, if that makes any sense at all- like the difference btwn someone getting an engineering degree because it is expected of them vs because they genuinely love engineering), and lastly for both- I would say that they are canonically kinky, and while I can’t cite any statistics, there’s a pretty high correlation between being autistic and being into kink. Obviously, not every person who is not vanilla is autistic, and not every autistic person is into kink…….but there is a high correlation.

For lwj specifically, the things that made me think he might be autistic are his lack of outward emoting combined with his depth and breadth of emotions, how he seems to thrive in and quite enjoy the very structured environment he grew up in, and then the last one off the top of my head (side note, I feel like a week from now I’m going to randomly think of other examples lol) I’m not actually sure IS an example, because I know (thanks to the awesome post from hunxi that you linked to that I had read previously) that his succintness does not equal autism, but I do kind of feel like it is very autistic to Always be so formal and to Always talk in textbook perfect language.

For wwx, I also think he likely has CPTSD! I’m not going to list anything for adhd or cptsd since we both agree on those :) As far as being autistic goes, there is, of course, the high prevalence of adhd/asd comorbidity. For specifc traits- while autism can show up as lack of facial expressions/tone, it can also show up as being overly exuberant and overexpressive. Especially for younger autistic children this can show up as being overly friendly/no boundaries w/ strangers (just?? going home with a random man who says he knew wwx’s parents???), making unusual connections that others do not can be both asd and adhd, his disregard for social status (disregard might be a strong word, and also I feel like this might be one of those things that got lost in translation and if I had read the original text I might have a different opinon, but what I mean here is the way that often autistic people learn certain social rules and try their best to follow them, but often do not pick up on specifics related to social hierarchy that are not spelled out for them- I think jyl’s take down of jin zixun is a great example of the /oppossite/ of what I’m talking about, and is a very neurotypical interaction. An example also of what I mean by disregard for social hierarchy, but from my own life, is how I’ve reflected on past convos w/ my boss only to realize that what I thought was just an interesting conversation about our opinons on a particular subject was actually them trying to tell-me-as-my-boss something they wanted me to do. We ended up doing things the way I wanted to do them because I didn’t realize that they were telling me to do something because they didnt explicitly say so, and because I just don’t pick up on when people are saying something from a social hierarchy pov. Idk if this makes sense or not, so I’m happy to try to expand if you would like me to. I feel like wwx could be described as having alexithymia, which is very common in autistic people, but could also be due to his cptsd. And then, I don’t feel like this is a true point because it is kind of based on headcanon? but wwx feels very demisexual to me, which is much more common for autistic people than it is for allistic people. But him being demi is not canon, just my perception of him (I see him as demisexual gay w/ massive comphet, but I know lots of people see him as bi, which also totally makes sense!!)

Tbh, I’m having a harder time than I thought I would listing wwx specifics. I might go through the book sometime this weekend and see if there are specific moments that pop out at me, but tbh w/ him its more that he Feels very adhd/asd to me?? Idk, I was diagnosed w/ adhd when I was 8, and all 4 of my siblings plus my father have offical adhd diagnoses. I’m 29 now and was only diagnosed as autistic earlier this year.  All of my close friends have always been either adhd, asd, or adhd/asd. There have been multiple people I have met that I’ve suspected were neurodivergent who have later told me they started looking into it and are now seeking formal diagnoses. I mention these things, only to give full context when I say that I have spent a lot of time observing the differences between interacting with neurotypicals and neurodivergents. I mean, obviously, it’s possible that I could just be projecting, but to me, Wwx gives off late-diagnosed/heavy masker autism/adhd combo vibes. Again, maybe I am projecting, but I did try to analyze whether I was or not previously, and determined that since in the past with other favorite characters (who I probably share more similarities in personality with) I did not feel like they were neurodivergent, so I figured that probably I wasn’t? That feels like a very convoluted sentence, but what I mean is that I have not thought that about other characters who have been my fav, so I figured that while I do project in certain areas that this particular area probably wasn’t one of them. Or, to say it in yet another way, since i did not project any of my neurodivergencies on past favorite characters, I figured I probably didn’t start doing so now.

I would love to hear more of your perspective on this, particularly because I worry that I do not have the cultural touchstones to realize when something wwx or lwj is doing is not actually a sign of being neurodivergent. I try my best to research things I don’t know about and to listen to fans who actually do have that cultural understanding, but there’s only so much I can look into on my own when I only speak/read english. And also, I love mdzs and I love talking about both adhd and autism, so I’m glad to talk about these subjects with someone else who also likes all of those topics :) Sorry for sending a book of a response and also I hope you are having a great day!!

wow wow wow anon THANK YOU for doing your research and acknowledging your blind spots you seriously made my day. I wanted to get to this as soon as I made that rant while sharing cyan’s post bc this is specifically an example of a well researched proposition based on actual lived experience and critical thinking.

I almost want to ask you to come forward so we can take this convo elsewhere for a more nuanced discussion bc you’ve already hit upon an issue that’s been holding me back from making a big blathering masterpost on the matter - that the ND experience is so unique and individual, and no one person can dictate someone else’s experience. at the end of the day, if you personally relate to these characters and gain more understanding of yourself and your experiences from them, who am I to take that away from you?

in a public space though I have to make the discussion very broad in order to accurately contextualize these issues, bc in typical autistic fashion I feel morally compelled to Do My Best and Get It Right even as the masses show no inclination of returning the favor, so apologies for the boring backstories I have to get out of the way before we can approach anything resembling new ground.

first from a diagnostic standpoint, while I recognize the traits you listed (and appreciate your clearly nuanced understanding of ND expressions) and would find value in exploring them in a personal context, they are not unique to adhd and/or autism and wouldn’t constitute a basis for diagnosis in a clinical setting. I know that's probably beside the point for this anon, but there's enough edgy teens hoarding labels out there without tacit encouragement from scientists (yes I am technically a scientist, even though my ideologies these days range from conventional to... wildly esoteric, shall we say)

from a cultural standpoint, it’s important for me to emphasize that the concept of neurodivergence is a uniquely western notion. for those unfamiliar, the term 'neurodiversity' was only coined in 1998. I was born in 1991. I existed for a whole 7 years as an autistic person before the idea of being neurodivergent was even a thing. this ND acceptance thing is very, very new - people were not making tiktok confessionals about their adhd diagnosis journeys when I was growing up.

china, like most asian countries, is about 20 years or more behind on just about every social issue compared with western countries. to better illustrate, the experience of being ND in china falls much closer to the conventional experience of disability (i.e. being eugenicized out of existence) than the tentative ND acceptance movement that’s been kickstarted in the past 20 years in the anglosphere.

safe to say, there is no ND coding going on in chinese media. characters are either explicitly ND or they're not. there's no basis for a creator subtly inducing ND-like traits in a character, because there's no such thing as ND awareness in the cultural context of where mdzs was written and consumed. any resemblance is purely accidental, as they say.

as to how this resemblance could exist - I could go into the layers and layers of historical, cultural, social and religious context that make up these characters and the xianxia genre as a whole. for this anon in particular i'm happy to, because they've done the work. please please get in touch in some way where we can have a fully fleshed out chat if you're interested in taking this further, I realize i’ve basically addressed none of the finer points you’ve raised but honestly it’s another level of discussion to be had that cannot be summarized in one blog post haha.

as for those who would scream 'but special interests!!' at a character whose sect was founded by a literal monk - what would be the point?

PS. to comprise a starting point for why it's possible to see ND4ND everywhere in media if you looked hard enough - I refer you to the seminal red oni blue oni trope 💁‍♀️

[rip-a-dip-dip-you-potato-chip]

what have I created?

idk if yall like this, but they just exist not i guess :/

ok the the first one is Royalty AU

first things first, when I say Royalty AU, I don't mean the classic shit we've all become accustomed to. Im talking about the good old Chinese royalty! And I want to emphasize that these guys will/should be dressed in century appropriate attire. As someone thats read a handful of 'marinette, princess of china' fics from the ML Fandom, I've noticed a common trend. Marinette wouldn't be in the culturally appropriate clothes, always ballgowns. Not that there's something wrong with it, its just most of if not all these fic are set in China, so I'd expect Chinese royalty to dress as THERE dress code calls for. And since this AU takes place far in the past like, it won't make sense for any of the characters to be in royal clothing that wasn't from there region. I'm not trying to white knight/gatekeeping. Im Guyanese not Chinese. But since JTTW and Monkie Kid take place in China, it's only right. In my opinion that it. You don't have to outright agree with me.

With out of the way, it's time for that good old AU crack

- Wukong is the king of the Flower Fruit kingdom(or a different one if you'd like, again I'm only familiar with what western culture has taught me, but I'll try my hardest) 

- he’s single but rumor has it he used to/still is dating the Vigilante/thief The Six Eared Macaque

- *chants ShadowPeach violently* 

- no one know whether it true or not

- On of his wanders around the kingdom he finds an abandoned baby in a basket. 

- and no shit sherlock it's fucking baby Xiaotian 

- I think we all know where this is going because i'm a simp for Monkey Dad & Monkie Son shenanigans

- Xiaotian becomes prince

Shit, ill be referring to Xiaotian as Mk from now on, I mentioned this before in a fic I wrote for lmk that Mk's a nickname for Xiaotian for some reason- wait i don't have to explain my self to you people!

- Sun loves his son

- MK is treated differently by staff and others because he's not blood related to the king

- no one mistreats MK per say, because there King loved his adopted son, but words are said behind his back

- Sometimes MK hears what’s said, and he feels as if he won't live up to his dad’s legacy.

- He meets Mei during a festival

- Mei is from a noble family, that wouldn't mind if they got a connection into the royal family.

- but it becomes hella clear to Mei’s family very fast that the two are just friends, and will always will be. but hey there daughter is bffs with the prince so that's a plus.       

_

- the Demon Bull Family is rules a kingdom as well, I dont/am not creative enough to think of a name I leave that to you.

- It's a common misconception that DBK is a tyrant, when he’s not. 

- most of the time...

- they have been at war with the Monkey King for some time now and settled for a peace agreement.

- that agreement being there sons to marry

- oooo original i know

- MK and Red Son are roughly the same age, Mk being 20 and RS 22

- RS is revolted/disgusted at the idea of being wed to the Monkey Kings child, even more so when he realizes MK is adopted,

- but, that all changes the second he meets MK while he meets him by accident when he gets kinda lost in the palace when he and his parents go to discuss the arrangements.

- the second he looks at MK, he's instantly in love. MK less so, he's nervous and honestly kinda bummed he's not marrying someone he loves but it's for the good of his ppl, and he'll do anything for them.

- RS isn't even aware that MK is Suns adopted son until MK walks him back to the meeting room.

"Oh There you are MK! I was about to have a servant go fetch you!" Sun Wukong says, gesturing for his boy to come sit with him.

"S-sorry for keeping you waiting I got caught up in my lessons with Mr. Tang" MK responds, sitting next to his father. Red Son looked gobsmacked. The beautiful young man he had bumped into, was the prince of this land? Damn, life truly blessed him. Or cursed him depending on how you looked at it.

- the two are left alone in a separate room for a while.

- And MK straight up tells RS why he's agreeing to this union.

"Look Red Son. I've dreamed about meeting my one true love for a while. And I would give almost anything for that dram to be real. But I wouldn't ever dare give up my people, for as there price they mean more to me. I'm doing this for them, no other reason" MK says, his back straight and hands folded neatly in his lap. The look in his eyes was a mix of sadness, but that was drowned out by loyalty and determination. It just made Red Son fall for him even harder. Clearing his throat Red spoke.

"I understand, for im doing this for the betterment of my people to. But I propose a wager"

"A wager?"

"Yes, if i can make you fall in love with me by years end, before our marriage, we can live together like in the fairy tales from far away. But if I fail, in a years time afterwards you will be permitted to find your own path in life" Red Son stated. MK took a moment to process what was happening.

"So, if you succeed in making me fall in love with you, before our marriage we can live happily ever after?" Red Son nodded in response, letting the younger continue.

"And if I shouldn't fall for you, in a years time after our union, im free to leave?" Red Son nodded once more.

"So, what do you say?"

...

"Deal"

In the end, your free to choose their fate, should Red Son win the hart of Mk? Will he fail? Or will he let him go, and let him travel the country, after all Mk's a free spirit and keeping him trapped in a big house is like keeping a cannery trapped in a cage only for its song, only for it to dul. Or will the unthinkable happen and will both boys find their freedom? together or appart? I don't know, because that's all up to you 😉

personally, I’m partial to where MK and Red Son both find freedom together. Like they straight up run away together to somewhere far away and just live out there lives together. 

this could also be genderbent thing as well. MK or Red as their respective counterparts. Again it doesn't have to be, but it’s whatever bro. im just spitting out the idea. 

Also, there is a main side plot that they fight the WBS throughout the year as well, along with other shenanigans you wanna throw in.

____

The second is a My Hero Academia/BNH/MHA AU

truth be told i'm not a big fan of MHA i think it to over hyped(this is also coming from the same person that’s a Fairy Tail fan lol), and the fandom i don't even know how to describe that mess, but I will admit not the whole of its toxic since every fandom has some toxic members, some even more so. 

I just sometimes find myself enjoying MHA AUs like the Fullmetal Alchemist, Danny Phantom, Evil!Deuk AU and several others. 

to make it clear I don't see this AU taking place the same time as the main plot of the actual Anime/Manga. This could be either like 6-10 years before or after the plot idk bro. But i’ll do this after the main story plot of MHA, so keep that in mind ya? another thing, the gang is still in China, the top hero school in the world just so happens to be in Japan, and it’s only ever mentioned by Sun wukong and other pro heros. So MK never attended AU. in short it’s only ever mention/ reference.  

_

- Mk was considered Quirkless as a kid. 

- he was just a late blumer, i swear  

- Mai’s Quirk is called Dragon. 

- it pretty much works the same way as it does in the show(duh)

- Tang’s got a knowledge Quirk, 

- my man can retain information and he’s basically an archive of information drawback being his personality lol 

- Piggsy is a Animal that gained a Quirk

- in cannon to my current knowledge, there are two other characters that can confirm animals can become sentient. the characters being Fumikage Tokoyami, & Nezu the principal at the school UA.  

- Sandy is just Conner Kent, aka he like superman but can't fly, or shoot lasers from his eyes. And blue.  

I have two scenarios for Macaque and Wukong  

*- The first one is that, Sun Wukong & Macaque are brothers. twins to be exact. 

- they where legit people, but have mutation quirks that made them too like monkeys. 

- the added powers were just a boues. 

- Sun and Mac are close growing up, like there brothers but also best friends.

- the draw back to there quirks could honestly be whatever you want bro idk, same with the others tbh. Personally I like to think Sun just has lack of motivation, and Macaque needs to draw on other people's energy.

- Sun is a hero, Monkey KIng and Mac is a villain Six Eared.

- Sun was always treated has the golden child in the family, Mac always resented that, but there shitty up bring didn’t stop the two from being good brothers to one another.

- soon tho the resentment became hatred when Sun was able to attend UA in Japan, while Mac didn't.

- Mac be angy 

- so he became a villain, and joined the Chinese branch of the LOV(league of villains)

- Sun doesn't know this till he finds out during the all out war during the main story. and by that time he’s a full on hero with is own agency(The Flower Fruit agency)    

- when the hero's ultimately win and Mac is arrested 

- This ultimately hurts Sun a lot, his brother was in jail now, arrested for his involvement and wrong doings, he knew nothing about this! this brother, his blood. A bad guy? why? he hadn't seen his brother since he left for UA, he hadn’t seen him when he came home, and started his agency. 

- this just puts Sun into a funk so he’s not as active as he used to be, and he starts thinking he might need a successor 

*- The second one is that they were two separate people that had similar quirks and both attended UA but Sun ended up in the hero corse. so 1A.

- Both Macaque and Sun have similar quirks, Sun’s is obviously more light based while Macaque’s is more shadow based(this applies to the first one as well)    

- Macaque was placed in class 1B, U.A.’s High's Heroics Department, I believe, you can correct me. 

- In cannon Class 1A and 1B both went to the training camp. I can see the teachers pinning Sun and Macaque against each other to hone their skills. 

- And because of that they become great friends    

- In fact when they graduate they both co-found there hero agency together in China and are a duo.

- But due to Monkey King’s popularity and Six Eared's association with shadows(people sometimes saying he has more of a villains quirk than a heros) the public see’s Macaque as Sun’s sidekick when thats far from the truth. 

- now it’s up to you whether you think that Wukong and Macaque would be in a relationship together, but knowing how cooked we all are, ShadowPeach is a thing here more than likely. 

- If you do or don’t support/ like the ShadowPeach aspect, the two would be living together regardless since its more cost efficient. 

- They my be heroes but living costs are expensive!   

- I would imagine there would have been a huge fight/argument between the two in privet of course, at there home.(or in there shared office if you want the extra angst of the other people they work with hearing them fight)   

- If the two are dating, then this would either lead to an out right breakup, or Macaque just up and leaving with Wukong thinking he’ll come back once he’s cooled off. But after a week, with no sign of his partner, or him answering texts or calls, not even coming into work. Wukong gets worried that something might have happened to him. so there wouldn't be a confirmation if they were still a thing or not. 

- But Wukong remains hopeful, despite the nagging at the back of his head, and gut telling him to go find Macaque, or atleast make a public statement, or even just tell another pro hero about it.   

- on the not so shippy side, Macaque and Wukong still have there argument, and much like the ShadowPeach esc side, Macaque up and leaves, and isn't seen for weeks. the only difference here is that when Wukong comes home one night to there flat, most if not all of Macaques stuff is gone. 

- where as if this was the ShadowPeach side, Macaque leaves all of his possession in the flat he and wukong share. for the simple reason being, he still loves him and wants to go back, but Macaque being Macaque can’t bring himself to do it, especially after seeing just how hurt Wukong looked when he yelled at him just before he left.  

- in other words, ANGST DIALED UP TO A 10 BABY  

- in either case, its a news report that confirms Wukong's suspicions that he desperately didn’t want to believe, and that is Macaque turning into a villain.

- much like if the two were brothers, Wukong just can’t take it and is no longer as active as he once was, and is thinking about, either A) Retirement  B) Saying, “Fuck Society, Be Gay Do Crime” and join Macaque as a villain himself, or C) find a successor, and a way to bring Macaque back to there side, but most importantly, back to him.    

- also extra points if you're after people's hearts and want to make them suffer;  - If there dating, Wukong curle’s up in the bed he and Macaque shared, holding/wearing something of great value to Macaque and just crying himself to sleep, where as Macaque is getting wasted on alcohol, as he stumbles out of the bar he’s in, he either see’s something that reminds him of Wukong or while he’s trying to put his wallet back into his pocket, a photo of them on their first date fall’s out. and Macaque just cries in a nearby alley way. And it’s there where he gets indoctrinated into the League.

       - If there just friends, macaque heads to the nearest forest and just levels it, where as Wukong just gets engrossed into his work, trying not to think about it. you could add you own spin on this, again i'm just spitballing.             

- NOW BACK TO MK! :D     

- Obviously MK is a huge Monkey King fan     

- at Twenty MK has come to terms he's quirkless (HE’S NOT)

-for ANGST reasons MKs fokes kicked him out at this realization at 13.

- he works at Piggsy's Noodle shop, and has been since he was 14.

- don't need a quirk to drive or cook!

- the boy lives a content life with his new family, till DBK happens :D

- DBK runs a Mafia(in conjunction with TLOV) and has been in jail for like 5 years thanks to Monkey King, PIF and RS brake him out one night when MK's out making a late night delivery since Piggsy had the bright idea to go 24/7 service!

- one thing leads to another and Mk somehow manifest what looks like the Monkey King's staff, but its not, it’s MKs powers, it just so happens to be the same power the Monkey King has. And it practically goes down the same way in the pilot. 

- but unlike the pilot Mk and Mei go straight to the FF Agency, after making a panicked call to Pigsy and Tang.

- one way or another Mk are lead into Wukongs office. Mei being forced to stay in the lobby.

- they have there convo, butterfly monkey squishing included.

- "And so, I want you do be my success-" BOOM 💥

- from there they rush downstairs and see that the lobby has been infiltrated by the DB fam, and you know fight.

- once the DB family seems like there down, PIF wisks them away. Much to Monkey King’s displeasure.

From there stuff kind plays out like cannon, the calabash ep is just a conjoint quirk the Demon bros have. As for EP9, ill have to script that one out myself lol. I'll get onto it as soon as my will to commit stabs me in the face. Till then have a dancing Kermit the frog.

Now if you'll excuse me, am about to Kermit a felony :D

(For legal reasons thats a joke)

Psst @writingamongther0ses its done