#be careful about crime tools if you use them anon

[akirakirxaa]

What mods do you use for your FFXIV gposing? If you don't mind me asking.

Are you asking if I do crimes Anon? *clutches pearls* I absolutely do no such thing.

However, if I were to use crime tools (which again are illegal I would never do that >.> ), I would likely use Anamnesis for posing, ReShade for pretty filters (that one's not illegal iirc), Dalamud for Penumbra (to install mods), Brio (spawning additional characters), and Ktisis (it's like Ana but lets you adjust right in the game, good for small tweaks).

But of course I would never commit crimes! So this is all just hypothetical. :)

[space-blue]

22

22 — your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Ah, well, since you're anon I'm going to just answer this for the last fandom I was in, instead of susing out what content you follow me for.

So, Avatar, Quaritch :

My personal understanding of Canon Quaritch is that he's not nearly that happy about his new life as he's usually depicted to be, even after meeting Spider. He's usually shown as driven, or wrapped into new, meaningful relationships. Been there done that myself.

But I think there's a few clues :

The look of pure self hatred and loathing he gives his own reflection after poking his teeth (and what he says next, "ain't that a bitch" or whatever).

Then during his pep talk, using the term "sins of their past lives".

The way he basically begs Jake on the sinking ship to please fight him. He threatens his family, he opens himself wide...

And then the entire fight he's giddy. Let's not forget that mad cackle as they take their last breaths before diving to the last wrestle.

I've brushed on it in a fic, and this mentality is 100% what I think canon Quaritch mindset was during the film. A man thinking of himself as a living punishment. A shade meant only to avenge its past self. A bit of a twisted joke.

It's fitting too that his dreams drag him back to that moment, the sea of fire, the collapsing ship... Miles had known then, deep into his carbon reinforced bones, that this was it. That he was going to die there—and he'd been fine with that. There had been bliss, fighting Sully. A perfect exaltation, pumping fire through his veins. The man had proven himself such a competent fighter. He'd held his own, given almost more than he took. It had been a different confrontation. A fight between equals. No AMP suit, no link beds. No cheating, basically, for either of them. All brawn and skill, to the death.

Sharing each other's breath before diving to their watery graves, Miles had been glad. He'd been thrilled. To get his revenge in such a satisfying way, and to put an end to the farce of his misshapen existence... He'd welcomed it.

He'd spared a thought for Spider—his one regret. Ideally Miles would have stayed by his side, but with Sully's iron grip around his throat and his vision darkening, he'd just been glad they'd had a chance to know each other. That Spider would have memories of him, no matter how bitter.

And yeah, I've rarely seen Quaritch portrayed that way, but that's also probably due to the incentive to have him defect, or be redeemed and become a new, happier self, etc. I love the fact he's clearly tortured. It really plays for me into how single mindedly obsessed he is, and already ready to commit some good old war crimes to get to his goals. Why care if your entire life is a sick joke? If you're a corporate tool? If your entire meaning is to deal vengeance?

Gasp! Batman arc! (lol /jk) Thanks for the ask! It's from these Choose violence ask game!

[un-local]

7, 12, 26?

7. unpopular ship/s you like

Ah….. I have no sense whatsoever for popularity. Off the top of my head:

Fia/Rogier (Divorced) [Elden Ring]

Come on. The opposing motives, the falling out, the repression and release, the realization he’s being used. Not that he wasn’t trying to use her to some extent, probably.

Facade vs Facade. 10/10

Shinya Voss/ (informant) Spacefarer [Starfield]

HEAR ME OUT! Let me paint a picture here:

Shinya Voss: The Evil Space Pirate’s ultimate money man. A man who committed a gruesome act of loyalty, who submitted to having a bomb implanted in his chest to keep him in line. He’s integral to the faction’s success—therefore, he can never slip up. Never show doubt. Never give anyone the impression that he’s got second thoughts. It would be a death sentence if someone questioned his loyalty. 

So when you meet him, he has this demeanor of fierce, steely devotion. 

(How much of it is real? How much of it is a survival mechanism?)(How much of his initial agreement was coercion? Or was it true loyalty, secretly lost over the years?) (The game never tells us.)

And then there’s the player character: caught and arrested while stealing for what is ultimately supposed to be a just cause. But while in custody, the player is forced into the informant role. 

Mission: take these pirates down from the inside. 

A suicide mission, as far as everyone around you is concerned. And yet, the player quickly becomes the rising star of the faction. And then, its ultimate downfall. 

The HQ is surrounded by authorities, and it’s all gone to shit. You can talk to Shinya in this final mission. He starts all calm and cool, his villainous monologue ready to go, but then he drops the act. He begs you to get him out. Find the remote controls of the bomb in his chest, and disable it, before he’s used to send them all to hell. 

It’s somewhat implied that this is the first time he’s been honest in a long, long time. 

Both he and the player are made violent tools of greater, conflicting interests. I find that dynamic compelling. I like to imagine after getting the bomb disabled, as the rest of the base is being secured, the Spacefarer and he just. Slip through everyone’s fingers. They fuck off and drop off everyone’s radar entirely :)

BUT ANYWAY. 

What were we talking about again?

12. quotes you like?

Answered here! 

26. moment where you think the fandom did a character dirty

Nothing specific is coming to mind at the moment, so I’ll go broad. And….. Hah, you’re not going to like me for this, anon. No one’s gonna like me for this. Regardless: 

As your (un) local joyless fuck, for me, it’s gotta be anytime a character gets “smoll bean”-ified. You know, where:

“Character X…… he just. He cares so much????? He’s sweet???? He’s just a cinnamon roll actually???? Guys his nuance and unique situational experience has been flattened and generalized so I can relate to him and/or find him morally acceptable to like?????????🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰”

Like, sometimes…… a motherfucker just isn’t friend-shaped. You shouldn’t have to feel like you gotta reframe him as someone who is. Sometimes he’s jagged and angry and spiteful. Why sand those edges down? Sad!

Sorry. I know posts like that are probably from teenagers, so it really isn’t some great crime. I’m sure they fill everyone with warm, happy, wholesome emotions, or whatever. I don’t think there should be less of them, or that liking them makes you bad, etc etc etc, disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer. They’re just a part of the ecosystem. 

…They do drive me up the wall, though XD

Thanks for the ask anon! Sorry to keep you waiting! 💚

[beware-thecrow]

But we are constantly seeing said villains killing or trying to kill people. How many thousands does Tomura have to kill before Izuku accepts that he needs to die? How many people does Toga have to stab before Ochako accepts that she's too far gone to be saved? Toga is Horikoshi's mary sue waifu and she just killed uraraka

Anon....i don't know how to tell you this without being rude but...i don't give a fuck about BNHA civilians and i'll tell you why. I do give to you the fact that Toga is not a good character, i don't like her on her own either, and i like Ochako, so if she kills Ochako kinda sucks. I also think Tomura will die at the end of the manga because there is no way to help him achieve real peace and allowing him to have a real fulfilling life after what he's done, but the true question BNHA brings is "does a society what breeds these type of inequality and violence deserves to live?" "Is there any real difference between keeping a status quo that condemns mentally ill people with undesireable quirks to violence and condemning the well adjusted civillians to violence." and "Is it worth to keep the heroes as a tool of oppression when their violence innevitably will create villains who oppress too" Hori has made the point that heroes are rich, that they get payed by the goverment to keep the "peace". So tecnically you have a society that relies on keeping a sector of the population marginalized to justify the existence of heroes, all while the money spent on them could be used to actually integrate said people socially. AfO just used this stupid loophole to create an empire of crime right under the hero commission's nose. After all, if you look at it carefully, the story tells you that heroes appeared to control the rise of crime because of quirks, and yet the problem only got worst over the years, which has lead to shit ton of professional heroes alongside schools, programs, even breeding plans, you name it. And then you should ask "is this actually helping?" And then you have Tomura, orphan, groomed, traumatized, ill and unstable checking all the boxes for the worst luck, pointing out that all these problems exist because heroes thrive on it. All while civillians have totally wash their own responsability to those who needs them, condemning the marginalized to violence themselves. After all it wasn't the heroes the ones who attacked Tomura as a child and let him live under a bridge, it wasn't the heroes the ones that pushed Toga into a rampage because of her quirk. It wasn't the heroes the ones who misstreated Twice for being sick or created Yakuza empires that experimented on Eri or the ones that discriminated Spinner for his looks. It was the civillians. So...again, anon. Why should we readers care about a bunch of people who are responsible for the evil they face?

[dumdaradumdaradum]

Hehe , socialist hun mein

Aap kya sochte hai kee aap jis desh mein reh rahe hai waha pe religion wala matter solve hona chiye ya nahi !

I mean your views about this issue 😔🤌

Hello anon! Socialism ha? What's your understanding of it? (If you ever see this)

Religion ki baat kre toh. Apni country m religion problems ka mtlb h dharmic and abrahamic ideologies ka clash. Actually clash in ideologies k interpretations ka h but still let's entertain.

I believe in multiple truths. One truth isn't the only one.

In our case, if you talk to a person who was a teen or even a kid during partition then you'll realise that people of Punjab and sindh never really wanted partition. Muslim league hadnt even won the election there. It were the nawabs of Lucknow and nizams of Hyderabad along miniscule support from few other parts of the country who pushed for partition.

In Punjab, Hindus and muslims lived peacefully. They were brothers.

That's one truth.

Next one is the history of country, the countless invasions done in the name of ghazwa-e-hind. It isn't hidden that many conquers came to our land with a tunnel vision and, one goal and one goal only. Countless ruined temples are testimony of it.

This is the next truth.

Moving on, let's take an interesting case of Aurangzeb. Most people know him as a tyrant, cold blooded murderer who hated Hindus and didnt even spare his own father. All of it is true. To give context, it was a Mughal tradition to ascend the throne over one's relative's blood. Jahangir did it. Shah Jahan did it, and when time came Aurangzeb followed the tradition as well.

There was rule of Mughal succession, rule or die.

Dara, his brother was an avid learner of dharmic religions. He loved learning and commenting about them. Aurangzeb knew it, he also knew that Dara was Shah Jahan's favourite. So to stake his claim and secure it, he used dara's interest and weaponised it. He gathered his army and fuelled them with hatred for his brother and his interests.

Of course this doesn't make Aurangzeb's treatment of Hindus right but he just didn't care. He knew that the way to get to the throne was to turn his army against Hindus and he did that. He didn't care who died in the process.

Third truth of the discussion is that religion is a tool.

As for present situation, there has been a shift in past few years. While the mutual respect increased a little, the agenda and hatred spread two folds. Everyday people take to their social media and say all sorts of things about each other without a single care. Everyday we see some report of a hate crime.

Sadly, i don't see this fight resolving anytime soon. When you put two starkly different idealogies together and fail make them both feel secure next to each other, conflicts are bound to crop up.

Our only fault is that we haven't had an excellent leadership who would string us together as one nation in centuries. The only thing that would bring everyone together would be a careful and knowledgeable leadership.

[constantvariations]

Hi, it's the same anon. We see Jaune and his sister's relationship before the trip to Atlas. It's warm. They fool around. Also, Jaune without hatred or aggression tells Ruby he has 7 sisters. Compare this to Weiss. We learn Jacques is bad not even from Weiss. We find out it is Blake who is talking about SDC. In v1 we are shown motivated the characters to go to Beacon and what their relationships are with their families. We see the difference between the Weiss and Ruby families. We are immediately given to understand Jacques is a bad person. We are given to understand that part of Yang's family is fractured and she loves Summer as her mother. But she keeps looking for Raven. We see Summer is dead. We see Summer was a good mother. We see who Ruby got her inspiration from. Ruby has a favorite uncle. Even Blake tells us very little information about herself. Yes, she grew up among the White Fang and went to protests. But she still has privileges. They talk about the problems of the faunus, but do not show them. We know there is a White Fang. They have protests that have gone too far. But we don't see any racism toward the fauns. Even in the most racist kingdom, we don't see racism. We see an unfortunate example of racism when the heroes just show up in town. And that's it. That's just it. There is a faunus among the Ace-Ops and no one cares. No one makes racist comments. Although Marrow's portrayal of himself is very racist. They made him a dark-skinned dog/wolf on purpose, didn't they? And they kept trying to show us how good he was. He was getting into all the timeline they had. He was a very handy tool when they decided to make James evil. Jaune doesn't talk about being forbidden to train. Jaune just went along with the crime. Blake had a reason for running away. Jaune had no reason to run away. He's just a fantasist. He didn't even know anything about the aura. Aura is a hunter's most basic skill. I wouldn't be surprised if they told us that Jaune had an abusive family all along and was forbidden to look at guns because he was a boy.

Hello again, anon! I have no idea what draws you to my blog in particular for these, but I am pleasantly surprised

Jaune’s family is mostly an enigma. Yes, we see him and Saphron (honestly I forget she exists 99% of the time) and it is a saccharine sibling dynamic, but they never mention any of the other sisters. No names, no shared memories, nothing beside the fact that Jaune and Saphron are the only ones not living at home. (Ngl when I first heard that my immediate thought was that it was a cult family and these two were the only ones to escape. It’d be a really cool subplot imo.) I think there’s a single off-handed line about Jaune’s parents in one of the early seasons, but I don’t care enough to check. Either way, there’s no concrete evidence as to the web of dynamics in the Arc family

I can’t agree with the assessment that Blake, in talking about the SDC as a whole, is the one to introduce the idea of Jacques not being a good person. A company isn’t a person. That’s like trying to pin all of RT’s own scandals on one person instead of acknowledging it’s a massive mess with dozens of participants. It’s still Weiss who talks about Jacques as a person when she tells the group that his anger at business gone bad made for a difficult childhood, and it’s through her story that we learn more of who he is as both a father and a businessman

I’m not entirely sure the purpose of the comparison between the RWBY families. It circles back to your issues with Blake and the White Fang, but I don’t know how the two connect. Unless they weren’t supposed to? It’s difficult to read long asks when there’s no paragraph breaks between topics

The racism in RWBY is poorly implemented because its writers were and are cowards about their world. They want the aesthetics of deep themes and adult topics, but have no idea about how to actually do that. What we end up with is la croix racism, where bigotry looks like high school bullying (Velvet getting her ears pulled, Robin calling Marrow “Wags,” some drunkards being mean to Blake)

When you make peace with the fact that RWBY is written by people who have no idea what they’re doing, you’ll have way more fun with this series. It won’t erase the bad writing, the promises of representation that they backpedaled on, the inherent bigotry throughout the show, BUT it will give you enough distance from the Watsonian universe that you can pluck the parts of the show you like and run away with them in your imagination

That’s why there’s so many rewrites - and the especially fun thing about that is how every individual’s experience/interpretation will dramatically change how they rearrange RWBY. No Remnant will look exactly the same as another and I think that’s beautiful

[tittyblade]

tumblr etiquette 101

a list that is nowhere near exhaustive, from yours truly.

First off, welcome! Whether you’re a twitter veteran looking for anything but whatever twitter is, or a new user just done signing up, glad to see you in our ranks beloveds! Welcome home. Refer to this quick tour to make sure your fandom experience (or tumblr experience in general) is a positive one!

Disclaimer: I know it’s long, but please try to read or skim through til the end if you’re new here! This is by no means meant to be a rule book (for the most part lol), only a guide to help you get settled easier!

1) Your blog

This is where people will see and interact with you, so put some effort into it!

Try to choose a name (url) that’s simple. You can see it as your brand, it’s how people will perceive you and remember you. If you’d like to interact with other users here (and not use the site just for the content) it’s better to have something short and sweet, preferably without spaces. (Of course, these are only suggestions.) Rest assured, you can change it literally any time you want.

Have a theme. Utilize the tool that lets you edit your blog’s color or the font of your bio! You can make it match your profile picture, or your blog if it has a theme of its own. Make it feel homey :]

Fill in your bio. People will be checking out your profile probably more often than you think. Don’t leave it empty! Put in any information you’re comfortable with sharing and isn’t too personal (like your age if you’re a minor, or other TMI that can be found on other people’s carrds). It’s always better to add a name/nickname people can use to refer to you by, but feel free to use your blog description to shitpost still.

You can have an intro post. More often than not, you’ll see a blog have a pinned post, a post permanently appearing at the top of a blog until you pin another post or unpin it. You can make one of those, if you’d like to introduce yourself in more length, link any other socials or a carrd, and show others visiting your blog how you tag things so it’ll be easy for them to navigate. Not an obligation.

Keep your anonymity and your safety. It should go without saying, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case. Your comfort, privacy and safety has the utmost importance. Don’t share any information you don’t want to. Don’t share your age if you’re a minor, or any other incredibly personal info. I’d encourage you to go by a nickname that’s not your real name, (blog name, your brand, remember?) since there’s safety in anonymity, and that’s lowkey one of the big deals of tumblr, but that’s up to you still.

Choose what you want to be visible. Your liked posts and who you follow are all things you can set to keep to yourself and hide from the publics eye, how handy! You should go through all the setting while you’re at it, set it to your comfort.

Side blogs are a thing. You can have multiple blogs that you can use for different things (see: different fandoms, art blog, etc) to keep them organized or away from your followers. Just remember that the replies and off-anon asks you send will be from your main blog, as well as where you follow other blogs from.

2) Interacting with others

You’ve set up your account, now comes the fun part!

Follow to your heart’s desire. If you care about others seeing who you follow, fear not! In tumblr, usually only two types of blogs keep their following visible to others: newbies, and big blogs using it to point people on other good blogs’ direction. Just turn it off, and go ham following people.

Customize your dashboard. Gonna mention just two things here: this is another reason why it’s really important that you follow blogs without sparing, your dash will collect dust otherwise; and you should turn off “best stuff first” in your dashboard settings, to have a better community here and all.

Follow tags. You can set it in your settings that posts with your followed tags appear on your dashboard.

You can check the og post for edits and context. When you see a reblogged post you don’t understand the context of (or don’t recognize the character in case of fanarts), click on the profile so it will take you to the original post. From there you can check the original poster’s tags to get the context, or see if there have been any edits made to the post, since when you edit a post it doesn’t update any past reblogs.

Send people asks... This is how you make mutuals, people! Do it off-anon if you’d like them to know your blog, or anon if you’d rather not! (You can still end your messages with a signature to show you’re the same person, -[name] is one example.) Send them nice messages, ask their opinion on something, discuss things, or just straight up shitpost lol. Go wild. The sky’s your limit and it’s definitely more than 280 characters.

...and let them ask you! You can set your preference in the settings, do it on desktop tumblr to access more settings tho! What you can customize on mobile is limited (like letting people ask you things anonymously, that’s only on desktop settings). In my personal opinion, it’s always better to tag their username (or a nickname you give them, if they’re a friend) on that post, since you wouldn’t want your interactions with your friends to get buried in your blog forever.

Comment on posts. If you have something to say but don’t want the post to appear on your blog you can add a comment. The owner of the post will get a notif for it, but for anyone else you need to tag them.

For the love of god, reblog. People will only see your liked posts if you have it visible to public and they specifically go on your blog to look at them. You like something? You reblog. It’s already hard for posts to circulate properly, if you don’t reblog them literally no one will see them. If not for anything do it for the artists. Just hold and drag on mobile to fast rb.

3) Your Posts

Finally here! Don’t be a lurker, post and engage!

Make use of “read more”. If your post is long, add it. That’s what you clicked on earlier to expand this post. On desktop leave an empty line and you’ll see three dots appear, and on mobile type :readmore: on that empty line.

Draft a post to come back to it later. Pretty self explanatory.

Queue your post. Whether it’s your own post or you’re reblogging, make use of the queue feature to a) not spam reblog and fill up the dashboard of people following you and b) keep your blog active while you’re gone. Mess around in the settings, it’s fairly easy to set up.

Schedule your post. Same as queueing, the only difference is you get to choose the exact time your post will go up. Handy if you want to schedule a post for certain dates like april fools, or 5 years in the future for some reason. 

Format your texts. You can do all kinds of fancy stuff here (that’s a link, try pressing on it). Twitter doesn’t have this, make use of it. Changes depending on whether you’re on mobile or desktop. (Desktop has less features.)

Check your stats. If you’re trying to understand the algorithm better or want to look at some pretty graphs you can get your data on that on desktop tumblr.

@ people in comments. You’ll get all the notifs when people comment on your posts but they won’t see your reply unless you tag them in your message.

4) Tags, and tagging a post

This is where my earlier statement “this isn’t a rule book” stops being applicable. It’s not a war crime to go against these, I won’t come chasing you (don’t take my word for this) but you’ll work up a bad rep. Just saying lol.

Do NOT crosstag posts. It’s really tempting to add unrelated tags to increase your posts’ interaction, I know, but that’s not what tumblr is about. Don’t be a dick and make other communities’ experience worse for them.

Always tag your posts with “crit/critical/discourse/etc” if it calls for it. There’s no exceptions to it. This is the reason you see people migrating to tumblr. Let people enjoy things.

Don’t main tag a critical/negative post. If your crit post is about “Thing”, you add the “Thing critical” tag, but not the “Thing” tag. People block crit tags if they don’t want to see it, don’t shove it in their faces by main tagging it. 

If you don’t want to see something, just block it. Another reason why people are able to survive on tumblr. You don’t start discourse, you don’t make call-outs, you block. You can find something for every community you can think of if you go looking for it. The worst of the worst probably won’t ever appear on your dash, but if you’re worried or feel the need for it, you know where the block button is.

Feel free to shitpost or ramble. More often than not you’ll see people rb a post with a comment, and their elaboration will be in the tags. The tags are only visible on your profile and the notifications of the owner of the og blog. Just a thing people do.

Reblog artists’ posts with nice comments in the tags! Commenting on a drawing is usually done through the tags (Not an obligation, again, just a thing people do. Feel free to add your comment on the rb itself if you’d want other people to see it tho!) and leave nice messages for the artists! It’s a win-win for everyone involved. 

If you have more than a single follower, always use the common tw warning tags. You don’t need to tw everything, but tw’ing some common things is the bare minimum human decency. Keep it safe for others. 

Tag a post “long post” if it’s really long. Pretty self explanatory. Don’t make people scroll through all that please lol. 

You can use them to organize your blog. This is more of a pro tip, if you’d like to not miss a post in your blog, cause they will start pilin’ up soon enough.

#Liveblogging is pretty fun. If you’d like to talk to people during streams, don’t forget to add the relevant tags still! Again, you won’t show up on people’s dash otherwise.

Whew! That got out of hand. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Check out blogs like @heritageposts and @hellsite-hall-of-fame to honor our past o7. @mcytblr-hall-of-fame too maybe :eyes:. Anyways, don’t forget the most important rule of them all:

Enjoy your stay! You’re meant to have fun on here while also making friends (if that’s your thing). Just be kind and respectful of others, you’ll get the hang of the rest! <3

[gentrychild]

Some part of me wonders if the hsc was just waiting for the hero system to fail as badly as it did in canon. I don't mean it in the, they don't benefit from the working hero system, but I mean it in the, the hero system is working exactly as it is meant to. All Might brought peace and peacetime can make it hard to maintain power over a population because people have the luxury of questioning stuff. Obviously the entire culture around pro-heroes and villains would be a good deterrent to people saying "hmm, maybe that was excessive force and also that villain was motivated by poverty and maybe force shouldn't be the go-to way to prevent crime" but peace makes people feel safe enough to ask those things.

But disruption? Terror? All Might gone, heavy losses on the side of heroes, heroes failing to defeat the villains with mass casualties, a loss of faith a system with comparatively a gentle use of force to what the hsc might use, where daytime heroes were under intense scrutiny from the public and help to high standards of behaviour?

All Might made people feel like heroes would always win and so they could demand high standards of behaviour and ethics from them. Without All Might and a guarantee of victory, handing more power to the hsc or allowing more leeway might seem logical to scared people. Perhaps not heroes, but still individual actors using quirks with different branding. It's likely what happened during the Dawn of Quirks and historically, that's often how governments gain greater power as a result of instability. And even once Shigiraki is dealt with, this attitude will extend to all villains/criminals with harsher responses to mild infractions. Perhaps tighter Quirk laws as well, or at least more enforcement.

If left alone, the hero system as it is would likely go through cycles. Chaos, power granted to the government, use of this power to gain stability through force, and either this peace through force is maintained until a stronger disruption/villain, or the amount of force used is lessened through public demand. The hero system collapses once again because root causes are not addressed, chaos, and then power is handed over to the government to regain stability through force. Rinse, repeat, until it inevitably implodes.

I don't think the hsc predicted it failing as badly as it did, or how Endeavour's actions would bite them in the ass with Dabi. But I could see them betting on All Might retiring, the spike in crime and social unrest as a result, and using that to push through more authoritarian measures. Because that's how it often goes in the real world

Panem and circenses, Anon. Bread and circuses. That's how you keep a society from noticing people in power are taking them from fools and that's on what the hero system is based.

Civilians need big good heroes to protect them from the big bad villains. Add some cult of personality.... I mean, hero worship and quirk veneration (since heroes are the elite, the only one allowed to use their quirks, normal people can't use theirs in public places, and villains are usually people with ominous quirks), and you get BNHA!

And the great thing is that if people are brainwashed into loving hero, they don't question the statu quo too much and you don't need force to justify more and more power being given to the heroes.

Well, to a point. Because, as you said, the longer the peace lasts, the more people have time to think about the flaws of the system.

I think that the reasons why this lack of questioning lasted so long despite All Might's enforced peace was because:

1. again, the society worships heroes and propaganda is a nifty tool.

2. that peace was enforced by All Might. There is a real difference between "We live in peace because people wants to be nice to each other" and "Our protector prevents the bad guys from harming us." For the latter, there is still this sense of "the others would harm us if heroes weren't there to protect us".

But even with that, you're right, the public would have grown antsy sooner or later. So, the way to keep the system in place would have been to show that the villains were becoming more vicious, so the Hero Commission would have no choice but to say "See what happens when we don't have free reins to protect you?"

However, i am convinced that the HPSC never would have allowed the hero society to fail this way.

Endangering it a little bit is good to scare the public and make them long for the safety of the past. But when you let a system crumble, odds are that the opponents are the one to get in power and to become the new government. (Or, if said opponents are a bunch of anarchists who don't want to rule, you get chaos then, some time after, government slowly rebuilding itself but it's not the same guys anymore and the HSPC, since it's made of people who like power, would never willingly part with it.)

No, I think that messed everything up was All Might's sudden retirement + the fight in Kamino.

The Hero Commission probably knew that All Might was weakening (that was kind of an opened secret in some circles) but he would have lasted longer if there wasn't for the Kamino fight. So, and I am speculating here but that's kinda my thing, the HSPC probably had something planned so they would slowly introduce the idea of All Might's retirement to the public and a new number 1, ready to walk in All Might's footsteps but different enough for people not to constantly compare the both of them.

And if the HPSC had the time to make it happen, the new number 1 hero would have been that guy:

Alas for the Hero Commission, All Might not only retired sooner than intended but in a very public manner, and worse of all, he almost got killed.

Before Kamino, the LoV was a bunch of scrubs. They had their behind handed to them by high school children (on their first week at hero school, no less).

Then, the summer camp happened. UA being attacked and Bakugou being abducted was a golden opportunity for the Hero Commission if they wanted more power. They had THE excuse to have more influence on the hero schools.

Except that 1. Nedzu didn't call the top heroes to rescue Bakugou. He called the UA alumni, restoring some of UA street cred and (accidentally?) preventing HC heroes to fix the situation. 2. the Hero Commission, even if they were warned that AFO could be there, thought that top heroes would easily take care of the LoV, who had won against students and a bunch of low ranked heroes.

Instead, they got this:

SSS ranked villain. Someone who almost killed All Might. Someone who probably could have razed a town.

That's the kind of power backing the LOV.

And that's terrifying.

But worse than AFO killing so many people, worse than AFO almost killing the Symbol of Peace under everyone's eyes, he revealed the truth.

All Might, symbol of absolute strength, their protector, was actually reduced to this state.

That's the opposite of slowly introducing All Might's retirement to the world. For the moment, everyone who saw this had to live through the eventuality that the one guaranteeing their peace was going to die on this day, leaving the villains free to do whatever they wanted.

After that, they needed to comfort the public, to tell them that they could fix this. Once again, it could be taken as an opportunity to have more power, to have more authority, but now, there was a much higher risk for the Hero Commission.

So, they had the great idea of doing whatever happened during the war arc. To show the threat of the big bad villain and to assemble an army of heroes to defeat them, to show that 1. the heroes have it handled 2. that the Hero Commission helped preventing things from becoming worse so they should be granted more powers.

This was a high risk, high reward situation.

And the Hero Commission failed to assess how great the risk was.

[pascalpanic]

Fixer Upper PART ONE (Frankie Morales x f!Reader)

Summary: Nothing seems to go right in your new house. When yet another thing breaks, a certain handyman comes to your rescue.

W/C: 2k ish

Warnings: language, joking mentions of a house being cursed (it isn’t), reader has dirty thoughts bc it’s Frankie and he’s hot

A/N: this one goes out to my anons who’ve been sending me stuff about frankie as a repairman! I loved the idea and I thought it would be super fun to write! This will be part ONE of three-ish! ps idk if any references to reader’s gender are in this part but there certainly will be some in the future so.

It’s been a while that you’ve lived in this house. Since that day you hauled in the cardboard boxes, you’ve been feeling that your life is the epitome of Murphy’s law. Or rather, this damned house is.

Nothing ever goes right. The heat breaks in the winter and the air conditioning breaks in the summer. The plumbing needs work when you need it to work, and the oven only ever breaks halfway through cooking something. Seriously, you swear this place is cursed by some hex determined to pester you out of living here.

You’ve never exactly been the handy type. You don’t know much about mechanics, heating or cooling, the electricity and wiring in your house, any of it. By now, you wish you’d taken the time to learn it at some point rather than hiring someone every time.

The first sign was that the June heat seemed inescapable. You’d been outside all day, and you figured it was just your body taking its time to adjust to the cooler, indoor temperature. Then you never cooled down. When you stepped out of the bathroom after a shower and found the air to be nearly as muggy as that of the steamed bathroom, you realized that the air conditioning must be off.

Well, it was on. The problem was that it wasn’t working. You opened all the windows, and figured the night breeze would cool you, then you became worried about serial killers and crimes and promptly shut and locked all of them again. With the fan in your bedroom on, the air at least moved, but was still thick and heavy.

In the morning, when you wake with no blankets on and sweaty sheets, you dial the repair company as fast as you can. You inform them of the situation, and they tell you they’ll send someone out your way in the next hour or two.

The air is still somewhat cool outside, so you give the front porch a shot once you get changed out of your pajamas and take yet another cool shower. The heavy dew is an indicator of just how humid the air is, and you relish every little breeze that passes by and cools you down. You conduct your morning business outside, hoping to have this problem fixed before the sun reaches a height where the temperatures will rise exponentially.

About an hour after the call, the repair van rolls up into your driveway and parks. “Thank God,” you murmur to yourself.

Your focus returns to your computer, but you hear the door slam shut and look up to find the repairman there. He wears khaki cargo pants and a gray t-shirt, complete with a ball cap on top, with dark brown curls peeking out from the bottom. He fastens his tool belt around his waist as he walks up to the porch. “Hey there. I’m Frankie. I’ll be taking care of you today,” he informs you, a kind smile on his face. You already like him. “I got the basics from the boss, but can you tell me more about the problem?”

Looking up at him from the seated position you’re in, you give an awkward smile. Suddenly, you wish you’re better dressed, fixed up and looking nice. Even in work clothes, this man is beautiful. It makes you a little nervous, you in your pajamas and him looking like a god even in cargo pants. “I wish I could, but I don’t know anything about the air conditioner and how it works other than how to change the settings. All I know is that it isn’t working.”

He gives a good-natured chuckle, a soft bounce of his chest beneath the shirt. He looks down at his tool belt and his scruff brushes against the collar of the gray. “Well, let’s go give it a shot. I’ll need you to show me around, show me the control panel and the main system.” God, he’s handsome.

“Oh, of course,” you nod and stand, leaving your laptop on the small table. “Well, right this way. And please, you don’t need to take your boots off. Those look complicated,” you laugh as you look at the heavy tan boots at the bottom of his body.

Frankie nods and looks around as you lead him through the house. He doesn’t take his boots off, since you insisted, but he does give them a generous wipe on the doormat, careful not to track anything in. “It’s a beautiful place,” he tells you honestly, with a half-smile that just tugs at one of the corners of his ridiculously soft-looking lips.

“Thanks,” you shrug and show him to the control panel. “I try. Okay, here’s the button thingy.”

“The button thingy?” he teases, which leads to laughter from the both of you.

“If I knew what it was called, you wouldn’t be here,” you tease him back and shake your head.

Frankie uses the tools from his belt to take off the casing. You lean against the wall as he works, admiring the way his hands nimbly check the wires and paneling behind it. He holds a small flashlight between his teeth to look into the wall cavity.

“I can hold that for you,” you offer, and he moves his mouth for you to take it from him.

“Thanks,” he says, popping his jaw slightly to adjust from the awkward angle of holding it between his teeth. “You don’t have to. I’m just here to fix it.”

You point it at the same spot. “I might as well be some help, considering I don’t know shit about my own house.”

Frankie laughs at that, stealing a glance your way that makes your face warm before his gaze returns to the electrical situation. “Well,” he declares after a few seconds. “The wiring must not be the problem here. This all is working fine, so it must be with the actual system.”

“Great,” you groan. “The part I know even less about.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he chuckles and screws the panel back into place on your wall, making sure everything works properly and he didn’t mess with any functions.

Leading Frankie to your basement, you show him the cluttered laundry room and the central air conditioning unit. He’s already analyzing the system, and you back off to let him work. He looks focused. “Holler if you need me,” you tell him as he gets on his knees to look at something, daring to gently pat his shoulder. It’s strong, muscular beneath your palm.

Heading back to the kitchen, you open the fridge and sigh. For a moment, you allow yourself to close your eyes and just enjoy the cold air it produces. Hopefully, your house will be the same soon enough. Grabbing two tall glasses, you fill each with ice before pouring half sweet tea and half lemonade into the glasses.

You stand in the kitchen with the freezer open, sighing at the cool air it provides. Not sure how long he’ll take, you scroll through your phone. It’s surprisingly quick, you find.

“Hey, I found it!” Frankie calls from the basement.

Carrying the two glasses, you return to the laundry room to find him reorganizing his tool belt. “Here,” you tell him with a smile as you hold out the drink. “Least I could do. It’s unbearable in here.”

“Thanks,” he smiles and lifts the glass to you in a miniature salute before taking a sip. Frankie then launches into a detailed explanation of the issue with the A/C unit, using all kinds of terms you don’t understand and mentioning parts you didn’t even know were included in the machine. “I got it all fixed up, though, and it shouldn’t take long before it’s working just as good as normal.”

You sigh in relief, swallowing the sweet drink and smiling at him. “God, thank you so much. You don’t even know how awful it was in here.”

“If it’s anything like right now, I do,” he chuckles. The man takes the hem of his t-shirt and lifts it to wipe his face, revealing a muscular but soft body beneath it, with a beautiful little trail of dark hair leading to beneath his belt. Is it terrible that your first thought is that you want to lick it?

You force the image from your mind with another swig of the drink. “Yeah, just about. Well, how much do I owe you?” You ask the man, leading him out of the laundry room and into the basement that’s already feeling cooler.

“Oh, nothing right now,” he shakes his head as you lead him upstairs and to the kitchen. “I just tweaked some things for you, didn’t need any parts or anything, so it’s just gonna be labor.” He seems to remember something. “Ah, shit. I gotta have you sign something. I’ll grab the paper from the van and be right back,” he tells you and leaves his drink on the counter, half-jogging outside.

While he’s outside, you lean against the cool kitchen counter and let yourself daydream. This Frankie guy certainly is attractive, and his personality is definitely something you’re interested in. What if the situation right now played out like a porno, and he fucked you on the countertop? You certainly wouldn’t complain. You noticed his hands and feet are large. Certainly he must be big somewhere else too. “Oh Jesus Christ,” you murmur to yourself. Why did my mind have to go there? And why is the thought so hot? He’s a sweet man too, clearly goofy and sweet. Why is your mind going there then? Really, upon further pondering, you just want to hug the man, admire his strong body pressed to yours in an intimate but innocent gesture.

“Sorry, what was that?” Frankie calls out as he walks into the house again.

His voice snaps you from your daydreaming. “Oh, just talking to myself,” you say quickly and cheerfully, taking the paper from him. The top is printed with repairman name: Francisco Morales. Francisco. That makes you smile. What a cute name. The rest is filled with the details of what he did to the machine to fix it, and you sign and date at the bottom. “Here you go, Francisco.”

His tanned skin turns a little pinker on the cheeks. “Great,” Frankie smiles and takes it back.

“Before you leave,” you tell him quickly, darting to grab your purse from the entryway, “here.”

Frankie walks to you and you hand him a generous cash tip, with a stupid smile stuck to your face. “Thank you, wow,” he says, voice honest in its surprise as he notices the total of the money.

“Of course. I really can’t thank you enough. God, it’s been painfully hot in here and I really just can’t stand the heat,” you ramble, your voice speeding up. “And… yeah. Thank you. For your company, too.”

“Just doing my job,” he tells you with a smile, putting his hands in his pockets. “Oh, here.”

From his pocket, he pulls a little rectangle of paper with his name and company on it. “The shop number is on here; if anything changes, just call and ask for Catfish.”

“Catfish?” You ask with a smile, puzzled.

“My old military nickname. It’s what the guys around there call me,” he shrugs, shy at the nickname.

It makes you laugh a little, and you tuck the card in your purse. “Well, Catfish, thank you. I’ll be sure to use this next time I have some stupid thing I can’t repair myself.”

“Please do,” he chuckles, a shy smile on his face. “I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks!” You call again and cringe. That’s, what, the ninth time you’ve said that now? He walks to the van and you give him a wave before retreating back inside. God, now you can’t wait for this shitty house to need another repair. You’ll certainly be asking for Catfish.

-

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @blo0dangel @binarydanvvers  @sleep-tight1 @apascalrascal @randomness501 @spideysimpossiblegirl @notabotiswear @pedro-pastel @sanchosammy @lv7867 @greeneyedblondie44 @hunnambabe @astoryisaloveaffair @emesispo @pedritobalmando @magikfanatic @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan @princess76179 @starless-eyes-remain @tacticalsparkles @queridopascal

[seyaryminamoto]

I'm just thinking about what you've said in the past about Zuko's morals in The Southern Raiders and what bugs me the most is that Zuko could have easily been Yon Rha. Yon Rha's big sin, as far as Zuko knows when he makes his proposal (before Katara tells him the whole story), was raiding the Southern Water Tribe in a manner which lead to someone's death, and Zuko raided both Kyoshi Island and the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko would be an acceptable target for vengeance under his own standards.

:'D very fair point of view, Anon. I've always focused on another angle with this particular problem, namely the fact that Zuko's traumatic Agni Kai happens because he was trying to defend soldiers from being used as bait, slain in battle as though their lives were meaningless... and then he's offering Katara his assistance with killing a soldier if that's the only way to become her friend. There's such a profound incompatibility between both ideas, such a massive rift in reasoning, that I can't help but wonder if Ozai, intentionally or not, actually taught Zuko through their Agni Kai that the lives of their people aren't worth anything after all.

In general, that episode's plot is just... very questionable. I understand these kids are jaded, they've seen pleeenty of ugly stuff and even done some ugly stuff themselves, but the core of the problem with Zuko, back in the day, was that his violent pursuit of the Avatar caused lots of trouble and nobody liked him because he was being a selfish ass who wanted to fulfill the Fire Lord's orders at all costs :'D so... as blind as Katara may be over anything to do with Kya, it baffles me that neither Sokka nor Aang would step up to tell Zuko that this sort of ridiculous reasoning, impulsive behavior and willingness to resort to violence is EXACTLY what made him an asshole during the months he chased them, and that changing sides without changing those violent impulses doesn't amount to jackshit. I'd honestly prefer it if Katara were the one to tell him as much, because then she'd have the bonus of telling Zuko: "That's funny, because this sort of BS is precisely why I can't trust you!" and Zuko would be at an even bigger loss than before :'D but of course, when emotions are involved, Katara loses sight of reality and common sense, it's true...

Looking at it the way you do, just imagine if Yon Rha had told Katara "Oh. Sorry. Nice to see you again!" the way Zuko does with Suki :'D I'm pretty sure she would've actually killed the guy without even hesitating.

It's not to say that Zuko has objectively murdered anyone with the particular cruelty Yon Rha killed Kya: as far as we know, he didn't. We do know, however, that he's imprisoned people in nightmarish conditions (something even his sister cannot be said to have done), as he does in LOK, conditions bad enough that one of those prisoners (who, arguably, wasn't in the worst of conditions) said he'd rather die than return to that imprisonment. So, however "deserved" the Red Lotus's imprisonment might have been, dehydrating a waterbender and freezing a firebender for well over a decade sounds like one hell of an act of cruelty, which says he's perfectly capable of cruelty, all the same as Yon Rha was, and Zuko can't even say he's following someone's orders: he's the one who chooses to do this, plain and simple. So cruelty is NOT beyond Zuko. He can be harsh and nasty whenever it suits him. Despite what he'd have the audience believe, he isn't truly the poster child of peace and kindness :')

As you've said, Zuko caused lots of damage with his careless actions back in Book 1, actions that could have certainly cost lives if this show had been written to be grittier and darker than it was.

As a careless, casual example, here's the typical, boring old trope of "there's a kid in danger and the hero swoops in to save them!" (and there's poor Sokka on the background too ;_;). That ship just comes into shore, breaks all the ice it cares to, and it could have cost at least the two lives of those in the scene here (and who knows how many more that we aren't seeing). Is this not the same as attacking someone deliberately, with killer intent? Sure, it's not, but the ultimate outcome would be the same: someone's died, and it's your fault. And if you're a good person, you would feel bad about it. In fact, you might not even be able to think of yourself as a good person if anyone's death can be pinned on you.

Again, we don't know for sure that his actions cost any lives, but that they could have speaks for itself. That he was once part of the Fire Nation killer machine, that he was a tool to his father (even if not one he particularly cared for), should have made him all the more willing to understand that soldiers are as brainwashed as he was. No, this isn't to defend Yon Rha by any means, he was indeed a piece of shit... but Zuko doesn't even wait to meet him to confirm this. He's ready to help Katara kill a guy who, for all he knows, could have spent his whole life repenting for his actions (yes, we know that's not the case, but if the show had wanted to give us more nuance in the Fire Nation army, it could have been). Zuko doesn't even hesitate, and he even eggs on Katara until she finally decides she's not going to do it -- then he proceeds to badger Aang non-stop about how he MUST kill Ozai, funny how that goes. Which allows the interpretation that Zuko didn't learn anything at all from the Southern Raiders adventure.

In the end, if Zuko's actions cost any lives whatsoever (like, I don't know, maybe lives of the people whose food he stole in the Earth Kingdom (: what, me still being salty about this in the year of 2021? Noooo waaaaay...), you're quite right to say that it'd be fine, as far as his own philosophies are concerned, for Zuko to be executed by the injured party. It'd only be fair, right? Yet I guess that's the beauty of Zuko being Zuko: fairness isn't part of it. Justice? I don't think he's actually familiar with the concept. His sister made lots of mistakes, same as he did, but has he attempted to help her find her way, same as he was helped? Has he given her another chance? The answer is nope. Chit Sang is a convicted murderer who claims he didn't do the crime he was put in jail for: Zuko doesn't even bother asking any questions about who he is, or trying to get to the bottom of this problem. He's fine with getting the guy out of prison without first confirming whether his story checks out or not. Even back in The Blue Spirit, when he was "under" Ozai's thumb, and Ozai's priorities should have been his own, he decides that it's more important for him to capture Aang himself, and somehow the show spins that situation into "hey, Zuko's not that bad :>" when... everyone knows he's not setting him free out of any selflessness on his part, in fact, it's the entire opposite.

So yeah, more sketchy Zuko things that remain unresolved, unaddressed and go ignored all the time. Again, things that don't make much sense with the character he's supposed to be. And as usual, it's stuff we're supposed to shrug off or make a thousand excuses for in order to always find a way to see Zuko as a perfectly good person, when, as I've said before, being good takes efforts Zuko often didn't bother making, not before his "change of heart", not afterwards either.

[i-lovethatforme]

I hope you’re doing well and having a great week 🫶🏽 My heart still hurts from “ghosts that broke my heart before i met you” it was sooo good but wow I keep thinking about it even a week after finishing it! You’re an amazing writer and it’s so awesome that you’re somehow doing all of this for free. Do you accept donations or coffee things that I have seen other fic authors do? I just want you to know how much some of us appreciate your work - so please please ignore the rude anons that you get sometimes that demand an update or give unnecessarily harsh critiques. You’re so kind and deserve that love given back to you!

I am super excited to see your upcoming work! I just finished “the things i would like to tell you” and that was so cute and fluffy! I loved it! Super excited to see how “if you love me, leave me lonely” and “dont make it harder on me” turn out - no rush though! I am willing to wait months lol.

If I wanted to get into writing, what tips would you suggest?

you are SO CUTE IM GOING TO COMMIT A CRIME??!?! like SO CUTE. no, you don't have to give me anything, silly!!!! my heart bursting at your ask is enouuuuuuuugh. i do write for myself but i also liveeeee for people enjoying it and letting me know!

awhhh im excited for those wips as well! 'don't make it harder on me is gunna be next! i have some time off at the end of the month so I'm hoping to power thru some wips and I'm super excited about it! you're such a sweetheart i will cry.

omg join us! ummm - i think the main thing is to just go for it? like don't necessarily feel you have to open a doc and just GO. maybe a little plan and then flesh it out? as in what scenes you wanna see! and if that doesn't work for you maybe try writing down whatever it was that made you want to write the idea you have? so any dialogue or scene vibes or plot points!

i start a lot of fics w (1) idea and it'll look a bit like this (this is an abandoned wip shock xxxx)

so like // is anything i need to add at a later date aka all the fic? i use it for words i cant think of, anything i need to look up but cba rn! it's my fave tool bc i don't spend 20 minutes thinking of another word for 'really' when we all know I'm going to use the word really anyway!

--- is for scene changes and i just shove those in whenever i feel like i want one? i do not care about bridging as you will know.

don't be afraid to try an idea! don't be afraid to abandon an idea either! don't think about how anyone else would write it - just do wtvr feels best to you? overuse words! do wtvr you want bc it's supposed to be funnnnnn and enjoyable.

also, you can write and not share it if you want? i do love me some external vali but i also write stuff i don't share at all. like just little scenes i wanted to read but they're not enough for a drabble or i cba to edit it or wtvr!

ALSO, the beeest thing i did for my writing was start talking to people that also wrote (i say like i was talking to them first but wtvr!) a supportive friend can go a long way! from ideas to reading it for you to just ranting about vibes! pick meeeeeeeee. if you ever wanna chat about an idea or something just askkkk! or anyone else you like! but dm me if you ever want! or msg me on discord wtvr :)

hope you do write if you want! so v excited for that! thank you for your kind message and i hope you are having a LOVELY DAYY xxxxxxxxx

[qlala]

Hi here's my money for that Barry and Len "guilt versus shame" essay. Thanks! 💰💰💰💰💰 (I drew the dollar signs on the bags myself. I'm crafty)

Anon when I said essay, I meant essay. But alright. Here you go. for you and your hand-drawn dollar signs. Come, take this journey with me. (A journey of character analysis for fun—please, no one take this as reliable psychology.)

As I said, I consider the main conflict between Barry and Leonard not one of good versus evil, but of guilt versus shame. Specifically, the difference between them is that Barry is a character motivated by guilt, while Len is motivated by shame.

(And to get this out of the way - I’m not talking about sexuality, but how Barry and Len relate to the world and other people. I don’t think Len is the least bit ashamed of his sexuality; Wentworth Miller has always said that Len is someone who knows exactly who he is, and I think that’s true).

A more accurate way of talking might be to say that guilt-driven characters are motivated by love, while shame-driven characters are motivated by respect.

I’m going to start with Barry, because guilt-motivated characters tend to be much more straight-forward than shame-driven characters. Barry grew up (with some bumps along the way) in supportive, loving homes. His parents, and later Joe, always treated him with love, which allows Barry to love himself and other people.

Treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can afford them, and they’ll always have that basic core of respect to fall back on in the face of outside adversity. (Barry is remarkably hard to ruffle with insults—antagonists always have to target the people he loves, because he just… does not rise to the bait when it’s just his own pride on the line.)

This kind of early exposure to love and respect are fundamental to being able to feel guilt about harming others later in life. Barry was raised to respect and love other people (in the general, “love your fellow man” sense), so he would feel guilty if he hurt someone innocent. The core sense of self-respect and self-love that Barry developed in childhood means Barry’s sense of self can always take the hit when he feels guilty about hurting other people.

Guilt makes us feel, temporarily, unloveable. But because Barry was raised to feel fundamentally deserving of love, he can afford to feel briefly unloveable when he hurts other people—it just means he needs to make amends, and then he’ll be worthy of that love again.

That’s why Barry’s a guilt-driven (or love-driven) character: when he interacts with the world, the thing he’s most afraid of losing is love. He’s never been put in a position where he feels like what he’s missing is respect.

And that’s where he and Len differ. Len’s not guilt- or love-driven; he’s shame-driven.

Len appears to feel zero guilt for hurting innocent people, at least when we first meet him in season 1. And the reason for that is Lewis. As I mentioned, love is a prerequisite for guilt. And unlike Barry, Len wasn’t brought up in a loving home. I highly doubt that Lewis’s love for Len was ever freely given, even before he became physically abusive. And if it was, that sense of self was absolutely ripped away from Len when that abuse started.

As I mentioned, treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can give them. By withholding that love, Lewis taught Len that he was inherently worthy of neither love nor respect. Raised in that environment, where violence was the way Len saw power exerted over others, the natural response was for Len to seek out respect, not love. He had nothing to gain from loving others—and therefore, from feeling guilt—because he’d already been taught he could survive without love. What he couldn’t survive without was respect, because disrespect meant becoming the object of violence—first from his father, and later, from the criminal justice system.

(Prison is a conversation for another day, but suffice to say, the dehumanizing treatment incarcerated people face parallels that childhood lack of love, robs them of the self-respect and self-love they need to have healthy relationships with other people, and increases the likelihood that they’ll commit violent crimes, not reduces it).

So Len did whatever it took to survive, and survival meant accumulating respect. There’s an obvious cure to this obsession with respect, of course: 1) love, and 2) safety.

Now, as eager as I am to jump into how Barry helped Len break the cycle of violence, Barry’s not the source of love I want to talk about here. Barry comes in later; when I talk about the love that saved Leonard, I’m talking about Lisa.

Because, listen—I’m as exhausted as you are by the trope of “female loved one is male character’s humanity,” especially where, like in some of the Flash comics, it means killing off Lisa to make Leonard a more ruthless (and, I guess the the theory goes, interesting?) villain. But Lisa isn’t just some crack in Len’s armor; she fundamentally changed Len’s life when she was born.

Len was already somewhere between thirteen and sixteen by the time Lisa was born; for the sake of convenience, let’s put him around 15. (For some more detailed meta about the Sniblings' ages, check out this excellent post by @coldtomyflash). If Len was five when Lewis went to prison, and ten when Lewis came out a much more violent man (see: everything I said about prison earlier), that means Len experienced several years of incredibly traumatic treatment before Lisa was born.

He and Mick were in juvie together at least once when Len was still young enough to be “the smallest kid in there,” and Len was nearly killed. Mick saved him, yes, but the experience had to further numb Len to guilt and reinforce that violence and respect were the only real paths to survival.

And then, Lisa. Len clearly, canonically loves Lisa from the moment she’s born. We know nothing about either of their mothers (and it is pretty likely, given the 15-year age gap between them, that they have different mothers), but they’re clearly both out of the picture—Lisa says Len raised her. Len raised her! Fifteen years old, three years away from being free and clear of Lewis’s house forever, and Len stays to raise her.

Lisa is absolutely the one person keeping Len from sliding fully head-first into the path carved for him by Lewis and reinforced by the prison system. He is still primarily shame- and respect-driven—we see him kill people without any guilt, hell, he tries to derail a train with children on board in season one just to see what Barry will do.

But Lisa taught Len that he’s deserving of love and capable of loving others, and because of that, Len cannot, will not respect Lewis for his violence he rains on them both.It leaves open a door in his mind: Lisa doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, which could mean, if he could ever afford to consider it, that he didn’t deserve to be treated that way, either.

It’s why Barry is so unbelievably smug at the end of “Family of Rogues.” He’s figured it out; he wouldn’t put it in terms like guilt and shame, but he’s cracked it all the same. He always knew Len was like him, was someone who had been forced into violence by his circumstances, and now he has proof. Barry is remarkably unconcerned that Len shot Lewis; he’s briefly surprised, sure, but by the end of the episode he’s visiting Len in Iron Heights and goading him about the good in him.

And that’s where Barry comes in. He’s the crucial second ingredient to that cure for shame—he’s the safety.

He blazes into Len’s life and praises him for things no one else ever praised him for: for his morals, for his mercy, for the way he loves Lisa. He gives him an acceptable out to stop killing (he appeals to his vanity, says he’s good enough at what he does that he doesn’t need to hurt innocents, and they both know it’s an excuse), and he makes it clear that he respects not Len’s capacity for violence, but his desire to escape the need for it.

He also offers Len protection to start making that transition. Len knows, even if neither of them say it, that Barry would drop everything to help him if he called. When Len’s reluctant do-gooding puts him in harm’s way, like with King Shark in ARGUS, Barry does drop everything. He gives up a tool that could save Iris’s life to save Len’s instead. This is not me hating on westallen at all—Barry’s sense of obligation to Len is just that strong. He knows he’s put Len on slippery ground by helping extract him from the safety net he’d built himself out of violence.

And that’s Barry’s guilt drive in action—because yeah, he loves Len. He cares about him, and he respects him, and that’s love to Barry. He just wants to give Len the chance to love people that way, too. And in the end, Len, despite all his misgivings, ends up letting him.

[papirouge]

American evangelicals and independent baptists/southern baptists are weak links because of the perversion in American culture in large areas like the "Bible belt" (central America mostly) intertwining violence and life. Catholicism has its major flaws too especially with sex crimes against children and women (nuns) by supposed men of God. Both are just empty bad faiths leading people to anger and violence than Gods love and word. The culture is twisted into a love of violence that many believe will absolve them of sin. Like, sure say you're pro life but craving tools of war and death like guns and worshiping them like idols isnt Christ like as God condemns violence of all kinds, Especially from his children. There are pockets of good places and good people here but the overall message of Christ isnt strong. The history of the bible or the revelation of other books being banned from being published with it is not widely known as many believe that the English translation is the actual word of God. I've met a girl befoe who told me how the old Hebrew translation "version" is actually the younger newer version of the bible for the Jews to read, that the KJV bible was the first one to be written as God intended it to be written in "American" first.... I've been kicked out of my church group in the past for not agreeing that Christ would be a republican (why is the importance of political parties even matter here?) or him most likely being a dark skin man is a leftist woke agenda. To me, it seems like many of these practicing Christians are like the Pharisees in spirit

MY GOODNESS ANON YOU DELIVEREDT🍵🔥🔥

If you got kicked out of church groups that's a sign you 10000% based anon. 💜 Christians today are spineless and will let fly the worst theology just because some pastor/cleric said it.

You're such a queen for calling them out in their political Christianism crap. Everything is leftist woke-ism now if we're trying hard enough. That's the new "SJW" or "snowflake".

You are soooooooo right for pointing out the pathological mixing of violence and life by most American Christians. They'll claim being pro life but feel entitled to kill someone whose life belongs to God. Their lips say they love God but their actions & thoughts says otherwise. They'll say they rely on God's protection but will be hellbent on carry a gun. They do not make any sense.

I made plentiful of post reminding how Jesus NEVER retaliated or resorted to violence. He even healed the ear of one of the men who came to arrest him that Peter had just cut off (to defend Jesus). Peter represents these foolish Christians thinking violence will get their way. Jesus is actually so full of Love that He will heal those who came to murder him. American pro gun evangelicals should read their Bible more closely.

Yeah I'm very stunned to see how some books are completely slept on. The book of Revelation is definitely one of them. The Destiny of Christiandom is all in there: the antichrist rising, the persecution of Christians, the mark of the Beast, the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets, the rapture....

Reading Christians bloggers is lowkey depressing because they seem so spiritually sheltered and unprepared. They only care about worldly achievement (marrying, having their lil cosy home, their little Christian community, "pls pray for me coz I'm sad uwu" etc.). The Bible calls us to be WARRIORS first and foremost. Not Christian conservatives, not patriots, not housewives, etc. But you'll see most Christians would rather identify as the latter because it asks them less dedication. Spiritual warfare is real, and it will ask Christians more effort & commitment than pulling out an aesthetic/brand on socials. They're modern day pharisees, you're so right!!

The Bible talks about war, and Christians being executed.... And yet most Christians NEVER talk about such things... they would rather bicker about denominations, saving the "Western culture", politics and all this nonsensical secular trash. They are up for a very hard wake up call and I'm sure many Christians will take the mark of the beast as long as it enables them to live their perfect quiet "Christian" life and not be hunted and killed for living the true Gospel. Many Christians have more lust for a "Christian life" than they have for Jesus.

Maaan that American girl is so cringe 💀American exceptionalism is something else.... What do they put inside water for them to be so delusional? 💀 if God has chosen the Jews to breed the Messiah then He logically chosen Hebrew to write the Bible has He intended - not english. These debates about which version of the Bible is the most accurate are retarded cause all Bible are flawed in some aspect. I read the Bible in several languages and words and phrases construction do differ. That's why American arguing about how the KJV is the best version doesn't make much sense because...english isn't the only language in which the Bible is translated, DUH! Jehovah witness too do think their bible is the "right" version. So do Mormons and many other Christian sects. That's why it's sooooo important to have a connection with the holy spirit for Him to guide you in the Truth of God. Sorry but there can't be as many truth as there are Bible versions, however there is only one holy spirit 💜✝️

Early Church Christians didn't have any Bible and yet they were doing just fine. Christians bickering about Bible versions are lost because a book is their sole guide, not God.

[kaywinchester]

Souless Sam

anon asked: girlieeeee i got sumn gooood shit for u aight, can you do a sisfic during when sam lost his soul BUT like for some reason he still cared about you some how and still protective over you like he was before he lost soul? if this makes sense!!

Word Count: 1,998

summary: sister!winchester gets captured on a hunt and Sam shows that he still worries about his little sis, even without a soul.

Y/N’s POV

So, Sam lost his soul. At first it was really strange, and it still is. Sam has always been my empathetic, awkward, goofy older brother. His personality without a soul was so much different than the real Sam, and I didn’t like it. Souless Sam was cocky and careless, and for a while, I thought he could care less about me and Dean. Until one hunt gave me a little bit of hope. 

Dean was excited for this hunt because he was getting a little annoyed with Sam lately. He acted like he wanted nothing to do with hunts and just went off doing who knows what. Dean could also see that souless Sam was starting to affect me. I missed my big brother so much, Dean hadn't found new leads or thought of any plans that could get it back anytime soon. So for now, I knew we were stuck with how he was.

“Are we going or what?” Sam sassed.

“Can you at least try to act the least bit invested.” Dean snarked.

I walked in with the last couple of things that Dean asked for. “Thanks sweetheart.”

We packed the car and drove to the location where the last crime was reported. Searching the property, none of us found anything. It was quiet, which meant that something or someone was hiding, watching us. I followed closely behind Sam and Dean, when I heard a noise.

“Did you guys hear that?” I whispered, looking behind me. 

“Nope.” Dean brushed if off, thinking I was just hearing things.

I stopped when I heard the noise again. It sounded like a creak of a door towards the back of the house. Looking back, I saw that Sam and Dean hadn’t noticed I fell behind and kept walking. As I started walking to catch up with them, something grabbed me from behind and put a hand over my mouth. I tried to scream to alert my brothers but whoever grabbed me, dragged me in the other direction. I tried fighting back the entire time I was being dragged, until the person shoved me into a chair and bonded my wrists and ankles with rope.

“DEAN!” I shouted as loud as I could before I was gagged. 

“What did I just do.... All because I was distracted, I got caught. Dean is gonna be pissed that I wasn’t paying attention and got myself into this mess.” Was all I could think in that moment, besides the fact that I was face to face with the bad guy. 

The guy that took me stood in front of the chair I sat in. Looking at me, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed someone.

“Hey. Tell him we got one of them.” 

...................

Dean’s POV

Sam and I were walking around some more until I turned around and didn’t see any sign of Y/N.

“Where’s Y/N?” I said as I turned to Sam.

“Who knows....” He shrugged. I had just about enough of Sam’s attitude, soul or not. I sighed and walked back in the other direction to look for her. For all I knew, she could’ve been taken by something nearby. Sam followed me and acted like he was looking for Y/N. 

We walked into the house, which ended up being dark and empty. “They have to have some hideout somewhere...” I said, looking around to see if there was any doorhandles or whatever.

“I think I heard someone talking.” Sam said as he pointed in another direction. 

“How do you have that good of hearing?” I was skeptical, thinking Sam was just saying stuff.

“No, I’m serious. That’s the way that we last saw Y/N anyway.....” Sam said. 

“Well, I guess we can take a chance and go look.” I said as I gathered myself.

...................

Y/N’s POV

After the one guy made the phone call, three other men showed up. I could tell one of them was getting too excited, since I saw teeth..... confirming that they were vamps. One of the other guys wheeled over a table with a bunch of tools on it.

“This one looks nice.” One of them said in a really creepy way.

“I can tell she’s gonna taste real good.” Another one added. Normally I wasn’t too intimidated by monsters, since I’ve seen my fair share. But some of them were just hands down creepy. The first guy that dragged me came over and kneeled down.

“Anything you wanna say?” He laughed, taking the gag out of my mouth.

“Nice dentures, dipshit.” I said. His face turned red and he raised his fist and collided it with my cheek.

“Alright, let’s just get this over with.” He said as he went over to the table next to me. He hung a blood bag on a pole above my head and rolled up my sleeve. Now I knew what their plan was, I was gonna have my blood drained.... great.

He put a rubber band around my arm and tied it tight. I cringed as he stuck a needle in my arm and watched my blood go out through a tube. “Now we’re talking.” The guy smiled.

The four of them joked and laughed about a few things and talked about what they were going to do with you, then left the room. I tried to get my one arm out of ropes so I could stop my blood from leaving my body. After trying countless amounts of times, I just sat there and hoped Dean had noticed I was gone.

After the first blood bag filled up, the one guy came back in and switched it out for a fresh one. I was starting to feel light headed which was not a good sign. My instinct to fight was still there, but the dizziness started to take over and I ended up passing out. That’s the last thing I remember.

...................

Dean’s POV

We had found a cellar that was a tucked away in the house towards the back. That’s when I started to hear more noise, and some voices. This had to be where they took Y/N. 

Sam was behind me, I broke the heavy lock that was on the door and opened it as quiet as I could. We snuck down the creaky stairs that led to a hallway. There was a group of voices that were circling one area which led to a room. 

“I’m gonna peek in here and see how many of them there are. Go find Y/N. If there are too many, I’ll call you.” I told Sam as I kicked the door in. There were four guys that stood there in shock. Sam saw that there wasn’t that many and went off to get Y/N. 

...................

Y/N’s POV

I was in and out of consciousness at this point, from losing all of that blood. I heard some commotion coming from the other room. There was a lot of pounding and banging on the walls. I heard creaking of a door and opened my eyes slightly to see a tall figure. I thought it was one of the vamps until they came close enough to my face for me to recognize them. It was Sam.....

He kneeled down in front of me and cut the ropes off my wrists. He took the needle of my arm and tossed it aside. “Y/N?” He tried to get my attention. I hadn’t heard Sam sound this worried in a while, he almost sounded like himself, like he cared.

“Sammy...” I said weakly.

“How much blood did they take from you?” He asked.

“I dunno, like th-three pints.” I said, not really remembering how much they took.

One of the guys Dean was fighting managed to get away. He made the mistake of running into the other room where you and Sam were. Dean ran up behind him. “Sam! Heads up!.” Dean alerted. Sam turned around and clocked the guy in the head. He grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him off the ground.

“If you, or your other pathetic slugs ever try and touch my sister again. That’s the last thing you’ll ever do.” Sam spat. 

He threw him back on the floor, Dean went and dragged him out of the room to take care of him, just so I didn’t have to see it. Sam looked back at me and lifted me up. “We’re gonna get you home, kid.” Sam said gently. 

He carried you out of the cellar and to the car. Dean followed behind after he made sure the place was clear. “Hey, she okay?” Dean asked, rushing over.

“Yeah, she’s a little out of it. Tried to drain her blood, they almost did.” Sam explained.

“Let’s get her home, I think she’ll be okay, she needs rest.” Dean said as Sam placed you in the car.

As soon as I felt the leather seats in the back of the impala, I laid my head down and immediately fell asleep.

...................

When I woke up, I was in my bed. I felt so much pressure in my head, like it was about to explode. As I tried to sit up, it felt worse. I almost fell over as I tried to reach into my nightstand drawer for some ibuprofen. I stood up and held onto the wall as I walked to my bathroom for some water. That’s when Dean walked in and saw me standing.

“What are you doing?” He asked surprised.

“Getting some water.” My voice croaked. Dean helped me walk back into bed.

“How long was I asleep?” I asked.

“Almost two days. You started breathing weird at some point, it was freaking me out.” Dean said.

“Sorry, next time I’ll try to just lay there and not move.” I joked.

“You really worried me.” Dean spoke.

“I’m really sorry. I just got sidetracked because I thought I heard something and I just wanted to see if I saw anything, but obviously that didn’t end well.” I trailed off, not sure what kind of mood Dean was in.

“Look, I should've listen to you, we could've gone and checked it out together. Just don’t worry about it, can’t change what happened. Glad you're okay, kid.”

I was really surprised with how Dean was acting towards the situation. Even if I ever was injured, he would always have something to say about how I needed to be more careful. I took the opportunity to tell him what I thought about Sam.

“How’s Sam?” I asked.

“Fine, he’s in the library. Why?” Dean asked, wondering why you had a sudden interest in what Sam was doing.

“Have you found anything else out about his soul? He seemed different, on the hunt... He seemed like he actually cared about me. I haven’t seen him like that in a while, and I know he still doesn’t have a soul and that I should be careful. But when he found me and talked to me, it seemed like the real Sam.” I explained.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I mean he is still Sam in there somewhere, but we can’t know for sure.” Dean said. 

Sam walked up and stood outside the door when he heard me. He listened for a while until we moved on to a different subject, then he knocked.

“Hey, good to see you’re awake.” Sam said a little awkwardly as he just popped in to see you. I nodded and smiled.

“Sam, thanks.” I told him before he left the room. He nodded as he left.

I didn’t know what happened back there with Sam acting like himself. I didn’t even know if there was a possibility of getting his soul back. But he was still my brother and I wanted to have hope that I could get him back. So I hung on to that little moment, that little piece that would make us want to get Sam back.

Requests Are Closed

Taglist:

@jackjackljaqui ​@hunting-the-grievers @susan-is-in-the-house@flirtyonsie @mersuperwholocked-lowlife @justsomedreaming

[fandom-necromancer]

Brothers take care of each others

This was prompted by an amazing anon! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 | Character: Elijah Kamski

The ceiling above him was still clad in total darkness, the sky outside the window turning light blue only at the horizon and stars sparkling peacefully. It was an hour that demanded everyone to stay in bed and get a couple hours’ worth of sleep. Yet Gavin laid in his bed and stared up at his ceiling unable to fall asleep ever since the call of ‘Hah, it worked!’ had woken him up ten minutes to four o’clock. Since then he tried to ignore the distant sounds of tools clattering to the floor. One thing was for sure: Sleeping over these noises was far easier than falling asleep to them. he cursed, looking at his alarm that read 4:30 completely indifferent to what that time meant for Gavin. He sighed deeply. There was no use staying under the sheets any longer, he was awake now. Might as well stand up.

Not bothering with any clothes other than the boxer shorts and the loose old T-shirt he had slept with, he opened the door and yawned heartily on his way to the bathroom. ‘Oh, you are awake!’ Gavin’s lids fell in resignation, as he showed his brother the middle finger and continued walking towards the bathroom without even looking at him. Ten minutes later, he had splashed some water in his face and had readied himself for another day. Sort of. He had zero interest in trimming his stubble and trying to hide the dark rings under his eyes was of no use either. At least he felt ready to deal with his brother now.

‘Morning’, he hummed as he entered the living room, stifling yet another yawn. ‘Good morning indeed.’ ‘Says you’, Gavin commented. ‘I didn’t phcking asked to be woken up at four.’ ‘Sorry. Forgot you’re not a morning person.’ ‘Nah, I’m normal, other than you’, he huffed. ‘Okay, I need a coffee now.’ ‘Perfect! Then you can already try out my improvements!’ Gavin stopped in the middle of the kitchen. ‘Improvements?’

‘Yes! I hooked up your coffee machine with the internet! It is now able to import recipes for any kind of coffee you might like and start brewing it – if you have given it the right ingredients of course.’ Gavin looked at Elijah with a face that expressed to equal measures pain and frustration. ‘And what about a regular damn coffee, like I always make it?’ ‘I called that program a “phcking” coffee’, Elijah mocked him, tapping at the display hastily attached to the machine. Gavin watched how his favourite mug filled with his life saving drink and sighed. ‘Oh, the wonders of technology…’ ‘Oh, then you will love what I did to your microwave!’

Gavin groaned, sipping on his coffee instead of commenting. It had only been three days so far and already Elijah had “improved” half of the technology he had in the house. He would have told him to stop, but as long as Elijah was busy tinkering with his stuff, he wouldn’t become bored. And if Gavin remembered one thing from his childhood, then he knew that was about the worst state one could meet his brother in. Even with Elijah no longer being part of Cyberlife, he was still an influential and rather public person. His latest talk about the autonomy of androids had had quiet the impact, especially in the anti-android community, as they had looked up to him as the creator of these “supposedly alive” machines. It shouldn’t have surprised Eli as much as it had that afterwards, people would come to him with their hate. But since someone had broken into his heavily secured house and had killed one of the Chloes without leaving as much as a trace, his home was an active crime-scene and it was either a hotel room or Gavin’s apartment for the man.

Elijah, curious as ever, had of course taken the latter, if not to spy on police investigation, then to spend a few weeks with his brother he hadn’t seen in ages. Not that Gavin really could complain - it was fun having him around. But he was also a usually very private person and Elijah’s constant energy had quickly started getting on his nerves.

‘And? When will you drive to work today?’, Elijah asked. ‘Still time for breakfast?’ Gavin sighed. ‘Yeah, sure. Want some toast? Don’t think I have much-‘ ‘I want to come with you.’ That made even sleep deprived Gavin suddenly attentive. ‘What?’ ‘To your workplace’, Eli explained. ‘I could find out more about the status of the investigation of my home. Also, I could finally see for myself who that certain android is you put an eye on!’ ‘I don’t- Elijah, you can’t just stay at the station. You are a civilian! I will keep you updated.’ ‘I’m also one of the richest men in the world. I doubt anyone would want to stop me.’ ‘I- Elijah, you still can’t-‘ ‘Come on!’, the man just talked over him. ‘It will be fun! I’ll drive us.’ Unable to stop his brother storming out of the flat with the keys, Gavin sighed, downed the rest of his coffee and hastily got dressed. That would be the worst day of his work life for sure.

-

‘So this is where you work. Interesting.’ ‘You’ve been here before’, Gavin grumbled, not really sure if he was more tired or more embarrassed at the moment. ‘Promise me you’ll leave me alone for at least the first hour, okay? I seriously have to get some stuff done.’ ‘Oh, of course!’ But despite his words, Elijah followed him to his desk. Gavin decided to ignore him in favour of starting up his terminal, but Nines had never been the one to hide what he was thinking: ‘Mr. Kamski? What are you doing here?’ ‘Oh, you must be Nines! I’m just accompanying my brother to work. Wanted to take a look at the place he keeps complaining about.’ ‘You can’t be here.’ ‘Well, but I am, am I not?’ ‘That… That really isn’t a valid argument.’ ‘Listen, Nines. How about instead of talking about something you can’t change anyways, you show me around a bit?’ Nines looked at Gavin for help, but it was his partner’s silent pleading him to “yes, please, get him away from me” that let him cave in. ‘Okay, but I can’t show you everything.’

Gavin watched them walk off and praised the blissful silence. He concentrated on the screen in front of him, knowing he had to finish all the important work now before Eli would come back and annoy him further. He loved his brother. But some distance was clearly needed after all these years. He actually managed to answer his mails and find himself back into his case, reviewing evidence and the first lab results that had come in regarding blood analysis and genetic information about the murderer. Then Nines and Elijah came back. Gavin saw him passing Fowler’s glass cube and his heart sunk. But then the door opened.

‘What the hell is Kamski doing here?’, the Captain shouted in the room, effectively silencing any conversations. ‘I wanted to take a look around’, Elijah simply answered. Fowler looked at him as if he had just lost his mind. ‘This is a police station! Not some kind of tourist attraction! You can’t be here.’ Every other person would have long apologised and run for their life with Fowler this angry, but Elijah stood his ground and smiled. ‘And you can’t make my brother work his ass off like a Lieutenant and still pay him Detective money, especially after his recent achievements, yet here we both are.’ In over eighteen years of working in this precinct, Gavin had never seen Fowler speechless. The man stared at Elijah, who smiled at him in all confidence, while most of the officers in the precinct seemed ready to duck behind their tables.

‘Leave’, was all the Captain pressed out. ‘Now.’ ‘Alright, don’t want any trouble.’ Elijah grinned, winked at Nines and made his way over to the door. ‘Gonna pick you up later, bro!’ Gavin didn’t give him any answer as he knit his brows and rubbed his forehead. Too little sleep, too much early morning conversation, too little coffee and now the whole precinct’s attention. Great. He just wanted to get his work done, get home and sleep. And exactly that he was going to do.

Until his break began and Nines approached him. With a sigh of regret, Gavin turned around and waited. ‘Is it true?’ ‘Is what true, tin-can? I had a really shitty day so far and I still can’t read minds.’ Nines shifted his weight on his other leg and continued: ‘Your brother… When I led him through the building, he told me you had a crush on me.’ Thinking about everything that could have happened today, Gavin certainly hadn’t expected that.

‘This asshole! I will phcking kill him, I swear!’ ‘So… It’s not true?’ ‘Hell, of course it’s true!’ Gavin froze. Why had he said that? ‘Oh.’ Gavin looked up at the android, that was smiling to himself, cheeks tinged blue. ‘That’s… nice to hear.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘I mean, I like you a lot, Gavin. To learn it’s mutual is… very nice.’ Gavin sighed deeply, holding his head. ‘I will phcking kill him…’ ‘Are you not happy about this?’ ‘Phck, Nines, I am. I really am. But I’m tired, I have an annoying as phck brother at home that just won’t shut up and I really wanted to ask you out any other way than this.’

‘I understand’, the android nodded. ‘But it’s nice to have it out now, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah. Yeah it is. Listen, I… Let’s forget this happened for just this day, okay? I will leave early today, speak to my brother about all of this and if I’m not charged with murder tomorrow morning, how about we do this properly? Tomorrow is your free day, right?’

Nines nodded and smirked. ‘Call me if you need to hide the body.’

[birdy-bat-writes]

Damian Wayne - Civilian crime solver

Request: Could you do headcanons or a scenario about Damian with a friend or s/o that is really into mysteries and goes around investigating cases even though they're really in over their head? Bonus points for shenanigans. Thank you!

Of course, amazing Anon! Great suggestion! And hey, why do friends or lovers when we can do both?? ;) I hope you enjoy this!

A/N: Um… My Headcanons are basically just fanfictions with sentences that don’t flow into paragraphs. I split it into 2 parts. I Really liked writing this one though. I love Damian. This one came out kinda angsty though, sorry about that. But it has a sweet ending.

Part 2 here

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-       You met Damian when you both were in the sixth grade. He was quite the indignant 11-year-old. Unfortunately for you, this fellow was your lab partner for the year.

-       You noticed his distaste for most people, but he didn’t have it with you. You couldn’t have known at the time, but the reason for that was that you were the only person in the room Damian saw as someone of equal intellect. It was the way you were organized and level-headed. You were independent and self-sufficient.

-       Truth be told, the only major difference between your mindsets was that you weren’t as cocky.

-       Made sense though, since your mother was an environmental toxicologist. Your home was pretty full of science equipment since you could remember. You were always curious as a child, and of course your proud mother encouraged it and taught you bit-by-bit how to use the tools. You idolized her and your father, who passed away when you were younger.

-       Over the course of your partnership with Damian, you grew to tolerate each other, and then even enjoy each other’s company. By the time You were both 12, you had a pretty solid friendship.

-       You discovered this when he invited you over to his house for his birthday and his family nearly choked, had a stroke, or checked if you were a robot. He had to explain to you that he didn’t bring friends over very often.

-       “I made an exception for you because you are far closer to me than anyone else and I enjoy your company.”

-       You guys hang out all the time now and talk about personal stuff and just joke about things. It makes you really happy when Damian laughs. He often found himself thinking about how much more often he’s been doing it since he met you.

-       “Hey, what do you want to be when you grow up, Dames?”

-       “Well, I’d like to follow in my father’s footsteps.” You assumed that meant running Wayne Enterprises. You were half right.

-       “I want to be a detective.”

-       “Really?”

-       “Yeah, like my dad was.”

-       “He’d be proud of you.”

-       You had a love for forensics and special permission from your chemistry teacher to use the advanced chem lab after school. You were her TA after all, and Damian used that time to sit with you and chat while you worked.

-       “Y/N, what are you analyzing?”

-       “Um… It’s a mud sample.”

-       “From?

-       “The Gotham botanical gardens.”

-       “Why?” Why are you analyzing dirt from Poison Ivy’s crime scene from last night?

-       “Promise you won’t freak out?” He nodded. “I heard on the news that Poison Ivy was using monster plants to terrorize people. And they looked kind of like yellow trumpet vines you find a in the Gotham gardens. I was just checking the dirt for any chemicals that could have altered the plant growth.”

-       Damian was stunned and speechless. Something he experienced rarely, if ever. “Y/N, messing with this stuff is dangerous. maybe you should let Batman and the GCPD handle this.”

-       “Come on, Dami. Please don’t say that. I want to do this; I want to help people. If I figure this out first, I can tell the GCPD.”

-       “I’m just worried for your safety.” He couldn’t deny that your work was brilliant, but he couldn’t let you put yourself in harm’s way either.

-       “I’ll be safe, I promise.”

-       He ultimately told you it was alright with him if you were careful. What he meant by that was that he was going to spy on you and keep you away from any and everything that was dangerous.

-       Robin would follow you to your house from the shadows to make sure you got home safe and Damian would check in with you on your files. As your determination to solve cases increased, his desire to ask you why increased as well.

-       “I just think it’s fun, Damian.” Wow you were a bad liar.

-       “There’s more to it.”

-       “What?”

-       “Why are you actually doing this?”

-       “Because I want to.” You were sterner this time. Damian noticed and decided to drop it for now. He offered to walk you home like he usually did but you declined.

-       That night, you decided to investigate a lead you didn’t tell Damian about. It led you an abandoned building in old Gotham. You were scanning the second floor for anything out of the ordinary until you heard a voice approaching from the corner.

-       You ran into the nearest room and hid. The voices were getting closer. “Falcone wants this job done tonight. Don’t f*** up.” You were terrified.

-       Suddenly, your mouth was covered by a green gloved hand. You wanted to yell but you heard him shush you. You turned quietly to meet eyes with a domino mask. It was Robin. You didn’t have enough time to process everything that happened but at the end of it all you ended up on the sidewalk next to an ambulance and police cars.

-       Deciding you had enough for one day, you headed home.

-       The next day at school you seemed quiet and so did Damian. At the end, you walked over to Damian to ask if he wanted to hang out.

-       “Not at the lab.”

-       “Okay… we can watch a movie if you want.”

-       “Alright.”

-       “Cool. I’ll just go get my stuff.” He saw you walking in the direction of the lab and something sparked in him. He stopped you.

-       “I’ll get it.”

-       “What? I can get it. It’s fine.”

-       “Just stay here, Y/N.” He was a bit too curt for your liking.

-       “Don’t tell me what to do.”

-       “Just listen to me for once.”

-       “Why are you being like this?!”

-       It turned into a yelling match. Damian’s emotions got the better of him and it ended with a “You could have died last night!”

-       Tip of the hat to him *clap* *clap*. That’s how you found out he was Robin.

-       It made sense really. You shared a heartfelt conversation about how he trusted you but he didn’t want you getting hurt. He knew what it was like out there and he couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.

-       You promised to keep his secret and he made a compromise with you; you could help him with forensics for his cases with Batman as long as you never went out into the field.

-       Then you went an watched the movie you wanted to.

-       “Hey Dames, I need to tell you something.” He turned his head to you. “You had asked earlier why I was so obsessed with the cases… my dad died investigating Falcone’s drug cartel. I guess got a bit too into it… I just thought you deserved to know.” You shared a look of sympathy and for the first time in your friendship, he hugged you. It held for a while, but it wasn’t awkward, just comforting, as if you both said that you were there for each other.

-       Skip to the point where your working with him and Batman was normal. Well… as normal as it could get. You and Damian blew the Batcave circuit breaker. Twice.

-       You would always get results before Bruce managed to figure out how. Tim liked you specifically because you could make Bruce look very confused.

-       You and Damian would pass notes in class in code about new information from cases. It started to make people gossip about you two. It didn’t help that you both always stayed back late together and showed up to class alone, before anyone else.

-       It began to scare people because Damian doesn’t bother to spend time with other humans but with you, he like?? Willingly?? Does it??

-       You would work late nights with the boys and keep track of how much sleep they each were getting. If anyone fell too short, you sent them up to bed. It actually backfired on you once because you were very sleep-deprived and didn’t want to admit it, so Jason picked you up and dragged you to your room in the manor while Tim and Dick smiled cheekily. “Oh, how the turntables.” ;D

-       Damian would sleep when you forced him, but he would still have his days. He believed he was above sleeping???

-       This boy refuses to admit he’s tired. Even when he looks like a jittery racoon. So, you bring him hot chocolate in the mornings, (courtesy of Alfred) with a hint of a lot of caffeine (courtesy of Tim).

-       Ever since you started spending so much time at the manor, you got much closer with Damian and his brothers. You felt a sense of family and care there.

-       Your favorite nights were the ones where your mom would let you sleep over and you would stay late in the cave working with Damian. The serenity of the cave and the faint glow of the computers always made it feel like some alternate plane of existence.

-       “Alright, Sherlock, you’ve been obsessed with this case for three days now. Let the computers do their work and take a nap.”

-       “Dami, I’m too ‘thinky’ to sleep.”

-       “’Thinky’?” you nodded and giggled at your superior use of vocabulary. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

-       You detected a hint of mischief in his voice and followed him up the cave staircase to the top of a ledge. He pulled a rope ladder out from behind the ledge and gestured for you to climb it.

-       You glanced at him once before hoisting yourself up and climbing onto the rocky surface. You looked up and the sight took your breath away. The ledge was a flat floor of the cave that overlooked the waterfall from the inside. If you looked down, you could see the dancing currents on the lower levels of the cave. The air was misty and cool, and you honestly had no idea that there was a view like this anywhere in the manor.

-       “You like it?”

-       “Its so beautiful.” You said, your voice full of awe. Damian sat down on the floor, against the cave wall and patted the ground next to him. He wanted to say something. Just regular makings of conversation, like the ones you always had. This time, for the first time, he felt like he didn’t know what to say to you, so opted to look at you.

-       The way the water reflected light on the cave walls made patterns of hazy light. The glow hit your skin and made your eyes sparkle. For the first time since he had met you, Damian saw you in a completely new way. He didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t opposed to it either.

-       You broke the silence with, “You know, ever since I met you, and your family, I’ve never been happier.”

-       You looked back at him. Something about the way he looked at you made you feel butterflies and fireworks all at once.