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tinfoil-jones · 2 days ago

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Has Stan ever questioned Jerk Ford the reason why he is the only person he isn't a jerk to, since he's an a-hole even to the other members in their family?

"You don't know him like I do."

- Both Stans at the same time.

On Jerk Ford:

Throughout their lives, Stan insisted that just because Ford’s a jerk, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about anyone. He does care! Really! He just has a hard time showing it. No one ever believed him. You could just say that it’s a twin thing when Stan says something along the lines of “You don’t know him like I do” and they’re like well no shit he’s not a jerk to you. But, give Stanley some credit here, he’s more observant than you think he is.

---

Retired tech billionaire "Old Man" Fiddleford Hadron McGucket starts his mornings as he often does; going into his garage/workshop with a cup of coffee so he could re-tune his banjo for a few songs, quietly so as not to wake his wife.

He almost drops his cup of coffee when he see's theres something on his workbench that wasn't there last night.

A multitool.

One he hasn't seen in thirty years, but recognized instantly.

Carefully, he picks it and and inspects it, maybe it's just a replica.

FHM

Engraved in his late fathers handwriting, a loose scrawl that almost looked cursive if it weren't for the letters not being attached.

It's the same multitool. It's in pristine condition.

---

When they were just little boys, they were hiding behind the counter as their Pa was arguing with a customer, who ended up calling Filbrick a word they never heard before. Filbrick kicked the customer out, but it was clear he was more upset than he let off, in fact, he seemed almost sad, something neither twin had ever seen from their Pa. Filbrick then gave them a lecture that they can never repeat the word they just heard the man call him, because it was a very bad word that people used to insult and put down people 'of their faith'.

A few minutes later, that same customer slipped on a banana peel that ‘came out of nowhere’, and sprained his ankle.

When they were a little older, Caryn was taking the twins out for a walk, when they passed a construction site and the construction workers started whistling at her, and giving her ‘compliments’ that she didn’t seem to like. She ignored it, but her little sons noticed her pace sped up and she almost rushed them away.

That night, as those workers were double checking the work they’d done for the day, they were baffled to find that the concrete hadn’t set; the concrete had been tampered with, as if someone had poured a bunch of sugar in it while it was mixing. They’d have to redo it all over again, and it’d cost the company extra for the wasted concrete.

When the twins were in high school, Shermie, who had long since moved out but was visiting, was in tears telling their parents that his boss refused to give him the day off on the day his wife was due to give birth to their baby.

A week before the baby was born, his workplace was suddenly so badly infested with termites and roaches, that it would need two weeks to be properly fumigated, so the workers didn’t have to work while the fumigation was going on, and they’d still get paid because they were salary workers. Shermie was there with his wife when she gave birth to their son, and he got to dedicate a few days to just being with his wife and baby.

Their Ma would help out with Shermie's son sometimes, because both parents worked, but she also worked and would have her two younger sons help out with babysitting as well. And although Ford would gripe and complain about 'dealing with a brat all day', Stan had seen more than once that Ford would put the baby to sleep more than once by simply holding him in his arms and lying down with him, and also falling asleep.

In Backupsmore, Fiddleford was being bullied by a professor who looked down on him for being ‘a hick from an inbred, uneducated family’, and he was told to suck it up when he tried reporting her because she was tenured. In the middle of the year, she was unexpectedly replaced by a new, and much nicer, professor, and they were told their original professor was taking ‘an extended leave of absence’.

She never came back, and it later came to light later on that the dean found a box full of documents and VHS tapes under his desk that hadn’t been there when he left his office the night before. All of which were extensive proof that the professor had been secretly embezzling the schools budget.

When Ford comes back to their dimension after thirty years in the multiverse, no one who knew him from before is surprised that he’s still a huge indiscriminate jerk, and people who hadn’t personally known him but knew about him because of their yearly holiday that celebrated his disappearance were unpleasantly surprised to find out he was as bad as everyone said he was. And Stan didn’t necessarily disagree, but even after decades apart he could still see right through his twin as if he were made of rude glass.

Dipper's pens are suddenly indestructible to his chewing habit so no more mouthfuls of ink, and Mabel mysteriously never runs out of glitter; lately, it's also been more shimmery and almost... magical?

It doesn't matter where either of them fall asleep, they always end up waking up tucked into their beds, even though they told Grunkle Stan in the beginning of summer that they were too old to be carried and to just leave them wherever they’d crashed.

Soos had been complaining all summer about his van making weird noises and having really poor mileage. Out of nowhere, Soos’s vehicle starts running like a dream and he’s getting ninety miles to a gallon, when it’s been twenty to the gallon at most as long as he’s had it.

Also, he didn't remember when he'd upgraded the graphics card of his home computer, but he sure is loving the higher FPS when he's playing video games.

Wendy is beside herself distressed and crying to Stan, Soos, and the Mystery Twins that her house had roof leak when a surprise summer rainstorm hit, and her favourite framed photograph of herself with her late mother was water damaged beyond repair, and is nearly unrecognizable.

The next day she asks her father when he’d made a copy of her photograph, and he replies that he has no idea what she’s talking about. She then takes a closer look at the newly framed picture she'd found on her desk that had been placed right next to her damaged one- did someone paint this…?

People assume that Ford only cares about his twin brother and no one else, because he's the only person he's never been a jerk to. But Stanley knows that isn't true; Ford loves just as strongly as he does, he just has a hard time letting people know.

As for Ford not being a jerk to him? Why would Ford bother, when Stan can see right through him? His twin is the only person who can see him, really see him.

---

Hours after Fiddleford had stormed out of the cabin with his bags in tow, Stanley looks over disheartened when he see's Stanford calmly place the multitool onto his own workbench.

"There were other ways to make him leave, Ford."

"I needed to make sure he wouldn't come back. That was too close of a call."

Ford had intended to give it back when the project was over, too bad it was on his belt when he was pushed into the multiverse.

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genderqueerdykes · 1 day ago

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trying to convince trans men that they should be more comfortable with “woman terms” i.e. lesbian, dyke, etc. is TERF rhetoric. lesbianism does not include men - i'm sorry to say this includes trans men. we've been trying to fight this for YEARS, because rhetoric like this puts lesbians in danger. please fucking stop. this is terrifying for actual lesbians.

you are a few wrong turns away from straight up saying we HAVE to let men in our spaces. and a few more wrong turns away from advocating for corrective rape (by the way! the person who coined the term “transandrophobia” has a fetish for corrective rape against lesbians and trans women).

please actually think before you spread things because this is dangerous rhetoric. like you are asking to get actual lesbians killed if the wrong men follow this rhetoric

hello, actual lesbian that you mentioned here. i'm a 32 year old butch dyke who has been a butch dyke since i was a kid. i've been a part of the lesbian community my entire life because when i came out as a trans man, the only place for me to go was to queer "womens" spaces. also you just straight up lied about the coiner of the term transandrophobia. it was not genuine assault, it was consensual indulgence in a kink. kink is not inherently REAL assault. stop making shit up to make transmascs and trans men sound worse. you're doing this on purpose.

YOU are the problem. no, i will never shut up or stop talking about this because you are the problem and you are the one causing people to get hurt because you are insisting that women cant EVER hurt each other when that's not true. you're creating an echochamber for radfems to brainwash vulnerable women into thinking that women can never hurt them so that radfems can control the way you think, act and feel. you have been absolutely brainwashed by terfs.

you are a few wrong turns away from straight up saying we HAVE to let men in our spaces.

they're right turns because we DO!

some lesbians are or are currently but may not be men in the future. you're scaring the ever loving hell out of trans women who haven't come out yet, but think they might be trans lesbians. you are leaving out and scaring the shit out of transfem lesbians who cant pass or visibly be out. youre potentially kicking out transfem eggs because they "look too scary" or 'look like men'. you're guilting trans women who used to be men and making them feel like evil monsters for something they had no control over. you're making trans women who are also men feel like garbage.

some lesbians are genderfluid, or bigender, or nonbinary. you're failing to accept genderfluid lesbians. you're failing to accept TWO-SPIRIT lesbians who are also men. not only is this transphobic but it's now racist because you're denying people with a cultural identity from being lesbians. there are genderqueer lesbians. there are butches who are men. if you think butches who are men deserve to be kitched out, you're a butchphobe and i don't want to ever hear another thing about lesbian rights out of your mouth because this isn't about lesbian rights, you don't give two singular fucks about real lesbians, all you care about is pushing your radfem agenda.

also this one is massively important because it shows that you just don't care for individual lesbians at all. some lesbians are fucking scared shitless when they first join queer spaces and need to bring support. you do realize lesbians have male family members and friends, you realize this, right? queer spaces are also open to the allies in the queer person's family. you're completely leaving out allies who want to learn more about lesbianism. you're making it next to impossible to teach other people about lesbianism because you think you're so special that the entirety of manhood is out to get you. have you ever been to an IRL queer space for more than a few moments? you have to realize that they allow cishet family members and friends to come. and people who are questioning and curious. that "man" you're seeing at the lesbian meetup could be a questioning transfem, and it looks like you just shot yourself in the fucking foot.

this is going to hurt literally no one and in fact it will stop other queer people from getting hurt because you are the one excluding real lesbians from the community and harming real people, including women. i can't trust someone who thinks like this to not misgender trans women and transfems when it's convenient. some trans women used to be men. some trans women still are men. some cis women are men. some are multigender, genderfluid... you would kick out a woman who's also a man?

whether or not you realize it, this mentality is hurting women because you're teaching each other youre too stupid, weak and incompentent to stand up to men. do you genuinely think other women are so goddamn stupid and weak that they can't defend themselves against men? that they aren't smart enough to avoid dangerous advances? that they aren't capable of shutting down dangerous atmospheres and behaviors? that they're incapable of causing physical harm or defending themselves.

you are not so special that the entirety of manhood is out to get you. yes men can be dangerous to be around, but not all men around you are fiending to rape and assault you. you have to get past that line of thinking because it's making you dangerous, and isolating you from society because all you can do is wallow in paranoid thinking and blame men for your problems that you refuse to tackle on your own. you can't blame men for you REFUSING to move past your trauma. pathologically avoiding a gender doesn't work. it is your fault you are so scared at this point. keeping yourself scared makes you vulnerable. men are not waiting in every single bush waiting to jump you, you have to move past this line of thinking.

none of what you said is even remotely true. you really have to step outside of your radfem echo chamber and speak to real lesbians. lesbians are and have always been more diverse than just being cis women loving cis women. and no, i don't believe you when you say you include trans women because i have a sneaking suspicion that trans women who don't pass hard enough don't count as women with this line of thinking. i do not trust you to not misgender trans women when it is convenient for you to push your agenda about how men and "certain people" are evil.

there have been men in the lesbian community since the start and we're not going to go away just because you're scared of people who will not and have not hurt you. you think you have the world figured out but you're wallowing in pity and blaming your trauma on people who haven't hurt you. you are so entrenched in your suffering and misery that you think that you have to. you are so entitled that you think the entire lesbian community should warp itself to what you want, but you even are you? why should we listen to you? do you care about anyone but your goddamn self? i don't know if you do. you sound very entitled and selfish. you sound like you believe the lesbian community owes you something. it doesn't. you owe masc and male lesbians respect.

i hope some day you learn how to be kinder to yourself and the people around you some day. having such a negative view of strangers is what's getting you hurt, because you're laser focused on the men who can hurt you, you fail to see that women can and have been abusing you your entire life. women are capable of abuse. women are capable of raping and killing each other. you are not inherently safe just because you want to be around women

this is such a sad way to see life. womanhood does not mean living in fear of men. if you genuinely think that womanhood is nothing but suffering. open your heart and understand that manhood isn't what hurt you. it's specific people. blaming the gender of "man" instead of individual people takes the accountability away from the individual. you are refusing to hold people accountable. you are the problem. you are the reason why men continue to think it's okay to do these things, because you are reinforcing the behavior from yet another side. wake up. you're the one making things dangerous for real lesbians. you sound much more like a lesbian separatist, political lesbian, and a radfeminist than you do a ""real"" lesbian.

i've been a butch dyke for 32 years. let real lesbians talk. we don't want to hear your radfem bullshit anymore. transmascs, trans men, ftms, and male lesbians belong. i don't care about you being scared about the "WRONG" kind of men. stop profiling men. you're doing the exact same shit misogynists are doing to you. it doesn't solve the problem. it just makes you a miserable asshole who supports bullying and abusing trans people, butches, and those "Real" lesbians you were talking about. you can't invalidate my dykehood, cuz i don't even who know tf you are. i'm a real dyke, and you can absolutely stay scorched about it. you need a lot of healing to do if me being a transmasc butch dyke is hurting you somehow. you can't let other people's identities get to you like that.

#asks #answers #lesbian #transmasc lesbian #male lesbian

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lgbtlunaverse · 1 day ago

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It's always been my personal belief that Wen Yuan was brought into the lan clan under the guise of being one of the many war orphans they no doubt had at that point. He wears the cloud pattern on his ribbon that marks him as a member of the inner family so either the lan clan is very woke about adoption and Lan Wangji formally adopted him (which I don't think he did both because sizhui says "you were like a father or older brother to me" which sounds like that dynamic was unofficial. And because adopting him would've put a-yuan in danger, which lwj would obviously refuse. It was known who wwx's actual parents were and he wasn't even formally adopted, just a ward, and still everyone was gossiping about him secretly being a bastard. A-yuan would be seen as proof of ~hanguang-jun's mysterious wartime affair~ and there'd be rampant speculation about his parentage, no doubt scandalous since they're trying to hide it. You can see why this is very very bad.) Or they were convinced he was the offspring of some late inner clan members. Born in unsafe times and therefore hidden away with non-cultivators for his own safety, only for his parents to perish before they could go back for him, or whatever backstory the Lan brothers came up with.

But that leaves the question... whose wartime orphan did they think he was? The number of inner clan couples who were of child-bearing age before dying in the war was likely numerous but it can't have been that high. Low enough to narrow down a list of potential parents. Were there Elders who looked at Sizhui and thought "well there's a solid 12.5% chance you're my grandson?" Were there other orphans who wondered if he was their younger brother?

That kind of speculation is safer, because everyone agrees he's a Lan child, so there's no chance of someone concluding that he's a secret Wen spawn.

But I'm thinking of a young Lan Sizhui growing up with his almost-solved mystery. With some of his peers and teachers taking an interest in him, wondering if he's their little brother, or nephew, or grandson, and not being able to give them the answer. Who gets very used to staring at people's faces, trying with all his might to see something familiar in them, and never succeeding. Until years later, long after he stopped trying, when he meets a strange fierce corpse and something in his mind says i've seen you before.

#mdzs #wen yuan #lan sizhui #i just think!!! a-yuan having juuust enough information about where (he thinks) he came from to wonder but never enough to KNOW #until suddenly that familiarity he's been waiting for comes but attached to people it logically shouldn't #he has to sit with that strange feeling for weeks and then he sees chengqing and thinks oh. that's why.#mdzs meta #mdzs headcanons

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mythronic · 3 days ago

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Wayne Family Personas!!! (PART 2)

Previous Part here!

Damian Wayne:

Adorable and shy animal lover that sticks by his older siblings. If anyone has ever seen Damian Wayne at a gala, it’s often by his siblings’ sides, hiding behind their coattails or beneath their arms. Despite many attempts, no one has succeeded in disallowing Damian to bring animals into galas. Most notably, one time, Damian brought in a huge snake that scared some patrons to death. However, there is an… Outlier. Damian Wayne is reported to be a snarky and sly little brat when teamed up with Cass, Duke, and Tim, usually with the goal of irritating the fuck out of some socialite or Roman Sionis.

Damian is appalled by the personas that Bruce and Dick put on most of the time, and finds great pleasure in threatening people with a cat in his arms as Tim easily picks up from the threat with his sharp tongue.

He also likes to gaslight people that all the cats he brings to the galas are actually one in the same. They're all named 'Alfred' and no one dares to correct him. Cullen: "And... No one asks you where you got all the cats from...?" Damian: "Of course not. My status strikes fear into those below me, they wouldn't dare question me." Cullen: "I see."

Duke Thomas:

Bland, unassuming, middle class boy that doesn't know what to do with himself. Duke goes the 'invisible boy' route and plays the boring normal kid that got adopted by Bruce out of either pity or convenience. Duke is all too happy to use his 'invisible boy' persona to listen into conversations for Tim or ditching galas with Damian, and sometimes, when he's extra bored and either Lex Luthor or Vicki Vale or some idiot businessman or whatnot is at the gala, never let it be said that Duke doesn't know how to cause chaos and freak out rich people at the same time, eat the rich baby~

Duke has most definitely spiked the alcohol. No for real, he mixes alcohol with more alcohol just to laugh when rich people's composures break.

Duke doesn't often stick by Bruce, Dick, or Jason during galas. He prefers the chaos of blackmailing rich people with Tim, Cass, and occasionally Damian.

Izzy: "Wait, wait. What do you mean you managed to expose a rich person for moving and doing drugs??"

Duke: "How was I supposed to know that he avoided drinking more than one drink cause he knew he was a nasty talker??"

Izzy: "And you... Spiked his drink with what??"

Duke: "Nothing! Just vodka, and spirit, and some gin, and.... This isn't looking good for me is it?"

Izzy: "I still love you for it."

Harper Row:

Is she a family friend? Or a personal bodyguard? Harper doesn't often go to Wayne galas, especially since she actually isn't adopted legally by Bruce. But she can't say no when Dick begs for assistance covering for him when the guy is too tired to attend the galas. While gala people try to insult her appearance and obvious Bowery accent, she single handedly shows how much she doesn't give a fuck with a raised brow and laughter. They may try to hate on Harper, but she abuses and takes advantage of her statue as an honorary Wayne, it doesn't go well.

Harper also makes use of this persona of hers to find out who she should hate and who she should at least respect a little bit. She reports this to Dick.

She and Jason 100% gossip on the idiots at the galas, and teases the other Wayne family members and their personas.

Harper: "If I asked nicely, could I get some jewellery from Imens?"

Selina: "Why him?"

Harper: "Called me and Jayce sewer rats, I'd like to sell off his stuff and watch him weep."

Selina: "... Yeah, sure."

Mia Mizoguchi:

Snobby Gotham Academy brat who is too smart for her own good. Mia doesn't often go to galas, because she doesn't want to dabble in all the politics and subtleties of Gotham's high society. But she does occasionally do Tim some favours at galas, acting the cute but completely spoiled child with Damian in order to get information out of people. Mia's persona is that kid who takes pictures in the bathroom and purchases expensive shit to bring to school just to brag, and accuses any one scholarship kid for stealing them when they go missing.

Maps sometimes brings her friends to galas just to promote the persona she has, and learnt a LOT of slang in the span of two hours.

Maps has definitely joined DIck before on his little Instagram model bullshit, probably obsessively going through filters for 30 whole minutes while Dick talks to people.

Duke: "Why are you so committed to this persona?"

Maps: "I thought you of all people would appreciate the art of deception."

Duke: "... Yeah you're right I dig it."

So I'm sure you've noticed a bit (a lot of) mentions of Tim, and that's because I've kind of mentally split the family in terms of the goofy, not so serious personas (Bruce, Dick, Jason, Harper, Damian), and the High Society tea and biscuits (Tim, Cass, Duke, Mia)

Basically, Bruce's team does it for appearances, and Tim's side does it to gather information and to serve a purpose other than appearing 'normal'. He's at the head of this 'operation', which is why I defaulted to mentioning Tim.

Some of you might start stabbing me for not mentioning Steph, but I see her as a more separate persona and figure unaffiliated with Bruce's brood other than being Tim's ex and his go-to date before 'Conner Luthor'

#damian wayne #batfam #batfamily #batfam hcs #batfam headcanons #batfamily headcanons #duke thomas #harper row #mia mizoguchi #maps mizoguchi #tim drake #dick grayson #jason todd #bruce wayne #cassandra cain

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hkthatgffan · 6 hours ago

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What's actually your opinion on Stanford Pines?

Oh, that's an interesting question. Short answer; I like Ford and think he's a great, flawed but lovable character who has endured a lot and come out of it a better man than he was before. Now, if you want my long answer...keep reading beyond this for why I feel that way.

Back when I first saw Gravity Falls, I thought Ford was okay. He wasn't so much a favourite of mine (that title then and still belongs to Dipper and Mabel for me), nor was I as interested in him. I did love reading up everything in Journal 3 about him and all his antics.

During the Mabel hate era in 2018, I did somewhat sour in my opinion on Ford as I felt fans were being too harsh on Mabel and not realizing some of the negatives about him and how Dipper and Mabel were drifting into the same direction Ford and Stan had become. I felt angry that fans were hating on Mabel and calling out her mistakes but downplaying other characters', Ford included.

But then, if you were around in 2018 and remember the Mabel debates that raged on then...you know how messy it was no matter what side you were on, lmao. Be it anti or pro Mabel or Ford, people really debated long and hard during that time and it's an era I'm glad we're more or less past.

In the years since and having heard more takes from fans who like Ford and get him in ways I didn't, I do find myself appreciating and liking Ford a lot more than I did back then. I'm still always gonna be defensive of Mabel and firm on my stance that Dipper staying behind in Gravity Falls with Ford was the worst outcome that could've happened in that scenario, but I see Ford in a lens less of hatred and more realization that...the whole situation was a learning experience for everyone in that situation. Ford learned something from it, Mabel did, Dipper did...all of them did.

To me, Ford is a character that is good at heart. Like every member of the Pines family, he's flawed and has made mistakes that he's overcome and improved from. And as we see again in The Book of Bill...there is one major new thing we really see that makes him all the better in my eyes now than he used to be!

I've spoken about this before when someone asked what my stance on Billford is, but I think as someone who has survived being in toxic situations with people who made my life worse the same way Bill was a toxic person to Ford, I understand him more so now than I used to.

What we see is Ford and Bill having a partnership (or friendship or relationship depending on how you see it) that was toxic. Bill was manipulative, took Ford and tried to mold him into what he wanted him to be. And Ford eventually realized that but Bill made his life hell for trying to escape. Ford eventually being able to and learn to find happiness in his family and friends was an incredible thing to see and that single thing, having been through such shit myself as others probably can relate too, changed Ford in a huge way for me for the better.

Ford to me is a guy who managed to overcome the worst thrown at him and be able to let go of that whole situation and escape it to become better. And we all deserve that. We all deserve to escape the Bill Ciphers in our life, find our Pines family and grow and become better and happier from that.

That is what I think of Stanford Pines. He's a character who is flawed. He's a character who has his ups and downs. But at his core, he is a guy who overcame adversities thrown at him and found a way to live a better and more fulfilling life with those who appreciate and love him for who he is. For a character I once felt no real connection or understanding for and more so hatred...he sure has come a long way for the better and I couldn't be more proud of him.

I know for others this may not be how they see Ford or you may even look at what I said and think I missed the whole point. But that's okay. Because these characters are for us as fans to relate and find aspects in them we can understand. Headcanons exist for a reason. To me, that's how I see Ford. To you, he may be something else.

That's the beauty of this show. Headcanon these character the way you please, without fear or worry of being told you're wrong. Alex has said no headcanon to him will ever be confirmed or denied...so headcanon and perceive these characters the way you feel. Because we all are Gravity Falls fans...and love them the way we do.

But FR, we need more Mabel and Ford bonding. That's all I want from this show now...these two just having fun and being awesome, lol!!

#Ask That GF FAN #AMA #Ask #gravity falls #stanford pines #that gf fan

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knuiui · 12 hours ago

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╮TWST Boys feat. "What's your perfume type? "

♡ HEARTSLABYUL ❣

the dorm based on the strict queen of hearts! since that 'certain' fiasco just a week after you and yuuken arrived the first friends you had is from this dorm! you still hangout with them from time to time especially during unbirthday parties! pictures of your outfits for the event always go viral.

╰ Riddle Rosehearts ♥

you and him got close after 'that' incident. you consider him as a smol hedgehog that needed to be protected 🥺 he almost dropped kicked your knee caps after you said that /j. but on serious note, riddle considers you as one of the most hard working person he's ever met aside from his mother. he'd been the witness of your grueling hours of practice just to get a character's accent right (yk cause you're not from here) and study what type of character you're playing as. he wished you'd take care of yourself more though. relaxing is good okay! he's been through the same road and he'd hate to see you suffer some sort of breakdown like he did, minus the homicidal tendencies.

he's seen that video. It practically went viral over at twistok the moment it was said to be you participating in the "What's your perfume type?" kind of questions.

acts cool but is actually panicking on the inside. really considered changing his perfume to match whatever you said was your type.

he didn't get to ofc. that perfume was practically sold out within 24 hours of the viral video being posted. you're fans really are very dedicated. instead he opted for a new fragrance that caught his eye while browsing the store.

════ “ What's his perfume? ”

Amouage, CRIMSON ROCKS

cater later did the whole trend as well for the members of heartslabyul dorm and asked him the question, he glared for a little bit before answering and hastily turning back to his books. if you squint you can see the tips of his ears almost color matched the shade of his hair.

he answered, "[your perfume]"

╰ Trey Clover ♣

this handsome mf almost had you groveling for him jk. you two has always been in good terms even before the whole heartslabyul fiasco, you darn nearly kneeled on one knee after he gave you a box of his divinely baked sweets. now he's the one that always supplies you snacks whenever you're at nrc campus for practice aside from jamil ofc. he admires how dedicated you are in getting all your scenes on one take. though, he wished you'd take time and eat properly, he can see how small the portion of the foods he brought you actually ate. you insists you'll eat it later but he's not having any of it. mom friend tbh.

of course he saw the video. he might not look like he uses social media daily but he does actually use it a lot more that an average person, his family's bakery has to advertise their products somehow yk?

when he came across it it didn't bother him that much. but now that he thinks about it, didn't his perfume ran out just a week ago? well maybe it's time for some replacement after all.

you'd think that trey is the kind of guy that prefers mild perfume or even something with vanilla on it, considering he always works with sweets. well he likes to subvert expectations sometimes.

════ “ What's his perfume? ”

Jo Malone, WOOD SAGE & SEA SALT

cater commented the same when it's trey's turn for the twistok trend. trey just smiled casually.

his answer to the question is, "[your perfume]" of course.

╰ Cater Diamond ♦

your bff. besties for life. he's the first one you actually really got along with, because his personality resembles a past friend of yours. you two have weekly meet ups at cute cafes or at the mall to chat and gossip about stuff. Oh sevens, mostly gossip actually. you two are the most knowledgeable with gossips and rumors that are floating around NRC and the entire internet in general. if people think their secret is safe with you, no honey, their secret is safe with you AND cater <3. you've definitely used a picture of his side profile or his back, in one of your stories and the internet almost bursted into flames at the prospect of you, the goddess amongst men dating someone. cater later dropped a short behind the scene video of you using instructing him to pose very non-celeb lover like style. the internet almost collapsed for the second time that day.

that original video has tens of millions of views on twistok, you'd have to be living in a rock or a house with bad wi-fi to have not been aware of its existence.

he's kinda chill with it on the outside, but the background of his latest magicam pictures that includes bottles of perfume and a few boxes of a certain women's perfume says otherwise.

if it's his perfume that you answered with he'd be all smug about it, even posting a story holding a full ass brand new bottle of it. but if it's not it's fine ig not, he'd feel indifferent of the matter because his own perfume is actually picked and gifted to him by you <3.

════ “ What's his perfume? ”

Chanel, PLATINUM EGOISTE

immediately did the trend a day after the video of you doing it was uploaded. he's bummed that he didn't get to do the trend with you first though.

he'd mysteriously winked at the camera after answering, "[your perfume] girls are goddesses, y'all are drop dead gorgeous <3."

╰ Deuce Spade ♠

this doofus is a part of yuu's gang of idiots of course you two are close! you treat him like your little brother at times ouch. deuce often tags along yuu when he visits your sets, he'd only ever seen your neat and crisp appearance when you're in NRC uniform so imagine his gobsmacked face when he saw your disheveled appearance on set (you have to play a captured hostage). he almost called crewel because he knows that his professor would definitely fly into a rage if he saw his precious daughter covered in dirt and soot, ... yuu had to explain to him while you died laughing in the corner. he definitely teared up when he finally saw you acting out a gut wrenching scene for your character. deuce has always believed that you're special beyond your lack of magical prowess and finally he has been proven right.

ace showed him a video, it has clips of the viral one of you doing the twistok trend but the poster added screenshots of the perfumes you mentioned.

if it's not his perfume that you mentioned he definitely deflated a little bit, it's fine though, his mother bought a bunch of perfumes and she gave him his perfume because it's a bundle freebie with hers.

considered changing his perfume to the one you mentioned but he took one look at his wallet and that idea was shut down immediately.

but, if you chose the perfume carolina herrera good girl, he'll definitely malfunction on the spot. because his mom told him that perfume specifically is the partner of his own.

════ “ What's his perfume? ”

Carolina Herrera, BAD BOY

when cater came up to him asking what his perfume is, he innocently answered. this poor oblivious boy..

he only realized that it's the twistok trend when he saw the video cater posted, he sulked a little bit but did not regret his answer.

he'd blink then say, "Oh, Carolina herrera I think? the pink shoe one. " quite proudly, it's his mom's perfume.

╰ Ace Trappola 🂡

both of you hated each other's guts. considering the fact that you saw him fighting grim and insulting yuu, adding that his brash personality is very much exaggerated to you by the said cat. ace is definitely the least favorite of yours in yuu's band of idiots. this mf also doesn't know how to watch his tone so when he joked about something it sounded more like an insult. but long story short you two get along the second best now. disregarding the fact that you two almost became enemies to lovers got off the wrong foot, you two usually hang out in this quiet spot near the gym whenever he has basketball practice and you need a quiet place to do script readings the tranquility of the area are only ever broken when a loud screeching from floyd would ring from inside the gym.

yeah, yeah, he's seen it. heck! practically everyone has. he'd always be enchanted by your smell but now he knows what perfume to gift you once you ran out of a bottle <3

he'd act so nonchalant about it you wouldn't notice he'd subtly try to change his perfume however like deuce, he took a look at his savings and it said 'nope'!

he'll be a smug fucker if you said his perfume's name tho

════ “ What's his perfume? ”

Killian, BLACK PHANTOM

he'd blinked whe cater said the question while simultaneously shoving his phone to his face, then he smirks smugly and say,

"[your perfume], of course" while looking straight to the camera, as if talking to someone.

you're very loved by Heartslabyul, darling! Make sure to not forget to drop by sometimes very soon! they just miss you so much, your busy schedule be damned there will be an unbirthday party next week make sure to wear your best dress, beloved Alice! ~

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mylovesstuffs · 2 days ago

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↺how do you fake it? a prompt-based series featuring SVT !

❏ A collection of oneshots inspired by the Fake Dating Prompt Ideas list. Featuring your requested members in scenarios where the lines between real and pretend get a little... blurred. Some of these will tug at your heartstrings, while others will make you laugh—who knew faking it could lead to something so real?

ⓘ Summaries can be found under the cut. Each fic will be linked back to this post once published and will be renamed. Enjoy the story, and if you like it, don't forget to reblog !

↗ 29 Minghao X Reader

...[fake love, real feelings]

↗ 125+138 Woozi X Reader

When they wouldn't let you visit him in the hospital unless you were family, you didn't think twice. You told them you were married. Minghao doesn't question it, of course, just because. But as you sit by his side, pretending for the world, you start to wonder if pretending to be married could actually feel this real.

It's just you both tonight, but when he brings you some tea and presses his lips against your forehead, you don't want this feeling to go away. You've been sick for days, but it's the little things—like Woozi's soft kisses—that make you feel like you can survive this. Even when you're gross and sniffling, he won't leave your side.

↗ 47 Jeonghan X Reader

You swear when you made up your fake relationship, you didn't know that someone worked at the coffee shop with the same name or that your family would go to check out. Now everyone thinks you guys are actually together, and, well, pretending to be fake partners has never been so complicated.

↗ 05 Vernon X Reader

You need a green card. He's just the person to help you out, right? It sounds like a simple deal at first, but the more time you spend together faking a relationship, the more confusing it gets. Could it be real, though?

↗ 25 Joshua X Reader

there's a rumor going around that you made up the fact that you slept together and you're 'pathetic, so he show up to kiss you in front of everyone. When the world doubts your relationship, Joshua's not about to let you fight your battles alone. He's here to kiss the rumors away, whether they're true or not.

#seventeen scenarios #svt x reader #scoups seventeen #jeonghan seventeen #joshua seventeen #jun seventeen #hoshi seventeen #wonwoo seventeen #woozi seventeen #dk seventeen #mingyu seventeen #minghao seventeen #seungkwan seventeen #vernon seventeen #dino seventeen #seventeen headcanons #★— mylovesstuffs

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heartmix · 2 hours ago

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girl you're taking home - CL16

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x fem!reader

Word Count: 1.5k+

Warning: angst!, cheating, affair, unnamed girlfriend

A/N: someone get me away from these country songs!

F1 Masterlist / Masterlist

He didn't mean for it to go this far. It was meant to be a one-time moment after getting a little too drunk at the Ferrari Gala. He didn't mean to get so attached, so infatuated. She was his race engineer, for god's sake. They worked for the same company. It shouldn't work, it couldn't work. But here they were.

One drunk mistake led to another drunk mistake which led to sober mistakes. It happened anytime he needed company, or anytime he felt frustrated. Anytime he just needed someone you were that person. You were the only person who could get him back to being in a good mood. No one batted an eye. If you could calm Charles down who were they to question?

No one thought anything beyond it because of Charles's very public relationship. Often, the two of them would be in headlines and gossip blogs—the picture-perfect couple, gaining more likes on Ferrari's Instagram than anything else.

Even with his picture-perfect life, it wasn't enough for Charles. He loved his girlfriend, and she was a great girl, but she wasn't the one he thought about every second of every day. When he found out any news, she wasn't the one he wanted to share with. That person was you, the one person he looked forward to seeing every race week.

You weren't dumb; you knew it was wrong. There was nothing anyone could say to condone the affair. The selfish part of you continued it. Each time you thought of ending it, he would whisper sweet nothings into your ear, reassuring you that you were his girl, the one he wanted, and he loved you and only you. And every single time, you believed him.

A part of you should have known how much of an emotional heartbreak it would be to be in this "relationship". The way you couldn't go out to do normal date activities, no longing smiles or someone would catch on, no introducing you as his girlfriend and taking you home to his family. All that there was were late-night calls asking to come over and a few minutes at the paddock before either of you were needed.

Monza was the breaking point for you. It was a great day for Charles, for Ferrari, it should be good for you. Watching Charles, the Prince of Ferrari cross the finish line and take the win home was a momentous occasion. He did it. Ferrari did it.

"YOU DID IT CHARLES!" your joyous voice came on the radio. He replied with as much emotion as he did in Monaco. Hearing that was worth all the stress you both endured this season.

When he got out of the car he ran straight to the Ferrari crew, with you right in the center. His eyes locked onto you and soon a smile spread on his lips bringing you in for a bone-crushing hug. "We did it mon cherie." His voice was soft, not noticeable to anyone around you. But you heard him loud and clear.

"You did it, Prince of Ferrari." You pulled back with a big smile on your face. How you wanted to keep him there longer and kiss him, but you couldn't you weren't his.

After a moment he moved on to other members hugging and shaking their hands before he was needed in the cool down room. When he was on top of that podium it was like nothing else mattered. The loud cheering from the Tifosi crowd, the red smoke, the Ferrari flags, all of that was blind to you. The only thing you could think of was dousing him in champagne after the team picture.

Making your way to the garage it was then that everything hit you. Charles was kissing his girlfriend with their dog in her arms while every camera seemed to be shoved in their face. A perfect couple, a perfect family. Something you will never get to have with him. No matter how many times he told you so in secret, it was never going to happen.

The rest of the day, although filled with cheers and celebrations left and right was a day you wanted to be over. The only thing you wanted to do was to go back to the hotel and sleep. No more racing, no more celebrating, no more thinking. If only it were that easy. Being a vital part of today's win, you were forced to go out and celebrate with the team, with Charles. Fred wouldn't take no for an answer and the publicist would think it was a bad idea if the race-winning engineer was not celebrating with the team, in Ferrari's home nonetheless.

That's how you found yourself at dinner, sitting right across from Charles and his girlfriend. You were lucky to have Carlos next to you. Someone who could distract you from the day. All night you talked with everyone else on the table but Charles. He could tell something was up. He tried to get your attention whether it was nudging your leg under the table or staring right at you. It wasn't till he got you alone in the VIP section of the club that you were dragged to by Carlos.

"What's wrong?" His voice was soft, a tone he normally used with you. The VIP section was thankfully dark enough to hide how close he was to you.

"Crazy day, just tired." You wanted him to get the hint to leave you alone. The talk about fully ending this was not something you wanted to do in a random club celebrating one of Ferrari's greatest days.

"Wanna head out?" There it was, the voice that would get you in trouble. The tone that made you say yes every time, but not tonight, not ever again.

"We can't."

"And why is that?" He teased. Of course, he thought you were playing around or maybe he had a bit too much to drink and wasn't thinking straight. That had to be the reason he was being so bold with his girlfriend in the same building.

"You're girlfriend is here." You watched his smirk turn downward into a frown. He forgot she was here. His focus has been on you since dinner and he forgot he had company this week.

Charles knew he was pushing his luck and being risky, he couldn't blame it on the alcohol because he was well aware of his surroundings to be intoxicated, "Later tonight?"

"No Charles, not ever. We can't do this anymore."

"You don't really mean that do you mon cherie?" His sweet voice ran down your spine as he ran his hands on your exposed tighs. I guess it was now or never, you didn't want to do it in a club, but this needed to end, for the sake of your mental.

"I do. Charles, I love you, I do. And this is fun, but you have someone you get to go home to while you leave my bed at some random hour of the morning making me wake up next to no one. You get to flaunt and take her home while I'm sitting here stupidly thinking that would be me someday. I can't keep being the one you call when you need help or are feeling alone. You have that person already and, no matter how much I want it to be me it's not and it's never going to be. This is where I cut off every connection to you." You tried to be as sincere as possible, but the more you let out the more the words sounded like venom.

He was not hearing any of it—not right now. You were just emotional about the day or maybe had too much to drink; that was the only logical reason. "What the hell are you talking about? How are you cutting me off?"

"Lewis asked if I could be his engineer next year. I said yes a while ago." The mention of his new teammate hit him like a truck. You were being serious. Why else would you bring up Lewis? There was no way you were breaking things off with him personally and professionally. He was losing you either way.

"You're leaving me?! Leaving us?" His voice rose with each comment. Thankfully, the music was blasting, and all the chatter didn't alert anyone else.

"There should have never been us. I'm your race engineer, not your girlfriend. I was just a person who was there for you whenever someone wasn't around. It was wrong of me to do and continue to after that night."

"No, tell me you don't mean that. I need you. You're the one that's always on my mind, I can't get you out of it like that."The look on his face would have made you take back your words any other time. He looked so defeated, voice pleading with you to change your mind.

"I'm sorry."

"So that's it?"

"I'm sorry." You gave one last smile before walking out of the club. You didn't look back because you knew you would fall back into his trance if you did.

#f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc x reader #Spotify

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11vein · 4 hours ago

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Hello! 11vein, this is my first time sending you an ask so I hope I am doing this properly! Anyways—

I want to know what inspired you and everybody else in Team 6x11 to choose to set the story of Qualia Automata in Iraq, out of all the Middle-Eastern countries. Like, I know that Carbon Monoxide on your team is Iraqi, but still, my question remains that why Iraq specifically? I’m not Iraq, but I live in an Arab country and, from my observations of cross-cultural representation, countries like the UAE and Iran and Saudi Arabia, as examples, are usually represented more often in stories set in the Middle East. So I was wondering why you folks chose Iraq as the setting for the story of Qualia Automata, and I’ll be glad to hear how you were inspired to do so as well. Tell me all about what brought the team to the decision. Reply back soon, please!

i wish i could say we had an elaborate reason to make QA's story based out of a futuristic iraq, but it was kinda spontaneous haha. we were deciding the ethnicity of tamari and went with iraqi because some of the members knew someone who was iraqi (carbon monoxide) who we could consult for further ideas. this later led to them being added to the team :) i asked carbon for further input: "while i can't speak for why the team chose to make tamari arab initially, i can say that i haven't seen too many experiences related to my specific ethnicity depicted in media, and it's something i've been wanting to work more towards. iraq occupies an interesting place in american culture, i feel; most americans know of iraq ofc and know of the iraq war, but if u were to ask a random person on the street, they likely wouldn't be able to tell u much about the country outside of that. my family had to escape as war refugees when i was extremely little, but i'd very commonly fly back home to spend long vacations with extended family. i'm very intimately familiar with the effects of war, it was fundamental to my development and my identity as an iraqi person. infrastructure was still ruined from bombs dropping, streets were destroyed or not maintained at all, power would very routinely go out and i vividly remember need to grope around in the dark for flashlights and fighting with my cousins for the limited supply of lamps, and that's all stuff that was YEARS after the actual conflict. not to mention all the generational trauma, the metaphorical and cultural scars that war creates that has ruined people and families.the first-hand accounts of war from the perspectives of my mother and older siblings were extremely harrowing.

when i first moved to america, it shocked me how little people knew about iraq, how deeply-embedded imperialist propaganda was baked within the fibres of american culture. a lot of people i'd met were completely ignorant to this thing that shaped everything about me before i was even born, that blew me away.

qualia automata of course isn't ABOUT the iraq war, it's set years afterwards and it was never meant to really reflect any sort of real-world historical events. but i put a lot of myself and my family into these characters, and just by virtue of me being iraqi and helping write iraqi characters, i've seen war refugees from my country comment on how they relate to what's being represented. fayrouz in particular was the character i had the biggest hand in shaping, and she's someone who's deeply-molded by generational trauma, and the attitudes iraqi women had to adopt in order to survive during such awful times being passed down throughout the years. it's the type of thing only other people with these experiences would be able to immediately point out, but i'm always happy when people do

that and i think it's very useful to just write about iraqi people as, well, people. there's a stigma around arabs especially, but like i said before iraqis occupy a very unique space within american culture, so i think it helps normalize these cultures and experiences by just, having characters exist as they are!"

#qna #qualia automata

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melliae · 1 day ago

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Hong Lu, An Analysis-Prediction

Before beginning, as always, I've to clarify something: I haven't read Dream of the Red Chamber. My best source of information are the thematic connections drawn in the Reddit sub of Limbus, and that only gives me a slight idea of what Project Moon may have in mind.

So, everything below here is complete and utter speculation based on my own knowledge and impressions about Hong Lu's character, Sins, EGOS, and Abnormalities. Beware, and feel free to comment your own opinions!

Now, let's go with the post!

What We Know

So, I think the best way to start this analysis is by recapitulating Hong Lu’s overall character so far. For that, we need to return to the first ever explanation of his personality: the “resume” given in the game page and during his presentation in Selva Oscura.

“As such, he has a certain admiration for a free life; but occasionally, he may make ignorant and unsavory questions in regards to the food cooked by a certain other Sinner or other aspects of the low-lives' lowly culture. [,,,] However, it is important to note that no sarcastic undertones are contained in his curiosity-driven inquiries, so it is ill-advised to let them get physical over it.”

As a general thing… It surprisingly holds up! Don’t misunderstand me, though. It isn’t that the description is perfect; it’s just not untrue. In fact, his first even line in the game, about Dante’s head being some sort of trend and not waiting for an answer, totally falls there. Similarly, there are several other moments showing Hong Lu’s innocence and naivety without any ulterior or hidden motive, from wondering if the casino workers of Canto II were trying to make the Peccatula their pets (likely because his grandmother collects weird animals) to unintentionally insulting Outis’ watch in Canto VI. I’d say the biggest proof of his lack of experience is the moment in Canto V where he adjusted the LCCB badge of a pirate that very obviously wasn’t a member of Limbus. Though all of his weirdness may derive from the fact that his elders—which are weird as hell—are his point of reference.

Now, since his most notable trait has been explained, we can move into the discrepancies of the description, and the biggest one is mentioned at the end: that under Hong Lu's comments there is no sarcasm—which is a complete lie! This man is a menace, and the Sinner’s experiences in District 20 during To Claim Their Bones and Canto VI shows it, from agreeing Caiman’s assessment of LCB to joining Nelly’s teasing, including his lines while helping Heathcliff with his appearance and clothes. But arguably, my favorite example of this is the horror story he told during Canto V that scared Sinclair and which he only finished when the latter ran away. Don't tell me Hong Lu was being innocently insensitive back there: Sinclair was visibly shitting bricks, and the pretty boy here is keen enough to masterfully play the most compassionate and kind member of the League of Nine.

“Brother Young-ji was a man of kindness. He was not one to rashly harbor spite or reproach for others. You resemble him in that sense.” - Yi Sang, Blossoming League of Nine Littérateurs, Canto IV.

Though I suppose the difference between them is that Hong Lu clearly has a more optimistic and fun-loving attitude. This is an obvious trait that he has had since his childhood, when he played with and complained about his “cheating” siblings, sneaked into the dining hall of his manor for snacks, and simply didn’t follow his family’s rules. But since we know his family is extremely strict (if not outright sadistic), this sanguine streak may have developed (or gotten worse) as some sort of defense mechanism, which is seen better with Wakashu Hong Lu and his “lack of manners.” In fact, all of his Identities show an unnatural or improper calmness about his situation, no matter how horrible it is.

Another thing to highlight is his inquisitive, curious, and surprisingly understanding nature. While most of the examples above, especially him playing Young-ji, are proof of that, as it plays very well with his sheltered life. But I want to point out the best and most recent example of Hong Lu’s surprising contemplativeness: Time Killing Time. In particular, the most important scene is near the end, when Rodya and Hong Lu discuss his motivation to pursue the Time Reaper:

“I... just wanted to understand. Because, to me, the world was full of things I couldn't understand. In truth, I still understand so little of it. Why do people hang on so desperately to something like time? Something so... ephemeral?” - Hong Lu, Chapter 15: The Final Problem.

It’s normal to assume Hong Lu’s words are solely referring to the miserable monetary system of T Corp., but I don't think that’s all. We know that Hong Lu and Xinchun are well acquainted with the “immortality of the mind” the elders of their family are obsessed with, and what is immortality but infinite time? Thus, what Hong Lu asked there was why people hang on to the erroneous belief that life should not move or change, remaining constant and hence perfect for the rest of eternity. Yet, that isn’t what life truly is, right? It’s not for nothing that Hong Lu’s introductory quote is that “life has its vicissitudes as jade has its flaws,” which conveys his philosophy of detachment perfectly.

“When you’re distraught, simply remember that life goes on even if what you’re doing now doesn’t work out. Then, you’ll be free of worries.” - LCB Hong Lu

However, while the idea of detaching oneself from the whole without renouncing loving it is respectable, the way in which Hong Lu lives it is far from perfect, because detachment is not about carefreely admitting you will just simply gather the remains of your sister in case she is mutilated or readily accepting a horrible death just because you don’t mind dying. Even he himself admits from time to time, as with his jealousy over Heathcliff’s propensity to “ignore what he doesn’t like” (Rooms Past the Door) or Rim’s capacity to fly freely. In fact, one may even say that he hasn’t become detached at all, because doing so implies the complete acceptance of the “jade’s” beauty and flaws; Hong Lu, however…

“A thousand hours… Will a thousand hours have passed in the blink of an eye? [...] Then... I like that. Rip my time away.” - Hong Lu, Chapter 14: The Clock Tower of Fear, TimeKilling Time.

He has become detached from life altogether, and how could he not with the disaster that his family is? That likely was his only way to survive in such an environment, and unlike the rest of the Jia, he doesn’t seem to have that lucky predisposition for resentment and hatred. Even when his siblings tried to kill him the first time, Hong Lu didn’t come to hate them; he fully understood them because that’s the kind of person he is, just like Young-ji. However, since he realized such a thing through his big heart, he’s now fully aware that he will ultimately and cruelly die by their hands thanks to his love. In such a case, what other option does he have beyond merely “dancing”? A joke here, a sarcastic comment there, and a final appreciation for everyone so nothing is taken seriously and causes dissatisfaction, no matter how dim his eye becomes.

So, as of the 5th Walpurgisnacht, Hong Lu’s character can be summarized as follows:

Has a friendly, compassionate, and understanding personality that clashes against the violent and strict nature of his family.

Became detached over his own life because he can’t bring himself to hate and hurt his family.

His carefree attitude and sheltered life lead him to not understand some of the social conventions of… anyone who still has some respect for their own life.

Has a certain sarcastic and teasing streak, likely originating from both his personality and ideology.

There’s 1 aspect remaining that I didn’t mention above because I think it’s better to analyze Hong Lu’s EGOs first, to see what else we can rescue before giving a sort of “conclusion.”

About EGOs

Before any of you ask, no, I will not analyze Land of Illusion here; it’s best reserved for the next section, about Hong Lu Base ID. Instead, the first EGO I’ll deal with is, fittingly, the first one he ever received: Roseate Desire.

Roseate Desire originates from Pink Shoes, an Abnormality that evidently is an Aberration of Lobotomy Corp.’s Red Shoes, with their shared meaning being that of a single-minded and very violent obsession that’s impossible to resist—one of the purest expressions of Lust. But while Red Shoes and its EGO are fundamentally egoistic, not wanting to share the glory and pleasure of their desire’s fulfillment, Pink Shoes and Roseate Desire are of a softer shade, spreading their overwhelming lust to as many people as possible. The difference becomes clearer when you compare Rodya’s and Ishmael’s respective obsessions: the longing to be special vs. the desire to kill the “source of all evil” in retribution for all she has done.

Applying the former logic to Hong Lu, we can conclude first that he has a desire as strong as Ishmael’s hatred for Ahab, which is quite unexpected for someone who has basically given up on life! Thankfully, the Sin resources his version of Roseate Desire costs tell us a couple of things about his “fixation”: 4 Lust and 2 Envy. The dominance of Lust is self-explanatory, so that leaves us with Envy, which I commented on in the previous section: jealousy over those who can ignore and escape their problems—those who are “free.” Yet, since Roseate Desire and Pink Shoes are characterized by a sort of collective hedonism, so is Hong Lu’s wish to escape his family. Surely such a thing will bring joy to his cut-throat siblings.

And speaking about escapism, Hong Lu’s next two EGOs are all about that, beginning with the one whose Abnormality I analyzed in one of my previous posts: Dimension Shredder.

While Wayward Passenger is an Abnormality that is clearly about the trauma inflicted by W Corp.’s method of operation, it has a secondary meaning that Project Moon uses for its EGO too: being trapped in a horrible duty, necessity, or “path” that makes the individual envious of the life and possibilities others hold. This is best seen with Outis’ Dimension Shredder due to the Envy affinity, though Hong Lu’s Pride version isn’t that far off thanks to the Sin costs: 3 Pride and 3 Gluttony. Basically, it means that Hong Lu is “lost” due to external necessity, by things he can’t control (i.e., his family), but instead of resenting it as any other person would do, he takes pride in that, in having to follow a “terrible path,” because that’s the type of person he knows he is—the kind and understanding one that sacrifices himself.

The second EGO about escapism originates from LobCorp and hence from an Abnormality I haven’t analyzed: Soda and Opened Can of WellCheers, respectively. The two come from a Korean urban legend about people being drugged through juice cans and sold to fishing boats as slaves. Needless to say, the parallels with Hong Lu’s Soda are more than obvious: an envy born from a necessity (Gluttony) that grimly (Gloom) pushed him into a role he doesn’t want. Alternatively, and considering the ending of the Abnormality’s story log in LC, it’s the fulfillment of a fantasy born of jealousy, sadness, and necessity, though that doesn’t explain the Envy affinity of the EGO. Either way, nobody can deny that Soda stands for Hong Lu’s “murdered” wish to flee his circumstances.

The next EGO luckily is from another Abnormality I analyzed some time ago: Ambling Pearl and Effervescent Corrosion. However, unlike Rodya, who keeps the Abnormality’s original meaning mostly intact (safekeeping the “pearl”/one’s meaning from the “filthy” outside), Hong Lu gives it a twist: it’s not about protecting his “life treasure,” but something else

“Faust: For instance, let’s say that Hong Lu held a belief he was certain would be an unchanging constant as he lived in the City. Or, it could be a hope for some other psychological sustainment that has supported his life. Hong Lu: …Hmm. Faust: If that support suddenly collapses in a massively shocking event that causes one to let their “ego” go, his mind would crumble, so to speak. Hong Lu: …Well, I could see that happening. [...] Hong Lu: Hm… I thought I knew, but I can’t seem to elaborate on it with words right now.” - Chapter 3: Hell’s Chicken, Hell’s Chicken.

Unlike Rodya’s desire to be special and her notorious inner conflict, which is reflected in how similar her Corrosion is to a broken Ambling Pearl, Hong Lu is much more secretive about his opinions, usually referring to his frivolous comments instead of using the great insight he has, according to Dante. Nonetheless, even if we don’t exactly know the “core belief” he holds close to his heart (though we should have a general idea at this point), we do know that his version of Effervescent Corrosion, beyond Gluttony or the desire to survive, requires Gloom. So whatever Hong Lu is hiding, it’s far from happy, as his Sin weaknesses further show after EGO usage: weak to Lust and Sloth, to love and inaction—to the idea of not protecting himself.

In a similar vein, Hong Lu’s next EGO is entirely about sadness, as it comes from Blubbering Toad, aka depression incarnated. However, Cavernous Wailing isn’t a Gloom EGO but a Sloth one, and whose Sin costs are Gloom, Sloth, and Pride. That’s to say, Hong Lu’s refusal to take action and the resulting self-pity (“A heart shaken by sorrow bursts… like this.”) are fed by his sadness, indolence, and distorted self-perception, an aggrandized mental image of himself as able to carry all his pain without problem.

“It goes like this. Any of our siblings who managed to survive on their own up to the age of thirteen in our household will probably be a-okay even if they were to be tossed out to the middle of the Outskirts! Hehe…” - Hong Lu, Chapter 20, Canto VII.

Finally, the last EGO is the newly added Lasso, which comes from Rose Hunter, and really, its Mirror Dungeon Encounter puts it the best: Rose Hunter is the one who makes sure all stories follow their natural course, their flow, and “he” is no exception; the Hunter is willing to get lost if that’s the story it must obey. Fittingly, Lasso represents the same idea of not resisting one’s “tale” or “myth,” going along with what’s written not out of indolence or apathy, but because it’s necessary, akin to the motif of the “fetters of fate,” for example. In that regard, their underlying archetype is the same as that of the Orphic Ananke, the deification of the necessity that created the universe, which can be best understood through the following aphorism: existence came to be because it exists. Or put it in a simpler manner: you must follow your nature because that’s who you are.

Hong Lu’s Lasso, in the same way as Faust’s, requires first and foremost Gluttony to work, for that’s the entire deal of the Abnormality. Then comes the Lust requirement, which implies this “work” is also done out of either love or a twisted desire, a mania for things to follow their assigned nature or role. The final Sin cost is the variable one, which for Hong Lu is Pride again, his aggrandized sense of self that drives him to fulfill his role without complaining, solely out of love and necessity.

So, with all the EGOs analyzed, we can rescue the following:

Hong Lu, more than anything, wishes to escape the situation he has been put in. He wants to be free behind all those frivolous and/or insensitive commentaries.

However, due to his upbringing, he “murdered” those wishes so to speak, and remains walking the path his family has put him by many reasons, chief among them his love for them and his distorted perception of his own self.

Thus, all that longing and yearning for freedom remains hidden, barely able to see the light of the day except in the rarest of occasions. That’s likely his “pearl,” the thing that he ultimately hides for his own survival.

About His Base ID and EGO

You know, I have always been curious about why people are so adamant about Hong Lu being depressed. No doubt he has depression at some level, but I don’t think it’s as severe as people normally think it is because his Base ID simply lacks any form of Gloom. This is in stark contrast to Sinners such as Yi Sang, Gregor, and especially Ishmael, since she has a Gloom Base EGO as well. But if such is the case, then what does Land of Illusion means, since it requires Gloom to be used?

However, I think it’s important to understand Hong Lu’s Sin spread first, his psychology in this particular possibility:

His third skill, that is, his most inward and deep trait, is Lust. This Sin placement is only shared with LCB Heathcliff, whose devotion to Catherine is quite literally a multiversal constant as per Canto VI; everything he does, he does it for Cathy. Thus, Hong Lu must have a similarly romantic or affectionate nature, and we know that he isn’t the type to stop “loving” due to the cruelty of a person; his reaction towards the attempt against his life says enough. He even tried to understand the Time Ripper at some level during TimeKilling Time.

His second skill is Sloth, an inaction that’s much shallower but no less decisive, so to speak. One can understand it as deriving from his much more encompassing Lust or Love, which is to say that Hong Lu refuses to take action or initiative in his life out of the love and understanding, in a similar manner to how LCB Faust lets her every move be commanded by the Gesellschaft thanks to her need for self-realization.

Finally, his third skill, his most outward and shallow trait, is Pride. This position is only shared with the Base IDs of Faust (again) and Sinclair, although the former is the easiest one to understand: Faust is somewhat haughty without a doubt, but not egocentric or self-absorbed by any metric; she’s just socially naive and with a great deal of knowledge that tends to ostracize her by her own volition. Pride is, after all, the de facto Sin of distorted self-perception, of thinking you are more capable than you really are.

Again, all of this tells us what we already know: the kindness of Hong Lu, his indolence born out of said kindness, and the weight he alone bears on his shoulders. We can’t even say that he has a low self-esteem unless we include in that definition a “imposing limits on who you are,” which, yes, sounds right, but it leans too much in the territory of semantics for my taste. Furthermore, Hong Lu’s strange relationship with Gloom and sadness can also be contrasted with the Sinners I mentioned before, those with Gloom and whose Cantos are available:

Yi Sang was the living stereotype of the depressed person: cold, distant, unfeeling, dead inside, etc. Whatever you name, Yi Sang likely had it.

Ishamel’s emptiness and self-destructivity were well-hidden until her Canto, during which all hell was let loose.

And Gregor is possibly one of the most realistic approaches of all, as we can see with the flashbacks of his past during Canto I. Even so, he… well, remains somewhat functional (and I’m really stretching the definition there xD)

And don’t get confused. In this case, Gloom isn’t equal to feeling sad or being traumatized by any means; every Sinner has their own share of problems, and not all have Gloom. Sinclair had his family and town massacred thanks to Kromer's obsession with him, for example, and while I don’t doubt he feels a deep sadness and regret about it, he doesn’t have Gloom in his Base ID. The same applies to Rodya, her low self-worth, and her guilt about the fate of her neighbors, lacking any sort of Gloom as well. The most extreme and recent case of this is boss Sancho, who doesn’t have any Gloom skill at all, despite her character and story being more than fitting.

Therefore, Gloom, in the straightest sense and avoiding exceptions or little quips, refers to a deep-seated hopelessness, a melancholy that devours all dreams and hopes, causing one to become completely lost in life. In such a case then, it’s not that Hong Lu isn’t sad or, damn, depressed, but that he knows how to manage such emotions so they don’t overwhelm him as they do with Gregor, Yi Sang, or Ishmael. The same likely happens with his wish to escape and his jealousy, for he seemingly knows that no life is truly a “flawless jade.”

“In a way, we’re all ‘deprived’... and that can change a lot of things. Maybe there are things that we can understand only when we’re left with nothing.” - Hong Lu, Chapter 1: Wuthering Heights, Canto VI.

This self-control naturally falls in line with his inclination for Pride and Lust, creating a sort of “transpersonal” point of view that allows him to curb his emotions in order to understand others. It’s quite Buddhist or Taoist, no? This kind of detachment over life I explained before, I mean. In a way, it strengthens the theory of Jia family elders treating Hong Lu as a golden child, and while he doesn’t seem to really like the idea, he resigned himself to it.

“I can't do much about what I was born with~ To them... I was a gem of a child.” - Hong Lu, Liu Association South Section 5 Uptie Story.

He renounced all the transient things in his life, all of his wishes and sadness, in order to carry out his family’s expectations: the preferred family head candidate. And what is another form to call transient things? Illusions.

Land of Illusion is the culmination of Hong Lu’s hidden sadness, his yearning to escape that will forever remain out of his reach—or at least he thinks so.

“With this there is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior complex, or a Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found.” - Marie-Louise von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus.

Hong Lu doesn’t believe himself to be a savior, naturally. But I cannot deny that it would be very much in character for him to imagine or fantasize about a world where he doesn’t have to fulfill his family expectations, where they can all be happy. That would explain the Lust cost of Land of Illusions, as well as the weaknesses to Envy and Wrath, which are a stand-in for the rejection of his innermost wish.

But alas, at the end, life has its flaws, and there’s no way Hong Lu will raise a fist against his family. Even if his survival depends on it, Hong Lu won’t defend himself because that would mean choosing and thus losing, and there’s nothing more terrifying to the eternal child than losing things. Death is a much more merciful and tempting possibility than acting and suffering.

“The puer aeternus very often has this mature, detached attitude toward life, which is normal for old people but which he acquires prematurely—the idea that life is not everything, that the other side is valid too, that life is only part of the whole existence. [...] So before he has gone down to earth, he already has the offer of death.” - The Problem of the Puer Aeternus.

In this regard, it doesn’t matter much Dante’s rewind or the actual existence of an afterlife. It’s the idea of death as a solution for a hard life, instead of confronting the problem itself, of standing up and withstand the uncertainty and pain of life.

AAt the end of his Canto, Hong Lu will have to stand up for himself and to carry on the pain. That's how a "child" becomes an "adult," or better said, an actual family head.

Post-Commentary

... Yeah.

To be honest, I don't know where the inspiration behind came for this. It just fell on me one day, like Faust's theory. But where I'm confident in that one, I'm completely lost in this post, especially because while the conclusion seems right (standing up to the abuse and expectations coming from one's family), the reasoning is somewhat flimsy? I don't know. I have the feeling that I'm retreating Canto VII's (and even Canto III's) story and themes somehow, though the similarities may be the reason of why Xinchun was introduced, maybe. That would make Don's confusion funnier xD

The final mentions of the puer aeternus (similar to the Peter Pan syndrome, but not quite) are due to how Hong Lu's character screamed "puer" to me, surpassing every other one. The fact his summary highlighted that he is a "bachelor" brought to mind this little quote of Marie-Louise's books:

“The two typical disturbances of a man wh ohas an outstanding mother complex are, as Jung points out, homosexuality and Don Juanism.”

If a man gets around too frequently, he'll obviously not get married. If he's gay, then even less reason to do so or look at women. In this case, the idea is not about the actual sexual orientation of Hong Lu (or the accuracy of the book's assessment), and more about highlighting his refusal to commit.

Also, as a funny note, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus has a fragment that's really similar to, from what I've gathered, the warnings the monks gave to the Stone at the beginning. Since the book also deals with the case of Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince, there may also be something interesting regarding Demian (Limbus', not Hesse's).

Anyway, and repeating myself, if you have any other opinion or thought you want to share, feel free to do so! Similarly, if you notice any orthographical or grammatical error, let me know. It's difficult to see them, even when using several online tools...

#limbus company #hong lu #canto 7 spoilers #canto vii spoilers #canto viii speculations #canto 8 speculations #limbus company theory

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genderqueerdykes · 7 hours ago

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how do endogenic systems work i genuinely can't wrap my head around how that is

i can try to help!

plurality is just a thing that can happen. human brains are capable of doing a lot. if our brains are capable of producing one "personality", (which, it's very nebulous to define the line between having one and multiple personalities), it can create more with ease. it doesn't have to come from trauma! trauma is not the only reason someone's mind might start creating multiple people, it may just happen because that's how their brain is wired!

saying that plurality ONLY comes from DID or OSDD is unnecessarily medicalizing and pathologizing plurality. these are NOT experiences that need to be considered inherently disordered. many people are plural and do not have mental health issues or trauma or medical conditions because of it. also keep in mind that the medical complex is fueled completely by money, and there is already so little research into DID and OSDD that we're not even coming close to scratching the surface on plurality. it's so SO poorly researched that I'd argue that the bulk of statistics on DID and OSDD are very, very unreliable.

saying that plurality can only happen if it's due to DID or OSDD is an appeal to authority. when one does this, they are appealing to the medical complex, a cold industry that is only there to make money and not care about the well being of its patients. it's not improving DID and OSDD systems' quality of life by telling people there's only 1 way to be plural. we actually don't even know that for sure! there's NOWHERE near enough emperical evidence done on plurality for me to accept that dissociative plurality is the only "real" plural experience. the reason there's such little information on it is because the research just isn't being done, and that doesn't discredit the people who are experiencing it.

also, in some cultures, it is actually very common to experience a form of plurality. in some cultures, people believe that they are able to channel deceased family members and other individuals through their own mind and body. some of these people end up believing that those folks are with them with life, occupying their mind and body with them. this should not be discredited just because that person is not having a mental health issue! there is also a lot of documented phenomena of people being able to construct thoughtforms if they are able to put their minds to it for long enough and/or as a meditative practice. there are cultural and religious applications of this. many writers end up accidentally creating thoughtforms out of their own characters, which can think independently of them, and even talk to them. this too can be considered a form of plurality

hope that helps somewhat! feel free to ask any more questions you may have :D

thanks for the addition!

#asks #answers #plurality #plural #plural gang #pluralgang #plural system

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clovesnz · 9 months ago

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CW c*vid

People who get sick and do not test for Covid (who have the financial means to easily do so) and yet still hang around people w out a mask or anything can choke honestly

#not literally choke #because the person in question is a family member #refuses to test because she has this incredibly toxic belief that nothing bad ever happens or her #so even though she is ill with all the symptoms she will not test #because she “knows it’s not Covid’’#currently in my room sobbing because the anxiety of being in the house with her just…not giving a shit #cw covid

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hylianane · 2 months ago

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A big part of the Haikyuu rewatch is watching the characters interact and worrying that I fandomized their relationships too much in my head, particularly with the Karasuno first years because Hinata and Kags keep Yamaguchi and Tsukishima at arm’s length for so long. But then I remember. Oh wait the squad is literally Hinata’s phone background by the end of the story. You don’t put a picture of just some dudes in your after school club as your phone background.

#ane discovers character development takes time who wouldve thought #personally I think wthe change happens when Yachi and Tsuki start tutoring them #It’s around the time that there’s a shift in their bickering so that it’s more. ‘familial’ isnt the term I’m looking for but like #the kind of razzing you can only do with someone you know #Tsukishima for example starts bringing up specific things they studied together to dunk on Kageyama not remembering any of it #And another subtle thing I noticed- cause again I started going like ? did I fandomize my entire perception of Tadashi too much?#cause for the first season he doesn’t interact with ANYONE but Tsuki. Like practically not at all except to brag about Tsuki to others #But I have a sneaking suspicion that this starts to change around the time that he starts getting on the court more often as a pinch server #Probably because it gives him more courage #Cause I remember him having a lot to say in the Shiratorizawa match #and I remember him getting along with Yachi! So like I’m keeping an eye out for those changes #haikyuu!!#Also my favorite part about rewatching Haikyuu is how the reveal of Kag’s backstory really does affect. Your entire perception of him #Like I know its probably cause he’s my fav but I always feel so frustrated when people assume the worst of him and so sad that even Oikawa-#who knew him back when he was a very happy and shy kid- doesn’t even question why his personality had such a sudden shift #but then I realize that the only reason I’m so aware of these changed is because Kageyama has ‘opened up to me’ as an audience member befor #Furudate waited hundreds off chapters to tell us that he’s been grieving a loved onesince a little before the very first scene of the manga #So that it would feel like we earned it #Idk how to explain it like when you meet someone who’s hurting it takes a lot of effort and patience for them to tell you why #in the same way bc we stuck by the story for so long and watching Kageyama learn to be more open #we got the privilege of learning why he was closed off in the same place #but Kageyama didnt give anyone at his old school the chance to stick around- not Kindaichi or Kunimi or anyone #So it makes total sense #kageyama tobio #hinata shouyou #yamaguchi tadashi #tsukishima kei #yachi hitoka #karasuno first years #my post

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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 1 year ago

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hii 📓

Okay so the thing is that I wanted a “the Zenin raised Megumi instead of Gojo” fic but the thing is that I’m absolutely convinced that if the Zenin were the ones that took Megumi they wouldn’t actually take tsumiki too. The fandom consensus I’ve personally seen has been that she would have been taken and mistreated by zenin for being a female non sorcerer but I personally think they would have just straight up left her behind.

They only bought Megumi. They keep non sorcerers and women as servants in their compound but all of them are Zenin themselves. Tsumiki isn’t related and I couldn’t really see any reason why they’d want her. Which turned this into a fic where Tsumiki loses her brother, but she’s trying to find him again, she swears. I think of it as my “siblings doomed by the narrative desperately try to write a new one where they can be together” fic.

The thing is that Tsumikis mom was one of those people who thought love and consumption were synonymous. She had a habit of getting caught up with assholes and just… having both of them chew on each other for a while until it turns into this horrible fucking bloodbath.

Tojis just another loser her mom got caught up in, but he’s Tsumiki’s favorite out of all the losers, because he gave her her brother. Her mom marries this random guy she barley knows and Tsumikis pretty sure she does it so they can both ditch their kids twice as much, secure in the knowledge that there’s supposedly another person checking in. It works out great for them, because they both stop coming entirely. It’s fine, because Tsumiki has Megumi and Megumi has Tsumiki and they don’t need anything else.

It’s one of those things where they were in really unhealthy circumstances and it made their relationship a little bit unhealthy but not necessarily bad. They both had to grow up way too fast and deal with way too much too soon and become codependent on each other because they are, in the most literal way possible, dependent on one another. Neither of them know how to love in a way that doesn’t involve sacrificing themselves for their sibling, mostly because they don’t have a way that doesn’t involve that.

They’re in a sinking ship and tsumiki knows it. Their parents aren’t coming back. The money is going to run out sooner or later. Their problems are stacking up.

Megumi has confessed to her that he sees things that no one else does. When she asks him how he knows no one else sees them, he explains that they’d say something if they did and won’t say anything else. And she doesn’t know what to believe but she refuses to call him crazy. He tells her that monsters cling to her back and he fights them off for her. She patches up his bruises and cuts and tells him he’s brave and tries to figure out if she’s just imagining that her back feels lighter after. He tells her that there are dogs that only he can see that have started following him around, and she tells him she believes him and can never remember, later, if she meant it or was just saying it.

The last time Toji came by, he left them more money than tsumikis ever seen in her life, took them to ice cream, told them that he was sorry he was so shit at this and that the money was Megumi’s share in a payment. It was for something he was going to help daddy with later. Tsumiki and him were to use it to take care of themselves and be healthy, because Megumi couldn’t help him later if he wasn’t. And tsumiki was always afraid of what he meant by that, but in the end, she let it slip her mind. After all, Toji hadn’t been by in ages. He probably wouldn’t come by at all.

And he didn’t. But others did. Two men she’s never met before are waiting outside their building one day, and when they see Megumi, they laugh. But the thing that Tsumiki can never get out of her mind later is that she swears they weren’t looking at Megumi directly. They were looking at his dogs.

Tsumiki basically tries to get Megumi and powerwalk past them, but they’re a lot bigger and a lot stronger and there’s nothing she can do, really. They have a brief conversation about whether they should take her too, before one decides that Toji only sold him his kid and to leave the other behind. This makes both of them try to run, but there’s nothing either of them can do to overpower the men, and the men say that “Naobito would go ballistic if they left the ten shadows behind” so they take Megumi and leave her.

They put Megumi in a car and shove Tsumiki to the curb outside of it, and she tried to hold onto his hand, she swears. She grabbed at the car door even when the car started moving, and she banged on the windows, and she watched as Megumi kicked and punched and screamed inside, until one of them hit him and he went still. She ends up falling and hitting her head when the car picks up speed, and when she wakes up again, the cars gone and she has no idea where it went.

And it becomes a foundational moment for who she is. I think she was just intensely lonely before Megumi and poured a lot of herself into this idea of a family together. Tsumikis never able to shake the moment of her being outside the car and Megumi being on the inside, and not being able to get into him. She can never again get what she felt in that moment out of her head.

She goes to the police and tells them that it’s her little brother, his dad sold him but she wants him back, and they’re like “…”. The issue is that apparently her mom can pick up the damn phone if the police call and she shows up, spins some lie about how her and the stepdad split up and he took the kid with him, they never adopted each others kids so it was within his rights, Tsumiki was taking the separation hard and acting out. She lies, basically, because toji hadn’t kept up his end of the deal and dropped in to check in (neither had she) and his kid wasn’t her responsibility, he could do what he wanted with him. She doesn’t want the police poking around the way she lives. Just let the kid go because he’s probably dead and not her real brother anyway.

Tsumiki refuses to give up on him. They were both kids who no one cared about but they cared about each other and that had to be enough. But she’s seven with no support and zero idea on how to find him. She starts skipping school to look for him in random streets, puts up flyers, can’t go outside without looking for him. She gets held back a year in school because of how much she skips and she can’t bring herself to care. She buys him gifts on every birthday and writes him letters she can’t post because she’s going to find her brother and she’s going to prove to him that she never once stopped looking for him. She just. She needs him to know that she never stopped looking for him. She needs to find him and be able to honestly tell him she never stopped trying.

One day her mom comes back in clothes she can’t afford and comes with movers they shouldn’t be able to afford and announces a move they definitely can’t afford. Tsumikis absolutely opposed to going because if her brother comes to look for her, she needs to be in their old apartment so he can find her. She doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. They have mysterious new benefactors who are setting up a trust to take care of tsumiki with a very generous stipend for her mom but they have to move to Sendai as a stipulation of getting the money.

It’s not until the attorney who’s managing her trust hands her a set of glittery blue butterfly hairpins that tsumiki realizes her mom sold her brother a second time.

The thing is that tsumiki had this one cheap set of butterfly hairpins she’d always stopped to look at in the store when she took Megumi to go grocery shopping. Shed never buy them, because they couldn’t afford it, but it was the thing she wanted most openly in front of him. She was always secretly really insecure about her hair, because they were the kind of poor where bar soap was a luxury they could only sometimes afford and kids at school made fun of how her hair was dirty and frayed. Megumi was the only one who ever saw how badly she wanted those stupid hair clips. If they had to give her a set of butterfly hair clips, it’s because he demanded that they did.

It’s basically implied that the Zenin are the ones paying for her care and upkeep due to an unspecified deal they cut with Megumi, but when they approached her mom with it, they added the caveat that Tsumiki had to be moved to a new city entirely and there could be no forwarding address left anywhere.

The zenins stance on tsumiki is, effectively, that she’s a weakness Megumi needs to be weaned off of. They honestly assumed he’d just like, forget she ever existed and he. Did not do that. He actually pitched a total bitch fit. Tried to scale the compound walls. Bit multiple people including the clan leader. But he’s got the ten shadows, he’s heir to the clan, and he can’t be caught up on some random non sorcerer who isn’t even a Zenin. They end up agreeing to pay for her to live very comfortably if he starts cooperating more but they want to make sure that he can’t ever find her again if he does ever succeed in running away.

Tsumiki is at once full of hope and hopeless, because on one hand, the butterfly clips prove that Megumi still loves her and remembers her, at least in her mind. But at the same time, she’s being moved to Sendai and doesn’t know how they’ll ever find each other again. She doesn’t honestly know if they’d recognize each other if they saw each other again. She wears the butterfly clips every day, even when she gets too old for the style, because she’s more confident about her brother recognizing them than her.

The thing about tsumiki is that she doesn’t understand hate. She just doesn’t. Her mom and toji always got caught up in these perceived slights and revenge and never once let go of the past. They’d destroy themselves if it meant taking down the people they hated with them. She never wanted that. She wanted to live with the people she loved and she’d happily turn around and forget everything, all the pain, all the searching, if it just meant she could go back to being megumis sister.

This isn’t about hate. This is about that moment outside the car, where her brother was inside and she couldn’t get in to him. This is about how helpless and small she felt when they shoved her to the curb and ripped megumis hand out of hers. She needs to make sure that when she finds Megumi, she can take him home again. So she decides she needs to learn how to fight.

Itadori Yuuji has the constitution of an ox and the strength to match it, and he is known for getting in fights with bullies and trouncing them so thoroughly that it’s never a question of who wins when the fight starts. He’s insanely physically capable and can hold his own in a fight with ease. He’s also nice and kind and Tsumiki’s comfortable enough asking him to teach her how to throw a punch or two.

She is bad at it.

So fucking bad at it.

But she never gives up, and Itadori is nice enough to keep teaching her despite how embarrassingly horrible she is at it all. He always asks her why she wants to learn so bad, she doesn’t seem to like it all, and she never answers his question honestly.

In their last year of middle school, their class has a trip to Kyoto. She, Itadori, and the rest of their group walk into some random restaurant in the city and have barely sat down when someone comes inside, starts searching every booth in the restaurant while shouting Tsumikis name.

And oh. They could recognize each other after all.

She looked for Megumi in every crowd she was ever in, but she didn’t consider that he was doing the same. Or that he would see her first.

Her brother grew up without her seeing it. Hes older, dressed in strange, expensive clothes, has a slightly bruised up face and split lip, but his eyes are the same, and he looks like the brother she remembered.

But a lot more nervous than Megumi ever was. He was a tiny, stoic child who didn’t take any shit and never showed fear, even when there were monsters that only he could see. But he’s nervous when he tells her that she probably doesn’t recognize him or remember him, but when she was a lot younger, he—

Megumi. He’s her little brother. Of course she remembers him. She’s been looking for him everywhere.

Megumi didn’t smile much as a child, but he smiles at her then. He tells her he doesn’t have a lot of time and she tells him that they can leave out the back, and he never let her hold his hand as a child but he takes her hand so easily in that second. And just for a second, she’s his sister again, and it’s everything she wanted.

They never make it out the back.

Two men come in. Megumi calls one of them uncle, and he goes stiff and flat the second he sees him. His uncle apologizes for his nephew, tells everyone that he always makes scenes when they’re out in public, tells him to apologize to the nice people and leave. Megumi was mistaken.

Tsumiki tríes to keep ahold of his hand. Really, she does. She tries to tell people to call the police. But megumis “uncle” steps towards her and Megumi slams him into a table, and then suddenly Megumi’s the one insisting that they leave immediately. They can go. It’s fine. They’re leaving. She loses ahold of his hand.

She tries to follow, but the other man restrains her. She learns that she’s better at slamming plates into peoples heads than she is at punching, and at this point itadoris Friend In Danger Override has been triggered and he fucking tackles the dude, which gives tsumiki the clearing that she needs to chase outside after her brother. She gets out just in time to see him be pushed into a car, and she’s had years to think about the last time this happened and figure out what to do differently. She throws herself in front of the car and refuses to move.

See her entire stance is that she’ll sooner get run over and killed in the street than let them do this a second time, but she also can see Megumi trying to fucking punch the drivers head in from behind because he’s about to hit his sister. His uncles trying to restrain him, and just for a second, she sees his hands make the shape of the shadow puppets he used to show her as children. Something invisible slams her out of the way just as his uncle knocks him out.

She picks up a rock and tries to smash in the fucking window with it, and itadori has to pull her out of the way to keep her from getting her feet run over when the car finally tears out of the parking lot. She goes ballistic on him for stopping her because her brother was right there and she lost him again and she didn’t even get the license plate. He was right there.

The police basically do jack all again. There’s no license plate, no names they can follow up on, and they’re still half convinced this is a settled custody issue even though tsumiki insists her brother was sold by his dad and is very plainly getting hurt wherever he is. Itadori is now a devoted advocate of finding tsumikis brother and reuniting them, and both basically kind of end up becoming really close to the other? He’s taking care of himself and his grandpa alone, she’s alone while her moms awol again, and they both become the others support system.

At one point, there’s this random girl and boy who doesn’t speak who shows up to their school for indeterminate reasons. The girl is bored and twirling her glasses in one hand while the person in a suit that they’re with asks the principal questions, and when tsumikis eyes catch at the right angle, she sees an invisible monster clinging to a classmates back through them. She realizes it’s exactly what Megumi always talked about and still remembers that the people who took him could see his dogs. She corners the two others in a room and tries to demand information about the invisible monsters or see if they know her brother or the people who took him, and immediately gets blown off. The fight escalates until the girl tells him that actually, yeah. She knows tsumikis brother. He is a very special person to some very powerful people, and the only way she can ever help him is to tell him that she’s let go of him and that he needs to do the same to her. That’s the only message that the people who have him would ever let get through, and his life would get a lot better as soon as he got it.

The people who have him would give him anything in the world, except for her. He could be a lot happier and healthier than he is right now if he just agreed to stop trying to find tsumiki. If she really wants to help her brother, then she needs to let him go.

Tsumiki nails her in the back of the head with a milk carton when she tries to walk away. It sloshes out on her. Tsumiki did not intend this. She cannot admit that fact. There are some actions you just have to own when you do them. She tells the girl that he’s her brother and she’s never letting go of him. She’s going to find him. They can’t keep him from her forever. She doesn’t care how long it takes her.

For a second, tsumiki really thinks this girl is going to kick her ass, but she doesn’t. She wishes her luck and tells her she’ll need it, and it’s only later that tsumiki realizes she slipped the eyeglasses into her pocket.

And as it turns out, her brothers monsters were real all along.

There was a knife that toji left in the frame of his bed. Tsumiki confiscated it from Megumi as soon as he found it, and it was odd and strange and gave her bad feelings when she held it, and it can kill the things that gather on her back. When she follows Itadori to their local high school and joins the occult club in an attempt to find more people involved in this world of invisible monsters, she wears the eyeglasses and keeps the knife hidden in her bag.

It comes in handy when her senpais are trying to open this thing and suddenly there’s like a fucking portal opening and Actually Let’s Not Oh Too Late Let’s Run Let’s Fucking Run.

They run.

Meanwhile at the hospital Megumi found out in very quick succession that his sister has fucking sukunas finger and also that there’s a very over enthusiastic himbo who is the self appointed vice president of the Find Fushiguro Megumi And Bring Him Home Club who absolutely fucking refuses to leave his side. Sorry who are you. Why are you so enthusiastic about finding him. Megumi sort of was the one doing the finding there was a whole tracking situation and him waiting dramatically in the shadows like they just did it.

Anyway they run very very quickly to tsumikis school where she is dodging she is serpentining this is a fuckton of monsters oh holy fuck is that her brother?

The fight goes bad.

Tsumiki manages to follow itadori and her brother out at a much slower pace because she’s not a freak of nature like itadori and shows up just in time to see her brother shouting at itadori to not eat the fucking finger while itadori is absolutely trying to eat the fucking finger.

She chucks her shoe at him. The finger goes flying.

Then the monster eats it instead.

Tsumiki: :o

Yuuji: :o

Megumi: fuck

Now there’s a bigger monster and the fight goes even worse. There’s a lot of shouting. Itadori ends up with her knife. Then he ends up getting eaten and they’re down both a knife and itadori, who’s probably fucking dead. Then megumis insisting she run and she’s insisting he shut the fuck up because it’s sort of taken a decade to get this close to him again and she’s not fumbling the bag now because of a monster on the rampage. Have a sense of fucking priorities here.

Then itadori bursts out of the monsters stomach with the knife like the fucking Kool Aid Man and the fight is suddenly very over. Good job, team.

Gojo rolls up to his most stoic and eternally pissed off student having a dramatic and emotional reunion with his sister.

Yuuji, in a very bad whisper: no no so like she’s been looking for him for years but he saw her in the restaurant

Gojo: :o go on

Yuuji: and then he got caught by like, I don’t know, he said he was his uncle or something but the dude acted so weird and creepy and they put him in a car and Tsumiki tried to stop the car but they got away

Gojo: *gasp* what no

Yuuji: I know! Anyway then I start helping her look for him but we can’t find him anywhere until I’m at the hospital and he just walks up to me right?? And I’m like “dude I have been looking everywhere for you” and he’s like “I have no idea who you are, I’m here about that fucked up demon finger” and I’m like—

Megumi, really trying to have a moment here: we can both hear you

And megumis like “this is uh. My new teacher. I guess. I am his only student. And he is uh. Enthusiastic. Do not linger in conversation with him.”

Tsumiki is lingering. She needs fucking intel so he can’t disappear again. Where does he go to school and can she transfer there. It’s fucking wizard school? Will they take her even though she’s not a wizard? She cannot emphasize enough that she will study any fucking subject they want so that way she can be close with her brother again she does not care if it’s applicable to her education or life. She can throw things at people itadori tell the man tell him how enthusiastically she will throw things at monsters for their weird fucking wizard school.

Itadori: she hit me in the face with her shoe like five minutes ago

Tsumiki: see???

Megumi keeps trying to forbid her from wizard school but she’s technically the older sister so she has override rights. She will go to wizard school. How does she get wizard school to accept her.

And Gojos just really weird and off and keeps looking at Megumi and saying that he “didn’t know he had a sister.”

He really didn’t know that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with.

And then suddenly it’s like a switch is flipped and he’s back to his normal self telling them to leave everything to him, because he’ll make sure tsumiki can come back with them. And uh? Itadori? Weirdly physically capable kid who will apparently eat anything? Is he going to be good getting home after all this?

Itadori: actually if it’s not too much trouble can I go to wizard school too my grandpa sort of died half an hour ago and I don’t have plans for the rest of my life. Tsumikis kind of my best friend and I’d like to make sure she’s all good at wizard school. I’m a really good fighter and I stabbed the last monster so like can I come too because you know. Dead grandpa. No family or future to speak of. Haha.

Gojo:

Megumi:

Tsumiki, softly: dude

There’s more after they make it to jujutsu high but this is already really long so we leave it here

#ask games #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #continuing my streak of becoming obsessed with minor background characters #other highlights include itadori trying to platonically wingman for tsumiki with her brother (because it’s been like a decade and she knows #nothing about him and he knows nothing about her and she’s terrified he won’t like her once they get to know each other again) so that way #itadori can be the one asking the get to know you questions and tsumiki doesn’t have to admit out loud that she and her brother know nothing #about each other only the inherent problem is that her brother is actually unfairly pretty and has a sort of dry wit and is reserved but #when you get to know him he’s such a genuine dude and oh fuck oh no he’s in trouble this is his best friends long lost brother he has to be #violating some kind of code here. Kugisaki stop laughing at him this is a crisis.#gojo basically backed out of teenage fatherhood when he saw Megumi walking around with the divine dogs because it’s one thing to butt heads #with a major clan over an outcast member it’s another to do it for their most sacred technique #he thought that Megumi would be better taken care of than anyone else in the clan as the person with the ten shadows and that he’d probably #be better off than with an emotionally broken seventeen year old who works at least 28 days a month and has no idea how to raise a child #he never realized that Megumi had a sister he wanted to stay with who the Zenin separated him from #he tells himself he would have intervened if he had known because he’s been secretly worried and guilty about not taking in Megumi after all #since Maki showed up and said some worrying things about the clan heir and his standard of living and got the confirmation when he met #tsumiki and realized that he could have kept them together all those years ago and didnt. megumi and tsumiki kind of haunt him with lost #potential because not only could they have grown up a family but they could have grown up his family. megumi doesn’t know why satoru gojo #of all people is being so weirdly helpful and intense about about sponsoring tsumiki and keeping her close to him

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