#but I did kill a lot of innocents with raiding and things!

[jellykyunnie]

˗ˏˋ Entry : 062 - E-Rank! Sung Jinwoo x Fem! Reader: First Date ◛⑅·˚ ♡ ˎˊ˗

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚ 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕘 𝕁𝕚𝕟𝕨𝕠𝕠 ˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

╰┈➤ ❝ [ Just say my name || Speedin' to you baby switching lanes ] ¡! ❞

"Jinah, do I look alright?" Jinwoo sighs, seemingly a bit stressed as he tries to fix his unkept hair.

"Nah, you look as stupid as ever" She teases, laughing at her brother who retaliates by pinching her cheek. "Ow, ow!"

She wriggles out of her brother's hold, lightly smacking a throw pillow on his arm, "Ugh, you're just going on a date and you're this nervous? Man, you're hopeless"

"I'm not buying you chicken wing anymore with how insolent you are to you big brother" Jinwoo teases, ruffling up her hair just to piss his little sister off even more.

"Hey, don't be like that" She grits her teeth, pouting at her brother who only smiles innocently as if he does no wrong. "Just don't piss yourself trying to get a girlfriend."

"... And I better not be coming home with mess all over the house" He simply deflects her insult, not entirely sure if even he can keep calm during his first date (but surely he wouldn't get that bad, right) "Do you laundry at the exact hour, I want this place spotless by the time I come back or I'm forcefeeding you salad for the next three weeks."

"What a jerk, taking out his anger on me when he screws up his date"

Her jokes were met with deaf ears as Jinwoo put on his shoes and went out the door.

It took him a total of 7 attempts on asking you out for a date. He was supposed to do the 7th one before his double dungeon raid that actually killed him but backed away last minute because he was too nervous to actually form words.

He doesn't know how he did it this time, but he did and got to ask you out on a date on some stroke of luck that he didn't fumble (well he did a few times) to say it aloud. Actually, he nearly yelled too.

But nobody will talk about it, surely you will forget about his stutters.

Anyway, he fixed his hair again by looking at his reflection on his phone screen before shoving it into his pocket. He waited for a few minutes near the station until he hears the familiar taps of your footsteps coming his way.

As weird as it is, Jinwoo started recognizing footstep patterns ever since he got the system. Though he's only arounf level... 50? He had a ton of upgrades, it's no surprise his senses will pick up on the oddest things.

"Sorry, am I late?" Your soft voice breaks through as he was a bit lost in his train of thoughts.

"Ah, huh? No... No, I just arrived" He pushes himself off of the wall he was resting on, trying his best not to show how flustered he is at the moment. "How about we get lunch first?"

"Sure!" You beam, accepting the hand he was awkwardly holding out.

꒰ .... ꒱

Jinwoo swore to himself he wouldn't be too nervous today, but he ended up biting his own tail with how antsy he was all day. He never went out on a date before, but he wanted today to be the best day for you to some extent.

It's his first date, who would want to screw it up? He could only really wish for the best. But with your adorable expression right now, he could atleas tbe a bit relieved right?

"How cute" You say, looking down on the claw machine holding a bunch of plushies. "They're huge too."

"Well, they look like they are half your size" He said as he looks down on the machine. "It even looks like you"

"Hahah" You softly shove his arm before pointing at a black kitty plush inside. "That one looks like you, now I kinda want it"

"Pfft...." He shakes his head, knowing you're making fun of him since the cat had a rather sleepy look to it's face. "Alright, stay here"

You waited for a little while and he returns with a single token in hand.

"I used to play this game a lot for my little sister when we were kids, I think I can win you that one." Jinwoo says, pretending he absolutely wont use dominator's touch to save time and let you enjoy the plushie sooner than later.

Of course, he keeps a close eye on you as you waited in baited breath as he catches(cheats) to get you the plushie. Well he won. Of course he does. Dominator's touch is surprisingly so handy even outside of combat. (As if he doesnt also use it when he feels too lazy to reach for the the tv remote)

Jinwoo merely hands you the plushie, smiling as if he didn't use dirty tricks.

You wont know anyway, with how cute and bubbly you are right now— You totally don't even realize, so it's fine really. He'll just keep it a secret as he fondly watches you gush over the cute plushie you consider as a mini him.

"I'll name him Jinwoo" You beam proudly, skipping in your steps as Jinwoo himself merely chuckles and shakes his head.

"So I'm a dad now?" He asks as you nod your head. "Hahah."

"Well, it looks like you so?" You only smile, making his heart flutter even ore at the sight of your happy and pretty face nuzzling against the little thing.

"Then Jinwoo jr will be in charge of making sure mom doesn't get any nightmares and keep her pretty little head full of blissful dreams" He gently pokes its tiny nose, deciding to play along with your game. "And you, should be going home now"

"Already?" You pouts as he gently guides you back to the train station. "But I'm having way too much fun"

"I know, but we're both busy tomorrow, so you need a lot of sleep" Jinwoo shook his head, before throwing another smile "I take it you will say yes when I ask you for another date?"

"...."

You ponder for a little while before standing on your feet and kissing his cheek, "That answers your question, right?"

You then turn away to go up the station, leaving the poor hunter frozen on his spot to process what the hell just happened. Jinwoo's heart raced at an impossible speed as the gears in his brain were seemingly put on a screeching halt.

It took him a while to recover but eventually he turns around and silently hums to himself, his fair cheeks dusted with a faint hue of pink as he revels in his victory.

Who was that goddamn ahjussi who said E-ranks cant get into dates and be succesful? He hopes to see that bastard again and throw him a middle finger because that is a total lie.

After all, the unfortunate E-rank him who has nothing much to show has gotten your heart. Isn't that a win?

In a way, he wanted to know too. Will you, who is just a normal person— Accept the him today who has nothing much to show? And today answered his doubts.

Now Jinwoo is completely sure of his decision of falling for you. Since you are here for the him today, he'll make sure the him tomorrow will be at your mercy once he gains the right and capabilities to be an S-ranker.

꒰ 🪼 A/N: a fluffy sung jinwoo fic because I am feeling particularly more in love with him as of late. I'll try to do hsr content I swear heheh.... But for now I hope you are alright with just me gushing over my main hubby woowoo<33. ꒱

ʚ(੭´͈ ᐜ `͈)੭ .｡✧: ~♡ —! stories written by kyunnie; translations, reposts, plagiarism are strictly forbidden.

[ladykailitha]

Forever Young Part 7

I know it's supposed to be Dragon Slayer this week, but this this story taking over for Spellbound on Sundays after tomorrow, it would have either been back to back chapters on Saturday and Sunday or two weeks in a row of Dragon Slayer instead. And considering this has a much larger backlog of 5 to 3 of Dragon, soooo...

Enjoy this chapter!

In which there is a battle for a frog and Steve is acting strangely.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

~

Once they got the kids into fitting clothes, Wayne had to surreptitiously raid the Wheeler garage for Nancy’s old clothes, whatever had been missed in the purge after the earthquake had been sent to donation, they got them playing kick the can outside with Lucas and Mike out there playing with them.

“Growing up four years overnight,” Max said, from her perch on the sofa, “is hellva a lot. Like whatever this is, it seems to be wearing off.”

“But why overnight?” Dustin asked, tilting his head with his hands on his hips. He chosen not sit down as he was too on edge to sit still for long.

“Yeah,” Will said from the arm chair. “That seems oddly specific.”

El cocked her head to the side and asked, “Could it be magic?”

“What?” Wayne asked, eyes wide.

“I mean monsters and psychic abilities are real,” she said with a shrug, “so why couldn’t magic?”

Dustin rubbed his chin. “I mean we didn’t find anything in the garbage that was unusual, but we’ve ruled out everything else out.”

“That’s pretty big wish,” Max agreed. “And one I can believe they’d make.”

Everyone agreed. Who wouldn’t want to be a kid for a couple of days. No responsibilities or having to deal with a gaggle of teenagers constantly begging for some favor or another.

Suddenly there was a shriek of first shock and then outrage and they were on their feet in an instant.

They barely made it to the front door when they heard Little Eddie cry out.

“Don’t hurt him! He’s just chilling!”

Little Nancy was holding a small frog in her hand, arm pulled back as if she was going to throw the offending creature.

“You put him on me!” she said, “Why shouldn’t I throw him?”

“I didn’t!” Little Eddie cried. “Jumped out of my pocket! I wouldn’t put him on some smelly ole girl!”

“You don’t call her smelly, Munson,” Little Jonathan said, jumping between them with his fists up. “I’ll fight you!”

“Peace is over,” Wayne commented dryly. “Yesterday was the soft round, now you’re about to be thrown into the gauntlet.” He strode past the kids who were staring at the scene in shock.

Little Steve stepped up next to Eddie while Little Robin wailed in the background.

“Don’t kill it, don’t kill it,” she sobbed. “It’s innocent!”

“Nancy Wheeler!” Wayne growled and grabbed her wrist. “You put that frog down nice and gentle. Just because he doesn’t look pretty doesn’t mean you can go tossing him around and disrespecting him.”

Little Nancy looked up at him in wide-eyed shock. She had never had an adult that wasn’t her parents tell her no before. She was good at charming teachers and baby-sitters alike.

“But it’s just a frog,” she said blinking up at him. “They make tons of little tadpoles. I’ve seen them!”

Wayne carefully removed the frog from her grasp and handed it back to Little Eddie, who took it tenderly in his hands. “And very few of them make it adulthood, and the fact that the little guy made this far is further proof deserves to live and not have some little end it because he jumped on her.”

As if to prove his point the frog leapt out of Eddie’s grasp this time at Jonathan.

Little Jonathan jumped back, but the frog merely used him to leap off onto the ground. Little Eddie and Little Steve both dived for the creature and bonked their heads as the frog leapt from them. Wayne deftly caught the thing and sighed as it ribbited at him.

“Ed...” he said with a note of warning in his voice, “where did Mr. Frog come from?”

Little Eddie looked up at him with big brown eyes that he had yet to grow into and his lower lip quivered. “If I tell, you’re gonna put him back.”

“Yes,” Wayne said dryly and turned to glare at Little Nancy, who withered under his glance, “if nothing else but to keep him safe.”

Little Eddie glanced at the girl sidelong and then back at Wayne. He rubbed his forehead with a sigh. “In the backyard, there is a little circle of trees that has a pond. It’s got birds and fish and stuff. He hopped right up to me. Can’t I keep him?”

Wayne’s expression softened. He always did have a hard time saying no to that face.

“I’ve got an old aquarium,” Little Steve said shyly. “Mom got a couple of fish once, but got bored with it after awhile. She got rid of the fish, but the aquarium is in the garage. We can keep him in there, can’t we?”

Wayne blinked at the two boys and realized something vast important in that moment. If they continued to grow at the rate they were going, then they would never experience this ever again. And judging from what he knew of Steve’s childhood, he never got to experience this either.

“Yeah,” he found himself saying. “You can keep him at least until Steve’s parents come home.”

Little Steve deflated. “So I’d have to take care of it by myself?”

Wayne shook his head. “It would Eddie’s responsibility, you would just have it here.” Little Steve did not looked convinced. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll get the aquarium out and get Mr. Frog situated while you and Eddie go catch bugs for his dinner. One of the older kids will go with you to make sure you don’t get lost and then the other three will stay here and continue to play kick the can with Mike.”

Little Eddie and Little Steve nodded and Dustin agreed to take them.

“Mr. Munson, sir,” Lucas said, “I have to go home because I have to watch Erica. My mom has a doctor’s appointment.”

Max nodded. “I have to get home, too. I want to stay and help out, but I have a dentist appointment my mom would kill me if I missed.”

Wayne sighed. “Just let me put the critter some place safe and I’ll get the two of you home,” he said and then turned to the other teens. “Anyone else need a lift home?”

The other four shook their heads. For Will and El, they were stuck with Wayne watching them with Joyce and Hopper being out of town and for Dustin and Mike, their parents didn’t care as long as they knew where they were.

“Ribbbit,” the frog announced.

“Shush you,” Wayne told the frog in his hands, dryly. “I can only work with what I’ve got.”

“Ribbbittt,” the frog agreed.

Little Robin giggled. She had stopped crying when Wayne rescued the frog and had watched the whole scene in rapt attention. “He’s a cute little froggy.”

Wayne actually looked at the frog in his hands. He was green little guy with brown spots and white lines. “Huh. So he is.”

He cleared his throat and then had Lucas and Max help him set up the aquarium before they left.

When they were done, Dustin, Little Eddie, and Little Steve hadn’t come back from their bug hunt, but Mike had changed the game to hopscotch on the sidewalk drawn with chalk and using what looked to be an old street hockey puck.

“I’m leaving Mike in charge until I’m back,” Wayne said to the remain kids and teens. “Until then try to keep Jonathan and Steve apart until they remember they aren’t enemies anymore.”

Little Jonathan looked up at him with stubborn expression on his face. He crossed his arms and pouted. “There’s no way me and Stinky-poo-poo head would ever be anything but enemies.”

“Hey,” Wayne said sharply. “There will be no name calling. Ever. Whether or not you like someone is different than being enemies.” He cocked his head to side. “I’d say you both have grudging respect for each other.”

Little Jonathan didn’t say anything, but Wayne took that as answer enough. He got into his truck and Lucas and Max waved goodbye.

Mike clapped his hands. “All right, it’s time for lunch. El would you contact Dustin to let him know to bring back Eddie and Steve so they can eat too?”

El nodded and her eyes rolled back in her head as a small trickle of blood leaked down her nose.

She wiped the blood from under nose with her hand and cocked her head to the side. “They are on their way back. Eddie is very happy. He found a large bug for Mr. Frog’s lunch.”

Mike shook his head. Seeing the man he looked up to being innocent and happy and it just warmed him all the through.

Maybe this was for them and not for the older teens. Maybe this was for them to see their idols as regular people. As people who fought each other, made mistakes, but cared anyway.

He turned to see Dustin and Eddie walking into the kitchen from the backyard.

“Guys, we have a problem,” Dustin said, and moved out of the way.

There was Little Steve but the clothes they had put in him just that morning were loose on him as he was a size or two too small for them.

“What happened?” Will cried cried out. “He’s young again!”

“We know!” Dustin cried out. “We didn’t notice until we got the call to come home. We don’t know when he got smaller.”

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to think of what could possibly have happened for Steve to want to be a kid again.

El walked up to Little Steve and knelt in front of him. After a moment she raised her head. “He’s worried about something, but it’s behind a wall of other emotions.”

She looked over her shoulder at Mike and Will. “The emotions are swirling about, I think it’s the spell or whatever it was that changed them into children.”

“The spell is stopping you from reading Steve’s mind?” Dustin asked, eyes wide. “How is that even possible?”

Little Robin snorted. “You could just ask him instead of being rude.”

Before their eyes Little Steve seemed to grow a little more under Little Robin’s protectiveness. Not to the size he was that morning but certainly more than the six or seven year old that had walked through the door with Dustin and Little Eddie.

“Okay...” Mike hedged, “so everyone can agree that was weird, right?”

Everyone nodded, even the littled adults, especially Little Steve.

“How’d I grow and shrink like that?” Little Steve asked, his eyes wide as he looked up at Dustin. “That was kinda scary.”

“I don’t know, bud,” Dustin said concerned, putting his hand on his shoulder, “but we’re working extra hard to find out.”

Little Steve nodded.

Little Nancy cocked her head and said, “He was sad when he came in and Robbie made him happy maybe it’s based on our moods?”

It took everything Mike had not burst out laughing. Trust his sister to figure it out as her eight year old self and they couldn’t.

“What’s this about moods?” Wayne asked from the doorway.

They explained what happened to Little Steve, while Robin and Eddie just hugged him.

“Then why didn’t they change at will yesterday?” Wayne asked gruffly. “I think it runs deeper than you lot are thinkin’.”

Once they were all fed, Mike and El took Little Robin, Little Eddie and Little Jonathan to play Go Fish, while the rest of them tried to figure out the sudden perplexity that Steve had added to the dilemma.

But while everyone else was talking loudly about their different opinions and theories Little Steve slumped against Wayne’s side and was out like a light.

“He always falls asleep on you,” Dustin noted when Wayne shushed them for being too loud. “He must really trust you.”

“Maybe some part of him remembers Wayne from before they were made kids,” Will suggested.

“I wish I knew when it was Steve’s parents started checking out of their relationship with him,” Wayne agreed, putting his arm around Little Steve.

“I still think it was him being sad that made him shrink,” Little Nancy insisted, stomping her foot. “Because nothing else makes sense!”

“Then how do you account for yesterday?” Dustin asked, waving his hand at her. “Do you even remember yesterday at all, because that’s kinda important too.”

Little Nancy stopped stomping her foot and looked up at Dustin for a moment, before furrowing her brow. “I vaguely remember being four and today I’m eight, but how I know that I couldn’t say.”

“And how much do you remember about being a teenager?” Will asked, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

She blinked at him for a moment. “But I’m not a teenager though.”

“But you remembered stuff yesterday after your nap,” Will insisted. He pulled out the notebook. There wasn’t much from Nancy, just glimpses at her teen-aged intelligence. He showed her the notebook.

Little Nancy read the notebook over and over tracing Will’s written notes with her finger. “I don’t remember any of that.”

She handed it back to Will and he took it from her gingerly and with an air of sadness.

“What do you remember today?” Dustin asked, leaning forward.

“That’s enough!” Wayne barked. “Leave her alone. Pressuring her to remember something she doesn’t isn’t going to help.”

Little Nancy ducked her head, but before she did, Will swore he saw a little smirk on her face. Oh, yeah she knew more than she was letting on.

El came out of the kitchen and then tilted her head to the side. “She seems older to me. Not necessarily taller. But older somehow.”

Little Nancy’s head shot up and she let out a gasp of shock.

“Gotcha!” Will cried, snapping his fingers and leaping to his feet. “You do remember some things! And you just disproved your own theory! Because unless acting superior is an emotion, then they can’t be what is effecting the growth or shrinkage.”

Little Nancy’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. She looked down at her feet again, this time without the smirk. “I remember some things of being older. It wasn’t like I lied. I’m not a teenager, I’m nine.”

“Semantics were always Nancy’s strong suit,” Mike said from the doorway. “Sorry, I was coming to see what was taking El so long.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “We were wanting to know if the kids could have some of the chips?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Wayne huffed with a small smile. “Nancy why I don’t you go with him and get a snack too?”

Little Nancy opened her mouth to argue, but he stared her down and she followed El and Mike to the kitchen grudgingly.

Once she was gone, he turned to Dustin and Will. “How much do you reckon they’re actually remembering?”

Will rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think that the memories are somehow tied to how old they appear to be.”

“That would make sense,” Dustin said, “the closer they are to their real age the more they would remember.”

Will started pawing at Dustin’s arm. “Look at Steve!”

All three of them looked at the sleeping boy under Wayne’s arm. There was a subtle pale glow around the boy and before their eyes Steve grew up to the age he was this morning.

~

Part 8

Have you figured out what's going on yet? Mike's getting close.

Tag List: CLOSED

1- @niniel-karenine @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @sadisticaltarts @dolphincliffs

2- @gregre369 ​@tartarusknight @gloomysoup @cryptid-system @kultiras

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji @dreamercec @blondie1006

5- @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @oopsallgender @fearieshadow @dragonmama76

6- @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman @counting-dollars-counting-stars

7- @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gutterflower77 @wheneverfeasible

8- @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @beelze-the-bubkiss @steddieislife @stripey82

9- @tony-2012 @stedestielfrattficlover @micheledawn1975 @moonshadows-13 @bridget-malfoy-stilinski-hale

10- @morallyundefined @best-thing-at-this-party @ollieolive @exasperatedsighohmy @watermelonmite

[hannsluvely]

after hours

after hours : a live action buggy x fem!reader fanfiction

for some odd reason, you have no idea who he is. and he fucking loved that.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

chapter one chapter two chapter three

chapter four | suede. stalking. silly.

his pov;

"Your wanted poster."

Those three words settled in my mind as I stared at the distraught girl in front of me, watching as she fumbled with her hands, a nervous exterior brushing over her. She seemed to be so horrified with the fact that I was once a pirate sought after by thousands- wanted dead or alive, though much preferred dead. Many still wanted me dead but due to my brilliant idea of hiding out here, the chance of anyone getting my bounty was thin. I, however, didn't see it being as much of a big deal as she deemed it so. The real issue I found was tucked away in one of the books within the nightstand which I was so fucking thankful she didn't find. I'd rather her not have been looking around but if she were to find one of the two? I was glad she found the poster.

I tossed another slice of apple into my mouth then set the knife down on the cutting board. I approached Y/N but instantly halted when I noticed how nervous and uneasy she was. "What's wrong?"

"H-How many people did you kill?" She asked, her voice shaking.

"Does that really matter?" I asked, waving my hands up in the air to hopefully exaggerate my point. "It was almost a year ago."

"That doesn't change the fact that it happened!"

"I know, I know." Despite her discomfort, I took a seat next to her anyway. She tightened her arms around herself, almost to make sure there was as much distance between us without her actually moving. Clenching my jaw, I patted my hands upon my thighs. "I know it's a terrible thing, and there's nothing I can do to change that. It's in the past and if I could go back and alter things, I would. Being a pirate was all I knew. My old friend was one, too. Then we separated onto different things and-"

"Did he kill people?"

"Lots of pirates kill people. It's part of the hype, ya know? It's very unlikely to raid another ship without there being any casualties. But I stopped because I got tired of it. I wanted something more."

"It's a pretty big bounty. I mean- come on, fifteen million berries?"

"Don't think about turning me in now," I chuckled, wanting to add a bit of lightheartedness to this unfortunate predicament.

"I'm not like that. I know I'm in need of money but-"

"I didn't mean it like that, Y/N, come on. Give me some slack."

"Well, why exactly did you stop? Did you lose the thrill of stealing from others? O-Or did you get bored of killing innocent people?"

I rolled my eyes, scoffing. "We've all done some shit we're ashamed of. We're humans. I did a lot of fucked up shit," I said as I pointed at myself. "But I changed that. I moved and let all that go. I left my crew, made someone else the captain, and abandoned ship. I left all of that shit behind and came here."

"But why?"

"If I say this, I'll probably make things worse but I don't want to lie anymore," I said as I laid back, folding my hands over my chest. I stared up at the ceiling. "You've obviously heard of the One Piece, right?"

"Of course."

"Well, I was one of those pirates absolutely obsessed with finding it. Fuck, I even dreamt about it. It was the only thing I truly desired in life. It was the only thing I thought about. Not riches, women, alcohol- just the One Piece. I was making somewhat decent progress but then I heard that a group of Straw Hats-" I grimaced at the thought. "-made off with the map which they stole from one of the Marine bases. I happened to track them down and I managed to steal the map from some kid named Monkey D. Luffy. But all good things must come to an end and I lost it. I was back to square one. And then I discovered his bounty was thirty million berries." I frowned then sat up, turning to face Y/N. "Can you believe that? Some newby pirate-wannabe received a bounty double my own! Seeing that brought me back to reality. So I dropped everything then came here."

"All because of him?"

I nodded my head. Just the thought of that kid irked me. There was no one, other than Shanks, who I despised more than my own self.

"So, yeah, I know what I did was fucked up. But there's a reason I'm here now. There's a reason I've given you so much. It's because I want to be a better person, maybe redeem myself for what I've done. And I can do that by helping you, by making your life a little less miserable."

"Do you pity me?" The girl asked, finally meeting my gaze.

"What?" I laughed, almost obnoxiously. "Of course not. If anything, I envy you."

"Me?" Y/N pointed at herself. "You envy me?"

"You have no bad conscience. You've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to make up for. You have a clean slate."

She shrugged, a small smile creeping onto her lips. "Thank you."

"So, uh, do you hate me now?" I asked, forcing a frown to mimic a pouting child. She giggled at this and shook her head. I sighed in relief, wiping 'sweat' from my forehead. "Thank god. I don't know what I'd do with myself if you hated me."

"I knew you were a pirate but it's still shocking to learn about your past. It'll take me a bit to get used to it but I don't hate you."

"So, we're good?" I extended my hand.

"We're good." She shook it.

I felt as if a huge relief was lifted off my shoulders. And as long as she stayed out of the nightstand, there would be no more issues. But if I hid the book, then I would be even more safe. I pondered the possibilities before I watched as she rose from the confines of the bed and approached the counter. My eyes trailed down. The backs of her thighs were exposed and the shorts clung to her ass so divinely. I bit my lip and crossed my leg over my lap.

"I appreciate everything you've done for me," She mumbled as she started to chew on an apple, then began to cut into an orange. "I do have a question for you, though."

"Go ahead, shoot." As soon as she turned around, my eyes met hers and I smiled.

"Are devil fruits real? Or is that just an old tale? I've never seen one up close and I heard they cost a fortune, even for just one alone."

"They're real," I said with a small laugh. "I would know, I've eaten one."

Y/N nearly jumped before she darted over toward me, her hands grabbing at my shoulders. She still had a slice of half-chewed apple in her mouth which made her struggle to properly speak. "WHAT? You- NO! You didn't?!" She let go of my arms and instead planted her hands on my chest, shoving me back. I collapsed back against the bed, laughing. "You ate one?!"

"Years ago, when I was fifteen."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not. It was a mistake actually."

"What happened?"

I chuckled and pushed myself back up. "Give me an orange and I'll tell you."

If my reflexes weren't so quick, the fruit would've hit me in the face with how quick she threw it. But I caught it and began to pick apart the peel. "Easy, next time," I smirked and took a bite from it. "Well, when I was younger and was a pirate-in-training, the crew I was in raided this ginormous ship and hit the motherload. Not only gold and jewels and anything you could think of, but there was also a devil fruit. I found out how much they were worth and tried to steal it but I was caught in a predicament and I tried to hide it in my mouth."

"And?"

"I swallowed it whole."

She gasped, "And you're alive?"

"It doesn't kill you. It just takes your ability to swim when you're in the ocean, in salt water. It's like the sea turned its back on you."

"Did you get a power from it?"

I shrugged and winked at her, taking another bite. I licked the juices from my hand. "Guess."

"You can fly?"

"Ha! Nope."

"Read minds?"

"It's body-altering."

"Wait," The lovely maiden smirked, taking a seat on the bed. "Did it give you that red nose?" She snickered.

"Guess again," I said flatly, my expression turning cold as I stared at her. She gulped, clenching her jaw. I laughed and looked down at my lap, now using one hand to hold the orange. I continued to chew on it. But while she was distracted with her numerous attempts to guess what kind of body-altering power I had, I detached my left hand at the wrist. It floated behind the both of us and tapped on her right shoulder. Y/N jumped up, her head shooting to look at her side. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows furrowed together before she spotted my floating hand waving at her. She gasped and slapped it away. I broke out into a fit of laughter, my hand reconnecting to my wrist. "Impressive, huh?"

"You- what?" She was still flabbergasted.

"I ate the chop-chop fruit. It allows me to pretty much chop any part of my body. Like I can-" To avoid grossing her out, I chopped my left leg from my thigh instead of my head from my neck. She watched in amazement. I smiled at this. "I can disconnect anything from my body from my toes to my ears to my-"

"Even... ya know?"

I winked. "Oh, yeah. That, too."

"That's so cool. How come you haven't done it before around me?"

"I don't know. I just never found a reason to." Shrugging my shoulders, I allowed my leg to snap back. I continued to chew on the orange before finishing it and tossing the peel into a small bin to the left of the bedside table. Y/N finished hers as well. She wiped her hands down on her shirt.

"So, uh," I chewed on my bottom lip. "Do you think you and your mother will be okay?"

"Yeah. We fight all the time. Her drinking doesn't help."

I cringed. "Really?"

"Yeah, she's one of the reasons I hate it so much."

I pursed my lips and nodded my head. I knew I needed to cut back on it but it was something I've done for well over more than half my life. Though, I was destined to do it. Not only for myself, but for her, too. I'd do anything for Y/N. "So," I began, "what do you want to do today?"

"I need to go make up with my mother. That's a big to-do. I can't stand her ever being upset with me." The girl said as she stood up, slipping her shoes back onto her feet. "We can have dinner tonight if you want. Maybe you could meet her."

"Meet your mom?"

"Yeah, why not? She was wondering where all that money came from. She thought I stole it."

"Hell, I don't know. I'm not good with meeting new people."

"Will you, at least, consider it?"

"Sure," I smirked.

"Thank you." Y/N reached for the doorknob, giving it a strong and firm tug before it yanked open. A gush of cold wind washed over her, almost knocking her back. I tossed her my coat to which she whispered another 'thank you' then slipped it on. "I'll see you, Buggy."

"Bye," I murmured with a smile.

As soon as the door shut, I jumped down from the bed and pulled the drawer out from the nightstand, dropping it on the stone floor. I sorted through the numerous books and grabbed the novel I was so fucking thankful she didn't look through. As I opened the cover, the hollowed book had contents that almost spilled out. Papers among papers, among sketches fell out, wafting along the floor. Several notes about Y/N puddled on the floor. One, which was my favorite, was a letter I wrote to her- well, I refused to send it. If I sent it, any last fiber of my confidence would be crushed like a scrambled egg. My fingers lined the rigid edges as I unfolded it.

Messy paragraphs lined both the front and back of the page.

I smiled. How long ago did I write this? I haven't looked at it in so long. I usually added a sentence to it each time I saw Y/N, which is why it was so long. But I stopped pouring my thoughts and desires into it when I actually had the pleasure of speaking to her.

If she saw this, I would kill myself.

I'd purposely jump into the ocean with two anchors attached to my feet.

I looked over the first paragraph,

'I've never wanted something so badly in my life. To say I yearned for her would be a complete understatement. I longed for her, I yearned, I desired- In simple terms, I wanted her. I mean, how could I not? She was an angel. She was a siren. I would purposely listen to her enchanting song, allowing my boat to crash, just if it meant I could be graced by her presence, by her beauty. I was obsessed with her. If she found out my thoughts, my desires, she would never let herself be seen with me. I wouldn't blame her, though. I was obsessive. It was unhealthy, I knew that. But I didn't care. I wouldn't say I loved her because I didn't know what that felt like. I've never experienced it. But perhaps I did love her. I didn't know, I couldn't tell. All I knew was that she was the only treasure I wanted. Not the One Piece, no. Not even that could match up to her alluring person. If I had to travel every sea in order to find her, battle every sea snake in order to touch her, I would. I would in a heartbeat.'

I grimaced, cringing at what I was reading. Thank god, she didn't see this. I didn't even want to see this.

I tucked the papers back into the hollowed-out book, closing it. I slipped the other novels into the drawer then slid it into the nightstand. With the book of secrets, I needed to hide it somewhere she could never find it- where even I struggled to find it. I didn't want to throw it out for I would be completely discarding all of those moments we had together, although she couldn't reconcile them with me because at that time, I was nonexistent to her.

Maybe I could follow my own idea and form my own message in a bottle. I never mentioned her name, nor my own. To an outsider's perspective, it was anonymous.

I shook my head and slipped the book back into the bedside table. She wouldn't be back anytime soon so I had enough time to properly execute a fool-proof plan.

But right now?

I needed to go get another coat.

-=-

her pov;

My mother and I resolved things, just like always. And when she caught wind of a pirate suddenly becoming very fond of me, she begged me to invite him over for dinner. I didn’t think that was the best of ideas. Going out to dinner? Sure! But to have him over? At our house? I cringed at the idea.

She fell ill months ago. Nothing too major, but ever since she’s gotten better, she despises leaving the house and even made me bring her bed downstairs so she could sleep next to the kitchen just in case she had a hankering for something to eat. It was ridiculous, I knew that. But I couldn’t just tell her no. She was my own mother. While I was old enough, I definitely wasn't going to willingly disobey her.

She persisted that I go and grab Buggy so we could have him over for dinner, while I insisted we all go out to eat. She hated the idea and told me that it was her house, her rules.

I grimaced at the thought.

Now, I was just outside Buggy's home, knocking on the stone door. I hoped he was home, though there was no possibility of me being able to ask him prior to my arrival. I knew he was busy. He was a very busy man. I was surprised he made time for me.

With another knock, another silence fell. I groaned and backed up.

My eyes trailing down, I stared at the doorknob and chewed on my bottom lip. He wouldn't care if I waited inside, right? We trusted each other. He knew where I lived and I knew where he lived. As far as I knew, he never crossed any of my boundaries and I definitely didn't cross any of his- well, except for maybe 'snooping' through his nightstand.

Without thinking too much more about it, I grabbed the rusted doorknob, gave it a firm twist, then shoved it open. I almost fell through the doorway.

I caught my balance and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Without the lantern being lit, it was rather dark, but the bright blue sky helped to illuminate the small room. He must've not been home since I left.

I looked around, admiring everything.

As I took a seat on the edge of the bed, I noticed a piece of paper laying on the floor. It wasn't there before.

I raised an eyebrow and reached to grab it but before I could, the door flung open, a certain blue-haired pirate standing in the entrance. When he noticed me, he smirked. I gulped.

"So, we're breaking and entering, are we?" The man grinned as he took a few paces forward.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, scratching the back of my neck. "I came over to ask you about dinner but you weren't here so I figured I would wait."

"No worries, I'm only teasing."

"So?" I folded my arms, leaning forwards.

"So what?" Buggy questioned as he slipped his coat off. Since when did he get a new coat? And why? I was only borrowing the one he lent me. I didn't plan on keeping it. But I guess now it was okay if I did.

"Dinner? Are you available?"

"Hmm, it depends. What time?"

"I don't know, sometime tonight? Only for two hours or so. My mother wanted to meet you. I told her about you."

"What did you tell her?"

"That you've been a friend of mine for a few weeks now and you've been fortunate enough to treat me and help me out," I said with a smile. "She thought you were my boyfriend." I chuckled.

"Heh, that's rich," Buggy said as he turned around to close the door.

"So? Can you?"

"I guess so. Just don't leave me alone with her. I really don't want to be bombarded with questions." The man said as he folded the jacket over his arm then slung it on the countertop. "Did you tell her about my nose?"

I laughed, confused. "No? Why would I?"

"It's my defining feature. It's hard not to notice it when you see me."

"I didn't tell her. I didn't think it was important. I even forget it's there."

The clown burst out in laughter, his eyes closing as he clutched his stomach and nearly fell back with his fit of giggles. I pursed my lips. "What's so funny?" I asked as I crossed my arms.

"It's cute how you're trying to be nice to me. With a nose like mine, how can you forget it's there?" He replied while wiping a tear from his eye.

I felt flustered with the first part of his monologue but I ignored it and shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know, I just do. It's not all I see whenever I look at you, ya know. It's not my main focus point when we speak. I look at your eyes, not your nose."

"And yet again, you prove to me that you're different than others."

I smiled. "Hope that's a good thing."

Buggy smirked, winking his left eye. "Of course it is."

The pirated approached me before he knelt down and picked up the piece of paper. He examined it for a moment then laughed to himself. "Grocery list," He explained as he shoved the paper into his pocket.

I paid no attention to the paper. It wasn't any of my business. "Speaking of groceries, want to go help me get food for dinner?"

"What's on the menu?"

"No idea, but let's just grab something so she won't be bitching later."

"Guess I'll be needing this again," The blue-haired man said as he reached to grab his jacket. He slipped his arms through and adjusted the collar. "We match now."

"Mine's more vintage than yours." I winked.

"Oh, so it's yours now?"

"No?" I gulped.

Buggy giggled. "It is. I got my own now so no worries about giving it back. Unless you'd like to trade from time to time."

"No, I like this one."

The man looked at me, an eyebrow cocked upward.

I paid his look no attention and instead looked down at the tattered suede coat I wore. I inhaled softly. It smelled like him.

A soft odor mixed with whiskey, coconut, and cinnamon. And while I hated the stench of alcohol, it worked for him.

I couldn't imagine him without it.

[etaleah]

I think a lot about how Shadow probably started out very similar to Sonic in his worldview but then the trauma surrounding Maria’s death changed that forever. It opened his eyes to a darker side of life that he can’t un-know, and he can’t ever be as optimistic and innocent as Sonic again.

Shadow didn’t attack the G.U.N. soldiers raiding the Ark because he likely believed, as Sonic does, that hurting people is wrong even if they deserve it and even if they hurt you first. He likely believed, as Sonic does, that you should always opt for the most moral, non-hurtful path, and he tried to take that path by escaping with Maria.

And then she was killed anyway. She and him did the right thing and the moral thing and she was killed anyway. Because it turns out the good guys don’t always win no matter what, and sometimes the bad guys don’t see the error of their ways. Sometimes you do have to get violent and dirty your hands if you want to protect what matters to you. Shadow had to learn those lessons the hard way and it changed him.

Now he’s trying so hard to make sure Sonic doesn’t have to learn this lesson the same way he did. He’s trying so hard to spare Sonic the pain and trauma and loss that he went through because he knows that Sonic loves his friends as much as he loved Maria. He warns him, over and over. Nine can’t be trusted, Mr. Tinker will turn back into Eggman, Cosmo can’t be left alive. He tries to tell him.

But Sonic doesn’t listen. Not only that, he mocks Shadow for it. He makes dickish jokes about “Lol your trust issues are why you have no friends” and “Well you lost your memory too sweetie, so shut ya face!” =)

And every single time, Shadow is proven right. He warns Sonic to try and spare him, Sonic ignores/is snarky to him, the exact problem Shadow predicted would happen does, and the cycle repeats again. And again. And again. No matter how many times Shadow is proven right, Sonic still won’t listen because he’s been lucky enough to never have experienced that level of trauma and unconsciously assumes, a little arrogantly, that what happened to Maria and Shadow could never happen to him or his friends.

I love Sonic and I understand his worldview too, but man do I get why Shadow wants to beat the fuck out of him sometimes.

[thewrothode-if]

I am very confused and have so many questions. What exactly *happened* in the scene where MC sees some monster as their mother somehow? What did MC do that their father didn't like? Why did Raud leave? Why does MC hate Gungir? Why doesn't MC want to obey their father, and why do they anyway even after starting with such clear intent that they won't? Why is MC so shocked by Anne knowing that MC was in the very same settlement in which Anne met and spoke to to the MC directly? Why does Anne desperately want to go to the place where she already was? Why does MC say that Anne wants to meet the King when that is not even close to what Anne said?

If any of you haven't read the first chapter and don't want any spoilers, I'll hide my answers.

What exactly happened in the scene where MC sees some monster as their mother somehow?

I presume you're talking about the prologue scene where the mother goes crazy. In that scene, it is actually your mother. She just went crazy. As to what happened in the scene, I'm gonna be blunt here: your father strangled her, thus killing her.

What did MC do that their father didn't like?

I've talked a lot about this in other asks like this one. Basically, your father hates you because you remind him of your mother. Your very presence is a reminder of the fact that he killed her so that guilt evolves into a toxic hatred for you.

Why did Raud leave?

Honestly, I couldn't really find a place to put why he left, and there is a reason the readers don't know. So I might need to come back to this.

Why does MC hate Gungir?

The MC hates Gungir because, as I wrote in the pinned post and in the IF itself, he's the son your father always wanted. He treats him better than he treats you, but it's not really shown so I might add scenes where his favoritism is show.

I was planning on improving the first chapter and adding an entire new scene where you actually go on a raid (i love changing my mind about the first chapter right after releasing it) so things might change slightly.

Why doesn't MC want to obey their father, and why do they anyway even after starting with such clear intent that they won't?

There is actually a choice where you can willingly choose to go. But the many choices where you don't want to go overshadow it because the hatred for your father is something that makes his order easy to decline.

You have the choice to not go to the docks in the morning, therefore refusing to go, but you still get dragged over there by Gungir because the Jarl wants you out. And if you selected the choice where you agreed to go, you will not get the option to think about it the next day.

Why is MC so shocked by Anne knowing that MC was in the very same settlement in which Anne met and spoke to to the MC directly?

You do not meet Anne at the destroyed settlement, you meet her at another settlement/town/village. She is shocked because she heard of a settlement that has been destroyed and as a soft-hearted gal, she feels sympathy for the settlement.

Why does Anne desperately want to go to the place where she already was?

This is something I'm confused about. I'm not sure if it's because I coded it wrongly so it led to another scene, or if what I wrote was just a little confusing. But as I said above, you do not meet her at the destroyed settlement.

As to why she wants to go along with you, in her own words, "I cannot stand by while innocent are butchered."

Why does MC say that Anne wants to meet the King when that is not even close to what Anne said?

I might change that wording since Anne doesn't really know the plans yet, but it was supposed to be the MC getting ahead of themselves and all that.

I hope some of your questions are answered!

[obsessive-valentine]

Are your request open? Can I request a sequel to Barbarian?

I know he's kind and everything but I don't think I could give in to him 100%, like yes, probably return the kindness but never love him. Reader feels a lot of guilt about the attack and I think that after the event and realizing that they didn't have much to do in the situation, they just felt numb about everything, living on autopilot except when they are with their dog.

This is just my interpretation and basically a self insertion sorry haha.

I would love to know about their daily lives! Does the barbarian take reader to war with him? (If you delve deeper into my idea) Would he realize that reader doesn't talk to him much? Would he be jealous of the dog?

Requests are always open, I love to hear about people’s thoughts on my silly little characters lol.

I did focus more on the barbarians perspective on the relationship rather the actual complexity of the whole thing and psychological depth of it all, it was a rather shallow Drabble but I’d love to expand more on his character. I’ll see if I come up with any domestic short stories for him in the coming weeks, love that idea thanks :)

Yandere!Barbarian X GN!Reader Headcanons

The barbarian himself isn’t a good person, morally or in any other way, and he knows that. He understands what he’s done to you -pulled you away from everything you’ve ever known or loved leaving it all in tatters- he understands he’s killed innocent and guilty all the same and will continue to do so for the clan to thrive. And he doesn’t feel bad about any of it.

He definitely tries to sympathise with how his greed effects you, but, he doesn’t regret his actions but does understand to an extent how hard this is for you. This is why he tries to over compensate by gift giving and finding it within himself to be gentle and patient, so as not to damage you further (despite that being the polar opposite of how he was raised).

He’s not super emotionally intelligent so doesn’t really know what to do aside from the above. Anyone with common sense will learn fast that they can’t fight him off so it’s very possible to become numb and retreat into the mind. If you wont retreat into his arms he will try make it so you feel comfort in his tent that way you’re not always on autopilot but enjoying a craft or something in your quiet tent if even just for a hour.

Honestly though he doesn’t really mind if you’re on autopilot but does expect you to tolerate him, so if you are adamant on distance or fighting him you might trigger his temper. Like pulling and tugging you around, making you sleep in the same bed no exceptions, raising his voice to remind you who you’re trying to challenge etc.

A very tearful darling is a whole other situation, he cant stand seeing you cry, he’d be sobbing, crying, throwing up on the inside while trying to maintain a poker face and think up a solution.

Onto a lighter topic, the barbarians do move camp every few weeks and that includes reader (dont worry he never makes you walk) they don’t have a permanent home just their tents though our barbarian does intend to settle down at some point once the fighting becomes to much hassle for his ageing bones. But never once does he imagine bringing you into one of his raids, rebellions or battles.

He leaves you at camp with the members that aren’t participating that particular day (like the few women, elders or barbarians that just didn’t go-nobody’s forced to fight every battle, just to pull their weight). And of course your beloved wolf dog who he doesn’t regret, he doesn’t get jealous easily especially of the dog he got you for the soul purpose of cheering you up, if he can’t cheer you up at least the dog can and that’s a win in his books.

He’s really not high maintenance, as long as at the end of the day he load up your plate with his finest hunt and sit near you while you both eat, watching whatever fight breaks out in the clan from a safe distance before he has to eventually step in. There’s not much entertainment in the middle of the woods during the evening so you both take what you can get even if it’s drunken fight.

Maybe he takes you and the dog out for walks or fetch if it gets really boring at camp. Will bring you the best stick he finds for you to play fetch with the dog, he sees how much the dog means to you so he treats it with utmost respect. He’ll let you have control over this one little thing in your life for your own sakes.

Therefore while he would prefer you to love him truly, he doesn’t expect it (mostly because half the time he can’t tell the difference between your compliance and you showing affection), doesn’t stop him from trying though. He’s a saint compared to the barbarians before him... only for you though.

[princess-of-the-corner]

More toxic yuri headshot AU stuff, best read after the last ask I sent which you may not have seen yet, but:

Chloe rattled off the password to Andre's computer before leaving in the original snippet. The more long term journalists stayed behind to raid it and oh boy oh boy did they find some juicy things.

Ladybug doming a civilian may have been the front page but there was so much mroe to come. Suffice to say Zoe got a surprise phone call from Andre along the lines of:

"Hello new daughter, want to go on a holiday!?" "What? Chloe just got killed and you want to go on holiday?" "Not interested, so sad. Well bye!"

Basically he bailed to avoid a lot of criminal charges and his assets were lost in various lawsuits. Audrey got off marginally better in that her wage was just garnished to pay for Chloe's expenses until she was an adult and now they pretend they don't know each other.

(Audrey's a massive asshole but I don't think she's committed crimes the same way Andre was blatantly corrupt and if she did they'd be in New York and not something Chloe would be able to reveal)

With the donation money, dividends from the law suits, Audrey, and being able to extort cash from Felix whenever (Whether she does so is up in the air) Chloe has a wealth of resources and likely disperses it in a few places so she always has 'something' to fall back on.

Chloe doesn't handle a lot of the day to day stuff for her assets besides occasionally getting contracts and security double checked. She is still popular on social media even as the years pass.

Chloe's essentially become a public figure and just kind of always around even if its not always clear what she does. She often gets brought on to commentate on politics and do opinion pieces on the nature of power, and the like. Interestingly, she's rather good at it and maintains the best person to have power is someone who doesn't want to use it, which is also reflective of her current self.

IE all the magic & money she secured exists as a shield, not a sword.

Lila's influence is a bit more clear cut, she definitely has a social media presence dedicated to their daughter, and one to herself and one to their family. She manages a lot of day to day business stuff, but most of all, I think she commissioned a book about her, and indirectly, Chloe's experiences.

IE,

Lila knows its only a matter of time until someone revealed her whole "try to get Marinette expelled" gambit and she does not want to get cancelled on social media.

So she got out ahead of it by having a tell all book about her and to a degree Chloe's experiences with Gabriel, Andre and Hawk Moth. Lila has some recordings of her chats with Gabriel so she blames him for her harassing Marinette:

"I was but an innocent waif being threatened by a fully grown man!"

While also re-framing some of her and Chloe's other history in a more charitable light.

Marinette actually gets portrayed semi sympathetically in the book, save that she is portrayed a s a HUGE Ladybug stan and oh boy does Ladybug get pillored.

Like imagine Forged AU Chloe's view on her with Lila's "She used her powers to personally humiliate me" angle, and then that Ladybug had cracked open someone's head on TV.

Suffice to say the book was a best seller even if Chloe was not thrilled about all that shit getting published. Sure much of it was about Lila, but still, exposure is a threat, vulnerability is bad!

There's likely a TV series or movie adaptions. Lila's probably not super thrilled that Chloe tends to get slotted into the hero role IE the one who saves Lila, gets her back into school and such. But its still another source of fame, revenue & regard.

chaos tbh

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Rewatching atla and realized iroh is not a morally good like he's not the kind, wise person he is. I know his past actions doesn't represent him know but it does, he canonically in the show's contexts & clues has terrorized the earth kingdom and it's citizen, led his man to pillage and raid wars onto the earth kingdom territories but when his son died is when he realized war is bad? Not the horrors war can bring to people's livelihood? that made me see iroh in a different light and his character leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I don't think anything else COULD make Iroh see the horrors of war. The whole point of indoctrination, propaganda and war training is to make the soldiers forget that the enemy is human. They NEED to be desensitized to violence otherwise they simply wouldn't go battle people. That's essentially what happened to Iroh. The enemies he was fighting were not people, they were obstacles on the path towards his goals of achieving personal glory, honoring his father and obtaining a major victory for his nation.

But when Lu Ten died it was the brutal reminder that all that shit comes at a cost. And once he feels that pain, he doesn't want to fight anymore because all those goals don't mean shit compared to his son's life.

For most of season one, Iroh is just going along with the flow. Zuko needs to capture the Avatar? Fine, he'll help. The siege of the North will help his nephew? Fine, he'll do it.

It's when Zhao kills the moon and Ozai sends Azula after them that Iroh gets back in "battle mode", that's another reason he and Zuko argue A LOT more in season two - Iroh is realizing all this shit is pointless and he doesn't feel like losing another child to something he no longer believes in.

And because he no longer believes it, he can finally look at all the innocents around him and finally see them as PEOPLE.

Now, the show obviously dropped the ball on a few aspects - mainly Iroh's compassion and understanding somehow not extending to his 14-year-old niece (something even the voice actor acknowledges was fucked up), or the nonsense that was the White Lotus plot, or absurd shit like him refusing to even try to fight Ozai because "history will see it as just kinslaying for power" and then immediately sending Zuko to fight, and potentially kill, his own sibling for a crown. But for the most part, Iroh was still a largely coherent, mostly sympathetic and likeable character.

And then the writers bought into the fandom hype for "uncle that can do no wrong" and started doing bullshit like pretending Iroh was NEVER an ambitious general that did very much kill people without giving a fuck. THAT is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth because, if you watch season one and even early season two, it is VERY clear the writers KNEW Iroh was no saint. He was kind and wise in a lot of ways, but he was still a bad guy doing bad guy things. For fuck's sake, they considered making him eventually BETRAY ZUKO, that's how aware they were of his moral ambiguity and how it could push his character to either become a cautionary tale or an inspiring one.

The problem with Iroh is not his backstory, or his mistakes, or his redemption and happy ending. "Everyone has potential for great good and great evil" and all that. Nothing wrong with a formely evil person becoming good. The problem is the writers, and the fandom, bending over-backwards to pretend he was never evil in the first place.

[okeana-aster]

A character analysis of Abraham Tower because everyone seems to think he's a bad character for some reason

He was lied to by G.U.N. after the ARK was raided by them. They told him that Shadow was the one who killed everyone aboard the ARK. And he lost his family that day.

It's not told to us that G.U.N. lied to him about what happened, but it's just a matter of putting the puzzle pieces back together. He was aboard the ARK, he thinks Shadow killed everyone there, and he works for G.U.N. now.

They took him in, they took care of him after he lost everything, and they shifted the blame of their crimes on Shadow. He wouldn't work with them if he knew that they're the ones who took everything from him. And clearly he doesn't know since he thinks Shadow did it.

Sure he had some prejudice about Shadow beforehand, as we see in Dark Beginnings, that have been amplified by G.U.N.'s lies, and while it's not right, he was just a kid. A scared kid who saw Black Doom and is afraid of him and of the being he created : Shadow.

His agressivity towards Shadow isn't warranted, but once again he's just a kid. Kids don't know better. It's the defense mechanism of a scared child. It's not his fault.

We even see this moment of nuance in his character in Dark Beginnings, when he listens to Maria and Shadow's conversation, and you can see in his expression that he feels doubt, but his feelings are messy, and he doesn't understand them fully either.

And so he ends up pushing these doubts away (or at least trying to), because he's still a child, and he doesn't know how to properly handle them. We see it through that upset expression that he switches to as Maria talks.

He's conflicted, but he doesn't know how to process this feeling, so he tries to repress it. It's somewhat the same expression Shadow does in episode 3 when he tries to repress his thoughts about Maria.

So back to him as an adult, with the information he had, it's fair that he wanted to stop Shadow. He was led to believe for most of his life that Shadow is the one who took everything from him by the ones who "saved him".

But Abraham is still a good person at heart. When he realizes that Shadow genuinly doesn't remember what happened and Shadow asks for time to uncover the truth, he lets him. He doesn't want to hurt someone for crimes he doesn't even remember having committed.

And when Shadow tells him that if what he says is true, he'll accept his fate, it seems to be when Abraham starts to think that maybe things aren't exactly the way he was told they are.

Because Shadow seems genuine. It's nothing like what he imagined him or their confrontation to be like, and it puts seeds of doubt in what he believed during his entire life. And it's tough when you start to realize you might have been following the wrong path for so long.

And you can see after the world was saved by Shadow, his body language shows that he's really upset and mad at himself for trying to hurt someone who is just as much of a victim of all this as he is.

He lowers his head and clenches his fists while staying silent. He's really frustrated at himself for what he tried to do to Shadow, for the resentment he felt towards him this whole time, now that he realizes it was unwarranted. And there's a lot of pain in his facial expression. It's a silent but powerful moment.

I mean, imagine learning that basically your entire life is a lie. That this feeling that has driven you for 50 years was based on a lie, and that by following that lie, during your whole life you wanted to bring harm to someone who was not only an innocent, but also a victim just like you. It must be a lot to come to terms with.

He knows now that Shadow did genuinly care, and that he lost everything on that day too. And maybe that's why he wanted to invite Shadow to eat with him someday. It's not just that he realized he wronged Shadow and wants to make up for it, but also that maybe the two of them are more alike than he originally thought.

And he probably decided to stay in G.U.N. after that despite learning the truth in order to make sure that G.U.N. would never do anything like this again, and it's probably why Shadow was okay with joining G.U.N. in '06. He knows that under Abraham's command, G.U.N. is a force of good, unlike the G.U.N. of 50 years ago.

[cosmicjoke]

Hello :)

I’ve seen you write essay-like long posts about Attack on Titan and analyzing this complex story in depth, which I love. For me personally, it’s been a long while since I watched it and I currently don’t have the time to rewatch it. But I think it’s a story that has to be experienced at least twice to fully understand it, because the story isn’t told linearly and having certain things in mind while watching earlier scenes reframes everything.

Someday I’m gonna do just that. But until I can, I’m going to rely on your takes and my fuzzy memory of the events to feed my hunger for “food for thought”. Even though it’s been so long, I still can’t stop thinking about the story, as there’s just so much to unpack. With that in mind, could you (only if you have the time and the willingness to do so, of course) give your detailed opinion on as to WHY Eren felt like he had to do the horrible things he did?

It’s obvious, especially from the last conversation he had with Armin in the anime, that he does KNOW that what he did was morally wrong. So why then, did he still do it? That’s what I can’t wrap my head around. The reasons for his actions.

Like, even if it was due to his innate, selfish desire for freedom, it’s still obvious that he knew it would lead to his death. He had the power to stop the remaining scouts from killing him, he could have used his titan powers to stop them, but he didn’t. In that conversation scene with Armin, it seemed like he knew his own death was inevitable. So why didn’t he prevent that? What was the point of flattening the earth for his idea of freedom if he doesn’t stick around to see the results of his actions? Was it actually his plan to rid the world of the titans? I discussed his with a friend who said Eren did everything because “it was the only outcome he saw among all the possible outcomes that would get rid of the titan powers — because only in a world without titan powers can the Eldian people actually be free.”

But Eren did so many things that were detrimental to the Eldians, individual and as a whole, like in the raid on Liberio, where he not only killed innocent Eldians, but also made the world actively hate Paradis, that it seems to me he didn’t actually do it for the sake of the Eldians

(Though my friend would argue that Eren saw every possible future and there simply isn’t a future where his goal is achieved without hurting at least some Eldians. And that his version, while hurting some, still hurt the least of them. But that just doesn’t sit right with me.) But again, if he actually did do it for selfish reasons, which is what I’m leaning towards, then why would he be alright with dying, aka giving up on his self? Trying to understand that dude just frustrates me, so I thought maybe you could shed some light on this with your theories on him.

(I’m on anon to help keep toxic Eren fanatics off my back and I don’t have the balls to deal with them, lol.)

Hi there, and thank you for the ask!

I've talked a lot about Eren and his motivations on my blog, which you can probably find if you just search his name on my blog. But I'll give it my best shot answering here as well.

First off, I'll just say that the way you're leaning is the right way. Eren didn't do what he did for anyone but himself, and that's sort of the point of his entire character. The theme of dreams and needing to be able to let go of them is a pronounced one in AoT, and Eren, in the end, is the purest example of someone who wasn't able to do so, and that ties into his lack of maturity. He never progresses past his childish whims or desires. He never grows up. That's why we see him appear as a child during the Rumbling. Because that's who he really is and who's he's always been. The Rumbling itself is a manifestation of Eren's truest nature and desires.

Second, your friend is wrong about the "possible futures" Eren sees. Eren doesn't see multiple futures. He only sees one future, which is the only future. People don't get how time works in AoT, which is understandable. Anytime you're dealing with time travel, it gets confusing. I didn't get it at first myself. But basically, the only reason Eren sees the future he does is because it's the only future there is. If there was some other possibility, some other course he took, he wouldn't have seen the future he did at all. It only exists because he literally willed it into being. We see this through the course of Eren's actions in manipulating past events, once he gains control of the Founding Titan's powers. He literally manipulates events to ensure he'll end up with the power to commit the Rumbling. The way he manipulates Grisha into killing Frieda and taking her power, the way he redirects Dina's Titan away from Bertolt to eat Eren's own mother, setting off the events which will lead to him gaining the power to wipe out humanity. Eren very literally orchestrates the events which lead to the future he saw. So there are no multiple or possible futures for Eren to "choose from". There's just the one, and the one future he sees exists because what he does is what he was always going to do.

The point of us being shown the equally devastating results for the Eldian's as the rest of humanity is to drive home that what Eren is doing isn't to save the Eldian people at all, or even his friends. He's willing to murder the entire population of Eldian's outside of the Walls, which no doubt outnumbers the number of the island. He doesn't care. Sasha dying, Hange dying, Levi almost dying, etc... all of that is meant to drive home this point. Eren isn't doing it for them, or for anyone, other than himself. As he confesses to Ramzi, and then later to Armin, he "had to do it" because he "wanted to do it". He says to Ramzi, when he finds out that humanity existed beyond the Walls, that he was "so disappointed". He confesses this to him while sobbing, because what Eren is confessing here is that he wanted to destroy humanity beyond the walls to make it match his childish vision of what the world should have looked like beyond the Walls. He wanted it to look like the images in Armin's book, a vast, unexplored, untouched wilderness, just for him. And when he discovered humanity existed beyond the walls, it shattered that vision for him.

To answer your specific question about why Eren didn't stop his friends from stopping him, it comes down to Eren attempting to cope with his own monstrosity. Throughout the lead up to Eren's actions, and even during, Eren tries to cope with his own, monstrous nature by telling both himself and others that he's doing it "for them". He lies. He's lying to the rest of the 104th when he tells them, before they leave for Marley, that he just wants to protect all of them. He was already planning on betraying all of them. He was already working with Floch at that point, in coordination with Yelena and Zeke. He'd already told Historia his real plans, to betray Zeke and enact a full scale Rumbling, this fully 9 months before they ever left for Marley. The Scouts success or failure to negotiate with Marley had nothing to do with Eren's decision. He'd already decided what he was going to do before they ever set foot there. Eren's depression as he's walking around Marley and thinking to himself that none of these people are his enemy, his realization that all of these people are innocent, is because, confronted with that reality, he's no longer able to hide behind the excuse of protecting his friends or the island from an impending threat. He realizes, in that moment, that the future he sees, that him unleashing a full scale Rumbling, is purely the result of his own, selfish desire. Which, again, is to create the world he saw in Armin's book, his own, personal idea of freedom. We see Eren continue to drink the copium though, even after this point. For example, when he grabs Hange through the bars of his cell and screams at her that he saw no other choice because of her supposed failure to come up with a real solution. Pure deception, both of Hange and himself. Eren never even gave Hange's plan to negotiate a chance. He disappeared and kicked off his plans with Zeke before anyone from the Scouts had a chance to even attempt negotiations. And this, too, is why Eren doesn't attempt to stop the Alliance from stopping him. It's a giant cope. Eren tells himself and them that he's not going to stop them because freedom is the most important thing to him, and that he loves and cares about all of them too much to impede on their freedom of choice. Again, this is a lie on Eren's part. He's already impeded on their freedom, multiple times, particularly in his forcing them to rescue him from Liberio and backing them into a corner, taking away their choice, by forcing them to accept his and Zeke's plan and forcing them into a conflict which they'd all expressed a desire to and were attempting to avoid. He tries to tell Historia that he's doing it for her, too, that he's just safeguarding her freedom, while in the same breath, disregarding Historia's already stated decision to inherit Zeke's Beast Titan.

The truth is, Eren doesn't care about anybody else's freedom but his own. Again and again, he impedes on and takes away the freedom of others, including his closest friends, all in service to realizing his own, personal sense of freedom. He tells them that he isn't stopping them from fighting him because he respects their freedom, but again, this is just a giant cope on Eren's part. He allows them to come after him because its his way of coping with his sense of guilt and self-loathing. The same way he continues to lie, up to the very end, when he tells all the members of the Alliance (except Levi, who I've posited Eren doesn't speak to at all), that he did what he did to "make them all into heroes". Another, giant cope. A lie he fabricates because he can't deal with any of them knowing the truth. He tells all of them this, but it's only Armin whom he confesses the truth to. He can't lie to his best friend, and that's why we see Eren tell Armin that he knew, from his vision of the future, that he would fail to wipe out all of humanity, and that because of it, he would only imperil his friends and the island further, because naturally, the world would want revenge for Eren's actions, and yet he still went through with it. Why? If he really cared so much about his friends or the rest of the Eldian people, why would he continue to go through with a plan that he knew would end up only endangering them further, would only continue the cycle of hate and war? Because, again, Eren never actually cared about any of that. All he cared about was experiencing his own, personal sense of freedom. He was so driven, and so compelled toward it, that even knowing he would fail, he couldn't help himself. Eren doesn't find out he's going to fail until Ymir lends him her power. He finds out he fails to wipe out all of humanity in that moment, and yet he pushes on in his actions. He could have stopped right then and there, before a single Wall Titan was unleashed, but he continues on. Again, because Eren is compelled by his very own, restless nature, to do what he did.

Eren is bored. That's what it boils down to. The scene near the beginning of the story, when we see Eren sitting, staring up at the sky, and he says "I wish something would happen"? That right there encapsulates the entirety of why Eren does what he does. He's doomed to be perpetually unsatisfied and bored with his existence. He had a good and happy life, and it wasn't enough. And wiping out all of humanity wouldn't have been enough, either. He convinced himself it would quench his thirst for freedom, but the reality for Eren is, nothing was ever going to achieve that for him. Again, his very nature renders it impossible. He's always dissatisfied, and always "wants something to happen". It's why he kills Mikasa's kidnappers. It's not because Eren cared about saving Mikasa (he didn't even know her at that point), it's because he wanted something to happen. Because he was bored. Eren could have easily listened to his father and waited for the proper authorities to come. The same way he could have allowed the Survey Corps to actually attempt negotiations before deciding he just "had to" enact the Rumbling, or he could have gone with Zeke's plan of a limited Rumbling. Again, it's not what Eren wanted, though, in either case. He wanted destruction, he wanted chaos, he wanted something to happen to disrupt and tear apart his mundane existence.

The shot of Eren standing atop his massive Attack Titan, near the end, with his arms spread wide and a look of pure elation on his face as he says "Freedom!", that's Eren getting to experience what he aimed to. The world is crushed and left desolated beneath him. Remember, Eren destroys 80% of the world's population, and that's enough for Eren to feel he's achieved what he set out to. To experience a desolate world free of humanity. But again, this is Eren coping. He's trying to immerse himself in the feeling of "freedom" as a way to distract himself from the horror and nightmare below. He finally feels what it's like to be in a world that looks like the pictures in Armin's book, but it's still not enough. It's never going to be enough. Eren realizes this. He gets to feel what it's like to be "totally free" from the expectations and demands of others, and yet he's still dissatisfied. It doesn't quell the restless dissatisfaction that defines Eren's core.

This leads into your last question, about why Eren doesn't stop the Alliance from killing him, so he can experience the results of his actions. Eren is already going to die. He knows his time is short, that he only has a few more years left to live at this point. Eren is compelled forward to enact the Rumbling, regardless of this, because again, he can't help himself. He's totally driven by his own desires. Again, up to the point Ymir lends him her power, Eren thinks he's going to succeed in destroying all of humanity. Upon realizing he won't, that his friends and comrades are going to stop him, he still feels that same drive and desire to go through with his plan anyway, again, because it's what he wants, it's the only thing he really wants, and nothing is going to stop him from trying to take it, even as he knows he won't succeed.

Eren loves his friends. He cares about them. He doesn't want to hurt them or endanger them. But as we see from his childhood on, Eren is someone who's always going to put his own desires above their well being. It's why we see him constantly getting into fights as a child, despite the burden it places on Mikasa, despite his mother asking him to stop. He forces Mikasa to chase after him and place herself into situations she doesn't want for herself, and Eren enacting the Rumbling and forcing the Alliance to chase after him is the exact same scenario, only writ large. He's forcing his friends to chase after him and try and stop him from causing trouble. Again, though, at the same time, Eren doesn't want to actually hurt them. He's so guilt ridden over Sasha and Hange because he knows his actions led to their deaths, and he never wanted that. But as ever, he couldn't help himself. He couldn't keep himself from putting his own desires over their well being. Again, Eren lets his friends come after him as a way to cope with the crushing guilt of his own, monstrous nature and actions. He doesn't stop them because it's his only way to sooth his inner turmoil, to tell himself he allowed them their freedom of choice.

But once again, the inherent contradiction in that is that Eren already took away their freedom of choice, and still continues to here, by forcing them into a situation not of their own choosing. He forces all of them to fight him to the death, despite having considered him a friend and comrade. He forces Mikasa to have to kill him, which goes against everything Mikasa herself ever truly wanted. He forces them all into a position of having to kill their own, former comrades who have become Yeagerists, something he specifically mentions to Armin at the end. He's still taking away their freedom, but he deludes himself into thinking otherwise by letting them come after him at all. He's able to do this because he still succeeds in achieving that supposed feeling of freedom he set out to gain. He's still able to experience "Freedom!", as he says, without stopping them. But all one has to do is look at Eren's actions before this, in the lead up to the Rumbling, to know that, had his friends and comrades actually threatened his ability in any way to get to this end point, he would have acted in whatever ways necessary to stop them. It's the reason he doesn't tell anyone about the vision of the future he had. Because he knows if he did, they would stop him. And if he had been willing to tell anyone of his vision, he would have seen a completely different vision, anyway. He would have seen a future in which his friends stop him from enacting the Rumbling at all. It's why he lies and distances himself from everybody. It's why he forces them into a conflict they'd all been trying so hard to avoid. It's why he makes Grisha kill Frieda and the entire Reiss family. It's why he kills his own mother. It's why he's able to accept Sasha dying, and Hange dying, and Levi almost dying. It's all in service to him gaining the power to enact the Rumbling, to make sure events unfold in the exact way he needs them to to get to that end point. He would have been willing to kill anyone to gain that power, the same way he was willing to kill all of humanity just to experience what he deluded himself into believing was true freedom. Once he has that power, he's able to enact his plan, and everything after that doesn't matter. His friends and comrades can come after him. They can do whatever they want. Because Eren already got what he wanted. He's already getting to live out his own desires, and once more, he's able to assuage his guilt by telling himself that he's allowing his friends the freedom to try and stop him.

Anyway, I hope this helps answer at least some of your questions. The only way to understand Eren's actions is to accept his selfish, childish nature, and how he was always going to do what he did, not because it was inevitable or because he had no other choice, but because it was what he wanted to do. Nothing was ever going to stop him from doing what he wanted.

[shininglamp]

What he couldn’t remember.

While Beacon Hills was dealing with Ghost Riders

Derek was unsuccessfully hunting Kate Argent. He knew a lot was happening in Beacon Hills, and he vaguely remembered stopping by once or twice in the last few months, but he couldn’t remember why.

Derek knew there was something important, it kept nagging at his mind and tugging at his heart, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  He had been working alone for months now. It never really bothered him, except in the last few weeks.

Needing a night off, he stops into a bar. The bartender there has light brown hair, subtly curving lips, mischievous eyes. Shamelessly he starts to flirt with her.  “Are you sure we’ve never met? You seem so familiar.” Derek wasn’t lying about this. He just couldn’t remember who she reminded him of. 

“Believe me, hot stuff, I’d remember an ass that cute.” Clearly she is into the flirting.

“Derek.”

“Stella.” The name also feels close to something, an important something that he wants to remember.  The frustration of it and the loneliness drives him to get closer to Stella. It very easily leads to a one night stand. 

Weeks later Derek bolts awake. “Stiles!!” He gasps. Scrambling for his phone he looks for Stiles’ number but it’s not there. He calls Scott. “What. The. Hell! What happened to Stiles?”

“Oh, we were dealing with Ghost Riders. But everything is okay now. Stiles is back, Peter is back…”

“I don’t give a rats ass about Peter!” He hears Peter grumble ‘I heard that’ in the background. “Is Stiles there?” He asked.

“Well, yeah… He’s a little busy.”

“What?”

Peter takes the phone from Scott. “First of all, I can’t believe you forgot your own family! Secondly, while Stiles and Lydia may have saved the day with their undying love for each other, I want it noted that I put my skin on the line, literally. Without me…”

Derek hangs up on his uncle, the words undying love echoing in his head.

Days go by. Derek attends their graduation, politely congratulating all of them, pretending he wasn’t there just for Stiles.

“Derek! I got in. The FBI internship!”

“What? You?”

“Yes, me.”

“That’s… really amazing!” Derek uses this as an excuse to hug Stiles. He loves the responding smile. Stiles runs over to Lydia, and Derek leaves Beacon Hills.

Derek decides to double down on his hunt for Kate. This leads him to the scenes of mass murders of entire packs. Misunderstood as being a suspect, he continues to investigate on his own.

Stiles calls. “Derek. What’s going on?”

“Wish I knew.”

“You’re our prime suspect!”

“Well I didn’t do it. I’m hunting the thing that did.”

“You mean Kate?”

“It’s different. Bigger. Like She’s working with others. The killing, it’s not random anymore. It’s strategic.”

“I need you to keep your head down.”

“I can’t. It’s all pointing back to Beacon Hills.”

“Derek…!” Stiles is frustrated, but he sighs and calms his tone. “What do you want to bet that Scott is still there? Damn it! I told him to get out.”

“I’ll stay in the shadows, but unless we can prove who’s really behind these massacres you can’t prove my innocence.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Stiles hangs up.

Lay low. Huh. Loping back into his wolf form, Derek continues his hunt.

Eventually Stiles coordinates with him on an FBI raid, making sure to showcase the true conspirators behind the string of deaths.

During which one of the hunters aims his gun at Derek and Stiles kicks the gun out of the man’s hands in his naturally uncoordinated reckless way, causing the gun to go off and him to lose a toe.

“Idiot, I can heal, you can’t! What were you thinking?” Derek scolds him as he picks up Stiles in his arms.

“They shot my toe!” He yells, then passes out at the sight of his bloody shoe. “Idiot.” Derek stays with him in the ambulance.

Derek waits for Stiles in the hospital. Peter calls. “What is it?” As he gets the run down, Stiles is signing release forms. Surprisingly he’s not limping. “I’m heading to you now.”

“Ready for more?” Derek asks. They swing by Styles’ house for a change of clothes. “You… have my size here?”

“Yeah. You know, last time you wore that striped thing and you looked ridiculous, so…”

Derek quietly growls at the humiliating memory, but pulls on the black shirt, happy that Stiles thought of him.

They take the jeep and meet up with the pack. The battle against the Annuk’Ite doesn’t last long. In the ensuing days, everyone leaves town, Scott heading up the fight against Monroe.

Autumn was quickly turning to winter.

Kate was gone, so Derek made himself available to be called into help Scott. In the meantime, he tried to content himself that Stiles cared enough to take a bullet for him. He needed to let his feelings go so he could be happy for Stiles and Lydia. It wasn’t easy.

That’s when he came across the old bar. He was going to just drive by, then remembered the cute bartender Stella. Her features, down to the freckles, were quite similar to Stiles. Her comments and jokes were just as quirky as Stiles. Even though Derek didn’t remember Stiles at the time, his heart was looking for him. Derek quickly parks the car and goes in.

Stella turns around, her belly big. “Wondered when you’d be back, hot stuff.”

That night Derek calls Stiles. “I’m going to have a son.”

“Whoa! When did this happen? I mean, congratulations!”

Derek, wanting to explain how he couldn’t remember Stiles and inadvertently looked for a replacement, wanting Stiles to get jealous maybe, not able to deny his own excitement about becoming a father, could only answer “Thanks.”

Stella was sweet, but she didn’t want Derek or Eli. She wanted her freedom, and so was happy to let Derek be the sole parent.

Stiles and the pack come over to see the new baby. “Oh my gosh! He’s so cute!” Lydia gushes.

“He looks so much like you.” Scott says, not knowing what to say.

“Huh.” Stiles glances back at Derek then at Eli. He narrows his eyes.

Sheriff Stalinski looks over his son’s shoulder. “Huh.” The Sheriff looks between his son and Derek then back at Eli. “You’ll have your hands full with this one.”

Derek smiles knowingly and picks up his son adoringly.

[troutflight]

You🫵 for the Warrior Cats Breeds Asks :3

Ragdoll, Turkish Van and Ragamuffin?

<3

You 🖐🖐 (grabbing)

Putting all this under a read-more divider cus it's kinda long lmao

Ragdoll - my absolute fav is Darktail of course 🤧🤒 Other favorites are Splashtail (<3), Hawkfrost, Onestar, Bluestar, Berryheart, and Sharptooth (yes the puma…… rip king I will always miss you and I wish mountain lions had at least another appearance in the series.)

Hawkwing could maaaaaaaaaaybeee be tacked on but canon-wise he's pretty lacking…. He unfortunately is just kind of a generic tom protagonist in terms of personality. The most interesting thing about him was his whole situationship with Darktail but that ended pretty quickly. Hoping he proves himself to be more interesting later on.

LEAST favs….. this is hard to determine because I don't think I have very strong opinions on characters, even when I dislike them. But starting off I'd say Mapleshade… Mainly because a lot of her fans annoy me sorry 😭 I don't like the portrayal of her being innocent and yet also an evil murderous badass at the same time.

I see so much disregard for Omen of the Stars from apologists that I think a lot of them haven't even read up to that point. I've even seen claims of oots being a RETCON of her character, when that arc was her introduction. She's evil and I don't know why people can't accept that.

I did like her in OOTS honestly, the baby-killer thing she had going on was funny. I especially like her personality a lot, but unfortunately the fandom has also made me dislike her lmao.

So canon-wise? She's a cool character. Fanon-wise? BOOOOOOOOOOO 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

This is a more silly one, but Thrushpelt……. I'm sorry but he annoyed me in Bluestar's Prophecy. And the whole sappy soft boy portrayal within the fandom is also kind of an ick. I can't stand woobification.

Lastly, HAWKHEART………… I read Yellowfang's Secret and thought he was cool BUT THEN I read Bluestar's Prophecy and the whiplash oh my god. Look, you could argue he was justified in killing Moonflower for the medicine den raid, but I don't care because I love Bluestar.

-- Turkish Van - Uhhhhhhhhh hmmmmmmm. I don't think I have any major headcanons about bigger stuff. The most obvious one I have is that I absolutely think Darktail was into Hawkwing 😭 but I don't need to go on about that more. I also think it's fun to HC that at some point Darktail might've encountered Bloodclan. (Darktail x Hoot x Jumper truther 4ever.......)

Outside of Darktail, I remember seeing someone say they thought Rowanstar had an affair in Starclan and that's why he told Tawnypelt she should move on and I thought that was super funny so that's also another headcanon.

-- Ragamuffin - I am very passionate about this one. I HATEEEE forced romance and forbidden romance. I just kind of hate romance in general.

Especially with female protagonists in the series being forced to settle down and have kits at the end of arcs before being sentenced to never be relevant to the plot again……… I won't even be shocked if they do this to Moonpaw.

TBC & ASC having the SAME trio dynamic was irritating. Boy x girl who barely even know each other and sopping wet sad medicine cat apprentice. (Even Frostdawn barely escaped the romance treatment, but they didn't do any of that for Shadowsight.)

HOLLYLEAF TOO........ iirc, she outright stated she hated the thoughts of a mate and kits and thennnn they tried to shove her with Fallen Leaves. They can't stand an aromantic queen.

I'm mostly annoyed that we get Tawnypelt as a pov and a big chunk of her time is going to be spent on a romance plot. Just when I thought we escaped that shit 😔 It's the exact reason why I've been stalling on even starting The Elder's Quest.

[flightfoot]

Just finished "A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" by T. Kingfisher. It's the one about a baker wizard who has a sourdough starter familiar that was mentioned on that one popular tumblr post, though honestly this one gingerbread man she made acts more like a familiar to her than Bob does.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I like how it showcased the ways people could make use of even fairly specific talents. A lot of wizards in this world could only really make one specific type of "thing" do what they want, whether it's bread (or really, anything created from dough) like Mona, or making dead horses walk, like Molly. So there's a lot of emphasis on working with what you can do, rather than worrying about what you can't, and not underestimating your abilities just because they seem silly and minor at first blush.

Anyway, basically, a dead girl's found in the bakery, Mona's called up to the palace as a suspect (she found the body), and is quickly found innocent and sent home. But over the next few days the magical folks in the city are all spooked, and there's efforts to make all mages register, and propaganda about how magical folks could be spies and traitors...

I don't want to go too much further into that so I don't spoil the rest of the story.

There's also this theme that crops up a lot during the second half of the book about "heroes", and how that term's often used to kind of make it okay that people had to suffer and die when, if other people had done their jobs properly, they wouldn't have had to. That it's great for Mona to have been able to accomplish what she did during this book, but that it shouldn't have been on a fourteen-year-old girl to begin with. I saw that sort of thing pop up a lot back in 2020 and 2021 with how nurses, doctors, and other essential staff were being hailed as "heroes" for working during such dangerous times, often with inadequate equipment, and then have it noted that afterwards, many of those same staff who were being hailed as heroes were still being underpaid.

There is one thing about the book that I really didn't like though. One of the main threats to the city Mona lives in is this group of mercenaries from some far away place, that apparently is cold and inhospitable. They got hired to help one city-state take out another, then decided they like these lands much better, and have just stuck around burning down fields, raiding and pillaging cities and taking all their stuff, and even eating people because apparently they're cannibals for some reason. At no point are they characterized as being more than some horrifically violent, evil, foreign mob who only exist to cause pain and suffering. Heck, even with their only job seemingly being fighting and killing, they're still characterized as selfish and unwilling to commit to battlefield tactics like overwhelming an enemy, when it would put the first few people at the front of the charge at risk, because they don't have the discipline of a regular army I guess.

I can see why it's useful to have some major threat like this, but whom you don't have to show any sympathy for or feel bad about being killed or injured, and who you don't have to try and have the leader negotiate with because they're so cruel and enjoy spreading pain and suffering so much, that there's no point. But the only reason it doesn't ping most people's "racism" radar is that their appearances are never described. But using this depiction of this group of people... honestly, it reminds me of "indigenous cannibals" and how that stereotype has been used in many movies, books, and tv shows to have the (white) protagonists be menaced by some group that's depicted as being ready to chop them up and eat them if caught, no questions asked. It's the same sort of narrative convenience being taken advantage of here, where you don't need to ask about negotiating or worry about the ethics of killing the invading army, because they're dehumanized to such an extent that you just don't worry about it.

[ipsen]

EtoKen Mini-Fic

inspired by @tatatatatara's tags. been sitting on this one for a LONG time LOL Root A-esque narrative. Some time during the timeskip after the 11th ward raid.

"Sneaking into Tatara's room now, are we?" Eto giggled.

Kaneki would have flinched had he not heard her flitting down the hall seconds before. He held up his excuse in his hand— Sen Takatsuki's The Black Goat's Egg— as a meager defense for his trespass.

"It's still wrapped," he half-explained.

It reminded him of more innocent days, when he was ignorant to the whims of the world and all the things distorting it. The fact that he was drawn to it because of that was an unfortunate affliction, one that he had to squash.

"So it is." She leaned on the doorway, arms crossed. "You know Takatsuki, then?"

He pursed his lips, hesitating for a second. "I'm familiar."

He gave away some, but not all. A bond with a fellow executive, especially one who knew more than she let on, was vital, but he had to keep his distance lest he lose focus. Still, as long as they weren’t trying to kill each other, it couldn’t hurt to indulge so long as he kept himself in check.

"Oho..." Eto stepped into the room, browsing the rest of Tatara's stack. "There aren't a lot of readers here in Aogiri, you know."

"So I noticed." Ayato didn't care. Naki was curious, but lacked the vocabulary. "Seeing something like Takatsuki was... surprising, was all."

“He has a strange fixation with her, for whatever reason,” Eto said, fingers brushing against the book spines. “Yet he can barely read kanji.”

Kaneki hummed. “He's from China, right?”

“Yep. He claims kanji gives him a headache.” She took one from the middle, letting the ones above it topple onto the table. “Oh, I was looking for this!”

He raised a brow. “Hakushuu?”

“You know him! But of course you do.” She held up the cover to show him. “This is actually my copy, did you know that? Turns out Tatara’s a bit of a thief too!” She cackled.

Upon closer inspection, he saw the black of ink staining the edges of the pages, much like all of the books in his satchel that she, apparently similar to Tatara, had stolen. “You like to annotate your books?”

“It enhances a reread.” She stowed it away into her cloak. “You prefer scribbling them in a notebook.”

“To preserve the original experience,” he explained. “And if someone else wants to read it, there won’t be spoilers.”

“Such foresight.”

Kaneki got the feeling Eto was mocking him. Or maybe she was complimenting his consideration. Either way, he didn't like it; he'd had enough of being toyed with to last a lifetime.

And yet... something stirred within him. Something like... relief. Yes, relief was the word. Relief that, at the very least, someone might actually be able to keep up with him. Relief that, inside this beast's belly, there was a fire to warm himself by before he journeyed to its heart.

However, there was still a beast to slay. Weeds to uproot. And it was his responsibility, as the one who knew, to be the one to dirty his hands with blood and dirt. He couldn't always waste his time whiling away the hours at the fire-- no matter how much he wanted to.

He made to leave, but before he got to the hall, he felt something get pushed into his hands. When he looked at what it was, it was Eto's ink-stained book of Hakushuu poetry.

"Tell me your thoughts when you have the time," she said, expression a mystery behind her bandages. "A reread always offers a new perspective."

Kaneki thought out all sorts of responses, many of them outright rejections, but ultimately settled for, "Maybe."

"Hmph. Half-ass," was all she said before trotting past him and leaving, unusually quiet.

Not only that, but the room was colder than when he entered.

[tiliqi]

How do you tend to go about writing fanfiction? Like do you have a lot of outline or any other interesting things about your processed you could share?

my process is kinda all over the place, just like my brain haha. what i do to help myself not get lost in all that is having a strict rule where before i start writing teh actual prose, i need to have at least a bulletpoint outline of the major events that need to happen in the story. this helps me know what i'm working towards, instead of being lost and eventually paralyzed when I run out of ideas of how to proceed OR (and that happens way more often than having no ideas) i have TOO MANY ideas and i can't decide where to go.

for my black arms maria fic for example i had a rough outline that looked a little like this: (under cut for spoilers, click here if u want to read it first; warning for body horror and blood and gross things (tho very mild if im honest))

5 chapters, each about a stage of a star CH1: how maria gets to go on the ark, roots of her issues, basically where the seeds are sown for the inevitable explosion in the end, how the aliens come into play CH2: the introduction of shadow and the black arms DNA, maria's loathing, innocent little girl corruption arc, she pushes shadow away VS he is taken away and she wants him back, her mental state starts to crack CH3: how it came to the ark raid: maria hides her mutations, parallels to her relationship with shadow, her mental state corrupting with the mutaions, "bloody nose" by the used, black arms hivemind link: black doom talks to her, superiority inferiority complex: she plans to kill shadow CH4: her alone with her mutations, many years spent plotting, biolizard, how gerald is involved and how it fits into sa2 plot CH5: sa2 rewritten to fit the premise, lots of shadows perspective

(as u see i have mentioned a song; making a playlist also helps me a ton bc i vibe a lot to music and it inspires me a lot! It helps that i naturally always arrange playlists in chronological order of a story...)

after i have somehting like that i can start doing more detailed outlines. i dont have the ones for the early chapters anymore but this is what ch4 looked like (i use colored text to make it stand out next to written paragraphs that i will do right above the notes):

This chapter maria wakes up and realizes shes not dead.  shes in despair, trying to move but she CANT. at least not much. the stress knocking her out for a few months. she can at least crawl closer to the core reactor. spends 7 years just lying there and regenerating > when she finally can get up she frantically looks for info on the ark. and gerald and shadow (After a few months she finally managed to find a rhythm for physical activity in between studying notes and files, and heading to the dark chamber for a new lizard's tail. Her condition improved with more nutrition, but she did feel herself becoming unstable, nose bleeds increased.

[Maria gets visions of black arms as she mutates more and more] she trashes the place Her hivemind link is what makes her grow increasingly craving murder and total destruction. I mean she already does bc of finding out dirty dirty secrets about the ark it just increases to 9000)

(She starts growing a long tail and she despairs when she sees herself in the mirror, looking exactly as she saw in her vision years and years ago, turning into the monster she feared (She plots her ultimate plan. Understanding how the ark works, how chaos energy works. Finishing the eclipse canon. [Thinking about how to get shadow to do what she wants. Knowing he was in cryo shortly after his trauma it would be impossible to reason with him, not immediately at least. Not if it was her. Knowing she herself was deeply fueled by rage, hatred, disappointment and despair…. The same emotions would fuel shadow greatly. She saw what he was capable of, she knew what *she* was capable of. Geralds message would only need slight alterations since her own plans came pretty close (???) Some boffoon that shared their family name was wreaking havok on the planet, trying to turn it into metal. She had to admit it was a more noble plan of destruction than her own. (???) Maybe. Cut? When gerald is interogated by gun on the weapon he made bc they found it, he puts on a show, saying shadow is dangerous and needs to be contained. He is the only one who knows how to, before it is too late. This is how shadow ends up in cryo and why the password is maria. Why would gun use maria as password like cmon. Anyway this is also how he smuggled a small video into shadows pod where when he wakes up he will be introduced to the plan. During his execution he choses his last words carefully, leaving an encoded message for maria when she wakes up. Maria, at first, doesn't get the code. Shes just confused and spends a long while just learning more abt the ark. But ahe watches the video often just to have like. Company? She herself grows more and more angry with everything so when she notices the code and learns abt the plan. Shes on board. Sure. Lets fucking go. ] she studies the ark, she studies geralds notes on shadow, she studies all data on black arms she can get her hands on all while doing that she STILL gets that stupid dream. she still gets visions, especially when reading their language She makes her plans to kill the world. chapter ends with her sending eggman an encoded message that he won’t be able to resist cracking

as u can tell not all of it made it into the chapter but that was just me thinking "aloud" about all the stuff that had to do w the chapters main premise. the original outline was short and vague enough to give me freedom to think but constricted enough to not let me wander off into making up completely random new stuff!

idk if this helps, but this is how i write nowadays and it works well for me :] im finally finishing things instead of abandoning them!

[falloutnewnobody]

As much as i dislike the third act of Russel (the mod) (seriously the shit with the sand wolves and accidental subtext, while said to be unintentional by the mod author, is incredibly fucking uncomfortable to say the least) it's final choice is so interesting to me from a thematic perspective in the context of the rest of the someguy series. i disliked it for a long time but i think i finally get it

becuase like, one of the big themes of the someguy series in my interpretation is learning how to live having lost something dear, rather than succumbing to your own guilt and grief, letting it contort your sense of justice in the name of revenge. it's about doing the right thing even though you know you'll regret it, and finding a way to cope with that regret.

which glanton (the mod's bbeg) is a perfect example of what happens when someone does let themself allow their sense of justice become corrupted by their inability to live with their own grief. He blamed himself, and "tribals," for the death of his wife, and turned that cruelty towards tribal peoples as a whole.

Which leads me to the final choice of the mod: Wether or not you let Russell kill the mayor. I really didn't like this as a final choice for a long time because I fully believed that the mayor had it coming. he hired glanton knowing full well he'd massacre the Sand Wolves, innocents and all, and proceeded to hide from the legion raid rather than do anything to defend his town. choosing to talk Russell down felt much more narratively satisfying in the way it was written, but i thought it was just the mod doing a 180 on its morality for no reason or was another weird writing thing that came of someguy2000s evident burnout on the project. I knew the game wanted me to think that talking Russell down was the good guy option (someguy2000 does this a lot with speech checks in the later mods in the series timeline)

but taken in the context of the main theme, and listening to Russell's justification as to why he needs to kill the mayor, you see that theme of loss warping justice perking up again. At this point, we know well that Russell blames the NCR for his loss of The Desert Rangers and has let that loss embitter him. And when he talks about killing the mayor, it's very clearly not about that, to the degree that Russell explicitly states "he (the mayor) is the NCR". Just like how Glanton slaughtering the Sand Wolves wasn't about what the Sand Wolves did, rather it was about his own unresolved loss, Russel killing the mayor was never about the mayor or silverwood or glanton. It was about desperately lashing out against NCR for what it ripped away from him.

Only by interfering. By talking him down and helping him realize that there's still good in the mojave and in him even without the Rangers. that he can find a way to keep living after all he's lost. you keep him from taking another step towards, and potentially falling straight into, the trap glanton was caught in.

I honestly love this moment now, and while i think it wouldve benefited from a bit more time in the oven, it's such an emotionally resonant and thematically fitting resolution to a really interesting character. It makes you feel like Russell has a chance at moving past what he's lost to become something better. which again in the context of the themes of the Someguy series is so interesting to see.

it's such a grim mod series in a bleak setting where even good endings feel bittersweet at best, but this moment now that i get it, feels like a candle in the dark. a reminder of the little pockets of good that can exist if we nurture it, even when everything seems so dismal.

anyway play the someguy series play it it's great i promise.