#but he's misunderstood and talked shit about even though he's one of the most caring and selfless people I know

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Barlen

Summary: The reader is visiting Beau's family for Christmas for the first time...

Pairing: Beau x reader

Word Count: 2,200ish

Warnings: language

A/N: This is a little continuation of Bad Day but it's not necessary to have read that prior to understand this fic. Happy Holidays everyone!

_________

Beau tugged nervously at the collar of his thick burgundy cable knit sweater across the room. Even from a distance, you could see the flush of his cheeks as he was spoken at by his uncle.

“Uncle Cal was talking shit about you coming, you know.” You turned to the left, Emily standing there in a quiet corner of the kitchen sipping on a small glass of white wine. She must have misunderstood your staring because she was quickly shaking her head. “Dad totally said I could have a little cause it’s Christmas-”

“I don’t care if you have some wine, Emily. What exactly do you mean Cal was talking shit about me?” She faked a wave over to Beau when he tried to urge her over, using exaggerated hand gestures likes she was caught up in a deep conversation with you. “Leaving your father to fend for himself, hm?”

“Yup. Last time I talked to Cal at Thanksgiving he was riding my ass about not having enough extra curiculars for college. Or a boyfriend. And for liking you.” 

“Sounds like a dick,” you said, Emily smirking as you took a long drag of your beer. “Beau warned me he’s the family busybody.”

“Yeah but like,” she said, reaching behind you and grabbing a sugar cookie off a tray, “He really doesn’t like you. Rory, that’s my freakishly tall cousin that’s at his girlfriends, well Cal is his dad’s dad and Rory said his grandpa was calling you a slut on Facebook cause he thinks you broke up my mom and dad which is so not true but…yeah, that’s the boomer mentality you’re dealing with. Oh, plus he hates you for being younger than dad so there’s that too.”

“I’m thirty four years old, not a child,” you grumbled, hiding the desire to shoot Cal a dirty look. Emily saw through it though, munching on her cookie with big brown eyes. “Em, you don’t think I’m too young for your father do you? Or-”

“Um, you can stop right there.” She caught your hesitation and rolled her eyes. “You’re both adults and I know you and dad were just friends when my parents were together. Shit, you used to babysit me.”

“I know but I wouldn’t blame you if you thought…” She threw her head back, muttering a curse under her breath. “I’m sure Cal isn’t the only member of your family that’s been hesitant of me.”

“They like you a hell of a lot more than mom.” You blinked, furrowing your brows. “Come on, Y//N. She left dad at his low. No one bats an eye at your age except for the dinosaur over there and trust me, I know dad wasn’t looking at you like that until way after my parents divorced. It wasn’t until after everything with the camp and Avery and you were taking care of me here and you went up to Montana for work that you guys were together.” 

You reached back and took your own cookie, chewing on it slowly. “Well…it made your dad feel better to have someone checking in on you and your mom while he was in Montana figuring out what to do.”

“And then he went on leave for three months to move back here for a bit and suddenly you were moving up to work for him when he went back.”

“You moved back there too if I recall,” you said, Emily smiling at you. “What?”

“I’m just saying, dad is…not the most emotionally available man…but he’s getting there and I know it’s because you have that something my mom doesn’t. So if Cal gives you shit, I got your back.”

“Oh, Emily, you’re as protective as your father,” said an older woman with graying hair and a gentle smile. “I already told Cal to leave Beau alone or I’d make good on that promise I made when I was thirteen.”

You looked between them, Emily smirking. “Cal teased Grandma about a boy she was dating, like relentlessly, and one day she said-”

“I’d bust his balls with a bat if he ever spoke that way about someone I cared about again,” she said, giving Cal a look across the room that could kill. “Especially when it comes to one of my boys and their wives.”

You choked on the beer in your mouth, Beau’s mom smacking you on the back as you coughed violently.

“Arms up, dear, there you go,” she said as you raised them, still coughing as she hit you harder than any woman in her seventies had any right to. You took a deep breath and lowered your arms, rubbing your chest as you caught your breath. “Emily, be a dear and go rescue your father from Cal. Tell him I need his help in the kitchen.”

“But then I’ll get stuck talking to him,” she whined.

“Well…call him a boomer and start talking about tik tok and he’ll just get confused and go have a smoke outside.” Emily sighed but went off across to the far side of the house, Beau’s mom wearing that same mischievous grin you caught on his face and Emily’s. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my big brother but he can be a bit of a dickhead. Beau’s too kind of a soul to tell his uncle to go fuck a cactus.”

You smiled, her arm looping through yours. “I hope I didn’t scare you with that wife comment.”

“No, not at all,” you said, his mom eyeing you up and down with a hum. “Beau and I have only been dating-”

“My boy was broken,” she said as you caught Emily reluctantly join her father and Cal over in the corner. You gave Beau’s mother your attention, her face softening. “And then he broke more and when he started to heal, Emily getting hurt broke him even more and you know him, he hides these things so well. Now…that boy over there is forty six years old and he talks about you like he’s fourteen and has his first crush. He healed the right way with you so you two kids, you do whatever you want to and I’ll deal with Cal, got it?”

“Yes, mam,” you said as Beau approached, heaving a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he breathed out, his mom slipping away with a smile. “I thought you needed help?”

“Heaven’s knows why’d you’d think that, Beau,” she said, humming as she skirted out of the kitchen and off to the family room. Beau looked back at you, tilting his head with an adorable confused look to his green eyes. 

“Your mom simply orchestrated an undercover op to get Emily to rescue you. Apparently I’m not as scary as your mom when I ask her to do such things,” you said, Beau smiling.

“Ah, well, she’s got grandma superpowers. You’re just a little detective. So not scary.”

“So not scary,” you said, Beau taking the beer from your hand and taking a sip, interlacing your fingers in the other. You let him lead you to the front of the house where you slipped on your boots and light jacket, Beau popping his feet into his dark brown leather cowboy ones. He opened the front door with a few fingers, tugging you out to his parent’s front porch on the outskirts of Houston.

“I’m sorry I keep leaving you alone in there to fend for yourself,” he said, leaning against the railing, passing the beer bottle back to you.

“Hey, we live in Montana. Your family misses you. I don’t mind sharing.” He smiled, looking out at the dark field across the street. You ducked under his arm, Beau wrapping his own over your shoulders, briefly kissing your temple. His sweater was soft against your cheek, his sharp inhale of your perfume making you wrap your arms around his waist and turn into his side.

“S’funny. This place doesn’t feel like home anymore.” You glanced up at him, Beau smirking and brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. He’d done that move a hundred times over but your breath was catching in your throat tonight as he grasped your chin, bringing your lips to his. He kissed you slowly, gently, like he had all the time in the world to devour you.

“You can’t just short circuit my brain like that you know,” you mumbled, Beau laughing against the column of your neck.

“But it’s one of my favorite things to do.” He peppered kisses up and down your jaw, playing your like a instrument he knew better than the back of his hand. You bit your bottom lip when he ghosted over your ear, hot breath fanning your skin. “Close your eyes, darlin’.”

“Beau, your parents are literally on the other side of that door,” you said as he chuckled. 

“Trust me.” Slowly you lids fluttered shut, Beau’s warmth leaving you. The deck boards creaked although you felt his presence, and smelled his pine and musky cologne, nearby. “Keep em’ closed.”

“Alright, alright,” you murmured before he was kissing you again. “Barlen…”

“I love when you call me that,” he whispered, touching his forehead to yours. There was an undercurrent of tension in his voice, your lips parting. “Did you know I never asked Carla to marry me? She just told me it was happening and I was okay with that because it was all part of her plan and I loved her. And now…I know we’ve talked about the somedays but…”

“Are you scared I’ll hurt you?” you asked quietly, his head nodding once. “Why?”

“You’re so young and beautiful, darlin’. You have no clue. A family with me…you won’t have a normal-”

“Beau. You’re forty six, you’re ripped and so not old. I will never not want you and we could both die tomorrow so do what I always tell you. Relax and trust me.”

“Last chance to change your mind.” You shook your head, tilting your chin up in search of his lips. He met them, cupping your cheek as he took you in. “Open your eyes.”

When you peeled them open, Beau knelt down holding a square black velvet box in his hands.

“Will you-”

“Yes, Barlen,” you grinned, Beau chuckling. 

“Not even gonna let me ask?” 

“I’m excited, sue me,” you said, Beau raising to his feet and opening the box, shaking his head at you as he slid a ring on your finger.

“Want to get married?” You eagerly nodded your head. “Even if you have to deal with Cal?”

“I’m a detective, babe. I can handle a seventy eight year old stuck in the past,” you said, Beau wrapping you up in his arms and hosting you up. “Careful old man. Wouldn’t want you to throw a hip.”

“Eh, watch it troublemaker,” he teased, nipping at your jaw. Your legs went around his waist, Beau setting you down on top of the railing but not releasing you. “So. How long have you known I was planning to ask?”

“Questioning my investigative skills?” you hummed, Beau eyeing you up and down. “I’ve suspected since the fall when we had that kids talk. But I knew for sure when your mom slipped the beans and called me your wife in the kitchen.”

He muttered a curse under his breath, those big green eyes watching you with curiosity. “So you knew what I was doing when we came out here.”

“Most likely,” you said, running a hand over his head, brushing a stray strand that’d fallen over his forehead. “S’okay you got nervous. You’re getting better at the talking thing, you know.”

“What did I do to deserve you?” he said softly.

“Well you are a good kisser, Mr. Barlen.”

“As are you future Mrs. Barlen,” he teased, laughing when a giggle left your lips. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Barlen, darlin’,” you said, Beau grinning wide. “See, we’re all set.”

You both jumped when the front door burst open, Emily standing there with an exhausted sigh, staring at her father. She raised her eyebrows, Beau rolling his eyes. “Yes, she said yes, little Ms. Impatient.”

“Thank god. He’s been this close to a coronary all day,” she said, turning to go back inside. “Grandma says we can’t open presents until you get your chicken shit ass in gear and ask so can we go do that now?”

“Welcome to motherhood,” said Beau, shaking his head at her. “We’ll join in a minute.”

Emily left, leaving you to smile up at Beau. “Wow. I never knew your mom had such a potty mouth. She’s always been so sweet.”

“Oh, she can swear like a sailor all she wants but heaven forbid I cuss in front of her.”

“I think it’s a mom thing, hun,” you said, Beau rolling his eyes when you heard knocking at the window. “We better get back in there before the whole family is ragging on you.”

“They can wait,” he said, holding you close to his chest. “Right now, the only present I want is you, darlin.”

_____________

[eyebulb]

[ceratedfish24]

Your takes on c!Scott and flower husbands have honestly been so refreshing that its reignited my old Hot Takes on c!Jimmy bc I detest the way people characterize him.

I feel like so many people portray Jimmy as this dejected downtrodden victim of bullying, which feeds into a narrative that Scott was cruel and abusive and awful or whatever, and tends to act like Jimmy doesn't have any agency ever. But IN REALITY??? Jimmy is not downtrodden and dejected and sad!!!!! In my opinion, Jimmy's defining character trait is his unshakable TENACITY! Ppl never want to admit that Jimmy is a little shit! That he acts out of spite, that his friends' teasing only tends to motivate him!! He *thrives* in environments that challenge him! AND to be so for real, he is a grown man with agency and decision-making skills and I'm tired of people acting like he isn't.

In general I feel like people just have the wrong outlook on him as a character. Maybe they've just collectively misunderstood him, or a Helpless Miserable Victim is easier to write about in fic, or they just want to project their own bullying-related trauma onto him or whatever. (People do similar things to Scar when talking about desert duo, which I understand even less). IDK. These are just my thoughtssssss sorry for rambling :P

No because you’re literally so real for this. Jimmy is SUCH a little shit. His response to Joel being mad at Jimmy for trying to kill him was to SHAKE HIS ASS AT JOEL. He taunted Joel because Jimmy successfully used Lizzie to bait Joel out. He tried to guilt trip Scott into giving him time. These aren’t negative qualities. This is a guy being silly with his friends. Embrace them when writing c!Jimmy. These are wonderful and realistic qualities.

Jimmy’s tenacity is so remarkable. He gets knocked down and all of his friends tease him about it, and he stands right back up with pep in his step. A lot of people treat Pearl the same way. Like, guys, these people are adults who make their own choices, and, often times, people who are given free will are not going to make the responsible choice most of the time when there are no real world consequences to their actions other than maybe “I might not get to be in the finale of this Minecraft series”.

There is SO much favoritism in the Life Series. Jimmy and Pearl are always reduced to their greatest tragedies, while Scott and Cleo are reduced to their most selfish moments, even though everyone else is equally selfish because IT IS A DEATH GAME. IT IS A COMPETITION. THAT IS THE POINT.

A lot of Jimmy’s deaths tend to be his own doing. Whether he unnecessarily made an enemy or just wasn’t being careful, a lot of Jimmy’s deaths are his fault, and that’s fine. He likes to play into bits. He’s not that serious about winning as opposed to making fun content. Pearl has made her fair share of mistakes and enemies, and that adds plot and drama to her content. That’s how she plays it, and it’s fine! Don’t infantilize them for dealing with the consequences of their actions just like everybody else!

Scott was widowed, and he had to watch his allies die before he did for seasons. Nobody ever comforts him about it. Nobody says “oh this man is so sad he’s just doing his best but he can’t keep his friends alive and it’s eating him up and everyone should baby him”.

Nobody even calls Joel toxic for constantly targeting Scott, but somehow Scott is toxic for teasing Jimmy now and then? (Which is not to say that Joel is toxic. He just finds it fun to target his good friend and knows where Scott’s limits are. It’s actually a sign of how close they are in real life). Nobody calls Etho and Bdubs toxic for being so mean to each other. Nobody calls Impulse manipulative when his whole thing in Third Life was betraying people. Nobody says Ren is controlling for taking the lead in Dogwarts or calling the Renwood Mound the Ren Mound. Scar is a liar and a scammer and no one thinks less of him for it.

Do you wanna know why? Because they’re friends having fun. Scott and Scott’s character should be treated with that same respect given to everyone else. Also, people need to keep in mind that Scott is not actively playing a character. Scott is just playing the game the way that cc!Scott wants to play the game, so any in depth analysis of Scott’s “character”? That’s an over analysis of cc!Scott in a competitive environment, and that man is literally on this site, people. He knows about Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, Girldad. I’ve seen him reply to analysis posts on why Scott is manipulative. He’s literally just a guy playing a game for fun.

Imagine if someone accused you of playing an evil and selfish character because you asked your friend to give you the monopoly money they owe you. Or, worse imagine if someone accused you of playing a manipulative character because you let your friend land on your monopoly property without paying you????? Because you love your friend??????? Like, excuse me????????

Thank you for the ask!!!!!! 🩵🩵🩵 It’s always flattering when someone calls my posts “refreshing”💕💕💕(also I see you all the time and I love seeing your additions to my posts💖)

[givekennyabreak]

Irreplaceable. (Kenny Liu x gn!reader)

Summary: A cop arrived along with Tabitha, and she thinks she owns the place; you think it's time to teach her how to be humble.

Rating: T

Warnings: whole lotta cursing, canon-compliant violence, spoilers for S3E8 of From, survivor's guilt, mourning, Acosta slander, reader is jealous but for a good reason, mentions of blood, mentions of gun. Acosta is her own warning.

Word count: 2.15k

Tabitha was back.

She went through the tree, got into a lighthouse, went outside and wound up back in town. She was hurt - scared, you could see the way she looked around with wide eyes at every waking moment.

You talked to her once; it didn't go far, though, as Jim arrived a couple minutes after you finally got the poor woman alone, telling you whatever went on in their life wasn't any of your business.

You flipped him off.

"If you ever need to talk," you told Tabitha, eyes as gentle as possible. "I'm at the station."

Not only did Tabitha come back, she brought in Victor's father with her (by accident, she said. Of course.). Henry, he said his name was, was a gentle man through and through. You could see how much he cared about Victor - the way he tried his best to be patient and reconnect with his son.

He never berated the man, listened to whatever he said with the utmost patience and always tried to remain calm, although you're all only human - he panics a few times, too.

He went to the goddamn caves with Victor.

If that isn’t love, you don’t know what is.

Victor, your first friend in this hellspace; one of the four people you trusted with your life - the other three, obviously, were Boyd, Donna, and Kenny.

The man was a gentle, misunderstood soul. If anyone asked you who was the person who wanted to leave this place the most, out of everyone, Victor would be your answer. He was used to it, yes - but he didn't like the place.

He was tired.

You were tired.

That's why you tried to help him as much as possible.

(Victor told you how he tried to remember what happened with Christopher and the townspeople at the beginning, but it didn't work - he was going to see Sara.

"Does it have to be her? Do we have to do this?"

"Yes."

"Dude, c’mon. She-"

"I know. But it’s gonna get scary, and she’s the scariest person in town."

You blinked up at him. He blinked back.

You sighed.

"Fine. But I'm taking a knife with me.")

Yet, there was a third party who got in town with the two good parts; and, as all is never well in this place, the woman was an absolute menace.

Acosta was her name - surname? Who knows -, a policewoman who refused to change out of her uniform, going around asking people invasive shit and managing to piss you off more times than you can count by berating Boyd, of all people.

Her last stunt was to come up to the station as you were talking to the sheriff about the kinds of food you managed to find with the last group of people who went foraging, demanding him to give her gun back.

She did so without even acknowledging your presence, trading insults back and forth while you watched the scene, flabbergasted; Boyd, tired of her shit, actually gave it back to her without the ammunition (this is why you trusted him so much), and she walked out of the station, without as much as a glance towards you.

"Am I invisible?"

Boyd sighed. "To her? Most people are."

And then - there went your last straw.

Just as you arrived at the diner, ready to give your boyfriend a tight, much needed hug, you caught sight of a blonde ponytail and blue uniform.

"Oh, hell no."

You swung open the inner door, and walked up to the stools just as Kenny poured hot water into a mug.

"Yeah, they… they do that sometimes." He said, as the jukebox played by itself (again.).

Acosta looked at him - really looked at him. “Is that something else you get comfortable with?” A pause. “Look, thanks for the tea.”

He looked down at the mug. “Uh, you didn't even...”

She stood up, body almost colliding with yours. “Excuse me.”

And then, Kenny looked up, eyes locking with yours. He brightened up immediately - his smile widened, and he put the pot back in its place, just to beckon you over with his free hands.

"Good morning, my love." You said, ducking under the opening to the back of the counter. When you straightened up, your boyfriend was already by your side, arms wrapped around your shoulders, drinking in your presence.

The blonde turned around, now staring at you, with furrowed brows and a scowl on her face.

“Mornin’.” He swooped down, lips connecting with yours in a chaste kiss. A sigh left your body, arms encasing around his shoulders, and you heard a scoff sound from behind, followed by the door opening and closing.

You stayed there for a couple of minutes, in each other’s arms, just enjoying the peace and quiet – the rarest thing to happen when in town. You nosed at Kenny’s throat and he inhaled deeply, red creeping up the side of his neck.

“I missed you.” You whispered. He stayed silent for a few seconds, squeezing you tighter.

“You saw me last night.”

You could hear the smile in his voice; this is it, you thought. This is a good change.

Kenny was hurting.

Kenny was mourning.

But the town – the people, didn’t give him the time he needed to go through this, so the best thing you could do to not see him fade away was stay by his side and not let him wither.

(You missed Tian-Chen, too.

She treated you like her own. She loved you, and you loved her.

She told you to stay with Jade and Victor that night.

You shouldn’t have.)

“It’s a few hours too much, still.” You replied, grinning.

Kenny let go of the embrace first, in favor of throwing away the – now – cold tea. "You're veeeery cheesy."

"This is how you love me, anyways."

"Yeah." He sighed, leaning back onto the counter, arms open again. He didn't need to ask - you gladly embraced him, arms around his waist this time, as he leaned down and hid his face near your collarbone.

"I do."

You stayed there for God knows how long, fingers carding through Kenny's soft, thick hair; humming a song you knew he loved, whispering about how your mornings went, and the dreams you had.

You both had given up on the house after Tian-Chen passed away, and Jim permeated the place with his presence (although you knew he meant no harm, the place was suffocating). Kenny moved into colony house, while you stayed at the station with Boyd. Victor would have no qualms about you moving there with him, seeing as he had the safest room in that place, but Henry was there with him, and you didn't mean to intrude.

The both of you left the diner together, hand-in-hand, ready to face the day ahead.

Shortly after, Boyd assigned you with the task of helping him around - there were more people now, and he could use some help figuring shit out. Ellis was panicking - something happened with Fatima -, and the man wanted to help his kid, so you left to do some of his own chores.

Night came.

You slept in the "archive room", a little nook used to store boxes in the station; Boyd had helped you get a bed in there, and that was good enough. There was one little window on the upper side of the room, and, even though you kept it tightly shut (you nailed it, as a precaution), the whispers and giggles still seeped into the space and made it harder for you to sleep.

The sun rose with a golden hue. The orange glow shone through the clear glass, straight onto your face; with a groan, you rose up from the mattress, stretching as your body slowly woke up.

Another day where you got up, did your shit and hoped for the best - except this time, there wasn't even any hope to begin with.

"Tillie's dead." Boyd told you as you got to colony house, a few minutes after him. "We don't know who did it, but it wasn't a creature."

Ellis fidgeted beside his dad; it looked like he wanted to say something, but held himself back.

"You okay, Ellis?" You asked, with furrowed brows. "Is Fatima okay?"

Ellis inhaled sharply. Boyd glanced at him, and back at you.

"She's fine." The young man replied, nodding his head. "Aside from the nausea, and the, uh. The other stuff."

The ultrasound issue.

"Oh. Make sure she's safe, okay?" You said, nodding at the sheriff. "'m going in."

Boyd shook his head no.

"Wait here, please. Kenny and Acosta are inside, questioning the folks."

A burning feeling made its way up the back of your neck, up to your cheeks and forehead - although it was commonly associated with red, you knew what this was: green.

Jealousy.

Now, you wouldn't consider yourself a jealous person in any way, no; but the lingering glances, the manner in which she scoffed with no shame at your affection, how she thought she was the crispiest fucking fry of the batch?

Oh, fuck no.

Boyd and Ellis rushed away while you steeped in your own anger. Not long after, you heard two sets of footsteps walk out of the house, and there they actually were - your boyfriend, and the blue-uniform menace.

Kenny had a troubled look on his face while Acosta - what the fuck was her name, again? - yapped away with no regard to his feelings; obviously, no one would walk on eggshells here when it came to other people's feelings, but this was too much.

"Was what that guy said about Sara and your dad true?"

Enough is enough.

"It's not that simple."

You trailed off behind the duo, your own brows furrowed and fists tightly closed as you breathed in and out slowly.

Do not fight her. Do not throw fists. Do not. Refrain.

"Okay, you didn't think it was worth mentioning the girl that already murdered two people?"

"Look, it's just, uh, she's different now, and Boyd trusts her."

"Who gives a shit what Boyd thinks, okay?"

"Hey!"

They stopped at your shout, turning around. Turns out you were closer than it seemed; four steps were all it took for you to walk up to her stupid face and swing a fist straight to her jaw.

Kenny yelped, rushing to your side as Acosta doubled over, hand cradling her face; wild, blue eyes stared into your own as she straightened up, raising her own fists. Your boyfriend tried to step in, but you walked around, pushing him behind your own body.

"Come on, hit me." You said, ready for a blow. She hesitated, and then - you spoke up. "You're walking around like you own this place. As if you're mightier than anyone who has been stuck here."

Kenny moved, but you lifted up your hand, placing it on his chest. "Hun, please. Sit this one out."

Acosta scoffed. You faced her, seeing the way she looked between you and Kenny.

"Yeah, we met here. Yes, we fell in love here, we got together here. Yes, this has become our routine. Do you think we wanted to be here? You think we chose to stay?" Her eyes softened. "No, we don't. But we're trying our fucking best to stay alive and sane, because that way, we can think and figure out how to escape."

Your fists shook, angry tears threatening to fall.

"You have no idea what it feels like to witness the people we love wither away and get lured in by those fucks by night. So, at least, try to be a little more considerate of these people's feelings, won't you?"

Kenny took one of your closed fists in his own hand, slowly opening it and lacing your fingers together.

"That way, you might be able to actually help someone." You finished, staring at her bruising jaw. "Sorry I punched you."

Acosta swallowed deeply, glancing between yourself and Kenny.

"I never thought about that." She said, eyes finally settling on your own. "I understand. Apology accepted."

Kenny squeezed your hand, leaning down to whisper in your ear.

"Well, that's better than nothing."

You held in a snort, bumping your shoulders together.

"Are you going to come with us?" She asked, tilting her head towards the forest.

You nodded your head. "Yeah. What did you guys find out?"

Just as she opened her mouth to answer, a shrill yell echoed through the place.

"Help!"

Ethan.

Everyone looked towards the boy, as Kenny rushed to ask him what happened.

Acosta looked at you, and nodded; the both of you ran, and you sure fucking hoped this was the beginning of a good teamwork.

[foreverrandomwritings]

Leah Clearwater with Imprint- Headcanon

Summary:This is a headcanon of Leah Clearwater having an imprint. I love this misunderstood wolf so fucking much. 

Pairing: Leah Clearwater x afab!Reader

Warnings: Death, swear words, smut at the end MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY!!

Word count:903 (I really love her okay?)

Masterlist    M’s PMC Masterlist

~It had been both surprising and unsurprising when Leah imprinted on a woman.

~Surprising because they didn’t realize that female wolves could imprint(even though they didn’t really have any knowledge in the female wolf thing anyhow)

~It’s unsurprising however because they had all imprinted on women and had never heard of a wolf imprinting on a guy before. 

~She imprinted on you after you had gotten done telling off a couple guys for being inappropriate with a group of high school girls at the diner you worked at. 

~You had kicked the guys out, made sure the girls were okay then turned around to tell her she could sit where she likes when you made eye contact and your life completely changed for the better. 

~Leah had been ecstatic to finally have an imprint. 

~She does hesitate to tell you that she's a werewolf and that vampires exist. 

~She’s terrified of something happening to you if she involves you in her life. 

~But when she does tell you you are completely understanding why she hesitated.

~You never give her any shit or grief or anything about her having to stay out late and patrol.

~You actually make sure to schedule meetings in good spots while she’s patrolling so you can give her dinner or lunch or sometimes breakfast. 

~She is extremely reluctant to bring you around the guys, other than Seth of course. 

~You and her younger brother get along like two peas in a pod.

~It makes Leah extremely happy to have someone care for Seth as deeply as she does. 

~You always make sure he is fed as well and that he isn’t overworked with patrols. 

~When she does bring you around the guys, you are tough as nails. 

~They try to make fun of Leah for the fact she was so pouty after Sam left her for her cousin. You fly right off the handle. 

~Seth and Leah have had to hold you back from physically attacking Paul and Jared for their words. 

~You also absolutely obliterated Sam and Emily one night, giving them a really long lecture about how much they truly hurt her and they apologized to her profusely. 

~She had never had anyone in her life stick up for her the way you did. 

~The love she held for you showed in every look your way, or the sparkle in her eyes when your name was mentioned. 

~She had always hoped to have the heartache of Sam and Emily patched up and you did just the trick. 

~You were unwaveringly patient with her even if you were her imprint she was still scared of another heartbreak. 

~You guys moved in with each other pretty quickly. Finding a small two bedroom apartment. 

~The thought of not living together made you both sick so it made the most sense. 

~Though separate bedrooms quickly turn into one. 

~She enjoyed having you wrapped up in her arms too much while she slept. 

~You enjoyed being wrapped up in her scent while she was gone too much to stay away from her bed. 

~You also were one of the only things that soothed her nightmares away. 

~Whether they be of her fathers death, the eclipse battle or what could have happened in the breaking dawn confrontation. 

~You reassure her everyday that you will never love anyone the way you love her. 

~You reassure her in the way you kiss her, slowly and passionately letting all unspoken words slip between your lips between her own. 

~You reassure her with the way you start a shower for her when you hear her slip through the front door. 

~You reassure her with the way you always have her favorite snacks stocked in your pantry, your bag and your car.

~You reassure her in the way you stop by and talk to Sue on a daily basis.

~She reassures you of her love with the way she throws your towel in the dryer so it’ll be nice and warm after your shower.

~She reassures you in the way that she hums your favorite songs while she’s doing chores around the apartment. 

~She reassures you with the way she takes you to some of her favorite spots she’s found during patrols. 

~She reassures you with her intimacy and vulnerability. 

~She loves cuddling with you, she’s always the big spoon, she loves the way you hold her hand and wrap it around your middle or lay it on your chest right over your heart. 

~Or she likes when you lay your head on her chest above her heart and tangle your legs within hers. 

~She likes when you braid her hair for her. She also enjoys braiding yours in return. 

~She's obsessed with the way you always seem cold without her. You’ll be wrapped up in 4 blankets, have on fleece pants and a hoodie with fuzzy socks and still somehow be freezing but then she wraps you up in her arms and you are perfectly content. 

~When you guys have sex it’s pretty much always soft. She is terrified of going overboard and hurting you.

~However if you liked it a little rough she would indulge you a little. 

~She keeps her thoughts of you very very private. She does not want the guys to see you in an inappropriate way. 

~Overall this woman loves and worships you undeniably. 

~I am desperate to be her imprint.

A/N: I am a complete sucker for this gorgeous woman. 

Tags(open): @wkndwlff​ @sylviebell​ @dingusteveharrington​

[theheirofthesharingan]

I know Itachi is your number one, but in what order do you like the other uchihas? Im guessing sasuke is 2. Who is 3rd, 4th, 5th place etc?

Actually, I love both Sasuke and Itachi equally, but in a different way. Sasuke is like my son and Itachi is.. well *blushes*

The reason I write more about Itachi is because I don't see genuine love for him in the fandom. It's the extremities of either the dudebros (who also want to portray him as a flawless, did nothing wrong kind of character) or the haters who lie on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, deliberately ignoring all the good. Even he has some pick me fans, who are his haters in disguise, I guess.

He's a wonderful character who is heavily misunderstood. I love to write about him more than the powerscaling stuff and the regular takes you see on him about him being evil, him being a villain from the start, or him being an irredeemable evil and all the shitty opinions. Since I don't like replying with the negative opinions on other people's posts (or taking screenshots of their posts to secretly harass and badmouth them), I tend to write the analysis on him in my own space. Most of the things I write I haven't seen being said about him, so I feel he needs this positivity terribly.

He's tragic, he's sad, he's powerful, he's miserable, he made mistakes, he was hurt, he hurt, he had regrets. And most people reduce him to what aligns with their moral compass. I love to explore his multifaceted character without the finger-pointing or blaming other characters, because he deserves it.

When I joined Tumblr, I was a bit more pro Sasuke and pro Uchiha, but their fans in my posts back then ended up talking a lot of shit about Itachi, which made me focus a lot more on Itachi. Though I'm not going to let fandom activists dictate and change my love for Sasuke, so my interaction with most of his fans is nil. That doesn't mean I don't love him. My fics are a proof of how much I love him.

Anyway, this isn't what you asked. I love both Itachi and Sasuke. The second would be Shisui. The third would be Izumi (even though she's a "filler" character).

I like Madara too. He's a cool villain. But I'm not all that emotionally invested in him, so I don't talk about him that much. I stopped caring about the story after Itachi's death and watched the rest of the episodes of war arc for Sasuke. So, I only remember what happened to him, not Madara. And I don't care about the ship (HashiMada), so there's less interest for me there.

I like Fugaku as well. But I'm most invested in Itachi and Sasuke, and Itachi needs positivity, and I'm forming an Itachi cult, so let's go.

[iron-touch]

Of Bones and Body Horror: Bad to the Bone and How JoJo Weaponizes Fear

While this essay focuses on Stand design for the main villains of JoJo, it is also meant to explain the creation process for Boney and his Stand, Bad to the Bone, in Iron Touch. Spoilers for Chapter 38 of Iron Touch and all of canon JoJo below!

In recent years, I feel there's been a push for villains and antagonists in fiction to be sympathetic to the heroes and audience, usually with the endgame of redeeming them by the end of the story. While this is a perfectly fine character archetype, my favorite type of villains are the ones that you love to hate. You understand why they do the things they do, but you do not want them to succeed or have a happy ending. Someone you can rally against and want to see the protagonist defeat. Whether they're a misunderstood friend or a brutal tyrant, though, the main antagonist of any given story must pose a challenge for the protagonist, and in the context of a JoJo part, I think the best way to do that is through fear.

While the Grand Marshal was also designed with these principals in mind (suppression and mind control are both Very Scary™), it's with Boney and Bad to the Bone that I think I best executed the concept of fear and intimidation in a villain. Besides, at this point, I consider Boney to be more of a """"main"""" antagonist than the Grand Marshal is.

When making a character/ability designed to invoke fear in a shonen story, there's two key concepts that you should keep in mind.

First of all, it needs to seem unbeatable. This isn’t just a villain we’re talking about, this is the main villain. Whenever the audience sees their ability in action, they should think "how the hell are the heroes going to beat that?" They should be a step above everyone else at first glance, otherwise it won’t feel like there’s as much of a threat for the protagonist to overcome. This is where I came up with Boney's resurrective ability. If you see someone die and die and die over and over again, to the point where they just casually kill themselves and come back fine later, how can someone ever expect to truly defeat them? That, and it had two bonus points going for it: it goes against a fundamental rule of Stands that Jotaro lays out ("no Stand can revive the dead"), and it parallels Diavolo's ultimate fate at the end of Vento Aureo.

The second thing is a little more complicated. The ability itself should invoke fear. Any superpower can be scary in the right environment; you can put a guy with super strength in a series where none of the other characters have any special powers and he'll seem scary by default. That's not what I mean. Something about the ability should be fundamentally terrifying.

To better explain what I mean, let's compare Dio and Dio. Err, I mean, Dio and DIO

Designing for Intimidation vs. Designing for Fear

I don't care what anyone says, Dio is a great villain. He's this perfect Satanic archetype that the story expertly frames and builds towards as a powerful adversary, the ultimate threat. He's egotistical, calculating, weirdly charismatic, and most importantly, scary. Both Phantom Blood Dio and Stardust Crusaders Dio convey the feeling of fear extremely well, but they both do it in different ways. You can best see this through their respective abilities.

The vampires in JoJo have some pretty scary abilities. There's the classic blood sucking and healing factor, but then you get the really weird shit like the Space Ripper Stingy Eyes. Compared to other JoJo parts, though, Phantom Blood is a much "lower level" story. That first fight with Dio in the mansion after he rejects his humanity perfectly shows just how strong and durable Dio has become after using the Stone Mask, but it's only as tense as it is because at that point in the story, none of the other characters have any sort of super powers. Put any Stand user worth their salt up against Dio there and suddenly the fight becomes much more even.

Also, really think of the powers that Dio has in Phantom Blood. Super strength, a healing factor, some ice abilities, laser eyes...none of these are really scary on their own, right? You can all find those abilities on an X-Men lineup. I'm not saying that makes them bad or Phantom Blood Dio a bad villain, but he's made scary through his actions and narrative framing more so than just his powers on their own. Dio isn’t an effective villain because he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, he’s an effective villain because he tried to poison the protagonist’s father and fed a baby to its newly zombified mother.

Ironically, I think the scariest of Dio's abilities are the one he neglects to use in combat. He hypnotizes/mind controls a guy at one point and he somehow creates a bunch of grotesque zombie chimeras out of different people and animals. He does send a bunch of these chimeras out after Jonathan, but most of the time they feel like generic grunts rather than imposing monsters or tragic victims.

Compare this to Dio in Stardust Crusaders. The World is as scary as it is iconic, and I think part of the reason that it is so iconic is because of how scary it is. While it does lose some of its fear factor after Jotaro realizes he also has the same ability, it remains a horrifying ability nonetheless.

Time stop goes beyond just intimidating the way something like super strength and laser eyes are. Even if Dio wasn't a vampire, he would still be terrifying with The World (his vampirism just adds some extra sauce to it by making him especially strong and sturdy). It stops everything, everywhere, with just a call of its name. There's nothing you can do against Dio; in fact, you won't even be aware of what he's doing until its already over with. Rewatch the scenes where Dio kills Kakyoin and stabs Joseph in the throat, or even when he surrounds Jotaro with a shit ton of knives. They're all helpless, oblivious to the fact that they're about to die. That is scary.

What makes it even better is that the whole part builds up to this reveal. As early as the Steely Dan fight, the Crusaders beg and bargain with Dio's cronies to reveal the secret to his Stand, and we even get to see little out of context demonstrations of it later on in the part (like when Hol Horse tries to shoot Dio or when Dio moves Polnareff down the stairs). The fan speculation surrounding what the hell The World's ability was must've been wild at the time of Stardust Crusaders' initial release. While the reveal doesn't have the same impact it once had, those early readers must've been blown away back in the day.

Dio is not the only JoJo villain that's framed like this. Killer Queen installs a certain paranoia that anything someone touches could literally blow up in their face, King Crimson weaponizes disorientation and the idea of not being fully in control of your body/actions, and Whitesnake takes the idea of wiping your memories up to eleven by outright stealing them. Even ignoring Stand abilities for a second, Kira and Doppio/Diavolo use the idea of a devil hiding in plain sight while Pucci and especially Valentine exploit their positions of power for their own gain.

Now, back to Boney. In addition to his resurrective ability, I wanted something that truly scared me on a personal level. After all, there are a bunch of ways you could bring someone back to life. Michelle even anxiously rambles some of them off in Chapter 35. But that wasn't good enough for me. It needed to be scary.

Transformational body horror is something that I've always been scared by. I think my first exposure to anything like that was that one episode of SpongeBob where he spends the whole segment slowly morphing into a snail (as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if this episode is also what gave me my fear of needles, given that a syringe is what starts the transformation). I'm 24 now and I still can't watch that episode. David Cronenberg's The Fly is the scariest movie I've ever seen purely because of the vile, nauseating body horror on display throughout most of the film. I remember accidentally stumbling across a transformation porn story on DeviantArt as a kid (I didn’t even realize it was a fetish thing until I was much older) and being completely revolted by it. This shit freaks me the hell out. Our bodies are our most personal aspects of ourselves; so having them be forcefully, non-consensually violated and mutated into someone else, something else is perhaps one of the most sickening experiences I can imagine.

So of course I had to put it in Iron Touch!

It was precisely that disgust and terror that I wanted to convey with Bad to the Bone. Boney doesn't just die, he doesn't just take you down with him, he forces you to become him. Against your will, you are forced to metamorphosize into an adult man, feeling every muscle and bone twist and contort into something definitively not your own, and that will be the last thing you experience before your soul is overridden and erased forever. That is scary.

I decided to have Bad to the Bone be activated by touch because it was specific enough for Boney to have control over while also being inconspicuous enough to feel like a threat in every day life. It's got that Killer Queen feel to it; anything Kira touches can turn into a bomb, while anyone Boney touches can turn into him. Since Iron Touch and most of its main cast was conceptualized in mid-2020, I wouldn't be surprised if certain current events at the time also influenced this aspect of the Stand.

Another thing I find interesting is that while JoJo does body horror a lot, it generally doesn't freak me out or make me uncomfortable. I can watch Rohan turn people into books just fine, I can watch Jolyne unravel herself into string without a sweat, I can watch Cioccolata dissolve people into mold no problem. Characters get dismembered, cut in half, stabbed, punched, crushed, burned alive, and even decapitated and I don't flinch. The only time the anime ever made me scared or uncomfortable through its body horror was when Dio's bone started turning everyone into plants in Stone Ocean (I remember some of the stuff with the Corpse Parts freaking me out in Steel Ball Run, but its been a while since I've read it and I don't feel like going back and looking for the specific panels that gave me the heebie jeebies).

I think what separates people turning into plants from something like Heaven's Door is the process between the two. There's no great effort of Heaven's Door turning into people into books, nor do they fully turn into books, their face just peels open like a book and they've got a bunch of pages underneath (oh, and Okuyasu's arm got all twisty I guess). That sounds a lot more graphic than it actually is. It's too instantaneous and fantastical to freak me out. Holes may start to show up in Jolyne's skin as she unravels herself into string, but she's also always fully in control of this ability and there's never any gore shown underneath the exposed skin. These abilities don't convey that sense of a forceful, even painful metamorphosis the same way that something like The Fly does, no matter how overpowered or deadly they are. That's what freaks me out about the plant guy in Stone Ocean. The sequence in the anime where his eye turns into a flower is expertly animated, but god damn it made me feel sick.

So, that's how I came up with Bad to the Bone. But that's just me. What does all this talk about fear and body horror do for you?

For people writing JoJo fanparts or stories heavily inspired by JoJo, I hope that this serves as a helpful guide for conceptualizing your main villains. One of the biggest hurdles I see people come across when writing a story like this is Stand development, with the main protagonist and antagonist being the biggest source of frustration among up and coming authors. While protagonists are another beast entirely, for antagonists, people often get caught up in making their Stand the strongest or most complex thing they can think of. From what I've seen, this usually doesn't go well. Instead, focus on what scares you. The main villain should be the last person you'd want to fight, so you'd better give them a good reason for that.

[bornwholocker]

Yeah I’m making another character rant post sue me, but it’s actually crazy to me how many people I’ve seen just going full hater mode on toshiro?? Obviously you’re allowed to not like a character, but people are villainizing him so hard, it’s wild. Like as an autistic person who has had people pretend to be friends with them, yes that shit HURTS. And the way toshiro went about his relationship with laios(especially for so long) definitely wasn’t healthy, but also like. It’s so much deeper than that?? And I’m glad I’m starting to see more people talking about this lately because honestly, it’s right there guys.

First things first, I do want to remind people that being “polite” and not telling people you don’t like them, but subtly signaling it, is still the standard in most social situations! And it doesn’t make much sense to me and it sucks for a lot of people and causes miscommunication, but it’s not like toshiro’s some big bad evil guy for following unspoken social rules that most neurotypicals also follow. Also also, given that dungeon meshi’s setting is definitely not modern, the characters probably don’t know what autism is! They just know that Laios is weird about monsters and doesn’t do well socially. All the characters have problems, many of which are accentuated for us by how normalized a lot of things are in a modern world, and a lot of things not being acceptable/normal. Obviously these are still issues for the characters, and are addressed/resolved as such, but we need to put it in perspective just a little bit.

Toshiro lashed out because A) he had just gone through some CRAZY ASS SHIT, which I feel like no one brings up. He just learned that his party companions used illegal magic that pretty much everyone agrees is dangerous on the woman he loved (yeah the way he proposed to falin without any previous communication was weird but that’s a whole nother can of worms), and it ended horribly for her! and B) he was exhausted. He had just gone days with little to no food, very little sleep, and there’s Laios, well fed and rested and to toshiro, not at all treating the situation with the seriousness it deserved. And it just hit home with how much he and Laios had clashed, how Laios was so open and honest about every little thing, and oblivious to what toshiro thought was extremely obvious. Toshiro had been raised to be quiet, polite, respectful, etc. and as a result learned to bottled up his feelings, so when he saw Laios being able to say whatever was on his mind, he understandably envied that. Even though we know that it’s difficult to be on Laios’ end, toshiro saw it as a privilege. Not only that, but he had been trying to signal to Laios (not exactly effectively but) how he felt for YEARS. And his point never made it. Everyone talks about Laios being misunderstood, but what about toshiro? What about his years of trying to communicate in the way he knew, and not being understood? I think everyone knows exactly how frustrating it is to feel like we’re being SO obvious, only for it to still cause miscommunication. So why not extend that understanding to toshiro?

Aside from all this though, it’s still clear that he does care about Laios, even though he’s annoyed by him. He literally gives Laios a bell that, when rung, would ring a matching one and be a call for help. Another example- which albeit anime only’s probably won’t know, I only know because I saw the panel- is in the finale I think, toshiro defends Laios to the elves. He sticks up for him and places his trust in him, even after everything.

Neither side was really in the wrong, but people are bashing toshiro like crazy. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of big scenes with him outside of that meeting in the dungeon, so most of our opinion is formed off of that one moment, but that moment tells a much bigger story than just, “toshiro bad and ableist, laios poor autistic puppy.” It’s been said countless times on this hell site and beyond, but I am BEGGING people to please have a little critical thinking as a treat. Like Ryoko Kui wrote this story and the characters so much more complex than good guy and bad guy. (Slight spoilers maybe) Not even the BBEGs are really all bad, when you get down to it. Everyone’s feelings and experiences are shown from their perspective and contextualized to the audience extremely well IMO, which is one of the reasons I love dungeon meshi so much. Anyway point is think deeper folks.

[b3achysurfur]

I know I originally said in a comment at some point about how annoying the Logan war got (think it was in that post asking why we all suddenly backed off) but now I just find your posts humoring it's like "THIS LITTLE GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT-" and it's the most innocent picture of Logan.

Love seeing it nowadays (cuz it's funny), but you have a good point that he hasn't furthered the story yet but I feel like Red might change that soon. Hopefully. Also how we haven't had his backstory but that also might change too (we've got a hint in one episode where they fought his bullies, something about how his parents didn't want him and he fact that we've only seen his grandparents but not his actual parents says something....)

Anyways something I need to ask you! What are your opinions on the others, what you like about them or dislike, favorite moments and what not. I'm curious!

Sorry this may have been long!

SEE NOW YOU GUYS ARE GETTING MY HUMOR , THIS ACTUALLY MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!! THANK UUUUU A LOT

also UR SO GREAT FOR THE QUESTION YOU ASKED!! I love talking about everyone else

I’ll assess them in order of: ashlyn, aiden, taylor, tyler, ben (not by order of how much I like them or anything btw). Some sections are longer than others because I’m bias BUT ALSO BECAUSE I got tired of typing and realized there was wayyy tm to read. Sorry!!!! if you don’t wanna read all this I put a short summary all the way on the bottom + feel free to me ask me specific questions ! now let me talk your ear off

ASHLYN:

I really like ashlyn because she has the most potential out of everyone (and that’s not to say the other characters aren’t deep, because that’s the opposite of true but bae is the whole reason we’re here). I think she’s also really relatable in the sense that she doesn’t like interacting with people but she can easily take the leadership role when needed. like okay queen I see you. also I really enjoy the fact Red made her dislike aiden at first even though they have a side romance plot going rn. bc that’s how it would’ve been if they were real. ash would not just become chatty out of no where and fall head over heels for him. and I really appreciate the slowburn. Ashlyn’s also higher on my favorites list because I’m bias and we have the same hair length 😣 usually when characters have long hair, authors tend to let their hair flow a lot, but red put ts in braids 🙏 and ask anyone with long hair like that, their hair is up 99% of the time bc it’s annoying, hot, and (personally) GRABS ONTO EVERYTHING LIKE ITS A THIRD HAND. I have a lot of headcannons for ash just based on small character designs / aspects that not a lot of people really think about. She’s so interesting and I really just love her. And since I have positives, I’ll give one negative about her. In the beginning, Ashlyn was really hesitant to tell the group anything. I understand where she was coming from, and given Tyler’s reaction, I don’t blame her for keeping things to herself. But mannnn ts was so frustrating sometimes. it’s ok tho bc all good stories stress you out.

AIDEN:

omg guys it’s my favorite ever. I know aidens really popular already so I’ll try not to rant on about him forever but hes just the best 😣 but mans really does not gaf EVERR.

now I could rant on and on about how silly Aiden is and why he’s so misunderstood as a character, because he’s not crazy like at all and if anything he’s one of the smartest characters in sbg, but I’ll save if for a better time. Instead I wanna talk about how observant he is of Ben and ashlyn.

it’s cropping weridly, sorry. but aiden’s eyes are always watching the ones he cares about most. I feel like this has to do with the fact Ben cannot voice his concerns/opinions so aiden always has to glance at him to make sure he’s not missing any important signal. But I also think it has to do with his childhood (I don’t have fast pass or anything this is just based off of theories/analysis based on his character bc I do that a lot 🤒). Anyways, he has a specific way of comforting people that I think it’s rlly niche. He uses his hands and gets the person what he thinks they need. Like in the attached images he gets ashlyn fabric to squeeze and distracts her with light conversation, and he immediately offers to take a walk with Ben and get some fresh air. If a person refuses or asks him for space, he immediately obeys and doesn’t question their decision. He’s very trusting and understanding. He gives people room to make mistakes and gives them room to ask for help. I’m mainly bringing this up because it ties back to something I’m gonna talk about in Taylor’s section. I just think that this detail is so important to his character and we always brush over it. I don’t wanna say he doesn’t like physical touch, bc he’s always touching everything around him, but I like to think his main love language is acts of service. When you really look at it, his actions speak a lot louder than his bickering and it really helps display how much each character means to him individually. what elseee. He’s able to quickly adjust and assess situations (like when he attacked the phantom or pulled up ashlyn in the bus). He’s very quick to his feet and always needs to be interacting with something to keep his hands busy. Aiden just really don’t gaf 99% of the time (unless it’s Ben / ashlyn) and honestly that’s why I like him. He doesn’t take anything seriously or personally. clap it up for my hb. Also I notice the sbg fandom has a habit of doing it with everyone, but I feel like Aiden is always reduced to his impulsive behaviors and ‘crazy kid’ persona. please guys. look deeper into Aiden Clark. Instead of wasting your energy trying to defend a NERDY FREAK like Logan fields, you should study more on Aiden Clark and his complex character.

yes. do that. rn. You want to so badly. I know you do. Do it. Go reread sbg and focus on Aiden. wowwww. I know you want to. (I’m hypnotizing you btw) Or just ask me I can talk about Aiden (or really any character) alll day long. Ask me anything about anyone and I’ll tell you what I think with proof and evidence. yes. I just need to cut it short because I have to talk about everyone else to. But study Aiden Clark. do it. really. really. Right now. Go. Go. Now. PLUS Aiden’s probably the least likely to die because he’s to cool for that + he’s better than death and injury. YAAA!!! MAKE AIDEN CLARK UR FAV BC YOULL BE SAFE FROM ANGST 🎉

only thing I don’t like about Aiden gotta be his fashion sense sometimes (usually beginning S1). like WHAT R U WEARING MAN???? 🙁

TAYLOR:

okay now let me talk about my shnukums Taylor. I love her a lot but her and Tyler had very different childhoods regardless of the fact they were in the same situation.

We don’t know a lot about Taylor’s version of growing up, so a lot of the details are vague but everything I say is based off of observations and analyses I have personally made, so please take everything I say about Taylor’s backstory with a grain of salt and understand that no matter what, both twins were majorly affected by the passing of their father and illness of their mother.

At first i thought of Taylor was the more lucky one out of Tyler and Taylor when it came to their childhood. Yes she struggled, I knew that, but Tyler was under a lot of stress. But that’s when I realized that she suffered just as much. Although she didn’t need to sacrifice herself to help her family survive, like Tyler did, she went though the most loss. She lost her mother, father, and brother all overnight. One second they were all happy together and the next she was all alone. Physically, her mother and brother were still there, but they were both shells. Her mother isolated by grief and her brother isolated by responsibility. She was all alone. Yes Tyler did his best to support her, but at the end of the day, there wasn’t much he could do to change the situation. Taylor suffered a lot, and since people mostly focus on Tyler, we never really see Taylor’s POV of it all.

Now her backstory leads me into the fact Taylor is the most socially smart character in sbg. She is also the most observant and supportive. This is not to say others aren’t observant/supportive, like Aiden for an example, but she does it much differently. I would attach a picture here but I’m close to maxing out the photo limit and I want to save it for later.

Taylor is very good at reading the emotions of other characters. She is also very observant. Taylor is often the first to notice when a charater is uncomfortable, panicked, or harmed. For an example, she’s the first to notice Ashlyn’s fear back at the house. Unlike Aiden, Taylor is able to verbally let people know she is there for them. She comforts them through words and physical affection. Taylor is usually aware of how much support someone is in need of and the best way to display it for them specifically. For an example when Logan was getting bullied, she defended him against Tyler’s mean words and held his shoulder for reassurance. This same tactic would not work for ashlyn, and Taylor is aware of that. So, when ashlyn broke down about the struggles of being leader, Taylor comforted her through words and reassured her fears. Taylor opened up a space for ashlyn to be scared and share her burden. She was able to do all of this in only a couple of moments. This skills also becomes a werid quirk when she is able to sense Tyler’s condition in the hospital, but maybe that was just twin senses? 🤷‍♀️ idk

Taylor is also very aware of everyone around her. We know that she is very social and has a lot of friends and connections, but she also educates herself on the people she doesn’t interact with. Even if she doesn’t know a lot, she makes sure to acknowledge their presence at the very least.

What does her ability to read emotion have to do with her childhood? Well, Taylor basically lived with a shell of a family. Tyler was under constant stress, which made him prone to outbursts. Her mother was disabled by grief. Taylor was in a situation that made her feel like she had to take care of her family mentally. It was, to her, the least she could do. So, she was mentally mature from a very young age. Although having to hold the burdens of others constantly is very unhealthy, I’m not sure if she’ll crack because of it.

Taylor being very social and having a lot of friends is also another example of how she’s different from Tyler and how their shared childhood affected them differently. Tyler saw people as distractions while Taylor sees them as her means to keep living. Taylor lives off of other peoples energy, and she maintains the energy of other people by being a supportive beam for them. This is also why I’m okay with Taylor being shipped with others. She’s use to being around people and can form close bonds with others while still only viewing them as friends. Tyler cannot do the same. Taylor is in a position where she can expand her horizons into romantic relations if she was interested in doing so. That’s why I feel as though it’s okay (if that doesn’t make sense I’ll explain it again, but I tried to condense it down)

Something I don’t like about Taylor is that we haven’t gotten to see her brain in action yet. We know she’s the president of the robotics club , but we haven’t had the chance to see her charater support the story in any other way but socially and mentally. The story is only at 60 episodes though, and I’m sure we will see it eventually. Im just impatient and want to see women in STEM shine 😣😣 I wish I could talk about her more, but we barely know anything about Taylor as of right now. I will say it’s interesting how she told her and Tyler’s backstory, but only talked about how Tyler was affected and not herself. Interesting… I hope we learn more about her experiences and I hope I’m right 🙏 also CAN WE TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE HOW PRETTY SHE IS??? UGHH I LOVE HER SMM

TYLER:

I feel like Tyler has been the topic of discussion for the past couple of months because his backstory was revealed and the end of S1 / beginning of S2 was all about him and his past, so I don’t have a lot to say that I haven’t already said. but I do really like Tyler. At first when he was in his jock era I was very , oh! about him. but he’s actually warmed up to me sooooo much since then. he’s so goofy I just want more interactions between him and Aiden. I think I good place to start is how much I HATE people shipping him with other members of the main cast. I talked about it a little in Taylor’s section, but him and Taylor had very different childhoods. Again, I’m not saying their father’s death and mother’s illness was not hard on the both of them, but Tyler was under a lot of pressure too. We know he isolated himself harshly, and stopped having fun all together. The way I look at it, everything, including living day-to-day, became a chore for Tyler. Ever since he was a little kid. His dad’s death changed his entire world overnight. He had to learn how to physically and mentally support everyone important to him, because if he couldn’t no one else would. Tyler had to learn everything about living life by himself as a baby just so everyone else could survive. He stopped having fun. Little kids find fun in everything. Tyler stopped himself from finding it. He didn’t do anything for himself anymore. He was almost like a empty shell doing automatic tasks so that his sister and mother could have space to grow, heal, and live. In a sense, it was self sacrifice (which he attempts again when he tells the group to leave him behind)

So when Taylor tells us that the main cast started to become an extension of the family he sacrificed himself for, it’s so heavy on his character. Especially because for once in a long time he started relating his ‘family’ back to joy and fun, not just safety and survival. That’s why it bothers me when people ship him with others. It’s so werid to imply he’d date any of the main cast when he sees them as his family. consider them blood-siblings if you gotta, but just stop shipping them. PLEAASSSSEEEEEEEEEEE. otherwise I’ll eat your dog. thanks! also him being friends with the main cast at all is such a huge step for him. I don’t think Tyler has time to get involved with romantic relationships when he believes friends are a distraction. I know a lot of people go to romance when they want to express how strong a connection is between two characters, but you guys are forgetting that Tyler considering everyone as his friends is sooooo much more complex and deep compared to (for an example) Logan saying he considers everyone his friend. ANYWAYS ENOUGHHH!!! let’s move on.

I also wanna talk about this scene (I was to lazy to go find the original scene so the flashback is all you get). I never really realized how much ashlyn ordering Tyler around must’ve affected him. He literally spent his whole life making decisions and taking leadership and all of a sudden some random lil girl is over here telling him to stfu and sit his ass down. I would imagine as mad as he was, he probably felt a least a bit of relief. For once the responsibility wasn’t on him, at least not only on him. He could share his burden with others, and he wasn’t suffocated by being responsible for the lives of everyone else. We see this same struggle affect ashlyn, as she feels like being leader strangles her with the weight of guilt, paranoia, and responsibility. Imagine if Tyler had been the one to bare that weight after everything he’s already been through? he would’ve cracked, whether we like it or not. so let’s clap it up for ashlyn rq!!! yasss girl 😋 I know I’m rambling a lot about tyler but I know a lot about him and want to talkkk 😣 but here is my last point: Tyler’s coping mechanism to the unknown and things that confuse him is denial. Just like his mother 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

woww! do you guys remember when Tyler thought this whole thing was a joke? me too! he would’ve never thought this silly prank would almost kill him. Tyler’s mom probably thought her husband’s illness wouldn’t kill him either. oops! 😂 (I’m going kms). sorry. my point is they both refused to believe it happened (although his mom’s denial may have been more of a trauma response while his was just to help him cope). Even with evidence, they both couldn’t understand what had happened to them and pretending nothing was wrong. Tyler saw the picture of the phantom’s shadow and brushed it off to technology he couldn’t understand yet. he felt more comfortable with not knowing how technology worked rather than not knowing if he was in danger. his mother is similar. She couldn’t understand and cope with the death of her husband, even though he died in front of her. She felt more comfortable not understanding why he was late from work than understanding he was dead and gone. Guess it runs in the family? 🤷‍♀️ and since these are all things I like about his character, I will tell you what I don’t like. THAT STUPID ASS JOCK ATTUIDE FROM S1. okay I didn’t hate it, and it fit him sometimes, and I kinda miss it sometimes, but he’s like 5’5 and a stick, he is not beating no one’s ass 😭 respectfully. now he could probably rock me but he’s matured a bit since S1 so it’s different. Tyler’s not even my favorite idk why I talked about him sm , especially when I held off on talking about Aiden because I didn’t want to say to much 🤦‍♀️ whatever

BEN:

I have a lot to say about Benny boy, especially because he is SOOOOOO mischaraterized. Now I won’t go crazy like I did for the twins because I’m thinking about making a separate post just about Ben (maybe.. maybe not idk). plus I just reminded myself anon asked me to just say a few things I like and disliked about each charater not give crazy long paragraph about them. so, sorry Ben but you will probably have the most boring paragraph of them all. I still love you a lot pookie 🙏 I’m just tired AND MAXED OUT THE AMOUNT OF PICS I CAN USE EVEN THO I NEED TO TALK ABOUT U WHILE USING PICS 🤒 anyways enough rambling.

bens charater is often reduced to his backstory which genuinely makes me want to start tweaking out. if you expand on why his trauma affects him, then I will happily listen to you talk. But when most the fandom sees Ben as “music boy who hate bully, will fight you if you be mean” it makes me so SAAAADDDDD. no, Ben will NOT beat my ass for making fun of Logan. That’s like… the whole point of his backstory? He doesn’t like violence, at all. He’s ashamed of his anger issues. He blames himself for having to move and putting his family in danger. The only reason he got involved with Logan’s fight was because the phantom interference + no one was there to help calm him down.

also he doesn’t only do music. he draws too! he’s a very artistic dude. He also gardens. Ben be planting food and shit. which (as much as I HATE the ship) Logan n Ben shippers could probably use to their advantage. Yk bc Ben gardens and Logan helps his grandparents in their greenhouse? wtv. Bens prob growing flowers for Taylor anyways. Fuck Logan. sorry.

Ben is also very compassionate and gentle. He’s always thinking about what’s best for the group, even if it puts him in an uncomfortable position, like sharing his trauma. Ben is also very soft hearted. He gets flustered very easily, we see this when ashlyn and Taylor complimented him. He is very protective over those he cares about and he does not come to play, ever. Also his character development from S1 makes me so happy. He use to be attached to Aiden’s hip 24/7 and we could often only understand his emotions when Aiden would translate him to us. But we’ve seen lately that he’s much closer to Taylor, even putting her safety before his own.

wow, gentleman alert❗️if I didn’t run out of photo space than I would’ve shown more examples where he holds onto others as a way to comfort or protect them. he’s so respectful I might cry. maybe I will make a Ben-centered post. I need to show you guys pictures so you can understand what I’m saying. But Ben is growing and he needs more attention. thank you.

SUMMARY:

Ashlyn

pros:

- has crazy potential + most hinted at lore

- very relateable

-introverted but stands on business

-W relationship development between her and the cast, very natural and not forced

- her hair

cons:

- she is very hesitant to spill info (only in earlier chaps tho!)

Aiden

pros:

- silly

- observant of those he cares about

- acts of service love language

- trusting/understanding

- quick on his feet

- good at assessing situations/making plans

- he doesn’t GAF 🦅🦅 EVAAA

cons:

- often misunderstood / mischaraterized by the fandom

- has ugly ass outfits sometimes

Taylor

pros:

- most socially smart character in sbg

- good at reading emotions

- good at comforting others

- aware of her surroundings/the people around her

- supportive

- social

- super pretty

- wrote a paragraph on why it’s ok to ship her with the rest of the cast js cuz

cons:

- we don’t see enough of her robotics president side, show me women in STEM 🤬

- we never saw how she experienced childhood (yet..)

Tyler

pros:

- deep childhood trauma/responsibility

- sacrificed himself for his family twice

- not meant to be shipped with anyone in main cast

- sees main cast as family

- he finally made friends

- talked about the scene where ash tells him to shut his bitchass up

- copes by using denial (js like his mom)

cons:

- his jock attitude during S1

Ben

pros:

- hates violence

- angery at his anger issues

- ashamed of his past

- draws and gardens as hobbies

- compassionate and gentle

- soft hearted

- easily flustered

- very protective

- slow but steady quiet charater development

- a gentleman

cons:

- you guys mischaraterize him a lot (like someone told me he doesn’t change as a character bc he never speaks, ts made me mad asf)

THATS ALL! THANK YOU FOR ASKING!! again feel free to as me questions about anything at all even if you didn’t read allat. And if you did, thank you ur so sweet and amazing. Sorry for writing sm 😢

also everyone is open to their own opinions, this is just what I think. As always, I’m always down to debate.

[zarathelonewolf]

GACHIAKUTA 117 aka Horikoshi take notes because Follo is being a better side character than most of class A combined*

*excluding Bakugo and Todoroki but that's because the former is a rival/deuteragonist and the latter is an honorary deuteragonist/deuteragonist/I am Hella confused about narrative roles don't talk to me-

Ok, so.

I know this is veeeery early. But STILL.

You cannot do this shit to me Urana! Wtf!

I had the intention of not getting attached to everyone in fear that you would kill most of them off JJK style, but now I am incredibly attached to Follo as well!

Fuck!

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the chapter 117 and the Pain™ it brought me... Because both Follo and Rudo misunderstood each other and now my heart hurts.

Needless of me to say, the biggest surprise I got in this chapter is... not that Enjin is a ladies-man. I mean, with him saying that he "likes a good woman" especially if they're sexy and smarter than him, yeah, I imagined that he would be.

It's nice seeing more of Semiu being serious about the Cleaners' job. She's a tough one, and she's right, Rudo needs to get back to work.

Before I get on my Follo angst situation, I will say that though the misunderstanding between Rudo and Follo and Follo's grief for the loss of his hammer is easily my number 1 surprise, seeing Noerde and the Sileia tribe mentioned again intrigues me as well.

Noerde seems to have been known by Mildretta, who was also a Sileia, it seems... Or at the very least, Mildretta had heard of Noerde from somewhere. Also Mildretta's another tough woman. I was wondering when we'd see more of her and today I got my answer.

Now, unto Follo!

I am tempted to just dump this stuff in your face, but NO.

No. I will not. I must resist my urge to curl into a ball.

We know that Follo has been wanting to become a Giver this whole time. We can see clearly from his memories here that his goal and dream has been cast aside at best and insulted at worst.

His hammer was his chance. He had taken good care of it... Until he offered it to Rudo to break the chest.

Follo himself had made the proposal, but in the moment his hammer broke, he realized that he hadn't really been ready for the possibility of the hammer breaking.

This has probably been eating him up from the inside. His chance of becoming a Giver broke in front of him, and he has been feeling guilty because it's happened due to his own will of helping Rudo.

He wants to take pride in being a supporter. He really does. He thinks that being a supporter is just as important as being a Cleaner, but hasn't being a supporter who supports the Cleaners no matter what deprived him of his treasured hammer?

And also... Rudo has just rejected his offer of an undamaged uniform. This just rubs further salt into the wound.

A "supporter"? Can he even support the Cleaners right? Should he? He wants to be a Giver after all, and what happened due to his diligence to the cause just deprived him of his treasured item that was the key to his aspirations...

What is his place? He is feeling like he cannot be the hero of the story no matter what he does.

Rudo, on the other hand?

Guys, we're talking about "if it's broken, I will still use it until it's truly disintegrated and until then it's not trash" Rudo.

Of course he wouldn't want a new uniform. It got damaged? Not a big deal for him, he can patch it up, he doesn't mind, it's not like it's trash after all.

Nothing is trash to him.

He can't throw it away just because it's damaged.

Of course he said no to Follo's insistence.

And yet Follo probably doesn't understand. Maybe it's also due to the way they seem to have been raised, which is also the reason why I think it has been much harder so far for Follo to awaken a Jinki.

Rudo has had an empty hole inside of him for as long as he can remember, which was filled by his gloves. Follo doesn't really have the same characteristics of Rudo: his body and soul don't crave an object or someone to rely onto as much as Rudo's do. Follo does WANT a Jinki, but not with the same exasperation that makes up Rudo's heart's NEED for a Jinki.

Alternatively, Rudo's been shown as being more versatile, so to speak, compared to Follo. Rudo's soul craves the awakening of pretty much ALL he touches, at least potentially. He can awaken every object that has emotional energy stored inside of it as a Jinki.

Follo cannot do that, it's pretty clear to see. And when he is given a Jinki? Remember what happens? Zodyl may look creepy at times and very intense, but he's spot on when he says that people who try to use a Jinki when they are not the user of the Jinki themselves, or when they are not "empty" enough, they go mad. They are meeting despair derived from the object being away from what they consider a suitable friend, and they are overwhelmed with the feelings of the object. At least from what we can deduce.

"Emptiness" and "trauma", in short, make it much, much easier for someone to bring a Jinki into life. They make it easier for the person's and the Jinki's energies to join in order to reach a balance.

And while Follo's life has been riddled with struggle, I can clearly see that, it WILL take some more time before he gest his own Jinki. It's not that he has no chance of getting one, it's just that he does not have the same constitution as, say, Rudo or Amo or Zodyl, so it will be more difficult.

But maybe this will be the episode, this one misunderstanding, that transforms Follo into someone that an object may feel tempted to, so to speak, complete?

EDIT: ALSO Givers are Givers for their objects. That is to say, one shouldn't become a Giver BECAUSE that way they will gain approval for doing something because they're finally "special" enough to do that thing. Givers simply BECOME. They just BECOME their role, not for a purpose but because of the way they feel and interact with objects in their surroundings.

Again, Follo was probably close to becoming one. So close! He treasured the hammer and took care of it with perseverance. But he did it because otherwise people would be skeptical about him being in the Cleaners. He did it to prove a point... And not necessarily because HE loved the hammer, but because SOMEONE ELSE WHOM HE LOVED had the hammer (see the boy with the lighter hair that says he will become a Giver while holding the hammer? on the fourth page?) and a similar goal.

Follo is not fully living for himself.

[boykingscourt]

thoughts on spn s8

ahh... good old s8

though it's been a while since I've watched it all the way through (currently in s6 with my friend) s8 without a doubt brings out the most mixed feelings for me compared to any other season

fair warning this got kinda long

let's start with the good:

1 ) the sam and dean drama

if you can look at it objectively, shutting out the narrative's dean bias and the general fandom reaction, it's just delicious. I've seen it referred to as the samndean dual cheating arc, which I love rather you consider that romantic or just in the weird brothers way lmao.

I'm a big fan of benny and unlike most of the fandom don't mind the sam/amelia plot. I like it what it represents for sam's character, showing just how mismatched sam and dean's priorities are in the beginning of the season. and even though sam would cop shit from dean, the narrative, and the fandom at large, those rare moments where he stands up to dean feel like mana from heaven

2 ) TRIALS TRIALS TRIALS

this is the most important aspect of s8 for me and maybe what I should have led with, but I'm sure it's not surprising coming from a sam stan or just if you're at all familiar with my blog (hopefully you are <3)

the trials arc is one of my all-time favorite sam arcs. it has unique whump, deep and meaningful revelations for his character, and ends with one of spn's greatest season finales (to me, and I'm always right)

it also spawned one of the scenes of ALL TIME, 8x21's "I'm not clean" iconic 10/10

the trials arc is of course absolutely heartbreaking from a sam perspective, especially when thinking about s8 collectively. sam going from defending himself and his choices against dean's unfair criticism -> choosing to leave his life with amelia behind -> bravely undertaking the trials but wanting to come out on the other side alive -> not caring if it kills him in the end because of his feelings of unworthiness, guilt over his past mistakes, and (chiefly) dean's infantilization and constant reminders of all that sam has done "wrong" is one of the most sickening (affectionate) journeys I've seen a character go on. even if most of the fandom doesn't recognize it for what it is, at least the dedicated sam corner of the fandom does, and I will never tire of reading trials-related meta

3 ) very distinct arcs

this probably seems trivial in relation to the other two but I like how s8 feels like two or three different seasons mashed into one

now let's talk about the bad:

1 ) wasted potential

you could say this about a lot of spn seasons/plotlines, especially the later ones, so of course it applies here too. as much as I like benny, I think there's more they could have done with him, mainly giving him more interactions with sam! I feel the same about henry winchester too. I didn't need peepaw to stick around forever, but without a doubt they should've given him more than one measly episode. he and sam had serious potential to bond and grow close, making his death (ideally later in the season) much more impactful

2 ) too much angel crap

I really can't tell you how sick I got of angel politics, and s8 only gives us a taste of many more boring conflicts to come. the angel "trials" do nothing for me, I hardly remember anything that's going on with c*s once he comes back from purgatory minus that cringe ass swan song imitation they give him and dean (and it's memorable for the wrong reasons), and the angels falling, which seems to be a big deal at first, is extremely underwhelming once s9 rolls around (maybe it's not fair to pin that on s8 but whatever)

3 ) narrative bias towards dean/fandom reaction to sam

maybe this is also not fair to pin entirely on s8, but these things are unfortunately forever intertwined in my mind and color my view of the season as a whole. s8 sam is arguably the most misunderstood and slandered sam of the whole series. you could certainly make that argument for s4 sam, s9 sam, even s5 sam, but I'm sure you will agree s8 sam is up there no matter which sam wins that crown for you

the significance of the trials and what they reveal about sam's character is entirely lost on most of the audience. all we seem to hear about instead is how stupid and pointless they find the amelia plotline, how jealous and unreasonable sam is regarding benny, and (you already know it!) endless endless ENDLESS "waaaaaahhhh sam didn't look for dean!!" just one of the three of those is enough to drive me insane, and we are instead treated to all three and more!

couple this with the narrative's dean bias (and s8 just happens to be the moment where, in my opinion, this bias becomes fixed and permanent) you are left with some of the worst takes and most fuck ass sam meta you can imagine, some of it being so bad I've heard of many instances of sam stans taking a break from spn or just checking out entirely around this time

s8 my beloved and s8 my beloathed

although maybe this is all entirely too serious and I should instead just thank s8 for its greatest gifts: estrogen!jared sam with his beautiful tan and glorious long glossy chestnut hair AND sickly trials era bella swan sam, both of whom I want to abandon the silverware for and eat with my bare hands

thanks so much for this ask, and if you were expecting a succinct response instead, I sincerely apologize

[sillyassonepieceheadcanons]

Teaching them to say "I love you" in your native/foreign language: (Robin, Luffy, Sanji, Law) x GN Reader, SFW

Notes: [text] is supposed to mean it's in your language of choice

Whether they're saying "I <3 u" platonically or romantically is up to you

Summary: their approach to learning language plus how successful they are about being taught

Robin

In general, she's interested in learning the dialects of the world, and will ask you to teach her other phrases in your native tongue too.

This becomes a whole thing, and in the daytime the other crewmates can hear your voices repeating phrases like,

(Off pronunciation) "[I want directions towards the East Blue]"

"No no, you gotta say it like... [I want directions towards the East Blue]..."

When you two get night shifts together, a lot of it is now spent coaching her on the phonetics and sometimes writing the words out for her to learn too. Before, conversation with Robin was a bit difficult to achieve, so you're glad you're getting to spend time with her this way.

She's a very good student and achieves excellent pronunciation thanks to ur help.

Emotional language doesn't come easy for her, but after one particularly productive session of learning, she smiles and says, "Can you check my pronunciation on this again? [I love you]"

Luffy (+ a lil Zoro)

He's not an easy person to teach but lord you can try.

At first, you try to teach him + Zoro practical phrases in case either ever gets lost in a foreign country, but they both misconstrue sentences and always end up accidentally saying the most vile and awful shit imaginable.

You decide to teach them just one phrase, as love couldn't possibly be misunderstood.

"Repeat after me Luffy, Zoro, [I... love.... you...]"

"[Į... ļõve...ÿou...]" "[İ... łove... ou...]"

Luffy repeats the new phrase once curiously, and then something clicks under that big straw hat. He gets a great big smile on his face and starts saying “[I love you! I love you! I love you!]” as fast as he can to you, over and over. He starts going around saying it to everyone in the crew, who have no idea what he’s saying but smile anyways. Zoro acts like he doesn't care enough to say it in a he's-actually-just-too-shy kind of way.

Once, you guys encounter an enemy who speaks your native tongue, so Luffy says the only phrase he knows... declaring his love to the enemy, which baffles them but has you laughing your ass off. 

Sanji

Actually it happens that he's already memorized how to say "I love u" in just about every language across the blue seas... because he wanted to make sure he could get his message across to any lady in the world, even if they don't speak his language.

Absolutely pretends like he DIDN’T KNOW though, so you can teach him and hear you say "[I love you]" a million times.

Learning foreign languages was also something impressed on him by his father as part of an unkind curriculum, so getting to experience it in a new light with you, as a man free from his family, is something which deep down he is very grateful for. 

Will now alternate between saying he loves you in English and in your dialect when he sees you. 

Law

Besides being good at fights, as a doctor, he has a very studious side of him too. However, he rejects having the first phrase he learn to be “I love you,” instead of something practical. 

If you want to be a little mischievous you can promise to teach him a polite greeting when you’re actually teaching him to say, “[Good evening, may I be so kind as to propose my eternal love for you?]” If he ever finds out he’s going to get your ass beat though. 

Wouldn’t seek out learning because he has other things to do as captain, but if you two are ever bored together he’d enjoy having you coming over and teaching him. Sometimes you like pulling out one of medical books and translating different body parts and organs for him to learn to the best of your ability. 

One snowy day you find him standing alone on the deck of the Polar Tang, and maybe because he had something to drink that day, he starts talking to you about the Heart Pirate's crew and how grateful he is to everyone but especially you. At the end, you almost don't catch it, but you swear you hear him say, "[I love you]"

[noodle-shenaniganery]

Hello, world. I had a story idea about two gay autistic people, and I figured I might as well share it on the gay autistic people website.

Alright. So:

1. The first character I want to talk about is Nolan. He is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and cerebral palsy (and potentially other stuff but that’s the main two). Nolan has mid-high support needs, is very minimally verbal, is an almost-full-time wheelchair user, and is not intellectually disabled (he actually has a slightly higher IQ than normal), although he is assumed to be by most people around him. He also has dark skin (he’s probably Black but it’s not as relevant to the story so I haven’t fully decided).

Nolan’s main issue is that he is tired of not being taken seriously by the people around him. He is constantly infantilized and even though he is almost an adult at the time of the main plot, he is treated like a toddler by the vast majority of people around him.

His parents, who are white and adopted him when he was very young (they have a little bit of a savior complex about it), are rather overbearing and don’t take well to any attempts by Nolan to communicate that, while he knows he needs a lot of help, he also needs space and to be allowed to be his own person. Overall, though, he’s kind of given up on trying to establish any control over his own life when the story starts.

2. The second character I want to talk about is Anthony. He is also autistic and also has ASPD, but was incorrectly diagnosed with only ADHD. He is white, able-bodied, and is seen as a “troublemaker” by the teachers at his school. He either has already been to juvie before or is treated as though he will.

His parents are emotionally neglectful and his family has a history of substance use issues. They are on the poorer side of the socioeconomic spectrum in comparison with most other families that have children which attend Anthony’s school.

Anthony feels like he is being “held back” by the people (and especially adults) around him. People don’t really give him the chance to prove himself, so he just kind of goes with the stereotypes and tries to pretend he doesn’t care. He’s always had issues with doing and understanding things, but was never really helped.

Nolan and Anthony go to the same school. They meet—most likely through a school program aiming to “socialize the disabled students”—and end up connecting with each other. They kind of bond over feeling misunderstood by other people. Over the course of the story, they grow to rely on each other a lot.

Anthony pretends to be a “goodie two-shoes” kid who is trying to be nice to Nolan by hanging out with him, and Nolan’s parents believe him. Anthony ends up making elaborate lies about hanging out with Nolan at his house while they’re out spray painting a wall or sneaking into a club.

They end up in what can best be described as a secretive queerplatonic relationship. They’re more than friends—they kiss and whatnot on a weekly basis—but saying that they’re “boyfriends” just doesn’t feel quite right for them.

I’m not entirely sure as to how the plot would go, but the climax would probably be some kind of big confrontation with Nolan’s parents where they get caught in one of their lies and Anthony ends up yelling at Nolan’s parents about how miserable they’ve been making him.

There’s a shit ton of other stuff that I have in my head about this story, but this is most of it. Please tell me what you think of it if you can?

As always, if any of this is offensive or anything like that, please let me know. 👍

[mdhwrites]

I'm sure I'd be called crazy by the fandom for this but I actually feel bad for Belos.

After the (obvious) reveal that he was a human I didn't like him, rather I hated the idea than the character, because I much more preferred the mysterious figure he was in s1. However the Wittebane brothers conflict was an interesting concept I was curious about until it got no resolution on how things escalated to the current situations.

So I agree Belos is boring (become so to me since mid S2), but I can't hate him.

Especially when it's SO obvious that the writers want me to hate him and they're so insistent about it. It was the same thing with Odalia too, (and Boscha to some degree). And when I can see through the stupid decisions these characters are made to do, despite being nonsensical, it gives me the opposite effect and makes me pity them for the simple fact they've been done dirty. I may also do it out of spite because I hate when a show basically tells me what to do. In this case how I should feel about these characters because they are so evil~ , ok and? I get the idea, are you gonna do anything else besides this?

So the villains that I'm supposed to hate I don't hate. But (ironic) the villains that I'm not supposed to hate, I DO actually hate, which is the collector, for the same reasons you said before, he's really flawed as a character and that sad story of him being a misunderstood child didn't sell me shit, I rolled my eyes.

So this has me torn between talking about The Hand of the Author and kind of the sliding scale of villainy and its weird impact on your audience. I feel like this is mostly about Belos and why his actions never really sell you on him being a monster so let's talk about the inverted relationship between a villain's action and audience response. What am I talking about? Well... It's effectively why our response to someone killing a dog is "I'm so ready to see that fucker die," possibly even with a smile on our face while our response to someone grimacing at a person of color makes our blood boil but then the dude who kills a thousand people by destroying an entire town still needs to give us a reason to care. One is active aggression and the taking of a life while the other is a microaggression... But one that most people will actually relate to. And the last one is so beyond the realm of believability or resonance that it doesn't actually leave much of an impact. Boiled down: It's why the fandom absolutely despises Odalia and Bosch but this is the THIRD ASK where someone goes "I never got into Belos as the most evil thing there". Belos is evil to absurdity. He's killed a LOT of people for really BAD reasons so HATE HIM. Meanwhile, Boscha's just a bitch and not even that good of one and yet people HAAAATE HER. This is why it's an inverted relationship. The more a character is strictly evil, the less an audience is actually going to hate them because often times in order to do so, they become more of a caricature and their actions frankly get more absurd from a human standpoint. Meanwhile, a character who wouldn't even be tried for a crime in real life but is still doing harm is seen as much more evil because that's all too real to the human experience.

This isn't purely meta though. Part of it is that the more plainly evil a character is, the more subconsciously an audience knows they're going to get their comeuppance. This is probably part of why people hate the SU finale so much because these people have done such awful, horrendous, unforgivable things and instead of a punch out or punishment, they're talked down. I haven't seen the finale though so I can't say too much. Quick tangent: The other way around is almost as bad. I've seen Belos' death scene and I despise it because that is not Luz standing there. That is a commentary on "Happy Ever After" endings where even the villain gets to live or the main characters are just that kind hearted. TOH goes so far as to almost characterize even RAINE as being GLEEFUL in murdering this man who is already dying. There's a reason why more finales who want this will have the main character, who is good hearted enough to not want to see life lost, be pulled away by a more morally nuanced character who says it's better this way. Neither is expressing joy but they both recognize the danger needs to be dealt with so they can't save him. It keeps your good guys looking good while allowing for a final moment of moral complexity about when the kindness of the main character finally runs out. Then again, that implies Luz is an actually kind character who has endless amounts of love to give and is not just blessed by the author to make friends with anyone they want to.

Sorry. Back on track. This meta context makes it so that a pure evil villain, one who does things that are entirely unrepentant, is flagged as going to be taken down someday. There's no coming back for them. Someone with more nuance or does smaller aggressions though can still appear human which makes the actions feel less like the writer's evil thoughts made manifest and instead like a person who had the choice one day to be mean or kind... And chose mean. And that they may never choose kindness but that the chance is always there. And not only is that more compelling, it's far more painful to the audience. It's effectively what I HAVE to write a lot for Rich Witch because these characters claim to be friends but have been raised in a way that makes the inherent act of friendship almost toxic... But you can see glimpses of better. Moments like Igni and Azu talking about a book series they like. Blair and Pythia showing real care for each other. Azu opening up and taking risks with Daina even while she keeps such strict control over the rest of the friend group and even Daina. It's meant to be frustrating because that's where they're going to grow out of. And this is also why the show's attempts at humanizing Belos, at trying to pull back from him pure evil, is actually worse than him being one note. I've talked to MANY people about the fact that Rich Witch is a LONG series because these complications require time, effort and focus not only to make not all be lip service (Hi Hunter) or feel rushed (Hi Amity to some extent, because while Lumity doesn't feel rushed, your character development does). It is genuinely good sometimes to just have a one note, but fun, villain that an audience can be excited to see curb stomped. They don't need much fleshing out. They don't even need much screentime because they can set up their credentials REAL FAST. But then we get into the inherent issue with TOH: It knows one note villains are not something people praise... But it doesn't know why a show like Avatar still has Ozai. Because Ozai is not a complex villain. Any complexity comes from his children but we learn honestly very little about him throughout the series besides him being a bastard and that works GREAT. It gives us a moral opposite to Aang, who constantly tries to do right by everyone, his evil justifies Azula's evil and why we would go so far against his son and banish him and allows us to understand why the Fire Nation is as ruthless as it is... All without wasting much time! I'm pretty sure the closest we get to a real episode that is an equivalent to Hollow Mind for Ozai is pretty much during the invasion of the Black Sun when Zuko defects... AND IT'S STILL NOT EVEN MAIN PLOT OF THE EPISODE! Because what's important there is the deep villain, not the one note one. And yet TOH devoted so much time to Belos while ignoring Hunter besides backstory implications which is not how you flesh out one of your theoretically main characters at that point. Because it doesn't want to be accused of having a basic villain despite all the fun people have had with characters like the Joker.

And frankly, I feel like that comes down to not understanding either the importance of that inversion. Something going for horror or cruelty might try to humanize to cause discomfort in an audience. A reflection of our own reality but also broken is going to hurt more. But... If you're, I dunno, an adventure comedy, that sort of tone might not be useful for you. It might just be better to have someone who can facilitate really cool fights and let our heroes have a lot of Big Damn Hero Moments because those fit with the tone you're going for. It also sells us on why EVERYONE wants this fucker gone so we don't have to worry about the consequence of if the heroes murder him because you're curious why God himself has not struck him down. And not understanding this creates a problem like not understanding why simple, likable, mostly flawless main characters exist. Because sometimes that's just what's best for the story, especially if you have any sort of time limit to telling your story. But Belos only started getting spotlighted in S2B so the writers clearly didn't give a fuck about that expect, did they? So they went with what makes for a better video essay. Or blog in this case, even if it made for a worse story.

=========

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I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[thesoleilla]

SO. I JUST READ TOMODACHI GAME CHAPTER 125 AND I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT OH MY GOD. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

So. First off. Yuuichi. My baby boy. He did no wrong

JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE IN THIS PANEL IT MAKES ME SICK.

This is Yuuichi knowing he's going to die. This is Yuuichi trying not to make his friends suffer because of his death. Trying to seem like the worst scum ever so they don't have anything good to remember of him. So that they're almost relieved he's dead. This panel hurts me to my core (just like the entire chapter did)

He just knows he's gonna die in this one. He's grateful he did. Sacrificing himself for everyone. It just feels so real. Following Yuka's rule of friends being the most important thing in the end. Literally sacrificing himself for them.

And this. All of his old friends just giving him up. Not understanding him. Seeing him just like he wants them to see him. In the end, they always saw what Yuuichi wanted them to see of him. Just the mask he put up, nothing else.

Only to be immediately contrasted with Kei. Now if you know me a bit, you know I am a hardcore Kei x Yuuichi shipper so OF COURSE I bawled my eyes out, but this is out of topic. Kei and Satone, both people who don't know Yuuichi for nearly as long as the others do. Both people who constantly try to see below the mask he puts up. Satone, with her "instinct" and all that shit, but most importantly, Kei. Ever since Yuuichi agreed to work with him, Kei has been trying his hardest to try to learn stuff about Yuuichi. His past, his psychology, everything. He was absolutely fascinated with this dude. So much so, that he understands him better than any of the people who have known him for years do. Sees behind the heartless manipulator facade he has been putting up all game, despite not even knowing how he was outside of the game.

And this. Kei cares y'all. He cares a lot. Ever since he was born, he saw everyone as idiots, never understanding them truly. But now he finally found someone who he understood. Someone he actually liked. Got along with. Found interesting. Smart. Someone who, also, could understand him. Only for that someone to be misunderstood by everyone. Making Kei resort back to saying everyone are idiots, just mad they don't understand the one thing he did understand.

I don't even have anything to say about this one, it was just so satisfying. Such raw emotion coming from Kei.

HE HAS JUST BEEN GOING THROUGH EVERY EMOTION IN THE BOOK. NOW THAT HE LET HIS ANGER OUT, ALL OF THE SAD HE BOTTLED UP EVER SINCE HE REALIZED YUUICHI'S PLAN IS COMING OUT. He started to feel in the norm again. Slowly. With his basketball team, but even more over the course of the game, with Satone, Tenji, but of course mostly with Yuuichi. And now, he is terrified of falling back to where he came from. A part of me believes Kei found a sense of belonging over the course of the Tomodachi game, so the idea of it ending hurts. And of course, there's the elephant in the room, Yuuichi dying.

Kei has always considered himself a genius, not needing others. Yet, he admits that he needs help in this very moment. Even asks for it. I wrote something bigger and shit, ask me in my ask box if you wanna talk about it but Tumblr deleted it and I am too lazy to type it

And of course, despite the choice of who head give the win to not mattering, Yuuichi deliberately chose Shiho. A final present, even though he knew she'd hate him and that he wanted her to hate him.

Tumblr won't let me put any more pictures so screw it, but let's talk about yuuichi's personal task. The Parallel to the first game. I like to think of it as the administrators testing if Yuuichi changed over the course of the game. Which he proves he didn't. Not only sacrificing money this time, but also his own life.

Anyways, this is the end of my yapping for now, any Tomodachi game fans still alive please interact I need people to talk about it with, my ask box is always openn

Also, I write fanfic, so hit me up with any request

Sorry for all the yapping, take care y'all

[ouroboros-hideout]

Time to go to Rewe and stock up on groceries for the house of Baddieghest! Shopping list: — 1 kg of Po-ta-toes — Aon — 1 Avocado — Aon as well — 100 soft dark Tomatoes — Vlad (don't buy, just throw at him) — 1 Lemon — each of them (since a certain oversized gollum stole all of them) If your credit balance is too low for the purchase, call mom Jago!

Time to make some salad of the things our circus director brought to the house. Italy won't get anything of it tho. She would only complain about it anyway bc there are potatos in it. Absolutely no taste.

AON

🥔 [POTATO] What do they have that others see as a flaw, but they don't care about?

Maybe her bossy attitude of “You can't tell me shit” and her tone in general. She can be very compassionate, but she's always walking a fine line between “okay, I'm being really nice and empathetic this time" or "lol get your shit together and stop whining.” But it's always been her way of saying what she thinks rather than wrapping the person she's talking to in a blanket just to create a sense of fake comfort. She's been through way too much shit in her life to care who she might offend or not. Deal with it, or get lost.

🥑 [AVACADO] What will they never back down about, even if it makes them seem bad?

I think the thing you can blame her most for is her work. It's not exactly a respectable job, manufacturing war machines and weapons, but it fills her with pride when she completes a big project. Building machines is her passion. That particular type of machine maybe wouldn't have been her first choice, but having already learned a lot about it while studying at SovOil, she stuck with it during her time with the Nomads and refined her skills. After all, it's lucrative because the world is just a rotten place and she has to look after her people. Is it reprehensible that people are being killed with the weapons she makes? Sure. But if it's not her weapon, then it's someone else's. Maybe she’s too pessimistic to think that anything in this society would change anymore. In a sense of: I could make this world a better place if I instead would do xy.”  

🍋 [LEMON] What is their kryptonite/ultimate weakness?

People she loves and cares about. She’s really protective for her found-family, especially for those she knows are no fighters or would struggle to defend themselves in a dangerous situation. She’s not overly protective of the ones she knows can handle themselves, like Kurt for example, but that doesn't mean you couldn’t do a lot of damage to her if something happens to him or any other person that’s close to her. 

VLAD

🍅 [TOMATO] How misunderstood is your OC? In-universe or IRL.

Misunderstood in the sense that it's hard to believe that there's still something human/empathetic in him that just can't come to the surface anymore and that's quite an inner struggle for him sometimes. Like: fighting the beast inside and knowing that you're gonna lose anyway. So of course everyone sees him as the cold-blooded bastard with the psycho mindset because that's the only thing that comes to the outside. That's why he's not really misunderstood, but there would certainly be an opportunity to understand him on a different level if someone had the chance to delve deeper into this man's mind. Though there is no way to repair the damage that’s done so it only would be a thing to satisfy curiosity instead of trying to fix something. 

🍋 [LEMON] What is their kryptonite/ultimate weakness?

Could be two things. One is his physical weakness, one is his mental weakness. Physically his artificial heart. Like in a natural body it’s the core of his whole system and if it fails everything else shuts down as well. He surely would have a bigger time window until all the other inner modifications of his body stop working completely but if you really want to take him out the best way would be to rip that thing out of his chest. 

On a psychological level it’s when he’s “getting aware of his condition”. He sometimes has very rare and short moments of clarity, where he knows that something is wrong inside his head. Those moments are triggered by strong emotions both positive and negative and affects him like “a glitch in his system”. He gets more careless, confused or even has a short blackout. Surely could be something that can be used against him, tho it is a bit of a gamble to trigger such a moment on purpose.