#but i feel like theres not enough context on him yet as a person for it to matter

[dorims]

What kinks do u think Roman has?

I just know they’re weird (and I’d still be into them)

so if i have to be honest, ive never really thought about roman's kinks 🥲 HOWEVER you know how he shamed tom for swallowing back his cum after tabs sucked him off?? yeah he's definitely into that and you can't tell me otherwise.

and without further ado! a little brainstorm under the cut <3

tags. VERY SUGGESTIVE, MDNI, an overall masochistic vibe, degradation/praise, allusions to cheating, impact play, mentions of roman's low self-esteem

a/n. psa im not familiar with writing smut and if i gotta be honest im pretty vanilla myself so...do with that what you will LMFAO

masochism

hes a masochist, we been knew

its pretty much the central theme of these hcs too

degradation/praise

so definitely degradation bc its roman, cmon. but for some reason i cant help but think that he's really into being praised too?

could be wrong but i feel like he'd only let himself be praised after he's developed a solid bond with his partner, and it'd probably go from being degraded to a mix of degradation and praise to full praise in some occasions.

if theres not a smooth transition i feel like he would panic and shut himself out. like it feels too intimate or smth.

cuckolding (controversial)

i think he would like it bc it hurts. like his partner sleeping with someone else is kind of like a slap to the face

a situation that has him constantly thinking 'I'm not enough' and that kind of hurt i think he gets off on bc masochism <3

but thats only maybe with the condition he somehow gets the chance to prove to himself and to you that he is better than the person you're sleeping with

OR he's into 'pseudo-cuckolding' so he likes the idea that you COULD go and sleep with someone but you dont, kinda like what happened with grace and the server

SO MAYBE IM WRONG and he would actually hate this but you know, im trynna brainstorm

phone sex (is this even a kink?)

only the sound of your voice and his,

kinda like the romangerri situation LMFAO

because think about it, this way you dont have to actually see him. that would comfort him in some way because of his low self-esteem and self-image issues. that way you can picture anything you want and not be disappointed with the real thing, you know?

i also think that phone sex (or bathroom door sex????) would help him open up until he grows comfortable enough in the intimacy the two of you are building

love how this are supposed to be smut hcs yet im making them slightly angsty

impact play

i think this might be a little self-explanatory, but yes, getting hit in a sexual context turns him on

only when he is receiving ofc

dom/sub dynamics

he's a massive sub and no one can tell me otherwise

its literally on the show TT

ANYWAY, he's probably bratty at first but then just gives in to your every demand because he aims to please

still likes to get on your nerves though, like a lot and i think thats because even when he's been an annoying piece of shit in bed you still take care of him and that reinforces, in his head, that, sure he's being unbearable but that doesn't take away the fact that you care for him and love him, ya know?

also, he would probably call you mommy/daddy at first jokingly but the it kinda sticks??

freud would have a field day with roman roy

OOC BUT FUN TO THINK ABOUT: vanilla sex

hear me out, ik roman's character is pretty much the personification of the words 'kinky mf' but idk

i think vanilla sex would suit roman SOO much. i think for roman to reach the point of having sex with ANYONE there needs to be a established foundation of trust and respect and perhaps love too

and i know sex doesn't necessarily mean love, but we are talking about a man who's definition of love is pain - like love HAS to hurt for it to be love - and undoubtedly he would twist his perception of sex to fit that same definition of love because love is a branch of intimacy and so is sex, you feel me?

i just feel like it would show roman another side of intimacy. all gentle and kind and giggly sex and intimacy doesn't necessarily have to hurt for it to feel good.

like imagine just plain vanilla sex and its banter and laughter and quips and help me lol

vanilla sex and aftercare would solve all his problems, i said what i said /hj

[danmei-confessions]

I enjoy TGCF but if theres something that i have a bone to pick with. Is that she will make some of her scenes parallel to another situation and showcasing that this is why this person is good or handle better xxxx.

Like she puts characters in such a difficult situation + their relationship having complex history by itself. Making her top be alienated and hated by the world, so theyre just fixated on the mc. Which yeah. Awesome. Burn the world for him? Easily. But its so convenient. Its “easy” to be devoted when you dont have anything else going on. Its like the Jian Lan and Feng Xin situation. I guess MXTX decision to make them not end up together because at that time Feng Xin couldnt choose between his prince and her. And also again a parallel to hualian that love doesnt last forever for them (another thing that annoys me is making her side ships or side love stories fail while the main flourish). And then we have Hua Cheng saying something along the line like he didnt want it enough. But, the context they were in were so difficult and its not as easy as black and white? His best friend was already in a terrible state and he was trying to save his girlfriend while hustling to live for himself. Dont get me started on the xianle trio. Hua Cheng has no one he cares about. Hes a fascinating character for sure but he doesnt feel “real”. Which is fine but whenever i see people saying hes the best he will never do this and that. Yeah no shit. Hes got nothing! Hes a fable character in a sea of characters who who feel human and grounded. Ultimately, its just weak and lame.

Thafs why Lwj feels more real and his love is more impactful because he has so much shit going on, he has his family, his sect, his reputation and yet still have the strength to pick Wwx.

.

[entomolog-t]

GtWAC Day 13 : 3 Different Genres

Clawing my way to catch up (We late late, but we WILL finish) 😭

Today's Prompt is Fic Recommendations in 3 different genres💕

First up is an INCREDIBLE work of Adventure Fantasy : Wick's End

@eightyuh Does an a phenomenal job taking a wild and unexpected concepted and pulling it together into a poignant metaphor. While Wick's End is full of hilarious moments, the comedy never seems to overtake the weight that the story carries. While we can laugh at Glen's expense, there is something deeply relatable and vulnerable about him as a character, making it so easy to feel for him and sympathize with his predicament.

Frankly all of the main cast has incredible premises that are both so out there, yet when shown in the context of their world they feel at home. It's something about the combination of the characters being real enough that you're able to both laugh at them, but also take their issues seriously- A dog struggling to understand human society is a fun and hilarious concept, but theres the weight of his realness?? The wanting of acceptance when others can't see him for what he is??? Like the skill to pace a story where the reader can bounce from laughing to feeling swept off their feet by the reality of their situation??

Each chapter has left me hooked and foaming at mouth for the next release- just ??? JGSFJKDGFKJ

I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS???

NEXT UP IS THIS ABSOLUTE GEM OF A OF A SCIFI HORROR SHORT- ANOTHER GTWAC CREATION TO BOOT!!! I read this a few nights back and was on the edge of my seat!! I absolute love the voice of the main character. @creatorofuniverses writes Casper in a way that genuinely makes them feel like a person I would know. They really do feel like you're everyday person got shoved into the widest job, and I am HERE for it. Without spoiling too much- I LOVED the creature descriptions, both aesthetics but also the mannerisms??? My gosh it just left me feeling so on edge??? Just such a great concept executed in a truly fun yet tense way! I would love to see more of Casper if you ever decide to use the premise as more than a short 😭💕

Finally we have the category of Dark Romance, with none other than @bittykimmy13 / @kendsleyauthor and their amazing fic The Clandestine Queen. Now this made for a wonderful read!! The premise is both so unique and also so uneasy??? There's a palpable tension throughout that just scratches something deep in my brain. Fantastic dialogue, wild premise, and a wonderfully competent female lead?? What more could a gal want? The interactions between Lorelei and the much more cold Andres are truly Dark Romance Magic (especially in the follow up piece) 😭 This just ticks every box for me and I cannot recommend this highly enough. The style of writing is captivating, the characters are intriguing, and the premise wonderfully unique!! The delivery from @kendsleyauthor as always never disappoints!!💕

[cosmo-watches-movies]

Wilde (1997)

Triggerwarning: Homophobia, Sex (in the movie, not depicted in this blogpost)

Plot: A part of Oscar Wilde’s life story.

Spoilers beyond this

Michael plays Robbie Ross, a good friend to Oscar Wilde and, delicately put, his first male lover.

Following are my incoherent thoughts as I was watching the movie: (some gifs for context, for the other parts watch the movie and you'll get it)

starting out chill with Oscar meeting his future wife

oh who might this dashing young fella be?

lol that didn’t work did it?

Nevermind it did work

I was so not prepared for this

This guy has a lot of thoughts in his head and none of them are holy

Bitch what

If someone looked at me like that I’d instantly fall for them too. Man brought his A-Game

Oh my god this is going too fast even for me and I’m just watching

Why would you give him lines like that?

(I refuse to clip the next part, I don't know who might read this)

What in the what I barely got into the movie, why would you do this to me

I have questions

I have so many emotions at once right now I actually feel a bit sick

I’m 16 Minutes in and my heart is breaking at the thought of where this might be going

Okay, I got used to the fact that I am actually watching a movie about gay men

Me watching a movie about a gay author: （☆ω☆ ）

Me when theres actual portayal of intimacy between men: （○ □ ○ ）

I swear I’m so normal about this.

Wtf Oscar why would you drop Robbie like that. I get that this was an affair, but like this? He picked that other guy up like an apple from a tree.

Watch Robbie take this like the king he is

Oscar met yet another guy (Bosie) and seems to fall in love with him and guy #2 litterally wants to khs and/or Bosie, while Robbie has only respect, acceptance and love to give.

lol taste of your own medicie, huh?

I hate Bosie

I love Robbie

Drama between Bosie and Wilde, which results in Oscar being sentenced to two years in prison

Oof that speech Oscar held in court tho, right in the feels

Robbie is an absolute treasure of a person. Get yourself a man like him. Don’t settle for less.

Wtf all this stress and heartbreak for Oscar and Bosie to break up after three months, the world is a cruel place

- End of incoherent thoughts-

That was heartbreaking in so many ways. The main story obviously is unbelievably tragic but we shall focus on other things. There are a lot of strong performances in this movie, the whole cast was quite good. You can strongly feel the love Robbie has for Oscar, he has this soft tone when he talks to or about him, he wants him to be happy even if it means that he himself wont be. He accepts that Oscar doesn’t love him the same way and still supports his friend under any circumstances. It's not just in the dialouge, it's also in the way Robbie talks to and looks at Oscar. He’s pure kindness, love and devotion.

He cares so much for him it's breaking my poor little heart :c

On a less serious note, my guy really went ahead and had his first on-screen kiss be a gay kiss!?! Fuckin hell! And he did so well! Icon, king, legend, right from the start!

Because there aren't enough gifs in this already, have some more little moments I enjoyed :3

✨Puppy dog eyes✨

Good save xD

Why would you hold it like that?

I don't even know why, just thought he looked dashing in this scene

Me too, Robbie, me too.

I probably could've written more, but that wouldn't do the movie and characters justice. Bosie's full brattiness alone is something I couldn't even capture in gifs. Kudos to Jude Law, he really made me hate that character. He's the exact opposite of Robbie. They had only two scenes together I think, but it's awesome to see their personalities clash.

I’d say you should check this movie out, especially if you’re lgbt+ yourself obviously. And then go ahead and read Oscar Wildes works, they're queer history and in general important literature anyone should know.

At the end of this I have learned that I, in fact, don’t hate love drama, I just like it if it's gay. And preferably has a certain actor in it.

[piplicious]

Dip Week Day 3!!!

Hello I wrote a little something based on a conversation I had with @/pipcorn. But I have like no experience as a writer!!! So you have to be nice to me. + theres a drawing inside :3

Word count: 1366 words

Ship: Damien x Pip

Warnings: none whatsoever

Summary: it's Damien's Birthday and everything is on fire.

"By the power of all unholy and evil I command --all the mortals come to my birthday party!!!"

Despite the very clear and easy to understand demand of his highness son of Satan, no one was there. Creatures of darkness were present, of course, but that was about it. The little black demon beings were all sat at a special table, reserved specifically for them, with all the appropriate evil meals served and ready. But what about Damien's other friends (or so he'd like to think of them)? Did he not manage to make everyone in class like him by being a little asshole?

Unfortunately, Hell was going through a bit of a financial crisis, and some unplanned budget cuts had to be made. Instead of a big fancy banquet Damien had to make do with a regular size birthday party. Well, it was a bit below regular, you can't underestimate the impact inflation and excessive risk taking by systemically important financial institutions have on otherworldly dimentions. Obviously.

As a result, materialistic humans didn't really feel like attending such an underwhelming event.

"AAARGH"

The AAARGH didn't help. So strange! At least one boy should've come. One very specific little lad! And a very important one, too, but shush about that.

And yet no one was there. The party had started whole 5 minutes ago after all! Could it be… that maybe the invintations got lost? Well, no, because then Pip surely would've come. Damien made sure to personally disturb the signal in the 500 meters radius area by shooting his rubber duck-like voice all the way to Pip over the phone exactly 5 times. One time -- a month before the birthday, so that the blond has enough time to prepare the presents. Then a week before the celebration -- enough time for Pip to make sure to cancel all the plans for the special day. Then one day before the birthday - in the morning and in the evening. And don't forget the mandatory 5 AM call.

And so, utterly dissapointed, the grumpy lump of rage continued pouting even harder than usual. I'd like to say that his hope for humanity was completely gone by that time (6 minutes past the official beginning of the party), but let's be honest, it's South Park, why would it ever be there in the first place.

"Happy Birthday, son. Today is a beautiful day and you're only 9 years away from the day I tell you the truth about how you were made."

"Dad. WHE--??"

"I know, I know what you want to say, I see that half of the room is on fire already. But first I have a very important gift for you."

"DAAAAAA--"

…!

And there, a sudden strike of silence hit the room. Damien's instincts freezed and crashed! The "gift" that loomed out of the hallway made him unsure whether to hiss or wag his tail. Or both?

"G-good morning, Damien! I'm here to wish you a very happy birthday and hopefully entertain you for the duration of my stay here…! Hope you didn't… miss me?"

The little british boy that just came in already managed to pick up that something about Damien's reaction was off, as the later made incomprehensible noises and it was hard to read what exactly he was feeling at the moment. It would seem illogical, as Pip was the exact person lacking at the event, and yet the way he appeared rubbed the demon in a wrong way.

"Are you… mad at me? Ohh… I see… No one has come to your party? No worries!!! I understand how you feel, sogga, no one attends my celebratio--"

"Why are you wearing that!!!"

"Oh it's a clown outfit, your father asked me to--"

"DAD?????"

And so Satan had to step into the conversation between the fourthgraders. What an interesting sentence out of context!

"You see, due to the financial situation we couldn't afford a professional entertainer, and dead soul tortures are already reserved for when you get good grades, so I figured getting your buddy to pretend to be a clown for your birthday would be good enough."

"I DON'T WANT HIM TO BE A CLOWN!"

"But why?"

Giving absolutely no answer, the hissy boy left the room and it almost seemed like he had a little tear in his eye. And so, Pip, Satan, and a hoard of unholy creatures whatever they are, were left astounded in a room with more fire in it than food or tables.

What a confusing situation! But of course giving up would mean missing the chance to save your lo-- your friend's important day, right? That's not a very caring behavior. Pip would not want to leave Damien behind, no. It takes some thick gloves and a lot of bravery to deal with wild kittens like that. And a heart big enough to give them all the space they need to not feel intimidated anymore.

"There, there."

Pip sat near the curled up demon, petting his back and waiting for him to cool down and relax his eyebrows at least a bit. And boy did he take his sweet time cooling down, this is not your average tray of freshly baked brownies.

"I-I don't want to rush you or anything, but could I perhaps get a hint about why you're mad at me?"

Nope. Not happening.

"It appears I have to try guessing myself… Do you want me to leave?"

Damien shook his head. Somehow everything became even more confusing.

"Are you… afraid of clowns?"

Not that either.

"I don't know what else it could be then…"

"…I wanted you to come because you want to. Not because you have to."

The boy who for some reason had to remind Pip about his birthday 5 times looked away in embarassment. Could it be that there was actually some kind of thought process happening behind those eyes? It seemed that this time his friends' intentions actually mattered to him and it wasn't just about seeming cool in front of the elite of the class. Pip was nice sincerely and it made a big difference! If he came willingly it would be clear what he came for. Damien's smile or something gay like that.

"…How much did he pay you?"

"For what?"

"For you to come."

"Oh good golly i'm going to get paid?"

The utter confusion in blonde's eyes eventually cleared up all the doubts in Damien's mind.

"No."

"Oh alrighties."

"I think I understand. Only a brit would willingly attend a party where the only food being served is unholy goop and satanic porridge."

"It's not that, Damien, I just--"

Pip started fidgeting awkwardly with the fabric of his clothes like a shy anime girl. Unusual, since most of the time when he liked someone it was extremely visible to everyone around. Well, it was, it very much was visible this time either but somehow not to Damien.

"You see, back when I was born as a little baby in a small town of--"

"Shorter."

"I have feelings for you."

"Oh. Wait what. Wait. That's gay."

"Indeed it is, Damien. I understand if you want me to leave even harder than before now, I--"

Instead of jokingly utilizing the diverse pallete of homophobic slurs in English language the demon boy's eyes immediately brightened up. He didn't exactly know why yet, but it actually… cheered him up? His buddy was actually more than just a buddy! They could spend so much time together like those two yaois from their class! Now the hard part is actually somehow returning feelings and admitting the same thing. Oh Go-- Oh man it sure is more embarassing than he thought… But it must be oh so worth it!!!

The poor British thing just sat there waiting for any even remotely coherent answer. His anxiety was only soothed by the fact that the fire in the house began slowly extinguishing, which probably meant that Damien wasn't angry with him. Fortunately he didn't need to wait too long.

"You're my boyfriend now."

"Okay."

There. The hardest part is now behind, time to jump straight to the part that has handholding and fun dates in it.

***

[hellish-ously]

i keep getting the feeling that fujimoto is going to pull a curveball next chapter. two cliffhangers, both with the same unanswered question; "will they turn x into a weapon?" but from what i can gain from the manga so far, the power to do that is entirely contextual. heres what ive gathered so far :

falling for asa / yoru means they gain percieved "ownership" of that particular person.

however, asa confirms that one of the main components is actually a perception of ownership, not actual ownership (demonstrated with the aquarium)

denji has definitely developed at least some feelings for asa during the aquarium trip

but thats the thing. yoru wasnt there for any of it. she's not the recipient of denji's feelings, nor was she there to percieve him develop those feelings.

so far, fujimoto has never actually specified whether or not theres a defined difference between what "asa owns and can turn into a weapon" and what "yorus owns and can turn into a weapon". but the aquarium //changed that//. she has no perceptual or legitimate claim to denji, simply because she wasnt there to witness it, so yoru's power just doesnt feel like it would work in that context. but asa's /could/

and while asa was there, and was the recipient, she would never be conceited enough, or morally corrupt enough, to perceive that she has any ownership over denji. mainly because she's a genuinely nice person, but also because she definitely has //genuine feelings for him too//

tldr : theory is that yoru is going to continue her time honored tradition of being a fail girl and denji's going to be none the wiser that yet another girl made an attempt on his life :)

[cheylouwho]

i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and i want to hear someone from SPHS’s thoughts.

i know you’ve noticed the “tiktok” fan base- the ones that only watch clips of the show and then say they’re fans. i read one of your posts talking about these types of fans and making blatantly incorrect headcanons. that’s something that bugs me, but another thing that bugs me is the fact i do not believe south park is tiktokable. i’ll use family guy as a comparison for my points.

first of all, compared to family guy, the humor is different, pretty much everything they explained in the cartoon wars two parter explains what i mean, m&t are not fans of interchangeable jokes and are able to give characters emotional progression throughout the episode. that’s one huge factor, i hope you get what i’m trying to imply with that. m&t are passionate about their story telling and it pays off in their episodes. i know not EVERY SINGLE joke follows this, but there are jokes made better by understanding the characters and the circumstance of the episode. the episodes work best in their entirety. (that was difficult to explain so i fear it can be misinterpreted easily)

the characters are another thing i want to mention. i watched the episode TSST with two friends awhile ago, one of which who had never seen an episode and didn’t understand cartmans character. she kept asking questions about him, or said how weird his hitler obsession was. the other friend hadn’t finished south park and said he hated cartmans character and it’s hes one of the bad pieces of the show. i believe even if you don’t like cartman as a personal preference thing, you should at least appreciate him as a character and his placement, it’s hard to understand him (despite us watching an episode that really dives into him, they still didn’t know much about him before). with family guy, one episode is enough to grasp the character, hell, even a single scene is i’d say, while m&t are very good at developing and fleshing out character personalities over time. it’s why they can pull off making sad episodes (like kenny dies and assburgers), heartwarming episodes (like tweek x craig and even bits of episodes like in raisins) all while still being a comedy show. they understand how to make the characters react in a way that can make you feel something while maintaining a good amount of jokes in the episode.

i dont know, theres more i could add but i’m just writing whatever comes to mind first so it might make no sense or it might be wrong. also, i’m by no means an old fan. i’ve rewatched the series quite a few times, watched commentaries, researched through wiki pages and am constantly trying to better my knowledge of the show, but i know i’m not quite there yet and could just be making a mistake GAHAH

No anon, I actually totally get this and agree 100%. SP as a show is not something that works well with out of context clips (and even then, the ones that do work are usually from very early in an episode before the plot fully gets established and stakes as drawn). Until pre s18 when they started soft continuity (and then s19-21s full continuity, after that is a whole other discussion entirely), the shows syndicated nature did make it easier to hop into any episode and watch it in its entirety and enjoy it without much prior knowledge of the show or it's characters. However, even then, you really needed to watch the *whole* episode to get the big picture of it's message.

And I get it, SP full length episodes are not as accessible as they once were. People these days don't know how or aren't willing to pirate things if they don't have the streaming service SP is hosted on, and beyond that, south park used to be free to watch on their website. Like, that's how I ended up catching up on the show when I finally decided to take it all in other than a handful of episodes and scenes I'd seen during my childhood back in 2013. It was all entirely available (save for Super Best Friends, 200 and 201, which I had to go track down on other websites) for free, with ads unless you used an ad blocker, right at your fingertips. And that's how M+T wanted SP to be consumed, because they explicitly noted that they didn't care about making money on streamed episodes, they cared about getting their show out there. (I will have to go find that interview, I know it's somewhere).

But still, regardless of that, you're right. SP is not something that you can consume short form as a brief tiktok video, and that's why I think we have newer fans with such big gaps in knowledge that seem like they would be easy to fill in. It's not that they're being willfully ignorant, they're just being fed a very piecemeal version of the show through social media, which is how we get people thinking Pip is a he//llpa//rk OC (augh!!! dont get me started) instead of realizing this dude was actually in the fucking show, or headcanons that are very easy to contradict with canon itself by watching like 3 episodes. That's not me knocking HCs btw, go wild and do whatever you want, but these people don't even know it's ooc, and that's a little troublesome. I've made some outlandish character decisions in the past but I at least KNEW they were not evidence based.

What that means for the fandom down the road I don't know, and its made a lot of discussion and analysis more shallow-- it's so hard outside of my SPHS friend group to find good breakdowns these days. I'm hoping maybe something will change, but who knows.

TLDR fuck tiktok and its watering down of media

[cowboycharmac]

(okay reposting bc tumblr autosave deleted a lot of my post </3 rip) on a slightly more depressing note do you ever think about how terrible mac is at taking care of things specifically in a parental context and get so sad because i do. mac as a person isnt inherently bad at taking care of things, he's fairly good at taking care of dennis (although his own insecurities and paranoias do negatively impact the relationship) and from what we see in the show he does the majority of homemaking work in the macden household and is generally pretty good at taking care of their apartment (unless it's on fire). but as soon as he reframes a relationship as a parental one he cant seem to figure it out.

the most obvious example of this is when he and dee take care of D.B/dumpster baby. now, character conflict is pretty par for the course for shows doing the "two characters adopt a baby" trope. however, in most shows ive seen it done, the progression is typically slower and/or more natural, from either a disparity in labour between maternal and paternal figures (often with the paternal figure slowly checking out and doing less and less work), or from one character being shoved into a role they didnt want. "the gang finds a dumpster baby" uses both of these, but what makes it interesting to me is how quickly and deliberately mac incites that conflict.

he seems eager and excited to take care of the baby and volunteers immediately, but as soon as he and dee get home from baby shopping he shoves everything off on her and becomes emotionally distant and angry when she tries to ask for help. this change in attitude is sudden and seemingly brought about by nothing in particular, he hasnt yet experienced anything that might make him realize that taking care of a baby is actually a pretty demanding job that he might not be interested in, and to me, at least, it doesnt read like he's genuinely annoyed at her or rejecting his self imposed paternal role. instead, he's still just play acting at what he thinks fatherhood should look like. he's still trying to give D.B his version of a "biblical" nuclear family, like he says he wants to when he pressures dee into taking on the maternal role, but he's using his own parents as a model for this and deliberately recreating the toxic environment he grew up in because he thinks that's how you're meant to raise a child.

it's also really interesting to me that he chose dee for this. mac and dee don't team up a lot, and when they do, it's typically because everyone else is off doing something else. sure, he's adamant that D.B needs to be raised by a man and a woman, and dee is the only woman in the gang, but he doesn't even consider trying to find D.B a mom outside of the gang.

given how he seems repulsed by dee in both a romantic and sexual context and in a nuclear family the dynamic between the mother and father is typically both, and given their platonic dynamic is strained as it is, this is odd. there are plenty of single women in philadelphia, and there are other women in mac's own life he gets along with a lot better (and who do/would make better mothers), like carmen (who hes on good enough terms with that they engage in a relationship just a bit later in the season).

to me it seems like he chose someone like dee, who he doesn't get along with very well, who has both anger and emotional intimacy issues, and who emphatically rejects motherhood when he thrusts it upon her, not because he thinks she's his only option, but because shes the person he thinks is most likely to behave like his own mother in that position. (little bit of gay mac meta here, it also feels like maybe he chose a woman he had a distinctly platonic dynamic with and who wouldnt expect anything else from him so as to avoid needing to have a sexual or romantic relationship with his female partner in this constructed family)

theres also of course the dynamic between dennis jr, mac, and dennis in mac and dennis move to the suburbs. admittedly this one is a lot less interesting to me because the parallels to his own parents are less intentional on mac's part, however i do have some thoughts about it. here, he takes on the maternal role. dennis, from his own and the audiences perspective, isnt helping "raise" dennis jr at all and isnt really involved here. however, from macs perspective, dennis is taking on a paternal role, not necessarily because of, but also not in spite of the fact that he's away for most of the day, emotionally distant, and doesnt seem to be helping take care of or even interacting with dennis jr on a regular basis.

granted, mac isn't taking care of dennis jr either. despite seeming excited to "raise [the dog] like [his and dennis'] own son", he's despondent and neglectful, much like his own mother, and dennis jr. starves to death. from what we see of his mother on the tape from mac's childhood in "a very sunny christmas", she, like mac, wasn't always dull. although we dont really see her interact with mac and i have no doubt that she was a subpar mother and person for all of mac childhood (she is more than complicit in the robbing of peoples homes in this same episode), she has more normal emotional responses to things like receiving a gift, and she appears to genuinely like luther. i dont think its too much of a stretch to assume that she, like mac, let her emotional issues with an absent or distant partner interfere with her role as a parent. the only difference is that mac, unlike dennis jr, is a human child who is presumably old enough to do the bare minimum to keep himself alive by the time she checks out.

anyways sorry this post kind of got away from me. it just makes me so sad. mac wants to be a parent but he has no real frame of reference for that, he wants so badly to take care of something but he cant help neglecting it because to him it seems normal that parents shouldnt need to take care of their child, that children should have to care of themselves. hes so adamant that his relationship with his parents is normal, healthy, and loving that he'll ruin even a pale mimicry of a family trying to recreate it.

[mintblancmanche]

otonapre thoughts

i dont think i can actually have a fully realized opinion on this show until they show us coco and i can see what they have planned with him. because he was 75% of the reason why i hated the original show. and im so scared theyre gonna just make it Worse

as for what we got in the first episode. i enjoyed it! but also had very mixed feelings over all!!

i really liked nozomi in this. i think having her typical optimism and silliness and exuberance put in an adult context and slightly tempered by her maturity worked super well and really made her compelling and fleshed out to me here

i also found the stuff with her and divorce girl very very touching

the Global Warming Environmental theme is. unexpected?? i guess it is a pretty clever and unexpectedly Real way to expand upon the theme of hopelessness for the future. but also i feel like theres gonna be a bunch of Reducing Your Carbon Footprint is Your Personal Responsibility stuff.

i'll be honest if i may be a bit personal ive been struggling a bunch with depression and dread for the future so i think i am kinda in the prime State for this seasons overarching theme to hit Lol. i like the concept and have hopes for it

rin is unfortunately mid. which is par for the course lol. she still plays off nozomi well but i still have trouble caring that much about her personally, i did appreciate them let her be a jock, i honestly didnt expect them to lol

we dont get to see enough of the other cures for me to have much opinion of them yet. but we did see just enough milk to think she's awesome

kenta and yuuko's inclusion was. somewhat fun to me somewhat like, sad? mainly in ways i dont think the writers really thought that much about, kenta being the one character to not have his Dream Job in the original series + yuuko being kinda a Nagging Wife Character now. i like that he keeps his original va too though lol

KIRYUU CATGIRL STREAMERS is peak. justifies this series being precure canon on its own

theyre totally going to have them become teens when they transform and its gonna be so lame

papaya

[heliianth]

i care! indulge in the urge

okay, i'm going to try being as brief as possible

the... disappointing "fast friends forever" bio got me thinking about shadows messy but effective character arc leading up to 06 and how the nature of it is like a recipe to get people bothered about the whole "shadow's motivations have to do with maria's wish and nothing else" thing. and i do have commentary on that and how it plays into how no one agrees on fucking anything except segas characterization being bad. but i guess i want to commentate more on Why everyone agrees on his arc being important to the point of being mad that it gets ignored, despite like a majority of it happening in shth05 which is extremely unpopular among shadow fans for supposedly being like the first omen of impending character degradation, i guess

i see a lot of sentiments by people, especially in context with how shadow is written nowadays, asserting that there's more nuance to shadow's arrogant attitude than it seems, usually with the conclusion that it's born out of some insecurity and that he's trying to compensate for something, which i suppose is a natural conclusion when it comes to why someone would act the way he does

i've personally gone on record saying that this character trait is the fundamental flaw making communicating and connecting with others on any meaningful level extremely difficult for him, because he others himself as wholly unique and unable to be understood: if he's above, then he's alone (i'm using present tense here because it's the appropriate way to talk about this sort of thing, but ill get to that later). i do think this is a character trait he has or had at some point but no one ever seems to identify what this insecurity is with any sort of confidence beyond headcanons, and thats what i want to talk about real quick

yeah yeah, i said i was gonna be brief but theres a readmore. whatever.

shadow is a character who is intimately concerned with his place in the world and how he affects it. it's appropriate for a character who was artificially created in a test tube to worry about his purpose of creation, and that artificiality lent to a sense of non-autonomy. in sa2, shadow is constantly relying on others to tell him what his identity, and thus purpose, is. it's a huge nuance that i don't see brought up enough that he remains totally dedicated to blowing up earth despite it being implied that he begins developing doubts both through the lyrics of rhythm & balance (white jungle):

(it's a popular interpretation that the person talking to shadow here is supposed to be maria, considering he hallucinates her voice multiple times during sa2. i personally think it also ties into his newfound and unwanted care for rouge—that he is dismissing maria who is reminding him of her wish for revenge because it's making him feel too conflicted with the mission of white jungle. which is to save rouge from the bomb)

and because he reflects on an encounter with maria during which he questions his purpose and creation directly afterwards, telling her that he wonders if going down to earth will yield answers. which lets the audience know pretty directly that he's starting to ask these questions again. but it doesnt do anything because shadow doesn't have an identity outside of what others want from him yet.

(i suppose i should mention that this aspect of his character is also conveyed through his japanese dialogue specifically using boku 僕 but i feel like that's been covered to death and i don't know enough about japanese)

obviously, when he finds out that his memories were fucked with and maria's wish was different, he immediately switches sides without a second thought. his "last words" are even a reference to what she wanted from him, and the trailer to the final story mentions wishes as well ("are wishes eternal?" iirc), so it's clearly a huge part of shadow and the themes of sa2 as a whole.

i think this can be extrapolated a little bit into the idea that shadow is someone who is deeply terrified of annihilation. appropriate for an immortal who was artificially created to serve a greater purpose. this is, at least imo, central to his character and the reason why he's so adverse to autonomy—it leaves room to be annihilated. if he's a tool for another person, then he will always exist as an extension of someone else.

this character trait persists in later games after they resurrect him from the dead, often coming up in the form of him trying to recover his memories. it's kind of a no-brainer for an amnesiac character to seek answers about their past but it continually reoccurs with shadow to the point of making him come across as obsessive. though this could be read as both heroes and shth05 retreading the same ground (and that is probably the case LOL) i think it's understandable considering a) he got genuinely no closure in heroes b) apparently he eventually remembers maria's death and it effects him enough to dwell on it, indicating that its still a source of trauma, c) it's pretty expected for a dude who doesn't know how to form his own identity

the reason i mentioned shth05 and its reputation among shadow fans is because its the game where this trait is actually addressed in a way i feel is meaningful and it's where lots of people get the idea that shadow has grown away from relying on maria's wish to make decisions. the game features multiple different factions essentially ordering shadow what to do, all resulting in him making some definitive conclusion about his purpose, creation, and identity. he doesn't really make a single decision for himself beyond trying to recover the past (which is just as much a search for external direction as doing whatever someone says) in this game and it's completely in character because he's never really... done that. before. even his inclusion in team dark was rouge's decision. he talks big shit in this game about nobody telling him what to do but, like, actions speak louder than words do, man. someone should tell him that.

obviously we know the conclusion and its notable that the canonical ending of the game is vague in what route shadow took and any single choice always conflicts with dialogue, indicating that he didn't follow any route and that his decision to move on from his past was made after actually spending time not being a vessel for someone else's desires

i want to note that its really cool that the shadow android and the black arms hivemind stuff can be read as kind of a representation of annihilation—that shadow isn't unique, hes just another face in an identical crowd, not notable in any significant way. it's also worth pointing out that both of these situations land him under direct control of another person (eggman and black doom respectively) and that despite his lack of autonomy he takes issue with the androids and the black arms probably because he feels like he wouldn't be able to differentiate himself among a whole army. i have a suspicion that if he was approached individually and treated like he was special for being chosen to do a task, he would be much more compliant. which actually is kind of what happens in the dark routes when black doom retraumatizes him with images of the ark.

so uh. conclusion? shadow has learned how to be a person and sometimes acts like an arrogant cunt because he still hasn't unlearned his fear of annihilation, which requires making himself unique and unignorable. and we all know how much shadow bulldozes right over shit when he thinks its necessary.

i admit i dont know how to end this succinctly. its just interesting that shth05 is regarded as one of shadow's worst outings when its, like, the only game that really addresses what i would consider The Root Fundamental Flaw™ that is the source of all his other flaws in any meaningful way. it wouldve benefitted pretty heavily from a more cohesive story, yeah, and to say the execution left something to be desired would be an understatement. but it's centrality to shadow and who he is by the end of his arc (06) and how he should be written now is kind of unignorable and thats manifested in all of the (rightful) outrage over sega not allowing him to separate motivation from maria anymore. Despite the flack shth05 gets for mischaracterization

didnt quite intend for this to come across as defending shth05 as vehemently as it does, but. well. its just something i noticed! and i had lots to say!

[dennisprager]

fuck it we ball

heres a gravity falls fanfic

i actually write a lot of things, but never share them. a lot are just unfinished projects, but a lot are also fanfics. i can't post them because theyre entrenched in layers of headcanons and disregard of the source material that makes them unreadably confusing unless i censor the names to make a clean slate for the context. theyre also often otherwise bizarre, offensive and deeply personal because i only write them for myself.

this is the first thing i've written thats clean enough and close enough to the source material that i can actually post it. theres a few differences but you'll figure those out. also you don't have to have watched the show to enjoy it.

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

"Aaaaand... a New Yorker." she spoke into the house phone, twiddling and curling a strand of her autumn hair like it was the cord.

"With stuffed crust." Dipper whispered, with a tug at her green tartan pyjama bottoms.

"With stuffed crust." she smiled.

Some crusty, crackling, deep and high-passed voice came through the speaker, which was just as incomprehensible as the squeaking in cartoons, though a vague monotone lethargy and world-weariness in speech crossed the interference.

"Yeah, mozzarella." she confirmed, fixing her hair to look down at a sticky note and tapping a ballpoint.

Wendy went on with the order, leaning on the kitchen counter in a typically cool way, eyes switching from the note to the night-black view outside. Dipper, secure now that the crust had been stuffed, slipped on some too-large slippers and padded out through a rusted fly-screened door into the backyard.

There was a certain buzz in the smokey summer night air; that fresh country air that hadn't greeted him in a year. Most would call it 'the flies'. But him, and his older friend, certainly felt it.

To him, the feeling of a warm, familiar place, galaxies away from science projects, Gamecube curfews and beating white Burbank heat. A place and a person where he could shoot the shit with when he usually had to shoot the poop, and the gun had to have a little plastic red tip on the end. And would get confiscated anyway.

Yet the same place was elusive, like the memory of an earlier childhood vacation. On the pitch-black night, in it's valley below, the stars of distant street lights cutting through the redwoods was a sight usually too good to be true; the warm wind brushing his hair and wetting his eyes too long ago to be felt. In his previous, and first, stay in Oregon, by the time it was over and he had to leave, it felt like a Monday alarm ending a sweet dream.

Yet here he was. For six whole weeks, with no want to waste even a moment of them this time. He grinned, and paced the trodden grass of the yard.

And right now, for this night and at least several others, it just was him and Wendy. Even his sister was back at the cabin, whom he obviously and dearly enjoyed the company of in a different way, but he wasn't in a rush to meet the clique she'd made last year and had been foaming at her mouth to talk to in-person again. They were off having their own sleepover, doing 'girl' sleepover things like tittering and painting nails and going to bed at reasonable hours. Their sleepover would be way cooler. They were gonna watch peak cinema and drink roo' beers. Cos they were dudes.

Or at least he was. Or at least would be, in two years, if you count teenagehood as the threshold for dudedom. Mere technicalities, he thought.

Only a few paces later, the excitement had him jogging laps, jogging into the darkness and crickets of the open yard's far-end, revealing more of the twinkling town lining the forms of the sheer cliffs, then slinging around a stump back towards the orange glow of the oval moth-gathered wall-lamp and the silhouetted window of the log house.

Starting with middle school he'd been increasingly more conscious about 'kid' things like breaking into running randomly, but he didn't care around Wendy. Seventeen was too old to be jeering at someone having fun like a snotty 9th grader would, and regardless of age, that was neither her nature, nor the nature of their kinda-friend-kinda-bigsister-kinda-carer relationship. She always just went with the flow and let him be him, joining in with whatever eleven year old fancies he or his sister were taken by.

She was watching him and smiling, leaning on the door frame with one arm crossed, the other tentatively swigging a skunked heineken. Her height and a summer-job clerk that didn't know her got her past IDs, though with this bottle she was wishing she'd just cracked a can of pepsi instead.

Dipper came to the end of a lap and was in her earshot.

"You yoinked my slippers, ya scoundrel."

He slowed, then started walking to the door.

"Oh, they're yours?" as if he couldn't tell by them almost falling off with each step, and as if she wasn't joking and minded.

"Yeah, so hands off."

"I wouldn't wear em on my hands, that'd be gross."

She huffed amused.

The tall girl stepped aside to let him through the door, and ruffled his hair as he passed. The wide wind and crickets softened to a muffle after the door shut, leaving only a fluorescent hum. They took a seat on two stools, made of the same saturated wood as the entire room barring the dark floor tiles.

"Thirty minutes for the food. You got cash, right, dip?"

"Wait, what? No?"

She gave a long, dramatic gasp.

"No pizza, then." she glumly accepted, slouching a cheek onto her loose white sleeves.

"...you're such a liar." he giggled.

She flicked 'maybe' with her eyes and a growing grin.

"Wanna uhh... go pick the movie while we're waiting?" she asked with a smile as dorkish and eager as his glowing through the mellow teenage exterior.

His two nods practically shook the stool.

"Then coooom'on." standing up with a lean and waving a hand to follow.

She clicked the kitchen light off before they passed through the frame into the sparsely decorated hall.

On the left of the hall, she turned the handle of a heavy oak door, leading into a cooler, unlit room. Light from the hall teased a slice of it's form, until the heavy door shut.

For a moment there was black.

A click, and a tacky white lightbulb flooded the silent room with crisp, specular clarity and colour.

Before them over a wood railing, beneath them by four shallow steps; the TV room, which for all intents and purposes was hers. A wide, top of the line (for 1996) Sony Trinitron and VCR atop a stand lay centre in the far end, flanked by two bookshelves crammed with a part-timer funded tape collection that was no Victorville Archive but was nothing to scoff at either. A red shaggy rug divided the TV from the puffy leather sofa (WITH A PULLOUT BED!) cornered by the steps, thats back had a plaid blanket laid over like a 'murican antimacassar, and several more making fluffy heaps by the armrests.

The room had a certain smell and feeling to the air that only a visitor would notice, and with the blackout curtains closed, felt like a little pocket dimension of take-out and tapes. If not for the inviting carmine carpet, it might have felt like a mancave.

The wood of the four steps made anechoic creaks as they descended and turned the corner, taking them to the left of the sofa.

Wendy knelt down in front of the TV with a grunt.

"Can I do it?" Dipper asked, kneeling beside.

"Hm? Oh, sure."

She shuffled over and instead started perusing for stuff to watch.

Yellow for video slid into the socket with a thump then a click, then red for right channel, then white for left channel, and power.

'VIDEO' filled near a quarter of the screen as a commendation.

He was old enough to know rationally that it required about as much expertise as a fisher-price puzzle, but felt like a technician regardless. The subtle hum of the screen broke the chill of the silence.

"Alrighty..." she sighed blissfully, taking a cross-legged seat with the neck of the bottle in one hand.

"What are we thinkin, lil dude?"

He swayed in thought. A select few tapes on the TV stand caught his attention.

"What are these?"

"Those are..." grunting while scooting her butt across. "My favourites."

"The cream de le cream, as the french say." quietly, close to his shoulder.

"Is Pink Floyd french?" he asked, holding a creased sleeve depicting a screaming man he assumed was the eponymous 'Watl', whatever that was.

"No-ho-ho, he's, uh." laughing. "He's from easter island, I think." dryly, taking a sip.

It looked like kind of a horror movie.

"Is it any good?"

"Oh, it's amazing." she breathed, leaning back. "It's basically a musical of one the best albums, Ever." pinching for emphasis.

Dippers eyes grew wider with anticipation. He knew her well enough and had seen her bash enough snares that he knew it wasn't gonna be the Mary Poppins kind.

"But, uh." she scratched her neck. "It's not like a movie night kinda movie, if you know what I mean." splaying a hand towards him, then dropping it on her knee.

"Oh." He knew that, too. It either meant some weird artsy thing or 'horror' in the kind of way that wasn't fun.

"Well, what about this one?"

The boxes clacked as he put one back and took out another. He held up 'Full Metal Jacket', which wasn't much better.

"Mmmm..." she considered. "Still kind of a downer. You'd like the first half, but I think, uh, after that you wouldn't care."

"But it's like a war movie? Those are fun, right?"

She snickered. "Yeah. About Vietnam, you dork; it ain't Rambo. That shit was definitely not fun."

"Why, were you there?" wryly.

A gleam of mischief flashed in the corner of her mouth.

"Uhhh. Ya." like it was obvious.

"Wait, really?"

She squinted and started in a gruff, chiselled voice. "Oh yeah. Musta mowed down a hundred * in that platoon...", taking a deep and hard swig that she privately regretted once the aftertaste kicked.

"Shhhhudddup!" he laughed, as much at himself for even humouring the possibility for half a second.

She chuckled and set the drink down, but suddenly her eyes shot open and she looked flustered. "Oh, don't repeat that!" hurriedly, reaching out a hand and covering her mouth with the other. "Don't repeat that, that's not a word you can use!" rushing the words out and starting to chortle. "That-that's the beer talking. You'll get in BIG trouble if you say that."

"Yeah, I know."

Her eyebrows flicked in surprise for a moment as if asking 'how!?'.

"Well- I mean, I didn't know. But I don't repeat stuff you say, I mean."

"Ohh, right." she settled with a last giggle.

She swallowed. "Anyway." raising her hands with closed eyes. "I don't think that ones a good choice."

Dipper clicked his tongue in thought.

"Got any good spooky stuff?"

"Oh, dude, do I."

She stood up, and walked over to the shelves on the right. She looked back with a smirk and raised a finger saying 'observe' this shit that's about to blow your mind. The boy shuffled and crossed his arms with a smile awaiting the goods.

The shelf had a larger slot at the bottom that could fit various boxes, some of cardboard, and this one of plastic, labelled with scratched paper and pen marker declaring 'HORROR'.

He bit his lip envisioning the kind of messed up things that must be in there; the sorts of revolting scenes an erudite of the genre six years older than him wouldn't flinch at.

The box simply slid out when she grabbed it by the lip, but somehow it felt like she'd gone down a dark passage and blew dust off it with an oil lantern in one hand and a cursed, ornate key in the other.

He kept wondering. Serial killers, flaying, butthole stuff, genocide, torture, probably poop involved somewhere. All kinds of crazy shenanigans.

She knelt, and slapped the lid of the box with both hands, before sliding it off to reveal the contents. Which would have been a little more theatrical if the box wasn't translucent.

He gazed into the pit of tapes.

"Pick yer poison, dipperoni." steepling, with an ominous voice.

'Halloween', 'IT', 'The Return of the Living Dead', 'Hostel', she hissed and snatched at the CD.

"Exceptthatone!"

She really, really, really needed to sort the 'funny monster gibs 80's teenagers' movies from the 'people actually getting tortured' movies.

Wendy noticed Dipper look a little less sure about watching a horror movie.

"Uhh, just... just pick any. And I'll let you know if it's okay. Mmkay?"

He nodded and continued looking.

"I wouldn't let you watch anything that'd make you, like, upset. Don't worry."

"I know..." he whispered warmly.

She pinched his cheek.

Several cases toppled and clacked the plastic as he pulled one out. "This one looks... interesting."

'CRITTERS II: THE MAIN COURSE'

"Oh, that movie fuckin' rocks." she laughed. "It sucks, but it fuckin' rocks."

"Heh heh~ What's it about?"

"It's like dollar store Gremlins."

The corny ass Dreamworks face of the monster on the cover seemed to infect him more with a breathy laughter by the second.

"I-hi-hi, I think I'll pass on dollar store Gremlins."

"Hm hm, oo-kay."

Wendy had taken to flipping through some of the covers herself; it had been a while. She huffed a single laugh thinking about Christopher Lee in Howling II, hummed fondly thinking of the first time watching Little Shop of Horrors as a girl, and remembered snatching Maniac Cop 2 on discount as soon as she saw it in Blockbusters just so she could rip 'Children of the Night', which she just now noticed herself singing under her breath unbidden, then soon after 'Alone in the Night' by Leatherwolf and 'Darkest Side of the Night' by Metropolis and a few other 'the Night's.

"This summer... the ball is back" Dipper giggled, reading the tagline of Phantasm II. "What's this one?" holding it up.

"That's dollar store Evil Dead."

"Huh? Never heard of that."

"D-" she jolted.

"Dude."

For a second she thought it inconceivable that an eleven year old wouldn't know an almost two decade old movie.

"That's the one. That's what we're watching, Evil Dead II." immediately rooting for it then holding it up, rapping the side of the case with a bit lip like 'this is the shit right here'. The only reason it wasn't on her 'favourites' shelf was because it wasn't as rewatchable as films with more substance.

"Is it like, 'scary' scary?" with mild trepidation, his eyes following as she moved to the stand.

"It's, umm..." fixing her hair and looking up to think "not ''scary' scary' scary, but it might be scary for a kid. Don't worry, though, it's a blast. You'll love it." raising a finger to reassure while Dipper tried to figure out the nested 'scary's.

"Mmmmm... okay." he agreed enthusiastically.

She slapped it on top of the VCR. Dipper had no frame of reference, so trusted her taste and better judgement, with a simmering excitement to find out what it was.

"I'm gonna go get a drink." she sighed as she stood. "This tastes like dick and ass." half-muttered, wiggling the quarter empty bottle.

"Alright." he said while crashing on the sofa.

She made to the steps, then looked back. "Want anything?"

He'd downed a pepsi just an hour before when they came back from the town. "Not yet, thanks."

"Mkay." continuing up.

For a moment. she looked at him nestled by the armrest again. She moved over the railing and hummed lovingly. Dipper looked up to her leaning over.

"You get nice n' cosy." quietly, reaching down to pull a blanket over. "I'll go fetch yer teddies, too." booping his nose with a dimpled smile.

His backpack in the kitchen had a notebook, a pencil, a few cans, a copy of 'Passport to Magonia', and a selection of his plushies. If anyone else had (correctly) assumed he wanted them, he would have gone on masculinity red alert, but here he only returned the smile.

The light went off, with the hall door left open, leaving the well-loved beige bouclé that enveloped him lit softly blue by the static hearth. They'd lie down and just talk in the quiet for a good half-hour before the food came, or maybe see whatever shitty network sitcom was on at this hour while they waited. He sighed dreamily.

[moomoomooing]

Why Trey Clover is Superior

an essay dedicated to @oseathepebble and by extention, @honey-milk-depresso

honestly it turned to brainrot come the end because I didn't have any other like, substantial counterarguments besides he's boring so.

also i didn't proofread this at all so if theres gramatical errors or smth just doesn't sound right whoops

i hope this is up to standard~

heres a link the google doc with all the formatting and MLA stuff, i'm just gonna put the paragraphs here for ease of reading

A foreword before this begins, while this essay’s main purpose is to argue why Trey Clover is an extremely well-made character that deserves some semblance of respect, I will be treating this essay more so as a critical analysis. Instead of following a thesis, several arguments based on a topic, then a counterclaim, I will be addressing points made by people who dislike Trey as a character. They often appear as a misinterpretation of his character, which I will then do an in-depth analysis on why this occurred and how it might be a misinterpretation. Eventually, this essay will fall into discussing his best traits, especially within the game. Finally, I will be discussing this essay in the first person, as I’m only able to base counterarguments I have heard elsewhere or arguments I can think of, off of myself. Therefore, I find that this essay will both persuade more effectively with a personal connection between reader and writer, as well as subjective opinion being an important factor in writing this essay.

First off, an argument I find that many people use when they genuinely dislike Trey’s character is that he didn’t do enough for Riddle in his childhood. It’s easy to assume that Trey wasn’t doing anything to help Riddle in his time of need when he was falling into obsession with rules and allowing that to harm those around him. Instead, we see Trey only ever encouraging Riddle on, never stepping in directly and opting instead to mitigate the consequences. Even when it comes to a chokehold, with Ace and Deuce challenging Riddle after being utterly fed up, Trey is avoidant and tries to dodge and mitigate the situation. The actual confrontation with Trey, where he reveals his connection to Riddle and his childhood, Ace calls this Trey’s fault. For good reason too, without any extra context clue, it certainly seems like Trey is at extreme fault here. However, looking deeper into Trey’s childhood and relationship with Riddle, more is revealed. 

During the Heartslabyul episode of the Twisted Wonderland comic, we get a snapshot into Trey and Riddle’s history. Trey encourages Riddle to abandon his home during his free study time, to play soccer with him and Chenya. It’s important to remember that Trey feels heavy accountability for this. We see child Riddle joyful, smiling wide while he plays with his new friends. Yet, when Trey assures it’s fine for Riddle to come over to his parent’s bakery to have a tart, things go horribly wrong. Again, Trey feels accountable. The very next panel, Riddle’s mom found out about Riddle and the Clover bakery, Riddle’s face now screwed into tears and pleaded for his mother to stop. Riddle’s mothers face is blacked out here, whereas Trey’s parents are not. Trey’s own face is akin to horror, shame that he did this, that to him, he caused Riddle this anguish. As a side note, there’s a few ways to interpret Riddle’s mom’s face being blacked out. I personally see it as Trey being unable to recognize it as a face. He’s only ever grown up around a loving family, to see someone so horribly angry and screaming, as a kid he probably couldn’t see her face as human. Only adding onto the sheer guilt, he feels for hurting Riddle.

Fast-forwarding into current times, Trey has carried this guilt with him. He didn’t get to see Riddle after the confrontation, meaning he tried extra hard to preserve not just his relationship with Riddle, but his well being as well. To him, preserving Riddle’s delusion of rules on Heartslabyul was the only way to prevent Riddle from making that anguished face again. Therefore, he did his best to uphold all of the dorm’s rules for its students. Now, during Riddle’s Overblot, he sees that crying child’s face again. Ace’s accusation only pushed him to realize how he should be helping Riddle, by confronting him and telling him that he’s wrong. All in all, Trey was in the wrong here, he only ever encouraged Riddle’s tyranny, but it was done with the best intentions. He wanted to preserve Riddle’s happiness, and when it came down to it, he made a difficult decision to confront what could be arguably called Trey’s own creation.

Moving on, another argument I’ve heard expressed before was that Trey is simply boring. This comes from aesthetic issues and his general character being perceived as boring. While this argument is blatantly subjective, is it not my duty to attempt to persuade though? First off, Trey’s appearance. He gives off strong boy next door vibes, almost always a cute trope and a story of tooth-rotting fluff. Trey’s also built, he’s a baker after all. Lots of lifting and mixing, and you can tell just from his art, he has muscle. So not only is he incredibly kind and willing to help you, he’s also very strong and arguably very cute eye candy. Spend enough time with him and I’m certain you’d be at least a bit charmed by him. His smug face is seriously amongst the smuggest faces I’ve seen out of the Twisted Cast and it’s so charming to see. 

Furthermore, Trey’s character is inherently interesting. He is someone who cares for others, takes responsibility to help others, and is ultimately a wonderful brother to have. Though, if you simply wanted that you would look to RSA for a boy, no? So, let’s talk about what makes him an NRC boy. He lies, he’s unnaturally good at lying. Now this might be a red flag (what isn’t with NRC boys) but it’s important to keep in mind his otherwise wonderful character. His own morals dictate that his lying is almost always used for harmless pranks and to the benefit of others. This opens up a lot of chances for mischief and fun, Trey’s not boring after all! He has the humor of an older brother, and his pranks will often be harmless fun (and sevens forbid puns) but they relieve tension, and it’s unbearably endearing to witness. He’s also the perfect person to cover for you, who wouldn’t put faith in Trey Clover? Trying to escape Riddle’s wrath, well convince Trey and you have a free ticket out of being beheaded. All in all, he’s incredibly kind and warm, but he has a mischievous streak that shouldn’t be ignored. Though, if you want to see that mischief, maybe help him out with all his work so he has time.

Now, I feel like it’s also important to consider what Trey will be like when he grows up. Fanfics taking place after NRC is common and it’s unjust to not consider what Trey will be like completely grown up. That being said, I hold firm belief that Trey Clover will grow up to be an incredible DILF. Now, I understand if DILFS aren’t your thing, but then considering the factors that aid a man’s DILF score is important. Trey is very capable, he knows how to bake, finance, conflict resolve, and much more. Furthermore, being a lover to this man’s guarantees you a loving and caring partner. He is someone that values communication and upholding his loved ones, an extremely important trait to keeping a long-standing relationship. Though, as a baker, I understand the concern that Trey would be extremely busy and often absent in the mornings to prep the bakery. Though, would Trey really leave you alone like that? I hold firm belief that Trey would cook you breakfast and leave a note for you every morning should you have a different job or simply don’t work. However, if you do work at the Clover Pastier with him, while mornings may be tiring while prepping for the day, it's quality time spent with your lover. Mornings are characteristically tender, and Trey would only ever add to that intimate feeling. The mornings are your and Trey’s alone. Only with your permission would I believe Trey would hire others to prep the bakery in the mornings.

Now onto my last claim, Trey would be a beacon of support for Yuu in the game. He may be busy but he has compassion, especially for someone who reminds him of his siblings. He’ll be more than willing to give you food and comfort when the stressfulness of being NRC’s errand runner starts to become overwhelming, Trey has a spot next to him for Yuu to rest. Hiding from others, the Heartslabyul kitchen with Trey in it is amongst the best places to go, where you can choose to help Trey bake and take your mind off of the world of problems Yuu has found themselves in or sit on a counter and watch him do what he does best. It’s calming and peaceful, and Trey is bound to crack a bad joke if it means Yuu offers him a small smile. It’s not worth dwelling on such bad things, just take Trey’s hand and he’ll help you forget, if not for a moment.

[cheswirls]

aight im on ch130 of tokrev so time for an update

first off that emma chapter was so sweet??????? omg the fact that mikey got his nickname to make her feel better abt hers like that was so sweeeet. and seeing little baji like that was!!!!!! too much

the emma chapter did so much tho like. seeing all 3 (?) came from different dads but were raised under their grandfather. seeing a bit more of shinichirou and how he was rly a good older brother to mikey and emma (there was a line in another ch abt how he raised those two but to see a lil bit of it adds a lot) is amazing, theres more weight to his character now tbh. and knowing that mikey is so strong bc he trained at the dojo? or at least did up until a certain point, since his grandfather told baji he was a genius and did what he wanted, and he showed up that one time to show off. but it makes sense!! now im wondering why shinichirou didnt take that up as well, since he lived there for a while, and it wouldve been a useful skill to learn w the ppl he ran around w

the conclusion to the xmas conflict was honestly so amazing too, seeing hakkai get motivated and overcome his fear, seeing yuzuha doing The Most to protect him, god i think shes on my top 5 favs now. and seeing more mitsuya was rly good!!!! seeing the younger sisters grown up, and seeing wht he did the day he ran away was hang out w draken, and that he has a tattoo hiding under his hair, and that hes such a g ood older brother hgrhgwrgwh mitsuya is my fav toman captain now

chifiyu continues to be SO good god what an amazing character. i cant believe how close he is w takemichi now like. we know from context he was super close w baji but its different being told something and experiencing it. i wonder if their relationship is jus like his w takemichis, or if it was deeper, like if they were the sort of friends that did everything together. every time we see takemichi in the past now chifuyu is there and ik hes a plot device now be he knows abt the time leaps, but by god if the captaina dn vice captain arent absolute friends

that last jump to the present rly hurt ;< seeing mikey like that was shocking, the hair is so different? esp bc the only future mikey so far has been the picture w the slick backed hair, even teh longer black hair (which ig that confirms he dyes it but?? in the emma chapter it was blonde n he was super young, so maybe he dyes it black? iunno i always thought he and emma had the same hair color. ik its a delinquent thing to dye your hair but ive never thought abt that for mikey soo) looked better that the cut he had when he died. the fact that naoto shot him too was jus ughhhhh and when he realized mikey was never gonna shoot takemichi??????ughhhhhh my heart

this new idea that kisaki can time leap makes sense in a way but iunno how i feel abt it. ig bc it introduces the notion that eventually we’ll have to know how it works, and why only certain ppl can do it. i honestly didnt think it was gonna be that type of story, adn that once the past was fixed the idea of timeleaping will become unnecessary to consider, and will fade, but now that multiple ppl might be able to its become smth thats necessary to figure out.

when takemichi said he wouldnt return to the present was UGH like i get that the past is more interesting BUT its the returning to the future and seeing the payout and non-payout that rly makes a difference. that chapter came out around 2019 and i think the manga started in 2017 so? i dont think its an endgame moment, i still have abt 100 chapters to go so maybe something changes

and now the kawata twins are getting spotlight!! i feel like ive gotten a good read of smiley based on the panels so far, like before the focus chapter w tenjiku, and its mutou that iunno what to think of yet. damn tho if the past few chaps havent been entertaining, angry in particular im interested in bc i thought he would be a pseudo-bak*gou, but his words show that he cares, like he’ll say he dont push yourself, if we get too beaten lets run, etc, but he always has that angry mark of his face. anyway i love their dynamic so far!!!

[probably-haven]

Kaeya Alberich & Why his Failure is Inevitable

A theory on Kaeya’s reaction to- that event in his backstory.

take everything with a grain of salt , because it’s heavily based on assumptions, most of which are centered around his reaction to- backstory stuff, so gonna put that under the cut-. i actually originally said this in a reblog to someone asking the exact question awhile ago

im kinda in a content drought though so i might as well bring it back, hopefully some people find it interesting in this context though. Lol a lot of it is just seeing how angsty i can make it too so- ehe

actual content under the cut: (spoilers for kaeya’s backstory, diluc’s backstory, Khaenri’ah lore, and a bit of Childe’s backstory)

so the exact verbiage used in kaeya’s story for his reaction to Master Crepus’s death is: “Even someone like Master Crepus would submit to such a dangerous and evil power…” Sinister thoughts flashed through Kaeya’s mind, and he simply smirked— “This world is truly… fascinating.”

-

Now I’m actually pretty sure this quote ties in, not to the destruction of khaenri’ah, but to the cataclysm before it. Specifically, it deals with the Khaenri’ahn alchemist Gold who started it.

Canonically, Gold was an incredibly ambitious alchemist specializing in khemia 500 years ago. Their most well know achievement is corruption of the dragon Durin, but concealed much deeper in Teyvat’s history, a number of Gold’s legacies include incorporating the powers of the abyss into their alchemy(and eventually being corrupted by those very same powers, tho it might be a translation error), followed by the destruction of Khaenri’ah’s Eclipse Dynasty(including the royal family and the royal guards tasked with protecting the people of Khaenri’ah), and this was followed shortly by ‘using their talents to create an army of “shadowy monsters."’

these monsters, blood filled with the corruption of the abyss, would only continue pouring out of Khaenri’ah in waves until the fateful day that it was destroyed. The era of suffering these monsters caused would come to be known as the cataclysm.

-

taking those facts into account, it could be a remark about how even someone as kind hearted as Master Crepus could fall to the temptation and corrupting aspects of power that caused his people’s fall so long ago, even without the naturally corruptive effects of power from the abyss. that’s sad- but if you get into the theory of it its even sadder the further you go.

Now theory wise its important to make a few connections- I am under the impression that the “fall of the Eclipse Dynasty” that Gold caused through abyssal power was actually the first instance of Khaenri’ah’s curse, and the monsters of the cataclysm- were among the curse’s first victims.

a bit sadder with the fact that his statement can now refer to his feelings of there truly being nothing that could have been done to prevent the very same exact curse that has caused him so much suffering through his life. There was no resisting the corruption of power, only delaying it. It hammers in the fact that the reason he was sent to Mondstadt truly might be the destiny he had many times been told it was. A cruel joke from Celestia perhaps?

but not sad enough. let’s pull out the big one. The Khaenri’ahn Royalty Kaeya theory. (there’s a lot- im not gonna cover the explanation behind that one here)

Gold, the most powerful alchemist in Khaenri’ah would likely have worked under the Eclipse Dynasty, so assuming the theory of Kaeya(and Dainsleif) being the last member of the Eclipse Dynasty, its reasonable to say he would have known Gold. Now whether Gold was a good person or not is irrelivant because it remains the same either way. Kaeya has twice seen the corrupting abilities that come with power strip him of all those close to him, shouldering him with an additional responsibility to carry out in their memory that he never wanted. Yes this hurts more if he was close with Gold and Crepus managed to make him feel safe enough to get close to people even after that- but I’m here to provide the facts and theories, not the emotions, though theres a lot

but…. its a stretch(like a big stretch)… but for the sake of going all out on a limb, we can take this one step further.

In Childe’s story it references the abyss by saying “this dark realm had sensed the burning ambition in this boy’s heart” and it can be assumed that the powers granted by the abyss, as the natural opposition to Celestia(natural as in abyss magic literally opposes the magic of Celestia by nature) might just opporate in a similar way to the gnosises. Kaeya has no knowledge of gnosises though so for now lets use the word visions.

The powers of the abyss that were given to Gold would likely have been favored over visions from the gods in a godless nation like khaenri’ah afterall. and if he knew Gold, a known genius, he likely wouldnt have noticed anything off until it was too late. A sudden fall from his perspective. Visions, delusions, power from the abyss, what difference truly is there to a child raised to shun the gods. All are granted through ambition, and all will only end in suffering

afterthought:

However the main thing behind the Khaenri’ahn Royalty aspect of this angst fest- Kaeya would have been extremely young during Gold’s corruption and Khaenri’ah’s fall… like i cant help think of that one tik tok audio “that must be so confusing for a little girl” but it really does fit because now i can’t shake the imagery of Kaeya, faced with the imagery of the man who raised him dead as a result of a power he chose to use. And he finally understands what he was too young to understand back then. the world is not fascinating in a way that he is interested in it or wants to know more about it, but more interesting in the way that people’s eyes are involuntarily drawn to images of tragedy. It’s an expression of cruel irony, of truths he was forced to face, of knowledge he doesn’t want to know, but that he needs to know- if he plans on carrying through with his destiny- siding against Mondstadt. but siding with Mondstadt would cause him to turn against Khaenri’ah as Gold had all those years ago, and is that not fulfilling a cycle of fate all the same?

It’s an expression of mourning. He is chained by the legacy of Khaenri’ah and there’s nothing he can do to escape it. Either way the cycle will repeat. This fate gives him a unique power and even he will eventually succumb to it, doomed to be viewed as a corrupted betrayer no matter who he sides with, to doom yet another civilization in return. Such is his preordained role as the last hope of Khaenri’ah. The unescapableness, the way it all becomes so sure and clear and nauseatingly relevant in that very moment are what drive him to say that as he finally realizes that he cannot win.

-

of course a lot of this is a stretch and just theories, but the angst potential was there so i decided to run with it lmao

additional afterthought: this isn’t something kaeya would know, but the corruption of Durin by Gold was actually predicted by a priestess in dragonspine before Celestia destroyed it and made it like it is now.

just angsty because it reinforces the idea of a repeating cycle of foretold destiny that no matter hard hard Kaeya tries, he will never be able to escape. Really puts Mona’s “He believes he has made a clean break with his past, but one day fate will catch up with him” line into perspective.

[erythrum]

𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑺𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓

𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘯𝘦

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝘙𝘢𝘧𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘹 𝘧𝘦𝘮!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨,𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧,𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘙𝘢𝘧𝘦,𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘹,𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘴,𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨

𝙖/𝙣: 𝘪𝘮 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 1.9𝘬 +

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘤𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘨𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘺/𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘢𝘧𝘦

✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵

The boneyard was a melting pot, pogues, tourons, and kooks unalike all gathering for one of the last kegger's of summer. This mash together of kids from all over Kildare and the mainland always ended in chaos, it was just a matter of time before shit went down tonight.

Rafe had his arm thrown around my shoulders as we walked down the path to the boneyard. I could faintly see Topper and Kelce downing the cups of pogue provided beer. Didn’t matter whether or not the kooks or pogues could get along, as long as it was on the cut and alcohol was provided, the teens could get along for a limited amount of time.

“Hey y/n! What are you doing here? I thought you were leaving for college this week?” It was Sarah who yelled out to me, running up to her brother and I in her floral printed dress. Rafe’s arm dropped to his side as she came with Topper not far behind.

“Oh I just couldn’t miss my last kegger before leaving, Duke can wait on me one more day.” The two of us embraced in one of those hugs that has you shifting your weight from side to side. I guess she didn’t realize I wouldn’t leave for college for another month, but I was sure she was already too drunk for me to explain it to her that she was not thinking of the right month.

As Sarah was hanging onto me probably a little too tight, Topper was giving Rafe one of those looks that said everything but also nothing at the same time. Like prior knowledge had to be known to understand the context. I of course did not, those two always had some stupid shit planned and I can almost guarantee it had to do with messing up the pogues’ little party.

The sun hung low on the horizon after I had finished my third cup, the colors illuminating the sky so brilliantly it felt like a fantasy. I stripped off my top and headed for the water, the pinks and purples of the sky reflected in its crashing waters. It was so cold, the temperature sent shivers up my body and a familiar rush in my energy. Almost waist deep now, I submerged my body completely under the water. It was always how I remembered it, calm and refreshing.

“C’mon Rafe! Don’t be a little bitch and get in there, I see the way you look at her,” Topper spewed, pushing his friend to have a little courage.

“Man what the fuck are you even talking about?” Deny everything Rafe thought.

“Oh come on dude, you’ve been making please love me eyes at her since the sixth grade, and please fuck me eyes at her since the tenth, when are you gonna do something about it for once? You’ve got a month to make a move, or regret it your entire life,” Topper continued his monologue as Rafe tuned him out, too distracted by the girl, his girl, staring out into the Atlantic like it was calling to her.

His heart was pounding as he made a B-line for the water, a light jog, but not so fast someone would think he’s crazy, or just madly in love. He swiftly pulled his polo over and off his head before plunging into the chilly water. Topper clearly knew whatever he'd said had worked.

I heard him before I saw him, Rafe approached and submerged himself just as I had a few minutes before.

“If we get hypothermia I'm sending you my hospital bills.” He laughed, wading around in the shallow water.

“Oh shock! Rafe Cameron threatening his medical bill payments? I never could’ve guessed!” We enjoyed our few minutes of peace before talking again.

“But it’s basically impossible anyways, you get use to it after awhile, maybe it’ll calm your hot-headed ass down,” I giggled and prepared for what always came next. Rafe pickup me up around my waist, lifting me over his shoulder before attempting to sprint as fast as he could deeper into the water. His hands had been wrapped around the back of my knees for a few moments until he threw himself and I down into the deeper water, both of us completely submerged beneath the surface.

The sun was dipping below the horizon now, and the deep blue of the sky was beginning to envelop the boneyard. We had come up for air, and I began splashing him with the water around us, payback for his antics. Theres no way in hell I’d be able to throw him down into the water too, this was the best I could come up with. The two of us were laughing before Rafe grabbed my arms and twisted me around so my back was flesh against his front. I gave up on trying to fight him off. Instead I just rested against him in an attempt to catch my breath.

“Hey Rafe, can we talk about something?” Oh fuck she knows, he thought. This was gonna be it, it’s going to fuck up his entire plan.

“Yeah, uh sure, like here?” He questioned.

“Maybe not here, I think we’ve got as audience,” he knew she was referring to Topper and Kelce, they were watching from the beach.

"The truck then?" I nodded my head, not at all prepared for the favor I needed to ask of him.

The sand stuck to my feet as we headed back to where his truck was, the chilly air wrapping around my body. Rafe opened the backseat door and pulled out a towel for me, always prepared. He pulled the passenger side door and I slid into the seat, the heat of his car pumping through the interior. My heart was pounding, but I wasn’t sure if his was too. We made it about halfway to tannyhill before speaking.

“Soooo,” he said.

“You’re going to think I’m absolutely crazy, Rafe," I laughed in an attempt to hide my nervousness.

"First of all, you're already crazy, and second of all, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're going to say," his hands were clenching the steering wheel harder now.

""Oh really? You already knew that I was going to ask you to take my virginity?" I don't know why, but I just blurted it out.

His car came to a screeching halt on the side of the road, lunging me forward as he stared in disbelief at the road infront of him.

"Im sorry, what did you just say?"

"That I want you to take my virginity? V-card? Cherry? Damn Rafe how else am I supposed to say it?"

"And," there was a pause in his voice like he didn't believe me, "your being serious, correct?"

“Correct.”

“And, come again? I need to hear that one more time.”

“Jesus fuck Rafe, I’m being dead serious, I want you to take my virginity, what about that is so hard to explain?” It came out as more of a yell than a scream, he took a long sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. He was thinking long and hard, I knew because he always had something to say, and now he wasn’t saying anything at all. It felt like hours had past before he spoke again.

“Why?”

It was my turn for a long sigh.

“Well, I guess I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and I want to do it, but whenever I think about it in my head the only person I can see doing it with is you. You’re the only person I trust enough with my own body, I mean shit,” I had to think for a long time before admitting what came next.

“Whenever someone, you know like Scarlet or whoever, asks about who I’m interested in or whatever it may be, not a single person ever comes to mind except you, it’s like all I see when I look at you is you, everything else is like blurred around you and whenever I think about who the love of my life will be, I always think of you, not some mystery guy that I haven’t met yet.” I didn’t plan for this to be a full confession on how I feel about him, but here I am spilling everything I’ve been holding in my heart for the last three years.

“And I know that sounds fucking stupid I know, I mean we’re still teenagers for crying out loud, but when I’m with you it always feels like I’m home.” I was nearly crying at this point, struggling to get the words out of my chest that had been waiting for so long. He was listening, deadly quiet, and I had no idea what he was thinking for once in my life.

“You know what? Just forget about it, can you take me home please?” I was definitely crying now, it felt like I’d ripped my own heart to shreds. Theres no way he could ever feel the same way about me, he protected me like I was his own blood, not like he was in love with me. My face was nestled into the sleeve of my hoodie as the tears came out. His hands had moved back to the steering wheel now, gripping onto it so tight I thought it might break. The muscles in his forearms almost looked like they were twitching, but he still had the car in park.

He wanted to just grab her and kiss her right now, the girl he'd been in love with since the sixth grade sitting in his passenger seat, her seat, confessing her feelings to him. Rafe knew it was alot for her to ask, but it meant even more to him everything that she had said after her original question. And there was no way in hell he was going to let her get away again.

Rafe reached his hand over to hold onto her tear stained cheek.

"y/n," The bother of them were breathing heavily.

"I'm in love with you," it slipped from my mouth and he leaned in to kiss me. It felt like I had a wave of electricity coursing through my body. His hand grasping onto my face as he leaned over the center console. My hand reaching for his chest, his lips on mine as we intertwined with one another. It felt like everything in my life was complete, and the tension has been released. His fingers tangled in my hair.

It was over before I realized it, and Rafe was driving me home. My breathing hadn't normalized in any way, it was like I needed to throw up my heart to get the knot out. I couldn't stop thinking about the way his had felt on me, the way his lips felt on mine, the way it felt for once in my life like I was loved.

"i'll think about it," his voice cracked.

I leapt out of his car as fast as I could with tears streaming down my face. Did he feel the same? Did he not? My brain was spinning so fast I barely made it inside my bedroom door before collapsing. I wrapped myself up in the thick comforter, a heart full of ache and a body exhauster with sleep.

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[ectonurites]

does t-shirt conner and 90s conner and new conner all feel like different people to you, or is it just me? i know things get written, rewritten and rebooted but. they all just feel like different characters. it's weird.

Like... yes and no? It's complicated.

(Sorry in advance I'm starting out with mostly text citations rather than images, but theres images later. Also this got incredibly long. Sorry!)

Because at a glance I definitely agree there are differences between each of those eras of Conner, things that are pretty clearly apparent when you just pick up a comic from each timeframe

But like, at this point where I've read a lot of Kon stuff and see like... the connecting points between these Kons with context, I think it's not hard to rationalize where the changes in personality come from (even if the writers might not have put that same amount of thought into it that I have tbh) which can make it feel more like 'this is a person who is changing over time as he goes through life because of specific things he went through' rather than just 'this is a completely separate character suddenly when the writers changed' (like... the separate writers thing is more how Jason feels than any other character to me)

90's Kon comes fresh into the world unexperienced but wanting so badly to prove himself and be Superman, but he's just not quite there yet because of his age and naivety. He knows a lot of things because of Cadmus-implanted knowledge, but he doesn't necessarily understand all of them. He's immature, kinda rude sometimes bc he purposefully bases himself/his personality on what's popular (something gone into in Superboy Vol. 4 #83 when he spends a whole issue lamenting that he's lost his coolness) because he cares a lot about how people perceive him, but has a good heart and wants to see the best in people (that's kinda how he got into the damn Knockout situation in the first place, he was so convinced she couldn't have actually committed the murder she was accused of. She took advantage of his trust/desire to see good in others). He's fun and doesn't take things too seriously until it comes down to the wire, and he knows that's a flaw (Superboy Vol. 4 #91, with the "I can't believe this is my life. Wake me up, please. This isn't fun anymore.") and eventually that 'living life his own fun way' thing bites him in the ass a few too many times.

It's the combination of a few things that'd happened earlier (Tana's death during Sins of Youth, The arc with Jim's death and rebirth + just generally everything with Amanda Spence, Bart's half-death thing during Our Worlds at War) with Superboy Vol. 4 #100 and Graduation Day, that all leads to/marks the specific change in him that leads into 't-shirt Conner' even before the Lex/Clark reveal takes stuff a step further.

In Superboy Vol. 4 #100, because he had been living on his own in Suicide Slum with his public identity... he ends up putting his whole apartment building in danger when someone targeting him plants a bomb there. That's why he agrees to move in with Ma & Pa and adopt a civilian identity, because his carelessness with his identity displaced an entire building's worth of people of their homes and cost someone their life. Then, pretty shortly after, Graduation Day happens. He's one of the people who jumps into the action which makes things worse (something Tim angrily points out in their infamous closet scene) and then things go further and Donna dies, Cassie disbands the team because she thinks them not taking things seriously enough got them into the situation in the first place. These things weigh really heavily on him!

Him being a lot more reserved afterwards and kinda shrinking in on himself a bit... doesn't seem that insane to me. All of them saw the events of Graduation Day as a time to grow up. I think Cassie & Bart's specific changes were the ones that made the least sense in this era (and then while Tim was definitely edgier in TT 03 it's also a far less noticeable change than Conner's) but the core of what was going on in Conner's life leading into him revamping himself again does make sense imo. (execution could have been better! far better. But the core idea itself I get). And then when you throw in the Lex/Clark retcon which makes him, already in a place where he's doubting how he's been living his life up to that point, question everything he knows about himself... it does make an amount of sense that he'd just feel different. But I do feel the need to reiterate, he's really not quite as different as I see some people act like and I feel like that stems from the YJ cartoon being the immediate association with 't shirt Conner', even though in the TT 03 run he's still definitely got way more of his personality than that.

Anyways then... ya know plot happens. Luthor takes over and makes him attack his team, Superboy-Prime comes and calls him a fake, he saves everyone but dies in the process during Infinite Crisis. These are situations where a person might not be feeling most like themselves.

Then he comes back, and when he's back is definitely an era I enjoy more in terms of 'times he's wearing the t-shirt' overall, because you can see that he's kinda taking a step back from the problems he was going through + not handling the best way early in the TT 03 era, and re-examining them from a slightly more mature lens. Like, he's not suddenly always handling things perfectly as evidenced by the whole 'List of what Superman does and list of what Lex Luthor does' thing, but it's definitely a slightly more rational/mature approach to dealing with that situation. He's not just going 'agh i was born evil......' now its more 'okay lets... lets see who I actually act more like-'

That arc specifically also does something that I think really rings true to an aspect I brought up earlier about his 90's characterization: puts a focus in on how he's trying to see if there's any good in Lex. That's why he's seeking him out in those first few issues. Obviously he comes to the eventual conclusion that no, there isn't this guy fucking sucks, but it's still that attempt to hope that really does feel like the same Conner when he's just grown up a decent amount. It's not blind faith like things were with Knockout, but a regular hope that someone could be better that feels like it stems from that same place inside him.

In the following stuff once he's thrown the journal with the lists out and come to his own conclusions about how he's never going to be like Lex, he's walking this new line of 'Okay, but I also can't just try to live my life as Clark, so how am I gonna live my life?' It's him wondering about just kinda... who exactly he is. What it is he's doing, what his sense of direction's gotta be.

(Superboy Vol. 5 #6)

The other day I'd made a big post talking about Kon's view on wanting to be Superman, and some of that feels relevant around now. Here Kon is at this point in his life where he definitely wants that title one day, but he's not in a rush to get there. And post-Boy of Steel he is acknowledging the distinctions between himself and Clark more, but he's still choosing to stay in Smallville and loosely follow Clark's path.

He also kinda re-defines his reasoning for coming to Smallville in this run to separate it from just trying to be like Clark in Boy of Steel, into more... looking for answers about how his life could have been if he'd been more like Clark.

(Superboy Vol. 5 #11)

This ending to me is him accepting that he's gotta find his own path rather than try to find answers about a life he didn't life. He's a hero and not normal and that's okay, he's gonna stay in Smallville and be his weird hero self with his weird friends and not worry about the stuff that doesn't apply to him. He's not Clark, but Smallville's his home now too.

Which is why what YJ 2019 then did with him is actually really fascinating to me. It builds off some of these different thoughts he was having in ways that like... sorta kinda almost make sense, it's like the last piece of the 'I don't need to live my life in a pre-defined way' idea clicked.

Like... if we consider the YJ 2019 flashbacks as picking up shortly after Superboy Vol. 5 ended (which is definitely the implication) then Conner has come to terms with that stuff I just said above, but he's still living his day-to-day life in a relatively unchanged way. He's still living at the farm and going to school and all that kinda normal life stuff outside of times he's actively being Superboy.

But when his teacher here talks it all really hits him that even though he likes living in Smallville, sitting around playing Clark Kent Jr. during the school days because he feels like that's the path he should be going down/the rules he thinks he should follow... just isn't the best use of his time. Kinda connecting back to that 'sense of purpose' thing from his talk with Tim, him feeling like what he was at the time doing in Smallville wasn't quite the answer. And he even reiterates he only started like going to school like this in the first place because of trying to be like Clark.

(Young Justice (2019) #3)

So this is kinda him having a taste of rebellion again, after spending a decent amount of time trying to more closely fit the mold of Clark's life. Not necessarily rejecting being at all like Clark or life in Smallville in general or anything like that, but making a choice to figure out his own path picking and choosing the bits he likes (Smallville itself, The farm, Ma) and leaving behind the parts he doesn't want (his secret identity being so similar to Clark bc that's the only way I can read him putting on a leather jacket again as he walks straight out of school, going to school in general)

That's I think a big reason why while he's stuck on Gemworld he decides to switch back into something more like his original outfit, it's him returning more to just what he likes and how he wants to do things which is closer to how he lived life back in the 90s, but going at it with some more maturity from having spent time more reserved trying to follow in footsteps. It's a full circle thing, it's arriving back closer to his original self but with more intent this time so of course it's not exactly the same.

i guess the tldr:

90's Kon was his own rebellious experimental thing but he also really didn't know what he was doing yet because he was so new to the world -> early 2000s Kon was so concerned with how others perceived him -> 2003 Kon was having to adjust to a new way of living and new revelations about who he really is -> post-resurrection Kon was trying to define who he was outside of just Lex/Clark's clone and figure out what path he was going to go down -> YJ 2019 Kon is re-approaching his original self with all the experiences he now has under his belt and kinda a new purpose especially in the aftermath of spending a decent chunk of time stuck separated from his loved ones

So like... because in my mind it just kinda clicks how all these different versions of Kon connect into one another, they don't feel quite as separate to me? If that uhhh.. makes sense.