#but thinking about how hes sort of implied or could be read as someone whose family escaped from conflict overseas

[sunflowersandscreams]

kavinsky. hmmm what's up with that

[katsukota]

nonchalant x crashout

todobaku inspired x reader

katsuki x nonchalant reader , shoto x crashout reader

extra : will probably be a parted series, fem implied, reader is strong, i wanna do a bakudeku + tododeku themed one in the future mayb ? 🫢 basically bakugou x todoroki! reader and todoroki x bakugou!reader

K Bakugou -

Since he was a baby, he always did the most. He had a huge ego, but one that was more fragile than large at the same time. The littlest things set him off, as soon as his quirk developed, nothing was too small for him to take care of.

He expressed himself in (literally) explosive responses, it could be screaming, physical threats, or even using his abilities to blast any assumed threat to him or his pride away.

It wasnt something he realized at first, but he found himself getting the most violent with people who were nice or just didn't seem intimidated. This first manifested in Izuku, whose kind personality and relentless care for someone of Katsukis rank pissed him off. It took him a decade to stop pushing him away, and he was the first one he started using to test the abilities of his quirk on people.

And while 'that damn Deku' pissed him off the most, Icy-fucking-Hot was definitely 2nd place. While Izukus pure intention hurt his perception of his rough demeanor, it made him insecure about him at his core. But the youngest Todoroki son had a similar, yet unfamiliar effect on his ego. When he didnt respond to his threats with fear or a challenging stance, he felt even weaker. As if he couldn't get himself across, or wasnt being taken seriously. It hurt him, even if hed rather die than admit it to any soul.

Eventually, through everything UA and, more so, the League of Villains threw at the training students, an understanding and bonding happened with Bakugou and the 'extras' while he now knew and could somewhat accept how close he was with Izuku now, a closer relationship with Shoto Todoroki scared him a little.

So when in his second year at UA Hero Academy, when he only expected Hitoshi Shinsou to be singular student added, he couldnt get used to the presence of what seemed to a rock wall next to him.

A surprise student was added, and you were a bit hard for the now very bonded students to get used to. Sentences were kept short, you stayed direct and quick. Rarely could small talk or room to really think be an option with you.

And fuck, did this piss Katsuki off. He had a surface level grasp of his peers, but now a completely new face was thrown into his mix. Still, he couldnt find himself even getting a basic idea of you. He'd never really noticed the looks of people in terms of being pretty or attractive. Everyone had basic features, of course, raccoon eyes, shitty hair, dunce face, freckles. But he'd never considered or noticed anyone who made him look twice in terms of pure beauty.

Until he looked over to the new face in his class. You were sitting in the seats next to him, your demeanor alone cold. Your posture was held alert, while your face showed no distinct emotion beside sharp eyes. He'd never stared at people for much longer than needed, but he found himself studying the way your eyes were focused, seeming to have quickly taken in their surroundings before piercing into the front of the class as you digested the small bits of info.

Fuck. How annoying. Another person he may have to worry about beating. He found himself mad at the thought, mad that with just one look at you, he felt himself fearing you could be better.

Shota Aizawa, who stayed the homeroom teacher of the now class of 2-A, already had a precise reading of his students. Especially his trouble makers. Noticing how the classes rabid dog of sorts, was eyeing you with nothing but the urge to rip you apart, prove how he was the strongest to someone who didnt understand who he was. He sighed, while he'd usually put away interpersonal feelings for his lessons, he didnt want anything escalating on the first day. Besides, he wasnt totally against pushing the heros in training to fight early.

A sudden 1v1 class battle sparing was set into motion. He didnt bother reading through every single match, as theyd be taking place simultaneously in different sections. Aizawa stressed the fact that he wouldnt analyze every small detail within each fight, rather focusing more on the ones that were especially talented and worthy of "catching a pros eye", and more specifically would be ranking by how quickly the fight had a distinct winner and loser. This was important in the sense that, the quicker you are, the higher you rank, regardless of how flashy your attacks were. But this turned out to be worse for the opponent, as the quicker you lost, the lower youd be graded.

Katsuki was ecstatic as he motioned for the pairings to be whoever was next to them. He was ready to take you down, and achieve a perfect victory by making an example of you with his more than noticeable attacks, while also making it quick. He couldnt wait to humble you.

You two were now in a relatively small space, it felt oddly intimate in the sense it made it feel like it was just you and him. He made sure to remind himself that he still had plenty of space to move, and most importantly, Aizawa was watching.

He planned on making the first attack, not just before you, but before any other student. But as he started to excrete the nitroglycerin from his pores, you quickly made a swift attack, immobilizing the use of the entirety of his arm. Your quirk, bone manipulation, twisted the areas of upper arm, and wrist into a full 180°. As he stood, his right explosion couldnt reach you as his wrist faced his back and his full arm was stuck reaching behind him in a unnatural way.

The sound of cracking echoed through the fuller, much large training ground. The other students who hadnt even started their preparations, watched as one arm of the arguably strongest student flew back and exploded in a new sort, flashes of red and blue bruises painting its way across the affected areas. Quicker than a beat of his heart, he launched his free fist, embedded with what was a physically glowing power, reading to blast everything in its path into bits.

You stood there, still unscathed, and watched as a second fist reached out to your face. It wasnt anything new. You barely thought, funnily enough, muscle memory seemed to enforce the bones in your arm, gradually strengthening towards it went to your fist.

Despite still looking small and fragile, your body became unbreakable as you blocked the Katsuki Bakugous explosive fist.

His eyes widen with a mix of something hard to read, but still possible.

If you had to decipher the look in the Katsuki Bakugous, itd be a mix of fury, but curiosity. This would be a long match.

Much to Katsukis dismay, he did not beat you, or quickly for that matter. You two were the last on the field, meaning no matter what youd both be at the bottom of the list. He still kept fighting, even as the pores in his palms began to burn, and his muscles felt as if they were ripping apart. Still, he kept screaming, boasting about his superiority as each blast got stronger and stronger, even if he was weakening. It only made him more determined.

And even though you weren't in much better shape, your joints cracking loudly with every small movement, your bones growing unsteady and almost soft as you used your quirk to its fullest. What really pissed Katsuki off though, was how silent you were. Even though your bones had broken many times, and just about your whole body was bruised, every time he was about to become unable to move due to bone damage, you used your quirk to reposition him, so the match could continue. You were fucking with him, without even saying anything or looking at him. He couldnt wait to fucking destroy you.

Little did he know, despite the total lack of emotion or any pure human expression on your face, you were having the most fun you had for a while. This man was giving it his all, keeping the rush and adrenaline flowing throughout the training grounds even after a number of injuries that would send most sane people running away, holding back tears. You loved this. You didn't care about winning anymore, you cared about how much fun you could get out of this fight.

But much to both of your dismay, the time limit ran out. Aizawa erased your quirks, scolding you for taking a while.

"In a real fight, the collateral damage would be unforgivable. Imposing irreversible damage to your opponent when not needed isn't acceptable. While taking training is important," He paused, looking at you both intensely before becoming more harsh,

"This was unacceptable. Even in a real battle this wouldn't work. You both have hypothetically killed a countless amount of bystanders."

Both of you stayed quiet this time.

'Fuck this bitch'

'Fuck Katsuki Bakugou.'

And at that same time, that's the only thing you two could think about.

But even so, what still was irritating Katsuki the most, was the way he kept glaring at you, almost desperate for you to pick up on his hateful message. And still, after an over hour long fight, you stayed looking ahead, nonchalant of anything and everything around you. Especially him.

S Todoroki -

While it could be argued that maybe his cold demenor was just an ironic extension of the ice quirk in his genes, a lot of class 1-A grew to understand a lot of it was due to his upbringing. Shoto Todoroki, although undoubtedly dense, aloof, and simply nonchalant at extreme times, is still one of the most kindest, caring, and unintentionally funny students at UA. Not to mention strong as fuck.

During your first year, you and Katsuki Bakugou were offen placed in the same category. Though you both had many differences, (the main one you being just a bit more popular since you were nothing short of stunning), while Bakugou often would threaten and warn people, you earned the classes "#1 Crashout Title" because of just how quick you were.

One time, Denki and Mineta tried a prank on you in the beginning of class. It was early into the year, and you'd wasted no time proving to be on par with the strongest students. You're rough, but sweet when someone managed not to piss you of personality made you someone people wanted to get close to, but werent entirely sure how.

Shoto remembered thinking that same day how it aggravated him. You were another strong student, one he needed to push past to become even stronger than All Might himself. But while he kept everyone at a distance for that, he found himself resenting you for more personal reasons.

When you sat down, a small device stuck to your chair with a telltale purple ball, gushed a wind of air, attempting to push your skirt up into the area above where your panties wouldve been exposed.

The half and half hero watched as you quickly stood, and made your way to Mineta in an almost scary time. Not a single word was said, but a thousand were about to be shown. A low, but fierce kick smashed into the small mans cheek, his much weaker body rapidly excelling through the same air he wanted your clothing to be in.

He was propelled towards the closed window, most of the class assumed hed splat against it and fall to the floor, but still within the classroom. To quite a few people's surprise, the window shattered and glass bits scattered through the floor and against shoes. Mineta screamed as he began to free dive out the window.

Shoto's face remained neutral in the crowd of concerned expressions, but found his head going light. Most of the twerps in the hero course just simply weren't on his level. A lot of them hesitated, or worried on loud words to start a battle. You havent even said a word, but in a real battle, youd be victorious within 30 seconds.

Everyone was now sure youd stop, but an uncomfortable atmosphere of pure rage seemed to seep out your skin, you still werent done. The second Mineta started falling, you braced an arm on the now exposed window sill, and maneuvered your whole body out the entrance with ease, still chasing after the beat up boy.

About a minute later, the shocked silence was broken with what finally seemed to be your voice chewing out Mineta. In-between exploits and vile, detailed threats, the sounds of skin being beat in and whiney screams echoed throughout the campus.

After a brief scolding from Aizawa, things went back to normal, besides the missing student who was most definitely in the infirmary. The U-A staff was starting to get used to the ugly actions of one of 1-As prettiest students.

Shoto almost wanted to admire you. The small glimpses of intrigue really blossomed the following week, during the USJ attack.

While everything went to plan at first, you and Katsuki picking fights with each other, then snapping at whoever tried to break you too up.

At one point, he tried making a comment in-between you and Katsukis argument, just as you were about to start throwing hands.

He watched as you huffed, and shoved your face close to his to inspect him. He knew he should have felt scared. He knew the face of someone who was about to get violent, and he saw you express every minor discomfort through violent outbursts. But even so, even though your fist was balled up in a perfect form, inches away from his right cheek, he didnt recognize that familiar face.

Although you were clearly pissed, you scowled when you noticed no fearful reaction from him. You wanted to punch that scar off his face so bad. You let him know that too. You grabbed onto his face and pinched it, before pulling it and forcing his head to bop against the (soft so it didnt do much) seat of the UA bus.

He knew he should have been ready to fight, but all he could think was how when your face dropped for only a second when you didn't find any worried expression on him. Even though you still got a little violent, he just remembered thinking how when you werent so angry, you sort of looked like the deep blue Rindou flowers at his home garden.

When the villains attacked, rightfully so, a lot of students were terrified, some hesitating on whether it was a part of the training or not.

But you quickly scouted out who seemed to be the main boss, the lousy blue haired man who smelt kind of weird. You wasted no time speeding towards him, landing a blast of physical attacks towards his face, and vital body areas when he went to defend against those.

For a minute, you were going so fast, he was physically unable to block or attack you. While no one knew this at the time, this also prevented the use of his quirk. Kurogiri, looking from the sidelines, promptly teleported you and the others at random to hold off the rate at which Shigaraki was already getting wounded.

You and Shoto found yourselves together, he saw you still attacking at the air, screaming for whoever to let you back at him. He looked away from your antics when noticing a strange shift in atmosphere, upon noticing a wave of lower level villains swarming your way. He spread a sheet of ice to stop the attacks, enclosing you in the process.

"Fuck ! Ill kill you too, you burnt up bitch !" You yelled it in a way that lowercase doesnt do justice, but Shoto decided to ignore it and keep going on to help the others.

He found you suddenly behind him, locking him into a chokehold. He spit quickly that you didnt have time to throw another tantrum, and slapped your hand away before encasing it in ice.

He began running to the center, before you appeared infront of him. Was that what your quirk was ? Despite being one of the top in your physical assessment, you hadnt used your quirk once. He noticed the ice was gone. Damnit.

"We really dont have time for this."

"Oh shut up ! Ill send your ass to the stratosphere !" He sighed, running off anyway. Even when you were loud and angry, you never reminded him of anything bad. It was just like a strong breeze thrashing the Rindou stems around. You remained beautiful in a way, just unstable.

He pushed you out of his mind as he saw you teleporting into different various spots, getting closer and closer to the main defendant. Even with the wind mercilessly pushing at you, you stayed upright, and kept pushing and thrashing back.

When the students went back to UA, most people were shocked and scared when Aizawa ominously said the fight wasnt over. You, however, started screaming frantically about how youd 'kill the bitch' scratching deep marks into your desk. Aizawa stayed silent as Iida scolded you for breaking school property, but the anger still fresh inside you had him skedaddling back to his seat once redirected at him.

"You will be participating in the UA sports festival."

He looked over to you, who was now stabbing holes into the desk with a pencil. He wondered what it'd be like to actually fight you. While he brushed it off as a good chance to prove to his father how strong his ice was without him, a part of him looked forward to possibly seeing that just slightly shocked face you'd wear when looking at him for too long.

[reinbouxsworld]

Vil being Tamayo kind of implies that Neige is some sort of Muzan figure, hilarious as that is. Demon RSA. They get to be the baddies for once. (Does this make Chenya Douma then? 🤔)

BUT ALSO…

UPPER MOON LEONA!!!! I’m thinking of him and Falena having a sort of Kokushibo and Yoriichi situation. Strongest Demon Slayer Falena, who loved his little brother so much he could not bear to kill him.

LeoYuu. Leona taking a nap in some random secluded village during the day, and Yuu, unknowing peasant girl, accidentally steps on his clothes. The start of a beautiful relationship 🥹

Riddle feels like he would be Rui in the AU of an AU. It’s kind of fitting as well considering Riddle was the first overblot faced while Rui was the first Demon Moon faced. Heartslabyul Spider(?) Family?

Vil and Rook being Daki and Gyutaro. Vil who only eats beautiful people. Rook, who says he prefers to eat beautiful people but will eat just about anyone with no discrimination because “BEAUTE! 100 points!” Alternatively, Gyokko Rook.

Hantengu Idia… maybe?

Muzan Crowley going “Aren’t I so kind~” every time he turns someone into a demon.

Sorry for the long ask!

DON'T BE SORRY I LOVED IT FORL START TO FINISH OMG

OK OK, NEIGE IS NOT MUZAN. Buuuut... he IS a demon! AND YEP RSA BOYS ARE THE BADDIES FOR ONCE!!!! (I got so happy when I read this one I swear I felt like I wasn't insane by trying to imply this)

Tho Neige does look like rui (I wanted to get some of the spider design of him). But he's actually more on a Daki like role. He's inspired by jorogumo (spider demon on Japanese culture), which often takes the appearance of a beautiful woman. I'm still thinking how exactly his arc will work, so I can't say much besides Vil still hates him. 💅

Chenya is a demon whose resembles a cat (resembles cause he does not have ears that just his hair in here) AND he's very important to riddle's backstory — I can say that this is my favorite one till now tho.

Dramatic pause cause I'm about to gush over EVERYTHING NOW.

YES YES UPPER MOON LEONA IS LIKE MY SIDE HUSBAND AT THIS POINT AND YES I rrly like that idea????? Plus Farena would fit yorichi like a glove too AND GOOD I LOVE THE DOOMED SIBLINGS TROUPE 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Honestly I'm very into the fact that if they meet as Leona as demon yuu would be turned into one too, just to make sure the slayers don't hurt his human to get him???! (But I also I'm rlly into the "turn me into a demon" "no" "turn me into a demon" "no" turn me in-" "FOR GODS SAKE NO")

OMG, YES. Not only that, but riddle ministering the rules over spider!heartslabyul family would be so interesting. I'm going for Trey as dad, Cater as mom as Ace and Deuce as older brothers (tho I feel like these two would be way more destructive than necessary). But demon riddle would also be a insane adversary if you don't have the mommy issues card to throw at him.

I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT VIL AND ROOK AS GYUTARO AND DAKI IS ALREDY PERFECT AS IT IS.

Tho gyokko rook WOULD be amazing cause only rook could pull of gyokko weird ass and still make sense??? But Mostly he would make people into art into a way of making them beautiful forever?? (Much like sasori from naruto with his "art is eternal" thing)

HATENGU IDIA IS THE ULTIMATE ONE THO. Not only that, but to have five/six versions of Idia, and his stronger and younger one would still be Ortho WOULD MAKE IT EVEN MORE WILD. Bonus point if real Ortho was killed by him after being turned into a demon.

You got me with muzan!Crowley I'm definitely making this real in the au (it actually makes him even more sinister? I can handle muzan choking but I draw the line at Crowley ACTUALLY think he is kind when he's destroying lives (he's prettier doing it tho)

[optimisticgardenhologram]

Something I noticed in my re-reads of the manga is that Light and Near’s inner monologues tend to pretty directly state what exactly they mean with minimal ambiguity. However with L and Mello their internal thoughts often taper off before reaching their conclusions, or are otherwise just positioned more mysteriously leaving their true feelings and intentions to the imagination of the reader.

For one example, something I always find interesting are Mello’s comments around Misa. 

Let me explain. It's this panel I mean:

What I'm curious about is when he says: "if she had the eyes that in itself could be enough to make her worth something to Kira...still for Kira to be using a girl like this..."

While his statements read plainly enough the interpretation can go in a couple very different ways. And of course this being manga (oh and being CUT from the anime doesn't help) the absence of tone makes his intention all the more ambiguous. 

I'm curious where is the emphasis on that statement? Is it:

"...still for Kira to be using A GIRL like this..."  (implying some general objection to using a girl in the role of the second Kira)

OR

"...still for Kira to be using a girl LIKE THIS..." (implying a specific distaste for exploiting this woman's stupidity, the loss of her parents, and subsequent devotion to Kira and possible willingness to sacrifice half her remaining life for the eyes to help her heroic savior).

My own position is I tend to lean to the latter interpretation. I think he's bothered by the way Kira is weaponizing Misa's trauma and idolization of him. Yes I am biased, yet still believe there's more than enough textual basis to back up that reading. 

Remember at this point Mello's been listening in on her and Mogi's conversations for almost a week (side note note that this shows Mello is fluent in Japanese since there's no reason Mogi and Misa would be speaking English when they're alone together). But it appears that nothing overtly suspicious is going on with them, and more than that their apparently inane and tedious conversations by this point are (understandably) grating on Mello's last nerve. He wonders how "This stupid girl is the second Kira? But I think of any other reason Mogi would be with her...her...". Yeah it's kinda mean to call her stupid, but the point is IF Kira was using her, it certainly wasn't for her brilliance. Also notice he repeats the word "her" twice, showing that he's thinking of her as in the individual sense not as a generic member of the female gender.

Also if his statement was just as a general sexist comment meant to say there's something fundamentally undesirable in entrusting a woman with that sort of power, there would have been no need for the panels showing him mulling over her personal history and possible motivations, making those connections in such detail.  Plus unlike some other characters in the series, Mello isn't known make prejudicial comments about women.

Being a fellow orphan himself, and one whose trauma and devotion was ALSO exploited similarly --  raised to be a tool serving someone else's vision, and not only that but similarly having bought fully into it and making it his own life goal -- he might be able to relate to Misa's situation more than most.

It's also worth mentioning that I wouldn't necessarily consider it out of character for Mello to be rubbed the wrong way by how Kira is using Misa. Mello is shown multiple times throughout the manga to be openly empathetic (which goes hand in hand with his infamous trait of unapologetically having emotions), including to his enemies. See Soichiro Yagami, Kiyomi Takada. 

Anyway, it's a small detail to devote this much thought and rambling text to, but I think it's interesting so...

/shrug/

[da-janela-lateral]

very curious as to what you mean by esper survivorship bias! there’s a couple things i’ve noticed that could be related (like how other than the obviously powerful teru, mob, ritsu the only child espers we see are the awakening lab kids whose powers are so limited that if they’re the baseline most espers would probably never find out they have powers at all) (or how other than the main 4 esper teens and the awakening lab kids and sort of takenaka the only psychics we see are adults that are part of claw) (sorry. my adhdemons)

FINALLY MORE EXCUSES TO TALK ABOUT MY HYPHOTESIS.

I first adressed it in this post, little time after I read some fics focusing on Teruki's relationship to Claw and started wondering about some stuff. After reading (part) of the World Domination Arc in the manga, I got more questions, which I'll explain here:

The Esper Survivorship Bias Theory

Contrary to the norm in works focused on the paranormal, in Mob Psycho 100 society overall doesn't care about espers. This is of course related to the main theme of "nobody is special" and the story's tendency for desconstructing shonen tropes, but it also implies that while rare, espers aren't seen as a big thing. This can be seen in the following details:

While describing Mob's powers, Inukawa treats them as only something unusual.

The Kageyama family, their friends and their acquaintances find Mob's powers ordinary.

Espers are a known phenomena (for an example, Mr. Asagiri looks for dozen of psychics on the start of the Mogami Arc).

Even when people don't believe on psychic powers, they don't insist much on this view after tiny proof (that is, powers are somehow beliavable).

Espers existing at all doesn't change how society works.

For that to happen, there must be a condition: the occurrence of psychic powers is common enough so that people acknowledge them AND usually don't mind their existence. They are like a weird, yet mundane fact.

This may contradict the canon's premise that psychic powers are extremely uncommon, but in the Seasoning City region alone we see several characters with them. Toichiro affirmed Claw has about 700 members and that he had hired international mercenaries, which in turn may mean there is a significant esper population out there. So why are there so few espers in-verse, they take years to meet people like them?

Simple. They aren't as extremely rare as people think. This is survivorship bias.

Most espers on canon are adults over 20 years old, and even a great part of these are members of Claw. The only psychic children we see are the main cast, the Awakening Lab kids and Takenaka. What a interesting coincidence that Claw too is 20 years old...

It's not that young espers are ultra uncommon nowadays, it's that as soon as they're obvious, Claw takes them.

This is not limited to powerful people, as the organization went after the Awakening Lab kids even though Claw either knew they had insignificant powers, or had no information on the level of their abilities at all. Any esper youth that enters their radar is a valid target.

Besides that, it's essential to remember Teruki is an exception to the rule. He survived being hunted down by Claw since childhood, but he also lived in dire conditions and was obsessed with being stronger than the criminals who went after him. Despite their powers, most esper children are normal. They wouldn't have an idea Claw existed. They wouldn't be prepared for a kidnapping attempt. And considering espers tend to feel socially alienated, lonely children have bigger chances to trust the Claw officials if they presented themselves as "someone who understood them".

In other words: espers aren't as rare as people believe. It's that as soon as they show their powers, Claw takes action. This is why there are so few characters under 18 who have psychic powers.

Final comments

Of course, many of the arguments I have mentioned could mean other things. MP100 has a pretty soft worldbuilding after all because psychic powers aren't the main focus, but rather a pretext for developing each character's perspective and inner turmoil, as well as the story's themes. Lot's of things are also played for humor and don't have real relevance. Furthermore, one could mention how the audience's view over MP100's world is limited to Mob's very uncommon life, and how some elements we've seen aren't the standard.

I'm just thinking a lot about the Claw targets' families. What did they know about the kidnappings? What did they do about them? How did the authorities investigate these cases? Have they found any closure? Have they connected the dots about the nature of the disappearances?

And what about the targets in question? How did their recruitments work? What they thought about what happened to them? Did they miss their loved ones? How many of them went on and kidnapped more kids? How many of them survived? Did they get to reunite with the people they loved and have a chance on a normal life?

Some food for thought.

[yuri-is-online]

What are your ideas on Yutu’s Unique Magic?

Maybe Riddle!Yutu having a countering UM to his father, or Cater!Yutu having one that allows him to see the true in people, etc, etc…

Also, what if Yutu has a sister/brother back in his OG timeline? Did he bring them with or they just got left behind?

for context, check these posts (1) (2) or look at the Fyuuture kid section under series on my masterlist.

oof I have a lot. Unique magic strikes me as something that is supposed to be reflective of who the mage is as a person as well as the Disney character/concept the boy is based on.  Since Yutu is not based on anyone really, we are more free with inspiration for his unique magic, with two exceptions. Idia and Kalim both have lines suggesting that their unique magics are passed down in their family's, though I imagine the incantation is different to each person; it makes sense for their Yutu's to have Gate to the Underworld and Oasis Maker respectively.

Before I really get into the weeds, I do like the idea of Yutu having (a) sibling(s) in the OG timeline, again because that can happen in Fire Emblem Awakening but also because it adds to the angst somewhat. As for whether or not he would bring them back in time, the answer to that is yes. Yutu has a few friends he traveled back in time with that are scattered around Twisted Wonderland with no way to contact each other, and if he had a sibling (with the exception of Malleus! Yutu whose sister is a bit... special) then they would be among that group. If you want some extra angst we can steal even more from FE: Awakening and make it so Yutu's sibling died before he arrived, maybe they turned into a blot monster that follows Grim's overblotted form as a replacement for his hench human.

We could even make it so Yutu's sibling doesn't have any magic, just like Yuu. You know. For the parallels ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Riddle! Yutu

Riddle! Yutu having a magic that counters his dad is such a good concept, especially for someone who initially hates him. There are two types of magic that we have seen counter Off With Your Head: Trey's Doodle Suit and a strong shielding spell used by Leona.  I can think of a few directions to take this line of thinking, so let's start with the most grounded.

A strong shielding spell, one that can be applied to multiple people, sounds like a spell that thematically fits Yutu.  We don't know a lot about how these spells function, but they're important for combat magic and shielding multiple people seems to be implied to be difficult.  Let's say in this case it's natural for Yutu and essentially the same for him as shielding himself.  This sort of spell feels like it should have a card themed name, Big Blind maybe?  It's a term that refers to the minimum bet required to continue a poker game if I understand what I read correctly. The only card game I know how to play is yugioh

The less grounded approach could be a sort of spell that creates an anti magic field… it's a concept I did toy around with mostly because I was thinking about more Alice in Wonderland themed names for a unique magic, and thought up “Everything is Nonsense” or something along those lines.  My one sort of caveat to this concept is that I think a spell like this would be heavily stigmatized, probably cause a lot of blot build up for a caster, and I'm uncertain of how it would work mechanically. Well that and I have an idea for a different Yutu who this spell would fit a bit better... but that would require me to cook with a different type of fire.

I did mention in my post about Riddle! Yutu that I liked the idea of his unique magic allowing him to shrink or grow because of Rule 42 in Alice Adventure's in Wonderland saying all people more than a mile high must be rejected from court. If Riddle is the Queen of Hearts, well then any time they argue all Yutu has to do is grow and then he won't be allowed to yell at him any more so there. As a side note do you think this logic could apply to the Chimera in the Prologue? Because I could see that being darkly funny if it comes up in game in that context.

Cater! Yutu

I had a really well thought out idea about Cater being able to see a limited amount into the future before I realized that I was describing the sharingan from Naruto so fuck me I guess.

So just hear me out, you know in twst battles you can see at least one of spells the enemy is going to use? That's sort of what I thought Yuu's unique magic would be if they had it, but I also like the idea of it being Cater! Yutu's. It would function more like an instinct than an actual vision (*clenches fist* just like naruto) but he can use his magic to tell what a person intends to do before they fully think it. Cater is skilled at divination so a unique magic that lets his kid see a little bit of the future feels like it could work for him.

Speaking of divination, I sort of also like the idea of Cater! Yutu having a magic that has something to do with stars and starlight. Maybe he can turn into a void like being made of cosmic energy, similar to how Cater's Split Card is symbolic of his many faces, Yutu's void form could be symbolic of how he feels displaced in the world.

Ace! Yutu

We don't know what Ace's unique magic is (yet) but there are a lot of theories. Time travel, something that steals another person's spell, something related to optical illusions?

I think it would be fun if Ace! Yutu could do something with reflections/mirrors. As in he can reach through mirror and attack, similar to how Hanged Man works in JoJo. The further the distance the more magic it takes, it can also work with things like water but that takes a lot more magic too.

Either that or he's able to travel between mirrors on his own without the dark mirror. That might be a much more difficult thing to do though...

Jade! Yutu

I have a very clear idea for what I wanted to do with Jade! Yutu's magic, but it's a bit complicated to explain because I'm not a physicist.

The basic idea was that Yutu is able to exert magical force on an object, so long as he knows it's exact dimensions and what it is made of. I called it "Crush the Heart" because I wanted both his and Floyd's Yutus to have magic to follow their dad's naming theme. To activate it he has to be looking at where the object should be and picture it in his mind, the more precise the crush the more concentration, control, and magic it takes.

The name could in theory be quite literal, but Yutu isn't quite there yet in his knowledge of biology or magical control.

Floyd! Yutu

Like I said, I want the twin's Yutu's to have a name that is similar to their dad's. Floyd's Bind the Heart uses Kanji that literally translates to "coiling tail"... which I guess is more similar to the magic I gave Jade! Yutu than the "gnawing teeth" that Shock the Heart does, but that magic is supposed to be something that requires calm collected control, which Floyd and his son simply do not have. Still, lets play off that and give Floyd! Yutu a magic that has something to do with shocks and teeth.

I think Floyd! Yutu should have a taunt. Floyd already loves the idea of a good fight, his son is really good at combat magic, and they both talk so much shit that the idea of that literally being his unique magic just sort of works.

Functionally the spell would work similarly to Jamil's, where the person has to look him in the eyes for it to work. The name of the spell could be something like "Reveal the Heart" but that does sound sort of stupid to me so I'm not sold on it. The spell makes a person unable to focus on anyone other than Yutu and wares off after a certain amount of time, it can fail in fashion similar to Riddle's if the enemy mage has a protection spell up.

Azul! Yutu

Another Yutu who I know exactly what I wanted to do with, I got the idea while playing Darkest Dungeon of all things. I feel like it's a bit lame though.

Azul! Yutu can create phantom limbs out of cosmic magic. When he is in octopus form those limbs take the form of human arms, and when in human form they take the form of tentacles. He says when asked that what he is doing is manipulating shadows because he likes to keep people on their toes (or fins take your pick) and he finds it very funny to watch people squirm when they realize there really is no escaping his grasp.

It is a very difficult magic to use, he needs physical strength to use those limbs because they are only as strong as his real ones, so he works out and a lot to make sure he doesn't hurt himself while using it.

Ruggie! Yutu

Laugh With Me is a perfect magic for a hyena to have, and it suits Ruggie's personality really well. Actually... I did write that his Yutu shares his laugh and I think it would be so painfully cute if that extended to his Unique Magic too. Ruggie makes a big deal about how he's kind of a crappy mage, how he has to do a lot of extra work to make up for his low mana pool and poor upbringing. Can you imagine how embarrassed, proud, and awed he would be if his son inherited his spell? That's something only great mages are supposed to have, not little guys like him. Good thing neither Yuu or Yutu care about that huh?

Vil! Yutu

I haven't done a post about Vil! Yutu really beyond this bit about him bonding with Vil, but I did mention what I think his unique magic would be.

I can't find it but I read a myth once about a painter who drew animals with a magic paintbrush that would bring them to life if he gave them two eyes, so he only ever gave them one. I thought it would be neat to have a spell like that and it feels like something that would fit Yutu Schoenheit very well. His magic allows him to create temporary familiars similar to Lilia's bats, bigger creatures take more magic and focus.

I wrote the name for this spell as "Technicolor Dream" since I thought it would be nice for the name of Yutu's magic to nod towards his father's job and his dreams about having his family back.

I have a lot more Yutu's chilling in my inbox, so I'll revisit this topic (lilia! yutu has a whole ask about his um that I really like) once we are done with round 2 of Yutu posting.

[rosinasnoot]

I’ve been reading Discworld by Terry Pratchett, and generally I’ve really enjoyed it. The narration style/storybuilding is unique and deeply entertaining.

The one issue I have is the female characters. To clarify, I haven’t read any of the Witches subseries because they’re not yet available at the library (but I’m very interested to see how he handles what I assume will be female leads).

The first female minor character shows up in The Light Fantastic (book 2). I don’t remember her name. As soon as she appears the narrator goes on a tangent about how some narrators will be tempted to wax poetic about her boobs, but that won’t happen here. This was funny and set the bar higher than I had placed it. This woman is also a highway robber or something to that effect, breaking away from standard female roles.

Unfortunately, when she reappears to capture the main characters, she is written as Thug #1 who has boobs—utterly generic. I don’t recall any prominent character traits. I do remember a scene where another character is riding in front of her on a horse and the narrator comments that since he’s short, his ears are warm.

The next major female character is Ysabell in Mort (book 4, skipping Equal Rites because I haven’t read it yet). She’s somewhat better-developed. She’s lonely in Death’s castle and wants a friend, though she doesn’t want to be forced into marriage. She’s fairly mysterious through the first part of the book and clearly doesn’t like Mort. He’s kind to her anyway, so eventually she reveals that she’s afraid he’s there just to marry her. He’s very against the idea, so she decides she can be friends with him.

About two scenes later, she’s adjusting her nightgown to be more revealing before letting him into the room. This read as out-of-character, since she had just heavily implied she had no interest in him. She continues to pursue him through the rest of the book. Her one shining moment was when she was the only one who knew how to balance Death’s books, so she took that initiative. Mort reveals at their wedding that he “thought about it and realized he liked Ysabell better than the princess.”

The narrator frequently implies that Ysabell is unattractive by virtue of being fat. He later reveals that she only weighs 11 stone, which is 154 pounds. On some girls that doesn’t even warrant the description “curvy”—it depends on how tall she is and how her body handles fat.

The other, minor female character in this book (the aforementioned princess) was beautiful enough for a love-at-first-sight storyline with Mort but honestly annoyed the hell out of me. She was an entitled prick who tried to hold onto her queenship despite the fact that reality itself was trying to evict her. I appreciate that she had character traits to annoy me, but the contrast between her and Ysabell sent the pretty clear message that looks are all that matter in women (at least for Mort…).

In Sourcery (book 5), the character Conina, daughter of Cohen the Barbarian, appears. She’s an incredible thief (the sort who could steal the socks right out of someone’s shoes while they’re wearing them) whose heritage inclines her to go full murder hobo in the face of danger. She’s badass. Two male characters are interested in her, the wizard (Rincewind) from the first two books and Nijel, who’s new. Nijel is kind of a bumbling idiot and he’s not as well developed as most of the other male chracters have been, but Conina immediately falls for him. She becomes a nervous mess over him for exactly one scene, which feels out of character. He also becomes a nervous mess, but that’s a much smaller step for him. Conina remains badass when she’s not talking/thinking about Nijel.

The female characters do seem to be improving so far, so this may just be a relic of the first few books. It’s just a little sad that despite two books with male/female romantic subplots, the most romantic moment of the series so far was when the two (not canonically together) male leads of the first two books said goodbye at the end of the second.

[scaly-freaks]

“Milk Carton” — Self-explanatory, it was the only song I could think of that has the perspective of someone who survived a kidnapping. I also believe that establishing what is going to happen in the beginning helps build up a sense of dread. We know that a kidnapping is going to happen, we just don't know when.

“In the Pines” — A truly haunting song. The song was originally written by Lead Belly, but the first time I heard it was this Kurt Cobain documentary called Montage of Heck, where the final scene is Kurt performing the song at MTV Unplugged. There’s this moment in the song where Kurt makes this face that is absolutely chilling, almost like he’s Colonel Kurtz staring into the heart of darkness. The lines, “you caused me to weep, you caused me to moan, you caused me to leave my home / I wish to my Lord that I’d never seen your face / I’m sorry you were ever born,” also felt pertinent. All in all, I felt it sets the Southern setting, especially the North Carolina region, where you say Aegon takes Amara.

“Rampage” — I felt that this accurately captured Aegon’s demeanour. I don’t know whether they might have known each other prior to her abduction, but most kidnappings occur with someone who knows you. There will be a lot of songs where you just feel looming dread, and this is the first of them. “Milk Carton” is disturbing, but there’s no dread, because there’s no anticipation. Whereas “Rampage,” I’m going to assume, seems to be spoken from the perspective of a lover of a boy whom, it’s heavily implied from the references to the Columbine Shooters and Tate Langdon in American Horror Story, is ultimately going to shoot up a school. When I was a kid, my parents would play this song called, “Six O’Clock News,” about a woman whose lover goes on a shooting rampage, who has just learned she’s pregnant with his child. I always was very shaken by that song, and I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have loved someone who committed such atrocities; just the sheer guilt, the discomfort regarding how to mourn them, the thoughts of I should have known, I should have seen the signs…was unthinkable for me as a child, and is unthinkable now. In “Creek Blues,” another song from the same album as “Rampage,” you sort of get this mosaic of such “signs.” He shows the speaker his daddy’s guns, he kills dogs and leaves them to die by the nearby creek. I think, for me, I wanted to build up a sense of dread over the songs, until it reaches its pinnacle, sort of this mounting pile of evidence that something terrible is going to happen. I discuss the notion of warning signs in relation to violence and abuse in the explanation for “Sometime After Midnight.”

“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” — Chosen mostly because it inspired this creepy, creepy short story that we read in high school, about the immediate moments preceding the abduction of a teenage girl from her home. Incredibly unsettling story, and absolutely heartbreaking. The story, called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was adapted into a movie in the 80’s. Honestly considering removing it, given that I’m trying to build up dread, and it’s not really a dreadful song. Let me know if you think it should stay.

“Sometime After Midnight”— I wanted to convey a sense of looming doom; there’s this moment in W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, where there’s this extensive idyllic depiction of Bavaria, and then this war plane crosses the sky. This section starts out with the understanding that it’s the account of a character’s mother, and that she wrote it while awaiting deportation to a Nazi death camp. And this endows the image of the war plane cutting across this clear blue sky above this bucolic Bavarian landscape with a feeling of absolute dread; they have no idea what is going to happen. It’s the equivalent to the tomb in Arcadia, or the ending of Irréversible: it’s a portent of doom. “Sometime After Midnight” is one such prelude; the speaker remarks to herself that she knows that she spent all day getting ready for the date, but that she has this feeling in her stomach that makes her feel uneasy. She remarks that she’s been told that bad things happen after dark, and then looks at the setting sun. It’s the equivalent to a puzzle piece falling into place. I do truly believe that there is an intuition that people have that something’s off, and that many, especially women, choose to ignore this feeling, tell themselves that they’re being silly or paranoid, only to realize that their gut was right. It’s meant to convey dread, and banality. While the speaker may have considered her day preparing for the date innocuous, just a bit of fun, in retrospect, the day will become far more significant.

            I was too young to remember 9/11, but when I’ve asked my parents and my friends’ parents their stories of that day (I grew up very close to New York), they all reacted differently—my boyfriend's dad saw the second tower get hit from the train window, and stayed on the train, my friend's dad was in the South Tower and ran to the Hudson to get on one of the many boats that were trying to take people off Manhattan—but one thing detail was the same in all of their stories: there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky that day. The reason why this detail has crystallized in their head is because they should have known. It was only in retrospect that the day that began like any other became that day. We trace the final day of murder victims, what they wore, their last words to their parents and loved ones, because we want to prepare ourselves for the possibility that our banal, commonplace lives could be torn apart at a moment’s notice, that one day we might walk out of a door and never be seen again. I believe that we have an intuition about people, but not about events. The speaker of “Sometime After Midnight” does not know that this is the last day; she may not have spoken to any of her parents or friends or loved ones but instead spent all of it getting ready for a date that will end in either her abduction or her demise. She may have a gut feeling, but by the time she feels it, it's already too late. This is her last day, and all that she can do is watch "the sky turn black by the window-side."

“Bad Things”— Another song that I felt exuded dread, although in this case, the fear actually becomes realized. The opening riff almost hits like a stuttering heart, with this insistent clapping noise; it immediately evokes both despair and anxiety. The song's chorus reads like a nursery rhyme you tell children: bad things happen, and you are powerless to stop them. The chorus is also apt for a kidnapping: you leave home, and you never come back. I had never been able to decipher the spoken part, but in looking at the lyrics, they’re really chilling, given that they’re spoken by Jim fucking Jones. The lyrics read as such: "You’d have wanted to run, you’d have had to run with them, because anybody could’ve run today, they would have wanted to. I know you’re not a runner and your life is precious to me.” It’s essentially Jim Jones gaslighting his followers in the leadup to their mass suicide, telling them that they actually have agency over their fates. They chose to stay and kill themselves alongside him, he argues, because they didn’t run when they could have. They freely chose to stay with him and die with him. But this isn’t true; the inner circle would punish those who attempted to escape, and the event that precipitated the Jonestown massacre was a group of Jones loyalists gunning down the Congressman Leo Ryan and defecting members of the People’s Temple on an air strip as they tried to leave. Jones manipulated his followers into believing they had a choice, that, if they wanted to leave, they could have, when they never did. I think I recall Aegon using this rationalization in Chapter 10 of YSMMC: it was Amara's choice to go to the cabin, so he bears no responsibility for any of the acts he felt licensed to subject her to as a result of this choice. And, as in Jonestown, Amara’s “choice” in YSMMC wasn’t much of a choice, because it was either that or a confrontation with Jace, and Aegon knew this, and exploited it to his advantage. He helped create the conditions that would cause her to choose. It all reminds me of when I was reading Chapter 17 of YSMMC, and I was reminded of this passage from Lolita:

“Get in,” I said. “You can’t call that number.”

“Why?”

“Get in and slam the door.”

She got in and slammed the door. The old garage man beamed at her. I swung on to the highway.

“Why can’t I call my mother if I want to?”

“Because,” I answered, “your mother is dead.”

In the gay town of Lepingville I bought her four books of comics, a box of candy, a box of sanitary pads… at the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go. (140)

That is to say, Jim Jones, Humbert in Lolita, and Aegon in YSMMC all act as if the decision by their victims to have sex with them was their victims’ choice, when they were the ones who set up the conditions that forced their victims to do what the men say. And, even if Amara freely chose to go to the cabin, she didn't choose any of the acts Aegon subjected her to there. I figured that this would be the approach of Aegon in this AU; tell Amara that it was actually her choice. This song sort of represents the pinnacle of the lead-up: the kidnapping that we've been expecting has finally occurred.

Anyways, as always, thank you for the opportunity for me to sharpen my character analysis approach to get ready for school; the methodology that guides my interpretation of characters is essentially the New Critical close reading method, and requires that I reconcile all aspects of their character and actions with each other, to explain their motivations, etc. It's a great challenge to have to analyze characters when their writer is right there to correct you; you're a lot less likely to cast generalizing statements about characters; it's harder to pontificate falsehoods when God is right there, if that makes sense lol. It forces me to be much more discerning, and therefore hones my analytical process, so I thank you again for that!!! X Caroline

Absolutely insane descriptor behind each song in this playlist, and the thought put into them? Girl, you are going to ace your impending studies. I consider myself lucky that this silly little hobby I picked up attracted people who treat it as something real and genuine which then pushes me to improve.

I only really fix someone's analysis if I think it's interpreting a sensitive topic in a way that I don't think is conducive to open-minded discussion; that responsibility kind of feels like it falls on me to fix since it's my work they're reading.

But your analysis, as well as others who have had their interpretations, I love to ingest, because as a writer, it's so easy to feel like these characters are just mine. But in reality, I read an amazing book and I hold those characters in me in a way that the writer might not recognise or identify with. Someone might extract the gentleness of Aegon and Amara and want to hold that close, whereas I might have written that particular chapter/passage from a place of extreme violence and trauma. Both are correct because both are tangled up with human beings. And when someone gives me their approach, I get to experience this familiarity of my characters from a whole other vantage which is so, so fun.

I'm a fan of every song you've chosen, and even though I know I can't write this AU right now, the lyrics to each are painting scenes into existence. For instance, as I was reading (and listening), a scene came to me where Amara tries to escape from the moving truck, and when Aegon gets her back, he choke-slams her into the horizontal part of the seat, her neck bent at a crooked angle as her head hits the car door. He's kneeling on the gears and the brake, one arm angled up against the roof of the truck, crouched over her like a malignant beast in a painting. The physicality of him filling up the space while she curls up and tries to push at his chest with her feet...yeah.

The Lolita comparison and the instances in YSMMC where Aegon created an inescapable situation and then handed her the illusion of choice...YES. Exactly it. If we're speaking in terms Helaena would use, Amara is an insect missing several legs, and Aegon is the spider slowly spinning the web in circles around her. Or a ladybird around which he's drawing a shape and she keeps trying to avoid the new lines he's putting on the page, without realising she can just step over them. She regularly suffers from what I like to call a fuck fog but there's so much more happening when Aegon decides to actively manipulate her. The Targaryen trauma train is so real, and it's just inconceivable every single one of the siblings hasn't developed their own methods of "playing God" when things don't go their way.

Anyway, urgh, fucking juicy ask. Delicious. Nibbling on it like a chicken leg.

P.S. Before I forget, I didn't envision Aegon knowing her before he kidnapped her at first, but I sort of like that now. There's a scene in Room where she screams at her mother for telling her to "be nice to everyone" and that's why she helped her eventual kidnapper look for his dog that didn't even exist. Maybe Amara gave Aegon a smile in passing a few times at the place she worked, and it was never anything more complicated than that. A scrap of kindness he decided to poison and taint.

[nekrosdolly]

albert wesker hcs (re0-1)

hi!! first post! let me know if it's ooc or not, i'm trying. tysm for reading! tags below.

cw; fluff, angst, hurt/no comfort, follows the events of re1. boyfriend! wesker bc he's so sillypants and i love him lol. not proofread, written under the influence, whoops! somewhat clingy but mostly cold reserved bf wesker. jill and chris mentioned, valenfield implied.

petnames used; primrose, little dove.

boyfriend wesker!, who's not always the most affectionate but makes sure to always have a hand on you at all times, unless you're apart. he's always holding either your hand, your waist, or the back of your neck. his hands are slightly calloused, cold, and smooth from both his lines of work. you'd shudder upon initial comment, mutter something about his fingers being "cold as ice," and melt into his touch anyway.

boyfriend wesker!, who, when you're away, sends you updates on his day so you're not worried where he's gone. if he's reading a book, he'll send you a line that makes him think of you, be it a fact or something a character said. when he's working and you're at home, he's frequenting his Nokia 6150 in his office to see if you've messaged him. he's private about your relationship with all his coworkers, Umbrella or R.P.D.

boyfriend wesker! who hasn't told you about his job at Umbrella, and likely won't for your own safety. He can't risk getting his little dove involved, especially if you're not the science type. he only tells you things you'd want to hear about his position at the R.P.D.- stories of Chris being an astounding meathead and Jill's crush on him. he'd update you on developments because he knows you like that sort of thing, even if you say you don't. off-handedly, he'd mention Barry's family, and look at you with some odd kind of longing.

boyfriend wesker!, who is incredibly protective deep down, but refuses to act out or make either of you look foolish. if you're getting hit on, he'll intervene on your behalf and simply pull you aside. he knows it's not your fault. he could never be mad at you, his primrose.

boyfriend wesker!, who has a very big soft spot for you. while he's cold with anyone else, you are the only one he'll let some of his walls down for. he feels bad for lying to you about certain things, but he has good intentions- or so he thinks.

boyfriend wesker!, whose feelings are stronger than he thought they could be for someone. his heart yearns for you at all times, and though he doesn't say it often, he would kill for you. his own feelings scare him at times- when he wakes up in the middle of the night, you by his side snoring away, and wonders how he got here in the first place. it's those times he might pull away and try to close himself up again.

boyfriend wesker!, who pushes you away when he can't handle his feelings. he reprimands himself for not being in control of himself- that's all he really wants, control. he tries to keep himself at a good distance so you're content with him, so you trust him. he doesn't realize he's manipulating you, nor that he's hurting you. he doesn't think he can.

boyfriend wesker!, who, when you end up leaving him (as you should), doesn't bat an eye. although it does hurt, he knows better than to beg, god forbid cry, at your feet as an attempt to keep you for longer. he has never been that kind of man. instead, he wishes you well and helps you pack your things. of course he's curious as to why you're leaving and in due time, he'll make all your suspicions come to life. soon enough. he'll confirm your worst fears- that he's been hiding from you, lying to you, for your entire relationship.

ex-boyfriend wesker!, who, months after the breakup, isn't over you. still sleeps with a shirt you left behind used as a pillowcase for a pillow he hugs to get comfortable. he'll wake up in the morning at times and feel around for you, his heart sinking in his chest at the reality of your absence. when he gets ready and stares annoyedly at himself in the mirror while he brushes his teeth. imagines it's you slicking his hair back with a light-feeling gel instead of himself. if he thinks about it for too long, he can hear you making little comments about how long his hair has gotten or how soft it is. his lips press into a thinner line at that, and his jaw clenches.

ex-boyfriend wesker!, who carries out his plans to get rid of S.T.A.R.S. and wonders what you'd think of him now after he's tried to kill his employees (and almost succeeds. that damn Chris.) you wouldn't look at him the same, but the twisted and frankly delusional part of him hopes you'll tell him that it's okay. that you'll still kiss him how you used to, or touch his arm and reassure him that he didn't do anything wrong, that he's justified in his actions. although these delusions would only carry him so far, as he needs the real you- not just an apparition of you.

[donnerpartyofone]

I haven't read any of the discourse and I'm not going to, but the "male loneliness epidemic" is a curiosity to me just because it's framed as if only men get screened out of sexual competition. Part of me thinks that this is because women who are not sexually desirable are just not even seen as human by most people so there's a collective unconscious prejudice against the consideration of a GENERAL loneliness epidemic; however, I know that the consequences of male loneliness occasionally make the headlines, so there's more to the identification of this epidemic than just the treatment of ugly women as some sort of non-human pest. I just saw an excerpt from an essay by [cancelable author I don't want to argue about] where he says that economic class may be the primary social divider, but sexual currency is certainly the second. I thought everything he said was true although he did seem to imply that this only affects the lives and potential of men. I can't really blame him for just speaking from his own experience, but it often feels like "woman" is this mass concept that everyone understands to be erotic and desirable and so when we talk about "women", we almost only mean this creature who has the ultimate say over who gets laid and who doesn't, and whose biggest problem is deciding who gets access to them. Meanwhile there are these seas of women who are not sexually desirable and who are also not included in any kind of loneliness epidemic, and who is talking about that? Unfuckable women are treated like some sort of statistical outlier that is just naturally excluded from social observations, and no one feels obligated to say why that is.

I've heard a few things about gender dynamics among the heteros that insist that men actually fall in love more easily and therefore they're in more emotional peril than women are, and I thought Wow it has never been clearer that an author is surrounded by exclusively hot women and I wonder how aware they even are of why that might be. It's so funny, like that is not the stereotype I grew up with--it was exactly the opposite, that women are sensitive and often get used by men who only care about conquest and instant gratification--and it wasn't even the stereotype that I have lived with in New York City. Actually during the period when I was leaving an abusive relationship with someone who made his unfaithfulness a public spectacle, and uncertainly reentering the dating pool, there was a big article in The Village Voice about how straight women dramatically outnumbered straight men, so if you were a woman looking for a boyfriend (or family material, god forbid) you basically had to take what you could get and/or put up with letting your partner do whatever he wants at all times. That perfectly reflected my experience and the experiences of other women I have known, even the cute ones. The idea of this world where the only people who are suffering sexually and romantically are men borders on hilarious to me.

It does occur to me that maybe part of the construction of the male loneliness epidemic, that I will not research further, could be that straight men are often crazily picky. A lot of the guys I've known who have been very vocal about being desperately lonely and sexually deprived have also turned down women who were their perfect match in every way except for some standard of looks they refused to budge on. And I mean you can't always help who you're attracted to or not, but that does tend to make all the mourning and weeping about how women are too mean and shallow to fuck them sound kind of silly. Obviously it's not silly to the guy who shoots up a university because he's not surrounded by free use supermodels, but you know what I mean.

I guess the other reason I can't take the male loneliness epidemic seriously is that for men, looks aren't the main determining factor of your entire personal potential, and for women they really can be. Sexual attractiveness isn't just this thing that only affects whether you have sex, it can affect everything you ever do. I was making complaints along these lines one day, and somebody replied that they were confused because I'm married, i.e. a person fucks me so how could I possibly have complaints related to attractiveness. As if sexual currency isn't such a centralized issue of society ESPECIALLY for women, and it couldn't possibly affect things like your self-esteem or your ability to get a job or how you're treated in businesses and by the public and like, all types of other things. This won't be news to anyone, but a lot of people have a shockingly limited idea about the way things work.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 77

I wonder if the word doujin is more or less the Japanese equivalent to calling a thing an indie over here in the west? I suspect that that’s the case, because I’m pretty sure Higurashi was described as a doujin visual novel series (sound novel, whatever). Back when I first read the phrase, a million years ago, I was given the impression that doujins were just fan-comics about a given property, or a fan creation rather. The reason I bring this up is because I would like to once again remind you of the existence of the Sonohigurashi vs. Touhou Universe series.

You want to play some real kusoge ass poverty fighters? Fighting games are awesome man, they can be so amazingly shitty, but just oddly compelling to play. I guess that goes to show your product made it if people make some fighting games for it. Umineko got one, Higurashi got several, Fate has a few.

Fun as it would be to talk more about the Higurashi fighting game I should probably move on.

It’s not quite everyone doing it, but you must admit it is still a little bit frightening. Cause despite everything it is being done with expert timing.

Some times you gotta make jokes just for you.

I personally don’t do any of the martial arts for physical fitness (please contain your surprise), but I’ve heard from those that do that it can be a pretty fulfilling activity. Also I guess Akasaka is meant to be an embodiment of that phrase Bruce Lee said about fearing the man who practiced one kick ten thousand times.

I really like the absolutely ice cold response to Okonogi’s trying to hype himself up. “Good for you.” I know that Akasaka’s power-up between Himatsubushi and now could be seen as Ryukish07 trying way too hard to make him cool. While the attempts to make Tomitake seems much cooler and as adept a fighter fell flat on its face for me, it works better for Akasaka. Tomitake is kind of a dweeb who is just constantly on the receiving end of punishment, he tries so very hard to act like a bad ass with his escape attempt from the Mountain Dogs, but it always ends in failure and his inevitable death. Akasaka meanwhile, he got shot in Himatsubushi, and the next time we see him in a similar scenario he’s taking down armed gunmen and leading raids on criminal strongholds. Sure I think it’s kind of overdoing it when it describes his punches as similar to armor piercing bullets, or when he punches so hard it leaves massive dents in vehicles. But it works in the fantastical world of Higurashi.

If Akasaka had tried to establish himself as a big capable fighter, but then immediately slipped on a banana peel and ate shit then I would probably think he was just as pathetic a dweeb as Tomitake. I don’t know how I’d react if during this display of martial prowess one of the Mountain Dogs just got him with a stun gun, or if a Minagoroshi-era Takano just shot him. Part of me wants to think I’d be impressed by their subversion, but who knows, maybe that would be a bridge too far and just sink the chapter.

I’m sure the fight scene is quite entertaining to watch in motion. Be it anime, or the motion implied by manga.

Having read the manga chapter in question: ehhhhh. It’s amusing seeing someone who can’t draw guns have to draw a ton of guns.

Having watched the anime all I can say is: no...

It’s always funny to me reading any scene in basically anything where one side gets completely annihilated in any sort of battle and one of the scenes after is some variation of people arguing whose fault it is they got stomped so thoroughly. More specifically it’s funny when it’s some sci-fi story where the humans just get wiped by some alien force or other. But it happens a lot in modern settings as well.

[super-paper]

I think I knew from the moment or AFO’s mom being confirmed a prostitute that people certainly would have Opinions on that. But in terms of sexism or misogyny, I will be frank here in that I don’t really see it. This is of course a personal opinion that I’m not trying to impose or anything, but we always knew that the AFO’s backstory was gonna be some fucked up shit and that whoever was part of that backstory was simply gonna serve as a tool to further the horrible psyche of All for One, so when people get upset on how they think the story became too dark or how it’s sexist the way the mom has been written, I think I just don’t really get it? In terms of the story, I think it really solidified how while AFO was sort of a bad kid since the day he was born while also humanizing him.

However, it might also be foolish of me to divorce the idea of misogyny from his backstory, so ultimately I just wanted to hear your thoughts on what you think about it.

Mm, I don't really think I'm eloquent enough to really give a thorough/informed response, but...

Like, I sort of?? get what Horikoshi was going for, but I also think the overall depiction of AFO's mother could have been handled better.

Sex workers are often extremely vulnerable and frequent targets of violence/abuse-- which isn't to say that manga aimed at teens should just pretend sex work doesn't exist, but in this case, I do believe that the depiction of AFO and Yoichi's mother was handled somewhat callously compared to what we’ve gotten for the other parents. My own concerns have more to do with how she is depicted by the art/paneling/narration-- like, my read is that her death was intended to be sad, but the execution was still dehumanizing (like so far, she gets no real focus on her face or features, dies in an absolutely horrific fashion, and ultimately has her body desecrated/devoured-- compare this with the brief glimpse we get of Toshi's mother, who is extremely idealized in comparison but is depicted as a more "complete" person despite only appearing in one panel-- OFAFOmama gets more panels in comparison, but they're mainly focused on her corpse/suffering and fragments of her body, and again, none of these panels give us a clear image of her face). Again, I understand what Horikoshi was going for, but I think people do have a right to feel uncomfortable and criticize this.

We can argue that the chapter was narrated from AFO's perspective (or at least, it's heavily implied to have been influenced/skewed by AFO-- the narrator referring to quirks as "meta abilities" multiple times feels like it's supposed to tip us off that this is not Izuku or someone from the current generation narrating anymore, and both AFO and Yoichi get referred to as "things" by the narration which is probably the biggest tip off that our mysterious narrator isn't entirely trustworthy/unbiased and that what they say should be taken with a grain of salt and skepticism imho)-- if AFO is the narrator, then a lot of the dehumanization of like, everyone BUT Yoichi, can be read as a side effect of that. But, I do think the criticisms still stand.

As for what Horikoshi was going for.... AFO being born from someone that society completely and utterly failed to help and whose suffering was ignored even before the advent of quirks feels like its supposed to be the main takeaway, execution aside. AFO’s own beliefs about how "it's simply human nature to reject what is different/what they don't understand + everyone just pretends not to see suffering” aren't beliefs that were born in a vacuum, they started snowballing from the moment of his conception— and even though AFO tries to paint himself as being born evil, it's obvious that he was affected by it. His mother was homeless and ill, but there's a crowd of people in the background going about their own lives and paying absolutely no attention to her. She dies in horrible pain and all alone. AFO and Yoichi are born alone and spend their entire childhoods alone because no one would help them, either-- they were viewed as “diseased” and people deliberately avoided them/refused to help them for that reason (it's also heavily implied that they probably were attacked by both anti-meta groups AND meta groups despite them both being children-- though since it's a flashback that's presumably being skewed by AFO, he instead frames himself as the aggressor in both situations because the alternative means acknowledging that he was also one of society's victims). From AFO's perspective, human nature + society's nature hasn't changed in the slightest even with the advent of quirks and the mass influx of "heroes."

Bodily horror and bodily violation (and bodily consumption!) is also the bread and butter of the AFOFA plot, and this isn't something restricted to gender.

In terms of the story, I think it really solidified how while AFO was sort of a bad kid since the day he was born while also humanizing him.

Yeah, the nature of this origin has shed some light on a lot of things about AFO's character-- esp. when you compare the imagery of this chapter to certain statements he's made in previous chapters. I don't subscribe to the idea that he was born evil (everything about AFO up to the point where he and Yoichi discover books reads as him acting purely on instinct + being stuck in survival mode since birth gave him literally no room to develop critical social skills), but I definitely agree with you that the chapter succeeded in humanizing him, bc so much about his behavior has just sort of clicked in place after this chapter.

It's just a shame that a lot of people are taking the chapter at face value-- I've seen about fifty different "Thank god, finally a villain who was born evil and doesn't have any trauma!" takes on twitter so far and it's like????? 😭😭 Like, I was hoping that more people would look at the chapter and say "wow, that was fucked up and no child deserves to go through that even if they have bad vibes," but alas.

[soopsiedaisies]

bonjour soopsie ♡

Today I'm here to ask you about your Slytherin James. [ or a Slytherin James mentality in general ]

guten tag, sadi 🥰 I love Slytherin James, you have come to the right place. This got very long because I wanted to explain why I think a Slytherin!James can work based on canon before I even got to the ‘Slytherin!James’ part lol. I hope you enjoy reading it 😅

So, first of all: I’d like to start by saying that I kind of resent the idea that children (eleven year old children, to be specific) belong to one House in particular—that children like Harry and Hermione, fitting in multiple Houses, are outliers. The sorting is of course based on the traits you value most, not the trait that’s most powerful within you, but a child who is still developing can value, say, bravery and ambition equally. I’m of the opinion that limiting your personality to one House is not very productive for your growth as a person.

That being said, I don’t think eleven-year-old Harry got his Slytherin traits from a stranger.

James and becoming a Slytherin

For someone who’s muggleborn and doesn’t have any familial pressure to be in any particular house (except her friendly loyalty to Severus), Lily got sorted into Gryffindor remarkably quickly. It’s somewhat reminiscent of how quickly Draco got sorted:

He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the dark red hair, the hat cried, “Gryffindor!” (Deathly Hallows; The Prince’s Tale)

and,

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, “SLYTHERIN!” (Philosopher’s Stone; The Sorting Hat)

Draco is put down as being very ‘quintessentially’ Slytherin. He’s ambitious and determined about climbing up the ranks in Slytherin House, he’s quite clever (proficient in at least Potions), and he’s resourceful (the broken Vanishing Cabinets). He’s also a prick, which is a state of being that’s quite common with the canon Slytherin characters. Draco is one or The Characters who embody Slytherin, most likely because of the values his parents instilled in him and the way they shaped his personality.

I’ve interpreted this parallel as a way for She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to establish that Lily’s very ‘quintessentially’ Gryffindor. It’s a way to show that she’s brave, daring, and chivalrous without having to develop her personality a whole lot. JKR can sprinkle in some hints in the flashbacks and lets Lily’s house (and sorting) do the rest of the work. The hat spots the Gryffindor-ish traits and values within Lily in less than a second, sorts her without offering her a chance at rebuttal, and she’s happy to go—funny, when her only friend is so certain about Slytherin, and one of the two annoying boys on the train has already been sorted into Gryffindor.

So who does Harry get his Slytherin traits from, if Lily’s so wholly and fully Gryffindor? I’d say it’s partially caused by his upbringing (the need to prove himself worthy in a home that doesn’t see him as such is ambition, the way he needs to adapt to not stand out is resourcefulness, etc.), but I also think a part comes from James, who is not only physically almost Harry’s (louder and prouder) twin.

We don’t get to really see James’ sorting; though it’s in Snape’s memory, Harry sort of skips over it by noting that James (and Remus and Peter) join Lily and Sirius (whose sorting we also don’t witness) at the Gryffindor table. This tells me that James’ sorting was neither very long nor very quick and likely took about 30 seconds maximum (depending on how distracted Harry was whilst watching Lily or Severus or any of the Professors): long enough to discuss his placement with the Hat (which could mean there were multiple options), and short enough to imply that James and the Hat wouldn’t have been arguing about where James would go.

And James, too, is very obviously Gryffindor based on what we know of him: he’s brave in spite of fear (standing up to Voldemort without a wand is not very cowardly, even if it’s a big Parental moment. Any parent worth their salt would die for their kid), he’s very loyal (the Marauders, the Order), and he’s bold (the very public bullying of Snape and his quick rebuttals; asking Lily out in front of a crowd whilst likely knowing full-well he’s gonna get shot down).

So, James acts upon his Gryffindor traits a lot. He also seems to just value the traits in general: the way he looks up to his (at that point nameless) dad who was a Gryffindor tells the reader that James, in a Draco-ish way, wishes to embody the daring and the chivalry of Godric like his father is implied to do. But some of James’ traits — his exceptional cleverness, his suggested ambition and determination to help Remus (figuring out in their second year they can become animagi to be with Remus during the full moons and nailing the transformation three years later—and thus cementing him, Sirius, and probably Peter as transfiguration prodigies), and the resourcefulness of creating a self-updating map to help their shenanigans by using his Invisibility Cloak… well, those are a tad Slytherin, aren’t they? It all depends on how much he values these traits, and how important he considers any underlying reasons for achieving those feats.

With how little we know about James (we sure don’t know him as intimately as Harry, who would’ve made as great of a Slytherin as he did a Gryffindor) it’s very easy to headcanon that James’ Slytherin-like actions and decisions happen out of a Slytherin-like ambition. He could’ve decided to become an animagus solely out of his love and loyalty for Remus; he also could’ve done it for that reason in addition to doing it because he wanted to prove how intelligent and talented he is to himself and to his friends. An elevation in status, so to speak. I could see James deciding to become an underage, possibly illegal animagus without the need and urge to keep Remus company during the full moon too (and Sirius as well, to be honest).

We get hints that James enjoys being seen as clever and superior. He wants to be looked at, and ideally also revered. He’ll show off his reflexes and tries to stay casual about it, lest someone notice how excited he is to be looked up to; he antagonises Severus to show everybody, but especially girls, how much better he is than Severus, how much more talented. He doesn’t speak in hushed tones how easy he found their DADA exam, he says it out loud and for all to hear. He feels the need to be seen as superior to most of his peers and does so through being loud and obvious about his many talents — that he practiced at length, no doubt — and keeps going even after he gets shot down. That’s ambition, that’s determination, that’s quick-thinking intelligence. Purposeful ambition and determination, mind.

James at fifteen strongly reminds Harry of Draco: the arrogance and confidence, the urge to be the centre of attention at all times, the showing off. But James is both shown and said to be very talented (he’s almost right in his arrogance, and his confidence is not unfounded), whilst Draco’s talents get a little less screen time. The books do vaguely suggest that these actions are quite Slytherin-like in behaviour (if not in the talent, like with Riddle, then the ambition-based confidence of being able to do anything).

James is the perfect Gryffindor (faults and all), but he would’ve made a great Slytherin as well.

James in Slytherin

So. You’ve got your James Potter in Slytherin. How did that even happen?

The most sensible way that I think James would end up getting sorted into Slytherin is if Sirius, with he and James having bonded very strongly on the train, was sorted into Slytherin too.

The fanon-based hatred James has for Slytherins specifically isn’t canon. James dislikes bigots; I think he would’ve hexed a Hufflepuff, a Ravenclaw, or another Gryffindor for being a bigot just as hard as he would’ve hexed a Slytherin for being a bigot. Lily says in SWM that he hexes anyone he doesn’t like; she doesn’t specify which House, which is, imo, enough of a confirmation that James’ hexing wasn’t house-based. Still, James getting sorted into Slytherin is unlikely without him having a link to Slytherin House: he very, very much wants to be “just like [his] dad”, and Mr Potter wasn’t a Slytherin, so he wouldn’t go there if nothing before that changes.

HOWEVER. If Sirius got sorted into Slytherin, I do think James could argue at least a little bit with the Hat to be sorted there as well… and he might win that argument, if he plays his cards right.

There is a Black in the Potter family, canonically. A Black who did not get disowned by Walburga or Arcturus or Pollux or whomever, despite Dorea Black Potter being Walburga’s actual, literal auntie and despite the Potters allegedly being blood-traitors because they supported muggles and muggleborns during WW1. The Black who married a Weasley got burnt off; the Blacks who married a Potter and a Longbottom did not. What does that tell us? Were the Potters and the Longbottoms worthy pureblood families, in spite of their Gryffindor-inclination? Do or did houses even matter as much back then as fanon believes?

(Why would fanon claim that O&W were so bothered by Sirius sorting Gryffindor and becoming friends with James, if the Longbottoms and Potters were fine marriage prospects? I think they weren’t that bothered, but that’s a post for another day)

James could’ve been sorted into Slytherin and his parents probably wouldn’t have really minded that one bit. It’s only a house in secondary school, and as long as he’s true to himself, they probably believe he’ll be fine. Especially if he tells them that he forced the Hat’s hand (?), because he saw the boy he met on the train briefly look so devastatingly forlorn. That’s the instant loyalty, isn’t it? Something to be proud of for their kid to portray.

Slytherin encourages different traits than Gryffindor, but I’d say there’s still a fair bit of courage attached to ambition. Doing/working towards something in spite of hesitance and fear, and pushing the latter two emotions away: that’s true for both traits. Cleverly using situations to your advantage vs being chivalrous regardless can overlap as well; boldness and resourcefulness often go hand in hand. The main difference between the two is, I’d say, the value of honesty, but it’s not like James can’t lie to save his and his friend’s sorry arses (see illegal animagus thing).

I also think both James and Sirius would be quite adept at navigating Slytherin, especially because they’re both the pureblooded heirs of important-ish families. A Potter would be slightly less welcome than a Black, but I do believe James would easily climb the ranks and settle in comfortably somewhere at the top of the pecking order together with Sirius. He’d have a harder time being as ‘progressive’ (if you could call it that) as he would’ve been in Gryffindor, but I’m going to guess he would’ve learnt how to subtly speak up against the use of slurs and the rampant bigotry that permeates the dungeons.

There’s a possibility he would’ve gotten along far better with Snape as well, despite their crushes on Lily (though I doubt James was crushing hard prior to his fourth or fifth year). I’ve mentioned this before, but the Snape we know and love/despise is quite similar to Sirius and therefore perhaps also James: he’s fiercely intelligent and very snarky, just significantly less outgoing and purposefully impressive. The intellectual rivalry between Snape and James (and Sirius) wouldn’t present in bullying, but more a mutual teasing and antagonism that could easily and quickly morph into friendship. James is implied to have a tendency to pick up strays who can keep up with him; Severus fits that description perfectly. I think Severus also wouldn’t have betrayed James or Lily, or would’ve even become a DE in the first place: he’s not alone, he’s among protective Big Boys who he can verbally spar with and who encourage his inventiveness because they’re inventive themselves as well. He’d be a lot more comfortable I think. Still a massive prick, but James (and Sirius) are canonically pricks as well so that doesn’t really matter.

(I also like to think that Slytherin!James would’ve given Prefect/Head Boy Lucius Malfoy many, many, many horrible headaches, which is honestly already enough for me to be sold on the whole Slytherin!James idea. James would also still be a Head Boy, and still, with Sirius, be a favourite of McGonagall—even if he belongs to Horace. He’s just so charming and clever. She can’t help it)

And as to whether Slytherin!James joins the Order… well, I’m not too sure of that. It’s certainly a way for him to show how talented he is and it may help him in getting a job he really wants (with Dumbledore’s backing), but it’s also very, very dangerous. Then again, tons of Slytherins became DE’s (equally as dangerous as being a member of the Order) so who’s to say 🤷

Either way, I’m 100% of the belief that Slytherin!James can work canonically. Especially since the Peverell brothers sprouted two families who were very stereotypical reps of Gryffindor and Slytherin, but also because… everybody can fit anywhere, in any house. Elevating values James is already suggested to have makes it very easy to stuff him wherever you like. And I also think a Slytherin!James is very, very funny (and interesting) in the context of orphaned BWL Harry, who knows his Good dad was a Slytherin. That’s fun fic material, I think hehe

[diezmil10000]

what was your dave hc for that davekat comic? just curious

okay so. two things. first of all a content warning for discussing homophobia and child abuse (i mention child sexual abuse but don’t go into detail). second of all, i read homestuck for the first time last month and i’ve never read any analysis of dave’s character, so i have no idea of what the general opinion is!

this is insanely long so it’s all under the cut, sorry if you didn’t expect this wall of text anon

i think it's pretty much explicitly canon that dave has a complicated relationship with his attraction to men, both because of internalised homophobia and because of the abuse he suffered as a child from his bro. as someone who didn’t pay much attention to dave until later pages, i want to say that his first meeting with dirk was the only moment in all homestuck that made me cry and left me with my heart stinging. i had to stop reading for a while

my comic was the result of days of thinking of how dave is a deeply repressed and traumatised boy who left earth thinking being gay is a joke, only to fall for another boy whose entire species is bisexual by default. i like to interpret dave as someone who is simultaneously uncomfortable with and yearning for intimacy – he is kinda okay with having a partner, with casually making out, but he freaks out the moment he has to talk about his feelings or take things a step further. the fact that he (as davesprite) suddenly breaks up with jade, unable to put his feelings into words for a proper explanation; the way he (pre-retcon) describes his relationship with terezi on the meteor as “a thing” and refuses to talk to karkat (or anyone) about it; the whole goddamn conversation between him and karkat and john in the final arc… this poor kid has gone through a lot

a lot of the abuse he’s suffered because of his bro is very explicit, like being denied privacy, but a lot of it is also left implied. he’s weirdly fixated on dirk being gay, not only because he wants to know how he came out, but also because learning about it made him have a realization about his bro that he refuses to even bring up in the conversation. the first though i had was that he went through some kind of sexual abuse, not necessarily involving physical touch (though it could be) but strong enough to damage his perception towards his own body. even for a headcanon in which that doesn’t happen, dave says his bro never truly loved him, and i can imagine him having never received any kind of genuine physical affection

we also have to take into account that dave’s last sight of earth was 2009’s earth. we’re in 2023 as i’m writing this and men all over the world still have a complicated relationship with affection and feelings, especially straight men towards other men. dave grew up in a time in which gay marriage wasn’t legal in the united states, in which a lot of feminist ideas were outright discarded as crazy, and he never had to question lgbt issues because all of his crushes before karkat were girls. so he left earth being not exactly homophobic but finding jokes about gay people funny, and then he was forced to live with aliens that don’t understand heteronormativity because they quite literally don’t care about gender. and on top of that, the only other human in the meteor who happens to be his sister is suddenly a lesbian, and he feels like he’s the only one who can’t come to terms with his own sexuality

as much as it’s tempting to think that dave and rose had some conversations about the topic on the meteor, to me it is much more interesting to think that they haven’t. rose is another can of worms, and i personally love that the way she sorted her feelings out is 100% up to interpretation (i have dozens of explicitly repressed lesbians to read about in other media) – however, in every possible scenario i imagine dave dying to ask her personal questions, but ultimately deciding against it because it would put him in a vulnerable position. he isn't alone, but he's been taught to believe he is

so, finally coming back to how i envisioned my davekat comic: they have made out more than once but they have never talked about how they feel about it. karkat is afraid to death of hurting dave because he apparently can’t stop hurting his loved ones! but he guesses that at this point they are both on the same page and they should take it a step further and maybe dave just needs someone else to silently take the initiative? which isn't entirely wrong (they are horny teenagers physically craving for touch), but the sudden skin-to-skin contact is too much for dave, who isn’t mentally prepared for this. and he won’t be prepared until he talks about it, but he will eventually. because he will learn that he isn't alone and he will never be

honestly, out of all things i didn’t expect when i read homestuck, the last one was a well written teenager coming to terms with the fact that he’s bisexual. i really don’t want to hear any debate about this topic, because i was genuinely touched by how human dave’s development felt and that’s the emotion i want to remember. i too have been a lgbt teenager with no words to describe my experiences, afraid of coming out to my friends, and it was very nice to read that two of the four main protagonists of homestuck are explicitly lgbt. sorry if the wording isn’t the most pleasing, i know that literally almost every homestuck character is explicitly lgbt (you could argue that all kids are), but i guess that rose and dave being *inarguably* lgbt while being so important to the story makes my heart warm. we don’t usually get stories like this that get so insanely popular. also, i hope this hasn’t come across as me reducing dave to his insecurities and sexuality, it was after all a reply to a specific question!!

thank you for the interest anon, and thank you for reading all of this to anyone who has :)

[lurksunderthebed]

Funnily enough i had a long ass convo with one of the dudebros that just decided to drop by and comment how Ghost and Soap are NOT GAY!!! on one of the comment's that initially didn't even mention anything about them like that other than saying "they could have been friends or something more like romantic", and this guy just lost it. Problem with them is they wanna latch onto their "role" models so desperately it threatens their masculinity when someone dares to read these characters as anything other than cis het man.

Bear with me it's gonna be one long ass essay; The need to gatekeep a certain character because their views don't aling with how the rest of us choose to interpret them because according to them, their view is a fact but ours that's not aligning with their bias is a headcanon, make it make sense. Saying and seething that "Ghost isn't GAY!!!" isn't a fact, that sounds like an agenda to me because seeing Ghost as a bi/pan anything else doesn't count in the "manly man" category for toxic dudebros because masculine men only are allowed to dominate and bang women, right? It just shows how simple minded and uneducated the lot of them really are. Cannot fathom man and a woman having a platonic bond without saying "yeah they're polygamous, that's a thing in military for men to have side bitches" whilst defending fiercely Ghost and Soap as being anything other than "bros" because they feel attacked.

Don't get me started on the whole double standard issue either; it's very hot and cute when Ghost threatens Milena but it's disgusting and no no for Ghost and Soap who literally have an established bond between them and clearly care for one another. Same goes for Valeria, they were ready to pair her with Soap just because it was a woman and a man. A man has to bang chicks lol/ This philosophy is so tiring and dumb that it just shows you how a cis het man actually sees women. And i'd go as far as to say it implies misogyny aswell. Take that as you will. But this issue is present in every sort of fandom whose target audience is mostly basement dwellers that rely on their mums for a brand new GPU.

I think the whole thing has to do with projection. When it comes to people who lash out and get ridiculously upset about these sorts of things, especially about a FICTIONAL character it's cause they view it as an attack on themselves.

Which is all sorts of sad, because we're not talking facts here or canonical events, it's about how those fans see themselves in their fav characters.

As I said earlier, you could read into people's sexualities all you want. Aside from Laswell hilariously enough, there isn't any definitive proof of het/gay/etc in any character in 141. If there was, you bet my overly analytical self would find it and make a note of it for Ghost or Soap.

There's arguably more proof on Ghost being queer than him being straight/het which is the funniest thing. The easiest read is him being just not interested in people as a whole, especially with how much he doesn't really interact with others personally (outside of Soap).

Personally, I think when it comes to those sorts of people it's best to just leave it be. No amount of actual factual basis or any sort of reason will change their minds. Because it's not the characters in question that is the issue, it's themselves as people that push their own agenda into it.

Again irony at its finest. For all the people out there upset at those pushing the "gay agenda" onto these characters, it's really themselves pushing their own values onto them. Realising this would require more self reflection than most of that vocal fanbase actually have.

[decepti-thots]

Pardon me, but after reading though your blog, could you go into detail about why you hate the megamins/megamags pairing (megatron x minimus/magnus). No judgement from me. I think you may have a post about that, but I can't seem to find it. I love reading your analyses.

I do think back in… I think late 2021 I wrote a little about why it's my nOTP, but I doubt I tagged it (good manners, y'know), so sure, I'll talk a little about it for you, anon; thank you for asking. Let me just cut it so the minimegs likers can go about their day happily (hi friends <3), haha. And thank you for the kind words!

First off: I consider this a functionally canon ship, which influences my feelings on it a lot. It's something I'd describe as subtextual but largely unambiguous; it never explicitly gets quote-unquote "confirmed", but I think that to assume it's not present in the text in some form requires a degree of deliberately reading against the grain, tbh. It's unresolved, inexplicit and largely peripheral compared to e.g. CDRW, but it's hard to deny its obvious canonicity IMO. If I can point to Chromedome/Prowl as being obviously present despite the technical lack of confirmation, it'd be wildly inconsistent to claim otherwise for Magnus/Megatron, I think.

This matters for my purposes because I really dislike the way it manifests in the comic and what it narratively does. I've usually avoided talking about my ambivalent feelings about the execution of MTMTE Megatron's arc on this blog because of historical unpleasantness for both me and several close friends, but I've probably discussed it enough by now longtime readers (or backreaders) of my blog have inferred. You know, the ambivalence. Haha. In itself.

I think a lot of the Megatron/Magnus dynamic represents a kind of reliance on narrative shortcuts to try and force reader engagement with the Megatron arc Roberts is writing that, unfortunately, came to exemplify for me the formal shortcomings of that arc, and the more… not just "this didn't work" elements but actively "this is annoying now" stuff. When we first see them interact in MTMTE very early on post-Dark Cybertron, it's actually a set-up I find really interesting. I think theoretically at that point, they're very very obvious characters to put together, because Magnus is a character who is unusual in that he really does feel like someone it makes sense to have be scrupulously fair to Megatron despite the latter's actions and his own personal grudges. When you have Magnus argue "technicalities" during his trial because shut up, the law is the law and nobody is excluded from a good legal defense, he's the kind of character who you can really believe thinks like that on the Autobot side. At the same time, he's someone whose scrupulosity also means he's really unable to reconcile what Megatron has done- there's that early POV shot of his little HUD where he puts notes in about who he's looking at through the armour that shows he has one for Megatron reminding him of what terrible things he's done, and the early "Lost Light insider" insert where it's shown people on the ship have seen Magnus yelling at Megatron because of how uncomfortable he is with Megatron being co-captain. This sets up a potential interesting dynamic where Megatron in MTMTE has all these things he's done and represents that Magnus is intractably morally opposed to but all these little personal traits day-to-day he likes which could have been a very interesting contrast to explore as a conflict.

…but it's not a conflict that gets played out. We jump, quite quickly, to "Megatron and Magnus are the only two kinda uptight rule-likers who understand each other among all the chaos", with only perfunctory gestures at the core and very large moral quandry this ought to present. The entire middle section of this conflict is implied but never shown, and it's something the reader is expected to just sort of gloss over as probably existing in theory but there's no room to show it. That's not even quite it actually. It's almost like a timeskip, where it acts like it happened but there's no room for it TO have happened, and we never see it happening; suddenly, they're just in this ambiguously has-feelings-for-the-other space where the audience understands the alluded-to conflict underpins what makes the tension theoretically interesting but it's never actually shown. It's shorthand we never see, and it drives me nuts because it's not something you can get away with reducing to shorthand with how incredibly central that tension actually is to the attempt to convey Megatron's arc convincingly.

What bugs me about this more is how this exists, IMO, as a shorthand for the broader issue of defensiveness about the fact that many people were not onboard with Megatron-as-captain in a straightforward way. There are characters in MTMTE that are like… let's use Rodimus as an example. He's beloved by many and disliked by many others, because he's an engaging, complicated, abrasive, sympathetic but asshole character who fucks up royally in ways that go way beyond the flaws of many protagonists in comparable series. What makes Rodimus work is that it understands that for every person who loves him (hi) in all his abrasive glory, there will be readers who simply don't, because he is abrasive… and so it makes the story interesting even if you do not like him because of his glaring flaws. It's not interested in "convincing" the people who dislike him, because it is confident enough to deliver a story where if you don't like Rodimus, the narrative will still give you stuff to engage with. Same with Whirl, actually. Whirl is terrible and morally difficult, and if you never quite get on board with his brand of assholery, you still find something to enjoy in how the narrative presents him, so it never feels like it needs to "fix" people who are not quite onboard.

Megatron feels like a character the narrative quickly becomes defensive about occupying a similar role, IMO. It can't quite abide the idea some people will just never be cool with his redemption arc and offer that same ambivalence in a way that allows the story to accomodate such divisiveness. It becomes very reactive to on-the-go fan criticism in a way that ultimately undermines it far more than any inherent conceptual flaw in the idea, because it comes to devote more and more effort to like, course correcting rather than playing in that space. To bring this back to the issue of shipping, Magnus becomes a kind of mouthpiece for this, where his sudden shift to "we went through all the implied difficult conflict and now this Objectively Moral character is on board" becomes a way to be didactic; two really obvious examples for me are the on-the-nose bit in the second Functionist Universe arc where Minimus turns to the camera like Well I Don't Think He'd Betray Us, and the really bad post-FU bit where his exaggerated description of Megatron's assumed betrayal as a kind of reactionary thing Rodimus exploits is blatant commentary on people who were not a fan of that arc. It goes from a potentially interesting conflict to a way the comic leans on preexisting reader opinions on other characters to hammer home there is One Right Way to feel about a contentious element of the comic that I simply can't enjoy, and which especially serves to reduce Magnus' character to a mouthpiece for someone else's arc. I would hate it even if it were in service of my actual ships, frankly! If the comic had done that with him for Rodimus, I'd go from OTP-ing rodimags to resenting it in a heartbeat. I just find it poor writing, and with so little in the back half of the comic to do once his original arc is concluded in "series one", it comes to dominate Magnus' arc in a way I so dislike it makes me unable to even try to play with the Magnus/Megatron dynamic in fandom.

The thing is, the degree to which this becomes baked into the moment-to-moment canon makes it difficult for me to engage with it outside the textual elements I find frustrating. If it was less canon, I could play with it in ways that turned it into a more interesting transformative fandom thing, but the presence of it in the canon as a driving part of that arc narrows my ability to do so without feeling like I'm disregarding the text, something I do not enjoy in fandom spaces. It becomes too central to ignore, and since I dislike what it does and represents in the canon, I can't enjoy it. (By contrast, the comic's inability to actually zero in on a real definitive Megatron-Rodimus dynamic paradoxically means that in fanwork, I really enjoy playing with the space that failure leaves, and I have a lot of fun filling in the gaps that failures in the writing leaves me to work with.)

…All this is admittedly a little compounded by a bias due to the fact that the broader fandom for Magnus/Megatron was, historically, very obnoxious. From the fact people in the fandom were virulently awful to people who did not like this plotline (multiple friends of mine were- and in one case, still are years later- directly harrassed due to this at points) to the fact that it's been presented as Morally Superior to other ships by people in the fandom starting shipping wank, the fanwork culture around the ship has only exaggerated this impression to the point I just can't engage with it without feeling a little rasp of annoyance. (And also there's the issue of Megatron/Magnus stuff often having some of THE worst takes on the already fraught issue of Magnus' OCD in my opinion, but that's another post, probably, lmao. Which also involves the role Rodimus plays there, haha. It's not just my personal shipping bias, it's an issue much more broadly, including in the canon. Alas.)

What it boils down to is this: the writing for these two in canon is some of the laziest in canon, to me, and I find it impossible to engage with them outside the very present canon material, so I just can't enjoy it. I can actually do a lot with the various bits of Megatron's arc I find lacking with OTHER characters whose interactions with him are less textually clear. Rodimus? Oh, yeah. Loads of room there, just to name an obvious example. It's totally workable, especially as someone who prefers to react to canon I find unsatisfactory with "how can I make this interesting to me". But the Megatron-Magnus stuff is too… present. I cannot find the wiggle room. And so I really dislike it, and tbh, it's a shame to me that nowadays almost all of the little MTMTE Magnus character work discussed is in the context of these two, because both characters are better served IMO by exploring their arcs separately and with other characters.

tl;dr: if it was fanon I would feel able to expand on it in a way that let me make it more than the issues that exist in canon. but as it is, i find canon so restrictive i struggle, so i can't even enjoy it in fanon, especially since because of how this stuff works by default of course the fans of the basically-canon ship are building off the canon i am so dissatisfied with; there's just nothing for me there when of course the people who like the canon ship like that canon. so. anyway s/o to all my minimegs friends, of which i have a few, you all won and i love you.