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oh-shtars · 3 months

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RFTS!AU AskBox #4

Me to @signed-sapphire for the legendary number of 50 Questions Galore they sent me:

Heads up though, you might notice there’s certain questions skipped. I’m either not able to answer some of the asks at all OR they’re either some art requests that I haven’t finished and will post in future posts. So I had to skip them for this post unfortunately…. I apologise as such. 😅

Anyways, let’s get speeding through them shall we?

1. How do you plan to show the songs?

It should be question 6 of this post here. :)

……

2. How many songs do you plan to have in RFTS?

4 or more. Depends on what I come up with.

……..

3. What ‘vibe’ would each song have?

Uhhhhhhh, idk tbh. I’m really just going with the flow of what this story brings me. You can’t wait to see what the RFTS!plot has in store? Yeah, me too.

……..

4. Who’s voicing Valentino and the main cast?

For Valentino, I’m not sure. I’m debating whether it should be younger Bambi or Ronno’s VA. But he basically has an actual kid’s voice this time rather than a deep-sounding one. (Because honestly, I found that a bit weird personally). For the the other characters, I don’t really mind the voices they have canonically.

And I think I’ve mentioned this before, but even though Sueño can’t speak, I could hear him singing this in this voice hypothetically.

………..

5. Write or draw any cute interaction between Ashueño!

Mk :3

………

6. I know Asha will have a different outfit by the end, but do you have different designs for anyone else?

Yeah, I do actually. Some characters have a different outfit to better reflect their current context. (Like how Sakina would have work clothes similar to Asha.) But I don’t want to reveal most of them at the moment since I would like to keep them a secret for now.

……

7. Some Gabo doodles, if you don’t mind. I rarely see the short king in any Wish Art.

Fiiiiine.

His design makes a lot more sense if you were me and you knew the context. Take this art with whatever theories you guys can throw at me 😂

……. 10. What made Amaya fall in love with Magnifico? What changed?

Amaya had a family who greatly discouraged her interest in studying magic and potions since it’s against what their family has done for generations. Meanwhile, Magnifico who was adopted as Rosas’ prince, is expected to learn magic but COULDN’T because he struggles to do so since he hasn’t moved on from his trauma.

When these guys were around 16-15 years old, they were mutual best friends. Mag offers Amaya to read from his magic books while he finds comfort in just having a genuine friend who doesn’t remind or push expectations onto him that he hears everyday in the castle. She’s like an escape from the stresses he has in there.

In their future years, Amaya grew to fall in love with someone who promised her the world if she only asked for it. She finds bits of herself in Mag, as both were people with crushed dreams that deserve better. (In their POV anyway.)

Falling in love was not at all what she expected since she used to believe sympathy would only hold her back from exploring the limits of magic. But you know, Amaya’s as much as a tragic character as Magnifico is.

…….

11. Who fell first and who fell harder between those two?

Is it possible to say that RFTS!Magnifico is both?

……..

12. Any fun fact about the Royal Couple? (You can tell who I’m most invested in. lol.)

The only reason Espino, the royal cat, is in the castle is because Amaya wanted him around. Otherwise, if it were up to Mag, that cat is out to the streets. He’s not very fond of animals and he considers them as pests. Though, Espino gets small bonus points from Magnifico just because he keeps the castle clear from mice which he especially hates.

(Good to know you’re enjoying ‘Grand Despair’ while it lasts :)

……

13. This may be weird but…Body Swap! How would Hopes and Dreams react?

Asha would have zero idea how to get star magic under control. Meanwhile, Sueño finds an interesting realisation.

……..

14. What’s your favourite fanart piece of your AU?

I LOVE all of them so much!! They’re all made by very amazing artists!! I’m so happy to see these silly characters I’ve made be brought to life in someone else’s style. 💖💖

Mere words can’t express this joy enough. I hope you all would love the final chapters once they do come out as much as you loved seeing content of them now. X3

……..

15. Are you telling your story via writing or art of word dump?

I’m planning to share it in chapters like how Anny and everyone else has been doing. Plus some more sketches I would keep making of them obviously.

………

17. Draw Ashueño dressed as another Disney couple!

Hehehehehe guess whooo~ 🙃

………

19. Young!Sueño!

Which one? 🙃

Awww, good times back then when the little guy is still figuring out the forms he likes….

…… 20. Young!Royal Couple!

Mini Magnifico would rather drown himself or drink snake venom than call Oliver his dad- ………

22. Give some more lore on Asha’s father. Are you keeping him as close to the source material as possible? Will we see him in flashbacks or something?

You’ll definitely get to see Tomás at certain points in the story. Either in the short prologue, mentions and flashbacks. He’s generally a friendly guy but at the same time, is also assertive to defend what he thinks is wrong. But even though his life was cut short, Tomás ended up inspiring more people than he thinks. Especially his old friend, Sabino, who hasn’t given another wish or attended any more wish ceremonies after his death.

I don’t think we really knew much about Asha’s father at all in the canon movie, but I’ll pretty much be close to what is depicted there already with some more detail on how he made an influence in the lives of those he loves.

………

23. Give Sueño a stuffed toy for him to cuddle with. He deserves it <3

He adores it so much 💖💖

……….

24. More lore about the Astral Realm!

Not all Wishing Stars have the strong desire to venture down into the human realm someday and that’s completely fine. They can still guide their wishmaker from above. But for those who do want to, they need to answer one important question first:

“Why do you grant wishes?”

Since they would be going down to earth by themselves ALONE with none of their elders to guide them this time, their answer to this question serves as their anchor in case they get lost or distracted. Answers do vary and some may be the same among stars, but that’s fine. As long as they’re sincere with all their core on their answer. Some examples may be: “I like to see them reach their very best and reap their deserved rewards.” Or “I like watching them journey and discover themselves.”

……….

25. SNEAK PEAKS!!

This scene is one of my dotpoints I came up with but I’m not so sure anymore if that would still fit in and whether I should scrap it. Regardless, I thought this would be a nice little thing to show you all. Proof that I’m indeed working on it 😅

(Actually, this sounds so cute to draw. Feel welcome to try and do so if you want to, my fellow artists ^^)

…… 26. How does Magnifico’s magic work?

I made a whole post on this :3

………

27. Where did Amaya learn potions?

She’s self-taught mostly. But I also did mention that Mag generously lets her borrow what is meant to be his books of magic soooo, he played a role on that as well.

……

29. What’s Amaya’s opinion on the other Wish AU Mags?

I’m not exactly sure how different her opinions would be on each of them since I think we all decided to have our fun with Magnifico just being a shameless show-off and fun evil villain. I’ll try though.

Amaya would think KOW!Mag reminds her a lot of her own husband, also short-tempered and a disgustingly sweet romantic at times. She’s kind of a play-hard-to-get girl though 😂. One thing she does notice is that what WRTS!, Wish Granted! And KOW!Mag have in common is how loud they are with their ceremonies. Is that a universal Magnifico thing? Eh. There sure is a lot of interesting knowledge to learn from these universes. Hmmm.

TKoRaT!Maggy has that same pained look that falls on RFTS!Mag whenever he’s sulking by himself and needs time alone. Usually it’s because of his old village trauma. It’s an intriguing but ever so familiar cycle she recognises well.

Meanwhile. TFS!Mag is……different, she would say. Not exactly good different. I kinda imagine her eyeing this guy like a cat. This Mag just gives off a very different vibe of non-ruthlessness(?) that she’s not used to.

……..

30. Same for Mag, but vice versa.

RFTS!Mag gets very very very familiar vibes with KOW! And Wish Granted!Amaya. He finds it slightly amusing since it feels like his wife just became a part of some triplets. (He jokingly asked RFTS!Amaya if she had any sisters she never told him. The woman wasn’t amused. She doesn’t really like being reminded of her family.) I’m sorry TKoRaT! And TFS!Amaya, but you’ve made the decision to adopt Asha as your daughter and so he thinks lower of you now. Although…the TKoRaT!couple might just get to redeem themselves for that since they sound interesting enough. They’re going to have the ditch the girl though at some point.

WRTS!Amaya just feels off. He doesn’t know what exactly though? Is he losing his mind or something? Ugh, I think he could use devouring another Wish Bubble just in case…

……..

31. You know what, for Asha and Sueño too!

Oh boy, here we go. 😂

Asha will NOT be able to handle Wish Granted!Star’s energy. It’s so different from the silent but still lively conversations she has with her Starboy. Star just can’t bring himself to stop talking, can he? 😅 Asha thinks WRTS!Aster and TKoRaT!Star are adorable. Cielo may be a bit much at times with his light teasing and flirting, but she’s aware he means well.

I could see Asha’s non-hesitant empathy, patience and genuine concern to Haedus would be a huge comfort for the poor guy. (Trust me, she’s done this plenty before.) She’s a bit surprised to see Naos and Nembus but I think they’d get along just fine. She’s pretty good with playing with kids from her experience with a mischievous Valentino. And lastly, KOW!Aster is a total sweetheart that she jokingly comments could rival Sueño’s. (That comment caught Sueño’s attention quickly lmao.)

MEANWHILE:

Sueño is more hesitant and unwilling at first to approach humans by his own accord. He’ll still keep a short distance buuuut… if they’re just another version of Asha, it can’t be that horrible, right?

KOW!Asha’s drawings are a familiar sight for him and he’s impressed that she could bring her own drawings to life. Same goes for WRTS!Asha with her magic wand. Maybe they’re friendly… Maybe they could both do that together :D He’s neutral with Wish Granted! And Aled’s Asha for now until he gets to know them better.

Sueño recognises that same shyness and timid nature in TKoRaT!Asha. (It’s weird how she does the same thing RFTS!Asha does of turning their head away and hiding behind their hair when he innocently just looks her way.)

And then there’s…….HER. TFS!Asha. Cielo talks about her a lot….😬. But you know, that girl scares him.

Unfortunately, Sueño is staying a relatively farther distance away from the last two Ashas I mentioned. Why? Idk, probably the fact that they’re the daughter of Mag and Amaya-

……….

32. *Gives Sueño an iPad with Duolingo on it* Here my child. Learn Spanish.

I have a feeling you did this so he could finally find out what his name, ‘Sueño’ translates into. Lol, nope. Not yet he’s not.

He still appreciates the gesture though, but the guy got distracted by the other cool features and apps this weird magical mirror-tablet thing(?) had and completely forgot all about the Owl app.

……

33. Will Asha ever attempt to learn Celestial? Maybe with a candle? Like Morse Code? Idk.

Idk. Speaking Celestial is really just stars exchanging screechy sound waves to each other telepathically like words, while their glowing sequences indicates the mood and tone of what they’re saying. Maybe if Asha comes to learn how to harness light magic on her own, she’ll be able to at least convey emotions such as happiness in it by controlling the brightness and duration of each flash.

…….

35. How are you planning out your story?

I usually think of what main message I’m trying to get across first and build the story around it. After some character and world-building stuff (that I keep adding to because procrastination), I put the key scenes I could think of in bullet-point format and then just think up some in-between scenes that could occur between those points.

Usually though, the most usual process is that a random concept/idea pops into my head and then I immediately type it down so I won’t forget it. It’s basically my thing now to organise the giant mess of reminders into comprehensive plot lines.

I’m not writing the story at this point. The story is choosing to expose itself to me XD

Another main thing I do is listen to my Spotify playlist of this AU, read the Wish Artbook, or rewatch a movie that has inspired the RFTS! plot in some way.

……..

36. Are there any kisses in your story?

Hmmmmm….. *glances at Ashueño and Amnifico*

Oh well, since you’ve asked me, I gueeeeess I’m unfortunately now going to have to remove all the kisses I had included since y’all are so desperate to know….. (/jk)

……..

38. Will the Royal Couple have villain transformations?

………..

39. What’s your take on the ‘eating wishes’ thing?

As I’ve mentioned in my last post on how the magic system works in the RFTS!AU, Magnifico eats wish essence to reverse the costly effects of using Curse Magic. To put it simply, he uses them to make him more mentally stable.

.,,,,,,,,

40. What Easter Eggs are you planning to put in your story?

Awwwww, where’s the fun in that? Find them yourselves >:)))

And who knows? Maybe certain fellow creators in the Wish Rewrite Fandom will make a reference in some of the chapters. Keep an eye out 😉

……..

42. What exactly does Asha’s job entail?

Being a king’s apprentice is a way to gain experience and learn how to use magic by the king himself, so you could use the attained knowledge as to however you want. Share the talent with Rosas or Go out into the world.

However, when Magnifico’s reign started, he forbade magic usage other than he and his wife with the claim that it’s for the greater good and safety for Rosas. (He kinda had a point since criminal activity and accidents did decrease in number after that rule.)

Since Mag doesn’t really need an apprentice, Asha is more of an assistant now, following in her dad’s footsteps before her. She’s tasked to do help with whatever Mag might need around his study such as keep the fire going or organise his papers. But Mag doesn’t really like having her around a lot, (since she asks a lot of questions about his wish-keeping system) so he purposefully tells her to go carry out outside tasks such as go into the garden and help the gardeners or something.

……..

43. Did Magnifico make Sueño’s bonds?

If I told you, would that make you more blood-thirsty enough to gather pitchforks and torches for his head? Because if you are, please don’t. I still need this guy to stir up conflict in my story :((

(You can have him all you want though once I’m done with him. Lmao.)

………

44. How was Rosas founded?

Nearly a century ago, the kingdom was first built. I’ve read in the Art book that Rosas was apparently named to reference ‘Beauty and the Beast.’

Like, ok….?

Anyways, I found that roses are meant to represent love, rebirth and beauty. So I decided to add more onto that than just have it as another reference. The kingdom’s founders wanted Rosas to be a place where people who are wary and feel outcasted by their homes can find and start a new beginning. To ‘Rebirth’ and have a second chance to find the ‘beauty and love’ in their lives again,

Blue and white were made the royal colours because the blue was meant to stand for trust and reliability and white for new beginnings. Symbolising the past kings and queens’ responsibility to have their talents in sorcery be used to serve the people who come here. Thus, Rosas’ citizens all are in a variety of different cultures.

……..

45. Over how many days does your story take?

I’m thinking within one month. It’s a race-against-time sort of thing where Asha needs to find out how to confront the Royal Couple before they do something horrible on Rosas’ celebration of its 100th anniversary, which is literally just a month away.

…….

46. What was your favourite part of Wish? Are you translating that to your AU?

I really really loved how Mag’s magic looked and how he went all evil-ish green as a tribute to past Disney villains. If we ignore the awkward transition he had from sympathetic to just plain psychotic, it’s a cool magic display. I kinda wished they went more full out on the final battle because it just felt so underwhelming asf.

I’m keeping the magical final battle but with more magical funsies. :D

…….

47. Least favourite part?

I’m frustrated how bland and empty the character interactions and emotional beats are since those kinds of moments are usually my favourite when it comes to movies.

Magnifico’s tragic loss of his village? “Pfft- What tragedy? We don’t need that in the movie’s 2nd half.”

Asha’s dead father? “Eh. We only needed him for a few mins and he’s non-existent from that point on.”

Valentino claims to be Asha’s helpful animal sidekick. “Did I mention I have a deep voice? Oh, and my butt’s a funny thing too. Did I already mention that my voice is loud and soooo deep??”

Simon’s betrayal? “Oh wow, that was a shock…. Anyways, wanna start a rebellion?”

OMG, Sakina’s wish is back!! “What was the wish about? Idk who cares.”

Asha’s friendship with Star doesn’t even feel that special to me?? GUYS, I felt more chemistry between Rapunzel and Pascal. COME ON, BUILD IT UP. DON’T JUST SAY ‘Awww, you and I are thinking the same thing~’ AND EXPECT ME TO BUY THAT.

……….

48. What’s your favourite aspect of the TFS!AU?

Idk why, but I like how there’s a unique twist in your AU on how Wishing Stars don’t have the best reputation to humans. It’s a nice subversion that makes it stand out a little more. :)) Because usually, the idea of wishing on stars is always seen as a positive thing but that’s not the case in this story. It’s intriguing to watch characters slowly realise that not everything is what it seems.

That, and the hilarious dynamic you’ve got going on between Cielo and Asha and how deep in denial they both are, even though it’s clear as day to the other TFS!cast. 😂

(Wouldn’t it be funny if TFS!Mag and Amaya also noticed? They may be going down a dark path but they’re not blind, girl.)

……..

50. What’s a boring fact about you?

Uhhhhhh…. I like organising stuff by colour for fun...? Like, I used to pour out a box of legos and sort through them as a kind of pastime. I still organise coloured pencils in rainbow order if I could too. 😅 ………

@annymation @uva124 @your-ne1ghbor @ficsinhistory @rascalentertainments @gracebethartacc @spectator-zee

It’s a long read, but I think you guys would enjoy going through it regardless. I hope so anyways.

Btw, thx for all the fun questions Bo! 💖 Might post some more regarding your other doodle requests that I’ve put to the side for now if you don’t mind. :))

#ask #reach for the stars au #rfts au #wish au #wish rewrite #wish starboy #wish asha #wish reimagined #wish magnifico #wish amaya #star x asha #asha x star #ashueño #Spotify #magnifico x amaya #au lore #au dump

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ink-flavored · 6 months

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Reworking Pride

BTS Series: ⬅ Table of Contents - Reworking Justice ➡ Also available on Neocities! P&J Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze @zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales Banner art by @auroblaze

The first thing I decided needed a rework was, no surprise, the protagonist. Pride would need to change significantly, and not just for the obvious reasons. I needed to have a different visual for him so I could more easily create a separate personality and motivation from scratch, instead of constantly associating him with his alternate fanfiction self. I can’t draw, so I went onto this Picrew and threw together an initial appearance I could work off of.

I wanted to keep some of the punk elements like piercings and alternative dress, both as a kind of homage and to put a big neon sign over his head that reads HAS PROBLEMS WITH AUTHORITY. Same thing with the eyeliner—explicitly not conforming to gender norms, both signaling a problem with authority and implied queerness, which is intentional. The goatee was for fun, since “haha goats and Satan,” but I liked it so much I kept it. I did decide to make him white, instead of Japanese like his fanfiction counterpart, which is a change I did make with a purpose (I’ll get into it). The horns and tail being the classic cartoon devil were the only options available. It wasn’t the look I was going for with the story, but I added them anyway because they were cute.

One big deviation I decided on right away was that this isn’t going to be a stolen body, for Pride or Justice. Their appearances are what they look like, all the time, and Pride will ferry the soul for his contract without hijacking their appearance. I actually changed the way the whole contract thing works, too, but that’s a story for another post.

From here, I began brainstorming his personality. The fanfiction Pride & Justice was very short, so there wasn’t a whole lot of room for character development or action. In fact, Pride has a static character arc through the whole story. The only thing that changes by the end is him admitting that he’s scared to go back to Hell, and the rest of his personality remains exactly the same. That isn’t going to fly as an original character in a longer story.

In this new story, Pride as a character needs to be a shithead, for lack of better description. Not only is he a demon, he’s the embodiment of hubris, self-importance, and the root of all sin. He needs to be loud, obnoxious, arrogant, and outraged, if not violent, when he doesn’t get his way. Paradoxically, he also desperately needs people to like him. It’s well-documented that people with healthy relationships with their pride don’t do the grandiose “look at me, I’m so special” thing—their pride is self-evident, and exudes naturally. The people who do act incredibly shitty like this are compensating for a low self-esteem, declaring that they’re the best, that everything they do is the best, and that everyone should like them for being so obviously the best. This, of course, turns potential friends and companions away, and sends them further down into their spiral.

I took a great deal of (mostly tongue-in-cheek) inspiration from a Tweet by Sarah Hagi (that I can unfortunately not find the link to): “God, give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude.” I want Pride to be a critique of that guy you know, the one who acts like he’s the best thing since sliced bread, but isn’t really as great as he claims, and deep down he knows it. He hurts people to boost himself up, using his position of power over others to make himself feel more secure. Sure, he’s had pain, maybe even trauma, but he doesn’t want you to know that. It would be weak, in his mind, to admit that he has wounds so deep he can’t even look himself in the mirror.

So, as my protagonist, Pride needs to be fundamentally self-absorbed, taking pleasure in the pain of others, because he’s compensating for and masking a very deep emotional pain. I don’t want to be so black-and-white as to make the entire concept of “having pride” a strict evil, so over the course of the story I want to develop him into a healthier version of it. This would give him a very fulfilling arc—he begins the story as the negative expression of pride, hubris and self-importance and viciousness, and ends on the positive end of the spectrum, with genuine self-respect and confidence without needing to harm others. That’s a whole dang character with flaws and potential for growth if I do say so myself!

Obviously, I wasn’t quite done. Pride needed a pain to endure, something that would turn him into the vindictive little asshole we see before us. What better pain for a demon to have, what better way to turn them bitter against all of humanity and virtue, than to be cast out of Heaven by God for questioning His authority? Not only is Pride a demon, he’s one of the fallen angels who rebelled with Lucifer when he fell from Heaven.

My wonderful girlfriend, AuroBlaze, helped me solidify Pride’s appearance so I wouldn’t have to use the Picrew forever. The idea of him having the blond roots of his hair exposed was played as a joke, at first, because how funny would it be for him to always look like he had a shitty hair-dye job? But while we were talking, I realized it could be a brilliant metaphor for the very shoddy mask he wears to hide his aforementioned bitterness and trauma—especially if those exposed roots are the color his hair used to be as an angel, that won’t stay covered up, no matter how hard he tries.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The blond roots are still the color his hair was as an angel, but the reason they stick around is because it's essentially a magical scar. His dark hair stops right where it meets his horns, his broken halo. His former-holiness is burned into him, and can't be transformed or dyed away.

While we were discussing what I actually wanted his horns to look like, I solved a few world-building birds with one stone. The demons in this story, instead of just being goth angels, have their wings cut off by the other angels when they fall. Their halos are cracked in two, jammed into their heads, and become their horns, eternally smoking with once-holy fire. They grow tails from the trails of fire they leave as they fall to Hell, like the trail of a comet. They have several permanent reminders of the grace they lost.

Lo and behold, we have our final design:

[Tumblr version] [Instagram version]

Welcome to the world, Pride! You are a menace to society and will cause so much distress to everyone around you.

A few other details that I want to mention before we go: All demons have a secondary beast form they can transform into, either fully or partially (i.e. Pride can summon one monster arm if he wants). Compare this to angels having a human form and a “flaming wheel of eyes and fire” form. His horns and tail are also optional in this way—he can hide them from humans entirely if he wants. I won’t get deep into his powers or how this story’s version of magic works, but there’s a good chance I’ll make a separate post about it later.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can see his beast form here, also drawn by AuroBlaze!

Also, for those of you waiting with bated breath for this: Pride will be explicitly bisexual in this book. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to bring it up yet, but I am very excited to populate this story with a lot of queer and trans characters, so it’ll be a topic at some point for sure.

On that note, there’s an internal war waging within me about whether or not I should make Pride trans. I’ve been on the fence about it for a while. Since he’s a multi-dimensional immortal creature who chose every detail of his body to his exact specifications, he wouldn’t need top surgery, hormones, or anything like that. It would just be the lower half that’s the contested zone. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this story is a romance and there will be sex in it. So it’s unusually pressing!

The arguments against? I don’t want to perpetuate any harmful assumptions by making a trans character literally on the side of the devil. I already have more than a few trans side characters in the story, but I still don’t want to make any unfortunate comparisons in today’s landscape. There’s the whole “indoctrination” thing, tempting others to sin is a big part of his personal magic arsenal, don’t need to make too many jumps to get disingenuous there. There’s also the matter of my intended commentary—the “mediocre white man” stuff. While being trans wouldn’t make him less of a man, obviously, the kind of behavior I’m trying to critique is seen most often in cis white men. They use toxic masculinity as a shield because they’ve been told all their lives they aren’t allowed to show “weakness” in the form of emotional vulnerability, and hurting others is how they feel strong—like a “real man”—in the face of their pain. I don’t want to mess with the foundations of that critique, risk muddying it, or accidentally send a completely different message than I intended with such a delicate subject.

The arguments for are more self-indulgent. I am a huge fan of adding things to a story just because you like them, and something about Pride screams TRANS! at me. Trans men aren’t seen often in media, especially trans men who are visibly, vocally, and proudly gender non-conforming, and that representation is personally important to me. Also, trans men who don’t feel the need to get surgery are plenty scarce in the media landscape, which is again important to me personally. Beyond my personal investment, the metaphors I could play with regarding transness and fallen angels, and how toxic American Evangelical Christianity is to queer identities would tie in with a lot of other themes in the book. For any other story, that alone would be enough for me to shrug and make the change, but still I hesitate. Thoughts? Feelings? Advice? I’d love to hear it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the time since I wrote this post, I did decide to make Pride canonically a trans man. Once I started viewing him as trans, I couldn’t un-see it, and it became an inextricable part of him as a character. I do plan on tying in all of the above-mentioned metaphors into his character, and more. One of Pride’s arcs in the book is about his self-discovery—about becoming someone he actually wants to be, not tied down to anyone’s opinion of him, and growing into a person who doesn’t need to identify himself with his past trauma. It moves him so powerfully, he genuinely wants to be a human by the end of the book, something he once reviled because of how they stole God’s love from him. I think the growth, metaphor, and representation all come together to be more important than the “mediocre white man” thing, or any possible bad-faith readings of a trans character (which the inevitable dipshits will do no matter what).

WHEW, this one was a doozy. I guess I was really excited to introduce this story officially! Thanks for reading this ramble all the way to the end. And as always, thank you for your continued support!

See you next time for more Behind The Scenes action!

— Annika

#writeblr #original writing #writeblr community #amwriting #original characters #writers on tumblr #queer writers #prose #WIP #annika talks #Pride #Pride & Justice #P&J #P&J: Worldbuilding

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adrinoir · 1 year

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Headcanon: Adrien Agreste is Trans? (Part 5)

Part 5 let’s gooooo!

Wow, so, as I’m going through my own trans journey, I was inspired by some to write another part of this headcanon. I was somehow able to connect Adrien’s character to parts of my own journey. It’s pretty cool!

Here are the other parts of this headcanon if you’d like to read those: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Usual disclaimer: this is just for fun! Obviously cis boys can have these same qualities and traits. Don’t take it too seriously. These are all just things I’ve noticed. Also please keep in mind I haven't watched anything beyond Migration as I’m writing this (I’m using the material I have so far).

CW: mentions of transphobia and abuse

The struggle to envision his future

Trans people can struggle to envision their life in the future due to not having older trans people to look up to. Or they feel so depressed from gender dysphoria or judgement for being trans that it makes it hard for them to see what their future will be like.

We see in Wishmaker, Adrien doesn’t have much of an idea as to what he wants for his future. He told Luka and Marinette that his head feels empty. And, additionally, he said to Ladybug he never had any childhood dreams.

When he’s hit by Wishmaker, he turns into who he is now. I mentioned in part 2 of this headcanon that there’s trauma behind that, and Adrien is trying to be this perfect young man for his parents. However, I want to look at it from a different perspective-

Consider, he turns into himself now - not even an older version of himself with no differences whatsoever, meaning he possibly might not see anything beyond the person he is now. Or (TW here) he didn’t see (or could barely see) a future for himself as a kid because he was so depressed and dysphoric. It’s not uncommon for trans kids to feel like they won’t live to transition. Especially with Adrien, if he is trans, I can only imagine how terrifying it would be for him trying to come out to his parents.

Or, if he was at first confused by his dysphoria and trying to figure out his identity as a child, that confusion could’ve clouded his vision for his future. He couldn’t completely understand who he is and why he was feeling the way that he was.

Not fully understanding yourself and who you are - even within your gender identity - can cloud how you see yourself now and in your future.

The “I just want to be a son!” line

The line Adrien said in Risk: “I just want to be a son!” stands out to me a lot.

I know he mainly meant it in a way of saying that he wants to be treated like a regular kid by his own father, not like a model. But, - listen, I’ll take whatever crumbs I can get - there’s a strong emphasis on this line and making sure he specifies “son.”

Having this strong desire to no longer model (which is in fact one of my other signs I listed in part 4 of my headcanon) and saying he wants to be a son just gives me vibes that he’s so dehumanized by his own father. His father barely treats him like he’s his kid and uses him as marketing for his designs. And referring to another part of this headcanon (part 1), him and his father have this unexplainable disconnect, even though Adrien is such a good son. I had mentioned maybe it’s because Adrien is trans and his father barely accepts this.

So, if it is true that this disconnect is caused (or at least partially caused) by Adrien being trans, he wants to make it clear he’s at least his son, not his daughter.

The dehumanization

Speaking of that unexplainable disconnect and dehumanization I had just mentioned, I want to get into more detail about that.

Gabriel continues to care so little about his own son, and at this point in the series, we see he’s barely even treated like a human anymore. Gabriel’s behavior has worsened. Gabriel had the audacity to free Adrien of his modeling career by creating a fake AI version of him.

That is absolutely dehumanizing. Like, is it good that Adrien is no longer a model? Yes. But is it good that there’s a duplicate of him saying things and making expressions that aren’t real? Things he never said and did himself?

It’s incredibly slimy behavior to see your son as a marketing tool and way to reach your own stingy goals. And that begs the question: why does Gabriel see his son as just these things? How could a father treat his son with such little love and apathy?

This reminds me a lot of transphobic people because they don’t think of trans people as real people. They say and treat them as if they aren’t humans. They’re willing to threaten them, spit on them, possibly unalive them, insult the daylights out of them, etc as if they don’t have human emotions and lives. And, these transphobes are typically hateful, evil people, just like Mr. Gabriel Agreste.

One could argue that Gabriel has just gone absolutely insane and he showed some compassion for Adrien in earlier parts of the series. But, I don’t feel this is true. Referring to Wishmaker (again lol), it’s shown his parents have had expectations of him his whole life. Their love for him was conditional starting from his early childhood, and we’re not given reason as to why this is - it’s just been suspected to be abuse.

And, if we knock out my first section about Adrien not realizing his future, maybe he did know since childhood that he’s trans. And perhaps he defied his parents (like he did when he ran away to the school) and started taking steps to transition (as many steps as he could before needing his parents to weigh in and be somewhat accepting). That’s why Gabriel neglects Adrien and dehumanizes him, and him just going crazy showed more of his true colors - colors that have existed within him all along.

The relationship & physical affection discomfort

In Adrien’s first relationship, he was so uncomfortable with Kagami despite how long they were friends prior to. Understandably, this was his first relationship, Kagami made a lot of assumptions about him as a person, and came on really strong. But, despite liking her, he was still so uncomfortable and never really got over that.

You’d think he would’ve been okay with kissing her and more physical touch since he seemingly had a bit of a crush on her for quite some time. But he hardly was. And he showed a bit of disappointment when she made wrong assumptions about who he really is.

If Adrien has gender dysphoria, he’s not going to feel very comfortable with physical affection, especially with someone who has the wrong idea of him as a person; someone who doesn’t know he’s trans (at least not yet). Notice how he also backs away at times when Ladybug actually tries to be physically affectionate with him (particularly the Fake Ladybug in Puppeteer 2).

Adrien only seems okay with physical affection if he initiates it. If someone else tries to initiate that first move when he’s not completely comfortable with them, he gets uncomfortable. It has to be by his terms. This could be him having to gain that bit of trust since he’s used to that dismissive attachment style from his father who neglects him - it reflects itself in romantic relationships. But it could also be bodily gender dysphoria and the fact that no one would know he’s trans (aside from his own family).

#miraculous ladybug #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous #miraculers #adrien agreste #chat noir #ml season 4 #wishmaker #ml wishmaker #ml headcanons #ml analysis #trans pride

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callsignvulture · 2 months

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Author + Blog Information‼️

This is just a post to get know more about me plus more information regarding this specific blog page! This is not intended to turn into a personal blog, so any questions regarding to silly questions like “What’s your favorite band?” Or “What animes/games do you like?” Will be answer on my personal blog here! I love answering silly questions, but I’d rather keep that on my personal everyday use blog❤️

☆★☆★→About Me!←☆★☆★

Q1.✏️: What’s my name, age & pronouns?

My name is Noah, but prefer to go by my online alias of Vulture. I’m 19 years old and I use He/They pronouns!

Q2.✏️: What’s my post schedule?

It’s been kinda dotty, but on August 19th, 2024, I will be starting school again(I’m a college student studying Criminal Justice!). Once school starts, most of my posts will be on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays unless I make an update post!

Q3.✏️: Of all things, why make posts on Call Of Duty?

While I like many other things such as Stardew Valley, Chainsaw Man, Splatoon, Fire Emblem, Cult Of The Lamb, BTD/TPOF, and so on, I have a very big soft spot for the Call Of Duty games and it’s characters! Military related things have always been one of my biggest hyperfixations growing up as a military brat* myself, so when I got into the games earlier this year, it just consumed my autism and I love it.

*Military Brat: A child who grew up/grows up with in a family where one or both parents are in the military. In my case, my dad is in the Army and I have many memories of growing up on base and going to the armory. Some good, a lot terrible, but I still fondly remember my childhood.❤️

(Call Of Duty totally doesn’t help me cope with my daddy issues and childhood trauma pffttt you’re crazy-)

Q4.✏️: Who can interact with my posts?

While I will always be happy when any fans of the games interact with my posts, I prefer those fans be over 18+ due to the fact that I post NSFW content! Of course, if someone under 18 interacts with my SFW posts, I won’t be upset. But if you are a minor and interact with my NSFW blogs, you will be blocked and removed from my page. I do repost my SFW content in my personal blog and would prefer that fans under 18 use that blog instead to see my posts!:)

Q5.✏️: If I have a suggestion, headcanon or post idea, can I post it to your ask box?

ABSOLUTELY!! I love seeing what everyone else has to say about the games and characters!! Idgaf how crazy or silly it may seem, I welcome most ideas with open arms❤️

Q6.✏️: What WILL I post?

Headcanons, NSFW, SFW, one-shots, Imagines….pretty much anything!

Q7.✏️: What WILL I NOT post?

Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. For my more hardcore stories with those contents, those will be moved to a separate blog dedicated to that. I don’t have any in works right now, but be advised that those will not be posted to this blog spot.

Q8.✏️: Why the name Vulture?

This is actually a fun question. Vulture is the call sign of one of the characters I’m writing! I’m still in the works of making the character, but the way she got her call sign is simple: She’s known for looting bodies of dead enemy soldiers like how vultures eat their food. Also, I also think it’s just a badass call sign lol.

Q9.✏️: If I have any other questions about your blog spot or you, where can I ask those questions?

Right under this post! I’m sure there’s some other questions in regards to my posts and content, or just me as a writer, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything else. So if I missed anything else of importance, please let me know and I will update this blog to contain those questions!

Happy readings!🤍

#vulture writes #call of duty #about myself #about my blog #faq #writers on tumblr #update #writing

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beetleviolet · 4 months

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How did you come up with there designs??

- previous anon

HELLOOOO ANON! :D

THANKS SM FOR THE ASK HHEHEHE I LOVE TO RAMBLE!

WOW this is a loaded question. Idk if you know what you just signed up for loll.

Short answer: Vibes

Long answer:

First I just chose 4 species of turtles i thought were cool. I did a project Alabama Red Bellied Cooters (Leo) so it was already in my brain, after some research I found the yellow bellied slider (donnie) which is just SO PRETTY, Mikey is a mud turtle, which is a super small turtle and has these gorgeous orange spots, and Raph is a northern diamondback terrapin, because ahhh they have polka dots!

The turtle types i chose were purely aesthetic, and then i just assigned one for each turtle in a way I thought looked nice. The clothes and how the characters present themselves is really what I worked the most on.

I wanted to focus a lot on the characters differences and similarities. People dress differently depending on what they do, where they go, climate, sensory needs, personal style, etc. Its important to kinda balance practicality and something that makes sense for the character vs something that just looks cool. I talk about designs under the one for each character, but here I'll hit the highlights from a purely design standpoint.

Leo: The tallest of the brothers as he accepts his role of the oldest and carries it with him wherever he goes. I thought his stripes being over his eyes would be a nice nod to rottmnt leo. For his outfit, he wears his mission outfit (ninja pants and straps), just most of the time just the pants with no straps. Leo experienced some pretty intense trauma at a young age (i will get more into this in the comic) resulting in him never really feeling safe. This is why he is constantly in his battle outfit, ready in case something goes wrong. His straps for his mission outfit are the base for the rest of the group.

Donnie: Donnie really looks up to Leo, and wants to make it up to him for stuff that happened in the same traumatic event. He wants to be someone his brother can be proud of, and from his perspective, this means being like Leo. This is why things like their face shape, stripe pattern, and height mirror eachother. Donnie wears overalls because he needs lots of pockets, plus they are cute, but what says the most about him is his mask. Leo wears a more classic tmnt mask, and in an attempt to be like him, Donnie does the same, except it gets really annoying on his face, so he pushes it up on his head like a headband. This is my favorite detail! He wears his mask when trying to be impressive or serious, but you can see the real Donnie peaking through when he pushes it back. This happens already in one of the early updates of the first part of the comic.

Donnie's strap for his mission outfit is very similar to Leo, except his Hamato crest is put on his chest, and it attaches to a tool belt instead of his pants.

Raph: so admittedly I didn't put as much time and thought into raph and mike as I did Leo or Donnie, but whatever. Raph typically wears dark colors, sweatpants, t-shirts, tank tops, and hoodies. Clothes aren't super important to him, and he just wants something he can move and be comfortable in. Like all Raphs, he is a bit of a rebel, and is angsty, so this kinda translates into his clothes. Since Raph doesn't put much thought into what he wears, neither do I. Oh, and he wears his bandana like a kerchief on his head, so it's out of his face like Donnies.

His straps go in a V because I ran out of shapes.

He is shorter then Donnie even though he's older, because I'm short and projecting.

Mikey: Mikey is the smallest of the group, since a lot of his arc is trying to stand out and be treated more like his age. Fun fact: he and Donnie are twins, but people, especially those outside of his fam, treat Donnie with more respect because he appears and presents older.

Mikey loves to wear bright colors. Like, so much that you can barely see him under them. He wears big t-shirts that he tie dyed himself and mismatched leg warmers. I can't wait to show his "going to the surface outfit" because it is just so much fun. His mask is around his neck like a cowboy because 1. He's more childish 2. Leo and him are obsessed with a comic about Space Cowboys.

Mikey's mission outfit straps are an x over his chest like a safety harness. (I also just got this idea, but an X over someone's chest in ballet means death. This might come into play later)

Side note: the characters bandanas will help symbolize their arcs. When a character goes through development, their bandana will change, for better or for worse.

April O'Neil: Actually the first design concept i came up with. Thinking of the original April O'Neil yellow jacket, I wanted to give her a battle jacket. Because it's a comic I couldn't get in too much detail, but I'll probably do a full design at some point. Probably.

April wears combat boots, pants with patches, and she dyed her hair since April O'Neil was originally a red head, except in mine April's hair is the color of a fire truck. Her outfit is good for school and tramping through the sewers, and the smiley faced knee patch is a nodd to Mikey from rottmnt.

Splinter: I've only seen brown or gray Splinters, but a lot of the pet rays I've seen are white or spotted, so I decided to give him spots. I wanted the characters to have a stable parental figure, and most of their unresolved trauma resulted from that event I keep talking about (aka "the incident") and a lack of proper acknowledgment afterward.

Splinter has his fancy robes, but he also has his Dad Outfit, which is Khakis and a polo. It was very important to me that he was rocking a Dad bod, because every good Dad need a dad bod. He has 4 ninja children to rangle, after all!

LONG LONG STORY SHORT SHORT:

Never design a character before you get to know them. Learn stuff about them before determining what they might like. Draw a bunch of little thumbnails, experiment, have fun! Draw or doodle all your characters next to eachother to see if their vibes make sense, even if they contrast. Draw your characters doing things. Focus on their verb. What does your character do? What do they need to wear to make that work? And how can you make that cute? And don't be afraid to have them change over time!

Well, that's all I got. Thanks for the ask!

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cielsosinfel · 11 months

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here are my thoughts on all BG3 companions up through the end of Act 1 and very beginning of Act 2:

Astarion: light of my life, I am actually spoiled for probably 95% of his story, he is such a disgusting and rancid poor little meow meow and I want to see him grievously mutilated and tortured and then gently put back together again (repeat). As a faggy bi man he is the best #representation I have seen yet from mainstream media lmao. If i speak too much about him this whole post will be about him, sorry. Guro noncon yandere kink fanfic material out the wazoo, tho (Also of course I have many many thoughts on his character's narrative around trauma and healing or the lack thereof, but, too many words)

Shadowheart: I LOOOOVE HER I love her. I kind of wish they'd kept her as initially hostile and cruel as in EA after viewing video of it, but I also enjoy how she seems low-key and almost normal, though an asshole, and then BAM suddenly she's waxing poetic about committing terrifying emotional and physical torture in the name of her beloved mommy goddess. She is such an asshole and I feel like she gets soft on the PC weirdly fast, but I also do enjoy how playing Dark Urge informs the relationship dynamic as her backstory and personality unfolds, how the fact she becomes Best Friends with them despite the whole blackout-frenzied-murder and urges to eat corpses plays into her own issues and desire for understanding and connection (the memory loss and disconnect from her previous life and sense of self, the god devotion, wanting to make herself an even worse person in the name of her god, how completely committed she is in the art of torture and causing suffering, how she's simultaneously disgusted by and intrigued by Dark Urge's whole murder cannibalism urges.) Anyway yes she's great, I love her turmoil about not living up to her potential as a Shar-loving religious zealot and expert torturer.

Wyll: Wylllllllllll I feel like he was done so dirty by the writers between Early Release and Release. They should have continued to let him be an asshole warring with living up to heroic ideals, who just made a deal with a demon out of desperation for respect and appreciation. But he's fun in release too, just too low-key for me? With Dark Urge it's interesting because he is truly the most morally Good-Aligned party-member, probably, and I think about how he must grapple his morals with aiding and growing close to a murderous gore-loving freak. He's constantly having to compromise his own deeply-held ideals in the name of getting the tadpole out of his head, and I wonder about that constantly. At the same time, he's so focused on doing good and the cause of justice but is REALLY REALLY DOWN FOR GOBLIN MASS-MURDER... Like OK Wyll!! They kept that from Early Access at least lmao. His relationship with Mizora and the angst and regret he feels at signing a contract with her, for making this one major ill-thought decision while in a high-stress "do or die" situation, gets me, the way he's like, so resigned to it... How he's so resigned to being transformed into the very thing he'd dedicated his life to culling existence of (demons.) (The constant metaphors to being a pampered pet on a leash get to me.) Though you know, it still gets me he's lamenting how ugly he looks with horns, claws and fangs, in the middle of a party full of Tiefling who just faced a lot of life-threatening discrimination for looking like demons... lmao... especially when he's venting these things to a Tiefling Durge lmao... oh wyll...... Anyway I think he's sweet, and I have even more thoughts on him and Astarion being foils who need to fuck. I want to learn more about his daddy issues so I can give him a proper daddy kink. Wow, how is this the longest part of this post.

OK THIS GOT TOO LONG AND ITS ONLY THREE CHARACTERS!!!! I am going to an indie comics and arts festival today, I will come back to do the rest of the characters later.

#bg3 #mine poste

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henriiiii-1001old · 1 year

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alt swap au ramblings bc they are rotating in my brain <33333

i just kinda wanted to ramble abt the characters' like personalities and stuff so ye :D

cain murray: pre vol 1 he was very outgoing and enthusiastic! loved meeting people and going out to parties or malls or whatever he felt like doing that day! however post vol 1, his newly diagnosed c-ptsd and general trauma from the incident caused him to shy away from people. he became overly paranoid of everyone around him, including his own siblings. and after the paranoia came the depression, which only worsened his mental state overall. he probably should not have been chosen to be the main face of bps lemme tell you that much.

mabel murray: the most level headed member of bps and is actually the one who came up with the idea for it! she had always been interested in the paranormal, and they also wanted to get to the bottom of the whole alternate situation due to them almost killing his brother. he handles all the online stuff for the group under the alias "stanley" due to its face being on multiple "alternate sighting report" signs all over the counties.

seth murray: struggles with a lot of things, such as emotions, feeling empathy, feeling. anything really. he was diagnosed with both aspd and autism from a young age, and a lot of people think he's basically unapproachable because of said conditions. he likes to be by himself for most of the time, but he does like hanging out with cain and mabel sometimes! he'll crack a few jokes with them here and there, and while he doesn't show it on his face he really does enjoy their company! he also may think davis is a little annoying and way too self centered, but he keeps him busy so he doesn't mind.

thatcher "davis" marshall: very self centered and way too cocky for his own good, but he's generally fun to be around! he's usually one to take really unnecessary risks, but they're usually all in good fun! he's the biggest troublemaker of bps as well, always finding a way to damage properly -- on accident or on purpose no one ever knows) -- or just messes around with the other members to poke fun. however, he is very self conscious about his appearance, and having a demon roommate with your name who constantly looks like your younger self doesn't help. he comes off as someone who would tackle a situation head-on except for the fact he runs from true danger at the first chance he gets.

lilith miller: very snotty and bratty and WILL BITE YOU if provoked. she had a troubled childhood where her parents were constantly fighting about her, which led her to get into multiple fights with classmates from school as a way to mitigate the pain. she most often fought with seth because they absolutely HATED each other and wanted every chance they got to snap at each other. the only place that wanted to hire her was dave because of said past, and she kinda hates him. but she puts up with him because she knows she won't be able to get any other job. she is very suspicious of her employer due to him having the only television in the state, in which tvs were banned for years at this point.

gabriel o'brien: lieutenant of the mcpd except he's less depressed and more concerned for the county. he ended up being the last member of the force due to the whole alternates thing, and he really tries to not let it get to him. he and maria weren't too close, but he did take her death as the first sign that things were definitely going to shit. he also doesn't trust dave very much, but he goes to him whenever he needs help with particular tech stuff regardless.

maria weaver: very softspoken and tried helping others whenever possible. definitely a favorite in the department before her death, and she is remembered dearly, even by those who left the police force. she had always wanted to get to know gabriel better, but she never found the courage to try and talk to him even if she was getting support from other friends in the department. and she unfortunately never got to make that step towards what could have been a really great friendship.

terry "toony" o'brien: gabriel's older twin brother who runs the local church in mandela. terry got the nickname "toony" from being SUPER obsessed with cartoons when he was a kid. he is very softspoken and genuinely cares about the county. while his brother tries to tackle trouble head on, terry is much more passive and tries resolving conflicts with victims of alternates and M.A.D. this did cause a bunch of arguments to spawn between the brothers, which led to terry wanting to cut ties with gabriel and led to his ultimate demise.

dave: literally canon gabriel but with a lil more whimsy. he still runs mandelatech, as it acts as a way to meet and kill victims faster. he keeps in touch with a certain terry o'brien due to selecting him as his "mandela prophet". he doesn't care at all for human life and just fucks around because he's basically god and will do anything to abuse his power, even against his own kind.

adam: one of the most active and most dangerous alts right under dave. he orchestrates a lot of child kidnappings around mandela and sometimes has eve and jonah help. while he is the most active of the alts, he doesn't really talk to them other than for maybe 3 or 4 of them (which would just be jonah, eve, dave, and seth). he's EXTREMELY manipulative and will do anything to get his way, even if things have to go off script for that to happen. the most prominent example of this would be adam having to tell seth the truth on his home computer instead of the basement.

eve: an accomplice to adam who helps adam kidnap and kill children for. whatever the canon reason would be. she mostly likes to occupy mirrors and creep in the shadows. in terms of kidnapping children, she'd be like a "motherly" figure, calming the children down when they get upset and making it seem like going with her would take them to a happier place with a happier family. of course it's all lies, and she loves to make them, especially when taunting a certain lilith miller.

jonah: an accomplice to adam and eve who also assists with their child kidnapping schemes by distracting children with a luring them in with a cartoon or some other sort of child friendly show. he is generally afraid of adam due to how often he bursts out in anger in front of jonah, but he takes it and pushes his own feelings down. he reluctantly follows dave's orders and hopes for the best really.

ruth: doesn't like to interact with other alternates often, and she isn't the biggest fan of causing deaths and stuff. she'd rather spread M.A.D. and be done for the day. she is only slightly tolerable of dave due to her working for him, but she seems to like "thatcher"? they've hung out a few times, and it was always awkward, but they'd sometimes like some quiet time and they'd enjoy each other's company anyway. she's probably met davis before, in which she'd think he's iffy. she think he'd only get in the way of whatever dave's plan is and almost killed him one time to try and ease that anxiety.

"thatcher": he is best described as just a lil guy bc that's really what he is! he is very curious about people overall and tries his best to not fulfill his alternate duties. his best excuse to do this without too many questions from other alts is stalking/rooming with davis and taking his appearance. he actually was first meant to haunt gabriel after vol 333 events, but thatcher found more interest in davis as he was following gabriel home. he is generally pretty shy and is willing to give a helping hand in whatever someone needs at the moment.

#long post #mandela catalogue #the mandela catalogue #evidence reel #alt swap au #as a quick note yes terry is new #i was thinking of who would fit in with a dave-like role but not really dave #so i picked toonbriel!!!!!#OH ALSO i am planning on drawing all of them again so stay tuned for that :)c

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hollisofficial · 1 year

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49 and 50 for the OC ask game 😎

THANK YOU DAME!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEE

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

100% cena, whos entire existence is based around a meme from jr high. hes since became an actual oc with his own serious story, but his roots still remain and i continue to only make fun of him and redraw him over memes. his seriousness can continue to live in only my head.

alternatively: geb, who, if they knew what memes were, would fucking love them.

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

UNFORTUNATE FOR YOU im going to talk abt ttt. forever.

for background: ttt and a decent chunk of other characters only fit into my (human oc) stories via a character named jeanie who can see ghosts. i know. marry sue but i am free<3

ok!! so, ttt is a ghost and hes the second oldest ghost in the story (time on earth wise). my story is set in the way future of (maybe) this world, and ttt is introduced around the time that theres a giant nuclear war and subsequent fallout. while he was alive he was a doomsday prepper which was (for the time) rightfully so. he spends about 5 years living down in a bunker eating a shit ton of shelf stable doomsday prepper stuff. as you can imagine living alone in a concrete hole for years didnt treat him very well mentally, but thats besides the point for now. it will all be erased once he becomes a ghost (and replaced with more trauma). at any rate, he ends up running out of food/water earlier than planned and has to wander out into the wasteland to try to find supplies. he doesnt last too long out there (havent decided on a time but probably a little less than a year). he gets stabbed in the remains of a walmart over a can of beans. and ends up dying.

ttt becomes a ghost! in this universe when people become ghosts its usually for a reason (think unfinished business, need to atone, or have some grander purpose type stuff) but for whatever reason t just got fucked over and wasnt actually supposed to become a ghost. his ghost-ness coincides with a time period where a lot of fucked up things are happening with the deities that are in charge of the solar system and at the time the deities that controlled things like death + fate were MIA. so all in all ttt becoming a ghost was genuinely just a glitch in the system type thing.

because of this ttt is. interesting as a ghost. unlike all other ghosts he doesnt really have an appearance. instead hes just vaguely brown/gray humanoid (ignore the ttt sign on him for now, thats not part of his appearance and i'll get to that later). additionally, t cant remember a single thing about his time as a human nor what his name is, hence the name ttt. i know what his human name is but thats secret information not in the story. most importantly to t's story is that he cant be seen by 99.9% of other ghosts.

the reason behind this fact has to do with the weird mechanics of being a ghost. it kind of works like channels or levels on a tv. when you become a ghost youre randomly given a handfull of 'channels' you can access and this ties into certain powers that ghosts can have. for example: being able to touch a ouija board or mess with radio-frequencies would require you to have access to those two channels- not all ghosts can do so. almost everything runs on channels, even just simple things like 'have an appearance' and 'being seen by others' and 'see others'. theres also an insane number of duplicate channels, so for example one ghost could have quite a large number of 'being seen by others' channels which allows them to be seen by a large number of ghosts that share those channels. conversely, (in ttts case) he only has a few 'being seen by others' channels and quite a few 'see others' so basically he can see other ghosts, but they cant see or interact with him. sorry that was longwinded but i love my ghost mechanics. theres more to the mechanics via a ranking tier system but for the sake of brevity i WILL NOT BE GETTIN INTO THAT.

at any rate. because of weird ghost mechanics and because t was fucked up and wasnt supposed to be a ghost, he cant be seen by almost anybody, but he can still see them. as you can imagine this is horrible. ttt spends centuries wandering through the post-nuked world as a ghost trying to find other ghosts to interact with. as the centuries go on he just slowly loses hope more and more and bitterly resigns himself to the fact that he'll never be able to interact with people in the way that he wants. (small sidenote: despite ttt not having baseline/low level channels like being seen, he does have some fairly high level channels that let him interact with the physical world (think like typical poltergeist stuff like throwing small objects ect). this ofc is not a very good substitute for being able to interact with people).

so anyway, ttt spends centuries being functionally alone again. kinda meant to mirror his time in the bunker. resigning to not being able to mess with anything, ttt just tends to pass the time people watching and trying to entertain himself other ways. one day hes people watching and happens upon a literal murder (theres more to this bc its someone elses story but i wont get too detailed bc its edgy emo). this ofc isnt the first time t's seen something like this and (being a touch bitter abt his unable-to-interact-with-anybody situation), t basically just watches and once the murdered guy's ghost drags himself outta the river t just starts roasting the new ghost for being stupid and getting murdered, thinking he cant be seen or heard.

unfortunately this is the first ghost that can actually see and hear ttt.

the new ghost (whos name is perry) is basically just like. (status: doesnt know hes dead or whats happening) HUH?? WH?? WHO ARE YOU?? ttt proceeds to freak the fuck out bc HOLY SHIT THE FIRST PERSON WHO CAN SEE AND HEAR ME?!? WHAT?!? hes completely elated and brain short circuiting at the same time, so hes falling over his words and trying to explain things and say sorry for being a dick to him (thats the least thing perrys worried about). amongst the confusion perry somehow gets it into his head that ttt is his guardian angel because hes some like shapeless entity that appeared after perry (apparently??) died (perry voice: wh huh what do you mean i got shot???).

they speedrun getting to know each other bc ttts just railroading the conversation bc hes so excited and perrys still on like “my name… its perry right..?” brain . perry sticks with t for a while (still assuming hes his guardian or smth) but it literally only takes like half a night for perry to realize like . ok maybe im wrong . (ttt hotwires a car and drives the two of them around before crashing it [another pastime] and thats when perry kinda decides like . no i dont think this guy is an angel.) (during the carride perry also keeps phasing thru the seat + out of the car bc he cant do ghost stuff yet) (also ttts able to hotwire + drive the car bc touching irl stuff to an extent is one of his aforementioned powers).

oh also, the name ttt came from perry and t's first interaction. perry asked what t's name was and t (who didnt know his name) just made something up on the spot and ttt it was.

after that the two of them just end up constantly being together (bc perry really hasnt met anyone else yet so he doesnt exactly like, know theres others out there . and t is ofc not leaving perrys side). it is very evident that ttt is basically attached at perrys hip and VERY afraid to lose him. i mean, perrys the first person who hes been able to talk to for literal centuries and now that ttt has that lifeline hes clutching to it for dear life.

the more they get to know each other t opens up and lets perry know that like . yea youre the first person thats been able to see me and ive KIIIINDA been alone and unable to interact with anyone for a few thousand years . no big deal or anything (<-guy whos brain was becoming mush from lack of interaction). perry starts to understand just everything t must have been through + why he acts so.. like that. he assures t that theres no way he would leave t behind.

i dont have very much for what the two of them did between their meeting and the current timeline in the story, but basically the two of them fuck around for 400 years or so. sometime during that time perry finds a super old (prewar) magazine ad for fiji and the two of them decide they wanna go. so now their thing is perry constantly is trying to teleport (one of his powers) them to fiji but he cant bc fiji doesnt exist anymore and he keeps (unknowingly) teleporting them to the remnants of old fiji water bottles. theyre on like a mission to find fiji.

eventually, one of such teleporting incidents lead them to meeting the character jeanie by chance, who, by the power of I Say So (and a whole nother plot i wont get into), can see ghosts. perry and t end up staying with jeanie as well as a couple of other ghosts that hang with jeanie (their names ade hummingbird and ekr). the five of them become very found family. the rest of their story becomes the group getting wrapped up in/uncovering weird deity politics and subsequently trying to change jeanie and his friend pattersons fate and keep them from dying.

oh yeah, and the ttt thing on ttt's head is a floating apparition of a stickynote that perry controls so the other two ghosts can tell where ttt is.

more doodles:

#ask #the-videodame #TY FOR ASKING #SORRY I WENT OFF THE RAILS W TTTS STORY A BIT. I AM NOT SORRY AT THE SAME TIME THO #i love mr ttt #ttt #geb #cena #perry #<-oc tag

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bluejaysandblackbats · 5 months

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An Oyster's Pearl

Fandom: DC Comics

Summary: Shortly after moving in with Joseph Wilson, Grant Wilson makes friends with a fellow pledge for a fraternity. During this time, Grant grapples with realizations about his childhood trauma, his sexuality, and his relationships with his father and siblings.

Chapters: 4/?

Characters: Grant Wilson, Joseph Wilson, Rose Wilson, Dick Grayson, Slade Wilson, William Randolph Wintergreen, Original Character(s)

Relationships: Grant Wilson/Original Character, DickJoey

Additional Tags: University AU, No Capes AU, Angst, Deaf Joseph Wilson, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Grant Wilson has a Sexuality Crisis, Frat Boy Grant Wilson

Chapter Four: Watering Hole

I wasn't so stubborn and angry that I would ignore Joey and his hangover that morning. I sat on his bed and put a cool towel over his forehead. He lay curled up in a ball, but his hangover didn't keep him from turning to me. "Remember when we were kids, and you broke into Mom's liquor cabinet?" I signed it so he wouldn't have to crane his neck to look me in the face.

"Don't remind me," Joey held his hands in front of his face.

"Mom would've killed you had you not—."

Joey waved his hands in front of my face. "You can change the subject now," Joey interrupted.

"If you drink pickle brine, it'll make your hangover disappear," I suggested.

"Pickle juice is disgusting. I'd rather suffer," Joey declined. I chuckled.

"Are you going to class today?" I asked. Joey shook his head. "Want me to get anything from the store?" Joey nodded.

"Popsicles and frozen pizzas," Joey replied.

"Check the freezer," I grinned, "I'll be home at five, maybe six." I didn't say anything else. I left his room and got ready for school.

I had scrambled eggs and a fruit smoothie and went to school. I went straight to Tau Psi to sign up and ran into Ken. "You weren't lying about coming in bright and early," Ken smiled. He had a gap. I hadn't noticed it before, but it made his smile stand out and made me want to smile back. "I hear they're gonna send an announcement e-mail at six."

"About what?" I asked. Ken shrugged, and he started walking to class. I went with him because I was headed that way. "What's your major?"

"I'm a double major in Criminal Justice and Psychology. What about you?" Ken asked, walking backward as he spoke to me.

"I'm in Chem, which is funny... My brother is the smartest of the three of us," I explained, "He's double majoring in Art and Cybersecurity."

"You must really care about your brother. You talk about him a lot," Ken noted, "Except when you're shitfaced."

Ken was an asshole too. Not as big an asshole as me, but it was enough for me to think we could be friends. "Fill the space then. Tell me about yourself," I replied as I nudged him out of the way of a group of kids touring the college.

"Two minutes off your game, Torrance—."

"Thanks, Ken," Torrance replied as he passed us with his group. Ken chuckled and shook his head.

"Torrance hates my guts because I was always the better tour guide... There's your fun fact about me," Ken stated, "Well, I've gotta go. Abnormal Psych calls to me."

"My Chem class is across the hall. See you after?" I asked. Okay, so I get how that can be misconstrued as me showing romantic interest in him, but cut me some slack. My best friend is my brother, and we were estranged from each other until a few months ago.

Ken nodded and threw up the peace sign before walking into his classroom. I went to mine shortly after, but I couldn't shake the feeling that one —if not both of us— was weird. The class seemed to drone on forever, and when it was over, I stood outside, waiting for Ken. He walked me to football practice, and I was shocked when he decided to stick around and watch. I liked having a friend. It was oddly encouraging having someone in the stands to offer a thumb's up or comical thumb's down. I wondered why he picked me.

I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to spend that much time with me. I mean, not even Joey could tolerate me for that long. Joey's classes and boyfriend were the only reason he could stomach living with me as an adult. I wasn't the nicest guy to be around, and it was obvious to most people that I'd been on my own since I was a teenager. After practice, I got a snack and hit the gym for an hour. Ken stuck with me, and he changed into his gym clothes. He spotted me at the weight bench and told me about his family. His parents were dead, and his sister practically raised him. "She was twenty, and I was maybe eight or nine. Before our parents died, she was just the big sister that lived far away... Oh, and she sucked at being a parent that first few months—. I'm rambling," Ken laughed uncomfortably before joining me on the treadmills.

"No, it's okay. Your sister sounds like she was a better sibling to you than I could ever be to my brother and sister," I replied. I meant it.

"You have a sister?" Ken asked.

"Yeah... I didn't know I had a sister until three years ago. My dad tried to dump her in some private school, but I guess he had a change of heart, and now she lives with him, but it's weird," I replied, "She's existed all this time, but I'm only getting to know her now."

"Sounds like your family situation is complicated... It makes me glad it was just Ama and me," Ken let out a breath. I chuckled.

My alarm went off in my pocket, and I took my phone out. "Got another Chem class in thirty minutes. I guess I'll see you later?" I asked. Ken nodded. I left him at the treadmills, and I showered and dressed for my next class.

Talking with him was refreshing in a way that I'd never experienced before. I don't know. It felt like I could speak to him for hours about anything. I probably would've told him my whole life story if I had the time. After class, I got an e-mail just as Ken said about meeting at the Tau Psi house at six in the morning to get paired up. After that, I went home and soaked in the tub while Joey worked on a painting in the living room. I didn't mention Ken to him because I didn't want him to make it weird for me. Every relationship —be it a friendship or a romantic relationship— that I've ever had has failed miserably. I hoped that Rose and Joey were wrong and that Ken just wanted to be my friend.

After soaking for nearly thirty minutes, I joined Joey for dinner and started my homework. "Can Dick spend the night?" Joey asked. The question came out of nowhere.

"I don't like that question... It makes me seem uncomfortable with you having a boyfriend," I replied. Joey chewed his lip. "I'm not! I'm not uncomfortable with you having a boyfriend."

"You say that, but you cringe whenever I say his name," Joey replied.

"His name is Dick... Besides, we fought the first time I met him. I'm not against you having a boyfriend... Hell! I don't even mind you dating him because that's your choice. I personally don't like him," I confessed. Joey put his face in his hands and started laughing.

"So, you don't feel weird about me having a man stay the night?" Joey asked.

"He can stay the night. I don't mind it as long as he doesn't touch my stuff," I replied. Joey nodded excitedly. Honestly, I was happy for him. Joey deserved happiness more than anybody I'd ever met. He was my little brother, and I couldn't deprive him of that, no matter how much I disliked his boyfriend.

Joey texted him, and he put his phone down, tapping the table excitedly. It made me wonder what it'd feel like to be with someone who made me feel loved like that. I think Joey noticed that my thoughts started to drift because he frowned. "You okay?" Joey asked. I nodded. "Swear?"

"Yeah," I lied. It was better than ruining Joey's night. "And you would've snuck him in through the fire escape anyway. Nothing gets past me, Joe. Nothing."

Joey shook his head and smirked like he knew something I didn't. I hated when he did that because he was usually right. "Hey, Grant?" Joey grabbed my wrist. His face was serious, and it scared me.

"What?" I asked.

"You're a true LGBT ally," Joey teased. I gave him the finger on my way to my room. Joey followed me to my room and knocked on the door. "Did you sign up for that frat?"

"Yeah, I did," I replied. Joey didn't say anything for a while, but I could tell he wanted to. "I hung out with Ken if that's what you wanna know."

"I'm glad you've got a new friend," Joey replied. He didn't say what he wanted to say. I was glad he didn't. I didn't have many friends. Actually, I didn't have any friends.

#fic #an oyster's pearl fic #Grant Wilson #Joseph Wilson #Rose Wilson #Dick Grayson #Slade Wilson #William Randolph Wintergreen #Original Character(s)#Grant Wilson/Original Character #DickJoey #University AU #No Capes AU #Angst #Deaf Joseph Wilson #Fluff and Angst #Romance #Grant Wilson has a Sexuality Crisis #Frat Boy Grant Wilson

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pennylaneforthoughts · 3 years

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After some thinking, a conversation with my sister-in-law with a psych degree, and a couple of sessions with my godsend of a therapist, I think I've finally put my finger on the thing about Mobius that Loki (and a lot of the fandom tbh) so quickly latched onto like a man dying of thirst at the first sign of water:

Unconditional positive regard.

This concept is at the core of client-centered psychology and basically is a stance that a therapist will take in relation to their client, where they simply accept and support their client as a person, regardless of what they do or say.

My therapist uses this framework with me, and when the Loki series came out, I immediately saw Mobius and was like "holy crap, this man has the exact same energy as Sami what???" And I couldn't for the life of me figure out why until I was talking about it with my sister-in-law and she mentioned unconditional positive regard. And then it clicked.

Mobius radiates unconditional positive regard from the minute he meets Loki in episode 1, and arguably even from the first time we even see him onscreen. He approaches everyone he interacts with using a basic framework of "I see you and care about you as a person, and nothing you do or say can change that," so we immediately get the impression that this man is soft, kind, and shaped like a friend. However, it's most obvious and pointed in his interactions with Loki.

While yes, Mobius' primary objective in episode 1 is to interrogate Loki, it's important to note that it's not an interrogation where Mobius is trying to find proof of guilt for a crime like we'd see in a typical detective procedural. Rather, Mobius is trying to see if this variant of Loki is self aware enough to be able to help him in his hunt for Sylvie. It's fundamentally a test to find out Loki's current place in his emotional and psychological development. It is not maliciously intended, and it is not designed to harm Loki. On the contrary, the intent is clearly to help Loki begin to come to terms with the reality of who he is and the choices he has made.

In fact, the whole time this is happening, Mobius very purposefully strives to foster an environment where Loki knows that A.) Mobius sees him. Truly sees and knows him. B.) Despite knowing what Loki is and what he's done, Mobius loves him and regards him positively, and C.) nothing Loki can do or say will change that positive regard.

Loki, however, is super not used to receiving unconditional positive regard. He has no idea how to respond to it. He feels like it's a trick, like there's another shoe just waiting to drop. I related to him hardcore in this scene because that's exactly how I felt when my therapist presented me with unconditional positive regard for the first time. It's confusing and strange and difficult to believe at first. Especially because it sets the stage for honest self reflection and personal growth that can be incredibly painful.

Loki is not a perfectly innocent person. He has done a lot of really bad things and hurt a lot of people in his life. He has a lot of very deep seated trauma that has informed these actions, but he still made those choices and he needs to take responsibility for them. This is not a fun process. Mobius knows this is actually a really awful, sucky process. But he also knows that change and growth requires two things: acknowledgement that a change needs to be made and the expectation that change can and will occur when properly cultivated. Mobius clearly laying out the reality of Loki's actions and who he is in the Sacred Timeline is the first part of that equation, and his unflappable, unconditional positive regard towards Loki as a person despite knowing that reality cultivates an environment for the second part to flourish.

"By definition, it is essential in any helping relationship to have an anticipation for change. In the counseling relationship, that anticipation presents as Hope—an optimism that something good and positive will develop to bring about constructive change in the client's personality. Thus, unconditional positive regard means that the therapist has and shows overall acceptance of the client by setting aside their own personal opinions and biases. The main factor in unconditional positive regard is the ability to isolate behaviors from the person who displays them." (source)

Mobius is not Loki's therapist, but he does take on a therapeutic role in Loki's life. He shows Loki that he is fully aware of all of Loki's faults and mistakes. He's seen them over and over again and knows them by heart because it's his job. And in the face of all of that he looks at Loki and says that he doesn't see him as a villain. That he likes him anyway and believes that Loki has the potential to help him and what he believes is the cause of good. (Yes the TVA is corrupt, but neither of them know that at this point, and the fact that both Mobius and Loki believe this to be the side of good to varying degrees is important here)

Mobius maintains this regard throughout the series and his subsequent interactions with Loki and when talking about Loki to Ravonna and others, and it's a big part of why Loki so quickly trusts and feels comfortable around Mobius. I know some people say it's unrealistic how fast it was, but it made a lot of sense just based on my experience. I mean, after one (1) session with my therapist, I was 100% ride or die for him, and it was kind of absurd. But the feeling of being seen like that is so potent when you're starved for it, that extreme reactions to it make a lot of sense. And if anyone's starved for unconditional positive regard, it's Loki.

Mobius is only human though, and he's not perfect at this. Over the course of the series, it's clear that Mobius has emotionally invested a lot in his Loki, and he struggles to maintain a professional distance, though he usually is able to keep his head enough to give Loki that positive regard he needs. The only time we see this regard slip is in episode 4 when Mobius is feeling betrayed and jealous. In these moments, Mobius is unable to step back from his feelings enough to get into a headspace where he can separate Loki's actions from who he is. He calls Loki an asshole and a bad friend, and it comes from a place of hurt and jealousy. It's also what drives Loki into a defensive mode we haven't seen since episode 1. He's no longer receiving that unconditional positive regard from Mobius and he feels betrayed. He worries that maybe it was all an act in the first place and Mobius never really cared for him at all. For the first time, Loki feels like Mobius doesn't see the best in him anymore and it hurts.

Mobius' unconditional positive regard was genuine, though, and this is reinforced in the subsequent scenes where we see him act on his instinctual desire to assume the best of Loki and investigate his claims. We see it again when he returns to Loki and he reaffirms both his desire to trust Loki and his belief that Loki can be "whoever, whatever he wants to be, even someone good." At this point, Loki is able to accept it and no longer pushes back against Mobius' belief in Loki's goodness and that he "has within himself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering his self-concept, attitudes, and self-directed behavior." He's grown and begun to see himself in a more realistic and positive light and it's a direct result of the time Mobius has spent cultivating that relationship based on unconditional positive regard.

That's why their relationship feels so comfortable and satisfying. Unconditional positive regard isn't only a therapy principle. It's something everyone craves in a relationship. To be seen as you are, flaws and mistakes and quirks and all is terrifying and mortifying, but when that person then just smiles and says I love you anyway because you are not your mistakes and you are not your flaws and nothing you can ever do or say can change how I feel about you, the relief and joy and comfort is more than worth the discomfort. So I think the idea that Mobius can look at someone as deeply flawed, broken, and jaded as Loki and love him exactly as he is right there and then, eyes wide open and smiling, believing that beneath it all Loki has the potential to be good, gives us hope that someone could do the same for us. I know that's what Lokius does for me, at least. Mobius represents to me the ideal of unconditional positive regard, and having an image of what that looks like in the character of Mobius gives us the opportunity to apply it to ourselves when we may not get it elsewhere in our lives. And I, for one, think that's very sexy of him.

#lokius #wowki #loki #mobius #loki x mobius #mobius my beloved #He is my comfort character and this is why #Also this is low key homework from my therapist bc my attachment to this man has become a literal tool in my therapist's belt #And it's both excellent and embarrassing lmaoooooo

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tomwambsmilk · 2 years

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just wanted to pop up to say thank you for pointing out logan's trauma and how it affects his relationship with kids as well as the possibility of tom's trauma. because when i started succ posting on here like 3 months ago, all the meta i saw was showing logan as a beast who manipulated his kids for fun with nothing behind it and tom as this guy who had a perfectly normal childhood and life overall but then hit his head on a concrete floor and suddenly got all this psychological issues. and i was like tf have we all watched the same show?

it just makes so much sense with a childhood emotional neglect. because his low self-esteem, extra sensitivity to rejection, him being really hard on himself, having hard time to recognize his emotions and also expressing them in the right way, as well as the fact that it's really hard for him to really speak about his true feelings (i think this is something that mattmac pointed out about the 2x10 beach scene, he said that it was really hard for tom to tell shiv how he really felt). like all of these are the signs of emotional neglect. and i don't necessarily think that his parents did this intentionally, it just often happens that parents don't see children's interests/problems as interesting or important, they'll say things like "it's not a big deal" or "you're just being dramatic", they have trouble understanding their children’s needs for love, affection, they won't praise their children for their success and also won't comfort them when they failed and even blame them for the failure, saying "you should've tried harder". and it just makes so much sense for tom? his desire to reach over the top might come from the fact that he just wants to prove himself to himself and others, wants to show that he can be richer, smarter. and i also think that his desire to get a higher social status does not come from him necessarily, but from his parents and his childhood/teenage years. like maybe someone put that “becoming rich is the most important goal in life” idea in his head? idk like this might be just me projecting too hard, and i’m not trying to justify his behavior, he’s an adult and obviously responsible for his actions and thoughts, but i think it if we’re talking about how roy siblings were affected by trauma, then we need to talk about tom’s experience too

Credit where credit is due - I think @tomwambsgirl and @reasoncourt pointed out Logan's abuse first, and I'm only piggybacking off of them :) But yeah, I've been a little uncomfy with the way the fandom understands Logan for a while, and I've debated writing about it but haven't ever really felt able to summon the words. (I'm also going to touch on Tom, but I'm starting with Logan because in some ways that's more straightforward to me).

This is maybe a good place to say that - elsewhere on my blog I've talked about Logan as a kind of Luciferian/Satanic figure in the narrative, and I really want to highlight that when I say those things I'm talking about broad narrative structures and archetypes and roles, much like when we talk about Kendall as a sort of Christ figure. There are characteristics he has that, if you step back and look at Succession through the lens of a sort of morality epic, a story about people selling their souls and becoming corrupted, he fits a certain narrative part to a T. But that's only one very broad lens through which to view Succession, and it's one that's inherently limited because it does require reducing the characters to certain roles or archetypes - it's fascinating to me, but it really shouldn't be the only read, and I really don't want people to think I'm saying Logan the man - the human character - is Satan incarnate, because it's a lot more complicated than that. If I learned anything from my literary theory classes, it's that comprehensive readings of a story require you to look at them through a variety of lenses and angles, and with Succession one of the most important lenses is that of generational trauma.

I'm speaking here from my own observations, which may be flawed, but I think that often people with visibly terrible childhoods tend to reduce everything wrong with their upbringing to the most visible fault or faults. It's a really understandable impulse! If your parents were beating you within an inch of your life, you're probably gonna spend more time thinking about that than the ways in which your parents didn't fully support your emotional growth - something which feels far less serious compared to the real physical danger you were in. Consequently, though, when they raise their own kids, they think that if they just eliminate the really obvious bad things, that should fix the situation. I've always viewed Logan as that kind of character; I think he puts his own shitty upbringing down to physical abuse and extreme poverty, and that he's always believed that if he can make sure his own children experience neither, they'll turn out okay. Except they didn't, and now they're adults he can't figure out what the hell happened. Maybe he has an inkling that he fucked it up, but he can't really acknowledge that because he feels that he did his best. Maybe he did, in fact, do his best - the ideas that "my parents did their best given their circumstances" and "my parents fell far, far short of being good parents" are not mutually exclusive. It's something people are really uncomfortable with, though, because everyone wants to believe that if they try their best it'll be okay

(As a side note, the incident with Logan hitting Roman and gaslighting him about it later has always exemplified this for me. Logan seems to really define his parenting style in opposition to 'evil uncle Noah'. I fully believe that he told himself he would never hit his kids - but then he did, not as often or as seriously as uncle Noah, but he still did, because he doesn't have the emotional toolbox to control his temper. If he's defining himself as a parent in opposition to uncle Noah, though, everything in his being and his worldview is invested in not acknowledging that or believing it to be true. When he says 'I would never do that' to Roman in the car, I think he really believes it! That's not him. He's not uncle Noah. He would never hit his children like that, so clearly they just misremembered the situation.)

There was a Tumblr post that was travelling around a couple weeks ago that stuck with me, because it spoke to something in my own experiences that really rings true. It said that, if you want to help people who are suffering, you have to make peace with the fact that they likely will not be good people. It is possible to face suffering and make choices that make you a better person, but it is very difficult, and most people do not succeed, especially if they lack support systems. Sometimes, if you and others step in to try and help them, they may become good people - but not always, and not often. And that's such a difficult reality to confront. I think we want clean narratives, split between perpetrators and victims, that are easy to digest and understand, but that simply isn't how people work. That's why generational trauma is so devastating. I think a lot about Kendall's line, "I love you but you're kind of evil," because I think that really captures it. Logan is evil, but he's also a person who is loved, genuinely and truly, even by the people he's hurt, who are also the same people he loves. That's a hard thing to wrestle with, but it's something we have to wrestle with, because it's incredibly true to the reality of these situations.

And TOM. Boy oh boy do I have thoughts about Tom. (I'm tagging @mcperaltiago in this, because months ago you sent me an ask about my thoughts on what's wrong with Tom, and that kind of turned into a creative writing project filling in some of the gaps in his backstory that I've not yet finished. However it's been haunting me that I never actually answered that, so this is essentially the more analytical answer to that question).

I absolutely can't recommend enough the book "Running on Empty" by Jonice Webb, which I think anyone who has ever felt there was something not quite right about their upbringing should read. It unironically changed my life, both in helping me understand my own issues and giving me the tools to start working on it before I was financially stable enough to pay for therapy. Her main focus is Childhood Emotional Neglect, something which she believes runs absolutely rampant in North American society, but most people are utterly unaware of, because: "it dwells in the sins of commission, rather than commission; it's the white space in the family picture rather than the picture itself. It's often what was NOT said or observed or remembered from childhood, rather than what WAS said." A lot of people who were emotionally neglected as children come from families that seem ideal - and not in the sense of 'we're doing a good job at hiding our dysfunction'. There's often nothing at all outwardly wrong with the family and the way the children are brought up.

I actually grabbed "Running on Empty" off my bookshelf to reference while I wrote this, both because I think it explains Tom to a T, but also because the information in it is incredibly valuable, and I kind of want to throw some of it out there in this context in case it strikes a chord with anybody. So this is incredibly long, and I don't fault you if you don't read through the whole thing, because I also want to use this as an opportunity just to raise a little bit of awareness about CEN for people who don't know much about it.

Webb breaks down twelve different types of emotionally neglectful parents:

Narcissistic parents take their children's mistakes personally and punish them for it, rather than offering the help their children need.

Authoritarian parents equate obedience with love, and feel personally rejected and unloved when their children disobey, which causes them to respond overly harshly.

Permissive parents appear loving to others and to their children because they avoid conflict, but this leaves their children utterly unprepared to deal with the realities of the world.

Divorced or widowed parents without strong support systems are often unable to help their children properly process the grief of losing a parent, because they themselves are struggling to manage their own grief.

Parents with addiction issues behave unpredictably, which can cause chronic anxiety and insecurity in their children.

Depressed parents who aren't receiving proper help and support in managing their illness often don't have the energy or enthusiasm required to be emotionally present.

Workaholic parents don't pay enough attention to the needs and feelings of their children.

Parents who have children with special needs, especially if the family has a poor support system, are often unable to care effectively for the children without special needs, who seem to need them less than the special needs kids do.

Parents who focus on achievement and perfection and pressure their children into doing what they want (rather than supporting what their kids want) unintentionally force their kids to squelch their own needs and feelings.

Sociopathic parents who lack the proper support in managing their illness tend to lack awareness of their children's feelings, and so can't effectively support them.

Parents who 'parentify' their children - who allow, encourage, or force their children to behave as parents in the family - unconsciously teach their children that their feelings and desires don't matter.

Parents who are loving and well-meaning but were themselves emotionally neglected as children struggle to be 'in tune' with their children because they lack a general understanding and awareness of emotions.

(It's important to remember that a lot of these parents are not bad people - otherwise, it might feel unfair to single out widowed parents, or depressed parents, or parents of kids with special needs, many of whom are genuinely trying their best. And Webb points out that experiencing those kinds of hardships do not automatically mean that a parent will be emotionally neglectful. It's very possible for parents who experience these things to stay attuned to their children, and provide them with the care and attention they need, although it's challenging and requires deliberate effort. Studies have shown that parents need to notice and respond to their children's emotional needs only 33% of the time in order for their children to grow up emotionally literate and stable.)

We get so little information about Tom's childhood, but it's possible that any one of these situations could apply. I think a lot about the exchange in "Pre-Nuptial" when Tom freaks out over "his mother dying of thirst"; yeah, he's a hyperbolic drama queen, but it's such an overreaction that it does stick out to me, especially when coupled with his mother protesting because she doesn't want to be a burden. It's only one small window, but there's something not quite right going on there, I think. Somewhere along the line Tom learned that expressing needs, emotional or otherwise, is burdensome and bad, and that if you love someone you're going to keep an eye on their needs for them so that they don't have to ask for it.

Even without knowing too much about his upbringing, we know his mother is a highly successful divorce attorney, and I think his father might be an economist? They never clarify that. But if Tom's mother was a highly successful attorney, she probably was around far less than other kids' parents were, simply because of the kinds of hours she'd have to work. His parents also have a sort of WASP-y vibe to me, especially with how they insist on paying for the wine at his wedding, and then Tom's dad can't help but let everybody know how expensive it was. Status is clearly important to them. And on top of that, WASP-y types aren't exactly known for their emotional intelligence; it's really easy for me to imagine that Tom grew up with a physically absent mother and an emotionally absent father, without any siblings and probably desperately lonely. Maybe his father taught him not to bother his mother when she was home, because she works so hard and loves them so much and 'we don't want to burden her'. Maybe Tom became somewhat parentified, and felt it was his job to look after his mother, and maybe his father too if his mother's job kept them apart for long periods of time. Maybe he felt a little bit neglected and unloved and felt guilty over it because he knew it objectively wasn't true, but he also couldn't help feeling this way. Maybe he started idealizing wealth and status as a way to prevent himself from being a burden, or because wealthy people seemed to be loved by everyone. Maybe his mother would talk about her cases at home and it made Tom fearful of all the ways a marriage could go wrong. Or maybe his parents simply came from emotionally neglectful upbringings themselves, and just didn't have the toolkit to pass on to him.

Since emotional neglect is often something you can't see in childhood, it's mostly identifiable through signs and symptoms present in adults, and Webb breaks down ten. All of them are things that everyone struggles with to a certain degree, but what sets emotionally neglected people apart is the unusual severity with which they experience it, and the degree to which it prevents them from living fulfilling lives. I'm going to break down each of them and the ways I feel like Tom exemplifies them.

The first is feelings of emptiness. Most emotionally-neglected people who come to therapy for anxiety, depression, or family-related problems eventually express empty feelings in some way. Typically the emptiness is chronic, and has ebbed and flowed over the course of their lives. At times, they might feel physically empty inside. They might be emotionally numb. They might question the meaning and purpose of life. They might have suicidal thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere. They might be thrill-seekers. They might feel mystifyingly different from other people. They may often feel like they're on the outside looking in.

This is one that's hard to pin down to a single moment with Tom, but I've always gotten the sense is somewhat omnipresent. Tom is not a man who is happy with his life, and it can't all be put down to his marital situation. We get little glimpses of it in Matthew Macfadyen's performance, especially in the first season, particularly in the way his face will kind of fall sometimes when no one's looking. We also get very muted reactions to things that must be incredibly emotionally devastating, like when Shiv asks him for an open marriage. He's clearly upset, but we know this mostly because of the absence of joy in those moments, rather than an outward show of emotion.

It's also abundantly clear that Tom feels like he doesn't quite fit in, which results in him over-compensating - trying to make sexually suggestive jokes that come out wrong, trying to be enthusiastic or affectionate and saying something strange or off-putting, and a degree of people-pleasing that's almost cloying. The irony is that this makes others view him as an outsider, which makes the whole situation worse. While I think being catapulted to the Roy's level of wealth and status made those feelings worse, I would bet that they didn't start there, and it's something that's plagued him probably for most of his life, and is a big part of why he so desperately wants to be a member of the elite.

The second major theme is counter-dependence. Emotionally neglected people are afraid of being dependent, and will go to great lengths to avoid asking for help or appearing needy. They make every effort not to rely on other people, even at their own great expense. They might have feelings of depression but not know why. They might have inexplicable, longstanding wishes to run away or simply be dead. They might remember their childhoods as lonely, even if they were happy. Others might describe them as aloof. Their loved ones might complain that they're emotionally distant. They might prefer to do things themselves, and find it very hard to ask for help. They might be uncomfortable in close relationships.

The example you cited of Tom struggling to say how he feels in 2x10 absolutely screams this to me. While at first glance we might think of Shiv as the counter-dependent one (and she definitely is counter-dependent), Tom is constantly swallowing down his emotions. When he finds out that Shiv has moved the wedding to England in 1x06 without asking him and gets upset, she responds by getting frustrated and he immediately backs off, despite the fact that this is clearly something that matters to him a lot. Throughout most of season 2 he's in varying states of emotional crisis, but he never actually articulates this to Shiv until 2x10, which is part of why it takes her so utterly by surprise. And if it wasn't for Shiv throwing him under the bus at breakfast on the yacht, I think he probably would have continued simply swallowing his misery for a long time, unable to actually ask for or even simply express his needs. He definitely is needy, and he definitely wants reassurance, but he’s afraid to openly express that, so he starts playing five-dimensional emotional chess in his marriage, trying to hint to Shiv that he needs reassurance without openly looking like he needs reassurance, and Shiv, who has her own host of issues rendering her emotionally illiterate, truly believes nothing is wrong because he hasn’t told her anything is wrong.

The third theme is unrealistic self-appraisal. It's not just low self-esteem, although that's pretty common - but emotionally neglected adults have views of themselves that are inaccurate, even if they aren't negative. It might be hard for them to identify their talents; they might over-emphasize their weaknesses; they might not know what they like and dislike; they might not sure what their interests are; they might give up quickly when things get challenging; they might choose the 'wrong' career or change careers several times; they might feel like 'a square peg in a round hole' or a misfit; they might be unsure what their parents actually think of them.

I kind of connect this to Tom's obsession with being rich. I think about 1x06 and his night out with Greg, how he feels he has to mold Greg's palette, and then they go out to a club and drink overpriced vodka for no reason other than they can, and I think - this is not a guy who has hobbies. I don't think he has any sort of personal taste beyond "expensive = good", and I think it's probable that when he started actively social climbing (probably in college) he compensated for not knowing his own tastes and likes and dislikes by just deciding to like things that were expensive and classy, because that means he has "good taste". The first time we get any sort of inkling of personal interests is when he tells Greg he bought a book on the Romans to read in prison. Other than that, his hobby is basically "doing rich bitch shit" which is not a hobby and barely a personality trait.

The fourth theme is a lack of compassion for oneself, while having plenty of compassion for others. They're very forgiving of others' foibles and flaws (at least on the surface), and they appear non-judgmental and accepting when it comes to others, while being judgmental and perfectionist about themselves. Other people might seek them out to talk about their problems, or tell them that they're good listeners; they might have very little tolerance for their own mistakes; there might be a critical voice in their head, pointing out errors and flaws; they might be much harder on themselves than others; and they might often feel angry with themselves.

Tom definitely doesn't seem to be in the category of 'easy to talk to', except - with Shiv he is. He listens to her problems and her struggles even when it hurts him deep down to do so. Again, the wedding night conversation is example number one; a lot of people would respond negatively to being asked for an open marriage on their wedding night, and maybe even angrily, and... probably wouldn't be altogether in the wrong. Changing the parameters of a relationship so dramatically - and presenting it almost as an ultimatum - immediately after making a lifetime commitment is kind of a shitty thing to do. But even though Tom is clearly devastated he responds sympathetically and compassionately, reassuring Shiv that it's okay for her to tell him that, trying hard to understand where she's coming from and getting on that wavelength... at least on the surface. Yeah, the resentment eats at him deep, deep down, but he's extending an incredible amount of grace in this situation that most people wouldn't.

And on the other hand? We all know he doesn't like himself. "I don't really like who I am, Greg," is a pretty defining moment for him. I'm not even going to bother listing examples because I think in the space of about five seconds we can all think of multiple examples of his self-loathing oozing through. (Props to Matthew Macfadyen's performance once again.)

The fifth theme is guilt and shame. If their feelings weren't validated by their parents, then they may struggle to validate those feelings for themselves, and may blame themselves for their negative emotions. They might feel depressed, sad, or angry for not apparent reason; they might feel emotionally numb; they might feel like something is wrong with them; they might feel that they’re somehow different from other people; they might push down or avoid their feelings, or hide them so others won’t see them; they might feel inferior to others; and they might feel like they have no excuse for not being happier.

At this point we start retreading old territory, because there’s a lot of overlap between this and the other themes. I’ll just say that in addition to the other stuff I’ve mentioned, Tom’s inferiority complex is pretty apparent - and he compensates for it by trying to surround himself with people he can feel superior to (like Greg, and I would argue probably even Shiv when they first got together and she was ‘such a mess’) and buy abusing the little bits of power he does have.

The sixth theme is self-directed anger and self-blame. This is distinct from shame because shame doesn’t necessarily become self-directed anger - but it can if you don’t cope with it healthily. Emotionally neglected people might get angry at themselves easily and often; they might use alcohol or drugs as a release; they might feel disgusted with themselves; they might have self-destructive episodes or tendencies; they might blame themselves for not being happier or “more normal”. Again, I think we’ve covered this with Tom in other points, although this particular theme isn’t as prevalent in Tom as it is in the Roy children.

Number seven is the “fatal flaw”, or the sense that if people really knew you, they wouldn’t like you. They might fear getting close to people; they might find it hard to open up to even their best friends; they might expect rejection around every corner; they might avoid initiating friendships; it might be hard for them to keep conversations going; they might feel that if people get close to them, they won’t like what they see.

I think we see this most dramatically in Tom’s relationship with Greg, who I think genuinely is Tom’s best friend. First off, Tom seems to have 0 other friends. Not only do we never see him spending time with non-Roys, but he and Greg gravitate to each other in the background of every scene, even when there are other people in the room who Tom has known and worked with longer. I think he feels comfortable with Greg precisely because of the power imbalance between them, which means that even if Greg doesn’t like Tom he can’t actually say it, and Tom can pretend this is the same as genuine friendship. But even with Greg we never see him getting open or vulnerable until 3x04, and even then gestures of affection are wrapped up in threats of violence - “I would castrate you and marry you in a heartbeat”. Right up until the forehead kiss in 3x07, he makes a conscious effort to keep Greg at arm's length, emotionally.

Number eight is difficulty nurturing oneself and others. They might come across as distant, cold, or arrogant; they might think others are too emotional; people might come to them for practical advice but not emotional support; they might feel uncomfortable when someone cries in their presence, or might be uncomfortable crying themselves, especially in the presence of another person; they might not like the feeling that someone needs them, and they might not like feeling needy. I'm not going to spend too much time on this one because I think it applies to Tom a little bit, but for less than other characters, and the limited ways it does apply to him we've covered already.

Number nine is poor self-discipline, because their parents didn't set and enforce rules and expectations. They might feel lazy; they might procrastinate; they may struggle with deadlines; they may overeat, overdrink, oversleep, or overspend; they may be bored with the tedium of life; they may avoid mundane tasks; they may get angry at themselves for how little they get done; they may be underachievers; they may have poor self-discipline; they might be disorganized, even if they know they have the capacity to do better. I'm not going to spend too much time on this one either, because it's the only one I think doesn't apply to Tom at all (at least not textually; it's possibly true but I would have to read in things that aren't actually there in the show). The Succession character that I think does exemplify this one the most is actually Greg, who I think was also emotionally neglected, maybe in a far more obvious way than Tom.

The last one, and maybe the biggest and most consistent, is 'alexithymia', which refers to a deficiency in knowledge about and awareness of emotion. People with extreme forms of alexithymia find their own emotions, and those of others, utterly indecipherable. They might have a tendency to be irritable; they may seldom be aware of having feelings; they might be mystified by others' behaviour; when they do get angry, it may be excessive or explosive; their behaviour might seem rash to themselves and others; they may feel fundamentally different from other people, or like something is missing inside of them; and their friendships may lack depth or substance.

Beyond the stuff we've previously mentioned, I think the biggest examples of this for Tom are the safe room and the compliment tunnel. Both in terms of irritability and explosive anger, for obvious reasons - but also because in both scenes we see Tom wrestling with intense emotions that he clearly doesn't understand. In the safe room the closest he can get is that it 'isn't a good feeling', and when he's talking to Greg afterwards there's an air of perplexity, like he's not entirely sure why he reacted the way he did. As absurd as it sounds, I really think he doesn't know - he isn't drawing the connections between the situation with Greg and his unresolved feelings around the open marriage, and his fear of abandonment. It's a similar situation in the compliment tunnel, where he's in utter misery and has absolutely no idea why. He feels that he shouldn't be miserable, and he's kind of angry at himself for feeling miserable, and so he blames it on the drugs - but it's clear to the viewer that at most the drugs have enhanced the deeper feelings of dissatisfaction and resentment that he's been burying for months.

I won't go on for too much longer because this is... excessively long already, but I do want to briefly acknowledge that these characteristics plague all the Succession characters to varying degrees, because, while not all emotional neglect is emotional abuse, emotional abuse inherently includes emotional neglect. I wanted to highlight Tom specifically because I think he exemplifies the epidemic of invisible emotional neglect, which can sometimes plague people for decades before they or their loved ones realize something is wrong.

And since this is a lot of depressing shit, I want to also highlight that these are definitely things that can be worked on, both individually and in relationships! I want to mention a show I've been watching recently called "Couples Therapy", a Showtime docuseries that follows several real-life couples working through issues in therapy. (I was worried it would be sensationalized or exploitative, but it isn't either - all the couples have talked about it being an overwhelmingly positive experience, and are happy with how the show portrayed things in the end.) Some of the couples are working through really intense, deep-seated issues - some of which are so severe that I went into early episodes going "hey, maybe they should just get divorced". And some do - but a lot of them actually slowly start working through them and substantially improving their marriages, and it's actually incredibly inspiring and hopeful to watch. Given that 'Succession' focuses so much on dysfunction that spirals worse, I feel like 'Couples Therapy' is a nice palate cleanser, showing you that struggling with these issues does NOT mean you're unlovable and your relationships are doomed, so I highly recommend!

#this is so much longer than I initially intended #if you read the whole thing - bless #also I didn't mention here some of the strategies for overcoming childhood emotional neglect bc it felt like a tangent #but if people want to know I can make another post #I highly recommend the book but I also get that money can be tight and I want everyone to have this info!

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eri-cheri · 4 years

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Now that we have reached the last chapter of the year. It is time to do a 2020 roll call of what I like to call, “State of the Shippers”:

1. IzuOcha. Status: Placated.

-IzuOcha’s could celebrate several cute tidbits throughout the year. Mini moments as they say.

Anime Highlights: The OVA’s came in clutch with moments for shippers all around and IzuOcha is no exception. We got a cute tidbit where Izuku and Ochako bumped into each other and were flustered.

Manga Highlights: Christmas kept on giving to this fandom as the AM doll Izuku gave Ochako made many appearances. A cute fist bump between the two was also exchanged and Mina was right there bouncing with y’all.

Heroes Rising: Izuku super man carried Ochako to safety. And was Angy she was injured. Fans could enjoy the small Lois Lane moment.

Troubling Signs?: Ochako said “I would like to be excluded from this narrative” when it comes to her feelings for Deku. She’s a hero damnit! So if they are in for something, probably won’t be while they are still in school.

II. DabiHawks. Status: Yikes.

- Dabi and Hawk’s very public breakup set this fandom in disarray but also kind of disayay?

Anime Highlights: None yet. This fandom was cruelly cock blocked by Bones. Sorry DabiHawks stans.

Manga Highlights: Where to begin, my goodness. With these fans, I guess the good and the bad is a plus in this homoerotic double agent relationship. We have the notion that Dabi may have known Hawks when they were kids, which may be a positive? Hori sure loves his childhood friends. Other than that. The GIRLS WERE FIGHTIN’. Hawks is now permanently scarred by Dabi and I don’t think it was kinky folks. Tokoyami inserted himself in the middle to White Knight Hawks, Dabi broke up with him via YT expose and overall, shippers could anguish in the absolute MESS that this ship endured this year. But I’m sure that’s part of the appeal. So...yay?

Heroes Rising: They were both in it.

Troubling Signs?: The entire relationship is a troubling sign which again, is part of the appeal. Maybe Hawks will cuddle up with Dabi’s father after the war. That’s troubling! Speaking of...

III. EndHawks. Status: Yearning and Burning.

-If there’s one thing Endeavor couldn’t stop worrying about, it was his hot (in more ways than one) new side piece who probably should have looked at the fine print when signing a contract to be a recurring guest star on “Keeping up with the Todoroki’s”.

Anime Highlights: A fateful meeting finally in high definition for all our eyes to see! Hawks’s unwavering support of his biggest hero was endearing to watch and their shenanigans together spurred the anime onlies to finally jump on the biggest May-December ship in the series.

Manga Highlights: Endeavor’s admiration and concern for Hawks seeped through the pages as we entered our most exciting arc in the manga yet. Fate split these two up yet entwined their downfall together. And that Fate’s name was Dabi...or should I say ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️ or should I just say Touya!

Heroes Rising: “Don’t bite my head off, Endeavor.” Geez, can you flirt a little less loud Hawks?

Troubling Signs?: They say never meet your heroes and Hawks is in for a rude awakening. We shall see just how deep his admiration runs or if Endeavor’s past will split our dynamic duo up for good.

IV: TodoDeku. Status: “Precious”

-Shoto’s “Midoriya is in Danger” radar was highlighted in both manga and anime. 4th User’s quirk, who?

Anime Highlights: “Midoriya hasn’t returned yet.” “Where’s Midoriya?” “Midoriya! Grab my hand!” “Have some of my Soba Midoriya.” Shoto gets it. His emotional support friend is a danger magnet. TodoDeku’s also enjoyed tiny tidbits in the OVA such as a hand grabbing scene. Gotta hold tight to those crumbs.

Manga Highlights: Two Words. “Precious Friend.” Deku comes in w/o arms or legs fighting for Shoto and Shoto’s honor. These two spent the entire year worried sick about each other, and going against all odds to save each other. Precious Friends indeed. TDDK fans ate.

Heroes Rising: Shoto kicks some dog ass and then faints thinking of Deku (and Bakugo but shh. Let the shippers rejoice.) On the bright side, we have a 3rd movie coming featuring “The Three Musketeers” so shippers of TdDk can HOLD TIGHT to what’s to come.

Troubling Signs?: Shoto still doesn’t know about OFA and he’s gonna have LOTS of questions after this arc. Will Deku finally tell him? If not, it could make or break the ship.

V. TodoBaku. Status: “Shining through the city with a little funk and soul.”

-Who knew the greatest comedy duo we needed was Shoto and his hot headed “friend” or not friend? It still remains unclear to Shoto. Regardless, these two had a fun year.

Anime Highlights: “I wanna see your cute face”, disco dancing, and more fun in the provisional license training. Plus the OVA added some cute moments between the two such as Bakugo staying behind to save Todoroki during a dangerous excercise and his adorable plan neatly animated for us. I’d say TodoBaku’s really were resurgent and energized this year!

Manga Highlights: Shoto, that is not how you properly Catch a Kacchan, I’m sorry. But at least you did it you mad lad. As with Deku, Shoto spent the year worried sick about Bakugo. While the anime let us have our fun, these two were suffering in the manga.

Heroes Rising: Again, Shoto put a dog down and then fainted with Bakugo on his mind (and Deku but we ignore that. Shush.) TodoBaku’s have the 3rd movie to look forward to which is bound to have some amazing content!

Troubling Signs?: They have a lot of trauma to deal with. And a lot of Deku to worry about. I also imagine Shoto will be hurt about being left out of the OFA secret. We shall see what 2021 has to offer.

VI. KiriMina. Status: Unbreakable.

-Changing your hairstyle to match the gal who inspired you in middle school? Sorry y’all but if Mina were a guy, I’d say that’s gay af.

Anime Highlights: We got that backstory Bois. Red Riot’s origin might as well make him be called Pink Riot. Again with Hori and the childhood friends though I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. They just went to the same middle school but Kirishima was highly influenced by Mina’s Chivalrous spirit! A ship is born!

Manga Highlights: The influence is mutual! Mina creates a move based on Kirishima’s unbreakable and we all let out a collective “awwww”. Also in the war arc, we got Kirishima making sure Mina’s chivalrous spirit shines through right into Gigantomachia’s mouth! KiriMina may just be the unsung MVP’s of this arc.

Heroes Rising: They were in it.

Troubling Signs?: I can’t think of a single one. KiriMina’s can enjoy a peaceful sailing.

VII: KiriBaku. Status: Crumb Collectors.

-2020 was an uneventful year for KiriBaku but Bones made sure there were crumbs aplenty! Thank God for OVA’s!

Anime Highlights: KiriBaku’s did thrive in one episode! Kirishima reflects on the sludge incident and evolves his quirk based on inspiring words from Bakugo! Hooray! KiriBaku’s can thrive in their blossoming friendship. The OVA also has Kirishima (and Kaminari but shh) once again following Bakugo’s lead when it comes to the training excercise. How can you not? He’s so manly!

Manga Highlights: Not gonna lie. There is nothing much here this year. I did find a teeny tiny flake in Aizawa’s flashback. Kirishima and Bakugo are sitting next to each other. Oh! And at the hot pot gathering, Bakugo sits next to Kirishima! Eat your crumbs KiriBaku’s! There’s always next year!

Heroes Rising: Kirishima hangs with a lazy Bakugo and delivers the most hilarious line in the whole movie. “Silly Bakugo, there won’t be villains here!” Hahah... Silly Bakugo. Oh you~ KiriBaku’s can inhale the fact that those two sure love to hover around each other!

Troubling Signs?: With great crumbs come little responsiblity. No trouble if there’s no content! 🤔

VIII: KamiJirou. Status: Singing their hearts out 🎶

-If there’s any ship that’s coming close to canonization, I think this is it, folks! “Think of the person most important to you!” Can’t argue with Midnight!

Anime Highlights: Kaminari does non stop encouraging of Jirou and her hobbies! He works super hard to learn guitar for her sake! We love a king who can encourage his queen!

Manga Highlights: Kaminari thinks of the most important person to him and surprise! It’s Jirou! All of the feels can commence.

Heroes Rising: They were in it!

Troubling Signs?: Kaminari does love his women. And men. Kaminari overall is a huge flirt. But Jirou appears to have his heart strings. ❤️

IX: BakuDeku. Status: Rising. 👑

-Alternative Statuses include Winning, Thriving, Soaring. It’s just been non stop content this year. 2020 is truly the year for BakuDeku. The shippers can rejoice.

Anime Highlights: Three words. Be. My. Cane. The OVA’s helped fan the flames of the BkDk hearts with a surprise! Deku tops! Not only that, we got a lovely shoulder tap of encouragement in the canon material. While in season 4, Deku’s primary focus was Eri. Bakugo and Deku still had their moments to be hella gay.

Manga Highlights: Where do I even begin? I guess we’ll just cut to the chase with Bakugo Katsuki: Rising. We finally saw Bakugo’s true feelings manifest for Deku and if getting stabbed for him isn’t the ultimate showing of love, then idk what is. BakuDeku’s rounded out the year with the Volume 29 cover AND the volume 29 cover drafts to eat at our heart strings. Overall, their relationship got the spotlight in the manga this year. And we’re bound to start 2021 with a dramatic confrontation. Hand holding seems to be the key with these two and it didn’t stop with Heroes Rising...speaking of.

Heroes Rising: The entire movie. Like....yeah. That’s it. [OP, your bias is showing. You have to be SPECIFIC.] {But random criticizer in my head, if I lay out the entire plot of the movie, my post will be too long} [OP....] UGHHHH Okay okay. The POPSICLE MELTING. THE HAND HOLDING. THE CHARACTER DESIGNS OF WHAT MIGHT AS WELL BE THEIR LOVE CHILDREN. Did I mention? “It’s fine if it’s you?” CAUSE YEAH. Oh and All Might randomly officiating their wedding in their heads like idk. Isn’t it just simpler if I say the whole movie??!

Troubling Signs?: Well these two’s relationship is extremely delicate and while it has non stop soared this year, Deku might not take too kindly to Bakugo almost dying for him. Will they stop pushing each other away? Time will tell.

That’s all for this year folks! Happy Shipping and good luck to everyone next year!

#my hero academia #bnha spoilers #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #bakudeku #izuocha #tododeku #todobaku #DabiHawks #endhawks #KiriBaku #kamijirou #kirimina

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cdroloisms · 3 years

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take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi)

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete.

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now.

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news.

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright.

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now.

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots.

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine.

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?)

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all.

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen.

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it.

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs.

“Michael!”

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air.

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!”

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves.

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands.

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?”

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.”

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice.

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices.

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return.

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest.

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all?

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands.

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team.

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs.

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!”

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation.

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return.

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak.

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?”

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time.

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?”

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?”

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in.

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?”

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud.

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.”

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.”

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter.

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.”

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream.

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for.

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena.

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops.

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again.

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!”

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up.

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge.

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway.

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.”

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.”

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out.

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best.

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail.

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.”

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions-

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?”

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut.

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps.

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well.

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to.

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before.

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes.

“Like you did that much.”

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye.

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs.

“Fair.”

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow.

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future.

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever.

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team.

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits.

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?”

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they?

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body.

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well?

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further.

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him.

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own.

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?”

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words.

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?”

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.”

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?”

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red.

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?”

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome.

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break.

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain.

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.”

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own.

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake.

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point.

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.”

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.”

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time.

Keep your head down.

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.”

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race.

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!”

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.”

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again.

“Thanks, guys.”

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings.

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?”

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.”

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs.

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?”

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back.

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?”

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!”

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition.

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down.

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it.

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap.

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter.

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder.

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own.

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it.

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off.

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off.

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak.

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod.

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams, watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team -

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena.

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?”

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners.

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route.

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out.

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused.

“Gottem.”

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting.

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them.

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby.

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?”

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective.

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second -

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!”

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own.

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue.

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay.

The smile slips off his face.

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on.

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what?

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply.

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all.

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it.

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity.

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all.

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow.

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down.

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red.

---

“What the hell was that?”

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence.

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?”

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-”

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?”

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter.

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-”

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?”

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?”

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features.

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.”

“...liar.”

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down.

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward.

“Quackity!”

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-”

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops.

“LET’S GO!”

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows.

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time.

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself-

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.”

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?”

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.”

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder.

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp.

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.”

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..”

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.”

“Thanks for everything, Scott.”

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.”

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing.

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?”

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.”

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him.

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.”

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached.

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.”

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure.

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?”

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head.

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.”

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly.

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.”

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life.

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.”

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow.

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?”

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !!#long post

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