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sapphic-agent · 1 year

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Let's Talk About the Bakugou Problem

I've been enjoying the Bakugou slander here on Tumblr, but I haven't come across anyone that gets to the root of the problem with Bakugou's character yet. I think it goes further than him having anger issues, being annoying, or even how violent and abusive he is. Why I think Bakugou is a bad character is due to the effect he has on the plot, world-building, and the rest of the characters. There's a lot of layers here, so I'd like to take the time to talk as in-detail as I can while typing on mobile.

*Note: I'll be following the anime as it's easier for me to follow and pick specific examples. Manga readers if you have anything to add I'd love to hear it, even if it's against what I've listed here*

*Note: Bakugou fans you're more than welcome to read, though I warn you might not like what you see. I tried to keep this as constructive as I could without letting my own biases seep in (whether I succeeded is up for debate) so that everyone could read it whether you like Bakugou or not. I'm fine with criticism towards my points, I only ask that you remain respectful. I won't engage with anyone who disrespects me or other users*

1. Consequences

This is a big one among Bakugou critics, so I think it's a pretty good place to start. Bakugou has almost never faced actual consequences to his actions (there's a difference between something bad that happens to happen to him and the world around him not accepting his behavior). There are two instances that I can think of that there was a direct ramification to something Bakugou has done. The first was during the Deku vs Kacchan fight where Bakugou does get suspended for four days while Izuku gets suspended for three days. The other is when he and Todoroki fail the provisional licensing exam. However, there's a problem with these two instances I mentioned.

With the D vs K fight, Bakugou was the one who goaded Izuku out of the dorms and instigated a fight. Izuku was trying to get him to go back to the dorms so they could settle their "issue" under adult supervision. He was trying to do the responsible thing. For Izuku to only receive a day less of punishment seems unfair. Though, you could make the case that he should have ignored Bakugou, it's still very clear that one was way more at fault than the other and there was barely a difference in their punishment.

The provisional licensing exam actually did well with failing Bakugou. It was almost a great lesson; that he can't say and do whatever he wants and expect the world to roll over for him. Unfortunately, it's undermined by Todoroki failing as well. Yes, Todoroki failed because of Inasa. But a) Inasa attacked him first which should have resulted in disqualification (what was Todoroki supposed to do, not fight back when he was being assaulted?) and b) Inasa's entire character seems shoehorned into the story. He doesn't really add anything to Todoroki's character as most of his problems with Todoroki were already resolved back in season 2. He also contributes nothing to the overall story. Shindou, for example, has a hand in testing 1A and forces them to work together congruently. Inasa seems like he was put in the story simply to make Todoroki fail. Why does Todoroki have to fail? Because Bakugou does.

It seems like Horikoshi always softens the blow for Bakugou in a way, if he's dealt any blow at all. By not allowing Bakugou to face consequences on his own, he might as well not be facing them at all.

Why are consequences so important? Because Bakugou's privilege is a problem.

I don't think I've seen anyone address this. The root of Bakugou's behavior comes from the fact that he was allowed to do all those terrible things because the world around him was tolerant of it. Teachers turned a blind eyes when he bullied Izuku because he had a great quirk and Izuku was quirkless. He's allowed to do and say whatever he wants because he has a great quirk. While people seem to be harder on Izuku because of either having no quirk or not being able to fully control his quirk. This is a huge part of the story that was set up in the beginning, but was almost never addressed despite being persistent throughout. And it's the most present with Aizawa.

Bakugou attempts to attack a fellow student the first day of class? Simply restrained, no repercussions. Bakugou uses excessive force against a classmate despite his teacher telling him to stop? Nothing more than a few not-so-nice words. Bakugou assaults his partner and refuses to cooperate? No words at all.

Now look at Izuku. Doesn't have full control of his quirk? His teacher attempts to humiliate and expel him in front of his classmates on the first day of class. Saves a classmate in an admittedly risky rescue mission? Said teacher proclaims he lost his trust and labels him a problem child (despite the orchestrator of said mission- Kirishima- being in the same room and not getting spoken to at all).

(I don't know if Aizawa's projecting, but pandering to the kid with the strong quirk while simultaneously disliking All Might isn't a great look.)

Even before UA, Bakugou is praised by the heroes for his strong quirk against the sludge villain despite the fact that his quirk made everything worse while Izuku is scolded even though they were the ones who did nothing while he did what he could to save someone.

"All men aren't created equal." That's one of Izuku's very first lines and a central point of the story. It's something you expect it to address multiple times, especially in regards to Izuku and Bakugou. But Bakugou being spared from consequences every single time he does something terrible means that the statement is validated, but the problem still persists and is never rectified or solved. Even if you think Bakugou "changed," that doesn't make his privilege go away.

2. Plot Compensation

The story goes out of its way to make Bakugou seem like a better person than he is.

My first example is the Sports Festival, specifically his fight with Uraraka. In this fight, Bakugou is met with booing from the audience for not going easy on her. And right off the bat, this is weird. Because not only have we never seen this attitude toward women heroes before or after this, the show is trying to tell us something when Aizawa tears the crowd down. Almost as if saying, "The crowd is dumb and wrong and if you think like the crowd, you're dumb and wrong." Aizawa claims that Bakugou is treating Uraraka like a real opponent by not going easy on her.

...is he though?

Because we never see Bakugou stand still in a fight like he does with her. Bakugou's fighting style relies a lot on mobility. During his fight with Tokoyami, who he knew he had an advantage over because of the light from his quirk, he isn't standing still. During his fight with Todoroki he isn't standing still. He only does this with Uraraka. Because this isn't Bakugou showing respect, it's him still looking down on her. He doesn't see her as a serious opponent, just an obstacle in his way.

And I know this sounds like a bold claim. But if you recall, Bakugou immediately confronts Izuku after the fight and accuses him of giving Uraraka the idea she used during their match. He assumes it was a ploy from Izuku, implying that he didn't think Uraraka capable of coming up with a plan with the potential to work against him. This isn't respect for an opponent.

(Note: the only thing in Bakugou's favor is it's probably not because she's a girl. He just naturally looks down on everyone who doesn't immediately stand out to him with a show of power like Todoroki)

Then we have the revered scene with the League or Villains.

This scene is praised because it "subverts expectations." That the violent, angry kid doesn't want to be a villain. He wants to be a noble hero. Aizawa- again- silences claims against Bakugou, citing that he wants to win and he knows he can't do that if he's a villain.

My thing is, however, the League targeting him in the first place. Why would they do this? Bakugou clearly has a heroic quirk. He scored first on the entrance exam. If they did any research at all beforehand, they would know that Bakugou was at the top of his class before UA and is in the top five currently. And they'd know he has wealthy parents.

(You would think Dabi especially would draw parallels to Endeavor and would be aware that Bakugou's ambition and heroic quirk don't make him similar to the League who have been discriminated against, shunned, and abused for most of their lives. Even with his behavior at the Sports Festival, Endeavor isn't the noble and kind type like All Might and most other heroes. So I'm not sure why Bakugou's behavior immediately screamed villain potential)

Nothing about him suggests he's had a hard life like most of the League. Nothing about him suggests he'd want to leave his comfortable life and secured future to become a villain.

This scene sets up Bakugou's redemption, right? It leads us to the Deku vs Kacchan fight and All Might's advice is what makes him take on his "save to win" mentality.

But not only does this seem like a convenient plot device, it decidedly ignores the uglier part of Bakugou's decision.

Bakugou rejected the LOV because he saw them as losers. But what if they hadn't been losers? What if they had been doing as well as they were at the end of season 5? Merging and becoming the MLA front, organized teams, wealthy, successfully recruiting members right under the heroes' noses.

Maybe Bakugou wouldn't have outright joined them. But at this point before shifting his perspective, his answer might have been very different.

But the story goes out of its way to hammer in Bakugou's scarce good traits to take your focus away from his overwhelming bad ones.

3. Bakugou's Character Shift "Development"

The way Horikoshi wrote Bakugou in the beginning is very different to how he is portrayed later in the show. No, I don't mean his development. I mean the major shift in his character between seasons 1/2 and season 3/4.

Bakugou in the beginning of the show is cruel, meanspirited, and violent. And he's still all of those things throughout the show. The one difference is that it's played for laughs in later seasons.

Bakugou's actions and words in seasons 1 and 2 are portrayed a lot more serious than in later seasons. He's an antagonistic force, one that Izuku has to strive to overcome not just to be a good hero, but for himself as Bakugou has been one of the most prominent obstacles in his strive to become a hero.

Look at his behavior during the battle trials. It's something serious, something that has even All Might worried. Bakugou knew he could have very well killed Midoriya and didn't care. It's brutal and almost hard to watch because at this point in the show Midoriya is weak and tiny (visually, we know he's never really been weak) compared to Bakugou and can really only outsmart him to win.

We never see Bakugou display anything close to this level of violence in later seasons. Not in the Sports Festival or 1A vs 1B or D vs K or the licensing exam or even against literal villains. Season 1 went out of its way to show Bakugou's cruel behavior even using it as something Izuku has to learn how to overcome even if he has to risk everything.

By season 3, the perspective has changed. Bakugou name calling people, belittling people, yelling, and his acts of violence are now exaggerated for comedy. None of his actions are taken as seriously as they were before, despite some being almost or just as bad.

(It's worth mentioning that this was also around the time Bakugou began to get popular among fans)

A great example of this is in season 5 when he throws his headpiece at Izuku and makes him bleed. His casual act of his aggression towards his lifelong victim is present to make the audience laugh, despite the fact that Izuku was bleeding and the 1A boys are (rightfully) horrified.

(I'd like to add that there was no real reason to do this. Nothing he was saying would have exposed OFA and even if it had, he was done talking by the time Bakugou threw it)

If Bakugou had really changed at this point, this would have never happened in the first place. I can't call this changing or development, I call this his actions shifting into comedic relief and away from the serious connotations they previously held. By taking that away, it allows Bakugou to continue to do the same things he has all his life while under the guise of development. It undermines what's supposed to be his redemption arc.

4. Other Characters

Bakugou isn't the only one who gets a character shift. It's approximately the moment that Bakugou begins to get more attention that the other characters lose the substance they had at the beginning of the show.

The ones hit most notably by this are obviously Uraraka and Iida. They were Izuku's first friends, his original trio. More than that, they are set up as interesting characters with their own arcs and paths for becoming great heroes.

Even though I did have my complaints about her fight with Bakugou in the Sports Festival, it does turn Uraraka onto improving past her goal of becoming a rescue hero. She wants to become better in other aspects of being a hero so that she can succeed and keep up with her stronger classmates. She proved herself capable of this during her fight with Bakugou and it was the catalyst of her character development.

Iida was not only resolving himself with caring for Midoriya as a friend as well as being his rival and wanting to surpass him. There's also this darker side to him that no one expects from goody two shoes, straight-laced Iida that had so much potential for exploration.

Both of them are tossed to the side in favor of Bakugou. I would even go as far as to say that after season 2, they're almost irrelevant until season 6 and even then they're limited (before season 6 Uraraka's only character trait is that she ignores he feelings for Midoriya to become a better hero, which came out of nowhere and does nothing for her character). And they barley ever get moments with Izuku during time despite being his first friends.

Todoroki is a similar yet very different case. At the beginning of the show, he was intense and has strong feelings. (An interesting parallel is that if Iida was his friend becoming his rival, Todoroki was his rival becoming his friend and both relationships speak to Izuku as a character) Even if he didn't express them, we as the audience knew they were there. But as times passes he becomes flat and dull. Even though he's supposed to be part of the new trio, he's barley present (the dynamic between the three of them is uninteresting all around as it's basically Bakugou yelling at Izuku with Todoroki in the background. They never have any deep or heartfelt moments nor do they have good chemistry) and barely gets any one-on-one interaction with Izuku despite them being very good friends.

(I can't blame this all on Bakugou as the show also shifts from focusing to Todoroki to focusing on his own abuser which is part of the issue with his lack of character, but Bakugou's character does contribute to this problem of making the abusers more sympathetic than the victims)

Most if not the rest of 1A fade into the background after this, save for a few who have notable moments sprinkled in throughout the show. You can take this as a Bakugou prevalence problem, or it can be seen as Horikoshi just not knowing how to balance characters.

However, the character that suffers the most because of this is Izuku himself.

I don't think it's a bad thing that Izuku admires or looks up to Bakugou. I don't think it's a problem that he doesn't see anything wrong with Bakugou's behavior against him. Izuku grew up in an environment where that was normalized. That he's worthless because of his lack of quirk and Bakugou deserves to be on top because of his great quirk. Of course he internalized that, even though he knows that a quirk doesn't determine someone's worth. He was never given the tools or the means to beat that mindset.

What I despise is the fact that everyone around him enables it.

As I stated above, Aizawa is definitely the worst when it comes to this. Not only shoving Bakugou and Izuku together and making it Izuku's job to get Bakugou to cooperate, but hardly if ever condemning Bakugou when he lashes out against Izuku. Even without their history, what Bakugou does is wrong and should be treated as such.

Unfortunately and even though I love All Might, he's also guilty of this. It's true that he might not know the full extent of their toxic relationship, but All Might sees Bakugou instigate a fight with Izuku and decides it's okay to tell Bakugou about One For All. Bakugou did nothing to earn this honor: he hasn't shown Izuku support and hasn't been a reliable ally he could depend on. But even disregarding that, Bakugou had just been captured by villains who work for All For One. He was the last person on Earth who should have been entrusted with this secret.

The adults in Izuku's life enable and reward Bakugou's bad behavior and urge them into forming a relationship and partnership that frankly shouldn't exist (and only does to make Bakugou a better person and hero, it does nothing for Izuku). It's to the point where almost Izuku's entire character revolves around his relationship with Bakugou and how he improves because of it and how he helps Bakugou improve. And he further projects this when he "subtly" implies that Todoroki should forgive Endeavor, which feels like a justification towards the audience of his own feelings towards Bakugou.

5. Accountability

I mentioned consequences as my first point. But what many who want this miss, it goes hand-in-hand with accountability.

Unlike consequences, Bakugou more or less does take accountability in the form of his apology. But the apology was lackluster for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it feels like a list of excuses rather than simply owning up to the fact that he was shitty and there's really no good reason for it. But simply explaining why you hurt the person you hurt isn't giving them the apology they deserve. It's making it about you.

Another thing, though, is that the apology is very scarce. It skips over the worst of Bakugou's actions. Nothing he said was anything 1A didn't already know. They don't know about the s*icide baiting which is one of the worst things he's done to Izuku (and that's only what we saw, who knows what Bakugou's been saying for years?). It also ignores everything he did in UA, which was a very big part of the problem. He treated Izuku poorly months prior to the apology and that shouldn't be ignored.

As far as accountability goes this apology isn't that great. But it's something. No, what's worse is that the other characters don't hold Bakugou accountable.

The other characters more often than not turn a blind eye to Bakugou's behavior. We've already covered Aizawa, but the rest of 1A is guilty of this too. No one says anything about the Battle Trials. Hardly anyone condemns Bakugou when he attacks or insults Izuku. Sometimes they'll chime in like Uraraka or Kirishima, but other than that no one outright tells him off. This is out of character for Iida in particular because he's such a stickler about rules and courtesy for others (he literally told off a six year old when he punched Izuku and tried to stop Mineta from perving on the girls, why wouldn't he do the same when it comes to Bakugou?). It's almost like the characters are blind to Bakugou's behavior.

What's weirder is that Mina and Kirishima- who were both stated to hate bullying- are friends with him. Why would the show go out of its way to tell us this only to saddle them into the "BakuSquad?" It doesn't make sense.

It's hypocritical that everyone in 1A is so tolerant of Bakugou but get annoyed with others; like Monoma for example. Or even Mineta because as much as I dislike him he's constantly being called out by 1A. It means that they know certain behavior is wrong and/or shouldn't be entertained, so we know they aren't completely unaware. But the fact that they largely ignore Bakugou's behavior and condemn Monoma's is so weird. You can't excuse one and not the other.

Conclusion

There's certainly more than this to my dislike of Bakugou. But I think I've mostly covered his negative impact on the story. Doing a deep dive into his awful personality is something I wouldn't wish on anyway. Many others have done that anyway, so I'm content to leave it out. But I hope you liked my little breakdown!

#anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakugou #anti aizawa shota #bnha critical #bhna criticism #bhna #mha #mha critical #criticism

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vigilskeep · 12 days

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Wait what’s the dynamic of Alistair and Minerva? Could’ve been lovers but worse actually ? Or something else?

well that really is the question all of ferelden asks itself daily

what alistair and minerva endure together makes them truly inseparably close during most of dao, that kind of forged-under-fire bond. minerva has so much faith in alistair’s protection and loyalty that he’s the only person she really feels safe being publicly affectionate with, and alistair trusted her, thought the world of her as his leader, and followed her anywhere. but the friendship messily explodes when minerva’s political agenda leads her to spare loghain at the landsmeet. which is what i refer to as their platonic divorce

they love each other a lot, and no matter what point the relationship is at, harm to the other would be unbearable to them both. but there were always fault lines in the relationship liable to at some point erupt, major ones including: a) alistair’s history with the templars and certain mindsets he was taught, vs minerva’s lifelong trauma with them that she only during dao even begins to come to terms with. b) minerva does not have the sense of honour or justice alistair assumes is universal among those he considers good, which leads him to wrongfully assume she would draw his same line with loghain without it having to be discussed, and to no longer be able to categorise her as “good” when she suddenly fails his standard. c) she is a manipulative political person who, due to circle mage backstory horrors and growing up as a first enchanter in the making, simply has never been taught and does not believe that individuals getting the lives they want is realistic or necessary or even a requirement of doing right by them. she pushes alistair to take the throne and marry anora to serve her own big-picture goals. he does not have the necessary courage/confidence to stand up for the life he wants, while she fatally simply assumes that he would refuse if it really mattered enough to him (which she literally would have adjusted her plans for with minimal complaining! because she loves him! but because he’s alistair, and also because he loves her, of course he’d never refuse outright what she said was so important. maddening.)

alistair considers loghain to have massacred the only true family he ever had, and minerva not only turns around and spares him but gives him a place in that very family like it’s nothing. alistair abandons minerva at the most public moment, and when she and the world perhaps need him most, in the final battle against the archdemon, he isn’t there. neither of them are really built to be able to overlook what each other did. but the love is still there, as i like to say

post-dao they have a weird painful dynamic in which king alistair continues to give her the cold shoulder while doggedly pursuing the freedom for mages she asked for as her boon from the crown, and minerva, loyal to him to the death, refuses to let slip a scrap of emotion or remorse in his direction because she cannot bear any further damage to her pride. they work together constantly but usually at the distance between denerim and amaranthine rather than seeing each other in person. they’re both very angry, they both miss each other all the time. i like to think that over the years the latter eventually wins out but maybe that’s wishful thinking

because their relationship has the appropriate plot relevance and intensity—friendship always seems too weak a word, and comparisons to siblings useful but not quite right—i do have aus where they are romantic, but i don’t consider those to be “canon”. alistair did flirt once or twice in her playthrough which probably muddies the waters of his feelings a little bit but i don’t think even he took that particularly seriously, he’s just 19-20 and she’s extremely pretty and extremely right there. alistair isn’t really minerva’s type she goes for scoundrels

#minerva surana

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dgrailwar · 5 months

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Round 2, Day 2 - MOONCANCER vs. AVENGER

"…The delivery guy was supposed to be here by now. I really don't wanna go outside and check… the outside world is dangerous… but I guess I'll have to give it my pico-best. So, one glance! Then we return to our hiding place, and never leave again. Zero social interaction, zero eye contact, zero conversation-- alright, let's go!"

She stepped outside, climbing up the basement steps and emerging in an alleyway. She looked around, before catching sight of someone. She pointed.

"Ohh, look… a handsome guy. He'd totally fit into an otome game… Forget it, I'm way outta his league, and you guys are too if you're hanging with a NEET. He probably wouldn't even notice--"

A moment passed, as the 'handsome man' in the alleyway caught sight of the MoonCancer… and smiled.

"Eh? Eh, eh, eeeeh? Wait a second-- look! He's approaching? He's smiling at me? Is it finally happening? My 'meet cute' romance flag?"

He was approaching. Slowly and carefully, as they locked eyes. They could both feel the mana in the air, dense and terrifying. Divinity clashing against something far darker.

"…An enemy Servant." The Avenger said, carefully. "And one of great magical power, I can feel it. As expected of an Extra-Class!"

"Geh-- Great magical power? M-M-Me?! Wait--!" You could see the color drain from the MoonCancer's face, as she slowly began to back up. "L-L-Listen, I'm really just hanging out-- I'm practically a civilian! I'm barely even a S-Servant! Can't you cut me some slack?"

"…No."

He drew a blade. A sword, roiling with bitter flames, as he pointed it towards her.

"Servant of the Holy Grail War. My Masters have given me the order to kill you, mademoiselle… and therefore, you will witness hell."

"See?! This is why going outside is dangerous! Every flag is a red flaaaaag!"

Ganesha: +7%

The Count of Monte Cristo: +4%

Both Ganesha and the Count gain a +1% boost due to their Defensive choices in the previous round!

Servant Skills:

Ganesha (MoonCancer)

Ganesha's defensive play was interrupted! Her skill boosts will reset next round!

Vinayaka (EX Rank): When 'Playing Defensively' gain a +5% bonus to scores, and you cannot be caught off guard. If you are unbothered, then this increases by 1% each time you are not attacked, resetting back to 5% once you're engaged in combat. However, this negates the inherent MoonCancer trait of ‘being unable to be targeted while Playing Defensively’. (Current boost: +6%)

Broken Tusk (B Rank): When engaged in a 1-on-1 confrontation (while not Playing Defensively), gain a +3% boost. Additionally, apply the MoonCancer Class Trait of 'not taking damage if there's a 3% difference in scores' to 1-on-1 battles as well. If Ganesha has been ‘Playing Defensively’ uninterrupted for 3 or more turns (in a row), when she goes on the offense, her attack bonus increases from 3% to 6% for that specific round. (Current defensive turn count: 1)

MOONCANCER-CLASS Servants are experts in manipulating the world and environment to take advantage. They cannot be targeted while 'Playing Defensively'. Additionally, when engaged in a Free-for-All, they gain a +3% boost, and if they score last place and there's at least a 3% difference in their score and 2nd place, they may avoid damage.

The Count of Monte Cristo (Avenger)

Determination of Steel (EX Rank): If Avenger is about to take a fatal wound, if there's at least a 3% difference in their score and the victor above him, he may avoid damage. When facing a single-target (1-on-1), he will gain a +3% boost.

Monte Cristo Mythologie: The King of the Cavern (C Rank): When battling enemies, his flames are like a poison. He reduces demerits against him by 3%, and when he is victorious against another, he inflicts a -2% demerit for their next round. This demerit increases by 2% by every 10% difference in scores.

AVENGER-CLASS Servants are vengeful by nature. The first time they are defeated by a Servant, they gain an automatic +2% bonus against that specific Servant, without needing to study them (but can in order to increase the bonus). They gain a permanent +3% bonus per wound they attain that will remain if the wound remains, but will disappear if the wound is healed.

#combat phase poll #team avenger #team mooncancer

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makethosenarratorsfight · 1 year

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UNRELIABLE NARRATORS; SIDE B

Hamlet Propaganda:

Have you seen the man. Is he clinically insane or just putting on an antic disposition. Is the ghost real

Kim Dokja Propaganda:

I haven't read orv but he's fucking gotta be from what I've osmosised

He tries to remove his emotions out of the narrative soooo much, literally the most repressed guy ever. Okay so for context orv is about how this guy, Kim Dokja, has been the only reader of an obscure post-apocalyptic webnovel for years and the novel suddenly becomes reality. And at first you'll probably get the weird impression that his behavior is pretty strange for, you know, a literal apocalypse happening in his world - like yes, he is concerned with survival but he doesn't seem all that scared and he kinda treats it like a video game where he has to grind to make himself stronger and he also treats his companions like a party in an rpg. Then there's also the way he approaches the protagonist of the webnovel, from the start he just kind of describes him as a ruthless psychopath and jerk that is unfortunately a pretty useful ally. And also there's the fact that he carefully omits any mention of his past and when somebody asks if he's worried about his family when the apocalypse starts he just kinda... brushes it off? Anyway so yeah, this bastard is definitely traumatized, although I don't know how much of spoiler territory that would be, considering the fact that literally when he first reveals his trauma he's also unreliable about it. And turns out he does indeed, care A LOT about this world and the people around him. Because well, he kinda didn't care to mention that this webnovel that has become reality was like... literally his whole world before it literally became his whole world. Like, it was the only thing keeping him going for 10+ years and the protagonist that he likes to call a stupid jerk was his comfort character who he pretended to be when he felt like he couldn't handle something in his life by being himself. The protagonist is also canonically the person he loves the most according to a prophecy and he literally can't fathom the thought of him dying, even the timeline versions of him that directly oppose him. And I haven't even mentioned the Fourth Wall yet but I feel like this propaganda is a little long already

misreading the intentions of his companion (yoo joonghyuk) so many time.

YOU DON'T UNDERSTANDDD DOKJA IS SUCH A UNRELIABLE NARRATORRRRRR GOD I COULD WRITE AN ESSAY BUT I KNOW YOU LOVE DOKJA TOO BUT OMG HE'S JUST SO AAAAAAAAAAAH

Rest of Propaganda under cut!

he is the worst like actually. he starts the story talking about how normal and average he is. he is not. he is constantly mischaracterizing his friends and he's so good at lying to the readers that you don't even realize it at first. almost every single time he cries we have to be told by other characters because he never says it himself. there is literally a scene where his narration says "i wasn't crying" and then the in-universe entity that narrates the actions of people (orv is really weird and meta) says that he was, in fact, crying. honestly genuinely anything he says about himself (or doesn't say) cannot be trusted. he is just so frustrating. he drives me mad. i love him dearly. but he drives me so mad.

Dictionary definition of unreliable narrator. Does not tell the reader anything and then things happen and he's like oh yeah btw there was also this and this earlier but i just didn't feel like mentioning it. There's even a thing called the "Fourth Wall" that is able to see through kdj's bs so occasionally you get gems like,

Kim Dokja: I didn't cry

The Fourth Wall: [Kim Dokja was crying]

Imagine being so unreliable as a narrator you need a more powerful narrator to call out the actual narrator.

^ same submission, just spacing it out

This goes into spoiler territory, but; Kim Dokja is in possession of a skill called the Fourth Wall, which on the surface seems like it appears because he read the book that reverse-isekai’d into his own. However, as the story goes on it becomes clear that it’s pretty much a souped up version of his pre-existing dissociation. You cannot trust him to be honest about his feelings, his past traumas or his feelings about his past traumas, not to mention his tendency to just outright omit information that only gets revealed later on either when it becomes relevant or when an outsider POV reveals what’s actually happening.

Exhibit A: he says (in 1st person POV) that he’s not crying. The Fourth Wall immediately contradicts this (as it is literally words of the novel) by saying (in 3rd person POV) ‘Kim Dokja was crying’.

Exhibit B: Fails to mention entire actions when it shows him emotionally honest even in the slightest; we had to read from another character entirely when Kim Dokja was being physically affectionate with his companion. It’s so bad that there’s this entire paragraph about Kim Dokja describing himself hiding his eyes in his hands in jerky, weirdly specific detail and just AVOIDING EVERY WORD THAT MIGHT SHOW HE’S CRYING. The brilliance of ORV is that when you re-read the entire thing you get hints that ‘yes, this WAS hinted at the entire time’ but you have to dig it out of Kim Dokja’s repressed, depressed self-hating internal dialogue with your own two hands.

^ same submission, spacing it out (i really should've done this earlier.)

i am a simple man (not a man). i see a tumblr text post with the words “unreliable narrator in it”. i read nothing else. i reblog & tag #kim dokja okay but in all seriousness i’m just going with the musty basic example: so there’s this moment where he sacrifices himself to save this guy. as he lays on the ground bleeding out, he says “hey, you don’t like me, right? you should kill me to get some money” the guy says “no kim dokja i cant do that (going through the five stages of grief except there’s only one and it’s anger)” the constellations (twitch viewers irl) are like omg he (the guy) doesn’t want to kill his companion (kim dokja) and shower him (the guy) with money kim dokja: oh, he’s not killing me for the money. smart!

as i quote a brilliant youtube video (all of omniscient reader’s viewpoint in 6 minutes) “yoo joonghyuk sees kim dokja as a c_____”

yoo joonghyuk: companion

kim dokja: cunt

^ same submission, once again. spacing it out.

Hides his true feelings, tells the readers what he thinks is convenient for the plot and that his own personal feelings don’t matter or are not so significant. Has unreliable thoughts abt his companion and is a liar. And is also an omniscient reader.

Kim Dokja always perceived his companions in this like nonchalant way like “oh yeah we get along but really we’re just fighting to survive (apocalypse setting) it doesn’t run that deep” when they all do genuinely care for him and he does in turn. He just, doesn’t think of it as an equal relationship? Dokja’ll sacrifice a lot for them but will get seriously flabbergasted if they do the same thing, so fricking problematic. Not to mention Yoo Joonghyuk, his “Life and Death Companion” (read: husband). Kim Dokja always seems to think that Joonghyuk has it out for him, which is kinda true, but he is literally blind to the fact that he’s attached to him. Like, it’s so obvious??? Also they have hella sexual tension but that’s another thing entirely

se get some many pov changes where kdj in his pov just assumed things based on what he knew the characters would do. however because of his interference the characters have changed and he wouldn’t know that if it hit him in the face

He's an unreliable narrator because he lies to himself and thus the audience. He literally rewrote his own childhood core memory. If someone says, "this guy is my friend!" He will go through so many hoola hoops in his mind just to rationalize it. Because he fundamentally believe that no one could love him and even if they did they couldn't know him and he's just gonna hurt them. He cries sometimes in canon but a lot of those times it's not even mentioned as crying he's that unreliable of a narrator. No joke, one time this guys he has a gay thing with called him his "companion" to someone who had just killed him (long story) and this bitch thought "oh wow he's doing it for the coins (another long story) he's so smart i wish I'd thought to that. He's terrible. He literally has an exchange with something called the Fourth Wall (an even longer story) where it said "you're crying" and he said "no I'm not" but he was crying. He makes me insane because the reader is supposed to project onto him. He made me see how much of an unreliable narrator I WAS. ORV is just like that tho.

#hamlet #shakespeare #hamlet prince of denmark #kim dokja #kdj #orv #omniscient readers viewpoint #if kdj gets this poll blacklisted again im blowing him up #unreliable narrator battle #unreliable narrators #polls #side b

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devilofthepit · 4 months

Text

and while i'm at it here's a buffy theory reading list

Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy+

Articles:

"Buffy and the 'New Girl Order': Defining Feminism and Femininity" by Elana Levine

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer: An Introduction" by Rhonda V. Wilcox

"Power Girl/Girl Power: The Female Action Hero Goes to High School (A Review of the Television Show Buffy the Vampire Slayer)" by Jacqueline Reid-Walsh with Krista Walsh

"'Hot Chicks with Superpowers': The Contested Feminism of Joss Whedon" by Lauren Schultz

"Female Heterosexual Sadism: The Final Feminist Taboo in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series" by Carol Siegel (for the life of me i can't remember where i found this and when i emailed the author she wouldn't send it to me lol)

"Kinky Vampires and Action Heroines" by Jeffrey A. Brown

“‘Solving Problems with Sharp Objects’: Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” by Gwyn Symonds

"The Epistemological Stakes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Television Criticism and Marketing Demands" by Amelie Hastie

Haven't read these so take them with a grain of salt but they look promising:

"From Beneath You, It Foreshadows: Why Buffy’s First Season Matters" by David Kociemba

"Buffy the Post-Anarchist Vampire Slayer" by Lewis Call

"(Un)safe Sex: Romancing the Vampire" by Karen Backstein

"Welcome to the Hellmouth: Paradoxical Spaces in Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

"Bibliographic Good vs. Evil in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by GraceAnne A. DeCandido

"The Clothes Make the Fan: Fashion and Online Fandom When Buffy the Vampire Slayer Goes to eBay" by Josh Stenger

"'Hey, Respect the Narrative Flow Much?': Problematic Storytelling in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Richard S. Albright

"Dead, White, Male: Irishness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel" by Gerardine Meaney

"'That Was Nifty': Willow Rosenberg Saves the World in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Matthew Pateman (this looks at Buffy from a Jewish studies perspective which i haven't seen much!!!)

Books:

Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan by Lorna Jowett

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale edited by James B. South

The Warrior Women of Television: A Feminist Cultural Analysis of the New Female Body in Popular Media by Dawn Heinecken (not exclusively focused on Buffy but the chapter on Buffy is very good)

I hope to keep updating this as I remember/find more!!

#btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #horror

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misguidedasgardian · 20 days

Text

Wildcats (Part XXV)

XXV. When a good man goes to war

MASTERLIST

Summary: Daryl wants you to connect with the most important woman in his life, fully knowing how you feel about her, the problem is he picks the worst moment for it.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Zombie apocalypse AU, living dead, zombies, guts, blood, guns, kissing, longing, angst, fluff, kissing, touch starved reader & Daryl, THIS CHAPTER WILL PORTRAIT SIDE EFFECTS OF THE USE OF A “PLAN B” PILL such as dizziness, weakness, and others, INACCURATE mentions of handling explosives, might miss some important warnings, but you know what this is about

+18, MINORS DNI

Notes: I just got fired and I have been telling everyone that I'm still working so they leave me alone at home for the weekend, haha, so that’s why I’m writing so much.

You shouldn’t have taken that damn pill today

You felt like shit, like you had been run over by a trash truck, as Rick told everyone in Alexandria about the urgent situation at hand. You didn’t know which was worse, the fact that there was a quarry filled with walkers, or his plan to deal with them

“We’ll lead them away…”, he finished his plan, and to your relief, there were some conflicted faces around. The silence extended for a few seconds, and that is when you needed to intervene. this was one of those “forums” you knew better than to go against Rick, but this was up for discussion, so you went for it.

“Rick we can’t release them into the world”, you said, he stopped all movement and looked back at you, frowning

“What?”, he asked

“We can’t let them walk out of there”, you said, “every single one of these fuckers is taking out the last people alive, we can’t release them so they could kill and eat more people!”, you said. A shaky blonde man with big blue eyes seemed supportive

“So what do you suggest we do?”, he asked

“There is machinery, we should find a way to destroy them, burn them, bury them…”, you muttered

“It’s too dangerous to come up close”, he said, “there is no ammo enough to wipe them all out, it's impossible”

“I bet Eugene knows how to build a bomb or something”, you said, the man nodded

“Yes Ma’am I do”, he said proudly

“That will bring thousands more”, said Daryl

“Then we eliminate the ramps, turn it into a huge pit, let them fall in, we bury them, leave it there for more, they will keep coming and falling, we are doing a great service”, you said

“To whom?”, asked Rick

“Humanity”, you said quickly, “if we release them out there they are going to keep killing humans! animals! destroying everything in their path!”, you said quickly, “its us VS them! you said it!”

“We have the RPG”, said Alexander, “several rockets, a couple of grenades”

“Its too much of a risk”, muttered Rick

“It is much greater of a risk releasing them!”, you said quickly. “We throw a bomb right at the center”, you said quickly, “they will turn towards it, relieving the pressure from the escaping points…”

“We don’t have enough rockets”

“We use a couple, then we burn them or something”, you said, “But we can try”

He did not seem pleased at all, and you were so drowsy you felt like you could pass out.

“We are not ready for an operation like that”, he said, “Alexandria is not ready for an operation of that magnitude”

“We are gonna need explosives, to eliminate the ramps and to diminished their numbers”, said Alexander, “i know how the military operated, i bet that if you give me a couple of days I would be able to find some”

There was an awkward silence

“She is right!”, said the shaky man, and you heard mumbles of approval

“We can try it your way”, said Rick, “but if it doesn’t work…”

“Then we lead them away”, you promised

You then looked at Deanna, who nodded

“You have a week to find explosives, or come up with a similar solution, if you don’t, we follow Rick’s plan”, she sentenced, and you only nodded, you searched the eyes of Eugene, who had a weird, determined look on his face, then the shaky guy, and then Alexander who smirked.

You met with said people, Rick of course was there, and several others.

Alexander placed a man over the table on the porch.

“I want this points checked”, he said signaling habited points on the map, “I was called in when the crisis fully broke out”, he said, “they send troops on surrounding areas of the capital, and, of course, many of them didn’t return, so, they may have left some things behind, that’s why, I need four groups, of three or four people on each, to disperse and search, I want a long range shooter, a short range fighter, and a scavenger on each”, he said, “that is for safety”, he said, “as there are three of us who have military training, maybe four”, he said looking at you who nodded, “those being Me, Espinoza, Ford and (Y/L/N), I want us dispersed in the groups too”

Rick looked supportive so far, agreeing with everything Alex was saying.

It was odd, you felt a weird sense of pride, bringing him in was your idea, so you still felt responsible for him, and the fact he was adapting well and being a good ass asset, made you somewhat proud.

“Eugene”, he called then, “you told me you could make home-made explosives, how real is that promise?”

“For a few explosions of a magnitude that will not jeopardize the general constitution of said quarry or our safety, but be bigger than one that could cause a single house fire, I do need some materials that will not be found here but I have certainty that can be found out there…”, he said, Alexander looked at him like trying to comprehend his words, then nodded

“Alright, I want you in Ford’s team”, he said, he then looked at Abraham who nodded, “Abraham you help him get what he needs”

“Damn right”, he asserted

“The rest of us, we look for explosives, grenades, or rockets”, he said. “Espinoza, you know your explosives”,

“Yeah”, she said with a small smile

“Well, flash course to Abraham and (y/n), so they know how to manipulate what they find”

“It’ll take me a couple of hours with this thickheads”, she mocked, you and Abraham chuckled

“I’ll give you the entire afternoon”, he promised, “make the teams”, he demanded

As people dispersed to do as Alexander commanded you separated from the rest as Rosita, Abraham and Alex did, and Daryl approached you

“I was thinkin’ that since you are the military part, and somewhat the scavenger, maybe Carol and I can go with ya”, he said with a soft smile, “the three of us”, oh gods. You thought, while with your tongue caressing the still healing wound inside your mouth.

“You sure?”, you asked him, concerned, but you guessed, then with any bonding time with Carol, having Daryl there was a relief. You smiled then, had flashbacks of your mission in Atlanta with these two, you had not enjoyed it, BUT… many things had changed since then, specially your relationship with your loving archer. And the hope in his eyes could perfectly made you do whatever he wanted, “Let’s do it”, you said with a soft smile. Would you be able to get a fourth person in?

You could not get the fourth person.

Alex led a group, with Rick, the new guy Smith, and Michonne

Abraham, Eugene, Sasha, and Tara

Rosita, Glenn, Maggie, and that guy Gary.

And then there was you, Daryl and Carol.

Laura wanted to participate too, but she was helping out in the infirmary with Beth and Denise, and medics needed to stay protected at all costs. She knew all about pharmaceuticals thanks to her father, that is what she told you. You liked her, she was badass, and somewhat nice, despite it all.

“You contradicted me big time today”, Rick said, but he did not looked recriminatory at all

“Normally I wouldn’t have done it, but…”

“I’m glad you did”, he said, “let’s give this a shot, let’s hope we don’t blow ourselves up in the process”

“I have faith”, you answered

“We need to include your approach on this”, he muttered, “your approach on walkers”

“After”, you promised

“After”, he said, nodding. you felt a bit dizzy, and he seemed to notice, “Are you alright?”, he asked softly, you nodded

“Yeah, yeah, just a bit tired”, you assured, you wanted to curl up on a couch with a blanket, preferably with Daryl’s arm wrapped around you.

You played dumb at Carol’s attempt to make you all lunch, instead sneaking out to the third house that had been gifted to the team, where Alex resided, a smaller house, where he shared quarters with Rosita, Abraham and Eugene

He was kind enough to gift you a cup of your favorite pork ramen

You ate ramen with the military team while you shared war stories, well, as Rosita did receive training from Abraham and their former team, she had not served, nor did you. You had received really wild, almost savage training by Mayor. But Abraham and Alex had some stories that made you laugh out loud.

“And then we just had to wait for the camel to shit the keys”, and you all broke in a laugh.

“I have heard this story a thousand times and it still makes me laugh”, said Rosita, “but… let’s talk explosives”

“Great”, you muttered. And Rosita started to give you an explosives class 101

“...If it's a bit broken, misshapen, or even the paper around it looks funny… don’t touch it, don’t move, don’t look at it”, she said severely

“And this is what a crate of dynamite usually looks like”, Alex told you, showing you a picture, “like the wooden ones from the cartoons”

“Oh I loved ACME products”, you laughed

“But I don’t want any of you to risk it unnecessarily, if it is compromised, or you are not sure, do not manipulate it”, Alex commanded, “sometimes they don’t need fire to be detonated”, he warned, “so you call in Rosita with the radio, or me, or two of the group goes back to find her or me, alright?”, he said, you all nodded, “when in doubt, do not manipulate, and if you happen to find an untouched box, carry it with care”.

There was more, more details and things to remember.

“We go tomorrow”, said Alex, “you are all sure about your teams?”

“Yeah”, you all three said

“Good”, he nodded.

You exited the house when you came face to face with Smith, and Gary

“Military, uh? you are full of surprises”, he teased

“I did not serve”, you said, “I was trained when the shitshow started by a military man in Atlanta, that’s it”, you said simply. “very… informal training”, you assured him

“I think you are selling yourself short”, he said, “but you also look like shit”, he said, “you sure you are fine?”, you frowned

“I’m good”, you assured him. Him and Gary gave you the creeps, so you were quick to keep moving.

“I’m not questioning you boss”, muttered Gary, making Negan frown, “but I do sometimes wonder… what your plan is”, Negan looked down the street where you were walking away from them. He had to admit, he had never done this before.

They had eyes in Alexandria for a while now, all this lucky, fancy people, in this beautiful community, ready for the taking, they weren’t like him and his people, they weren’t farmers like Hilltop, they didn’t grow shit like the Kingdom, this… were the luckiest sons of bitches he had ever met.

Until Rick and his posse came around.

Now the tides were changing, now these people were becoming, quickly, more ferocious, now… they could become a problem.

So he decided to pull this little trick on them, to see what these people were made of, the original Alexandrians mixed with this savage band of survivors, this strange creature, like an eagle with two heads looking in opposite directions.

These people, the newcomers… were different… they had been on the road, they were almost wild, feral, they weren’t like the rest of the communities.

Negan could feel himself tight in the pants with the mere thought of what this people were capable of, and the brutal crash that was going to be produced when they met his people

People were a resource, oh and he planned on using it properly, to the best of their abilities.

They were a goldmine, militars, leaders, soldiers, they’ve got it all, a family, brains, braun… Looks too, even a couple of farmers and medics. And then there was you, an strange creature for sure, he was still trying to guess the nature of your relationship with Rick, he knew you were not related, he also knew he didn’t want to get into your panties or you his, you were with the archer, the wildest of these people, his future soldier.

What was your role in all of this? Rick listened to you, as he saw it today.

He needed to play it right, or everything he had built could be put in jeopardy.

But now? Oh, he had the perfect opening, he knew his people had cleaned the surroundings, you were not going to find anything, so that gave him the opportunity to actually “save you”, a good beginning.

He was the savior for a reason, right?

You went back to the house, and it was afternoon, the sun was shining, so you could sneak out of the day’s activities, you needed it, rather than deserved it.You loved your room, because at this special hour, the sun sneaked through the windows and hit it just right over your bed, warming it up for you.

You could activate “plant mode”, and do some photosynthesis in your bed. (You knew that wasn’t a process humans made but plans, but it was still funny to think about it).

But Daryl found you, as you finally got to the perfect position on the bed when the sun hit you in your back, and you had positioned the pillows just right.

“Hey”, he greeted gently, “ya feeling good?”, you only hummed

“Just a bit drowsy, that’s all”, you mumbled

“Is it that damn pill?”, you barely nodded, half your face in full contact with the pillow, “Ya need anything?”, you shook your head, “I’m gonna go, with Carol, to prepare for tomorrow”, you nodded again, you loved being wrapped up in Daryl’s embrace, but this felt just too good.

When the time to eat something came upon you, you were straight up roadkill.

You sat on the table and barely listened to anything that was being said, but not really, you felt like you were underwater, but you survived it. You charged the walkies for tomorrow, and then you escaped to find sleep again.

Daryl followed you up, actually.

“Brought our pajamas”, he said gently

“Do you mind if we only sleep tonight?”, you asked him, he only caressed your face, and kissed you softly. And you slept together, cuddling. no funny business.

So the very next day you were waiting by the gate. You were determined to make this right, this was important to Daryl, so this was important to you. Alexander had given you a pair of military boots that was the most comfortable thing you had ever tried, and you were wearing comfortable but thick clothes, nothing restraining, you had your loaded Pentagon gun with your silencer in your holster and your trusted ax in your other side, with two knives in your boots.

You gathered, the fifteen of you, four cars.

“Alright, everybody knows where to go”, said Alexander, “everybody got their missions”, he said then, “If you find dynamite, communicate through the walkies”, he said, “if you are not sure, don’t manipulate without me or Rosita”, you all nodded, “let’s come back at sundown”, and everybody splits.

You met with Daryl and Carol.

But the thing is, you had this unique and toxic ability to match the temper of people around you, and the second you saw Carol’s butt face she was wearing for the day, your temper immediately got sour. And Daryl seemed like he was the one that was going to be handling two misshapen explosives for the rest of the day.

“Are you gonna go on your bike?”, you asked Daryl, he nodded, “I will take the truck, so we can carry what we find”, you said

“I’ll go with you”, Carol said gingerly to Daryl, who looked at you, alarmed, you barely nodded with a smile, preferring to have a long nice lone ride in the truck

“You know where we are going, right?”, you asked him, he nodded, “lead the way”, you got in the truck and lit it up, you were the second group to leave Alexandria after Rick’s. Who left in the HUMVEE that Alexander had not let you drive yet.

You stole his CD though, and you were blasting that Scorpion’s song all the way up. While Daryl drove his bike in front of you with Carol attached to his back

You were not jealous, you were not threatened, you were fine.

It took you about an hour to reach your destination, you left the truck in a more secluded spot, as Daryl pulled up on his bike.

Carol was smiling, but it was quickly shut down when she saw you coming out of that truck. You wanted to say you tried, but her attitude wouldn’t have let you.

Carol opened the back door of the truck to grab her weapon. You made sure to have a “pleasant” look on your face, and she was not giving you an opening. This was going to be harder than you believed.

“We should split up”, said Carol, grabbing onto her gun, Daryl immediately looked at you, because he knew you did not like it.

“Yeah”, you accepted, he opened his mouth on protest, “if you see walkers, do not engage, or do, you know your abilities and risks”, you liked to lead, you had proven yourself to be a decent leader, but this time, you just… wanted to get this over with.

“The whole point of this…”, he started, but when he saw your faces, he shook his head and sighed, “I’ll take the bike, check the perimeter”, Daryl mumbled, “you go to that small town”

“Yeah”, you said, and started walking, they shared words, you didn’t listen, but kept walking. You heard Daryl’s motorcycle going away until the sound disappeared and that left Carol and you.

“The point of this whole thing was for us to bond”, she said, and you didn't know her enough to determine if she was being sarcastic or not.

“This point of this is to look for explosives to eliminate a potential full destruction level threat to our community”, you corrected, “making this a bonding exercise is proving to be a colossal mistake”, you kept going, “besides you were the one that proposed for us to split up”

“Daryl told me you were a great leader”, she said, oh, she was testing you, she wanted you to fight her, to make you all stay together. Shame on you, did she want to clean her hands out of this madness? pinning its failure on you?

“A good leader is only a good leader if they have willing people to follow”, you said then, as you were walking in the main street. Whatever game it was, you were not playing, this was a mission.

“Daryl is my best friend”, she said, you only stopped to look back at her, “so that means we are supposed to be… friendly”, she said. What were you? fifteen?

“Says the one that put a sharpened chicken bone in my food”, you said back, she frowned, your anger was quickly overpowering your fear of her, and the thing is, you were fight, not flight, you learn that the hard way. “Look I know you two created that kind of bond that is stronger than blood, and I respect that, and I will keep doing that…”

“I don’t know what he sees in you”, she interrupted, ouch

“... you are right, let’s just be cordial”, you invited, “I will not get in your way, you will not get in on mine, Daryl loves us both, and that’s what’s important to me, we don’t have to be friends, we just need to keep clear of each other's relationship with him”, you were offering her an out, a peace agreement, you didn’t know what she looked like she was angrier than before.

“He loves you, uh?”, she said in a whisper

“That's what he said”, you said gently, “and I love him”, you assured her, she came close to you, you didn't back down, and she leaned in

“If you hurt him in any way, shape or form I will slit your throat”, she whispered into your ear, “and then I will stab you in the base of your skull”, she said. You looked back at her, normally you would be fearful, but again, you were fight, so you just looked at her.

“If I do hurt him, I might even let you”, you only said back. You then separated from her slowly, “You are part of this family, and that makes you my family too, if you injure yourself, I’ll aid you, if you need anything, I’ll help you, if I see you being attacked by a walker or even an enemy I will eliminate that threat for you, but I don’t really see us exchanging recipes”, you admitted, she looked at you, squinting, and then she nodded, “I’ll take the right side of the street”, you said. Walking away from her.

You were checking the third building, when you saw through a backside window… A highschool. You saw one of those big military trucks, and the remains of what one day could have been… a real battlefield near the gymnasium.

So you went there. Arm in hand.

You approached the military vechile first, it was fucked up, rest of walkers everywhere, it had crashed against a wall. You checked the inside, and there was nothing interesting. You heard growling, a walker, who had been a military man, came for you, you put it down nice and easy. With your ax, because… you then searched him for grenades, and you couldn’t find anything on him.

“HEY! YOU!”, you looked up, and you saw two men right in the corner of the building you were just in. you stood up quickly, “STOP!”, one commanded, you didn’t want to sound judgemental, but they looked like they were up to no good.

You took two warning shots

So that left you with 2 less…

“That’s far enough gents!”, you said, pointing your gun at them, they were like 50 meters away from you, perfect range. But… they didn't take them as warning shots, they took out their big ass guns, “SHIT!”, you cursed and you dived behind the truck as a rain of fire fell on you. The truck was big enough so you could see underneath, you took pretty good shots, hitting one of them in the leg, but you missed the others

1, 2, 3… 4, 5 and 6

Count your shots… this isn’t a movie, said the voice of Mayor inside your head.

9 to go then.

“Come out here”, they said, one whining about the shot on his leg, “we don’t wanna hurt you!”, yeah right. To your complete horror, you saw a truck pulling up, more guys coming in

“Hey! What the hell is going on?”, you jumped from your hiding spot now that they were distracted and you shot all you could while you took cover inside the big gym. But oh you shouldn’t have done that. You quickly realized that you didn't have any more bullets and that thing had only one viable exit was the one you just entered, as the other was completely obstructed by chairs, tables and other things.

You looked around, only bleachers and then… on top of them, looking right at you like an owl on a branch up a tree was a guy

“Hey”, he called for you quietly.

“Who the fuck are you?”, you asked, coming towards him ax in hand, he didn’t have any guns on him, he showed you his hands, so when you reached him, you stood still, you did not attack him.

“I’m Jesus”, you looked at him weird, “I’m Paul, but my friends call me Jesus”, he corrected

“And who the fuck are them?”, you asked pointing to outside

“They call themselves Saviors”, he said, “I’m not with them”

“Do you have a camp?”, you asked, he nodded, “me too”

“Come out here darlin’ we know you are in there!”, you hear them cry out. “There’s no way out!”

“What are you doing here?”, he asked

“Scavenging”, you answered, “how ‘bout you?”

“Yeah, me too”

“Are they going to kill me?”, you asked Jesus looking out there.

“Did you kill any of them?”, you shook your head, “then you should be good”

“Fuck you Yeezus I don’t believe you!”, you whispered angrily

“Come out here sugar, or we are going in!”, they mocked, you whined. Gods you shouldn’t have shot at them, your heart was beating so fast, you didn’t know what to do, but they were coming in, you couldn’t stop them, and they were going to find you both in here. You could see them out there through a darkened window. There were only two.

But when you properly saw the truck that had pulled over, you gasped

It was a white Toyota Tacoma with an Atlanta plate, actually, Georgia plate, it was… the truck YOUR TRUCK, THE EXTERMINATORS INC TRUCK. it still had the M2 mounted in the back.

“I’m here with two more people, so if you encounter a rough guy on a motorcycle, his name is Daryl, please tell him what happened here…” you told him, “...please…”

“Don’t go out there!”, he said quickly. But you needed to find out what that was about

“If I don’t they will come in here and find you too, there is no other way out!”, you said, “I’m out of bullets anyways”, he looked concerned, “If you find another group, ask for Rick, or Daryl, please, I’m (y/n)”, you said, “please tell them what happened”, you repeated.

“Where’s your camp?”, he asked quickly

“I can’t tell you that”, you answered, getting out of the platform you were in

“But wait!”, he said, but you didn't listen, you jumped out of there

“Sorry gentlemen!”, Jesus saw you walk out with your hands in the air, “but you’ll have to understand..”, he laughed when he saw you punch one of them in the face and kick the other in the nuts and started sprinting down the street, losing you from sight.

It was an open ground, so you had no choice but to run ahead, hoping to lose them back on the street, but a gunshot that rang by your ear made you stop on your tracks.

You had to be smart about this

“STOP RIGHT THERE!”, you stopped as there were two other guys, counting up to four, but they didn’t approach you, only the two you started the fight with. You turned around angrily.

“What the fuck do you want from me?”, you asked him

“Hey! you fired first!”, they looked badass, but dangerous, but they sounded idiotic

“Warning shots! A girl can only be too careful”, you said simply

“Well, it doesn’t matter, you are in our territory”, you wanted to laugh

“I’m sorry, but I’m not bothering anyone”, you said angrily, “who the fuck do you think you are?”

“You're scavenging on his grounds”, he said as the smartass he believed himself to be, you raised an eyebrow

“Oh I’m sorry, tell the mayor of whateverthisfuckingtownis that I’m very sorry, is the sheriff coming for me?”, you mocked

“Let’s see if Negan finds it funny”, he said

“Who the fuck is Negan?”, you ask

“We are Negan”, you sighed.

“Third person this ‘itch?, alright then”, you said, “(y/n) would like to be left alone”, you said mockingly

“Listen you little bitch”, grunted one, “Are there more people with ya’?”, he asked, “Negan would like to know”, you just looked at this man dead in the eye

“Is Negan in the room with us?”, you asked softly, they both frowned

“Where’s your camp?”, they asked

“I don’t have one”, you said quickly

“Where do you keep your shit then?”, asked the other, the dumber looking one

“In a cute house down P. Ennis street”, he lunged at you, grabbing you by the neck, he squeezed. The other grabbed his arm, you were on the tip of your toes trying to relieve the pressure. You looked for your ax and you realized you didn’t have it with you, shit you must have left it inside, with that guy. Shit! your ax! no!

“Where the fuck do you come from?”, he asked, squeezing.

“I’m sure Negan is gonna want to talk to her”, he said surely to his pal, so he released you

“I’m not going anywhere with you wackos”, you said angrily, you saw, behind them and up a building, Carol was watching.

“We’ll take a little trip”, said one

“No! fuck off!”, that is when the side of your head met the back of his gun.

And everything turned black.

PCN: DON'T GET ME WRONG I love Carol, I love her character, I just don't like her, like, if I knew her personally, I think i wouldn't like her at all, BUT her character is super cool and I love her relationship with Daryl

I had written that scene with the saviors for like CENTURIES, I think is the first thing I ever wrote for this and i'm so happy its finally "here"

@crazyunsexycool @capricxnt

#misguidedcats #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #twd fanfic #daryl dixon #daryl dixon the walking dead #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl #daryl x reader #daryl fanfiction #twd #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon fanfiction #carol peletier

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oh-no-its-bird · 3 months

Text

Sat down and was like "What's the dumbest, most out of pocket crossover I can think of with Naruto." Then remembered that one guy who just went "Madoka magica" under my TMA crossover post and started giggling

So yeah, @thr33dogsinatrenchcoat this one goes out to you, I hope ur happy

So my first thought was just Homura in Naruto, but then my brain said no. Kyubey in Naruto. And then I really lost it

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you,

✨️ magical girl Kakashi ✨️

Major Spoilers for Madoka Magica below the cut

(Funilly enough, this has been in my drafts for a while now, well before I started getting really into my magical girl izuna AU)

A quick explanation for those of you here for Kakashi content who have no clue what Madoka Magica is;

Kyubey is a pink immortal rat thing from space who offers specifically pre-teen girls contracts to become magical girls. The girl will be granted a wish as their payment for the contract, then have to fight monsters known as Witches.

How big the wish that they can have granted (wishing for a cake vs wishing to revive the dead for example) depends on their potential as a magical girl. The girls magical girl theme and power will revolve around whatever wish they made— ask for someone to be healed and you may be able to heal faster, ask for happiness and maybe you get to be an empath, etc. As long as you can somehow connect the power to their wish, anything is fair game.

It's later revealed that a) the "soul gem" every magical girl is given when they become a magical girl is literally their soul in physical form. Kyubey just straight up removed their soul from their body and put it in a ROCK. Yes this does mean you can torture a magical girl via her soul gem, and yes if the soul gem gets too far from the girl she will collapse like a puppet who's strings were cut.

And b) witches are actually magical girls who fall victim to negative emotions and have their soul gems consumed by darkness either because they were swallowed by grief or from using too much magic without being able to clean their soul gem (which they can only do by killing witches)

Kyubey does all this because magical girls specifically within the age range of a middle schooler, give off a specific kind of energy when they transform into the witches that Kyubey's race farms for reasons I don't really remember anymore but I'm pretty sure has to do with it being mandatory for their race to live? Dunno it's been years since I watched madoka

Ok context over now for the fun part:

Something about the way humans are made in this world means Kyubey is not restricted to prepubescent girls in offering contracts. It's probably related to their chakra coils or something; Which also translates interestingly into how your amount of chakra and your chakra control affects your power as a magical girl.

Both of which Kakashi has in the bag.

I've read a few different takes about how Kakashi's chakra reserves are actually really big, he's just always running dangerously low bc of the constant drain of the sharingan. (I think this was actually confirmed in one of the novels? Which is neat) And since the overall 'potential' of his maximum chakra reserves is what wins out when it comes to the magical girl contract, he's our ideal customer.

Now, for this set up we aren't going to be using the "Kyubey and the magical girl system have just been around for a long while" but instead we're going with the "kyubey is new to this world and, seeing all of this potential energy, is looking to take a few of these bad boys on a test drive to see how well they work."

(Though there's a very interesting fic there with the angle of kyubey as maybe the equivalent of a 10th secret biiju, maybe locked away somewhere, and maybe released by forming a contract with someone— His junchuriki perhaps?)

This brings up an interesting question! A world where theyre havent been any magical girls yet made means that its a world without witches. And in a world without witches, what is Kyubey's explanation for why he needs magical girls when asked?

In the show we are shown that if pressed and asked the right questions, Kyubey will often tell the truth of the matter — that eventually a magical girl will self destruct and Kyubey farms the energy they release when they turn into a witch.

I can't see any shinobi worth their salt just accepting a suspicious contract for even more suspicious power from an impossibly MORE suspicious little magic rat thing. Kakashi especially. Questions WILL be asked and I do think it wouldn't actually be that hard to get Kyubey to give up the truth. Honestly, knowing the things personality and how it likes to take the logical approach, he might see that just telling the truth may actually help convince some people.

Because yeah, horrible fate aside, it's a lot easier to buy into promises of power when you know exactly what the catch will eventually be, and when it'll probably start kicking in.

There's a lot of people in Naruto who would can and have traded a LOT more than just their soul for power and a free wish. I can see people taking Kyubeys deal as is, Kakashi included under the right circumstances.

And besides that, there are plenty of times when the situation is last minute and intense to have the time to ask questions. Kyubey appearing in some life or death battle offering a miracle would probably be able to get a "fuck it what's the worst that can happen" from pretty much anyone

Anyways there are a few different paths we can take with the how's and why's Kakashi becomes a magical girl, and it largley depends on when exactly Kyubey approaches him about it.

1; Minato Route

Wishes for Minato and everyone to please just stay safe during "Madara's" attack, saving them and trading his soul for it in the process. He has no regrets tho, he refuses to.

This path I think would be fun if Kyubey shows up for the first time super last minute and Kakashi is pressed into a rushed contract and rushed wish. But I can also see if maybe he'd been approached by Kyubey beforehand, it's just that he was trying to sort out whether he trusted the rat enough to make a deal and sort out the exact wording of his wish. But oops no more time for that Kyubey please just keep his family safe!

It'd be fun if that was his exact wording actually. "I wish to keep my family safe"

Maybe it'd mean that even in the future, if he finds someone he considers to be his family, the wish will grow and apply to them? And then ""safe"" is such an abstract concept, especially to shinobi. What does it mean to be safe? Maybe it can end up backfiring in some way eventually, idk

2; Obito Route

^ Like he considers obito family, so maybe Obito is out there reaping the benefits of this wish as he tears shit up bc Kakashi never considered his wish could protect someone who might wish him harm.

This'd also mean Minato and Kushina are around!!! That'd impact a fuck ton of stuff for sure. I feel like without them dissapearing as his final push off the edge, Kakashi for sure wouldn't be the same guy we see in canon. He at least has some form of safety net to catch him, even if he's deep in depression and might not realize that net is there.

After either Kanabi bridge or Rin's death, Kakashi is approached by Kyubey, reads the terms and conditions of the contract, and then wishes for Obito and or Rin to come back to life. This, specifically with Obito, I see going one of two ways;

Kyubey, a bastard, who somehow magically knows Obito is alive: "Are you sure this is what you want to use your wish for?"

Kakashi: "fuck you yes I am"

Kyubey: "I mean if you say so lmao" (Less work for me)

Or,

Kyubey, somehow magically knowing Obito is alive and not wanting to have Kakashi waste this wish because say what you will, he's fair about this shit (to a degree anyways): "Unfortunatley I can't revive people who never died!"

Kakashi: "What."

*queue Kakashi going on a mission to find Obito and becoming a sparkly magical girl along the way wooo we love to see it*

3; The great dilemma, aka TIME TRAVEL !!!!!!!!!!!!

He failed Itachi, leading to the deaths of the entire Uchiha clan.

I'm so sorry you guys time travel is like 90% of what I do and I don't think it's gonna change any time soon

So, Kakashi is approached by Kyubey after the Uchiha massacre. At this point he has a whole fucking list of people he might want to try to revive or save, but he can only make a wish so big. He has enough power to wish one or two people back from the dead— an honestly incredibly feat in itself —but not everyone.

He failed his team, leading to their deaths and Naruto's sad orphan life.

He failed countless mission partners over the years, watching shinobi's fall dead left and right because of a wrong call or knife thrown a second too late

Now for his relationship with Kyubey—

He can't wish them all back. But he can wish for a second chance.

And yeah ok as I'm writing this I'm realizing we've turned right back around and started a fr Madoka magica AU I didn't mean to do that actually, oops.

But yeah time travel magical girl Kakashi !!! Given the time to really think about his wish and too many people to save, he wishes for a second chance.

Does he end up in his kid body or does he stay an 18 year old?

Is he alone or does Kyubey (having learned his mistake from Homura and Madoka) make sure to come along with?

Does his sharingan somehow pull Obito back with him or is he really alone?

Fuck ok actually as I write this one I think this might be The One, The AU, so we're gonna shelve this for another post on its own so we can keep just talking ab the set up.

So disclaimer, I haven't actually watched Madoka in forever, but I think it's safe to say that Kyubey is honestly pretty decent when it comes to guiding his magical girls? I mean, up until they fall off a cliff of despair and turn into monsters, but till then he holds up his end of the contract really well? He'll generally come when they call, answer their questions when asked, check in on them to make sure they're adapting to the lifestyle, sometimes even help keep them informed about local magical girls or witches or just give out free advice.

Don't get me wrong, Kyubey is a fucking rat and not to be trusted, he tricks little girls into literally selling their souls, but he has a clear work ethic and method. He's just also incapable of feeling human emotion and seems genuinely confused at why people would be alarmed or upset at, you know, everything.

But I think that's what would make him work so well in a shinobi world! Especially if he looks at the world and it's people and decides that upfront honesty would be the best play in recruiting someone as his magical girl test drive.

I think it could be interesting if Kakashi and Kyubey could have an actually somewhat positive relationship. Well, as positive as it can get for a traumatized ninja boy and a space rat with no real concept of human emotions outside of what it's read in a textbook about manipulating little girls.

They have an alarmingly functional workplace relationship. Kakashi signed a contract knowing what kind of death it'd probably lead him to (and it's not like it's that different from the end he already knows he'll face one day) and Kyubey is contractually bound to stick around and lend a helping hand and a bit of companionship when applicable.

Also, with Kakashi being his first magical girl test run in this world, he's just kind of monitoring the project? He wants to see it to the end before he gets started on widespread magical girl contracts, because again, logical emotionless little rat thing who knows better than to assume that since it's gone well so far it'll end well too. He wants to collect ALL the data before settling in for good.

Kyubey is giving Kakashi weirdly reaffirming (and much needed) positive reinforcement in all of this. He's impressed with how well the project is going! Kakashi is going through so much constant misery that despite somehow not turning into a witch out of despair, he's still giving a near constant output of that same energy Kyubey farms that usually only comes out when a magical girl witches out. Maybe that's also actually something related to the chakra coils— instead of giving one big explosion of energy when they turn into a witch, the people of this world are able to give a continuous stream of it just by existing and being miserable. Which also gives Kyubey even more of a reason to want to see Kakashi keep living! This guy is a one man army when it comes to energy! It's great!

Also it'd be kind of fucked up but in a funny way if Kyubey straight up told Kakashi this (Maybe Kakashi actually asks to be kept up to date on all of Kyubey's little project notes of studying him?) And it being somewhat of a comfort to him. Like. Yeah, he's a failure cursed to always have those he loves die in his arms or at his hands, but at least his suffering is helping the universe in some way! That's something, right? Right???

Anyways, power and appearence time

So like, obviously there's a VERY large chance that Kakashi would end up with some sort of healing power as a magical girl. Because yknow, there is basically no universe where Kakashi doesn't use his wish to either heal someone, protect someone, or bring someone back from the dead— which lines up pretty directly to a healing based power.

But just normal healing is too boring so lets get spicy with it! Let's lay out some power options!

1) Blood healing

So my favorite twist on a normal healing power is a simple one; He regenerates stupid fast, to the point that he can even reattach limbs, but it's all in his blood. As long as his blood is touching a wound, it's healed in seconds to minutes.

This is also means his blood can also be used to heal others! For good or for bad. Fights can get a lot more complicated when your enemy realizes that they can use your own healing methods on them— even if the blood does only work on what it can touch, so they gotta risk shoving that shit in there if the wound is too deep.

If you want an extra bit of spice on top of that also, you can say the blood doesn't just heal people. Maybe it can heal any living thing— plants included

(I'm ngl I typed all this out then kind of squinted at my screen and went wait isn't this what Karin does? I don't actually know the details of her powers no one tell me if I'm right, I don't actually care)

2) Wound substitution

Here's an incredibly in character ability; He can take on the wounds of his comrades. They get hurt but he takes the hit. It'd so fit his self sacrificing ass too.

Maybe he can have advanced healing from the wounds he steals from his companions, maybe he only inherits them by halves, maybe it's the full deal.

Maybe it's involuntary or maybe he can only do it on purpose. Involuntary could be interesting and offer serious consequences down the line.

I'd love to see a dog themed magical girl Kakashi I think it would cure all of my mental illnesses and give me like 30 more.

3) Sheilds but make them zappy

Thunder shields could be interesting. Maybe he can use the shields to encase his limbs to deliver an extra oomf or smthn, just for funzies.

4) Something to do with eyes

You know I gotta at least consider smthn with eyes, like cmon. Whether it's because his wish was phrased in a way that could catch on it, or it's just how the magic interacted with his sharingan, I wanna see some eye stuff!!!

Maybe whatever healing ability he has is all centered in the eye or smthn, or maybe if it's like a self healing ability he regenerates eyes first or smthn idk.

4) Time powers ✨️

You know I had to.

In the route where he wishes for a second chance he so gets time powers. It's very cool. It's also very very fucking OP so it'd be tricky to work around in giving him a fr obstacle. Maybe if Obito comes back with him, the sharingan somehow makes him immune? Like, whenever Kakashi stops time, Obito isn't stopped.

I'm ngl Im running low on power ideas rn so let's move on, but like leave that open ended

Would Kakashi's magical girl outfit be something that adapts to his style and is created by his subconscious desires, as I'm pretty sure is accurate according to Madoka Magica lore? Yes. But do I think it would be funny to put him in a fluffy magical girl skirt? Even bigger yes, put that man in a dress and heels immediatley.

For Kakashi's soul gem, I think it'd be really fun if instead of taking the form of a ring, it was instead either an earring or— hear me out guys, lip ring or tongue piercing

It's perfect! He already hides his face, no one would even know it was there! Also both lip rings and tongue piercings are so cute

His soul gem is red with a silver case and we all know why. When he transforms it doesn't glow red tho, it glows white because something something hatake white chakra or something, idk

Anyways this has been sitting in my drafts for like 2 weeks now, so I'm gonna go ahead and hit post even tho I'm not totally satisfied with what I have here. Better to put it out for the few who'd enjoy it than keep it in the trunk bc I'm unsatisfied, right? Maybe I'll come back to it later, idk.

#i LOVE just going “whats a stupid crossover idea and how can I take it way too seriously”#its so much fun #birds fic talk #naruto #madoka magica #kakashi #hatake kakashi #kakashi hatake #magical girl #magical girl kakashi #magical girl Kakashi AU #hatake #obito uchiha #uchiha obito #kyubey #madoka #magical girl au #obito

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tblsomedoodles · 7 months

Note

C R A V E

more Donnie VS The World content. It makes me vibrate and scream and wiggle like I'm off my meds. I would love anything, even a solid block of text, but your doodles/full artworks/comics are my favorite.

Please? All I've found so far is what we see in the donnieverse comic and the MVA/AMV (music video animatic/animatic music video). So many questions, like - is Casey (Sr) involved in any way, whethercas a fellow captive or rescue mission teammate? Is this the True Apocalypse or Averted Apocalypse timeline? If the latter, where is Casey (Jr)? How is Splinter handling it? (Is he even still alive to be Having Emotions About It?)

(Please feed me.

B L E A S E)

(If you don't mind, could you show/tell how Donnie escapes, one of his first Big Leads that gives him so much hope he cries, and/or the Big Reunion? One would be nice, two would be great, and all three would be amazing. If they aren't planned/are too spoilery, that's okay. Anything you can/are willing to give would be lovely.)

Thank you!! I'm glad you like it : ) I don't think I've answered many asked about this particular au, so i'm more than willing to talk about it! : )

I don't really have much up for it, mostly b/c it deals with a lot of angsty material that i can be a little uneasy about posting. I have a bit of old concept art, and an unposted fic i'm editing/rewriting (b/c it's the first fic i wrote for Rise and i did not have those character voices down lol.) I can probably post the first bits of it later this week. I did say at one point that i would once 'proud family tradition' was over, and it now is.

but yeah, here's the concept art, i'll put the explanation under the break b/c i'm going to be rambling lol.

So Donnie vs. takes place after the thwarted apocalypse (not-apocalypse future). They get taken by Bishop a few months afterwards, and it isn't until about a year after that, that Donnie gets free.

He's the last one still with Bishop at that point, and had been told/convinced through various means that his brothers were dead.

Bishop did a lot of experiments on him, leaving a lot of scaring. One of which was injecting him with Krang DNA to see what would happen. (the eye and veins thing. I think he has some side effects from that but i'm not entirely certain what they are atm)

The fic itself starts after his rescue, b/c i'm focusing on Donnie's search for his brothers (and his own recovery) Rather than the traumatic event itself.

The rescue itself, was certainly a rescue. April, Casey, and CJ worked together to get him out of there as well as gain whatever information they could before they were found out. (Casey went undercover and was able to get some incomplete files and help get donnie out before she was discovered and had to leave.)

donnies in...pretty bad shape at that point, mentally and physically. Physically, he's malnurished, injured, scared, the works. Bishop did a number on him in the year he had him.

Mentally, he's pretty much shut down. He's completely non-verbal, unresponsive most of the time, when he does respond it's very slow and seemingly difficult for him to do so. He describes it that it feels like he's behind several plates of thick glass. He can see and hear what's happening, interacting (or even just feeling anything about it) is very hard to get past the glass.

How he goes from that state to hunting down his brothers is fairly simple. One of the broken, encripted files Casey acquired was Leo's file. None of the three could open it, but they managed to get Donnie to try to do so. He manages it, sees the file, and for the first time in about a year, has hope. He doesn't even wait to show the other three, he just takes off while no one was looking, with April's laptop and CJ's coat (he steals a backpack along the way.)

I don't really want to say much past that. A lot of the rescues/reunions are pretty spoiler heavy, and i don't want to ruin some of the mystery of what's going on in the fic. But know this, he does get all his brothers (and family in general) back. Also, splinter is alive and is part of this, but again, that's spoilers for some things i don't want to ruin.

Again, i'll probably start posting this sometime this week. It's an interesting fic that i've put quite a bit of time into at this point, so i'll be excited to see what is thought of it.

Thank you!

#asks #tmnt #rottmnt #donnie vs the world #my doodles #medical experimentation

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damianbugs · 7 months

Note

thoughts on bruce x jack drake?

hello anon apologies for the late reply but when i first received this ask i immediately assumed there was a leak in mine and @plutoslvr messages because we were literally talking about it about two seconds beforehand. i could barely sleep that night.

my thoughts are that old man yaoi is so enjoyable when it's just slightly ridiculous and entirely impossible. there are three ideal sections of the brujack ship (enjoyed by population NO ONE, apparently, but with our combined efforts i imagine we can spark this flame):

rivals to lovers

bruce wayne vs wanting to bone people who want him dead

doomed by the narrative

1. rivals to lovers.

bruce and jack competing in the worlds most intense "who is the best average-leaning-towards-okay dad" battle. trying to outperform in casual "okay dad" actions to win "okay dad" points from tim, something that is totally normal and entirely possible (jack is always in the lead and bruce has not yet realised that he will never overtake him).

this one is so fucking funny to me. silly events such as them fighting on who gets to take tim to his school events, comprising on taking turns (for tim's sake, not because they want to) or attending them together (the pta now think bruce wayne and jack drake are in a relationship). jacks like im taking tim to the skate park and bruce is like well i told tim i'd take him to lunch — now it's bruce and jack taking their kid to the park then lunch together and the paparazzi have no idea how to headline this.

i imagine eventually tim can't handle this truly bizarre tension filled dynamic anymore so he cancels last minute and bruce and jack are like, well, we've already booked a table at this super expensive restaurant AND that cool movie afterwards, so we might as well make use of them.

at some point the "i HAVE to one up the other guy to impress my son" becomes "i HAVE to one up the other guy to impress our son AND so he realises how i'm obviously a catch"

i imagine eventually when they form some sort of established relationship ("do not call me your damn boyfriend, bruce, are we fifteen?") the rivalry doesn't really stop, but it's far more fond and well, tim's just glad he doesn't need to set aside two days a week to make sure he spends time with each of them.

2. bruce wayne vs wanting to bone people who want him dead

now we all know bruce's ideal type is someone who is either a) actively a danger to his life or b) was at some point more inclined to being a danger in his life or a secret third thing that is c) would become a danger to his life if pushed slightly in that direction. we've no time to psychoanalyse this but it's hardly a point that needs to be explained after taking a look at his long list of exes.

now, after this, is it truly out of the realm of possibility that after jack drake finds out that bruce wayne is the fucking batman and is to partly blame for tim's dangerous life choices he stomps over to the man's house and threatens to SHOOT HIM, that bruce wants him carnally. my exact words when reading this scene was "rather reservedly, i imagine this level of foolish and almost stupid bravery impressed bruce, regardless if it it was for entirely unselfish reasons on jack's part or if it was genuinely out of care for tim" i then say "i also think this would have moved bruce, emotionally, figuratively, poetically, sexually WOAH"

we all know that canonically when bruce falls in love or becomes even slightly interested in someone, he goes STUPID and impulsive. he's sending jack rare artefacts and really specific gifts and throwing galas with the sole purpose of inviting jack all without even considering that is actually not a normal response to have after someone threatens to kill you. perhaps he doesn't even realise this is something more than just paranoid obsession, and he tries to rationalise it like "i'm only trying to convince him to come with me to the museum so i can work out what kind of person he is in casual date settings and also to kiss him WAIT"

this one is funny if jack is just not interested at all and he's like okay what the fuck what kind of mind games is this guy trying to pull. tim is your mentor trying to tell me something through the purchase of these front seat opera house tickets and tim is like i can't believe this is real life i hope this is all a nightmare this can't be happening to me. bruce is hopelessly infatuated and jack is like don't think i won't file a restraining order against you BATMAN.

or it can get funnier if jack is like I WONT FALL FOR YOUR SEDUCTION TECHNIQUES BATMAN (proceeds to fall for batman's seduction techniques).

bonus alfred is actively praying on jacks downfall (canon) and is experiencing war flashbacks when bruce begins to display lovesick behaviour

3. doomed by the narrative

now as you may have noticed most of these work before the bright red alarm that is JACK DRAKE'S TRAGIC DEATH. his death in and of itself is already so sad, because he was changing, he was better and tim was so close to having everything he wanted, and jack was truly hopeful to be present and good to his son.

if we now throw in the mix of this shortlived romance, wherein canon bruce is already swamped with guilt about janet's death and feels as though he OWES it to tim to save jack as well, it becomes all the more heartbreaking. i would actually change nothing about how it happened in canon. jack still leaves that phone call for tim, tim and bruce still race to get to him, tim still finds his father's dead body and bruce still holds tim away from the corpse.

because the best part about this potential relationship is that it is born from the shared want to look after tim. it's what connects them and what causes any sort of interaction between them. so even at this point, bruce's first priority is tim, because it will always be tim first, but also because that is what jack would have wanted from him.

just another love for bruce to hide in his heart, let it consume and damage him, let it make him colder and harder to approach, another layer on this already unbreakable foundation. it probably causes problems between tim and bruce, for the sake of mourning but not reacting and simply because loss can make people very unkind. bruce's guilt is now more than just what he already feels for somehow failing tim, but also for not being able to save someone he loves, again.

OR jack lives au and bruce is even MORE obsessed and insufferable about it and tim literally has to help his own dad break out of the manor because batman is holding jack hostage (bedrest for almost dying).

or we have our obligatory bruce wayne "I almost lost you, so now im going to push you away for both our sake" arc to which Jack drake probably threatens to shoot bruce again and then they do it silly HAPPY ENDING EVERYONE GO HOME

#me vs making up romance that isn't there but could be but probably not but WHAT IF #i didnt even mention the what if jack moved into the manor to recover post coma #or what if jack and bruce were together during no mans land #or short college romance jack and bruce #IM NORMAL #this is zafs fault tbh #bruce wayne #jack drake #tim drake

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eganeyes · 6 months

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you're my favourite blog and I NEED more of your demarco/macon headcanons [normal][im normal]..........maybe nsfw too if you've got them

hi!!! that is soooo very sweet of you to say considering the only vibes i bring to this fandom is deranged overfilled tags and unneeded breakdowns over callum turners face 😭🫰❤️

this is my previous demacon hcs post and the is this a modern au? a post war au? a no pow au? i literally cannot tell you because i do not know is still in effect here very sorry :')

apologies for like taking A While because i really squeezed out my creative juices for this SO:

‘he fell first’ benny vs ‘he fell harder’ macon yeah

i see benny as being free with his feelings, with his affections, there isn't a single person who doesn't get a bit of his heart with them when they leave. his parents' are designers, artists, and they teach him that to create is to love and when he creates bonds he pours love and never feels left with wanting. the minute macon opens his mouth, perfectly civil in taking down people down a notch with his intelligence and an extra brand of fuck you in his voice? he's instantly enamored.

macon, far more closed off—cautious to the point of near callousness, perfectly polite and tiring of talking to new people because more often than not he's being looked down upon and invisible, he doesn't think much of these 100th boys—until bennys there with an easy grin and easier hands, at the end of the day macons left admiring at bennys unflinching steadiness and unconditional kindness.

now for more silliness:

for some strange reason (he was forced.) benny confides about his crush to bucky. which is kind of weird because he's usually closer to buck—except one random day bucky sees benny—steady handed, light fingered benny demarco—grip at meatballs fur a tad too tightly and then stumbles on thin fucking air. he follows benny's unchanging gaze to: one richard macon. from that point on benny's fucked on a biblical proportion.

why he continues to seek out love advice from someone who doesn’t even have his shit together enough to notice his best friend is as in love with him as he is and also a known manwhore (because the conversation went sideways within two sentences) he does not know. it goes a bit like this:

okay, yes, i have a crush on macon.

……oh wow did you sleep with him? was it nice?

why would you ask me that?

you’re right im sorry i just tried to act cooly supportive and that came out. i have had sex before dw.

I’m not worried bucky but thank you.

but was it?

i didn’t have sex with him jesus.

oh wow you’re really bad at this

….please self reflect.

but the talk actually genuinely calmed him down 😭 bucky purposefully winding the conversation up down and sideways so benny could focus on the fact that crushes are supposed to be fun and electric and not the end of the world, benny laughing a bit and confiding more on what he thinks of macon—god i spent last weekend with him to his kid sister's science convention. i met his entire family, what the fuck. he's so soft with his little sister, he knows three languages, he's won every science competition he's ever entered, he's watched casablanca 3 times, he knows every star in the sky and their lores—

the two start out a mini mindmapping plan out for seducing macon, but like completely shit at keeping it a secret so the entire base finds out within 24hrs. benny kind of wants to die from this but when kidd actually starts vetoing buckys plans that benny couldn't for the life of him say no to, he's thankful

do not steal a b-17 to write your confessions on the sky with smoke what the fuck is wrong with you

......blakely's advice is actually not half bad, go on get some photos taken and printed

the entire shit i wrote out on the previous hcs list is a product of this full on 100th written plan out btw, but buckys ideas are very summarily buried never to be thought of again, except for this one thing

benny ties a ribbon around meatballs neck. attached to the ribbon is a letter. inside the letter is a request for a date. a date where meatball chaperones.

macon writes back, ribbon and meatball and all.

(meatball gets used as a conversation starter so fucking often macon thinks benny birthed the dog himself ffs)

god i am so fond of the idea of benny coming by the tuskegee base (again, please pretend their bases are like half a day away) and taking the effort to meet all of macons friends, charming every inch of the base, shooting the shit with alex and daniels again (daniels being initially a staunch demacon anti bc he's overprotective is a whole other thing aaa), making nice with his superiors that they are literally gunning for macon to court the guy back

the drawing that alex did of the two in the officers club is kept carefully pressed between the pages of macon's journal. he commissions another drawing of them for benny's birthday, pressed dried flowers himself around the watercolor sketch, and wrote winding letters in the back, of wanting a future outside of planes and skies he didn't think he'd ever want with someone else. he frames it and ships it to benny, who's in chicago at the moment and is geared for a roadtrip to birmingham, alabama the day after his birthday. times it perfectly so when its the day of his birthday, benny reads it, and whatever his answer is it'll be known in two-three days time: if he does arrive at macon's doorstep with a ring he hid on the side of the wooden frame—a little puzzle that only benny could solve.

now for something a bit more nsfw but like only a few bc i embarrassed myself writing this without the cover of anonymity

do i believe that they're switches? yes.

do i believe that their sex scene mainly revolves around benny face down ass up moaning like a whore while macon drives into him with the sole intent of making benny see galaxies? also yes.

do i believe that richard wakes him up via trailing fingers up from bennys ass, spanning the width of his marked up back, and scratching at bennys hair that when benny finally wakes up its to a gasp and to ground down his hips on the bed? ....yes.

do i also believe that benny spent an inordinate amount of time just worshipping richards cock with his mouth, pushing him back down by the chest when richard tries to rise and pull him off? grinning and humming when richards spluttering and panting and keening, legs hooked around his back like a vice and hands gripping at his hair? very much yes.

will richard bring forth physics talk to the bed? .....yeah.

also: macons a grunter, bennys a moaner 🤗

i am soo sorry for this btw but also thank you for letting me yap about demacon my beloveds <33333

#demacon #benny demarco #richard macon #look at that i called him richard right at the very end #this is honestly kind of superficial bc i can't write all these emotions i have 😭 but anon have at it anyway #and also shit at physics sorry can't write shit abt that #eganeyes

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batsplat · 3 months

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after 2015 until 2018 it seemed that things had calmed down a bit between valentino and marc, in the sense that they had started to be polite between them again and valentino no longer seemed to be on a war footing. then after argentina obviously the situation worsened again. in the podcast where valentino spoke in 2021 if I'm not mistaken, when he talks about marc,however, he only refers to the events of sepang and not to what happened in argentina which instead seemed to have been the final “divorce”. so my question is, during 2016 and 2017 did valentino just pretend to put up with marc? because in that podcast you can feel valentino's resentment is still a lot even after many years, so I imagine it must have been even greater in the two years immediately following sepang, even if it didn't seem if you see how he behaved

well. look. it was reflected in how valentino behaved... I think sometimes if you see isolated photos and gifsets, you can maybe be left with a bit of a mistaken impression of what that dynamic actually looked like for those two years. they got to a point post-catalunya where they were civil to each other, and maybe they'd exchange two lines in greeting, at podium celebrations, when somebody in a presser made a joke... and maybe marc at the very least was sincerely hoping they could get back to something like what they had before 2015. in reality, though, it was still very very far away. it wasn't open hostilities... at some point in 2016, valentino realised he simply couldn't go on like this. I talked about it a bit here:

you get this discrepancy in his 2016 output, actually. if you compare what he's saying that autumn for written press interviews vs what he's saying with marc right next to him... he'd clearly decided there was zero point in directly fanning the flames. at the sepang 2016 presser when marc and him are quizzed on what had happened the previous year, he just goes with marc's response and decides against reopening the controversy by adding anything from his side. but he still made it clear he hadn't changed his mind in interviews from the exact same time period! at times, he tolerates marc's tentative advances - at other times, he's almost accidentally sucked in, like he can't quite help himself from laughing at something marc has said. but there was never a period where he forgave marc for what he'd done... for various reasons he just decided he wasn't going to harp on about it too much. he did basically say as much post-argentina 2018:

but yeah, argentina 2018. it's an interesting one, isn't it? the stuff that valentino says there doesn't actually feel... quite in line with anything else he's said about marc. typically, when valentino criticises marc, it really is all about sepang 2015 - it's very focused, very specific, he's talking about being unable to forgive marc on a personal level for something marc had done to valentino... but it's not like he's really coming at marc for anything else... when other riders have gotten into spats with marc, he's stayed out of it - and generally he remains pretty neutral when he talks about everything else concerning marc. so, for example, there's a world where the moment alex rins is saying marc doesn't respect other riders in 2019, valentino immediately jumps at the opportunity to offer his hot take... but he doesn't do that. and yes, he had criticised marc's riding before, in particular in marc's moto2 days, but obviously those criticisms were considerably more restrained and sounded at times quite worried for marc's sake. (he also got close to that in silverstone 2016 when he remarked marc had 'something special' for their battles, but a) he's not wrong, except insofar as it's clearly mutual, and b) he explicitly said he didn't have a problem with that fight and considered it hard but fair). in 2017, when valentino was criticising other riders for being too aggressive... well, he wasn't doing so with marc, and he even conceded the point to marc in subsequent races after marc had obliquely criticised valentino at cota for his rhetoric not matching up to his own riding. when valentino's young riders have gotten into their own spats with marc, he's not waded in either, at most saying stuff about marc's fight with pecco that from his lips sounds almost like something akin to praise. radio silence after bez's run in with marc at the end of last year... argentina 2018 is the exception not the rule

and you know... at the end of the day, that was an emotional reaction. valentino might be wearing the habitual smile on his face during the media debrief and sound reasonably calm and composed, but he was furious. which, it's always worth remembering, isn't an entirely unreasonable reaction to that specific situation. yes, valentino doesn't have a clean track record either, but you're going to struggle to find such a... weaponised carelessness, a blatant disinterest in his fellow riders while shoving them aside, in the way marc was exhibiting that day - and indeed that whole weekend. looking back, of course argentina 2018 ended up being an isolated blot on marc's track record that he's not come close to repeating since (yes, he's made high profile errors that took out other riders, but it's different)... but we didn't know that at the time. also, I doubt valentino much appreciated being treated just like an obstacle in marc's path! the fact that valentino wasn't the only marc victim that weekend kind of has an interesting effect, because you have to doubt whether it would have helped if valentino felt like he was being targeted specifically by marc, but on the other hand... well, it's almost disrespectful, isn't it... being singled out is in a way still better than being brushed aside like any other rider

still, valentino's pushing it with his criticisms, he's out of line, and he clearly did lash out in the heat of the moment - which was of course largely a product of the resentment he'd been holding onto those past two years. calling marc's behaviour that day dangerous? sure, you'd find a lot of agreement for that. saying that marc was ruining the sport? that he was intentionally causing other riders to crash? ... well, hold on one moment. I reckon the simplest explanation is the best one here: valentino was angry and said stuff he wouldn't otherwise say, which we know because he's not done so before or since. of course, he was never going to retract what he said about marc that day - he wasn't ever going to apologise for it. not with their history, not when there was still just enough about those argentina comments that he meant... so he wasn't going to feel too much regret about the bits he wouldn't have said under any other circumstance. the problem post-2015 for valentino is that constantly signalling his fury to the world wasn't doing him much good... but pretending like everything was just fine clearly also took a bit of a toll. argentina 2018 wiped the slate clean - even though they gradually crept back towards basic civility after that. and valentino really didn't continue with that line of critique... since then he's basically completely reverted back to a sepang 2015-centric approach. maybe a few hints at it... in 2021, he said something along the lines of how he doesn't feel good when he's on-track with marc, but that's pretty generic while also crucially being personal - he's not saying marc is a problem for the series, he's saying it's them specifically that have an issue with each other

which doesn't mean he didn't believe what he said in argentina 2018 in the moment... when they reconvened in cota and had marc and valentino do separate media debriefs from the main presser, valentino said he stood by his comments - but also didn't actually repeat them or elaborate on them or anything. he's back to terse short responses to the press' questions, saying he wants to focus on the race ahead: kind of the go-to approach when it comes to marc post-sepang (with notable exceptions). he's walked his strongest comments back as much as he was probably ever going to - by simple virtue of the fact that he's left it at that. and you know, he's a complicated guy... 2016-17 was both pretending and it also wasn't. he didn't act like everything was forgotten, but he certainly was willing to let people believe that this relationship might end up being mended - which quite frankly was probably never going to happen. mostly, he was just sort of sick of the whole thing, struggling to enjoy himself in what had become such a charged, hostile environment for all the riders involved. at the same time, look - fundamentally, the interpersonal chemistry with marc was always fine. they click as people! they click as riders! marc makes valentino laugh! sometimes, that line between 'pretending' and 'letting yourself pretend' and 'actually not pretending at all' can be quite thin. when valentino talks in that time period about how much he enjoyed a battle with marc, of course he isn't lying - because he really does enjoy those fights! that's what racing is all about for him, and that's something him and marc still share! as long as marc isn't barging him aside and causing him to crash, that is. maybe it'd be easier if it were all a pretence, but it wasn't... sometimes, when you say you thought a race was hard and fair, you really do mean it and you really did have a lot of fun. sometimes, the struggle isn't actually acting nice for the cameras, it's trying to bite down the temptation to laugh alongside your sworn enemy

see also assen 2016... like, isn't this kinda wild? you've just had catalunya the race before, you've just had the mere semblance of a tentative start to a possible reconciliation - then they return to the place that was really the beginning of the end for them. they go on a few track familiarisation laps, including to check out the resurfaced final chicane (aka the scene of the crime). they race each other on said track familiarisation laps. then marc brings it up in the presser, giggling about the whole thing, and apparently valentino also finds it pretty funny - before he visibly swallows up his grin. later that weekend, marc pointedly decides to try out valentino's final chicane move himself during the warm up session. this is all obviously deranged, but it's a type of deranged where they are fundamentally on the same wavelength. it's the kind of ridiculous behaviour they're both incredibly fond of... you see it in how valentino shrugs off the towing at catalunya 2019, and thinks it speaks to marc's smarts and wiliness - unsurprising, really, because they're so similar in that regard, and valentino has never shaken his admiration for marc as a competitor

valentino can clamp down on his animosity towards a rival during his direct interactions with them... lord knows if you watch a few of the casey and valentino face-to-face interactions over the years, you really wouldn't match that up with the sheer vitriol of some of the stuff they were concurrently saying about each other in the press. that rivalry was never really personal (on valentino's end), it was never fraught in the same way (for valentino anyway) - still, it shows he's theoretically capable of separating this stuff out when he needs to... and he just about managed with marc for two years. if he had just been waiting for an excuse, surely you would have heard at least a hint of that when him and marc swapped paint in 2017. you never quite knew how he was going to answer the inevitable questions about marc's riding, but no direct criticism was forthcoming at any stage. the post-argentina 2018 rhetoric wasn't in any way premeditated from valentino's side, and personally I don't think he was just waiting for an excuse either. it was the result of a constant internal conflict between knowing that engaging in any more active beef with marc wouldn't do anyone any good, and the fact that he still hadn't forgiven marc... and then a race came along that simply pissed him off enough to push him over the edge

from 2016 onwards, valentino both very much wanted and very much did not want further conflict with marc, and neither of those impulses ever quite go away. usually, he's disciplined enough to avoid stoking the flames any further... potshots to the press outside of the paddock are essentially a free and harmless outlet in that regard, and even there you can tell he was trying to scale it back in the years where he was being forced to directly interact with marc. he was pretending and not pretending and sometimes pretending like he wasn't pretending and sometimes pretending like he was pretending. maybe it would have always just taken one major on-track confrontation for things to fall apart between them again... but you do kinda have to acknowledge the whole thing was really unfortunate. I've long thought that something like sepang 2015 was pretty inevitable as long as valentino managed to put himself in title contention once marc had joined the premier class, but I don't actually feel the same way about argentina 2018. an awful marriage of circumstance and coincidence and bad choices caused the relationship to fall apart again this badly. valentino might have had some more or less sincere misgivings about marc's riding, but at the end of the day he wasn't going to ever express them unless it got personal - because all of these people are incredibly self-centred and valentino wouldn't have felt like it was worth it. he lost his temper, he said some stuff he might partly but not fully believe, he's not inclined to bring it up again. that's that

#podcast was 2023 and also it's different now that he's retired. i think he tucked the resentment away when he actually interacted with marc #thing is direct exposure to each other inevitably seems to help the relationship BUT it's risky as long as they're both competitive #if you fuck about with their age gap i reckon they would've just gone through this cycle again and again lol. deeply deranged #low key jorge in 2009 made such a scrunchy interesting comment about how valentino deals with his rivals... i do need to write that essay #to main tag or not to main tag..... hm. nah let's not #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #u can kinda argue that both big valentino attacks on marc show the dangers of bottling things up...#like deadass if you'd just had normal amounts of drama before those incidents it wouldn't have been SO bad #just do a friendship break up with him after assen 2015 and everything after that is way more sane and normal #if you criticise him a bunch during 2017 for being a dick on track sure it sparks a lot of discourse but it makes arg '18 less horrendous #kinda just eats away gradually at him and then suddenly it boils over #goes both ways of course... marc's response to that misano 2019 quali incident did take me aback. very funny though #one of his most valentino-esque weekends in the sport start to finish. absolute cinema love that dickhead

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