#he also is a generally silly character. how much of his naivety

[chironsbug]

kinda funny that despite dean being my favourite character in jadoat and by far the most relatable, i cannot write in his POV. he's a fucking mystery to me.

[0luv9]

forlorn || mattheo riddle

Summary: based on this request.

Beware: angst, fluff, slightly aged-up characters, Hufflepuff reader, sweet reader, she/her pronouns used, mostly in second person, jealousy, mistreatment, a little bit of blood, slightly commanding(?) and intimidating Mattheo.

Words: 7.8k (not beta read)

Note: I am sorry luv, I don't think I did justice to the request. I also apologize for taking so long. I still hope you like it, even if it's just a bit. @cat-loves-music

Mattheo Riddle, son of Voldemort, or Tom Riddle if you will—for a more humane approach. But then, there's no humanity in the way he's treated. Always an outsider, always a monster.

There is wealth to his name; after all, he is the only living heir of Salazar Slytherin. However, his blood is corrupt, shunned by the very people who kissed the steps his baby feet took. Looked down on by the blood supremacists and not accepted by the other side, the "good side."

Even he was tired of the same sob story. He doesn't even need to introduce himself; they already have a preconceived image of him in their minds. He could try to fix his image in an ideal world, but even then, what would he say?

'Hello, everyone, I'm Mattheo Riddle, son of the man who once threatened your lives. Please welcome me with warm hands.'

Too cliché? Yes, but it's true and the only truth he knew.

Riddle didn't even know why the name Riddle was cursed and didn't know what his father did that made everyone's hate transcend generations. What made their hatred justified and his hate a crime? He didn't know until it was too late.

Mattheo was raised by the only living relative of his, his mother's aunt—the one who died recently. The one who kept all this hidden away from him hid all the Hogwarts' letters, raised him like her own, and protected him until her last breath. She loved him but all within the vicinity of the manor. He didn't know the world that existed beyond those walls.

He knew about the world outside only through the books she'd let him read. He thought it would feel liberating to step off the lavish floors onto the rich earth. It was everything but that.

"But Nona, why can't I go outside?" he remembers asking that silly question when he was about nine. What he wouldn't do to get that naivety back.

"Because, my dear, there are people out there who wouldn't like you. There are bad people outside ready to punish you," he also remembers crying when she told him that. He didn't understand why people would hate him. He just wanted to try the chocolate frogs he read about.

He just wanted to talk to all the different animals out there, the same way he could talk to the garden snakes.

"But I didn't do anything wrong, Nona. Tell them that I'm a good boy. I can even give them some of my toys. Will they like me then?" If only it were that easy. His Nona cried for the first time in front of him then, looking at all the toys he had set onto her lap, looking at her with teary eyes, pleading, "I didn't do anything wrong, Nona, I promise."

Mattheo didn't understand her tears back then, but now as he stands all alone, those same tears fall out his eyes. It's useless. "They'll know that someday, moon pie. You aren't wrong. They'll know." They'll know? What a fucking joke.

Mattheo tries to enjoy the view in front of him, you know. But how can he? When his batchmates are out there partying and enjoying life, he's been a lone wolf all his life. Yet in moments like this, he seems to forget his old ways of existing.

There's not much he can do anyway; he's not needed anywhere. In fact, they all want him gone. Finding beauty in small things is hard when misery clings to him. There's self-loathing in the way he thinks about the night and himself. There's nothing positive he can say.

You'd think that he must've gotten used to it all by now. No, he hasn't; it only got worse. At least little Mattheo held hope that people would understand someday or the other. Every bit of hope was destroyed by the very people who would've feared him had his father been alive. In moments like this, he wished he could see the man, live as the son they paint him as.

He'd have someone to lean onto then, someone to call his own. At least his father would've loved him. But this last bit of consolidation too was stolen away from him when he got to know that he was a backup plan for his father. Mattheo Riddle was not supposed to exist. His father wanted to live on forever; he was the last option the so-called Dark Lord had, to produce an heir and have them further his cause, and control his life as Tom lived on his last lifeline.

But all of it died with him. Mattheo promised himself that he would never be the man they all expected him to be, the man they wanted to point fingers at. So, he stayed in line. But then he thinks, sometimes, maybe, what if—you know?

He simply stares up at the brightly lit sky, it's a shame that he's the only one out there to appreciate the scenic beauty because he's physically and mentally incapable of appreciating anything, you can't blame him now, can you?

Cold breeze in mid-August, how fucking ridiculous just like this life of his, so unlike his peers, who were out there partying and having the time of their lives, the music vibrating through the walls was like salt on wounds. He'd like to drink a few and chat with his friends but then again, he hasn't got any. And it's the bitter truth that he's not welcome there, he'd be greeted with nasty looks if he tried to enter any such party, they'd all glance his way like the ominous thing he is. It's times like this when he really contemplates it.

Mattheo looks down from the height he's on, no one would care anyway, the fall will kill him, might just give it an actual try unlike those previous attempts- he's been a coward all his life, never ready to face the extremes of life but he has nothing to protect at the moment, he's come far too long, life was never going to be worth it.

He climbs over the railing onto the brick ledge, sitting down for a moment, to take it all in for the last time ever. Mattheo remembers all the whispers that followed him, the suspicious looks passed along the way, those words of disdain- at the same time the thoughts of a happy life enter his mind, it all feels unattainable, in fact, he's so far gone he can't even picture joy, all he sees is bright colours when he thinks of a happy life.

Mattheo had desperately sought relief all his life, but the pain only worsened with time, it's only reasonable to want to end this feeling of hopelessness. The weight of his family's legacy feels heavy on his shoulders. He slouches over and looks down once again, sighing as his eyes shift to the ring on his finger, the other Gaunt ring, he slowly removes it- a pathetic heir he is, he doesn't deserve it, couldn't live up to the name, disappointing both sides of the world.

Maybe they should have destroyed this along with his father's ring but apparently, his dear sweet Nona thought he could change their fate, change the course of history, change the Gaunt legacy for the better, fuck- he couldn't even try and change people's perception about him. Even in this sense, he's nothing like his predecessors, incapable of leaving a mark, of changing the world, be it for the better or the worse. He's just fucking worthless- he fiddles with the ring as he shifts a bit closer to the edge, ready to let go of it.

"Nice ring," he turns around startled, "Mattheo, isn't it?" not Riddle? He hadn't heard his own name in a long time, no one had directly addressed him in years let alone called him by his first name. It all feels foreign, he simply nods not knowing what to say. "Do you mind if I join you?" you don't wait for a response though and carefully bend and climb through the gaps between the two rails, settling down beside him. "Hi, I'm-" he doesn't hear it, he's too focused on your face, you were dolled up, for the party he thinks, but then why are you here of all places? Was this some kind of prank? He steals a glance back at the entrance and the seemingly empty hallway, to see if anyone is waiting for a reaction.

"You know you shouldn't sit so close to the edge, you might fall down," you grab his forearm urging him to move back, your hand feels warm on his skin, it feels unnatural, his hands are always cold. Even though it's on him for a couple of seconds he can't help the multiple emotions going on about in his mind and before he can sort them out, his mouth decides to act on its own, "Why aren't you at the party?" "Oh-" you look disappointed, and he apologises right away, not wanting to upset the only person who had the decency to talk to him, "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked," he's quick to defend himself, it's a natural response after all but you only seemed amused, "No, it quite alright, I was just surprised by your voice-" "Is it that bad?" "Gosh no! It's just not what I expected, quite rough, it's nice," you are quick to shut him up, "And about your question, I am annoyed at my friends forcing me to try more drinks and all, I just came up here to relax."

"I can leave if you'd like," you add on as an afterthought, but you really didn't want to go, it was the only place with some peace, unlike the loud corridors and dorms, where you were mad at your friends and were in no mood for a party. "No, it's quite alright, I was just surprised," he tries to lighten the mood, repeating your words jokingly, it works, you laugh and properly look at him instead of the waters ahead.

"Haha so funny," you say in a monotonous voice, trying to act like you didn't just laugh but you can't contain your smile, and he finds it quite beautiful. You look down at the ring between the two of you, "it's a beautiful ring I must say," You compliment it again since he hadn't acknowledged it before. Mattheo thanked you quietly trying to think of a response that might not make you run away from him.

It's been only a few minutes and you've said more nice things to him than he has ever heard in his whole life, it's quite ridiculous when he thinks about it, seemingly you find it quite easy to compliment him. He stays quiet not knowing how to take a compliment, but you don't let the silence continue, you look around trying to find something to talk about and soon enough you start talking and he's glad, "You know about those plants right there?" you point to the shrubs at some distance from the castle walls. Mattheo shakes his head unable to recall if he had seen them before. "It's alright but now that you know, you have something to look forward to this upcoming month!" you smile yet again, cheerful that you have something to share.

"What's special about them?" "It's not the plant itself but the fireflies that live there!" Mattheo tries hard to keep up with your energy and pace, "Why aren't they out now? They aren't migratory, are they?" "That's what makes it special unlike fireflies that are present throughout the summer, these ones light up only for the last week of August," "I'll look forward to it," "You should! I missed it last year and then everyone thought I was lying when I mentioned it." Mattheo frowns, "No one knows about them? Not even the professors?" "The professors would know but it wasn't that serious that I'd take it up to them," Mattheo finds it difficult to relate, he always would let everyone know that he was in the right if the facts favour him because no way in hell would he let anyone see him in the wrong light, he couldn't bear to be in the wrong.

And it slips out his mouth, "I would've argued till they knew I was right," "I don't like arguing though, reminds me of my parents, they parted ways because they argued a lot, so I try to avoid it myself," his lips purse trying to think of an appropriate response, "Anyway, you are in Slytherin right?" it wasn't a question, you just knew, "I'm in Hufflepuff, nice to meet you!" you turn towards him and extend your hand with a smile, he can't help but mirror your smile, "Nice to meet you indeed." Your hand feels soft in his, he was finding it hard to let go but you pull your hand back almost instantly- remembering something, "OH right I forgot, do you like chocolates?" Mattheo was quite taken aback by your energetic self, it was infectious, "Of course you do, it's a silly question, I mean who doesn't like chocolate-" you stop midway and fix him with a scrutinising look, "Unless you are some heartless monster-" "Nah I like chocolate alright," "Good good."

You fish through your jacket's pocket and pull out two chocolate bars, "It's muggle chocolate," you place one in his hand, "Muggle? I've never had muggle candy," Mattheo inspects the small sweet in his hand, "You are missing out then!" you chuckle as you take the wrapper off yours, "I'll eat it tomorrow, thank you," He pockets it and looks ahead with a small smile, tonight's beautiful now that he looks at it.

"You are a muggle born then?" Mattheo can't help but want to know more, because how dare his fucking father go after your lot, "Yep, I was surprised you know? To receive the letter, I thought it was some prank but of course, after a few days I realised how real it was, couldn't have been happier, to be away from home." It's funny because all Mattheo wants to do is go back to the gloomy old mansion and here you were saying the opposite, the stark difference between the two of you was obvious to him.

You ramble on and he listens, it's nothing but enjoyable to listen to mundane stories being narrated with such interest, he finds himself smiling a bit too much, to the point where his face hurts but he doesn't care because you are quite the lovely company to be around.

Muggle-born, the same year as him, Hufflepuff, living with your mom- it's not the best back home he gathers that much. You were angry at your friends and were going to hold a grudge if they didn't apologise. He learned a lot about you in that one hour and learned a few things about him as well, he didn't know he had jokes like that OR you were just too kind to laugh at his bad quips, whatever it was he was grateful because you didn't make him feel bad or like a burden. Mattheo was glad that you were the talkative one and that you didn't expect him to share anything if he wasn't comfortable, also the fact that he didn't want to send you running away by talking more about himself.

He admires the fond smile you wear when you talk, the stars reflect a bit too brightly in your eyes, and he inhales breathing in your scent, it's surreal, the moment. Mattheo didn't quite think properly until you left, wishing him a good night, "it was nice spending time with you, Mattheo!" He wonders if you knew how much it meant to him.

...

He finds out your name the next day and sees you everywhere, it's annoying because he was tired since he couldn't sleep thinking all night about you and now he has to see your face again. Now that he knows you, he can't seem to avoid you, earlier it was easy to be blind but now, everything else seems like a blind spot but you. Or maybe it's that his head is not hanging low, avoiding looking up at people.

Mattheo got over the irritation rather quickly, discreetly looking at you, eyes following every movement of yours. But you don't look at him once, he was just like any other guy to you, the realisation both hurts and feels nice, knowing that you don't demonise him but also the fact that he's no one special either. And maybe, he can live with that.

He notices the large number of people you keep around, you are never alone, always surrounded by a group and you are always the one talking, you are clearly popular. How had he not noticed you before? But then again he knew no one in the school apart from the professors, he never tried to get to know anyone because of course his fate wouldn't allow that.

Mattheo seeks out the solace of the library to keep you out of his mind for a while but the plan doesn't seem to work when he finds the chocolate you gave him in his bag. He simply sighs, knowing that there is no escape, unwarps the sweet and pops it into his mouth, shutting his eyes, and recalls your sweet smile. Warmth takes over his body, it feels nice like this, he has to talk to you once again because that can't be the only interaction he has with you, not when it's all he can think about. He breathes out slowly, staring down at the wrapper and mindlessly reading the information on the back, his jaw tightens as he realizes his stupid pathetic feelings. Mattheo puts the wrapper in his quill case and tries to study with a head full of you.

...

Okay, now it was really starting to bother him, he practically couldn't keep his eyes off you, it's like a spell had charmed him in. He wasn't even trying to be discreet at this point, he downright stared at you from a distance, it was creepy, he was aware of that but he couldn't bring himself to give a damn. Mattheo doesn't like this new feeling you've instilled in him, it's sweet and it's fucking uncomfortable. He finds it extremely difficult to get rid of you from his thoughts, so he gives up on trying and lets his mind go on autopilot.

The way you talked to him without any judgement in your eyes that day, the images of you repeated over and over again in his mind. Even when he sees you with someone else he can't help but think you are in front of him telling him a story, with those animated expressions of yours, but then seconds later he comes to his senses and sees the smile that's not directed at him, the one you gave to everyone, him too. He thinks it was your pity, that made you talk to him. He didn't feel like he was burdening you then but now when he thinks of approaching you, he knows he'd be burdening you. Your life looks no different, every day is full of joy, and you aren't smiling any less.

Why would you talk to him of all people? Perhaps, you only talked to him that day because you needed a change of scenery and not because you wanted to, he's wrong in thinking that but he's also deluded. It's the only way he keeps himself at peace, to not see meaning in your words, to not long for your company.

But he's a Riddle after all, some things just run in your blood, he has his eyes set on you and he finds it difficult to look away. New dream of his, and he'd like to have it, no matter how unattainable it feels. Yet he hasn't got a clue, it's all too new, and he doesn't know what to do, he'd like to have a plan but what would the plan even say? Go and talk to her? Yeah, like he's about to embarrass himself in front of her.

...

Your eyes stretch at the sight of him sitting in the library, alone but not in some deserted corner, he had claimed the whole couch in the centre of the room, sitting right in the middle, reading a book leaning back, a frown on his face. He looked intimidating, and to be honest, you were scared of him, the little beer in you that night had given you the courage to approach him, maybe your fate was too kind to let you find him that night but now your nerves were on fire.

It was no secret to you that he had been staring at you the past couple of weeks, but you couldn't understand the look on his face, his jaw was always clenched, eyes narrowed, and not a hint of emotion on his face. Was he mad at you? Was he the planning on-

No. You didn't like to think about it, you didn't want him to be the man they paint him as, he's just a boy, your age, maybe that's another reason why you hadn't approached him. Staying away because you were scared that they'd be right, you'd rather delve into what ifs than actually be heartbroken, your imagination brought you bliss.

But would it really be your mind if it would let you just forget it? You think and think, getting worked up over every little interaction you've had with him. How could he be evil? He talked to you so nicely the other day, even- even though you were a muggle-born, a mud blood. But when you see how he looks at you, you can't help but feel scared.

It really was an intimidating sight, your courage wore thin but you had made up your mind. You approach him cautiously, as you greet him, you start feeling jittery and flushed, "Hey Mattheo."

Mattheo jerked his head up as he heard your voice, surprised, caught off guard in fact, he didn't trust his words just yet so he simply nodded at you, acknowledging your presence, closing the book and setting it aside, all his attention on you. "I came here to study and noticed you," you look around bashfully before continuing, "I just wanted to ask you if you liked the chocolate I gave you the other day, you know the one with dark brown wrapper-" "Yeah I did," He stops you from rambling on, not that he had any problem with it but you clearly seemed nervous, he just wanted to ease your nerves, "Right so-" you quickly pull out a small pack of the chocolate from your sling bag placing it beside him, straightening up, "I'll go then, enjoy-" you are quick to turn away from him, cursing yourself in your mind, blaming yourself for making things more awkward than they already were.

Mattheo stops you in your tracks as he calls you by your name, you turn around, and he speaks in that cold voice of his, "You said you were here to study right?" you nod timidly, clutching onto the straps of your bag, he leans back and with a flick of his wrist, a table and chair are summoned in front of him, "then study," he motions to the chair opposite of him.

You were quite taken aback, you stood there for a bit before actually registering his words, and you quietly sat down, you didn't have it in you to disobey him, he was Mattheo Riddle for fucks sake, he looked and sounded like someone who doesn't take no for an answer.

A small smile tugged at his lips as he watched you carefully sit down, looking down, not meeting his gaze, he couldn't believe it, you obliged his wishes? Mattheo leaned back fully, arms folding as he watched you, brown eyes capturing each detail, amusement crawled over his face as he watched you pull out multiple books all at once, various colourful stationery items sprawled out all over the table. You looked pretty like this, stray strands of hair framing your face, lips pursed in concentration. He knew how creepy he was being, so he opened his book again and tried to read but he simply couldn't not when you were sitting in front of him, he relished your presence and this was so unlike the others, every time he had looked at you- you had been surrounded by people, so it was a sight to behold, only for him to admire. So he did, in secret, glancing up at you, every few seconds.

It's been two hours and not once did he get bored of looking at you, a small smile lingered on his face as you closed your books and looked up at him, "How's that book?" you nod towards the book in his hand- the one he was supposed to be reading, "Good, good" he bites the inside of cheek as he lies through his teeth, "Got everything done?" he sets his book aside, fixing you with a soft stare, "Yes, I just wanted to revise a bit, I forget stuff easily if I don't revise regularly," you tilt your head a bit, his eyes were much softer now, and it made your heart flutter a bit, feeling a lot more comfortable than before, so you do what you usually do when you are comfortable- talk.

"By the way, did you study for the upcoming herbology test?" And before he could answer, you pulled out a piece of paper from your bag, "This is like the holy grail, a senior gave it to me last year, it has all the specifics, of recognising plants and how to make generalised guesses about their uses-" you speak in a hushed voice, slightly leaning over the table, eyes wide as you shared your little secret, "you can have it, I have it memorised haha" You bless him with that pretty smile of yours, pushing the paper towards him, you don't let him refuse the offer and start talking about something else, he gives you a small smile, and it makes your insides turn into mush, you bite your lip trying to contain your smile, eyes shy as you start fiddling with your hands on your lap.

You talked for hours, he was much more open this time, and the conversation flowed smoothly between the two of you, it was you who mostly did the talking but he didn't seem to mind he looked more than pleased, he didn't like talking much, it seemed, so you filled in the gaps, made it look so effortless like it was easy talking to him, maybe it was easy for you but to him, it made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. You two stopped only when the librarian came in and told you it was curfew time, your eyes widened as you turned to look back at him, an amused smile on your face, both of you got up, walking beside each other, not uttering a word till you were out of the librarian's stern gaze.

"I made you miss dinner-" your eyes widened further as soon as the two of you got out, stepping into the empty hallway, "it's alright, I don't mind," you playfully rolled your eyes at him, he chuckled at your antics, "yeah sure, but your stomach would, but- we can sneak into the kitchens, you know, sneak some food out," you wiggle your eyebrows at him with a sheepish grin on your face, he scoffs in disbelief, a fond smile gracing his face, "something tells me, this isn't your first time sneaking around."

"No, it's not," you chuckle a bit before continuing, "So, are you coming or not?" you purse your lips, looking up at him with doe eyes and he questions your motives right then because there's no way you didn't have a clue about what you were doing, "would be an idiot to say no," he muttered under his breath shaking his head, "I didn't catch that-", "Yes, I am."

You give him a pleased smile, you looked so happy at that moment, he was rooted in his position as you started walking ahead of him, he had to look away to catch his breath, "Merlin" he exhaled, a hand reaching over to his chest to soothe his loud thumping heart, and in that moment he knew he was a goner.

"Mattheo-?" you turned around since you didn't hear him walk with you but soon he rushed to your side the moment you looked back, you gave him another smile as he walked beside you, he looked straight ahead then, you needed to stop doing that because no fucking way- would he be able to let go of you.

You lead him to the kitchen, both of you cautious, well just you- he was having the time of his life, getting a detention would be worth it, just a small price to pay. Mattheo repeatedly stole glances here and there, the moment you entered the kitchen, you grabbed his arm and pulled his painfully slow self in, "gosh- you sure do walk slow," you glare at him, but there's no malice in your eyes, instead they are just amused, you roll your eyes when he just shrugs in response, moving over to the tables. Mattheo just looked at you with fond eyes, he was just trying to buy more time with you by walking slowly and he didn't feel one bit guilty about it, he felt a bit too proud. 

You sigh dramatically before returning to him with a small tray in your hands, "I didn't find anything else, apart from these blueberry muffins," your eyes wander around once more trying to see if you missed something, "usually there's still stuff left, that's weird- oh well, at least we have these," you give him a small defeated smile, setting the tray on the table, shrugging as you felt that muffins weren't worth the effort of sneaking around and that you only troubled him further. Mattheo saw through you and he hated that you were feeling that way, "didn't I mention this to you? I love muffins, especially the blueberry ones." he gave you a small smile, picking up the muffin, taking a bite, "yeah, that's good, way better than the dry vegetable and chicken pies they make." He didn't look at you as he said that, but you smiled, realising what he was trying to do, you wanted to cry, why was he being so considerate? You were now beginning to go down a spiral, of all the times you thought of him in the wrong light, how dare you even think like that? 

Mattheo caught you staring and it was hard for him to control the heat that rose to his cheeks, he cleared his throat, "What? You don't like these? Well, guess they are all for me-" he teased, taking the tray in his hand and started walking away, "Hey! No-" you rushed after him with an amused smile, "I want one too," and the tray was shoved back into your hands, "better not eat all of them, yeah?" he gave you a small cheeky wink, leaning against the table, finishing the muffin in his hand. 

Mattheo offered to walk you back to your dorm, he didn't have to insist much, after all, you wanted to spend time with him too, you easily agreed after a couple of tries. You two walked in comfortable silence, as you neared the Hufflepuff dormitory, you were thinking about how you'd part ways, overthinking about what would be appropriate and in the mix of it, you just gave him an awkward side hug, squeezing his arm a bit before mumbling a quick "goodnight" and rushing in. 

He couldn't believe his eyes, were you blushing? No way, he must be imagining things. Mattheo could still feel your warm touch lingering on his side, the scene playing over and over again in his mind, he wanted to scream out of excitement- he was getting cuteness aggression, had to be it, his fists clenched at his side as he stared at the door, for god knows how long, if he could- he would've squeezed you into a bone-crushing hug, but you were quick, left him speechless. 

He walked back to the Slytherin dorm without any trouble, he closed the door behind himself and leaned back against it, he was pretty sure his skin was burning with all the warmth that was flowing through his veins. Merlin, he was embarrassing! Mattheo sighed contently, a big smile on his face as he replayed the whole day, your smile- 

...

The next few days, you guys didn't talk at all, he was back to staring and this time, when you did catch him in the act, instead of pretending you didn't see him, you gave him a knowing smile and a wave. Lingering looks, and subtle greetings, were sweet, Mattheo was now on a new high, he couldn't get enough. But for some reason, he maintained his distance, he stuck to looking at you from afar, it felt comfortable this way, not wanting to taint your reputation by talking to you in front of others, he'd talk to you if it was only you but you were never alone. 

Mattheo starts seeing life for what it is, when he looks at the trees outside, the castle in its entirety, he feels like he is seeing it for the first time. How had he missed this? He finds himself back at the astronomy tower, he looks at the lake ahead, it was a sight to behold, and he is starting to appreciate the view, these days he didn't care about much, you were all he could think about and you were more than pleasant, it was as if the grey lens of his life was replaced with a coloured one, and it would be foolish to credit anyone else but you for it, and he was fucking grateful for it. The reason he was here was, that it was the end of August, and the fireflies you so damn wished to see would be out tonight, he came here just in the hope that he'll get to see you alone. 

He was zoning out when some movement near the edge of the lake caught his eye, it was you- with a few of your friends, his smile faltered the moment he saw some blonde Hufflepuff dude pull you to his side, slinging a hand over your shoulder, you all walked towards the shrubs and didn't have to wait long before the fireflies lit up and started raising above the shrubs. He was about to leave, he was mad for some reason, really pissed- but then he took another look at you. You were standing a bit behind your friends, who had all their attention on the flies ahead, you seemed sad, looking down, messing with the soil beneath your shoe, hands in your jacket. Mattheo could make out the pout on your face, the deflated shoulders, you then turned to look right where he was, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

Your posture straightened immediately, the pretty smile returning to your face as you looked up at the astronomy tower balcony, having spotted him, you waved at him. Mattheo nodded, forearms on the railing as he leaned forward, a smile gracing his features, the anger leaving him. You excitedly pointed at the sky, and he nodded, you turned back around when your friend called you and he couldn't look away, he was staring at you till you left, Mattheo started feeling the warmth creep up to him when he saw you making an effort to steal back glances at him. He felt seen, fucking special- 

...

Mattheo still hadn't talked to you, he couldn't catch you alone really, it was starting to get to him, he longed to hear your voice, hear you talk to him- and yet, he didn't have it in him to approach you in front of others, it would ruin you, you thrived in the company of others, he couldn't snatch that away from you. Maybe if he was a bit more selfish, he'd do it, snatch you away from others, have you all to himself but he wasn't about that life, it was something his father would do, he's sure of it, go after what he wants, not caring what others would think- 

Mattheo feels like passing out when you deliberately look at him just to give him a shy smile, a flushed look on your face. He walks away because he cannot handle looking at you, the urge is too strong, to just take you into his arms, he walks out to the empty hallway, a hand over his chest- it had become a subconscious habit of his, whenever you gave him that smile, the one that felt like it was just reserved for him, yeah that one, he felt like he was in heaven, you sent his heart rate through the roof when you did that, it borderline hurt him since he couldn't do much to satiate this feeling. 

The longing was etched into his eyes when he looked at you, one thing he realised was, that when he had his head up, no one dared to look his way, he was enjoying that power for some reason, it filled his veins with something dark, he liked seeing people look down instead of him looking down, it felt fucking nice, and it felt even better when the only person that did look at him, was you. People averted their eyes when he entered the room, choosing to ignore his presence but the fear was very much evident, so he knew they didn't see him staring at you but at this point, he really couldn't bring himself to make an active effort to look away even if someone noticed. 

It was no lie, that Mattheo wasn't up to date with all the gossip and news, he just lived life passively but now that he was out there more, he couldn't help but hear the words that fell onto his ears, Yule Ball, huh. WAIT- ball dance? That meant having a date, who were you going with? Fuck his mind was rambling shit to him, he could not let someone else take you to a fucking dance as their date, no, he wouldn't let that happen. He had to get to you before someone else did, it was nighttime, and tomorrow's the weekend, approaching you will be the first thing he'll do after he wakes up, he has to plan shit out, you know, make it special and heartfelt, you deserved nothing less.

But his heart nearly broke when he overheard two Slytherin guys talking about you. The way one of them talked about you made his blood boil, his jaw clenched tight, nails drawing blood from his palms as they dug into his coarse skin, "I told you not to ask her out, plenty of guys tried and guess what? She rejected them all." the guy who was being talked to only scoffed angrily, "She's a fucking slut, that's what she is, leading people on-" the other boy just stopped him and Mattheo exhaled, a bit relieved because if it wasn't for him, Mattheo would've smacked the guy and pushed him to the fucking wall, "dude, come on, that's not true, all she did was smile at you when you gave her your seat, she's a nice girl," these guys were in the fifth year, he recognised that much, "sure, whatever," the guy walked away to his room, making sure to loudly slam the door behind him. 

Mattheo then gets up and walks towards the guy left behind, the one who stood up for you, when he stands in front of him, he sees the dude cower into the seat, Mattheo tries to speak in a polite voice but the anger is still radiating off him, his irritated stare didn't help either, "she doesn't have a date, yeah?" his hands were behind his back, over one another, the blood still fresh, "who-o?" the guy stutters out, looking around for help but no one was there- "You know who," he fixes him with a glare, before uttering your name out loud, "no no, she doesn't, rejected them all." Mattheo then nods at him and leans back, then finally he walks back to his room, allowing the guy to catch his breath. 

Mattheo feels relief wash over him as he lets the information sink in, okay good, you didn't have a date but then again, why were you rejecting them all? What if you reject him as well? Yeah, he couldn't handle that wound, he'd fucking die, he contemplates whether he should ask you or not but he's done fucking waiting, waiting for his fate to fuck things over, if things are going to be fucked, he'll be the one to do it. 

...

Mattheo puts on a black shirt and black pants, not caring to tuck his shirt in, the cold metal ring stings him as he puts it on, the feeling is grounding, he's doing something his dad would've done and for some reason that doesn't feel half as bad, he feels like himself, it was like something had possessed him, the confidence was unwavering, even as he stepped out into the crowded hallway, hands in his pockets, looking ahead, people parted, giving him space and Merlin, did that feel fucking powerful. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows as he approached the room you'd be in, you always were there on the weekends, with your friends and he didn't think before he stepped into the room, heads turning towards him in shock, even yours but the shock on your face was soon replaced with a smile, quietly waving at him and that right there, fed right into his ego.

He walked over to you in a few quick strides, eyes zeroed in on you, nothing else mattered at that moment, "Can I talk to you?" To say you were surprised would be an understatement, you were ecstatic, you've wanted this for so long, to talk to him in front of others, you never knew if you should because he might've felt uncomfortable, "Yes ofcourse, what is it?" you nod, a smile still on your face, "Alone," his voice was cold, "oh yeah, sure-" you step towards him, thinking he'd lead you somewhere private but he stayed rooted in his place, eyes never leaving yours, he stayed quiet for a bit, taking in your whole self, the bright clothes you were dressed in, the equally bright smile on your face. Then he looked over your head, to the shocked faces of your friends, "Alone." It came out as an order, he couldn't care less. 

Mattheo liked this newfound authority, he also relished in the fact that you were being so compliant as if you wanted this to happen and he couldn't be more glad, "Guys, I'll be back, you can go ahead, don't worry," you explained, seeing their hesitance, his unwavering gaze was back on you, brown eyes were intense. The apprehensive group slowly emptied the room and just went the last person was out, Mattheo muttered something under his breath, and the door slammed shut, locking itself. 

Mattheo cursed that pretty smile of yours before smiling back, "You have a date? For the ball?" you lowered your eyes to the ground at the question, a shy look grazing your features as you shook your head, the more he looked at you, the more positive he got. "Good."  He finally pulled his hands out of his pocket and suddenly there was a bouquet of your favourite flowers in his hand and a velvet box, he wordlessly handed them to you, your eyes were wide, full of amusement, face warm, you noticed how the lights around you got dimmer, the small mock firefly charms that floated in the air, you didn't have a clue on how he was doing all this without his wand but you couldn't bring yourself to think of it, not when you had him standing in front you, in all his glory, about to ask you to the ball, gosh you felt like you were on cloud nine, the guy you were waiting for had actually approached you? You had to be dreaming. 

Then out of nowhere, you hear your favourite song but on strings, you look down at the box curiously- "It's the muggle chocolate you were talking about, the one you said was hard to get your hands on," he shrugged nonchalantly, as if it was no big deal but in reality, he was finding the courage to finally tell you what he was feeling, ask you out. Your brows pinched together, as you noticed that all of it was a muggle, even the flower arrangement- the song, how did he do all of this? You looked up at him with an amused look. "No questions please," he breathed out like he was out of breath, you then smiled at him gratefully, and he quickly averted his eyes, his hand subconsciously reaching over to his chest, "Oh Merlin," he exhaled quietly, not being able to look back at you. 

He then slowly gathered the courage to look back at you, you were just looking at him patiently, the smile still on your face, Mattheo cleared his throat before opening up, "I have never been the one to be graceful but I want to do this properly." he inhaled sharply before continuing, "Ever since that night, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, I think I've gone mad honestly," He lets out a dry chuckle shaking his head, looking into your eyes, "I think I've taken a liking to you, your voice, your smile-" and then he interrupts himself, forgetting the little speech he prepared as he watches your smile widen at his words, "yeah that, more of that please," and that makes you blush, the genuine interest in his eyes, the way admiration shines in his eyes, you are so close to him, that you can hear his heart thumping loudly, "I'd like to have the honour of taking you to the ball," then he says your name quietly, "would you like be my date?" 

"Yes yes!" you couldn't be more excited, you are quick to throw your arms around him, and all the worries leave his body as soon as he is subjected to your embrace, he closes his eyes, pulling you closer, finding everything comfortable in your grip. His heartstrings thrum at the moment, it was embarrassing how quickly you got him flustered but he didn't seem to mind it. He whispered a small "thank you," before hugging you tighter, you just giggled into his chest and Merlin, did he feel like he had just won the lottery.

...

<<prev work: this love || mattheo riddle

[outboundskelliebros]

OUTBOUND AU

Introducing the official Mascots for the Mimimuta YT Channel! Outbound Sans and Papyrus! This is just a mega information post on them to know everything you need to know!

REFERENCE PICS

Sans (Classic and Swap Form)

Papyrus (Classic and Swap Form)

PERSONALITIES

In general, the bros are pretty goofy, silly, mischief makers. They love both puns from the Papyrus slash Underswap Sans mode leaning more on them and both love practical jokes from their Sans slash Underswap Papyrus modes leaning more on those.

They do kind of have a nihilistic view on things knowing that everything that makes up their multiverse is made of a bunch of greater humans that could just decide to erase any of the universes they created. But at the same time, they realise that that doesn’t really matter. What could they do to stop them anyway? They’re made from duplicates of code that’s torn off from universe codes, so the original universes being deleted won’t delete them. (Wait till they realise they were created too but anyway) But they don’t use this new ‘Nothing matters! No one can stop us!!! *blowhorn*’ view to cause bad chaos, just chaotic good to neutral chaos. So when they do eventually interact with the Aus, they’re mostly just goofing around with the characters and lowkey fangirling since they HAD been watching the Aus from a distance from a while so that kind of made them feel parasocially connected to them. But also won’t interfere with actually important events since that’s not their place to do so.

They also experience slight memory issues. Not quite amnesia, just sometimes having random snippets of memories from a random Sanses and Papyri. Like, imagine Outbound Sans talking to Underfell Papyrus after having gone to Underfell a few times with his Papyrus and joking about an event then Underfell Papyrus being confused as hell why this Sans knows about something that happened in private with him and Underfell Sans and having Outbound Papyrus being like, “... BROTHER, I BELIEVE THAT WAS ONE OF THOSE... DEJAVU MEMORIES.”

Sans just blinks blankly for a moment before laughing it off, “... OH! MY BAD! FORGET I SAID THAT, LMAO.” and Underfell Papyrus is just confused.

SANS

Older brother, a bit of a terror of an older brother that loves messing with his younger brother. Lovingly.

Little mischief gremlin, does stuff randomly cause funny, also likes sarcasm

More observant than his silliness let’s on

Laughs slash appreciates at any joke Papyrus does, regardless of if he’s in Swapped or Classic mode cause he finds anything he’s bro does as endearing as a proud big bro

Slightly more unstable than Papyrus since there’s more Aus of Sans exist, especially negative ones. Has moment where the abundance of bad Sans AU codes in him make him either slump into episodes of deep depression or irritation to outright rage. Has learned to block out the worst effects of these codes but can't stop it entirely and hates it

SWAPPED exclusive trait: Hyper little energy ball, whizzes around a lot (Because people kept misinterpreting Blueberry as Canon Swap Sans, blueberry does influence him too)

CLASSIC exclusive traits: Sleepy narcoleptic, though half the time it’s because he’s pretending as a prank. Also drinks condiments because of how prevalent this headcanon is, half because he likes seeing people uncomfortable for funsies like OG Sans does, half because he likes it like everyone headcanons Sans does.

PAPYRUS

Younger brother that is so done with his older brothers antics but still puts up with it cause even he can admit it’s funny sometimes

More friendly and tenderhearted but can be pretty hot headed

Typical younger brother attitude, so it generally more immature and slightly more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to others, not out of naivety but optimism, than Sans is

Don’t let him acting annoyed with his older bro’s antics fool you, he can be just as much of a silly billy as Sans can be

Unlike Sans, he doesn’t experience irritation or depressive moments like he does, since Papyrus in Aus is very rarely depicted as... I guess antagonistically is the best word to use as Sanses are. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel some levels of depression ever

Autism haver, tends to fidget, a little bit socially awkward but optimistically and confidently pushes his way through it. Randomly becomes hyper fixated on different things.

SWAPPED exclusive traits: smokes special magic sticks, doesn’t actually do anything to him except make him look cool. Influence from the many swap Papyruses version makes him feel the urge to but has no real need for the effect smoking would actually cause.

CLASSIC exclusive traits: Go getter, pretty cocky even compared to Swapped Sans since he’s been pretty hyped up by Sans

How they switch? Usually it’s just a random thing that happens with a slight glitch but they can make it happen manually, usually if they just feel like relaxing (SwapPapi and UTSans) or go exploring (UTPapi and SwapSans)

BROTHER DYNAMICS

OG Papyrus x OG Sans

Pretty similar to original game

Swap Papyrus x Swap Sans

Similar to canon Swap

Sans is more protective of Papyrus than Papyrus is of Sans, unlike how many people seem to think otherwise, but Papyrus is still pretty protective of his bro

OG Papyrus x Swap Sans

THE ABSOLUTE GREATEST MOST MARVELOUS BROS EVER (as claimed by them

Energetic, always on the go and doing things

Surprisingly, Sans is more hyper and energetic than Papyrus so Papyrus has to keep up with him more than Sans has to keep up with him

Swap Papyrus x OG Sans

They just chillin’

Sans is typically more laidback than Papyrus and sleeps more than him but otherwise, they’re just vibing

[rainyraisin]

you should rant about your non tmnt related characters/OCs (if you got any) :3

You say this as if I have developed any of my OCs since I got into TMNT/j

I do actually have a decent amount of characters I've been working on for like over a year now but the really annoying thing is they're for a game @aaronymous999 and I are making 😭😭 so whilst I could talk about them it would be very very boring bc I can probably say about 5 non-spoilery things about each of the characters I'm allowed to talk about lmao- but!!! May as well :3 (cutting this bc this is gonna be hella long)

One of the two protagonists you can pick from is Èmile Dion! He's 27 and a bi cis male (ew cis people/j). He's also French Canadian, and he is a lil bit of a con artist. He made a living off of it whilst he was on his own. Silly little street rat man. He's a little naive when it comes to people he trusts or loves, which is ultimately his down-fall (theres so many endings where this cooks him lol and its the whole reason his route happens), but otherwise he's pretty street smart. He's a lil cutie patootie and I love him 💖 We haven't decided on the character relationship chart yet since not all the characters are fully developed but I think he'd get along with Esi (team TEO), Eun-Jae (team TEO), and Renata (team COC). He'd only really be around Renata most of the time though as he's COC, and both she and Eun-Jae are pretty hard to get through to lmao, he's not really one for giving in though.

(Please excuse the old art throughout this post, only Eun-Jae and Heaven have had recent art, even though almost all of them have been designed for ages)

Talking about Heaven next bc even tho it would make more sense to talk about the participants and then him or him then the participants. Uh. This is my post.

Heaven is one of the hosts! He's 17, mixed race (Filipino, Chilean, Taiwanise) and a pan ace cis male. He works for COC and has been with them a very long time. I can't say too much past that bc spoilers but he's very energetic, a silly guy! He's prone to mood shifts and kinda has anger issues but you wouldn't know it by looking at him. He knows when to be serious despite his naivety and general demeanour.

Renata is 26, Hispanic (havent decided where shes from yet), and a lesbian cis woman. I cant really talk about Renata much bc she just. Doesnt have that much planned for her yet but she's neat!!!!!! Scene girl!!! She was actually the first character I designed out of all the participants, as her design was meant to be used for something else in the game but I loved it so much she became one of the main characters lmao- honestly she probably does have lore I can talk about but I keep forgetting to write stuff that Aaron and I talk about on call down 😭😭 the only stuff that I could talk about is spoilers... cries. I can mention that she's morally grey ig? Each team has 2 characters that are morally grey, morally good and morally bad however this doesn't fully dictate their actions, it's just kind of a template for their character. Characters who we put under morally good can still do fucked up shit and the reverse is also true, its just that the morally grey ones are more of a toss up than the others.

Anyway look at my daughter

Zedekiah is the last of the COC participants I made!!!! He again doesn't have much planned for him, but look at how neat he is!!! Honestly he might get redesigned. Again. But this is him for now!!! His hair is fun to draw :3

EUN-JAE IS NEXT!!!!!! TEO TIME!!!! She's very silly (I say despite her being one of the more serious characters). She's 23 and Korean! Her identity isn't really something she's thought over, and if she has well, she isn't going to tell anyone anyway. I wish I could yap about her mode but spoilers... cries...

AMMON HATCH!!!!! HE'S 20, GREEK AND RELIGIOUSLY TRAUMATISED AS HELL!!!!! PROBABLY QUEER IDK WAIT TILL THE GAME COMES OUT. WHAT A CREATURE <3 killing him. I don't rlly like this drawing of him icl so have his original sketch too

AND ESI GRACE!!!!! SHES 19, GHANAN AND A CREATURE AS WELL <3 She and Ammon are definetly friends I think they'd stick together and try their best to drag Eun-Jae into their silliness. If Esi wasn't around TEO would rip each other apart (well, earlier at least. They'll probably do it anyway despite her presence).

I dont like her digital drawing so have her original sketch <3

Talking about this guy last bc I havent drawn him in a year and I hate the one piece of art of him I have- River! He's 24, British and Japanese, and pan :3 He's sort of an assistant to Heaven ig? He helps with all the simpler stuff along with TEO's assistant, Malachi, mostly stuff regarding the participants and not the big things that Heaven and Ophelia have to worry about. He sees Heaven as more of a little brother than anything, which makes the power dynamic kinda goofy, but he deals with it. I'll redraw him soon but have this god awful sketch for now-

That's all the characters that I'm allowed to talk about 😭😭😭 there are MANY more but their simple existence is massive spoilers so. You'll see them one day. THANK YOU FOR THE ASK DIB‼️‼️‼️🥺🥺🥺💖💖🌸🌸🌸

[indigo-scarf]

Character Profile: Theodore Nott

I. Canon

II. My headcanons

• Theodore’s parents struggled to conceive him. As fanon has it, Theodore’s mother was as “elderly” as his father, and the couple struggled to have a child. The meaning of Theodore’s name, “gift of the gods”, also corroborates that.

• His mother died when he was a child, or perhaps even in childbirth. Another popular fanon theory I accept: it was witnessing his mother’s death that enabled Theodore to see Thestrals.

• His father was cold and distant. Nott Sr was the type of stoic pureblood who expects his wife to do all the child-rearing, but his wife wasn’t there. Besides that, I have more questions than answers about Theodore’s family:

- Did his father and mother have a good relationship? - Did his father resent his mother for struggling to conceive? - How much time did Theodore get with his mother? - If she died in/due to childbirth, does Nott Sr resent Theodore for it? - Or does he love his son but just doesn’t know how to show it?

• Theodore is a pretentious nerd. Growing up without much company, he found refuge in books, libraries, and the persona of the independent intellectual who doesn’t need anyone.

• He uses intellectuality and logic as shield from feelings and trauma. He pretends everything is cold rationality, so he can act like nothing actually affects him. He’s never had a model for dealing with emotions in any way other than shutting them off.

• Theodore hates being called “Theo”. He finds it condescending, and finds nicknames in general overly-familiar. Fortunately, the Slytherin boys all call each other by their surnames; Pansy is the only classmate who calls him “Theo” anyway, just to annoy him.

• He doesn’t rely on external validation. He didn’t have that growing up, so he’s had to learn to do without. Unlike Draco or even Blaise, Theodore doesn’t feel the need to show off or put others down. Being self-assured of his superiority in his own mind is usually enough for him.

• He finds the Death Eaters contemptible. Since Theodore “does not feel the need to join gangs,  including Malfoy’s”, I imagine him equally uninterested in Voldemort’s gang. He might believe in pureblood supremacy, might even find it important to have someone defend it, but he doesn’t romanticise fighting for a cause. Intimately familiar with death from a young age and with no reason to admire his father, Theodore is cynical about war and politics. 

• He’s quiet. He reads, writes, listens, and observes much more than he talks. 

• He keeps his opinions to himself. Saying the wrong thing at home could easily put his father in a bad mood, so he’s learnt to be strategic about speaking. He does love to correct others and call out their logical fallacies, though, and uses contrarianism as deflection.

• He sees people from a detached distance, as if they’re potential characters for a novel, or psychology case studies. This is a simultaneously contemptuous and non-judgemental worldview: humans simply behave the way they behave, they’re not any different from objects affected by scientific laws (or magical laws?). Only a few people — Theodore and the thinkers he admires — manage to exercise true critical thinking and go beyond inertia.

• He has a crush (or a squish) on Draco. Theodore can’t help finding Draco’s flamboyant personality and sheltered naivety endearing. However, he tries to repress this, because affection is silly and he doesn’t want to get attached. When Draco joins the Death Eaters, Theodore immediately knows Draco isn’t cut out for it, and Theodore feels conflicted, but at least partly validated in his fear of loss.

• Draco is conflicted about Theodore. Sometimes Draco appreciates that Theodore is a good listener and can hold an intelligent conversation, but sometimes Theodore feels safe enough to challenge Draco too much, ironically driving Draco back to his usual yes-people.

• Theodore is eventually forced to confront his humanity. Maybe after Hogwarts he finds himself completely alone and realises he doesn’t like that. Maybe his father dies and he can’t ignore his mixed feelings about it. Maybe he decides to pursue Draco romantically.

[flaim-ita]

opinions on the Geats cast? and hopes for endgame?

opinions on the Geats cast? and hopes for endgame?

ALRIGHT LISTEN UP.

(This got long. I’m not sorry.)

Ace is the best Main Rider since… Tsukasa? Haruto? One of the two, or maybe Eiji. But like. Ace is *so good*. And like, so fascinating? He has reincarnated for 2000+ years, just looking for his mother, for the answer to his existence. He is Not a good person, On Purpose, and he does not resolve to save the world until HALF WAY THROUGH HIS SEASON. That is INSANE. That is AMAZING. He is not doing this out of good he is doing this because Kamen Rider is all he has due to the way he was made.

Can you imagine how fucking cool that is? how incredibly Rider of them? I need to finish my Kamen Rider Yo concept entirely bc I want to Showa this boy desperately. (It does not end well for Ace Park, but still.)

(Side note: Takahashi does REALLY inventive things with the Cross of Fire. Aruto in the final boss suit and Emu as patient zero were SUCH good concepts.)

Ace is just in general a very nuanced character because he realizes does care he just tries not to, because he’s apathetic. Especially at the start of the show his thoughts are just “win -> wish that gets me closer to mom -> repeat”. But the rest of the main quartet are just breaking the system and logic down around him, in good and bad ways, and all of this in the life he resolved to Just Do It.

Also the way he is just Broken, now. He’s gone back to apathetic, but not really, we saw him looking at his mom in TEARS.

…Anyways. I love Ace.

I’m fine with Keiwa. I think he’s a really good deconstruction of the Modern Rider Protagonist. He’s never wrong for his ideals, but when his ideals clash with the physical realities, we are supposed to find him naive and hypocritical. It’s so good! And Keiwa is so cute.

A lot of people are upset about him being comic relief, or him being against Ace. But on the former, I do need to point out that a) this is a kid’s show and b) I actually really like how everyone is clearly traumatized from Lamentation but it doesn’t kill their personalities. Just let him be a silly little guy. On the latter, Ace is doing it on purpose, and Keiwa can hate the goddess if he likes, especially when he does not know Mitsume is being tortured and violated for eternity.

But it does again show his naivety, because Ace seems to be the only one who suspects the DGP is just going to fuck off. Like Ace seems to suspect that.

(Ace is my fav, sorry Keiwa.)

I love Neon. It’s great seeing such an accurate depiction of depression on screen. I desperately want to hug her. Her whole story, from just wanting freedom and love to just… wanting to disappear, being so lonely and out of the loop. It hurts, but in a good way, you know?

Michinaga fascinates me. He is so pathetic but he just will not die. Will not stop. He’s constantly teaming up with whatever evil crosses his path. He genuinely believes he is the main character. Get therapy loser.

Also I miss the Tooru hallucinations they were funny.

Tsumuri is… god. I consistently love Takahashi mascot girls. And guys, thank you SelePro. But like… she is so intriguing, all of these thoughts and emotions forced to bubble under the surface because she has no power in the system. Oh yes, she had the ultimate power, but the ones in charge are gong to use her if they possibly can.

I’ve had thoughts about her all season but it’s so nice seeing it crystallize here.

I’m sad we lost Chirami but his death was so satisfying. Him dropping his affable persona there at the end with the cameras down was so sexy. He is a MONSTER and I LOVE it.

Suel is such an interesting final boss I wonder why he is like this.

I do not like Daichi. I almost forgot to include him. He serves his purpose but I do very much wish for him to die and stay dead.

I genuinely do not give a fuck about Punkjack sorry everyone.

As for endgame, I feel like Mitsume is going to die. There is no way Ace get the reunion he wants. Maybe he does get answers! Does get to talk to her! But her face and voice actors are different. Mitsume is probably going to sacrifice herself to either save Ace or fix things and this will destroy him.

The DGP will end, for real. But not by winning the DR but by refusing to play at all. But the separation is just as inevitable. Future people to the future, except maybe Tsumuri. Ace has new family, after all. The one he built with the rest of the main quintet. And Neon is realizing she has a place here, too.

That’s what I want. I hope I’m right.

[fifiliphaser]

We all know how that will end, but I’ve just gotten up and I think that some violence is in order.

But yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I've been in quite a few fandoms and it's blatant that Aziraphale is basically getting what I call the "female character treatment", down to the bar for his decisions and actions being so much higher than for Crowley's. The fact that he functions (and I personally think that to some extent identifies) as an effeminate gay man is the main contributing factor to this; I also think that he has a couple of other characteristics that make him less, say, "appealing" to the fandom at large (on top of what you have already mentioned in your other posts).

Firstly, he's not thin. And I don't really want to elaborate on this too much -- the point is clear -- but I think that that may contribute to somehow sidelining him in the fandom discourse (we all know how it is).

Secondly, he's rather old-fashioned in his style and to some extent also behaviour, and that is not cool. Sure, he's faithful to his own sense of style and what he is comfortable in, but you can see it and think that he's behind or too ignorant to keep up (even though we know that that's not the case; my favourite example here is his knowledge of current technology as described in the book vs. how TV show portrayed it and how fans have been reading it). Looking weird, but not in a fashionable sense might be seen by people as just weird (and not in a positive light; sure, there are people who enjoy wearing old-fashioned clothing and so on, but I think generally if it goes beyond what is considered fashionable within mainstream or the community at large, it might be considered by some as silly).

And lastly, he's kind, but not in a way that Crowley is. He's kind in a way that some people might consider naive (even though he clearly isn't that). I really like your take on how Aziraphale always has faith in Crowley, which isn't the case the other way around. I would extend it even more - Aziraphale has faith not only in Crowley, but also in humans, Heaven, and God. I think that's what's driving his decisions - he believes that all of the above have good intentions in the end, but he does so not from a place of naivety, but a conscious choice. He chooses to believe that Crowley is good, that humans are good, that Heaven is good, and that God has an ineffable plan that is good - and that faith is what allows him to persist in his angelhood (dunno if that's a word, but well - it is now).

And I know this for a fact - that's exactly what the opening scene of season 2 shows us. I don't think that a person who blindly follows the system would be so worried about who might hear Crowley's questions, unless they are well-aware of what the consequences to that might be and they don't think those consequences are okay. He tries to stop Crowley's questioning not because he thinks that the questioning itself is bad, but because he's worried for his fellow angel.

Just this scene fully shows us why Aziraphale chooses to go back to Heaven, even without Crowley - he doesn't have all the information, and his choice will most likely backfire, but he believes his doing the right thing, by himself, by Crowley, and by the humanity. He's ready to make things right, because he has faith that he can.

(And that's why all the theories about coffee and whatnot infuriate me so much, because not only do they take away from his character, but they also take away Aziraphale's agency - which is a definition of the "female character treatment".)

Do I want to choose Ultimate Violence on TikTok and talk about how Aziraphale’s effeminate presentation and more non-conventionally attractive appearance has significantly contributed to the unfair treatment he receives from part of the fandom or do I want to keep posting Supernatural memes?

[variousqueerthings]

a long text about something that some people have been able to say in simple sentences

or

Johnny may be a betrayal of character arc, but Daniel is a betrayal of themes

Okay, first thing here is that I said before that it was going to be hard for me to explain why I have such mixed feelings about Daniel’s arc in s5, because there’s so much tying into his story, and that’s sort of it, right? back to basics, this is Daniel’s story, because everything connects to him in the end -- which means that anything else that doesn’t work ties back to what I struggle with in his story.

So I will make the choice here to try and leave the other characters (except for Miyagi a bit) out of it as far as is possible for someone like me. Because otherwise this would end up becoming an essay about the whole flipping show and how all the characters mirror back at Daniel, who is the carrier of the Legacy (both in-show and out-of-show)

Secondly, apologies to @gjdraws I can no longer tell what you said and what I said, but just assume that these are not all entirely my words -- there is probably also a bunch I read on others’ posts, apologies for the repetition you’re very smart people! -- generally apologies for the repetition in the text, I try my best, I’m not being graded on this

Third thing is that while I may occasionally be talking character arc, a lot of what I’m speaking to here is what I think about theme. Technically there are character beats that on their own could be cool, but as a whole are incoherent, because they haven’t been earned and/or are couched in Cobra Kai’s issues with Theme

Fourth thing is to acknowledge (speaking of themes) that some people in this fandom called that the show doesn’t like Miyagi season/s ago, and I in my sweet naivety internally went “no, surely not – they may not completely understand the ethos that created Miyagi’s character, but they’re trying to grapple with it. Daniel’s whole story after all is figuring out how to handle the enormity of Miyagi’s legacy passed onto him and how to honour it and what his philosophy of pacifism and non-violence means for his own life, especially now he’s faced with a recurrence of the stories that led him to Miyagi in the first place” *takes deep breath*

So, at this point, I concede… the show really doesn’t like Miyagi, in the sense that it thinks his philosophy and the narrative that led to that philosophy is quaint and naive and silly (and not cool) at best... and I think once I get this out of my system, maybe I’ll be able to get back into the bits of it that I like playing with, the stuff it promised and set-up -- a lack of pay-off doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of interesting Stuff.

SO LET’S GET INTO SOME STUFF:

I’ve started calling it “The Tension of Daniel” – namely, how do white straight cis men of a certain Type who love the sports drama coming-of-age movie The Karate Kid come to terms with their main character being a skinny little mouthy kid who isn’t like Rocky or all those other guys who deserve to win because… well, look at those muscles! (Shhh, never mind that Rocky is about love, it’s his muscles!)

That Tension exists aaaaall the way through Cobra Kai, as many of us have called on numerous occasions. Daniel inhabits a role often given to female leads. His emotions are denied or made out to be ridiculous or hysterical. He “pretends” to have the moral high-ground, but he’s actually hypocritical as compared to the salt-of-the-earth direct talks-with-his-fists Johnny Lawrence. He’s just not quite as “cool” in his messiness and feelings. He is simply not as much of A Man in the “heroic lead of an American franchise type” as is comfortable. But of course he’s also not a woman (somethingsomething witness gender-essentialism in action).

Now the problem with Daniel not being as cool as Johnny (who has the decency to at least get blackout drunk and punch things when he feels things), is that he’s also one of the two heroes and he and Johnny are meant to find common ground. He’s the person with the most story backing him up (which means that in earlier seasons when his POV isn’t being respected by other characters we can fall back on the movies and remind ourselves why he’s reacting in xyz ways, even if the show itself doesn’t grace the audience with that perspective).

THE WRITERS DON’T LIKE DANIEL (YEAH YEAH WE KNOW):

-- Here’s where, instead of writing another 2000 words, I would redirect you to multiple posts written about how while Johnny’s narrative went from trying to deconstruct his story, Cobra Kai instead fell for how cool it was for everything to be solved with violence, provided it was at the right moment. (I have written several and I warrant you currently can’t spit in the Johnny Lawrence tag without coming across many more).

That ethos is the same for Daniel now, except rather than thinking he’s cool (they don’t) and that being the flaw in their writing him, they’re trying to “fix” him, to make him a more comfortable character for them.

Which means that by the end of this story Daniel isn’t trying to do what he seems to have been trying to do for the entire rest of it (including much of season 5!!!!) -- trying to understand Miyagi’s philosophy and reconstruct it for his own understanding of the world, while grieving him and honouring him, while also having the pain of the events that initially brought him to Miyagi dredged up, except this time without his help – it’s to see that what he really needs to solve his issues is to finally be a fucking man about them.

And for much of season five, this isn’t even the case: For the first half Terry Silver stalks and terrifies Daniel on multiple occasions. Several people have talked about the ways it appears sexual, like an abusive ex, like Daniel is framed in a way women often are – physically completely overwhelmed and disbelieved and/or minimized almost regardless of whom he goes to, and unable to speak about what he’s going through (almost like a survivor). @jenpsaki and @bobakick and @youandthemountains and @deputychairman (I’m sure there are others).

The difference between Daniel-now and Daniel-of-previous-seasons is that much of the menace is being shown onscreen (at last!) so Daniel is seemingly being validated by the narrative (at last!) -- here the obvious point that never is Daniel given the opportunity to really... talk about it. And he likely never will, because it’s all handled now, right?

Please let me know who pointed out the fascinating gendered role-reversal of Amanda disbelieving Daniel until Jessica backs up his narrative + actually gets to say a hell of a lot more than Daniel ever does.

But at the end of the story he wins against Terry in a fight, total role-reversal of episode 5, his wife and kids (family) watching on – no Johnny of course, not even Chozen. They weren’t important to Daniel’s journey I guess. They’re not “really” family in this context.

He’s risen above his original writing where he was wishy-washy and annoying and cared about complex conflict resolutions and he’s met Johnny halfway (which would be idk… still an alcoholic who’s trying to make it work I guess, but crucially correct when he thought that violence was the answer all along, even though that was what his story was meant to be deconstructing).

COOL DANIEL

I think this Very Cool Scene of Daniel finally winning comes at the cost of everything that makes him interesting to fans like us to begin with – all the unpalatably non-traditional-masculine traits that have made him up since day one: His pursuit of non-violence even when that’s a struggle, his complicated way of expressing his emotions, his lack of need to prove his masculinity in order to be worthy, and his past as a victim of others’ needs to prove the same, and a man who made him believe for a brief moment that he was special and how dealing with the aftermath of that + return of that man has sent him to some bad places that he’s trying to be honest about himself with. If anything he’s the character who is most self-aware (and most hyper-critical) of his own ability to make bad choices sometimes.

And despite Daniel’s new upgrade into masculinity-a-dude-audience-can-finally-root-for, the initial Tension is still there throughout most of the season: in the way that he’s never ever given a scene to properly talk about any of it in his own words (well, in s4 I guess but we never saw it so RIP -- sidenote I do want to know how many monologues Johnny gets vs Daniel) and in the way he doesn’t have the power to tell the story on his terms/drive the narrative (in the first half this makes sense – he’s on the back-foot, he doesn’t know how to defeat Silver, he wants to be protected, but in the last episode???):

In the last episode, Mike, Chozen, and Johnny decide to randomly attack Silver without Daniel’s consent (and don’t even end up bringing Daniel along). They set in motion the events that lead to the fight, not Daniel, not even Silver. There’s nothing that has happened thus far that suggests Daniel has recovered from what’s happened to him -- I acknowledge here the callback to Miyagi scene and getting to train with Johnny and Chozen, but none of that is about facing his fear. It’s a good step to something that could pay-off later, but it never does because Johnny and Chozen aren’t there in the final episode -- never mind come to the conclusion that the way to really take down Silver is to beat him up. He doesn’t have a say over where that confrontation happens.

On the surface he’s victorious, but narratively he’s really just following the beats set out by everyone else, right up until the last Moment when he magically defeats Terry, because now it’s decided he’s allowed to.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MIYAGI:

I know some people made their peace seasons ago that whatever Miyagi mattered to the original narrative is almost entirely absent from this one, and maybe that’s what I need to do to start the process of doing surgery on this show to make it work for me.

But before I can do that, I have to ask what the hell is the point of Daniel’s journey? If it’s not about finding his way to Miyagi’s lessons? If it’s not to find a way to face the fears that have been haunting him for 35 years, which Miyagi was trying to help him with? If it’s not for Miyagi’s legacy to influence the whole darn narrative from beyond the grave, but most strongly through Daniel, his adopted son?

Taking the idea that “one day Daniel will do karate his way” is one thing, but it doesn’t apply to what’s happening in the final fight, because Daniel isn’t fighting to understand himself or what Miyagi meant or anything Miyagi-related. The story isn’t answering this conceit, it’s talking about something completely different with the fight, Miyagi-as-theme has looong abandoned the building.

So why does Daniel have to solve his problems this way? What is it thematically (not “deservedly” not “coolness-factor” but simply what questions does it answer?)

Is Miyagi-do too weak a philosophy for Daniel to find himself in? Is violence to solve your problems only wrong if it’s the bad guys doing it, but fine if practically the exact same things are done by the good guys at the right time? – and especially LaRusso who before this came off as a bit as a pansy, despite his (much more thematically interesting) fight against Kreese, but now he’s proved he’s just as good a fighter as Terry Silver, which was what he really always needed to get over his fear

At the end neither Johnny nor Chozen (and I would say it ought to have been Johnny, but I would have taken Chozen) were even there to support him in any meaningful way, so it’s not really about the family you make and their helping you stand up on your feet.

Nobody’s honking anyone’s noses anymore.

Nobody’s stepping out of the way to let the aggressor punch the glass in their own blind rage.

No mercy was in fact the correct philosophy, Kreese was right from the get-go, his problem was just that he was the bad guy. Thank goodness now the good guys are enacting it -- violence, if done by the right people, is good after all

CONCLUSION:

Daniel, to me, is the most embedded example of what Cobra Kai does over and over, which is taking a narrative that’s thematically pointing in a particular direction, and then veering last minute into a completely different conclusion, usually what they consider more visually spectacular – that is to say, a fight

Daniel was given so much to work with this season and the conclusion of his arc: beat the other man until he can’t get up again.

If anything this show is an ouroboros. It started eating its own themes in sacrifice of “badass fight scene after badass fight scene” until it could no longer write characters who don’t solve their problems with violence, because then it would have to admit that its growing reliance of violence as a tool to show any character growth was in direct opposition to its original themes of exploring and deconstructing the very violence it now presents without question… until all you’re left with is Daniel, who completes his character arc through violence

---

SOME NOTES

1. there’s also a separate thing pointed out to me by GJdraws, where Carmen is the only character who never enacts violence and is weak and Daniel is weak until he enacts violence, at which point he becomes badass

2. another point I loosely made about Sam on her post, which was that she wants to “leave karate” to find herself but the narrative pulls her back in, because if Sam wasn’t doing karate it wouldn’t be able to think of something for her to do at all (one symptom of the ouroboros).

3. funnily enough, despite overall hating far more of Johnny’s arc this season, he actually got to have the catharsis I was hoping for Daniel and for him: when he fought Kreese in s3 he did it out of rage and fear and oh so many mixed emotions and he lost (he lost because Robby was following right in his footsteps and he accidentally hurt him), and then later on he got beaten up again by Terry, in front of Kreese. His winning moment is telling Kreese in prison that he’s going to erase everything about him – and at that moment he’s supported by Daniel, just like he was during his fight with him – that’s some good subversion of the roles the two of them play

4. amazingly, I managed to stick to my guns and not bring Terry into this beyond certain bits, but it’s not lost on me that after episode five he does... basically nothing. He opens some dojos and hires a strict sensei and trains some kids, but he doesn’t actually enact any massively evil plans, he just waits around until some drunk guys break into his home. it would have been easy to run with what’s already there and have him spiral into his own maw (was that not what ouroboros was meant to be about????? violence eventually eats itself). Terry is ultimately self-destructive, just like Kreese when he punched the glass all those years ago. That’s... the themes are right there??????? Terry’s kind of flipping tragic, why not let him be that (at least TIG knows)

5. and I didn’t really speak to the pacing, because I was talking about themes, but while I can forgive rushed pacing if one isn’t sure of a renewal, why start introducing new characters and half-assed racist lore in the back-half of the season instead of concentrating all your energy on the core of the characters arcs?

sure, maybe Daniel could have fought Terry again and there be emotional resonance, I’m not saying the ability to write that didn’t exist, but there was no narrative build-up to it, which adds to the disconnectedness of it all. Why is he fighting Terry now? I don’t know. Was it a fight that made sense for either of their characters? No.

6. I think where I’m at is beginning to find the bits of shiny stuff that I want to play with -- if I know why something didn’t work for me, I can reconstruct it in a way that it does. the absence of something is what I want to make present. the flawed enacting of a genuinely intended theme is still giving the tools to continue to play with said theme.

The Tension of Daniel still remains in full force and that is interesting to work with

[pumpkinpaix]

*waves* Hi! New(ish) follower, I followed for your posts about translation which are beautiful (especially the one about the imagery of "Zewu-jun") and thought-provoking; I don't have a good segue so here are some Salty Asks I'd like to know your answers to concerning MDZS: 5, 9, 10, 12, 23

oh, that’s so sweet of you!! thank you I’m really happy you enjoyed them 💛

okay salt incoming let’s see--all opinions are my own, no one has to agree with me, etc! and in true cyan fashion, this ask meme response actually needs a readmore  l m a o

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

fandom has not ruined any ships in mdzs for me, but it has made me way more critical of both wangxian and xicheng interpretations. not in the sense that like, I think they are bad! i love wangxian and xicheng, but I have very very specific feelings about them that I rarely see reflected in popular fandom interpretations. (because i am a picky bitch lol) 

wangxian tends to get the “they did no wrong and their love is righteous” treatment which I find disingenuous and believe directly contradicts the point of mdzs. i think that wangxian is fundamentally a very selfish relationship, and that that is, in fact, a good thing. i love that about them. i care so much about the assertion that your desires do not have to be perfect and righteous to still matter and be worthwhile. i don’t understand the impulse to make wangxian into a pure ship that triumphs and “deserves” a happy ending because they were right all along. I always felt like the entire point of mdzs was that--you can be the most terrible person, you can do unspeakable harm, and still be loved and deserving of that love. i think wangxian is compelling and moving specifically for that reason, and I often have to back out of interpretations that don’t acknowledge it in the way that i want them to. a lot of interpretations tend to idealize wwx and lwj in ways that I disagree with, and I’ve seen a lot of vitriolic pushback over anything that’s seen as even vaguely critical of either of them, when the point isn’t that “wwx/lwj is a bad person because he is selfish” the point is that “wwx/lwj’s choices are selfishly motivated” -- that’s not meant to be a value judgment, at least for me.

(i understand that a lot of this has to do with CQL’s influence, in which wangxian IS narratively rewarded for their righteousness, but as I’ve discussed at length, I think that positioning undermines what makes mdzs so powerful to me in the first place. not that i don’t love CQL!! i do love CQL--they have made a beautiful thing within the constraints that they had. but I think the novel is much stronger thematically.)

as for xicheng: i think that their relationship could be extraordinarily interesting if done in specific ways--I do not think they are well-suited to each other at any point in the canon timeline, but that they could be something really good maybe 10 years post-canon. I used to really like the idea of xicheng romantically, but as time goes on, I’m leaning harder into friendship. I think they have a lot of uniquely shared life experiences, and that it would be really good for both of them to have a person that they knew understood those experiences intimately: the pressures of leading a sect before adulthood, the grief of losing your family in a massacre and being unable to save them, the betrayal of someone who was once so close to you--that’s a lot. and i think there are very few people in their generation who could truly understand that. (for this reason, I also think lxc and xxc would be a very interesting relationship to see many many years post-canon, if xxc were ever revived) but during canon? no, absolutely not. i don’t think lxc has the slightest interest in jc, and i don’t think jc is particularly moved by lxc either, beyond a distant “yeah i mean, he’s the first jade everyone loves him sure moving on” kind of way. they both have their own shit to deal with, and before lxc’s seclusion and also before the core reveal, i think jc is too angry and vicious for lxc and lxc is too soft and toothless for jc. for someone to really convince me on xicheng, jc has to move towards some kind of self-forgiveness and peace and lxc has to move towards self-assertion. then I think they can meet somewhere in the middle of all that.

and like, it’s not that i won’t read silly fluffy aus or like canonverse stuff with them in a ship, but i admit that because it’s grown so popular but not at all in the ways that i personally want, I’m frustrated with and have retreated from reading it. unless it’s done in the specific way i like, it has too much of a pair the spares vibe for me to get behind it anymore.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

jin guangshan, obvious reasons, next

ok well, i guess to elaborate even slightly: jin guangshan, to me, is the embodiment of the systems within mdzs that cause tragedy. he and chang ci’an are similar in that respect? like, the callousness with which they treat people they consider beneath them. what is nothing to them is ruinous for another, but why should they care? but jgs really had every advantage handed to him and chose to use that advantage to hurt others in really insidious ways and i can’t forgive that. jin zixun is also on this list, but like, still ahead of jgs bc he’s younger. -_- i suppose in that respect, i also very much dislike chang ci’an, but that’s a bit harder to quantify, given that we know almost nothing about him.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

huh. uhhhh. i think i actually really like all of them? in the novel anyways. if we’re talking CQL, yin iron plot ugh.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I think for similar reasons to 10, not really! I don’t see a lot of hate for any specific plot arc. Oh, maybe the incense burners? I completely unironically love those. people rag a lot on mxtx’s smut, but it’s very important to me for a number of like, personal mental health reasons lol.

23. Unpopular character you love?

xue yang! i think xue yang’s character raises a very interesting point about equivalent justice that kinda gets swept away in all the uhhhh murder. and it’s a point that has really big thematic repercussions, I think? but the way it’s worded makes it very easy to dismiss.

very briefly: xue yang is right when he says that 50 lives cannot pay back his finger, because there is nothing that can pay back that finger. no vengeance or sentence visited upon chang ci’an will ever be equal to the injustice that he visited upon xue yang. i think there’s a bit of naivety in the way xxc says “why didn’t you cut off his finger then? or his whole arm, if that wasn’t enough?” and the answer I think is very obvious--xy cutting off cca’s finger would not in any way be the same kind of trauma that xy losing his finger was, esp if chang ci’an knew who xue yang was. there would be an understanding in that: i am losing my finger because this man blames me for the loss of his finger. but to xue yang, a 7 year old? the pain he experienced was completely senseless and cruel and terrifying.

does that mean xue yang was justified? no jesus christ, but i do think it ties very neatly into the general themes of what it means to get vengeance, what it means to get justice, and how cycles of trauma eventually end. so i love him for that.

on a lesser note, but a similar one: i rather like su she, I think. there is something about like, jgy’s “all i had to do was remember his name and he was willing to die for me” that gets to me. there’s a huge tragedy in that somewhere.

wow i have no idea if any of that was coherent im very sleepy

salt asks

[reflectionsofacreator]

Time for William’s conversations -- and he has five of them. Wordy motherfucker. As per usual, you can go here to listen to the voice inflections, though not many of them stood out to me for this set of convos. 

Will: Son?  Will: I ... I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that. You have to understand I’ve never been very good at this. Nevermind that we live rather... extraordinary lives.  Desmond: Yeah... I kinda liked my ordinary one.  Will: You can’t escape who you are, Desmond.  Desmond: So I’ve noticed.  Will: Look... It’s silly for us to go back and forth like this. I admit, I did a shitty job raising you. I apologize. I’m sorry. But it’s important you understand that it didn’t come from a bad place. You’re my son. I love you. I guess I was so busy trying to make sure nothing bad happened, I didn’t... consider the consequences.  Will: Truce? 

Notice how Desmond doesn’t say a word to all of this. No agreement to a truce, no real word for Will’s justifications other than a few noncommittal snarks. Sighs. As much as Will says he loves Desmond, that doesn’t change the fact that Dez faced abuse at his hands. The way that Will talks just grates at me, trying to frame it as a “let’s make up and move on”, not really with any sort of actual like, real acknowledgement of it, and the way that William phrases brooks no room for argument. 

Onto the next convo. 

Desmond: I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to ask, but - how’s mom. She’s not...  Will: No, no. Your mother’s fine. We decided it was safer if we split up for this job.  Desmond: Always assuming the worst.  Will: Hmph. For good reason.  Desmond: Can I at least say hi to her?  Will: I’m sorry... It’s too risky. Maybe when we’re done...  Desmond: ... Right. When we’re done. 

Please, sir, a crumb of a canon name for Desmond’s mother, last heir to Altair’s bloodline? Please, sir, a crumb of acknowledging that mothers are important figures too to a person’s life, not just fathers? 

God who am I kidding, ac3 is just “daddy issues: the game” isn’t it, with both Desmond’s and Ratonhnhake:ton’s mothers thrown under the bus for the sake of father-oriented narratives. Sigh. It’s worth noting that Dez actually sounds pretty resigned on that last line, like he doesn’t quite believe it. Ha ha. Yeah. 

Desmond: Have... Have we ever tried to make peace with the Templars?  Will: Throughout our history there have been moments... Several, in fact. But... It’s impossible. There are... existential differences. Insurmountable. If there were to be unity, it wouldn’t be a truce so much as a submission.  Desmond: But knowing what’s about to happen... Wouldn’t it make sense to try and talk to Vidic? Come to an arrangement? Even if it’s only temporary?  Will: We’d all be so busy watching our backs, nothing would get accomplished. [slight chuckle] Imagine that. We’re more productive at war...  Desmond: Well have we ever tried... sending in someone? Doing to them what they did to us with Lucy? Or Cross?  Will: We have. And it’s never worked. We’ve sent people who were either too weak, and found themselves turned - or too strong, and were unable to carry out the charade.  Desmond: I just feel like we all want the same thing.  Will: We use the same words, but that’s all they are... words. In the end it all comes down to freedom. We seek it. They detest it. And so there’s never an end to the fight. Not until one side is completely gone.  Desmond: Is that even possible?  Will: Probably not. Our two groups have existed in one form or another since .. well... forever. But things can be better than they are. And that’s something. 

You know, when the person that was inhumanely experimented on advocates for peace with the people that did so, I’m a little more inclined to think he’s got a point than the Mentor of the Brotherhood who just outright refuses.  Honestly I think there’s something to be said for the fact that Desmond is largely an outsider looking in, and he’s able to see that this war is getting them nowhere, especially in the face of everything else. He’s spent his last 9 years living as a civilian, trying his best to get rid of the ideologies of the Assassins, and that leads him to having a lot of interesting perspectives. 

Honestly, it’s probably what the Brotherhood needs. They’ve spent so long trying to get the upperhand on Abstergo, or a lot of other things, and they lose sight of what’s important, I think. Like, yeah, you can say that Desmond is being naive, sure, but I just -- it’s like how Ratonhnhake:ton pushed back against Sam for saying he’ll grow out of his own naivety. Like, the game isn’t exactly being subtle with the parallels between Desmond and Ratonhnhake:ton, but man if it doesn’t make me worried. 

I know, ultimately, that the modern day plot kinda goes to nowhere (save for maybe the Origins onward), and that there’s not much in the way of change that happens. Also, I know that Ratonhnhake:ton’s efforts for his own people are futile in the long run, resulting in a very similar feeling futileness that these two characters have to grapple with. But like, that’s the rub, isn’t it -- ac3 is more tragedy than anything else, with inevitable failures that can’t be circumvented. 

It interests me that Desmond lumps Lucy in with Cross though. Like as not he doesn’t exactly know the whole story there, but still. Makes me think. 

Desmond: Did you look for me, dad? When I was gone.  Will: Every day.  Desmond: Come on...  Will: I mean it. Every night I’d look. Searching for you name - or variations of it - hoping you’d slip up. Abstergo only found you first because they had better access. A few more days and it would have been me.  Desmond: Well, I’m here now.  Will: And I’m glad. 

Desmond sounds resigned on that last line, damn. Tbh, the vibe I got from this one is that Dez couldn’t really believe that his father actually cared about him. (I mean, I can’t either, but that’s neither here nor there) I do vaguely wonder how long it took for the frantic searching to become just an ingrained habit, how long it took before William would just click through results and never actually hope to find anything, resigned to never knowing the fate of his son. 

Dammit I think I just made myself feel for the bastard. [beats with stick] back! Back I say! 

Desmond: Do you think Lucy regretted what she was doing?  Will: I used to think I knew her well, but clearly that wasn’t the case. So I really can’t give you an honest answer.  Desmond: She seemed so sincere, though. Like she really wanted to make a difference.  Will: Yes, well when I first met him, I thought the same thing about Cross.  Desmond: It just keeps happening over and over again.  Will: What does?  Desmond: Everything...  Will: Don’t get weird on me, Desmond.  Desmond: No. It’s fine. I’m fine. Don’t worry.  Will: Alright, then. You should think about getting back in the Animus... We’ve got to find that key. 

Catch me worrying anyways :D Like, really worrying :D

Groans I just. there’s so many worrying signs in these conversations, and I don’t like where it’s going!! at all!! 

If you liked this, or what I do, consider checking out the rest of my ac3 playthrough!  Or my other playthroughs in general! 

[no--envies]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your top 5 favorite characters from MDZS? And why do you like them? Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Hi! Of course I don't mind :)

My favorite character in MDZS is Wei Wuxian without a doubt. I would need to write an entire essay to explain what I like about him, I find both his personality and outlook incredibly fascinating and admirable. His ability to easily adapt to situations and the way he manages to face even the worst circumstances while still keeping a positive mindset are extremely compelling for me. I also love how brilliant and inventive he is. I adore the contrast between his mischievous and playful nature - that could mislead people into thinking he's silly and can’t be serious - and how perceptive, insightful and empathetic he actually is. It’s also great to see a character who is so self-aware and confident in his talents and skills, who doesn’t think less of himself for his past failures and doesn’t dwell on his regrets.

My second favorite character is Wen Ning. I think his character arc is very interesting and I love his relationship with Wei Wuxian. Wen Ning’s loyalty and devotion proved to be essential for Wei Wuxian time and time again, but it’s not a one-sided dynamic: not only did Wei Wuxian bring him back as a fierce corpse and made a lot of sacrifices to protect his family, but he also inspired him to be more confident and brave. And when he really wants, Wen Ning can show an impressive amount of courage and confidence despite his timid and shy nature. More of my thoughts on Wen Ning can be found in this meta.

Lan Wangji is also one of my favorites. What makes Lan Wangji such an interesting character for me is that he isn’t portrayed as flawless despite how much the novel highlights his beauty and righteousness through Wei Wuxian’s thoughts and words. We see him make mistakes and learn from them (like the Phoenix Mountain kiss) and he’s arguably one of the characters with the biggest development in the whole story. I also have a lot of respect for the way he supports Wei Wuxian: he’s never blinded by his love for him, he isn’t afraid to tell him when he thinks he’s wrong because he doesn’t want him to do things he might regret later. While everyone else approved of Wei Wuxian’s questionable actions because they saw him as a useful tool to win the war, Lan Wangji was the only one who scolded him because he was worried about him.

I also love Lan Xichen. His interactions with Lan Wangji show he’s a great brother and more perceptive than what many people give him credit for. His values and principles are actually not that different from Lan Wangji’s: both try to understand the whole picture before jumping to conclusions, as shown by Lan Xichen’s willingness to listen to Wei Wuxian’s perspective after his identity was exposed. The real difference between them - besides the fact that Lan Xichen is gentler and more friendly - is that Lan Wangji is more resolute and action-oriented: while Lan Xichen always tries to mediate and compromise, Lan Wangji resolutely follows the path he’s chosen ignoring what other people might say. While Lan Wangji can sometimes be interpreted as stubborn, Lan Xichen’s willingness to see the good in people and give everyone a second chance can be seen as naivety, since it can lead to people taking advantage of his good faith to manipulate him (as Jin Guangyao did).

These are my favorite characters in MDZS. I don’t really have a fifth favorite; if I had to choose one it would probably be Jin Ling for his character development and dynamic with Wei Wuxian, though there are many other characters I like. In general, I find every character in MDZS interesting and compelling for one reason or another. Every single one of them either impacts the plot or highlights the themes of the novel, so I appreciate every character’s presence in the story.

[sweet-evie]

Are there any Code Geass characters that you hate?

Hate's a strong ass word 😂😂 I don't think I hate anyone in CG. 😅 Characters I dislike maybe. 😃 Before I go in, I just want to say that I appreciate every one of these characters and how much they contributed to CG storytelling. 🙂 So in no particular order (and in my opinion only):

1. TAMAKI

Tamaki’s loyalty is something to be admired. But the rest of him has a lot left to be desired. To me, he’s one of the most accurate characters to ever exist, right next to Suzaku. Accurate to the real nature of the majority of the people anyway. He changes his mind comically fast, it’s almost surreal. 

The way he treats C.C. annoys me too. 😅 I hate how he objectifies her to a certain degree & reduces her entire person down to “Zero’s Woman” (basically Zero’s, excuse my language, fuck toy in his judgmental eyes) and when I rewatched the whole show in college, part of me always wanted C.C. to put him in his place in a very scathing matter. But in a way, I’m glad C.C. doesn’t take his treatment to heart, because she clearly doesn’t care about anyone else’s opinions but hers. 👊😎

2. SHIRLEY

I’m on the fence with this girl. 😅 I like-dislike her 😅, if that makes sense.

Her personality and her naivety just irks me. And while I love that her character had an impact on Lelouch, I don't like how her world revolves around her HS crush on him. A little bit of her other friends, sure. But mostly Lelouch. DON’T DENY IT. 🤣 

She doesn't have the same passion and conviction for a cause as Kallen or an air of mystery around her and other silly quirks like C.C... even as I say this, it feels pointless.

SHE DID NOT THINK. And it’s so fucking annoying, because she could have saved everyone the heartache -- especially Lelouch. Her dying drove him to a breaking point unlike any other.

But to me, she’s just so... bland. And it annoys me how thoughtless and stupid she was before she died. I understand she wants to help Lelouch and all, but man, SHE COULD HAVE WAITED for the danger to pass. Stay under Suzaku’s protection. There’s a reason why Lelouch left her with him before he ran off. Suzaku was all for protecting her too. She could have spoken to Lelouch after he dealt with Jeremiah and any other bullshit.

But noooo~ What does she do? She RUNS OFF. 🙄 She doesn’t even know how to defend herself -- point is driven home by the fact that Rolo killed her.

She wanted to help him, but by endangering herself, she’s put more of a burden on his shoulders, and I believe that’s the least she wanted to do.

Wow, I went on a tangent. 😅 I guess now, none can deny that I’m passionate about Shirley, and why I love putting her in my own fanfics. Look, her character is a joy to explore, okay. True, most of the fics I published don’t feature her in any major roles, but trust me when I say I have unpublished fics surrounding this girl. 😋

Also, yes, they wasted Shirley's character in Re;surrection, but in some small way, I appreciate that they involved her in the plot to transport Lelouch's dead body. At least now, I assume she has some vague knowledge about what Lelouch was dealing with at the time, and she wasn’t naively running after Lulu because he was the hottest boy in school 😄

3. NINA

I don’t like thinking about it, but if the CG fandom had gatekeeping, I feel like it would be a requirement to hate Nina. 😂

The obvious reason why I dislike her is her intense racism & xenophobia. But I digress. There’s a reason why she is the way she is. And I don’t blame her wholly for being terrified of Japanese people when it’s obvious her trauma over some past event isn’t healed and it manifests through her actions and the way she generalizes and assigns a negative stereotype on an entire race of people. It doesn’t excuse her behavior in the beginning, of course, but I’m glad she had character development. 

Another reason why I dislike her is because she’s such a background character. She’s always just there -- to the point of being forgotten sometimes. In my fics, I usually don’t even know what to do with her. She’s just there.

Nina, in Re;surrection, was more tolerable to me, at least. 🤷‍♀️

3.5. Mao? 

No... 🤔 He didn't last long enough for me to form a proper like or dislike opinion other than he drove the plot forward for Lelouch, Shirley, and C.C. 😅 A good villain to have in fanfics tho. 😎

4. ODYSSEUS 

I only have 1 statement that sums up everything I think about him. 😅

A flopping, useless, Crown Prince. 😂

Clovis was hell’a more interesting in the 1st 3 episodes compared to Odysseus’ every appearance in the series. He’s so spineless. 😂 But he’s the perfect puppet for Schneizel, regardless. So yay! 🥳

[pynkhues]

I just have ask, cause I need to just voice this.. (BTW I do love the show no worry) Am I the only one who thought it was such a stupid reason that the new FBI decided that the fake money was made by women was because they used fuckin' NAIL POLISH?!! I legit sat dumfounded, I mean... wtf? What, men can't think to add nail polish to their fake money?

Haha, I get why you don’t like it, anon. As a functional plot device it’s a little hammy, but I appreciate it as a thematic plot device so much that I actually like it a lot overall. 

This show doesn’t really have a lot of recurring objects like many shows do, but when they are introduced, they usually serve as a means of underlining the gendering of spaces, crime and life, which is a theme this show is about as obsessed with as I am. I talked pretty extensively about the gendering of spaces and how the show uses them in this post (man, I should update this with the delicious new spaces in s3, because they continue all of these trends in such interesting ways!), and briefly touched on the gendering of objects too (namely Rio’s golden gun, and the dubby), but it really does extend well beyond that.

So let’s break that down a little!

(Under a cut to save your dashes!)

Functional vs Thematic Plot Devices

Plot devices take a hundred different shapes and forms throughout a story, and of course, always serve to drive narrative forwards, tell the audience something about a character, or drive home a narrative theme. Plot devices aren’t always physical – in many cases they can be a trope, expectation, lie, red herring, among many other things, but for the sake of this post I want to talk about physical plot devices.

So basically, I want to talk about the way this show uses objects.

It might not seem like it on the surface, but this is a show that uses objects as plot devices a lot. Sometimes these are obvious – the money for instance, the Boland Motors car Turner drudges from the lake back in s1, the dubby (and ho, boy, I have a lot to say about that last one, but I’ll come back to that), the guns, Lucy’s phone, etc etc etc.

While these are, of course, essentially props, this is a show that typically lends a lot of weight to them, and in particular, it lends a lot of weight to feminine-coded objects that would in other shows frequently be dismissed as inconsequential.

A pearl necklace, an old lady’s porcelain figurines, a smear of lipstick on a pen cap, a child’s blanket, a new engagement ring, a pregnancy test, vials of botox, and nail polish, among many other things, become objects of narrative and thematic importance.

When it comes to these sorts of physical plot devices, I generally separate them into two categories: functional and thematic.

Functional plot devices are ultimately what they sound like. They serve an often purely functional purpose in the story. Things like the Boland Motors car that the girls took to Canada, dumped, and then was drudged up by Turner. It was used as a means of re-directing Turner’s attention on Beth, while also revealing to Dean that Beth had been the person who’d robbed him back in 1.03. More recently too, the hockey jersey that Ruby stole was a means of ultimately giving us a fun heist as the girls scrambled to get the money to pay for Beth’s life, as well as getting us to the pawn shop where Ruby would see the pen that Sara had stolen.

Functional plot devices – at their most basic – move plot forwards, bridge the gaps between characters and accelerate the action and drama of a story.

Thematic plot devices on the other hand serve a different purpose, and are often less bogged down, I find at least, in perfect logic. While they need to do what a functional plot device does, they also carry the extra weight of underpinning character arcs and often punctuating the key themes of the story. The sled in Citizen Kane is a really good example of this – as a functional plot device it’s just a specific sled and a sort of silly thing for a multimillionaire to want when he can buy as many sleds as he wants, but as a thematic one, we lean that it’s the key thing in his life connecting him back to his childhood, his innocence and his humanity, and comes to represent the central loss of the film.

Similarly, Harry’s lightning bolt scar in the Harry Potter series serves as a functional plot device to tell us and Harry when Voldemort is near, but it actually evades logic to eschew a greater purpose – which is reiterate the theme of motherly love and protection in the story.

Sharp Objects

Good Girls uses objects this way a lot and frequently shifts them between the two purposes, and it has done that since the very beginning. Using toy guns on the very first Fine & Frugal robbery for instance, was a silly plot point used ultimately to get them into the situation with Boomer at the end, but it also thematically represented the naivety of the girls in the robbery, and Annie and Beth’s powerlessness overall, but especially in the scene with Boomer (something immediately juxtaposed with Beth hitting him with the bourbon bottle). It also works effectively as a means of showing how far Beth would come across the first season as she held a real gun at the end of it, and the further slip of her moral character and what she’s capable of across season 2 and 3.

Sometimes they seem to appear as purely functional too, but evolve into thematic ones – meaning they are enriched with weight and purpose as they transition in their design.

A good example of that is Boomer’s cell phone in 2.03 which was purely functional – serving as a means of tricking the girls into believing they were disposing of Boomer’s body, not Jeff’s, before it was pivoted in the last scene to be used on a thematic and character level. By Annie listening to Marion’s voicemails through it, it served to re-link Annie to her own humanity, and underpin her arc with Marion that would ultimately lead to betrayal, redemption, grief and guilt.

The Dubby: a quick aside

The best example though, at least to me, is, of course, the dubby. The dubby does a lot of heavy lifting on virtually every story level, and I could honestly wax lyrical about it until the end of time.

On a functional plot level, it’s there to ultimately get Beth shirking Rio’s instructions and throwing her weight against him in their partnership. It forces her to confront the fact that she views herself and Rio as equals, when the reality is – in situations like that – they’re not. It also gets us to confrontations between Beth with Dean, Rio and Ruby, as well as Annie and Ben (I told you it did a lot of heavy lifting!), served as the means to which Noah and Annie met (boo), revealed Rio’s hand emotionally, and forced Beth to face on a textual level (as opposed to subtextual level) her changing relationship with her home, with her role as a mother, and ultimately her children.

On a thematic level, it explores all that and more! Not only is it deeply, deeply symbolic of a loss of innocence (a baby blanket in a drug den!) – something that’s reiterated by the girls almost being raped in that house – but Rio’s desire, for whatever reason, to give it back to her (something actually reiterated in 2.08 when he tries to handle the baby hitmen for her) – a really, really interesting beat for a character that seems to revel in her moral decline. Rio has, I think, always wanted her to be both. Again, something that is the clearest we’ve ever seen in this episode – he wants her to own up to what she is (a drug dealer) during their fight, while simultaneously trying to restore her to a seemingly frivolous comfort as a mother. It’s complicated! And I love it!

It’s also a highly feminised object that is weaponised against Beth twice. Firstly, by Jane as a means of guilting Beth (she lost it in the drug den), then criminally (by the, y’know, criminals), and then Beth actually weaponises it herself against the woman in the craft store in a female hierarchical sense which is totally fascinating to me and feels very true of Beth as reiterating the sort of alpha woman she is.

I could keep talking about this, but let’s move on, haha.

Claws

It’s not just about character arcs though.

Thematic plot devices are also often used as symbolic touchstones to re-emphasise the key themes of the show overall, and it’s in this sense that the nail polish operates – to me – really effectively. The writers aren’t saying that nail polish is only used by women, they’re saying that it’s a feminine-coded object deemed frivolous or silly by a patriarchal society (which it is, even when men wear it), and that women can use that dismissal as a weapon.

In other words, the key through line of the show.

The girls have operated with this sensibility since the show began, acting within underestimated, feminine-coded spaces and using them, basically in a way that messes with people’s expectations. It doesn’t always work in their favour, but that’s not a bad thing, and I don’t think that that’s the story this show is trying to tell. Rather I think it’s simply trying to say that these things are active, and can be powerful and used in interesting ways. They’re not passive or frivolous as history has told us.

They’ve frequently actually tried to use female-coded objects in crime before too – namely Marion’s figurines, the secret shopping scheme, the botox – all of which failed in unique ways (all of which too were briefly entertained but ultimately rejected by Rio, and it’s interesting that a key transition in Beth and Rio’s relationship occurred around Boland Motors – a masculinised space that Beth feminised on her takeover of it – I spoke about that quite a bit in the gendered spaces post I linked to above!)

The nail polish though has been the first true, pure success of a weaponised, feminine-coded object in the crime storylines, and it’s not an accident that that has coincided with the launch of the girls’ operation and their pure success without Rio. Being able to use it to make the money has been key to representing their feminisation of the crime world and the crime space on a thematic level, and I’d argue represents a ‘full circle’ moment with the success of their returns-for-cash scheme working with Rio originally (again, a feminine-coded operation).

Like I said in my gendered spaces post – Beth, Ruby and Annie are at their strongest and smartest when they’re utilising the familiar, feminine-coded world and weaponizing it, as opposed to copying Rio’s highly masculine-coded world (one of the clearest examples of this ever on the show was this season actually when Beth realised she couldn’t intimidate Gil like Rio, but could blackball him in PTA mom mode). The nail polish is actually a key symbol of that too, and the fact that it’s identified by a female FBI agent is about reiterating the same themes. Phoebe has a chance to take down the girls and close in on them because she doesn’t underestimate that world like Turner did and Rio’s still prone to doing.

The nail polish in that sense formed not only a functional plot device (with making the money in the first place), a thematic one (the underestimation of feminine-coded objects by men), but a bridging device that makes Phoebe a real enemy to the girls. It also serves as a great narrative underscore as Phoebe removes that nail polish from circulation, not only indicating that Phoebe operates in that space as well as Beth, Ruby and Annie, because she’s a part of that world in a way Turner wasn’t, but forming a terrific narrative parallel where as Beth loses further control of her operation, she also loses control of a key ingredient which gained her that operation in the first place.

So yes! Less function, more theme, but I don’t know.

I’m pretty into it, haha.

[rogue-sunday]

1-4 for the meta writing asks my friend! 🥺💛

SHANNON thank you so much :,) i hope these don’t get too long but... knowing me they will whoops <33333

1. Tell us about your current project(s) - what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

You definitely know this, but the project I’m currently working on is The State of Grace!! It follows Marley (Marlene) Chevalier, a young woman who “tricked” the military into letting her into their ranks - at the expense of never being able to hold a rank equal to or above a man. Due to her experience in medicine, she was allowed into the 506th as a combat medic. Progress is chugging - a little slow because school is trying to drown me in work, but what can you do LOL. I’ve jumped around a bit chapter-wise, because some things come to me as I go, but the things I know to be set in stone are sitting in my Google Docs, waiting to be placed in order. What do I love most about it.... hmmm. I imagined Marley when I first watched BOB, which was years ago. She was merely a character with absolutely nothing to her, but around 2 years ago I actually began to develop a story for her. This sounds sort of silly, but what I love most about it is that it will simply be my first BIG fanfic, and something that I’ve actually planned and stuck to. More so for me it’ll hopefully be a starting off point to write more in time. But I also just love Marley. 2 years is a long time to “be with someone,” and I love the way writing her has made me reevaluate my own relationships with the people around me :)

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing - in your current project, or a future project.

Okayyyyy, well, in TSOG, I have a plot-twist of sorts that I’m excited to just have out there. It’s a huge moment in Marley’s storyline, and I’m just... so pumped LOL

In terms of future projects, I have a Malarkey/OC short story I’ve had in the drafts for a while, which it will continue to be until TSOG is nearly over. It’s so, SO FUN TO WRITE AND CREATE. It’s centered around the album of a broadway musical and follows the songs in the musical, and listen - I know how that might sound lame, but tbh I’ve had a lot of fun with it so I’m excited about that, too LOL

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be aresed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Alright, so I’ve basically conjured the Chevalier family’s entire genealogy - spanning three generations on both sides of her family. I have absolutely no clue how I’d ever fit that into TSOG, just because of how extensive it is and how into detail I’d want to take it, if that makes sense. It just wouldn’t flow well with the actual story. However, if I ever wanted, I might make a post just of her family tree and the backstories of its members. I don’t know if anyone would actually be interested, but.... who knows. Maybe it’d be a Silmarillion sort of thing LOL

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

“You know what, Chevalier?” He spat her name like it was venom on his tongue. “I don’t need someone to waltz in here and tell me what I do or don’t think, or whether it’s bad or evil or whatever fat-head bullshit you wanna call it...”

There is a lot more to this, and I chose the beginning of this line for the scene alone; I’m just really proud of it. I can’t expand on it too much w/o spoiling it, which is something I don’t want to do, but it’s an “argument” that’s really important to Marley as a character. She’s messed up in this scene (so has the counterpart but... we’ll get into that when we get there LOL) It explores both Marley and the other character in a way that I, personally, have never seen before. This scene also just showcases her naivety and her flawed outlook on life; just black and white, and a tendency to assume that good people can’t be flawed. Not because of a lack of intelligence, but a lack of worldliness

thank you so much shannon!! i hope these made even an ounce of sense LOL

[coffeesandfilm]

Skins, the Ultimate Teen Drama: why Generation 1 is the best

Now if you recognise my avatar you have probably realised that I am a big fan of Skins, the quintessential UK teen drama. But what makes it so special, and why is it so relatable? But most importantly why is Gen 1 (aka the first two series of Skins) infinitely the most superior?

Skins first premiered in January 2007, I must confess I did not watch it until 2013 when I was 16 myself, but I do remember the controversy it caused in its initial run. Parents and papers alike were shocked at the explicit depiction of teenage life: drugs, sex, abortion, expletive language, but one of the main writers, Bryan Elsley, insisted that “Skins [was] a very simple and in fact rather old fashioned television series... about the lives and loves of teenagers, how they [got] through high school, how they deal with their friends, and also how they circumnavigate[d] some of the complications of sex, relationships, educations, parents, drugs and alcohol.” To be honest I could not really relate to the hedonistic social lives of the Skins teens too much, my teenage years were far more mundane and involved more sitting alone watching TV in my bedroom rather than underage partying. But at the heart of the show we saw real, volatile young life, the vulnerabilities, the friendships, the heartbreak, and the silly jokes. These kids were not presented as either particularly cool or uncool (more like Inbetweeners if you will), they liked to hang out with each other in the park, chatting, smoking, bitching, and laughing. There was no real macho, ‘lad-ish’ behaviour, Chris, Maxxie, Anwar and Sid were sweethearts at heart, and whilst you could not describe Tony in that way (being a full on sociopath in Series 1), he was not exactly a lad either, more of a calculating academic. None of the girls were portrayed as Primadonnas or uber-bitchy either, Cassie was your manic pixie dream girl, Jal was the fair, rational one, and Michelle was your slightly spoilt, but very caring girly girl. I apologise for holding the characters to such stereotyped gender ideologies, but teen dramas typically have a tendency for doing this.

In each episode we saw life from the perspective of a different character, a very smart tactic by creators Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, as we got to watch very well-rounded and developed people, not just one dimensional stereotypes. For example hard-partier and fan-favourite Chris was shown to have a very broken home life, his dad had left him when he was young and thought he was a waste of space, his mother was mentally unstable and used to disappear when things got too difficult, and his older brother, who was his idol and secondary father figure, died too young. It is shown that despite his carefree attitude and being a shoulder to cry on for others, Chris ultimately had nothing and no-one apart from his friends. Now the Skins characters home lives were just as dramatic as there social ones, Sid’s dad died, Michelle had a multitude of step-fathers, Cassie’s parents were completely self-involved and were these weird ‘natural Earthy types’, Jal’s father was a famous musician who did not take too much interest in his daughter’s life. Maxxie and Anwar’s parents were a bit more relatable, the former’s father loved his son but wanted him to embark on a more stable career path rather than pursue his own dreams, and the latter had well-intentioned but somewhat Conservative Muslim parents. If the home lives of everyone in your friendship group was as manic as this then I would be surprised, but I do not think that was the whole point of the show. Skins was very extreme in all elements, but was intentionally trippy and surreal, their college musical was named ‘Osama: The Musical’ for God’s sake, I think it was self-aware in its exaggerated portrayal of teenage life. It is still an entertainment show at the end of the day, and everyone will be able to relate to a part of someone’s life in the show, they covered all bases after all. The theatrics on top were entertaining, but underneath it all there was real heart and real juvenile teen behaviour (such as Maxxie and Anwar wearing devil and angel headbands when Sid was contemplating whether to skip class), and that is what made Skins Gen 1 so special and so great.

Generation 2 (Series 3 and 4) of Skins is still very lauded by fans, with Cook (Jack O’Connell) largely viewed as an iconic Skins character, but for me this Generation falls short. Gen 2 applies a darker, colder tone, perhaps influenced by Effy’s ‘ice-queen’ mystique. I am not claiming there were no heartwarming moments (I loved the depiction of Emily and Naomi’s relationship), but overall these characters did not seem to posses the same fundamental care for each other as they did in Gen 1, and that is what made the first Gen so great, they really did all love each other. We saw just how toxic friendships and relationships could get in the second Generation, the nastiness between Freddie and Cook, with JJ receiving the brunt of the fallout, the hatefulness between twins Katie and Emily, although Katie was definitely more to blame for this one, and even Effy and Pandora were shown to have a very fragmented relationship throughout. The characters without any major problems between them never seemed that close either, for example there always seemed to be an iciness between Effy and Naomi, not that they were explicitly mean to one another, but they never seemed to share the same warmth as, say, Cassie and Jal. In Gen 1 the only friendship that was majorly put to a test was Sid and Tony’s, the rest had normal fickle teenage bust-ups, like Jal and Michelle, but there was no real darkness underneath it all. I suppose you could argue that Maxxie and Anwar’s friendship was severely put to the test, but I think that was more of a commentary on his confusing relationship with religion, as even when they were not speaking, the two still clearly loved each other. I also did not get the hype around Cook and Effie either, maybe by todays standards the whole ‘not like other girls’ and ‘#damaged bad boy who does the bare minimum’ schtick are tired tropes, but they did not treat their friends and people around them very well a lot of the time, and just because they were battling their own demons, does not mean their behaviour could be excused.  

In fairness, the darkness of Gen 2 was perhaps what writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain were aiming for, to mix things up a bit from from the previous Series, and expose a new perspective of teenage life. Maybe it is just the cheesy romantic in me, but the wholesome friendships, bad fashion, and teenage naivety as what drew me to Gen 1 so much. Generation 2 was still very effective as an entertainment show, but for me, the first Generation portrayed what it was really like being a teenager.

[breselin]

* romance headcanons.

name:          Sephiroth Crescent

nickname:          multiple ones, usually given by his partners in various ways. he does not particularly care about what the ‘public’ calls him, so he will not react to anything they might want to bestow.

gender:           male. he/him.

romantic orientation:          demiromantic. Love or romantic affection is considerably hard for him, also because he does not place a significant value upon something that could hinder him in reaching his goal(s). even though Sephiroth would not go out and seek a partnership, he’s not averse towards it if feelings were to arise [ no matter what kind ]. 

preferred pet names:           same as with the question for the nicknames, he holds no particular consideration and his partners will find affectionate names for him in however way they see fit.

relationship status:           he is generally partnered in his verses.

favorite canon/fandom ship:          I don’t ship him with any canon character from FFVII

favorite crossover ship:           I love crossover ships and all the ships on this blog are indeed crossover based. Cecil being from FFIV, Mateus being from FFII, Mannimarco being from ESO, as the larger ships. The ‘smaller’ sideships [ they ain’t small--- ], with Thranduil from LOTR and Haurchefant and Estinien from FFXIV. - I love them all. 

opinion on true love:          it’s a nice concept, but nothing he truly believes, no matter the timeline he shows up in. [ exceptions to be found in AUs ]. to times of Crisis Core, there is the everlasting thought in his mind that he is not worth of it. that it would just lead to nothing, that it would all just fade the moment he got too close and would be too invested. That was a lingering fear to that time, swiftly being surrendered as well once everything around him spiralled out of control so but, to that time, it was a nice concept, yet nothing he would think on longer than need be. 

         as for the time after his fall? ‘true love’ is something Sephiroth never thinks about in any way. affectionate behaviour in itself is a ‘distraction’, the feelings behind it something he does not dwell on for too long, frankly, he has no opinion on it anymore and brushes it aside swiftly [ that changes, obviously, should he enter a relationship and he does so freely, but without a possible partner? those are his thoughts ]. 

opinion on love at first sight:         he does not believe in it. being on the spectrum of ‘demi’ when it comes to all things considered romantic, he simply doesn’t care for it. it takes quite a long time for him to ‘fall for someone’, and even then, it will still take sometimes years for Sephiroth to reciprocate open words of ‘love’ [ like calling someone endearments ], so ‘love at first sight’ is something he finds rather silly, yet would not comment on it. 

how ‘romantic’ are they?:           once in a relationship, he will do whatever there is to actually make his partner happy. He’s fulfilling a lot of things ‘naturally’, so it’s hard to say if he tries to be romantic or if he’s just doing specific things to ensure that the person he’s with is actually happy and content. To be honest, it’s a bit of both. Those general things like: cooking dinner, setting up a bath, buying and bringing home flowers, mostly before his partner is at home, are all things he does because he wants to make them happy. Going out for dinner or for dates is just something he perceives as a part of any healthy relationship [ shocking, I know ], you could say it is romantic, but he does that literally all the time just to see a smile. [ most ‘modern’ sounding things obviously rather apply to AUs ].

ideal physical traits:           honestly, he’s barely bothered. a clean appearance, clothing in order and nicely set, a good smell. Sephiroth’s not really superficial, albeit he does have a ‘type’ so to say, so I will leave that answer for below.

ideal personality traits:         he does like people with a clear self-esteem. That does not need to be brash or ‘out there’, but the form of self-esteem to get up against him as a person. To tell him when his actions are irrational or hurtful and to search the conversation with him and not shy away. Additionally, they stand up for themselves, speak their mind to those around and follow their own believes and dreams: he finds that rather attractive. Underlining danger is always interesting, the fact that his partner could push him down if they wanted to is something he personally will even encourage. That they could be ‘dangerous’ for him and also are teasing enough to make no secret out of it [ at least not around him ]. Testing and taunting, playing with what he wants and desires, being a little bit arrogant is also something he likes. And then: just acceptance, patience as he’s a very patient and compliant person when it comes to his lovers. 

unattractive physical traits:           being dirty and unkempt. obvious smell that one hasn’t showered in quite some time. he’s not too picky, but if a person is generally sloppy or does not care about their own appearance, it will put him off immediately.

unattractive personality traits:         overly abrasive personalities. Those that think that all they do is the best ever, even though that their achievements are only granted with the help of others or over unjust means. He doesn’t particularly care when it’s people who do have the power and the means to be that arrogant about themselves, but otherwise - and if he’s getting too impatient with said behaviour - he will show them pretty quickly that their speech is for nought. Cowardice is something Sephiroth will not deal with. Just assuming he will do something out of the ‘good of his heart’ is ridiculous. Naivety. Rudeness gets merely an eyeroll from him, even ‘playful rudeness’ is barely permitted and won’t get anything out of him. Basically, don’t be an asshole.  

          Important is also someone who does not want to change him because he won’t. The very idea of: ‘oh, he just needs to be loved, then everything will be fine!’ will clearly turn him off and will end badly shall only an inkling of it arise.

ideal date:           it always depends where they are and what kind of timeline it is. in most cases, he would prefer to stay home with them, make dinner himself and just spoil his date in the means that they would enjoy. if they would like to go out somewhere, he would comply, being able to adjust in any means possible. as he would go out with his partner anyway from time to time, the term ‘date’ is artificial to him, given that this just relates to a normal part of a relationship for him. so, whatever the other person wanted, would be fine. 

do they have a type?:         he does. long, light coloured hair [ at least to the shoulders, but also longer than that ], light coloured eyes. a strong physical built [ he very much enjoys muscles and a strong back ]. fair, or even features. a finely cut jaw. he doesn’t particularly care about physical height [ given that a few of his partners are shorter than him, others are taller ] but a natural elegance when a person walks and high self-esteem and knowledge about self-worth are important to him. 

average relationship length:         His ships usually tend to have a very long relationship length, spanning years, in cases even hundreds of years [ due to the immortality of his partners and himself ]. as he holds no interest in anybody once Sephiroth is together with someone, there is nought that would disturb it. 

preferred non-sexual intimacy:         just enjoying time together. Lazing around on the bed or sofa and reading together, or reading for one another. Cooking or just going out for a walk, simple pleasures, really.

commitment level:           he’s utterly committed. completely and nothing will make him even consider looking at someone else, what explains the relationship length to be of a nearly unattainable level. it not only extends to ‘romantic’ ships, but even ‘ships’ that have a deeper emotional impact on him or if he’s ‘engaging with someone’, he would not want anybody else and there is nothing to sway him from said person. 

opinion of public affection:         he doesn’t mind, nor does he truly hesitate to do so as well. kissing in public, holding hands, just holding his partner, initiated by Sephiroth or his partner, he won’t push them away nor does he even comment on them seeking this sort of affection, it’s just a given. he literally couldn’t care less about anybody around should any of this be wanted and sought out. remarks against it are pretty much shot down, returned rather sarcastically or merely ignored. there is also to note that with people he is ‘close’ to, he would accept notes of affection that are considered romantic by many, and associate them with platonic, but do not try it out if he gives no permission. it will end badly. 

past relationships?:           as he had no actual relationships before his ships on this blog? there is nothing to comment about. 

tagged by: from an old blog of mine tagging:  8|C [ imma just tag a bunch ]

@lazhadeg | @furnezh | @andurinn - @daemonczar | @lichsent | @quirofiliac - @edhelaran - @edhelgund - @kohkytus - @fractempyreal - @cielcrd | @ofastrcmancy | @arcabuncle - @xkuja - @valorxdrive - @ndeavor - @kissafist - @alphadrg - @daintycure - @dayofazure - @bloodfcst - @fourfolded | @mammaterasu [ I nearly tagged Zenos, if you want to do it for Zenos, feel yourself tagged ] - @officiums - @faemoria - @scionsect | @ninseng - @ofvesper - @oasisbow - @highercost [ and whoever wants to do this stupidly long thing ] ♡~