#he clearly thinks of her as something to own

[jack-of-heartstrings]

OH HOLY SHIT, ANARKA FANART??? This literally made my morning. I absolutely adore her and I never see this level of appreciation. She looks amazing!!!

I'm not sure about the past stuff, given Crocoduel goes out of its way to make it clear there was some huge miscommunication. It's very likely neither of their stories is quite the truth. But he says their record saved him after she left him, and she says it tore them apart, so it SOUNDS LIKE something might have happened where either they were "taking a break" or he wildly misunderstood her being upset with him as leaving him or something, and she didn't think it was over but he did, and then he went and got famous on his own, and she took it as going behind her back/abandoning her. Or something?

It would... honestly be kind of grimly funny if her pregnancy was directly a factor, too. She has anger issues even now. I could fully imagine her getting worse because early hormones and neither of them realized yet that was why. Either way, given Jagged knew Luka's name and how Anarka adamantly refused to talk about him, I kind of assume it was her choice to be full no-contact. A stubborn "I don't want your money. You made it clear you didn't want to be part of this family and I don't want you around in any capacity." Dumbass goes on to write My Guitar Is My Only Family to vent his feelings about that with no idea his kids will grow up loving the song. 😔

EITHER WAY...

God I love her. Like... One of the writers described her as "the mom everyone wants unless she's yours." She's fascinating to me.

She clearly does still have anger issues, but "your sister and I are the only ones I've never wanted to throw overboard." I still have to imagine that's a big part of why Juleka's so timid and Luka's so emotionally mature. That even if it wasn't aimed at them, Juleka still grew up watching her go off on other people and never wanted to risk adding to her stress. That Luka is like this partly due to learning to watch for times Juleka was holding her tongue, and partly because he himself was more stubborn and abrasive for a while. That Anarka always did her best to keep herself more in check when dealing with the kids but she and Luka still used to get into arguments about things like her refusing to disclose any information about their dad, leading to him often running off to the bridge to calm down, like he's mentioned to Marinette. And that learning to accept and process all that has led to his "it's not worth it" and walking away faster from arguments now.

I still imagine she's always done her best and succeeded for the most part. She supports the kids in everything they want to do. I've been a little feral over the cameo in Sublimation showing her teaching music and fully want to believe that's been her job for a long time, in other schools, because yeah that makes sense. Turning her passion into a more mundane job that helps other people... And that makes Luka's dream of not being a musician but giving other people the gift of music in another way that much better. 🥹

Also?

Her name is Anarka Couffaine. LIKE... It can be loosely translated as "Anarchy of the coffin" (/"from the grave"?) AND it's a pun on acouphène / "tinnitus". I am 1,000% convinced this woman as a musician gave herself the edgiest stage name imaginable, legally changed it, and then just casually passed that name onto her kids. Her name was probably like, Nancy or something. (Anything "less cool" could work but that one could explain Jagged calling her Nanarky.) She just straight up went "I make my own rules" and then she did forever.

Also the Liberty is just insanely cool on its own. Delighted that it immediately became the designated Hangout Spot from its introduction onward as it should. Anarka just letting twenty kids casually come and go at all hours like. God I love her.

Young Anarka

I dunno… Like

Her past intrigued me the most out of all the adult characters, and I can't understand her mix with Jagged. Like, he cheated on her and she got pregnant? They had an open relationship? Or did they only share intimacy? Why did she never tell her kids about their father? And why didn't their father pay child support lmao…

[rensukepie]

—#. “ride, i understand” —k. r

synopsis : he just wants to show his girl how to ride his thigh to not overwhelm her <3

contains + warnings : smut, thigh riding, fingering but not really (he doesn’t insert his fingers inside), praise + degradation (best duo ever btw!!), size kink lwk, virgin!reader, experienced!kunigami, corruption k!nk, lmk if i need to add more!

a/n : i LOVEEE kunigami he’s literally the reason why i started this blog! also ty anon for suggesting more kuni thigh riding :3

your boyfriend loves how innocent you are.

petting a cat on the sidewalk talking about how cute it is and how you want one of your own? hard immediately. it’s only because you’re so innocent though and the way your little skirt looks while you do your thing just looks too adorable to him!

you’re bending over to grab something you dropped? immediately biting his lip at the sight. he only imagines what’s underneath your lounge shorts based on the underwear that you have that he finds as he does the laundry. maybe it’s his favorite white lace pair with a bow? or maybe it’s the one with little baby pink and white stripes all over it? he’ll never know.

getting all cute and pretty for him before going out on a date together? he’s gonna jerk himself off to the thought of you right after. he feels so bad after he gets these thoughts though. you’re just so innocent, you don’t know what you do to him! sometimes when he kisses your neck or slaps your ass playfully, you let out a cute little whine or giggle at it. he’s so down bad for you it’s almost disgusting.

his friends on his soccer team absolutely clown him in the locker rooms when getting changed. he doesn’t care though. as long as he’s coming home to the most prettiest, sweetest girl he knows, it doesn’t get to him.

so when his soccer practice gets cancelled, you invite him to your place to watch a new movie you found as you were scrolling through.

—2 new messages from “my baby <3”

are you off today rennie :3?

i found this new movie! can we catch it at my place :p miss you sooo much baby pls come overrr :;(

how could he say no to his angel?

— 2 new messages from “rennie ♡”

of course baby

i’ll be there in 10 okay? i missed you too sweets <3

₊˚⊹♡—

he arrives inside of your little apartment, decorated cutely with your favorite color of kitchenware and some sweet treats laying around on the kitchen table.

your room is where it’s mostly decorated, though. stuffed animals laid out on your bed with the softest blanket ever! oh, you’re just too cute!

“do you like it..? m’sorry if it’s too childish…” you say with worry as you start the movie, your head leaning on his shoulder and your hand holding his hand.

gosh, you’re so sweet. just the fact that you apologized for something that doesn’t need fixing really shows him how caring you are towards him.

it makes him rock hard.

“don’t even apologize, sweet girl. if anything, i really like it! it’s cute.” he says softly, a kiss placed right onto your forehead, his hand holding your waist now, noticing that he’s getting more touchy towards you.

“o—oh.. thank you…” you say, lowly.

you suddenly feel his lips placed onto yours, a passionate kiss you both fall into, all thoughts about anything else going away.

“r—rennie…” you whine, his hand fidgeting with the end of your shirt, his hands occasionally rubbing against your skin underneath. “the movie…” you remember.

he acts so oblivious towards his actions.

he clearly knows what he’s doing to you. he knows the effect this is having on you right now, your skin flushed and heart beating at a fast pace is the result of his actions.

“we can watch the movie later… need you so bad right now.. been thinking about this all week.” he says, his words are so sweet, it makes you a teeny bit wet, and it’s all for him and him only.

❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

“ever had a finger in here, sweet girl?” he whispers to your neck with slight kisses. he’s got you seated on his muscular thigh, his fingers rubbing back and fourth on your clothed pussy to give added pleasure.

“n—no… m’sorry! it’s soo embarrassing i know—“ you say, whimpering inside of his neck, both arms wrapped around him as they lean onto his shoulders.

“shh… it’s okay… we don’t have to do that today. how about you ride my thigh? how does that sound, baby? do you want that instead, hm?”

“m—mhm…please..” you say shyly as he takes your little shorts off and you start grinding on his thighs slowly, quiet moans of his name.

“o—ohh…. rennie…mmf!” you whimper, the feeling of your slit getting more obviously wet with each grind back and fourth. “m’so wet for you—mmfhh…”

he thinks you look so adorable right now! he knows it’s too much on his silly girl.

“you’re only riding my thigh, and you’re this wet already? what a slut you are…” he says, grabbing your boobs with his big hands, his thumbs playing with your sensitive buds. “so pretty like this… my sweet girl.”

his words combined with how wet you are didn’t help with how needy you are for him right now. you feel incoherent to what’s happening as his actions slowly turn your brain into mush.

“all you can do now is moan, huh? so cute..” he whispers into your ear, kissing your neck and leaving pretty hickey’s in shades of different colors, turning it into an art canvas.

your legs start to give out on you because of how long you’ve been riding his thigh, making you signal to him to do the work for you by taking your movements to a stop.

“tired already? ohh angel… want me to move you around, don’t you?” he coos, smacking your ass as he grabs onto your hips, continuing the movements of you riding his thigh.

you yelp at his sudden action, then continue to relax away in his arms as he guides your movements on him. “can feel your cunt twitching on my thigh… you’re gonna cum soon, aren’t you?”

you hate how right he is at the moment. he knows you too well.

“m—mhm… ohh—…m’gonna cum! hah—!!” you moan incoherently, a series whimpers of his name coming out of your mouth as your orgasm washes over your body.

you can’t believe your lover, rensuke just gave you your first orgasm ever.

and it feels so damn good. maybe you’ll lend him your virginity someday.

[rafeyssugar]

We all know that Rafe is the "touch her and I'll kill you" type but what about Reader who matches energy? Rafe at a party chilling while Reader goes and gets a drink and he gets approached and he warns her "touch me and she'll kill you" but the girl thinks he's joking until Reader comes back and shit gets started

matching energy

the party was a blur of loud music, flashing lights, and the smell of alcohol in the air. rafe was leaning against the porch, his eyes scanning the crowd, his usual smirk in place.

then she showed up.

a girl, clearly too bold for her own good, stepped up to rafe, hand brushing against his chest. he barely looked at her, already over the attention she thought she could grab from him.

“hey, rafe,” she said in a flirty tone, eyes glinting with mischief. “what’s a guy like you doing all alone?”

he didn’t even glance down at her, his expression cool. “can i help you?”

the girl smiled, moving closer, her fingers trailing down his chest, taking a liberty that made rafe tense slightly.

“just thought we could have some fun,” she purred, her hand lingering for a moment too long.

his patience snapped.

without even looking, rafe muttered, “touch me, and she’ll kill you.”

the girl laughed, not taking him seriously at all. “really? you think she’ll kill me?” she scoffed, not getting the gravity of his words.

you had just stepped out from inside, drink in hand, when you spotted the girl hanging onto rafe, her hand still on him. you didn’t need to hear her words, but you could see the way she was getting too close, too comfortable.

you moved toward them without hesitation, your eyes narrowing. you could see the situation for what it was.

the girl didn’t seem to notice you at first, but when she looked up and saw the look on your face, she raised an eyebrow. “what? you think you can tell me what to do?”

“yeah,” you shot back coldly, “i do.”

you didn’t waste any time. without another word, you shoved the girl’s hand off rafe’s chest, making her stumble back a few steps.

she stood up straighter, clearly pissed now, and lunged at you. “you think you can touch me and get away with it?” she snarled.

you didn’t flinch.

before she could make another move, you grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her back with a sharp motion, pulling her toward the ground.

the crowd around you started to take notice, but you were too focused on the girl’s struggle to care. she tried to fight you off, kicking at your legs, but you weren’t having it.

you forced her to the ground, her face slamming into the dirt as you stood over her, breathing heavily from the quick adrenaline of the fight. she was still trying to crawl away, but you didn’t let her.

grabbing her by the back of her shirt, you yanked her up again, shoving her into a nearby trash can, your voice dangerously low. “don’t ever touch him again.”

she froze, clearly realizing the seriousness of the situation. but her pride wouldn’t let her back down, and she tried to lunge at you once more.

big mistake.

this time, you didn’t hesitate. you moved faster than her, grabbing her by the throat, slamming her against the wall. the air was thick with tension, and you could hear the shock in the crowd’s whispers.

she gasped, eyes wide, struggling to breath, but before she could make another sound, you tightened your grip, your glare cold as ice. “i warned you.”

her body dropped like a fish.

you turned to rafe, who was still leaning against the porch, his arms crossed, watching you with a mix of awe and something else you couldn’t quite read.

he didn’t even seem surprised when you stood there, your posture steady, your breath evening out.

“not bad,” rafe said, his voice quiet, like he was still processing what had just happened.

you met his eyes, your own still cold, but you couldn’t help the faint smirk that tugged at your lips. “i’m just getting started.”

you walked back to him, the crowd still in a buzz, but you didn’t care. you’d just proven a point.

and from the look in rafe’s eyes, he didn’t plan on forgetting it anytime soon.

[fatcatlittlebox]

Something has been needling me since I first read that quote from Morfydd and it later caught fire on the webs:

What I had taken immediately for granted was that she meant that the relationship between Halbrand and Galadriel was intended to be platonic and it was Charlie who decided to add the extra heat and the hint of a romantic aspect. But in retrospect upon reading and watching his interviews I think it is the opposite -- were Halbrand and Galadriel originally meant to have been shown as more overtly falling in love? Was it written more explicitly as a love story rather than implied, as we eventually see?

First, we can recall that the very first promotions for the show had press descriptions of Halbrand as Galadriel’s “love interest”. Even the concept art showed more intimacy.

And I think this is the reason why I find it so interesting when I revisit some of the Haladriel scenes from season 1. Particularly the ones that Charlie and Morfydd had said they came up with the blocking for. And that clearly the director agreed with. I can appreciate that if the blocking were chosen differently, it would have changed the whole tenor of the scene and hence, the dynamics of their relationship. Take for instance, the log scene. Imagine if Galadriel and Halbrand had been simply standing and saying those words, looking upon each other. It would obviously be a conversation between lovers. A tone of romantic declaration. Imagine if Galadriel had been looking directly into Halbrand's eyes, bodies facing, when she said, "I felt it too."

But that's not what Charlie, Morfydd and the director went with and I like it even better. It was Charlie and Morfydd who collaborated and agreed that they would sit parallel and not looking at each other. The scene takes on a "confession". Which...Catholic. The symbolism here is great because as I have said before in previous metas, their original "sin" was when they chose each other over their gods. And here, in this "confessional" scene, as it is composed, they are performing the sacrament of reconciliation. With Galadriel and Sauron interchanging roles of penitent and priest. Galadriel is pledging allegiance, unbeknownst to her, to a fallen demigod and Sauron is seeking absolution from her, an exiled elf. A sinner asking for salvation from his accomplice. It is worshipful and sacrilegious.

As Charlie, and frequently supported by Morfydd, have said, their connection "transcends" romantic love. It is not a human, mortal emotion. It is cosmic. It disrupts the celestial hierarchy but is ultimately restorative to the universal harmony. It is their beginning and ending eternally. Where Sauron isn't just the biblical snake. He is the snake eating his own tail.

Love and hate. Light and dark. Life in defiance of death. And I would much rather have that. Galadriel and Sauron as emissaries of this cosmic balance, permanent fixtures in a primordial architecture. Destined to always be chasing the other. Gravitating, circling. Vigilant and yearning.

[antianakin]

I'm not against the idea that Ahsoka ends up a little lopsided, but I think for me it'd be more about her emotions than her skillsets.

Because she is actually canonically a perfectly good teacher. We see her teach a group of Mandalorian teenagers about government corruption in like season 3. She helps advise a teenage Prince about how to manage being a leader in season 4.

The EARLY seasons of TCW would definitely have Ahsoka acting like this, for sure. The idea that Ahsoka doesn't realize that some of her actions might put her in front of a military tribunal when she first lands on the field is completely understandable. The idea that she finds Rex's disappointment really terrible is completely understandable.

But I don't really buy that the Ahsoka of later seasons would continue to have this issue, that she'd be able to understand the inherent unfairness of the system in place for the clones but not understand normal crimes exist or that her own actions could have military consequences. If she's observant and smart enough to recognize the consequences her men could face, she's smart enough to recognize the consequences SHE could face. She also literally goes into the normal criminal underground on Coruscant in like season 1 or 2 to get her stolen lightsaber back with a dude whose entire career has been about chasing normal criminals.

Ahsoka was likely given plenty of regular life skills in her earlier 14 years training to be a Jedi. It's not like they'd have taught her to be a soldier in a war given that they wouldn't have had any idea it was coming for a while and were actively trying to KEEP it from happening more recently. Ahsoka's training would've been aimed at helping her do more usual Jedi stuff and just giving her basic life skills, which is why she's perfectly able to teach a class of Mando teenagers and help a Mon Cala prince learn how to lead. It's not like Ahsoka's entire education started when she got put onto a battlefield, she's had YEARS OF IT prior to this and it was clearly pretty extensive, including things like politics and flying and teaching and childcare and basic social skills alongside some fighting skills.

Her primary flaws when she's younger aren't that she's unobservant or doesn't have basic life skills, it's that she's impatient and overconfident in herself. These are flaws that we DO see her learning how to address in the first three seasons and that she seems to have mostly mastered by season four.

But THAT'S where I'd want some of that lopsidedness to come in later in life. Ahsoka in Rebels should still be kind-of overconfident and impatient sometimes. I want to see her rushing into things and getting her ass handed to her sometimes. I want to see her overestimate her own abilities a little and Kanan or Hera or Ezra has to jump in to help her or point out that there's something coming she can't see and she needs to LISTEN to them instead of believing she knows better than everyone else.

I want the education Ahsoka is lacking to be her JEDI education. I want her to struggle more with managing her own emotions than the usual Jedi would. It isn't even explicitly because she grew up too fast but because her Master was the Worst Jedi To Ever Jedi and a complete failure at basic Jedi skills, so he never really manages to teach her some of these things. He can spit out platitudes until he goes blue in the face, but Ahsoka seems to learn primarily by EXAMPLE and, well, Anakin's example is a pretty shitty one to copy. Anakin teaches her to bottle things up, Anakin teaches her to believe she knows better than more experienced Jedi, Anakin teaches her to be secretive and not to trust the Jedi or their ways. I want to see Anakin's lessons be something that continues to fuck her up later. I want to see Anakin's influence be something that exacerbates her flaws from when she was younger instead of being more stabilizing. I want to see some of the better Jedi characters like Kanan or Ezra or Luke needing to help HER learn how to regulate her emotions better.

I want to see Ahsoka realizing that her Jedi training was stunted from the beginning and, if she ever wants to truly find peace, she has to let go of what she learned from Anakin and accept learning from a REAL Jedi (like Luke probably).

She IS disjointed because she DID get some Jedi training in her younger years that helps her be more functional as a person, but she struggles. A lot. More than most. She often seems perfectly fine, but then there are times when it becomes super clear that she's absolutely NOT fine and she's just mostly able to cover it up and get away with it due to the circumstances. She can spit out platitudes like her Master, tell Hera that she needs to learn to let go, but then, much like Anakin, she isn't capable of letting go of anything herself. I want to see people noticing that Ahsoka IS struggling, despite how put-together and competent she might seem, because her education was so lacking.

Unpopular opinion: I think Ahsoka is at her best and most interesting in the first two seasons of TCW and has only gotten progressively less nuanced as the years have gone by.

Ahsoka in TCW intentionally has flaws. They're pointed out more than once, there's ENTIRE EPISODES dedicated to Ahsoka having to fix her mistakes or being punished for disobeying orders or having to learn how to be better after she messes up and hurts people. Ahsoka has to keep learning lessons from Tera Sinube, and Aayla, and Luminara, and Padme, and Yoda.

But by the time you hit around season 4, Ahsoka starts being PERFECT. She is suddenly FLAWLESS as far as the narrative seems to see it. Even if she's doing the wrong thing, you're supposed to recognize that she is doing it for the right reasons. She's constantly level-headed, wise, and often treated as though she's practically an adult Jedi by the other Jedi around her despite having been young to be a Padawan at all and with only 2 years of training tops. It's no wonder so many people were so ready to believe that the Jedi were ready to Knight her at the end of the Wrong Jedi arc, Ahsoka's being written as though she's suddenly 25 years old with a decade of training, similar to how we see Obi-Wan acting in TPM instead of the barely trained child she should still be.

And then you hit Rebels and she's literally making entrances BATHED IN LIGHT LIKE AN ANGEL, incapable of being beaten by anyone except Darth Vader himself, she's got lightsabers of PURE WHITE LIGHT, and the other two Jedi characters treat her like a Master. And then she dies, walks off into the shadows, and comes back swathed in white robes and with a white staff, haloed in light like a wise shaman of some kind.

At least Din manages to push back against her choices in The Mandalorian, it's probably the first time we've seen Ahsoka have an opinion that someone else disagreed with and that the narrative explicitly treats as WRONG, forcing her to reconsider and make a different decision.

But by The Book of Boba Fett, she's schooling Din now, back to being the wise shaman who knows everything and can do no wrong.

In Tales of the Jedi, Ahsoka is practically perfection incarnate: more skilled than any other Jedi, more compassionate and connected to the galaxy than anyone else, someone who tamed and rode on the back of an apex predator before she could walk.

I want Ahsoka to have FLAWS again, I want the narrative to let her be WRONG and reap the consequences of that, I want to see Ahsoka LEARN SOMETHING again, I want to see her GROW as a character for the first time in over a decade.

[sunseed-fandump]

Heyya! Wanted to ask, since there is the Bad Batch's reaction's to the Ancients, but what do you think the Beast (so far) reaction to them, and vice versa?

Mystic Flour Cookie ==> The kids find it kind of pathetic that the minute her Cocoon of Enlightenment Plan went awry that she just... Gave up. Was it not fair that a false rumor ruined her plan? Yeah. But the fact she threw in the towel the minute things didn't go her way makes her come off more like a spoiled brat than anything.

As for Mystic Flour's opinion on the kids, she would find them pathetic in her own way. After all, what could three small children hope to achieve when they're literally going up against the entire world? At least in the case of the Beasts, they were created with the power of gods. They were made to shift the world and change it however they saw fit, as it was their creators who gave them that birthright. But these small cookies? They're nothing but ignorant selfish children who rebel for the sake of rebelling. Their hopes to do anything meaningful or impactful are for naught.

Burning Spice Cookie ==> While the kids do enjoy causing more than a bit of property damage here and there, they can't really get behind the idea of reducing the world to nothing but a lifeless wasteland of ashes. They're not interested in engaging in a war without reason. They view Burning Spice as a warmonger and disagree with his sentiment that the lives of others merely exist for his entertainment. If you're THAT bored, then get a damn hobby!

On Burning Spice's end, he would like the kids' spunk! But he would find it pathetic that they're holding back and getting so attached to each other and others. Friendships are a weakness, a vulnerability to exploit. They're limiting their true lethal potential by harboring these useless things. The children have already caused plenty of destruction, so why not just allow their lust for chaos to consume them completely? They should just let go and become the monsters they were clearly meant to be.

Shadow Milk Cookie ==> They fucking HATE this guy!!! Gingerbrave can't stand the fact he's a manipulator and puppets others like they're his toys. Wizard hates him on principle because malicious lies and rumors are something that made his life incredibly difficult. Wild Strawberry hates him because he's a clown. She doesn't like clowns. Overall, the general consensus is: This guy fucking sucks!!!! Throw tomatoes at him!!!!

As for Shadow Milk's opinion on the kids, well he'd just find them and their pointless little crusade a-DORABLE! (in a condescending way) The way they're fruitlessly struggling against the tides of fate is HILARIOUS! They're blindly following this vague idea of a "free world" that's dangling in front of them like a carrot on a stick, when really it's all just a comforting lie the kids told themselves in a pathetic attempt to give themselves purpose! The chaos and mischief they cause is definitely entertaining, and it's even juicer with that little twinge of tragedy. Simple cookies like them exist purely to be at the mercy of perfect cookies like himself. They can't change fate, even if they DID obtain all the Soul Jam! It's just not in the cards for them. They'll just keep running 'round and around until they break, and he'll be right there to make it all the more entertaining! Ah, but, he supposes they could be useful. After all, Pure Vanilla Cookie went and got himself attached. How sweet....

[kendrysaneela]

“She’s like you. Or you’re like her? I don’t know”

That’s such an interesting line cause it’s true! While the outies and innies have different personalities and different wants and needs they each exist within each other. When Helly is Helly Helena is within her subconscious,when Dylan is Dylan outie Dylan is in his subconscious,when Mark S is Mark Scout Mark S is there in his subconscious. They’re all there. And they’re all influencing each other Irving being the most straightforward version of this what with him seeing the globs of paint sometimes because his outie always paints the same painting over and over.

They each exist within each other’s subconscious. And you can see some of the outies bleeding into the innies as they start to experience similar stuff the outies have experienced! (Except for Helly and Helena Helena is actually the one turning into Helly) I think it goes to show what do memories do how do memories shape a person how much of you is your is subconscious and how much is your conscious memory. Like Mark starts out super peppy and happy and helpful and then as he starts to experience more and grief and slowly starts becoming more similar to outie Mark in the way he handles his grief. But that also makes me wonder. Before Mark Scout experienced all that grief was he similar to Mark S? I bet he was. Or he at least had the potential to be.

And then Irving, his outie is clearly a character that needs meaning and is devoted to a cause. And at first innie Irving finds meaning and finds a cause in like helping to spread the message of Kier and doing his work and following the rules and it’s not until he finds meaning outside of work and finds something new to fight for that he starts to become more similar to who outie Irving seems to be. Someone who is more paranoid and more rebellious. Not to mention both of them enjoying art and both of them painting/drawing the same piece of art over and over again. (Albeit for different reasons)

Then there’s Dylan G who’s outie is kinda insecure because he’s been batted down by life a lot seemingly but he does still clearly love his family he’s just depressed unfortunately and has low self esteem from having a lot of unsuccessful adventures in life clearly. But he does seem to be trying outside and his wife still loves him a lot. Dylan inside starts out confident and convinced his outie is super successful and a body builder and has a bunch of girls on the outside. Then he finds out who he really is outside and then unfortunately. Starts to have some losses inside….and his self confidence starts to fall, and then he learns he has a family and able to be convinced to separate himself from his friends because he cares so much about his family. (I think this will transfer back to him caring a lot about his innie family again) .

Then. There’s Helly. Now Helly is the exact opposite of everyone else and shows that it’s not always innies turning into outies. Helly doesn’t start to turn into Helena. Helena starts to turn into Helly. And the longer Helly exists the further she digs her feet into her rebellion. And the more Helena learns about Helly the more she turns into her. Helena is a woman who has no autonomy who makes none of her own decisions and clearly her whole life has just gone along with what she’s been forced to do without making much of a fuss because that’s what she was raised to do and I assume because the punishments for stepping out of line in the Eagan cult are severe. She has also never experienced love. And I think she’s probably resigned herself to this life. But then she sees Helly. And Helly doesn’t know she’s an Eagan. Helly doesn’t have all the cult programming Helena has, they can’t control Helly with threat of what her father will think or do. So Helly rebels and Helly rebels HARD. And Helly’s first instinct being to rebel is probably because Helena has been trapped her whole life so when Helly woke up on that table locked in that room her subconscious went “WE’RE TRAPPED WE’RE TRAPPED ESCAPE” and Helly didn’t have any of Helena’s fears or knowledge of who she is or what’s happening so she doesn’t repress that rebellion or fear like Helena does so she continues to outwardly rebel.

More than Helena probably ever has or at least has in a while. And she receives love for it from her coworkers. She receives love and she receives friendship and Helena sees all this. She sees this woman this other version of her who’s not weighed down by her name or the expectations put upon it and she sees her become who she’s always wanted to be so she starts to try to become that person. And when she’s pretending to be Helly, she flirts with Mark and she makes Irving little snow seals and she makes fun of her family’s lore and she’s free and she’s taking in love.

I think even with Helena no longer being able to pretend to be Helly, Helena will start to either consciously or unconsciously become Helly outside. I think it’s also why she’s watching Mark at the end of the episode. She’s basically in the middle of an identity crisis right now and she’s probably wondering if outie Mark is the key. What outie Mark is like if he’s anything like innie Mark.

I also think Helly and Helena hating each other is a good illustration of Helena’s hatred toward herself. I think she hates herself because she doesn’t have the courage to be like Helly and to rebel like Helly and to fight for her autonomy like Helly.

And they all do this because they are their innies. Their innies are their outies and their outies are their innies they are each other just if they had different life experiences.

[neuronary]

#The Chase is them chasing him all over the Earth Kingdom#Azula meanwhile keeps getting thoughts about being the best and Earth Rumbles. only one of these is abnormal.#I'm sure that'll be fine#atla#avatar the last airbender#platonic brain polycule let's goooo#Zuko#Sokka#Aang#the gaang

I haven't touched a:tla in years but if there's one thing MuffinLance can do it's inspire me.

---

Azula keeps dreaming that she is blind.

It's strange, not least because when she dreams it it does not seem strange in the slightest, but it has alerted her to a weakness, and she cannot abide weaknesses.

The servants never question her (they are too afraid of her, which is meant to feel good but mostly feels twisty in the very depths of her stomach like if she thinks of Mai and Ty Lee for too long) so she is almost always left to her own devices. She knows they watch her, think her strange, as she wanders the palace halls, a blindfold over her face, tracing the walls until she has mapped every corner.

She'll know it better than the face in the mirror when she's finished. Better than her hands, which are her father's, and her hair, which is her mother's. This will be her's.

---

"Okay, what the fuck," Toph says, upon sitting up.

"Language," The Boulder says tiredly. "C'mon, I told you guys to watch it around her."

"Are you, alright, Bandit?" Headhunter asks. "This is the third time this week."

"I'm fine," Toph grumbles, because she is fine, she just keeps randomly falling asleep when she usually stays up way later and it's annoying more than anything.

"Maybe you should--" the Gecko begins. He is cut off by Toph hurling rocks at him.

---

It's good. Mai and Ty Lee are with her again and it's good. They're hers and she's finally got them back and that's good.

Azula ignores the little voice in her head that thinks that's sort of fucked up. That is decidedly not hers and therefore none of her concern.

---

Toph is pretty sure you can't own people. Or at least, if you do, it's very bad. That's not how having friends works. Except she finally has friends, for the first time in her whole life, and she's not totally sure it counts.

There's something... off. It's like she's always standing on the outside of their little circle. Like there's always something they're not telling her. Like the feeling of someone else shifting the earth beneath her feet before she wrenches it back from them.

She doesn't like it.

Maybe they're not her friends, because they're clearly not hers.

She throws more rocks at the Avatar and doesn't think about it.

---

When Azula dreams of her brother's faceless voice, it is not unusual; she doesn't know what he looks like anymore, although she can guess. When she dreams of him laughing, easily, surrounded by friends, it is unusual.

Mai and Ty Lee are there when she sleeps, sometimes uncontrollably. They both seem to understand that the world has changed for her, with the shifting of the ground and the sounds of the air singing far more than the visual cues she used to rely upon.

She can't trust anyone, she knows that. But if she could, she would trust them. Them, and the little voice in the back of her head that is definitely not hers.

---

Toph cannot see when she is awake and she cannot see when she dreams. That is what it means to be blind.

"What troubles you, young earthbender?" Uncle asks. Everyone just calls him 'Uncle' even though he's only Zuko's and nobody bothered telling her his name. Well. She's not going to ask.

Toph cannot see when she dreams her own dreams but sometimes. Sometimes she dreams of calligraphy brushes and play scrolls and classrooms and somehow she recognises them.

(Sometimes, she dreams of a long platform and two figures and flames and sometimes she is frozen and sometimes she screams and screams until everything is blue.) (She shouldn't even know what blue is.)

"Nothing," Toph says, flicking her foot and sending a rock the size of Uncle's stomach flying.

"What the hell, Toph?" the others all demand in perfect unison.

"Nothing," she repeats, soundless underneath their shared laughter.

Uncle's heartbeat thumps worried.

Toph ignores him.

---

"You can go home," Azula says after waking, feeling sick at herself and shaky. She cannot abide weakness. "You can go home, if you want. I'm not keeping you here."

"Why would I want to do that?" Mai drawls, picking underneath her nails with one of her knives.

Ty Lee smiles sympathetically. "Are you having nightmares?" The 'again' is silent.

"No," Azula lies, because one truth is one too many and she cannot abide weakness.

"We're not going home," Ty Lee agrees after a moment. "Where would be the fun in that?"

Azula should simply nod, accepting their loyalty, act as though it was a test. She feels sand in her throat at the thought. "Good," she says, half her voice, half another.

"Go back to sleep, you two," Mai grumbles, "or do you want to take my watch?"

When Azula dreams, she dreams of their days at the Royal Academy, before things were complicated and the worst part of her life was her mother's complaints. She dreams of Mai and Ty Lee and a girl in green who smiles as wide as Ty Lee and laughs twice as loud.

---

These people are nothing to you, it occurs to Toph as Aang shouts at her, like it's her fault they all left her to guard everything, like they didn't all leave her outside the library just like they leave her on the outside of everything else. Her hands are almost shaking with the rage that builds up in her, half hers, half another's, but all there, tight in her chest.

"How could you abandon him?" Aang cries.

The snap is more mental than audible.

"How could I do anything else?" Toph screams back. "How am I supposed to know what to do when none of you tell me anything?! Would you rather I let all of the rest of you get buried in that stupid library? Would that have just been a convenient way to get rid of me? Don't think I can't tell that you all hide things from me! What, is it some kind of signal the stupid little blind girl can't see? Well, this little blind girl saved all of your lives, so maybe you should be a little grateful! Maybe I shouldn't even bother with any of you!"

She hates them, all of them, with their stupid inside jokes, and their stupid expectations, and their stupid secret language she can't see.

They're all idiots, clearly. They hang around with Zuzu.

They apologise, after a while, because she's right, and they promise they didn't mean to exclude her.

"It's just that we've all got this spooky spirit psychic link," Sokka explains, a few days later. "We can kind of hear each others' thoughts and see each others' dreams. It's weird."

They can see each others' dreams. Huh.

"Huh," Toph says.

---

Azula dreams of the Fire Lord condemning her failure. She dreams of flames. She dreams of watching Zuko burn and being Zuko burning and of screaming. It's a familiar scene, up until it isn't.

Suddenly, as she dreams of being Zuko, burning because she failed, she dreams instead of the earth bursting forth to crush the Fire Lord. She dreams of him vanishing down, deep underground. She dreams of walls of earth and mud and stone rising between them, of flames bouncing helplessly off rocks.

She dreams of great beasts that make the earth rumble and feel more like home than the palace ever did.

When she wakes up, Mai and Ty Lee are watching her with a frown.

No matter how strange her dreams become, Azula knows reality. She has no choice.

"We're going to get into Ba Sing Se," she says, "and we're going to kill the Avatar."

---

Ba Sing Se is awful, just like Toph thought it would be. Everybody is still keeping things from her, and it hurts regardless of whether or not they mean it.

She's been having nightmares, too. Or, rather, the girl whos dreams she's seeing is having nightmares, and Toph can't seem to help all that much. She wishes she could do more, could save the girl's brother, but the fear paralyses her almost as badly as it paralyses her dreammate. It's all she can do to protect this girl, this firebender who is deathly afraid of the Fire Lord.

"Toph?" says Sokka. "We're going out to put up the Appa posters. Don't forget to bring a snack."

Toph grabs at the fruit bowl and comes away with an orange. She scowls and shoves it in her pocket; she's never been able to peel oranges properly. It's still in her pocket when she is captured.

---

They won't bother to rescue me, comes the thought, bitter and resigned and very much not her's.

They'll take too long to even notice that I'm gone.

Azula pauses her planning. It's taken some time to understand, but she's fairly certain that the voice in her head, the girl in green from her dreams, and the earthbender guarding her nightmares are one and the same. This is just the last piece of the puzzle.

"Mai," she says quietly, considering. "Ty Lee. Would you leave me for a moment? I need to meditate."

They share a look, concerned, that makes her fond in a way she wouldn't have been before this, but they leave.

---

These people are nothing, the other girl in Toph's head reassures her through her panic. What people say is impossible is nothing for people like us.

She breathes. In, and out, like the badgermoles taught her (like her father taught her).

Toph stands up and feels for the earth, for the parts of it that remain, no matter what is done to it.

Toph breathes, and stands up, and bends metal.

Anything is possible.

---

Azula watches the earthbender listen to the Avatar's sky bison leave, the beating of its limbs through the air above them roaring like a great flame.

Uncle Iroh twists to look at her, already trapped by the Dai Li. "Toph," he says, warningly, and the tone reminds Azula of every time he scolded her for retaliating against Zuko, every time he sided with her mother, every time he told her that's not a lady's way. In any case, the earthbender ignores him and turns to trudge towards them, shoving a hand into her pocket as she goes.

When she stops in front of Azula, she's holding out an orange.

"I think this is for you," the earthbender says.

You're mine, she thinks. You're mine to protect, like I'm yours, aren't I?

Azula takes the orange. "Yes," she says. "Yes, I think you're right."

Some spirit manages to get the gaang and zuko a link that connects their minds. They can share thoughts and their past with each other.

Tweaking this to “and they share dreams” because that’s how I started writing it.

---

“Okay,” Sokka says, wrapping his sleeping bag around himself, and grabbing a comfort Momo, too. “Who’s dream was that?”

No one ‘fesses up. But it was kind of a rude question, and also a little rhetorical, anyway.

They all have nightmares with fire.

Having the Fire Lord himself looming over them, while they were on their knees? Not exactly a stretch.

---

“Okay,” Sokka says, “how does Prince Jerkface keep finding us?”

---

“Okay,” Sokka says, “how did he know that seal jerky seasoned just right with honey—not too much, just enough to add a sparkle of sweetness to the depths of savoriness, a perfect balance for the distinguished tongue to relish—was the perfect bait for his Sokka and Sokka-affliated-parties trap?”

“Maybe if you stop dreaming about it, Sokka,” Katara snaps.

...And they all stop.

---

“I’m going to think really really hard about being friends,” Aang says.

“I’m going to think really really hard about that time my boomerang hit him,” says Sokka.

---

Snatching the boomerang out of midair? Impressive.

Ignoring the Avatar to go hit Sokka with it? Repeatedly? Uncalled for.

---

“Sokka. The city is under attack. Right now.”

“Okay,” Sokka says. “But this is a strategic nap, Katara. We need to know what evil things our Evil Other is up to.”

It’s not like the evil fleet part was a surprise, at least. They’ve been dreaming of it for weeks.

---

“Okay,” Sokka says, looking down. “So the ship-blowing-up-thing. Not a nightmare?”

“No,” says Zuko, glaring up with his glare-face all glare-ful but his thoughts mostly full of bruises so deep they’re making Sokka’s ribs ache, and also his legs are going numb.

“Going to get out of the turtle-seal tunnel now?” Sokka asks, still standing over the opening. With his boomerang.

“...No,” the Prince of the Fire Nation says, as he clings onto the edge of the hole, his legs still very much in freezing water.

---

“Okay,” Sokka says, when they have a Fire Prince all tied up in Blankets of Imprisonment. “So. What actually was your plan here? Do not,” he interrupts, before the teenage-shaped bloodhound-leech can do more than open his mouth, “say ‘capture the Avatar.’”

The prince closes his mouth. Glares. And kind of fuzzes at the edges, in the way all of them do when they’re about to fall asleep.

BOOMERANG, Sokka thinks, and Prince Largely Ineffective As An Enemy jerks back upright. His Momo hat chitters a complaint.

“Since we both know your answer is ‘I had no plan, Sokka, ‘plan’ starts with ‘p’ and there’s no ‘p’ in ‘Avatar’’, we’re going to play a game instead. It’s called ‘sleepy prince free association interrogation time.’”

“...What?”

“Battle plans,” Sokka says. “Attack. Fire Navy fleet. Ship numbers.”

Alas, “Fire Nation intelligence” is not something with which the prince’s brain is overly burdened.

“...Are you insulting me?”

“Are you proving my point?”

Elsewhere, Yue laughs in all their heads. Zuko flinches. The prince has a very marked reaction to the laughter of princesses.

---

“Okay,” says Sokka. “So that just happened.”

Commander Mutton Chops is groaning. Kind of flopping. Much like the bag he tried to fireball. Yue picks it up, and gently wrangles a fish back into water. Sokka is still not clear on what the fish-napping was about.

“It’s the Moon,” Aang says. “Or maybe the Ocean?”

Aang’s thoughts are full of a FACE STEALING EVIL CENTIPEDE MONSTER THAT IS JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE THIN VEIL OF REALITY and that is NOT helping Sokka think.

“Okay,” he says again. “So. At least we can all agree on one thing.”

This is a very diplomatic way of saying they all wanted to dropkick Zhao. But some of them wanted to do it more than others.

The prince of the Fire Nation is even paler than normal, and staring across the clearing at his uncle.

“I can explain,” the prince says, while he’s thinking, oh shit treason oh crap uncle wouldn’t hurt me thought that about father too

Sokka wordlessly plucks Momo from the edge of the pond, where he’s been swiping at the spirit-fish, and drops him on the prince’s head.

Everyone needs a comfort Momo, now and again.

---

“A raft, Zuko?” Sokka says. Outloud. Because it makes things louder when you say it and think it. “A raft?”

Aang is bouncing on his toes. “We should go get him.”

The Avatar is grinning. And thinking, really hard and deliberately, as behind them the Water Tribe ship finishes packing, We should capture the Fire Prince,

“Okay,” Sokka says, with a grin.

[alba1221141]

Mary Janes

.˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳.☁︎

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14

Jinx

The whole damn week feels like I'm walking through some dreamscape, like I’m caught between the fragments of a memory I can’t quite reach, but it’s all so damn sweet. Y/N’s hand, her fingers threading through mine, is the only thing grounding me.

It’s like we’re both floating, but somehow still tethered to each other by something—something warm, something soft, something real.

Everyone knows.

Everyone fucking knows.

And it’s... It’s different now.

It’s freeing. Like there’s no more hiding, no more second-guessing every glance or touch. Like I can breathe, really breathe, without the weight of secrets pressing down on me.

I think it’s her laugh that gets to me the most. It's like everything good in the world wrapped up in the sound of it.

It’s a little quiet, like she’s still figuring out how to let herself be loud, but it’s still hers, and I can’t get enough of it.

And I—shit, I think I'm getting soft.

But when her eyes meet mine, I forget how to speak. There’s this look—this look she gives me, like she’s seeing me, all the way down to the fucked-up parts I keep buried. And she’s still here. She’s still mine.

My girl.

We’re in the library, of course, where it’s too quiet and too crowded all at once, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m leaning against a table, watching her as she flips through some bullshit textbook, and all I can think about is the way her lips curve when she reads, the way she chews on her pen like she’s too caught up in her thoughts to notice.

I lean in, my voice barely a whisper, but she hears it, always. “You look fucking cute when you concentrate,” I murmur, my fingers grazing her wrist. She jumps, startled, but then she smiles.

That smile. God, it lights me up from the inside out, and I can’t help but lean in to kiss her, right there in the middle of this boring-ass library.

When we break apart, she’s blushing, and I can’t help but chuckle at how easy it is to fluster her.

"Shut up," she mumbles, but her voice is all soft and sweet, and she’s looking down at her hands, still holding her damn textbook like it’s the most important thing in the room.

“No, really,” I press, “You’re all fucking cute and smart and perfect, and I can’t get enough of you.”

She ducks her head, but I can see her trying to fight the smile. And that—that—is all I need.

She’s here. We’re here. And it’s all soft kisses and stolen glances in between the chaos of school, like we’re living in a world where nothing else matters but the way our fingers fit together.

Y/N’s laughter bubbles up again, and I feel it in my chest, spreading like a fire I never want to put out. “I love you,” she says, like she’s telling me the weather, like it’s the simplest truth in the world.

And I—fuck, I think I’m a goner.

I’m grinning like an idiot, my heart still thudding in my chest from that last kiss, when a voice breaks through the bubble of my little world.

"Ugh. Are you two gonna be like this the whole fucking semester?"

I pull away from Y/N reluctantly, groaning as I look over to see Ekko standing there, arms crossed, smirking like he’s just caught us doing something criminal.

He leans against the bookshelf, raising an eyebrow at us both, clearly unimpressed.

“Oh, come on, Ekko,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re still on that bitter, lonely shit.”

He gives me that look, the one that says he’s definitely judging us. "What? I'm just saying," he smirks, "You two are all over each other like some cheesy romance novel. Kinda hard to focus on my own shit with all the heart-eye emojis floating around."

Y/N, still blushing and a little awkward, shoots him a playful glare. "We’re allowed to be happy, Ekko," she says, her voice still carrying that soft, sweet undertone that somehow makes me want to protect her from everything, even Ekko’s mockery.

Ekko raises both hands in mock surrender. "I didn’t say you couldn’t be happy. I’m just saying, some of us enjoy a little less PDA and a little more actual work. You know, the kind of work that doesn’t involve adoring gazes."

“Bite me,” I say with a snort, crossing my arms and leaning back in my seat. "You wish you had someone to adore you like that, huh?"

Ekko chuckles, the sound low and easy, but it’s clear he’s not backing down. “Nah. I’m good. Can’t imagine the level of distraction that’d come with having someone cling to you like that. You two are practically glued at the fucking hip.”

Y/N shoots him a smile, her eyes dancing with that mischievous sparkle that makes me weak in the knees. "Jealous much?"

"Hardly." Ekko shrugs, but there's something almost soft about the way he looks at us, like he’s kinda... warming up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, we’re not total idiots for being like this.

"You two are disgustingly cute," he mutters with a half-grin before shaking his head. "Alright, alright, enjoy your little bubble. Just remember, not everyone’s here for your lovey-dovey bullshit."

Y/N and I share a glance, and I can see her trying not to laugh. I can feel her hand brush mine under the table, and I swear my heart skips a beat.

“I’ll make sure we keep it to a minimum for you,” I tease, winking at her.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Next time, we’ll tone down the heart-eye looks just for you, Ekko."

Ekko just rolls his eyes dramatically, but I can see the small, approving smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Whatever. You two keep me entertained. Now, back to pretending to do actual schoolwork."

With a final flick of his fingers, he turns and heads off down the aisle, leaving Y/N and me alone again, the tension between us still sweet and electric, like a live wire.

“I can’t believe he’s so rude,” she mutters, but there’s laughter in her voice.

I grin at her, watching her blush under my gaze again. "Don’t worry. He secretly loves it. And you know what? So do I."

She rolls her eyes, but I can see the little smile creeping back up. We’re back in our bubble again, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵

Y/N

The changing room hums with a familiar rhythm, the sound of shoes tapping on the floor, the rustle of fabric, and the soft murmur of voices. It smells faintly of hairspray and sweat, a blend that’s almost comforting in its predictability. Yet, beneath the surface of my routine, I feel something stirring—something that isn’t quite as settled as I’d like it to be.

Cait’s voice slices through the air, a little sharper than usual, carrying a weight I hadn’t anticipated. “So, uh, you and... Jinx. You two really are serious, huh?”

I pause, fingers lingering on the edge of my cheer uniform as I look up. The room seems to still, just for a breath, as if waiting for me to answer. Her words are heavy, but there’s something underneath them—a hesitance, a hesitation I can’t quite place.

And in that moment, I feel the tug of something—protectiveness, maybe? Or worry?

I nod slowly, my gaze dropping to the hem of my skirt, where the fabric feels too tight for comfort. “Yeah. We’re... figuring things out,” I say, my voice steady despite the uncertainty swirling inside me.

Mel, as always, is the voice of calm, her presence a quiet anchor in the storm. “Love is... unpredictable, isn’t it? It’s never quite what we expect, but maybe that’s the beauty of it,” she muses, her words flowing like a soft melody.

But Cait doesn’t seem convinced.

She shifts, a flicker of discomfort passing across her face. “I get it,” she says, but the weight of her voice makes it sound more like a question than a statement. “It’s just... Jinx? She’s... well, she’s different. I don’t know, Y/N. You’ve never really been the type to—”

I know where she’s going with this, and I brace myself. Cait’s protective, and I understand that. But sometimes it feels like she doesn’t see Jinx for who she really is. She sees the chaos, the unpredictability, but not the girl beneath it all—the girl I love.

“I can handle it,” I say, quieter this time, but firm. “I’m not... fragile, Cait.”

Mel’s soft laugh breaks the tension, like a delicate ripple across still water. “Perhaps we all have more strength than we give ourselves credit for.”

Cait sighs, her gaze drifting away as if weighing her thoughts. The moment lingers between us, heavy with unspoken words, until Cait speaks again, her voice softer now, almost tentative. “Okay, okay, I’m not trying to be a buzzkill... but, um, if you really want to show me that you’re serious about this... maybe we could go on a double date? With Vi.” Her eyes flick to mine, guarded but sincere. “If you’d like. No pressure.”

The offer hangs in the air, delicate and uncertain, like a fragile thread between us. I blink, caught off guard by the invitation. Cait... Cait wants to meet me halfway? Wants to understand, maybe? It feels strange, but in the best way possible.

I chew on my lip, my thoughts swirling like the shifting colors of the sky at dusk. “A double date?” I repeat, the words tasting strange on my tongue, as if I’m not quite sure what to make of them.

She shrugs, trying to mask her uncertainty with a nonchalant expression, but I see the way her fingers tug at her hair—a subtle sign of the nerves she’s trying to hide. “Yeah, well, if you want. It’s no big deal.”

Mel smiles softly, a gentle curve of her lips that speaks more than words ever could. “I think it’s a lovely idea, Y/N. A bit of time away from school, a chance to enjoy the simple things.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, my voice softer than I intend, the words coming out with a careful hesitation. “Thanks, Cait. I’ll let you know.”

Cait doesn’t say anything, but I catch the flicker of something in her eyes—a softening, like she’s been waiting for me to say just that. She nods, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips, before turning back to adjust her uniform in front of the mirror.

Mel, always the voice of grace, adds in a tone that makes everything seem just a little bit brighter, “I think it’ll be lovely, Y/N. A new beginning, perhaps.”

And for a moment, just a fleeting moment, I believe her. I believe that maybe this is a step toward something more—something better. Something simple, something good.

As I take a quiet breath, the room falls into a comfortable rhythm again, the conversation flowing like a gentle stream. But something feels different now, lighter, as though the world is just a little bit easier to navigate.

Maybe it’s because for the first time in a while, I feel like everything might just be okay.

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Jinx

This place is way too fucking fancy.

Like, what the hell are we doing here? Some overpriced, candle-lit, soft jazz-playing, rich-people bullshit kinda place.

Everything smells like truffle oil and pretentiousness.

The waiter keeps calling me ma’am, and I want to sock him in the jaw just for that. But whatever. This is what we’re doing, apparently.

I tap my fingers on the edge of the table, pretending to study the fancy menu like I’m some sophisticated, high-society queen—except I’m not.

I’m just here because Y/N insisted, and Vi dragged me along. I was honestly just hoping for a cheeseburger, but no, I get this mess.

Truffle oil? What even is that? Sounds like something that should be illegal.

I glance over at Y/N, her face scrunched up like she’s pondering the meaning of life as she stares at the drink menu. Cute. I could literally eat her up right now—metaphorically, of course.

“Y/N,” I tease, voice low enough so only she hears, “If you order some fancy-ass drink with the word infusion in it, I’m gonna lose it. Just get a damn soda, toots”

She glances at me, her lips twitching into a smile like she can’t decide whether to roll her eyes or giggle.

God, I love that. It’s like she’s trying to be all refined, but she’s secretly a little freak with me.

Caitlyn’s over there with Vi, already in some boring conversation about the exquisite bouquet of whatever wine she’s pretending to care about.

Ugh.

Still can't stand Cait. I mean, yeah she is like one of my girls best friends so I do have to act civil, but god is it fucking painful.

Y/N lets out this little laugh when I fake-gag at Caitlyn and Vi’s conversation. I shoot her a wink, like yeah, you get it.

“Just promise me you won’t drink anything that tastes like nail polish remover,” I say, leaning over to whisper in her ear. “The waiter looks like he knows how to make that happen.”

She rolls her eyes at me, but I can see the slight amusement behind it. She knows what I’m about, even when I’m being all extra.

“Promise,” she says, her voice soft, and I’m pretty sure I could live in that sound forever.

Vi raises a brow, cutting into our bubble. “I think we’re all set,” she says, her tone a little more serious than usual. "Caitlyn, are we doing dessert?"

"Of course," Caitlyn responds, as if dessert is some fancy word for noble pursuit. "The tasting menu has a truffle mousse that pairs wonderfully with a Chardonnay."

I can't stop myself from snorting. "A mousse? What, they’re putting truffle oil in everything now? We can’t escape it." I glance at Caitlyn, giving her a playful side-eye. "Not even dessert’s safe, huh?"

She shoots me a look that would kill a lesser person, but I’m too quick for her. She doesn’t know how to handle me. Nobody does.

Vi chuckles, probably just to keep the peace. “I think it’s a good idea,” she says, nudging Caitlyn’s foot under the table. “We’ll be fine.”

Whatever.

Fine. If that’s how they wanna play it, I’ll just make sure Y/N’s enjoying herself. We don’t need fancy food or fake wine to have fun.

Cause as sappy as it sounds, we have eachother and that's all I need.

.˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳.☁︎

authors note: this isn't the last chapter yet ;)

please like and reblog!

[discordiansamba]

still rotating this blue exorcist AU idea from two nights ago, so I figure I might as well talk about it! the basic idea of the AU started with "what if Yukio was raised relatively in the dark about his origins, but Rin wasn't" and it sort of just snowballed from there, as things do.

on the night of his birth, rin's demon heart is never sealed. yuri calms him down all on her own, despite all of her own struggles that night. she survives childbirth, and pleads that she'll raise rin herself, so that he won't harm others.

(shiemihaza looks in her eyes, and this time, she agrees)

once it's confirmed that yukio is human, and has not inherited satan's flames, shiro agrees to raise him for yuri and give him a normal life. he keeps yukio's origins a secret from him, only vaguely alluding to the fact that he has an older twin brother who lives with their mother.

yuri and rin are confined at the Vatican, not allowed to leave the room they are given. yuri survived, but the traumatic pregnancy followed by the even more traumatic childbirth has clearly taken its toll on her. she is much weaker, and no one expect her to live long.

she ends up living for eight more years anyways on pure determination alone.

she raises rin carefully, teaching him how to control his flames and his strength. how to be kind to others, even if they aren't kind to him. rin grows up with a mother who is physically frail, so he learns to be gentle because he doesn't want to hurt her.

shiro becomes paladin. he visits yuri whenever he can- and at first, he's really just here for her. he still thinks she's crazy for thinking she can tame her demon son, considering what happened with satan. but eventually, he comes to understand that rin isn't his father.

(yuri learns from her mistakes. she doesn't repeat them with rin.)

yuri's health takes a turn for the worse in the twins' seventh year. she passes away after their eighth birthday. there's mutters in the Vatican about finally getting rid of satan's spawn.

shiro is not going to let that happen, so warily takes some advice from Mephisto. he doesn't trust him one bit, confident he's playing at some kind of long game, but he promised yuri he'd protect both of her children, and he intends to do just that.

he ends up making rin his familiar.

(he holds rin's hands and makes him promise that he'll never use his flames on humans, unless its an absolute emergency. the boy's spiral eyes are just like his father's as he looks at him, but the person behind them couldn't be less like his father if he tried. rin promises.)

for the first time since he was born, rin leaves the room he was confined in for so long. he's going to finally meet his little brother that he's heard so much about.

he has to wear a weird, itchy bracelet to do it, though. it's supposed to make him look completely human to even people who have a mashou. mephisto made it.

(it's a rosary, because mephisto is determined to be an ironic little shithead at all times.)

his mom named him rinka. when he goes to live among humans, shiro gives him the name okumura rin.

fujimoto yukio meets his twin brother for the first time when he's eight years old. he's a strange kid, and it takes him awhile to get used to his presence at the monastery. there's something almost... disquieting about him, but that feeling fades over time.

rin doesn't go to school. everyone agrees that's probably a terrible idea. yuri taught him how to read and write. shiro tries to teach him the other subjects, but rin's not very interested.

(he is interested in cooking, though. lifehack: teach the demon kid you are now raising how to do math via cooking.)

rin keeps his bracelet on at all times around the monastery. he only takes it off when shiro needs rinka.

yukio does not grow up seeing demons. he has been blind in his left eye since birth- but that all changes after an encounter with a demon right before he moves into the true cross dorms. he doesn't remember much of what happened. all he knows is that rin saved him.

he learns demons are real, and that his father is an exorcist. and that rin has known about this all along, because he's been able to see demons his whole life. shiro grits his teeth, and decides to enroll yukio in cram school, with apologies to yuri.

(he has a bad feeling that yukio's encounter with that demon wasn't simply chance. the demon sight that mephisto sealed away is back- and with it, the vision in yukio's left eye.)

shiro doesn't tell yukio about his origins, nor that of his brother's. most of the exorcist world has forgotten that yuri egin ever had twins. only a few choice people who lived through that event are aware of this fact. there's only one son of Satan, and he is the paladin's familiar now. that's common knowledge.

mephisto: hm. I have a good idea. let's enroll rin at true cross academy as well!

rin, who has never gone to school in his life: i'm sorry what.

mephisto: you'll be able to protect your brother that way!

(shiro watches yukio at cram school. rin watches him at regular school. but also at cram school, because he's there too as shiro's familiar rinka. yukio just doesn't know that part.)

(at least he finally gets an excuse to wear that cool mask he bought that covers the lower half of his face. otherwise yukio would 100% recognize him. and he very much does not want that. he'd like to stay human in yukio's eyes for at least a little longer.)

[twopoppies]

About the fight with Zayn, I do think it was something real that affected all the boys, but especially Louis. What bothered me the most at the time was that from Zayn’s side, the narrative pushed was that harry’s ambitions for a solo career caused 1D to break up, and Zayn mentioned he was never close to Harry. This wasn’t denied on Harry's side, likely because it helped his solo career. Still, some fans hold this against Harry, ignoring the fact that even Liam implied in several interviews that for things to be resolved between them, Zayn would have to acknowledge his mistakes, which seemed unlikely. Louis also addressed this. I don't hate Zayn or anything, just annoyed with how he handled things when he left 1D, suggesting that Harry was to blame.

I do think harry suggested the hiatus but not only because he wanted a solo career (probably the Azoffs also advised him), but because he realised that the five of them were struggling both physically and mentally.

Anyway, I’m really glad they've made amends. I just wish Liam could have witnessed it too.

Hi, love I don’t actually recall Zayn blaming Harry or Liam saying those things, but I think it’s pretty clear from what Zayn has said recently, and what Harry has said in the past, that it was Harry who proposed not re-signing their contracts with Syco. Zayn was very unhappy and unwell, but he was also ambitious and wanted to get a jump on Harry and release his music first, so he split.

In his interview with Call Her Daddy Zayn spoke about leaving and said:

"There was a lot of politics going on. Certain people were doing certain things, certain people didn't wanna sign contracts, so I knew something was happening. So I just got ahead of the curve, if I'm being honest with you. I was like, 'I'm just gonna get out of here, I think this is done.'

Completely selfishly, I wanted to be the first person to go and make my own record. If I'm being completely honest with you, I was like, 'I'm gonna jump the gun here for the first time.' I'm a passive dude, but when it comes to my music and my business I'm serious about it and I'm competitive, so I wanted to be the first to go and do my own thing."

In 2017 Harry discussed the hiatus in Rolling Stone:

It was in a London studio in late 2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Direction taking a break. “I didn’t want to exhaust our fan base,” he explains. “If you’re shortsighted, you can think, ‘Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you.”

After much discussion, the band mutually agreed to a hiatus, which was announced in August 2015 (Zayn Malik had abruptly left One D several months earlier).

Full article here

So, it’s really clear to me that yes, Harry wanted a solo career at that point, but he also could see the writing on the wall for the band.

They would need to sign another contract with Syco in 2015, probably for yet another three albums. Not only were their tours not selling out anymore, but their albums and singles weren’t doing as well as they once did, and there was no way they would survive another three tours and another three albums in another three years. It would have been madness to keep going at that pace.

And if Zayn was aware of it (as evidenced by his comment about certain people not wanting to sign contracts etc) they all were aware of it (unless the other three were blind to what was happening right in front of their faces). This idea that Harry ambushed them suddenly and that Louis, in particular, had no idea it was coming, is complete nonsense.

I think there were a lot of things going on, most of which we have no idea about, and they all needed a break. But there were probably a lot of things said and done that hurt people and it took a long time for them to be mature enough to talk about it all.

I don’t blame Zayn (or Harry) for breaking up the band. It was clearly time. I’m just sad that it ended in a way that was so emotionally difficult for them. But it does seem that Louis and Zayn have begun to mend their relationship. And yeah, I wish Liam was here to witness it.

[eldritchmochi]

dont forget that bit the first time they were in nicodranas and beau plays "tracy"; after she's absolutely horrified with herself in a "has that always been part of me" way. its VERY early on and could easily be read as a (feminine) part of herself shes never been able to explore since she was supposed to be her fathers son (as propheticized by isharnai)

cad i would peg as a form of soft masculinity, a queer queen who is catty and and a bit mean under it all in the way drag queens often are, under a layer of nurturing, but someone who is CLEARLY ab asshole brother. combine with him being aroace as a man who seems content with being a man (or perhaps, doesnt care enough to be anything else)... its a pretty interesting masculine example

yasha is so clearly a leather butch who spends the main campaign learning to express her softer side. shes always been the warrior, and now the widow, and at the end shes a wife and a mother who hosts dinner parties (and still kicks just so much ass with her big fuckin sword)

caleb is tricky, but i think theres something to be said about the way he is not the traditional form of "masculine" and yet is remarkably comfortable with himself. hes thin and physically weak, hes incredibly awkward interpersonally (unless hes faced with authority, wherein hes intense and bold and incredibly, forcefully humble). hes also incredibly careful and intentional about his appearance; he may look like a hobo at the start, but it was an affect, and the instant he could safely dress well, he did, and with STYLE. hes pretty solidly a version of neruodiverse gender expression, with how keenly aware of how the way he presents himself is read by others and how he very very intentionally uses that presentation for his own usage

the nein's explorations of gender presentation were honestly wild are you guys watching this

[ravenlly]

The Daycare Attendant might be in Secret Of The Mimic!! (Theory)

I remember Matpat saying that he thinks Edwin, the man who created the Mimic, is also responsible for the creation of the Daycare Attendant. I think he's right. He even mentioned the jester costumes that were shown in the books and spoke about how they matched up with the theme of the Daycare Attendant being a jester. Well, we've already seen a freaky jester cutout in the trailer of Secret Of The Mimic. He also mentioned the teeth of the Mimic being the same as the Daycare Attendant's endo teeth.

But I have even more evidence now that points toward Edwin making the Daycare Attendant. This might possibly mean he has a chance of showing up in SOTM!

First, I want to point out what I believe to be the BIGGEST indicator of the Daycare Attendant being made in Edwin's factory: The Faz-Wrench.

In the trailer of SOTM, we see an item called a "data diver" getting plugged into some sort of computer. This causes the screen to pull up HELPER, which seems to be the earliest version of Helpy. This "data diver" device has two prongs on it just like the Faz-Wrench.

In Ruin, this device mostly works on the MXES security nodes that keep the Mimic from escaping. I'm assuming it does something similar here. However, it also works on the Daycare Attendant. He is the ONLY animatronic that it would naturally work on (Roxanne is a Security node due to her mask, which was put on only between the events of Security Breach and Ruin).

Sun himself was aware that the Faz-Wrench worked on him and that it would reboot him. He has seen this wrench before. He remembers it. It's clearly important to him and was used to reboot him in the past, only to have probably been forgotten about and not used by Fazbear Employees for years till one brings one to the Pizzaplex to set up the nodes. If the Daycare Attendant was made in Edwin's factory, this early version was probably used on him and was something he recognized immediately.

Another thing I want to discuss is the fact that the Daycare Attendant himself has some neat unique mechanics that Fazbear probably thought were cool. Since the player is going to retrieve the Mimic due to his unique technology in SOTM, it wouldn't surprise me if they also wanted the technology the Daycare Attendant has. We can also note that they were never able to use the Mimic's technology and, while they did use Sun/Moon, they clearly didn't know how to properly use them and were unable to fix Moon when he started acting up. But I think they were probably fascinated by an animatronic that could switch personas based on the lighting it was in.

One last thing is we can see evidence of past versions of characters that we know Fazbear owns by this point such as HELPY and Music Man, along with cutouts of what appears to be an older version of the Mediocre Melodies and possibly Montgomery Gator. It looks like Fazbear may have claimed more than just the Mimic when they sent employees to the factory...and that included the beloved Daycare Attendant!

Now, will we see him in the game? I'm unsure. I think it's possible. If we do see him in the game, I really, really would like to see Eclipse again. This would be the perfect place to see him again!!

Since it looks like the Mimic isn't the only threat (judging by the Music Man thing), I'm guessing we might have to use the data diver to reboot some rowdy animatronics. This could possibly include our boy Moon having to be rebooted into Eclipse! We know that Steel Wool is very much aware of how much fans love him. I think they'd put him in the game again if they could!!

At the very least, I think it's safe to think they were both made by Edwin.

(Also, when I was writing this, I noticed the Mimic's/Jackie's laugh in the trailer sounds so much like Moon!!)

[zolo-san]

Some thoughts on Law and his image of himself

Law clearly has a lot of conflict around being seen as "good" or a "good guy" I think he want to be a good person, and he actually is, but he doesn't see himself that way, so he has a hard time accepting when people try to suggest that he is good And I think that there are several reasons for that

Law and Survivors Guilt

Law clearly holds a lot of survivors guilt throughout his life and I think it takes a big toll on him When he was younger, not only did he out live his parents and his whole town, but he "failed" to save his little sister as well We see him go out of his way to try to save her specifically, but in the end, he's still not there when she needed him the most The loss of his family also lead him down a path of which he chose to be angry and violent (ooooo we love the stages of grief lol) and take out his feelings of guilt and resentment on others despite being raised by a family of caretakers As a doctor, his father put everything he had into trying to help the people in their town and I think that Law would have looked up to him and wanted to be just like him, but after everything that happened something really broke in him I can't help but think he would feel bad and like he failed again after he moved past the angry violent reaction - just like I think he later felt quite a bit of guilt over stabbing Corazon after the fact Corazon tried everything to save Law and gave everything to him and I think that that too would add to Law's feeling of guilt, especially because it took him so long to realize that he had been too guarded and untrusting to see that Corazon was genuinely trying to help him Once he was able to accept and recognize that, however, Corazon ended up dying shortly after Obviously, Law has a lot of guilt, specifically survivors guilt, surrounding Cora's death Corazon not only risked his life for Law to live, but Law was unable to use his fruit to save him because he didn't know how, then when Law did try to get Corazon help (against Cora's wishes) he managed to "get help" from the wrong person and put Corazon in more danger, leading to his death

Ironically this is not dissimilar to the way his sister died Law had told her to hide while he get help and not only did he not get help, but when he returned, his sister had been killed

I also think that Corazon's confession to Law about being in the navy as he was about to die adds to Law's guilt because he already knew that to be true and I think it hurt him to realize that someone who cared so deeply for him and was literally dying for him still felt bad and was worried he's disappointed him

There's also something to be said about Corazon dying with a smile and the fact that Luffy is also someone who always has a smile on his face, especially when it comes to helping others I think this very much molds the image that Law has of who a "good person" is

Law lived because he knew it was what Corazon wanted for him It was all Law could do for him (I do wonder if there's also some guilt he feels about dedicating the life Cora gave to him to revenge)

Law and Selfishness

I think Law truly sees himself as selfish for many reasons, one being that he was so driven by revenge, and I think he has a tendency to overlook the good that he does because of this

I think he even sees him saving Luffy at Marineford as a selfish act

I think that seeing the efforts that Luffy was going through to save his brother made Law feel that he had failed his sister all over again He would feel that he never tried that hard And I think that it's partly for that reason that he felt compelled to save Luffy

I can't help but feel that Law, without realizing it, was trying to absolve himself of his own "sin" of not saving his sister by saving Luffy I also think the idea of Luffy, after all his efforts failing to save Ace, really broke Law's heart and he couldn't stand the idea of Luffy having to go through something like he did, especially after all the effort Luffy put in

But because of Law's view of himself and his actions as being selfish, I think that Jinbe thanking him for helping Luffy was already too much for him He didn't see his act as selfless or "kind" he saw it as him acting in self interest and I think that's why he tries to present it as such He claims that he essentially saved Luffy because he thought it would be a shame and a waist to let someone with Luffy's potential die then and there, but I think there's so much more to it and I think a lot of it has to do with Law viewing Luffy as an actual good person and something that he's not Law leaves before Luffy can thank him because he doesn't think he deserves thanks

The next we hear of what Law did during the two years that Luffy was training, we hear about his collecting pirates' hearts and becoming a warlord He does this all as part of a plan to exact revenge on Doflamingo and as part of this plan, he leaves his crew behind with no explanation and fully expecting to never see them again (tho he doesn't tell them this) This brings up an interesting fact that even though Law claims he never intended to fight Doflamingo, he also never expected to live through it

I think that Law feels incredibly guilty about leaving his crew behind because he does really care about his crew and I think that lying to them knowing full well he's going on a suicide mission hurts him a lot But I think that despite his choice being fueled by a want to protect his crew, he would feel that it's a selfish choice When he's on Punk Hazard, Law is fully in the throws of pretending to be this other person that he isn't at heart He's trying to be that cold, selfish person he sees himself as, but I don't think he can really do it So I think for this all these reasons, Luffy's mater-of-fact declaration that he is "a good guy" would make Law incredibly uncomfortable I think he sees Luffy as the type of caring, honest, and straight forward person he wishes he could be When he thinks of a good person, he thinks of someone like Luffy - someone like Corazon - who doesn't hesitate to help others at his own risk and would die for his crew and the people he cares about

Luffy obviously shares a lot of traits with Corazon and I don't think that's lost on Law So having someone like that imply that Law is the same as him is something Law can't handle

In addition to this, I think that Luffy's willingness to fight for Law at every turn and his inherent trust in him only adds to Law's feeling of inadequacy next to Luffy And I think that his survivors guilt and the fact that he feels that he's nowhere near as good a person as Luffy are all contributing factors as to why he decides that if Luffy dies fighting for him then he has to die to

I genuinely think that the idea of surviving someone so good like Luffy (and Corazon) again is something that Law cannot handle and cannot allow to happen This is also why I can't help but think that we will see a point where Law attempts to kill himself via his fruit to save Luffy I think Law would rather he die knowing that he insured Luffy's survival than to outlive someone so kind and good Though I think there would be a lot of guilt and conflict here as well I think that whenever we get to this point, it will be abundantly clear to Law that choosing to kill himself for Luffy would also be a selfish act that Luffy would never forgive him for How could he curse Luffy to eternal life knowing that Law died to give it to him?

But regardless of Law's own self image, we see repeated examples of him actually being a good and kind person He has a strong sense of right and wrong and cannot abide injustice, especially the mistreatment of innocent, good people And even if he didn't go about things the best way when he was a kid, this feeling of right and wrong and a need for justice (not in terms of the law but more in terms of karmic, moral justice) was something that was instilled in him at a young age He was taught by his family to care for others in need and to put others before himself And he tries desperately to do so when his town is being erraticated He reaches out to Luffy at Saboady when he sees, in Luffy, the same moral values and the same demand for moral justice and fair treatment of others (something I think is very important to Law given the treatment he faces for his condition as a child) Law then saves Luffy out of compassion for him, whether he's willing to admit that out loud or not He goes out of his way to try to make sure his crew is safe when he goes on his suicide mission to take down Doflamingo and even tries to assure them that everything is fine to ease their concerns When in Dressrosa while he was obviously focused very much on Doflamingo, his plan also helped benefit so many other people in Dressrosa and the world who were suffering because of Doflamingo He also refuses, at every second, to leave Luffy's side and nearly kills himself several times in the process (not to mention taking a beaten and battered Luffy into his care for the second time at his own risk) When they get to Zou, he leaves to get to his crew fairly quickly because he want's to be sure their okay and he accepts their love and happiness at his return with no argument And when Luffy asks him about altering the plan so he can go get Sanji, Law's first thought is of the people of Zou

I think this is partly because he can't stand the injustice of what happened to them, but also because he knows that insuring their saftey is something very important to Bepo since it is his home country and his people (even if he didn't really grow up there)

The people of Zou thank Law for this and he immediately shrugs it off because he doesn't see himself as someone worth thanking (especailly not after he heard of all the good the strawhats did - how could he compare?) Despite it all tho, Law makes room for Luffy - he accommodates Luffy's request because he knows how important it is to him to get Sanji back And again, he does this all selflessly and at his own risk, tho he doesn't see it as such, Law changes his plan to help Luffy and he does so without really any hesitation

There are other examples of Law going out of his way to do good and be a good person despite the image he has of himself (I'm just currently only just finishing up Zou so I haven't gotten there yet, I just know things~)

But in short, Law clearly doesn't see himself as "good," tho he desperately want to be a good person, but regardless of how Law views himself, he is clearly "a good guy"

[natsboygirlfriend]

yall, the group never gaf about nat, its no suprise (but very disappointing) that misty snitches on nat, and it's definitely no suprise nat gets no remorse when they find out she's been hiding coach ben, they are being very consistent!!!

(under cut is a analysis kinda, lmk how it is pls and ty :P)

they are quite literally a bee hive. when a new queen is ready, they kill off the old one, figuratively or literally.

in this case, nat's the old queen, and shauna (or travis, tai, etc etc, too many theories) is the queen ready to hatch.

first off, everyone turned against jackie the second they figured out she wasn't useful, when she was rejecting the wilderness, they shut her out, (literally) and kicked her off that pedestal she was on before the crash.

i personally think misty was a queen of the sort for a very short period of time. when they first crash and she knew how to take care of everything, everyone praised her praised her, albeit behind her back but still. they didn't know she was so useful, and it was obivous that she wasn't a favorite among the girls before the crash.

when they found the cabin and went into something of a routine, her use mellowed out, but when the group figured out she drugged them, they deemed her someone to be cautious around, not to praise.

lottie wasnt even a thought in anyones mind before her visions, and most treated her like she was insane until they went insane with her. she was put on the backburner when she couldn't hear the wilderness anymore (she's still kinda important because she's all spiritual n stuff but shh)

and it's also happening to travis too! lottie started drugging travis cause he said he heard voices— lottie tries to exploit him so they can connect to the wilderness again. they moment he says he couldn't hear them anymore, lottie moved on to the next.

but it's just so much more different and hurtful when it comes to nat because nat did so much.

all the group did was slut-shame and undermine everything she did for them before she became queen. and they were SO okay with eating nat during the first hunt when she was the main provider for months. it only when lottie said she was important that she was treated as such.

and she delivered as queen. lets be honest, all jackie and lottie could do was prayer circles and pep talks ; but nat taught gen to hunt, she helped make a garden, and raised animals. she made their lives more stable than anyone else would've. she even gave them fun with dinners, and story times, and solstices. but she's expected to act like jackie, who they shut out.

even in the adult timeline they can't even acknowledge what they did to— what she did for them to her face!

the most they did was tai saying "she's the reason we survived out there" behind her back, to which shauna just sighed in relucantance to. then going back to treating her like she was dramatic.

mistynat is entirely different in adult and teen timelines. in the adult timeline, Misty treats nat as either an equal or an idol, while teen misty, and all the other teens, are more petty, more jealous of nat because she's antler queen, and the wilderness chose her when they believed they deserved it.

of course shauna and misty jumped at the opportunity to kick her as queen if it meant they had a chance to be queen themselves

last little thing is that the yjs are more noticeable acting like their adult counterparts. this is something adult!misty would do— not to nat at that point but to someone she doesn't trust or has resentment towards. she find out information/secrets and exploits them for her own (or her friends) benefit. (and during the teen timeline i dont think shes truely loyal to anyone yet, because of how 'dog eat dog' it is out there. shes loyal to people who are useful, she clearly sees shauna as worthy since shes the first misty told)

my point is that misty betraying nat is not out of character for her and I keep seeing people say that it is. it's not. the yellowjackets are brutal and we forget that (and me yapping about how nat deserve better than how the yjs treat her but shhh)

[miraclechatbug]

I just read an analysis of the episode by @mamayura, and honestly, it's incredibly insightful and accurate. It also makes everything a thousand times more heartbreaking because Adrien knows exactly what he wants, and it’s something very simple. He just wants to be with Nathalie and Marinette.

However, throughout the entire episode— and even before that, Nathalie has kept Adrien at arm’s length. She’s afraid to care for him the way she truly wants to, a struggle she’s faced constantly, even when he was a child, as shown in the flashbacks. She has always loved him and longed to show him more affection.

However, she’s terrified of replacing Emilie, it probably even feels like a betrayal even though it was Emilie's last wish. It's all too much to put on Nathalie, and of course, she's indecisive about it. That’s why she holds back from showing Adrien the love she so clearly feels for him, even though it’s obvious to everyone how much she adores him. But as clear as it is to others, it might not be to Adrien. He knows she cares for him, but does she care enough to step up and be a mother to him? Nathalie has rarely taken that kind of initiative, so he can’t bring himself to ask such a thing of her.

Adrien is wise beyond his years. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again— he is the most emotionally intelligent and self-aware person in the show, (so is Luka, though in a different way). Because Adrien understands emotions so well, even though he’s never had any real control over his own life, he does know what he wants. He wants to stay with the people he considers family— Nathalie, Marinette, The Gorilla. But he won’t say it aloud, not even when given the chance, because he needs undeniable proof that he is wanted first place.

Just like he never truly forced his father. Yes, he constantly sought Gabriel’s time and attention, and every time he was pushed away, you could see how much it devasted him. And he learned from that. Just like he learned from Ladybug, after she pushed him away time and time again. You cannot force people to love you if they don’t want you. It has to be their choice.

And in that moment, every adult in that room, except Marinette, had to make their decision before Adrien could even be allowed to speak. That is utterly tragic. It’s horrifying. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would feel like to watch strangers argue over who should take custody of me while the one person I truly wanted wasn’t even in the room, wasn't even making an effort for him. And the worst part of it all... is that he didn’t fight it. Not even a little protest. He had already resigned himself to whatever was happening.

Adrien didn’t say anything because he knew he couldn’t. Because, deep down, he truly believed that what he had to say wouldn’t matter. It never had before.

Until Marinette. She’s the one who always thinks about him, who turns toward him instead of away. Especially in the Werepapas episode— she stops, looks back, and asks him what he wants. No one else ever does that (except Plagg). She wants to see him happy, and she makes him happy. I would love to see more of that.

I think Adrien has always felt voiceless when it comes to his own desires. He’s spent his whole life pushing aside what he wants, always making space for others, always tiptoeing around the emotions of the adults around him. When, in reality, those burdens were never his, and will never be his to carry. They should have shielded him from their anger, worries, and indecision, figured things out first, and only come to him when they had something real to offer. Instead, they fought over him like he was a prize to be claimed.

I would love to see him finally wishing for things— choosing for himself, being selfish for once. He deserves that.

Watching Werepapas has made me realize how little control Adrien thinks he has over his life. His grandparents are literally fighting over their guardian rights over him, and he is under the table, concerned about Plagg, and not paying attention in the slightest. Marinette, Nathalie, and The Gorilla were all more upset and worried than he was. Or at least, they showed more emotion.

And honestly, that's so concerning. How little control and choice must someone have over their life to react this way? In the end, when they finally ask him what he wants... he says he doesn't know himself. He's happy to let Marinette make the decision for him, and it's obvious that he wants Marinette wants for him, it's obvious to everyone except him.

He never voices out loud what he wants, such as how obviously he wants Nathalie to hug him back and show him affection at the beginning of his episode. And his shirt was so wrinkled! I think he's struggling more than ever, but he's so good at acting that he's fine– he's so well put together. I fear he doesn't even know how much he's struggling himself. He constantly says he doesn't know how he's feeling himself, which means he is very disconnected with his emotions. People who are very repressed say such things, people who never had chances to explore their feelings themselves, never got the freedom or choice to express themselves. Adrien doesn’t voice his wants, not because they don’t exist, but because he’s never been given the space to acknowledge them. The moment he does, he risks confronting just how deeply he craves something he believes he can’t have. So, he keeps moving, keeps smiling, keeps convincing everyone— himself included, that he’s fine.

It's a learned habit, a defense mechanism. People who have always been told what to feel, or who have been given no room to feel at all, probably end up like this– adrift and unsure of where their own emotions begin or end. It’s repression at its most insidious.