#his whole story just has me like.. shocked pikachu face

[zephyrine-gale]

personal headcanon blade's scars

he's been thru some stuff and I think it should show

[haptronym]

Hap's Adventures in Dadmight

aka “this experience was really strange so I’m going to write 6,000 words about it”.

Fandoms are bizarre. I know this, but I still keep doing the shocked Pikachu face whenever I join a new one. 

This time around, I really thought there would be no surprises. And yet, the fandom ended up having a really weird, really uncomfortable dynamic that confused the hell out of me for a long time. I met several others who said “Yeah, it freaks me out too,” but they couldn’t explain exactly why, and nobody really wanted to talk about it. So now that I’m mostly done with the My Hero Academia fandom, I’ll just go ahead and vaporize my bridges with a whole-ass case study about what on earth seemed to be going on here.

Warning: very long, very self-absorbed, as usual. Contains discussions of relationships, underage shippers, and how to influence whether something “feels” platonic vs. not.

Disclaimer 1: This doesn't apply to everything tagged "Dadmight." Just a select subset. But this subset appeared pretty consistently.

Disclaimer 2: I'm posting brief, fair-use-commentary examples of the content that made me question my sanity because it has to be seen to be believed, but I'm not including names or links because I don’t want to easily funnel negativity to them. If an author really wants me to, I’m happy to link directly to their story.

Disclaimer 3: I’m not trying to “spread awareness” or do a callout. I just like to write for fun and this time the fun was puzzling out why I, personally, had the experience I did. Many people feel differently and that's great. If all fluff has always felt 100% wonderful and charming to you, then this post isn't relevant to you. But if a supposedly "cute" story has ever made you squirm with discomfort, this might help explain why.

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A few years ago, I took a terribly wrong turn in life and ended up in the My Hero Academia fandom. My kidnappers were these two:

In short: the little kid on the left, Izuku Midoriya, is exactly as dorky as he looks. He was born powerless in a world of comic-book superheroes and has a tendency to burst into tears under any possible circumstance. The series kicks off when the guy on the right, #1 hero and national celebrity All Might, sees potential in him despite all this. In a fit of inspiration, All Might decides to give Izuku the same chance he was given as a young boy. Despite being a notorious lone wolf, he (secretly) names Izuku as his successor and takes it upon himself to covertly train this weepy, noodle-limbed wimp into a hero, the hero, the next Symbol of Peace who will wield the world’s strongest superpower and safeguard the future of society. Surely they’ll pull it off just fine, right?

(Don’t ask how All Might switches from a bodybuilder to the skeleton pictured  above. The show doesn’t know either.)

I loved these two. I wanted eight seasons of beach training montage. The mentor/student shenanigans were hilarious and the found family potential was off the charts. They’re two awkward bumbling fools with several truckfuls of emotional baggage, brought together by purehearted heroic zeal. Wonderful.

However, I quickly discovered that the show shoveled approximately ten thousand new characters into every new episode and definitely wasn't going to slow down long enough to give me the All Might & Izuku content I craved. So I wandered off to see what kind of fanfiction was on tap.

...I wandered off, while bracing myself. I’ve been a weeb long enough to know that any characters who pass on power through “DNA” are never going to escape a fandom unscathed, regardless of pesky things like “Age Of Consent” and “Have You Watched A Single Minute Of This Show, He Would Never Fucking Do That”.

Their canon relationship is impressively alarming all on its own:

Izuku is 14-15. Underage character? Check. 

All Might is 55+. Enormous age gap? Check.

All Might is both Izuku’s secret mentor and his high school teacher. Teacher-student dynamics? Check.

Izuku is a nobody. All Might is a global celebrity. Staggering power imbalance? Check. 

Izuku’s superpower, which lets him go to the school of his dreams, accomplish his lifelong goals, and be the protagonist of this show, was given to him by All Might at great personal cost. Enormous sense of debt and obligation because of a huge sacrifice? Check.

Izuku is an outright fanboy. His room is full of posters and figurines of All Might in spandex. Other characters frequently comment on how obsessed he is. There is a whole plotline about him being so starstruck by All Might that he can’t think for himself. Literal hero worship? Check.

As the cherry on top, they spend most of the story pretending they don’t know each other and sneak around under the noses of every other character, including Izuku's mother. Secret hidden relationship with a minor that no other adult can learn the true extent of? Check. 

What a pair. Japanese fandom constantly cracks jokes about how Izuku is probably that kind of fanboy. Even official media is well aware of how sketchy it all looks:

With all this in play, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the stuff in their platonic-relationship fanfiction tag vastly outnumbered the stuff in their shipping one. Phew. Finally, a pair of characters who got something besides endless gross hornyposting. 

As I browsed, I kept seeing a certain tag: "Dadmight." This, unsurprisingly, was used by stories that decided to make All Might into Izuku’s biological father. But it was also used by... pretty much all non-shipping media that focused on their relationship. How interesting! I was used to ship pairings having nicknames, but not platonic ones. 

I could imagine why the name caught on. All Might was practically the definition of "goofy wholesome dad energy,” and his mentor/student relationship with Izuku was easy to see in a parental light. Plus, Izuku’s actual dad is never to be seen during the story. Clearly he deserves a replacement.

So I delved in. Man, this was going to be great! A huge amount of good clean platonic content, with an easy-to-find tag too. Reading about cute dadly shenanigans was going to be such a fun-

How he would love to fall asleep to the sound of his soft voice and the touch of his rough hands, telling him he was proud of him, caressing his hair. He was so mortified over having this need, for all kinds of reasons, but it became clear a long time ago that fighting it wouldn’t work, so he let himself dream.

Uh... well... Izuku didn’t grow up with a dad, so... maybe he needed a father figure... to... caress his hair with his rough hands...

More hums of contentment make their way from him, his body swaying with every push and pull from Toshinori’s long fingers. He uses them to massage Midoriya’s head, taking every moment to not just clean his hair, but to make him feel good; Toshinori can’t bear for this to be purely utilitarian.

Uhhh... okay... All Might was a rather isolated guy. I bet he appreciated being able to share time with his student... bathing time...

What if the boy would rather this stay simply as it has been, professional as mentor and mentee? What if Toshinori has read all of this wrong and the boy has no feelings above Toshinori being his teacher, and all Toshinori has done is fall harder and harder for him every day?

What was this? What exactly did people think kids got up to with their dads!?

Well, maybe I just found a few of the strange ones, I told myself. Fanfiction always has its odd outliers. But after more searching, I realized: no. There was wildly uncomfortable stuff all over. It wasn’t all Dadmight stories. But it was a lot. The most popular authors of the “Dadmight” tag wrote it and the rest of the Dadmight authors gave them big thumbs-ups. It was at least as popular as the “All Might is Izuku’s real dad” stuff and sat at the top of the kudos and comments sorting.

Were people just being polite? Or was I overreacting? I know how annoying it is when people deliberately take things in bad faith and demonize perfectly innocent human affectio—

He kept the contact to a minimum, not wanting to take advantage, not wanting to cross a single, unspoken boundary… but how could he possibly completely refrain, with both how proud and how worried Izuku made him?

There was a voice, in the back of his head, that didn’t agree. That voice – either logic or wishful thinking – told him that while Izuku didn’t initiate physical affection, he surely did lean into it, and seemed to crave receiving it as much as Toshinori craved giving it.

Oh god oh god oh god what is happening STOP—

This was horrible. I just wanted to enjoy cute fluff. I’d never had this reaction to platonic fanfic before. I’m a big found family fan and my worst issue with fluff is usually just that it tends to be kind of samey. I normally love reading about chaste affection and closeness between characters who care about each other. So why did these stories read like Lolita AUs to me? Did shippers in this fandom like to hide their softcore stuff in the platonic tags?

I was soon able to find out. I had been writing my own All Might & Izuku story, and got invited to a “Dadmight-centric” Discord server. Almost all the popular Dadmight authors were there, including the ones who wrote the particular stories that made my skin crawl. There were several channels where people brainstormed, critiqued, and discussed the motivations behind their writing. 

Cool! I’d be able to meet new people, make some friends, and get a better understanding of what the Dadmight dynamic really was. So I introduced myself, I chatted, I lurked. Everyone was really nice.

I found zero cheeky shippers. The writers claimed to be horrified by the idea of shipping the two of them. They would never disrespect the purity and innocence of this beautiful platonic relationship, they said, as they churned out stories about Izuku “coming undone” under the caress of All Might’s rough hands. Right...

I could’ve understood if this was coming from naive 14-year-olds. But some of these people were in their 30’s, with kids of their own. If anyone understood family dynamics, it should’ve been them.

But after I spent more time around the server, I began to notice something else... something which explained a ton of the strangeness. 

Baby Fever

To understand what was happening, you first have to understand that Izuku’s baby face inflicts instant brain damage on sight. I mean, look at him:

aaa his cute widdle cheeks oh my god—

This kid sets off maternal instincts like landmines, and in the Dadmight server, I found that the Izuku infantilization train had gone completely off the rails. Writers constantly cooed over the adorable antics of 2, 3, 5-year olds and constantly talked about how much they wanted to make Izuku act them out. And surely, if All Might could indulge in the parental joy of caring for an innocent young babe, then his emotional scars would be healed and he could find fulfillment outside of that pesky “saving the world” business.

Now, the bio-dadmight folks had it easy: they just wrote about Izuku in his toddler years playing with daddy All Might. The cuddling and tickles made sense and were very cute. But other writers faced a challenge: they wanted to keep him 14-15 so that canon events could occur... but they didn’t want to be left out of the fun. 

So... they decided to rationalize and egg each other on. I mean, how much does age really matter? Being a child at heart is always cute and wholesome, right?

Suddenly, a whole lot of very uncomfortable things began to make sense:

So Much Physical Contact

He loved the physical touch. It was embarrassing and he would never admit it out loud, but there wasn’t much in this world he loved more than receiving physical affection from his idol. Every single time it happened he would save the memory to replay it over and over again whenever he felt sad, or almost every night before he went to bed. He was glad no one in the dorms had a mind-reading quirk. And All Might always gave it more freely when he visited his apartment, so of course he went there.

Izuku is often written to have a near-pathological craving for hair stroking and cuddles. Which is cute when directed at, say, classmates or mom, but gets real weird real fast when directed at the adult man he canonically idolizes to a freakish degree. Ever work with teenage boys? Most of them would rather die than be physically affectionate with adults, even parents... unless, you know, they’re that kind of fanboy.

Even freakier is that the grown adult would then reply, “Hell yeah! I see nothing wrong with getting physical with this kid who worships me! I crave it so much! I can't resist!” Ever work at a school? They have rulebooks and seminars specifically about how teachers should never touch or be alone with kids.

Then again, Midnight exists at this school. Maybe U.A.’s infamous lack of safety standards extends to this too.

Either way, though: cute and wholesome for a parent to do with their three-year-old. Very creepy when a high-school teacher makes excuses about why he really needs to cuddle and stroke his fifteen-year-old student in secret.

Narcolepsy Xtreme Edition

His student was never this affectionate or vulnerable when he was conscious, so he enjoyed the moment, even if it was a short one, as he moved to his room upstairs.

If you’ve read fanfiction for more than seven seconds, you’ve probably seen the “cram the character with booze/painkillers until they blurt out Vulnerable Things” plot device. It’s a beloved classic. But Izuku writers are robbed of the alcohol angle since he’s underage, and morphine is pretty niche. So authors who want to use this trick often just make Izuku tired after a long day, conclude that being sleepy is close enough to being five drinks in, and have him murmur “thanks, DAD... OOPS DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD???” to awkwardly segue into Familial Confessions.

But quite a few stories took the “sleepy” angle to a new, very odd place. Instead of groggily dispensing convenient confessions, Izuku would just... keel over while doing homework and be utterly dead to the world. And instead of having All Might briefly rouse him to shoo him to bed, or worry about his student suddenly becoming catatonic, the writers would make him eerily fixated on the opportunity to physically carry Izuku to his bedroom (which would somehow not wake him up!!!) and tuck him in while waxing poetic about how vulnerable and helpless he looked. 

Before joining the Dadmight server, I was mildly alarmed whenever I saw this, wondering why so many authors were obsessed with roofying the teenager and making the adult fondle him. But after joining, I realized: they were just trying to act out the cutesy aww-the-two-year-old-fell-sound-asleep-while-playing, it’s-so-cute scenes that all those darned lucky bio-dadmight people got to indulge in so easily.

Bed Sharing

It wasn’t long before Izuku’s breathing slowed, and soon he was asleep, snoring peacefully. Toshinori, after a few minutes of debating with himself, said screw it and got into the bed with the boy.

Cue me SCREAMING internally in confusion and fear. But no, it was just that the cutesy-kid-trope obsession stretched all the way to “Well, I used to snuggle with my parents at night after I had a nightmare! It was super wholesome!” Which led to scores of stories featuring a celebrity crawling into bed with his student.

All in all, joining this server was a huge relief. I was so glad to see that these hair-raising scenarios were just the result of the authors forgetting to mention “Oh, by the way, the characters are acting weird because we made them all agree to participate in preschooler roleplay.”

Just picture this while reading and it all makes sense.

Fanfic is uniquely susceptible to this sort of “forgot to mention this strange dynamic that I take for granted” issue. After all, 99% of fanfic doesn’t bother to waste time asking “would this make any sense to someone who had never watched the show?” It’s not worth it to focus on such a broad audience. As a result, fanfic normalizes skipping huge swaths of context that would normally be mandatory in a story. Fanfic authors don’t have to practice asking themselves “did I explain this properly?” anywhere near as often as original fiction ones.

This would be bad enough on its own, but then, we go cloister ourselves away into little sub-fandom echo chambers, and spend months crafting obscure in-joke fractals, and get so absorbed in our tiny myopic corners of the community that we also fail to ask, “would this make any sense to someone who hasn’t spent the last 5 months marinating in this specific Discord channel?” 

Sometimes we know exactly how niche our stuff is and just don’t care. But too often, we just legitimately suck at guessing how our work might come off to other groups. We don’t have to practice theory of mind as much as original fiction authors do. Our fandom buddies see nothing amiss with our writing (since they know all the server insider lore!) and everyone outside our tiny clique politely ignores our word salad... so we never get proper feedback on how incomprehensible our work can be even to other members of the same fandom.

In this case, this resulted in a whole pack of writers seemingly getting lost in the fluff sauce and completely forgetting to address the fact that the stuff men do with their own five-year-olds generally becomes really weird and creepy when done with someone else’s 15-year-old, whether or not the 15-year-old seems to want it. Izuku was a cute widdle innocent baby in their heads, so they assumed he was a cute widdle innocent baby in everyone else's.

Once I realized where they were coming from, it wasn't so hard to adjust my mental framework and enjoy these stories on their own terms. That said... infantilization still couldn't explain stuff like “What if Toshinori has read all of this wrong and the boy has no feelings above Toshinori being his teacher, and all Toshinori has done is fall harder and harder for him every day?”

To explain why that paragraph makes me want to crawl out of my skin, we first need to answer: what makes a piece of writing feel “questionable?”

“Vibes,” A Primer

Love comes in many forms. The big four are platonic, familial, romantic, and sexual. Sexual is easy: you’re horny for the person. Platonic love is specifically non-sexual, and familial love is a subset of platonic love. Romance usually implies horny, though there’s definitely a difference between outright sexual behavior and the behavior we file under the “romance” label.

There’s also a difference between romantic and platonic behavior. And this is where a lot of “questionable” vibes appear: when you’d expect an interaction between two people to be platonic, but for some reason, it has uncomfortable romantic/sexual overtones instead.

But what causes those overtones? A dad can give his kid a kiss on the head, and it comes off platonic. A suitor can give their crush a kiss on the head, and it comes off romantic. In fact, most romantic gestures have nearly identical platonic counterparts. Kissing, hugging, hand-holding, cuddling, vulnerable confessions. So what gives? What makes something “come off” one way or the other?

The actual answer is: a ton of stuff, most of it subjective. Everyone draws their lines in different places, based on culture and personal experience and how gutterbrained you’re feeling on any given day. A lot of it has to do with context (that thing that us fanfic authors are notoriously bad at judging).

Online wars are fought every day about whether some glance or gesture or phrase means they're "totally into each other fr"

But if you want to draw broad strokes, one way to roughly separate platonic vs romantic love is by gauging the level of passion involved. “Passion” is “a strong and barely controllable emotion that compels action.” That last part is key. 

Stereotypical romantic love is incredibly passionate. It’s all about desire to act, desire to change, desire to progress the relationship to something more. It features overwhelming anxious preoccupation about the other person’s thoughts and opinions, feeling irresistibly drawn to them, feeling intense longing. It’s about confessing and hoping the other person also feels the same. It often involves attempting to label the relationship, make it “official”, and show it off. It’s about trying desperately to secure assurance that this love will last forever and ever. You have to do something, and every moment spent not doing something is torture.

Contrast this to typical depictions of platonic and familial love. Familial love is calm, encompassing, soothing. It’s secure. You don’t have to worry, because no matter what rough patches you go through, they’ll always be your family and will always have unconditional love for you. Yes, you’ll fly into action if your loved one is threatened, but at rest, platonic love is generally not “exciting” and there’s generally little sense of urgency.

Romance is usually an insecure, anxious thing that’s trying to get to that secure, grounded familial stage. That’s why people say they progress from being “in love” to just “loving” one another. Romance draws people together and kickstarts the bonding process. And as the steady, mature bond of a long-term relationship forms, the obsessive mania of romantic infatuation fades away. 

So the difference between platonic and romantic behavior is not so much about the actual actions. It’s more about the mentality. Is the person anxiously trying to secure their partner’s affection while treating the relationship as a really big deal that will make or break their lives? Then their affectionate actions may come off more romantic. Are they seemingly at home in their partner’s presence and not trying to deepen or change the relationship? Then their affection will probably come off more familial or platonic.

There are, of course, a ton of things that go into it besides this, and caveats out the ass. For example, people trying to establish a new friendship are often anxious too. But when it comes to determining the “vibes” of a kiss or a cuddle, this can be a useful litmus test. Failing this test is often what makes something feel Questionable. The characters seem too invested... maybe because it's not truly innocent.

Now, let’s take a look at our Dadmight characters.

The biggest challenge of writing familial closeness between Izuku and All Might is simple: they are not family. They have no long shared history to justify any sort of intimacy. Instead they have a teacher/student relationship that places them both into rigid, frigid roles. 

Usually, familial-style bonding just takes time. You wait a few seasons, the characters slowly get closer and learn to trust one another, and eventually they’re hugging. But these two clowns spent the whole show being the ultimate found-family blue-balls experience. They were just never very emotionally open or touchy-feely. Every time they had the chance for Vulnerable Conversation And Cuddles, they passed it up in favor of a pep talk and a fist bump. It took a near-death experience to extract one (1) brief hug and some tears. But in normal everyday life? Arm’s length.

Literally. For example: after five seasons of bonding and character development, they are separated and Izuku is embroiled in a deadly conflict that almost destroys the world. When they finally reunite after the harrowing ordeal, alone under the starlight, they greet each other with a loving, heartfelt… handshake. This, predictably, spawned furious fix-it fic.

Overall, there is a huge gulf that authors need to cross in order to get these two from “polite handshake” to “tender cuddling and kisses.” They could write 50,000 words of setup to slowly accomplish this, but most authors did not want to wear their fingertips to the bone just to inch these two into an embrace. They wanted to jump the gap within a oneshot, leaping from canon frigidity into an unbreakable lifelong familial love that was also super touchy-feely and extremely vocal.

Now, remember what I was just saying? How romance is generally about trying to establish new family bonds? How it’s all about trying to change the relationship into something more?

Knowing all this, what do you think might happen if an author tried to speedrun two characters to the Family Finish Line as fast as they could? What do you think their shortcuts might end up looking like, completely by accident? Especially if their “sane and appropriate human interactions” gauge was warped by an echo chamber of fluff tropes and baby fever?

You might get:

Was it even possible that his feelings could be reciprocated? Toshinori didn’t want to think about it. It would just pain him more. Young Midoriya only saw him as an idol, a mentor who would help him train his body for One for All. Midoriya did not see him in the way he wanted him to.

Or:

He wanted desperately, desperately to have the courage to cross that threshold, to ask him what he longed for, to ask him for that relationship that he dared not voice.

Or even:

Toshinori feels his heart rate pick up and his gnarled stomach twist with nerves. Is he really going to do this? Is he going to tell this boy what he truly thinks and risk everything they’ve built up together over the past year-plus? His palms are sweating and he wipes them on his suit pants, rubbing the pads of his fingers together.

I'll stop now. The point is that these quotes could all have been word-for-word ripped from a romance novel. These are some industrial-grade Questionable Vibes. And reading them in context really doesn't help that much, for me at least. It's almost comical when they throw in "...I crave the touch of your rough hands as a son! A SON!"

If you know the building blocks of romance, it makes perfect sense why stories like this could come off this way. Platonic love is great, but it’s also stable, calm, and slow. It simply doesn’t have the sheer explosive force needed to catapult two stilted dorks into a brand-new dynamic within 2,000 words. Most stories can only achieve that kind of mileage via near-death experiences... or by inflicting the characters with neurotic infatuation.

Not only that, but their canon relationship is uniquely poised to set off romance-adjacent warning bells. Because they are not actually family, it makes sense for them to yearn for a deeper relationship in a way that a normal family wouldn’t. It makes sense for them to be anxious and insecure about their relationship, because it’s a very strange, hard-to-define thing that has to be kept secret from those around them. And it makes sense for them to consider their relationship a huge deal, because in canon, it’s fundamental to the most important aspects of both their lives.

I actually think it’s kind of inevitable that their character dynamic will sometimes stray into places that feel romantic. But that doesn’t mean the writer is a secret shipper... because I don’t think that passion always has to imply sexual desire, especially in fiction.

I’ve spent some time around the asexuality community, and my biggest takeaway was that sexual desire is very different from the desire to make deep, lifelong connections. Most asexual people still yearned to find that special someone, their anchor, a partner who unconditionally loved them and would stay by their side forever. Family. They would fall for people... they just didn’t want to fall into their pants. But it was almost impossible to keep these partners unless they were asexual too. Every one eventually pushed to “take things further,” or they left to find another person who would. 

So I can understand the yearning for a world where sex is kicked to the curb, where two strangers can find each other and share intense, whirlwind, “you’re my #1” love... without any lewd overtones. This little pocket of stories seemed like a manifestation of that yearning. 

Nowadays, more and more stories are taking previously romance-exclusive intimacy and yanking off the sexual baggage. For example, looking on the Dadmight tag will reveal “platonic soulmates” and “platonic hanahaki” stories. Yes, platonic hanahaki. No, not parody. There’s a clear unironic market for this content. People really want to be able to indulge in passionate, “till death do us part” emotional bonding in a safe, nonsexual way.

All Might and Izuku sit in a unique place. Not related, but powerfully linked by something thicker than blood. And their relationship is easy to paint as “safe”. It makes perfect sense that these two would attract creators who want to explore this hard-to-define chaste side of passionate love.

In real life, passionate obsessive-style attraction between adults and kids is a huge red flag. We can never really know whether those feelings are innocent or healthy. 99% of the time, they’re not. But in fiction, the author gets to choose what people really feel and whether things turn out well. They can explore the most unbelievable scenario of all: not a world where everyone is a mermaid, but a world where it’s actually wholesome and healing for a high school teacher and his student to confess their deep, undying love for one another, where a famous celebrity can secretly invite his obsessed underage fan over, stroke his hair, tell him how special their relationship is, and sleep with him in bed, without it ending up on Law and Order: SVU. 

On Critique

“Hap,” you might be thinking, “surely these stories can’t be as bad as you say. If they were, someone would have pointed it out to these poor souls. You should have pointed it out to these poor souls. You were in their writing server for chrissakes, and now you’re gossiping about them like a heartless goblin.”

First: yes, I'm a goblin. Second: I did bring this topic up to several Dadmight authors one-on-one. After getting a bunch of head-in-sand excuses in response, I decided to just quietly munch popcorn and watch the fandom’s antics unfold like a slow-motion train wreck.

Third: people did try to point this stuff out.

It was fascinating to watch the Dadmight server whenever someone posted a comment expressing concern. Some comments were trolls trying to get a reaction, of course. But others were very gentle: “hey, isn't it kind of weird to have them hop into bed together? It comes off kind of shippy...” I learned that the reason I had never seen comments like these in the past was because they were usually quickly deleted by the fic authors.

After deleting a comment, the author would often flee to the server for reassurance. The other users would agree that the commenter was definitely in the wrong, since they could see absolutely nothing questionable about the writer’s story. Someone would inevitably chime in saying that, oh, one time they got a comment calling things questionable like that, and it turned out to be from a shipper who shipped bad things. So, you know, anyone who sees shipping in things is probably just a bad person.

Phew. Crisis averted. If you can successfully paint the critic as a bad person, then there’s no need to descend into existentialist dread as you’re forced to critically reexamine the foundational concepts of your writing and your grasp on relationship dynamics.

(Credit where credit is due: one of the rules of this particular server was not to bash or insult people who like things you don't like. In most groups this is followed with an unspoken "...unless you can clutch your pearls over it", but to my surprise, when stuff like the above started kicking off, the moderators did step in to remind people to keep it civil. So, good job, mods. More maturity than I usually see in online spaces.)

But still, if anyone actually bothers to read this long screed, I already know what certain responses are going to look like. They’ll smugly assert that people who see questionable things are just sex-obsessed weirdos, projecting their icky lewd thoughts onto every innocent interaction they come across. A morally pure person wouldn’t make such gross assumptions.

I’m familiar with this kind of response because I’ve spent a lot of time around another group that responds the exact same way to these kinds of concerns. That group is known as fundamentalist Christians, and their attitude fosters three things:

People are afraid to speak out when they feel uncomfortable, because they don't want to be accused of being dirty-minded. 

People fail to learn the ground rules of normal romance/sexuality and so fail to recognize red flags.

The community is absolutely infested with creeps who take advantage of points 1 and 2 to run rampant.

Sadly, these three things also seem to be true in the Dadmight community. Being a platonic pairing, it naturally attracts people uninterested in and inexperienced with romantic/sexual relationships. And then the vitriolic, derisive responses to people’s concerns teaches them that it’s wrong to bring up those topics around the community at all.

And so, point 3 blooms. I eventually confirmed that my initial suspicions were correct: shippers did camp in the Dadmight tag, and they got away with posting some impressively brazen softcore underage content in public, presumably because even the people who were suspicious knew that going “hey now” would trigger a circular firing squad. 

The Dadmight community wasn’t clueless about this problem. They were incredibly paranoid as a whole. They knew there were bad actors lurking in their tag, but since they had disabled all their own safety alarms and expanded the definition of “platonic” to a ridiculous extreme, they had no way of being able to determine what was shipping and what was not until characters started actively whipping their dicks out. I saw constant fretting over whether it was okay to click the “like” button on an affectionate-looking piece of fanart without knowing for sure the intentions of the creator. But asking intentions was pointless anyway, since shippers just lied to them and then laughed as the platonic group eagerly ate up their evil, dirty-minded content.

I get why these “wait, that feels shippy...” comments feel like attacks. It’s fucking awful when your intentions are pure but someone interprets them in such a horrifying, disgusting way. It feels disrespectful when you clearly label something “platonic” but people still doubt. 

But remember: Going from “mentor” to “dad” with these two generally means breaking down normal boundaries, to escalate the emotional and physical intimacy between an authority figure and a starstruck, needy, vulnerable kid, because they have such a special and unique bond that no one else understands. So special, in fact, that it needs to be kept secret from the public.

In real life, this scenario is known as Groomer Tactics 101. 

Seriously, stop and read that link. It’s short and non-explicit. This is why I called their canon relationship “impressively alarming”—the bullet points of stages 1-3 describe Izuku and All Might nearly word-for-word. This does not mean I’m claiming All Might is a groomer, or that Izuku and All Might’s relationship is bad. Just that, due to their circumstances, they happen to have all the building blocks of relationships that go horribly wrong. All that separates their scenario from tumbling into Bad is the goals of the adult. So when a fanfic then comes along and makes the adult suddenly really interested in excessive touching? And the only reason he gives is “I’m weirdly drawn to this kid and touching them feels really good”? Of course people will get nervous!

Noticing this does not mean someone is “obsessed with shipping”. It means they’re a normal human being with eyes. Accusing someone of being problematic for making the most obvious possible observations about adult/child interactions is like accusing someone of being an arsonist because they embarrassed you by pointing out that your homemade backyard fireworks setup is halfassed and dangerous.

This does not mean it’s wrong to write wish-fulfillment where escalating to bed cuddles actually turns out great and awesome. But it does mean that, if an author writes it ignorantly or carelessly, they risk coming off like they’re glorifying and normalizing Groomer Tactics 101. It’s the same as when careless Twilight fans glorify and normalize stuff that, in real life, is abusive controlling boyfriend behavior.

Yes, it sucks when people come and yuck the yum. I’m sure the Twilight fans also get sick of people who complain and demonize them instead of letting them write their vampire boyfriend fantasies in peace. But the concern usually comes from a well-meaning place. 

Proudly announcing “I ignore the most basic child/adult red flags because they ruin my fun” is not the flex that some people think it is. I highly recommend people reconsider before they try to paint anti-child-groomers as the bad guys.

The Recipe

So, let’s summarize how to reproduce the Dadmight phenomenon. It starts with a canon relationship that has the most enticing found-family building blocks the world has ever seen: a downtrodden kid who really needs a dad + a lonely heroic mentor. However, their canon relationship also sits on top of a powder keg, coincidentally featuring all the “setup” stages of the sexual grooming model: 

a lonely, low-self-esteem kid

singled out by an esteemed, charismatic adult who is a pillar of the community

sharing a “special” relationship

constantly going off alone and keeping secrets 

A platonic fan community forms that is blissfully unaware of the above dynamics. They head off to fluff echo chambers, as platonic fans do. But due to the crybaby tendencies of the teenage character, they start projecting really aged-down toddler-play scenarios onto him. Eventually, as echo-chambered fans do, they decide that contextualization is for chumps. This results in fics that take the powder keg and add:

The adult craving to touch and hold the teenager

The teenager craving touch from the adult and mewling like a kitten when his hair is stroked (I’m not fucking joking)

Completely age-inappropriate stuff like stroking, kisses, and sharing a bed with a teenage student

Izuku and All Might also happen to suffer from loneliness and isolation, even more so in their fanon incarnations. This really resonates with most fans, who want to soothe and heal them. They also want to get to the healing cuddles within a few chapters instead of wasting time on super-slow buildup. So they make the two of them really strongly fixate on and angst about the agony of their loneliness, and how the other person’s love is the only cure that will fix them. In doing so, they insert:

Anxious passionate obsession

Love confessions

Coming-out scenes

Craving for exclusive relationship labels

Desire for exclusivity

Lastly, because platonic groups are either uninterested in or too young for spicy content, they tend to have very little experience with romantic/sexual literature and the tropes and catchphrases they lay claim to. So fic writers will innocently sprinkle in poignant-sounding things they’ve picked up here and there, such as:

Blushing and heart racing when looking at the person

The phrase “falling for each other”

The man “caressing” his partner with “rough hands”

“He came undone”

And because their communities condemn people who “read into things”, nobody points out any of this shit, and it all slides out into the public Internet unquestioned.

And so, we get the most impressively uncomfortable platonic content I’ve ever seen. It’s no wonder I had never encountered something like this before. It required a lot of unusual circumstances intersecting in just the right (wrong) way.

In the end, I think the biggest aspect was just that I'd never become a fan of characters that had such a potentially-problematic canon relationship. Usually adult and kid characters have very different dynamics, so if fics treat their social interactions with all the tact of a bull in a china shop, it just comes off as lazy instead of creepy. I'd be interested to know if other platonic adult&child fandoms suffer from this issue.

In any case, although it was fascinating to watch, I sure hope I never run into it again.

[tokillamockingbird427]

hello :)

as it is literally night while im writing this(totally not the only time actually free in my room/desk and go through my mess of thoughts) , i was thinking deeply about a logan (voice) hc that i decided to share here. im not too sure if this was talked about already a LONG time ago but feel free to let me know :D

mainly, it revolves around if he gets comfortable enough and decided to talk around other people besides hesh & elias, because well, social gatherings are scary. but even between elias & hesh, i feel as though he really just uses sign language unless its in a place he truly feels comfortable in talking in.

but getting more into the mans voice, i feel as though he mainly speaks in a whisper, or if anything is a soft speaker. a soft speaker with a raspy, soothing voice with a bit of an accent if we add ur head cannon of hesh & logan being of mixed race bc of mama walker ! (if we add in the (multilingual) hc from my first/second ask, his voice would of course be with a way more deeper accent.) and the reason why i chose him being a soft spoken speaker was mainly cause the walkers kinda generally have a soft spoken voice when theyre not yelling :). (i noticed that when i watched a 4 hour play through for the second time to really analyze the characters for fun.)

now, if we really think about it, his voice is pretty good to fall asleep to and is generally shocking(but not like keegans…his is a whole ‘nother story like your post on it lmao.). and if we add how hes a menace, its something that really catches you off guard when the usually quiet guy is talking so lowly of you with a soft raspy voice.

but ofcourse if we talk about all the ghosts here, hesh would be the main contributor to have him talk more, as the supportive older brother, with elias also following in. not too sure what the other ghosts would do besides surprised pikachu face or being excited over the fact logans starting to get comfortable with them cause i know that shit took long.(i feel like some walruss moments may also happen...)

(my main boost of energy to write this was listening to some S.O.A.D(system of a down) and my very mixed up playlist lmao)

—🎧 anon

Hullo! Good to see you again. I think you did talk about it but only a bit, so I'm very happy to hear you elaborate!

Yes, I agree. Depends on the people he's talking to AND the environment. Like the mess hall? No thank you. Just chilling in his room with Hesh? He'll talk his brothers ear off. (Funny scenario, a Ghostie becoming very confused when they hear two people talking in a room when there's only Logan+Hesh in there because they outright forget Logan's not 100% mute. No briancells for these guys.)

Oh, fun fact, and a less mentioned HC I have, I like to give Logan a tablet for speaking when he encounters people who don't know ASL. Has quick words button but also a place he can just type. And sound effects! He fucking loves the sound effects. I have this HC because he seems to just have a tablet on him a LOT in the game, so why not for speaking purposes?

You and me be shaking hands over combing the game for details lmao. Though tbh I didn't think to focus specifically on their voices, so I now have a reason for another playthrough! >:D

Logan speaks like he's doing asmr lol. But less joking, yes yes, very much I like. I like think Logan might have some gravel in his voice, but unlike Keegan (Majority gravel+bass) his is more raspy than gravely. (And his voice isn't as deep.)

Elias and Hesh being around could be what helps Logan acclimate to speaking around the Ghosts more. They're "safe places" for him, so it could start with him talking to them specifically around the Ghosts, which then transitions to him speaking to the other Ghosts directly.

I think Keegan, being similar in the sense that he's quiet (but not as quiet at Logan) would be the first Logan really speaks too. Which is absolutely something Keegan would love to brag about. He's the favorite after Elias and Hesh and the rest of you can SUCK IT! It's also a tell of how comfortable Logan is with Keegan. He's an outlier because he's not only the first Ghost Logan gets comfortable speaking to, he's also the record holder for how quickly Logan starts speaking to someone. Which may or may not have something to do with the crush Logan has on him.... ehehehe.

[the-cryptographer]

finished A Game of Thrones today. rambling post that covers stuff over the last couple weeks.

Incredibly embarrassing to me that both Renly and Littlefinger lay out terms for their support of Ned, he refuses them both, but then still goes on believing he can rely on their help on his terms. Like him expecting Renly to stick around and support him and being so shocked pikachu face that Renly up and left overnight. Of course Petyr betraying Ned was really a matter of 'when' more than 'if', and I'm only tentatively willing to believe that Renly was better in that regard, but any support better than no support in those circumstances, Ned, omg.

Ned and Cersei really do have chemistry hate to say it. Did very much enjoy him telling her to take her children and flee, something something Robert's wrath. And Cersei's line, 'And what of my wrath?' Extremely good and sexy.

Was kinda dreading the story of Tyrion's first love/wife being brought up, and I was right to be. I don't remember having this strong a reaction to his character first time around, but the madonna-whore dichotomy between [vaguely-described first wife who I think tbh would be entirely justified wanting to marry this dude for his money first and his personality second because we certainly have very little info about why she fell for him] and Shae is a-ha *grimace*. I'm a fan of the books over the show in most regards, but I do think the show deciding to just focus more on Shae is one of those choices I think was unequivocally for the best. and knowing where all this is going (femicide) the thing I am most excited to see is how intentionally evil the whole thing comes off to me in this rereading. I think there's a lot to be said about Tyrion being the child that most resembles Tywin - for better and for worse - but it will be nice to see how much the worse part gets textual acknowledgement.

For some reason I thought Maester Aemon being a Targaryen was something they didn't reveal until later books. Tho tbh with a name like Aemon it was hardly a secret so idk why I thought that.

Hoster Tully appearance! I am liking the juxtaposition between Brynden Blackfish and Lysa Tully Arryn. Two people who Hoster Tully drove away by trying to get them to marry people they did not want to marry. But Brynden, by virtue of age and sex, esd successfully able to refuse, where Lysa wasn't. And in the end Brynden and Hoster are able to reconcile, where Hoster and Lysa are not.

I have like... zero interest in involving myself with the discourse about whether Sansa or Dany is the worse expression of white feminism. (You just have to accept these books were written by a straight white dude at some point, lol) But I will say I found the whole section with Mirri Maz Duur pretty fascinating for touching on some of the discourse topics. Like- Dany alienates the khalasar by disrespecting their culture and interpretation of the maegi, after building up her influence in contrast with her brother by embracing the khalasar's culture. Dany is told that her attempts to 'save' Mirri Maz Duur were fumbling and naive and far little too late, and she wasted time patting herself on the back for being nice without considering what Mirri lost to the khalasar. And I don't know how much it was intentional, but Mirri's challenge 'you see how much life is worth, when everything else is gone' is kind of interesting in the context of Dany making the decision to free the remaining slaves of the khalasar in the aftermath. Like... in a weird way it's almost an answer to the questions Mirri ended up posing. 'What gives a life value?' And Dany perhaps deciding life by itself doesn't mean much, but freedom is one of the things that gives it meaning, and therefore investing in that? Idk, I don't expect this whole arc to be handled with the utmost tact, but I will say I think early on the story gets in on questioning how much Dany understands the cultures she is imposing herself upon and building her legacy off and how much she can meaningfully answer many of the questions being posed to her by woc.

In general I'm surprised at how much this book feels incomplete and more like a setup for later developments than a standalone work. A lot of these characters' storylines are ending on rising action rather than falling, and I think it's not until Storm of Swords that many of them end in a more natural (if temporary) resolution.

Am thinking I will take a break before I get into A Clash of Kings. I am currently one chapter into Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, so I'm planning to finish that before moving forward with more asoiaf. But-!

What I'm Most Looking Forward To!

THEON CHAPTERS! I believe the Theon Greyjoy chapters start next book and I am super hyped for them, partially because he's such a horrible bitch from everyone's perspective in the first book! There's not a single POV character who likes him in book one. Every section with him is there to point out that he's a sadistic little shit that's always mocking everyone. I'm so hyped to see him take the spotlight and show us how horrible or not he is from his own perspective.

More Sansa! And the Sansa who's no longer blindly in love with Joff! Excited to see her endure her time at King's Landing now that she is solidly cut off from any meaningful support.

Unexpectedly excited for the Cat chapters as well! I'm really enjoying the drama with the Tullys and the Freys. And I believe she is the most direct perspective we get on Renly next book - and I'm excited to see how much I believe he always intended to claim the throne himself, or whether he was sincere in suggesting he and Ned use Joff as their puppet ruler instead.

[xryosakeyx]

Anyways, here's some random sketches related to the fic I finally can get around to posting 'cause it's a bunch! (These span from about three months, so yeah...) They don't really lean into heavy spoiler territory, so I thought it'd be safe to post them!

^Blawsth's champ (name's Lucille, if anyone cares...). First sketch is from earlier today and it's supposed to be of him in his youth. If you've read chapter one already, a specific detail that was made was that the Pokémon Ash is looking for pops up every thirty years or so, and let me tell you, a whole bunch of stuff happened within that time lol. The rest of the sketches were made in June, so I haven't drawn him in a good while. His whole thing was that I based him on shock-rockers and his backstory does take influence from that subset of performers. That comic in the last pic kind of gives ypu the idea of it, and that is if you can even read my stupidly tiny handwrit–

Okay, y'know what? Let me decipher it:

JAKE: You don't get it Ash, Lucille was banned from performing 'cause he went overboard!

ASH: Oh, really?

JAKE: That and he's the champ!

PIKACHU, as a tiny blob thing on Ash's shoulder, turning his back away from the camera as he sees a weird goth-thing from the distance: Pi.

JAKE: Ah! There he is, great eyes Pikachu! Lu-cille! Sign my autograph, please!!!

Alright, satisfied?

^Some gym leader stuff. First sketch is supposed to be of a double-battle gym where one specializes in water and the other with fire. Their main motif is that they're supposed to be treasure hunters, so their Pokémon are very agile in combat as they bounce back from one another. I'm still trying to work on their outfits a little, but their masks are supposed to be based on their aces which are (of course) more fakmons! Their names (right to left) are Lenny and Hans.

Second was two sketches I did of the grass specialist, Vendanna, who is an actor known for her stunts. The main challenge in her gym is the various status effects her Pokémon can create (mostly poison), so trainers should watch out!

Third is Lizzie who is supposed to be a ghost specialist. She tends to be very introverted, only popping up whenever the supernatural bells ring, but her Pokémon are the complete opposite and love getting other's nerves. I based her off trad-goth stereotypes because I feel like they're very underespresented in media, but yeah, she's basically Blawsth's personal "witch" and has more knowledge about the card game than most people (still unsatisfied with her boots though...). Also, her ears are pointed 'cause I felt like making them pointy :P

Also, BTW, these won't be the exact order of gym leaders Ash and co. have to deal with, I just felt like sharing them for now!

^Rivals. I unfortunately can't really share much of their story with you guys as their role leans into spoiler territory, so I'll keep it as brief as possible. First is named Cianna and seriously wants to be the The Very Best Like No One Ever Was™. Out of Blawsth of course. Alright, in all seriousness, as a childhood friend who had to move upstate years ago, she hoped to reunite with Miley, who is oddly very evasive towards her, which is quite sad because she never got around to say goodbye to her...And that is as much info I can actually share on the both of them as characters! Alright, onto the next one...

The second is named Urie and oh boy I seriously can not wait to finally introduce him to the story. If you can recognize who I nabbed his color pallete from, congratulations, you're still not really going any relevent story info until I actually write about it. Anyways, all you gotta know about this guy is that he has this smirk you just want to punch and he's annoyling very friendly, surprsingly enough. To an extent (I could only post this single sketch of him though as (A.) I was only going for the color pallet when it came to this set so I couldn't care less about the face... and (B.) I do have an entire page just dedicated to him because he's so absurd of a character to me, but unfortunately it's behind another page filled with sharpie sketches and if you guess anything from the third pic, it likes to bleed through a lot).

Third is Luka and not only is she a coordinator hailing from Unova but she also participates in gym matches as well! She also oddly wants Ash to step away from his companions, for some reason...Yeah, gotta keep things hush-hush, lol. Other than that, she's a very snarky individual, some might even compare her to an Ekans. Others...a more sinister Pokémon...(anyways, say hi to Lizzie again at the bottom corner! She's selling her a doll that doesn't even work, LOL!) (Also, I imagine this one with a Joisey accent!)

Anyways, that's as much as Tumblr will let me post without going over the image limit, so I'll go follow up with this post tomorrow! Your SOTD has been brought to you by, once again, Specimen! I keep thinking of this song in paticular when it comes to contest ideas, especially considering Blawsth's whole culture going a little bit overboard with it ever since Lucille was banned from performing.

[lovecolibri]

911 is literally just treading water. Most all plot lines have been resolved in an episode or two. Like Athena’s episode was great, Henren’s episode was great, but it’s also… sewn up. Finished. The only continuing storyline is one we all hate (Buck’s bio baby blunder). Eddie has had not much really to do. Madney getting back together was pretty much a nonevent. The radio silence on Bobby is finally bearing fruit but oh, it’s about a character we’ve never seen before and have about 30 seconds investment in.

They can’t seem to decide if they want to be a procedural, in which case they need to invest more in new and interesting calls and disasters. (It doesn’t have to be a tsunami! We know it can’t all be as wild as that. That doesn’t mean don’t try at all!) Or if they want to be character-driven, in which case they need to allow for actual character growth, not just Buck running in the same goddamn circle over and over. Istg, after the slog of BT and ending the season with him having finally decided for himself and looking so relieved I thought he’d grown and was so excited to see what came next for him, and nope. What happened in the four months after we left him looking so relieved and at peace after the breakup to make him worse than before? This is somehow even worse than cheating on his ill-suited girlfriend and moving her in. It’s character assassination 😭.

It’s like if they’re saving it for the back half they fucked up by lowering the stakes in the first half. The show’s ratings are still ok-ish but showing signs of trouble ahead and you can’t afford to count on everyone still being interested in March.

*I know this is from like, November okay? Don't look at me*

*siiiiigh* You're so right nonnie! I'll be honest, I did not watch 6x03. I couldn't watch live and then hearing what all happened I made the choice to nope out of that one. If I wanted to watch Law and Order SVU, I would do that, thanks. That said though, I get that it was a powerful episode for Athena and I am DISAPPOINTED she didn't talk to Hen about it and it hasn't come up again or affected her storyline in any capacity outside of that episode, and it's pretty much like that across the board. 6x11 was a lot about Buck and Bobby's relationship however Bobby had a HUGE thing the next week, and Buck is still struggling with his own recovery and they have not had a scene outside of work together or even talking about what major thing is going on with the other to anyone else! And ya'll know how I feel about Bobby's storyline involving a character we've never seen until he was dead and his whole story got retconned back to season 1 in flashbacks in one episode. Thanks, I hate it.

Nothing is holding any weight or carrying over, the emergencies in 6b have been somewhat better (6x10 by far had the most true 911 feel), but are steadily going back downhill and we are getting weirdly lots of calls with only part of the team on shift? Which after season 5 was ALL about how they cannot work without their partners, and the previous 4 seasons was all them on shift together just feels SO weird and off to me and I don't like it at all. And them doing nothing with the sperm donor arc but turning it into a joke that drug out all of 6a and then acting all *shocked pikachu* face when people hated it so much just makes me want to throw things because it EASILY could have been avoided! And they COULD have gotten so good and delicious drama out of it! But they have all these good set ups for all kinds of delicious drama for multiple characters that they do nothing with (the Chim abduction and possible Buck getting hit by the car comes to mind), and then complain that they are struggling to fill time and come up with plots, and they end up pulling THEE most random shit out of the air that involves sidelining characters with random side characters instead of doing things that involve the mains together! It's just...SO frustrating and they really need to do something about KR for real.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s2 ep16: Meld

Yet another one I dreaded having to watch- season 2 really is a lot worse than I remembered! Threshold is starting to look like a masterpiece compared to some of this stuff, and this is one of the worst stinkers of the lot.

It opens with Tom Paris running an actual Saved By The Bell Zack Morris-style scam on the crew, which I'm pretty sure must have been part of the arc where he was purposefully acting like a jerk to make it plausible for him to leave the ship and infiltrate the Kazon or something like that. (Or at least I hope it was, because that would be really awful to revert him back to jerk mode right after they worked so hard to make him more sympathetic in Threshold. But I wouldn't put it past this show.) Whatever the reason, I wasn't a fan of it- the audience at the time certainly didn't know any of that, and it just makes it seem like he's a jerk who hasn't learned anything, which makes it harder for the audience to like him. Not a good strategy for a regular character, and I don't know why they continued going down that route again and again.

But then we transition from Saved by the Bell hijinks into CSI: The Delta Quadrant when we get to the main story: a crewman has been murdered in engineering, and someone on the ship did it. Enter a crewman we've never seen before, Suder, played by the ever creepy Brad Dourif. We then proceed to go down a rabbit hole of 'let's fetishize violence!' for the rest of the episode. We see yet another character throwing out some major toxic masculinity when Tuvok investigates and Chakotay is like, 'yeah, the guy enjoyed killing, I didn't feel safe around him, but I didn't want to mention it to anyone! I didn't want to make the guy look bad just to keep people safe!' Meanwhile, I'm like wtf are you kidding me?! Did a character we're supposed to like literally just say that?? Jfc. At least Tuvok calls him out on it, but having Chakotay downplay it like it was no big deal, despite having directly observed Suder's behavior, was gross. (Especially in light of how Chakotay was more than willing to trash Tom Paris from day one just because he didn't like him, meanwhile Tom never killed people for fun, so wtf??)

The whole episode was a mess. The main premise of Tuvok mind melding with a murderer and getting obsessed with violence because of it might have worked if he actually needed to meld with him to find out the truth of what happened- like if Suder wouldn't confess despite DNA evidence, or if he couldn't remember what happened for some reason. But Suder straight up confesses, so having Tuvok mind meld with him was just pointless and nonsensical. He straight up said he didn't like the guy and killed him because he likes to kill people. I don't see how Tuvok could be so naive or innocent as to believe that no one could possibly just be a weirdo who murders people without a thought. At Tuvok's age, with his Starfleet experience, there's just no way he's never heard of, or met anyone else, who kills without a thought. And Vulcans are too logical to just be like 'I'm kind of curious about a thing, I'll just mind meld with a stranger to find out more about it!' especially when said stranger is a violent murderer. Like, go read some criminology books from the ship's database! Literally easier and safer!

But Suder drops a load of edgelord nonsense about how cool and seductive murdering is, and for some reason Tuvok is like 'cool, tell me more!' and melds with him, which of course, goes Very Wrong, because now Tuvok wants to kill too! (Insert shocked Pikachu face here)

Tim Russ goes to town chewing the scenery as evil!Tuvok, but there's no point to it, storywise. It doesn't reveal anything about his character, because despite what incel white boys raised on toxic masculinity and their apologists like to claim, the majority of people are not harboring secret plans or desires to murder people, and it's not a normal part of human nature to do so. The meld wasn't a necessary price to pay for solving the murder case, so having to sit through characters dealing with unnecessary fallout from one guy's selfish choice is annoying, and very out of character for Tuvok, who's never shown such a lack of impulse control before.

Evil!Tuvok trashes his quarters, says mean things to his crewmates, pretends to kill Neelix on the holodeck (kinda can't blame him there lol) and decides he has to execute Suder for his crime. They have an extremely homoerotic standoff, wherein Tuvok tries to meld with him again, it doesn't work, and he collapses after apparently having some sort of hate-gasm or something, and he feels better atterward. The whole thing was very tasteless in it's sexulizing of violence- they literally give Suder a line about how a mind meld is really violence because it's all about 'penetration'- they literally title the actual. fucking. chapter. for this scene as 'Penetration' in the disc menu. The sexualized overtones of this are so ridiculously over the top, and the overt linking of sex and violence here is really not okay. This script had nothing clever or relevant to say, it didn't advance the story, it didn't reveal anything about the characters, it didn't build any of the relationships, or do literally anything useful, it's just a big blob of creepy nonsense. And there's more episodes with Suder still coming up, ugh. I want my money back, and I didn't even pay for it.

Tl;dr: One of the worst episodes yet, it's preposterous premise was just a pretext to wallow in the fetishization of violence, without bothering with an actual story that made sense.

[yappacadaver]

Having an asexual relationship is cool enough but I’m just so sad and it makes me so crazy that people don’t see the inherent tragedy of this ending x’D ik it’s an issue with the writing, but I wish the story would allow itself to explore the tragic aspects of his lichdom.

Even just taking a once healthy relationship between two people who are sexually attracted to each other, and then making the choice to remove sex from the relationship (or replace it with just using his bones to get you off, which feels absolutely devoid of intimacy if only one person can glean any sexual pleasure from that) is already tragic! And while it’s his choice to castrate himself and shed all flesh, it’s a choice that also affects his ability to feel, hold, and comfort, and runs almost directly counter to another dream of his: getting married (esp to a romanced rook) I mean you can see the shocked pikachu face he does when you (are forced) to be accepting of his possible future lichdom— the man fully and accurately expects being a skeleton to gravely interfere with his ability to form and keep romantic relationships.

But there’s so much to lichdom beyond just making him incapable of enjoying sex like he once did. For one, he finds he has not escaped the fear of death like he thought he would. Which, yeah, makes sense. My man didn’t deal with the problem, he ran from it. So now his love for rook turns into looming grief as he realizes he has doomed himself to outlive them— to spend lifetimes upon lifetimes without them. On top of that, Emmrich shows further vulnerability to grief in how we hear of him mourning manfred in secret. The lich lords say a lich should transcend death, that reviving his companion is not behavior becoming of a lich because he is meant to let them go. We see multiple times that lich emmrich flounders in this department. having not dealt with his fear of death it has simply morphed into fear for his living friends, and fear of grieving them.

And I really do want to dig into that fear! Because emmrich has basically trapped himself in avoidance by becoming a lich. Avoidance can make us feel safer in our heads, but will also erode the pleasures of life, and a lifestyle of avoidance will wreak havoc on one’s relationships. Emmrich avoids the whole death thing by making himself immortal. In a game about how the regrets of immortals shake the earth and rip its foundations apart. Now we don’t just have a (possible) age gap to deal with, now we have a “he’s transcended mortality, has gained a perspective of the fade that no mortal can share, and has to make peace with outliving all his friends some day” situation.

His avoidance of death literally puts him at odds with life, with the life of his skeleton son, and with the mortal aspects of his relationships (sharing physical sensation, growing alongside one another, changing). Some of his earlier questline writing heavily foreshadows this imo

This is advice the watchers’ undead tableaux is meant to impart, according to him. Advice he, in multiple aspects, seems to have trouble taking though he can recite it very well.

Lichdom could even put him at odds with the flowers he loves so much. Flowers, a very strong symbol of life itself. Though he can still study and cultivate them, it seems he won’t be able to enjoy their fragrance— something both tied to living one’s life (to stop and smell the flowers, as it were) and an act with great significance in his romance route as it’s the scent of the Shroud’s Kiss that initiates their romantic involvement.

Basically my point is, his lichdom is a story of loss. He loses his son/ward to attain this status, and in so doing, loses much of what makes life worthy. He loses his mortality which instantly and irrevocably sets him apart developmentally from all his companions. He loses his face which, while I wish the narrative would commit to that instead of putting the kiddy wheels on and making him the only lich with a glamor, smacks of a loss of identity/emotiveness. He loses his body, making him an obligate asexual, but also barring him from enjoying the scent of flowers, or even just non-sexual contact. Who’s to say he can even feel that embrace he offers? With the loss of his body he also loses his warmth— liches apparently even drop the temperature of the room they’re in, making him a source of discomfort where he once was a literal and figurative warm presence. He loses his very substance really, this man who loved life so much he didn’t want to let it go, who wanted to find his place amongst others even though he chafed at the ridicule his profession often provoked. Now he has willingly given up life and its mortal pleasures. Now he can’t help but suck the warmth out of a room and frighten strangers with his very face. Now he’s empty inside

The art team supports this interpretation by literally making him empty where his heart should be. Visibly hollow.

So what does he gain from all this? Besides a sort of end to his fears, we don’t really know. We can’t know, because it’s entirely inside his own head. He experiences a change in perspective of magic and the fade that he wishes he could share with rook— but by definition, can’t. Whether or not it fulfills him, it also isolates him. Beyond all that, yes we do trade a relationship with potential sex for one without. But I really really think the smell of flowers, the warmth of a touch, the hope of seeing your parents in whatever lies beyond, are an incredibly steep price to pay. He becomes asexual in the same process that neuters his heart, binds him to his fears, and assigns to him a timeless existence of constant grief.

Not to be a huge hater but I see so many people hard coping with the lich thing by making it some sans undertale skeleton fucking goofiness and I’m like. See where the change in tone gets us. Dao through inquisition would’ve had the guts (lol) to directly say “without his flesh and with his dick and balls in an urn, emmy can’t feel your tender caresses” instead of just the extremely lukewarm “some of his senses could be dulled”

[answrs]

Oroboros AU - Snake Eats Its Tail

Part 3 of 3 of the main story

The brothers are inspecting the tunnels on the third anniversary of Ingo's arrival, checking safety measures and planning to regroup after work is done for a small celebratory dinner back home. Having three people instead of two to split the load makes the work all the faster, and Emmet and Warden arrive at the employee break room around the same time, waiting for the younger Ingo to join them.

There's a pool of dread growing in Ingo's gut the longer they wait. But no, there was probably just a rowdy pokemon he's taking care of, or escorting a lost civilian back to the station. But as the minutes tick by, then full hour, Ingo is legitimately hoping his younger has been knocked out cold in the tunnels in an accident than what his soul knows has happened.

He tries not to share his devastated look at Emmet, but with every glance over the man is tightening his grip on his jacket where he sits, smile strained and wavering, waiting for his twin to walk through the door, or call their transceivers with an update on his location.

---

It's a difficult case to go through the system, considering the missing person was actually found and been present the last three years on the dot, though there's still a vague glimmer of hope that Ingo could still be rescued if only they could figure out how. But would that cost Emmet his brother as payment for his twin, if the timeline cascaded? Would Akari, Dawn, never make it home? Could the whole history of the Pearl and Diamond and Galaxy Teams, the history-present-future of an entire region collapse? How far would the butterfree effect translate? Is one man, as beloved as he is, worth the chances of everyone they knew and loved even being born?

The case is soon closed, and Ingo feels so, so devastatingly guilty for stealing his brother to become his past.

He would offer anything, whatever he could give to the gods for Ingo's return. But he can't, can't leave Emmet with no family, even as he sees the pain and feels the sharp stabs of responsibility, closes himself off even as he tries to offer a rock for the man drifting like a ghost without an anchor in his shock and despair.

---

It's Emmet that finds him one sleepless night, broken down in front of a despondent Chandelure, apologizing for being the reason her trainer is lost, for forgetting, for not trying hard enough to stop the inevitability, to not have known and warned them or to have let himself be taken instead.

Emmet's heart breaks at the sight, of Ingo, his brother, his TWIN, brokenly apologizing to a ghost, to his own self through time and space. It's not his fault he was taken, not his fault at all, and his carefully constructed facade of being okay is permanently broken to the younger twin now.

He sits next to the kneeling man, leans close and hugs him tight. Perhaps, for closure… would it work if he tried-?

"It's been two weeks, do you rem- can you tell me what he's doing right now?"

---

It becomes a recurring question to ask, keeps them both tied to their lost one even through the eras that separate the brothers. Emmet learns about his twin, struggling with learning a language so different to what he knows, being chosen as a warden to the strange creature that saved him, his meeting of Melli and Adaman as he is installed. As time passes, Ingo provides events unprompted, both the highs and lows: his Lady entrusting him with her first clutch of eggs, helping a lost child return to the village. A zoroark attack, the creature wearing a face he doesn't truly remember dressed in white. Meeting a young boy with a rowdy pikachu and receiving a handful of strange contraptions in exchange for his help. Catching a gligar with one, then a tangela. Facing Melli in a battle after a particularly heated argument, how frustrated he becomes after the other warden weasels their way out of accepting the loss. Raising the sneaslets, learning each one's personality and helping them hone their survival skills.

Hearing news through the grapevine, slow to reach him as secluded as he is, about a child that fell from the sky. Meeting the young girl, so familiar in her unfamiliarity to this world, and connecting with her. Helping train the various recruits around the strange little town, how he so enjoyed seeing their connection to partners they formerly feared blossom...

A broken sky. A cruel banishment. Chains in a basement hidden under a towing building. Fear. A roar that shakes the heavens, audible even in a buried cell.

---

Four years later, on the anniversary of the rift that tore the twins apart, he holds Emmet tight, and whispers: Ingo is finally home now. He’s home and he's so sorry it took him so long.

.

Seven years in the past, the cycle continues.

[supercap2319]

Tricks and Treats

A/N: I was inspired by @davidlikesboys02’s story, Sweet Tooth, that I wanted to create one too.

Pairing: Parker Caine x Male reader

“I’m telling you, Mags, this look isn’t for me,” Y/N says, frowning at his reflection in the mirror. He was dressed like a firefighter, only he didn't have a shirt on leaving his bare chest exposed. The stupid costume only came with suspenders, pants, and a hat.

His sister was hosting a Kappa Halloween party here at the house tonight and Y/N opted on staying in his room until it was all over, but Maggie wouldn't hear of it. She wanted to push her brother outside of his comfort zone and what better way than to mingle with people at a party? She was dressed in a purple ball gown, a star tiara on her head.

“Will you stop fussing? You look fine, and every guy and girl tonight is gonna think you look like a snack in that getup,” she smiles. Y/N rolls his eyes. “Like Ava Max says, ‘“I'm not a bite, I'm a five-course meal.’” Maggie scoffs. “You have got to stop listening to her music. She is so not.”

“Yes, she is.”

“Fine, whatever. I'm not letting go downstairs dressed as Pikachu, that practically screams “‘virgin.’” Y/N frowned. “But I am a virgin.”

“I know that, and you know that, but the people at this party don't need to know that. Okay?” Maggie says. “Besides, it's your chance to look sexy and show off your body.” Y/N shook his head, “I don't want to show off my body, I want to keep it hidden,” Y/N tells her.

Maggie sighs in defeat. “Just try it out and if you're uncomfortable later on, then you can change, alright?”

Y/N nods his head in agreement. “If anyone tries touching my chest I'm kicking their ass.”

“Deal.”

Macy, Mel, and Harry walk through the front door, as Y/N and Maggie come downstairs. “You guys,” she says with a grin. “I’m pretty sure Martha Stewart is a witch.” She twirls in her gown and smiles as they stare at her in shock. “Y/N what the hell are you wearing?” Mel asks, taking in her brother’s appearance. He blushes and before he can answer; Maggie interrupts him. “He’s a sexy fireman, who’s gonna get laid tonight.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” Y/N said.

“You invited Gavin behind my back,” Macy says, looking at both Y/N and Maggie. Y/N shook his head. “It was Mag’s idea.”

“What? I wanted to surprise you.”

“Do I look like someone who enjoys surprises?” Macy asks.

“Okay, I know. Boundaries. But hear me out,” Maggie starts. “I was thinking about this whole Harbinger thing and-“

“-No, you weren’t,” Mel says

“I so was.”

“And I thought to myself, "Maggie, why walk around campus handing out one cookie at a time when you could invite 200 people here and test them out all at once?" Maggie rants.

“So this has nothing to do with your sorority?” Mel asks her.

Maggie bites her lips, “Well, I mean, coincidentally, it might keep me from getting kicked out of Kappa, but that's just the icing.”

“The cake is totally for you guys. Because I so want to help save the world.”

“As much as I hate to say it, it's not a bad idea,” Y/N says. “We could rule out most of the Greek system in a matter of hours.”

“And I'm guessing your precious Elders haven't come up with anything better?” Mel asks Harry, a smug look on her face.

Harry looks at all four Charmed ones and sighs in defeat. “Very well…”

“Yes!”

“As long as we stay on task, and remain vigilant. There's no telling when the Harbinger might strike.”

The party is in full swing after just a few hours. People are dancing to the music, drinking skinny margaritas and eating the cookies Macy made. Y/N can feel both guys and girls looking at him as he walks by with a tray of cookies. He's really glad that he can levitate instead of reading minds like Maggie. At one point he sees Macy dressed like Judge Judy, a few minutes later, she's dressed like a Greek Goddess. Later on, the four witches find out the Harbinger is hunting virgins to strengthen its vessel. Y/N feels a bit nervous as he goes to get ingredients for a protection spell.

Y/N goes to the cabinet and uses a step stool to reach the ingredients. He searches for dried sage, which is a little high for him to reach. He tippy-toes, trying to reach the ingredient, but the stool tips over, and Y/N falls. He probably would have hit his head, but strong arms caught him. Y/N looks up to see a guy wearing sunglasses staring at him. “Woah, talk about falling for a guy,” Y/N chuckles nervously.

The guy chuckles too. “You okay there, Mr. Firefighter?” The guy takes off his sunglasses and Y/N recognizes him as the guy who helped him at the diner this morning. “Uh, thanks to you, again.”

“Right place, right time,” the guy smiles. Y/N blushes a bit. The guy is really handsome. “I'm Parker, by the way. Parker, Caine,” Parker says, holding out his hand for Y/N to shake. “Y/N Vera.” Parker grins. Y/N looks down at his boots, then back up. “I was just grabbing a drink. Can I pour you one?”

“I'm actually kind of busy with something right now. But catch you later, Officer?”

“Yes, sir,” Parker salutes. Y/N smiles before walking away.

Parker watches him leave, a smile on his face.

...

The protection spell doesn't work since the Harbinger is already inside the house. “What are we supposed to do?” Mel asks. “When you want to lure a shark, you don't use live bait,” Macy says. “You chum the water.” She takes a needle from hair. “Great. But where are we gonna get our hands on virgin blood?”

“Right here,” both Y/N and Macy say at the same time. They both prick their hands before smearing the blood on a nearby tree. “Y/N you're a virgin?” Mel asks. “Yeah, so?” Mel holds her hands up. “Nothing. I just thought that you and Chris had gone all the way before he cheated on you.” Y/N shook his head. “I told him that I wasn't ready yet, and I'm pretty sure that's why he cheated on me. Because I wouldn't put out.”

“I'm sorry, honey,” Mel says.

“It's alright, that's the past,” Y/N tells her. They lure the demon to a binding circle, and they discover that the vessel is Angela Wu. During the spell Maggie's powers act up. The demon turns to Y/N and Macy. “Y/N, Macy, run!” Harry says. Y/N and Macy take off into the forest as Angela chases after them. “Macy, hide. I'll distract her,” Y/N says. “What? Y/N she's too powerful. She'll kill you.”

“No, she won't,” Y/N says as Angela charges towards him, her pale white face glowing red. At the last second, Y/N levitates into the air and kicks her in the head. She stumbles back a bit but looks more angry than hurt. She charges again, but Macy telekinetically moves a tree branch to distract her. The two hide behind a tree as Angela comes around the other side, but Maggie hits her with a tree branch.

The demon quickly gets up to attack the three witches, but Mel utters a dangerous spell, “Solaris incantatio!” The spell works but knocks everyone off their feet and Y/N stops breathing. “Y/N!”

“Harry, please do something! He's not breathing!” Mel says. “Oh, God.”

“Y/N?” Maggie whispers, seeing her brother unconscious.

“Let's just hope it's shock,” Harry said, holding out his hand to heal Y/N.

“Please, this is not happening,” Mel begs.

“Y/N, come on,” Macy says.

Y/N wakes up gasping for air. He looks around wildly. “What happened?” he asks. “You almost died,” Harry says. “Yeah, well what else is new?” Y/N jokes.

“I am so, so sorry. Will you ever forgive me?” Mel asks.

“You did save mine and Macy's, life, so I think I'll let it slide,” Y/N grins as his sisters hug him.

Maggie, Y/N, and Macy did damage control since Maggie reversed her glamour spell. People were leaving the house, and Macy ran into Gavin, before kissing him. Y/N smiled happily. Maybe he should try that with Parker. He just needed to find him first. Good thing Y/N’s costume was store-bought, so he still had it on.

He saw Maggie talking to Lucy. Y/N rolled his eyes, she was so annoying. He caught the last bit of their conversation about Maggie becoming a Kappa. Both girls squealed and hugged each other. Y/N smiled. His sister had wanted this for so long, and now she had it. His smile widened even further as Parker walked towards them.

“Oh, Parker!” Lucy said, as he handed her a drink. “Baby. Uh, this is the girl I was telling you about.” She said, taking a sip of her drink. Y/N's smile faded as he realized what was happening. Parker wasn't single. He had a girlfriend.

“Parker, meet my favorite pledge, Maggie, and her baby brother, Y/N. Maggie, Y/N, meet my boyfriend, Parker.” Parker glanced guiltily at Y/N, who looked absolutely crestfallen. “Hey, Mags, I'm gonna go to bed, already,” he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking.

“Y/N are you alright?”

“I'm fine,” even though he wasn't. Y/N walked up the stairs and to his room with his head hanging low and his heart crushed. He cried a good five minutes before he heard a knock at his door. He tried to dry his eyes, as he answered the door. He expected Maggie to be at the door. She probably knew something was wrong with him and wanted to check on him, but it wasn't her. It was the last person Y/N expected. It was Parker.

Y/N immediately tried to close the door, but Parker stuck out his foot, blocking the door from closing. “Go away, Parker, I don't want to see you,” Y/N told him. “Y/N, please just let me explain,” Parker pleads.

“No! And I never wanna see you again!” Y/N tries again to close the door, but Parker is a lot stronger. Y/N sighs. “Parker, what do you want from me?” Y/N is so confused. Why was he being so insistent? “A chance to explain, please?” Parker says. “After that you can kick my ass out if you want.”

“You’ve got two minutes.” Y/N told him.

“Y/N I know we only just met, but I haven’t been able to get you out of my head,” Parker says. “There’s something about you that I can’t explain, but I like it.” That normally would've made Y/N blush, but he was too upset to feel embarrassed. “Is that before or after you realized you had a girlfriend?”

“I know it looks bad, but I mean it when I say that I like you. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,” Parker said. “Is that what you tell all the suckers who fall for you?” Y/N asks him. “Is that what this is Parker? A stupid joke on a poor guy that you and Lucy can laugh at later after breaking his heart?” Y/N feels tears threatening to spill. It was stupid. They had only just met and Y/N feels like he’s liked Parker for a long time.

“No, Y/N, it’s not like that at all,” Parker protests. “What can I do to convince you my feelings for you are genuine?”

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do, Parker,” Y/N says. “Maybe you should just-“

Y/N is cut off by soft lips being pressed against his own. At first, he’s too shocked to do anything, but let it happen, a few seconds later Parker pulls away. He looks at Y/N’s shocked face, a shy smile on his lips. “Did that convince you?” He asked. Y/N licks his lips, tasting Parker on them. Only later would Y/N realize that a demon’s kiss was addictive.

Against his better judgment; Y/N leans up to kiss Parker, and the taller boy leans down to meet his lips with his own. Parker cups Y/N’s face with one hand and snakes his other around Y/N’s waist. His bare chest touching Parker's clothed one. Y/N tugs on Parker's shirt, as the other boy parts his lips with his tongue and kisses him deeply. Y/N moans against his mouth as the two part away, slowly.

“What about Lucy?” Y/N says, a blush on his face, but his eyes are shining. “We're over,” Parker says. “I’ve found someone even more amazing.” Y/N smiles a bit, as they kiss once again. Looks like this Halloween party was a good thing after all.

[serpenteve]

is it just me who thinks that both versions of the darkling suck at manipulation? it's obvious that show Darkles was just not trying at all because he fell in love pretty much at first sight, but I don't think book Darkles was very good at it either? Alina never really becomes dependent on him at all, he very obviously did not set out to seduce her romantically (despite the retcon in R&R) and even seems to be avoiding her at points. Alina is never convinced at any point that he's into her beyond physically lol. I definitely do not believe book Darkles when he tried to say he wouldn't have collared her if she hadn't run away though - she was going to end up in it eventually no matter what. I think he did a good job of feeding her insecurity around her summoning but beyond that...I mean he couldn't even get her to be loyal to HIM let alone all the Grisha. What are your thoughts?

I don't know what was in the script, but Ben plays the Darkling like a lovesick puppy with TERRIBLE game because he hasn't been on a date in like 300 years ☠️

Like, the whole "darkles manipulated alina" narrative in the show is a fucking joke to me because all I see is fucking idiot who is genuinely like *shocked pikachu face* when Alina hates him for putting that collar on her like "whaaat? She doesn't like that I killed a magical deer for her and used it's antlers to gift her this awesome necklace that gives her a massive power boost??? Why is she yelling at me like that??"

Like, dude. Buy her dinner first 😂

The only time I feel like he actually manipulates her is when he implies they're going to destroy the Fold but then he's like "pfffft why would be destroy it when it's the greatest weapon we have" and she's like "YOU LIED!!" and then Ben has this truly hammy moment where he does this dramatic ass villain turn while his face is obscured by darkness but even then it's like "Yeah, she hates me now but she'll forgive me in t-minus 15 years and then the wedding is back on" 🤡

The story tries so hard to be like "he's pURe EviL!!1" and it's literally just darkles looking at Alina with literal TEARS in his eyes or even bothering to show so much genuine emotion when he doesn't even have to because Alina isn't even in the damn scene to witness it 😂

Like that time he was acting like a heartbroken 15 year old when he gets roasted by Kaz or stands on the other side of the door after Alina left and all you can do is point and laugh at this immortal dumbass like

So maybe there was *an attempt* by Show!Darkling to manipulate Alina at the start but that pretty much went out the window when she first started yelling at him and he immediately decided to plan their immortal married life together like a hopeless dork:

In conclusion: show!Darkling is a hopeless simp whose entire eViL pLaN got derailed because he caught feelings for an angry sunbeam 😌

As for book!Darkling, he at least didn't get his plan derailed until much later and unlike his show counterpart, actively HATED his crush on Alina? Like it was a massive fucking inconvenience to him and he'd be so embarrassed to see the absolute simping clownery that show!Darkling got into that he'd probably fake his death again.

But the other thing about the book is that book!Alina herself is so desperate for approval and a place to belong that she makes it very easy to manipulate and play on her emotions.

The reason book!Darkling comes across as more morally grey is because a lot of his actions always end up serving like two different purposes (one of them working in Alina's favour, and the other self-serving):

He deliberately keeps Mal's letters away from her to try and cut her connections to the past, but this actually ends up being a good thing because even Alina later admits that had he not sabotaged her communications with Mal, there's no way she would have learned to summon her power on her own (In the show, it comes across more like Darkles is low-key jealous that Alina has a strapping boyfriend and he probably cries himself to sleep reading their letters lmao)

He initially stands up to Alina getting railed on by Baghra when her summoning is weak because he doesn't really need her to be a good summoner if he can just strap a collar on her BUT this ends up helping Alina feel better about herself because he's like the only person who ever advocates for her or gently encourages her

He lies to her about destroying the Fold but his plan actually makes a lot more sense, especially looking at the complete clusterfuck Ravka became after the Fold got destroyed lmao 😂

You could argue his first kiss is pure calculation because he wanted Alina to be loyal to him with something other than duty or fear, but his second kiss at the Winter Fete was literally just him losing his cool and he even admits he doesn't want to give in to his "weak" puny mortal emotions, but this implies there is still some humanity left in him

Had Baghra not shown up to warn Alina, it's likely Alina would have worn the stag collar with 100% consent because she was looking forward to it, but she likely would not have consented to him using her powers to expand the Fold so when he says "that was never my intention" with regards to collaring Alina, I think he really means that it was never his intention to collar her without her consent but he decided he was gonna do it anyway once she ran off....however, I think he's being deliberately vague by leaving off the part where he planned on using her power to destroy a village lmao

So while I think book!Darkling definitely manipulates her because he's a man for whom the ends always justify the means, it still leaves me feeling kinda "meh" about the whole thing because had Alina been a more morally grey character herself, they could have literally just taken over the world???? the wasted potential 😭

[sainamoonshine]

Okay so storytime!

So in February of 1848 France had a constitutional monarchy, but things weren’t 10/10 with their economy and also they remembered what their national pastime was so people started a revolution, as you do.

Now at first the crowd only wanted for the Prime Minister to resign but when he did that people thought hey you know what? While we’re here. Let’s just clean house and make the king resign too, how about that.

So king Philippe-whatever-the-heck finds himself in the middle of a violent revolution, and the crowd has just gotten into his palace and have started setting shit on fire. Okay, so I want you to imagine that scene. Fire everywhere, insurgents screaming, looting. Your generals are advising you to abdiquate.

So what does Philippe-whatever do?? He totally gives in and abdiquates… in favour of his nine years old grandson.

And then he takes his wife and pisses off. Just good luck kiddo, see you never, peace out!

BRUH.

And then the wikipedia article for the revolution of 1848 just jumps straight to talking about the second republic. No more is said about the kid.

So, as you can imagine, I’m sitting in front of my computer at this point like UUUUUUUUH ☹️

But it’s okay, its fine, I did more research and the kid survived that whole thing. But the story doesn’t get any less wack-a-doodle! Because legally the kid’s regent was supposed to be some dude, an uncle or whatever, but his mom (the king’s daughter in law nobody liked very much because she was a protestant) goes “hey I wanna be regent”.

And the other dude is like “right now???”

And she’s like “yeah”

so he’s like “well I don’t want that job, huh, currently, given *gestures at everything* so okay you can be regent but have you considered not making the kid claim the throne?”

And she’s like “what are you a coward”

So the guy goes “😬” but agrees to accompany her and her two sons (who are literal children I cannot emphasize this enough) down to the parliament where people are having a very nice, calm mid-revolution screaming match about who should be in the government.

She waltzes in like “my son is king now” and people are like [Bugs Bunny meme] no.

And homegirl actually tries to argue with that!!!! But other dude just goes “ma’am, respectfully, please just take the L” so finally she decides to leave France with her family.

She goes to like Belgium or Germany or something where she spends the rest of her life trying to get her son’s claim to the throne recognized. Unfortunately for her, her son grows up to be somewhat uninterested in being the king of France given that it’s en employment field with a somewhat low job longevity. So he’s just like eeeeeh. Pass.

BONUS! The second most wack thing about the 1848 revolution is that sometimes after that whole thing happened, the nephew of Napoleon came back from exile (he was in exile for some reason, its not important) and they were like “not now Napoleon, we’re doing a republic thing now, not another empire” so he was like “okay but have you thought about electing me president? I promise to follow all the rules and everything” and they were like “alright then, cool!”

So they elected the nephew of Napoleon Fucking Bonapartes as the head of their democracy.

Then a couple of years later he did a coup d’état and made himself emperor. And people were like *shocked pikachu face* about it.

Does anybody want to know the most curséd thing I learned about the 1848 french revolution

[takamishinko]

"your scars are beautiful"

rq from @jream-23, this was a lovely piece to write since denki is my personal favorite :)

pronouns: he/him

warnings: angst, slight nsfw, self-harm mentions

_____

kaminari denki, the more acceptable pervert in class 1A that flirts with almost anything that he deems attractive, is actually settling down for a boyfriend?! most might brush it off as fake news but here he is, in love with the person sitting right in front of him in class, y/n l/n. at first, kaminari was incredibly afraid of confessing because he wasn’t sure if y/n was into boys. as it turns out, y/n did in fact like boys. it just so happens that the boy y/n has been pining for was kaminari himself. but was hesitant to confess due to the fact that kaminari would always be flirting with the other girls in the class. so naturally, y/n assumed him to be straight. that being said, when denki finally mustered up the courage to confess his feelings to y/n, he has never felt such joy before. to know that all of sudden, not only is your crush is into your gender but also just you yourself is the best thing that could happen to a gay teenager.

their relationship went very smoothly since their personalities are quite similar to each other. they’re both the bubbly and cheerful type. the whole baku squad adored y/n, mainly due to the fact that denki just wouldn’t shut up about him while hanging out. of course, y/n himself is also just a really fun and nice person to be around. when the two first got together they were hit with a “god, dunce face finally fucking did it, took him long enough” from bakugou. it was honestly getting on his nerves how kaminari was taking forever to confess to y/n. 

it was just another casual weekend with nothing out of the ordinary happening. kaminari decided to invite his boyfriend down to his dorm to hang out for the afternoon. just the sight of y/n would make him happy, whether it was the way he smiled, the goofy jokes he makes or y/n’s beautiful singing. naturally y/n would never reject such a request from kaminari. they met up with each other shortly after and enjoyed cuddling for a bit on their beds until kaminari, inevitably felt certain urges rising just from looking at his beautiful boyfriend lying right beside him. 

“hey babe~”

“yes bubs what’s up?”

“what do you say we... y’know, do it?”

you were definitely shocked by the sudden request, but how could you refuse such an offer from your boyfriend after all those times you've touched yourself while thinking about him. needless to say, you weren't exactly the innocent type and this was the opportunity that you were waiting for. without any second thoughts, you gave denki a small nod showing him that you'll accept whatever he wants to do. denki’s gave you an almost pervy looking grin and immediately started his attack on your body. he pushed you down on the bed with him, pinning you underneath him. as he loomed on top of you, he pressed his lips onto yours. the sensation his lips locked with yours was intoxicating. It was clear that both of you have been longing for this sort of contact from each other. you felt denki slowly slip his tongue in and intertwine with yours. to your surprise, denki was surprisingly versatile with his tongue, it almost made you doubt if he had any experience before this, even though he admitted to never having been kissed by anyone except for you. 

as things intensified, you could feel yourself warming up from deep within. both of your faces were flushed due to the pleasure. neither of you could get enough of each other. denki’s hands reached down to the tent building up in your pants to stroke it lightly. some small whimpers left your mouth which only encouraged denki to tease you more.

“you like that huh~?” denki taunted

you were too embarrassed for words, you didn't expect such lewds sounds to come out of your mouth. you tried to avert your eyes away from his and turned away. however you're not the submissive type and quite capable of fighting back. you reached down to where denki’s erection is and gently stroked it, as if you were teasing him. denki wasn’t big per say but he was definitely above average from what you were feeling, and you had nothing to complain about that. the two of you closed your eyes and enjoyed yet another passionate kiss while grinding against each others bulge. after a while denki broke the kiss and raised his back while still having his knees in between your legs. 

“i want more,” said denki, glancing down at your crotch “can i?”

“go ahead” you answered, with a prominent blush on your face.

denki pathed down to your pants and started to unzip them, getting ready to pull them down. At this moment, you remembered one of your biggest insecurities and why you refuse to change publicly after training. 

“wait denki, stop!” you screamed 

“ahh ok! is there something wrong?” he questioned, you could hear the worry in his voice.

you sat up straight and the expression on your face changed drastically. you were scared that denki would see…the old scars. they were from a darker part of you past, they were a constant reminder of the times where you wanted to end it all. when it seemed like things were hard and would never get better. you specifically remember making them on your thighs so that you hide them away from others. you didn't want anyone's attention to be directed there. however this is denki, your boyfriend, someone you love and trust with every fiber of your being. was it safe to tell him your secret? the secret that you held to yourself for so long because you were scared to be judged, or even made fun. Would he really understand?

“what’s wrong babe? was i too aggressive?” 

“no it’s not that…” 

“hey, hey, it’s ok i'm here to listen if you want to talk to me alright?”

with those reassuring words from your boyfriend you decided to believe in him and finally tell him this secret of yours.

“promise you won’t judge or laugh at me? this is very serious for me so I need you to understand.”

“of course i wouldn’t baby who do you think i am, a selfish jerk?”

with your cards laid on the table, you took a deep breath and started to explain the story of your hidden scars and explained to him why you suddenly stopped him when he was reaching down.

“ohhh so that’s why you always go to the private changing rooms! man i can’t tell you how many times I've wanted to see your body only for you to go and change in the stalls” denki said

“yah that’s why i didn’t want to…”

suddenly you feel denkis gentle hands cupping your face as he looks you straight in the eyes. 

“y/n l/n! don’t you think for a second that i, the considerate and compassionate denki kaminari would judge or to ever make fun of someone for something as serious as this! self harm is not at all a laughing matter and anyone who makes fun of it is an absolute asshole.” 

those words from your boyfriend made your heart melt and reminded you as to why you loved him so much. without any hesitation, you lunged yourself at him and gave him a hug. you couldn't be anymore grateful to him for accepting the markings you considered as flaws. whereas to him they were something unique that you had. they are proof that you stayed strong, you survived and now you're on your way to building a better future for yourself.

“is it okay if i see them?” he asked cautiously 

you weren’t keen on the idea of telling anyone about this let alone showing someone. but after all you've shared with each other, denki is your boyfriend and you thought it would be important for him to know about this part of you. 

you gave denki a light nod and slowly started to pull down your pants. 

when denki saw your thighs you noticed his eyes widening. you were embarrassed to another dimension but you could tell that it made him very excited. 

“damn babe! ok besides the fact that your thighs are freaking hot as hell- you’re scars… they’re beautiful…”

saying that you were surprised by this comment would be an understatement. you never thought something like this could be considered beautiful to anyone. 

“t-thanks”

without any warning, denki lowered his head to your thighs and gave them a light kiss.

“denki! what are you doing??”

“what?” he giggled “i'm just appreciating every beautiful part of my boyfriend”

you were speechless but there was no way to hide the smile and blush that was on your face. you wrapped your arms around denkis neck and gave him a tight hug. there are no words to describe how much you appreciate him and what he said to you. sooner or later, you passed out and found an asleep pikachu in your arms. the sight of this made you feel butterflies in your stomachs. He has made you so incredibly happy. you decided to move in closer. both of you enjoyed a relaxing nap as the afternoon sun shot through the windows into kaminari’s room. 

[1tsnoya]

NOYA-SENPAI - it me- your internet thirsty hours bestie 💜 Can we get headcanons on the following babies introducing their s/o to the team for the first time? -> NOYA (obvs), BOIkawa, KEN-fucking-MA, kita PLEASE MARRY ME shinsuke and the sweet sweet SWEET bokuto? PLEASE AND THANK YOU I LOVE YOU 💜💜💜

a/n: hi eden ILY<3 this is to apologize for showing you bald kuroo-

✧･ﾟgetting introduced as their s/o ✧･ﾟ headcanons

pairings: nishinoya x reader, oikawa x reader, kenma x reader, kita x reader, bokuto x reader

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* :･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

noya

→ as soon as you two started dating, he wanted to tell the vbc

→ and he did hhshsjs

→ he was always talking about you at practice, the team knew so much about you

→ noya: “guys guess what!”

→ tsukishima: “let me guess, it has to do with (y/n)?”

→ noya: “no...well actually-”

→ so one day hinata was just like “let’s meet them!”

→ noya was SO up for it, he called you right after practice to make sure that it was okay

→ you couldn’t say no, you could just hear the excitement in his voice

→ so the next day at the end of school, he bolted to meet you after your last class

→ “hi baby!” he grabbed your hand “let’s go!”

→ next thing you know, your fingers are braided together and you’re running down the hallway to go to the gym-

→ you are so out of breath by the time you get there but he’s still bursting with excitement

→ he swung the gym doors open and just shouted - “everyone!! this is (y/n) !!”

→ he was like a 5 year old showing off a toy at show and tell-

→ since he talked about you so much, the team just instantly clicked with you

→ ugh they’re just so welcoming and friendly

→ since you connected with them so quickly, they added you to the vbc groupchat and invited you to come to their next practice

→ the team just adores you probably more than they like noya HAHA

→ tanaka is 100% your and noya’s wingman

oikawa

→ okay before you, this boy would just fly through relationships

→ we know this for sure bc his nephew made fun of him 😔 heart been broke so many times-

→ anyways, so when you started dating he wanted to keep it on the downlow

→ he didn’t wanna jinx it! he just wants to see your relationship grow and last for a long time

→ even though deep down he wanted everyone to know that you were dating

→ yeah even though it was supposed to be lowkey, he put a picture of you as his lockscreen

→ being in a relationship with flattykawa, i feel like he’d definitely screenshot any snaps you send him or just in general has a lot of pictures of you on his phone

→ secret relationship my ASS- what was he expecting???

→ his mindset was “who’s gonna go through the captain’s phone?? nobody caus-”

→ WRONG. IWAIZUMI CAN AND DID THAT EXACTLY

→ it wasn’t intentional, he just wanted to check the time but then saw a new face on oikawa’s phone..

→ so he took the phone, walked up to oikawa, and just SHOWED HIM THE LOCKSCREEN

→ oikawa was just — “HSBEJGSJK GIVE ME MY PHONE WHAT AREYOU”

→ then wow no surprise here. the whole team is 👀

→ iwaizumi teases him about this-

→ and then the whole team caught on

→ so an embarrassed oikawa called you and was like “can i introduce you to the team?”

→ he was lowkey peer pressured but we’re not gonna talk about that-

→ ofc you said yes. he was literally the captain of the team how could you not-

→ and when you met them, THE WHOLE TEAM JUST FLAMED YOUR BOYFRIEND

→ at first they were all welcoming and friendly. but after a few minutes passed, they were just—sigh rip oikawa

→ he’s was blushing like crazy at his teammates telling all of these embarrassing stories of him and you were just laughing hsksh

→ anywho the team loves u and when you occasionally show up to practice, it’s always an adventure

→ iwa is ur new bestie and kyoutani/mad dog tells you that if oikawa ever does something mean to you, he’ll beat the shit out of him

kenma

→ i feel like kenma wouldn’t purposely hide your relationship, he’s just not the type to be so loud about it yk?

→ one day you texted him when he was at practice, and the nekoma vbc saw your contact name

→ “keNMA?? who’s (y/n) with a RED HEART??”

→ kenma: “my? s/o?”

→ and kuroo freaked out on him for not telling him

→ kenma: “it’s not like i was hiding it?”

→ kuroo: “BROYOU DIDNTTELL USWGAT DOYOUMEA”

→ that whole practice. everyone was just breathing down kenma’s neck

→ “what are they like???” “kenma you sly dog when’d this happen??” “when can we meet them?” “are u gonna get maaaarrrieeeed??”

→ cue annoyed and kind of blushing kenma

→ when he told you about the team finding out, he surprisingly had asked you if you wanted to meet them

→ “they’re really dumb but they’ll love you”

→ so next practice, he met up with you and walked u to the gym

→ and when you got there.. there was just SCREAMING

→ kenma: “guys back off you’re gonna scare them”

→ kuroo is basically like.. a mom. throw all that cool guy shit out of the window

→ he’s like shaking ur hand at 85 mph “kenma has told us so much about you”

→ lev: “but we just found out yester-?”

→ yaku: “just let him have his moment”

→ you become the team mom! how could u not? these boys love you too much

→ “kenma why didn’t you tell us about them earlier??!!”

→ the team is super hype whenever you show up, and when you don’t they’re all pouty — “kenma where’s (y/n) ?🥺”

→ bonus: you, kenma, lev, kuroo, and yaku all play minecraft together. boom ultimate friend group.

kita

→ i feel like kita would hide your relationship for a few months

→ he’s a bit on the more reserved side? i’m not sure how to explain it but he would want to wait to make sure your relationship is going well enough to introduce you to his friends, family, etc.

→ and since he’s the captain of the volleyball team, he definitely wanted to let some time pass before introducing you

→ this boy literally cried when he realized that he was captain. he loves them but on the downlow hhdjsh

→ a few months in, kita was at practice and atsumu was just...

→ “kita?? come on now, you’re still single?”

→ HE DIDNT SAY ANYTHING LMFAO

→ “oh kitaaaa i know you hear me!”

→ kita: “hop off my dick pls❤️”

→ “nO listen i can help you out her-”

→ he thought about it for a quick second and thought that your relationship was in a good place so just flat out said “i’m seeing someone already”

→ atsumu: surprised pikachu face “wait fr FR??”

→ he was just in shock tbh LOL

→ kita’s confidence 📈📈

→ then the whole team kinda just gathered around

→ kita: “yeah. i’ve been seeing them for a few months”

→ ofc the team was happy for him. maybe a few teases here and there but yuh<3

→ atsumu was still >:O what

→ a few days passed and he had asked you if you wanted to meet the team

→ you agreed and were super pumped. he loved his team like i said earlier though, on the DOWNLOW

→ when you met them, they were very polite and respectful

→ it felt a little weird tbh SHSJJS

→ but nope here comes atsumu “have you two really been dating for so long?”

→ kita: “yes..??”

→ “oh. well, hi i’m atsumu! :) how is kita? like you know-?”

→ he teases you two about dating but is rooting for it

→ the first time meeting everyone was a little awkward but then everyone warmed up to you

→ like they became used to you coming to practice and would occasionally ask kita “how’s (y/n)?”

→ basically, you help kita with his captain duties and the team really appreciates you <3

bokuto

→ being captain, the team is like his family

→ so it’s barely a few days into your relationship and he’s like “you should come to one of our practices!!”

→ and he’s bouncing up and down as he mentions it

→ “i’ll show you all of my cool moves-OH you can see how we do this thing ca-”

→ yeahhh you couldn’t say no

→ the team didn’t even know he was dating someone, he wanted to surprise everyone

→ so when you randomly showed up to practice with your bf, they were just “??? bokuto who is this ???”

→ there were stars in his eyes and he had this huge smile, “MY S/O! :DD”

→ the team is very welcoming. they’re just caught off guard because they’re lowkey thinking “how did bokuto manage to hop into a relationship he’s basically a baby-”

→ they’re a little quiet at first but then warm up to you. then it’s just wild

→ well bokuto gets wild..

→ bokuto: “HEY HEY- (Y/N) DID YOU SEE THAT?”

→ he 100% goes tryhard for you

→ the team notices this.. THEY TEASE HIM

→ they wouldn’t stop so he went into emo mode for a few minutes

→ you: “is he?? okay??”

→ akaashi: “oh yeah, he gets like this. bokuto weakness #7-”

→ akaashi lowkey becomes your wingman even though he denies it

→ he teaches you whatever ‘weaknesses’ bokuto has that you might need to know

→ bokuto also talks to akaashi about you a lot after you meet so you become besties at practices

→ if he starts acting like a baby while playing a match, you know how to calm him down or cheer him up

→ and then he plays 10x better

→ but yeah the team really likes you because you know how to control bokuto hsjsjhs

→ when bokuto adds you to the vbc groupchat, that’s when you become good friends with the team

→ like it’ll occasionally blow up at midnight when you send a tiktok lol

[obeiii-mee]

Hi I hope you're fine! Can you make the reaction of the brothers to a Mc who managed to overtake Salomon and made 100 pacts, the 100 th being ... Diavolo himself ?! (idk if it is really possible) Thank you love on you

I don’t really know if it’s possible either but I gave it a go anyway! I love this concept tho because MC, being the powerhouse they are, now has absolute control of 100 demons one which is actual prince of hell. Idk why I find that funny tbh.

I hope you’re well too and that you enjoy reading these HCs!

————————————

The Brothers Reacting to MC who made 100 pacts:

Lucifer:

-*Surprised pikachu face*

-I’m sorry, w a t?

-Not only did an average human,with no magical capabilities whatsoever, beat a spectacular sorcerer in the span of just one year and managed to make 100 pacts before him

-But they also made a pact with Lord Diavolo as a grand finale??? (MC knows how to leave DevilDom with class holy shit)

-If you look closely enough, you can see Lucifer’s wheels spinning inside his head

-And here he thought you were going to get eaten in the first few days

-He needs to sit down for a few moments, his fucking logic has decided to take a walk

-He really went 0-0

-And on one hand, he’s totally impressed and actually very proud of their little exchange student

-But on the other hand, when tf did you have the time to make 100 pacts??

-You talked with at least 92 other demons and didn’t get murdered?

-Are all humans this hard to kill off or it just you?

-Taking aside his confusion and the way he worries like a middle aged parent, he’s actually pretty boastful about your situation

-Pride on another level, I’m telling you

- Pretty smug about it to Solomon too which is concerning because he isn’t really supposed to have favourites in the exchange program

-But he totally does

-“MC, you’re full of surprises aren’t you? You’re ability to adapt here is very impressive. Just don’t get too reckless, I don’t want you getting hurt.”

-Aw your tsundere and arrogant boyfriend actually really cares about your well being

Mammon:

-“But I’m still your first man, right?”

-Literally the first thing that leaves his mouth when he finds out

-Doesn’t matter how many pacts you make, he’s always going to insist he’s your first and therefore your best pact of them all

-He may freak out a bit at first because he doesn’t like the idea of you possibly chatting it up with other demons but he’s pretty chill

-Until you tell him about Lord Diavolo

-“Guess who just made a pact with Lord Diavolo!!”

-“Is it someone famous?”

-He’s a bit scared because the price you have to pay to be in a pact with Lord Diavolo is pretty damn high

-But if you keep insisting you will be fine, his worry will subside

-He’s a bit smug, like Lucifer, knowing you beat a powerful sorcerer in a non existent contest that he just made up in his mind

-Like “In your face Solomon, MY HUMAN got to make 100 pacts before you had the chance. Haha what a loser.”

-I feel like the brothers sometimes wish to just abandon Mammon somehowere so they don’t have to deal with this

-Dude doesn’t care how many pacts you have or with who as long as you remember ‘he was your first man.’

-Of course you of all people would be able to attain such a significant achievement

-You were his human after all

-No matter what you do, he will be even more smitten with you than before

Levi:

-“That’s cool. Will you pass me my headphones.”

-“....”

-“Wait....you did whAT?”

-You’re telling him that he barely has the courage to step outside the House of Lamentation but you can go right ahead and start making pacts with demons like it’s nothing???

-Did he just get beaten at life by a normie?? His normie even??

-He’s really panicking because the shit you’d have to deal with when making that kind of bond with Lord Diavolo is apparently very terrifying and he’s scared something bad will happen

-Pacts also mean markings on your body, so his whole jealousy thing kinda sparks here

-Because ‘it’s not fair you have all these people’s pact marks on you while mine is barely visible!”

-Even though his is like, really obvious too???

-Other than that, he just feels like you’re gaining EXP and getting stronger, like a video game character which is cool

-I want him to show up whenever MC gets in a new pact and just shout ‘Level Up!’ at the top of his lungs lmao

-He doesn’t have that much of an opinion on Solomon, besides his cooking, but he’s impressed and a bit scared that you can outdo a human like him in something as dangerous as this

-Lololololo, Solomon got wrecked by a human normie what a noob XD XD #badassnormie #solomoncanteven #gameoversorcerer

-The brothers seem pretty adamant at rubbing the salt into Solomon’s wounds, can we get an f in the chat for our white haired wizard boi

Satan:

-He knew that humans were capable of a lot of things but what the fuck?

-How is that even possible???? What is the likelyhood of a random human managing to make 100 pacts???

-He is probably the most unsettled because he relies on probability and logic to get him through his day to day life

-And that shit don’t make no fucking sense

-He’s not agitated, just very shocked

-And then he realises the potential threats you’ve been exposed to considering all the demons you’ve had a chat with

-So now he’s just thanking Lord Diavolo that you weren’t eaten alive by some lower level demon scum

-Don’t be surprised if he asks you how you went about when you started making pacts with demons

-You were always a bit of a special case and you certainly stood out from the very beginning but this was something completely different

-For a human like you, that is a very respected achievement you’ve unlocked

-Satan figures that since you made pacts with him and his brothers, you would try to do so with Lord Diavolo too

-But he actually accepted?? You just kinda gave up part of your soul to the demon prince and now you have full control over him???

-It’s amazing how easily you could make demons of all things to trust you

-He respects that and also appreciates your tactical approach to this as well

-It’d be pretty easy to summon a demon to get your ass out of danger if the need arises

-He has no idea what you do to him but it’s strange he would rather let you ramble on about the backstory of every pact you made in the past year than read his collection of books

-Wrath certainly isn’t the only thing in his heart right now

Asmo:

-#conflicted

-His partner beat his ex fuck-buddy at making a pact with Lord Diavolo

-Asmo knew you were special ever since that retreat at Lord Diavolo’s palace when you managed to summon him with such power

-But he definitely wouldn’t have guessed you would be capable of something like this

-Your bravery when it comes to this sort of thing endears him a lot

-He will probably want to see all of your pact marks now (haha you’re in danger)

-Unlike his brothers, he knew damn well why you had managed to make around 100 pacts in just one year

-Demons aren’t used to anything genuine or with good intent

-So, it makes sense they would be attracted like magnets to you and your approachable, kind nature

-After all, demons can’t deal with temptation very well

-Solomon is cunning and ominous, not that different from anyone else down there and it’s a fact the brothers don’t even trust him that much

-But Lord Diavolo?

-“MC honey you hit the jackpot! Tell me every little detail!! What happened? How did the topic of a pact come up?”

-He’s not worried about you overall

-Not because he doesn’t care but he believes that if you can survive for a year with the seven avatars of sin and also convince 93 other demons to make a pact with you, then you can handle whatever Lord Diavolo throws at you

-He probably buys a bunch of revealing clothing you can show off all of your marks because they look ‘fabulous’

-It’s the only think he’s gonna talk about for a while because how many other humans can say they have control of the prince of Hell???

-Asmo also acknowledges that Diavolo must have trusted you a lot for him to agree to this which he thinks is incredible

-He will definitely listen if you have any stories on the pacts you made because he finds them very thrilling and he loves the sound of your voice!!

-Again, he doesn’t need human souls, just a mirror, some skin products and drama to survive

-And you, if I had to guess

Beel:

-The calmest our of the seven about it

-You made a bunch of pacts? Cool, it just shows how strong and independent you are

-Which made him respect you even more to be honest

-He flinches a bit when you tell him about Lord Diavolo because he knows that the prince isn’t the type to agree to anything without being given something in return

-Even if he knows you can handle yourself, he will be right there beside you to help you out

-Also, uh, don’t tell Belphie about the pact thing Diavolo. He might blow a fuse

-You guys work out together sometimes and he is usually utterly mesmerised by all the pact marks you have on your body

-He kinda wishes you would have asked him or one of his brothers to come along with you when you made your pacts

-Just in case things went wrong

-He regrets a lot of things that had happened until now, but one thing he absolutely cherishes is the pact you made with him

-Beel is aware that his brothers think the same and if you think you can deal with the pressure of having some many demons under control, then he won’t nag you too much about being careful

-As for the Solomon thing, he doesn’t have much to say

-I mean, yeah, he is a sorcerer and you’re just a human but if you could make a pact with Lord Diavolo in such a small time frame before he even had the chance to?

-It means you’re just as special as he is

-And definitely a better cook

Belphie:

-ok maybe humans aren’t as stupid as he originally thought them to be

-Making pacts with so many demons is something that takes strength and intelligence, so props to you

-He would never admit it, but you being able to do all this shit without batting an eyelid is seriously restoring his love for humans and their culture

-might take a while tho

-He also wonders when you had the time to make so many bonds, considering he spends most of the day with you at RAD and at home

-Eh, he was probably asleep

-His view of you before the incident did a full 180 degrees

-This sort of thing in DevilDom is something worth praising, especially for an average human like you

-And ‘I guess you don’t look all that bad with so many pact marks on your body *angy boi blush* but I still like mine best!’

-It might be best not to mention the Lord Diavolo thing, otherwise his brain might snap in two

-But turns out, he seems pretty relaxed about it

-Too relaxed, I would say

-“Hey do you think you could use your pact with Lord Diavolo to do something that would tarnish his reputation and maybe embarrass Lucifer while you’re at it, idk.”

-Ah, so that’s what it was

-He’s such a mischievous, spoiled brat

-“No Belphie shush.”

-“I’m just saying-“

-Despite him hating humans way less nowadays, he still holds somewhat of a grudge against them

-Old habits die hard I suppose

-Especially for Solomon whom he never liked in the first place

-He finds it very amusing when he figures out you just beat Solomon at his life’s work in under a year

-He has a good chuckle about it but never actually brings it up in front of him

-Because he knows you’re gonna flick him over the ear for it

-Belphie is the youngest sibling and therefore the spoiled child, can’t change my mind

(Ok so poor Solomon, I kinda want to give him a hug now lol. Hope I didn’t make these too repetitive or short. Thank you for reading!)

Al~

[maxfew]

You know what pisses me off about this new “Lando gate” Weren’t the Grill the Grid vids filmed like in March all on the same day? And Charlotte was there for each one, so she knows what was said??? So they’ve known for months what could come out. So everyone saying another PR problem ??? She and everyone laughed in the filming thing as they know Landos humour!!!! Seb had the same humour he would’ve laughed too!!!!! I think people don’t get Lando’s sarcastic humour, I personally think he ran out of social steam at that point, they had name drivers number, geography, teams A-Z, team members, first and last. That’s a lot! I run out of social steam and get irritable and very sarcastic when I can’t leave. If tumblr and Twitter were around when Seb and Lewis were Landos age fuck me they would be cancelled nearly each race weekend. Also you know that other drivers most likely joked about it t as well, but they didn’t put it in? We know Lando likes and respects Seb for fuck sake we’ve seen it this year. God sake, thank fuck it’s summer break and He’s got Max and his mates with him. I love the block button. So sorry to rant in your inbox.

i'm with you, anon. i've also seen a couple people calling lando something along the lines of a "pr disaster" after that video, which is a bit extreme in my opinion (i mean, if anything, he's a pr wet dream: young, successful, british, etc etc). and you're right: charlotte, mclaren's communication manager, was literally right there, and she laughed at what he said. other people laughed, too. that's why they included it in the video, for christ's sake 😭so if certain subsets of fans are gonna take offense to a singular joke in a silly video (that literally serves no purpose other than to entertain), then that's on them. but this is lando we're talking about—every single thing that comes out of his mouth is gonna be taken literally, and it doesn't matter if x driver has done/said something similar before! *shocked pikachu face* i guess what frustrated me the most about the whole thing was exactly that; people are always picking apart his words, making assumptions and spinning stories out of literally nothing. he lives in their heads rent free, i guess.

and people act like seb is being bullied on a playground or something, lmao. he and lando have a fine relationship. like chill. idk. the whole thing is so strange and unnecessary. people are just wack. the block button is sexy. this is just how life is.

(and anon—don't apologize for ranting! my inbox is always open and i'm more than happy to discuss this kind of stuff with y'all. mwah)