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stillness-in-green · 3 days

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What do you think about Horikoshi ending the manga without a canon couple? Do you ship or used to ship MHA characters? Did you see romantic potential? Do you think Horikoshi might confirm a couple later?

No canon couple? Au contraire, my dear anon! The manga ended with the most important canonization of all!

(Everybody give a huge hand to The Only Hets Who Matter, Gentle and La Brava; they deserve it.)

As to the ships people actually care about or were expecting some word on (e.g. the stuff with the students), my reaction there is overwhelmingly “lol gj hori”. I’m glad he ended it with no canon student couple to speak of! While I do sympathize with the position of certain people on Twitter who contend that Ochaco’s arc about repression really needed her to actually confess to Deku, I hated what her crush on Deku did to her arc anyway, so I don’t have it in me to be too annoyed. Anyway, I don’t think it’s possible to do the Iron Might 2.0 part of the epilogue if Deku and Ochaco[1] have been dating the entire time, so I’m perfectly happy to run with the headcanon that she did confess at one point and it didn’t work out for whatever reason, so by the time the last chapter rolls around, they’ve just been friends for years.

1: Or Bakugou, for that matter, but with all due respect to the BakuDekus who haven’t been seeing Shonen Jump battle manga come and go for twenty years with nary a confirmed gay MC amongst them, that was never in the cards.

I remember posting once ages ago about a Japanese fan’s hope that Horikoshi, who the fan perceived as being at least somewhat progressive about women, could manage to end the series without a bunch of timeskip romances showing up at the last minute. While I have some deep reservations about Hori’s progressive cred at this point in time, and am not tremendously impressed with his writing of women, either, credit where credit is due: he did end the series without any timeskip romances.

As to there being any confirmation of couples in the material we have remaining, I imagine the last train station[2] for that is going to be the final volume release in December, as, on top of the usual volume extras, Horikoshi should be considerably more free to include expansions that his schedule and exhaustion kept him from in the weekly publication. I could even see a bonus chapter of some sort, maybe something post-epilogue so we can see the power suit in action or something silly and fourth wall-breaking to celebrate the series conclusion. There’s also going to be one last fanbook released in January, which I have been assuming will be a data book like Ultra Archive.

2: Or harbor, I suppose, since we’re talking about ships.

Now, do I think any of that stuff will confirm ships? Eh, that’s not really in my analytical wheelhouse. The farthest I’d venture to guess is that I would a) not be surprised to get some clarification on Deku and Ochaco, and b) definitely peg the volume release to have material like that over squirreling it away in the fanbook.

For myself, my shipping habits are somewhat erratic—it’s not really where my primary engagement in media lies, and certainly not for this series! But that’s not to say I don’t have ships, or that I’m not happy to talk about them, so if you’re curious about that, do feel free to hit the jump. I’ll order them by general sphere first, then by how passionate I am about them compared to ones I just think are kinda cute or funny for whatever reason.

DISCLAIMER: While I have not explicitly stated as much here before, I am a 40-year-old asexual proshipper, proshipper here meaning I'm in favor of curating your own fandom space and not harassing people about their fictional ships under any circumstances. When I say I ship something, that does not mean I’m idealizing the relationship, want it to be canon, think it would be cool in real life, or am mentally putting myself in the place of one the characters. It’s solely because there’s something in the dynamic I think is fun or interesting, and “interesting” can very much include the same kind of interest one might have in watching a building get demolished.

That is to say, there are a handful of Too Problematic For Tumblr ships in here—one age gap but otherwise wholesome, one age gap and tacitly abusive, and one that really hits the Tumblr Trifecta by being age gap, abusive and incestuous. I've put all three at the very bottom in their own section in descending order of Most BadWrong, but if you’re one of those people deep into The Discourse about how ships need to be Morally Correct otherwise the shippers are terrible people who should kys, this is not the post for you. The block button’s there if you need it—and be advised that it’s there if I need it, too, and I’m not afraid to use it. (I grew up in dark fantasy shoujo fandoms; I am not litigating my ships with anybody.)

~~~Stillness’s Dubious and Delightful BNHA Ship Opinions~~~

Villain-o-rama-rama:

Spinarakiya, ShigaRD, Spinaraki: Alas for my short-lived OT3! I was really, really pumped for this in the stretch between MVA and the early stages of the first war, what with there being such interesting possible angles between all three parties, only for Re-Destro to get arrested and never seen in person again, Spinner to get snatched up by Gigantomachia and never look back, and Shigaraki to get lost to the possession plot for, at least as far as scenes with his allies were concerned, basically the rest of the series.

Not exactly great material for my shipping heart, though I’ll refrain from the rant comparing how long the PLF members were living in close contact with each other compared to the League of Villains and why that should have meant they developed stronger relationships than what we got.

But canon being what it is, I do still ship the hell out of these three in a canon divergence situation, or any number of potential AUs. I love the connective tissue there, with Re-Destro + Shigaraki having some startlingly strong background parallels and lasting injuries courtesy of each other, Shigaraki + Spinner having the gaming and the emptiness themes, and Spinner + Re-Destro having their Big Gay Feelings About Shigaraki as well as an appreciation for patterned fabrics some shared early frustrations about Shigaraki’s seeming lack of plans or direction.

It's a good dynamic, and I think they could all do a lot for each other, though certainly not in ways that are good for the continued survival of Hero Society. But fuck Hero Society anyway.

As to the component parts, I don’t ship Re-Destro and Spinner without Shigaraki being at least an invisible part of the dynamic (though I would read the fic where he wasn’t with considerable interest!), but I’m also very much on board with ShigRD and Spinaraki individually. My constant refrain about Shigaraki and RD is that they have a lot of common ground but very little common language, and I’m fascinated by how much of that they could recognize in each other and how much of it they could then recognize back in themselves, versus how much you’d get one of those cases of, “This guy is a freak and I’m so normal.”

It's so, so, so important to me that Re-Destro is the first ally Shigaraki won entirely on his own merits. He's got no borrowed reputation from Stain, no monsters on loan from Sensei, and no help from people on Sensei’s payroll, yet still, as a result of his efforts (both in his own fights and in making the League his own, even if it didn’t start that way) he wins himself an army and a follower who never saw a light that wasn’t his.

I weep for the Shigaraki/Re-Destro relationship we could have had if Horikoshi didn’t decide that Shigaraki in the endgame was to be nothing but a pawn, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to keep any of his markers of independence and growth.

As to Spinaraki, man, what is there even to say? The relationship so clear and obvious that it had even the mhatwt bros out there saying, “Spinaraki but at what cost?” in the last chapter! I will admit that I liked them better when their romance had that apocalyptic tinge than when it suddenly started getting painted as primarily about them being Gamer Bros, but at least that melancholic “beauty at the end of the world” shading came back when Shigaraki talked about destroying Mount Fuji for Spinner (be still my heart!).

They will meet and be close in every world and I will hear nothing else.

RiKoku: I don’t think I truly understood the appeal of ex-lover ships until these two. They snuck up on me in a big way, pretty much entirely a result of my realization when I was halfway through the (first and only, sadly) MLA Week event that Trumpet was pretty free-roaming and independent from Re-Destro all the way through Deika only to be glued to his side from there on out. Together with the Spinner parallels (the subordinates who fought each other and then came together to the crater to see their worlds remade) and my jokes about wanting to see the MLA heads during their stressed-out, over-achiever college years, all the pieces fell into place for a Rikiya and Koku who had dated for a few years and then broken up when Rikiya realized that his authority as Re-Destro—and Koku’s strong subordination to that authority—meant that he could not responsibly stay in the relationship. (This also presents several good explanations for why a man in Rikiya’s situation isn’t married with at least one child already.)

Anyway, to me, they never really fell out of love with each other; Re-Destro just couldn’t justify overlooking the power dynamic problems once he realized how extreme they were. (This does make for a fun alternate angle on RD’s personal life post-Deika, wherein Trumpet watches RD pass the mantle of leadership to Shigaraki Tomura and then more or less immediately pounces on him because now he doesn’t have the power dynamic excuse anymore. Look up the great Whatever Is Spared by @leftofrevolution on AO3 for more on this.)

Overhonest: I just like Nemoto much more than I like Chrono, and thus my Overhaul ship of choice follows suit. I like the idea that their feelings are wildly unbalanced but not totally one-sided—Overhaul has more baggage than a freshly loaded airport carousel, but he does like the Shie Hassaikai, as proven by them being mentioned in the Likes section of his character page. Nemoto in particular is someone whose presence we know Overhaul finds reassuring and we know it because he told Nemoto so directly when Nemoto asked, which means it can’t be anything other than the plain truth. He relies on Nemoto enough to make demands of him, he expects (and gets!) effectiveness, and he even bothers to take the time to justify out loud why it would be okay for him to merge himself with Nemoto physically (because Nemoto would say yes if asked, right? of course he would) rather than just doing it with no thought to Nemoto’s feelings about it because why should he care about that.

And Nemoto, for his part, is of course an obsessive weirdo who’s totally smitten with the first person he’s ever found who legitimately wants him around, so smitten that he’ll happily overlook the fact that Overhaul primarily wants him around because he’s useful.

Moving away from what’s on-the-page canon, I enjoy (and write) the take that Overhaul is sex-repulsed, not because he’s fully asexual, but as an extension of his mysophobia. This makes his sex life extremely fraught, but not non-existent. When I dabble with writing them (and they’re by far the ship I’ve written the most explicit material for in this fandom), I write him as basically a sex-repulsed demi (not that he would know or use that terminology!) who is attracted to Nemoto but has been largely left aggravated and sexually frustrated by their periodic experiments in non-traditional ways of getting him off. (Nemoto, for his part, is more than willing to keep trying! No kink is too weird for this guy if it means finding something Overhaul would actually like.)

(To get real here for a second, if Spinarakiya is meaningful to me as a person who’s comfortably poly, Overhonest is meaningful to me as an asexual person who's only ever had allosexual partners.)

AFOUji: Truly the Evil Husbands of all time. I wish the shift from Final Boss Shigaraki to Final Boss AFO hadn’t left Ujiko with a few truly inexplicable characterization beats,[3] because I truly do love these two as just the worst pair of mutually enabling monsters making the world worse and more dangerous for everyone while being 100% supportive of each other’s passions the entire time. Here’s to 70 years of Dark Lord/Mad Scientist domestic bliss.

3: For the record, I consider these to be his, “I've only been living for the boy's sake,” line in Chapter 269 and his clear reticence and dissastisfaction with Shigaraki getting the surgery in Chapter 240.

DabiSkep: Skeptic is the only man Dabi has ever thanked for his contributions. Dabi goes out of his way to kidnap him. I’m 90% convinced that they’d been working on the video together prior to the Villa raid. The combination of Skeptic’s deep and abiding neuroticism with Dabi’s swings between lazy malice and manic pushiness is extremely funny. What can I say; it’s just about the only Dabi ship that really clicks for me. I enjoy leftof’s take that Skeptic had a goth phase he never completely exited and so Dabi appeals to his inner Hot Topic teen, which he is 100% aware of and 150% embarrassed by.

School Environs:

Mirio/Tamaki: Tamaki literally regains consciousness at the exact moment Mirio loses his quirk. Other than cases where there’s some actual explanation for that—a magical connection, psychic powers, etc.—I have never seen that kind of beat happen outside of a shoujo manga. The bit where one romantic lead just mysteriously has a Bad Feeling in the same instant that something Bad happens to their love interest is so shoujo-coded. Jesus Christ, Tamaki is so moe. And Mirio so clearly thinks the world of him, too, as evinced by what an over-the-top sobriquet he dubbed Tamaki with. They’re great, end of story.

Monoma/Shinsou: I’ll admit I liked this somewhat better when I thought there was any chance at all Shinsou might end up in Class B—I kind of loathe that he wound up in Class A for the self-evidently terrible reason that it’s The Main Character Class, when it seems so obviously a conflict of interest for Aizawa to be teaching him. But eh, it’s okay; it just means Monoma will have to nobly learn to look past it after a lot of time spent being completely obnoxious about it.

My annoyance with Shinsou’s class placement aside, Monoma is one of my favorite students, and I like that he immediately latches onto Shinsou as a kindred spirit. And, like, if that were 100% one-directional, I would probably shrug it off, but Shinsou, despite trying to play at being aloof, does actually get invested enough that he gets pretty bothered by the idea of Monoma needing help, even in something as inconsequential as a class exercise. It’s just a much, much more interesting dynamic than Shinsou has with Deku or especially Kaminari.

Also, as someone with a bit of a Thing for mind fuckery, the way Copy and Brainwash can play off each other is Good.

MomoJirou: The fanart is cute and I like Momo better than Kaminari. And the culture clash thing is fun.

Shouto/Inasa: The fanart is cute and I like Inasa better than Deku or Bakugou.

Professional Sphere:

Hawksdeavor:The age gap adds flavor. The fact that Endeavor is still married but deeply unhappily so makes it even spicier. The difference in what they represent (or could potentially represent) to each other is the best part, with Hawks, for Endeavor, being someone who represents a totally clean page, while Endeavor, for Hawks, represents a lifelong adoration. Finding each other’s reality in all of that would be an interesting relationship arc and could be extremely fulfilling and strengthening for both of them.

The spoiler is (or at least should have been, if I’d been writing the series) their divided feelings on Dabi. Honestly, I really wanted to see them clash over the matter of Touya and how to deal with him, with Endeavor wanting to save him but not knowing how and Hawks just wanting him gone but not knowing how to get away with it. A certain pair of facts is glaring to me: first, that Hawks was a chief architect of the second war’s battle plans, whereas we never saw Endeavor involved with them at all, and second, that, when the big day came, Endeavor was slated to fight All For One with Hawks at his side despite at least some guilty protests from Enji that he really ought to be facing Dabi.

It smacks strongly of Hawks making some profoundly selfish decisions under the guise of clear-headed strategy and I really wanted it to blow up in his face when Dabi found his way to their battlefield anyway. Pushing Endeavor into a place where he had to choose between them and ultimately chose his son (say, by protecting him from an attack coming from Hawks) would have been validating for Touya, done a lot to lever Endeavor’s arc out of the reactiveness and passivity that drag it down so badly in the canon, and also handed Hawks a real consequence for how dismissively he treats the lives of Villains and how much he’s tried to avoid reckoning with both Endeavor’s abuse and Enji’s own attempts to do said reckoning!

In summary, Hawks and Endeavor could be very good for each other, and the incredible amount of baggage they’d have work through first would be key to either making that good ending feel earned or lead to them dramatically and deliciously imploding. Either one works for me, and either one, even without the romantic angle, would have been more interesting than the pablum we got.

NightMight: Speaking of could-have-been-good relationships that dramatically imploded! I love Sir Nighteye as the most visible cost of All Might’s lifestyle, the one he lost because he couldn’t step away from the path his ideals had set out, and how that ideal inevitably took him full circle so that he found himself standing, for Deku, in the same place Nighteye once stood for him. And of course by then it was too late and Deku wouldn’t listen to him anymore than he himself listened to Nighteye back then.

But Nighteye didn’t give up on caring about him, even if he had no avenue left to express it but throwing himself into finding a successor All Might would accept, which led to Nighteye's own (wonderful) relationship with Mirio.

Just great, difficult, adult stuff about irreconcilable differences that never stopped them from caring about each other even as those differences forced them to their parting of ways.

Mount Lady/Kamui Woods: They’re cute and I like the idea that they both have trouble, for opposite reasons, with cameramen. I like that he calls her just Lady when he thinks she’s in trouble. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I like that they’re kinda the most explicit Pro Hero couple and yet she’s the more prominent and important character with the more visible arc, which is a nice contrast to most of the other hetero relationships in this benighted manga.

Other/Cross-faction:

Togachaco: The yuri ship that could. My god, the canon divergence I want to give these two. You know why I want Deku and Ochaco to not be together in the end? Because I want Ochaco to realize that she did everything in her power to save her Villain while Deku—after all that talk on the cliff!—just killed his, and triggered Toga just before he left to do it, meaning Ochaco had a harder time with Toga than she might have otherwise.

But, I’m not here to talk about No. 2 Green; let’s talk instead about the canon divergence where Toga survives (shove that absurd death-via-blood-transfusion right into the incinerator) and then Ochaco has to come face to face with a system that does not want to let her be anywhere near as kind as she wants to be. The canon divergence where Ochaco realizes that her forgiveness is immaterial to justice, where she watches the system she fought to defend gear up to try Toga as an adult because Japan needs a scapegoat for the destruction of the war and all of the people who are actually most responsible are already dead or dying. Where Ochaco realizes that she has to do something drastic if she doesn’t want to live the rest of her life haunted by the knowledge that her compassion got a 17-year-old victim of emotional and psychiatric abuse executed by the state. The one where she decides to take a fucking stand, and it forces the rest of her class to confront that need as well.

“The cutest girl in the whole world,” my god.

Kotarou and Nao: I’m not as big on it by the time we’re seeing them in the Tenko flashback, though I certainly wasn’t pulling for some mean-spirited, allegedly feel-good “Nao slaps Kotarou and the whole family walks out of him” thing like you see in fanfic sometimes. No, what I really like with Kotarou and Nao is thinking about them when they’re both still young, in the stretch of years where they really think they'll be happy together. That her being with him can make all his problems go away, that him being able to bury his past and be better than all the people who hurt him (and there were so many people who hurt him) will be enough, that love is the answer to everything. Sure, the cracks are there, but they’re thin, and they can be hidden beneath all the days when things are good, when the two of them hold each other and feel safe and loved and sure.

The cracks are still there, and love isn’t enough when love becomes a band-aid and a blind eye. But the love is still there too, and it’s so fierce and so desperate, and it still won’t save them.

Sorry, everyone; they make me emotional. They are beautiful in the way of sparks dancing above flames, or early flowers blooming right before a vicious cold snap. Ah, me.

StainMight: GOD, All Might really needed to grapple more with Stain’s side of his legacy. Like, StainMight is really a victim of the way the story looked like it was setting up to criticize All Might’s methodology as well-intended but not sustainable long-term, but then, like every other aspect of the series that was about systemic critique, that criticism just evaporated and Stain became an All Might cheerleader with nothing to say about the system All Might supported for thirty years. Maddening! But for real, All Might should have been badly hurt in that car attack and then rescued by Stain, both to give Deku some stress about how All Might could be in danger after they parted on bad terms, and also to really make All Might have to sit with this opinionated zealot all-too-prepared to talk about how no one else is really living up to his example.

And there should be UST the whole time.

Yoichi and Kudou: I am almost entirely negative towards the OFA Collective these days, especially Kudou’s role in the endgame, but I still have some fondness for what he and Yoichi could have been. My god, the first One For All transfer really should have been because they kissed. More beautiful, more tragic, more profound, and preserves the Yoichi that had some actual fucking agency in the life he lived instead of just constantly being AFO’s or Kudou’s trophy princess there to talk about how respectively terrible and awesome they are.

TogaTsuyu: I just think it would be interesting if Tsuyu were actually allowed to be more present in the Toga plotline, rather than only arriving as a spoiler to avert major shifts every time. Toga says she likes Tsuyu, too, after all, and Tsuyu is so different from both Ochaco and Deku, so much more thoughtful and considered. I dunno, I just wonder how things might have gone if, for example, it had been Tsuyu that Toga managed to draw away in the Jakku fight. Given that side story with her snakey friend Habuko, evidence suggests that Tsuyu is a good deal more observant and intuitive than Ochaco, and I wonder if she might have been able to suss out what Toga was actually asking there better than Ochaco did, and how that might have changed things.

THE TUMBLR PROBLEMATIC ZONE:

Gentle Criminal and La Brava: I was willing to follow the canon’s initial vagary about these two, but I also like them quite a bit together, so if canon wants to put them in wedding rings at the end of the series, that’s fine by me! Yes, I’m aware that there’s a pretty significant age gap there, which would have been at its most apparent when she first sought him out, but I don’t for one single instant believe that he’d be anything less than a total gentleman to her. Indeed, it’d be entirely plausible to mount an argument based on his behavior that they were not at all romantically involved circa the Culture Festival arc,[4] and only become so after Gentle’s imprisonment and subsequent release. But in general, what I’m more concerned with is the dynamic—I regard a power differential in a relationship as a reason for both parties to be cautious and mindful of that differential, but not as an immediate game-ender.

4: Most obvious is that when she says, “I love you,” he only says things like, “Thank you,” in return.

In that sense, Gentle and La Brava are great—they click together perfectly and obviously make each other tremendously happy after a lifetime of rejection. La Brava, in Gentle’s theatrical attention-seeking, finds someone who accepts her overflowing way of showing love; Gentle, in living up to La Brava’s feelings, finds a reason for his skewed heroism beyond satisfying his pride. To whatever extent their life together was heading anywhere bad (and there’s no evidence of this at all save that Heroes were always likely to catch up to them eventually, making La Brava’svery extreme response to Gentle’s defeat likewise inevitable), Deku’s intervention got them off of that path and back onto one that let them be accepted by the world, which they seem to have capitalized on marvelously.

They’re the only Villains I can think of whose turn to Team Hero in the endgame works for me without any significant quibbles. Good for them! I hope they are so, so happy together, because they deserve it.

AFO and Kotarou: MEANWHILE, IN MY OTHER KOTAROU SHIP. I love AFO knowing Everything about what he’s doing here while Kotarou knows absolutely Nothing about what AFO is doing here. I love an AFO who is self-amused in being friendly and reassuring and distractingly attractive to Kotarou, an AFO who knows that his toying with Kotarou would make Shimura Nana sick with terror and rage, and even if she isn’t alive to be so anymore, the fantasy of it is satisfying enough, especially since Kotarou is himself a very handsome young man, one whose hurt and resentment AFO finds beguiling to sometimes prod at, as if unable to leave a bruise alone except the bruise isn’t on his own skin.

I have an AU I’m never likely to write where Kotarou winds up successfully knocking out Tenko on the night of the accident before going on the run with him, only for them to get picked up by AFO a few weeks later, and let me tell you guys, that’s where all my guilty pleasure AFO/Kotarou really lives.

That said, I liked this one much better before we got the opening for it in canon, and not just because AFO’s disguise persona was doofy-looking instead of devastatingly handsome. It was always one of those ships that tickled my inner hedonistic wickedness fancier but that I never wanted to be canon because my affection for the ship's vibe was not more important to me than the integrity of Shigaraki’s arc, and Shigaraki’s arc was far better served by his early childhood being as free from AFO as possible. Alas, the reveal is very AFOtarou but at what cost.

Dabideavor: Sorry not sorry everyone, but all the people screaming about how this is SICK FILTH seem to have missed the point that it is indeed, absolutely and completely, sick filth and that’s part of the appeal. Personally, I like it for two main reasons.

Firstly, I want Endeavor to have as hard a time as possible, and times don't get harder than this. I enjoy it when he's frozen and helpless in the face of the son whose life he destroyed because I have a long history of enjoying stoic male characters being made vulnerable through suffering.

Secondly, and more importantly, I like it because I like the version of Dabi you see in it, particularly compared to the Fanon Dabi who made so much League of Villains fan content un-fucking-readable for years.

I'm going to try to keep the hot fandom tea to a minimum here, limited to the upcoming footnote, but I hated Fanon Dabi.[5] He was an incoherent mash of a character designed to be a vehicle for the unabashed revenge fantasy of bloody murder against Bad Dads while also presenting no danger whatsoever of splash damage, a Woobie Big Brother who was completely harmless except to the father whose organs he was planning to paint the walls with. Every excuse that could be made, would be made, for Dabi's more questionable or even outright nasty moments, even if it meant minimizing or outright erasing the harm we saw Dabi do, right there on the page in literal manga monochrome.

5: There's a particular type of flanderization that goes into Fanon Dabi, the same kind of flanderization I saw attached to Steven Universe's Lapis Lazuli, and which informed the absolute umbrage certain people took with Rebecca Sugar for describing Spinel, the SU movie's villain, as toxic. There is a portion of fandom that loves abuse victims who get angry and lash out, but which will go absolutely ballistic at the slightest suggestion that abuse victims are themselves also capable of harm, that lashing out has the potential to hurt innocent people. In a perfectly executed DARVO, it becomes "victim blaming" to confront an abuse victim about the very real abuse they're inflicting on others. I only specified fictional characters here, but it's a dynamic you see in real life, too. Some people hunger for nothing so much as an acceptable target and abuse victims are not exempt from that statement.

The Dabi I thought was fun was the high-energy maniac who doesn't give a shit about anyone else getting caught in the crossfire of his revenge. Both that version of Dabi and the Endeavor who's paralyzed with guilt and despair are facilitated by Dabi’s father-obsession having a taboo sexual dimension to it that Dabi is all too ready to shove in the face of absolutely everyone who would think worse of Endeavor for it. That means Endeavor himself, of course, but also all the good little civilians who Endeavor keeps telling to watch him. Watch this, says Dabi, as he makes lewd hand gestures on force-streamed national television.

It's not about Dabi healing as an abuse victim, and it’s not about Dabi having a fulfilling arc—covering that stuff was canon's job! It's about the fact that I, for reasons both personal and related to fandom spite, am personally entertained by Dabi being pedal-to-the-metal deranged about doing whatever it takes to seize Daddy’s attention and never let him look away again, which also means acting to ensure that no one is capable of or willing to save Endeavor from that fate. Like, if you want someone who would spend ten years plotting the most agonizing possible way to torment his abuser, then it’s sophistry to suddenly declare some agonizing torments off-limits. Dabideavor is just committing to the bit.

#bnha #stillness answers #stillness ships #tw: incest #just discussion no depiction #it's the last one on the post

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hollyhomburg · 1 year

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Seeing your responses to asks about the new chapter and just general questions it brings up- I’ve been intending to ask, and feel free to not answer this ask at all if it spoils anything and stuff, but like,

why are moonbyul and her pack so intent on ‘getting’ the mc? I remember you said once upon a time that if she joined their pack she would probably of ended up being used for moonbyul to have kids or something? So I don’t get why she’s so intent on pursuing her. I thought for a moment it might’ve been because she actually went ahead of plan and killed the don and beta- like it made moonbyul interested in her in a sense of ‘I wonder if I could make you do this stuff for me, rather then yourself’ or something- she seems a little like the type to want her omegas all obsessed and stuff which like,, creepy but you’re kinda hot so whatever

Along that line, I also don’t get what her endgame is with how you said Hyein contemplated killing Jimin. Sure Mc would leave the pack for their safety but she would just end up hating moonbyul and her pack from something like that. So if the end goal is a sort of ‘ownership’ that’s honestly not how to go about it

If that spoils then don’t worry about answering obvi lol but it’s just a question that plays on my mind from the new chapter that I kinda wanted to get out- even if you can’t answer this for spoiler reasons I hope you can enjoy knowing that one of your readers are set into deep thinking from your really intricate writing lol <3 love ya and your writing li, thank you so much for all you do for us fans - you’re such a dedicated and thoughtful writer and seemingly person from what you put through on here with your fanfic and other random posts, I hope you know we appreciate you!!!

oh okay so, maybe this is not as obvious as i thought it was but ;-; it's mostly because of three reasons,

1. because of the m/c's addictive slick, moonbyul's alpha and other alphas in general can kind of 'sense' that the m/c has this, it's mostly phermonal.

2. Because moonbyul and hyejin collect omega's, hyejin was moonbyuls first addition to her collection in a way but after she came along they very quickly got the other too. it's a power thing, the m/c is both veulnerable and beautiful. most alphas, moonbyul included- view the aquisition of omegas and many omega's as a status symbol. for the same reason why hoseok's coeworkers tease him for having so many alphas in his pack- it's kind of a societal norm that an alpha in possession of a good fortune will have several omega's, especially in certain circles.

3. They want to posess her as of right now in the story in part because it was kind of an understood position of them helping her escape geumjae/kill the don and beta that they would get her in their pack as a result. they wheren't just helping her and usuing her, they where manipulating her towards their own ends. after she killed the don and beta this got even more kind of validated- because moonbyul is the one who kept the m/c from being killed. in her mind- she owns the mc, regardless of yoongi's mating mark.

(this next section is vaugely spoilery) you're right in saying that "Sure Mc would leave the pack for their safety but she would just end up hating moonbyul and her pack from something like that. So if the end goal is a sort of ‘ownership’ that’s honestly not how to go about it" thats exactly why moonbyul DIDN'T order hyejin to kill jimin. she knows that if they do want to get the m/c, they'll likely need some collateral or something more to convince the m/c to be theirs willingly, the endgame with them is not physical captivity, it's emotional captivity. hyejin and moonbyul contrasted with geumjae- are much more interested in mentally fucking up the m/c than actually physically harming her through physical abuse. it's a delicate situation.

aghhh thank you for apreciating it in all its intricacies! i know sometimes it might feel like it's too intricate, at least we're not just frustrated right? i'll answer your questions for as long as i can.

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misc-obeyme · 4 months

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I'm back already I-

But please hear me out.

I was writing another chapter for my fanfic in Wattpad yesterday (It's basically the OG OM! game rewritten, but with more scenes, more logic(?), more insight on the bonds between characters and added HCs.) I'm currently doing Lesson 1!

For this I watch gameplays bcs of course I'm too lazy to play all over again and I haven't even finished the game myself-

Anyways, while watching, Lucifer mentions tasks. In-game, he already knows that the tasks are dance battles. And well I didn't like that.

What if Lucifer didn't know about dance battles? What if he had set up much different tasks, aiding to 'polish MC's soul', which was said to be MC's task?

That's exactly what I did.

But I don't plan on mentioning what the actual tasks are (bcs my imagination ran out yesterday and I already published the chapter)

What do you think the actual tasks could have been?

PS: Have fun next week! Relax and enjoy your days off!

- 📻

Don't worry about your ask box frequency, it's all good! I get people who go months between asks and then there are people who go minutes between asks lol.

Anyway, I have to commend anyone who has the patience to do a canon story rewrite like that. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a nap. It was difficult for me when I was writing Arrie's story, too. Because I felt like I had to incorporate him into the existing story, but I didn't want to rewrite the whole thing. So I kinda glossed over most of it lol. Like here are some extra scenes and there's like one that I redid, but for the most part I just skipped over that stuff.

So all that is to say that I'm impressed with your dedication to such a project! It's probably way better than canon, too!

Let's see, so tasks that could potentially polish MC's soul in place of the dance battles?

I mean it's hard to say what exactly is needed to polish MC's soul, you know? The game doesn't give us the mechanics of that particular situation.

Initially, I would think it would have more to do with the Celestial Realm than anything...

But perhaps it's more about just... not doing things that could tarnish the soul (such as the sins) and then possibly doing things like good deeds to polish it?

It happens naturally any time MC does something nice for someone, which is probably all the time considering how nice the generic OM MC is.

But if you had to have like... have actual tasks? Maybe it's just stuff like organizing Lucifer's paperwork for him or making sure that Beel always has a snack handy so he doesn't rampage. Helping Mammon with his debt, talking Levi out of his self hatred, etc etc. Like I think the tasks would be related to each of the brothers in some way.

Or you could go more like... magic-centered and say that MC has to do something like various spells to polish their soul in a more literal sense.

I kinda like the idea of tricking the system lol. Like hang on, we can just use magic and now it's like MC has the shiniest soul ever! Why do I feel like Solomon would help with this if you wanted to do it that way?

And thank you, I am definitely looking forward to my days off! I'm hoping to get plenty of writing done too~

#I've already reorganized all my wips which were all over the dang place #and I'm hoping to get my long story separated out how I need it so I can start posting it too #obey me #obey me shall we date #om #obey me!#omswd #📻 anon #misc answers

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coconox · 6 months

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late night ramble but ig heres my 2 cents of this poll (not directly attaching this to the poll cause im a coward LOL)

ofc, i won't put my thoughts on luci/belphe/asmo. ik we get tidbits of them through their nobles or pb's prev games but i wanna judge them based on how they actually show up in-game. i also know there's prob gonna be some luci lore later when gamigin update is out (atm its like abt 4 or so days till that update's release) but i'll just omit my thoughts on luci for now

ok now for the rest of the kings:

i should also put a disclaimer that i don't read any of the unholy board stories unless if it's mammon's, so for the other kings that aren't mammon my opinions are purely based off of main story or event appearances or how they act in comics

satan - honestly pretty ok w him. i'm kinda biased when it comes to mc being recoginized as their own person rather than purely just the descendant of solomon so i like him based on that. idk i don't have any strong opinions abt him i just see him as a very fluffy cat :3

mammon - absolutely love him. 0 flaws. wins the idgaf war. my absolute fav squeak toy. lol ok but fr tho i don't really have any complaints abt him. will spoil tf out of mc and wants to ensure their safety. also sees mc as mc and was even kinda disgusted(? idk a better word for this💀💀) by the fact that a part of solomons soul can be sensed in them, almost as if he doesnt want it to be in the way of mc. also wasnt afraid to call out the fact that sitri kept calling mc solomon. and ofc the love at first sight thing is great too but also the bodyworship (or ig faceworship bc he only just kissed mc's entire face??) before the confession like UGH... absolutely weak for that man (devil?). idk i dont rlly see that many mammon fans rlly anywhere and it saddens me hes such a good char outside of just having huge tibbies. srsly tho pb pls we get it he has huge tits you dont need to constantly bring it up the char sprite is literally right in front of us-

cant wait for the next chapter w the big lore dump abt mammon and hope we finally get a pt 2 of his h scene (hopium)

no srsly he's the only king w 1 h scene, satan and levi got 2,, WHERE IS MAMMON'S PT 2

as a side comment also i love the silly banter btwn mammon and satan like they are truly besties from the cross on their foreheads to matching skill names to the amnt of times they throw hands and still hang out and care for each other

beel - hes ok ig? i think lore-wise hes gonna be one of the more interesting ones considering how "mysterious" he is i.e. constantly wandering, almost being an absent king. like what led to the constant wandering? what did andrealphus mean when he said beel is the key to ending the war? how does his cloning work? i kinda feel bad for bael and the other nobels needing to manage everything while beels away but i don't rlly hate him for it? at least not now considering we don't rlly know the definite reason and i want to assume the best and say he has a valid reason for being absent so he could protect his region. hate is a strong word ig its more of a slight dislike towards beel, but its like this 🤏 small of a dislike im still overall neutral abt him

levi - falling into the majority from the poll i have to agree that levi is my least fav king also lol. i get where he's coming from and why he acts the way he does, i just dont like how he's written? or ig moreso how he's written in the perspective of mc. tho tbh that's more of an mc issue than a levi issue, but i got pretty tired of the story constantly reminding us how pretty levi is (similar to how we always get reminded of how big mammon is/how huge mammons tits are). idk its like a gut feeling to not like/trust him. i also just don't really vibe w him in general even before we were actually introduced to him in main story. hes a good attacker gameplay-wise tho lol

so yeah, those are my thoughts for now. ofc they could change in the future when we get more info abt all of them but we'll see

#i just realized i wrote sm abt mammon LOL #i cant help it hes just an amazing char #but seriously wheres his pt 2 h scene #hopium we get it next chapter #fbj rambles

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feathers-little-nest · 6 months

Text

And here it is, the list of my fav Iron Widow moments! Enjoy?

As always feel free to discuss with me or share your favorite moments!!

It's below the cut bcs spoilers

- chapter 5, I figured that I could note my fav moments of this book as well XD

- starting on not the best note, I fucking hate Yang Guang, I hate him so much, I want to rip his guts out,

- chapter 8, the fight was so epic!! I love how MC just kinda forgor about the whole dying thing and went with the flow

- and that she killed that motherfucker! I didn't have to tolerate him for too long >:D

- it's honestly quite funny that Qin Zheng was killed by pox (I hope I'm getting the name of the illness right lol, I'm reading this in Polish translation and have 0 knowledge about any medical terminology in English)

- just a note but it's harder for me to keep up with those notes for Iron Widow than for Qian Qiu. I think it's because 1. its pace is faster 2. its chapters are shorter. so anyway

- chapter 10, Wu Zetian just needs to scream 24/7 and I respect it so much

- chapter 12, idk, Li Shimin is kinda cute

- I also like strategist Zhuge but that may be just because he has a fan

- chapter 13, those qi power statistic are so untrustworthy lol. I wouldn't be so happy to have so much higher qi stats than the average if the margin of error is like 17k

- chapter 14, damn, I miss Yizhi...

- chapter 19, oh my god, Yizhi is back!! T^T

- I absolutely love all the tiny historical details in this story. I'm probably missing a lot but those which I can catch are amazing (and satisfying, good to know that I know something about Chinese history after all that learning)

- chapter 20, OMG YIZHI IS BI?? IS THIS FINALLY SOME GOOD BI REP??

- ZETIAN IS ALSO BI?? AM I IN HEAVEN? WHAT'S GOING ON??

- omg Gao Yizhi grabbing Li Shimin's leash is one of the things I need to draw, damn, it paints such a clear picture in my mind

- chapter 21, Sima Yi is just a hater by nature and I start to enjoy it,

- chapter 23, Yizhi screaming "you can't shoot me I'm rich!!!" I love this boy

- chapter 29, god, Yizhi, Shimin and Zetian are sooo cute

- also "one traumatized Xing Tian", that made me laugh out loud

- "usually adding qi of a third person only strengthened the dissonance (...) no one knows why we succeeded" yeah I wonder why, hmmmmmm

- chapter 30, MY BABYGIRL LI SHIMIN GOT CALLED AN ALPHA MALE I'M DYINGGG

- I kinda like Gao Qiu. I know he's probably bad news but damn, he's fun

- also a Wu Zetian fan nr1, seeing his reaction I'm surprised that he didn't ask for an autograph (I forgot that he's sexist af)

- tho, tbh, I think he's more afraid of what he can't control than purely sexist; interesting guy, I want to dissect him,

- I wonder if anything happened between LSM and GYZ during that party at Gao's, hmm,

- chapter 31, OUR THIRD PARTNER YIZHI, AWWW

- chapter 36, I actually think Sima Yi might be one of my fav characters? come on, the guy came to the wedding just because he wanted to support his little dumdums

- chapter 39, YES FUCK AN LUSHAN

- damn I didn't think they'll actually kill him. oh well. he won't be missed. judging by his character, even his son won't miss him

- Yizhi is the wife in this throuple, isn't he /jk

- OMG THE TRIANGLE IS FINISHED, THAT WAS SO CUTE!! WAAH

- chapter 42, I like how Wu Zetian's reaction to something not going well is just "maybe we should burn ourselves alive actually", relatable queen

- Sima Yi just lost his good guy badge. he better have a damn good excuse for abondoning MCs this easily,

- chapter 44, QIN PIERDOLONY ZHENG, już zawsze będę go tak nazywać 🫡

- chapter 46, is Qin Pierdolony Zheng playing snake with hunduns instead of apples¿?

- I still can't believe that Shimin is actually dead. Like. Dead dead. Super dead. Human marmalade dead. How... why him T^T

- chapter 47, I love how among all this death and destruction the worst problem Qin Pierdolony Zheng has is inflation,

- epilogue, DID SHIMIN BECOME A GOD PLS TELL ME HE BECAME A GOD

- Qin Pierdolony Zheng has a beef with gods, I think he's the most rel character now

#iron widow #xiran jay zhao #żelazna wdowa #the next victim is as promised SVSS 🫡

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velvetbunniie-archive · 1 year

Note

AHH YAY FOR THE BOOK BLOG!! Can’t wait to hear all of your book thoughts <3

I do have a question for you: I know how you feel about Jacks and Eva (and that whole disastrous spin-off), but what are your thoughts on the original trio (Scarlett, Tella, Julian… and Dante/Legend too I guess!)? Thoughts on the ships, the characters, the plot itself?

(Also, I’m glad your surgery went well, wishing for a speedy recovery and nothing but good news from here on out!!!) 💗💗💗

OH, EVERYONE WILL B HEARING THEM… i am annoying, babey!!!

((we don’t talk abt that fucking spin-off on this blog.. love and light <3 need to send eva back to her pre-algebra class fr.))

BUT THE ORIGINAL TRIO…. scarlett is honestly one of my fav ya mcs still… she’s got that eldest daughter syndrome burned into her + she’s so refreshingly sheltered and anxious, but has the strength at the core of her that feels so human and mundane … that said, i think maybe she should’ve smacked tella for killing herself and coming back to prove a point. as an elder sister, i think scarlett should be a bit more ruthless, don’t you agree?

and julian is also a nice departure from the typical ya male love interest, wherein he’s, like, actually respectful, omg?? and kind and sweet? i find him much more interesting than dante (though maybe that’s bc legend being his brother is important to his character development. i will accept legend for this reason and this reason alone.) honestly, out of all of the characters stephanie’s written, i think scarlett and julian are the most soulmate-coded out of all of them. i mean, they have matching white streaks in their hair bc they died together for a day <3 need i say more? the DEVOTION!!! even in the small things!!

i will forever mourn the fact that stephanie felt she wasn’t mature enough to write their love story in legendary… be soooo serious. i want to see it!!! instead we get, like, two scenes with scarlett and julian when actually i deserve a thousand of them. on top of that, it defs feels like lazy writing to ignore all that development that occurs in that book. many issues with this (>jst wants to see them kiss a bit more, ithink.)

((also they were quite possibly her strongest-written charas with the most compelling storyline… WHERE are they!!! i deserve to see more of them!!!!!))

OH ALSO, THEY WEREN’T A LOVE TRIANGLE (legend tried for,like , half a chapter, that doesn’t count), and that, my friend, is what i like to see in a soulmate couple. or in more ya couples in general, bc i literally can’t do this anymore. (>will make exceptions, as always)

i found tella to be fun, it a bit like most of the ya mcs in fantasy novels… but again,, you can’t tear a character that’s a bit of a bitch away from me. go harder. make her a feral bitch too. but, oughhh, the ya fantasy series doldrums… the love triangle… :// maybe i want tella to be meaner to jacks (and also i think jacks wants tella to be meaner to him too. many things to think of.) rather than running off with legend.

whiiiich brings me to legend. i kinda hate that he’s the way he is. he’s jst super up his own ass in a less engaging way than jacks is (i also want jacks dead. we all know how i feel about him. killing him with my mind.) not only that, but he’s boring. oh my god, he’s so boring. the romance with tella felt like stephanie chickening out / making the sisters fall in love with the brothers to make it nice and neat.. honestly, finding out she hadn’t decided who tella would end up with while she’d been plotting out the novel made me all the more enraged. we have a boring ass bitch here??? instead of jacks?? instead of an actually more engaging plotline? i want ppl that are horrible !!!! i’m here for an interesting time, not a wholesome one!

that said, i want jacks left out in the cold, where he’ll die alone. love him to bits. i hope he’s mauled by a wolf <3 i’ll also stick him in a little terrarium, if need be.

anyway, i… won’t lie, i think finale is probably the most interesting book (mostly bc we actually get to see mistress luck, god bless!!), but the scenes with tella and legend had me rolling my eyes. when has he ever been interesting enough to pine after? maybe tella should’ve jst remained single (and honestly, with that travesty of a scene in once upon a broken heart wherein all of the original characters had their personalities mauled to bits, it certainly fucking feels like tella’s single). but alas.

(yes, it defs did!!! my hand’s bruising a bit and my stitches are stinging like a bitch rn, but such is the nature of having a healthy hand in the end, i guess ;;;; )

#unfortunately i think i have the most to say abt this series than any other one and it’s fucking embarrassing #do NOT perceive!!!!!!!!#book: caraval #author: stephanie garber #m.kai💛#.asks

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ted616 · 2 years

Text

Psychology in CSM: Denji's relationships and how they affect his character. Also a bit of how he affects them.

So. I was really bored and haven’t stopped thinking about CSM since finishing the manga more than a month ago. So here comes a big essay in well, what it says on the top. Just kinda letting my thoughts out about stuff and my interpretations. I think (!) I mostly understand everything well, but who knows.

Beware. This is LONG. a LOT of text is coming. a LOT.

First of all.

Denji is presented as a somewhat relatable, teenage MC. What this means is– Even if his life experiences are really specific, specially because of how absurd CSM is as a whole– His way of thinking and living is one that easily resonates with any teenage boy reading this manga. His kinda stupid, charming, genuinely kind-hearted and just wants people to love him. It is all throughout Part 1 that he tackles his own feelings and humanity, and learns from all the shit that happens to him. So let’s get a recap on all the people in his life and how each character affected him to become who he is in Part 2. (This is being written after the release of Chapter 120, so yeah).

The most important person to understand Denji’s psyche I believe is a character we do not know much about. No name, no design, almost nothing–

Denji’s Mother.

As it was said before, we know little about this character. The only data we have is that she died when Denji was still young (probably aroud 1 to 4 years old or so), and that it was from a heart disease he inherited and was “cured” of when Pochita fused with him.

Why is this character so important? Because it is her death that sets up one of the “pillars” of Denji’s personality and story.

Denji never had a mom, truly. Because she died when he was so young, he doesn’t hold memories of her. From a young age, he was robbed of a maternal figure and left with many men who made his life all the harder and shittier. It is the lack of a maternal figure that makes Denji initially fall in love with Makima, as he finally found the comfort and “love” of a mother in her, one he doesn’t fully understand; as he never once had it and only thought of women as people to please him until that very moment. That is why he seeks Makima’s affection, why he decides to join Public Safety and the hunt for the Gun Devil, because then Makima would do anything he wants! And because he loves her, that’d be perfect, right?

The lack of a Mother is what made Denji the perfect target for Makima, a young boy who had never really felt *love* and who had the Chainsaw Devil inside her. It is because he was robbed of that affection at such a young age that she could manufacture it for him and later on destroy it. Sure, if he actually had a caring mother everything would’ve probably gone a similar route! But it is because he didn’t have one that it was so easy for Makima to do. It’s grim, and fucked up! But everything in CSM is like that, and I think it’s really interesting to think and talk about.

Denji’s mom is truly an enigma of a character, and we don’t really know anything about her as a character. But I think that’s what makes the mysticism around Denji’s past so interesting and intriguing, and why I personally love to write/read about it in fanfiction. I really hope we see more of that past in the future, but at the same time feel like it’d be hard to do/and we really don’t *need* it to understand Denji’s character further.

Anyways. To the next asshole.

Denji’s father.

We don’t know much about his dad either, but we do know more about him than about Denji’s mom.

Denji’s dad was a drunk asshole, who had a multi million yen-worth debt with the yakuza for a reason. For what we know, he abused Denji physically and verbally, probably as a result of his mom’s early passing? And it was because of that abuse that Denji responded, defending himself and killing the man by his own hand.

It is here where Denji faces his first trauma. He runs away from the reality of him being his own father’s killer, taking advantage of the set-up made by the yakuza to fool himself into thinking of it as a suicide for what was most likely around a decade. It’s a fact that would break him if he ever remembered, and it’s one of the triggers that Makima pulls to awaken the Chainsaw Devil from him at the end of Part 1.

I see this event as the first in a series of different happenings that feed onto something– Denji’s guilt. In Part 2 we see a sadder, more tired Denji; who’s eyes look almost empty and who probably isn’t getting nearly enough sleep as he should. That can be for many reasons, and one of the reasons I believe is the sheer guilt he feels after the events of Part 1. Because he caused everyone around him to die, becuase he killed his own dad. He’s really different to the Denji from Part 1, because he has to face the reality he’s in; one where everyone he cared about has died, one where he sees himself as at least a partial reason for their deaths, and his father’s death is what “starts” this. His mom died of a heart virus, so that couldn’t be his fault– But he killed his dad. In self-defense, and we do know that the bastard deserved it– But he still killed a man. Not a fiend taking his best friend’s body, not Power being killed because he was controlled by Makima to open a door.

With his own hands, before even becoming a half-devil, when he was fully human, he killed a man. It doesn’t matter the reason, that weighs too heavily on anyone’s shoulders, and that’s why his subconscious hid away the memory for so long, and why Pochita tried to bury it further once he became one with Denji; because it would completely break him. And, as an audience, we know what happened when he finally remembered.

And lastly, I won’t linger long on his relations with the yakuza, because most of what could be said is clear in the manga. For years, he was used and beaten around for a debt that wasn’t his, and finally he was betrayed by the same people that used him and “killed”.

With these three examples a lot of stuff is clear, but one is most interesting to me.

Denji, in his 16 years he’s lived before the start of CSM, has never felt truly loved by a human. In his entire life, all the people around him have used and abused him, and the only who didn’t and who would’ve possibly loved him died when he was too young. Denji doesn’t have any real reasons to have any attachment to Humanity. The same humanity that wronged him, made him feel like shit, that starved him for weeks, that the best it would give him was stale bread and trash food– For all we know, without Makima in the picture he probably would’ve stayed by his own after the Zombie Devil fight and probably made himself an enemy of both Devils and Humans, possibly killing a bunch of the latter (especially if Public Safety tried going after him, something that surely would’ve happened).

Anyways. This goes directly to one of the most important characters in this manga.

Pochita.

We enter the field where I could make a specific post talking about each of these characters, so I’ll try not to make it too long and just talk about his relationship with Denji and all that. Sorry if it ends up being a slog.

Pochita meets Denji right after the death of his father, and makes it so Denji isn’t alone anymore. Pochita is widely different to everyone Denji’s ever met, as he indeed is, a Devil. Denji clearly didn’t know too much about devils at this point, and so seeing one like Pochita– A little dog, bleeding out in the open and whimpering in fear– He takes the initiative in helping the little mutt in exchange for help.

Via their contract, they become each other’s first ever friend. Pochita finally fills the hole within Denji’s heart, the one of a caring person who would listen to him and make him feel loved, even if he were a mere dog; while Denji finally fulfills Pochita’s dream of having a friend to hug him, something that was impossible for him until recently as we would later on learn.

Pochita is another reason for my point of Denji not caring about humanity. His only friend, ever, was a devil. The only one who listened to him, cared about him and made him feel loved, and gave him warmth in the cold nights in his shack, and who he shared every meal with– A devil.

Finally, it is Pochita who makes one of the biggest sacrifices in the whole of Chainsaw Man. Pochita gives away his own free will, his life in a sense, for Denji’s sake. Pochita’s dream was already fulfilled, so now he merely desires to see Denji’s come to fruition, and experience those moments with him, even if Pochita isn’t really *there* anymore. Furthermore, even when the Chainsaw Devil is reawaken and Denji’s mind totally breaks, what Pochita tries to do is completely opposed to what one would think a devil like him would do. Totally opposed to what Makima would’ve expected, too.

Pochita tries to run, tries to do all of the things Denji dreamed about when they were still with each other physically, all the things Denji talked to him about. He tries to eat a burguer at a fast food place, tries to go on a date with the only girl Denji knew at the time, anything that would trigger Denji’s humanity and would bring him back.

Finally, Pochita trusts on someone else to Denji. After all his attempts are ruined, after Makima has them pinned down– Pochita locates the little bit of blood from Power, and “revives” her with that. Pochita trusts Power, because he knows Denji loves her like he loves Pochita, because he trusts that at least she could do what’s right to help their friend. And, finally, it is by Pochita’s trust on her, and Power’s own trust in Denji, that he can come back.

Something to be noted is that Pochita isn’t *dead*. He lives within Denji, talks with him in dreams, and they even somehow interact within his mind. Pochita still actively cares for what’s best for Denji, and wishes him to do what’s best for others (Like in the case of Nayuta). Pochita is, to some extent, a figure that still helps Denji out in his journey, even though he can’t be there with him anymore.

I could really write a whole different essay on Pochita as a character, but that’s for some other day. Anyways, I’m gonna leave Makima for the end, so the next character’d be–

Aki.

Aki is the first actual instance that Denji has of someone, *a human*, caring for him. Aki cooked for Denji, gave him a roof, a bed, clothing, etc. Even if it was all somewhat fabricated by Makima, Aki and Denji learned to love each other like siblings nonetheless. They sadly didn’t have too much time together, but we, as an audience, know that the time they did have was the happiest one for the both of them. Denji had a family, a brother and a sister, who cared for him and who he cared for; who watched TV with him and enjoyed having him around.

All the while, for the first time since he was a child, Aki gained a family. After all those years, he slowly stopped caring for revenge, and now only cared to make sure that those two’s lives were safe and sound, even after his inevitable death. It reached a point where he was willing to pull away from killing the Gun Devil, because he didn’t care about the mission anymore, or at least cared less about it than he did about Denji’s and Power’s wellbeings; because when he was faced with the possibility of them dying, he got scared. Afraid.

All in all, the Denji we’re seeing now in Part 2 is a lot like the Aki from Part 1. He’s keeping up a house with a devil and 8 animals, cooking, getting all the money he can get to sustain them all and pay for Nayuta’s tuiton, while having to take care of all the dogs around and such. I’d imagine that many of the things he has to do daily now would be impossible if not for the influence Aki had on his life, and the imprint he left as an actual (somewhat) responsible adult.

And again, Aki’s death feeds into Denji's guilt and current mental state directly. Even if it was most likely a lie and impossible, he may still believe that he could’ve done something to prevent it. That he could’ve saved Aki, that he could’ve reciprocated all the love and care he gave them, but didn’t. This may enter the headcanon field a bit too much, but I do believe that we’ve seen him mention Power but not Aki for a reason– Because he had closure with Power. Because he promised to find the Blood Devil and turn it into Power again. Meanwhile, the last time he saw Aki was the day he left their home and came back as a fiend. Never did he have the chance to say goodbye, to make any promise to hold to, anything. Aki left their home, the Gun Fiend came back knocking and he had to kill it. He had to give in, to lose all belief that the Aki he knew was still there, because he had to. Even thinking about him probably damages Denji like nothing else, to think of the brother he lost, the one he killed. The one person he could’ve saved.

Anyways. Aki’s character is also a deep one that I’d love to talk about some other day, so let’s keep going.

Power.

I’ve seen many people interpreting Denji and Power’s dynamic as a romantic, and while I wouldn’t *judge* people over it, it does rub me the wrong way. Because many times it is established that they do not hold any romantic feelings for each other. They do find comfort in one another like they don’t with anyone else, but it is always claimed how Denji doesn’t feel any attraction towards her like he does with the likes of Makima or Reze.

Anyways. As it is said by Power herself, Denji is her first friend. The first human to care about her in any way, to help her out even after she wronged him, fooling him to be food for the Bat Devil. Even after that, he sticked with her, ultimately finding in Power the sister he never had, someone even more fucked up and dirty and asshole-y than himself, who hid away her care for others in her own pride; but clearly needed him and Aki to persist.

It was Denji who helped Power through her PTSD of the Darkness Devil fight, while Power was one of the people who stuck with him through everything, who *cared* about Denji.

It is with her sacrifice that we can see this to the fullest extent. At that point, most of the people around him cared about the Chainsaw Man, and the Chainsaw Man only.

Devils wanted him dead because he was the Chainsaw Man. Reze, for all Denji knew, just wanted to get the Chainsaw’s heart. Makima only cared about Chainsaw Man, and thought of Denji as a repulsive insult to the Chainsaw’s “legacy” or “mystique”, of sorts.

Power cared and believed in Denji. She believed in him, she knew he could defeat the Control Devil, and she knew he could continue his life forward. Without Aki, and maybe without Power herself; because she knew Denji. She knew Denji could withstand the worst of shits and come back from it, and she believed in him to find the Blood Devil and turn into “herself” again.

And with that comes another point that I raise. Maybe also a little bit too headcanon-y, but I want to get it out.

When Devils die and are reborn, they forget their previous lives entirely. That’s why Nayuta can be raised to be a better person than what Makima was, the whole nature vs. nurture thing. Why am I bringing it up?

When the Blood Devil comes back, it won’t be Power. If Denji gets the Blood Devil to befriend him, and he gets to tell her all about her past life, it may turn into something *like* Power. Dirty, egotistical, but caring and loving of her family. But the memories won’t be there. The experiences Denji, Aki and Power had together would still only survive in Denji’s mind.

The Blood Devil may be capable of being like Power, but it isn’t capable of *being* Power. And that’s alright, because I believe that’s what Power wanted when she made her contract with Denji.

Power knew she’d die, and she knew she wouldn’t remember her past life. I believe, and remember, this may be a little too headcanon-y, but I believe that Power doesn’t plan on “coming back”. Power planned for the Blood Devil to come to Earth and learn to love, learn to live happily with a family, just like she herself did. She wants Denji to have someone there for him, someone like Power, even though Power herself isn’t really *there*. She merely wants the new Blood Devil to have the chance to experience the beautiful life Power had with Denji and Aki, because as a fiend and devil herself, she knows how great it truly is. To have people caring about you, to share your meals with others, to sleep in the same bed with no true romantic intentions. To have a family.

Now, what do we get from all of this?

First, all of these people showed and taught many things to Denji.

Aki taught him that humans can be kind and caring out of their own heart, not expecting anything in return. Pochita helped him be himself, live life at its fullest just like he dreamed for so long. And Power taught him why he shouldn’t merely chase women for romance, why and how anyone can just be your friend, or even something far beyond than a mere friend, while not being in a romantic relationship.

But most importantly, Power and Aki are what ultimately proves something to Denji; he’s human. It may’ve been said by Makima originally, and maybe it was with her that he cried for the first time, but it’s not truly the same.

He came into Public Safety doubting if he was truly human anymore, doubting if he’d ever cry for people or himself ever again. When Pochita “died”, he didn’t cry. When Himeno died, it stung, but he didn’t really care that much. He thought it’d be the same with Aki and Power, both because maybe he just didn’t have a human heart anymore, and because, who would care for those assholes?

But alas, he did care. He cared, maybe too much, just like they also cared about him. Their deaths were what broke him, what changed him, what somewhat killed Part 1’s Denji and his innocence and his persona, what birthed the more laid-back, depressed and guilty Part 2 Denji. Because he truly cared about them like no one else, because they were the world for him, because it was with them that he truly was human. In a way, Denji opened many doors, and let these people into his life, let them change him and shape how he is as a person, and even though he loved them and they loved him back, that is what made everything hurt so much in the end.

That is why he wanted to give up. Why he wanted to just die, because his life had already been too good, it had reached its peak and then it had crashed down directly to the ground. It is Power’s words and contract that rekindled something within him.

Power’s sheer belief in him was what made him want to go on. Live, and defeat the monster that had broken his family into pieces. Even though he still loved that monster, he had to keep going and defeat it, for Power’s and Aki’s sake, for his family. He couldn’t give up, because that would mean all the love the three of them shared was in vain, a mere fabrication made by someone else in a twisted game, and that just wasn’t true. Because he loved them so much, because they gave everything for each other, their bond was real, and he had to fight for it.

yeah i love the hayakawa sibs a lot. miss them too.

Anyways, we’re reaching the end (i think). there’s not many characters left for me to go over, but who knows.

Here comes a big one. I may not be the best person to describe this relationship, but I’ll try to, at least.

Reze.

Reze and Denji’s relationship is a tragic one, probably the most tragic out of Denji’s friends and such.

Reze, like Denji, was a child who was treated harshly and used by those around her, growing up as a weapon for her government, not too unlike Makima herself. It is because of that that she’s sent to take the Chainsaw Devil’s heart, and so, she meets Denji. Not the Chainsaw Man, but Denji.

She was supposed to get close to him first to take his heart, and so, she did. She met Denji, a kid awfully similar to herself, with a charming personality and level of innocence that was awfully odd on someone like himself. He merely wanted to have fun, to love, to learn– Slowly, as Reze understood more and more about Denji, she fell in love with him. In how similar they both were, how he’d always try his best to make her happy, how stupid he could be at times– But, alas, she was still a weapon of the USSR. And so, she had to do as her job commanded, and try and take the boy’s heart for using it as a weapon like herself.

It is after a long fight, in a moment where she can see how he still cares about her, even giving her his own shirt– She presented him with an option. She so deeply wanted to go away, to be left alone by Public Safety and her own countrymen, that she proposed to Denji the idea of just escaping. Leaving and never returning, something she thought he would love! Because they were so alike–

But he couldn’t. Even if he loved her so much, even if Reze meant so much for him, he couldn’t leave Public Safety like that. Not only would they find and kill him, no, he probably never thought about that too much… He couldn’t leave his family behind. He was just discovering what Aki and Power meant to him, how comforting it was to have them and a nice house to live in, and he was still in love with Makima. Even if it hurted, he couldn’t leave with Reze.

Even so, he still tried amending that. He tried to get her to meet him at their usual place, to have a normal date and maybe sort things out with Public Safety, but alas, she never showed up. And I believe this is something really important to understand about Denji’s POV;

From his perspective, Reze never came back. For all he knew, she wasn’t truly in love with him, and didn’t care to show up for their date. Denji didn’t know what really caused her to stand him up that day, and the next time he saw her– It was as a mere puppet of the Control Devil, trying to kill him. I may have the facts wrong, and I kinda hope I do because this is so fucking sad srsly I hate fujimoto– But Denji never learnt the truth. He never learnt that Reze too didn’t go to school, that she loved him, or that Makima was the real reason why she wasn’t there when she had to.

Here, Denji learns more about himself. He learns what true love is, even if at the time he hadn’t realized it yet; it is with Reze that he understands what the companionship he yearned for so long really was. Not a warped, controlling maternal love that was never reciprocated, but an actual, teenage romance of two people that are so differently similar. And it is with Reze that, for the first time, Denji has his heart broken. Maybe he turns away from it quickly, goes back to just trying to impress Makima, but that is still something that stays in a teenager’s mind, no matter how hard one tries to suppress it.

The thought of what could’ve been, of what would’ve happened if. It’s something that would nag at anyone’s head, and I imagine that it probably still hangs around Denji’s, taking into account that in Chapter 120 Nayuta mentions how “every woman he meets tries to kill him”, I do believe that may imply that he’s told her about much of his past, including Reze. Again, maybe a little too headcanon-y, but that would mean she still holds a place in his mind, which is not really far-fetched or anything, so–

Anyways! We’re coming to a close. I would love to talk about Kishibe, and do love his weird father/uncle-like relationship with Denji, but I don’t believe it holds anything too important aside from having teached a lot about Devil Hunting to Denji. I’d love to talk about it more deeply once he comes back in Part 2 and more stuff happens though! He’s easily in my top 5 CSM characters lmao

Anyways. Here comes the big one.

Makima.

Makima is to Denji many things.

His first love, his greatest opponent, a mother, the person that gave him a purpose and then shred it into pieces.

In a way, they’re similar. They both were confused, lost children once, that needed help and care from others. It took Denji long before he got it, but he did; and that saved him. Makima, on the other hand, never truly had it. She grew up a weapon, someone who couldn’t understand companionship that wasn’t formed by control and manipulation, and so she seeked for someone of her caliber, someone at her own level. That someone was the Chainsaw Devil, the only one who posed a substantial threat to those like her, the Horsemen.

She fantasized and dreamt of the Chainsaw Devil, as her equal, as the one who could give her her perfect world, or, if not, that would give her the most honorable of deaths.

But Makima never understood the Chainsaw Devil. How it never wanted to harm, to kill; it only ever wanted friends and affection, just like she did. Maybe she never realized, because she held it so highly, but the Chainsaw Devil was the most human of devils.

But the one who understood the Chainsaw was Denji. He understood Pochita, and gave him a house, food, warmth, protection, and a friend. He gave him lots of hugs, and pats, and always shared with him, and always talked about the dreams that Pochita loved to hear about.

Makima couldn’t begin to understand that. She never once saw the Chainsaw Devil as Pochita, but as the Hero of Hell. She was jealous, jealous of a kid who was similar to her, but who could get that affection and connection with her idol, her equal. She couldn’t begin to understand the Chainsaw Devil as anything but almighty and powerful, as a beast of destruction, one that kills any that it finds on its path.

Makima gave too much to Denji. She gave him a home, food, a family and friends… She gave him hope. She tried to take it away, but she couldn’t. His relationships with those around him were far too strong for them to be broken like that.

Denji, finally, killed Makima. But everything was still too hard for him, because after everything, he truly loved her. She used him, manipulated him; killed everyone important to him, even weaponized them. But she gave him everything he ever wanted, she gave him his first hug, his first bowl of udon…

Many people loved Makima mindlessly, because of her powers. Aki doesn’t remember *why* he even loved her, and the fiends only remember her “saving” them. The Hybrids too, were clearly mindless as she used them, the Katana Man, Reze and Quanxi all having many reasons to despise her to the core, but her control was just that powerful.

Maybe it influenced Denji to a point too, but something is clear. Denji truly loved Makima. He wasn’t controlled, at least for most of it, like the others. He had reasons to love her, many in fact. All of them may have been fabricated, acted, a lie– But they still were there, and he still remembers all of them. Denji was the only person to truly and wholeheartedly love Makima, but she never cared about that. She merely cared about Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil, who in return merely loved Denji.

Makima hasn’t left Denji’s mind yet, and she probably never will. Because he HAS to remember her, remember all that he went through, for the sake of the ones that died, and for Nayuta’s sake. To be sure she never ends up like that, to be sure she knows she’s loved.

Makima traumatized him like nothing else in his life. The Gun Fiend attack, the memory of his father’s death coming back, Power’s own death, Reze never showing up for their date, etc. All of it was her fault, and he may stop loving her some day, he may already have; but he will never stop remembering all of those moments. How sad, pitiful and broken he felt, how depressed he may have been, how guilty he still is. All of it is her fault.

Yeah. I’m a dramatic bitch.

Anyways, now I should talk more about Part 2’s characters and their relationships with Denji, but I believe that’s best to do some other day, when Part 2 ends or is reaching a conclusion.

I will say, though. Asa is a perfect fit for him, and I truly want to see them learn and grow together, because Denji really deserves *someone* that won’t die on dissapear on him now. Yoshida is a mystery, truly; and I cannot for the life of me decipher what the hell is going to happen with that asshole.

And his relationship with Nayuta is really cute and I love them, but I feel like the way he treats her is probably going to backfire eventually. Not a Makima 2, but something else; that they can solve at the end and so they won’t have to repeat the cycle of just killing the Control Devil and trying again on its next life.

anyways if you read through all of this 1. youre kinda cool 2. you may like to read some other stuff (?!) hit up my AO3 i have a lot of CSM fanfiction there https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddd11

#csm #csm denji #denji hayakawa #csm spoilers #power csm #aki hayawaka #aki csm #makima csm #reze csm #csm rambles #character essay #i think idk

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elean0rarose · 1 year

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Author Ask Tag Game

Thank you @daughter-of-inklings for the questions!

I'm putting this below a cut because wow, it ended up getting really long, but read on if you're interested in me rambling about my WIP, my writing process, what inspires me to write, and what I aim for in my writing.

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

In everything that I write, the takeaway is that ordinary people and underdogs can do remarkable things. You should never doubt the power of determination, grit, and the sort of resolve that comes from having nothing to lose.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

I draw inspiration from all sorts of places, but usually it comes from the knowledge I have of medieval Europe (which I want to learn more about—I have so many books on it I want to buy), Ancient Greek mythology and religious practice, other fantasy media, and fashion.

I like to create mood boards and have started a Pinterest again to hoard bits of visual culture that speak to me. This really helps me for things like character design.

I do also get inspired by music. One of my stories, and so the worldbuilding that arose from that idea, was inspired by NFWMB by Hozier.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

I'll speak about Blood and Water here, my novel-in-progress. Braddik, the MC, is on the surface simply looking for his long-lost father who he has never met. But underneath this is a yearning for meaning and to locate the self. Braddik as a character struggles to know who he is, and he misguidedly believes he can find that in another person who he has idealised in his own imaginings of him.

What I'm trying to achieve with Braddik is quite a bit, when I think about it. The aforementioned themes of ordinary people being able to do great things is on there, because he sets out on a continent-wide journey on his quest for family. But I'm also trying to show that these idealised fantasies we have aren't all they're cracked up to be when we get close to them.

Finally, I'm also trying to represent in fiction what it is like to have paranoia—like, not anxiety, but actual psychotic paranoia—because I think that's severely lacking. Whether he's right or wrong about things is inconsequential. It's more about how it affects him and his relationship with others and the world. It is neither a positive nor a negative, it just is, and there is no need to cure him as a plot point because that's not the story I'm trying to tell

How many chapters is your story going to have?

I have no idea. I kinda just write and see where it takes me—I'm absolutely a pantser. Then I'll figure out how things should be grouped up for chapters in the edits.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

All original content. My short stories are going out for submission in speculative fiction magazines, but I'm struggling to get my foot in the door at the moment because it's very competitive. When I finally finish the novel, I hope to have a few shorts published to help me get into trad publishing. It's a big dream, but we've all gotta have dreams, right?

When and why did you start writing?

I've written mainly non-fiction throughout my life, so imagine my surprise last year when I started writing fiction! It was the turning time between spring and summer, and my novel idea just... came to me. I had the first two lines rattling around my head for a few days while on holiday, so one morning when I got up earlier than everyone else, I wrote them down and then just didn't stop writing. It didn't take long to fall in love with it after that.

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

I follow waaaay too many people to list them all but I'll tag some below to take part in this and you can go check 'em out! I'm not too sure what is meant by "words of engagement", but if you mean encouragement, then I'll say this:

Write. Write because your brain bleeds stories and your fingers ache for the touch of a keyboard. Write because it sustains you more than bread ever could. Write because it is your deepest desire unlocked and spilled onto a page. Write because this is what you dream of, because it is your most enduring love. Write.

I'm tagging, with the usual caveats, @sometimesraven @callahanscorner and @mundanemoongirl. Others feel free to take part even if you're not tagged!

Your questions are:

What was your first ever story idea? What happened to it?

What's your writing routine?

Are you a plotter, a pantser, or something in between?

Do you try to tell moral stories throughout your work, or any other life lessons? What are they?

What do you prefer, character development or worldbuilding? Why?

Do you have any tips for budding writers?

Who inspires you to write the most?

#eleanora has thoughts #tag games

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otakween · 2 months

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Head Start at Birth - Chapters 1-10

This one popped up on MAL suddenly because the JP title begins with a "0." Always excited to read/watch something new for a change, but this looks kinda bottom tier. Not only is it an incredibly generic plot, but its adaptation is a short episodes anime 😬

ALSO, this manga is being sold in the west as chapters and in the Webtoon style? I'm old school and kinda hate this. Why can't I just buy volumes?

Ch. 1

Oof this is so generic. I'm trying to give it a chance but the cliches are too much. The art is...fine but not very memorable. At least it's in color.

The mom got over her 3 year old making land management recommendations waaaay too quickly.

>_> Is that much older looking dude the love interest? I'm gonna throw up.

Lilia was 30 when she got isekai'd so I guess I'm supposed to be the target audience here? I feel like if I was in her position I wouldn't be like "YEAH, LET'S LEVEL UP!" I'd be like "YEAH! A CHANCE TO BE A KID AGAIN AND GOOF OFF!"

I feel like they vaguely implied that the mom is an evil capitalist (monarchist?) since she won't give people tax relief. That could be something interesting to explore...

Ch. 2

Reslar (the dragon) sounds suspiciously close to Rizzler lol

They introduce 3 age appropriate boys and then she immediately falls for the older guy. I get that she has the mind of a 30 year old but it's still weird. They'll probably go the "he waits until she's older" route. Whatever -_-

I was pleased that Lilia's parents stayed on her side as she was slightly rude to the royals. Their loyalties are in the right place at least.

Why does every shoujo isekai gotta be fixated on otome games and villainesses? It's honestly so bizarre how keyword obsessed media is these days...

Ch. 3

Yeah so, this is a romance isekai where the MC is 5 and the love interest is 15 🙄 I get that it's kinda based on the olden days when engagements like that were normal due to political marriages, but still. We don't really need to be romanticizing this stuff nowadays, right? Especially when it's a fantasy world where everything's made up and the points don't matter. Oh well.

This situation reminds me of The Familiar of Zero when Louise had a much older fiancé. Although in that series I think it was kind of portrayed as a little creepy/unsettling. Wow never thought I'd be praising The Familiar of Zero as a more progressive option 😅

I do appreciate that the dad (Guy) is ride or die for his daughter, but the joke about him thinking she'd been raped was a little tasteless.

We have yet to see what the plot of this series is going to be. Is it going to follow the romance angle mainly or is it going to be more about Lilia's personal development?

Ch. 4

Lilia's mom looks a lot like she stepped out of Umineko no Naku Koro ni. It's probably just the cravat lol.

We learn about Elrich's tragic backstory (his parents were executed for treason). Unfortunately, it didn't really make him a more interesting character. I had hoped he'd have at least some sort of reaction to the engagement but he's pretty much just "bland perfect husbando" so far.

The sex fantasy was something I could have lived without. Straight to jail.

Hopefully we can get an Elrich chapter here and there to flesh him out. I don't care how much he looks like Lilia's fave otome game character.

Ch. 5

I was wary of the parents at first, but they seem to actually be really good parents? Also, Lilia's mom is super politically smart too (girl boss lol). I guess the doting dad thing is basically just a stock character, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Glad the spirits get to show some actually emotion for once (well, Reslar does anyways).

I do like that Lilia is more focused on her ambitions than Elrich. She just happens to also be really horny for Elrich lol (I'm sorry...that's how it's portrayed).

Ch. 6

Okay, I'm kinda getting into this >_> it's just shoujo isekai brain rot basically but the art is so cute and it's been a long time since I've read a manga in full color

Dressing in your fiancé's color is so romantic ;w; (although I guess people don't always have signature colors irl lol).

The dynamic between mom and Lilia both being badass boss babes gives me Yor/Anya vibes because of the ages haha.

That gothic look with the princess curls was serving (werk)

Ch. 7

Urgh my anime arch nemesis appears...head pats. I don't think they're cute at all, I think they're weird and demeaning. (Even if I was 5 years old I think I'd be like "get your hand off my head" lol). I still don't know if this is a thing Japanese people do IRL or not.

Lillia being instantly OP at everything she tries is pretty boring, this manga could use more conflict right about now.

Ch. 8

I like the princes' names (Isaac, Leonard, and Ferdinand). IDK if it would be better or worse if Lilia went for one of them instead. You can't win with rebirth scenarios lol

Ch. 9

Wtf, the spirits get ikemen versions? I can get on board with that actually. Some of my OCs are fantasy creatures with human versions actually...

"This is like having a sister" (file under: objectively weird things to say about your fiancé)

I can relate to Lilia's inability to relax. Productivity is fun to me 😅

Ch. 10

Still no ikemen Reslar, I'm surprised by the mangaka's restraint lol.

Wait how did people even learn about Lilia's dissertation? I thought they were keeping it on the down low.

The hedgehog spirit was cute. I'm glad they spared it lol

Lilia's spirits are just as OP as her of course -_- -yawn-

Well this was pretty forgettable, but it's a fluffy popcorn kinda read, so I'm not complaining. It's a bit unnerving having no idea how long a series will stretch to in these early stages. Hopefully this isn't a 100+ chapters one...

#head start from birth #manga #I'm pretty sure no one cares about this series but oh well #0-saiji start dash monogatari

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sweetdreamer215 · 5 months

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Book Review: Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig

Title: One Dark Window

Author: Rachel Gillig

Genre: Gothic Romance (was not surprised this time)

Format: e-book

When read Nov 2023- Dec 1, 2023

First thoughts: Oh look the MC is back (there was a cliff hanger in the last one that I'm trying not to spoil so I'll put any spoilers for One Dark Window under the Keep Reading)

The story's prologue is in Elspeth, the female lead from the last main character and the chapter title says Elspeth. She is floating in some void and being told she needs to stay asleep a little longer. To be honest I should have realized that it changed character's POV from this but the last book was all in Elspeth's POV so it was a little disorienting to go into the male lead Ravyn's POV.

Ravyn has the same issue as Elspeth, and while Elspeth is very bland Ravyn has a little more personality if just towards edgelord, but to be fair to him he's just potentially lost the "love of his life." Which to be fair was kinda like wait how did they decide they liked each other in the last book so it feels even more ehhh. It was designed to be a slow burn romance but I feel the "I actually like him" part of Elspeth's point of view was lacking, you could see Ravyn liking Elspeth but Elspeth liking him back was not as prevalent. I do like Elspeth and Ravyn the more I read them and their points of view, like Elspeth is clever but her personality isn't fully out there (though it is more in this book). Ravyn is all about his goal and protectiveness and sacrifice, which is great but also very traditional male lead.

Ravyn talking to the Nightmare (the spirit in the card that Elspeth had absorbed) is on a quest to find Elspeth and to get the card of the Twin Alders before the solstice to cure the kingdom of the mist/dark magic affecting it.

While this is happening we are switching point of views from Ravyn, to Elspeth (which was surprising), to Elm (Ravyn's cousin and the brother of the wicked Crown prince). Those three are the POV we get the most.

To be honest I found Elm's story more interesting than Ravyn's or Elspeth's and I'm going to put the Keep Reading here to go into detail because small spoiler warning! A part of One Dark Window will be spoiled (aka What happens to Elspeth) and some small spoilers to Two Twisted Crowns

There are three major arcs to this story following Elm, Ravyn, and Elspeth, and from these point of views we gain knowledge of the Nightmare's past and Ione's (Elspeth's cousin who was engaged to the crown prince in the last book) story.

Elspeth had been locked away in her own mind in the last book as she was slowly losing control of her body by using Nightmare's magic until he was the only one left. She is currently floating in his consciousness where Nightmare knows she is there but can't find her. Her major arc is learning the past of the kingdom and Nightmare's past.

Ravyn's story is following Ravyn, his female cousin, the people who travel with him, and the Nightmare going into the woods to find the spirit of the forest to trade for the Twin Alders card. The entire point being to collect one of each card to sacrifice that and the blood of someone who is affected by magic/the mist, that will get rid of the mist. Why is he wanting to do this? The entire kingdom has been hoping for that to happen for years but the Twin Alder and Nightmare cards being missing has always stopped them. That and the king keeps killing anyone affected by magic. The only exception is his nephew (Ravyn's brother) whom he plans on sacrificing to save his nephew, who is slowly losing his mind and dying, from a painful death. Ravyn and Elm wish to save their brother/cousin. With Elspeth being absorbed into the nightmare Ravyn's other goal is to find a way to save the love of his life and bring her back from the Nightmare's consciousness.

Elm is trying to find a way to help and save his cousin who is like a brother to him, and deal with his father (the King) who is going insane with the Nightmare taking over and his son (the Crown Prince) being in a coma. Elm has to play double agent again from the King for his cousin Ravyn. He wished to go with Ravyn but wasn't allowed by the Nightmare and his own father, and he knew that it was better to not go as he is now "temporary crown prince." He is told to find Elspeth and other people who could be hiding in their old house. He goes there and finds Ione, Elspeth's cousin and the fiancé of his brother. She is still under the effect of her card which makes her unemotional as the price but she gains a beauty beyond all compare (Elspeth calls it a vain card). During this Elm finds out that his brother used his card to force her to use hers and hide her card so she had no access to it. So she would be beautiful and unemotional, he then made her forget where she hid it. The two of them become "engaged" because the engagement promise for the Nightmare card that Ione's father promised said a crown prince, not his brother. We learn that his brother is just a piece of work to everyone, not just to Ione, he lives for torture and would torture Elm when he was younger. The love story between Ione and Elm was much more vibrant and felt natural as they worked together to do their goals. I loved reading their story especially with the ending the both of them got.

Ione loves her cousin dearly, and its great that this is shown in this book. She loves her family and would do anything for the, but can't feel emotion due to her card so she seems cold and callous to Elspeth in the last book and they are misunderstanding each other. Ione feels that Elspeth is looking down on her as Elspeth is traditionally pretty and Ione is "plain." Elspeth loves the flaws in Ione and doesn't fully know how to explain herself as she's been hiding everything she is for almost her entire life.

Nightmare has a great story arc shown through both Ravyn and Elspeth. I don't want to give any spoilers for who Nightmare is (though its kind of obvious) and I'M STILL UPSET ELSPETH DOESN'T FALL IN LOVE WITH THE VOICE IN HER HEAD! Don't get me wrong I do like Ravyn and Elspeth together but they're not fully compelling characters and Elm and Ione is a much better ship in my opinion. Nightmare has seen the beginning of the Kingdom to the fall of its first king and the first Rowan king. He wants the fall of the Rowan line and is working with Ravyn because 1. he likes Elspeth, living in the girl's head for way too many years made him fond of her and 2. by working with Ravyn he can get his wish.

Finals thoughts: I don't know how I felt about the epilogue, but that may be just a me thing cause lately all these epilogues have felt very fanfiction (HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU HARRY POTTER 7 AND NARUTO). It was interesting but parts were easily over foreshadowed. I did like this one a lot more than I liked book one and to be honest it felt like both books should have been combined into one. Especially with book one ending on a cliffhanger! As a whole thoughts: I loved the magic system and world building of this world. The Shepherd King had some great world building and some surprises. Some of the Characters feel a little bland in the personality area or trope-y in the personality area but I liked them. Elspeth takes a little bit to warm up to, Ravyn is a traditional male lead (and this may be due to Elspeth's POV that there is really no other way to describe him but protective with a dark aura). Elm and Ione take the center stage of them doing a slow burn romance done right. I know I jokingly call it the twelve days of christmas tarot but its the perfect way to describe the card magic.

I would recommend reading as a duology if you want a gothic/dark romance and a fun magic system. This book is heavily needed for the first book so if you felt the first one wasn't complete this completes the circle.

Ratings:

Characters: 4 out of 5 stars

Plot: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Writing: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

#Two Twisted Crowns #One dark window #the Shepherd king #Rachel Gillig #Book Review #Book Club #But not really one of the ones we were reading #November 2023 #December 2023 #feel free to join our book club #spoilers #some spoilers #booktok

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1d1195 · 1 year

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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THE NEWEST PART TO PROTECTION IS FGE BEST ONE YET FOR TGE SERIES! I cried to this because I resonated so much with it!?! Yes it was definitely sad and angsty but this is so good for the plot! The Rose nickname having that meaning absolutely BROKE ME because one it’s such a good analogy or whatever you call it and two it’s so fucked up that they call her that!

Also we found out about her mom which was even more heartbreaking because you could tell she actually loved her and how much it pains her. I hope we can get more details about their relationship later on!

My boy Harry is so adorable and falling HARD for her! I would cry if someone called me a wildflower and explained like that! He’s so sweet and all your Harry’s have given the MC with the cutest nicknames and it just makes me want to be given one!

The daddy issues really popped out on this one! But I love it because as a fellow girlie with daddy issues I feel seen! And after the phone call and her explaining how much of a dick her dad is made me so angry for her! But I’m glad she is being way more vulnerable with Harry and I feel like she may think she’s scaring him away BUT she’s only making him fall harder and I absolutely love how slow burn this is! Their dynamic is changing so beautifully even if it’s kinda sad.

Also that opening of the chapter in Niall’s POV was so GOOD! I loved it actually and how we got to see it through his eyes and inner thoughts! It was cute! Hopefully it we can see it another time and maybe with him seeing how Harry and the MC act around each other 👀

I can’t wait for more, I’m very excited!!! I need it now! You’re so talented! This was a great chapter💜!

Also could I be 💜 anon if that’s something you do and if it’s available?

I was quite proud of my little flower analogies, I won’t lie 🙈 I def should have put more of a warning on the daddy issues in this part but it’s alright. It’ll come back around. I’m very sorry I made you cry! It’s cool it resonated with you so much! I feel for you.

The Niall POV was a spur of the moment decision. Idk if he’ll come back around for another POV moment but you never know!

You are so endlessly kind to say all these sweet things I’m so VERY glad you enjoyed it. You can ABSOLUTELY be the 💜-anon I don’t think I have that one, I did a quick look and didn't find it. I would LOVE to have you!

Thank you so much for reading and sending a message! It made my day and you're so very lovely!

xoxo

#💜#protection

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jojo0303 · 2 years

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Some things to expect for Gilbert's route in no particular order and for no particular reason.

Eyepatch=Heterochromia=Yandere? Unless he doesn't have heterochromia and they consider Keith's "eye color change" between softKeith and darkKeith to be the yandere aspect of this game and Gilberts eye is normal, he just uses it for the villain baddie aesthetic. Yeah. I could see him do that.

Kidnapping attempts. Lot's of them.

Emotional damage.

CaneBert = GunBert confirmed?

Unconventional uses of a cane…? (take that as you will)

Lots of murder😊

Biting. Lots of biting. And hickeys probably too. Establishing dominance through marking. He's a wannabe vampire. (Is the concept of vampires even a thing in this time?🤔)

Tragic backstory. Hit me hard Cybrid.

Confused Mc. Like is this dude lying or does he hate lies? Does he really like me or just wants to get close to me to f me up (in both ways).

By chapter 15 things are gonna start to get real. Like, I know that this is Gil that we're talking about so shits gonna be real from the first chapter but at 15 it's gonna hit the messed up mark. I expecte this route to be darker than this mans color palette.

Stressed Mc.

Choking scene. Yay or nay. Really depends on the context for some. But it's always gonna be yay for me, cuz I love me some messed up shit.

Sariel complaining about headaches. Do I need to explain why?

Concerned baby boy Rio. Rightfully so, I would say.

Complicated diplomatic stuff.

Going to Obsidian, probably via kidnapping but still. Cybrid you better make those Obsidian backgrounds. I wanna see what's up. I wanna see the room of this Emo/Goth Twilight lover boy.

Going to Obsidian, at the end. And actually staying there.

Yves involvement in something? I dunno, maybe some kinda blackmail stuff like they did in his route but different obviously. I hope my boy gets his time to shine even if just slightly. He's not one of my favs but I think he is very unappreciated and seeing him play a bigger role in Gils route of all them would be awesome.

Tea party with the three new princes. darkKeith, not the soft one cuz he wouldn't be near Gilbert unless it was mandatory. Or maybe he would just to be polite. I dunno.

Many trips to the kitchen to make food cuz he is an hungry boy. Really sticking to the tiger aspect on that one given that a pet tiger needs to eat at least, 6 kilos of meat per day. (Don't quote me on this very quick research I did)

Angry Gilby go brrrrrr

People avoiding Mc like the plague. Mc knowing that it's his fault but not wanting to blame him and Gilbert knowing it's his fault but it's convenient for him cause more time with his girl.

A d*ck measurement contest between Gil and Cheva. Rivalry to the max. Alpha males in action. A whole ass national geographic documentary on these fighting tigers. I wanna see blood.

They usually do one ending with Leon as king and another one with Chev when the route in question involves someone that either refuses to be prince or just can't. Gilbert ain't gonna forgive us in the Cheva ending.

Sexy CG.

It has been mentioned several times that Gilbert hates Mcs type of woman. Why? Is it because they're more difficult to break? Has he had someone like this screw with him? Is this "hate" disguising a "like" and Chev has just been reading him wrong? Because if so then Gilbert is even more mysterious than we thought.

Baby boy just wants to be loved🥺. And he knows that in his position only someone with an unbreakable and strong spirit like Emma would be able to do this, so he is toying and testing her.

Maybe it's just me, but I wanna see him cry. Because Angst. Even tho Emma will be the one that cries.

They've mentioned poison far too many times for me to not think that one of us is going to get poisoned. It would also paralel that one Chev ending.

Trampling. Get those killer boots working king.

Mansplain, Manipulate, Manslaughter 💅

Some crazy stuff with the emperor or whatever I can't remember but Gil says he's not as ruthless as him(the emperor) so aparently he his the big daddy of evilness.

Some Luke involvement? Since they share a background, it would be interesting.

The Bloodstained Day from Gils perspective.

Sexy CG. Please.

Figuring out how he gets undressed with all that stuff on. Sir, is that for protection? A bulletproof vest in the making?

Undressing Gilbert.

G string gloves. I want them to be relevant somehow.

Gil eating Clavis deserts. He likes them. He is crazy.

Murder spree stopped bcs Emma does some hope speech or surprises him in some way.

Is this the route where Mc is gonna have to fight? I want this Mc to be such a baddie. Like she's scared but she still has the backbone to talk to him like she would to Silvio. Hopefully she slowly grows to be less and less scared of him until she reaches that point. But of course there's gonna be some big thing happening that will break her down. Cause angst.

Maybe war? I think it will probably happen but the time that's spent in that could be time spent with Gilbert so maybe not?

We're gonna need a lot of interactions to understand and be simping for this man (the MC will, we players already are), so expect every chapter packed with Gilbert interactions. Especially bcs he is needy af.

Jealousy. Towards Chev. Maybe they'll play it off like in that one event where Mc and Chev are already close so gil has one more reason to steal her away. Remember this act starts in the middle of our time as Belle.

Because of that I feel like a good amount of stuff will happen after she chooses the king. But the bigger ones will come before. They're either going to have a lot of stuff happening in one day that spreads out through multiple chapters or they're gonna do this. Maybe a little bit of both.

They danced in the prologue didn't they? I want that to happen again.

This man is gonna force you to go everywhere and mixing that with your studies as Belle and always having to pull a facade, she's gonna be tired. So maybe a repeat of Gilpillow. Pillowbert? Maybe some cuddles.

Sexy CG. I want it.

Are we going to see Gils guest room? Or maybe they'll just recolor it like they did with Emma's room in Bentoite.

Gilbert scolding Silvio for his lack of manners but he is also kinda gay for him. The man said it himself, gender doesn't matter to me.

Don't know what happened in that event where the g string gloves come off and Gilbert is a stray cat out in the rain, but if there is something that is relevant to the story pls tell me ( and tell me what happened in that event while you're at it👀)

Suprised pikabert. Gilbachu? This sounds coursed when said out loud.

He wears red eyeliner. Will we get to put it on for him?

Feeding Gilbert.

This route better make me cry.

MC and Gil reading together. Imagine him just giving her some random obscure Obsidian book and just staring at her as she gets excited.

You know he is gonna use it to blackmail her but who cares really?

MC librarian in Obsidian.

If MC is the one that convinces Gil or the emperor or whoever, to form ties with rhodolite so that they can benefited from the land than she's gonna be the nations sweetheart. She saved them all so they'll have no problem having her as queen ☺️

Gilbert and kids interactions.

Maybe he has siblings or something.

I just wanna see him do a magic trick for the kids. And they all go wahh!

Thank God he is a man cuz if he was a woman performing a magic trick in the streets in this time, the kids would go wahh for another reason...

Gilbert pulling a sausage out of his clothes. Context is needed for this one but without the context it is also appreciated.

Please dont let him be the ninth lost brother of rhodolite.

Sariel should have given this man (king) a condom if he didn't want so many headaches.

He's gonna be the only child. He's deemed to be alone. It's why he likes kids. They're the little bros and sisters he never had.

A random kid just ask if they're in a relationship and Gilbert says yes. Of course he does.

And the they ask them to kiss.

Ah that's right, pecks on the cheeks. Apparently Gilbert likes to ask for those so...

Give me a sexy CG for god's sake.

And last but not least: Gifbert.

This was way longer than expected.

Feel free to add anything.

#ikemen prince #ikemen prince gilbert #ikepri #ikemen ouji #gilbert von obsidian #ikepri gilbert

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246sn · 3 years

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mc enemiez! ( ✶ ) chapter 28 : tug of war // word count: 2.2k

⸝⸝ SYNOPSIS ‎𐪆 despite jungwon being a #humble leader, he was kinda salty about the fact that his almighty title of the “youngest leader in k-pop” has been taken by blackpink’s brand new juniors. the world goes against jungwon’s wishes in staying as far away from her as possible when they both end up being the new mcs for ‘the show’. ₊˚✸ ༘

⸝⸝ WARNING ‎𐪆 some swearing … and angst? idk lol

“if everything goes well, promise me you’ll invite me to hang out with you all after school?” were the words that rang inside your head ever since jiyeon left for school.

you really hoped everything could go well. reject sunghoon nicely, just like what jihye said, and tell jungwon about your feelings the next day hopefully even today if you saw him.

the rest of the story is below!

to cut the glitch :')

the view outside your car’s window was the hybe building in all of its glory.

it was sort of surprising that the first time you ever visited hybe was not because of jungwon but because of sunghoon.

as your car neared closer to hybe, you couldn’t help but feel nervous about what was going to happen.

you weren’t sure on how to reject someone and you weren’t sure if you should’ve notified jungwon about this meeting before you even came.

thinking it would’ve been the safer option, you obviously didn’t tell jungwon about your whereabouts. besides, you two weren’t really a couple so it would be fine for you to hang out with a friend… who you were going to reject.

as the car halted right before the entrance, you took a deep breath to calm down the obvious nerves you had.

“i’ll just be here. call me once you want to get picked up.” your manager said through the window before driving off, probably to find a driving spot.

maybe you should’ve also told your manager that you weren’t actually here to practice your lines for tomorrow's show with jungwon but it was easier for you to convince him this way.

though it didn’t matter anymore, once you stepped foot and took that first breath of hybe, it felt somewhat illegal to be in another company’s building.

hybe sort of reminded you of a five-star hotel, which you guessed was good since it was probably very clean.

barely ten steps into the building, you see sunghoon already waiting for you nearby with a wide smile on his face.

“you came.” he said, almost relieved at that fact.

“we did agree on this, sunbae. i couldn’t bail on you.”

with that, he led you to where you suppose enhypen’s practice room is while making a lot of small talk which evidently turned into full on conversations.

once he opened the door, you were surprised at how part of the practice room was transformed into a weird makeshift picnic area.

a bunch of random blankets and even a sleeping bag were used instead of a picnic blanket. there was also an assortment of restaurant delivery bags and boxes instead of a picnic basket.

“at least he got the good kind of 1 litre soda… but he forgot the cups.” you thought to yourself.

sunghoon scratched his head in embarrassment after looking at how bad his execution actually was.

he wasn’t sure if you were judging this or taking a mental picture to laugh at it later.

maybe a part of him even forgot that you were a yg girl that’s used to living a lavish lifestyle.

“i promise i planned this weeks ago. it’s just that the execution part was a little rough…” he tried to defend himself which only made you laugh.

“it’s fine! i actually think i like it a little. it shows your creativity, you know?”

sunghoon knew it was a joke but he did feel a little bit better about himself after your reassurance before you both took a seat on the blankets.

you looked around, admiring enhypen’s big practice room. maybe a part of you even wondered if you could watch jungwon practice here in the future.

however, those daydreams would need to come again another time as sunghoon is sitting next to you, probably admiring your beauty or something.

“you or wonie should give me a tour of this building soon. it’s huge! especially this practice room, jiyeon would simply scream if she were in here.”

“yeah, i could totally tour you later. i need to tell you something though, well you probably already know-“

you didn’t know what went on in your brain when you panicked and thought the best idea was to cut him off with, “hey, sunghoon. where’s the bathroom?”

“what?”

“uhm the bathroom.”

“oh! once you go out, turn left then right at the end of the hallway.”

“thank you and sorry, let’s just continue this conversation once i return.”

“sure, no problem.”

you rushed out of the practice room after that. though your mind and heart was already set on jungwon, you couldn’t help but feel bad for sunghoon.

he seemed like the type to cringe at romantic things so seeing his creativity and hard work with the random sleeping bag, blankets, and take out seemed very applaudable.

you couldn’t remember which way the bathroom was so you turned right and then left once you reached the end of the hallway.

“reject him nicely, he’s too pretty to hurt.” were the words you muttered to yourself on repeat.

as you neared a certain room, you heard muffled voices of two boys yelling.

you knew it was bad to eavesdrop but it did help you forget about the stress you were under with the sunghoon rejection.

“i’m telling you, she wouldn’t like this!”

“how does she not like cool concepts like this?”

“do you even know her? she obviously likes cute concepts!”

“how would you know? you held her hand once and then insulted her, her members, and her company!”

you placed your ear next to the door to hear what the other guy was going to say to that.

how would he know? does he have a secret relationship with her? what’s going on?

“we’re friends… but still.. it doesn’t matter..! she won’t like it!”

“that’s it! we’re changing concepts since you keep complaining! you’re lucky i put a lot of thought into this. i’ll get a drink first. you want something?”

before you could hear the other guys response, the door suddenly opened which made you fall onto his chest.

“y/n?”

you look up with wide eyes to see an exasperated jungwon looking down at you.

“now i hate this, hyung…”

he looked back at niki, who was checking out the next outfit he was going to wear from jungwon’s bag.

“wear it otherwise i’m going to confiscate your phone.”

niki groaned while looking at you with a look that could only scream “please save me”.

with that, you grabbed jungwon’s hand and pulled him into the hallway before intertwining your fingers together.

“what were you and niki doing in there?”

“oh nothing… just taking pictures for the fans, that’s all.” he explains before using his free hand to put your hair behind your ear.

“well jiyeon’s a huge enhypen fan and i know what clothes she wishes you guys would wear so if you want i could help you in styling.” you begin before tip toeing to whisper in his ear.

“that outfit niki is holding is something even she doesn’t want to see on…” your eyes followed niki as he tried sneaking away from jungwon.

“he’s walking away, isn’t he? i’m going to make him wear the worst outfits imaginable if he isn’t here in 3…”

“one…”

“two…”

“what? uh… no!” you said in a panicked state before watching niki run back into the room he was just in.

“thr-“

“y/n! there you are!”

your head immediately turned to sunghoon who was smiling right when he saw you.

you noticed how his smile fell and was soon replaced with an irritated look once he noticed jungwon and how he was holding your hand.

“jungwon.”

“sunghoon hyung.”

“y/n and i better get going. we planned to spend the whole day together, right?”

sunghoon took your free hand and tried to tug you away from jungwon who didn’t let go but instead pulled you back towards him.

“y/n offered to help me with something. maybe she could spend time with you next time.”

“the only reason why she’s here right now is because we planned on hanging out together.”

“well plans could change and now is the perfect case of that.”

“y/n shouldn’t be forced into something you clearly decided on once you saw me.”

as their argument gradually heated up, their grips on your hands tightened while each pull of your arms had more force than the last.

you glance at niki, who seemed to be too occupied on his phone to mind whatever was going on, hoping for help as the two boys pulled you like a very intense game of tug of war.

all of a sudden, the grips on your hands loosened and before you knew it, jungwon had already lunged at sunghoon who had begun fighting back.

it took you a few minutes to actually comprehend what was going on, maybe it was a bad thing that you tuned them out for a little while.

right when you came to your senses, you noticed how jungwon was already about to punch sunghoon right across the jaw.

“jungwon, no!”

thankfully, niki ran to hold him back while you struggled to pull sunghoon away.

“if she really cared about you, she’d at least tell you she was coming to meet me!”

“shut the fuck up or you’d seriously regret it!”

sunghoon merely scoffed as he pulled out of your already loosened grip and walked closer to jungwon who was already fighting to get away from niki.

“is that all you could say, jungwon? are you just going to give me empty threats the rest of the day?”

jungwon shoves niki away before immediately grabbing sunghoon by the collar.

“i’m pretty fucking confident that she cares about me. you don’t even know half of the things we’ve done together.”

“i bet you two didn’t do much considering she still chose to be with me.” he said while shoving jungwon’s hands away from him.

you weren’t exactly sure why you did what you did but getting in between a fight means just that, right?

right as jungwon tried to make his next move on sunghoon, you’ve already stormed in between them.

“that’s enough! the two of you! if this is all just going to be about me choosing which one of you i’m going to go out with, i’ve made my decision. i’m not going to choose either of you!”

with that one single sentence, their guards were down, especially jungwon. he seemed absolutely defeated.

jungwon tried holding your hand but you pulled it away as quickly as you could.

“you. i really thought that you were better than this, jungwon. hell, i was supposed to tell you that i liked you tomorrow! imagine how stupid i am to think i could give you a chance when you’re fighting over me as if i’m some toy your older brother stole from you.”

sunghoon noticed how torn jungwon looked after you told him that. he couldn’t imagine the pain and the heartbreak jungwon must’ve felt after realizing that the girl he likes doesn’t want to be with him anymore.

that was the weirdest part, sunghoon couldn’t imagine how jungwon must’ve felt.

it left him confused, of course. knowing he wouldn’t have gotten a chance either way should’ve left him as broken as jungwon was right now but why didn’t he feel affected by this?

“park sunghoon.” we’re the words that broke sunghoon from his thoughts.

“i really thought we could continue being close friends even after i was supposed to reject you today. even if you’re still very pretty after a fight, i still can’t help but say that i can’t like you that way and i don’t think i’ll ever want to! god, you two are so childish. i’m not even worth ruining this friendship for!”

as you gave them both a final glance, you noticed how jungwon’s head was hung low while sunghoon couldn’t help but look at the younger with concern.

“i should go. don’t even bother texting me.” with that, you stormed off.

you were still in the same hallway when you bumped into the rest of the enhypen members.

“y/n? we came as fast as we heard.” heeseung said.

“it’s fine, they’re probably back there.” you pointed and looked back to see sunghoon trying his best to comfort jungwon who was already sitting on the floor with his hands covering his face.

before you could put your hand down, jake got a hold of your wrist to inspect it.

“are your hands okay? did they do something to you?”

“oh yeah they wanted to act like they were in squid game and used me as the rope for tug of war. they both lost. i’m fine though, it’ll go away soon enough. i should go.”

before you could leave, you noticed sunoo slowly moving to hide behind jay as you neared him.

he seemed guilty of something, not just because of how he ratted sunghoon and jungwon out that one time but because of something more.

he flinched when you got extra close to him and pulled him down to reach your height.

with your thumb, you wiped the sauce off of sunoo’s face.

guilty as charged.

“you stole chicken from the takeout sunghoon bought. anyways, i’ll get going now. goodbye.”

you walked away so casually, trying your best to ignore jay's comment when he said “now i see why jungwon really likes her.”

you knew it wasn’t girlboss to cry over a boy on your way home but that’s exactly what you did and you weren’t going to complain.

〈 masterlist | next 〉

⸝⸝ NOTE ‎𐪆 the athletes are fighting bye !!! idk if the fighting scene was any good ,,, i probably watered down all the intense stuff without knowing lolz :pp also sorry for the late update pls forgive me 😭💔

vote for my next smau here and lmk if u wanna be added to a 3rd taglist 😅 bc i’m not sure if i should open one

⸝⸝ TAGLIST ‎𐪆 [status : closed / italics can’t be tagged] @enhacolor @youngbloodslut @ceoyjw @lunaflvms @enhyped-up @yizhoutv @fairycheol @kissuzies @yvesismywife @ja4hyvn @wony6ung @vlykai @one16core @papiibuprofen @hiqhkey @bloodylovelymary @luvarots @missmadwoman @hoonstrology @mitsukifilms @soobin-chois @venusesroses @bearseulgs @jiwlys @jaywonlix @ihrtwon @awkwardnesshabitat @xuanya @ultnishimura @yjwfav @shynypeacekitten @stealanity @zzwnki @renjunvrse @niocity @higamersitsbarney @jwlvr @maeumiluv @annoyingbitch83 @darrensos @odetoyeonjun @s35nbae @enloveclub @afiaaaa19 @moonchilddfics @myluckycat @c9tnoos @yogurteume @gguksblush @drunkwithfever @staysstrays @limiliib @penghoonz @acciomylove @soobsdior

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