#i also would like to see how other people manage my conditions because i honestly dont know if im naybe just being a baby about it or not

[caffeinatedopossum]

People who offer solutions to my problems should all be required to take part in a 30 day free trial of living with all of my conditions just to ensure that their helpful tips are realistic and not actually just one more obstacle on the list of never ending obstacles that I have to manage everyday

[toto-the-cactus]

Primarchs + Daughters

My perception of how each Primarch would behave when nosediving into parenthood if they had daughters. Enjoy!

I wanna personally thank @moodymisty because a great deal of their works inspired this piece.

Part 1 - Part 2

Lion El’jonson

The embodiment of 'tough love' made man. Having a daughter doesn’t do much to soften this guy… or at least that’s what others believe. The Dark Angels Legion are probably the only ones aware of the small gestures the Primarch often gives to his little girl in the safety that privacy offers. Where Lion lacks words of compassionate and parental love, he appropriately makes up for it with actions. He isn’t one to go over the top and prefers to give modest gifts to his daughter as the last thing the man wants is to raise a spoiled brat. Father-daughter bonding time can be summarized with strenuous training using the sword. This man will not let his precious Princess go through life without learning how to protect herself, even if he has made an oath to forever shield her too.

Fulgrim

The complete antithesis of Lion. Where this man views the Emperor as the perfection anyone should strive to reach, his beautiful daughter comes close to the second place in fulfilling that ideal. There’s a big fat chance that he teared up a little when his little gem called him Papa for the first time, but managed to wear his ever unshakable mask because he absolutely refuses to break character even in private. Has the mistaken notion that his baby is a blank canvas ready to be painted to its fullest potential; aka, molding her to what HE wants and expects of her. Fulgrim probably spoils her rotten but only through conditions that she must follow, as the Primarch understands the importance of fighting and earning for what you wish to obtain. He makes sure that any of his gene-sons are in her company as he refuses to let even a single scratch happen to his little girl. Honestly, a grown-up version of Fulgrim’s child has the chances to go both opposites of the spectrum with no in betweens: A shy aristocratic lady who is unable to speak her own mind or a completely haughty, sharp and manipulative noble woman. Too much to unpack there, yo.

Perturabo

(Slaps this bastard's head loudly) This bad boy can fit so much family trauma in it! Okay no but seriously, there’s a good reason why so many people agree that this bitch has a thing for gilded cages and all the fucked up poetry that comes with it. The good ol’ classic Greek tragedy of Medea. Perturabo may have big and insane expectations for his gene-sons but when it comes to having a daughter? The apple of his eyes. The sunshine of his life. For this Primarch, his little princess is the only living thing in the entire universe that loves him genuinely and unconditionally, making his love the equivalent of a child crushing a bird between his hands. While still easy to anger and with a resting-bitch face, he is incredibly tame and careful with his girl; always making sure that she is well versed in all kinds of science and engineering that could easily label her as a genius (but we all know how stressful can be to try and live up to big expectations). Most of his Legion finds the child either an annoyance or don’t even care enough beyond the factual point of her being the child of their mighty Primarch, beyond that? This poor girl is probably the loneliest child to ever grace the world. Remember that I referred to this like the Tragedy of Medea? Yeah…

Jaghatai Khan

Probably one of the few best papa-tier out there. This man will see his little daughter and think the only thing a good parent should do: To love and guide. He’ll be not afraid to say “I love you” to his baby girl no matter where they are, but he’ll know when to be stern and wise so she grows to be a fine and humble woman. Honestly, this guy would learn how to make a sling just for the single purpose of having his precious princess close while also being excited to teach her how to ride on a horse like he did in his childhood. The thing that makes this dude the best in this list is that if his daughter ever expresses to follow a different path in life like becoming a remembrancer or anything that doesn’t involve the Imperium, this Chad of a man will look deep into her eyes and tell her that he’ll support her no matter what. The only thing he asks is that she stays in contact as he’ll miss her terribly. Kudos to him, fr.

Leman Russ

Another one for the ‘tough love’ guys list, yo! On his defense! Hear me out… in his defense, this guy was literally raised first by Fenrisian wolves before even knowing what a proper bath entailed, so of course he’ll sometimes be a bit too much on his poor little baby girl. Roughhousing was his best first approach to teach her how to fight, trying to make his little pup have some proper backbone worthy of being called the child of a Primarch. Sometimes he’ll get carried away (either with words or actions) and is in those moments when Leman would learn what genuine and heavy guilt feels like; a very alien emotion for someone as brutal and fierce as he is. There’s no worse feeling than knowing that you are the reason behind your daughter’s tears. No one would ever say it out loud, but the way this giant of a man apologizes is by slowly and silently hugging his little girl while pouting until she hugs him back. He may suck at expressing verbally his love towards his baby, but actions are his best way to communicate and this is something his daughter eventually learns and accepts from him. Forgot to add that the entire Space Wolves Legion are not only suffocatingly protective of their Primarch’s child, but everyone takes turns when she asks them for piggy-rides or let her braid their hair.

Rogal Dorn

I don’t wanna be too mean to this poor man but lord have some mercy, trying to squeeze any emotion that doesn’t range to watching paint dry from this damn guy is already a miracle on its own. He’s probably the kind of dude that’ll leave his poor daughter in the care of his astartes and serfs while he works. Workaholic in bold, yo. It literally will take watching his poor little princess cry her eyes out for him to attempt some bonding time but man he just sucks at trying not to have a stick up his ass (Again, I’m not trying to be mean but god this is painful). This is the kind of man, besides Guilliman, that will search high and low for some paternity books to help him. At the end this father-daughter relationship can be salvageable by having a heart to heart between them both and even then, is the poor girl the one that gives more than she receives. Honestly, any daughter from Dorn has the patience of a saint. Besides this Primarch's ineptitude to properly communicate his feelings, everything else doesn’t change the fact that he loves his little princess and will do anything to make her as happy as possible so he gets some brownie points for the try.

I'll later write the second and third part of this, I swear <333

[lunarmoves]

Can't stop thinking of the scenario where y/n leaves the Pizzaplex feeling like Sun honestly wanted them gone, and Sun becomes obsessed with finding them and also leads a robot apocalypse. What would happen if y/n caught wind that Sun is looking specifically for them and seeing all that has happened with the robots takes that as "Oh no, I thought he tolerated me but turns out he dislikes me so much he personally wants to get rid of me himself" so they try extra hard to go into hiding out of fear of what will happen if they're captured and taken to him?

ohhh my goddd nonnie u are so big brained!!!!!!! thank u for sending this in bc honestly i have also been thinking about this au for a while LMAO. if i was strong enough i would write a 50k fic spliced into two arcs (im thinking about it so hard u have no idea!!!!!!) for this but alas.... /stares at my incomplete wips/ i am not </3

(added in from future shay: what have u done nonnie this became so much longer than i'd intended, u basically get the whole fic outline here. cw for death and murder n stuff, typical fnaf. also spoilers for a fic i may or may not write?? like. this is me brainstorming and shoving all my ideas here lol. literally all of them)

okay so... let us set the stage a little bc i can't help myself. arc1 of this hypothetical fic would of course involve the pizzaplex where reader and sun get "closer" over the course of like a year. maybe more. well sun feels close to you. you, on the other hand, do not. why would you? this robot has been so passive aggressive with you and though it seems like he's nice enough to you (in comparison to the other humans), you really don't like how he treats you some days. what he says about humanity as a whole. you can't help it! yeah humanity sucks sometimes and robots were built to be everything that humans aren't, but he can't generalize in the way that he does at times and forget that these are people!! with feelings and ambitions and dreams! 'superiority complex' doesn't even begin to cover his issues, gahh!!

(the fact that he's been treated like absolute shit, working in the daycare does not help whatsoever. the mean parents, the kids who don't listen to him, the staff tht does the bare minimum on him in terms of maintenance because he's the daycare robot and not one of the glamrocks. it grinds his gears)

i imagine the reader in this fic believes that robots are indeed sentient, which is why you try to get sun to recognize and acknowledge his own emotions/feelings (which he vehemently denies, even tho there are literal riots happening worldwide regarding robot sentience. he's lying to you. you know he's lying to you. but you don't know why he denies it so much. ((maybe this is the point where he catches feels for reader and is denying the fact tht he's crushing on a human lol)). the government is not happy about these uprisings, of course, and every day the news shows more and more chaos unfolding as robots get tired of the conditions they are in). but eventually, things boil over and you end up leaving. that, and it's becoming more dangerous, living in this area, with everything going on. maybe your parents are trying to convince you to move elsewhere. maybe there are other external circumstances. in any case, you leave. there is nothing at the pizzaplex for you anymore, sun has made that clear.

(and moon... well, moon has been quiet lately. too quiet. you don't know what happened to him, he won't even look at you when you manage to get some time with him when the lights go out after your shift)

((i imagine this is maybe around when they get infected. that makes everything even more complicated. if you thought sun was obsessive before, then that's nothing compared to a glitched out sun unforch. it just amplifies the more questionable aspects of his entire personality. and like, he doesn't even have vanny/afton commanding him bc as soon as he gets the virus? he kills both of them))

(((also im imagining moon and sun don't really get along in this au bc they have differing ideals/views. like to balance out sun's unhingedness, moon is significantly quieter and softer and deffo does not believe in robot superiority lol. if anything, maybe he has an inferiority complex pfft poor guy. doesn't help when he gets glitchtrap'd and wakes up with blood on his hands)))

okay so you leave, right? and a few weeks later, you see the news on your phone--the pizzaplex has burned down. you don't know how to feel about it. sure you've been friendly to the glamrocks and stuff, but you find yourself thinking about sun and moon. there's a mention of one death--a blond woman, who died from her neck snapping before the flames could reach her. you don't want to think of the implications of that. there's no mention of the glamrocks--of sun or moon or the dj. you're not sure if the news anchors are just excluding robots, but either way, it makes your heart sink. you take a moment to mourn. bc at the end of the day.... you did know sun for over a year.

not even a few days after that, there is a robot uprising in your city. it's... bad. you're at home, watching the news with your apartment half in shambles from your plan on moving back home with your parents. in my head, since utah is home to fazco (a megacorporation with hands in the development of a LOT of the robots seen in society), it also means it's a hotspot for robot riots and the like. fazco vehemently denies robot sentience because it would mean a loss of money in acknowledging their workers are people yk how it is. as such, there are maany protests and riots and stuff, from both humans and robots. it's a shitshow.

ANYWAYS you're at home and it becomes evidently clear that you need to get out of dodge as soon as you can. they were killing people. the robots, built by human hands, were killing. it brings about absolute chaos. in prior riots/protests there were never deaths. injuries, maybe, but never deaths. people start evacuating like crazy.

you catch a glimpse on the news that the violent uprising in utah caused a chainlink reaction to extend all across the nation. maybe even the world. you're scrambling all over your apartment with the tv on the news, doing your best to pack up the essentials. there's live coverage on the tv from a helicopter somewhere not far from your apartment complex. and you're able to catch a glimpse of bright rays and a cheshire, white smile on the screen--leading what looks like an army of robots--before it cuts out.

you don't even know what to think. the image is seared into your eyes, the blood that painted yellow hands and a crescent face.

you get the hell out of your apartment and book it as far as you can. communications are down everywhere--the thing about robots? they know exactly where to hit humans to cause a catastrophe. as such, your phone is useless. they've hijacked the satellites and took down certain powergrids. having a phone on you would only be a detriment, so you ditch it. there's only you now. you must survive.

and then there's a bit of a time skip to start arc2. in this duration, you're long gone from that city in utah, living with a small survival group. if you've read my summer camp au fic, this is where i'll bring in "OCs" such as vincent (a play on 2015 vincent) and jeremy (fitzgerald or the VR guy tht used to work for fazco), maybe michael if i really wanna au fudge everything. you all live day by day, trying to run away from the robots.

at this point, a majority of humanity has either been killed or has gone into hiding. i think while the robots don't want to eradicate humanity completely (after all, there are certain tasks that need humans n such), they definitely want to make them a minority. they are a little more than halfway through their goal.

it's very difficult to evade robot surveillance. there are drones everywhere. all cameras are hijacked. i'm imagining a kind of cyberpunk type world. you have EMPs and tasers that you can use to disable electronics, but they're made from scraps you and your group scavenged. and upon immediately using one, all robots in the area are informed of your presence, so they can only be used in rare and desperate circumstances. they are all connected to the same network, which means they can have a hive mind, at times. life is scary, in this regard. big brother is watching.

you've heard rumors of a human base underground somewhere--a place safe from robots with the proper defenses. accepting to any and all. the only tough thing was finding the damn place, but you've seen the clues in graffiti and hidden messages designed to trick AI (think: captcha). you and your group just wants to get to that damn base and stop living in fear all the time, being out in the open or crawling as stealthily as you can through empty streets.

the one thing sun used to emphasize to you? the way robots are more efficient. and that they are. you see it in the way a new metropolis shines like a beacon on the horizon. they've already built their own kingdom of sorts. and their ruler? you grimace as you think about sharp rays and wide, white eyes. you haven't seen him in ages--not since that initial broadcast. but you hear the whispered rumors and news. how he has created a robot haven--the celestial city. how he scorns humans. you blame yourself sometimes. maybe if you had stayed and tried harder to convince sun that humans aren't all too bad, none of this would have happened.

(a memory comes to you--of your time back at the pizzaplex. of you sitting atop the security desk and kicking your feet lightly as you entertain sun's... uniqueness. ambitions--that you did not take as seriously as you should have.

"okay, i'll bite," you said in amusement. "what would a robot takeover look like for you?"

sun cocked his head, hands fidgeting with a plush. "hmm. well. i suppose it would be a very quick thing, for one. hit hard and fast." he squeezed the plush. "take down comms. strike power sources. go for those in power first, then the weaker ones." he gave you a shrug and an unreadable smile. "from then on, carnage."

and you--silly silly you--just rolled your damn eyes at him like he was joking around with you and asked him about more hypotheticals. picking his brain, in a way. it was exact with how it played out in real time. you thought about this often, at the dead of night.

it was all your fucking fault)

and then, one day, the scout/informant of your little group--jeremy probably--comes back with some news. the celestial ruler--sun--has been taking human hostages. it's been happening for a while now, apparently, almost nearly as long as the uprising. jeremy pulls out some hazy photographs he's gotten from some of the other humans he exchanges info with. you look at them, the hostages.

after a minute or two of staring, you realize something.

they all sort of resemble you.

there's a clear pattern actually. your hair or your face shape or your eyes or your smile. some combination of them. but never actually you. you ask jeremy what it all means, and he hesitatingly says that it looks like sun is looking for someone. it's clear to everyone who it is as they all stare at you.

and you? you're panicking.

he's looking specifically for you. just you. you've never heard of the robots taking hostages, and you have no idea what he's doing with them, but it can't be anything good. especially since he keeps taking more and more of your lookalikes hostage. you think back to your time at the pizzaplex--so distant, now, that it almost feels like a dream.

he wants to kill you himself. you're sure of it.

now you're trying even harder to get to that underground base. you go completely dark, doing your best to evade detection--and i imagine there are quite a few close calls, definitely a few instances where your face is captured on camera or you have to use an EMP. until finally, you and your group manage to integrate into the underground human base.

'base' doesn't even properly describe it. it's a whole city, actually, with unsteady houses made of wood and cloth. it's the perfect place to hide.

you spend a while down there, occasionally venturing up when you're allowed to by the guards (it's rare, very very rare). the city has strict rules that must be followed to ensure it's not found. the ones in charge are constantly looking for news on the actions of sun and the majority of robots. they don't really keep the citizens updated--it would cause too much chaos, you think. but you hear whispers now and then. (the robots have expanded territory. france is completely gone. australia's still holding out. most of china and india have been taken over and their factories have all been transformed to mass produce more robots)

for the first time in a while, you think you can find peace down here. it was only inevitable that this would be ruined one day.

you wake up to chaos.

the underground is under siege. the robots have found you.

you run out of your makeshift house and have to dodge crumbling stone. explosions rock through the air, sending dust and debris everywhere. you're scared for your life--your only instinct is to run run run get out it's not safe! you don't know where your friends are. you don't know if they're alive. for a moment, you hesitate. and then you're bolting to try to find them. they had their own little homes not too far from you. you can find them. no man left behind.

you can hear bullets and the hum of energy everywhere. people are screaming and crying all around you. you see people dying before your eyes, impaled by beams of light or stray bullets. it's all you can do to dodge and weave towards vincent's house.

but before you can get there, something tackles you from behind. you roll across dirt, and find yourself pinned under a robot--a staffbot from the pizzaplex, you realize. except it looks--different. more high tech.

it seems to scan your face. and just before it can finish, you manage to grab a stray metal rod laying on the ground next to you and stab it right through the eye.

you scramble, getting as far away as you can from the thing. but-- you run right into the path of a crumbling building. it buries you halfway under thick wood, and something sears its way through your leg. you're trapped. you're trapped and there's no one around to help you.

and just when you're on the brink of passing out, you see him. standing in front of you a ways away. those same star-patterned pants and dangling cap. but he's different somehow, he looks different. you can't place it, your vision blurring into red and purple.

moon looks at you as though you are the last thing he wants to see. and then you faint.

when you wake up, you're in a bedroom. your leg is in a cast and there are crutches near your bed.

it's... the nicest room you've seen in a while. the windows are covered by thick curtains that let in a sliver of light. you have to blink a bit to let your eyes adjust. and then you get up, noticing you aren't in the same ratty, dirty clothes you'd been wearing for forever.

you try the door first. it's locked. there's a sinking sensation in your gut that gets stronger and stronger the closer you get to the window. and when you pull open the curtains, you gasp at the towering buildings, bright green and blue light, and flying drones.

you are in the middle of the celestial city.

you panic hard. and then you notice the camera in the corner of the room, looking right at you. big brother is definitely watching. you give him the bird.

you wallow around in the bedroom for a bit. you are hungry, you cannot deny. and there is only a glass of water for you set on your nightstand.

but eventually, the door opens of its own accord. an automatic lock, you suppose. and it swings open into a dark hall. you do not have any other choice but to follow. it's clear you are being summoned.

there are no places for you to run or hide. you travel down a long hallway and end up in a wide room with someone tall standing at the far end by the window. it's a scene straight out of a movie. you are not impressed.

the figure turns around, and you do a double take. it's sun--yet it's not.

he looks different. taller, stronger. with clawed fingers and rays that look deadly to the touch. his smile is sharper, his torso has all sorts of compartments and attachments. he was modded to all hell, just like that staffbot you saw earlier. it had to have been self inflicted.

he only stares at you, really. white eyes rake up and down your form, taking you in. you don't say a word, only look back at him. and then you flinch slightly when someone emerges from the shadows next to sun.

it's... moon. looking just as modded as sun. you're confused. when did they become separate? but honestly, you think it makes sense. they never really liked each other. it makes sense that sun would want to be separated as soon as possible--and they had the resources to do so. you just wonder why they're still working together. comfort in the familiarity, maybe.

moon doesn't meet your eye. you notice his is different--the red tinged with purple. sun doesn't look away from you. it makes you uneasy.

you don't know why you're here, but one thing's clear: you are not getting out of here anytime soon.

i'm honestly not sure how to end things, but in my head there's a lot of reconciliation that needs to happen. obv sun is so incredibly down bad for you at this point (and moon), but there are many issues that need to be tackled first.

sun doesn't understand why you're so wary around him. moon keeps avoiding you at every turn. there's still an entire revolution and remaking of society happening. you are constantly being watched by cameras in the building. i can't picture things as returning to normal--post uprising--but i also don't know how to end things on a happy note LOL, though i do want to instead of killing off reader or sun/moon. maybe it'll be a bittersweet sort of end, maybe reader finally gets through to sun. maybe eclipse will make an appearance (jk, idk how i would even do that, this might be an eclipse-less fic).

in any case, the next bit would be a lot of sun and reader connecting better than they had in the pizzaplex, a lot of sun trying to understand humans better cuz he's trying to court you-- and has long come to accept his emotions tbh. tho he's still kind of mad at you for leaving, so there needs to be a conversation of sorts about why you left before sun can really begin to understand how he appears to you. idk!

i also feel like moon isnt nearly fleshed out as sun is?? i dunno, i might have to think some more about him. i just know he's terrified of hurting you, esp with him still having the virus (and sun, but he has better control of it). gonna be a lot of work on your part to get him to be comfortable around you again. also, he doesn't like the fact that society has come to this. he lowkey resents sun, but he doesn't have anyone else. what's a bot to do?

also there may be a scene where your survival group tries to save you lol, maybe with an army that tries to seize control of the celestial city. which may work. this would be a bad end, i think, cuz there's no way sun's getting out of that alive.

anyways yeah. i rambled enough LMAOO whoopsie! i rly just regurgitated all the thoughts in my head. no promises that this will be a fic, i've got enough on my plate as is LOL

[eluxcastar]

hello hello greetings! could i request a vampire reader x harbingers who offers to turn them into a vampire as well (how romantic to offer the concept of *forever* to their lover), its got the whole package of night vision/ immortality/ super strength/ speed/ etc etc but they'd lose the ability to use visions/delusions cause they're technically gonna be "dead" would the harbingers except or decline 👀👀 (excluding pulcinella and pierro)

Harbingers with a Vampire s/o

── ୨୧：harbingers x reader

୨୧﹑synopsis :: just me being absolutely off my head again talking about the harbingers' opinions on vampirehood

୨୧﹑content :: gn reader, vampire reader

୨୧﹑words :: I shit you not this post is 666 words long what in the My Immortal

anon baby you found my weak spot I'm so normal about this subject (it's my special interest) (sorry) ANYWAY this has been chilling in my inbox for ages, so it's time I finally write it. I started it a while ago but then I got busy and didn't post for a month and now I am suddenly two followers away from 400 so hi hello thank you

anyway back to the request I question the visions and delusions part because Qiqi is a Zombie an uses a cryo vision BUT I'M GONNA GLOSS OVER THAT BECAUSE YEs

Let's go lowest to highest in ranking like I usually do and start with Childe who, imo, would accept on the grounds that it is power and he will take anything to become more powerful even at a detriment to his health and physical condition. Though there is a price, he has accepted prices before and assuming that the pay off is good enough the use of a vision or delusion would be obsolete anyway. That, coupled with his love for you as his motivation is more than enough to sway him in your favour as he can see more to gain than lose from spending eternity by your side.

Arlecchino is a tough one because I can totally see it and it's really hot but Idk if she would. I wanna say yes, but I can also see reasons for no. The Vampire Arlecchino energy wins though because tbh I can see her being willing to make that sacrifice for her lover. I don't see her as fully whipped per se but like she's definitely loyal yk, probably pick you over the Tsaritsa and would want to spend an eternity with you at your behest.

Next is Pantalone. Cool vampire vibes. Someone gave me this wonderful headcanon that he is obsessed with his delusion, and I now love it to death so much that I based a character on it. So tbh yeah, there's benefits in this for him. He gets to be with you and have a little more power at a far lesser detriment. Plus like, you can't convince me this man wouldn't be lowkey into it.

Signora, I'm not sure. She has already lived a long time, and she has a lot of natural power already. Her delusion is what balances her, so I honestly think I'd have to say no. I WANNA SAY YES REALLY BAD BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THERE'S OPPORTUNITY THERE, but I also just don't think so, but like she'll still be with you for a long time.

Sandrone, I honestly don't know either, because I don't know much from the two words she's spoken. If I remember, she doesn't care for other people, though, so she's likely very in love with anyone who managed to break through that and may be willing to make sacrifices for you.

For Scaramouche- well, bro is an artificial human, so tbh, I don't even think he would be affected by that. I'll skip him too.

Next would be Pulcinella, but I was told no Pulcinella, so Capitano (I almost forgot him send help). I like the abyssal creature Capitano headcanon, but even if he was just, a guy. I think the answer is no. HE'S WHIPPED AND WOULD DO ANYTHING BUT NOT THIS 😭 at least not at first, but give it a while and I can see it. It'll take time, though.

Columbina is also tricky because she has such entity vibes, but like also, seraph/vampire pairing would be so hot I can't even deny that. I should write that. Anyway, I feel like she's already immortal, so that doesn't matter, and she is indifferent to the power you offer. It's a matter of it not holding value. She has everything she could get out of it already.

Finally, we come to Dottore. Dottore is into it, don't lie, you know he is; this man is freaky. He'd enjoy the prospect of being a Vampire more than the perks of it, and that's enough to convince him. Besides it's 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓼𝓬𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮 so he gets to excuse it. He couldn't turn it down even if it was just one of his segments because he's got to know what it's like and all the differences. He collects knowledge.

This was way more chaotic than usual 💀 Idk if I will write more like this but I did enjoy it so maybe, depends if y'all like this or my other styles more. I just like the chilled out casual chaos sometimes so lmk

[bsd-fan]

Chuuya´s analysis part 2: Humanity and contradictions

Stormbringer is by far the most important piece if we want to understand chuuya because this is the moment his view of life is challenged. We follow chuuya through stormbringer, we get to see how doubtful, scared and confused he is about his humanity and we also see a side of him that he constantly hides.

“I told you, Chuuya”

He looked up in the direction of the sudden voice. It was a familiar voice, one that belonged to the person he hated most in this world.

“Your birth itself was a mistake. We´re the same. Is there really a point to suffering through all that pain for a life that isn´t even real?” - Hallucination of Dazai. Stormbringer

Dazai and Chuuya constantly claim the hate they have for each other. A lot of that hate is because their history of them being assholes with each other, a lot of it is just posturing but a lot of it is because of this. They share the same problem but the way they face it is incompatible. Especially on chuuya´s side. During sb we learn that Chuuya /understands/ Dazai, not because he tries to but because deep down he thinks the same. But he /never/ lets himself think about this, because if he does he will drown and he can´t do that.

You can ignore most of this analysis because the only real important thing to understand is that chuuya is a figher.

That´s his core as a character.

Chuuya fights every godamn hour of every day. He fights with himself, he fights against his ability, he fights for his humanity, he fights for the people he loves, he fights when everyone already gave up. He has lost /so much/ through his life and never complains about it, he keeps going on because that´s what he was taught to do. He has gave up so many things. He can´t say that he is tired, he can´t be afraid, he can´t stop because he was conditioned to be the last man standing not matter what and that´s what he does. Because he has people he cares about and that depend on him so he can´t fall, he can´t ask for help and damn sure he can´t let himself sulk and think about the futility of all, he can´t go with dazai´s nihilistic mentality not matter how much of it he secretly shares because he can´t stop fighting. That would ultimately break him. Chuuya´s outwordly drive to keep advancing despite all the horrible things that happen to him is only possible because he never stops to think about this.

So in a lot of ways, Dazai is like a punch in the face. it´s his worse fears and hidden thoughts in a human form. Dazai, especially 15-18 year old Dazai represents everything he fights about himself. So yes, when I say that chuuya makes a constant, conscious effort to avoid understanding Dazai I´m talking about this (and that´s like half of it, because Dazai´s coping mechanisms also directly clash with chuuya´s whole ideology. Honestly is kinda impressive how Dazai manages to trigger chuuya to that degree)

Now, going back to the analysis I want to say that Stormbringer doesn´t really bring anything new to chuuya´s character, it just consolidates what was already there. It´s when chuuya finally realized something we´ve known all along and it´s because of this that he can finally solve his inner conflict.

“I can feel their lives burning right here, inside me, and till those flames die down. I can´t just do whatever I want. I´m gonna do what I need to. That´s who I am”- Chuuya, stormbringer

“-Why don´t you get it? There isn´t anything you need to do! Live how you want to live! Destroy what you want to destroy! Because there´s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to not be born!(...)

-Just shup up- Chuuya´s eyes burned with fierce determination. -Maybe that´s what you wanna do, but don´t shove your belief down my throat. Cause that ain´t ´t how I feel at all.

Several shadow ran thorugh the light in his eyes.

His friends in the sheep.

His friends in the Port Mafia.

The light in his eyes was determination. It was the powerful brilliance of humankind, something gaines only through encounters and partings with other people.

-You´ve been completely wrong from the very start- Chuuya spat in disgust- “Being born was a mistake”? Sounds like the kind of garbage Dazai would spew, and no way in hell am I ever gonna think the way he does!”- Verlaine and chuuya, stormbringer.

This scene is so important to chuuya´s development as a character because this is the first time he defines himself as an individual in his own terms and  independently of his origin. He is a person, and he is the kind of person that will do what it needs to be done and he will do it for the people that is important to him. That´s simply who he is. That´s his identity as a human being. That´s why I get mad when people are fighting about chuuya´s humanity. Yes, at the end is really hinted that he is the original one but that´s not important. Because the whole point of the novel is that humanity is more than origin. It doesn´t matter if chuuya was born as a human being or created in a lab because at the end of the day he is human because of the ties he has with the people around him.

Different from Dazai, Chuuya gets this solution from existentialism. Existentialism is a form of philosophy that explores the issue of human existence. Existencialism basically says that purpose and meaning in life doesn´t come from external forces such as God, fate or a bigger power but instead is entirely determined by ourselves and that´s exactly what chuuya does. It doesn´t matter that life in senseless, it doesn´t matter if he was created only as a weapon, it doesn´t matter if he shouldn´t have existed in the first place. None of it matters. Because he is already here and he will give himself a purpose. And God, I´m gonna stop here to say that this is such a chuuya thing to do. He fights what everyone around him is telling him and he fights himself, yes, he may understand Dazai and verlaine´s nihilistic mentality but he ultimately decides to reject it. Chuuya will fight even the absurdity of life, in a way is fucking hilarious and as a Dazai kinnie I can wholeheartedly understand how this is so annoying for him. Because here we are needing sense, getting paralyzed because of the ucertainty of the world and just trying to keep living despite being constantly overwhelmed because the aburdity of all and then there are people like chuuya that realized the same thing but they keep going, people like chuuya that just push their way through life like it´s not a big deal, people like chuuya that never  give up even when is the logical thing to do. And as maddening as it is, maybe this is the real reason why Chuuya is my favorite character, he can do something I don´t. His will to fight despite everyting? How he gets up every single time? is not something I can do.

Okay so sorry for the projection in the middle of it. Let´s continue with the analysis.

The whole point is that Chuuya doesn´t care if his reason to keep going is not trascendental, he doesn´t care if it´s illogical, he doesn´t care if in the great scheme of things it doesn´t mean anything. Because it´s important to him, it´s enough to him and that´s all that matters. Chuuya has people he loves, he has emotional ties with them and Chuuya clings to them with desperation because it is  what impulses him to keep going. I need you to understand this, every single character is bsd have people they love and appreciate but for chuuya? it´s a whole different deal. They are so much more than that. They are not only people he loves, they are the direct representation of his humanity (which I remind you is the most important aspect of his characterization) he finds a purpose and a sense in this bonds, he finds an /identity/ thanks to this bonds. And that´s why he will do absolutely everything to preserve them. Yes, the biggest difference between Chuuya and kunikida is that when chuuya says that he will do what needs to be done, he is not talking about ideals, he´s saying that he will give everything of him for the people he loves.

Now, everything should be fine, right? Chuuya learns to accept his humanity to a certain extent, he gives himself a purpose, everything is /fine/ except it´s not and this lead us to the second and biggest contradiction about chuuya and this is which ultimately brings another thousand contradiction in his character: Nowadays his biggest conflict is not the original problem anymore, it´s the solution he gave to that problem.

And it´s the most tragic contradiction in earth because his relationships with people is what makes him keep going but at the same time it´s also what keeps him stuck (I´m discussing that later). And it hurts so much because yes, they give them an identity, a purpose but he also sacrifices /too much/ of himself in the name of this relationships.

He is conventionally brave, he is not like atsushi, he never hesitates, he never doubts but it´s not in a healthy way. Chuuya is not brave for the sake of being brave. He is brave because there was never another option to him, he doesn´t let himself feel afraid. During stormbringer he experimented more suffering than most of the characters in the story, he went against a giant beast, he was tortured, freakingg hell, his biggest fear all along was to discover that he wasn´t human but he decides to know because the flags investigated his past. He was terrified but he forced himself to ask because “I have an obligation to know for their sake” not for him, for the flags.

And let´s not talk about how corruption is his worst fear turned true, let´s not talk about how it represents the lack of humanity and how that may affect the character whose whole main arc revolves around seeking humanity, let´s not talk about how he goes against his worse fear once and once again to protect the city and the organization he loves. There is only one thing that chuuya wanted, all this time he only wanted to know if he was a human or if he wasn´t and in stormbringer he gave up even that. He decides to use corruption fully knowing that he will lose his opportunity to know and he doesn´t care if by doing it, he can save people.

He has a moral compass but he sacrifices it in the name of the people he loves. He  cares about people but he also mass murder if that benefits his organization. He appreciates life, but he´s so ready to die and destroy himself if by doing that he can be useful for the people he cares about. His pathological loyalty is also explained by this, it doesn´t matter if they betrayed him or hurt him, he will still be there for them because he puts this relationships over everything. He even sacrifices his emotions, I´ve said it before but chuuya didn´t even let himself cry after he saw his friends in pieces because he put albatross needs over his own pain. He got into an organization he didn´t even wanted to be in because by doing it he could save the people that  stabbed him in the back. To this day I´m haunted by the fact that in the entirety of stormbringer, chuuya only let himself be vulnerable once, he only screamed once. When he was being tortured, and in agony, he let himself scream but he only did it because no one there cared. If a person he loves had been there, then chuuya would´ve hold it in, he would never let himself cry because he will never let himself be a worry for the people he cares about. His whole ability is a reminder of everything he went through, of everything that makes him different, of all his pain but he doesn´t resent his ability because he can protect the people he loves with it, that powerful ability is just another responsibility he needs to carry. He is powerful so he needs to protect those that aren´t.

Chuuya is so selfless that it actually is a fucking flaw. From all the characters in bsd, he is the one who sacrifices the most and the craziest thing about it? He doesn´t even notice because in his mind he´s doing what needs to be done. In the CD drama he says to akutagawa that self sacrifice is a pathetic excuse for weak people but he does it all the time, except that he doesn´t think about what he does as self sacrifice, for him is just the natural thing to do. Chuuya constantly makes pyramids and he puts himself at the bottom of them. He is ready to give everything for the people he loves but he never expects the same of them. He loves unconditionally, but he doesn´t think that he can be loved in the same way. He needs to push himself, he needs to be useful.

“-Why- A flash of uneasiness briefly colored chuuya´s expression- Why would you go through all this (...)

-It´s nothing particularly serious- Said Lippmann. Baffled by chuuya´s reaction, he eyed the rest of the group- If we had to come up with a reason, though...it´s because you´re our friend. Were things different in the sheep?

They had been. That was what Chuuya flustered expression was saying. Everyone in the sheep depended on him. The contrary was unthinkable”- The flags and Chuuya, stormbringer.

Chuuya doesn´t know how to accept kindness, he doesn´t know how to react to people caring about him. Because that´s his job. He is never in the opposite side of it. And when he finally was, he lost it and even then he never thinks about all the shitty things that happen to him, he never complains about the unfairness of it. He just keeps going, he takes every single blow and he never let himself make a sound.

Do you see the contradictions now? The love he has for his people may be the foundation of his identity, but he also sacrifices a thousand of things about himself  to protect them. No one can live like that. He lives in a perpetual state of contradiction. What he believes in, what he feels and what he does never fucking allign. And honestly this is part of what makes his character so fucking good, because this contradictions narratively speaking make perfect sense. Is not that he is lying, is not lack of self awareness, is not a hole in his characterization. if you stop to analyze the character this contradictions make perfect sense for him. And this trait is why chuuya gives this impression of being predictably unpredictable.

During the first light novel Dazai describes kunikida like this:

“I´ve got a good idea of who you are now, so nothing you do will ever surprise me. I mean, compared with me, you´re just a simple man with a simple mind, after all (...) See? You wear your heart in your sleeve. You don´t hide how you´re really feeling”- Dazai, Osamu Dazai´s entrance exam

And you´ve probably noticed by now, but a lot of this description somewhat applies for chuuya too. But Dazai´s reaction to chuuya is usually this one:

Even knowing Chuuya better than anyone else, Dazai has consistently been surprised or doubting chuuya´s actions. During stormbringer he didn´t know if chuuya was going to use corruption, because a normal person don´t go through life sacrificing their most wanted thing. During fifteen, he was extermely curious about his relationship with the sheep, because chuuya´s arrogance doesn´t make sense with the way he lets himself be used. He thought that Chuuya was going to kill N because that would´ve been the normal reaction to have but he didn´t. At  22, he hoped that chuuya was going to use corruption to save him but the whole point was that he could never be 100% sure because a normal person won´t go through life facing their worst fear just because of trust. And Dazai is not the only one unbalanced by chuuya, the flags were constantly surprised by him, rimbaud didn´t know what to do of him. Verlaine thought that after all the suffering, chuuya would grow up to hate the world just like he did, but chuuya didn´t. There is this whole scene in which Adam and shirase are facing verlaine and he knows that they will die, he goes through all the possibilities but there´s no way they make it but then chuuya appears

“The 169 outcome. An unthinkable possibility

-Unbelievable- I instinctively muttered”- Adam, stormbringer

Adam is an AI, he was made to think about all the logical options and he never thought of that one. Because no normal person will go and fight when all logic is saying that they will lose. But Chuuya does it, he goes and fight expeting to win, giving his all because he will not let his friends die.

Kunikida is relatively easy to predict because he will stick to his ideals as much as possible and because of that is easy to read his actions and the way he will act (to a certain extent, of course) Chuuya is as easy to manipulate as kunikida is but he is far more difficult to accurately predict. Chuuya may be as genuine and honest as kunikida is but he doesn´t stick to anything. He will go against the very basis of himself for the people he loves. Worse than that a lot of his actions and decisions are incredibly complicated because he does a thousand of mental mallabarisms that somehow make sense for him. He will kill, steal and blackmail but outside of job? He respects the traffic laws, he thinks that kids shouldn´t drink alcohol and help grandmothers cross the street. Does that make any sense to you? He will die and kill a stranger no doubt if by doing that he can protect the mafia but sacrificing a friend? Yeah, that´s not gonna happen. He simply can´t do it. So chuuya is fine with killing but only under specific conditions and that applies to everything he does. He lives in constant contradiction and that´s a problem because he won´t be able to keep it eternally. Every single time he goes against something he believes in, is a hit, even if he doesn´t let himself see it.  And is fucking terrifying because we all talk about what´s gonna happen when Dazai breaks down, but I´m asking what´s gonna happen if chuuya is the one who breaks down? Because it´s gonna be fucking catastrophic, Chuuya doesn´t know how to bend, he will just keep going until he breaks. He will just keep going until he completely destroys himself.

Now I feel like this is a good time to answer the first question. If chuuya has so many hero-like qualities then why is he in the sides that kill people? why is he a morally grey character? By now I think is pretty evident that Chuuya is not a violence oriented character, he may be agressive and blunt, he is bad tempered but almost every single time he attacks is because he is trying to protect his people or in benefit of them. Yes, he is impulsive and he enjoys a good fight but he never attacks just for the sake of it. He may be arrogant and powerful but none of that is the answer. The real reason Chuuya is a morally grey character is because he chooses.

For him, some people are more important than others.

And just like I´ve been saying in all this analysis, chuuya is ready to do /everything/ for the group of people he chooses. He will kill and die for them. He will go against his moral code a thousand times for them. This certainly doesn´t excuse chuuya´s behavior though. The reality is that no matter his motivation, his actions are still bad by the moral code but just like Dazai, Chuuya is not a moral oriented character. And honestly I will forever find fascinating, that Dazai have all the attributes that we would expect of a bad person but he is in the side that saves people, he is doing his best to protect. Meanwhile, chuuya is an almost text book definition of a hero and still is in the side that kills people. The most fascinating thing though, is that they´re both morally grey characters just in completely different ways. Dazai still does a lot of bad things, it just happens that the ultimate result is a “good” one. Chuuya is constantly doing horrible things, but he also sacrifices himself constantly for the city he loves, and he has saves lots of lives by doing it.

Now going back to topic, yes chuuya chooses but that this is not a mafia-only thing. People in the light does it as well.

Tanizaki is the most obvious one, it has never been a secret that he would burn the world for Naomi and he is the only ADA character that actively has risked (and potentially killed) a complete innocent person in the name of saving Naomi. Ranpo did it as well, during the cannibalism arc he is the first one to suggest killing Mori because he priorized Fukuzawa not only over Mori´s life (which is natural) but also over the whole moral code of the ADA. And later in the story, he is the only one who wants to refuse the job that we now know that ruined the agency. The whole point of it, is not that the ADA didn´t believe in ranpo, is that if they didn´t took the job innocent people were gonna die and that goes against everything the ADA believes in, but not for Ranpo. He was perfectly fine with letting those people die if he could save his family, if he could save the ADA by refusing the job. Tecchou is a hunting dog, his whole character revolves around justice but he was ready to go against that because Jouno was lost, and that was more important for him than the fucking world. Yes, chuuya actively kills but all of this characters have proved that they would do it too under the right circumstances.

And with this I can finally write the last part of this analysis: Chuuya nakahara shouldn´t be in the mafia, his coping mechanisms and how his character is stuck.

[mysweetobsessions]

Let me tell you the small details that absolutely floored me in The Penguin, season 1, episode 4 before the next one comes out.

Spoilers ahead.

Sofia’s hand gestures. Before Arkham, Sofia’s gestures are so femenine and scream spoiled rich girl, they even feel performative at times, except when she’s smoking - a habit she keeps after Arkham. Afterwards, polar opposites. Need I mention the eating? Eating and beyond, after Arkham her hands are no longer playing the part of her previous life which is why they feel more free while also more intentional. (Where’s her acting nomination?)

From normal uncontrolled behavior to unhinged controlled behavior. Let me explain. Before Arkham, Sofía can barely hold her emotions in. She loses her temper talking to the reporter both times and she’s on the verge of crying when talking to her dad. It’s all very normal how much she can’t control her emotions. After Arkham, she’s much more controlled. Her actions are more deliberate and thought out despite the fact that they are absolutely mad (honestly, justifiably so). - she only loses it (so far) when she’s confronting Oz over her brother’s murder, but after what we know, it’s hard to blame her.

Family is so important. Until we all betray each other to protect a horrific man. The references from previous episodes now make absolute sense, like why she hated the name “hangman”. Her mention of “young girls not doing so well in the family” (something like this). The mention of not letting men control her. How much she can’t stand her family and the visible urge to kill them every time they spoke to her. Why she loved her brother so much. And the list goes on.

From Oz to Penguin. In a couple short scenes, they showed us how Oz always felt belittled and his ego hurt (when Sofía asks him what’s he doing *inside* the party, because he doesn’t belong there really). How she tells him he’s “just a driver”. We didn’t need to see this a million scenes to get that small things like these were some stones (of many) that created The Penguin character. I’m sure more is coming in this regard.

Clinically sane? It is an impossible situation to try to convince people you are sane when you’ve been deemed clinically insane. Yet what behavior is sane when you are framed and put in a deplorable place like Arkham? What do you do when the truth is more complicated and sounds less plausible than the lie? Our minds are made to accept what sounds simpler and makes a more coherent story. Proving her competence becomes an impossible task, especially when she is slowly actually losing her mind from the conditions that would make anyone unhinged. I felt her frustration. (I could not personally figure out how I’d manage this if it were real. Anyone got ideas? Share ‘em with me.)

Arkham “rehabilitation”. I know it’s an asylum but it’s also a prison. We been knew that these places probably make more criminals than they “rehabilitate” but damn if that entering sequence wasn’t as dehumanizing as intended. The corruption inside it to top it all off… Even just the noises and screams that would drive anyone mad. (A point for abolishing the prison system here).

Trust is a bitch. Sofía’s downfall is her ability to trust, that’s how I see it. She wants to trust the people around her despite what she’s been through. This shows that a side of her is desperate to find someone to either give her the trust she seeks or to prove her wrong that people can’t be trustworthy. From another angle, this could be seen as her reliving her trauma, by trusting people (or the penguin) over and over as if to try and change the end result (the betrayal). Either way, it kills me.

I’m sure there are other things many people loved but this episode was absolutely fantastic and these are my favorite things about it.

[kaccvcate]

sorry if this is a bit of a personal question, but is your lifestyle costly in any way, especially concerning the gas for your (sick) car? and is homesickness inevitable?

i feel like a stationary life in a house for years bogs me down. i don't know if i feel this way because of my current living situation causing me a lot of stress and a lot of bad memories attached to my current home, being in a shitty area, mental illness, or all of the above, but i just don't feel like i can live this way especially with my increasing wanderlust (a strong desire to travel).

it was magical to me seeing your many interactions and various views when you were traveling around the country. it was honestly really exciting! i feel like there's a lot to witness in the world and i want to see what i can in the short time i have on earth. (i think it's why i love visiting my family so much, besides enjoying their presence.)

but i don't want to throw myself head first into it, ya know? i want to know how much it's going to cost me. i would love to travel, but i don't wanna go broke over it! ;^;

i also have a strong attachment to my current home, florida. no other place has really matched its beautiful savannas, messy yet beautiful rivers, crazy plant overgrowth, and the nostalgic noise of cicadas (i even managed to find a shell this summer! it's my most prized possession, physical music aside). but, god... i really feel like fucking off sometime and going elsewhere for a little bit.

sorry if this is a lot of personal details, haha... you just feel very easy to talk to and i would like to have a roaming lifestyle. haven't been attached to people as much lately due to things, and i want to have my own adventures and experiences. maybe it's some sort of natural instinct to finally leave the family? xD who knows

To be honest, I've struggled with mental illness and depression the whole time I've been running this blog, and since I've stopped being homeless the last couple months, I've become a completely different and much happier person.

My comic seems very lighthearted and happy go lucky because I choose to focus on positive parts of my life in my work, it helps me to stay alive. When I was a kid my parents took me out of Mississippi, isolated and abused the shit out of me. My whole life I've actually dreamed of being able to live here and make music and have friends, and the whole time I was homeless I was homesick as fuck and cried multiple times daily. A lot of the drug use I portray is from times I was extremely suicidal, now I'm happy as a clam and don't ever feel the need to get fucked up like that, or hate myself or my life or anything (I don't even drink anymore.)

I've always wanted to help my family, who live in extreme poverty, but as a disabled person felt unable to. Now through my work, I'm able to be healthy and improve my life, and it's extremely satisfying.

I know this isn't the answer you guys probably want to hear. When my life was horrible and I was surrounded by abusers, moving into my car was the obvious choice, and while I was homeless, travelling was the obvious choice. You wear out your welcome one place and have to move on. For a while at first I stayed in one place and kept day jobs, which was difficult because of my condition, then when my old truck broke down I moved into the bando and just shoplifted all my food that wasn't paid for by fan donations. Through the kindness of my fans I was able to go to New York, there I lived on the street, and sometimes slept in parks or crackhouses, which isn't the most fun (although there were lots of funny times also, which I drew comics of, and crackheads can be as nice as anyone when they choose to be.) I was hoping to get treatment for my condition and get on disability, but without a place to stay through winter it was impossible. It was thanks to the generosity of fans that I was able to get a van, and I tried again to move to Mississippi, but things fell apart and I had nowhere to stay, so to avoid police attention I went out west. I had wonderful adventures in california, but still I regretted leaving my family to struggle while I bummed around having fun.

Even times I was really broke, kind people would take me in and feed me. People seemed to go out of their way to be extremely nice all the time as soon as I was out of Mississippi, and when I got out west it was fun to hang out in San Francisco with all the other free people who lived in and around Golden Gate Park (there are many.) Travelling was fun, I made so many amazing friends across the country and had great times, but still it was hard to be truly happy.

I'm very lucky to have the support network I do, my life wouldn't be possible without it. Living in a van is definitely cheaper than living in a house for obvious reasons. If you're going to move into a van, get to California as soon as possible, it's the best place to do it. But if you feel you're in a good situation and have nothing to gain from homelessness, you should just enjoy your nice life and be grateful. And next time you have some extra cash or bud, go hand out some alms to your friendly neighborhood busker. They need it more than you.

[captain-mj]

Plane Ride

Little Ghost mom centric thing because @snootlestheangel made me think about her again

Mrs. Riley silently handed her ticket to the airport security. She had never flown to America before. If she could, she'd probably feel anxious about doing something wrong and the man yelling at her.

Instead, all she could feel was the swirling mix of dread and relief filling her entire body. They bubbled and foamed inside her until she felt like she might throw up on the nice worker's shoes.

"Mum." Tommy put his hand on arm gently. "Sorry, sir. My brother is in the hospital and neither of us are taking it well."

"Go ahead and go through."

"Thank you, sir." Tommy held her hand as she tried not to cry again. "it's okay, Mum. Simon is alright. We're going to go see him and he's probably going to be fine and tell us we're loonies for even being worried about him."

Mrs. Riley wasn't sure she believed him, but nodded all the same. She was never the strongest person. Mentally or physically. It was not something she was proud of honestly. But she needed to keep herself together through the flight.

Tommy managed to sleep, probably exhausted from handling Joseph and the unknown amount of time he spent on the phone trying to get everything together. She made sure not to wake him up, even as she kept weeping.

Simon was alive. They told her he was dead. Went missing and would never return. That she'd never even get a body.

And now. He was alive, in critical condition and hadn't talked much. Her good boy.

Mrs. Riley started to sob again. She had never been a good mother. She always tried, but she didn't fool herself into thinking she was good. Simon protected her more than she ever protected him and that would probably always haunt her. A better mom would've left. Or at least made sure she was the only one getting hit.

The first time he had broken Simon's arm, she did leave. Just for a day. And then she came back. Weak and unable to handle the world anymore. When did she get like that? She asked herself the question constantly.

Not Simon though. Even as a kid. Always tough as nails.

The poor flight attendant offered her a drink on the house. She simply asked for a water and to please come back when Tommy was awake.

On foreign soil, she wondered how her son did it. Just... went to other countries. Talked with people. Smiled and drank and did all the things she did as a kid so easily.

A military personnel picked them up. They had on their formal wear. Only difference between it and the one, who told her that her eldest had died, was the flag and some colors. He had a scar along his head and tattoos on his arm. For a brief moment, she thought one of them may match her son's but his sleeve was half covering it.

"My name is Sergeant Alex Keller. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

He talked to Tommy like a soldier, greeting him with a thick Texan and shaking his hand. For her though, he must've seen the red eyes and the bags that came under them, because he actually smiled at her.

"I've never met someone as... strong willed as your son. I'll be happy to escort you both to the hospital. However," her blood started to drop in temperature, "i must warn you. He's not a happy camper. His condition also... isn't pretty. Doctors say he's out of the weeds, but recovery is going to be a slow and steady process."

Tommy nodded. "Strong willed... That's one way to describe him."

Sergeant Keller simply smiled and she got the impression he knew something she didn't. Most likely something classified if he was anything like Simon.

Alex took them to the hospital where they were told only one visitor at a time. With no hesitation, Tommy stepped back and said he'd wait in the waiting room. Although it was no doubt killing him, he simply squeezed his mom's hand and let go.

Mrs. Riley followed the nurse through the white halls, feeling nauseated as many childhood A&E visits flashed through her brain.

"Right now, he's on quite a bit of oxycodone."

"He's not supposed to take that."

The nurse faltered a bit. "There was no note in his file for allergies. We couldn't leave him unmedicated. Is there a different one that he should be on?" She sounded almost panicked, as she checked through Simon's file.

"Addiction... runs in the family. Sorry, I trust your judgement, miss. I'm just surprised he let you give him any pain meds."

The nurse relaxed and hesitated, again, almost telling her something. She seemed to take pity on the poor mom. "He was... delirious. We believe he was given some cocktails of hallucinogens and who knows what else. That with the infection and the fever... I don't think he would've stayed coherent enough to make choices."

Mrs. Riley found herself relaxing a little. "Simon knows how to dissociate. Hopefully that's what he did when they... took him. I understand there's certain things you can't tell me. I do. What can you tell me? Before I go in this room. What should I know?"

The nurse paused in front of the door. "I wouldn't normally do this. I need you to understand. But I think someone he's close to should understand what happened." She put the file on a small table nearby. "I'm going to walk away. Just go in when you're ready."

Mrs. Riley smiled at her and waited a moment or two after she walked away before picking it up.

Broken ribs. Dislocated. Vivisections scars. Damage to multiple organs. A surgery had been done to remove internal scar tissue. Puncture wounds all over. Unknown wound on the ribs. Cuts along face. Wound from a previously healed over slit throat. Signs of starvations. Signs of rape. Burns along feet, potentially from walking on hot ground. Scorpion stings on hands and wrists.

There were more, but most were cuts or bruising. Horrible, but nothing like what she had just read.

Mrs. Riley should've taken a moment to compose herself, but she couldn't. She didn't even put the file back on the table, just dropped it and went inside.

There he was. For the first time since he was six years old, he looked small. There were so many bandages, especially around his mouth. But his eyes were exposed. Along with dark hair that had grown out and fell in his face now. For a brief moment, his heart rate spiked in fear as he stared at her.

"There's my good boy." She said softly, walking over. She made herself walk slow and steady despite wanting to collapse. When he flinched away from her, it felt like she had her heart ripped out and picked apart. But he settled, his heart rate began to even back out.

He tried to talk but it seemed to pull something cause it winced in pain instead.

"Simon." His eyes went straight to her, soft and wet. "Blink once if i can take your hand."

One blink.

She grabbed it gently, cradling it. His hands dwarfed hers. There were so many scars. So much bandaging. Her eyes filled with tears and she could hear the heart monitor start to beep faster.

"I'm so glad I have you back, Simon." She rubbed his knuckles gently to calm him back down. "Tommy is outside when you want to see him."

It looked like he tried to sit up but the pained whimpering that came out of him made her sick.

"Sweetheart," she pressed his shoulders back gently, not liking the defocused look in his eyes. "please. Just stay still. Everything can wait. I promise. For once, just... let someone else be the strong one for you, alright?"

Mrs. Riley pulled up a chair and held his hand. Before long, he fell asleep, though he fought it to the bitter end. Tommy was allowed back eventually and she wasn't prepared for how fast he just fell apart.

Her poor boys.

Simon went to comfort him but was luckily stopped by both of them before he could hurt himself. He looked miserably at both of them but Tommy hit the pain med button for him and he relaxed back into a blissful and hopefully pain free sleep.

Mrs. Riley could be strong. She knew she could. Whatever Simon needed, he'd get.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Tumblr isn't letting me find again @fictionadventurer's and my own posts on epistolary novels, but I have been thinking about it again, because I fell down a Goodreads review rabbit hall and I have thoughts again.

So many people dislike the style, and honestly, I don't blame them, because it's so often done... not well. It is in some aspects, a deceptively easy one, and in others, deceptively hard. And because I'm trying to write a novel with this format myself, I have been thinking about what makes or breaks an epistolary novel.

I talked yesterday about TGLPPS, because it is an interesting case to analyze. I have thought many times about it, and cannot think of a single non-merely-aesthetic reason for it to be told in an epistolary style. A lot of it depends on -British- people who have survived some terrible war conditions willingly opening up to a stranger about their experiences, and that's made... even more difficult if the medium is letters? typically writers will appeal to tropes like making the reserved character drunk, or have them share an extreme experience in isolation with the stranger to create sudden intimacy. None of this is possible in writing; if anything, one is much more self-conscious about the things one writes than the things one says; verba volant, scripta manent.

It seems to me the story would have flowed much more naturally if Juliet had been stranded on Guernsey for some reason -like the first author herself!- suddenly Dawsey commenting that he got a book from her library makes so much more sense! Yes, certainly, if you met a stranger out there, and they introduce themselves and you realize you have a book that once belonged to them, you would tell them so! And it is in this way that the epistolary format does violence to a story that would otherwise sound much less contrived.

Another problem is the large cast of characters and multiple settings. For all I complain about Dracula, Stoker manages this pretty well (of course he has the model of The Woman in White, but TWiW has fewer povs), at least on the first half, because structurally the storylines of the characters are converging, and that does a lot to guide the reader in the understanding of the character's relationships. TGLPPS's relationship structure is more of a multidirectional flow chart, and that becomes confusing really fast.

Another novel I read reviews for recently is one set in WWI, composed of back and forth letters between two lovers torn apart by war, and one common complaint was... that the climactic scenes, the times they meet, etc all happen... off-camera. It is a fair complaint, but also one I cannot really blame the author for, because that's what usually happens with real life compilations of letters of that kind. Sure, usually the editor/compiler will fill in the blanks sometimes and add an epilogue of sorts explaining what happened afterwards, and that is possible if you are writing it fictionally too, but some may think it spoils the effect of immediacy and whatnot, which, fair too.

But it makes me think of how aware Jean Webster was of these difficulties, and how deftly she managed them in both Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Both novels have aged badly in terms of content and message, but they are very interesting stylistically.

DLL is a bildungsroman with a dash of romance; through Judy's letters to daddy long-legs we can see how she grows as a person, gaining independence intellectually and economically, and as a writer, as her grammar and vocabulary change and grow. Between making Judy an orphan who hates the orphanage where she has lived her whole life, and one where she lived past the usual age of being thrown into the world, Webster does away with the need for letters between Judy and her friends and family: all her friends and family are her college roommates and her benefactor, who is the person she writes to. The benefactor scheme also makes it so that she doesn't have to write dll's replies, which in turns makes it much more natural and acceptable for the reader when Judy writes him the ending's love letter describing the feelings and impressions of their finally meeting in person and in truth; Judy has become a writer, and she is so used to write to him as another person all the time, that it just makes sense for her to write to him one more letter at the point where her benefactor and her lover become one and the same person. She has written a novel where the core is the correspondence between lovers AND managed to include as well all the moments of their meetings that we would otherwise miss.

Dear Enemy is a similar, but longer and more ambitious story. Instead of one relationship-connection (Judy and Daddy's), we have Sallie as a nod of connections: she's Judy's friend, Jarvis' "employee", the boss of several characters, has a tense colleague-boss relationship with the visiting doctor, a boyfriend of sorts in Washington, and a family we have met before. It is, in that way, a similar setup to TGLPPS: a urban girl of means becomes a fish out of water in a different setting till she ends up assimilating to it, and settling definitely through marriage. But Webster does a few things differently to make it click.

For starters, it is clear to her that this is the story of Sallie's maturation -I have sometimes talked of Dear Enemy as a novel where a Mary Crawford-like character undergoes a transformation arc. The happenings and stories she meets and tells Judy about along the way serve this arc, besides standing on their own as case studies to illustrate the problems, ideology and solutions proposed to the secondary themes of the story (education and social reform). I feel like TGLPPS is much more interested in Guernsey's survival through the war, in which case Juliet's story is already a frame, which, again, makes the epistolary format cumbersome rather than complementary.

Dear Enemy adds more correspondents, but it is very austere/economical with them, and narrows the letters we see to only those Sallie sends. YMMV regarding if it was too much cutting or not, but the undeniable effect is structural soundness; you are never confused by what is happening or who is writing to whom. We can guess the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff probably wrote some indignant letters to Jervis, and those would be funny to read, but... would they be worth the break in the flow of the narrative? I don't think so. To this effect, just having Sallie write a line to the effect of "I expect at this point you have at hand an irate letter from the Hon. Cyrus" is enough to paint a picture for the reader. Perhaps a letter or two from Dr. MacRae would have helped develop his character more -definitely a first read of the story obscures how much misdirection there is in Sallie's narration to Judy, which in turns tends to create an impression of suddenness to the closing letter that doesn't come across well to the reader.

The choice of Sallie mainly writing to Judy is, IMO, a really good one too. It not only establishes a connection with DLL, but it also allows for the intimacy that makes disclosure believable (something TGLPPS struggles with, as I mentioned above). When you add a few letters to the doctor and Gordon and Jervis, you also get a better perspective of Sallie's personality, how she deals not only with a friend, but with acquaintances, romantic partners and coworkers.

From all this it is pretty evident that for Webster the main function of epistolarity as format is aiding in showing psychological and moral development. But that's not the only thing the format can be really good for: perspective is another, and Austen uses it to great effect in both Lady Susan and Lesley Castle.

Both stories deal with mainly static characters, but who have very strong perspectives of the same situation, and it is this singularity of setting and story that anchors the narrative to avoid confusion, while the variety of perspective brings interest. In Lady Susan, we are dealing mainly with the marrying off of Frederica and seduction of Mrs. Vernon's brother, Reginald. There where Lady Susan paints Frederica as an undisciplined, irrational and ungrateful daughter, her sister in law, Mrs. Vernon, paints her as a sweet girl and a victim of her mother's ruthlessness and lack of love. Both agree that Reginald is being seduced, but, of course, with opposite goals: Lady Susan wants him to succumb, Mrs. Vernon, to escape, and this is a delicious struggle for the reader to follow!*

Lesley Castle being an earlier effort, and unfinished, does show some of the defects I have mentioned before (mainly, the relative confusion of having several correspondents in separate storylines), but illustrates well this same perspective effect: Margaret writes to Charlotte about the new Lady Lesley, and the new Lady Lesley writes to Charlotte about about Margaret and her sister... and in these contrasts lies the main interest of the narrative.

Some conclusions to these musings, then:

Not every story is suited to the epistolary format.

The epistolary format seems to work the best when it is used for either A) showcase psychological and moral development B) to play with perspective on people and/or events.

One of the main difficulties of the format is finding a narrative element to anchor and structure the letters around.

It must have a core couple of correspondents, or at most, two. More than that will make it confusing (unless, perhaps, the story is very short and about a single event or two).

A delicate balance must be found so that the secondary correspondence doesn't cut the flow of the main one, and if possible it must feed into it.

*It is interesting how Love and Friendship, being such a delightful -and I sustain one of the best ever- Austen adaptation, is by force of the perspective switch towards a more impersonal third person, more about a love story between Frederica and Reginald than a struggle between Lady Susan and Mrs. Vernon. Which isn't dissimilar to how adaptations of DLL end up being more about the romance between the leads than Judy's coming of age in college; tropes aside, I feel like if the epistolary format is well embedded in the story, it's going to be nearly impossible to reproduce the effect in adaptation.

[evenmorefatallyobsessed]

Non-RWBY/ MLP models I wanna do and how I'd explain them in Remnant.

01. Felix Argyle (Ferris)

Would Probably use a similar story to how he met his princess but set and altered to fit Remnant.

Felix was simply born with two physical Faunus traits. While I say simply this would be more on pair with a condition/ mutation like Polymelia a genetic anomaly that results in people having extra limbs.

The difference being that in Felix's case he's simply born with a extra trait. However the effects it has on him are more detrimental For instance racist see him as even more of a animal then most faunus.

While some faunus see him with contempt for seemingly being to them what Faunus are yo racist. His parents ashamed and afraid of redicue lock him up I their house

Things would play out similar to how they did in their book but instead of Crusch Jaune and the Arcs noticing the families odd behavior find and rescue the boy.

2. Toga (My Hero Academia)

Her circumstances can be similar to her series. Given that Neo can form illusions and Xanthe can quite literally transmutation seemingly anything to gold I don't see why Toga can't take on the apperance/ voice and even eventually semblance of those whose blood she ingest.

Though I would alter the reasoning to that of that she needs the others aura to mimic them. Blood is just the easiest way to injest it as while the blood cells are still there is no reason they shouldn't theoretically still retain their aura.

03. Najimi Osana (Komi Can't Communicate)

This one's fairly easy too, Najimi simply grew up with Jaune (Or one of his sisters) as a classmate. He befriended everyone like in his own manga/ anime.

And simply got a crush on Jaune convincing himself he'd confess at graduation... Only Jaune wasn't there and had left for Beacon.

04. Rebecca (Cyberpunk 2077)

Rebecca's is a bit harder but off the top of my head, I can see her and the gang she rolled with in Mantle. Not as techy as they had been in Cyberpunk though, or maybe they were. Not really too important for the relevance her, point is Rebecca nearly dies. And only survives because Pietro can't help but try and save her on principle.

Using his technology... And even his semblance he does manage to save the girl, though the result leaves her more mechanical then human. Rebecca as we know is loyal, arguably to a fault.

So once she hears the old man quite literally tore his soul apart to save her she grows attached to him and his... daughter Penny who insist on calling her sister.

05. Midna (Legend of Zelda, Twilights Princess)

Honestly, I got nothing for this one, doesn't mean I wanna make it any less. Maybe Jaune falls into the Twilight Realm instead of the Everafter... Or Midna is sent to Remnant instead of Zelda's world. Or Jaune and the Arc's as a whole could be Link's Ancestors who could be guarding the Mirror of Twilight to this day.

06. Amy Rose, Rouge the Bat & Blaze the Cat (Sonic Franchise)

Jaune fell into Mobius instead of the Everafter

07 Hideri Kanzaki (Blend S)

Him and Jaune come from the same village were his parents are farmers. Hideri unlike Jaune adored getting dressed up and praised and dreamed of the big city and becoming a cute idol.

Jaune supported his dream, encouraging his friend who in turn encouraged him to be a Huntsman as well. He left for Vale with Jaune who fought off several Grimm on their way there. He aimed to start his career as a idol while Jaune tried for Beacon...

Several months later he's crossdressing at a cafe and Jaune steps in to see how his friends doing.

08. Fujiwara Sisters, Maki & Nagatoro's Crew

These are actually super easy, their civilians, lets say Mistral, since both shows are based in japan and Mistral seems to be the asia of Remnant.

I can see two simple ways of doing it, Senpai and Shirogine can be related to, or friends of Jaune's parents. Hence why when visiting Mistral Jaune decides to see how his old friend/ Cousin are.

Also maybe I should give a brief summary of three others I've already maid.

Louise de La Vallière (Familiar of Zero)

this one as a commission already has a setting... Basically the Valliere family fought with the Arcs in the Great War where her grandfather fought besides Jaeger Arc.

The two grew close as brothers and agreed to marry their children, unfortunately Julius fell in love with Juniper and caused friction by cancelling his engagement to the two elder daughters.

Thankfully Jaeger did have a younger son, Jaune, who would become Beacon's Prof. Arc.

This is a reference to Louise fiancée Jean-Jacques Wardes

who looks about the same ages a my Prof. Arc model, the irony being that Jaune supported, trained and helped his fiancée however he could unlike his traitorous counterpart.

He never intended to actually make the young girl follow through with their wedding either. Perfectly willing to break his word and dishonor himself so she could be free to love whoever she chooses.

Because of Jaune's influence and the fact that she's not considered a failure magician in Remnant and in turn ostracized Louise isn't as violent as she is initially.

And while Jaune doesn't notices it, Louise doesn't see their engagement in a negative light.

Manami Aiba/ La Brava (My Hero Academia)

Born with dwarfism Manami always felt different, self conscious and misunderstood. She yearned for connection and affection from a young age and could always feel others look at her differently...

She was quite sharp and capable, but there was another facet to her... She Loved HARD. When she got a crush it wasn't a simple crush, but instead utter affection.

Her pure little heart was so filled with affection on her first ever that the immense emotion awoke her aura and semblance... Love. The ability to multiple the targeted individual dependent on her feeling towards them.

Given her semblance she saw it as proof that she needed to pursue him, cherish and learn about him. Unfortunately it resulted in her freaking said boy out, viewing her as a stalking, and rumor spread over the tiny lil' weirdo stalker.

She ended up leaving school, shutting herself off from others, and surviving in private using her impressive computer skills to make money. Whether that be a regular computer job, hacking systems for less savory people or selling information she managed to dig up to Hei Xiong.

But nothing healed her heart, made her reach out, there was no Gentle Criminal who filled her world with light in Remnant... No instead one day, where she'd been forced to leave her home on a rare occasion she was stopped by several thugs... And then saved, by a random, kind... Cute, tall... Knight.

Ilulu (Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid)

I'm thinking of doing something similar to the series but instead of Toru being injured and found by Kobayashi it's Ilulu who is found and healed by Jaune.

[omegastation]

If you could implement anything you desire into the next ME game, what would it be? Could be narrative, gameplay, controls, etc.

Ah!!!!

Honestly the first thing that comes to mind is letting Shepard rest. That would be my main concern. I also think they would make Shepard come back for the wrong reasons, to make the franchise as popular as it was, and I wouldn't like it.

I would also like some kind of shift in the way power is distributed post Reaper Wars, and I want it to make sense. I want the writers to worldbuild as best as they can and come up with something believable because the same old same old just wouldn't work after everything that happened. If there's still a Council, how does it work? I would love for every race to have a representative on it, and if not, they better explain why because the wars changed the dynamics. Prejudices must still exist but I don't think it makes sense to still have the regular old talk of "lesser species".

What kind of other shifts can we think of? If Spectres still exist, do they still have that much power? Are the Volus still having all the financial power? Is there a new seat of power? How does it reflect the multiples races of the galaxy? Would the next version of Avina still look like an asari or would it look completely different?

And really, the krogan are my fav so I might be biased, but I really want them to no longer have to prove they're not how people perceive them to be. I want them living their best lives, full of hope. And hope also means seeing more children and female aliens. Bioware needs to do better with that.

I've liked Mass Effect Andromeda so I do hope there's a follow-up there as well:

WHO WAS THE BENEFACTOR?????!!!!!!

Angara mixing with all alien races in the Milky Way and Andromeda

But after that, since you said anything!!!, I would always love more lore: - If we're talking about "rectifying" stuff, I would say some kind of explanation about Ardat-Yakshi because they didn't have a good handle of that lore. It's way too contradictory. - I would also like a resolution to the dark energy storyline, even if it's just one mission. - More AIs such as EDI or SAM explored. Everything about the way EDI aked questions and chose to prioritize certains things in her life made sense to me, but we can go one step further. Couldn't she design her platform? What about a being like SAM? Wouldn't SAM want their own platform? What does it mean for an AI to have design preferences? Can aesthetics relate to their identity and sense of self? And what does it mean to process things so fast? How do you love in those conditions? And how do the geth will evolve? Would we see new designs for the geth? Will we see more individual geths (from a "we" to a "I") or will we see the opposite? And why do we believe one is better than the other when it's just a different system and way of living and thinking? - More languages lore and especially an explanation about the trade language. Just release a complete guide to your writing system Bioware!!!! It's all over the trilogy so it must mean something. I would also love the same for Khelish - Quarian and geth lore, because those two races always manage to bring something new and interesting and honestly just really poignant. - More homeworld or settled worlds/colonies that we can explore. I think Kahje especially must be something

As far as relationships/friendships/LIs:

more aliens as squad or crew members (including volus, drell, batarians)

a krogan LI would be wonderful

a female drell as squadmate is a special wish for sure

more romance options in general

no hints of an "official" romance because that always backfires. Not only do players resent the hints that they should romance a character, but even the character gets judged for it.

Speaking of a character that gets judged, if Liara is present, I'd love for her to be there but not take center stage. I also don't want a Shepard-obsessed Liara. I want her to be fulfilled and curious and happy.

Regarding the Shadow Broker, I don't think the old version that has terrorized the galaxy so much and spied on its every corner can survive the Reaper Wars unscathed. But it can be replaced by worse things, so who knows?

Thank you for the ask !!!! <3 (and sorry for the long answer, I got way too excited)

Would love to have your own answer anon, or anyone who wants to answer the same question! I'm sure there are many things I forgot.

[onceuponastory]

home comforts - bucky barnes x reader

Plot: When Bucky finally comes home from another mission, reader makes sure he’s okay...and Bucky reflects on just how lucky he is to have her. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader Warnings: Mentions of death, violence, blood, injuries/wounds (nothing too graphic though) and everything Bucky did as the Winter Soldier, and went through with HYDRA. Also, I mention how when he was the Winter Soldier, everything that happened to Bucky was without his consent, so that’s a trigger too. As always if I miss any triggers, let me know. Notes: Bucky deserves the world! Not beta’d, so any mistakes are my own.

One summer evening, the front door to Y/N and Bucky’s apartment opens, breaking the silence in the space. Immediately, Y/N jumps up, rushing to the front door. That noise means Bucky is finally back after his mission. He’s been away for close to three months, and ever since he left the threshold of their front door, Y/N has been counting down the minutes until he got home. 

Finally, she sees him, standing in the doorway and taking his jacket off. She notices the mixture of blood and sweat on his body and face, still there despite Bucky’s obvious attempt to wipe it away. He does that a lot when he comes back from missions, she’s noticed. Trying to shield her from the death and violence he witnesses almost every day, keeping his life with her separate from his Avengers life. Maybe he’s scared she’d run a mile if she knew just what he’s capable of. But honestly, Y/N doesn’t care about that. She knows everything that Bucky’s been through as the Winter Soldier, and she doesn’t blame him for it. 

It wasn’t his choice. It never was.

“Hey love.” He murmurs, giving her a smile. Although she appreciates it, worry creeps in. He seems tired and empty, not like the cheerful Bucky she’s used to seeing now. Still though, she tries to mask her sadness. It’s tough, seeing him so worn down after a mission, and wanting to do all she can to help. Superhero or not, he deserves someone there for him on the other end. And she’s more than happy to be that person.

“Hey.” She takes a moment to take all of him in, noticing all the bruises and wounds dotting his skin. Even his arm seems to have lost its shine a little. Sighing, Y/N gently takes his hand. “They really put you through the ringer, huh?”

“S’Okay. It happens. It’s a part of the job.” He murmurs, shaking his head. She knows Bucky hates having her worry, but she knows that as his girlfriend, it’s her job to worry.

“I wish it wasn’t.” Y/N doesn’t say that, though. She can’t. How do you tell your boyfriend that you don’t like him going out there and saving the world, just because it means he might never come home to you again? Her stomach twists, the familiar feeling of anxiety about Bucky’s condition rising once more. Again, she tries to bury it. 

He’s here. He’s home, and he’s safe. For now.

“You must be exhausted. Let me run you a bath.” She offers, and he nods. Although, Y/N catches a slight moment of apprehension in his gaze. Even though it’s been a while since he left HYDRA’s grasp, it’s clear their torture still affects Bucky. Sometimes, she sees it on his face. Him wondering if he deserves care and love. Even something as simple as bathing and taking care of himself was a reward back then. And it breaks her damn heart.

“Thank you. That would be perfect.” He manages a smile at that, and she nods. “I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you, darlin’.” Y/N smiles softly, gently cupping his cheek.

“You deserve it because you’re a good person, Bucky.” She insists, hoping he believes her. Even after everything he’s been through, Bucky still tries to see the good in people. At least…those who deserve it. She just wishes he’d see the good in himself, too.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Running the hot water, Y/N glances at all the bath products she has on offer. Most are floral, fruity scents, not the most super soldier-esque fragrance. Bucky doesn’t mind that, though. He loves everything about her, and worships the ground she walks on. Instead, she opts for a lavender bubble bath, hoping it soothes him and calms his mind a little. God knows what he’s seen, but no doubt it will weigh on his mind like all the others. She pours some in, letting the water and bubbles rise as the scent of lavender fills the room. “Here you go.” She smiles, standing aside to let Bucky inside. He inhales the lavender, sighing contentedly, already feeling a little better.

“Thank you.” 

“Do you need anything?” She asks. Ideally, she’d want nothing more than to help him undress, peel off every piece of tactical gear that’s still clinging to his body, wet with sweat and blood. And then she’d treat every single wound on his body, making sure he’s 110% okay. But after so long being used as a weapon, having your humanity and agency stripped away from you piece by piece…she wants Bucky to have the choice to decide what happens, and who touches him in moments like this. If he’s more comfortable being alone, she’s more than happy to oblige.

“No, thank you. I’m okay.” 

“If you need anything, just give me a shout, alright?”

“Y/N.” He speaks, stopping her just as she leaves the room. “Thank you. For everything you do. I appreciate it more than you could ever know.” Smiling, she nods.

“I know.” But Bucky wants to tell her that over and over again. He wants to shout it from the rooftops, tell everyone just how lucky he is to have someone as caring as her, to have someone treat him and his body with kindness after so many years of being tortured and broken. He can’t even put into words what she means to him, what his love does for him.

Once he’s alone, Bucky steps into the water, immediately moaning happily as the warm water embraces him. He leans back, his back pressing against the cool porcelain of the bath. Finally, he has a chance to relax and clear his head after his previous mission. Finally, after god knows how long he spent on this last mission, he can finally think about something else, and clear his mind from this weight.

Soon, his mind goes to Y/N. And for the first time in a long time, Bucky starts smiling. Honestly, he doesn’t know what he did to deserve someone like her in his life. Someone so patient and loving. With her, his life is so much easier, and now he actually enjoys waking up in the mornings and going to bed at night. At least, he does when Y/N is beside him. He must’ve done something incredible in his past life to have her in this one. Sometimes, he worries that he’ll wake up and still be the Winter Soldier, his happy life with Y/N only a happy dream.

But life with Y/N is better than anything his mind could ever dream up. Even with all the death and blood he sees on almost a daily basis by this point, all the times he wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming…Y/N is right there by him, loving him, and staying up into the wee hours of the morning making sure that he’s okay and knows that he’s safe. She does so much for him, like now, when she made sure to respect his consent even when he knows all she wants is to be beside him, checking every inch of his body for any scars or wounds. No doubt she’d treat every single one of them too, big or small.

Bucky swears that Y/N’s heaven sent, that some angel must’ve been smiling on him that day when they sent her his way. Or maybe Y/N’s the angel they sent to him. 

Regardless of the way she entered his life, Bucky feels incredibly lucky to have her. And he’ll be sure to tell her that every day for the rest of his life.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After a long, much needed soak in the bath, Bucky goes back to his and Y/N’s bedroom, wrapped only in a towel. As he creaks open the door, he spots Y/N. She’s laying on their bed, humming to herself as she reads. Bucky realises she hasn’t seen him yet, and for a moment, he just gets to watch her. She’s so beautiful. So peaceful. He would move heaven and earth to make sure she was okay and happy. Sometimes…well, most of the time, Bucky can be a grumpy asshole. Although, after being treated the way he was for so long, that’s understandable.

Y/N though? Y/N is the total opposite. She’s just so genuinely good, so loving and understanding. He could be having the worst day, wanting to scream and shout about the world and how much it hates him, and Y/N would be there to talk him down, to show him that there is good in the world. Although…he’s already seen that there’s good in the world.

And it exists solely in Y/N.

She looks up then, noticing him in the doorway.

“Hey you.” When she notices he’s only dressed in a towel, her eyes widen slightly. “What’s up? Enjoy your bath?” She stammers, clearly hoping he hasn’t noticed her staring. Chuckling, Bucky comes and sits beside her. 

“I did, thank you. I really appreciate you, love, you know that?”

“You don’t have to thank me. You’re my boyfriend, and I want to take care of you.” She insists. “If you ever need anything, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on, you can come tell me, okay?” Instead of answering, Bucky leans in, kissing her softly. All the love and passion he has for her, and all the pain of missing her that’s built up over the last few months he’s been without her, finally releases. Y/N moans happily, scooting closer to him and wrapping her arms around him as the kiss deepens.

“I will... But how about….” He whispers, smiling. “We make up for lost time?” Giggling, Y/N nods.

“I’d like that.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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[venus-is-thinking]

DRDT Handwriting Analysis

Hello everyone! I decided to take a look at the canonical handwriting of the various characters in DRDT. We've actually seen a good number of handwritings and it definitely seems like they are specifically written differently, so it's a fun new dimension of the characters we can look at. I've done my best to compile all of them in this post, but please let me know if I've missed any!

I'll be going in order of when we first see them, starting with:

Arei Nageishi!

Arei is our first handwriting reveal, which we know because she wrote the arm wrestling contest board in Chapter 1, Episode 2! She seems to write in all caps and has a slightly curvy style.

Min Jeung!

Whoops, murder time. Min's handwriting is seen on the "OUT OF ORDER" sign. We don't know it's hers when we first see it, but in the trial, it's revealed that she must have written it.

As far as I remember, we don't have another sample of her handwriting, which is unfortunate, given that I believe this is probably not what her real handwriting looks like. She's clearly printing in very straight lines; it's probably meant to look official. If it looked handwritten, it would lower the credibility of the out of order sign.

I also tried to see if you could tell what any handwriting looked like from the papers on the table in the Bonus Episode she's in, but I didn't manage to pick anything out that was actually legible. So, I guess we don't really know what Min's handwriting would normally look like.

Xander Matthews!

Xander wrote "Charles Cuevas' Motive" on this DVD, but a lot of it got smudged off when he planted it in the CD reader (god I hope I got it right I'm sorry Charles I'm trying to remember which is which).

He seems to use all caps. It's also not the neatest, given that the two Cs run into each other despite being on different lines.

Notably, there is a more filled-out version.

However, the red text isn't written by Xander himself, because he's dead at the time. As best I can figure, this is Teruko writing in an impression of Xander's handwriting. The image of the CD appears as Teruko says, "Hm, are you talking about this?" implying she's the one carrying it, and the rest of the writing is filled in when she says so. It might seem like it would be Rose, given that she's the one who figures out what it's supposed to say, but Rose instructs someone else to rotate it, so it can be assumed Rose isn't holding it. Teruko is the one to take the DVD out of the player at the end of investigation, so I'd really assume it's her.

...HOWEVER!

We actually have a specific example of Teruko replicating Xander's handwriting! She smudges it during investigation and re-writes it on. It seems to me like the creator went back to the original version of the CD in the trial (the little ink blot at the left of the O matches better with the first of the two images here, imo). I doubt there was much internal consistency given to how Teruko writes Xander's handwriting when trying to replicate it on this CD, but...

Teruko Tawaki!

Teruko's handwriting is bad-bad. It's very shaky and she struggles with letters. The O and C (as she thinks she's writing) that she replicates back on the CD have some more of the shakiness that this handwriting has, which implies to me that the creator knew at the point of the Chapter 1 murder that Teruko's handwriting wasn't smooth. The replication of Xander's handwriting in red back in Xander's section looks smoother than I think Teruko's would, which might be points towards someone else having written it. No clue who, though.

Notably for Teruko, I honestly wonder if she's meant to have dysgraphia? I don't know a ton about it, but it's a learning disability that makes it much harder for people with the condition to handwrite clearly. Just an interesting sidenote, if anyone with dysgraphia knows more/if this is wrong to say in some way, please let me know!

Charles Cuevas!

Back on track, I skipped ahead with Teruko to put hers next to Xander's. We don't technically have confirmation that this is Charles' handwriting, but it's very very heavily implied. It's written in cursive, which Whit says Charles writes in in the Chapter 2 trial.

This also implies that Whit has seen Charles' handwriting, which could add more to imply that this is his, but considering Charles has evidently seen Whit's (more in a sec), I don't think that means much.

Plus, as a fun note, Charles' custom weapon is the only one that isn't listed on the above handwriting sample. This is the biggest factor in me believing that it's Charles'. (Plus, I think Whit says something about getting it from a friend? I'm not reopening the episode sorry gang)

Whit Young?

Wait, where's the handwriting?

Well, as far as I remember, we haven't actually seen Whit's handwriting. We know from Charles that he dots his Is with hearts, but that's all we got. Sorry gang.

Eden Tobisa!

Eden literally gave us a handwriting sample. Thanks!

It's pretty cute! She has a curvier handwriting style with some irregular spacing, which I think gives it nice charm and character.

The Chapter 2 Killer??? (or accomplice)

Idk man! It seems like it has to relate to someone who's at least somewhat guilty in this whole thing, right?

I've written briefly about why I believe this is Levi's handwriting on @1moreff-creator's Levi accomplice theory post, but that would totally work for the popular theory that he's the killer, too. Either way, it's a handwriting sample.

Bonus!

NO WIFI! WHY LIVE :(

I have no idea who wrote this. From what I can tell, it might've been here when the cast got there...? The weird thing is that it changes.

Shoutout to @accirax for remembering that the white board changed, because I did NOT notice/remember. However, that begs the question...

WHO THE HELL WROTE THIS???

It's very possibly Veronika, as she's the one who's noted to, like, know and remember what Monokuma looks like. If so, that means we have a Veronika handwriting sample, yay! I really don't know who else would be drawing Monokumas. Maybe the mastermind...?

And that's all! Clearly there's no point to this post and I can wrap this-

Haha. You didn't think I actually made a post that doesn't have a theory to it, did you?

This has all been building up to me trying to figure out who the hell wrote this note. Because, I originally believed it made the most sense if it was a note that Xander wrote to himself, but accirax pointed out that we've seen Xander's handwriting, and it looks different. Then, I started noticing that we've been receiving various handwritings. Like, a LOT of handwritings.

I think that it's plenty likely that we're going to receive EVERYONE'S handwriting at some point throughout this series. Notably, all characters who have died thus far (Xander, Min, Arei, Chapter 2 Killer Even Though We Don't Know Who They Are) have already shown us their handwriting. This is probably because we're going to figure out who wrote this note at some point.

Does that mean everyone whose handwriting we've already seen thus far is safe? Maybe! I've gone through and talked about Xander, Arei, Eden, Charles and Teruko's with confidence. From what we know of Min's and Whit's, it doesn't seem like it's theirs, but I'd believe for either of them that it could be theirs if the devs wanted to pull a fast one on us (Whit could just... not write with hearts on the Is for this one. Min was replicating printed text).

I guess that means I'm saying that the most likely authors of the "Kill Teruko Tawaki" note are Mai Akasaki Ace, Rose, Hu, Arturo, Veronika, J or Nico, with Min, Whit and Levi also being possibilities that I just don't believe as strongly. I do want to note that, if Rose IS the one who wrote it, she could also easily be replicating someone else's handwriting. Ultimate Art Forger moment.

Conclusion

I compiled this image of all the handwriting I talked about with the purple being known handwriting and the gray being unknown.

I think it's really cool that the dev put time into giving each of the characters unique handwriting, and I think it's definitely a piece of evidence to keep in mind when theorizing about masterminds and killers and such.

Hopefully this was a fun read! I look forward to possibly figuring out the handwritings of literally every other character someday.

[locution-youngster-enjoyer]

Haven’t really done an episode review in a while. This isn’t really an episode review and more of a character analysis of my favorite blorbo.

I think it can be argued that Seymour writing is honestly kinda sad, and he’s also written in a way that he honestly makes more sense if you watch all his episodes in order.

His debut episode shows him doing pretty well, and it can assume that his original show “Answer All My Questions and Win Stuff” has been running for pretty long on the whole bank accounts scam thing. He owns (and is defeated by) a diamond ring, and if we assume it’s legit, he’s definitely got money to throw around.

Over time, we visibly see him lose all his money. His studio is run down and dusty. All his stuff, like the popcorn machine for example, is dusty and in poor condition. Also, we never see any of the people that are supposed to be helping, like the producers or camera people. It’s basically confirmed later on that Seymour does all his tv stuff by himself.

The only people he’s ever has technically collabed with are his brothers. I guess Who Wants To Get Rid Of Wordgirl was a collab, but he fully intended on throwing them all under the bus. Plus, even if he’s seen talking to other villains in the background, it’s easy to assume that His brothers are basically his only friends.

I’d like to argue that Tell Her What She’s Won is when he’s at his pettiest. He kidnaps the host of a different game show and throws the heroes into what’s implied to be a death trap (I don’t think he meant well when he put giant, angry wild animals behind the ‘exit’ doors). Why? Because he was jealous that the other host was more successful than him. Also they are heavily implied to have history with each other but I’m not gonna delve on that.

Fortune Crookie is where we see him hit rock bottom. The network doesn’t even let him have a show, not because he’s committed several crimes, but because him begging on the street was considered boring. I brought up him having no workers for the show, which was proved true when his only writer was a dog who he ditched. His studio is completely shut down, he literally lives and sits in a dumpster.

He’s also incredibly desperate throughout the whole episode. He got so enveloped in his own plan he completely forgot that he had to put up an act and was just begging for stuff he needed (clothes). The thing that finally outs him is the fact he was so scared over his image. Wordgirl pretends that Huggy is actually a fortune teller, and Seymour *rushes* over, with a lot of his stolen cash, just to see if he will be ok.

Not to mention he’s in terrible condition. Aren’t his teeth dentures? How do you manage to mess up dentures so bad?

All in all, I think Seymour in reality is just sad. He’s not some insanely superpowered force or a genius like some of the other villains are, he’s just a desperate guy scrambling for money and fame. That is to say, I don’t think Seymour is *dumb* per se. He’s blinded by himself sometimes, but he has come up with plans that would have most likely worked had it not been for Wordgirl being the most competent person in the city. He’s also shown to have some knowledge with technology, as he makes all these elaborate traps himself. Plus, we don’t know how long he was left to record his own shows, so he’d know a lot about working with tv.

Seymour’s a pretty smart guy, but him hitting rock bottom put him on stress. I’m choosing to ignore the episode As Something As Something because it’s ehhhh.

Thanks for coming to be strange Ted talk

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond! Scripting: Fall of an NU

CONTENT WARNING: Various use of swears, controversial topics surrounding the NU and JaizKoys

(All mockups by @becdoesthings)

In the "Prime" version of the NU, Rosy was nervously walking along the Blood Temple, headed past a few columns. Around the third one was where Sark Cream was peeking out of, spying on her.

Sark Cream: And what do we have here? Seems like that little fucker is trying to run away from the Master once more. Well, she is going to regret it.

She followed as a portal opened, with EV!Sonic and EV!Sark coming out of the portal.

EV!Sark: She's headed that way!

EV!Sonic: Right. Let's move it!

Rosy kept walking before hearing Sark Cream call.

Sark Cream: Heya, you freak!

Rosy (thinking): O-Oh, no! She's here! ... Okay, keep calm... The help you heard was coming should be here soon...

Sark Cream: Trying to run away again, eh? You really are an idiot if you think you can escape us! One day, you'll really run out of luck-

On cue, EV!Sark bowled her over as EV!Sonic also showed up.

EV!Sonic: Enough of that, brat!

Sark Cream: What the...? (sees them both) A faker of my master AND a Sonic? And who the hell do YOU think you are? You aren't my master, for all I care! HAHAHAHAHA!

EV!Sark: Doesn't matter to me, "Pearl". You're just a harlot doing nothing but seek attention, all because your disgrace of a mother tried to sell you on the market for more lust!

Sark Cream/"Pearl" Prime: I'm 18, you dumb fuck!

EV!Sark: Funny. I remember you were originally 16, and you sure as hell don't look like you're that age. It doesn't help your case at all!

"Pearl" Prime: Oh, you're gonna get it now! MASTER!!!

Sark (off-screen): What could you possibly want now?

Rosy: H-Here he comes...

EV!Sonic held her hand, the world around them temporarily dimming and time stopping around them.

Rosy: Huh? What happened?

EV!Sonic: Just a temporary time stop spell I put in. While it's active, I just want to know how you are here.

Rosy: N-Not really happy... Sark put me through hell from day one, and I've b-been despised in every sense of the word by my own "friends"...

EV!Sonic: Urgh, of course Sark Prime would be a rapist. They're the kind of people I feel deserve nothing but erasure from the multiverse.

Rosy: I... I've always felt so helpless in the midst of it all, e-even when Exetior planned to t-take me in...

EV!Sonic: Honestly? You deserve a LOT better than what that monster put you through. You managed to save others before now, but what about yourself? Do you really want to go on suffering, or do you want to take a stand and seek true happiness again?

Rosy: (talking to herself) Maybe... Maybe this Sonic's right. Plus, the Sark he came with doesn't sound anywhere near as much of a monster as my own... How long would I have to wait otherwise? (to EV!Sonic) Okay! I'm up for it.

EV!Sonic: Heh, that's the spirit. Once this is over, I'll get you escorted to a much safer location where we can get you treated and restored to a stable condition again.

The time spell wore off as Sark arrived.

Sark: Oh, Rosy... What am I gonna do with you? You keep on running away from me to side with Exetior, and now you are siding with another Sonic and an impostor?! You are really gonna get it now!

Rosy: (Now or never... Now or never...)

She got back up, genuine hatred for Sark present as she glared at him and Sark Cream bitterly.

Rosy: Listen up, Sark! I've become SICK of you and your egotistical crimes! All you care about is getting everyone horny, including minors like Tails and Cream! You're a disgusting piece of filth who only cares about himself!

EV!Sark: Yeah! And can we talk about your "creator" for a second? Yeah, THAT guy! Can I mention that he took advantage of Yuri, a minor, and KNEW what he was doing?! He didn't care about it, he just kept them for the role! And when they ditched Jaiz, his whiteknight, Merfy, said that it was their problem, not his! He blames anyone but himself for his mistakes, and refuses to actually learn from them!

Rosy: In that regard... This whole world has become a wasteland! Fake escapism from some non-threat! And I'm ready to tear it all apart, whether you like it or not!

Exetior (off-screen): What is with all this ruckus going on?!

Exetior walked into the frame as EV!Sonic and EV!Sark turned their attention to him.

Exetior: Urgh... Of course it'd have to be a pair of hedgehogs and another Sark. You shouldn't get in my way of becoming THE most popular demon the world has ever seen! Every time I take an unexpected bump in the road, "retakes" like you try to take my crown away. Even if your own creator got to help Phaton out, he can't bother to be decent himself. So why don't you buzz off and get some [BEEP]ches, HUH?! Oh, wait! You don't have any, because nobody will ever remember you.

Rosy: You do realise someone I saw in a dream told me about him, right? Be up to date, Exetior!

EV!Sonic: Yeah, that's more nonsense coming out of your mouth than should be necessary! Do I have to remind you that you seem to find it an idea to turn into a glowing red squid whenever you need to show authority, because you can't stand being proven wrong?

A gong sound was heard as Exetior reacted in shock to that call-out.

EV!Sark: Aw, what's wrong... "your highness"? Are you upset that you're no longer on top of the world?

Another gong sound played.

EV!Sonic: Even the people who you persuaded to like you don't like you! Look at your Sark over there!

He pointed at Sark Prime, who was smirking like a moron.

EV!Sonic: Look at his clearly obvious grin. That's the face of somebody that plans to backstab you for taking one of his slaves from him. Don't tell me he's not plotting against you, because he is!

EV!Sark: Gee, what a baby.

A third gong sound was heard as Sark's smirk dropped and he reacted angrily to that insult.

Sark: What did you say, you bitch?!

EV!Sark: Well, too bad you two get all the hate, since I at least redeemed myself when the Tower of Millennium showed up! Maybe if what's left of your allies didn't promote zoophilia and paedophilia, you would've regained the audience that once looked up to you.

A fourth gong sound played.

EV!Sonic: Better yet, maybe your creator wouldn't have become a punching bag on social media if he actually did choose to redeem himself instead of tripping himself up every 5 minutes!

A fifth gong sound was heard as Exetior was starting to lose his temper.

EV!Sark: VENDETTA~!

Exetior's eyes closed as he showed an angry smile.

Exetior: Oh, you son of a gun...!

He began undergoing his breakdown seen in EXE-Line 4, his Highest appearance flashing behind him.

Exetior: You brazen and brainless idiots! Your insolence towards your God shall not go unpunished! I will shatter all of your bones in a split second, and leave nothing behind but ashes!

Sark Cream: Oh, you three punks asked for it now!

Exetior: You three will regret getting in my way! And all the traitors who joined your side will wish they hadn't DARED to oppose it!

EV!Sonic: See? You're literally proving my point, "Exterior"! You're guilty every step of the way!

Exetior changed into his semi-true form, his fury now in full force.

Exetior (roaring in fury): Insolent worms!!! You are ALL going to die here! I am a former Highest! I am an Arch-Demon of Sharpness! Chaos itself has made me stronger than all other Highests! I will not let you live to tell the tale!

EV!Sark: Try me, "Arch-Demon"!

Rosy: I'm ready to end you, you bratty rabbit!

Sark Cream: HAHAHAHAHA! This will be so much FUN!

EV!Sonic ran forward to deal with Exetior while Rosy turned her attention to her former master and ex-friend.

Rosy: I'm not afraid of you anymore, Sark! It's time to knock those teeth out of your ugly grin! Bring it on!

Sark: I'm gonna have SO much fun tearing you apart limb-by-limb! Let the fun begin!

He charged at Rosy, who quickly dodged and used her Piko Piko Hammer to clobber the pair. Elsewhere, Sark Sally heard the crash from the attack.

Sark Sally: Uh oh. Master Sark is in danger.

She rushed forward, seeing the chaos unfolding in the Blood Temple.

Sark Sally: Rosy is daring to rebel against the Master?! She is going to regret having made such a decision!

She ran to join the fight while EV!Sonic fought Exetior.

EV!Sonic: Sark, go deal with your "Prime" self! I'll take care of this freak!

EV!Sark: Right!

Sonic leapt up in the air after Exetior as he blew a hole in the ceiling.

EV!Sonic: Okay, Exetior! It's time to get serious. No jokes, no games!

He dodged each of Exetior's attacks.

EV!Sonic: Back in my dimension, I might be more tolerant of such things, but you made it personal with everything you stand for!

Exetior: You worthless scum! You are NOTHING before me! I am the supreme being here! You are just trying to dethrone me!

EV!Sonic: Shut it!

He kicked Exetior backwards as his Tails and Knuckles showed up.

Demonized Tails: Exetior!

Demonized Knuckles: What's going on?!

Exetior: There's a counterpart of Sark AND that vermin rodent trying to take away my position of authority! Deal with them, NOW!

Demonized Tails: Count on us, Exetior!

Demonized Knuckles: This will be easy!

They charged forward to get EV!Sonic.

EV!Sonic: Oh, boy. I really did not want to be fighting corrupted versions of my own friends.

Demonized Tails flew in the air and did a curl drop as Sonic avoided the attack.

EV!Sonic: Woah! Steady there!

Demonized Knuckles yelled as he charged at EV!Sonic, who leapt in the air and used his Enerbeam bracelet to catch them both and slam them to the ground.

Demonized Tails: Argh!

He saw Knuckles got badly injured from the attack.

Demonized Tails: Knuckles!

Demonized Knuckles: Be careful, Tails. This faker of Sonic... is strong.

Demonized Tails: Hey, you're tough too, Knucklehead! Get back up and let's fight!

He did just that.

Demonized Knuckles: Remind me to punch you for talking back at me after this is over. Right, I'll focus on the phony Sark while you halt this Sonic's tracks!

Knuckles used his Tornado attack to try and hit EV!Sark, though he teleported out of the way.

EV!Sark (impressed): Heh, not bad! I forgot how ample in combat you two are!

EV!Sonic held Demonized Tails back.

EV!Sonic: Cool it, Tails! This isn't about you! It's about your "boss"! We're here to see to it that your world has the happy ending it deserves!

Demonized Tails: You think I'd fall for your tricks?! Knuckles, NOW!

Knuckles charged up the attack again, this time aimed at EV!Sonic.

EV!Sark: Sonic, heads up!

He noticed and jumped out of the way in the nick of time, causing the attack to collide with Tails and send the two spinning away.

Demonized Tails: GAH! GET OFF OF ME!

In another part of the temple, Negagen and Pervision were present, hearing the commotion.

Negagen: What's happening here?

Pervision: Sounds like trouble-.

On cue, Exetior's two elites crashed right into a wall.

Pervision: What happened to you two?

They quickly got unstuck.

Demonized Tails: We have intruders in here, and Rosy's become a traitor to all of us. We have to exterminate them!

Demonized Knuckles: We'll need whatever you've got to stop this mess!

Pervision: Very well.

He summoned Boddys and Brally to his call.

Pervision: Go gather Robotnik's forces from Fatal Iron and bring them here in full force!

Demonized Knuckles: Right!

He went to do so as Negagen rushed forward to assist his master, freezing time around EV!Sonic.

Negagen: Master, now!

Exetior took the opening to attack Sonic in full brunt, throwing punches and kicks at him.

Exetior: You can unfreeze time now, Negagen.

He did so, causing EV!Sonic to fly into a wall. He quickly got unstuck, glaring at the Arch-Demon.

EV!Sonic: Okay! You've asked for it now!

He activated a phony voice message transmitted to, who else?

"Exetior" Voice: Exetior to the Highests! I am giving myself up! My location is Dimension NB-23!

Sonic held himself up, barely paying any mind to his black eye and bleeding mouth and smirking seeing Exetior, Negagen and Pervision all express shock and horror, now realising that their chance of victory had decreased rapidly.

Exetior: !!! How did you-?! What did you do?! They'll destroy this world, you idiot!

EV!Sonic: Heh, wrong! I've set in motion the stages to restore this world back to how it once was! Before you decided to start ruining it!

The temple started shaking in full-force. In the girls' room, the three girls could feel the tremors shaking the area.

Demonized Fleetway Amy: What's going on?!

Demonized Cream: Why is the room shaking so much?

Demonized Sally Nettle: I don't know, girls. But I heard fighting on the other side of the temple.

Demonized Amy: Oh, great... Is Sark involved in this mess this time?

Demonized Sally: I really hope not. With the way he's treated Rosy, I wouldn't be surprised-.

The room was starting to crumble as Cream rushed to Amy's side, hugging her in fear.

Demonized Cream: I'm scared, M-Miss Amy!

Demonized Sally: Should we do something about this?

Demonized Amy: We need to get out of here first!

And on cue, their bodies glowed white as they were warped out of the temple before the room caved in. Outside, EV!Sonic continued to fight off Negagen and Pervision, using his Enerbeam to catch various EXE clones and use them as living ammo against the pair.

Demonized Knuckles: Get over here, you freak!

Knuckles engaged in fist-to-fist combat with EV!Sonic as the walls of the Blood Temple began to collapse, revealing the night sky outside.

Demonized Knuckles: What did you do to this place?!

EV!Sonic: Calm down and I'll explain it to you and Tails!

Demonized Knuckles: The time is NOT for talk; only your death!

EV!Sonic: You really want to do this to a parallel of your best friend? Do you really want to prove him right about only caring about serving a bloodthirsty killer?!

Knuckles's eyes widened remembering his Sonic, giving EV!Sonic the chance to trip him up and knock him unconscious. Demonized Tails, seeing this, started snarling in anger as his inner demons began taking over his rational thinking.

Demonized Tails: YOU!!!!! You are going to REALLY regret this! I'm going to tear you apart until you become my next meal!

EV!Sonic: Uh oh... He's literally going feral!

EV!Sark: No doubt due to a fatal flaw Exetior exploited during the demonization process. Go calm him down while I rip apart Pervision's experiments and set their souls free!

EV!Sark rushed off as EV!Sonic did his best to handle Tails, avoiding each bite he tried to make into his flesh. Soon enough, he reluctantly slammed Tails into the floor, hurting him but calming him down.

EV!Sonic: I'm sorry, Tails. I had to do that to calm your primal instincts down.

Demonized Tails: You... fool... The Highests will soon get you, and stop you...

EV!Sonic knelt to his level.

EV!Sonic: Tails, look at me. The Highests aren't going to erase Mobius like Exetior let you on for. They're gonna recreate it without him there to torment you. You'll be together with Sonic in the next life, little buddy, don't worry.

Tails visualised when his Sonic had comforted him in a similar pose, fully calming down and accepting what was to come.

Demonized Tails: I... I guess so. We'll be there soon, Sonic. I promise.

He and Knuckles glowed white too as they were transported away from the temple to their new life. Back with EV!Sark, he managed to smash Brally through multiple Badniks as she screeched like a banshee, before dying out and her soul energy passing on. Demonized Eggman got bowled over in the crossfire, before he too was warped away.

Pervision: Their powers... are becoming much more powerful than ours! How does he do that?

EV!Sark: Simple. I've seen every trick in your books and torn them down! Your "Nightmare Universe" ends today!

He tore Boddys in two, freeing the souls of the Tails and Knuckles that got fused into the monster. Close by, Rosy continued her fight against Sark and his slaves, soon getting grabbed by Exetior who was furious about her betrayal.

Exetior: I did give you a chance to have happiness again, even if I was reluctant to be with you to begin with. I even aimed to provide you willing companionship!

Rosy: If you really want to change your ways, come with me! You can become a better person if you really want to!

Exetior: ...I was content with where I was, until those rodents decided to ruin it!

Rosy: They came here to save me for good!

Exetior: ... I should've known better than to try and intervene in those simulations.

Rosy's trust in Exetior finally broke as she reluctantly knocked him backwards for EV!Sonic to deal with, while she aimed to teach the monsters she could barely call "friends" what for.

After enough effort, EV!Sonic succeeded in overpowering Exetior and slamming him into the ground.

EV!Sonic: Nowhere to run now, demon!

He spin-dashed into Exetior, outright killing him while releasing NU!Sonic's soul into the skies for the world's recreation.

Elsewhere, Chaos Hunter/Junter was rushing through a variant of the Hidden Palace.

Junter: I must stop Exetior at all costs! That monster will pay. Pay for what he'd done to my friends-

He suddenly felt Exetior's death, freezing in shock before turning to dust and dying.

Back in the Blood Temple, Rosy had knocked Sark out cold and murdered Sark Sally, before turning her attention to Sark Cream.

Rosy: As for you...

Sark Cream: You're a selfish traitor, you know that?! No wonder Sark hated you! No wonder everyone hates you for who you-!

She got bashed by the hammer for that.

Rosy: Shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!!

She used her hammer to leave a fracture on Sark Cream's head, before smashing her arm off.

Sark Cream: A-ARGH! STOP THIS, PLEASE!

Rosy didn't listen to her pleas for mercy, knowing she was getting what was coming to her for all the mistreatment she gave Amy over the years. By the time she was done, EV!Sonic had to pull her away to calm her down.

EV!Sonic: Leave it, leave it!

She took steady breaths, turning away from Sark Cream's bashed-in face as it laid on the floor.

EV!Sonic: It's over. You don't have to worry about them anymore.

Rosy: Sonic, I... I'm scared that I might hurt someone else in a similar way. Please... tell me I'm not going to become who I was in that moment.

EV!Sonic: Hey, Rosy, that's not gonna happen, I promise.

He hugged her close to give her the comfort she really wanted for so long, as she embraced it, a tear dropping from her normal eye. She really did appreciate EV!Sonic being there to help her be free of everlasting torture, finally happy that a mortal could understand her suffering.

(For anyone curious, that's Pearl/Sark Cream off-screen to the left, and what happened to her, I honestly can't describe to you.)

Rosy: It's something I should've done with those scumbags long ago... But what's gonna happen to this world now?

EV!Sonic: Truth is, the Highests aren't all that bad. Exetior just fabricated them as a threat just to justify his actions. This world's soon gonna be in shambles, and HE is going to have to man up and admit that what he's done is wrong in every way. If he continues refusing to do so, well, that's his problem.

He looked back at Pervision, Negagen and Sark knocked unconscious, with EV!Sark grabbing his original version.

EV!Sark: I'm already itching to tear him to shreds after hearing what he did to the Pearl I met, but I know you've got other plans for him, Sonic.

EV!Sonic: Yeah. I'm gonna get him in containment before ensuring he's given a treatment worse than any torment he's dished out.

Rosy: What about me? I'm pretty much the only one standing here.

EV!Sonic: You... You wanna tag along with me? I'm running a huge superhero team and taking in anyone that's been suffering to help them recover.

Rosy: You're really willing to give me proper companionship?

EV!Sonic: Yeah!

She smiled, holding his arm.

Rosy: I... I don't know what to say. Thank you so much.

EV!Sark: We should get moving. We've only a few seconds before the whole place collapses.

EV!Sonic: Right! (on his communicator) Tekno, open our gate back out of here!

Tekno: Right on it!

A warp ring appeared as their ticket out, which they took, with Sark captured and in tow...

before that NU was wiped clean...

...a fresh Mobius created in its place with no demonic influence.

Trivia:

After this, Rosy got therapy from what she went through and was given a prosthetic eye to replace her missing one.

She developed separation anxiety following the ordeal and tends to stick close to EV!Sonic when they're together, or Nitro if he's busy elsewhere. Otherwise, she's allowed to stay over in the Errorverse.

This was the build-up to why Sark was sealed away in the Quill Society HQ Tour post from before.

Rosy enjoys being around other Amys and Creams, seeing them as rays of sunshine throughout the multiverse. While still paranoid about the Pearl EV!Sark managed to find (who ran away from the old timeline after her fallout with Sark), she's developed mutual respect for her while she makes an effort to change her ways.

Rosy sometimes helps staff therapy sessions with CD!Sonic and/or Sara via using her mind-reading to relay some info to them to help their jobs.

[zootzbootz]

ykw fuck it. putting my mudkip ramble here rrghhhhh

cw for murder (fictional) also spoilers for typomaniac and rare candy below the cut

starting off with his speech around the beginning of typomaniac. or inner monologue rather.

"Motivation. There's that word I've come to love so much during my existence. And a word I probably don't even understand. Look at this guy. Trying to sympathize me with his life story. What will motivate me to care? Key words, connections? I dunno. I'm not even sure why I'm here in the first place. But it'll never get a word out of me. Not to talk is not the smartest thing to do, they could jump to conclusions, and then haul me off to prison. Or send me to the chair! Whatever, I don't mind. What motivates me not to talk? I don't know, what motivates the Pokemon around me to talk? I'm not listening to him, HE even knows that. What motivates everyone here to try to get an answer?! But, what really motivates someone not to do anything at all? Is it the food they eat? The crap they watch? The job they work? The life condition they're in? Sometimes, that's not even the case, if you ask them yourself, they probably won't even know the answer! Hey, I don't even know what motivates me to do what I do. You see, I'm a scientist. I dissect Pokemon to see how their bodies work. Is it the fascination I get to see how everything is put together? Or is it the thrill killing these Pokemon, because they're usually mostly the ones I hate. It's okay, it's all for the research!

Look at this, got this guy's element of power! The power we aren't even allowed to FRICKEN use because it's against the law! What motivates one to follow the law? You can get away with it, if you're smart enough, like me. But like I said, I don't even know why I'm here. It isn't about the hundreds of Pokemon I dismembered. NOPE. What, do you think I'm lying to you? What would motivate me to lie to you?! come up with your OWN conclusions! But what would motivate you to care? You don't know me personally. Motivation is just a part of our lives. It helps us to do stuff, and it helps us to NOT to do stuff. Looking around me, I can see a lot of Pokemon lack motivation.

Except for one... Which is the reason why I bring up these sort of questions, and it's the reason why I bring up this story”

during this monologue he claims not to know what motivates him to do what he did- to kill those pokemon. but typomaniac *SHOWS* us his motivation. and rare candy further confirms it.

see, mudkip only has one friend. *one* , and he doesn't have parents either. he's around 12-13 and living completely on his own.

that one friend in question, being chespin. and it's incredibly obvious that chespin is somebody mudkip cares DEEPLY about. and possibly admires. as chespin is an incredibly positive and GENUINELY kind person. he *seems* annoying and clueless but it's shown multiple times as well as outright stated (by MUDKIP no less) that chespin is probably more intelligent and observant than most of them are.

meanwhile, mudkip himself seems to be.. rather pessimistic. he's typically quiet. doesn't tend to talk a lot outside of situations he deems necessary or when he's alone with chespin.

when fennekin comes into the picture- mudkip is INCREDIBLY jealous right off the bat. at first, I thought it was because he was afraid of his ONLY friend being taken away. finding someone better than him. but I firmly believe that's not the case. I feel like, honestly ... mudkip would have been just fine with fennekin being friends with chespin. or even being friends with fennekin himself had he managed to push past the jealousy. but that's not the reason he wanted her out of the picture. the REAL REASON was a fear he had- which was fennekin *hurting* chespin. physically, emotionally, mentally- it didn't matter. he's seen his best friend get BULLIED RELENTLESSLY by the majority of the other students at their school. save for a small select people. he's seen him get treated horribly. so of course his automatic assumption would be that he's getting used.

now.. skipping ahead a bit to rare candy. when mudkip is in prison. they're trying to make him talk- to get him to demonstrate how he's able to remove pokemon's elements while keeping them alive. dr. sylveon ends up threatening chespins life right in front of him- and keeping chespins life on the line becomes his ONLY motivation to give them the demonstration

and now.. here in lies mudkips exact motivation.

chespin was ALWAYS his motive.

he was the entire time.

even before mudkip was caught. it was always chespin. making sure he was safe, or at least alive- he was the only person mudkip feeled cared about him and the only person mudkip probably really cared about.

because even after learning mudkip was a killer. he STILL remained friends with him. he still visited him regularly in prison. he still showed him genuine kindness and compassion.

and I firmly believe him dissecting the pokemon was just something that came along with it. perhaps out of curiosity. or to give himself a more "interesting" or deeper motivation than just... trying to protect a friend.

he tried so HARD to keep chespin from getting hurt.

but it was mudkip himself who ended up hurting chespin more than anybody else did. (aside from Dr sylveon but like. tbh I'd argue what happened with chespin and mudkip would have hurt chespin MORE since they were FRIENDS.

and then after it's revealed chespin was the one who turned mudkip in. this fucking destroys him. his ONE friend. betraying him like this, especially since going to prison was his number one fear. the act in his eyes was unforgivable enough for him to outright tell dr. sylveon to make sure chespin sees him dying while being granted "freedom"

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I'm normal about this series (lie)