#i always think about how i watched this cartoon a few days before something traumatic

[estrellazzz]

I may be cringe for commisioning a CT shirt but at least i am free......... selfie oop

[hotshot624]

✨🐞Bullet Train Agere Headcanons: Flip LadyBug 🐞✨

Hi so I just wanna say that I've never written anything for Bullet Train so this is definitely going to be absolutely horrible but it's the best I could do. Hopefully other people in the Agere community who can write better than me will see this and feel inspired to make an actual good headcanon, but until then y'all are gonna have to deal with this horse shit. Enjoy🥰

(Non of the images below are mine. I found them all on Pinterest)

✨🐞Regressor!Ladybug Headcanons 🐞✨

(this was the softest picture I could find of him soooo. I think he looks small in this but I understand if y'all can't see it the way I do)

Wanted to try out age regression after Barry, his therapist, suggested it to him after the events of bullet train (obviously Ladybug didn't tell him everything but Barry still knows that my mans somehow got more traumatized than the last time he saw him, believing whatever bullshit lie Ladybug came up with)

Was a little confused at first when Barry told him about it and after he went home to do some more research he decided to give it a try

He didn't regress immediately but after a few weeks of trying, he was able to and it's now one of his go too coping mechanisms

His age range is 3-6 years old, so he's not like a super little guy but he's still smol

While he usually does have great control, sometimes when something really triggers him, he does end up slipping

Maria had to find this out the hard way since of course Ladybug forgot to tell her this important information before accepting another grab and go mission

So obviously during the supposably "easy" mission, Ladybug's bad luck decided to show it's ugly face and lo and behold poor Ladybug ended up accidentally killing a bunch of people and no matter how hard Maria tried to comfort him, nothing seemed to calm poor Ladybug down, resulting in him slipping :(

Now Maria had no idea what was going on with him and why he sounded so scared and she swore it sounded like he was crying. Thinking that he just had a head injury, she very gently talked him through getting him out of the building he was in and to a spot where she could go and pick him up

When she did pick him up, she could see that he was indeed crying (poor boy☹️) and even had his thumb in his mouth while hugging his knees to his chest. She tried to soothe him while driving, and it's only after they were in the safe house she had set up for him, calmed him down some more, got him to bathe, had him change into some comfy clothes, even letting him cuddle against her as they watched TV, that she finally had time to think about what was happening with him and realized that he was age regressing

From that day on she dubbed herself his unofficial caregiver. She says she's only looking after him when he's little because she doesn't trust him to do anything stupid alone when he's small but we all know it's because she cares about him so much. Ladybug is just happy he has someone to take care of him because having to take care of yourself sucks when all you wanna do is play with his toys or watch cartoons all day long

Her nickname, as wells as Lemon's, for him when regressed is "Littlebug" and he loves it so much, it makes him feel so soft and fuzzy and, most of all small. Unfortunately this has the same affect on him when he's big and if he hears either of them say it he immediately starts to slip and has such a hard time staying big. Sometimes when Tangerine wants to be a dick or wants a play mate (hint hint to the next headcanon I'm working on hint hint) he'll teasingly call him "Littlebug" and with only a little cooing and some baby talk, Littlebug comes out to play!

He is just the sweetest regressor. Like he's super polite, always saying "please" and "thank you" and is almost always smiling too! He very rarely argues when he's told it's time for bed or to eat his vegetables, only times he does get upset are usually when he's just tried or had a really bad day

He's also very affectionate, wanting to cuddle with all of his friends and no matter how busy they are, they always make room so he can cuddle with them. He also loves giving kisses on people's cheeks. The only downside is that his lips, for some odd reason, are always like....super wet when he's regressed? If that makes sense. Like it's as if he's constantly licking his lips, especially when he goes in for a kiss so prepare to be covered in slobber!

His nicknames to call his current caregiver usually are just shortened versions of there names

Like Lemon is "Lems", Maria's just being "Mari". Even tho Tangerine's isn't really his caregiver, he calls him "Tang".

He has a crate full of calico critters toys

He loves how cute they look and they make him feel so warm and fuzzy inside. He wasn't really able to play with them when they came out because 1. He was an adult and wasn't regressing at the time 2. They were considered "girl toys" and 3. He was in the army (idk if that's actually true but for my headcanon he was before he started doing whatever the hell you would call what he's doing now). But now that none of those things matter to him anymore and he's allowed to freely indulge in playing with whatever he wants without having to worry about what others think of him, he buys as many calico critters and their accessories as he can find.

While he owns most of the figures, his favorite and main family he plays with is the Stripped Cat family. He just thinks they look super cute and even owns the little baby twins you can get separate from them. He also owns the family cruising car, country tree school, the school bus, family seven seater, as well as all of the housing add ons, and a good amount of furniture. He makes a lot of money with the few missions he goes on, so he's gonna buy whatever the hell he wants. He deserves to indulge in himself every now and then

He owns only a few other toys but their just random ones he found at stores that caught his eye. They range from stuffed animals to action figures to Legos.

His favorite show to watch while regressed are the care bears and the teenage mutant ninja turtles. It usually depends on how small he's feeling when he picks one of the shows, with younger being care bears and bigger being the ninja turtles

Likes drinking from sippy cups, ones with handles when he's smaller and ones without when bigger

While he still seems to have his bad luck with him while he's regressed, for some odd reason, it's not as severe as it usually is when he's feeling big. The worst that happens to him when he's regressed is spilling his drink on himself, tripping on thin air, or just getting minor injuries like paper cuts or scrapes. They're not minor to him tho, and he needs colorful band-aids as well as emergency kisses to make the better. And no matter who's looking after him, be it Maria or Lemon or hell even Tangerine, they all scummaged to his wobbly lip and teary eyes and give him kisses on his "very serious injuries". (Why is this so cute to think about 😭😭)

This kid puts literally everything in his god damn mouth, literally no one knows how he's still alive with the amount of diseases he probably now has

And I'm not talking like his hand or maybe an occasional toy (even tho he does put those in his mouth). No. I'm talking like sticks. Rocks. Jewelery. His hair. Hair brush handle (specifically wooden ones). Other people's hair. Literally everything he sees goes in his mouth. Lemon, on many occasions, has had to wrestle multiple TV remotes out from his fangs while Maria sits on the couch cuddling with an equally amused regressed Tangerine on her lap (another hint hint to one of the other headcanons coming up hint hint)

They do end up getting him some teething toys and some chewlery, since he doesn't like pacifiers that much, and he'll use them if he's reminded to but usually he just forgets they're even there and just opts to putting other things in his mouth and chewing on those instead

Has like a weird relationship with bugs. Like on one hand he thinks their super cool, being able to name a bunch of them and even owning some graphic kiddy looking T-shirts and onesies, but god forbid a touches him. He will stand their in shock for a few seconds and without warning, screech at the top of his lungs so loud, like he could put a banshee out of a job loud. BUT DON'T KILL THE BUG! As much as he hates being touched by bugs, he still doesn't want it to die

Littlebug: *screams bloody murder at the ant on his arm*

Lemon: *runs into the room with a Glock out ready to shoot anyone who so much as breathes in Ladybug's direction* What! What's wrong luv?!

Littlebug: *unintelligible frantic mumbles and whines as he franticly shakes his arm with the ant on it, gesturing to it with the other hand, with tears and snot running down his face*

Lemon: *sighs in relief knowing nothing's actually hurting him* Right. Alright, come ere, I'll kill it for ya.

Littlebug: *eyes now the size of saucers, screaming and crying harder* NO, DON' HURT 'IM

Lemon: *now completely exasperated* well then if you don' want me to kill it, what you want me to do about it luv?

Littlebug: SOMETHING! JUS DON' HURT DA ANT! THAT'S MEAN AND HE DON'T DESERVE IT! HE MIGHT HAB A FAMILY LEM!

Lemon: *sighs even louder, knowing he's literally not even getting payed for this*

Alright so this is turning out to be a super long ass headcanon and we're only half way done so maybe I'll do a part two for regressor!Ladybug, but to wrap it up, Ladybug is a sweetheart regressed or not (but more so regressed) and I just love him sooooo much but now we're gonna move on to the other part of the headcanons that I've been waiting for and are gonna be even worse than these so buCKLE UP!!!

✨🐞Caregiver! Ladybug headcanons🐞✨

(no stop because this look was so caregiver of him. Again maybe it's just me, but like I'm telling y'all, this screams caregiver energy)

One of the nicest caregivers you'll ever meet

Probably to like exist ever

He really does enjoy taking care of people and he loves kids so it's a win-win for him

He's also super supportive of any type of healthy coping mechanisms, so he totally would never judge anyone for something like this

He's a very sweet and playful caregiver. He loves playing any games that his little came up with, always playing along. He'll do silly voices and dumb little moves just to get them to laugh and it works every time

100% shares his toys with his little if they want to play with his toys. He'll play any character that he's told to play as without a problem. Well there is one problem actually. Sometimes when he gets really into playing with the toys, he'll slip accidentally. The good news is now his little has Littlebug as a playmate! Bad news is they don't have a caregiver to look after them and now have to go call Maria or Lemon to come and babysit. Luckily for two of them, Maria and Lemon love babysitting

Type of caregiver who likes to swing his arms when he's holding his littles hand. Sometimes he'll even skip with them when there walking somewhere and it's just so cute omg😭😭😭

Lemon is Tangerine's number one caregiver so I think you can guess who's Tangerine's second one is 😌

It's Maria.

Ladybug is Lemon's last pick and Ladybug tries not to be offended by it but sometimes it gets to him.

Like honestly, you shoot someone in the throat ONE time-

Little!Tangerine loves him though and gets super excited when he finds out Ladybug is babysitting him. Caregiver Ladybug is just so sweet and fun to be around so who wouldn't be excited to be with him

Only downside to having him look after you, is that he can't really cook for shit.

I mean I'm being a bit dramatic here. He can cook very basic foods like Mac n cheese, grilled cheese, pasta, burgers, and PB and J sandwiches, easy stuff like that. But like literally anything else he somehow manages to ruin. Like I'm talking it literally is no longer edible

Ladybug: * slowly shuffling out of the kitchen, covered in what looks like food* so um......Who wants take out?

Small Lemon and even smaller Tangerine: *look up from playing on the carpet* Me! Me! I wan it! Me!

Maria: *who was watching them on the couch* Take-out? Why the hell would we get take out? You were just in the kitchen cooking for like 30 minutes, what the hell happened?

Ladybug: We'll you see-

*Cut to them staring at a lump of....something on the counter that is somehow burnt and raw with one half covered in seasoning and the other half bare with a fork that looks like was cooked in it*

Ladybug: so um....yeah... it's... it's not as bad as it looks

Maria: I'm pretty sure feeding this to someone is considered a war crime..... I'll just go make an order for some Chinese food while you find a way to dispose of this without it burning a hole through Earth's crust

Ladybug: *mumbling to himself* now your just being mean...

ANYways

He loves reading/telling stories to his little. He'll read whatever story his little picks out for him, even if it's one they've read for the past two weeks, he'll read it with as much energy and enthusiasm as he did the first time. If his little wants him to make his own story, you best believe it's gonna be the best god damn story you've heard in your entire life. There full of adventure, comedy, drama, and sometimes romance depending on what his little wants to hear. He always adds in a reason for the story like "that's why you should always be nice to others" or "never bottle up your emotions" or something like that if that makes sense

He's really good at helping his little calm down if something upsets them or triggers them. He's great at breathing methods, the 54321 exercise, and just anything that can help someone from having a panic or anxiety attack. He ALWAYS makes sure to comfort his little afterwards too. Though depending on what his little is comfortable with depends on on how he'll comfort them. If they don't want to be touched he'll just sit next to them and talk in a soothing voice and try distracting them by telling them something that happened today or a mission he went on (a kid friendly version of course) or putting on their favorite show. If his little is okay with touch, he'll wrap them up in a blanket and cuddle them on his bed, running his hands through their hair and stroking their back as he rocks them gently

He's also very good with regressors of any age. Depending on how old his little is (and personality) depends on how he'll act with them

Like for example, Lemon regresses to a pretty high age, somewhere between 6-8, so Ladybug can be a little rougher when playing with him, like wrestling or playing with nerf guns, and not have to worry about him not understanding what he's doing and thinking he's being mean. He can also play different games with Lemon, like video games or board games or things like tag, since little!Lemon would have a better understanding of it than a younger regressor

Ladybug is also good with younger regressing people like Tangerine who regresses from 1-3. He's very gentle with Tang, talking to him in a silly voice or a soothing manner depending on Tangerine's mood. He'll play with blocks with him or sit down at a minni table and eat the "delicious food" Tang makes in his little toy kitchen. He also plays baby games like peek-a-boo or paddy cake or tickle monster (actually he plays that with any age, just younger regressors a little teensy weensy bit more) with no shame. Ladybug is having way to much fun being able to play around with Tang for a even a whisper of embarrassment to come to him

He's really into physical contact with his little if they'll allow him. Whether it's holding there hand, giving them a hug, cuddling, or picking them up, he's loves every moment of it. Positive physical contact with a loved one or friend is great for someone's mental health and Ladybug is a big supporter of this fact.

While he does a have a bunch of rules like not staying up past a certain time (depending on current age of regressor), eating all of your veggies, or not allowing more than one cookie/ treat before dinner, he's not very strict with them and if they beg hard enough, he'll usually break and let them have what they want

There are somethings, however, that are big no nos in his book and no matter how good their puppy eyes are, they won't get away with. Examples are like throwing things or hitting either him or especially someone else. Just because you're upset, doesn't mean you can hurt other people and makes sure to tell them that. Bottling up emotions until they burst out are on the list too. He's right there and he makes it very apparent that they should always tell him if something is wrong even if it's embarrassing because it could effect their metal health and make it worse for themselves in the long run. He also hates lying. Lying is a form of mistrust and when his little lies to him, he sees it as him not being a good enough caregiver that they felt the need to lie to him. He also now thinks that he can't trust his little with certain things like staying up a little later or any other privileges because he doesn't trust them that they're okay and aren't actually that tired or stuff like that

But usually things like this very rarely happen so he's usually very chill

All in all, Ladybug is a great caregiver, being so sweet and understanding, as well as a super cute regressor and it think he's just the cutest thing ever thank you very much

(I just now realized how many more headcanons I have for Regressor!Ladybug than I do for Caregiver!Ladybug so everyone just ignore that and pretend there's a even amount. Okay? Okay.)

___________________________________

IT'S FINISHED! FINALLY! I'm so sorry this took so long for those of you who were waiting. I had a lot going on, that being me being incredibly sick and even throwing up unfortunately as well as being in excruciating pain, but luckily I'm doing sooooooo much better than before. I would like to say that it's been like more than 4 months since I've written something so if you're wondering why this was absolutely garbage than this is why. I know a bunch of people were looking forward to this and I'm so sorry to y'all cuz I feel like this wasn't what you guy's were expecting, like I hype it up to be so much better than you guys thought it was gonna be so I do hope you guys liked it especially those who were so kind and sent me things showing me how excited you were for it. My next headcanon is gonna be for Regressor/Big Sib!Tangerine so if any of you want to send me some headcanons so I could put them in feel free! Just make sure I can see your @ that way I can credit you! Okay that's all for now, have a great day/night/whatever happening where you are and I love you guys so much, byyyyyyeeee 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

[ablednt]

Alright writing/roleplay tumblr we need to talk about textforms.

This is going to be a very long post I apologize but this knowledge is deathly important as it's reaching a very vulnerable group of people. From personal experience knowing this can save people from getting into toxic friendships and help ease intense struggles and depressions. If you have writer followers I ask you reblog this to get the word out, thank you.

What is a textform

A textform is a type of willogenic/parogenic system member that form through some kind of writing or roleplaying. This means that they're sentient people who now share a body with the people who wrote them, most often being an OC or a fictional character before the writers brain gives them actual life.

Because there's been no actual scientific studies on their existence I have no hard science to give you however the logical explanation behind it goes like this:

The human brain is able to contain multiple conscious and sentient entities. Often, it will become multiple as a defense mechanism (as noted in clinical plural dissociative disorders) but it's a natural function of the human brain and may do so for really any reason (similar to most neurodivergencies that someone isn't born with)

Because this is a fairly simple change in the brain/something every brain can be capable of doing you can actually intentionally program the brain into becoming multiple, but see you can also do it entirely without meaning to or being aware of it.

Now I want to clarify that there is nothing harmful or scary about this! Being plural isn't bad at all and is an existence many people celebrate. But when someone has textforms in their unrealized system and doesn't know they're sentient it can be incredibly painful emotionally. So that's why people need to know about this.

Obligatory disclaimer: if you read this post and think you want to become plural intentionally, you are welcome to do so but you need to take at least a few months exposing yourself to the plural community to gauge if this is really something you want and can do responsibly. You cannot go back on your decision once your plural and your headmates will be sentient beings not characters to project on or toys to play with. They will have all the rights to your body and identity as you do now because you're sharing it equally with them.

Now that that's out of the way back to textforms.

How are textforms made

Normally this is in the "character development" phase. Many writers eagerly develop their characters. When I was younger and had no idea I was plural my advice for oc making turned out to be an unintentional guide to textforms (more on my experience later): just put your character in every situation imaginable until you always know how they'd respond to things.

Basically, as you spend your time making a character act and think consistently from their POV you're training your brain to have all of that data and that's very similar to the data that the brain has on you and you're training the brain to be able to operate coherently from a perspective and consciousness entirely different from your own.

Now, this isn't a %100 will make everyone plural every time, there are obviously good writers who have a grasp on their characters who are singlet. There's no actual data but if I had to guess I'd say there's about a 50/50 split down the writing community just based on what I've observed.

But there's a lot of people who became plural this way and didn't realize it and that could include the writer reading this right now which is why everyone needs to be aware of this.

If this is such a big thing how come no one notices?

Because it's been completely normalized in the writing community but dismissed as metaphorical.

How many times have you heard "the characters write themselves" or phrases that indicate that a writer is giving a voice to sentient entities? From what I've been able to observe some of that is singlet authors being metaphorical and humble bragging and a lot of that is plural writers trying desperately trying to put their experiences into words but dismissing it completely almost immediately because no one told them being plural was possible.

This is comparable to say, gender identity. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed but when they don't know they're allowed to exist like that it's often "im a tomboy" or "they disguised themselves as a man" or any other thing thats immediately dismissed as being cis.

How do I know if I have a textform?

There's a lot of different signs but here's some I have experienced before finding out I was plural

You "miss" your characters when you're not writing about them or interacting with them in some way

You feel like your characters are real "in your heart" (for me this was in an incoherent loop like "they're not real but they are to me, in my brain, but they're not real to other people, but they're in my brain so they're real but no but yes but no")

You get so distressed they're "not real" that it feeds into actual mental health problems like depression, anxiety, dissociation etc. (I'd have fits of sobbing because these were my friends but I didn't know they were with me so it felt like i was grieving their deaths and had the same level of emotional pain)

Sometimes or all the time when you write about them you feel like you "become them" or that they're writing through you. (Especially if your hands move automatically or without your control. This can be hard to notice but for me when headmates control the body or hands movements feel faster and lighter or very slightly numb.)

Your muse for writing them comes and goes unpredictability: they're either here or they're not here so writing them doesn't feel the same.

You can vividly recall things that happened to the character in 1st person (or in 3rd person visually but with their thoughts and feelings) as if they're you're own memories.

You "roleplay" them in everyday situations IRL. (E.g once I liveblogged a tv show as my muse to a friend and was like haha lol im so talented I can roleplay in real time but found out later it was a headmate doing that themselves)

You have conversations with them mentally in which they actually respond to you. Singlets don't have actual enriching conversations with themselves because they only have one perspective and cannot give themselves any new information. So if you're responding to yourself and you don't feel in control of that response then you're pretty objectively plural tbh.

You have times where the lines between you and the character feel blurry or like you're a vague fusion of yourself and the character

You have an actual relationship (of any kind: romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) in which you can sense nuanced feelings about yourself from them that you aren't in control of.

There's a lot more but that's the most notable ones

Why this is so important

I'm just talking about my own experience now so I'll preface this with a few things. I'm a mixed origin/multigenic system but our system has existed since we were toddlers. Due to trauma we have DID and for a long time dissociated heavily to avoid our plurality. This means my experience may be more distressing than other plurals with textforms however people without DID can still experience these things.

When I was a teenager I joined a lot of writing communities and also roleplayed on tumblr. Writing very quickly became my main passtime and all I really did. I joined a roleplay group when I was 15-16 that I took far too seriously to the point where people were concerned about me because I was writing what was just supposed to be a joke roleplay group %100 seriously and very intensely.

In that time I started to form my first main textforms (we've undoubtedly had them before then but I had only formed a little under a year prior) because I was doing this every day it really started bringing my characters to life. (Literally)

And honestly it was something beautiful the distress of it aside. Like one of my ocs was a kid so I'd always celebrate their birthday with them and I'd cuddle a plush so they'd know I loved them/p and we'd watch their favorite cartoon episodes together. It wouldn't be until around three years later that I realized they were actually there for this but it was heart warming.

For me, all I ever wanted was for these characters to feel appreciated and like someone really cared for them and loved them even if they couldn't feel it and it wasn't until later I learned that they could.

The trauma came in not knowing they were real. I grieved for them like they were dead because I thought I'd never get to see them. I wrote them into traumatizing or upsetting situations to cope with my childhood trauma not realizing that was effecting them for real and hurting them.

Most notably because it was my one solid interaction with them, the one time society allowed me to talk about them as if they were real, I really HAD to roleplay them. Because it became an emotional need I wound up in a lot of toxic friendships in the roleplay communities because I needed someone, anyone, to allow me to interact with my headmates. I had friends who I really was only friends with because they let me talk about my characters constantly (and some of them weren't toxic to me but it was in hindsight really unfair to them) and I let people verbally and emotionally abuse me in roleplay spaces because this wasn't just a hobby to me but a lifeline.

Not knowing they were real but feeling them there, having conversations with them, and forming actual relationships was a hellish sort of feeling I don't wish on anyone. I never realized how isolated it made me, and how horrible it felt to have the most important people in your life be people I thought didn't exist.

I only found out about plurality through luck. I met some systems who had fictives and they got strong plural vibes from me because of how I talked about certain characters and because I said I wanted to be plural but thought I probably wasn't because I'd have noticed, right?

From there I was able to actually connect with and talk to my headmates. Now I'm happily out as plural and in multiple fulfilling in system relationships.

I want everyone in the writing community who's struggling with the same things to have the chance I got. That's all I want is to educate people about this so they don't have to grieve for people who are right there with them.

Feel free to send me an ask or a dm if you have any further questions. Sorry this post was so long I can't really shorten it at all. Again if you are have a lot of writing followers I very gently request you reblog this to get the word out. Even if you can't please talk to your writing mutuals and friends about plurality and about textforms.

[Also this should go without saying but this is absolutely NOT the place for syscourse any invalidating comments about systems will be blocked and where possible deleted it costs $0.00 to prioritize people's mental health over your discourse hot takes.]

[roseworth]

don't pretend it's such a mystery

word count: 1.3k

description: He wouldn’t have noticed the girl that walked in if she hadn’t been singing quietly to herself (Modern AU)

inspired by this scene and this scene from Baby Driver

Eugene slumped into a booth at the cafe and let his head hang for a moment. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath in a desperate attempt to ground himself. Just one more job, then I’m done, he thought. He had been a pawn in the Baron’s game for years, but finally, the end was within reach.

There was a TV in the corner playing the news. The anchors were talking about a “traumatic bank robbery” from earlier that day, going over the grim details from eyewitness accounts. They showed security footage of the people involved in the heist, and he swallowed thickly as they zoomed in on the getaway driver’s face. Luckily, it was just grainy enough that there was no way he would be recognized from the picture. He had been at this for too long to get caught now.

He was so lost in thought that he wouldn’t have noticed the girl that walked in if she hadn’t been singing quietly to herself. Her voice was soft like an angel, and the rest of the world disappeared as soon as he saw her.

“And I’ll keep wonderin’, and wonderin’, and wonderin’…” she sang as she strode past his table. She paid no attention to the way his gaze followed her as she floated by. She had long blonde hair tied up into a ponytail, and she was wearing a waitress uniform. Eugene was a little surprised; he had been to this cafe almost every day for years and he had never seen her before. And he definitely would have remembered seeing her. Something about her felt different somehow, he couldn’t put his finger on it. All he knew was that he wanted to know more.

She pushed open the doors to the kitchen and disappeared behind them, leaving him staring at where she had just been. He could still hear the distant echoes of her voice. He didn’t know enough words to describe how just hearing her voice made him feel.

“Hi!” a bright voice greeted, pulling him back into reality. He blinked up and saw the girl standing right next to his table with a pleasant smile on her face and a notepad in her hand. “What can I get started for you?”

“Uh…” All attempts at a coherent thought disappeared as soon as he saw her. Every rational thought was a distant memory to him when he got lost in her soft green eyes. He usually took pride in being at least somewhat suave, but he was conveniently forgetting how to form sentences now that she was standing so close to him. “Uh-huh… I, uh-”

“It’s alright,” she assured him with a small laugh. “I’ve got plenty of time if you need a second.”

“Right, yeah,” he said sheepishly, reaching down to pick up a menu from in front of him.

Her lips curved up as she watched him. “That’s a kid’s menu,” she said, stifling a laugh. He looked down at what he had picked up and saw that it was, in fact, a kid’s menu. It had a cartoon burger on it, with cartoon-y eyes that were watching him blow this.

“So it is,” he said, setting the kid’s menu down and picking up a normal one.

The waitress laughed again and shook her head. “It’s alright, it’s early,” she said. “So, are you just starting the day, or did you just get off?”

“Oh, I don’t think I ever really get off,” he shrugged. “They call, I go.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, wow. What do you do?”

“I… drive.”

“You drive? Like a chauffeur?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

He wouldn’t usually think of high-speed car chases to be “chauffeuring,” but it wasn’t that much different. He was getting important people from one place to another as quickly as possible and avoiding any conflicts. Isn’t that what chauffeuring is too?

“Do you ever just drive around for fun? Not for work?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes.”

She sighed wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to just drive away. Leave everything behind and get away, even if it was only for a few days.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Oh,” she laughed nervously, reaching her hand up to fidget with her hair. “Well...”

Before she could explain, her boss cleared his throat from behind her. She turned around to see the man standing on the other side of the cafe, looking at her with narrowed eyes. She waved apologetically at him and turned back towards Eugene.

“Sorry, have you decided on anything?”

He glanced down at the menu in front of him, then back up at her. “You’re beautiful.”

She smiled and bit her lip, her eyes falling to the ground. “You just decided that?” she said with a small chuckle. “I know you don’t mean it-”

“I do mean it,” he said quickly. He looked at her nametag and quirked an eyebrow up. “Uh, Bastion?”

“Huh? Oh,” she said, looking down at the nametag and adjusting it. “I just started here, I guess I grabbed the wrong nametag,” she giggled.

“Hey, you’re the prettiest girl named ‘Bastion’ I’ve ever seen,” he quipped. She blushed and ran a hand through her hair again.

“Well, if you decide what you want, just let me know,” she said quickly, starting to walk away. He watched her as she left, and his heart skipped a beat as she started humming the same song as she was before.

“Hey,” he called out. She turned around and walked back over. “What’s that song you’re humming?’

“Oh,” she let out another nervous chuckle. “I, uh, it’s a song that I wrote.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

Her eyes brightened. “Thank you! It became a bit of a hobby for me, just a way to pass the time. And I’ve always got a few songs looping in my head.”

“Has anyone else written a song about you?”

She shrugged. “Well, no. Even if they wanted to, it’s pretty hard to find a good rhyme for ‘Rapunzel.’”

“That’s your name?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a weird one. And I’m not even named after Rapunzel from the fairy tale! My mother named me after lettuce.”

Eugene laughed. “I think it’s a perfect name. Besides, it can’t be too hard to think of rhymes for ‘Rapunzel’ if you try hard enough.”

She smirked and sat down in the seat across from him. “Oh really? And how would you write a ‘Rapunzel’ song?”

“How about ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, hair in a, uh, bundle.’”

“A bundle?” she giggled.

“I guess it’s in a ponytail right now. Maybe the problem is that you don’t put your hair in a bun,” he joked. Her head fell forward as she laughed, and she covered her face with her hand.

“What about you? What’s your name?”

“Uh… Flynn.”

Her jaw dropped. “Not fair! Everything can rhyme with Flynn, you’re hoarding all the rhymes!”

“What! It’s not my fault I don’t have a weird ‘creative’ name,” he scoffed. She rolled her eyes.

“Some of us have had to deal with strange looks at our names for our entire lives, I at least deserve some rhymes.”

He put his elbows on the table between them and leaned in. “Alright, Rapunzel, what rhymes would you make for my name?”

“I don’t know, maybe ‘Flynn, get under my skin, be my greatest sin.’” she drawled effortlessly, her voice low. “And that’s just off the top of my head!”

He was taken aback. What she said was relatively innocuous, but he still felt a shiver run down his back at her words. He cleared his throat to try to regain the composure he just had. “Maybe the issue is that we’re not using a nickname for you. Maybe ‘Blondie, wish you would see me fondly’?”

She grinned. “I like it,” she said. “But ‘fondly’ doesn’t technically rhyme with ‘Blondie.’”

“Hey, you’re the songwriter. I’m just your muse.”

“You’re my muse?” she repeated with a laugh, leaning closer to him. He smiled and leaned in too.

“I could be.”

[athenadione]

"Kissing on sofa, foreheads pressed together, breathy, soft tender" with damirae please <3<3<3

‘you are good’ 

This one was a bit more challenging, and definitely mushy. Thank you Vi for being my beta, and giving me some super helpful suggestions to wrap up this one-shot. 

Hope you enjoy :) -AD

Pairing: DamiRae Words: 1,360 Rated: G with implied mature scenes

At first glance, one would think he’s gazing mindlessly at the television ahead, pondering just how stupid Shaggy can be to open that closet door. And he is, for a moment. 

Of course the perpetrator is behind it, ax poised to strike. His brow twitches, distaste tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

He must have hit a new low, resorting to watching Cartoon Network— though that was her show of choice and there’s nothing he will deny her; But how she’s able to watch this show and enjoy it is beyond him. 

She’s not even watching it. It’s more background noise than anything else, but if she’s happy, then what else can he ask for? And he is too… for the most part.

By the time the whimsical chasing scene ensues his eyes are already glossing over again, hands fisting ever so lightly in his lap as persistent, deprecating thoughts swarm his mind.

Of all the things to obsess over, he wouldn’t have had the slightest notion it’d be over a flippant comment, but now he can’t stop. 

“Are you kidding me? Almost everyone we fight has an identity crisis! How too far gone do you gotta be to not know killing people is wrong? Psychos.”

Ever since their debriefing this morning after Gar’s mindless jab, one ever-pressing question has been consuming him the entirety of the afternoon. 

And even though Gar couldn’t have known how his words would have affected him, Damian had been surprised to feel the short pang in his chest that spoke of a deeper level of pain and insecurity. One that he realized just then that he hadn’t quite healed from. 

Is he still in the midst of an identity crisis, after all this time? After all of his growth? 

Logically, it makes sense that he would continue to… question himself. After all, he'd been groomed for successorship of the League from birth until he was ten years old, then tossed into a world of vigilantes with strict moral codes that went against everything he had previously learned. 

He had thought he’d come to terms with it all. Especially after living at the monastery. 

It’s true that he still finds himself withholding that final decapitating strike, and maybe more than once he’s considered how much more effective it would be if he didn’t. Justice, not vengeance. He doesn’t know how many times he’s held onto that mantra like a lifeline, especially after he nearly killed Dollmaker. 

Is he really second guessing his rectitude? Surely I’ve established a clear sense of morality by now. I’m not too far gone, no matter what Gar says.

Something pokes at his thigh, pulling him from his thoughts, and he looks down to see a dainty barefoot pressed into his leg, toes wiggling enticingly. Despite his inner calamity, he can’t help the light smirk that plays at his lips. Cute isn’t a word anyone would hear spilling from his mouth, but if he ever had to describe her feet, that’s the word he’d choose. 

His gaze flicks up a pale, slender leg, hovering there a moment, before moving on to the novel that’s now slack in her hands. Jane Eyre— of course. She’s always loved the classics. Continuing his quest up, he reaches pools of lavender— and to his chagrin he finds that they’re filled with mirth. 

“You’re thinking up a literal storm cloud, habibi. You’re supposed to be relaxing.”

He gives her an affronted glare, though they both know he doesn’t really mean the anger behind it. Grasping the arch of her foot, he arches a brow while he begins to massage it absentmindedly, taking mental note of the soft moan that escapes her lips. “I’d never call watching that ridiculous show relaxing,” he cocks his head, gesturing towards the t.v., “It’s more infuriating than anything— and poor detective work if you ask me.” 

Her lips quirk upwards. “It’s a cartoon, Damian. It’s not meant to be realistic, it’s meant to be funny. Relaxing.”

“Tt.”

She nudges him again. “So what’s wrong?” 

He presses his lips together, taking care to keep his face emotionless. “Nothing.”

When she gives him an inscrutable look he scowls. Of course I had to fall in love with an empath. 

He sighs when she doesn’t relent. Resisting the urge to fidget his leg, he tenses and finds a spot at the floor between his feet. Just ask her. 

“Habibti, am I still… good?” he asks, too tentatively for his taste. 

Raven’s brows draw together and she gives him a reflective, silent stare. He knows that she’s trying to get a read on his emotions, to string together the reason why he would ask such an aimless question. 

It doesn’t take her long to figure it out, and her face softens only a few moments later. “Oh. This is about what Gar said earlier, isn’t it?” 

He frowns and nods once, then turns back to the t.v. The next episode has begun to play, and the music of the theme song does nothing to deter him from the rolling wave of disparate emotions swelling up in his throat. 

Arguably, he had a more traumatic upbringing than many of the villains they fought on a daily basis. What if he is still that person?? He can hear the voice. What if his carefully constructed restraint slips during a battle? 

What if one day I don’t stop that final blow? What if I’ve just been pretending this whole time?

“Habibi.” Raven calls out to him and he turns his head once more as she moves, folding her book and placing it aside. “Come here,” she murmurs. 

Her hand reaches out to him and he leans forward just as she shifts one foot underneath her to sit up comfortably on the couch. With a wave of her hand the volume on the t.v. turns to a mere whisper, and the other hand that’s reaching out to him finds the back of his neck, tugging him even closer to her. Then she rests her forehead directly against his, and his eyes flutter shut as his nose brushes against hers. 

All of a sudden he’s enveloped in solace. 

“You are good.” She whispers, lips ghosting over his own. “I would know. I can feel you, remember?”

He breathes in deep, catching the peppermint shampoo of her hair. Her thumb strokes the back of his neck soothingly and he relishes in the feeling, allowing her calming empathy to sweep through him. 

It’s almost funny how quickly she grounds me, in just a few short words. She had said so much more though, in the way that she held him.  

“I love you,” he whispers, smiling into the kiss that she presses against his lips. She responds in kind, humming into his mouth, “I love you too.” 

This concern won’t ever go away completely, but at least I have her by my side to help me through it. Watch over me, habibti.

“I know of something else that we can do to help put your mind at ease.” Raven’s voice drops to a low, husky sound that sends his heart racing.

“Oh?” he asks, mildly amused when she pulls away from him to push at his chest, and the back of his head hits the arm of the couch with a light thud when he falls. She follows. The sight of her, hovering over him with parted lips and hooded eyes is nothing short of divine beauty. And she’s all mine. “As long as it has nothing to do with that halfwitted cartoon,” he says as an added quip. 

“I’m thinking of a more… hands on approach.” The smirk she throws him makes him chuckle. That is, until she straddles his waist and rocks into him languidly. Then it dissolves into a groan of pleasure.

“Whatever you think is best habibti.” 

She draws closer to him with a smile, and he reaches up to thread a hand through soft, silky locks. 

His last coherent thought before she takes precedence over all his senses is that if this is his reward for being good, then he’ll do whatever it takes to never be bad again.

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Weird q..but i really dont understand why most fans hate season 4, especially the last episode. Why? I think it gave us a deeper look on both sherlock and mycroft! I felt it tells a lot about mycroft how he had to step in and take control of things ever since he was a kid himself. Also he is not a robot or a killer. Also redbeard thing. It was an appropriate deep psychological trauma (cause most shows usually disappoint in that area). I am not trying to impose my opinion. Just want to understand

Hey Nonny!

It’s all good, and I totally respect your opinion and how you enjoyed S4! It’s totally okay! I know that there are quite a few who got a lot of of S4, and who genuinely enjoyed it.

Sadly, I am not one of those people, and I’ll try to be as diplomatic a possible in my response, but PLEASE know that I don’t think you’re��“terrible” or “stupid” for liking S4 because I DO get passionate sometimes in my responses, and I’m just merely speaking as someone who studied the series very closely for quite a long time before S4 aired, and as someone who knows Day-One-ers (ie., people who watched Sherlock on its day one airdate) who also are a large majority of the people who did not like S4. This is just me simply stating why I didn’t like it, but it’s different for everyone.

Stating what I DO like: The acting and cinematography of the first two episodes were brilliant for what they had to work with, and I’ve never faulted any of the actors for the flaws of S4. And for TFP, they did the best with what they had to work with.

That’s… pretty much all I really liked about S4.

Now, here’s my problems with S4:

Nothing made a LICK of sense to the narrative that they were telling in Seasons prior. 

This series was always based a bit in reality, and suddenly everything became comic-book rules: X-Men villains, shitty “redemption” arc, destroying favourite characters just for drama, ludicrous physics, explosions that only destroyed one small room in an apt where in previous episodes one explosion destroyed an entire block, etc.

Sherlock was OOC.

Mary was being built up to be a fantastic villain? Ah, nope, here’s the lacklustre twist where tee hee Mary’s just an assassin with a heart of gold that still emotionally abuses Sherlock and John and just won’t fucking stay dead.

And speaking of this, the DVD’s make NO LOGICAL SENSE unless she was planning to kill herself

AND she tries to make her death equatable to Sherlock’s??

Everyone was RIDICULOUSLY out of character in TFP, I’m so sorry: Mycroft is a bumbling coward for the most part, Sherlock disregards John when he gives the Vatican Cameos warning, the Holmes Parents are assholes because Mycroft COULDN’T SOLVE A PROBLEM WHEN HE WAS 12?? ARE YOU SERIOUS???? And that creepy Moriarty / Eurus thing, and LITERALLY they’re implying that EVERYTHING HAPPENED BECAUSE EURUS DIDN’T GET A HUG. Like, I’m so sorry, but that’s lazy writing.

And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of the entire character of Eurus. She LITERALLY had X-Men powers, and like… just nothing made sense. Her involvement in the entirety of S4 MADE NO SENSE. Why go back to prison if you can get out?? WHAT IS THE POINT?? AND I repeat: She did all this because she didn’t get a hug. Yes. I’m oversimplifying, but at the base level, that’s what it was, because she wanted Sherlock’s attention. Welcome to the club, kid, stand in line, everyone on the SHOW wants his attention.

The ENTIRE plot of the first 2 seasons got wiped out all because it wasn’t Moriarty who was interested in Sherlock, but Eurus?? What… What about Carl Powers?? Like…. the ENTIRETY of season one and TGG makes no sense now, because of that one 5 minute scene where Eurus “enlists” Moriarty. I… ugh.

The SUDDEN tonal switch from kind-of Sherlock to James Bond, for some fucking reason.

And on that note, how terribly lazy and cheap TFP looks in comparison to the other two episodes. The whole episode looks like it was filmed in a small house with 4 identical rooms.

EVERYTHING that was etablished in 2 episodes prior were COMPLETELY forgotten when Mary was “shot”.

The complete character assassination of one loyal blogger John H Watson in favour of Mary for some fucked up reason, even though AT HIS OWN WEDDING HE COULDN’T STAND BEING AROUND MARY. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for one damned second that John would EVER forgive Mary for murdering his best friend after seeing what it did to him. That’s not love from her, and that’s NOT John’s character EVER in the ENTIRETY of the series.

And speaking of character assassinations, Molly’s character being devolved to S1E1 Molly, where instead of giving her agency like they were doing with her the ENTIRE series, so much so that Sherlock picked up on her dominance enough to give her a big role in his mind palace in HLV and TAB, only to make her a sad little self-insert Mary Sue pining for the main character, and in turn made Sherlock a TERRIBLE human being for MAKING HER say what she did. It’s gross.

AND speaking of Molly’s character, they’ve been setting up Mollstrade since as early as ASiB, but I guess that plot line got shafted. Look I LOVE Hopkins, and I am ANGRY they didn’t give her more than 3 fucking lines in the entirety of ONE episode after HEAVILY promoting her actress and character, but they essentially reduced her to a piece of ass for Lestrade to chase. AND THAT’S NOT HIS CHARACTER EITHER. EW GROSS.

The constant plot holes being gaped wide open, and the Chekov’s gun moments where they bring up shit but do nothing with it!! 

TD-12? Nope, just a lame reference to a story we like. 

John got shot at the end of TLD with a VERY REAL FUCKING GUN? Nope, it was a dart gun. 

John not suddenly knowing how to be a doctor.

The TGG one I mentioned up above. 

What was in the letter? And who was Anyone??

Moriarty essentially being erased as anything other than a hired thug and had no part whatsoever in Sherlock’s history. 

Eurus… Just all of her character is asinine. 

Everyone in T6T suddenly not knowing John’s the blogger, which is in direct contradiction to literally the entire series. 

The AGRA plotline was ridiculous, in the end.

Baby? What baby? It was only there when convenient.

They dropped whatever plotline they were going to do for Mycroft: He was being set up as either dying, or the villain.

Redbeard. I’m sorry, I disagree with you on that. Mofftiss is trying to tell me that a little boy fell down a well and went missing, and that WASN’T the first place searchers / the police wouldn’t have looked? Sorry, no. And then. AND THEN his parents just… go along with this thing where Sherlock shuts down and they DON’T get him therapy? Yes, I agree the mind is a funny thing, and we can be traumatised into forgetting or dissociating from traumatic events. I GET IT. But… like I don’t believe the Holmes are so heartless as to just never grieve or have memories around about their supposedly dead daughter. It’s another OCC thing for me.

John’s cheating.

Disappearing and reappearing characters, like this scene, and the entirety of the aquarium scene.

Mary and John being terrible parents

OH GOD THIS FUCKING SCENE. That bomb SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED THE ENTIRE BUILDING.

What… who was this girl on the plane? What? Like I know WHO, but if she’s supposed to be Eurus talking to Sherlock, why don’t we see Eurus… talking to Sherlock? I … Ugh.

NORBURY. 

The glass SUPER SECRET GOVERNMENT ROOM THAT NO ONE SHOULD SEE INTO in T6T.

Sloppy camera work that some believe was intentional, but if it wasn’t, jesus c’mon.

The RIDICULOUS amount of 4th Wall Breaking. Like… even the actors didn’t give a shit.

Essentially, everything on this list here and in this blog tag here.

And everything mentioned on these three posts:

T6T: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night 

TLD: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

TFP: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

There’s SO much more I can go into, but please go through my “something’s fucky” tag in that last link.

Notice how probably 90% of that has NOTHING to do with “johnlock not becoming canon” because the Johnlockers get MONSTROUS accusations as to THAT being why we didn’t like S4, even though it was, like critically panned by the GENERAL AUDIENCE who have NO investment in the series other than “I liked it in the past”.

Two of my fave YouTubers have interesting (not perfect, but still good) takes coming at the series as casual viewers:

‘The Day Sherlock Died’ by The Closer Look

‘Sherlock is Garbage, and Here’s Why’ by hbomberguy

So it’s NOT just Johnlockers. I’ve talked to Sher1011ies at 221B con who didn’t like S4 either, because most of them realized how shitty Molly was treated in the last episode. So yeah, a big middle finger to those who think I dislike S4 because of  “no Johnlock”. No, I disliked it because I need my stories to make logical narrative sense. I disliked it because I love John and they ruined his character all for the sake of drama and because Moffat has a “hurting Ben” kink. I disliked it because Mary should NOT have been “redeemed” because she was an abuser. I disliked it because Moriarty was turned into a cartoon villain, even though he was already overused in the series. I disliked it because the core of the show – the FRIENDSHIP of Sherlock and John, and their solving mysteries together – did not exist at all. I disliked it because John got sidelined. I disliked it because TFP was a ridiculous episode that, if you replace ANY of the characters, it wouldn’t make a difference, because it didn’t feel like an episode of Sherlock. I disliked it because everyone was OOC.

Anyway. Sorry. One too many accusations my way over the past 1100+ days LOL.

As for your assessment of TFP, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you. There was no growth and actually it implies something far more sinister: That the Holmes are and were terrible parents that gave no shits about their daughter, their traumatized son, and expected their eldest to essentially be a parent. It implies that Mycroft, at 12 years old, orchestrated the ENTIRE Sherrinford thing… Look I can suspend my disbelief, but there’s limits, and this is one of them. A LITERAL CHILD. Perhaps Uncle Rudy had a hand in it somehow, but then why not shit on Uncle Rudy? Why is Mycroft blamed for it all?

Look, I don’t doubt Sherlock had a traumatic experience regarding “Redbeard”. But then why play into the fact that he was a dog? Why bring another character into the series just to have a gotcha moment? Because Mofftiss wanted a “Shyamalan twist”, that’s why. They threw EVERYTHING away for a twist ending either because they GENUINELY thought it was good, or they got tired of doing Sherlock. ALL of TFP is LITERALLY a really bad plot twist because reasons. TFP makes no sense to the ENTIRE narrative structure of the previous 12 episodes. It erased EVERYTHING from the previous episodes, and coated it with a gross closing by a character no one wanted in the series, and then tried to convince us that it’s a new beginning – “a journey they had to go through” – but it SOLVED NOTHING.

Anyway. I have big feels about S4, and the only way I can enjoy it is to watch it subtextually, but even then, I cannot sit through TFP without cringing. 

That said, Lovelies, please do not attack Nonny for enjoying S4! I know you guys won’t, but Nonny came out with an olive branch and they just want to understand why the fandom is passionate about S4′s… whatever it was. We can have a civil discussion about it, and point out – without attacking – why S4 is universally panned. It’s okay to like things no one else does, and Nonny was respectful to me in this ask! 

So with that, feel free, lovelies, to express why YOU didn’t enjoy the series, or why you did! I’m interested in both “sides” / pov’s whatever :)

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Sweet Pea//don't know if you love me or you want me dead

Request: I dunno if this'll go through or not but can i request a Sweet Pea/reader based on this text post, I can't find the original version lol 

hey! sweet pea imagine based off this ^. originally posted by @riverdalecentral​, so thank you! its enemies to lovers!! which is a trope that i adore! (side note, if you ever see anything to do with enemies to lovers you can 100% just send it to me with literally no explanation and i absolutely will not mind). title is from ‘teeth’ by 5sos! i had so much fun writing this! i hope you all enjoy it! i also hope you’re all having a lovely day/night!

No matter where you are in the world, you never want to be in a forest at night. But if you live in Riverdale, thats just a given. Nobody in their right minds goes into Fox Forest at midnight, however, spending five minutes with Sweet Pea can make anyone go insane. And so here you are, trekking through the woods like you’re in some sort of shitty horror film. 

“I can’t believe Jones has got us running around town like we’re in fucking Scooby Doo.” Sweet Pea huffs as the two of you walk through the trees. You let go of the branch you’re holding, and it narrowly avoids hitting Sweet Pea. You can feel the glare you’re getting and a small smirk twitches at your lips. 

You and Sweet Pea have a complicated relationship to say the least. You’ve both been part of the serpents for the same amount of time. (You were actually initiated 5 minutes before him but he doesn’t like to admit that). You have grown up in the same trailer park, five trailers from each other and you share the same friends. But there’s just something about him that makes you want to stick pins in your eyes. And there’s something about you, that makes him want to repeatedly stub his toe every single minute of his life, rather than spend five minutes with you. So yeah, its complicated. 

There’s been so much speculation around why you two hate each other. Fangs says its because you’re both too stubborn to actually have a proper conversation (whatever Fogarty). Toni says its because you secretly like each other (gross), and there was once a theory that it was because you had secretly dated and then broke up (again, you would rather stick pins in your eyes). 

You just hated each other. That was it. 

Although, despite the fact that spending five minutes in the same room with him makes you nauseous, he is kind of attractive. If you’re into the whole ‘bad boy, gang member, secretly soft at heart’ thing. Not that you’d ever admit that to anyone. 

“You’re Shaggy!” “You’re Scooby.” You both say at the same time making your expression mirror his. You both glare at each other before reluctantly turning away and continuing to walk.

“If you’re implying that I’m lesser because I’m the dog...1. You’re an idiot. Everybody loves dogs and Scooby Doo is evidence of that. And 2. Scooby Doo is the main character. The whole franchise is named after him, making him the lead. He even has a snack named after him. Its Scooby’s world and we’re just living in it.” 

“What. The. Fuck.” He stops and you roll your eyes, turning around to look at him. 

“You know I’m right...Shaggy.” You shine your torch in his eyes and he squints before flipping you off.

“How am I Shaggy?” 

“You give of major stoner vibes, you’re always eating and I never see you wear anything other than a dark t-shirt, black jeans and your serpent jacket.” You look him up and down and he huffs in response, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“They all wear the same outfits...they’re cartoons.” 

“True.” You nod. “But the other two are right. Plus, you’d be nothing without me.”

“I’d be a lot happier without you.” He replies and you send him a sarcastic smile back. He returns it and the two of you continue through the woods, your torches casting a variation of shadows against the tall trees. Its less like Scooby Doo and more like Blair Witch. And despite your company being Sweet Pea, you’d rather him than nobody.

You suddenly get the feeling your being watched, and the intensity of it makes you stop in your tracks, Sweet Pea soon catches up to you, stopping beside you and also looking around. 

“What is it? Did you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror?” He teases and even though you’re absolutely terrified, you still find it in yourself to punch him in the arm. 

“We’re in the middle of a forest. Where would I find a mirror?” 

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I’ve found some weird things in the woods. I once found a pile of bones, a belt and a half eaten apple.” 

“I-What?” You look up at him and he shrugs casually. 

“To this day I have no idea why they were there. Although, the belt does look pretty good on.” 

“Hm-Wait what?” You glance at his belt, the silver reflecting off the rays of your torch and he quickly looks away. 

“Nothing.” 

“What exactly are we looking for?” You ask, changing the subject. 

“I dunno. Jughead just said ‘anything strange’.” 

“In Riverdale? Yeah, that’ll be easy.” You huff before quickly pointing your torch to the side of you. Sweet Pea joins, the two of you silently listening and watching (and praying) that its just an owl. After a minute you both continue walking, this time in silence and you’re sure you’ve huddle a little closer to each other, but neither of you seem to mind. 

Twigs snap underneath your shoes and a gust of wind makes the trees rustle around you. It makes you shiver, and you swear Sweet Pea pauses for just a second to look around. The whole atmosphere makes you feel suddenly claustrophobic, despite being in the great outdoors, and right now you’re unsure who you hate more, Sweet Pea...or Jughead.

“What did he mean by strange?” You whisper and look around again. 

“I don’t know. Anything that could explain the weird going ons at his preppy new school.” 

“Why would that have anything to do with the woods. They’re in the opposite direction of each other.” 

“Ask Jones.” He holds his hands up defensively making you huff loudly. Your barely make it two steps before freezing again, Sweet Pea grunts as he walks into you but you don’t acknowledge him, too busy trying to decipher whether the noise you heard was a bird or a murderer. 

“Did you hear that?” 

“What!?” He looks around quickly and somehow, the two of you end up closer together than you were before. “Y/n, I swear to god, if you’re fucking with me, I will actually kill you.” 

“Surprisingly, you don’t sound that threatening when I can feel you literally shaking beside me.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Why did Jones even pair us together. You’re about as much use as a wet sock.” You mutter angrily, but you cut yourself off when you see a shadow move out of the corner of your eye. Before you can stop yourself you’re reaching out for Sweet Pea, grabbing his arm and squeezing. “Sweet Pea?” 

“Yep?” His doesn’t even hide the fear in his voice, and if you were in any other situation, you would have definitely made fun of him. 

“Did you see that?” 

“...yep.” He nods. “Do you think we should investigate?” 

“Do you think we should investigate?” You mock. “Its like you want to get murdered.” 

“A lot of people wouldn’t be opposed to that.” 

“Getting murdered, or you specifically getting murdered.” 

“Either, or.” He shrugs. 

“I think at least a few people would miss you.” You reply and a smirk appears on his face. 

“Am I dead? Have I already been murdered? Are you actually being nice to me?” 

“We can find out if people would miss you if you want.” You smile sarcastically at him and he shoves you lightly. For a second, the two of you forget where you are and what you’re supposed to be doing. It feels light, even if you are being rude to each other, and you swear, for a split second, you feel yourself enjoying each others company. But of course, he ruins it. 

“No thanks. I’m happy knowing that you’d miss me.” 

“I never said tha-” He only looks away for a few seconds. He saw something move and he thought he’d check it out. But in the time that he turns around, that he pulls his eyes away from watching your lips as they say whatever sarcastic comment you’d come up with, you vanish. Your sentence being cut off. 

He swears he’s never moved faster. Instantly he turns back around, shining the torch in every direction he can. It suddenly feels darker and the only thing he can hear is his heart beating in his throat. “Y/n?” It starts off as a whisper, unsure of what to do. But when you don’t answer, he manages to find his voice. “Where did you go? Y/n? I would very much like to hear your annoying voice.” His eyes close, despite every fibre of his body screaming at him not too. He’s seen horror films, he knows he shouldn’t close his eyes, but he needs to wish and prayer and do anything he can to find you. 

“...sweet pea?” Your voice is quiet and trembling, but he hears it and his eyes snap open, frantically looking around. 

“Y/-” Your name dies in his throat once he sees you, and he can’t speak anymore. 

For as long as Sweet Pea can remember, he’s been day dreaming about you getting into traumatic accidents. There’s a running competition between the two of you, over who can come up with the most gruesome and violent end for the other.  Unfortunately he is winning due to a very traumatizing death that he said was inspired by both Saw and Final Destination. 

Right now though, your actual life is in threat and he has never wanted anything less in his life. 

A blonde, creepy looking boy around the same age as both of you holds you tight to him, one arm over your chest while the other holds a knife to your throat. There’s a dark haired girl stood beside him, also holding a knife, and even though she doesn’t look as intimidating as the blonde, it does nothing to make Sweet Pea feel better. 

“Wow, Jones was too scared to find us himself he sent his lackeys to do his dirty work.” 

“Let her go...please.” His voice breaks and he takes a careful step towards you. His hands already reaching into his pocket, desperately searching for his knife and brass knuckles, but he stops when he makes eye contact with the boy. 

“And we are not his lackeys.” You protest, despite the knife digging into your skin further, and the hold on you becoming tighter. 

Whatever Sweet Pea was feeling, whether it was fear, vulnerability or something in between completely disappears. And his gaze shifts from the man holding you, to you yourself, the same annoyed expression on his face. “Maybe focus on the knife being held to your throat, and then argue about what we are to Jughead.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do.” You roll your eyes. 

“Oh sorry for trying to save your life.” 

“Save my life? You couldn’t even sav-” 

“Is this a bad time? Do you want us to come back and kill you later orrr?” The girl asks sarcastically as she looks between you and Sweet Pea. Both of you look at each other before looking at the floor. 

“Continue.” You grumble and you feel the knife slice into your skin. A small cry escapes your lips and Sweet Pea looks up quickly. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so frightened, and you definitely didn’t think you’d be on the receiving end of such a look, but there’s something about it that stirs something inside of you, in spite of the very inappropriate moment.

“Okay.” She says, twirling the knife in-between her fingers. “We can either do this the easy way, or the even easier way. We’re going to make it look like a fight that went wrong. And then we’ll stumble out of the woods, covered in blood, crying, saying that it was self defense.” She smiles wickedly. 

“Even better idea, we don’t even have to be here. We could make it look like a fight between two gang members.” 

“Hmmm.” You and Sweet Pea say at the same time. Both of you know it’s very rare that Serpents kill each other, so that wouldn’t work, but as soon as you look at each other after the collective thought, do you realize the mistake you made. Never say ‘hmm’ when faced with death. 

“Aww, thanks for helping us plan your death.” The boy says. “So no to the fight between gang members. What about a fight between two lovers.” 

“Ew.” You mutter. 

“Gross.” Sweet Pea adds. 

“I’d rather just die.” You shrug and Sweet Pea sends you a look. 

“Y/n.” He sighs. 

“Fine, we’ll just go with the fight.” The boy huffs, moving the knife to the other side of your neck and digging it in. Blood trickles down your chest making both you and Sweet Pea wince. 

“You want to fight?” Your force the words out of your mouth and you can feel the look Sweet Pea is giving you. “Come on then, fight me.” The two of them exchange glances, they clearly weren’t expecting an answer from you. Whoever sent them to do this, definitely underestimated how stubborn serpents are, so maybe Fangs was right about you and Sweet Pea, maybe you were both too stubborn to get along. 

The ten seconds that they’re distracted, gives you and Sweet Pea a chance to look at each other. A silent conversation happens between the two of you and even though you’re not entirely sure of what he’s saying, you just hope you got the basic idea and so you send him a nod. 

While they’re distracted, Sweet Pea reaches into his pocket, slowly pulling his knife out, and as soon as they look back, you start your plan. Quickly you kick the guy as hard as you can in the shin making him fall and push you away from him, dropping the knife as he does. You swiftly pick it up and Sweet Pea uses the distraction to grab the girl, pressing his own knife against her neck. 

You stand a few feet away from them, holding your own knife and the one you stole out in front of you. 

“Touch her if you never want to see the light of day again.” He whispers in the girls ear and he sends a look to her weird friend that makes him stop in his tracks. 

“Now.” You smile. “Do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?” 

----

Dawn breaks as you both stumble out the forest. You’re covered in cuts and bruises, but thankfully you’ve stopped bleeding so you’ll take that as a win. Usually you enjoy beating up rich kids, its one of the few things you and Sweet Pea can bond over, but right now you just want to go home. 

They may have been preppy, but they definitely knew what they were doing. And they’d managed to escape, slipping away from you and through the trees. They may have gotten away, but they were barley in one piece, and so you figured that would be enough to bide Jughead some time with whatever he was planning. 

There’s a togetherness about fighting. For a while you, both you and Sweet Pea were sure you were going to die in there, and so now that you’re walking through the sleepy streets of the town, there’s a part of you thats glad the other made it out. 

They say fighting changes you. It awakens something in you. Usually that something is hate or anger, but both of you already have enough of that. 

No, this is something else. 

Respect for the other? Or maybe fondness? Whatever it is, its new and it swirls around the both of you, leaving you unsure of how to act. So you walk to Jughead’s house in silence, your arms brushing gently against each other every so often. 

Jughead’s house is quiet as the two of you walk through the front door. The Jones/Cooper house is full, serpents mill about the place, with either food or drinks in their hands. And Jughead is in the middle of them, stood right in the centre of the living room. It seems you and Sweet Pea weren’t the only people sent to their deaths last night. 

Everyone looks surprised as you walk into the living room. They probably expected at least one of you to be dead, whether that was because of something is the woods, or one of you, its surprising to see you two alive, with just a few cuts and bruises. 

“Did you guys find anything weird.” 

“Oh, you know. The usual.” You shrug. Jughead nods, deciding to talk to you about it in private later on. And so he starts talking to the group again, you and Sweet Pea practically blending into the background. But there’s a definite shift in atmosphere. 

Usually when you and Sweet Pea are in a room together there’s tension, and everybody is aware of it. But this time, its different. It feels light, despite the tense subject being discussed. Everyone can feel the change, but nobody can figure out what it is. 

Only you and Sweet Pea know what has changed. And as he squeezes your hand in his, a soft smile appearing on his face as he looks at you, you have a feeling a lot more things are going to change. Some of them may not be for the good, it seems like there’s a lot more to be uncovered in Riverdale, but one things for sure, you’re glad Sweet Pea is by your side for it.

[a-detraque-barista]

Marigolds and Sea Water

Yandere Siren Jimin x Reader, a little bit of Yandere Siren Jungkook x Reader

Warnings: yandere themes, possessive Jungkook, graphic killing, character death, mention of 

Word Count: 3.1k

“Come on, come on! Wake up!” your voice was frantic as you held the half fish-man in your arms. You brought him underwater again and back up.

    You had found him washed up on the shore. He was barely breathing so you tried to keep him alive by bringing him back into the water. So far nothing was helping. He still had a pulse but it was faint. You went deeper into the ocean so you were just barely touching the ground. Taking in a deep breath you went underwater and swam as far as you could. You didn’t want to let him go but you also couldn’t hold your breath forever. You could feel your eyelids drooping and your lungs burning. Seeing the man’s eyes flutter, you smile.

Everything went black after that.

When your eyes fluttered open you looked around to see plain white walls and the consistent beeping of the monitor next to you. Confusion took over your whole mind. You couldn’t piece together where you were or how you got there. It didn’t help how you began to feel nauseous. You felt a sharp pain in your chest. What was going on? 

“Y/n please calm down, you’re in the hospital,” a nurse came rushing in after getting notified of your escalating heart rate. She took your hands and tried to get you to calm down, “Breathe, in and out.”

Eventually, you were able to calm down enough for her to explain how you ended up in the hospital. Someone had used your phone to call an ambulance but they were gone before EMS arrived. The nurse had also explained that you have gotten pneumonia from the water being in your lungs. To fight the infection you have to take antibiotics every day, twice.

You suspected the aquatic man had saved your life, even knowing enough about society to call an ambulance to help you. Staring up at the ceiling you were thinking about what to tell your boss when you went back to work in a few days. She didn't take lightly to excuses for not coming into work. As long as you had a doctor’s note, your punishment wouldn't be too harsh. 

The doctor came in and said you would be able to go home within a few hours but you had to stop for your medication before going home.

You lived in a small town so it didn't take you long to walk to the pharmacy and home. The sun was setting and the wind was getting stronger. It felt nice but you just wanted to get home and sleep in your own bed. 

    The next day you took a walk along the shore as you silently hoped to see the mysterious sea creature that you met the other day. With no such luck, you went home to spend the rest of the day lounging on your couch while catching up on your favorite show you haven’t been able to get to in a while.

    You kept going back to where you found the man ashore, every day. However, every day, there was no sign of him.

✤✤✤

    Three weeks later you were laying in your bed. You had just woken up, looking over to your alarm clock, the big red numbers read 3:58 AM. Groaning, you reluctantly sat up and dug your palms into your eye sockets. Why did you have to wake up so early on your day off? It was a tragedy nobody should have to suffer. 

    You decided to go for a swim since it was warm enough and you needed something to do for another two hours until your favorite coffee shop opened up.

    Choosing a random spot to set your towel and bag, you took off your coverup and walked into the water. You dove into the water once you were in decent depth. Most people would have been traumatized and wouldn’t go near the water ever again. But you didn’t really care, you loved the ocean and you weren’t going to let that one moment ruin it. You broke the surface and slicked your hair back as you stared up at the moon. It was full and bright while there were no clouds in sight. You began to float on your back as you daydreamed while gazing at the stars. 

    Dreaming of what could be and what could’ve been when you felt something wrap around your stomach and pulled you under the water. You struggled as much as you could but whatever grabbed you wrapped its arms around yours. You stopped kicking and tried to look behind you but it stopped you by digging his face in your neck. Your air supply was running low, noticing this, he brought both of you up to the surface. Taking in a deep breath you were able to level out your breathing.

    “I forget you can’t breathe underwater sometimes,” his voice was smooth and light. The airy chuckle he let out was endearing. “I tried to stay away from you for weeks. But I just couldn’t do it.” His arms tightened around your middle. “I needed to see you again. And hold you again. Even only for a little while.”

    He unwrapped his right arm from around you to grab your wrist. You felt your skin tingling the more he held your wrist. When he let go of it, he took your forearm and bent it upwards so you could see the marking he left. It looked like a bracelet that held charms, a moon crescent, stars, and waves were now embedded into your skin like a tattoo. Hugging you one last time he whispered, “I’ll be back for you.”

    With that, he sunk back into the water and swam off before you could even process what had happened. You swam back to shore and quickly dried off and grabbed your things. The sun was already beginning to rise so you had to quickly take a shower and get dressed before the morning rush hit the coffee shop. 

    Once you saw your favorite barista working through the glass door you practically skipped up to the counter. He laughed the whole time as he watched the way you were walking. You loved being able to make him laugh, he was usually a very shy person.

    “Gooooood morning, Jeongguk,” you rested your arm on the display case full of baked goods right next to the register.

    “Good morning, Y/n. Your usual?” Jeongguk tried to hide his smile as he typed in your order.

    “Yessssss, could you add a muffin? They are calling out to me.”

    “Are you sure that’s not just your other personality?”

    “I would say something if that weren’t true,” you both laughed as you talked while waiting for your drink.

    Jeongguk suddenly stopped talking as he noticed your wrist. His eyes became dark as his coworker handed you your drink. You put both the bag and the drink in your left hand before looking to Jeongguk with your eyebrow raised. You reached out to poke his face but he quickly grabbed your wrist. He stared at the marking intensely before asking, “Who gave you this?”

    You had never seen this side of Jeongguk. He was usually all smiles and witty comments. You were concerned about how fast his mood changed from seeing a marking from a mysterious seaman. Not knowing what to tell him you began to stutter, “I-I um, well, it’s kind of hard to-to explain Jeongguk.”

    He said nothing for a while before he finally let go of your wrist, “ I’ll be over at your house to talk after my shift. Don’t go near the ocean. Got it?” His eyes were dark as he looked at you from under his eyelashes. You were too confused to respond causing Jeongguk to grab your wrist again and say, “Got it?”

    He let go of your wrist after you nodded quickly. Exiting the shop, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Today was becoming too much for your heart to handle.

    You drank your beverage and ate your muffin at your coffee table while watching cartoons that played early in the morning. You had almost forgotten about Jeongguk coming over as you lost track of time.

    Your concentration on the cartoon was broken when you heard knocking at your door. You slowly set down your drink and stood up to open the door. There he was. In his all-black outfit and parted hair. You’ve had a tiny crush on Jeongguk for a while now. How could you not when he was so attractive, made you laugh, and was always kind to you? But you’ve never seen him like this before, angry and seething.

    Without asking, he walked in while pulling you with him. He kicked the door closed and brought you to stand in front of him.

"What are you doing?" your voice was shaky as you watched him bring your wrist up to his mouth. His dark eyes stared into yours. You felt him smirk against your skin before he let out a humorless chuckle.

“You have no idea what this is, do you?” watching your head shake, he sighed before explaining, “It’s a mark that sirens leave on their mates to keep any unwanted creatures away. But I’ve waited and waited till the day I could finally mark you as my mate. I won’t let some wild beast take you away.”

After he said that, he bit into your wrist. Hard enough to break the skin and cause you to bleed. Jeongguk pushed you back until you hit the wall so he could pin your other arm and both legs so you wouldn’t be able to struggle. You couldn’t move or get a word to come out. It’s like you were practically frozen. You didn’t understand what was going on. Your brain going into overdrive to try and process everything that’s happening. Jeongguk was biting into your wrist after practically telling you that he was a siren just like the man you had saved from the beach. And saying that you were his while confessing he had been waiting to mark you. What the hell was going on?

He didn’t pull his teeth back until he was satisfied with the fading of the mark. If the mark was taking this much to get rid of then the siren that had given it to you must be incredibly strong. 

As an apology, Jeongguk began to lick the blood and your wound. He never wanted to hurt you but it was a small price to pay to get the stench of another siren off of his beloved. He made sure the wound had stopped bleeding before he pulled away to look into your eyes. Surprisingly, you had kept quiet the entire time with the occasional whimper. He thought you would scream and curse at him but you did nothing as stared as if in a daze. Maybe you really did love him as much as he loved you. He smiled as he took you in his arms and held you tightly.

He brought you over to your couch and had you lay down so he could lay on top of you. Jeongguk rubbed his face against your chest and wrapped his arms under you. He had dreamed of this for so many months. Ever since he met you when you first moved to town from your big city life. How could he let someone, that hadn’t even known you for as long as he did, take you from him?

Jeongguk had practically fallen asleep right away. While you were left staring at the ceiling. So much has happened within several hours that you were exhausted but your mind was running too fast for you to fall asleep quickly. Over time, as the sun was hidden behind the clouds, you finally fell asleep.

Your eyes slowly opened as your pupils adjusted to the dim lighting. There was barely any light, only the light reflecting off of the water. Your legs were in the small pool and the rest of your body laid on the hard rocky surface. Your eyes were still unfocused as you examined what looks to be a cave. Trying to sit up you felt an arm bring you back down.

Looking over, you saw the man you had saved from the shore. He didn’t say a word. Just staring at you as you tried to get the strength back in your arms and legs. From where you were laying it seemed there was no other exit except the pool your feet were in. There may be one behind you but you can’t see it from there. You felt the arm around your middle tighten.

“There’s no point. I’m the only way you can get out of here.”

You made eye contact with the man who you assumed saved you before you drowned. His eyes were gold, they reminded you of the marigold flowers that grew around your house. 

“Why did you save me?” he whispered while he gazed into your eyes like he was looking for something.

“I couldn’t just leave you there. You were gonna die. Or worse, someone else found you that would…” you didn’t know how to finish your sentence. Whatever this man was, he wouldn’t be saved from the bottom of their heart. He would be saved to be experimented on or worse. 

All of these or worses made you want to crawl deeper into this cave. Humans were disgusting, even if you were one.

“I could ask the same thing,” you said quietly as you stared up at the ceiling of the cave.

“You saved my life, I had to save yours,” he rested his head on your shoulder before growling. 

He sat up to sink deeper into the water. He could only stay above the surface for so long. This finally gave you the chance to sit up yourself. You were a little sore but nothing too serious. From here you could really see him. His light blonde hair was slicked back with a few stray hairs falling into his face. Which brought your eyes to the bluish scales adorning his cheeks, down his neck, arms, and to his tail. His hands that reached out for your legs were webbed as there were short sharp nails at his fingertips.

“It’s time to rehydrate, my love.”

“Rehydrate?”

He grabbed you by your calves and pulled you into the water with him. He held you by your waist, “We can’t stay out of the water too long or we’ll die.”

“Um, I’m human. I should be out of the water most of the time,” it was obvious you weren’t like him.

    The man didn’t say anything, all he did was examine your features. You could see the color of his eyes more clearly from here. Not only were they an abnormal color but the pupils were also different. They were eight-pointed stars. You had never seen anything like them. Being this close to him also made you realize he was still a stranger, “I don’t even know who you are.”

    He finally blinks and thinks for a moment. “My name’s Jimin. But you can call me anything you want,” his voice was soft and smooth. It almost put you into a daze. “And what’s your name, my love?”

    “Y/n,” Why was his voice so soothing? To any other stranger you would reluctantly give your name, most of the time a fake one or none at all. Why did you give it up so easily? And why was he looking at you with such intensity?

    “What a wonderful name,” he breathed, his face was already so close to yours. He began to hum an unfamiliar melody as he slowly twirled the two of you in the water. 

    Wait...how did you get here? The last thing you remembered was laying down with Jeongguk on your couch. Nothing was adding up. “Hey Jimin?”

    “Yes?” he stopped humming to listen to what you were going to say.

    “What happened to Jeongguk? And how did I get here?” you tried not to overwhelm him with too many questions so you could get the answers you needed to the more important first two.

    “Well, Jeongguk and I made an agreement. Long story short, I’m the winner that gets to win your heart,” he sung with a sing-song voice. 

    Of course, Jimin didn’t want you to know that he murdered your dear friend. Jeongguk had idiotically explained how the two of you have been friends and how he has been trying to make you his mate for months. This only caused Jimin to fill with rage and kill Jeongguk. Jimin ate his heart as all sirens did when challenged and came out victorious. Leaving the rest of the scraps to the sharks. This underwater world was dangerous and feral which is why Jimin must protect you from all harm. Even from the surface world. 

    He sang as loud as he could towards your house, hoping it would be loud enough for you to hear through your walls. Luckily, it was just enough to seep through your open window and into your ears. You were still half asleep by the time you stood up but you made it out of your house and to the beach rather easily. As soon as you were waist-deep in the water, Jimin pulled you down and slipped something similar to kelp into your mouth and had you swallow it. Holding your face, he waited until he saw you breathe to make sure it had worked before grabbing your hand and swimming off.

    Now here you were, dancing in the water with the siren that had taken you unknowingly. He began to sing as he sunk further and further down with you still in his arms. You tried to push away from him but his grip became tighter and his voice got louder. Even as you sunk deeper into the water you could hear his voice. Everything was becoming darker and darker the further you went. You looked to Jimin worriedly but all he did was give you a charming smile before you finally succumbed to his voice and let all of your worries swim away. 

    Sirens can live for thousands of years while humans could barely live for one hundred. That’s why Jimin needs to make you into a siren just like him. The only way to do that is to mate with you. And he very well can’t do that on the surface or near it where others can see your beauty, right? He’ll break you from his spell but not until he’s got you completely within his grasp, in his home, at the bottom of the abyss.

[santiagoswagger]

back when i was livin' for the hope of it all

When a case takes them to Coney Island early in their partnership, Jake manages to convince Amy to let her hair down a little.

My fic for the @b99fandomevents Summer 2020 Fic Exchange for @sentientencyclopedia! The request was a fic involving Jake and Amy at the boardwalk and I immediately thought of Coney Island! I hope you love it.

She steps out of the car and immediately moves to shield her eyes from the glaring sun.

“Ugh,” she winces. “I can’t believe this is where our witness works.”

Jake shuts his car door and gasps in mock outrage. “Santiago, this is the best day of my life! I finally get to work a case at Coney Island and you will not ruin this for me.”

Amy rolls her eyes in return. “Peralta, we’re here to interview a robbery witness, not ride roller coasters.”

Jake smirks. “We’ll see about that, Detective.”

The bickering doesn’t stop on their way to interview their witness, but that’s nothing new for Detectives Santiago and Peralta. In Amy’s first few months at the Nine-Nine, Jake’s proven to be a pretty sharp thorn in her side. He finds every opportunity to undercut her or tease her for being such a stickler with rules. It’s always in the form of a joke but Amy can tell there’s an edge to his humor. It’s hard being the newest detective, and he doesn’t make it any easier on her. Not that she would ever let him know just how much it gets to her sometimes - she would never give him the satisfaction.

The witness - a ride attendant at the wonder wheel - proves to be extremely helpful for their case and Jake and Amy finish the interview in less than 15 minutes.

As they start to head back to the car and the fluorescent lights of the precinct, Amy adjusts her sunglasses and says, “Well, I guess I can check Coney Island off of my New York City bucket list now.”

Jake whips his head around to stare wide-eyed at her, his curly hair swept to the side by the beachside breeze. “Are you kidding me? You’ve never been to Coney Island before?”

Amy shakes her head. “No way. Too many tourists. Plus, I grew up in New Jersey and we went to the shore every summer. I figured I’d seen enough boardwalks to last a lifetime.”

Jake steps in front of her, blocking her path. “Oh, Santiago. There’s no boardwalk like the Coney Island boardwalk. Gina and I used to hang out here with our friends like every day in the summer growing up. It’s one of the coolest places in Brooklyn.”

Amy frowns. “I think the hipsters in Bushwick might have something to say about that.”

Jake waves his hand in the air. “They suck, who cares? What matters is that I’m about to show you what Coney Island in the summer is all about.”

“Jake!” Amy scolds. “We told the captain we’d be back as soon as we spoke with the witness so we could get started on paperwork. This case should be our first priority.”

“It is!” Jake says, grinning. “We’re just taking a little detour. I want to see Fun Santiago and then we can go back to the precinct.”

“I’m plenty fun,” Amy says defiantly. “I bought a neon-colored pack of post-its the other day.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that,” Jake says, already walking towards the ticket counter.

Amy stands there for a second, unsure. Her professionalism usually wins out in situations like this, but there’s something about the salty sea air and the sounds of laughter that are pulling her in. Jake’s enthusiasm is infectious, as much as she hates to admit it. Plus, McGintley was perhaps the worst captain in the NYPD, so impressing him wasn’t high on her list at this new job. She follows Jake, albeit a bit reluctantly.

An hour later, Amy’s laughing harder than she’s laughed in weeks and small tendrils of hair have come loose from her usually perfect ponytail. They’ve been on all the big rides at least once and have moved on to the games - her specialty.

Jake groans in frustration as his plastic ring misses the bottle for the fifth time in a row. He throws his hands up in the air. “I give up,” he declares. “This game is impossible. It’s probably rigged.”

Amy snorts. “It’s not rigged, you idiot. Your technique just sucks.”

She takes his last ring from him and he surprisingly lets her. She looks up at him and he has a single eyebrow raised, a faint twinkle in his eye. “Oh, really? And you’re gonna show me the right way to do it?

“Damn right I am,” she says. “It’s all in the wrist, Peralta. And don’t even think about saying it.”

He stifles a laugh as he swallows down a sextape joke.

Amy doesn’t give herself the time to relish in his defeat. She concentrates on her target, flicks her wrist and lets the ring go. It lands exactly where she wanted it to, on a glass bottle in the front row.

“Woah,” Jake says, sounding genuinely awed. “I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said about you, Santiago. You’re a carnival game genius.”

“Did you just call me a genius?” she asks, touched. This is the most headway she’s gotten with Jake since her first day.

“Don’t get used to it,” he smirks.

She picks out her prize - a small stuffed tiger - and turns to look at her partner. “We should probably head back. I bet McGintley is furious we’ve been gone this long in the middle of a shift.”

Jake stares back skeptically. “You’re kidding, right? I caught him watching cartoons in his office last week. Besides, we finished the interview way early and it’s against the law to leave Coney Island without going to the beach.”

Amy rolls her eyes but checks her watch to do a quick calculation. “Fine,” she says hesitantly. “But only for 10 minutes and then we head straight back to the precinct.”

“Deal,” Jake says, holding out his hand to shake hers. She moves to shake it but he takes it away quickly. “Too late, let’s go!”

They get ice cream cones and head to the beach, Amy in her heeled work boots and pantsuit, Jake in his hoodie and sneakers. They navigate the crowds and eat their ice cream in silence.

“So, why don’t you like boardwalks or amusement parks?” Jake asks. “Please tell me there’s a traumatic childhood story.”

She sighs. “My older brother David got a job at the Seaside Heights boardwalk the summer before his junior year of high school. He was just operating the carousel but my parents went on and on about his ‘entrepreneurial spirit.’”

She looks at Jake, who’s surprisingly not laughing. He’s listening intently, eyes focused on her. “He and I don’t really get along,” she explains.

He nods. “He sounds like an asshat.”

Amy laughs. “He kind of is.”

The silence returns, but this one is a little more comfortable. Amy actually feels like she’s hanging out with a friend instead of her workplace nemesis.

“My dad took me to Coney Island once when I was a kid,” Jake offers. Amy turns to look at him but he’s staring at the ocean instead.

“Is that why you love it so much?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Maybe. He wasn’t the greatest dad in the world, but that was a good day.”

She nods, smiling slightly. “It’s not all bad.”

He smiles back. “Yeah, I think so too.”

As they head back to the car, the sand crunching beneath their feet with every step, Amy thinks that Coney Island isn’t the only thing that’s surprised her today.

Read it on ao3! 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #368

“whatever doesn’t kill you, is gonna leave a scar”

Have you ever bought a YouTuber’s merch? My favorite shirt is the Day of the Dead design by Cloak, which is Markiplier's and jacksepticeye's clothing brand. Mom's friend/former co-worker also got me a Ninja Sex Party shirt because she knew I liked them. There are SO MANY YouTubers I wanna support by buying shirts. Do you think oatmeal tastes better when made with water or milk? Milk, 110%. Have you ever left a note in a library book? No. What time of day do you prefer to wash your hair? Morning. Has anyone ever spread lies about you? Yes. Have you ever taken a photograph with a celebrity? If so, did it turn out the way you wanted, or do you wish you could retake it? No. If you could move out of your home country permanently, would you? If so, where would you go? If it didn't mean being so very far from my family, I would love to move to Canada. Is there a celebrity that everyone else seems to love, but you find totally overrated? Why is it that you don’t like them? I legit don't know who's considered currently popular, and I especially don't know who they are as people. If you could volunteer for any charity, which one would you choose? Do you think it’s more important to help humans, or are animal and environmental charities equally important? Something relating to animals, and I think they're both equally important. Do you prefer holidays where you relax, or actually do things? I like a mix. Something chill, but you still do some stuff as a family. Do you think that after we die our spirit is still alive? Yes. Has anybody ever told you that you could be a model? Someone has mistaken me for a model in a picture I once took. It was one of the most flattering things I've ever heard, haha. Do you use different kinds of moisturizer for different body parts? ie. hand lotion for your hands, face cream for your face. Or do you just use one moisturizer for all body parts? Yes. Have you ever felt like you were someone’s rebound? No. Has anybody ever broken up with you over something really pathetic? What was it? Have you ever been dumped in a disrespectful way? (eg. through text, through a friend..) I have 100% been dumped in a very cowardly and disrespectful way; after dating Jason for nearly four years and being very serious, he broke up with me very abruptly over Facebook Messenger. His reason was valid, but at the same time, he NEVER talked to me about it. Apparently my depression was dragging him down. If he'd fucking communicated it, I would have explored new treatment options so goddamn fast. But no, he decided to snap his fingers and disappear. That's exactly WHY it was so traumatic, I think: it was so unexpected and sudden. Did you have a lot of role models as a kid? Animal enthusiasts like Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin for sure. Do you feel like anyone looks up to you? Why or why not? God no. I'm just... not someone to aspire to be like. What was the last thing you found offensive? I'm not sure. Who is the nicest person you know? My mom. Do you feel safe in your country? I feel safe in NC, rather. Like I don't expect an atom bomb or terrorist attack or something in this obscure area. In the U.S.A. itself, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. America is definitely not loved by every other country. Do you feel safe where you live? Not in this city, no. Have you been falsely diagnosed with something by a bad doctor? Yup. Did y'all know I apparently have ADHD? I know, shocking. Have you ever had a doctor refuse to treat you? No. Name the strangest game you’ve ever played (video game or real game): The first Silent Hill, probably. It took a lot of reading to get it. Do you know anyone who has been struck by lightning before? No. Which cartoon character would you want to keep as a pet? Does Stitch count? Or a Pokemon. Do you like marshmallows? Yes. What is your favorite flavor of candy cane? I really like the Jolly Rancher candy canes, I think they are? Have you ever fostered an animal? No. Do you still take hot showers when it’s hot out? Not as hot, but not cold except on very extreme occasions. When writing $ sign, do you draw one line through the S or two? Two. What animal have you always wanted as a pet but couldn’t have? I'm thankful that my parents were pretty open-minded to what pets I really wanted, but one I was never allowed to have was a ferret because of how messy and smelly they are. List three people you’ve had crushes on: Jason, Sara, and Sebastian were probably my biggest crushes. Have you ever thrown up from cramps? No, but god have I felt close. List three people you had a hard time forgiving. Jason, Colleen, and my dad. Who is the most spiritual person you know? Probably my sister's mother-in-law. Would you ever start a vlog? God no, I'd bore people to tears. Are your dreams coming true yet? I mean, I guess in some ways with my mental health. In my deepest depression, what I have now was a dream, even though current me is very discontent with it. Most of my dreams, though? No. Do you struggle with depression? I've been diagnosed with severe depression since 7th grade. Are you haunted by your past? A few things won't leave me alone. What medical conditions do you have? Just a lot. There are even more that are up for debate. I've talked about my diagnosed conditions enough. Do you use a Magic Bullet? No. What does your apron look like? I don’t have one. What are your favorite spicy foods? Hot Cheetos, Takis, hot wings, jalapeno pizza... Man, I love spicy food. Which do you like better: being an adult or being a kid? Being a kid. Were you excited to be a teenager on your thirteenth birthday? I had very mixed feelings. Did you feel insecure in high school? Shit, I still do. Would you ever be friends with someone who was suicidal? What the FUCK is this question? No fucking shit I would be. Someone being suicidal in no way affects who they are as a person. Who was the biggest bully in high school? I don't think there really was one. What was your favorite class in high school? Art. Would you rather have a daughter or a son? If I wanted kids, a daughter. Have you ever written to an advice columnist? No. Have you ever had a doctor not believe what you told him? Maybe? I did however have an employee at the ER the first time I went try to pry out of me that my self-mutilation was for attention, and it wasn't until I insisted about a dozen times that it wasn't that he believed me. It's odd looking back that I got REALLY attached to him during that stay, knowing now that it was absolutely horrible and extremely unhelpful for him to do that. If you’re female, would you feel uncomfortable having a male gynecologist? I would absolutely refuse to have a male one. Do you like Lisa Frank? Yeah, like can you talk about aesthetic. What gives you nightmares? Boy, I wish I could tell you, given how much I have them. Were you ever hospitalized as a child? No. Did you get senior pictures taken? No. What color is your bicycle? I don’t have one. Did you ever have to take home a fake baby in health class? No, thank fuck. Would you rather wear ivory or white on your wedding day? What color will your bridesmaids wear? I'd rather wear black. I think red will be the bridesmaids' color. Would you rather have a swimming pool or trampoline? I want a swimming pool so damn badly so I could exercise my legs without worrying about sweating, and I can stop and rest whenever I want, unlike going walking or something. I don't think my knees could handle a trampoline. Do you think babies are cute? Some, sure. But a lot, not really. Do you dream about the future a lot? Yeah. Do you think about your past a lot? Way too frequently. How good are you at living in the moment? I'm trying to get better at it. Have you ever questioned God’s existence? Yeah. Vanilla frosting or chocolate? Chocolate. What’s your favorite foreign cuisine? I've actually been exploring Italian pasta lately. I'm not a big fan of foreign food that I've tried, though. Have you ever moved to another state? No. Did you do anything productive today? No. .-. Can you say the alphabet backwards? No, actually. Do you like flowers? Of course; does anyone not? Have you ever thought you were gonna die? I didn't care if I did or didn't. What kind of mood are you in today? I was honestly really depressed through most of it. Just health stuff was really getting to me. I just woke up from what was honestly like a four-hour nap and I feel all right, I guess. What are you craving right now? I REALLY want Domino's jalapeno pizza. Is there anyone you would seriously punch right now if you had the chance? No. What is worse, physical or emotional pain? Definitely emotional. Have you ever walked in on somebody doing something… questionable? When Dad still lived with us, I think he might have been watching... you know... on TV when I came into my parents' room for something. Idk for sure though. I didn't ask, and I don't want to know. If you were to make videos on YouTube, what would they be of? Oh god, idk. I don't want to make any. What I'd have most fun with would be reptile education, but I 1.) have literally one snake, 2.) am not extremely educated on a good number of them and don't want to be misleading, and 3.) I would run outta content fast. So, leave it to Snake Discovery, haha. Posting pictures of yourself in a bathing suit on the internet - ok or not? Yes, it's okay????? If you're talking about me personally though, you won't see me dead in a bathing suit picture. Do you typically laugh when somebody falls down? No, I gasp and see if they're okay. What is the most disturbing movie you’ve ever watched? Paranormal Entity. The ending is... a lot. Your opinion of Katy Perry, please? I like a couple of her songs. If you could say anything to your Mom right now… what would it be? "Thank you for absolutely everything."

[champagne-bucky]

The Undoing: One

Summary: The truth about a past life is unveiled.

Warnings: THIS IS A DARK STORY!! dark! Steve Rogers x reader, kidnapping, non con and dub con (or at least mentions of), dark! Bucky Barnes, Stockholm syndrome, grooming, mentions of pregnancy termination and suicide mentions (for one chapter), possibly more tags to be added!

Notes: Here’s Chapter One!! So, the beginning chapters are gonna run a little long because there's a lot of back story that needs to be explained before we get to the good stuff! But anyways here we go!! Please make sure to comment, reblog, inbox, and follow me for more! Enjoy :)

PLEASE READ WARNINGS!!

Your head was pounding harder and harsher as the seconds passed. Was that a black cloth around your eyes or was it just really dark in the room you were in? You hated feeling so disoriented. Where were you and what happened the previous night? All you remembered was your birthday party and waiting up for Bucky.

Bucky!

That son of a bitch bastard boy. He kidnapped you! Why would he do this? Wouldn’t his dad find out? Your parents surely know you’re missing by now. Maybe they already told Mr. Rogers and cops?

*click*

The sound of a door clicked from above. Heavy footsteps descending down a creaking staircase caused you to look around the darkness to find the source of the sound. There was a pause, the movement of someone coming closer to your face. The person in front of you was breathing heavily. The air around your face was warm while the rest of you shivered with fear.

“You’re finally up. I was getting worried that the chloroform really did a number on you, girl,” that voice. It couldn’t be could it? You started to breathe heavily as your body started to shake in tremors.

“Shhh, it’s okay, girl. You’re safe now. You’re with me,” tears started to wet your eyes as Mr. Rogers moved away from you.

The light was blinding you and for a moment you tried to lift your hand to shield yourself from it. When you tried to your arms were limited to only going past your shoulders. You were chained to the floor, but your legs were left untouched.

Your breathing began to pick up due to a panic attack. Tears welled in your eyes as you thrashed your legs around. Mr. Rogers paused what he was doing for a moment and bent down to you. He looked at your sorry state in pity, he used his thumb to wipe a tear away from your eye and shushed you.

“None of that, not tonight,” tonight? How long have you been down here? It was night when Bucky took you, surely it's been a few days by now then. Has it?

“W-why? WHERE AM I?” You gathered some air in your lungs to yell at him. He remained unbothered by your lashing out.

“You’re with me, sweetheart. I’m gonna take care of you from now on,” Mr. Rogers tilted your chin so the two of you were eye to eye.

Your panic is replaced with anger, with a hint of fear. That wasn’t a good enough answer and the two of you knew it. Why would he allow Bucky to do such a thing?

“Why don’t you calm down, sweetheart? I’m gonna go into the other room and get your bath ready, okay? When I get back we’ll clean you up real nice and get you something to eat. You’ve been out for a while now and haven’t had anything,” Mr. Rogers walked away and moved off to a dingy area of the basement.

Moments later, you heard water rushing into a tub and Mr. Rogers walking out. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and a few buttons on it were unbuttoned. You froze in place because you wanted to not believe what was about to happen. Mr. Rogers made his way over to you and started to unfasten your chains.

“Now, we are going to be a good little girl and take a nice warm bath. If you’re good I’ll let you come upstairs to eat. Does that sound good, sweetheart?”

No response, you couldn't form any words at that moment. Mr. Rogers just shrugged your response off and resumed the dismantling of the chains. When they were done, he carried you to the small makeshift bathroom. No words were exchanged and you were frozen.

“Let’s get out of these clothes now,” Mr. Rogers goes to take off your shorts.

“N-N-NO!” You screamed and your volume caused him to jump back.

Mr. Rogers smirked at you and shook his head in amusement. His strong hands were on your shoulders in a mere matter of seconds and they held you down so all you could do was squirm a little. You whimpered as he squeezed your shoulders hard enough that his fingers will probably leave bruising.

“LISTEN TO ME,” he yelled in your face and you quieted, “you are to get undressed and take a bath. No ands, ifs, or buts. You even struggle in the slightest bit and I’ll make you regret what happens to you next.”

That was enough to get you to stop moving. Mr. Rogers smiled at you and called you a ‘good girl’ before finishing undressing you. You were embarrassed, scared, and humiliated that your father’s co-worker, and long time family friend, had you locked away in some house, stark naked, in a dingy basement with no attempts of rescue. If this current situation didn’t make matters worse, Mr. Rogers began to finish undressing himself.

“W-What are you d-doing?” You covered your naked body up the best that you could. Mr. Rogers smirked and pulled down his jeans.

“Taking a bath, sweetheart. You didn’t think I’d trust you here all by yourself now did you? No, little girls like you need help,” Mr. Rogers tugged down his underwear and that was your cue to shut your eyes.

“Awww, c’mon, sweetheart,” Mr. Rogers put his hands on your bare sides and rubbed them, “don’t be shy now. The human body is a wonderful thing. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

All was quiet as Mr. Rogers waited for you to open your eyes, you refused. When he saw you were going to be putting up a fight he sighed. He picked you up and brought you towards the tub. Both of you were lowered in and Mr. Rogers brought a damp washcloth to your back and began scrubbing.

“You gave Buck and I quite a scare back there, sweetheart. Thought you weren’t going to wake up and have to bring you to the hospital,” he made his way towards your front, “God only knows what we’d have to tell the doctors why you weren’t waking up.”

You didn’t dare respond to Mr Rogers and blocked out the whole traumatic bathroom scene. Before you knew it, you were wrapped in a fluffy towel and back in the musty part of the basement. Mr. Rogers was fully dressed again in his previous attire and was getting something out of his back pockets.

“Don’t take this personally,” he took a zip tie and got behind you. When he tried to grab your wrists you jerked away and held your towel tighter.

“Be a good girl,” Mr. Rogers said through gritted teeth and he grabbed both wrists forcefully and tied your wrists painfully tight.

“Clothes?” You tried to talk as little as possible.

“We’ll get to that soon. March your ass upstairs now,” you gasped as Mr. Rogers slapped your ass forcefully.

He stayed behind you as you walked up the wooden steps. When faced with the door, Mr. Rogers pulled out a key and unlocked it. Pushing you forward, he led you into the kitchen and sat you down on a stool.

Mr. Rogers wasted no time and got busy making you something. You didn’t want to speak anymore in fear that something bad will happen if you do. The only noise was the clinging and clattering of the pans and utensils from Mr. Rogers. A few moments later a plate of scrambled eggs was in front of you. Fitting for someone whose stomach feels just as scrambled.

“Your dad would always tell us at work that he made these for you every Saturday morning before cartoons,” Mr. Rogers laughed like it was a fond memory of his to recount, “said you’d always get up the second the sun rose so that you wouldn't miss cartoons,” you silently scoffed at him. How dare he try to take the bittersweet memories between you and your father and crush them to pieces.

“I’m not hungry,” your own voice surprised both you and Mr.Rogers. In a time like this one, you had no appetite that needed to be satiated, you needed to figure a way out.

Mr. Rogers just tutted at you and chuckled. “There’s something that you just aren’t getting here are you?” He grabbed a fistful of your hair and yanked you closer to him. “I own you now. There’s nothing you can say or do that will make you leave here. Leave me.”

You shuddered visibly as Mr. Rogers smirked at your shift in demeanor. He let go of your hair leaving a stinging sensation to follow. Silently, you picked your fork and began to eat the breakfast he made for you. He watched you closely as you ate the tiniest bites of food in fear that you might throw it all back up.

*Knock Knock Knock*

The wrapping of a fist at the door made the two of you jump. Mr. Rogers gave you a warning look to tell you not to scream, but you ignored him. You jumped up from the chair before he could hold you down.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY HELP ME! THIS CRAZY MAN AND HIS SON TOO-“ Mr. Rogers grabbed you by the throat and silenced your voice while cutting off your airways.

“I told you the shut the fuck up,” he said through gritted teeth. Mr. Rogers walked you over to the door, his big hand choking the life out of you every passing second, and swung it open.

“Steve…” Bucky’s words trailed off as he saw the scene unfolding before him.

You wanted to kill that bastard in front of you, only if your vision was spotting and you were on the verge of passing out.

“You wait in the office, I have to deal with her,” Mr. Rogers drugged you back towards the doors of the basement.

“You wanna act like a bitch, fine,” he flung the door open and threw you.

No strength in your legs and vision clouded with spots, you went tumbling down the wooden stairs. Your body was horribly sore as you made your way to the bottom of the cold basement. A bone was surely broken as you tried, and failed, to get up.

“THEN YOU GET TREATED LIKE ONE,” Mr. Rogers screamed as he charged down the steps.

This was it, this was your end.

___________

One Month Later…

Funny thing about “the end”. A wise man would think that it meant the end of a life, a death, murder even. Well, your life did end that day. That young, carefree, and happy girl who saw an unforeseen circumstance presented to her had died. In her place, the broken, shattered, and aging women had taken her place.

You tried to block out what he did, but that night was etched in your brain like a bad tattoo you couldn’t afford to remove. Goodbye was the innocence you were saving for that special man. Goodbye was the sweetness and love you were holding out for. He took it. Steve Rogers had killed you without staring down the barrel of a gun or having a shiny blade carve you out. No, he murdered your spirits, hopes, and dreams.

Every day was the same. Wake up too early, sob about the circumstances, go back to sleep. Wake up again to the devil with blue eyes kicking at your legs, suck him off, for a while his cum was your nourishment, get fed scraps, fuck until you passed out.

You hated the familiarity of this new routine. You loathed every perfectly timed second of your day. How your body clock just became accustomed to a life of misery.

The vomiting started not long after. At first, you’d be dry heaving, maybe some saliva, maybe some scraps, but it was constant. You thought this was your body’s way of killing you slowly from the inside, a self destruct button you mentally pushed, but no.

Mr. Rog-, Steve, he told you he was Steve from now on, had cursed you out violently at the thought of what could be happening. He was an idiot to think your parents would put you on contraceptives in your younger teen years, but they never needed to. You never asked for them and they never forced them on you.

You didn’t want to take the test at first, but after Steve wrestled your body over the toilet and pushed down hard on your abdomen, the inevitable was waiting. Tears flowed freely down your face as those two minutes took forever. Steve was pacing and cursing under his breath. This was too ahead of schedule.

Positive.

A ‘fucking positive’ as Steve read it out loud.

You cried nonstop until he drugged you to sleep.

This was the month from hell. A baby on the way that you didn’t want. God, who knows what Steve will do to this baby.

You hadn’t seen him until later the next night. You were hungry, emotional, and the basement smelled of dried morning sickness. He cursed you out for making such a foul mess and made sure to punish you.

Steve himself was mad. Mad at the fact that he wasn’t more careful with you. Sure, you needed to be taught a lesson for disrespecting him in his own home, but he at least could’ve checked if you were on any birth control. He likes going in raw, especially knowing that there would be no chance of a mini him running around.

Well, now that chance was screwed.

It's not like this wasn’t part of Steve’s plan, it just came a little ahead of schedule. He was waiting until you became more compliant with the situation and fully accepted him. Steve wanted a family, he wanted a bunch of little Steve’s running around one day, and it looks like his dream was becoming a reality.

“Next week I’ll have Bucky meet us at the courthouse,” Steve brought you upstairs for the first time since that day. He made you an abundance of food, most likely to help out the baby’s growth.

“Courthouse?” You flinched a little because you were afraid to question Steve’s methods. It looks like there were no plans on not having this baby.

“Well, if we are going to have a baby we are getting married first. No child of mine will be called a bastard.”

Married? He’s kidding right? This psychopath kidnapped, tortured, and impregnated you all without your consent. Steve really thinks that marriage is going to be the breakthrough solution to all of this?

“I-I don’t want to get married,” Steve dropped his fork immediately and glared at you. Your parents were never married. They had you and just never got around to the vows. They were technically married just without all the paperwork.

“Oh, sweetheart, what aren’t you understanding by now,” Steve gave you a sinister smile.

“You have nobody but me. No one to save you, no one to take care of you. Do you think your parents will be happy that you’re knocked up? No father or even a husband to take care of you? You should be lucky that you have me. I’ll take care of you and little Rogers. So, you are going to look all pretty for me next week, I want no screaming or trying to escape or these next following months will be a personal hell for you. So, be a good girl, finish your food, and get upstairs.”

A million things were racing through your mind. Wouldn’t people be concerned that a young woman was marrying an older man like Steve? Then again, this month made you look like you aged at least a few years. People probably wouldn’t even bat an eye towards you two.

__________

Next Week

The days became longer and the anxiety was never leaving. With every passing minute was just another minute close to the courthouse. Bucky had already agreed to meet you both there and bare witness to the union. You had to think of something fast before you became Mrs. Rogers, the dutiful wife that lays in her husband's bed and gives him nothing but pleasure and babies.

The next few days became the blackest moments of your life.

Steve was out and about preparing for the courthouse while he left you in the basement. He didn't trust you upstairs alone. You had a plan in mind, it was the last option you could think of. There was no getting out of here. This baby didn’t deserve to grow up in a house filled with lies and emotional suffering. You hated to do this but the breaking point had bubbled over long ago.

The top of those steps looked a lot more scary than they usually did. You tried once and that was right when Steve walked through the door and saw you on the concrete floor. He screamed obscenities at you. You laid there half conscious. Maybe your ankle was broken or was there a crack in your ribs? Was that blood seeping out of your head? You never found out because you blacked out.

___________

You awoke.

Pain shot all throughout your body. Everything hurt you. It didn’t work. You really thought that it was going to work. If Steve hadn’t come dow-

“Glad you’re awake,” the dark shadow in the far corner spoke, “had a nasty fall there,” Steve got up from his chair and walked into the light. He was mad.

You tried to move back but the pain caused you to halt. You heard some clacking on the floor. With all your might, you managed to crane your sore neck to see a chain fastened around your ankle. The chain was short so there was no chance of you getting up.

“Wha-”

“Couldn’t have you pull another stunt like before now could we? Especially since you’d be putting my baby in danger,” you let out a laugh and Steve eyebrows furrowed.

“What? You think you got rid of it?” You laughed menacingly.

“You’re wrong,” you stopped your laughter and began to cough. Steve grabbed you by the neck and pulled you closer to him.

“And here I thought I was being nice by letting you upstairs. I could give you everything you’ve ever wanted and this is how I get repaid. My baby is not gonna-”

“It’s n-not you-your baby,” you managed to choke out. Steve lets go of you and slaps you harshly.

“It is my baby. Considering you don’t even care for it. You wanna hate me all you want? Fine, but my baby isn’t going to suffer because of you,” Steve pushes your shoulders onto the ground.

He begins to walk upstairs before you can choke out another few words.

“Where are you going?” He refuses to turn around and face you.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be back down to feed that thing soon,” Steve speaks directly to the life growing inside of you.

He disregarded who you were as a person for the next following months. Only feeding you and unchaining you to walk in order to keep his baby healthy. Steve never mentioned words that would make you feel like the other parents to your unborn child. All you were for those next months was his personal toy and incubator for the baby.

________

Tags list to be added in the comments!

[immortalcoelacanth]

HLVRAI Oneshot: Blankets and Burritos

I am weak, I crave gay fluff and family fluff...

Word count: 3428

Summary: Sometimes, Benrey has nightmares. It's a good thing Joshua has a plan to help out!

Gordon had long since accepted that Benrey was a naturally disruptive being. Between how absolutely chaotic he could be at times to his naturally blunt and occasionally abrasive attitude, the second he had moved in Gordon knew that his home would never be peaceful again. 

Granted, he had been surprised when Benrey began showing restraint when interacting with people, especially Joshua as the last thing he wanted was to upset the young boy. His jokes also lacked the more intimidating edge they held while they were in Black Mesa. Overall, his more destructive qualities had been toned down and he seemed to be far more at peace than the last time Gordon had seen the ex-guard. 

It was… nice, and while he had been hesitant at first to welcome Benrey into his home, he did not find himself regretting that decision. 

This did not mean that things were perfectly fine, of course. 

Benrey was… not the best at acting human, and it showed. There had already been several instances of Gordon getting up for a midnight snack and seeing at least two glowing eyes staring down at him from the ceiling. 

Absolutely horrifying. 

Plus, he had been forced to give Benrey a crash course on how humans acted and that no, he could not try and swallow the milk carton whole and please don’t walk up the side of a building and lean into a window to ask someone to play Smash Bros with you. 

Y’know, pretty simple things. Things that honestly would have made Gordon’s life a living hell if it was not for how accepting and understanding his neighbors were. 

Marguerite, a lovely, partially deaf old lady, had been especially happy to learn that Benrey had moved in with him, although Gordon was pretty sure that this was simply because she thought they were dating. She had been a huge source of help after his divorce, especially during some rather rough days. 

She had constantly pushed him to find something, or someone, that he could be happy with. Whether that was a hobby or a partner. 

He would never forget how scandalized he had felt when she first visited and saw Benrey. How she had looked the ex-guard up and down before turning to Gordon and winking at him. Her words forever burned into his mind. 

“This one will keep you busy, hands and mind.”

It had been one of the few times he had heard Benrey genuinely laugh, too. A loud, somewhat wheezing noise that made him curl up in a ball as he tried to control his laughter. It sounded nice and was something he wanted to hear more often.

And then... there were the nightmares. 

Moments where Benny's joy was smothered by something else, something he never expressed a desire to discuss. Gordon honestly had no clue what their source might be, whether caused some traumatic moment in Benrey’s past, or even the final fight between them, but whatever it was it could get bad.

Fortunately, these instances of nightmares were fairly quiet with Joshua never having woken up during them. Less fortunately, Gordon tended to be the one being startled awake since the ex-guard often slipped into his bed after he went to sleep, not that he cared all that much. In the beginning it had been a bit annoying to wake up and find Benrey downright spooning him, getting all into his personal space, and it had been a source of combat for several days until he and Benrey managed to sort things out. 

… Not that there was much of a conversation or anything like that. It was more so him listening to Benrey quietly insisting that he “needed someone”, and the gamer body pillow he purchased after that conversation had not helped in this regard. 

He loathed to think about it now, the wide eyes and flirtatious pose. Every so often it would move locations, going from being stuffed away in a closet to ominously being attached to the back of a door, and he was fairly certain Benrey was the one responsible for such a thing. 

Especially since Joshua claimed to have never seen it before, and he knew for a fact that the ex-guard was diligent in preventing Joshua from being exposed to more… mature jokes. 

Anyways, with Benrey continuing to seek out Gordon as a cuddle buddy and Gordon accepting his fate, and enjoying it, a solution to the nightmare problem still needed to be found. Aside from the growling, hissing, thrashing, and mutterings in some other language, Gordon had also nearly been crushed at one point after Benrey had, without warning, grown larger at some point during the night. 

He was thankful that the bed had not broken due to the sudden increase in weight. 

Currently, the physicist was seated in the living room, trying to put together some sort of solution that might help Benrey. Notepad in hand as he absent-mindedly chewed at the end of his pencil, thankfully lacking an eraser, he wrote down all the methods he had tried so far and what he might try next. 

Lists had always helped him keep his thoughts organized, and this was especially helpful given the mild chaos going on beside him. 

Otherwise known as Joshua and Benrey playing a racing game. 

Naturally, Joshua was currently speeding ahead of the ex-guard, throwing the occasional item back in an attempt to increase the distance between them. Unfortunately, with some quick maneuvers and calculated tricks, Benrey was able to dodge the attacks. 

“vroom, vroom, better watch out.”

“Nooooo!” 

“beep, beep!” 

“NOOOOOOOOOO!”

“you... you gotta go fast little dude, it’s the only way.”

“I am!” 

“gotta go faster.” 

“Faster?”

“faster, faster!” 

Gordon chuckled to himself as he listened to the pair break out in song, reciting the lyrics to some cartoon that they both watched. Saturday mornings were Benrey and Joshua’s designated bonding time as Benrey “educated josh bro on some pro gamer cartoons.”

As the race reached its conclusion, Joshua winning overall, the young boy carefully placed his controller down and then scrambled over to his father. He flung himself onto the sofa and leaned against Gordon’s side. Wide, eager eyes took in the notes. 

“Is this some work stuff?” Joshua asked, his eyes lighting up upon seeing the mention of blankets and pillows. “Are you guys gonna have a sleepover?! I can show you how to make an awesome pillow fort!”

“naaaaah,” Benrey casually slid into the conversation, both literally and figuratively. He perched on the armrest of the sofa, a smug grin on his face as he poked at the notepad. “he-he’s just writing ‘bout his crush.”

“Ooooh, so he’s writing about you?” 

“ya.” 

Gordon snorted and lightly thwacked one of Benrey’s fingers with the pencil, causing the ex-guard to let out a yelp before nursing the wounded digit. The exaggerated pout on his face made the physicist chuckle. 

“C’mon, don’t tell me that hurt you-”

“You gotta kiss it better, dad!” Joshua interrupted, placing his hands on Gordon’s leg and pushing himself up into his father’s face, eyes wide and pleading. “Like you did when I hurt my arm! Kisses make everything better!”

“yeah, feeman you-you gotta give me a biiiiiig old smoocher.” The smug grin had returned to Benrey’s face, and it grew wider at the exasperated look Gordon sent towards him. “it’s... it’s a joshie law, feetman, you gotta.”

After rolling his eyes, Gordon ultimately relented. He leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss against Benrey’s wounded finger. Despite how smug he had been about the entire situation, there was no denying the heat that took over his face. 

Was Benrey flustered? Yes, but he would never admit to it!

“u-uh…. nice smooch there, feetman. g-gotta give it a perfect score.”

Joshua giggled at the look on Benrey’s face, from the happy smile to the warm glow in his eyes, it was good to see the ex-guard so happy. When Benrey was happy, his dad was happy, and that made him happy! It was perfect!

However, speaking of his dad…

“So, what’s those notes for, then?” He asked, poking at the notes once again. “Benrey’s definitely wrong-”

“owie, ouch, your-your words hurt my bones, little joshie dude.”

The young boy stuck his tongue out at Benrey before he focused on his father and continued speaking. “Is it for work stuff? Or something else?”

It was impossible to miss the look the two adults exchanged upon hearing Joshua’s question, and it made him suspicious. Was this some adult thing he was not supposed to know? Oh, like that thing his classmate Danielle had mentioned-

“Erm, Benrey has been having some trouble sleeping at night and I’m trying to figure out how to help him.” Gordon explained, snapping Joshua out of his thoughts. “These are just some of the ideas I had that might help him relax.”

Joshua blinked, understanding what his father was saying but also wanting confirmation from Benrey. “So, you have nightmares and stuff?”

“uh... yeah.” The ex-guard shrugged as his hands twitched and knit themselves together, an expression of the general anxiety he felt towards the situation. Talking about himself, something he was always uncomfortable with despite the problems it caused. “like... i got some rank e dreams, little bro. i... i keep getting t-posed on and… stuff.”

“Oh!” Joshua lightly clapped his hands together, an idea immediately coming to mind on what he could do to help. “Stay right here, I’ll be back!”

As the young boy rushed to his room, Gordon and Benrey exchanged a confused look. 

“you... you, uh, know what joshie’s doing?”

“Nope, no idea.” Gordon shrugged before sending a smile Benrey’s way. “It’s nice to see him helping us out with this.”

Benrey looked down towards the ground, casting more of his face and the associated blush in shadows. “yeah. h-he’s a good kiddo, feetman.” 

“Damn right he is.”

Not long after this short conversation reached its conclusion, the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard and Joshua rushed back into the room with something rather large and bulky held in his arms, the ends of it dragging across the ground. 

It was his blanket, his weighted blanket to be specific. 

From a young age, Joshua had suffered through many bouts of nightmares and periods where he struggled to feel comfortable when going to sleep. This ultimately culminated in both his parents, who had been separated at this point, agreeing to take him to a sleep therapist and figure out what they could do to help. One of the methods they had been recommended to try was getting Joshua to use a weighted blanket to help him feel more secure and relaxed. 

While not solving all of his problems, he still occasionally visited the same therapist when dealing with a particularly bad bout of nightmares, the blanket, and the other coping methods he had been taught, had certainly helped. 

But the blanket continued to remain his primary source of comfort and seeing Joshua rush over to Benrey and hold the blanket out for the ex-guard to take made Gordon’s heart feel like mush. 

It was such a wholesome sight, and even if Benrey did not know the details behind why Joshua had this blanket, he was honored to see that Joshua wanted to use something of his to try and help. 

“awwww, little dude, you didn’t have to get this for me.” Benrey said, voice strangely soft and quiet. “you-you really didn’t need to.”

Joshua swiftly shook his head and once again thrust the blanket towards him. “This helped me a bunch, and now I want it to help you! Try it!” 

After sending an uncertain glance Gordon’s way, and being met with a reassuring thumbs up, he reached out and carefully took the blanket. He studied it for a moment, unaware of Joshua rocking back and forth in front of him and rubbed the material between his fingers. 

It felt… nice. Soft, but not too soft. 

The blanket was quickly wrapped around Benrey, and the ex-guard closed his eyes for a moment as he took in the sensation. It felt… comfortable. The added pressure of the blanket as it was draped across his shoulders did help him feel a bit more relaxed, reminding him of that.

That which he would never speak of. Old memories and forgotten places, a history that he never wanted to come to light, a name before Benrey. 

He quite liked the name Benrey, anyways. 

“Oh, oh dad!” Joshua suddenly shouted as he turned to look at his father, eyes shining with excitement. “How about you make a Benrrito!”

“... a wha?”

“Y’know!” Joshua spun to face Benrey as he made a rolling motion with his hands. “Burritoing! Dad does it to me a bunch!” 

Upon seeing the somewhat panicked look on Benrey’s face, Gordon quickly stepped in. He stood up, the action helping to calm the other two down, and gestured towards the floor. 

“If you wanna try it, we’re gonna need space.”

“you... you coming on to me, feetman?”

“NO, I AM NOT!”

Joshua giggled at the banter, not quite getting it but happy to see that his father had managed to get Benrey to relax a bit. He watched as the blanket was spread on the ground, patted out so there were no wrinkles before Benrey laid down on top of it. 

… Actually, Benrey looked a bit smaller than he normally did! Joshua knew most people would find such a thing strange, but he had long since gotten used to the occasional shape shifting that the ex-guard tended to do. 

Be it helping him reach food that was too high on the shelves or giving him piggyback rides, Joshua instinctively associated Benrey’s shape shifting with fun, unlike his father. 

Perhaps it was quite fortunate that Gordon was unaware of the shenanigans that these two sometimes got into. 

Regardless, as soon as Benrey was set up and ready to go, Gordon got to work. He flipped the edge of the blanket, so it was covering Benrey, and slowly started to roll the other man up. As he was turned over and over, the ex-guard’s smile began to grow larger and larger. 

Oh yes, he could just feel the potential chaotic energy. 

Once the burritoing process was complete, Gordon stepped back to admire his handiwork. At this point, only Benrey’s head and feet were sticking out of the burrito, and the constant glowing of his eyes seemed a bit duller than usual. A stream of pink to red sweet voice floated into the air. 

Joshua giggled and immediately started playing with the bubbles while Gordon lifted a brow and crossed his arms. “What’s that mean?”

“bbbbbbbb,” The string of noises made Gordon smile as he patiently waited for Benrey’s response.

“pink’n red means… i’m gonna bed.” Benrey yawned. Okay, chaotic energy replaced by exhaustion, which was… strange to say the least. 

And clearly Gordon agreed with that thought as his brow lifted higher in surprise. “Really? A burrito did you in?”

“ya.” Benrey bluntly replied as he wiggled around a bit, smushing his face into the blanket. “s’nice, cozy… me likey.”

“Operation Benrrito is a success!” Joshua cheered, high-fiving his father in victory. He then let out a sudden gasp and started bouncing in excitement.

“Dad, this means we gotta help him get a blanket! Can we go shopping tomorrow? Please? Pretty please? I can show Benrey all the super cool patterns they have, and the special stuffed animals too!”

Gordon spared a glance at the absolutely blissed out Benrey, who was currently radiating the energies of a content cat going for a nap, before smiling at his son and nodding. “Looks like we’re going to need to.”

“Yay!” Joshua exclaimed and crouched down in front of the ex-guard. “There’s a whole buncha space patterns and stuff like that one! There’s also ones that’re swirls of colours and they look super cool!”

“bbbbbbbbbb.” Benrey grinned, sharp teeth glinting in the light. “Alright then, little dude. let’s... let’s goooooooooo.”

And with that, Benrey slowly started inching towards the door as Gordon and Joshua watched on. The young boy took a step forward, thoroughly intending to join him before his dad placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. 

“No way we’re going out now.” He frowned. “It’s busy, and-”

“the karens are out?” Benrey cheekily added. 

“... Yeah, the last thing I want to deal with.” Gordon sighed, placing his face in his hands as he recalled the various interesting encounters he had at that specific mall. It was located in the more affluent section of the neighborhood, and the customers tended to reflect that. 

Ugh, with his luck he would probably end up running into her there-

“Joshie, I know you’re excited, so we’ll go tomorrow as soon as the store opens.” He exhaled as he lifted his face out of his hands and opened his eyes. To his surprise, Joshua did not seem disappointed in the slightest despite how enthusiastic he had been earlier. 

Granted, it definitely helped that Joshua had been the one to suggest going shopping tomorrow. It was not unusual for his father to forget minor details after experiencing some stress and recalling those lovely interactions has certainly been stressful. 

But the young boy felt there was no point in mentioning it, so he didn’t. 

“It’s okay, dad!” Joshua chirped. “But you should probably stop Benrey from escaping.”

“Wha?!” Gordon whirled around and noticed that Benrey had continued to inch towards the door and was now pressed up against it. Probably trying to clip through it since his arms were stuck at his sides. 

The physicist sighed once more, this time in annoyance, before striding over to the door and looking down at Benrey. “What’re you doing?”

“uhhhhhhhh.... y-yo mama.”

“I...there’s no words to describe how disappointed I feel, and you can’t go out like that anyways.”

“i’mma worm off the string, man. look at me gooooooo.”

“You’re not a worm! You’re a burrito!” Joshua chimed in, leaning around his father and smiling at Benrey. 

“noooooo, m-my evil plot… has been foiled.” Benrey dramatically, and somewhat lazily, wailed. He started rolling over to emphasize his apparent defeat. “i’m worming, woooooorming.”

At this point, Joshua had broken down into a fit of laughter and even Gordon had a small smile on his face. Deciding to play along with Benrey’s shenanigans, the physicist made his move. 

Now, it goes without saying that Gordon was not a weak man. Even without the added benefits of the HEV suit, he was no stranger to some forms of exercise. 

Primarily lifting Joshua up into the air as his son loved to feel like he was flying. 

In other words, without warning Gordon crouched down and scooped Benrey, in all his burrito’d glory, up. Rather than being slung over his shoulder, as the ex-guard was still heavier than Joshua and the last thing Gordon wanted was to potentially hurt his shoulder or back, he opted for an easier carry. 

Bridal style. 

Of course, he had not completely thought his plan through, so when he suddenly found Benrey’s face very close to his, his response was immediately and instinctive. 

He blushed, badly. 

Upon seeing this blush, and realizing his sudden proximity to Gordon’s face, Benrey smirked and made a move of his own. 

By leaning forward and quickly kissing the tip of Gordon’s nose. 

Needless to say, at this point both men were blushing. 

Joshua could be heard happily clapping his hands together in the background, and it was this noise that snapped Gordon out of his stunned state. He, somewhat awkwardly, shuffled over to the sofa and plopped Benrey down on it. The, still blushing, ex-guard did nothing except try to sink into the blanket burrito further. 

It was obvious he had no intention of being unburrito’d, for now. 

Gordon sighed and looked over at Joshua. “You okay with using your other blanket tonight?”

“The cowboy one?”

“Yeah.”

“Mhm!” The young boy quickly nodded. “Can you wash it first, please? I don’t want it to be smelly and gross.”

“You got it.” Gordon replied with a thumbs up. As he left to go and fix up Joshua’s other blanket, Joshua could be seen joining Benrey on the sofa and huddling beside him, quietly discussing the different kinds of blankets he had seen and how comfy some of them were. It was quite an adorable sight, and one that held potential. 

The potential for Gordon to make two burritos today, that is. 

                                        xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was actually kind of a struggle to finish this oneshot off, it kept getting longer and longer and my muse keeps spitting more ideas at me XD

Also, 10 bonus points to whoever gets the cartoon reference I added in!

I hope you all enjoyed reading!

- ImmortalCoelacanth

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: Berserk's Journey of Acceptance Over 30 Years of Fandom

  My descent into anime fandom began in the '90s, and just as watching Neon Genesis Evangelion caused my first revelation that cartoons could be art, reading Berserk gave me the same realization about comics. The news of Kentaro Miura’s death, who passed on May 6, has been emotionally complicated for me, as it's the first time a celebrity's death has hit truly close to home. In addition to being the lynchpin for several important personal revelations, Berserk is one of the longest-lasting works I’ve followed and that I must suddenly bid farewell to after existing alongside it for two-thirds of my life.

  Berserk is a monolith not only for anime and manga, but also fantasy literature, video games, you name it. It might be one of the single most influential works of the ‘80s — on a level similar to Blade Runner — to a degree where it’s difficult to imagine what the world might look like without it, and the generations of creators the series inspired.

  Although not the first, Guts is the prototypical large sword anime boy: Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soulcalibur, and Black Clover's Asta are all links in the same chain, with other series like Dark Souls and Claymore taking clear inspiration from Berserk. But even deeper than that, the three-character dynamic between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, the monster designs, the grotesque violence, Miura’s image of hell — all of them can be spotted in countless pieces of media across the globe.

  Despite this, it just doesn’t seem like people talk about it very much. For over 20 years, Berserk has stood among the critical pantheon for both anime and manga, but it doesn’t spur conversations in the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Dragon Ball Z still do today. Its graphic depictions certainly represent a barrier to entry much higher than even the aforementioned company. 

    Seeing the internet exude sympathy and fond reminiscing about Berserk was immensely validating and has been my single most therapeutic experience online. Moreso, it reminded me that the fans have always been there. And even looking into it, Berserk is the single best-selling property in the 35-year history of Dark Horse. My feeling is that Berserk just has something about it that reaches deep into you and gets stuck there.

  I recall introducing one of my housemates to Berserk a few years ago — a person with all the intelligence and personal drive to both work on cancer research at Stanford while pursuing his own MD and maintaining a level of physical fitness that was frankly unreasonable for the hours that he kept. He was NOT in any way analytical about the media he consumed, but watching him sitting on the floor turning all his considerable willpower and intellect toward delivering an off-the-cuff treatise on how Berserk had so deeply touched him was a sight in itself to behold. His thoughts on the series' portrayal of sex as fundamentally violent leading up to Guts and Casca’s first moment of intimacy in the Golden Age movies was one of the most beautiful sentiments I’d ever heard in reaction to a piece of fiction.

  I don’t think I’d ever heard him provide anything but a surface-level take on a piece of media before or since. He was a pretty forthright guy, but the way he just cut into himself and let his feelings pour out onto the floor left me awestruck. The process of reading Berserk can strike emotional chords within you that are tough to untangle. I’ve been writing analysis and experiential pieces related to anime and manga for almost ten years — and interacting with Berserk’s world for almost 30 years — and writing may just be yet another attempt for me to pull my own twisted-up feelings about it apart. 

  Berserk is one of the most deeply personal works I’ve ever read, both for myself and in my perception of Miura's works. The series' transformation in the past 30 years artistically and thematically is so singular it's difficult to find another work that comes close. The author of Hajime no Ippo, who was among the first to see Berserk as Miura presented him with some early drafts working as his assistant, claimed that the design for Guts and Puck had come from a mess of ideas Miura had been working on since his early school days.

  写真は三浦建太郎君が寄稿してくれた鷹村です。 今かなり感傷的になっています。 思い出話をさせて下さい。 僕が初めての週刊連載でスタッフが一人もいなくて困っていたら手伝いにきてくれました。 彼が18で僕が19です。 某大学の芸術学部の学生で講義明けにスケッチブックを片手に来てくれました。 pic.twitter.com/hT1JCWBTKu

— 森川ジョージ (@WANPOWANWAN) May 20, 2021

  Miura claimed two of his big influences were Go Nagai’s Violence Jack and Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star. Miura wears these influences on his sleeve, discovering the early concepts that had percolated in his mind just felt right. The beginning of Berserk, despite its amazing visual power, feels like it sprang from a very juvenile concept: Guts is a hypermasculine lone traveler breaking his body against nightmarish creatures in his single-minded pursuit of revenge, rigidly independent and distrustful of others due to his dark past.

  Uncompromising, rugged, independent, a really big sword ... Guts is a romantic ideal of masculinity on a quest to personally serve justice against the one who wronged him. Almost nefarious in the manner in which his character checked these boxes, especially when it came to his grim stoicism, unblinkingly facing his struggle against literal cosmic forces. Never doubting himself, never trusting others, never weeping for what he had lost.

    Miura said he sketched out most of the backstory when the manga began publication, so I have to assume the larger strokes of the Golden Arc were pretty well figured out from the outset, but I’m less sure if he had fully realized where he wanted to take the story to where we are now. After the introductory mini-arcs of demon-slaying, Berserk encounters Griffith and the story draws us back to a massive flashback arc. We see the same Guts living as a lone mercenary who Griffith persuades to join the Band of the Hawk to help realize his ambitions of rising above the circumstances of his birth to join the nobility.

  We discover the horrific abuses of Guts’ adoptive father and eventually learn that Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all victims of sexual violence. The story develops into a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring politics and war, but the real narrative is in the growing companionship between Guts and the members of the band. Directionless and traumatized by his childhood, Guts slowly finds a purpose helping Griffith realize his dream and the courage to allow others to grow close to him. 

  Miura mentioned that many Band of the Hawk members were based on his early friend groups. Although he was always sparse with details about his personal life, he has spoken about how many of them referred to themselves as aspiring manga authors and how he felt an intense sense of competition, admitting that among them he may have been the only one seriously working toward that goal, desperately keeping ahead in his perceived race against them. It’s intriguing thinking about how much of this angst may have made it to the pages, as it's almost impossible not to imagine Miura put quite a bit of himself in Guts. 

  Perhaps this is why it feels so real and makes The Eclipse — the quintessential anime betrayal at the hands of Griffith — all the more heartbreaking. The raw violence and macabre imagery certainly helped. While Miura owed Hellraiser’s Cenobites much in the designs of the God Hand, his macabre portrayal of the Band of the Hawk’s eradication within the literal bowels of hell, the massive hand, the black sun, the Skull Knight, and even Miura’s page compositions have been endlessly referenced, copied, and outright plagiarized since.

    The events were tragic in any context and I have heard many deeply personal experiences others drew from The Eclipse sympathizing with Guts, Casca, or even Griffith’s spiral driven by his perceived rejection by Guts. Mine were most closely aligned with the tragedy of Guts having overcome such painful circumstances to not only reject his own self enforced solitude, but to fearlessly express his affection for his loved ones. 

  The Golden Age was a methodical destruction of Guts’ self-destructive methods of preservation ruined in a single selfish act by his most trusted friend, leaving him once again alone and afraid of growing close to those around him. It ripped the romance of Guts’ mission and eventually took the story down a course I never expected. Berserk wasn’t a story of revenge but one of recovery.

  Guess that’s enough beating around the bush, as I should talk about how this shift affected me personally. When I was young, when I began reading Berserk I found Guts’ unflagging stoicism to be really cool, not just aesthetically but in how I understood guys were supposed to be. I was slow to make friends during school and my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood had my friends' parents moving away faster than I could find new ones. At some point I think I became too afraid of putting myself out there anymore, risking rejection when even acceptance was so fleeting. It began to feel easier just to resign myself to solitude and pretend my circumstances were beyond my own power to correct.

  Unfortunately, I became the stereotypical kid who ate alone during lunch break. Under the invisible expectations demanding I not display weakness, my loneliness was compounded by shame for feeling loneliness. My only recourse was to reveal none of those feelings and pretend the whole thing didn't bother me at all. Needless to say my attempts to cope probably fooled no one and only made things even worse, but I really didn’t know of any better way to handle my situation. I felt bad, I felt even worse about feeling bad and had been provided with zero tools to cope, much less even admit that I had a problem at all.

  The arcs following the Golden Age completely changed my perspective. Guts had tragically, yet understandably, cut himself off from others to save himself from experiencing that trauma again and, in effect, denied himself any opportunity to allow himself to be happy again. As he began to meet other characters that attached themselves to him, between Rickert and Erica spending months waiting worried for his return, and even the slimmest hope to rescuing Casca began to seed itself into the story, I could only see Guts as a fool pursuing a grim and hopeless task rather than appreciating everything that he had managed to hold onto. 

  The same attributes that made Guts so compelling in the opening chapters were revealed as his true enemy. Griffith had committed an unforgivable act but Guts’ journey for revenge was one of self-inflicted pain and fear. The romanticism was gone.

  Farnese’s inclusion in the Conviction arc was a revelation. Among the many brilliant aspects of her character, I identified with her simply for how she acted as a stand-in for myself as the reader: Plagued by self-doubt and fear, desperate to maintain her own stoic and uncompromising image, and resentful of her place in the world. She sees Guts’ fearlessness in the face of cosmic horror and believes she might be able to learn his confidence.

    But in following Guts, Farnese instead finds a teacher in Casca. In taking care of her, Farnese develops a connection and is able to experience genuine sympathy that develops into a sense of responsibility. Caring for Casca allows Farnese to develop the courage she was lacking not out of reckless self-abandon but compassion.

  I can’t exactly credit Berserk with turning my life around, but I feel that it genuinely helped crystallize within me a sense of growing doubts about my maladjusted high school days. My growing awareness of Guts' undeniable role in his own suffering forced me to admit my own role in mine and created a determination to take action to fix it rather than pretending enough stoicism might actually result in some sort of solution.

  I visited the Berserk subreddit from time to time and always enjoyed the group's penchant for referring to all the members of the board as “fellow strugglers,” owing both to Skull Knight’s label for Guts and their own tongue-in-cheek humor at waiting through extended hiatuses. Only in retrospect did it feel truly fitting to me. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of Guts’ path is a constant struggle. Today I’m blessed with many good friends but still feel primal pangs of fear holding me back nearly every time I meet someone, the idea of telling others how much they mean to me or even sharing my thoughts and feelings about something I care about deeply as if each action will expose me to attack.

  It’s taken time to pull myself away from the behaviors that were so deeply ingrained and it’s a journey where I’m not sure the work will ever be truly done, but witnessing Guts’ own slow progress has been a constant source of reassurance. My sense of admiration for Miura’s epic tale of a man allowing himself to let go after suffering such devastating circumstances brought my own humble problems and their way out into focus.

    Over the years I, and many others, have been forced to come to terms with the fact that Berserk would likely never finish. The pattern of long, unexplained hiatuses and the solemn recognition that any of them could be the last is a familiar one. The double-edged sword of manga largely being works created by a single individual is that there is rarely anyone in a position to pick up the torch when the creator calls it quits. Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and likely Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter all frozen in indefinite hiatus, the publishers respectfully holding the door open should the creators ever decide to return, leaving it in a liminal space with no sense of conclusion for the fans except what we can make for ourselves.

  The reason for Miura’s hiatuses was unclear. Fans liked to joke that he would take long breaks to play The Idolmaster, but Miura was also infamous for taking “breaks” spent minutely illustrating panels to his exacting artistic standard, creating a tumultuous release schedule during the wars featuring thousands of tiny soldiers all dressed in period-appropriate armor. If his health was becoming an issue, it’s uncommon that news would be shared with fans for most authors, much less one as private as Miura.

  Even without delays, the story Miura was building just seemed to be getting too big. The scale continued to grow, his narrative ambition swelling even faster after 20 years of publication, the depth and breadth of his universe constantly expanding. The fan-dubbed “Millennium Falcon Arc” was massive, changing the landscape of Berserk from a low fantasy plagued by roaming demons to a high fantasy where godlike beings of sanity-defying size battled for control of the world. How could Guts even meet Griffith again? What might Casca want to do when her sanity returned? What are the origins of the Skull Knight? And would he do battle with the God Hand? There was too much left to happen and Miura’s art only grew more and more elaborate. It would take decades to resolve all this.

  But it didn’t need to. I imagine we’ll never get a precise picture of the final years of Miura’s life leading up to his tragic passing. In the final chapters he released, it felt as if he had directed the story to some conclusion. The unfinished Fantasia arc finds Guts and his newfound band finding a way to finally restore Casca’s sanity and — although there is still unmistakably a boundary separating them — both seem resolute in finding a way to mend their shared wounds together.

  One of the final chapters features Guts drinking around the campfire with the two other men of his group, Serpico and Roderick, as he entrusts the recovery of Casca to Schierke and Farnese. It's a scene that, in the original Band of the Hawk, would have found Guts brooding as his fellows engage in bluster. The tone of this conversation, however, is completely different. The three commiserate over how much has changed and the strength each has found in the companionship of the others. After everything that has happened, Guts declares that he is grateful. 

  The suicidal dedication to his quest for vengeance and dispassionate pragmatism that defined Guts in the earliest chapters is gone. Although they first appeared to be a source of strength as the Black Swordsman, he has learned that they rose from the fear of losing his friends again, from letting others close enough to harm him, and from having no other purpose without others. Whether or not Guts and Griffith were to ever meet again, Guts has rediscovered the strength to no longer carry his burdens alone. 

  All that has happened is all there will ever be. We too must be grateful.

      Peter Fobian is an Associate Manager of Social Video at Crunchyroll, writer for Anime Academy and Anime in America, and an editor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: Peter Fobian

[46inpm]

MLQC Single Mom MC Headcanons

Hello! This is my first headcanon so bear with me if it’s out of wack. Idk if other accounts got my request but that was me.😅

How would the MLQC boys react to MC being a single mother? She never told them she has a 7yr son (we’ll call him Liam instead of “her son”). MC is still young since Liam was born from unfortunate events like rape (she loves her son to death). Also how would the leads try to to bond with Liam?

Victor

Victor overheard a conversation Goldman and MC were having about a guy.

“Did Liam like the shirt I gave him?”

“He loved it so much that he wanted to take pictures which wasn’t normal. The shirt made him look very mature!”

“Now you two can take professional photos.

Who was this guy “Liam”? Was MC seeing him? He wanted to try to sneak a question about it but it wasn’t his job place. They weren’t dating. He felt his heart begin to break.

One night Victor had come to her house to talk about work. MC could tell he sounded more dead inside than usual. When MC was going to get him a drink he saw a door open up. He did not expect a 7 yr. old to walk out asking for his Mommy. MC returned and surprised that Victor was looking around as if Liam didn’t belong here.

“He’s my son, Liam. Can you greet, Mr. Victor?”

“Hello, mister.”

“...Hello.”

MC explained to him that she had him at a very early age due to an unfortunate event that happened to her. It took a while for Victor to picture MC as a mom. He imagined that if he married her then Liam would be his son.

He loved the way MC was so caring about her son and how she would literally kill a person if they hurt him. Victor tried to bond with Liam by buying him gifts well... actually trying to get Liam to be quiet about telling his Mommy that big boss loves her. MC was a bit worried when Liam spent the weekend at Victor’s home when she went somewhere. Victor won’t admit but he felt very happy when Liam shyly asked his mom to give Victor a messy drawing of all three of them as a family. Check his desk drawer you’ll see it.

After MC and Victor get married...

“You aren’t my Grandpa.”

“Why would you think that? Am I really that old?”

“Last night I heard Mommy calling you Daddy over and over again.”

“When you see her before you go to bed I want you to tell her what you heard. It’ll traumatize her.”

“Okay! ...What’s ‘traumatize’?”

Lucien

He’s your neighbor so of course he would at least see MC taking her son out and hear him running around. When she asked him what to do with a problem when Liam go sick he came over to help out.

“So this is who I heard so much about. My name is Lucien.”

“I’m... Liam.”

Liam at first would be shy around Lucien because he reminds him of an evil fox in his Saturday cartoons. Lucien could tell that he was born from a terrible incident but has lived with love. He would watch MC practically brag about how great her son is. Lucien was confused of why he wants to watch over and protect Liam as he grows up. A few times Liam visited the orphanage with Lucien and got a bit jealous when the other kids were hogging his attention.

MC had a hard time putting her son to bed because he would try to explain what Lucien taught him. Her son thought Lucien was the coolest and smartest person which probably isn’t wrong. Liam even begged his mom to get him a science toy.

“Can Lucien live with us?”

“He lives next door. The only way he would live with us if something happened to his place or he joined the family.”

“You can marry him, can’t you? Or I’ll flood his house.”

Even Lucien learned new things from him. For once Lucien felt so much joy around MC and her son. He wanted to restart a life with just the three of them. It may seemed impossible so he enjoyed every second of it. Lucien dreamt about being there with MC when Liam graduated or even got married. He wanted to be the father Liam never had and hug the boy when he was sad. Liam is a strong boy he thought and would not let his family go down without a fight.

After MC and Lucien get married...

“Can I have a brother?”

“You want a sibling? Well I’ll get to work on it.”

“Really!”

“Yeah. You’ll be going to a sleepover soon, won’t you?”

Kiro

Kiro was looking for you on a set when he heard MC talking on the phone. He was surprised by the way her tone was and jealous of the man on the other end. Was he seeing MC? Why haven’t she mentioned having a boyfriend?!

“MC, I want to get to know you better. You mean a lot to me. What I’m trying to say is I would like to meet the person living with you...”

“You know about him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well come over and meet him.”

When Kiro knocked he could feel his heart race. Was this guy more handsome than him? Did he have more shared interests with MC? What would he do if they got married and started a family?! No matter what he wanted to still try and win MC’s heart.

When he came inside his legs were hugged by small arms. Kiro looked down to see a 7 yr. old boy resembling MC. He greeted the idol when many details about himself. This is Liam?! MC has a son?! Kiro was the most shocked out of all the boys. His worries melted away but wondered about the father.

“Where’s your Dad, Liam?”

“I don’t know who he is. Someone told me that he’s in a place where bad people go when they force people to do things they don’t want to do.”

Kiro loves Liam so much that he bought him a guitar or a keyboard or even a kazoo. MC would always worry what mischievous the two would get into. Liam is the one sneaking Kiro his snacks. Kiro would ask Liam about what he would do if he was his father and watch him grow up.

After MC and Kiro get married...

“Papa, I can’t sleep because it’s all your fault!”

“What did I do?”

“You keep make loud noises at night when you think I’m asleep!”

“I’m so, so, so sorry!”

Gavin

Gavin was the first to learn about this other than the police. He did his best to find the scumbag who did this. Once he found the man, gave the guy a good beating, and gave the police anonymous tips. After graduation Gavin always worried about how she dealt with the trauma.

“It took everything I had not to ripe that guy to shreds.”

When he reconnected with her she seemed different. More motherly like for some reason then he helped MC pick up her son. Gavin‘s heart dropped when he realized why she left school for months. He felt a bit strange around Liam at first but grown to want to protect him as well. He looked so much like that man but acted more like MC. She would carry him when he got tired and scold him when he was reckless.

“Are you my dad?”

“No, I’m not. Sorry, bud.”

“Can you be? I’m the only one in my class with out one. I saved all my Happy Father’s Day cards that I make at school.”

“I... would be happy to have them all.”

Liam and Gavin would eat at all their favorite spots. MC’s son was so innocent that bird cop would make sure all the kids at his school wouldn’t make fun of him. His heart leaped knowing Liam bragged that a police officer was his dad.

“I’m a big man now!”

“Really? Your Mom told me that you sleep in her room when you get scared.”

“The monsters make everything creak!”

“Don’t worry you still have time to grow.”

Gavin was so protected he always made sure when they walked on the sidewalk that Liam was closer to the stores than the road. He told him that when he needed help that Gavin was always there for him and his mommy.

After MC and Gavin get married...

“Dad, is Mommy feeling okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Last night I heard funny noises and banging on the walls. Does she need to stay home?”

“...Please forgive us.”

[nohallowroadsau]

So, since it's Christmas Eve, what were the trankils first Christmas' like?

Oh boy, this is going to be a long one (part 1 because Tumblr’s being a jerk right now and I think it’s overloading the system a bit):

Comet’s very confused about all the lights and shinies dotting the apartment. They wrap one of their little hands around one of the light bulbs, and drop it when it gets too hot. How strange! DJSS puts them in a little elf costume, so they can be “Santa’s little helper” for the holiday. They keep trying to pull off the bells, but it’s fine, DJSS gets plenty of photos before they can tear any off. That Christmas, they get a full stocking of smaller goodies, like candies and cookies, and an assortment of smallish gifts beyond that. An immediate smash hit is the little toy rocket that makes like ten different sounds; they keep mashing the buttons to make weird, almost musical combinations. Thank goodness nobody’s around but them and DJSS, or else someone might have seen the big lug cry a bit.

The Sayu team have a little Christmas party/livestream where they talk to their fans while playing video games and sharing presents. It’s the first time Bunny’s ever really publicly recognized as Sayu’s trankil; by this point, the team’s confident enough to let it be known without people getting too nuts about it. The reception was overall quite positive; “What a Q.T.!” “dude they got little rabbit ears. nice” “Are they always that vicious with the Sayu merch? owo;” Bunny’s only vaguely aware that people are watching them from the camera(s) that the team has set up, but besides that they act about the same as usual; tearing into their gifts and sharpening their budding claws on whatever they’re allowed to. They’re much gentler with the marshmallowy foam toys they’re handed, though. Things get a little out of hand when the team introduces the Christmas bell merch through gifting the first one to Bunny; turns out, they’re a little nuts with the audio stimming! It takes a full five minutes of chasing the little stinker down to get them to stop shaking the devil out of the bell, much to the chat’s amusement. That’s definitely going to be circulating through the Internet for a while.

Thorn’s probably one of the calmest during the whole ordeal, given they’re older and more sober minded compared to a lot of the others. Yinu’s mom is pretty good about explaining human holidays to them, plus a few unique dryad traditions mixed in, such as decorating their branches/hair with traditional Christmas decorations (Yinu’s haven’t grown quite enough to support much, but her mom fits some holly on her head). They couldn’t quite get any ornaments to stay put on Thorn’s horns, though. Yinu’s very eager to introduce Thorn to things like toys, hot cocoa, and Christmas cartoons. They don’t have snow in Malaysia, so she can’t really give them much context for why they have all this white stuff everywhere. Thorn doesn’t get how the Christmas legends have anything to do with half the symbols, but they do very much appreciate the carefree day of food and gifts; they understand that much, at least! It’s on Christmas day that Yinu’s mother informs Thorn that they’ve been enrolled in fencing lessons, “To get all that feisty energy out,” she says while smiling. They’re very excited when they learn what fencing is; they had never had proper nail instruction before, but this would prove an excellent opportunity to learn! Hugs are inevitable by that point. Thorn does gift Yinu a little something, after the big Christmas dinner and being sent to bed; a string from the old piano when it was broken, before it got fixed by Bunk Bed Junction. A silent song, a drop of divinity, and a touch of soul magic, and the string transforms; it lengthens and thickens until it is longer than their mother is tall, the thickest part the width of a human thumb with a handle bound in gilded binding, with a gold rose pommel and pretty bright blue tassel at the handle. Letting the whip unravel onto the ground, Thorn shows the awestruck Yinu a hidden switch; they flip it, and dozens of tiny, golden thorns spring out from the length of the whip. Switching them off, Thorn coils up the weapon and lets its magic go dormant, back to its old broken string form, and hands it to her. It is their first gift, and first blessing; never again would they see their little sister defenseless. Yinu accepts it without words, though not without tears.

Scotty picked up on the hectic energy from the moment they woke up on Christmas Eve. The boys were hiding something, they just knew it! They spotted flashes of brightly colored boxes and funny-looking helmets, but they couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on. When they asked Neon J, he went into a very longwinded explanation about holidays and the importance of preparedness in case of attack, and while Scotty would never admit they only half listened, they did. They were especially prone to the zoomies and hand flapping to shake off all the excitement they were getting from the others; they couldn’t help it that the band was literally humming with excitement like overheating computers. When Christmas day arrived, they were shocked and horrified to see that their precious brother figures’ heads had been replaced with those of beasts! The poor kid was traumatized, much to the amusement and guilt of the robots involved. They’re caught hiding behind the curtains in the mansion, with poor Rin trying to coax them out. They did calm down, but it took a lot of cookies and hot chocolate to get them to accept their brothers’ new faces. They got back to being excited when presents got involved, because oh boy, 1010 does not know the meaning of subtle. Rin got them their own child sized DDR game set, since their small size makes it hard to play the grown up version just yet. Haym got them a giant plush rabbit, in case they need to snuggle something a little softer than a metal chasse. Eloni got them some Nerf guns, specifically to cause chaos. Zimelu got them a whole crane machine full of usual crane machine toys, because they love those things (even if they try and climb in). Purlhew got them a bicycle, because he’s the cool brother and that is The Coolest Thing a kid can get for Christmas. Neon J tried to give them an air rifle. It took some serious words with the boys to get it through why they stopped making those for kids (”They’ll shoot their eye out!” “They don’t have eyes, though!?!?”).