#i love him in general bc you can tell he loves all his roles

[tklpilled]

rant abt the bsd dub in the tags (both good and bad)

[mobius-m-mobius]

Bruh Tom said in this interview the last "for you, for all of us" bit was from him... youtube.com/watch?v=7JhnYlbtxmY If that's not the most roundabout way to say "that was just for Loki and Mobius" because they'd be the two characters in that scene who KNOW what the hell Loki is referencing? Is Tom also a Lokius believer because he was the one who talked to Natalie Holt extensively to craft the OST and she weaved so much of it into the music? Eric Martin referencing Spirk to Lokius. Michael Waldron being the one who wrote E5 aka the romcom episode. How much of that was Owen and Tom doing whatever and how much of it was in the script? And the show's editor insisting that she keeps the Lokius chat scenes as much as she could? Like what was in the water on that set 🤔🤔

Honestly getting whiplash from all the recent interviews coming out, lol, but that detail about Tom coming up with Loki's final line is definitely one of the best (and possibly only 😅) I'm taking to heart because what a beautiful callback and way to confirm that even if Mobius didn't get the chance to fully put the pieces together about Loki's attempts at fixing the loom he would instantly recognize those words and what they represent.

That plus the Lokius track playing constantly throughout the season as well as pretty notably when Loki becomes the God of Stories and then Tom previously mentioning he and Owen would recite poetry together (👀👀) before filming to set the tone for their scenes all definitely adds a lot to the theory of Tom's pov when discussing the OST with Natalie Holt who we all know is a champion of Lokius in her own right 😂💖

Speaking of what was in the water I'm still obsessed with finding out ep 5 was a last minute rewrite only for them to come up with the Cleveland based rom com of anyone's dreams and if anyone's listening a spin off of Don trying to woo whatever Loki inevitably ends up in his timeline would be a welcome balm to the soul because I can't rest without seeing him again 🥺

[allpiesforourown]

Superstar Luo Binghe au. All the directors beg him to be in their movies because his fame will immediately assure success for anything they make. He’s handsome, charming, dedicated, and most of all, extremely talented. He even does his own stunts!! Women love him, and men who say they hate him will still watch his movies so they can figure out how to be more like him. 

The only weird thing about Binghe as an actor is that he refuses to star in romantic films. He won’t kiss anyone, won’t pretend to date someone on screen, won’t even let another actor take over his role for the scenes he doesn’t want to do. His reason? He’s completely loyal to his husband.

Everyone thinks it’s stupid, obviously. You aren’t “cheating” by pretending to love someone else, it’s literally your job! Luo Binghe still refuses and says even he’s not good enough an actor to make anyone believe he could ever love someone other than Yuan-ge.

His fans hate this mysterious Yuan-ge. Because of his (probably insecure and jealous) spouse, all of Binghe’s fangirls cant see him sweep some y/n character off their feet. It’s even worse because they don’t know anything about this guy. Whenever someone asks to see or learn about Binghe’s husband, the star says he’ll never reveal Yuan-ge to the public, because he’s too beautiful and he doesn’t want everyone falling in love with him. 

People kind of run with the idea that obviously this guy must be a total weirdo who Binghe is embarrassed to be seen with. That has to be the explanation, because no matter how perfect someone is, how can they have such a chokehold on THE LUO BINGHE??

Then, one day, years after Luo Binghe’s initial rise to fame…. He goes on a talkshow. With his husband Shen Yuan. 

Obviously EVERYONE tunes in. No one uses TVs anymore bc of the internet, but just for this show, viewer ratings are the highest theyve ever been. Everyone wants to know what the fuss is all about with this guy to have Luo Binghe so down horrible. 

And Shen Yuan isn’t a weirdo. He’s also not some pretty yesman. He makes jokes that make the audience burst into laughter. He’s opinionated, which is really refreshing when every other celebrity stays neutral on every topic to avoid losing fans. He’s polite, but he’s not a pushover. He’s likeable, but he’s not a try-hard about it. Referencing memes makes him an instant hit with the younger generations, and the calm gentle way he talks makes him a hit with the older ones. All of a sudden everyone is going, okay we see why Luo Binghe is obsessed with him. 

Except… while shen yuan was making jokes and charming everyone, Luo Binghe was at his side, pathetically pawing at his husband for attention. The actor keeps whining every two minutes to be reassured yuan-ge still likes him. Whenever Shen Yuan compliments the host, Binghe looks like he’s about to cry. Whenever Luo Binghe jealously wraps his arms around shen Yuan everyone watching just rolls their eyes. Seeing them together people realize… shen yuan is the one that’s out of Luo Binghe’s league.

In just one hour public opinion goes from ‘no one can be worth binghe acting like that for’ to ‘luo binghe is so annoying, let shen yuan talk!!’ 

The next day someone finds shen yuan’s twitter and it blows up. He has his own fan pages now. There’s no pictures of him online other than the footage from the talkshow, so the fan accounts just post that over and over again. Shen yuan retweets a post about him with the caption “i never realized she was holding a plate of corn in this scene” and everyone loses their mind. Everything he says immediately goes viral bc that’s luo binghe’s attic wife.

People start nagging Binghe to post about Shen Yuan bc theyre so attached after his one and only publicized appearance. Binghe is super possessive, but yuan-ge tells him not to worry, so he relents and posts pictures of him and shen yuan on vacation. They’re together, holding hands… but shen yuan’s face and body are blurred out. It’s HORRIFYING. He looks like an eldritch monster bc luo binghe refuses to let anyone look at his yuan-ge in a swim suit, go away you perverts!! His instragram is now just full of pics of shen yuan where his eyes are blacked out so noone else can see how pretty they are. It’s nightmare fuel

Shen Yuan is unfortunately too unbothered to post pictures of himself. Everyone’s tired of Luo Binghe for “hogging shen yuan all to himself” when Shen Yuan is practically an internet celebrity now. 

People go to watch movies and their theatre conversations sound like this:

“Oh, Luo Binghe’s in this one!”

“Who?”

“You know Shen Yuan’s annoying husband?”

“OH THAT GUY..”

[imoncloud7]

suna rintaro headcanons

general:

has a meme folder in his phone with over 2000 pics & videos and uses them as reaction photos frequently

some are even of the twins LOL

has a google drive of all the school fight videos and charges people for them

hes actually really smart but chooses not to try in school?

suuuper close with his little sister

she calls him all the time when hes away at school (since hes not from hyogo)

they play roblox together every night

they play those princess roleplay games (fantasia) and a lot of dress to impress

hes literally a top model by now

he really like indie films esp horror movies

has never picked up a book in his life

he owns wired apple headphone for the "aesthetic"

the twins clown him for them and flex their airpods

hes an avid wearer of the uniqlo airism tee

has a silver chain he never takes off

lowkey would be a stalker and have burner ig and tiktok accounts

nonchalant king

literally hes so mysterious and girls looove that

he ran an anonymous account on instagram rating all the water fountains at school

had a lot of followers ngl

he takes his bed very seriously

like weighted blanket, silk sheets, the weighted dino stuffed animal from target, fresh water by his bed, magnesium and melatonin at night

doesn't let anyone sit in it with outside clothes on

neevvverrrr lets the twins sit in it

definitely uses "yh" when hes texting (absolutely tf not)

as a boyfriend:

he was plottin on you since the start

but bc hes nonchalant af you had no idea

hes really perceptive so he could kinda tell you reciprocated those feelings

so he took that as his sign and he confessed first

he was super casual about it

you guys were walking back to the dorms after his practice one day and he just kinda dropped it on you

"yo can i tell you something"

LMAOOOO

he was kindddd of awkward about it

but its ok!! now youre dating!!!

his love language is def physical touch

this man takes his cuddling time SERIOUSLY

youre one of the only people he frequently lets in his bed

you guys stay up till 2 am cuddling and giggling with one another about stupid shit

so many sneaky sleepovers (the dorms dont usually allow opposite genders in the same room)

yall r one of those couples that sit in the corner and talk shit about everyone in the room like whispering in each others ears and laughing

esp about the twins

you two have a very long streak of word hunt going back and forth

you guys also send a lot of voice memos ranting back and forth

his sister loves you!! she doesn't have an older sister, so you fill that role. only so much that suna can do for her

she texts you a lot too lol

you join them in playing roblox every night

so many 2 am convenience store runs

[xhoess]

pls can you write an happy ending angst with nicholas chavez where reader and him discuss mariage and having children in general and reader shuts down the subjects saying mariage is overrated and meaningless and she hates children and doesn’t want any. so they starts debating/ fighting and he’s flabbergasted bc they don’t have at all the same vision of life and during few days it’s very cold/tensed between them especially him bc he told her that he wanted her to be the mother of their children. but at the end she ends up telling him why she is afraid to have PPD since she had a long depression and there more risks to have post partum depression if you had been depressed, to become a bad mom like her narcissistic mom …

(Yes omg I immediately started when I saw this🥲🥲)

"Facing Fears, Finding Love"

Nicholas chavez x fem reader

Summary: When Nicholas Chavez shares his dreams of marriage and children, you shut him down, leading to a tense argument. Days of distance follow until you confess your fears of postpartum depression and becoming a bad mother due to your past struggles. Nicholas, understanding and supportive, reassures you with unconditional love. Together, you begin to rebuild trust, facing the future with renewed hope and mutual understanding.

Words: 7.6 K

The air was thick with tension, the comfortable silence that had enveloped your cozy living room now feeling stifling. The soft glow of the table lamp cast gentle shadows over Nicholas's features, but the warmth was rapidly giving way to something far colder. He sat perched on the edge of the couch, a half-empty cup of tea cradled between his hands. His gaze had shifted from the window to you, and you sensed that something in him had changed since your blunt words had cut through the evening.

His enthusiasm had been infectious just moments earlier as he excitedly shared his visions of a future filled with laughter and children. You could remember the way his eyes sparkled, how his voice had held such a soothing cadence as he painted dreamlike scenarios of family vacations, birthday parties, and the cozy chaos of everyday life. The dreams that had built up effortlessly in his imagination had felt almost tangible, revived by the warmth of your shared space.

But then you shattered that moment. You could still hear the harshness of your own voice as you declared, "Marriage is overrated and meaningless," and then coolly added, "I hate kids. I don’t want any." The sting of your words hung between you, suspended like a bitter fog that neither of you knew how to dissipate.

Nicholas's expression shifted from one of hope to confusion, and finally to pain. His brows knitted together, as if trying to piece together the fragments of the conversation, and you saw the light in his eyes dim. "Why didn’t you say something before?" he asked, his voice a tight whisper, the tremor in it revealing the depth of his shock.

You opened your mouth, intending to reply, but the words caught in your throat. "I... I didn’t think it mattered," you stuttered, the pit in your stomach tightening as you tried to pick apart your jumbled thoughts.

Nicholas shook his head, his deep-set eyes searching yours for an answer you were not ready to give. "It does matter! You make it sound like all my dreams are foolish. I always thought you’d be the mother of my children!" He stood up abruptly, his movement punctuating the tension that crackled in the room. The chair he had been perched on scraped against the floor, a sound sharp enough to increase your heartbeat.

"I didn’t realize you had those dreams," you argued, defensiveness creeping into your voice. "Why would you assume that I would fill that role? Just because we’re together doesn't mean we want the same future."

Nicholas's face crumpled at your words, and for a fleeting moment, you wondered if he would crumble under the weight of your lack of understanding. "Because I thought we were building a life together," he shot back, the hurt evident in his tone. "I can’t believe you never mentioned this before. I always shared my dreams with you, and I believed you were sharing yours too. Was it all a lie?"

Your heart raced, and the sense of being cornered filled you with an urge to flee. "It’s not a lie!" you exclaimed, desperate to have him understand. "I just... I never thought you meant it so seriously. You know how I feel about kids, and you always seemed so... sure."

"But those were my hopes!" Nicholas’s voice rose, filled with bewildered frustration. "And you made me feel like I was the only one on this path. I thought we were on the same page—working toward a future together. Now I find out you’ve been harboring these feelings in secret!"

"Do you think I want this?" you replied, anger rising from a place you hadn’t known existed. "Do you think it’s easy for me to admit this? I didn’t want to disappoint you!" The words were out before you could snatch them back, biting into the already frayed fabric of the evening.

Nicholas paused, his chest rising and falling heavily with each breath, the realization washing over him as he processed your admission. "You must’ve known I would want to know," he said quietly, the hurt lying heavy in each syllable.

“I thought it could work,” you said, your voice betraying the edge of desperation. “I thought I could learn to want those things. But I can’t. I don’t want them.” The finality in your voice echoed around the room, but the truth collided with the storm brewing within you—a twisted mix of anger, sadness, and guilt.

Nicholas took a deep breath, visibly deflating. "I don’t want to pressure you into something you don’t want," he said, the warmth of his usual tone replaced by resigned coldness. "But I thought we were building a life together. I thought you were on board with this."

A painful silence descended, so thick you could nearly touch it. The more you tried to dismiss your internal storm, the louder it grew, shrieking that you could lose him, that this could be the turning point of everything you shared.

Nicholas stepped back then, retreating from your presence as if he needed physical space away from the wall he felt was being built between you. "I just... I need some air," he murmured, his voice just above a whisper. And with that, he walked away, leaving the conversation unresolved, like an unfinished melody that echoed in the empty silence.

You stood there, rooted to the spot, a ghost of guilt weaving its strands through your being. You wanted to go after him, to take back your words, but instead, you remained motionless, staring into the distance, the shadow of what had just transpired pressing down on you like an anchor.

The weight of your convictions pressed heavily against your chest, but so too did the fear of what might happen next. Would he really walk away? Would this moment linger? You felt trapped between the walls of your own design, and you couldn't decide which was more terrifying: the thought of losing Nicholas or the dread of confronting the real emotions behind your aversion to his dreams.

Breathing low and shaky, you sank onto the edge of the couch, the faint sound of Nicholas’s footsteps fading into the night. You were left alone, surrounded by silence, filled with a torrent of unresolved emotions swirling deeper in the recesses of your heart.

You spent the next few days drifting through your routine like a ghost. Each morning greeted you with the same tightness in your chest, a constant reminder of the cavernous rift that had opened between you and Nicholas. You felt it as you brewed your coffee, the familiar sound of the kettle boiling echoing in your small kitchen, yet it felt so foreign without Nicholas’s laughter or his gentle teasing about your obsessive coffee-making rituals. The silence was heavy, suffocating.

Nicholas had retreated into himself, a stark shift from the exuberant man who had spent countless evenings talking about dreams and plans. Now, sitting on the couch, you watched him scroll through his phone whenever he was nearby, his eyes dull, the corners of his mouth pressed into a thin line. He seemed a million miles away, lost in thoughts you couldn't penetrate. Each glance in his direction felt like a glimpse into an impenetrable fortress—one that had been built overnight after that fateful evening.

As you prepared your meals, the routine felt strangely haunting. You would plate two servings, only to find yourself taking the food to the table in silence. The atmosphere was heavy with unspokenness, punctuated only by the clattering of utensils. Nicholas would sit opposite you, often looking down at his food, as if it was the most fascinating spectacle in the world. After a few awkward bites, he would excuse himself, muttering something about an early start the following day. You would watch him go, the door swinging shut like the final nail in the coffin of your conversation.

In the evenings, you found yourself gravitating toward the living room window, staring out at the street below, watching people pass by with their laughter and carefree chatter. Your heart ached as you thought of how easy it had once been for you and Nicholas to share such moments, laughing and dreaming about the future. Now, memories felt like daggers, cutting deeper with each recollection of his face lighting up while talking about a family.

You tried to reach out, to bridge the distance, but every time you opened your mouth to speak, words got stuck in your throat. There were so many things you wanted to say, so many unexpressed fears that loomed over you like dark clouds. You didn’t want to unpack them in front of Nicholas, especially after how he had looked at you in shock. Instead, you chose solitary evenings, curled up on the couch with a blanket and a book, pretending to be engrossed in stories that danced around you but never quite touched your heart.

Occasionally, you’d catch Nicholas’s eye, and in those brief moments, your heart would flutter with hope. Maybe he’d reach out, maybe he’d say something… But each time, he just looked away, as if he were afraid to delve into that abyss of unexpressed thoughts. It reminded you of the time a friend had brought an injured bird to your doorstep. You both stared at it, sympathizing with its struggle, but when it came to the actual act of helping, you froze. Both of you had chosen to leave it alone, believing it was better that way.

One evening, as golden twilight faded into cool dusk, things grew unbearable. The silence felt like a living entity, twisting around you both like vines, choking the air. You found yourself standing by the window, tracing patterns on the glass with your fingers, when Nicholas’s voice cut through the stillness, soft but laden with weight.

“Are you just going to keep shutting me out?” he asked, his tone edged with pain.

You turned slowly, locking eyes with him. There was a vulnerability there that made your heart ache. Memories surged, unbidden—moments of joy, laughter, and warmth—and it shattered something inside you. You opened your mouth to respond, but the words cowered, retreating back into the shadows of your mind.

Nicholas stepped closer, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans as if they were the only anchor he had left. “We can’t keep doing this,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t talk to me anymore. You don’t look at me the way you used to. I feel like I’m losing you.”

His admission cut deeply, the truth of his words reverberating within you. You wanted to scream that you were still there, still the person who loved him fiercely, but the fear of unveiling your struggles kept your tongue tied. Instead, you bit your lip, the taste of dread pooling in your stomach.

“I’m...fine,” you said, the lie tasting bitter on your lips as you looked away.

“Fine? You think this is fine? You closed yourself off after that night, and I am left here, feeling like some kind of stranger. I just want to understand,” he urged, his voice thickening with emotion.

His frustration hung thick in the air, and you felt an overwhelming urge to run, to hide away from the truth that loomed behind your eyes—the fear, the apprehension—a tangled web of hurt that you were still unraveling.

“Just leave me alone,” you finally managed, the words tumbling out before you could stop them. It was a defense mechanism, your voice detached and flat, concealing the tempest inside.

Nicholas’s face fell, eyes wide with hurt. “Why are you pushing me away?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I can’t make sense of any of this! I thought we were in this together!”

His words stung, and you stood there, feeling the distance grow wider, casting long shadows in the light of the fading day. “You wouldn’t understand,” you whispered, the admission barely escaping your lips.

With that, he turned and walked away, the weight of his footsteps reverberating through the quiet of the house. You could hear the sound of the door shutting behind him, blunt and final, and you were left standing alone in that echoing silence, the guilt rising inside you like a relentless tide.

As the minutes turned to hours, you sat on the edge of the couch, your head spinning with confusion. You were filled with guilt for not sharing your fears, yet terrified of how he would react if you did. As darkness enveloped the room, so did the realization that the love you cherished felt like it was slipping through your fingers like grains of sand.

In the emptiness, you found yourself wavering in that fragile silence, torn between the love you had for Nicholas and the walls you had built to shield yourself from the storm raging within. As night deepened, and shadows crept along the walls, you sat encased in loneliness, wondering if the silence between you could ever be broken.

You had counted the hours, but when you were finally able to measure the silence in days, it felt like a weight pressing against your chest. The quiet hung in your apartment like an uncomfortable guest who had overstayed their welcome. The remnants of heated words still echoed in your mind, taunting you as you passed through rooms once filled with laughter and conversation. You thought about reaching out to Nicholas, but each time you opened your mouth to speak, words crumbled in your throat, frail and weak.

The living room, once a sanctuary of warmth, had become a battleground adorned with remnants of the life you shared—the cozy blanket on the couch, the coffee mug still resting on the side table from a time before the argument erupted. Now, even the soft tremble of the air felt altered—thick, stifling. Nicholas had barely spoken since that fateful night, his eyes betraying a hurt that cut deeper with each glance as he withdrew further into himself.

You were busy preparing dinner—an unremarkable pasta dish—when you heard the sound of keys jiggling in the lock. Nicholas entered the house, and the mere act of him crossing the threshold somehow intensified the suffocating silence. You turned your back to him, focusing on the bubbling pot as if it could distract you from the gravity of the moment.

“Hey,” Nicholas said softly, his voice barely rising above the sound of water boiling, but you felt the tremor in it as if the ground beneath you was shifting. You willed your heart to slow, taking a deep breath, bracing yourself for the waves of anxiety that threatened to pull you under.

“Hey,” you managed to murmur without turning around. There was a heaviness in the air between you, a chasm of unspoken words stretching wide. You sensed him lingering in the doorway, unsure of how to breach the wall that had crashed down between you.

After an interminable moment, he finally stepped forward. “I can’t keep doing this,” he said, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “I can’t stand this silence.” His words wrapped around you, both a lifeline and a knife. “You feel so far away. Why have you shut me out?”

His vulnerability struck you. The warmth of his breath brushed against your neck, and despite the tension, a part of you longed to lean into him, to bridge that unbearable distance. But fear held you back, chaining you in place. You turned to face him, and the sight of his pained expression tugged at something deep inside.

“I don't know where to start,” you finally confessed, your voice wavering. “It’s just...everything has changed so quickly.”

Nicholas stepped closer, his eyes glimmering with concern. “You’re not making sense. I don’t understand what’s going on in your head, but it hurts to feel like you don’t want to share that with me.”

His words cut deeper than any shattering argument. You felt exposed and raw, and yet, in his gaze, you saw the remnants of the love you once felt so confident about. “You want to build a life together, Nicholas,” you said, trying to keep your tone even, but the tremor was there no matter how hard you fought against it. “You want a family, and I...I don’t want that. Not now, not ever.”

“What do you mean?” he questioned, his voice deepening with disbelief. “You never told me this. I always thought—” The weight of his words hung heavy, full of memories and dreams you once shared. He paused, swallowing hard as he looked away, as if seeking some kind of answer in the shadows of the room.

“You always thought I’d be the mother of your children,” you echoed, the bitterness you felt welling at the back of your throat. “So did I. But things don’t always turn out the way we plan, do they?”

His expression twisted with a mixture of hurt and confusion. “Why do you feel the need to shut me out? This isn't just about you. This is about us. Don’t you see how much you’ve changed and how much I care?”

“I just can’t think about that now!” you exclaimed, feeling the bubbling turmoil spilling over. “Life is messy. It's scary, Nicholas! I’m terrified, and I don’t want to repeat the mistakes that were made with me. I don’t even want—”

“Then what do you want?” he pressed, his frustration mounting, but his eyes softened, a glimmer of fear sparking behind them. “Tell me what you want. Do you want to be with me? Can we talk about this?”

“I don’t...” You hesitated, the internal battle raging loudly in your mind. You wanted to collapse into his arms and cry until there was nothing left, but each time you attempted to find the words, your throat constricted, as if afraid of the truth spilling out. The thought of his disappointment crushed you further, and the rawness of your own feelings cut deeply.

With a defeated breath, he whispered, “You know how much I love you, right? You’re my everything. I just always thought… I thought we were on the same path.” He looked down, and you could see the shadows of his dreams fading behind the weight of your words.

Panic clawed at your chest. You’d never intended to destroy the future he envisioned, but here you were, standing among jagged edges and broken pieces of trust.

“I thought you’d be the one to help me build a family,” he murmured, barely audible, his voice thick with emotion. You saw the hurt in his expression, and somewhere in that pain, you felt the truth of your own: you were losing him.

With that realization clawing at your heart, he turned away, moving toward the door again, each step reverberating with a heavy finality. “I need some air,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “I can’t do this right now.”

In that moment, as you watched him walk away, the silence between you felt unbearable. You fell back against the cold counter, wrapped in a cocoon of guilt—but your mind spun in chaos, unable to clarify the thoughts clamoring for attention. You were afraid of losing him, yet still lost in your own shadows.

And between you and Nicholas, the door closed, sealing away all the words that now felt too heavy to utter.

The air in the room was heavy, thick with anticipation and unsaid words. You stood at the window, staring out at the dimming sky, the fragments of dusk spilling hues of orange and purple across the horizon. Each fleeting moment echoed your racing heartbeat, the silent battle raging within. Nicholas sat across the room, observing you with an intensity that made your heart clench. How had things escalated so quickly? One moment, you were weaving dreams of a future together, and the next, you'd shattered all that with a single sentence.

"Marriage is overrated and meaningless," you had said, and in return, you'd seen the light dim in Nicholas's eyes, the shock and hurt etched across his features like an unwelcome painting. Now, silence loomed around you, oppressive and thick, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

You turned away from the window, taking a step towards him, your feet heavy with uncertainty. Nicholas's expression remained guarded, a portrait of hurt and confusion, as if he were still trying to shield himself from the blow you'd dealt. But you couldn’t maintain the façade of indifference any longer. The truth clawed at your insides, begging for release.

"Nicholas," you began, your voice trembling. "I—"

He lifted his hand to silence you gently. “Please, just let me speak.”

So you fell silent again, heart racing as you waited for him to find the right words. He took a deep breath, and you could see the struggle behind his calm exterior.

“You shut me out, and I—” he hesitated, a shudder of emotion flitting across his face. “I thought you were my partner, but suddenly, I feel like I don’t even know you.”

You felt a swift pang of guilt. How could you expect him to understand? The words you wanted to speak slid around inside your mind like fish in a bucket, eluding you—but the truth was surfacing, rising, clawing its way out as you felt the weight of these hidden fears.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was quieter now, softened by the weight of his pain. “I thought we were on the same page. I pictured us having a family together, sharing our lives… You never mentioned this.”

“I was afraid,” you confessed, the small admission at the tip of your tongue suddenly relieving. “Afraid of what you’d think of me.”

“Of what? You can tell me anything. I’m here, I love you,” he said, his voice almost pleading, and in his eyes, you saw the glimmer of hope, the raw sincerity of someone who was struggling to piece this puzzle together.

“I don’t want to be a failure,” you said, the words tumbling from your lips before you could catch them. You could see Nicholas’s confusion deepen, but you pressed onward, feeling the dam within you begin to crack. “I grew up watching my mother, who was supposed to be my protector, but she was… twisted. Emotional scars… they don’t heal easily, and I’m terrified of becoming her.”

Nicholas remained silent, his eyes widening with concern. The deeper you delved, the closer you felt to that dark recess of your past—unprocessed memories of chaos and confusion. “You know I struggled with depression,” you admitted, your throat tightening, “and I’ve read how that increases the risk of postpartum depression. It’s terrifying.”

As his expression shifted from confusion to understanding, you felt an odd sense of relief. “I don’t want to bring kids into this world and hurt them the way she hurt me. What if I can’t control it? What if I can’t be what they need?”

A tear slipped down your cheek, and you felt vulnerable, yet somehow lighter. Nicholas remained quiet, absorbing the weight of your fears, filtering through the chaos you shared.

“Please, say something.” You could hardly bear the silence. The truth of your feelings had surfaced, and now, you needed him to meet you there.

“That makes sense,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wish I’d known sooner. But I’m here, and I don’t want to pressure you into anything. I love you for you, and I want what makes you happy. We can face this together.”

His words reached out to you, digging around the rawness you felt and slowly stitching it back together. The flutter of panic that had threatened to consume you began to ease, though the scars remained, raw but acknowledged.

“I want you to know that you're not destined to repeat any cycle,” he said softly, closing the space between you, his hands reaching for yours. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it together. You’re not alone in this.”

Tears streamed quietly down your face as you felt an unexpected warmth envelop you. The release of your fears had opened a door, one you’d thought was locked forever. You took a shaky breath, touched by his understanding, and nodded in silent appreciation.

“You’ll be an amazing mother if that’s what you choose, and I know that,” he continued, voice steady, “but I want you to choose it for the right reasons—not because of fear dictating your decisions.”

His touch felt like home, and you leaned into him, finally free to be vulnerable, shedding the layers you had clutched onto for so long. You didn’t realize how much you craved this connection until it enveloped you.

“What a relief,” you murmured against his shoulder, and you felt him relax against you.

As the two of you stood there, bound by shared secrets and the promises of understanding, it became clear that while the future may still remain uncertain, you had taken the first brave step in facing it together. Yet, deep down, you knew the path was still long, unfurling ahead of you like the dimming light of the outside world.

But for now, you were not alone. The chapter was still unwritten, but a flicker of hope danced softly in the shadows.

You sit across from Nicholas, your heart pounding in your chest, the weight of your confession still hovering in the air like a thick fog. Tears glimmer in your eyes, but the raw honesty you’ve just shared brings to life an entirely different kind of fear—fear of his reaction. The silence between you feels heavy, as if the world has paused, awaiting his response. You can barely breathe, the anticipation hanging like an unspoken promise.

Nicholas shifts in his seat, his expression unchanging for a moment that feels like an eternity. He looks deeply into your eyes, searching not just for what you’ve voiced, but for all the fears and insecurities that still linger unspoken. His brow furrows as his mind processes the layers of your confession, the vulnerability laid bare between you.

Finally, he exhales softly, the breath escaping him like a gentle wave retreating back into the ocean. “I…I had no idea,” he murmurs, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry you felt you had to carry this alone.” His tone is tender, and you can sense the sincerity woven through his words.

You blink, trying to hold back more tears. The empathy in his voice warms your heart, yet guilt creeps in, gnawing at you for the burdens you've placed on him without sharing. You have kept this hidden for so long, convinced that being strong meant being silent. In his gaze, you see not just the hurt, but an earnest desire to understand.

“I wish you had told me sooner,” Nicholas continues, his expression softening as he brushes a hand through his hair, a nervous habit you’ve come to recognize. “But I understand why it was difficult for you.” There’s a longing in his voice, an ache for connection, and you can’t help but feel a flicker of hope.

“I was scared you would leave,” you admit, the words spilling out. “I thought if I could just pretend, maybe it wouldn't become a problem.” You feel exposed, both terrified and relieved as you unearth the truth. “I didn’t want to disappoint you… or lose you.”

Nicholas reaches across the table, his hand finding yours, warm and grounding. He squeezes gently, breaking through the walls of tension that once surrounded you both. “You could never disappoint me. I love you too much for that,” he assures you, his voice calm and steady, a lighthouse guiding you through the stormy sea. “This is a journey we can take together, however long it needs to be.”

His words ebb the tide of your fears, and you watch as a soft resolve spreads across his features. “You’re not alone, and you don’t have to go through this by yourself,” he continues, his grip tightening reassuringly. “We’ll figure this out, step by step, together.”

Your heart swells, a mix of relief and gratitude washing over you, but doubt still lingers like a shadow at the back of your mind. “But what if I can’t overcome this?” you ask, your voice trembling as uncertainty floods in once more. “What if…I’m really not meant to be a mother?”

Nicholas’s gaze intensifies, a fierce protection enveloping his eyes. “That’s not true,” he says firmly. “You’re not your mother. You’re stronger than that, and I know you can break the cycle.” His voice is a balm, soothing the wounds you've carried for so long. “We can learn. We can seek help if you need it. You could even talk to a therapist with me… whatever you need.”

His willingness to tread into those uncharted waters with you ignites a spark of hope, yet your heart weighs heavy as a sense of fragility looms between you. “You really mean that?” you ask, your voice a whisper, almost fearfully fragile.

“Absolutely,” he nods, his tone reassuringly steady. “The love I have for you isn’t conditional on motherhood or marriage. It's about us, our connection, our partnership. And I’m not going anywhere.” He looks deep into your eyes, his resolve unwavering. “We’ll face whatever comes, together.”

The intensity of his promise warms your chest, pouring light into the dark corners of your fear. Nicholas’s breath mingles with yours as the distance that once felt insurmountable begins to fade with every reassuring word. You feel something shift in your heart, like the first thaw of spring after a long winter.

Overwhelmed with emotion, you lean in closer, until your foreheads almost touch. The warmth of his presence envelopes you, easing the tension that has knotted your heart for days. You take in the tangible sense of togetherness, feeling more at ease than you’ve felt in a long time.

But as you search his eyes, uncertainty lingers still—a flicker of concern reflecting back at you. “You know, even if we decide to have kids one day, it will take time for me to be ready—if I ever truly am. I don’t want you to wait for something that may never happen,” you confess, your heart aching with vulnerability.

Nicholas pauses for a moment, the weight of your words settling between you like a soft blanket. “I’d rather wait for you than rush into a decision that doesn’t feel right,” he responds, his voice filled with patience and understanding. The kindness in his eyes tells you that he truly means it, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, you begin to believe that maybe you could share this journey of self-discovery together.

As the two of you sit in silence, the noise of the outside world fades into the background. In that stillness, you realize that the road ahead may not be easy, but holding onto each other through it offers a kind of comfort you’ve never truly experienced before. Nicholas’s presence feels like home, and with that thought, you draw a breath deep into your lungs.

The chapter ends with Nicholas pulling you into a comforting embrace. Lost in his warmth, the realization washes over you: although fear still lingers, it no longer feels insurmountable. Together, you can navigate the unknown, one step at a time.

The air felt different between you and Nicholas in the days following your heartfelt confession. The emotional storm that had raged in your hearts for what felt like an eternity was finally beginning to calm, but the residue of tension lingered like a faint, stubborn smell—too subtle to pinpoint, yet always there. You could almost see the invisible threads tethering you two together, slowly being rewoven, one earnest conversation at a time.

Nicholas had become a constant presence beside you, both a pillar of support and a gentle nudge urging you to confront your fears. The warmth of his hand on your shoulder, the soft, understanding glances he tossed your way when you faltered, made you feel safer. The distance had shrunk, but trust was a fragile thing, one that required careful nurturing.

It started on a Monday evening. The sun dipped low in the sky, casting a golden hue through the small kitchen window and wrapping you both in a soft glow. You were in the midst of organizing the clutter on the counter—a resurrected pile of bills and unwritten grocery lists that had become a silent witness to your distraction over the past few weeks. Nicholas stood nearby, stirring a pot of simple pasta, the unmistakable aroma of simmering garlic wafting through the air.

“Hey,” he called softly, breaking the silence that had become comfortable in its own right. “What do you think about planning a little getaway this weekend? Just you and me. Somewhere quiet.”

You turned toward him, the rhythm of your thoughts disrupted. “A getaway? Like… a vacation?” The notion stirred a note of excitement within you that had long been dormant. The idea of distancing yourselves from the daily grind—of seeking solace together—sparked a flicker of hope.

Nicholas nodded, his expression earnest. “Someplace where we can talk, be open. I think we both need a little time to breathe, to focus on each other.”

Feeling a rare swell of emotion, you put down the bill you had been sorting through. “You really think it would help?” There was a hint of disbelief in your voice, as if you had almost forgotten the two of you could enjoy simple pleasures together amidst the chaos of your emotions.

“Absolutely. Just you and me. And maybe some nature, fresh air, and absolutely no distractions,” he replied, a knowing smile stretching on his face. “We can figure things out together. No pressure.”

You glanced at the pot of pasta simmering away; the steam rising was almost hypnotic. But between each soft putter of the boiling water, you felt the pull of uncertainty—a reminder of the fears that still loomed, like shadows in the background. “What if we focus so much on talking that we end up pushing each other away again?” The doubt slipped out before you could rein it in.

Nicholas sighed softly, placing the wooden spoon down on the counter. He turned to face you fully, allowing the playful banter to fade into the realm of sincerity that had become your new norm. “It’s part of healing, isn’t it? We can’t avoid the tough conversations forever.”

Looking into his eyes, which sparkled not just with love but also with a determination to work through this together, you could see how deeply this mattered to him. Your insecurities waged war inside you, and still, the thought of turning away from that possibility sent a wave of panic crashing through.

“Okay,” you agreed, your voice steadying with resolve. “Let’s do it. A weekend away sounds perfect.” A tentative smile grazed your lips, igniting a glimmer of excitement. Perhaps this was the step you both needed.

As the week rolled by, the anticipation of your weekend getaway began to thaw the lingering frost in your relationship. Each night, you and Nicholas shared small glimpses of normalcy—watching your favorite shows, cooking together, and sometimes, just sitting side by side in silence, the once-painful quiet now a source of comfort.

The more open your conversations became, the more you began to reflect on what had once driven a wedge between you. You realized how easy it had been to retreat into yourself, a learned reaction rooted in your past disappointments. With Nicholas, though, you found safety in honesty—a revelation that came like a dawn after a long, dark night.

On Friday evening, you guys piled into the car with a playful mix of excitement and nervous energy. The road stretched before you like an unwritten story, your destination a small cabin nestled in the woods, just far enough away from bustling city life for you to truly escape. As you drove, Nicholas took your hand, intertwining your fingers—a simple gesture that sent warmth coursing through you.

“Just you and me,” he repeated, glancing at you with a soft smile that spoke volumes. The trees gradually transformed from a blur to individual silhouettes with each passing mile—stories waiting to be told, mysteries to unravel.

When you finally arrived, the cabin stood sturdily against the backdrop of towering pines and a rapidly darkening sky. It felt like a hidden treasure, a safe harbor from the storms that had threatened to destroy everything you held dear. Stepping inside, the scent of cedar enveloped you, mingled with a crackling fire that flickered warmly in the stone fireplace.

As you settled into the space, the initial thrill of the getaway settled into a tender stillness. You sat on the couch, the warmth of the fire playing along the walls as Nicholas draped an arm around you. “Here’s to new beginnings,” he toasted, raising an imaginary glass. Laughter bubbled from your lips—an echo of familiarity, the joy somewhat striking in its discomfort after the recent storm.

The evening unfurled like a blanket, soft, reassuring. Comforted by the gentle sounds of the wilderness outside, you found the courage to engage in small talk that danced around deeper fears. “I’ve been thinking about therapy,” you admitted quietly as you both watched the flames flicker.

“Really? I think that’s a great idea,” Nicholas said, his voice encouraging as he leaned closer. “And I’d love to go with you. I want to be part of your journey in any way I can.”

His words resonated like a soothing lullaby, and for the first time in ages, you didn’t feel the walls closing in. The conversation turned to lighter topics—memories, holiday plans, and silly dreams. And amid the laughter, you realized that rebuilding trust didn’t just stem from big declarations—it thrived in the everyday moments, the tenderness shared in glances and gestures.

As the night deepened, ultimately it became clear: fear and love could coexist, but it was how you navigated the waters between them that defined your journey. Slowly, you began to understand that while you didn’t have all the answers, the effort to communicate was your most significant step forward.

The sun dipped low on the horizon, casting warm hues of orange and pink across the sprawling beach. Waves lapped softly at the shoreline, their rhythmic cadence soothing the remnants of tension that had once gripped your heart. You walked along the sands, hand in hand with Nicholas, each step feeling lighter than the last. It was a picturesque scene—one that felt vibrant and alive—much like the renewed connection you both shared.

“How perfect is this?” Nicholas broke the silence, glancing at you with a smile that lit up his face. His eyes sparkled with the same warmth as the setting sun, and you couldn’t help but smile back.

“It is,” you replied, letting the gentle breeze ruffle your hair. It was moments like this that reminded you how far you’d come. The ocean stretched endlessly before you, mirroring the vast possibilities of the future laid out ahead.

Nicholas paused, pulling you closer as you walked. His presence felt reassuring, grounding. You had spent countless sleepless nights processing your fears, the weight of your mother’s shadow looming large. Yet here you were, finally facing those insecurities, hand in hand with someone who promised to navigate the unknown by your side.

“Can you believe how much has changed since our fight?” Nicholas asked, his tone hinting at disbelief, yet filled with hope.

You could hardly believe it yourself. The storm that had once threatened to capsize your relationship now felt like a distant memory—something you had survived together, anchored in honesty and understanding.

“What we talked about… it’s not gone, but it doesn’t feel as terrifying anymore,” you confessed. “I think facing it head-on made it easier to breathe.”

Nicholas nodded thoughtfully, his fingers tightening around yours. “I’m just glad we’re both willing to talk about it. Can you imagine how different things would be if we didn’t have that conversation?”

You shuddered at the thought. The idea of burying your fears, of risking silence over honesty, felt suffocating. “I know I was scared to share my feelings before,” you began, looking up at him. “But your reaction…it changed everything for me.”

His eyes softened at your words. “I’m always here for you. It’s just a matter of finding the right way to open up. I wanted to be supportive but didn’t know how. I never want you to feel like your fears make you less deserving of love.”

There was a richness to his voice that filled you with warmth. Nicholas had done more than express his love—he had actively opened the door to healing. Knowing that he was here to buoy you through those moments of despair allowed you to cultivate hope.

With the sun now sinking lower, the sky was ablaze with color—blues and violets mixing with the fading gold of the day. You settled down on a nearby blanket laid out earlier, creating a cozy spot to watch the world’s beauty unfold. Nicholas joined you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, his presence an anchor in a world that often felt chaotic.

“What if we made it a tradition?” he suggested, gazing out at the water, which glistened in the dimming light like thousands of diamonds scattered across the surface. “Coming here, whenever we need a reset. Just you and me.”

You smiled at the thought, imagining countless sunsets shared together, a space ever filled with laughter and honesty. “I love that idea. It’s like a reminder that we can always come back to each other.”

Nicholas turned to face you, his expression earnest. “And we’ll continue to talk, to share. About everything. There’s no shame in discussing our fears. Sometimes they’ll deepen but others, like with kids… it’s no longer just a ‘what-if’ if we approach it together. It’s just a matter of time.”

The thought made your heart race, fluttering with both excitement and lingering fear. “I want that, but it terrifies me still.”

It’s okay to feel that way,” he assured you, his gaze steady. “What’s important is that we’re growing together. We won’t rush anything—but we both know facing that chapter when we’re ready, together, is what counts.”

That sense of mutual understanding allowed a certain relief to wash over you. Navigating the future felt less like a solitary journey through treacherous waters and more like a gentle drift under the stars, together in a small boat.

“I never thought I would feel this way,” you admitted softly. “About children, about us. That I could come to terms with my past while looking forward to what’s ahead, no matter what it looks like.”

Nicholas smiled, his warmth radiating through you as his thumb gently stroked your arm. “You’re not destined to repeat your mother’s mistakes. You’re stronger than you realize. Whatever route we take, I promise to be alongside you. You’ll never be alone in this.”

The final flush of sunlight dipped below the horizon, the twilight wrapping you both in a cocoon of soft shadows. You leaned your head against Nicholas’s shoulder, comforted by his promise and knowing that trust had been rebuilt through vulnerability.

“Let’s make plans,” you said suddenly, a surge of bravery rising within you. “Not just about kids but about us. Let’s talk about where we see our lives heading—the little things we can do to nurture our love.”

Nicholas’s eyes twinkled with excitement. “Absolutely. Maybe we can start with that cooking class you mentioned or exploring some new trails for hiking?”

“Or finding a place together!” you proposed, a giddy anticipation bubbling inside.

The possibilities felt endless, a blank canvas primed for new experiences. In that moment, everything shifted—the uncertainty you once feared began to fade, replacing it with eagerness and hope.

As you both made tentative plans for the future, a sense of exhilaration enveloped you. You grasped his hand tighter, feeling the warmth of connection both profound and palpable.

You realized, perhaps for the first time, that the future was not just a timeline filled with uncertainties; it was a landscape you would cultivate together, day by day, moment by moment.

Nicholas pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around you as the last traces of daylight disappeared. Together, you stared out into the darkening sea, where the stars began to twinkle overhead. No longer on the precipice of fear, you knew deep within that you would face whatever came—together, always.

In that tranquil embrace, you felt a swell of gratitude wash over you. For love. For trust. For new beginnings. As the waves rolled in softly beneath the starlit sky, you held onto hope tightly and realized:

Your journey was only just beginning.

[drabblejester]

I love your impression of Sampo!! Like yeah, he'd do This™ and That™ as according to your posts. Like, I think yours has the most simplest yet most accurate depiction of Sampo here!

Could I request Sampo, Gallagher, and Mr. Reca would do on their first date? Inspired from the other ask you did for 'overhearing the confession'

-G⭐

what VARIOUS HSR GUYS would do on your FIRST DATE!

requested by: G⭐️ !!

pairings: sampo, gallagher, and reca x gn!reader

content warnings: none!!!

comments: TYSM FOR THAT MY LIEGE.. i usually ‘dumb’ my sampo down actually bc theres no way i can fit all my thoughts on him into one little postHEEHE!!!

GALLAGHER:

he’d take you to his bar!! easy as that. it’s nothing grand or special, just his good ol bar. he serves you up a few drinks and you have a great time!

mostly, you guys talk. gossip about people, random tabloids you both found, fun facts about the other, etc. that’s also how you get to find out about misha and sleepie (and you adore both of them <3)

he’s much more gentle and warm towards you, quieting down his voice a bit so he isn’t that startling. he still has his drawl and everything, just in a lighter tone. in general it seems like he just got a bit younger!!

he jokes about you helping him out with the bar later, and you agree. so as a ‘second’ date, you guys get to work together! yippee! you get paid with free drinks and your first kiss with him <3

SAMPO:

you guys go visit some historical sites in belobog together!! he’s VERY knowledgable in them, and takes his time with you. you cruise through museums and even out in the cold, pointing at abandoned machinery and cool architecture

he absolutely talks more than you no matter how talkative you may be. partially out of ‘i want this date to go well and for them to see how cool i am’ and also out of ‘I AM SO NERVOUS RN’. thankfully he has a very engaging voice, and you love listening to him ramble :3

he tells a few tall tales in between, typical stories and fairytales that kids would like to hear. makes sense seeing as how he does talk with hook a lot.. and even at your age, they’re still fun and interesting! he’s an incredibly good storyteller

and at the end of the day, he wraps his dingy little jacket around your shoulders and takes you back to wherever he lives. he gives you a few snacks and the most delicious DIY hot chocolate ever before asking you SO many questions about how you thought of the date. you mumble something good before you fall asleep, which is enough for him <3

MR. RECA:

as he said before, he wants to cast you in the starring role of a romance movie with him as your lovely boyfriend. he makes PLENTY of jokes about it too, constantly rambling about how fun it’ll be. it counts as a first date i guess???

you two are an AMAZING duo together onstage and offstage!! his performance is amazing to the point where you actually feel like you’ve fallen for him impossibly more… the role he’s playing is a cheesy romantic ol guy, and AEONSS ABOVEE if you don’t treasure it

he lets you customize your role however you want! so you decide to simply play as yourself to max out your reca romance exposure. he plays along and switches the script around just for you, before going on set to dance around with you a while more

at the end of the day, both of you make lovely comments on your acting (although you weren’t really playing a character), laughing about certain moments in the scenes before he sends you home. and of course, he waits for you to enter your house before he leaves, just like his little gentleman role in the movie <3

i’m going to make some ramen my lieges do you want any

[teojira]

[Caesar and Proximus' day to day life] [headcanons]

Summary: You're a human companion to the two apes, this is little things to expect as you live with them and in addition, the rest of the apes.

Word count: 900+

Warnings: None that I can think of! This is mostly platonic, some romance in Caesars if you squint.

Pronouns: Not specified.

A/N: first Planet of the apes request!! I'm so excited, shoutout to the other writers on ao3 I've looked up to for years. I hope this is okay anon! I couldn't reference back to your ask since I lost it and I hope this is the general idea you were hoping for 💀🙏

[Caesar]

For the sake of this, Caesar did NOT die at the end of war, and you're immune to the disease! (Nova is also fine here bc fuck you that's my daughter)

Truth be told it was very very very fortunate for you that you appealed to his good side after all this time, He's tired.

Tired of being hurt, tired of losing family, but he has no choice but to push on, when you offered at first to help him with any injuries or issues that arise in the colony, it's a firm no.

Despite everything he's been through, Caesar does love humans, he think a part of him always will, so just keep trying and you will crack his shell.

Once you two finally have something akin to friendship, is when he finally learns that he can rely on you.

It isn't uncommon to see you holding Cornelius and walking to and from different parts of the colony, Caesar trying in vain to tell you to let the boy down, saying you'll start to spoil him (it's too late, Cornelius will start to go to you for when his dad tells him no.)

Caesar doesn't really think he'd ever find another mate, but without his notice, you start to fill in that role.

Spending the most time with him, helping him make decisions, taking care of Cornelius, helping the other apes learn and sign, you take on the role fairly well.

It isn't uncommon for you to tend to his wounds, he prefers to go to you versus the others, he acts akin to a child when in your care though, hissing dramatically when you rub a salve on his forearm. It results in you slapping his shoulder and it makes him laugh.

Speaking of laughing, he never thought having you around would lighten the weight of the world he constantly holds over his shoulders, you make him feel young again. Before all of this.

He grows fonder of you when he sees some aspects of Caroline in you, noting just how loving and caring you are not only to him, but to everyone, Maurice, Rocket, even Bad ape with how much of an odd ball he is.

Caesar may be the leader (and old, you remind him. He ignores you.) but it doesn't mean he can stay at the colony all day, he goes out to hunt with the others, and when he does, he'll come to you and do a palms up, waiting for your permission.

He doesn't need it, but it makes you feel better when you see him off.

Maybe this is me projecting but he is SO possessive of you, he's lost so much, he lost Buck, Luca, Blue eyes, Cornelia, Koba, Will, his grandfather.

It puts him on the defense, never wanting you to go anywhere without at least one ape to protect you. It'll lead to arguments you Will not win.

Sorry if you just want to go to the river to wash up, either he's coming with you or Rocket is. Too Bad so sad.

Other apes come to you to ask you to ask Caesar if they can do something they Know he would never approve of, it's because they know out of everyone here, with the exception of a handful of apes, you're his soft spot.

Many apes were concerned with you joining them, but you've earned your spot among them, you are loved and trusted.

Koba would be rolling in his grave, seeing you work alongside Caesar, being a genuinely good person and a loving companion.

[Proximus]

It's canon that Proximus has a fondness for humans, but it's so severely different than Caesars, no matter how much he claims to be like the former.

You're more so of a toy to him, similar to Trevathan, but while he reads the Bonobo literature and teaches him things, you're like a pet. You keep him entertained.

This isn't to say he treats you cruelly though, all things considered, you're taken care of fairly well with a lot of luxuries the other apes under his rule are not privy to.

You wear a collar, which is demeaning, but it is better than having a chain connected to it, so everyone knows you're his.

Poor Sylva being forced to be your guard when you ask if you can go walking alone the beach, he doesn't want to do it but he WILL (he becomes fond of you begrudgingly, partially out of respect for Proximus but you're too nice for your own good, asking him how his day is going and whatnot. He hates you.)

Proximus calls you pet, btw. He knows your name but will only use it when it's the two of you or for special occasions.

Brings you out into the colony to show you all the progress being made, he's looking for his ego to be inflated, go ahead and do it so you two can head back inside and get out of the heat.

He likes to show you off while he does, telling his subjects that you're special, like Nova was to Caesar. He's delusional and Caesar would be fucking pissed to be compared.

He doesn't need you to do much honestly, you're meant to sit there and look pretty and make him feel important. Maybe help him out with grooming and taking care of his belongings. He trusts you to mend and keep his crown and his attire in good condition.

Likes to play with your hair, the texture is different than apes, and he finds it soothing to run his fingers through it or just pet your head. Once again, it is very demeaning, but it could be worse.

Like Caesar, he is possessive and will try and limit your contact with the others in fear you'll like them more. Your little trio consists of you, himself, and Sylva. He lets you interact with Trevathan, but it's not an everyday thing.

He does care for you more than he'd ever admit, but it doesn't mean he'll particularly change for your sake, at least not intentionally. He's kinda insane and kinda a piece of shit, and you're aware of this.

Makes you sit next to him when he hosts dinners, making sure to pat your head and coo at you (When Noa first sees you at the table getting treated like how he'd treat an eagle, he gives you one of his signature side eyes bc lmao what the fuck is going on)

When it comes down to the ending of the movie when he dies, you're at a loss, Mae frankly thinks you're too far gone, and Noa is not willing to take a chance to offer you a home.

All you have really left to do is to go back to the colony and what's left of it, back to the remaining apes and humans still left unattended. Telling them they're free to go.

At some point among the years of being the closest to Proximus, you do care for him, and it's hard to think he's gone, he offered you a sense of security and belonging, but it's gone now.

ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ꜰᴏʀ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇᴀʀ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴏᴏɴ!

[bonefall]

BGA fumbled Gray Wing so hard but can we please talk about how they said people hated Clear Sky bc " he's a villain " ( unless I'm misremembering they said that a lot ) like they're right in a very generalized way but come on. Also I noticed a lot of Crow cope but maybe that's just their humor going over my head ( also how tf are they gonna say " yup Tom is a monster " but then go " they hate him bc he's morally gray/a villain " )

Listen... BGA is far from a "bad" WCtuber, and she's not the only one to have this problem, but that video did have that same vibe that most Please-Read-DOTCers have where it feels like they haven't actually critically engaged with the arc they read.

like. i promise you that nothing about Gray Wing smugly watching a domestic abuse victim get dragged back to a wifebeater because it "serves her right" for taking his Plan B Love Interest away from him for 6 months is treated as "morally gray" by this story. Bumble is in fact ultimately blamed by both him and the narrative for getting killed by his shitty brother, because she was a soft, fat woman.

RE: Skinwretch's post:

And speaking of the shitty brother (the one whose victims are exclusively women, children, and his god-given doctor).

While it is true that there was a general trend in her poll to put villains low on the list (which makes it hard to tell if they're actually hated or just fulfilling their role as villains), it's a little disappointing she didn't try to interrogate why Clear Sky was right next to Bramblestar. Of all the villains, why was this one so low?

Especially when she managed to note;

Barely anyone actually read DOTC, and yet, Skystar still ranked second place

He's the only villain to get a ""redemption arc"" and that makes the back half of DOTC dissonant

Star Flower's romance with him was, in her own words, "weird."

She's got the dots. The video was kind of agonizing because she didn't connect them.

I WILL say though that we need to put the term "morally gray" up on the Big Kid shelf until everyone like her stops saying that liking Breezepelt is "excusing his actions" while also implying that encouraging your son to direct hatespeech at your ex and doing mental and physical child abuse is actually very nuanced if your girlfriend died.

If that was just part of her humor I don't know her well enough to "get," that's fair enough. Still, it rubs me the wrong way because that's a genuine stance I encounter a lot in this fandom.

DISCLAIMER: I don't know BGA or her stances enough to have opinions about her, all of these gripes are generally aimed at wider fandom trends.

[iheartuwu]

₊˚ ♡ random relationship hc’s ◞ leon s. kennedy

fem!reader, fluff, angst, established relationship, implied age gap for like one or two hc’s, wrote these in an id leon brainrot fueled spur lmfao so mostly for an older leon ig !? would love to expand on some of these in a fic, wc 0.6k ╮

gift giving is definitely one of his strongest love languages, however he’s not one for grand gestures or overtly romantic gifts. his gifts are practical, thoughtful, consistent reminders that he’s always thinking of you because he’s never been good with words. he prefers to not be present when you receive them and he’s SO deliberately discreet about it too. subtly replacing your skincare or fav products that are running out with brand new ones, delving into his mental notes of what you’re running low on when he’s at a shop. scheduling food or flower deliveries for when he’s away on a mission or work related tasks. any praise would probably make his skin crawl because he just can’t handle it

terms of endearment feel unnatural to him and rarely fall past his lips unless you seem to react positively to them. i don’t see him as someone who’s that experienced in committed long term relationships ( or relationships in general ) due to the nature of his work and lifestyle. he defaults to ‘babe’ until he learns which terms you prefer / dislike

leon would never accept your offers or attempts to pay for a thing ( i swear by this ). this doesn’t come from a place of arrogance or urge to fulfill some ‘traditionally’ masculine role. his disposable income is plentiful, and he’s happy to pay when the opportunity arises, he honestly doesn’t even think about it and merely hands over his credit card. receiving gifts can often be hard for him but he’ll never purposely display his discomfort or refuse

extremely dry texter and doesn’t really use his phone despite being tech savvy, all of his texts end with periods. rarely ever uses emojis ( his personal favs are 👍👎 and the occasional ❤�� ). typically one word responses. doesn’t understand half of the abbreviations you use. send him a keyboard smash and he’ll think you’re having a stroke. prefers to call you instead

always the driver ( he insists on it ). always has the seat warmer on for you. if you do drive he becomes a backseat driver which can be mildly frustrating. comments on your song choices when you play music in his car but would never tell you to stop no matter how grating it is on his ears and simply endures. sometimes opts for his motorcycle over his car solely because he gets to be held onto by you. would literally never let you even fathom the idea of driving his motorcycle

frequent date nights at borderline obnoxiously ritzy restaurants to compensate for his time spent away from you due to his job. also bc this man cannot cook. does not let you know in advance. he simply says “we have a reservation tonight” like an hour before which often results in you scrambling to get ready

he struggles with sharing his ( darker ) emotions, accompanied by a habit of opting to brush your concerns off. vulnerability is a foreign language to him. he’s scarily good at pretending he is fine, but you manage to see glimpses of his deteriorating wellbeing in his body language. the heavy sighs upon waking up, his slight recoil from your touch, his posture stiffening after you ask him what’s on his mind. this doesn’t come from a place of distrust in any way, he truly just doesn’t want to ‘burden’ you and convinces himself that his struggles aren’t important in the grand scheme of things. he also knows the source of his stress and trauma is for the most part confidential and he tells himself he’s doing it for your own safety and protection. when he does open up by his own volition, he keeps it brief, spares most of the details, his composure rarely falters and he’s itching to move on from the subject. you’ve never seen him cry :(

[spiderpussinc]

are the 2099 comics THAT bad in terms of racism plus other weird writing choices??? i'm starved for miguel content and would like to read the original comic run but i keep seeing the debate of the original comics being problematic and/or downright just BAD bad (not to mention miguel is supposed to have mexican heritage but he's straight up a white redhead lol)

Some people may disagree but speaking as a latinx writer; it's bad because it is racist, yes! On multiple fronts!! And beyond that, it's also bad as a complete failure of comics structure and compelling narrative.

Longpost, on readmore;

I say this as a long-time capeshit reader, as politely as possible: Miguel's comics are a *paycheck* book. As in; a series a writer does monthly to be paid for it, but with middling aspirations and downright negative characterization depending on where their mood is.

The first few issues of his 1992 run are relatively complete and well-balanced, may even trick you into thinking this story is going somewhere; but that's only because they're the /character pitch./ Ill skip to the end and tell you upfront. That 1992 series ends with the implosion of the whole "2099" line of comics (an universe that included other books, like ghost rider, doom, etc, by other writers) due to dwindling public interest and mass cancellations. The end of that run is basically meaningless, since the whole thing got retconned - and even before that a guest writer had came in and made mistaken character reveals pdavid wasnt happy with and wanted to erase before the finale. The event book that wrapped up that universe was unironically, literally called -- "2099: Manifest Destiny."

Now, I don't like Peter David's writing. I think he's obsessed with the idea of building harems out of his female characters (when he's not fridging them, or making them act ~crazy~ to further alienate them from the protagonist) and it is the kind of grueling, joyless reading experience I can only describe as making you feel Oily Inside. This goes as far as multiple stalking plotlines, the inclusion of a guest appearance from AU s/x slaver Hulk in later years, Miguel's mother being strongly implied to have been forced into conceiving him by his real dad who's the evil CEO of alchemax, general torture painporn. His broader supporting cast is so interchangeable and disposable that they were literally disposed of.

In terms of the racism; I have mentioned how he uses cultures as tokens and does 0 research whatsoever. The way it feels and the way it is deployed is through a lens of Exoticism - tourism. Miguels suit is allegedly "a dia de los muertos costume" b/c pdavid seems to think that holiday is mexican halloween. In the orig book, you'll see plenty of broken japanese and stereotypical orientalist caricatures - after killing his first love interest, pdavid introduces a japanese girl who is unironically, literally named "Xina" (that pretends to be chinese on occasion) to fill in the vacant role. Miguel himself falls right into all the usual latino stereotypes — short tempered, drug addict, sex magnet "latin lover" (this last one also applied to his brother Gabriel, who for the longest time is characterized by just Going Through A Lot Of Girlfriends). And it's kind of insane bc he's still being drawn as a deeply deeply white man, but not even that takes off the burden of the racial microagressions!!! They're the only times pdavid seems to remember that heritage! Then there's the commemorative hanging page. Since you mention the redheadedness; thats another insane thing to me. He has 0% of irish in him. His dad is Blond. Who is this man?

Most of the info in the 2099 run is either revealed to be a lie midway thru (miguel is not mr o'hara's son, nor addicted to rapture) or completely retconned away to be rewritten in new runs. Different writers have tried to come in and do miguel in other team/event books but frankly nothing stands out and most of them get marked as alternate-miguels. Unfortunately, every time marvel decided to give another shot at spider-man 2099 they also brought pdavid back. The newer books were never a success, and theyre just as filled w/ the garbage i mentioned earlier (wow! Steampunk spider-woman is given to pdavid for *ONE* issue and instantly tonguekisses gabriel before leaving, so novel. More fridging ensues. Stalking. Etc.) 2099 as an *universe* has been retconned so many times Nothing is consistent and Nothing is set on stone and frankly i think they should make it an AU separate from main canon and build a whole new world already.

The art in the 2015 + runs consists mostly of tracing, and more of that oily weird feeling applied to fem chars. Perhaps you have noticed in this entire hate review have never once spoken about Miguel's heroic plots and memorable villains --- he has none. At least nothing I can remember or distinguish. (Interchangeable, disposable, etc) There is a vague inkling of "this is an anti-stabilishment spiderman, he fights against The Public Eye, the Corporation Cops!" at the start but much like his cultural illiteracy pdavid has no real insightful politics commentary, so that dissolves into the background in time. Its all buzzwords. All of his plotlines are solved in circuitous or soap operaish extradrama ways; and while some of this is present in other superhero comics, what stands out to me MOST is how utterly fucking joyless Miguel's comics are. It's like going through a slog on obligation. They genuinely gave me a headache every time.

ATSV does a great job of reinventing Miguel and rebuilding the parts of him that showed real promise. Being a different tone-swapped spiderman, futuristic, being more on the tech-science side of crime fighting. Him being a single dad with a daughter is also new. (And he is single! There is no singular mention of marriage or a wife anywhere, he's a geneticist, multiple spider-men we see in this movie were literal clones made in tubes - i am fond of the idea he's a transmasc dad but even if you think he's cis he could have made that baby himself. Adoption is also always there.) I think its very clear ATSV didn't want to bring any of pdavids major weird shit w fem chars to the big screen on the hopes that miguel gets rebooted eventually. I think he's gay. Nobody can prove me wrong.

On that note, Steve Orlando (queer writer, also wrote for DC's midnighter/apollo) did some of the latest 2022/2023 Miguel miniseries. Another reboot! Those were "2099: Exodus" and "Spider-man 2099: Dark Genesis" - i think its campier/trying to tackle superhero plots more head on and trying to do something wide wacky cast focused at Marvel's personal request, but Miguel's future is very up in the air rn. I do really hope they reboot him into something closer to ATSV with latines at the center soon.

What I always reccomend for people curious abt miguel: read his first 3ish 1992 issues, get a general feel and close the book as soon as you feel annoyed. It won't get better. Remember none of it is canon nor has been relevant in over two decades. If you want to know the wider context of his messy chronology, check out some of the 2099 "all comics" type of youtube videos, theres some pretty easy to digest summarizations if u dont wanna waste ur time reading stuff that just got retconned again lol. Most writers now are operating on vibes and that is a freedom you should also allow yourself in your own fanwork.

Putting his panels out of context can be very funny though. (For further curiosity or tangents, there's always my meta tag)

[buckevantommy]

did you dislike the ep in general, or just the lack of tommy and bucktommy?

i have a headache and i should probably rewatch the ep again once I'm feeling physically better before i answer this but having an achy head means my inhibitions are lowered and my brain to mouth filter is taking a nap, so i'ma let loose..

on the one hand: yes of course i'm annoyed there was no hot pilot in the planemergency. i honestly wasn't even expecting any bucktommy scenes, but i thought tommy would be at the airport staging area, or giving updates from his chopper in the air, etc. i am baffled that tim didn't include their resident pilot in this emergency at all; the repelling into the cockpit might be a little bit too insane even for this show, but i really think they could've utilised him in the air traffic control tower from the start - can you imagine tommy telling jem over the radio that he's doing a good job? i can, and my heart melts. 🫠

on the other hand: i get it. it sucks, but i get it. lou is a guest star, this emergency was centred around bathena, there was barely any room in the plot for the 118 let alone other characters. tommy could have been included more easily in the plot imho, but i have to remind myself it probably all comes down to budget and call lists and not wanting to split focus. this is the downside of tv shows unfortunately - it all comes down to money and time limits and star power; were this a book series there would be no excuse not to include tommy, and thus i will henceforth bury myself in fics that do just that. 📚

as for the whole of the ep: ...eh? here's the thing: i really love bathena in the cruise ship disaster so i think having them be the focus of the next disaster is difficult because they can't measure up to that epic chaos and emotional weight in my eyes. i also find it strange that they got the focus of two disasters two seasons in a row, but again: the star power of angela bassett is totally understandable, she really brings it in those disaster scenes and i would love to see her in more roles that balance heavy action and strong emotion bc she is a powerhouse in that dynamic. 💥

BUT - and maybe this comes down to the direction and editing in part - to me, there was a lack of urgency in the plane stuff this ep, which was strange considering all that was going on. i think they ended it too soon and the addition of the fire on the ground didn't really add anything except a fun little scene where buck tried to use a prop hose. it felt kind of.. anticlimactic? i loved the insane shot of bobby standing on the engine meeting the plane nose, but.. *sigh* yeah, i just wasn't on the edge of my seat. i actually prefer the tension and plane plot happenings in 8x02, and when i watched 8x02 live i was a little disappointed, but now i prefer it to this ep. 🛬

i really would've liked to see more of the 118 lending a hand in this emergency. i'm so glad we got as much of buck as we did, and seeing maddie and josh was good too, but.. yeah. that staging video we saw weeks ago of all the engines leaving the hanger just ending up feeling pointless? i was so looking forward to more of the ensemble cast and other firefighter extras helping on the scene, and it seems those potential scenes were traded in for more bathena focus and to me it just wasn't worth the trade. i love their love, but i think tim could've included more characters in the entirety of the planemergency. 🚒

as for athena's ending: returning to the aiport to get a real little black book was odd imho; they could've gone anywhere, and honestly i was kinda hoping for location change, but they were sticking with the theme so i get it. but i really liked the return to the mystery and the impending danger of the case, and the way they tied things up for athena's past was really nicely done, she deserves to have peace and closure and to know it wasn't all for naught. 💝

as for the gerrard stuff: unexpected! wonderful! distrubing af! many of us called it, that gerrard would take buck under his wing (re: golf date) and he'd be faced with this new dilemma of no longer being gerrard's target but of being his chosen one; i foresee angst and conflict in buck's future, specifically in his relationship with tommy - who will likely try to warn him against letting gerrard get too close and worrying over him - but also with the rest of the 118 as he reaps rewards he didn't want while they have to continue bearing the weight of gerrard's captaincy and even moreso now that buck is no longer his main target. 🫂

the gerrard stuff is the only real setup we got for upcoming episodes, but i'm curious to see how the planemergency affects brad and moreover his friendship(?)/dynamic with bobby and the hotshots job. we obviously are going to get more henren drama with ortiz and the kids, which will be interesting - i'm really looking forward to getting more ortiz in the plot. eddie and his moustache will feature, looking forward to seeing how he's coping with chris' absence and how that changes. 👀 lots of good stuff to come and i'm looking forward to all of it and to putting this planemergency behind me (however: the beenado will live on in my heart forever 🐝🌪️).

[biconickyoshi]

Okay y’all… I was very critical of eps 3 & 4 (especially 4) of NAtLA. Then all of a sudden eps 5 & 6 kinda slapped me in the face with how much better the show suddenly got.

Spoiler-free thoughts first:

Zuko, Iroh, and Aang have cemented themselves as the best parts about this adaptation - which is really funny considering I’m currently writing a longfic AU where Zuko and Iroh discover Aang in the iceberg right after Zuko is banished at age 13 and end up becoming the first members of the Gaang (albeit reluctantly at first lol). Episode 6: “Masks” (the Blue Spirit adaptation) was so good, I’d venture to say that it actually improved and fleshed out some things from the original series.

Episode 5: “Spirited Away”, while not as good as E6, was not as bad as I heard people say it was going to be. I think that the changes they did make didn’t bother me nearly as much as the changes they made in the last episode, and it was actually entertaining.

There were several scenes that made me cry in both of these episodes (moreso in episode 6, which I’ll get into further down in the spoiler section). These are the scenes that I feel like really tapped into the heart of the original show rather than feeling like a soulless remake.

Now for my in-depth thoughts (INCLUDES SPOILERS):

EP 5: “Spirited Away”

- Staring out, I was bummed because I had just rewatched the first two eps of the original animated series lol.

- It was an interesting choice to have all three members of the Gaang get stuck in the Spirit World, but I think it worked.

- Wan Shi Tong just showing up randomly was a bit unnecessary, but I suppose it will be kinda interesting to see him again in S2 since he’s already met the Gaang

- Hei Bai plays a much smaller role in these eps, but I strangely didn’t mind that either?

- Seeing Katara’s last memory with her mom was devastating, especially the fact that she had to witness her death and hide in the igloo with Kya’s charred body :(( she definitely has severe PTSD.

- Even Sokka’s memory made me tear up a bit

- Koh being the villain and a soul-eater or whatever was a bit of an odd choice, but I guess I can see why they did it. I do prefer him just being an asshole who steals ppl’s faces lol

- Appreciated the Fog of Lost Souls reference from the LoK lore

- Aang reuniting with Gyatso made me cry. I know some people didn’t like him being in the Spirit World, but I really liked it. Also, the fact that Gyatso was the first person to tell Aang that it wasn’t his fault the Air Nomads died, and that if he had been there he would have died too? THANK YOU! My poor boy has been berated enough for “abandoning” the world.

- We got some interesting lore about the afterlife for humans from Gyatso and Aang’s convo, which we’ve never gotten in AtLA media before. Idk if it’s just for Air Nomads, but Aang mentions that Gyatso stayed behind instead of “seeking enlightenment”. I know that the end goal in Buddhism is to reincarnate until you eventually achieve nirvana, so I wonder if that’s what they were alluding to (I’m not an expert on religions so pls correct me if I’m wrong)

- Oh yeah, I forgot June is here lmao. As a queer person I loved her (bc beautiful goth woman) but I didn’t like the weird choice to make her hit on Iroh - I guess to contrast the Iroh being creepy towards her thing in the OG series. I wish they would have just had them interact normally tbh, no weird “flirting”

EP 6: “Masks”

- Here we go y’all. The best episode in the show so far and probably the best the show is gonna get this season. I’m still pretty shocked at how good this one was.

- I think the decision to include flashbacks to Zuko’s Agni Kai was a good decision here. It felt like an appropriate episode for them and the flashbacks were very well done.

- In general, Dallas is doing a phenomenal job at portraying a Zuko who is angry and aggressive, yes, but also so very sweet and compassionate at his core. I love when little inklings of his true self shine through.

- Roku was… not what I expected. He was very much more of a lighthearted and jokey person… I didn’t hate it, it was just unexpected lol. I wonder if they did that to contrast him with Kyoshi. Which, speaking of, I’m glad Roku clarified that Aang doesn’t just need to be a merciless warrior (and that he didn’t berate Aang for “abandoning” the world like she did). But I still am annoyed about the mischaracterization of Kyoshi in general.

- RIP Shyu :/

- Thought it was kind of strange how June captures Aang at Roku’s temple lol. Like how did she get on and off the island??

- Zhao continues to feel like a completely different character to me lmao. I think this version is pretty funny, but it’s so weird to see Zhao being portrayed as so goofy and incompetent when he was such an intimidating force and the main villain of Book 1 in the OG series. Just a weird direction they went with his character.

- The Yuyan archers look cool as fuck. 10/10 no notes

- Still not sure how I feel about Azula already being this insecure and jealous of Zuko. I think it makes her feel a bit more realistically like a child, but the whole point of Azula’s character is that she is really good at maintaining this cool and calm persona on the surface, which she uses to scare and manipulate people. I can see her maybe getting to a point later on to where she hardens herself into that though. We’ll see.

- Baby Zuko asking Iroh how he looks and his little smile 😭😭😭😭 I had a physical “aww” reaction to that. THAT’S MY SON (me and Iroh shouting in unison)

- War Room scene was handled very well. No complaints. I like how Ozai tried to test Zuko with battle strategies.

- Blue Spirit break out scene was extremely close to the original, and it was really good. They adapted it almost shot for shot with all the important parts.

- Here’s probably my favorite part of the episode: Zuko and Aang’s talk inside the abandoned house after they escape from Pohuai!!!!!! Gahhhh I could gush about this scene all day. I love how they expanded it to be an actual friendly conversation between Aang and Zuko. Like we get to see Zuko’s true self coming through - the sweet, kind boy we know he is. Zuko and Aang just have such great chemistry as well, wayyy more than Aang has with either Sokka or Katara. Like I adored them bonding over painting and caligraphy!!! I think this is the best acting we’ve seen from Gordon so far, and Dallas did a phenomenal job switching back to that hurt, angry version of himself (of course a trauma response). And the fact that Aang said “sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you” when he blocked Zuko’s firebending attack??? My sweet boy 😭

- The final flashback to the Agni Kai was really well done too. I’d already heard Zuko fights back, which I wasn’t sure I’d like, but I actually didn’t mind it. I really liked that they showed Zuko’s hesitation whenever he did actually have an opening, and that was what angered Ozai the most - Zuko showing compassion, “weakness”. Daniel Dae Kim is of course doing a phenomenal job (no surprises there), and I really liked that Iroh actually attempted to stop Ozai at one point. It also looked like young Azula had tears in her eyes, which I again actually liked because it humanizes her.

- I loved that Aang was still there when Zuko woke up on the boat 😭 he wanted to make sure he was okay!! I full on started crying when we got the “do you think we could have been friends too?” lines from him. Again, Gordon killed it. I love how you can tell that Aang knows Zuko has been hurt and that’s why he acts the way he does. He doesn’t blame him for any of it. 10/10

- the last flashback to Zuko in his bed recovering from the burn… god the tears just kept flowing. I really liked the choice to have Ozai almost give Zuko a chance to like… idk understand why he did what he did, and how compassion is “weak”?? And then Zuko’s response to give people a chance 😭😭😭 as if I couldn’t love him any more!!! And then of course Ozai gets pissed. But seeing baby Zuko just cry in his bed UGH I’m dehydrated at this point

- Of course I can’t finish this review without mentioning the 41st division. What an incredible way to expand upon the source material by making them Zuko’s crew!!! It shows just how much Zuko truly cares about others and it moved me so much (once again to tears).

I don’t have high hopes for the last two episodes, but honestly, if this is what the live action can be, it gives me a bit of hope (at least for future seasons). I really think that Dallas, Gordon, Paul, and Daniel were the stars of this ep and are a big part of what made it so good.

[silverflqmes]

໒⦂ 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄.

synopsis. time and time again, fate seemed to forcibly tear cloud and sephiroth away from one another, and it’s come to do that again. can they resist destiny?

genre. angst

tw. references to death, implications of anxiety, major character death, descriptions of blood, mild gore.

event. sefikuramuse2024 ( week 4 bc i just found out. )

prompt. free choice / resistance + neutron star collision ( love is forever )

notes. bawling i wish i had found out sooner abt this event, i love muse sm ugh and their music fits sfkr so well</3 but uh, better late than never! little shorter than what i usually write, but i have a longer oneshot rotting in my drafts so i will upload that once it’s finished<3

sephiroth x cloud strife.

"cloud, we can only outrun destiny for so long.." sephiroth frowned, glancing down at the hand that squeezed his own so tightly, urging him to keep up. "in the end, they will once more pit us against one another until we are torn apart by drastic means." what would it be this time, turned to ash when the world burns? one remaining while the other joins the stars above? or watching the other die to some other cosmic force that is not by means of their respected blade?

the male in question shook his head. "i don't care." he bit back immediately, out of breath. "we're not.. gonna end up following the same fucking narrative again- i'm tired of it. i'm tired of outside factors deciding our lives for us." horrible upbringings for every lifetime and the pressure of either being passed on the torch of destroying the planet or protecting it. it was exhaustingly repetitive, and outright cruel.

why them? why, of all the people inhabiting gaia, did it have to be them? could it not have been someone else? or nobody at all?

cloud never asked for this. never asked to carry the weight of the world and everyone else's wants on his shoulders. never asked for losing those he loved, and certainly never asked to be pitted against his other half. all he had ever wanted was to make a better life for himself and someday fight alongside the great war hero that had brought a ray of hope to his life.

and all sephiroth had ever wanted was a normal life. one without needles and discipline, one of free choice and liberty to think for himself- to do what he wanted to do and simply live the life that many others surrounding him had lived and taken for granted, all without having to lose anybody he dared allowed into his fragile heart.

instead, the planet and calamity found it sickeningly amusing to cast him in the role of the antagonist that had scorched the hometown of the one person that could have truly been the pillar of stability he had searched for all his life, and made an enemy out of him.

how ironic, to finally meet the one person that could have mended everything and made all the torment worth enduring, only to end up ultimately destroying each other's lives.

the look on the former general's face was pensive, bittersweet. "this is something beyond us, cloud.. i fear that resistance will be but fleeting- simply postponing the inevitable." he tried again, pursing his lips together. "the outcome will always turn out the same, no matter how differently we go about the way in which our stories play out." he couldn't count how many worlds he had traveled to now, filled with diverse tellings of the same narrative, but an equally similar outcome at the end, no matter how long it took to reach it.

this was just one of many worlds doomed to eventually fall as well, yet cloud.. cloud held firmly.

with gritted teeth, the self-proclaimed SOLDIER paused in his tracks, nearly crashing into his once nemesis to glare up at him. "this is not going to end up the same- you told me before that we could change things, that our destiny.. could be altered." he retorted frantically, mako tinted sapphires glossing in the light of the moon. "what happened to that? we did things differently- we're not.. we're not enemies here, everything's fine between us, w-we haven't hurt each other, either." inhale, exhale. "so why.. why are things not working out for us? it was supposed to work this time — you said it would!” what felt like eons ago now of that conversation they’d held at the edge of creation — a plane comprised solely of them two, proved to be a sliver of hope. a reassurance that it was possible to change fate if they worked together.

but it just, wasn't working.

they had tried, and tried, and tried some more. but the key events always played out the same way; the deaths avoided simply took place earlier or later, the black materia would still summon meteor, cloud would still lose his hometown to the wrath of his beloved under the poisonous influence of jenova, and then he would die at his hand.

"cloud, i.." sephiroth whispered brokenly, squeezing the other's hand. what was there left to say, when even he had no answers to those questions? "i know. and i am doing everything within my capabilities to go against the odds for us to be together without us being ruined in the process, but.." no matter what, it will just continue to end with my life being claimed by your blade, or the demise of this wretched planet.

the blond parted his lips to bite back a retort, only to close them soon after, as though understanding what was left unsaid. the good and bad endings, except to them- they were both bad. "so then, am i just.. not meant to be with you?"

cracked, slitted emeralds hardened with intensity as the taller trudged forward, pulling the shorter into the type of hug capable of knocking the breath out of a person from how little proximity is left behind. "you are meant to be with me- we fit together so perfectly like this, cloud." he breathed into the nest of golden tufts, squeezing the middle of his back as though the other might fade from his fingertips if he didn't. "you were made to be mine. neither the planet, nor jenova can tear you away from me or have you with another. i will not allow it."

he had lost just about everyone he had cared for throughout the course of his existence, cloud was his lifeline. sephiroth would not allow him to be paired with anyone other than himself. not the girlfriend of zack, nor the childhood friend of his beloved, and above all, gaia.

with shaky hands, the spiky haired mercenary brought them to wrap around his once nemesis' slim waist, letting out a breath into the chest he was met with as he burrowed his face deeper to hear the heartbeat separated by flesh and bone. "but they keep on trying to tear us apart.." he muttered hopelessly, tightening his grasp on the leather jacket beneath his gloved palms. "i-i can't kill you again, sephiroth- i can't do that.. they can't make me do it again. you said i'm yours, but what good is being yours if you're not mine, too? i'll be all alone again, i.." i just can't.

"you'll never be alone, cloud." the silver haired male cut in, shifting one hand to cradle the back of the other's head to his sternum. "a part of me is always inside of you, and will always allow for me to return to you. i am yours, and shall always be yours, that much is true." he reaffirmed, perhaps as a reassurance to himself, too. "the lifestream will never truly allow me to die and become one with the fallen due to my cells. the same would apply to you, in theory." with the amount of jenova's blood coursing through his veins, the planet would always spit him right back out, as though poisoned by his presence. it would be similar for his other half, as they shared the same infectious cells from the great calamity.

cloud shifted against him, biting his bottom lip to prevent it from trembling. "but if i die, it would be over for the both of us.." he whispered, looking up at him with unshed tears. "wouldn't it?"

it was his persisting memory of sephiroth that kept him alive, wasn't it? aside from the lifestream rejecting him for no longer fully being of the planet, it was the blond's memories that kept him whole.

silence befell the older as he gazed into the other's eyes, weighing the words that were expressed to him before letting out a hum. "i am.. uncertain." he answered at length, glancing away for a moment before returning his jade-colored orbs to expectant sapphire ones. "so i would rather not find out. you will not die on my watch, cloud. i would have this planet scorched and wiped off the face of the galaxy before it takes you away from me. your life is mine, as my own is yours."

for once, cloud found himself unable to protest against the planetary destruction. he was just so over everything, all he wanted was just to live a normal life with the silver that lined him.

he allowed himself to lean into the leather clad hand that now moved to cup his cheek, catching a stray tear. sephiroth's eyes were prettier up close, all of him was.

wordlessly, cloud got on the tips of his toes to claim the rosewood lips of his greatest adversary- his everything, as he had proclaimed in one of their lifetimes.

it wasn't as their usual kisses would be, packed with undying fervor, teeth and tongue, or those brief, delicate ones they would exchange. rather, it was filled with desperation, the want to forever share breath as though the air surrounding them had been polluted- death.

a twitch could be felt in his veins, one that made the ex-SOLDIER's right hand tremble, reluctantly falling from the quilted leather to reach behind him for a hilt protruding from his harness of blades.

a sphere of swirling nebulas appeared without request within the left palm of the former general, turning up begrudgingly against the sweater-like material to face the soon to be rust filled welkin.

tears streamed freely down freckled cheeks, salt tainting the flavor of their unyielding lip-lock. the end was nigh, the warmth of the great comet could be felt even from where they stood, kissing the planet's surface as the brightness flickered against the shimmer of first tsurugi.

an unspoken apology hung in the air as rouge colored the leathers separating skin from meeting skin, the taste of iron melting with what could be mistaken as seawater, and sweet death.

even still, neither dared to break away from the other, not wanting to let go even as another world came tumbling down.

notes. perhaps i should have put a warning for there not being a happy ending.. um, my bad guys</3 i hope it was okay despite the short length! if i had more time i would have done something more but school said no and gave me speeches to write instead😔

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[necrotic-nephilim]

for the recent ask game, i’m really curious about your take on 7 + 8 :P

for the choose violence ask game!

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how the fandom acts about them?

i'll be so honest: Jason Todd. i know there's a lot of argument of "who has the worst fans" and i think that question is flawed and impossible to answer, but i will say Jason fans irked me so deeply. because i read mostly 90s era Batfam, i admittedly didn't have a lot of exposure to Jason for a while, expect for his New-52 runs i'd read years ago. and since i never liked him based on those runs, i could not understand *what* his fans liked about him, or where they got some of their headcanons/ideas from. i've never been more baffled. it ranges from "oh i don't agree but you do you, i guess?" to "what character are you talking about i am BAFFLED". and it soured me on Jason for so long that i actually hate read *most* of his pre-Flashpoint appearances just to understand what on earth people liked about him. and now i can say, i love him dearly, but i can also say, i still don't know what character his fans are talking about sometimes. and i hate the fanon version of Jason who feels almost, Deadpool-ified? with this self-aware slapstick humor but a sad soft interior but also sassy and will kill a man it's just. it feels very hollow to me and it has made me almost tempted to block his character tag more than once over the years bc sometimes certain takes make it difficult to even like him. i just have to tune it out or yell about it for hours.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i'm going to get particularly saucy with this one: that Dick Grayson has Eldest Daughter Syndrome. or more generally, that he was parentified. not a single ounce of Dick's backstory indicates him as being parentified. to be parentified you have to be a child taking care of other children either emotionally or physically because your parents are not fulfilling that role. and Dick was *never* a child at the time that another child was under Bruce's care. he has been an adult for the entirety he has known every other Batkid. and even then, the *only* one he was something you could akin to being a parent figure to was Damian, and Dick *chose* that. Dick was a grown-ass man in his late 20s who had the facilities and capacity to make the decision to be Damian's primary caretaker. he's never been parental toward any of the other Batkids, nor has Bruce ever forced upon him the role of having to raise them. did Bruce do a sort of questionable job with Dick? yeah. but i would argue Bruce did the best job with Dick of all the Batkids, and even if he was shitty with Dick, he couldn't parentify Dick bc there was no one for Dick to be parenting. and Dick wasn't parenting Bruce either. they just had a normal relationship of loving and caring for each other.

as for Eldest Daughter Syndrome i just.. i Do Not Like calling any male character "female coded" or "female rage coded" or "eldest daughter coded" because they're *not*. especially not in *this* medium. these are male characters, created by men, written by men 90% of the time, and written to be *male power fantasies*. nothing about Dick or Jason or any Batboy is female-coded bc they exist to be badass men. just because they show emotion and have complex relationships with Bruce doesn't make them suddenly women. Dick shows his anger in a very destructive, stereotypically "masculine" way. even if we strip it of gender, Dick doesn't exhibit most traits of Eldest Daughter Syndrome. he easily makes relationships with people his age, he has no issues telling Bruce no, he did not have caretaking responsibilities forced onto him by Bruce, he's not even really hyperindependent. Dick has a support system outside of the Bats, the fandom just ignores it. does Dick force caretaking responsibilities onto himself sometimes? can he be an overachiever? absolutely. but these are internal complexes that just come with making a character a superhero, it's a complex they all have. if i have to hear one more fan call him Eldest Daughter Syndrome-core or say he's a victim of parentification, i think I'll explode a little bit.

[humblefryingpan]

I wish the sdr2 fans would stop trying to justify what they did. Like yeah they were brainwashed but they weren't brainwashed into specific actions, they were brainwashed to give in to despair.

Junko wanted them on the side of despair so she made them feel so distraught they gave up on living. The brainwashing would've just been making them go "I need to make people feel as bad as I do" it was never "you're going to do this and then this"

Like Mikan's obsession with Junko was an unhealthy coping mechanism that Junko did not choose. That was Mikan being attached to the first person she saw that felt as bad as she did, not Junko being super manipulative.

The video she saw was footage of the student council killing eachother, at no point did the video show Junko being like "you should fall in love with me btw". And we see how Junko narrated when she was making the rest of the class and Yukizome watch it, we can figure out roughly what she would've said.

Same with all of them, they followed her because she felt as bad as they did and took charge. I bet if one of them took the leader role before Junko could and went "we're all going to kick tables to get it out of our systems" they would've sat and kicked tables (first example I thought of idk). But Junko wanted to spread the despair so she got them to recognize her control from the start.

They saw something horrific and they were completely broken by it. If someone comforted them or helped them through it, they probably could've been okay (and Junko knew that, that's why she took Yukizome first). But they were too fragile to console eachother alone and Junko was the first person to tell them how to react.

If you see something that traumatic, you probably wouldn't know what to do. If someone told them how to move past it, I bet they could've. But the only one "helping" was saying to make other people feel bad too and they were too distraught to fight it. Their emotions were too raw and intense to think it through properly which means they were easy to use.

She probably told them to kill but the brainwashing was just making them feel despair. It was breaking their spirits so they wouldn't mind doing it all on their own, not making them do things like a puppet. This gets proven when Ryoma first sees the video. To use Mikan as an example again, she tries to SA him and when Junko sees, she's angry and stops her. And she says "what's the matter with you? Five whole minutes I was gone!" (I'm assuming it's similar in the sub) because she didn't tell her what she needed to do, she just told her to feel despair.

This is Mikan acting against what Junko wanted, you can't say Junko made her do that.

Junko barely even knew them. Like Teruteru eating his mother, do you really think she'd know he was such a momma's boy? Do you think she'd know that much about him in general? That's why her "motive video" was so generic, she didn't know them enough to break them individually and she wouldn't be able to choose tasks that suit them so specifically.

Them taking Junko's body parts was because of their despair but it wasn't because they were forced to. They embraced their sorrow so tightly it choked them but instead of pulling away they pulled it closer until it died and they started to wear it as a scarf instead.

I don't particularly like Junko but a lot of sdr2 fans are putting all of everyone's guilt onto her and that's not fair. They did the atrocities bc they chose to and ignoring that takes away part of their characters. You can't just "they didn't mean it!!" out of every argument because they absolutely did.

Ppl are acting like she picked out every single action instead of recognizing that she just recorded murder and went "life sucks, here's proof, you should do crime so everyone agrees"

[hannigramislife]

for my own gratification bc i just ran into nie mingjue hate in the wild, would you mind making a post that defends my poor good boy? he worked so hard and got gaslit to shit before getting murdered terribly ;; literally everyone sat there telling him "youre being too harsh" and he's just responding appropriately. like yeah, if you witness a murder, ya kinda got to do something about that as a clan leader. its kinda your responsibility, even when you care about the person who did the murdering. he was also a really young when he took on the role of clan leader and idk, it just made me rlly sad to see people dunk on him cuz wtf he's literally just trying his best in an impossible situation WHILE being perpetually fucked over by his clan's own traditional cultivation cuz now the stronger he is as a leader, the closer he is to going literally insane and dying bc of it. (mingjue did nothing wrong i will die on this hill) ((sorry for going on a tirade, im just sad and defensive of my good boy rn))

Oh no! I'm so sorry you had to go through Nie Mingjue hate! Truly tragic. I went through that once when in the beginning of me reading the books, when I still had no proper opinions, and never again.

I'm more than willing to make a post about Nie Mingjue! I'm always down to talk about Nie Mingjue tbh, he's my heart and love and if I were to have been given the opportunity to be his right hand person, I would have simply never betrayed his trust and married him. Rip Jin Guangyao but I'm different.

Anyways, I, huhhh, actually think you?? Covered it all??? Pretty much?? Yet I will talk about it. This will be long and non-coherent, because I don't have the books rn to find quotes in them and honestly, I could write essays on Nie Mingjue either way.

Nie Mingjue is a central piece of the narrative, despite the limited amount of appearances he made, and the fact that he wasn't close to the main characters at all. The entire second part of the plot revolves around him- it happened because of him. His murder is a tragedy; literally, by greek standards, man has Cassandra Curse all over him, so I don't get how people can tell me, confidently, that his death was warranted. I've been told the man had asked for it, and this has mostly been by Jin Guangyao apologists.

So let me make something real fucking clear.

Nie Mingjue did not deserve to die. Let's get that out of the way, anyone can fight me on that. Nie Mingjue had more good qualities than half the people in this fucking story, despite his flaws. After his father was brutally murdered when Mingjue was only in his teens, Nie Mingjue stepped up as clan leader. We can only speculate the hardships that await someone leading a clan at such an early age. Yet, political challenges weren't the only thing he had to battle; Nie Mingjue knew about his clan's harmful cultivation, and he knew he was going to die young. So what did he do? His best. Literally his best, always. He was always giving 100% of his abilities, because that's who he was.

Let's talk about who Nie Mingjue was, shall we?

When Jin Guangyao, still Meng Yao then, describes Nie Mingjue, he finds himself perplexed, because Nie Mingjue isn't like other men. He is not frivolous, and he has no vices; Meng Yao describes how Nie Mingjue never showed an interest in arts, or alcohol, or women. All he did was train, and fight the Wens during the war. It shows that he had a one-track mind from the start, and has got a strict discipline; yet this strictly disciplined man, leader of a clan that prizes strength, continuously indulges his lazy and undisciplined half-brother, his one and only heir, despite not understanding his interests. We gather, pretty quickly, that Nie Mingjue is a bleeding heart for his brother, and for the ones he loves in general. We see the same softer side displayed in the presence of Lan Xichen, and of course, for some time, Meng Yao.

People seem to think Nie Mingjue took Meng Yao's betrayal too harshly. As if somehow seeing a man he thought to have been just and honest commit premeditated murder, then cover it up, was something he was just supposed to get over. To this day, I can't believe how Lan Xichen was so understanding of it. But not only did Nie Mingjue catch him in a cowardly act - Meng Yao proceeds to manipulate him, using the fact that Nie Mingjue cared about him, to stab him in the back. Or front, however it happened. I get that Meng Yao was in a difficult position, that he suffered at the Jins, that he felt backed in a corner; but Nie Mingjue was a man that had extended his help to Meng Yao before, and even then, he went to find Meng Yao in righteous fury, ready to help him again. To Nie Mingjue, the idea that Meng Yao "had no other choice" but to kill - to kill in the manner he did - it could have been nothing but a betrayal.

One thing that I personally highly respected Nie Mingjue for was the fact that he did not judge Meng Yao for his background. This is not up for debate; Nie Mingjue stood up for him, quite publicly, quite vocally, when Meng Yao was being insulted over it. And not only that, but he promoted Meng Yao to be his right hand man, just like that. Because he's impulsive, and to prove a point, but it was still huge of him to do. Not even Lan Xichen would have done that - In a society built on power dynamics between social classes, Nie Mingjue was one of the few characters who did not let that define his actions. It wasn't because he was born privileged (though he was) but because he he didn't let anything other than his judgment direct his actions. Nie Mingjue also never shied away from anything; if it had to be done, he did it, no matter the cost.

Nie Mingjue was decisive, and had an iron will. When Meng Yao killed the Nie disciples in Qishan, he wanted to kill Meng Yao. Meng Yao told him, paraphrasing, that "don't you understand that if I hadn't done that, it would have been your corpse up there?" and Wei Wuxian takes it to mean "Translation: I saved you so you can't kill me, because that would mean you're in the wrong." So Nie Mingjue hesitated for a second, then said: "Fine! I'll kill you, and then take my own life!" And the only reason he didn't, was because Lan Xichen was there. Otherwise, Nie Mingjue would have killed his former friend, then followed him to whatever afterlife awaited.

Nie Mingjue is often portrayed like he doesn't understand stuff, like he's stupid, simply because of his black and white sense of morality. That's not correct: Nie Mingjue understands motive, but he doesn't accept the ends justifying the means. Scratch that, he doesn't accept or justify either, if they're unjust. The murder of the Jin commander, the murder of the Nie disciples, not executing Xue Yang - how can Nie Mingjue possibly understand Meng Yao's decisions, when Nie Mingjue would rather die, any day, than live thanks to vile actions?

And then, Nie Mingjue starts falling into qi-deviation. We know that it affected his temper the most, and his judgement. I don't understand how it works, really, so I don't know by the end how much was Nie Mingjue and how much was the mess that the spirit made of him - maybe a combination of the two. But what is certain, is that the rapid qi deviation changed him.

But I could write a hundred more pages on him, meticulously going over every single scene he has ever appeared in, because I find him that interesting. I find him the most interesting, and the most appealing character, because in a story where the navigation of the cultivation world's complex politics and hierarchies with tact and diplomacy is crucial, Nie Mingjue stands uncompromising in his principles, choosing duty and honor over anything else, even when it's hard.