#i think hes a good villain but hes so tainted by the fandom that i cannot bother with wanting to engage with any content of him at all

[jesswritesthat]

Bakugou Katsuki: Killer Skills

Fandom: BNHA // MHA — [ Masterlist ]

Summary: 1.2k, angst, fluff

• Being an ex-assassin provides skill, but when your secret is shared it makes things complicated with an explosive pro.

Warnings: Mature language, pro-hero age, mentions of killing.

>>>>——————————>

Never had you expected to be the catalyst of one night drastically changing form, yet neither had you expected your life to be thrust into the light by explosives either.

Calmly you stood, arms folded and expectant brow raised at said explosive.

"Look I'm not asking for help shadow shit, just a sous chef. I'm getting the extras together and need a hand since they're all still fucking useless in the kitchen."

"Alright, what are we making Katsuki?" Still addressing him so informally left him diverting his gaze but he gave a detailed list of his menu with vicious confidence.

—

It wasn't until hours later when surrounded by former classmates of UA did you feel minor pressure, even though you were trained to fit into any situation, this was still unnerving despite Bakugou giving a shoddy introduction. So many heroes, so many former enemies...

Did they didn't even know who you were?

What you were?

"Wow Bakugou, you finally found someone who's as good with a knife as you are!" The commentary of a bright brunette ripped you from your depths, the woman bubbly and impressed by the sight of the two of you dicing vegetables.

"Still think it's weird round face?"

"Yeah, how'd you get so skilled (L/n)?" Your blade paused mid strike upon hearing her question, low and regretful reply breathed into the world.

"Having skill with knife is pivotal to an assassin, luckily such a talent can be applied to various situations."

Aside from to Katsuki, you think it's the first truth you've told.

The room fell silent, Uraraka stepping back ever so slightly nearer the comfort of Izuku and beside you there was a prevalently harsh whisper from Bakugou.

"Shit."

That's when you realised you'd screwed up, of course they didn't know, Dynamight probably hadn't a chance to tell them nor the priority to either.

"Assassin? (L/n)-san you...?" The gravity quirk user stuttered out, the heroes in the room suddenly more defensive and dawned upon you one by one.

"Not anymore but my hands aren't clean and they never will be. However I'm trying to be better, now that I'm free. I swear upon my life."

"You are The Shadow, right? I suspected as such after their mysterious prolonged absence." Izuku decided, just as Katsuki predicted he would, but never had you been disappointed by sheer terror and anger tainting once gleaming faces before. Until now.

"I was. Then like you said, I disappeared. I made my first choice in a long time and chose to kill myself so I wouldn't be forced to do anything else I didn't want to." With your harrowing explanation and final assassination poetically being that of your previous alias, the room fell tensely silent once more upon the digestion of such a tale.

"You're responsible for so many d—" They were cut off before they could finish (but you knew where it was going) by the deafening sound of a knife stabbing into your chopping board with knuckles white on its handle. You felt the dangerous presence towering behind you, enough to make anyone think twice about a comment so brash.

"Bakubro why aren't you saying anything?! You should be blowing up right now unless—" A flash of realisation as Kirishima settled upon his friends' protective frame. "—you knew."

"'Course I knew, you think I'm an idiot?!" The blonde aggressively barked back, you felt his riding temperature against your back as he leaned forward slightly.

"No but this is insane! Since when were you one for villain redemption?"

"Like you fuckers can talk about redemption, we've seen plenty of assholes do bad things and sometimes it ain't their choice. You still saved them didn't you?" A knowing look was directed at Deku, who already seemed to emphasise.

"Kacchans' right, we can't assume a situation based on actions. Only that if a lighter path is what (L/n)-san has chosen, then we should support it until given reason otherwise." Miraculously the words of this admired man seemed to resonate with them, yet Katsuki remained somewhat defensive and hadn't revoked himself entirely from your space quite yet.

"Besides, if (Y/n) wanted to kill any of you, you'd be dead already. Take that as a trusting start." He made a point of eating your food, almost as if making an example of his guests' unanimous wariness once stepping back to his station.

"Katsuki! Don't say that, it doesn't help my case."

"What?! It's not a fucking lie, you even gave me a hard time." He bit back defensively, glaring daggers that all most matched the sharpness of yours.

"Someone who made Bakugou sweat? I'd like to take a crack at sparring you sometime if you wouldn't mind." Kirishima seemed revitalised with newfound admiration that was mildly unnerving, maybe this new hero generation hadn't forgiven your crimes but they were willing to get to know you at the very least.

"Uh— I mean I'm trying to be better, if helping you improve accomplishes that then I'll participate." You bowed, Katsuki only snorting and providing a venue proposal.

"Could use my training room? It's been a while since I've seen shitty hair and Pikachu get their asses kicked."

———

So after turning the night upside down, Red Riot and Chargebolt became your opponents in an orchestrated game.

"Alright I have two powders, if you get marked you are dead as per my previous occupation. If you can hit me, you both win." Came your brief explanation, holding up a pair of red fingertips on your left hand which everyone agree and understood.

With that, the onlookers could only watch as you manoeuvred varying attacks, sidestepping, jumping, and swishing past jolts of electric whilst simultaneously avoiding the hardened combat from Eijirou.

Suddenly, after about 3 minutes, you came to a solid stop which allowed Kaminari to barrel into you rather unceremoniously a second later who dizzily voiced his victory.

"I got them!" A panting breath. "I win!"

A chorus of applause and laughter echoed in the room with comments spewing from observations.

"Kiri check your back man!"

"Denki... you've got a little something..." Jirou vaguely gestured to her forehead and lo and behold when mirroring her actions, his fingers came back dusted with scarlet powder.

"Also I should say that the second powder was UV sensitive, so if Katsuki kindly adjusts the lighting?"

Immediately there was gasps of astonishment, both bodies were decorated with reflective vibrant marks that almost made you feel sick of your own competence.

"Woah?! You coulda killed use twenty times over and we didn't even manage to zap you!"

"Told ya morons." Katsuki joined your side, a nudge to your arm to knock you from your worrying thoughts and a diverting suggestion to get you away from the situation. "Let's eat, we didn't go through all that shit to waste the food you damn extras!"

"Sweet, then you can tell us the story of how you both met over dinner!" Despite being beaten, Kaminari had newfound interest in your past life as did the rest of the heroes - you couldn't blame them, you were infamous for a reason.

The domino sound of agreement left you snapping to the host in mild panic upon the possibility of having to relinquish such a turbulent memory. You hadn’t even told him he’s the reason you quit killing and he hadn’t dared bring up that kiss you shared in case it meant nothing to you. A seemingly mutual whisper escaped both of your lips.

"Shit."

<——————————<<<<

[ Masterlist ]

[antimony-medusa]

Okay this is 100% discourse, so maybe avert your eyes if you don't want to see me wail at the heavens, but for a fandom so anxious about boundaries, we haven't actually been very good in practice at respecting the actual stated boundaries the streamers put down, and I think it shows what we're actually policing, which is not things to make the streamers comfortable, it's stuff to make us comfortable.

This ranges from inventing new boundaries for people (you can't use neopronouns for ranboo, their pronouns are he/they; there's no boundaries on dark content for streamers so obviously we have to invent and enforce dark sbi rules ourselves) and then harassing people based on those boundaries that we just made up, to ignoring the actual things that the streamers said if we don't agree with them (cc!dream said he was uncomfortable with gore art back during the revolutionary war/exile but he's a villain, right, so we can just do whatever we want with the character, right?) and just doing whatever we want.

This is a recurring problem, with people violently policing boundaries that the fandom has all agreed on, to the point of doxxing and harassment and death threats, and ignoring boundaries that they have decided "don't make sense".

Like here's the example I put in the tags earlier, which is Technoblade related. Everyone knows that family dynamic is great and shipping is a no-go, right? But if you actually go looking for the clips, (or listen to streams in the background recursively while you're doing other things), you'll find that what Technoblade said about shipping was that it was "kinda cringe" (I think the list of things he said was cringe included reading percy jackson books and talking like you're better at video games than you actually are), and he was MUCH stronger in saying that he didn't like family dynamic in canon, saying that he didn't like it, that it was non-canon, and he'd never betray his family like that.

But if you look at the entire "found family" tag on Ao3, 19,860 stories, Technoblade is tagged into 29% of them. That's 5,760 fics just blowing right past what Technoblade said. Boom. Taking that character from his political anarchist setting and setting him right down in a royalty au w. younger siblings.

Because obviously a family dynamic isn't actually going to hurt someone's feelings or make them feel weird, the fandom has agreed, so what he must mean was that saying that family dynamic was actual literal canon is the only bad thing (I have been clotheslined by family dynamic written into stuff tagged as "canon compliant" multiple times as well,) and we can continue with the fun family stuff, right? Because someone saying they don't like family dynamic doesn't make Sense, in the way that I like it, the fandom has agreed, so we can just ignore that clip. Honestly I think that a ton of people have no idea that Technoblade ever said anything negative about family dynamic, because that clip is never brought out or talked about. I literally only know about it because I've watched that stream.

Meanwhile, the much less firmly stated boundary when it comes to shipping is absolutely doubled down on and brought out to justify mobbing people off the internet, because everyone already knows that shipping is bad and terrible and tainted and horrible to do and we don't like it, so even the slightest indication that it's out has to be grabbed and used to police people. So that everyone can be very to sure themselves that what they're doing is not weird, and the streamers are okay with it, and if I showed them my fic they'd say they liked it.

They're not going to give the Ok to your fic, because the fic isn't FOR them, and it shouldn't be. It's for the other weird fans who can't stop thinking about the block men characters, it's not for the actors. The actors have their own lives, leave them alone.

To be clear, I am not saying that we should stop writing family dynamic to respect Technoblade's feelings. Among other things, I don't think he's checking his character tag on Ao3 right now. But like, I've talked before about the way that boundaries culture ends up working in practice, and how constantly bringing problems up to streamers just ends up showing them all the things that are the most weird to the streamer. You only have to look at what most of Benchtrio has done in terms of boundaries, which has been transitioning from very explict boundaries with details on everything to just saying "just use your manners," stopping answering questions, and telling people to actually think about what they're showing the streamer instead of expecting someone to weigh in on it for them.

But even when it comes to the boundaries that we do have, that we know about, the way people enforce them seems to be less about actually respecting what the creators like, and more about making sure we're morally pure and never have to see something that we personally don't like, and we don't happen to have any of that nasty boys kissing content in our work, because we all know that's terrible. (And as someone who's seen crackdowns on LGBTQIA content several times, that certainly has unfortunate overtones.)

As long as it's all kept away from the creators, I really think that fluffy cuddly family dynamic and kissing fic and hardcore whump all falls into the category of "not for the creators, they might find that one weird, but you do you". Like keep it away from the streamers, use your brain, but like, it's all a bit weird and for fun. Let it be weird and for fun in a secluded part of the internet, keep it away from the streamers, tag your shit for people who don't want to see it, and go to town.

So just like, I really think that "creator boundaries" should be more about using your brain as to what you show the streamer, and less about harassing someone off the internet cause they drew kissing art.

[alienatedtsuki]

Best of Modern AU Part IV [Smut Edition]

Hi! I am indeed alive; I've just about finished recommending all the Naruto fanfiction I wanted. I recently started reading danmei (I've already read "Heaven Official's Blessing," "Scum Villain's Self-Saving System," "Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know," and "Mistakenly Saving the Villain"). In this blog, I will recommend fanfics from these fandoms in the future.

This post is about a Modern AU where Naruto and Sasuke are switches (smut of godly quality). Truth be told, this is my favorite dynamic.

Mine by Skyheaven @0skyheaven0

Even the most satisfying of relationships can be tainted by insecurity and jelaousy. The best thing to do is to talk about it. Or just beg him to fuck you in a car. But maybe that's just Naruto's great idea.

Part 4 of a series. Here for the plot? Read the previous. Here for the smut? Come on in! - I already recommended this series in my Kinktober post; it is just logical to recommend this extraordinary continuation as well. In this one, Sasuke tops for the first time but finds he prefers being under Naruto more.. SasuNaru/NaruSasu | First time Topping | Car Sex | Oral Sex | Semi-Public Sex | Public Sex | Switching (12,749)

--------- Next fics are all written by amazing @missoblaine / MissOblaine. I love her style of writing so much; there is just so much power behind her words, I can't even describe it.

It Started in a Closet by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

Series about Naruto and Sasuke finally getting together and it started indeed in a closet. SasuNaru/NaruSasu | Highschool AU (36,170)

1. Deep and Meaningful by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

“Shove over, idiot,” came a smooth baritone and before Naruto could protest that this was his closet and he found it first and there were plenty of other good closets in this massive house, said figure squeezed in opposite him, kicked Naruto's legs aside to make room for his own, dropped an extra bottle of alcohol and dragged the door shut. In the enclosed space of the closet, Naruto was overwhelmed by the scent of fruit and leather. Sasuke Uchiha. He’d recognise that fucking schmancy cologne anywhere.

Naruto and Sasuke find themselves in a closet together hiding from their exes at Ino’s 18th birthday party. It gets real slutty real quick. - Naruto finally has his gay awakening! He realizes how much he appreciates the male body, especially Sasuke's.

SasuNaru | Soft Dom Sasuke - read as - Smitten Sasuke | Closet Sex (only blowjobs) | Gay Awakening | Oral Sex | Facials | Cum Play | Cockslut | Highschool AU (7,213)

2. Down to Fuck by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

“You think Kiba’s already told everyone?” Naruto asked, his breath rushing across Sasuke’s neck, causing him to shiver in a way that Naruto found fucking delightful. Sasuke tch’d. “Let him. I don’t care.” As soon as the door closed behind them, Naruto was on Sasuke, crowding him back against the door and leaning in to capture his lips. “God, you really are cock-drunk, aren’t you?” Sasuke said in that same low voice that went straight to Naruto’s dick.

Somehow, in hiding from their ex-girlfriends in a closet at Ino Yamanaka’s 18th birthday, they’d gone from rivals to ex-rivals, Naruto Uzumaki was now a newly awakened masochistic cockslut, Sasuke Uchiha was a sexy dominant freak and they were now, supposedly, down to fuck.

A follow up to Deep and Meaningful (aka the slutty closet romp). It gets sluttier. -

The author's summary pretty much covers it, but Naruto increasingly wonders why it all feels so natural to him. SasuNaru | Soft Dom Sasuke - read as - Smitten Sasuke | Sub Naruto | Top Sasuke | Bottom Naruto | Sex Toys | Edging | Rough Sex | Mirror Sex | First Time Bottoming | Highschool AU (7,007)

3. Different Strokes by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

Naruto was lying between Sasuke’s legs on the padded floor of the cinema room, watching some Christopher Nolan movie called ‘The Prestige’ on the giant projector screen. Sasuke’s chest was warm against his back, his arms lazily wrapped around Naruto’s waist, and they were surrounded by empty instant noodle packets—the dry kind that you eat like chips. Oh—and also Sasuke had one hand down Naruto’s borrowed plaid pyjama pants, loosely wrapped around his cock, stroking absentmindedly while Naruto tried his best to follow the plot of the non-linear movie. Just an ordinary movie night. Yup.

After their closet blowjobs and hot sex, Naruto and Sasuke have a movie night and switch things up. It's filthy and it's soft and dumbass Naruto realises something he should've realised a long time ago. - Their dynamic evolves into something much more than just sex. It is shown as a natural progression and is pure delight to read. SasuNaru | Powerbottom Sasuke | Top Naruto | Sex Toys | Rimming | Cumeating | Riding | Idiots in Love | Movienight | Highschool AU (9,296)

4. Damn Straight by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

“The carpet is fucking ugly,” Sasuke Uchiha muttered from Naruto Uzumaki’s elbow as soon as they stepped through the grand glass doors of their school formal behind the rest of their group. “Look at it,” Sasuke scoffed derisively, running the toe of his fancy dress shoe along one cream-coloured swirl in the burgundy carpet. “Who the fuck thought this colour scheme was a good idea?” “Of course that’s the first thing you notice about a place like this,” Naruto said with an eye-roll. He went to punch his boyfriend’s shoulder playfully but Sasuke slapped his wrist away and looped his arm through his instead and goddammit—Naruto just about melted into that ugly carpet. “You’re staring, idiot.”

Two months after that fateful night in the closet, Naruto and Sasuke attend their Year 12 Formal. - This is the end of the series, and it's just perfect—also set in a closet, both slutty and lovely. SasuNaru | Soft Dom Sasuke - read as - Smitten Sasuke | Sub Naruto | Top Sasuke | Bottom Naruto | Slutty Naruto | Idiots in Love | Oral Fixation | Oral Sex | Closet Sex | Semi-Public Sex | Sex Toys (12,654)

lavender prose by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

Sasuke is a writer. Naruto is a reader and an artist. - I'm at a loss for words to describe it; it stirred something in me that made me want to sit down and create afterward. It is so HOT, but also, I love every single line of dialogue in both of these fics. It's the power of art behind smut, if I can put it that way. This is NaruSasu only, but we also see the power a sub can hold. NaruSasu | Writer Sasuke | Artist Naruto | College/Uni AU (19,913)

1. turn my pages gently (read me like a paperback) by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

Slowly—too slowly—Naruto traced up and down Sasuke’s knuckles, caressing each finger, skipping across his bones. Sasuke’s fingers twitched—he wanted to grip Naruto’s hand, to pull him closer, to take more, but, as if sensing it, Naruto’s fingers slid up the back of his hand and circled his wrist lightly, holding, commanding—stay—he seemed to say. And Sasuke obeyed. With his other hand, Naruto reached for his Kindle. “It’s just us here,” he said softly. “You said you wanted to read good smut.” He tapped on the screen and pushed it towards Sasuke. “Here. This one’s my favourite.” Sasuke nodded, pulled it closer with his other hand, not wanting to withdraw from Naruto’s touch, when suddenly the blond’s expression changed into something playful yet predatory. “Read it aloud.”

Naruto reads smut in a stylish library. Sasuke is the night shift librarian. The topic of Hysterical Literature and smutty fanfiction comes up and Naruto has a sexy voice and wicked ideas. - NaruSasu | Writer Sasuke | Artist Naruto | Dom Naruto | Sub Sasuke | | Verbal Bondage | Semi-Public Sex | Library Sex | Voice Kink | Praise Kink | Under-desk Blowjobs | College/Uni AU (11,749)

2. cover me in colours (let me be your canvas) by MissOblaine / @missoblaine

In the centre of it all, sitting on one of the paint-stained tables, confidence radiating off him, was Naruto. His dandelion blond hair was tousled in a way that was so gorgeous it almost seemed manufactured, like he’d deliberately styled it to look like a sexy bedhead but Sasuke knew it was genuine because . . . well, it was Naruto. He was genuine to a fault. There were even streaks of red and orange paint on Naruto's cheeks, sideways slashes like coy little whiskers, as if he was a fey or a shapeshifter, come to tempt Sasuke. The wickedness at the edges of his smile didn’t help either, the sharp tilt that whispered, i’ve been dreaming about fucking you. Sasuke wasn’t one for flowery descriptions in his writing. His style, even in poetry, tended towards sparse, but Naruto—and only Naruto—drew Sasuke’s mind to metaphor and the mythic.

Sasuke visits Naruto at the art studio after hours. He’s stressed about his writing and Naruto has a wicked and messy idea on how to take care of him. - NaruSasu | Writer Sasuke | Artist Naruto | Dom Naruto | Sub Sasuke | | Cockwarming | Subspace | Verbal Bondage | Body Paint | Semi-Public Sex | Mirror Sex | College/Uni AU (8,164)

[roykleinberg]

Unpopular Tron opinion: Dyson is waaay less interesting in canon than the fandom makes him out to be. 🤷‍♂️

(I elaborated on this but changed my mind and cut three paragraphs lol)

tron confessional with moss

ohoh see now this is a Hot Take

and one that I don’t necessarily disagree with

I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I have gripes with Uprising, and unfortunately I think a good number of them come down to the fact that it’s an unfinished narrative. I really didn’t feel like the characters started to gel in an interesting way until post-Scars, and then the rug got pulled out from under us. so many plot threads and character development pieces never came to fruition — and I think that can definitely be felt with Dyson. it’s natural for any fandom to expand on characters well past their canon, especially in situations where things were cut and opportunities for canonical development were lost. I clearly have side character brainrot so I can’t really judge lol

but regarding Dyson specifically. hmm. yeahhhh. he seemed relatively one note in the show to me, honestly more so than Clu even — and there’s a sidebar discussion to be had there, because my tangential unpopular opinion is that I think Uprising took away from Clu as a character by having so many secondary villains. I liked the Argon antagonist trio a lot, but Dyson’s presence specifically removed some of the personal edge that made Clu’s whole deal interesting to me in the first place. by having Dyson be Tron’s bestie that turned on him and tortured him while Clu was kinda just. there. it squashed a lot of the tension between Tron and Clu, because I always felt like Tron’s repurposing was another deeply personal middle finger at Flynn — and foisting that process (or at least the start of it) off on Dyson just didn’t hit the same for me

and other than that there’s just never been anything super compelling about Dyson to me personally. or at least there’s nothing particularly unique about him? Cyrus also turned on Tron and whatever was wrong with him was way more interesting. Paige was a willing Occupation participant based on anti-ISO lies and was again more interesting to me. Dyson apparently just has a massive shift to fantasy racism after a single incident, and then proceeds to become an evil cop about it — without any of the nuance that Paige had

one other additional point that ties into this a bit but also my general why does everyone hate Flynn sentiments — it drives me up a wall that no one acknowledges that one of Flynn’s biggest dickhead moments, when he brushes Dyson off after the riot, comes entirely from a flashback from Dyson’s perspective. and based on his feelings and present day loyalties I don’t think we have any reason to believe he’s a reliable narrator, or that his memory of that interaction isn’t tainted by super obvious biases. Flynn clearly wasn’t perfect, but I’ve always side eyed that scene for being a little ooc based on who was recounting it

but like I said, I do wonder if a second season would’ve added more to Dyson, and I don’t suppose we’ll ever know :’) also please come back with your paragraphs I would always love to hear More Thoughts

[twilight-deviant]

Do you have any fiskmatt headcanon?

Thank you for asking. ♥ I guess my answer is... kinda?

It's difficult to say because anytime I think of a FiskMatt scenario for fics, or art, or just for fun, the conditions will always be a little different. How I think they'd behave in one universe can differ wildly from how I think they'd behave in another.

Maybe I can still answer by breaking it up into a few categories.

By the way, if any other FiskMatt shippers out there [insert Arrested Development "There are dozens of us" gif] wanna share some headcanons, I'm all ears. 👂

Realistic Relationship

Maybe I should start with a disclaimer that, despite the name of this category, there is no "realistic relationship." And despite fandom wishes and my own shipping behavior, I do believe that canon Matt Murdock is straight as an arrow. (Waiting for any evidence to the contrary.) Fisk less so, but women are still his preference to the point I have some difficulty imagining him with another man. So aside from the fact they hate each other, I don't think they ever would "realistically" be together. Gonna ship em anyway.

I think my primary headcanon for a universe where Fisk and Matt ever get together is... it's temporary. There's so much UST between these two characters that wild impulse could, ya know, maybe lead to aggressive makeouts. Like any villain/hero ship, the forbidden nature of it would excite them both into exploring something they know they shouldn't. That's the appeal. But they are both too stubborn to give an inch in any other aspect of their lives, and the incompatibility of those lives would inevitably lead to them breaking it off. Maybe amicably, probably violently. Unfortunately, they have to live with the memories.

The inherent secrecy of a clandestine relationship is also intriguing. Matt would rather die than tell Foggy or Karen he is dating/not-dating Wilson Fisk. Besides, it's just a temporary lapse in sanity. It wouldn't be worth the fallout with friends when he's probably ending things next week. Depending how long they're together though, Matt could become complacent over time, sloppy. Maybe he takes a call from Fisk without thinking about the fact Foggy's in the room. Maybe he accepts a ride home in Fisk's car because it's raining, but Karen happens to see him. So on...

On Fisk's side of things (regarding above), I don't think he'd have a problem telling Wesley eventually. Wesley doesn't trust it/Matt/Daredevil though. The relationship doesn't exactly get his blessing, but he supports Fisk having something he wants. He does increase surveillance and checks on Matt Murdock, waiting for something incriminating. But Wesley is the only person in Fisk's life who can know. He has too many enemies to let any of them think there's a weakness to exploit. (Side note: How good would it be if someone did try to threaten him with Matt's safety, and Fisk makes the decision that his business matters more? Eh, hopefully Matt will get himself out of the situation. They're definitely broken up now though.) But between Matt's friends and Fisk's enemies, they are more than content to keep the whole thing on the down low.

So long as Fisk doesn't know Matt is Daredevil, he admires, respects, and maybe even crushes on him. And that's basically canon imo. In the series, even after Matt put him in jail, Fisk still liked him and had no plans for revenge. (Not until Matt threatened Vanessa. Dummy.) Because he respected the idea that Matt acted with honest integrity, not antagonistic retribution, only doing what he thought was right. I love thinking about Fisk's opinion of Matt sans the alter-ego reveal.

Going along with above, a Daredevil-oblivious Fisk could be interested in dating Matt-- if hesitant that his life might taint Matt's perceived purity. And given the reputable, philanthropic public profile he has, he doesn't understand why Matt turns him down. And it is a heavy emotional blow. He also still has feelings™.

To give Matt a little angst, maybe in his weaker moments he acknowledges the tragedy of Wilson Fisk. Here is a man that can truly understand him like no other. No one loves the city like them, to obsession and possessiveness. They can agree on just as many things as they disagree on. There is compatibility in areas that matter. But the lives that led them to feel the same about these things took them to different conclusions on how to fix them. And that's the tragedy, the fact Matt does understand Fisk. He just hates what he does.

Again this is basically canon, but I love the idea of them obsessing over each other so much that it ruins their other relationships and lives as a whole. (In the comics, Vanessa resented their all-consuming rivalry so much, she tried having them killed. And Fisk's fallout from the Born Again arc is he's so obsessed with Matt he doesn't realize he's lost everything until he does. Likewise in instances like S3, Matt wants to burn all his relationships to be Daredevil and fight Fisk, only really coming around when he acknowledges he needs help doing that.)

In Love Established Relationship

(Basically lovers in it for the long-haul. Married?)

It is mildly difficult to determine what arrangement they decided on to be together, regarding their moral disparity. I will change it by varying degrees based on what works best for individual plots. At the very least, Fisk has to dial back the depths of his villainy. No killing of innocents, etc. In this situation, they have an understood rule that Matt won't ask for any details and Fisk won't tell. It is not a very stable agreement and comes with the risk that Matt will eventually resent him no matter what. But in other situations, if Matt has him especially wrapped around his finger, Fisk is forced to shutter his enterprise entirely.

And on the flip-side of above, Fisk does not like seeing Matt kill himself. He worries. He knows one day he will find Matt dead-- not if but when. So in another ultimatum tier... If Fisk is forced to not hurt innocents, Matt is forced to not taking unnecessarily stupid risks. If a situation is too dangerous for one man, call for backup: police, another vigilante, or maybe Fisk's own henchmen. And then the final tier being that Matt is forced to retire Daredevil for good. Just like Fisk quitting crime, it is not an easy decision.

I like they both have very humble roots in Hell's Kitchen. (With Fisk's family being even more impoverished growing up. RIP Benjamin Franklin the mouse.) But after his rise to the top, we see that Fisk indulges in the finer things as a display of wealth and probably just because he can. And while Matt is better off than he was as a child, he still lives a fairly simple life. What I'm saying is I enjoy the occasional image of him, say, combating fancy restaurants with dragging Fisk to a hotdog cart instead. It's the sort of thing the man left behind a lifetime ago, but there is something charming about Matt reminding him of simpler things from simpler times. Get humbled, Wilson.

One thing I think is fun is that, per series canon, Fisk sleeps on the right side of the bed and Matt sleeps on the left. They're already compatible. Cool. But how come whenever I picture it in my mind, the positions are reversed? lol.

They both have insomnia because their minds won't stop thinking at night. They still try to go to sleep. Fisk thinks so loud (increased heart rate and breathing), however, Matt tells him to shut up.

In the series, Fisk routinely wakes up before dawn, and Matt's alarm is set for 7am. So either Matt (light sleeper) becomes an earlier riser, or Fisk has to stay in bed an extra hour or so. He still has to shut up.

Given Fisk's interest in Chinese and Japanese culture, I like to imagine small touches in a domestic life. Matt starts drinking more tea instead of coffee, for instance. And then maybe I'm seeing it wrong or maybe it is a little nod to his Asian influence, but the fabric, length, and cut of the robe Fisk wears in the series looks more like a Japanese yukata than something explicitly western. Anyway, I like to imagine he gets one for Matt too.

Whenever they did finally move in together (took a long time), Matt had difficulty letting go of his apartment. He continued paying the rent for a long time. Because it was impossible to believe a relationship with Wilson Fisk would really last, and he wanted to have a home to return to after the inevitable. He threw money away keeping his name on the lease for several months. And optional, maybe the only thing that finally convinced him to let go was the suggestion Fisk give up his place too and they get a new one together.

Kid/Pregnancy Relationship

(Maybe good, maybe bad, they share a kid.)

Mpreg/kidfic scenario: I prefer them having a son together. (Also probably the greater odd since both of Fisk's biological children are male, and Matt's child in the 50-year anniversary comic was also a boy.) They both have such tremendous daddy issues, I find it more poignant that they prove they can be a good father to a son. (I'm not saying Jack was a bad father; he was good as could be for his situation, but sometimes being there is just as important.) Fisk is lowkey afraid he'll be cruel or cold to his son without meaning to. It can be difficult to break that cycle of abuse, especially without a good role model.

More mpreg headcanon. This time mommy issues edition. I like whump, so the idea of Matt suffering from PPD (post-partum depression) the same way his mother did with him (or even just fearing that he will) is good stuff. But the big catch about Matt bottling up what he's feeling is that Fisk can't tell if it's PPD or just Matt's normal, emotionally-stunted behavior.

Um, this is sort of the basis for one crack-treated-seriously wip fic I have. Taking the "Catholics multiply like rabbits" stereotype but then combining it with the fact that Fisk and Matt are both only children. (Ignoring the existence of Mike.) And given that they both had a difficult and lonely childhood (being bullied, neither making a real friend until adulthood) it's reasonable to say they each may have wanted a sibling growing up. Now that they have a family of their own, they want that for their child. And considering Fisk has more than enough money to provide and buy a large apartment, they can have as many children as they want. (In the referenced fic, they are on #10, but again, this is crack treated seriously. You might think it's ridiculous, but I swear I make it work. But it is still basically crack. Also, btw, their two twin boys got the devil in em.)

Darker mpreg headcanon: Matt's reaction when they're not in a happy relationship. It is, in fact, the result of a lapse in good judgment on Matt's part. But he's pregnant, and to spare himself and future child, he wants to keep Fisk from finding out by any means. That can mean dropping out of the public eye and Fisk's radar, or leaving New York entirely. Obviously, Fisk is going to find out eventually. And maybe he's understanding of Matt's concern. Maybe not. (I have multiple wips with this theme that are... a gamut of outcomes.)

The End?

I'm sure I have lots of other headcanons I just can't think of right now. And honestly, this post is already kind of long. But if you want to be more specific, I'm sure I probably have an opinion of how they'd behave in most situations. o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

And again, if people have FiskMatt headcanons, lemme hear them. Send me anon asks if you gotta.

[moonlightdancer26]

I wish Snaters were sending at least half of the hatred they send towards Sev towards Peter/Wormtail instead. You know, the guy who had actually joined Death Eaters with full knowledge on how much bad they are (unlike Sev, who may have been unaware on the full extent of Voldemort's cruelty before he was already tainted with the Dark Mark). The guy who backstabbed people who would have died for him, in cold blood.

I think that has a lot to do with the fact that pretty much the whole fandom accepts that he’s an awful person. The thing about Severus is that he actually redeemed himself in canon, and people are unable to look past his bullying and joining the DEs, he isn’t just some one-dimensional villain whose evilness they simply “tolerate.” He actually tried to do better in canon, that’s why there are so many debates as to whether or not he’s a good person. If he had stayed with the DEs, they wouldn’t feel the need to bring up any of his sins, because it’s already accepted. He would be another one of those characters that we know is evil, we would just be like “oh yeah lol there’s Snape, psycho murderer who follows Voldemort, pretty funny dude ngl” rather than “HEY THAT’S SNAPE WHO BECAME A DEATH EATER BUT DEFECTED BECAUSE OF A LOVED ONE BEING THREATENED AND HE JOINED THE LIGHT SIDE AND CONTINUED TO FOLLOW DUMBLEDORE FOR THE NEXT 17 YEARS. HOWEVER WHEN HARRY BEGINS ATTENDING HOGWARTS SNAPE RUTHLESSLY BULLIES HIM WHICH WOULD MAKE YOU QUESTION HIS MORALITY, BUT THE TRUTH IS SNAPE WAS SO TRIGGERED BY HARRY BECAUSE HE LOOKED LIKE THE-”

Peter pretty much did nothing good in canon (besides saving Harry in the end, which led to his death), so he isn’t “human” enough for us to genuinely think “hey, he might not be so bad.” Severus, on the other hand, is a raw, human character who did both good and bad things. He’s hyper-realistic, and that bothers a lot of people. It’s the same with Dumbledore, actually. He, too, has done both good and bad things, and since they were both considered heroes by Harry the fandom got angry. Which is why you’ll tend to see more hate towards them than most of the HP characters.

Also, the universal hatred of Peter is so extreme to the point where I’m not even bothered when I see people hating on him, because it’s like “yeah.. he’s obvs a horrible person.. anyway stan him for killing Pottah 😍”

[acourtofthought]

Cauldron is corrupting!

I think it's funny because no one really knows how partners are chosen. We only have what Rhys says and some things about the Cauldron that was used for evil by villains who just want to destroy it. Rhys himself points out that I don't think he knows everything about it from a book.

And in addition to staying in this speech he ends up making it seem like the woman cannot reject and she has this Choice of rejet then create a theory that is so unnecessary to justify sending it and the end of the game. To be honest, if the Cauldron chose companions I don't believe in, the bond would be impossible to refuse because it would also be a corrupt bond. Ixi has already fed another fanfic with this thought.

And being completely negative, I think it's very unrealistic in a world where there are several couples of happy Partners, the Corropimdo Cauldron because they made the mistake of only ONE COUPLE.

For me, the choices the couple makes are the right ones, if the Male chooses to be bad then it will never work out.

And besides why that couple is wrong, what is the basis for saying that Elucien was wrong and won't work? I still think they have everything to be happy.

This entire argument is so nonsensical it would be funny if it weren't so frustrating that they honestly seem to believe it. First off, the Cauldron, when held in female hands (mentioned in ACOWAR), all life flows from it. And the first person who is told to have used the Cauldron? The Mother. And who have many of the characters mentioned as the one who decided bonds? The Mother / Urd / Fate. Mating bonds are predetermined. Fact when you take into consideration that Maeve knew who Rowan's mate would be before her birth. The Cauldron alone does not seem to "decide" this when you take into consideration that there are fae living in Midgard with mating bonds, who do not live in a world with the Cauldron. Yes, the Cauldron was used for evil by the Daglan. By the King of Hybern. But when it wasn't being used by evi people, it just sat there. At one point Miryam and Drakon used it in order to turn her fae but nothing went wrong because it was being used by good people. So where is anyone in seriousness coming up with the idea that just because once upon a time some bad creatures used it for evil, that evil has carried on thousands and thousands of years later? But not for any of the other bonds given to our favorites. Not Elide or Lorcan, not Aelin or Rowan, not Rhys or Feyre, not Nesta or Cassian, not the hinted bond of Helion and the LoA, not the mating bond between Bryce and Hunt, not the mating bond between Danika and Baxion. Not even when Nesta or Elain were made especially when you consider the Cauldron loved Elain and honored her with gifts (not something an evil corrupt Cauldron would do, right?). Oh no. No, the evil has only decided to finally reveal itself for the ELUCIEN BOND!!!!! Because SJM clearly needed a believable reason to dissolve their bond.....after personally deciding to make them mates.....a reason outside of the fact that ELAIN CAN CHOOSE TO REJECT THE BOND. It's actually bat-shit crazy that anyone thinks SJM, when writing the final book in another characters trilogy, decided to casually insert that the Cauldron has been forever tainted just so she can prove another characters mating bond is not legit. Characters who didn't even show up in the crossover. I LOVE Elain but it's theories like this that make me understand why half the fandom hates her character when some create the most convoluted storylines for her, making her "real" mating bond with Az the most important plot to ever happen to the ACOTAR series. Like. Ever.

[oodlyenough]

Maybe it's tad early since you're still in the 5th game but whats your opinion with the new characters for the 2nd triology?

HMM. I'm going to assume you just mean the major ones and not the one-off victim/defendant types.

Honestly I think my overall impression so far (mid-AA5) is that they're varying degrees of interesting but underbaked. Some of this I expect to change as I finish 5 and 6, and some I expect... won't.

This got really long so here's a cut. Spoilers for AA4 and a bit of 5.

Trucy

I like Trucy a lot, probably my favourite of the lot, although in no small part because she's so tied to Phoenix, whom I am still more invested in than any of these other people lol. They hinted at Trucy having more complicated feelings under her very cheery, performative persona -- Phoenix comments he's the only one who knows how she "really" feels -- but it doesn't seem like we the player are ever going to get to know more about that, so :P.

It's weird that she's basically dropped into a cameo role in AA5 and been more-or-less replaced by Athena -- like -- objectively that's just a jarring transition. But for Trucy lmao I guess she's probably having a better time now, going to school and doing magic and not having to partake in case stuff anymore.

Klavier

I love Klavier, in that I am always having a good time when he's around, I find him hilarious. But as a character I think he's really underwritten. They haven't really spent any time giving him much in the way of motivation or depth or emotional response to any of the insane things that happen to him, he's just there to flirt and have a laugh. Like Trucy, he's pretty personally involved in all the events in AA4 but you'd never know it bc he very rarely reacts to them. I don't understand why the conclusion of 4 was that he quits music instead of law. He loves music. Aside from "horny", music is his entire personality. We aren't given a reason he's passionate about or interested in law nor does it seem to be tainted by Kristoph at all even though rationally it should be. So that's just... weird imo.

But I like him, he's prob my fave prosecutor after Franziska and Edgeworth. He's the kind of character I can see fandom having a lot of fun elaborating on. In AA5 he comes across like a depressed burnout, and I like that even though I think it was totally unintentional from Capcom lol. It's like when you see a celeb on tv and think "huh are they ok?" and then six months later you hear they've checked into rehab. Hang in there buddy.

Apollo

Apollo is very likable but so far has not much going on in the way of character. In AA4 I thought he felt more like Phoenix's courtroom avatar than a participant in the story, because even when he is personally implicated like with Kristoph or Thalassa, he either doesn't know or doesn't react. (Are you seeing a pattern...? lol) Unlike Trucy and Klavier, I believe Apollo will actually get more material in DD and SOJ, for better or worse, so we'll see how that changes things. I like him, but don't currently feel invested in him. If they had started DD with just Athena and Phoenix I'm not honestly sure I'd be upset about it. Sorry, Apollo.

Ema

Ema's not a "new" character although adult Ema feels pretty different to kid Ema, in a good way. Kid Ema was fun but forgettable to me -- adult Ema fucking rules lmao my favourite detective for sure, I wish we got to keep her. Cranky and competent and disillusioned. I loved her.

Kristoph

Kristoph was fun but overhyped by fandom imo. I liked him and his weird gay frienemyship with Phoenix, and in the pantheon of AA villains I see why he's pretty memorable, the 7 year gap is very rich material. But his motivations were silly and I anticipated so many better ones that didn't materialize at all lmao. I thought he was going to be some criminal mastermind building his defense empire on falsified evidence ... he just did it once and then panicked for 7 years?? Kristoph wants what Dahlia Hawthorne has.

Athena

Athena still feels like I've only just met her, so I don't have a solid opinion. I like her though. There are not enough women practicing law in this stupid franchise so I was predisoposed to like her, and I like her overzealous energy and stuff. I don't love mood matrix as a minigame, and I don't know what her tragic backstory is yet btu I know one exists, so the jury's out on that. I wish DD would just let me play her more often.

Blackquill

Blackquill is doing nothing for me lmao which, tbh, is what I expected. I find him tedious and his design is ludicrous to me I hate it lfhadhflkhfl he looks like he belongs in a different franchise. I know he's a fan fave and he's going to have some big sad backstory too, so maybe he'll win me over, but right now he's a big eye roll. I think his prison gimmick would at least be more fun if every time he cited his friends from jail they were easter eggs from previous culprits or something. Feels like a missed opportunity for gags.

Fulbright

Fulbright is... fine. Probably my least fave detective. He gets a laugh out of me once in a while. Maybe my opinion will improve as the game goes on since I fucking hated 5-2 and it's all I've really seen him in so far lol.

Misc

I think that's all the big characters I've met so far? For the one-offs, I liked Valant a lot he cracked me up. Zak was nasty and I'm not entirely sure if the game realized it or not. Thalassa continued the noble Ace Attorney tradition of hands-off motherhood. I don't have much to say about Junie as a character but I do love Athena's unfortunately-one-sided gay pining.

[sofoulandfairaday]

I really enjoy your posts about Bellamort alongside your interest in Bella/Rod. Voldy seems aromantic to me and I like the idea of how much their attraction is highlighted even if both characters are fucked up.

I was wondering what your thoughts are about love re: Bellamort. I think it's love but it's just tainted? I don't think I have a good enough grasp on Voldy to say how they got together and what the relationship meant.

Ah, anon, isn't this the million-dollar question? (And one to which I have no answer)

The thing about these two is that we will never have a definitive answer because, unfortunately, the HP book series isn't about them. Their relationship is something that we see glimpses of, from Harry's POV, and that is really only explored for Bellatrix's character, (almost) never for Voldemort. We see his actions towards her, but never his thoughts on her, not even during Harry's incursions in Vold's head (and I personally think we were robbed, but I digress...)

I'll try and keep this answer brief - not because I don't wish to answer, but because there would be simply too much to say and most of it is speculation. Also, my idea of these characters is ever-evolving, so it might not even be definitive. I have made several smaller posts regarding aspects of their relationship (and even those were long), so if you want you can also check out those.

Was Bellatrix in love with him? Yes. There is no other answer but yes. Now, one can spend hours online arguing with this HP fan or that one - "was it love love or obsessive love?" Doesn't matter. She loved him. She was the high priestess of his religion, his most faithful lieutenant, his most formidable warrior, the only one who would have stuck by his side when the world was burning, no matter what. Now, amongst Bellamort fans we can try to analyse whether this love was pure or tainted. It certainly was selfless. But it was also a love born of darkness, a love that corrupts, that pushed her to do monstrous things. It corroded her and sustained her at the same time. It must have hurt her, too. She obviously thought he was worth it, and she wasn't an idiot, no matter how the fandom paints her. So make of that what you will.

Was Voldemort in love with her? Errrrrr... Whatever "in love" means, I guess. First of all, one has to remember that Lord Voldemort was originally the villain of a 77K children's novel about an 11-year-old boy wizard. Of course, Deathly Hallows is vastly different in terms of tone, style, and maturity, and is essentially Young Adult... and yet, it doesn't have the time or the space to do Vold justice as a character. I can understand why. They say actions speak louder than words, so let's list them: he saves her (and is discovered by the whole Ministry in the process) at the end of OotP; he never punishes her violently, even when she fails; he entrusts her with a Horcrux; he tells her his secrets (and even Snape admits this) up until the fiasco at the Ministry; he talks about saving "the Lestranges" from Azkaban at the end of GoF, not a word is spared for any of his other DE; he screams when she dies. If CC is to be believed (I don't like it), he made a baby with her. She talks to him "as if to a lover". She definitely meant something to him, that is beyond dispute. Now, what that something was, I can't say with certainty.

My personal interpretation is that it wasn't unrequited, that he came to realize that, at the very least, he needed her. He was sexually attracted to her. He confided in her. He taught her the Dark Arts. I think that whatever part of his broken, mangled, soul could love, loved her. Was it pure? Nah. Was it selfless? Nope. Was it enough? I like to think so. I like to think that he loved her unknowingly, that he fought it tooth and nail every single step of the way, that he made up excuses:

It's not love, it's devotion/adoration

It's not faith, it's loyalty

It's need, it's an alliance between dark wizards

It's lust, not love

Whatever. Whether he loved her because he wanted to be loved (adored), or for any other reason, I like to think that it was enough.

I also like to think that he realized it the second he saw her fall. That he pushed it from his mind, hated her for dying, while talking to Potter. That when talking about Snape agreeing there "purer, more worthy" women, she flashed before his eyes. I also know he denied it until the very end because that is who his character is.

But maybe. Just maybe. Harry Potter is not the only person who is offered a chance to stay inside Limbo or move on. Maybe Bellatrix met her equivalent of Albus Dumbledore too, as soon as she struck the floor of the Great Hall. Maybe there was a baby there, alone and crying, broken and almost flayed, but still alive. Maybe, winning her inevitable disgust, she picked him up. Maybe, he stopped crying. [in lighter words, Rodolphus is my baby and imagining them all in a fluffy (and smutty) setting brings me comfort]

[draiochteve]

a vent

I need people to start fucking grasping that you can't always take people's word. That someone being popular or publicly liked isn't the same as them being a good person. That some people will weaponize important concepts, issues, and identity as something to beat others and shield themselves. I need people to be more critical about large claims and sweeping statements. I need people to understand they likely do not know the whole story. That they may be being spoonfed a very specific narrative with the goal of personal vendettas. I need people to pay closer attention to language used and how it's being used. Are buzzwords being tossed around? Are identities being erased to paint a differing picture? No one learned shit from Emily. And that's a lot of what I'm seeing. I wish I spoke up more sooner. The cultish obsession with this one person. The insistence they cared. This fixation on their POV. I will not say there isn't value, ofc there is, but the problem lies with the extreme elevation of importance at the suffering of others. The silencing of discomfort and concerning things shared in this persistence of "he is a supporter of us all" I thought I was the problem. Vibes didn't match and my gut feeling just some paranoia or misunderstanding. A mismatch even. But here I am with hurt friends, people betrayed, and exhaustion knowing I was right at least to some extent. I can speak for other claims, but I can say something isn't setting right and a lot seems too convenient. If that makes me a villain, so be it. My roots have long since lost the will to care. If it get screenshot, sure, whatever. I'm just a dumbass typing on my computer. Truly, I don't matter. I've said it before, but I'm at a limit. I've been thinking hard about what staying in this fandom means for me. The comments I have seen defending this person have crossed lines just as much as the threats to them has crossed lines. The plot? Lost. The impact? Downplayed. For years I didn't know why I felt so pushed out and isolated, who was spinning these incredibly uncomfortable and questionable commentary. I am in full belief they were emboldened all the same whether people want to admit it or not. I made this username my everything. I had full intent originally if I hopped somewhere else, this name would follow. I am saddened to say that has not and will not be the case as I have settled. I have become firm in my shedding to start anew with new eyes and a deep breath.

My tether to here is fraying more and more by the day. And I'm fucking devastated recalling what got me here. I keep thinking of my friends, my hopes, my aspirations, all I planned to do after I moved and got myself situated. Unfortunately, everything has become more tainted and more painful to try to be by. There's so much more important shit going on in the world. And I refuse to succumb to someone living out infighting, self destructive and superiority complex dreams in fucking fandom.

[electricprincess96]

I've been known to let fandom ruin some things for me before. BG3 and Ast*rion was 100% tainted to me by some very loud fans same with Leon from Resident Evil. Same with You Know Boo honestly.

BUT to the shitty ass Jason Todd fans out there, you will have to take him from my cold dead hands after you've beat me to death with a crowbar. I will continue to love this character even when the writers and his own fans are trash.

Like I support having different interpretations of characters. Which is why the Jason fans that want him to be a villain, while I VERY much disagree, are 100% allowed to think that way and they can go read Dick Greysons Batman run if they want villainous Jason.

However when some Jason fans take everything he says about Bruce when he's first resurrected as if its stone cold fact and assume Bruce is an awful parent (don't bring up Gotham War it was a shit run and that's not my Batman) when I stand by my analysis that Jason's whole deal with Bruce and any potential redemption and reconciliation between them is a thousand times more interesting if you acknowledge that Bruce is a flawed but overall good parent who is trying so very hard under very difficult conditions to be a good father to his sons.

This does not make me "not a comic book fan" since I'm sure I'll have read more classic comics than the people saying this and classic comics are still comics. Just cause modern writers are hung up on the "drama" of Jason and Bruce constantly at each others throats doesn't mean that's the only comic book interpretation of who Bruce is as a parent.

I will die on the hill Bruce is not a horrible person, not a horrible father and not the reason for all of Gotham's ills and if I have to fight fellow Jason Todd fans to do that I will.

Also I'm not saying most Jason fans are like this, there's just a loud minority that have been annoying me recently.

[elfelt-valentine]

2, 12, 22, 24, 25 for getaway?

Oh thank GOD

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I know i bitch about his treatment in canon a lot but i actually adore the entire point of his character as a foil for Rodimus, as a parallel of Megatron, as a manifestation of everything wrong with Autobot MTOs, as a hero who made himself a villain in pursuit of being The hero, he's literally a perfect trainwreck of a character I adore so so dearly.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Funnily enough I don't think enough of him to the point of having meaningful headcanons lmao. He wears a mask cuz he can't help himself from biting people <- oral fixation

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

Ohhh there's not much (good) Getaway fic I've read, but I did read some good stuff that put a standard for me: I love when people try to look into his thought process and make him doubt, question and hesitate while going for the loops of his deep seated self loathing and superiority complex. I love when he's as charming as he's in canon but you know he's not alright and falling for his charm is dangerous.

What i despise in fic is complete disregard of literally everything stated above and writing him for sake of dunking on him, or ignoring the part where he hates himself to the core and his actions but he's too far gone now. Don't do that man.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

Oh hrm. That's kind of tricky.... I know there are, cuz I've talked abt it before, but i can't think of anything rn 😭 Maybe later if i remember

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

What sucks is that a lot of my first impressions are tainted by the way fandom treats these characters and ridicules people for liking them, so I kinda. I mean I did like him, i just didn't think of him much until i. Sighs. Until i saw Lawrence's Getarod art. It was jover for me. I don't have to explain to you what I think of Getaway now 😭

[newvegascowboy]

joshua graham is like... a litmus of liking falloutmen. like you have your vulpes stans, but he's a weird little freak and he has a funny voice and a funny dog hat, so all his stans are obviously weird little freaks too. Your average tumblr legionposter just thinks they're funny little dudes in skirts. memeable. tolerable.

the mistake they made with joshua graham was giving him a sexy voice and a fat ass because all it did was make people horny for him. look at him - you made people get boners over the colonizer. and now you've got a whole BUNCH of people who don't want to admit they think he's sexy because he's 1. like 54 years old and 2. an evil, awful, irredeemable rat of a human being.

from a narrative standpoint, joshua graham is a good character. he's interesting and i can SEE why he's compelling. the problem therein is that people see a compelling character and think "oh he must be good because i like him" because god fucking forbid you like a villain. so you get the jg stans who have to bend over BACKWARDS trying to defend him and his actions, in fact admitting that he does horrible things without actually acknowledging it.

[sixstepsaway]

Why do people keep calling Izzy a manipulator? He's not cunningly manipulating Ed; he just tells Ed what he thinks and feels bluntly, sometimes to the point of yelling.

Sending Calico Jack was pretty cunning, but otherwise? Tbh I wonder if it is kind of an attempt to absolve Ed of certain responsibilities? Like, apparently Izzy didn't tell Ed he should have let the English kill him because he was angry and disgusted and disappointed in Ed's behavior. All his words were cunningly and carefully chosen to get Ed to do what he wanted, ie go full Kraken. Grumblegrumblecomplaingrummble. (Also, congrats on the ADHD meds working out!)

This might get a little fandom discoursey so bear with me but if y'all haven't worked out I'm a little fandom discoursey by now idk where you've been.

There's come a trend in fandom over the past decade or so where one ship is declared the "good" ship. It's the pure, good, soft ship, where the characters who make up that ship are good and pure and soft uwu babies who never have done anything wrong in their lives. And on the flip side there is a "bad" other character who is often shipped with one (or both) of those soft babie uwu characters and that Bad character is villainized and made out to be The Worst. It usually starts with a character being accused of being a meanie/rude/a dick, then it amps up into abusive, then from there when fandom doesn't disavow the ship, it becomes an incestuous or pedophilic ship.

But the core of it remains the same: the two in the ship are pure and good, the one on the outside is bad and evil, so why would you ship those characters when the uwu pure babies are right there?????

(I have a theory that a good chunk of this particular rhetoric comes from a combination of radfem and toxic leftist fields where one mistake once in your life (in radfem circles this can mean anything from being male (or seen as male) to having liked/supported a man once) means you are unforgivably and unendingly tainted, you can never recover nor improve from that mistake. I personally think this treatment of people is terrible, no matter how bad their sin might be (from "liked a bad character" up to "committed a real life crime") because if you declare someone a write off, they have no reason to ever try to be better, and that continues the perpetual cycle of pain and suffering endlessly. If you tell someone who hurts other people they can never change, even if they want to, and they thusly do not try, people continue getting hurt.

But; it trickled down into the fandom = activism circles, where what you ship shows what you believe in real life. You think that gay ship is not great? Homophobic. You prefer a ship with two white people over a ship that includes a black person because the former has Spice and the latter is more bland and healthy? Racist. Etc etc. Your fictional preferences show who you are in real life, according to these ideals.)

To come back around to Ed and Izzy though: Blackbonnet is the Designated Soft Uwu Ship, which makes Izzy the abusive interloper. The way some people talk about Ed and Stede, you'd think they were watching a totally different show lmao

I saw a conversation on Twitter that was like, "Let's not start romanticizing the real Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard! They were bad people, they were murderers and rapists and slave owners. They're completely different from these characters!" And while, yes, I can see that point (although I would argue that Blackbeard has been endlessly romanticized for decades, much like we all romanticize being a pirate in general. I honestly forgot he was a real person until recently), and do appreciate that our Stede and Ed are not rapists* and are not slave owners or traders, I feel like the argument of, "The real Stede and Ed were bad," has the underlying, incorrect, argument that our Stede and Ed are, in fact, not bad.

The thing is, Stede and Ed are not bad, no, but they're not good either, and honestly they are down the darker end of the morally grey spectrum (further, I would argue, than Izzy Hands himself). Stede sets fire to the party boat and is smug about it, Ed's list of crimes is very long and not just in an official Crimes Against The Crown capacity but in a real way: he's maiming people as recently as Stede says in episode six that he has seen Edward maim people.

But Stede and Ed are framed as protagonists. They're morally grey, deeply impure protagonists, but they are our protagonists. We root for them. When Stede and Ed sail away and leave a boat full of rich people to burn to death in the middle of the ocean, we root for them. When Stede runs away to become a (pillaging, looting, murdering, maiming) pirate, we root for him and even hope to see him achieve those things in the future.

The show aired and then fandom does what fandom (unfortunately) does best: while one half of it dissected all the canon and tried to interpret and make sense of the characters from what they say and what actions they take or don't take on screen, the other half distilled everything down to: Izzy Bad, Stede and Ed Good.

(In fact, I received these tags on one of my metas earlier and it's very true: #OP YOU GET IT#ofmd#it is always so confusing to see posts where its like omg other ppl actually watched this show and had like#thoughts based off of canonical moments that uses the characters actions and dialogue as a means of analysis#instead of just vibing off of 'i dont like this chara so everything he does is bad')

But the thing is, Stede and Ed do some shitty things, and to specifically talk of Ed in relation to this ask, Ed does some horrible shit in the finale. He's stated to have done a lot of bad things before the show starts, and then he shows those bad things in the finale: he leaves six people to die on a tiny spit of an island (and surely tells Izzy how to trap them there via fake talent show, though this is conjecture), yeets Lucius off into the ocean to die (so that's seven), and cuts off Izzy's toe in a brutal and horribly framed moment that would make him downright irredeemable in many shows and to most of the "pure uwu ships for me only" people out there, and now, in fandom, to a lot of people, you can only like ships or characters that align with your morality.

(I saw an anon earlier (I don't recall where, apologies) say they hate Izzy because they can only relate to characters whose actions they morally agree with, and honestly that made me do a double take because uh, anon that sent that particular message, are you going to be cutting off toes and burning people alive, bud? Can you let me know so I can keep out of your way, champ?)

So, what's a "my shipping preferences are pure uwu and healthy" person to do?

Blame it on the Bad Guy.

Which brings us, yet again, back to this ask: Izzy is manipulative because Izzy has always been in Ed's life, and thusly all of the bad things Ed has ever done can be written off as Izzy's influence.

The black and white thinking means that anyone who shouts or makes another character scared or flinch is Bad, and Izzy shouts and is rude a lot. There's no nuance, there is no value beneath the surface. When Izzy yells he's being abusive. When Izzy yells at Edward he's being racist. When Izzy gets angry and lashes out, he's being, again, abusive.

When Izzy goes, "Ohhh, daddy," he's mocking gay men, not getting lost in his own attempt to be annoyed by their softness with each other and accidentally revealing too much of himself.

(And, honestly, the more I muse on that scene and all of the scenes around it, the less I read Izzy as, in any way, homophobic. He was pissed they were fucking around. He was maybe jealous they were canoodling and he couldn't with the one he loves. He was angry that Lucius would cheat on Pete. All of those interactions were born more out of resentment and frustration than actual homophobia, and I stand by that. Not to mention that considering how Edward treats the guy who called him a donkey, and how he reacts to just about anyone who treats him or those around him with prejudice, and the fact Izzy knew Calico Jack well enough to send him after Edward, I find it very hard to believe that Edward would keep Izzy around if Izzy was homophobic or, for that matter, racist. People have commented that Jack calling Ed "Blackie" might be a racist nickname, but I wonder if, much like some people have called out shortening Oluwande to Olu as uncomfortable in the language the name comes from (something about Olu meaning God and it being not great to call Oluwande "God"? Something about it being disrespectful?), it was just one of those things that slipped through. Shortening Blackbeard to Blackie as a way of saying, "I'm still special. You get to call him Ed, but I get to nickname Blackbeard down to Blackie and he doesn't kill me, I'm important too," makes a lot of sense to me.)

By making everything Ed does Izzy's fault, they're absolving Ed of the responsibility he holds for every horrible thing he's done in his life. Ed is responsible for the murder of his father (whether that father deserved it or not). Ed is responsible for the people he's killed since then, whether "technically the [x] killed them" or not. Ed is fully responsible for marooning seven people on an island to die (and they would be dead if Stede didn't find them, is the thing!! They would be dead!!) and killing Lucius, whether he managed to kill those seven people or not.

Here are a few of the things nasty anons have said about Izzy:

He's not going to be around being a toxic abusive piece of shit forever. Quit trying to normalize & downplay the horrible way he treats other characters.

This one misses the point and makes me laugh because it downplays everything Ed does by implying Izzy is the only toxic and/or abusive person there (Ed! Cut! Off! His! Toe!)

He is unnecessarily violent in speech and behavior, particulary towards BIPOC. He is manipulative, he's a liar, and he has tried to kill or threatened to kill multiple people on the crew.

The first part is patently untrue, actually. He's loud and rude and angry but I don't find much of his speech to be violent? Just coarse. He's definitely not 'particularly towards BIPOC', it's just that his scenes are often framed with BIPOC around him because of how few white people are in the show (which is a definite good thing, but it means every time Izzy yells at someone he is, by virtue of the show being so diverse, yelling at someone who is a minority either in sexuality, disability, or color, unless he yells at Stede or Lucius, which uh. he does. a lot. he's shown yelling at and being rough with Lucius and Pete more than anyone else).

As for manipulative and a liar, potentially he lied about telling Stede who his boss was, but even if that's so, it just says a lot about how Izzy is The Bad Guy whereas Ed is Pure UwU. Ed is also manipulative, that's shown a lot when he's masking (see: party boat when he's saying whatever) and when he comes up with the plot to kill Stede to keep Izzy on board. Ed also lies a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I've talked about this before. Most of what Ed says is a lie lmao. You have to read between most of Ed's lies to find even a sliver of truth.

And then there's the pièces de résistance of this particular comment: He has tried to kill or threatened to kill multiple people on the crew.

lmaaaaaaaaaao. Ed stranded six people who trusted him on an island, had Jim knocked out and, technically, kidnapped, and yeeted Lucius into the ocean!!! And maimed Izzy!!!!!

Just because YOU have decided to bend over backwards to justify Izzy's abusive behavior doesn't mean he's not abusive. He is. And you are not only actively ignoring and denying that abuse (and BLAMING IT ON HIS VICTIMS) but you're justifying it! [...] He's possessive, controlling, manipulative, a gaslighter.

I like this one too because the more I muse on it the more I realize a lot of this is more reflective of Ed? I don't think Ed is abusive, don't get me wrong (there is FAR MORE to abuse than just 'this guy is mean' or 'they yell'), but the second Izzy stepped out of line, Ed maimed him. Izzy hurt him trying to protect him, Ed hit him. Ed let Izzy get cast off the boat after the dual.

When Izzy tried to leave of his own volition, Ed stopped him.

So, to boil this all down after I rambled for this long: Izzy is The Villain and a Bad Person because he is easy to hate. He's short, old, angry and mean. He isn't cute about anything (okay, I can't say this one with a straight face. The wave at the start of 1x09 is adorable). As long as Izzy is a puppeteer, Ed can be a soft uwu baby and he can be safe to love and stan and whatever else.

Ed gets his guts ripped out, replaced by a fluffy interior because without Izzy he's perfect, you see. Ed is a perfect soft baby who has never done anything wrong in his life, and thusly it's safe to love him. You're not a bad person for loving him! He's never actually done anything, he would never actually hurt someone he loves (and, yes, he canonically loves Izzy in some way, there's a long-standing depth of relationship and affection there that is very obvious in the way they are together and from the way (up until 1x10 when Ed is already broken and far too easy to snap) Ed puts up with Izzy's tizzies. I somehow doubt Ed would put up with someone else calling him a twat and flipping him off and just go, "I need you here," rather than telling them to fuck off) so he'd never hurt Stede and there's nothing dark in him or their potential relationship, so it's fine.

And Stede hasn't ever actually done anything wrong either! Sure, he's made some bad choices, but he was in shock so he's absolved of running off on Ed (I do agree he was in shock and I am in no way picking on the person who meta'd that Stede was in medical shock at the end of 1x09 - I fully agree! - but I've seen some other people act like that absolves him of the harm he did to Ed, and it really does not) and he didn't personally kill either Badminton, they both killed themselves, even Nigel who was unconscious when he fell on his sword due to Stede hitting him. That was all Nigel's fault.

And those on the party boat set the boat on fire themselves and Stede had no part in it. He didn't make them fight! That was all them, because they are Bad People, so they would, of course, do those things.

Bob's your uncle, Sally's your aunt: Stede and Ed are now a soft uwu ship who you can love without worrying about what it says about your moral fiber as a human being. They're both good people! They've never done anything.

It was all Izzy's fault all along.

Also, I want to make another point which I thought of while I was writing this: I don't think Izzy expected Ed to go full Kraken. I was thinking about how he flipped out at him in 1x03, after the clothing swap. He tells him he's an insane shell of a man and he's pissed off and he's leaving and he calls him a twat and storms off.

To which Ed responds with a sort of squinty-big-eye thing idk how Taika pulls that one off but he did, and lets Izzy fuck off and do his thing, because Izzy is just being Izzy and doesn't mean any of it, really, and then after that, Ed is like, "You're being silly. Blackbeard has had a plan all along re: Stede, here it is," and Izzy is like ":o Oh okay! That's nice. Okay, yes, good."

So when 1x10 comes around, and Ed is, once again, dressed in Stede's clothes and being him, Izzy once again lashes out and basically tells him, in his own way, to pull his shit together, because this isn't the person Izzy serves.

The big issue here is that Ed is no longer the person he was even an episode before. Ed is a broken shell of a man who is just trying to pull his pieces back together.

Izzy doesn't realize this. Izzy doesn't have any way to know how Ed feels about Stede. Unless Ed bawled into Izzy's lap in the pillow fort (which is a hilarious image I hope someone will draw now) about how they were going to run away to China (ouch for Izzy if so) and how romantic their kiss on the beach was, Izzy doesn't know any of that. All Izzy knows is Ed had a bad time and now he's sad and he's mopey over the fact his boyfriend left him and it really sucks and this isn't him (remember: David Jenkins says Ed has never been in love until Stede, so Izzy has never seen this happen to Ed before).

This isn't Edward or Blackbeard, and it isn't even Ed! And so Izzy lashes out expecting to jolt Edward back to some kind of reality, some kind of common ground they share where they can get stuff done and Izzy can serve someone he respects and have a captain that can, y'know, captain, instead of moping and putting on talent shows, like he did last time!

Instead, he accidentally shatters what's left of Ed's psyche because he jabs in just the wrong place (not knowing where the real weak spots are) and unleashes a monster not even Izzy has seen before.

And that's actually really scary.

Thanks for the ask nonnie, I love musing on this shit lmao. Also, thanks for the comment about the meds. I'm so happy I might cry tbh.

(*the asterisks exists because we here on my Izzy Hands Enjoyer[tm] Blog Hot Spot have already discussed the framing of the toe scene and although Ed is not a rapist, the toe scene is beyond mildly questionable because of the framing, so our boy gets a lil asterisks)

[aleclightofmylifewoodbane]

the masses have spoken.

Truly Hawks is like my fav MHA character (Hawks, Dabi, Bakugou, and Kirishima are my four ultimate favorites, and though it’s hard to pick an all time fav, the first two are up there) and I hate how people interpret him SO MUCH and I also think theres a lot that Horikoshi could have done with him but didnt?? When there was SO much potential for something more, but I guess I understand why he chose the route for him he did.

I’m not sure if it goes around on here, but I see it SO much on twitter and tiktok where people think he’s straight up horrible, and hate him just because he killed Jin, and DILUTE HIM SO MUCH. I HATE YOU ALL!!! You guys do not understand complex or morally gray characters.

I think Hawks is a VERY good morally gray character. People want to say he’s a fraud for calling himself a hero, or say he has double standards, or say Hawks was just wrong for killing Jin, or think he’s straight up just a horrible person and character. The fandom switched up on him SO hard after he killed Jin. None of that is true.

A lot of hatred for him resulted from Jin’s death. Hawks liked Jin. He believed he was intrinsically good. He saw how he cared for his friends, and how he wanted to trust Hawks because he felt bad for him. He felt no joy in tricking him. He felt bad. In his eyes, he thought he could “save” him. Hawks NEVER wanted to kill Jin. He was ALWAYS acting on the commission’s orders.

And I think what no one wants to think about is the context? This is a SERIOUS battle. Jin’s power would have turned the tide of the battle and killed SO MANY MORE PEOPLE, which is why Hawks was directed to separate him and ultimately kill him. Hawks TRIED to give him a way out, but Jin forced his hand. What no one wants to admit is Hawks was acting for the greater good. At the end of the day, Twice is a villain who has KILLED PEOPLE, and would kill MORE INNOCENT PEOPLE. He is not innocent himself. Because of Jin’s convictions, he wouldn’t ever bow to Hawks’ request. When Hawks’ hand was forced, he tries first to only injure him, avoiding vital organs.

When that wasn’t enough, and Jin almost escaped to the battle field where he would have slaughtered easily hundreds of heroes and innocent people alike, and may I remind you CHILDREN were on that battle field, Hawks was forced to kill him. He said that he must not let sentimentality get in the way of what must be done.

And though I do think this decision was necessary, it was still a horrible thing he had to do. And it makes him morally gray. Heroes are not “supposed” to kill people in this society. Its seen a lot like an abuse of power and position. And of course, he took someone’s life. Jin was capable of goodness and I don’t like that he died. But I LOVE the way it forces Hawks character to become more complex, something more. He is NOT black and white.

We must remember that Hawks is robbed of most if not all of his autonomy. He is owned. He is unhappy with his position, and contemplates his own morality because of the things he is forced to do. And he IS forced. He is not given a choice. This is said explicitly by him SO many times.

“‘Suggest it?’ Funny calling it a suggestion when it’s an offer I can’t refuse. Shame on you.”

“If dirtying my hands can somehow bring everyone peace of mind…I’ll gladly take on this task.”

“You call yourself a hero?”

Hawks thinks he’s corrupted. It’s obvious the effect the work the commission have used him for has tainted the way he views his own morality. I don’t think I have to show the panels where he is taken in as a very young child. He is told he will have to abandon his identity. He is no longer Keigo Takami. He was effectively sold to a corrupt government that stripped him of his identity and created a weapon they could use for their own dirty work. His love and admiration of heroes was manipulated and twisted to serve them. He has never been his own person.

I don’t think it’s a leap to say the commission was abusive. There’s that photo of VERY young Keigo being trained blindfolded. No child that age should be trained in the ways of being a hero. That is abuse, even in their society. Shoto? Touya? And not to mentioned the things he is later forced to do.

1 like and ill go on a yapping session ab hawks

[yeetlegay]

The gremlin is back with new notes, I hope you don't mind. I'll put a read-more mark in case someone wants to skip them.

Santa Maria we're like 1 minute in and it's already going places

Pete didn't strike me as a tattoo person but it makes sense

I mean I know my man is getting slapped and all but that shirt is fire

"Who's a good boy?" sounded equally terrifying and awfully cute (9 minutes in and I'm already bananas)

TANKHUN YES HELLO OMG YOUR OUTFIT IS LIT LIKE ALWAYS

Tankhun has the best reactions, kicking Kinn with legs included

Porsche is the definition of "this all could've been done without a gun and yes, this all could've been an email"

JESUS that wrench is huge

what if the car accident was caused by Time? In one of the first episode Time mentioned Tay's dad covered up his car accident like nothing ever happened because it was his area. Just a thought.

omg Porchay and his Snoopy hoodie so cute I'll die

as someone who has terrible relationship with my siblings, I'd die for their bromance. Porsche and Porchay might get on some people's nerves in the fandom, but like... They literally only have each other. Of course they'd be super gentle and overprotective.

God that blow-dryer is loud

omg these two babies. Tay and Time are serving looks

OH MY GOD SHE IS SO PRETTY SHE IS INDEED SERVING LOOKS

Love how Tay is manspreading while Time is trying to occupy as little space as possible

Vegas is really reading Childhood's End, a story about literal aliens invading Earth while he has Pete locked up???

No, he isn't. Idk whether I should say God bless or not

I wish Vegas' father a happy burn in hell

Tankhun is such a fashion icon and no I will never stop saying it

I want Tankhun to be kindergarten teacher to my kids so he can teach them basic life rules such as be relaxed and kill everyone who is suspicious immediately and all that while looking so damn fabulous

Sir, uh, that is, um, really creative excuse to kiss someone...

Pete is so good at asking the right questions at the right time

"Have you ever loved me?" no, that's why he Superman-ed those kidnappers and proceeded to enter the warehouse guns blazing... (I getchu tho, Chay...)

Vegas, it's not as bad as before because prior to this you got free Pete therapy session

"If you hate me, you'll have energy to kill me later." or as I call it, positive thinking

Turbulence... noted.

Nope, I don't think my car accident theory was correct. Rest in peace theory, you did your best.

I started to respond to this bullet by bullet but half the bullets were just variations of “AKDHDJNSJSKAJSH SO TRUE” so here is a shortened version lol

THE WHO’S A GOOD BOY LINE REWROTE MY FUCKING DNA ISTG if I ever decide to proceed with my villain era I will be taking Vegas as my manipulate manslaughter malewhore inspo

“This could’ve been an email” LESTAT I WHEEZED

That wrench scared me more than the electric chair (taint edition) from ep 10, like for why is it so ENORMOUS

I live for sibling bonds too ugh. Oldest of 5 here so Porsche’s older sibling struggles resonate deeply. (Also that one post about how Kinn is a middle son but an eldest daughter…math was found dead from the accuracy)

The second I saw the Childhood’s End cover I had to pause and Google lol I’m obsessed with analyzing characters’ reading choices (the Kardashian Konfidential book led to a headcanon that Kinn started watching KUWTK with Tankhun just to feel something and now he’s lowkey a celebrity gossip encyclopedia)

Tankhun kindergarten teacher…WHO’S GONNA WRITE HIM STARTING A MAFIA DAYCARE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF THEERAPANYAKUL TOTS

No bc my first thought when Vegas did the pill kiss was “holy shit he’s ballin I could’ve been having my gf give me Tylenol kisses this whole time???” Like absolute legend behavior imo

Kinn walking like that had me thinking Something Else and I was like “surely…surely they wouldn’t have…..not-not on a-a helicopter” so glad we got confirmation of a sky bj to bring my brain back online (sort of)