#i traumatized all the characters with this too so mission accomplished

[soldierofadown]

So I am in a Danganronpa Crossover server and I recently played Magnus, and Magnus decided to do some killing and got executed. I wrote a big execution for him and everything so I decided to share it with you all! :]

Obvious TW for death and blood, as well as for guns and razor blades

Having accepted his fate, Magnus resisted little as he was dragged off by a chain. Eventually he found himself in a room with extremely red lighting and with nothing but a door in front of him. Loud music could also be heard blaring, and upon closer inspection, Magnus recognized the song. The Hammer. The only song he ever got to write for Dethklok. And its lyrics seemed ironic to him now.

*I was born from liquid hatred*

*An exoskeleton of steel*

*My nerves are cauterized*

*I feel no pain*

*I am your nightmare and*

*It's far too real*

With nowhere else to go, Magnus approached the door and cautiously opened it, entering the room. Inside, the floor was covered in broken glass and above him metal saws spun around rapidly, leaving only enough room for him to crawl. He also noticed that now the drum set part of the song was amplified over everything else.

Before he could react, the door slammed shut behind him, pushing him and causing him to fall onto the glass face first. He was lucky that none of it pierced into his eyes, but he groaned out in pain as he moved onto his hands and knees and began slowly crawling, laying low as the saws barely missed him.

Once the rows of saws finally ended, Magnus painfully got back on his feet. There he was presented with another door. Upon opening it he entered into another room, this time inside was a giant guitar acting as a pendulum and swinging across a thin pathway with a pit below. Looking into the pit showed wolves at the bottom. It could also be heard that the drums had been turned back down, meanwhile the lead guitar part had been amplified. That's when Magnus made the connection: each of these rooms connected to his deceased band mates. The last room was Pickles's room since he was a heavy drinker and left beer bottles everywhere. Now this was Skwisgaar's room, and Skwisgaar really only had one hobby; playing guitar.

This one was the easiest so far, as all Magnus had to do was time it so he wouldn't get hit as he walked, which Magnus did so. Once to the other side, the next door was there. Upon opening it was a mostly empty room. All there was was a table with a chocolate cupcake and a small sign that said ‘Next door only opens after you eat me.’ now the Rhythm guitar has been amplified over the rest of the instruments. This must be Toki's room, Magnus's replacement. The sweetest member with a sweet tooth. How ironic that that same sweet tooth made him a diabetic as well.

Magnus went up to the cupcake, clearly suspicious of it, before reluctantly eating it. It took him a second before his eyes widened and he spat up the cupcake along with a sizable amount of blood. Turns out his suspicions were correct and a razor blade had been baked into it. Even so, Magnus forced himself to push through as he went up to the next door and opened it. This next room looked… completely empty. All that seemed different was the Bass being amplified. However, once Magnus took a step forward a clicking noise could be heard. He looked up at the ceiling, and saw it was lined with an array of guns pointed down at him. Of course this was Murderface's room. He was a red-blooded, second amendment loving American after all.

Magnus booked it for the door at the end of the room, as a chorus of gunshots began going off at random times. One bullet ended up piercing through Magnus's left arm, but Magnus pushed through as he forced himself through the door. In this room the music had gone back to normal, and there was no other doors to go through. There was also a giant hammer lifted above him The song kept going, and Magnus could hear it nearing its end.

*Apocalypse fury*

*Seared with spiteful flame*

*I'm a killing device*

*And you'll die if you think my name*

Magnus looked up as he realized what was left. Pure fear filled his eyes, yet all he could do was smile. He smiled as Nathan's voice rang out to seal his fate, like how he beat him down when Magnus turned violent.

***I'm the hammer***

And just like that, the hammer dropped. It only took a few seconds to reduce the Rockstar into nothing but a splatter of blood.

*Truly a brutal way to go, isn't it?*

[turtleblogatlast]

I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

[trexiejan]

Some Toxic Dickbabs moments that happened in canon. (LONG POST)

so i saw a dickbabs shipper talking crap about dickkory saying they're the most toxic nightwing ship? and they also claim dickbabs is the most healthiest ? it's ironic considering I've seen many dickbabs comic panels where dickbabs is being toxic towards each other plenty of times in the canon comics. Looks like Tom Taylor wants to brainwash people and make them believe that Dickbabs is such a perfect healthy loving couple since day 1, when that hasn't been true at all before he was put in charge of the nightwing comics to write dickbabs wattpad fanfiction in the book every single issue, this ship has done nothing but damage both characters even in tom taylor's run Dick is turned into a happy go lucky himbo who is incapable of accomplishing anything on his own without being monitored and babysat by barbara 24/7.

Anyways let's proceed with dickbabs history of being a toxic couple.

Remember those times where Barbara physically and verbally assaulted him when he was only trying to be nice and polite. She yelled at him, called him stupid, a crybaby and beat him up.

Also they keep calling Kory a victim blamer for something that happened once in over 30 years ago but ignore the fact that Babs has victim blamed him and slutshamed him multiple times in the modern comics when he was sexually assaulted and raped by Tarantula and when he got shot in the head by the Joker.

Dick just got raped by Tarantula and was traumatized by what happened but instead of comforting Dick, she has the nerve to mockingly say Dick likes his rapist. her jealousy always clouds her judgement.

I'm sorry But Barbara is canonically a victim blamer and a slutshamer. Don't forget how she also insults and slutshames other women like Helena when she gets jealous of the other women in Dick's life. She called dickhelena a cheap one nightstand even though Dick clearly told Helena he doesn't do casual sex and and she mocked Kory and refused to help her on a mission when her people were dying.

so yeah let's get back to her history with victim blaming Dick. She victim blamed him again after he got shot in the head and had an amnesia and when his memories was restored, she lashed out at him for forgetting about her when he had an amnesia.

And remember that time when Bludhaven was burned down and Dick lost his apartment, he came to Barbara to ask if he can stay at her place but she kicked him out of her apartment the next day. She's totally fine with him being homeless but dickbabs shippers claim babs has always been very loving and supportive towards him while calling Kory a slut.

Even in elseworld stuff she treats him like garbage. Aside from cheating on Dick with Batman and getting pregnant with Batman's baby in the BTAS universe, she's also very emotionally abusive to him in comics where dickbabs shippers brag about them having a kid in it like in whiteknight.

Barbara was always out there acting like a toxic judgemental domineering bitch in the modern canon comics, Barbara behaved like this consistently for more than 30 years but Kory is the one we should crucify over something that she did only once from 30 years ago 🙄 Did they crucify Barbara too when she was ableist to Cass and called her stupid because she can't read.

And they call Kory a sexual assaulter? Because she kissed him when they first met. Did they forgot that Kory was an alien, she was clueless about Earth laws when she first came to earth, she didn't know that you're actually not supposed to kiss someone without their consent, she had no clue that it was considered inappropriate and she kissed him not to sexually assault him but for her to learn english. Her people can learn other languages through kissing and Kory didn't learn anything about Human law until she officially joined the teen titans, so you can actually excuse her for her behavior what's not excusable is Barbara who was a human being who studied law for years, but still has the nerve to commit a sexual crime. As always, She violated Dick's personal privacy, she put camera on his apartment so she can enjoy watching him naked without his consent. Look it up on google the crime is called voyeurism. Barbara would considered a creepy criminal by human law. I'm not surprised considering I always think of her as a type of gf who has no respect for her partner's personal space especially when she's Oracle, She never respected Dick's privacy even in tom taylor's run, she keeps monitoring his every move in her computer, she always invades his personal space. Dick is trapped in this relationship. It's not a good relationship if you constantly watch your partner's every move and if you keep following your partner around like a dog wherever he goes.

Many people think Dickbabs is such a healthy because of Tom Taylor's run. I think for someone who is a huge dickbabs shipper like tom taylor it's expected he's gonna try to convince people to believe that to to sell his favorite ship but in reality even in Tom Taylor's run Dickbabs relationship is pretty toxic and forced. It's toxic when your partner doesn't respect your privacy, when your partner constantly stalks and keeps an eye on you on every single thing that you do, when you wanna talk to other people but she's there lurking in her computer listening to your conversations with other people, when she puts a camera on your mask so she can always see what you see and hear what you hear, as if you're not a real human being who needs your own privacy, and constantly follows you around like a dog, like Barbara does to him every single issue. It really is a sign of an abusive relationship when there is no respect. How is Tom Taylor's Nightwing good when the book keeps destroying Dick's independece by having Barbara stuck to him like a leech 24/7 . The book is called Nightwing but Tom Taylor turned it into a Nightwing and Batgirl fanfiction series where 90% of the time Dick hasn't done anything on his own and where his IQ is chopped off in half to prop up Barbara as the smarter woman in their relationship. Dick can't even handle his own missions without constantly being babysat by Barbara in her computer like a sidekick who needs to be watched 24/7.

Poor Dick he became Nightwing to stop being Batman's sidekick and be independent only for Barbara to take away his independence and treat him like a sidekick again. Dickbabs has always been a toxic ship in any kind of form.

and don't forget Tom Taylor himself is a toxic misogynist slutshamer. He keeps throwing shade on Kory on twitter by liking comments that slutshame her on twitter

You know what would be the best way to fix dickbabs? is by letting them move on from each other! Let them grow tf up and move forward in life outside this relationship.

Babs is an anchor that brings him down whenever she's too involved in his life and same with Babs because do dickbabs shippers even care about Barbara. I haven't seen any barbara fan complain about barbara not doing anything on her own other than chasing dick around like a dog in his comicbook every single issue.

[overnighttosunflowers]

I've been thinking a lot about that interaction between Laudna and Orym in episode 102. How it starts with Orym saying "I'm so sorry that the world is moving so fast that we couldn't take the time to help you."

There's a certainty to that framing that is very typical of Orym. Not "I'm sorry the world is moving so fast that we didn't take the time to help you." They couldn't take the time. The mission comes first, second, and third until they've seen it through. 

Now, it's hardly a revolutionary observation that Orym's worldview comes from a particular combination of military training, survivor's guilt, and calcified grief that is ultimately self-destructive. It's also not a revolutionary observation that the party has not quite realized this, or not in so many words. They tend to treat his perspective as the only one unshakeable by personal failing. Later in that conversation in 102, Laudna even tells Orym that if someone needed to "finish the job, put me down," she'd wanted it to be him, because she knows he has the ability to do what's right.

His friends think of him as the only one who isn't a powder keg waiting to go off, but it has gone off, with Orym secretly and self-destructively pledging himself to Nana Morri in order to keep his friends alive. Betraying his friends' trust in favor of the mission. And in the end it didn't accomplish anything.

I think of Orym as someone who holds multiple truths at once. First and foremost there's a soldier's truth, the grim relentlessness that's all that keeps him going sometimes. But we've seen Orym be soft, too. He's gentle. He loves his friends. It's there underneath the grim layers of suppression. We saw it more early campaign. I don't think that he was lying in 49 when he told Imogen that he wasn't worried about her just hours after conspiring with Fearne to take her out if necessary. I think he wanted so, so badly to discount that soldier POV and buy all the way into trusting Imogen. But he couldn't. And I don't know if he was able to reconcile that. I think he genuinely believed both. Liam has said that before the events of this campaign reactivated Orym's trauma, he was legitimately on a path to healing his grief. I think that a healthier Orym would have been able to set down the soldier's truth to simply trust Imogen.

But that's not where the campaign took us. At the Malleus Key in episode 51, Orym collected a locket from a dead Vanguard soldier to remind himself that the enemy are still human. And then after Bor'dor died, in episode 63, he dropped it. Locking in on that soldier's truth. Making that deal with Morri. Not letting his friends stop and rest when they need it badly. Pressuring Imogen to give in to Predathos on the moon so that they could learn more.  

There's a grim run of episodes where Orym is stuck like that, prioritizing his soldier's truth and suppressing the part of him that is his heart. Now, I'm not someone who needs to always feel warmly towards a character or agree with their choices to appreciate their depth and role in the story, and I respect what Liam was doing there. The willingness of the CR cast to have their characters make messy and unpopular choices is one of the things I appreciate most about the show, and one of the things that leads us to the richest and most meaningful moments of character arc resolution. 

But that's where I've been frustrated with Orym: by and large, resolution has not been coming. He's been driving deeper and deeper into his traumatized worldview, clinging to it and stubbornly refusing to hear challenges to it. Repeatedly shutting down arguments by mentioning his dead family. I get it, and I feel for him, and I don't know how else Liam could be playing it given the story that Orym is in and the character that he is—not least a soldier whose training tells him never to question the mission. But, god, I'm ready for the growth. Ready for the story to prod Orym in directions that change. Ideally a shift towards a healthier perspective, but even hitting such a low that the Hells can't help but recognize that Orym's rigid morality is as destructive as it is sustaining. That will make them push back on him.

Because telling Orym he's the good one reinforces his worst instincts, increases the pressure he puts on himself, makes him double down. What he needs is someone to push back. He needs that increasingly brittle sense of his own lens as morally superior and righteous to shatter. 

And I am so, so excited for it to happen—because we're starting to see it starting to crack, just a little. In episode 92, he acknowledged to Imogen that his lens is a lens and not simple objective truth, and even implied it's one he wishes he knew how to set down: 

And now, when Laudna tells him he knows best of all how to do what's right, he admits it again: not a lot of his choices have panned out.

And it's true. They haven't. And I hope he keeps on saying it.

I'm glad to have Dorian back and on a revenge quest against the gods, because Orym trusts Dorian and Dorian is not going to let him sit unchallenged in his own convictions the way the rest of the Hells have been. I'm excited to see more of Braius, who not only disagrees with Orym about the Primes, but also doesn't have the same vested interest as the rest of the party in seeing Orym as good. I hope they both push back on him. I hope it unsettles him and confuses him and breaks his worldview and soldier identity enough that when the pieces come back together, instead of scarring over a second time, they can simply finally heal.

[the-haunted-star]

My humble thoughts on

Series Review (Spoilers!)

With the completion of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now 22 films and 2 TV shows deep. It’s not often that Marvel Studios drops the ball. I think it’d be fair to say that while not all the movies may have been home runs, they've hit more often than they've missed. However with two small screen ventures now under their belt with many more to come, it’s disappointing for me to say that I feel they’re only batting one for two so far.

WandaVision may not have been everyone’s cup of tea due to its unique premise and deeper focus on character study over action but it was successful in what it was trying to accomplish. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by contrast appeared to be a more traditional Marvel action/adventure while exploring equally heavy themes as WandaVision. However unlike WandaVision which was able to remain honed in on its themes and story, TFATWS story was often meandering in direction and mired in bad pacing and heavy handed dialogue scenes. Coupled with sub plots that were either rushed or just unnecessary contributed to the series overall feeling of being uneven and messy.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Netflix Marvel shows was that they perhaps had too many episodes and not enough story to fill them which often resulted in some episodes feeling like a lot of filler. TFATWS had six episodes each roughly just under an hour and in this case six may not have been enough to fully explore the characters in a more compelling fashion. Especially when too much precious screentime was devoted to less relevant material such as Sam trying to get a bank loan to fix his family’s fishing boat, or the many scenes of the Flag Smashers standing around discussing their crusade.

John Walker was the one character that I felt was very short changed in this series. His arc was extremely rushed as by episode three he was already becoming unhinged despite nothing all that traumatic having happened to him yet. One of the things I loved about the comic book storyline was that it showed Walker and Lemar Hoskins going through training and Walker having to learn how to use the shield similar to Falcon’s training montage in episode five. Walker and Hoskins also had several missions on their own which helped illustrate Walker’s more extreme methods and gradual descent into mania which culminated when his parents were killed by villains using them as hostages to get to Walker. This series didn’t have or provide time enough to include any of those sorts of explorations. Lemar’s death was substituted for Walker’s parent’s death to trigger him over the edge. While it provided the same result for Walker’s character it didn’t feel quite as earned as it too came quickly before we got to know Lemar or see him in action enough with John.

Another area this series struggled was with its villains. The Flag Smashers were incredibly bland and ultimately ineffectual in their purpose. They never felt like a legitimate threat and they spent more time sitting around talking about what they wanted to do rather than actually carrying out action to accomplish it. The comic book Flag Smasher was always a D-list villain and the actress chosen to portray the group’s leader was not imposing or interesting enough to elevate the character above that lackluster reputation.

Fans were extremely excited for the return of Zemo, the villain responsible for engineering the break up of the Avengers in Civil War. Unfortunately instead of returning to this series to be one of its antagonists he was instead used to form and uneasy alliance with Sam and Bucky to help track down the Flag Smashers and the stolen Super Soldier Serum. While Zemo, played brilliantly by Daniel Brühl helped elevate and invigorate every scene he was in with his sinister charm and dry wit you couldn’t help but feel like he would have benefited the series much better as its principal villain. Especially considering how blas�� and forgettable Karli Morgenthau turned out to be.

Genuine surprises were also something this series lacked. The biggest mystery presented in the series was who the mysterious black market arms dealer, The Power Broker was. Unfortunately many fans including myself saw the reveal coming a mile away and the character revealed to be the Power Broker, Sharon Carter was a head scratcher. There are any number of other characters I would have liked better as the Power Broker which would have been far more interesting and made much more sense than Sharon.

The action and fight scenes left a lot to be desired. Almost all of them were very underwhelming and felt very much like typical tv show fights you'd see on any other random small screen series. The one fight that did manage to rise to the occasion was the three-way fight between Sam, Bucky and John Walker in episode five. It was fast, hard hitting and edited pretty well so you could see the action clearly. That fight felt more like the type action you’d see in one of the movies.

As I mentioned earlier the themes this series was attempting to explore were pretty complex as well as topically relevant. For the most part I feel they were successful in developing these themes even though often it was accomplished in very dry and exposition heavy manner resulting in many overly talky scenes. For example the backstory of Isaiah Bradley which is a tragic one, is related to Sam in a lengthy one on one dialogue scene. That’s not to say it wasn’t a well acted scene but it would have been nice if some of these types moments could have been shown in flashback rather than simply told. Better to show rather than tell.

All of these types of issues continued in the finale resulting is a very messy, poorly paced and ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. The lone bright spot was the debut of Sam Wilson decked out in his new awesome, comic book accurate Captain America uniform. Also as expected John Walker received his black and white uniform to officially become the U.S. Agent which was also a welcome throwback to a cool comicbook moment.

Overall while there were many elements in this series that worked it just wasn’t enough to gel into a cohesive whole. Unfortunately I don’t foresee myself revisiting this series too often if at all. The Loki series is up next and while I thought the trailers looked good, TFATWS has forced me to curb my expectations a bit. ⭐⭐½

[theribthatgrewback]

9, 11 and 13 :3

(ask game)

I assume you mostly want JtHM takes so I'll focus on those but since you didn't specify fandom I'll chuck in a couple others I feel strongly about if that's ok!

9. Worst part of canon

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: This is tough, because I really like how everything was handled in the main story. I guess I personally found the doughboys slightly annoying, but at the same time, they served a crucial narrative purpose, so I really can't complain. Every (subjectively) """bad""" part of canon had a reason for being there, so I like every part for what it is. HOWEVER, if we're counting the spinoffs and the little "meanwhile" inserts, I really hated the like... vomit-porn aside thing in Squee. Though I guess hating it was the whole point, so like. mission accomplished? Also I don't really get Noodle Boy.

Adventure Time: Jake should have stayed blue. Explained here. I wrote the submission, hi.

Futurama: Multiple episodes. Neutopia weirdly ramped up everybody's misogyny beyond what's in-character in order to serve the "sexism is bad but gender is still part of the human experience and there will always be conflict" plot (which also is a weird gender-essentialism plotline anyway because like. The Fact That Gender Exists should not equal Conflict). Unnecessarily mean. Like I can see Bender doing that shit but there's no way that Farnsworth thinks that way. Unrelated to that one, Attack of the Killer App (origin of the "shut up and take my money" meme) leaned needlessly hard into gross-out humor. It just didn't fit the tone of the rest of the show.

Actually I'll be here all day if I list all my grievances so I'll cut this segment here.

11. Number of fandom-related words you've filtered

There's a lot of duplicates for The Same Thing Written Different Ways but if I count those as the same thing, 4. Across all fandoms. Though this blog hasn't been around long so this will probably expand in the future.

13. Worst blorbofication

(interpreting this as "wildly out of character to serve the 'comfort' of the person writing about them") Oh baby. I come from roleplay communities. I've seen shit that would make you sick. I've seen somebody play Fern (Adventure Time) Prismo (Adventure Time) and Kevin (Ben 10) all with the exact same personality. I've seen somebody Else who takes LITERALLY over 200 characters (in "no doubles" type places so now nobody else can use those characters), and also makes them all exactly the same... except for the added detail that This person talks like if a wiki page could make fart jokes. (Side note: I think that person also pretended to be three different people. Like there were three separate accounts with different names who all talked to each other, but they all wrote exactly the same way. And with exactly the same fart jokes. And they usually showed up at exactly the same time.) THE ONE SAVING GRACE of all this is that JtHM is obscure enough that I never saw Other People RP it in multifandom spaces, so it was spared this treatment. I have seen glimpses of how the fandom acts on tumblr though so:

JtHM: Nny. I really think Nny gets the worst of it. In canon, he's a very unlikeable person. That's part of why he's so interesting! He tries really hard to be nice to certain people, like to Squee, but he fails every time. He traumatizes that kid. He abuses animals. He's fatphobic. He blames addicts for their addictions. He trivializes the fight against racism (in a brief aside line at the cafe). He's all kinds of messy, awful things, and it's fascinating. It makes you want to pry his brain open and study him. Yet so much of the fanstuff you see of him files down his bad edges and just makes him "funny murder guy" at the cost of the nuances of his personality (this happened to Patrick Bateman too, as an aside). People are scared to confront that he's kind of a piece of shit, just because he's the Cool Protagonist.

[yue-muffin]

I finally saw Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and I immediately want to watch it again. It was amazing. I do like the main cast for the main plotline, but I cannot state how much I love Yuuta and would have adored him as the main character, too.

Yuuta just feels so relatable, the poor kid is quite frankly overwhelmed, horrified, and depressed at the beginning of the movie and be honest: most people coming from the “normal” world would definitely not be any better off. I feel like they depicted his depression so well, it was scarily relatable. The part where they take the time to show him start his morning before meeting his new classmates was perfect and necessary to show his state of mind. But also, it was painful watching him drag himself out of bed, go through the motions of getting ready, and have zero confidence in himself, and all that self-loathing just simmering under the surface.

And he also doesn’t “get over” it in an instant. It would have been a little clearer if laid out in an episodic format, but the movie accomplishes it by showing him on the different missions with his classmates. And by the end, he finally gets that last push to reach a point he can accept himself, his mistakes, his strengths, and the fact it was him who cursed Rika, not the other way around.

That last bit was important. In the beginning, Maki lashes out at him, basically because he’s been wallowing in self-pity, though she doesn’t lay it out in those words. And it’s no doubt he has been through several pretty traumatic experiences, but no one’s telling him they’re not valid, just...he begins the movie in a sort of self-absorbed state. He’s being followed around by a curse that doesn’t let him live a normal life, he feels like all the misfortune that befalls others is his fault, he doesn’t want to live but being alone is painful and - he really does want to live, he’s just tired of feeling like he isn’t worth it.

Then, little by little, he realizes he can take some sort of agency over his own life. Maki makes him realize it by asking “why did you come here” - because he feels guilty, and he wants to break Rika’s curse. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s already taken the blame for it, like he proposes to Gojo, maybe he was the one who cursed her, not the other way around. It’s still self-centered (and also true).

He comes out of his shell a little more when he goes on a mission with Toge, and realizes hey, I was wrong about this guy - he’s actually really nice and considerate, and I was just too wrapped up in my own head to notice. Then, back to Maki when he learns more about her family history and does something he hasn’t done before in the movie: he offers to help her in any way he can, because it’s her life and her fight, but he’s learning how to be a friend and that he wants to help the people close to him.

And then his friends get hurt trying to help him, save him, and Yuuta goes absolutely feral. To the point that Rika looks like the tame one of the pair. Once again, others are hurt because of him, but this time, he doesn’t wallow and feel scared, he feels angry. The fight scenes are awesome, but they’re also cathartic in more ways than one. I still have no idea how he’s able to copy other abilities like Toge’s which is implied to be inherited, but it’s a cool way of seeing how his friends have helped him grow into a stronger person, physically and mentally. But for him, this is his moment to show that he can pay them back for all they’ve done for him - helping him, protecting him.

Then, then, he unleashes it all and bets everything - his own life even - to defeat Geto. And he’s still not done growing yet, he hasn’t quite reached the point necessary to take that step forward in character development. It comes when Rika’s curse is dispelled, and she’s the little girl he remembers again and they all realize his speculation was correct. He cursed her, her death, how she was ripped from him so suddenly. All of that feral and protective anger was from him, a reflection of his emotions when she died in front of him.

And that’s the important part. He recognizes his own culpability, though he didn’t do it on purpose, and then Rika - or, perhaps, a piece of himself, forgives him. She thanks him for the extra time they got together, gives him that absolution from his guilt that he cursed his dear friend, and tells him to live. That was the thing he was looking for desperately in the beginning. To be told it’s okay to live. He never voices it, but he probably felt desperately guilty to be the one who survived the freak accident.

All this time, the people around him show him they care for him, give him the tools to protect himself, Maki even gets frantic when she realizes he intended on sacrificing his life for the power to defeat Geto. But his curse on Rika doesn’t end until he feels that is true for himself.

I just...really loved the movie. We haven’t even touched on the whole thing with Gojo and Geto (Who died?? I’m confused. He was in the first season.). I just adore Yuuta. He’s precious, slightly unhinged, and I really love their dedication to making him look so tired, depressed, and done with the world. Seeing him smiling and enjoying his food at the end after the credits was a delight.

(I also gotta throw it in there bc it didn’t fit: I loved that moment when Toge tried to order him to ‘run away’. He clearly never uses his cursed speech on friends and allies unless it’s dire, and he tried to make a last ditch effort to save Yuuta by telling him to run. I STILL don’t understand how Yuuta is able to use his ability, but...that was also a cool moment with the megaphone.)

[whisperingwoodz]

Spy x family oc

Kage Caddel is an Assassin in Osatania. He works solely for the reason that his family has connects to the Garden and are all assassins as well. His childhood was rough, his father shaping him to be the perfect assassin and throw anyone and everyone away that gets in his way. Can he break this cycle of pain and destruction?

Physical appearance

Weight: 146 lbs

Height: 5'6

Distinguishing marks: mole above lip on the left

Voice: https://open.spotify.com/track/5Qnrgqy1pAm9GyNQOgyVFz?si=m7HYOAJIQk29q2KvqTnVuA

Physical disabilities: Slight limp in right hip from bullet wound

Usual fashion of dress: dark academia

Favorite outfit: brown turtleneck w/ brown or red flannel + black pants

Jewelry or accessories: two earrings on each ear, snake bite piercings, eyebrow piercing on right eyebrow

Personality

Good personality traits: hardworking, protective

Bad personality traits: Bad with communication/expressing emotions, awkward, avoidant

Mood character is most often in: neutral

Character’s greatest joy in life: pottery

Character’s greatest fear: his father

What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? His father calling him back home/making a friend that he can't save or protect

Character is most at ease when: in his apartment

Most ill at ease when: in his family home

Enraged when: friends are hurt

Depressed or sad when: with his family or alone

Priorities: Family, children, friends, himself

Life philosophy: I will die to protect those who can't protect themself.

If granted one wish, it would be: more rational people so there isn't massacres

Character’s soft spot: kids Is this soft spot obvious to others? Yes

Greatest strength: his ability as an assassin

Greatest vulnerability or weakness: children or friends

Biggest regret: not standing up to his father

Biggest accomplishment: becoming an assassin

Character’s darkest secret: his younger sister was killed by a spy during a mission and he couldn't protect her

Goals

Drives and motivations: his father, children, his sister

Long term goals: protect those who can't protect themself

How the character plans to accomplish these goals: rid the world of people who take advantage of others

How other characters will be affected: anyone who gets in his way will be deemed a nuisance and he will tend to ignore then completely

Type of childhood: traumatic/harsh

First memory: his father throwing him into a pool to teach him to swim

Most important childhood memory: the day his sister died

Dream job: potter

Education: high school diploma

Religion: atheist

Finances: well off

Present

Current location: Ostania

Currently living with: no one

Religion: atheist

Occupation: assassin

Finances: well off

Family

Mother: dead Relationship with her: was rocky before her passing

Father: alive Relationship with him: his father treats him more like an employee or tool than a son

Sister: dead Relationship with them: before her passing, the two were close, only being 6 years apart in age.

Favorites

Color: Green

Least favorite color: orange

Music: rock music

Food: Ramen noodles

Form of entertainment: cartoons

Mode of transportation: bikes

Most prized possession: cup that his sister made

Habits: daydreams, picks skin when nervous, picks up any cool bug, stares too long at things

Hobbies: hiking, collecting bugs, pottery, watching cartoons

How he/she would spend a rainy day: making bowls and vases to sell

Spending habits: buys only cheap things despite being well off

Smokes: no

Drinks: yes

What does he/she do too much of?: lie around

What does he/she do too little of?: clean

Extremely skilled at: assassination and pottery

Extremely unskilled at: cooking, cleaning, basic life skills

Nervous tics: picks at skin, smooths hair

Usual body posture: slouched

Optimist or pessimist? : pessimist

Introvert or extrovert? : introvert

Daredevil or cautious? : cautious

Logical or emotional? : logic

Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? : messy

Prefers working or relaxing? : working

Confident or unsure of himself/herself? : unsure

Animal lover? : no

Self-perception: lazy depressed bum

What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: being messy and disorganized

Relationships with others

Opinion of other people in general: fine as long as they don't get in his way

Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others?: yes

Person character most hates: his father

Person character goes to for advice: his boss at the garden

Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: friends

Person character secretly admires: his boss

Most important person in character’s life before story starts: his boss

[brodependent]

Sam loves Dean as much as Dean loves Sam: a meta

Much as I love reading good meta, I don’t often write meta. Thus please accept my apologies if this is mediocre, and let me start with a simple topic sentence:

Sam loves Dean as much as Dean loves Sam.

A little longer, now: Sam is even better at loving Dean than Dean is at loving Sam because of Dean’s profound and abiding love for Sam.

Confusing, right? But not really.

We all know how Dean lives and breathes SammySammySammywatchoutforSammy. It’s his defining mission, his ultimate purpose, or, as a therapist might say, his “core belief.” But sometimes I think that we allow adult!Dean too little autonomy. We assume that he can’t help himself: he’s locked into this single-minded focus, on loving and protecting the only family he has left.

That sells Dean short. (Hang in there, I promise I’ll get to Sam in a moment.)

Even people who have been forced into a certain way of life have choices. Even people who have been told who they are all their life have choices. Dean tells us, in Season 14, I’m good with who I am--and I, for one, believe him. Whether we follow canon all the way to 15x17, when Dean is finally brought back from the edge of his desire for revenge against Chuck by his love for Sam (the only thing that’s “real”), or whether we keep to season 1 when Dean said--that’s all we have...that’s all I have... and I want us to be a family again and as long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you--Dean has always accepted his role as Sam’s big brother. Dean’s life is unabashedly Sam-centric. He’d change a lot of things, but in the end he’d change nothing, because he wouldn’t change that. 

Some fans get very het up about the codependent aspect of this. Others (in my opinion, rightly) defend it. There’s scads of meta on why the Winchester dynamic IS necessary for their mythic role in the narrative, and their human role in the narrative (more importantly), so I won’t write that meta now. All I’m saying is what I think you already know: Dean lives for Sam, his baby brother, and despite the grief, the growing pains, the occasional cruelty of desperate love, Dean said it all when he told Sam (and us), Don’t you ever think that there is anything, past or present that I would put in front of you.

So where does that leave Sam, and his love for Dean? Let’s start with that line I just quoted. Building on the above, Dean’s goal in life is to give Sam a life. He wants Sam to be happy. He wants him to be free. He also wants to keep him by his side forever, to control him for safety and comfort’s sake, and sometimes those instincts of a frightened-child-turned-traumatized-man win out. Dean isn’t perfect. Dean’s full of contradictions. But time and again he goes back to stone number one: what he can do for Sam. What he can offer Sam, by being the grunt, by standing in harm’s way. 

When we begin the story, Sam has succeeded in the path Dean helped carve for him. I’m not taking all the credit from Sam here, and giving it Dean: merely pointing out that Dean stepped into traditional parental roles and helped send Sam into adulthood, even though that meant Sam leaving him. We know that the night Sam left for Stanford was one of the worst of Dean’s life, but even in mid-season 1, Dean tells Sam he’s proud of him. You always know what you want. You stand up to Dad. Hell, sometimes I wish I--

(this, of course, is beautifully echoed in the series finale itself)

Dean is telling Sam what so many parents tell their children: you have gone places I never could, accomplished goals I never could, grown in grace and understanding like I never could. At least, I like to think that’s what the best parents tell their children.

To Dean, Sam is always the one with more hope. More wholeness. More options. To Sam, Dean is stone number one. 

You asked how Sam loves Dean, and my answer is: just look. Look at how Sam goes out into the world young, stands up to their father, makes his own decisions, fights back against Dean’s own nihilistic narrative through their primary losses and setbacks. Dean gave Sam the safety to build a better worldview than Dean himself has, and Sam turns that right back around and tries to give it to Dean. 

What do you think my job is? You’re my big brother--there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. 

I can’t lose you.

You’re not a grunt, Dean, you’re a genius.

This is my life. I love it. But I can’t do it without my brother. I don’t want to do it without my brother.

I am going to save my brother. And then I’m going to kill you dead.

If you ever need to talk about anything with anybody, you got somebody right here next to you.

I believe in us.

This is just a small collection of Sam quotes showing his love for Dean. A small collection showing the persistent theme of Sam’s persistence. He knows that pushing chick-flick moments and emotional conversations can get jokes for a dime a dozen, and even the occasional punch thrown his way. He keeps at it anyway. When Sam knows Dean’s hurting, he wants to help. He’d do anything to help. He won’t sit around and see his brother turn into an embittered killer (season 2), go to hell for saving his life (season 3), take on the Trials (season 8), be irrevocably corrupted by the Mark of Cain (seasons 9-10), let him despair (seasons 11 and 13), let him sacrifice himself to an archangel’s grave (season 14), or let him lose his goodness to the whims of a vicious god (season 15). Sam fights for Dean with full use of his considerable gifts--intelligence, rationality, resourcefulness, and yes, the occasional blind rage. Sam looks to Dean, first as a leader, then as a judge, and finally as an equal. Sam has been looking up to Dean since he was four, yes, but over the course of the show he comes to look at Dean. With love, peace, understanding, humor, pain...whatever their inimitable connection requires.

The quotes I noted above also reveal Sam’s own conflicts rear up. Sam and Dean (again, in my opinion) are equally developed characters. Both have flaws and inconsistencies. Both have struggles inherent to their personalities and upbringings, distinct from those imposed on them by supernatural forces. 

Sam had a glimpse of a different life, once. He had the smarts, he had the drive, he had the sheer stubbornness to live a different life than John or Azazel or hell, even Lucifer had planned for him. But also in Sam--innate in Sam--is his core of goodness and compassion and the principle of doing right, which leads him back into the life and to soul-crushing sacrifice again and again.

Sam breaks and is broken. Sam suffers and ages and spends more time in hell than even Dean, who went to protect him.

But what keeps Sam going? Dean. Dean can’t live without Sam. We know that. The flip side is that Sam doesn’t want to live without Dean. Importantly, I think, he has more choice in the matter. Dean focused his whole childhood identity on giving Sam a life that meant he had choices, even if Dean didn’t know he was doing that. Sam can move through more crowds, more roles, more relationships. He has a better education, he has a more powerful ability to intellectually reason and detach. He would have made a great lawyer. Yet he casts all this aside out of sheer willpower, choosing instead to love Dean and live with Dean through the chaos of their lives, and to go near mad when Dean is gone. Consider Sam in season 4, Sam in season 10...Sam in season 8 trying to atone for the very choice that Dean (the best part of Dean) wanted him to make, even if the real muddle of Dean’s psyche couldn’t forgive him, for a time, for making it.

All of this leads us to the finale. 

You said you wish Sam had said I love you back to Dean in the finale. I argue that he did. He made his love perfectly clear to Dean in that moment by holding his hand, by looking in his eyes. He said, you can go now, when all he wanted was for Dean to stay. 

The best part of Dean wanted Sam to have happiness and freedom. At the end of his life, Dean was finally able to communicate that without fear or reservation. 

But the bittersweet brilliance of that moment is that Sam--the Stanford boy who went to hell and back, who saved the world, brought down one god and raised another--no longer wanted any kind of happiness or freedom that didn’t include the one person who’d been by his side all along. Dean was giving his blessing for a path that didn’t beckon Sam anymore. And yet: Sam said yes to it out of the love for Dean. Sam went out of that barn, out of the bunker, out of that day and that year and that decade and into the next and the next, out of love for Dean. Sam loved Dean by living. He loved Dean by raising another Winchester. He loved Dean by holding all their contradictions, flaws, and heroisms in his heart (in their car), until he’d done what he set out to do many times over. 

Then he met Dean on a mended bridge, dressed in old clothes that said: I was happiest at the beginning. I was happiest when we could be brothers again. I took my time getting here anyway, because I know that was what you wanted. I took my time so that we could be happiest now.

If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

[some-kindofgnome]

Kinktober #12: Cadenza: Bucky Barnes

In which Bucky can’t just go to sleep, like a normal person. 

Characters: Bucky Barnes / f!Reader

Warnings: smut (18+ please!), public sex acts, fingering. Insert Diplomat Here, silk dresses, the opera, Bucky’s magic metal fingers.

Notes: Back to Marvel today! This is a little scenario I’ve had dancing around in my head for a while. Lots of fun, definitely a little on the fluffy side. My apologies in advance to Sam Wilson. 

Kinktober Masterlist

You’re at the Viennese Opera when Bucky decides he’s had enough of the mission.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” His breath ghosts over your neck as he leans close to whisper into your ear, fanning the soft tendrils of your hair against the tender parts of your jaw. Once upon a time, your hair was swept into a perfect updo- not so much, after two hours in this godforsaken box.

You’re just lucky that the two of you even have a private box, so that Bucky’s near-constant whispering isn’t met by an onslaught of glares from the audience below. The audience, that holds their coughing like they do their applause.

“Security,” you whisper, jutting your chin toward the box across the way, where Insert Diplomat Here sits with his wife and two pairs of gilded binoculars. And Sam, who drew the short straw and sits alone behind them. Every so often you point your own binoculars toward the box and catch him glaring across at you.

You don’t envy him.

“I thought you were supposed to understand what’s going on,” you continue, smirking to yourself. Bucky deadpans.

“I speak Italian, not opera.”

You give a little shrug, pursing your lips as if there’s a difference. He scoffs and leans in. His metal hand- surprisingly warm- lands on your knee. It’s bare, thanks to the high slit in your gown. You’re tempted to slap it away, but you leave it there. For now.

“It’s pretty dark in here, huh?” His voice drops to a suggestive register and suddenly he’s leaning closer than he needs to, brushing his lips against the shell of your ear and letting his words vibrate straight down the back of your neck.

“Not dark enough,” you quip. This time you do push his hand away, but he’s not completely thrown off the scent. He lets out a snort, a quiet little rumbling chuckle, and then he’s on you again.

“C’mon. You can’t just walk around lookin’ like that and expect me not to have some ideas.” His metal thumb is smoothing just under the edge of your skirt and you lick your lips despite yourself.

“Baby,” he purrs, bold enough to nip at the corner of your jaw, “I’m bored.”

You jump, but swallow your voice hard.

“Just go to sleep,” you retort. “Like a normal person.”

He doesn’t like that idea very much. His hand crawls further up your thigh. Nervously, you think about letting him get what he wants. The railing that surrounds your box is high enough that your laps are hidden. To an innocent onlooker, it looks like he’s just reached over to take your hand.

“When was the last time I got to see you in a silk dress, hmm?” He continues. He can tell that you’re starting to break, because his voice has gone absolutely feral and he’s not shy about brushing his scruffy chin against your ear.

“Bucky,” you sigh, letting your head fall back against the chair.

“That’s my girl.” He slides his hand under your dress, and you part your legs as far as you dare to. To your surprise, he doesn’t go right for your underwear. He takes his time crawling his way up your thigh, exploring the skin with the sensitive touch-receptors woven into his new prosthetic.

“Y’know,” he whispers, “I always knew you had a thing for my arm.”

You roll your eyes, but the heat in your cheeks betrays you. His thumb brushes the spot where your thigh meets your hip. You bite your lip, saying nothing.

He’s right, though. Once upon a time, it was a curiosity. But as the two of you grew closer and the lines between friend and lover bled together, so did your curiosity bleed into fascination.

There’s something tantalizing about the smooth surface of it, the clean lines. It’s a marvel of engineering- and the fact that he can feel you with it is all the more appealing.

In fact, he’s feeling you right now.

He draws a sharp breath, sucking his teeth as his thumb brushes at the silky fabric between your legs. You’re already warm and damp with desire, the fabric of your thong gone soft and pliable. Maybe he’s been staring at you in your gown all night, but you’ve had the unmatchable pleasure and pain of having to see him in that suit.

Tony Stark had no right, sending him to a tailor as accomplished as that. Bucky doesn’t wear his hair pulled back very often, either, but there it is. That little bun at the nape of his neck that drives you absolutely insane.

Bucky’s got his face buried in the crook of your neck as he nudges the silk of your underwear aside. Then his warmed fingers dip into your slit. You feel him start.

“Shit,” he mutters into your skin. “Fuckin’ soaked, baby.”

His dirty language feels too sinful for such an auspicious place, but you try to remind yourself that the performers are probably singing about lewder things, buffered by a language that nobody in the room understands.

He’s not wrong, either.

Bucky presses one finger attentively forward. You purse your lips because this is really fucking happening. The joints of his hand are smooth and seamless with little more tooth to them than a ribbed condom. For your pleasure.

He pumps his finger in and out a few times and you slump a little lower in your seat. One hand keeps the folds of your skirt draped firmly over his wrist. The other slides to the back of his seat, gripping gently to keep yourself stable while he settles into a rhythm.

It’s not long before you’re a panting mess and he’s sliding another finger into you, quickly establishing his rhythm all over again. Just when you’re sure you can’t get more out of this, he crooks his thumb and presses it to the swell of your slit.

This is where the magic happens. Bucky has impossible coordination. You’re not sure where it came from or how he figured out that he could apply it here, but it’s the simple truth. The way he can keep his thumb circling your clit while his fingers strum harmoniously inside you is borderline miraculous.

He gets you there in record time given the circumstances. As the music below swells to a dramatic climax you bury your mouth in his hair and pant through your orgasm, shaking and whining and keening into his diligent fingers. It passes as quickly as it comes on, and his wrist slows to a gentle stop as you slump against his side, spent.

Effervescent applause bursts from the audience beneath you. The celebration feels entirely appropriate, even though you know it’s got nothing to do with you. The performance continues. You straighten up one limb at a time and he draws his fingers from your body. He takes one careful moment to tug your underwear back into place. Then he’s settling back into his own chair, vaguely examining his gunmetal fingers in the low light.

He lifts them to his lips and you avert your eyes, distracting yourself by raising your binoculars again and peering across the hall to check in on your client.

Instead, you’re met with Sam’s traumatized expression, staring back across at you with his eyes wide, jaw hanging open.

“Uh oh,” you mutter, dropping the binoculars and squinting instead.

“What?” Bucky turns to you. He’s obviously finished with his hoer’s d’oeuvre, because he’s wiping his hand idly across the thigh of his pants now. Internally, you pout. That poor suit…

“Nothing,” you press. You settle against his side, turning your attention to the actual stage for the first time all night.

Come intermission, you’re dead. Both of you.

Might as well enjoy the performance while you still can.

[hurgablurg]

while I generally like everything halo pre-infinite, one thing I do NOT abide by is the Halo Legends anime series of short stories. Let me complain:

4 of the 7 shorts are constructed around fridging - the killing of a usually-cisfemale character to motivate or exacerbate the struggle/pain of a overwhelmingly-cismale protagonist.

In the baby sitter, a Spartan-II dies on a high-import mission so an expendable redditor of an ODST can feel bad about her dying, but ONLY after he finds out she’s a feeeeeeeeemale, and thus too pure and innocent and good for war. 

in prototype, a ptsd-ridden marine gets to use the death of his feeeeeeeeemale squadmate in a previous battle to justify going Joker Mode™ 2 Edgy 4 U with a mech suit.

in homecoming, a Spartan gets traumatized, and then her Washout-Spartan friend dies to compound her misery, and then she herself dies to the most war-crimey weapon ever invented, accomplishing nothing because Harvest sucked for everyone. 

in the duel, a Fake Arbiter fights an Honorable Battle™ to avenge his Fake Wife’s (and Gay Lover’s) murder, which occurred in-story solely to hurt him for closing the door on the jehovahs witnesses too many times, and she looks nothing like a sangheili and its bad. she looks like a na’vi. the concept art gave the sangheili human heads with a single set of hinge jaws where the mouth should be. it offends my sensibilities. and the designs, like, theres a difference between giving the elites a japanese flavour and just making them yamato in space

the other two (plus the duel) are so laughably non-canon, even among shorts that are also non-canon, it hurts.

the package pisses me off. you have teenager dr halsey. you have tiny space fighters never used again, you have some random elite who is not Thel Vadam being pinned as Arbiter because SOMEONE ELSE - okay. Hold on. The Fleet has captured Dr. Halsey. okay. Spartans board the ship, wreak havoc, try to rescue Halsey. Okay. an elite major goes and duels John. Good. The shipmaster then DETATCHES the back half of a FIVE KILOMETER LONG CITY-SHIP, killing THOUSANDS of crew (who are in an EXTREMELY rare mixed Brute-Elite battlegroup) to kill a Spartan and an asset who is literally too important to die, and then FAILING at that because the major HAD John dead to rights about to be killed and the shipmaster pointlessly grav-lifted SPECIFICALLY HIM away, and then has the GALL to snidely claim that the MAJOR will be the one deemed a heretic (”or Arbiter”, yeah, okay, that happens with literally every heretical sangheili, sure thing writers) for the crime... of doing exactly what he was supposed to do? Like i think the bigger issue here is the shipmaster who just ruined any chance of the jiralhanae and sangheili ever working together peacefully because a sangheili shipmaster just murdered a bunch of brutes (and elites) for... the funsies?? You literally could’ve jumped WITH the asset AND Spartan on-board into Covenant territory to be dealt with. Also, more seriously, is the way the short portrays the SINGULAR Afro-American Spartan-II seen (up to even today!?) as brash and headstrong, compared to his “better” peers - out-of-character for a II. Made it so the Black Dude Dies First. Eugh. Also also, they literally Solo: a Star Wars Story some of Cortana’s lines for Halsey that have... blindingly little to do with the situation at hand. Yeesh.

origins is buck-wild, because the forerunner stuff is accurate enough for the era the lore was in but uh... it really veers out of left field with the last half. the spectacle is great, but i think its all mainly metaphorical.

Literally, the only good short of the whole bunch is Odd One Out. Condenses an entire 3-season 90′s anime into 10 minutes. has the ghost stories VAs. stupid. glorious. dinosaurs. saiyan attack pod brute. big momma. give me an entire anime based on this premise. trim it of the halo license if need be. Give it too me.

[hoe-for-yukhei]

SUICIDE MISSION

captain yuta - lieutenant reader

kinda long drabble

au: attack on titan, comrades

warnings: character death, self harm, expletive, blood, violence, [unedited and badly written]

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!” Gisselle cries as she landed on the top of one of the roofs where you’re standing. She’s sobbing horribly and traumatized. “GISELLE! WHAT HAPPENED?! LOOK AT ME!” Gisselle are one of the newly recruits of scout regiments. The 6 of them Shotaro, Ningning, Winter, Karina, Sungchan we’re very skilled and has potentials but you have to be emotionally strong too. “L-lieutenant we we’re on near the river and the number of titans were slimming down but then...but then they started falling from the sky! and W-winter and Sungchan we’re-” Gisselle can’t finished her sentence. she just cried and cried. can’t accept the fact that her dear friends became titan food on their first mission. “L-lieutenant... your brother... Mark’s is still unconscious, still healing but the armored titan got him.”  In your 4 years of service of being a Scout you learned many things, and one of them are ‘people like you don’t deserve to grieve’. you took a deep breath and kept the stoic face you always have. How dare that fool step in your work?! The overwhelming anger in you starts to intensifies and your mind went black. 

“Lieutenant?! Stop there’s over 50 titans over there!” 

Ignoring your junior’s words; you didn’t stop swinging from houses to houses, tree to trees. you took out your blades and automatically sliced the napes of the titans you passed by not missing one of them. you can’t afford to lose your brother. you can’t afford to lose your only family. you can’t afford to lose the beast titan. Unlike the previous owner mark’s beast titan is far from an ape. He has long and slim body, four paws, covered with spots and really fast making him invisible to enemies. Unaware that your gas emptied while you’re having 1 to 1 combat with pure bred titans you started falling taking out your knife ready to unleash the female titan in you a black haired man killed the titan faster than the speed of light while wearing his infamous smirk. “I believe we don’t need the female titan for now” “that’s what you thought captain. Out of 400 we only have 7 men left, were running out of gas, supplies, and ammunition and they have mark.” Yuta quickly erased his teasing smile he had on his face. you’re right there’s no time for leisure and jokes right now. Because this clearly isn’t good since the commander is dead now  so it’s all up to him   “Shotaro!” “Captain!” Shotaro quickly landed on the wall as the Yuta called him. “check for the wounded, and other comrades! i want to see them at the tallest tower at the middle of the town”

-

“Captain, Eric and Kevin are inside the walls they have mark! they’re heavily guarded and looking at the amount of gas we have we’ll not make it and not to mention they’re still dropping titans. this is clearly a suicide mission.” Doyoung stated. he’s right. but still we can do something. Donghyuck just came up with a look on his face and his pants are quite heavy “Donghyuck. what did you find?” “Captain I-i found our cargo but they’re on the titan’s base. they’re eating the- our horses. it has all things we needed including the thunder spear...” upon realization you all met each others eyes coming up with a plan.

-

you jump off the tower taking out your knife and slitting your wrist followed by a flash of bright light appeared indicating a titan just transformed. Your comrades jumped on your body as you take them to the other side of the town to retrieve your cargo, killing all the titans you all encounter. as you got hold of all your weapons you threw debris and explosives where the titans came from. Everything is going as plan until Eric transformed into an armored titan. buying time to let the jaw titan escaped with mark.

Eric and you fought hand to hand throwing punches and kicks to each other. you turn around and kick him in the face performing a back roundhouse kick which results to him falling down exposing his nape, Giselle quickly aimed for it but the armored titan stands up immediately which cause us to miss his weakest part. 

Looking back you saw mark tied up to Kevin getting away, and other comrades being eaten. you lost composure and fell to the ground due to armor titan’s hard punch. the armored titan quickly hovers you, you grabbed his nape, pulled it and locked his legs and rolls to the ground now hovering him. you hardened your fists and threw punches at him. slowly moving your hands northward exposing his nape. Donghyuck and others fired thunder spears at him penetrating to his hard armor not giving him enough time to switch consciousness he almost died on the spot. 

“to the last man if that's what it comes to! Mark mustn’t reach the gate! I don't like a single titan anywhere near him!”

Done with the armored titan you came for the jaw titan with a tied up mark in it’s hands. you hopped on it’s back causing the titan to fall. but it’s so agile it slept through your hands and had quite a hard time to catch it. you’re also careful that you wouldn’t hit mark with your punches and attacks, but as you throw debris at the jaw titan a metal cut through Mark’s shoulder causing an injury. worried left you as your attack suddenly awakened his titan form.

blinding lights and hot steamed surrounds the area.

Mark has turned into his beast titan.

A cheetah.

Fighting a Jaw titan was quite hard for a four foot fur titan that has no hands. but it’s pace, size, large mouth, sharp teeth and sensitive ears & nose gave him so many advantages. 

You left them and went for the walls with cracks. pure bred titans instantly came to you they’re too many of them but thankfully 6 of them synchronously fell down as they were hit by yuta’s swift moves using his odm gear. “go on! i got you!” running for the large wall crack much bigger than it’s gate. you got several houses stacking it up to form as a base then you hardened it with your ability

You all rest at the roof of the tower you came to earlier. With heavy pants yuta just stares at you while you’re drinking water watching your comrades clearing the vicinity. Mark and Donghyuck came flying with their ODM gear while carrying two barely alive personages.

“Armored titan.”

“Jaw Titan”

Mark stared at you with a large smile at his lips. everyone might be thinking ‘he’s so happy we won’. well in fact you and mark are far from happy.

“Thank god you saved my ass back there, Kevin said they came for us. they want us to retreat. i don’t want to go so they tied me up.”

“Are you insane why would i let you? they’re obviously tired of waiting and thought we’re doing nothing that’s why they want us to go back. we all know they’re going to take our titan if that happens.”

“should we continue though? i mean this?”

“remember what we have in line mark. we’re not the type of people to grieve, to love or to have any emotional attachments to any eldians.”

You all had retrieved  4 out of 9 titans. by the time the Eldians got the grip of all all 9 of it you and Mark can go back home successfully bringing glory to the nation.

“Wall Maria retrieved! Mission accomplish”

or was it captain nakamoto?

Yuta is unknowingly falling for an enemy who’s responsible of her squad’s death. this is clearly a suicide mission that’s he’s getting himself to and he’s more than willing to die for her.

[dangerouseggwolfangel]

Truth be told, Sonia was one of the units I was really waiting for in my Askr. Mainly because her connections with many characters are interesting to me, Ursula above all. Want a taste of what I mean?

-------------------

It's been over 4 years, and Ursula was here since the beginning. She has really made a name for herself, helping in all of the wars, partecipating in voting gauntlets and beach trips.

Her aloof personality and perfectionist attitude, along with her peerless skill in magic helped her get a legion of secret admirers among the less experienced spies/assassins/criminals of Askr.

"Ursula is so cool. She is hard to approach but she is so strong and fearless. Whenever I'm on a mission with her, I'm relieved. She is PERFECT. She is so confident and it seems nothing can even hope to bother her."

And then Sonia gets summoned and Ursula's brain turns into mush. Nobody has ever seen her act this way. She constantly comes up with excuses to spend time with Sonia, does everything for her, sometimes managing to bring her what she wants before she even speaks, almost as if she could read her mind, she BEGS the summoner and Commander Anna to get paired with Sonia, with promises of incredible feats of magic that can only be accomplished when two PERFECT mages are completely in sync, something she insists is not possible for anyone except the two of them.

Even worse, when asked about her strange behavior and about her exact relationship with the alluring woman she becomes flustered and angry and nervous, everything she normally isn't.

Nobody can make sense of the situation, until Dorothea connects the dots and compares Ursula with some friends of hers that acted similarly in the past:

"I know what's going on. There is only one explanation for her sudden change. Ursula is... a useless lesbian. Probably the kind that denies the truth even to herself, poor dear. There is one person we can ask to confirm it without a doubt."

And when asked about it, Plumeria confirms: "yeah, she's really got it bad. That ugly woman is the protagonist in all of Ursula's dream. In some dreams they walk together holding hands the entire time. In others Sonia praises her in public, proclaming that Ursula is the only person worthy of her time. They even go on romantic dates. How indecent, to think she would have such lust for a married woman. You humans are disgusting."

This discovery caused a minor scandal. Some of Ursula's admirers were heartbroken by the revelation that the invincible woman they adored like an idol never existed. Others were happy to know that she was just a normal person after all, with emotions and flaws. It humanized her and they found that, if anything, this made her even more amazing.

------------------

So, at this point maybe I should really start making fanfictions, analysys, headcanons and all that good stuff. I can't always count on others to make the content I want to see, I have to contribute. Anyway, just so we are clear Ursula having the big gay is an headcanon. Sure she ADORES Sonia, she lives and dies for her, her summer alt thinks about how Sonia would look in a swimsuit and start giggling (this is true, look it up) but we live in a world that still denies that there's something going on between Raven and Lucius, so nothing short of an actual declaration of love will make it canon, despite all the evidence.

Anyway, despite my deep fascination for their dynamic, I don't really ship Ursula and Sonia. For me (like 99% of villains) they can both be redeemed, but they just aren't... good for each other, you know? Sonia is interesting. All morphs are perfectly aware of what they are and there's no reason for Nergal to lie to her, since she would have been obedient either way. The only explenation is that she knows, but lives in denial which is what makes her interesting. Ursula is interesting too. She seems to need the validation of a person who is her superior, a perfect being, and she is completely fine with being used like a tool by her mistress, knowing full well that if she ever disappointed her it would be all over. YIKES! Honey, you need to stop objectifying yourself and change this toxic way of thinking. You deserve better than this.

They are horrible for each other. Ursula keeps feeding Sonia's massive ego and makes it way easier to live a lie instead of facing the truth. Sonia needs a partner who is capable and charismatic (she only interacts with PERFECT humans, remember?), but also not a simp. Someone who won't fall for her tricks and will actually confront her. And Ursula simply needs someone who would love her as an equal.

Clarisse would be a good girlfriend for Ursula, they are similar in many ways, and could bond over their traumatic past (ok, we know nothing about Ursula's past, but come on. You don't end up being an assassin without some trauma). Another option would be someone who appears inherently superior, like a queen, which would make Ursula want to serve them, and then be surprised when she gets treated well. Elincia? Eirika would be an option too. But definitely not Edelgard. Edelgard x Ursula would be cursed for many reasons.

Sonia is a bit trickier. The best candidate would be someone with a lot of life experience and a sharp tongue. She doesn't need kindness, she needs a big, fat "reason you suck speech" to destroy her before she can build herself back as an healthier person and only after she is at peace with herself the relationship could start. Maybe Michalis? As someone who also had both his pride and body destroyed and managed to come back as a better person he could do the trick. I'm sure there are many other options I'm not thinking of.

So in conclusion, Sonia is cool. If people won't start making more content for her now (other than the horny content which is 100% coming. Plumeria is disappointed but not surprised) I might have to take things into my hands.

[reggiehargreeves]

Hargreeves + DnD

I started playing DnD earlier this year and it’s become my weekly escape and obsession, and because my brain is a *dumpster* I’ve been thinking about each of the Hargreeves siblings and which DnD class + subclass they’d be if they were characters. In fact, I have spent TOO MUCH time thinking about it. Call it a US election coping mechanism. Spoilers for the show under the cut.

Luther - Paladin, Oath of Devotion. I thought fighter or barbarian would be too obvious of choices. Paladins are hardy adventurers, driven by a belief in something, most typically a divine figure. For most of his life, Luther lives in service to his father because he believes, deep down, despite how cruel and strict Reginald is, it’s all for a better, higher cause. He makes excuses for Reginald’s abuse until he absolutely can’t, which shatters him a bit. It’s only when he transfers 100% of his loyalty, belief, and love to his family, is he righted again. For his subclass, I considered Oath of Redemption, but I think Devotion fits our big guy better.

Diego - Rogue, Swashbuckler. Maybe this choice is a bit obvious, but it’s difficult for me to imagine Diego as anything else! Rogues are more than capable combatants, but are also known for their reliance on stealth and cunning. Now...Diego may have his moments where he is decidedly not cunning, but he wouldn’t be a Hargreeves if he could fire more than 3 brain cells at a time. I almost went with Assassin for the subclass, but I also don’t think my bb is necessarily sneaky enough, hence Swashbuckler. There’s also the stereotype of the Broody Rogue, and while Diego genuinely has a Tragic Backstory™ and Mommy Issues™, his tough-guy-with-a-gold-and-incredibly-soft-heart nature speaks to the class.

Allison - Bard, College of Eloquence. I can hear you now. But Avery, doesn’t Vanya play the violin??? Yes! But Bards are an expansive class when you look beyond their stereotypes. Bards can be accomplished diplomats and storytellers thanks to their natural charisma. Allison’s power of rumoring others lends itself nicely to the class. She is capable of making others do as she pleases and up until a point in S1, we know she’s used her powers enough to provide herself with a very comfortable life outside the Academy. Bards are also capable of filling ability gaps in parties of adventurers in support roles. Need another sword or caster? Bards can fill that spot. Allison’s power, like Klaus’s, is more subtle than Luther and Diego, but as we saw in her fights with Cha Cha and Lila, she’s more than capable of holding her own in a physical fighter when she needs to.

Klaus - Wizard, School of Necromancy. I mean, you knew it was going to be a necromancer of some kind, right? Our spindly boy is our reluctant wizard of the party. Klaus can commune with the ghosts of the dead, and is not only able to speak with them, but also capable of commanding and even touching them. Necromancy is considered taboo in the world of DnD, and most societies frown upon wizards just up and reviving dead loved ones. Klaus, for the most part, hates his power. As a child, Reginald locks him in a mausoleum to be tormented by the long-dead ghosts that live there in an attempt to make him “”stronger””, and he is traumatized. As a teenager and adult, he develops addictions to numb himself from facing the dead. For most of his life, the only positive thing to come from his power is his ability to summon Ben. He doesn’t come into his powers for several years. Klaus would make a fascinating inspiration for a reluctant I’d-rather-not-use-my-natural-abilities necromancer. Runner up: Grave Domain Cleric.

Five - Warlock, no subclass choice at the moment. I struggled with Five as he, to our knowledge, is perhaps the smartest of the siblings. This is partly due to his lived experience, as well as the work he put into figuring out his time traveling abilities. It speaks to the whole “warlocks are driven by an insatiable need for knowledge and power”, wherein warlocks seek to strike deals or create pacts with entities far more powerful than them. After getting himself stuck alone in an apocalyptic future for decades, unable to figure out how to get back, he’s approached by the Handler. She offers him 5 years of service, after which he may retire to any time/place he wants. HMMM. How Warlock-y. Anyway, we know that this isn’t the first deal he is forced to strike with the Handler in exchange for knowledge and power.

Ben - Monk, Way of the Astral Self. I really struggled with Ben. My first thought was a Circle of the Moon Druid, BUT I don’t think of Ben as nature-y as a stereotypical Druid. However, he’s fairly shy, studious, and sensitive. Monks also require a mastery over their own body in order to harness both their physical and magical abilities, which reminds me of Ben’s eldritch power. When you have a kind of void or passageway to another hellish dimension in your tummy, learning self-control at an early age is probably paramount. Way of the Astral Self Monks also struggle with their magical ability (ki). To quote DNDBeyond, “They see their mystical energy as a representation of their true form, an astral self. This form has the capacity to be a force of good or destruction, with some monasteries training students to either temper their nature or embrace their impulses.“ We see Ben’s hesitancy to use his power at the bank robbery mission. He doesn’t just kill the perps, he annihilates them, and I’m sure it was not the first time he was forced to do it. Just think of the depressing internal despair that sensitive bb felt after every mission. I’m sure there are plenty of Trauma!Ben fics out there to explain it better.

Vanya - Sorcerer, no subclass choice at the moment. Sorcerers are supposed to be rare in the world of DnD, and if you look at the player’s handbook or do a little reading, you’ll get the gist why. Sorcerers have raw and unpredictable magic flowing beneath their skin. It can be frightening at first, much like Vanya’s discovery of her powers and their suppression, but maybe even intoxicating. Difficult to control when triggered by external forces. Sorcerers are akin to the rage ability of barbarians, and prefer to blast enemies into kingdom come. Sound familiar? I would imagine Vanya much like Klaus in DnD, reluctant to use her powers, especially after finding out just how sideways things can go when she uses them. Yet I also think she’d be excited to be *special* after a lifetime of being told she’s useless.

If you made it this far -- thank you! I am a DnD newbie so I’m sure more veteran players have better choices/ideas/explanations than I do.

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 127 Thoughts

“Let us speak for 46 pages about how we still don’t actually have any real plan, we’re just all very against genocide (except Magath and Yelena) and very upset and feel like we should be doing something.”

The characters are sort of doing my job for me this month.

Maybe this whole post should just be illicit screencaps from Crunchyroll with me providing links and saying, ‘and here’s the panel that makes the point I whined about in this post here.’

That would probably provide more entertainment than whatever I’m about to come up with.

-sees the amount of swearing in the first section-

Hm.

First off, fuck Magath.

Like no, I’m sorry. This is not about what happened 2000 years ago. You know what it’s about? It’s about Marley sending in child soldiers to assault and rob a land that had caused literally no problems for 100 years. It’s about Marley doing this despite being aware of its own history, being that their personal hero collaborated with the First King of Paradis to make Marley’s independence possible.

You want to talk about history, Magath?

Jean isn’t the one who sounds like a child.

Jean is reacting to actual pain that he has experienced in his lifetime thanks to Magath’s very intentional military strategies.

Magath is blaming Jean and everyone else on the island for being born.

That is not equivalent.

That is not remotely equivalent, and while Eren is being a fucking bastard about it, Jean’s right. Eren has the power, means, and will to do all of this because of what Magath and Marley did to Paradis.

Magath doesn’t recognize Eldians as people.

The Eldian Empire was bad.

No one except Floch is disputing that. That is how you know that it is bad.

Marley, as well as the rest of the world, has been free from the Eldian Empire for over a hundred years, and in that time, all they have done is take every horrible thing about the Eldian Empire and exploit it for their own gains.

Magath doesn’t get to be angry that he lives off the backs of abused, brainwashed children that he treats like crap.

Years ago, the Eldian Empire was the worst terror in the world.

A year ago, it was Marley.

Now, it happens to be Eren.

And you know, I’ve been actively against pretty much everything Eren’s done. His plan, if he has one, has mostly managed to make everyone angry and get a lot of people killed who weren’t even involved in the beginning. He gets his head blown off close enough to his brother that he doesn’t die. That’s how the beginning stages of him committing genocide goes. He betrays his friends, makes his besties from childhood feel like crap, and honestly has just been a dick to pretty much everyone.

But at least Eren’s indiscriminate murder has the decency to actually be indiscriminate.

Marley takes children it despises and turns them into their willing slaves for the promise of a better life they have no intent of dispensing. They take these children, and full of hatred for the very ability, demand that they shorten their lifespan and murder people to prove that they’re a “good Eldian” who deserves to live.

Marley is why people can stomach rooting for Eren.

Because Marley is such an abomination that it almost feels worth it to destroy the world if it means Marley’s gone too.

Hell, I’m with Hange. There’s not an avenue where I accept genocide as a way to deal with any of this.

But if someone wanted to burn Magath alive, and we spent a dozen pages gloriously detailing his flesh curling off his bones, it would make me happy.

That’s a more dignified death than he’s given any of the children he’s forced into Marley’s wars.

He does not have the fucking moral high ground.

He's the one Jean should have punched. There is not a single person around that campfire that he has not damaged deeply, and noticing that Gabi is a little girl and he cares when she is in pain does not magically remove that.

Fuck Marley. Fuck Magath.

Grow the fuck up and stop viewing genocide as an acceptable response, you fucking halfwit child. You are the individual who saw four children off on their solitary mission to murder thousands of people. Two of them are dead. Two of them are deeply traumatized, with one of them wishing he had died.

But oh yes, Magath. You’re the victim, here.

Because you baited one angry idiot with the power of a god into destroying part of a city you didn’t give a damn about.

Truly, your justice is a thing to aspire to.

Perhaps Eren taking notes is the real reason we’re here.

Motherfucking fuck I hate Marley. I hate that Eren’s put any of these characters in the position where they have to put up with this shit for the sake of civility. I don’t have a problem with the Warriors. I don’t have a problem with the Survey Corps. I don’t have a problem with the kidlets. Hi Onyankopon, sorry about your life. Yelena has many problems, but she’s also attractive, so I don’t mind as much.

Magath, though.

Pieck, just eat him. Everyone’s too depressed to really throw down over it at this point, and the two small ones are so deeply traumatized that one more body really isn’t going to make much of a dent.

Jean’s clearly the star of this chapter, and a good deal of that comes from the potent hopelessness hovering over him like a rain cloud.

He can point to how bad everyone is at talking things out like it’s the key to the entire mystery, but the long list of problems Jean offers at the beginning of the chapter are still present. Unless they have a way to talk to every person in the world out of their (at this point, rather justified) fear and anger, Paradis and Eldians around the world are very much screwed.

Paradis has forever been running out of time against the hatred the rest of the world has for them.

They do have to fight against what Eren’s doing, and talking instead of blowing each other’s heads off is a good start, but it’s a good start thousands of years after the worst possible one.

And the last time they tried to talk to Eren, Armin punched him, and that was the most productive thing to come out of it.

Jean being the everyman who recognizes the heart of an average person because he is one has been a great tool. It’s still great, here. He wants to close his ears to all of this. He wants, desperately, to run away, because there is no good solution that doesn’t end in death.

When he joins the Survey Corps, they at least have Eren as a brand of hope. They can believe that years of the same tactics and bodies piling up won’t end the same way.

Joining this squad is all about stopping Eren, and despite having figured out their next course of action, no one has yet to provide a real idea.

Genocide is wrong, so you stand up and try to stop it.

That’s the only plan they have.

The Scouts from Paradis don’t even have the promise of saving the people they love if they stop Eren. Annie, Pieck, Gabi, Reiner, Falco... they have a home. The world might forget to hate them. They might get to go home and have a life after this.

The people sitting on the other side of the fire are fucking screwed. They’re fighting entirely for their principles.

...Also Yelena is here.

I do like Yelena.

She’s not the worst, because this manga has too many horrible people in it, but she’s delightfully terrible. I especially like how the fact that she’s actually from Marley hardly gives her any pause.

I do so like Yelena.

It’s a beautiful sentiment.

After all, everyone’s drunk on something.

If you can just save the world, what does the rest matter? What do the crimes that kept you awake at night mean, when you’ve accomplished something so miraculous? All the good deeds cleanse the rottenness, and maybe then the world rights itself and you can breathe again.

...Hey wait, where’s Reiner’s reaction shot to finding out Gabi killed Sasha?

...Did he even know Sasha was dead?

But I guess we’re doing Marco angst.

Wow. Marco angst in 2020.

I think my favorite thing about this chapter (outside of the fact that Mikasa still hates Annie and it makes me giggly because wow Mikasa) is that Annie does absolutely nothing while Jean’s beating the crap out of Reiner.

My less favorite thing is I’ve stopped enjoying Reiner getting the crap beaten out of him. It’s been done, and... really the kid just needs to have not been born into this particular life. Watching Jean beat him bloody is. not cathartic. It’s really just awful.

Annie dodging with her food is glorious, though.

Because while Jean beating up Reiner over Marco is sad and kind of miserable, Annie watching someone beat up Reiner after the years she spent putting up with Reiner and Bertolt brings it back to almost funny.

Until you look at Reiner’s face and go back to feeling bad.

-turns page back to Annie getting out of the way-

Much better.

Truly, I love Annie.

Her forgiveness status is interesting, though. I think besides Marco, she enjoyed more of the kills she’s responsible for than anyone feels a need to dig up.

She’s also been more alone than most of the others in the wagons, and essentially spent four years imprisoned for her crimes.

I’m not surprised she asked, because she’s Annie, but I’m a bit surprised we don’t have an answer yet. Probably too close to the end of the chapter to open up that can of worms.

If it makes everyone feel better, I think we know for a fact that Mikasa will never forgive Annie for anything, even if it only displays itself as petty brandishing of weapons every time they make eye contact.

It’s not even a ship thing.

I just love that Annie is the one person Mikasa can’t stand. They’ve been in one chapter together and Mikasa’s already pulling out swords. These two shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near each other. It’s perfection.

Then we get to plot complications that really don’t register as complications because like. Yeah, you guys need something to do while you figure out what the hell you’re doing.

Because you don’t actually have a real plan, just so we’re clear.

Killing Eren would result in all those Wall Titans operating under their own power.

That is not fundamentally less destructive.

Killing Eren has a nice ring to it, but much like talking to Eren, it does not solve any of the other problems looming ahead.

So you enjoy your little subplot with Floch!

It’s one of the last times your combined competence will have any meaning.

-looks over at Kiyomi-

Honest question, but why are you alive if Floch dislikes you enough to hold you hostage? If Eren’s gonna kill everyone, shouldn’t Floch be following suit and just do his Floch thing of murdering every slight inconvenience?

We’re in the boring stages of the finale right now.

No clear plan for either side to contend with. No real progress in any direction because the tiny squabbles are just a delaying tactic for the massive squabble that no one has an answer to. None of any of this chapter really matters except for clearing the air.

Which is not a useless investment, it’s just not very exciting.

At this point, no excitement is allowed, because there’s that One Huge Thing, and the entire story hinges on it. Maybe someone will die on the way to dealing with it, but that’s all the drama we’re going to get until we find out enough about the plot to have a future worth rooting for.

Right now, there is no good outcome for the people we’ve watched fight for 127 chapters.

Pulling a story along with that weight is hard, and I can feel my brain turning itself off until we’re back to a point where the story is permitted to address the stegosaurus in the room.

One more month.

Again.

Until something happens and we all regret everything.

[icasttourniquet]

Case Study: Operation Eve, Part I

So your character Babak just fell off a (small) cliff into a (shallow) river and hasn’t gotten up. Luckily, Elyssa is on the scene, ready to figure out what’s wrong with him (which is probably a lot) using the Patient Assessment System (PAS). What does she do first?

In the wilderness, the PAS has three stages, and unfortunately, the second stage is called the primary stage, because I guess outdoorsy people index at zero. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The first stage is…

Scene Safety

Scenario

Elyssa looks up to the top of the cliff to make sure no one else is near the edge and might fall off. Seeing someone, she yells: “There’s a cliff there! Back up!” The figure backs away. She looks around for other people who could possibly help or (more likely) might get themselves injured and require her help. She doesn’t see anyone.

Next, Elyssa throws on her non-Latex gloves and a set of sunglasses. She’s already wearing close-toed shoes. Before approaching, she gets a general impression of the scene, which looks a bit like this: trauma, possible spine injury, patient appears to be breathing, water is cold, night is coming in an hour, we’re two hours away from a trailhead.

Finally, she assesses the cliff for rock fall potential and doesn’t like what she sees. Because it’s cold and her patient is in the water, and because falling rocks tend to do bad things to the human body, she rushes forward, puts her arms under Babak’s armpits, and drags him backwards, out of the water and away from the cliff, as gently as she can, but not worrying too much about injuring him because, while it isn’t ideal, the falling rocks and cold water will kill him faster than a spine injury.

Methods of Assessment

The first thing Elyssa does is assess scene safety. This is her order of priorities: 1) herself, 2) her second, if she has one, 3) any bystanders, and finally, 4) the injured Babak. That means if she needs to put herself or anyone else at risk to help Babak, she should mission abort now.

Here’s a helpful mnemonic for a NOLS-trained Elyssa:

Who’s number one? Me! Or, in this case, Elyssa.

What happened to you? Get a sense for the mechanism of injury (MOI) or nature of illness (NOI). In this case, the MOI is that Babak has fallen ten feet off a cliff onto his leg and back and is now sitting in freezing cold water, both of which can cause injury.

Don’t get it on me! Elyssa should don gloves, close-toed shoes, sunglasses, etc., to prevent any blood from getting on her.

Are there any more? Often, the loudest patient is not the most critical, since at least if you’re screaming, we know you can breathe. Elyssa does a quick check to make sure no one else was injured by Babak’s fall.

Five! What’s the vibe? Elyssa get a general impression of the situation, specifically looking for any immediate, external threats to Babak’s safety and alleviating them.

A Wilderness Medical Associates-trained Elyssa might take a slightly different approach, looking for three things:

Safety: personal, partner, public, patient.

MOI: trauma, medical, or environmental (e.g., hypothermia).

Numbers: how many patients, how many rescuers, how many resources?

They’re both going to help you spot all the big important things; they just use slightly different methods to get you there.

The Three Cs

Having gotten Babak to safety, Elyssa takes a deep breath to calm herself down. Becoming panicked will only put her in more danger. Then, she says, “My name is Elyssa. I’m a wilderness first responder. Can I please help you?” Babak makes a sort of groaning sound and Elyssa assumes consent (for medical treatment) and puts her hands on his head, below the ears so her fingers rest on his neck, to make sure his head doesn’t roll around too much.

The three Cs are: Calm, Consent, and C-spine. Elyssa calms herself by taking a deep breath and reminding herself that whatever happens, she is not injured. Next, she needs to get consent from Babak before touching him, which she tries to get verbally. Elyssa should not under any circumstances waste time trying to figure out if Babak is a child or can give consent because he’s probably bleeding out—this can be handled later. Unconscious patients are assumed to want medical treatment.

(You sometimes hear people joke about getting a DNR tattoo on their chest or wrist as a prank. Unless I physically see the signed DNR order, I assume you want treatment if you’re unconscious).

Elyssa places her hands on Babak’s head and neck to stabilize C-spine (the bit of spine in the neck) because if that severs, it could kill him and this injury was clearly traumatic. On an awake patient, Elyssa could accomplish this by saying, “Hey, please don’t move your neck.” If she had a partner, she could instruct the partner to hold the neck in place to be sure, because she’s going to need to move her hands in the next stages. If Babak had presented with anaphylactic shock from a bee sting, stabilizing C-spine would be less important.

And with that, Elyssa enters the…

Primary Assessment

Scenario

Elyssa places her ear to Babak’s chest and a hand on his neck and discovers he is breathing and has a beating heart. She opens his mouth to check for obstructions and finds a bit of blood but nothing in his airway. She pats him down quickly, checking for blood on her palms each time. She places two fingers in his palm and says “Can you squeeze my fingers?”, which Babak does. She notes that he could have a spine injury.

Methods of Assessment

The goal of the primary assessment is to spot life threats and treat them immediately (untreated life threats tend to become causes of death). Elyssa cares about only two things in this stage: oxygenation and perfusion. Is Babak putting oxygen into his blood, most likely by breathing? And is that oxygenated blood going to where it needs to go, which is, at this stage, the brain and the heart?

To check, Elyssa can go through her ABCs—Airway, Breathing, Circulation—or her BBBs—Blood, Breathing, Breathing. Because Mod E likes the BBBs and he’s writing this, we’re going with the BBB method. Each B has two components:

Blood

First, check for a pulse. If Babak doesn’t have a pulse, Elyssa should start CPR immediately (with one exception, which is if she sees evidence of an arterial bleed, in which case, fix that first or all your excellent CPR is just pumping blood onto the ground instead of Babak’s brain).

Next, do a blood sweep. Elyssa does this by placing her palms against Babak’s bare skin in his ‘shorty wetsuit area,’ or every part of him that would be covered by a shorty swimsuit. For the shorty-wetsuit-uninitiated, that’s the upper arms, chest, stomach, and thighs. Elyssa should check her palms after each pat to see if they are covered in blood.

If she finds blood, Elyssa applies direct pressure to the wound. If that doesn’t help, she can tie a tourniquet. There are two general tourniquet rules in the wilderness: 1) put it three inches above the wound and not on a joint (which would be useless), and 2) never remove a tourniquet. While Elyssa is authorized to apply a tourniquet, under no circumstances should can she ever remove one, even if she thinks she applied it in error. That’s something for E.R. doctors to do. Removing a tourniquet can kill you, even if the wound is no longer bleeding for another reason.

If the bleeding is on the neck, armpits, or groin area, a tourniquet is a bad idea, for obvious reasons (a tourniquet on a neck is also called a noose!). Instead, Elyssa can consider pinching and packing. Pinching means sticking her gloved fingers into the wound and trying to find what feels like a hollow limp noodle or the flacid end of a hose. If Elyssa can find this, that both (1) sucks, becuase, yuck and (2) is amazing because pinching that artery shut stops the bleed right at it’s source, which is great news for people who want to keep their blood. Here is an example of a successful pinch (warning: picture included).

No noodle? No problem. Elyssa can pack the wound, which means exactly what it sounds like: stuff bandages, fabric, loose clothing, maybe specialized wound gauze if she has it into the wound until it stops bleeding. Here is an article about proper wound packing protocol (even bigger warning: lots of pictures that you cannot avoid by not scrolling). Here’s the military’s rubric for assessing how well someone has stuffed a wound (with no pictures! Woo hoo!).

Breathing

First, check that the patient is breathing by placing a hand on his chest, listening for his breathing, or putting something metal in front of his mouth and nose to check for condensation.

If the patient is not breathing and they don’t have a pulse, Elyssa starts CPR immediately. If Babak is not breathing but does have a pulse, she also starts CPR, but if she sees or feels an obstruction in the airway while giving breaths, she’ll continue doing chest compressions.

Next, check that their airway is not obstructed. If it is, use tweezers to take food/teeth/rocks out, or ask the patient to do it himself. Assuming Elyssa has no better options, she can reach in with her fingers and pull obstructions out, remembering, all the while, her instructor who lost two fingers to a startled patient in exactly this way.

Brain

First, Elyssa gives Babak an AVPU score. Awake (A) means he’s awake and talking. A patient who doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or what happened still receives a top mark (A!) in this category, although he may receive lower ratings later on.

V means verbal, or able to follow verbal commands, such as squeeazing a finger when asked. P means responsive to pain. Elyssa can check this by pinching the underside of his upper arms. U means unresponsive to every stimuli. Suffice it to say, U is not an ideal score.

Next, Elyssa mentally notes whether or not she thinks Babak could have a spinal injury. Because he fell off a cliff and Elyssa is smart, she thinks he might have a spinal injury.

Unlike in the previous two categories, Elyssa does not jump into immediate action if her patient fails a brain test. However, both a low AVPU score and a spine injury are considered life threats, so she needs to note them at this stage.

Here’s a video of a full patient assessment.

Scenario

Elyssa is pretty sure Babak isn’t going to die in the next few minutes, but she still isn’t sure what’s wrong with him. Next week, we’ll go over the secondary assessment and see if we can’t nurse Babak back to health.