#i’ve got opinions on what’s been said & shown and how certain people have reacted

[obs-mcyt-archive]

.

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

I don’t really know him

ok so I’ve had this idea in my head forever. basically you’re a famous singer and go on the ellen show. 

also, here’s the art I imagine for the album cover. Just some simple art I made up!

the podcasts I mention are ones I actually listen to, and here’s the link to those!

conspiracy theories

in our time

warnings: like one swear word?

word count: 2.1k 

"It's so good to see you, Y/N!" Ellen smiled warmly at you. "Yes, you too," you beamed, shifting in the white chair. "I've been wanting to be on this show forever, you have no idea."

"Really?" She laughed. You nodded. "It's really an honor." "Well, we love to have you," she smiled again. "So what have you been up to these days?" "I've been pretty busy," you informed her. "I've been working a lot on my music." "Oh? Do we have a third album coming sometime soon?" You smiled, offering a small shrug. "I can neither confirm nor deny." "Well you can't just leave us with that!" You laughed. "I will say there is definitely a third album in the works. I'm saying absolutely nothing about the timeline, though," you said, making the motion of zipping your lips. "Really?" She leaned forward, intrigued. "Could we possibly hear some details of this album?" "I've already said too much," you sat back in your chair, grinning. "Well, if that's all you're going to say..." She looked at you expectantly, as if you would just crack and spill all the details. You just smiled, shaking your head. She sighed dramatically. "I guess we'll move on." "I think that's wise," you nodded. "I did want to talk about your second album." She pulled out a record, the big album cover being shown on the screen behind her as well. "I really enjoyed this, by the way. It's very good." "Thank you," you said, your face heated up at her compliments. "It's good to know people liked it. I really put myself out there for that one." "You did!" She said, looking back down at the artwork. "It was very personal." You bit your lip, nodding. "It was definitely a lot more so than the first one, which was kind of scary, if I'm being honest." "Yeah, well that's understandable," she nodded. "Was there a certain someone these songs were written about? I couldn't help but notice some of these are very much... love songs." You smiled again. "I'm afraid that's another question I can neither confirm nor deny." "Yeah, I had a feeling you'd say that." You nodded, trying to keep the flush off your face. There definitely was a certain someone those songs were about. They were about Harry. Every single one of them was about him, and you knew for a fact the songs on his newest album were about you. No one else knew, though. You two had done a good job keeping your relationship secret. It was annoying at times, but neither of you wanted to deal with the stress of the public trying to know every detail of your relationship. "Now, it's time for a few burning questions," she said, setting the album down in front of her. "Oh, delightful," you sighed playfully. "Oh, quiet, this will be fun." "Will it?" you joked, but leaned forward nonetheless. "Definitely," she picked up a stack of cards. "First- what is your favorite food?" "Ooh, I have to say alfredo. Or... like, fudge." "Fudge?" "Yeah, it's super good." "Good to know," she laughed, looking at the next card. "What is your lockscreen?" You had to bite your tongue to keep the smile off your face. Truthfully, it was a picture of Harry. He had his hair up in a clip, looking like a little tree on top of his head. But obviously, you couldn't say this. Thankfully, you had left your phone in your dressing room, so there was no way anyone would see. "My dog," you lied. This had been true for a long time; at least until you started dating Harry. "Aw, that's cute!" You nodded with a small smile, thinking of how cute your lockscreen really was. "Who is your favorite musician?" "Uh... I don't- like, as a person? Or their music? I could go a lot of directions with this," you chuckled. "Let's just go with... as a person." "Oh boy, there's quite a lot of those," you smiled. "I really admire a lot of people, truly. A few that come to mind, I guess... Megan thee Stallion, obviously-" You were cut off by loud cheering. You grinned out at the audience, laughing at their excitement. "See, they agree," you gestured out in front of you. "I just love her energy. And Lizzo, one hundred percent. I've gotten closer with both of them in the past few years, and I cherish their friendship. They're both wonderful people. Oh, I've met Taylor Swift a few times, and I love her so much, she's so kind." "Wow, you're moving up in the world," she smiled. "I don't know," you blushed again. "Don't be so humble, you're one of the big names now!" "I don't really like to think of it that way," you admitted. "Honestly, I just like making music. I'm so blessed to be able to do what I love." "And we're blessed to be able to hear it," she said with a sincere smile. "What about the other way? Who do you like, for their music specifically?" "Um, I'm into a lot of different stuff, I don't really have a specific artist or genre I like," you lied again. Lately, you had only been listening to Harry's music. "Really?" She seemed surprised. You nodded. "There is one, though, Charlotte Sands. I actually first heard her song, Dress, on TikTok and got really into more of her stuff." This wasn't actually a lie. You liked the song when you first heard it, and even more when you found out who it was about. "Oh, I've heard Dress! It's a very nice song," Ellen nodded. "But next question! What do you do when you can't sleep?" "I usually listen to a podcast." "What podcast do you listen to?" "Conspiracy theories. But not like, in a weird way," you laughed. "And also not to sleep." "Not to sleep?" "No, they're too interesting for that. When I'm trying to sleep, I listen to one by the BBC. I just play it really quietly so it's just background noise." "Interesting," she nodded. "But I'm more interested in the conspiracy theories. Not in a weird way?" She laughed. "No, not in like a crazy way," you clarified with a smile. "Like, I'm not super into them, but I'm kind of like, who knows?" You finished with an exaggerated shrug. Ellen laughed, along with the audience. "Well, it's good to know it's not in a crazy way." You nodded, still smiling. "But speaking of conspiracy theories..." She paused, leaning forward. "Harry Styles." You nodded, waiting for her to continue, and laughed lightly when she didn't. "Yes? What about him?" "Well, just what's your opinion?" You chuckled, raising your eyebrows. "My opinion? I don't really have an opinion, I don't really know him," you lied again. You most definitely did know him. "Well, just on what you've heard. He won a Grammy recently, did you know this?" "I did know this," you nodded. "And I don't know, I've heard he's a lovely person. I do like his music, actually." "Really? I thought you two were close. Judging from these pictures," you looked behind you, eyes going wide when you realized what they were. About a month ago, you and Harry had finally gone out together for the first time. It had been a simple outing; you had gone into a coffee shop to get some drinks. Harry had sat at the table while you ordered, then you walked out before him with both cups. He followed you a few minutes after, meeting up at a corner down the street. You tried to take as many precautions as you could so you wouldn't be spotted together, and you had really thought it worked. You had both been wearing masks, so you didn't think anyone would notice. Since that was so long ago, you thought you had gotten away with it. Apparently not. There was no denying that it was you and Harry, and there was no denying the love in your eyes as you looked at him. He was the same; he looked absolutely infatuated with you. "Um," you shifted in your seat, turning back to face Ellen. She had an excited grin on her face. "I always thought you two would be cute together." "Did you?" You asked, trying desperately not to blush more than you already were. You really didn't know how to react. You had been so careful, or so you thought. How had this picture not been leaked sooner? Ellen must have had this planned for a long time. She nodded. "So, it seems you do know him pretty well. Care to give us any more details? Are you two... official?" "Unfortunately, I think you know what I'm going to say," you managed to smile again. "I can neither-" She spoke over you. "Confirm nor deny, yes, I know," she sighed playfully. "Next question, then!" Once the interview was over, you rushed back to your dressing room. Just as you expected, you had at least 22 texts from Harry. Sighing, you unlocked your phone to read them. "Shit" "I'm so sorry" "I have no idea how they got that" "I know you wanted to keep this secret" "I'm so sorry they found out" "How did they get those?" "Why weren't those released earlier?" "Did Ellen plan this?" "She must have planned this" "I'm so sorry" "You were right, we should have been more careful" "I can say we're just friends if you want" "I can do an interview with Ellen next week" "I can lie" "I'll say whatever you want" "I'm so sorry" "This is my fault" You couldn't help but laugh, imagining how panicked he was while typing these. You weren't even that upset. You knew your relationship would come out sometime. Not wanting to make him suffer any longer, you tapped the call icon. He picked up on the first ring, not even saying hello before he was apologizing. "Baby, I'm so sorry, I feel awful, I know you didn't want anyone to know, but it's ok, I'm going to get an interview soon and I can-" "Harry," you cut him off. "It's ok. Really. I knew this would happen sooner or later, it's ok." "Really? You looked upset earlier." "I was flustered," you laughed. "And a little shocked. But I'm ok now. It's fine, I promise. Besides, now we don't have to hide all the time. We can go out in public if we want to." You could practically hear the smile in his voice when he answered. "Finally, I can take you out on a proper date, just like you deserve." You grinned. "Sounds perfect. I'm actually leaving here soon, do you want to meet at the coffee shop?" "I'd love to." "See you soon, then. Love you!" "I love you too." -----

“Really, though? “I don’t have an opinion, I don’t really know him?” A little rude, if I’m being honest.”

You laughed, swatting at his shoulder playfully across the table. “I didn’t know what to say! I panicked. I wanted to say “Oh yeah, Harry? I’m actually in love with him. He’s my favorite person in the entire world, and we’ve been dating for a year.” But I figured that was a little tactless.”

“Maybe a little,” he smiled, blushing at your compliments. “I can’t blame you, though. You probably handled it better than I would have.”

You laughed. “It was really hard! Every single question. She asked who my music was about. It’s about you! She asked what my lockscreen was. It’s you. She asked who my favorite artists are! Again, you.”

“Oh yeah, very sneaky with that Charlotte Sands song,” he chuckled. “A good hint. Do you think anyone will catch that?”

“Oh, definitely,” you smiled. “Your fans are literally the FBI.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “But they can’t be that good, since none of them found out about us.”

“True,” you nodded. “They’re losing their skills.”

“Oh, tragic,” he pouted. “Whatever will we do without being stalked every minute of our lives?”

“Maybe we could, you know, just live like normal people for a day.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

[yep-ishouldbesleeping]

Time to Vent

Hello My Hero Nation, it is time once again for me to scream into the void about my disappointments in the latest chapters (not all of them but especially a couple were just meh for me). You’ve read the title, buckle up BOIS.

I think Hori might have bitten more than he could chew with this arc and didn’t know how to wrap it up so he started to rush things, and it kinda shows. I’m not even one of those who thinks Horikoshi is a bad writer, he’s not the best but he’s good enough, especially the writings of certain characters I find very, very good.

But lately... He’s not been up to his own standards imo. 

So I made a list of all the things that disappointed me. Why? Because I’m insane and I’ve been hyper for the past 3 days and I need to say something.

Story wise

Midnight’s death was handled awfully. Not even a small flashback? Sis really died off screen like that. With Twice we got a beautifully crafted moment that was very heartbreaking, very well written. And although I’m more of a villain stan myself, I think the heroes’ side deserves the same treatment.

The fuck happened to Toga? Last time she was running and was not reunited with the League. 

The fuck happened to the Pussycats? We even got a small vignette with fucking Wash. WASH. (Like sir you’re great but now’s not the time)But not with them? ‘K. I thought they were a tad bit more important.

An update on Ryukyu? We know she was injured and that’s it, but she was important for Njire, Uraraka and Asui and yet we know nothing about her. I’m not even sure if the decay destroyed her hands completely.

We don’t know what happened to the big three. We know they got injured, but especially Tamaki, we basically haven’t seen him the whole arc, yet he was pretty important for Kirishima and Mirio (2 characters who have a more important role in the story... but yet here we are).

The Todos hospital scene. Not good. The golden child syndrome and the bad victim one strike again. Apparently Fuyumi and Natsuo aren’t as important as Shouto, being that they’re not “the family’s heroes”, when they both tried their best and Fuyumi especially tried to keep the family together (Not saying Shouto isn’t important just that he shouldn’t be put on a pedestal and viewed as better than his siblings).

Actual consequences for the heroes?? A couple of pages isn’t really enough in my opinion, and Endeavor gets to keep his job?? He should be removed if not incarcerated?? Domestic abuse is a crime??? Plus maybe a little investigation on Hawks. Show me something Hori. SHOW ME THE SYSTEM FALLING APART PLS.

An update on the current Heroes’ Top Ten would have been nice. Half of them are dead, another half is injured. Some people are quitting and some others are being cancelled. A quick recap would have helped the readers as well as the story, summarizing the story and showing how the tides are changing.

None seemed to really care that much about the prison breaks. We just know that the panic hasn’t stopped but everyone was more involved in other things. ‘K.

Kurogiri?? What happened to him? Did he escape? None knows.

Where are the new prisoners gonna go? People like the Doctor, Machia and Compress, if Tartarus is not available, especially Machia. Where the fuck can you put this giant. 

Human Reactions

The parents don’t seem concerned at all. Your children were dragged into a war, half of them almost died. Can we get an actual reaction? Give me parents that are angry, that cry, that want to take their children away from that school. Nope. Nothing. Just Inko and Mitsuki moving calmly looking mildly concerned. That’s not even in character.

Inko your child has dropped out of school and is missing. Honey what are you doing. Why didn’t they give you any human reaction I’m so sorry. They did you dirty love. 

Deku and All Might talikng. We don’t know her.

Deku AND KACCHAN TALKING. We don’t know her either.

Deku talking about Nana and Shigaraki. Nope. Not even a small little scene where he tells Gran Torino that Nana said hi, it would have been a small thing but still very moving I think.

THE SECRET IS OUT PEOPLE. Can we at least, at the very least, get an actual decent reaction of Deku’s classmates pls? No, just a page of people holding letters (that we can’t even read completely) with most of the focus on Uraraka, I know it’s because she has a crush on him, but people like Iida and Asui are his friends too, seeing that would have been nice.

THE OTHER SECRET IS OUT. Show me the class reacting to Todoroki’s situation, being hurt that a hero would do that, trying to awkwardly comfort Shouto.

Aizawa and Mic talking. For example about the Doctor or, I don’t know, FUCKING MIDNIGHT.

The League reacting to Dabi. The bitch is just crying blood on a couch none told him anything? 

The League being corcened about Compress and Toga. One is captured and the other is missing, I know that AFO is now in control but saying that your allies are missing should still be of interest to him too.

An update on Shigaraki. We don’t really know how the dialogue is going between him and AFO right now, after the prison escape I mean, just an update about them fighting for dominance (God that sounds bad) would have been nice.

The people reacting to ReDestro. I believe no civilians ever talked about him? And yet his company was pretty big, but now that he’s been exposed to have ties with the league none said anything. Also his ideology was said to be spreading but none seems to care that much.

Aaand that’s that. I probably forgot a couple of things but I think these are the more pressing matters. As I said I’m really disappointed. 

Hori has shown us that he’s a capable writer and now he’s just... not doing too well story wise I guess? I hope he can come back up.

I don’t know. I feel a bit better at least.

Feel free to add or disagree just please be nice, I’m a fragile human.

[betawooper]

rating every demon fight in kny bc i can

non-biased, completely objective rating (more or less) of every significant demon fight in kny based on a number of factors, including:

cleverness of fighting tactics

placement in the story’s timeline

integration of character backstories

cohesive themes between characters

etc

by non-biased and objective i mean i’m not skewing the rating if a death felt fair or whatever

everything past where the anime ended will be under a read more so anime onlys who havent watched mugen train, youre safe lol

oh and i reread the manga like 20+ times (reread the latter arcs at least 40 times, haha hyperfixations am i right?) so be rest assured im not pulling these ratings out of my ass

also ill randomly be bolding certain phrases just to improve readability

anyways let’s gooooo

VS NEZUKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Nezuko. Tanjirou is fending her off by putting the axe handle in her mouth, keeping her from eating him. End Image Description.]

10/10

i like how realistic it is, because yeah tanjirou would react the way to he did with zero fighting skills against a demon

very clear why tanjirou is fighting nezuko and shows a bit of worldbuilding on how normal people react to their family becoming demons

always nice to see worldbuilding

giyuu is the perfect example of a seasoned demon slayer who’s good at his job, and he juxtaposes tanjirou very well in that aspect

my only complaint is not directly in this fight itself but how nezuko is handled throughout the story as a whole

like bro, it is literally never explained why nezuko is different from demons

could have been easily explained if maybe her family’s ghosts like slapped her hand every time she wanted to eat a person but nope

she’s just built different lol

so yeah youll see future ratings get points docked off bc nezuko unlocks some secret power with no prior explanation other than she angy >:3

VS TEMPLE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a demon. The demon has a sharp-nailed hand over his neck and there are four text bubbles around him saying “But a wound like this... will heal in no time! See? The bleeding already stopped!” End Image Description.]

10/10

may be more forgettable compared to like rui but still good

tanjirou did exceptionally well in this fight and his ability to think on his feet is once again beautifully illustrated here (trapping this dude’s head against the tree trunk with the axe)

very clever

again, establishes more demon worldbuilding regarding regeneration and still being able to move without their head

and the demons burning in the sunlight thing since nezuko wasn’t able to show that

the ending where tanjirou hesitates to kill the demon also serves to show his sympathetic nature towards demons that will last throughout the entirety of the first 60-ish chapters

:)

we’ll talk about what the hell happens to tanjirou after that

or not, it could honestly be its own post

VS HAND DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a many-handed demon. He has six hands around him, three of them covering his mouth while he chuckles, two of them grabbing his cheeks, and one holding on to the top of his head. There are two text bubbles saying “That’s how many of Urokodaki’s students I have eaten! I’ve decided to kill all of his students!” End Image Description.]

10/10

ooooh probably the first big fight against a demon in the series

oh yeah not doing the two random demons tanjirou one shot in a single blow bc eh

anyways hand demon’s pretty goddamn scary, considering the fact that this is the 5th demon or whatever tanjirou has had to face so far

very nice way to show us how much tanjirou’s innate intuition and all his other random abilities (sense of smell, hard forehead) can come together and help him decapitate this guy

i liked the mini history with urokodaki this dude had and why he had beef with our favorite mentor figure, it establishes that urokodaki was in fact a super good demon slayer and its cool to see that actually shown

i also liked that small moment of compassion tanjirou gave this demon, staying consistent with tanjirou’s established kindness

the demon’s sad tale with killing his own brother very much humanizes him when all the reader has seen up to this point is that this guy is a monster who eats people

sets up the theme of demons just being humans but being victims of circumstance that unfortunately doesn’t hold up as well in arcs past mugen train

VS SWAMP DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou fighting off three horned demons as they appear from below. There is a spiky text bubble saying “Three of them!!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not my most favorite fight but it still portrays everything alright and im not allowed to let my personal opinions mess with the rating so

i like how tanjirou mentioned the fact that he trained in conditions similar to the bog and explains how he pulled off the whirlpool form

using past experiences to aid him in the present, nice nice

tanjirou and nezuko dont quite work together very well but its yknow the first mission so ill chalk it up to simple inexperience

also the way the muzan curse thingie was hinted at here? fantastic way of showing that little bit of demon worldbuilding

...

oh god, it mentions nezuko being stronger than normal demons

ok its not a problem here per say since i can still suspend my disbelief, but later on it just becomes a glaring problem that gets worse over time

VS SUSAMARU AND YAHABA

[Image Description: Manga panels of Susamaru and Yahaba. The first one is a joyful Susamaru about to throw a temari ball. There is floating text saying “Is she one of Kibutsuji’s minions?!” The second image is an annoyed Yahaba, holding one of his eye-hands to cover himself. There are two text bubbles around him saying “My kimono got all dusty. Tch!” End Image Description.]

9/10

why dont these bitches have a good looking panel together dammit

anyways amazing entrance, the way yahaba used his hand eyes to track down tanjirou is really neat

the synergy yahaba and susamaru have is incredible, its awesome dude, they work extremely well together and it shows

tanjirou actually mixing his water breathing forms together is a god tier move and i absolutely love how he can show off his ability to think on his feet once again

establishing how yushiro’s bda works early on is really well done

establishing tamayo as a fugitive this early on is also super well done

not to get into spoiler territory but both these things pay off

how tamayo ended up defeating susamaru is literally awesome in so many ways

shows off both how smart she is by exploiting the muzan curse

and speaking of the muzan curse, we actually get to see what happens to demons who even say his name, back when it was hinted with the swamp demon

tamayo is amazing dude, and we get some real evidence of the horrible suffering demons go through if they even accidentally attempt to betray muzan :D

...

now heres what keeps this fight from being perfect

nezuko somehow grew stronger against susamaru’s temari

with no explanation

which could have been easily explained if tamayo was like “oh yeah the drug also boosts a demon’s strength temporarily”

but nope

god, i just dont like how gotouge handles nezuko’s power boosts throughout the series bc like i said before

no explanation is given anywhere

this is a huge issue, this isnt a pokemon game, you cant just kill demons and get exp at the end of every battle, level up, get some sweet stat bonuses and move on

(actually if gotouge established that this is how nezuko grew in power, than all my complaints about this would be gone, im not even joking)

anyways i get that nezuko is supposed to be “special” but thats too vague of a descriptor

how the hell is she special? ya gotta be more specific and stick with that explanation or that suspension of disbelief is going to disappear

VS TONGUE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a four-eyed demon with horns and a long tongue. He is crawling in an awkward position, one foot in front of his tilted head. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Heh, heh! I’ll slurpy slurp your brains out through you ear!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not much to say, showcases zenitsu’s true abilities really well

nicely done

VS HORNED DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a big, single-horned demon. There are three text bubbles saying “You dodged! You’re awfully lively for a human! It’ll be a treat to carve away your flesh!” End Image Description.]

10/10

would have ignored this fight if not for the fact we havent seen inosuke fight before

it definitely shows how very fast-paced and wild inosuke is

no complaints here lol

VS KYOGAI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kyogai, a demon with tsuzumi drums attached to his shoulders. There are four text bubbles around him saying “Why?! Why does everyone keep sneaking through my house? It’s so aggravating. It’s my prey! It’s my prey! Found in my territory!” End Image Description.]

10/10

establishes marechi blood pretty early on, once again expanding the worldbuilding of kny which is always cool

interesting terrain where it’s always shifting, tanjirou once again proves his ability to adapt really quickly by altering one of his forms to work with the turning room

(man, i wish the form mixing/form modification thing carried on throughout the rest of the story, but it really didnt which is just a shame)

the injuries tanjirou had prior to this mission actually affecting him was a nice touch

oh yeah, kyogai gives us more worldbuilding (which is always nice) regarding the 12 kizuki, and the aspect of him being cast out due to being weak shows a lot about muzan’s indifference towards his own demons if they arent strong

his backstory being a failed writer once again humanizes kyogai as a former human being and not just a monster

tanjirou shows his sympathy and compassion again by not stepping on his written work and complimenting his bda

well, tbh tanjirou’s actions kinda came out of nowhere but its a very minor thing and not enough to dock a point off, like it didnt affect the outcome of the fight that much if at all

(so if you see future battles where points are docked off for things not logically making sense, its bc whatever nonsensical concepts were integrated into the fight actually turned the tide of the battle and thats a big no-no)

very good fight and if you remember how kinda bad tanjirou was at accurately slicing the swamp demon, you can see that he’s already improved leaps and bounds

im so proud of him

VS MOTHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and the Mother Spider Demon. There is a light shining down from the top right on to the demon as Tanjirou slices her head off, rain following in his wake. There is floating text saying “Water Breathing: Fifth Form - Blessed Rain After the Drought!” around them. End Image Description.]

10/10

i mean does anyone disagree?

all the demon slayers getting their necks snapped by her threads was pretty horrific, probably more horrifying than anything else we have seen in the entire series if im gonna be honest

the death scene is probably the most beautiful one in the series

it reveals a water breathing form that we havent seen before thats the 5th form

as far as i know, no other breathing style has this merciful sword stroke so it shows a lot about the original water breather and what they might have been like

but enough about them, really the focus is on tanjirou bc this is like the best example by far of how kind and sympathetic he is to demons

dunno what else to say, its perfect

VS SON SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Agatsuma Zenitsu performing Thunder Breathing 1st Form: Sixfold on a spider-like demon. Zenitsu is crashing through the roof of a shed, and a zig-zag path is left behind. There are sound effects all over the panel, saying “Bam!” in large font. End Image Description.]

10/10

chose a picture without a huge spider on it bc i would like to not scare myself half to death

anyways extremely amazing fight, showcases zenitsu’s immense talent and skill, adapting the 1st form of thunder breathing to be a more versatile move

theres a moment where his backstory with kuwajima and kaigaku were revealed and his hidden insecurities are out in the open which is super nice and further develops a character weve only considered as comedic relief until now

the anime made the backstory scenes and the killing scene so much cooler

while there is no thematic connection between zenitsu and the demon, it really isnt necessary to keep this fight interesting

anyways another pretty much perfect fight

VS FATHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Inosuke slashing at the Father Spider Demon. The demon has blocked Tanjirou’s sword with his arm, and Inosuke is slamming both his blades down on the demon’s other hand. End Image Description.]

10/10

again, not my most favorite fight but it does everything right

i do have to say it was excellent how gotouge hyped up the father spider demon to be the big bad, only just so the plot twist later takes the readers by surprise

nicely done

VS DAUGHTER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kochou Shinobu and the Daughter Spider Demon. Shinobu’s back is seen and her haori looks like a butterfly’s wings keeping her afloat as she holds her stinger blade out to the side. The demon looks surprised as blood gushes from her side, arm, shoulder, chest, neck, and forehead. There is floating text on the panel, saying “Insect Breathing - Butterfly Dance - Caprice!” End Image Description.]

10/10

first time weve seen shinobu and her fighting style

what i love most about this is how much it shows her true character, appearing as a carefree and naive individual so she seems underwhelming

then bam, reveals exactly how dangerous and uncaring she is of demons, listing out the specific ways she would torture the daughter spider demon in grotesque detail

her using poison to take demons by surprise is also super clever and brings back the worldbuilding established way earlier about wisteria being poisonous to demons

amazing integration of that concept

anyways this fight really encapsulates who shinobu is as a character and thats why it gets a perfect score

VS RUI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Rui holding his hand out directly towards the viewer. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Give me your sister. If you hand her over quietly, I’ll spare your life.” End Image Description.]

8/10

not only is it a super scary fight but there is a deeper conflict between rui and tanjirou, what it means to be family

they are opposites in the sense that while tanjirou believes love is what makes a family, rui’s subconscious desperation for an unbreakable bond drives him to use fear to keep his “family” together

excellent juxtaposition of their values, and this is only further emphasized when rui expresses out loud what he was going to do to nezuko

i also like the symbolism regarding rui’s bda, how he uses threads or the “familial” bonds to cut up his fake family with it if they act out of turn or annoy him

super neat detail

alright what i dont like about this fight is nezuko (again)

mostly her unlocking her bda to turn the tide of the battle bc her mom was like “yo, wake up, your brother is going to be killed”

feels... forced ig

her bda in general is confusing and not consistent

man, i wish i could make a stronger argument for this but i do believe the problem stems from the fact that we dont ever know what nezuko is thinking, and what she thinks of tanjirou specifically

if she even cares for him as a sibling or if shes only going along with what her family is saying to her, things like that which would have been fixed if gotouge actually gave her thoughts some screen time

so the action feels pretty shallow

im also conflicted over tanjirou somehow remembering how dance of the fire god works

on one hand, hes using past information and applying it in the current setting so he doesnt die, which is understandable

but on the other hand, this was a teeny bit random?

i think what could have fixed this is if there was a scene in the beginning of the series where tanjirou was performing it himself, like practicing before he actually had to do it for new years

so that when the rui fight rolls around, it would have felt less like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

but yeah

overall super good fight, giyuu ending up having to kill rui instead of tanjirou was super good in that tanjirou didnt become a pillar this early in the series and to show how strong giyuu is

there are some odd bits regarding the ultimate “beheading” of rui using nezuko and tanjirous supposed bonds but it doesnt kill the fight entirely so it deserves its pretty high score

***under read more is manga-only fights so beware***

VS ENMU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Enmu holding his hand out directly at the viewer, with a mouth on the back of it. There is floating text to the top right of Enmu that says “Whispers of Forced Unconscious Hypnosis!” End Image Description.]

9/10

id say this fight is definitely overshadowed by the dream stuff prior to this but its pretty good in its own right

enmu fusing with the train was kinda confusing, like when was it established that demons could fuse with objects?

this worldbuilding element doesnt even appear again so yeah thats why it loses a point

how the kmbk gang end up defeating enmu is pretty sweet though, tanjirou using dance of the fire god to sever the neck bone was really nice and shows that him using the breathing style in the rui fight wasnt a one time thing

while kyojuro’s role was smaller in this part, the next part makes up for it so i cant complain

anyways ye, almost perfect score but its pretty good

VS AKAZA (MUGEN TRAIN)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza holding his hand out to the viewer’s left. There is a text bubble saying “Why don’t you become a demon?” End Image Description.]

10/10

this encounter is literally amazing okay?

after the crew kills the big bad, it seems like everything is fine

but plot twist, upper moon 3 appears out of nowhere

this is the first time the reader has seen an upper moon, let alone the 3rd/4th strongest demon in existence and the way gotouge handled this twist is fucking amazing

kyojuro’s death scene really shows just how human even the strongest pillars are against demons with incredible power

its just

amazing

VS OBI DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panels of the obi-like demon. The first image shows the obi hung in the air and strung over each other like decorations, with women-shaped patterns in its folds. The second image is Hashibira Inosuke fighting the Obi demon which now has lips and eyes. There is floating text in that panel saying “Breath of the Beast: Sixth Fang - Jagged Gnaw!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

on to red light district

this fight is admittedly super forgettable and not very interesting at least compared to the main fight with daki and gyutaro

but it wraps up the sub plot of the women and uzui’s wives going missing so it gets a perfect score for not messing that up

oh and it establishes the stretchy neck thing daki has going on which is very good

VS DAKI AND GYUTARO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Daki and Gyutaro. Daki is sitting on Gyutaro’s shoulders. There is a text bubble on the top right that says “The two of us are one, after all.” as well as floating text that reads “The power of the irregular siblings...!? Next issue lead color and the fight reaches its climax!!” End Image Description.]

8/10

love how this battle challenges tanjirou’s sympathy and kindness towards demons, just simply bc daki and gyutaro are horrible people

(too bad nothing came of this, which ill explain in the hantengu portion)

daki and gyutaro are very good villains and kept this fight super interesting from start to finish

uzui acting as a foil to gyutaro is nicely integrated and properly shown with how jealous gyutaro gets over seeing uzui’s perfect form and stature

tanjirou not only mixes forms but mixes breathing styles as well, which is so fucking awesome

(too bad it was only used like once throughout the entire series, its quite unfortunate)

the super high tension right after inosuke gets stabbed and tanjirou wakes up was expertly portrayed and handled, it felt like the kmbk gang and uzui were actually going to lose

super awesome

the tanjirou and gyutaro parallels are expertly portrayed, with how gyutaro taunts tanjirou over failing to protect his little sister, and the more visual thing where tanjirou imagined his own neck underneath his blade, that was super duper nice

the ending is extremely tense and emotionally gripping, gotouge did a really good job with that artistically too

the demon mark acquisition scene was surprisingly not frustrating, considering that it wasnt really explained prior to the battle

i do think it has to do with how it was explained later just exactly how they worked so its not just some random thing gotouge pulled out of their ass

so pretty good

/

what i dont like is nezuko and her full power demon form

first of all where the fuck did that come from? she just got angry and suddenly shes as powerful as an upper moon

like

how?

that doesnt make sense???

her extremely quick regeneration makes no sense

her ability to manipulate her blood’s properties makes no sense

and it doesnt even appear again so what was the point of that existing

none of this is even explained later which annoys me

that one part where tanjirou sings a lullaby to her to calm her down was alright ig but nezuko in this fight makes me extremely irritated and frustrated

just ugh

VS HANTENGU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Hantengu opening a shoji door. He is crawling inside, his hand in a gnarled, unnatural position. There is a text bubble saying “Eeeeeeek.” End Image Description.]

1/10

swordsmith village

this fight can go fuck itself /j

no but seriously it has so many problems that it would be shorter to name its redeeming qualities (which ill do later)

first off, the nezuko full power form thing again

i hate it so much with a passion

again, where did her ability to regenerate instantly even come from???? this is never explained, ever

and why did she cut herself on tanjirou’s sword anyway

did she somehow know that it was going to turn red if she burned it?

gotouge what the fuck, there is literally no reason why nezuko would do that and we cant even read her mind to see her thought process

gotouge hates nezuko, i swear

/

remember when i said uzui is meant to be a foil to gyutaro in the rld fight? its pretty obvious that those two are opposites, it was nicely done

... what the hell does mitsuri’s insecurities about strength have to do with whatever the fuck hantengu has going on (which is basically nothing)?

so no meaningful connection between mitsuri and hantengu

theres no meaningful connection between tanjirou and hantengu other than tanjirou getting pissed off for like the second time

also tanjirou’s thing with being kind and sympathetic to demons was entirely dropped at this point

but instead of it leading up to a corruption arc of some sorts, it just doesnt

like honestly if something actually came of that anger he exhibited in this arc and from red light district from this point forward story-wise, i would have counted this as an amazing writing decision

but it literally doesnt so who cares

(god, i really start to hate what happened to his character after this )

and genya’s revealed motivation also doesnt fit at all with hantengu’s thing, he’s not a foil, not a parallel, nothing, there is nothing

/

tanjirou being the catharsis for development for mitsuri and muichirou, who he has only talked to like twice

theres definitely a better way to handle those two’s developments without his help

like gotouge, you have a big cast of characters, use them lol

/

i want to kick hantengu in the face for being boring as fuck (at least his clones have cool looking weapons)

doesnt even have a proper backstory, just a single spread of him being blamed for shit as a human

like... thats it? this is upper moon 4 what the hell

/

theres no clever form mixing here at all (regarding tanjirou) which probably would have helped with foreshadowing the 13th form for dance of the fire god/sun breathing better

also gotouge established that as tanjirou’s thing and now he doesnt do that stuff anymore which sucks

/

oh hey remember when tanjirou actually learned how to do zenitsu’s speed boost thing?

if you didnt, i dont blame you bc it literally doesnt appear again, ever

you could argue that he adapted it into his “waltz flash” technique or whatever the fuck that is but the way it was integrated into this fight was like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

which is just a shame bc its meant to be representative of how tanjirou and zenitsu are good pals but the way it was utilized is forgettable as hell

/

i absolutely loathe the crimson blade concept as a whole and im mentioning this now bc its going to come into play why future instances where this goddamn thing comes up again causes points to be lost

its inconsistent as fuck ill tell you that

/

at least some yoriichi stuff appeared here and not shoved into the final battle with everything else

so the yoriichi stuff later didnt come out of absolute nowhere

genya and mitsuri’s unique fighting styles expand the kny worldbuilding just a little more which is always nice

tanjirou got a cool sword out of this which would have been cooler if him and yoriichi had a deeper connection that was actually explored

but we didnt get shit so whatever

other people getting demon marks being revealed here is also okay so that again, the final battle isnt filled with absolutely everyone getting their marks at once

demon marks have their own slew of problems but its not as bad as the fucking crimson sword shit

god i hate the crimson sword shit

...

dude this section needs a tldr, even i cant sit and read through my shit

TL;DR - this fight sucks and crimson swords are bullshit (more on this later)

VS GYOKKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Tokitou Muichirou and Gyokko. Muichirou is looking to the left while Gyokko is looking to the right, both with their backs to each other. There are mist clouds billowing in the foreground and background, as well as a slash mark going across Gyokko’s neck. End Image Description.]

7/10

this fight suffers from the same lack of cohesive themes through characters like the hantengu battle bc the antagonist is given nothing

but its better

we havent actually seen mui fight before so theres no consistencies that the reader has to keep track of for now

and there arent like 10 characters in the fight so this fight gets a lot of points just for being a lot more coherent

i do like that this fight shows just how good mui is that he can defeat an upper moon by himself

mui’s backstory is neat

gyokko’s bda is very interesting too

... thats pretty much it lol

ye, anyways not the best fight but not the worst fight either

VS KAIGAKU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kaigaku holding the hilt of his blade with one hand. There is two text bubbles around him, saying “...As usual, you’re still shabby. It’s been a while, Zenitsu.” End Image Description.]

9/10

alright on to final battle arc

theres some good fights and then some really sucky ones, but this one was pretty incredible and very emotionally charged

theres a clear reason why zenitsu and kaigaku are battling each other (kai betrayed the corps and inadvertantly caused the only parental figure in zenitsu’s life to die, and zenitsu is rightfully pissed off about that)

the visual yin-yang symbolism is awesome too

zenitsu winning due to using the 7th form he created himself (which i have reason to believe was inspired by tanjirou) was the perfect ending to the fight, really couldnt ask for anything better and is a perfect example of how much of an effect tanjirou has had on zenitsu

the 7th form is what tanjirou’s waltz flash should have been lol

/

what keeps this fight from being absolutely perfect is lack of development prior to this conflict

(since the final battle arc is basically a culmination of all the hinted developments through the series, im going to actually factor in how much and how well these conflicts were foreshadowed)

anyways if we had actually seen zenitsu, kaigaku, and kuwajima actually interacting with each other and showing how they were essentially a family (not just through flashbacks), it would have made zenitsu placing the responsibility of killing kai onto himself a lot more tragic

but like, apart from brief flashbacks where zenitsu actually met kaigaku off screen and that one thing all the way back in natagumo where both kuwajima and kai were introduced, thats pretty much it in terms of thunder family development

so yeah its underdeveloped for sure

also one random thought, i personally think zenitsu should have gotten his demon mark in this fight, it would have been cool to see

VS AKAZA (INFINITY FORTRESS)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza’s face. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Okay, let’s get started. It’s time for the feast.” There is also floating text saying “The inspection of the strong has begun...” as well as a simple box on the lower left, denoting its the end of chapter 147. End Image Description.]

6/10

oh god please dont hate me for this

ill list the good things first how about that

this conflict was foreshadowed perfectly in mugen train, you bet the readers were expecting a tanjirou vs akaza battle after the death of kyojuro and gotouge delivered

akaza’s power is shown extremely well with how many close calls tanjirou and giyuu had while fighting him

akaza eventually giving up on his own volition was really nice and fit into the context of the battle very very well, like sure tanjirou and giyuu wouldnt understand why he gave up but us readers do know

akaza is a really good character and a good villain

/

now notice how im only mentioning akaza and not giyuu or tanjirou in the good aspects

bc those two are eh

no form mixing at all from either tanjirou and giyuu

i know i said form mixing was kind of tanjirou’s thing but you’d think giyuu would have gotten more creative with his moves once akaza said that he was getting predictable

(well he said he “ran out of water breathing forms” but same thing)

so its kinda bland lol

speaking of giyuu, his whole thing with his insecurities of being weak wasnt handled well (it was sort of immediately brushed off in pillar training, and its unclear what part of his character arc he was in)

like sure him announcing that he’s going to protect tanjirou is cool but it feels like he was haphazardly dropped into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

isnt he supposed to be both their foils? that wasnt really explored that well in this fight and theres no deep meaning behind him even being here just analyzing what he did in it

he could have been handled better or even given more focus is what im saying

the anatta state came out of nowhere, im sorry okay? just bc inosuke like barely hinted at not being able to sense grandma hisa bc she had no fighting spirit and tanjurou magically taught his son how to achieve this state doesnt mean it was properly integrated into the fight

if the anatta state was actually explored prior to this battle, i would have given it a pass but it just feels like a cheap and poorly developed trick to get around akaza’s technique development (which is overpowered as fuck might i add)

gotouge should have just given akaza a plausible weakness to his technique development instead, especially since they dont use or even mention the anatta state after this

the transparent world shit makes no sense but ill elaborate on that in the koku battle analysis

oh and this thing doesnt affect the score but why wasnt there a “yoriichi visage overlapping” moment when tanjirou was fighting akaza? hes an upper moon, he should have gotten those visions but he didnt

for some reason

anyways this battle was alright and has good set up but the middle and end parts didnt hold up as well bc random concepts were thrown at us without prior explanation or development

VS DOUMA

[Image Description: Manga panel of Douma licking Shinobu’s butterfly pin. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Anyway, tonight is a good night. Such fine feasts keep showing up one after another.” End Image Description.]

9/10

damn, such an amazing fight

the build up to this was properly foreshadowed

shinobu finally showing her true anger after hiding it for so long is amazing

douma is a super interesting character and fantastic villain

shinobu showing off her true power and determination against douma was sooooo nice

shinobu’s poisonous body plan is so clever and so interesting

if i was to rate the shinobu part of the fight alone, it would have gotten a 10/10 no question

the reason why its knocked down a point is because of the kanao and inosuke part

dont get me wrong, the way kanao is able to hold her own against douma by herself is pretty cool, how shes meant to parallel douma with their similar struggles surrounding human emotions and demonstrate how she has grown as a person, how she regains the ability to cry

that shit is cool, inosuke also getting in touch with his emotions after learning what happened to his mom was super neat as well

however

bc this battle takes place in the final arc with everything else, there wasnt proper build up regarding many things, the kotoha reveal especially

so inosuke feels kinda forced into the kanao shinobu and douma conflict, similar to how giyuu felt forced into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

its quite unfortunate bc if the kotoha stuff was actually explored prior to the confrontation, this “forced” feeling would have disappeared

i know some people have suggested that the douma fight should have just been its own arc, and i very much agree, it would have certainly helped fix this problem regarding inosuke and kotoha

last random thought, i wish shinobu, kanao, and inosuke got their demon marks

VS KOKUSHIBOU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kokushibou looking directly at the viewer, holding the hilt of his blade as if he’s going to pull it out. There are text boxes around him saying “This... is Upper Moon One... He’s so different compared to the other Upper Moons. He looks so dignified and majestic.” The text boxes are narrated by Tokitou Muichirou. End Image Description.]

5/10

this fight is... mediocre

at least theres a more tangible connection between muichirou and kokushibou

even though that was handled kinda poorly

tbh there really was no point to revealing that mui is koku’s descendant like at all, it just had no significant bearing to the plot of the fight

sanemi’s backstory being here is... okay ig?

idk the whole shinazugawa conflict has fundamental problems that i just cant think of any other place to put it without changing the entirety of canon

the marechi blood concept coming back was nice though

genya is there

him getting his bda was cool and helped turn the tide of the battle in a satisfying way (before kicking the bucket but thats not the focus here)

gyomei is a hollow husk of a character who barely got anything at all

but his fighting style is extremely cool and conveys his immense power very well

oh and him and sanemi are amazing at working together, like better than giyuu and tanjirou, and better than kanao and inosuke

theyre that good yet pretty much nobody acknowledges it which is sad

koku himself is pretty interesting and pretty tragic, very nice villain

but everyone together?

gonna be honest but this is such a random collection of characters, there was basically no foreshadowing that these four were going to go up again kokushibou, they are not that connected very well

i know there was this one post that focused on the theme of family that was common in all 5 characters in the fight but its just not enough

it would have been more cohesive if gotouge emphasized gyomei, mui, sanemi, and genya being like different aspects of yoriichi coming together to kill kokushibou hundreds of years after yoriichi failed to kill him

lmao its not like the 4 of them defeated koku with the power of family or friendship, they just smacked him over and over with a flail, shot him with magical bullets, and stabbed a crimson sword into his abdomen

wouldnt have been too hard to switch over to koku’s pov and go “damn these bitches are like my stupid brother”

...

speaking of crimson swords

i fucking hate the crimson sword concept oh my god can i complain about it now? im gonna complain about it now

unlike demon marks, the crimson blades werent even given any proper conditions, you just hold the stupid thing hard enough and it somehow imbues it with magical properties with no logic behind those properties

what part of crimson swords completely destroys a demon’s body in an instant? even muzan didnt go through that process when he was almost killed by yoriichi so where in the goddamn fuck did it come from

it could be explained bc the sword was left in the same spot for a long time but this tactic doesnt even appear again in a meaningful way (didnt kill muzan when tanjirou and giyuu held the sword together) so what the fuck was the point of having this even exist

its so underdeveloped and confusing and i hate it

the transparent world stuff is also confusing as shit and its pretty much never explained how they work aside from the vague “close your mind” advice, like why did it exist, it did nothing to help the present day demon slayers

its just so... poorly integrated

yeah anyways this is around the same rating as the akaza fight but a little worse bc there wasnt that strong set up beforehand

VS KOKUSHIBOU (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panel of a bag getting ripped open, pieces of a wooden flute tumbling out. End Image Description.]

10/10

easily 10/10

this fight shows the tragedy of kokushibou giving in to his envy and hatred, when yoriichi cries over seeing his own family commit terrible attrocities against the people he wanted to protect

and yoriichi dies, now carrying the fact that he couldnt even save his own brother from the influence of muzan on his conscious forever

what a sad ending for yoriichi

and after koku angrily slashes apart yoriichi’s corpse, having him find and keep the flute he gave to him when they were kids to the present day gives him a small shred of humanity in the midst of his monstrous anger

VS NAKIME

[Image Description: Manga panels of Nakime. The first one shows a low quality version of her playing her biwa. The second one is a close up of her eye. There are spiky text bubbles saying “It’s Upper Rank... 4!” End Image Description.]

0/10

no nakime backstory

not even a goddamn fight

forgettable

useless

VS MUZAN

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kibutsuji Muzan in his white-haired, mouth-covered form. There are text bubbles around him saying “Not a single one was of use to me. I will crush the demon hunters tonight. I’ll massacre them all right now.” End Image Description.]

1/10

._.

i have many complaints but ill try my best to not make this another hantengu rant section lol

first off, obanai deserved better

im serious, this poor dude was forgotten until pretty much the end when we finally get a backstory out of him

and then he died

what a waste of a potentially amazing character

mitsuri getting taken out early was ehhh

pretty sure someone else made a post about her supposedly being extremely strong but she was nerfed in this battle which i agree with

literally none of the pillars work together very well, like remember how i praised sanemi and gyomei for being super coordinated? lmao that doesnt exist anymore

you could say this is caused by desperation though and you wouldnt be wrong, its just boring to sit through

that causes issues bc this now basically requires the crimson sword and transparent world concepts to be there to spice things up

but in this fight, they do nothing in the long run (except for tanjirou using the crimson sword at the very very end)

youve already heard me talk about why those two things are super shittily integrated and i cant be bothered repeating myself so moving on

kanao, inosuke, and zenitsu

they... exist? they didnt do much tbh, which i guess is the point but like, now its boring again

nezuko could have been used as a potential way to raise the stakes and make things interesting again (like “ah shit, muzan might actually be unkillable if he gets nezuko but its okay bc shes not here- oh fuck shes here this is not good”)

but nothing came of her running off except confirmation that she became human again so whatever

uzui and shinjuro are useless, why werent they at the fight?

like they could have followed nezuko and contributed to the battle even a little but they just didnt and now theres literally no point to them appearing in this arc at all

wasted potential

tanjirou

i wish him going absolutely apeshit had actual substance behind it, like it being a part of his character arc or something

i remember having this one theory that he had a corruption arc (due to dropping his kindness thing towards demons) and i wanted this to be true so badly

but it doesnt exist

not with how the series ended

god

the only thing that saves this fight from being complete trash is tamayo’s poison thing being amazingly executed

and the part where everyone got blasted away, losing limbs and shit, that made things a little more interesting again

but thats it

VS MUZAN (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kibutsuji Muzan, Tamayo, and Tsugikuni Yoriichi. The first one has Muzan and Tamayo, while the second one has Yoriichi pulling out his sword. There are text boxes saying “And the moment I met him, I understood that I was born into this world to defeat this man.” End Image Description.]

9/10

finally something good again

while short, that’s just the nature of all of yoriichi’s battles with demons

anyways pretty nice, theres a clear reason why this battle exists (shows the scenario that made the original breather get super close to defeating muzan in detail)

adding tamayo here was a nice touch

my only complaint is that it seemed extremely coincidental that yoriichi somehow developed a breathing style specifically countering muzan’s multiple organs without even knowing prior that he had all those brains and hearts floating around freely in his body

like thats kind of ridiculous, even for yoriichi whos supposed to be “blessed by the gods”

could just be me though

VS TANJIROU

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kamado Tanjirou in his demon form. The first image has his eyes closed. The second image has his eyes opened and the tumor on his face almost completely faded. There are text boxes around him saying “You will destroy the demon hunters in my stead.” End Image Description.]

1/10

hoo boy

ok first off, demon tanjirou lasted for 2 chapters

thats it

2 chapters

so thats already a problem

i am aware its meant to parallel the beginning of the series but also its ridiculous how completely vague and rushed this entire thing was

nezuko doesnt do shit through not just this battle but this entire arc which i already explained so not gonna go into it further

kanao magically having a demon cure on her made very little sense

the scene where tanjirou leaves muzan in purgatory is pretty but if you look at it in the context of everything else, its ambiguous and confusing

(if someone could explain it and see how it connects to the original theme of “demons just being victims of circumstance,” i would love to hear it)

/

actually you know what makes me so mad about this “fight” as a whole? there was so much potential to do more with this concept

and im not talking about him escaping and nezuko becoming a demon slayer roleswap au (even though its a pretty cool concept)

him becoming a demon could have been a metaphor for his lost kindness and sympathy towards demons halfway through the series

it could have been a punishment for letting his anger towards muzan cloud his judgement

it could have symbolized literally anything about him losing his humanity as he got stronger

but those three things are just scenarios from my head, they dont exist in this series just based off of what weve seen from these two chapters

its disappointing

the only thing keeping this from getting a 0 is the one part where inosuke couldnt chop off tanjirou’s head bc he cared about him too much

that at least shows inosuke had grown as a character

everything else is just meaningless and convoluted garbage and “convoluted” is not what you should be aiming for if this is supposed to be the ending of your series

IN SUMMARY

early kny is very good, later kny is questionable and the ending is just a mess of wasted potential and disappointment

i get why gotouge had to have the transparent world ability, crimson blade ability, and the demon marks appear before they all appeared on yoriichi but theyre all just so underdeveloped and terribly handled in the battles they are used, it makes me want to kick a wall

like lmao, i could literally think of so many ways they could have been properly integrated, hell, im even writing a whole goddamn rewrite using my ideas for these three things (link to that is in my pinned)

just, god

if you want to debate over these ratings, my ask box is open ig? idk

[angelanimedesaray]

Wings in the Dark Chapter 10:  Reparations

AN:  Yaaaaaayyyyy I got this one done.  For some reason I’ve been in a weird spot where I write more on my phone and my focus is better when I write on my phone, but I’m also super vulnerable to typos because AUTOCORRECT and its just harder for me to spot on the smaller screen with the tiny text, so excuse any typos.

Characters:  Levi, Fem!Vampire!Reader, Erwin, Petra, Oluo (Mentioned), Eld (Mentioned)

Pairing:  (Eventual) Levi x Fem!Vampire!Reader

Warnings:  Language.  Ikr, we just got super tame after a wiiild ride.

Word Count:  5124

<----Previous Chapter    Masterlist    Next Chapter---->

*Levi’s POV*

“I’ll admit, it would have been nice to know ahead of time that you were going to hijack the interrogation like that to antagonize her.”

Levi ignored the pointed jab at his actions down in the dungeons, gaze instead roaming around and taking stock of the people they past in a surveillance instinct too ingrained into his being by now for him to shut it off even going down the street towards a tea shop.

Considering L/N could hear so far out, even when she wasn’t paying attention, Erwin and Levi had decided to leave headquarters entirely to have this conversation.  Which was why they were now headed for a tea shop instead of Erwin’s office to discuss something so confidential.  Or at least their opinions on the situation, not necessarily the information itself.

"Did you at least get what you wanted out of it?" Erwin asked as they took seats at one of the outside tables.

"I did.  Mostly.  You?"

"I was skeptical when you told me, but after that little display of hers, she's clearly not human.  Not anymore."  Erwin leaned back in his seat and appraised Levi, their conversation pausing momentarily as they placed their order with the waitress that came outside to check on them.  Once she went back inside, Erwin continued.  "If you have more questions, why didn't you ask them before we left?"

"It had nothing to do with why we were there.  Personal curiosity. And it didn't seem like the time to ask."

Especially after he'd goaded her like that, making jabs at painful memories for her until she reacted, throwing harsh accusations at her semi-blindly and seeing if anything stuck.  The last thing she would want to do would be to give clarifying details about her past traumas to satiate his curiosity.

Her tale made her origins make more sense, but there were a few details that still weren't so clear to him.

The way she explained it, she was attacked and turned by a vampire the night before--for reasons unknown, he noticed.  She hadn't said why she was turned, or by who.  She'd actually glossed over that part and moved on--and then went home, not knowing what happened to her, thinking she was sick.  Her friend came to visit her, Y/N lost control, attacked and killed her, then fled.  He was sure there were details to make the tale far more gruesome, but this was what he knew for sure without letting his imagination run wild.

But then she'd shown up dead a few days later as well.  That was the part he was trying to figure out.

“Some deaths, okay, fine, I'll come back from it.”

So, she ran away after the initial panic, and then came back solely to fake her death so they wouldn't keep looking for her.

And by fake her death, she went for a...temporary death, something she would come back from.

But why go so far as to let herself be buried?  It was a closed casket funeral, so she could have snuck out before they sealed the casket and no one would have known.  Why wait?

He hadn't forgotten the fear and trauma in her eyes when she'd mentioned being buried alive was one of her deepest fears.  And now the mental image in his mind of a woman clawing desperately at a coffin, screaming for help while no one could hear her had a face to go with it, the face of someone he knew, no less.

It was humanly impossible to break out of a grave and crawl your way out.  But if you had vampire strength, and every time you suffocated from the lack of oxygen or the dirt crushing down on you and maybe even getting into your lungs...then it was possible. So long as you died a few times on the way up.

Shit...something like that had to do some damage to a person.

Not to mention what came after.  Forty years living in the Underground, roughly.  He'd only been down there a little over half the time she had.  And he hadn't spent it like she had--skulking in the shadows killing people because what she was demanded she kill to survive no matter where she was, and she couldn't go above ground not because it was denied to her, but because if she did she would literally die.  Yeah, he'd killed plenty of people in the Underground as well, but far less, and for a reason that was entirely different even if it could be worded the same.  He killed in fights because the Underground was that dangerous, or he was protecting people he cared about.  She had to actively hunt and kill people to...feed.

If she'd been in the Underground before he was even born...he wondered if they had ever crossed paths, and he just didn't remember.

Hell, with her criteria for who she hunted and killed, he was surprised she hadn't killed Kenny in all that time with him Underground.

Or maybe she had, after Kenny left.  It wasn't like Levi would know.  Though he was fairly certain the man had gone topside, which would mean out of her reach and away from her hunting grounds.

If only there was an alternative to her diet.  She’d laid out why it couldn’t be helped, and he understood that, they were good reasons.  But still, if there was another way...

“You're thinking about something rather hard over there, Levi,” Erwin commented, and Levi realized he’d been staring intently at the table and had even failed to notice that the waitress was in the process of delivering their tea.  Erwin was also watching him, though his hands were still in motion, his analytical gaze fixated on Levi’s still form.  Shaken out of his thoughts, Levi leaned back so he wasn’t leaning forward intently anymore, picking up his teacup to start drinking before it got cold.  Erwin waited until the waitress left to continue talking.  “Is it something I should know about her?  Another hunch, maybe?  The last one was mostly right.”

Levi snorted softly at that.  Mostly right his ass.  He’d been thinking murder and treason and assassinations, someone out to get them, someone seeking to harm people in the Scouts.  Ulterior motives and selfishness, malice.

Maybe the murder hadn’t been that far off, considering her body count, if he did the math right in his head.  And maybe she had been hiding a secret.  Perhaps she was dangerous, but so was Levi.  It didn’t mean she was an enemy.

“No,” he said curtly, putting an end to Erwin thinking Levi might be holding out on him regarding his suspicions after how off they’d both been about this situation.  “Like I said, it doesn't have to do with whether or not she's trustworthy and if she should be in the Scouts.  Just personal curiosity.”

“So you believe her?  About her intentions?” Erwin asked casually before taking a sip from his cup, eyes cast down as he spoke but flickering up to gauge Levi’s reaction once he finished speaking.

Levi eyed him because of the look on his face, but answered nonetheless.  “...I do.  She was sincere down there, some would say too honest.  Most people try to hide the fact they’ve killed hundreds--thousands--of people, or that they could kill the people who didn’t trust them without blinking an eye, but she was upfront about it.  She didn’t have to be.  She’s dangerous, that’s a reality no matter how you look at it, but she’s attempting to channel that into helping instead of just causing damage.”  Levi sighed, setting down his cup.  “I assumed a lot about her intentions and where she came from, and it's going to bite me in the ass.”

And he was probably going to have to put some effort into making amends after all this--especially with how he’d antagonized her down there and clearly crossed a boundary.  Several boundaries, actually.  And now that the moment had passed, the guilt was starting to settle in.  He’d accused her about some harsh stuff, some of which she was sensitive about, given her reactions.  She was the one who had to live with what she was, so he doubted someone going after the very things you might cling to in order to retain your humanity was something anyone would take kindly to.  After she saved his life--even if it had also been her that had almost killed him to begin with--after she protected him from herself and other vampires, even if he wasn’t aware, after she’d gone out of her way to learn from and appease the entire squad, after going through years of training to get where she was now, after putting so much at risk when she could have stayed safely in the shadows, after trying so hard to find a place topside, he’d jabbed at pretty much everything.  Her basic motives, her humanity, her intentions, her personality, everything.

He had a lot of damage control to do moving forward if they were going to keep working together.  He sincerely hoped he’d only damaged the well and hadn’t poisoned the water.  A damaged well he could fix, but a poisoned water supply…

Levi’s gaze narrowed at Erwin as he realized the other man still hadn’t said anything, his suspicions solidifying.

“What about you?  Do you think she’s a risk you’re willing to take?” Levi asked, echoing her words from down in the dungeon Levi had immediately known would catch Erwin’s attention.

“I am a man who likes a good gamble,” Erwin said with a bittersweet smile, resting his cheek on his fist as he considered the situation before them.  “As long as she’s not attacking other Scouts, she’s trying to keep her bloodlust under control, she’s not causing problems for or bringing more danger upon the Scouts...I don’t see why we shouldn’t let her stay.  From the sounds of it, having a vampire willingly join our ranks wanting to use all those abilities to help our cause is a once in a lifetime chance.  She’s offering it on a silver platter.  As long as she can keep herself under control, which she’s been able to do so far, I say we take her up on her offer.”

“And if she can’t?  If something happens and she loses control?” Levi asked, eyebrows raised.  She’d said it herself, she was a threat, there was always a chance something could happen, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.  But what would they do if she did slip up with no sign of being able to correct herself before it got out of hand?

“Then she’ll be our responsibility to take care of,” Erwin said evenly, gazing at Levi in a way that made him believe Levi would be the one to take care of her if she stepped out of line.  He had the best chance, yes, but it would still be risky.  “Hopefully we won’t have to kill her if anything goes wrong, she’s valuable, and it would be a huge setback to lose her vampire abilities...but if it ever comes to that…”

“It won’t be a problem,” Levi said flatly.  He meant that in the matter of conflict of interest, not that killing her if it ever came to that wouldn’t be difficult.

Erwin nodded.  “She stays in the Scouts, then.  I’ll have to factor in all this new information about where best to put her.  She probably shouldn’t be anywhere near medical, for her sanity’s sake.  And Levi?”  Levi fixed him with a stare as if to ask what the hell was up with his change of tone, which Erwin ignored.  “Considering the strangling tension between the two of you down in the dungeon, are you going to ease up now that you have the story--for the most part--or do I need to switch her to a different squad?”

Levi scoffed.  “I’m not going to apologize for being angry about the fact that she kills people, Erwin.”

“It's not like she has much of a choice, from the sound of it.  And she’s doing rather well, given her situation.  A lot of thought had to have gone into coming topside and joining the Scouts, how to pull it off.  She was ready with those questions, and considering she wasn’t planning on us figuring out what she was, that means she already went over those questions herself.  She’s going with what she believes to be the best route, and considering she’s more of an expert on the subject than we’ll probably ever be…”

Levi waved him off--he didn’t need this explanation, he already knew this.  She wasn’t going to prey on innocent people, she couldn’t afford to downgrade her diet too much considering she needed to be in peak health and control fighting in the Scouts, and she couldn’t just stop unless she wanted to die a slow and agonizing death.

Starvation over decades, maybe even centuries…

Regular starvation was bad enough, he knew that from personal experience.  He couldn’t imagine going out like that--he wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  Especially self-inflicted.

Levi’s gaze wandered to the few people in the street, moving idly from one person to the next, not really paying them any attention beyond basic people watching as he brought himself to his decision.

While he understood her position, that didn’t mean he was entirely comfortable with it.  But was he willing to try and make this work, to keep her on his squad--this time as his decision, not a decision Erwin made in the name of surveillance--and see if things could still work out despite the mess this entire ordeal had turned into that almost ended in his death.

Was it a damaged well, or poisoned water?

Was he going to cut his losses, or try to fix this?

“...Don’t put her on another squad,” he finally told Erwin.  “She’ll still have her skills put to the best use with my Squad.  I’ll figure out how to deal with...everything.”

He was going to try and make this work, despite the current friction between them.

The only question now, was how?

Erwin was the one to tell L/N that she was staying in the Scouts, of course, and by extension he was also the one to tell her she'd remain on Levi's squad, and that it was Levi's job to keep an eye on her and make sure she stayed in line.  As for Levi, it was back to business as usual while Erwin handled speaking with L/N.

And two days later, Levi abruptly decided that everyone was going to do a deep clean of HQ, assigning everyone at least one room, with L/N having two considering how fast and how well she cleaned, and himself having three so that he had plenty of time to think while he was cleaning.

Now that his concerns about betrayal and deceit had been assuaged, he could finally allow the softer sides of her he’d glimpsed to settle in his mind, too.  Between the darker side he now had a better picture of and the person he’d been seeing since she joined the Scouts, he could finally form a more complete picture of the new person on his squad and start to decide what he thought of her.

Any lingering concepts in his mind that she wasn’t up to the job went out the window--except for a general concern about her being around too much blood.  She hadn’t been in the middle of a truly hairy expedition with people dying left and right.  She’d been struggling when he was bleeding out in front of her--what would it be like when there were people dying bloody all around her?

Then again, she’d already pointed out that his blood was particularly alluring.

That was still an odd thing to think about--he was probably going to do his best not to think about it.

He wasn’t too worried about her being able to hand the more...psychological stresses of being a Scout.  If she could handle being directly responsible for death, and being around it so much after living in and hunting in the Underground, she might fare better than most in the environment.

If it hadn't been the sharper, harder edge he'd seen to her personality in the dungeon, the knowledge of the things she'd already seen and been through, he'd be worried she had too soft of a temperament and personality for the Scouts.  It had been what he'd seen from her before the whole vampire thing came out.

She was the woman who went out of her way to comfort the horses and make sure they knew they could trust her.  Who sat in the field with the horses and simply soaked in the sun's rays while drawing whatever she could see--namely horses, at least once the man who had been watching her, yet she never said a word.  She was the woman with a tea garden in a hidden corner of the Scout’s headquarters so that she could save more of her salary...and use it to shelter and provide for the parents who didn't know, and would probably never know, they're daughter was still alive.   The woman who snuck treats out to the horses from her own plate, who'd gotten at least half of Levi’s squad drinking their tea with a bit of white sage for health purposes--only Levi aware of just how much it was actually doing for them.  The one who had asked for a different kind of lesson or tutoring from each squad member so they wouldn’t feel like she was some air-headed newbie that thought she was better than everyone because she was put on a fast track to Levi’s squad fresh out of the cadets, so that they could feel like they were still teaching her something, that she was learning from them.  She was the kind of person who made little gestures like covering him with her cloak when she saw him asleep at the table without a second thought, or timing a fresh cup of black tea almost perfectly to help keep him alert when despite his insomnia he would start to feel tired in the middle of the day, who'd risked the loss of a leg to make sure Eld wouldn't get hurt even after Levi killed the Titan, and who had saved his life even though, at the time, doing so was a great risk to her, because he could put a swift end to the life she'd been trying to build above ground.

She was a good person at heart.  Complicated as hell, still dangerous and a risk, and she had her skeletons, her demons and dark secrets, her flaws...but still, a good person at heart.

He’d been watching her closely long enough to pick up on all of that and then some, even if he’d tucked most of it away for later evaluation considering at the time he was worried it might be a front for some insidious ulterior motive.

And he had to do something to try and mend the relationship they had.  They couldn't function as part of a squad with all this tension and friction, let alone as captain and subordinate, definitely not as a team.  There had to be some level of trust if they were going to be working together in the future, and right now, there was pretty much none, mostly because of him.  And he had to be the one to make a first step towards repairing the damage that he had inflicted so that they could start building at least the groundwork of a working trust in one another.  They would need it when they went out in the field, because all that raw ability meant nothing if they couldn’t function with each other.

Levi scrubbed harder at the stone floor, seeing his fingertips turn pale with the rest of his hands red from the hot soapy water and the pressure he was putting on the brush.

"Captain?"

Levi sighed, leaning back and putting the brush back into the water, turning and lowering the cloth over his face to look over at Petra standing in the doorway with a broom in hand.

"Oluo says he's done with his room, he's just waiting for your inspection," she informed him, though the look on her face was enough to tell him he'd be telling Oluo to do it all over again as soon as he saw it.

"I'll do it when I'm finished," Levi answered, raising the cloth over his face and pulling out the brush to start scrubbing again.  "Tell him to make sure he's finished while he waits."

"Yes, Captain," Petra said with a small nod, turning to leave.

"Has L/N finished with her two rooms?" Levi asked before she could leave entirely, focused on a new spot of stone as he spoke instead of looking up at her.

"Yes, sir.  She actually went outside, out front, to do some extra cleaning while she waited for you to be ready to inspect the rooms."

She was also really good at cleaning.  She had to be, right?  She'd lived below ground longer than he had, and her senses were extra sensitive.  One bad smell must be torture for her, the dust probably setting off her sensitive nose with the slightest buildup, her sight probably making it easier to pick out grime, and her speed making her a faster cleaner than anyone here--when she didn't have to slow down because she was being watched by someone who didn't know what she was.  No wonder she was so damn good at cleaning, why he hadn't found any flaws with it to date.

It almost felt like cheating to him, for some reason.

He pressed unnecessarily hard down on the brush again, feeling the bristles bend and strain slightly in the brush, his fingertips turning pale again.

"Tell her when she's finished with whatever she's doing right now to come up here," Levi told Petra, offering no more explanation as he continued scrubbing at the floor.

“Yes, sir.”

Petra left after that, and Levi focused on the room around him--his third room, mind you, and he was almost done.  His hands were red, a little raw, too, but it wasn’t anything serious.  He just kept getting lost in his thoughts while he was cleaning, and instead of calming down like he normally did when he cleaned, he’d tense up at those moments where he got lost in his thoughts.  He was going over his attempt at a peace offering over and over again, well aware that he wasn’t the best...people person, that communication on a social or emotional level was not his strong suit.  But he was hoping the intention behind the gesture would be clear.  She wasn’t an idiot--she was smart.  There was a decent chance she’d be able to see what he was trying to do.

Hopefully.

Levi was just starting to finish up, finishing with a bit of polish on the metal in the room when L/N finally made her appearance, standing in the doorway with similar cleaning additions to her uniform as him, though she had an apron on that was currently tucked up and into her straps to keep any dirt from falling onto the floor while she walked.

She must have been doing some garden and yard work, then.  Pulling weeds or something like that out front.  At least she wasn’t tracking dirt everywhere, from what he could see--and his eyes were scanning her and her surroundings carefully to make sure she wasn’t about to ruin his hard work.

“You wanted to see me, Captain?” she asked formerly, keeping her gaze fixed on him instead of letting it wander around the room at anything other than him.

That was a start, at least.  He’d be worried this entire rebuilding the bridge thing wouldn’t work out well if she couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

But the tension was still there, thick and uncomfortable, enough to put even him on edge.  There was a distance in her posture, a different kind of guarded than when he’d been snooping around and watching her every move.  Like she was hyper-aware of what he was going to think of her moving forward.

He was still coming to a decision about that one, honestly.

“You’re going to start training with me,” Levi said with no lead up, causing her eyebrows to raise in surprise, opening her mouth like she was about to ask questions before she quickly closed it again, since he continued to talk as if her reaction didn’t phase him in the slightest or give him any kind of pause.  “You’ve got some things to work on before the next expedition.  Two lessons a day, sparring and ODM gear.  Make sure you make the time for it.”

“Ah, Captain...I’m not sure if I...should…” she said hesitantly, caught between obeying what was close to a command from her Captain and a reluctance to take him up on the lessons because...what, was the tension that bad for her that she didn’t think she could train with him?  Did she not want to be anywhere near him any more than she already was?  Did she think she would make him uncomfortable?  Did she not like the thought of being alone with him?

That was a viable concern, actually.

Or maybe she just thought there wasn’t anything he could teach her.

On the contrary--she’d said herself that she was having trouble with the ODM gear.  She’d said one of her risks was that she reacted too fast for the gear to keep up with her, sometimes.  That was a problem, especially in a situation where one needed to rely on instincts--how could you rely on instincts while also trying to muffle them to lower to the level of the gear, or nearby people?

She needed help finding the middle ground, or at least training herself to instinctually pace herself so she didn’t outpace the gear in an emergency.  Like she’d pointed out herself, that kind of mistake could be the difference between life and death, even for her.

As for the sparring...well, the only people here that came close to matching their skills was each other.  Who else were they going to spar besides each other?  Besides, it would be refreshing to have someone he could actually go all out on that would be a challenge for him.  He was sure the same applied for her, now that she didn’t have to hold back to keep her secret hidden.

If that had been the reason she’d thrown the fight the first time they’d sparred.

Plus, all that raw strength and speed meant nothing if she didn’t know how to use it.  He could still teach her things, show her some techniques she could use in a fight, that kind of thing.

Is offer to teach her was his way of offering an olive branch to her...and he didn’t take too kindly to her starting to turn down the offer.

Levi narrowed his eyes slightly at her as she continued to cast about for a solid excuse to turn him down.  Most people here would kill for one on one lessons from him--a fact he was well aware of.  Yet here she was, proving just how out of the ordinary she was as she seemed to be beyond just the vampire thing, trying to weasel out of it.  “What?  Don’t think you have anything to learn because you’re so naturally gifted?” he asked in a jab much softer than his accusations during their interrogation.

“No, it’s just…” she started to say with a frustrated sigh, looking over her shoulder like she was looking at someone, even though no one was there.  “Eld’s already giving me ODM gear lessons…”

Was that really it?  He doubted it.  Yes, Eld was teaching her a few things, Levi was aware, but it wasn’t the same as what Levi was offering to teach her.  And it wasn’t a reason to turn him down in the first place.  Just another excuse.  Unless she was really worried about what the others would think if she got not only one daily private lesson with Levi, but two.  As much as Levi was usually of the opinion “To hell what other people think,” this one he could see where she was coming from if it was the case.  She’d just gotten the others to warm up to her despite their grumbling and cold shoulders after the extremely green rookie got sped through all the tape and obstacles right into Levi’s Squad while they put in hard work and were hand picked by Levi after some time in the Scouts after displaying their own strengths and skills over a period of time.  It must have looked like favoritism--and Levi giving her double private lessons wasn’t going to help anything.

It didn’t change the fact that she still needed them or could benefit from them.  And that it was a way for them to start making amends...in a roundabout way.

“ODM techniques.  Special maneuvers:  team and solo, correct?” Levi asked, mostly rhetorically, though she still nodded in confirmation.  Levi moved over to the table he was keeping his cleaning supplies on, starting to pack up his things so he could leave to start doing inspections of everyone’s designated rooms.  “I’m not going to be teaching you what Eld is.  You said you were having problems with reacting too fast for the gear, right?”

Levi spoke pointedly, giving her a sidelong glance so he could gauge her reaction and she could see he was serious about this--and that he didn’t have any ulterior motives.  She didn’t protest again.  She still looked a little uncomfortable, possibly because of the bump this could cause with the others once they found out, maybe because it meant the two of them were going to be spending more time with one another and they were going to have to get over this tension between them really quickly if they didn’t want to end up at each other’s throats trying to kill each other, but she didn’t protest anymore.

“Four a.m. in the woods for hand to hand.  Two hours before dinner on the training grounds for the ODM gear.  Don’t be late,” Levi told her, taking his supplies and leaving her behind in the room as his way of dismissing her.

Now to go yell at Oluo for not getting his cleaning job done properly, most likely.

Next Chapter---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

Levi Tags:  @humanitys-hottestsoldier @clary-quinn @sunny-flo​ @whalerus​  @thirstyforsometea

Wings in the Dark Tags:  @regalillegal @animeluver23 @theshylittleelfgirl @queenthorin1 @dilucs-thighs @sociallyanxiousmouse @subtlepjiminie @hakunamatatayqueen​ @queenofcurse @linxiajei17 @levisbebe @toni-jones

[supercharmed-forever-mine]

Today I will be addressing SuperCorp and some of the issues that have been floating around about fandom. And I will be saying some stuff that both is for it and could be used against it even though I am ultimately a super big supercorp fan. Like it says in the tags you're free to express your opinion but they will not be changing mine but I am always open-minded to opinions that can actually be explained and eloquently expressed (receipt's needed) and aren't just basic. Also just so what is noted I have been a part of this fandom since the first episode I have literally shipped Kara with everyone from Lucy to Cat even James.But Lena has just stuck out the most for me but I'm Equal opportunity.

Number #1, Lena's character in no way shape or form has ever been xenophobic she has never once shown any hate towards aliens her problem with Kara in season 5 Wasn't because she was an alien it was because she was a "Super" like Kara could have been a flying purple fucking octopus from the planet of shzjxfdf and Lena wouldn't have gave two fucks but no she was a "Super"but let's dig deeper on that point if we really look at why she was mad it wasn't even the whole alien aspect it was because she wasn't told and no I don't think she's entitled to it but I do think it played into the fact of a trust issue she has with the fact that people would think she would be just like Lex if she had been told Sooner. Which is disproved in 5x13 (also personal note: I also think she wouldn't have reacted half as bad if Kara had just told her that night at game night or the next day when she wanted to probably still would have been pissed but not to the same extent). But okay with that being said I do disagree with the kryptonite entrapment torture scene and basically half the s*** she did in season 5 it was shown that she truly can tap into her Luthor side and be dark when wanted but fortunately she does always return to the light and in all fairness it has been shown several times that Kara has a dark side of her own that could rival the luthors.

Number #2, I do disagree with the abuse of actresses and actors just because of a ship and or character they play don't blame them it's just a job they have I think Melissa and Katie do a beautiful job of bringing Kara and Lena's characters to life couldn't imagine anybody else playing them.

Number #3, I also will say about the reason bombarding of comments on Nicole's social media at least I saw the video via tiktok in that video was fucking hilarious I love Nia, Dreamer,and Nicole in general she's funny and beautiful and is an advocate for everything good in life and well it is normal to even ask other actors if they have the scoop on anything it does not mean we need to be bombarding them in videos on something relating to their character or their love of something a simple comment or so maybe but what I saw NO.

Number #4, The William of it all well I think though his character seems like a nice gentleman he also seems to be bland as hell also I did not know he was a POC to be honest I thought he was a tan white man and we'll be doing further research on people in the future as I can learn from my ignorance also but unrelated I did not know that the woman who played Maggie was apparently just a tan white woman I thought she was of some sort of Hispanic descent but apparently not according to various things I've read on here tonight... But anyways back to William I feel like a lot of people might have perceived him as a white man therefore that might play into the whole scenario of people hate that they just want two white woman together when it proves if she was a man they wouldn't give two f**** about it whether that's true or not I don't know but mine two cents.

Number #5, I will never bash someone for being for or against a certain ship and or character and well I am allowed to certainly disagree with their opinion all opinions are valid because we all see the world a different way some see it bright and shiny and others like I'll admit myself see it through the glasses of trauma. And I think that's why we all have the opinions we do most of the time when you like a shipper character it's because you relate to them somehow even if it's the most minor thing to someone else it might be huge for you. You never know what the person on the other side of the screen is going through in those characters or ship or fanfiction might have literally saved their lives.

Sidenote: Like okay personal story I was been both mentally and sexually abused as a child so I relate to both Kara and Lena respective childhood trauma so that draws me to them. And I kind of see them both as the opposite attract trope (two side of the same coin) because well we never fully get over trauma Kara had a great support system with the Danvers whereas Lena didn't get that with the luthors I mean sure she had Lex at first but even that was only to a certain extent because of his psychopathy that was starting to manifest he couldn't perceive human emotions the same as Lena who in my opinion is just a big mushy nerd who can be a badass when needed as evident by the season 6 episodes after she's quit L-Corp she's constantly trying to help out inventing new stuff and she's wondering how Nia's suit works and it just shows that she just has a curious mind and also she looks happier even with the guilt she feels over Kara's phantom zone incident when Nia called her a part of the family that smile could lit up a city all she's ever wanted is to belong and I can relate to that therefore to her.

Number #6, I feel like this should have been addressed in earlier number but as far as sexuality goes I would want to believe Kara is pansexual because of everything I've ever read and saw I don't believe she perceived sexuality like humans do because of her Kryptonian upbringing for the first good chunk of the life. Like even though she says she's not gay in the first episode, A. It was the first episode so they didn't even know where the story was going in future seasons if they got them also that means maybe she just didn't perceive herself as the Earth's definition of gay. B. Even in the first season she made a comment about how she bought Lucy was gorgeous and hell she would date her. C. She made some comments about Irma and other woman that don't sound totally heterosexual and don't get me wrong women can admire the beauty and intelligence of other women without it being sexual but as a bisexual woman it just struck a cord in me you can tell the difference when it's coming from a straight woman mouth. Now on the subject of her and Lena strictly I do think there are instances of "queerbaiting"because just because you perceive they haven't been promised to us doesn't mean that some of us haven't picked up on things or the fact that they're simply queerbating because somehow they do hype up Kara and Lena to keep a nice chunk of the audience who ships them mainly those of the gay variety interested in the show which is also considered queerbaiting. Also the fact that they've been called sisters or family or my personal favorite "that's what friends are for"doesn't mean crap because honestly at this point the overuse of friends just sounds more like they're trying to convince themselves than us.*** Also I don't know about you but even on the basic level of things they've done I've never shown half those feelings towards my friends and the ones I have it's because I started to think of them as more than friends.

Now with Lena's sexuality no they have never shown her as anything besides straight canonically but don't get me wrong she totally sends off that college experimentation vibe especially with Andrea for some reason but that may just be me.

Number #7, my main point is let's just be kind to one another because guess what there is toxicity from every ship in a fandom there will always be shitty people on both sides and then there will be those of us who just want to see the characters together for one reason or another and yes I'm not afraid to admit that part of my reasons I want to see two gorgeous woman kiss sue me LOL.

Number #8, the conclusion of my rant is that how about we leave the hating to the ones who want to do that and the rest of us like adults or whatever your age is in the fandom that has any type of maturity behave because I truly do wish the best and in the end well I hope they end up together I'm realistic that they probably won't especially due to the CW Network motto of "homophobia and racism"because they've already broken up several good gay and interracial couples on that show. But at the end of the day my true wish is just that all of the characters end up happy and healthy.

Best of luck to all shippers out there anti and supercorp and or any other couple alike may we try to make it out of this with a modicum of sanity and even if they fail us we always have fanfiction thank you and good night.

[princekirijo]

BRO, YUKARI. 👀👀

OK HERE WE GO STRAP IN FOLKS IT'S YUKARI TIME! Also a lot of this is kinda salty? I guess? So just a fair warning I just have strong opinions on Yukari 😔

Ok so Yukari. I love her so so much she's one of my favorite characters in the series and one of my trio of comfort characters (the other two being Akihiko and Mitsuru). She's such an interesting and complex character that gets heavily misinterpreted by a lot of the fandom (*cough* cishet men *cough*).

Like ok first off people say that she's mean but while she can be very rude and one of her big flaws is that she doesn't consider others' feelings she's not entirely a bitch either? I think the best example of this that not many people I've seen talk about is how she's the only character who objects to the protagonist and Fuuka joining immediately and wants to make sure they're not being forced into joining. While ultimately both of those characters join of their own accord, Yukari asks them multiple times if they're ok with joining, something the others never do (Mitsuru is guilty of being quite insistent on them joining but that's a discussion for another time). She also feels incredibly guilty for spying on the protagonist at the start, pointing out multiple times that it is a violation of their privacy. Both of these show that she genuinely cares about other people. Pictures are from you lol <3

On that subject when Ken joins Yukari is actually the nicest to him out of all of them, often making sure that he feels welcome and making an effort to talk to him. I think the only other character that does that (if my memory serves me right) is Fuuka. In her social link too she helps out that little kid that was crying in the middle of Paulownia Mall, staying with them until she found their parents or that they were safe. And even in Ultimax her relationship with Ken is just so cute she's so nice to him, she really is like his big sister. So to say that she's just mean and just a bitch is wrong because there's plenty of examples of her being a very nice person.

And actually a lot of people hate her because of how 'easy' her social link is to reverse (I've seen people on YouTube mention this a few times so I thought I'd talk about it). I think it's either rank 5 or 6 there's a scene where Yukari loses her purse and goes back to get it. You find her surrounded by a bunch of guys who are threatening her and are very close to hurting her. The protagonist steps in to stop them and then chases them off. Now I think it's only in the male route this happens (again my memory is bad so sorry about that 😞) but she gets annoyed at you for helping her and then you're given a few options. The correct one is to leave her alone (or something like that) but the one that most people go for which reverses the Social Link is the option to hug her. And people (male youtubers *AHEM*) get annoyed about this because oh yeah of course in this scenario hugging Yukari is a great option and why the hell would she get angry and reject them like that. Like jeez I don't know definitely not the fact that she's very clearly shaken up by the fact that she was almost attacked by three men (who could have done god knows what to her if we hadn't intervened). And definitely not because she's said lots of times that she doesn't like to rely on anyone (particular men) given the whole situation with her mother. The other thing is that I don't think it's outright stated but I really wouldn't be surprised if Yukari was super touch averse given the situation with her mother throwing herself at random men all the time. And (as we discovered lol) there's a very high possibility that her mother was an alcoholic because of this she says in the answer after Junpei's past where he talks about his alcoholic dad:

So like if her mother was an alcoholic there is a high chance she could have suffered some form of abuse which would lead her to being very anti touch. So it really drives me mad when people get annoyed about her Social Link being so easy to break because if you think for a second before doing anything, you'll realize it makes sense that she wouldn't want to be hugged.

But that's enough salt, I love Yukari for a lot of different reasons but the main one is (predictably given that it's me) her relationship with Mitsuru. Regardless of how you want to view it, they are so important and integral to each other's character development. From the tension between them at the start of the game to the end where they're so close, it's honestly one of the best relationships in the game in my opinion. You can really see how much they grow to care for each other. Yukari is the only character brave enough to call Mitsuru out for her bullshit and you can see how Mitsuru grows to appreciate that (because as much as I love Mitsuru, Yukari is absolutely valid to call her out for some of the stuff she does and she needs Yukari to do that). Yukari also ends up being the catalyst to Mitsuru's ultimate persona awakening. At the start of the game too, we're made to believe that both of them are very different. But as the game progresses we're shown that they're actually quite similar. Something I love that the movie does is this scene here (again thank you for pointing this out to me):

The way Yukari finishes Mitsuru's sentence so to speak shows that they actually have pretty similar reasons to awakening to their powers (Mitsuru in order to protect her father and Yukari to protect her father's memory and find out the truth about what happened to him). Yukari also helps Mitsuru open up to others (she's the only other person aside from Akihiko that Mitsuru calls by their first name) and Mitsuru helps Yukari (in a way I can't explain because my brain is failing me) to not judge people as much. They're so important to each other and their character development is so interlinked I just love it so much and it's a big reason as to why I love both of them.

And my other reason as to why I love Yukari is that she's allowed to express her anger in a way that isn't fake or cute (I honestly can't think of another female character who is allowed to do this but I'm sure there's other examples). The best example of this is of course the Answer which I've spoken about before so I'll do my best to keep it brief. I think Yukari's anger in the Answer is a very real response to grief. She's upset over the loss of the protagonist (whom she's heavily implied to have feelings for but I don't think it's outright stated) and she's jealous of Aigis because she inherited his power. She wants to save him so badly because she really cared for him so now that she has a chance and the others are stopping her (in her eyes) she feels betrayed so of course she's going to lash out. Now I fully acknowledge that what she was doing was wrong and she is acting very rude but as I said it's her way of dealing with grief. Something P3 does very well is show how different characters react to grief (eg Mitsuru closing off even more from the others, Akihiko deciding to take it in his stride, Ken having a similar reaction etc). And Yukari's way is no expectation and it's not bad because there's no bad or wrong way to deal with grief. Something people forget as well is that she acknowledges and apologies to the group after the Erebus fight for her behavior and she explains herself (another example of how she is actually a nice person and not a total bitch). I just really related to how she dealt with the whole thing and I love her for that. I also think that some of the other characters in the series (Ann mainly) should have been allowed to express their anger in a more... Real way? Ugly way? I'm not sure how to describe it but I would have liked to see them get angry in a way that wasn't cute (somebody pointed out that the negative reaction to Yukari's anger is probably what stopped future female characters from doing just this and it was an excellent point).

OK so this was super rambling and if you got to the end then wow thank you. I just really love Yukari and it makes me upset how a lot of fans treat her, either as a typical oh this is my persona waifu uwu or she's such a bitch I hate her with no thought process. I honestly understand why some people don't like her but I just ask that people think about how she reacts to certain things and why she acts the way she does before just essentially watering her down to a bitch with daddy issues. She's my emotional support bisexual and I adore how she interacts with the other cast (especially Mitsuru).

[soukokuwu]

i live for aku angst. could you please write a scenario where he develops feelings for a fem reader during the dark era, but watches as her & dazai fall in love together? he wouldn’t be able to do anything since he’s dazai’s subordinate. but imagine them having a significant friend (ish) relationship, so when she disappears along with dazai he gets left utterly heartbroken and alone, wishing he would have said something to her when she was still with him. thank you! i love your writing

➥ genre: angst

➥ pairing: akutagawa x crush!reader, dazai x reader

➥ synopsis: akutagawa watches as you fall in love... but not with him.

➥ word count: 2k

➥ a/n: and i live for angst 😼 i really really loved this idea & i really hope you’re still here — tried a certain theme for this, hopefully you like it!! and tysm kind anony ^.^

Black and blue

You came out of the blue.

In the form of medicine for his wounds, and a cure for his aches. You were his superior, but you were unlike a certain other superior he knew. You radiated warmth and comfort — something Akutagawa didn’t know he craved. And yet you managed to instil that feeling in him within a matter of seconds.

“Dazai did this to you again?”

What was that he heard in your voice? Was it pain? Disapproval? Sadness, maybe? He was too detached from any emotion to be able to tell. Everything he knew, he learned from Dazai himself. All he wanted was the man’s approval. That was all he worked for. But you ignited a conflict in Akutagawa that he didn’t bargain for. One that he didn’t know would lead to fireworks instead of just a single spark.

“Yes,” was all he said. Was there any other way to respond? This was the first time you spoke to him, was he supposed to continue the conversation? A part of him wanted to. This was the only time a superior has shown any sort of care to him after all. So why couldn’t he get anything out?

You pressed your lips into a firm line, and he couldn’t help but notice how soft and pink they looked. You didn’t wear a lot of makeup, and his opinion was that you didn’t need it anyway. You already looked... pleasing enough to the eyes. Was that how people described someone they found... good-looking?

Endless questions darted across Akutagawa’s mind that day. But none were answered. Because how could they be, when the one questioning didn’t have the guts to say a thing in the first place?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Akutagawa knew.

He knew you didn’t mean to. But you did it anyway. He knew why, too. Because he let you. And just like that, his walls came down. No, they didn’t crumble — he wouldn’t let them fall that easily, but still you were the only one who could take the bricks out piece by piece until the barrier was almost nonexistent.

It was like demolishing a house and rebuilding it again — just better, stronger. You painted over his grey with your red. It was your favourite color, and fitting enough; it was the color of his feelings for you.

Since that day you were always there for him. You had your own tasks, sure, but you always looked out for him when you could. And he found that days when you were especially busy were the days he felt most blue. Akutagawa found it strange though — why did you care? What did you have to gain?

And he found the answer one night, a conversation with you by the bay. You had invited him to take a walk with you, to get some proper fresh air and let off steam. But Akutagawa had read way too much into it, that he knew. Why else would he feel disappointed that there wasn’t so much as any physical contact with you? He merely stayed at a distance as he always did, and you never tried.

One fruit bore out of that night though. He learned more about you than he thought he would. You were much like him; joining the mafia because you had nowhere else, you accepted an invitation from a senior in the mafia, wanting to prove that you weren’t worthless, that you could produce something of value to someone. No wonder you looked out for him. You saw a part of yourself in him, didn’t you? You knew how lonely it felt. That night, Akutagawa felt something he never thought he would — a sense of belonging.

The longer you spoke to him that night, the larger that feeling grew. And somehow he looked at you in a way he didn’t before. It confused him, disgusted him. No, correction — he disgusted himself. Not his affection for you. Why did he feel like pursuing this; you? That night, he denied himself the chance to let you in on his feelings.

A useless kid like him doesn’t deserve you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke was a black sheep. But you were the golden girl.

Should he be surprised then? As he watched the way his mentor interacted with you, should he be worried? No, did he even have the right to be? But then he saw him smile at you, a smile he’d only seen formed when he was around that other guy — Oda Sakunosuke. You were... another exception? Yet again, many questions raced through his head. But one thing he knew for sure — he was turning into the green-eyed monster.

He started to notice how you reacted to Dazai. He hated how you always seemed so mesmerised whenever he walked by. He hated how your eyes twinkled whenever you talked to him — where’s that sparkle in your eye when you talked to Akutagawa? He hated how one day you just showed up with Dazai’s coat wrapped around your shoulders. He hated how much he was affected by it. It really wasn’t unexpected — next to Dazai, who would take a second look at him anyway? He wished he could be him. Then maybe you’d... He shook his head. No, maybe not even then.

What he hated the most? He couldn’t even hate the guy. He yearned for Dazai’s respect; approval, and that never changed. But then the upset dissolved into an understanding. Something in his head clicked. You belonged with Dazai. He knew next to nothing about your relationship and how it worked. But what Akutagawa did know? Dazai was a revered member of the Port Mafia, one likely to take Mori’s place as the big boss in the future. He couldn’t even lay a hit on him with Rashomon. Dazai wasn’t a formidable fighter like Chuuya either, and still he managed to beat Akutagawa into the ground. That man... was exceptional. You deserved that. You deserved the best.

That’s what Dazai was. He was the black that would take no other hue, and fittingly so he was the Port Mafia’s great white hope.

“Devour space? That sounds cool,” you had commented one day while bandaging up the cut on his wrist, one inflicted on by Dazai himself. He noticed how you didn’t comment on his barbarism as you usually would, and the usual concern in your tone never appeared. As it never did ever since the first day he saw you talk to Dazai.

“I still can’t do it.”

“If you try to imagine you’re protecting me, could you?”

You see, Akutagawa knew it was just a joke to you. And yet? His heart started pounding so fast, so loud in his chest the moment he heard it. It was a tiring dance — feeling so happy about a tiny comment and then feeling a heartache after realising your smiles, even then, were never as sweet as the ones you flashed at Dazai.

Did Dazai even love you? Or was he playing some sort of game as he usually does with women? He hated how he was praying for the latter. Hated how he wished that things would crumble for the two of you so that he could be the one to help you pick up the pieces — to be the one. Akutagawa sighed, knowing he could never get inside his head. Anyone who tried would fall into a cognitive prison. But even these selfish thoughts couldn’t last long, because Akutagawa got his answer later that day when he overheard his mentor talking to his friend.

“Odasaku, how vulnerable can humans get?”

Akutagawa is shocked at the depth of the conversation. He didn’t know Dazai was capable of talking about... emotions. He didn’t think he had any. The other man mentioned something about it being to a big extent, Akutagawa let it slip past his ears. He was more interested in what Dazai had to say.

“It’s weird. It’s like finally being seen after having lived in perpetual darkness. The light she holds, it’s small... but is it wrong of me to hope that it will grow with time?”

Was that... hope he heard in his mentor’s voice? ‘With time’? That meant the future... for all his suicidal thoughts, because of you, was Dazai really considering living? Akutagawa sighed in exasperation as he quietly walked away from the spot he eavesdropped from. He would never understand Dazai.

He never did. Especially not when the same Dazai who spoke so fondly of you was the same Dazai who shot three bullets at Akutagawa for killing the enemy. You were a saviour in more than one way. Your words echoed in his mind, and his shield came out of his will to protect you, an imaginary you. That’s why Dazai didn’t manage to shoot him dead this time. Because of you.

“Oh? See? You can do it. How many times have I told you? Cutting open unfortunate hostages isn’t the only thing you’re good for. You should be able to use your powers for defense too.”

“I’ve never been able to successfully do that before this.”

“But you just did. Isn’t that great?”

Akutagawa wanted so badly to argue back in an act of rebellion, to yell out that it was only because of you that he was able to do it. But the words got stuck in his throat. And Dazai’s threat embedded themselves in his brain. He always wondered if Dazai knew his subordinate harboured feelings for his partner. But Akutagawa already knew the answer. Nothing escapes that man. But he’s sure that he doesn’t view him as a threat, not even as competition, no.

To Dazai, it was probably just another reason to hate him; another reason to justify why he was in Dazai’s black books.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was a complete bolt from the blue.

Akutagawa remembered the day he realised he had lost two important people in his life. He thought that watching as you fell in love with Dazai was the most horrible emotion he could feel. He was wrong. Losing the two of you, not even being able to see either of you, not knowing where either of you vanished to — nothing could top that agony.

The day Oda died, the two of you disappeared along with him.

You took down his walls, painted the insides red, furnished it and made it vibrant again and then suddenly you were gone. You left him in the dark. You invaded his solitary space — slowly, ironically without any violence, and yet the moment you left, it was anything but peaceful for Akutagawa. No, you and Dazai left him even lonelier than before. You graced him with your presence and healed him, only to break him down even more than he already was before he met you.

Everything he heard about love after you left just seemed like everyone viewed the world through rose-coloured glasses. Nothing he found could describe the anguish he felt over losing you; or the regret he held for not telling you how he felt — the remorse that he knew wouldn’t change a thing, and yet wished he did anyway.

Because who knew when he would ever see you again, if he would? What if he never did? Yet ironically, your memory is always there — you’re sitting at the edge of his periphery, taunting him with your smile, tempting him to go and find you. And Akutagawa thinks of it everyday; what it would be like to find you, to hold you, to tell you everything he should have when you were still there.

However, a part of him nags at him not to. After all, the grass is always greener on the other side — maybe because Akutagawa isn’t there. And as an image of you flashed in his mind yet again, he scoffed at himself.

Beautiful. That’s the word he was looking for that first day you touched his soul.

You’re beautiful.

tags: @yokelish @gogolparadise @fyowyn-writes

[forgotten-daydreamer]

in defense of Allura

Disclaimer: I do not accept any kind of hatred under this post. I expect all readers to act politely toward those who don’t share their opinion, and I expect you to expose your own ideas respectfully. Toxicity is forbidden on my blog. I don't hate any character, and this is just an analysis. Anything that stimulates a mature debate is welcomed, as long as you do it politely. Thank you!

The time has come. Long enough I’ve dwelled upon the choices that the writers of VLD have made, especially in the last seasons: in this post, I’ll focus on the decisions concerning Princess Allura. 

We were introduced to Allura in the pilot of the show, and it only took a few minutes- should I say doboshes?- to understand her overall personality. The Princess stumbled out of the pod, disoriented and confused, and only an instant later- the time necessary to snap out of her groggy state- she defended herself against a possible threat, being Lance in this case: she physically overwhelmed him with only a few rapid moves, her grip on him steady. Everything about her body language and verbal language screamed “strength”, in the following scenes as well. As she remembered about her father’s death, and about her homeplanet Altea being destroyed, the initial shock faded rather rapidly, and in a few instant she recovered from it. This doesn’t mean that if she hadn’t done it she would have been weak, not at all; it means that Allura, being a leader, knew how to put her feelings aside for a better situation, in order to better focus on the mission at hand.

It’s immediately clear to us that she wasn’t minimally interested in Lance’s advances: she considered him as a teammate, and later as a dear friend, but nothing more than that was  shown in the first seasons. When Lance got badly injured, she didn’t seem too worried- though she immediately jumped into action to secure the perimeter. A couple of episodes later, when Lance exited from the healing pod, she spoke to the teen kindly, relieved that he was alright. Yet, this is not a sign of being in love: all of us would be happy if a friend of ours who was at risk was said to be finally out of the woods. 

Allura was very practical, focused on her mission: she wanted to save the universe at all cost. At the beginning, her continuous arguments with the paladins may have given the impression that she was annoying and too strict, but she was simply driven by passion and desire to prove to everyone, herself included, that she could do the right thing for the universe. Though she never made it explicit, it was obvious that Allura cared about the opinion that the others had about her (even when she simply insisted on thanking the Arusians) because she tried to overcome her own insecurities by making herself as useful as possible to the cause. Even when she “just” flew the Castleship, she always offered her support and ideas to improve training, strategies and team bonding. 

Throughout the seasons, we learnt that Allura had the tendency to blame herself, like when she thought that the Galra were tracking the team through her, for example. Allura also threw herself into battle if it meant saving the others, like when she pushed Shiro out of the way and ended up prisoner, or when she saved the Balmera and risked her own health, pushing herself too far to do the right thing and help the innocents that she couldn’t protect during the 10’000 years of absence. So, according to the evidence we had collected in the first seasons, Allura was selfless and caring, despite everything. 

And then, just when we thought we’d seen it all, Allura became the paladin of the Blue Lion of Voltron (I’ll talk about this event in Lance’s p.o.v. in a different post, don’t worry). She was uncertain at first, but ready to dive head-first into the battle, willing to learn and improve her skills. Being an Altean, she immediately connected with Blue, and everything seemed rather easy; though at the beginning her piloting skills weren’t the best, she learnt in the matter of a single episode, and if you don’t consider it quick learning, then I don’t know what it was. Added to that, Allura was also talented, “progressing a lot faster than any of [the other paladins]”, as Lance said some time later.

When Keith confessed his Galra lineage, her attitude towards him was childish, but it was how someone would have normally reacted in a similar situation. People often have a hard time accepting someone that is unwillingly part of a group whose members caused them any harm; it’s one of the principles of racism, and that’s a synonym of ignorance as well. Human minds work like that, because we all tend to associate trauma with a certain group of people, or day, or any other input: it’s despicable, and sadly most people think like that. Luckily for all the Allura stans (me included, though I stan all the main characters of this show) she overcame this issue quickly. What I like about it was that she didn’t brush it off, but she apologised to Keith in person, evidently mortified for her behaviour, and after that she moved past it, accepting her friend and overcoming their differences happily. Mature people apologise, while childish ones pretend that their mistakes didn’t happen: by making amends for her mistake, Allura showed us just how mature she is for a 18/22 year-old (we do not have an official age, so my guess is as good as yours). 

Things seemed to be going well for her: she learnt how to better manipulate quintessence, she gave Keith space when he needed to find Shiro after his mysterious disappearance, she learnt how to better pilot her Lion and so on and so forth. It was all going well, until Lotor’s arrival: then, it all started to go downhill.

Lance became inexplicably obsessed with her again, and at the same time, Lotor slowly  manipulated Allura. Now, I don’t personally like Lotor since he willingly commits genocide for his own purposes, but I will not dwell further on the topic for it’s not my main discourse now.

Lotor tricked the Princess into believing him, she played into his hands, blinded by love. Mind that when I wrote “love”, my left eyebrow rose impossibly high. In fact, Allura had never shown to be interested in love; surely enough, she was romantically (and sexually, apparently) interested in people as we have witnessed, so the possibility of a love interest wasn’t odd at all. It was just sudden. Too sudden, for my personal opinion. 

The problem I have with Lotura (Lotor x Allura, and I specify because I had to google the ship name) is that it’s based on nothing. The team was wholly against Lotor, except for Shiro who was not himself, quite literally. Allura never gave any impression of trusting people easily: not only when Keith said that he was half Galra, but also when Shiro begged her to trust Ulaz. She was hesitant and not happy about having someone she didn’t trust on board. Thus, her sudden burst of trust toward Lotor was odd, especially when it was quite obvious to most of the audience that the Galra prince was not telling the whole truth. I also wish that we got to see more interactions between Pidge and Allura and Hunk and Allura in s6 and beyond, since they rarely talked anymore despite being on the same team. Even Allura’s interactions with Coran were so diminished in number that they looked like complete strangers in the second half of the series, and it hurt. 

I mark this point as the start of Allura’s downfall: from iconic character to mere love interest, which is not wrong at all per se, but it is when any other trait and development is purposefully ignored and forgotten by the writers “for the sake of the story”.

Thankfully, Allura seemed to recover quickly after Lotor’s betrayal (the scene when she flips him like a coin? Priceless), declaring all of her hatred towards the cruelties he’d committed and how he let her down irreparably. One good thing that Lotor did- and I have to admit that it was good-  was that he made Allura discover new abilities and become stronger, powers-wise speaking. Yet, all of this was secondary to her being a love interest with no other apparent purpose. Why do I say this? Because as soon as she got rid of Lotor, she got together with Lance, and to be honest it’s not quite clear to me how or why. 

I can’t deny that when I watched s1, I was an Allurance shipper; I was sixteen, a hopeless goofball who believed in all the clichés. Now, however, I do realize that Lance’s advances were annoying and obnoxious (and he’s my absolute favourite character, so this shows you just how honest I’m being, hopefully), and that I’m so grateful that Allura didn’t give in. At least, she didn’t do it at the beginning. In the last season, however, she fell in love with Lance in a single episode: when he asked her out, she seemed hesitant and only accepted because Romelle pushed her to give it a try. The dinner sequence was where Allura understood that Lance wasn’t the womanizer she thought he was, but I don’t believe that in reality that would have changed anything. You don’t simply fall in love in one evening only because your date’s family tells you that this person isn’t what they seem; in fact, that would worry me even more, personally, because it would mean that my date is a total stranger.

Lance’s “I love you” was not completely uncalled for, but simply very confusing: he seemed to be over her, but he became jealous when Lotor showed up. I tried so hard to see this as a “protective brother/friend” dynamic, but that sentence leaves no space for speculation (again, I’ll talk about Lance another time). What shocked me was Allura reaction’s to Lance’s confession.

She’d never looked at him with any kind of romantic interest, and even if some scenes may be seen as such (when she resuscitates him. And proceeds to hide it from the team. Yeah, another huge disastrous plotline), it’s undeniable that the Princess had trust-issues, and for a good reason too. That one time that she went against her team’s choice and trusted Lotor a bit too much, she got used and heartbroken. So why was she suddenly so in love with a boy that she’d always treated as nothing more than a good friend? My answer is: bad writing.

If Allura had shown any romantic interest in Lance for at least three consecutive seasons out of eight- to create a deeper connection- I would have taken it without complaining much. If Lotor hadn’t committed genocide and didn’t proceed to use Allura, I would have accepted Lotura too (friendly reminder that I don’t do ship hate unless ships involve rape, pedophilia and incest. So I’m not hating on Allurance and Lotura, though Lotor is a villain and I don’t like him, but that’s just my opinion). If Allura was allowed to be both strong and romantically interested in anyone, I would have taken it. But especially in s8, the writers erased her personality, turning a bright and iconic character into dating material. It wasn't fair to her nor to Lance, honestly.

The last straw was her sacrifice: Allura died to save the universe and since it was her main goal, I’m okay with it, though it hurt as she’s my second favourite character. What I didn’t like about it was that the villains got a happier ending than she did. Lotor, who committed genocide, got to live happily ever after with his parents, a violent conqueror and an abusive hag who ripped the universe apart to be with her son (I get it, mothers love their kids, but this is far too extreme). And furthermore, Lotor didn’t even like his parents, but still for some reason he was happy to be with them again, maybe because at least he got to spend eternity with someone that loves him despite everything. 

Allura, however, died without saying goodbye to Coran, the man who stayed by her side for all their- but also ours- adventures, the one who believed in her the most and who did everything to protect her. She died without getting a last look at the universe she left behind, at the people who weren’t there in her final moments but that cared for her and vice versa (Shay, Romelle, even Krolia. Even the mice, Kalternecker and Cosmo, really). Each character had about a half a minute to say their goodbyes, except for Lance, whose goodbye was the longest but also the least impactful, in my opinion. The writers played too much with the dramatic idea of it and the result was sloppy- as much as I love dramatic scenes, this was purposeless. 

Allura’s last act of kindness- as if saving the whole universe and every existing reality wasn’t enough- was gifting Lance with the Marks of the Chosen. Though, I’m not sure how to interpret it. In a fic I recently wrote, I theorised that “Allura gave you [Lance] these marks because she knew that you had greatness within, and they can actively remind you of it in your darkest moments [...]”. Of course, I’m far from sure that this is the real reason. My question is, was there even a real reason, or did Allura give him the Marks for dramatic purposes? If so, I’m glad that it wasn’t confirmed officially, because at least we get to make our own theories that surely are more satisfying than “we wanted fans to cry more”. Still, I see those marks as scars, and I will talk about it thoroughly in Lance’s analysis. 

In conclusion, I don’t think that Allura was bad at all. I think that, in the end, she was simply badly written, which is entirely different.

s1-s5 Allura was a strong, compassionate, empowering, trustworthy, bright, lovable and fun character and for that, she deserved a better- much better- ending. She’ll always be in my heart, and I hope that future reboots will treat her right. 

I will always remember Allura dearly. As Coran said in the final episode, “Just around this table I see so many lives touched by her actions. For some of us, she was a diplomat, a teacher, a leader, and a friend. But to those of us around this table, she will always be family”. Raising an imaginary glass, I just want to say... “To Allura”.

[treeni]

Sanders Side Theory: Creativity’s Name and Roman’s Struggles

Theories Masterpost

Well, apparently some people were interested in my Orange side theory and stuff.

So let’s talk about “King Creativity” and why I disagree with every name theory I’ve seen so far and what I think instead. I’m not certain “King Creativity” is ever going to be named in the show, just knowing he existed is probably enough, but wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a backstory episode? Or even aside episode?

First! Let’s start with the fact that I actually think it’s really interesting that everyone’s defaulting to Creativity being “King” when it is in fact Emperors who ruled Rome. Not a criticize, just interesting thought. Second, Kings were supposed to sit back and let their knights and armies basically do all of the physical work (Unless your Arthur, but it usually got him into trouble so! Moving on!) while you lead them as whatever supreme ruler title you take. However, a Crowned Prince was often at the head of said adventures and battles, in the thick of it all, but was basically indisputably the accepted next in line. (Approved by the courts and all that jazz, I mean historically it didn’t always go that way, but that was the intention). However, a regular Prince and a Duke could absolutely have a power struggle, especially in the situation where the Duke was previously “next in line” before the Prince’s birth. So if Roman and Remus ever did duke it out (also mini theory that Remus chose Duke for the fighting reference) I think one of them could/would become King, but I don’t think that’s who creativity was before the split.

Now I have a particular crowned prince in mind that creativity is named after, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start by talking about some of the most popular theories and why I disagree with them.

CW: for before the “Keep Reading” section. There is mention of metaphorical and fictional murder, war, lgbt theory (not that, that should surprise anyone). Roman backstory (aka things he might regret now.)

Romulus: While I suppose it’s convenient in the fact that its sort of the names combined, Romulus is already the role that Roman is filling in his relationship with Remus. Twins that supposedly found Rome, but Romulus killed his brother Remus to do so and become the ruler. Romulus literally named Rome after himself. This isn’t a hint, this isn’t something that’s upcoming or anything, this is backstory. Roman is literally just a modernized version of the name Romulus. Remus’ banishment to the darkside was his metaphorical murder. It also suggests that Roman took an active role in sending Remus away, which also helps explain a lot of Roman’s current struggle with Janus. Can you imagine the kind of guilt he might be feeling if he was the one who decided his brother was evil and he was good and then he passed judgement? If the darksides aren’t evil, then Roman and he metaphorically murdered Remus, then he wasn’t the hero slaying the beast anymore. Instead, he’s suddenly the bad guy.

Buuuut Treeni, what about Patton??? I hear you say. It would have had to have been morality right?

And to that I say you’re WRONG! And also right. Patton’s kinda been shown to be the most accepting bean of the whole lot, he doesn’t really try to force the others away the way some of the other sides do. Instead, he puts his foot down on his own convictions and refuses to listen to reason. (I didn’t say he was perfect.) Still, he doesn’t try to physically push the others away, not Virgil when he tried scaring Thomas, not Janus when they argued and Patton was clearly distressed by the courtroom situation, and not even Remus when Patton was clearly scared of him (also defensive of Roman). He doesn’t need to, he’s self-assured in his own place and convictions that he doesn’t worry about Thomas pushing him out. Instead, Patton kinda takes the family holiday party route and will do his best to put out the emotional fires and stand his ground on his opinion to Thomas when he needs to. (The ONLY time I could find Patton sort of pushing someone away was when they were in his room and Patton asked Logan to stop. While that could weaken my argument about Patton, I think it strengthens it because it shows how big of a deal it was at the time that Patton tried shutting him down. Logan reacted the way he did by immediately storming off because it’s not something Patton does.) While it could absolutely be Patton’s influence that caused the split, it would be out of character (as he’s currently defined) for Patton to actively push a side away. (I’ll get into some of his more negative aspects in another post if ya’ll wanna hear about it.)

Remember, Roman was the one who tried shutting down Virgil with bullying tactics, Logan too sometimes. Then he tried to use the same tactics on Janus when he tried putting his foot down on maintaining a black and white view point of the world after Remus’ appearance. Keep in mind that Remus actively told us that he blames Roman for his banishment. He compared himself and Roman to Cain and Able. While c!Thomas and even the audience as a whole were sort of led to think of Remus as Cain because of the “dark and evil” association, Remus is telling us that he is Abel. Roman is his destroyer. (Before you feel too bad for Remus, that misconception was also on purpose because while Remus isn’t a liar, he can manipulate a situation with honesty. Again, another post if you wanna hear about why.)

So now there is some general understanding of the twins backstory, you’ll see why Romulus would be a terrible fit for their combined name because Roman is already Romulus. Period. He’s the one who betrayed his brother by “murdering” him and taking over.

Making Romulus the name of who creativity was before because the names kinda morph together would lazy writing compared to very carefully woven details the show has had thus far (particularly in season 2). Okay, that went on a bit of a tangent, so next!

Caesar: This is a person who brought about the destruction of Rome, not the creation of it. (With Rome basically being the metaphorical state c!Thomas is living in now with clear lines between good/bad, right/wrong etc.) While it’s not a horrible ideology, it would be moving forward in a historical timeline instead of backwards. If you subscribe to the idea that Roman and Remus cannot go back to who they were (even with some kind of theoretical re-morphing) Caesar might be who they become, but it seems unlikely that is who they were. Remember that both sides are individuals now and those individual traits they’ve gained since splitting may not re-mesh cleanly back into who they once were. I personally don’t think there’s any “going back” for Creativity.

If they show him as he once was, it would likely only be in either a backstory bit or in a temporary situation where the re-combining doesn’t hold. However, if Creativity ever did become one thing again, I think it would be something completely new and I think Caesar would be a good fit for that in particular.

Aeneas: Again, it would be kinda lazy writing comparatively. Instead of using a sorta combination of the names that had some historical basis, this theory is based entirely on the idea of a convenient ancestor who quested and failed over and over to create Rome. I could have bought this had it been from lesser writers, but Thomas, Joan and the whole team do not mess around in story crafting and really carefully woven in references. I am literally degreed in writing and analysis and I keep finding myself impressed at the layers.

The name Aeneas also implies that the character Creativity was specifically questing for a change and that seems doubtful given the resentment between the brothers. Aeneas was essentially a left-over scavenger trying to scrape together a new home from what he could from already broken pieces and that does not sound like what Creativity is implied to be.

If we look at child development, I would theorize that Creativity is the oldest side. In the creative process, there are two major steps, first is information absorption, then second is application. The first thing any child must do is learn, anything and everything. The world is a limitless and imaginative playground. New material is around every corner and there it takes a while before the distinction between reality and fiction to be understood. It was probably just c!Thomas and Creativity for a while and as the others emerged, they looked up to him. It could even be potentially argued that Creativity was literally their creators.

This would imply that Aeneas would be a pretty terrible fit for him in that case because there’s nothing broken that he’s trying to salvage. The kingdom is his and c!Thomas’ to preside over with the other sides as his subjects. (c!Thomas being the distant “King” and Creativity being the “Crowned Prince”).

So, with all of that out of the way on why some of these theories are probably wrong, what do I think?

I think Creativity’s name is Hector.

Now, hear me out on this. For those of you who have read the Iliad you probably know exactly who I am referencing. You just may not know why. So stay with me here.

1. First, for those of you who don’t know, Hector was the Crowned Prince of Troy, the leader of the army that the Greeks (the perspective we’re getting) are facing off against. He’s also cousin to Aeneas, but actually accomplished things during the war beyond being saved by Aphrodite. This means he’s also an ancestor to both Romulus and Remus (albeit technically less direct). However, Hector’s family is where the royal lineage of Aeneas comes from. Though we follow the story mainly from the perspective of the Greeks (and the gods because they’re TROLLS), the Greek’s are pretty villainous in a lot of their actions throughout the story and they are most definitely the invaders. In this case, I would liken the Greek army to “outside opinion” for c!Thomas. Others interjecting their views on to someone and breaking his own beliefs. In this situation, Creativity would have been his biggest defender and hero, retreating into magical imaginary worlds to escape judgement.

2. So lets get onto the character and why him, shall we? Hector will literally do anything for his family. The war takes place because his little brother, Paris (one of a whopping 49 brothers mind you) either kidnaps, has Aphrodite kidnap or runs away with the Spartan Queen Helen because he fell in love with her. (It varies on the version and she was forced into her previous marriage at about 13 anyway, so Helen leaving willingly for the guy who the gods deem is the most attractive man alive is a popular modern reading.) It would have been so easy for the Trojans to yeet Helen back to Greece, but they don’t and Hector’s defense of her and his brother is a big reason why. Hector even chastises his brother for the mess he’s caused, but still stands by him and defends him. He also defends the hell out of Helen and refuses to blame her for their problems. Then in Troilus and Criseyde (Basically published Iliad perspective shift fanfiction with OCs) he defends the hell out of Criseyde when even Troilus, (apparently one of the 50 brothers) the person who claims to be in love with her, wont. Hector’s truly an all around good guy, great leader and has a very distinctive and personal moral compass that doesn’t always align with what’s being told to him is right. You want a character representation for someone who led the sides despite their clear struggles? Someone with Roman’s charm and heroism, and Remus’ understanding and drive? Hector is probably it.

3. Hector’s death is both a huge symbol for the end of Troy, but also isn’t? Let me explain, narratively speaking, Hector’s death is the point you know that Troy is basically doomed. His end is the representation of the end of it all. His corpse was literally paraded around as Achilles’s dragged it on the back of a chariot for days to show their doom. There was a distinct “aura” shift from Hector’s death as all of Troy mourned his death. We as an audience know Troy is basically doomed from Hector’s death alone. Hector was a person that even the enemy Greeks hella respected as a warrior and leader. Essentially, this was the point that the war that had been raging for about a decade became serious. At the same time, it just simply isn’t the end of the war. There’s the whole horse thing still to come and all that jazz. Still though, Hector’s death is very much a symbol of “everything changes, but nothing does.” Which is the perfect symbol for the twins split to me. Just because they split doesn’t mean that all of the sides did immediately, yet it was still probably the turning point that drove a wedge between the “dark” and “light” sides.

4. The character Hector arguably died in the name of gay love. Okay, story time. So in the Iliad, Achilles is being a little bitch and refusing to fight anymore because drama between him and the king of Athens, but he’s their best fighter and the Greek’s are basically sorta loosing because of him not helping. His boyf- I mean best friend Patroclus goes out in Achilles armor and leads his army in his place because Achilles is a whiny baby. Except Hector kinda immediately kills Patroclus, thinking he’s Achilles with reinforcements.(This was full body armor baby and distinctive cause baby of a god and all that mocha frappe.) Of course, Achilles has to immediately get angry revenge for his boyf- BEST friend and ends up killing Hector. This would make the character Hector a great metaphor for Creativity if his split had anything to do with sexuality or even acceptance as a whole. (Though we know acceptance is definitely a part of it considering Remus.) We know that Remus wants c!Thomas to explore darker themes and the struggle of sexuality and acceptance could be a possibility in what is to come as a previously “off-limits” theme.

5. A big one is that the destruction of Troy is what eventually brought about the creation of Rome. Essentially Troy would be the metaphor of c!Thomas’ existence/mentality before the sides split into dark/light factions. Then Rome would be the metaphor of c!Thomas’ existence/mentality after the sides split into factions.

6.Finally, the name Hector literally means “to restrain” which would work well for Creativity as he was likely trying to reign in the others from infighting (and you can see how well that went with him being gone). 

Cheers to another rant into the void. Huzzah! God this is nearly as long as some of my seminar papers. Do what you will with this information.

Please keep in mind that I adore Roman as a character. This post isn’t meant to hate on him. It’s meant to bring awareness of the layers of his character. Every Prince Charming was a villain to someone, every hero that slays the beast is a murderer from a different light. 

I don’t bring these things to light to cause pain, I bring them to light to help bring awareness of what’s probably going through his head.

(Yes, in regards to the Creativity being made first thing, I DO even have a theory about existence order, I promise you I have theories about everything. My mind does not stop with this crap. I have theories on everything from what animal association Roman and Logan have to Virgil’s key role in Roman’s backstory. I’ve ranted about a bunch of these things to a few specific people so if you ever want me to go on a rant about anything in particular let me know. I didn’t expect anyone to actually look at the other theory post tbh. Inbox me if you want me to go to unnecessary lengths on something else.)

(Also, correct me on the Patton thing if I’m wrong. I took notes on a recent watch through, but I wasn’t specifically looking for his rejection sooo, if there are other moments of it you can find that didn’t jump out at me I totally accept criticism.)

[aaetherius]

I wrote this all in the tags and then I realized how long it was and that tungle would probably cut me off so have an unintentional headcanon/ramble thing that was just supposed to be the little update in the tags on this post before I got carried away and I just do not know how to shut up, but, in my defense your honor I love him: 

But it sometimes comes up because for some reason Lucifer gets manhandled quite a bit in threads (which is totally fine - for the most part you’re free to touch him/pester him/toss him over your shoulder if you’re capable of doing so and he generally won’t do anything about it, so long as this is one of his default/post wmtsb verses). But post wmtsb/his revival verses, Lucifer can be very openly affectionate towards the crew. 

He’s a naturally very caring and warm person, but he never allowed himself to be physically or outwardly affectionate towards people when he was the Supreme Primarch (because people put him on a pedestal and thus shied away when he tried to reach out to them and by the time he created Sandalphon there was already this disconnect between himself and others so he was actually afraid to touch him. I imagine he did here and there when it was needed - he likely took care of Sandalphon’s wings/whatnot for a while, but even when doing so I also imagine he was very hesitant and his touch was very brief/hesitant/fleeting so despite the fact that he very much wanted to reach out to Sandalphon he felt as if he wasn’t allowed to, and thus kept his distance. Again, he was truly afraid to touch Sandalphon and uncertain of how he should interact with him, which likely made him come off as very distant despite not wishing to, but he also very much had this feeling of overwhelming loneliness about him. I can imagine there were countless times when he saw Sandalphon with his hair messy or maybe leaves tangled in it or his wings, and he would go to reach out to fix it and then stop himself because he felt like couldn’t/wasn’t allowed to touch him or that, if he did, Sandalphon would shy away from him as the others had, he was utterly terrified of losing him, which, obviously and ironically, resulted in his worst fear aka losing him to the rebellion where Sandalphon wasn’t aware of the terribly deep extent to which Lucifer loved/loves him because Lucifer himself wasn’t entirely aware of it either).

 I’ve mentioned this before, but he’s extremely touch-starved. So, he wanted to care for people. He wanted to express his feelings towards them openly, but couldn’t (or felt that he couldn’t. The exception likely being Lucilius, of whom I imagine he was a bit more openly affectionate towards because, though Lucilius very much put him on a pedestal, his relationship with him was still different from the Primarchs who more so viewed him as this perfect, very out of reach being that they had to respect and could not be close to because he was their leader so they always tip-toed around him or were so quick to bow their heads when he came near or they would excuse themselves out of fear/respect for him when he tried to have a conversation with them. But even with Lucilius he was still hesitant because Lucilius, obviously, isn’t a very touch-feely person, but he likely tolerated it when it came from Lucifer because it’s Lucifer. So, he would show physical affection towards Lucilius, but it would still be a bit muted/not as much as he wanted to show him because he’s well aware that while Lucilius allowed him into his personal space, he wasn’t likely to return the gesture to him, and might not have been too fond of Lucifer’s doting - if he was, Lucifer is awful at reading people and wasn’t aware he enjoyed it/was comfortable with it so he slowly become more hesitant with showing affection towards Lucilius over time and, eventually, he stopped doing so because he didn’t want to upset him. By the time the rebellion had started he had really withdrawn into himself and had become very hushed/seemingly far away from everything and everyone). 

So, upon being revived, and being a part of the crew, he’s still distant/hesitant for a bit, but as he begins to see more and more of the crew and how they interact with one another and how openly affectionate they allow themselves to be towards one another, he slowly begins to come out of his shell and allows himself to be affectionate towards others. This very much includes and is largely about purely platonic relationships (because let friends hug and kiss - though obviously this applies to romantic relationships as well where he is insufferably affectionate and terribly attached). So, he does tend to dote on others, especially once he’s comfortable around someone. And there are certain crew members he favors by default/is more comfortable around. For example, he utterly adores Lyria and will very much spoil her if allowed to do so (he’ll make her coffee-free lattes even though he knows Sandalphon would be appalled by the idea or brush/braid her hair, or help her with anything she asks for). He is incredibly grateful towards her for reaching out to, forgiving, and accepting Sandalphon, and for understanding him. So, he wants to repay her for all she’s done for Sandalphon in whatever way he can, so he’s naturally very friendly towards her (and he’s mildly protective of her, if someone upsets her in his presence or snaps at her/is cruel towards her, he will willingly defend and comfort her. He’s actually very paternal towards Lyria). This was mentioned in an old headcanon post, but Lucifer is very biased towards the people Sandalphon favors. Post wmtsb, he’s much more aware of Sandalphon’s feelings/emotions and is much better at picking up on them. He’s very in-tune to Sandalphon, and is very trusting of his judgement/him in general, therefore he tends to favor the same people Sandalphon does. This is all very unintentional on his part, he’s not actually aware of how heavily he allows himself to be influenced by Sandalphon, but because he has so little experience being around others, especially mortals, and actually being able to live his life independently (and thus doesn’t know how to), he’s fairly reliant on how Sandalphon reacts to people/things in order to form his own thoughts/opinions about them (again, in part because of just how deeply he values and trusts Sandalphon).       

But, anyway, even in purely platonic relationships (which this post is very much almost entirely about), once he’s comfortable around someone he will be openly affectionate towards them. He’s very okay/comfortable with giving someone a hug, or a kiss on the cheek, or just holding someone when they’re upset/want to be comforted. He’s very willing to brush his fingers through someone’s hair, wash or brush their hair, or care for someone in general regardless of what care they need, he typically won’t shy away from it (even if there’s no real reason or need for it - and he’s more than willing to do so when someone is sick or injured). He’s very willing to let people lay their head in his lap as he sings to them, or lean their head on his shoulder, or just cuddle with him/share a blanket with him or whatnot (in other words, you are very welcome to let your muse manhandle him a bit/reach out and touch him - platonically (otherwise, obviously, your muse is open to do so romantically if we’re actively shipping) - without permission or anything because odds are, so long as this is post wmtsb, he’ll likely be okay and open to it. Let friends be openly affectionate and caring and loving towards one another my goodness it’s such good content). That being said, when someone else initiates affection towards him (kisses/hugs him, pulls him against their chest, runs their fingers through his hair - whatnot), he does become a bit hesitant, and is very clearly surprised most of the time. He’s incredibly used to being in the caregiver role (or being the one to initiate affection), so when someone else flips that around on him he’s often uncertain of what to do or how to react. He might even tense up because he’s so unused to it, but he will relax if he trusts the person after a bit, and then will very much melt into their touch. He does enjoy having affection returned or shown to him, but because he’s so unused to it he tends to be a bit shy/more withdrawn about it (but, as mentioned, if he’s comfortable with the person who does so, he will relax into their hold/touch and turn to putty in their hands because he is so so very touch-starved and having someone dote on him is really enough to make him visibly deflate and relax). In other words let people dote on Lucifer, he deserves to be loved and deserves to have friends who are openly willing to give him physical affection.

The only thing he dislikes or is very selective about (and this was also mentioned in another headcanon post, and very much post wmtsb related), is people touching his neck or wings or his side where the blade went through his core because it’s uncomfortable to him. He may not have scars there because he’s in a new body, but he still gets phantom pains from having his head and wings cut off and his core stabbed. He can very much still feel those sensations, and they tend to flare up when those areas are touched (he’ll visibly shudder/shiver if they are and will likely pull away, or he’ll stop someone outright before they can touch those areas). There are exceptions to this/people who are allowed to openly touch those areas and he’s largely comfortable with it (obviously Sandalphon is one of them, but Lyria is as well, mainly his wings in her case, as is Cagliostro given that she made his body so he honestly just tolerates anything she feels like she needs to do in order to keep him up and running - he might still shiver even in their cases, when the area on his side or neck is touched, simply because he’s so guarded about those areas that he’s even less used to them being touched so the feeling of warmth against them is very foreign to him, even more so than the rest of his body). However, another exception is all of the children in the crew (again, relating to his wings)! He actually has a soft spot for children, and adores them so he tends to spoil the ones that live on the ship when he gets the chance. He’ll very much watch over them/play with them. He makes for both a terrible and wonderful babysitter because he’ll let them get away with anything and everything, but he’ll also make sure they’re taken care of/safe/enjoying themselves. If left with them, he’s more than willing to take them on little flights around the ship, but he’ll often be found just with kids crawling all over him, poking or pestering him. He’s more than willing to let them put him in silly outfits or hang things from his wings (and more than willing to also let them sleep on/in his wings as well - they’re warm and soft so it’s a win-win), or play nonsensical games with them that he doesn’t know the rules for/anything about. And he’ll always have the brightest, but softest of smiles on his face when he’s interacting with them because goodness does he adore children (he also adores animals, as well - he can very much be found pestering Dante’s cats and will just let them use him as a scratching post without any complaints). Children (and animals) can more or less get away with anything when it comes to him.   

Basically, what I’m saying is, let friends (or partners) love each other shamelessly and without hesitation. Let Lucifer openly dote on/show physical affection towards people, and let them do the same for him in return. Let him comfort and hold and touch others platonically/affectionately, and let others do so in return for him. Aka, feel free/don’t hesitate to let your muse be affectionate towards him and let them seek affection from him because he will happily give it in most cases. Also, let him babysit children and animals! Lucifer is kind and soft (so very soft) and very loving when he’s allowed to be, and he very much wants to be, but he sometimes just needs a little push/needs to know he’s allowed to be physically affectionate towards someone!  

Can you believe I wrote all of this in the tags before rewriting all of it in the post itself.

[d-l-landcaslil]

My opinion on why is Endeavor’s redemption arc valid

I’ve been thinking about writing something like this for a while, but somehow I never did. But now I’m just going to ramble to cope with the anxiety the latest chapter gave me hhhh

So a lot of Endeavor stans get the question, why don’t we hate him, and I think this is a valid question (as long as you don’t attack us immediately and assume that we support all the wrong thing he’s done!). And I’m not here to convince anyone to like Endeavor. You can hate him, he deserved it. Just please don’t wish for his death in the current arc of the manga because if that happens everyone is fucked you don’t want that and also it hurts This for those who actually ask this question because they’re interested in the answer.

So here’s the thing. First of all I think he’s an amazing hero. Let’s not forget that he has the most solved cases ever, which means even more than All Might! He saved thousands of people. And his skills are just hella amazing, he is competent in almost all types of combat, and while AM gains his physical strength from his quirk, Enji’s quirk itself doesn’t provide it, it probably took him a lot of heavy training to get there. Sidenote for this he is hot af and can step on me any day and I’ll thank him.   Of course his heroic actions are no excuse for the abuse he did, but in my opinion the abuse he did does not diminish his merits as hero either. I admit this is arguable, but these are my views even on irl people of similar kind. 

So yes, I admit, as a person, he is extremely problematic, he abused his family, and it’s not something to be overlooked. But also his character is amazingly written. I think his backstory is one of those elements in the story, that tries to bring attention to the problems with the hero society. And boi, there’s a lot to unpack there. Firstly, what he represents is sadly common in real life too: that people (especially men) serving at the police, in the army, etc are abusing their power this way and getting away with it because of their rank. But not only this. This leads to even more complex problems within the entire hero community. And this is the rivalry between heroes and the toxic masculinity in the hero community. Now I’m not the one to quickly agree with Stain, because I’m fed up with the cliché of heroes having to be fully selfless (it’s their job and they need to eat and pay rent bruh) and that the whole system is corrupt BUT the fact that the hero ranking exists and forces the heroes to compete with each other is so wrong on so many levels. And of course there are certain heroes who can actually let this go and only focus on the job itself (e.g. Hawks), but there is a lot of pressure on everyone and not all of them can escape it. Don’t tell me it’s normal that Kiri had an inferiority complex for years bc he was too scared to attack a villain three times his size in 4th grade of middle school

And I think a lot depends on the family background. Notice, how the students/heroes who are not coming from a hero family or a family that expected the to become heroes (Deku, Uraraka, etc.) are way more chill about the whole thing, because they parents are proud of them af whatever little heroic thing they do. When it comes to Enji, we don’t know anything about his parents/family background but I have a really strong feeling that he was pressured into the marriage with Rei and into always being the best. Here’s why. We know that Fuyumi is 23 and there’s ~three years between the kids (bc that’s when the quirks appear) so Toya is probably 26. Enji is 46, so he was 20 when they had Toya. So he got married even before he became 20. Now don’t tell me a 19-20 yo young man, who has just graduated from UA (probably with flying colors) and already aims to be nr1 would decide to get married and have kids - even if he’s madly in love, nevermind out of convenience. (And even if he was in love with Rei /but he wasn’t/ and wanted to marry her, any descent parents would have stopped him.) Yes, he probably agreed, because he felt like that preserving and passing down his quirk is important, and that he himself is not enough to be the best and he needs a descendant who can do the job for the family reputation if he fails. Of course it’s all just assumption but DON’T TELL ME THAT THIS ALL WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if he just had A SUPPORTIVE FAMILY TO TELL HIM THAT HE IS A GREAT HERO AS HE IS AND HE DOESN’T NEED TO COMPARE HIMSELF TO OTHERS. NO, THEY DIDN’T TELL HIM THAT. Instead they used their money and power to arrange a quirk-marriage and set him up to be a husband and father while still struggling to become nr1. Now add this to Enji’s inherently grumpy, quick, aggressive temper, take away from him the chance to properly socialize with ppl of his age - and you get the textbook abusive man who brought the bad patterns from the family, added his own frustration and took it all out on his family he never really wanted. He might be an inherently bad tempered person. But no-one is born the way he is now. He could have unlearned a lot of it if the expectations of the hero society hadn’t fucked him up at a young age.

But he did what he did and there’s no excuse for that so let’s see why his redemption is still valid in my opinion. Also it’s more explicit manga spoilers from here (basically he talks about his future plans for his fam in the manga and I’m going to talk about it in detail). 

So what many abusers would probably do is to start acting kindly and try to win back their partner/family by promising to change again and again. But Endeavor doesn’t do that. Not only is he willing to stay away from them, but it’s him who stays in their old house and he’s planning to build a whole new house where the kids and Rei, who he wants to get out of the hospital he put her into (!) can live. without him. I had someone who told me they think he wants to be reunited later and he just gives them time but there’s no proof of this and it’s still not that bad. So yes, he admits that him staying away from them is the solution AND he uses his money and power to fix the situation as much as he can. Of course there are a lot of things he can never fix and my stomach still clutches when I watch his past in se2 but HE HAS LEARNED THE LESSON, HE ADMITTED HE FUCKED UP AND HE’S WORKING TO FIX IT AS MUCH AS HE CAN. And I can’t help to cheer for him to able to do that, because that’s the only outcome that’s good for everyone. 

Besides that, the scene where he tells Shoto he will do everything to make him proud and be the hero he can look up to always makes me cry  shows how he admits his mistakes too. He takes the things he said to Shoto, the expectations he raised towards him and admits that he himself haven’t fulfilled those expectations, so he needs to do that in order for Shoto to accept him. So he basically reversed the roles, he reversed the order of power, and he applies what he abused Shoto with to himself, but this time in a non-toxic way. Also, in the Endeavor agency arc we already see how he has a different attitude towards Shoto as his student. One more thing: you can see in that scene and also several times in the manga how he feels like shit when the kids are ignoring or confronting him. And even I think he deserves all of it, BUT this again proves THAT HE. HAS. LEARNED. HIS. LESSON. Yes, he was extremely abusive. No, it cannot be forgiven. But he basically admitted that he was one, got out of the life of those who were affected, tries to change and supports them from the distance. That’s the best he can still to in this fucked up situation. 

And as I witnessed his journey so far, I couldn’t help to start liking him. I cheer for him, I hope he can really change, I’m always excited to see him in action, and I’m really worried about him in the current situation. I think there’s way more potential in him than it was shown in the beginning. I hated him first too. But somehow he became my favorite pro hero and one of my favorite characters overall. 

This is the answer. If you read all this rambling you deserve a medal. 

A closing thought: I think it’s understandable that everyone reacts to Endeavor differently. He is the type of character who divides even the canon characters nevermind the fandom. It’s really interesting to see how all his kids react to him differently, and how they basically represent types of the ppl’s attitudes in the fandom. I realized I’m the Fuyumi type. But of course all are valid. But Dabi types please please let us mourn in peace if the thing happens QwQ 

[hiscyarika]

hey! so i've been seeing a bunch of discourse regarding Omera and how she tried to remove Din's helmet without asking him, but i haven't seen anyone show the same degree of hate towards Cara as they do Omera for basically doing the same thing. i'm curious, what are your thoughts on all this? love your blog/writing! 💙✨

Me: *has not been present on Tumblr for like a week because of school*

First of all, thank you for your kind words, anon! I’m so glad that you enjoy my content and I appreciate your support! 💙

And without further ado, let me just give my two cents on the subject 😌

Let’s go ahead and start with Omera, since she’s the one that everyone seems to be so concerned about. I think that Omera is a fantastic character! She’s protected and raised her daughter on her own for some length of time. She takes charge when Din and Cara try to tell the villagers that they have no choice but to leave, and she’s absolutely badass for being the only one in the village with the skill to shoot the way she does. Awesome character, and very well developed despite only appearing for one episode. I would absolutely be open to her appearing in Season 2 as someone that Din and the child go to when they’ve hit a rough patch. 

That being said, I didn’t appreciate the scene with trying to take the helmet off. Was Din seriously considering staying? Yes. Did he react much differently than when anyone else tried the same thing? Yes. And those two points have a lot of merit in this argument and I’m glad that people have brought it up. However, Omera did know that Din had not shown his face since he was a child. He says that to her very explicitly. And then he spends weeks on Sorgan never appearing to anyone in anything less than full armor and the helmet. He doesn’t eat or drink around people. To me, it’s very clear that there is a significance to his mannerisms even if Omera doesn’t know the specifics about the Creed and why Din behaves this way. My thing about this isn’t so much that she tries to remove the helmet, it’s more that she does it in front of the entire village. This whole interaction would have been much easier to swallow if it had just been the two of them in one of the little houses. 

I think the bottom line here is that it’s okay for people to have disdain for this interaction between Din and Omera. I personally have not interacted with anyone whose opinion seems to be founded in the idea that she’s a potential love interest which “may threaten our own fantasies about Din” so to speak. I also have not interacted with anyone whose opinion seems to be founded in the fact that she is a character of color (which, Din is a character of color as well, so I personally wouldn’t understand this argument even if I had come in contact with it). That isn’t to say that there aren’t people with these viewpoints, but I think that it’s really important not to assume that most people who dislike Omera or this interaction do it for such egregious reasons.

As for Cara, I also mostly enjoy her as a character! She’s got a lot of spunk. She’s a badass. And Gina Carano being able to just manhandle someone like she does in Chapter 8? Phenomenal. But she has her flaws too, flaws that I don’t think I picked up on until my second or third viewing of the series. But given the way that I write Kir’manir, and especially the way that I handle Cara in that series, I’ve had to really look at the way she interacts with all the other characters in the show, and there are actually more things that bother me about Cara than there are things about Omera (which makes sense because Cara has far more screen time than Omera, but still). 

One thing that really irks me about Cara is the way that she so flippantly responds to Din telling her the repercussions of taking off the helmet at the end of Chapter 4. When she says “That’s it?” she clearly has no regard for the high importance that the Creed has in Din’s life. And you could argue that’s because she doesn’t understand it. But just like with Omera, Cara has been around Din for weeks now, and I would hope that by then she would at least recognize the significance of adhering to the Creed, even if the consequences for breaking it are not fatal. 

I also have a really hard time with the way that she treats Kuiil. Kuiil makes it very clear that the work that he did for the Empire was against his will, and that he had to work for a very long time to be free from his servitude. And yet she is still very hostile and refuses to recognize that he’s not an enemy. Again, you could argue that she’s got a lot of trauma from what she went through as a shock trooper, and I don’t want to invalidate that at all. But I think it would have been much better for her to recognize that Kuiil never posed a threat to her. He wasn’t a soldier, as far as I’m aware, and therefore he wasn’t someone that had any direct impact on Cara or any of the other shock troopers. 

To wrap up Cara’s analysis, I have to address her attempt to take Din’s helmet off as well. And I want to be clear when I say that I actually have even less respect for Cara doing this than Omera. When Omera tried to take it off, at least to her it seemed like it was something that Din was considering going through with. With Cara, even though she was trying to save his life, she knew full well that keeping to his Creed was more important than anything else. He gave up a happy life on Sorgan with Omera and the child just to keep to his Creed. He was going to leave the child there if the other bounty hunter had not shown up. Cara probably has a much better idea of what it means for Din to be a Mandalorian than Omera ever did. And the sad thing is that if Din had been too weak to stop her in any way, she probably would have gone through with revealing him without a second thought. 

Both of these female characters have flaws, and I think it’s important not only to discuss them, but to realize that other people might not feel the same way as you do about the way that these characters behave. I think we as a fandom have forgotten how to disagree without having so much aggression behind our interactions with each other, and as someone who’s been here pretty much since the beginning of The Mandalorian’s fandom, it’s really disheartening to see this so often on my dashboard. It’s the reason that I have contemplated leaving more than once in the past few months. We need to remember that not everyone is going to agree with us on certain things, and that’s okay. As long as no one is being harmed, then it’s not worth having these arguments over all the time. If you like Omera and you want to see her as Din’s love interest in Season 2? That’s fine, but you shouldn’t expect everyone to see things that way. If you think that Cara is a bad character and you want to voice your opinion about it? Great. Do that. But also please remember that this is a TV show. These are fictional characters, and in the end you do not gain anything from shaming people for their opinions on certain characters. The end. 

[sparkwhorunswithwolves]

“The next day Scott apologizes to Allison, who’s a little bit upset. But hey, Scott’s a werewolf, so I mean, what are you gonna do, say no?”

//

Of all the things that confused me for a long time, among the most confusing was Scott/Posey Stans’ simultaneously held beliefs that Scott McCall would be the bestest werewolf ever and yet somehow remain a toxic human disaster worthy of pity. All the things that make Scott McCall that disaster – his insecurities, his lack of empathy, his bigotry, his hypocrisy, his abusive tendencies and behavior, his possessive instincts – also make him an absolute horror as a werewolf.

How many times did Scott lash out in anger at people he professed to care about just because they didn’t do what he wanted them to do? How many times did Scott lie and conceal important information from others for his own benefit? How many times did Scott’s mother, girlfriends and friends complain about not being able to help if they don’t know? How many times did Scott charge headlong into situations with no plan whatsoever solely focused on fulfilling his own emotional needs? If it wasn’t for Stiles and Derek, Scott would have been killed off by the hunters and by Peter Hale after exposing his own kind during one of his jealous fits/dick measuring contests with Jackson in Season 1. If it wasn’t for Stiles and Derek, Scott would have hurt Allison and killed Jackson out of jealousy.

Scott knew that becoming a werewolf gave him the power to protect the people he cares about (which includes managing their image of him) and the power to force said protection on them. Teen Wolf S5A and B proved that Scott McCall will lie and manipulate and cheat and gaslight and commit premeditated murder to keep things under his control until he can’t any more; then he’ll explode, whine, throw another one of his self important temper tantrums, and attempt to blame others for his own failures. Why do you think Scott McCall’s body count is higher then the villains’?

Remember how Scott reacted when he found out that Isaac liked Allison? Isaac was a goner the moment he interacted with “HIS” woman. Scott never ever had the slightest hesitation (or any regret) about physically punishing him. Dead man walking. In fact, the only reason Scott stopped abusing Isaac in front of Melissa was because he started preying on the new girl on campus and, quoting Tyler Posey’s own words, “Kira is a good distraction for Scott.”

Perhaps that’s what Scott stans mean when they wax lyrical over how much of an incredible wolf and ‘true alpha’ Scott makes in self-insert Scott McCall Supremacist fan fiction after self insert Scott McCall Supremacist fan fiction: they admire how many innocent people Scott murders and how many abuse victims Scott maims, abuses and violates while working out his delusions of grandeur, pathological jealousy and emotional issues.

Scott McCall had that 10-episode span where he plotted/conspired with Deaton and Gerard Argent against Derek Hale and his Pack behind everyone’s back; which culminated in self proclaimed hero and ruler of Beacon Hills Scott violating Derek’s boundaries, bodily autonomy and consent and committing premeditated attempted murder just because: “He threatened my mom! I had no choice!”

And yet, the Scott McCall defense squad trolls are adamant that Scott immediately flipped an emotional control switch and resolved all his issues. Of course Scott McCall wouldn’t lash out and savagely attack the moment his friends chose to kick his whiny ass to the curb for good or suggested that Scott didn’t have the right to make their decisions for them. Nope! Ice-cold control. Clear loyalties, superior morality and leadership skills. A good, nurturing friend, boyfriend and werewolf and a true blessing to the pack. /sarcasm

While canon shows us that Scott McCall is a flop wolf (even his only beta Liam and his girlfriend Malia called him a failure to his face in Season 5), everything in canon confirms that Stiles Stilinski would make a magnificent werewolf. Born Wolf Peter Hale has always known this – that’s why he offers Stiles the Bite in Season 1 and then shamelessly admits that he NEVER stopped fantasizing about biting/turning Stiles in Season 6.

In conclusion: if Teen Wolf had revolved around the Hale Pack and family and werewolf Stiles and/or Dark Stiles & Void Stiles like viewers wanted, it would have been a better and much more interesting show than whatever Scott/Posey crap-show we got (and it would have lasted longer, too.)

The Teen Wolf writers and producers should have killed Scott McCall off in Season 1 Episode 1 and replaced him with Vernon Boyd or Kira Yukimura instead.

~•~

https://princeescaluswords.tumblr.com/post/623259473284399104/another-thing-fandom-claims-a-story-about-the#notes There. Fixed it for you canon and reality wise @ princeescaluswords

---

Ohhh, do I have opinions about… all of those things. So, in no particular order:

Hale pack; Hale pack 2.0; werewolf Stiles; pretty sure I answered Boyd as the MC before; Kira; 

Did I ever actually post that TW would have to deal with fundamentally different themes if Stiles/Allion were bitten instead or did I just go nope NaNo project?

Okay, let’s see, how would a show that actually focused on worldbuilding, werewolf dynamics/culture outside of “I’m the alpha now”, and pack-as-family be more interesting than a show about what is either the most hilariously bad excuse for a Good Guy™, or an unsatisfying good guy turned villain story that didn’t realise that we were actually interested in the character’s lives outside of Scott?

With the Hale pack 2.0, the show would be about rebuilding that, about human and werewolf norms clashing, and finding a middle ground that isn’t “you’ll heal/werewolves made them do it”.

Because TW does have so much potential for all those things, but Scott’s not interested in them unless it directly affects or benefits him; but we never see non-abusive pack dynamics.

And this might just be because I grew up with wolfblood/still haven’t finished the order, but actually seeing that kind of pack bonding/history outside of “let’s save the day” is so much more interesting. 

-

Werewolf!Stiles is interesting, because I can and have seen it both ways with a pretty even split?

(I’ve also answered Stiles saying yes to the bbite at least twice now, and that answer hasn’t changed. Unless it’s time travel. post5a/b Stiles asking Peter or Derek for the bite would be hilarious.)

First off, “Stiles would kill everyone he lies about giving a shit about!1!1!” is absolutely hilarious, given that Scott was the one who tried to kill Stiles, hurt and only didn’t kill Jackson because Derek and Stiles interfered, hurt Isaac, because of “control issues”. But sure, Stiles is the one who would kill everyone on sight. /sarcasm

Okay, so. Stiles wants to be part of this world, does everything he can to learn about it and knows when you can’t do something because werewolves. He has also shown that he’s willing to make sacrifices (skipping the lacrosse game in 1x9(?)/Eichen House in 3b/the relationship with his dad) if it meant keeping people safe, because he knew not doing those things would hurt people more than they could benefit him. 

(Meanwhile we have Scott “being bullied” into playing lacrosse/not caring if The Darkness™ hurt anyone— Isaac or anyone at school/lied to his mom, Allison, Kira constantly. Go figure)

Other than that, I honestly can’t tell how much control I would want canon!Stiles to have. Because with fic, I could go either way, for obvious I need to fixate on something other than adhd and werewolves, please, reasons, but canon? I don’t think perfect control on at least the first full moon is something that's actually possible given, you know, canon. And depending on if you go with Stiles being bitten instead of Scott, it’s not a particularly interesting story. 

But everything in canon suggests that he would be self aware enough to know that, and not go to a party like a certain other person I will not name here. 

-

But that’s one of the main— issues I have with this line of thinking. It’s always how would this compare to Scott. You always outdo the other, when you can’t really compare it in the sense they are both very different people, who are going to handle the same situation very differently. Scott’s go to response when Shit Happens is to avoid it for as long as possible by distracting himself with school/lacrosse/gf of the season; while, despite for that throwaway line, Stiles always needs to be there— he researches werewolves, stalks Theo, helps the Hales. 

As I said before, neither is the most thought out or safe option, both are a normal response, but you can’t— It’s hard to compare them because Scott got bitten “because of” Stiles, and didn’t have any how to werewolf 101 he really listened to. While with Stiles it’s either a) him getting “himself” bitten that night and being excited about it, b) him wanting the bite, knowing what to expect, with a lot less trauma, c) getting bitten without consent but with that understanding of what is happening. 

-

Now, Kira’s story is something I would pay good money to actually see done right. Because can you imagine of they did kill off Scott in 3a, and Kira had to navigate a) BH’s drama, b) coming into her own powers, c) actually dealing with not being fucking told about that, and d) not being fucking lied to end just getting yeeted into the desert?

[clairvoyantxatu]

On Pokémon and Insensitive Portrayals

WARNING! LEAKED CONTENT FOR POKEMON SWORD AND SHIELD AHEAD! AS WELL AS DISCUSSION ABOUT CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS! AND PLEASE, DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE TEXT, I TRIED MY BEST NOT TO DEMONIZE ANY OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED IN THIS DEBATE!

So, I’ve just found out that some Jewish fans have condemning the design of Impidimp’s final evolution, Grimmsnarl, for being eerily similar to antisemitic caricatures from Nazi propaganda.

They claim his green complexion, curly dark hair and long, pointy nose is pretty close to Third Reich-era depictions of Jewish people. The issue is similar to the controversy surruounding Jynx that happened when the series first came to the West. I decided to write this in order to expose my opinions on the matter, and maybe prevent further conflicts between defenders and accusers. Keep in mind, I can’t speak for Jewish people since I’m not one of them, but I personally believe anyone can share their opinions about controversial topics as long as they don’t commit the mistake of thinking they know more about a group they don’t belong to than themselves. Here goes my thoughts:

I personally DON’T believe Game Freak, as a company at least, is actively discriminatory against any group in particular; the majority of their employees, even the main members of its staff, might hold some biases coming from the still pretty conservative Japanese culture they’re inserted in. But they’ve already shown thorugh their actions throughout the years they’re not trying to perpetuate hatred towards any group in particular, even taking some measures - some of them, even too drastic, IMO - to secure that, like changing Jynx’ color palette starting from Gen III, temporarily replacing Brock in the anime with Tracey and slightly altering Gym Leader Lenora’s default design to please the fans concerned with their possible racist implications. But I think the biggest proof of that is how, starting from Gen V, they’ve been making an effort to include more diversity among their human cast, including more and more characters with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds with each passing generation, and even alluding to sexual diversity from time to time - if only through subtext, in the latter’s case (save for that post-op trans woman in the Battle Chateau, which got slightly less explicit in the English localization). Of course, not everything is perfect in that department, as can be attested by their reluctancy to depict the Player Characters in their more dark-skinned variations, as of X and Y, (and before that, the complete absence of that possibility in-game) in promotional art and spinoff media outside of screenshots of main series games designed specifically to showcase character customization, but I’d like to think this had more to do with the Japanese market - still their main target audience, despite the franchise’s success over the entire globe - being hesitant to accept character designs outside certain “standards” for their PC’s even to this day, to a lesser extent than in the past, of course. But one thing that people need to understand is that companies are complex entities encompassing many individual minds; them having flaws and making mistakes from time to time does not necessarily mean they are rotten to the core, even if, in the end, their main priority is making money for themselves (altruism is NOT a strong point in capitalist societies, sadly, but I digress).

With all that said, I’d like to point out as well, that sometimes, good intentions are not enough to perform a good deed; in fact, they can lead to grave consequences! And it’s not different with representation; sometimes, one can intend to portray a character from a certain group in a positive light and end up being tremendously insensitive, usually due to their own ignorance towards that group. I believe that’s the case with Jynx and other examples from Pokémon; while I’m one of the fans who prefer to believe Jynx is based on the Youkai Yama-Uba (refer to this link for more info on that: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jynx_(Pok%C3%A9mon)#Origin), I cannot deny there is a strong similarity between Jynx’ original design and blackface caricatures, specially since the Yama-Uba is usually portrayed in Noh theatre by performers wearing blackface - even if without the intention to emulate actual black people. It doesn’t help that the anime chose to portray this species as Pokémon’s equivalent of Santa Claus’ usual elf assistants, possibly linking Jynx to Zwarte Peit, a infamous folklore figure heavily associated with Santa as well. In regards to the substantially smaller Lenora controversy, I personally believe it was the case of GF misinterpreting some depictions of black women from less-enlightened times, in particular those borrowing from the mammy stereotype, as something more positive than they actually were, possibly connecting them to traditional Japanese ideals of femininity and motherhood, but that’s just a wild guess, I admit. What I’m sure, however, is that while Lenora’s apron could be excused as a means to carry her archeological tools, even if I’ve never seen an actual archeologist wearing aprons to do so, her original Gym Leader Title in the Japanese version of the Gen V games, “Natural-born Mama” raises a lot of suspicion against the intent behind her design, specially since she’s not known to have children, have a particularly “motherly” personality, act as a mother figure towards any character in-game or have an occupation that could be interpreted as being akin to a mother’s role; the best I can think of is Lenora and her husband referring to each other as “mama” and “papa”, but considering other Gym Leader titles refer more to their main character features, and Lenora’s relationship with Hawes is more of side note in comparison to her role as Nacrene Museum’s director... the fact the rest of her characterization is pretty straightforward, lacking any racial elements to it, however, lends credency to the idea GF didn’t intend her to be a caricature of black women.

Nevertheless, the closeness between those depictions and real world racist depictions of minority groups is still unsettling, at least to some. And just because the author’s intention wasn’t to offend a certain group, it doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to dislike their work for that. After all, so many people hate Palkia’s design for resembling male genitalia despite that obviously not being the intention! What if they coloured Cloyster light pink instead? Would you blame people for associating it (even more) with a vagina? I’m not saying we should storm off GF’s office demanding they change Grimmsnarl’s design while accusing them of being bigots, specially since I don’t believe it’s the case at all; all Im saying is that there’s a strong point of favour of those discontent with the characters’ design, despite all claims that it’s not meant to represent something they despise. I don’t know if GF should feel impelled to change Grimmsnarl’s colouring to solely please those people, but I’m sure I’d also hate if they created, even unintentionally, a character who bore too much resemblance to a particularly negative depicition from a group I belong to, say, some Fuu Manchuu-esque Evil Team Leader or the like. If they simply made a new Pokémon with a Chinese-inspired aesthetic, even if some elements were a bit cliché, like Ludicolo is for Mexican people, I wouldn’t mind nearly as much.

And I don’t think anyone should dismiss those concerns, much less with weak arguments such as “if you see racism in that, then you’re the real bigot” like I’ve seen out there, just because they don’t grasp the ideas I exposed above. Neither do I approve the attitude of people who react with too much intensity to opposition towards their accusations or jump the gun and accuse GF of being prejudiced towards a specific group without enough evidence or incite violence of any kind towards them because of those unfortunate depictions. Remember, they come from a culture far away from our Western issues, so it’s more likely than not that they aren’t even aware of them, specially more relatively obscure elements like old Nazi propaganda. Having a British man as one of their main designers can help, but even Western people aren’t aware of all Western problems, so...

[rkkyg]

MNET GLOBAL AUDITIONS ; episode 2 interview 

              contestant #5027

he expected this as it had happened with the first episode. though knowing of the interview did not mean he would prepare of anything. it’s not like he could know what they want to ask though he has a vague idea. figuring it would follow along the lines of what they asked the first time. 

he’s not worried or anything--as in the first episode none of the interviews seemed to be shown in their entirety. they were all edited, of course, so he supposes he should watch to make sure he can’t be edited badly but. 

well yugyeom doesn’t care much.

What did you think of the results last week?

”last week?” he parrots part of the question, a small smirk forming as he answers. “expected.” and for a brief moment he debates on not following through with anything else. leaving them with a vague response. but... thats not really his style--plus he can’t miss the chance to talk himself up. 

“it was the first episode so there was bound to be a lot of people who don’t have what it takes just yet. i’ve been dancing for years so i didn’t really think i would get cut first round.” he says calmly, shrugging a little. it really looks as if he fully expected the outcome from last week. comfortable in his own abilities to perform and keep the judges attention. 

“i’d been more surprised if i hadn’t made it.”  

Who do you think is the best under each skill?

“i’m not really the best to critique singing or rapping. in the last few months i’ve gotten into rapping but i don’t have a lot of the technical talk down.” he admits, brows furrowing as he tries to think about how he would want to answer this one. thinking about the performances he had actively paid attention to and that stuck in his mind long enough to be able to talk about right now. 

“in singing i’d have to say PARK JINYOUNG.” and that was out of complete bias. “he really knows how to capture attention when he sings. it’s hard to not watch and always leaves me wanting to hear more. i was really impressed with his performances both this time and from last week.” he smiles a bit thinking about his hyung. loving the fact they both made it to this episode. he hopes they go far on here together--that maybe they get to work together on the show at some point. 

“for rapping...” he pauses, one particular performance flashing in his mind. it had surprised him a lot to see her last week. so much so he hadn’t know how to react--what to say. he still hasn’t approached her and he’s kind of hoping he never has. their relationship had been... okay... he loved her, he really had. but at the time.. at the time he was so messed up. all he feels now is apologetic to her. “CHOI YOONA... or bella. she rapped everyone else under the table. her performances have always felt so powerful. i think she’s someone to keep an eye on for sure.” 

his smirk formed again though. “as for dancing.” he chuckles. “i want to say myself, of course. its only natural to think yourself the best. but KANG HYUNGGU is giving me a run for my money. did you see how smoothly he transitioned from swalla to TT. i had major whiplash! but he did it so well, and it really worked with is performance!” yes he is taking this chance to gush about his best friend but who’s really surprised? his smile wide as he recounts the younger dancers performance. “i love seeing him dance and i really think he’s the best dancer here--tied with me, of course.” 

How do you think you did?

“i think i did great.” confident and cocky, that’s how yugyeom likes to roll. whats the point of changing this about himself now? he could have tried for that humble route--that i’ll keep working hard to be better---but why would he want to do that? he already spent the whole first episode talking himself up. might as well keep goin.

and its not like he doesn’t think this about himself anyway. he is confident. 

“i was a bit tired today--late night from practicing and work. but even not being at full power today i still made that stage mine.” he admits to being tired, wondering if that could get him more brownie points. kim yugyeom performed that well despite being exhausted. “i felt like the stage itself didnt want me to walk off when i was done. i know i didn’t want to. especially not when i felt so good about the performance. that kind of feeling... that feeling stays with you.” 

Were there any performances you liked?

he nods without a moment of hesitation but surprisingly it’s not hyunggu who he names first. “i really enjoyed TAKADA KENTA. his dancing was really impressive and i like the energy he has when he performs. i enjoyed watching him a lot--someone i think i’d like to see more of. he has a nice presence.” 

“also LEE SUWOONG. that guy...that guy....” he breaks off with a laugh. “that guy really knows how to make his performances amusing. i was surprised to see him go up with that song choice but... it worked for him. and i enjoyed watching it.” he chuckles more. “yah, suwoong hyung are you going to use funny songs the whole season?” 

Were there any performances you didn’t like?

he takes a moment to think before answering this one even though he already has a performance in mind that hadn’t sat well with him. “yeah... KANG DANIEL’s performance was... lacking this time.” he says slowly, partly wondering if he should hold back from saying all that he thinks. but well--they did ask. and yugyeom isn’t one to sugar coat himself.

“he was a singer last week right? i thought he sang really well--he lacks appeal in my opinion. not really someone i would care much to see perform, but his voice was really nice and i think he could develop into a solid performer. but...” he makes a confused face. keeping his tone light so that it doesn’t sound like he’s just outright attacking daniel. “why... i’m not sure why he decided to switch to rap. personally for me... his performance really dropped. i think he should have stayed with singing...” 

What did you think of  KIM MYUNGSOO’s performance?

“thats the guy who did the tvxq song right? why did i fall in love with you?” he questioned and continued when he got a nod. “ah he was so good... that was such a good song choice first of all--but then he covered it so well. his vocals were really nice. plus he didn’t seem too uncomfortable on stage--not that i could tell.” he smiled, seeming to have genuinely enjoyed myungsoo stage. “like i said i don’t know much about the technicals with singing but i wouldn’t mind hearing him sing again.” 

“and he was sooo handsome.” his expression becomes wistful as if he were wishing to be that good looking. “a face made really well, like he really captured my eye before he sang and then i was really impressed hearing his voice.” 

Is there anyone you are certain will move onto the next phase of the MGAs?

“myself.” he starts and the interviewer really shouldn’t have been surprised with this answer considering his track record when it comes to self confidence. “i’m comfortable with my performance today and confident i showed that i’m able to dance in more than one style. i want them to know i’m versatile. the next step is to show i can improve--which i believe i also showed a bit of on this stage today.” he chuckles to himself. 

“also hyunggu, of course.” he grins, picturing his best friend who he actually didn’t talk about all that much today. “i think it’d be weird if we didn’t make it to the next round. at least this early on. we’re both solid dancers and i know hyunggu made an impression today. im still blown away.” 

Is there anyone you are certain will be eliminated today?

“i wouldn’t say there’s anyone i’m certain will be eliminated...” he trails off slowly, picturing some of the performances in his mind. and he knows who he wants to say but he feels a bit bad. he already spoke down about daniel earlier in this interview. but he does think that daniel could bite the bullet this time. especially because of his change in performance skill--but then again that could also work in his favor. ceos see it as proof daniel is able to adapt---then theres the whole fact that this isn’t daniel’s first show. 

his expression had shifted to one of distaste. and he realizes he’s being so hard on daniel because he doesn’t like him which is not justified but he doesn’t care. “i think anything could happen.”