#i'm posting it because i know SOMEONE is interested

[willbyersabyss]

It's calling you...

El saw Will in the void when she opened the 1983 gate. He was the one calling to her the whole time.

Brenner told El that the demogorgon was calling her, but what if it wasn't the demogorgon at all... what if it was Will.

The lines are constantly blurred between the demogorgon and Will in s1. Will talks through the lights, the demogorgon comes through the wall. They follow the demogorgon's blood trail, they find Will instead. Will calls Joyce, the demogorgon intercepts. We can never really tell whether it's Will or the “demogorgon.” This blur could carry over to the opening of the gate.

Speaking of phone calls, almost every missed phone call in the show is related to Will in some way. When people try to reach him, they fail. Only when Will calls them does it go through.

I can't even give all of the examples because there are too many, but Will is always associated with phone calls. Will called Joyce in s1, Mike has had multiple missed calls to Will, Nancy tried calling Will in s3, etc. Will has to call, he has to reach out.

When Max calls the Byers, it doesn't just go to voicemail, it's busy. Someone is using the phone despite no one being there. That someone is Will. One of the first scenes we see is Will calling the police, but he doesn't call them, he calls... someone else. Whoever it was, they picked up. But there's no sound other than screeching. Who was screeching? We'll get to that in a bit...

El was called to. The "demogorgon" wanted her. So we have Will who is constantly associated with phone calls, but he's also mixed up with the demogorgon. Why? El answered his call.

The phone call Bob tells Joyce to let go is immediately followed by the lab's lights going haywire, then a door to the Upside Down opens for Will. They also cut to a faucet dripping and a clock going unusually fast. El's void is made of water and there's a clock ticking sound just before she opens the gate. These scenes parallel. The 1983 gate was opened for Will. He was calling out to her, just like the phone.

"All I needed was someone to open the door. And you did that for me without even realizing it." Ok Vecna I'm pretty sure El noticed the giant gate in the wall. So what didn't she realize? El didn't know Will was the one calling to her.

When Mike asked if El saw Will, she flipped the DnD board to the back. We assume she means the Upside Down, but what if that's not what she meant. What if she meant she saw him in the void? The back of the board is pitch black just like her void.

She places Will's character right next to the demogorgon. How does El know that Will is where the demogorgon is? She had to have seen him NEXT TO IT. This is the first time in the story where we see El sensing Will, so why would we assume she saw him in the UD before this point? She hasn't used her tracking power since she opened the gate. There's only one time she could have seen him. When she contacted the demogorgon, there might have been someone else there, lurking behind. Will!

When El puts Will over the walkie, Lucas says this. The name Blackburn means "black stream." The void is black and made of water. Could this be hinting at El tapping into the neighbor of the demogorgon in the void? Mike follows this with "Did that sound like a baby to you? That was Will." Hm that's interesting because we can actually hear Will in the void when El sees the demogorgon for the first time.

Yeah, that's right. You can hear him.

I can only add one video to this post so the number in the corner will align with the text accordingly!

I'm going to sound like a broken record because I've talked about this a few times already, but I think I finally put all the pieces together:

1 - When it cuts to the speaker, you can hear a faint voice come through. This sounds just like Will when he tells El to hurry. So we have a real "Did that sound like a demogorgon to you? That was Will!" moment. If you line up the hurry clip with the speaker video (not pictured), Will starts to disappear in Castle Byers at the exact time El breaks out of the void in the other clip. They're connected.

We don't actually see what's making the noises in the void the first round, we only hear it. What would the reason for this omission be?

I think the moment we see Will in the Upside Down Castle Byers is the beginning of everything. That's when the gate opened.

2 - The scream we hear when El opens the gate is the same scream that breaks Castle Byers. While this is just a demogorgon sound, it's interesting that they used the one that sounds the most human. Especially when this is the least common sound it makes. It has the same cadence and length in both clips!

I would also like to note that this sound has played when a demogorgon wasn’t directly seen. When Nancy emerges from the tree gate, we hear this weird scream too even though the demogorgon clearly wasn’t coming through with her. Gate, scream, invisible demogorgon.

The egg the demogorgon is eating when she touches it is about 20 feet away from Castle Byers. It can't be a coincidence that they placed them so close. They could've had Hopper come across that egg anywhere, why Castle Byers?

Dustin used an egg to test if the deprivation bath was ready. El then found Will in UD Castle Byers using this bath. Eggs are associated with the gate opening, they used an egg just before she finds Will, and THE egg is outside Castle Byers. Will being in Castle Byers is related to the gate opening.

So what if the scream Will hears was the same scream from the gate opening? We don't see a creature on the other side of the blast, just white fog, so can we be sure it was the monster opening the door? Maybe the force of El opening the gate is what broke it. When people disappear from the void, they leave behind the fog we see outside of Castle Byers after the blast. This fog doesn't usually appear in the UD.

Most people don't sense El when she reaches out to them in the void, but Will did. He was reaching out to her. When El opens the gate, Will was already in Castle Byers in the UD. There's time shenanigans here. Time doesn't really flow how it should in the void. El was able to see a pregnant Terry in there before she was swept into her memory loop. Time also is weird in the UD. It wouldn't be crazy for El to be able to open the mother gate after Will got kidnapped in a weird paradox way.

3 - Coming back to phone call weirdness for a second, Will hears screeching over the phone. This may be a stretch, but it kind of sounds like a distorted version of El's screams when she opens the gate? Then Will's phone call was interrupted by the creature unlatching the door. So when Will's call goes through, a door opens. And he's met with the answer to his most fateful call. He hears El screeching as she opens the gate because that was the result of him reaching out.

In their respective universes, both Will and the demogorgon destroy Castle Byers. So that's another mix up between the two. If Will really was the one calling out to El before she opened the gate, his destruction of Castle Byers is not only a physical representation of how he inadvertently destroyed it, but also an emotional representation. Will accidentally created his own kidnapping by asking El to open the gate. He created the trauma that led to his childhood destruction. The rod imagery at the end of this scene proves that.

Another possible reach, but we know that it was raining the night Castle Byers was built and the night Will destroyed it. If El's journey through the watery void also indirectly caused the destruction and creation of the UD Castle Byers, there's more water connections there. The UD isn't just mirroring visuals, but scenarios too.

When Hopper inspects the remains of Castle Byers, he finds a lion plushie. El was cuddling a lion plushie when Brenner told her she was going to make contact with whatever was calling her. The lion causes Hopper to flashback to Sara and El was in a flashback when we see her with her lion. So what if UD Castle Byers is a "flashback" to when the gate opened?

Just before UD Castle Byers was destroyed, Will was singing Should I Stay or Should I Go. While these were not the lines he was singing, the song makes references to time weirdness. "I'll be here till the end of time" implies that Will is stuck in a time loop when he's in the UD. This song being sung during this scene may hint at its significance in the time loop.

Then there's lines alluding to kneeling in a black void with something on your back. Interesting how the demogorgon was crouched down in the void when El touched its back.

Speaking of kneeling, El approaches Billy in the void the exact same way she does the demogorgon. Billy, who is literally named William. I'm telling you the Will demogorgon mix up never ends. Billy makes himself disappear the same way Will does in the void scene. Oh and when El is looking for the source in Billy's mindscape, the song "William" plays. Very subtle (sarcasm). Will is the source.

Ok but how did the gate open?

Will died.

In s4, we find out that gates can be created by killing people. We also find out that music can open gates in the mind. Interesting how both of those things happen to Will around the UD Castle Byers scene. Will was singing to himself, then he got taken to the library where he died.

The big boy gates all meet at that library where there's a giant clock. Will was the fifth and final sacrifice. But wait! The original gate opened at the lab, not the library. Perhaps Will died twice... once at Castle Byers for a split second, then again at the library. The Castle Byers death opened mother gate, but the library death had delayed effects.

Or Will didn't die twice and it was just a joint effort between El and Will.

El and Will have opened a gate together before. Every time El contacted Will up to this point, it didn't open a gate. Only when Will reached out himself did a gate open. We're right back to Will being the one calling out. He had to try for it to work.

Will was on the brink of death in Castle Byers. Maybe he wanted a gate to open right then and there so he could be saved. But time had different plans. So when Will called out to El in the void, she answered, and they opened the gate together, not knowing that this actually causes his suffering rather than heal it.

In s2 when they figure out that Will spelled out "close gate," the phone rings. They rip the phone off the wall. Another missed call associated with the gate. But this time, it was Will telling them to close it. He had to tell them to ignore the call. They destroy the call, they close the gate.

It's also possible that Will's call for help was manipulated by Vecna. Maybe Vecna showed El the demogorgon to hide his true intentions. Will has something Vecna needs to open the gate. Not to make everything about Will's mind theory, but if the UD is Will's mindscape, it could explain why Will’s call for help resulted in a gate. Max's call for help through music opened a gate to her mind. So is it really that far off to say that Will's did the same?

Alright lets get a run down of the timeline:

El reaches out to Will in Castle Byers, Will tells El to hurry. This aligns with the first call El hears in the void.

A bit later, El revisits the call, assuming it was the demogorgon. In a startled scramble, she accidentally makes contact with Will who was on the brink of death about 20 feet away. Their joint energy opens the gate and destroys Castle Byers.

This energy attracts whatever took Will to the library. Will is kidnapped once more and dies. This joins the gates in 1986?

We know that the scene of Will getting taken from Castle Byers to the library is the opening scene of s5. Both s3 and s4 begin with a gate opening. Wouldn't it be fitting for the s5 opener to be the gate that started it all?

[yujiqi]

match made in heaven

stranger!hyunjin x wealthy f!reader

synopsis: you’re feeling desperate tonight so you decide to look for someone to hook up with on a dating app and it seems you guys could be more than a one night stand

genre/s: smut, fluff

warnings: oral f!receiving, vanilla sex, lil bit of dry humping

wc: 1.7k

a/n: listen to singularity - bts while reading! i wrote this 2 years ago so it’s not that good but i feel bad for not posting so heres a little smth! mostly proofread!

you long for evenings like this. sipping on a glass of wine, taking a hot bath with a rich lavender essence filling the bathroom.

"miss y/n, your food has arrived. shall i leave it here?" you hear your butler from the other side of the door.

"leave it on my coffee table, thank you"

you hear his footsteps fading away. being wealthy is fun. many people say money cant buy happiness but you think that's false. they're just saying that because they don't have money.

you live alone, your butler and the others that do your housework come early in the morning, but by midnight, it's just you. a part of you wishes you had someone to spend your nights with. you’re the ceo of the company your dad owns. some say you were born with a silver spoon. they aren't wrong, but it does bother you how people badmouth you behind your back when you could easily end their career.

you take the last sip of your wine and set the glass down. you carefully step out of the bathtub and wrap a towel around yourself. the aroma of food fills your nostrils. you ordered lobster with a couple other sides. your butler left a new bottle of wine right by it. you usually don't have big meals like this but it’s friday and it’s been a tiring week. you hear your phone ring and you hesitate for a moment. you don't feel like talking to anyone right now. it’s your mom calling. she's always bugging you about how you need to get married.

"hello" you finally answer the phone.

"y/n. what did i tell you about ignoring my calls." she sounds mad.

"you know i'm busy, mom"

"too busy to answer the woman that brought you to this planet?"

"mom," you pause for a second because you really don't wanna do this right now. "i have to go"

"when are you going to get married, y/n" you feel like she can practically hear your eye roll at this point.

"why are you so worried about that when i'm literally the ceo of a company? i'm well off, i don’t need a man" you protest.

"i just think it would be best if you settled with a man, have a kid that will soon takeover the company too"

"i'm going to sleep. goodnight" and with that, you hang up.

you’re 26, she seriously needs to back off a bit. although you do feel you should find a man. you don't want a man to settle down with though, you want a man to satisfy you and pleasure you. lord knows you need it. you can't remember the last time you had sex. maybe 3 years ago? you’ve been so busy, you haven't had time to think about yourself. you look at your phone and can't believe what you’re about to do. you open the app store and type in "hookup apps".

you’re shocked you’d stoop this low, but you’re feeling really desperate tonight. you open the app and it asks for the basics. name, age, city, and a few extra questions. the app is very quick to find matches. none of them interest you until someone catches your eye.

hyunjin, 23, seoul

cool, hes 3 years younger than you but you can make it work. you send a request to him and he immediately sends a message.

hyunjin: into younger guys i see?

me: im gonna be honest... im really desperate rn

hyunjin: oh yeah? dont u wanna know even a little bit about me?

me: not really

hyunjin: i could be an old white man yk

me: the fact that ur saying that alr lets me know ur not

hyunjin: true

me: ill give u my address then

hyunjin: already???

me: i told u im desperate

you send him your address and anxiously wait in the lobby area of your penthouse. you mess with the strap on your velvet robe. you’re not wearing anything underneath so easy access, right? you get a message from hyunjin asking for the gate code. you give it to him and soon you hear the doorbell chime throughout the house. you quickly get up and open the massive door for him.

"woah" his mouth wide open, pure shock on his face

"you like it?"

"i'm not talking about the house, i'm talking about you" he says.

well that's a first. you don't get many guests, but when you do, all they talk about is the house.

"you're bold" is all you manage to let out. he's fine. incredibly fine. the way his long black his falls perfectly onto his shoulders. you notice the mole under eye. how unique. he's also very tall, much taller than you at least. he has long, slim fingers and your mind can't help but imagine what he can do with them.

"do you want a glass of wine?" you ask him

"i thought you were horny"

"i am, i'm just building up to it" you look up at him with those eyes. the ones that make any guy melt. you grab his hand and lead him upstairs to your room. we sit on the couch and you pour him a glass. even while he drinks, he doesn't take his eyes off of you. he looks hungry and you like it.

"this is a nice place you have" he says, setting down the glass.

"yeah, i'm the ceo of my dad's company" you’re not really one to brag so you don't know why you said that, internally face palming. he nods and continues to stare into your eyes. he then looks down to catch a glimpse at what you’re wearing. the hunger in his eyes grows even more. with the way he's looking at you, you don't think you can sit still any longer. you get closer to him. he watches you closely. you look at him and ask,

"what do you want?"

"you" is all he says before placing his lips on yours. he kisses you so slow and sensually, just how you like it. you wrap your arms around his neck and your hand moves to the back of his head. he deepens the kiss, if that was even possible. he adjusts himself on the couch, making you sit on his lap. you can't help but to slightly grind against him due to the lack of friction. he lets out a slight groan into the kiss. so he likes this... good to know.

"hyunjin, please" you breathe between kisses

he only lets out a low moan in response. his hands find your robe strap. he wastes no time unraveling it. you get goosebumps from the cold air. but the second his hands land on your bare chest, you feel hot. he plays with your breasts for a while before breaking the kiss. his lips move to your jaw, then neck, then collarbone. you start to breathe heavy as you wait for him to put his mouth where you want it the most.

he kisses the area right above your left nipple and takes it in his mouth soon after. you almost immediately moan at the sensation you haven't felt in forever. you run your fingers gently through his hair as his face is shoved in your chest.

"hyunjin, the bed" you whisper into his ear. he stops feasting on you and looks into your eyes with that same look from before, but this one more desperate. he hurriedly picks you up and places you on your king bed, white satin sheets. your lips connect again with the slow and sensual pace as hyunjin climbs on top of you. it feels like you’ve been doing this all night but its only been a few minutes. you pull his shirt over his head. he has a slim appearance, but also has visible abs. what a sight. he's so beautiful, you admire him before he starts to kiss down your stomach. he gets closer and closer to your pussy and you want to moan before he even does anything. you like that in this moment, no words are needed. you’re taking things slowly. you desperately want him to touch and feel every part of you. he looks up at you before eating you out like you’re his last meal. with every movement of his tongue, you feel like you’re in heaven knowing you’re far from it. you thrust your hips, shoving yourself further into his mouth. he pulls your legs further apart, trying to taste every inch of you. there's that familiar yet unfamiliar feeling building up in you.

a breathy "hyun m’gonna" is all that can come out of your mouth.

"not yet love" he moves away from your pulsing cunt. you’re about to whine before he shuts you up with another kiss. he sits up to unbutton his pants. he discards his boxers as well. he pumps himself a bit before leaning down to place more kisses onto your lips as if he'll never get to feel them again. he adjusts himself before thrusting into you slowly. gosh it's been so long since you’ve felt something this good. he leans forward onto his elbows, his cock buried deep in you. you feel his breath your my ear. you wrap your arms around him tightly. the way you are right now feels so comfortable. it's like you’ve known him your whole life even though you met 30 minutes ago. he ruts into you deeply and passionately.

"y/n you're doing so good" he breathes out. he holds you tighter, kissing the skin by your ear. his thrusts start to get faster as you both get closer to your orgasm, and your moans get louder. there's that feeling again, except it's much more intense this time. with one final thrust, you both release. it's interesting how you’re so in sync with everything. you don't want this to be your last night with him. you guys catch your breath for a second before he removes his head from your neck to look at you.

"you're amazing" he smiles at you, a sincere one.

"you too" you smile back.

for some reason, it feels like you don't need to say anything else. like you both know what the other is feeling and thinking through everything you just did. it's connections like this that you should cherish. you plan on sticking with him.

"lets stay like this for a while, then get cleaned up, yeah?" he says

you just nod, his hair tickles your chin.

you’ve finally found your match, your match made in heaven.

[alexandraisyes]

500 FOLLOWERS

Wow. 500 of you. That number feels surreal, especially after everything these past few months. (Don't scroll away there's a surprise at the bottom of the post.)

In July, I faced harassment over a rumor about being hired as a TSAMS writer. In August and September, it escalated—stalking, harassment, and widespread slander over SolarNexus, a ship I don’t even ship. October brought betrayal as someone I trusted turned out to be a predator, slandering our friend group, faking their death, and running away upon confrontation. Last month, I had to take a stand against someone sharing NSFW with minors, leading to more slander and harassment.

Now it’s December, and honestly, fandom discourse feels inevitable. But you know what? I don’t care.

This community has been so supportive to me throughout this. I have grown close with friends, made new ones, and gained so many supporters and I don't know how to say thank you enough. I've reached so many of my goals for this year, and there's always going to be more work to do.

I'm starting a new fic. I'm updating my old ones. I'm making art for a voice actor. I'm a mod in the community server. And I'm finally working on a project again that I started in August.

I’ve been really hesitant to show this project off on main, beyond reblogging things here and there. I won’t reveal which character I specifically play—though it probably wouldn’t be hard to guess.

This project started as a way to support the mod who plays Lunar, who was receiving harassment simply for enforcing their boundaries. Yes, you read that right—they were harassed because they didn’t want to post negative confessions. When we saw that happening, my friends and I got together, and I said, “Haha, wouldn’t it be so cool if we just made a bunch of confession blogs to dunk on the haters and roleplay and shit?”

Within 24 hours, two new blogs popped up. One hasn’t done anything to hurt me, so I won’t name them, but we all know who they are. The second? Biased-tsams-confessions—a blog that was one of the leading forces behind the harassment I faced in August. They would flip their lid if they knew I was the leading force behind TSBS CVAU and remain its head administrator and manager. Honestly? That makes me even prouder of this project.

Of course, I couldn’t do this alone. A huge thank you to my partner in crime, @lyrical-hue, who has been my rock throughout this journey. They’ve helped smooth out the bumps along the way, making sure I don’t handle everything solo.

I’m so excited to finally share this project with my fanbase publicly. We’re expanding our world and currently looking for new members to join the group! If you’re interested, you can apply here:

Okay so now the real question. How am I celebrating this milestone? The past two times I made a post like this I did a raffle (one of which I'm still finishing the artwork for). This time I'd like to do something different.

I want to make some free emotes for the community. My community. To give back some of the support I've been given.

To be applicable for this, reblog this post with references of your character designs, AU designs, OCs, or sonas. As many as you want. They can be your own characters, or personal designs for preexisting characters. Or even just. Characters. I will literally just take canon designs of characters too. I'll even take requests for my own designs. As you can see there are a LOT of emotes there, so I need a LOT of characters from the community.

RULES:

Characters must be submitted through REBLOGS

You do not get to choose which emote is made, I do, I'm doing this for free after all

You HAVE to be following me, this is an event to celebrate my followers after all.

And uh, yeah that's kinda it. If you want to join the discord you can join here:

[crazysodomite]

what is it like to be kind of popular/getting people interested in your own ideas and not fan art?

I don't think I'm popular *looks behind my back fearfully* 😨

Here's the thing. A lot of people post things and just expect people to find them and interact with them. To some people it works. But a lot of the time there's no way for people to even find your stuff or engage with it.

A lot of people go into fandom tags to look for art and writing, but not a lot of people just scroll the "oc" or "art" or "writing" tags aimlessly.

I'm not like. A social media expert 😼 or whatever. I don't know anything about anything ♥️ I literally just do whatever weurd things i want and that's it

Here's some things I can advise:

If you have ocs.... Please feel free to actually talk about them in detail, share your thoughts on them in detail, write actual info and profiles on them. Don't be shy to do this bc there's no way for someone to engage with your ocs if they don't really understand who you're talking about except the names 😭... Feel free to like link their info in your pinned or their toyhouse profiles or whatever... !!!! A lot of the times I follow someone and they ask to engage with their ocs, and I want to, but I literally just don't understand who they're taking about... Or I see someone talking about their ocs in very vague terms but I can't actually find who they're talking about.... (Not that you have to do this do whatever you want ... I'm not the boss of you ♥️ it's just something id like to see) And also don't be shy to actually remind people who you're talking about bc people who haven't been following you for a long time won't know. I think this is simpler for me because my concepts/characters are very basic/shallow and easy to understand. Taur who is a bee, taur who is a bath, etc... Is Inherently understandable and doesn't have any deep lore

👆 this applies to everything in general not just ocs. Talk about art. Talk about your own art. Talk about what you love in the art of others. Talk about your plans and concepts and ideas. Talk about your projects. Share with the world 🌍 🌍 🌍

Don't be shy to talk about your things. I think some people are anxious about seeing people unfollowing them. I personally use xkit to hide my followers on pc and actively avoid looking at my follower count on mobile... Because idgaf ♥️. If someone doesn't like what I post they're Nothing to me. I post about taurs and weird things basically every day. What do I have to lose? My dignity as a Tumblr blogger? Genuinely like just share whatever thoughts or concepts or doodles or drawings you want without being like "aww nobody wants to see this". Honestly I also do this because I don't have friends to talk about concepts and stuff with so your mileage may vary. Maybe you don't want to post. Maybe you worldbuild with your friends. Then maybe you can share the results of that worldbuilding and thoughts, that's good too.

Self reblog your stuff 😭 even old stuff. Self reblog your stuff and then elaborate on it further with your thoughts. Dig up old concepts and do things with them. Its okay to do this. Not everyone sees your stuff when you first post it... !

Actually engage with others. Others are more likely to see you and engage with you when you do the same to them. If you never interact with anyone else's art why would others interact with yours. And unfortunately posting stuff and expecting people to just stumble upon it is not a very good strategy...

[hyperions-light]

Good riddance to that mess: Thank the Dread Wolf we’re done with the Mage-Templar conflict

(because magic in Thedas is more interesting this way)

Okay the people who love conflict have won and I am going to talk about this now lol

I've decided to stick within the framework of the world/story for this particular post, because I think you could talk about the issues with the mages/templars in connection with how they relate to real-life groups for an entire essay AT LEAST, and I want to focus on magic here, so I don't think it's that germane to the discussion. If you all want to talk about that later, I can put it on the pile.

It turns out that Jenny Nicholson was 100% right about the efficacy of numbered lists on the internet, so this essay will be hybridized into a list. Here are the reasons I'm glad the mage-templar conflict is gone and hope it never returns:

It limits storytelling avenues I understand how they arrived at this dichotomy as the logical extrapolation of a minority of people in Thedas being born with magic BUT it's very boring and it doesn't facilitate interesting stories. If you have this strict system and hierarchy that means that every mage has to live in the tower or they're a) a criminal or b) Dalish, that seriously limits the kind of characters you can make who are mages, which is dull as both a player and a writer.

Trying to make it nuanced is difficult Attempting to show that everyone has a point in a situation is difficult when one group has absolute power over the other and can kill them whenever they feel like it. Also, with the abuses the Templars regularly perpetuate against the mages established in DAO and DA2 any attempted justification reads as the story sanctioning an oppressive force. If they try to demonstrate the danger of magic, they end up with the 10,000 blood mage problem from DA2. It's a hard thing to do within the framework they set up, but they also haven't been particularly successful with it, imo, so abandoning it is a better choice.

It's the most reductive version of the conflict Reducing the entire discussion to whether magic is good or evil, whether mages should be free or confined is really boring. It's a false dichotomy that promotes extremism in characters on either side of the conflict who never interact with one another. "Is magic bad?" is a useless and uninteresting question. Who cares? What does it do?; Where did it come from?; What different ways can you use it? are all better questions.

Makes it difficult for the audience to learn more about magic If the only characters the audience ever meets are people who come from the Circle, Dalish mages, and apostates, the amount they're going to learn about different perspectives on magic and its various uses is limited. Part of the reason Jaws of Hakkon was such an interesting DLC for DAI is because the Avvar have a completely different philosophy about magic and spirits. It was refreshing after several games of having the same ideas about magic shoved down our throats to hear someone give a different perspective and ACTUALLY NEW information. Everything I needed to know about the mage-templar conflict, I already knew by the end of DAO, but I had to sit through two more entire games while people discussed it at length.

Magic in the North is fascinating Now that we're finally rid of that conflict, look how many different kinds of magic we get to see in DATV! We get to meet a Rivaini Seer, a Mortalitasi (who can use magic to TALK TO REAL DEAD PEOPLE!!!), a non-Altus mage from the Tevinter Imperium; we get to see magic as it was utilized by the ancient elves and how it interfaces with technology. We got DWARF MAGIC!! Finally, an answer to what Sandal was doing! We found out you can use it to turn yourself into a LICH!!! All of that stuff is so cool, and we had never encountered it before this game! It brings up so many new questions about the nature of the Fade, the source of magic itself, the strength of magic in Thedas relative to other places in the world. And NONE of it could be discussed in the South because they are too busy arguing about fucking towers!!!

tl;dr: The mage-templar conflict was a boring and reductive lens through which to view magic in the DA universe, I'm glad it's gone, I hope they continue what they started in DATV and explore different ways magic can be used in the future.

[acid-ixx]

If you don’t mind me asking, what does your planning process look like for your chapters and what do you write first?? I’m trying to write my own Ybatfam fic rn but I just don’t know what to add to my chapters and really just how to start them.

I love your work, your really the one who inspired me to try writing my own🩵🩵🩵

hii anon !! i'm glad u asked this, though i am no way an expert in writing, i've been doing so for years now and i've learned quite a lot from it. thanks for asking this and i hope this is comprehensive enough 😭

so when it comes to planning for a chapter, or just a one-shot, i always write out what i want to establish within it. ask yourself; what does the chapter center around? would it be the relationships with characters, or the emotions you want to portray, is it angsty or just hurt/comfort? in planning, i write the general gist of what will happen through the entire thing (read: planned fanfics) before i move on to outlining.

and here, outlining helps like a god. i like to separate a chapter into multiple parts, and combine them altogether in the end. so when it comes to outlines, i just write out what i want to write and not the actual dialogue or actions in it (example: in this scene, jason tries to talk it out with you, you fight back and force him to let you out. in the next part, you're of the apartment and near to breaking down, you don't notice two sets of eyes watching over you).

sometimes, if i'm ever stuck i just write in the middle or the end because it helps me establish a flow and the build up.

also, setting the settings, changing the atmospheres, adding parallelism, and using figures of speech (simile, metaphors, personifications, etc. (e.g. conner knows you're perfect, with just how the flowers at the manor sings for your presence or how the beams of sunlight always directs itself at you)) are really helpful for when my writing feels dry or doesn't feel as compelling. it's not always required but it helps adding flowery (but not-so much) words or relating characters into objects with symbolisms to give readers an even deeper insight of who the characters is and why they are like that.

writing for the actual chapter, even starting it is always going to be the hard part. it's like starting an essay, but i suggest treating it like an essay— what do you want to focus on? always remember that the start of a chapter helps set up the mood and pacing of the story, so whether it'd be action packed or something lighthearted, reflect it upon the flow of your words too.

start with an interesting hook, whether it'd be rhetorical questions or digging deep into a character's personality and diving into specifics about it, have key points and expound upon it; and always take note of the atmosphere of how your entire story should be, show it through actions, reactions, gestures and dialogues.

otherwise, i've not much to say but take your time and don't pressure yourself with trying to achieve perfection. i'm pretty much someone who likes to write out my ideas before the actual planning so most of the time i wing most of what i want to write (loving family, unpalatable desire is a product of it) and hope to god that whatever outcome will be decent.

and thank you so much anon for finding me as an inspiration 🥹 it's unbelievable, the amount of support i mean— and if you ever do wish to post your own fic and feel doubtful of it still, you can always also chat me through my chatbox here in tumblr since it's pretty much open for anyone.

[blanceyblance]

On Lance and Keith, and the water/fire and sun/moon dynamics

Saw a post talking about how Lance and Keith are actually more like the other's element and is a really interesting but I found myself disagreeing though I didn't want to argue in OPs post.

I remember there was a part that said that Keith had to mold himself for survival, and, for what I remember, Keith very much does NOT do that.

Someone who molds himself to fit better would have gone into the Garrison to become a model of a perfect cadet, instead Keith is rebellious, and is not afraid of confrontation. He challenges Iverson and fights James and doesn't care if he makes an enemy out of the rest of the other cadets. They don't like it? sucks to suck because he is that good and he knows he is good.

In that same Garrison flashback, Lance actually tells Keith that if Keith keeps messing around he will be stuck as a cargo pilot, Lance tries to follow instructions, molds himself to be a good cadet because that's what is expected for him to be a fighter pilot, only that, things don't go that way, Keith is the one becoming a fighter pilot instead.

Even in his role as Black Paladin, Keith doesn't mold himself as much as he grows into it, like a flame growing to consume space.

Keith is a very straight forward guy, and rarely if ever, tries to hide his feelings, he is very sincere in what he does and means and he does things because he thinks is the best for everyone.

Take leaving the team for the Blades, while I do think he also did it so Lance didn't have to feel left out, I think he also did it so he could go and find more about his origins and himself, making what he thought was the best decision for both the team and himself.

What i'm trying to say is that t I never got the impression that Keith was afraid of showing himself. Just like a fire that doesn't change itself to fit in one place. He can be abrasive and powerful and hurtful like a wildfire and can also be warm and comforting and protective from the harsh circumstances like a fireplace. The presentation is the same, he just needed to learn to channel it better.

And that's why I think Lance had a bone to pick with him, or at least one of the reasons.

The previous description fits Lance to a tee, he can be downright mean and bitchy when he wants but also will give you friendly words and comfort when needed. Just like water can be overpowering and traitorous like the ocean while also bringing life and cleansing.

The thing is that while Keith didn't feel the need to mold for others, Lance does it with a lot of ease.

Being either a friendly welcoming face for the aliens they encounter, an emotional support for his team, a goodball to lift spirits for his friends, or a right hand man to two different leaders.

There is a reason he was usually referred as a jack of all trades just like Blue, not the tankiest or the fastest but it will be hard to find a place he won't be able to fill.

That's also while I support the sun Keith/moon Lance dynamic.

No matter how emo or mysterious he is, Keith shines bright not caring who may end up burning on his path, he is powerful and brilliant and good luck trying to ignore that. He burns but knowing he exists gives you hope for a new day. "He is the future" just like Lance said.

While Lance is the moon, who is always the same but will take on different faces depending the situation, the fact that you can stare directly at him doesn't mean he is letting you see the full picture. He shines in the dark offering guide in hard times but also caring for his team from afar as the resident sniper. Nurturing and kind, always tied to the waters and Earth.

They are still very similar, that's why they are a duo but I still think Keith at his core is fire just like Lance's is water.

And also to spread the Sun Keith/Moon Lance agenda.

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

hi! so I saw a reddit post a few days ago about a dead aasimar (Omar) who can be found in the House of Healing - but what was interesting is that they said it was *his* wings Balthazar took for Marcus. I always thought they were Aylin's wings; isn't there a line about how Balthazar experimented on her early on, or Isobel reacting to the wings/realizing what Balthazar did, something like that? or did I imagine that? I would love to hear your take on this! (I don't know if I can send links in asks, but it's r BaldursGate3/comments/1gxo0tm/)

Oh, hey! It's Olam the Dead Aasimar Harper, my own personal favourite basically nonexistent NPC to shower with utterly disproportionate levels of attention! He's the guy I brought up in the final part of Moon-chosen, Moon-guided, who Aylin hears about and then really wants to retrieve and give a proper burial to. Entirely because of my aasimar fixation and because I love playing around with Aylin being an aasimar but also absolutely not being a regular aasimar, and how she'd feel about others both like and unlike her.

Olam is indeed the only other aasimar in the game. I love the little story we get told there, via one journal and one note, and one fight against a special animated armour.

The full text of his journal aka "a chilling account of an aasimar Harper's final tendays in the cursed lands" is here, and I find it a really nice bit of writing and an insight into that period - piecing together all these little bits and pieces about what happened to the Thorms and Reithwin and the armies on both sides is my favourite part of the game. Act 2 my beloved.

'All beings should walk free of fear', I was taught. Oh, if only were I granted such a fine fate.

So, Olam is a Harper who fought against Ketheric a century ago, and was there when the curse first happened. He was some kind of spellcaster (his insistence on research and experimentation screams wizard, to me) and he had an affectionate bird familiar called Corvin, presumably a raven. In his experimentation and efforts to lift the shadow curse, he accidentally animated his own armour, which you can fight in that acid pit area. But he ultimately failed, and then he succumbed to the shadows, alone. Tragic stuff, right?

You've activated my trap card! By which I mean I saw that post, saw videos of "you won't believe this NPC you missed!!!" go viral, saw people take it as gospel and start parroting misinformation about a very specific fandom interest of mine again, and got so frustrated I almost started posting WELL ACTUALLY Reddit comments. Horrifying.

Instead I get to ramble here! Thank you so much for providing an excuse (genuinely). It's kind of like the oathbreaker/disowned by her mother nonsense, people just can't seem to leave Aylin alone and let her have any of her actual damn story beats and themes and it grinds my gears. And just like the Child of the Moonmaiden stuff, someone has already added it to the BG3 wiki with zero sources, and now it's spreading like wildfire based on absolutely nothing. What a glorious microcosm of our reality.

Salt aside, thank you for the question! Let me actually answer it, and dig out exactly what is in the game itself.

TL;DR: While nobody looks at the camera and says as much, I'm convinced the wings are Aylin's, and that Balthazar had nothing to do with this guy.

First of all, and my simplest point: regular 5e aasimar don't actually have physical wings. One subtype of them (or, more recently, one of their three once-per-day "transformation" options) gives you this:

You can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing your eyes to glimmer and two luminous, incorporeal wings to sprout from your back.

Two luminous, spectral wings sprout from your back temporarily.

This lasts for a whole minute, and then you have to long rest to do it again. Of course, BG3 plays around with 5e rules and adapts them as needed, and there's no actual BG3 aasimar set of racial abilities implemented in the game. There's only Aylin who has the wings on by default, and there's our wingless boy of the hour, Olam - who is a corpse statted as "Human" if you right-click inspect him, so no help there. The only actual mention that he is supposed to be an aasimar comes from the description of his journal I quoted up there, and from the inspiration popup that some character backgrounds get when you find him (Sage and Acolyte, to be specific).

On a personal note, as a player of aasimar characters who've died by being thrown from great heights after having used up their wings for the day, believe me when I say I am deeply envious of whatever Aylin has going on in the wings department. She makes them appear and disappear in a flash at will and it's very cool. I love it. There's a special graphical overlay of feathers fluttering down all over your screen sometimes when she's around. I am enamoured.

Next, in the Marcus confrontation, Isobel doesn't give any signs of recognising the wings, nor does she comment on them specifically - she's shocked by Marcus' betrayal as he's been with them for a long time and nobody ever suspected a thing. I checked the dialogues/devnotes to see if there's anything else there, and there isn't. It's delicious angst material, certainly, the implications are deeply horrifying, and several people have written about it, me included, in tumblr posts and in fics, so you've probably seen the idea around a bunch. Not in the game itself, though.

Moving on, here's the full text of Balthazar's note you can find in Moonrise, titled "A Little Gift":

Marcus - I assume no explanation is needed for just how rare these appendages are, and I trust you shall make good use of them. You have a golden opportunity to please the General. Do not squander it. Access to the unwilling donor has proven difficult since the harvesting, but if I am afforded the opportunity, I shall pass along your gratitude. B.

This is pretty much it with regards to the wings explicitly. Speak With Dead on Marcus doesn't give anything related to the wings either. The only other thing is a little exchange between Z'rell and Marcus at Moonrise if his mission was a success, part of a series of little dialogues where she keeps rebuffing him and his efforts to get his hard-earned "audience with the General":

Marcus: I am free to do more for the Absolute, Disciple. Anything. Z'rell: Would you cast yourself from the tower-top? Marcus: Of course. I have the Absolute's wings to catch me. Z'rell: Off you go, then. I've always wanted to try those ballistas.

Ah, Z'rell, always a delight.

Now, let's look at the relevant final line in Balthazar's note.

Access to the unwilling donor has proven difficult since the harvesting - Balthazar, the necromancer who makes dead pixie moonlanterns, does not have big problems navigating the shadow curse like the Harpers do. Thus, getting to a corpse in the House of Healing morgue a little ways away from Moonrise is not the access problem he's having, nor is it the bunch of zombies that stalk the place. Rather, it is that Shar is angry at Ketheric who betrayed her for Myrkul and is keeping him and his out of the Shadowfell. I've so often seen people rather bafflingly confused by why Balthazar needs the player's help getting to the Nightsong prison when he's the one who imprisoned Aylin there in the first place, and this is why. He tells you as much himself - for instance when you actually enter the Shadowfell:

Balthazar: It seems Shar bears a grudge against my master, General Thorm, and so sought to prevent me from entering in his name. Luckily, you were the perfect agent in helping me slip past her defences. Now the Nightsong is within reach.

As for the unwilling donor bit, and your question of whether there is a line about how Balthazar experimented on Aylin early on - not really? He calls her "his masterpiece" a bunch and loves objectifying her in very specific and gross ways. There's again no mention of wings specifically, but what they do say is he cut out her tongue at least once before:

Nightsong: Ramblings most unsane. Poor Balthazar, for maggots ate his brain long ago. Balthazar: Hold your tongue, Aylin. Or I'll take it away from you again.

They make it so very easy to hate the guy - and agree with Aylin when she says her "heart lit like a full moon when you struck down that cadaver". Here is all the overworld banter you can hear from them, which fleshes out their relationship a bit more. Shocking spoiler: Balthazar is revolting.

Balthazar: As much as I savour our conversations, it's high time we got started. Nightsong: Do what you will. I cannot prevent you. But you know as well as I, I will come for you. One day. Balthazar: Poor child, so enthralled by gory revenge fantasies. You may find yourself disappointed by reality. Nightsong: Let us find out.

Nightsong: Someone's coming. Another Justiciar, I presume. Balthazar: Do you hunger for more company? Am I not enough to keep you sated? Nightsong: I'd [rather] live a thousand years in solitude than lay my eyes [upon] thy putrid visage again. Balthazar: Only a thousand?

Nightsong: Hatred makes you so hideous, Balthazar. Balthazar: Unkind, Aylin. Unkind and incorrect - I could never hate my masterwork. Nightsong: Perhaps you're right - perhaps you're incapable of feeling at all. Balthazar: Please, Aylin - spare me. Your insults grew tired and shopworn years ago.

Balthazar: How long has it been so far? With my work, time just slips away from me. Nightsong: A hundred years. Balthazar: A mere interlude for the likes of you and I. But nevertheless, perhaps it is time for a new chapter. Nightsong: Do as you will. You can pierce my flesh, but my heart beats on, forever.

There's also a tidbit if you ask Aylin how come all it took to release her from the prison was a friendly hand on her shoulder, and she'll tell you Balthazar "taunted and cajoled" her about how easy it would be to break the spell, if anyone just thought to try. So considering all of this, you bet he'd just love to "pass along gratitude" to Aylin and tell her alllll about how they used her own stolen wings to kidnap Isobel, of all people.

So basically, yeah, Balthazar is the one who's been in the Shadowfell prison most often, before Ketheric's relatively recent turn to Myrkul and Shar barring the way in response. We're given the above general vibes and implications of what he was doing there, and the rest is left up to our own gory imaginations. As Gale put it:

A dismal place for an aasimar to spend her existence. Especially with that necrotic toad for company.

There is no connection between Olam and Balthazar at all in the game, but there is one connection between Balthazar and the House of Healing - a negative one, notably.

You find Olam in the morgue of the House of Healing, which is Malus Thorm's stomping ground. It is his laboratory and research notes you find there, not Balthazar's. Malus complains in those very same notes found there that he gets the dregs of cadavers to experiment and mess around with because his nephew Ketheric is letting his Evil Chancellor Traytor Balthazar get first pick and keep the best for himself.

So no, Balthazar did not experiment on this guy or "harvest" anything. Olam is a fairly regular Harper who we can imagine may have lasted a bit longer in the necrotic curse because as an aasimar he'd presumably have necrotic damage resistance and the ability to cast light. He's been dead for about a century, and that's about it.

Aylin is the one the note clearly points to, and, setting aside all the crunchy mechanical and nitpicky details about who does or doesn't have wings and for how long, on every meta and storytelling and textual and subtextual and thematic and classically tropey level, Aylin is the only relevant person those wings could (and should) have come from. It is evocative, it is part of the chilling tale of her betrayal and captivity and serves to paint a vivid picture of the depths Ketheric and Balthazar have sunk to, as well as make Aylin's immense rage and desire for vengeance all the more visceral - and ultimately satisfying.

[ghostsofchernobyl]

I have to be honest, this has been weighing on my mind since you asked how my url came about. Funny, given that I was hoping someone would ask. It's just a bit... complicated.

I'll give a short version and a long version, with the long version underneath the cut.

Short Version: It's the name of a fictional post-rock band that I came up with.

Long Version:

If you have paid any attention to my post history, you'll know that my primary special interest is Radiation, because naturally that's what I'd be drawn to. Funny, cause I was super scared of getting an x-ray when I was 5 and used to have a very intense fear of nuclear war. (The foreshadowing in this is not subtle).

I've known about the Chernobyl disaster since... forever, I guess? My memory of my childhood is very suppressed, and what I do have is foggy. But that's besides the point. Anyways, what caught my attention is the... solitude? of abandoned places. Like that eerie feeling of being somewhere that's been forgotten.

So, anyways, I used to have a really big fear about nuclear war. I don't remember the specifics, but I know when North Korea did their last test I was at summer camp, and we had also been told that they now had missiles that could hit the U.S. Pretty scary stuff for a kid my age.

My anxiety got so strong at a few points that I hallucinated the sounds of air raid sirens (which don't exist where I live). I also started to do stuff specific ways to *not* have such a war happen (huh, this definitely doesn't become an OCD diagnosis later on).

When I was 16, I started legally doing some Urbex after a mall an hour away went under. I also watched a documentary about the Manhattan project in class, as well as delving into the Chernobyl Disaster through the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games. I eventually watched the movie that they're based on, and it remains one of my favorites to this day.

Last year of high school sucked for me, but I ended up starting the special interest around radiation and nuclear war. My favorite element for a long time has been Astatine, because we can't compile enough of it to be visible without it tearing itself apart from the heat of its own radiation. Cool stuff.

Anyways, at that point my OCD kept me to only knowing about the disasters (Chernobyl, Fukushima (I actually know a survivor), Three Mile Island, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Windscale, etc) and Fission Bombs (Gun-Type, Implosion, Boosted, Ivy King). It was also the last time I did Urbex because a lot of my spots by then had been torn down, or my pass to go to said places was revoked because they wanted to do construction or whatnot.

Because of this, I got even deeper into STALKER lore. My favorite faction is Monolith, which is basically a hive mind of people who worship the Monolith at the center of the Zone, right in the Sarcophogus. The HBO Chernobyl series coming out didn't help the special interest, although it is very blatantly wrong in many places.

Freshman year of college the dam broke and I started looking into fusion bombs, and damn did I miss a lot. But that's really where the special interest leaves the story. So on to another component: Post-Rock.

I discovered "We Lost the Sea" sometime in High School, but I don't remember exactly when. I had gotten into the genre through Krobak at the start of the COVID lockdowns. Anyways, WLTS has an album called Departure Songs, and it's given me a lot of catharsis. I've always been very musical, and learned how to play both guitar and bass in high school.

My dad had old tapes from when he was taking night classes, and one of them was labeled "Isotope Effect". It's something to do with how different isotopes react with body chemistry differently, something I'm actually going to learn about next year. Anyways, I always thought it was a cool band or song title.

Well, I came up with the fictional band "Ghosts of Chernobyl", and I would dedicate some riffs I came up with to them. Stupid, but the tism gotta tism, and that's how it be for me.

I can't say my faith has had nearly as large a role in my url as yours had, but it's definitely given it more meaning. I'm a Jewish Convert (a Proselyte in the jargon), and I converted for a lot of reasons that would triple the length of this tangent.

It turns out that Tschornobyl, Ukraine (the original name for Chernobyl) was actually originally a village of Jews who had survived everything from the Russian Pogroms to the Holodomor, but unfortunately didn't make it through the Holocaust.

I found that out after my obsession with chernobyl started, and long after I had come up with the band name, but it gave it more meaning. I turned it into my url because it represented a lot about me. It represented my love of post-rock, how it's gotten me through some horrible times in my life. It represents my special interest in radiation, which is how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (TM). It also represents my Jewishness, cause the original town was an Ashkenazi/Chasidic Hotspot.

But most of all, it represents my feelings of being forgotten. Chernobyl is a town with a lot of ghosts, and was practically built by them. It is those ghosts, who have unsung tales and live in the ruined apartment blocks, that I wish to embody the spirit of. The cathartic feeling of distant, forgotten memories, where the land has been salted over.

I also found out later that there's a movie called "Ghosts of Chernobyl", but it kinda sucks and has nothing to do with my url.

Nice url. How'd you get it?

It’s a bit of a long story. To condense it, it’s a reference to a Psalm that was popular with a famously weird Mormon seminary teacher of mine, and a character that I felt like was the most human and interesting depiction of Mormonism in pop-culture: Joshua Graham.

I started using the name when I was in online exmo support groups because of the religious significance it once had to me, and for its literal sense of mourning. At some point I stopped spending time in ExMo circles and just wandered off into the regular online world, but I kept the name. It feels right.

How about you?

[utilitycaster]

for the controversial opinions thing: Neve and Lucanis's romantic relationship is good actually.

obviously, agreed; I literally considered the potential of their relationship to be an outright selling point for the game, and I've alluded heavily to it in a few posts, but time to actually talk about it.

I don't think you can ENTIRELY discount all criticism on the basis of the fans from which it comes, because that's an oversimplification that fails to provide any sort of defense, just a counter-attack. WITH THAT SAID it does feel like the vast majority of criticism of the relationship comes from people who have a very "I can fix him...and ONLY I can fix him" attitude towards the Rook/Lucanis romance option and are looking for something fraught and dramatic and angsty and are mad that Lucanis is not looking for that in his relationship, either with Rook or with Neve. Like, I cannot stress that the fact that the most popular non-Crow Lucanis romance option is Rook Mercar is WILD to me when it should be the least popular by a country mile has been ENLIGHTENING to say the least. I definitely think the fact that Neve is a woman of color does not HELP but I think even people who like Neve and are not being racist or misogynistic towards her are still mad that Lucanis is depicted as, well, bisexual but not playersexual, and he still has clear preferences and Neve is among them. (I have NOT seen the same criticism among Neve romancers which is interesting to me and I think that again while racism/misogyny play a part, I don't think people are interested in that same I Can Fix Her/I Am Her OTP narrative).

Anyway getting to the actual relationship and why it's good: Neve and Lucanis are both people who are quite private about their lives but in different ways. Neve doesn't show vulnerability out of cynicism and the way she's had to force herself not to get too invested because she's lost people in her line of work, whereas Lucanis doesn't because he is proud. Neve's response to you choosing Treviso is "you don't care about Dock Town; most people don't and it bothers me but I can't show it does, because if I did I couldn't go on doing my work." Lucanis's response to you choosing Minrathous is "I begged for your help publicly and you turned me down, so I'm never asking for your help again." And they both, despite those separate motivations, instantly get how the other feels. Neve doesn't blame Lucanis because she's also fighting for her city! Lucanis doesn't have the same hangups about Neve because she was ALSO begging for help.

From what I know they also romance each other in a way not unlike how they romance Rook, and I think that's indicative of like, a well-formed character with clear preferences. Like, they are people who would, indeed, like each other. Everyone in the Veilguard has a great deal of pride in what they do, that's kind of the point, but Lucanis is an extremely patient and cautious person in romance, and Neve responds to that! If you're not going to do a full wisp stakeout with her she's not interested! And Neve is both extremely kind towards Lucanis and supports you telling him he shouldn't be used to Spite taking control, but doesn't turn this into a melodramatic "oh you poor thing" production, and a lot of what Lucanis wants is to be treated kindly but normally.

The canon banter they have about the relationship with other companions really boils down to, well, I know it gets used a lot, but the EEAAO Laundry and Taxes line. They are both people who have suffered greatly but what they're looking for is someone who will make them coffee at four in the morning and be patient when they're not forthcoming. Essentially they're BOTH really sensitive to being treated as A Project To Be Fixed and want someone who will not do that, and who will instead be patient and domestic and blissfully undramatic with them and give them space to open up rather than push them.

I started to go off about this in the tags and realized I should put it in the post but: I think a lot of people DO understand the companions/factions are all genre stories but DON'T get that the companions do NOT (with the possible exception of Taash) want their romance to be that genre. Lucanis is in a soap opera and Neve is in a detective story and BOTH of them want their love life to be a respite from that, not more of the same.

[destinylaurier]

The Alchemy

a/n: thank you for choosing this to read! this is my first post on tumblr, and i'm excited to share this with you! as someone who likes to read, i just couldn't find enough stories about my man here, and i'd like to share what i had in mind if you'll let me. i really hope you enjoy reading this, because it is long af, and it's been in the drafts for several days now!!

summary : there's no such place like home. and for you, home, meant san diego. top gun has called upon the top pilots their programme has ever produced, and that includes you. but it also includes him. the one that got away. you never took it across the line, but it had always felt like more. it had always been push and pull with the two of you, and you could curse the universe for reuniting you. but would you, really?

pairing : bradley bradshaw x f!reader (callsign : karma)

warnings : alcohol use, inaccurate navy references, just some good old fluff.

word count : 3.6k words

North Island, San Diego.

Top Gun.

Home.

It held many memories. Too many. And you were sure it would weigh down on you as you walk through the doors of the Hard Deck.

There was no doubt that's where everyone would be headed the eve before the first day of training, just to cool off before they'd be stressed out by the mission parameters first thing in the goddamn morning, you were sure.

You'd taken a shower, and slipped on a figure-hugging pair of denims, a white tee, and your branded hand-me-down brown leather jacket that had those beige ruffles you liked so much.

Making sure your black Bronco was locked, you turn towards the doors of the Hard Deck in front of you. Behind you, the sun was glaring with a beautiful mix of orange and yellow, a warm contrast to the still bright blue sky.

The Hard Deck was a constant in your life, at least four years ago. Games were played, songs were sung, drinks had been drank. And there had almost been… never mind.

Okay, maybe you'd been standing outside for way too long, and it was a form of stalling.

It is.

Huffing out a quick breath, your head jerks to the side as you place your hands on the handles, pushing inwards. The bell rings, and it seems to announce your arrival to pretty much every person in the bar, most of them turning to you mid-conversation or just out of interest.

Here goes nothing.

You take not more than four steps inside, and your head turns at the booming Southern drawl from deep inside.

"Is that who I think it is?!" Jake 'Hangman' Seresin teases, with that jerky smile that was seemingly always plastered right across his face. His arms are out, one holding a pool stick, and the other a beer, as he begins walking toward you.

"Karma, my dear, how've you been?" He passes you the beer, and you take a long sip, not bothering to greet him at all, because that's just how you've been. And to deal with Hangman, you'd have to take at least a sip or two. Oh, scratch that, maybe a bottle or two.

But you know he was a good man deep inside. Very, very, very deep inside.

“Oh, you know, Bagman, worse now that I’ve seen your face.” You nod as a reassurance, giving him that sarcastic smile of yours that made his brighter, teeth shining as he chuckles, shaking his head as he looks down towards his boots.

“Well, I thought they’d sent the invitations to the best of us, Coyote, but it seems it went to anyone…” And there he is…

“Last I recalled, you’re the one who leaves your wingmen behind, Hangman.” You snark back, shrugging off your jacket and placing it over the backrest of a chair, turning your back to him as you wave at Penny behind the bar.

“Penny, it’s been a while…” The woman just smiles at you, pouring a glass of her finest Tennessee she learnt you appreciate over those years you’d come to her bar almost every night.

You raise the shot glass to her as a thank you, downing it and letting it burn down the way of your throat, a pleasant yet bitter feeling that you were fond of.

This place reeked of him.

Those deep feelings and emotions that you’d tried so very hard to toss to the very back of your mind, slowly, steadily, it was all coming back to you as you look around the bar.

The pool table, where you’d challenged one another so many times, the piano, where you’d sang your hearts out almost every night you spent together at the bar, and the stools, where sometimes, you’d spill something by out to each other, and it’s somehow just bring you closer than before. Every single time.

You catch a glimpse of Natasha by the table and sigh in relief. You were glad you didn't have to suffer Hangman alone. You grab your jacket, shooting a 'bye, Pen!' to the older woman on the other side of the bar, who replies back, and you could hear the smile on her face. Natasha also seems happy that you'd showed up, holding out her hands for a hug.

You accept the embrace with a chuckle, rubbing her back and smiling into her shoulder in happiness. Phoenix had always been the low-maintenance friend. Wherever you'd leave it off, it could build back up again, restoring itself like a puzzle, and it'd remain constant until work stepped in.

She introduces you to Bob, her cute back-seater from Lemoore, who seemed like the shy kind. The two of you started talking, and you teach him the perfect way to line up a shot and take it. When he shoots the shot, and makes three balls into the pit, you clap your hands as Bob jumps in ecstatic-ness. You offer to buy him a beer, and he agrees, but only if you'd take one with him.

As you walk back towards the bar, there’s just a tiny, tiny change in the atmosphere that you’re able to pick up as the bell rings, meaning someone’s entered. That someone, could very well be someone completely not related to whatever was going on in your life, or someone very significant.

Secretly, you hoped it was the significant.

You'd concluded, the seats by the bar were way too close to the entrance, because the way you could practically feel the breeze blocked by him, it made you feel shivers across your body.

Okay, okay, maybe you shouldn’t think about this right now. Or ever again.

You down the second shot Penny pours for you, unaware of the knowing look she gives, knowing you’d need it for the events of the night. And Hangman.

And you knew who.

Or maybe you’d just get drunk on your feelings. Who knows?

The familiar glint in the air is cleared out when you see him.

Broader shoulders, grown mustache, and he’d gotten an inch or two taller somehow. The aviators looked good on him. So did the Hawaiian shirt. But you knew that.

His lips are curled up, and you assume it’s due to the excitement of being here. Being called up was exciting, sure, but it means that you’re probably one of those Top Gun wouldn’t mind losing in a dogfight or flight.

But you’ve been doing this long enough to know how to make it out. Most of the times.

“Bradshaw! Is that you?” Phoenix calls upon him like it’s been eons since they’d seen him. He just smiles, walking over to the farthest corner of the bar Penny made sure had the largest pool table for them.

He holds a mixture of smug and sheepishness to his expression, probably because he was the most dressed, in his true fashion. Just like the pictures your father had shown you.

He nears the pool table, just as Natasha rounds the corner of it, lining up her shot, “This is how we find out you’re state-side?”

Bradley winces just a bit, sheepishness growing as he replies, looking around the bar and placing his aviators in the v of his shirt, “Thought I’d surprise you back..”

Natasha simply hums in response, before lining up her shot and shooting it, pool stick jabbing, very intentionally, in his stomach, making him groan and hunch over.

You hold back the loud laugh you were sure to let out if it hadn’t been for Bradley’s eyes meeting your own.

And it’s so familiar all of a sudden.

Those butterflies that had flutteringly rushed up and down your back, the warmth on your cheeks which were surely maroon, the twists in your gut, all of it, back, for a second of eye contact.

“Guess I surprised you back.” Natasha replies, pressing her lips into a thin line at the man still hunched over.

Her reply makes him look over at Natasha, as he stands straight after pushing his palms against his thighs to steady himself, patting her twice on the forearm.

Then, he looks at you again.

It’s almost like he’s studying you, because you thought it’d be a fluttering glance like always. But it wasn’t that.

He says your name with a tone, one that leaves those butterflies in your stomach dancing once more around, just as the chill returns.

“Bradley.” You hate that you sound so breathless.

You tell yourself that it’s just Bradley, the one you grew up with, the one you went to high school with, and then the one who you trained to be the best of the best with. He was your best friend, and even if you hadn’t talked in what felt like ages, things would never change between the two of you. Especially not for the worse.

That’s just how close you were.

But then the heart steps in. And it’s a struggle of do or don’t, because if you do, you’re probably letting go of this beautiful bond you two hold. But if you don’t, it’s just more heart break watching him take those girls home. The prettier ones.

“You definitely know how to make an entrance, don’t ya’?” That smile on your face slips on like a glove, and you watch him as he looks down, the slightest tinge of pink coating his cheeks, the slightest shift of his hair, that looked perfect even when it was messy.

Green hazel eyes meet yours, and you’re enthralled at being able to actually see him face to face. He just seemed so much more real, and pretty from up close. Those random midnight phone calls could never do him any justice.

“Well, I learnt from the best…” Okay, maybe you made a few wild entrances in school. But he was right there by your side, reluctant, but just happy.

The two of you were chaos together, always causing trouble, even when you wore pigtails and he had that awful bowl-cut your eighteen-year-old-selves would cringe at. Even when he was the man of the baseball game and you were on the bleachers, cheering him on, and probably the loudest.

One day, a normal day, you caught yourself staring. And then, came the what-if’s. Thinking about the how’s. And the why nots.

The pining was excruciating. Having to be so close to him, but yet, so far away.

You’d chicken out every time you mustered up the courage. You’d watch as he backs away to his car and heads home as the kiss on your forehead left a lingering chill.

You’d like to think you had gotten over him. But standing here felt like standing on a tightrope with no net below, like if you fell, like the first time, you’d keep plummeting to endless nothingness, hopelessly in love with someone who could never be with someone like you.

No, no.

You’re good enough. And if he couldn’t see that, even after all these years and giving up on practically everything for him, then that’s his loss.

And it's a loss that would be heavy on your heart. Because this had been here ages long. Just like that shot of tequila was making you feel.

He steps forward, his hand out at his side as he gestures questioningly for a hug with that raise of a brow and that grin you’d loved all these years.

And you fall off, beginning your descent.

You step into his warm arms, wrapping yours around the back of his neck as you close your eyes at the familiarity, ignoring the chill from when you could his arms around your back, your chin resting on his shoulder.

That was one thing about him you also liked, his warmth. His comfort. His way of converting your frown into the brightest smiles you’ve ever smiled within an instant. How his mere presence could make you giddy and happy. Just him, and you'd remember what home felt like.

This was great. This is where you wished you could stay. It was upsetting, knowing he'd never like you the way you'd want him to. But whatever this was, it was good enough. Just the pure thrill of wanting, was enough.

You step back first, smiling up at him when he grins down at you.

The riffs of 'Slow Ride' is what catches your attention first. Then, Hangman steps into the playpen.

You notice the way intimidation subtly hangs from Bradley's face, as it falls flat, the slight narrowing of his eyes.

Yes, Hangman and Rooster never got along together. Bradley tried to be the bigger man first, but Hangman would piss him off in some way that would rock him off his rails, and one day, he just snapped.

"Bradshaw. As I live and breathe." Hangman's tone is natural, as he steps forward, showing off his pearly whites with a crinkle of his lips. Bob, amidst lining up a shot in the game, stands aloof when his cue stick is snatched by the blonde. He stands up, not leaning forward anymore, looking around like a lost puppy, just as Fanboy pats him on the shoulder in reassurance.

You narrow your eyes at Jake, at just how much of an ass he could be. All the damn time. Strike one, Jake. Maybe you'd get to punch him this time after all.

"Hangman. You look," Bradley's eyes glance up and down, the corner of his lips pulled up the slightest, "good."

Jake lines up his shot in what seems like a fraction of a second, and you're sure to roll your eyes.

"Well, I am good, Rooster. I'm very good."

He makes the shot, without looking down, perfectly sinking three balls in.

"In fact, I'm too good to be true." Jake adds, and that's your cue. You roll your eyes, but not before you catch a glimpse of Bradley looking over at you with an expression that said, 'can you believe this guy?'.

"So," Payback steps in, and for that you're mighty grateful, tired of seeing Rooster and Hangman compare sizes for what seemed like the billionth time, "anybody know what this special detachment is about?"

Your attention diverts, and so does everyone else's. You were glad to have received mail, besides Bradley's usual letters and a few other financial statements, and surprised to realize the stamp was Top Gun's.

The letter was straight to the point, but not very informative, just something along the lines of, 'pack your bags and come be our bitches for the next month'.

But seriously. You remembered what your first detachment letter was like, clear as a crystal, and it held some sort of information. All you new about the current mission, was that there was a chance you'd get to be team leader. And you weren't going to pass up that opportunity.

"No, mission's a mission. They don't confront me." Jake's leaning against the pool table in front of Bradley, meaning you could get a clear whiff of Axe body spray off of him. You try to hold back your grimace. Keyword : try.

"What I wanna know," Jake's eyes meet your's with that godawful cocky smirk he'd made his signature for practically everything, "is who's gonna be team leader?"

And then he looks back at Bradley, his smirk widening even more, "And which one of y'all, has what it takes to follow me."

You let out a scoff, narrowing your eyes and raising your brows at his words.

Just how much farther up his ass was his head?

"Hangman," Bradley replies, "the only place you'll lead anyone is an early grave." That cuts it deep. Flashbacks come about and you try hard not to shudder.

Jake's off the table now, stepping further and further towards Bradley, who stood amused just as he neared, "But that's just you, ain't it, Rooster?"

"You're snug on that porch, waiting for just the right moment," Jake'd like to think so, but his eyes flicker towards you for a brief second, before going back to taunt Bradley again, "that never comes."

Bradley keeps his calm, ever the older man amongst the two of them, simply smiling in amusement. Jake leans just the tiniest bit closer to Bradley, not even a crinkle in his smile disappearing, “I love this song.”

And then he backs off, heading off to the bar, leaving everyone grimacing. Literally, everyone.

“Well, he hasn’t changed.” You speak up, watching Jake charm Penny. Back at the Academy, he was just the same. The only difference was, he was your friend. He was Bradley’s friend. At least they wouldn’t snipe at one another then, and simply tolerate each other’s presence. God knows what happened between them suddenly, making them the only rivals amongst your entire class.

“Nope. Sure hasn’t.” Bradley shakes his head just once, watching Jake too. He shakes his head once again, almost like he was slipping out of living the possibility that someday they would have one another’s backs.

Though, you were glad the tension had been cut when Jake’s stride began.

With every step he took, you felt like you could let loose now, and not be alert about Jake and Bradley getting into a cat fight, because, damn, could these both get in a tussle.

Without another word, Bradley’s hand wraps around your wrist, and he begins walking towards the table at the front, dragging you along with him. And you let him, knowing exactly where this was going to go.

If you’d have asked Penny Benjamin who made the most chaos on a coincidentally calm evening, she’d say, Rooster and Karma. Because the way the two of you would sing, it’d entrance the crowd and compel them to practically huddle around the two of you, singing just as loudly.

Yes, the songs would make people go even more crazy for drinks, but Penny was definitely over her ear drums tearing. Though, she was glad to see you both so close, knowing just how much the two of you had been through together, yet you’d stay by each other’s side.

And there was a possibility where you’d gotten drunk drunk and opened your heart out to Penny because she’d lent you her ears to disturb with your problems. She knew just how much you loved Rooster, and she knew the limits to where you’d go for him, and him, for you. It was visible. And it seemed natural.

You’d always be grateful for what you had with him because there was nothing like this.

And, there was nothing like the power of an unrequited love. Yes, okay, it would make tears fall out of your eyes, yes, it would make an agonizing knot in your throat, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. Worst part is, you don’t even know how it began. It just happened. And it happened all too fast, and all too deep.

When you reach the piano, Bradley sits down, lending you a smile you swore sparkled underneath the yellow comforting light of the bar. You leant against the piano, a smile naturally covering your face as you watch him fiddle with the piano for the first few seconds. He plays a random melody, one that sends shivers down your spine because you know just how much fun you’ll have tonight, right here, beside him and everyone else.

You feel a hand on your shoulder, approaching from the back was Natasha, beer in her hand and smile on her face, followed by the other boys surrounding the piano by your side.

Natasha knew. From the very beginning. In fact, she was always the one encouraging you to make a move because she was “tired of seeing you make heart eyes at him”.

So, here you were. Right where you wanted to be. Right with whom you yearned to be.

You let the worries and tension knot out of your shoulders for the night, singing in utmost happiness and carelessness for howsoever your voice sounded for once, for howsoever you were with your friends for once.

Bradley just wishes you’d notice the way he looked at you as he sang, “You’re fine, you’re so kind! I’mma tell the world that you’re, mine, mine, mine, mine!”

Because he so wished you were.

[asters-galaxy]

About the SFW vs NSFW situation that's going on right now.

I know I'm not active much nowadays and I already commented on one of the posts involved, but if you'll allow me to get on my soapbox for a bit:

I'd like to explain mine and a lot of other people's stance on this, personally, as someone who has:

Enjoyed tickling and fantasized about it since about the age of 5

Enjoys it currently in both SFW and NSFW contexts

Does not allow minors on their blog

Is currently in school and studying psychology

Recently gave a presentation and is writing a paper about how kinks and trauma correlate

From how I've looked into this situation thus far, I see that another person made the very wild generalization that all people who enjoy tickling enjoy it as a sexual kink. I want to make it known to anyone who is reading this that this claim is not true.

(Important note: DO NOT HARASS THIS PERSON. IF YOU HARASS THIS PERSON, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM AND YOU ARE BULLIES. I DO NOT TOLERATE BULLIES ON THIS BLOG.)

Tickling is a sensory activity. It is a bonding thing that occurs in the animal kingdom (not just humans) often between familial connections and friendships. This is the norm in the human world; parents lovingly tickle their children, siblings and friends get into tickle fights, partners tickle each other -- it's a normal thing. These activities are not inherently sexual. When my parents tickled me and my brother when we were little, that was not sexual abuse or incest. When a classmate of mine was gang-tickled in the back of the classroom, his friends weren't suspended for sexual behavior in a school setting. Everyone in both of those situations were enjoying what was going on, but nobody was aroused. That shouldn't have to be said.

An important note on this, however, is that sexual abuse can happen this way -- it's not the only way, nor is it an inherent quality of the activity, but it does happen. I just wanted to preface that, because if someone touching you makes you uncomfortable in any way, you have a right to tell them to stop and to get angry if they don't.

The important thing when it comes to determining whether a scenario is kinky or not is based on consent and any potential arousal involved. For example, take the concept of a foot kink. Say a person asks for a foot massage. Just because foot kinks exist doesn't mean that person has a foot kink. And, even if they do, it depends on why they ask: are they asking because they want foreplay, or are they asking because they had a hard day at work and their feet are sore? It's similar with tickling -- I enjoy it in both contexts, so I can be aroused by it; however, this doesn't happen if I ask for it or otherwise seek it out because I'm looking for comfort. My partner will tickle me in more sexually intimate situations, but he will also do so if I've been having a bad day or if he wants to be playful with me, and it does not immediately or always arouse me -- only in the right and comfortable context.

Let's look at the sensory-seeking side. A lot of people in the SFW tickling community are diagnosed with or believe they have ADHD, autism, or both. I do as well. Looking at the science behind it, it makes sense: ADHD and autism are both disorders that alter the way that someone perceives physical sensory input. Given that tickling is an inherently innocent bonding activity that is playful and involves (hopefully) consensual sensory, it makes sense that a fixation could/would form and sensory-seeking behaviors would occur. This is a good explanation for anyone who was seeking tickling in some way as a child but has never/didn't at the time feel sexual about it.

And as far as sexual interest does go: kinks often form as a coping mechanism, and yes, they CAN be non-sexual or occur in non-sexual manners. So, again, tickling is not always a sexual thing for people.

Now to get into the nitty-gritty of the claims this person was making and their personal input:

This person claimed that if you cannot/do not want to show your tickling fixation to your friends, boss, and family, then it means it's kinky and that's why you're embarassed.

First of all, I wouldn't show any fanart or fanfiction to my boss, dickass. You think I'm giving them ammo that easily? HELL NO.

For my family, I don't feel comfortable doing that because I have a long history of my personal technology privacy being invaded. I also don't want them following me, same way I don't want them following my main Tumblr account.

But as far as friends go, I have shown my fanfiction to my partner and one of my friends (another person I know IRL found my blog after that); I am slowly working my way up to being comfortable enough to show other people I am close to. I keep it under wraps for a lot of reasons:

I hold myself very seriously and elegantly IRL and this entire blog juxtaposes that

A lot of my highschool life involved drama and tension, and I am very lucky that there were certain people I refrained from showing

I was also a victim of bullying as the "weird kid" and one of the only openly queer people in my grade, and I didn't want any ammo to be given to the people harassing me

And, perhaps most importantly,

It gets commonly mistaken as ALWAYS a fetish online, and people who don't understand that harass the creators of tickling art and fanfiction; I can handle that online by blocking as I please, but IRL?

We've all seen people talk about hating tickling, how "it's abuse, actually," how our community (fetish or not) is "gross" and "weird" and full of creeps. Think about the tickle Picrew's creator (a minor!) getting harassed on Twitter, which spread to them trying to bully SFW creators on Tumblr. Think about people cringing over tickle scenes. Think about the way that otomiyaa's writing breached containment and prompted negative comments. Almost all of us have seen this harassment happen or experienced it ourselves -- why put ourselves in that situation with IRL people, where it can be even more damaging to hear?

Moving on:

This creator also stated that any tickling blogs that talk to minors are either pedophiles or fostering a "safe space" for them to breed; they doubled down on this by saying that they were groomed, and that this community (again generalizing to everyone) let it happen by turning a blind eye

They then were called many things, including a pedophile, by harassers

Listen. I don't allow minors on this blog. But that's not because this is a tickling blog. It's because I don't like talking to children (this includes IRL, by the way) because it personally weirds me out; I have no reason to talk to them.

But the MAIN reason is because I have a history of minors pushing my boundaries -- not the other way around -- which gave me a sour relationship with this blog and my writing. That's why I haven't posted a fic in years. However, if a minor comes to this blog, I am not going to immediately groom them -- that's not how that works. And if a minor comes to this blog looking for help, I will help them.

Additionally, generalizing every SFW adult in this community as a pedophile because you didn't receive help when you needed it most is not a healthy way to cope with trauma. I am sorry that it happened, but I was either not in the community or a minor when it happened; that does not make me a bystander now just because I'm a SFW adult here. This goes for everyone who was not there or could not have done something at the time.

One groomer also does not mean that every adult here is/could be one. That is a horrific generalization to make. If that were the right generalization, then that would mean that every adult ever with any kink should never, EVER talk to children or they're a pedo. Do you see how misaligned that is?

I don't agree with the people who were harassing this blogger, including on the pedophile claim. I do have to say, though, that the horror and disgust that this person likely felt at being called that is exactly what they just put a lot of people through. It also does not negate the valid criticisms of those who respectfully spoke up. Something to dwell on.

Bottom line is -- and I don't say this to be demeaning -- that this person could genuinely benefit from some introspection, a break from the kink community, or both. It is not okay to label an entire SFW community as pedos because you were groomed by one person. It is not okay to generalize every person who likes tickling as a kinkster just because you are. Don't make sweeping generalizations. Period.

For anyone who felt hurt and confused by the claims this person made, please know that you are not alone (I was dealing with the same thing because of a different artist a while back); please also know that you don't have to label yourself as anything that you don't want to. As long as you aren't hurting anyone, you are valid and welcome here.

[begrudging-fudanshi]

So i stared reading windbreaker after i saw your post about it , it's wholesome manga with amazing fights

in your opinion Why didn't nii satoru reveal Sakura's past until now ? Why was Sakura alone ?

Hell yeah. Welcome to the fandom. I'm glad my propaganda has been working.

To be honest, I've been thinking about this series way too much over the last couple weeks, so this is probably going to be A Lot. I am dumping a lot of accumulated thoughts in here and simultaneously trying to keep a bunch of other thoughts from cluttering it up. If any of this feels disjointed, it's because I've been trying (I swear) to not make this like 10,000 words long lmao.

(CW: Wind Breaker manga spoilers + discussion of child neglect, trauma, feelings of worthlessness, parental loss, grief, and a suicide attempt in the context of the series. Hope you're ready for some pain.)

I'm going to answer your questions in reverse order, because I think they're actually very closely connected.

Sadly, my read on Sakura's past is really dark. Based on what we know so far, there's a lot to suggest that Sakura has been badly neglected for a long time, both physically and emotionally. Based on his lifestyle and the way he talks about himself, I really struggle to believe that he's received any genuine affection or care in many years, if ever. (I'm so glad he was able to go to Furin.)

The flashbacks at the start of episode 1 of the anime suggest he was taken in by relatives who didn't want him, and I think they basically set him up for failure in every way. They seem to have done the bare minimum required of them by the law, like sending him to school, but I can see no evidence that they did much of anything else. Like, what kind of asshole sends a 15-year-old kid to live alone in a barren apartment with literally nothing to wear except his school uniform? Caring people wouldn't let a kid live like that. (That said, I have a bad feeling that his lifestyle seen in chapter 56 is an upgrade compared to what he had before.)

Given this, it's clear Sakura really means it when he says he's always done things by himself. I think this is why he looks so torn up when his friends show him real kindness and why he's so sensitive to anyone showing affection. I also think this means that he really wants to forget his past. This is a big part of why we haven't seen it revealed yet: Sakura isn't ready to revisit it, himself.

---

Something interesting about Wind Breaker's backstories is that they all (as far as I and my notes can remember) follow a consistent pattern. They're not just lore dumps that tell us about the character's past. They actually follow each character through a process of changing their beliefs about themselves, often based on their view of the past. This is why they're all in the first person. Some of these changes happen in the present while others are part of flashbacks, but either way the process is basically the same.

In each backstory, the character starts out believing something about themselves that gives rise to a contradiction that keeps them trapped. This belief somehow keeps them from living their best life and, often, stops them from changing their ways to make their best life possible. However, someone else helps them challenge that belief, giving rise to a revelation that lets them change how they see themselves. This change enables them to see new possibilities and lets them move forward towards the life they want.

For example:

Umemiya believed his parents would blame him for their deaths, so he couldn't let himself grieve them nor believe that he deserved to live. His guilt blocked out his memory of the event, keeping him from remembering what really happened. However, a nameless(?) Furin student and Shitara helped him realize that his parents saved him and were happy to see him survive. Thus, he was able to grieve and imagine a future for himself other than his self-destruction.

Kaji believed that his rage was uncontrollable and couldn't even see himself as human. Hiragi helped him realize that he could manage his triggers and change his behavior to be able to find acceptance and live his life.

Tsubaki believed that she couldn't like pretty things or express herself how she wanted. Ito and Yui helped her learn to dress up and present herself the way she liked, allowing her to accept herself and transition. (I know she's not canonically transgender but that's still the best way I can see to describe it.)

After Yui's death, Ito believed that she might never have truly loved him. Tsubaki, Sakura, Suo, and Nirei help him realize the secret meaning of the tree that she planted in his garden, letting him live his life without worrying if she was truly happy.

What's important here is that the character must be ready to have their beliefs about themselves challenged so they can understand their full truth. Otherwise, their story of their past would be incomplete. (Consider what Umemiya's backstory would have sounded like if he still believed he was a murderer.) In fact, we already have an example of this that I'll get to, next.

Because Sakura isn't yet in a position to challenge the beliefs holding him back, he can't reveal his past, either. He has friends helping him, but it's going to be a while before they've truly shaken his most unhelpful beliefs.

---

That said, this process has actually played out with Sakura once before and I think it tells us a lot. It shows us exactly why he's not ready to reveal his past.

In chapter 1, Sakura starts out believing that he's meant to always be alone, leading him to initially reject the people of Makochi. Then, Kotoha helps him acknowledge that he does want to be accepted and convinces him to give it a shot. However, while this is great progress and very necessary for Sakura's growth, this isn't a complete resolution. He still has an even more deep-seated belief that has to be addressed.

In addition to asserting that he's meant to be alone, Sakura also lays out another belief in chapter 1 that I argue really gets to the root of his deepest trauma. He doesn't quite say it explicitly, but it underpins both his belief that he's meant to be alone and that he's worth nothing but his fists.

The closest he comes to naming it is when he describes Furin. He says it's "The lowest of the low, hated by all others, worth nothing but their fists … It's a battle to determine the trashiest of the trash. That suits me perfectly."

I have to admit, the first few times I heard and read this, I completely missed how fucked up it is for a 15-year-old kid to say this about himself. I think I've gotten so used to taking shonen protagonists' confident declarations at face value that I just didn't question it, in the same way I've learned not to question, say, 12-year-old Gon deciding to become a pro hunter and travel the world fighting adults. The way it's presented very deliberately (and, I think, cleverly) blunts the impact as well, making use of shonen stylistic conventions to disguise it as stereotypical shonen protagonist bluster. This mirrors how Sakura masks his deeper feelings about himself.

However, as I read through the rest of the manga, it became clear that this is what Sakura actually, deeply believes. He's 15 years old and he truly sees himself as trash—in other words, worthless. The only way he can imagine finding worth in himself is through his strength. Even then, this is only for Sakura himself. He can't let himself imagine anyone else ever valuing him for any reason, so he must find self-worth all on his own. To put it more sharply, he can't imagine deserving unconditional love. Based on what little we do know about his past, this belief stems from a lifetime of emotional neglect.

The thing is, Sakura's belief that he's worthless is actually, paradoxically, a coping mechanism. As horrible as it is, it helps him rationalize his life in a way that lets him keep living despite his neglect and isolation. If he's truly worthless, then he's never had a reason to expect being loved or accepted by anyone—he's always been meant to be alone. This is how he can tell himself that he doesn't care and has given up. This lets him bury the pain of his isolation and pretend it doesn't truly hurt. By believing that he has always been worthless and unable to be (to deserve being) loved, he has had no reason to get his hopes up for the future, nor any reason to question why he's been treated so badly in the past. He can accept it (has to accept it), even if he hates it, because it was always inevitable.

Notice how Sakura reminds himself that he's given up right before punching the Spaltips' leader in chapter 1. This is the story he tells himself to contain the hurt. He does something similar in chapter 56, reminding himself that he's supposed to be alone as he grapples with his friends' kindness. He bludgeons himself with this reminder as a way to push away thoughts about his past. He then shifts his focus to thinking about his growing care for his friends rather than his feelings about himself. Once again, Sakura makes himself turn away.

The trouble is, this belief is his only means of holding back an unfathomable amount of pain inside of him. It's the only way he knows how to live with all the myriad ways he's been treated like shit. To doubt his own worthlessness, therefore, is to expose himself to overwhelming grief. Because, if he isn't worthless, he then has to ask himself why he had to suffer for so long. That kind of question is too awful for him—for pretty much anyone—to face on their own. This coping mechanism protects him, but it also traps him and prevents him from finding relief.

This comes to a head in chapter 1, as the townspeople surround him and the old woman tries to tend to his wound. As she reaches towards him, he screams at her to stay away. This act of genuine kindness fills him with terror. It's not just that he fears eventual rejection—Sakura fears the idea he could be accepted at all. Remember, he's just "failed" to win the fight and, worse, ended up having to be protected because he got hurt. Sakura could accept Kotoha's kindness earlier because he "earned" it by stopping her attackers, but now there's someone trying to help him for what feels like no reason. For Sakura, who must believe that he was never meant to be loved or accepted, being shown kindness for no apparent reason feels like an existential threat. It threatens to undermine the walls that he's built inside of him to keep going. This is why he allows Kotoha to help him instead—he can still rationalize her help as transactional.

This rationalization provides his means of escape. To accept his place in Makochi, he only has to accept that he doesn't have to be alone. He doesn't have to believe that he can be valued or loved unconditionally, nor that he deserved anything better. Instead, Sakura finds a way to "earn" his acceptance: The chapter culminates with Sakura accepting Bofurin, which he shows by leaping over all the others to kick the Spaltips' leader in the face.

By showing his strength, by upstaging the heroes and claiming his place among them, Sakura proves (to himself) that he is strong enough to be accepted. Rather than accept that he could always have been valued and accepted unconditionally—that he always could have been loved—Sakura would rather believe he's earned his acceptance based on his strength.

In this way, Sakura can continue to believe in his own worthlessness, saving himself from having to face his past. Because of this, even as he's learned that he can be accepted, he still maintained his belief that he was meant to be alone from the start (again, see chapter 56). This lets him continue to justify his past suffering and minimize his own pain.

This comes back around in chapter 162, when Sakura's classmates talk about his low self-esteem. Despite their efforts to show him that he's loved and valued, Sakura ultimately still believes he's only worth his strength. We see how he rejects Umemiya's praise, unable to understand how he could be praised when he "failed". Sakura can't believe he could be valued when he couldn't even single-handedly save the town.

But, as long as he believes this, his past will remain a mystery, not just to his friends and to us as readers, but even to Sakura himself. Just as Umemiya's repression kept him from realizing that his parents loved him, Sakura's repression keeps him from realizing that he has always deserved to be loved. He cannot acknowledge, can't even recognize, the pain he's endured in his life, because he still has to believe it didn't matter. Because of this, he can't let himself grieve or admit that he has always deserved better. He's still trapped believing he must always prove his worth through his strength alone.

Of course, changing this isn't going to be easy. He will get there. His friends will help him through it. Still, it's going to be rough. I think it'll be a while yet before he's ready to tell us about his past.

---

Addendum

All of that being said, something I really love about Wind Breaker is how hopeful it is and the way it shows Sakura living despite his past. To that end, I want to note one last thing: Sakura can still smile, despite everything else. No matter what he tells himself, he still feels hope.

I mentioned above that I didn't recognize Sakura's low self-esteem at first because it's masked with stereotypical shonen protagonist confidence. I think this is very deliberate by the author. We're supposed to see Sakura as cool, confident, and badass in the beginning, only to realize that he's also hurting inside. (Emphasis: that's also, not instead. These aren't mutually exclusive.) Sakura's cocky grin is part of a mask he wears, but it's not a lie.

While I believe Sakura has suffered a lot, it's important to emphasize that he's not broken or doomed to drown in grief. What I've laid out here is what I believe is going on beneath the surface, and I do believe he's going to have to face his trauma eventually, but let's not forget that our boy can still smile after all of that. The fact that he can smile doesn't mean that he's not hurting, but the fact that he's hurting doesn't mean he only feels pain. Let's not do him dirty by miring our view of him in grief. Instead, as we acknowledge how much he's suffered, let's also be happy at just how far he's come and hopeful for how far he'll go in the future.

[lizzzybooo]

My take on Blitz's intimacy issues and why everything that's happening now with Stolas just plays into them even more (the essay):

Okay before you get mad at me, I love this development for Stolas, it makes perfect sense for his storyline to live as a regular demon and see the class system first hand, and understand how he was part of it. also the fact that basically everyone predicted this is an indicator for me that this is the right way to go, since it makes the most sense for the story. But this post is going to be about Blitz so there we go:

The one thing that bugged me for a while since realizing this is the direction the story is going to take is the fact that Blitz will not have the chance to get over his inferiority complex.

We see throughout the show that Blitz actually doesn't have a problem loving people who are equal or "beneath" him in status. He loves Moxxie and Millie, he loves Loona, he loves Fizz (i know Fizz is more successful but he's still an imp, and someone Blitz has known since he was young and vulnerable). The way I see it he's fine as long as he sees himself as useful to them, as the protector and provider. He employs the M&Ms and Loona, he even adopted Loona, putting himself in a position of superiority and responsibility, and them in a position of dependency on him.

He is also VERY protective with the ones he loves. I always see posts about how sweet it is, for example how he protected Fizz when they were kidnapped, how he put himself between him and any potential danger, and that kind of behavior is shown all the time in the show. And while sweet, it's also his comfort zone. As long as he can be the one protecting them, the one in charge, he's okay with their relationship.

One of the reasons he's so uncomfortable with his and Stolas's power dynamic is that he doesn't see where he can fit into his life. Stolas doesn't really need his protection, he knows Stolas is basically playing out a fantasy when he asks him to bodyguard. He's very dismissive when Stolas is in real trouble, since he's so powerful, so Blitz can't possibly be of any use. It makes him feel belittled to have his weaknesses in comparison to Stolas thrown in his face.

He is maybe impressed (and turned on) when Stolas saves him from DHORKS but he's also uncomfortable, because he doesn't like to be on that side of things.

We only see him warming up to Stolas when Stolas appears weak. When Stolas is very sad over Blitz, Blitz suddenly gets more invested. Because even if physically he's still so strong, maybe mentally Blitz can be his protector, and Stolas might be dependent on him, which is what Blitz seeks in relationships.

I think it's very natural but also a bit toxic (not in a "he's horrible" kind of way, but in an "interesting for the narrative" kind of way). Blitz needs this dependency to feel comfortable in a relationship, because then he's needed, and then he's not going to be left behind.

I think the same thing probably happened with Verosika. She's more successful, she has a higher status, she doesn't need him. But she wants him, and that's not enough, because wanting can change. He can screw up her wanting him, since he doesn't believe someone can love him genuinely, but someone less fortunate (like the M&M's, like Loona) will always need him. And even though Fizz for example is a lot more successful, Blitz can still somehow find his place with him as his protector, it's still a position he's comfortable enough with.

Now if we look at stolitz again, Blitz is suddenly very willing to be openly affectionate with Stolas. Yes, it probably also has to do with the fact that he had time to think about it, he came to the realization that he actually did like Stolas and all that, but still, I'm pretty sure Blitz's sudden willingness to take Stolas in, the sudden gentleness and adoration, has something to do with the fact that Blitz, deep down, is pretty happy with the turn of events. Taking care of a wounded bird that has nowhere else to turn to, that need Blitz to protect him and provide for him? Sign him right up.

Now Stolas is obviously weaker than him, hated, in need, it's very easy for Blitz to be his hero (doesn't help that Stolas basically shoved his own "knight in shining armor" fantasy down Blitz's throat their whole relationship). They are not forming a relationship now as equals, they just switched the roles, and Blitz is a lot more comfortable like this.

Now I don't actually have a problem with this since I think it's interesting, but I do hope it'll be addressed. Like if Stolas gets his power and status back, will Blitz be able to handle it? Will he put up walls again? Will he feel tossed aside since when Stolas is powerful, he doesn't need him, so how possibly can he want him?

Part of me wishes they didn't take the "easy" route for Blitz's character. That they let him learn how to be loved even when he's not necessarily needed for survival. But we still have 2 more seasons to go, so I'm optimistic!

Anyway this is my essay on this subject lol, I know it's super long but I would love to read more takes on this so tell me what you think!

[batmanfruitloops]

I gotta know about the Drcrane au, is it only inspired by Frankenstein in the sense of reanimating/making a person from the dead or are there other elements?

Like does Jonathan hate Ed like Victor hates the creature after making him? If so that’s so tragic. :(

Or is it like one of the au’s where Victor loves his creature?

Does Jervis take the place of Clerval? Or does Ed take the place of Clerval?

Why does Jon create Ed? Did he know Ed before hand and reanimate him or did he create him fully from scratch? If he created him fully from scratch what was the reason?

LASTLY is Ed similar to the creature in being somewhat of a mess of parts or is Ed “perfect”? Basically what I’m asking is does Ed only have his head recognizable as Ed or? 

Sorry I know this a lot I just really love Frankenstein and wanted to know about the au.

@quackerzzz

I haven't actually read the book, so it's just based on bits and pieces of themes and concepts that I like about the story, as well as inspiration from Frankenstien-related media. Things like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and Young Frankenstein but it's been a while since I've watched either movie. However, I was mostly inspired by seeing someone else make a Frankenstein au with Jonathan and Ed. Unfortunately, I never saved it or anything and I'm not sure if I could find the post again, especially since it was someone else drawing pictures for the person's au. If I do find it again, or if someone knows what post I'm talking about, I'd love to credit them. I'll leave a description of what I saw in the post at the end of this one in case someone recognizes the description.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by medicine and love all things biology, so I'm more fixated on that aspect of Frankenstein's story than the themes of human hubris. I'm just curious what would happen if you brought someone back to life in such a way? In the world of medicine now, we can technically bring people back to life with resuscitation. People can be dead for hours and be brought back. We can also reattach limbs and transplant organs. So like, conceptually, you could make a Frankenstein. So what better way to explore that idea than with the blorbos, they are my little Muppets to put into whatever situation I want.

Jonathan wouldn't create Ed for the same reason Victor creates the monster but it's still a similar theme. Jo would still be very interested in psychology but based on the time Frankenstein takes place, it wouldn't be an established discipline. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even have a name to it yet. So he'd be trying to explore psychology and his peers wouldn't really understand what he was doing and look at him like a dog chasing his own tail. Psychology is notorious for not being taken seriously, even among academics. Since you can't really measure anything. So Jonathan would be pretty frustrated. Because of this, he'd become proficient in things like physiology and neurology. Knowing how the human body physically works, especially the brain can get him closer to unlocking the secrets of the mind.

So Jonathan creates Ed to further his understanding of the human body and its relation to the brain. He wouldn't be doing it for the sole purpose of bringing Ed back to life but would be curious if it's possible (maybe even subconsciously hoping it would happen, it would be nice to not be alone). He wants to see what the brain is capable of. It's mostly an intense version of using electricity to move the muscles of a frog. If the brain suddenly has power, what will it decide to do? Would it truly be alive?

Ed isn't someone Jonathan knew, he's pretty much made from scratch. He was Ed when he died but he is still Ed after he's reanimated, he just can't remember. His body was in pretty poor condition when he died (I'm not entirely set on the details), he at least had gotten ill and likely was mutilated in some way. Ed's body is essentially a base for Jonathan to work off of. He keeps his head and then other bits and pieces from there. Ed is an unclaimed cadaver when Jonathan goes looking for parts. Jonathan feels he's technically free to use those parts for his experiments. Ed is just what he needs.

Ed is perfect after he is reanimated in a medical sense. With minimal issues, his brain accepts everything that didn't originally belong to his body. The blood type is the same, it's in the correct place, and all the blood vessels and nerves are connected as they should be. It all acts as one body. Eventually, he'd look like a normal person with only the scars from the operation, but he'd look horrific before his body healed—like a walking piece of sad jerky.

Jonathan doesn't hate Ed but he's not really sure how to handle him at first. He didn't expect Ed to be fully alive and he wouldn't expect Ed to live very long. He'd be scared to get attached for this reason. So there's a lot of strain on their friendship at first. Jonathan hardly has positive interactions with anyone and still grew up in a horrible environment. So to be thrown into a situation where he suddenly has to care about someone is very stressful. Ed is also a very clingy and affectionate person so that makes it a billion times worse. They do still become best friends as they normally do, it just takes a lot more work than usual. Before then Jo does try his best to take care of Ed even if he's being distant.

Jervis I don't think would be an equivalent to Cerval. I didn't know about this character. Instead, he is a tailor/hatter. He knew Jonathan before Ed was created but is not friends with him yet, they are good acquaintances. Jervis is one of the few people Jonathan has had a positive experience with but he's still shy and has a hard time getting close to people. Jo appreciates Jervis a lot even if he's not close with him, Jervis actually treats him like a person and doesn't guak at him. Jo especially appreciates Jervis's kindness because he is a tailor. Jervis has to get so physically close to Jonathan to tailor his clothes properly and yet he makes no comments on Jonathan's appearance or demeanor and just makes friendly conversation. He's very happy to go see Jervis any time he needs his clothes mended or something (even though he could mend it himself;)). Jo is able to fully become friends with Jervis after Ed's creation and the Dork Squad is together yet again.

-Fluffy

(Post description I was talking about undercut)

There are two drawings I'm pretty sure, In the first one Jonathan is saying something along the lines of "I need to work so don't bother me" and Ed replies with "No problem" Then the next drawing is Jonathan sitting at a table with a pencil and Ed pushing him out of the way reaching for Jonathan's pencil and saying "my turn!" and there's an arrow pointing at Ed that says "learning to write."

[alexthebordercollie]

I know this definitely wasn’t the point of your post but this line “I think he gets shipped with Stanley by people who want to see Stanley get that kind of overbearing love that Fidds showed to Ford. I do understand wanting to give him that kind of partner but Ford deserves love too,” in your Fiddleauthor comic post made me think… what about aro/ace Stan. It seems like a lot of Fiddlestan shippers only ship it because they want Stan to have that overwhelming love or whatever, but do these people ever consider that maybe the only overwhelming love Stan wants/needs is familial? The most important relationships in his life are all family, and considering his repeated mentions of failing at romance/the implication he engaged in sex work, I can totally see him just straight up having no interest in romance or sex at all. In my opinion, the most realistic scenario (and probably the best for everyone involved) is Stan being aro/ace and happy for his brother and his brother’s partner, being supported and loved non-romantically and being perfectly content with that. It certainly makes a lot more sense then breaking up Fiddauthor which has so much canon basis and taking away Ford’s support system.

Ok so I've got a lot of thoughts here, but it's a great point to bring up. I'll start by offering up some art of Stan and the beans then dig into my thoughts.

Nikola is speech delayed while Newton is an early yapper.

So I think the point about Stanley being happiest with familial love is a fantastic one. He's clearly someone who values family a lot and they seem to be his most consistent source of happiness. I think lot of people undervalue platonic love next to romantic love and I think that's a waste.

That said I don't see Stan being aro/ace, like it's a fun headcannon and I can understand the logic behind it. It's just I think something else is going on. I think Stan's issue is that he's terrified of emotional intimacy. Something backed up in the show by repeated examples of him avoiding being vulnerable in front of people. I think what happens with Stan is he tends to self-sabotage his relationships anytime they get too close out of fear. The sort of thing that likely stems from the trauma of being abused and rejected by his own family. He doesn't want to get close enough to someone new for them to hurt him. Avoidant attachment style

Family is different though. I think he has an easier time being close to family because there's this built-in connection and he isn't pressured to be vulnerable in the same way a romantic partner might pressure him. Instead, he has more of the space to open up at his own pace.

Speaking of, by that same metric. I actually think if he and Fidds ever happened, he'd probably sabotage the relationship pretty fast. Fiddleford loves rather aggressively and with an open hand and I actually think Stan would find it overwhelming. I feel like he would panic having someone shower him with gifts and bail.

Personally, I might ship Stan with someone else in this AU later on down the line though I'm still not sure yet if I want to fully commit to the idea. For now either way I see him spending at least the first few years of his nephew's lives completely single so he can focus solely on being a good uncle. He loves these boys like his own and he's just as involved in their upbringing as Ford and Fidds.

If I do ship Stan with someone at some point it's not because he needs a romantic partner. It's just because I found a ship I think could be fun to explore. Stanley doesn't need a girlfriend or boyfriend. He is perfectly content being the bachelor uncle and helping raise his brother's kids.