#if anyone needs her she’s currently dying of being perceived

[southern-belle-outcasts]

Which symbolic fruit are you?

Pomegranate 

The pomegranate is most famously attributed to the Greek goddess, Persephone. Though versions of the story differ: with some saying Persephone was tricked into eating pomegranate seeds to be trapped in the underworld, and some saying she willingly chose to eat the seeds. Pomegranate's have a hard exterior that is tough to crack. Your hard shell is a natural protectant and keeps you safe from those that only wish to use you. Internally you are rich with bounties. You believe in living your life passionately and vibrantly. The idea of surrendering to a fate of being confined to anything, whether it be a relationship, a job, or family dynamic where you are not happy and lack agency is a terrifying prospect. It is fears like this which also prevent you from opening up and showing vulnerability to those around you. However, like the pomegranate whose seeds sparkle like gemstones, you hide inside you incredible beauty that only the most worthy deserve to see.

tagged by: @revenantinflames and @positivelybeastly

tagging: @brooklynislandgirl @kylo-wrecked @astral-athame @ifyoucatchacriminal @starbornknight and you there with the face

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

So I decided to actually go through and point out the flaws of the logic of the post I saw regarding Hero and how it foreshadows James’s fall because I just have a mighty need to discuss it. 

I still am not positive how we’re supposed to perceive any part of the song as a threat to the person it is being sung to. The post never elaborates on this point so I just really have no clue what exactly they think makes the song a “threat”. Their is a  section of the song I though maybe it was referring to:

Portrayed as cruel and heartless, 

I am might I am power, I'm due process, I will smite

Our enemies destroy Mettle I'll deploy

But to me the lyrics are more of a threat to anyone who would cause harm not to the person being sung to. Again it’s hard to really argue with their argument as we don’t get much more then “Trust me I said so” so I am just kind of having to guess here for that particular part. But that section is what I would call the most “threatening” portion that feels very obviously directed towards Salem in his mind and the unseen threat to the listener. 

Their is also an oh so convenient skipping over of what I find to be the most powerful part of the song: I would die Without regret, I'd offer up my life With zero reservations I would fly Into the sun, if that would keep our dream alive

Deliver you from harm Shelter in my arms The fear will surely fade Know right now the plan I made will guide us home We'll survive this storm

It is also important to note that this section is where the song start off in Gravity. The very first words of Hero most people heard where “I would die” we see James fighting Watts and a song that is James’s song declaring his willingness to die if it meant keeping people safe. Those are the first words we see from the song meant to be a gateway into James’s mind, a willingness to die for the dream, and an assurance that he will keep you safe and that somehow they will make it through the darkness and find the light again. Somehow you have convinced yourself that that is somehow a threat and mimicking the villains? 

I- I have no words. You literally acknowledge this section is the damn chorus, the section of the song that is supposed to repeat and are now trying to insist it is an obsessive mantra. Trying to argue the chorus is an obsessive mantra makes no damn sense at all. It’s taking something that is in most songs and trying to make it into something it is not. Here is how the chorus is defined: Chorus. The chorus is the big payoff and climax of the song. It's also where the verse and pre-chorus have been reduced to a simple repeated sentiment.

So in this case, the climax, the payoff and sentiment the song wants you to walk away with can be broken down to Ironwoods strong desire to protect people, a willingness to put himself in extreme danger and suffer extreme harm to do so, and an assurance to hang in their a little longer. Which reads as they initially correctly pointed out, a comforting gesture meant to reassure the listener that no matter how bad or scary things seem, they will survive, they will make it through and be okay. That’s not an obsessive mantra, it’s an assurance, a promise. 

This is truly a gross misreading of the text in volume 7 it’s actually infuriating. It wasn’t about just “Keeping Atlas afloat” Salem, the person hellbent on ending the world whom he just discovered is immortal was heading straight for Atlas and they had no plan to deal with her. He was traumatized and triggered and terrified what happened to Beacon would happen to Atlas and knew she wanted to end the world. Yes, he was going to leave behind those trapped on Mantel but them dying? Is still Salem’s fault. She is the one killing people. She is the one who is willing to do anything to get what she wants and what she wants is to end the world and Atlas is currently housing literally half if the items she needs to do that. Trying to make sure she doesn’t get those items isn’t him focusing on just trying to keep Atlas afloat its about trying to keep the whole damn world from dying. 

Yes,, James does some horrific things in volume 8, I won’t pretend that is not the case, the issue is it happens far to quickly and in a way that is not only extremely out of character but also is extremely ableist and harmful. But reassuring someone who reasonably would be terrified and unsure if they can survive the storm that they will make it is not an obsessive craze to “protect”. No one accuses the mains of being obsessed with being Heroes, people just say they are trying to protect people. So trying to twist James into some man obsessed with Atlas just really doesn’t work especially given the lyrics of the song. 

This section is an odd one because that line is literally a callback to a comment James  made back in volume 2 towards Ozpin asking him if he thinks his children can win a war and Ozpin sadly saying he hopes they won’t. It was an ideological conflict wherein James has faith in his Atlesian Knights taking over the battlefield, Ozpin seems to be more content with the status quo. James recognizes how dangerous being a hunter is and sees a lot of people dying from it and thinks they need a new way of dealing with the Grimm that minimized people on the battlefield. We also did see in volume 2 James is willing to listen to other people and follow their plans instead. James wanted to send his army to investigate Mount Glenn, Ozpin wanted to send team RWBY and James follows his lead and lets him send team RWBY which leads to a complete disaster. The WF just moves their plan forward and invades Vale and sends everyone into a panic and leads to a lot of destruction of the city. But also, this section is kind of trying to be miseading, “I’ve made my plan” is the ending of the verse that goes:

What if it's true as they say That I don't have a heart That I'm more a machine than a man? What would that change Would it matter at all? I've made my plan

The I’ve made my plan section is referencing back to the section where James is wondering, am I a monster? Am I just being heartless and cruel? Before disregarding the fear and reminding himself more then anything that he has a plan, he knows what he’s doing and regardless of what people say that won’t change his course of action because he believes it can keep people safe. 

I actually sat down and listened to Sacrifice for this post and I just am not seeing what they are implying here in Sacrifice. With how many people I’ve seen say it I imagine their is something that is just not clicking lolz and I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this. The only thing that maybe would work is this little section here:

What if all the plans you made

Where not worth the price they paid

That section I can kind of see, in Hero it mentions having a plan and Sacrifice questions if the plan is worth the price which again, I do think Volume 7 introduced a trolley problem which both sides had a high price, one that should not have to be paid but one Salem was going to take no matter what any party did and the decision came down to more what was the least awful price to pay which is not an easy question to answer nor a rabbit hole I intend on exploring in this post.

Back to the point I really really do not understand how they could walk away from Hero thinking James is mimicking Salem, the person responsible for his severe trauma. The song has brief mentions about how emotions can get in the way of doing what needs to be done which in some ways is true. Emotions can cloud peoples judgement and keep them from seeing clearly. You can’t completely ignore your emotions like James toys with in volume 7 but that scene always read to me as a traumatized person trying to emotionally work through everything that happened and kind of wishing he didn’t have to feel all of those complicated feelings he’s dealing with which....I honestly get. I imagine most of us have things in our lives that cause us pain, things we wish we didn’t have to feel and wish we could make go away. That doesn’t make us, or James, like the villains for feeling those things.

The whole “Casting doubt on RWBY + JNRO thing is a continuing problem within the FNDM. They simultaneously insist we can’t be too critical of them because “they’re just kids” while also trying to insist they are the only ones who can save the world and we shouldn’t doubt them because they aren’t kids. The narrative can’t seem to make up its mind on what it’s trying to say about them in regards to whether they are adults who can be trusted to handle these things or if they’re just uwu sad kids and its oh so sad they have to fight. We cannot have it both ways, either they are kids who shouldn’t have to fight a war, or they are adults who can make their own choices. The arc we see James go on is one wherein he does see the students as kids who shouldn’t have to be fighting this war but also recognizes they have to and seeing how RWBY has grown and all that they have endured and recognizes they can handle the heavy responsibility of being huntress’s when he gives them their licenses. The line is just a callback to volume 2 and you my dude are reading way to much into it lolz. (also I hate to break it to you but the rabbit hole is not that deep. CRWBY just is constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall and praying something sticks and the FNDM is falling for it.)

The point being, it is so frustrating seeing people not taking Hero, a song which James declares he is willing to die to save people, is willing to suffer extreme pain and harm to stop Salem followed by him willingly searing the flesh off of his own arm to stop Watts, and say it shows he is a villain.

We can see here how much pain he is in as he is doing this. He has to stop and he grabs his arm in pain because it hurts so much and understandably so. It’s agonizing but he tries. 

Some people think here he’s even starting to go into shock from the shear agony of what he is trying to do, but he does it anyways. He pushes through the unbearable pain because he knows what will happen if he doesn’t. His song is called Hero because in this moment, he was being a true hero in a scene that none of the mains have come even close to matching. Hero is about a man fighting to try and keep the world from ending and reassuring the people looking up to him that they can do it, they just have to hold on. 

[cocogum]

Alluka and Nanika’s relationship is despicably twisted.

In the world of HxH, duos have taken shapes in numerous forms and meanings depending on who they are as people.

Duos such as Netero and Zeno, Silva and Zeno, Gon and Killua, Pariston and Ging, Illumi and Hisoka, and many more have all given different significances and purposes for siding with the person they are currently with, no matter if they are shown in a bad, good or grey light.

But what if one of those duos wasn’t balanced or reciprocated?

What if it was instead a dependable one-sided partnership and not a consensual one but took the appearance of a balanced relationship right under our noses?

And what if that type of “duo” completely missed us due to how we conveniently perceive these two as being “adorable” or “pure” when they’re put together?

There’s a good chance we didn’t notice this toxic relationship at first glance since Alluka and Nanika are the duos described here.

Throughout the episodes and chapters alike, we have come to learn more about how Alluka and Nanika seem to be cooperating and functioning separately.

From the differences between their speech patterns to their personality, we have also come to notice how they easily get along with one another despite sharing one singular body.

So it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that their relationship isn’t critically unbalanced.

When you are completely certain two individuals are considered to be a team, you should at least know about both parties to better know what their personalities and especially intentions are all about.

Alluka should theoretically be the first that comes to mind when we think about which of them is easier to learn more about since the personality of the zoldyck is pretty transparent when in actuality, they are just as difficult to figure out as the other.

So to start, let’s begin with the one that we truly know the most about: Nanika.

Since this creature isn’t human, the only way to know what it does and what it is capable of is to learn its species’ roots.

This shouldn’t be a problem for anyone to find out more about Nanika’s abilities since we already witnessed what she could do already. But once we start to learn what it can do to its captor, we learn that it is not just her requests we need to fear.

And the captor in this situation would be Alluka.

We have already found an immediate red flag.

If you need a briefer, here is what we publicly know about Nanika:

Nanika is part of the Five Threats that were obtained from the Dark Continent during the five voyages that occurred in the past. Contrary to what Killua thinks of her, Nanika is part of a gaseous lifeform species called “Ai” and lives southwest of Lake Mobius. They do not have any sort of actual language system whatsoever. However, they do seem to make a sound close to the word “Ai” which is the Japanese word for “love”. They are lifeforms capable to give a maximum of four requests to an individual which usually leads that person to die by getting squashed or wrung to death if they do not accomplish any or only half of the beings’ requests.

So far, this is all we have of its capabilities on the surface but things seem to turn eerily familiar for the worst once we dig under the iceberg.

And this is where the captor comes into play.

This small detail is what immediately sorts Alluka and Nanika out from the usual duo dynamic because this dangerous ability of Nanika is the very reason why Alluka is the way that she is.

Throughout our time with Alluka, the possessed zoldyck has been shown countless times to not specifically care about Nanika’s victims which are the ones who usually die due to an individual’s wish.

The people that get squashed to death don’t seem to faze Alluka in any way.

We see this time and time again.

Whenever Alluka sees or hears about the news of innocent victims, no distinct reaction is present on the kid’s face.

Example 1: Mitsuba’s death which lead to her lover also dying in the process gave Alluka no reaction.

Example 2: The dead people related to the photographer who got through the zoldyck gates thanks to Milluki gave Alluka no reaction.

Example 3: The female servant named Kasuga who babysat Alluka died right in front of the said child’s eyes and still gave Alluka no reaction.

At first glance, Alluka’s odd behaviour could have been resolved with logical explanations such as the fact that the zoldyck is still very young, and doesn’t know any better, not to mention that the child is part of an assassin family so death is pretty much a norm here so it would be alright to think that the deaths happening left and right is appropriate.

But if we follow that logic, then it wouldn’t make any sense as to why Alluka is capable to know that hurting people’s feelings is a wrong thing to do when Killua stood up to Nanika and told her to disappear.

If Alluka knows that hurting people verbally is wrong, then the kid should be able to know that hurting people physically is just as bad as words except worse.

Something is wrong here.

Normal children would be able to comprehend that hurtful gestures and words can be harmful to anyone.

So why isn’t Alluka also standing up for the unnecessary physical violence that Nanika is causing?

It’s clear as day that Alluka doesn’t see anything wrong with Nanika. She fully supports the calamity and would do anything for it to the point where she would even scold Killua, her own brother, for trying to make Nanika leave.

This is hard solid evidence that Alluka is also a victim of Nanika.

Since the victim is forced to fully support and encourage the self-destructive behaviour of Ai, that makes Alluka a sort of pawn to manipulate for Nanika.

Whether Alluka realizes this or not, this could also explain her lack of personality. Alluka is always seen gaping like a fish whenever accidents and death happen all around her. Almost like she couldn’t have a personality of her own because of Nanika’s presence taking all the space, suppressing her and keeping her in a corner in her own body.

Yes, not only is Alluka always supposed to support Nanika no matter what, the zoldyck is not even capable of being present in her own body for long periods.

According to Killua, the number of times Alluka truly appeared without Nanika was deemed to be close to nothing.

So Alluka can't essentially come back when:

1. the person who couldn’t have completed all of Nanika’s requests dies, Alluka cannot come out until the requests have been completed by someone else who comes along right after.

2. the person who’s been completing requests suddenly moves away from Nanika and the wish is cancelled (ex: Tsubone and the fingernails).

3. Nanika isn’t very good at healing so whenever she finishes healing someone or something, she has to go to sleep for a long while.

Because we see the requests piling up when Alluka’s body is present, many have failed to realize which of the two was talking in some cases since some fans believe that Alluka was mostly present everywhere because Nanika hasn’t physically appeared.

When this is strictly false.

Nanika can appear without changing Alluka’s face.

Fortunately for Killua, you can pinpoint exactly when Alluka is present and when Nanika has taken over simply by analyzing the body’s speech pattern.

Whenever the body is calling people by their full names (ex: “Kurapika”, “Hisoka”), Nanika is present.

Whenever the body is calling people with an honorific (ex: “Gon-chan”, “Mitsuba-san”) or some kind of nickname (ex: “Oniichan”), Alluka is present.

This helpful detail reinforces the fact that Alluka is encouraging Nanika’s behaviour as well as being incapable of having free will over her own body.

Above all that, Nanika could be aware of everything that she’s doing to Alluka.

After all, if asking for requests and expecting some people to die to some of them is a natural habit/side-effect of Nanika’s, then she could very well believe that what she’s doing to Alluka is completely natural.

Even though Nanika doesn’t see anything wrong with the killings she committed, she has shown to be capable of loving her vessel and Killua.

So the possibility of her thinking that what she’s doing to them is normal but would still genuinely love them, wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe.

However, the love that she bears for them doesn’t mean she’ll willingly stop granting wishes if they don’t like it.

It’s in her nature to give out requests after all.

Nanika’s ability is all about manipulation, her main objective is to grant desires without stopping. This also means that she’ll do anything to keep granting even if she has to manipulate her close ones.

A good proof of this would have to be the time when Nanika suddenly became very vocal about her feelings towards Killua when he started telling her she couldn’t come out anymore.

Nanika completely understood at the time that not coming out anymore meant no more wishes to give.

She immediately becomes less commanding and instead tells him how she loves him for him to feel guilty for the fact that he’s about to make her stop doing what she loves entirely.

While codependency is a very common thing in our world, where someone deliberately supports their partner’s self-destructive behaviour, in this case, the Ai species seems to use that same tactic to their advantage by instead forcing their victims to feel those same feelings towards them instead of letting them make that choice on their own.

Although it is not confirmed if Nanika initially didn’t care for Alluka and Killua the first time she met them and slowly genuinely loved them later on, it does not change the fact that her species have a strong tendency to control their vessel so that they could get the chance to make more wishes by their vessel’s forced consent.

In other words, Nanika is completely codependent on Alluka.

She has an obsessive focus on her partner’s behaviour, tries to control her other half daily, literally doesn’t have any boundaries since they both share the same body and especially doesn’t want to be separated from her vessel since her true form is primarily made of gas.

If Killua thought that Alluka’s living condition was unhealthy and dangerous because of his family, then he should have also tried pushing Nanika away when he still had the chance back in the hospital.

Now that Alluka knows what he was about to do, she forced him to respect Nanika’s place in their private circle and he immediately agreed to do just that so that his younger sibling won’t get angry at him.

There is now nothing that Killua can do to erase Nanika anymore.

She has Alluka fully wrapped around her finger and she plans on keeping it that way for as long as she lives.

[strawberrymilkgeorge]

Part Fourteen. There's No Way.

word count: 5k (not including pictures) warnings: swearing

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

a/n: yeeeeee very excited about this chapter!! we're getting so close to some good stuff!!!! hope you like it!!! (also, if you understand the reference to bug’s second tweet about mr clean, you’re a real one) 

______

Y/n laughed as she tucked her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on top as she stared at her computer monitor. "Yeah, okay, Gogy."

Quackity's laugh sounded through her headphones, cackling loudly and gasping for air as George defended himself in their voice channel. None of them were streaming, which allowed them to tease each other relentlessly without worrying about leaking real things. Currently, the target of the teasing was Y/n. Her guilty crime: Dream’s nickname for her. "She got his ass!"

"Oh shut up, Big Q," Y/n quickly spat back. "At least neither of us has a nickname that lies about our size. Short boy."

Quackity stopped laughing and pulled out his defensive card. "Okay, that's literally not funny. That's messed up of you to say, actually."

"Waaah," Y/n mocked.

"Okay, Bugsy, but no one seriously calls me Gogy, it's just as a joke," George defended himself. "I was only saying that I think it's cute how Dream calls you Bug!"

"Shut up," she mumbled with embarrassment. She loved the nickname and especially how everyone seemed to agree it was reserved for him. She wondered if he noticed that too, how everyone else, including most fans, called her Bugsy, leaving Dream as the only online friend who used the nickname.

"She's embarrassed," Quackity giggled. "Awww. Is the Buggy Wuggy embarrassed of having a crush?"

“I don’t have a crush,” she lied convincingly. 

“You better not. The title of your affection deservingly goes to me,” he said proudly, as if there was any shred of truth in his words.

“Get over yourself, Quackity,” George laughed, “before Dream tells you off again about being too short for Bugsy.”

“HEY!”

"I'm back," Sapnap announced as he unmuted in Discord. "What did I miss?"

"They're still bullying me," Y/n exaggerated.

“No, they’re bullying me!” Quackity scoffed.

“Sapnap, make them stop,” Y/n begged playfully. Usually Sapnap was on her side.

"It’s for a good reason though," Sapnap teased. "I mean, we'll stop bullying you if you admit to liking him," he lowered his voice slightly, probably since he lived in the same house as the man they were talking about.

Y/n smiled to herself and hid it behind her hoodie sleeve as if they could see her anyway. She kinda liked that she hadn't told Quackity or Sapnap about her official crush, enjoying having a secret like that. Well, a secret that George, Karl, and Naomi knew too.

"Then I guess I'll be bullied until the day that I die," she sighed. She swore she heard George cover a laugh with a cough and she sent his icon a death glare. He seemed to enjoy knowing her secret a little too much. 

"Is anyone going to actually stream today?" Sapnap asked. "I wanna do something."

"I'm thinking about doing Jackbox later," Quackity admitted. "Do you guys wanna join if I do?"

"Yes! Please," Sapnap whined. "I'm so bored."

"Sure, I'll play. Karl is spending the night so I can make him play too."

"Sleepover?" George asked. " Can I come?"

"Hm, no."

"That's messed up!"

"Can you join, George?" Quackity asked. "I need you in my title."

George hummed contemplatively and his voice turned mischievous, if only for a moment. "Yeah, if you get Dream to play."

Yeah, he definitely enjoyed knowing her secret too much.

"Right, you only play when your boyfriend plays too," Quackity groaned. "Cancel Dreamnotfound, I believe in Dreamsy supremacy."

"Says the man who asks me to marry him every day," Y/n scoffed.

"Actually, you're right! Bugity supremacy," he said.

"I swear it's become more frequent since I said you could flirt with me online again."

"It has, I'm making up for lost time."

Y/n rolled her eyes and Sapnap laughed. "I'll get Dream to play," Sapnap offered.

"So you'll play, George? I need you to commit," Quackity said.

"Yeah, why not," George agreed before adding with a giggle, "I wanna see Dream try to flirt with Bugsy."

"I hate you all,” specifically you, George, she thought. “I'm not playing anymore."

"NO, YOU ALREADY SAID YOU WOULD!" Quackity shouted.

"FINE," she groaned, a small laugh escaping her lips and completely exposing that she wasn't actually mad. "Speaking of Karl sleeping over, he's coming over in a bit so I'm gonna get off."

"Booo," Sapnap protested lightly. "Have fun with Karl."

"Let me know if he's going to play Jackbox with us. He better," Quackity threatened with no real substance.

"I'll make him," Y/n promised. "Bye guys!"

"Bye!" George and Sapnap shouted together before she disconnected the call.

Y/n stood up from her desk, stretching softly before looking around her room. She had a laundry basket in the corner, overflowing with clean, and now probably wrinkled, clothes waiting to be folded. She decided to use her time to clean up before Karl got there, even though they were probably going to sleep on the couches if at all.

She dumped the clean clothes onto her bed, tossing the things that needed to be hung to the side and neatly folded the rest. When she put her hoodies and sweaters on hangers, she noticed how much of her friends' merch she had. She had two GeorgeNotFound hoodies, a Sapnap shirt and hoodie, and even a Quackity hoodie. Karl didn't have any merch, but she did have a few of his personal hoodies that she had stolen from him over time and considered those her own exclusive merch, even though some of them had the Mr. Beast logo on them. She decided she needed Dream's merch.

For some unknown reason, perhaps it was because of how much she liked him, her face grew warm at the thought of wearing a Dream hoodie, even though it wouldn't have belonged to him. The idea made her nervous, like that would somehow give away that she had a crush on him if she bought some of his merch, even though she bought some of her friends' and even had Karl's actual hoodies. Despite the reasons that that was stupid of her to think, her brain said owning one Dream hoodie would be a dead giveaway of her crush, so she put off buying any. In reality, he'd probably laugh in his cute way when he heard that she bought one, or maybe go "whAT!" in surprise and happiness.

She desperately wanted to tell him things like that, tell him how happy his laugh made her and how adorable he was, or how she got butterflies every time he talked about anything at all. Since she couldn’t just call him up and tell him she hated stopped thinking about him, she decided to do something bold and subtweeted him, even adding a picture of herself with her face covered, hoping he would know it was about him, but that no one else would. She turned off comments for good measure, in case the stans made assumptions. Now that she threw away the "no flirting" rule for all her friends, she could do things like this. Worst case scenario is he thinks it’s weird, she tells him it was only a joke, and they go on their merry ways. Her heart would be broken, but nevertheless her ego would be somewhat saved. Harmless. 

Nervously ― plagued with the thoughts of possible consequences of posting something so bold and, to her, so obvious — she made her way to the kitchen and got a glass of water. He would know it was about him, right? And that's what she wanted? It was so forward of her to say to the world, especially since she hadn't tagged him in it. Leaving it up to interpretation almost made it like she was trying to hide it from him, which wasn't the case or she wouldn't have hit, Tweet.

She waited for him to tweet something vague about her as a response, or maybe even text her, before realizing it had the potential to make him uncomfortable. Maybe he would pretend to not see it so he didn't embarrass her, or didn't even know it was about him. Or maybe he's asleep and hasn't been on his phone. She looked at her clock. Dream asleep at 3:30pm? Unlikely.

As Y/n fell on her bed, contemplating whether she should delete the post and pretend like it never happened, she felt her phone vibrate and quickly swiped the screen to read it.

Y/n had to literally set her phone down to scream into her pillow. He was killing her. Stabbing her in the heart and twisting the knife with his sweet compliments and smooth delivery. He had to know what he was doing, the way he was talking to her like that. No one said "prove it" in that context without having something more behind it.

Why couldn't he just like her? Why did he have to be so nice and flirty towards all his friends? Why couldn’t she be the exception?

She picked her phone back up and left the messaging app, finding her camera roll and swiping through it in search for something to catch her eye. Food pic, meme, Karl’s cat, meme, picture of Naomi nearly falling off a sidewalk... where were her pictures of her face? Did she really not have any of herself? The seemingly endless scrolling stopped when she found one from when she first moved into the apartment. Naomi had taken pictures of every room to show her parents and asked Y/n if she could show her parents the streamers room as well. Y/n cheerfully agreed, and actually wanted to be in the photo because she loved Naomi’s parents like they were her own, so she jumped on her bed and smiled for the picture.

It was cute, the comforter she sat on was messy and looked comfy, and she liked the way she was posed, cross-legged and beaming at the camera with her dying plant on the windowsill in the background and fairy lights around the room. It was also back when her room was clean and presentable. Y/n thought it was a good photo and even would have posted it if not for the whole her being a faceless streamer thing.

She held her breath, contemplating if she should just send the image to Dream. She wanted to, she really did. But that fear of how he perceived her still nagged in the back of her mind.

Y/n must have been mulling it over for a while because as she decided to not send it, Dream followed up on his last text, clearly worried that he was pressuring her. She wanted to change the subject as soon as possible before she changed her mind and face revealed to him.

Y/n took a deep breath at the thought of how close she was to sending that picture to Dream. It wasn't the first time she genuinely considered it, nor would it be the last, but that was the first time she actually looked through her camera roll for options. She so desperately wanted to. Wanted to show him what she looked like. Wanted to hear what he thought of her. Wanted to hear him say, "I like you, Bug" after finally seeing what she looked like. Wanted to let him know how much she trusted him by showing him her biggest fear. It would be so easy to just rip off the Band-Aid; only a few clicks and he could see her face. See her.

But then there was the possibility of none of her fantasies happening. What if she sent him a picture saying, "here is me!" and all he says is, "nice", not finding her pretty or ugly? What if he thought it was just like... seeing a picture of a friend. He and I are just friends, Y/n scolded herself. But him seeing her opened up the opportunity for him to like her.

It was scarier the longer she put it off, almost like the more she postponed it, the more she had to prove. If Dream knew what she looked like from the beginning, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But since she had waited so long to show him, she felt like she had to make it worth the wait.

Was she worth the wait?

Y/n's bedroom door swung open, ripping her out of her thoughts and letting her know that Karl had arrived. He smiled at her and she laughed in response.

"Hello, Karl. Ever heard of knocking?"

"Nope!" he responded as he set down a cupholder with three drinks on her nightstand. "How are you?"

"Good." Daydreaming out about Dream... again. "How are you?"

"I'm so excited!" He dropped his backpack on the floor and turned to her, pulling her off her bed and giving her a hug. "I've missed you!"

"You saw me, like, a couple of days ago," she laughed as she hugged him back.

"A couple of days too long," he sighed dramatically, rocking back and forth into the hug before Y/n lightly pulled away from him. "Where's Naomi?"

"Uh... in her room I'm guessing?"

"I'm going to go give this to her," he explained grabbing one of the drinks and walking out. "Don't miss me too much!"

Y/n laughed and shook her head, laying back down on her bed with her phone in hand. She reread some of the texts between her and Dream and couldn't help the large smile that plastered itself on her face.

When Karl came back in, he jumped on the bed, wrapping his arms around her stomach and snuggling into her side. "Hello."

She laughed but pushed him away slightly, trying to ignore the pout on his face at her actions. "Hi."

"Oh, happy December!"

"Already? Geesh."

"Yeah, only 27 days until the lake!!!!"

Nervous and excited butterflies festered in the pit of Y/n's stomach. "What drink did you get me?"

"Your faaavorite," he sang as he grabbed the drink letting her sit up and lean against the headboard before handing it to her.

"Thank you very much," she said as she took a sip. "Oh, hey, so Quackity wants to do a Jackbox stream tonight and I said you'd join."

Karl groaned and laid back on Y/n, careful not to knock her drink out of her hand. "Noooo...."

"You don't wanna play?" she asked genuinely, patting his hair lightly as his head rested on her legs.

"I just want to hang out with you. It's been so long since we had Karl and Y/n time."

She sighed. "I know, but it will be fun. We'll play for like an hour and a half and then we can hang out for the rest of the night and all day tomorrow until you have to go to Jimmy’s house," she bargained like she was talking a four-year-old into eating some vegetables.

"Hmph. Fine," Karl pouted. "Is Dream playing?"

She shrugged. "I think so?"

"That's why you want to play so bad."

"What? No! I agreed to play before Sapnap said he would ask him."

"Mmmhm. So that Tweet earlier wasn't about him?"

"The... Tweet?" she played dumb but her face warmed up.

"Or was it about me?" he joked. "Have you just been blown away ever since we met and you're still thinking about how cute I am?"

"Shut up," she lightly pushed Karl's head off her lap as her face grew hotter. "Am I wrong though?"

"I don't know!" he said as he sat up and looked at her. "I've never seen the man!!"

"Oh, really?" she asked. "I didn't want to post it because I didn't want people to think I was bragging about knowing what he looks like..." she sighed.

"Then why did you?"

"Because... I also really wanted him to see it," she said with a shy giggle.

Karl face lit up as he cackled at her. "Look at you, trying to flirt!! Let's gooo!!!"

Y/n buried her face in her sweatshirt collar and laughed.

"Oh my gosh? Y/n subtweeting and flirting at the same time?? What on Earth?"

"It only counts if it works."

"Did it?” Karl asked as he leaned back and played with his rings. “You turned off comments and I didn't see him subtweet you back."

"That's because he... texted me... instead."

"WHAT? What did he say?"

Y/n laughed. "He said I wasn't allowed to tweet something like that and then turn off comments so he can't tell everyone it was about him."

Karl cackled again. "HAHAH! So true though!"

"Whatever. I'm not telling you anything else about our conversation."

"Why, was it spicy?"

"No. But— this is weird to talk about!"

Karl frowned. "You don't have to tell me... I just think it's so cute. But if you ever do want to talk about how much you wuv Dweam, I'm all ears. Tell me everything."

Y/n rolled her eyes fondly. "Okay Kawl."

"What time is Quackity streaming?" Karl changed the subject, understanding that Y/n actually didn't want to talk about Dream.

"I don't know. Ask him. Also, tell him you're joining so he knows." She took another long sip from her drink as Karl pulled out his phone and texted Quackity.

Her fingers itched to make another Tweet about Dream and she finally succumbed, but decided to outright tease him instead of flirt, not hiding the identity of her target this time. Really, it was just an excuse for her to try to get his attention like she couldn't just text him and have it right away.

_____

"Sapnap!" Bugsy cheered as he joined the Discord, Quackity off talking to his chat while the others slowly joined. So far, the only people there were Sapnap, Bugsy, and Karl.

"Bugsy!" he called back with a giggle. "Hi! Is Karl coming?"

"I'm here, Sapnap!" Karl announced. "Bugsy and I are just using the same mic."

"Am I not good enough for you?" she teased Sapnap and he laughed.

"Well you're going to ignore me to talk to Dream once he gets here, so I need a backup so I'm not lonely."

Y/n rolled her eyes with a smile and Karl laughed.

"We can talk while they flirt," Karl promised.

"Both of you shut up," she scolded softly.

Pretty soon, the others joined. In the end, Quackity had convinced Bad, Punz, and Wilbur to play, as well as all the feral boys.

"You could only get nine people to play, Quackity?" George asked once Quackity unmuted. "Wow, you must not have friends."

"Hey! I have friends, George! I do."

"Then where's the tenth person, Big Q?" Wilbur countered.

"LOOK! It was last minute! Where's Drea– that man is always late, I swear to—"

"I'm here!" Dream said quickly, joining the voice channel. "I'm here! Hello, everyone. Hi, Bug."

Karl smacked his hand over his mouth to cover his laugh, which escaped anyway, as he nudged Y/n. She had immediately buried her face in her hands and Karl had to turn away from the mic so no one could hear him laugh at Dream's direct greeting.

She pinched Karl's side before greeting Dream. "Hi, Dream."

"Are you guys ready to play?" Quackity asked.

"Wait, no, we're going to have to have Gene! Can't you get anyone else?" Punz asked.

"Everyone I've asked has said no!" Quackity groaned. "I'm out of people. Deal with Gene."

Y/n and Karl looked at each other at the same time, thinking the same thing. Naomi had been talking about wanting to play Jackbox sometime but that she never has anyone to play with other than Karl and Y/n. She'd be meeting most of these people on vacation in a couple of weeks anyway, why not see if she wants to play?

"What about my roommate?" Y/n spoke up as Quackity sent the code to the Discord.

"Who?" he asked.

"You literally met her when you visited," Karl laughed. "Naomi."

"Oh, yeah! She's cool."

"Invite her to play," George said, making Dream laugh lightly and Y/n smile because they knew they had been talking a lot.

"Yeah, give me a second, don't start yet," Y/n said before sliding off her headphones and making her way to Naomi's room. Before Y/n could even knock, Naomi swung open her door quickly, phone open to the Twitch app in her hand.

"I heard everything," she rushed out, eyes wide and hopeful. "C-can I play?"

"Yeah, you want to?"

"PLEASE."

"There are currently 130,000 people watching, just so you know."

"That's fine, I'm cool under pressure." That was very true. Y/n wouldn’t have let Naomi join if she thought her friend couldn’t handle the attention. She thrived in it. "Should I come to your room?"

"Yeah, come on." Y/n led the way and pulled up a third chair to her desk. Karl offered to listen to the Discord on his phone so Naomi could use the second pair of headphones to listen to everyone. All three of them still used Y/n's mic, Karl muted on his phone. "Okay, kinda scuffed set up, but we're all here. Everyone, this is Naomi."

"Hello!" Naomi said happily. "Nice to meet you all!"

Everyone greeted her and Y/n noted the redness on Naomi's cheeks as George greeted her with a soft, "Nice to talk to you again, Naomi."

Karl giggled again and slapped his hand over his mouth; Y/n had a feeling he'd have to do that a lot this stream.

"Can we all agree to not pander?" Bad asked, earning a few approvals.

"What if we play one game where we only pander?" Dream asked. "Like pander as much as possible for every answer."

"Wait, yeah, let's do that so everyone can get it out of their system," Wilbur agreed.

"But Naomi doesn't know us well enough to pander yet," Sapnap countered.

"Yes I do," she said with a laugh. "I've watched enough streams and lore videos to know exactly how to get votes."

"Damn, okay then," Sapnap mumbled.

"Yeah, she'll be fine," George promise and Naomi blushed again, making Y/n laugh. Naomi joined the lobby on her phone and the round began.

Pandering being the goal was both annoying and hilarious because people used the same jokes, but it was funny to see how hard people were trying to get the audience votes.

"Something you would take with you on a deserted island," Quackity read out loud as the prompt showed up. "An iPad full of downloaded skephalo fanfiction, HAHAH, or dreamnotfound fanart." Everyone laughed and Y/n could hear George scoff at one answer in particular.

"Aw, I love Skeppy!" Bad said innocently.

"Was that your answer then, Badboyhalo?" Wilbur teased as everyone voted on their favorite. Y/n, of course, cast her vote towards skephalo, but still pretended like the other answer didn't make her jealous. The player votes were split, but the audience made Sapnap's answer win in a landslide.

"Okay, the most disappointing thing to hear from a friend," Wilbur read the next one out loud. "Dreamsy is real, and you don't have a shot with BugsyGames."

"What the hell?" Y/n laughed loudly at the similarity between the two responses. Dream was laughing so hard, wheezing like he would never stop, and the sound brought a large grin to Y/n's face.

Everyone's laughs overlapped and mingled with each other and it was such a happy sound, distracting everyone's attention from Y/n a little.

"That would be the worst thing to hear!" Quackity yelled. "Good thing Bugity is real."

Dream stopped laughing abruptly and instead yelled, "WHAT?" which only made everyone laugh harder.

"Vote!!" Bad reminded.

"Wait, Quackity, what did you just say?" Dream asked.

"Well, I've seen her face, so... I think she loves me more," he said, just trying to get a rise out of the other, which seemed to be working.

Y/n thought again about how close she was to sending a picture of herself to Dream earlier. He probably would have immediately used it against Quackity, but she didn't think she would have minded because it was funny to see Dream jealous, real or not.

"Only because you flew out to hang out with Karl!" Dream yelled. "I'd fly just to see her."

"Then do it," Y/n challenged before she could think and her heart stopped at her own words.

Dream went silent and it was Naomi's turn to cover her laugh with her hand, Karl's eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"Why are you so defensive, huh, Dream?" Punz asked.

"Uh, you-you have to be when fighting for Bug's love and attention," he joked finally, and Y/n's heart resumed beating, a little fast at the implication of his words. Why did she say that? He probably thought she was so weird. "It's every person for themselves." Then again, so was he.

The votes were pretty split since they said the same thing, but the surprising thing was who said what. She expected one of them to be from Quackity, but she didn't know who wrote the second one about not having a shot. Sapnap maybe? Karl? They all joke around so who put it?

"DREAM?" Sapnap laughed. "You wrote that?"

"Well, yeah, I mean..." he trailed off with a laugh and Y/n's face caught fire. Did he really think he didn't have a shot? Because reality check: he’s the only one with arrows and the target is wide open. Was he joking or stupid or was she just not as obvious as she previously thought?

"Okay, okay, next one," Quackity laughed. "If cats were political leaders, everyone’s favorite president would be: Patches, okay," he paused as Dream cheered loudly, "and Bingus."

"Corpse isn't even here! Wrong audience!" Karl said.

"Bingus is for all audiences," Y/n mumbled, making Naomi laugh.

"Uh-oh, another faceless man stealing Bugsy's heart—?" Sapnap joked, immediately cut off by Dream's stern, "no."

"Naomi, you put Patches?" Wilbur laughed as the votes went towards the girl on Y/n's left. "Okay, she does know more than we thought."

"Oh, I know everything," she said evilly, double-meaning evident in her voice. Y/n gave her a look and Naomi just smiled innocently.

The pandering got so intense that Y/n almost cried tears of joy when the first Quiplash game was over and the no-pandering rule got put back into play.

"What, you don't like your name being every other answer?" Wilbur joked and Y/n shook her head.

"No. But certain ones were okay..."

"Yeah, the Bugity ones," Quackity joked.

Dream hummed out a soft, "Okay, Quackity," and the next game began.

The games went on as usual and Y/n had a blast. It was so fun to see her best friend interact with all her online friends for the first time and it warmed her heart how inclusive they were, making sure Naomi wasn't left out of jokes. It helped that Naomi's sense of humor was similar and that she already knew a lot about the streamers, but Y/n was still grateful for all the efforts put forth by her friends.

It also helped that George and Naomi clearly liked each other.

"Is anyone going to stream?" Quackity asked as he started wrapping up.

"I will if no one else is," Punz said. "I'm going to play Valorant."

"Oh, can I play?" Sapnap asked.

"Yeah, definitely, dude."

"Okay, I'll raid you." Quackity muted after thanking everyone for playing and Y/n left the call.

"Dude, that was SO FUN!" Naomi stood up and yelled. She sat down on the end of Y/n's bed, hands balled up in excitement.

Karl laughed as he fell on top of the bed next to where Naomi sat. "I'm so glad you guys all got along!"

"Yeah, I almost started crying when everyone was laughing at your jokes," Y/n laughed, swiveling in her chair to look at them. "That made me so happy."

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me play. I had so much fun. And they're all so nice and funny and I was worried they'd make me feel left out but they didn't at all."

"I'm so glad you had fun," Y/n said. "We'll invite you again if you want."

"Please do. Only if everyone's okay with it though!"

"I'm sure they would be."

“The lake is going to be so fun,” she sighed whimsically. 

“Because George?” Karl teased, causing Naomi to punch his arm. 

A Discord notification sounded on Y/n's computer and she turned to look at the screen, smiling when she saw Dream's name.

Dream: You left the vc so quick :( Bugsy: I have two goons to hang out with :( Dream: :(((( Dream: I wanna be the only goon you hang out with Dream: I was right, I don't have a chance with you Dream: Karl is the only focus of Bugs attention Bugsy: ?? Bugsy: lies detected Dream: wait really Bugsy: ... Bugsy: do I need to remind you of the tweet I posted earlier Dream: bug don't say things like that to me Bugsy: why not Dream: can you kick Karl back to his house so we can ft or call :( Bugsy: no <3 Bugsy: we can tomorrow after Karl leaves Dream: promise? Dream: don't get my hopes up bug Bugsy: yeah I promise :) Dream: :D

"Pay attention to me!" Karl whined. Y/n turned back around and saw that Naomi had left the room and Karl was laying upside down, close to falling off the bed with his head dangling dangerously close to the ground.

She laughed and typed one last message to Dream.

Bugsy: bye bye dream :) Dream: goodnight bug :] sleep well

"Okay," she huffed jokingly, turning back to Karl. "You have my full, undivided attention."

_____

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taglist: CLOSED

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[where-fading-princesses-live]

Kylea Riffle Needs Your Help

ATTENTION FRIENDS….

I will be sharing about the journey of Kylea Riffle, a girl whose story I’ve been following along on Reddit under the username ‘’SketchKYR.’’

Kylea is a hobbyist and artist who shares her wonderful artworks from time to time of her original characters. 

But behind this sweet girl is also a girl who’s led an extremely hard life. 

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since I’ve stumbled on her recent updates. 

She’s currently in a bad situation, and as if things couldn’t get worse, it’s just been one bad thing after another the past few years. I want something to go right for her for a change. I want someone to make her day, to let her know she is loved and that someone out there cares. I want someone to be her Guardian Angel. 

She has no friends and family to fall back on and my efforts to spread the word about her situation has been in vain and has fallen on deaf ears.

I’ve shared her story to my Facebook wall, and I’ve tried reaching out to my Twitter followers and DeviantART watchers with little success. I’ve come here as a last resort in hopes that at least 10% of my 1300+ followers will care enough to listen.

I hope you won’t scroll past and find the heart to listen to her story. If you’re still with me, please read on. 

Kylea has set up a GoFundMe page some 5 months ago, and so far there have been only 2 donations in the past 2 days. Even if her goal isn’t met, something would be better than nothing. Obviously, I can’t raise all that money on my own and I need your help. Here is the link to her page if anyone wants to make a donation or get the word out.  Even if you can’t make a donation at this time, as I understand money is tight for everyone right now, I kindly ask you reblog this post. Any help would be greatly appreciated.  ❤️

Now before you start throwing your money away, here is the reason Kylea needs help:

On January 9, 2020, everything that could be shaken was shaken. That day brought with it a seismic occurrence that can still be felt even as this note is written to you. On that unforgettable day Kylea would face an overwhelming moment. To say what exactly she felt or thought ONLY God knows. What can be reasonably said…it was a dark place. With a broken and betrayed heart…with perceived isolation…and a spirit of fear as a battering ram against her mind…it was beginning to descend over the edge of life to a point of no return, and her fall began. The hours and days ahead were treacherous, heart wrenching and frightening to say the least. Moments of reprieve were given only to be interrupted by setbacks. Then enough daylight came to the situation that life stepped back from the edge. Just enough space to breathe and begin to ponder what she has come through.

Kylea was a caretaker for her mother for 6 months who was diagnosed with cancer (Stage 2 Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tongue) back in January 2019. By October, she was done with treatment, and every visible sign of it had gone. But then she took turn for the worst late November 2019 and continued to decline in December of 2019.  Despite their best efforts, though, things worsened. On New Year’s Day, her mother had to be admitted again. The admitting doctor pulled her aside and told her that her mother was dying.  Kylea told him the best thing he could do was to not give up right away and take care of her the best his team could. She said this out of desperation. Since her mother was African American, Kylea was very afraid of underlying racism being a factor for not wanting to treat her right away. But the cancer had spread.  The night before January 9th, Kylea and her sister went to visit their mother. Her condition was worsening. They were going to transfer her to the ICU.  The morning of the 9th, Kylea got a call while going to work (she’s a retail associate at Burlington) that her mother was going to be intubated that morning. She informed her Manager on Duty, and the Manger told Kylea to go be with her. Kylea rushed out of work and drove straight to the hospital to find out they had postponed intubation because they believed her breathing troubles were from her anxiety. Kylea went to see her, and her mother looked at her with a smile. Kylea gave her a hug and broke down crying. She told her mother she was sorry. She told her to please forgive her for ‘’being a bad daughter... For not doing enough... For not taking care of her.’’ Obviously, Ky was, by no means, ‘‘a bad daughter’’; she was a wonderful daughter and did everything she could, but she was emotionally distressed after everything they’ve been through (their biological father—who was white—was abusive and a cocaine addict and they were also estranged from their step-father, also white and abusive; their whole lives, they had to survive). Ky’s mother looked at her, smiled, and cupped her cheek, which she had never done before in Ky’s recollection. 

Ky got a call later that afternoon from one of her uncles. They were going to intubate her mother. Once she was intubated, her chances of making it were slim to none. She picked up her sister from work and headed down to the hospital. They prepared themselves for the possibility of their mom not making it. 

They get into the ICU, and they could not intubate her. The cancer had eclipsed her airway completely. All they could do was put her in a ventilator. Once she was taken off it, she was going to pass. Her mom had a single small tube supporting her lungs, but other than that, she was only hanging on by a small thread. Although she could not respond or open her eyes, Ky told her that she loved her and that she was sorry, over and over and over again. She felt like this was her fault. That she could have done something to prevent this outcome. A lot of what ifs, a lot of apologies, a lot of regret.

Their mom could not speak but she was okay if they let her go.

Ky looked at her twin sister. She asked her if she was ready, and she nodded. Ky called the doctors over. It was now after 5:00 in the afternoon. ‘‘We’re ready. Go ahead.’’ Ky watched them take the tube out and give her medication to keep her comfortable. Ky kissed the top of her head and held her hand. At 5:43 in the afternoon, their mom had succumbed to her cancer at fifty years old. She was only in the hospital for nine days.

You can read the full story on Kylea’s blog here.

Kylea also has a website for her wonderful artwork. 

Following their mom’s passing, Ky and her sister lived alone in the apartment they shared with their mother, trying to make ends meet. It was just the two girls alone, fending for themselves. As I’ve said, the girls have no other family to turn to in their time of need. Their biological father has since passed away and they are estranged from their step-father who both walked out on them and abandoned them for drugs when they needed them most. Their mother was the ‘’black sheep’’ in her family and so they are not close to their aunts and uncles either. The girls work in retail and they’ve been scrounging the past few years to pay off debts. They have an older sister who lived in Florida with her kids and her boyfriend. Their older sister is never there for them when they need her. 

In November 2020, their step-dad came out of the blue to threaten them for no reason. This is the tweet from Ky’s sister:

Their step-dad leased a house they used to live before moving into the apartment they now rent and in January 2019 he stole the girls’ money and left with only a ‘’Dear John’’ letter, leaving the girls in debt after their mom passed. Kylea managed to negotiate with the step-dad to pay off the debt for the prior rental property, but they’re still financially struggling. 

Some 9 or 10 months ago, their older sister and her boyfriend moved in with them. The sister is unemployed because she’s pregnant. I thought things would improve for the girls when their sister decided to move in with them and help contribute to the household expenses, but by the sounds of it, Kylea and her sister Kayla are the only ones working while the sister and her boyfriend take advantage of them. Kylea has to babysit her sister’s kids when she goes out despite her sister not working. Suffice to say, things have worsened. Ky purchased a new car that her sister’s boyfriend borrowed and totaled, plunging her further into debt. 

It’s literally Ky and Kay, the older (pregnant) sister, the sister’s two kids and boyfriend all living in this small, cramped apartment, living paycheck to paycheck.

LendingTree turned Kylea away from obtaining a loan for whatever reason.

(Also, in April 2020, Ky was diagnosed with hypochondria and she used to be on Prozac for Depression that she thought of quitting ‘’cold turkey’’ because she could no longer afford the medication.)

Though Kylea got a promotion at work in March 2021, with a slight monetary raise from her minimum wage, in November 2021, the whole family contracted COVID-19, despite being vaccinated. They cut down at hours at Kylea’s workplace, and she was late on rent. She was hospitalized for COVID in December and was out of work and unable to pay her bills. 

Kayla too has reached a plea:

I don’t know what their financial situation is now, but it seems to have been one downward spiral after another. 

(Kayla draws too and you can also find her on Instagram.)

Here is Kylea’s Instagram for anyone interested:

And she has two DeviantART accounts:

I have followed her story since the beginning. Kylea  and her family have lived through circumstances most families cannot even fathom.  I pray her journey becomes an upward narrow trail even as she reflects back to those darkest moments.   My prayers will follow and support her and I hope you all will help me do the same.

Thank you for reading.

[mettywiththenotes]

Izuku’s Emotional Neglect

Hi so I’m not okay because I keep thinking about Izuku

This kid has been emotionally neglected since he was little. Izuku has had NOBODY to rely on emotionally

He didn’t have Inko, or his classmates, or All Might. Actually, All Might is borderline the only one he’s confided in [since they talk briefly about their connection of being quirkless], but he still holds back

Inko is trying her best and no parent is perfect, I see that, but what she said to Izuku that fateful night damaged that boy and the way he saw himself.

He asks her if he can be a hero, and she cries and says she’s sorry. Not only does this imply that Izuku’s quirklessness is bad, it also implies that she was lying.

And by the way, I don’t mean that Inko ACTUALLY lied that Izuku could be a hero, nor do I think that she meant to mean his quirklessness was bad.

But I need, NEED, to stress that this is how Izuku sees it. This is how he would perceive it, subconciously.

If you’re a child and you think that you can be a hero, your parent encourages it because it makes you happy. But then suddenly you can’t be a hero, and you ask them one more time if it’s possible, hoping that those little wishes you made weren’t fruitless, that maybe somehow this is some kind of dream and she’ll wake you up from it with her smile and her warmth, promising that even with this newfound “disability” you can still be a hero, but instead she cries and apologises to you? That’s going to make you think. It’s going to make you think “Was she lying? if she truly believed in me, why would she cry and say she’s sorry? why isn’t she encouraging me, like she always does? what is happening?”

It’s not the truth, and Inko DIDN’T lie, but subconsciously I feel like it’s something that betrayed Izuku a great deal.

And with the quirklessness. He hates it, he hates feeling useless, and he saw himself as useless when he was quirkless, therefore -> quirkless is something weak and awful.

Time and time again, we see this evidence of the emotional neglect he was subjected to. It’s like actively ongoing and the effects of it are seen even now

We’ll start with the Inko one. I just mentioned it, but here are the panels. It’s really just the language that she uses

“You mean there’s something wrong?”

Apologizing over and over again, like not being normal was a bad thing. Moreso, I think this just meant that she knew how hard Izuku’s life was going to be as a quirkless person, but the way she says it makes it sound like what happened to Izuku was wrong and bad and incredibly awful

Then we have All Might disregarding his feelings and telling him straight up that he couldn’t be a hero

Which then leads to this commentary

“Don’t cry! Let it sink in!!” “Just block it out, just block it all out, just-”

*pats Izuku on head* You Can Fit So Much Denial And Repression Into This Kid!

Then further along, Izuku is seen, and he gets the quirk. He is then surrounded by people that love him, that want to help him, but it’s almost like even the narrative won’t let him have emotional closure.

In most emotional closure scenes (Tsuyu crying, Kirishima vs Rappa, Iieda in the hospital with Shouto and Izuku, Kacchan vs Deku 2), there is an end to it. The character is emotional, crying or upset, and thinking back on their regrets, spilling their guts as they scream, sob, or give solemn expressions. The other characters then cheer/hype them up, reaching some sort of conclusion to the character’s pain, and the situation is more or less resolved.

But that’s not the case with Izuku. He’s always left sorta hanging there, or his hurt and anger get sidetracked by something else. One example of this is the Running With All Might scene in the UA grounds

Izuku is incredibly upset that All Might chose to withhold information on Sir Nighteye and Mirio, and he speaks about how he can’t make sense of it. He’s voicing all his worries to All Might as they run, because he can’t stand the thought of All Might keeping something like this a secret from him.

And then All Might tells him why he kept it a secret, that he didn’t feel it was necessary to let Izuku know about Nighteye’s bias, and then it divulges into him telling Izuku he’s gonna die, and Izuku focuses on that instead.

I am NOT saying that All Might did this purposefully. He didn’t try and steer Izuku’s anger away from him, it was just that it all got revealed so suddenly, so the subject changed.

The narrative tosses Izuku’s feelings of anger aside, and instead Izuku gets emotional over All Might’s potential death. Idk man, to go from angry and upset about withheld information and then immediately shoved into the knowledge that your mentor-father figure is gonna die? That’s the narrative playing with Izuku’s feelings.

Obviously, All Might’s communication skills are awful and he just kinda unloaded all this stuff on Izuku cuz he didn’t think to tell him in the first place, but I still think Izuku’s feelings got pushed around here. He had no time to process any of it

Another example is the cafeteria scene with Shouto and Iieda

The scene goes that Izuku is visibly depressed by the Eri situation and Iieda and Shouto notice. They tell him that he can talk to them when everything gets too much [a parallel to the Stain fight], and Izuku cries. Izuku insists he shouldn’t cry, and Shouto tells him that, actually, Heroes cry too sometimes, and they offer him their food in an attempt to comfort him.

But the thing is, this scene doesn’t offer closure. Closure would be Izuku seeing that he could rely on his friends and telling them how he feels [he wouldn’t have to necessarily tell them about Eri - maybe just phrase it in another way that doesn’t reveal the mission]. Closure would be Izuku accepting that Heroes can cry too, and admitting he’s not okay. Instead, we have this

The scene feels... incomplete? Like there’s no knot at the end of the rope. Izuku is being comforted, but he’s not acknowledging his own feelings of sadness.

In fact, he’s shoveling food into his mouth to stop himself from crying, to shut himself up, to try and move forward and get past his little outburst.

I would go as far as to say this is self hatred eating, trying to quell that vulnerable part inside

I wouldn’t say Izuku HATES himself now. Rather, he just makes connections to his past quirkless self in his mind. It’s the negative emotion connection

Feeling weak? Well, you’re still like your quirkless self before! You’re still not good enough and useless!

Not strong enough? Sounds like back when you were quirkless! All weak and helpless! You can’t help anyone, which is why you need to get stronger, so you can move on from your past self!

Crying? Just like when you were quirkless! You always cried back then, like a helpless kid! You can’t be like that anymore, since you are now All Might’s Successor and A Hero, so stop crying! You’re not allowed to cry anymore!

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Izuku continuously represses these emotions as he gets stronger because he connects them to when he was quirkless. If you associate certain behaviors and emotions with how you were during a vulnerable and traumatic time in your life, you’re going to want to shove those emotions down so you don’t repeat what happened back then [in this case, Izuku sees himself being vulnerable as weak, and he saw himself as weak when he was quirkless, so he’s trying not to be vulnerable anymore].

And the scary thing is, now, we can even see the hatred in real time. I’m sure there are other examples in the manga, but one scene is very prominent in my mind, and it’s this one

Izuku is so incredibly strong now, he has saved many people, but he still can’t view himself as anything other than “useless” or “helpless” unless he powers through death itself just to break himself more. He almost feels like he HAS to do that in order to be seen as worthy, for himself and others. When he’s struggling, bleeding and heavily injured, he yells at himself as if it’s all his fault.

It’s not about whether he’s aware he’s actively dying or not. To him, being worthless and useless is infinitely worse than dying.

Actually, the way Izuku practically yells at himself in this panel reminds me of when he was walking home in chapter 1 after his chat with All Might [shown above when talking about All Might’s impact]

There are two translated versions of this actually that ring alarm bells in my head. There is the panel already pictured above, but I chose this panel too because I simply think it hits harder

“Don’t cry! You knew already, right?! This is reality...”

In either translation, he’s chiding himself. For crying. For being emotional.

And once again, I totally think this stems from emotional neglect. Trying not to get too personal here, but I know what this feels like, and I know the effect it has had on me. I can’t be vulnerable or spill my feelings in front of people, it just feels illegal or smthg. Like it shouldn’t be done. And like... if you’re taught from an early age that, one way or another, your feelings don’t matter and that nobody is going to pay attention to you, why try, right?

Then you just begin to Not Feel Properly, and you become incapable of expressing your feelings in a healthy manner

Current examples of this?

Izuku literally not giving himself time to process anything, like worry, grief, sadness. If anything, the only emotion he gives time for is anger. And he specifically directs it at All For One, cause that’s his target. [we saw little bits of this in War Arc but it also applies to the current arc]

He can’t cry. He feels emotional, sure. But he never lets his tears shed.

And one last bit of evidence

I’d say most if not all of these sound about right

In conclusion I wanna hug Izuku

[murphslass]

Nervous Much?

Pt.2 >> Pt.3 >>> Pt.4

Warnings: teasing, flirting, jealousy, fluff, plus sized!reader, slight angst

GIF Creds: @londoncapsule

Being someone on the heavier side always made you feel different. Either all eyes were on you or not even in your direction, especially when it came to men. You had been craving some sort of attention from guys but no one ever gave you time. Except weirdos who were more interested in you as an experience or just a chubby chaser. It was seriously so degrading and annoying.

You currently worked at a bar serving drinks and had a massive crush on the bartender Negan. He was gorgeous and such a charmer. He put the flirt mode on everytime he saw you or any other woman. So you always never took his words seriously whenever he would sweet talk you.

Saturday night was really busy like always, drunk frat boys and annoying girls all thirsty. These nights tired you out the most when going back and forth from the bar to tables. Drinks were super heavy and orders were growing complicated. Your break couldn’t come any sooner as one of the bartenders told you it was time. You silently thanked goodness as you placed your tray down. Going towards the back of the bar you stood outside and cursed under your breath.

“Fuck me…”

“Well don’t mind if I do sweet lips.”

You jumped at the voice and saw Negan smoking on the bench. You felt yourself getting flustered at his comment but remained calm on the outside.

“Sorry, didn’t know anyone else was out here.”

“Don’t apologize. I could use a beautiful gal’s company.”

You let out a giggle as moves to make room on the bench for you. Your feet felt instant relief as you sat down after hours of serving.

“Damn babygirl, you seem all worn out. They murdering you in there?”

“You have no idea. But I guess you’ll find out once you finish your cigarette.”

He chuckles as he takes a drag. Your eyes couldn’t help but wander to his pursed lips and how they parted to blow out the toxic smoke.

“See something you like babe?”

“Nope.”

You say quickly and turn away from him. Suddenly you felt anxious as Negan moved close and brought his arm to rest behind your shoulders.

“Wow. You must be so fucking on edge. You like me that much that I just get you all flustered in shit. Gotta say that shit is refreshing and adorable!”

He laughed loudly as you fiddled with your tank top and tried to look at his face. But you couldn’t help that remaining in eye contact made you feel tingly. Especially with that smile and it made you want to smile. Slowly your lips curled and he seemed happy with myself.

“Oh shit! There’s that pretty smile I’ve been dying to see. Look at you, such a fucking treat.”

You laugh and feeling more relaxed as he made comments.

“I know you probably gotta go back in soon but before you do could I borrow your phone? I actually lost mine in my truck.”

“Sure. Let me help.”

Negan stood with you and put out the cigarette as you followed him to his car. He unlocked the doors and called himself on your phone. As you tried listening for his phone you saw him pull it out of his pocket.

“Oh silly me. It was on me, but hey look here. I got some cute girl’s phone number now.”

You couldn’t say much as he saved your number and show that he put you in his phone as “Sweetcakes🍑” It made you feel all warm inside and maybe even a but confident. But that could wait as you realize your break was over. Rushing back inside and continuing labor for the drunks, you felt more at ease as Negan began his shift. He would look over towards you with a grin and made drinks.

After a few hours and growing close to closing up you saw a girl desperately flirting with Negan. She was the only few left in the building and it made you feel anger. The way he was looking at her and smiling at her made you feel sad. Was he really just pulling your strings for a quick fuck or was it just being nice. Gradually the last few left except the girl and you had to approach her.

“Excuse me ma’am. But were closed now.”

“I’m not done with my drink yet sweetie.”

“I can see that but it’s late and we all want to go home.”

“Fine then. Meet me outside you handsome devil.”

Your fingers gripped at your tray as you masked the jealousy you felt. She walked with an obvious sway in her hips and turned to wink at Negan.

“You can go Negan. I’ll clean up the bar and close up.”

“What makes you think I wanna leave?”

“Well your dates leaving isn’t she?”

“Oh please. I only flirt whenever I know the tip is gonna be huge. And boy did she tip.”

He said as held up the fifty dollars she left for his service. You still couldn’t shake the bad feeling she brought.

“Oh! I get it now. You’re jealous aren’t you?”

“I am not!”

You say as you wiped off the bar top with a damp rag. He giggled to himself as he dried glasses and watched you closely. The music played low in the background as you finish organizing everything. Negan followed and turned off all the lights, you both met the exit and locked the door. As you stepped out you wanted say something to Negan but that girl was outside waiting for him.

“Hey sexy. Wanna take me home?”

Negan cleary felt uncomfortable as she touched his arm and got a little too close. You were about to walk away before Negan took a hold on your wrist.

“Sorry. But my girlfriend and I are heading home. However, I did appreciate the tip.”

“Are fucking kidding me? You and this fucking whale?”

“Hey now, no need for disrespect missy.”

You felt nervous as he forcefully pulled you by the waist to toward his body.

“Ready to go home baby?”

Before you could answer he brought you into a deep heated kiss. You gasp against his lips and melted into him. Your concentration left as he held you so protectively and carefully. You let out a noise when he pulled away and you saw the girl stomp away. He laughed as walked you to your car and kept his hold on you. The courage you had left as you couldn’t face him after such a kiss.

“So can I expect another kiss?”

“From me?”

“Of course you sugar lips. Besides I hope you didn’t mind me calling mine. But if you like me as you perceive to, I think you’d like to be mine baby.”

You didn’t have much to say as you lean your back against your car with him standing next to you.

“How about this, I take you on a date. Dinner or a movie or whatever you’d like sweetcakes. That’s only if ya want to though.”

“That would be nice. But are you sure you’d want to? I mean look at me.”

“Fuck yes! I’ve been staring at you all night wanting to do all kinds of things, especially things go further than kissing.”

He says as moves hold your hand and look deeply in his eyes. Negan kisses your hand before stepping away but you stop him but grabbing his shirt.

“Wait!”

“Yes honey.”

“Could we maybe kiss again?”

He smirks and gently pins you against your car before kissing you yet again. His lips taking dominance over you so quickly and you submitted under his hold. You stay like this for a few minutes and just enjoy the treatment. You then groan frustrated as your phone rang in your pocket. You pull away and see your roomate calling.

“Yes?”

“You aren’t home yet so I just wanted to check on you.”

“Oh! I’m fine, just taking care of things.”

Your breath hitch as Negan kissed your neck and groped at your ass. You went to end the call fast and tugged at Negan’s hair to stop him.

“I gotta get going.”

“So soon?”

“Yeah I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Just know I’ll be texting you and most definitely gonna stroke my cock to this very moment.”

You face grew red and yet he laughed at your nervous attitude. His lips kissed your cheek as he pulls away to his vehicle. You couldn’t believe it at first but now it all sank in, you got a boyfriend now.

Part 2 🤭🤭???

JDM TAGLIST:

@ffakc @negans-attagirl @jonasdean02 @eddiesgirl @littlebadgirly @cosmilla @iluvneganandjamie @little-bad-girly @ohyoubetterbejokin @bratty-dolly @jdmsgal

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

Alex Fierro's Introduction Full Breakdown

Okokok so. This is going to go full English-professor mode, where I'm drawing conclusions that are gonna seem a little far-fetched. That's what's fun about media analysis! I can say something is a symbol, and even if I don't have enough faith in RR's competency to know if he meant for it to be a symbol, it's still true! That being said, a lot of these choices I'm sure are intentional, either at a literal or subliminal level. Page numbers are going to be used not to assert a kind of authority or whatever— this is a Tumblr post, not an essay— but to help readers find the pages I'm referencing in case they'd like to do some digging of their own. Also, this is going to be really long. Really sorry to anyone with ADHD; I might make an audiofile of this so you can get the information without having to read the whole thing. With all that, let's get into it!

To kick off, let's talk about Alex being in the form of a cheetah when she first meets Magnus. Of course, there's the obvious impact of him seeing her but only so breifly, as well as introducing the conflict between her and the rest of Hall 19. But that could have easily been accomplished by almost any animal. The choice of a cheetah being implicated implies two qualities of Alex that will be recurrent throughout the two books she's in: 1. She has a tendency to run away, as we'll later learn when she describes how she became homeless, and 2. To Magnus, she's elusive. She can't be caught or held down. The event that shows this so transparently is how Alex refuses to define their relationship at the end of the series, despite it clearly surpassing the normal bounds of friendship.

But the cheetah isn't the animal Alex is in the form of when Magnus first gets a good look at her; she's a weasel. Weasel's bring up all kinds of connotations: ferocity, slickness, a lack of charm. When we want to describe someone as an untrustworthy person, we call them a weasel. RR had Alex take this form to play up her comrades' feeling of distrust towards her. She could be a double-crosser. But paradoxically, the up-front and vicious mannerisms of a weasel also have a transperency. She does not try appealing to her Hallmate's sense of goodwill because she doesn't have anything to gain from it. So even though there is the implication that she might be an antagonist, there's also evidence from her actions and mannerisms that she isn't. The weasel's long and skinny frame also allow for a smooth transition into Alex's actual body, which is convenient.

As Alex transforms into her usual human form, Magnus describes her as "a regular human teen, long and lanky, with a swirl of dyed green hair, black at the roots, like a plug of weeds pulled out of a lawn" (pg. 50). That simile at the end is of particular interest. Let's compare it to another time Magnus describes Alex's hair, in Ship of the Dead: "Her hair had started to grow out, the black roots making her look even more imposing, like a lion with a healthy mane" (pg. 136). By contrasting these two different examples, we can see the development of Magnus and Alex's relationship. The first time he sees her, he thinks of her hair as something nasty— note the word choice "weeds." Later on, though, he becomes more affectionate towards her, more complentary. The immedient negative reaction is less his actual impression, though, and more the reaction he expected to have based on everyone else's reaction to Alex.

Her clothes are equally as interesting; as Magnus describes it, Alex wears "battered rose high-tops, skinny lime green corduroy pants, a pink-and-green argyle sweater-vest over a white tee, and another pink cashmere sweather wrapped around the waist like a kilt" (pg. 50). Aside from the obvious fact that this outfit is a) bizzare, b) fire, and c) Alex's signature colors, which add a layer of style to what can otherwise be a somewhat boring series fashion-wise (excuse me, Blitz), the outfit reveals a crucial facet of Alex's backstory in a kind of subtle way. These are expensive clothes, like the Stella McCartney dress in Alex's room. Note the mention of fabrics (corduroy, cashmere) and patterns (argyle). These indicate wealth and status. Even the high-tops; shoes like that don't come cheap. But I'd like to return to the very first word of the section: "battered." Alex's wardrobe show-cases a proximity to wealth, but also shows that that proximity has been strained and lengthened, maybe for an extended period of time. Alex dresses like a rich person, but she isn't one. Least, not anymore.

The last word of that outfit-introduction is also of interest: "kilt." At the current moment, Magnus thinks that Alex is male. No one has indicated otherwise to him. Everyone has been referring to Alex with he/him pronouns. Samirah called Alex her "brother" (pg. 29). His first thought in seeing what he at first perceives as a guy with a jacket wrapped around the waist is That looks like a kilt. This thought tells us about Magnus: despite being open and accepting, he still has some lingering notions of gender conformity from his years in wider American society.

Magnus also indicates that the outfit "reminded me of a jester's motley, or the coloration of a venomous animal warning the whole world" (pg. 50). This is rather self-explanatory, but it's still worth noting that Magnus sees the outfit as something bizzare, strange, and even perhaps comical. This places Alex at odds with the other people Magnus has met. It also reveals that Magnus has zero fashion sense. But we already knew that.

After finishing up staring at the ensemble, Magnus finally gets around to actually looking Alex in the face. First Magnus says that he "forgot how to breathe" (pg. 50), which, yeah, relatable. This is justifed by saying that Alex has the same face as Loki, but the very same sentence that asserts that that's the case also suggests an alternative reason: Alex has "the same unearthly beauty" as her father. Here we can see the beginnings of Magnus's attraction to Alex, though at this point, he still has a lot of internalized homophobia. Though there's certainly some truth in that Magnus was unnerved by Alex's resemblance to Loki, the idea that Magnus pointed out that Alex was pretty without elaborating on that thought until about a chapter later— after he was informed that Alex was presently a girl— can tell us a lot about how Magnus perceives sex and beauty.

Of course, Alex's eyes are given special attention. She has cool eyes; what can I say? But I'd like to focus in on how Magnus here depicts Alex's heterochromia as "completely unnerving" (pg. 50). Again, let's contrast this with how he describes them after getting to know Alex a little better in Ship of the Dead. In Chapter 3, Magnus describes "[Alex's] dark brown eye and his amber eye like mismatched moons cresting the horizon" (pg. 25). Once again, this shows the development of their relationship— but this time, it's in a much more personal way. Eyes are the windows to the soul; they are culturally important and biologically important in inter-personal connections. In you look into someone's eyes, you're giving them your full attention, and you're implying a kind of closeness. The way that Magnus describes Alex's eyes in the second passage is downright intimate. At this point, he is in love with Alex, and it is clear when contrasting the two descriptions.

As my last point, I'd like to discuss Alex's first words on page: "'Point that rifle somewhere else, or I will wrap it around your neck like a bow tie'" (pg. 51). First of all, Alex saying this with a "perfect white smile" (pg. 51) on his face implies that she is used to being threatened. She is not afraid of being shot; she counters the promise of an attack with a promise of her own. This pleads the question: why is Alex accustomed to violence? What events of her past or qualities of her life have brought her to this point? The threat itself reveals Alex's trauma from being genderfluid in a society with rigid gender norms, as well as her antagonistic relationship with her father. Magnus makes a comment that Alex "might actually know how to tie a bow tie, which was kind scary arcane knowledge" (pg. 51). Like Alex's wardrobe, the idea that she may have experience in high-class fashion also implies her former status as a rich kid.

I could go on. I could break apart Alex saying "'Pleased to meet you all, I guess'" (pg. 51). There is a wealth of information in this short page span that tells us things about Alex Fierro in the present moment, quietly demonstrates things about her past, and characterizes the narrator Magnus Chase. This passage is also effective in hindsight in marking the progress of Magnus and Alex's relationship.

But I'd like to take a step back and look at not the pieces, but the whole picture. Alex Fierro gets a full page of pure description— her outfit, her face— and about a chapter of introduction. This comes after several chapters of build-up. Alex Fierro is an important character you need to keep your eyes on. Alex Fierro is emotionally significant to the main character, Magnus Chase. Alex Fierro is one of the most developed and well-rounded characters that Rick Riordan has ever written— heck, she's one of the best characters in middle-grade books period. The extended emphasis on her and her alone tells us exactly what role she's going to play in this story: she's the star.

[lyrebirdswrites]

Shrödinger’s Nobara

So we got an update on how Nobara is doing. It was not the update I wanted to see.

My first impulse was to consider this a point blank confirmation of her death. I still think there’s a high chance she will not be recovering, and I would advise all Nobara stans to prepare emotionally for the possibility that she really is dead if you have not done so already. However, I also think it’s possible to make a case for her survival based on the information in this scene and the context from previous chapters, and I’m going to do my best to do so. Hopefully I can provide some comfort to anyone who might be freaking out over the implications here like I was at first.

Megumi doesn’t say she’s breathing or we don’t know or even it doesn’t look good - he says nothing at all. That does not fill me with confidence. But he doesn’t directly say she is gone either. This is a good time to remember the cardinal rule of character death; it’s not confirmed until we see the body. I think until we actually have indisputable proof of her death, we should continue operating under the assessment Nitta gave when he halted the damage caused by her wounds - don’t get your hopes up, but it’s not a zero percent chance.

I don’t consider Megumi’s pessimism to be indisputable proof. It’s damning, yes. But he is also highly subjective, inclined to assume the worst, and not an omnipotent force in the narrative. This isn’t me saying that the only reason there’s ambiguity is because she’s definitely still alive—that would be a wrong assumption to make. But if Akutami is still in two minds about what to do about her, or if he knows but doesn’t want to tell us, this scene is a neat way of sidestepping the need for a definitive answer right now. There’s enough plausible deniability in the framing of this exchange for Megumi’s answer to be read as she’s 100% dead, OR as she’s alive but in super fucking bad shape and it doesn’t look good. Whichever result it turns out to be, the scene can work in retrospect either way.

Which brings me to my not-retroactive interpretation of Yuuji’s immediate reaction. I think he would have been way more distressed if he perceived megumi’s silence as confirmation that she was without a doubt dead. He pulls himself together remarkably quickly for someone who full on had a mental breakdown mid fight at the sight of her injury. In the comments section over on readjujutsukaisen (credit where credit is due, not my analysis) commenter Asinine said “I think Megumi's non-response indicated the severity of her condition. I think Yuji's reaction revealed his pain followed by hope (clenched fist) she'll pull through.” That makes more sense to me than Yuuji thinking she’s actually dead and only having I get it!! to say about it before we rush on with the plot.

I’d really like to read the original raw version of this chapter, because it’s worth noting that the unofficial fan translation phrased Yuuji’s question like this: how is Kugisaki’s condition? It matters whether his question is past tense or present tense, because that positions Megumi’s answer as either past tense or present tense too. Megumi could be looking sad because, past tense, what happened to her was bad. Or he could be looking sad because, present tense, her condition is bad. I think the nuance there definitely affects how we as the audience should interpret this exchange and consequently Nobara’s chances. If anyone knows where I can read the raw scans please tell me.

Speaking of Nobara’s chances—structurally and narratively there is still more than enough room for her in the plot. When she was first taken out by Mahito, I figured she’d be fine because I thought her frequent references to people ‘messing up her beautiful face’ and her argument with Momo about scars on female jujutsu sorcerers/sexism in the jujutsu world were foreshadowing her having to live with that massive scar and a missing eye. If Akutami wants to continue exploring themes of feminism and sexism, as he has indicated through his characterisation of the broader zenin clan, Nobara now has a unique role to play in that aspect of the story: being treated differently after getting scarred.

Similarly, there are some interesting implications when it comes to her cursed technique and the current arc. Theoretically, she could use resonance on any of the newly awakened sorcerers/vessels and do some serious damage to The Brain, because they’re all strongly linked to him through the powers he gave them. She might provide an avenue to attack him later via that method—or Akutami might be deliberately sidelining her for the duration of this arc with the intent to have her recover later, because he saw this massive plot hole coming and he needs to thin out (cull) the crowd of awakened sorcerers first so she doesn’t have such easy access to a really powerful weakness in a major antagonist.

It’s also possible that he saw the plot hole coming and is killing her to fix it. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t have said in one of his interviews that he hadn’t made up his mind yet whether she was dead or not (?? That’s the translation I saw iirc, but I can’t vouch for its accuracy because I didn’t personally translate or cross check it myself).

Every other character’s death has been clear in a very gut punch kind of way, but ever since Nitta showed up this one has been SO ambiguous the whole way through. In my opinion, this scene does far more to increase the ambiguous tension than release it. It’s too vague. Akutami has been pretty good about giving his characters a fitting send off up to this point. I would be genuinely surprised if he broke the news about one of the main trio officially dying via one page in one chapter which doesn’t even give a status update though words, let alone through an actual drawing of her corpse/grave/ashes/funeral. Which loops me back to the cardinal rule of character death: it’s not confirmed until we see the body.

And let’s face it—if Akutami plans to keep Nobara alive, I am 100% sure he would drag the reveal out as long as possible and make it look as unlikely as possible in order to inflict Pain™ on his audience. Of course, if he plans to kill her off, the situation would look equally grim. But you know he wouldn’t hand us her recovery on a silver platter. Things seem bad (and like I said nobara stans this is your wake up call to start preparing for the worst case scenario now) but that doesn’t automatically mean that they are as bad as they seem.

In summary:

[thedeathdeelers]

Juke fluff, right this way (based on this post)

you’re music to me (now on AO3)

“So, how come you guys are always here?”

Julie was staring down at her latest doodle, contemplating adding some more purple to bring out the details, when the question popped into her head. She had been wondering for a while now why the boys weren’t using more of their supernatural ghostly powers to their advantage, and figured that now was as good a time as any to ask.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and both Reggie and Alex had disappeared off to wherever they liked to spend their free time. Whenever they weren’t practicing, the boys usually found ways to entertain themselves, mostly at the expense of the other members of the Molina family.

Luke on the other hand, could usually be found either in the studio cooped up writing new lyrics, or hanging out with Julie in her bedroom (although even then, he would still have his notebook on him, jotting down words and melodies as inspiration struck), as was the current case.

Julie and Luke were sitting cross legged across each other on Julie’s bed; Julie doodling on a school notebook, and Luke working on a particularly difficult bridge for a new song they were hoping to premiere at their next gig in a few weeks.

So when Julie had asked Luke her question and she wasn’t directly met with an answer, she had just figured that he was busy writing down new ideas in his song book. But when the silence stretched longer than was usual for Luke, Julie finally looked up and noticed him staring at her with an odd expression on his face.

“What? Did I say something? What’s wrong?”

“Do you- do you want m- us to leave? I- I mean we thought you were fine with us living here, what with the band picking up and- But of course, if you want us to leave, that’s completely fine. The boys’ll understand and-“

“No! No that’s not what I meant at all!” Julie’s eyes got incredibly large, as she realised how her words must have been perceived. She frantically shook her head, her ponytail whipping at her cheeks with the movement, as her hands, covered in smudges of colourful ink reached out to rest on his knees.

“No, Luke. Of course I don’t mind you guys staying here - I really do like- love having you guys around. I just meant- I mean you guys can literally teleport anywhere, do anything, and not have to worry about getting caught. But as far as I can tell, you guys just hang around here all the time, or meet up with Willie every now and then at some random celebrity’s house.” Julie pulled her hands back in her lap, shrugging. “I don’t know, I guess I was just wondering why?”

She could see him visibly deflating, the odd expression on his face having morphed into a more composed look. He let out a breath, tapping his pen loudly against the pages in front of him with one hand, while the other rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Yeah, we- I mean we just haven’t felt the need to do anything else, I guess? When we first got here, we explored all of our old haunts,” insert smirk here, “checked out some of the new music that’s been taking over the scene - we even went to a few concerts.” He shrugged, his hand coming back down to rest on his knee. “But nothing’s really pulled at us enough to seriously want to leave for any extended period of time.”

She found that quite strange. Here she was talking to the boy who told her that their instruments were attached to their souls, and he was simply shrugging at the idea of being able to go to any concert anywhere, for free, without any consequences.

“You’re telling me you’re not even interested in checking out some of the older bands you guys were really into? Attend some of the concerts you always wanted to go to but couldn’t because they were on the other side of the country? Of the world?” She could hear how dubious she was starting to sound, but she couldn’t help it. None of this made sense.

Luke tilted his head to the side as he looked at Julie with a look that made it seem she was missing the obvious.

“But you wouldn’t be able to come with us? Where would the fun be in that?” He smiled at her, a small glint in his eyes. She rolled hers at him in return.

“Ha ha, very funny. Seriously, Luke, aren’t you, for lack of a better word, dying to go see certain people, certain bands, live? For free?”

He shrugged again, seeming unbothered by her line of questioning.

“Not really. I haven’t really felt any pull to check out new music in a while. I’ve been more excited about the stuff we’ve been making anyway.” He paused, playfully tapping her knee. “Plus I’m not sure I’d be able to properly enjoy a concert if I knew you couldn’t be there. Not as fun.”

She stared at him, wondering if his sanity had been touched.

“Not as fun? Really? I hope you realise you’re not making any sense. You know damn well that having Reggie with you alone would be enough. He’s the life of every party, dead or alive.”

She heard him snort, his head bending back down as he prepared to refocus his attention on the song book in his lap.

“I don’t know, Julie. It’s hard to explain. I just-“ He stopped himself mid-sentence, suddenly seeming to be too engrossed by the words on the pages in front of him. Only she knew better.

She put her notebook aside, and crawled across the tiny space between them, coming to rest on her folded knees right in front of him. She put her hands on his, stilling the tapping of the pen, and covering the words on the pages. She patiently waited for him to finally look up, focusing his attention back on her.

“Luke, you know I’d never hold it against any of you guys if you were to go and have fun without me. You guys deserve it - all you do is hang around here, unless we’re playing a gig somewhere. You should be enjoying your afterlife, not spending it constantly practicing or writing new songs or worrying about our next gig. Live a little!” He was frowning throughout her speech, but she could see the corners of his lips twitching a little at her choice of words.

He stayed quiet though, just staring at her, his eyes searching for something on her face. What it was he was looking for, she couldn’t tell you.

But after a few minutes of silence, he took a deep breath, tilting his head backwards as he closed his eyes, his hands twisting around, threading his fingers through hers.

“It’s not that I- that we would feel guilty, Jules. We’re happy with the way things are here. And to tell you the truth, I haven’t really felt the need to look for new music for a while now - what we create, you and me and the boys, it keeps changing and shifting and surprising me everyday.” He sighs, bringing his face back down, his eyes opening as they centred back on hers. In a softer tone, he continued. “Why would I go looking for something else, when everything I need is right here?”

She had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about music anymore.

“Why would I want to go searching for something else Jules, when I’ve already found the best? Something that I have right here, right under my fingertips?” He let go of her hands as he reached for her face, hers falling limply into his lap. His fingers brushed her cheeks lightly, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind, before they settled under her jaw, cradling her face in his palms. She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to.

“I have no desire whatsoever to go to concerts or look for new music, new talent, when you literally live under the same roof as I do.” His thumbs caressed her cheeks, his face moving closer to hers.

“You are music to me, Julie. As long as you’re in my life, my afterlife, whatever you want to call it, I see no reason in looking for anything, or anyone, else.”

He closed the distance between them, his forehead coming to rest against hers. She could do nothing but stare up at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open, her mind furiously trying to process Luke’s words.

You are music to me, Julie.

Her heart was beating so quickly, so loudly, it felt like it was about to burst out of her chest and take flight. She tried to focus on her breathing, taking deep breaths to center herself, before she gave up and threw herself into the stunned ghost’s lap. She wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. With the shock of the impact, Luke lost his balance, sending both teenagers tumbling backwards onto the bed. But even then, all Julie did was press herself closer against Luke, hoping he wouldn’t try to pull away.

To her delight all he did was readjust their position, tucking her head under his chin as he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tighter against him.

“What did I do to deserve such enthusiasm?” He chuckled, his hands rubbing soothing circles on her back.

Julie just shook her head, her lips moving against his neck. She felt him shiver beneath her, causing her lips to tilt upwards.

They remained in this position for a while, Luke rubbing her back, as Julie continued to breathe in his scent, enjoying this quiet intimate moment with him for as long as possible.

But then she felt Luke shift as he turned to his side, her head softly hitting the mattress beneath her. With their legs still tangled, and her arms still securely wrapped around him, she looked up at him, his face hovering a few inches above hers.

“I just want to try something,” was all he said.

And with that he moved down until his head cane to rest against her chest. His arms snaked around her waist, as he pressed his ear closer to where her heart was currently beating a mile a minute.

With a loud sigh, Luke stilled, remaining in that position. Julie tried to stay quiet, tried to keep her curiosity at bay, but she simply couldn’t.

“Luke, what are you doing? I mean, not that I mind but, is there a reason you moved?” She tugged lightly at his hair, her fingers finding refuge in his soft brown locks.

She could feel him shake his head under her fingers, as he quietly started to hum a melody she couldn’t recognise. His fingers then joined in, tapping along to an unknown beat on her waist. She shifted her head to the side, craning her neck trying to get a glimpse of Luke’s expression.

She could see a smile making an appearance on his face, and could swear she could feel his touch getting warmer, see light emanating from his every pore.

“Luke?”

A beat of silence. He opened his eyes, as he looked at her with a tender look and the softest smile gracing his lips.

“I’m just listening to my favourite song.”

“Oh? What favourite song? I heard you humming it, but I’m not sure I recognised it?”

“No, no. I wasn’t humming the song, I was just adding a little melody as an accompanying piece.”

Julie was thoroughly confused. “I don’t get it. Accompanying piece to what?”

“To my favourite song silly, I already told you. It’s more of a beat, really, but when I’m listening to it I swear I can hear the sweetest sounds in my head.”

When Julie still didn’t understand what in the world he was talking about, that frustrated look refusing to leave her face, Luke took pity on her as he started tapping out the beat on her waist again, demonstrating to her what he meant.

It took her a little while, but once she focused, she realised he was tapping along to her heartbeat. It stuttered at her realisation, and Luke’s fingers followed, not missing a beat.

Oh. Oh.

Her hands tightened their hold on his head as she tugged harder, guiding him back up towards her. She couldn’t hold it in anymore, refused to hold it in anymore. Once he was at her eye level, close enough she could feel his breath on her lips, she whispered-

“I love you.”

The brightest smile she had ever seen took over Luke’s face, his eyes shining as they competed against the brightness of his smile. His hands reached up, cradling her face again as he whispered back against her lips:

“You are music to me now, you are music to me forever.”

Forever. She liked the sound of that. If she could somehow manage to keep him for that long, it might just be enough.

FIN

[naktergalen]

Rivamika Fic Suggestions List 2

Hey there again! It’s been a while since my last rivamika post and I apologies for that. I caught the reading bug and have just been hitting book after book. I might be doing a book of the month suggestion starting in March. I’m still thinking about it but if that is something your interested in let me know. Or if you just want book suggestions just message or ask me. But for now, I’m back with my second Rivamika Fic Suggestions List.

First of all, I want to thank you for all the comments and messages I received from my first list! I think it has over 150 notes now which is crazy for me. I was going to be ecstatic if it got like 10 likes or something hahaha! I’ve enjoyed talking to some of you about fics and other snk stuff. Feel free to do the same after this post! I know I take awhile to respond but swear I get there eventually.

Same rules as last time. I’ve split this list up into four categories. I wanted to let people know the status of some of these fics in case they did not want to start an incomplete or in progress story. All of these fics can be found on AO3. I’m going to try to link them but we will see how tumblr acts today. If you have any fic suggestions for me, feel free to message me with them and I can add them on to the next list. If any author sees their story on here and wants me to take it off the list, please let me know I don’t wish to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Also, last thing, I highly recommend leaving comments and kudos to the authors. I know that they greatly appreciate it and it helps them with improving their writing through feedback. Okay shutting up now, ON WITH THE LIST!

DISCLAIMER: I know that not all of these stories are not for everyone, these are just my opinions and suggestions.

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Completed:

- Thunder Clouds

Author: K_Lionheart

Rating: Mature

Sometimes I like to go to the very back of the Rivamika archive on AO3 and look for fics that have gotten buried over time. Low and behold what I have found lol! I enjoyed the emotional roller coaster when I was reading this fic, though sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out. Set after the titans are gone, humanity has to repopulate so arranged couples by the monarch are made to be wed. While this new order is being enforced, Mikasa and Levi are trying to work out their strained relationship. A slow burn with angst that will have you staying up till 3am dying to know what happens next. I know that there is a sequel to this fic called Nimbus and I’m slowly working my way through that one. Honestly, it will probably go on my next list.

- Red is the Only Colour

Author: mongoose_bite

Rating: Mature

A cute fic that was a quick but wild ride. A Little Red Riding Hood type of AU where Mikasa is a hunter of some sorts traveling through a town. I don’t want to say how Levi plays into all of this since it gets border line spoilers but just know that he is there. It is an opening ending fic for the author to come back if they plan on doing so but it can be interpreted in different ways. All in all, a fic worth of the quick read.

- Sing Me a Song

Author: LazyTrash

Rating: Mature

First I have to get this off my chest, I love the author’s name hahaha! I freakin wished I would have thought of that for mine! Anyway, this fic is wonderful but I will warn you that its a gut punch. If you like hurt and angst put together, then this is the story for you. I love these types of fics because I adore them so much but they hurt me in my soul. I don’t know what that says about me but whatever. I don’t want to delve into the story too much for spoilers but I would suggest rivamika fans to check this one out.

- Midnight Musings

Author: Raewyll

Rating: Teen

I just started to read Raewyll’s fics so I’m slowly working my way through all her works. This one caught my eye and I had to read it. This is a cute take on a chance meeting through texting the wrong number. I love the way Levi and Mikasa’s relationship blossoms into something more serious after causally texting back and forth. It’s one of those stories that I can only describe as being cute as shit! I’m definitely going to be checking out more of Raewyll’s fic in the future.

Ongoing:

- Beyond the Walls

Author: helena3190

Rating: Matue

If you love RIvamika angst, then look no further than this baby right here. This is currently my favorite ongoing fic. It was supposed to be a shorter story, but the author keeps adding more chapters so I’m not complaining hahaha! This fic is pretty much how I would *personally* picture canon Mikasa on how she would deal with realizing that she’s falling in love with someone. Its mostly told in the perspective of Mikasa as she is dealing with the after effects of war and trying to figure out what should she do with her life now that she is no longer a solider. Her feeling for Levi come with a lot of confusion as she’s discovering emotions that she has never felt before. She has a hard time pinpointing on what exactly describes her relationship with him. I’m anxiously waiting for the final chapter for this fic and dying to see how it will end for Mikasa and Levi.

- After the War

Author: loneackerman

Rating: Mature

I am loving this rivamika slow burn fic right here. Its similar to Beyond the Walls but I think the author adds their own taste of the 1920s into it. Set after the war is over (obviously), Mikasa and Levi have to figure out what they are going to do the rest of their lives. It has great tension, a perfectly paced gradual romance and just the right amount of humor to combat the emotional turmoil it puts you through. Again in my opinion, this is close to how I would realistically perceive Levi and Mikasa’s relationship evolving. I’m really enjoying this story and I’m looking forward to more updates to come!

- The Sound of Lightning

Author: LycheeGreenTea

Rating: Mature

A new fic that is just getting started but I can tell that what the author has in store is going to be interesting. Set several years after the end of the war, Levi and Mikasa are loving parents to a single child. Their peaceful life comes to an end when the family has a threat against them. There are not many long fics about Mikasa and Levi being parent so I was very happy when this one popped up on the AO3 feed. An exciting adventure awaits the Ackerman family now and I can’t wait to see where this fic goes in the future. There are three chapters as of now so head over there and check it out.

Incomplete:

- Home

Author: MissErikaCourt

Rating: Mature

One of the gems I found when diving back into the Rivamika archive. Ugh I HATE that this fic is incomplete!!! Its a good long fic but I’m greedy and I need more! I will give a warning first that this fic does contain heavy themes. Mikasa and Levi are in the underground to fight against a criminal ring. This story is a slow burn with action and emotional trauma. There is a wonderfully written OC that you easily get attached to its not even funny. Even though its not completed, I would highly recommend checking it out. I still have three more chapters to finish but I had to put it on this list. I know that I’m going to be pissed once I reach the last chapter written. If someone know MissErikaCourt, let her know that she needs to comeback to finish this masterpiece!

- Shiver

Author: bornsinner

Rating: Mature

Another one that I DISPISE its incomplete!!! Ugh such a great Office AU. It’s everything that I would want in an Office AU setting. Mikasa struggles between her committed long term relationship and her growing attraction (which starts to develop into some feelings) to her boss, Levi. Its hot, sexy and intriguing and it pisses me off that its not finished! The author writes each chapter as a one-shot but collectively together they tell the whole story. Highly recommend even though its so short. BORNSINNER where ever you are in the universe I hope you come back to finish this!!!

- Two Lines

Author: Crejhov

Rating: Mature

When this was getting updated it was my favorite on-going Rivamika fic. I would find myself checking to see if the author updated with a new chapter every week! The unplanned pregnancy trope is a classic one, but Crejhov does a fantastic job on keeping readers enthralled with soo many anticipated character meet up that are bound to cause hurdles for our expecting parents. This story is told from the perspectives of Mikasa and Levi in order for us to understand where their mindsets are as they plan for their expecting child and deal with their relationship. AHHHHH I want more of this!!! I was soo excited to see where this awkward journey was going to take Mikasa and Levi. CREJHOV COME BACK PLEASE I KNOW YOU HAVE WORK BUT PLEAAASEEEE! I NEEEEEEDDDD!!!

- Cabin Fever

Author: AmayaOkami

Rating: Mature

All I should have to say about this is that its written by AmayaOkami and that should explain it. Amaya is the one that gave us the beautiful incomplete rivamika fic Romance and Rivalry. I just adore her writing. Levi and Mikasa relationship evolves as they are standing guard over the arrested Kenny Ackerman. Secrets are discover about the Ackermans and it gets pretty steamy between our two favs. Great fluff and great sexual tension that leaves you wanting more chapters! Again AmayaOkami where ever you went I hope for some miracle that you come back and complete this one too!

One-Shot:

- Jade

Author: shulkie

Rating: Mature

This one-shot feels like I read a novel, it has such a great storyline. An arranged marriage between Mikasa and Levi leaves the relationship strained in the beginning. Their relationship evolves over time as Levi patiently brings down Mikasa’s wall. With smut added for all of your one-shot needs. Definitely worth the read in my opinion.

- What Remains

Author: Mirime

Rating: Mature

This one-shot gives us a glimpse into the secret relationship that Levi and Mikasa have been having while there are still scouts. This fic is sad but I would say it has a bittersweet ending. I think this was supposed to be part of a collection but I can’t find the rest of them. Still a great read by itself.

- Agape

Author: alienheartattack (Sanneke)

Rating: Mature

This fic is cute as shit! A College AU where Mikasa and Levi are childhood friends. Levi has to deal with Mikasa being at the same college as him while he is struggling with his changing feelings towards a grown up Mikasa. Worth the read as I said cute as shit, leaves you all warm and fuzzy lol!

- As Seen in Shadows

Author: MoraLeeWright

Rating: Explicit

FUCKING MORA! LEE! WRIGHT! UFFFFGGHHH Fuck I’m in love with her writing style. I really have nothing to say more that just go read it! Its hot and sexy and the sexual tension is off the fucking charts in this one. Its just MoraLeeWright smut thats all I can say. It’s great! JUST READ IT LMAO!

- Remedy

Author: NSummer

Rating: Mature

Another hot smut one-shot coming your way! Levi and Mikasa have had an ongoing affair and this just recounts their first time together. Its just some good ol’ Rivamika smut that I think that everyone in this community would enjoy.

- Nutty: Drunk in Love

Author: Hallow17

Rating: Mature

A fun smut to read about Mikasa getting “revenge” on her asshole boss, Levi. Things don’t go the way she plans as things get a little heated in the sexy way. A quick smut that I think is perfect for a little Rivamika crave.

- Spicy: Jalapeno

Author: Hallow17

Rating: Explicit

Another fun smut to read by Hallow17. Levi has been stressed out at work and Mikasa finds a way to help him get his mind off it (if you know what i mean). Again perfect for a Rivamika quick fix.

[hellsbellschime]

I was wondering if you could do an analysis on Sansas and Daenerys interactions in 8x02?

Totes, because I think it’s an extremely interesting character interplay that needed more development and that was either actually rife with subtext and just written really poorly or it was just dumb. But while I wish there had been more development for literally everything in season 8, I think that the dynamic between Dany and Sansa needed far more room to breathe and grow given that their incredibly brief relationship is one of the main catalysts for the climax of the story. 

Jaime’s whole “trial” scene is one that I really wish we had been able to see the lead up to, because while the drama of starting off the episode with it is certainly compelling, I’d honestly really like to know how everyone even got to that point in the first place. Like, Dany is furious that Cersei has betrayed her and lied to her about her intentions... except how exactly does that square up to someone who came to a truce with their enemy and then immediately arrests them and puts them on trial when they actually follow through on their end of the bargain?

However, looking beyond that there is not just Dany vs. Sansa, it’s kind of Dany vs. Team Stark. Dany lays out all of the reasons why Jaime deserves to be punished and Sansa actually completely agrees with her and says she completely understands how she feels, but then Brienne speaks in Jaime’s defense and Sansa immediately agrees that Jaime should stay. Now as viewers we understand what Sansa is doing here, but I think that Dany does not. I think that this may be a sort of crucial moment for what happens later, because someone who is unfamiliar with Sansa but sees that she is popular among the Northerners might come to the easiest conclusion, which is that Sansa is easily manipulated, weak willed, or likes to agree with people and thus everyone kind of likes her even though she’s the type of person who shouldn’t really be seen as important or authoritative. 

But when Dany kind of ropes Jon into it I think it’s even more interesting, and once again could be an implication that she doesn’t understand people who put the interests of others before themselves. Because way back when Melisandre told Dany to invite Jon to Dragonstone, Tyrion tries to sell her on it by explaining that the Lannisters have treated the Starks even worse than they theoretically treated her, so they have even more reason to want to see their downfall. So I think she inquires about Jon’s thoughts expecting her to agree with him, because quite frankly it’s just not in her wheel house to put the needs of others before her own. But he winds up agreeing to let him stay, and she feels peer pressured into acquiescing when she really doesn’t want to. That really puts her on the back foot and makes her extremely uncomfortable because it’s something she never does, and it’s basically taking her whole fantasy of conquering Westeros and destroying her enemies and basically forces her to give it up for the sake of maintaining her own mystique. 

So she’s super pissed and Jorah talks her down, and while once again the show cuts away from shit that we actually need to see, it’s fair to assume that he said something along the lines of Sansa is Regina George and you’re currently Janis Ian, so you need to go talk to her and charm her into liking you and the rest of the Northerners will fall in line. So, Dany follows his advice and tries to actually talk to Sansa and to get her to see her as the Enlightened Despot she imagines herself to be. 

Frankly, the conversation between Sansa and Dany is extremely weird and vapid on the surface, but I think it makes sense within a certain context. Namely, that Sansa and Dany both have very clear preconceived notions about each other, however Sansa’s assumptions are generally correct while Dany’s assumptions are completely incorrect. 

Obviously at this point, Sansa isn’t being fooled by charm, and Dany unfortunately reveals herself to Sansa in completely unintentional ways that she doesn’t realize are actually really hurting Sansa’s perception of her. Dany is here to conquer Westeros and force the North into submission, and maybe I’m overestimating Sansa’s political genius here, but what I find extremely interesting is that Dany asks Sansa why they’re at odds with each other but she doesn’t answer. She waits for Dany to answer, and Dany’s answer frankly gives Sansa an enormous political and manipulative advantage by letting her know that she assumes Sansa would not like an invader with dragons and an army the size of a city because she’s jealous that Dany has her brother’s attention. 

And yes, of course, Sansa loves Jon and is likely extremely concerned, but I just cannot believe that Sansa is being genuine in this conversation. This is the woman who had to convince Jon to accept the inevitability of their baby brother dying because focusing on saving him was an existential threat to their family and the North. I cannot believe that she would have more issues with the potential safety and manipulation of her brother who was a king, Lord Commander, and survived with wildlings beyond the wall than she would over Rickon. Not to mention, the notion that at this very moment when the North is on the brink of destruction and everyone is facing down the apocalypse, but somehow Sansa is concerned about the person that Jon may or may not be smashing, is an incredibly condescending and childish assumption to make about her. 

However, Dany does seem to make that assumption. Dany’s whole impression of Sansa seems to initially be that she’s just a catty and frivolous girl, and she seems to think that assuring Sansa that her super cute new crush is the one who really has her wrapped around his finger is enough to reassure her that everything’s fine and that that’s enough for Sansa to accept Dany as queen. 

But then Sansa quickly flips the script and asks about Northern independence, which I honestly think was a mistake on her part. Dany initially saw Sansa just like Cersei and Joffrey and Tyrion and the Tyrells and every other person saw her, as just a superficial idiot who can be easily managed and bent to someone else’s will. I understand why Sansa would never want to play that game again, but it also left her in an enormously advantageous position, and letting Dany know that she was actually very politically minded was not the right move at that moment. But of course, because this is the season of constantly interrupted interesting conversations, as soon as the discussion turns political it’s interrupted. 

Now, what I think is very interesting about Dany is her desire to essentially acquire special people. She wants Tyrion, the “most brilliant man in the kingdoms”, to be her hand. She knows he’s exceptional, and she wants to basically own him. And she goes through the same thing with Jon. She perceives her feelings towards him as love, but I think she really knows nothing about him and just thinks that he’s extraordinary enough to be worthy of her and therefore they must be in love with each other. Dany sees herself as a person unlike any other, with no equal in existence or history, so when people fawn all over her or give her unquestioned loyalty it’s nothing more than what she expects, but when literally anyone seems to care about or respect someone more than they do her, she doesn’t understand it and often sees it as some kind of a betrayal. 

So when Theon shows up to fight for the Starks, she doesn’t necessarily seem mad, but she is clearly baffled, especially because she has already categorized Sansa as someone not special. If she thought Sansa were special or important enough to warrant her attention, Jorah wouldn’t have had to tell her to go try to be friends. But when Theon arrives and asks Sansa to fight for her, she doesn’t get it because in her mind Sansa is not worthy of that kind of devotion because she’s too ordinary, and the fact that someone is prioritizing Sansa over her right in front of her face really puts her off. And what seemingly makes this interchange dangerous is that Dany’s reaction to seeing this doesn’t seem to be a desire to actually understand where it stems from, but seems to result in the immediate conclusion that Sansa herself must be stopped (which is an idea that Dany toyed with in the season premiere as well, but I think it only solidified that idea for her further).

But I think that Sansa and Theon’s interaction here is obviously fascinating as well, both in relation to Dany and in general. Honestly, that kind of raw emotion and vulnerability is something that people in GoT rarely display around one another, and I can’t even think of another instance of Dany actually witnessing two people who genuinely love each other emotionally connect in that way. That’s not generally a way that she feels about a lot of people, and in her world, she is always the center of attention. So even if there are people in her orbit who love each other, she never really sees that. I actually think Emilia’s expression captures that perfectly as well, she both seems put off but unsure of how to react and borderline unsure of WTF it is that she’s actually seeing, because again, it’s pretty abnormal to see people be that emotionally open in public anyway and because it’s something that Dany is completely unaccustomed to seeing when it’s not directed towards her. 

And of course, for Sansa and Theon as a pair, it’s extremely heartwarming and emotional to see how deeply they care for one another, and it’s even more touching to realize how powerfully they have had to repress their own emotions for so long and that they have now gotten to the point where they’re so completely unashamed and completely lacking in self consciousness that they’re willing to be that raw no matter who’s looking. 

Overall, despite the massive flaws of season 8, I do have to say that the scenes between Dany and Sansa are some of my favorite and I wish we had gotten so much more out of them. I actually think the performance chemistry between Emilia and Sophie is better than nearly every other character that Dany was introduced to late in the game, and I think it was a huge mistake to not explore that more and to not fully clarify that these two literal queens are not bickering over a boy’s attention. 

[a-gorgeous-george]

Basic Questions

First name? Georgette

Surname? Foxworth

Middle names? Luciana

Nicknames? Gigi (by her     mother)

Date of birth? August     7th

Age? 22

Physical / Appearance

Type of clothes?

Georgette’s style is all about femineity and luxury. She wears a lot of dresses, a lot of skirts, but even her workout clothes are designer. She swears “cheap” clothes give her a rash – and who would want to mar her perfect skin like that.

How do they wear their     clothes? Tight and tailored.

What are their feet     like? (type of shoes, state of shoes, socks, feet, pristine, dirty, worn,     etc)

Georgette is rarely seen without heels on, and thanks to regular pedicures and lack of abuse, her feet are soft and pretty always.

Race / Ethnicity? Spanish     and Indonesian

Are they in good health?     Oh yes, she has a strict workout schedule and diet she sticks to… well,     actually, perhaps not, because alongside that she also lives a life of high     stress and nicotine.

Personality

Are they more optimistic     or pessimistic?

It really depends on the source of power in a situation. If it is something she has control over, she is optimistic, can’t see how something would ever not work out, but if someone else is in control, her view changes considerably and she is usually fairly certain it will fail.

Do they ever put on     airs?

When is she not putting on airs?

What bad habits do they     have? She has a serious nicotine problem.

What makes them laugh     out loud?

She isn’t really a laugh out loud type of person. She might chuckle or smile in amusement, but laughing out loud indicates a level of ease that she just does not feel around people. Also Al.

How do they display     affection?

She is very physically affectionate… I think. She has never been in a position where she felt comfortable being affectionate with a person in that way. Besides that, she shares her wealth in ways that benefit that people she cares about, shares her privilege with them. She is happy to be her friends’ sugar mama.

How do they want to be     seen by others? Beautiful and in control.

How do they see     themselves?

She very much sees herself as a lone wolf. She knows she’s beautiful, smart, capable, hardworking, but she’s alone and absolutely terrified someone will recognize it. She is also very much aware of her inner rage.

·       How are they seen by others?

Because of her past with her family and the lack of ties it provided her, Georgette was left defending herself. Her arrogance and obsessive need to believe in her own importance is directly tied to the lack of importance anyone else gave her.

Strongest character     trait?

For all her bravado and arrogance, Georgette is 100% unafraid of hard work. From her work on her blog and marketing it, her history as a beauty queen, her strict adherence to her diet and exercise routine, every aspect of her life, she has no issue knuckling down and putting in the time and effort to succeed.

Weakest character trait?

She is incapable of asking for help, as if it somehow undermines her own achievements if someone else must assist her.

How competitive are     they?

Extremely. If you want to manipulate Georgette into doing something, make it a contest. She’ll probably even know what you’re doing and still be unable to resist.

Do they make snap     judgements or take time to consider?

Snap judgements all the way, baby!!

How do they react to     praise?

Smug agreement.

How do they react to     criticism?

Strong commitment to your character’s delusion that she is anything other than amazing.

What is their greatest     fear?

Dying without ever achieving anything of substance.

What are their biggest     secrets?

Georgette is crushingly lonely. Her whole life has been spent pushing people away, trying to protect herself and prove herself, full of anger, and it has left her without anyone she can be close to.

What will they stand up     for?

Once her blog is up and running and successful, once the magazine starts to take off, she will have real issues with people saying she’s self-made. She is fully aware that even without her father’s money, her name alone carries a certain currency most people do not have. She is well aware of her own privilege in that area and will stand up against anyone who compares her achievements against someone who didn’t have that head start.

Who do they quote?

She’s a closet book nerd and might not quote directly but will frequently make allusions to literature.

Are they indoorsy or     outdoorsy? Indoorsy.

What is their sinful     little habit? Cigarettes.

What sense do they most     rely on?

Sight – how someone/something looks dictates more of her life than it should.

How do they treat people     better than them?

What people better than them?

How do they treat people     worse than them?

That seems like an unfair question when everyone is worse than them.

What quality do they     most value in a friend? She wouldn’t know.

What do they consider an     overrated virtue? Niceness.

If they could change one     thing about themselves, what would it be?

She would have people who cared about her.

What is their obsession?     Herself?

Friends and Family

Is their family big or     small? Who does it consist of?

Her mother and stepfather, father and stepmother, Jenny and Oliver (Yes, she considers Oliver as part of her family)

What is their perception     of family?

When she was barely cognizant of life, her father had an affair, had a baby, split up her family, quickly destroying the idea in her head. It is an outdated concept made to make people feel like belong to a group, no loyalty or love.

Describe their best     friend.

………. Let me get her just a friend first.

Ideal best friend?

Someone who understands her hustle. Someone she can see the inherent importance in. Someone that can still pull her out of her head and get her to have fun.

Describe their     acquaintances.

She is jealous of the closeness of Dodger’s gang, watching as an outsider and wishing desperately to be a part of it all.

Do they have any pets?

She is a massive dog person! (Get it?) But yes, she has a little doggo, Valentina.

Past and Future

What was your character     like as a baby? As a child?

Awful? Spoiled? She was raised spoiled, but after her father’s betrayal, she sought to teach him a lesson. Even as a child, she would blackmail and torture him, threatening to reveal his dirty secret to the world. She was worse to Jenny even, more easily able to take out her anger over the affair and her birth on the younger girl than the truly guilty adults.

Did they grow up     nurtured or neglected?

Neglected – but that is partly her own fault. She is as much at fault due to her reaction and actively hurting her family and her father. She lashed out and did truly awful things and crushed what bond there might have possibly been.

What is the most     offensive thing they ever said?

Oh, I don’t know… in my head, I feel like she can be a very problematic person. Add that in with her natural meanness, I am sure she has said some awful stuff.

What was their first     kiss like?

It was awful. Some other 7th grader when she was in 7th grade. Too wet. Thought he was trying to drown her.

What is the worst thing     they did to someone they loved?

Repeatedly blackmailing her father for her own benefit.

What are their     ambitions?

She wants to outshine her father, claim their last name as her own and not the sullied version her father left in the wake of his controversy. That is why her blog and future magazine is named after her.

What advice would they     give their younger self? It’s not Jenny’s fault.

What smells remind them     of their childhood? Perfume and peppermints.

What was their childhood     ambition?

Growing up, her mind stayed on the pageant world. Her ambitions usually stayed just one pageant ahead of her.

What is their best     childhood memory?

She doesn’t know if it’s real or not, just this soft memory of her father grinning and spinning around the living room with her, dressed in his coat and tails.

What is their worst     childhood memory?

Listening in from the hall as his father confessed everything to her mother, hearing her mother sobbing as he threw clothes into a suitcase.

When was the last time     they were crushed with disappointment?

The last one? She still hasn’t got over her first one.

Love

Do they believe in love     at first sight?

She only barely believes in love in any form.

·       How do they behave in a relationship?

Georgette really doesn’t do relationships, thanks to that whole “love isn’t real” thing. They usually last a month or so, but she gets bored and has no issue telling him to get lost after that point.

When did you character     last have sex? Perhaps a couple weeks ago.

What sort of sex do they     have?

She is looking for something hot, passionate, and with someone she doesn’t have to worry about calling back.

Conflict

How do they respond to a     threat?

Georgette doesn’t back down from a threat, though her means for fighting usually involves $$$ instead of doing any sort of fighting herself.

Are they most likely to     fight with their fists or their tongue? Tongue.

What is your character’s     kryptonite? Point out her lack of backup.

If your character could     only save one thing from their burning house, what would it be? Say it     with me… diamonds.

How do they perceive     strangers?

Her trust or lack of trust in them is based solely on how they look.

What do they love to     hate? Oh, that is way too long a list to put here.

What are their phobias?     Bugs of any sort.

What is their choice of     weapon? Poison.

What living person do     they most despise? Her father.

Have they ever been     bullied or teased? That would not go well for that person.

Where do they go when     they’re angry? Home, to seethe and plot.

 Work, Education and Hobbies

What is their current     job? Blogger.

What do they think about     their current job?

She has dreams of something bigger, more substantial, but she’s thankful for the success the gossip blog has had and excited to grow it.

What are their hobbies?     Painting, reading, dancing.

Educational background?     Some college.

Intelligence level?

I believe she is fairly smart, but her work ethic covers a lot of distance for her.

Favorites

What is their favorite     animal? Doggies.

What is the most     beautiful thing they’ve ever seen? Her face in the mirror.

What is their favorite     song? Ego by Beyonce

Music, art, reading     preferred? Ooooooh… probably reading

What is their favorite     color? Gold

What is their password?

Honestly it is probably a secure combination of letters put together by a professional.

Favorite food: Lasagna

What is their favorite     work of art? Judith and the Head of Holofornes

Who is their favorite     artist? Gustav Klimt

What is their favorite     day of the week? Saturday

Possessions

What is in their fridge?     A lot of water, veggies, meal prepped chicken

What is on their bedside     table? The current book she is reading, a bouquet of pink and white roses,     a gold lamp, a rose gold silk eye mask

Spirituality

Who or what is your     character’s guardian angel?

If she has a guardian angel, she would really like a word with it.

Do they believe in the     afterlife? I mean, she now knows Hades, so yeah

What are their religious     views?

Once you meet a god, you kinda realize which system of beliefs is the right one

·       How would they like to die? Painless and pretty

What is their zodiac     sign? Leo

Values

What do they think is     the worst thing that can be done to a person? Abandonment

What is their view of     ‘freedom’?

Able to make your way through life on your own two feet without having to rely on anyone else to support you.

When did they last lie?     Probably an hour ago

What’s their view of     lying? It definitely can make things easier.

When did they last make     a promise?

She doesn’t really bother. You either do things or you don’t. The rest is just extra words.

Daily life

What are their eating     habits? Healthy food prepared by a chef.

Describe their home.

Luxurious home in a gated community bought by her father.

Are they minimalist or a     clutter hoarder? Minimalist.

What do they do first     thing on a weekday morning? Drink a glass of cold water.

What do they do on a     Sunday afternoon?

She can be found putting the finishing touches on her blog post for the week.

What do they do on a     Friday night?

She can just as easily be found out dancing as home alone working.

What is the soft drink     of choice? She doesn’t drink soda.

What is their alcoholic     drink of choice? Merlot.

Miscellaneous

What or who would your     character dress up as for Halloween? Anything sexy.

Are they comfortable     with technology? She can do basic things.

If they could save one     person, who would it be? Jenny.

If they could call one     person for help, who would it be? Over her dead body.

What is their greatest     extravagance? Jewelry

What is their perception     of redemption? She hopes it’s real.

What would they do if     they won the lottery? It would change her life 0%.

What is their favourite     fairytale?

She isn’t really big on fairytales, but definitely prefers the darker original versions. So much more realistic than that happily ever after in love bullshit.

Do they believe in happy     endings?

She believes in the ability of a person to make their own damn happy ending.

What is their idea of     perfect happiness?

Surrounded by a family that loves her

If your character could     travel through time, where would they go?

She has it on good authority that life gets more uncivilized the farther back you go, so she’s good, thanks.

If they could have a     superpower, what would they choose?

Full on mind control. She’ll make you do what she wants and feel no guilt.

[metanoiamorii]

❛I need you to promise me that you won't tell anyone. You're the only one who knows. I know I should tell them, but what would I say? If they knew, they'd look at me differently, they'd be afraid. So now that you know, when you look at me, what do you see? Do you see this face? Or the one covered in blood? Can you forget it? I can't. That's why we keep secrets, because the truth changes everything. I need you to tell me if there will ever be a time when I close my eyes and I don't see it? When will it stop?❜

♧ Title: A Rope In Hand [ARIH]

♧ Status: Brainstorming & Drafting

♧ Point of View: Third Person, active, I'm going to try actively doing limited so this will be a challenge

♧ Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Supernatural Elements, a dabble of romance

♧ Warnings: Torture, cults, witch-hunts, The use of religious beliefs to commit atrocities, generational curses, witch trials, deaths, tragic endings, violence, gore, star crossed lovers, forbidden romance, toxic and abusive parental relationships, homophobia; there's probably plenty I'm missing.

♧ Featuring: Diverse LGBTQ+ characters, complex and complicated relationships, homoromantic main relationship, morally grey characters, complex world building, slow-burn relationships, plenty of symbolism, witches, fantasy religions, soulmate trope, unlearning toxic beliefs

♧ Setting: A fantasy West European setting, specifically Britain and Ireland inspired, with a possible mention of a few others.

♧ Tease: In a town of gods fearing people, the only thing left to do is kneel and pray. Plagued by the liars, thieves and killers. Controlled by crooked politicians and preachers. The gods are shaking their heads, turning away from this town absorbed in sin. Can it be saved? Can the plague be ridden? No. The true question is.. Does it deserve saving?

♧ Synopsis:

In the town of Arkaley, in the northwest of the Duchy of Ruairc, the people have been plagued by bad fortune and crime. Attacks of bandits on the road, raids from pirates on the shores, untimely deaths of children and young women, elected officials coming out corrupt; there is no end in Arkaley of the suffering the locals endure. 

Rationally, to explain such a bad string of luck, there is only one possible explanation: Witchcraft. 

The Duchy of Ruairc already has a history of witchcraft: the Ó Ruaircs turned out to be witches, the Abondé incident in Salem, the Liathain incident in Trakee; the Ruaircs have their record. Perfectly acceptable for everyone to assume the worse of the Ruairish, as they have proved to be nothing but.

To prove his worth, the young Reverend Prudence Clemency Frye, takes up the task of quelling this coven of witches and heading this witch-hunt. Young and naïve, witch only knowledge from books and little hands on experience, he’s unprepared for this challenge. When he finally leaves the town, well... everyone would rather put this incident behind them.

♧ Excerpt

"— But should the people not question who you are?!"

Any words to be spoken were cut off by the click of heels over the smooth wooden floor and the raised voice. All eyes turned to the only one that would have the nerve to interrupt the sermon in process. Some looks of awe. Some of sudden respect. Some from annoyance.

None of them mattered, not to Prudence. He kept hold of the neck of the bottle in one hand and strode forward. He had been drinking since last night, it was a miracle he managed not to stagger in his steps. He could see the annoyance building up behind his father's eyes, at his sudden appearance— at the disrespect he was showing.

Who was he to care?

For once in his life, he felt no fear towards this man.

Prudence only stopped when he stood by one of the pews he walked passed, mere feet from where his father stood. The hand unoccupied with the bottle raised to gesture to the man. He remained quiet, pointing to his father, before he scoffed and waved his finger.

On his heels, he spun back around, to face the people; a scowl of his own finding his features, accompanied by a bitter tone to his voice. ".... For who else would the Devil appear but in disguise of our Maker?"

♧ Characters: There is a full cast of characters, I have separated them into a few categories to help with organization: You will find in order, witch-hunters, and then the coven of witches

━━━━━━━━━━

♧ Prudence Clemency Frye; The Reverend Intersex • Genderfluid • He/They • Homosexual • Homo-demiromantic

The bastard son of Lord Zachariah Frye. Raised by his father, with his mother dying young, he took to following in his footsteps. He became a religious young man and an active witch-hunter. A part of him desires his father’s acceptance, his praises; the other part despises his father and everything the man stands for. In recent years, he has joined the De La Cruz household, becoming an apprentice beneath the famous Witch’s Advocate; upholding the beliefs that not every witch is evil and has foul intentions, and the ones that mean harm are the only ones that should be hunted.

♧ Zachariah Frye; The Bloodhound Male • He/Him • Heterosexual • Aromantic

The oldest living member of the Order. Now he is the man that holds the face of the Order, who you think of when they come to mind. Cold. Vindictive. Despotic. Violent. He is not a good man. He is firm in his beliefs and stubborn to change. Once his mind is made up, he cannot be reasoned with. He is blindly convinced of his beliefs and his cause to eradicate every living witch, unfazed if he has to fill a few innocent thousands in the process. 

♧ Calisto Ferzan Hermengildo Melchior Lorencio De La Cruz; The Witch's Advocate Amab • Genderfluid • He/They • Asexual • Aromantic

A witch-hunter in title alone, Calisto has been making enemies since he could first talk. He's always enjoyed being the underdog, going against the expectations of society, being ridiculed by his peers. The sole reason? Proving them wrong. To ridicule his own peers for their outdated beliefs, he's taken to defending witches, proving them innocent of their 'crimes', and going on to help them to set up a life in a country more accepting of witchcraft.

♧ Myk'loumihr [Michelotto Dougal] Siavash; The Man-Servant Amab • Agender • He/They • Asexual • Aromantic

The servant of Calisto, never seen far from his side. He is servant in name alone, and is more-or-less an assassin, a hitman for Calisto. Held in contempt by Athylian society for being a foreigner, he often treated by others more as a slave than a servant. To help be unseen, to help the De La Cruz Household, Michelotto endures the treatment, and goes as far to be perceived as ignorant, alongside him being born a mute. Keeping his true intents and intelligence duly guarded, only a handful are aware he is also a witch. 

━━━━━━━━━━

♧ Karayan [Ianira] Than Blackburn; The Dark Devourer Intersex • Genderfluid • He/They • Pansexual • Grey-Aromantic

An ancient witch that has adopted several identities over the years, his current one being Lord Blackburn, a member of Athylian parliament. A high member of society, he keeps his identity a secret, as he never slips what his true intentions are. God-touched from a young age, he acts on behalf of his deity, adopting their identity and all. To appease his deity, he has begun supplying assistance and guidance to the coven of Arkaley, using them to fulfil his own personal agenda. He prefers to stay behind letters, using a servant to relay his order and acting as his envoy to the coven.

♧ Anisha Kaur; The Servant Afab • Demigirl • She/They • Asexual • Aromantic

The acting servant of Barion, Anisha’s true loyalties lie with Ianira. She stays within the town, serving the coven, while acting as his eyes and ears. She is the one to relay information and letters between the coven and Ianira.  She is a quiet woman, that keeps her head down and her mind to herself. She only shows her true, confident and demanding, nature behind closed doors with the coven when they dare to question her.

♧ Dairine Ó Séaghdha; The Crone Afab • Agender • She/They • Asexual • Aromantic

The oldest member of the coven, Dairine lives under the guise of an elderly woman, who lives alone with her children and grandchildren already leaving her to live their own lives. She is a kind and understanding woman, and cares for the younger witches in the coven. She will not support Baríon with her agenda, nor does she care for the servant girl, she even despises the so-called ally Baríon claims to have and who they all adhere to.

♧ Baríon Nolc Baoghal; The Town’s Head Female • She/Her • Bisexual • Aromantic

The woman in charge of the town, widowed and inheriting the right to rule as her husband had no heirs. She is a manipulative and dangerous woman, eager to commit any sin or crime for more power. She, in truth, cares only for herself and would feel no remorse if she had to turn on one of her coven to further her own agenda. 

♧ Leary O'Laoghaire; The Magistrate Male • He/Him • Heterosexual • Aromantic

The magistrate and also the chief policeman of the town. He maintains a  calm, but manipulative personality. As a front he presents himself to be fair and just, liked and favored by the people for genuinely caring for them. While in truth he has his own heinous and sinister agenda, aiding Baríon in her plans. 

♧ Abban MacClery; The Minister Male • He/Him • Asexual • Aromantic

The town’s minister. Abban only stepped into the role to further secure power within the town for the coven. Personally, he cares little for religion. He prefers to indulge himself however he likes: booze, sex, fighting; you name it. He isn’t your ideal minister, but the towns-people never speak against him. 

♧ Ceann Ó Buachalla; The Baker Female • She/Her • Bisexual • Demiromantic

The town’s baker, she owns a small family business that functions as a small café. She keeps to herself and stays out of the affair of the coven. She wishes a good life for her daughter, thus she does what she believes is best to secure Liannah’s happiness. She is an introverted woman, allowing her daughter to be the face of their business, and being a private woman, close to a small handful.

♧ Asa de Paor; The Healer Afab • Queer • He/She • Homosexual • Homo-Demiromantic

The town doctor, Asa is a peculiar woman. During the week, she is found to be a man, on her days off and the weekend she is a woman. She is a kind woman, never turning away anyone in need. Nor does she share the heinous intentions of the coven, she looks for her out of the coven and to move to be a solitary witch at any given time she can.

♧ Alkyone Iordanou; The Pirate Transfem • Nonbinary • They/Them • Pansexual • Aromantic

Originally not a member of the coven, Alkyone was brought in through being paid to do the coven’s dirty work. A rogue pirate, a small-fry compared to the big names such as Kaimana Peisinoe, Edvard Ó Cochláin, Sabir Rouge, and all the other pirates that sail beneath The Liberty. They prefer the smaller life, not having a giant bounty on their head. Currently, they are loyal to the coven, however their loyalty can be bought for an easy price.

♧ Nathir O'Laoghaire; The Magistrate’s Son Amab  • Agender • He/Him • Bisexual • Aromantic

The charming son of Leary. Many whisper that is part fae, due to his charm, if it’s true or not many are unaware. He is a very sophisticated young man, that has managed to wrap the entire town around his finger. While on the surface he is alike his father is a caring, compassionate, charming young man, something sinister brews beneath. He is devious, demanding, domineering.

♧ Liannah Ó Buachalla; The Baker's Daughter Afab • Genderfluid • She/They • Asexual • Panromantic

Being Ceann’s daughter, Liannah helps around the bakery and family business. Unlike the company she keeps, she is a reserved young woman. She is polite and maintains her manners with whomever she is dealing with. She has the patience of a saint and rarely loses her cool. Liannah is the woman with a calm demeanor about her, being a woman many are comfortable around due to her peaceful and calm aura.

♧ Mastema Farrell Baoghal; The Knave Amab • Genderfluid • He/They • Pansexual • Demiromantic 

Baríon’s bastard son she had with a fiend she bargained with for more power. Since he was young, he was raised by the servants of the house, and the coven, over his own mother; the two have more of a business relationship over a familia one. Since he cares less what his mother does, he spends his time with Liannah and Reyes, either at the bakery or getting into trouble somewhere. With Reyes as an influence, Mastema is a flirtatious man that enjoys scandals and making the most of life

♧ Reyes Amor Bello; The Charlatan  Amab • Queer • He/She • Pansexual • Aromantic

A foreigner to the Coven, born and raised in the Duchy of Incali. At a young age, he became a traveling charlatan, recently settling within the coven only as he befriended Liannah and Mastema and enjoyed their company. Now, he is the local bad influence: scamming locals out of their money at the taverns, wooing and seducing young men and ladies alike, always trespassing and vandalizing something. He is trouble, but has a heart of gold when it matters.

━━━━━━━━━━ Character list is liable to update as progress is made ━━━━━━━━━━

If you wish to be added to the taglist for this novel, feel free to comment, leave it in the tags, or shoot me a message!

Taglist:

[tea-mew96]

An Analysis of Armada Starscream’s Character Arc

So after reading @baebeyza‘s answer to an ask here, I decided I wanted to make a separate post sharing my view on some of the points made there, mainly the ones taking about Starscream’s character arc. Make sure to read that original post before going through this in order for this anything below to make sense. This is all my personal interpretation btw, so feel free to agree or disagree as much as you want. Also, spoilers for Transformers Armada.

For starters, I’m of the belief that Armada is a mess in regards to writing up until the Unicron Battles act of the show, but Starscream’s arc was arguably one of the better parts of Armada IMO. Plus he’s one of my fave characters in the show. Thus, I’m going to analyze and provide my perspective on some of the things mentioned in the original post. 

1.) The fight between Megatron and Starscream in “Rebellion”. If you thought the fight between these two in this episode felt contrived, that’s because in-universe it kinda was. Remember Sideways? He was manipulating both Megatron and Starscream throughout that entire episode in order to get those two to fight to the death. He was successful in getting the fight to happen, but there was no death of one of the bots like he had hoped would happen.

2.) Thrust and Megatron’s plan in “Sacrifice”. It’s true that Starscream had ownership of the Star Saber when the Decepticons finally got it their hands on it. That is, until Megatron had his Minicon Leader-1 trick him into attacking Demolisher with the sword in “Conspiracy”. The end-result was everyone agreeing that only Megatron should be allowed to wield the Star Saber, questioning Starscream’s competence. Ever since then, Megatron was the one in charge of the sword.

So why didn’t he want Starscream to have the sword? Simple: Megatron is an arrogant dick who is afraid of Starscream. Megatron sees Starscream’s confidence as a threat to his status as supreme Decepticon leader, and Starscream challenging him to that fight in “Rebellion” (despite his emotions being manipulated by Sideways in order to do it) is evidence of that fear being somewhat founded in Megatron’s eyes.

As for Thrust, he’s also quite arrogant, thinking of himself as the “best tactician”. Because of his perceived high-intelligence and ability to think of “great strategies”, Thrust believes that he’s better than any other Decepticon…including Starscream. The fact that someone so “below him” has the title of “second in command” doesn’t sit well with Thrust.

Basically, what you end up with are two arrogant people who either don’t like and/or fear Starscream.

The plan that Thrust makes is aimed to retrieve the Requiem Blaster, a powerful weapon which is currently back at the Autobot base. If they want a chance of breaking in, they’re going to have to lure as many Autobots as they can out of the base. In other words, they need a distraction. And because of their combined distaste for Starscream, Megatron and Thrust decide that he is the one that should be the distraction. I’m also guessing another reason to keep him in the dark was to keep the reaction as convincing to the Autobots as possible; sometimes being informed on the twist causes a less-convincing performance, and a convincing disguise was an important thing the plan needed in order for it to work. Thrust does imply that Megatron would have to give up the Star Saber for a time in order to ensure the retrival of the Requiem Blaster, which Megatron agrees to. Starscream only got the Star Saber in this situation because of that little tradeoff to make the plan work: distract the Autobots with the opportunity of getting the Star Saber back while the Decepticons invaded their base and grabbed the Requiem Blaster. And the mission does end up being a success.

This plan was definitely a gamble, as they could’ve easily lost the Star Saber and the chance to grab the Requiem Blaster, but it was one that worked in their favor, so all’s well that ends well. Who cares how Starscream feels about not being informed? Megatron and Thrust sure didn’t.

3.) Starscream, Alexis, and Sympathy

I’m also going to argue that while the messy writing can make it difficult to feel bad for Starscream, that doesn’t mean the potential to isn’t there. I personally have a lot of sympathy for him, even if his story wasn’t executed as well as it could’ve.

“Rebellion” and Thrust’s plan in “Sacrifice” are both driving forces for Starscream to join the Autobots, and a justifiable one IMO.

In “Rebellion”, Starscream gets beaten by Megatron for…no reason. Starscream followed Megatron’s orders exactly as he wanted. But because they lost the previous battle and Megatron can’t admit to being wrong, he blames the loss on Starscream anyway. Sideways says in-show that Megatron beating up Starscream for his own loss was absurd. And the abuse only stops when Demolisher blasts his way in and intervenes.

“Sacrifice” only furthers this mistreatment of Starscream, being used as a punching bag for the plan and getting abandoned without being informed about what was going to happen. This combined with the multiple times he’s been belittled by both Megatron and Thrust sends him over the edge, attacking everyone in the base when he gets back and eventually going to the Autobots for refuge and help to get revenge.

When Starscream arrives, the Autobots-especially Hot Shot-are reluctant to have a Decepticon join the folds so little after their dear friend Smokescreen almost dying by their hand. Hot Shot in particular is still hurt over Sideways’ betrayal. I’d argue those facts make for valid and understandable concerns, even if it results in some drama.

Regardless of their hesitance, almost everyone knows and agrees that having Starscream go back to the Decepticon base after attacking everyone there wasn’t going to end well for him. Thus, Optimus orders that they will let Starscream join their ranks (he’s a good dad).

Alexis was one of the first to suggest that Starscream join, and one of the first to attempt to get him to open up to cooperation with the team, probably because she saw potential in having him as an ally like Optimus did. Towards the end of the episode “Mars”, Alexis congratulates Starscream on a job well-done with getting the Minicon Firebot to join their side (praise ain’t something Starscream receives a lot of). Starscream scoffs and says he’s only on their side to defeat Megatron, but he leaves behind a moon rock, something that the kids had asked Jetfire and Starscream for earlier before going on a mission to Mars. I agree with Alexis in her conclusion that this is evidence of Starscream starting to change for the better. In the next episode “Crack”, the kids award Starscream for his nice gift by throwing him a surprise party and gifting him a chamois. What stands out to me about this scene is that Starscream has no idea how to react. He’s confused because he’s not used to receiving many positive words of praise from his former Decepticon peers, much less a present. 

He does push away help and positivity from the Autobots and the kids (to unintentionally hilarious degrees at times), but I think that’s partly due to the kind of impact his experiences with Megatron have had on his mind. He wants approval and acceptance, but once he starts getting it he rejects it. This is merely speculation from a psychological perspective, but I think Starscream has a hard time getting used to receiving kindness because whether consciously or subconsciously, he doesn’t believe he deserves it. The belittlement and mistreatment by Megatron has made him believe otherwise, and/or that every positive acknowledgement received always comes with a catch later on.

Yes, Starscream does return to the Decepticon fold later in “Crack” when Thrust convinces him that he has a better chance to get revenge on Megatron by coming back and conspiring with Thrust. But his short time with the Autobots and kids did impact him. He was extremely hesitant to fire the Hydra Cannon at Earth in “Threaten” and “Crisis” (even though he fires the cannon anyway after said hesitation), regretted the death of Optimus in “Remorse”, saved the kids from being killed by the Requiem Blaster (now in the hands of Thrust) in “Drift”,  and stays behind to help Alexis retrieve her necklace safely (made from the moon rock Starscream gave the kids) in “Portent”. Starscream shows even after leaving that he has started to learn a little bit about compassion.

During the show, Starscream becomes a person who isn’t quite sure whom he should side with, as his personal goals contradict the overall goals of both sides. And how does his story end? He gets killed by Unicron, trying to convince Megatron (technically Galvatron now, but whatever) that Unicron is a real threat and that he needs to ally with Optimus and his team to defeat him. And his final words? Telling Megatron that he was a dick to him and that Optimus treated him better in that short time period than Megatron ever did.

Look, I get it. Armada’s a mess of storytelling. I wish there was more build up to Starscream defecting to the Autobots and coming back to the Decepticon fold. But we still got a pretty descent arc in the end, even if it could’ve been done better. I can’t make anyone feel sympathy for Starscream, but I refuse to deny that his story didn’t impact me or many others.

Starscream’s arc to me is the story of an abused bot trying to find his place in the world and not truly finding it in the end. It’s the story of a bot who dedicated every fiber of his being to serving his leader and getting nothing but shit in return. I feel bad for Starscream; he deserved so, so much better than what he got.

The thing about that chamois scene is that it had a longer impact on Starscream than the episode initially implied, as I mentioned in the examples above. I’m sure exchanging of gifts probably won’t mean much to someone who is used to getting and giving them. But to a bot who’s been abused by Megatron like Starscream was? That’s a fucking revelation. That’s new. That challenges his viewpoint of the world around him. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t have had second thoughts about firing the Hydra Cannon. He wouldn’t of saved the kids, he wouldn’t have helped Alexis with the necklace. He wouldn’t of helped Optimus convince Megatron to join forces and defeat Unicron.

Alexis was a firm believer that Starscream could be a better person and by extension get onto a path of recovery by showing him small acts of compassion and kindness at a time and celebrating those small victories of improvement. She wanted to be his friend because she recognized the potential he had. She recognized that Starscream needed support, needed a friend, deserved respect. That’s something he never got much of if any during his times as a Decepticon. 

TL;DR Starscream’s character arc in Armada ain’t perfect but it’s still one of the best stories in the show that can impact you and I will forever stan him.

[pkmnsdarkqueen]

The Villain’s as their dnd race and class

From this

that helped inspire all of this

(used hero forge )

-some edits to original design-

Team name: Rainbow

How they got the name: They kept arguing over what to be called and some Npc said they were all so colorful, and should go by rainbow. This stuck, they all collectively hate this npc for being the cause of what they find a terribly lame name.

other teams:

Elite (Kanjo)

Second Gen  (children group)

Dropouts (main group coming soon)

Giovanni-Shifter mountain lion, Fighter: Battle Master

A shifter fighter as before still trying to absolve his crimes for ya know running a mafia that controlled many towns. Instead of uniforms to signify being part of the mafia members where shoulder armor all in the same colors to signify their allegiance. The helmet on the ground is reserved for the leader alone. He still has these in case some of his old ways or contacts are needed by the group. Also in his fighting style he still uses some dirty tactics such as rings since brass knuckles are a bit too obvious, and well the good old broken class bottle his tail is holding. A touch of an orange vest since well, the anime version of him is something my mind will never forget.

(rest below cut)

Archie-Sea elf, Rouge: Swashbuckler

I know sea elves aren’t a traditional race, but the homebrew stuff people have made is so good and I want to keep the elf/dwarf rivalry with Maxie plus someone else is already a triton. So he fights with a giant anchor because of course he does, and no matter what has on his captain hat despite not currently having a crew. The center skull of his necklace is a sapphire, and the skull mask was his claim to fame as a pirate since I can’t make the x pattern he has in the games. 

Maxie-Mountain dwarf, Wizard: Evocation

Ah maxie the dwarf, He came from the mountains fascinated with rocks and that comes into play ash his magic is mostly volcanic. Like most dwarves he wears a helmet this one with a Ruby in it as it is traditional among dwarves to have armor. However he’s very unlike most dwarves in that he keeps a clean face,a nd isn’t terribly rugged which aids to why he left in the first place. His book has spells as well as all of the research he’s done on various land scapes.

Cyrus-Kalashtar, Artificer: Forge Adept

He doesn’t look like he belongs, and he does not care. He’s like the one person in the party who’s hired them for this job, and just wants his answers dang it he doesn’t care what he looks like to them. He sleeps in that outfit and through some artificer tech bs it keeps his body temperature perfect unless the weather is extreme. And he gets 2 angels cause he’s the one guy in the party with a gun, that he made mind you, and will not let anyone touch it. Also has a scanner to find the planar abnormalities and the little orb is like a small spy drone. He’s not as friendly as other Kalashter but has the no emotion thing under control to a terrifying degree, or perceived lack of emotion.

Ghetsis-Human, Warlock: Fiend

Again he has to have a good enough reputation to be allowed to hang around so he looks almost knightly in a way. Heads up the copper sickly green color on the dog’s paws, ANYONE WITH THAT COLOR IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BBEG (big bad evil guy so final boss). Read plot to understand. He claims the spectral wolf he rides on is a warlock spell adjusted, since they can get mounts, but it’s one of the gifts from the god he is taking orders from since he’s older and it’s colors are somewhat based on his hydreigon. As far as the color I also used it in his magic where the sword he summons has the evil god’s influence. The staff on his back is the cane he uses when the wolf is unsummoned. Also yes he is missing an arm cause I like that more than him having one. Finally the scattered objects around him symbolize the fact he, ye know killed his former party.

Lysandre-Leonin, Paladin:Oath of the Crown

He’s a lion because of course he is, but as he is oath of the crown and royalty much of his armor details are polished in the brightest of golds. Overall his attire has little silver usually a black or gold. His blade would be gives waves like fire, and his abilities would be mostly fire based. He would be the best in the party as diplomatic ventures due to being royalty, despite the disgrace he recently brought on his family, and the fact he’s a paladin thus the quil and paper at his side.

Lusamine-Aasmir, Bloodhunter: Profane soul

Blood hunter another kinda sketchy class, but as an aasmir people instinctively trust her more. Her powers would be ice based if her own, and project some heavenly like light as well. However as she is also helping the main boss powers from him would resonate int hat sickly copper green color as well. Her weapon of choice would be scythes though she’d be able to talk away any suspicious. Better yet the amulet on her neck is how she is able to make sure those who can sense good and evil such as paladin Lysandre is enchanted to throw them off. It also is what holds the mind control on Guzma who got too close. 

Guzma-Bug Bear, Barbarian: Wild Soul

The palest and most BUG of bug bears you’ll ever meet. I wanted to keep the pale look cause it fits with ‘team skull’ and kept the dyed hair as well. Also naturally he’s got some skulls. The blindfold is excused by Lusamine saying he has an injury there when in actuality it hides that he’s possessed and the eerie glow from soem of her and Ghetsis’s magic is in his eyes. Also yes most of his armor is bone based. Now for the reasons as to why he has a thorax and bug antenna. So barbarian wild souls get their powers from another plane of esistence after having come into contact with it. Since Lusamine is well experimenting with merging planes, and has used various races as experiments before why not use now mind controlled bug bear? Yeah so he got kinda merged with another plane’s race of bug people. Lusamine has a whole story about how she saved him, and he’s been left kinda mentally unstable and half bug when it’s all her fault. 

Rose-Loxodon, Cleric: Life

A simple elephant that just wants to know if there is a chance magic can be used up fully or is truly as renewable as everyone claims it to be. Certainly can fight though truthfully doesn’t mind helping out by healing. However if soemone gets hurt from fighting in the party, cough maxie and archie, he’s strict about not healing them till they apologize. I kept him in mostly grays since it matches his suit, and some armor since he’s a steel trainer. I also decided his magic would mostly be a gray with pulses of yellow. I gave him brown details on the skin so that it’s true to form, and also he’s got some colorization past usual gray elephant. He’s high key one of the most vital party members as the healer and uses that sometimes, also the one who buys the most health potions. (If I could give the elephant ears piercings I would)