#it IS that weakness combined with his strengths that make him so interesting

[chlorinecake]

SO PRETTY IT HURTS | rough and handsy sex scenarios with switch!enha legal line ft. nsfw links

⟡ synopsis ⨾ basically just how each enhypen member would feel about you being rough with them in the bedroom

⟡ contains ⨾ NSFW LINKS, hair pulling, biting, slapping/spanking, marking, scratching, and unprotected sex

— HEESEUNG gives off the vibe that he'd be really into having a bit of pain mixed with his pleasure, whether that was you slightly grazing your teeth against his shoulder as he fucked into you, or you desperately clawing at his chest while riding him… Just imagine how cute Heeseung's scrunched up face would look in moments like that, his needy hands clinging unto your ass as his hips thrusted upwards at a rapid pace, both of you chasing your highs...

— JAY wouldn’t be too against the idea of having you rough him up a bit during sex, especially if it meant he was doing a good job of pleasing you... Just the feeling of your fingers tugging at his messy locks while he ate you out would be more than enough to keep him excited until he finally had you bent over on the mattress, holding your ass in place right before filling you up with his warm cum.

— JAKE is the playful type, so I can totally see him enjoying some switchy behavior in the bedroom, round one beginning with him domming you as usual, up until your nails dug into his shoulders for more leverage, bouncing in his lap like a touch deprived fuck bunny... It’d definitely be a tantalizing combination for him, but he always liked feeling crazy with you anyways, biting down on his lip at the sight of you finishing him off.

— SUNGHOON often treated sex with you like some sort of competition, especially whenever you behaved like a brat in need of taming before you two even reached the bedroom... a catty smirk would stain his features at the frustrated look on your face at his teasingly slow thrusts, provoking you to gently tap slap at his chin for a little sexual encouragement... oh when I tell you he’d get so into it after you hit him, fucking into your tightness with all his strength as you squirt all over the sheets, making him go weak in the knees…

— SUNOO doesn’t really strike me as the type to enjoy pain by any means, but it’d always be a treat for him to see you going so crazy underneath him as he fucks into you that his tiny groans could hardly keep you from marking him even more. The guy legitimately never came harder than when you’d tug at his hair while in missionary, or bite into the plush flesh of his neck to contain your moans from how well he was pleasing you …

— JUNGWON seems like such a sucker for rough stuff to me, whether that be on the giving or receiving end... Just imagine it: Jungwon fucking into you with all his might while you let your hazy vision wander, looking at the marks you left along his neck, and how pretty his hands looked wrapped around your waist matching your whimpers with his own as you both chased your highs together…

⚠︎ author’s note: Just another fic I had marinating in the depths of my private posts because it didn't do too well at first... hopefully y'all like what I've done with this time tho !!

⚠︎ tag list: @squoxle @nikisvanillaccola @wonbinisbabygurl @addictedtohobi @ashgonedash @yourmomscuntis2tighy @watamotee33 @ot7sevenlvr

⚠︎ path to my enhypen bookshelf if you’re interested !!

[thegeminisage]

origins-style conclave quest where instead of picking the next king of orzammar you have to help pick the next first talon after caterina dies. who is your rook throwing their weight behind?

lucanis dellamorte: caterina's flesh and blood and chosen successor. has the necessary skills to do the job passably but emphatically does not want it, which may affect how well he does. from a crow house with only like 2 people left in it. well-known weakness: illario, which may put a giant target on both their backs. other weakness: he is a known abomination, which makes him and spite a package deal. being an bomination would make him hard to kill, but it would also make a lot of the religious types really REALLY want to kill him.

illario dellamorte: also caterina's flesh and blood but she hated him. little bit of a disaster, but would have schemed his way into it with surprising cleverness had zara actually killed lucanis like she promised to. great at lying; even lucanis said illario was better than he thought. also from a crow house with only 2 people left in it. wants the job REAL bad but maybe only because of grandmommy issues, so who knows if he'd actually put effort into it or not. did kind of betray the entire country of antiva, which would DEFINITELY put a giant target on his back.

viago de riva: bastard man (honorific) who wants the job so so so bad and would be RUTHLESSLY good at it, bringing a kind of strength to the crows they haven't seen in awhile, but he definitely only wants it because of his daddy issues (he is the king's bastard and being first talon would make him more powerful than the king). would one hundo percent ditch the job to pull a coup in the future if he spotted a good opportunity. well-known weakness: teia, which may put a giant target on both THEIR backs. counterpoint: she can take care of herself though.

teia cantori: pretty compassionate as far as assassins go, has a strong sense of right and wrong, and would probably reform the crows to make them less horrible as she is probably genuinely a good person. this combined with her being an elf would piss pretty much every single other crow who ever lived off which would put a huge target on HER back. however, this is probably the only person you could put in this seat that viago would NOT try to kill...in fact, he'd probably help protect her even though he, again, REALLY wants the job for himself. his ambitions would be shelved in favor of being teia's boytoy for the rest of his life.

rook de riva: available only to crow rook players, only you can know how good of a job your de riva rook would do and what direction they would take the crows in, but hey, if rook saves the world, who would complain? viago, that's who. this option would likely cause a falling out between them. furthermore, de riva rooks who are also romancing lucanis may struggle in that relationship since it's a job he didn't want (it's likely he will not want his beloved doing it, either). de riva rooks who are not romancing lucanis are putting a big target on their love interest's back.

zevran arainai: the crazy amount of horrifically tedious sidequests and picking the EXACT right options would make this a rare option because he's technically totally ineligible, and would cause complete and total pandemonium if he did get in. however: it would be funny. i'm adding a restriction to this option so he won't just sweep instantly: if your warden romanced zevran and died during origins or of the calling since, he will be hardened and and KILL everyone else on this list upon assuming power. if your warden romanced zevran and is still alive, he will refuse to take the seat no matter what to be with them.

[dorkofclanlavellan]

Sweet Doesn't Mean Naive (Fallout Characters)

Fandom: Fallout 4 Scenario: The characters meeting and falling for a reader who is very sweet and helpful and accepting. Initially they may think the reader is naive because of their nature but soon learn differently. Pairings: Cait x Reader, Danse x Reader, Hancock x Reader, MacCready x Reader, Nick x Reader + Copper Howard x Reader.

Notes: Zero uses of Y/N or Sole. I may do a part 2 for the other characters later, these are just the ones that I'm super inspired for rn. [Also this is based on me never being able to select rude options in video games unless I genuinely hate the character lol]

Trigger Warning: These may be slightly OOC as I'm still familiarizing myself with the characters (more so the FO4 characters than Coop)

Cait:

Cait initially underestimates you, thinking you're too sweet and accepting to survive in the Wasteland. However, she's surprised when she discovers your savvy side, handling dangerous situations with intelligence and composure.

Your kindness and willingness to help others win her heart, and she admires your ability to adapt and thrive in challenging circumstances.

Cait falls for you deeply, realizing that your sweetness is not a weakness but a strength.

Danse:

Danse is initially cautious around you, expecting you to be naive due to your sweet and accepting demeanor. However, he's pleasantly surprised when he witnesses your quick thinking and resourcefulness during a perilous situation.

Your kindness and helpfulness earn his respect, and he admires your ability to handle yourself in tough situations.

Danse develops feelings for you, impressed by your combination of kindness and savvy decision-making skills.

Hancock:

Hancock is amused by your sweetness and helpfulness, initially thinking you might be a bit naive about the dangers of the Commonwealth. However, he's pleasantly surprised when you prove to be street smart and savvy in various situations.

Your accepting nature and open-mindedness capture his interest, and he admires your ability to see the good in people while still being aware of the harsh realities of the world.

Hancock develops strong feelings for you, fascinated by your unique blend of kindness and savvy insight.

MacCready:

MacCready is cautious around you at first, assuming you're naive because of your sweet and accepting personality. However, he quickly realizes that you're more savvy than you appear when you show exceptional skill in handling dangerous situations.

Your helpfulness and compassion make a lasting impression on him, and he admires your ability to adapt and survive in tough circumstances.

MacCready falls for you, drawn to your kindness and impressed by your hidden savvy nature.

Nick Valentine:

Nick initially sees you as naive, given your sweet and accepting demeanor. However, he's amazed when you display a keen understanding of complex situations and handle them with grace and intelligence.

He finds your kindness and empathy touching, and he admires your ability to see through people's facades while still maintaining your positive outlook.

Nick develops strong feelings for you, intrigued by your combination of sweetness and savvy awareness of the world around you.

Cooper:

When you first met, Coop was fairly dismissive of you. He thought you were just going to get yourself killed fairly soon. Your generous nature was a sign of naïveté in his eyes. So he wanted as little to do with you as possible.

Then you gave him a months supply of vials for free. And he decided to stick with you. Deciding the best repayment was to protect you from the dangers of the Wasteland and yourself.

That's when he learned just how much he'd underestimated you. You were kind and always willing to help absolutely anyone but you were not one that could taken advantage of.

And that's what really impressed him. The more of your acumen that Cooper saw, the more he grew to care about you. Including your altruistic nature.

[laboratory-for-peace]

Villain Analysis: The Garuda Himself

AKA What turns men into monsters; Is it ideology and propaganda? Projection and insecurity? Class and upbringing? Or perhaps, it is all of these combined.

A not-so-quick analysis of Vinsmoke Judge, what makes him so despicable and hate-able, why he works as a villain, what does this mean for Sanji as a character and WCI as an arc, and how the brains of awful men like his work.

Warning: this is very very long (around 2k words) and talks about topics of abuse and imperialism, obviously. Also, a lot of this hinges on personal subjective interpretation of the narrative and speculation, so please be patient.

For starters, let’s get a quick comparison between Judge as a villain and other antagonists throughout One Piece. There’s, in my opinion, something that quickly separates him from the rest.

While most villains in One Piece are often motivated to do horrible things because of personal pathos and experiences, wants, needs, desires and traumatic memories, Judge –at first glance at least, seems to be motivated by something very different: Ideology. He is an imperialist, a fascist, a eugenicist, a classist, a warmonger, and so on and so on.

He is most similar to a villain like Hody Jones in this regard. There’s no personal big event in their lives (that we know of, at least) leading this type of character to their horrible actions, but rather a worldview. Most other antagonists in One Piece are in my opinion written as “person first, ideology second”. They’re often motivated by their own specific experiences, even if they can be assigned an ideology on top of that. But Judge and Hody seem to be more symbolic of broader ideas at their core, so they’re in a sense the odd ones out. They’re the reverse; “ideology first, person second”, almost feeling like they’re representatives of broader harmful structures, rather than being their own individuals.

I think also it’s worth mentioning why the ideology is here, and what it offers in terms of the narrative of Sanji’s abuse. Some might think it was an unnecessary element that isn’t that thematically connected to Sanji’s struggles. Couldn’t his family simply have been abusive, without all that Germa nonsense? Well for starters, it’s mostly here for the pop-cultural Kamen Rider references, yeah. But getting that out of the way, I think Sanji’s suffering is connected to his father’s terrible worldview pretty directly.

For starters, fascism is all about control. It preaches scapegoatism, demonization of “weakness” and fetishization of strength. Judge is a man that runs his family the same way he runs his state; with an iron fist. Sanji’s abuse IS a direct result of him being unable to meet these horrific standards. It also helps that we know Sanji as a kind person, so juxtaposing him to his comically evil literal-supervillain family, makes it simply easier for us to root for Sanji and hate his relatives, from a narrative building perspective. Ideas around masculinity and what an “able body” is in Judge’s eyes, are both part of Sanji’s backstory of abuse. It is also important that the Vinsmokes are royalty, because the first thing we learn about Sanji in One Piece, is that he suffered through great hunger. These people are wealth itself; they have never experienced that hardship.

However, while I think it’s true to an extent that Judge at first is simply “walking ideology” without being much of an actual individual, the way WCI is written, he starts showing interesting cracks behind the mask that reveal hints of specific personal motivations. In other words, the awful person behind the just as awful ideology starts to subtly show, and can be pieced together by looking intently.

As we experience the arc through Sanji’s eyes, Judge is a man who initially seems like an intimidating “strongman”, an impossible-to-read stoic threat, with no thoughts of his own outside cruelty. He’s a walking stereotype without much depth to be found. But slowly, the faults of his character begin to show; he is hasty, he has emotional outbursts, he is pathetic and hypocritical, he is careless and thoughtless, falling easily into Big Mom’s trap. In other words the imperfection and insecurity that Sanji was never able to spot in his father as a scared kid, starts to reveal itself, as Sanji slowly overcomes his fear of this man. He is not terrifying anymore; he is pathetic. And he is human, the worst kind of evil. The image of a man who is as perfectly mechanical as his genetically augmented sons, is shattered. They have no choice in their cruelty (to an extent, at least, due to Judge’s actions no less), but Judge is perfectly capable of compassion. He simply chooses to disregard it. His evil, unlike his sons, is his own choice.

Judge often laments his own humanity, doing so multiple times throughout the arc. He complains about how he can’t bring himself to take “his own son’s life as a father” to Sanji’s face, or often shows his twisted love for the rest of his children. This is a man who wishes nothing more than to be like his so-called “perfect” cruel sons, these unfeeling warriors, soldiers with no fear or sorrow. He fashions himself after them, in a way. But that is not the truth of who he is, and he very very clearly hates that.

This is where his hypocrisy comes in; he punishes Sanji for the very same things he himself is very capable of. To me, that’s kind of the point of the scene of him crying during the assassination, a highlight of his “rules for thee but not for me” behavior. This might sound absurd at first, but don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. I think out of the three parental figures Sanji has had in his life (Sora, Judge, Zeff) he is the least like his birth father. He is in every sense, much more like the other two. However, no matter how absurd it feels, out of all his sons, Judge is most similar to Sanji. And he hates every second he is reminded of it. Not in the kindness, of course, but in his emotional nature. This is a man who, I think is not a stretch to say, projected on his eight-year-old son.

But here comes the problem, of course. As I said earlier, I think this is a man whose ideology came first. He doesn’t latch onto it to cover up for his insecurities, but rather, they are comorbid, it’s the reverse. The elements he sees in himself as “weakness” are elements that he hates, precisely because they clash with his worldview, not the other way around. The ideology is a result of upbringing, similar to the Celestial Dragons; taught from birth that as royalty he is superior to others, that he deserves everything by existing, that his kingdom’s horrific nationalism is excused due to whatever scapegoatism the Vinsmokes have been propagandizing for centuries. So when he is reminded that these ideas might be false, when he looks at his own “weak” son and realizes he is more like him than he is like his other “perfect” sons, he lashes out in ways the escalate in cruelty. I think he is at his core, a disastrous mix of entitlement and insecurity. After all, secure and happy men don’t fall for such ideas.

There’s an interesting moment right before he gives his last horrid speech where he lists all of the things he hates about Sanji (that scene where Luffy lovingly responds with “Why did he list all the good things about you?”). Before he starts angrily and pointlessly rambling, there’s a panel where he looks down at Sanji, their faces juxtaposed, with his bandages covering one eye; just like Sanji and his hairstyle, and while making a similar facial expression to him. There’s a pause in that moment. I think the narrative is telling us in a way, and if you want to interpret it as such, about the insecurity and projection hiding behind this man’s “strongman” mask. Literally a mask- Big Mom broke his helmet. He is here without it. And of course, he cannot change. He will not change. He will keep acting out his cruelty; it’s too late for horrible old men like him. But not for someone like Sanji. This is the last moment where we see the two reject each other for good. And it’s a reminder of how that man’s shadow no longer looms over Sanji. Sanji can see through him, he sees the real, pathetic, sad man behind the intimidating persona. Maybe he does see himself a little bit too, but he rejects that. He rejects a future where he grows to be like this man.

The last element I want to talk about however, one that I didn’t touch on so far, probably has to do with Sora. There’s two things that stood out to me in regards to Judge’s relationship to Sora that I never see anyone talk about.

The first is the fact that Judge calls Sanji “his greatest failure”. Think about it for a few seconds. Why would a man so self-absorbed not simply blame Sora for what happened? He could have easily gone “Oh, there’s no failure on my part here, my science was perfect! I didn’t make any mistakes; I was simply sabotaged. Sabotaged by a third party.” But he doesn’t. He doesn’t use Sora as a scapegoat. I mean- it wouldn’t have been inaccurate either. The reason Sanji was born human IS because of Sora’s interference, not because of any mistake in the science.  So why? Why does he not do it? Why is Sanji “his mistake”. I simply couldn’t figure it out at first, but then it dawned on me.

If Sanji is “Judge’s mistake”, than it can’t be “Sora’s success”. He is erasing her. He’d rather present himself as someone who messed up, than include her and acknowledge her actions. It’s about taking agency away from her. If HE is the one that failed when it comes to Sanji, he can make it about himself, and take her out of the picture. He can strip her of her power and decision. This is at his a core a man who is obsessed with control. Everyone else exists to serve him, in his eyes.

We see this even further in one of the most interesting and under-analyzed parts of Reiju’s speech to Sanji in WCI. While trying to figure out her father’s behavior, she makes the suggestion to Sanji that right after Sora died “he blamed you for everything that happened, and started to mistreat you accordingly.”

While Reiju is an unreliable in-universe narrator, she is one of the few people close enough to her father to be able to figure out his behavior. And here, she is suggesting that a big part of Sanji’s mistreatment is because, in his twisted mind, Judge blames Sanji for Sora’s death. This to me reads in a couple of ways. For starters, it’s once again taking agency away from her. It couldn’t have been her own decision; it had to be the fault of something or someone else. In this case… their unborn son…? Wild choice on who to blame. But it works in his head; Sora didn’t CHOOSE to disobey him, it was all that child’s fault. But also, it does beg that question again of what happens when you mix that complex villainous humanity with wretched ideology. Did he love Sora? Or is him mourning her just a feeling of loss of something he owned, a loss of ownership and control? Well, if I had to guess, it’s probably a bit of both. And that’s what makes Oda’s villains much, much more interesting to me, compared to simple walking stereotypes. Twisted abusive love expresses itself this way very often. To people like this, genuine feelings of love and horrific desire to control and hurt are the very same. And I think the same can be said for his “successful” children. I do think he loves them, genuinely, but a man like this experiences that emotion through a sense of ownership, control, and an extension of his own ego. It's not that is isn't love, or that it's performative. It is simply twisted, selfish, abusive, but it is there. But Sanji? He doesn't even get that.

God I hope this man suffers a terrible punishment for everything he’s done. An excellent villain, I need him dead and rotting in hell. Whole Peak Island. Thank you Mr. Oda.

[tinycurlyfry]

What's the role of suo character? He is considered as main character with nirei or as deuteragonist but I see he has no importance outside protecting nirei!. I don't understand the hype around his mysterious aura

I think probably what you're looking for is a more flashy fight/action centric series then! You'd probably enjoy all this time you're putting into sending anonymous asks about a show you don't see the appeal of more if you spent it instead on media you can enjoy! However, I will absolutely take this opportunity to gush about Suo you are giving me on a silver plate happily! So let's talk about why Suo is so fascinating narratively!

Labeling him as a deuteragonist is actually pretty spot on, to be honest. He is a character that sticks by the protagonist's side pretty consistently throughout the story. Suo as a character gives advice to Sakura about what will help him grow and achieve what he wants as class captain as well as provides an interesting combination of parallels as well as differences in perspectives compared to Sakura. Additionally, Sakura's presence draws forth the aspects of Suo's character that are likely to be developed within the story. Let's start with how Suo provides a difference in perspective for Sakura!

There is more strength in drive and ideals than in physical strength

Suo says it pretty clearly to Sakura before his match in the Shishitoren arc-

When he first met Sakura, it is very likely his first impression was 'ah, here's yet another brute who thinks he can beat others up and claim himself to be the strongest'. The same kind of person Sakura calls weak or lame himself. However, even Sakura's goal that he says to everyone in the beginning... kind of reflects this idea that physical strength gives you value. He judges Nirei because he can immediately tell Nirei isn't a fighter yet is a student at Furin, he thinks the only thing that is important is winning fights and making sure everyone knows they can't bend him under their will. Sakura thinks the only thing valuable about himself is his fighting ability/strength. But what is shown through his actions? That he protects those who can't defend themselves. That he is pissed off when someone enjoys causing others pain or suffering. Outside of the manga, when asked about what Suo's dream is, he says 'emancipation of slaves'. Right from the get-go he is challenging Sakura to start to think about what his purpose is when he fights. Because it's not really about just proving he's the strongest guy around. Why does this bleed so much into what Suo says to Sakura? Well, for Suo-

2. Empathy is the most important thing to possess

Suo is extremely good at understanding where other people are at emotionally/mentally. A LOT of his dialogue is trying to explain how a person might be feeling or encouraging others (rather forcefully at times haha) to try to demonstrate empathy themselves.

Suo is the calm to Sakura's storm. Except. Suo isn't actually the calm. Not in truth. This is part of why he is so intriguing as a character. It is also where Suo starts to actually parallel Sakura. Because Suo is-

Very Emotional

Incredibly so. The difference is, Sakura wears his heart on his sleeve. He doesn't hide how he feels or his inner thoughts at all because Sakura wants to be true to himself no matter what. It's hard for him, it is agonizing for him at times because of his bad prior experiences, but it is still something he tries to do at all times. Suo, however? Keeps those emotions hidden behind a "friendly" smile most of the time (to talk towards him being appealing- a lot of people like characters who put up fronts. I am included in this 'lot of people' lmaoo. I am such a sucker for a character who puts up a front to guard themselves or keep others at an arm's length).

But Suo gets angry. Incredibly so. He also judges others all the time. He's VERY opinionated, but he doesn't often state any of these opinions so directly. It's important to Suo that he upholds appearances and comes across as disciplined, calm, and collected. Sometimes though, he is anything but. Which is what we're shown in the Keel arc. Keel takes advantage of kind people who are just strong enough to be useful, but weak enough that they can be beaten into submission and manipulated. And that? Already pisses off Suo I'm sure. But then, on top of everything else, Suo is kept from running to the aid of someone he cares about. Someone who has such good drive, who also has a strong core but has some ways to go in being able to act on that drive. Suo is kept back from saving his friend and Nirei is beaten into unconsciousness. So what happens? Attempted murder. Suo's anger and frustration boils over. He hates these people. He hates seeing those he cares about and seeing those who can't defend themselves, broken. So he's going to put an end to it. To them. "Nice Guy" façade be damned. "The level headed one" be damned. And we get this look at Suo in a chapter literally titled "Extreme Emotions"

Which like, if you wanna talk about why his character garners a lot of hype, I think a large part of it is because of his aura when he's genuinely mad. It's the duality of it all.

I don't have as smooth of a transition for this one but what else does Suo do that Sakura absolutely does as well?

2. He keeps people at an arm's length; he doesn't like letting people in

This is also where Suo has a lot of duality, but here it makes him something of a hypocrite. He tells Sakura it's important to delegate and rely on others alongside Nirei. He pokes and prods Sakura to try to get him to open up to them. To not assume how others feel. But Suo doesn't show that himself. The ONLY thing Suo has honestly given about himself is that he has a mentor who taught him the 'hodge-podge' martial arts he uses as his fighting style. Everything else? Jokes, lies, dismissive words. Suo is hardly ever injured or dirtied in a fight because it isn't a conversation to him. He's the one doing the talking. He's the one teaching a lesson to the other person. The other person doesn't need to say anything to Suo. He's already pretty damn sure what kind of person they are. He doesn't eat with the others because he claims he is on a diet. It keeps him from participating in what is probably the BIGGEST symbolism/metaphor for personal connections in the story. Because Suo doesn't try to connect with others. He actively avoids it.

So uh, yeah! That's why I think people find Suo interesting and get hyped about when he's on screen/in chapter panels! I am sure there are other things that could be said, but I hope I could offer some insight!

[flawseer]

Mail Call #3

Answering comments from @void-the-bear @railway-lands @keabirb @ilikebookssomuch @chezgorman @cartoons-everywhere @dragonra305

Please don't hurt me. I have glasses.

Thank you, to all of you. It makes me genuinely happy to know that I'm able to put something into this world that other people can enjoy. I think this is a great setting that is fun to add to.

Doing a Wings of Fire-themed run of this Smaugust challenge has been very interesting and it's good that the result appears to be well-received. It's not always been easy, I'm actually getting quite exhausted having to post content on a strict schedule like this. But it is worth doing if it makes people happy.

Relating to my comment on this post. I probably will do it eventually, along with some other ideas I had that didn't fit in. But it won't happen while Smaugust is still going, as I am already skirting the limits of what I am physically capable of right now.

Ahh... hm... This is the question that has toppled mountains and started wars. You're going to get hit squads sent after me.

Well, there is the big one, of course. Qibli/Winter. They have such wonderful chemistry whenever they are in a scene together (with one pretty upsetting exception). And Qibli is always teasing him about being his destiny and the two of them getting married, so I think there is some attraction there.

Then uh... I used to feel completely ambivalent about this one, but Starflight/Fatespeaker has really grown on me over time. There's a lot of interesting potential there that doesn't really make it into the story. I need to make a long-winded post about Fatespeaker one day.

Blaze/Glacier is another one that could be cute. I think putting a repressed Icewing together with a highly eccentric and rambunctious Sandwing is going to be a winning combination most of the time. Or well, I guess I should say "could have been cute", since Glacier had to die for the plot, in a very wretched and infuriating way too.

There are a couple more that I think have their moments or could be interesting in one way or another. Some of them even contradicting or overlapping each other. Listing all of them would probably be a bit excessive.

Oh yeah, and I think Sunny is ace.

Ah, a question that'll make me put someone else's favorite character at the bottom of a preference list... After the shipping question I'm starting to fear for my life now.

Let me preface this by clarifying that I generally like all of the DoD. There are some characters in this setting that I loathe and wish they would exit the story, and the arc 1 protagonists are nowhere near that. So being ranked low here translates to me saying "Yeah, they're okay, room for improvement", not "wow, they're the WORST!"

Okay whatever, let's get down to it.

#1 - Sunny

That one's easy, I mean, just look at the pinned post on this blog.

Sunny is so wonderful and charming and perfect in every conceivable way, she is one of my six all-time favorite characters. She is the flower that blooms in the bitter desert. A lot of people may perceive her as this demure and innocent character who is always happy and friendly, and oblivious to the suffering around her. Nah, Sunny knows exactly what is going on. She is keenly aware of all the bloodshed, suffering, and toxicity that unfolds in the world around her. When she remains optimistic and forgiving in the face of darkness, that is not her being meek or passive, it's her steadfastly refusing to let that darkness into herself. She is actively embodying the change she wants to see in the world, even when it hurts her or gets her taken advantage of, because that is what she believes in and the future she will create.

That's pretty inspiring. I wish I had that kind of inner strength.

Also, she is not weak. While she's not a powerhouse scrapper like Tsunami or an invincible stack of bricks like Clay, Sunny strikes quickly and without hesitation when her friends are in danger, and can be deviously clever. This is often overlooked, but she is--to my knowledge--the only character to land an attack on Morrowseer that comes close to actually hurting him.

Well... you got me rambling about Sunny. Let's go through the others more briskly.

#2 - Starflight

I like Starflight a lot. Unfortunately the story really doesn't. He is like, the unluckiest character by far. I don't know what he did to deserve the never-ending cavalcade of misfortune that gets shoveled in his direction throughout all three arcs. Like, it never ends. A couple of friends and I came together and we jokingly called our group the "Starflight Protection Foundation", because someone needs to stage an intervention. Like, wrap him in a cozy sweater and buy him hot chocolate or something. Heaven help this poor man.

He's another one of my favorites.

#3 - Glory

Glory is really cool; I vibe with the "unchosen hero spurned by destiny" theme. She goes through her life and is constantly told "No, you don't have a special destiny. You're the fifth wheel. You are worthless and unimportant". Though she struggles with the constant abuse and devaluation, she eventually finds a way to turn it into strength and declare that the only value that matters is the one she gives to herself.

I really wish the story had NOT made her turn out to be a secret princess. "I was born without destiny, so I'm making my own" is a so much more satisfying character trajectory than "Oh, don't worry. You were born special after all, you just didn't know about it".

So yeah, I kind of tend to put that "secret princess" plot twist on the shelf when I think about Glory, and prefer to think that she managed to sway Grandeur with her skill and determination, rather than a random blood link.

#4 - Clay

Clay is very lovable. He is like the emotional bedrock of the group and acts as a stabilizing force that pairs well with all of the other arc 1 protagonists. He pretty much resolves all of his baggage in the first book and becomes content and steady. That is very good for him, but unfortunately this also kind of turns him into just some dude for the following four books.

Which is fine, it is good for the other characters to have someone behind them who loves them and helps them up when they stumble. It just makes it difficult for Clay to shine on his own.

#5 - Tsunami

Okay, so, Tsunami. I actually like her a lot in arc 1. She's bringing an interesting kind of energy to the group that is like, half-supportive and half-detrimental. Very chaotic. She also has to contend with some heavy stuff; everything to do with her father and the complications in her family life. It's very interesting. Lots of places to go with that.

Arc 2 Tsunami though, really grinds my gears. She regresses into this kind of juvenile, immature personality that is just pointlessly abrasive and confrontational. She acts really condescendingly towards Peril-- despite the latter having saved Clay's life AND it being really important to Clay that her staying at JMA works out well. Her borderline sabotaging this effort by making Peril feel unwelcome seems very dismissive towards Clay's feelings. It also doesn't help that she is the most outspoken about her loathing of Nightwing mindreading and prophecies, which drives Moonwatcher further into her emotional shell and makes things more complicated.

Okay, I have to reiterate: I don't dislike Tsunami. I just think her character arc is incomplete. It feels like she is stuck in arrested development while at JMA. She's mostly running around yelling at people, when she really should be thinking about what to do about Queen Coral, and how to get custody of her siblings. Her sister Anemone is carrying emotional scars from how the Queen has kept her leashed like a dog for her entire life, a process that is now happening to Auklet, even to this day. And then there's the 30 something children who have never known parental love for a day in their life and their mother can't remember the names of.

Someone's gotta step in and save these kids. Or like, at least start vaguely thinking about it.

Turtle???

Hmm....

...

Moose!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

This just come to me when i play the en tapis rouge event.

In one of the scene when we meet eric in the event, Vil said he never get bullied when his main memory after his ob is him getting bullied.

Is it just him, didn't see it as a bullying issues cause he can fight back/because he thought it childish, in denial or he just doesn't want to be seen as someone weak in front of his junior? Cause i have heard that in some country/school, if they found out you were bullied it means you're weak and knowing NRC students prone to violence and bullying each other, being bullied may also be seen as label of weak students(may also associate with Ighnihyde since not many can fight back the bully like savanaclaw).

Or maybe this is so his father didn't worry? He did mention he and eric aren't always being together that much and when they did they do health and beauty related. So maybe Vil himself lied to Eric about his school life's and if he ever asked to bring friend maybe he said that his genuine friend(the other is just school friends or acquaintance) is only jack which make the lie more believable. So Eric may or may not know about it and Vil never tell him about it cause he didn't want to make him worried(this actually also make me think because of Eric being genuine happy seeing Vil's "school friends")

So far in the story and vignettes, we never heard bad memories of Vil and Jack together regarding the bullying pass the line of "they think you're a genuine bad person and want to beat you up". Like we never heard if it only physical bullying or also done another kind of bullying we see in drama and anime.

So i was wonder if it only just because Vil can fight back & he genuine didn't see it, he is in denial, he doesn't want to be as weak or he doesn't want to make Eric worry.

I wouldn’t say that the scene of Vil being bullied is the “main” memory after his OB 🤔 It’s more like… something that contributes to the overall pressure to perform/to be a certain way and feeds Vil’s need for public validation. After all, we also see film staff commenting on Vil’s professionalism (which isn’t necessarily bullying), as well as positive comments and encouragement from Eric. (I have an analysis on Vil’s motivations in book 5 if you’re interested in the topic!) We don’t know how truly common this bullying from Vil’s peers was outside of this one instance. Maybe it actually wasn’t common at all, since I don’t recall any other examples being mentioned.

I don’t see a reason why it can’t be a combination of all of those things instead of just one of them? The only one I would perhaps exclude is Vil being in denial. He doesn’t seem to be rejecting any of the bullying or critique he receives. Rather, even as a child, Vil is fixating on them far too much and equating his self-worth to the opinion of others. If he denied that he was bullied at all, then he wouldn’t place as much value as he does on what they say, he wouldn’t be pushing himself to work as hard has he does to “prove them wrong”.

As I mentioned in the analysis linked above, Vil had to mature extremely fast due to being a child star and seeking to make a name for himself without the publicity boost from his already famous father. You have to be tough to deal with the barrage of criticism coming at you from both the entertainment industry and the public, as well as know how to properly conduct yourself in work settings + with fans. He cannot show weakness, and doesn’t become comfortable being more childish and vulnerable (via giggling or laughing naturally) until late book 6.

Vil is capable of fighting if things escalate. Maybe he feels more secure in stating he isn’t bullied because (as Grim points out), Vil is perfectly capable of defending himself or exacting revenge on those who challenge or offend him. Again, this is a means of showing his own strength and independence—a continued and learned pattern.

The mindset of ��I have to be strong” is further enabled by Night Raven College. The (unofficial) tradition/rule at the school is “the weak obey the strong […] losers don’t get to have a say.” Vil projects an air of superiority not only because he is in a position of power, but because he could easily take students in combat, and the social culture of NRC promotes this way of thinking and resolving disputes. Only the victors get what they want—as well as the respect and the obedience of the losers. We’ve seen Vil successfully pull this off in many other instances: book 5 with Ace/Deuce/Epel, Beans Day with Savanaclaw mob students, book 6 with Idia, and more. He was already steadfast before enrolling, but at NRC, the behavior is perpetuated and this serves Vil well.

Side note (since the ask seems to have implied Ignihyde is often the victim of bullying whereas Savanaclaw, who are physically strong, dominate)!! I think you’re thinking of physical acts of bullying and strength—which, don’t get me wrong, are valid—but I think shows of power and bully aren’t limited to just that. Octavinelle and Scarabia, for example, can be extremely catty and snide. Furthermore, there’s magical strength and skills to account for, as well as other forms of bullying: financial, verbal, emotional/psychological, cyber (which I’m sure Ignihyde mobs excel at, if Idia’s Dorm Uniform vignettes are of any indication).

Vil had always been strong, but that strength has essentially become diamond armor after years and years in entertainment and studying at NRC, a place which enables his attitude. The fact that Vil denies being bullied in front of his father may just be a consequence of all that previous experience with his armor on. He’s so used to it, it’s insignificant to him now.

I also get the sense that Vil wants to be seem as mature and grown-up to his dad. For example, Vil speaks somewhat formally to Eric, referring to him as “Producer” and gently scolding him for taking the time off of work to eat with him. (Him wanting to find success in entertainment without his father’s name getting involved also plays into this.) Vil also agrees to take a picture with his classmates if it is a part of work, but his peers remark that Eric is only using work as a pretense to get a picture of Vil being happy with his school friends. The other half of it seems to be that Eric himself expresses worry about his son’s social life. He mentions that he often had to pull Vil out of school for various gigs, meaning that Vil was not able to be around kids his age too much. This is why he’s so happy to finally have the chance to meet some of Vil’s NRC chums. If Vil intends to reassure him show that he is capable of standing on his own, then naturally that would come with reassuring his father that no one is being nasty to him. (Besides, even if they are, he is perfectly equipped to handle them.)

Last thing I want to comment on is Vil’s friendship with Jack. I have to wonder how significant this actually is…? Because Jack was mentioned in Vil’s post-OB flashback—but this friendship is rarely ever mentioned outside of like a few throwaway voice lines where the two mention working out together??? Like, Vil and Jack don’t seem very close. I believe part of this is because Vil was usually away for work obligations + to travel with Eric and one of them (honestly forgot which one) moved away at some point. Did they reconnect at NRC, or were they just always in touch anyway…?

It doesn’t seem like Vil even talks to his dad about Jack; Jack was not brought up in their conversations. This is strange because this clearly was not the case for other hometown events; Marja seemed to have heard of us before we arrived in Harveston, and Dylla was VERY familiar with Yuu, Ace, and Deuce via phone calls with her son. Yet Eric shows ho similar familiarity with Jack…? Weird, maybe he and Vil aren’t that close after all?

But yeah!! 😅 Overall, I definitely think it’s a combination of factors that just continue to feed into one another. This has convinced Vil that he has to perpetually have this image of being strong, mature, and cool—even to his own family.

[raisedbythetv89]

I've been thinking about the invisible string of it all as it relates to spuffy for the last 48 hours and I'm still going INSANE about it 😹😭

So Liam/Angel/Angelus who uses young girls at best or abuses, psychologically torments and kills them at worst does the worst of the worst to Drusilla and once she's completely broken and hopelessly devoted to him and and only him he immediately loses interest which of course leads to the creation of Spike

Spike who is obsessed with slayers because instead of running from what is designed to destroy him he seeks it out and sees it as a fun and exciting challenge he learns from. Spike who killed two slayers, one who lost her weapon and the other who wished for death. Who's deaths are obviously instrumental in what brings about Buffy the Vampire Slayer being called (Spike also later both preventing the fulfillment of Buffy's death wish and helping her secure THE slayer weapon by giving her the strength she needs??? THE POETRY!!!!)

So Buffy is called when she's called because of all the slayer deaths that came before her and Angel's predatory selfishness and obsession with breaking young innocent girls leads to him eventually losing his soul. Which in combination with his need to constantly belittle Spike for genuinely loving for and caring for Dru aka being feminine and sensitive by taking Drusilla from him and constantly rubbing it in his face and making fun of him for being stuck in a wheelchair aka being weak and helpless (which only happened because he was trying to save Dru and heal her! Demonstrating how rooted in misogyny all of angel's behavior is soul or no soul) is what prompts the origins of Spuffy! Misogyny and cruelty at the hands of Angel combined with Spike and Buffy's determination to never give up no matter how hopeless the circumstances and never back down even if that means teaming up with your enemy is the birth of their relationship!!! They both would literally do anything for love!!! Be it an evil vampire saving the world or the Slayer teaming up with the Slayer of Slayers!!!! Which of course the truce is what causes Spike and Dru to break up which leads to Spike confronting Buffy with the reality about her relationship to angel and the true nature of it. Which of course angel is a manipulative monster who doesn't accept her breaking up with him and moving on so he threatens suicide and then they're back together and THEN once she's comfortable and secure around him, supported by joyce who both institutionalized and kicked buffy out for being the slayer - is like oop it's time to GO girl and breaks up with her in the dumbest most traumatic unresolved way possible and is what leads to her giving "normal" aka Riley a chance because Angel calls their relationship a freak-show and that she, the slayer.... should be normal.....

Which then in s4 Riley and the initiative try and tame and control both Spike and Buffy and when they can't they want them destroyed (the chip, the attempt on Buffy's life and her constantly feeling guilty for being stronger than him and being the slayer, Riley fake staking Spike for outing his betrayal to Buffy and literally blowing up their safe haven in s6) again pushing them together onto the same side, united against a common enemy in s4/5 or propelling them into growth in s6 when the goal was just destruction of Spike/Buffy's comfort in his presence and instead it starts the chain of events that leads to him getting his soul which allows Buffy to love him and let him back into her life and this time her own home without guilt or shame!!!

Then in season 7 both the chip (everything Riley represents) angel and even faith (with the most uncomfortable try hard flirting attempt I've ever seen the second hand embarrassment I get watching her try and hit on Spike is SO strong 🤢😭) try to come between them and pull them apart, create doubt or put them at odds, all fail as now they are an unshakable team that cannot be divided

Where before they were forced onto the same sides by outside forces they're now choosing each other again and again even in the face of outward hostility, disapproval and outright sabatoge from everyone in her life.

Spike and Buffy's relationship is the story of a young girl and a sensitive more feminine man turned vampire who were taught to hate their softness, their femininity, their big hearts, their otherness and were literally designed to destroy each other. Who when the universe kept forcing them together instead of destruction they alchemized the misogyny, abuse and homophobia (as the supernatural is used many times as a metaphor for queerness) they endured both individually and together into liberation for young girls (in the show but for the audience it's representative of liberation for all victims of abuse or oppression no matter your gender identity) everywhere while breaking all the ties that sought to control them and it was all started with Angel's destruction and subsequent abandonment of Drusilla! An abusive predatory man's actions unwittingly lead to the empowerment of THOUSANDS of super-powered young girls who are now able to fight back against monsters like him. Showcasing how abusers and tyrants always create their own downfall because of people like Spike and Buffy who in the face of adversity and pain grow better and stronger out of sheer determination.

There is also a fan theory that Dru was a potential who was about to be called and that's why she was plagued with visions so if all of this is like the ULTIMATE slayer's line revenge on both the council and the original cowardly men who used a young girl to fight their battles for them and on men like angel who lost his control over Buffy and had to watch her chose Spike over him both in s7 when she sends him away and in the comics that makes all of this even more iconic like the ultimate long game revenge but even if it's not and Dru wasn't a potential - an abusive monster who loves to target the weak and helpless tormenting and killing a young innocent girl starting the chain reaction of events that leads to the largest liberation of young girls who would have been exploited and controlled by the council and doomed to short lives full of nothing but fighting and isolation is just fucking incredible 😭 and that is what spuffy represents and what that relationship means to me and why no matter what shit joss tried to throw at us through the narrative or what the anti's say to this day - none of it ever sticks because spuffy is literally about dealing with abusive people just like him and overcoming the pain they cause and turning it into personal growth and healing.

[silent-sanctum]

"Jotaro as a Father"

Alright, this is another popular discussion about Jotaro's character. It also falls victim to the fandom's tendency to resort to "black and white" thinking, perhaps combined with other minor factors (and another case of me liking to overanalyze my favorite characters because Araki left so much about him vague)

This user has posted this on another "opinions that I will defend until the end of time" and garnered thousands of likes. This was probably the most liked quoted retweet. And it irked me. Am I surprised? Not really. Disappointed? Absolutely. And they are probably the 80% Jotaro fans that don't understand him.

And as your local Jotaro defender and anti-Jotaro mischaracterization person, I am here with another essay exploring more of his mentality. This time, it's about him being a parent, and while he isn't the best father, he isn't that bad either, or at least how the majority of the fandom thinks him to be.

I have made a previous character essay that talked about Jotaro's crippling weaknesses under the facade of strength and competence in detail. If you're interested, I'll leave this sentence linked to the post.

Now keep in mind: This character study is all assumptions and headcanons, BUT they are grounded in canon (e.g., pattern of behavior, general personality, actions he took, etc.) instead of what is popular in fanon interpretations. And much like how I wrote my previous essay (with the CEO and her POV on her emotional reservation), I will be drawing a lot of thematic comparisons with another show I've watched.

Why? Because sometimes, there are patterns on how groups of people can function in life, and it's not just the writer's bias and blind defense of their favorite character.

Second, I need to make this clear also: Jolyne is valid for being mad at her father. I am not invalidating her feelings at all. This essay is about exploring his headspace and what led him to do what he did. That's it.

Okay. Now onto the essay itself.

"Is he a bad father?"

Ehh, I can say that while he isn't good, he isn't bad either. His parenting lands more in the grey area, instead of either end of the spectrum. Because we all know at the surface level that he got married, had a daughter, went AWOL, divorced his wife, and stayed away from his family for their safety.

The action was bad: Neglect is neglect, no matter the excuse, and it can cause the affected people to respond to it negatively in the long term, especially for children with an absent parent.

However, the intention was good: He chose to stay away from his family because he attracted danger to his loved ones, who couldn't see the threat. He's a Stand user who could likely draw in other Stand users. He cared for them, and he wouldn't want to risk their safety by being around them.

It's complicated and nuanced. I feel like it's wrong to just shoehorn him into the "bad father" category, when the generalized view of what a "bad dad" is being abusive or leaving the child with malicious and/or selfish intent. But he doesn't hold up the "good father" title either, when being a "good dad" involves being a constant support for one's child, which he didn't do in Jolyne's late childhood to her teens.

So, he's neither good nor bad. He's a father doing all that he can with his current circumstances.

And yes, while I could leave it at that with the whole "he's neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between", many have placed their arguments about why he's a bad father and the alternatives he could've taken instead of completely choosing the self-isolation route.

The most popular one was this question:

"If he knew he was a danger, why did he have Jolyne? Why did he choose to have a family when he was going to stay away from them in the end?"

Here's the thing though… He didn't.

Jotaro doesn't have the hindsight that the audience has. He couldn't have known until he noticed it later down adulthood, where he grew to become more observant of his surroundings.

And even if he did know, is he not allowed to be human? Do you want him to just be a lonely marine biologist who just does the Speedwagon Foundation's (SWF) Stand work 24/7? Is he not a person who is capable of feeling love for someone else, and has wants for himself outside his job?

Yes, he's diligent. He is capable of self-preservation. He is powerful. But even the strongest individuals have families of their own. They have close bonds with others that they treasure. Why? Because being able to love and feel love is what makes someone "human". Jotaro is a human just like most of us. He isn't a working machine who just does his job.

Let me introduce this show called "Moving." It's a show where basically "superpowered parents who used to be special agents, hide their superpowered children from organizations who wish to exploit or kill them." It's a relevant show to this essay since the protagonist's father behaves similarly to Jotaro.

In the show, this man is the government's best agent with special abilities. He carries out his missions and reports back after completing his task. He does his job seriously and rarely fails an assignment. In isolation, he describes himself to be cold and stoic, who is unable to socialize much due to his role as a special operations agent.

One day, he encounters the protagonist's mother: The organization's top graduate with exceptional marksmanship, who also possesses special abilities.

And despite both of them knowing the risks of getting too personal and intimate, guess what happened?

They both fall in love, even if it means being locked into being exploited by the government. And not only that, guess what else happened.

They have a child together.

Let me remind you: They know they are high-profile agents. The best of the best. They are aware of the risks that come with interpersonal connections, but they had that family anyway. Why? Because they were human. To find normalcy in the midst of their circumstances.

My point is that Jotaro is a person who's allowed to have a life, even if it couldn't be completely normal given his situation. Jonathan got married and had a kid. Joseph got married and had children. What makes Jotaro any different? Because he's workaholic, stoic, and reserved like the dad in the show? That's not a fair assumption if you ask me.

Another thought raised was this:

"Couldn't he just have given and trained Jolyne with her Stand?"

It seems plausible, and it sounds cool. But you have to know how Jotaro operated and why that couldn't be the case. His life after Egypt went down the drain. Heck, you could even say that his life changed when Star Platinum awakened in him. When Stands became a permanent thing in his day-to-day.

No matter how much he likes to focus on his day job as a biologist, he now had to shoulder being the SWF's go-to investigator for the supernatural. Not only did he work hard in his profession, but he had to do the Foundation's tasks as the Joestar bloodline's active patriarch and as the one who slayed DIO.

He couldn't have a normal life anymore. Not with his involvement with the Foundation and the enemies he attracted.

Now answer me this- What parent who loves their child will subject them to a life like theirs?

"Moving's" main premise is the lengths that families will go to protect their children, including from their past. The couple I mentioned raised their superpowered baby in hiding. And here's the kicker: It's the father who chose to suppress his son's abilities so he could live a normal life.

Again, this is the same cold, stoic man whom the organization treats as its best agent. And it's not just this family. There are multiple examples of parents in this show choosing to let their kids hide their powers.

Your daughter has caught the teacher's attention because of her power? Fake her death.

When you see the organization's leader smirk at you after learning that powers are hereditary, and you have a child? Go off the radar and leave everything, but your family, behind.

Jotaro never wanted Jolyne to be involved with Stands. He didn't want her to risk her life fighting a random Stand user when she could live the life of a normal teenager. She didn't have a Stand. Her mother didn't have one either. Why burden his child with the responsibility he had?

And did his isolation work? For the most part, yes. That is, until the incident with Romeo.

But then you ask yourself:

"He could've called her! Texted her! Sent an email- something! It's the 2000s! Technology's a thing by this point!"

Remember what his main character flaw is… Communication. If there's any fault that he has without debate, it's his inability to connect and socialize with others properly, and his poor maintenance of his bonds (as I have stated in my previous essay).

This argument could go in two ways. One is the whole communication issue, and maybe he was either too caught up in his job to update them, or he didn't want to share any details, thinking it's best for them not to know. As flawed as that thought was.

OR we could go the Snipster route, wherein he DID call Jolyne to check in on her, but because he kept making excuses as to why he's not coming home and is always away, she gradually grew to resent and hate him through the years, up until at one point, she yells at him to not call her anymore if he was going to continue being an absent father.

Pick your poison.

This leads to the next argument:

"He's a bad father because he's completely absent from Jolyne's life! He rarely bonded with Jolyne at all!"

Then why does Jolyne have so much anger towards him? If he were a fully absent father (as in I-didn't-know-you-existed type of absent), she shouldn't be holding so much resentment toward Jotaro. So, why is she hateful to him?

Because at one point, he was a present parent in Jolyne's childhood before he left. Yes, he could be busy working, but he could've spent his few moments of respite taking care of his daughter to the best he could as a loving father. She is the child he cherished after all. His weakness.

Not to Jonathan or Joseph levels of "golden retriever" and "grandiose" type of affection, but perhaps in more domestic, quiet ways: Cook her meals, read her books, listen to her talk about her day, help and teach her with homework, etc.

If he were a fully absent father, Jolyne should've felt apathetic and confused when meeting him again, not anger. If he were completely absent, Jolyne wouldn't have engaged in delinquent activity to catch her father's attention.

Again, in Moving, the protagonist is raised by a single mother from his childhood to his teens. He does not know who his father is, because when the dad was present, he was a toddler and therefore couldn't remember him. To him, his father is a stranger.

And how he reacts to the father at the end of the show is him not being upset or mad. It's him being surprised, confused, and neutral toward him. Why? Because he doesn't know him.

I would show the images but there's an image limit and I'm sad

Heck, you can say the same for Josuke and Joseph if you want an in-universe example. Josuke never knew who his dad was and was raised by Tomoko all his life. And when he meets old man Joseph for the first time, he's confused and is generally neutral to him. He's shy even when he helps him after his cane broke.

---

Jotaro leaves a lot to interpretation, and while I see a gem of a post here and there sometimes, I have to trudge through a sludge of mischaracterization and an oversaturation of memes that downplay what's canon in favor of fanon validation.

And I get it. I browse Twitter, check the timeline for updates, and notice that most users are impressionable teenagers who are from the West and go about their days living with Western individualistic values.

Maybe, just maybe, some people will project the "bad father" image to Jotaro as a result of their own daddy issues. Just like how misogynists will project themselves onto a favorite character like Jotaro.

I'm not saying this as a definitive truth, but as a possibility. Jotaro is fictional after all, and people will use fiction as a reprieve from reality.

TL;DR? He isn't a bad father, but he isn't a good one either. He's a father who does what he can to protect his daughter, with all his flawed mentality and caring heart.

[haine-kleine]

Fulfilling my quota of Touyadoomposting by going back to this theory and expanding it. This is mostly a crack theory except instead being funny everything is just horrible lololol

Ok so as silly as the Tenko's entire life being orchestrated by AFO pretty much since he was born reveal was, it also gave us the fact AFO used to have drinking dates with his father specifically for the purpose of making him as abusive to Tenko as possible.

Combine this with the weirdly OOC fact that Enji gave up on achieving the number one place at the ripened age of 20. Sure, Allmight's shining beacon of hope and strength may have been a source of great jealousy for a young and upcoming number two pro hero but come on now. 20 is still a teenager, why are you giving up without even trying.

Enji's admirable hero quality is determination.

No matter how insecure he secretly was, giving up at 20, with a perfectly healthy body, and putting all of his determination into making a kid with a quirk stronger than his own and making that kid achieve his dream in his place, is not even backwards logic, it makes absolutely no sense. Enji is not even one of the quirks obsessed characters, he has never been interested in anyone's quirk besides his own and his sons'. Despite his weakness (overheating), he is all about pushing through and overcoming it. To put this shortly, Enji is dumb as a shoe a very single-minded person. This is simply not someone who would entertain such concepts as perfect quirks or eugenics.

You know who does though? Yeah, this guy.

Enji is ruled by his emotions and has tragically low emotional intelligence. This makes him very susceptible to manipulations. And AFO is one hell of a manipulator. A villain obsessed with destroying Allmight and the number two hero who dreams of throwing Allmight off his pedestal. Why wouldn't AFO seek him out? If he saw that seed of self-doubt and carefully nurtured it, Enji giving up despite being so young would start making sense. Enji seeking out a quirk marriage would also make sense (I refuse to believe this man is the only one who came up with this idea in the entire manga). He clearly didn't know what he was doing.

Even choosing a Himura as a candidate for his little eugenics experiment would start making sense if it was actually AFO's suggestion. The Himuras are famous for their strong ice quirks, and Enji's goal was creating a heir whose heat tolerance would be higher than his. This is basic logic. Having babies with a woman who has an ice quirk and is vulnerable to heat won't land you any kids with a fire tolerance higher than your own. He set himself up for failure, they all came out like Touya

Granting Enji's logical thinking abilities the benefit of doubt, we look the other way and spot Garaki being involved in this case. AFO wanting to see what would come out of genetically combining strong ice and fire quirks just for the sake or his curiousity makes so much more sense than Enji being unable to comprehend his choice for the quirk marriage wasn't even fit for his goal. Touya did eventually end up in AFO and Garaki's child laboratory, which was the purpose of Garaki fronting as a quirks doctor for kids. And Enji was in contact with Garaki since Touya was 4 years old.

Also makes for such an evil irony that Touya's trauma stems from him seeking a reason for his existence and not finding one. And the entire reason for his very birth is just AFO being a cold-blooded quirkist manipulator

[rinriya]

First of all, I want to say that SoH is an amazing work in overall. It is dramatic, serious, interesting, tragic and soulful. Sometimes bloody, frightening, maddening, mind-blowing. But sometimes funny, colorful, warm and with unpredictable twists and turns. This game has completely unpredictable, intriguing situations, but they all add up to one big, overall picture. Each story chapter intertwined into one incredible book that you read out. You empathize with the characters, you understand them, you laugh with them, you cry because of them and fight for them.

Sure, you can make your MC a bad, rude, bloodthirsty person. You can do bad things and not delve into other people's problems, but what hooked me personally in SoH… is the opportunity to be a real hero without a demonstrative label. I can't stand characters who literally boast about being kind, fair and helpful. It looks so pompous, unpleasant and lofty. As if you are nothing compared to the beacon of justice and law. When a "hero" like this talks, I want to roll my eyes. I love when person shows who they are through their actions, even if, at first glance, they seems most unreliable and immoral.

The main character, ronin, is precisely like that. They don't trust anyone, have a hard time opening up to others, hate themselves more than all their enemies hate them combined… and at the same time, they embody a true talented, wise hero (if you play this route, of course).

Take for example my ronin. Akio. A man who hates himself, carries the weight of responsibility, guilt and a painful past on his shoulders, pushes people away… is incredibly caring, protective and conscientious. At first glance, just a drunkard mercenary, but in fact, a man with a heart of gold. Sometimes sharp-tongued, sometimes straightforward and stubborn. He often hides the truth to protect others and always suffers from some inadequate inner instinct of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. He doesn't think about risks, he just helps. It's in his nature. He doesn't believe in his own importance, but people are drawn to him. He fights, doesn't give up, shows strength, resilience, and will. To put it simply, at the beginning of the journey he is a real mess. He suffers from an innate sense of justice, bleeding heart, self-loathing, and men in love with him. He come an incredibly long way from a dirty dog ​​to a man ready to learn self-forgiveness.

In this wonderful art, drawn by @tokiko220, I tried to show the connection between the past and the present. The way my ronin has changed from first book to the last one. How he looked at the beginning of the journey and where he is now. As you can see the "past" ronin have dark blood under his feet, and the "current" ronin stands on clear water. Streams of blood and water collide, mixing and like a river stream, flow away. The symbolism is that the past and present are inseparable, but now the ronin himself chooses whether the river will be clean or bloody.

I like that the ronin is not a permanently invulnerable hero. He can lose, he can grieve, he can see the consequences of his decisions. He may be in a complete despair, on the very edge. He can be weak, he can be scared. He can be human.

Plus, honestly, it's so funny that MC doesn't believe that someone can love, care and desire them, but most of the characters (both main and secondary) adore ronin with a variety of feelings.

Well, also, this applies only to my personal walkthrough, but after a long time my Akio become calmer, more graceful, more elegant and more wise, as if a real experienced sensei. But despite all his strength, incredible martial talents, leadership, he still revains sensitive and needy of love. I don't know if this could be called as a certain trope, but I absolutely adore when a strong, skilled, fearsome hero becomes soft, gentle and becomes vulnerable/open onlу with the loved one.

To put it simply, I never get tired of taking screenshots of favorite moments and admiring this rare, thoughtful story. The text is well-written, colorful and easy to read. You can understand how subtle the author feels his work, how much attention was put into the details, how much information been studied for the authenticity. The descriptions are captivating, the emotions are touching, the battles excites imagination and every character you met, carries something that you will remember. In your head every word transforms into a breathtaking series (or anime).

The story has exactly what lacks so much sometimes — a real, sincere, selfless kindness and the opportunity to make the world a better place. SoH can be very dark, expose baser aspects of human nature, frighten with real situations and fascinate with mythical mysteries. But among all this struggle and survival, I see a thrilling adventure full of inspiration, friendship and the desire to fight for good. SoH is about justice, about the desire to protect and learn, about hope in the darkness, about the strength born from love, care and protection.

SoH makes you think, feel, experience emotions, and only a great book has the power to do that.

Cr. @samuraiofhyuga (Devon Connell / MChoiceStudios)

[ilynpilled]

another thing with denying jaime agency is that a lot of his character is initially constructed around what his physical power means when it comes to choices that he makes. physical strength and combat prowess, violence, is a specific form of power that he has over others and can choose to extend to other parties. it is an integral aspect of every power dynamic, be it with his king, his sister, the rest of society etc. the knight is also an examination of power and responsibility. that is why their oaths are constructed around protecting the weak. it is what’s so interesting with the kingsguard too, especially aerys’s. they are the most skilled in combat and physically powerful people in the room. they had a form of power to act and prevent what aerys kept doing. and they are on a leash through oaths, law, order, obeying authority, and a status quo, a different kind of power that functions to give the man with a crown, in this case a tyrant, absolute power. you are sworn to obey, not to judge. you have to abide by your role. that is also what makes him eventually killing aerys and breaking these oaths so transgressive and threatening to the westerosi paradigm. his motivations and the circumstances aside, jaime in specific killing his king as a member of his elite guard undermined westerosi order and framed power as something that resided with the man with the sword and not with the man with the crown or even the lords with bannermen and armies who won the war that they started. it breaks these constructs apart with the precedent it sets. and on top of that, he gets away with it because of his status and relationship to tywin. the act itself is still something when it comes to westerosi order and class stratification, but it is also threatening in general because, yes, it does make him a loose cannon in the eyes of other people. and yeah he stagnates and falls into cynicism and begins to reject ethics and law in dangerous ways and ends up abusing that physical power and causes real harm to people who do not deserve it. he does embody a dangerous kind of anarchy that is the product of the flawed and dysfunctional social order that he experienced with a front row seat with the absurdly cruel tyrant that was systematically enabled. everything was reframed in his head. if there is no justice and order you can have faith in, who cares? he doesn’t fear death, and that is combined with the belief he can cut through anything now, he has the power to do so. be it a king, a lord, or virtually any power over him when it comes down to it. how much can a crown be worth…? he even argues to brienne that robert tearing the realm apart with his war is worse in a pragmatic sense. he rejects the existing laws, ethics, and moral constructs of his society that have a monopoly on violence because he is disillusioned with them, and he operates solely by his twisted reconstruction of morality (also obviously affected by his trauma) that atp primarily revolves around love for his family, especially cersei. he chooses to become the sword of his loved one, having lost faith in the purity of everything other than this delusional idealized relationship that is the only thing that is sacred that remains to him. and ofc all of this is another layer that makes george stripping him of this particular power through his maiming so functional in causing crisis

[baldieboi]

Primarch OC Introduction

Sarathiel Augustus

@ghrgrsfdesfrfg @w-40-k

the golden boy with a storm inside

The Basics

Name: Sarathiel Augustus (just Sarathiel works)

Legion: Thunder Knights (they're the ones in shiny armor)

Found: early (daddy's early favorite)

Psyker Rating: Mid-strong (with a thunder aesthetic because subtlety is dead)

Titles

Lord Primarch of the Thunder Knights

Knight Primarch

Thunder Lord

Lord of Thunders

"The Good Son" (unofficial but accurate)

The Look™

Height: 9'6" of noble intimidation

Build: Built like a fortress with the shoulders to match

Aesthetic: Silver-grey haired knight with daddy issues

Eyes: Bright azure (they see your potential AND your failures)

Hair: Long, silver-grey that somehow stays perfect in battle

Scars: Beige skin marked by honorable combat (each one has a story)

Voice: Deep enough to make you confess your sins

Weapons&Style

Metallic silver armor with royal blue accents (coordination is key) the picture below shows how different was my plans with him in the beginning (armor color)

Radiates powerful aura

Thunder-based psyker powers (the Emperor's gift with style)

Personality

The Golden Boy Facade

✅ Kind, respectful, honorable

✅ Loyal to a fault

✅ Natural born leader

✅ Inspiring presence that makes mortals weep

The Cracks in that Facade

❗ Desperately needs approval (especially from his brothers)

❗ Stubborn as a mule when he thinks he's right

❗ Unforgiving when you betray his trust

❗ Secretly insecure despite being literally perfect

❗ Reckless when protecting others

❗ Confrontational when his honor is questioned

Backstory

Found on planet Ravus (early discovery)

Had a fairly good life (translation: one of the least traumatized primarch)

This makes him the family therapist by default

Burden of being the good example is slowly crushing his soul

Desperately wants his brothers' love but some of them are... gestures at the galaxy burning

Goals&Desires

Be the perfect Primarch (pressure? what pressure?)

Earn daddy's continued approval

Keep his brothers from murdering each other (failing spectacularly)

Defend the Imperium with honor

Secret goal: Just wants a family hug that doesn't end in betrayal

Master his thunder powers without accidentally smiting allies

Legion Highlights

The Thunder Knights are

Shiny boys in matching armor

Psyker specialists who make the warp their bitch

Disciplined but not stick-up-the-ass disciplined

Will die for their primarch (please don't)

Basically space paladins with lightning powers

Abilities

Tactical genius (the Emperor's gift)

Supernatural battlefield awareness (big brain energy)

Thunder psyker powers (Zeus wishes)

Inspiring presence (mortals literally fight harder just being near him)

Can read people like books (emotional intelligence king)

The Tea (aka what makes him interesting)

The 'perfect son' who's slowly cracking under pressure

Desperately trying to hold his family together while half of them plot galactic genocide

His kindness is both his greatest strength and most exploitable weakness

Thunder powers + emotional storms = very dangerous combination

The brother who still believes in the dream while watching it burn

Probably has a secret stash of letters he's written to his brothers but never sent

Ignore the armor color. He was very different when I started planning him. And I lost the original art so changing it would be problematic. Buuuuut, at least he is handsome, ain't he? (took me literally days to draw ugh)

[triple-barred]

dylan’s astrological chart

these observations are my own, take them with a grain of salt from someone with no astrological qualifications other than a casual interest. i’ll be talking in detail about his sun, moon, and rising signs.

virgo sun: virgo men are massive headaches, total weirdos, and overly critical. most of the time, though, they are so lovable. their strengths and weaknesses are the same— what makes them downers makes them humble, what makes them picky makes them hardworking perfectionists, what makes them stoic makes them peacekeepers. many find virgo men to be attractive because of their emotional expression. especially in dylan’s case, virgo men have a tendency to be shy and sensitive, but they express that internally or through their interests. dylan rarely talked about his feelings, but revealed himself fully and very eloquently to his journals. he liked sad music and romantic movies, but with some sort of unconventionality. his virgo-weirdness was in his offbeat interests and abstract ways of perceiving the world. virgos are cynical, critical, virgo men are notoriously shit on by those knowledgeable about astrology, but this sign in combination with dylan’s aquarius moon and many libra placements makes him dreamy, shadowy.

aquarius moon: the moon placement is a little tricky sometimes, but i think dylan had a lot of aquarius traits. aquarius is the sign of independence, and that can manifest in the moon placement as being introverted. moon aquarians can be prone to depression, and especially in men. men with aquarius placements are also incredibly emotional, and usually unregulated in that aspect. they tend to hold it in until it comes out as bursts of anger/sadness; this is shown a lot in dylan’s personality, and i think this is the part of him that hid his depression and anger until he felt he had no other choice than to do something extreme. aquarius moons with healthier senses of selves take comfort in long, deep conversations—dylan, given that he was very well-spoken and in touch with himself, would’ve benefitted immensely from someone to relate to.

libra rising: dylan has a lot of libra in his chart. you can see that in the chart above, but if you don’t want to pick through the wheel: libra was in his ascendant (rising), mercury, venus, jupiter, saturn, and pluto, giving him a libra stellium (that’s when three or more planets are in the same sign or house). his mercury, jupiter, and saturn are also all in the 12th house, giving him a 12th house stellium in congruity with his libra stellium. this is rare to an almost shocking degree, and it means that his libra traits are intensely amplified. libra is the sign of partnership, meaning libras fall deeply in love and value commitment & loyalty in relationships. they are also seen as charming and charismatic; his charisma wasn’t picked up on or appreciated by many of his peers, but he still had more friends and social standing than the general public seems to believe. the amount of libra in his chart has much to do with this, given that his other placements indicate being off-putting and shy; but, dylan was a libra rising rather than sun, and his libra traits had less to do with his outward personality and more within himself. his peers that liked and spoke highly of him still described him as strange in one way or another—they felt drawn in regardless of their ability, or rather lack thereof, to relate to him. his libra rising is shown in his internal struggle for balance and harmony. he wasn’t a peacemaker in regards to his own emotions, his anger overshadowed that, but he constantly sought to make sense of and appreciate the world’s contrasts. his three-barred cross, the darkness versus the lightness he felt lived inside him, his need for love versus his desperate hatred. i find this placement and the fact that libra is in so many other placements to be the most interesting and complex part of his chart.

i would love to talk more about this if anyone is interested, or if anyone has a different opinion

[twstjam]

Black Fire

Quick drabble because I was thinking about the importance of love to dragons in twst but also in Barbie's version of the Swan Lake, where Odette is weakened because her lover professed his love to someone else. So, I decided to combine the two :) Pairing: Malleyuu/Malleus x Reader Setting: Ambiguous. Non-canon Warnings: Hurt no comfort. Not proofread.

---

Dragons are known as possibly the most powerful beings in Twisted Wonderland. They are possessive, selfish, with an even more fearsome temper to boot.

So who could've guessed that a dragon's biggest strength and weakness is love?

Not anyone and especially not you. You hadn't even known Tsunotarou was a dragon until almost a year after a meeting him, until after almost three months of having been planted the seeds of affection for him within you.

You should've been able to guess. After all, love and companionship are important things to him, more important than even his beloved gargoyles. It's obvious in the way he keeps his family close; how he recalls memories of Silver's youth fondly, is endeared by Sebek's overzealousness, and hangs onto Lilia's every word. It's obvious in how he wraps himself around you, leaning his chest against your back and looping his arms around your torso and purrs in delight at your acceptance of his affection. Obvious in how he gifts you little trinkets from his expansive collection of memorabilia, how he had put effort into appeasing your friends with gifts that suited their interests when he had unintentionally upset them. He is possessive and selfish just like the stories say, but despite being these things, he still allows your friends to steal your time, has even begun to grow closer to them himself too.

You should've been able to guess just how precious love was to him. How dearly he holds it in his heart. How dearly he holds you in his heart. How, even though he sneaks glances at you and brushes your hand fleetingly in ways that he does with no one else and boldly visits you uninvited, you should not have dismissed his behavior as mere eagerness.

It shouldn't have taken you this long to realise Malleus's feelings. Shouldn't have taken him inviting you into a room overlooking his lush rose garden to realise that your blossoming feelings are reciprocated.

When Malleus confesses to you, looks into your eyes and captivates you with the glow of his green irises, you finally put the pieces together and see it, the intensity of his feelings for you that have itself taken form a gorgeous bloom that rivals the roses of his cherished garden.

You're so amazed, enchanted by him like you always are, that you barely notice the cacophony of squeaking bats outside the window.

You're watching Malleus closely, taking in every inch of his flawless features. His eyes are hesitant, his head tilted slightly away from you and a handkerchief held over his glossy lips in an almost shy manner that makes your heart flutter with endearment.

"Do you accept my feelings?" he murmurs.

Your chest feels so pleasantly warm that it almost feels as if you might be melting from the inside-out. You reach out your hand and the commotion outside is like white noise to you as Malleus accepts your hand and your fingers entertwine. They fit perfectly against each other, and nothing has ever felt more right.

You take a soft, shuddering breath, hold it within you like something holy, and use it to utter the precious words:

"I do. I love you too. I always have."

Malleus smiles, so big and wide, and the delicate breath instead escapes in a startled gasp at the way his bright eyes darken into a deep emerald.

"I had hoped you'd say that."

Your head snaps toward the windows, finally hearing the bats screech in alarm. Your eyes are drawn down to the garden, where the roses wilt and die right as the magic within them drains before your very eyes.

You tug your hand out of his and stumble back in horror. The expression he's making is so wrong on Malleus's face, his lips pulling back to bare his teeth in a triumphant grin, his eyes wide and cruel.

"Who are you?!" you scream at the impostor. "Where's Malleus?!"

"That doesn't matter now!" the man laughs wickedly. Orange fire engulfs his body, the heat making you wince, and a white-haired man, wide-eyed and manic, looks back at you with a mocking smile. "You already confessed your love to me. Thanks to you, darling, that evil master of the abyss can now be vanquished!"

The windows burst open and the bats swarm in, squealing in anguish. Rollo Flamm merely laughs as he's engulfed in flame once again and disappears before they reach him. You're left standing stunned and horrified, listening to the fading sound of his laughter, before the bats begin to claw at you to grab your attention.

You don't question the bats as they lead you. You follow them, so frantic that you trip over yourself, and nearly fall to your knees when you leave into an empty hallway and see Malleus sprawled on the floor, unmoving, his robes scattered around him like spilled ink.

"No!" the agonized scream comes out of you unbidden, and you do fall to your knees once you've reached Malleus's side. You cradle his face in shaking hands, and your heart twists at how cold his skin feels. His eyes are closed and he's breathing but it's slow, as well as his pulse, as if he's merely in a deep sleep. You know he isn't, because the familiar energy of his magic electrifying the air isn't present. Instead, you can feel it draining with each passing second.

A dragon's biggest strength is love, but it is also his weakness.

You should've been able to guess—You should've noticed. It shouldn't have taken you holding Malleus's weakening body in your arms to realise that—

Malleus Draconia is in love with you, but because of that love, when you had professed your love to another, you had also thrown away all his magic just as you had thrown away his heart.

[voxofthevoid]

Ch 248 is once again a mixed bag for me. On the bright side, it has a development I've been looking forward to the most since Sukuna left Yuuji's body—Sukuna acknowledging the effect Yuuji has on him. Until now, he's mocked and belittled Yuuji, deeming him weak and boring, except that the specific brand of vitriol Sukuna reserves for Yuuji has made it very clear that his beef with Yuuji is a lot more personal than his conflict with any other character. There's a pettiness there, a kind of irritation that's borderline childish, that wouldn't be present if Yuuji didn't well and truly get under his skin.

So to see Sukuna take a moment in the middle of battle, complete with arms on his hips and a goddamn pout, to reassess himself, his ideology, and his enemies and their goals, all to figure out why Yuuji irritates him and then to see him conclude that it's because Yuuji has indomitable will that he can't stomp down? It's sweet, sweet vindication. Sukuna's immediate resolution to tear that will down with, again, a kind of personal vendetta we rarely see from him marks the exact kind of fight I want out of Yuuji vs. Sukuna.

And Yuuji himself has been a sight to behold despite his relatively fewer scenes so far, from his final moments with Higuruma to the reveal that he can use RCT. His greatest strengths so far have been how quickly he grasps CE usage and now attuned he is to his body. The two combined is what's made him so lethal despite the lack of a CT or even advanced techniques like simple domain. RCT fits quite neatly with the kind of power progression he's shown so far, and combined with his natural durability and sheer resilience, it'll make him even more of a monster.

These are elements I'm very happy with. However, this chapter confirms Kenjaku's end and sets up Sukuna as the final villain, and that's... underwhelming at best. I'm not complaining that Sukuna isn't a particularly complicated villain; it's refreshing and suits how he's presented himself from the beginning. But part of what compensated for one villain being like that was the other being a mad scientist with a pretty cunning mind who kept plotting and planning with every tool in their arsenal. You could trust Kenjaku to keep things interesting while they sought the chaos they dearly wanted, and even the merger coming from them would've had certain meaningful implications because not only is it a dream they strived to fulfil for centuries, but it's also a way to see them finally "let go" of Tengen after exhibiting some fascinating attachment behaviors with her. That authority passing on to Sukuna is about as impactful as Yuuta killing Kenjaku—that is, not at all.

The Yuuta+Rika vs. Sukuna fight that's currently being teased makes me wary for similar reasons. It lacks the buildup Gojou vs. Sukuna had (battle of the strongest, i.e., clash of two immense fucking egos), and another contest of raw power sounds about as appealing as watching paint dry right now. Maybe it'll surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

To compare this to Shibuya, the emotional component that made its climax so compelling is almost entirely missing from this fight. It's there in Yuuji facing off against someone who took Megumi and Gojou from him, like how he fought the curse that took Nanami and Nobara from him, but overall, the deaths feel hollow and the stakes are so impossibly high that they start to feel like nothing at all.

I can't even fully capture what I'm feeling. It's not that I'm not looking forward to the upcoming chapters; I am. It's not even that I think the plot and climax are unsalvageable; they are, to an extent. But by this point, the plot fumblings and wasted potential have added up to a looming shadow I can't ignore even when there are parts I'm genuinely excited about.