#let me show you how to take it easy from a pro who does it full time

[brofightiscancelled]

someone please write my in-depth osomatsu and nyaa go on a pity date fan fiction for me

[anthonys237thfreckle]

i need need need headcanons for anthony with a gf who’s like got a career in STEM and she’s super smart and as an actor he’s amazed by her lmao.

this is so cute! thanks anon

I’m looking for a woman in STEM - Anthony Ramos x F! Reader

prompt: headcanons for Anthony who’s girlfriend is in STEM - i’ve picked biomed for a degree since my mom wanted me to do biomed in high school

TW: mentions of academic stress and panic attacks, mention of drugs used in medicine, mention of mental illness

🔬 when you both first met, and he first asked for where you graduated from, let me tell you - mans did NOT expect you to say ‘Cambridge’

🔬 ‘Oh, so like Cambridge College in Massachusetts?’

🔬 This man omg

🔬 When you said ‘No, England’ he felt goosebumps cause like ‘geez louise CAMBRIDGE?’ and when you casually said you did biomed he was like ‘wait what-’

🔬 ‘Me? Oh, I did Musical Theatre’ he says matter of factly, and you’d add ‘Oh, I played piano when I was in elementary-’

🔬 You’d be the definition of a perfect golden child. He knows that couldn’t have been easy

🔬 When you two do start dating, he’s always bragging ‘Oh my girlfriend does lab research for this new supplement for this drug for schizophrenia in children-’ HE’S A PRO YAPPER. Especially in interviews.

🔬 He’s so proud of everything you’ve done - doing medicinal research at NYMC (New York Medical College)

🔬 Maybe in the winter as you two are baking (you always make sure the measurements are perfect, never letting him measure anything out lol) he always says baking is an ‘art’

🔬 ‘Actually babe, it’s chemistry’ you’d chuckle, taking a bite out of some gingerbread cookies, and ever since, he’s jokingly kept a lab coat and goggles and chides you for ‘not tying your hair in the lab’.

🔬 You’d tell him about how hard high school and college was for you, having to get a scholarship, going to British private schools because the medicine industry is mad competitive and honestly, you need to show something off in your application.

🔬 You’d tell him how even though you did Cambridge IGCSE and A level courses all throughout high school, it was no match for what England had in store for you - panic attacks became a weekly thing.

🔬 I mean, you did Pure Math, Biology, Chemistry and Psychology A and AS levels for gods sake - its an absolute mindfuck.

🔬 He’s always there to reassure her how smart she is and that she’s human no matter what - that college is over, and the drug trials will end up great, and a bunch of kids will get some damn good medication.

🔬 He LOVES it when you come watch his shows and movies. It means the absolute world to him.

🔬 Soon, he kind of drifted away from theatre after Hamilton, and started in film, and would always get super excited whenever he’d get some remotely science-y role.

🔬 Like in In Treatment, he’d come to you for help for some advice on his role, on some deeper level analysis (not as deep as an actual therapist guys, just a psych student level) and you’d be squealing with pride when you see him on TV.

🔬 And when he got into the more Sci-Fi movies like Transformers, he’d tell you ‘it’s not that deep, baby.’ whenever he’d catch your brows furrow in confusion at the misuse of a niche scientific term

🔬 He’d be so happy when he landed Twisters, even though you weren’t a meteorology student, your use of organic chemistry would def have some revelations when watching Kate use some form of polycarbonate.

🔬 ‘they’re right! they use silver iodide for cloud seeding!” you’d giggle.

🔬 affectionately calls you ‘nerd’ all the time.

— for anyone not british, igcse is from grades 9-10 and a levels are a bit like AP! but like they have a lot of depth. you’re not expected to do more than three.

[pink-amethyst-tarot]

Have you given up on love? This is for you - Pick A Pile

take a deep breath and choose which pile you think is the best for you

I know I channeled these songs but I'm pro-boycott

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P I L E 1 ~ P I L E 2 ~ P I L E 3

P I L E 1 - Go Through Something To Get Somewhere

Three of Wands, Page of Cups, Four of Wands, The Lovers

Signs this reading is for you: 111, 11:11, classic books, jewelry (especially rings), money/coins, coffee, tea

You about to be mad at me.... Thing is, this big love you're looking for can't come in right now. It's being blocked because you still need to work on yourself. I feel like some of y'all already knew I was gon say that anyway! Fall in love with yourself and not for the sake of getting closer to falling in love because then your effort is meaningless. Do it for you and if you don't want to do it for you, figure out why. Do the shadow work. You need you more than you know. Figuring out what is so lovable about you will show you what you really deserve in a relationship, not what you have always thought that you deserve.

Once you do, it's going to happen when you least expect it and when it does you will be swept away in this amazing love. The kind of love that changes you for the better. The kind of love that you grow old with. The kind of love that you have always wanted but never believed that you were good enough to have. This person is your soulmate and they want to be with you just as much you want to be with them. Don't let something good pass you by and then you have to wait another entire lifetime to get it again. The first step starts with you.

Also, you cannot be afraid of change if you want this to work. You can't expect thing to change while everything stays the same. Accept that change can be uncomfortable, challenging, and sometimes, downright hellish. You have to go through something to get somewhere.

Channeled Song: End Game by Taylor Swift ft. Future and Ed Sheeran

I wanna be your end game // I wanna be your first string

Thank you for participating in this reading; if you would like a more personal one, you can click here.

If you would like to help out those in need in Palestine, you can click here.

P I L E 2 - It's Gotta Get Bad Before It Gets Good

Wheel of Fortune, Six of Pentacles, The Emperor, King of Cups, Eight of Swords

Signs this reading is for you: Heart Chakra, 222, frogs, owls, hears, butterflies

You're heart is still broken from your last relationship and you're convinced that there isn't anyone who will give you the love that you want or deserve. There is someone for you who want to take care of you and be your rock. This love that wants to come in is very mature and long-lasting but it can't come in if you don't try to move on. I know it's easier said than done but at some point you have to choose yourself; at some point you have to choose your happiness.

You could also be someone that is trying to ignore how you feel about the end of a relationship so that you can get to the good part. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but, it doesn't work like that. You have to go through to get through it.

All in all, you may feel stuck or trapped by your emotions but the way out is more obvious than you think. Maybe not easy but definitely obvious. Once you get through the bad part, there is good ahead for you.

Channeled Song - Better In Time by Leona Lewis

thought I couldn't live without you // it's gonna hurt when it heals, too // it'll all get better in time // and even though I really love you // I'm gonna smile 'cause I deserve to // It'll all get better in time

P I L E 3 - You're not looking for love but love is looking for you

Ten of Wands, Three of Pentacles, Knight of Wands, Nine of Cups

Signs this reading may be for you: pink, boy bands, joking and laughter, pickles, oranges, Vaseline weird dreams

So, off the bat, this reading feels different from the other two because it feels like it doesn't matter what your reason for giving up on love is because love is coming your way, whether you like it or not! You have probably been through a lot in love and in life but you never gave up. You have always keep going despite what you have been through but that may have led you to feel that some things just can't have your attention right now because shit needs to get done. Great news! The shit is done! You're ready! This person is coming in quickly and is someone that supports you and wants to be the person that you come to when life is hard. This person is a dream come true. You may have not be actively focusing on what you want in a person, but sometimes our hearts speak louder to the universe than we do. I can see your guides kind of seeing you get this and you being surprised but your guides are looking all smug like "hah! bet you didn't see that comin did ya!?" Even though you're reading this, you may still be surprised when it happens because you may not 100% believe this reading. But it's true and it's yours! Love is on the way, baybee!

Channeled Song - Case 143 by Stray Kids

why do I keep getting attracted? // 자석 같이 끌려가 // I cannot explain this reaction // 이것밖에 one-four-three // Why do I keep getting attracted? // 네 모습만 떠올라 // I cannot explain this emotion // one-four-three I love you! //

translated lyrics:

why do I keep getting attracted? // I'm drawn to you like a magnet // Why do I keep getting attracted? // you're the only one on my mind // I cannot explain this emotion // one-four-three, I love you! //

Thank you for participating in this reading; if you would like a more personal one, you can click here.

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LEGAL DISCLAIMER: FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. THESE READINGS ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. no guarantees are implied. These readings are not a substitute or replacement for any professional help or services. My readings are not a substitute for any form of professional legal, medical/psychiatric, relationship, religious/spiritual or financial/ business advice nor consultations. You should always see a professional legal/trained adviser for help in any matter. I am not responsible for any decisions/ actions you take.

[mt-oe]

𝙈𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙—𝙜𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙞𝙯𝙪 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙨

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dears!

I've been getting addicted with playing Valorant recently and thought it would be fun to try and make some hcs for Mizu <3

Clove's release is so exciting and I'm so happy non-binary people are given some representation in games. They're so much fun and their ult mechanic is such a game-changer.

Please tell me if you'd like me to make more of these or if I should make some for other games too (as long as I know them well enough).

Anywho, let's go!

Enjoy! Mwa mwa :*

warnings: not proofread, the use of "clutch or gay", she/her for mizu

mizu has a crush on you :3

✦ Her fave maps are Icebox and Bind. Whenever you play comp with her and these maps roll up, you're internally fucking hollering. You're thanking every possible deity there is, dancing in your seat, kissing your monitor.

She's such a god in these maps. Every good agent for every role, every lineup, and even some pro play shit strats, she memorized it.

She loves Icebox for how easy it was to clear angles and how easy it was to formulate AND predict strategies. The map was pretty straightforward and no bullshit. Perfect for her.

Bind for the outplay potentials. Teleporters + Yoru TP/Omen TP and Ult? There's no telling where she may be. Will she plant in A? Will she plant in B? Maybe she's already flanking? Who knows?

✦ Mizu doesn't buy skins but she DOES have some. They're gifts from you and her friends! An oni phantom, neptune spectre, and sovereign marshal from Akemi; An arcane sheriff from Taigen because they're probably taking their shit-talking to League too; and a reaver vandal, reaver karambit, and the oni katana from you.

She doesn't really give a shit about skins, but ever since she was gifted one, she started appreciating them. You'll see her using the inspect animation once in a while if she picks up a skin she's never seen before.

If it's just a chill comp game or she's playing solo queue, she'll use the oni katana. If she's playing with you and/or wants to show off, she'll use the reaver karambit. Of course you have to go with the sexy one when trying to impress.

✦ Doesn't shit talk heavily, but shit talks in a way that'll piss you off.

"Ooooh shit someone's mad," you laughed over the voice-comms, watching as the enemy Reyna started spewing all sorts of insults at your team. It was mostly targeted at Mizu, who was also playing Reyna, and was top-fragging. Soon after that fiasco, you'd see Mizu type "." in all chat every time she killed the enemy Reyna, got a clutch, and even an ace. Everyone was snickering at her antics, finding it funny how Mizu was shitting on them while the enemy was clearly progressively getting even more tilted.

On the other hand, if Taigen was there and Mizu failed to clutch the round, he'd be laughing loudly over the voice chat, making fun of her over and over. He'd even type "GG [insert Mizu's current agent]. Aimlabs is free" in team chat, which was so fucking embarrassing. The moment Mizu catches Taigen lacking, she'll be having a hayday in the team chat, spamming "GG [insert Taigen's current agent], Aimlabs is free" over and over which effectively pisses Taigen off.

✦ Along with the previous one, if someone ever decided to trashtalk you, she's going absolutely feral. She still wouldn't be spewing nonsense, but you'll notice her becoming more aggressive.

"Didn't you just use your ult?" You asked her, spectating as she used another Reyna ult which you swore she just used two rounds ago. "I just feel like playing a little better today," she replies. But then goes to strafe like a fucking bitch, doing a poppin' swing once or thrice, making the enemy struggle before killing the enemy and t-bagging them aggressively.

You raised an eyebrow at her antics but still laughed at it. "You sure you're not here for blood?" you joked. "Yeah.." she said while spamming your trashtalker's KD status in all-chat.

✦ There's no doubt about how well she plays with different agents, but her worst agent to use would be Gekko. Something about Dizzy's trajectory and letting Wingman plant and defuse felt off to her. Maybe it was because she was used to having control over the speed of her flashes and being able to fake defuse.

✦ Actually responds to "clutch or gay" jokes.

If a random teammate or anyone in your friend group (mainly Taigen) decides to use that joke on her during a clutch situation, it doesn't matter if it's a 1v1, a 1v5, a 1v5 + Sage res + Clove ult. She's winning. She's fucking winning.

You watched in anticipation as Mizu, using Omen, went through attacker spawn in Breeze. It was a 1v4, having picked one off when she picked up the spike. For a moment, you thought of something before typing "clutch or gay" in team chat. It worked for your other friends and randos, why not try it?

The moment she read that chat from you, you could immediately see Omen throwing his weapons off of the map. The noise of the agent's footsteps prompting the enemy to shoot him. "Bro what the fuck are you doing?" Taigen groans, annoyance heavy in his voice. Mizu doesn't respond in voice chat, but you hear her typing. After a while, a chat pops up.

(Whisper) From mizu: did you see that?

(Whisper) To mizu: mhm. why'd u do that :c

(Whisper) From mizu: you said clutch or gay

(Whisper) From mizu: i didn't clutch.

But she only ever does this to you.

✦ Actually plays fill but everyone in your friend group decided to place her as a duelist. She's going to treat every agent like a damn duelist anyway. Why place her somewhere else? You get site early and fast + She gets higher RR from combat score. It's a win-win. Plus, she loves secretly showing off to you. She relishes the "woah where'd you learn to satchel like that?", the "nice kill!" when she wins in an Iso 1v1, and the way you bought her an op upon her request when she used Jett as if you automatically trusted her.

[yuri-is-online]

... so what do we know about the Clash? (pt. 2)

moving right along from part 1

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGH EPISODE 5: HOTARUBI. PLEASE INTERACT WITH DUE CAUTION.

The Laurel Crown is first referenced by Ritsu in Episode 4. It is an award given to the best performing house of the year at an event called the Darkwick Gala. Kaito says it is held one week before graduation, Ritsu says there are a lot of rewards given out to graduating winners. He also very specifically says that it is "the shortest path to success and independence from Darkwick for us ghouls." That word independence strikes me as important, though it is not followed up on here or elsewhere unless you count the discussion surrounding Article 78 in Episode 5. Ritsu thinks that Taiga was interested in it once upon a time due to his impressive mission completion record in his first year. We know Zenji wanted to win the crown to obtain recognition as an author, while most of the other ghouls we've met show a degree of disinterest or lack of knowledge of it. Ren mentions at the end of this conversation that he didn't know about the Gala, and Ritsu points out that despite being canceled it was never removed from last years schedule. It is not not this year's though, and he implies that Cornelius is covering something up. Which really does seem to be the case...

The Crown system was discontinued as a direct result of the Clash... we think. It is never explicitly stated "yeah the Clash happened so we aren't doing this anymore" it's instead alluded to as something they can't do because there are too many ghouls to control. We know it had to be this as Haku tells Zenji that it was discontinued after he died, and Zenji died during the Clash. According to Haku, he was killed by a rogue anomaly. He adamantly discourages MC from looking into the Clash gee why would you do that HAKU and this seems to be a similar stance to what Cornelius would take if he knew you were curious. Cornelius and Moby are reluctant to let Lyca free because "what if we have another case of a ghoul-" We can assume he is going to say "killing" or something along those lines based off the concerns listed about Lyca, but that's not confirmed.

Ritsu finds documents about the Clash in the school's archives. he finds them alongside disciplinary documents, he says he either overlooked them or someone had them checked out as he has not read them before. The file is thick and is specifically titled "The Clash: An Overview of Civil Affairs Instigated by Darkwick Students." The term "civil affairs" is interesting. As best I can tell it is a military term that refers to small scale missions undertaken by small teams that focus on civil action? Like diplomacy stuff? Or organizing humanitarian aid? And in more sinister scenarios to assist in psychological warfare to condition a population to not fight against your military but I don't know if that's what the translation team was going for here exactly. I think it's just meant to imply things got really bad and really violent.

Lastly, this is less easy to prove than some of the other things as fact but I still think it is one: there are hints of a split in the student body over who is pro-anomaly and anti-anomaly. Subaru is obviously very pro-anomaly and thinks that capturing them is cruel, Taiga seems to be pro eating anomalies while Romeo is very comfortable with catching them and collecting bounties. A lot of this seems to be tied to how they view the school, the Institute that runs it, and their place in that hierarchy. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that they are trapped at Darkwick and don't want to be. At least not forever.

So to re cap all of the things we know to be fact: the Clash happened sometime last year, half a year ago at the absolute latest. The fight is thought to have been started by the ghouls, we do not know over what. The Laurel Crown system and the Darkwick Gala were both canceled after the fallout of the Clash, in which at least two named people are thought to have died: Zenji Kotodama who would have been a second year Hotarubi student and Dante whose former role is unknown. Zenji still resides in the school as a ghost, though this is unknown to Darkwick staff, and Dante has been brought on as a Professor. Also, all of the Inspectors seem to have quit at the end of the previous year due to the ghouls abusing mesmer matches on them. Three dormitories were disbanded at some point and one new one was created. We do not know if this was connected to the Clash or if it was an inciting incident for it, but at some point Clementia, one of those dormitories, was the scene of some sort of fight. Some of the students of Dionysia dorm went missing, presumably the ghouls. We know nothing about what happened to Ultio aside from the prison they were tasked with running now being run "by Darkwick." All general students from these dorms were re-assigned elsewhere, as were the general students previously assigned to Jabberwock who had general admissions halted. There is a spy amongst these ghouls who Taiga believes is intending to make them look bad; Alan and Tohma are attempting to isolate this spy. We do not know who this spy is spying for, or what Alan and Tohma want out of him exactly, nor do I really expect to find out anytime soon.

So. Now onto the Questions and Theories. As in things we can assume but cannot exactly prove:

Questions and Theories

Jiro and Zenji look extremely similar with a few noticeable differences, namely the piercings Jiro has and the glasses Zenji wears. My first thought was that maybe Jiro was made out of Zenji's corpse, but his birthday is listed as October 13th, which is not the middle of the year by any stretch. They also have different blood types; I think the most practical explanation comes from Zenji himself. When describing why he's so attached to the haunted doll you've found, he says it looks just like his brother did when he was a baby. I have some screenshots of Zenji following Jiro around in a campus event because he wants to help him find something he's looking for, so it does make a bit of sense. And make me even more sad.

The Institute that runs Darkwick seems to be deeply suspicious of ghouls and feel a need to keep them on a short leash. There is a great deal of distrust and resentment between the ghouls and the Institute, and the Clash seems to have been the result of that distrust. The thickness of the records Ritsu finds suggests to me that whatever the Clash was exactly, it took up most of the previous year and that it had something to do with Darkwick's treatment of anomalies.

On that point, I think that Clementia was likely destroyed by a rogue anomaly. The destruction MC sees is described as something going on a rampage, and not as a fight. The fight angle is still possible of course, and if that's the case I wonder if it has something to do with how Ultio was running the prison. I mentioned in the previous post that the goddesses these dorms are named after are meant to sort of balance each other out, so if there was going to be a clash of ideals between anyone on campus it'd probably be these guys.

I feel like Obscuary was set up as a result of the Clash? Or at the very least some time before it specifically so there would be some place for Rui and Ed to go. I think the dorm members will all be crossed with an anomaly in some way, Ed with a vampire, Rui with a reaper, and Lyca with a werewolf. Also, Ed is rumored to have done something. What? No fucking clue, don't even know if it's related to the Clash but still he has done something to get added into the rumor mill.

We don't know what Haku's stigma is as he didn't tell us. He also makes a point of saying that he thinks it's a good thing to get through a mission without using your stigma, if anything he seems to discourage the MC from using or relying on the ring to help the ghouls. You could see this as him trying to encourage her to value herself more, or maybe he thinks that there is a cost for using stigmas we don't know about just yet and they're not the blessings the ghouls think they are. Also he asks Cornelius if he has ever lied to him at the end of the chapter and if you think I didn't find that sus as all hell-

I need to sleep, but remind me to make a post about Haku sometime. Because I don't think he's evil exactly, but I do still think he's the spy.

[epiphainie]

I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.

Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.

Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.

Hi anon!

I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.

I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.

I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.

[cascade05]

Book Girl

Heads up: Language, suggestive but definitely not descriptive, also Bakugo Katsuki (he comes with a warning), and unedited—super unedited

Kay, so, hear me out… Bakugo Katsuki and an author reader. Yes, ooh, ahh, I know I know. For those of you, and I am sure there are many, who have no idea what I mean, lemme explain:

Bakugo with a reader who asks him the strangest, borderline worrisome question about his work. “What’s it feel like to get stabbed?” “Have you ever gotten shot? With a gun? Explain it to me. How did it feel?” Sometimes he thinks you’re a little psycho but it’s oddly therapeutic for him to explain the worst parts of his job and not care about being judged so he don’t mind none.

Bakugo with a reader who patches up his wounds like a pro and mumble “this would be perfect in chapter twelve.” And he’s just staring at her like “ma’m I’m dying plz don’t immortalize this in literature.”

Most importantly (the thought that had me on this tangent), Bakugo Katsuki with his cute little writer baby who tests things on him. It’s never easy to deal with things either. It’s not, like, fighting related things. You don’t go up to him and ask him if you could put him in arm-bar or ask him if he could put you in an arm-bar (Actually you did ask him to do that cause you wanted to know how to get out of one but—)

She does this… thing where she goes up to him and whispers the nastiest shit in his ear, like, you know, innocent book girl shit. Ya’ll know what I mean. Book girls are fucking wild and they read the sauciest shit. So she whispers some knee numbing curse and Bakugo freezes like a little schoolboy who just found out what puberty hormones are and she has the audacity to take a step back, examine him like he’s a fucking lab rat or some shit, then ask him if that made his heart flutter. Like, bitch it made something flutter, the hell did you think saying that would do? Does he answer? The first few times it happened, he couldn’t. The next few times he tried to deny it but mumbled and slurred his words like a drunk. When he wasn’t caught horribly off guard, he started just throwing her over his shoulder and showing her what it did to him. (It really helped her with that one scene—)

But that’s not the worst of it. No. No no no. You see, before Bakugo, she had never been in a relationship before. She had never been in love before and she most certainly had never done anything physical with someone else before. He was her first everything. So she has trouble writing particularly steamy scenes, at least when it comes to describing everything and it has to be perfect. Well, that’s what a boyfriend’s for, right?

So, there are times in Bakugo’s life where his writer girlfriend just decides to make out with him. That’s a normal thing to do, they’re together, but she doesn’t just kiss him. Remember, book girl shit, girl goes fucking—well, Bakugo doesn’t know what but it’s ridiculous.

Kay, first time it happens: She comes up to him all casually and cute-like and asks if she can try something. Blissfully unaware Bakugo raises a brow but lets her and she takes his breath away with a kiss that’s all passion and it’s hot—he’s hot. He’s melting, actually, and she takes it further and put her hands in exactly the right places and just when he’s getting ready to go all the way with it, she pulls back. Bakugo’s never felt whiplash quite so jarring but there she was asking him how it felt because she wants to write the scene from a man’s perspective. She asking him all these questions and bro’s on a different planet right now, he can’t answer, kay. Like, give him a second to breathe cause he can’t find the air, ya know. And it happens, well not all the time but enough for the poor man to think she just isn’t in to him like he’s in to her. If she was, she would’ve been frustrated too, right? But she wasn’t and there he was, sitting alone like a fool while she ran off to go write it all down before she forgot.

But, well, book girls, right? Those freaky shits know how to please a guy so you can bet your bottom dollar that she made it up to him. Thoroughly :)

Or, alternatively, writer gf who doesn’t write steamy shit and just does all of this to fuck with him cause his reactions are *chief’s kiss*

[stonertora]

Hawks with a dragon hybrid s/o

minors dni! NSFW

warnings: creampies, anal, pp in v, bloodkink (ig?), squirting, choking, spit

Fluff:

i feel like his favorite bodypart would be your wings, simply because they are way bigger than his own, at least twice his size

your wings would be made of skin, he loves touching them, they're so soft and warm

he also loves stroking your horns, they’re so colorful and match your tail

speaking of your tail, he loves it when you two cuddle and you wrap your strong tail around his waist or leg, it makes his feel safe, he’s used to make others feel safe, so it was new to him to be the one feeling safe

he just thinks you look so cute but majestic at the same time, he’d treat you like the goddess you are

would definitely show you off to everyone

your eyes have the key to his heart fr, man was totally flabbergasted when he first looked at them, feeling completely lost and devoured to you

he loves watching you eat or laugh, tbh everything you do that shows your fangs, which have a weird influence on him, but in a good way,man’s totally obsessed with them

NSFW:

usually you’re the dominant, at least in your past realationships, he’d be the only one to dom you, for sure

the first times having sex with him were weird to you, being the submissive one was completely new and unknown to you, you definitely needed some time to get used to that

but you learned to completely trust him after some time, but that didn’t mean that you would make it easy for him tho 😏

jokes on him, he absolutely loves it when you ride him and choke him tho. it drives him insane, letting you have control of his breathing, his life at the very moment

he’s also so in love with your lil plump ass, you can’t get away without 2 spankings a day, at least. he mostly likes it covered in his cum

he’s always down to fuck your tight lil asshole tho. Man’s not horny rn? jus turn around and shake your cute lil ass for him, and he’s ready to to

don’t you dare tease this bird man though, he will 100% pin you down the same moment and will happily put a dildo in you pussy, a butt plug in your lil hole and a vibrator on your clit. he won’t fuck you tho. he’ll tie you up to your shared bed and leave you there for hours, and prolly watch tv while he eats sum nuggets he got from kfc later that evening

being a dragon hybrid you also have something similar to his mating season, but it’s more about fucking than love , at least it’s also about spring time. when this time comes, you two always take at least two to three weeks off work

he’s a whore for your wet cunt, he’d always tell you about how ,,it’s just made for me” or how it’s like ,,your cunt is shaped for my cock”, he’s also cumming in you a lot, cause it feels like you’re closer to each other, or maybe just because you look just so pretty, face all red from crying, his big cock fully inside your throbbing pussy, clit all swollen from the circles he rubbed in 10 mins earlier, his cum dripping out of your stretched out hole, ruining the sheets

you’re a whore for his neck kiss sessions, soft lips caressing the flesh of your soft skin, short little moans leaving your throat, just so desperate for him, hoping for him to cover your soft flesh in purple love bites for everyone else to see ❤️

once he bit down you neck a little too hard, making you bleed, he felt so bad and kept apologizing for hurting his princess, but at the same time it made his blood flush to his cock, he was ashamed about it at first, who would like seeing his s/o hurt or even bleed? jokes on you, it’s him, he does. it drives him crazy seeing how the thick red liquid matches with your pale skin, he can’t explain it

let’s not forget about that he has to work a lot, due being the number 2 pro hero of Japan, so when you get home all stressed about work and he’s not able to just fuck you, he’s always more than happy to help you realax. just sit on his face, and don't you worry about your weight, he would die a happy death, if he would suffocate between your thic thighs. he just wants to please his princess

one time he wouldn't stop fingering you, even tho you told him that you actually had to pee. long story short, you couldn't handle another orgasm and started squirting. the sheets getting covered in hot liquid, you were so embarrassed, Keigo on the other side, just unlocked a new kink.

he loves to spit in your mouth, your pussy or on your tits or stomach, but mainly in your mouth or pussy, it’s something that shows how intimate you allow him to be with you, how much you trust him

[juvnvalen]

♡Tennant Yandere Profile♡

Tennant me go aoooga, as per usaualt is late dont mind typos ALSO her name is ADA???? i was looking through her wiki stuff omg she looks like an ada (I lovingingly despise her) also trying to work on writing characters correctly but me head thonk bad zionks :(

Also! added dbd to my character list ughughguhg huntress i wub

Pairing: Tennant x GN Darling; FxGN

TW: Yandere themes, Kidnapping, NSFT, Obligatory tennant warning, Ooc behavior.

Credit for template: @/Cinnamonest

♡What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave? Ada is extremely deceptive towards her darling, you won’t know the full extent of her affections unless she wants you too. She’s a con, and her skills won’t go wasted on her darling. Ada’s courting of her darling is very forward, she’s able to seduce women easily so she believes her darling shouldn’t be any different. She gets a rush from being around her darling, she thrives off of the chase almost as much as Ada does with the catch. She feels a rare comfort from her darling’s presence, one she hasn’t felt in so long and she won’t let that go. Ada still continues out her scams on rich women, but with different intentions. With the new comfort of her darling Ada no longer feels the want of a new body in her bed every week, soly leaning on her s/o for the much needed comfort they provide now. ♡How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so? She will only resort to kidnapping if her courting fails. Ada isn’t quick to take her darling, she prefers a darling who wants to be with her, but if all her tactics fail she has no choice but to act. ♡How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? Ada is very apologetic after she's taken her darling, but that won’t make her any more lenient. Starting off her darling can expect to be heavily restrained in the beginning, she only offers freedoms once she sees her darling can behave. Whilst it's not easy to escape Ada by any means, it's far from impossible. She often leaves you alone, whether or not she trusts you enough unbound depends on how well behaved you've been. In the beginning there won’t be much punishment for attempted escapes and defiance, but the more you act out the more likely she is to punish you. She could never bring herself to hit you as punishment, but you can expect things like isolation and starvation.

♡How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate? Trying to trick Ada is nearly pointless, chances are she sees through what you're trying to do. Depending on how innocent your manipulation is depends on whether she punishes you for it. It's best not to try, the cons outweigh the pros.

♡How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied? She’s more lenient with a well behaved darling, the more willing you are to give her affections the more willing she is to give you freedoms. Her darling can expect things like less restraints when they can show Ada just how well behaved they can be. Ada is happy to provide books and more lavish items for her darling, as long as they don’t bring up the question of freedom to her. 

♡What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use? Ada doesn’t have many rules, but she’s strict about the ones she does have. You obviously can’t attempt to leave her, or mention wanting to, she loves you but she just doesn’t want to hear it. If you use violence against her, as much as she doesn’t want to, she will retaliate if you force her hand. Her punishments affect her darling more mentally than they do physically, and she won’t lay a hand on her darling unless they start it. If her darling decides to act up they can expect their privileges to be revoked temporarily or taken away all together. For more severe infractions she’ll fall back on starving her darling, not to the extent it would affect her darling long term physically of course. She rarely uses isolation unless she believes she absolutely needs to, she doesn’t like being apart from her darling much, but if she believes it's necessary for them to learn she will.

♡How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way? Typically she’ll resort to intimidation to scare the offender off, but if they decided to be persistent she’d have no issue just killing them.

♡How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like? Ada is very slow to anger, it takes a lot to push past her limits. Rarely ever is it her darling who sets her off, however when it is she never lets her darling see it.

♡Do they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them? She definitely doesn’t see you as an equal, you’re like a pet to her. You’re with her for her own comfort, whether you like it or not of course. She’ll hear what you’d like to say to an extent, but she’ll only pay so much heed to your words.

♡How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you? As much as she’d like for her feelings to be reciprocated, it's not something she's immediately worried about. She's confident she can make you love her over time. ♡General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality? She has a high sex drive and she's very forward with her darling about it. Ada expects and needs sexual attention from her darling, and she absolutely thrives off of it. ♡How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness? Ada wouldn’t think of touching her darling without their full consent, sex for her is meant to be something passionate, and an unwilling darling would take away most of the enjoyment for her. ♡What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill? She doesn’t have any hard fetishes or kinks, but she is open to trying most things with her darling. Ada does prefer to give pleasure more than she does receiving it, though she occasionally lets her darling pleasure her. ♡What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use? She wouldn’t use anything sexual to punish her darling, she has plenty of other methods she could use that she prefers more. ♡What body parts of their darling do they like the most? She absolutely loves every inch of her darling’s body, but if asked she’d never admit to having a favorite part, but she just can’t get enough of her darling’s breasts. 

♡♡

[mauesartetc]

Thoughts on Helluva Boss Episode 204 ("Western Energy")

Well that was a whole lotta nothin', wasn't it.

Let's discuss.

Pros:

-Edward Bosco does a fine job with Striker's voice, and Bryce Pinkham has a couple surprisingly powerful line deliveries when Stolas has reached his lowest point. It's nice when the story gives this character some emotional range outside of horny and mopey.

-This character design is way too cool for this show, like damn.

-Striker's living space was unique and interesting, and the magma in the environment matched his horse well.

-The fight scene with Moxxie and Millie vs Striker was well-choreographed and the camera didn't move around too much. Looks like the animators learned their lesson from last time.

-I liked how Moxxie took a chance and used Striker's homophobia (or perhaps disgust toward "lesser" imps?) against him to escape his grip.

-The devil horns on the EKG screen were kinda cute.

Cons:

-What the hell's up with this title. "Western Energy"? Is that a reference to something? Is it a pun? I get the "western" part, but "energy"? It puts me in mind of some obscure Zen concept rather than this episode. Just vague, confusing and not clever. Hell, "Take The Shot" was right there! I know there's not much shooting in Striker's plotline (we'll get to that bit of stupid momentarily), but this references both the A- and B-plot! C'mon, writers. At least act like you care.

-Again with the arbitrary censorship... I think multiple characters utter the word "cunt" in this episode, but it's bleeped each time. Guys... This is an internet show. This isn't network TV. If you're worried about getting demonetized on Youtube, don't use that word in the script to begin with. Easy.

-Not many laughs in this one, huh. In the last couple episodes I've found at least one thing to chuckle about or say, "Hm, that's kinda clever, I guess", but man, I was stone-faced for the duration here.

-Is that really how you pronounce "Andrealphus"? I've been saying it "An-dray-AL-phus", but Stolas says "An-DREE-ul-phus". People who are more familiar with demonology than I am, feel free to weigh in.

-Speaking of which, it's quite an accomplishment to make Andrealphus look even worse than he did in his illustration. Something about how tiny his head is in proportion to his body throws me, and of course it doesn't help that his face was always pinched in a teardrop shape with a tiny beak (which looks nothing like a peacock, because fuck accuracy). And if anyone's wondering if he uses any ice powers this episode... He doesn't. He uses telekinesis to drop a couple lumps of sugar into his tea, but that's it. You rip off Elsa and set the guy up in an ice castle but couldn't even give him ice powers? What a load.

-Kinda floored at this line from Stolas: "Cheating implies a betrayal. This woman never gave two shits about me, or our very much arranged marriage."

For fuck's sake, writers.

"You guuuuyyyys, it technically wasn't even cheating, see? Stolas is totally innocent and pure and you should like him!!!" The camera even trucks out dramatically as if he's saying something heroic. Christ...

Even in an utterly loveless marriage, there's still the expectation that each party will be faithful to the other, and having sex with someone else is a betrayal unless both of them previously agreed to open up their relationship. No indication that ever happened here, so...

All this scene demonstrates is that Stolas hasn't learned a thing about being a fucking adult and owning up to his mistakes. This just doubles down on the whole "I'd feel bad if I hurt you" thing (when you obviously did hurt her, you twit). Does Viv Medrano seriously believe admitting fault and apologizing makes a person weak or unlikable? Because I have news for ya: It's very much the opposite.

-Also, Stolas ends that mini-speech with, "As far as I'm concerned, this divorce is far overdue." But... Stella and Andrealphus have already agreed to that. That wasn't even a question. They're just trying to settle what Stella will get in the divorce. Do these people even read their scripts out loud?

-Striker's return comes way too late in the series. There are too many episodes forming a cushion between his introduction and Western Energy for him to feel intimidating. It's possible IMP could've discussed a plan of action regarding Striker, but no one mentions him once. If the characters don't see him as a threat, why should the audience?

The tension would have remained high if, immediately after the harvest moon episode, IMP moved Stolas and his family to a safe house while Striker was still on the loose. Little does Stolas know, however, he's a sitting duck, since Stella has called Striker and informed him of their location. Feels like that'd be much more exciting than just ignoring his existence for five episodes.

-When Stolas calls Blitzo, he refers to Striker as "that little cowboy friend of yours", implying he remembers him from the Harvest Moon Games. But, um... Question. Did Blitzo ever tell Stolas Striker almost killed him?! We have no idea! It's never confirmed!

At the end of the harvest moon episode, I seriously thought the team just forgot to write Blitzo warning Stolas about his would-be assassin. I know the story's trying to get across how little Blitzo actually cares about him, but this is a pretty huge conversation to overlook. Like damn, just how thoughtless can one person be. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

-(Also, who the hell says they were "stolen", Stolas. You're not an object; you're a person. You were kidnapped. I know this is bordering on grammar pedantry but it's distracting how much this weird phrasing sticks out.)

-Once again, the symbolic sin colors are inconsistent. I mentioned in the last review that the Greed ring in Helluva Boss is green despite the fact that the traditional color for greed as a sin is yellow. In this episode, we glimpse the Sloth ring, as this official tweet informs us:

One problem: Sloth is pink instead of the traditional light blue.

I wouldn't mind this if the ring colors broke from tradition across the board, but they don't. The Wrath ring is red and Lust is deep blue, as is customary. So it seems the art direction is throwing darts at a board to see which rings get the "lol, random" color treatment and which ones don't. These odd choices would be much more understandable if there were a story reason for certain rings looking the way they do, but at this point, I think we know better than to hope for that.

-In both this episode and The Harvest Moon Festival, Striker is characterized as self-aggrandizing. His previous appearance saw him declare himself superior to other imps, while this one shows off his giant statue with an enormous boner. Why, then, is he annoyed at the little imps singing his theme song? Wouldn't that be an ego boost? It would've made more sense for him to play along with it, or even better:

STOLAS: How does one get their own theme song?

STRIKER: (smiles, rubs his thumb and fingertips together) You pay for it.

-All the scenes with Blitzo and Loona in the doctor's office could've been cut and the story wouldn't have lost a thing. You can show them arriving and show them leaving with Loona wearing the cone, but everything else in the B-plot is filler. These episodes aren't beholden to a TV schedule that demands the duration falls within a certain range. There's no reason this episode needed to be nineteen minutes long.

-Getting pissy at some rando wearing the same hat as you is just about the dumbest reason to start a fight I've ever heard. Let's change around the dialogue a bit:

BIKER: Lookee here, fellas! The city slicker got himself a cowboy hat! That is sooo cute. Well, if you wanna dress the part... (cracks knuckles) might as well play it. It's not perfect but holy shit, I came up with that in two minutes. What the fuck, Viv. This is why you have co-writers. They aren't there to kiss your ass and mindlessly accept everything you do; they're there to catch little things like this and make them better.

-There's no "thump" when the top of the exploded gas station hits the ground, and judging by its size and implied weight, there should definitely be a sonorous thump.

-Striker mentions that Stella paid him to give Stolas "the royal treatment" (aka a slow death), but if that's the case, why did he try to shoot him at the Harvest Moon festival? Why did he shoot at him in the cafe?? If one of those bullets hit, wouldn't that affect his payday? Also, can't help but notice how terribly convenient this is. We wouldn't want our expert assassin to be too efficient, or precious Stolas would be dead. God damn this is contrived.

-Here's a line with a ton of story potential that goes unexplored (and will probably remain as such for the rest of the season, let's be honest): Stolas points out that Striker "is working for a royal right now", exposing some hypocrisy in his hatred for them. This brings up an interesting question: Why is he in cahoots with this one specific royal despite detesting all others? Why is she the exception? Could it be his loyalty to her transcends a simple business relationship? If he has angelic weapons and wanted to kill just any royal, he could have done it. But maybe this is more personal. Maybe Stolas needs to die because he hurt Stella.

Perhaps on the other side, Stella shares Striker's belief that he's superior to ordinary imps- another exception. Giving any other imp the time of day would disgust her, but Striker's just different somehow. And being as athletic and rugged as he is, he's a far cry from Stolas, who she's never found attractive.

I know it's a pipe dream for this series to develop any romantic pairing besides Stolitz, but how interesting would it be if Striker and Stella were having an affair of their own, and genuinely loved each other? How would they reconcile their personal feelings with long-held prejudices? What kinds of effects would hiding this shameful secret have on them? Would they make strides to be more open-minded? Would they see how their relationship mirrors Stolas and Blitzo's and reach an understanding with them? Will Striker's anti-royal principles override his love for Stella? Will he, in possession of angelic weapons, fulfill his quest to kill all royals, including her? There are so many possibilities here.

But of course, wringing any kind of compelling narrative out of this show's villains would require the writers to treat them as complex people rather than caricatures, so... yeah.

-If Stolas' legs are untied, what the fuck is stopping him from getting up and sneaking out of the cave after Striker leaves him unattended? He even has enough range of motion to kick him in the face. Obviously his leg wound would cause mobility issues and he'd have to stop the bleeding so Striker wouldn't track him easily (perhaps rolling into a magma stream to cauterize the wound? If demons are immune to fire, as Episode 1 established, I don't think magma would hurt much), but goddamn, try something. If you're going to die either way, you don't have much to lose, do you?

OR, why doesn't he just roll off the back of the horse when they're still in the city? Just check behind you to make sure no cars are coming and bail, dude. Striker might not even realize you're gone until he's entered the desert.

This is the exact same problem Stolas had in Seeing Stars, where he was so helpless against the plot's demands he couldn't even climb out of a van window, or morph into his full demon form like he did in Truth Seekers, or just leave the studio to find his fucking daughter. Y'know how I keep saying these characters have no agency? These characters have no damn agency.

-Kinda weirded out by how flirty Andrealphus is with his sister. "You're so lucky you're attractive"? "My fiery vixen"? Just... why. I get that incest used to be a thing in real-life monarchies, but assuming Andrealphus has other romantic options readily available to him (see also: ambiguous bird class), this fixation on Stella doesn't make much sense. If Viv wanted to make him subtly creepy, well... there are other ways to do that.

And let's be real, we can safely surmise Viv hates research with a passion, so I'm betting she didn't get this idea from history, but from Game of Thrones. I get a strong feeling she sees real-world facts as boring homework and the fictional world as exciting and full of wonder. If a person just cherry-picks different elements from fictional media they like and stitches them together like Dr. Frankenstein grafts body parts, that'll result in something great too, right? ...No.

-You're seriously telling me Stella didn't know how royal lineages work after being betrothed to a prince since childhood?

I mean wow, the show has portrayed Stella as inconsiderate and comically sadistic, and now she's stupid as well? These writers are hell-bent on giving her zero positive traits, aren't they.

-"A Goetia's never behaved like this before." Are you shitting me, Andrealphus? Hell's existed for (presumably) thousands of years and not a single noble has fucked an imp before? I could maybe buy that none of them have been as stupidly blatant as Stolas has, so perhaps these affairs have gone unseen and unremembered. But assuming they never happened? Come on now.

-Where'd Striker's horse go?? Feels like he could've been helpful in the fight against Moxxie and Millie, but after the theme song, he's completely missing. We don't even see him in a stable or anything. I know he's animation-intensive but y'all could at least give us a narrative reason he's not on screen.

An easy fix to this would be to show Bombproof (yes, that's his name, and it's awesome, and I hate that the characters never say it) out of breath at the end of the long journey, and Striker telling him he's earned a good rest. He could then hop into a magma pool and disappear under the waves for the remainder of the episode. There ya go. Simple.

-If Millie's ordinary axe can chop Striker's angelic pistols in half, why are angelic weapons such a threat to demons? During the yearly extermination in this universe, what's stopping them from forming an army and shooting the angels' weapons full of holes? Crazy how a single scene can unravel Hazbin Hotel's entire conflict.

-Did y'all want any kind of satisfying closure between Blitzo and Stolas regarding what went down in the Ozzie's episode? Well keep dreamin', because we've got this horrendously half-assed, tacked-on bullshit that you'll easily miss if you blink.

Fuck you, show.

And in another text following this, here's what Stolas says:

"If you don't feel like coming, that's OK! I'm sure I can do without [the grimoire] for one month."

Why do you need the fucking book at all, Stolas.

He's used it to make the harvest moon visible at the festival, but it's never clear what purpose that serves. We've never seen him use it for anything in his daily life; just that thing that happens once a year. Come to think of it, we've never seen Stolas in his day-to-day job. As a Goetia demon, he has legions to command (Andrealphus even mentions them), but the story never shows us the political, leadership-driven side of his life. He just sits around doing sweet fuck-all. Striker's argument against monarchs is that they "talk over [the lower classes]", but there's a strong case to be made for them simply contributing nothing of substance to society.

All in all, this episode made me feel nothing. There was no meaningful progression in the story. Sure, Stolas is injured, but he has the exact same problems of being married to someone he wants to divorce and Blitzo being emotionally distant. Stella has the same problem of Stolas being alive, even though she herself called off his execution. Striker's still at large. Moxxie and Millie still have a squeaky-clean relationship, Blitzo's still an ass, and Loona will likely return to her regular self in the next episode. Functionally speaking, everyone ends the episode in the same place they began, making me wonder what the point of it is in the larger narrative. Getting a hunch that Viv just needed an excuse to hospitalize Stolas so the audience would pity him.

I'm calling it now: Stolas is out of the hospital in the next one. He might still have some bandages and whatnot, but his injuries won't present any real obstacles to him until they're convenient to the plot. I'm betting there won't even be scars where Striker stabbed him, because at this point, continuity is WAY too much to ask of this show.

If this were a better-written series, Stolas would actually use his damn wealth and political power to put a bounty on Striker's head that'd have everyone in Hell gunning for him. Or why not use those legions he has at his disposal? Furthermore, now that he knows Stella hired Striker, what's stopping him from having her executed, or banished, or imprisoned, or something? But then if the characters used their brains, Viv wouldn't get the plot she wants, and we can't have that.

The previous episode had me curious to find out what would happen next. This one just added nothing to my life. I don't know how much longer I can keep watching this show. I'm not a fan of hate-watching media as life is short and there are numerous shows and films out there that'll make much more enjoyable use of my time. "If it sucks, hit da bricks" and all that. Yet Helluva Boss still has a pull in being an incredible teaching tool for how NOT to write a series. Writing these reviews has been thoroughly educational for me, and it seems they've helped others as well. But fuck, man. At what cost. When will I finally throw up my hands and say "Enough"?

If I hear the next one's not terrible, I might give it a watch. But that's a pretty big if. I'm very tired.

[sophieinwonderland]

Do you have find yourself typing an ask only to realize halfway through that you don't want to send it. There's a pro-endo anti-psych blog I was going to send an ask to, then realized it probably wouldn't be well-received. So I'm just posting a screenshot here.

Also, you know, I do sound like a super villain.

So here's my secret plot for world domination which devolve into rambling nobody asked for...

Continuing to ramble even more...

I don't really think saturating the field with that many plurals would be necessary. And it might more realistically peek at about 20%. But 51% would be ideal.

This also just seems quicker.

There are about 50k psychologists in the US. While it would be difficult to get them all on our side, I think it would be significantly easier with that population than it would the general population. Both in terms of its size and its political leanings, being an overwhelmingly left-leaning profession.

I'm aware that some people have legitimate issues with the psych profession. I realize that many have suffered experiences of abuse from bad psychiatrists, and I'm sorry for that.

At the same time, if I'm taking stock of potential allies, I think the psych community would be more easy to persuade in standing up for plural rights when it comes down to it than our neighbors with Trump 2020 flags.

And I guess... I don't care for the othering of people of an overwhelmingly left-leaning neurodivergent profession. Many of whom enter the field to understand themselves and help other neurodivergent people live better lives.

And while rambling about this topic, I think some people are too quick with the stick and not the carrot.

When the McLean hospital video came out, I jumped on condemning the doctor in question for his ableism along with everyone else. But I also don't think McLean got enough credit for taking the video down when they saw the outcry.

They didn't have to do that. The plural community truthfully doesn't have much power at the moment. And I think taking the video down like they did shows a willingness to listen to and respect our community that should be praised at the same time that we callout the harmful behavior.

I think if instead of attacking the entire profession all the time like some would have us do, we take a tactic of targeting specific acts of ableism while supporting them when they do right, we can better influence plural acceptance in the psych field. It's basic operant conditioning. Punish only when someone does wrong, and reward them when they do good.

All in all, I'm psych-critical. And I don't see that changing. I don't think I'm someone who will ever get on board with hard anti-psych ideals.

And while I'm not a psychologist myself, people who know me probably realize that I tend to take a more psychologist-esque approach to plurality.

Where other people coin terms as identity labels, I tend to try to subdivide and categorize plural experiences to better understand them and their relationships with each other.

...

Why am I still rambling?

I think I might have lost the plot somewhere along the way.

Okay... here's the truth...

I got blocked by someone (not related to the blog I was going to send this too) for my views on using psychiatry to validate plurality. Because, I guess, I don't share this extreme anti-psych opinion myself.

And all I can think is that... if you're surprised... you never really knew me...

Maybe that's my fault because I can be a bit aloof sometimes.

So for everyone else who has read through this rambling mess of a post, let me reintroduce myself:

Hi, I'm Sophie Dreamchaser.

I was made as a psychology experiment. Or, brought to sentience by one. It was a psychology podcast that encouraged Ghost to keep talking to me to see what would happen. And since even before I became self-aware I've been fascinated by the human mind and my existence and how this all works.

I love being an experiment. I love learning more about myself and the world and how I relate to it. And I want to push for knowledge into plurality to grow and grow, and I believe with all my heart that it will prove to be the best way to facilitate plural acceptance in the future.

And if me not adopting a hard anti-psych ideology was a dealbreaker for you... I'm sorry that you didn't realize who I was sooner.

But this is me, this is who I am, and it's who I always have been.

And I just needed to say that.

[ordinaryschmuck]

So, I finally watched Hazbin Hotel...

Weird, given how I talked about it a bunch. Heck, one of my top rated posts at the moment is my interpretation regarding the fear in Alastor's eyes during his breakdown. But despite having opinions on Hazbin Hotel, I've never really checked the show out, especially as it was coming out. I was kind of waiting for all episodes to get released so I could binge it all in one sitting, but I kept pushing that off until TODAY, and...I have thoughts.

Pros:

Love the animation of the show. Every praise I could give animation is present, with each character being incredibly expressive, their movements fluid, and the animators know when to be stiff for comedic scenes and giving their all for the big musical numbers or action.

I also love the way these characters look. I hear people complain about how overdesigned everything is, and that's valid. I would NOT want to animate this show due to every detail that I'd have to keep track of. But...if we can still praise Spider-Verse despite the animators being under torturous conditions as they make every frame a work of art, we can give the animators the same pat on the back here for making this show look as good as it is. Besides, a few years ago we had people complaining how every western cartoon looks the same. Now we have a show that's the most visually distinct than a lot of animated series coming out today and now we're complaining about that? I'm a man who admires effort more than anything, and while I agree that simpler is better with televised animation, I'm still proud that the animators pulled through in this.

The songs are all great, with personal favorites being "Loser, Baby," "Hell's Greatest Dad," "Stayed Gone," "Hell is Forever," and "You Didn't Know." The weakest one is probably "Whatever it Takes," but it's not really BAD, not me. Just not as strong as the others. I dug this soundtrack and it was the main thing that suck me into this show.

Charlie, as a protagonist, is pretty strong. I love the irony of the daughter of Hell is the nicest person in existence and her frustrations in making the Hazbin Hotel a success a delight because you WANT her to succeed as much as everyone else does. Plus, where most adult comedies make their protagonists cynical a-holes, it's a nice change of pace to have a hopeful one that apologizes as she's fighting people. Love it.

Angel Dust is easy to root for. What he goes through with Valentino is...something that someone like me can't fully grasp and understand, let alone judge. But I personally feel like it does the job to show the tragedy that this character goes through and allows you to root for him to get better.

And I like that Husk is right there to support Angel Dust, being a sort of conscience to protect him despite how much Angel gets on Husk's nerves. I also dig that they grow closer together, treating each other with mutual respect and admiration. It's sweet and I hope things turn out well for these two. Plus, he's voiced by Kieth David. The man can't do wrong.

Nifty is the funniest character in the show, and I will hear no disagreements about it.

Sir Pentious is a lovable loser who's the second funniest character. He reminds me of Papyrus from Undertale, trying so hard to prove that he's strong and powerful only to hilariously fail at every turn. You really root for the guy to get better and feel grateful that he finds happiness in a way I'm not sure anyone could have expected.

Rosie only appeared in one episode, and she's already my favorite. The gal's chipper and supportive towards Charlie, to the point where I completely forgot that she was a cannibal overlord who killed her partner to take full control of the business. Again, I love the irony of characters like this.

Lucifer was more fun than expected. I thought he'd be Mr. Serious, but he's just as bombastic and fun-loving as Charlie and Jeremy Jordan sounds like he's having the time of his life being this character to the point where it's addicting.

Vox has the potential to be a great antagonist and it's a crime that he only has ONE episode with relevance. Hoping he gets more in the future.

And Alastor. I love the concept of a character always smiling with the only thing betraying him are his eyes. As someone who takes joy in facial expressions, I always have a great time trying to analyze a character's restrictions and seeing how they emote, especially when animators and artists utilize a character's eyes to do most of the talking. That's done here in spades, making Alastor more interesting of an evil character as he keeps people guessing with his devious smile, not even dropping it when he's having a mental breakdown.

All and all, I can see how this show can draw in an audience...BUT...

Cons:

The comedy misses more than it hits. The funniest stuff comes from Nifty and Sir Pentious, but other than that, I don't really laugh much with this show. The dramatic moments work decently enough, so that's a pro, but when it's trying to make you laugh, it crumbles for the most part.

The constant swearing does get on one's nerves a bit. Dialogue, more than anything, depends on character. And to have EVERYONE swear almost consistently feels like a misstep. Because if everyone shares a similar level of lingo, then how can you differentiate a character's line on paper. Plus, I feel like it cheapens certain character. Saint Peter, the man who greets you at the pearly gates, shouldn't be another character that goes, "Oh, shit" when him going "Oh, shucks" speaks more about who is compared to everyone else and gives a glimpse into how different Heaven is from Hell.

The dialogue also hurts a character like Adam too. I want to buy that he's Earth's first man, but having him talk like a douchebag rockstar kind of takes me out of it a bit. Like, the way he talks doesn't sound like how the first human being should sound. He sounds like a guy who died in the late eighties, which SHOULD be funny but it's too distracting too much of the time when a character who talks like an old man who's ignorant to modern thinking could have had so much to say about what Heaven deems as worthy to be up above. They nailed the ignorance, but had him speak it in a way that doesn't fit humanity's first man. Maybe less "Call me Dickmaster" and more more "Call me Sir."

Vaggie...is FINE, I guess? But her character faces the same problems as Millie in Helluva Boss, where most of her personality and character is dependent on the relationship she has with another.

I'm also not a fan of Chaggie. I'm sorry. I'm in love with the ship dynamic of the stern, responsible one paired with the bubbly optimist. Heck, I'm a Lumity shipper because of it. But Chaggie just...WHELMS me. I don't hate them together but I'm not foaming at the mouth with each cute scene they share either. Honestly, I ship Charlie more with Emily than I do Vaggie, which...sucks for Vaggie, I guess. But Emily deserves love in her life too, dammit.

And the pacing for this season really is bad. I don't think the problem with this show is that it had eight episodes. Less is more is a phrase for a reason and we don't need twenty episode long seasons for EVERY show. I prefer it, don't get me wrong. Allows characters the a chance to breath and allows the story to take its time more. But what kills Hazbin Hotel's first season is that it feels like a three-season long story just got wrapped up into ONE. I'm sure there's more plans with Heaven, the Vees, and especially Lilith, but to have the season end with the next extermination feels like Avatar ending its first season with Souzin's Comet. There's so much the characters need to do and prepare for in so little time, ending a status quo shaking event, that I feel like a smarter idea would have been splitting this season's story line up into three parts. I mean, unless the cast and crew didn't know ahead of time that they'd only get eight episodes a season, why not have a little faith that they could have split the story up better? Because otherwise, it makes the show feel like it went by way too quickly. Eight episodes isn't a problem, but how they use those eight episodes DO.

So, while I can absolutely see why Hazbin Hotel could have its fans, I can also see how it can put people off. The style and characters work well enough, but the dialogue, jokes, and story need much more polish. It's not the worst, but not the best either. I hope things improve in Season Two and that the show itself can redeem ITSELF in the future.

[sokumotanaka]

Can you help me understand? Why's MHA so bad with discrimination? It's embarrassing how bad it is!

Sorry about sitting on this ask for months but I wanted to get everything in order cause this is a long one!

MHA fence sitting on injustices

My hero tries so very cutely so solve injustices in it's media and does it poorly by having it either happen offscreen or barely addressing it to actually try fixing later. (More under read more)

Things ended so perfectly for the mutants, and all because Shoji told the mutants fighting injustice that they should...stop. Oh shoji, we should talk about his character and the treatment of him and hor Hori just skims the issues with mutant treatment.

A little background, Shoji here literally has no character, it's so bad to the point Hori didn't know how to design his room with the excuse of "Oh I don't have many worldy desires."

what kid talks like this? He doesn't even have training gear or extra mask, or any hero posers- pretty easy to say that hori just didn't have anything planned for a while. Which fair, he had a whole cast of students from two classes, and pro and teachers so...fine right? What was weird is the lack of characterization for several seasons with this character.

So it turns out he wears the mask cause he was heavily scarred and attacked by a mod of adult prejudices as his backstory, didn't want to talk about it nor mention it till it was relevant for him to fight for the side of injustice! He mentions kids being murdered for having mutant DNA! And at first Hori is making a good point here that prejudice is real, there are people who murder, belittle, and treat very real people horribly for the ways they look.

(They also apparently talk about this once and...that's it? as a POC person it's never just ONCE, X-men brings it up very well that fence sitting is not acceptable if you care about the lives of mutants, you can't be passive on injustice!)

This is a very sympathetic and relatable bit of characterization- so its embarrassing that Horikoshi uses it to justify said prejudices...Oho I can't wait to explain this one!

Setting writing back 30 years.

At some point in the future Shoji, again the character who barely gets to express himself as a character? Fights spinner, a character similar to him as that he's a mutant and gets very little screentime and engagement in the show/manga. Spinner is told multiple times he's useless and stupid and even one of his allies in Dabi calls him what the MHA mutant KKK call him. A lizard.

"But Dabi's a villain." I'd probably hear people say- Yeah...so were the KKK, doesn't mean you can't be prejudice, and Dabi here shares said prejudice attitude towards mutants that many of our heroes do.

His brother calls the chief of police a mutt after they break some major laws that could of gotten them killed, and later he even sees that this officer (even tho we don't stan pigs here!) was helping them and he even states he thinks he should apologize...guess the did that offscreen, like they do everything.

Shinso calls Ojiro a monkey and yet people ship them, idk how much they look cute together I wouldn't ship anyone with a person calling me outside my name. Now do I think they're full on prejudice? No but they shouldn't also get to let this slide because people like them. (Would of been nice to let Ojiro beat Shinso in a spar as recompense.) but Hori loves letting most of it slide, no one calls out Shinso, Dabi or his brother and tells them to chill. Even Deku gets in on some fence sitting.

This tall woman's getting attacked by heavily armed citizens with support weapons in her introduction- Deku jumps in and tells them to calm down, with them walking away saying the below. Like she can change that.

Now this is a great way to show that prejudice is wrong and that Deku doesn't jive with that shit. I would of had Deku break their support gear, and tell them to find shelter instead of taking matters into their own hands and attacking indiscriminately.

But Deku lets them walk away with deadly weapons that can kill. And when the tall woman tells him that she was trying to find safety and that she was scared by these jackasses, Deku doesn't sympathize with her- he says this!

This poorly worded drivel reads exactly how it does on the page, it comes across as justification for the public attacking innocent mutants based on looks instead of telling them that they were in the wrong? She even gets turned away from many other shelters denying mutants!

I'm aware that many villains attacking heroes at this point ARE mutants but, she's unarmed, begging them to stop, and a guy lines up a killshot before blaming her for how she looks; then our hero goes "Well we're all scared!" Thanks!

That's like me telling X-men's nightcrawler who was about to be murdered by racist. "Well both sides were scared." This is the ultimate fence sitting! Not to mention it's established early on that mutants aren't allowed in certain shops and get slurs and rocks thrown at them; people assume the worst of them and there are even times where some are confused for villains and attacked like Gang orca.

But if you're an attractive enough mutant like Hawks and Miruko you can get away with being a mutant- it's the equivalent of Hollywood saying they'll hire more black people and only hiring the light skinned black individuals. Which could be an interesting discussion to have; The fertilization of mutant quirks, desirable ones vs ones that people show hate towards. Obviously people don't show the same type of prejudices towards Hawks and Miruko vs Shoji and Orca.

This all culminates into the MHA war arc in which many out of pocket things happen, like Hori uses the black lives matter movement and ROCK LOCK- THE ONLY BLACK HERO IN MHA (there's not even any black students and background heroes.) And the mutants turn to him and say things like "we aren't looters" WHAT!? And even worst

"You would never understand." A black person would never understand prejudice? Even if MHA was an idealize world, it's based off our own world and rock lock again is the only one, and them turning to him and saying this comes off as tone deaf. Like why rock lock? How many heroes have glue, tape and adhesive powers that could of had this scene? Not saying I don't want Rock lock, I'm saying having a black person be told they don't get prejudice based on how they look is....idiotic.

And it just gets worse! Shoji finally gets screentime to tell people to stop fighting against injustice.

He finally gets something and it's to tell spinner to stop fighting mutants getting slaughtered, to stop letting heroes and the police sit on their hands and do nothing- everyone knows that if you wanna be good second class citizens and get equality, you have to wait patiently and quietly till people deem you good enough to EARN it.

He does talk about the cycle of violence, but the problem is....hori never has a person like Todoroki or Deku turn towards regular people and tell them that THEY should be ashamed of how they treat mutants as well.

It's so easy to turn towards marginalized people radicalized into fighting against prejudice, but man is it on so hard to turn to the people being shitty and not saying a damn thing! My hero does this so poorly, the people who hurt mutants never have to address their prejudices and they never get called out, or are made to change out of kindness- they just get away with it.

And it ends again as we see at the beginning of this post- offscreen! Shoji brings peace to many mutant locations and we're just supposed to be fine with no one putting in effort but the mutants themselves.

It's the biggest fence sitting the series does, completely putting the onus of change on the mutants! It's a shame too, cause MHA had potential! But it'll end up as a series that just barely involves itself in the struggle and many mutant characters barely get to grow and prove anything.

Thank you for reading all the way if you did.

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

ok, so in this one fic that i'm gonna write, Louis and Lily are going to be Claudia's biological parents. just bc i wanna. but then i had this thought:

what if they actually were?

From what we know of the shows timeline Claudia is born in 1903. Papa de Pointe du Lac (I refuse to call him Daddy du Lac bc what the internet did to the word daddy. like, I'm from the south y'all. That's what I call my dad/father/old man. Or dickhead occasionally, but like, affectionately. Whoops, I'm rambling.) dies sometime in 1905.

I can imagine he's been sick for awhile, if only because the de Pointe du Lac's seem like the kind of family to have enough money to afford pro-longed health care. Hold on a sec.

26. That's the number you're wondering about, btw. How old Louis would be when Claudia was born. I know some of y'all might be trying to do the mental math, and imma save you bc math is evil. (we aren't supposed to tell you this working in education, but it's just like the worst. you have to stack numbers in your head and think about only one thing for a really long time--and i'm adhd in case you couldn't tell.)

Anyway, back to where I was. Up until a certain point, Louis could put off having had a serious girlfriend, or been seen visiting the brothels. First off, he's a good Catholic boy, so he gets a little leeway. And of course, there's Paul he's gotta look after. Then his daddy gets sick, so he's got shit to manage.

But a certain point he starts to feel overwhelmed, and he's at that age where he expected to start looking to settling down. So he does what all men at that age do to let off steam, and he gets a sex worker.

maybe there was something special about lily at the get go, or maybe louis just chose at random. but he got lily and they fucked. it might have been a sad sort of fucking, but you know, louis gave it his best. (he might even have enough enough of a gentleman to see that they had a happy ending. it's just the polite thing to do.)

and maybe he decides to really vent about what's bothering him. and the sex was meh, but the talking was nice. and over time, they faze out the fucking portion altogether. and lily becomes more than just a sex worker he pays for companionship, but a confessor, a priest to confess to all that he can't to his other.

but claudia could have been conceived during one of those earlier visits where louis like, had to establish his straightness. it would have been easy to hide in the early months before lily started to show. and she could have easily said another client got her pregnant. But like, in the hypothetical, she could have been pregers with louis' baby, birthed it and left it with whatever family member she could get to take it. aka the mean auntie.

(now like, irl, she'd be like, grabbing this opportunity by the throat. but this is the hypothetical, so roll with me.)

lily wouldn't want to tell louis she was pregnant with his child. she thought he'd try to 'do the right thing' and marry her, and the idea of her and her child being looked down upon by the rest of the family disgusted her. so she never told him. but by then she probably figured out louis was gay, and she did not want to be his beard indefinitely, having to stay all loyal and true to louis while he fucked guys

so like papa du lac dies and now lily can't just pop out like, surprise, i'm his baby mama. except you know, in the slang for the era. so lily keeps claudia hidden. and means to eventually one day tell louis.

(and you know, being the only girl that Louis sees, people probably see him as like his--jfc, idk how to convert this from trailer trash, but it's like where if you're with a guy and living together so many years legally you're married. except you're not it's just about--nope. I'm not going do it and go off on a tangent. Anyway, it's like whatever the cultural approximation is to that.)

but then there's this white french dude sniffing around her man who isn't technically her man but she's the closest thing to a therapist he's got and is also his trailer-trash-wife. so like, she analyzes the threat and works out the situation. Claudia can be Louis' daughter he never knew about. Lily can be his kept woman, or she could take some money and run away. It depended on whether he wanted Claudia to himself and lestat, or if he wanted to share with her. or if he wants claudia at all.

she lestat reads her mind when he visits her one night, and is like, fuck i do not want to have kids. so he kills her bc hey, if she's dead, no problem. (or maybe he vamps her in agreement that she never see louis again and goes somewhere far away to start a new life. i know it doesn't make sense, but i like to imagine a world where lily lived. escapism is fun sometimes)

is this theory insane? yes? but is it impossible? no!

(I use this as reference a lot. But mostly the pdf version i have downloaded bc my internet is a fickle bitch sometimes. So it's probably, like behind on updates with the new trailers.)

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Dark grey anon again, greetings! I think, rather ironically considering the themes of this show, we might have misunderstood each other. You say I interpeted your comment on the shades of dark grey correctly, except when you then go into it more, that is in fact not what I meant 😂😂 For me, the dark grey comment read more like, if we take an alignment chart to help clarify, evil, whereas from your description I would personally go with the definition chaotic neutral.

I don't see why people* would interpret that as you not liking his character**... isn't fandom meant to love anti-heroes and morally grey characters? I promise this isn't going to stop Aziraphale*** from being in love with him or irrevocably ruin their relationship. Also, that vague post thing? I'l be honest, much as I love a lot of your other metas, I disagree with probably a good 90% of this one****, but ffs be decent about it!

Out of curiosity: you talk a bit about the character growth Crowley still has to experience. Would you consider his moral ambiguity, and becoming less ambiguous, as part of that, or is that simply part of his personality, and fine to stay the way it is, and it's just that it happens to run parallel when being analysed to the flaws that he does need to work on?

*I will admit my OCD wants a positive analysis for the sake of balance, however, this would be the same case in reverse with wanting a negative analysis to balance a bunch of positive ones. Unless you were to literally have an exact equal count of pros and cons there will always be something in my head going bingbingbingnotbalanced... what can you do? 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

**Although, admittedly, English sucks, so that might partially be wording, and not just bad faith. Personally speaking, bad, for me, carries connotations of nasty/ill-intentioned/evil, and dark I arguably find worse, so some of it might simply be linguistic differences. At the very least, as a second language speaker, it's pretty easy to come away with the wrong impression, namely that you're suggesting he's actively villainous/malicious. In my native tongue, a bad or dark character would fall more under the category of commits murders for the sheer delight of human suffering.

***Potential hot take! I don't know, I'm not always overly in touch with fandom views, but Aziraphale is also more morally grey/morally ambiguous than some of the fandom would like to acknowledge.

****I do agree with some of the items on your list, but generally, I have a different or more lenient view on the points you mention and my conclusion is less mostly ambiguous character who can and will do good things semi-regularly and more mostly good character who can and will do ambiguous things semi-regularly.

hi anon, sorry i havent replied sooner✨

sorry, let me clear this up - when i said you interpreted my comment correctly, i was referring to this bit of your ask: "You say that Crowley's dark grey comment is one of the more honest and introspective things he says: that kinda comes across to me like you saying that Crowley's saying he's mostly bad with a capacity for good* and that's a fair assessment of him."

idk how to word the next bit, tbh - i don't necessarily see crowley as a bad character, certainly not outright (and definitely not an evil one). and idk if it was, perhaps, how shittily i worded it in the last ask (im not a writer, i regularly do not have The Right Words), but that's not what i was trying to get across. i just personally find it important that he asserts that he's not nice, he's not light, and imo the narrative has routinely supported this. he regularly shows tendencies of being someone that can be immoral. a little more specifically, maybe - sometimes insensitive, dishonest, distasteful, and acts occasionally without much conscience. yes, sometimes a little nasty, and sometimes a little ill-intentioned, but definitely not to the point where id consider him depraved, malicious, and completely absent of any redeemable quality - that's not what im saying at all. crowley is not a villain by any stretch.

a lot of people won't agree with that (that he's often a 'dark' or 'immoral' character), and in some part i agree with that contradiction, because he does have the capacity to be the abject opposite of those things, and has absolutely shown himself at times to be selfless, and kind, and compassionate - but i feel like those moments, those qualities, are all the more obvious and apparent because his character backdrop is typically the reverse, and because they are less frequent.

@maximumpenguinpuppy made the brilliant symbolic observation in their rb that kind of sums up my thoughts; the taijitu/yin-yang symbol is made of two parts, and one of those parts is a black field with a white dot - the 'good' within the 'bad'. it wouldn't be the symbol it is and have the meaning that it does, if the symbol were all white with two black dots. likewise, crowley and aziraphale wouldn't be the analogy for yin yang that they are, if they both were 'good' with small parts of 'bad'. it's this kind of balance that makes crowley being a mostly dark character, with capacity for good, not only make narrative and symbolic sense for me, but also makes him a more compelling character as a result.

and probably goes without saying, but it understandably wasn't something i explored in your last ask (and maybe should have) but aziraphale is the opposite. imo, his backdrop is mostly good, kind, selfless, and compassionate. it's then all the more obvious and startling when he doesn't act like that, because of the sheer contrast the story's portrayal of him has given us. so, exactly the same as crowley, his self-assessment of being "very light grey' also feels accurate, and again perhaps an accidental introspection that we as the audience ought to believe outright. (by the by, i feel like the audience does buy and accept this without much question - that aziraphale is a mostly good character whose questionable actions are perceived as all the more horrendous as a result - but seems to struggle with accepting the mirror of that where crowley's concerned) (as i see it anyway, this is only my interpretation of course).

as for where id personally like to see his character development go; i don't think it's a straightforward case of him starting to become more 'good' or 'light'. i think it would erase a lot of his personality and 'crowley-ness' for him to step completely away from being a bit of an occasional shit 😂 his darker qualities, i think in his case specifically, are likely to be a product of his experiences, and inner turmoil, and a good deal of bitterness and resentment, confusion and hurt. therefore, to erase his more immoral behaviours would be in part to erase what the narrative heavily suggests is the trauma and pain that he's been through; essentially, i wouldn't want to see what aziraphale is implied to want in the final fifteen, and restore him to 'good' when he's not that person anymore.

that being said, a crucial part of where i feel crowley is in the wrong a lot of the time is that he does tend to avoid blame or responsibility - and there have certainly been times where aziraphale has fallen afoul of that. i think perhaps (sheer speculation here) crowley's actions have crossed boundaries that aziraphale hasn't effectively communicated to crowley, and/or crowley has completely ignored. don't get me wrong; aziraphale has done the same to him too, and they both need to acknowledge this on their individual parts. they do need to make the relevant reparations for it, including genuine apologies, to respect those boundaries in the future, and make purposeful efforts to rebuild that trust. personally, i do think (or at least hope) that this is something that is going to be addressed, as being underlying sources of contention and upset for them both, in s3.

[blackfeathersflurry]

Let's Discuss How a Friendship Works:

The following chat is a simulation of an indirect discussion in a one sided friendship:

Chocobo: Hey...

MUW: Oh, Hey! Haven't heard from you in a while.

Chocobo: Oh my God, [goes on a tangeant about the things that have occurred in their lives.] And my mother hasn't made it easy. She's [XYZ]

MUW: Oh, I see. Is there some way that I may be of any support?

Chocobo: No.

Chocobo: I'm good. :)

MUW: Well, thank you for reaching out to me. I always love hearing from you. I know things have been difficult for the both of us. And I haven't been the best example in terms of reaching out either.

MUW: Why don't we catch up? See what else has been going around the bend?

Chocobo: My family is going out for the day and I will be getting the house to myself.

MUW:....

Chocobo: Alone.

MUW: I'll catch you later, then. ^_^'

.......

This is supposed to be what one calls a friend?

I've made better friends with fungus.

My dear readers, followers... flurries....I think I will call you my flurries. I think you should very well know that a friend should be direct. Yes, your feelings and their feelings may be hurt. However, emotional maturity must be developed in situations like these. The chat was merely a simulation, however it was based on a very real conversation that a friend of mine underwent. No one should ever be used. Not a single person should ever be made to feel like they are a last resort when it comes to a so-called friendship. As angry as I am, I must refrain from acting. If you find that you are in any kind of dynamic like this, it is ok to walk away. The friend in question is trying. Eight years is a heavy burden for them. They are trying to see the good in this person, even though there is absolutely.none.left. I see an empty shell of what that person used to be.

And that person does not care for anyone else beyond themselves or their ego.

....

Forgive me....

I'm venting.

Regardless, let's circle back and break this down.

Let's ask ourselves these questions, shall we?

Does your friend:

Respect you?

Maintain healthy boundaries?

Communicate openly?

Check in with you after long communication lapses?

Pick up where the friendship left off and retain interest in your life with the same care and respect as you do theirs?

Encourage your hobbies and interests?

Are supportive when you are sick or feeling down?

Or do they:

Show disinterest in your interests or hobbies/make fun of them?

Push your boundaries?

Show disinterest in your life unless it involves ulterior motive or personal gain?

Avoid communication or react to hairline incidents?

Make hints about not wanting to talk to you?

Use you as a personal punching bag? (This can occur in a number of ways)

By answering these questions and weighing the pros and the cons we can determine whether the friendship is healthy for us and deep dive into the next steps. For example. If there is a balanced scale then there is likely going to need to be a lot of communication involved, and potentially a deep dive into whether or not the friendship is capable of surviving. If the scale is balanced and your friend is gaslit, or you are the one gaslighting your friend, then chances are there needs to be an interpersonal re-evaluation on both sides regarding the relationship dynamic.

As it goes, my life was very complicated and extremely misaligned prior to the events that led to the creation of this blog. I had friends who disappeared from SOLDIER. Their names were Angeal and Genesis. I worried over them for a long while and could barely eat because of it. The ability to take care of myself began to wane because of the depression and anxiety that I spiraled into and in the end...well...many of you know what happened.

My friend is going through something similar. She's been stuck in a situation where she can't leave and is even losing a pet. A friend that she's had for a long time is now betraying her and she is keeping a poker face before him while he tries to play mind games. This person, specifically my friend, used to smile and laugh a lot. The past five years have changed her completely.

Many of you are likely wondering, "Why doesn't she leave?" .

It's not so simple.

Not everyone can leave something like an eight year friendship at the drop of a hat. Especially one that they believe will go back to being healthy. It's not. As much as she wishes it will be. She says she will walk away without a care. But the moment she does, she will break. It will shatter her. And there will be hardly anyone there to pick up the pieces.

Many of you will likely believe the same thing of yourselves.

Many of you will think you will stand as tall as a tree and be able to walk away.

Remember that I broke down and gave in to Jenova.

Remember that cloud nearly succumbed to the black materia and almost killed Tifa.

Do I need to go on?

We are all the most fragile when we lose the people we love. Be it to betrayal, death, abandonment...and so on.

Never think you are strong enough or prepared enough to withstand any of those things.

Never think it won't happen to you.