#like i hate to tell you but just because im technically capable doesnt mean i can communicate easily

[stardustfanfare]

.

[eggsploded]

fausto for the ask thing...... the girl herself

butterflaust :)

first impression: you really get the feeling that she fucking hates you. shes rly funny cuz shes the tutorial character but doesnt leave after the prologue. shes here forever, judging dante. i feel in the beginning i skimmed over all the nuance in her dialogue assuming its just wordy for the sake of wordiness.

current impression: faust is soooo... faust. upon replaying the prologue shes way less cold than i first thought, her little c: smile when talking about mephis was saur cute. in fact shes not really cold at all to me, simply operating in a faustly way. you can contextualize what she does as a way to keep herself occupied. not really for some deeper lore sense (because ionno what her deal is) but a bitch needs some stimuli. i think if she was made to do arts and crafts with no larger purpose outside of fun she would explode into blood and gore. it also makes her friendship with yi sang really funny because i wonder if she cares to understand his artsy spech past it being a little clever wordplay. if he made her a drawing she wouldnt know how to compliment it outside of a technical sense. her flavor of arrogance is also so funny to me because its so stupid? like when rodya complimented her and she puffed up and went faust Is cool. the speaking in 3rd person too is funny, knowing she isnt LARPing like don and is very much just Like That. theres alot about herself she either doesnt notice or simply does not want to examine deeply like her mild competitiveness or tendency to manipulate people if it means theyll be less annoying to her. simply the faust of all time

favorite moment: i think the sweetest and funniest thing was realizing her spiel about yi sang not being a genius Unlike Her and believing in more philosophical things unlike her Sensible and Tactile self was an attempt at a COMPLIMENT. i thought she was ripping him to shreds but no she was actually hyping him up a bit in the most clinical way possible

story idea: you know earlier when i said making faust attempt creative expression would cause her to explode into bits? well i want to see it anyway. im forcing her at the kindergarten table of that nasty smelling homemade playdoh and telling her to make a new animal. sinclair made a bear with with wings called a beear. very nice young man.

fav relationships: im enjoying the fandom divide with faust shipping where she is either getting bitches left and right and not giving a fuck to maintain them (because it comes out weird when she tries) or not even being aware of when shes down bad and having the primal part of her brain that tells her to bite and roll around hijack her motherboard. shes being corroded by an insidious EGO called... horny, different to lust, which is Krausts jam. i already wrote a little bit about fausang and i think fausts inability to know how to enjoy things makes them a very sweet duo. in her mind the guy doesnt come a lick close to her own brilliance, but something about how he closes his eyes in understanding speaks more words than compliments do. not to say that faust doesnt like being hyped up. because she does, like all the time. if they were walking she wouldve tripped when rodya called her babe. her greatest flaw is pretending shes above anything, if there was a chance to maul ryoshu she would without pausing. probably so turned on she cant see anything. ishmael too. also outis. hey, whats going on here? my sources tell me due to her ongoing opposites to yi sang she is incapable of a domestic lame marriage the way he is. ishmael is the yuri messiah, but faust is the yuri menace. you know what they are both capable of though? following rodya around enamored because that was the first pet name theyve ever been called and it felt Funny.

fav headcanon: in the newest credits cg for canto 4 i think shes telling vergil she has a tummyache

[elfdyke]

wow thanks! that was a really in depth post about it you make good points! when I played I definitely got the sense that monika had encouraged sayori to kill herself and I didn’t get the sense of any remorse when natsuki or yuri died or got fucked up but I guess u do make some good points there about how she was just trying to make them less desirable rather than kill them. I’m new to the game and the fandom so im not super familiar with everything yet but is there anything in the canon or lore that points away from monika having pushed sayori to commit suicide or is it mostly just fan theories and personal readings? either way thank u so much for answering!

yes i can absolutely find you some info on that!

there's quite a bit of information hidden within the games files, so I'm kind of assuming if you're new to the game, that you might not have seen these things? so ill dive into them too!

I'm gona do this under the cut so i can like, dissect things from the game !

(also i found stuff thats specifically pointing away from her meaning actual harm/death for Both yuri and sayori, jsyk)

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.txt (discovered in game files during act 2)

“All I want is for you to hate them. Why is that so hard.”

not, all i want for them is to die. she doesnt want to kill them. she wants to separate us from them so we are with Her, not them. things spiral out of control, but it was never her intention for things to get this bad. ntm its repeated over and over in this game how badly monika wants to die. she's hanging on by a thread, keeping on only because she wants to be with us, to be in contact with reality. this leads to really unfortunate circumstances but i really strongly believe everything in the text alludes to the fact she did Not want things to get this bad

ACT 3 INTRO:

(im copy pasting a transcript of the monologue here, but this is taken from the very beginning of act 3, which you can see in this video starting at 25:56)

imo this is all the proof needed to show that she really had no intention of ‘killing’ sayori and yuri. things spiraled out of control far beyond what she was capable of handling. 

her goals with making sayori more depressed and yuri more obsessive were, in here words “to just try to make them as unlikable as possible”. she didnt want her friends to brutally die!! she loved them q_q i feel like a lot of people really dont look at this specific part of what she says and take it to heart. its very telling for her character and important for understanding what she does and why she does it

ACT 3 MONOLOGUES:

sayori's hanging (cw: graphic descriptions of suicide)

dialogue of importance:

"I was thinking about Sayori earlier... I still wish I could have handled that whole thing a little more tactfully."

+

"Come to think of it, it was probably less 'changing her mind' and more just her survival instincts kicking in." "So you can't really fault her for that." "It's easier to think that she probably wouldn't have changed her mind anyway, right?" "It's not healthy to think about the things you could have done differently." "So just remember that even though you could have saved her, it's technically not your fault she killed herself." "I may have exacerbated it a little bit, but Sayori was already mentally ill." "Still, though..." "I wonder how things would be if you and I just started dating from the get-go?" "I guess we'd all still be in the clubroom, writing poems and having fun together." "But what's the point when none of it is even real?" "I mean, it's the same ending either way, right?"

ok so whats important here, is monika is essentially using us, the player, as a mirror in act 3? the things she says i believe, very strongly show her sense of uncertainty in her actions, and her fears of what if she could have done something else??

"even though you could have saved her, its technically not your fault she killed herself" reads SO much to me like shes trying to comfort herself with this, she doesnt want it to be her fault. nothings real, sayori's a character in a game. but she wishes so badly they could have just been normal girls living together.

happy end poem

OK SO LIKE. this is actual proof of Why she does everything she does. she's scared if she reaches out and tells us she's trapped in a game, we'll stop playing, we'll kill her. she tinkers with the game, trying to make herself look the best, trying to make us choose her, and nothing works. and this leads to her becoming frustrated and scared, and screwing with the game more and more desperately trying to do anything to save herself.

if you recall, in act 2, she gives you a poem which bluescreen the computer. this was actually an attempt she makes to escape the game q_q she never wanted to kill yuri, she never wanted things to escalate like that. she wanted to get out but she had no idea how to program her way out of the game, resulting in everything crumbling around her, and her friends dying.

my own route

hang on this one genuinely makes me so upset.

it very much relates back to how in the conversation about sayori's suicide, she's still clearly thinking about how things could be Different. shes thinking about how they could be normal. "I may not have needed to take such drastic measures to be with you. Maybe the rest of the club would still be around..." , and then immediately trying to convince herself it doesnt matter, and that she doesnt care.

its so so obvious shes hurting and she misses her friends. the additional "i really dont (miss them)" at the end really shows that shes desperately trying to convince herself that it was worth it, that she did everything she should have, and her friends dont matter. but they clearly do matter to her. she loved them (she couldnt even delete them if u recall)

also another important part about this monologue, a lot of people say she killed the other girls out of jealousy, but this shows thats not true??

"I think I would end up forcing you onto my route anyway." "It has less to do with me not having a route, and more to do with me knowing that nothing is real."

this wasnt because shes 'in love' with us. she wanted to be close to something real, something tangible. she's clinging onto us, the player character, like someone lost at sea with a piece of driftwood, doing everything she can to stay afloat

wine

ok this isnt on the surface level as important as the other ones, but literally look at how she talks about this memory.. she misses them so much and talking about this memory she clearly cherishes brings her so much joy. she doesnt belittle any of them, she doesnt talk down on them, she’s just reliving this memory because it makes her happy 

I HOPE THIS HELPS?? im sure theres a few more things im forgetting, but i did my best to scrabble up everything i could to show how monika’s not an evil mastermind, shes a scared girl who didnt realize what she was doing and when things got too bad, she did her best to fix it, only for it to get worse n worse

edit: oh heres the proof that monika always loved the girls and never actually deleted them

:’)

edit 2: haha.. um ouch

“It’s not right for me to miss things that weren’t even real in the first place.” shes forcing herself to try and ignore her feelings for the other girls

[raveneira]

Since Yashahime is such a dumpster fire Im just gonna rewrite the sequel to what I THINK would have been the better alternative to the whole SessRin situation and also some story elements that could really be improved and would make this series alot better.

For starters, if we HAD to go the SessRin route then I would make it take place 21 years after the end of final act, Kagome was 18 when she returned to the feudal era and 3 years had passed at the end of the final act which made her 21, Rin should have been about 11-12 at that point, if we count 21 years from then, Kagome would be 42 while Rin would be 32-33, meaning when the twins were born Rin was 18-19, I know that might make ppl a bit uncomfortable still but atleast she would be a legitimate adult where you can atleast say "alright...Im KIND of ok with this, I still dont like it but atleast she is technically an adult capable of consenting and not a literal child being taken advantage of"

Thats if they HAD to go the SessRin route, then I would atleast make it done tastefully where it doesnt promote pedophilia, plus the old gang being in their 40s wouldnt be that big a deal because they'd still be capable of fighting.

Now for my PERSONAL take on how the sequel should have taken place, SessRin wouldnt happen at all, because the beauty of their relationship stemmed from this ruthless cold hearted demon who hated humans, learned to love and care for a small child to the point of nearly crying when he thought he lost her for good, there are all different kinds of love and the love Sesshomaru had for Rin was pure and innocent. He was someone she adored as her savior and caretaker and she was someone he cared for and wanted to protect, to me that bond was far more impactful and meaningful than anything romantic or sexual building up between them, but simply two people whom the other simply cannot live without because they mean THAT much to eachother. Such a pure and sweet relationship did NOT need to be twisted into a romantic and sexual light. Rin could have continued to adore Sesshomaru and he could have continued to check up on her and bring her gifts as he did in the final act until Rin decided she wanted to travel with him again.

Now onto the rewrite, as I stated SessRin WOULDNT happen and their bond would remain as it was in the OG series, so who would be the twins mother? well if we HAD to go the half demon route to show Sesshomaru's development full circle, and we didnt wanna undo Kagura's death because it was a critical moment for Sesshomaru's development, there were several other routes that could have been taken.

1 Create a new character and develop her over the course of Yashahime through a series of flashbacks as we unravel the mystery of what happened to everyone through the girls travels. If you want to go the angsty route you could have her die giving birth and have Rin raise them as a sort of surrogate mother figure, kind of like Clementine with AJ.

2 Use an already established character, one possibility being Nazuna, a human girl that debuted back in the early OG series, she had black hair and black eyes but as we see from Yashahime, the girls clearly didnt inherit their mothers looks as in the OG series Rin's hair was black and her eyes are brown while Setsuna's hair is brown and she has blue/purple eyes while Towa has red eyes, features that neither of their parents have. They also have a random red streak in their hair for some reason. 

So based on this, Nazuna would be a good possible candidate as she was a teenager in the OG series and would be an adult by the end of the series when she would give birth. [Correct me if Im wrong about her age but she looks like a teenager, but if Im wrong then I would just adjust the timeline to where she would be an adult at the time she gives birth]

Another potential candidate would be Momiji, true she may have been anime only but since this is an anime only sequel she is a plausible candidate. She has red/auburn hair which would explain the strange red streak in the twins hair. Like Nazuna, she was a teenager in the OG series so she would also be an adult by the time she'd conceive and give birth.

Another candidate would be Kaname Kururugi, a game exclusive character, but the fact that they went through the trouble of creating a complete OC and fleshed out her backstory to such a degree and allowed her to build relationships with established characters, including Sesshomaru, its safe to say they could have incorperated her into the anime canon considering they already had an established foundation they could have just built off of and meshed it into the anime. Plus she has brown hair and blue/purple eyes just like Setsuna.

Now that we have all the potential candidates, who's the one that seems the most plausible? In my opinion, I would personally go the Kaname route because she has such a deep and fleshed out backstory and they actually took the time to even animate scenes specifically for this game, so she does TECHNICALLY make an appearance in the anime, just not in an actual episode. And just like Kagome, she could have grown fond of the feudal era as well and wished to go back and somehow found a way to do so at the end of the Final act or maybe a month or year later after Kagome returned.

So going with the Kaname route, I'll begin my rewrite.

Being as Sesshomaru hasnt seen her since she was 15 like Kagome and vanished for several years, when he finally sees her again she will now be 18-19 when they reunite and a relationship would start to build and ensue.

Continuing where the game left off, Kaname would continue on with her normal life as Kagome did and eventually graduate when she is 18. She would still often think about her time in the feudal era and miss all the people she spent time with and bonded with there, one person specifically being Sesshomaru.

^ A refresher for those who forgot the Sesshomaru ending.

As she comes home from graduation, another Doll Festival of Wishes is being held and it reminds her of Sesshomaru whom she wishes to see again, she goes and buys one of the dolls and writes his name on it as she did when she first returned home, thinking to herself that its no use and is probably a waste of time, but with what little hope she has left, she does the ritual anyway.

Afterwards she goes over to her father to help him with the festival, who like last time asks her to go get something from the storehouse. As she enters the storehouse, the hole in which she fell through before has been patched up, as she walks through the storehouse, she walks on the patched up floor which caves in when she walks on it and she is once again transported to the feudal era.

She once again lands in a forest not far from where Kaede lives, as she wakes up, she is greeted by Sesshomaru, who had saw her unconscious on his way to visit Rin and watched over her till she woke up. Overjoyed and also in disbelief, she hugs him which surprises Sesshomaru who isnt used to recieving this type of affection but he doesnt push her away, nor does he reciprocate by hugging her back.

As she lets go she tells him how much she missed him and everyone there, then, noticing Rin wasnt with him, asks him where she was, worried that something might have happened to her. He reassures her that Rin is fine and that he was just on his way to visit her at Kaede's village which relieves Kaname. She goes with Sesshomaru back to Kaede's village where she reunites with everyone much to their surprise but they are all very happy to see her again.

Anyway Im not gonna do a play by play step by step storytelling so Im just gonna mention the main story beats and you guys can fill in the blanks for yourself.

Anyway after the happy reunion and catching up, Sesshomaru prepares to leave back on his travels which saddens Kaname who had longed to see him again and only got to be reunited with him a short time. Reluctant to be apart from him again, she asks, or rather insists he allows her to come with him on his travels. He tells her that if she comes with him it'll be a dangerous journey for her, she replies confidently that she can take care of herself and promises to not be a burden to him. Reluctant but not willing to argue, he tells her to do as she wishes and flies off. Kaname hops on A-Un and soon follows, and the two begin their travels together.

Thats pretty much how'd we leave off the final act, atleast a month or two after, you can decide your own timeline.

As for what happened on their journey and how their relationship developed will be shown through a series of flashbacks over the course of Yashahime as we solve more of the mysteries.

In episode 15, we'd get the same flashback but with Kaname being the one to give birth to the twins with Rin, Kagome, Sango, and Kaede there for her as support. It is said that when Sesshomaru and Kaname found out she was pregnant, he brought her back to the village where she could have a safe pregnancy and birth. Of course Sesshomaru isnt the mushy type to stay there with her through her pregnancy, but he does visit from time to time when giving gifts to Rin but also goes to check on her and see how she’s doing, although he doesnt admit thats what he’s doing.

After the twins were born, everything plays out relatively the same, but instead of just taking the twins without a word to her, he atleast reassures her that he's taking them someplace safe from harm, although he cant explain to her right now what that harm is, Kaname says she trusts him.

As I said, things play out relatively the same after that.

As for Rin, what exactly happens with her? well if we MUST pair her off with someone, it should be Kohaku, someone she has an established relationship and bond with that is closer to her age. Whether or not they have kids I'll leave up to you to decide, but I like the idea of Kohaku having a little demon slayer son to carry on their legacy. It would be interesting seeing his bond with Setsuna since Rin would essentially be like a sister figure for the twins although they dont remember her, it would be interesting and sweet to see Setsuna develop a bond with their son who for the sake of simplifying things, we'll call him Korin.

Korin, if we want Rin to be an adult at the time she gives birth, would be 4 years after Kaname gives birth to the twins when Rin is 18-19, making Korin 10 in the present. Like the twins, Korin has no memories of his mother since she was sealed away in a tree for whatever reason, so the only mother figure he's ever had has been Setsuna, which would be an interesting dynamic to explore since it would be similar to how Sesshomaru filled a parental role for Rin who didnt have anyone at the time.

Moroha would NOT be this uncaring about her parents, infact she would be insanely curious, maybe even furious wanting to figure out why they abandoned her and vanished without a word since nobody seems to have told her anything that happened. She would want answers and wouldnt stop until she gets them. The OG crew if we MUST have this mystery drawn out, would tell her that it would be better if she found out the truth for herself and that any answers they give her wouldnt be the answers she wants. So Moroha's driving force in the story wouldnt be about some stupid bounty hunting debt, although she could still be a bounty hunter, but her main motivation would be trying to discover the truth about her parents and why they abandoned her.

Also this BS with Koga giving her up would NOT happen, it just wouldnt, that is BEYOND OOC for him to do and I will not be having it. Instead, Koga would be IN character and not let Moroha out of his sight, he would treat her like kin like the rest of the wolf demon tribe, maybe even give her special treatment because of her connection to Kagome. Koga would train Moroha himself, not going easy on her because he wants her to be strong enough to fend for herself, concerned because of her being a quater demon and having her demon powers sealed, he’s hard on her to toughen her up to not have to rely on it. 

If we must include Yawaragi, then she would be sort of a bodyguard assigned to watch over Moroha by Koga for when he cant. The storyline of the rat armor would still relatively be the same but instead of selling Moroha off to some shady bounty hunter which Koga would never allow or forgive her for doing, she simply introduces him to her as a long time friend, Moroha would take interest in the bounty hunting business as an opporunity for training, and potentially finding info on her parents since Jyubei seems to have alot of connections and intel that’ll be useful in her journey. Yawaragi instead of pursuing the key alone would bring Moroha with her when they are approached by the shady demon whos name I cant be bothered to remember, he blackmails her with the key telling her to fight Moroha if she wants it, Moroha scoffs at this telling him that she wouldnt do that and that they’ll both fight him together to get the key instead, but to her surprise Yawaragi attacks her.

Everything plays out relatively the same, Moroha is hurt at her betrayal and lashes out at her. Yawaragi, like in the episode uses this fight as one final lesson for Moroha, with full intention on dying by the end of it. Moroha is hesitant to fight her because she still cares about her as she was like a second mentor and somewhat mother figure to her. So to get Moroha to fight seriously she lies to her by saying that everything was a lie and that she never cared about her etc I wont go into a ton of detail, Moroha is reluctant to believe her but is eventually convinced when she attacks her full power, seemingly with the intent to kill her. This pushes Moroha to fight seriously as well, remembering what she taught her about using her clever thinking and successfully strikes her down. 

After this she goes over to her and Yawaragi admits to lying to her so that she would fight because she knew chances are the shady demon wouldnt have given her the key and since the rat armor was close to killing her anyway she decided she would rather die by Moroha’s hands rather than being crushed to death by the armor. Moroha would be devestated and guiltridden since she is the reason she was in the cursed armor to begin with, but Yawaragi reassures her that it isnt her fault and that it was her own negligence to see through the trap that resulted in this outcome. As a reward for defeating her, she gives Moroha her sword [yes Moroha wouldnt have her sword until now] and tells her to get stronger with it so that she wouldnt have to rely on her rouge, but win using her own strength. Moroha promises her that she will and Yawaragi passes away shortly after that. Everything plays out relatively the same after that.

As for the twins their motivations can mostly stay the same, but they also wouldnt be so uncaring about their parents, or specifically Towa wouldnt. Towa would be furious at her father and want to find him and maybe even kill him for abandoning them and causing them to be separated with seemingly no regard for their safety. Setsuna can maintain her non caring attitude, but given Towa's upbringing in the modern era, it makes sense for her to be furious at her birth father's neglect after experiencing what a loving home and father feels like.

As for what happened to Kaname, like I said you could go the angsty route where she died giving birth, or you could have her be kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip to blackmail Sesshomaru into doing the enemies bidding. You could have it where Sesshomaru was able to prevent Rin from falling into the enemies hands but not Kaname. Or maybe Kaname sacrificed herself for Rin, agreeing to go with the enemy in exchange for them sparing Rin, which is what leads Sesshomaru to sealing Rin in the tree to prevent them from potentially coming back for her. You guys can come up with your own conclusions there, these are just some scenerios off the top of my head. But for the sake of the rewrite we'll go with Kaname being kidnapped and used to blackmail Sesshomaru.

I’ll make an actual rewrite in a separate post with how I would PERSONALLY make the sequel, this post is just me tweaking and making slight alterations to the way Sunrise chose to write the sequel, the separate post would be how I feel the sequel could have played out instead for the better.

[patronsaintsofnothing]

mianitian isles theory: all the gods are secretly apart of the darkness and theyre trying to lure the heroes into the darkness in order to take over not only the land but the other dimensions (ie s1 and s2)

like everyone has been saying, ianite IS being extremely sus right now and her luring jordan into the darkness would be SUPER easy for her since he trusts her no matter what. she could easily have another potion of darkness and rename it to "ianites potion" or some fancy shit like that and say "oh itll help you and prove to me that youre my one true follower" because jordans gullible and stupid as shit

dianite (spoiler alert) is actually evil and just putting on a facade for the others. tom is so willing to do evil shit that if the darkness used dianite as some sort of puppet in order to get tom to do their bidding, it wouldnt be so hard, wouldnt it?

as we all know, karl accidentally joined the darkness (poor guy) so theres no turning back now LMAO. theres also this one line that the darkness said that REALLY stuck out to me. it kinda went "poor karl, always being left behind" OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT im just paraphrasing. karl technically is the replacement tucker in this series and not only is he new to the series, hes new to the entire game. maybe he feels like he cant fill tuckers shoes in, but the darkness tries to persuade him into thinking they can make everything better for him. saying that "you dont need them {jordan and tom} we'll respect you if you join us" dun dun dunnn idk karls and interesting character i love that guy

DEC lets talk about dec. ok so we all know him as the priest right? he has communications with the gods and all that so we can assume hes buddies with them. so he knows everything about them and what they say. one day he accidentally stumbles apon a conversation happening between the gods (or one of them idk) and the darkness. they dont know/cant see him/whatever ok but dec now knows about their secret alliance. BUT the gods dont know that he knows. BUT (a lot of buts) hes afraid to tell the heroes because the gods might find out and he doesnt want to get killed or something. hes trying to find a subtle way to tell them, but for now hes keeping quiet.

- another theory could be that dec is apart of the darkness as well but thats lame, i like dec and i hate the darkness i wont do that to him

mianite easily succumbed to the darkness by wearing that armor and tried to kill the heroes (duh) but what if it was an act? it would have the heroes go crying to their gods (karlyle probably just sitting there) and theyd """protect'"" them from the darkness. mianite got the short end of the stick to try and pretend to be "possessed" or whatever the fuck happened

now about the "take over not only the land but the other dimensions" part. obviously the darkness had access to the mirror dimension if im not mistaken right? (if im wrong then totally correct me, my memory has been kinda shit lately) so that means they have access to ALL the other dimensions, including the season 1 and season 2 dimensions (i dont know what to call them so lets just say s1 and s2). the darkness is evil, so DUH DOY theyd want to take over as much land as they want. and its not like those dimensions are completely abandoned, it was only the heroes that left. redbeard, s1 ianite, the old streamers, spark/jeriah/country bat (i think) are still in the s1 universe. i dont remember but im pretty sure theres still some characters in the s2 dimension? havent seen it in a while, feel free to correct me or say whos left. theres no heroes in any of those dimensions to stop the darkness from taking over and god knows what theyre even capable of. we've barely seen what they could do but look at fenrir right? i assume theyre more powerful than s1 dianite or s2 mianite. and by luring the heroes into the darkness, they remove one obstacle out of their way.

[luminisvii]

anyway i’ve been playing three houses on maddening lately because i hate myself, and i also hated looking at tier lists that put some characters who are actually quite bad for high difficulty up top, i made my own tier list of suggested feth characters for if you do a maddening run. this is really just so i can scream about what characters i think are best (spoiler alert: it’s lysithea)

so, here we go, tell’s three houses tier list!

disclaimer: based on personal experience, not all characters have been used on maddening, but i have played the game like... eight times. on my ninth run. so i have some pretty decent data on majority of the characters. 

tier is determined by how easy a character is to use, how much investment they require, and stat growths. crests+relics also influence this, since people who can use relics effectively are better. the game tells me not to judge based on crests, but come on! 

lords are not included, jeritza is also not because he’s CF post skip exclusive, but come on, we all know where he’d place anyway

the real tier list is this: if you’re playing on normal or hard, literally anyone is fine. follow your heart. invest in who you like. on maddening, you unfortunately need to be a little more discerning. and sometimes, you just get rng screwed, even with the best, so rip lmao 

TOP TIER (FOR COOL KIDS ONLY)

-lysithea: the coolest kid, doesn’t need a bed time. obvious bc her spell list and stats and access to relic are great. also look at her. shes bappy. she says so herself in her support with cyril (the only valid cyril support) all jokes aside, she can go down the basic mage line and mow down anyone who comes within her insane range. she also does well as a valkyrie, but with the speed penalty, i don’t recommend her staying in the class for long. just get uncanny blow! then hades will never miss! 

-felix: he may be a shadow the hedgehog motherfucker but he has one important thing that shadow doesnt: crest of fraldarius. i guess shadow has a gun, though. felix is just straightforward gameplay baby. you send him at something and it dies. go crest boy go!

-mercedes: im legally obligated to put mercie in here because of her personal, her crest, and fortify. although restore is also super neat! miss mercie is just plain reliable as a healer. easily goes through the priest line to gremory.

-balthus: extremely helpful early game, doesn’t fall off later either. his personal skill of str/def +6 when below half health means he can either straightforwardly tank or just punch shit so hard it doesn’t have a chance to strike back. also gets a relic, healing focus, and a major crest that allows him to heal, so he’s a one man army. he does one thing really well and that’s use his fists to liquefy his opponents. also gets rally strength if you care about that. my favorite strategy with him is to let the damn poison strike archers knock his health down and then just go to town, combined with vantage for REAL fun. forget war monk, this guy should just go to war master

-sylvain: this little slut will join you if you’ve got boobs so he’s real handy to have around. plus he’s got some great qualities: flexible, strong, free relic, and maybe kinda hot i guess. you could make him a paladin, but you should give him a giant lizard. he can basically become any of the master classes with ease, although i would not recommend putting him into magic classes that much unless you wanna do a wholly mage sylvie build. will still perform just fine as a dark mage even without dedicated magery. but seriously, dragon

-petra: you want crit??? you got crit!!! this little lady can not only crit like hell but also dodge tank really well. i had fun making her a falcoknight once and just watching her line it all up and tear it all down. petra is reliable and stronk and also horrible to fight against so just. recruit her, please

-constance: entirely here because of bolting. for the low price of her reason being A you can nuke enemies from across the map. while you could make her the canon class of dark flier, i for one think the warlock line is better, because that’s four uses of bolting and even more if her crest activates. she also has a similar statline to lysithea and hits like a truck with other spells, and with bolting can supply long range support, so really, what’s not to love? the rest of her spells are good too. i go for gremory over dark flier bc while the mobility is great, x4 bolting is even better. 

PRETTY GOOD TIER

-ingrid: extremely reliable, only down here instead of in the cool kids category bc her strength kinda sucks. i love ingrid though! she’s got a gambit gimmick and a crest+relic! ingrid with the chalice is super funny and i highly recommend it. i watched her fucking OWN every single siege tome user like that

-ignatz: some will say he sucks. some would argue his utility as a debuffer and rallybot. i will argue this ungodly crit. ignatz is a very luck man, blessed with great opportunities and a base crit value beyond any other. the little man will strike you down in the name of the goddess before you even know what’s going on. with a little help his strength will match the others and if you slap as much crit up on him as possible then it’ll never end. ignatz could be a one man army if he could crit more than one person at once. unfortunately he’s stuck to one divine judgment at a time. you can either use his 55% luck growth and archer level dex to gamble on a high crit rate, or you can stack his personal with another hit +20 to basically never miss anything. if you play deer, this man is a must.

-hilda: the usual, a crest, a relic, good times, a nice personal, but also like. she slaps. in general. pretty sick with an axe but works nicely as almost any physical class (i haven’t tried sword, though) because she naturally goes down the warrior line she can get some real fun times going. or just give her a lizard! women love swarms of lizards. she is a delicate little flower who will end a motherfucker

-ferdinand: fairly reliable as a cavalier class, and comes with some natural dodge tanky capability and access to seteth’s spear of assal and ochain shield which make him restore health like crazy and his personal will stay on. also a counter attack block is nice! he’s got some nice combat arts too. just a pretty straightforward cavalier. good times

-seteth: and while we’re on the crest of cichol, seteth is gonna make sure you never raise a finger against him again. you won’t survive. the only prepromote i use. he has good base stats, good growths, and he just does really well at what he does! he may come in a little late but he’s strong as fuck and is shredded. i tend to favor him over ferdie for the cichol linked items, but also i’m biased towards this anxiety dad, so take that as you will

-marianne: she tends to get left out of the healer talks because like most of the deer, she’s kind of weird. i will make an argument for her. what she lacks in utility she makes up for sheer raw power. while her crest won’t be of much use until very late and even then her sword prowess is not what you should be using her for, her spell list is all high power and she also comes with easy access to silence, which can nicely stall for some time against powerful mage enemies. she also gets a heal to herself if she’s standing next to an animal since all her friends are horses. still kinda slow as most healers are and not as much of a res tank, but a formidable edition nonetheless. blutgang is a good pinch hitter relic as well

-caspar: like most gauntlet users, caspar is good at one thing: punching. he is just really good at it. he’s perfectly geared towards being a war master. and he’ll perform that very well. he gets healing focus as one of his arts, so he can run off on his own if he wants. solidly reliable, will work at just. punching. go short king!

-yuri: the man’s utility is unrivaled. he’d go top tier if it weren’t for the fact that he’s got unreliable strength/magic growths. he could go either way as a physical attacker or a mage, but he naturally fits well in the assassin class along with trickster, and even dancer if you like (i’m trying that and honestly the male dancer animation is so sad. like. why can’t you put as much energy into it as the women.) but this man can go. hes fast. he’ll fuck you up

-hubert: while not as hard hitting as lysithea, the man still fucks things up with dark magic like she does. he lacks her double crests but he makes up for it by still smacking people’s nuts clean off and with the added bonus of range and debuffs dark magic provides. even better, you can make him a dark mage/bishop! however points off because they won’t let me stack fiendish blow. love u vampire man!!! unfortunately locked to CF so rip.

NICE TIER: 

-lorenz: i adore him but hes a little unreliable as things go. in house, hes the better paladin than leonie, and his personal grants him a nice damage bonus with a battalion. lorenz shines as a dark knight the most, he has a heavy hitting spell list and if you really want to, thyrsus is technically his relic even though everyone puts it on lysithea! i really like him and he can perform really well but unfortunately like most of the deer he is Weird and this can put him in strange places with his growths. tis a cruel world, being a lorenz stan!

-dorothea: also suffers from strange statline. for some reason they’re pushing sword with her. honestly, because she’s outperformed by other mages, even on black eagles i tend to put her into dancer and kinda forget about her. she has quite a bit in heavy hitting spells and her personal skill grants a very nice mini heal to people around her, but honestly, i usually favor lysithea over her. she functions best as pure support but can still pull through on the offense. sadly, the competition is really rough.

-ashe: does his job, and does it well. not as heavy of a hitter as some of his fellow archers, but still good nonetheless, and has access to deadeye for extra range (although don’t count on it on maddening). his personal means he can unlock things no matter what class he’s in, so you can focus on others! i personally think that, you guessed it, he should get a giant lizard.

-annette: she does well, sadly outperformed by other house mages. functions as a rallybot and gets crusher if you care about that. i missed crusher completely in my first lions run, whoops, and then in my second one i had constance so uh. sorry, annette! she’s so very sweet, but her spell list has her down here.

-leonie: im hiding before the leonie stans get me. sure, like sylvain, she has his ability and shared flexibility for any class, but unlike sylvain she lacks power, a crest, and a relic. i see people keep arguing that she’s a massive damage dealer, but i honestly never see it. she falls off damage wise really quick, even if she’s got more than enough speed to deal with it. she’s basically just a lamer sylvain or ingrid without the crest abilities that those two have to make them stronger. what? the game keeps TELLING me crest = bad but as far as i can tell, all the best characters have one! on maddening GD, she’ll be good at first, but she’ll drop.

-dedue: i would rank this man higher since i simply adore him but he’s SUPER difficult for me to use. his defense is unrivaled, this man will flinch at nothing, but his speed is almost always shit and he tends to get nuked from orbit by mages. i love him, i really do, but man he can be a lot to manage. he does really well early game but can’t keep up. which is a shame, i really like him :(

-flayn: she has quite a bit of capability with rescue and fortify, and her major crest means her healing is even more potent. however she’s a little slow, extremely fragile, joins low leveled after you’ve already invested in a different healer, and is not very strong. she IS a res tank, though, and learns seal magic, which adds to her res tanking capability. she also synergizes with the caduceus staff, so she can be very self sufficient, and hit from farther away! flayn does very well. the major penalty is a lackluster spell list and significant investment buy in.

-hapi: she’s… weird. i like hapi quite a bit but she’s got it worse than lorenz in terms of stat growth. her personal ability makes her an extreme aggro target for monsters and she can’t even avoid their attacks, and the bonus damage it grants unfortunately isn’t better than fellow DLC mage constance, who hits harder just out of sheer momentum. for having a healing crest, she doesn’t have a particularly interesting white magic line. her dark magic grants her utility similar to hubert, but she’s slower and can’t quite strike like he does. sadly miss hapi has to be down here. id like to put her higher but boy did she struggle

-raphael: well, he’ll do his job. he’s only beat by caspar since caspar has a little bit better tools at his disposal, but they’re basically the same character. raph will do very good at punching the living shit out of things. starts off better than caspar, but unfortunately in my current run i have balthus so raph had to get benched

YOU CAN DO BETTER TIER

-bernadetta: she’ll work alright, but only with lots of attention, and her personal doesn’t seem to make up the difference. for a sniper she seems to have far less hit than her rivals in ashe and ignatz, especially since ignatz makes him more reliable. her crest doesn’t actually grant her much since it has such a low trigger rate and by the time it does work she probably already can double. also she gains no levels between pre and post skip which is hilarious but like. HELLO? ive also been told she has the worst starting stats. personally, i only use her on BE runs. i know she’s a popular character and a lot of people rank her highly for persecution complex and the fact that she learns both encloser and deadeye, but deadeye is unreliable in maddening and she’s a lot of work to keep up with the others.

-cyril: he can become a killer, he honestly does really well, but he starts so far behind you need to invest a significant amount into him. i don’t recall him having a particularly stellar combat art line either, but if you choose to put in all the work of catching the kid up, he will do well. but it’s not worth it most of the time. i use him on church route runs bc it feels right. on other runs, you’ll already have someone who fits his niche--the guy becomes a wyvern rider, and the likes of sylvain can do much better in this line.

-linhardt: kind of a shittier flayn, without fortify or rescue. lackluster spell list for both black and white, and terrible growths. he’ll do fine if you play eagles, but if you’re going to import a healer, mercie or flayn is the better option. 

-anna: oh lord, anna is difficult. her offensive stats are horrendous. flayn hits harder than her. with her unique stat line, inability to get supports, weakness in authority, and all around just odd set up, anna is not a reliable character and you should use yuri instead. they’ve basically got the same crest.

DIDN’T USE SO NO OPINION TIER: 

-hanneman

-manuela (heard she’s not good anyway)

-alois

-gilbert

-catherine

-shamir

(yes there’s a trend to this which is past FEs have trained me away from using prepromotes!)

and there we go! im still biased towards GD but the characters who do best are the ones who have a clear class line to follow and a statline that matches it. 

[cringecompilationin480p]

thinking about complaing abt dr some more so here we go

even if chihiro is "technically a boy", it would realistically take a bit to adjust pronouns. as soon as everyone in the game found out that shes "really a boy" they immediately started to refer to her as he and using masculine name endings (like -kun) showing that the developers only made her trans as a plot device 😃

not to mention getting picked on for being girly all your life and then just deciding to "pretend to be a girl" isnt a thing that actually happens to anyone source: im transgender.

toko is a fucking disaster of a character. evil alters who are murderous and crazy do not exist. literally the most overused and not to mention harmful stereotype. and the way they switch is comical at best. bruh. a sneeze. yeah lemme just call my protector out real quick *grabs pepper from the cabinent to inhale* like really? & genocider wouldnt be capable of murder if toko wasnt. toko faints at the sight of blood.

also they refer to her multiplicity as anything but what its actually called. i believe in the game its referred to as "schizo" (😬✌) the anime as "split personality" and the english dubbed anime as "dissassociative identity disorder" which isnt a real thing u got SO close lol (also referred to as "split personality" in the play -_-) toko as a character is poor and ableist representation source: i have DID.

hifumi is a fatphobic stereotype. this is obvious

i also hate him lol

yasuhiro did not deserve to live til the end im not sorry. he contributes nothing to the plot and is comic relief at best. will comend him for being the only one to care about taka after mondo died tho.

TAKA GOT FUCKED OVER. in every single possible way he got fucked over. as soon as mondo died you can tell the writers had no idea what to do with him & this is evident at the existence of kiyondo (which in reality is just taka using a poor coping mechanism. saying that its him & mondos spirits combined or whatever really just feels like a thinly vieled excuse.) they literally just killed him off because they had no intelligent ideas left on what to do with his character that they wrote into a hole 😛

taka should have lived til the end instead of hiro. this would work so much better in the finale. what does hiro have to be filled with despair over that is genuinely compelling? he doesnt have a personality except for "im kind of a dumbass and probably high all the time"

having taka live until the end would give makoto the chance to instill hope into him. to have him live on for mondos sake, something similar to what he told hina.

i mean for fucks sake watching the person who is your only genuine friend die a horrible and violent death, starving yourself because youre paranoid that the food was tainted with the butter that your best friend was made into, and losing your sense of identity because you cannot move on from your grief is way more compelling than "i want to get out of here." but nope taka had to get bonked over the head by fat guy stereotype so the devs could get rid of the dead weight THEY created. lol.

[scaryscarecrows]

Roots and Leaves, Pt. 6

DC did it first. Take your grievances to them.

Jason and Sheila e-mail back and forth for about a week before she says that she has Thursday off so if he has Thursday off does he want to meet for lunch again?

Last time wasn’t bad. Not a lot of staring or people or anything. He can…he can probably do it again. And it’s a few days away still, so he has time to psyche himself up or, worst case scenario, fake his death and move to Canada.

And it’s been a week and she hasn’t pulled out the Pity Card on him yet and maybe…maybe this’ll all work out okay. She might never be Mom, because Catherine’s always gonna be Mom, but…but she could be Mother, maybe. He can see that in the distant (or not-so-distant?) future.

But he’s not going to rush into things, that’s what got him here in the first place. Patience, grasshopper.

Thursday rolls around and he hasn’t faked his death and moved to Canada, so he has no choice but to put on jeans and a hoodie and resign himself to a couple of hours, easy, of no sunglasses and no e-book shield.

Sorry, any small children who might come out of this traumatized.

Okay. He brings his Kindle anyway, and his sunglasses for the journey, and sticks to his normal Civilian Weaponry-couple’a knives, one pair of brass knuckles tucked into a hidden pocket in his hoodie. Last thing he needs is for someone to pick up a bullet, match it to the Red Hood’s, and come knocking on his door. His luck is bad enough that’s exactly what would happen.

Besides, it’s noon on a Thursday, and even in Gotham that’s a slow hour. Bank robbers gotta eat, too.

The monorail ride there is literal Hell (three fighting couples, two crying kids and old man with no personal spaaaaace!) and he’s literally gasping for air when he stumbles out of the car. He likes people. Honest. If he legitimately hated them all, he wouldn’t risk his life to help them. But interacting with them…he could do without that, mostly.

Whatever. Whatever. It’s over, he lived, he’s had worse.

(And no, he doesn’t hear faint cackling in his head, and that’s final.)

It’s windy today, the type of wind that buffets people every which way and is determined to keep his hood off his head. He fidgets with the drawstrings until it’ll stay and buries his hands in his pockets. Wind sucks. He can feel pollen and dust and Gotham Grime being blown onto his skin.

“Jason!”

Is he there already?

Sheila…looks a lot more haggard than she did before. He tries to remember if she’d mentioned being horribly busy, doesn’t think she did, and figures that to be fair, he hasn’t mentioned the bruise that goes halfway up his back.

She smiles, her awkward driver’s license smile, and waves. Yeah, she doesn’t…it must’ve been a long week, or maybe a rough drive or something. She looks tired.

“Hi.” He’s not sure what to call her, still. Miss Haywood is too disconnected, Sheila’s too personal, and it’s way, way too soon for Mother. Names are a pain. “I’m not late, am I?” He knows he’s not. “Monorail was packed.”

“So was the subway. Can I…?”

Her arms are half-out and he figures she’s asking for a hug. He can do a hug, as long as it’s a short hug.

“Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”

Holy crap, she feels frail. But to be fair, barring Dick’s tackle-hug, everyone’s felt frail since…since. So it could just be him. Hugs are weird now.

(“HUG YOUR DADDY!”)

No. Not today. Everything’s fine.

It’s a sort-of short hug, short enough, anyway, and he wonders, abstractedly, if a day will ever come that he’s used to that sort of thing again. If it even matters whether he does or doesn’t.

It does. Of course it does. And the day will come, in time, and he’ll be better, be normal, be what people want him to be.

Little steps.

* * *

They’ve fallen into a companionable silence and for once Jason’s not jumping whenever someone walks by in a purple sweater or anything when Sheila forces her lips out from between her teeth and says, “I know you were Robin.”

Well. That’s, uh, there’s that out of the way.

“Yeah.” There’s clearly no point in denying it. She probably put it together when Batman came knocking. “For a little while, yeah. I was.” He tastes blood, wonders how long he’s been doing that, and wishes he had gum. Or a mint. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right off, I just…old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Oh God, no, no, I didn’t mean-” She takes a drink. Her hands are shaking, she’s shaking and he doesn’t know what’s wrong. “I just. I thought I should probably make it clear that I did know, so you wouldn’t…I know I was absent, but I don’t want…you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide things from me.”

Oh. That’s. He doesn’t know what to say. Bruce, God knows, has the emotional capabilities of a Himalayan Salt Lamp. Thankfully Jason hadn’t been the type to go through crushes every two weeks, or he probably would have been in Hell. He certainly wouldn’t have…it’s not like he would have shut down the conversation, but sharing and caring? That would have been awkward and best not repeated. Alfred was the go-to for that sorta thing.

All right, then. Since they’re dropping sudden bombshells ‘n all…he has to know.

“You worked for Joker.” There. It’s out. He said it.

And now he kinda regrets it-the self-loathing on her face is a pretty good match for his own, and he can’t tell himself it’s anything less than deep, deep wishing to have made better choices.

“I did.” She straightens up, begins tearing apart a piece of bread on her plate. “Briefly. I’m not proud, but he had a line to my mother, knew where she lived, knew her schedule…knew.” She swallows hard. “Knew she had to rubber-band her jam jars because she couldn’t open them otherwise. I panicked. But it was only for a couple of months-pills, he wanted pills, as much as I could get him. And then he just…went away. I don’t know what he did with them.”

Honestly, after everything, he can’t…he doesn’t have the right to say much. And honestly? There was that one guy, who accidentally cut the fucker off in traffic and couldn’t get away from him.

And look at him. The first man he killed, that wasn’t…oh, sure, he probably had it coming, at least a little, but Jason wasn’t thinking about that or considering it like he does now, he just…he wanted to kill Bruce. Because that was right and reason at the time even though he knows it’s insanity now.

No, he can’t say much.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and it’s suddenly easier to look at his hands. “I didn’t…that sounds awful.”

“No.” She tips his chin up and it’s an effort not to pull away and to remember that it’s fingers, warm human fingers, and not the pointy end of a crowbar against his skin. “You deserved to know. It’s only fair.”

Truth be told, it’s a relief to know that she hadn’t…yeah, technically she could’ve…maybe done something different, but she hadn’t wanted to work for him. She wasn’t like the ones he’d christened Dumb and Dumber that…they enjoyed that kinda work.

Lunch is finished in relative silence after that, though, and he’s wondering what’s going to happen now when she rifles through her purse and swears.

“Damn…I meant to grab an old photo album I wanted to show you, with some old family pictures and things.”

Pictures of Willis? Yeah, he’s good. Pictures of other people might be interesting, though.

“Next time?”

“My apartment’s a few blocks over.”

Something feels off. He’s paranoid, he knows he’s paranoid, but something…she’s been shaky and weird all afternoon and he doesn’t…

Calm the fuck down, you freak out when someone window-shops for too long!

“Is everything…is everything okay?”

Or maybe something is wrong-she pulls a napkin over and there’s suddenly a pen in her hand.

“I really do want you to see these pictures, Jason,” she says, but her hand is moving and there’s the ever-so-faint skrit-skrit of pen on paper. “I swear you got my mother’s eyes.”

The napkin slides over to him and he glances down. Her handwriting’s spikey and awful-doctor writing to the bone-but his is no better and he can read it well enough.

An old colleague has been hanging around the hospital lately.

Oh.

That explains a bit.

“Sure.”

Her shoulders drop and she crumples the napkin, nails picking it into shreds.

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she says softly, nearly too soft for him to hear, and he’s quick to shake his head.

“No, no, I don’t mind, I’m glad you…if there’s anything I can do to…”

Shit, she looks like she’s going to start crying and that is indeed PANIC in his throat. Tears are not good.

“You’re a good boy.” Her voice is watery but there are no tears to be seen. Thank Jesus. “I promise next time we have lunch it’ll be normal.”

Oh, good, things haven’t plummeted down to fiery Hell because of all the revelations flying around.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he says, and whoops that’s his ‘all will be well, citizen, never fear!’ voice. But it must work, because the about-to-cry look disappears. “Um. Do you wanna…it looks like it’s gonna rain, should we get going?”

And so they do.

* * *

The wind has picked up and it smells like rain. He’s not looking forward to patrol later.

The wind’s not so bad, though, to stop Sheila from lighting up with a self-depreciating, “I know I’m a doctor and should know better, but I honestly don’t care.”

“I can’t really say anything.” He holds up his own pack and rattles it before pulling one out. It’s not as calming as it usually is and he doesn’t know why.

Eh. It’s been a long day, that’s all. He’s not used to interacting with people on a personal level anymore, which is his own fault and probably not necessarily a good thing.

The first few drops have started to fall when they arrive at her building-big, square, and simplistic. She fishes out her keys while they’re in the elevator (which smells like new car, for some reason).

The hallway is deserted. It’s a little creepy, to be honest-his own building might be crap, but there’s always activity. And then, of course, there was Arkham’s hallways, or what he could hear of them. Noisy. Always noisy. But this? Wayne Manor was silent like this. It unsettled him then and it unsettles him now. Call him a city boy, whatever, but he needs noise.

The brass knuckles and knives in his jacket are warm and comforting and he knows he’s not gonna need ‘em, but they make up for this creepy-ass silence.

Sheila opens the door and motions him inside. It’s dark inside-blackout curtains, probably-but he can hear the rain. It smells like new car in here, too, and he wonders, off-handedly, why-

-it’s not empty. He’s walked into one too many ‘empty’ buildings to be very, very attuned to the sound of somebody breathing. Okay. Be calm, back out and shut the door.

He’s about to do exactly that when the light switch clicks and bathes the whole place in stark white. White walls, white floors, white furniture.

Which only makes Harley Quinn stick out like a sore thumb in all that red and black.

“BAY-BEE!” She could never hope to match Joker’s grin, but she gives it a good go, stretching her makeup. Okay. Change of plans. Get Sheila out of here (and preferably out of the building), deal with Quinn. “It’s been a whiiiiile!”

He takes in the mallet leaning against the couch and the shotgun (are those fuzzy dice? Really?) in her hands and comes to the conclusion that great, she’s riding the crazy train.

But maybe she hasn’t seen Sheila yet. Where’s that goddamn light switch?

He moves, only a little, only to feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his lower back.

“Don’t. Move.”

And the world drops out from under him.

No. No, no, no, she said she quit, it was over, she said they’d let her go, she said-

The door shuts. He twists so he can still see Quinn in his peripheral. Sheila’s face is a blank mask-no tears, no joy, no nothing. Just quiet determination and he doesn’t understand, she said…

“Mom?” The word feels thick and wrong in his mouth, but maybe…maybe she’s brainwashed or hypnotized or something, maybe she doesn’t…isn’t…

“Sorry, kid.” The words are harsh but her tone isn’t. Quinn giggles in the background but she sounds so far away and Sheila’s still pressing a gun against him. “It was you or me, and, well…it had to be you.”

What?

“Aww, come to mama, baby!” Quinn giggles again before straightening up and scowling. “Now.”

His feet drag him forward, sneakers scuffing against the white carpet an’ Heaven’s s’posed ta be white, innit, so why does this feel like Hell and what’s going on she said she said-

For once horrible, desperate second, he wants Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t…yeah, he’d thought, at first, that he’d left him but he knows that he didn’t, he really didn’t, he just…

Bruce wouldn’t have pulled a gun on him, he wouldn’t and God, if he’d just fucking talked to him-

“I did what you wanted, Quinn.” Sheila’s voice is so, so flat and is this all she wanted from the beginning? Is it? “Now call your man.”

Quinn doesn’t even look at her. She’s looking at Jason like she always did-like she’s torn between wanting to rip his head off and wanting to wrap him in a blanket and keep him.

This is his own goddamn fault, he just thought…just once, just once-

“Quinn!” Desperation now, and the gun wobbles against his hoodie as she steps out from behind him. “I did what you said! Call your man!”

Okay. Okay.

He forces himself to take a few deep breaths that taste like that last cigarette outside and says, voice as steady as he can make it, “Let her go, Harley. Leave her alone, I’ll. I’ll do what you want, just. Just let her go.”

“Aww, look at you!” Her pigtails sway and he finds himself oddly hypnotized by the movement. “I knew ya had to be Robin for a reason.”

Yeah. Yeah, he was Robin and that’s all he’ll ever be, the one that fucked up.

“Please, Harley.”

“Nyeh…” She adjusts her grip on the gun, finger dancing near the trigger, and looks down at her knuckles. “Eeny, meanie, miny, moe, catch a Batman by the toe. If he hollers, let ‘im go, eeny…meanie…miny…moe!”

He sees it before she does it, but there’s no time-he’s moved maybe half a centimeter before the gun goes off-

-and Sheila.

Falls.

His ears are ringing. They’re ringing and everything’s so white except her, all blonde and blue and so fucking red because Harley didn’t miss and if he’d been quicker, he should have been-

“Aww, don’t be sad!” Harley’s not alone, of course she’s not. He should have known from the start stupidstupidstupid. “Doncha know what happens to people who know too much?”

Her eyes are open. They’re open and they’re looking at him like this is his fault and it is if he hadn’t…

S’like Joker said, once.

“Good boys know how to lay down and DIE.”

“Mistah J had a spot for ya, baby.” Huh? “But you up an’ left us before it was time! So since it’s his birthday-” The fucker has no birthday he just appeared one day too evil for Hell. “-I thought I’d get my puddin’ somethin’-” She winks. “Real nice.”

And they’re on him.

Harley’s goons are dumb, but they’re also big and they manage to drag him down for a minute before he gets a knife out of his sleeve and drives it into the nearest jaw.

“Andre!” Yeah, Andre ain’t comin’ back from that any time soon. “I thought we taught you manners!”

He reclaims his knife and scrambles back up and okay okay maybe he can get outta this-

WHAM!

Lights out.

[deangirldisease]

let me very quickly emotiondump on here how do you make a read more

oh that was easy thanks google. anyway maybe i should look for a therapist again because i hate my brain right now its all im not doing enough at work but im doing too much at work with no support and also i hate letting these people down who are paying for a service only for the service to be shit but then yesterday i reached a boiling point (probably bc of my period) and just held back tears all damn day until finally i was like fuck it im gonna have plans and goals and aspirations and shit and looked up the admissions requirements for my masters so now im stressed about that cos theres Steps and i need money but like big money, loan money, on top of wanting to see my family in general but also because my grandma fucking DIED apparently and my cousins are there and i shouldve just STAYED WHERE I WAS but i dont like. regret coming here? i dont know i dont know ANYTHING i cant tell what im doing whats my fault and what isnt what any of the issues even are. i just dont know. i dont know what i want so i cant decide what would be best in order to achieve it, i havent talked to my step dad in years and i miss my MOM and my fathers being a dick even when i call him for a favor and i feel guilty so i try to like chat with him he still acts like a twat and makes me feel bad by turning it into a transaction. i dont even really like talking to him but it’s just hurtful i guess. especially when he claims to love me and whatnot all the fucking time. and im literally AT WORK having all these breakdowns and i dont know what to do about any of it. i mean im perfectly capable of just doing the tasks and applying to university, getting a loan, studying and pretending i have a plan but i dont and its terrifying and just emotionally im so confused. ive never wanted to hurt myself out of anger ot self hatred but ive literally always kind of considered death as relief. an easy way out. dont have to plan for anything or understand your emotions if youre just gone. im not suicidal but i do wish i was dead if that… makes sense. i dont want to have to figure out what i want so i can figure out how to get it and then be forced to put effort into things. but i also think my anxiety and depression are all coming from the aimlessness. im just existing, killing time.. until what? until i get hit with wanting something and instantly regret the time i wasted? i cant even confidently say hey at least i lived in all these cool places because im barely enaging with my surroundings!! im not making friends im not going out im not even understanding any of the systems and policies i technically live by. like i say i should get a therapist but i dont know the first thing about HOW to do that. who would pay for it. i dont know anything. about anything. i just go to the woods here and theyre lovely woods, very unique, people come from the whole continent to shoot their moody movie here because its so pretty so i guess thats all. thats what ive gotten out of the last two years of my life. i read wheel of time and i saw really nice woods. and even when i think about going back to bulgaria i just think about how easy it would be to not do anything and have my familys support but thays not solving the problem!!! but idk how to explain it to my best friend because she just thinks i hate bulgaria on principle which i dont honestly, i kinda hated my peers and the general mentality of the people but now that im here i miss the humor and the food. i dont know. it all boils down to that i dont know ANYTHING and its so much to untangle and im on my PERIOD. and i feel like i need to keep talking but i dont want to actually open my mouth and say this to anyone because it doesnt make any sense and if they start trying to help ill lose my fucking mind because ill have to explain it but i dont know HOW i dont know what IT evennis and oh my god thats why i hate this job because i have to constantly explain things i dont understand so it makes me feel like THIS all the time holy shit…. i knew that before but i didnt realise how deeply rooted my issues are

lmao tumblr said i gotta shut up. how do you have paragraph restrictions embedded in the server that makes no sense. anyway. another small part of my brain keeps telling me to just move back to europe. but like on my own. but also in madrid to live with my cousins. but thats… silly. ah i finally understand the “you cant just run away from your grief/problems/emotions” movie cliches lmaoooo

let me stop fucking crying and go answer my job. dont read this

[kaengeru]

1-15

development questions.

DFGDH YOU

what would completely break your character?

I was gonna doodle the scene that does this but I cant bring myself to doing it so! short of something like an actual post-apocalypse scenario happening in enya’s universe (a complete mental break), the worst is when sarah dies. that does just completely destroys her and it takes her a good long time before she’s capable of. acting a person again.

what was the best thing in your character’s life? ✓

though Id definitely count her meeting and learning a lot from her biological dad. enya frequently mentions how much she hates him, but he’s another really, really good influence on her life. plus, he’s very helpful at teaching her about the whole not human half of herself.

what was the worst thing in your character’s life?

mostly the really vague things I keep needing to detail out in her timeline. though the extended period in animal testing still ranks high on the list.

SO (and this is why Im bad at headcanon prompts) thinking about it, the actual worst thing enya’s been through was not her captivity. granted, it wasnt pleasant, however she would count it as one of her worst experiences because she can easily see the damage from that time. even if there was far worse to deal with in the future, there’s nothing physical she can look at and recall the memory.

what seemingly insignificant memories stuck with your character? ✓

did you know how many types of crackers there are in the store. of cookies? even noodles? because she still cant wrap her mind around it.

does your character work so they can support their hobbies or use their hobbies as a way of filling up the time they aren’t working?

the immediate thought is the latter, because she wouldnt work at all if she could. however, since her hobbies involving buying a lot of parts, there’s definitely some argument to the former.

what is your character reluctant to tell people?

even more so than the inhuman factor is definitely her elemental manipulation ability stuff. sure, she’ll use those abilities more than shifting or most anything else, but largely subtle things. and unless she really trusts someone, or the other person also has similar abilities, she’ll never tell.

how does your character feel about sex?

better than she use to! sex was definitely a sort of necessity for a while and was very not fun, more just a boring, “lets get this over with” activity. now though, after learning that, hey, you can actually enjoy this, and get something out of it beside the most bare bones release? its a lot more fun. if anything, being a weird not person makes finding whats fun even more interesting.

how many friends does your character have?

going off the lengthier “how many does she want”, at least a few. enya sure couldnt tell you more than a handful, and thats really just her remembering random peoples names.

how many friends does your character want? ✓

only the best friends are acceptable here (and that is probably technically about 3 or 4, when she remembers).

what would your character make a scene in public about?

kind of anything, depending largely more on the who than the what. if she’s with someone who, in one way or another, is really getting on her nerves, she has no qualms against anything from throwing a plate or glass, to kicking over a newsstand, knocking stuff off shelves… etc. short of anything that may have the police called (throwing things through windows or extensive damage to private property, mostly). basically, enya doesnt feel any sort of embarrassment, kinda doesnt understand the emotion, but is happy to torture someone else who does.

granted, she’ll do the same if she’s on the phone, too, or if something comes up in her head, or if her emotions take a wrong turn, or overhearing the wrong conversation. rather than lash out physically at another person, as nice as that would be, she’s learned to, at least, enjoy the simplicity of throwing a glass of water against the wall during the middle of lunch.

it doesnt always help, but when it gets that bad, she’ll go somewhere less public.

for what would your character give their life?

if she had to or could die in place of sarah, that she would do. otherwise, not really anyone or anything. one shes debated is whether, if she didnt die, everything shes been working for wouldnt matter, if she would die. its hard to say.

what are your character’s major flaws?

she is way too into herself and thinks way too much of what she does is, actually, the greatest. her stubbornness and absolute refusal to change or accept things unless she completely agrees with it.

what does your character pretend or try to care about?

other people. even with best bud sidney, in the end, enya still cant fully bring herself to feel everything she expresses. for him, she tries to mean it, but for most anyone else, it’s just to keep things going. be it a conversation or an interaction.

how does the image your character tries to project differ from the image they actually project?

Id imagine she’s a lot less charming than she thinks she is. just a guess.

what is your character afraid of?

history (literally) repeating itself, her history catching up to her, and… large bodies of water.

[longingfreesia]

mizakai.docx aka “mizael got kicked out and doesnt know what to do with himself now so he goes to kaitos house and kaito is not exactly happy about this”

its not technically “complete” but im pretty much done with it so here it is anyway! its almost 3k words of pure self indulgence

It's around six o'clock in the evening when Mizael comes to pay Kaito an impromptu visit.

If, of course, you can count banging on someones door and yelling their name a "visit," but Kaito was used to "weirdos" at this point.

It's at about the third yell of "KAITO TENJO!" with an addition of "ARE YOU NOT HOME? THIS IS YOUR PLACE OF RESIDENCE, RIGHT? ARE YOU IGNORING ME?" that Kaito finally gets up and goes to the door, albeit groaning lowly the entire way.

He opens the door and Mizael nearly hits him in the face with a fist intended for his door. "Why. Why are you here."

Mizael scoffs. "Don't I have a right to be?"

"No. Not at all." Kaito says, deadpan.

"Well," Mizael starts, and in a rather uncharacteristic fashion stumbles looking for words, as if he was expecting Kaito to go, 'Yes, of course, Mizael, I'm so honored you would come and visit me in my humble abode, graceful and angelic in your beauty as you are,' and eventually settles on "I'm here now, anyway, and you're not about to just dump me out on the street after I came all the way here, are you?"

Kaito contemplates telling him yes, he was, and shutting the door, but decides against it. "Fine." He steps aside and opens the door a bit further, and Mizael immediately strides inside.

It dawns on Kaito that he's not really wearing much. Or, rather, he's not wearing anything particularly heavy. Did a skintight tank and stirrups count as much?

Not that it mattered, as Mizael, being Mizael, didn't seem to notice in the slightest. Instead, he looks around for a moment, and is somewhat confused when there isn't somewhere for him to sit in his immediate vision.

"Is this what it's like here?" He asks, and Kaito is just so, so tired.

"Yes, it is. You're looking at it. That's a ridiculous question." Kaito replies. Mizael looks offended at even the implication that he could've said something "ridiculous," but Kaito continues before he can say anything.

"And if you're trying to say something about my living conditions, I don't care. I wasn't expecting you." It wasn't like it was awful, just a bit messy, what you would call "lived-in." But of course Mizael would find that preposterous, unacceptable, etcetera etcetera.

Mizael turns his nose up at him and finds his way to Kaitos couch, sitting down in it and crossing his legs with an entitled air. Kaito settles down across from him in an old armchair and sighs.

"So, why are you here, really?" He asks.

Mizael simply says, "Do I need a reason to come see you?" and it's so transparent it hurts.

"Did you get kicked out?"

Mizael is taken aback. "Wh- No! Of course not! I just, they-" He takes a slow breath, "I was told, 'Mizael, you need to find a place of your own. You can't live here forever.' As if they know anything, they let Durbe stay there all he wants, what does he do? He's a freeloader! He-" Kaito holds up a hand. Part of him is amazed Mizael hasn't caught on to what was going on at the Kamishiro household, but he leaves it alone.

"So you came to me. You were told you needed to take care of yourself, and you came to me." Kaito can practically feel his exhaustion growing.

"I-" Mizael tries, fails, "I didn't know what else to do."

At least he was honest about that part. Kaito doesn't want to let Mizael stay, not really. However, his slumped shoulders and the mere fact that Mizael is so unable to function on his own makes him feel kinda bad for the guy.

Also, he's not too bad to look at, but telling him that probably wouldn't help.

Kaito hums, stands up. "Alright. You can stay here a while. Don't get too greedy though, I expect you to earn your keep while you're here." He almost laughs at how quickly Mizaels face goes from glee to despair.

"Earn my keep… how exactly?" Mizael asks, the apprehension in his voice obvious from how carefully he picks through his words.

"Not much. Just run errands for us, maybe." Kaito thinks on it a bit more, considers how capable Mizael would be of walking into a grocery store and buying things on a list on his own, and says, "I'd help, sometimes. You just have to try, alright?"

Mizael stares at him for a moment, thinking it through, then nods.

Things are quiet for a while after that, as Kaito starts preparing tea in the kitchen.

Mizael finds that it's not a bad quiet. The subtle sounds of Kaito moving around the kitchen, and the low whine of the kettle is pleasing. He even finds himself becoming somewhat drowsy. He can't really help it.

Suddenly, something occurs to him, and he asks, "Where's Haruto?"

Kaito glances up at him, then back down at his hands. "He's taking a nap. I'm surprised you didn't scare him awake with your racket." Mizael has the decency to look a little guilty.

Not enough to say sorry though, apparently. And not enough to not be incredibly nosy.

"You like tea? I never took you as the type." Mizael asks. Kaito doesn't want to think about the implications of that.

"I don't, really. I prefer coffee. You seem like 'the type,' though. So." Kaito pours out the kettle.

"Then why do you have it?"

Kaito shrugs. "Droite and Haruto like it, too."

The small clicks of porcelain setting on the counter stop after a time, and Kaito brings a dish back to the table between them with two cups on it.

Mizael feels almost flattered.

Mizael is surprised somewhat at how nice they are. They're rather pretty, in fact, and he tells Kaito this, but he doesn’t seem to care. He tries the tea itself, and the warmth and surprising sweetness of it is comforting. He can taste honey in it. How odd.

Kaito doesn't seem interested in talking, rather, seeming quite content in just leaning back with his eyes closed and his cup between his hands. Mizael suddenly feels very uncomfortable. It stays like that for a long while.

Kaito eventually gets up to go and wake up Haruto for dinner, and Mizael takes this as an opportunity to look around.

It's not a terribly fancy place. It's decent enough and nothing more, and somehow, that makes it feel like a home. Mizael finds that's an odd feeling, feeling like he's in a home, but doesn't pay it too much mind.

Kaito doesn't come back for a long time. He supposes it's because he's explaining to Haruto that Mizael will be living with them for a while. Which brings up a sort of terrifying idea, just how long is he going to be here-

"Mizael." Kaito says, and Mizaels head snaps up to look at him. "This would be the first time you've properly met Haruto, wouldn't it?" Mizael thinks on it, and nods.

"Well. Haruto, you probably remember Mizael, right? I know some… complications happened before, but he's," Mizael can tell he's struggling to come up with a word, but he quickly recovers, "a friend of mine, now. In any case, you two have to get used to each other." He smiles a bit, a soft expression that is almost unnerving to Mizael in the sheer unfamiliarity of it. "Although, I know Mizael is a real handful sometimes." Mizael wants to protest, but Haruto giggles at the statement and something in his heart flutters. Maybe not this time.

He stands up from his seat, trying his best to maintain an approachable face. He's told sometimes he has a resting expression that looks kind of scary. It would be bad, probably, if he scared Kaitos little brother as his first impression.

"Hello, Haruto." He crouches down to meet Haruto at eye level. For a genuinely frightening moment, Haruto simply stares at him with his big, wide eyes, and Mizael thinks that Haruto hates him, will never forgive him for what he-

Haruto smiles, and says "Hello, Mizael!" and something about it makes his eyes prickle.

He holds his hand out apprehensively, looks up at Kaito, and Kaito nods to give him the O.K. He lightly ruffles Harutos hair and says, "Nice to meet you. I hope we can get along." And gives his best attempt at a friendly smile. It seems to work, because Kaito isn't throttling him, and that's usually a good sign.

HERES THE BIG TIMESKIP BECAUSE IM IMPATIENT.

Mizael can't help but notice how skinny Kaito is.

He's trying his best not to stare, but- He can see so many of Kaitos bones through his skin, the bumps of his spine, his shoulder blades, even some of his ribs, when he's bent over or stretched-

Mizael wonders why his body is like that. Why his skin seems stretched taut over his bones, why his veins showed through it- though it'd be rude to ask, wouldn't it?

He wonders how it feels. His mouth works faster than his brain, and he blurts that out.

"…What?" Kaito turns his head to look at him, not quite turning all the way around. His face has a mixture of confusion and what looks to be the start of revulsion on it, and Mizael is afraid.

"I. I was just, thinking about your body." Okay, bad start. Judging by Kaitos face, he agreed. "It's just. Are you alright? You don't look healthy." The expression on Kaitos face grows. He was only making this worse for himself, wasn't he? But he didn't understand why.

Kaito stares at him. His brow is furrowed and his nose is crinkled up but at least it's more confusion, now. "I hear enough of that from Gauche and Droite. I don’t need it from you, too."

Mizael is only more confused. Wouldn't he want to know? "But, why? Do you let yourself look like that, I mean. Shouldn't you care about what your body looks like? I… have heard of how you feel, sometimes, and I think that'd help-"

"Shut it." Kaito snaps. Mizael does as he's told.

"Mizael." Kaito says firmly, and it makes Mizael look Kaito in the eyes and a bit too afraid to look elsewhere.

"I'm dying, Mizael. There's no getting around that." He falls back onto his bed, and sighs. "I came to terms with that a long time ago. When you're quite literally killing yourself for the sake of someone you love, you kind of stop caring about physical appearances. Is that clear?"

Mizael isn't sure what to do with this.

"I- Ah." Suddenly, anywhere is better to look at than Kaitos face. "Yes, I understand. I'm sorry for prying."

Kaito interrupts him with, "No, no, I- fuck." He falls back onto the bed. "That was. Bad. I'm sorry. It's just-" He runs his hands over his face.

"I'm, tired. I'm sorry for that. It was unnecessary." He takes a long breath. "I'm just sick of hearing about it." Kaito is staring up at the ceiling, and Mizael somewhat regrets opening his mouth.

In a sort of desperate grasp for something to distract from the whole thing, Mizael says, "May I?"

Kaito lets his head fall toward Mizael and glares at him sideways. "May you what."

"Feel. Your body. Or, your bones, I suppose." Mizael doesn't even finish his sentence before Kaito is jolting up in the bed.

"Please, specify." He says, voice sounding like cold rocks and Mizael realizes that he didn't choose his wording very well.

"Well, I was… looking at you, as you were undressing. And, your bones, they show through your skin. In fact, it's as if you don't have any muscle there." He ignores the way Kaitos eyebrow twitches. "I… think it's interesting."

Kaito pauses. "Interesting?" He asks, and seems willing to forgive the absurdity of Mizaels request if just for a moment.

"Well… Yes." Mizael starts, "Your bones are odd. And the fact they show through your skin, it's odd."

Kaito seems almost interested, himself. "How so?"

"Well, for one thing- It doesn't usually do that, does it? Well, no, of course it doesn't, Alit and Durbe aren't like that. Your whole body exudes this feeling of tiredness, and I suppose that'd be accurate, wouldn't it?"

Kaito chuckles, a strange noise coming from him. Perhaps incited by the fact Mizael seemed to be rambling to himself, now. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Right. So-" Mizael pauses, bringing a knuckle to his lips, "Are your bones different from other humans'?"

"Good question." Kaito says, stretching. "I definitely know my body is, at this point."

"I want to see."

"Do you, now?" Kaito has an expression that Mizael feels he probably shouldn't be reading as condescending, but he does nonetheless.

"Yes. Besides, I've never really gotten to explore a human body. I know Barians aren't too different, but at the same time… They really are. It's intriguing."

"So, you want to inspect my body to see how it's different?"

"Have I not made that clear?"

Kaito scoffs. "No, I guess you have. Just making sure."

He finally takes his shirt and folds it up, but simply puts it on the nightstand. Mizael finds it curious, but doesn't say anything.

He stands in front of where Mizael is sitting, hands on his hips. "So, what exactly do you want to see?"

Mizael finds that, even though he's assuming the same cold, intimidating posture as he usually does, without the coat and the stern glare- he's not that scary.

In fact, looking at him like this makes him seem almost frail, but Mizael knows better than to think that. He knows that Kaito is anything but.

"I'd like to see your back." He says, matter-of-factly, but for some reason it causes Kaitos lips to twitch.

"Alright. But that's awkward like this. Come get on the bed." Kaito says. The way he says it is so plain. Although, Mizael thinks he shouldn't be surprised.

He does as he's told and follows Kaito to his bed. Kaito sits on the edge and Mizael settles somewhere in the middle. Kaito leans over, letting his arms rest on his legs. Mizael takes it as an invitation.

The first thing he notices is how Kaito flinches, just barely, when Mizaels fingers meet his back. He seems to be fine after that, though.

The next thing he notices is that his eyes are closed. He's breathing slowly, seeming to be trying to fall asleep sitting up. Like he was taking it as he would a doctors touch inspecting him for injury. It's somewhat odd. Mizael wonders why he would react like that.

He runs two fingers down his ribs, slowing briefly on the dip between each one.

"Can you move your arms?" He asks, upon finding something curious.

Kaito turns his head to shoot Mizael an odd look, but obliges, moving his shoulders in small, slow circles. Mizael is glad he understands the concept of research, and isn't bothered by it-

Or, at least, he hopes that's how it is. In any case, he can see Kaitos shoulder-blades moving underneath his skin, and it's weird.

Kaito is wondering whether Mizael even realizes him, exploring Kaitos body as he is could possibly be viewed as something far more than scientific. Knowing him, he might not, but Mizael is confusing and no one could see them anyway.

Needless to say, Mizaels hands are soft and graceful, and the way he runs his hands full-palm over Kaitos shoulders and biceps is kind of nice, it's relaxing, and, and he's missed soft almost loving touch-

Mizael murmurs something about "Galaxy-Eyes" among many other mumblings, and Kaito opens his eyes.

"Hm? Did you say something?" Kaito asks, turning his head just enough to catch Mizaels face, and Mizael seems to snap out of a daze.

"Did I?" His expression fades into something a bit more distressed as he realizes. "Ah. You heard that?"

"Yes, I did. What were you talking about?"

"I," Mizael stares at Kaitos back for a bit, and then, touching the bumps of Kaitos spine as he says it, "Your body is very strong."

Kaito smirks, turns his head back to face forward so Mizael can't see his face. "Is that so? Not what I'd use to describe it."

Mizael nods, despite the fact Kaito can't see. "Yes. Despite the fact you've tortured it the way you have, it still feels strong." A pause, "You still feel powerful, despite having been through so much." A smile creeps onto his face, faint, but there. "I was thinking that your Galaxy-Eyes reflects that, in a way."

"She does?"

"Yes. Though in what way, I'm not sure I could tell you. It's… not something I can put into words, I think."

Kaito thinks it over for a moment. "Thank you. I appreciate it, really." His voice is gentle, which is definitely not something Mizael is used to hearing when Kaito's speaking to him.

and heres where it cuts off because i dont know how to end things and i dont know where to take this from here. sorry about that

[hurricanetortilla5ever-blog]

so we had a lil fight again , and it seems very repetitive because again its about the same thing , how i expect tsoething and m hurt and hes like im doing my best . idk man  which i think like , this should be the last straw like we need to get out shit straight if not theres no point beig together in  toxic relationship

i dont even wnna talk about the first time cause its all windy nd so much shit so  ok

  1. our first fight i was like expecting him to be sweet and not numb and i wanted more dates , which technically wasnt hard at all, his reasons were like he does to his capabilities etc what not , broke etc . and i kinda took that so im like ok maybe like hes a one nice trip or something in a long time , then  100 days was nice , no complains but we didnt really drink much , i guesss cause he felt pressured cause he was paying so much , but i means hes told me stories of him being i bars cocktails over cocktails , but its a small thing so i didnt really bug much . anyways we talked about it and hes like yeah im not a super sweet guy , but then he said he expressed love more with his ex , so its a bit unfair ? idk i wish he loved me as much to do so , but its not under my control 

so i feel like yeah , i accept , i accompany this love , even though i want compassionate , obsessive love , not childish , but respectful but agressive , but he is sweet to me and i know , to his extent , that he loves me , and the fact that i love him , makes all these needs diminish . i thought then maybe i had too high expectations for him , like for my birthday , 100 days , the compliments , the expression of love , some guys are good with that , i think austin hyped me so much in the past , i only now know my worth  , andnot settle for shitty men .

but like at the back of my head , theres the little things , then after this fight 

2. i felt hurt that he didnt tell me about them smoking up , and he says its cause it didnt cross his mind , but honestly , i think thats a big lie , cause i was acting up because of my depression yesterday and he was all , you feeling sad ? and didnt bother to be honest with me . and i saw his schoked look when jaydon said weed . like he got caught or something . it was kinda embarassing that i didnt know and jaydon felt like he probably failed a bro , but im not one to humiliate  so i acted like nothing happened , even tho i was pissed , also like becausse of this i felt as tho that he only did it with them cause he prefers these things with them , like we dont just randomly drin or smoke together like syaz and d , or llay all , like everytime iasked he said no and made me feel like a gross druggie thats like forcing him to do it , and honestly  , when youre smoking up you dont wanna get high with a whiny bitch thats complaining , how to enjoy  ? thats why i didnt wanna smoke with him anyways , i thought he hated it , cause everytime i asked he said no  , i wish we could just sit home and get drunk and fuck all night and talk about the universe but it seems like he only initiates to do these things with his friends , well minus the fucking thing , and like he went to tze kens house for his bday and i thought he was gonna come here , cause he told me that story and i was stupid to expect as such thats why i got drunk and sad and burnt myself with my hair curler . but idk he had another “reason” for that too i guess . then a nunch of things came up like , he goes out of his way , stays up gets drunk , gets high with his friends , while im here being his mum studying with him and making sure hes home early so he doesnt die . i just wished there was that much spontaneous shit with us , instead we get spontaneous fights , without the makeup sex too . so theres all these small thngs that just add up to him covincidentally treating his firiends with more regards than me , and his argument is that i dont appriciate the good things , like damn i do , but is it bad i want more ? is it bad i want the same thngs ur friends is having ? hurts mf , really hurts , anyways i feel like im just hurting myself , expecting him to get me the same shit as his friends ,  we ended it but like i dont know where i stand , we left the conversation ending that  hes not gonna change , he loves me but he wont go out of his way to show it , hell show it to his capability , idek what that means . like , our first bad fight , he was capable of coming early to talk , but instead he had sukiya with sohan and tze ken while i basically starved for 2 days , waiting like a dumbass . i think its time i just , expanded and made more friends , maybe hang out with monica more , cause like im so clingy and im like begging for his attention , i hate it . then when im pissed and numb , thats the only time he responds , thats the only time he reahes for my hand in the car when i dont do it first , thats the time he actually says i  love you first , cause its always me doing these things , and im so tired man , i feel like i an only adapt until im sick of him , til i hate him ,i dont want that to happen , 

i think maybe i gotta see  how things goes , its sad cause , i thought , this was the onerelationship to last , the one where people call us mum and dad for fun , we’re cute and a perfect match , or are we ? i dont wanna expect but having said that  i shouldnt settle for less than the love i need , cause thats also settling for less , i just wished hed do more ,  a lil more effort , a lil more i love yous , and i need to back off , i swear , i need to chill and stop being clingy , but at least im not (not caring) about him and cheating on him , i hope that the fact that  i didnt cheat on him is not the only better attribute i have than tracy , i stoped stalking but you know .. he said it himself , its the best love hes ever felt , hes so caught up with being matured . maybe im too childish for him . its sad , im hurting myself again, honestly  these overthinking things has been messing with my head and i think i have a bit of my depression again , and because of the lack of love , it fucked with my self confidence more . i am fucked up in the head . my heart hurts , i love him but if i know that he doesnt feel the way i do , its always gonna be one sided 

[lilietsblog]

sailor moon liveblog episode 20 (I skipped 19 because im too tired for that shit right now)

omg omg i think the next episode is The One That Had Nothing To Do With The Main Plot

and that's the most beautiful thing that exists

particularly in context of my ongoing analysis effort of Everything Usagi

tsuki no hikari ni michibikare~

I will forever love Usagi's enthusiasm in the opening when she says 'I don't look like a superheroine, but I am!' (but no child you do look like one you're the defining superheroine of my childhood)

Ami's summer outfit is the best actually I love all of their summer outfits but Ami is just special oh right its the weird one week summer holidays or something? how it works in Japan?

Usagi is dreaming of being tan and I can't help but note that I like this particular beauty standard

Usagi omfg got very distracted no but seriously why is everyone so shitty to her they just. leave her behind as she's lost in her dreams im the slow autistic (tm) and i tend to space out and lose track of what's happening and i have been hiking since i was 5yo and listen. trailing behind everyone trying to catch up is my worst nightmare. when everyone stops to rest and let you catch up but when you, going at your top speed, exhausted, arrive, is exactly when everyone else, refreshed and rejuvenated, stands up and goes on

like i should probably not project my feet issues on Usagi (SURPRISE IT TURNS OUT MY WHINING ABOUT MY LEGS HURTING WAS NOT IN FACT ABOUT THE SAME SHIT EVERYONE ELSE WAS GOING THROUGH AND MY MOM HAD NO IDEA)

but goddammit STOP LEAVING MY GIRL BEHIND YOU FUCKS YOU DON'T DESERVE HER

honestly 99% of my feelings towards Usagi are bitter bitterness towards everyone around her except like. Naru

aww Usagi so tired she's lost any and all control whatsoever sniping at Rei, screaming at the sight of a little kid she does not atually normally complain this much this is no-filter tired!Usagi

also Ami is the sweetest creature known to men 'are the flowers okay?'

these creatures are genuinely spooky it's kind of interesting to analyze how Ami and Rei aren't reacting to their appearance at all while Usagi is freaking out this is the Weirdness Filter - when people just assume that the weird thing has a perfectly ordinary explanation and anyway if it doesn't affect them it might as well be ordinary either way

also I love how Ami immediately picks up on the fact the girl is being treated badly

Rei is too distracted by Usagi, Usagi is too distracted by EVERYTHING IS SCARY

and here's Luna chiding Usagi for making a commotion

you know when I was a kid I thought of myself as being a bad student and lazy. I got nearly all perfect marks and the only person who was better than me was my best friend but all I could think was 'i am worse than her' bc my mom was ~in a very bad place~ at the time and more or less did nothing but criticize and tear me down for everything that went the least bit wrong

I think back to my kid years and I just feel so weirded out by all the self esteem I was missing back then. like I'm sorry but I was kind of awesome??? and like. the only person who would tell me that was my grandma who lives in a different fucking country and visits twice a year. her praise did not exactly impact my daily life much

my point is FUCK OFF LUNA USAGI IS GREAT AND PERCEPTIVE

she is freaking out because she is paying attention okay

poor kid

omfg Rei 'it's incredibly cheap!' why do you think

'costumes of the employees' see this is what im talking about Usagi is perceptive enough to understand it's not costumes Rei is I guess perceptive enough to know they aren't a threat regardless? but she doesnt comfort Usagi either beacuse OF COURSE WHY WOULD ANYONE COMFORT USAGI EVER

aaaAAAAAAAAA I WANT SUMMER BEACH AND WAVES SO MUCH I LOVE BEACH SO MUCH also hee Usagi still has her bow-decorated swimsuit <3

also Usagi had failed to quite grasp what 'private beach' means XD

Usagi is really wise like normally I'm against snatching books from people but Usagi is very right

also oh my god Rei "Usagi is for once saying something reasonable" more like "for once I take a break from tearing down Usagi for long enough to notice that things she's always saying are actually Not Wrong"

man I hate this kind of "you doing not bad is an unexpected exception" verbal abuse shit so much

also girls why do you think knocking over Usagi is fun??? jfc she's the designated punching bag of the group wtf

this is the kind of fun where you end up feeling like 'wow that sure was a normal teenage thing that just happened to me! i totally fit in! they laughed and there were no freakouts so clearly that was Fun(tm)'

Usagi is really good at seeing the best in situations and loving her friends selflessly but holy shit she's being put through so much fuckery

I absolutely love that this anime just kinda casually includes a werewolf, a frankenstein's monster and a vague monster creature in one episode without them being either explained or ever brought up again

hm so here's Rei and Ami independently stumbling across some secrets how bout my Usa-chan

man Ami knows all about recognizing loneliness doesn't she ...makes me wonder how her parents treat her. i dont think her family is ever featured ever and i also dont think its for no reason

AND AMI'S SOLUTION FOR LONELINESS IS FOR EVERYONE TO BEFRIEND USAGI GOD BLESS HER CLUELESS BUT APPRECIATIVE HEART the one person who realizes how much emotional labor Usagi's ready&willing to do for anyone ever

this guy is such a good portrayal of an abusive parent. hes technically doing all the parent things, never going more than /slightly/ over the edge, so if the girl complained to anyone it would never sound like anything really bad was happening to her. he sounds so reasonable and caring and his selfish motivations are so obvious

so hey theres Usagi literally stumbling upon something scary omfg Rei are you seriously that oblivious 'normal human beings' omg well hey at least she feels the kid psychic

ahh!!! Ami busts in to protect the kid!!! oh hey the point where the girl has had enough <3

what I wanna note here is that Usagi and Rei's roles here are 'the person who actually gets what's going on and resonates emotionally with the locals' and 'the clueless sceptic outsider' also that when terrified out of her fucking mind Usagi still obediently pulls out her moon stick sailor soldier indeed there is nothing about this that is fair to her but she manages still

Usagi is the one of the girls whose life became only worse since Luna came and I'm not going to stop reiterating that

and her father is capable of /some/ actual caring he's not black and white but his actions are and it's very well done

I kind of wish the senshi could do more to help, I vaguely dislike the idea of their powers /only/ being useful to combat their Designated Foes

Rei and Ami picking on Usagi is genuinely actually really not fun even if Usagi's capable of making the best out of it