#like. he's not totally an ''all-powerful god''. because there's someone else who also remembers his past actions

[ut-scatteredextension]

What sort of runs have you done in the past?

I feel like Papyrus' (and Flowey's) RESETs can't really be categorized into "runs" like a player's playthroughs can. While their world might feel like a game to them (particularly Flowey), it still isn't one. There isn't a set "beginning" or "end" to a "run" for them like there is for us (...though I suppose a comparable beginning could be the first moment they woke up after being revived, but I don't think either of them would necessarily start from that point all the time. Papyrus especially would want to start at least a little bit after that point). They just RESET the timeline whenever they get bored/can't get anything useful out of the current one and want to try something new.

As a result, their "runs" are a lot more fragmented than what we as players would consider to be a run.

That said, Papyrus does typically lean more on the Neutral/Pacifist side of things. He's not opposed to murder, though---he can just undo it later, after all, so it's not like it really matters. If a situation "required" it, in his eyes, then yeah, he'll kill someone. But it's not his default course of action (though it wasn't Flowey's either, aside from Frisk anyway). While he hasn't done a "murder everyone" run himself, he's not bothered by it if Trace/the player attempts one and will help you/them out with it. It's something new, and hey, maybe this is actually what he needs to do in order to get the answers he seeks.

Which, actually, is another key difference between Scraps and Flowey! Flowey's actions are fueled by boredom, curiosity, and a desperate desire to fill that void in his SOUL somehow. Everything he does is for his own entertainment, just to see what happens when he does this or that. Papyrus, meanwhile, is on a specific mission, and his actions and RESETs are driven by his attempts to reach that goal.

[local-diavolo-anon]

i apologise if i'm posting this much about the DLC but i am very excited

so theory time! this time about Glamrock Bonnie!

someone found Glamrock Bonnie in bonnie bowl and someonw else got his pieces from the gamefiles and stuck the model back together (the images are not mine, i have no idea who even psoted them ebcause they've been reposted a crapload of times, but i know the originals came from twitter)

i feel a bit sad than logically he was there the whole time during the main game as well and we simply couldn't see him

but also: He has claw marks on his chest, which i think pretty much confirms that monty is the one that broke him apart.

however. that's not nearly enough damage to decommission a glamrock animatronic, as we have seen.

hell monty looks like this in the dlc and he is still kicking (probably by the power of god tho) and i remember seeing THIS video some time ago, so let me bring you something a bit painful:

most people i've seen pinpoin monty's actions toward bonnie as envy and resentment, however in monty golfs whenever we see character cutouts or holograms Freddy is the one in the shadows, always. wouldn't have made it more sense for monty to try and attack someone he quite clearly disliked instead of bonnie? we know freddy and bonnie were close, so with some stretch you could even say monty was jealous of freddy's relationship with bonnie (but i'm not going to account that here) If the theory from that video is true and bonnie was the first and only trial test of the grlitchtrap virus on a full glamrock animatronic, what if monty noticed? what if monty saw that bonnie was acting weird, and when confronted him realized something was severely wong for a reason or another? and either to prevent the spread of the virus, OR simply out of self preservation he was forced to fight with bonnie? because if the mimic were to see someone noticed him, he'd likely try and make them disappear in one way or another so my theory-timeline is: Bonnie was infected, started acting weird, wandered around and ultimately ended in monty golf, monty saw him and went to him, then noticed something was wrong, bonnie attacked him to make sure nobody knew, and monty had to defend himself.

i'm fairly sure this is at least somewhat correct because Monty's claws can do some serious damage, and definitely more than what Bonnie's torso and head show. (edit: yes even without upgrade, Monty still has very big and sharp claws, realistically they could totally do that amount of damage, + in the original draft of the game, from Monty you were supposed to take his legs, and the claw upgrade was not a thing at all, yet it was always hinted he did caused bonnie's decommission)

all of this to say that bonnie more likely was decommissioned not because of the damage, but rather because because when technicians tried to fix him they noticed something had infected him, and to prevent any further spreading they were forced to deactivate him.

[maximumqueer]

I think there are a couple of reasons why there is so much "controversy" (if you can even call it that) surrounding chapter 1118. Part of it is just misogyny. There are unfortunately a lot of misogynistic fans in shonen spaces, and One Piece is no exception. They don't like that a girl gets a cool power up, especially if its similar at all to the male protagonist, who has to be depicted as cooler and more powerful than every other character (but especially the women) at all times.

And that mindset bleeds into the the second reason. Being that the people mad at this chapter (in my opinion) don't really understand One Piece as a story. They treat it as a more stereotypical shonen, when in it far from that, and Luffy as a stereotypical shonen protag, when he is anything but. Some of the complaints that I've seen directed at Bonney's Nika-like form is that it robs Luffy of what makes him special as a character and undermines the importance of Gear 5/Nika.

To tackle the first part, Luffy's power set has never been what has made him special. We've seen already that devil fruits can have similar abilities. Monet and Aokiji both have ice based powers, Catarina Devon and Bon Clay can both mimic how other people look. Hell, we've already seen a devil fruit user with similar powers to Luffy in the form of Katakuri, and I don't remember fans being angry about that. Luffy isn't the only person to awaken his fruit, nor is the only person to have awakened the Nika fruit. And he won't be the last, because that's how devil fruits work. When Luffy dies, the Nika fruit will respawn and someone else will carry on the name of Nika. This is even more obvious with haki. At least half of the characters Luffy has fought in the New World had conqueror's haki, just like him. What does make Luffy special is who he is as a person. It's his ability to reignite hope in people. His nigh unwavering belief in both his own and others dreams, and his ability to inspire that belief in others.

As for it undermining Gear 5. Luffy's awakening has always been about freedom, but not just for himself. Nika is a god of liberation, not personal freedom. If anything, Luffy being able to instill such a deep and profound sense of freedom into a person that they are able to take on a Nika-like form FURTHERS its importance, especially thematically.

Its also is worth mentioning that Bonney's Nika transformation is the perfect culmination of her and Kuma's arc. For a young girl, who spent the majority of her life trapped inside because of a terminal illness brought on at the hands of the world nobles, whose father - in order to cure her so she could have freedom - sold his body to the world government (after previously escaping enslavement by the very same people). For her to achieve complete and total freedom, and for Kuma to be there to see it, to know that in the end he succeeded, and that his daughter is now wholly and truly free - having taken the form of the god he worshipped - is beautiful. Is the perfect way to bookend both of their arcs.

(Also Luffy literally ENCOURAGED Bonney to take on her Nika form. And he laughs with delight when she is successful. He is HAPPY for her.)

All this to say, Bonney's Nika form is fucking awesome and I can't wait to see her and Luffy kick ass together in the next chapter.

[screeching-bunny]

may i request a yandere god/angel? The idea of something so pure..the one thing you have faith in is actually the thinkg keeping u trapped in their obsession bubble is so appealing to me. having no hope left anymore. just them <3

Yandere! God Hcs

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Thoughts, Bad Writing, Stalking, Possessive Behavior, Reader is Referred as ‘You’

🌟 Yandere! God embodies profound wisdom and possesses knowledge beyond mortal comprehension. They have a mysterious aura and speak in riddles, often challenging his followers to seek enlightenment and often confusing the hell out of them. He’s very unpredictable and playful. He finds joy in playful interactions and enjoys surprising their followers with unexpected twists while they worship him. He lives for drama and will one hundred percent mislead his followers.

🌟 Yandere! God is starstruck when he first sees you. He can’t believe that such a cutie is worshiping him and is such a devoted follower. Any prayer that you wish for, he immediately tries to make it become a reality. Since he’s an all powerful god, you can best believe that he will misuse his powers when it comes to you. What’s this? You met a cute guy at work and flirted with him? Well too bad he got struck by lightning five times and died on the spot. Truly unfortunately. He’ll do his best to isolate you from your friends and family. You’ll be so lost that the only thing you can do is just pray to him whenever you can. The thought of this has him kicking his feet up in the air and twirling his hair.

🌟 Yandere! God plans out exactly how and when you guys will finally meet in person. After watching you for many hours he wants this moment to be as perfect as possible. He makes sure to be as dramatic and extra as possible, revealing himself in a very flashy way. Some lightning here and there and some cool looking smoke for his entrance. One day your just praying to him and poof he’s out in front of you.

“WHAT THE— WHO ARE YOU?!?”

“Some people want to meet me, some people don’t believe me, and some people claim to be me. I am…?”

“OH MY GOSH YOU’RE BATMAN?!?!”

“Yes it is— WAIT NO!!!”

🌟 Yandere! God eventually stops speaking in riddles around you because of your inability to get the correct answer. It’s just the only way that he can communicate with you properly and have you understand what he’s saying. Don’t worry though he still loves you nonetheless even if you are a total airhead. He will, however, personally tutor you if it ever really comes down to it. He still speaks in riddles to everyone else but you.

🌟 Yandere! God enjoys watching you pray to him. You view him as someone to look up to and ask about life questions. He makes sure to manipulate you by giving you advice that causes you to become a social outcast to the rest of the world. Who needs friends or a lover when you have him? Whenever his servants hear him say these things to you they just side eye him. They don’t try to do anything about it though because there’s no stopping him when it comes to love.

🌟 Yandere! God uses his followers as entertainment. They’re like his own personal reality tv show that he can control whenever he wants. He loves dropping random things on them and watching them freak out about it. Do you remember the time when a bunch of archeologists dug up an ancient rock with diamonds around it? Yeah, that was his badly made art craft that he threw away years ago. Do you also remember that hurricane that nearly destroyed a country a few months ago? Yeah that was also him, he just accidentally sneezed in the wrong direction that day. His followers believe that anything he does has a meaning behind it. Those natural disasters that have been happening recently must be a test from him. When in reality it was just you messing around with the weather because you we bored.

🌟 Yandere! God would make a new flower and name it after you. His love for you is infinite and would like to spend all of eternity with you. When you first met him you thought that he was supposed to be a generous and pure being. It was because of this thought that you never really saw his advances towards you as romantic. You just brushed these thoughts off and thought you were crazy for even thinking this was. When he found out what you were thinking he nearly ripped his hair off.

🌟 Yandere! God uses the idea of enlightenment to forever trap you by his side. Ditch all the people that you once knew and live with him. This is the only way for you to reach your full potential. People are just vial and disgusting so just jump right into his arms. He’s honestly so good a gaslighting that you don’t even question him and just do exactly what he says. To him it’s almost comical but he couldn’t be prouder of you. If you ever tried to gaslight him it wouldn’t work. I mean you can’t out gaslight the original gaslighter. He was literally the blueprint.

🌟 Yandere! God is terrible at cooking. This is understandable because he is a god and doesn’t need to consume food in order to survive. You, however, do need it. He tries his best to cook food for you but whenever you eat his food you always get food poisoning and need to run to the toilet. He always looks so proud when handing you the dishes that he made that you don’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t want it. So you usually just suck it up and shove it right down your throat.

🌟 Yandere! God is aware that you are a mortal and will one day die. So he tries various ways to make you immortal whether you like it or not. The thought of you dying just pains him and he’d do anything to prevent it from happening. He would destroy and sacrifice the entire universe if it meant that you’d be safe with him. Being with him is so suffocating. He’s like a clingy dog that always bites for attention. There is honestly no quiet moment where you get to be alone in your own thoughts because he is always watching you.

[queer-n-here]

Ango x Muscular Reader Headcannons

This for my bro 🦅 anon. I'm sorry, I accidentally deleted your original req, thank God I still remember what you asked for!

Also, *removes glasses and grimly rubs forehead* I felt kinda guilty since I wasn't able to do your recent Fyodor ask justice, so this is a compensation for that. Hope you like it.

Contents: Muscular Reader x Ango Akaguchi. Both SFW and NSFW Headcannons.

Warnings: Smut, Top male reader, Nipple play, virgin Ango, virginity loss.

SFW

I can see Ango getting slightly flustered when he first sees you.

You, a rookie ability user in the Special Division for Unusual Powers unit, greeting him formally, and the first thing Ango registers is your sheer size.

To begin with, you're 6'2", considerably taller than Ango himself at 5'8". (Yes, I looked up his height.)

Moreover, that's not all to your build. One glance at you and anyone would be able to tell you work out. Your arms are as thick as an average man's quads, to say the least. And your uniform is visibly straining against your chest; that thing is not going to last long.

But in the beginning Ango is only slightly impressed, glad to have someone who's physically strong on the team, just in case an incident like that of Tatsuhiko Shibusawa happens again. Draconia was frightening, and Ango is more than happy to have someone who would have a chance fighting against their own ability.

And then you two get partnered up for your first mission.

The only reason Ango gets put on it is because of his ability 'Decadence of Discourse'. The government needs him to unravel the location of an ability user mass bomber, who's recently escaped from prison.

It's not an easy one, and Ango feels obligated to guide you through it, but as you two unravel mystery after mystery, he slowly learns that you're not ignorant enough to be a total rookie.

So, after the mission is completed, he treats you to dinner. It's a simple gesture, but you notice the intention behind it all the same. And yet, you go.

He tries to get you drunk, but your alcohol tolerance is too much, and at the end of the day, you pretend to be wasted just to see what he'd do.

When Ango uses his ability on you, you let him, having nothing to hide. And he finds out more than enough to satisfy his curiosity.

You were in the Port Mafia before.

Despite knowing, he doesn't bring it up. You find it amusing, how he went so far to find out, and then withdrew silently.

Time passes, and Ango and you grow closer. He tries not to trust you, his job does not permit him to, yet you somehow wiggle your way into his heart, all big and strong.

Now, when you lean over him, or get too close in an elevator, he feels his face heat up, and tries his best to look away. He can't afford to have feelings, he tells himself.

And yet they're out of his control.

You notice, just how you notice everything else. Slightly amused, you tease him a little, standing a little too close when you talk to him, or leaning across him to reach things you could have grabbed either way, just feel his breath hitch.

But I mean, could you deny that you felt the same way, though? Not when Ango adjusts his glasses the way he does every time he gets flustered, a habit you notice that he wasn't aware of himself. How cute, you think.

So when you two do get into a relationship (after an adorable drunk confession from Ango and a whole morning of coaxing him to admit what he said last night) you feel quite decently accomplished in getting THE Ango Sakaguchi all red and stuttering just with a forehead kiss.

NSFW

The first time you two have sex, Ango is more than nervous, even though it's him who asked you if you wanted to do it.

So prep him gently, placing kisses along his jawline and down along his collarbone as he moans and clutches the sheets underneath him.

And when you finally put your fat cock in him, do give him time to adjust. Being a member of a confidential governmental department, dating opportunities don't come by everyday, so you'll excuse him for being a virgin, right?

Start gentle, your cock pumping in and out of Ango as he gets used to the feeling of your tip against his walls, moans spilling non-stop from his pretty mouth.

Kiss him quiet, your neighbours won't be happy at the amount of noise he's making. Or fuck him faster, each of his sounds driving you to please him more, more.

Slam into his sweet spot, and he'll arch his back off the bed, blunt nails digging into your back and drawing blood as a cry rips itself from his throat, eyes wide and tearing up.

Fuck him nice and good, till he forgets his own name, till the only thing his brain can process is your cock against his tight walls, abusing and bullying his sweet spot with such precision it makes him see stars.

Wipe away his tears before you continue to pound into him, and plant soft kisses on his face and chest. Suck on his nipples, kiss and bite them, and he'll come undone right then, hips bucking as cum shoots out of his untouched dick, hole clenching pathetically around you.

Let him come down from his high before you continue; it's only his first time, you can overstimulate him some other day, right?

When you start over, he will bury his face into the crook of your neck, muffling his moans and cries against your skin and just sobbing into your shoulder.

Fuck him till you come, bringing him to his second orgasm just with the feeling of your seed hitting his walls.

Pull out of him and kiss him softly, tell him he did good, and he'll smile dazedly, burying his face into your thick chest.

[verycharismaticdragon]

@mandlien: Op where is the essay 👀 @latitudeoctopus: An essay I would like to see 🙏

Glad u asked! <-guy who was totally angling for someone to ask

OG post this continues from, for those just tuning in now:

actually SQQ's first encounter with LQG perfectly illustrates which of SY's idiosyncrasies perfectly converged to make him absolutely obsessed with Binghe, in this essay i will

So, to start with, the explanation for why I think this scene in particular is more illuminating than all of SQQ's interactions with actual LBH. 

That's because there's not a single scene in the novel where his interactions with LBH-the-person are not colored by pre-existing bias of already being obsessed with LBH-the-character. Like, consider the scene where he appraises Shen Qingqiu's looks, and finishes it off with:

He still couldn’t compare to Luo Binghe. (vol.1, ch.1)

despite not having seen Luo Binghe in person yet. But no, he's already convinced his beloved blorbo is of course The Handsomest Ever!

Simply speaking, we never encounter Shen Yuan pre-Binghe Syndrome (when instead of brain there's binghe). So it's difficult to tell whether any particular way he thinks or feels in Binghe’s presence is the standard for him, or owed to the fact that he already likes Binghe in at least one way.

But the same can not be said of Liu Qingge: while SY did have some interest in his character, he didn’t really think of him before encountering him in Lingxi Caves. Plus, unlike Binghe who seems to have fully aligned with SQQ’s expectations of him, LQG had given him a little shock — which prompted some re-evaluation of his prev thoughts on SQQ's part.

(cont. under cut)

Now is a good time to mention that I arrived at thinking about this scene while considering Shen Yuan's relationship with toxic masculinity — and remembering I jotted down 'Shen Yuan's fascination with masculinity' in my reread notes for this scene.

[Bai Zhan Peak] was the most warlike of Cang Qiong Mountain's branches, as well as the branch with the greatest martial ability. Every single generation's Bai Zhan Peak Lord was a world-class swordmaster, a victor of countless battles, an undefeated legend. How hot-blooded—how dashing!  Male readers always fervently admired strong characters. Even though Liu Qingge never officially debuted on page, he hadn't lacked for fans, and Shen Yuan had been especially fascinated with him. In his headcanon, Liu Qingge had been a sharp and manly man, powerful and magnificent. A war god, right?! (vol.1, ch.2)

So, Shen Yuan’s fascination with Liu Qingge’s character — or rather his headcanon version of it — is about Liu Qingge being someone who (in SY’s mind) embodies masculine qualities. And what qualities are those? From this section, being “strong” (has to be physically powerful) and “undefeated” (can’t be a loser) — yeah, pretty standard toxic masc starting kit. 

And something of interest here: though SQQ describes it mostly as his own feelings, even in this excerpt, he slips in a “male readers always [...] admired” — which, when considering everything else we know about his relationship to masculinity, kind of gives off an insecurity vibe. He seems to be either trying to justify his own feelings (i.e., ‘other men feel the same way, i’m in-group not out-group, i’m not failing at being a man by feeling this way [admiring another man]’), or else emulating other male fans and trying to convince himself he relates to the story the same way they do (i.e., ‘male readers admire strong characters and im a man therefore i definitely also admire the same things’).

Speaking of emulating other male fans, there’s another quality that SY seems to associate with masculinity, this one not very related to Liu Qingge — though SQQ does make a mental detour into it in the same scene, when talking about other Peaks.

Yeah, when he mentions Xian Shu, and the fact that the popularity of self-insert erotic/lewd fics about Xian Shu "compared to that of the original work” in PIDW fandom, or possibly even in general on ‘Zhongdian’ (since afaik you can publish fanfiction on Chinese webnovel sites alongside original works, you just have to tag it as such). In other words, among male fans. 

But we know SY doesn’t like sex scenes, right? Hell, his favorite wife is Liu Mingyan at least in part because she doesn’t have sex scenes:

There was one more appeal factor. Liu Mingyan was the only female character for whom Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't write detailed sex scenes. (vol.1, ch.2)

Of course… that’s what SQQ says in his head where nobody can hear him. We actually have evidence of him singing a different tune when among other fans:

Most of the female protagonists are stupid sexy lamps, and the male lead doesn't even bed Liu Mingyan, the only breath of fresh air? He doesn't bed the rightful empress? Are you fucking kidding me? (vol.4, ch.26, part 1)

(speaking of, this is why ‘peerless cucumber is SY’s true self’ takes baffle me. his toxicmascsona is his true self, really?)

So SY has another qualifier for ‘manly man’ in his head: being sexual (of course, in a straight way). Which is not something that comes naturally to him, as evidenced by him cringing away from any actual action even when he tries to emulate the thought pattern, e.g.:

Qi Qingqi? She was indeed slightly junior to him, and their first meeting...he'd long forgotten how it went. "Often together" wasn't quite right, though. Perhaps he at times dared to think about going to Xian Shu Peak so they could be "often together," but while he had the wicked intentions, he lacked the courage required to follow through—and he could never commit an act as depraved as stalking. (vol.4, ch.23) 

Riiiight, SQQ, you totally have those 'wicked intentions' that you merely can't follow through on because you just invented reasons not to.

But that does give us an image of SY’s ideal of masculinity. Extremely powerful, undefeatable, and hypersexual… yeah no points for guessing who. I’m pretty sure SQQ even directly equates Bing-ge with masculinity somewhere, I just can’t remember the exact spot. And he also believes that any man should definitely want to be in Bing-ge’s place, like for example here:

Every man dreamed of being caught between an angel and a devil. To watch them jealously vie with each other over him one moment, then risk life and limb for his sake in the next—that was the highest, most sacred, perverted fantasy of every male organism.  (vol.1, ch.2)

…though I must note, once again, “every man”, “every male organism” — but does SQQ actually feel the same way? I think that the answer is he thinks that he should, and is trying to convince himself that he does.

Which must be difficult considering he finds men more attractive than women, returning back to that scene with Liu Qingge.

In any other state, Shen Qingqiu might have declared, "What a beautiful man!" (vol.1, ch.2)

Really bestie? You would've declared it? Because I don't see you show the same enthusiasm about women. In fact, you usually jump right into how they were described in the novel, as if you don't have your own opinion. 

Now, I must note that I personally don’t think finding someone attractive equals actually being attracted to them. But this does imply which way SQQ's tastes veer. In fact, we can even see that he has a type. First, he describes LQG's face as "as beautiful as a fine woman's"; then adds:

This was clearly the face of a charming young master who arranged flowers and plucked farewell willow branches! (vol.1, ch.2)

Of course, if we are talking about charming young masters with feminine looks, their bearing that of a classic Chinese gentleman (warrior-scholar ideal who’d ‘pluck farewell willow branches’)...

That firm yet humble countenance, demonstrating his noble and unyielding spirit. That pencil-straight back and stance, evincing a proud core that would rather break than bend! (vol.1, ch.1)

[SQQ] saw a glimpse of the future Luo Binghe's unique grace, that of "eyes like cold stars, a soft and radiant smile, with muted words and quiet laughter." (vol.1, ch.1)

In truth, deep down, Bing-ge's fair and clean pretty-boy type didn't really suit the tastes of "Great Master" Airplane Flying Towards the Sky. He had only assigned this sort of configuration to the protagonist to meet his stallion hardware specifications. The art of growing stallions was grounded in science, and the research was clear: women preferred men who looked cultured, pretty, and even a bit soft and feminine. (vol.4, ch.26, part 2)

…there’s no question who is superlative in SQQ’s heart. To boot, he doesn’t even realize that he’s biased about LBH’s attractiveness, as we can see from Airplane-bro’s musings above. So that’s Cucumber-bro’s type: cultured, pretty, a bit feminine.

See, a fun little discrepancy here: what SQQ sees as a masculine ideal and therefore can admire plainly — again, powerful, undefeatable, and hypersexual, — and what he finds attractive in a man, under all those layers of denial, are two pretty different things.

Liu Qingge, despite his appearance unveiling a side of both to us, doesn’t actually fully embody either type: on the masculinity side, he is missing the hypersexuality, on the attractiveness side, his looks fit but his bearing doesn’t match.

But you know who hits all of SY’s qualifications on both counts?.. yeah, once again no points for guessing, it stars with "Bing" and ends with "ge".

So: the source of Shen Yuan’s obsession with LBH-the-character is the intersection of those two factors. Like you know that old wlw joke “I can’t tell if I wanna be her or date her”? Thats Shen Yuan with Luo Binghe, but, yknow, unconsciously. He admires LBH as an epitome of masculinity, an image of a Perfect Male to strive for; he also very much finds him attractive in a gay way. 

In fact, I would even say that an important component of Binghe brainrot is that he is an acceptable target for admiration. How can SY be accused of being gay over liking a horny stallion novel? So it’s totally normal that he thinks of Binghe a lot, obviously that’s just because he looks up to him! Because Binghe is such a perfect iteration of a male stallion protagonist! Who wouldn’t want to be in his place, thinks Shen Yuan, never ever having imagined being in Binghe’s place even once. Ofc that’s only because Binghe got insane game though! Shen Yuan couldn’t hope to compare. LBH is just so admirable and sexy,, for the wives of course, the wives find him sexy, not Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan is just stating facts— etcetcetc.

Point is, LBH is a man that Shen Yuan can like without shame, because he has a whole bag of above-the-board reasons to prove that he's not liking him the wrong way. A perfect target of convergence for Shen Yuan’s conscious and unconscious thoughts (and desires).

And this is how SY ended up with the years-long hyperfix we see in the beginning of the novel. 

[my-pjo-stuff]

Luke Castellan is one of the (if not THE) best characters Rick has ever written. I will genuinely die on this hill, quote me on this. And the reason why I think that is because he as a character and his actions as a whole are just so incredibly realistic. Luke was a deeply traumatized child who never had a proper adult figure to take care of him, thrown into a system where he never got proper support or got his mental health looked after. There is no way that ANYONE in Luke's situation could have turned out a healthy, well-adjusted person. We have an irl pattern of the most evil, unstable humans we know coming from bad parental backgrounds and neglect. Now imagine how someone who not only had bad parents, but no parents at all would turn out? And on top of that add the trauma of living on the streets, having to watch your best friend die, and then basically having to take care of multiple kids. Luke was bitter, hurt, angry, and incredibly easy to manipulate and radicalize. Like he any real person would have ended up with his background! Characters like Percy and Annabeth, who despite everything still turn out to be relatively well-adjusted and happy are just that. Characters. It's fictional- which is totally fine, they are fiction after all. But Luke stands out in the way that his reactions are not fiction, but instead realistic.

These themes continue with his revolution. Luke does bad stuff for his goal. He hurts people and accepts the deaths of his own aswell as his enemy's. Luke expects and accepts losses and casualties.

Which is what IRL revolutionaries do! Revolts, coups, conflict- any form of such radical change is bound to get messy! It's realistic. Do you people have any idea how messy and bloody the French Revolution was? You know, the most famous revolution generally considered just and righteous in the Western World? Are the people who started that revolution suddenly evil because they "send others to die"? I don't think so! And as bad as it may sound- Luke allying himself with Kronos to garner support and strength is logical too! The fact is that there is no way that demigods alone could overthrow the gods- the power difference is simply too big. So what does Luke do? He employs the good old "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend" and goes with Kronos. His seeking the help of Kronos was a tactically smart move for Luke at the time as bad as it may sound. It gained him support from the monster army and leverage to get minor gods to join him. And all that is ignoring the fact that he was probably manipulated by Kronos since he was 17. Are you REALLY expecting a 17 y/o to resist the guy KNOWN for his manipulation skills? Someone whom not even Ares, a GOD, could resist? We can also see Luke doing genuine diplomacy, plotting, organization, recruiting and everything else a revolution and war would need! All those "Dark Percy Jackson" AUs where he overthrows the gods completely ignore the true reality of the demigod situation. They have Percy be this valiant hero who manages to defeat all the gods while never truly compromising his core values. All the while never causing the death of too important characters or unnecessary destruction.

Which is, frankly said, unrealistic. It's fictional- which (as mentioned before) is fine! Do whatever makes you happy- just along as you remember the inherently unrealistic nature of it. Luke is ugly and does bad things because that's what is means to lead a revolution! It's the hard truth, sometimes shitty things have to be done to achieve a good goal. And Luke shows those shitty things. He's the realism in a world of fiction and thus looks much worse in comparison. That realism is also part of why I like him so much.

[rise-my-angel]

I can understand the anti jonsa/jonrya/jongritte but I'm wondering about the jon/daenerys thing and if you don't mind I'd like to know why (asking as someone who only watched the show & wasn't bought by their dynamic)

It actually starts with the exact same problem as Ygritte's dynamic with him. Jon arrives at a place and is taken prisoner, his weapons are taken from him, he cannot leave of his own accord and has no way home alone, and he has no choice but to try and convince the people or person keeping him hostage that they should trust him. Only for the other person to develop an attraction, and whose dynamic can only be developed as long as Jon still is not allowed to leave or fight back. Only for it to go apparently romantic, when really, his situation has not changed if he resists.

If he is with Ygritte, and he shows signs of resistence or being against her cause, she and the others will kill him, and he knows it.

If he is with Dany, and he shows signs of resistence or being against her cause, she and her dragons will kill him, and he knows it.

Remember, when he goes beyond the Wall (gods protect me thinking about that episode), he literally has to leave by force because she still refused to give him "permission" to leave the island she's kept him trapped on for weeks. Their reunion is not romantic, and neither is them getting together. Up until a day ago, he was her prisoner and he still is at the mercy of her dragons.

If at any moment Jon truly resists her, she will kill him. There is not a single moment of their relationship where she didn't consider Jons life forefit if he didn't meet her exact expectations of total loyalty. Just like Ygritte did.

What it comes off to me, is that Jon has no interest in her whatsoever nor does he want to be with her, but he knows he is still her prisoner and even worse, she has dragons that could destroy his family and kingdom if she so chooses, if he stood against her. I think Jon realized Dany was interested in him, and realized that he was in a situation just like Ygritte. Trapped, and forced to play along much to the determent of his own mental health.

Jon is never not at Dany's total mercy if he displeases her.

Any time they get together it is clearly Dany summoning Jon, and one time it's very bad. Jon is extremely drunk to the point he can barley stand on two feet, and she is stone cold sober. She tries to get him to have sex with her, he resists and she still tries and it only ends because it turns into an argument about another topic all together.

If Jon was trying to convince a drunk girl telling him no, to have sex with him, we all know what we'd call that. What we'd call him. I do not consider Jon being a man, and Dany being a woman, to change that dynamic. Dany also has all the power of him as a Queen who forced him to bend the knee, and she has two dragons in his home that will kill him and anyone else she chooses whenver she wants.

Jon is literally unable to consent to this relationship at any point and the literal only way out he had, was to unironically kill her.

If you look through my anti jonerys tag you can find other posts I've made going into the details about why I think they do not work fundementally as characters in general, but I stand firmly against the show relationship for these reasons.

It's the same prisoner/abuse/rape situation as with Ygritte, but even worse, because Dany can and would use her dragons on him, his family, and his people if she decided Jon wasn't loyal enough anymore.

I don't think Jon ever wanted to be with her, in any way shape or form. But was forced to pretend to because he was her prisoner from the moment he stepped onto Dragonstone until the moment he killed her.

I think as for the books, they just do not work as a couple in even a functional manner and there is no hint that they ever even would become a couple in the first place and that shipping them in the books is pure jonsa style wish fufillment fanon.

Again, my anti jonerys tag has many posts about this topic since I've tackled it at many angles over the past few months if you're interested further in what I think!

[crying-fantasies]

Hold (on to my heart)

Masterlist

CW: blood, murder, curses, hate, power abuse.

Nights in the caves are, really, something else, specially since Martha's garden finally gave something edible.

It's nice, to eat something warm and fresh after so long, canned food and such can only get one so far without feeling sick in mind and body, and don't even get started with the face of absolute horror some bots did after reading what was inside or, worse, what kept the corn in a barely decent consumption state.

It's nice to eat without someone burning their eyes on your back, calling you names.

Martha's corn is little, not really sweet, and mayonnaise or butter could make it more delicious, but everyone eats it to the last grain, part of it has already been stored, the fire where everyone gathered around is, maybe, a beacon of hope, just what everyone needs since Optimus left, and you catch a glimpse of mister Sawyer drying a lonely tear when he looks at a stone at the side.

Ironhide's stone, one he used like a chair.

That was where Ironhide used to come and talk, hell, the bots used to come here with you all, Tommy said maybe it was like looking at a wildlife documentary, but you and the rest have a different approach to it, giving an almost absolute vote of it being because they feel lonely, they feel hunger, they feel cold.

There is so much that can be done in the dessert, or any part the autobots go and so you all do, if you search well enough it isn't that hard to find edible cactuses or other things, with the usual trial and error in between, of course.

Ironhide was the first to tell Optimus to get all the humans back to where they came from, but he was also the first one to take a boulder out of the way to make this campfire site and use the rock as a makeshift chair, at first it looked like he was trying to put you all in one place and Sideswipe almost punched him in the faceplate, but he was also the responsible to moving the hard soil with Hound and Beachcomber so that Martha could grow food, the only one that knew how to live from the earth and not by ready-to-food like the rest of you.

"It's easier for humans to do it, since it's their planet", he said, "at least then we won't bother findin' fuel for them", Sides was ready to let him know his opinion but he was stopped since what the old bot gave you, in reality, was something even better than canned food left to waste.

It's not simple, to follow the autobots, to evade the government, to try and get a hold of whatever that could be usable, you still remember Val and how she found something alien and bring it back, the few energon that thing had was enough to add another two days for everyone, Rosalinde, almost two, could only smile by her sister's enthusiastic face.

It was never easy, when Hoist, relieved for the finding, patted Val's head with utmost delicacy, "You did great", the little girl looked like she won the lottery, very much in contrast to her crying once a military man found your group while looking for rations, Val went far away in the former warzone to find another vial of energon, finding the man in her way and all his group, holding her and telling the little orphan with baseless promises of finding her family with the help of whoever was in power, that he saved her of the horrible aliens as all you could do was move again because they couldn't find the autobots, "humans know what a new human spark would need", that's what Optimus said, and it was what Ratchet repeated to Hoist once he found out to calm him down, Bumblebee was totally against to give Rosa to the people on the near town to care for her, and you all promised to tend to her every need to prevent her from going to fall in their hands, Optimus meant well, you all knew, as all you could give Rosa and Val was the least spoiled food.

"Do he sees us as pets or what?"

"Quiet, kid! Do I need to remind you who saved your ass in the warzone?"

"Well then, I can return to the god-damned civilization because I'm not in debt with the ones that got the war here!"

Most people just go, at the beginning, just like Jimmy, Verity and Hunter, sometimes they stay, just like you, but staying also means to have your face among the most wanted due to "fraternizing with the alien enemy".

But returning would end in indefinite imprisonment, or a very bad interrogation that could turn south very easily, because no one knew of Javier once he got to the nearest town, but you all found him in the wastelands while searching for more supplies, his body, at least, full of bruises and in a terrible state, like he was tortured.

Mr. Duncan called it "a stupid robot hunt to keep the people happy in their madness to vote for them again", Susana said:" Just people showing off, they need some war in order to fill their pockets".

You can only hope Val has something to eat, someone to care, things were hard, as you see your chemically burned fingertips, no more gloves meant direct contact in occasions, Ratchet and Hoist sometimes can't with all the injured, so far the only helping hands they have are you and Mr. Duncan who was a mechanic before the war and before being totally wiped after seeing Optimus Prime himself help him to get out of some debris, transforming in front of him while saving him, they are great, they really are, but alien medicine can only get you so far before you touch real energon, the one running in their lines like blood does in your veins, and getting burned isn't that hard with your hands stopping the leaking in Track's side as Hoist tries to make him see that his wound matters more than his finish.

Sideswipe, ever the gentlemech, came to your rescue when your tearful eyes weren't that easy to hide from him, biting back the sobs and just silently taking it all, maybe that being the reason why his already volatile temper just got to a new level, "I'm going to show that slagger something to whine over", he was furious, not at you, but in what you were getting into, in how you were hiding it even from him.

"It's okay", you said, red eyes and patched fingers, bloody nose and sore throat, low on fluids due to the energon poisoning, "it's okay, I can keep going".

But you can't, not anymore, not because of Sides but because this new bot called Ultra Magnus was sure to keep their law to the T, and Ratchet couldn't do much about it, "it's unprecedented to let an organic know about our general physiology".

"Magnus, I don't have any more help here, and you're shortening it even more?"

"The law must be followed, Ratchet, and we shouldn't have so many injured if our soldiers were able to hold into the designated procedures for those cases".

Everyone have their own reasons to be here, some willing and others not, some do what they can while others just can't anymore, but all in unison rise their cheap plastic cups high and full of homemade alcohol that is sure to burn your liver alive, chanting a "for the ones we lost" before downing it at once, your corn is about to return from your stomach and Mr. Sawyer finally breaks down, crying in his daughter's arms inconsolably.

Men don't cry, you heard once, and it's stupid, maybe real men, the ones that matter, really do cry and bleed.

And maybe is not only about men crying, but showing grief and emotion as a whole, as you remember someone say: "just don't think about it and the pain will go away", or "just think you feel okay and you'll be", it was easier to say than to really do, and even if you did it didn't really change anything.

Maybe the most strong really show what is troubling them, and try to understand it.

Maybe that's why you find yourself walking again to the part of the base Sideswipe has taken for himself, he is just there, sitting, low on energon and spirits since Ironhide's frame was taken back by Ratchet, he looks just like when Sunstreaker-

"Do you hate it?"

At first, you don't know what he is referring to, is it the constant hunger? The scorching sunlight in the day and the cold moonless nights? Being hunted down by your own people? Your own race? There is so much to pick from, but he may only refer to one of them? With a lack of response he makes that sad face again, in the past he did it, as sad as ever or physically possible for him just to joke around, took you a while to notice his playful nature and how to respond to it, but you would give so much to see that kind of expression back to him only as a joke and not the real one in front of you.

"Hate is a strong word".

Since Bumblebee made the deal with the humans, with that guy called Spike, things have been better, but feeling the soldiers' hard gazes have made you all return to the caves from time to time, the last familiar place, the last place where you all saw so many before probably losing them forever.

Val is still missing, no one could track her or what they did with her after they took her away.

Ricardo decided to sell out the bots and play the victim in the news, whining and complaining about being a victim, trying to sell a book of his survival when he wouldn't even be alive if not for Beachcomber saving him from an explosive.

Lucas, Paula and Jocelyn died when those crazy fucks corraled the bots and they tried to stop them like a shield, believing they wouldn't shut them down.

Mr. Sawyer still can't keep a few bites of food down after Ironhide died, his depression hitting another level, or so Miranda, his daughter, said, when his friend returned like a carcass with a hole blasted right through his spark, his heart.

The cries of everyone when Bumblebee, one of the most kind and attentive autobots, one of the better living beings you have ever met, returned with smoke emanating from his body, closed and dead optics, energon spilling from the wound on his chest, as Mr. Sawyer's cries of "not again, please" made more echo in all the people crying, the few people that were still keeping it together before things just escalated more.

The feeling of being burned alive as your fingers put pressure to the many ruptures in the lines, hearing Mr. Duncan curse as his own hands weren't enough to stop the leaking and welding at the same time, being instructed by the supposed scientist and doctor that was in charge to keep Bumblebee alive by just pouring energon inside and letting you two do all the risky job.

Sideswipe's response to your "I hate it" isn't one of surprise, if anything, he is waiting for you to elaborate, "I hate them so much!".

His reaction to your answer brings up the necessity to shut your mouth, but the lock has been molested, and there is just so much you can do once bitting your tongue isn't enough, not even his sad smile, his relief at you finally letting go of what has been eating you from inside out, the low light of his optics on you, blue light that makes your tears shine like tiny sparks embers that fall ominously, like hatred and vengeance that are never to meet an end, the rage of a warrior encased in such tiny frame that does everything in it's power to heal even when there is a gaping black hole in the middle.

His reaction to your tears, to your hysteria, the ones you had to fight back, is nothing but understanding, and he doesn't even flinch when the poison and resentment follow and take control.

"I wish they end up dying there!", you remember their faces, their words full of hatred, you'll never forget them as you all shouted back in how the autobots weren't the ones to get the war to the planet, it was the decepticons who started it, it was the humans who kept at it.

They hated so much, without a base, without a reason, putting all of them in the same group, and were the first ones to shout indignantly once Jazz protected everyone.

"I wish everyone they are related to die too! Stupid genes should just disappear! Their parents! Their kids! It's all rotten!"

You will never forget their faces as they shut down Lucas, just because he was trying to speak with reason, "STOP! Stop! He is injured! Please stop!", Paula got to close for comfort too, apparently, as she was trying to call Spike for help, but someone, a sick fucko, believed her phone was a gun and killed her too with Jocelyn who was only promising the already on edge autobots that everything was going to be alright before her blood was flying in their direction.

"I want them to disappear"

Once your hatred is placating, finally being able to let yourself say all the bad things that have been bottled down for so long, your sadness takes over, and Sideswipe offers his servo to cradle you near as your tears and sobs aren't stopping, increasing to the point breathing is hard and you're almost choking back cries and shouts, holding for dear life to him, your screwed nails digging on the crevices of his faceplate and neck guard as he holds your body with both servos to that tiny and warm place in the junction of his helm and his neck guard.

A safe place, where his body overlaps yours, his engine and the power on it a silent promise that he is strong enough to fight for you both, increasing with your cries and the goosebumps, an answer to his EM field, telling you "I'm here, I'll protect you", your physical reaction, your way to show him "I feel you, I know" when his digits pass over your skin so delicately.

It was a trial and error these years, laughing hard when his anger made your hair stand up, give comfort when you didn't feel much, feeling overwhelmed and all little hair up when he was playful and happy.

Feeling out of your body when he was trying to comfort you.

"I want this to end"

"I miss them so much"

"If I ever know who made that gun!"

"Please don't leave me too"

"I want them in pieces!"

"Don't ever let me go"

Next thing you knew, Sideswipe was trying to wake you up, saying something about a "I'll see you later" that was barely registered as your eyes were too swollen to see him right, the coldness in the base is too strong and makes you hold the blanket he left above you, is it late? Why is he saying that? When did you fall sleep and when did he let go of you? You can barely think straight, the alcohol doing an inside mess, Sideswipe holding you near again, the best you both could do for a hug, you could only do so much with your head all foggy and painful as he left you to rest, that sensation of vibration as you're swallowed inside his EM field again, nuzzled by his faceplate, the light of his optics showering you, barely alert to give back the hug, holding to his olfactory ridge and making him chuckle, smiling back, hearing him happy after so long, if only for a minute, feeling him gone the next and holding the blanket close, preserve his digits' feeling above you, his warmth enclosed in that blanket for as long as it could be.

Hours later, and the next thing you know is that most autobots are gone, everyone is sitting in the dinner salon of the Skywatch's base, watching the news, your relief of Bumblebee once again on his feet is washed away once someone tell you that Sideswipe left with Optimus to Cybertron.

One hour later, and you're left to question yourself what comes next, holding the blanket to your body, and realizing that it's the vicuna one you bought, and that Sideswipe left the paper crane you gifted him years ago just next to your sleeping body, as you ask yourself what you could have said in your intoxicated pain that made that hot head take his few things and go to a barren and deadly planet once again, trying to comfort yourself that it wasn't caused by something you said.

But that monster in your head says otherwise, telling you that if you lost Sideswipe too was because you showed your pain and grief, everything is your fault.

It's all your fault, and Sideswipe will never come back, either by being shot where you can't help him or by finally realizing you aren't that different from other humans.

"Humans are all the same", Sunstreaker once said when he tried to brush you off, and maybe he was right about you.

Do you even recognize who you're now?

[runabout-river]

On Mahoraga, the Ten Shadows and Sukuna

I've seen so many hurt feelings and rage boners over on Twitter about Sukuna using the Ten Shadows in his fight against Gojo. There are people who straight up call Sukuna a fraud for using the 10S and people are violently speculating about an imagined battle where this and that power didn't exist and therefore either Gojo or Sukuna is the real boss and winner and it's as much of a dumpsterfire as it is hilarious to watch.

Sukuna is not a fraud for using a technique he owns

This is like saying god-like character B only is as strong as he is because he acquired a weapon along the way and that weapon doesn't count in fighting powers because... he wasn't born with it I guess. Every swordsmam from now on is a fraud as well. Zorro is weaker than Sanji because swords don't count while Sanji only fights with his natural body. And that boy Tanjiro! Did you know that he only made it to the Demon Slayer Corps because he also had a sword? Total fraud or something like that.

Time and time again the manga made it clear that sorcerers are not noble and honour bound people. They fight to win and the how is completely irrelevant to the winning because they're, among other things, con-artists and the only thing that awaits them if they don't win is death. Gojo and Sukuna would straight up nuke each other if that was a feasible option.

Gojo is as much a "fraud" as Sukuna

Gojo started this fight with the help of three other sorcerers and that help is going to reappear as the fight goes on. As I said in last chapter's Review, the others will have to fight against Mahoraga to fill out the (most likely) 8 adaptations it has so Gojo's techniques can work again. Uraume is going to appear again at some point as well.

The only reason why this fight is one-on-one until now is because of two things:

Ego, and

The immediate death of any outside assistance

Someone like Sukuna would of course want to defeat his opponent on his own with the minimum amount of effort to show how strong he is, and he most likely didn't think that much of Gojo at first either and he would also reject direct intervention from Uraume and Kenjaku, but his own techniques and weapons? Those are his and he's going to use them at his leisure regardless of where they came from. He "defeated" Megumi anyway to get access to the 10S so there isn't even any debate about whether he deserved to use them.

And Gojo? Hello? He would not let things like a fair fight get in his way of defeating Sukuna and saving Megumi and the world. Right now though, he can't accept any outside help because Sukuna would instantly kill them. Having him defeat Sukuna would be the best case scenario but they most likely discussed the more likely scenario that at some point the others have to step up as well. Even Kenjaku said that they will come. Gojo would give his life to give the others a fighting chance if it were to come to that but he wouldn't pointlessly throw his life away if "cheating" and being a "fraud" would've helped him and everyone else.

(Btw the more I think about it the more I'm of the opinion that Sukuna activated Mahoraga's wheel after Gojo's second Domain collapsed.)

Now that the fraud allegations are out of the way, let's go to another point people are losing their minds over: Mahoraga.

Mahoraga is NOT the ultimate weapon and the end of this fight

Mahoraga is also not the strongest technique of the 10 Shadows. What do we know about it? No one had ever tamed it before, not even the Zenin clan head who fought against the 6-Eyes Gojo clan head. I don't remember where it was said or if was ever clearly stated, but that fight ended with the Zenin activating an exorcism ritual to end the fight with both him and the 6-Eyes dying.

To achieve that, the 6-Eyes had to have been severely weakened otherwise he would've defeated Mahoraga himself just like 15-Finger Sukuna did. Just like Gojo said he would if Sukuna had summoned Mahoraga already. All of this is to say that the Zenin of that time fought against the 6-Eyes with only 9 tamed shikigami and a domain and maybe they were not truly equal in their fighting strength but the Zenin was at least strong enough to inflict serious damage to his opponent.

The true strength of the 10 Shadows Technique does not lie in one single shikigami, not even Mahoraga, but in the intelligent use of all aspects of it. Like: summoning and calling back the shikigami when needed; combining the living shikigami to form new creatures; strengthening the living shikigami with the powers of the dead ones; utilizing the shadows to their maximum, and completing Chimera Shadow Garden and using all its unique abilities and powers.

Intelligence has been Megumi's number one characteristic among all the other characters and I don't know about any of you but as a true culmination of Megumi's abilities, I found Mahoraga to be underwhelming. First, because it (the super mega ultimate weapon) appeared too early in the manga and second, because it was defeated in its very first appearance. So either Gege made a blunder in his storytelling and appropriate leveling of character abilities or Mahoraga was never meant to be the ultimate usage of the 10 Shadows.

(The characters might think it is but the sorcerers aren't the only con artists in JJK, Gege is too.)

In essence, Sukuna isn't automatically going to win this fight just because Mahoraga is going to come, AND it's going to be Megumi who will push the 10 Shadows to its absolute peak not Sukuna

[shigayokagayama]

I think one of my only nit picks about Mob Psycho is I do wish there was a moment Mob voiced his opinion on Teru. I feel like the story does a good job at getting across how he feels about Ritsu and Reigen but not really him?

Like, i wouldn’t consider them super close or anything. And I feel like you can def gather an idea of how Mob feels about him (generally a good friend who’s also very helpful, perhaps even a similar “admiration” he has to Ritsu where Ritsu has a lot going for him academic wise and Teru is someone popular with girls and has a confident attitude) but I guess I just wanted a little more of his own thoughts? I’m not sure how to put it but I think about how in the guidebook he has a lot to say of Ritsu and Reigen but for Teru he’s like “he has a good fashion sense”

Obviously a big part of Mob’s character is he doesn’t speak his own opinion a lot and the story hides his direct thoughts a lot and it makes him interesting as the story asks you to try to understand him and what he’s thinking and who he is.

But there’s a layer to their relationship that I thought was really interesting and I guess I wish it came to light more?

Both are important to their respective development being the first psychics either have met. Their relationship is focused on the idea of strength but also a wake up call to living in reality. Teru has to accept living a life with more then his psychic powers despite hating that part of himself and Mob has to accept that he can’t just suppress his psychic powers forever and that they’ll always be a part of him no matter how much he hates it.

I think there’s something super compelling about someone seeing you at your lowest or what you see as your worst or perhaps they bring out the worst in you but your relationship with that person. And sometimes its easier to do that with people youre not super close to because showing your flaws to the people you hold really dear to you is hard and you’re so scared of disappointing them. I get reminded of that idea

I do think it’s there it’s just subtle and I love subtle! I think Teru himself is a subtle character in a lot of ways.

I wanted to know someone else’s thoughts on this though or what they think of their dynamic cause it’s on my mind sometimes sugwusbwj

oh i totally agree with you their relationship kind of fascinates me. i believe i remember reading an interview where one said that if mob wanted advice for stuff dealing with his powers he'd probably go to teru but dont quote me on that bc i dont actually remember where that comes from.

im so glad we got confirmation that they still hang out afterwards and just seem to both be physically incapable of making the first move ("you should invite me to hang out more" INVITE HIM YOURSELF TERU!!! MY GOD.) because the ending of the manga left it sorta ambiguous and the idea of teru drifting apart from the singular friend who he has an actual emotional connection with has been haunting me since i first finished the manga. like, i know he does hang out with the awakening lab kids and presumably teru and the spirits and such gang sometimes, but those are all people whove only known the teru that is working on bettering himself and considering how adverse teru seems to the idea of getting help (see him rushing into every situation on his own and getting his ass kicked) i cant imagine any of their conversations would ever turn to the problems hes had in the past and the problems hes currently dealing with. i mean, reigen only knows about terus parents because he was in the room when teru explained his situation to mob.

[ll-but-its-random]

GUESS WHO JUST READ LORIEN LEGACIES REBORN?

1 thing on my mind: Fugitive Six.

Not the book, the group, if that's what they're called. I love them so fcking much, like what the he-

Their dynamics are so cool, and yes there is some room for improvement like Duanphen getting more scenes/lines or Caleb getting actual character development but otherwise it's perfect.

Found family! What's not to love?

One thing is that Five finally got some of his redeeming qualities highlighted and I'm thankful he had people who mean something to him- his relationship with the Loric cannot be salvaged, not even after he tried. He called them his only friends, he got genuinely worried about Einar and Isabella in the mission and he said he "actually likes" Ran, which is really the best compliment anyone got to him.

I totally ship him with Einar: 2 psychotic murderers trying to do good and see the best in each other despite what everyone else says. I feel if asked about it, Five would go all defensive, like "Me? Einar? NO. See it's this thing called mutual exchange. I make sure he's not assassinated and he deals with my emotions for me. So what if I rushed to save him a couple dozen times, IT'S MY JOB." Einar also could've manipulated him from the start, and everyone thinks so, but he fully trust Five and wants Five to trust him and see him normally- not as a monster or villain or anything such.

Then there is Ran- I feel that she was better with Fugitive Six than at the Academy, she finally got to use her powers in a good way. Caleb is sort of her confidant, someone from her last life she still counts on. Her, Isabella and Dawn are besties, you cannot change my mind. She had an actual purpose and no one forcing her into anything.

Einar is very layered and interesting, honestly. He's a drama king, and a dress up guy- I probably should take liking to killers but oh well. I think he does have good intentions and a sort of moral code, he just wants Garde to be free and safe, and even though there were probably better ways to achieve it, his monologue on having no choice but to fight really got to me. I relate to it. Screw everything else. Also, for the love of God, please stop shocking him every ten seconds and just let him be.

Caleb and Isabella are not really my favorite, but they are good characters and decently deep ones at that. I think they can be a good pair, but I read it platonically sometimes and both work very well.

Duanphen is badass, and her legacy could've been much more useful. I like the fact she just goes around fighting with a broken leg like it ain't bothering her and when she got those stitches from Lucas, she was like "Oh well, I'm alive". Her and Five have a bicker-siblings sort of dynamic and I'm never letting go of this thought.

Also, Nine and Five fighting is as good as I remember.

"How 'bout we get started now, tubby?"

"I'm gonna jam that toy arm up your-"

---

"What do you want, Five?"

"Just wanted to say, I'm looking forward to saving your stupid academy because you're too much of a loser to do it yourself. Later, bitch."

Also, do not talk to me about the ending, I will cry.

[wolfsbanesparks]

Bouncing in here like a madman again

Do you think Captain Marvel (seperate from Billy) considers the Wizard SHAZAM as their father as a sort of creator and creation relationship? Giving room for Billy and grandpa wizard relationship kinda?

I've had a lot of sugar today, so I'm not sure how that sounds, but I kept thinking about your fic, "Split", and how if things took a different turn and Captain Marvel revealed he existed because of the Wizard, would the JL come to the assumption that the wizard was his father/Billy's grandfather?

Or if things took an angstier turn, if Captain Marvel let slip accidentally that he didn't believe that the death of Billy's mother (and actual father) was a genuine accident/had suspicions about it, how would they react? Would they suspect the wizard bc of all the suspicions they're having? Also, I'm not sure if I remember, but did the JL get to have a conversation with the wizard?

Kinda factors into that one ask I sent before, where the gods killed the parents of the champions of magic to challenge and prepare them without them knowing, which might include the wizard, too. (Sorry, I re watched the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 recently and it's been doing numbers on my little mind)

In all seriousness you could write an AU for your fics and we'd eat it all up and ask for seconds because your writing creates a universe of wonder for us.

That was a lot, wow :0

Okay first of all you are so sweet! It's driving me crazy (in a good way) that I can discuss AUs of my fics!

I think that the Wizard already plays a sort of wise grandfather figure to Billy (in my preferred version of him) regardless of Captain Marvel's feelings towards the Wizard.

But I think it's totally logical for Captain Marvel to think of the Wizard as a creator figure, especially in his current incarnation since it was just Shazam who made him instead of a full Wizard's Council. There's respect between them, but Marvel also wants to make Shazam proud, wants to prove he's a good Champion. And I think that can translate to a father-son type dynamic even if it's a lot more complicated than that.

If we're talking Split in particular, the JL "met" the Wizard but Shazam didn't bother talking to any of them so their many confusions and suspicions didn't get brought up to him directly.

But if they had reason to believe Shazam was Marvel’s father, Flash in particular would have been having a freak out because the Wizard would have gone from possibly sketchy mentor to controlling and possibly abusive father/grandfather. He might have even had more people on his side if that was the case (especially if we add in the idea that the Batsons were killed as some kind of test of Billy’s pure heart).

There would still be those who insist that they shouldn't get in the middle of their complicated and potentially messy family situation. But there would also be those who wonder if Marvel had a choice in becoming a hero if his father was the one who imbued him with his powers because it was his "destiny". I can definitely picture Marvel bluescreening if someone asked him if he'd had a choice in being a hero (he didn't, and Billy didn't either) or if he'd ever wanted something else for himself (it had never occurred to him that he could be anything else because he was created to fight evil). His answer would definitely send up some red flags to whoever he's talking to.

There are so many cool ways having people think Shazam is Marvel’s father could play out and it would be so fun to explore that.

And since you mentioned it, while I don’t currently have plans to write an AU of my fics, I AM completely open to other people writing AUs of my fics if they are inspired enough to do it! So long as you credit me as the original author/check the Inspired By box when you post, I encourage you to go for it!

[seithr]

top 5 blazblue character designs

YIPPEE BLAZBLUE

I feel like my tastes are known but I still will take this chance to gush a bit about the characters and design philosophy of em that Ive always been real fond of :)

No particular order here or else I'll be here all night formatting on mobile. More under the cut!

HAKUMEN it goes without saying I LOVE HAKUMEN'S DESIGN SO MUCH. The taloned tabi, the silhouette of wide pants and closefitted shinguards/torso. The faces/eyes scattered across his armour while the face is totally blank—made more unreadable and inhuman by the slats of neck guard. Fox-ears built into the helm shape to feel both animal and mechanical like antennae...and obviously the longass hair to sell the "tailed" look.

I remember reading really early on into liking BlazBlue—I can't remember the source, come maul me if I'm wrong—I read that Hakumen as a character and design was made when Mori was in middle or highschool, the idea of "what is really cool," and much of those ideas stayed. I not only really respect that and think its charming as someone who still likes MY own designs from that time, but, as it turns out, middle schoolers are still right. Hakumen is very cool. Augh. Fucking? Time travelling fox-robot samurai who's here to kill his brother to save him and also himself because his old self wanted to do the same thing for the wrong reason and thay thought disgusts him. Also him and Tsubaki in general make me start to choke (positive). God ok I have four more guys to discuss. Yes i also like Susanoo but I feel like thats a copout, I like that he's both animalistic and brutal martial arts as the God of War. Anyways CONTINUING

VALKENHAYN R HELLSING I will admit that he is an old man in a suit and that speaks to me but that he's one of the strongest beings alive as a old man in a suit ohh. And he's a werewolf ohhhh. Shifting just his body parts to kick and rip with his claws, quickly leaping back and forth between a normal bone-breaking jab or knee or biting and snarling—the dance between raw force and refined precision and a brutal tear's always been sooo cool to see and think about. I also think his ribbon in his hair moving to his wolfy tail is very cute. A man of sharp extremes from refined to flashing his fangs, human and wolf, cool and very cute. I like him :)

TSUBAKI YAYOI her uniform is so nice uruururururugh. Big cape and the way it drapes around her in combat like wings... Her sword and buckler/Izayoi looking so unique for being a "basic sword and shield for the hero"-type of deal! The eye on her hat's always been really striking too—the only "cold" colours being her and her uniforms eyes.....................Sparing a glance at Hakumen's recurring red eyes for no reason here. Knightly angel women and her flower-like "tassets" hanging off her clothes. Its a uniform which plausibly feels like it could be a uniform—she doesn't have anything uniquely "hers" or "for this female character" while still being really standout and clean. Her design's just really good guys. You can do so much.

Really want to mention her masked look too at least really quick here. my girllllll...

RAGNA THE BLOODEDGE well of course I really like his design. Yeah him being here is partially obligation because I love his character a lot but both things inform each other in the end. Mr Grim Reaper, Enemy of the World, red-and-black with a demon's arm on one side and a rebuilt one on the other. His big red coat and the oversize shoulders! The massive baggy pants—I love the silhouette he has. Blood Scythe/Aramasa/His sword transforming and able to clack around and shift's just. Always been such a cool design. Seithr-powered man, devil-smoke powered man, ashes of your own old dead self-powered man. Ragna is fucking cool auauauuuaghrhg.

And it DOES only make it more charming that he has a good heart, has a bit of a Kicked Puppy charm about him if you can pardon uhh that implication. He is just some fucking guy and he likes barbecues. He is sweet and cares for stray cats. His dad is a cat. He blows up the government regularly. He's a rebel who visually looks really clean if "intentionally trying to look like someone you should think is cool", which is both dork-charming and cute and also actually yeah cool because it's not a visual mess.

I like that his arm underneath is all belts and bandaged—Bloodedge only wearing half his coat for example is such a good look and it shows his clean black shirt underneath, which feels a lot like... Under that big eyecatching rebel coat of his (personality), Ragna's... Ragna, I don't know. I hope that makes sense. Knowing his personality makes me like his design a lot more than if I didn't I think.

As mentionned in Hakumen's block of text however: I already really like chuuni-ass designs, so combined in Ragna he makes me unwell entirely.

And last (I am running out of images allowed per post :((((( )

Kitty peepaw. I am cheating slightly here. I like the Kaka Kittens' big hoods too and think they're very cute and very eyecatching and I adore them always—the kittens especially being stompy little things that travel in packs are really cute. I love that Jubei, actual strongest thing in the world, has the oversized paw sleeves too. There's cat claws bigger than his body stored in what looks like emo kids' oversize hoodie sleeves. He's so simple and still the imagery of that coat gets reused several times over and it looks good every time. Orange kitty peepaw. AND he has an eyepatch, how can I not like eyepatches.

There are my 5 favourite BlazBlue designs :> Sorry if them all being C series or smth is boring wauh. I can spend as long as I want thinkinh about it but I do always seem to come back to these guys, give or take one change depending on the mood. Unchanging faves are Hakumen and Tsubaki for sure and forever though.

[tiger-moran]

also random note but i FINALLY got around to watching Granada Holmes, and FINALLY seeing the canon story of A Scandal in Bohemia

i would like to join the Godfrey Norton Protection Society and also the Irene Norton (née Adler) Protection Society because what in God's fucking name are all these adaptations doing with her????? i have so many thoughts (all good re: Irene, ofc), but most of them summed up are -

do the people who adapt her character for other works not have a LICK of media literacy about them? at all? she writes Holmes a fucking letter EXPLAINING WHY SHE DID IT and they're like "mm yeah shes an evil vindictive seductress who would release these compromising pictures at the drop of a hat xoxo"

Honestly both of them are portrayed so badly in almost everything, so many people can't seem to stand the idea that Adler isn't a villain or the pawn of a villain or that she isn't interested in Holmes in that way and that she can choose for herself who she wants to be with and be in the right about him and him being a decent man who genuinely loves her. Godfrey has been killed off or else portrayed as an abuser (usually meaning she has to be rescued from him by Holmes, of course) in so many texts, or in one story I remember even though she supposedly loved him she still went behind his back to sleep with Holmes. One also had her killing him shortly after they were married too if I remember rightly. (Adler being an international spy and her and Moriarty being in love is a new one to me but if anything I found that even worse than most of the other portrayals of her.)

Then I come on here and see bullshit 'hot takes' about them in my tracked tags including "I am reeling from the fact that the gothic fiction tumblr fandom is currently elevating the shit out of Norton, a completely nothing background character in a Sherlock Holmes story, only because he MIGHT love his wife back. Anyway Irene Adler is a lesbian and Norton was her comphet crush she got divorced from" so stuff like that is always fun to see, not.

I mean there are a handful of stories that have portrayed one or both of them pretty well (though unfortunately most of those tend to be stories I don't otherwise like) but yeah, they're both portrayed really badly or else Godfrey just gets completely erased and ignored so, so often. The Granada episode was one of the very rare things that didn't do them a huge injustice.

I love both of them, cos Adler is not a villain - she might well commit certain crimes sometimes for various reasons including maybe even just because it amuses her but she's not an actual criminal, she's not a villain and she's not being manipulated by a villain, she's not a terrible person, but she is unorthodox and probably someone who many people would regard at least with suspicion if not outright hostility, because she's an 'adventuress'. She's the kind of person many men then might want as their mistress but never as their wife. But Godfrey is a respectable sort of man but he knows all this about her and he still loves her and he is prepared to not only marry her but also apparently uproot his entire life to try to protect her from one of her ex-lovers, a man who almost certainly has far more wealth and power and influence than both of them.

A Scandal in Bohemia does interest me not only because of them but also because it puts Holmes on totally the wrong side initially; it has him behaving actually really dishonourably towards a woman who behaves with nothing but kindness towards him and it's only by the end of it he truly realises he is on the wrong side and that Adler was a victim not a villain. (I do still love the idea that does fit in the canon that it was Moriarty who warned Adler about Holmes after he had been approached himself by the king to get the photograph back but had refused to help him. I do love the thought of Moriarty too being captivated by her, just as Holmes is, in a way that's not remotely romantic or sexual, and in this Moriarty was the one who was on the right side while Holmes was in the wrong.)

I would love to have something which has Irene (or her and Godfrey preferably) interacting with Moriarty in a positive way - not her being his pawn or victim or 'love interest' (*barfs*) or being Moriarty herself (also not with her outwitting Moriarty because he's portrayed as a sort of 'bumbling idiot' almost) but as with everything it seems for this to exist I have to write it myself.

[liesmyth]

re: the Cytherea Was Faking Her Cancer conspiracy theory

She’s melodramatic. She is, arguably, the most dramatic of a very dramatic cast. She's fully committed to the Seventh House tagline. The Rose Unblown, the Beautiful Death. She lounges dramatically in frilly dresses and a large hat. She met God and didn’t kiss him back because it would smear her lipstick. She swoons. She coughs blood on pale cloth handkerchiefs. She wears lace. She embodies the concept of Romantic, and what she’s romanticizing is death by consumption.

She’s a Lyctor. Yes, ascension didn’t cure her cancer because it froze her body as it was in that instant, but Lyctors are able to manipulate the concentration of cells in their body. Harrow is able to purge her kidneys and thicken her body fat, not to mention shut like regrowing limbs. Cytherea’s body is full of cancer but those cells are just there; they aren’t multiplying anymore. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to just cordon them off somewhere within her own body - and I would bet that it’s what she does, unless she needs to play it up for drama. Imagine Cytherea arguing with Mercymorn, and her coughing blood dramatically when she runs out of comebacks. Then she swoons until Mercy apologizes. This is just Peak Cytherea

Yes, she did say she has “been dying for ten thousand years”. She has “kept dying all this time” — Yeah, yeah. But this is the same woman who said that the real tragedy is not death, it’s life. “Being left behind by those who pass away... the total lack of control … Once somebody dies, their spirit’s free forever.” I posit, once again, that she was being dramatic. She’s come to resent immortality and would curse it regardless, cancer cells or not.

But Palamedes said she has been in horrible pain for millenia! — Palamedes is very smart but he doesn’t know everything, especially how Lyctors’ bodies work. He thought his trick would kill her; it didn’t. He’d been scanning Cytherea’s body as it currently was, chockfull of cancer cells, and assumed that was always true. These people can regrow limbs! I’m sorry Pal but u wrong.

Speaking of Lyctors, at her funeral no one says “she’s been suffering from cancer all her life”. They’re all “she was funny!” “she laughed too much” “the only good thing Loveday did was kill herself so Cyth could live!” I don’t think you would say that if your cheery serial killer friend had been in excruciating pain every day for ten thousand years.

I rest my case. She was playing it up for THE DRAMA.

EDIT: because I might have not been clear — there’s no questioning she did have cancer, and the “default” mode of her body was very advanced cancer, and she had to actively use her powers to keep it at bay. But I also believe she did keep it at bay most of the time, and it wasn’t nearly as widespread or as painful as it had been when she was alive. In GtN, she does stuff like coughing up blood just at the right moment when she wants people to remember how weak she is or distract from a conversation, and I think this is not a new habit but something she's been doing for most of her immortality.

(On a more serious note I do have thoughts on her playing it up as a sort of coping mechanism, like someone making off-colour jokes about their own affliction. But everything about Cytherea is a performance, and she dramatizes her struggles like she does everything else)