#must be the bad guy or otherwise perceived as the bad guys

[jimothy-g-brooks]

Kitchen Sink Urbana: Global Superhero Teams

The Peacekeeper Society

The Global Council is this Earth's rough equivalent of the United Nations, founded a century ago after the near cataclysmic conflagration of the Greater War. Supersoldiers of every stripe and shape and nation played a huge role in that conflict, a not inconsiderable number of them being WMD's in their own right. Since the stated aim of the Council was to prevent such a global catastrophe yet again, it organized the constituent nations' supers into the Peacekeeper Society.

A century removed from its founding, Council and Society have evolved and changed beyond their original purpose. The Peacekeeper Society now represent the world governments' voluntary superhuman task force and emergency response unit. They respond to wide scale disasters and aid mundane authorities in international crime with no clear jurisdiction.

Obedient of the laws of the lands and the world as a whole to a fault; they are not here to use their superhuman might to supersede the authority of the people. They are here to work with the authorities and render all the aid that they can to uphold the law and work as examples to others to strive to. Symbols of hope and peace.

The "core" team, the ones listed in the official public documents with their names and pictures on the websites, are a little bit of a PR stunt. A member from each major nation and then one from each continent from a non-major nation, specially chosen to display the wide diversity of peoples there are on Earth. Photogenic appeal and a lack of scandals is also necessary to make the cut.

Even with that handicap for choice, the Society has a whole planet to pick and choose the best and the brightest. And when a desirable asset doesn't fit the diversity quota or has a few too many black mark on their record, then they can still go on the unofficial reserve team and be equally compensated. They're picked for their ability and competency, and skill in heroics, diplomacy and legal minutiae, screened for their capacity to obey the edicts of the Council and whatever nations they're sent to operate in.

Each constituent nation with a charter with the Peacekeepers often has their own branch team, usually referred as the national Peacekeeper Society. IE, like the American Peacekeeper Society, as it might be on our Earth. They're almost always local mirrors of the Global Peacekeeper Society, with members chosen out of a combination of ability and good press and a semi-secret reserve team filled out with members purely for their competence.

The Enforcers

Founded 50 years ago by certain members of the Peacekeepers that had become dissatisfied. Not by the pageantry, they understood the necessity, to give people symbols and role models. Not by the restrictions, because they agreed that men and women of such power should not be allowed to operate unabated. But by the failures that the need to adhere to both had caused.

The Enforcers were neither the first nor the last to try to form a more law-breaking vigilante group on a global scale, an organization that does things that aren't pretty or right but gets the job done. They are the only ones to still survive up until this point, where all other groups were disbanded and arrested by world authorities and the Peacekeeper Society.

No small part has this been because of the tacit approval by the Society and that because the Enforcers' founders understood why the Peacekeepers operated as they did. They knew that powerful people needed to be seen and cheered for playing by the rules and that if they were going to break those rules, they needed to be jeered. This is why they call themselves the Enforcers, to put the public on edge about their existence and their actions.

They're hard men making hard decisions, but there is in fact some amount of public relations going on or anti-pr more accurately. They go out of their way to be disliked by the mainstream and have themselves presented as shady loose canons by the press. They seed rumors that they're the governments' shady black op deniable assets to discourage the admiration of fringe groups as well.

They have far fewer numbers than the Peacekeeper Society and all its branches around the world and the reason for that is two and a half fold. First and a half, slower recruitment, in part because almost nobody wants to join a pack of barely paid vigilantes that nobody else likes and the other part is that said vigilantes want almost nobody to join them, screening for the contradictory values of willingness to break the rules and distaste for the same. The second part is because, recently, a schism in the Enforcers broke off and formed a third group, a smaller but a significant chunk, some 20 years ago.

The Guardians Of The Earth

Thought to be future supervillains in the making by their former comrades, certainly not helped by the fact that their ultimate goal is, not to put too fine a point on it, world domination. They don't broadcast this fact and they haven't made any overt moves in that direction just yet either. Their former comrades in the Enforcers only have pretty good guess work on their motivations, piecing together the rhetoric of this faction's founders as they radicalized the others.

The founders of the Guardians believe that superheroes, due to a combination of their superpowers and more specifically the unaccountability those superpowers grant, and their track record for benevolence and public service, would be superior and incorruptible world leaders. The unaccountability is important, the ability to act and aid the public as problems arose without having to worry about laws, special interests or the willingness of your subordinates, politics. If superheroes ruled the world, they could do what was right, when it was right to do so and not have to worry about any opposition or red tape. Or such was and has been the the growing rhetoric of the founders, fed to their followers and those who would listen and radicalizing them over years.

A major obstacle to the founders' plan is that they are very obsessed with doing it right. They don't want to turn into supervillains at the last minute, in part because that will just get them squashed. Their plans for world domination need to be done heroically and correctly. That means they spend their time seemingly a whole lotta nothing, besides actual superhero vigilantism, ala the Enforcers. What this means is that some of their followers, the ones they've radicalized, grow frustrated with this inaction and are liable to go rogue. None have yet, but a few of the Guardians have disappeared.

In fact, the founders' plans are constantly on slow, steady progress, as far as they're concerned anyway. Doing superhero vigilantism like the Enforcers is the point. Unlike the Enforcers, they also do PR, or they do the opposite kind of PR. They're trying to get the public to cheer for them whenever they break the rules to do what's right. Slowly eroding the public's reticence towards their shenanigans, their suspicions and reservations, until the Guardians are allowed to do whatever the want and are effectively the rulers, the Lawgivers, of the Earth.

In a way, the Enforcers already did that, paving the way for them. Fifty years ago, a group like the Guardians would have been disbanded by the Peacekeepers at the urging of the public and the authorities. After years of the Enforcers doing their thing with the tacit approval of those would have otherwise stopped them, people have gotten accustomed to unaccountable superheroics and it's only the PR angle that's different.

[toskarin]

some mostly flippant rambles on including elves in the Saltreave (that fantasy setting I write when I'm not working on my more serious projects) along with some setting notes in the margins

well. the setting notes are like 90% of the body of the text.

but we do get to elves. and we stay at elves for a while.

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THERE IS NO ZERO IN THE ROMAN NUMERAL SYSTEM: Prologue to the Preramble

so I've written about my thoughts on elves as sort of "narrative level lifeforms" before, and that's still very much where my thoughts lie on them, but there are also just kind of elves around as fairly normal people in the Saltreave

this is a bit of a blurry line, because they're obviously not the nature-loving type of elf you see post-Tolkien -- which I'll go ahead and say feels like a deliberately obtuse misread of what Tolkien was implying by them living in harmony with a world that is literally described as the manifestation of a song -- but the bottom line is that Saltreave's elves aren't Tolkien elves, and they're not attempting to be subversions of them, but they are written by someone who quite likes those guys

all of that raises another question: what the hell are elves in the Saltreave?

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I: Preramble

I put a bit of an information abyss at the beginning of the setting by design, outright saying that the "pre-apocalypse" might as well not exist at all.

to some extent you can say that it must have existed, and there is a bit of scattered writing that implies things about the state of affairs the world was in (mostly in terms of the politics between mortal civilisations and how that manifests in the modern politics of the remaining citystates), but the Advent is where the story starts

the most common explanations of what things were like before the current era are, at the end of the day, just attempts to explain what the people living in it are presently perceiving

the Advent, used as shorthand for a million things that each mean something different to everyone, is either the end of the world or the end of the old order of things. it is both the death of the symbolic plane and its violent merging with the material plane, severing every connection to the symbolic along the way

a bit further down that line of thought, even the present magic system gestures towards being derived from an older practice that was forced to adapt to sudden shift of the central symbolic source to a source diffused unevenly in the material plane, although from what exactly this magic system was forced to adapt remains a bit of a mystery

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II: Into the Ramble

the Saltwind (the thing that gives the setting its name and effectively wiped out the previous world) is actually harmless

or more accurately, it's a visible symptom of an invisible problem, and that invisible problem is extremely harmful in a way nothing else could possibly hope to be

the "salt" in the wind is actually just salt. it's a lot of salt, but it's still just recognisably some sort of organic salt if you were to hold it in your hands

the salt is both the result of the Advent and a vessel for carrying "warped grain," an invisible ripple of magical static that functions more or less like (non-mutagenic, because I'm actually not a fan of using that as an apocalypse fiction concept) magical radiation

warped grain takes on a bunch of roles, so let's go over a few of those in relative brief

the one most commonly acknowledged fact is that warped grain is a soul-destroying pollution. it's bad stuff. it's poison that seeps into everything. it's in the water, it's in the air, it gets into the food as it grows, and you need to affiliate yourself with a citystate that has access to unpolluted (or otherwise purified) supplies to survive in the world as it exists

a bit less commonly (mostly when scholars and other big-hats talk about it) it's acknowledged as a sort of ambient magical noise that makes spells more unpredictable and dangerous. it can also periodically "complete" a spell if you take too long casting it, making it do something unintended (often killing the caster)

in a pinch, warped grain can be absorbed into the body as some kind of environmental magic energy, allowing someone to replenish their depleted magical energy and forgo resting to generate their own*

*: absorbing environmental energy in a world where it's literally poisoned will also eventually fuck up your soul beyond repair, so it's a really stupid idea and not something any serious magic-user would recommend

but most importantly for why elves are around, warped grain can be seen as the frayed threads of a decapitated cosmological order, death-rattling itself apart

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III: Rambling About Elves, Mostly

because of their intimate connection to the disrupted symbolic plane of the world, the elves who were alive at the time of the Advent were grievously injured, experiencing the soul equivalent of radiation-induced chromosome aberration, and died a few years later. the generations following this one represent the entirety of the remaining elven population

this means that all modern elves can theoretically be divided into two categories

Selvedge Elves - while ostensibly referring to one of "pureblooded" elven stock, meaning someone whose parentage has never included a mortal. the elephant in the room is that Selvedge Elves aren't real and haven't been for quite some time. an actual Selvedge Elf had a lifespan of about 20-25 years and was not capable of having children, on account of being a wholly symbolic being born into a world where the symbolic plane exploded like an asbestos ceiling. "Selvedge" exists as a highly ideologically-charged concept, and not exactly one that lends itself to any non-reactionary interpretations

Scion Elves - everyone else. all elves currently alive are demimortal, which means that they have at least a bit of mortal parentage. even beyond elves, there are no immortals left in the Saltreave, but their descendants are absolutely still around. the term "Scion" refers to those descendants, but given that there isn't really a group to draw them in contrast to, most people prefer not to use it at all.

now it's worth mentioning, while they're all partially mortal, not all currently existing elves are specifically partially human. the stereotypical elf is human or similar, but there's nothing stopping an elf from being, say, a sylvan (the broad category of mortals who have animal ears and such)

Luuga, a character I've posted a few times, would be considered an elf if her status as a sylvan didn't make people identify that first. that's why she has longer, narrower ears than other feline-type sylvans (contrast the only other example I've drawn, Imiellith, and how her ears are much stouter)

more on sylvans and other types of mortal at some later time, but with everything out of the way, let's get down to some elf facts

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IV: Indulgently Rambling About Elf Facts at Great Length

elves theoretically have different lifespans from mortal beings, which is something they have in common with other demimortals. elves specifically live about ten years longer on average than mortals, provided they don't die of unnatural causes, which they usually do.

additionally, they have a few notable traits that are more specific to elves

(an egregious number of) examples of these include...

elves only breathe as a learned social behaviour and theoretically don't actually need to do it. the same goes for yawning, coughing, sweating, sneezing, and similar functions. somewhat unfortunately for them, because most living things know they need to breathe, elves are still perfectly capable of knowing they need to breathe, which means they're capable of suffocating. in theory, an elf raised by people deliberately trying not to teach them about breathing wouldn't have to breathe, but that's not really a good way to raise a child

elves tire more based on time rather than effort. this is a subtle distinction, but means that an elf can exert more effort in a burst than a mortal companion, yet drops from exhaustion as soon as they've reached the limit of how long they can work. most people never notice this, since "the limits of exerted effort" and "the limits of time spent exerting effort" overlap heavily

elves are about five times more likely to die of old age on their birthday than any other day, but only if they're aware of their birthday. this is something most people are aware of, and different cultures grapple with this in different ways

in cultures with different calendars, the previous point also holds true. in cultures without the concept of something equivalent to a "year," elves just die of old age in more or less the same way mortals do

an elf's hair has a length it wants to be, with the specific length varying between individuals. if cut, it will grow faster back to this length. it cannot be grown longer than this by any means

elves tend to be quick to grasp spoken language, but a bit slower when it comes to grasping written language. this isn't always true, and when it is, doesn't tend to manifest past initial language acquisition

in exception to the previous point, elves are prone to grasping pasigraphies at the same (often accelerated) rate with which they grasp spoken languages. if the conditions were ever to arise for a wholly elven-developed language, it would likely have no direct written component, with all writing consisting of a highly contextual pasigraphy

elves stereotypically have exceptional memories when it comes to things that catch their interest. it's not uncommon for elven big-hats to keep a small stash of special expensive candies entirely for the purpose of forcing themselves to have eidetic memory for something they're disinterested in by associating it with extremely positive stimulus

because of the previous point, there is a notable market for making luxury treats aimed specifically at elven academics in cities they frequent

because of the two previous points, elven academics often develop pleasure-deprivation complexes, feeling guilty whenever they experience positive emotions that don't lend themselves to furthering their work

the previous three points are only true if they are generally understood to be true in the location where the individual is raised

if tested, most elves would appear to be colourblind. a deeper examination would reveal that elves only struggle with telling green and blue, and that this difficulty persists into the very concept of green and blue, which they struggle with disentangling in abstract. this is also true of elves with most other colexifications because I got annoyed with constantly reading people on tumblr doing pseudolinguistics and thought it'd be a little funny to have the Symbolic People run on the faulty assumptions I kept seeing

elves can get so sad they just physically die

elves can theoretically recover from any acquired disease provided that they receive adequate and comprehensive treatment for the symptoms

nothing can reduce an elf's pain to the point where they don't notice it. sedatives work, but analgesics simply do not

elves can theoretically die of any disease (no matter how minor it is) if it lasts long enough

in the same vein as the previous point every chronic illness is effectively a terminal one to an elf. the exception to this rule is that an elf will not die of a chronic illness they are born with, even if the same chronic illness would eventually prove to be terminal in a mortal

elves cannot leave permanent footprints, regardless of what they're wearing and where they try to leave them. if an elf were to step in cement, the bootprint would eventually disappear in the same way that it would if they'd stepped in sand

contrary to the previous point, if an elf writes in ink, the ink cannot be smudged or otherwise distorted on accident. the writing can still be lost by destroying the object it's on or deliberately attempting to smudge it, but this requires intention

while elves are exceptionally capable of performing magic without any formal education, this is actually the result of them being able to open the immortal component of their souls to grain, including warped grain, and therefore should never be done. this is true of most demimortals, with the mortal component of their soul being the safeguard that prevents their souls from being torn apart in the same way their ancestors' were

elves grow to be about as tall as is normal for them to be where they are raised. this is a bit counter-intuitive at first blush, but more or less means that an elf (regardless of specific heritage and origin) will grow to the height that is generally understood to be "normal for an elf" in the location where they are growing

in a similar vein to the previous point, an elf raised by mortals with no knowledge of elves (especially without knowledge that the child is an elf) will not show any physical traits of being an elf. this is an unlikely event that requires like three sets of perfect circumstances to happen, but it's not off the table

in a similar vein to the two previous points, dominant cultural understandings have a causal influence on certain other things considered "elven features," but the only evidenced ones besides height are ear length, ear angle, degree of facial hair, number of ribs, and the exact position in the chest where the heart resides

as a final note, elves always have both palmaris longus tendons, unless they are explicitly understood to lack one or both, as with previous points

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V: Drawing Some Kind of Conclusion From Rambling About Elves. But Not Really.

this is all a very long way of saying that elves (and other demimortals) represent "those who have lost their plot armour" in a setting where the symbolic plane was seemingly once something running parallel to the material world and now exists most prominently as a severed limb bleeding all over it

because no written history of the immortals was preserved in the Advent, knowledge of the old world is heavily slanted towards a mortal perspective, containing only outside views into the symbolic plane's nature

there is nobody left alive who remembers the world before, several generations having passed since then, but to those who were told that they fell from a world of elevated importance and meaning, it can be especially tempting to view the old world as a halcyon paradise that was ruined

what remains is largely conflicting and disputed. most have long since moved on from litigating these things, faced with a world where it would make no difference

[dr-spectre]

As someone who's been in multiple fandom circles and calls themselves a Splatoon fan, I've seen a lot of focus and discussion on "THE LORE!!" and "CANON!!!" and to be honest with you... it's getting really tiring and I think people are just WAY TOO obsessed with what a wiki or an intern at Nintendo says rather than forming their own perspective on events and coming to their own unique conclusions.

Now, I wanna say, if talking about lore and discussing which elements are canon or not makes you happy and you love talking about that, then that's perfectly okay. It's fine. It's not for ME personally because my focus on Splatoon is the gameplay, music and the storytelling chops of each Hero Mode.

Story >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Canon for me any day of the week i do not care.

Because, to get away from Splatoon for a second, for my Sonic fans out there, you remember when Sega and the people behind the show Sonic Prime said that it was canon to the mainline Sonic timeline? And if you said otherwise you were technically wrong because "oh Sega said this, so it MUST be true!"

........But then everyone said that Sonic Prime cannot be canon to the mainline Sonic timeline because it has a fuck ton of inconsistencies? Yeah.... funny. Basically, don't put a lot of focus into "what actually happened" and "oh this is what the multi billion dollar corporation said!" because there's always gonna be one guy out there that goes "um this information kinda fucking damages the story in a severe way." (And sometimes that one guy is me.... hehehehe....)

I could obviously talk about.... you know.... Hypno Callie again for the 50th trillion time.... (and i will)..... This bitch.... I wanna love you girlie i really fucking do but Nintendo and millions of people make it hard to....

Nintendo set up Callie's villain arc decently in Splatoon 1 with the Splatfest dialogue, the Squid Sister stories and the Sunken Scrolls, yet they ultimately damaged the progression of the arc by saying "nah fuck u she got kidnapped and brainwashed, removing all of her memories and free will because fuck telling a good story with satisfying set up and pay off that allows for character growth. Fundamentals of storytelling? What are those?" And it also destroyed Callie as a character by reducing her to an object that the player "must save from da evil Octavioooo" and "oh look at her! She put the stupid brainwashing shades onnn againnn!! such a dumb fucking moron dumbass piece of shit right guys?!? lmaoooooooooo!! explore the dangers of addiction and how you need to seriously change your life and be surrounded by those you love in order to change bad habits?? Themes?? PFFTTT! NAWWW! THAT'S LAMEEEE!! It's Callie! No one cares about Callie!! She's stupiddd!!!"

(I talked about Callie in a tumblr comment section one time and I got made fun of for by a guy way older than me. I love humanity.)

It also ruined DJ Octavio's character too because, if what Nintendo said is true about what he did then he cannot be redeemed in Splatoon 3. He cannot go back on the shit he's done. But they try to redeem him out of nowhere and now he's all chill with the New Squidbeak Splatoon and appeared in the Grand Fest.... Yet what he did to Callie which Nintendo loves to push is truly TRULY unredeemable and if that's the case then welp.... I call that bad writing, straight up. It's bad writing.

I really hate it when something happens in a story and you perceive it in a certain way where you feel like it elevates the events, but then the company behind the story chooses to pick the worst outcomes possible just because? And everyone rolls with it just cause? Ugh...

Lesson of today is, don't fucking listen obsessively to what a company says and suck it up. Consume media and come to your own conclusions on what happened. As long as you have tangible evidence to back up your claims you can make any interpretation you want to, whatever makes you feel happy bestie!

[bestworstcase]

Anything from Volumes 1-3 that is setup that you don't think is given enough attention or respect for good setup?

Sidenote to this:

Open seat with no person in it + Salem having someone looking for the Choice Relic was hinting at Summer Rose. Did we have anything hinting at her pre Beacon's Fall or just things that she fits given additional context?

regarding summer specifically, while i wouldn’t call them hints per se, there are a handful of beats in v1-3 that smell like foreshadowing to me:

the first is “she was right about you; such arrogance.” – cinder might well be referring to salem here, of course. however. what strikes me about this remark is that arrogance is not a characteristic that salem seems to perceive in ozma; rather she describes him, in her soliloquies and songs, as a self-destructive, deceitful, manipulative fool blinded and trapped by his faith in the old gods. cowardly. fallen from grace. think of what she says to oz in 8.9—look how you’ve diminished, how you’ve lessened yourself—she sees him groveling at the feet of tyrannical monsters and sees debasement.

does it follow for salem to characterize ozpin to cinder as, primarily, arrogant? i’m not convinced it does. but summer rose? well… hm. consider, also, that the full line is “this whole time, right beneath our feet… she was right about you; such arrogance…” <- i think it is more likely than not that “she” is someone inside the brackets of “our,” and in context “our” is either [cinder + ozpin] or [cinder + her associates physically present at beacon].

in the event that “she” is not part of “our” the more naturalistic phrasing is “beneath our feet… salem was right about you” – because “she” otherwise has no antecedent. of course, some allowance here for this to be a narrative choice not to name salem yet, but we’re one (1) episode off from revealing her face and by this point we’ve known for a while that cinder works for someone else, so the choice to drop the name here or in the volume credits is of fairly trivial importance. unless of course cinder isn’t talking about salem.

second: “Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys, too! I guess it's like they say: "like mother, like daughter"! I still wonder why Ozpin let me into the school early…” [laugh track] – obv this part of ruby’s address to summer’s memorial headstone foreshadows ozpin’s conspiracy and team strq’s involvement therein. but it also foreshadows this exchange:

RUBY: We don’t have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me… she was wrong, too.

and i think it bears pointing out that ruby is wrong here, and later in the volume qrow specifically calls attention to this and lays out why she’s wrong. team rwby didn’t stop the bad guys; they cut off one avenue of attack and cinder circled around from a new direction that took advantage of torchwick’s imprisonment, and this also resulted in the public break between ozpin and ironwood which eroded the cohesion of the inner circle. ergo, ruby thinks she stopped the bad guys but in the long run the consequences of the breach all benefited salem.

looks into the camera like im on the office.

like mother, like daughter!!!

further, that sequence of events ultimately leads to the final confrontation between her and torchwick – wherein he declares “if you can’t beat them, join ’em,” and shortly gets eaten by a grimm right after making it clear that he intends to kill her. torchwick’s death is thematically motivated – a narrative rejection of his cynical every-man-for-himself, dog-eats-dog outlook – but consider that:

summer rose, if she is indeed salem’s willing agent, is certainly at beacon tonight – because she’d be the one who stayed behind to hold the fort.

summer is thus the one salem instructs to “reinforce our numbers at beacon,” meaning the grimm; that instruction only makes sense if the person receiving it can communicate with or command grimm. ergo, summer must have some degree of control over grimm.

ruby is disarmed and on the ground getting beaten by a man who fully intends to kill her, and a grimm swoops down out of nowhere to eliminate him faster than he can blinks. and then… the grimm rears up, roaring at her, and comes down with a sweep of its wings that creates a blast of air that pushes her away. that isn’t aggression!! that’s a defensive threat display!! (the feilong in v4 does the exact same thing – trying to push the boat away). it’s ruby who charges the gryphon, and while it lunges forward in reaction to her charge, all that happens is she gets her feet on its head and pushes off to leap over it, and the grimm goes fucking flying so hard it crashes into the ship’s interior and never emerges. the point being,

math.

it’s plausible that the grimm was drawn to torchwick’s murderous rage. but the way it behaves immediately after it swallows him – that very clear “get away from me please” body language, and ruby -apparently- kicking a grimm the size of a goddamned clydesdale dozens of feet and then through the hull of a literal warship? ruby is strong, but she’s not… that strong. but if the grimm didn’t want to engage her and propelled itself under and past her at the same time as she vaulted off its head? that would explain what happens perfectly – ruby’s kick altered its launch trajectory just enough that it crashed.

minutes later, someone loyal to salem scraped a very badly injured cinder off the top of beacon tower and left ruby alive where qrow would find her. salem’s vested interest in keeping ruby alive is VISIBLE throughout the battle for beacon, and notably include a perfect opportunity to capture her while she’s in a coma atop beacon tower that isn’t taken – suggesting that salem makes her singular attempt to capture ruby solely to reassure cinder that Something is being Done.

and if summer rose has command over grimm and was at beacon that night… the gryphon’s behavior is exactly what i’d expect if all the grimm had marching orders to insure this one girl in particular – the spitting image of their commander – doesn’t come to serious harm. there’s a nonzero chance that gryphon did in fact save ruby On Purpose!

…and that happens in the context of a fight between ruby and the bad guy she thought she stopped (but she was wrong), who joined salem because “if you can’t beat em, join em.” (salem voice) she was wrong, too…

also

<- like mother like daughter. summer had a nevermore’s eye view of the battle for beacon, in this essay i will –

third: this one is something i didn’t really Think About until v9 and specifically the v9 ost dropping, but some of the things cinder says in v2-3 strike me as like – she got that from summer im sure of it. for example, in midnight, cinder’s view of huntsmen is that they’re free, they have power, they can go anywhere and do whatever they want, and rhodes never contradicts this. where did she get “huntsmen and huntresses should conduct themselves with honor and mercy”? who taught her the aspirational moral ideal?

summer rose, maybe.

but in the deeper sense,

where did cinder get the ‘destiny’ conceit? her underlying beliefs about how the world is are a product of her childhood, but the overt framing of fate/destiny isn’t present in midnight; nor has salem ever spoken of destiny and her philosophical views are in many ways a rejection of destiny – salem does not believe in fate, she is the woman who dedicated her life to toppling the gods.

and on close examination this looks like yet another suspiciously summer rose shaped hole!! “you’re special, ruby […] special the way your mom was special […] it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior.” – in after the fall, ozpin gives coco an entire pep talk whose central conceit is embracing and submitting to the turns of fate – sacrifice “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees” & guide my way “you were born to hypnotize them all/they all said their prayers/can you hear me up there?”

cinder, of pyrrha: “people assume she’s fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands. interesting. add her to the list.” & “it’s not about overpowering the enemy; it’s about taking away what power they have.”

<- that second statement is salem’s strategic doctrine, through and through. but the ‘power’ cinder is talking about here is derived through manipulating the perception of destiny; the self-fulfilling prophecy. the invincible girl cannot be touched because she makes subtle adjustments to insure that no one is able to try. it is pyrrha’s belief in destiny that destroys her, as it destroys ozma. ozpin invokes fate to justify and explain his choices. those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the lives of warriors.

summer rose was destined to live and die fighting the grimm – so the world promised her. maybe she believed, maybe she felt like she had no choice but to accept her prescribed fate. until she met salem, and took fate into her own hands. made a choice. broke the chains. it’s about taking away what power they have, like salem did when she tore the scales from summer’s eyes, like summer did when she refused her destiny and joined hands with the grimm instead.

what does summer rose look like through cinder’s eyes? she was a huntress. she was literally destined to be one of the greatest huntresses in history, a hero, the shining pillar upholding the world order that chose the enslavement of children as a fair price for peace. fate dictated that she be the icon, the idol, the embodiment of the system that brutalized and subjugated cinder – she had every privilege cinder could ever dream of, freedom and security and a home, a loving family ��� and she chose to walk away.

and if they talked about that like, ever, and specifically if summer talked about that warrior’s destiny as a cage, a curse she had to escape – is it any wonder that cinder would adopt that framing to make sense of what happened to her? if summer rose was fated to stand at the pinnacle, then does it not follow that cinder fall was fated to be ground into the foundations? and likewise, if summer rose can shatter her pedestal and fall from grace, then cinder fall can shatter her chains and rise. summer proves that the idea of destiny is powerful but not inviolate. and it is hollow, it is a lie, a fiction, and that means it can be taken away. revealed as a deception. destroyed.

anyway

to the broader question

i think people really, really do not give the jaundice arc enough credit for the long-term set up it’s doing.

(or the very overt textual statement from THE HISTORY PROFESSOR! placing the blame for the violent radicalization of the white fang squarely on human bigotry and persecution of faunus in general; the white fang arc is clunky and hamstrung by the inadequacy of its vocabulary, but the fandom talking point that the narrative perspective on this subject has “evolved” or “improved” is just. not true. v1 is very emphatically clear that 1. terroristic violence is not activism, 2. ascribing the terroristic violence of a few to an entire minority group to rationalize bigotry is bigoted in and of itself and completely unacceptable, and 3. violent radicalization is created through relentless discrimination and hate, which creates a self-reinforcing circle wherein the justifiable outrage of the persecuted outgroup and the extreme violent reactions provoked by the persecution are distorted into a justification for further persecution by those of the in-group who materially benefit from perpetuating this cycle!!! all of this is explained in an almost afterschool special manner by the main character faunus rights activist and the history professor!!! in volume one!!! what changed is that the writers developed the skill and vocabulary necessary to weave these ideas into their storytelling in a more effective and more cogent way!!! literally begging the rwby fandom to start listening to the actual words the characters say)

ahem. the jaundice arc lays so much of the groundwork for jaune’s and ruby’s character arcs reaching all the way to v9 and undoubtedly beyond; it sets up the first pieces of the ozlem fractal; it foreshadows the white fang arc and sets up blake’s character arc of self-reclamation and figuring out how she wants to use her voice as an activist; it draws attention to the misogynistic cultural norms that define and are defined by the history between ozma and salem; it lays the foundation for the scene in v2 where ozpin questions blake, which hits the way it does because we have the context of anti-faunus harassment occurring openly at ozpin’s school and nobody doing anything about it, and by extension is the first stroke of the salem-faunus connection that is almost certainly the keystone holding the entire narrative together because it is her relation to the faunus that provides the key to decipher the lost fable.

the jaundice arc is a crucial load-bearing pillar that supports the entire narrative and people revile it because nobody in this fandom can be fucking normal about jaune. lmao

[zoeykallus]

Hi buddy. I have an idea. You can ignore it if you want to. Can you write the bad batch + rex as the reader's dad? Like how they treat their children, how many offspring they want. That's it. Thank you for your attention. See ya

Aloha!

Well, this is new 😁 Let me see what I can do for you 😊

The Dad Batch x Offspring!Reader HCs

Warnings: None that I could think of. (Let Me know if I missed something)

___________________

Hunter

As soon as he realizes (after Order 66, presumably on Pabuu) that he now has the opportunity to lead a new life, and he finds the right partner, he really likes the idea of having children. In fact, he wants many children, at least four, preferably five or six. So you have a few siblings. Hunter is a very active Dad and likes to take his kids outdoors, camping, fishing, survival training and open fire barbecues. Boys and girls have to go, he makes no exception. For him, this is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the kids and teach you something in the process. He is fair, he treats all his children equally, although he is always a little more worried about his daughters, which comes automatically and he probably doesn't even realize it. Hunter values his children being able to make their own decisions, within reason, of course. There are rules that you must not break, otherwise you will be punished. He is gentle but also strict when necessary. However, he would never hit his children, not under any circumstances. In his opinion, a parent who has to hit their children to get their point across has failed entirely at being a parent.

Hunter will always openly involve his partner in parenting issues, no one is the good guy or the bad guy here. You all spend a lot of time outdoors, in the woods or by the sea, Hunter hopes that he can pass on his love of nature to you

Echo

He hesitates for quite a while before he really thinks about starting a family. It is only on Pabuu that the thought occurs to him for the first time. Echo is not planning a large family, one child, maybe two. He wants to stay within his means. Children have to be looked after, everything costs credits, and he wants to be able to offer his offspring everything, not just what children like to have, but also what they urgently need. Medical care, education and so on. All of which costs credits and, given the circumstances, it is unlikely that Echo and his brothers will become particularly rich. Echo therefore remains rather sensible in his family planning. He's the Dad who's very good at telling stories, when you first ask him to do it he's unsure at first, but he quickly catches fire for it, disguising his voice to mimic the characters in the story. His evening readings before bedtime are a real highlight, and somehow bedtime isn't so stupid when Daddy Echo is there to read stories.

So you probably only have one sibling, and you are both very loved and well cared for. Echo is overprotective, though, especially when you are young. He keeps a very close eye on what you do, where you go, who you hang out with, what you consume and so on. He makes sure you eat a balanced nutrition and usually cooks for the whole family himself whenever he can. Children often tend to perceive such behavior as sabotage or restrictive, but Echo does it out of pure love and concern for his kids.

Wrecker

Children love him, and he loves children. He is the first of his brothers to think about family and children, even before Hunter. If he finds a partner who will go along with the whole thing, he will have up to twelve children. Some of them adopted. He would love to look after all the children in the world. The giant has a heart that is as big as it is soft. Wrecker is playful and approachable, he will always go out of his way to make time for all his children, play games and visit amusement parks. But he also makes time for serious things and always has an open ear. So you probably have a lot of siblings and things are probably often pretty chaotic, but in Wrecker's house there is not only chaos, but also love and team spirit. It's important to him that you all learn to look out for each other, stand up for each other, be decent and never let anyone treat you badly.

Among your siblings are many adopted children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Wrecker wants to show all his children how good life can be, what there is to discover and learn and what is really important, that you are all loved, without exception.

Tech

You are most likely an only child. He is not only your father, but also your teacher. You're home-schooled, partly because of the Empire and the danger of being discovered. Besides, Tech is sure there is no better teacher than him.

Sometimes Tech has to be slowed down a little by his partner, every now, and then he tends to challenge you too much, but this balances out and Tech is very considerate and adaptable when you point this out to him.

Tech loves to tell stories, but also loves to listen. He is fascinated by seeing the world through your eyes, so he loves to listen to you talk and ask questions, describing things as you see them.

From a very early age, you have your own astromech on which Tech teaches you various things and which accompanies you everywhere. The astromech is practically like a pet and develops its own personality over time, evolving with you and your work on it over the years, so to speak.

Tech is a calm, level-headed representative, but also a protector. He will always look after you, no matter how old you are, you will always be his child and he will always be there when you need him.

Crosshair

You're an only child. Crosshair never really thought about having children, but at some point it happened. Don't worry, it may not have been planned, but Crosshair is getting to know a whole new side of himself through your existence. For him, being a father is like an instinct, his protective instinct, the caring, comes from deep within him. No matter how scared he was when you were born, he is a very proud father. Crosshair teaches you everything he knows, he cares, he protects you. He is very skeptical when you bring new friends home, he scrutinizes everyone and makes most of your friends a little nervous. But he's basically harmless as long as you're treated well. Crosshair likes to take you with him, teach you about things, listen to your stories. You'll hear him grumble now and again, but you'll also see him smirk. Every minute you spend with him is precious to him.

It is important to him that you never let yourself get down and that you don't bow your head to others and make yourself smaller than you are. You are something special, he tells you that again and again. Crosshair is sometimes stoic and can also be quite strict, but never to an exaggerated degree. Your safety is important to him, he doesn't compromise on that.

Rex

You probably have two or three siblings. Rex is as loving as he is strict. It's important to him that his children are decent, so he sets some rules, and he ensures that you follow them. Respect is important, but so is knowing that you have the same right to be treated with respect. Discipline and decency are just as important in his house as love and affection. Rex is an upright soldier, and this is also evident in his role as a father. Rex is not overly strict, but he insists on the rules he has laid down. This includes tidiness, so your rooms will rarely look like a bomb has gone off. Rex makes sure that you put your things away yourself and teaches you to treat your property and that of others with care. He likes to tell stories, makes the typical dad jokes and tries to make you laugh, no matter how often you tell him that his jokes are embarrassing. Rex just grins and already has the next joke on the tip of his tongue. Rex is a provider and a carer, it's in his nature. His children will never want for anything, he will see to that, no matter how difficult that may be at times.

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@projectdreamwalker

@1vlouds

[just-castlevania-imagines]

Hi, it's so good to see you guys again. I really missed your fantastic dearly, and I was wondering if you could do a Hector X reader one and how he would react to a very protective reader. Especially after what Carmela and Lenore did to him You can skip if you want anyways have an awesome day.

Oh I adore this. Hector is baby and we must give him lots of love.

Hector x Protective!Reader

When he first meets them he gives them the same general distrust he's always given people. There's a reason why he lived secluded before he met Dracula.

It takes a while for them to earn his trust. He is slowly won over probably by long conversations.

If they like animals it is a bonus. He has a weak spot and that's definitely it.

He doesn't notice that they're protective at first.

When he does, he dislikes it at first. He's been weak for so long. He doesn't need that. He's not naive anymore, he can take care of himself.

It's definitely a recurring argument.

It takes a while for him to realize and accept that the protectiveness doesn't come from them perceiving him as weak.

But out of care for him.

He's not used to it.

He wasn't loved by his parents, his general experiences with others; human or otherwise, have not been good.

So it shocks him.

But overtime he begins to enjoy being protected.

It means someone cares about him enough to.

It's a strange but welcome feeling.

Just don't overdo it. Otherwise he'll get upset again. It's nice being taken care of, but he wants to be independent enough to do it himself.

He feels like he needs to prove to himself he learned from his mistakes.

Being trusted to do it himself, after failing so many times.

So give him space.

But not too much. He learned that being around people isn't so bad.

Well, being around his special person.

-Mod Medusa.

[h-doodles]

BREAKING MY SILENCE!!!

sorry im late but i was spamming one bestie with some more analysis thoughts on the borb while half scrolling through my fyp bc i do curate my experience ya know. BUT YOU GUYS. EVERYONE TAKE SEVERAL STEPS BACK AND A DEEP BREATH.

@oneginn I get your point and your post and I respect that, and I personally apologize for the boundaries that were set off with regards to some of my reblogs! I do recognize romanticizing toxic behaviors is BAD and a point of extreme concern, especially in real life! HOWEVER, at the same time, like you said! exploring and liking the darker themes are a thing, and fundamentally, people expressing their thoughts about it is part of the process, especially when writing about it in fiction. I believe that as long we do recognize the proper warnings AND DO give warnings, it's perfectly sane for people to post whatever in our personal blogs. Not to mention that while fiction has the ability to influence reality, some times fiction IS just fiction, and saying this from a place of love: IT'S NOT ALWAYS THAT DEEP. Sometimes the girlies just want some unhinged absolute gratitious smut, some girlies want the most heart wrenching traumatizing angst, some people want the most rancid and unhealthy parts to see how worse they can go, and some girlies want the soft slice of life absolute peaceful fluff AND that's why fiction is great, it can contain ANYTHING! Of course, it is still important to keep a critical lens on everything we read, but it's also important to keep in mind that it's a space where people can explore their boundaries SAFELY.

@shortstrawberry GIRL. when you said that i couldn't help but agree for a hot moment, bc EVERYONE needs a chill pill. But at the same time the arguement that it's just fiction isn't gonna cut it, bc there are too many flavors of fiction for people NOT to react. Thus, my earlier statements: that Fiction is a safe place to explore one's thoughts, no matter how dark it gets, but at the same time we have the responsibility in learning to recognize that there are still certain critical thinking we MUST do in order to properly handle such things. Not everyone is comfortable in what we create, and thus warnings need be applied. But otherwise, it's free real estate!!!

ALSO ough what anyone writes OR creates doesn't reflect their mental health or mental state!!!!!!!!! please you guys. sometimes exploring the possibilities is just that. EXPLORING. it doesn't mean the creator is a monster or a freak for making it. all content is a piece of artistic rendition, and just because the message is unpalatable to your senses doesnt mean it's garbage, nor of need to be censored. If you don't like it, simply click block and go!!!!!

As for the rest of the reblogs in the respective posts. Y'ALL. you dont WANT to start the kinkshaming discourse. But i'm on the side of NO kink shaming. As long as it's safe, sane, and consensual, who are YOU to judge the people involved? ... Don't forget the roots of the queer community. Our lifestyle was just kink to the majority then, and still is perceived by many conservatives as such. LEARN.

[compacflt]

Hi, big fan of your fics. I've just found your Tumblr and binged everything Icemav-related. When reading about Icemav's political beliefs, I've gotten curious. Does Bradley share the same political beliefs as Ice (and Mav)? Does being raised by them or them pulling his papers influence how he votes? Or there are other factors in the play (e.g. generations, social media)? How about Jake and the other Daggers? How does this young generation of the Navy perceive politics (elections, gender, etc.)? My apologies for bombarding you with questions. But as a non-American, American politics have always been something we must pay attention to. I've seen many interesting interpretations on Tumblr but it feels more or less wistful than realistic, but I might be wrong (again not an American) so I would love to see your perspective on this. Thank you.

a good politics roundup post before i leave this blog

icemav & their conservatism: here, here, here

ice’s NECESSARY conservatism as commander of the pacific fleet (i.e. officers who are most likely to get promoted to the highest ranks do NOT break the service line when it comes to domestic politics, so by necessity ice would’ve had to keep his mouth shut, he Cannot be both a four-star and a revolutionary, like he just can’t; and being a revolutionary is otherwise antithetical to his character anyway): here, here.

and the original “ice & mav politics post” which is being updated here: here

I’ve gone back and forth on everyones politics over the last year of me being involved with these characters, but let me just tell you where I’ve ended up headcanoning them politically, if ur interested

ice: reagan democrat. “educated moderate” who was more right-leaning pre-9/11. now just a regular ol liberal (did you SEE those gay little round glasses in tgm? no way this guy isn’t a straight-up lib) with absolutely no strong feelings about most domestic politics besides “fascism bad”. Has some foreign policy opinions that areeeee questionable at best, like all members of the military elite (hangman voice: DO NOT ASK ICEMAN ABOUT CHINA. WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE). foreign policy neoliberal favoring the dovish side of the spectrum. A force conservator (“let’s save our military assets [read: my boyfriend maverick 🥺] for when we really need them, not for any old conflict. the deterring specter of the American war machine should outweigh the risk of underperforming”). He’s in favor of marriage equality of course, but treats it like a privilege and not a right. would be sad/upset if it got repealed but wouldn’t necessarily fight for it. “well at least my marriage will always be legal in california so i just won’t leave, problem solved.” Normie median Biden voter.

mav: political wildcard tbh. original 1986 mav is DEFINITELY right-leaning (i think i’ve written elsewhere, “he fully believes bill clinton is an affront to god”). i get young republican vibes from him. Full on patriotic (but dispassionate) 1980s reaganite anti-commie neoconservative. but after the 2010s i am very confused tbh. Tom cruise’s political aura is an insanely confusing one. idk. No matter what, Mav has some Hot Takes that a.) can immediately be shot down by ice using Facts and Logic at any time and b.) are not strictly partisan. He’s registered democrat just to support marriage equality (his marriage is his top priority but he doesn’t care about Other gays’ marriages, only his own), doesn’t care about any of the party’s other lines. Votes however ice tells him to. I get real “kind clueless libertarian” vibes from 2022 maverick tbh. Especially with the “isolating himself in a hangar in the middle of the mojave desert.” that has a political connotation to it for sure. bro just does whatever he wants out there

also, ice & mav live in San Diego, which… while in blue/democrat leaning California…is famously a bastion of right-wingers & has a hitler particle level off the charts… (sorry its not my favorite place in the world). That’s why they’re both continually so disgusted by San Francisco (a metonym for effete liberal homosexuality). Theyre from San Diego, hatred of SF & liberal SF politics is kinda par for the course down there.

Bradley: as u will see in the extras i definitely hc Bradley as an activist, but because he’s… in the navy and also like in his 30s… It’s not college campus activism, it’s just “things all of us in the left wing can agree upon” activism. so, like, BLM or pride, etc. He’s an “in this house we believe” yard sign liberal. He is 38 years old. hes a solid millennial so not politically hip with the kids (me)

Bradley & ice/mav disagree on the VISIBILITY of politics. Ice & mav, who did live through the vietnam era draft/near-dissolution of American society in the 60s and 70s, are not in favor of possibly losing their job/honor they have fought and killed for, for the sake of a political statement. And they believe their relationship IS a political statement, whereas Bradley would rather encourage them to treat their relationship like, I don’t know, a relationship that has a right to exist independent of politics!

Jake and the other daggers: idk. i don’t really give a shit about the daggers sorry. They r blank slates 2 me. jake especially is canonically frat-boy sexist in a way that gives me the heebs, much like original 1986 maverick and ice. But the navy tends to be the most left-wing (or thought of as left wing in common thought) service of the military, if that helps. But it is also the most traditional service of the military, and by traditional I mean BRITISH!!!! 🇬🇧💂there’s so much pomp and circumstance and hoity-toitiness that comes from the navy’s origins in the Royal Navy. A lot of sticking to outdated tradition in the very fabric of the navy itself, while the navy’s enlisted demographics shift younger and more left-wing/“revolutionary…” some interesting conflicts there. Like that one sailor who got blasted by multiple congressmen on social media for (with permission!) reading a poem about their queer identity on the USS Gerald ford’s intercom a few months back, if I remember correctly. Hoo boy the Takes that day were wild. Younger Americans tend to be more liberal but YMMV with officers, who are by nature trying to uphold outdated traditions of the navy for the sake of keeping the navy a unified service

i am of course writing carole as a christian republican who has gay friends and a gay kid not by choice but by the Grace of God

[palant1r]

There are so many fascinating interpretations of light's cannonball into immorality but i have no friends to talk about it with 😭 so why do u think light went so evil so quick? one of my fave interpretations is that, even tho light spoke a bit on how he thought the world was rotten, his ideology was a retroactive justification for killing ppl using the notebook and that his first two kills were actually just him being "bored" and everything grew from there

Man, okay. I have a confession to make: one of the reasons I find Light so fascinating is that I really see myself in him — we just went down uh. VERY different paths. So maybe I'm projecting a bit, but I find his cannonball both understandable and deeply sad, while simultaneously inexcusable and thoughtless. Here goes:

I think that Light has always been someone who is extremely concerned with being Good. His greatest fear is being Bad. Not to personality type him, but he is the quintessential enneagram type one. He holds a deep amount of anger at perceived injustice, and because he needs to be Good, that anger becomes righteous. The thing is, when people are terrified of being anything but Good, that doesn't actually make them do good things. It makes them justify anything they do as good, and makes them completely unwilling to question their own worldviews because the idea of accidentally discovering they've been Bad is too painful to bear. (Like how, when Ryuk says Light would be the only bad person left, Light pulls out some non sequitur and refuses to even engage with that possibility). Another thing is, Light Yagami finds the Death Note when he's in high school. Maybe if he'd found the Death Note later, he wouldn't have gone full Kira mode. But he found the Death Note at a time in his life when he was starting to come up with his own rigid and righteous moral code without the experience to incorporate nuance. Another thing: his dad is a cop, and as I've discussed, he clearly gets his moral code from his dad but with even MORE anxiety about Doing a Bad.

So he finds the Death Note. And he kills the dude who took those hostages. I think he was just being a stupid teenager here, acting impulsively but convincing himself he was being Big Brained. Remember, cop dad: he believes that Crime is a thing that must be Punished, and that Punishment is a Moral Good. It has to be, otherwise his dad and him by extension are Bad, and that is simply unacceptable. After that, I don't think Light was thinking beyond immediate practicalities — the weight of what he'd done hadn't set in yet. He had to confirm the Death Note's power, because Light is ALSO someone who really needs certainty and control. So he kills that one attempted rapist.

And THEN what he's done sets in. We see Light have a mental breakdown, stare the slippery slope in the face, and then immediately decide to grab a sled.

Here's what I think happened. When he realized what he'd done, Light was left with two possibilities. The first was to admit to himself that he was a murderer — that he had done a Bad Thing, and for Light, doing a Bad Thing is totally indistinguishable from being intrinsically, ontologically Bad. This was obviously too painful. So he went with option two: in order to preserve his own self-image as a Good Person, he retroactively justified his actions as Good. This was made easier by the cop morality poison, since under that framework, punishing evil makes people good. After all, there was no doubt a riot team ready to move in on that daycare who might have killed that guy anyway.

Of course, once he'd done that, he couldn't stop there. Light is also a responsible, dutiful person. Because he'd mentally framed his killings as a heroic and necessary act for the sake of self-preservation, continuing his "cleansing" became not just morally neutral but a moral duty. One that he had to continue in order to preserve his self-image of a Good Person. It's a self deluding feedback loop where his actions are good because he is good, and he is good because his actions are good. Light has absolutely no moral self-awareness because that would force him to confront the most painful truth he could possibly acknowledge. His view of ethics is mind-numbingly, braindead-ly simple (baby's first deterrence theory) (someone get Hobbes on the line, this bitch is trying to be the Leviathan) because it's never meant to be a coherent philosophy in the first place — it's a self-justifying defense mechanism.

It's like...so sad to me. Because I see in Light Yagami the potential for an actual well-adjusted person — he wasn't doomed to turn out like this. As much as we clown, without the Death Note I don't think he'd become the Unabomber. He clearly wants to be a good person! But the Death Note didn't "control" or "corrupt" him, either. It just gave him absolute power to carry out an extreme ideology driven by his police upbringing and moral anxiety at a time when he did not have the experience to pump the brakes.

[jhoudiey]

I swear this is the last one (for now heh). Can't have rotisserie chicken ships without DUMB AND DUMBER. Questions from here

Even though I've been neglecting them lately they still own my entire life so like... ANYWAYS. Ship questions of my favourite fish and bird.

Pre-relationship

How did they first meet? He stumbles on her experimenting in the Alchemy lab after ditching the entrance ceremony.

What was their first impression of each other? Yoru: who the fuck is this guy and why won't he leave? Floyd: Heh neat bird this is fun.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together? Not particularly, though Crowley is glad she's making friends.

Who felt romantic feelings first? Floyd cause Yoru is bad at feelings and just thinks any feelings are regular friendship ones, then 'i think i must be getting sick' ones.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings? Both! Floyd at first cause he doesn't want to get stabbed, and Yoru when she realizes cause she doesn't wanna get rejected.

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think? That whoever told them must be ready to die.

General

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go? Floyd! He just kisses her out of the blue one day and they go from there. Works out pretty well (last words said before disaster eh?) But don't specifically say HEY WE ARE DATING.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like? Nope.

What was their first kiss like? In the hospital wing when Yoru's complaining that her face is all scarred up.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)? First everything.

What’s their height difference? Age difference? Floyd is 6 inches and 3 months older- I figure adult him is about 8 inches taller.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families? Yoru's relationship with mama leech is pretty rocky, but Crowley adores Floyd.

Who takes the lead in social situations? Floyd, because Yoru's too busy trying to not be perceived.

Who gets jealous easier? Floyd, jealous fish is jealous.

Love

Who said “I love you” first? Floyd, tho Yoru didn't believe it. (again, surely this won't cause any problems in the future right?)

What are their primary love languages? Acts of service

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA? Basically glued together.

What are their favorite things to do together? Cause problems on purpose with people minding their business.

Who’s better at comforting the other? They are both REAL bad at it.

Who’s more protective? Neither, cause they know the other can take care of themselves just fine.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection? Physical!

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise? *lists every emo song I know cause they're a mess* Most notably 'this time imperfect' by AFI

What kind of nicknames do they call each other? when they meet, Floyd calls her "Fugu-chan" and she just calls him Floyd. When they get together he drops her fishname and just calls her Yoru.

Domestic Life

If they get married, who proposes? Floyd does the Christmas after they have mido.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends? Chaos. Just super loud super insane with tons of weird shit. jade, azul, idia, ortho, kalim, ace, ruggie, malleus, lilia, sebek, silver, crowley and vargas attend.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like? They accidentally have Mido and she is a fucking terrorist (affectionate)

Do they have any pets? They get Mido a slug that she names Timothy.

Who’s the stricter parent? Neither. 'No' Isn't really in either one of their vocabularies.

Who kills the bugs in the house? both.

How do they celebrate holidays? loudly, chaotically.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning? Floyd cause he's a whiner.

Who’s the better cook? Floyd, when he actually feels like cooking.

[lightcreators]

@vernorexiiia continue from here

proserpina giggles , her head still leaned against hades' back . “ they've always been this way . ”

especially teenagers , & the children of gods no less . it was no easy task being stuck in the in-betweens , whether the ages of development or in the thralls of whatever the gods had going on . what a pain ...

“ does something ail the boy ? ” she aks , brushing her forehead against the other like a cat . “ should i talk with him ... ? ”

Each  time  he  was  complaining  about  one  of  kids  that he  represented  the  parental  figure,  it  involved  Deimos,  it  involved  the  Witch  of  Illusions  ---  regardless  if  he  willingly  didn't  precised  that  single  detail.  Around  Lelouch  vi  Britannia,  dealing  with  anything  that  kid  could  have  imagined  as  new  manner  to  mess  up  with  them,  had  becoming  one  of  their  common  usual  conversation  between  them.  After  all,  that  Emperor  couldn't  fantom  to  having  an  mere  clue  he  was  dealing  with  one  of  Ares  children  unknowingly,  in  which  meaning  of  his  actions  generated  consequences  beyond  anything  he  could  have  imagined,  in  which,  as  much  he  would  hope  somewhere  Deimos  would  behave  normally  for  one  second,  he  would  need  to  buried  deep  inside  his  mind  all  the  dreamy  things  he  would  want  for  him.  Otherwise,  this  kid  wouldn't  have  a  reputation  for  being  so  agitated  !  Connotation  upon  an  kid  consideration  would  always  been  the  clue  he  was  speaking  about  that  particular  adoptive  children.  Concerning  his  future  emotional  son  that  will  giving  him  another  around  of  worries  ?  He  was  attempting  an  nice  foreshadowing  and  anticipation  of the situation !

There  was  an  moment  in  which  he  hesitated  to  agreed  upon  that  sentence.  Zagreus  has  made  his  personal  share  of  trouble,  nevertheless,  looking  back,  has  been  enough  understanding  concerning  his  father,  and  only  wished  tasting  his  own  freedom.  Melione  was  close  to  him,  and  Macaria  appreciated  everything  she  learned  with  his  closeness  with  Thanatos  for  presenting  herself  as  another  coin  of  the  miroir.  These  children  wandering  around  the  big  universe,  nevertheless,  never  has  been  perceived  or  been  informed  of  something  in  which  he  looked  at  them  with  disbelief.  It  was  the  future  concerning  Nico,  hence  as  much  he  would  be  difficult  at  times  ---  he  would  have  given  enough  in  this  area  with  Deimos,  theoretically  he  should  be  prepared  to  endure  everything  emotionally  !  He  hadn't  yet  touched  those  hundred  years  of  additional  experience  to  which  he  would  be  born,  where  he  expected  to  do  well  beyond  that.  ❝   I  feel  less  like  my  kids  were  reacting  like  the  kid.  ❞  He  bounced  back  indeed,  in  which  the  manner  he  exposed  that  term  as  first  approach  was  indication  concerning  his  divine  children.  Physical  comfort  remained  appreciated.  Decomposed  look  of  his  features  must  be  something  amusing  for  her.  ❝   There's  always  something  wrong  with  the  kid,  otherwise  he  wouldn't  be  the  kid.  ❞  He  admitted.  ❝   Oh,  you  can  try  talking  to  him.  He  listens  to  me  whenever  he  wants.  ❞  It  was  more  complicated  than  that,  but  he  avoided  constant  reminder  of  being  biggest  bad  guy  inside a  story,  of  being  a  horrible  villain  who  had  planned  circumstances  of  this  chessboard.  Lelouch  half-heartedly  despised  his  little  game  of  manipulation  although  he  understood  his  own  reasons,  and  he  had  a  magnificent  grudge  from  the  concerned  kid  that  Alice  must  be  in  angels  to  reflect  such  a  desire  for  revenge  without  having  to  make  slightest  effort,  that  distant  memory  that  he  was  final  boss  somewhere  bored him terribly.

He was just a lovely dad who did his best to spoil his kids.

[flightfoot]

Lingering Trauma

(A/N) So I came up with the premise for this fic back when Hack-san first aired, but didn't want to write it because well, salters were screaming that Adrien was an attempted murderer who should be arrested and thrown in prison. Which uh... no. I waited until that had calmed down before starting on this. I just really wanted to put Alya through some trauma so that I had an excuse to focus on her thoughts and emotions, and her almost being Cataclysmed seemed like a good catalyst for that. Though I also ended up exploring Adrien's feelings quite a bit as well.

Adrien, Alya, and Marinette are all good kids who care about each other a lot and hate to hurt people, but sometimes it happens unintentionally, like with what this fic is sorting out. Luckily, they can also talk things out and get to a good place again! With hugs. Hugs are mandatory.

Oh yeah, I always intended to release this fic after whatever the newest episode after "Multiplication" ended up being. The fact that "Destruction" touches on some similar themes to this fic is fortuitous, but purely coincidental. I finished writing this fic months ago.

AO3

-----

“There’s only one Ladybug, which means you can only be… a sentimonster or an akuma!” Chat Noir took out his staff, spinning it around and aiming it at Scarabella.

Her mind raced, trying to come up with some way out of this situation. Dammit, she’d assumed that Marinette had given Chat some form of heads-up about her, but it must have slipped her mind. She had seemed to be in a hurry at the train station, she probably didn’t have time to consider her partner’s reaction to someone else showing up wearing the Ladybug Miraculous.

She held up her hands placatingly, hoping to assuage the angry catboy. “Woah, wait, I’m not a bad guy, I promise!”

“Liar! What have you done to M’lady?!” he geared up, hitting her across the midsection, sending her flying into a nearby chimney stack.

Right. She’d always loved watching clips of Ladybug and Chat Noir being super protective of each other, but being the one perceived as a threat to their partner’s safety? Not so much. “It’s not what you think! She trusted me with it!” Crap, what could she do to convince him she was telling the truth?! It’s not like she had a sworn affidavit from Ladybug proclaiming Scarabella to be her appointed substitute!

“She’d never do that without telling me! CATACLYSM!”

FUCK.

“LUCKY CHAR–”

She didn’t get the words out in time. 

Stumbling back, she stared at her hands as her suit slowly lost its luster, turning ash-black. Her fingers lost feeling, crumbling into dust before her eyes. As the corruption slowly spread down her arms, she fought to scream. Even that grew beyond her, the destruction reaching her chest, silencing her voice.

All she could do was watch as her body fell to pieces, until the last piece of her was gone.

------

Alya woke up gasping. Fumbling blindly for the light switch, she felt along the wall of her room until she finally found it, flicking the switch.

As light flooded the room, she looked down at her hands.

They were intact.

She let out a deep breath. Of course they were. She wouldn’t have been able to turn on the light otherwise. 

Everything was fine. She’d gotten the Lucky Charm up in time, fended off Chat, and persuaded him she was one of the good guys. Heck, they’d even had fun together near the end, posing and joking together during the museum fight! Things worked out in the end.

So why were her hands still shaking?

Right. She just needed to get her mind off this for a bit. Once her brain had time to calm down, she’d try to sleep again. 

Setting her silk nightcap to the side, she pulled out her desk chair, waking her computer up.

Let’s see… maybe working on one of her articles for the Ladyblog would make her feel better. Even if it didn’t, at least she’d have something to show for her lack of sleep. 

Not something with Scarabella yet – she’d need to wait for her readers to submit videos of the fight, or petition the city to give her surveillance footage of her debut. It’d take a long time to comb through the videos, cut them together in an appealing way, and add her own commentary to it. Definitely something she needed to do, but not a task she wanted to undertake at 4 am on a school day.

What about the article she’d been working on before Marinette called her up? What was it again?

Frowning, she looked at her most recent docs. “Top Ten Most Inventive Uses Of Catacly-”

Abruptly she pushed away from her computer. Right. That was enough of that for today. 

Sighing, she eyed her bookshelf. What would be helpful for making her feel better…

Her vision caught on a thin, tall book with a red, yellow, and blue spine. 

Smiling, she put on her glasses. Majestia comics always helped her feel better. Her daring rescues, her interventionist philosophy, her steadfast belief that anyone could make a difference in the world - it always electrified her imagination, even back when she was a young child. Sometimes you couldn’t fix everything right away, but so long as you kept persisting, things would get better. 

Opening the book, she let herself get sucked into the adventures of her second favorite superheroine.

-----

“...Alya?” she heard Marinette ask.

Alya groaned, her head married to her desk

“Alya!”

“Is there an akuma attack?” she asked Marinette blearily.

“No, but-”

“Then NAP.”

“You’re gonna hurt your neck if you sleep like this!” her friend fussed.

“At least then I’ll sleep,” Alya muttered.

“Alya, what’s wrong?” Alya still couldn’t see Marinette’s face since her head was face down on her desk, but she could hear the concern in her friend’s voice. “Usually I’m the one coming in here half-asleep, because– well, you know why. You’re the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed one. Did something happen?”

“I–” she hesitated. “It’s nothing, really. Just some nightmares. Everything went fine.”

Marinette gently laid a hand on Alya’s arm. “If it’s keeping you up, then it’s not nothing,” she said quietly.

Would talking about it with Marinette even help anything? There wasn’t anything to change or fix, nothing bad had actually happened. She just needed to calm herself down, get her brain to realize that.

Turning her head to the side, she caught a glimpse of Marinette’s worried expression, her eyebrows drawn together as she gave Alya a small frown.

That sealed it. She still wasn’t sure whether talking to Marinette would help lessen her anxiety, but it’d help with her friend’s worries at least. It was worth a try. “Alright. But we need to talk about it at your place, not here.”

Marinette’s frown deepened, but she nodded. “First, though–” she rummaged around in her backpack, pulling out a U-shaped pillow. “Here. If you’re gonna sleep in class, at least lean back and use this. It’ll be more comfortable and less likely to cause problems.”

Alya took the pillow, settling it over her shoulders. “Should I ask why you have this stuffed in your backpack?” 

Marinette blushed. “Well, you know how little sleep I sometimes get. I figured it was better to prepare for a class nap than to just pretend I’d never need one.”

Alya chuckled. “Fair enough.” 

She laid her head against the soft pillow, absently noting the fine craftsmanship as she drifted off. “Oh, and Marinette? Thanks.”

“It’s the least I could do…” was the last thing Alya heard, before she drifted off to sleep.

-----

Alya settled down in Marinette’s room during lunch break, feeling a little less like a member of the walking dead than she had that morning. Thankfully Ms. Bustier let her sleep. She didn’t normally like her students sleeping in class, but she recognized that if they were tired enough that they were conking out on wooden furniture, they weren’t gonna learn anything anyway. 

She smiled, watching the little kwamis flitting around, Daizzi happily drawing on a piece of paper in one corner, Sass arranging a game of red light, green light in another. At least they were having a good time.

“So what’s going on?” Marinette asked, her chin on her hands. “I heard you muttering while you were napping, you didn’t seem to be getting good sleep, even during class.”

Alya looked away. Her dreams weren’t as vivid as earlier, but they still weren’t entirely peaceful. “How much do you know about what happened during Robostus’s attack? About my team-up with Chat?”

Marinette blinked, frowning. “Not much, just what you told me. I mostly rely on the Ladyblog for superhero-related news, and you haven’t posted much about it. I was actually gonna ask you about that, I’d expected you to have an article up about the ‘new hero’” she made air-quotes with her fingers, “and I wasn’t sure why there was such a delay. It’s not like you.”

Alya let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, the team-up… it went well near the end, Chat was fun to banter with and was good at following my lead, even when we weren’t able to discuss a plan ahead of time, but… it didn’t start out like that.”

Marinette cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean? I know you said that he was put-out that I’d told someone else my identity without informing him, that he felt like I’d been pushing him out of the loop, but we talked it through, and I think we’re okay now.”

“‘Put out’ is one term for it,” she replied. “Marinette, if, out of nowhere, a new Black Cat wielder appeared with no word of warning from Chat Noir, what would be your first assumption as to how this new Black Cat acquired the ring?”

“Well… hm. Chat wouldn’t tell his identity to anyone but me,” Marinette muttered, looking down in concentration, “so if someone else had his ring, then either he lost the ring and Plagg found someone else to use his Miraculous– wait, no, something like that’s happened before, Plagg just went and hung out at Fu’s. So he’d probably just take the ring to me. Which means that, if someone else had the Black Cat Miraculous, they probably stole it from Chat!”

Her face fell. “Wait… did Chat make that assumption too?”

Alya nodded. “I told him that you entrusted your Miraculous to me, but he couldn’t believe that you’d give your earrings to someone else without telling him, so…”

“So he assumed you must’ve gotten them through nefarious means,” Marinette concluded. “And if I hadn’t tried to contact him in some way about the theft, like by wearing my motorcycle outfit and waving him down, then–”

She froze. “Alya,” she said slowly, “did Chat Noir think that you’d hurt me so badly that I couldn’t get in touch with him?”

Alya nodded.

Marinette groaned, burying her face in one of her pillows. “He attacked you, didn’t he.” her muffled voice said. It wasn’t a question.

Alya nodded, before remembering that Marinette still had her head down. “I did persuade him I was one of the good guys, but it took me kicking his ass and pointing out that I could steal his ring, and choosing not to do so. Which he accepted, thankfully. But before that…” she trailed off, thinking back to the inky blackness that’d spread over her Lucky Charm as Chat destroyed it.

Marinette turned her face to the side to look at Alya. “Is that why you’ve been having trouble sleeping? Because of that fight?”

Biting her lip, Alya nodded. “I know why he thought I was a villain. Heck, if I’d been in his shoes, I’d probably have thought the same thing, been just as angry and scared about what’d happened to you. He found out I hadn’t hurt you and everything was fine. But when I see him using Cataclysm, think about what could’ve happened if just one small thing had gone differently–” she shuddered. The only living beings she’d ever seen Cataclysm used on were Sentimonsters. But they weren’t exactly regular creatures. If people were affected the same way that inanimate objects were…

She shook her head. No need to continue that line of thought, her nightmares had done that plenty.

Marinette looked away. “I– I know the feeling. I’ve had to face Chat a few times before. It’s never been pleasant fighting him. Especially–” a shadow crossed her face. “Never mind. Let’s just concentrate on you right now.”

Sounded like Marinette was leaving something out. “You can talk about it, you know. I don’t need to be the only one spilling my guts.”

Marinette shook her head resolutely. “It will never happen, I made sure of it. I don’t want to think about it.”

Alya frowned, but didn’t pursue the subject, filing it away for later instead. “If you’re sure. Anyway, that’s why I wasn’t sure about talking about it. I don’t see what can be done to help, except just… try to get over it.”

Humming to herself, Marinette looked around her room, her eyebrows drawing together. She climbed down her ladder, approaching the Miracle Box.

Alya hurried after her. “Marinette? What’re you doing?”

“Something I should’ve been doing more of since I became Guardian: sitting down and talking with my partner,” she lifted the box out, looking at each Miraculous symbol. “Hey Pollen, you up for a quick jaunt with Alya?” she called out. 

“Of course, my Guardian,” Pollen said, flitting over to Alya.

“Oh no you don’t!” Trixx protested, flying in front of her Holder. “Alya’s my Holder, mine! Bad enough I had to share with Tikki for a day, I’m not sharing with you too, I’ve got dibs! Besides, you already have a wielder, you just don’t get to be with her all the time like I do.”

Marinette let out an exasperated sigh. “Trixx, Rena has to remain hidden at all times, Alya can’t use you publicly.” 

Trixx opened his mouth, but Marinette barreled onwards. “And I know that you could cloak her in an illusion, but it’d only last five minutes and could be dispelled way too easily. It’s safer for this if she just uses a different kwami for this occasion. I promise that it’s temporary, and you’ll still be the one staying with Alya permanently.”

“What’re you talking about?” Alya asked. Sometimes Marinette forgot that not everyone was privileged with knowing how her thought process worked, and you had to get her to slow down and actually explain what she was doing and why. She’d become adept at it over the past school year. “I thought you said you were the one talking with him?”

“You and me,” Marinette clarified. “This whole issue arose through miscommunication, so maybe some better communication can help fix it.”

That… wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Though she had a feeling it wouldn’t matter much what she thought of it either way. Once Marinette had seized on a solution to a problem, she pursued it with a single-minded determination that both impressed and scared her. “Just make sure to let Chat know I’m coming this time.”

Marinette nodded, handing over the Bee Miraculous to her. “The transformation phrase is ‘Buzz on’.”

Taking the comb, Alya let out a slow breath. She didn’t know whether this would help, but– “Pollen, Buzz On!”

-----

Alya leapt across buildings, savoring the acceleration as she jumped, the exhilaration as gravity took hold of her and she fell back to earth, and the joy as she leapt once again. She giggled, unable to contain herself. As Rena she’d had to keep a low profile recently, and as Scarabella she’d had a villain to get to, but now? As Apidae? She could savor the abilities the Miraculous gave her.

A giggle escaped from Ladybug as she bounded, leaped, and swung alongside her. “Having fun?”

“You know it!” Alya said, indulging in a completely unnecessary (though oh-so-fun) double front flip, smoothly transitioning back into a run when she landed.

Ladybug’s expression softened. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was hoping a run would help, before-”

“Before we talk to Chat Noir,” Alya said, voice dropping a little. Normally she’d look forward to seeing the catboy, and part of her still did, but… with how she’d been reacting to any reminder of Cataclysm, she was afraid of what would happen when she met up with him again. 

Still. Marinette was right. She needed to talk to him, to attempt some sort of closure. She didn’t want to be afraid of watching the heroes’ fights, for fear of getting flashbacks. Maybe this would help, maybe it wouldn’t. But it was worth a shot. 

Rounding a corner, a flash of black caught her attention. Chat Noir’s ears perked up as he turned to face her.

Not for the first time, she wondered whether his senses improved as Chat Noir. She hadn’t noticed anything like that while she’d been transformed as Rena Rouge (or Rena Furtive nowadays), but then again, Chat Noir had always embodied the animal he represented more than most other Miraculous wielders did. No one else had a tail or ears that responded to their mood, after all. Seriously, that was a crime. She wanted to be able to wag her tail, dammit! And if Carapace had a tail of his own…

Nope. Not the time. She could think about how cute it would be to make her boyfriend blush in the suit, his tail betraying his feelings, later. This meeting was dedicated to something far less fun.

“Milady! And…?” he trailed off, looking at Alya.

“Apidae,” she supplied. “Though you know me as Scarabella.”

He nodded. “She did say that you would be using a different Miraculous.” Chat gave a mischievous smile. “You look bee-autiful, by the way.” 

She laughed. “Thanks, but I already have a boyfriend.” 

He shrugged, unbothered. “I only have one Lady in my life, anyway.” He tilted his head to the side. “So, what did you need to talk to me about? It’s great seeing you again, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t sound like this was just a social call.”

That sobered her. She hated the idea of wiping the smile off of his face, but she was sure he’d be even more upset if he found out what she’d been going through, and that she hadn’t told him about it. He’d been kept out of the loop enough already. “I- I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. I keep having nightmares. Getting flashbacks.”

He frowned. “Nightmares? Flashbacks? Why…” His eyes widened. “Is- is it because of something I did?” he asked hesitantly.

She drew in a breath, closed her eyes, and nodded.

“What is it? How- how did I hurt you?” His voice took on a strained tone.

“Do you remember when you first encountered me? How you thought I was a villain?” she asked softly.

He blinked. “Yeah, I thought you’d hurt Ladybug and stolen her earrings, so I-” His breath hitched. “So I… I tried to… to Cataclysm you… Oh. That’s- that’s why, isn’t it?”

She looked away to avoid seeing his face. If she kept looking at his devastated, kicked-kitty expression, she wouldn’t be able to finish describing her feelings. She needed to put this out there. “I had a nightmare last night where I didn’t get my Lucky Charm up in time. I slowly watched the corruption eat away at my body, until I crumbled into nothingness. I couldn’t get to sleep again for the rest of the night. Any mention of Cataclysm started to bring back those memories, the idea of ‘what-if?’” She took in a deep breath, centering herself. “Ladybug suggested I talk with you, see whether that would help me… I dunno, come to terms with it? 

“I- I didn’t know- I’m sorry, I-” his voice cracked. “I never wanted to hurt another person with my Cataclysm. Not again.”

“Again?” She’d never heard of Chat Cataclysming a person before. Sentimonsters a few times by accident, sure, and there was that one time Volpina faked him Cataclysming himself, but that was it. He only ever intentionally Cataclysmed non-living objects. 

He winced. “You know Uncanny Valley?”

“Of course I do!” she was one of Majestia’s biggest fans, she could hardly call herself that if she didn’t know about her daughter. “What does that have to do with… oh no. No, what happened?”

Ladybug put her hand on Chat’s shoulder. “Do you want to tell the story, or would you prefer I tell it, kitty?” she asked softly. 

He hesitated for a moment. “You tell it,” he finally said. “I don’t feel up to it right now.”

She nodded, turning to Alya. “During the fight with Techlonizer, the villain managed to grab Chat while he was distracted and whip him around so fast he wasn’t able to stop his momentum. He let Chat go when he was aimed right at me, with Cataclysm active in his hand. I wasn’t able to dodge in time. But Uncanny Valley saw what was happening, and took the blow instead.”

“I gave up the ring back then,” Chat said, fiddling with it. “I didn’t want to risk harming anyone like that ever again.” He let out a sigh. “But it happened again. I hurt you.”

Nope, she wasn’t letting him continue down this train of thought. It’d hurt both Marinette and Chat, compromise the fight against Shadow Moth, and would only make Alya feel worse than she did right now.

“Like I said back then, I don’t know that I can be Ladybug without you,” Ladybug said sharply, a tinge of panic in her otherwise firm voice. “I don’t want to have to find out, either.”

“Running away isn’t the answer,” Alya said. “The mistakes you made, the accidents that occurred… they could happen to any Black Cat. Hell, even Ladybug ended up making a sentimonster run amok-” she winced at the unintentional pun, but barrelled onwards “-when she was Lady Noire. We need to figure out a way to deal with stuff like this when it happens, not give up. That doesn’t fix anything.”

Chat looked down. “Do you have any suggestions? I- I’m just afraid I’ll mess something up again, if I try to come up with an idea.”

That would be tricky. It’s not like he was hitting the wrong targets on purpose. During the heat of battle, tempers ran high, and accidents happened. 

Still. There were some things they could try.

“What if you only called Cataclysm when you had a good idea what you’d use it for?” she suggested. “And tried not to use it unless you actually needed it, either. I’ve looked through a lot of the Ladyblog’s footage of your fights in the past-” very recently in fact, since she had been working on her Top Ten list for best Cataclysm uses, “-and over half the time, you just use it to break an akumatized object that would’ve been destroyed just as easily by snapping it with your hands, or stomping it on the ground. It’d also reduce the time pressure on you, since you wouldn’t be at risk of transforming back.”

“..Huh,” Ladybug said, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You know, that could work. There’d be some risk in it - it takes a second to prepare a Cataclysm, so if you only called it right before you were gonna use it, you’d risk getting interrupted - but it might be worth it.” She looked at her partner. “What do you think? It’s your call. If you think it won’t work or you just don’t want to do it, we’ll drop it. You’re the one who uses the power all the time. You’d have the best grasp of how feasible this is.”

Chat looked down, his eyebrows bunching up in concentration as he closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them and smiled. “You know? I think that might work. And if it might reduce the danger of Cataclysming something- someone- I didn’t mean to…” he looked down at his right hand. “I just don’t want to hurt people.”

“I think anyone who’s been around you knows that, kitty cat,” Ladybug said softly. “There’s a reason Fu chose you.”

Alya frowned. “This policy wouldn’t have stopped you from Cataclysming me, though, since that wasn’t an accident.” 

Chat Noir winced, looking away.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” she said, putting up her hands. “I was the one to suggest it. But we might need something else as well. Something based more on why you decided to jump to Cataclysming, when you don’t usually do that for supervillains.”

“I was angry and- and scared,” Chat said. “I thought you’d knocked Ladybug out, or maybe even-” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I lost my mom recently. I was afraid that Ladybug was gone now too, like she was.” His eyes widened, processing what he’d just said. He whipped around to face Ladybug. “Sorry, I know we’re not supposed to say anything about our identit-ooph!”

Ladybug’s sudden bear hug knocked the air out of his lungs. “Kitty, you’re allowed to talk about stuff that hurts you,” her muffled voice said, “even if it’s with your civilian identity. I never wanted you to feel like you had to hide something that affected you that much. Just try not to say anything that’d make your identity obvious, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Milady,” Chat said, his voice quavering. He wrapped his free arm (the one that Ladybug hadn’t inadvertently trapped at his side with her hug) around her, returning the hug just as fiercely.

Alya smiled, wishing she could record this for the Ladyblog. Granted, Marinette wouldn’t like that, since she’d ordered Alya to get rid of her Ladynoir file, but she could still appreciate seeing the two of them being so close with each other. Romantic or platonic, they were quite the pair.

“Maybe you two should set up some contingencies for what to do if either of you suspect the other is… indisposed somehow?” She suggested. “I mean, I don’t think it’d stop Chat from freaking out if you were hurt - heck, I don’t think it’d stop ME from freaking out if you were hurt - but bad situations are less scary when you have a plan to deal with them. Just don’t expect that plan to survive contact with reality.”

Ladybug’s face lit up, as Alya knew it would. If there was one thing Marinette was good at, it was making plans for any possible future. “I think I can help with that, kitty,” Ladybug said. “Do you think it would help you, though?”

He gave her a soft smile. “I don’t know, but I want to try.”

Alya gave a small laugh. “Mind if I join the hug, or is this Dynamic Duo only territory?”

He blinked. Ladybug chuckled. “I think we can make room for one more.”

As she wrapped one arm around Chat Noir and the other around Ladybug, Alya felt safe and at peace, in a way she hadn’t since she’d transformed into Scarabella.

----

That evening, Alya pulled up the list she was making of Cataclysm uses, reading them over before exiting the file.

She wasn’t ready to finish it yet.

But she would be.

[streets-in-paradise]

Unwilling Resemblance - Andy Barclay x (fem) Reader Oneshot

Masterlist

Word Count + 2.500

Pairing: Andy Barclay x (fem) Reader. 

Warnings: AU where Andy adopts the Wheeler boys, Junior lives and Nica gets away from the canon destiny we know. 

Summary: Andy gets accidentally confronted with his biggest fear since that night in the mental hospital and you do your best to comfort him. 

Notes: @losersclubisms​. I SUCK SO BADLY AT INVENTING TITLES! Literally spent half an hour trying to slap one at the top of this post lol. Once you will get to read this it is most likely you will recognize every little hint of inspiration making me come up with this. 

You didn't realize the mistake when you were dressing up before leaving with your boyfriend for a simple shopping trip. Andy didn’t say anything, so you had to figure it out by yourself and you eventually did while looking at your reflection in the nearest window of an empty car at the market’s parking lot. Checking yourself out every once in a while was a compulsion when you were going out with him, even for the most mundane of reasons. It would simply happen because you were in some permanent state of crushing with the man you loved, always wondering if you were looking good for him since for you he was the most handsome guy around.

The look you picked for that casual occasion wasn’t bad itself, but the vibes you began to perceive on it made wearing it a bit awkward. Did you have to pick those pants, with that coat in THAT order? How couldn’t you see it before? It was the worst fashion fail you had made over the course of the entire history of your relationship with Andy. He was so nice of not saying a thing about it, but then it became shamefully obvious to you and it was visibly affecting your mood. 

Your boyfriend only noticed that something was upsetting you because of that reaction. It had to be about your appearance or, otherwise, you wouldn’t be obsessively staring at the crystal and moving around. 

“ What’s wrong, babe? Is it one of those days when you aren’t feeling good about yourself? Do you need me to remind you of how much I love your body?” 

That was Andy, your always amazing man. His naive guess made you feel even worse. . 

“ It’s not that, but thanks for the offer.” You teased before explaining yourself. “ Don’t I look a bit like human Chucky dressed like this?” 

The dilemma you were presenting was quite unbelievable to hear, he would have never associated you with any images of his arch nemesis. 

“ Wait, WHAT? Is that what got you so distracted?” 

“ C’mon, it’s obvious! I’m the dumbass who didn’t see it when i should. “ You added, with frustration. '' I look like Nica when possessed, that winter at the asylum.” 

“ I still can't believe you could convincingly impersonate a therapist like that, I only hope not to have been a bad patient.” He joked in return.“ I think I owe Nica a big apology for almost shooting at her, but I guess that if she had him inside long enough she must understand why.” 

“ Don’t change the topic, this is awful. Absolutely disastrous, not only because I could be triggering bad memories for you…. I refuse to share anything with that narcissistic phantom parasite. “ 

Andy enjoyed the intensity of your hateful description, immediately considering stealing it for possible use in his inevitable next encounter with Chucky. 

“ I am alright, it is not similar enough to be weird.” 

“ It still is to me, I can’t stay like this.” Your frustration was quite a show, the issue bothered you more than him.” I like Nica as herself, I would be happy to know we share some likes fashion wise .. but this? Sorry not sorry, yikes, no. I feel like a Chucky.” 

It was hard to believe he was seeing you losing your mind over some pants and a coat, but he sensed that it had to be about his perception of you. It implied a bit of how you were still excited of catching him looking at you, the same levels of lovely infatuation of the first months back when you began dating. It was as if you were a schoolgirl hanging out with her crush through some random excuse she improvised, overworrying about the mundanity of an outfit she didn’t plan for that use. Andy never imagined he could be loved, wanted, adored in the way you were showing consistently. The honeymoon phase seemed infinite in your wonderful relationship. 

“ Will we have to get you new clothes just because you don’t want me to see you in that? Even when I know you didn’t do it on purpose and you know that waiting to get back home to change is a perfectly understandable reaction I would support? “ 

Despite it being close to the motivation he was imagining, he was never completely ready to hear the confession of your full reasoning in actual words. 

“ I just want to look pretty for you because I find you so incredibly handsome all the time. “ You excused yourself, opening up on something that was truly obvious to you. “ There is no moment of the day where I wouldn’t be thinking about it if I stop whatever I am doing to look at you. When you are in mismatching pajamas on a lazy morning, when you wear your fanciest suit to take me on a special date or when you are in the regular ones that let me know you were Chucky hunting. On the simplest pair of jeans and your favorite t-shirt.. or completely naked while you let me wear it. All the fucking time, Andy. It never stops amazing me, so I can’t stand the idea of resembling someone you hate.” 

His mind went blank, not a single articulable thought that could be turned into an answer occurred to him immediately. He felt so full of your love, looking at you like a lost fool incapable of processing those feelings. 

“ Alright, perhaps I didn't spot the problem because I can’t see shit past how stunning you are. “ He finally answered an instant afterwards. “ If you don’t like that coat anymore, I’m sure we can search in the mess of my car and find something I must have left there. Let’s go get the groceries first and after that we deal with it.” 

The reassurance was exactly what you needed, a proof of how your unfortunate outfit didn’t ruin his mood. Once you got that, the relaxation made you think about playing out your uncomfortable self perceptions in some way that could be beneficial to both. Using your awkwardness in a weird attempt to make him laugh in order to feel better. 

It started subtly, with an impersonation of a manly walk in direction to the store. Andy figured out right then what you were trying to do, but he didn’t stop you because he was used to seeing that coming from other persons he deeply cared for. It was the same dark comedy style of Junior and Jake, they had their own copying routine taking turns to impersonate the doll and his human wife. Their impro act lacked a third integrant willing to play Nica’s part. That poor woman had enough of playing Chucky for Tiffany in order to survive during her captive time, so it was only the Wheelers making fun of the dysfunctional marriage. Thinking about how happy the boys would be finding you as the missing piece in their jokes made him smile more than the act itself. 

“ Hidey fucking Ho, Andy! Did ya miss me, pal?” He heard you saying at the entrance, coughing afterwards due to the exaggerated attempt to make your voice deeper. That made you break character and it deviated into a different territory, circumstantially forgetting you were playing Nica as Chucky. “ My bad, your bitch is a fucking nightmare to be inside… but you already know that, don’t ya? “ 

“ For fuck’s sake! A you Chucky is off limits, (y/n)” 

The sudden shift on his reception alarmed you because he was laughing with you right after that. 

“ Ohh,shit, sorry. “ You immediately stopped. “ I thought it wouldn’t make a difference. Either Nica or me, it’s still girl Chucky.” 

“ I’m not in love with Nica.” He sweetly reminded you.” Do you think it never comes to my mind? You were there that night, I had the bad luck of finding out what was happening a day you were coming over and you didn’t accept not following me. “ 

He made a brief pause and you felt as if your heart would have stopped to the sight of how troubled he was. 

“ I feel horrible for how relieved i was because he seemed to hate her more than me, it could have been you and I wouldn’t have known what to do. He knows what you mean to me, I would never be able to pull the trigger if he hides behind your face. It’s too convenient for him and that scares me.”  

You stopped in your tracks, ready to hush away the horrible thought you accidentally brought to his overwhelmed mind. 

“ Love, Chucky will never want me. I’m sure of that, do you want to know why? My body would be his most uncomfortable experience ever.” 

You were referring to the desolated yet quite lovely situation you faced some nights before, when a wave of overwhelming cramps at the start of your period got you awake for hours and he stayed up in bed with you as your comforting company. 

“ I threw him into an industrial fan once, I don’t think your heavy periods would stop him.” 

“ That’s because you never experienced one before, but he must have gone through one at some point on his last body and I can assure you my love that the asshole must have suffered. “ You insisted, in a vengeful tone, then proceeded into what you considered that could be calming reassurance for him. 

“ In my body I would be able to tell you exactly how much but, menstruation talk aside, that would be my battle plan. Fight for consciousness is a possession cliche, that’s exactly what Chucky would expect me to do. Instead of that, I would manifest making my body a defensive architecture zone. It would be impossible to habitat in, all through subconscious attacks. It’s what doctors would call psychosomatic symptoms, shit that Chucky can’t control because he commands the consciousness when he possesses someone. He tries to kill you in my body? I give him a sneeze attack that would ruin his focus. He eats something spicy, I give him diarrhea that would have him in the bathroom for days. The periods will be so painful that he would beg for mercy, I will make him collapse on the floor and scream like crazy until he cries like a baby. Even when the worst week would be over there are other things I would still be able to try from the inside:  migraines, stomach aches, intestinal malfunction, fatigue, uncontrollable muscular cramps anywhere, hair loss, stress induced breathing problems making him unable to smoke even one single goddamn cigarette . He would have to choose between leaving my body or living in chronic pain because I am that much of a stubborn bitch.” 

The vengeful speech reached its objective, replacing the worries with some pleasing thoughts about the suffering of Chucky. The feral passion in which you were speaking about that was too much of his taste to remain ignored and he had to admit yours was an interesting tactic. 

" Damn, I love you so fucking much. " 

You smirked, a playful display of how proud that made you feel. 

" You drive me crazy, handsome. I'm so in love with you and it's all your fault. " 

You could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to kiss you, but you teased him a little bit just because you felt like doing it. 

" This whole thing made me remember that I gotta buy more pads. See you later, I'm gonna head to that section first and catch up with you afterwards." 

There was no way for you to get away with your mischief escaping him. Andy held you close before you could walk ahead and his líps were over yours as soon as he got his hands on you.

Whenever you would split to get separated stuff on particular thoughts would usually wander his mind while doing his part. Looking forward to that moment in which you would smile out of surprise at the sight of him. He liked to invent new detours on the way to you on those two or three places you would regularly buy things from. Doing it was just about feeling that brightness in your face fill his heart with joy. He loved to give you one of those mundane surprises and feel rewarded with your amazement. 

That time the one he brought out of you was so lovely that he felt like forgetting of the world around. For as much as you cared for whatever clothes you were wearing, he was feeling the luckiest guy alive just from seeing you smile like that for him. 

When you later remembered the deal you two stated he let you search on the car as he would finish accommodating what you bought inside the trunk. There was not much left to do and he finished a brief moment before you, choosing to sit on top of the closed trunk waiting for a possible eventual call for help. There was no need for it, you came to his encounter wearing one of his jackets. 

" Do you feel comfy now?" He teased you while seeing you advance closer in his direction. 

You didn't stop until you were standing in between his spreaded thighs. 

" I feel all yours, it's what I love the most."

Once you arrived at his place you were supposed to decide if you were going to get rid of the coat, but you didn't have much time for that. Junior received both of you alone, explaining to Andy that his cousin was out on a date with his boyfriend. Among the bits of small talk you got to do with him, it occurred to you bringing up the anecdote of your dressing coincidence in complete unawareness of what you were doing. 

By the time Andy came back from his bedroom fully changed into more comfortable clothes, you were already joking with the mischievous teen. He heard the sound of strong chuckling coming out of the boy and some commentary on your part. 

" Fuck, I can't get it ríght! Why is it so hard? He is a freaking doll, how does he get such strong vocal chords?"

" One more take, try not to sound like one of Santa's elfs this time. " Junior was mocking you.

You threw a high pitched cackle, what you boyfriend coming from behind you guessed was your own attempt to imitate Chucky's horrific laughing. It was a complete fail, the most adorable sound he ever heard. 

He trapped you between his arms, hugging your waist from behind, and you yelped from the surprise because you were too focused on your performance to notice him approaching. 

" I can't, she sounds like a Smurf. " The boy who was your main audience commented to him between his own laughing. 

" See, Andy? Junior just helped me discover one more reason why possessing me is not a profitable movement for Chucky. Imagine if he feels about to taste his irrefutable victory over you and then tries to cackle with this voice? It would kill the mood before he could get to kill you. " 

You were really into finding silly little details to take his fear away and he loved you for it.

[itgirlification]

supermodel | jjk

the last three months have been hell for you, but Jungkook seemed to be living his best life.

pairing: ex-bf!jk x thick!reader

warnings: explicit mentions of body image and insecurities, infidelity, anal sex, oral (male receive), foul language (kinda), etc.

now playing: supermodel by sza

part two part three

Exactly three months ago, your and Jungkook’s 2 years relationship officially ended. Unofficially, it ended about 5 months ago. And for about one month now, Jungkook’s been seeing someone else.

Your heart and mind told you not to do it but you couldn’t help calculating. Three months ago, you were still dating, two months later, he started dating someone else. That must mean he’s known her for a while. Did he cheat on you with her? Well, it’s not like it matters now anyway, does it?

Her name was Yuki, an undeniable Japanese beauty. You were still in college, studying music and she was a famous model who appeared in internationally known magazines. You assumed she met Jungkook during a photoshoot since he was a professional photographer who often worked for companies like Vogue and Playboy. You couldn’t help but compare yourself to her.

It wasn’t the fact that he moved on so quickly that hurt you the most. It was the fact that he knew all about your low self-esteem and how you lack confidence. Especially about your body. And he still went and dated a model, of all professions in the world. He was definitely over you.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he did it on purpose. But thankfully, you knew better, he looked too happy for that to be even considered. He forgot about you.

You’re making yourself sadder by remembering all the times he assured you you were beautiful and your body was nothing to be ashamed of. The times he let his fingertips run over the lines of your stretch marks, whispering in your ear how much he loved them and how they reminded him of Tiger stripes. The times he caressed your jiggly thighs and told you how sexy he thought they were.

Then your mind would drift back to the phone in your hand, the Instagram page of Yuki Sakurai opened, careful not to accidentally like anything and expose yourself. Not that she’d notice anyway, she had 3.7 million followers, while you had a private one with 500 followers and no posts, and she gets around 300 to 700 thousand likes on each post, depending on whether she posts random photos or pretty pictures of herself. Or newly, your ex-boyfriend, Jungkook. Oh, how crazy everybody goes whenever she posts him. People love them together. You couldn’t blame them. Two attractive people? Of course, they’re gonna look great together.

Fucking great.

That the end of your relationship with Jungkook would look like this was semi-predictable from the beginning. He did admit to you that he never thought he’d date someone that looked like you when you first dated. And your heart broke a little. But he also made up for it in those two years, it was a beautiful relationship nonetheless.

While you weren’t exactly his ‘ideal’ type, he was definitely yours. You always heard from other women ‘when in a relationship, the man always has to love the woman more than she loves him. Otherwise, it won’t work.’ You never really got the saying until your breakup with Jungkook happened. It was the fact that you clearly loved Jungkook more than he loved you that lead to this.

“Oh my goodness!”, your roommate, Jane, dramatically exclaimed. “Will you stop feeling bad for yourself and do something? That’s not what hot girls do, sis.”

Jane was a lovely girl with a not so lovely temper. She always means well and you got along perfectly as soon as you met. Which was around 3 and a half years ago.

She looked over your shoulder to see what you were looking at. You obviously didn’t want her to see you snooping around your ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend’s Instagram but it was too late.

“Seriously, yn?”, she took your phone in her hand and threw it on the bed. “Let’s go somewhere, you can’t do this to yourself anymore. I’m not letting you.”

Jane was clearly worried about you at this point. The only thing you did these last few weeks was eating, shower, cry, sleep and miss a whole bunch of classes. This wasn’t good at all.

“Where?”, your question was short.

“To the mall? Or the nail studio? Anything that’ll get you out of this fucking dormitory.”, Jane sighed, pulling the blanket off of you, making you whine a little. “C’mon, go put on some cute outfit and we’ll go.”

You felt bad since she was trying hard to make you feel better. But it didn’t really work.

You nodded, standing up from the bed, nonetheless. You picked out a cute two-piece dress, that brought back blurred memories of the time you went on a date with Jungkook, wearing the same two-piece. Bet Yuki would look cuter in this...

‘Shut your petty ass up, yn. It’s embarrassing, the way you’re stuck on a taken guy who wants nothing to do with you’

You wish you could change the way you think, even if it’s just for an hour or two. You wish you would stop imagining Jungkook judging you when he saw you naked or when you told him that you wished you could cut off some of your fat with a pair of scissors.

You were beyond ashamed of yourself. Why wasn’t it easy for you to just stay by yourself? why were you so desperately in need of Jungkook by your side to the point where you’d lock yourself in your room for a month just because he isn’t there?

You needed Jungkook. You became so attached to him in those two years, because you always saw him as a permanent, a forever. Not just a temporary, not just a distant memory. You already saw him as the father of your children, as the man you’re gonna marry.

You were so blinded by the fact that you had him, that you forgot you could lose him anytime.

“I’m done, let’s go.”, unenthusiastically, you announced to Jane, who was already waiting for you.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here!”, In contrast to your spirit, hers seemed to be all roses and daisies. “Lord knows you need it...”

__________

“Look at this cute ass skirt, girl”, Jane pointed at a chic, wine mini skirt she was holding. “You know, when I saw it back there I wanted to have it, but it’d look so much better on you”

You took a few seconds to admire Jane’s beauty. She was about 3 cm taller than you, had a great posture, and almond, dark brown eyes that suited her dark skin tone perfectly. Her body leaned more towards the slimmer side.

“Shut up! No, it would not”, you let out a small giggle. “It would look gorgeous on you, buy it.”

She smiled a little at your laughs. She was happy to see you at least a little cheerful again. “Yeah, but I think it’d look better on you. I’m entitled to my own opinion, am I not?”

You knew this debate was gonna go back and forth, because of her stubbornness. “Let’s both buy the skirt.”

You ended up doing so, added by a bunch of bags full of clothing. This may’ve turned into your new coping mechanism. Who needed therapy when you can go on a shopping spree?

Two hours were spent in boutiques and clothing stores and Jane decided she was tired, wanting to visit the local spa.

“No, seriously, these Riverdale seasons just keep on getting worse and worse. Netflix needs to step up their game ASAP”, Jane ranted, making you laugh at how serious she takes it. “It’s getting embarrassing. I’m being for real.”

The two of you were sitting in the whirlpool at the spa, relaxing your whole bodies a little.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I don’t watch these new Netflix shows anyways. Been stuck on the vampire diaries for the last 7 years”, you chuckled, knowing you hated trying new things. “Can you pass me one of those magazines?”

Jane nodded, grabbing a random one from the table next to her and handed it to you, without looking at it.

The cover of it caught your eyes immediately. How could it not, when your ex’s new girl looks absolutely dazzling on the front page of it.

‘Supermodel Yuki Sakurai talks summer fashion tips, struggle with self-love and most importantly, her hot, new boyfriend the media is going crazy over’ was the headline of the Harper’s Bazaar Magazine cover.

You felt your stomach getting sick and your breath getting heavier, but you still flipped the pages until you found the one with her interview. You began reading it, skipping the boring parts.

‘Int: so, we see you have a new boyfriend. Tell us, how did you guys meet?

Yuki: Yeah, he’s an amazing guy. We actually met about six or five months ago at one of my photoshoots, since he’s a photographer and we exchanged numbers and stuff, and then we made it official mid last month.’

About six or five months ago? You were with him back then, but her answer was too unclear to find out if he cheated or not.

“Woah, yn, you okay?”

You entirely forgot about the fact that you were with Jane, let alone somewhere other than your bed.

Before you could react, Jane snatched the magazine out of your hand.

“You really can’t escape them, huh?”, She sighs, taking you in her arm. “It’s gonna be okay, baby. In a few months, you’re gonna look back to this and think wow I really was stuck on a guy who’s scared of microwaves and cried like a bitch when Iron Man died.”

You laughed, punching her arm playfully. “You know, I actually love these things about him. Shows his sensitivity and the way he perceives things.”

Jane looked at you as if she didn’t believe you were actually saying that stuff. “Girl, you’re overanalyzing this. Let’s just throw this shit in the trash, okay?”

She put the magazine aside.

“I just don't know what I did wrong.”, You murmured. “I know we weren't the best, but we didn't even fight that much. We could’ve talked it through.”

Jane pursed her lips and cooed. “You know, relationships are complicated sometimes. The reason why he broke up, to begin with, is probably not your fault.”

“Well, what if it is? I mean what if I was too fat or too ugly for him?”, you asked. “If he wanted a skinny girl so bad, I could’ve lost weight for him, I don’t get it.”

Jane looked at you like you lost your mind entirely. “I can’t believe you just said that! Even if that was the reason, which it wasn’t, you shouldn’t make yourself suffer because of it. That’s his loss. You’re beyond gorgeous and you have an amazing body.”

“You’re just saying that.”, tears slowly started coming up in your eyes. “But the thing is Jungkook knows all about my insecurities. Why would he do that to me? I know he knows that I’m still not over him.”

You usually didn’t like crying in front of other people, but you didn’t really care at the moment, besides that was Jane. You trusted her with your life.

“Girl, men are trash, I can’t believe you’re crying over one right now, seriously.”, she wiped your tears and held your face between her hands. “You know, honestly, I’ve read so many articles about how models actually hate themselves and have like the lowest self-esteem so in conclusion, no matter how miserable you are, his new girl is even more miserable.”

You knew Jane didn’t mean it in a harmful way, but it sounded harsher than needed. “I don’t hate her, she probably doesn’t even know about me. I’m just really insecure. He upgraded from me. He’s dating a whole model now.”

The situation just felt like a deja vu of these last few weeks laying in your bed, even though you were at the spa with your friend. You were supposed to have fun, yet you didn’t feel like having any.

“Why would you feel insecure when all you’ve seen of her are Instagram posts and red carpet pictures? She’s supposed to look beautiful, it’s her job.”

To a certain extent, Jane was right, but that didn’t really help your situation, you still felt bad about yourself. You stayed silent.

“C’mon, this isn’t fun anymore. Let’s leave.”, Jane mumbled.

_______

it’s been two days since the incident at the spa and you felt a little bit better now.

Those days were spent reading the same three book series you’ve read your entire life, overthinking, hot Cheetos, Indian takeout, and Netflix. It really wasn’t as miserable as it sounded.

You were just taking a little rest before term break ends and you have to go back to the shithole college again.

Jane was using the time until college starts again, but in different ways than you were. She was planning on going to some frat party in an hour and forget about the world’ for a minute. Or till 4 in the morning, where she will most likely drunk call you and ask you for a ride back to the dorms, because the friends she went to the party with were shit-faced as well and were in no way capable of driving anywhere without the cops stopping them.

Going out partying on a Friday night was a Jane tradition. In the past, you’d sometimes go with her, but you mostly spent your time out with Jungkook doing something more fun than partying could ever be. Now you can’t do that anymore, but laying in bed is more ideal than a party for you at the moment.

“How do I look?”, Jane twirled around to show off her black cocktail dress. She looked beautiful.

“You look beautiful.”, you responded to her question. “Are you leaving now?”

“Hm”, she said, to which you nodded. “You sure you don’t wanna come with me? It’s gonna be really fun.”

You shook your head no.

“Alright”, she shrugged, making her way out of your bedroom. “But I told you, it’s gonna be fun.”

You chuckled, rolling your eyes. “I’ll stay here, I have shit to do.”

“Yeah, right, like binge-watching the vampire diaries and taking 5-hour naps”, she said in a sarcastic tone. “Anyway, bye-bye, Vic’s already waiting for me in the car.”

Victoria was perhaps one of the most obnoxious people you know, yet she was too much of a nice person for you to talk shit about her. The voice of your intrusive thoughts couldn’t help but to, though.

“Alright, bye, take care and say hi to Vic from me.”

After Jane left, an hour went by like it was just a couple of minutes. You were starting to get real bored and decided to watch some regular tv in hopes to find something you enjoy. You ended up not finding anything fun, but you still watched it, because you didn’t have anything else to do.

A few moments later, the doorbell rang and you were suddenly worried. Either this is a serial killer or Jane forgot something.

But to your surprise, it was neither, but it was none other than

“Jungkook?”, truly, those were the only words you were able to mutter out at your shocked state. “What are you do-“

At the speed of light, you were interrupted by your ex-boyfriend pressing his lips to yours. He didn’t say a word.

You weren’t expecting him. Not knowing how you were supposed to feel at the moment, you just let it happen. You were sure your mental state couldn’t get any worse than that, no matter how this will affect you in the end.

“Is Jane home?”, for the first time in 3 months, you’re hearing his silky voice again.

Jungkook knew Jane always had some type of special hatred for him with her killing stares and her bitter comments. You didn’t notice either though.

He also knew she must hate him even more after your breakup. Or maybe she liked him more now since she was able to get rid of him without killing anyone.

“No”, your answer was short and it made a weight fall from Jungkook’s shoulders before he continued kissing you.

It wasn’t anything you haven’t done before, yet it felt like it’s been ages since it last happened. Your mind drifted to the thought of Jungkook and his model girlfriend. You were asking yourself what their sex life was like, if she was tighter than you or if she had stretch marks and scars.

Jungkook’s lips were moving south, giving your neck wet kisses, while you were wondering why he broke up with his model girlfriend. Or if he even did. You felt selfish for not caring.

Removing your clothes one by one, you were left in your underwear, while Jungkook only had his boxers on.

This body was yours. You knew it inside out. Where he liked to get touched and where he preferred not to. You knew him better than anyone else. You were sure.

You already moved to your bedroom, since Jungkook effortlessly carried you there. You were sat on his lap, facing him and your hands were in his messy hair. His hands were around your waist, he was slightly smiling into the kiss, as you started grinding on him. He loved how easy it was for him to turn you on. You were still his.

Cutting off the kiss, he looked you in the eyes, while his hand was on your cheek. “Say aah.”, he said.

You widened your mouth obediently, which was followed by him collecting as much saliva as he could in his mouth and spitting it into your mouth.

“Swallow.”, demanding, he spit on your face, his eyes become darker with every passing moment. You did as he said.

You looked at him with big eyes. He knew you loved it. You’ve always had a thing for him degrading and humiliating you during sex.

He started grinding on you almost desperately. You knew exactly what he wanted.

Getting out of his grip, you dropped to your knees and freed his hard dick from his drawers. You reached for it and started pumping it, and licking it. Your spit was leaking down his dick as you used it for lubrication. Then you started sucking on it, just the way you used to.

Jungkook’s groans and satisfied sighs were enough to make you even wetter than before. You enjoyed giving more than receiving.

Your mouth was wet and warm around him, giving him a feeling of familiarity. You lick over the tip a few times, then proceed to fully take him into your mouth.

The bulge in your throat could be seen and the way your eyes were tearing up a little wasn’t bothering you at all. You loved giving.

Jungkook started thrusting in and out of your warm, welcoming mouth, his tip hitting the back of your throat multiple times.

“Fuck”, a throaty moan left Jungkook’s mouth, giving you hints that he was about to cum. And he did, releasing in your mouth before you swallowed it. “Shit, baby, that was so good.”

You felt your face heat up and a sheepish smile made its way to your face. Your throat was sore.

The two of you were on the bed again. To you, it felt like it was the times before your breakup again, when you’d purposely start an argument just for the makeup sex because Jungkook wasn’t giving you any anymore. It was like sex was the only thing to look forward to.

You felt attached to Jungkook to a point where it was dangerous. You weren’t okay when he wasn’t around. He affected every part of your life and God knew it wasn’t always a positive thing. Maybe it was the fact that he took your virginity. Maybe because he was your first boyfriend, the first guy that made you believe you were worthy of love and that someone was actually capable of loving you. One thing you knew was Jungkook had an expansive influence on your life.

While you were practically drowning in your own thoughts, Jungkook was busy taking off your underwear.

“You okay?”, Jungkook calmly asked you, looking at your riddled face.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m okay.”, you sounded distracted, Jungkook wasn’t sure about asking you what it is though. He didn’t feel like getting personal.

So he shrugged it off and started kissing you again, his dick was unsurprisingly hard again as he played with your tits. He drew lines over the stretch marks of your thighs and kissed them.

“Can I fuck your ass?”, Jungkook’s raspy, tired-sounding voice casually asked, to which you quickly nodded, knowing that Jungkook’s favorite position had always been anal. He was massaging and gripping your ass firmly.

“This is gonna hurt at first, but I promise it gets better.”, He warned calmly into your ear, while putting some lube on his dick and just went right into your ass, slowly thrusting so you don’t feel as much pain.

He was right, it did hurt a lot when he first put it in, but the pain just changed into pleasure in a matter of time and his slow-paced thrusts helped with the adjustment.

“Fuck, I missed this ass”, he practically growled into your ear, as he kept on thrusting in and out, steadily gripping your wide hips with his big, veiny hands. “It just doesn’t feel right when I’m inside her ass.”

You knew your confidence shouldn’t rely on Jungkook bringing his girlfriend down, but you couldn’t help but feel good about your body when he said that. It’s been a while since you felt even a tiny spark of confidence. You weren’t so fond of him mentioning her while he was inside of you.

Your soft moans rang through the whole room like sirens, while he watched your ass jiggle against his pelvis, thrusting in and out faster every second. He missed this.

You had always thought you were indecisive, but you knew exactly what you wanted. You just couldn’t have that, so you’d eventually have to settle for less.

Jungkook wasn’t to blame for it, you just couldn’t concede your shortcomings. The movie’s villain wasn’t always the real villain.

Your hands traveled to your pussy to make sure you’d orgasm as well, when you heard Jungkook’s breathing getting heavier and his thrusts getting gentler than before, indicating that he was gonna cum soon. You were certain he could make you cum with just anal, but you wanted to cum with him.

With furrowed eyebrows and drops of sweat dripping down his body, Jungkook looked down at your arched back. The whole scene was sticky, especially when Jungkook presses his upper body to your back, whispering sweet nothings into your ear and kissing the spot.

It was kinda odd, having sex with your ex-boyfriend you were crying over just a day ago. There was a certain intensity to it though. Like your long-lasting nostalgia was finally fulfilled.

You’ve realized you couldn’t imagine yourself being intimate with anybody else. Jungkook already knew your body, how it looked without the material protecting it, the strawberry skin, the slightly sagging breasts you swore you’d surgically remove once you had the chance to but didn’t. He knew where you liked being touched, he was the first one to even touch you in those places.

You were unsure what you’d do with yourself when he leaves.

Jungkook’s thrusts slowly started stopping and you too felt the familiar sensation in your stomach.

Suddenly, you two were nothing but desire, fear, and pleasure. And faster than you could process, you came together.

For minutes after your orgasm, you were just laying on the bed, thoughtless. Maybe a little regretful. Not you, but him.

You weren’t facing each other, but you could hear each other’s breathing. Your stomach was filled with something you’d describe as post-sex melancholia.

All of a sudden, Jungkook stood up from the bed, startling your resting self a little, but you decided to keep quiet, wanting to see what he was going to do.

He made his way to the door to leave what he thought was your sleeping body laying there. You couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

“Where are you going?”, your soft voice suddenly rang in his ears. “Don’t you wanna stay?”

He didn’t know how exactly to tell you. You’ve always been a gullible little girl, you were the type of girl to think fucking equals love. Little did you know that wasn’t the case at all.

“Yn.... you know I can’t”, Jungkook responded, you knew it wasn’t gonna be good when he said your name like that. “I got a girl at home and I don’t wanna mess shit up with her.”

There it was. Your suspicion was corroborated. He was still going out with the model and you were a certified home wrecker. Great.

You physically felt your heart breaking. “Bu- but why are you here then?”

You were incapable of being mad at him at the moment. It was your fault for letting him in, again. After breaking your trust and your heart.

“This was a mistake”, he declared, not looking into your eyes. “I’m sorry, yn...”

He’s moved past your room now, already at the exit of your dormitory. He was about to leave.

“You already ruined shit with her when you came here and fucked me.”, your voice was small, but your words were heard.

Without looking back, he left.

And you went back to your room, standing in the middle of it for a minute in silence before your brain fully processed what had happened and your tears started pouring.

[skaruresonic]

I'm not Infinite's biggest fan by any means. I still find "I'm not weak" to be laughable. While I dislike him for reasons ST probably intended, such as his sadism, I also consider him overrated and cliche. He's not that deep, he's just a bully on a power trip.

That being said, all this has got me to thinking about narrative payoff.

I guess I just don't vibe with the idea of pathetic characters in general because it's a difficult concept to pull off without veering too far into "he was beaten when he was a baby boy, blah blah" territory.

Bad writing tends to teeter-totter with the way we're supposed to perceive such characters.

It happened with Scourge. The book spent all this time hyping him up as a badass capable of going toe-to-toe with Sonic and Shadow... only to have him consistently flee any fight he was not guaranteed to win, thus depriving us of the opportunity to see whether his bluster held true. To see him get his comeuppance via a simple tongue-lashing by Sonic's dad doesn't feel cathartic, it feels frustrating. And the worst part is the author makes you feel like a fool for being invested in the first place by saying "What did you expect? He's a nobody, a joke. His story was never going to matter in the long run." Because YOU told me he was IMPORTANT. That's why I made the mistake of caring. This isn't to say anticlimaxes are inherently bad, but it goes without saying that if you spend a large amount of time hammering in a certain point, the audience is going to assume your character must have a purpose in the narrative---otherwise, why are you wasting our time?

Surge waxed poetic for ages about how she was going to destroy Sonic and Eggman and burn down the whole rotten system. Fine. She can be deluded in her beliefs. She can be wrong about them and learn that lesson the painful way, even. But can you, you know, at least show that dissonance in a coherent character arc instead of flipflopping between badass and woobie whenever it's convenient and pretending that counts as a character arc?

She spends ages nattering on about how she's going to destroy Sonic and Eggman... and ultimately winds up pulls the exact same shit as Scourge. At one point, her enemies are conveniently gathered in one place, and what does she do? Lash out at them, teeth bared, gives them a fight to the death? Nah. She flees. Has a panic attack. So very dramatique. Oh the tension. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Same concept applies to Starline, to a lesser extent. Flynn says in 2018 that they "don't need some other major villain," winds up writing Bad Guys where the entire point is that Starline will only be dragged down by trying to emulate Eggman, then kills the guy after having him get curbstomped just to prove some spurious Captain Obvious point that Eggman is the series' antagonist. And it's not even established onscreen that Eggman heard anything about the Hypnoglove, much less enough to be able to take preventative measures against it. The flashback in Imposters 3 just shows us a random nonsequitur about Eggman's love of theme parks. It's not thematically (heh) relevant, it doesn't show Eggman and Starline having a single conversation about the Hypnoglove. (Also, in hindsight: why would Eggman listen to Starline about his inventions anyway?) In retrospect, his entire "arc," if you can call it, is pointless. It makes you believe it's leading up to something, but ultimately leads to nothing.

I mean Infinite is also a joke and wasted potential, don't get me wrong, much cooler then Surge, he has such a sick design, nice background story and cool voice. And Forces wasted it and he's just dead like that. That made me more pissed of as I wanted to see more of Infinite.

Infinite was entertaining to watch though. The game makes it pretty clear that he’s a ginormous loser overcompensating for his inferiority complex by hiding his own face, seeking power and overall being nothing but an artificially-enhanced bully in order to not feel weak. His final defeat was anticlimactic, not only to reflect that he (Presumably) died a complete loser but to make it abundantly clear who wears the pants as far as domination and main villainy goes - The one and only Dr Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik.

Surge is just a shitty character, a blatant rip off of another shitty character. A creators pet who only gets one over on game characters by ignoring canon facts about them I.e Metal Sonic being both water and shock-proof or to make her look cool I.e Making Dr Eggman scared. Who canonically has huge cojones and wouldn’t be the least bit cowed by this fucking puke-coloured upstart.

Ironically, despite the evident regard Stanley and Flynn hold her in, she repeatedly is subject to indignities you’d see in Home Alone. She is only ever even remotely a threat by being artificially enhanced and/or stealing Dr Eggman’s tech. None of her “achievements” are accomplished by her alone or believably.

Flynn and Stanley and Fonsesca by extension seem to think they’ve portrayed the hottest shit ever as far as Sonic villains go, Fonsesca portraying her as beating seven shades out of the franchise’s main protagonist in CA and Stanley being egoistic enough to honestly believe that if Forces was “graced” with the presence of this shitty canon foreigner, it’d be vastly better.

Fucking awful character that has her horn tooted in the most obnoxious and transparent ways by a pair of hacks.

[sepublic]

Random Bionicle nitpick: I must confess that Keetongu’s design bothers me, mainly because he looks nothing like a Rahi and I wouldn’t be inclined to think of him as such, unless outright told in lore. 2005 has an emphasis of characters becoming more bestial, with animals fighting off against hunters; Keetongu is the last of a species hunted to extinction and frequently dismissed as a Rahi, but gets his revenge on Sidorak.

...Thing is, Keetongu’s design is completely humanoid, standing straight and upright. He doesn’t really have any claws or teeth that would be associated with animalistic characters, no tail, and while his legs could be interpreted as digitigrade if one tried, that’s not saying much. He wields outright tools and weapons (VS Rahi like the Kane-Ra who at least have their treads incorporated into their body as their hind legs), and his face is solely a single red eye on a long stalk, not like anything you’d see in real life. He comes across as more like a buff pit droid from Star Wars tbh. The fact that Keetongu is presented as this wise, speaking sage with medicinal skills and even a ‘hat’ just makes him feel more like a really big person than an animal.

At most, Keetongu’s design invokes the Cyclops, a mythical creature; But the Cyclops is generally recognized as a sapient being, often more human than beast. He’s a compelling set but it’s really a stretch to say he’s an animal when he doesn’t even act like one, being framed as more enlightened and wise than the Hordika, introduced in a meditating pose; I feel like in-universe a lot of characters should be perceiving the opposite. The only thing Keetongu has is the ability to sense good and evil in others and go berserk at the latter, a common animal trait in fiction... Seriously, we’re told he’s an animal, but what type of animal is he??? I guess he could be a cryptid like Bigfoot, hence they humanoid stature and intelligence, but the ‘face’ really throws me off.

...Really, you could argue that the Hordika sets also failed in showing us they’re animals, needing that to be conveyed in film by animalistic noises and characters going on all-fours, which you don’t see anywhere else; Otherwise they’re shown in advertisement and comics to be on two legs. Aside from their more elongated faces that could be compared to snouts, the Hordika just feel like robot humanoids but with an extra-large arm; By comparison the Barraki are a lot better at conveying their lore in design.

And since a lot of people can’t tell the Hordika are mutated animals, it means they criticize the asymmetry more; By comparison, Nidhiki is immediately identifiable as an insectoid crab and is frequently described as such in canon. I guess it all boils down to corporate rules that good guys have to look as normal as possible, while only bad guys get to go nuts and weird with their designs; Only bad guy mutations get to be monstrous, while the good guys still need to look heroic and ‘normal’, relatively speaking (since they’re still robots).