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bat-gwuck · 2 days ago

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Okay so this is my entry for @drizzledrawings competition!! Get ready for a whole ass fucking wall of text…whoopsie!!

anyway drizzle i love u and ur cowbians they me goofy-grin-on-my-face-kicking-my-feet happy — u and ur art are such an inspiration mwah!!

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I present to you my entry: Adelaide Forsythe – a travelling scholar and astronomer who’s shifter form is a magpie!

So, starting off with the animal choice. I chose a magpie for two reasons: one, I’m a bird nerd and two, I felt like the symbolism attached to magpies really fit her character??

As a member of the Corvidae family, Magpies are known for being quite intelligent, as well as having a love for shiny objects (get it, get it, she’s a scholar and she loves stars which are SHINY…I’m so smart guys)

BUT BUT BUT there’s a lot of folklore attached to them which I thought was also fitting – my Mum is like *really* superstitious and growing up she always had me salute magpies and you had to ask how its “wife” was doing if it was on its own bc (apparently) if you didn’t you’d be inviting bad luck – there’s a little song/poem that goes “one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told” so the idea is that if you see a lone magpie its an ill omen so you salute it n stuff to ward all that away bc you don’t have to salute a pair of magpies

Or maybe its just smth my Mum does idk BUT ANYWAY

I thought I could play with this a little bc in some cultures magpies are acc seen as signs of good luck and fortune, which brings me to Adelaide: she is an academic in an untamed land, an outsider among both frontier folk and the scholars who dismissed her, she longs for scientific recognition, yet finds freedom outside of its rigid institutions, she is a woman in a world that has no clear place for her—too independent for England’s high society and yet too refined for the lawless frontier. Like the magpie, she adapts, moving in a space that both welcomes and rejects her.

THEN, you have the “seven for a secret never to be told” which I felt was fitting for a shifter who doesn’t want to be found out AND THEN the “three for a girl, four for a boy” fit a bit as well, as she often poses as a man to further her academic pursuits (bit a stretch, maybe?? but idc im rolling with it)

In addition, magpies were almost hunted to extinction because people were so afraid of them, which I felt also fit with her place as not just a woman, but a woman in academia AND a shifter who’s trying her best not to get found out and skinned or smth. They’re ALSO associated with witchcraft, which fits too!!

Anyway enough about magpies, onto the actual character lmao.

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Adelaide’s defining trait is her insatiable curiosity. She is a woman who cannot look at the night sky without wondering what lies beyond it, who cannot hear a folk tale without questioning its origins, who cannot witness an injustice without demanding to know why the world is the way it is. She does not simply observe the world—she dissects it. Whether it’s the trajectory of a comet or the migration of birds, she sees patterns and logic in everything. Even when confronted with superstition, she doesn’t scoff outright—she analyzes, compares, and tries to understand why people believe what they do.

She does not downplay her knowledge for the comfort of others. When a man tries to explain something she already knows, she listens politely for about ten seconds before cutting him off with a far more detailed explanation. Her sharp tongue has made her enemies in both academic circles and the rugged frontier. She is rather exacting in her speech, rarely mincing her words. She dislikes vague statements, preferring specificity in all things. When others say "a bright star," she responds with, "Do you mean Sirius, Betelgeuse, or Vega?" This can make her seem arrogant, though in truth, she simply values accuracy. Besides, if anyone has earnt the right to be a bit arrogant, Adelaide would say it’s her.

Yet, for all her logic, there is an undercurrent of childlike wonder beneath her nose-stuck-in-a-book personality. The moment she gazes through her telescope, or rides the wind bathed in starlight, all pretense falls away, and she becomes a child staring at the heavens for the first time again.

Adelaide has always been an outsider, whether in Oxford’s elite intellectual circles or the rugged towns of the West. She does not belong to any one world, and she has long since given up trying to fit in. While she values solitude, there is a quiet ache of loneliness beneath her independence. She spends many nights staring at the sky, comforted by its constancy, yet knowing that the stars cannot speak back to her. In Oxford, she was too bold, too opinionated, too unwilling to be a wife first and a scholar second. In the West, she is too refined, too intellectual, too ignorant of the ways of outlaws and bounty hunters. She is always “too much” or “not enough” for the world around her.

Adelaide does not easily trust others, not just because of her “little secret”. She has met too many people who have either underestimated her or tried to use her intelligence for their own gain. When she does form connections, she values them deeply, though she often struggles to express this in words. Instead, she shows her care through small, practical gestures. Yet, despite her walls, there are moments—rare but profound—when someone earns her trust, and the walls crack just enough for light to slip through.

She keeps meticulous journals filled with astronomical calculations, weather patterns, and folk stories she gathers from the people she meets. Her saddlebags are filled with star charts, old books, and curious trinkets.

Once she sets her mind to something, she will not be dissuaded. If someone tells her a mountain is impossible to climb, she will reach the peak just to prove them wrong. It is both her greatest strength and her biggest flaw.

She has little patience for those who exploit others, whether it be a professor stealing credit for a woman’s discovery or a wealthy rancher cheating his workers. She does not take kindly to men who assume they can buy her loyalty or silence.

Though she claims she prefers to stay out of trouble, she has a habit of stepping in when someone is being mistreated. She does not pick fights often, but when she does, her words cut deeper than bullets. Adelaide does not resort to violence unless absolutely necessary, but she will ruin a man’s reputation, expose a fraud, or leave damning evidence where the right people can find it. She believes in the long game – vengeance is best served cold, calculated, and with irrefutable proof. She did learn some things from her upper class upbringing, after all.

Beneath her sharp intellect and hardened exterior, Adelaide has a deeply buried, fragile softness – one she rarely allows herself to indulge. She denies being sentimental, yet she cannot help but stop to admire a field of wildflowers or the way the Milky Way stretches across the sky. She has a poetic way of describing the cosmos, though she would never call herself a poet. Though she claims she does not care for fame, a small part of her fears that when she is gone, her work will be erased, her name lost. She has spent her life chasing knowledge, but in the quietest moments, she often wonders if anyone will remember her.

—

Born in 1871 in Oxford, England, Adelaide Forsythe was the only child of Dr. Reginald Forsythe, a respected academic who specialised in mathematics and astronomy, and Margaret Forsythe, a woman of high social standing whose primary concern was ensuring her daughter’s successful integration into elite society. While Margaret sought to mold Adelaide into a proper young lady—one who would marry well and host extravagant dinner parties—Reginald saw his daughter’s keen mind and indulged her curiosity, albeit discreetly.

The Forsythe line carried old magic, ancient and restless, passed down in blood and bone. It was not the magic of spells or incantations, but of transformation—of slipping between forms, of becoming something other, something free.

Adelaide had been standing on the balcony of their estate, staring up at the night sky, when a sudden pull overtook her. Her skin burned, her bones ached, and before she could cry out, the world tilted. The next thing she knew, she was plummeting through the air — not falling, but flying. Tiny wings beat frantically as instinct overrode panic, and she soared above the rooftops, free in a way she had never known before.

And then she crashed, hard, into a chimney stack and tumbled ungracefully to the ground.

Her mother found her shivering in the garden at dawn. There were no screams, no hysteria — only a cold stare, a tight grip on Adelaide’s wrist, and a warning whispered with more force than any slap:

"You will never do that again. Do you understand me?"

Frightened by her parent’s stories of torture, death and other such things, Adelaide was keen to agree with her mother.

But nature does not forget so easily.

—

As a young girl, Adelaide would sneak into her father’s study late at night, pouring over his scientific texts by candlelight. The first time she glimpsed Saturn’s rings through a telescope at the age of ten, she was transfixed. The chaos and expectations of human society seemed so small compared to the great, unending vastness that was the universe. She devoured every book she could find, often pestering her father’s academic colleagues with endless questions during social gatherings.

Her precocious nature made her an outlier among other girls her age. She had no interest in embroidery, courtship, or fashionable gossip. When she was fifteen, her mother caught her sneaking into her father’s lectures disguised in her brother’s old coat and hat. Furious and humiliated, Margaret demanded her father put an end to her academic pursuits, fearing that no reputable man would ever marry a woman who thought herself equal to scholars. But Reginald, torn between duty to his wife and pride in his daughter’s intellect, found a compromise — he arranged private lessons with an old friend, Professor William Crenshaw, one of the foremost astronomers of the era.

By the age of twenty, Adelaide was unofficially assisting at a local observatory, analyzing star catalogs, observing planetary movements, and even drafting papers under her brother’s name (Adam, who had wholeheartedly agreed to the plan) to bypass gender restrictions in scientific publishing. She developed a reputation for being fiercely intelligent but also unyielding, unwilling to temper her opinions for the comfort of her male peers.

Her greatest challenge, however, was not the task of unravelling the mysteries of the universe but the narrow minds of her peers. While some admired her brilliance, others saw her presence as a scandalous threat. When a comet she helped chart was credited to a male assistant instead of her, Adelaide protested openly. “If a woman’s eyes can see as far as a man’s, then her name should reach just as far,” she argued. Her defiance earned her both admiration and ire.

In 1891, her growing reputation secured her an invitation to travel westward to Lemoyne to observe a rare solar eclipse. This would be her first real taste of life beyond the confines of academia and upper class English society.

Lemoyne was unlike anything Adelaide had ever known—rugged, lawless, and ungoverned by the rigid structures she was so used to back home. The journey was treacherous; the expedition was plagued by broken equipment, aggressive wildlife, and even an attempted robbery by outlaws. Adelaide, having never fired a gun in her life, was nearly helpless, relying on the protection of local guides and her quick wit to survive.

Despite the hardships, she made her way to the observation site and witnessed the total eclipse—a perfect black void swallowing the sun, a fleeting moment of cosmic wonder. As she gazed at the event through her telescope, surrounded by untamed wilderness instead of university halls, something within her shifted. The American West was a world of mystery and discovery in its own right, she thought.

When she returned to England, she found herself restless. The constraints of her life now felt suffocating.

It was misfortune that eventually spurred her onwards. During a risky midnight flight, Adelaide had injured her wing, and as such, was stuck in her form for a while. A colleague of hers had found her near the University and had taken it upon himself to care for her — much to her horror, and her gratitude. Adelaide had hoped to escape before he found out but it was not to be. Upon finding not a freshly healed magpie, but a grown woman in his kitchen, the man understandably freaked out. He threatened to expose her secret — stating that she was to step down from her post if she wanted to (quite literally) save her skin.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Adelaide set out for the Americas once again — this time alone. With nothing but a collapsible brass telescope, a collection of notebooks, and a revolver she barely knew how to use, she sailed westward, determined to document the night sky from places few had ever studied before.

She traveled from town to town, funding her journey by selling star charts, lecturing at any schools that would take her (which were few and far between), as well as a sizeable fund from her father, who had helped her flee. She often sought out high ground, camping alone in the mountains or vast plains, sketching the heavens by firelight.

But the frontier was dangerous, and a woman traveling alone is easy prey, especially one of “her kind”. She learned to navigate both the celestial sphere and the lawless lands beneath it. She bribed hunters to look the other way, outwitted charlatans who sought to take advantage of her, and, after a close brush with a gang of highwaymen in New Austin, reluctantly learned how to use her revolver. Though not a natural fighter, she became adept at using her intellect to survive, talking her way out of most trouble before bullets were needed.

By 1899, the world was changing. The frontier was vanishing, swallowed by railroads and industry. Scientific institutions back east were growing in prestige, but still refused to fully recognize women.

Eleanor found herself caught between multiple worlds — too independent for the constraints of academia, too refined for the lawless plains of the West and too wild, too different for all of them.

She had spent years mapping the stars, but her greatest challenge remained: carving out a place where she, and her work, could live and be remembered.

She would never be a wife waiting at home, nor a delicate lady confined to parlors and polite conversation. Nor would she be held down and restrained because of the blood that ran through her veins.

She was a scholar, an explorer, a collector of knowledge and forgotten stories. A woman with a revolver in one hand and a telescope in the other, chasing the stars and riding the wind before the West faded into memory.

Because the world will change, the frontier will disappear, and one day, even the names of its greatest outlaws will be forgotten.

But the stars will remain. And so will she.

Either way, Adelaide would continue to look skyward, seeking answers in the infinite dark.

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Okay so that’s the end (so far)!! Hope you enjoyed!! I might expand on her and give her some friends (maybe even a girlfriend…heh) later but idk??

P.S. Adelaide would def be besties with that palaeontologist you meet who gives you that dino bone quest

#rdr2 #digital art #artists on tumblr #cowbians contest #I LOVE BIRDS RAAAHH

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suzukiblu · 1 day ago

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WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; "the one where Kon’s soulmark isn’t fake". (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Metropolis has been kinda quiet lately, aside from the usual petty crime and a few car accidents and that kind of thing. Superman asked Superboy to do him a favor and keep an eye on some press event that LexCorp is running that apparently got some threats called in–which, like, clearly he was scraping the bottom of the barrel there if he asked him to do it, but obviously Supergirl wasn’t gonna be willing to and Steel probably wouldn’t have either. He personally has less of an opinion on Lex Luthor than either of them do, aside from “kind of a creepy dick” and, like, obviously the whole “legit an actual supervillain and seriously, WHY do more people in Metropolis and on the internet not seem concerned by that?” But he’s never had to clean up any messes the dude caused himself, so he doesn’t really have any personal beef past what a total fucking shithead said dude was to Supergirl and what a petty spite-powered weirdo he is to Superman.

Superman said he'd be keeping an ear out anyway, just apparently he didn't know how fast he was gonna be able to show up if something went down, so he just wanted somebody on-scene just in case. Even though Luthor is a petty spite-powered weirdo who was a total fucking shithead to Supergirl and would totally deserve his stupid press event that's probably just about stupid bullshit getting fucked up.

But whatever; Superboy's just here to play super-errand-boy ‘til the real deal can make it, and also probably at least the event staff and press don't deserve getting caught in the crossfire if shit does end up going down. And Luthor probably doesn't deserve to actually, like, die about being a petty vindictive bitch and a lying liar of a boyfriend from hell.

Like, fifty-fifty on that one, maybe. But still.

So–yeah, given all that, Superboy guesses he’s the obvious pick to event-watch. Unless Superman wants to call in a favor from an out-of-towner with a different category of vigilante name, anyway, and given the usual weight class of the local bad guys, that’s not really a thing Green Arrow can handle and, like, Wonder Woman literally has a day job, sooooo . . . yeah, Superboy's the obvious pick here.

Like, once Supergirl and Steel both got ruled out, anyway, and probably Superman did ask Wonder Woman and possibly even Green Arrow first, because optimism and ego aside Superboy is not that deluded about Superman’s level of confidence in him, but . . . yeah. It’s whatever.

It’s actually super fucking boring, in fact, and Superboy’s currently sitting on a rooftop across the street from the event with his arms folded on the ledge and head resting in them as he watches the event staff set stuff up in a straight-up mind-numbing stakeout that is way less “stakeout” and way more “he already ate all the food truck nachos he scrounged up the cash for earlier and now he is fucking suffering”.

Ugh.

Superboy eyes the temporary stage and the rows of chairs in front of it. He has no idea how it’s supposed to look when it’s done, but it’s, like . . . reasonably put-together, right? Like, it looks reasonably put-together. Though admittedly he has clue zero about what the final setup’s supposed to look like, which maybe is something he should’ve thought to check on, like . . . somehow, he doesn’t know. Chatted up one of the waitresses or something, maybe, or just asked one of the dudes who’ve been carrying all the electrical equipment around. Probably “yo I wanna make sure you and your co-workers don’t friggin’ die” would be enough to inspire somebody who doesn’t work directly for LexCorp to wanna hand over info like that, right? Like, in theory?

He might be back in deluded optimism territory with that one, admittedly.

God, are they fucking done yet?

The media finally starts showing up like an hour later, which makes Superboy seriously regret his bright idea of coming early to make sure nobody pulled anything weird with the stage like he even would’ve fucking noticed anyway with everything that was going on over there and all the people that’ve been in and out and whatever. His brain is literally mush. Bored as fuck mind-numbed mush. Which is, like, not great for keeping an eye on a situation, especially a big busy . . . whatever the fuck a press event technically counts as. Meeting? Party? Punishment from hell specifically designed to wreck a teenage superclone’s random-ass Tuesday?

Superboy maybe shoulda paid a little more attention to the event’s start time or whatever when he was deciding when to show up. At least he coulda paced himself a little better on the nachos. Maybe gotten a burrito or something to go with.

Maybe a couple burritos, at this point.

#kon el #conner kent #superboy #superfamily #wip: the one where kon's soulmark isn't fake #jan

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iminyourwallsbabe · 2 days ago

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Yk what I feel like I haven't yapped about CaitVi enough and that's a disservice to my fellow sapphics so this word vomit is for you girl kissers out there

Okay so it goes without saying that CaitVi is kind of divisive. Some people love it 100%, some people think it could've worked better under different circumstances, and some people outright hate it, all viewpoints I understand. I'm the type of person who appreciates it for what it is.

I think the first thing I wanna touch on is the idea that their ending was supposed to be a happy one. I don't think it was. Honestly, I think it was more of a pause than anything. You weren't supposed to go "oh yay good for them", you were supposed to wonder what happens now. The end gives us, and the characters, an opportunity to just get our shit together and move on. So much just happened, there was little time to really, deeply think about it all. I'd like to think that they did work their shit out post-canon. However, I can see why people would think they wouldn't have.

I'm gonna go reverse chronological here. So one of the more glaring issues is whether or not Caitlyn switching sides was authentic and came from a place of genuine understanding of her mistakes. In my opinion, not quite. She was getting there but it would take the final battle for it to really set it. I said this in another post, but when she's sitting there before Ambessa, gun to the back of her head and knife in her side, she looks terrified. Obviously that shit is scary but it's more than that. Caitlyn is more afraid of dying than ever before, because if she died then, that would mean she had no way to fix what she had done. It was setting in just how badly she fucked up and now the entire world is at stake, and what can she do? Nothing. Think back to season 1 when her biggest gripe was not being allowed to do anything substantial or important. It's this again, just more extreme. She wanted to help people then, now she needs to and she can't.

And I think that's what she needed. She has never really been on the receiving end of the consequences of her actions. Not until then. As we've seen in the early parts of season 2, it weighs on her heavy when she thinks she's made a grave error. That's why she even started acting up in the first place. She's willing to abandon all of her morals and growth for the sake of remedying what she thinks she did. So with that in mind, I can imagine when she goes back to Vi, she feels the same if not worse because this time, what happened was actually her fault.

But now we need to talk about Vi and her place in all of this. One of many people's complaints is that Vi folds so easily when it comes to Caitlyn. And you're right, she folds like a fucking napkin but that's not just "oh I'm in love so I'm gonna do whatever for my girlfriend", it's more than that and has nothing to do with Caitlyn specifically. First of all, she has been stuck in Stillwater since she was a teen and hasn't seen the light of day in 7 years. MIND YOU, when she went to jail she was separated from her sister, who at that moment was her only living family member. OH YEAH DID WE FORGET THAT HER ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN FRONT OF HER THAT SAME NIGHT? It is not a surprise to me at all that she clung to Caitlyn like saran wrap. That tends to happen when you're that fucking lonely. I'm of the belief that it could've been any other woman in the world instead of Caitlyn and she still would've acted the same. I also think that's part of the reason she joined the enforcers. Vi probably thought she was going to lose Caitlyn if she didn't. That doesn't really have anything to do with Caitlyn, that's an internal thing. Again though, are we really surprised that she'd get that desperate? But wait! There's more. After she does join and she tries to call Caitlyn out when she's done too much, it goes very wrong. It's at this point that some people wonder why she didn't just go back to Ekko instead of acting like she was all she had left. I need y'all to be so fr, you think Ekko would've been cool with that? And don't say "oh but he's so forgiving to Jinx" or something, that's just not true. He knows she's dangerous to the people of Zaun and can't personally allow that in his space or his life. It doesn't make it hurt any less but he's very clearly not having that shit. The same would've happened with Vi. She would've came back, he would've been like "I love you but FUCK NAH", and season 2 would've been exactly the same. She would've had to do some serious convincing.

But I say that to say that realistically, Caitlyn was all she had. She couldn't go back home after doing what she did, she definitely couldn't go to Jinx, everybody else is dead, that was it for her. Now we're in the glorious crash out era. I think there's something to be said about the glimpses of Caitlyn we get in that sequence. Those were hallucinations, going off of the fact that Jinx has her own and that more than likely, they share some of the same underlying mental illnesses. Breaking up with Caitlyn like that probably set it off. The straw was starting to break the camel's back. I also think it's interesting how Caitlyn left Vi similarly to how Vi (technically)left Jinx and that's when these issues start. I think it was a good way of showing that Caitlyn was right in a misguided sort of way. It is her blood in her veins. She is not that far off from Jinx, and they both can sit there and go "oh yeah she's crazy" all they want but Vi and Caitlyn were both one or two crash outs away from being like her. If anything, you can argue they kind of got there. Both of their ways of dealing with their pain involved hurting people. Caitlyn with her military dictatorship and attempted mass murder, Vi with her pit fighting, it's not at all the same in severity but conceptually... yeah, all of y'all are of fucked up.

You know I sometimes made jokes about how Caitlyn looks like Vi's mom and kind of acts like Jinx/Powder and how Freud would've had a field day with that but that's not exactly what's happening. I mean the mom thing is still a little sus but like I said before, they both have Jinx tendencies. If anything, Vi sees a reflection of herself in Caitlyn, because one of the big differences between the three of them is that what Vi and Caitlyn do is controlled. Caitlyn enacts violence through military means and generally gets permission to do the things that she does. Vi fights in a pit, that's the time and place for that. Jinx kind of does whatever she wants, except for when her mind/body makes decisions for her. She goes into panic mode and she shoots something, it's almost a natural instinct. If it's not that, it's kind of just "I felt like it". Also, their fears are coming from slightly different places and manifest in different ways. Jinx doesn't trust anyone to stick around, so she tests them and pushes them away. Vi doesn't trust anyone to stick around so she does whatever she can to keep them with her. Caitlyn doesn't trust herself to keep the people she loves around, so she becomes overly protective of them. Are we seeing what I'm saying here? It's like a hall of mirrors with these three but we're not here to talk about their relationship to Jinx, we're here to talk about them.

With this in mind, let's talk about the Fantastic CaitVi Coping and Communication Skills!!!! So the first thing they do when they join sides again is just be freaky as fuck. Like you think Vi spitting on her was a necessary part of the plan? Hell nah! Like honestly you could shoot a hole through the sexual tension between them good lord. Some people argue that the sex scene was unnecessary but looking at how they were acting before that? I'm not surprised that it went the way it did. Jokes aside though, seriously, the fact that they hadn't really addressed what happened properly and just went straight to pound town is so painfully on brand for both of them. Neither of them are good at addressing their issues. Post breakup, Vi became an emo alcoholic and Caitlyn became a whole ass dictator, I don't think they were gonna sit down and talk about their feelings. And honestly, I don't think that closure mattered nearly as much to them as it does to us as the audience. They have bigger issues, yk, like the glorious evolution and all that. Do I think that's necessarily a good thing? No. Do I think it's in character? Very. Anyway, this is why Vi is like "Cait, I don't fucking care" when she tries to begin saying anything about what she did when they were apart. She doesn't fucking care. Not at all. That's not what's important to her in that moment. It's also interesting that the first thing Caitlyn tries to apologize for is for sleeping with another woman, not trying to kill a whole bunch of her people. Notice how she went for the small thing first? She doesn't want to think about the other stuff. Neither of them do. And so they do what they do best and found a totally unhealthy distraction. In this case, it's ✂️🧁.

I think as a fandom we put too much emphasis on what's healthy in a show full of the most insane people I've ever seen. Trying to find a perfectly healthy relationship in this show is like trying to find a super niche website from 2003. You could probably do it but oh my fucking god would it take you a while. And y'all don't have nearly this much to say about Jayvik even though bro was like "ppl from the undercity are dangerous!!!" right to Viktor's face. Not to mention all the other issues they got going on. Jayce straight up killed a child with Hextech, like let's be fr. They're not all sunshine and rainbows and if we're going to criticize CaitVi the way that we do, we gotta have the same energy for Jayvik.

Anyway, I say all that to say that it's hard to focus on what the most therapist approved decision for your relationship is in these conditions and it doesn't make a ship any worse because of that.

I also don't like the idea that it's too unhealthy to be functional. It has the potential to get better and it's implied by the ending that it does, or at least starts to. Think about it like this, if two people on opposite sides of the political spectrum are friends, what do you assume is actually happening there? One party has to be compromising on their beliefs. There's no other way. If you cared so strongly about something, it'd be hard to keep company that opposes it. It's like that with CaitVi. They were on two different sides of a war and Caitlyn had to shift what she believed in order to even befriend Vi let alone be her lover. That whole "oh ur all the same" bit had to go. If anything, it makes me believe that end of season 2 CaitVi is actually healthier than season 1 CaitVi on a fundamental level. Caitlyn's view of Zaunites by the end of season 1 is attached to Vi. Vi was one of the good ones, Vi proved that there was some hope for those people, Vi was an exception. This is why she got so mad in season 2 when Vi tried to tell her she was bugging out. That's why she says "it's her blood in your veins" with so much vitriol. She gets indirectly victimized by a Zaunite, who has already been established as an extremist, and all of a sudden everybody down there is bad again. If you care about them at all you're bad too. At the end of season 2, Caitlyn is amused when she notices that Jinx is still alive. If that doesn't say anything about how much she's developed I don't know what does. Even if she doesn't like her, she doesn't have that same blind hatred anymore and that's the part we have to pay attention to. She's gotten to a point where she thinks even Jinx should have the opportunity to have a second chance. I'd rather date that than Caitlyn "wait you don't have parents?" Kiramman.

That's basically it, shout out to the writers for actually knowing how classism/racism/all the isms tbh actually work and what it looks like to change your beliefs as a a beneficiary of those systems, goodnight

#arcane #arcane s2 #arcane spoilers #caitvi #analysis #arcane analysis #piltovers finest #piltovers gayest #violyn #caitlyn kiramman #caitlyn arcane #vi arcane

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summertimesadnessirl · 17 hours ago

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I once read this story about Vladimir Nabokov.

About how he was obsessed with collecting butterflies, and all the weird shit in Lolita started because he realized one day he was literally murdering these little creatures.

And how fucked up that is.

I don't know if that's true or not because I never checked the sources.

But even the delusional narrator of that story eventually understands that you don't love someone if your idea of love is to suffocate someone in a jar.

Armand got 77 years in a jar with no air in it, and he knows it. But he didn't love Louis so much as he'd been in jars with no air in them his whole life and I think putting someone else in one might have allowed him to realize none of the people in his childhood, or Marius, or the other people in his life ever cared about him. That the fact that he loved them because he had never known anything other than starvation and little enclosures wasn't because they deserved it.

Lestat has a lot of problems. A big one is that he just plays the role people he likes want him to play without thinking. This is the thing he and armand have in common. They both reflexively do this in different ways and for different reasons so they can only kind of pay attention to one another by proxy, in a crowd. It's not that they don't have personalities, it's just their primary way of dealing with people. Lestat defaults to being a rebel or a villain in every story he's in, when he meets a new person he defaults to being in love with them but he also argues with them all the time. This works really well with Louis because Louis hates himself most of the time, so as long as Louis hates himself it's easy for Lestat to be kind to him. If he starts to improve, though, the focus shifts. It's on some level true that lestat is "waiting until you are happy." It's not on purpose, but if there is too much harmony, that's difficult for him. He literally needs the drama of some kind of high stakes story to be happening around him all the time. In the books he walks blithely into traps all the time, and on one level it's because he's kind of a himbo, but on another level it's because he kinda can't resist seeing what the trap will do. There's a whole part in The Tale of the Body Thief where he knows the body thief is going to try to keep his body and also he is very likely to die as a random mortal human and Louis is like "we both know this is a trap and we both know you're going to do it anyway." The only times Lestat really gets to love people is the times when he's killing them, and he constantly rhapshodizes about how beautiful all his victims are and how wonderful it is to be near them and follow them and stuff, even the ones who aren't pretty or anything, like elderly people and so on. The only time I remember him being nice to people just to be nice to them is Quinns grandmother in Blood Canticle, but that is 100% because he's enjoying the dramatic irony of letting some old lady show him her priceless collection of cameos, and also he's in the middle of a ghost story so it doesn't matter, he's playing Sherlock Holmes.

Lestat was really good when he was doing the seduction game, he was really good at "please forgive me, I fucked up" but he kept falling into some weird role over and over that's like... patriarch. Whiny wife with no hobbies who keeps getting into trouble because his husband works too much and doesn't pay attention to him. Crashing the party because no one can match his freak and he wants to go home. Bad boy boyfriend who trolls your family when they seem homophobic and eats your priest. Lestat is emotionally immature but he also has no idea how to be a person. He's too busy being the main character, and when he meets Louis, it hasn't become blindingly obvious to everybody that Lestat is the main character. It seems like once that happens it mellows things out for him a little because people know why he's like that all the time. Armand actually seems like he's the first person to have figured out that Lestat is the main character, sometimes. Good for him.

the thing with how lestat and daniel handled louis’ depression is that they had the immediate audacity to believe they could fix him with their personalities and humors and sex whereas armand thought hey let’s make the situation more dire and throw in a daughter death and bdsm. you laugh but armand got 77 years and lestat and daniel only have regrets. see?

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talking-tics · 1 day ago

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Fake claiming people who had tics in 2020/21 needs to stop and here's why:

first of all. I'm against fake claiming in general. you have no idea what people's situations or lives look like. you have no right to tell them what medical conditions they do or don't have. but. let's lay out some reasons why you may have seen a lot more people with tics then vs now.

***

- firstly. it was 'trending'. if you were seeking out people with tics to gawk at. you were going to see them.

- talking about tics brings them out. people were making videos and content about their ts/tics, and so naturally, they were ticcing in those videos. that does not mean that they must tic all of the time in order for them to have tics.

- I spent years trying medications, waiting to see a neurologist. getting on different doses, etc. before I found something that works. when I'm on my meds, I usually don't tic hardly at all. that very well could be the case for some of these people as well.

- tic disorders wax and wane. it's a well known part of the disorders. tics can be bad for a while, and then almost non-existent for a while. and then come back. it's normal.

- tics also tend to get worse in times of high stress and anxiety (global pandemic??!)

- tourettes is not the only tic disorder. the options aren't only. tourettes or faker. there is such thing as transient/provisional tic disorder, which is a very real tic disorder that lasts for less than a year. there are also other causes of tics such as fnd.

- it's a well known phenomenon that people's tics sometimes improve in adulthood. it doesn't mean that they were faking before. it just means that they got a lucky break.

***

fake claiming is gross, and this mindset only does harm to the tic disorder community. it's ableist and ignorant to assume someone is faking just because you're uneducated and think that you know more than the person who actually has the disorder.

please try to support the people you know, and the people in your community with tics. it's rough out here for us.

#parker tics #parker talks #actually tourette’s #tourette syndrome #tics #tic disorders #provisional tic disorder #transient tic disorder #chronic motor tic disorder #tourettes #tourette's syndrome #tic disorder

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pyramid-scheme-of-the-ewe · 2 days ago

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Could you share with us your favorite shamgoat headcanons? I need them for… uh… reasons 👀

Ooooh, let's see here.

How do I go about this without spoiling my fics hmmm.

Ah screw it, here have some sneak-pics on what's to come.

For one, assuming that it is somewhat confirmed the Goat was Shamura's vessel, we know that the Goat's realm Shamura is probably a different Shamura from the one in the Lamb's world. Now, it may or may not be that the Goat had failed to defeat their god in the final battle and was killed by them. This was how I wrote it in my main Goatfic (The Damn Fellowship of Death and War. No, I do not know what I was on when I came up with that name and no, you cannot have some), but I didn't exactly think of it as canon. Apparently there are some hints in the update that point to the Goat being 'undead', at least that's what people are theorizing, so it just may be actually canon that the Goat was killed by their Shamura.

Now this is so funny to me, because I imagine that when the Goat comes to the Lamb's world and meets their Shamura: they are so incredibly pissed. And for no actual reason. Like this isn't the guy who betrayed and killed them. It sort of is but sort of isn't.

I imagine Shamura immediately takes a liking to the Goat's intelligence and wits. Meanwhile the Goat just hates them and Shamura cannot for the life of them figure out why.

Pretty sure most of us see Shamgoat as having a lot of back-and-forth snark as their dynamic. But here's how I see it: Shamura's having the time of their life, exchanging quips, happy to have someone to match their wit, not taking anything personally.

Meawhile the Goat's losing their shit. They're actually trying to be genuinely mean (but deep down they do also end up enjoying the banter as well).

Also, you know how Shamura only talks in riddles sometimes? I imagine the Goat is the only one smart enough to immediately understand them.

I've actually thought of this kind of cute moment: Shamura's riddles are definitely super poetic, and I have this idea that they slowly, accidentally reveal their growing feelings for the Goat by essentially delivering a freaking love poem. And everyone just sort of gets absolutely confused, most of all the Goat.

Ok, these are definitely going in Damn Fellowship of Death and War.

Now for them already as a couple *rubs hands together*

Right, so they're dynamic in my head is kinda' interesting in the fact that they're both gods of war and wisdom, but they go about it in completely different ways. Especially for the wisdom aspect. I imagine Shamura is more what someone traditionally imagines when they hear the word 'wise' (mature, knowledgeable, experienced, rational), meanwhile the Goat is more like clever, witty, wily - that sort of thing. The Goat's also a lot more aggressive and gremlin-like while Shamura is more chill and calm.

But the truth is the Goat will outdo them. They will be the better god of wisdom. Shamura's 'greater-good' strategies that keep screwing them over are absent from the Goat. Despite the fact that the Goat seems like they're more impulsive and temperamental, they're not. They're straight-forward and don't take shit. That kind of attitude is what keeps things simple and away from overcomplications. Something Shamura lacked. At the end of the day, the Goat will make the better decisions. And Shamura is more than ok with it.

I mean it makes sense, they are sort of supposed to be the parallel to Narilamb, with the Lamb outdoing Narinder as his successor.

Ok, but like I imagine if they had an argument or fight, they would end up dealing with it like a freaking war negotiation. Like they would handle it with the utmost seriousness and calmness, with full out peace agreements, ceasefire contracts, powerpoint presentations and shit. (Ok, but this would be so healthy though. Imagine if you dealt with every argument and decision with the same diplomacy and seriousness as a war negotiation.)

Like imagine this meme in the most serious and literal sense:

This is so them.

Imagine the morning after a fight:

Shamura: I'll pass you the salt, if you hand over the northern territories of the butter plate.

Goat: Only if you include the pepper shaker.

Shamura: You drive a hard bargain.

Goat: This is war, not your local flea market.

At the end of the day though, this idea that the new god of wisdom will have someone to help them with their domain, to advise them and support them - that's just so special and significant. I think we can conclude that Shamura's domain is the probably one of the most difficult to bear - everyone relies on them, they're the one who has to know everything. Always. They always have to know what to do. But who would they have turned to if they're the ones who need advise? No one. They're supposed to be the most knowledgeable. They know the best. No one can help them.

But the Goat won't have to go through that. They will have someone to fall back on, they will have someone who can tell them something new. Because they'll have the former wisdom god by their side. When the Goat isn't 'all-knowing', Shamura can be. They can help carry the weight.

Shamura can make sure their successor will never feel as alone in the choices they would have to make as they once were. Because they both no better. They both know the best. And two all-knowledgeable heads are better than one.

Also, also, here's a weird idea no one asked for (...except for the person literally asking): If they had kids and let's say some are spiders, I kinda' think that spider babies would crawl all over their parents as a means of comfort and I have this mental image of a Shamgoat spider child climbing up the Goat's head, building a web in between their horns and sitting there all day, just having their dad carry them around everywhere.

Here, have this visual:

There's more stuff, buuuut that's as much as I'm willing to spoil. I still wanna' give these two a oneshot, if not a full out story, so you'll have to wait and see for the rest.

#cotl #cult of the lamb #cotl goat #cotl shamura #goatmura #shamgoat #cotl fanfic #cotl fic

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fallloverfic · 2 days ago

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"Dear Castlevania fandom... Just because a man is pretty doesn't mean he's a bottom." - an ignoramus

I already wrote about this before, but if you're too foolish to realize you don't know off-hand why people make whichever character a top or bottom, please shut up. There's a lot of reasons people like Olrox as a bottom, and why I in particular wrote him as a bottom back in 2023, which have nothing to do with how pretty he is (but can include that, and there's no harm in that):

The idea of a human topping a vampire is fun (this was before season 2 released and we relied on season 1 alone: hi new people who showed up in 2025, season 1 came out in September 2023, you didn't start the fandom or the ship :D Welcome, hope you enjoy your stay, but stop being dickheads :D). The idea that Olrox is so intrigued by Mizrak that he allows Mizrak more control in the form of topping is fascinating

Olrox topping Mizrak just isn't as interesting, at least in humanoid form (but in his serpent form, that's more interesting). This had nothing to do with who was prettier, at least in my case. I tested out who I enjoyed doing what, and Olrox bottoming was more fun. So I wrote that.

Are you implying Mizrak isn't pretty for some reason? I mean he's buffer (slightly) but... hmm... Honey, he had me at the side cape.

The idea of a shorter man topping taller man is fun (Olrox is actually taller than Mizrak)

The idea of Olrox, a marginalized First Nation man whose people were genocided by members of Mizrak's religion, letting Mizrak top him is, well... interesting. That Olrox wants to be in a relationship with Mizrak at all (deeper than "oh he's hot, we should fuck"), as indicated by him clinging to Mizrak in S1E4, is a fascinating one. Giving someone like that any power over you, voluntarily (after all, Olrox is stronger than Mizrak, he doesn't have to allow Mizrak any control) is deeply intriguing. The concept of marginalized people who love people who are active in making them marginalized is a complex idea and I like biting into it in fic as a marginalized person who unfortunately does that.

Said clinging in S1E4 feels kind of like something a bottom would do? Obviously you can frame it any way you want, there's no actual "this is bottom behavior" label or whatever on it. But it kind of feels that way and it's fun to angle it that way.

Olrox sitting on Mizrak in S1E3 while clothed is so fun for him riding Mizrak headcanons. I'm sorry you're boring but I'm not.

If people want buff cute guy to top the slightly less buff pretty vampire, let them

You can still draw whatever conclusions you want from the final episode of season 2, but it very much feels like Mizrak is topping at least at some point in their relationship by now, and if people want to go with that, I say let them

The idea of a weaker/newer vampire topping a more powerful/older vampire is fun

Younger top/older bottom is popular

The potential idea that Mizrak is more powerful than Olrox expected + is topping him is fun

Switching is a thing

Certain dynamics are popular in fandom and people roll with them

Olrox topping has been popular in fandom since 2023. I know, I wrote it twice in 2023: Mizrox with Olrox topping, Olrox/Richter with Olrox topping. It's not radical to write, it's just what people enjoy doing for whatever reason. I didn't look at Olrox and Richter and score them on pretty points to see who got to top/bottom. I just didn't see them in that scenario with Richter topping. I imagined it, though. Just didn't get around to writing it as a fic.

I'm curious how precisely you make this stupid concept work with Adrian, who is also pretty lol Are Adrian and Olrox not allowed to fuck in any way where one is a bottom because they're both pretty lol (I made Olrox a bottom in that relationship, hate me if you must :3)

More to the point, people can do whatever they want. It's shipping. Play with your dolls how you want and let other people play with theirs how they wish. Block if it annoys you.

#olrox #mizrak #mizrox #fallfthoughts #castlevania nocturne #castlevania: nocturne #dear idiot no one asked #might delete later I don't like feeding dumbasses #already blocked them but well

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revvethasmythh · 2 days ago

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sorry, i'm new to the fandom but i instantly fell in love with widobrave….. is the ship really that unpopular?

well first, hello, and welcome to the fandom!! (both cr and widobrave!)

second, i think it's actually difficult for me to track how popular/unpopular widobrave is right now in the fandom, and i only started shipping it in 2020 so I can't give a full historical perspective on what the shipping scene looked like at the beginning besides what i've heard (people thought nott was a child at the very beginning of the show, then it turned into "nott is caleb's mom!" after that, and i'll exempt some further details in case you don't want any potential spoilers since you're new and I don't know how much you know, but those two things did a lot to make the ship....undesirable to the masses, shall we say). from my own perspective, I remember going into the ship and feeling like it was fairly fringe back in 2020 (and it was). small group of people, usually exclusively nott stans, were like the only people you'd see shipping it and a lot of people reacted negatively to the idea of the ship. there was an undercurrent that it was bad because some found it "incestuous" due to feeling like nott was caleb's mother (a thing that it not true in either the literal or metaphorical capacity!) and this has been the most persistent pushback against the ship that i am aware of. generally, back in the day, there was a sense that nott couldn't seriously be shipped with anyone, but especially not someone she thought of as "her kid," much as that's simply a popularly proliferated misunderstanding of ONE scene in the entire show.

the current state of widobrave affairs? i honestly don't know. it's certainly still a very small ship, but there's been a LOT of lightening up about it in the years since the campaign ended. i've seen a lot more neutral-positive opinions toward it, whereas in years past...i mean, i've been blocked just for shipping it. i've seen more than one "do NOT tag this as widobrave" statement on art pieces, like...it was considered FRINGE once upon a time. but i feel like it's stopped being fringe and is now just...small? again, it's usually exclusively nott stans that ship it, so already not a big pool of people just based on that. it's certainly not mainsteam or anything, but i certainly feel more comfortable maintagging my widobrave posts these days than i used to. i think a lot of people just don't want to look at the relationship in a romantic light, despite the fact that in most circumstances their initial setup would have been a HUGE jumping off point for shipping (just look at the immediacy of imogen/laudna shipping, who share practically the same backstory/relationship setup), and generally prefer the other, bigger ships in the fandom. it would probably take a dissertation's worth of explanation to dig into all the reasons why that is, but that is generally where the ship sits in the fandom.

if anyone has more insight on the history of the ship's fandom reception/current reception, i'd love to hear it since it missed out on those founding years! and again, a hearty to welcome to the fandom! it's always nice to see an new widobraver around

#cr tag #asks #anon

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theadhddimsenion · 2 days ago

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Why I want millie and loona to be the "losers" of season three.

We all know that blitz moxxie and stolas have all been through the wringer when it comes to their character development and I think that it would only be fair that as blitz, mox and stole complete their arcs the butt monkey statis moves away from them and onto the girls as they go through their arcs.

I'm not saying I want them reduced to helpless damsels in constant need of rescue but I would like to see them fail a bit more so we can see their more fallible sides.

People are already complaining that the i.m.p team need tougher oppents they can't easily beat and that millie and loona are underutilized so I think having them become the "weak links" in the i.m.p as their arcs go on will be fitting.

Like for example we could have millie getting increasingly upset at being left out and her pregnancy starts to throw off her fighting skills.

And we could have loonas lack of field experience cause her to make poor choices and as a result she gets her ass kicked.

Now with all this talk of butt monkey statis I think that contrary to what some might say I don't think moxxie needs anymore lessons for his arc I think he's gone through enough no what he needs is something where he gets to SHOW his development by doing something really cool and/or mature. I actually came up with an idea for a episode where moxxie and loona are stranded in the human world and loona is injured so she has to rely on moxxie for support and unlike in pervious episodes loona is actually the butt of the joke and moxxie is the smart and competent one.

The whole thing is about loona learning that it is ok to put your trust in people and you don't have to judge people based on superficial strength because moxxie has proven that his strength lies not in physical power but in being probably the best strategist i.m.p has the problem being that he is both often over cautious and can't get people to repect and listen to him like blitz can.

So the whole episode is mostly comedy at loonas expense with her constantly being comically injured and humiliated and her failed attempts at doing things herself undermine moxxies actual competence like for example loona tries to get some fresh venison from an overly disney like deer but it turns out to be a huge elk or moose and it's whole herd chases after her trampling moxxies freshly finished cabin. At one point she gets stuck in her feral from and perved on by a pack of feral wolves and is unable to escape until moxxie saves her and after hours of being unable to care for herself loona finaly admits defeat and accepts moxxies help bitterly.

Now right here moxxie has the opportunity to get her back for everything she has said and done to him and never let her live it down but here comes the big mature moment I was talking about. Instead of being petty and rubbing her nose in her failures he does the mature thing and actually starts to relate to her when it comes to his own experiences being the universes chew toy.

If there's one thing moxxie has learned by now it's that trying to make people feel lesser doesn't make you feel greater in the long run. Let's face it moxxie was kind of a negative Nelly when it came to his profession, he was always the first to try and put his boss down even when blitz did nothing to provoke him and we all saw the horror show of unhappy campers. So I feel that moxxie is in ironically a really good place to help loona with that.

Now we can't let moxxie have all the good moments can we? So let's talk about some opportunities to show off character development for my boy blitz.

The first one I had in mind was for him to actually have to try and help veroskia for whatever reason wether it's cause she needed rescue from the dhorks or some other villain, needed help dealing with glitz and glam or even because she discovered she had a half human son and needed parenting advice whatever the case I think it would be cool if just like moxxie can share his life lessons with loona blitz could help her understand that he knows better than anyone the danger of holding onto the past and refusing to forgive yourself better than him.

Another idea is him having a real father daughter moment with loona where she asks him why he hasn't thrown her out even after all she's done to him. And he answers that he loves her and when he saw just how miserable she was in that pound he saw himself and he wanted to be the good parent he never had.

Hell I just thought up a way for stolas to help millie! I mean yes stolas has only just begun his arc but I think he would know the dangers of keeping secrets from people considering how he lost his daughter for that very reason and plus I've heard that owls can tell when other animals are pregnant and for a double bonus blitz can return the favor by helping millie by pointing out that there was no way someone like moxxie would ever hate her for her desicon regarding the child I mean it's moxxie we are talking about here.

In short the point I am trying to make here is that this show often uses physical and emotional suffering as a way of bringing out character development and I think it's only fair that the female cast members get that treatment.

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midnightshindig · 23 hours ago

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a platonic drabble for cecil who has a kid that’s just like him and also ends up majorly scarred while saving someone on a mission?

Cecil & family!Reader hcs

Oooooo I like this, you guys really wanna tear this guy apart

Hcs below the cut!

You're his pride and joy

literally the exact same as him like to the way you take your coffee and the way you button your cuffs

From the first time Cecil got called into the office because you "organized detention" to fit your whims

God he's so proud

You're the product of a one-night stand with a visiting alien gone very wrong, dumped at his doorstep at the ripe age of four

it's just been you and him ever since

Cut to years later, and your powers have manifested, and he's all but forced to put you in the field

"You can either send me on missions, or I'm gonna start roaming the streets to fight crime on my own."

God you're gonna give him a heart attack

and so he agrees to put you, his fifteen year old pride and joy, into the field

Donald finds him like completely hungover the next morning cuz he's just so fucking stressed

After a few good missions, though, you prove to be like him in other ways:

you're dependable, a good listener, you follow orders flawlessly and improvise like a pro

Well, he guesses you are a pro now.

You're going on missions relatively frequently, still smaller fish but your powers aren't too insanely useful, you're more like a glorified and enhanced spy than anything.

A lot like he was.

This mission is bog standard, local cult in Midnight City that Darkwing II has requested assistance with since he's too busy with Guardian stuff

And so you go undercover in this cult, robes, rituals, the whole affair

Why is it always Midnight City?

ugh.....

You're handling it like a champ, though, and Cecil's sending backup

The backup is ON. ITS. WAY.

"Do not engage, Y/n, the cavalry is coming, you did good, now just hang tight and don't cause a scene."

He can hear you scoff, not able to verbally respond due to your yknow, undercoverness

What he can't see is that this cult is in the middle of some mad witchy shit, super culty, ritualistic sacrifice aplenty and you're helpless to stop it, at least without a lot of people getting hurt.

You have no idea what's going on, but you overhear two cult members talking to one another

"So what's this ritual for again?" "The spiritual cleansing of the world, dumbass. We're going to rid this world of filthy sinners with the cleansing blood of our leader"

Oh. I guess that guy on the ritual table does look like the cult leader.

You squint from a few rows back to get a better look at him-yeah- yup, that's definitely him.

His blood flows through the grooves in the table, onto the spell circle underneath

Much to your surprise, the circle actually begin to glow a familiar glow

the magical glow of a pre-explo-

BOOM

Cecil only hears you swear quickly before his line gets cut, and its all hands on deck.

Shortly after the explosion, the backup arrives, their priority getting as much of you out in one piece

It's a similar case to Cecil, saving whatever skin they can and grafting it onto you, and offering you the choice to get it replaced with fake skin.

You can't do it, though, but not for the same reason as your father

oh my god you're such an asshole

Cecil teleports straight to the side of your bed, checking you for harm after the doctors finish their procedure on you

"Y/n- fuck- stay with me kid- are you okay? Tell me you're okay." He's a little fast talking, but otherwise he holds himself together remarkably well.

Unti he notices your face

From the bottom of your mouth curving around the left half of your jaw, and down your neck, is burnt skin

Your shoulder and hand on the same side have similar burn marks

"Why?" He asks, softly, praying he hasn't burdened you with the same guilt he's felt since his own incident.

You give him a wide grin, uncharacteristic of the stoic relationship you shared

"I did it because it looks sick as hell! Don't you think?"

Oh man, you're such an asshole.

He ruffles your hair and groans

"You pull it off"

and that's good enough for him.

he's never letting you on another mission ever again omg

#invincible show #invincible #writers on tumblr #cecil stedman #invincible cecil #x reader #cecil x reader #cecil stedman x reader #....

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retrospacejelly · 2 days ago

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can I get a bully!Miguel Ohara and brat!nerd!reader fic? This is completely free range so whatever you want. ❤️❤️❤️

Pairing: bully!Miguel O’Hara x brat!nerd!reader

Summary: Miguel O’Hara, the resident genius and playboy of Alchemex Academy, seems to have it all - the stellar grades, a full ride scholarship, plenty of girls, and a cute little thing to torment - you. So why can’t he stand seeing you get insulted by some loser? He’s supposed to hate you, right?

Warnings: Language, Angst, Fluff, Insults,

A/N: Such a great request! I am so sorry for not posting/responding for so long. Hope you enjoy the read :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To say she disliked your organic chem class would be an understatement. She dreaded it. It wasn’t because of the immature freshmen, or the unmotivated professor, no. It was because of the student who sat in the far left corner of the lecture room, not paying attention to a single thing the professor was reciting.

To most, he seemed like the typical frat guy - the ones that didn’t have a single thing to worry about because mommy and daddy were paying for everything. All he had to do was pass his classes and all would be good.

However, this was Miguel O’Hara we’re talking about. Sure, he seems like a frat guy, but he’s the smartest student at the academy. And that absolutely infuriated y/n. Not that she really needed to be jealous of him. Her grades did rival his after all.

And for whatever reason, Miguel couldn’t just leave that be. Oh no. How dare someone try to compete for his spot at number one? And why did this person have to be so breathtaking? Miguel at one point had thought about asking her out; an idea that had soon gone down the drain after hearing her reject multiple guys. Guys who were pretty attractive. But not as attractive as Miguel. He couldn’t give them credit for that.

So yea, maybe he did push her around a bit. And maybe he did find out where she worked from a friend of a friend, just so he could give her hell when ordering such specific drinks. And yes, maybe he did sleep with her roommate while she was trying to study for midterms, just because.

Long story short, Migurl O’Hara made it his life’s goal to torment y/n for as long as he deemed fit.

--------------------

“Jones and Latchel! Ray and Thomas!”, the professor called out, reading from her paper. As more names were being partnered for the group project, y/n started to tap her pencil anxiously. If her counting was correct, there were only four students whose names hadn’t been partnered up, hers and Miguel’s included. She quietly groaned to herself, praying to whatever being was out there that she could partner up with any of the other two people there.

“Jacobs and Emmerson! O’Hara and L/n!”

Well, there goes wishful thinking. It wasn’t really the end of the world. She had to admit that Miguel wasn’t a partner who’d dump all his work onto someone. But maybe he would for her. How annoying.

“This spot taken?” a familiar voice asks, not waiting for an answer as he plops his bag onto the desk.

She responds with a short hum.

“What?” Miguel asks, narrowing his eyes.

Y/n shrugs. “Didn’t think you’d be over here so quickly. Glad you missed me that much.” she teases, blinking up at him. He gives her a scowl in return, grabbing the rubric and looking over it.

“I would dump my work on you, but I’d like it done right, so I guess we’ll be stuck actually working together.”

The girl scoffs. “Right. This is coming from the guy who got a C on his midterms. That pussy whipped for my roomie? Guess your little sabotage plan didn’t work, because what did I score again? Oh right, an A+.” she snaps, looking over her own copy.

Oh how she loved rubbing that in his face. She always got a reaction from him every time.

Miguel’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed as a smug smirk curled at the corner of his lips. “Congrats on the A+ princesa. Must feel good knowing grades are the only thing you’re good at.” He gives her a once over. “Too bad all that brainpower can’t land you a date, huh?” he hisses, his voice low.

Y/n laughs, turning to face him. “Actually, my brain power and good personality did land me a date. With Peter Parker - he’s your roommate. Right? At least I know that my looks aren’t the only thing that people are interested in. Unlike you.” she replies, smiling wickedly.

For a moment, his tough gaze seems to falter, before he turns to face the front.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this project over with so I don’t have to talk to you anymore than I have to.”

Y/n didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. Both knew who had won that argument.

--------------------

After class had ended, and the two exchanged numbers, they both agreed to meet up at the library to start on their project.

The campus library was usually empty on a wednesday afternoon, the only people being the librarian, and the coding club congregating by the computer tables. Y/n and Miguel sat at one of the tables in the back, not saying anything to each other unless absolutely necessary.

Despite hating each other, both had to admit that they worked pretty well together. As Miguel was discussing a possible topic for their project, someone walked up to their table. The two looked up to see someone from the coding club, fidgeting nervously. Y/n mentally groaned.

“Hey Y/n.” the person said, smiling sheepishly.

Y/n nodded, smiling politely. “Hi Nate. Anything I can help you with?” she asks, her leg starting to bounce under the desk. Something that didn’t go unnoticed by Miguel.

“Well…I was just wondering if you changed your mind about Friday? I know you said you weren’t a fan of horror movies, so I looked and they’re playing a rerun of Grease.” he stutters out, not sparing Miguel a glance.

“I already told you no, Nate. and my answer will remain the same. I’m flattered, but I don’t see you the same way, and I wouldn’t want to lead you on. Besides, I have a project that will be taking up a lot of my time.

Nate didn’t seem to like that answer, his brows now scrunched.

“Oh, come on! I’m a nice guy. I have a great rap sheet, excellent grades, and I’m a decent looking guy. Why can’t you just give me a chance?”

Miguel, now very annoyed and feeling weirdly protective, opens his mouth to speak, but y/n beats him to it.

“Your point? Miguel’s all those things, yet you don’t see me sucking his dick now, do you? Get a grip, man. You’re embarrassing yourself.” She says, pointing to the man next to her. He let out a quiet and offended, hey!. Before looking back at Nate.

Nate glared at her with a red face. “Tch. Whore.” he mutters.

As soon as those words come out of his mouth, Miguel shoots up from his spot, grabbing him by the collar.

“Want to repeat that, tough guy? Think you actually deserve someone like her?” he asks, gripping the fabric of Nate’s shirt tightly. “I better not see you talking to her again, you hear me? Now, scram.” he commands, releasing the guy, and watching with a satisfied smirk as he runs off.

Miguel sits back down at the desk, heaving out a sigh. “Who knew you got such attention, princesa? Maybe I was wrong about you.” He teases, only looking back at her when she doesn’t give him a witty comment.

“y/n-”

“Shut up.” she says, not looking at him. “You had no business doing what you did. I could’ve handled it just fine.”.

He chuckles. “Oh really? Because it looked like-”

“What? Looked like what?” she interrupts again. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have to deal with shit like this. Every girl you go out with or sleep with doesn’t say shit like that to you. Everyone loves Miguel O’Hara. When you reject a girl, you aren’t insulted or accused of being a prude. Because god forbid a fucking nerd has standards, right?”

Miguel looked at her wide eyed, not saying anything as she started to gather her things.

“We can reschedule later. I have to go.” She says, briskly making her way out of the library.

Miguel only had one thing in his mind - What. the. Fuck?

--------------------

By the end of the week, they had completed their project and submitted it, albeit with an awkward tension surrounding them every time they interacted.

Neither had brought up what happened at the library, and thankfully they wouldn’t have to talk to each other anymore.

Miguel was dying.

Well not actually, but it felt like it. Something about that day didn’t sit right with him. Like, how the whole time, he hated the fact that some piece of shit dared to insult you. More specifically, he hated how it bothered him so much.

He also hated the stupid humming that was coming from Peter as he brewed his morning coffee. Why the hell was he so happy?

“Peter? What gives?” Miguel asks, flipping through channels on their shared tv. Peter chuckles and plops down next to Miguel. I scored myself a date! And with y/n. Can you believe it? I thought she would reject me, but she actually said yes!” he exclaimed, taking a drink of his coffee.

Miguel’s eye twitched. “You’re what?”

Peter just nods, not noticing the growing anger coming from his friend. “I know, right! We’re going to that new restaurant down on Sixteenth Ave. So you’ll have the dorm to yourself, man! Perfect for bringing over a hot girl.” He says, nudging his shoulder.

Miguel stands up, grabbing his keys. “I’ll be back.” he states, before leaving their dorm. The door slamming shut behind him. Peter flinches before shrugging and turning to the tv.

Y/n was lounging in her bed, scrolling through social media. She hadn’t been feeling the best mentally the rest of the week. Too mad at everyone to think straight. She contemplated many times whether she should block Miguel and ignore him forever. Unfortunately, him and his teasing wouldn’t allow that in a long shot.

Suddenly there was a knock on their door, her roommate announcing that she’d answer it. When she opens the door, she lets out a squeal.

“Miguel! It’s so good to see you again!” Her roommate exclaims, jumping into his arms.

What?

Why the hell was he here? But, y/n guessed it made sense. Her roommate and him did sleep together.

“I’m actually here to talk to y/n. It’s for a project.” he tells her roommate. Damn these paper thin walls.

“Oh.” she says, dejectedly. “Yea, she’s just in her room. Come in!”

No don’t let him in, you idiot!

There’s a knock on her bedroom door.

“I don’t want to see you right now. Scratch that. Ever.” y/n says, not moving from her spot.

“I don’t care.” Miguel replies through the door. She could already imagine his smug face right now.

She sighed, opening the door. She didn’t look like a complete mess - just pajama pants and a baggy shirt. “What could you possibly want?” She asks, crossing her arms.

“I wanted to talk to you.” he says, which earned him a nod to continue. “I…I think I like you.” he confesses, looking her in the eye.

Y/n’s mouth dropped open, before she shook her head. “You seriously came all the way over here for this? What kind of sick joke is this?”

Miguel stood there, not knowing what to say. Not having the patience, y/n moved to shut her door, but he caught it with his hand.

“Y/n. I like you. And I am sorry for how horrible I’ve been. I didn’t realize until my stupid roommate raved about going on a date with you that I finally realized how much of a fucking asshole I’ve been to you. Well, actually, it was when I had to scare off that punk in the library, but that’s in the past now. Please do not go on that date with Peter. Let me prove to you that I can be a man deserving of you.”

Y/n blinks up at him, silent. “Miguel, I-”

“Forget it. I’m sorry, just forget all of this happened, yea? We can go back to hating each other.”.

“I don’t want that.” she says, quietly. “I don’t want to hate you, Miguel.”

He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You, you mean it?”

Y/n nods. “I’m sorry too. I haven’t exactly been the nicest to you either…”

He smiles and pulls her in for a hug, kissing the top of her head.

--------------------

“So, you did tell Peter that you weren’t going on the date with him anymore, right? Because he seems the same, not depressed or anything.” Miguel asks, leaning back against her bed. The two had officially started dating a couple days after his confession, and were now lounging in her room.

Y/n shrugs, plopping down next to him. “I told him that I couldn’t make it, but since the reservation was already set, I would send my friend instead. And they hit it off pretty well. Which is why, we have the dorm to ourselves tonight~”

He looks down at her with dark eyes, leaning in to kiss her.

“Smart as always, princesa.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello! I hope you enjoyed reading this! The ending was a bit rushed, so I might edit the fic in the future.

#for you #x reader #miguel 2099 #across the spiderverse #miguel ohara x reader #miguel o hara #spiderman 2099 #miguel spiderman #atsv x reader #miguel o'hara #atsv miguel #miguel spiderverse

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dolbrainrot · 3 days ago

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FYI Shigaraki has a pussy.

(ftm Tomura Shigaraki x afab Reader)

(NSFW)

Happy (early) Valentine's day to you, Shiggy lovers. Hope you will find this fun.

And apparently you are the only one who didn't know about that little fact.

Your boss has a pussy.

"Yeah, we found out when Twice was taking our measurements."

"You tried to measure each other's dicks?"

That question was left intentionally unanswered.

Lately, answers have become harder to come by... for reasons that remain a mystery, of course.

You shouldn’t be too surprised by that little revelation about Shigaraki. His behavior often suggested he was dealing with what seemed like the worst case of PMS in the world.

Then again, for someone who talks about his own dick all the time (and acts like one no less) you would suspect him to actually have one.

"Suck my dick, dumbass."

"Choke on my massive cock."

"Get off my dick! I hope you burn in the pits of hell you nasty bitch!"

It was certainly a surprise to learn he didn’t actually own one, especially since it seemed to be a secret kept just from you. Why? You had no idea. After all, not many people around here had an actual pussy, and somehow, you ended up being the very unlucky winner of that particular lottery.

It didn't bother you that much, though you wished you wouldn't be left out of that revelation.

"Finger me."

You stared at Shigaraki in disbelief, blinking a couple of times. Was he serious? Did he really summon you to his room just to ask for that? No, he demanded it. In that condescending tone of his.

"Are you fucking deaf or something?" He grumbled, clutching the pillow to his chest.

"No, I’m- Why are you asking me this? Can't you just-" Your gaze drifted down to the pillow. Wait a second...was that a water bottle tucked in there? Steam rose from it, indicating it was somewhat warm. Then your eyes landed on the nightstand, where a cup of herbal tea sat, still hot. Since when did he drink that instead of his usual energy drinks?

Oh.

So that’s why he needed your help.

"Are you going to do it or not?" He snapped, shifting uncomfortably on the bed, impatience written all over his face.

You didn’t need him to admit he was dealing with some kind of terrible cramps. As much as you wanted to rub salt into the wound, you couldn't help but feel... almost sorry for him. He was in pain. He needed your help. And despite the biting edge to his words, the constant rudeness, and his unbearable attitude, you genuinely wanted to help him.

"You are going to fuck this up." He huffed as you tried to take off his pants. Only a bit, though. Undressing him completely would probably scare him shitless.

You bit your tongue, trying to prevent yourself from starting an unwanted fight.

You tried taking it slow, you really did. God knows how he would react if you startled him by accident. So as you slid your hand down his stomach, right under the waistband of his pants, you didn't expect him to just grab your wrist and shove it all the way down there.

Wet. Warm. Yup, definitely a pussy.

"If you are going to do it, then do it right. I don't have all day." So demanding for someone who was practically begging for your touch. In his own fucked up way, that is. Or at least you believed so.

"Just... Relax." One glance at his displeased expression and you knew that some casual fingering wasn't on the table. Like everything in Shigaraki's life, this was going to be a fight. Full of blood and sweat and his constant jabs towards you.

A gentle slide of the index finger between the folds of his pussy earned you a slight hitch of his breath. You waited for a snarky comment to follow, but to your surprise, Tomura stayed silent. This was good. So you pushed your finger a bit further this time, catching a glimpse of his entrance under your fingertips.

"You are doing it wrong." He basically spat out, that first breath still kept in his lungs without a single exhale.

"I just started- Besides, you can tell me what you want, you know. Communicating wouldn't hurt."

"Why do I have to tell you what I want? You should know that already." Did he even notice that you were holding his pussy at this very moment? And yet, he still remained a pain in the ass.

"Alright, alright... Up or down?" There was a second of silence before he sighed in irritation.

"Up."

With that, your thumb started to rub his clit. Gently, of course. Though, you couldn’t help but suspect he hadn't been so soft on himself when he handled it alone.

For a moment, he appeared to be savoring the relief, his back sinking into the pillows as the tension in his sore muscles gradually eased.

That moment of peace lasted only a minute or so. As you probably know, your boss has the attention span of a goldfish, and it wasn’t long before he grew bored with your efforts. You could easily tell by the displeased expression that quickly returned to his face.

"For someone with a pussy of your own, I thought you would be better at this." He murmured, his mouth covered by the palm of his hand.

And he was as unthankful as ever, forgetting the position he was in. So, as a punishment, or a way to shut him up, you moved your fingers past his entrance.

Shigaraki gasped, immediately jolting up, wanting to close his legs on you. But you were still sitting between them, preventing him from bringing his thighs together. The only thing closing were his tight walls around your finger. Honestly, you expected him to be stretched out a bit. He probably used all sorts of nasty toys on himself before coming to you. You can often hear the buzz of his vibrator through the thin walls of the hideout.

"Do it again and I'm kicking you out!" The threat was short lived, betrayed by his own body inviting you in. You didn't even have to move, his own hips bucking into your hand.

"What am I doing wrong? Tell me." The finger curled inside him, making him yelp in the process. "That's what I thought."

One finger was good, for a while. The blush on his cheeks made it all worth it. You abused his clit with your thumb as your other finger tried to find a better angle. But soon, you yourself grew bored of it. You were here to WIN, not to play house. Win against what exactly? Against this pretentious asshole who was always ordering you around. So here you were now, pumping your two fingers in and out of your boss's desperate pussy. And he looked like a complete mess underneath you.

"Slow down..." He managed to gasp, his words slipping out through that drooling, disgusting mouth of his.

"Why?" you asked nonchalantly, mimicking the tone he often used with you. It was a small, satisfying payback for every petty request of his you usually had to cater to. "You seem to be enjoying this."

As if your point hadn't been clear enough, you sighed, pretending that the sight of him was little more than a nuisance.

"I will fucking kill you if you-" Another curl of your fingers made his back arch, preventing him from saying anything else.

He was pathetic. Utterly, hopelessly pathetic. Why were you scared of him in the first place anyway? Oh, right. The deadly touch. Whatever.

"Just ride it out, baby boy. You are doing so good..." You were just trying to be playful, to mock him like he often mocked you. Yet, somehow, as soon as those words left your mouth, you could feel him clench around you harder than ever before. It was so tight you almost couldn't pull your fingers back. And your eyes widened in response. "What the fuck..." You murmured, watching him, searching for any reaction. So you repeated your words, expecting to repeat what just happened. "Baby boy, you are so cute... I never fingered a pussy this tight..." You purred, half joking now. And again, his walls just gripped you tighter.

"Shut the fuck!" He managed to spit out, tossing under your touch like a wild animal.

"Oh, please- You can't be serious..." You wanted to laugh. You wanted to laugh at him, to mock him, to text Toga about this whole thing so she could spread the gossip far and wide. But you didn't. Because you needed to finish what you have started first.

You leaned closer to his ear, fingers digging as far as they could reach into his dripping cunt. Your thumb was restlessly rubbing the sensitive bundle of nerves. And Shigaraki was absolutely melting. "Sweetie..." That earned you yet another squeeze of his walls. "You are such a good boy, so adorable and lovely..." Words of affirmation seemed to work on him the best. As if he craved all that sappy shit. It was hilarious, and you could’ve kept going forever... but this was Shigaraki you were dealing with. And he wasn’t going to let you drag this out. Not when he knew exactly what he wanted. No, now he was determined to get it.

With a firm grip, he seized your wrist, stopping you from pulling any tricks. His gaze snapped back to the intensity it had before all this started, cold and calculating. It was clear your boss was intent on maintaining a certain pace. You had no choice but to follow, not wanting to feel your bones crush under the force of his gloved hand.

He fucked your hand like he didn't need you. Like you were just a tool, an object existing only to be used for one specific purpose. It was still enough. Your satisfaction came from something entirely different. As you watched him come undone, his mask of anger falling apart for a split second, you felt pride. Because it was you who managed to get under his skin.

Shigaraki was still trying to catch his breath, his grip on your wrist weaker than before.

You watched him, taking in the way his messy hair, now damp with sweat, framed his face...it was surprisingly cute. His dry, chapped lips parted slightly, enjoying the taste of the release he craved for so long. But most striking of all, his eyes weren’t cold or sad. They were warm, distant in a peaceful way, as if all the dark thoughts had faded from his troubled mind. Of course, that didn’t last. You didn’t expect it to. After all, this was Shigaraki you were here with.

"Get out," he said in his usual strict tone, slipping back into his familiar, distant self.

You hadn’t expected a cuddle, or anything, really. But it was still surprising how quickly he just kicked you out. Your hand was still wet as you stood outside his room, trying to process what had just happened.

"How was it?" Toga asked, an expectant grin on her face.

"Crusty," you muttered, still in a daze.

Just then, the door to Tomura's room slammed open, and before you could react, a water bottle hit you square in the back of the head.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #shigaraki tomura #x reader

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nobodyfamousposts · 2 hours ago

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Scarlet Lady Top 10 Favorite Characters: Number 9

for @zoe-oneesama

Number 10 Here

Now let’s be fair about this. This list is subjective and according to my own personal bias. It’s not about who is deserving or who is “Best Boy/Girl”. These are just the top ones I like and enjoy seeing in the comic. My favorites may not be your favorites and I quite frankly don’t expect them to be anyone else’s favorites in the same order or even on the same list at all. And just because someone is not on my list doesn’t mean I don’t like them or that I don’t find value in them.

This is just a list of the characters I like the most and my reasonings as to why. What makes me like them? What makes them stand out? Because Scarlet Lady has a LOT of really great characters who all deserve a shout out, so these are just ten of them that stuck out to me the most.

And while I am at least attempting to value them here on their own merit in the Scarlet Lady comic as opposed to Canon or its many MANY issues or the differences between the two, it stands to reason that at least SOME mention of Canon is going to be made. That said, I am trying very hard to not rate them based on my feelings from Canon but more on how I feel about them in this comic.

And because naturally I like my dramatic moments, I’m going to do the list in descending order from number 9 to number 1.

Number 9: Alya

I love Alya in Scarlet Lady. So much so that I feel bad that she’s not higher on the list, but to be fair, she has some pretty tough competition. And it says something when that’s the case because it feels to me like everyone deserves a spot on this list…it’s just that some deserve it a little bit more.

Alya certainly warrants her spot on this list. She was one of the characters with the fewest changes from her setup in canon and yet ended up with such a major and lasting impact that her canon self can’t match.

But if I have to break down the reasons:

1. Alya is a good friend.

When mention is made of Alya being Marinette’s best friend, SL!Alya is the version that comes to mind for me. And honestly, she’s the image I long had and long wished for Alya of canon.

A friend who is supportive in all the right ways. A friend needing her own level of support. A friend who will disagree with you on points but still be your friend. A friend who can make mistakes and jump to conclusions but you can always forgive because you know she would do the same for you.

In Mr. Pigeon, Alya was willing to throw down with Chloe Bourgeois to defend Marinette’s honor and her hat design. And this was only two episodes after Lady Wifi, where Chloe had abused her power to get Alya suspended over a relatively minor infraction that had literally nothing to do with Chloe except that Chloe chose to be offended by Alya’s incorrect conclusion. Sure, it can arguably be for payback (given how keen Alya was to confront Chloe), but let’s be honest here: after being forced into a position where you are completely helpless at the hands of a bully and even authority figures are not willing or able to step in, most people would hesitate to confront the bully again regardless of whether they know they’re in the right. And Alya arguably didn’t have proof at the time that Marinette’s hat was actually her original creation.

And yet, Alya was going to act anyways. WANTED to act. For friendship. For vengeance. Not quite sure HOW she was intending to take down Chloe in this case, but I imagine it would have landed her in trouble again and she was fully willing to do so on behalf of her friend.

And speaking of her friend, remember Alya in Reflekta? She was excited of the idea of Marinette being a hero and part of me thinks she really pushed the “Marinette is Scarlet Lady” angle because she idolized Scar at the time and very much WANTED her to be Marinette—someone she also adores. Having two of her favorite people be one and the same would have been amazing for her! Sadly (or fortunately depending on your view) that was not the case, but Alya still got to have her moments of seeing her best friend as a hero, and her starry eyes sell it for me. As does Marinette later arranging an interview for her as Marigold—something especially important given in this version, one of the two primary heroes simply has no time for interviews while the other wouldn’t give a blog like Alya’s the time of day regardless of how much Alya did to help promote her.

Plus how in Troublemaker, she got the entire class to come to school dressed in Chat Noir gear to show support for the poor catboy and to help protect Marinette after the way her room and her multitude of pictures of Chat Noir were revealed on live television. Just to try and limit her friend’s embarrassment after her privacy was violated and her crush was outted.

See this? This is the friendship I wanted to see in canon. The ride or die. A counterweight. Supporting each other in reasonable and healthy ways. To be able to say with certainty that when the chips are down, they have each others’ backs. And Alya does.

Then there’s the Love Square—and if the change to the setup didn’t already improve how it went, then Alya’s involvement certainly did.

Part of the reason the Love Square struggled in Canon was because of how forcefully it was pushed with such shoddy foundation, and Alya was the biggest pusher. She forced so many situations out of some misguided attempt to “help” that only ended up creating stress for Marinette, cringe for the writing, and no actual momentum on the progress of the pairing. If you want a metaphor, then let’s describe it like this: If the Love Square is an actual ship and if Alya was a tug boat, she wouldn’t have been helping her ship “set sail” so much as dragging it underwater across the ocean and to its watery demise.

But in Scarlet Lady, Alya is supportive and encouraging—and not in the way where she blows off Marinette’s anxieties or Adrien’s obliviousness and forces them both into a position they’re clearly not ready for only to turn around and be annoyed that it didn’t work out.

No, she was aware of Marinette’s feelings and interests to the point she recognizes Marinette has a small crush on Adrien even before the girl herself did. She also seemed to be aware of Adrien’s crush on her. So knowing this, she tried to help nudge things along. Note I said “NUDGE”.

She knows a spark could be there. So when Alya had an opportunity, she helped to set things up in a way that would give Marinette and Adrien time together to explore that. Not to confess. Not to date. Just opportunities to be together, interact, and see what happens.

Heck, it feels at times like she’s more of Adrien’s wingman than Marinette’s. Especially given the whole bit in Stormy Weather, which remains to date one of my favorite strips of the entire series. Alya was the reason Marinette even made it there in the first place. And when she was picked for the modeling spot, she still tried to influence things to let Marinette take over. Similar to canon, yes, but a notably better feel to it. Better humor. Better outcome.

Which is ultimately what a friend should be trying for. For ALL of her friends.

And by the end of the comic, I can say that Alya is a friend to not just Marinette, but also Adrien and Alix and the other classmates. Yes, even Lila. Which says something given how much she initially despised Lila for the fake interview and how long she held that grudge against her. Going from outright dislike to grudgingly hanging out with to swallowing her pride and giving a real chance to actual collaboration on revealing a major truth.

Now that’s progress.

And speaking of progress…

2. Journalist Has A Point

Look, many a story will have THAT character. You know the one. Whether a detective, journalist, or conspiracy theorist, THAT character is devoted to uncovering the truth, whatever it may be—and usually in the form of plot-relevant secrets and useful information.

So one of the biggest disappointments you can create is having such a character

with all the drive and reasoning to investigate be in a prime position to uncover a major plot point, in which you give them all the resources and all the motivation to make the discovery…and yet have them do nothing.

Or worse, have the truth spoon fed to them instead when it’s convenient. No effort. No drama or antics. No surprise. No real reaction to the revelation. Just take away all the fun why don’t you?

Alya is a major fan of heroes and a journalist in the making. When these things mix, you have a ready-made source of humor and drama in a character with the dual position of he hero’s best friend who doesn’t know her secret and a wannabe investigator who risks discovering the hero’s secret. Normally, such a position would involve a number of antics over a multitude of episodes, with the friend being in a prime position to out the hero and the hero having to regularly come up with ways to distract and mislead the friend in question in order to protect the secret.

In canon, we get all of two episodes that even play with this setup. Two in the four seasons it takes for Marinette to just blurt it out to Alya. Lady Wifi and Pharaoh. That’s it. And of those two, Lady Wifi had Marinette completely unconcerned with Alya’s claim of knowing Ladybug’s identity. No drama. No conflict. No antics. No attempts at misdirection. No introspection or question if maybe revealing the city’s hero is even a good idea. No internal questioning if Alya should be told the secret—if she’s trustworthy or if she would be in danger. No continued attempts to uncover her identity as if Alya had just gotten bored with it. Nothing.

And if you know anything from my previous essays, you know that few things frustrate me more than having a great setup that practically writes itself and doing NOTHING WITH IT.

In Scarlet Lady, that setup is nixed from the start since Marinette didn’t start off as the hero. Instead, what we have is a situation where Alya idolizes the self-proclaimed hero of the city, completely ignorant to the truth that we as the audience were already immediately made aware of: that said hero is Chloe and she is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!

Marinette is aware of her being horrible. Adrien is FULLY aware of her being horrible. WE all know she is horrible. But Alya, like most of the city, is enthralled and supportive of her as the “Hero of the City”.

This change immediately created a whole new setup. Where Alya is a fan of a hero while being ignorant to that hero’s true nature. Where WE know and even other characters in the show know, but it’s impossible to convince anyone else of this truth. I’m sure you all know what it’s like watching any character in that sort of situation. It hurts. But not as much as it’s bound to hurt her by the end.

And indeed it does, as it kickstarts what initially starts off as a funny setup where Marinette and others stay quiet and try to be supportive while inwardly cringing as Alya creates and manages a blog dedicated to the worst person ever sans Hawk Moth and Gabriel Agreste.

Adding to this is that said person won’t give Alya or her blog the time of day. Chloe has no respect or appreciation for the level of commitment Alya has or how much Alya helped her to get her fame, and even calls Alya a “stalker” at one point. (Not that she’s technically wrong to be fair, but bear with me.) This is a testament to Chloe’s view of heroism as a whole and her expectations regarding the treatment she should receive. Nevermind that Chloe’s initial rise to the spotlight was in great part because Alya was the one to put said spotlight on her in the first place. Chloe doesn’t acknowledge favors, only what she is owed.

This puts Alya in a difficult position. Unlike Canon, she doesn’t have the support of a hero to promote her blog. She is a teenager with no preexisting status as a reporter and no real connections or backing for people to take her seriously. And in a world of already established media and tons of fans like herself no doubt also trying to make names for themselves in similar niche areas, she has nothing to really make herself stand out. What ends up working for her is the live footage she gets of the akumas and the battles, which is exceedingly dangerous and puts Alya in danger. But to her, it’s worth it to be able to enjoy her two passions.

It is painful. It HURTS me to see Alya so devoted to someone who I know full well doesn’t deserve it and it hurt even MORE to see how Alya was finally forced to face the truth. Her reaction was real. Her difficulty accepting the truth that we all knew from the start and that Alya could have (and probably should have) picked up on as a journalist if she only investigated everything outside of the “Heroes WOW” light.

But this doesn’t make me look badly upon Alya. It’s not entirely her fault. It’s reasonable that Alya wouldn’t have known. Given Scar’s refusal to work with anyone outside of publications that “meet her standards”, Alya hadn’t gotten to interact closely enough with Scar to really see her “in action” so to speak. Not for some time.

Alya does ultimately end up finding the truth, but it’s not the one she initially went searching for. What started out as a love for heroes mixed with her interest in journalism slowly turned into a realization of what heroism actually is and who the true heroes are…and aren’t.

And with this realization comes a new outlook, new alliances, new goals, and a new plan to reveal the truth about Scar and just who is really the hero or the “sidekick” in the heroes team.

This here? This gives Alya purpose. It also emphasizes her role in the story and the impact she has. Because over time, the thing that most showed her flaws and ignorance became a major strength—AND ended up benefiting the city as a whole.

She was the only person who actively tried to help Chat when he was on the run in Copycat and gave him the info to know what was going on and who the true culprit was (especially important because Adrien had NO way of knowing what was going on or why he was being framed and Scar certainly wasn’t going to help).

She gave Lila and others a chance to share their stories that otherwise never would have been told. Especially notable given Alya’s initial dislike of Lila for her lies, something she continued to hold a grudge over for a long time after.

And as a result, she is a major contributor to Scar’s declining popularity as she helps spread the truth. Which adds a nice bit of irony to the situation that the little blog that gave Chloe her start and that she ignored ended up becoming something so major that it destroyed her narrative.

Alya had been seeking the truth, been blinded to it, struggled to accept it, went out of her way to confirm it, and then shared it. Maybe it’s not as impressive as taking down the akumas directly, but it has a much greater overall impact on the story and helping get some of that sweet sweet karma we’d all been waiting for. And best of all, she does the one thing that many of us have also been wanting for Canon: to have SOMEONE investigate Hawk Moth and realize the puzzle pieces are pointing at Gabriel Agreste.

If only she could have confirmed it a little sooner…

3. Alya as a Person

Alya is a teenager. She is a teenage girl and that shines in Scarlet Lady.

We see her PUMPED at the discovery of heroes in Paris. We see her genuinely EXCITED over the prospect of being a hero. We see her flip her focus and be SERIOUS over serious and not so serious things. We see her unapologetically and hilariously reject Adrien’s pleas for a trade of jobs only to be a hypocrite and turn around and beg him for the same. We see her get terrifyingly ENRAGED at Nino for changing her script without discussing it with her. We see her be PETTY and RESENTFUL over falling for Lila’s lies. We see her be IN LOVE after Animan. Plus how could I not love her sheer GLEE over getting to face off with Nora?

But what really made me love this Alya and put her leagues above canon is her growth. Growth that she didn't really get in Canon. And a lot of that growth was evident through her discovery of the truth that was right in front of her and how she had gone so long without seeing it.

And when she is finally hit with the reality that her hero is no hero and that she was wrong? It’s hard. No kid wants to admit being wrong about anything, but especially not about a belief like that. Not the idea of heroes and not over your hero specifically. Especially when you realize you spent so LONG devoted to something only to find out you were wrong, other people knew, and you could have/SHOULD have known had you really tried to look.

And Alya….did NOT take it like a champ.

Denial was the name of the game. But her growth came in acknowledging that she was wrong, WHERE she went wrong, and taking steps to move forward with what she knew. Not by doubling down and demanding “evidence” that should have been easy to find if she just looked, but by investigating the truth even if it’s one she knew she wouldn’t like. And even if it involved things she didn’t want to do. To this end, she made up with Lila and the two actually ended up working together to change the tide of public opinion against her over time.

Let’s note that: She went back on her earlier promise to herself, forgave and worked with someone that she disliked, and let go of her own pride and resentment in order to get to the truth that she originally never wanted to acknowledge.

Alya in Scarlet Lady plays more of a role in the series than she did in Canon. She wasn’t just “Marinette’s best friend” and “Ladybug fangirl” or a tool or prop for setting up certain scenes where Marinette suffers or Adrinette is given a half hearted attempt.

Alya is her own person. She disliked someone the others like or come to like. She adored someone the others and even we as the audience couldn’t stand. She stood up to her sister for herself and with the backing of her friends. She was silly at times for all that she tried to be serious and mature. She was oblivious and opinionated. She was wrong about a core issue to the story.

And that was perfectly okay.

Not because the narrative said so. Not because anything she did was hand waved. Not because Marinette or anyone else was thrown in as a scapegoat to distract attention away from her.

But because Alya is a well-written character with a personality that makes her a PERSON rather than a prop. Which makes her development into a hero feel rewarding rather than an obligation.

4. Alya as a Hero

Okay, Sapotis in Canon wasn’t bad. It worked as a new hero episode. It worked as the FIRST new hero episode. It made sense for Alya to help corral her sisters. I loved Trixx and his subtle means of testing Alya. It also had Alya getting some personal development as she changes from her initial stance of wanting to reveal her identity as a hero to knowing when to keep some truths hidden.

The problem is that lesson didn’t really stick as Alya goes on to demand a truth from Marinette that isn’t her right to know, try to force Marinette to tell a truth when she isn’t ready to reveal it, and betray Marinette’s trust and reveal the secret just to make things easier for herself and her relationship with Nino.

Gotta say, not impressed with Alya as a hero in Canon. Especially given how much the narrative had gone out of its way to keep portraying Alya as being in the right in each instance she was involved in regardless of what she actually did.

Then there’s the matter of the issue of her getting the Fox Miraculous after everything that happened with Lila and the complete LACK of Fox Vs Fox/Alya VS Lila/Truth VS Lies setup that such a setup would have been primed for. And if they weren’t going to do that or even anything with Alya and Trixx, then what was the point of giving Alya the Fox? There was just really nothing else that came out of a truth-seeker like Alya getting a Miraculous specifically involved in setting illusions and how that could develop her character.

@punchlord has already done multiple evaluations of the characters and Miraculous and which ones would best/least fit and why, and has done so much more detailed and eloquently than I can really offer here. Instead, I want to focus on SL!Alya and the changes Zoe made.

Here’s the thing: we all knew going in that Zoe was going to follow Canon for the most part. She admitted as such. We also knew that some kwami-swapping was bound to happen as a result of the changes to the world. Chloe gets the Ladybug. Marinette gets the Bee. Sabrina was bound to get something at some point that wasn’t the Dog. And yes, Lila too.

But NONE of us were expecting that Alya and Nino would swap their Miraculous AND their hero episodes!

And it worked. It worked so well.

Koki Marina is an awesome hero with such a stand-out look. And the one image of her playing with her fluffy hair always makes me smile.

The changes Zoe made vastly improved the Anansi storyline. Nino deserved his own hero episode that wasn’t just focus on him secondary to an issue for Alya and ultimately accomplish nothing on his own while someone else solves the problem for him...twice. And Alya deserved to be the one to deal with Nora and take control of her life.

The thing is, this was an episode with a lesson that was misplaced. Misplaced andmishandled, much like many episodes in the original series.

In Anansi, the biggest problem wasn’t that Nino couldn’t prove he could protect Alya, it was that Nora was overstepping on Alya’s life in the first place, especially when it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t consider that ANYONE ELSE could protect Alya—even the heroes when it is their job to fight the akumas.

But more specifically, she wasn’t willing to consider that Alya could protect HERSELF. Especially of note considering that by this point in both versions, Alya had been running around and getting involved in the fights with the heroes for blog views. And in Canon specifically, Alya had already been a temp hero—I was surprised and disappointed that Alya didn’t argue more and struggle with NOT revealing that fact in the episode. But I digress…

If Alya was to get a hero episode, this was the better setup for it. And Zoe saw that and provided us that sweet sweet payout, with Alya proving herself and helping to take down her older sister. And just the absolute GLEE she had in doing so. The sort of glee you’d see in any younger sibling getting a chance to take on and show up their older sibling. All the younger siblings out there should know it.

Plus her and Wayzz bonding, omg they are so cute.

While Canon Sapotis was decent (if not a bit frustrating with the lack of lessons for the twins after all their antics), in my view, SL Anansi actually HIT in all the right ways and felt more satisfying overall in comparison as Alya’s hero episode and ESPECIALLY in comparison to the Canon Anansi itself.

It’s a good episode with a stable episode-centric arc, where the conflict starts with Alya NOT really being able to face down Nora alone and only manages to overpower Nora in an arm wrestling contest because her friends back her and take on Nora in a 4 on 1 match and overpower her together. This is highlighted later in the episode when Alya faces Nora alone to buy Marigold time and is shown to struggle. Then gets the power boost through the Turtle Miraculous that lets her effectively take her down save her. Cough. Yes. Just save her.

It’s a very empowering story for Alya. But it plays a bigger role than that, too. It’s not just the start of Alya being a hero, it’s also the point where she really starts to turn things around in terms of the overarching story of the comic.

This episode is the follow up to Sapotis, where the other characters are having a sleepover partly to look after the younger kids but also specifically to try and support Alya as she comes to terms with the realization that her hero is a fraud. Yes, Alya already knew that Scar was horrible by the time Anansi happened, but actually being a hero and having to work with Scar gives her an up close and personal look at how Scar treats the other heroes and how much—or rather little she actually does in a crisis.

It’s also the point where Alya seems to gain more confidence and also direct her reporting to a better end. And by the end of the episode, we really see Alya starting to use her skills to this purpose. This is when we get to see Alya actually BE the journalist she wanted to claim she was.

This? Right here? This goes to show that not only does Alya herself make a great hero, but that becoming a hero helped Alya improve herself as well. Which is something we should be seeing more of in such stories with teenagers gaining superpowers.

So all that being said, SL Alya succeeds where her Canon counterpart fails. The narrative points out when she’s wrong. She learns lessons. She is silly at times and acknowledged to be silly. But through it all, she retains the heart that makes her a good friend and the passion that shows her to be not only a journalist, but a HERO in the making.

#ml analysis #scarlet lady #scarlet lady analysis #scarlet lady top 10 list #scarlet lady is better than canon #ml salt #alya cesaire #you go girl #for zoe

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