#sorry i know this doesn't make much sense without context

[dean-a-mean-tae]

Nicholas as a... Idol

CONTENT WARNINGS: suggestive, biting, atheism, mention of bugs, and I think that's it

Nicholas is awkward... he likes to softly bite at the member's cheeks or arms

Leans against the back of the members and rest his head on the top of their head or shoulders

Likes to wears other people's things so he raids the boys' closets for oversized shirts/sweaters/hoodies that fit him almost perfectly

He totally snoops through Twitter (X), Instagram, and Tumblr to read the fanfics and posts about him

He makes the boys watch compilations and edits of them all

won't stop accidently posting before finishing a sentence

Doesn't care how big the bug is; he's still afraid

Always complaining about how cold he is

He doesn't sweat unless he's sick or overworked (iykyk)

He eats cold things even when he complains about how cold he is

Has multiple different sounding laughs

uses his accent and dimples to get away with stuff

Nicholas isn't the problem child of Stray Kids but can be

Always has his fan on. Ceiling fan and a standing fan. Even in the winter

Sings when he's in a daze or lost in thought

Again with the bugs, Nicholas does not like bugs and will not hesitate to flick them away from him

We love a self aware king and Nicholas knows he's huge (in more ways than one) so he's extremely careful

He, uh, he sweats like crazy, like Hyunjin, and it makes his skin shine even more

He likes sweet scents that don't assault his nose

Has an extremely sensitive nose

Hates mint chocolate chip ice cream but will eat a little bit if you offer it because he hates making people feel bad

So he writes lyrics like people breathe air but none of them make sense until someone else gets ahold of them

Sorry not sorry! He is an atheist but his family doesn't know so his grandma is constantly sending him daily scriptures

Does not like kids and does not want kids, but is good with them

Mans has ADHD... it's hell for him

He either has the energy to run around but can't because he's in pain or isn't in pain but doesn't have the energy to run around

Likes to volunteer at shelters

He will happily fanboy over the others and tells STAY to keep writing without adding any context, much to the confusion of some of the group members

Nicholas Ross Master List | ©️DEANAMEANTAE2024

TAGS LIST: @jinnie-ret @hwxnghyynjin @foxilsdenn @rensahazard @l-a-u-r-aaa @lucianidealz @spookzyclown @mynameisnotlaura @ziipzeepzop-eez @theo4eve @young-lover-of-literature

...You can be added by asking in the replies, sending me a message, or doing an ask thingy.

[atleastpleasetelephone]

Little Darling

Chapter 11 - The mirror is a trap that saves

It's 1997, and Elvis is still alive and well. He quit music in 1972 after a successful world tour, and now he runs Presley Studios - teaching people karate across America. His daughter and grandchildren are regular visitors at Graceland, and when he’s in Memphis he likes to do a little teaching. His life is quieter now, though. Most of the Mafia have gone - going to live their own lives - and after his divorce from his second wife, Elvis is sworn off women for good. Will a Welsh girl with a wicked sense of humour be the one to make him break his promise to himself not to fall in love again?

Need to catch up? Go here.

Pairing: Old Man!Elvis x OC - Tegan, a Welsh girl he meets at karate.

Word count: 3.2K

TWs: Elvis is a little dominant, use of daddy in a sexual context, bit of dollification, objectification if you squint, possessive kink, praise kink, p in v sex.

It's Christmas eve, and Elvis scratches his bearded chin as he walks arm in arm with Tegan and their dog through the snowy park. He's grown a beard to make it easier for him to dress up as Santa for the grandkids, but he started too late and it's itchy. Tegan told him that the itchy stage would finish soon (her ex had a beard) but he's preoccupied by how annoying it is right now. The dog is a chow cross that they chose together at a rescue centre, as soon as Elvis found out that Tegan loved dogs as much as him. She made the mistake of telling him about the Welsh language band Ffa Coffi Pawb - literally meaning “everyone's coffee beans”, but pronounced fah-koff-ee pow-b which made it sound a lot like fuck off everyone, in a combination of Welsh and English - Wenglish - and he decided that was the perfect name for their new furry friend. In the end he went for Ffa Coffi, which Tegan thinks doesn't really work as a pun, but Elvis enjoys saying regardless. Tegan also doesn't think a dog can be called Coffee Beans (bean would be fine, but the plural just seems crazy) but mostly they just shout “COFFI!” which works in either language. The most important thing is that Coffi is laid back and will barely chase after a ball, never mind other people's pets. And he puts up with Tegan cuddling him all the time without ever trying to lick her face. Sometimes when Elvis sees them curled up on the sofa together he wonders if he will ever get a look in. 

The beard and the fact that he’s wrapped up for the cold mean that barely anyone recognises Elvis, and so they’ve come out without any kind of back up. Elvis feels more and more comfortable doing that nowadays, happy to just walk around with Tegan and Coffi. They don’t see the paps often in the cold, and when they do they just do their best to ignore them. As they make their way through the snow, he’s reminded of the day at the zoo, when they definitely did have to have back up. 

“Hey, I bet if we went ta the zoo today no-one would bother us.”

Tegan snorts. “And all the animals would probably be indoors by the fire with a cocoa.”

“Cocoa?”

“Oh, hot chocolate.”

“Ah.”

They carry on for a while in silence, then Elvis pipes up again. 

“I’m sorry about that day, honey. Ya didn’t deserve bein’ dragged through the press like ya were.”

Her smile is slight as she remembers the horrible events of the day after. “Neither did you.”

Stopping, he turns to her and looks into her face seriously. “Ya didn’t deserve the way I treated ya, either.”

Her eyes dart around, awkwardly, and she eventually settles on looking down at Coffi. “Well, that was a while ago, now, ‘raur. Things have been much better since then.”

Taking his hands out of his pockets, he reaches for hers to hold them. The dog lead slips onto her wrist and Coffi sits down between them, looking up patiently. 

“Ya know yer beautiful, right?”

She frowns a little, still looking at the dog. “I’m not sure what that’s got to do with… before.”

He steps towards her and the dog whines a little at being hemmed in between them. 

“Will ya look at me, pretty girl?”

Her nose wrinkles and she looks up cautiously. “We’ve been through this, ‘raur. I’m almost 40 years old.”

“Alright then. Look at me when I’m talking to ya, woman.”

There’s a trace of a smile on her face as he moves his hand to her cheek and pulls her towards him, making her stagger forwards for balance as he crashes his lips against hers. 

“Mmm. ‘Raur,” she chides, a blush rising on her face as he pulls back. 

“Can’t get ya ta listen otherwise, can I?” He grumbles, letting out a low whistle and shaking his head. “Now I’ve got yer attention, will ya answer me?”

“About what?”

Elvis growls deep in his throat, making Coffi yelp in surprise. “I want ya ta tell me yer beautiful.”

“Elvis…”

“No.” The word is sharp and the force of it makes her tremble. “Don’t Elvis me. Tell me what I want ta hear.”

“I guess I look better now I've had my hair and nails done…”

Nudging the dog out of the way with his foot, Elvis closes the gap between them and puts his lips to Tegan’s ear.

“Well if yer not gonna tell me now I'll haveta fuck it outta ya later.” His voice is low and gravelly and she trembles again at the pitch and the force of the words. She can feel a blush rising on her cheeks and finds her thighs rubbing together almost of their own accord. “Hm?” He prompts, not moving his mouth from her ear. 

“Yes, Daddy,” she whispers back. 

He's half-tempted to reply “yes, Daddy, what?” but he decides not to push it outdoors, and responds with a quick “good” instead. He steps back and takes the dog lead off Tegan, gently tugging Coffi towards him. 

“Time ta head back.”

They turn and walk back towards the car, Tegan’s stomach flipping as the words he’d just said run through her mind over and over again. As well as the consistent erections, the pills had given Elvis a little more confidence, but he’d never said anything like that outside of the bedroom, let alone outside of the house. On the drive home they make small talk about when they’re going to put out the presents, and what they’ve bought for other people, but Tegan’s brain keeps short-circuiting to him telling her he’s going to fuck it out of her. She watches him carry on doing normal, everyday things when they’re back at Graceland. Feeding the dog, making coffee. 

“Elvis?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Can I have a kiss?”

He moves to put his arms around her, pulling her in close. “Of course ya can.”

His lips are soft and the kiss is gentle. Tegan feels herself relax. She smiles as he pulls back. 

“Thanks.”

He chuckles softly. “Mmm. No problem.” Stroking her cheek, he continues, “you lookin’ forward to dressin’ up as Mrs Claus later? Puttin’ on that little outfit I bought ya?”

She looks at his expression for a moment and then shakes her head a little. “It’s obscene, isn’t it?”

He pretends to look offended. “Obscene? Somethin’ I bought fer ya?” When she carries on staring at him with one raised eyebrow he relents. “Okay, yeah, so it’s a little short. Gotta show off my girl’s legs though, haven’t I?”

“To who?!”

“Ah. Okay, ya got me there.” He ponders the question for a moment. “Alright. It’s self-gratification. Jus’ wanna see ‘em myself.”

She keeps shaking her head but they’re both giggling and then they’re kissing again. Tegan hears someone clearing their throat and pulls back quickly. 

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds, but I’ve got two kids demanding lunch.” Lisa-Marie smiles at them both. 

“Chefs are on their way in,” Elvis explains, looking at his watch. “Ten minutes or so an’ then they’ll be makin’ somethin’. Kids’ll have ta be patient.”

The impatient children appear as if they’ve been summoned by the conversation, and Elvis suggests they all go down to the den and hang out there instead. Ben follows his sister, explaining some comic book or other that he’s been reading to her in painstaking detail, whilst she pulls the most bored face Tegan thinks she’s ever seen. Elvis settles into an armchair and pulls his girlfriend into his lap. One arm rests around her waist whilst his other hand brushes her hair away from her neck to give him easy access to press kisses to it every so often. He always seems to know when she needs reassurance. 

“You two are so sweet together,” Lisa remarks. 

“Ah, I’m lucky she puts up with me,” Elvis replies, his fingers combing through Tegan’s hair. “She’s got the patience of a saint.”

“Don’t talk about me as though I’m not here,” Tegan complains. 

Lisa starts saying something about him being a pain in the ass, but Tegan can barely hear it because his lips are next to her ear again, murmuring, “think ya like it when I do that, honey.” Her pussy tingles at the words and she swallows, thickly. Managing after what seems like minutes to tune back into the conversation, only to hear Elvis saying,

“She’s way too good fer me, and far too pretty.”

The tingling between her legs intensifies. She does like it. She likes it way too much. Fuck. She tries to calm down as she hears Lisa ask her a question to draw her back into the conversation. 

“Oh well, I mean he is better than me at karate, I suppose…”

They bounce back and forth and she starts to feel herself relax. But Elvis had felt the way she’d tensed and seen the blush on her face. He certainly hasn’t lost his touch, when it comes to knowing what women like, he thinks. Not at all. 

***

Tegan looks at herself in the mirror, turning to the side and tugging at the hem of her dress a little. She’d been right when she accused Elvis of buying her an obscene costume - it only just covers her ass. At least it’s not skin tight, she muses. But there’s no way she’s bending over in it in the best of the house. She pulls the santa hat onto her head and laughs at her reflection. If someone had told her a year ago that she’d be in one of the bedrooms in Graceland, wearing a skimpy Mrs Claus outfit and getting ready to arrange presents underneath the Christmas tree (a task that was now definitely seeming impossible to do without flashing someone) she’d have laughed them out of town. And yet, here she is.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the appearance of Elvis in his own Santa costume. She turns and runs daintily towards him, the red sparkly heels he’d bought her slowing her down a little. Throwing her arms around his neck she grins as his hands grip her lower back. 

“You look very handsome as Father Christmas.”

He chuckles. “I look like an old man in a Santa costume, honey.”

“You look handsome,” she tells him firmly, and he leans down to kiss her with a smile. 

“Father Christmas,” he teases, doing a bad impression of her accent. 

She sniggers. “Daddy Christmas.”

His hand reaches down to squeeze her ass. “Yeah, ya can call me that if ya want.”

They both giggle a little before he insists on looking at her properly in her outfit, twirling her around and making approving noises. 

“You’ve outdone yourself here, Presley,” he says, to himself. 

She can’t help smiling, despite the ridiculousness of the situation. He lets out a sharp breath and then shakes his head quickly as if to dispel the dirty thoughts. 

“Right, let’s get these gifts done.” 

He gives her a quick slap on the ass and she squeals. “Elvis!”

“Thought it was Daddy Christmas,” he replies, one eyebrow raised and a little smile playing on his lips. 

“You are incorrigible.”

“You are incorrigible, Daddy Christmas.”

Tegan doubles over laughing at that, which Elvis particularly enjoys given the length of her skirt and the lacey panties he’d bought her to wear with her outfit. 

“I swear these pills have made you worse.”

“Ya won’t learn, will ya? Call me by my name or I’ll have to put ya over my knee and we’ll never get these gifts done.”

Managing eventually to keep a straight face, she puts her arms back around his neck and looks up into his face. 

“Sorry, Daddy Christmas,” she coos. “I promise I’ll be a good girl. I don’t want to miss out on my presents.”

“I’ll definitely be givin’ ya somethin’ later if yer good,” he teases back. 

After more giggling, nose scrunching and forehead kisses, they eventually untangle themselves and head downstairs to arrange the presents, fetching them from outside of bedroom doors and piling them up underneath the tree. They fill the kids’ stockings and Elvis eats the cookie left out for Santa, leaving the glass of sherry to Tegan, since she’d insisted on it. Much to her relief, no-one comes out to see them at work so she doesn’t have to worry about her modesty too much. It’s still good to be in Elvis’ room afterwards, especially when he tells her he has some gifts to give her now. 

“Don’t think this is somethin’ everyone needs ta see,” he explains, handing her a beautifully wrapped package. “An’ the other one,” he gestures at the box next to her on the bed, “is somethin’ I want ya wearin’ tomorrow.”

“Which one first?”

He taps the package in her hand. “That one.”

She unwraps it carefully, then immediately bursts out laughing. It’s not just one present - it’s a set of three pairs of panties with ELVIS embroidered on the back in silver script. 

“Oh my God! Did you have these made?!”

He nods, grinning a little bashfully. “Thought you might like ‘em. Ya can wear a pair tomorrow under that dress I bought ya.”

Elvis had bought her yet another gold dress, which he somehow hadn’t classed as a Christmas present, having given it to her earlier in the week. She thinks she ought to be overwhelmed by all the presents, and she’s certainly nervous to see his reaction to what she’s bought him, but every time he produces another one she’s filled with a kind of warm joy. He loves giving and she loves receiving. They’re a match made in heaven. 

She smirks and once she’s finished looking at the panties she reaches for the next present. Under the wrapping paper is a beautiful velvet box, and inside the box is… 

“Oh ‘raur!!” She exclaims, very carefully lifting the tiara out of the box. It’s gold and covered in diamonds and she hates to think how much money it must have cost. “Oh cariad, it’s beautiful.” 

“Put it on, honey.”

She pushes the santa hat off her head as she gets up and walks over to the full-length mirror. Carefully replacing the hat with the tiara, she fiddles with her hair and turns her head from side to side, looking at the stones sparkling in the light. Elvis comes up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to her temple. 

“My beautiful Queenie.”

She blushes and looks down. “Oh ‘raur. It’s too much.”

“Uh-uh. Nothin’ too much f’my Queenie.”

“Thank you. I love it.”

He kisses her cheek this time and his eyes lock with hers in the mirror. “Let’s see ya in it and those panties, then.”

She spins around in his arms, her arms reaching around his neck. “Am I just some kind of naughty fashion show for you?”

“Yep,” he replies, patting her ass. “Off ya go now. Do as yer told.”

Part of her can’t believe she’s just going along with this, going into the en suite to take her dress and underwear off, and put the new panties on. She hadn’t thought that being with Elvis would be like being his little doll sometimes, and she also hadn’t thought that she’d like it so much. She opens the door slowly, then steps back into the bedroom. Elvis is still fully-clothed, sitting on his bed waiting for her. As soon as he spots her, looking a little shy only a few steps into the room, he beckons her over. 

“C’mere. That’s it. Spin round fer me. Mmmm. Lookin’ good, Tegan bach.”

Once she’s finished with being paraded around in a circle for the second time that evening, Tegan gets onto Elvis’ lap. She much prefers being close to him like this to being made to strut about like a catwalk model, and she presses herself up against him, enjoying the feeling of her naked skin against his soft, almost furry suit. His hands rub up and down her back, kissing her deeply as she rolls her hips against him. 

“Ya gonna tell me what I want ta hear yet?” He murmurs in her ear. 

“Mmm. No. Think you promised something about fucking it out of me.”

He hums and pulls his belt off, before reaching into the pants of his suit and pulling his dick out. “Sit on it fer me, honey.”

She moves to take her panties off and one of his hands grips her arm. He shakes his head. “Keep ‘em on. Jus’ move ‘em to the side.”

Moaning, she slowly eases him inside her until she’s full, sitting on his lap, her head against his shoulder, panting. 

“Good girl. Want ya ta remember who ya belong to.”

“I couldn’t…forget… Elvis.”

“Mmmm. Yer all mine.”

She tries to steady her breathing, still leaning heavily against him. 

“Okay, baby?” He asks, softly, when she still doesn’t move. 

“Mmm. Yes. Fuck.”

“This enough fer ya?”

She smiles against him. “I was promised a fuck.”

He smiles back, thinking how much he loves her in this moment. His hands move to grip her hips and he uses them to move her, slowly at first and then gathering pace. The tiara slips and she quickly removes it, setting it safely on the bedside table. 

“Now?” He asks, pulling her up and slamming her back down on him, hard. 

She whines. “I… oh… fuck…”

“That’s not it, honey.”

“I… oh, fine! I’m beautiful! I’m… fuck…” she forces the words out and at around the same time her orgasm hits her with the force of a speeding truck. 

“Yes ya fuckin’ are,” he replies, through gritted teeth as he feels her squeezing him. His hips buck a few times and then he’s cumming inside her too. 

She falls down against him like a ragdoll, puffing and panting. Once he's managed to get his santa suit off he pulls her back into his arms. They lie together for a while, basking in the glow of their orgasms. Tegan starts to think about the next day, and who will be arriving when, her brain lazily trying to figure out logistics. They chat about it for a while, Elvis reassuring her that she doesn’t have to worry, he’s already planned it all.

“So that’s everyone, I think.”

“Sure you haven’t missed anyone?”

“Oh, yeah. Jerry will be comin’. On his own, though. Wife left ‘im. Thought he might want company.”

“Who’s Jerry?”

“Friend a mine from before. Lives in LA now. Pretty boy, ‘bout seven years younger ‘an me.”

“You didn’t say.”

“Musta forgot, honey. Ya’ll like ‘im. Everyone likes Jerry.”

“Did you tell him about me?”

“‘Course I did, honey. He’s lookin’ forward ta meetin’ ya.”

Tegan thinks she’s looking forward to meeting him too, for some reason she can’t quite define. They carry on talking until Elvis starts to drift off, and so Tegan extracts herself from his arms and gets more comfortable. Imagining Graceland on Christmas morning, bustling with life and joy until she falls asleep too. 

***

Taglist:

@vintagepresley @arg-xoxo @from-memphis-with-love @msamarican @blursedblegh @returntopresley @eapep @everythingelvispresley @i-r-i-n-a-a @sissylittlefeather @arrolyn1114 @jhoneybees @cattcb @polksaladava @lookingforrainbows @jkdaddy01 @ccab @epthedream69 @lustnhim @elvisslut @pomtherine @that-hotdog @ladelinee @angschrof @fairybloodsucker @deltafalax @makethemorning @elviswhore69 @ilovequeen978 @wildhorseinkansas @pocketfulofpresley @dkayfixates @iloveelvisss @kxnnxy

[guyofthing]

Sorry I'm thinking about Tintoa and Reptir in relation to Stormfin. Tintoa emulates her, but is nothing she was and everything she wished she could be. Reptir scorns all relationship to her, but has everything she hated about herself perfected to a science, with an elegance Stormfin never had. Also, Reptir being the one to tear Tintoa's fins and convince her to start wearing the naval uniform again is so incredibly symbolic.

Stormfin is a representation of everything Reptir knows that she is, but doesn't want anyone else to know that she is, hence why she claims to resent the fact that Stormfin is just another her. Tintoa's idealization of Stormfin is, therefore, one of the many, many things Reptir weaponizes against her. It's an incredibly subtle form of blame shifting. See, see, Tintoa is Stormfin, not Reptir. Tintoa is the cruel, vicious manipulator, right? Is it any surprise that she's lying about her Seer powers? She's just like her ancestor. And Reptir is blameless and honest.

They fuck me up.

[hopeswriting]

was thinking about takeshi and how he's my favorite brand of unconditional devotion btw. the utter and absolute and all-consuming kind that runs so deep to the very core and is so intrinsic and fundamental to it, it can only express itself in the most casual and natural and certain way. without second thoughts, without any room for doubts or for any moral dilemma to be had over it, because of course he ought to always be breathing and living for his chosen person first and foremost. of course he ought to hang on their every word and make them true no matter what, no matter what he has to do to make it happen, no matter what he has to do to other people to make it happen, and no matter what it might turn him into in the process. because it's obviously the way the world should be for his chosen person. at their feet, ready to bend over backwards and break and build itself again to better answer to all their needs even if they don't ask it for it. it's the only right way it should be for them, and of course takeshi's going to do his utmost at all times to make it a reality as much as possible.

and his devotion comes out as naturally as breathing, comes out lighthearted and nonchalant like he might as well be talking about the weather, but it's not unaware of itself. it's not that takeshi doesn't know it's unhealthy and wrong and that he's willing to go entirely too far in its name for anyone's good. it's not that he wouldn't hear you out if you were to sit him down and explain to him just why he needs to tone it down a little (a lot). logically, he'd agree with you and know you're right. and then he'd tell you he's still not going to do anything whatsoever about it. that he's not bothered by it and doesn't feel the need to change anything to his attitude. makes it a point to never let anyone or anything sway him even an inch in the stand he took when it comes to that, no matter how many thousand of times you might go over the subject with him.

because the morality of his devotion isn't the point at all. is entirely irrelevant to it and doesn't affect the way he expresses it all. it's not the metric with which he draws a line in the sand to hold it accountable to. because the thing is, takeshi's entire world revolves around tsuna--tsuna is his entire world altogether, and it's just a matter of fact, that simple. to him it's a truth as unchanging as the sky being blue, and so being the way he is according to that truth is the only way he can imagine being that'd feel right to him. and so the actual and only metric that matters here is "would tsuna be happier if i were to do this?" and/or "is this something tsuna needs me to do?"

and like. i don't think takeshi ever stops being a kind person capable of compassion and understanding and mercy and forgiveness even ten years later once they became mafia through and through. and i don't think either he grows up to be feared and called a monster per se despite the things they inevitably had to do during those ten years (and the things they'll inevitably keep having to do as long as they keep being mafia), at least not in the way, for example, they'll never stop fearing and calling mukuro one. but i do think that among the tenth gen, he ends up being the one with the most ruthless, merciless and horrific blood on his hands of that particular and distinct loving kind. you know the one i mean, right? he comes to be the one most expected and the one first expected to be willing and to take it upon himself to go through with it when the need arises. and to think little of it after, if anything at all. all in the name of making tsuna's reign as easy on him as possible.

and it's to the point where it's the kind of blood that makes even mukuro pause at times. or, when takeshi is the one coming up with solutions himself during meetings, makes even reborn blink. not because it's unjustified or wouldn't be safe or efficient or anything of the sort, but because it is unwarrantedly thorough in its retaliation. and sometimes, at times like this, he's the one tsuna needs to step in for the most, because he's the only one who can reason with him that "yes, this would work in getting rid of our problem" but "no, please, don't do that takeshi". because if tsuna is the only thing that infers on just how much and in what ways he'll let himself be devoted to him, then of course, he's also the only one takeshi's willing to reign himself in for without second thoughts. because he'd hate to ever do something tsuna would disapprove of or wouldn't want him to do. or do something that'd make tsuna see him differently or love him back less even in the slightest.

and it's also like. his devotion isn't an undisciplined one. it's not one he doesn't have control over, the very opposite. it's a very purposeful and conscious choice he chooses to keep making over and over again every step of the way, and he taught himself to have control over it, to know when it's needed and/or wanted, and how much and in which ways it is when it happens, and to keep it down otherwise. and, yes, to also reign it back in at tsuna's request at times when it still slips past his control. because it's all about making tsuna's happiness easier and secure and long-lasting, and never about burdening him with just how committed he is to do that.

so it comes down to this: takeshi willing to go above and beyond and more for tsuna unless tsuna explicitly asks him not to. and to tsuna needing to ask him not to every now and then. and to other people pointing out to him how too many times tsuna's already needed to stop him, and that maybe there's a hint for him to take there. and to takeshi seeing the hint, looking it straight in the eye and recognizing it for what it is and just. deciding it doesn't apply to him because it's all perfectly normal behavior to him. because it's the only kind of behavior that makes sense to him and feels right.

and so—to circle back to my first point—he can only express his devotion as naturally as breathing, so casually, almost like it's something inconsequential and not worth talking about despite how unmistakably it couldn't be further away from being the truth. it's the only way he could have always known how to express it, because, after all, who has ever taken time to ponder about the details and the hows of the way they breathe?

and i, for one, absolutely eat that shit up every time, thanks for coming to my ted talk <3

[cheapshrimpysheep]

You Will Stop the Wedding! - Leona Kingscholar

SUMMARY: YOU were the one being kidnapped by Princess Eliza to marry her. How would he react and how would he save you? With the aggravation of he already having a crush on you.

CHARACTERS: Leona Kingscholar  x Reader

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Declaration

WORD COUNT: 870 words

Riddle Rosehearts / Leona Kingscholar / Azul Ashengrotto / Jamil Viper / Vil Schoenheit / Idia Shroud / Malleus Draconia

Rescuing You - Deuce Spade; Jack Howl; Floyd Leech; Kalim Al-Asim

COMMENTS: What have I done? Why did I commit to writing this? And why did I write so much? Why was I so inspired? There were seven of them! Why do I do this to myself? So yeah, this took me a long time. But I hope it was worth it, for me and for you.

CONTEXT: Someone was kidnapped to marry some ghost princess and might end up turning into a ghost too. And he just found out that someone was you.

Leona couldn't care less about someone being kidnapped by a delusional princess, until he finds out that the student who was kidnapped was YOU.

He shows himself to be more interested in the subject after that, which makes the other Housewardens question and some even messing with him. Probably Vil and Azul. He tells them to shut up.

He ends up not being part of the first groups, being in the last. Why? Because this is important, it is your life that is at risk after all. So he first needs to analyse those ghosts to know the best way to act. If it is necessary to risk losing pieces, then let them be pawns.

The whole time he acts like he's not doing this for you. As if he just wanted to prove that he could solve this in an instant. When it's the last group's turn, the other three who are with him end up staying behind to stall the guards. And he is the only one who can reach the ceremony hall.

And he follows the plan. He says to stop the wedding and the reason why the princess should marry him and not you is: “Unlike everyone who tried to woo you and unlike the person standing with you at the altar right now, I am actually royalty. Weren't you looking for a prince? Well, you have one right here. Now you just need to exchange that herbivore you have with you for me.”

The princess said he had good arguments, but she also showed that she didn't really like Leona's presumption.

“I apologize. I'm just trying to show you that I would be the more suited partner for you. The person you chose to be your partner doesn't even want to be there with you. Doesn't even like you.”

She gasps! And she starts to defend herself saying that it's a lie, that there is love for her in you, you just needed a little more time.

“Sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you, your Highness, but that's not how it works. It is not after marriage that love arises. It is not with money and wealth that love arises. At least not true love. You should find someone who sees beyond that. May they see you for who you are and not for what you have. Someone who doesn't care about titles. And only then, maybe marry them. Knowing that with or without your kingdom, they will stay by your side.”

The princess admits that what he says makes sense and is wonderful. But wouldn't something like that take a long time? Someone who can prove that they would stay with you no matter what. How would she know when she found them? And then, the guard who is in love with her decides to declare himself. And that whole ending of the princess realizing that she loved him too happens, they get married and happily ever after.

After everything, he took the time to brag to the others about having solved the problem and saved them all and the school. Some of the others still comment that that speech was very interesting. Maybe true? But with all his pride, he continues to say that just goes to show what a good actor he can be. He just doesn't get Vil's roles because he's not interested. “You would wish.” Vil replies.

When everyone was leaving and only the first-years were left to clean everything, Leona calls you for a minute. “So the ring ended up not being needed in the end. Tsk.” he comments “Here, you can have it.” He throws the ring towards you like throwing a coin in the air. “You never know if there are more single ghosts out there looking for a herbivore partner. Ha ha ha.”

He likes to mess with you, so you mess with him back. You say you wonder if the ghosts are the only ones who would like to have you as their partner.

“Are you implying that I'm also interested in you?” He smirks. In response, you ask why he would go to so much trouble to save someone he doesn't care about. “Did I ever say I didn't care about you?” He says, still smirking, but then adds: “Before I really know you don't count.”

Slightly fed up with all these mixed signals, you tell him that if he wants to tell you something now would be the time. Especially because if he just continues with those comments, you will simply accept the excuses he gives and understand that he really doesn't like you that way.

“Are you going to tell me that you don't like it when I'm hard to put up with?” he keeps saying with his smug face.

You turn to drop the conversation and walk away. After about three steps, he grabs your hand, stopping you and then pulling you towards him. His other hand on your waist.

“Fine, fine. What if I told you that whole speech was about you?” Maybe if he repeats it, looking into your eyes, you'll believe it. “Unfortunately for you, Savanaclaw is a dorm of actions, not words.” And he kisses your lips.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[brawltogethernow]

I would LOVE to hear your aro Hal thoughts if you don’t mind sharing?

[re:] (Sorry in advance there are absolutely no issue citations; I have saved so many pages in random places without labeling them.)

I don't know if I'd even call it having thoughts so much as having...an incomplete collection of Hal...saying things?

And having things said about him?

And he does this very familiar weasel jink when asked certain types of questions.

Like the general direction of authorial intent here is presumably that he's a ~playboy~ who ~can't be tied down~,

but we rarely see him...like...with anybody. He's an informed attribute playboy who's had a handful of onscreen flings that tend to be complete disasters with significantly less chemistry than a poorly measured baking soda volcano, and other than that there's Carol, who he's been failing to marry with high agitation for sixty-five years at this point. Like in cape comics it's standard for your obvious endgame A couple to take twenty or thirty years to get around to that, but sixty is excessive. Like even Alicia Masters and the Thing managed it faster and they kept getting put off because it stressed out too many Marvel writers to contemplate monsterfucking. (And other less comedic factors but this post isn't about that.)

And every time Hal tries to go steady with Carol he acts like he's dying, even though he clearly loves her and holds having her in his life in extremely high priority.

Like he is not enjoying a playboy lifestyle he doesn't want to give up. He has tried very hard to settle down several times, but he always panics and bolts at the last second like someone who's run out of the willpower¹ to keep holding onto an electrified rod--except when he's rescued by deus ex machina.

¹Ha.

And it's also pretty evident that he hates himself for this and doesn't understand why he can't pass this standard life milestone, or why he keeps hurting Carol, his favorite person, trying and failing to do what they think you're supposed to. He very blatantly views his romantic failures as something that let down other people and "improving" as a sacrifice he's supposed to make for them.

When his desires come into it it's primarily in the context of him gaslighting himself about how he totally wants the things he's supposed to that won't disappoint people, definitely definitely for real this time.

As seen above, romantic success for Hal is often conflated with retiring from being Green Lantern to inject cheap drama and insert a built-in inevitable failure, framing him as staying single because he's "married to the job". This barely ever made sense but was already downright comedic by the, I want to say late 70's?, where Carol was in on the secret identity and John and Katma were pulling off extremely successful GL/GL dating in the same book. At this point it's complete nonsense, so writers have been pulling harder on framing Hal as a disorganized man-child with commitment issues who's just sort of arbitrarily rendered undateable by being a committed superhero, something which, although it's a classic source of drama, has not hindered any of DC's other characters to this degree this consistently.

In conclusion: This aro man does not know what aromanticism is despite being one degree of separation from Connor Hawke, which is ruining his life and his ability to have any self esteem. Him and Carol desperately need someone to tell them what queerplatonic relationships are so they can stop doing these wretched I'm-not-touching-you kisses.

#EverybodyDislikedThat

Also he's been dressing up as the aromantic flag since 1959. Okay now I'm done.

[imagine-silk]

Hello! May I request fallout 4 companions (Nick especially) with Sole who shares the bare minimum of information about themselves? Not because Sole doesn’t trust them, they really enjoy theirs companions company. Perhaps they busy themselves so they don’t have to think about all the little and big things they miss. (I bet Codsworth would find pristine things that Sole would miss (like a favorite movie, vinyl, or comic?))

Sorry if its not something you’re interested in doing right now. The ask kinda came out as a ramble, I’m lacking sleep haha. Thanks again for considering my request!

》Honestly one of my favorite kinds of characters.

【Cait】 She doesn't appreciate it. Her contract was traded to some random weirdo who barely says anything. It took three days before the topic of your name came up. And two weeks to know what you were looking for, who. But in return you don't ask what she does on her own time or what she's done. It feels like you don't mind rather than you don't care and that makes her feel seen. It stays between you unsaid in her eyes.

♡If romanced she doesn't push for any information. You'll tell her if it's important. People think it's weird the two of you to not share about yourselves like normal people but you're happy, that's all that matters.

【Codsworth】 It's just like it was before. He, unlike the others, already knows you. He knows you very well. Not only did you do an intake for daily preferences but he also served you for a few years. While you're out and about you'll do something or say something that sounds like no information to others or out of context and he'll answer, "Just as I was thinking as well." While you camp with some of the other companions he does chores the way you like without needing to ask, making comment on recent events, which makes them jealous for sure. He digs up things from the house he preserved or found and fixes them up brand new before presenting it to you. Songs you liked or wanted to hear. Movies and shows and comics. Clothes pressed for you and the furniture is redone the way it used to be. He knows you and wants to keep it that way.

【Curie】 Low-key doesn't care. She has one thing on her mind and that's her own goal to better medicine. Finding things to do that is all she needs of you. When she goes to be a synth her feelings overwhelm her and you guide her through that. She's never ever asked about you. She'll tell you about what she's feeling but never thinks to ask what you feel. In her defense, is doesn't understand the nuance of social interactions. And to her credit, it works for the both of you.

♡If she's romanced she realizes she wants to know what you feel and if it's the same as her. She's mostly interested in what you feel now rather than what your opinion is in the past or isn't currently relevant.

【Danse】 Right away he doesn't care for it. A mercenary who talks very little can be dangerous. But you followed orders well and are a damn good shot. The way he asks is more like demanding. It was all for a vetting process but still rude. After the intake he didn't care about your lack of openness. Didn't matter to him personally. After BB he suddenly regrets not knowing you. He was so rude and dismissed you as another faceless soldier and you saved him, from the Brotherhood and himself. Now he wants to know you.

♡If romanced he makes effort to know you, like really know you. For a long time he refused individuality so his own sense of self is not great. But you know yourself and make no attempt to hide it. You are so sure of yourself you don't need to explain. That's one of the things he loves about you.

【Deacon】 He thinks you're like him, that you want to hide in plain sight. As much as he gives that to you he's nosy as fuck and takes every chance to learn about you, mostly from afar. It doesn't take any time at all for him to realize you'll just tell him. Most of them are one word answers. It takes him even less time after that to realize you'll comment on things from before the war especially.

♡If romanced he goes out of his way to show you stuff. Old posters and toys. If you follow my headcanon that he's pre-war, he makes old references and generally adds comments on things to bait your answers.

【Hancock】 He thinks it's pretty cool. "Oh, tall, dark, and handsome/beautiful." He does play twenty questions with you 24/7 and is very happy with your half-answers because an answer is still an answer. Plus he knows at least two other people like you. He is the one who figures out that you just don't have the time or think about talking about yourself rather than purposely keeping secrets the fastest. He knows people so he knows better.

♡If romanced he plays with it. You want a kiss? Tell him what's your favorite color. He'll get on his knees if you tell him what you like about your new home. But honestly he'll do it anyways. All he needs to know is that you want him like he wants you.

【MacCready】 He was more concerned about you putting a bullet in his head while his back was turned. Everyone in the Commonwealth was looking out for number one. So imagine his surprise when you were looking out for your number one and it wasn't you. Not only were you looking for your son but you stopped to help every person who asked for help. Your actions spoke to him in a way your words, he figured, couldn't. You didn't need to help him but you did. You didn't take the caps back. And you killed the gunners the second they turned their guns on him even when they said their beef wasn't with you. It was what you did, not what you told him.

♡If romanced he will ask things. Basic ones are like, "How was your day?" Normal questions that are the peak of domestic life. Then the more personal things. Some sound silly, "What's your favorite color?" But most build off of a quick thing you said in passing, "Wait, you've been to California? What was it like?" He trusts you'll tell him the truth.

【Nick】 As a private detective this simply won't do. He gets it at first, you just need him to find your son, it's business. However, you want him to stay with you after that. It confuses him because you made no indication you like him in the slightest way. He's the second fastest to realize you're not keeping to yourself on purpose. As one of the only ones who are pre-war he's able to get things the others can't. He'll talk about things and give his options and bait you into answering it. That was a common way to get people to talk back then when you were trying to be polite and keep up the conversation, even if the conversation stays a bit thin.

♡If he's romanced he makes fun of the fact you forget to say things about yourself. Don't get it wrong, he makes it clear you don't need to share. He's just poking fun.

【Piper】 This simply won't do. She asks as many question as they come up but she gets depressing short answers. You either give one word answers or say you're not really in the mood, on some occasions you admit you don't know, you never thought about it. It takes a long time for her to stop and that's only because the questions start getting old. And you still feel like a mystery even though you've told her everything.

♡If she's romanced she realizes how much you've told her and pushes it. What is your type? How do your lips feel? Why do you look so good? It becomes playful and light, never serious.

【Preston】 In the beginning he didn't realize he didn't know much about you. He took your help selfishly to get him and his people back on stable ground but you told him you were happy to help. So he takes time to learn about you and give you everything he could possibly help you with. In hopes you would share by yourself he gives things to you without any prompt. It doesn't really work most of the time.

♡If romanced he asks things with hearts in his eyes. He is so lovesick he takes all of your half-answers and files it away in his mind. It hardly matters at that point.

【X6】 It wasn't his mission so he didn't care. You owed him no explanation or justification. Doesn't mean he doesn't question you. He asks why you helped someone, why you stopped for a distraction. And of course you give short answers like, "They needed help." or "I wanted to." Later, after the Institute is gone, he sees how you carry yourself and tries to copy it. Obviously he can't so you help him too. You showed him he can figure himself out by himself and he didn't need you. So he held the same opinion; he doesn't need to know you like that.

♡If romanced he's still comfortable with you keeping things to yourself. It's only after months of being together do you realize he's never asked you a personal question, that you've never shared anything that personal. When you bring that to him he tells you that hardly matters. But seeing you make the effort after that gives him a feeling he can't describe. It's a good feeling he thinks.

[marinettesaltprompts]

The Maribat deconstruction got me thinking: am I the only one who thinks Adribat is a more....plausible (??is that the word) concept than Maribat? Like, not even in a romantic sense but a familial platonic sense.

Think about it, he's :

got the tragic backstory & suffered from neglect

canonically been abused waaaaay beyond school bullies

taken for granted by adults (primarily his dad & Master Fu) and by his peers (LB)

dealing with the existential crisis of not being human if we go the sentimonster route.

Look, I get that trauma & suffering should NEVER be a competition but when you think abt it, Adrien's suffered just as much, if not more so than Mari ever did even with Chloe & Lila in the picture. You could argue that some of what she suffers in salt fics (isolation, no support system, emotional suppression, harassment) are ALSO things Adrien goes through bcz while he's a superhero like her, UNlike her, his home life sucks.

So if there's either hero the Bat Fam would empathize with more, it's him. Yes, they can hold him accountable for screw ups but if we go the Good Parent!Bruce route, he can give Adrien the physical & nuanced emotional training he needs to spot red flags & deal with them beyond passivity. The training is harsh but at least he doesn't play favourites, giving Adrien no excuse to slack off & proper motivation to mature. Plus, in the Bat Fam, everyone has clear roles & secrets aside, nobody strings anyone along, offering him a reliable structure to fall back on.

He doesn't come into the Bat Fam expecting to be in charge. Instead, the nitty-grittiness would push him to be more independent & decisive instead of impulsive.

If LB tries to call him out, he could point out how for all she claims to be the 'responsible professional hero', she REacted instead of acted & if real IDs are thrown in the mix, he can call out how she just went with the 'woe is me' route, resenting that everyone didn't jump on her call for a witch hunt when she could've communicated to them privately.

Sorry, this turned out longer & less explicitly mari salt-centric than I thought but I tried to stay objective. I hope you don't mind.

Technically everyone would have their own opinion about whether a Miraculous/Batman crossover could actually work. In my opinion however, I believe that the best bet for a good crossover would be through Adrien more than Marinette, in part because of the reasoning you gave, but also because Adrien would fit the idea of a Batfamily member more thematically than Ladybug ever could. If anything, he's like Catwoman but without the whole stealing bit.

Keep in mind that the whole Maribat AU was created with the goal of creating a salt fic (albiet with a crossover), and the OG creator even took a character that was no way romantical and turned him OOC to make their convoluted idea work, ironically in a method reminding me of the "My Immortal" Harry Potter fanfic. Regardless how it later developed, the original idea was pure salt, albiet one that took off because of everyone's hate boner for any character that wasn't Marinette, with people later trying to justify it for one reason or another. It's an idea that should have never worked in the first place outside of this context. In contrast though, Adribat would actually work because of a genuine commonality connection.

Also I don't mind talking about Adrien on this blog. In my mind, Marinette salt and Adrien sugar are the one and the same on this blog, because the salt of one character is usally sugar of the other due to how these prompts go.

Hell, my entire blog was made in opposition to the more well know Adrien Salt Blog made by another individual, which has both plenty of Adrien salt and LOTS of Marinette sugar, though I would call the latter justification for Marinette's own bad behavior as it never discusses her own issues, it just let's her go off scott free by pinning the blame all on Adrien.

In any case, I like your idea! If you or anyone else want's to share any Adribat prompts that you got, feel free to send them here!

[littleeyesofpallas]

Hi,

would you make meta stuff about Mayuri's way of speaking? I mean guy speaks strange way compared to other characters and me with friend don't speak japanese and would like to know more about it.

Thank you! 💜

So, i do want to remind anyone reading my blog but please remember i'm not at all fluent in Japanese. I understand the grammar on a textbook level, and with enough dictionary resources I can poke around and sus out nuances of some word choices (particularly stuff like fictional names of people and swords and attacks and stuff, as those kinds of creative choices are very overt*), especially in irregular usage, but when it comes down to things like dialect, slangs, vernacular or phraseology, or more subtle tone indicators I'm pretty blind.

*(sorry to further clarify: when it's stuff like fantasy jargon it's stuff no one would ever actually say, and so the choices made in crafting those words or names from scratch are all reliably very deliberate. But when looking at more casual speech a lot of character voice just kind of defaults to what "sounds" right, and so the distinction between choosing one common word over another isn't always meaningful or readily apparent, both in general and to someone not fully fluent like me.)

Like if someone talks in a stilted overly technical or dry way I might be able to tell that much, but I'd totally miss more structural things like whether it makes them sound more like a mad scientist -vs- a tryhard edgelord fake intellectual -vs- a man out of time -vs- a stuffy rich person --or what the differences i'd even be looking for between all those would be-- I really can't tell outside of what i might be able to glean from things like narrative context more than the dialog itself.

With the exception of some very tropey, and thus easier to identify things like, movie-esque yakuza slang, or melodramatic historical feudal drama formal titles --and even then those are things i might more readily catch when actually spoken than when written on the page-- i'm just as lost as the next person.

That all being said, there are still a few little things i can sort of pick at without feeling totally out of my depth...

I think it's been brought up on some random post of mine before that Mayuri does notably use a "more feminine" 1st person pronoun, watashi[私] which is a pretty common pronoun, although its usage feels weird to explain in English?

Like... it is considered "gender neutral" in that there are other pronouns that are more specifically feminine or masculine and it's not one of them. But then in practice, you'd basically expect men to opt for one of the more overtly masculine pronouns, which just sort of leaves women with watashi as a default?

So it's not that it explicitly makes him sound ""feminine"" so much as it makes him sound less masculine; which suits his intellectual, non physical inclined, and at times cowardly or at least scheming demeanor. But like, it's also considered a little stuffy and sort of overly formal, or technical which is also appropriate to him.

Oh right and it's a formal pronoun as opposed to informal, but there's also a level of very formal pronouns, and it's not one of those, so that doesn't so much triangulate a position as it just leave in vaguely in the middle of the road...

Does that all make sense? it feels like super overexplaining for what is an extremely commonly used pronoun with mostly very neutral implications.

He occasionally ends sentences with a single katakana syllable rather than hiragana, indicating... not quite an "accent".. but like a sort of emphasis. Like a punctuating lilt in tone. Actually Nakao Ryuusei does this really noticeably in the anime and I don't know for sure if I heard it that way in my head and he just nailed it, or if i heard him first and it's just always colored my reading since.

A lot of the rhetorical NE[ネ] which begs confirmation, often translated into English as "...right?" (It's part of that desu ne[ですね] that you hear a lot in anime, where the desu[です] is just the verb to be, so together they tend to translate as "isn't it?")

YO[ヨ] which is again a sort of rhetorical thing that usually gets translated as something like, "...you know?"

and E?[エ?] which isn't even a word or part of speech so much as it's just like, an interrogative noise? Quite literally just "eh?"

But see this is one of those things were like... I can tell it's different from a sort of default neutral mode of speech, but I don't know what that indicates as, like, a point of characterization... Is it specifically condescending? Is it there to sound mechanical or stilted? Is it somehow old fashioned or polite/formal? I have no clue as to these sorts of specifics.

[edit]: I want to reiterate this is a rhetorical device, he's not literally asking a question and waiting for a response. If anything it's functionally the exact opposite, he's saying it to emphasize that he's stating things meant to be taken as facts, it actively closes the dialog off from further questioning.

He also says HOU[ホウ] a lot, which also isn't really a word so much as a sound, but given the pattern in speech above I feel like it's kind of inquisitive, or at least contemplative, which is (i think) how I remember Nakao delivering those lines too. Like a sort of, "Oh?" or "Huh..." or "Hmm..."

And given how close the camera gets to his face most times he says it, it gives an impression of being, not "quiet" exactly, but like you had to be close to hear it, so like, almost under his breath? Like it's clearly a noise he makes to himself, it's not like a thing or expression he's making to the other people int he scene.

FUU[フウ] or alternatively HUU, and I think once or twice FUN'/HUN'[フン] as a sort of grunt? not quite as guttural as that, but not quite a sigh? Like a "hmpf."

He also does your classic YARE YARE[ヤレヤレ] which definitely isn't unusual or unique to him but it has this kind "tut tut" or "tch"/"tsk" tone to it and tends to translated very loosely like, "oh my" or "good grief", but I think of it more like a "well, well, well..." but like kind of implicitly more exasperated than that sounds in english?

I don't know where to start trying to qualify, like... what kind of character says yare yare a lot, but it's definitely something that suits some characters more than others, and Mayuri it definitely fits.

He tends to laugh like ...KU KU...[...クク...] which is a kind of sharp snigger, sneer, or scoff. He really doesn't guffaw or cackle or have much of a more typical dramatic villain laugh, it's very understated.

Although in his fight with Pernida he does let out a full on maniacal FUHAHAHA[フハハハ] laugh for the first time in the whole series

I do love the fonts Kubo uses for a lot of Mayuri's dialog. At a certain point he starts to lean intothe same basic font as everyone else, but particualrly at the beginning he switches between a few unusual ones that are specific to Mayuri.

One's got that rough kind of pseudo handwritten quality to it. It reads to me as kind of scratchy, like a sharp pen nib on thick matte paper, with a kind of clotty ink flow that starts thick and wet but sorta tapers out too fast, leaving the lines spotty and rough.

But he also alternated with a thicker rounder font that has these subtle curls to them that I don't see other character use often.

and then he's got a second font choice that basically has all the same tones as the first one, except maybe a bit, like, louder(?) implicitly just based on context? It tends to be used in creepy action scenes where as the thinner one is more for creepy conversation?

In his very first appearance he chastises Gin, and he changes font between sentences, giving a very distinct sense that it's a change in tone. It reads to me like a low heavy hiss, almost like his voice is normally shallow or throaty, but when the font changes he suddenly drops his voice into a chestier range and speaks almost more smoothly?

Then there's just the perfectly regular fonts he uses sometimes, basically any/every other character uses these same fonts at some point or another.

and he has a neat thin wispy font that he only uses the one time when he liquefies himself. Along with the voice bubbles used, it gives a super distinct impression of his voice barely being audible.

He also one time speaks enthusiastically in an italic version of the more standard font when he arrives in Hueco Mundo.

And then in the Hell Jaw one shot he just has a completely different standard font because Kubo probably didn't keep track of what fonts he'd been using from like 8 years ago

There's also a subtly funky sort of font he uses briefly in the tbtp sidestory? I dunno what to say about this honestly. It gives me these vague 60s-70s vibes that I can't quite place? (I feel like I know i've seen it before but on what? A bowling alley sign? A little back alley cafe? a jazz album cover??)

I have no idea that the take away from that is supposed to be though.

And I guess that's it. I dunno how I thought I was gonna end this. It didn't really reveal any new facets to his character that weren't pretty apparent from the rest of his whole design and demeanor. Plus Nakao's performance in the anime basically nails all of this and i think makes it pretty apparent in tone even if you don't know much about Japanese.

[heretichromia]

Exploring the Relationship Dynamics Between the Abyssal Hunters

I had a few people either misinterpret or express confusion regarding this post that I made, so I want to make a different post covering the same (and more) material that's more rooted in explicit textual evidence which doesn't use emotionally-charged language. I'm going to try my best to stay neutral here and discuss multiple possible interpretations.

In short, I want to break down all that we know regarding the nature of the relationships shared by the four* Abyssal Hunters. In long, see below. And...I mean long, it's 5,000 words.

*Abyssal Hunters as a faction of Ægir; sorry, Andreana. Note: Minor Path of Life (CN) spoilers below. None of the major events are spoiled, but I do talk about a lot of the context that the event gives us on Ægir society and the backstories of the Hunters.

What we know from the text:

I'll keep this segment as objective as possible, and only state things that I can directly argue as nearly indisputable from textual evidence. Some interpretation work is going to have to be done here, however, and I'm open to anyone who disagrees with anything here pointing out the passages in the text that contradict my assertions.

Ages:

This is a subject the community as a whole is widely misinformed about, so I'm highlighting it separately.

We know from Path of Life that the expected lifespan of an Ægir is around 150 years.

Gladiia is likely in her late 30s. She has 17 years of combat experience, which we're led to believe began relatively shortly after she received independence from her abusive, neglectful, and controlling mother. She was appointed as Consul of Technology before becoming an Abyssal Hunter, though her module description characterizes her as having been unable to decide the trajectory of her life, which implies to me that she was not free of her mother for very long before the operation. We don't have reason to believe Ægir uses child soldiers nor appoints children to be Technology Consuls, so this places her minimum age at around 35 and her likely age as a little older than that. She was still characterized as a young Consul ten years after her appointment, so I don't believe she'd be much older. Late 30s is my best approximation; much older than that, and things begin making less sense regarding the multiple parental figures still present in her life.

Skadi is likely also in her 30s, though the actual bounds are wider than Gladiia's. She has 13 years of combat experience, making her 31 at the youngest. However, from Path of Life we know that she was the most skilled technician in her division prior to becoming an Abyssal Hunter. This means she probably had at least a few, if not several years of work experience out of the Academy. If she's younger than Gladiia, it's likely not by many years, and she could even be conceivably older than her. I think she's probably a small handful of years younger, if you had to ask me my personal interpretation.

Laurentina is the youngest of the Abyssal Hunters. She has seven years of combat experience, implying that she joined a decade after Gladiia. This places her minimum age at 25. We can imagine she's probably not too much older than that, since she never fully embraced a career as a sculptor before changing circumstances caused her to apply for the Abyssal Hunters. She's probably in her mid-to-late 20s.

Ulpianus is the oldest, and potentially by a considerable margin. He was the first Abyssal Hunter, becoming one twenty years ago, as well as one of the scientists who created the Abyssal Hunters to begin with. He was already one of the most preeminent scientific minds of Ægir by this point. Since Ægir can live to 150, this means the upper bound on his age is potentially very high. This man could conceivably be in his 80s or older without it breaking anything we know about the story. The lower bound of his age is probably somewhere in his late 40s at an absolute minimum, assuming that the Ægirian process for becoming an accomplished scientist is anywhere remotely similar to the real-world one. It's completely up to speculation where his actual age falls between those bounds.

Connections between the Hunters:

An important note to make here that isn't precisely a connection, but does inform them: Ægir as a society does not have a compulsion towards nuclear family structures. In fact, the opposite is true. From Path of Life, we know that Ægir are usually raised in groups in dedicated schools. Ægir seems to prioritize careers over interpersonal relationships, and direct blood family ties are much weaker. Ægirian women don't give birth to their children directly; the embryos are surgically removed and then grown separately.

Laurentina's close relationship with her biological parents was noted as being somewhat atypical, and they still didn't raise her themselves. Instead, they allowed childcare services to raise her while frequently taking her with them on their trips when they could. Gladiia's upbringing, where she was isolated by an abusive and neglectful mother, is also atypical. From her conversation with Clemenza, we learn that she was in fact strongly suggested to give up Gladiia to childcare services, but refused to do so.

Onto the actual connections:

Gladiia met Ulpianus in the earlier years of the Abyssal Hunter project, when she was a young, emotionally vulnerable woman who was actively seeking new familial connections (see: her module). Given how well Ulpianus understands the other Hunters (implied in Stultifera Navis and displayed in Path of Life), it's very unlikely that he wasn't aware of this. Ulpianus declined his student Underflow's application to the Abyssal Hunters because he didn't want her to become like him. It's likely, then, that he personally processed Gladiia's entry into the Abyssal Hunters.

We know from Specter the Unchained's module that the two of them spoke at least somewhat often, discussing subjects like philosophy. In the one conversation we see, Ulpianus is explaining to Gladiia his concerns about the direction Ægir is heading in these "protracted days of calamity," and she seems to either agree with or absorb his pontification. He certainly takes the lead in this conversation with the "young Consul," and while a mentorship role can be inferred from this, it's not directly stated anywhere.

From Gladiia's IS3 ending, we know that Ulpianus never directly indicated to her that he felt any connection between them, nor did he bring up concepts like seniority around her. However, his actual feelings concerning her were clearly more sentimental than he let on, as he unexpectedly sacrificed his life for the sake of his "junior." Gladiia hadn't realized he was so sentimental until it happened, but in retrospect she looked back upon it warmly, realizing she never truly understood Ulpianus.

We have fewer interactions between Ulpianus and Skadi than we do between Ulpianus and Gladiia, but we can infer something of a dynamic from what we do have. Ulpianus trusted Skadi implicitly. From Path of Life, we know that he treated her differently from the other Hunters in his company. Ulpianus was a brilliant tactician who gave complex plans to each of his soldiers, but when he got to Skadi—who frequently spaces out when listening to others, and by her own admission in the event doesn't like to think—he merely told her that he trusted her to carry out her duty. He understood her, and didn't belittle her for her weaknesses. He had faith in her, and was right to do so; Skadi completed every mission exceptionally.

In the Second Company, meanwhile, Gladiia and Laurentina clearly had a closer relationship than just their positions would imply. Gladiia considered herself Laurentina's teacher, instructing her not only in the art of war but also in life skills. Their first lesson was not in violence, but in dance (Specter the Unchained OpRec). Whereas Laurentina is now frequently associated with her dancing, not just in narrative framing but actively by Ulpianus in Path of Life, she had barely danced much at all prior to her dances with Gladiia.

Already by the time of her aforementioned conversation with Ulpianus, Gladiia had developed a fondness for her subordinate. She even smiled when she spoke of her glowingly, something she almost never does. Gladiia, as critical as she is of almost everyone, can hardly find fault with Laurentina. From the aforementioned OpRec, we see that even Laurentina expects her to lecture her more than she does. Frequently, when confronted with her peculiarities and the choices she makes, Gladiia will approve of them warmly. The OpRec also has a wonderful passage of them just talking and spending time with one-another. It's very warm and gives a lot of small insights to their relationship and their relationship with the arts (a subject they're both very attached to) that I can't really explain effectively here without exploding the already extremely high word count. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't already.

In short, though, the relationship between Gladiia and Laurentina is very warm despite Gladiia's frequent brusqueness and coldness. In Ægir, they would see plays together—but because of Gladiia's insistence upon minimizing distractions while experiencing art, would sit apart. In Specter's post-Under Tides OpRec, Laurentina had to practically beg Gladiia before she showed her any more warmth than would be warranted to any other subordinate, as Gladiia kept her emotions tightly to her chest. Laurentina's emotional intelligence and close bond with her allows her to see through Gladiia's practiced emotionless exterior. Like Ulpianus, she understands Gladiia well enough to see through the strong facade she fronts to get glimpses into the deep well of anxiety beneath. In Laurentina's story in IS3, their bond is described as so close that she doesn't need to speak with Gladiia to understand her. She continued to dance with her as their primary method of silent communication for months after Gladiia had ceased speaking because of how much she hated how the Seaborn assimilation had changed her voice.

Of course, Laurentina and Skadi also share a deep bond, which is probably the most well-known one. Though how well they knew each other prior to the attack on Ishar'mla is still somewhat unclear—though it's clear from multiple sources (e.g. Specter OpRec, Path of Life, etc.) they weren't strangers—the important bulk of their relationship concerns their time spent together at Rhodes Island on land. Tortured by the Church of the Deep's horrific experiments and driven insane by the originium that Bishop Amaia injected into her spinal column, Laurentina was in an almost unrecognizable state when she was reunited with Skadi (Specter OpRec). She'd developed a second personality called Specter as a result of her experiences, one that was fully unfamiliar to Skadi, and the real Laurentina seemed to be locked away inside her own mind, in endless sleep, unable to awaken.

Skadi took care of Laurentina. She was not easy to care for. Beyond just requiring intensive care to keep her alive, Specter was mentally unstable. She would be unable to leave her treatment room for long stretches of time, and if the way she spoke to Skadi during her OpRec once she'd 'fallen asleep' again is any indication, some of the things she'd say to Skadi were truly vile. To continually bear this cannot have been an easy burden to shoulder, but Skadi would nonetheless come into her room constantly, sing songs to her, and tell her stories. Laurentina heard it all, though she couldn't speak. Though she teased her for it mercilessly when she awoke after Under Tides, she expressed legitimate gratitude to Skadi for all she'd done taking care of her.

If their bond was not intensely close before, it is now. Laurentina, now awake, teaches Skadi to dance in Unchained's OpRec, just as Gladiia taught her before. Just as she can see through Gladiia's facades, Laurentina understands Skadi enough to be able to see through hers to the genuine, warm, and caring person she is. Skadi, meanwhile, goes to great lengths to make sure Laurentina is okay. She cared more about her wellbeing than she did about obediently listening to the orders of her superiors; when Gladiia came to take Specter from Rhodes Island, she protested, and followed Gladiia to Sal Viento to take her back.

Skadi and Gladiia do not have nearly as warm a history. Both are rather emotionally unintelligent and wear masks of indifference around each other. That isn't to say they don't care about each other, though; if anything, we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Gladiia did not hesitate for a moment about risking death for Skadi's sake in Under Tides, feeling a duty to protect her from both the First to Talk and the monster that dwells inside her head. They share a bond of camaraderie that's constantly reinforced in every event.

In Stultifera Navis and its supplemental material, we got more inklings of the development of a deeper relationship between them, though it's naturally strained because of their natures. Skadi, who always calls Gladiia "Second Captain," accidentally called her Gladiia in SN—to which Gladiia brusquely remarked that she was getting rather comfortable around her. She corrected her mistake and hasn't made it since. In the oft-mentioned now Specter the Unchained OpRec, when Laurentina teaches Skadi how to dance she remarks that Gladiia would like to dance with her. Skadi brushes this off as a mean-spirited joke, but it's much more likely that Laurentina knows they both feel an unspoken fondness for the other and is steadily poking at them to share it with the other.

Lastly, and certainly least, we have Laurentina and Ulpianus. There's...almost nothing here. We know that they're not strangers, and from Path of Life we know that Ulpianus at least understands Laurentina well enough as an individual, but as far as I'm aware there's not much to suggest what sort of relationship they may have had beyond just comrades, if any. Ulpianus seemed to become disinterested in continuing his conversation with Gladiia once she started gushing about Laurentina, but that's more likely a case of him being averse to talks about feelings in general than it is any distaste for Shark herself.

---

Possible interpretations:

From this, we have a pretty good idea of the general shape of how these dynamics work. There's a lot of room to talk about the intricacies of their relationships, and I...can't cover every single possibility here.

I'd love to. If you ask me, I can keep yapping. I didn't write all of this because of some solemn dedication to archiving these fictional fish. Please, litter my inbox if you have questions. I can yap endlessly.

Instead, I'll focus on some of the predominant interpretations that I've seen across discussions and fanworks. Namely, the idea of the Abyssal Hunters as a family and the idea of some of the Abyssal Hunters as romantic partners.

I'll be covering interpretations that are both supported and not supported by the text to varying degrees. I'm going to outline how well I believe the text supports these interpretations, which is obviously going to be subjective, but I'm going to try to keep my own personal bias out of it. I have my own preferences, but I will be as neutral as I can be here.

The Family Angle

The Abyssal Hunters are a found family. That's not so much subtext as it is text—again, see Gladiia's module about how she failed to find the warmth and belonging she sought from her biological family, and instead searched for a new family. They have dynamics between them that are clearly at least meant to mirror existing family dynamics.

But a found family is not the same thing as a biological family. It does not necessarily feature the same dynamics as you'd find between actual family members. The "family angle" is the interpretation that the relationship between all of them is in fact completely familial in nature. While found families do not preclude romantic and sexual relationships between their members, a familial relationship between these characters implies that their bond is strong in a way that is neither romantic nor sexual in nature.

This, in itself, is neither confirmed nor denied by the text. It's consistent with what we're shown, and is perhaps one of the more 'pure' interpretations of these relationships—in the sense that it doesn't read more into the characters than the information presented. The Abyssal Hunters are characterized in expressly familial terms, and so this interpretation says that this is the extent of their dynamics. For clarity, it is neither more nor less correct than other interpretations for this, and is not personally my own. If there's anything limiting this interpretation, it's that Ægirians don't have nuclear family ties in the same way that we do, but that doesn't in my view contradict a familial interpretation as much as it modifies how it's perceived by the characters.

There are, of course, a lot of different ways you can approach the family angle. I'll outline some of the more sensible ones that can be concluded from the text.

One of the more common interpretations is that of the three female hunters as siblings. Again, there's no real confirmation of this in the text—only sentiments that the bond between them is thicker than blood—but there's nothing in the text which contradicts this. They certainly could play into typical sibling dynamics fairly well, with Gladiia as the serious, beleaguered older sister who whips the younger siblings into shape, and Laurentina as the brattiest child of the family who's nonetheless more emotionally intelligent than her stubborn sisters. It's one I see a lot, and I don't really see an issue with it.

Another common interpretation is that there exists something mirroring a parent/daughter relationship between the Captains and their subordinates: Ulpianus/Skadi, and Gladiia/Laurentina. From what's been outlined above, there's definitely food for this sort of interpretation in the text. Gladiia, for instance, is definitely motherly towards Laurentina. I do not believe this is a coincidence; as someone who was failed by her mother in horrendous ways, she's taken on a motherly role towards those she cares for and whom she believes she has a responsibility for. I think this, in itself, is a fine interpretation.

I think it gets much weaker when it's taken a step further into a literal parent/daughter relationship between them. These are adult women. At most, the age gap between Gladiia and Laurentina is a little over a decade, and they were adults when they met. She might feel a motherly responsibility for this woman, but I do not believe she'd consider a fully adult woman only around a decade her junior to be her daughter. Friendships between people in their mid-20s and mid-30s happen all the time in the real world. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, anything like real parent-child relationships. The age gap between Ulpianus and Skadi is likely wider, and thus it's more reasonable that Ulpianus would see someone Skadi's age that he met in her 20s as someone who could have been his daughter. Even in that case, their dynamic would be heavily qualified by the fact that he has always known Skadi as a fully adult woman.

One similar possible dynamic that I almost never see is the idea of Ulpianus as a father for Gladiia. They're of similar ages, and if he saw Skadi as someone who could have been his daughter, he surely see Gladiia as the same. Gladiia, as well, desperately needed a parental figure in her life and never got one. They clearly have a senior/junior, possibly mentor/student relationship in the text, even if neither of them explicitly acknowledge it as one. This is the logical next step, which many have taken for the other plausible parent/daughter relationships, but I never see this one.

The Romance Angle

People like shipping. I'm people, too. I like shipping. It's pretty natural that, when it comes to characters we like that have close relationships like this, there's going to be people who are primarily invested in slapping two or more of them together like Barbies. Some of these relationship dynamics are more plausible than others.

Here's where some of the objectivity might break down. I'll try my best to limit my personal bias, but it's extremely hard to speak objectively about topics that are so obviously subject to personal interpretation.

First, I'd like to emphasize that Ægirian social dynamics, likely including romance, are alien to us. The likelihood that these characters would feel exactly the same about romance as we do in a predominantly monogamous society structured around nuclear families with a marriage at the core is...very low. Ægir and the nations of land are fundamentally different in ways that make understanding one-another difficult. Listen to some of Specter the Unchained's voicelines expressing her frustration about how she doesn't have the means to convey to the Doctor everything she'd like to. While we can (and should if we'd like to) have fun with applying our concepts of romance to them, we should always keep in mind that they might not actually share them as characters.

On the more fun side, this opens up a world of possible arrangements. We can speculate, for instance, that these characters might be much more open to polyamory than others might. Or, perhaps, their courtship looks very different from ours, and we can explore how that might look through fiction. One relationship existing does not need to preclude the others even in our society, much less theirs.

The most obvious potential romance that most people would identify among the Abyssal Hunters is Skadi and Laurentina, and I have to agree that it's one of the most plausible, if not the single most. I...don't think I even need to linger too much on this one, because most of it's already been laid out. Their story reads like a tragic yuri plot. The romance is practically already written; if you showed me the exact same story that these two have, but they kiss at the end, it would not remotely feel like it came out of nowhere. It's one of many dynamics between characters that would be readily interpreted as romantic by a wider audience if, say, Skadi were a man. It's already one of the most popular Arknights ships as-is! It fits their characters, and makes sense as an interpretation.

It isn't necessarily the only interpretation of these characters, of course. As discussed, there's a wide array of ways you can interpret their bond, and many are just as supported by the text. While there's plenty of subtext that can be said to be romantic between them, that subtext can all be interpreted in platonic and familial ways. This is a Chinese gacha game; we're not going to get explicit confirmation of any of these relationships, and all romantic subtext will be written to resemble other kinds of subtext. That means that other subtext that was legitimately not meant to be romantic can scan as romantic. There's no strong argument here for authorial intent regarding the two of them either way.

...You can tell how strong the potential for a ship here is that I felt the need to use one of the two paragraphs I spent talking about it to discuss how it's not necessarily the only possible dynamic.

The second most likely, in my eyes, is Laurentina and Gladiia, which I'll elaborate further on than Skadi/Laurentina because of its rarity as a ship by comparison; it's legitimately plausible that most who might read this haven't considered it at all. Of the pairs possible within the trio, they're the two with the oldest history, who clearly have a deep and intimate bond. The exact nature of this bond is subject to interpretation, of course. As discussed earlier, Gladiia is quite motherly when it comes to Laurentina. A familial interpretation of the two of them is common, but as uncommon as a romantic interpretation is, I think it's both easily supported and already has plenty of material in the text to feed it. You can easily read the time they spent together in Specter the Unchained's OpRec as a date. That their dynamic has motherly characteristics does not stop it from being romantic. Plenty of romances in popular fiction have motherly elements to them; that behavior can simply be Gladiia's chosen language of love.

An issue that I can imagine is the power dynamic between them—not necessarily even as a moral argument about the ship, but as an issue between their characters. Laurentina was, of course, young when she joined the Abyssal Hunters, and Gladiia became both her superior and her mentor. I would be surprised if Laurentina was much older than 21 at the time, and I would not be surprised if she was in fact 18. Gladiia, meanwhile, would have been probably in the range of 28-30. While almost the same exact age gap would be present between Laurentina and Skadi, who would have met her at a similar time, the fact that Gladiia served as her mentor definitely colors the relationship in a different way.

As someone who clearly felt a responsibility towards Laurentina, I find it very unlikely that the nature of their relationship was immediately romantic. Even though Gladiia was immature in many ways and inexperienced compared to others of her age as a result of her isolated childhood and arrested development caused by her mother's abuse, she still likely would have seen a romance as unacceptable between the two of them. That may have even contributed to the arm's length she seems to sometimes keep Laurentina at, to the latter's chagrin.

However, critically, they aren't that age anymore. Laurentina is firmly an adult who can make reasoned decisions for herself, and frankly often showcases more emotional maturity than Gladiia does. Their situation is radically changed. Gladiia is still her commander, but she's her leader more because of mutual trust than any necessity to follow the orders of the Ægirian military. They're no longer student and teacher; they're much more akin to equals now. There are now things that Laurentina can teach Gladiia; Gladiia is now the one who most desperately needs character development. The barriers that could have stopped their feelings from becoming a romance have eroded, and there is now the potential for one to form that is completely fitting within the bounds of the text and our understanding of their characters.

...

Okay, it's time to discuss the subject matter of the post I linked at the top of this one. Ulpianus and Gladiia.

...Almost everything I've just said about Gladiia and Laurentina applies doubly here.

It's the same dynamic. A junior who becomes an equal. It's much more common, in my experience, probably because it's heterosexual. Like with the other dynamics, there's nothing in the story that outright contradicts it. I do think its claim is weaker than the last two, though. I find it much harder to believe that Ulpianus would have harbored romantic feelings towards Gladiia.

She was much younger than him at the time they met, compared to the age gap between the other Hunters and Laurentina, and—as mentioned—he was likely very aware of her emotional immaturity, vulnerability, and desire to form real connections for the first time in her life. Ulpianus is, from what we can tell, a very thoughtful man who understands his comrades very well and reckons solemnly with the consequences of his actions. As I put it in a previous post, he's a man who "constantly pontificates on duty, responsibility, and what 'ought to be.'" I don't believe a principled man like Ulpianus—who is stubborn about principles to the point of contentiousness, who considers emotions to be secondary to duty and righteousness, who is prepared to throw away everything for what he believes in, including his life and his humanity—would do anything that could be considered taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable young woman. That seems incredibly contradictory to his character. Even if she's grown physically, I think it's easy to read from his actions that he still sees her as someone who's still immature. I think he would have a much harder time seeing Gladiia as an equal peer than Gladiia would Laurentina.

Now, to play devil's advocate somewhat, I will say that there's material within this to work with. The love of a man who won't even confess that he cares at all for his younger student, much less act upon his desires is a setup for what could be a great fan-made story. I don't personally think it could ever end with the two of them together while staying true to their characterization, but that's up for interpretation. This is, however, not the way I see this ship characterized at all. If anything, they're most popularly depicted as ex-lovers or the husband/wife of a nuclear family. I've probably belabored the point enough that I don't need to break those concepts down, so I'll leave it there.

Briefly, I want to pay some lip service to the idea I floated earlier of a...fish polycule. I don't believe that Skadi and Gladiia have the most romantic flags at present out of the trio, but (especially in the event that both of them are romantically involved with Laurentina) I can easily see them growing closer and eventually breaking down the barrier of communication between them that stops them from expressing their fondness for one-another in ways that aren't professing they'd want the other to kill them if they became a monster.

There's not a lot of material in the text for this, but that's hardly stopped anyone before. It certainly hasn't stopped me. I ship Gladiia with Lavinia/Penance. I don't need them to acknowledge each other's existence to see a line there; I'm not about to judge anyone for pairing off two characters who have had considerable screen time together, where one nearly died for the sake of the other.

Lastly, I feel like I should at least mention e.g. Laurentina/Irene and Gladiia/Kal'tsit. Mostly because this post isn't about those dynamics. I could talk about Gladiia/Kal'tsit. I could talk about the parallels in Gladiia's first IS3 scene, where Gladiia's recollections about her mother's neglect are immediately juxtaposed with Kal'tsit's concern for her. I could further elaborate on Gladiia's complex relationships with the concept of motherhood, and how Kal'tsit relates to that. I won't. But I could.

I don't even know if I ship Gladiia/Kal'tsit as a romantic couple. I just like their relationship a lot, whatever form it takes.

---

Endnotes.

Thanks for reading! I don't have a sweeping conclusion to finish with; the point of this post was just to compare and contrast popular fandom depictions of these characters with the actual material found in the text.

I hope you enjoyed, or learned something. I know there's so much goddamn text in Arknights that it's kind of impossible for anyone to reflect thoroughly on every single part of it. If you have any questions, criticism, or suggestions, my inbox is open!

[kinardsevan]

What do you think are the chances of Buck and Tommy getting back together at some point??

I have answered this, here. It's long-winded with specific references as to why I feel the way I do.

If you want specific odds? I still stand by my "I don't have hope, I'm hopeful" statement. I don't trust the writers, but the part of me that understands writing a story and how television works (and hello breaking up in the middle of a season that isn't a midseason finale? pfft.), that part of me feels that we're in the middle of the ride. I also contend with the fact that if this breakup hadn't come out of left field during election week, we wouldn't have reacted as wildly as we did. we put so much weight into those interviews at the time, specifically towards the one that OS and TM did together, and then the one that LFJr did, and so much on the way Fangirlish phrased things. But as I've commented on over and over, OS and LFJr can't tell us where things are going, and TM won't. One, because it wouldn't serve the story, and two, what's the fun in that? Of course they want us guessing so we'll keep watching.

Now, so much weight gets put into Tim's words about how he doesn't know what's happening in the show more than a few weeks in advance, but we also know that they have general ~ideas of character arcs, at least for the part of the season they're working on. To that end, I maintain my contention that you're not breaking them up and telling LFJr "yeah sorry we might bring you back but maybe not, we'll see". That man broke them up knowing whether or not he wanted for him to return in the spring. He may not know how the story is going to be told quite yet, but he at least knows yes or no. Moreover, if the story was well and truly over, we're not getting mentions of Tommy in 807 and 808, and Buck still hung up on him. It doesn't feed the narrative, once again. If you want Tommy done/dead/in the past, you don't continue to suggest the characters are thinking about one another. You can do Buck being sad about the breakup without that kind of storytelling (i.e., season 2 with Abby's exit).

Once again, though, I want to reference every break up that has lasted on OG: BuckAbby-110. BuckTaylor: 518. BuckNatalia: (off screen but effectively) 618/701. EddieAna: 501. EddieMarisol & EddieKim: 710 By correlation, Madney's breakups were midseason and didn't stay broken up. Bathena never really "broke up" for any period of time, but they did have their struggles... oh when? The middle of the season. The only other "break ups" you can refer to within the context of the show is Doug and Shannon's deaths, which yes were in the middle of the seasons, but they were serving the narratives (and also TM regrets killing both off as soon as he did so....). We've also seen TM pull some of these midseason breakups on LS, only to not have them last. He did an offscreen split with Tarlos that was wrapped up by the end of that season opener.

Even without all of that evidence though (I really just piece it together so y'all can follow my line of logic), at the end of the day, what I'm looking at is a story being told and figuring out how you make the right moves. Maybe LFJr was only intended to tell a small story, but you know what you don't do when a character is embraced by the audience? Send them off into the sunset because you couldn't forge a better plot for them. You go back to the drawing board and figure out how to expand their story. Shows have done it for ages, and I refuse to believe that ABC saw the reaction of people to LFJr and said "get rid of him".

At the end of the day, I stay with the fact that they have to get back together because, narratively, it's what makes the most sense with the information we've been given. I think it's messy to ask people to wait 6 months for that payoff, but I also grew up in a time when streaming wasn't the norm and we didn't wait full calendar years for TV shows to release a new season. I don't put a lot of weight in the weekly interviews at this point because it feels like they're now using those instead of real 30sec. promos the way it used to be. Granted, you can argue that they unintentionally found Buck's endgame "too early" for their own liking.... but then why have him be with someone who calls him by his first name when most people in his life don't? Why suggest that Evan sees a future with Tommy in a way that we understand as an audience isn't starry-eyed like the breakup scene portrays, but is actually out of something real (as the dispatch scene suggests)? Why EVER have Buck suggest something like marriage (which he never has, even about Abby) if we're not circling back to it?

Many have stated that these are ways to just twist the knife, make it hurt more, and I can't negate that or tell you they're wrong. Even if everything I suggest ends up being right, I still can't make the argument that some of those storytelling choices weren't just to make the breakup hurt more. At the end of the day, though, my hope is that at least some of it was done in service of the narrative instead of just callousness.

Anyway. I've rambled again, and I'm sorta not sorry about it. I hope this at least answers your question though 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

On Mahabharat and the Agency of Women in the epic

If you saw me post the actual reply to this, no, you didn't. I'm so sorry, anon. I accidentally posted the unfinished draft. I will correct my mistake here. I am prefacing all the following words with: That's Just My Opinion, You're Allowed To Have Your Own Opinions.

There's a short answer and a long answer to this ask.

The short answer is: in my opinion, women didn't have a lot of agency. But they were still significant, in the sense that they are so central to the plot that the epic would not exist without the roles they play. If you take any one of them away, the story would be changed inexorably.

The long answer depends on what you would consider as "agency" and what version specifically you are thinking of.

I can talk about Sanskrit text that we have access to and is generally considered as the Original and True version(I don't agree with this and can go on a great big rant about this. In a different post, maybe.)

To lay the groundwork for my explanation, you have to remember how the current Sanskrit text came into being. Originally, the Mahabharat was part of the oral stories told by suta bards(who used to accompany kings into battles as their charioteers and after the battles, would recount the battle and tell glorified and embellished stories about it). It was only written down MUCH later(multiple centuries later) by some brahmins roughly around the time the Yajur Veda were being composed. The oral versions were only one quarter of the length of the written version. So during the writing portion we can assume they added a lot more stuff (which tracks because when you read it, you can clearly see the difference between the story plot beats and the brahminical morality propaganda bits) This context is important. Please keep this in mind.

The mahabharat is a historical document but not in the sense some people would have you believe. It's a document of SOCIAL history at the time it was composed.  It reflects the norms, laws and morality of the culture that they were composed and codified in.

As such, you have a story that is conflicted about how it feels about certain topics. Polyandry being one of them. It was probably a more common occurrence back in the ye old oral storytelling years. We see a lot of instances of women having multiple partners. And these instances are so intrinsically linked to the essence of the story that it's hard to get rid of them. Now we move forward to the time when it was being written down, where polyandry is frowned upon, if not outright forbidden, but you have the issue of Draupadi having five husbands being integral to the story. Hence, you have MULTIPLE attempts to reason it away. The incarnation reason, the five blessings reasons, the regenerating "virginity" etc. Those guys(the aforementioned Brahmin writers) were struggling to present her as a unique situation and make sure that we know that polyandry is NOT acceptable but in this one case, because of Special Divine Reasons, we have to let it slide.

Now we come to the "agency" part. That's a little more difficult because everyone has different mileage of what they consider to be as an active character.

What I can tell you is that we barely get any internality from the female characters in the Sanskrit text. There are a few scenes thrown in sporadically but they have an extreme case of "the writer doesn't view women as actual people". There's also the Stree Parva which, on paper, is all about the women and their grief after the war but even that sort of focuses all the attention on the men, both dead and alive(including their unborn male fetuses).

What matters when it comes to women, according to the epic, are their bodies. Both in the sexual and reproductive contexts. Women are always described by their external appearance(mostly their hips and thighs) and by extensions, their sexuality. (I've lost count of how many times a mysterious wind will strip a woman completely naked so that a bunch of men can stare at her or worse, EJACULATE upon seeing her. They even did that shit to Ganga and she's GANGA. Divine river goddesses are not immune to this shit trope.) Women will often be abducted for marriage and it's just considered as a kshatriya norm of the time. There are multiple instances of being compared to empty containers(bags or fields) for a man's seed(semen). And ironically, they consider the children as copies of the father alone and that there is nothing of the mother in the said children. (This obviously reflects how society at the time was obsessed with the patrilineal lines of succession to maintain patriarchy and control over land and wealth.)

Most of the rare instances of women having some power and agency in the epic come from these two contexts, i.e. having some control over the sexual access of men over their bodies OR having control over their children.

Women didn't typically have rights to succession to the land, wealth and property of their family. In fact, in Chitrangada's case, who does succeed the kingdom after her father this is considered a rare and unique case worthy of note.

This is not to say that the female characters of the Mahabharat aren't interesting or strong. I'm merely telling you how the Sanskrit text narrative treats these characters because of the writers' own biases and viewpoints.

Beyond the Sanskrit text, you have many other versions who will often expand upon the roles of the women. Some regional Mahabharats delete or add scenes according to their own norma. A lot of folk stories breathe life and dimensionality to these women by giving them more to say. Multiple famous plays over the year have given a more gentle and kind touch to the female characters of the cast of this epic.

In the modern contemporary context, everyone is obsessed with writing a feminist retelling(the success of just how feminist said retellings are is a different matter entirely).

If you do find any fault in how active the characters are, the blame often lies at the hand of the storyteller rather than the character themselves.

(P.S. Before anyone gets furious and starts typing an angry anon about how women were "considered goddesses and therefore it means that they had a lot of power", I want to remind everyone that deification often reduces the figure into an inhuman entity and isn't as far from objectification as you would like to think.)

-Mod S

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

One thing I like about Nimona that I haven't seen brought up yet (and maybe I'm alone here) is that Nimona becomes more sympathetic to the audience at the same pace that she becomes more sympathetic to Ballister (kinda long analysis below sorrys)

Like, I know not everyone agrees, but on my first watch of the movie, I found her downright annoying for the first like, quarter of the film. I don't find her annoying upon rewatch at all, I absolutely adore her, but the first time I watched it I reacted with a similar distaste as Ballister-- not because she was a shapeshifter or queer, obviously, but because she appears completely tone-deaf to Ballister's situation when the man is experiencing probably the worst thing anyone could imagine, she jeopardizes his reputation even more by pretending to be him while menacing the public, constantly undermines his efforts to minimize harm and clear his name, and just does as she feels without regard to others.

Then you start to learn why she acted that way, just as Ballister does. You (and Ballister) start to see that his efforts are in vain, that trying to minimize harm or clear his name doesn't work in his favor and is impossible to achieve, and Nimona knew that all along so of course she didn't care! She's seen this film before enough times to stop taking it seriously. If the outcome is always the same, why not have a little fun with it?

Her whimsical mannerisms start to look less annoying and tone-deaf and more powerful and brave (that she could be so determined to be herself despite everything). She starts to look less carefree, and more jaded. You realize that she's only carefree because it hurts too much to care.

And Ballister's line "Let's break stuff" is the turning point where we see that she (or rather, the Institute) has taught him to embrace chaos and be himself, because they're not going to listen either way.

And the subsequent scene, where Ballister offers to take her away from the walls and she says "No, this isn't right, we have to take the Institute down" shows that Ballister taught her to care again because he proved that people can change. They both had an important lesson they needed to learn from the other, basically: "Don't expect the system to work in your favor but don't be a doomer about it either" lol

And it hurts when Bal turns on her because you can kinda see where he's coming from, it would make sense that a lonely, lonely creature would possibly sabotage someone else hated by society so that they could finally have a friend. It would explain why she acted so cavalier about his reputation, constantly threatened people and undermined him, made them both out to be far more villainous than they were. She was acting out of indifference, but it came across to him as malice, and while we the audience know that obviously the eponymous character isn't a twist villain, Ballister wouldn't, and further, how much easier would it be to believe that this one person double-crossed you, rather than to believe everything you ever knew was a lie? So he turned his back on her.

And he, and the audience see what a huge massive fuckup that was.

What I like is you don't even NEED her backstory to sympathize with her, and neither did Ballister. This isn't a case of "character was unbearable for the entire time but they have sad backstory so they're now likeable I guess Snape). She was already sympathetic and likeable. We already understood her. The backstory was just extra context, nothing more, and that is fucking excellent writing.

We slowly learn to love Nimona for herself at the same rate that Ballister does, rather than being irritated wishing she was something else. And I absolutely, absolutely love that. She doesn't "become" more likeable, you learn that she was likeable all along.

[suengmi]

can you do where boyfriend! skz are teasing w reader but say a joke that hurts their feelings and they realize and immediately apologize and make it up to you (fluff)

hi anon!! ty for being my first ask, im excited to write! not sure if you wanted full stories/drabbles but i hope you like what i did! <3 also i'm a bit unwell and drained from work so pls be kind. took so long because i ended up writing a lot for some.... like a lot OOPS i trailed off a bit to make it more realistic but asjsdkkjasd anyways im sorry if it's not exactly what u wanted ;_; i did my best, plus i didn't want to make it all the same i guess? but yeah about .6k for each member!

warnings will be written below member names!! all under the cut~

warnings for all: not completely proof read but wanted to answer this prompt asap!! i'm half asleep it's 3am pls also all gender neutral!

┋bang chan ┋

context: grocery store is never fun, especially when your boyfriend doesn't know how hard it can be for you. new!relationship, domestic bliss grocery shopping for a night in

warnings: slight ableism??? before he knows??? idk, chan a bit spicy with his words so not complete fluff my b, some cussing, not the fluffiest pls im sorry idk what HAPPENED

word count: .6k

chan grunts at you, eyes rolling, "i told you it's the wrong one you dumb dumb. "

you look down at the japanese curry powder, trying to make sense of the words written before you. you haven't been with chan for long, but he's treated you better than anyone you've ever met. he's kind, giving and always knows how to make you feel better. he knows that you're happier when it rains, he knows that you get angry whenever you lose a game, he loves that you always defeat him at uno and enjoys how you make a week long parade about it. he already loves you but definitely doesn't know it yet.

there is one thing you're still trying to gauge about chan is how sometimes he can shoot first and ask questions later, and this is one of those moments.

chan frowns, pointing at the curry packet in your hand. "this is the spicy one."

"i'm sorry." you say in a low tone, still trying to read the packet but the font is harder to read, "they look the same."

chan snatches the packet from your hand, placing it back next to the seemingly same ones. "well maybe if you read it you properly for once. i had the runs for like 2 days last time. you know me and spicy no agree."

"i can't.... sometimes."

chan turns to you. "huh?"

you take in a deep breath and speak fast, "i have dyslexia."

"what?" he questions confused.

it's then when the penny drops after a moment of silence. realization a wave over him, all the times he told you to read properly, how many times he made tut noises at your replies not having complete context and how he would grunt when you didn't comprehend something.

"why didn't you tell me? there's nothing wrong with that...?" he prods, gaze gentle towards you.

you fumble with your hands, picking at the skin at the sides of your thumb, your mind trying to find what to say. "i dunno."

he sounds so apologetic when he eventually speaks, he wonders how he could have been stupid. it makes sense. all the times you've told him about your ex and how he called you stupid and dumb for not reading well, making fun of you and saying you just don't pay attention. "i made fun of you so much... wow i'm a dick-

"no it's okay" you interrupt him, a small smile on your lips not wanting him to be hurt.

chan purses his lips while taking your hands in his. he looks at your eyes, his own intense and apologetic. "no- it's not okay, i make fun of you so much for thinking you just didn't pay attention, shit, i'm sorry. i joke all the time about how your brain is always else where."

and with that chan knows that he definitely could have picked up the pieces earlier, that you said it to him, without words. "i'm just... fuck i'm sorry."

"i just you know with my ex they-"

chan pulls you in for a tight hug, as if hushing the words you were about to spill, your glasses pushed against your eyes but you don't mind. he smells like fresh baby powder, his own scent you love mixing in with the clothes he's wearing. you know chan's going to make up for it and that he'll do everything to make you feel better. because you love him too, you just don't know it yet either.

﹋﹋﹋

┋changbin ┋

context: changbin loves working out and you love watching him, even if you don't think he doesn't know. freshly known feelings, uni!au, living together in dorm (i know you said !boyfriend but this was too good not to write hehe)

warnings: CHANGBIN SHAMELESSLY FLIRTING ACK, implications of taking a relationship further (physically), voyeur reader lmao

word count: .5k

you turn your gaze over to your friend, housemate or whatever you two had going on was called. you'd never really thought of changbin as someone you'd like, his gentle an soft nature was a contrast to the man currently a few metres away from you. weights in hand and grunts slipping from his mouth. you lean your head back to get a better angle, the veins on his arm revealing themselves. you knew he liked you and you liked him, but neither of you would dare to open that pandoras box. well, not until tonight.

it's a moment later that changbin stops his routine, almost meeting your stare. you raise your brows, attention turning back to the laptop in front of you. what on earth was i doing? you think, pretending to type something into the computer.

"thirsty?" he asks you, pretending he didn't noticed your eyes on him every now and then for the last half hour.

you turn your attention to him "wha?"

he laughs into his chest, stretching out his arms, "you have drool on the side of your mouth."

"i do- i do not!" you say slamming the laptop down, folding your arms on your chest knowing you've been caught.

changbin laughs, sitting down on the couch next to you, "didn't know i owned a dog."

you had no idea he could be this cheeky, making fun of you for simply watching him. after all, you were perving in a sense.

"don't make fun of me! i know i was... watching."

a smile dances on his lips, knowing that you can be sensitive to these things. "i'm sorry." he almost sounds apologetic... almost. "but... it's just too good to catch you out." he says in a slow almost seemingly mocking way.

"stop it." you mumble, facing the other way. "you know i have issues with... bringing this stuff up."

changbin tugs on your ear to gain your attention, feeling bad for making you feel slightly uncomfortable. but hey, you were the one watching. he smiles and says, "i know i know, i'm just teasing. i'm really sorry."

"i know but... please don't, this is hard for me."

"okay okay," he whines, gently lacing his fingers in yours, testing the waters to see if you'd be okay with this affection. "i promise i won't make fun of you, but if you wanna watch feel free to, don't have to be shy about it."

a blush dances across your cheeks and ears, your tummy suddenly feeling a knot of embarrassment grow. "changbiiiin." you groan, planting your face into the couch cushion.

"okay maybe i lied, i'll definitely enjoy making fun of you."

﹋﹋﹋

┋hyunjin ┋

context: you hate feet. hyunjin thinks it's funny. established!relationship, living together

warnings: obvi mentions of feet?? mentions of vomit

word count: .6k

hyunjin knew you hated feet, just how they looked, how they acted and gripped on the damn floor whenever someone would walk bare foot. hyunjin loved walking around the house barefoot, and it sometimes made you feel woozy, just the image of your own feet touching the floor... imagine. you shivered at the thought, sitting down on the couch next to your boyfriend, his feet dangling off the edge of the couch.

you pat your legs, instructing him wordlessly to lay on your lap. he complies without a thought, scooching back and nestling his head into your soft legs. he let's out a gentle "mm" as he settles in. "soft" he coos, rubbing his head a few times before turning his attention back to his switch.

after another episode of your favourite show, hyunjin suddenly brings his feet up, inspecting one of them. "i think i have glass in this one."

"do you need to do that here?" you say in a tone, eyes avoiding the grippers in sight.

"nah can you just check this one?" he says with difficulty, throwing his foot back towards your face. if you weren't so grossed out you'd probably be impressed by his flexibility.

"hyunjin please--" you swat away his foot with your phone, pushing yourself back into the couch.

"nah see in the big toe right here."

"hyunjin! you know i hate feet stop!"

he struggles, folding his body further to get his left foot near you, "babe just look here near the nail."

and that's when you feel a lump in your throat, nearly retching at the sight. the rice dish you had earlier suddenly feeling not so settled.

"oh shit." hyunjin says in a shock turning his attention to you, hearing your strangled noise. "are you okay?"

"no i'm not okay, go away." you say behind your hand.

shit, he knows he did wrong. his seemingly funny joke was definitely taken too far. he feels bad, real bad. he knew you didn't like feet but not this much. it'd never really come into question the time you'd been together, but god he had no idea.

"jeez i'm sorry." he's unsure where to place his hands and fumbles, words not forming correctly.

you sit in silence for a moment before regaining your thoughts. "don't. fucking. do. that."

hyunjin's eyes are pleading, the guilt in his face almost makes you not want to get him back but then realise you can use this to your advantage. you look over at the massage oils on the table and back at him. "i have an idea."

and you know he'll do whatever it takes. he still had glass in his foot, but that wasn't important right now.

------

┋felix ┋

context: felix thinks your tummy is cute, but you're just not used to it.

warnings: mentions of weight, body issues, tight clothing, BUT ITS FLUFF I PROMISEEEE, felix just a silly soft goose

word count: .6k

"come out please." felix begs, head leaning against the door.

you're sitting in the bathroom on the floor, dressed in nothing but your boxer underwear and a tight bed shirt, felix's bed shirt. you can feel the anxiety seeping into your chest, the weight of reality hitting you. you and your boyfriend had been together for only a month, but this was the first night you were staying at his house. it was on a whim, since most of the trains and buses had stopped running. and of course, you had nothing to wear. so there you were, tight shirt and all. you've never been uncomfortable with your body, if anything you love your body. but for some reason the way that felix talked about your stomach irked you. maybe he meant it as a joke? what did he mean? either way you were upset and needed space for a moment.

"please, i didn't mean it like that." felix sighs against the door, "it's soft and i love it."

you cast a sad expression towards the door. still unwavering from your position. why do you have anxiety now about this? all he did was grab your tummy and tell you it's soft like a kitten belly, or how it reminds him of those marshmallows that fold and how much he loves it because it's you, and he loves you.

you hear nothing but the cracking of a knee, felix bending down to put his fingers through the gap of the door underneath. he splays his fingers like a cat trying to get in the bathroom, darting against the tiles.

"lemme in!" he chimes, grunting to get his fingers further in. "i'll get in either way!" he jokes, using both of his hands under door to attack. it makes you laugh. it reminds me of those videos of cats wanting to get into the bathroom, or videos of racoons grabbing food.

"am i close?" he jokes, moving his hands back and forth.

you groan, stifling a laugh as you get up to open the door. "not even." you say, being met with pleading eyes. you look down at him, his hands still pretending to search where the door once was.

but he suddenly swoops you into a hug, hands around your waist, his head pressed into your soft chest, enjoying the smell of his shirt mixing in with your scent.

you relinquish any negative thoughts you have, melting into the hug. "i know you didn't mean it like that but, i think i'm just nervous... because it's you."

he pulls back, arms still wrapped round your waist, probably a bit too tight. "it wasn't a joke, i do love it." his eye are filled with nothing but love and adoration for you, your body an your mind.

"just... choose different words, please... i'm not a roll of marshmallows."

felix pulls back suddenly before gently pressing a swift kiss to your lips. "tastes sweet." he retorts about your statement, ignoring your words before kissing you again.

"i'm-seri-ous." you say between kisses, you feel his his hands digging into your hips.

instead of stopping, he grins, love apparent in his eyes. "my marshmallow."

you roll your eyes, a bit of anxiety still in your throat but knowing he adores marshmallows, you figure it's okay for now.

﹋﹋﹋

┋jisung ┋

context: a park date is cute until you get attacked my a crow, jisung think's it's funny. established!relatonship

warnings: jisung being a weenie, swearing

word count: .5k

the ground collides with your chest, the mud clouding your vision and your new shirt you brought for the date probably ruined. yep, i definitely tripped and yes it was embarrassing. you think, shame in your chest. of all the days, why your one year anniversary?

all you hear is the cackle behind you getting louder, sharp inhales of breath echoing in your ears. jisung has no shame, actively laughing at you stacking it to the ground.

"ahaha! the crow!!" he gurgles still, bending forwards over the picnic blanket, almost choking on his spit.

"jisung!" you yell, getting to your feet, seeing the mess on the front of you. that fucking crow, why did it choose me?

"jisung!" you yell louder, stomping over to the blanket, definitely covered in mud, dripping behind you as you walk.

"i'm sorry babe i'm-" he says between breathes.

you grunt before wiping the mud from your chest, still feeling it covering half of your face. "it's not funny."

"it fucking is."

jisung's laughs come to a halt as he realised you're upset upset, not just whining like you usually do. he notices how your eyes are suddenly pooling with wells. he stands to his feet and gently holds out his hands, "baby-"

"no!" you grumble, pulling your arms away, tears rolling down your cheek. "i just bought this top. now it's ruined." your dejected tone unsettles jisung, instantly feeling bad for making fun of you.

he says nothing, confused on how to react. but he waits patiently, allowing you to let out your feelings. he's always been good at this, always been patient with you.

after a breath you look back at him, red rings dancing around your eyes.

he smirks as he walks over to the mud and plainly sits down in it as if it what he was meant to do all along. you let out a small laugh, your hands wiping the rest of the mud from your face.

"what?" he asks plainly, as if nothing is weird. he grabs a handful of the mud before pressing it to his shirt, and then another handful to his hair, rubbing it in. "what's funny?"

you laugh behind your mud covered hand walking over to him. he smiles up at you like a puppy, knowing that he's succeeded in making you feel better.

and there he is, completely covered in mud, way more than you are and in that moment you fall just a little bit more in love with him. you lean down and press a gentle but muddy kiss onto his lips.

he stares up at you with nothing else to say, just sitting in the mud. you decide to join him, plopping down next to him, hand in hand as you both just sit in silence and completely covered in mud.

with jisung you didn't always needs words, sometimes the things he did for you were enough.

﹋﹋﹋

┋lee know ┋

context: you're getting ready to go out with friends, but your hair has other ideas, established!relationship, living together.

warnings/other: kisses??? idk, cuss words

word count: .5k

"it's not working!" you huff, re-straightening the side of your bangs for the 6th time. minho was confused at first, wondering why you're so upset over something trivial and small from his point of view. but when he looks up from his phone to see you struggling, his left hand still lazily patting one of his cats. he speaks without thinking,

"it's definitely like a pigs tail." he chuckles, looking back at his phone. in his mind, he assumes that he was just making a light hearted joke, thinking it was cute the way you got so upset over something he coined as small. plus, pig tails are very cute if you think about it.

it wasn't until you made a little sob that he noticed how you were actually feeling. you stare in the mirror, realizing it in fact does look like a pigs tail.

"baby-" he let's out a small but gentle sigh, "i was joking,"

"no you weren't. it... does look like a pig tail." you say between a small dejected sob, lips curled down and hands at your side as you avoid the mirror.

"let me help?" he says so gently as he approaches the bathroom door. instead of letting him help, you just melt into his chest immediately, your sobs muffled by his shirt. "i look like shit." you say defeated.

he lets out a light laugh, kissing the top of your head a few times, "you never look like shit, you know... even with your pig tail."

you step back, immediately hitting the tight muscles of his chest with both of your fists, "fuck off i swear." you talk through your teeth, still frustrated but feeling the urge to laugh in your throat.

"there you are," he says pleased at your spice, fighting with you to place a kiss on your temple, your hand starts pushing on his jaw, his lips puckered and ready. "c'mere." he says through your fingers, still pushing his head towards you, his hands gripping at your neck. "let me-- love you."

after a few minutes of roughhouse struggle, you push him back, feeing slightly better. it's in this moment you realize that you in fact do not enjoy asking anyone for help. but you speak, dejected tone apparent. "yeah... please help."

and nothing else is said while he fixes your hair, gently pressing small kisses on your cheeks as he does so. he knows he can sometimes say things without thinking, but he also knows that you sometimes enjoy just as much as he does. it's why you love him and why you two work so well together. after a few minutes he steps back to admire his masterpiece, a triumphant smile on his lips. "hmm," he ponders, "i liked the pig tail better."

"oi, don't start again you little shit" you say as you begin chasing after him, giggles dancing in with his own as he runs down the hall, nearly slipping on the rug. "get back here! you're in for it!"

﹋﹋﹋

┋seungmin┋

context: seungmin needs to shut his mouth sometimes, even if he doesn't know it. established!relationship, living together

warnings: seungmin being a spicy bitch, some playful physical aggression, kissing

word count: .5k

seungmin has you completely pinned under him on the couch as he covers you with kisses, not relinquishing his hold. "how many times do i have to say it?"

you grunt at the fact that he's weirdly strong in these situations, and as much as you struggle against his hold he's just completely powering over you. just the other day you were the one that had to help him open a jar. but thats besides the point. here seungmin is, currently trying to wiggle his way out of the fact that he took a joke too far. you're determined not to let him get away that easy.

you struggle once more against his hold, your legs flailing underneath him but he's just too damn strong.

he lets out a struggled breath, still above you. his hair falling gently from his face, "isn't sorry enough?"

you turn your head to the side, bottom lip pouting. "no."

"baby-"

you tut at him, tone almost darted, "don't baby me! you've lost your rights."

a gentle grin finds itself to dance over seungmin's face, he likes it when you fight back. he likes it when you put him in his place but still give him enough wiggle room to feel in charge.

"okay," he says with raised brows, "you win. i apologise."

you realise this is the perfect opportunity to get him back, for him making that stupid joke about something he knew you were insecure about.

"oh, whats this? kim seungmin, apologising, what was that?" you speak sarcastically. you're still under his hold, but you'll let it slide for now. "sorry i didn't quite catch that after you made me feel like shit for an entire hour. repeat?"

"i... apologise. i took it too far and i'm sorry."

you feel your chest rise, suddenly enjoying the power that seungmin has given to you. it takes a lot for him to admit he's wrong or that he's done wrong, this is just so damn satisfying.

"actually..." he trails off, letting your hands free a second before quickly grabbing the back of your neck. the kiss he planted on you was fast, and before you knew it you were laying back down on the couch, head dizzy from the sudden kiss, "you can't just make me forgive you with kisses." you speak in a semi-daze.

seungmin presses a kiss to your cheek and then a few more to your lips, the taste sweeter everytime. "i can, actually."

yeah, he's absolutely right. wait, what were we arguing about?

﹋﹋﹋

┋jeongin┋

context: jeongin fucked up, and he wants to make it better. fresh!relationship

warnings: none? kissing maybes, TOO MUCH CUTE

word count: .5k

it only took jeongin about half an hour to attempt to make it up to you.

sometimes being with jeongin was hard, as you both communicated in very different ways, it definitely was something you needed to work on. though, the one thing you loved about him is the absolute time and effort he put into making everything just perfect for you. when it came to you, everything he did for you was worth it.

after taking a walk to calm your thoughts, you realized you were still frazzled from the way jeongin teased you and how you ended up crying, resulting in him just left behind in a confused state. sometimes it took a while for the penny to drop with him, but once he got it, he really got it.

you step through the front door of his house, gently removing your sandals to be met with the sound of jeongin jumping up from the couch, hands out in a display. "ta-da!" he yells, it startles you.

you turn to meet eyes with your boyfriend, his face with a stupid grin slapped across it.

"what is-" and that's when you notice the many items splayed across the ground. there's a few towels on the lounge table, a tub of what seems to be hot soapy water, a box of facemasks and some nail polish next to it. the lighting is low and your favourite soundtrack is playing. you notice the scent in the room, jasmine tea, your favourite.

jeongin takes a deep breath in before showcasing his wares. "salon de jeongin"

"babe i-"

he steps forward, taking your hands in his before guiding you to sit down. "cmon" he coaxes gently, his beautiful dark eyes watching your every step. you say nothing as you follow him, unsure of what's happening.

as if he knows you're going to speak, he places a gentle kiss on your forehead. "i'm sorry."

you marvel at the sight in front of you once more. the fact that he built you a whole salon in his living room within thirty minutes is mind blowing. he knows your favourite scent, your favourite songs and all the products you use. you didn't even realize he had those.

you're still at a loss for words, unsure of where to put your hands or body. jeongin just points to the chair, silly grin still plastered on his face and eyes wide.

you sit down in the chair, eyes darting to jeongin. "does it cost extra for shellac on my nails?"

jeongin pouts in thought, "just a kiss."

"i can do that." you say back at him. and that's all it takes, you know you'll talk later about this and how you can communicate better but this... this was enough for now. more than enough.

"actually," jeongin ponders before leaning so damn close to your face, "i think it's about 4 kisses."

-

DAMN THAT WAS SO LONG I SPENT LIKE AGES DOING THIS MY BAD, i know it's not exactly what u said but oh well i wanted to make them all different!!!! ty for asking!!!!!! <3

[gofancyninjaworld]

Garou, punishment, and penalties

One of the things that has surprised and outraged a lot of readers about the end of the Monster Association arc in the manga has been Garou's apparent rehabilitation. Exile? No! The Hero Association has let him go, he's gotten fined for dining-and-dashing, has to say sorry to the heroes he beat up, and do some community service. To their minds, Garou is 'getting away with it', and it feels most unjust. Not to mention that there's a sense of frustrated closure.

So, is Garou getting off lightly?

Well, we can't begin to answer this question without some clarity in what we're discussing. There are two related but very different issues here and we need to disambiguate them.

Punishment

I know that this is a word that is very triggering to some people, but there's nothing for it. I'm sorry about that but I need this word. I'm talking about punishment in its most technical Skinnerian sense. Now Skinner boxes are rather narrow places but they're very useful.

Punishment in the most strict behaviourist sense of the term means nothing more than some contingency that decreases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated [1]. It says nothing about it being pleasant or unpleasant and something is only a punisher if the individual is less likely to do whatever led to that outcome again.

Punishment is all around us. It's not necessarily linked with INTENTIONALITY. For example, if you neglect to check the weather forecast, walk out without a coat and umbrella, and end up miserable and wet, you're less likely to do so again. Was the rain out to punish you? Of course not! You perceived going out without checking the weather forecast and so knowing whether to take a coat and umbrella to have led to an unacceptable outcome, and so you check before you leave.

We thus come to a key point: what constitutes a punishing experience is necessarily individual and context-dependent. There are some experiences that are almost universally seen as intolerable and to be avoided : for example, the proportion of people who will knowingly pee on an electric fence is small indeed. But take an opportunity to work part of a weekend for a modest sum, say $200, at the cost of social time. For a person to whom this money is helpful, it's rewarding, and forgoing time with friends is a price worth paying. For a person to whom it doesn't make much difference, doing that work would be punishing in itself, and losing the opportunity to socialise would be doubly punishing.

Interestingly, what Garou considered reinforcing vs. punishing is nearly counter-intuitive to observe. He relished the challenge. Heck, being beaten up meant that there was something that he had yet to learn and overcome -- which was powerfully reinforcing to him. Even though, in the moment, he could feel fear, frustration, anger, pain, and tiredness, the reward of learning, overcoming, and growing stronger was worth every inch of risk.

...yes, in the end he took it to grotesque and cruel levels

On the other hand, the idea of hitting someone who wouldn't or couldn't fight back was profoundly punishing to Garou. It made him feel like a bully, which was something he never wanted to feel like, and he sought to avoid it.

Even before his run-in with Darkshine, hitting someone defenceless made him feel ill.

Punishment is in the eyes of the beholder. A world without punishment is a world without preference.

Penalty

There are many related definitions of penalty. Let's go with this one for its relative comprehensiveness: "the suffering in person, rights, or property that is annexed by law or judicial decision to the commission of a crime or public offense." [2]

Unlike punishment, penalty is a social construct. There is ALWAYS INTENTIONALITY. You can punish yourself but you cannot penalise yourself: someone has to impose it as a result of your breaking some agreed-on set of rules.

Penalty is an essential part of a functional social group. Even if you call it other names, it springs up spontaneously and the only question is in how well it is managed. For example, say in an online club, one member says something that another member finds insensitive, and the latter calls the former out on it. If the offender pays the appropriate social penalty of acknowledging the hurt they caused and apologising right away, it's quickly water under the bridge and peace is restored. If they don't repeat the offence, the social bond of the club is strengthened, as it affirms that 'hey, this is not a place where we tolerate rudeness to each other.' On the other hand, let the offender deny that they caused harm and even double down, and, unless some stronger penalty is applied by the group, the club can quickly find itself in trouble.

The reason these two ideas are often conflated is that the major intention of penalty is to punish. In a perfect world, penalty and punishment would overlap. That they frequently don't is the subject of many, many studies and books, keeps therapists in business, and nurtures many a scholar through their entire lives. Whether in being so light that it's a cost of doing business (like a $5 penalty ticket for a $20 regular ticket), or so heavy that it's destructive to the offender and is more intended to scare others than to help, or is inappropriate to the offense, or is lop-sidedly applied, or is more a way of excluding a 'weird' person than in restoring any sense of justice, you name it, there's myriad ways in which it goes awry. And yet, it exists. It cannot help but exist in a social world, and it is necessary.

So, armed with these two concepts, let's break the question of whether Garou has gotten away lightly into two components.

Question 1: Has Garou been appropriately punished?

Remember, it is behaviour that is punished. So, has Garou's behaviour changed? Partially!

He has absolutely no interest whatsoever in becoming a monster. Doesn't even think of monsters positively any longer.

The ghost of his future self has come back to tell him to desist from his aim of gaining ultimate power, so that aspect of his behaviour has been effectively punished.

So too have his hero-hunting activities. He isn't hunting heroes any longer, and if he wants to gain skills from matching his strengths against theirs, he intends to ask for a spar, like a decent person.

Ah, many 'screw story, just show me cool fights' fans are drooling over this prospect.

However, he still thinks he's right. He has not renounced the idea of becoming an indomitable force who can impose peace. And that could be trouble.

Question 2: Has Garou been appropriately penalised?

Again, the answer is mixed. Legally, yes. He has been ordered to make the restauranteur he robbed whole. He's been remanded into the care of Bang, who is overseeing his court-ordered work programme -- remember, even though he's eighteen, in this world, he's still a minor. He has (or is in the process of) apologised to the heroes he beat up.

Pragmatically, it makes sense. There isn't a prison that can hold him if he wants out. While going around beating up heroes was an inexcusably shitty thing to do, there are mitigating circumstances to be considered, and he doesn't have a long criminal record, plus he is young. Having him under the care of someone he respects -- and who is strong enough to *make* him stop if need be -- and having him directly apologise to or make whole those he wronged is the least risky way to deal with penalising a scarily overpowered individual.

Are there people who would like to have seen greater penalties imposed on Garou? Hell yeah, you'd better believe it. But they're not going to get it. They'll have to make their peace with it. Yes, Bang advocating for him has meant that Garou hasn't been sanctioned anywhere near as harshly as he might be. But it's also true that Bang advising him is why he's not a fugitive from justice and is actively looking to right his wrongs, however partial that might be.

Where there's going to be hell to pay is if Bang enacts his plan of introducing Garou to the HA as his replacement. The HA *will totally take Garou* -- as Sicchi says, they can't afford not to. But boy, oh boy, will there be trouble.

So after all that talk, what am I concluding? Yes, he is getting off a bit lightly but we have to start somewhere. It's a real credit to Garou that he's been willing to engage with the process of reforming himself.

References

[1] While the idea comes from Skinner's experimentation, this particular definition is the Azrin/Holz one, from Azrin, N. H., & Holz, W. C. (1966). Punishment. In W. K. Honig (Ed.), Operant behavior: Areas of research and application (pp. 213–270). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

[2] definition 1 in: the Merriam-Webster online dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penalty. Accessed 26-Aug-2024.

[bleue-flora]

tbh to me c!sapnap is on the same level of betraying c!dream as c!sam. It may seem far-fetched considering what c!sam did and considering we don't have much real lore content with c!sapnap or c!dreamnap, but when you look at what we DO have, it's kind of a picture

like, he's not just some stupid or short-sighted character, as it might seem at first glance - we have a ton of evidence that he understands perfectly well that prison makes c!dream physically and mentally ill, but he agrees with it. In the dialogue with c!michael he literally says "dream fucked up, prison fucked him up in another sense, but it doesn't matter, cause dream has to get better and become *my* dream again, let him stay in prison and improve, even if it breaks him idc", like wtf is this? funny, but at the same time, c!sapnap doesn't visit dream more than once, how will he know that c!dream is making progress? In c!sapnap's head, prison is supposed to be a rehabilitation for c!dream, only no one checks his progress in stopping being a "fucked up", he either sits there completely alone or people go there to hurt him and c!sapnap understands and acknowledged it, but he doesn't give a shit. I'm sorry, but this gives off sam's "I thought I broke his will to do something like that". He obviously doesn't care about c!dream and just wants his good old *convenient* friend, and he doesn't care about the consequences.

But he's not just passively harming c!dream, he's doing it actively. If the threat could still be interpreted as an emotional outburst, something he could say and regret, then his other actions clearly say the opposite. Like, the dude literally stalked and harassed c!dream for months after he found out where he lived??

The revival book was more important to him than torture. Even in the beginning, he didn't care about c!dream's reputation, when c!wilbur and c!tommy dragged it into the dirt for no reason, and he repeatedly went against c!dream or supported things that directly harmed c!dream. For me, one of the most telling scenes is c!sapnap and c!george's meeting with mexican dream's ghost, where c!sapnap, without any reason, pins the explosion of El Rapids on c!dream, and then, when he finds out that actually c!quackity was the one who did it, c!sapnap immediately says that they urgently need to go and find out why he did it, to check if he's okay and all that. This is literally the attitude you'd expect from c!tommy, to attribute every bad event to c!dream, but no, this is his so-called best friend! And of course, he only wants to know the reasons for an action when someone else does a bad action, but not c!dream - well, of course, cause it's clear that c!dream reasons are "being evil" or smth.

So, I've been in my c!sapnap hate arc for over two years now and you all should join me lmao

I didn't think I'd write SO much, but emotions took over after reading the new chapter of your fic and some of your posts, sorry abt that :"^

[context a & b]

Honestly, in my opinion his betrayal is almost worse than Sam’s, which is saying something since he literally enabled and facilitated daily torture. But like Sam wasn’t Dream’s self proclaimed brother, and at least Sam’s delusion kinda makes sense. Sapnap is just like - the chicken tastes rubbery and overcooked, so I put it in the oven and then it tasted burnt, so I put it back in the oven to help the taste and at some point I’ll take it out of the oven and then it’ll taste good again. No idea how long that’ll take, and no don’t be ridiculous I’m not gonna check on it. I swear though if anyone touches my chicken before it tastes good again like so much as removes it from the oven or seasons it I’m gonna throw it in the trash… vs Sam who’s like - the chicken tastes rubbery but I spent money on it so I’m gonna put it in the oven and turn it to charcoal so at least then it won’t be a complete waste…

ya know? Like at least Sam was corrupted by power, financial benefit, manipulated a bit, and had the blood of a “child” on his hands. Sapnap doesn’t even have that, he has a life long best friend who he heard made a speech about not caring about anything and then later a speech about wanting to control everyone, a fish in a item frame and a letter saying “thanks for visiting”…

Well I don’t know about the “even if it breaks him” I don’t think he is thinking that directing about Dream’s suffering if that makes sense, but Sapnap is delusional no doubt. I also don’t know if he even cares that much about the book in general, he just doesn’t seem to given a damn about the torture. He seems to really just be about the fear of what Dream might do and how he needs to be stopped before that.

And you do have a point, in the beginning even as his “brother” he on many occasions went against him, down to the very first disc war where they killed him multiple times. I mean if Sapnap weren’t American, he’d have probably been right alongside clingy duo in L’manberg and stuff… oh I had no idea about the El Rapids thing but am also not surprised…

What do you even mean, I am literally an engineer of this Sapnap hate train 🚂 choo choo! I be shoveling coal to keep this engine running ya know. like literally the more lore I watch the more he actually just kills me.

but anyways, I mean you read the chapter (and presumably the one before) so you know my thoughts on Sapnap lol. ;D