#that was a terrible version of an already bad joke

[dredshirtroberts]

guess who lacks potassiuuuummmmmmmmmmm

[sonicboomseason3]

a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:

paramount has come out in public support of israel

keanu reeves, a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu, reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie

james marsden, the guy who plays tom, got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile

there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???

kind of connected to the last point but adam pally, the guy who plays wade, is evidently pro-israel too

this is a complete and utter joke.

EDIT AS OF 4/30/24: if people see this version of the post, i'd really appreciate it if you reblog it instead of the other versions, as it's the most updated one with all the information that i want included. thank you :]

you know, it's been a few days since i've made this post, and some of you (not most) are staying determined in defending/justifying/giving the benefit of the doubt to keanu for that photo with netanyahu, whether it's because "it was a decade ago," "him being civil to someone he ran into at a party one time doesn't mean anything," "he's probably just silent because his pr managers won't allow him to speak up," etc. i've made my thoughts on the matter quite clear by directly responding to these people, but at this point, i'm tired of both seeing them in my notes and repeating myself, so take this as my final word on the issue.

i can't help it if you don't think the photo with netanyahu is damning, and i'm done engaging with everyone going out of their way to tell me that. i obviously disagree, especially after finding out that 1. the host of the party, arnon milchan, is a former israeli spy who has a history of developing israel's nuclear program and promoting apartheid in south africa (information that had broken out a few months prior to the party and thus would've been fresh news around the time keanu chose to attend) and 2. keanu has been caught hanging around at least two other weirdos, but if you don't find any of that to be cause for reasonable concern, then there really is nothing else i can say afaik.

with all that said, i'm beginning to realize how strange it is that these people's first instinct when seeing this post is to start debating about keanu's political stances without ever acknowledging any of the other bullet points. you guys realize that this isn't just about him, right? i know tumblr reading comprehension is known for being piss-poor, but like… you realize that i was trying to make a point of how there are MULTIPLE terrible things that have broken out about the people and company involved in the sonic movies, right? and yet, a lot of the people leaping to speak on keanu's behalf in my notes are completely ignoring the parts where i bring up paramount, pally, etc. all in favor of zeroing in on the singular point about keanu and making bad faith assumptions about me for holding him accountable. really makes one wonder where your priorities lie if, in a post that talks about so many other things, me accusing an a-list celebrity with, according to google, a net worth of almost $400 million is where you draw the line and apparently the only thing worth your acknowledgment.

ultimately, what i'm trying to say is that the intention of this post was just to gather up everything that i had been hearing for the past several months and put it all together in one place. there were a bunch of people who didn't know about at least one of the bullet points before seeing this post, and i'm glad that i could help inform them, that was what i was hoping to do! but as for the keanu thing, i've said pretty much all i can say for now, and i don't want to derail the original post even more than i may have already. unless something new comes up, i'm done talking about him.

[alphajocklover]

What about a story about a sweet, kind 30something gay college English professor who wishes to get closer to his students so he wishes to be more like them. Only he turns into the worst version of himself. His turned into this younger, dumber toxic straight bro. A total docuhebag sleazebag or something. Instead of singing showtunes he's rattling off terrible jokes or rock n roll/rap songs.

Sam McGreen was a professor. A real, actual professor. He still couldn’t really wrap his head around it. It wasn’t that Sam thought that teaching was beneath him or anything, he had never really seen himself as the teaching type. Despite being a fairly successful writer whose murder mystery series had gained him a cult following, he was terribly shy when it came to public speaking. It was why he always avoided writers panels and interviews, which had sadly only increased the amount of speaking offers he got. People loved the ‘mysterious recluse’ persona he had accidentally created, and everyone wanted to be the first to get the inside scoop. Sam wouldn’t have even thought about taking the job offer to become a professor if he didn’t desperately need money. He had come down with a horrible case of writer's block, so the writing of his next book had unfortunately come to a halt, and even with the sales and royalties he got from the books he had already written, it wasn’t going to be enough to pay for the wedding. Sam had recently gotten engaged to his longtime boyfriend Micheal, and the wedding that had planned was looking… expensive. They had tried to keep it small, but both had romantic hearts and expensive taste, so it ended up getting out of hand. So, desperate for a more steady cash flow, Sam had accepted the offer to teach. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He knew he was going to fuck this up. But… maybe he was overreacting? It wasn’t like he was teaching kindergarten. These were college students, mature adults who paid to be there. Surely they wouldn’t be that bad, right?

It took less than 5 minutes for Sam to realize how horribly wrong he was. These people were savages! He knew the school had a bit of a reputation as a ‘party school’, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. No one in the class seemed to take anything he said seriously. The male students, who mostly seemed to be athletic jocks, were constantly telling crude jokes, laughing obnoxiously, flexing and harassing the few students who actually wanted to be there. The few female students who hadn’t left in disgust just giggled at the nearest jocks jokes vapidly and flirted with them. No one paid attention to a thing Sam said the entire class. Sam spent all of his first class stuttering over words, getting embarrassed by his own lack of experience, and being either ignored by or laughed at by his meathead students. By the end of the day Sam felt completely lost. Every class had been the same as his first, just as embarrassing and pathetic. Sam didn’t understand what he was doing wrong? At first he thought he had just got unlucky with his first class but as the day had progressed Sam started to wonder if something was wrong with him. It couldn’t be that all the classes were filled with bad students. Maybe he was overreacting. It was only his first day after all, but he couldn’t shake this feeling that he was messing this up. Maybe if he could understand these kids better he’d be able to teach better. He had gone to college himself, but he had spent most of his free time working on his first novel. He didn’t really get the same college experience that most people did, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. It was late when Sam left, having stayed late to work on his curriculum. As he walked through campus to his car, he looked up at the sky and saw a particularly bright star. He stared at it for a moment, fascinated. Without even meaning to, he wished on the star. He wished to understand his students better. As he did so his eyes stayed transfixed on the star, which grew brighter and brighter.

And, in a flash, everything was different.

Sam woke up slowly the next morning, his head pounding as he did. What the heck had happened last night? He felt like he had the worst hangover ever. He got up from his bed and stumbled over to the bathroom, splashing water in his face. As his headache began to diminish into a dull throb, Sam looked in the mirror, and felt his brain short circuit. Something was wrong. Really wrong. For some reason it took him a moment to notice but… he had completely changed.

The thirty year old author looked like he was in his early twenties again, and was suddenly in much better shape than he had been before, even in his actual twenties. His eyes trailed down his strong biceps and defined abs, both in fascination and shock. He wanted to yell for his fiancée, but instead he felt himself smirk without meaning to. Without even thinking about it he lifted up his biceps and flexed, reveling in his own body. Sam didn’t understand what was going on. It was like he couldn’t control his body. Someone else was in control now.

As the other Sam, who Sam and everyone else had dubbed Green, went about his day it became apparent that Sam had gotten his wish in the worst way possible. He now understood his students perfectly, because he was just like them. A cock, arrogant, toxic, straight jock. He understood what it was like to find classes taught by pathetic professors boring as shit. He understood how it felt to party with an entire frat full of manly bros. He understood what it felt like to fuck a pussy, not caring how the bitch felt and only caring about how great his cock felt. Sam now knew exactly what it felt like to be one of his students, and he hated it. He couldn’t stop himself though. He was trapped, slowly losing himself to the new identity. Eventually Sam would forget he was anyone but Green. He convinced himself Sam was all just some weird dream. Why would he want to be some dumbass author when he was a fucking college stud?

[rappaccini]

okay. i've already autopsied tua but a final overview may be in order. i'll do it one more time.

season one was the only good season of umbrella academy. it had issues, but those issues didn't yet compromise the story or the themes. season one had a stylized production, great cast who at that point were still playing their characters instead of themselves, strong story that mostly carried (though there was some filler), and fantastically coherent themes. the cracks in the foundation were always there. but they could have been fixed.

season two was bad, but entertaining enough to hide its flaws. it had a bigger budget, glossier production value, more action, a cool new setting, more Fun Moments, enough momentum from the source material to mostly fill up the season, and the character assassination didn't have time to reach its consequences yet so everyone acting like the fandomified version of themselves worked for the people who were just here for the fun. it also dropped in the summer of 2020, when people were desperate for escapist entertainment, and there was little superhero fare to compete with (and when the protests happening that summer had people wanting to Say Something about civil rights without actually wanting to change anything). the bar was lower, and season 2 cleared it. but season 2's story broke. look back at the actual story, and you'll see it.

season three was bad, and not entertaining enough to hide its flaws. it had some interesting ideas and good moments, but the whole thing was a slog. the pacing was terrible, the character assassination couldn't be denied anymore, and the momentum from the comics ran out and left the writers to their own devices, which revealed they had no plan, no substantive creative backbone, and no understanding of what they were making. season three could have saved the show with a hail mary of tight writing to pick up the slack, but quadrupled down on the problems and guaranteed it was past the point of no return.

season four was terrible. somehow with a reduced episode count it still dragged, every single character has no growth, the basic logic of the story is missing and the continuity is a mess. and ending the story about abuse victims trying to heal on them concluding that they should all just kill themselves makes the story both pointless and rotten. at this point it was a given. you can't recover from two bad seasons back to back. season two shot the show in the gut, season three let it bleed out instead of healing it, and season four kicked its corpse a few times for a couple klaus jokes, then confirmed that its very existence was a mistake. very meta.

so. what were the cracks in the foundation.

the lack of respect for the source material. as soon as they tried a plot that had no connection to the original comics, they were fucked. but even before season four, they were all over the place. in fact they still haven't adapted most of the comics. john perseus, calhoun, deever, dr terminal, the academy at war with each other in the 1960s, the actual purpose of hotel oblivion, the chimpanzees everywhere, the 1980s period setting, clarissa and oscar, the coming of the squid monster, carla the sparrow, grace having her own secret agenda, the actual character of jennifer? just not here. even the raygun gothic aesthetic is watered down and eventually barely even present.

the spinelessness of the creative team. as early as season 2, they were throwing character arcs and themes in the trash to beg the fans to love them. they had no plan and just wanted cheap thrills.

the lack of internal rules. the time travel mechanics don't make sense. viktor's powers just do whatever. lila's powers eventually just do whatever. the central reveal that vanya's medication had been repressing her powers, set up by klaus using drugs to do the same, is undone by season 2's climax revolving around vanya somehow using her powers despite being drugged. the 'marigold' reveal about their powers makes no sense (why does luther get his body back? we don't know.). there are no stakes with no clear world limitations.

the good victim bad victiming. as early as season 1, the show was arguing that harold jenkins is irredeemable for killing his abusive dad. that should've been your first warning that they were going to try to redeem reginald and have the academy basically kill themselves in the end.

the lack of continuity. as early as season 1, the writers forgot number five had a time travel briefcase sitting in the library, or that helen cho's body was in harold's house when he, allison and diego search it. then they forget when luther got disfigured in season 2. then they forgot how the powers work. then they forget literally everything about the story.

the racism. all the characters of color get the worst plotlines in season 1. allison loses her narrative in season 2 and gets it replaced with a civil rights plotline that concludes that 'hey, there's a black president someday!' diego and lila prance through the jim crow south without dealing with segregation as allison is hatecrimed every episode.

the sexism. look back at how all the female characters are treated. look back at how allison's mistreatment of patrick and claire is glossed over, and lila fully gets away with manipulating diego. look at how vanya's 'redemption' is all about finding maternal instincts she never had until season 2. look at how allison's assault of luther is dismissed the way it never would have been if the genders were swapped. look at how sloane is juxtaposed against allison.

the homophobia. the queer characters were either stereotyped or used as glaad award bait. the queerbait of ben and klaus's entire dynamic.

the ableism. in the comics, luther has mobility aids and his disfigurement is treated like a debilitating condition, not a punchline. his eating disorder isn't mocked. vanya's in a wheelchair after she's shot and goes through months of physical therapy and is still never the same. allison is an amputee. diego has one eye and severe ptsd. everyone's mental illness is taken seriously, including and especially klaus's addiction. in the show these elements are downplayed, absent or fuel for quirky moments.

the show is full of filler. the murder mystery plot, the meritech plot, allison following leonard around, the day that was/wasn’t…. even in season 1, there wasn't enough material to make ten episodes. there was never enough for a ten episode run for any season. and yet somehow the one season with the right runtime still drags.

the spectacle. in season 2 they fully lean into it over substance. case in point: the dance sequence.

actually i'll go into that in detail because the dance sequence sums up the whole show and its downfall.

in season one, the pilot's iconic i-think-we're-alone-now dance sequence was an emotional moment that symbolized how all the characters feel isolated and disconnected from each other, but are secretly interconnected and far more in sync than they realize. the song was catchy, but "i think we're alone now" is literally a commentary on the story it's playing over: now that the academy's abuser is dead, they can finally unwind and love each other, and they can fix their problems by literally "running as fast as they can, holding onto one another's hands." -- and how does the season end? by them doing just that.

in season two, allison, klaus and vanya's salon dance is meaningless because vanya has no clue who these people are, klaus has never given a shit about vanya before (watch season one. he doesn't care.), and allison should hate her at this point in the story. it's just there for fun... but if you swapped vanya with ben it would work as a joyful reunion between these three people. the concept of the dance is fine, but the decision to make it a fanservice moment throws it off.

in season three, the dance sequence comes out of nowhere as a ~wacky random fun moment~ to call back to the first season. the footloose song has nothing to do with the story, it's just fun and catchy. there is no substance to the spectacle anymore. it's just dumb fun.

and season four ends in 'i think we're alone now' for no reason other than to ask the viewer to remember when the show was good. no fun, just dumb.

... let's look back at the themes season one sets up.

the road to recovery takes a very long time, and you will fall off it and have to climb back on.

corporations don’t have your back. they’re soulless and they want to suck the life out of you.

abuse does not make nice people. abuse does not make happy people. there are no good victims or bad victims. (except leonard, i guess.)

it’s difficult to tell where programming stops and free will starts; toxic behavior begets toxic behavior, and we have to own up to it, stop it, and resolve to be better.

redemption is possible. the bad things you did in the past don’t define your future.

you're better together than apart. 

time. changes. everything. it isn’t too late to have the life and the love you wanted. it isn’t too late to realize your talents, or become a better person, or free yourself from a bad situation. it isn’t too late to get together, or to make up or to change your mind. there are no lost causes. the world is worth saving. your enemies are worth showing mercy to. your relationships and friendships and broken families can be salvaged and reshaped into something new and better.

things are fucked, but if we give it everything we have, we can save it, and it’s worth taking up that fight, because nothing is set in stone.

fuck it, be happy. 

remember those?

i'm gonna get into it character by character:

luther.

his entire plotline was meant to be about realizing he was abused, disavowing his abuser and finding his confidence to become the leader he never got to be and go after the love he lost with allison and make a family with her and claire. that was his starting point.

and the fandom hated him rabidly. they said he was just as bad as his father, insisted that he had no redeemable qualities, made fun of his body and his traumas, took the situation with vanya and removed all the moral grays to call him evil over it, and insisted that he was Somehow Abusing Allison.

in season 2, luther has conveniently disowned and confronted reginald offscreen before the plot starts.

he immediately apologizes to vanya, who is an amnesiac and can't actually hold him accountable for hurting her, and the situation is never mentioned again.

his body dysmorphia is played for laughs.

his intelligence and leadership qualities are gone and he's just a bumbling idiot. remember when luther was an astronaut who effectively kept up a faulty space station for four years on his own? could you believe this dumbass was that guy?

he's a punching bag for the fans who hated him.

and season 3 seals the deal. he's still an idiot, he's still hideous.

his romance with allison is destroyed as offensively as possible to reassure the fans who hated alluther.

his romance with sloane is a clumsy attempt to keep the payoff he and allison should have had into the story as they're placating the fans who hate them.

and in season 4, he's... a stripper. he never finds a way to love his body, he just conveniently doesn't have it anymore, and he's still treated like a joke for it.

he never meaningfully takes command of the academy, he just stops trying to.

the wife season 3 insists he loves so much is gone and he doesn't give a shit.

he never even confronts allison for assaulting him, or reconciles with her and has a significant relationship with claire.

he decides to just die.

his entire character trajectory was aborted after only one season. he spent 75% of the runtime with nothing to do, because the fandom hated him and the writers were too cowardly to follow through with his character.

diego.

his entire plotline was meant to be about letting go of his aggression issues by finding his place in the family, reforming his rivalry with luther into a deep friendship based on mutual support and unpacking his 30 year history with vanya in order to finally be happy and in love with her after facilitating her redemption.

and his character's arc is dependent on others....

so in season 2 when luther's arc was canned, so was diego's journey towards letting go of his ego and finding a way to support luther after spending his whole life being pitting against him.

in season 2, when allison's arc was canned, diego ended up with the commission / jfk assassination plot that was never meant to be his. his entire dynamic with number five was hers.

in season 2, because klaus took his vietnam plot in season 1, diego doesn't have one anymore, so there's no way to meaningfully unpack how he feels like his only purpose is violence. instead, his anger issues are totally ignored.

and in season 2, when vanya was split into elliot-page-playing-himself and lila, the romance went out the window too. yes, diego falls in love with lila, but he barely knows her, and all she's done is manipulate, drug, kidnap and hurt him and the academy... yet all that bad behavior is totally ignored in the Show About Abuse And Trauma, because they have chemistry. there's no deep, complex history between them that could have anchored the relationship. the redemption arc itself is rushed and undeserved.

oh, also, he doesn't feel upset about eudora anymore. never mentions how he got her killed, or that he loved her.

then in season 3, diego has nowhere to go but deeper into his romance arc. he has no tension with luther to resolve (and with the show assassinating alluther, there's no 'we both love our girlfriends and want to make it home to tell them that, so let's get over our bullshit and help each other get there' revelation like in the comics). his relationship with lila gets even weirder, with her... deciding to babytrap him, getting a kid killed in the process, and it being framed as quirky and hot. and no eudora again.

and in season 4, diego is a family man who doesn't give a shit when his kids are wiped from existence, whose marriage is about to implode. who decides to just die.

there's just... nothing. he's just himbo #2.

allison.

her entire plotline was meant to be about realizing how culpable she is in the abuse of her family, unlearning those manipulative tendencies and figuring out how to exist authentically, making amends with the people she hurt-- especially vanya and her ex-husband and daughter-- and restarting her life with someone she can love: luther.

allison isn't formally character assassinated until season 3, but she was wrong from the start.

because in season 1, they had her be already past all those things in the pilot episode because they're too sexist to let women be messy. allison is conveniently totally in control of her behavior and has already decided not to use her rumor anymore. she already accepts responsibility for hurting her ex and daughter.

and the writers refused to let her and vanya be angry at each other because ~we don't believe in girl hate~. leading to allison forgiving her for slitting her throat and leaving her to die.

in season 2, the writers wouldn't give her the commission plotline from the comics. allison was the protagonist of the dallas arc, who had a complex story about being willing to alienate her loved ones in order to save them, being ruthless enough to belong at the commission, making deals with the devil to get her powers back and save her the academy.... and unknowingly creating a paradox where she is responsible for the traumatizing incident of watching someone be killed when she was a girl.

instead, allison is saddled with a c-plot about how you have to be nice when you protest, and how fighting back violently against the racist who tried to literally hatecrime you yesterday makes you just as bad as him. rewatch that scene. look at how it’s framed. that’s the takeaway.

and throughout allison's time in dallas, none of the academy check in with her on how she's doing. no one cares. even when she was attacked at a protest they all know she was at, no one asks her if she's okay.

instead of showcasing allison's ruthlessness and dedication to her family, we meet her having conveniently moved on after her daughter was killed, happily settled into dallas with a new relationship, and having given up on ever finding a way home.

instead of showing allison learn to adapt to life without her rumor, we meet her having already figured out how to get a job, make friends, and have a relationship without it. she doesn’t even have to find the courage to join the activists because she did already.

instead of allison learning how to live without a physical voice, she can just talk again. her power's just... back.

instead of allison being rightfully furious at vanya for disabling her, depowering her, stranding her alone in the jim crow south for years, and killing her child... she instantly forgives her. dance party! no girl hate here!

her romance with luther is intact, but the writers know you hate it, so they're trying to please you by giving her a romance with a man who she doesn't trust with any information about her, who doesn't trust her, and who allison doesn't hesitate to abandon five days after luther shows up. but hey they have chemistry, so they were Truly In Love, apparently. no seriously, the raymond romance is bad.

season 3 tries to do the heavy lifting with the messier aspects of allison, but this happens too late, and it mostly functions as a way to assassinate her character to turn her into an angry black woman stereotype so they can kill her romance with luther as meanly as possible, and set sloane up to take her place.

she suddenly cares that her daughter is dead and that viktor technically killed her after an entire season of not caring. and her decision to alienate the academy to save her rings false because she spent two years not caring. why now.

her romance with luther implodes when the writers decide to just do what the fandom wants and make it Toxic All Along, after two seasons of framing it in the most positive light possible. and allison sits front row at his wedding to a woman he barely knows, smiling through it like that wasn't supposed to be her, or like she didn't just assault him.

because viktor and allison have had such an artificially nice relationship, there's no payoff to them learning to love each other again, like viktor encouraging the group to sympathize with allison afterher betrayal.

the effect of this is that at the end of season 3, allison has regressed into the person she was before season 1, but do you even want to see her get better or get along with the academy after she tried to assault luther, killed viktor's stepson, and sold everyone down the river to live in a fantasy world?

good news! all that doesn't matter in season 4! luther and viktor never confront allison for doing that to them. the whole family's over her betraying them. raymond? oh, he's just gone. yeah, he left between seasons. we won't even unpack the implications, or that allison's right back to being a divorcee whose husband abandoned her after learning what she did with her rumor, trying to live without that power. oh and don't worry, she isn't dependent on her power anymore. yeah, we just solved that offscreen again.

claire's here, but is there even a point.

allison and klaus's relationship is intact, but because the show won't seriously examine klaus's addiction, we can't discuss how they enable each other, or how allison's manipulative tendencies or klaus's flightiness and addiction might be affecting claire. no more intergenerational trauma discussion here.

allison has nothing to do because slowly learning how to admit how much harm she inflicted on her loved ones, live without her power, and earn vanya/viktor's trust back was her arc and it's... all over the fucking place.

then, she decides to just die.

klaus.

his entire plotline was meant to be about realizing how much damage his addiction has done to himself and his family, getting clean and conquering the crippling fear of his power that made him an addict in the first place.

then in season 2, he's clean offscreen. no exploration of klaus trying to stay on the wagon for the first time in decades. we're just three years into him being totally fine sober. no complications.

and his relapse is played for laughs instead of treated like a devastating moment.

in season 2, his grief over dave is glossed over. yes, we see dave for five minutes, which is more than the three minutes he got in season 1, but klaus is Moved On Already. no discussion of what this relationship meant to him (... or how ben was affected, being the third wheel). no rumination. just a quick 'here's dave to shut the fans up' and on we go.

in season 2, klaus's excitement about exploring his powers' potential is gone already. yeah, he figured them out offscreen.

his cult plotline replaces his comics story of being a clubkeeper in vietnam and becoming a father (yes, klaus has a baby in vietnam), and the entire plotline is a mean-spirited metanarrative about how dumb the writers think his fangirls are. like. fucking look at the narrative. they're making fun of you.

and yet there are no serious consequences to the implications of klaus immediately turning into his dad the second he gets a little power. he isolated a bunch of people from the outside world, derailed their lives, tattooed them, got them hooked on the idea that The End Is Nigh and Only He Can Save Them, got them to have sex with him, and only stopped manipulating them because he was bored. not even because he realized it was wrong.

his relationship with ben is queerbaited to hell, and has no resolution.

he spends the entire season deliberately keeping ben isolated from the rest of the academy, and this is never meaningfully examined. klaus is an absolute bastard in season 2, and the writers don't acknowledge it.

by season 3, he's just a joke machine and a flamboyant stereotype. he never has a substantive interaction with sparrow ben, or struggles with his sobriety or his addiction in a way that takes it seriously. even his meeting with his mother feels empty.

and in season 4, the mothers of agony plotline from the comics is so disjointed that it's meaningless. in the comics, this is his lowest low, that ben helps him come back from.

any depth to the implications of his immortality is gone. it's just funny that he's a germophobe.

(... immortality? how'd he get killed in the first season apocalypse timeline then. no answer? okay.)

any potential in his relationship with allison and claire is gone.

like luther, his crucial development is skipped over and he spends half the season wandering in circles making jokes.

and he decides to just die.

five.

his entire plotline was meant to be about learning to trust the academy and work within them as a team member rather than running off and doing his own thing. and about slowly learning to be a person instead of a vehicle for the mission.

in season 2, he inexplicably lets the commission go and trusts they're Good Now thanks to new management, after making it clear in season 1 that he can't ever trust them.

in season 2, his antipathy with vanya is transferred to lila. he never accepts responsibility for his role in leading to her isolation.

in season 2, instead of trying to get the family together, he's still working on his own.

in season 3, instead of riding hard for viktor and sympathizing with him, he calmly tells him he'll put him down if he ever steps out of line again and ignores him the rest of the time.

for three straight seasons, he's the plot driver. but three seasons in with no other characters having a coherent arc, the plot driver became all he was. he couldn't slow down or have an emotional moment because he's the only thing moving things forward and all the people who can bring out those emotions are so ooc that it won't work.

then in season 4... oh boy.

he's not the plot driver anymore because there's no plot.

five slowly trying to embrace domesticity could have been interesting... but boy does it fall flat.

five created the commission! no, we won't discuss the nature of him being responsible for his own abuse, or perpetuating the cycle that led to the apocalypse and the academy's misery.

five falls in love... with his brother's wife, who he hates, who hates him because he hog-tied and tortured her parents to death in front of her when she was a little girl. okay.

then he decides to just die.

ben

his entire presence in the story was building to a reveal that he's only staying with klaus because he's in love with him.

in season 2 they queerbait that connection for ten episodes by framing him as a literally possessive boyfriend, give him a 'love interest' in jill that makes no sense, kill him off in a scene that makes no sense because that's not how their powers work, and have the vaguest 'by the way he was in love with you' reveal via vanya that feels like an afterthought.

klaus keeps ben from talking to anyone in the academy for the whole season for no reason. he never mentions why, ben never gets mad at him. there are no emotional consequences. ben spent an entire season able to talk to the academy and inform the world and nothing ever comes of this.

in season 3, ben's a totally different character. none of the umbrella academy have emotional reactions to seeing him alive.

not even klaus.

and he feels nothing for them.

he also feels nothing for the sparrows, who drop like flies around him without him giving a shit.

in season 4 he's a completely different character again.

no interest in reuniting with his sparrow academy mates, or the umbrella academy.

he's a crypto bro for some reason.

the south korea subway ending stinger? idk where that went.

the show does use the comics' likely endgame of ben being the portal through which the final antagonist arrives. but they do it in such a strange, meaningless way.

the romance with jennifer comes out of nowhere and makes no sense. it's unclear why he'd want to become a blob with her. there's no emotion anchoring this plot.

also, jennifer was a large, dark-skinned black woman in the comics and... isn't here. (it's also unclear if jennifer was romantically involved with ben in the comics, or if she might have been one of the kid's mothers. so uh. we'll see how that ends up.)

his tentacles come out of his back sometimes. huh?

the reveal that he was killed by their father and they were all brainwashed makes no sense. especially given that allison has brainwashing powers that are never used to cover this up.

there's never a meaningful payoff for ben as a character.

and vanya/viktor…

to start, seasons 1-2 will call her vanya because that's how the character was written, performed and received. seasons 3-4 will refer to him as viktor. that's why the name/pronouns switch back and forth in this post. those are two different characters.

alright i'm gonna say it: the show basically killed off vanya at the start of s2 and split her into two characters: lila, who's the white violin from the comics-- and has vanya's style, punk musicianship, romance with diego, mutual hate with five, alliance with the commission, status as the most powerful character, and role as the antagonist who needs a redemption arc that rejoins her with the family-- …. and the character that would become viktor, who's just elliot page playing a flattened version of himself for token queer points.

the show literally got rid of its main character one season in, sped past all the conflict with the academy to the part where they're all besties again, and gave all the interesting shit to an oc. and they did it because they cared more about profiting off of elliot page's queerness than trusting him to do his job as a professional actor, and supporting that performance in the face of a fandom that only saw him for his sexuality/gender identity.

season 2 skips over vanya learning to use her power and lose her fear of it. she's just good at it now. also, the character will never use the violin to channel her powers again, and will never again acknowledge her love of music, because elliot page didn't like playing the violin. like, sir. what are you doing playing a character called 'the white violin' then.

season 2 skips over her rage and hatred of the academy. instead of being afraid of them, avoiding them, and being hostile whenever they interact, she's instantly cool with them, dismisses their years of mistreatment and dismissal, and is part of the family with no friction despite trying to kill them, blowing up the world, and killing their niece.

season 2 totally resets her personality. amnesia! she's nice again! we know you hated her when she was angry, so don't worry about that!

season 2 gives her a romance with someone who she has chemistry with, but who fundamentally doesn't understand her. the entire relationship is just fanservice. remember the lesbian vanya truthers who thought elliot page could only play characters who were lesbians because he identified as a lesbian at the time? remember their "give vanya a girlfriend" whining? this entire plotline was for them.

season 2 hands the moment where the academy understands vanya and empathizes with her in a moment of superpower meltdown.... to harlan.

in season 3, diet elliot page just becomes overt. it's great that page's transition was incorporated into the show at his request, and at this point the damage to the character's so massive that at least they're being honest about the character just being a different entity from vanya entirely. like, fuck it. you already gave all of vanya's character to the oc. might as well.

though it's great that the transition is quickly incorporated into the story, it happens so quickly that a very easy plotline for viktor in s3 is just rushed past. he has so little to do, the transition is such an obvious fix, and they just... don't do it.

because viktor magically has full control of his powers, there's no more growth from him. and at this point his powers just do whatever. who even knows what his abilities are. the show sure doesn't.

viktor is a beloved member of the academy with no friction whatsoever, even though they're trapped in an alternate dimension because of him

allison's anger at him is demonized instead of deconstructed.

the harlan plotline certainly exists. very funny that the show casually reveals that vissy ruined sissy's life and never goes into the emotional consequences of this.

in season 4... yeah this character has nothing to do. he never expresses anger at allison over killing his stepson. his powers are even more vague. he's in canada for some reason, just to complete the transformation into elliot page.

then he decides to just die.

the main character of the story was essentially killed off one season in. the whole thing became adrift because without vanya, there's no main character anymore. no central antagonist with history with the academy, no emotional weight to their connection, no payoff to a slow redemption arc that unfolds over multiple seasons. just shenanigans.

lila

took over the vanya storyline in season 2.

lila is vanya from the comics.

vanya's hatred of the umbrella academy and antagonism towards them? it's now lila's.

vanya's alliance with the commission to destroy the world? nope. lila's the commission's ally now.

vanya's status as the most powerful character? now it's lila.

vanya and five's mutual hate? now belongs to lila and five. even the fiveya vibe rubberbanded into That in season 4.

vanya's slow redemption from a hateful villain of the academy into one of its most crucial members is handed to lila. who barely knows these people, has only ever hurt them, and yet is treated with more empathy with them after three days than vanya received in thirty years.

vanya being set up as the character who'll save the umbrellas from the sparrows? nope, that's lila now.

vanya's romance with diego? that's lila's now. no, it doesn't make sense but they have chemistry.

then in season 3... oh god. instead of unpacking lila's severe mommy issues from being abused by the handler, she's just over them now.

the academy immediately trust and embrace her even though all she's ever done is hurt them.

and for some reason, this character who's shown no maternal instincts randomly decides she wants to be a mom because her one night stand with diego, who she knew for a few days, got her pregnant.

and she tries to convince him a little white boy is their kid to test if he'll be a good father and doesn't give a shit when that child turns to dust. what are we doing here.

then in season 4, their romance doesn't even mean anything. neither does their family. they're already on the verge of a divorce. which... yeah, follows, given what their romance actually consisted of.

then she hooks up with number five, who killed her family in front of her when she was a girl. what.

.... and then we die.

the whole thing came apart in season 2. you just didn't notice yet.

and here's where i get cunty and set aside my belief that writers have an inherent responsibility to never kowtow to their fans no matter what, because the fandom is a big part of how things went wrong, and someone has to talk about it.

the umbrella academy begun as a complex metaphor for recovering from abuse, using superheroes in a gothic-adjacent setting. every single character's power is allegorical of an attribute one may take on from living in an abusive home. (and part of the missed potential in lila is the failure to fit her into that metaphor too). and the metaphor is literally in the name: the umbrella academy.

it's an academy. not a family. the characters are only adoptive siblings because reginald needed a legal way to bind them to him. they grew up in a twisted boarding school, which they explain again and again, and call each other siblings out of habit, which they also explain. and they are choosing as adults to overcome the trauma that pitted them against each other to become a found family.

... i'm gonna say it. the pseudoincest is a vital part of the story, the same way it is in the comics. that was how they were going to love each other. their ability to love each other was the sign that the brainwashing failed, and the found family was, like actual found families, going to involve some of those people pairing off romantically. allison and luther. ben and klaus. vanya and diego-or-five. that was the story.

the umbrella academy is both a giant metaphor for healing from a dysfunctional family, and for finding a queer found family (... it's the umbrella academy. that's the part of the allegory that's still unfulfilled. everyone in this story is queercoded, not just klaus and vanya/viktor. the show massively dropped the ball in not exploring this deeper.) and the fandom screamed, whined and harassed their way into having it scribbled out of the story, and the writers were cowardly enough to do it for you. if you're wondering why they kept trying to sneak alluther in through the back in season 2, still had a harcest couple get married in season 3, and pivoted to shipping lila so hard, that's why. it's the most important thing about the story, and you hated it. is it any shock that the story ends with all their relationships stunted, and no love between them.

remember all those themes from season 1? remember how you guys hated them? remember how you concluded that luther is an irredeemable monster, and klaus is an innocent little baby, and vanya is somehow both and neither? remember how you were completely uninterested in watching everyone redeem themselves, and wanted to skip to the Fun Sibling Moments? remember how you immediately dismissed half the characters as lost causes, and directly demanded that the writers not let the characters love each other? congrats, the writers were listening!

the umbrella academy comic is meant for adults. the show was made for a wider audience and the writers were totally unprepared for the fandom of antifan teens they got. and they overhauled the show to make it what that fandom wanted. more fun, less substance. making luther a bumbling idiot and sidestepping his entire arc. making diego a himbo. skipping allison's complexities until it's time to demonize her for them. making klaus into the cartoon version of himself. making vanya into diet elliot page and handing all her storylines to a new character. dismantling the show's core tone to make it a fanservice carnival. creating vissy, allmond and dielila in the first place, and coining the ship names before the fandom even chose them. making alluther toxic all along, and swapping her out with a white-passing replacement. it was all for you.

then when they ended the show, they flipped off the fandom on the way out. of course it was going to end like that. you spent five years playing oppression olympics, making bigotry self-righteous, and declaring you didn't want a transformative ending for these characters. the writers gave the fandom the hopeless, nihilistic, meandering, substanceless, nonsensical ending it was demanding all along.

so. where do we go from here.

first of all, to ao3, for those of you who haven't moved on.

next, to the comics. assuming way ever wants to finish them, now that he's received an overwhelming message that the audience for his story hates it and prefers the bastardized versions of his characters. i get the sense he'll probably leave it unfinished. i don't blame him.

then... the umbrella academy was a massive success. it's going to get a reboot someday. in 10-15 years, we're gonna get it back. my hope is that

whoever has that responsibility has a clear vision and the talent to pull it off, the backbone to stick with it, and more loyalty to the source material. no subverting expectations for the hell of it. no kowtowing to antifandom. make a plan and stick to it and have confidence in it. hopefully, the next showrunner won't be a terrible person.

the next version of tua will be mature. so the adults who will watch will hopefully be old enough to understand what they're seeing. this truly isn't a show for kids. the fandom has proven that. let's not do it again.

that it'll be animated. the incredible visual aesthetic of the show and its edgier elements could never have been captured in live-action. and now that adult animation's starting to arrive, including on netflix, maybe in a decade or two we'll finally get the umbrella academy fully realized.

anyway. that's my piece.

[lewkwoodnco]

buy me presents! - Lockwood x Reader

A/N: jealous!lockwood, gift giving (lockwood's version), I like to think I'm funny hehhe, maybe maybe veeery borderline crack fic? this is MY christmas present to myself and I WILL indulge in my favourite tropes so if you saw me kicking my feet like a thirteen-year-old, no u didnt. (I needed a concrete holiday for this so i used christmas but its all the same hehe) I've thrown the schedule out the window, it'll be a christmas miracle if all 12 fics even get written so happy holidays!!!!! wc 2.6k!!

TAGLIST | MASTERLIST

She was sitting at the kitchen table, agonising over the horribly organised financial records of Lockwood & Co. As tedious as it was, she enjoyed the work the most out of the four of them, and had taken on the extra role of being somewhat of an accountant. She had lightly teased him about receiving a boost in her pay until she saw their dismal financial situation. The joke stopped being funny alarmingly quickly after that.

Lucy was hurrying through some last-minute packing, while George was trying to locate their train tickets, sporadically yelling through the house for Lockwood. She didn't have quite the heart to tell him that Lockwood had unfortunately escaped hours ago, winking at her as he had shrugged his coat on while she had been looking particularly ragged in the sea of receipts.

She hears the front door open, and after a minute or two, Lockwood walks into the kitchen, rosy-cheeked from the brisk morning air.

"How are the accounts?"

"Terrible. The only thing more astonishing that these bank statements is the fact that we somehow haven't gone bankrupt..." she presses a few more keys of her calculator. "...yet."

George yells again and they wince in unison.

"How long has that been going on?"

"Long enough. He's going to leave you here if you don't find him soon."

He sighed. The three of them were getting ready to leave for the holidays. Lucy was going back North to visit a friend, Lockwood and George were headed to George's for the holidays. She would have come to, but they were already at the max capacity and she had waved off their worries smoothly, since she had spent most of her Christmases alone as an agent. So, as much of a fuss Lockwood kicked up about it, she'd be celebrating Christmas in a cheery if empty 35 Portland Row.

"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?"

"One of us has burnt a house down and it's not me. I like my chances."

"Still. Christmas, all alone?"

George yelled again, his voice entering a new octave.

"Christmas with peace and quiet, more like. You know, maybe they'd have space for me if you weren't bringing your mountain of hair products for you fancy hair."

He pulled his gloves off with a lazy smile.

"You think my hair's fancy?"

She rolled her eyes as Lockwood revealed a small delicate pastry box, sliding into the seat in front of her. She had had a feeling it was coming from the way he had been lingering in the kitchen.

"What's this?"

"Red velvet doughnut with those tiny candy cane sprinkles you like."

She traced the box longingly, feeling torn. "I thought Arif was fully booked with Christmas orders."

"He made an exception for you."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I might have...tipped him extra."

"Lockwood."

"You're going to be alone for the next week. It's the least I could do."

She looked at him sternly. Lockwood had the particularly bad habit of impulsive spending. She had carefully broached the topic of gift-giving with him before; namely, after the time he purchased an ornate decorative set of glass robins which she had casually expressed a vague interest in in passing. She tried to explain how gestures like that made her feel obligated to him, and he tried to explain it was the least he could do, given how much of their accounting work she shoulders. They never reached a satisfactory conclusion, and though he did tone it down afterwards, she would still come across the occasional trinket adorned with a frilly bow in her belongings.

It was this very spirit, in fact, that had inspired her to tediously and secretly work on creating a snow globe of 35 Portland Row for him. She couldn't find anything commensurate to the loving thoughtfulness behind each of his gifts, so the next best thing was one decent, homemade, meaningful present. Even though he was going away, she still wanted him to receive it on Christmas, so she had passed it to George. It had been a bit of a nerve-wracking decision, especially if she was being too forward, and she had a pair of snowmen socks at the ready for a backup, but now the snow globe was tucked safely in George's trunk and there was no going back.

"The least you could do is save your limited funds for things that actually matter." She pointedly flips her notebook close.

He reaches out towards her face but gets interrupted by Lucy yellnig at him from somewhere in the house for blocking the stairs with his bags. He scrambles off apologetically, nearly tripping over himself as her threats grow more vivid.

Their reserved cab, courtesy of George ("flagging down a cab one week before Christmas? In this economy?"), arrives and the four of them start piling way too much luggage in it. Just as they're about to leave, Lockwood hesitates and turns to her.

"It's not too late for me to stay."

She pushes him out the door, waving to the others as Lockwood stumbles clumsily down the steps.

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

"Y/N!"

"Lockwood? Hello?"

"Ho - How have you been?"

"What?"

There's a lot of commotion at the other end of the line. She had been waiting for them to call the past few days, and was eagerly settling down to hear all about the festivities. She can hear a thousand different sounds overlapping and the thuds of footsteps criss-crossing, mixed in with some familiar threats from unfamiliar voices. Huh. Though it did make sense that of all the things George might have inherited from his family, it would be this.

"Just a moment." She hears the kerfuffle die down and the crinkle of the telephone wire shifting. "Sorry, had to find a closet. Now, where were we?"

"Sounds busy."

"Oh, it is. But it's nice, meeting George's family. Had to fight them off with a stick to get to the telephone, though."

He hears the smile in her voice. "I can see that. So what have you been up to?"

"So much. Too much. Y/N, you cannot repeat this to George but...they take Christmas far too seriously."

"Really?"

"We spent an entire day picking out the tree. I am sick of Christmas cookies and it's only my second day here."

She frowned. "I told you to pace yourself."

"My fingers - oh, my poor fingers - worn down to the bone stringing popcorn and cranberries together."

"What's the popcorn for?"

"Hell if I know! They make Christmas look like an extreme sport."

She tried to suppress her smile, putting on a grave voice. "You have my sympathies."

"Good. Though I suppose it hasn’t been all bad. I liked the ornament painting. Plus, Belinda’s been helping me loads.”

“…Belinda?”

“George’s cousin. George’s somehow even busier than I am and I haven’t got a clue what’s going on sometimes, so she’s been a real help.”

“That’s nice,” she says bitterly. An uncomfortable silence follows.

“So, I was just saying, earlier, that I hope you're not feeling too lonely."

She lets him trail off, unhappily aware of how the only life and excitement the house had seen in the past three days was emnating solely from the telephone. She hadn't expected it to be this difficult to have a quiet Christmas.

"Oh, I'm fine." She stares at the Santa Claus figuring opposite her cynically. Saint Nicholas, indeed. "Just having a whale of a time with...Nicholas, here."

"Nicholas?"

An impulse brews in her head. It's a poor one, but she's got nothing to do, and it's Christmas.

"Yeah, Nicholas. I met him at the Christmas market. He's amazing, really."

"...Nicholas."

"Yeah."

"Never heard of him."

"He's a little bit older. I wouldn't expect you to know him."

"Hm."

"Anyway, I've hardly even noticed you've left, since we hang out together so much."

"So, you're spending time...with him?"

"Oh, he's not here right now. He's been a bit busy today at his..." she cast her eyes around wildly, landing on a a porcelain figurine of some grinning elves. "...workshop."

"Workshop?"

"He carves wood. He's a wood carver. You should see some of the ornaments he makes. He's great with his hands."

"I'm sure he is."

Lockwood gets too irritable to continue the conversation much further and they hang up soon after. By the time they were done, the sun had set and the house was in complete darkness: the perfect atmosphere for brooding. So what if he'd rather spend Christmas with girls like Belinda? She didn't care. Good...riddance.

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

A few days later, she collects the mail and finds an envelope addressed to her in Lockwood's narrow, slanted handwriting. She rips it open like a kid on Christmas morning, but her smile twists when she sees the Christmas card inside. There's a picture of George's entire extended family-and-friends, and Lockwood's hunched over in the corner, next to a girl with effortlessly pretty hair. They're wearing matching sweaters. Not the whole family, just the two of them. While she had always reluctantly accepted the occasional gift from him with an appropriate amount of embarrassment, nothing could have prepared her for the sight of undeniable proof that he just might do the same for others. Picking out a present, spending his money, on her? Disgusting.

It's enough to make her jam it forcefully under the telephone. Next to it, she spies the slip of paper with George's personal telephone number jotted down, in case of an emergency. She drums her fingers impatiently while the phone rings, eyeing the clock while she adds in the time difference. She feels so stupid over the snow globe now. What on earth had possessed her? If she's lucky, Lockwood might have gone to bed by now and she just might catch George-

"H'llo?" Lockwood's sleep-roughened voice strains through the static hum.

"Nothing, go back to sleep."

"Y/N?"

"You're dreaming. Hush now. Good night-"

"Y/N." He sounds wide awake now, and she can hear him start to sit up. The plainness in his voice starts to fade as he gets steadily mroe assertive. "Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine. I didn't realise it would be so late for you. Listen - is George there?"

"He's helping with the caramel apples."

"Ah. Do you think you could tell him to phone me when he has the time?"

"Oh, no worries, I'll see him at dinner later. I can pass the message."

She swears internally. "Oh it's nothing. Just wanted to have a chat, see how he was doing."

"He's doing fine."

There's an awkward silence. She can tell he's barely convinced, and the discomfort from the Christmas card prickles at the back of her neck.

"Get anything in the mail?"

"I haven't checked," she lied, clenching the card in her hand. Stupid, lousy card. It was ridiculously childish but really; her acquired expensive taste was his fault for encouraging it in the first place. "I've just been so busy with Nicholas, you know."

"I see."

"Why? Did you mail something over?"

"Just a Christmas card. No big deal."

"Aw. Thanks." She wants to curl up and die. The snow globe was most definitely overkill. She should have gone with the socks.

"Did Nicholas get you anything?"

"He really only goes by Nick."

She can hear the distaste in his voice. "A nickname. How...quaint."

"We went to see The Nutcracker, and took a walk in the park, if you really must know." It had been more like her sitting alone in the park, miserably tossing the pigeons with small kernels of roasted chestnuts.

"Oh. Did he...get you a gift?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't. He just sounds like a..." His voice changes and she can tell he's pulling some kind of face. "...like an interesting person."

"He is."

"Good."

"Great."

"Glad we cleared that up."

They fume at each other through the phone for a while.

"I talked to George, by the way. He doesn't remember a Nicholas either."

"Yes, well, that's because...he doesn't stay here. In London. No, he's part of a, whaddyacallit, travelling group with the, er, Christmas market."

"Like...a circus?"

"...yes."

"Well. As long you're having fun..."

"I am. So much fun." She had a white-knuckle grip on the telephone. Why was she tearing up?

"Merry Christmas, Y/N," he whispers. His voice somehow still manages to sound soft and measured over the telephone, as if he were sitting right next to her. And even through the telephone, he sounds sad.

"Merry Christmas Lockwood."

She pulls the card from under the telephone, staring at the family picture. She flips it and sees a short message scrawled hurriedly at the back.

'Thinking about things that matter. Thinking about you.'

The dial tone reverberates through her skull.

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

She wakes up suddenly the next morning, and she can't figure out why. It's so cold and quiet that it takes her a minute to remember that it's Christmas Eve. She has approximately two seconds to wallow in self-pity before the racket starts back up. Someone's knocking firmly at the door, loud enough to make her head pound, interspersed with some heated yet unintelligible conversation with someone else.

She opens the door and almost immediately gets the wind knocked out of her. It's Lockwood, wearing a ridiculously tinseled Santa hat, hands full of shopping bags. There's also a majorly peeved George standing behind him, carrying their bags and, surprisingly, even more shopping bags.

Lockwood hands her one of the bags, which she numbly takes, before pulling her in for a hug, and it all happens so quick it takes her a minute or two for her mind to catch up with what's happening.

"L-huhh? George? Wha- Aren't you supposed to be -"

"Surprise! Couldn't bear the thought of you having to spend Christmas all alone. Close the door behind the presents, George, you're letting the cold in."

George grumbles something about his mother never letting him live this down and where he can stick the presents. She gapes at the presents in alarm, dizzy at the sight of the avalanche of multicoloured bows.

"These can't all be for me. Right? Right?"

Lockwood bulldozes past her as if she hadn't even said anything. "Unless, of course, Nicholas is here! Is he?"

"Lockwood, wai-"

"I wonder if he got you these many presents. I'm sure he tried his best, of course, poor chap."

"Will you stop, for a minute?"

"That's his jacket, isn't it? He stayed the night, didn't he? Wait." He stops so abruptly and looks so crestfallen that something tugs at her in her chest. "He stayed the night?"

"Lockwood." A lot had happened in the past minute, but she was finally caught up. Even though she knows it's her fault for making him up in the first place, she never meant for it to get this far. "Nicholas isn't here, because there is no Nicholas. It was a joke. I'm spending Christmas all alone, I had to do something. I made him up for kicks.

George throws his head back and starts laughing, dropping the shiny shopping bags around the two of them, laughter fading as he wades his way to the kitchen. Now that he's calmed down, even Lockwood has enough decency to look slightly embarrassed.

"Dear God, don't tell me you came all the way back over Nicholas."

"I...I didn't. I had...all these presents..."

It's a lame excuse, and even he realises it when he looks at her face. He stands there for a very long minute, and then very suddenly walks to his room, leaving her surrounded by the sea of bags and frenzily wrapped presents. He turns stiffly at his bedroom door with a mildly stern, completely unabashed expression on his face. She has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from grinning.

"Merry Christmas."

TAGLIST: @mischivana @dangelnleif @avdiobliss @mitskiswift99 @elenianag080 @houseoftwistedspirits

[shadowfloofster]

I've seen people say you can't compare the QSMP to the DSMP because they're both completely different servers with different starts.

The thing is you can compare them. Not the stories told themselves because of course they're going to be different as they're 2 servers with different starts with 2 nearly completely different sets of people.

You can compare the treatment of the creators by the fandom, players (other cc on the server) and admins though.

Foolish for example. He made SO many amazing high quality builds to use and be shown to people. Ranboo and Tubbo had him build a giant mansion for them to live in! Yet it was entered maybe once after being finished. Foolish was able to use his builds for his own lore maybe once. Only a few people like Bad really acknowledged them by messing around in the area of them or adding something easy to get rid of to them as jokes.

Bad's treatment on the DSMP was frustrating to watch. He was the butt of the joke every time he was around. People would constantly swear on his streams because it was so funny for them! They constantly destroyed his and Skeppy's house and griefed the front of it. No one other than his friends really listened to him about things. And the egg arc was supposed to be something that was a massive danger to the server! But how does the server and fandom not directly involved treat it? Like a joke. Bad and his friends clearly worked really hard on this arc to include more than just the 'main characters' and their small circle, yet it was brushed off as if nothing by the players and fandom, treated like it was stupid.

Quackity's lore just kinda- happened. There isn't much I can say as I don't remember a lot of it tbh which isn't a great sign.

Philza and Wilbur probably got the better end of the stick for lore due to being connected to the main lorr, but it still wasn't great for them either.

A lot of CCs not on the QSMP have mentioned how the communication for the server was terrible too. At the start of lore on the DSMP, it made sense as they were purely doing improve so there wasn't really anyone to run things through. But the fact the issue was bad the entire time made the CCs on the server feel ignored and not want to play on it.

It was rare for people to interact with others outside their already established circles unless they're friends outside the server.

Now with the QSMP

Foolish has built multiple things on the server and has been acknowledged by everyone at this point. Bad might mess with them a lot still and encourage others to join him but you can tell the respect people still have for each one. Vagetta wants a version of the statue Foolish built him on other servers. People and fandom admire his builds and always make sure that if there's any damage to it, it's easily undone. Cellbit has made the castle Foolish built him his home the moment it was finished, he's been using it since. He paid him fully and made sure he was fully supplied and had company while building, staying on for hours to talk to him as he built.

Bad is respected by everyone on the server. He's taken seriously by everyone. Everyone trusts him with their kid's lives. Phil asks Bad to babysit Tallulah and Chayanne if he can't. The french trust Bad more than anyone outside their language group. Forever trusts Bad the most on the server other than Baghera. If someone needs something they'll go to him. All the eggs love him and so does the fandom. He's part of the joke instead of the butt of it. He can laugh along with the jokes made, even ones directed at him. When people swear on his streams and he languages them, they immediately apologize and switch to one of Bad's replacements (fudge being the main one) and no one makes fun of it either! They don't start swearing relentlessly at him to annoy him.

Even though Quackity doesn't show up often, when he does people are happy to interact with him and update him on what's happened if he wants it.

People can be off the server for weeks without being isolated because they're not keeping up with major lore, especially as people are happy to update anyone on anything they want to know. Hell people can be on a lot without being involved in lore but still be included as much as anyone else! As soon as there's a threat to the eggs or a new way to protect them, it spreads to everyone like wildfire and everyone's taken it on within a week.

The new arrivals are always welcomed by the islanders already there. They support them and treat with the same respect they do with everyone else. They merge with everyone else nearly immediately and become part of the community without hesitation.

The communication with the admins is clearly amazing too. Philza has pointed out how appreciated he feels compared to other servers. When an egg dies unfairly they're quick to get back to them within hours. If there's a general issues they're quick to get back to them and fix things. People are allowed to have their own stories alongside the main one. Events are planned and discussed so everyones aware before it happens. Anyone who wants to take part is welcome to if it's a big thing due to how open they usually are (rescuing Cellbit and Felps, travelling to Bobby's death site, etc). Thinfs are adapted and changed when needed and all CCs are in the loop.

Being able to watch the QSMP and not feel like any POV I watch is being mistreated or ignored is great. I couldn't watch anything but lore streams with the DSMP because Bad was my main POV and it made me so uncomfortable to watch him being made fun of constantly and be treated as a joke.

The QSMP feels like a community of people, instead of factions trying to go against each other. DSMP was my first and only smp experience and while it was great at first, it quickly soured. The QSMP treats it's CCs and fandom as if they genuinely matter, making sure everyone is welcomed and no one is isolated.

[katyspersonal]

So like... thoughts on Messmer's crew? Not the man himself, just the guys he hired.

I actually found the remaining two Fire Knights just recently! :D I didn't post about it yet, but I assume this is all of them! ...I hope. Shadow's Keep has too many turns. Who knows.

This is sweet how they all are close with Messmer and stood with him no matter what.... Unlike THESE traitors:

(Sorry I forgot to copy the screenshots so have bad phone images fshhds) Like @heraldofcrow said earlier, it is really stupid how they could accept like genocides and whatever but drew the line at him being a snake sdfhfghds Well, Fire Knights definitely didn't!

Queelign was the first one I've met, and apparently in the wrong order since I missed him in Belurat and had to go back there! And I instantly hated that zealot, even before I had the picture of what exactly Fire Knights were!

^ As if Queelign's dialogue was not enough, he also dropped THIS! The reason I will ALWAYS respect Miyazaki no matter what is that he always finds the way to throw a jab at this particular grudge at human race fsdhfdsh

He is still a terrible person, but since then I warmed up to him when I've found some potential in him! He is not only the most fleshed out from the Fire Knights, but also in JUST the right way! He is very passionate and fanatical, but also very genuine and naive with his feelings. And he not only wants to be like Messmer, but also has very strong fixation on Marika! Like I keep joking, she is such a bad mother that even people who aren't her children have mommy issues over her fhhdsf

But he also, interestingly, reflects that weaker, childish part of Messmer that still wants his mom to love him. Whereas Messmer is at least good at repressing it, with Queelign it is completely loose and earnest, and the guy is probably not aware! He IS like a little version of himself in this way.. Not sure whether Messmer dislikes him, or pities him, or maybe at least several times told him to NOT try to be like him! In any case, it is really cool how there is the guy who gives that interesting insight. You could write headcanons essays on the psychology between Queeling and Messmer, or just Queelign. I wrote an essay on what could transpire if Tarnished healed him instead (I believe he dies when we find him, from deadly wounds since we only access his chamber after beating him twice).

Like, you can work with this character, you see what I mean? I never found a similar rambling potential in, say, Alfred or Lautrec. They're religious fanatics too, yet that was exactly ALL I could tell about them. MEANWHILE I've made like FIVE posts about Queelign already and they are all substancial! And, boy, any writer WANTS a strictly cruel, fanatical, irredeemable, negative character to give something to talk about besides just kicking the topic of them being bad. If you are writer, remember to similarly give the topics of discussion to your villains! I agree with what Izunia said earlier:

+ Correction though: Petrus does NOT belong in the list of fanatics xd He has opposite problem! He is a selfish, opportunistic, corrupt, cowardly parasite that benefits from the religious institution and doesn't actually HAVE any beliefs he will kill and die for. He kills for his benefit, like how he killed Reah after her being rescued clearly so she would not rat him out, ie risk his position as elite cleric! There is a good reason why of all cleric/religious/etc characters he is the only one who has no simps!

This guy kicked my ass a couple of times, but if Fire Knights are Messmer's most important people, that makes him second most important person in his army? ...okay third, after his wife Rellana fsdjhdfhssd Really clever how only the captain wears a helmet fashioned after this creature, since he keeps Messmer's military forces in check here

1) I also assume that the "loneliness" Wego experienced was from having outlived the people he held dear as not only being in the military but also elder! Because why else would he be strictly lonely, if he has friends within the covenant? Like look right here, he had a pupil! :p 2) This implies that disagreeing with Messmer was a huge risk.. but not only Messmer spared him, but also actually listened to his request!

So basically, Salza is okay with burning people and their homes, but he draws the line at destruction of like, culture, knowledge and ancient architecture fshfds And not he alone:

It were Fire Knights who asked Messmer to have the Specimen Storehouse, so there is at least historical remains about the species they destroyed! So as funny as the double standard looks, it makes a lot of sense; like it was mentioned earlier, all Fire Knights were nobles at the Erdtree! Of course they have it internalised to preserve culture and knowledge for the future! They all had to be well-educated and well-cultured people, not sympathising with the type of hatred that aims to erase as much as history! And at the same time, being educated didn't help them to consider not participating in the HoLy cRuSaDe to begin with..

And this is so human. It is very realistic. There is a lingering misconception that it is ignorance, poor quality of living, low class, bad past or all at once that makes people prone to crime, but in reality there are criminals in every class and every demographic. We should not attribute the root of all evil, crimes and harmful prejudices only to concrete group, because this is always just a matter of multiple people gathering and deciding to do something. When it is not mistreatment and despair that drives people to evil, it is power and corruption, because people ARE evil by nature.

_______________

So yeah, I really like what they did with this covenant! They did well with giving the sense of each of them being an individual by naming and distinguishing five characters like this! For Soulsborne games, this is rich x) They have some tweaks to their outfits or weapons, they have characterisation that makes them unlike each other, and THIS is what's wild; how so many people that clearly can and always could think for themselves ended up here! Queelign too! I could speculate that Alfred has been indoctrinated and brainwashed since young age, or that Lautrec lost his marbles after some sort of grasp by Fina, but Queelign apparently was no less of a noble that decided to go like his peers, nor he'd be any more embraced by Marika than everyone else with grace! He is Just Like This fshdfhs

They made the covenant very real an interesting. (Also rich for creating OCs if you like writing awful people and want to be close with Messmer 😔)

[pikuniku53353358]

wait what did a-rabid-snake do?? I heard you guys had a serious argument??

Yes, it's true... If you're so interested in what we quarreled about, then fine, I'll tell you. So... She sent all the members of my group in a telegram several times simply because she was in a "bad mood". And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE (there were also her friends and her ex-girlfriend and boyfriend in this group). She was offended by the fact that we did not comment on her art and ignored her, and when we began to comment on them, she accused us of making stupid jokes and in general we offended her (although there were jokes at the level of a Chinese Saint, since once she drew a Saint in a kimano)

And also she sometimes asked us to give her ideas for art, and when we offered her these very ideas, she said that: "oh, why did I ask you at all, you didn't help me in any way" and other similar hypocritical words. Why hypocritical? Because she herself could say rude words to someone and "joke" about my art (and there were already jokes at the level of the fact that when I drew the spear master in my imagination and there he had something like a skirt made of a piece of SRS fabric, she said that the spear master forcibly tore off this piece of fabric from him and when I said, that this was not the case and that it was done voluntarily, she said that "I like my version of events better." Excuse me, but what the hell?! ). In general, she was constantly offended by any trifle, presented herself as a victim and we had to endure her hot-tempered behavior, for which she NEVER apologized. Do you know why she left the group? Because once someone sent her shooting range list with ships with slugcats in Russian Discord server. Some of us were on this server, and when they noticed this, they sent her a screenshot and said, "Snake, did you send your tier list or did someone else do it?" She said that she did not do it. And one Of the members of our group, he said that he knew this person, found such a coincidence funny and began to laugh at it. That is, it had nothing to do with the Snake at all, the person was laughing not at her or her tier-list, but at the absurdity of the situation itself and the fact that he knew this person. But the Snake misunderstood everything, she thought that they were laughing at her, although we tried to explain to her that this was not the case and she left. And instead of keeping silent about this whole most stupid situation, she told about it in the tumblr and made the members of my group look bad and herself a victim. It's terrible. She did not think about the consequences of her actions, she never seemed to think about the consequences at all. But even after that, I tried to treat Snake well. She also wished my friend death once because he had created a meme for my band and one of her artworks appeared there for a few seconds. In this excerpt, no one insulted anyone or anything, this art was in the public domain, and this meme was not published anywhere outside of my group, which is a LOCAL place, and this meme is also LOCAL. But she somehow found out about this video, showed it in her telegram channel, got attached to the fact that no one has the right to use her art in anything like that, and, as I said, wished him dead.

But the last straw for me was that one day in her telegram channel the topic of discussing ships iterators and slugcats began, and one of my very good friends told Snake to just not pay attention to this if it is unpleasant for her to watch. Person expressed his NEUTRAL attitude towards all ships, but the Snake believed that she treats all ships POSITIVELY and that she supports ships with bestiality, pedophilia and incest, although she did not lay such thoughts. She doesn't care about these ships, but the Snake began to say how this person is disgusting. Another friend of mine, who has a real depression, stood up for my friend. And Snake in response literally sent him to hell. Moreover, before that, she left him to the mercy of fate, stopped supporting him in difficult times and, in principle, somehow communicating with him. The nickname of this person is "Just". That is, she began to insult two people who did NOTHING bad to the Snake, and one of the people had depression and she just sent them to hell. At the same time, she herself is offended by any "rude" word said to her. She is hypocritical... As a result, I got tired of enduring everything And after that incident we have stopped to communicate. If you don't believe me, I can provide screenshots with all the evidence.

[self-spaghettification]

Looks like we’re getting a lot of crazy things in 6x05

which,

1. Considering the potential title “Moonless Night”, 6x05 will possibly be including Rayla being hurt or moon being otherwise metaphorically swallowed, (paralleling s3 swallowing/corruption of the sun’s power),

2. Considering episode 5 follows an episode titled “The Starscraper,” in 6x05 Aaravos is potentially freed at the end of 4 or during 5 and potentially possesses Callum which will lead to all sorts of trouble

3. Considering the connection of a scene between soren and viren with “until 6x05” and all the hints that the most impactful scenes between soren and viren were yet to come…. it seems likely that in 6x05 Soren and Viren will have a very emotionally charged moment together, also possibly with Claudia. Maybe with a confrontation of some kind, also involving the moon?

Let’s delve into this more though—As this potential title has ignited a spark to finally set ablaze and reveal the idea that has been percolating in my mind for months.

Moonless Night (and Why I Believe the Moon is Metaphorically Going to Be Swallowed) A S6 Speculative Meta

with arc1-arc2 parallels, norse mythology examination, reflections analysis and more

As far as I can see, the clue most directly points to Moonless Night. (Edit: which ended up being right!) And there are other reasons I’m on board.

I already went insane over this so let’s get started

A. S3-S6 Parallels

So, I’m a big fan of across arc season parallels as they’ve existed very overtly S1-S4 from the first moment, as well as some other things which in many ways are setup and reestablishment of dynamics (Rayla hesitating and breaking from her duty twice to help/see Callum instead, Harrow and Ezran respectively attempt to break free from the past but they have to acknowledge it, etc) as well as persistently in S2-S5:

and, it seems, *possibly* S3 to S6–

1. If we get another plot against Ezran that’s not a joke (as it is in s4 and many throwaway lines and jokes in tdp come back to bite us)—+“This coming season will test Ezran's pacifist instincts”

2. If Viren returns, something like this—

in contrast to the “I’m sorry it had to happen this way”/“No you’re not.”/“No, I’m not.” because Viren cannot doubt Ezran would be genuinely sorry

Viren would say I know because he gets it now, the new hesitant, less certain version who also feels bad for all he has done, but he wouldn’t have before.

SO… 3. If the Moon were to get metaphorically/literally swallowed on some level in S6, it would parallel 3x07, Hearts of Cinder.

Corruption via Aaravos’s…child.

which, coincidently, brings me to my next point!

B. Norse Mythology

I’ve briefly discussed this before here, but let’s review:

Aaravos’s similarities to Loki

Source: Twitter

But while we’re on Loki’s similarities to Aaravos, let’s consider what his other children are up to during Ragnarok, the end of the world in Norse Mythology, which seems fitting considering all the foreshadowing of what chaos Aaravos has wreaked in the past (Xadia) and present (Lux Aurea) and even future (ominous wording in the reflections) when given the chance.

Loki’s children during Ragnarok:

World Serpent — rises up from the depths, encircles the world and causes great waves and destruction (“The seas churned” 👀)

Hel — From the underworld, “leading an army of the dead, she marches against the gods, uniting with her brothers and other forces of chaos. This culminating battle signifies the cyclical nature of Norse myths; an end that's also a beginning.” [1] Speaking of which, sounds familiar, right? In Ripples:

“While one may say it ends with a sunrise, [beginning] another will insist it ends at nightfall. [end]”

“With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!”

“And when the long, dark night had finally passed—for the sun must always rise, mustn’t it?—they gazed out upon an unfamiliar landscape.”

Fenrir— He was gagged with a sword and was destined to lie bound to a rock until the Ragnarök (Doomsday), when he will break his bonds and fall upon the gods. According to one version of the myth, Fenrir will devour the sun, and in the Ragnarök he will fight against the chief god Odin and swallow him. [2]

It’s interesting how Fenrir has even more parallels than Loki to Aaravos here. Trapped by a blade, chained against rocks like Prometheus (one of Aaravos’s primary inspirations) was when his liver (modern heart) was eaten every day, and when he’s freed all hell breaks loose, including swallowing people (see Zym and Aditi) and the sun. But was it him with the sun? Or…..

There’s something there about killing a god and being killed in return and making the stars fall and all the damage Claudia has suffered thus far, but anyway.

That’s right, Fenrir has two children, one who swallows the sun, and one who swallows the moon. During Ragnarok, while, also, the sea shakes. Ahem, back to this:

“With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!”

So… earth blood?

Check… churning seas?

World Serpent — rises up from the depths, encircles the world and causes great waves and destruction

Check… sun and moon gone?

Check.

So, what do we do with this information?

C. Interpretation

So Aaravos with two children, one who swallows the sun, one the moon.

Swallowing the Moon

-Involving a Child

1. Most literally: Aaravos has that… homonculus child, which takes and poisons the power of the sun. Maybe we’re getting another of those? I’m honestly scared for what that actually means like is he having another kid for that because 😭

2. What I favor- a metaphor— If you can consider Claudia Aaravos’s child, well, child in law isn’t that far off for the sake of this theory I think it’s possible they team up and somehow metaphorically swallow the moon like Viren and Aaravos did in S3. ….Just taking the moon, corrupting it and using its power— like they did with the Sunfire power— to make troops invisible in their effort to conquer xadia part two (2!) (although this is probably like the nth time that Aaravos has attempted his plan.)

-not involving a child

3. it could also just be disrupting the moon nexus in some way. Aaravos tends to break reflections in one way or another, from mirrors to ripples.

in Ripples he talks about how he dislikes how the stars look down on their perfect reflection (the sea of cast out)

@parroset has written an excellent meta elaborating further on it here, but essentially, he breaks reflections. A reflection is key to the moon nexus, that lake is the moon nexus because it so perfectly reflects the moon. So… there’s something to that. And it would have to come in handy manipulating the veil between life and death.

4. Taking Luna Tenebris’s power in a flashback.

I’ve talked about why I think we’re finally getting Luna Tenebris content before here, but essentially we already got all the dragons in the 4 corners of the map via flashback or interaction, and now only she is left. A flashback on what really went down that day would be perfectly in line with us learning more about Aaravos’s past, perhaps interaction with Kim'dael as well as, hopefully, blood magic—and dark, star, and deep magic. It also fits in with swallowing the moon’s power, as she was a Moon Archdragon. Moonless night. This also ties back to the blood moon cult because they harvest the power of the moon to begin with.

Last but not least and most obvious and exciting to many,

5. Rayla= “Moon girlfriend.” Callum is already being targeted, and likely some terrible thing is going to happen to him up with the rating being up, creators crying over this episode and calling it “heartbreaking” and all of that, so swallowing the moon could be symbolism for her dying or something equally terrible (so he’s forced to exploit dark magic/Aaravos to save her.)

This also ties back to this being the episode following the star scraper and the theory that Callum is a Trojan horse and, once he’s there, all the shit is going down. Maybe Rayla gets in the way and tries to sacrifice herself. I wouldn’t be surprised. or maybe it’s an intentional harm so that Callum has to bring her back… who knows?

It is for you to think about as you see fit.

@beautifulterriblequeen also wrote about other possibilities for the Moonless night here!

D. Symbolism & Misc.

Now let’s talk about the other symbolic evidence pointing to the swallowing of the moon.

The first thing that got me hooked on this theory was actually this page, which we see Viren flipping through, and then in Callum’s sketchbook.

I already analyzed the markings surrounding Aaravos’s signature symbol, but I also found the eclipse and crescent moon especially interesting considering how important the eclipse motif has been in the series and uniquely tied to Aaravos.

Thus far I figured the moon also had to be significant right it also almost seemed to me as if both the sun and moon had a bite taken out of them.

Then, we have the Reflections.

After Darkness

“The writhing, tainted darkness of Lux Aurea’s night sky spread infinitely above him, the stars all swallowed up inside it.”

Ripples

“While one may say it ends with a sunrise, another will insist it ends at nightfall. ” (swallowed sun) (falling stars)

“With its impact came a long and terrible night/And in that endless dark the humans despaired. The humans huddled together, scarcely daring to breathe, awaiting the rise of the sun.”

which, side note- sol regem saying the sun will never rise again for me, karim saying the sun is setting on their kingdom, and aaravos telling viren that the sun will rise and he will not like augh.

Then there’s the more literal interpretations of swallowing the moon and or sun along with the stars - Consider

1, Aaravos is giant

2, Star eating sword

3, Star devourer dragons

And, let’s go back to the crescent.

Waxing Crescents are associated with growing power, which would also be fitting for Aaravos gaining power, possibly a literal powerup.

Let’s also consider what new moons mean- considering the possible name, moonless night, and all the swallowing of the moon, and starting a new cycle, new moons are certainly significant, right? Moonless night- A fresh start. Could be something!

In summary, I believe the moon will be metaphorically swallowed in S6 in one way or another.

I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading my thoughts! Please feel free to share any insights or reactions of your own!

[ninjakk]

Hi..

As much as I wanted to love the novel (original version), that r*pe jokes author threw in that extra chapter really put me off. She's so good creating the plots in her stories, but why did she has to put that jokes in? She was so insensitive about that issue.

I want to know your thoughts about this :)

Hi anon,

I'm sorry to hear you've been put off the novel, but each to their own.

So, you see the thing is it's not a joke to WWX and LWJ, they are just roleplaying to their kink. There are hints throughout the novel that WWX is not opposed to this forceful behaviour and he even makes a 'joke' about such things back when they are trapped in the Xuanwu's cave.

I think one thing that a lot of people forget is that this was a web novel on a site with author's notes and tags. So if the noncon, or in this case CNC (consensual nonconsensual), was an issue for readers, they might have been able to see this and not read on. It is also something often found in BL and she was targeting a specific audience who would mostly be aware of such things possibly appearing in her chapters anyway. Because of this, I don't think MXTX was being insensitive about such topics.

In fact, I think due to noncon and dubcon being a common trope in the BL genre, MXTX has (as she so often does) turned this trope on its head and actually made it something I would consider healthy. LWJ holds himself back from doing anything without WWX's consent (bar his momentary laps with the kiss, which he feels terrible about afterwards) and consent is actually a running theme throughout the novel. LWJ refuses to do anything WWX doesn't want - to the point he does not take him back to the Cloud Recesses in his first life. It only becomes CNC because WWX wants and encourages it at the end of the novel. Even the apparent dubcon bath scene where WWX thinks he's taken advantage of LWJ, was actually consensual because LWJ had sobered up before this point and it's subtly shown as such by LWJ's speech pattern changing from childish to a more forceful tone. Obviously LWJ's dream is technically noncon and was quite a shock to some, but this was a dream and you can't control dreams. I won't go into the dream scene because there is already a lot of meta on this and I'd just be repeating!

Overall, CNC is a part of WXs shared kinks and I actually found it refreshing to see it handled quite respectfully, in the sense of it being a kink that can have a bit of a bad rep. MXTX showed her readers how a loving couple can have such a kink, yet be so tender and sweet as well.

Naturally I understand why this might make some readers uncomfortable, especially if they are unaware such things are in a novel and it may be triggering. There is an argument here for some sort of warning being included for such content that may pose as a possible trigger and something indicating as such somewhere on the novel cover - as it does not have any on the official volumes I have. Especially considering some readers may have come from the CQL or donghua and aren't aware of such things being present.

As such, I would say that if anyone handled such things insensitively, it would be the publishing companies, not MXTX - as she is just an author catering towards a certain audience and genre. It is the publishing company's responsibility and choice to safeguard the general public from reading something that may be triggering, but most publishing companies do not do this because they fear it may impair sales. There is also a huge argument about adding warnings being a form of censorship and trigger warnings actually doing more harm than good, so it seems to be a very difficult line to tread.

[ochrearia]

Small Shenanigans

Iiiiii don't have a better title for this but I don't careeee. This is yet another followup to the last one I can't believe I'm doing chronological parts right after each other instead of just random situations days or weeks apart. Crazy!

Also yeah. Left Beefer, Blue, and Cyber out. I'm sorry I cannot handle all these BFs at once it's so hard on my brain to keep track disjrjsifjg AAAA GUILT ITS FINE

BFs in this one-shot: PoPr!BF (Biff, mine), wyd!BF (Beef, Karl's), fc!BF (Boyf, Keyy's), sfa!BF (Peacock, Shed's), S2!BF (Bee, Isaac's), Yourself (YS)

“Someone tell this absolute moron to remember to relax his muscles, because I’m all the way over here and I can still see that he’s so tense that he might collapse into himself and make a black hole.”

“I woke up, maybe five minutes ago? And you’ve decided to be the biggest problem in my life. What did I ever do to you, Bee?” YS grumbled in response, suddenly self-conscious of how he’d already been tensing all his muscles up.

“Dude, you’re stressing out 24/7. That’s bad.” Beef pointed out, the most obvious statement of the century. “Ever heard of this thing called self-care?”

“And before you joke about ‘yes I have, I’ve been taking care of you guys’ that does NOT count.” Boyf added quickly.

YS closed his mouth, glowering at him for taking the words out of his mouth. Now he couldn’t deflect.

“Could do it for him.” Peacock suggested. “We’ve got him all warm and cozy already. More care for the big guy!”

Fuck all of these assholes. YS groaned, pulling his hoodie strings so far out that the hood closed around his entire face, only showing his nose. One of the first things he’d been allowed to do was put the hoodie back on properly when he woke up. It had apparently been a few hours at least since Biff found him, and now there was mostly everyone just hanging around for the sake of it.

Blue had been busy, as well as Beefer. Well, more like Beefer couldn’t get away from his world without a really suspicious excuse. Blue had insisted the rest who could come to give YS lots of love on his behalf, which was sweet.

Cyber wasn’t fully comfortable with anyone but YS yet. He wasn’t even actually in the main group chat either, because YS knew he could not trust the rest of these morons to be appropriate all the time with a 14-year-old version of themselves in there.

“I am fine.” YS insisted rather weakly. “Tense muscles are nothing, there are infinitely worse things that I could be dealing with right now.”

“We have to convince you to eat sometimes, YS, so sorry to say that we’re not believing that shit for a second.” Biff grinned, knowing that would only make him complain more.

God, dammit, I can’t with this. YS grumbled more, facing his worst enemy- his own head. Sentiment gets caught too easily in his mind, just the fact that they were here for him, talking about how to take care of him, something about that made him feel ridiculously small. Something about that also caused a slight flush to his cheeks, thankfully hidden by the hoodie.

The bastard known as his shapeshifting, however, was not hidden by the piece of clothing.

“Aaaah, he’s shrinking again!” Peacock teased gleefully. “Oh please, please get small enough so I can pick you up like a stuffed animal, just one time.”

“Shut the fuck up!” YS all but shrieked, embarrassment growing worse by the second. “Stop that! You’re doing it on purpose, stop using my power against me!”

“But you’re so fun-sized!” Bee grinned, ignoring his pleas and going further.

“Nah, it’s kind of really hilarious to be able to call you short.”

YS shrunk more against his will, whining while he covered his already hidden face with his hands. “Hate you. Hate all of you. Terrible, bastardly little brothers. I will kick you out of my apartment.”

“I don’t think you can kick any of us out of here with how small you’re at right now.” Beef grinned with a shrug. “I mean, look, you’re small now, might as well go with it. Let us help you, idiot.”

“At least let me give you a shoulder massage.” Biff insisted. “Beef said something about you not liking people touching your upper back so I’ll avoid it. You’re probably tense as fuck everywhere but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Ugh, fine. If that means you idiots will stop talking about taking care of me, in front of me.”

“Nothing wrong with hearing how much people love you, moron. You have to stop thinking you’re exempt from such things.” Boyf thought with a stern look.

That word again. He’d been so averse to that word at the start. Didn't like hearing it in relation to himself because he didn’t want to believe it. Insisting that it didn’t apply to him, because why would it? And it was getting hard for him to continue thinking that when in his right mind. Dammit, they were changing him in ways that he hadn’t expected.

And he hated to admit it, but the shoulder massage was fucking melting him.

“‘I’m fine’ my ass.” Bee teased. “It’s so fun to see you be the complete opposite of what you tried to make us believe at the beginning. Mr. tough guy, talking about how cool and mysterious he is, acting like a complete fucking force of nature. Fast forward and here you are, small as fuck, flustered over the idea of people wanting to take care of you, and then also melting faster than butter at the first moment of loving attention.”

“I am going to- I’m going to block my mirror with a blanket. Because you fuckers keep waltzing in whenever you want and making my life hell.” YS hissed. “Banned from the big brother world because you can’t be trusted to behave.”

“Behave? We’re behaving.” Biff snickered. “You want to see us actually misbehave? There’s a very easy way for me and Beef to team up to do that right in front of everyone!”

“Shut. Up.” Venom wasn’t a common factor in YS’s tone, but it slipped in every once and a while. This wasn’t actually potent venom though.

“Geez, alright, no need to be sensitive about it.”

Alright, you know what, if they were going to treat him like a toddler then he was going to act like a toddler. It wasn’t like he could get any smaller at this point, they’d teased him to the limit. Might as well just give up!

YS whined indignantly, deciding that the continued shoulder massage was no longer worth it and wiggled his way out of Biff’s grip. He gained slight triumph hearing his offended gasp, turning around and sticking his tongue out at him. Well, now he was on the floor and his line of sight didn’t even reach past some of their torsos.

“He moved! Fair game!” Peacock hollered, swooping in and lifting YS off the ground by the waist. He had a habit of picking him up.

“Watch it! Watch where you put your hands!” YS shouted, smacking the hand a little too close to his stomach. “Fucking hell! Would it kill you to warn me before you keep doing that?!”

“Think I’m starting to figure out this fabled YS secret that Biff and Beef refuse to give up…” Boyf thought aloud, but it went unnoticed compared to the air chaos.

“Put him on your shoulders! That way he can pretend he’s at normal height and act like he isn’t an adorable softie.” Beef suggested.

“My big brother teddy bear abandoned me for another me. This is crazy.” Biff deadpanned, but his voice was still playful.

“What do you think about that idea, big guy?” Peacock held YS up in front of him like he was holding a pet cat. “Ah, wait, I can’t call you that right now. Are you good with that little guy?”

Mortified. Something stirred in YS’s head at being called ‘little’. Huh. He was always the big brother, being tall and towering over some of them. Why did being the small one and being acknowledged as such make him want to melt? Seriously? He’s not a little brother.

Maybe it was just the idea of not having to be the ‘oldest’ keeping everything together. To be able to be the idiot, not the first line of defense.

“...Yeah.” YS mumbled, head full of fuzziness. “I wanna be up there.”

Such a silly concept. Getting a piggyback ride, again, from Peacock. Despite how big he usually was, despite how tough and serious he’d tried to come across as. Reminded him of a nickname he’d been given a while ago… something rather silly.

“I think you killed his brain.” Bee cackled from his spot near the wall mirror. “Can he get too embarrassed? Should we pull it back?”

“Never tried that hard, to be honest.” Biff shrugged. “I am but one man. Only so much I can say on my own to push him over the edge. I don’t think he can handle all of us getting on his ass at the same time.”

“Aw man, don’t make me feel bad. I was just teasing. We didn’t actually make you uncomfortable, did we?” Boyf worried.

YS shook his head for a moment before resting his chin on top of Peacock’s hat. “No, I’ll live. Thinking about stuff. Might still be a little messed up from my bad night. Still tired but when am I not, honestly…” He was rambling.

“We’re all here for you, remember that.”

“Do you feel any better by being up there?” Peacock asked lightly. “Boyf is still kinda taller than me, so I can’t guarantee the best view. Is this close enough to your normal?”

“I promise that you don’t have to worry about simulating my normal height, I live like that everyday. I haven’t lost it. I’m simply not like that right now.” YS rolled his eyes.

“Well… now what? You’ve got your throne atop Peacock’s shoulders, what say King Brother?” Bee teased, trying to play around some more.

“King Brother? Don’t inflate his ego even more than it needs to be…” Beef jokes.

This apartment was where he spent almost all of his time, really. Only having energy for small amounts of actually doing things. Getting food, supplies, anything that was necessary were things YS could kick his ass enough to do before he ran out of essentials. But in terms of anything else, he didn’t really get out a lot, and he didn’t count going to other worlds. Most of the time going to those other worlds entailed another apartment that he didn’t even walk out the door from.

The sun had been up for a while now. He didn’t make a habit of opening his window shade much, the light in his room was a pale yellow from the old lightbulb. God, he used to be so active. He used to go out a lot more, enjoying the air and sky, being a person in the outside world. He used to be content to go out alone. Nowadays he could barely stomach the idea, knowing that weirded out looks would be shot his way for how he appeared. He didn’t like going out alone.

But he wasn’t alone here. Five of his brothers were hanging around, seemingly not willing to leave any time soon. Perhaps he could take advantage of that, to take a step that he probably needed?

“Let’s get out of here.” YS said finally. They looked at him like he’d just said the world was ending- actual shock. “What? Stop looking at me like that. I can’t enjoy my piggyback ride if Peacock doesn’t have an open space to parade around. I can guide us back to my apartment if we get lost.”

“YS? Playing into being ridiculous? What fucking year are we in?” Biff was teasing, but the excitement shining in his eyes gave him away.

“All of us?” Beef questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“If you want to be a boring loser and stay here that’s your choice. Ah, but you don’t let anyone challenge you like that and get away with it, now do you?” Peacock was egging him on on purpose.

“Running around like maniacs with the chance to explore the slight differences of YS’s world? Hell yeah, sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon.” Boyf hopped up, ready to go.

“Try not to run off so fast that the smaller of us can’t keep up. Then we’ll really be lost. Unless you’re gonna do it on purpose, then I have a few choice words.” Bee snarked, getting up from his place too.

“Fuck it, let’s go!” Came Biff’s deciding call.

It was a warm day. Clouds every once and awhile, but the sky still a bright and vibrant blue. The sun was doing its best to dodge the clouds, shining on the rambunctious group as they pranced and paraded down street sidewalks, guided by wherever YS decided to point them. They got stares, sure, but it was okay. He wasn’t alone this time.

Ah. There was nothing in his chest but happiness here.

How silly.

[sweet7simple]

I apologize but a part two my last dratchrod ask where you said rodimus has breakdowns.

Maybe he can be himself around another mech *cough cough* megatron *cough cough* or maybe dratchet get a feeling and catch him breaking down or notice something?

Or maybe its both and they see how easy it is for roddy and *cough* megs *cough cough* to work with each others terrible or hard parts and maybe they want that? Or Maybe its too late & *cough* gray mech *cough* won’t give roddy up because he knew the moment the change happened

I am a slut for when others write Megarod, but I can't personally think of a way to expand upon what you have already written. It summarizes the situation quite well.

Either Drift and Ratchet gets their slag together (which they did in another ask I answered), or someone else swoops in and takes Rodimus off their servos.

The thing is, Rodimus is terribly lovable. Even when you don't want to love him (and I personally found him insufferable for most of the MTMTE/Lost Light series; I prefer the version of him I see in fandom and didn't like his canon characterization until the last few issues), you eventually realize that you're willing to die for him because he is equally willing, if not more so, to die for you.

So if Rodimus can be himself with Megatron where he can't be himself with Drift and Ratchet... If he can look at Megatron and go, "I don't have to be perfect because he's already so fragged up, I can't mess him up even more," then that's good. That's great.

Losing Rodimus would hurt Drift and Ratchet and they'll be angry at him and themselves for a long time, but they would never want to force Rodimus to stay with them if he isn't happy.

If he's happier with the mech he feels is just as imperfect as himself (arguably worse, we all know that), if he's more comfortable being mouthy and selfish and lazy with a bot he knows can handle it and not walk away, than Ratchet and Drift will let him go and they'll work toward rebuilding a friendship when the spark wound isn't so fresh.

It helps that Megatron is medically trained and can keep up with Rodimus's self-injurious shenanigans and self-sacrificing plots.

EDIT:

Not mutch to do with the ask, but I was still thinking about why Rodimus would be more comfortable with Megatron than Drift and Ratchet and the short answer is because Rodimus can't really hurt Megatron.

Yeah, he can get Megatron really, boiling mad and annoyed, but there's not much he can say or do to make Megatron lose faith in him or abandon him. Meanwhile, he can absolutely say the wrong thing and lose Ratchet and Drift so fast, or create wounds so deep just by not thinking before he opens his big mouth.

If Drift says, "This is a bad idea, Roddy," Rodimus can't snap back with, "Oh, like taking boosters was so smart?"

Boom. End of relationship right there. Rodimus has joked about rehabilitating Drift in the past and revoking his rights and no one, I repeat, no one found him funny. Bringing up Drift's history as a drug addict or as an assassin or as a decepticon any time Drift tries to talk some sense to him? Not cool. Drift gets upset, sometimes angry, but it's Ratchet who absolutely will not stand for it.

For Rodimus, Drift's past is just part of Drift, part of what makes him who he is, part of why the way he is and the story to how they met. It's nothing bad, it just is. Which is probably why he doesn't treat Drift's past with the delicacy he should.

Meanwhile, there's Megatron.

Megatron can say, "That's a stupid plan," and Rodimus can snap back, "Oh, like starting a war is a bad idea? Or is it like how forming the DJD was a bad idea? Or is it a bad idea like how -" and the list can go on and on down the entire list of Megatron's crimes, but his co-captain is just waiting him out with the most deadpan expression possible.

"It's because of my mistakes that I can say this is a stupid plan."

"Says the failed warlord," Rodimus mutters sourly because he's losing this one-sided argument and he hates that.

But Megatron isn't even hurt. He's smug because the best Rodimus can do is try to distract him by hurting his feelings so he can go risk his life on some suicidal mission. Megatron has dealt with soldiers and officers speaking sweet things to his face and trying to stab him in the back for millions of years. He's dealt with the Senate and the Functionist universe and war and so many endless cycles of victim impact statements - Rodimus's temper tantrums are nothing to him.

He knows what he is. He knows what he's done. He wants to do better, be better, even atone, but he isn't going to get upset by Rodimus's big mouth (the feelings and thoughts Rodimus's mouth inspire in him are a separate matter, but they are not upsetting things).

What matters to Megatron isn't what Rodimus says - except for those instances when he says something truly inspiring, something so awe-inducing and humbling and empowering that Megatron can't help but be impacted - but what Rodimus does.

One time, Rodimus lost his ship and most of his crew because he wouldn't betray Megatron.

One time, Rodimus reached out to him when he was about to give his life fighting Tarn and saved his life even when he didn't want to be saved.

There's a universe where Megatron dies with a Rodimus star in his servos. There's a universe where Rodimus smuggles him out of their own universe for wild adventures across many others.

Rodimus is so easy to love for someone like Megatron. It helps that Rodimus is a brat and Megatron is Into That (See: Orion Pax before he took on the responsibility of the matrix and the entirety of Starscream).

What I am getting at here is, while Drift and Ratchet would have to work hard to forgive Rodimus - and maybe not even fully forgive him - Megatron sees nothing that actually has to be forgiven.

Megatron says, "Do you even possess a brain module or is there only room for your inflated ego in your helm?"

And Rodimus says, "Talk about egos, pal, I'm not the one who thought Cybertronians were soooo superior that every organic in the galaxy had to die."

"Like recognizes like."

"Ex-squeeze me? Did you just compare my awesome stars to genocide?"

"Even I had to start somewhere."

"I think I'm a long ways off from planning a mass murder of a governing body and then conquering whole planets."

"I am not so sure. You were quite efficient against the Functionists."

"How dare you, that's not the same thing. At least I've never killed a boy by throwing them into a giant smelting chamber."

"Rodimus, you can burst into flames. You have absolutely burned a fair number of bots yourself."

Rodimus can't hurt Megatron the same way he can accidentally (sometimes on purpose when he's being self-destructive) hurt others.

It means he can relax and be himself. Even the not-so-good parts of himself. Even the nasty bits that made him use Rung as bait to catch a sparkeater. Even the nasty bits that once made Ratchet vote to remove him as the Lost Light's captain. Even the nasty bits that made him agree to take Overlord onto his ship. Even the nasty bits that made him let Drift take the blame for Overlord and exile him without a fair trial. Even when he left Ratchet behind on Luna 1 to Pharma's not so merciful tender mercies.

He has fragged up so, so bad. And that's all just since he got on the Lost Light.

It's comforting to be with someone who has messed up worse than he has. They're growing into better captains together.

[milestonekestrel]

I want to hear more about your interpretation/ version of Addair because he is very interesting to me and for some reason I have grown attached to him........ I hate him so much and I want him to suffer because I like him a lot... ya know

OOH OK!!

Addair. I love this guy. I have a lot of thoughts about him lets see...

(cw for abuse)

Well, I´ve already talked about my family headcanons for the guy. But basically, his father and mother never really loved each other. They were kind of a ¨make each other worse¨ kind of couple. His father was an abusive prick and his mother a bystander. She was barely there, for Addair.. for life. They divorced after things got.. really bad (his mother was hospitalized), and his father got custody. His mother remained a bystander.

Addair grew up mostly underneath his father. He learned to follow orders or get hurt. He learned this from his father. He learned everything from his father. He didn’t get out of the situation until 17, and his father never really left him.

On the rig, you really don´t get a good introduction to the guy. There was an Addair post I remember, about how many people don´t spend long enough looking into him. They see the National Front poster (which is.. I mean yeah tbf it´s not great) and decide ¨well fuck this guy.¨ I don´t, by any means, think he´s a great guy. But, I do think he´s a human. You see, he has an interesting way of looking at his childhood trauma. in that he.. doesn´t. He just thinks that everything´s going to be fine now. Willful ignorance turns into blindness, and this is why he sits alone. There are parts of his father that never leave him. Seventeen years of conforming and following orders, seventeen years of conditioning don´t exactly just disappear. But Addair thinks it will. He thinks that making a vow to not be like his father is enough. and. boom. trauma solved.

and on some level he knows, he knows he has built a dam out of paper. This is why he acts the way he does. he can´t handle criticism of himself because its true. Because he wants to be right because going back to those seventeen years is painful. going back to those seventeen years is too painful. He has kids now. he has a family. he wants to be good for them. he wants to be a better man for them. and on some level, he is. He is a loving father. But it is almost like a disguise. it is the dam, and the dam is made of paper, and things are always getting through. So he lashes out, he can´t take jokes, and he is, frankly, a terribly mean person. On the rig, he has no family to be better for. He loses connection with that, a little bit. and he misses them and that makes it worse.

He´s been on the rig so long, isolated and angry. and it´s only getting worse, and he’s miserable and looking for someone to blame.

Enter Caz. Caz is an inexperienced man who manages to win the crew over quickly. Roy likes him, and most of the crew like Roy, so they like Caz too. Caz has never worked on a rig before, and Addair knows this. And yet, and yet he is so popular. With the crew. Even Rennick admits he respects him. So Addair takes it all out on him! He hates that man, so much, and not even for a good reason. He hates Caz so much that when he is in danger of drowning, actual, mortal danger, Addair can’t let it go. He can’t let that pettiness go. And he’s damn lucky Brodie and Douglas were there, because maybe he could tell himself he would be okay if Caz had died. Hell, maybe he can tell himself Caz should’ve died. But Caz didn’t. Addair doesn’t truly know what it would’ve been like if Caz had. If he came up dead, or worse, not at all. It's easy to say things, but the situation is not real to him, and thus he can´t accurately judge his reactions. It's easy to do things, like walk away, when you've no frame of reference for consequences or aftermath. Maybe he's a prick, and maybe he hates Caz, and maybe he wouldn't lose sleep over it or anything. But he's not going to feel right about it. 

But Caz lives. And Addair gets to keep being angry. And the anger is what makes him so violent. He's not just angry. As a human, he's confused, miserable, and he misses his family. (he misses them very much, and yet he works through the holidays. And yet he barely calls them. And in this way he is like his mother) But he's angry, too. And he´s fucking furious when he´s infected. And that's why he's so violent. 

And that’s why he throws himself in front of the flare at the stack. Because he’s so angry. Because he wants to hurt Caz. 

And that’s why he falls off the stack into the ocean. And that’s why no one saves him. 

[canaidliafail]

stay grounded pt.5

[part 6]

streamer abby x streamer reader 🌿

so I wanted to write all of Abbys visit to “reader” in one episode but this one is already 5k words and its getting stupid long so..I split it in two parts 🥹

CW: alcohol,weed and sexual endeavours if you will. not proof read, will check later tonight for any mistakes

Minors get outta here

“You’ll love it when I give it to you, leave you wanting more ,Is it everything and more than you were hoping for ?”

_____________

ever since Abby sent you a screenshot of her flight you were on edge. You promised to pick her up from the airport which just meant that you would be there to take her to the bus stop. She did of course tease you for your lack of driver's license and motivation to get it but she did appreciate the gesture nevertheless. However you were scared. You had a bad dating history, an even worse situationship one and you didn’t even want to get into all the people you had to reject during your trips or the other way around. point being, you found yourself ready to light a candle and apologize for all your sins so that karma wouldn't bite you in the ass. Abby, gave you no reason to have that fear. Sure you didn’t text as much as you thought you would but the times that you did she seemed excited and she would occasionally send you screenshots of places she would like to see or would ask for advice on what clothes to bring. Overall, she was nice and seemed to grow closer if her joking manner and her more sarcastic side coming to the light was anything to go by.

you thought of asking

“you smoke weed?” to be ready but decided against it. You always had it anyways and if she were up for a round you’d just roll one on the spot. Abby wasn’t your only issue. This semester at your university was a constant, painful reminder that you were about to graduate with the difficulty level of all the assignments and projects. Now, you were a great student in practice but a terrible one in attendance. It was hard balancing work, mental breakdowns and college.

On your third fitting on the model your college provided you were ready to tear the fabric to shreds and start going off on everyone. You could understand why designers had a reputation for having a nasty attitude but if said designers were having their models switched every week, thus needing different measurements everytime you wouldn’t blame them.

“For fucks sake Im working on a line 44, why cant they just stick to the same model”

“Well this isn’t our graduation project so they are more relaxed”

“well I'm not and they shouldn’t be either” you argued with one poor classmate who dared to calm you down, oblivious to your temper that was impossible to tame.

this was why you refused to have models. In any case, your daily disapproval of your school's teaching system was something that didn’t bother you to that big of an extent. You disliked the way you acted though. You were snarky, impatient and took offense easier than usual and you couldn’t exactly understand why,so one late evening after fighting with everyone that knows you and doesn’t , you sat down on your couch and tried to find which unhealed version of you was getting triggered and why. Half an hour later you gave up and went to make a toast. Your friend group had 5 solid people. June, your most faithful cheerleader to every stupid decision you ever took and the one who also helped you go through with it, Cassie, the most blunt one who brought you back to reality, Rick, She was too sweet and too in love with her slow burn romance of 3 years and last, Olga.

She rarely appeared due to studying in a different city but when you needed someone to figure you out, she was the only one who could get you out of your head.

Most people had a friend like that. Someone that you talked to the least, yet knew you the best and perhaps, had the most intimate and platonic bond to ever exist. So that night, was a cry for help and luckily, Olga was in town and on her way to your place. She came ready, with a bottle of vodka on one hand and a fresh bag of tobacco on the other.

“Im listening”

she said sitting with her legs crossed on the floor across from you. she was about to burn sage and make a tarot spread if need be

“Alright listen so nothing happened but, I'm scared. I feel…weird. See this is a person that I've admired for so long and it’s only hitting me now that I’m about to meet her and its…it's scary actually”

Olga sat through it all and listened to you ramble for hours and pace all over the living room until you exhausted yourself and finally sat back down on the floor and started rolling a cigarette. You were stressed and out of nowhere your eyes were burning and you were crying and Olga was silent through it all. She grabbed you a new rolling paper and passed it over since the previous one got crumpled from your tears.

It took you an hour to completely calm down and then, she finally began to talk

“Listen it’s understandable that you feel that way, She was after all someone you admired for a while and well, it's not like you don't fool around with others but she was always in your mind”

You nod feeling the weighty clawed hands of depression wrap around your throat threatening another crying session that you had to fight back

“And between us, the last time you took anyone seriously it didn't go so well”

“It really fucking didnt” you agreed and she nod. You finished rolling the blunt and took a few puffs

“Alright now that that’s out of the way let's talk reality. Abby will visit you in a week. She is almost in every one of your streams and sure she posts with other women which in my opinion are just her friends,but she also constantly mentions you in her own streams”

You tried to protest and counter argue every reasonable point she made but she sushed you right a way with a glare

“Which has to mean something. Now I know your favorite hobby is downgrading every positive trait you have but Ill have to stop you”

“I really want this to work”

“And it will. Just be yourself,relax and smoke another blunt if you have to but trust me. It will work. It has worked so far and well, what are the odds of that in the first place?”

You smiled. A small smile but enough to show her that her point was understood. You rested your back against the front of your couch and checked your phone. There was a message there from Abby and you let the warmth and excitement that you felt imprint in your mind as a way to soothe your nerves till her arrival.

____________

“Just landed. Waiting for the luggage” you read the message over and over again and then looked up at the gate and saw the people walk out and look around for whoever was waiting for them. You tried to bite down the stupid grin on your face and tried your best to school your features in an unbothered-laid back expression to no avail. You were practically bouncing off the walls and scratching the curtains like a cat.

Abby was here,in your country,in your city a few walls apart. Literally.

You were ashamed to admit that you had practiced different ways to greet her and would constantly switch the position you sat in, not sure what energy you were trying to show. You were man spreading, and then you would cross your legs, and then you would stand up and lean against the bar tables from the cafeteria.

“Get it together” You whispered to yourself and just locked and unlocked your phone pretending to be busy.

One moment you were looking at an old video of you and June attempting a stunt and the other you were looking back up at the gate and the woman of your dreams was actually there. Walking and looking at her phone and then around until she spotted you.

She smiled, wide with teeth and wrinkles at the edge of her eyes and you waved her over. You half ran half walked over to her side and unexpectedly-for you- she hugged you.

“Hey!”

She smelled like pine soap and there was a lingering scent of the outside cold on her jacket. You wrapped your arms around her and felt her weight, her muscles and tried to connect with the very real image that she was right in front of you. She was tall and broad, and fuck so damn gorgeous. You pulled away at the same time and you couldn’t hold back returning the equally big smile that she gave you as her eyes darted all over your frame and face

“Wow hi,this is-“

“Crazy right? Can’t believe I’m actually here”

“Yeah! So how was your flight?” This was comfortable. She was comforting and just,so much easier to talk to than you initially expected. Her voice was lower up close and she wasn’t someone who talked loudly. She was expressive and,and,and

So many things you couldn’t stop noticing and observing about her in pure admiration. You feared that seeing her up close would give you a change of heart and you were so off base because if it did one thing, it was to confirm that you absolutely had a crush on this woman. It was a 40 minute ride till your apartment with the bus and once you reached your destination she visibly seemed to rest her shoulders and lean against the wall taking off her boots and beanie. You hated how attractive she was while doing the most mundane things

“You got a nice place. Can’t believe I’m finally witnessing what's behind the cameras of Cottons studio”

“Hah! If I didn't know you any better I’d say you’re making fun of me”

“I’m absolutely not” she teased and you helped her with her luggage

“So,normally when I have a guest they sleep with me in my room but I didn't know what you were comfortable with so I prepared the couch for you to sleep in as well”

“Ah I don't mind. Thanks”

She said and you assumed she would take the couch but to your horror and relief she left her bags in your bedroom. Which meant you two would share the same bed for the two weeks of her stay.

“Ugh,cool so ok” you looked around nervous and then slammed your hands together in a hollow clap.

“Alright so, let me show you my place first” she walked close behind you as you showed her how everything worked which made it difficult to even walk properly.

I should have trained my walk or something.

You thought in misery as you stood in the corridor showing her your crafting room. She stepped in around you to look at the clothes on the mannequins. You could’ve sworn that there were stars in her eyes when she know the full knight armor that you proudly displayed.

“Fuck I saw this on twitter but Damn you outdid yourself. All these details and”

“Its rococo architecture”

“I noticed.You add details like that to every piece you make. Oh right you also made a white dress that I really wanted to see up close”

“Oh that!” You chirped excited and walked over to the wardrobe on the other side of the room to find the piece. It was from your first year and it was the first clean work you did. The sewing was straight and not a line out of place. You showed it to her and then sat on the thought. That was a fairly old post. How far did she…

“Yeah that one. Its even prettier up close. Sorry I don’t know much about fabrics and all that but from the little that I know this looks amazing”

You were fiddling with your fingers and let her admire all your pieces occasionally adding some commentary about the construction or the inspiration. She showed genuine interest in this and you didn't know how to deal with someone this nice.

“I could make you one if you want” She stared at you wide eyed with a grin and lowered brows “You’d do all of that” she said and placed a hand on the shoulder piece of the knight armor “For me?” You shrugged and walked out of the room to grab your measuring tape that was in the kitchen aisle for unknown reasons. You stopped in front of your workshop's entrance and tried to reach up and see how big the breastplate would be for starters.A soft chuckle escaped her and your eyes shot up to look at her.

“Yes? Abigail?”

She gave you a crooked smile and licked her teeth “You are really short” You would have choked on your spit if your throat wasn't so dry. Was this her way of hitting on you?

“I think your judgement isn’t trustworthy since you are just unreasonably tall. My measuring tape won’t fit the whole of you”

She reached up and rested her hands against the door frame and leaned a little closer to you. Close enough to spike up your heart rate to a dangerous pace.

“Is that not to your liking?”

And in this moment, You hated every girlish bone in your body for smacking her lightly in the sternum and laughing all the way through that embarrassing gesture.

What.was.that.

“You are insufferable” she smiled and pushed herself away. That would sum up any notable moments in your first day with Abby. You did talk a bit and made a quick and general schedule of what you could do while she was here all the while she kept glancing around at your room and you decor while you rested on your couch

“You have a lot of stuff”

“Oh yeah empty spaces freak me out”

She nodded in contemplation

“I like it. My apartment has like, a lot less stuff”

You leaned on your arm and smiled,lazy and pleased with the atmosphere

“Why? Afraid Alice will make a mess?”

“No I know how to keep my pets well trained”

Your cheeks flushed and you reached on your coffee tables drawer to pull out your tobacco and roll a cigarette cause you were getting heated up out of nowhere and you were about to share a bed

“O-oh of course. Then…?”

“I don’t know, I just never bothered I guess? I have a lot of plants though. You’ll see, but yeah I just don't know what decor to go far”

Your mind paused mid sentence. -you will see-

Was that an invite ? You smiled and Lit your cigarette sitting back on the couch in awe of how well the first night went

___________

That night. You simply did not sleep. Your plan seemed genius a few hours ago, but Abby was happily resting in your bed while you played Valhalla,the wrath of the Druids DLC for the second time fighting to stay awake.

Abby Anderson,was sleeping in your bed. You smiled every time you remembered that and then you were ready to cry thinking of the possibility that this would be just a friendship. You texted your friends that had been blowing up your group chat since yesterday.

She is sleeping in my bed right now

Cassie: YOU HOOKED UP ??? GET IT GIRL

No, she is JUST sleeping. I’m up. In my living room playing valhalla

Couldn’t sleep like at all

june: why the fuck didnt you sleep in the same bed?!?!?! Out of all times NOW you remember to have shame ??

THATS NOT

SHIT SHE IS UP EVERYONE QUIET

june: PUSSYYYYYYYU

You tossed your phone on the couch and looked up at Abby in all her morning freshly woken up glory. You gasped quietly at the sight of her unbraided long hair. she wore gray sweatpants and a sleeveless top that showed off her biceps and the sunlight licked the curves of her arms in the most delightful way

“Good morning” you croaked and tried to clear your throat and repeated the greeting more smoothly. she chuckled and sat next to you on the couch

“did you sleep at all?” you shook your head and paused the game

“sorry it got so interesting and then next thing I know birds are chirping” she shook her head and looked at the screen which gave you an opening to look at her

“Then please continue. Need to know who Im competing against for your attention”

you grinned and shook your head trying to ignore her move cause it was too early to handle this version of Abby.

“No, it's fine. Wanna get coffee? my treat”

“sure” she said and you grabbed your phone going to an app and browsing through the open cafes

“you want something for breakfast?”

she leaned against you and peaked at your phone looking through the stores. Your breathing slowed and you felt the hair on your arms raise at the contact that her chin made with your shoulder. You stayed still scared that if you moved she would have pulled away

“I wouldn’t be against that. What do you usually have?”

“W-well. Im european so, a cigarette with coffee”

she looked at you in shock and then broke down in laughter pulling away and getting up with you unconsciously leaning over the spot where she was seconds ago missing her touch already.

“Yeah I’ve seen that meme going around. So it really is a thing” you smiled at her

“mmmm you know me so well”

“Well I hope I do” she teased and went to the bathroom to fix herself up leaving you breathless and a nervous wreck. Did you miss something ? Because it seemed like she was heavily flirting with you and you only now realized how bold she could actually be.

_________

Rick: I Cant wait to meet herrrr <333333

June:I’m so happy you are having fun but if she doesn’t pass the vibe check I’m breaking her kneecaps

Relax! I promise she is really cool.

Olga: what time are we meeting up ?

11 at our usual spot. We will go in together

Abby was laying on your couch going through her phone waiting for you to tell her the plan for the night. She did touch on the fact that despite the influencer parties she was not familiar with the clubbing scene. Not like you seemed to be at least and while at first you insisted that you didn't have to go, she really insisted on doing otherwise. So now you were getting ready and once you were dressed you sat on your vanity and noticed from the mirror that she was watching you. You smiled

“Hey want me to do your makeup?”

She tensed and walked over to you and sat across your vanity on the bed,manspreading and leaning on her elbows which unconsciously made you squeeze your thighs shut and you could feel the tip of your ears burn.

“I’d like that. But ugh,nothing too heavy?”

She asked and you chuckled going back to putting on eyeshadow

“Don’t worry sunshine. Ill do you right”

“Ooooh will you?”

You felt the hair on your arms raise and you looked back at her who had a nasty smirk full of innuendos and you cocked a brow deciding to take on the challenge

“You have no idea”

And that was the first time you saw her get flustered in the most subtle of ways. Reaching around her neck to rub her nape and not looking at you the moment you saw a dust of pink on her nose and cheeks. This was your first little victory.

You were done with your makeup soon enough considering you had a standard go to makeup that you just knew complimented your features the best and then you turned around to start attending to her.

You grabbed a base, a mascara and your eyeliner pomade and stood up to tower over her while doing her makeup.

“Alright relax big girl, I’m not going to hurt you” you said teasingly when you saw how stressfully shut she had her eyes and she breathed out letting a laugh escape and releasing the tension

“Sorry. Not used to this happening”

“That makes me feel so fucking special” she chuckled and then tried to stop when she felt move on your hands starting to do their work.

“You have beautiful features, you know. Bet you’ve been on many MUAs eyes”

“Stop,you’re just flattering me now”

“Absolutely not. I hate doing peoples makeup and yet I wanna do yours”

You tried applying very little foundation, loving the map of constellations the freckles on her face formed and had a desire to accentuate them more by working around them.

Without realizing you moved closer to her standing between her spread thighs, your naked knee grazing her jeans. She carefully moved a hand behind it and gently held your leg which you tried not to think too much about. That was until you felt her thumb brush against the tender flesh of your skin. Slow and subtle and so careful, almost like a wolf trying to lure in a deer. You kept working with her face and when it came to doing her eyeliner you had to be steadier. So you moved closer, balancing your knee on the edge of the bed between her legs, her hand following the movement all the way through until her palm was now resting just a few inches below your ass given that now the only empty space was your thigh.

You were shaking

“Sorry Ill have to hold your face so that I don't mess up”

“Yeah go ahead”

She said a little more rattled than you expected her to sound and you held her cheek while drawing a thin,small brown line. You finished up with the mascara and had to resist testing your luck by suggesting lipstick.

“There. Done”

She opened her eyes and you stared at each other with your lips parted for a few minutes as the realization of your proximity hit. You pulled away first and motioned her over to your mirror which she had to heavily bend over to look at her reflection and she smiled

“Oh wow yeah, You are good. Never thought I’d see myself like that”

Your hands were shaking and you were starting to get anxious. Badly. Your mind wandered off to the fear that you just missed a very good opportunity and you seriously needed weed or a drink

“Alright we are ready to get going then”

Abby hit it off with your friends right away. Not that you ever had doubts but you could never be too sure. Rick, the sweetheart, was obviously just incredibly happy to see you with “the buff mommy of your dreams” as she whispered to you before you walked into the club which earned her a slap on the arm to hush her. The night was going well, save for the first hour of awkwardness before the shots started coming in and the good songs were being put on. You danced and when your favorite song came you and June grabbed each other by the arms and screamed the lyrics at the top of your lungs. You were so lost in the moment that you completely forgot how you looked and when you turned around to check on Abby there was nothing but awe in her face. No hint of disgust or discomfort or second hand embarrassment as you feared you would find. No, if anything she seemed to love whatever was unfolding before her eyes and she leaned back to sit on a stool and crossed her arms with a smirk looking smug. You walked over to her and too drunk to care propped your hands on her thigh and leaned in close to her ear

“Are you having fun?”

An arm reached out around you and rested on your lower back which gave you shivers. Your dress was backless and short which normally would make you feel cold but Abby's touch made it feel like it was hot summer night

“Oh yeah this is great. You are a good dancer”

You laughed drunk and high with music euphoria and held her arm you fingers pushing into the muscles in delight and tried to get her stand up

“Then dance with me”

Dragging her was pointless. Like a mountain Abby would not move and could not be swayed. But she did seem to enjoy your determined efforts to get her to do what you wanted so she indulged you while teasing your every move and reaching out to take a sip from her drink.

“You are so stubborn” You mumbled and she leaned in closer asking you to repeat the question the same moment that a girl bumped into you and in motion you fell on Abby. Gravity failed you both as her drink spilled all over your dress sparing her jeans and shirt which made you frown and groan in frustration.

The girl turned around to look at you in embarrassment and immediately held your hand

“I’m so sorry fuck let me help you clean up” she said frantic and your face softened immediately at her remorseful behavior. Your dress was most certainly ruined though. Abby stood up pushing her drink on the other side of the counter and held you by the waist glaring at the girl “Its fine we got this” She said, loud enough for the three of your to hear and moved you upstairs to the restroom.

“Alright now, paper towels” She said to herself and you leaned against the sink counter feeling your head buzz. The smell of chlorine made you dizzy and you had to kneel down and rest your head in the hollow of your crossed arms that were propped against your knees

“You good?” Abby asked and you looked up at her concerned expression

“Ah, I have such a good angle from here” Sober you weren't friends with drunk you. With every shot you took your filter evaporated and you were the type of drunk who got incredibly horny and flirty. The sight of the woman who was sculpted like a Greek statue accelerated those thoughts and those khaki pants sat so nicely and low on her crotch showing just a sliver of her black boxer briefs.

“Oh you are drunk as fuck” She said and kneeled before you holding your arms away from your chest to start cleaning the front of your dress.

“You leaned your head closer to her face and she looked you in the eyes with a playful scowl.

“Oh and you aren’t ?”

She shook her head with a smile and went back to wiping your top

“If I wasn’t I would not be able to do this with that much comfort” she admitted and you did only now notice that the area she was so carefully trying to clean was your chest. You smiled and held her hand to grab the tissue

“Let me do it myself then”

“Absolutely not”

“You fucking pervert”

“Oh you have no idea”

You both laughed and when you left the bathroom you were even closer than before. She still refused to dance much but with the help of your friends you did lift her spirits enough to at least not constantly be seated on a stool. That and she seemed incredibly intent on keeping hold of you one way or another putting quite a show when a more sensual song would play without ever getting too explicit. It drove you mad, this slow burn game of push and pull that lasted throughout the entire night and all the way home where you both crashed on the bed hardly in the mood to properly change or take off your makeup but you did have the decency to turn around when she changed and so did she. Not that it mattered since she decided to sleep in her sports bra and sweats and you wore an oversized t-shirt with your underwear only.In a way,there was a distant thought of you hoping that something more would have happened while at the same time you were incredibly satisfied with the turn of events

—————

Abby’s POV

Her head was spinning and not from vodka. All night she was fighting the urge to make you dry hump her thigh or thrust her hips against your ass in the most vile and sexual way possible.Hell she was close to doing so after the fifth shot of Smirnoff. She groaned and turned around in the bed now face to face with your sleeping frame. She was close enough to feel the small puffs of air on her exposed sternum. She herself was slowly dozing off and was ready to fall asleep until she felt you move closer and bury your face in her chest and tossed your leg over her thigh,keeping the other one snuggly between your own. Her senses were clouded and her head was a mess and she saw you open your eyes that were glossy and in the same daze as she was. You didn't say a word and neither did she. She felt your fingers first, circling her waist and nudge at the waistband of her sports bra, feeling the skin and dipping your fingers beneath it just enough to feel some more. Your eyes fell on her lips and she took the initiative to kiss you. That was the intent. But the gesture was a lot softer, barely grazing the surface. She looked at your eyes trying to find any sense of discomfort but you whined at the loss of contact and she kissed you a second time with more fervor,nibbling on your lower lip and pressing her tongue against it. You opened your mouth with a moan and she took her chance to dive deeper and switch positions with her now on top of you and your hands deep in her scalp holding her hair in fists as you reciprocated the gesture silently begging for more.

She pushed a thigh between your legs and you met her movement by grinding your hips against her chasing some sort of release.

“Abby” you whispered her name like a prayer and she pulled away from your bruised lips a string of saliva still connecting you both with the taste of your cherry lipgloss on her tongue.That soft needy voice may have been the most divine sound that had ever graced her ears. She gave you another kiss on the cheek and then on your jaw and went all the way down to your collar bones. She decided to linger on your neck a bit more nibbling at the tender skin just above your pulse,careful not to leave any unwanted marks. You called for her again and she pulled away and held your face in her hands and gave you another kiss. There were so many things she wished she had the energy to do that night, but there was an impending headache numbing her skull and she could see you struggle to stay sober and awake. You were both drunk and in need of sleep.

You pulled her closer and she rested her head on your chest listening to your heartbeat. Her arms slipped beneath your waist holding you tightly against her front and then she finally fell asleep

••••

here’s my ko-fi tip jar if you enjoy my work 🤍

[kumezyzo]

hellooo! can you write something about breaking up w bf!sapnap?

im not joking when i say i got two seperate asks for this. and im all for it. i made sap seem like a huge asshole in this btw. like, so insanely shitty that its almost out of character/it probably is.

anyway, enjoy! or dont :) m.list

it built up slowly over time. once the honeymoon phase had passed, you two were comfortable. and then you two needed a break. he needed breathing room and you need to reevaluate where you wanted this relationship to go. when before you could see yourself marrying him, growing old with him, having a family with him, now you just saw his flaws.

he didnt know why but he felt bored. it hurt him to admit to himself. and it hurt even more having to tell his friends about it. the same friends that had grown to love you and you had grown to love aswell.

"you're... bored?" dream asked his best friend, looking at him like he was crazy. "of a person?"

nick winced as he heard it out loud for the first time. he looked at george who looked at him in complete concern.

"it sounds worse when you put it like that..." nick responded. he rubbed at his eyes.

"it was that bad to begin with," george said shaking his head.

during the break, you felt as if you two had broken up. and the longer it went on, the more he acted like you two actually had. and it really solidified it when he started talking to other people.

you didnt think he was doing it seriously. maybe it was just to make you jealous, maybe he did stoop that low. but then you saw how how george and dream were just as confused as you.

he really did try to hide it from you. from everyone. but no ones perfect.

"nick, who are you texting?" dream asked over his shoulder, startling him. he looked at dream with wide eyes.

"what the fuck are you doing?" he asked defensively. you looked up from where you were sitting at the kitchen island to the other two on the couch. he glanced at you before looking back at his best friend.

"i was just trying to scare you..." dream said walking towards you in the kitchen confused. he had gone upstairs to get his laptop to show you something. "but really, who were you texting?"

"your mom, thats who,"

when you found it he was talking to someone, you couldnt help but feel terrible at the idea that he had already gotten over you.

you walked into your old shared bedroom, nervously avoiding eye contact with your ex-boyfriend. he looked at you blankly as you stood there with your arms crossed, trying to find words to say.

he was sat up in bed, looking up from his phone at you. "...whats up?"

"we can agree we're not together anymore? like... this isnt gonna work out, right?" you continued to stare at your socks as you waited for the heart breaking answer. but you couldn't hold it in and looked up to see his face.

he looked small and deep in thought. he glanced down at his phone screen and back up at you.

"why are you thinking about it?" you ask offendedly. "im asking to make sure we're on the same page here. it wasnt an actual fucking question."

your words rang through the air. he sat there, hearing them play over in his head. it was like he was suddenly understanding the situation. he replayed your relationship, remembering how much he loved you. how happy he was.

im sorry if this seems all over the place. this idea was a lot more elaborate in my mind. but i didnt wanna make it longer. sorry...

if you want a longer version, it would take a while for me to get it out. im gonna be super busy for a while so domt expect as frequent uploads. im also in a lowkey bad mood rn so... im sorry if this is kinda dry. -nony

[organizationhimself]

just kinda having some thinky thoughts about how dark road totally rewired eraqus's character and what a phenomenal job they did.

like here's your problem you have. you need to take this cloistered old man who raised his students in the jedi way, somehow put up with Old Man Villainy being That Way presumably on the regular, lost every last iota of his shit and turned on the Apocalypse Child he adopted as well as his surrogate son who was infested with The Evil (which the series has long established as not necessarily being good or bad without context) to say nothing of the headtrip he gave his direct heir, and you need to reduce him to a version of himself as a child that is. like. fun. someone who has a genuine friendship with xehanort and is regarded by xehanort as someone who is a "sly fox," i.e. not the sort of buffoon who tests for mastery of the keyblade by child-proofing some orbs of light.

where do you even begin?

YOU TRAUMATIZE THE UNGODLY HELL OUT OF HI--okay i'm getting ahead of myself, let's start with principles.

because eraqus is principled. he believes really firmly in the light in a way that's nearly sora-adjacent in its intensity, but the thing is that sora has this flexibility that eraqus was simply not raised to appreciate. yes, nomura, we understand you like the bright sunshine one and the wry brooding one, you did it with sora and riku, god knows what you did to axel's spine to fit him into the sunshine kid's mold next to isa as brooding anti-crybaby, and now we're doing the same thing to eraqus. ok. i love it when you're optimistic, let's do it.

so first we need confidence. easy; he's a smug little rich kid. worked for riku didn't it? (source: kh1 manga, and the fact that you cannot convince me anyone can maintain a kid with that build on a budget) but we also need to see how dark road changed him as a person. let's contrast his uptight stick-up-his-ass future with a present day class clown who doesn't take things seriously; a headstrong fighter who jokes that he'll just run away. and hey speaking of emotional damage, let's start easing into the inevitable terrible, horrific, unspeakable traumas we're going to visit on this defenseless creature with a little one as a treat:

HIT HIM RIGHT IN THE GRANDPA.

and there you go! we now have a source for eraqus's rejection of the darkness that is not simply a function of his career as a jedi keyblade master, but has an actual personal experience he can point back to in order to say "hey, darkness is the pits!! here is why." it sets the stage early for him to be already butting heads with xehanort, who takes a much more flexible look at the worlds and the way they work and is more willing to view things from the perspective that he is not an authority on the moral peculiarities of whatever world he is currently inhabiting.

xehanort is also a child of destiny [citation needed]. an isolated visitant who was born for finer things but never slept a day in his life without waking up with sand in his mouth until he reached out and took his fate in his bare hands and let it drag him all the way to scala.

where he met the blueblooded child of a keybearing legacy thousands of years in the making, just like his.

and suddenly what you have are unwitting equals. we're ready to set them both up at the chess board; eraqus's legacy is plain, he moves first and he makes no apologies for it because it's his birthright. but xehanort's half of the board is still buried in shadow, implied but never stated, never surrendered to eraqus's probing questions or revealed by his moves, but already aimed at a clash with destiny, fated, inevitable.

shall we say, already written.

and this is brilliant!! now we have a source for our "sly fox," a reason for xehanort to be extremely familiar with the way eraqus thinks (and not to star wars on main but the obi-wan kenobi series did something really similar to this narratively by using anakin and obi-wan's familiarity with each others' fighting styles to predict the actions they would take in a situation, and i will actually never be over it in my life, absolutely stealing it for a xehaqus fic sometime, just shamelessly mugging ewan mcgregor in the street for that solid gold good shit). not only that, but we also have an explanation for xehanort's motivations as described by kh3. he is not looking at the fight from the perspective of one of the pawns; he is looking at the fight as a player, deciding which pawn gets taken. selecting which rook to sacrifice in exchange for the queen.

and eraqus is opposite him, doing the exact same thing (sort of, kh3 was a little cerebral with that), but there's an important difference here that we'll come back to later on.

so, okay. we have a vague outline in the shape of a sunshine kid now. he has confidence tied to his role in society, his legacy gives him perspective, his trauma ensures that he will one day calcify against the darkness with such emphasis that he will unwittingly pad the therapy bills of an entire generation. so far so good.

but uh, yeah, his kids? he fights them? like okay, axel has his differences with his kids too but he's not trying to kill them (mostly). eraqus really definitely for real is, and ven is defenseless. so that'ssss...hard to square with the sunshine kid we're building, nomura, how do we explain that? we really can't handwave it as amnesia this time, we're not working with ansem the wise here.

(BALDR. BALDR IS HOW--

ok but wait wait wait, before we even get to baldr, there's something we can do:

make eraqus impulsive.

and i mean impulsive. make eraqus spoil for a fight with so much unmitigated howler monkey energy that he will fight his friends just to vent. (this isn't even a unique thing, riku and xion and even sora do it all the time, and we're not here to talk about ven's crimes against miners but it's clear that violence is a spoken language in kh.) eraqus is fluent, so we're making it so that all of eraqus's intensity and passion can be focused on a single point if xehanort pushes exactly the right switches in his head.

and then, y'know, yeah. make baldr slaughter all of his classmates, several of them right in front of him, because of unchecked darkness and baldr's own inability to see past his own grief and resentment for long enough to understand that all he's really doing is inflicting his own suffering on other people in a murderstorm of nihilism and bitterness. unrelenting trauma conga line, check.

and now we have almost all the elements. eraqus's principles can't allow him to accept darkness, both because his grandfather was lost to it and because it left him (by all accounts a bourgeois slacker at the bottom of his class, someone vidar doesn't even consider as a candidate for one of the lights despite what baldr has to say about eraqus as a light source) one of the only survivors of an event that completely resculpted his life and community. time to pack him off to the jedi temple land of departure to be least okayest teacher of the year, right?

well...no. we need eraqus to wait.

because he doesn't take on students. and doesn't, and doesn't, for decades. first he fights xehanort, and as we have established he is spoiling for that fight (white moves first!). and then when xehanort finally visits him to drop off that half-dead kid he found (ven was like that already shhh), he's kind of like politely like "oh, you have apprentices. they seem...bright," like he's congratulating eraqus on finally reaching a life stage that eraqus should have hit approximately 50 years ago, and eraqus is like "yeah yeah whatever shut up anyway YOU'VE got one too now right." (yen sid talks about the role of "seeker" like it's a different thing from "keyblade master" so that's where i'm extrapolating this distinction from, but regardless i don't think anyone ever seriously expected xehanort to take on students.)

my point here is that eraqus waited until the last possible opportunity to take on students. to carry on the legacy that was so important to him as a child, and to re-experience the closest thing to the camaraderie he had as a keybearer-in-training that he could ever have back. that is how impactful baldr's actions were for eraqus.

i'm veering completely into speculation now but i think eraqus was terrified. how could he not be? his class wasn't even taking the mark of mastery and still got decimated by it. how could he risk going through that again, but from odin's perspective this time? what guarantee would he ever have to avoid the same tragedy his master had failed to prevent?

so, NOW we know why eraqus's mark of mastery was a handful of light pinatas and a duel. (i like to think xehanort felt a certain level of professional embarrassment for him and wanted to make it just a little more like a real challenge.)

(this is a sidebar and i'm going to talk about my other blorbo for a second but terra has a beautiful dream of being a sly manipulator. that's why he doesn't worry about investing himself in villain schemes, because he assumes he'll see the snare coming before he gets his head caught in it, but it's never coming from directly in front of him like he expects. so this is a dream that will never come true, but he has it, and i think given what we knew about eraqus as early as blank points, its only possible source is a master who was strict and exacting, but--very occasionally--also a sly fox who secretly delighted in his students' nascent abilities to surprise and outwit him.)

back to the trauma, we also have, obviously, the explanation for eraqus's attitude towards terra, and later ven. terra is a tragedy in slow motion that eraqus has seen happen before. baldr was unable to control his darkness; it overwhelmed him, and eraqus does not have the context that xehanort does, that baldr was in some ways a product of his own darkness-shunning society. even if eraqus does have that context, i can't really see him agreeing with it--and even if he at one point agreed with it, he would have gotten that context from the same guy who last showed up at his house talking about kicking off the apocalypse for the vine.

so like. eraqus has never seen any damn thing in his whole life that doesn't confirm his bias against the darkness. does that make him innocent of parenting Incorrectly? no, he is a Bad Dad. does it explain his hopelessly unsuccessful parenting strategies? yes, it does.

what it reinforces is also that eraqus didn't want to have to fight terra and ven. the original bbs is honestly not very good about establishing this: he cries one Sad Tear. yawn. still child abuse, asshole! the stakes in bbs are also not very well established, because there's approximately six people in it and some of them are just the same guy over again, so we don't really have a sense that terra being taken over by the darkness is like...gonna mean something to eraqus that is sincerely worth the personal cost of killing him. since we're clearly no longer worried about ven, there aren't other students to protect (besides aqua, but she's a really hard sell on the "needs to be protected from terra with so much urgency he must not live another moment" front). there is no immediacy to ven's status as Apocalypse Child; if anything vanitas seems like the obviously more important threat, and maybe eraqus should be less concerned about weeding out students and more focused on vetting friends like Old Man So Clearly The Villain My Guy. bbs eraqus is just genuinely hard to like as a character.

but now we have dark road context.

and white moves first.

eraqus is not seeing terra or ven in that moment, he's seeing baldr. he's seeing the summoning of kingdom hearts that almost was, and he is gripped by meticulously prearranged, bone-deep, irrational, traumatized, unbridled impulse. the emotion must vent. the thing he was powerless to stop has returned to haunt him and he must resist it. he knows what will happen if terra strikes him down here and heads back out into the worlds in search of other hearts, other lights. he knows.

but terra resists, using the full spectrum of his strength without remorse, and it is only when eraqus's keyblade is ready to fall from his hand that he realizes the truth:

My own heart is darkness.

and when this happened in the original birth by sleep all i could think was yeah star wars dad!! nailed it your heart IS darkness you fuckin dillweed, about time!! what took you so long!!

but after dark road, this context is completely changed. eraqus is not just realizing that he fucked up.

he is realizing that he fucked up the exact same way baldr fucked up.

that he let his own grief and suffering cloud his judgment and guide his blade to strike out at his loved ones. that instead of finding a way to live with what's already happened to ven, what was long ago fated for terra, he turned his resentment outward and gave that darkness leave to consume them both whole.

but unlike baldr, eraqus regrets it.

it is that moment that xehanort cuts him down anyway, not because eraqus can't be saved the way baldr couldn't but because xehanort is cleaving away the last of his own attachments to the world so he can follow through with the rest of his plans, and i am SO NORMAL ABOUT THI

but okay anyway. eraqus has exactly one move left.

he can't see the board. unlike xehanort, he has no extra pieces of himself he can just bandy about; the warriors of light must assemble without any of his direct input, chasing the echoes of eraqus's students and pushing and pulling in reaction to xehanort's steady advance through the center. he has only one chance. he can't afford to waste it.

the kings are meeting in the middle of the board. the stalemate will come any moment, when they're both out of moves and out of time, leaving the fate of the worlds undecided.

and it is at this moment that eraqus pulls the same penultimate move that xehanort himself used on baldr, confronting him with the first victim his darkness ever struck down. eraqus almost doesn't have to say anything, at all, because xehanort has to know what it means. has to know what it says.

xehanort resists. the world is too far gone. too many horrible things can happen in it; it must be reset. not purged and filled with darkness, like baldr wanted, but returned to a state that can never mutate into the conditions that made baldr exist in the first place. that doomed all their classmates to die. it's too late.

For us, perhaps...but not for them.

and now we go back to the distinction.

the thing that makes xehanort's chess game different from eraqus's is that, for xehanort, it's only chess. the pieces he's moving have ceased to exist in his mind as individuals. they are pawns on a line of white and black squares, and they may weave away from his will here or there but they cannot be swayed from their march.

eraqus never forgets.

and it's actually eraqus's capacity for forgiveness that i haven't even touched on yet. this isn't a word i ever expected to associate with him, but eraqus spends dark road forgiving. five minutes after any altercation he's already forgotten about it. name-calling. arguments. rejection. opposition. full-on fighting.

murders.

when xehanort kills baldr, eraqus is still calling out for him to stop. when xehanort later strikes out at him with darkness (the thing eraqus is scared of the most!!), permanently disfiguring him, eraqus has already forgiven him before seeing him the next time in person.

he does not forget that baldr is a person in spite of his darkness, and eraqus doesn't want him to be killed for it. that terra is a person in spite of his darkness, and eraqus doesn't want to see it consume him. that ven is a person in spite of the darkness that was cleaved from him, and eraqus doesn't want to see it return.

(if you think about it the real tragedy is that we were robbed of him looking aqua in the eye and telling her that she isn't tainted forever, that it did not take her, and even if it had, that will always, always matter less than her finding her way back. i refuse to believe terra was not already made aware of these facts.)

but he also does not forget that xehanort is not a faceless player in the skies, impossible to convince of the significance of a pawn; he remembers that xehanort, too, is still a person.

this point is important because eraqus's last move is not a checkmate (I KNOW HE SAYS CHECKMATE but it is not checkmate), but it is calculated to produce something else: a concession. he doesn't need the board to support his win or xehanort's loss; he needs the player on the other side to put down the pieces and follow his beacon out of the dark.

and that is how nomura shows us our sunshine kid at last, fully formed, as he takes xehanort's burdens from him and spirits them both well beyond the reach of the board.

anyway yeah microwaving him in my brain along with axel (and also roxas and terra because if i don't collect all my blorbos AND their hot mess dads i'll never fill out my pokedex).