#this might also be a reflection of how I was introduced to the term by a white middle class programmer boy

[breadclipp]

Thinking about how the term “not safe for work” makes certain assumptions about the kind of jobs people who use the internet might be doing and how that could reflect certain assumptions about class, race, gender etc

[smokesandsonatas]

among the twst cast, who do you think will be the best in-laws? just asking out of curiosity, cuz i personally think that trappola fam will be chill, also i imagine them doting on their grandbabies, or like crying at your wedding day xd

- I go crazy when I receive asks like this, djsjhs. I included everyone and how I think their actions will be justified as to whether their families will be good or 'bad' in-laws.

Reader is termed as "wife" and as a normal human. -

Right off the bat, let’s start with Riddle. You and Riddle’s mother will never get along. She and her son have much to discuss anyway, and we know how Riddle even mentioned that the Queen of Hearts has a lovely relationship his parents could learn from. If Mrs. Rosehearts is strict with her own child, imagine how much more she’d be with you! She probably has a list of acceptable spouses for Riddle, so just imagine her shock when he brings you home—shock that quickly turns to rage when she realizes you’re magicless. She will be a horrible mother-in-law. Mr. Rosehearts, however, will most likely be courteous about your relationship with his son. In fact, I can see him helping you and Riddle move somewhere away from their house in the Queendom of Roses. He’ll probably attend your wedding, but Mrs. Rosehearts? Probably not. It will take a long time before Mrs. Rosehearts can accept you wholeheartedly, and when she does, tears will be shed.

The Diamond family is harder to gauge. Mr. and Mrs. Diamond would likely respect your relationship enough to make sure you’re comfortable. Cater’s sisters, on the other hand, might urge you to become their new doll—though not as extreme as they did with him. Overall, they will accept you as part of their family. And if Cater doesn’t want to attend family reunions, they’ll accept that, though they can’t help but feel a little hurt and neglected. Maybe they’ll even start to reflect on how they’ve treated their son.

The Clover family are lovely people! When Trey introduces you to his parents, they’ll erupt into cheers, baking you pastries and a personalized cake tailored to your tastes. They won’t care if you’re magicless; as long as you make their son happy, that’s all that matters. Mr. and Mrs. Clover will even offer you and Trey the chance to manage their bakery. It’ll be up to you both whether to accept. Overall, they’ll be great in-laws, and they might even make wonderful grandparents.

Deuce’s mom, Dylla, is such a girlboss! As a mother-in-law, she’ll be the cool type, letting you hang out with her at car races, driving trucks, or doing anything outdoorsy. She might even suggest that you, she, and Deuce get matching small tattoos. She’s very chill and will always welcome you with open arms. You’ll have no trouble getting along with Deuce’s mom—sometimes, Deuce even wonders if his mom loves you more than him.

Ace’s family will welcome you with open arms—and with a bunch of pranks! Mr. Trappola is a normal human, so he won’t hold your magicless status against you. Ace’s older brother, however, will endlessly tease him with some good old brotherly banter. Mr. and Mrs. Trappola will probably shed tears on your wedding day, making it a fun, sentimental, and most of all, enjoyable occasion.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The Kingscholars are royalty, so let’s be realistic: they’ll most likely not approve of Leona, their youngest son and second prince, marrying a normal human, especially a magicless one. They probably have plans to arrange a marriage with a fellow beastman from another noble or elite family, and your relationship could cause a scandal. But if Leona insists, then a wedding will happen. It will take a lot of convincing for the Kingscholars to accept you, especially since Mr. Kingscholar is ill. Falena will most likely be the first to accept you, either out of love for his brother or perhaps because he sees you as a key to fixing his strained relationship with Leona. Cheka, on the other hand, will love you! In fact, he might prefer your company over his lioness mother’s, though he won’t admit it.

Grandma Bucchi will shed tears of joy when Ruggie brings you home and introduces you as his lover. She’ll feel relieved that Ruggie has found someone who’ll take care of him—a lifelong companion, since she’s not as strong as she used to be. Prepare for a deep heart-to-heart with Grandma Bucchi, who will also show you pictures of baby Ruggie! She may even drop hints that she wants a grandchild from the two of you. Yes, she takes care of the other beast children in the neighborhood, but it wouldn’t hurt to give her a mini Ruggie.

The Howl family will accept you wholeheartedly. They believe that wolf beastmen like them have only one soulmate, and if Jack has found that in you, who are they to oppose? They’re not overly bearing, but they might occasionally ask whether you and Jack plan to have little Howl children. Jack’s siblings will adore you!

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The Ashengrotto family will welcome you! Azul is their baby, so whoever Azul loves, it’s guaranteed that they’ll accept you too. It probably won’t matter if you’re a human or magicless. Azul has a way with words and will have nothing but praises for you in front of his family. Mrs. Ashengrotto might sulk a little if Azul chooses to live on land and start a family with you there rather than in the sea, but the compromise is that you’ll build a house near the seaside. Mr. Ashengrotto will likely insist on having both a sea and land wedding, though Azul probably planned on that anyway. They won’t be toxic as in-laws and will likely dote on you, but they’ll definitely want to take care of any little Ashengrotto babies you have. Sometimes, you might wonder if they’re a bit too attached to their grandchildren…

The Leech family will also welcome you. If you decide to marry one of the Leech sons—or both of them (polygamy isn’t unheard of in the sea; hey, different customs)—they’ll make sure you feel at ease. Mr. Leech, who reminds you so much of Floyd, might ask if you know self-defense. When you say no, he’ll laugh and assure you that his sons will protect you anyway. He finds it amusing that Floyd calls you Shrimpy, though there’s a certain air of intimidation when he speaks... Mrs. Leech, who reminds you of Jade, is beautiful and speaks just like her other son. She’ll ask you questions like, “My dear, how can you protect yourself when you are magicless?” with a smile on her face. At one party dedicated to your arrival into the Leech family, you saw firsthand how Mr. Leech made everyone sign...something. When you asked the twins about it, they dismissed your concerns and assured you not to worry. They’ll be cool in-laws, but they won’t disclose any personal business with you—only with their sons. No matter how much you ask about their family business, because you want to help, you’ll get nowhere (it's for your safety, they say). The Leech family will dote on you, but there’s always an underlying sense that you’ve been inducted into something much larger and deeper than just a family of merfolk eels. Sometimes they have unexpected visits to your house in land, and you had a feeling that Mrs. Leech might dote on you only so she can spend time with her Leech grandbabies...

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The Al-Asims are so supportive of Kalim! There’s a certain sense of relief that you’re not associated with anything in their world, because they might worry that whoever is with Kalim, one of the richest men on earth, would take advantage of his kindness. But you don’t. Mr. Al-Asim will provide anything you ask for and will probably give you and Kalim a bunch of mansions, cars, and luxuries everywhere. Though they likely have a list of potential spouses for Kalim, the Al-Asims are glad he chose you. However, they’d be delighted if Kalim produces an heir one day. If Kalim chooses to be monogamous, they’ll accept it.

The Viper family will be glad to welcome you. Although they belong to the servant class under the Al-Asims, they won’t force you to serve them too. You think Jamil might have something to do with this… Anyway, they really like you, and they see how genuinely you admire their son—a mere servant in their eyes, but so much more to you.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Mr. Schoenheit will adore you! Because Vil is his precious, beautiful child, that love will extend to you too. He’s a different man as Eric Venue on set and as Vil’s dad in personal life. He’s quite strict, or so you’ve heard from the actual staff on a movie he’s co-producing, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The Schoenheits are hardworking, perfectionist people—not in a bad way, of course. When news breaks that you and Vil are expecting a child, either Eric Venue or Vil will put out a statement asking for your privacy to be respected. Overall, Eric will be a good in-law and a great grandfather. Imagine how cool it is to have a famous celebrity as an in-law and imagine being surrounded by a literal DILF and the most beautiful man in Twisted Wonderland. Damn. It’s a guarantee your child will be as beautiful as their father. Sometimes, though, Vil gets a little pouty when you stare at his father for a little too long…

You know the feeling of a family getting together for the first time in years despite their busy schedules to enjoy days full of celebration? That’s how Rook introduced you to his family. It is lively! The Hunt family likes you! The first thing they ask you and Rook is how the family planning is going. They’re quite a big family with six children, so they expect the same for you and Rook. Mr. and Mrs. Hunt are adoring in-laws, but when you ask about their family business, they’ll merrily dodge the questions, much like Rook does, telling you not to worry. When Rook leaves for long periods of time due to work, he’ll vehemently update you every hour. In the meantime, you and Mrs. Hunt, along with Rook’s sisters-in-law—the wives of his brothers—will go on pampering girls’ days! They’ll make sure you never feel lonely or left out, even when Rook’s away.

The Felmier family threw a celebration in your name when Epel introduced you. Grandma Marja cried, seeing how much her grandson has grown. Mr. and Mrs. Felmier hugged you tightly and thanked you for being with their lovely son, and you swore you felt a tear trickle down your cheek too. They will be loving in-laws, with a tight-knit family that supports each other. Once news breaks that you and Epel are expecting a child, another celebration will be held to welcome the new apple of their eye. They’ll likely insist on a traditional apple-themed baby shower, and they’ll spoil you and Epel with home-cooked meals, ensuring you’re both well cared for.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The Shrouds, especially Mrs. Shroud, will be ecstatic once Idia introduces you to them. Mr. Shroud, while less outwardly emotional, will be overjoyed in his own way. Over time, you’ll notice just how much he and Idia resemble each other. It won’t matter if you’re not as tech-savvy as they are; Idia already has S.T.Y.X.’s management covered. Mr. and Mrs. Shroud will show their affection in small but meaningful ways, or surprising you with thoughtful gifts—your own helmet. If any negative comments about you and Idia pop up online, they’ll be blocked faster than you can blink. Kidding—mostly. They’ll likely expect a little Shroud or two in the next few years, and they’ll gently remind you of this as they’re getting older and eager for grandchildren. Despite their eccentricities, they’ll make you feel like a cherished member of their family, though you’ll need to adjust to their unique ways of showing love and the way of their work, ergo taking care of S.T.Y.X and their various shady businesses.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The Draconias, especially Grandmother Maleficia, will formally welcome you into the family. However, the atmosphere might feel a bit too formal for your liking. A relationship with Malleus is one thing, but marriage is a whole different story. The Senate will likely oppose the union, with Grandmother Maleficia caught between keeping her beloved grandson happy and appeasing the increasingly vocal pressures from the Senate and close-minded fae who cannot accept a human—especially a magicless human—as their future queen. The weight of these expectations will hang over your relationship, adding tension to an otherwise loving bond. The prospect of Malleus Draconia marrying a human would be met with significant resistance within the Briar Valley. The fae population, steeped in centuries of tradition and wary of outsiders, would likely view such a union as a potential threat to their way of life. Some might even call for extreme measures, such as political unrest or, in the worst-case scenario, a war to prevent the marriage from taking place. However, Malleus will stand by you, determined to weather the storm together. Over time, and with Malleus’s formidable power and influence, even the most skeptical fae could be convinced that this union could bring about a new era of understanding and unity between their worlds. As for Grandmother Maleficia, though she may seem distant at first, she’ll eventually warm up to you, especially when she sees how happy you make Malleus. And should the two of you have children (the Draconias badly needed predecessors), she’ll be the first to dote on her great-grandchildren as long as she is alive, ensuring they’re raised with both love and the proud traditions of the Draconia family.

The Zigvolt family is not new to interspecies relationships, with Mama Zigvolt being a fae and Papa Zigvolt a normal human dentist. She will support you! Her fiery nature as a fae will come in handy, while Papa Zigvolt's kindness will help balance out her energy. Overall, they will be happy for you and Sebek. Grandfather Baur, on the other hand, might accept you more easily than you thought—he is not a close-minded fae anymore. He is at a point of contentment, so whoever Sebek or any of his grandchildren chooses, he will be eager to accept them. Also, he might—or might not—visit you every afternoon (he's just concerned, not excited... he says as he hands you a crocheted baby comforter) once he hears you're expecting a mini Sebek Zigvolt.

Silver’s relationship with his father, Lilia, is central to his life, so naturally, Lilia’s opinion of you will weigh heavily on him. Fortunately, Lilia err Mr. Vanrouge is likely to be one of the most supportive and understanding in-laws you could ask for. His playful and easygoing nature means he’ll probably tease you a bit, but it’s all in good fun. Lilia will genuinely be happy for Silver, and he’ll go out of his way to make you feel welcome in their home. Expect to be roped into all sorts of whimsical activities—like trying out new (and sometimes questionable) recipes, or being part of his elaborate pranks. Lilia will also be very protective of both you and Silver, always looking out for your well-being. And if you have another baby addition to the Vanrouge family, Lillia will be the happiest Fae alive.

Lilia Vanrouge is an ancient and enigmatic Fae, while appearing child-like he possesses a kind heart and incredible wisdom. While traditional in-law doesn't apply to him (seeing as he is the in-law himself), he does need someone who can stand beside him as a parental figure, particularly for Silver and by extent Malleus. Lilia’s “family” may be unconventional, but his close bonds with Silver, Sebek, and Malleus make them feel like one. He’ll cherish every moment with you, appreciating the little things that come with mortal life, and your companionship will be a light in his long existence. Your role isn’t just as a partner to Lilia, but as someone who can guide and protect Silver alongside him, offering the same wisdom, kindness, and love that Lilia has given. If you and Lilia have children, they will grow up surrounded by love, knowledge, and a deep sense of wonder, with Lilia ensuring they never lose their sense of playfulness and joy. Should it end like that then Lilia can say that he has lived it all, and he can go on to the stars wholeheartedly. He lived his life surrounded with the people he loves, finding contentment at the end of his days.

[ladykailitha]

If I were to do a A/B/O story with Steddie this is how I would do it (I've never done omega-verse for any of my fandoms, but damn there is something about Steddie that just screams it, you know?)

Steve was sold to a place that uses infertile omegas as sex toys. Rut servicing, gang bangs, orgies, or even just pretty arm candy for special events. The point is that the Harringtons sold him when they found out he couldn't be sold to the wealthiest, most influential alphas as a broodmare.

They are pretty much indentured and have to pay off the debt of how much the company paid for them. Steve pays off his debt and stays. Most omegas leave, but he loves what he does. He really loves rut servicing. It's his favorite because he has all the control during the three to four days the alpha is sex crazed. He also loves that he can take care of them without them thinking he's in for the bond bite.

Steve's at some gala or event or whatever on the arm of an older alpha, probably a senator or someone important like that when he meets Eddie Munson, frontman for Corroded Coffin.

They're introduced and they hit off, until Steve mentions offhand that he's infertile. Because that angers Eddie for some reason.

Eddie sets up Steve to be his rut servicer and demands that Steve be placed on some kind of birth control. It's a strange request, but it's granted.

When Steve arrives, Eddie tells him under no uncertain terms that either of them are going to be barebacking. Condoms are required.

This pisses Steve off. He's infertile and these demands are just ridiculous. He can't get pregnant.

Eddie scoffs. If he was infertile it would reflect in his scent. It would be sickly sweet, like overripe fruit. Cloying almost. But Steve doesn't smell like that. He smells darker, woodier, more like spices then fruity.

Steve frowns, he hadn't heard that about omegas, but it made sense, his other co-workers did have that sweet smell, but never really thought about it being different than his own.

But before they could talk it out, Eddie goes into his rut hard. Harder then it's ever been and Steve is pretty much scrambling to keep up with the sex.

At the end of the five days, Steve is worn out and ready to pass out for the next week, but he needs to know what Eddie was talking about.

Eddie tells him that he's not infertile, he's an ultra-fertile omega. So rare that they present in only 1% of the human population as a whole. Red-heads are more common they are.

Basically they are only fertile during their heats, but instead of having only a 1 in 5 chance of getting pregnant like omegas do in heat (1 in 8 out of heat), they can get pregnant 4 in 5 chance of getting pregnant. In fact, they are so revered that they can have their pick of the best alphas in their country. Some of them even go so far as casting their net over the whole fucking world.

Steve isn't sure he believes him, but his parents never tested for it because it was too rare. So it's possible that he could be, it's not like he can test it now. The test needs to be done at the time he presented. The only way to know for sure is if he shared a heat with an alpha (he's not allowed to as service omega to spend it with anything but toys) and he doesn't know of any alpha willing to take the chance that he might be some golden omega.

Only Eddie is totally willing. Willing to even bond Steve, with or without the ultra-fertility.

Steve is shocked. He's even more shocked when he goes into heat just from being so close to Eddie. Because he's on blockers, that's not supposed to happen.

While Steve is still cognizant he consents to Eddie helping him through the heat, suddenly grateful for the condom and birth control stipulation is suddenly very welcome.

It's only a light one that lasts a couple of days, but it's the best he's ever had. The first he's ever shared with an alpha. And he loved it.

He found out that in order to share Steve's heat, Eddie had to pay a lot of money for the privilege so he just bought Steve's contract as a whole. The one he made because he brought in so much money to the company.

They talk about bonding and sharing Steve real heat. The reason Eddie was so insistent on the contraception measures is that his scent had been known to break blockers in the past.

Which makes sense, some alphas just have that strong a scent. It's not a thing like an ultra-omega, but just something that could happen. The company tended to screen those types of alphas and made sure that the omega would be safely whisked away. It just never happened to Steve before.

Eddie courts Steve properly and they bond. And sure enough Eddie was right Steve gets pregnant, and suddenly Steve's parents are banging on the door demanding they be compensated for the fact that he's an ultra-omega and could have been sold for lots, lots more money then the company gave them.

But Steve tells them to fuck off and slams the door in their faces. And Steve and Eddie live happily ever after with their growing family.

First chapter of the full story here.

[oracle-of-dream]

Submissive and huh?

Minors DNI

Summary: Your friend Taerae recently learned a new term and wants your thoughts. Explaining it might help him understand properly, but do you have the strength to tell him.

Warnings: Male Reader, Idol Taerae, Student Reader, Lewd faces/Ahegao, Mention of arousal and breeding

Wordcount: 1.2k

Math classes had been kicking your ass all semester and tutoring from the professor wasn't working out. You'd ended up being assigned a study partner. The program was meant for students struggling with the class to help each other. That's how you met Taerae. 

He didn't originally introduce himself as an idol, especially since it was an online class. No one had seen his face. But when you met up with him for the first time to study together, you instantly recognized him from TV. You hit it off over a shared hate for math and spent more time together outside class.

He'd complain about his idol life issues and you'd give him any notes from class he'd missed.

You'd just gotten home from a late-night study session at the library. As if it knew, your phone lit up with a text as you sat on your bed.

TR: Yo! Y/N, I met some fans while out with the members today!

YN: Cool. Don't you meet fans wherever you go?

TR: Well these stuck out!

YN: How?

TR: Well, I noticed them, a bunch of guys, giggling in the convenience store and pointing at me and Hao while we were shopping. I didn't want to embarrass them so I just played it cool and ignored them. But then they came up to me!

YN: Okay, some brave fans? That's it?

TR: Just wait a sec! 

TR: They came to me and told me they were fans. But more specifically, MY fans! Of course, I was happy to hear, but they were foreigners because they used a term I didn’t know.

YN: What term?

TR: Submissive and Breedable?

TR: I know what submissive means, they mean I'm not an aggressive person. That's not entirely true, but I'm submissive at times.

You looked at your phone, blinking a few times. Some "fans" dared to say that!?

TR: I can't find anything when I look it up, it's probably slang, right?

Maybe telling him that his fans want to breed him wasn't the best thing to tell your friend. He was just too wholesome for that.

YN: Yeah, it is, but it's not something cool. No one says it really, it's not the trend anymore.

TR: Really? I know trends, I'm not old, but I haven’t heard of that.

YN: See? There's no reason to worry, just fans being weird.

TR: Well, the photo they wanted was also...off.

YN: Off how?

TR: They wanted me to stick my tongue out and look up at the camera, which was super high above me. To be honest–it felt a little embarrassing to pose like that.

You shook your head trying not to imagine his cute self making lewd faces for a group of boys, but it was hard. And so were you.

YN: You should be more careful, they could use photos like that weirdly.

TR: What do you mean?

YN: Let's drop it. Subject change, what are you doing now?

TR: I'm getting ready for bed, I just got under the covers.

You looked at the clock, midnight was on its face.

YN: Oh shit, I didn't even realize. You should sleep!

TR: No, no, I'm pretty awake. Plus, it's nice talking to you. Did you want to video call while you get ready for bed?

You’d done it before, talking on video call into the night, but it was always a little like Taerae just wanted to see you.

YN: Sure, I'll call you.

You pressed the video call button on your phone. It showed your reflection as you waited, automatically you straightened your hair a little and kicked some stuff on the floor out of frame.

Taerae answered the phone with a smile, the camera close to his face.

You laughed as you set your phone on your desk, "Well hello to you too, why so close?"

"No reason, I just want to see you closely."

"Well, I can see you so closely I can count your pores," You scoffed as you went into your closet to find pajamas for the night.

"Is it weird I'm holding it so close?"

"A little, but it's no big deal. If you don't wanna show yourself then why'd you wanna video call?"

Taerae didn't answer.

"Are you still thinking about what those guys said?"

He shuffled in bed, "Mmhm."

"I promise it's nothing bad."

"Then why don't you just tell me?"

You sighed, "Okay, fine, I'll spill."

Taerae's eyes peered curiously at the camera as he waited for you to come out of your closet. You settled on wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and shorts. You returned to find Taerae's eyes filled with impatience.

You swallowed awkwardly, "You already know what the submissive part means, but the other part..."

"Breedable," Taerae reminded you.

"Yeah–It means," You struggled to find a good way to break it to him with that look in his eyes. So full of trust and purity. "It means, they wanna do it with you."

Taerae's expression dropped into surprise, "Oh, that's it? I read about that kind of stuff of fans wanting me to have sex with them. That's not so bad."

"Well, breedable means, specifically where you'd be the one getting fucked. Likely by a man. Who wants to... finish in you."

You couldn't bring yourself to look at the screen to see his expression. He'd fallen silent, thinking of a response. It felt like ten minutes passed until he broke the silence.

Taerae's voice was deep and serious, "Y/n."

"Yeah?"

"Look at the screen." You looked at the screen to see Taerae in bed, holding the camera above him to show off his shirtless torso that was mostly covered by the bed sheet except for his collarbone and neck. "Am I breedable right now?"

You felt warm in your face as you answered, "Yeah, I-I guess."

"Submissive, too?"

"Sure," You said as you looked down at your hands.

"Yes or no! Sure isn't good enough, and look at me!"

You complied, looking at him. He smiled before making a face; his eyes looking up at the camera as he stuck out his tongue and held up a peace sign with his other hand.

"Jesus, Taerae!" You looked away quickly. Your heart was in your ears, pounding as the image of sweet Taerae's lewd face was plastered behind your eyelids.

He laughed loudly. "I am, aren't I? Submissive and breedable. I take it as a compliment, they like me that much! To be honest, you look all shy... You look a little submissive too."

You moved your phone so he couldn't see you anymore.

"I was kidding! Don't hide from me!" Taerae's muffled voice shouted from the speaker of your phone. 

After you calmed down, you turned your phone back over to see him still there. Still shirtless, and holding his phone at the same seductive angle.

"You're so weird!" You yelled at Taerae, who just giggled.

"And you still like me anyway. Even with all my breedable energy."

"I'm going to hang up–"

"What!? We gotta see you do the pose too, what if you're more breedable than me, we should test how–"

You cut him off as you pressed the red dial button. You turned your phone off before he could call you again. You lay in bed, alone in the dark, thinking about Taerae's face.

And in the privacy of your home, you test if you can also feel submissive and breedable, making Taerae's new iconic look. A secret he'll never know about... As if you didn't already have a big secret.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Yo! Good morning/evening, hope you are fine^^💝. I wanted to ask you a question but I was afraid that it may bother you or something (you know..that feeling when you are scared that you might disturb someone or being an unwelcome person) but yeah I will ask you since i was serious about your answer for some time now so I hope I'm not annoying you or something *feel free to answer only if you wish^^. You seem to know the characters pretty well, you are quite capable and great at reading and understanding them, one of the things I'm serious about is what do you think would make someone qualified enough to be with malleus? Do they have to be of the same species?certain Reputation, stature or traits?(sorry can't help it since I can't rest until I know everything about what interests me and figure it all out😅). Thanks for giving me some of your precious time I really like your blog, you're amazing💜

No worries, you’re not bothering me at all ^^ I love to talk about my hyperfixations www

Now, I know a lot of fans (particularly on the EN side) like to ship Malleus with their OC and especially with Yuu so I want to first make it clear that my response is NOT meant to invalidate those Malleus shippers. Whatever I say here is based on my own interpretation of canon lore (and let’s be real here, TWST won’t ever confirm if anyone is romantically interested in Yuu because it might not work with how some players view their own relationship with that character). In fanon, anyone can be with anyone, but in canon there are very specific in-universe rules and expectations laid out for Malleus so these are what I will be referring to.

I also want to emphasize that the final traits I discuss in this post do NOT reflect Malleus’s personal tastes or views. He has little say in what kind of an individual his spouse would be, so his own preferences are not speculated about or taken into account here. The traits I will be bringing up are based on what I believe the lore implies are the desirable traits for those marrying into the Draconia royal family.

We got it? Good 👍 Read more below the cut!!

Firstly, I’m completely disregarding the ideas of “Malleus can love whoever he wants to love”, “Malleus can scare people into accepting who he loves”, and/or “Malleus can change the law so he can marry who he loves” (a la Sultan from Aladdin or through some other Disney magic or logic). Here’s why:

In general, those solutions for “high stakes issues” are too simple, and that has never been how Twisted Wonderland tackles complicated problems. Just look at every single OB boy’s backstory. They’re so complex that they aren’t totally resolved by the end of their books; these problems persist and are long term things each of them are working on addressing. This is also true of the politics TWST introduces to us; Leona for example explains how there is social pushback and resistance to the idea of infrastructure reform because the culture of the Sunset Savanna stresses harmony with nature. This has made it difficult for them to adopt new technologies because real politicians in their world have to seriously weigh their cultural values with their health and societal progress. The only time there are really easy solutions are in events or vignettes where the emotional stakes are not super high, but who Malleus marries is, in fact, super important since this will entirely change the life of a main character and his country.

With that first bullet point in mind… No, Malleus cannot love whoever he wants to love. Certainly, he may feel affection for another but he can never truly be with them. He is royalty and the only heir to the throne of Briar Valley. It follows that he is expected to marry for political reasons/to better his nation. This is a non-negotiable obligation for him.

Rather than saying, “Malleus cannot scare people into accepting who he loves”, I think it’s more accurate to say Malleus knows he probably shouldn’t. I mean, yes, he may be upset about his S/O not being accepted by his people but I feel that is discrediting a lot of the loyalty he has for his own country. As a kid he may have thrown tantrums when he was upset and potentially harmed staff, but as a 178 year old he has a much better understanding of decorum and maintaining it in spite of his own grudges. For example, even though he personally dislikes Leona he still commands Sebek to apologize to him because, at the end of the day, this could harm Briar Valley’s relationship with the Sunset Savanna. That’s not to say that Malleus can’t be petty (he definitely is)—but implying he would be petty toward basically his entire country just because they would disapprove of the one he loves?? (We know this would likely be true because Sebek’s parents faced similar backlash when they got together.) I feel like his own sense of awareness and responsibility for his country, crown, and people would override that. As an example, Malleus states that he has never been in a car before because the senate would be against it and often kept Malleus in the castle. Someone of his power could easily ignore them and sneak out and do whatever he wanted, yet the dialogue implies Malleus didn’t. He obeyed his political advisors even when he was younger and arguably much more immature. Malleus might not like certain decisions made about his life but it sounds like he ultimately complies with them.

Continuing from the previous point, let’s say for the sake of argument that Malleus does scare everyone into line. What about his public image and the mental health of his S/O? Maybe Malleus can frighten people to not talk out of turn to his face, but he cannot control what people whisper about him behind closed doors or to treat his S/O well or like they actually like them. Not only would they be alienated (away from their own home and forced to adapt to a new one) but they’d be treated oddly by others too. What kind of reputation is that for Malleus? To be a tyrant king who throws a hissy fit anytime someone talks about his partner in a way he doesn’t approve of? With a spouse who is not at their best mentally because of the constant ostracization? (This is similar to what Leona experienced in his childhood.) I don’t think Malleus would want to subject anyone to that kind of life, especially not one he loves. And again, this attitude would be the vast majority of his people. It’s not like it can be avoided or resolved in an easy manner, especially when the people of Briar Valley have proven to be against change.

Lastly, Malleus would not change the law so he can be with whoever he wants to. To begin with, I doubt this is a unilateral position the senate would approve of. But okay, let’s accept that Malleus is royalty so his power overrides the advisors’ power. So he effectively just changed a law for a very selfish and personal reason rather than changing something to actually benefit his people. That doesn’t feel in-character for him, not when Malleus seems to understand that it is the duty of those in higher status to help those below them rather than themselves (see: Riddle’s Suitor Suit vignettes. Malleus has acted selfish before, yes (who remembers Endless Halloween Night? His Dorm Uniform vignettes? I do.)—but never at the cost of changing the status quo of his country. (Book 7 is not included here because he’s in a very distressed emotional state then; this “new law” scenario posits that Malleus is in a normal state of mind.) This is a major change—change which Briar Valley, its people, and most importantly, Malleus, are not ready for. You think there wouldn’t be social pushback against this? From a society that has become complacent with its own way of life and is still isolated from the rest of the world? That Malleus, someone who struggles greatly with accepting life changes himself, could enact such a big change so easily? (On a more technical level, you don’t just pass a law and it instantly becomes tangible or real, there is a process of approval and then implementation.)

Additionally, it’s made clear in Ghost Marriage that “[Malleus] cannot enter into an engagement lightly”, which is why Sebek goes in his place. Eliza, the Ghost Bride, is royalty (er, albeit dead) but it seems that royal status is not enough to qualify as his partner. Maybe this is because she’s dead and doesn’t have anything of value for Briar Valley (no land, no people, no political power), but it could also mean that the partner has to be given the thumbs up by other parties.

All that being said, here are some of the conditions I think would have to be met for Malleus’s future spouse:

Has to be someone of equal or at least high status. This means they also have to be a royal or at least of nobility. This appears to be true of Malleus’s dad, who is referred to as a duke.

Because of how self-contained Briar Valley is + nocturnal fae having beef with diurnal fae, I imagine his partner would have to also be a nocturnal fae. This would also solve the MASSIVE lifespan difference between fae and non-fae because at least fae would be far closer to each other even if their lifespans fluctuate but subspecies.

Someone suited to rule by his side. Being married into any royal family is no joke—it comes with the expectation that you will contribute somehow, and the partner should be fully equipped to enter the world of politics with him.

Piggybacking off the last point, I think mental fortitude is also a prerequisite. This is because being a politician (navigating the social climate both within your country and outside of it, keeping your people and colleagues happy, maintaining public approval, managing laws, dealing with potential attempts on your life, etc.) can be very stressful and can hurt those who are faint of heart or not prepared for the responsibility. Leaders have to make tough calls at the drop of a hat, and they have to be ready for it.

Has a lot to offer in terms of benefits to Briar Valley as a country. This could be in terms of resources, connections, and/or political savvy. This appears to be true of Malleus’s dad, who acted as a diplomat for Briar Valley.

Vetting and formal approval from the senate. lmao good luck with that

Has to be able and willing to have a child. They at least need an heir to the throne to succeed Malleus. (However, knowing how exclusionary and conservative as heck the senators are, I doubt they would accept anything but a biological child 💀)

Preferably someone with powerful magic or is skilled at magic already so as to lessen the chance of “tainting” the bloodline with a weak mage or a non-mage.

I believe that Briar Valley would prefer someone with old fashioned values like them, not someone pushing for massive reform. They have a culture that is resistant to change and a history of fighting for resources with outsiders, so if Malleus’s new spouse tries to introduce a bunch of technology or open its borders to other countries (even if they have good intentions), the people + the senate may oppose them. His father is implied to be open-minded, but he at least understood that such change isn’t reasonable without time and effort dedicated to the endeavor.

All that being said 💦 I think that this topic is actually less about what Malleus as an individual wants and what his country, his people, and, yes, even his asshole senators, want. This is basically an arranged marriage situation so that their country can maintain power and relevance. It’s about the collective and what Malleus must do for their perceived security and prosperity.

[ddarker-dreams]

do you have any more yan golden girl thoughts you can share 🤲 i am devouring them every single time

ohhh boy ohhhhh man.... it really is something... here are some yan branch ideas (from their high school years).

(reader here is described as fem, satoru and suguru are gaslit gatekeep girlboss-ing their way into making you their girlfriend)

for starters, satoru and suguru handle the kaizu incident much worse. what little tact they have in the main storyline is gone lol. this has short-term success and long-term consequences. rather than giving you the time to recover and reflect, suguru sneakily introduces guilt. he stresses that you should've told them that you can't perform cursed technique: null without hurting yourself in the process. had they known, they would've found another way.

then there's satoru. he just starts coming along on your assignments. if you get annoyed and tell him to quit following you, he seemingly concedes. that is, until every time you arrive at your assignment's destination, you find him lounging around, having already exorcised the curse. while you're recovering from his audacity, he's making dinner plans, brochure in hand. he's pointing at a famous local restaurant instead of acknowledging your frustration.

"you took forever to get here," he'll lament with a yawn. "i was so bored. ready to ditch this place?"

they safeguard you from any danger at the cost of eroding your relationship.

you came here to learn, to grow in strength and potential. how can you do that under these circumstances? suguru interferes behind the scene so you’re given less assignments, satoru tags along uninvited for the few you manage to land. it’s frustrating and demotivating. trying to get them to see reason is akin to arguing with a brick will. satoru waves off your frustrations whereas suguru listens. in a way, this is almost worse. suguru gives the false impression that you might be changing his mind. he’ll nod along as you vent, his countenance solemn and his voice soft. he’ll validate your smaller plights while twisting your perspective on the most pressing issues. you come away from the interactions unsure of what to feel.

are you making a big deal of things? is satoru just expressing concern in his weird why? maybe they could be handling it better, but it isn’t like their intentions are malicious, you did almost die in front of them… etc etc. the seeds of self-doubt blossom until they’ve made your mind a garden.

then there’s the whole ‘you're our girlfriend now’ bit that deserves mention. satoru kicked it off and suguru went with it. you didn’t think much of it at first, especially since they both conveniently forgot to fill you in on this major development. after showering, you’ll leave the restroom to find satoru sitting on your bed in his slacks, acting like it’s the most normal thing. they stand on either side of you when you’re traveling by train. suguru’s hand finds yours when navigating busy crowds, his grip gentle while also communicating he won’t let you slip away.

you only find out that you've apparently been their girlfriend for months when satoru complains about the lack of a first kiss. when you understandably express your confusion, he coos over how you're 'acting shy.' suguru isn't much help. he opts for the gaslight route.

"you forgot the evening where we...?" he'll begin, visibly crestfallen. "but i thought... ah, never mind... no, it's nothing, really..."

(the 'evening' in question does not exist, he's trying to confuse you so you're more willing to accept this bombshell).

[geekgirles]

Oropo's OVA: Continuing a Trend

So yesterday I rewatched Oropo's OVA in order to make a screenshot compilation of Echo, and while the fact remains that in terms of plot relevance or even narrative choices the special is a hot mess that only provides information for things that, in the great scheme of things, are fairly minor or we already knew about (the markings on Echo's hands being burn scars, Grougal's blindness, how Chibi died, the fact that Oropo manipulated Nox from the Eliacube...), it should be noted that it at least doesn't change the characters' established characterisation.

With the clear exception being Chibi and Grougal, of course.

But when it comes to what would become the Brotherhood of the Forgotten, Oropo and Echo's characterisation is very consistent to what we already saw in season 3.

First and foremost, it's plain to see Oropo's Eliotrope team is his first attempt at replicating the Brotherhood of the Tofu. As every character introduced shares at least some traits, minor or even corrupted as they might be, with Yugo and his friends.

Yugo's traits are divided evenly between Oropo and Sidaire. While the former shares his physical appearance, darker aspects of his personality, and his position as leader of his team; the latter shares his child-like appearance and original position as youngest member of the group.

Echo's character is an amalgamation of Eva and Amalia's. Like Eva, she's one of the most mature and thoughtful members of the team, as well as acting as the Team Mum. Likewise, their personalities are also similar: both are motherly and poised, but can also be aloof and even aggressive under the right circumstances. However, much like Amalia and her relationship with Yugo, she's Oropo's lover and her powers are more supernatural in nature compared to Evangelyne's (I mean, just compare healing, shapeshifting, sand magic, and chlorokinesis and "voo-doo" dolls to above average archery skills and senses...).

Eva is also reflected in Desperia, who, despite her little screentime, seemed to be the most level-headed, rational, and collected member of the group.

Bouillon is a more impulsive and battle-hungry yet less redeemable version of Tristepin, as they both have a tendency to jump headfirst into battle without thinking of the consequences. But, as Oropo said, Bouillon doesn't know how to work in a team, meaning he doesn't share Pinpin's values, such as his sense of honour or care for his friends.

Atone seems to be Adamaï taken to the extreme, as he doesn't let himself be swayed by his emotions (mainly because he just can't feel anything), yet he chooses to follow the much more emotional Oropo out of his own volition.

And lastly, Ripulse seems to have Ruel's flaws (except his greed seems to have been replaced by powerlust), yet none of his redeeming qualities. As he is selfish, self-serving, cowardly, and treacherous.

Interestingly enough, while this serves to establish early on Oropo's desire to have Yugo's life, to be Yugo, it also highlights the same flaws he displayed during season 3. Namely, how he's an overally atrocious judge of character.

Once again, he's allowed a few rotten apples into his basket. As it just wouldn't be wise to have characters like Bouillon and Ripulse near. I'd like to think those two examples are self-explanatory.

On the one hand, Bouillon might be a formidable fighter, but his single-minded focus on battling and inability to "share" with his allies means he just can't be trusted to work well in a group. If you think about it, this ultimately led to his downfall, as he might have stood a much better chance against Grougal if instead of fighting him alone he had allowed his "siblings" to join him, thus, possibly overpowering our favourite black dragon.

And, on the other hand, Ripulse didn't even attempt to hide his treacherous and cowardly nature. But, much like when Adamaï questioned choosing someone as sadistic and deranged as Toxine as the next Sram goddess, Oropo still ignored Sidaire's more than justified distrust of Ripulse, which, if not for Echo, would have cost him dearly.

Sidaire: "You're the most cowardly, Ripulse. When will you get your hands dirty? Ripulse: "As late as possible."

In fact, if you remember, Oropo was genuinely surprised when Chibi turned out to be alive, as his sources had assured him he was long dead. Only for Sidaire to accurately deduce said sources were probably Ripulse, and while he claimed he had always been incompetent, his assassination attempt at the end of the OVA implies he always gives wrong information in hopes of getting Oropo killed or weakened enough to deliver the finishing blow himself.

To make a long story short, one of Oropo's flaws is that he surrounds himself with people that just can't be trusted, thus, endagering his life, that of his truly loyal supporters, and the very goal he strives to achieve.

The other characterisation they managed to nail was Echo's, even though the OVA didn't focus on her nearly as much. To be more specific, it focused on her loyalty to Oropo and how, despite everything, it actually works to the detriment of both of them.

If you think about it, while Echo is indeed staunchly loyal to Oropo and his cause, she's the kind of supporter who just follows her leader blindly, even when rebelling against his wishes once in a while might actually be more beneficial to their goals in the long run.

Once again, the best example of this is Oropo's trust in both Ripulse and Toxine, and how it almost backfired spectacularly on him.

In both cases, it's clear to see Echo is perfectly aware of how neither of them can be trusted, just like she has absolutely no qualms about punishing them or outright getting rid of them if they prove to be more trouble than its worth.

However, it should be pointed out Echo is only willing to reach those extremes if she catches the person in question trying to directly harm her or Oropo. As long as they aren't affected by their actions, they can stay regardless of the danger they pose to everybody else around them.

As I said, Echo's loyalty to Oropo (and probably her love for him contributes to it as well) doesn't manifest in a desire and willingness to do whatever it takes to reach their goal, even if it means going against Oropo's wishes or disagreeing with him. It manifests in almost blind adherence and obedience to him and his wishes.

After all, much like Adamaï and Sidaire, she knew Ripulse and Toxine were trouble and couldn't be trusted, but unlike the former two, she never voiced her opinions to Oropo or even questioned his decision to trust them. Not even after Toxine disregarded their orders and sneaked into her room to kill Eva and Flopin. Instead, she left them to their own devices until they posed a direct threat to her and Oropo.

And that in itself is another major aspect of Echo's character: her inaction and indifference to the wrongs going on around her until they directly affect Oropo or her, despite her insistence that what they're doing is precisely for the sake of the World of Twelve.

Because wasn't that what ultimately caused her to betray Oropo and save the day? The fact that Oropo betrayed her? We all know this. Echo didn't reveal Oropo's plans because she had seen the light or anything like that. She revealed his plans because Oropo had hurt her.

She had no problem with him disposing of the demigods that were no longer useful to him despite insisting they were their children. There was nothing wrong with emotionally manipulating and tormenting the Brotherhood of the Tofu or driving a wedge between Yugo and Adamaï to make sure they wouldn't pose a threat to their plans. And kidnapping children, their pregnant mother, and trying to kill their father was seen as a necessity.

But the moment Oropo revealed she had never been anything but a placeholder for Amalia, the only woman he truly "loved"? Then that's where Echo drew the line, because, deep down, she was always higher up in her list of priorities.

I guess this all comes to show that, even though Oropo's OVA was little more than an excuse to introduce some characters that would have minor roles in season 4 and to have a 40-minutes-long action scene, there are some things that weren't completely butchered by it.

[hidden-among-stars]

An Identity Without Name

A little while ago, I helped some other folks to coin a new term: Anymic (pronounced ay-nim-ick). The purpose of this term is somewhat paradoxical - it gives a name to identities that have no name (etymologically, anymic translates to "being without a name"). Those of us who coined it, though our experiences differ greatly and our species identities are practically nothing alike, had a few very key things in common:

We know our experiences very well. We have a very good idea of what our species identity is

That species identity does not correlate completely with any species that is known to exist anywhere in the history of this universe or in the known mythology/imaginations of humans

This identity is not a character or species we created in our imaginations, but rather feels like something that did, does, will, can, or should exist either in this world or another - therefore, OCkin doesn't fit

We also expressed frustration with how we are able to introduce ourselves when coming into new alterhuman spaces*. While others are able to be more succinct about their identities - for example, saying "I'm dragonkin" or "I'm a fox therian" - we would have to say something to the effect of "I'm a therian of an unknown species," which gives the wrong idea. It implies that we don't know what species we are, that we don't know what our experiences amount to, that we don't have any sort of image of who we are or what we should be.

The definition we settled on is "An identity that does not possess a formal name (and may be the only one of its kind/type)." As a note, the part about being the only one of its kind/type was added mostly by request of the others who were working on coining this term, but does seem to be an integral part of this type of identity. It was a commonality among all of us who worked on coining the term and the definition. Regardless, one of the most important things about this term is that it insinuates that yes, I do have an idea of what species I am, I do know what my experiences amount to, I have at least some image of who I am or what I should be, there just is no name for what I am.

Of course, this term doesn't negate our potential need to explain our identities further if someone should ask, but it is far easier to say that I am an anymic contherian than to say "I'm a contherian with a theriotype that has no known species name and is not something that is currently known to have existed/currently exist/someday exist, nor is it anything that has appeared in known human mythology/folklore/fiction." Yeesh. What a mouthful.

This is not a term I would necessarily recommend to the newly awakened alterhuman, but rather what I might call a "last resort" term. When you've exhausted all of the options that seem like they might fit, when you've done all the research that you could possibly do, when it just seems like you constantly try and fail to find that one identity that fits - that's when you take on the term anymic. Even more important to recognize, though, is that it's very possible that someday as you continue to search for potential fits, you might finally stumble across something that makes you say "that's it! That's me!" And that's just fine! Anymic isn't a static term that you're stuck with forever, but it's a term that will be there for you when you need it. After all, it's entirely possible that you could find something that makes you say "that's it! That's me!" only to later discover that maybe that doesn't fit either, and you go back to being anymic. The point is, while this is a term that should be considered a last resort, it's also a term that should not under any circumstances be gatekept by age or experience or by whatever one individual considers "enough" research or self reflection.

As for how to use it, it should be considered an extremely versatile term. It can be used on its own - one could simply be "anymic." It can also be used as a microlabel, such as the examples I've already given ("anymic therian"). It could even be used as a secondary identifier - for example, if someone has an identity that seems to be a un-named subspecies of a known species, or is part of a larger category (of whatever kind) but doesn't fit any known identities within that category, they could say they are an "anymic fox therian" or "anymic draconic otherkin." How it is utilized in a line-up of labels is entirely dependent on the individual who uses it, so long as it maintains the definition of being a known, understood identity that simply has no formal name.

I might be biased, but I think this is an important term to add to our general alterhuman vocabulary. Personally, one of the things that made me feel somewhat alienated from the rest of the community is that when introducing myself I have to either give less than the full story by saying that my theriotype is "unknown," or practically write an entire book about my identity. Coining this term with others who have been experiencing the same sort of feeling helped me immensely to see that I'm not the only one with an identity that doesn't have a proper name. To be able to just say "I know what I am, but I just don't have a name to give you to describe what I am" in just one word is honestly game-changing, and it would be incredible to see this term catch on so those of us who have this experience could even more easily connect.

Obviously use of this term by those who have this experience isn't a necessity, but it's an option that so far seems to be appreciated.

*When I say alterhuman spaces, I mean alterhuman spaces in general, not just therian/otherkin spaces. I am well aware that alterhuman =/= nonhuman identity, I promise! This post may be more focused on the nonhuman-type identities, but an anymic identity can apply to just about any identity that otherwise has no formal name.

[spnjediavenger]

It Won't Last Forever (Chapter 3)

Title: It Won’t Last Forever (Chapter 3)

Type: multi-chapter; father!Hotch x teen!daughter!reader, some bau x teen!reader (platonic!)

Warnings: canon-typical Criminal Minds sadness 

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS: mentions PTSD

Spoilers: S5 SPOILERS

Notes: The PTSD description is a mix of my own experience and some I read online - this is not how ALL PTSD is experienced.

The Container Exercise is a real thing, one of my past therapists actually walked me through it and i love it

EMDR is an actual method of therapy and it works for some and not for others, it's also very dependent on person and situation; this is taken from my own experience and doesn’t reflect everyone’s

As always, love and/or constructive/friendly criticism is welcome and encouraged!

Word count: 814 (shorter, transition chapter)

“It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.” Dalai Lama

When Hotch informed Rossi that Y/n had finally agreed to therapy, the older man told him that he had an old friend who was a licensed therapist and specialized in PTSD. Hotch was grateful for the suggestion. He decided to bring Y/n to work with him so he and Rossi could talk to her about it together. 

When they got to the BAU, everyone greeted her, glad she wasn’t as emotionless as the last visit. Hotch then brought her up to his office, keeping the door open. 

Y/n pulled some homework out of her bag as her dad began to work at his desk. A light knock came to the door about 30 minutes later, making both Hotchners turn their heads up. 

“Hey, Dave,” the older Hotchner greeted and waved him in. 

Rossi walked in and patted Y/n’s head, making the girl smile a bit. He sat in the chair next to her. 

“What’s going on?” Y/n asked, looking from Rossi to her dad. 

“Y/n, I know you’re hesitant about starting therapy. But when I mentioned to Dave that you agreed to it, he mentioned he knows someone that might be a good choice.”

“Dr. Warner is a friend of mine, very good in her field. She specializes in kids dealing with PTSD. We figured you might feel a little better if you’re talking with someone one of us knows.”

Y/n thought it over for a second, gave a half smile, and nodded a bit. “That sounds good. Could you…could you be there too, Dave? For the first time at least?” she asked. 

The older man smiled warmly and put an affectionate hand on her cheek. “Of course, bambina.”

Y/n giggled a bit and smiled at the italian nickname only Rossi used for her. “We’ll get you better, kiddo.”

Y/n put her hand on his and smiled. “Thank you.”

Y/n sat in a small waiting area with her dad and Rossi. Her leg bounced up and down wildly as her eyes darted around the room, trying to find something to focus on. She only stilled her leg when her dad put his hand on her knee, catching her attention. Her movement had stopped and she turned to look at him. 

“Y/n, it’ll be alright. Dave said Dr. Warner is a nice woman. And therapy goes at your own pace and comfort level. You’ll be just fine. Ok?” Hotch held his palm up and Y/n accepted his hand. 

“Ok,” she sighed. 

“Y/n Hotchner?” a voice called from the other side of the room. 

Hotch ran a comforting hand over her back as she took a shuddery breath and they walked over with Rossi in tow. 

The woman led them into a room and shut the door behind everyone. She held her hand out to Y/n first and introduced herself, “I’m Dr. Warner, but you can call me Peggy.” She shook each person’s hand and gave Rossi a small hug as well. 

“Thanks for doing this, Peg,” he said warmly. 

“Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, Dave. Please, everyone, take a seat anywhere.”

Y/n sat on the couch across from Dr. Warner’s chair and had her dad and Rossi sit on either side of her. 

The session started simply with Dr. Warner explaining to them how things would go and taught Y/n a tool for when she was between sessions. 

“This is called the Container Exercise,” she explained. “I want you to close your eyes and picture a container. It can be any kind you want. A box, a jar, anything. Think of the shape of it, the color, if there are any designs on it. Do you see it? Now, any time bad memories or feelings come up between our sessions, or you aren’t in a place where you can properly handle them, I want you to imagine putting those memories and feelings inside your container and sealing it until we can talk about them. You can open your eyes now.”

The rest of the session went by rather smoothly as well. They didn’t get too far into specifics about Y/n’s trauma since it was the first session, but Dr. Warner got the basics of what they would be working on. Upon understanding these things, the doctor recommended a technique called “EMDR” which both Hotchners agreed to start for Y/n at the next session. 

When the group left, Hotch kissed Y/n’s head before she got into the car. “I’m proud of you, sweety.”

The girl smiled and hugged him. “Thanks, daddy.”

She was on the road to recovery.

“You survived the trauma. Now, you’ll survive the recovery.” Unknown.

[cartoonartistpng]

Dadphiles!Mephiles Sheet

And with that, I've completed all four of 'em!

This one definitely took the longest. I was originally content with re-using my Mobian Mephiles design, but as I developed the story more, I realized I wanted something more personal. I'm super proud of how this came out.

This is technically "spoilers" since this is toward the end (Post-Forces), but I wanted a design that reflected Mephiles/Solaris' change. And I'm too eager.

This post will be updated as time goes on. New additions will be marked as (✨New!✨).

-> Dadphiles AU Masterpost

-/-/-/-/-

🔹When Mephiles recombined with Iblis the second time, Solaris regained empathy. His memories of his time with SSS suddenly weighed heavily on the god, but the destruction of time had already begun and Solaris still was not at full power. So, with the help of the Chaos Emeralds, Solaris sacrifices himself to fix his mistakes and ensure the safety of his sons.

🔹Following the events of Sonic Forces, Solaris is re-awoken... but still very weak. As he regains power, he avoids his sons, believing they do not wish to see him. They prove him wrong.

🔹With a second chance at being their father, Solaris assumes the body of a hedgehog—meticulously designed to reflect each of his sons—and simply becomes "Mephiles the Hedgehog". As a mortal, he is much more vulnerable and limited in his power, even if he were to fully recover from his self-sacrifice. Mephiles is willing to risk such a thing for his sons' happiness and trust.

🔹As Mephiles was taken advantage of the last time he assumed a mortal form (ie. The Flame of Solaris), Mephiles is hesitant to let any others know of his identity, even the ones his children claim are trustworthy friends. Therefore, only those who were in Soleanna know the truth... for now.

🔹Mephiles is introduced to the rest of his sons' friends as their dad who raised them, but disappeared when they were kids. Mephiles admits that it was not a good decision, but explains that he was "injured" and "unable to protect them without risking their futures."

🔹Vector and Espio are the only ones suspicious of this random hedgehog that appeared out of the blue, not long after the War, looking perfectly like all three hedgehogs. Hedgehogs that they know aren't blood-related and who were separated by literal decades. However, since no one else seems to be suspicious, the Chaotix believe everyone else might be brainwashed somehow.

🔹Mephiles realizes their suspicions, but doesn't correct them. Both because he does not trust their intentions yet... and that it also amuses him.

🔹The SSS introduce Tails as their brother and Mephiles immediately accepts him and requests to take on the Prower name just as his sons have. Tails, who was worried about disapproval from his brothers' dad, may or may not have broken down in tears at the easy acceptance.

🔹Vanilla, happy to meet another parent of this rambunctious group, often enjoys sharing stories with Mephiles. Mephiles suddenly has to learn how normal mortal parents raise their children, all to continue his charade. Through her, he slowly learns what it means to truly embrace Parenthood.

🔹Vector is jealous of how friendly the hedgehog has gotten with Vanilla. Once again, Mephiles is amused.

🔹Mephiles enjoys messing with Vector, mostly by "coincidentally" appearing whenever he tries talking to SSS, gifting Vanilla different things, and saying some rather suspicious words. This, of course, makes Vector more paranoid.

🔹Despite looking like a normal hedgehog, Mephiles is composed of pure energy and therefore does not need mortal requirements. He can feign eating but it does nothing for him. He appreciates the flavor, however.

🔹As an entity of time, Mephiles is used to viewing all of time at once. As a mortal, that viewing window is smaller, but still means that sometimes Mephiles will use the wrong slang, terms, and translations or even reference something that does not exist yet or no longer exists.

🔹Mephiles is utterly focused on making the most out of this second chance and is willing to go to great lengths to protect all of his children... Even if it means using methods they may not approve of.

🔹Mephiles is the one who enabled Silver to remain in the past. He also later—by request—makes it so Shadow will age alongside his friends.

🔹Mephiles can communicate with the Master Emerald (and the Chaos Emeralds), often expressing his confusion over various mortal concepts. The Master Emerald finds his bafflement amusing, to his chagrin.

[There will be no romance as Mephiles/Solaris is completely focused on his relationships with his sons.]

[that-ari-blogger]

Reflections? (Yesterday's Lie)

The term “holding up a mirror” usually applies to confronting someone with their own actions and pointing out their flaws. Stories like to do this through foils that share enough characteristics to annoy each other, or villains and heroes that are either the best or worst version of each other. It’s a really neat piece of storytelling.

Yesterday’s Lie is this idea in its most blatant form. Luz literally looks into a mirror and argues with her reflection. Its straightforward and simple.

Except this is The Owl House, it’s not capable of playing anything straight.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (The Owl House, Dead Poet Society, Billy Elliot, Gravity Falls)

One of The Owl House’s core thematic is individuality and the joy of complexity. It is a story about taking life as it is and not putting unfair constraints on it.

This is why the show is so tropey and so averse to tropes at the same time. It makes a beeline for the closest stock structure and then thoroughly dissects and subverts it. It’s a satire, a hunter of cliches.

As a way of hammering that home, everything in the series is introduced twice. Whenever any plot beat or location is revealed, you get a first pass and a shallow look at that thing, and you get an obvious trope that this first appearance fits into, then you spend time with the thing, and you start to understand just how much that first impression was deceiving. This happens to everything, even the show itself.

The series opens with the famous “eat this sucka!” line and a fantasy witch story, priming you to expect generic fantasy, but you are then met with The Owl House, which is anything but.

Hey look, a conspicuously hidden character from a family photo. This is foreshadowing for a later episode. But if you think about it, this filmmaking technique is weird, right? Telling you something is important by now showing you it at all. I don't have anywhere I'm going with this, it's just something quirky about cinematography.

This also happens to the characters, and I go into more detail about it in my post about the first episode, so take a look at that if it interests you. But there was one notable exception to the rule. Camila Noceda.

When we first see Camila, she is the distant parent, the stock character in a million coming of age stories. She doesn’t really get her child and is sending them off to a place to make them more “normal”. It's going to be a difficult relationship, and the parent won’t get more depth beyond this.

She fits in with Niel’s parents in Dead Poet Society and Jackie from Billy Elliot. Stern, and antagonistic as a result of the theming. Like I said, the story is about how people can’t be defined, and here is a character who wants to box in the protagonist.

Notably, Dead Poet Society ends with the death of Niel as a direct result of the parental strictness, which isn’t a good sign for how this might turn out.

Then Luz runs away, and we don’t get to see anything beyond the stereotype for a season and a half. We instead get Luz feeling guilty and confronting her fears of betraying her mother through a monster that pretends to be that fear. We still don’t meet Camila.

Until we do, and things are immediately different.

The Camila Noceda from season one was refined and busy. She had a uniform on, and her hair up in a tight bun. It’s a refined image that looks down on you with distain. Now, however, she has let her hair down and wears more casual clothes over that uniform, she’s practical but laid back. She’s had things added to her instead of taken away.

It's also notable that the first thing she does in this episode is help a wounded creature. Camila’s second introduction is one of fundamental kindness.

Meanwhile, Vee is Luz’s reflection, except no she isn’t at all. She is the polar opposite of Luz. She wants mundanity rather than adventure, she wants a new life rather than both lives at once, she actively disguises herself rather than seeking to be understood. Vee is only Luz in appearance. Case and point:

Luz - "Cool, talking rats. Maybe they know something." Vee - "(Screams and runs away)"

Camila is aware that something is up, but she’s not used to the magical world that we are, so she assumes that Luz has changed, and she is concerned that the summer camp thing has worked too well.

Vee also gets the multiple introductions. A few episodes ago, she was shown as a shadowy figure who had replaced Luz like a changeling and the filmmaking heavily implied a Machiavellian air to the character. The musical sting, the shot composition and build up, this was a villain.

Then we meet her and she’s a wus. She’s cowardly, and meek, and I love her so much. Except once again, not exactly.

But that leads into the plot of this episode, because this isn’t about Luz, it's about the world she left behind. Luz is secondary in this story, filling the role of a mentour until the very end. It’s another mention of how Luz operates as a character, inspiring people as a light for them to follow, (Light, do not faulter) but it's also not the point.

Vee needs to learn to be herself and that she has found people who will love her not just in spite of it, but because of it, and Camila needs… well she needs to show off her compassion, but she also needs to confront the fact that she directly caused this entire adventure.

“You and I are not the same. You had a mom who loved you, a home, a life, you had it good! And you still wanted to run away, I didn't have a choice. My real name is Number Five. I'm a Basilisk, and technically, I shouldn't exist.”

Something that blew my mind more than it probably should have here is that Vee’s name comes from the Roman numeral for five, that being V. This might be obvious or obscure, but it is something my brain fixated on, and y’all must know.

This is worldbuilding for Belos as well, and we’re really dropping the subtlety with this episode. Belos is a man who desires to eradicate an entire people because they are not like him, a man who experiments on people because they have something he doesn’t and it doesn’t occur to him that their lives have value, a man who assigns numbers instead of names to people whom he plans to exterminate.

Compare Belos to Bill Cypher. Bill was otherworldly and eldritch, an unknowable evil. Belos is the type of villain whom real world history has known, and people who are still alive today will recognise.

Belos is his own person, sure, but he’s also fascistic eugenicist who thinks he’s G-d because of something he was born with and decided entitled him to everything. Belos is Evil.

The fact that Belos is experimenting on the Basilisks with the hope of learning to drain magic seems like an throw away detail. It doesn't come up again in this episode, but if you've seen the series in full, you know why this is important.

But he’s also mundane, and pointedly so. The thing that caused Belos to get this bad was such a simple thing, wilful ignorance. I’ll get into it more specifically when I cover Elsewhere and Elsewhen and Hollow Mind, but suffice to say this:

Belos ignored so many obvious things in his life because he didn’t want to contradict a worldview that put him on top, and he kept doing it and kept going and going and going until he doesn’t have to try. People aren’t people to Belos.

Which leads me back to what I was saying about character introductions, funnily enough. This is a story about teaching Luz and the audience to look past tropes and preconceptions to see people as complex. Belos cannot do this, and that is directly what causes his villainy.

Belos ain’t even directly in this episode and he’s got me livid.

Still think Warden Wrath is just a quirky little goober? Also, the Basilisks were brought back from extinction. Like in Jurassic Park. Belos is playing G-d.

This does kind of reframe Michaela Dietz’s performance as Vee though, doesn’t it. She goes from jumpy to traumatized. She’s a survivor and a child at the same time. Of course she’s like this, who wouldn’t be?

This is a character whose voice acting and line writing come across as dissonantly weighty. Like this character has seen more shit than she should have at her age, because she has.

I seriously cannot praise Michaela Dietz enough here.

Also, the point at Luz is a point well made. Luz ran away without thinking things through and without the consequences occurring to her. She took what she had for granted, and Vee rightfully calls her out for it.

Jacob is Belos wanna be. He’s a conspiracy theorist but in a really interesting way.

He gets introduced twice, but in reverse order. His traps and cameras are shown first, then he is introduced and he’s just a normal guy, then it is revealed who he really is. Like I said, this happens to everyone in the series.

However, there are a few ways you can run a conspiracy theorist in a story. Maybe he’s wrong and the magical world doesn’t exist and he’s just seeing patterns where there are none. But this is The Owl House, that doesn’t apply here.

Alternatively, Jacob could be right about everything and find his way into the Boiling Isles. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen.

This shot bounces between Vee's and Jacob's perspective, but always with the cage in front of them. As if they are both trapped by their own minds.

Instead, Jacob is actually wilfully ignorant. He’s the “we have Belos at home” of this story and is just what Vee needs to confront. He’s got something in his mind that he believes beyond all evidence, and when something is shown that would challenge his worldview, instead of adapting, incorporates it on a surface level without taking the time to understand what it actually is.

Jacob believes in aliens from Mars, and he is so fixated on his discovery that he doesn’t stop to ask if it actually proves him correct. Instead, he assumes mal intent because the creature isn’t like him, and therefore the creature must surrender all privileges. Most notably freedom.

Jacob is small, and petty, and definitely not as megalomaniacal as Belos. But I ask you this, if he got into the Demon Realm, what would he do?

Enter Camila, who is a direct contrast to Jacob specifically. She is shown information that rocks her worldview, and what does she do? She changes her worldview. Mostly.

There is magic. Ok. This is not Luz. Ok. This creature must die. Hold up.

Camila actually keeps most of her ethics identical. She will not witness injustice and she will never be unkind. She’s a vet, she treats everything with compassion no matter what species.

She gets two lines in short succession to really exemplify this.

“Hello, this is all so confusing, but who knew I had such a strong girl living under my roof this whole time”

It’s affirming and reassuring. Compassion first and foremost.

“I’m the good guy here!” “Yeah. A lot of bad guys say that.”

Essentially, screw your god complex, I will not be told what to think. I have learned, and I reject the wilful ignorance you stand for. It’s also just a killer one liner and it sounds cool.

Even the lighting knows what's up. Camilla is lit from above, like an avenging angel looking down on Jacob's small minded ignorance.

On the other hand, I said “most” in reference to Camila’s changing ethics, and I meant it. Camila starts the story trying to box Luz in, because she thinks it will make her life easier and safer. But she gets shown here that she was wrong in at least half of that. Luz cannot stop being herself, nobody can, so Camila needs to stop expecting people to fit with society’s preconceptions.

Camila gets more background later on in the series, and I will talk about it when I get there, but she learns, and she is willing to change. That’s the important thing.

Speaking of which, I drew comparison to Jackie from Billy Elliot and I know at least one person will get really upset by that. And let's explain why.

Jackie isn't the trope I mentioned either. One main theme of Billy Elliot is the price of freedom, and Jackie spends the first part of the film seeking personal freedom because he thinks that will trickle down to his son. But he doesn't realise that doing that is directly causing his child to be miserable.

I studied this film in high school and I have it drilled into my brain that the sartorial design of this scene reflects Jackie's sacrifice. Usually, he contrasts with his environment. But now, as he breaks down and returns to the mine, he is one with it in colour scheme resigned to be nothing more than a cog in the machine.

So, in the best scene in the movie, Jackie breaks down and sacrifices his own freedom to pay for his son's dream. Its heart wrenching, and its similar to Camila. Both of them start off disapproving and boxing their children in and learn to be better.

These people are similar, that's why the series introduced Camila using the trope, but they both split from it, and they are both their own person. Everyone is an individual.

That final scene is painfully well written. You know exactly why Camila and Luz would say what they say, why they would miscommunicate, and what is holding them back. Who is right here? I would argue both of them.

Camila looks at a place called “the demon realm” and, as a mother, assumes the worst. She wants nothing but the safety of her children, and she hasn’t been shown anything that dissuades that. Instead, you get Luz saying this:

“Staying here was the best decision I ever made.”

Of course Camila would take this the wrong way, of course this would go so badly for Luz. But it also goes badly for Camila, who now has to reconcile the fact that, despite everything else, Luz made the decision to stay in a more dangerous place because it understood her better than her home. That’s a difficult thing to hear for a mother, but it's something to reflect on.

Meanwhile, Luz now has tried her best to be understood by the person she wants to connect with the most, and she has failed due to her own inability to communicate. The series is creating a conflict and creating a duality, Luz must choose at the end whether to stay in the Demon Realm or go to the Human World. Its an impossible decision planted really well, and in my opinion, it will pay off incredibly.

I think there's some symbolism here, but I just can't quite figure it out.

Final Thoughts

I feel the need to remind y’all that this was on Disney, apparently aimed at kids seven years and older. Don’t get me wrong, kids are more intelligent than people give them credit for and can understand complex themes really well, even if they don’t have the skills to articulate that. But there are some things in this episode alone that feel aimed at an older audience.

Maybe that’s why Tumblr likes this series so much. It’s the type of story that appeals to people of any age, but can be understood by someone very young, and can act as role models for kids growing up.

The reason I say this, is that when I looked up the age rating of The Owl House, I did find a review that made me laugh:

One star, 18+ “There’s kissing which is ew”

Next week, I’ll be covering Follies at the Coven Day Parade, which explores the theme of duality, but also gives Kikimora complexity, something I was not prepared for at all. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[mrs-barnes-rogers-writes]

The Fate Of A Fae - Part 3

Marvel AU

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader x Steve Rogers

Theme: Soulmates / Monster/Fantasy AU

You know on sight. Friends also know when they meet you if you're a match for one of their friends.

Summary: Natasha Romanoff is a meddling, pain in the ass Sprite, who you wrongly thought would leave you alone once you introduced her to your best friend, Darcy. News flash, she doesn’t and she won’t. Not when she thinks you’re a perfect match for two of her best friends. Could she be right? Maybe. Just don’t tell her that.

“Never tell Natasha Romanoff she was right” - Clint Barton

Chapter Summary: This Zoom call could have been an email and the reader is starting to teeter.

If this Zoom call went on any longer you were going to take the pen you’d been twiddling in your fingers for the last half hour and gauge it into one of your eyes.

Dramatic but a Zoom call that could have been an email or voice-note was not what you wanted or needed this morning.

You continued to look out of the window again. The drizzle of the rain and wind a reflection of your mood. Probably too windy for dragons too.

Your laptop pinged with a WhatsApp message and you immediately regretted adding it to your desktop. There was a reason your phone was off. Luckily the others had seemed to have taken the hint. Your work acquaintances not so much.

Tyler At least act interested

Did you mute yourself so we couldn’t hear you sighing, because we can still see your eyes rolling you know!!!

Shit she’s asking you a question!!!!

You tried to style out you jumping up in your seat and your eyes going wide as you scrambled to take yourself off mute.

“Sorry you broke up at the start?” you lied.

Amanda huffed, she knew you weren’t paying attention but let it slide. You were one of the best freelance editors she had. Your deadlines were always met, you were meticulous in your work and you could hold your own with the writers, even with some of the more arsehole creatures. The fact you weren’t paying attention was out of character. Glancing at the screen she knew the other two editors were on friendly terms with you and Tyler’s concerned face along with Marshall’s frown pushed her to break her usual ‘no casual chat’ protocol.

“Y/N? Is everything ok?”

You felt a lump form in your throat. Was it that obvious that something was wrong? That someone that barely knew you would ask if you were ok?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you alright? You don’t seem like your usually bright, sarcastic self.” She said lightly trying to make light of the situation, when in all honesty you looked like shit, and this book was awful. You’d usually have given opening notes on how bad it was but you’d barely said hello.

“I’m fine” you replied too quickly for any of their liking.

“Are you sure kid? You don’t look good.” Marshall replied.

Tyler put his head in his hands. Fuck you were 100% going to lose it now. Marshall might have been 10 years older than you but him calling you kid was something you hated, him pointing out the obvious of you looking like death warmed up was sure to make you snark back.

“I’m fine. What was the question?”

Tyler couldn’t help but let his mouth fall open in shock. Where was the snarky reply?

Amanda repeated the question a frown across her forehead.

“We were going over plot issues?”

“One sec I have a list” you’d replied, reading them out like a shopping list, no usual sarcastic notes to go with them. As you rounded up the end of your notes the funny anecdotes were back but the glint in your eye that usually came with them wasn’t.

“It’s basically like he’s watched a bunch of Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, a couple of low budget movies and pushed them together. How the virus started has changed three times and we’re a third in.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s pause on this, put in your invoices so far and make a start on the next project.”

The next thirty minutes was spending prepping for the next project. This time a military and spy type drama, which was almost entirely human based.

“So it’s a fantasy drama then?” Tyler had quipped.

“Just make a start please.” Amanda replied pleadingly.

“Y/N? You OK to lead this one?” Marshall asked. You were looking out the window again.

“Y/N?” Amanda asked.

“Sorry what?”

“Are you good to lead? And actually what’s so interesting on that side of the room?” Amanda asked.

“The window.” Tyler replied for you.

“What?”

“I’ve been to her apartment, it’s the window.”

“What? I’m not doing anything?!” you interrupted.

“I just asked if you were good to lead?” Marshall asked softly again.

Clearly you weren’t. Leading meant checking everyone’s work, being thorough and you couldn’t even pay attention on a zoom call.

“Actually no.”

There was a flurry of gasps and widening eyes.

“Y/n?”

“I don’t have any military background, and I’m not entirely human am I so, I don’t think I should lead this one. I should be last edit.”

Your laptop pinged again.

Tyler What the fuck is going on?

You never take third!! You’re way too qualified for that.

Y/N what is going on?

You ignored it and looked back at the Zoom call. You were met with concerned faces. Amanda broke first.

“OK, why don’t we sleep on this and regroup tomorrow morning? But put in your invoices for the zombie trash.”

You nodded, trying to hold yourself together and left the call. You pushed down your emotions and pure exhaustion and decided going back to bed with a cup of tea and some chocolate was the answer. Yeah that was it, you were a bit hormonal and that was the problem. It had nothing to do with meeting one of your soulmates, your complete lack of self worth and the fact you were damaged, along with your ears now felt like they were on fire.

Yet none of that had stopped you looking out the window hoping to see Bucky again. It’s too wet and windy for dragons anyway.

As you pulled a mug from the drainer, your favourite mug no less, you caught it on the stack of plates, sending them towards the floor. Trying to catch them you caught the mug on the worktop and broke it in half.

It went downhill from there when you threw what was left of it on to the floor in your temper. This was quickly followed by you swiping all the other dishes off the drainer as a scream of frustration ripped from your throat. You burst into tears and slipped down on the floor and sobbed.

Your laptop pinged repeatedly. Messages and missed calls from your work colleagues.

Then Darcy.

Darcy Boo Can you pick up please? Tyler called. He said you were out of it on the work call. Are you ok?

Please? I’m worried.

Bucky Doll, is everything ok?

Precious, I’m going to need you to answer me.

I’m coming over there if you don’t reply.

Look, I know we aren’t bonded yet but I know something is off.

You have 5 minutes to reply or I’m coming over.

Answer me.

On the other side of the room, sitting on the floor among broken plates and mugs, your sobs slowed as you drifted off to sleep.

[horse-girl-anthy]

Mikage: Boy of the Black Rose

I've long struggled to write about Mikage, who I find to be an intriguing yet elusive character. or rather, his character is understandable--his motives and feelings are communicated clearly enough--but his narrative is one of the most inexplicable in RGU. thinking it over tonight, I put my finger on one aspect of the Black Rose arc which I previously didn't know how to approach: specifically, Mikage's relationship with the Boys of the Black Rose.

the boys act as a kind of collective character, a mass of faceless people who whisper in dark corners. since RGU is about social reality, it often uses extras to deliver exposition or set the mood. the Shadow Girls are meta characters, existing somewhat outside the narrative, but regular schoolgirls at Ohtori can serve a similar purpose. they might demonstrate that Touga and Saionji are considered the hottest boys in school, or gossip about Ruka and Shiori's recent breakup.

the Boys of the Black Rose are slightly different, maybe a little closer to the Shadow Girls. rather than acting as bit characters in the larger world of Ohtori campus, I believe their existence is contigent on Mikage. while this could be put in various ways, in the most straightforward terms, the writers created them to help reflect on Mikage's character.

only one Black Rose Boy is given a face: the first one Mikage (Nemuro) talks to. when Mikage asks not to be called "professor," since they are the same age, the boy replies:

obviously, RGU relies on making its main characters visually distinct from "normal people." Wakaba calls them "special" and resents them. Utena is popular for her specialness, well-liked; in contrast, Mikage is an outcast for his. for a person to be special or a genius, there must be others for them to stand in opposition to. Mikage is set apart from his peers by his pink hair, by his unique uniform, and by being a professor.

after Mikage is introduced to his new work, the boys begin to gossip about him, saying he knows nothing about what's really going on at Ohtori. towards the end of this conversation, there's a shot of Mikage, and then he actually replies from the future to the gossip they were spreading about him.

this is Mikage's eternal reality: his recollection of the past. even during the "present" of Utena's narrative, he is still walking through Nemuro Memorial Hall, which is why it's still standing, unburned. the Boys of the Black Rose that the audience sees are filtered through Mikage's memory; whether or not the boys really said these things about him is ambiguous. it's possible, but the important fact is that Mikage believes they did.

this transpersonal mirroring keeps Mikage trapped, unchanging. he feels himself defined as unable to connect with others, so he keeps away from them. this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, leaving Mikage a total outcast.

even outcasts, however, are members of society. the Boys of the Black Rose actually have more in common with Mikage than the average Ohtori student. they're all scientists working on the same project. they have much of his coldness, sense of superiority, and intellectualism. the main difference is that they're the in-group.

while Mikage believes himself to be emotionless, it's made clear that his social isolation hurts him. he doesn't want to be set apart, but he doesn't know how to break through the barrier between him and others. it's very easy to do a queer reading of the character, given the way this is conveyed to the audience.

Mikage's fixation on Tokiko and Mamiya is easier to undestand with all this in mind. the world he was living in, occupied by the Boys of the Black Rose, was a cold and alienated one. in contrast, Tokiko has genuine passion, caring for her brother deeply. Tokiko's tears move Mikage, allowing his own buried emotions to break through the surface. but she also reinforces his social isolation; he is equally as hurt by her as he is drawn to her.

this is part of why Mikage is so determined to "defeat" Tokiko; she offered him hope of connection, but he was never able to "win" her, as men so often try to do with women.

Mamiya is something else altogether; a boy, like Mikage and the Black Rose Boys, but altogether different. warm, friendly to Mikage, not intimidated by his intelligence or reputation, and insightful. in a show full of characters obsessed with holding on (to the past, to a person, to their self-image), Mamiya is the only one who can see the wisdom in letting go.

Mikage at first is open to Mamiya's words, preparing to call off their quest for eternal life. but like every character who threatens the system in RGU, he is faced with Akio. in a prototype of the later "End of the World" sequences, Mikage comes across the kissing Tokiko and Akio. this proves to be too much for him; there are some things he can't afford to lose.

the scene has significance to Mikage far beyond disappointment in love. he wanted to create a family with Tokiko and Mamiya; marriage to Tokiko would tie them together "forever." if he could be by Tokiko's side as they lost Mamiya, then at least he wouldn't be alone after his death. but if he's only Tokiko's coworker, when their work is done, he's back to being a computer.

in desperation, Mikage plays into Akio's hands. under contract, he sacrifices the Boys of the Black Rose and burns down the hall that bears his name. when justifying himself to Tokiko, he claims that this act will allow them to attain eternity. in the events of the series, he's still at it: installing Mamiya as the Rose Bride will, after all, make him eternal, even though it's the very kind of eternity Mamiya wanted nothing to do with.

Mikage retreats into delusions on feeling the sting of Tokiko's rejection. though he is the one who betrayed her, he turns it around and feels betrayed himself. going even further, he casts Mamiya as the one who set the fire.

the Boys of the Black Rose are also used to emphasize his inability to face his own actions. throughout the arc, the boys are seen pushing coffins around. however, in episode 23, Mikage takes their place right before he is forced to face the truth about himself.

at the end of the arc, Miki claims that no one was hurt in the the fire, contradicting the previous story of Nemuro Memorial Hall. this possibly indicates that the murders are a figment of Mikage's imagination--the older Tokiko doesn't seem to react to him as if he's a murderer. more than anything, he seems guilty of self-denial and retreat from reality. Tokiko went on to accept Mamiya's death and even mourned for Mikage, while he ignored her in favor of his memories. the fact that he does not recognize her feelings is another aspect of his tragedy.

Mikage, through his fruitless revolution, loses the very things he always wanted. he attempts to throw away his past self, the cocoon of Nemuro hatching into the butterfly that is Mikage. with it, he burns away the boys who rejected him, who embodied the cold world he used to live in. he uses their sacrifice to enshrine Mamiya, idealizing him as the perfect companion. but as Ikuhara said, he was doomed to fail from the start:

Those who reject that place are, conversely, rejected by it as well. This is the nature of systems: the moment you reject them, you are forced to realize that they’re the very ground you’re standing on. Mikage noticed the trick behind the system, and he hurriedly attempted revisions. But the adult who’d created the system just said “Let’s not,” and unilaterally brought the curtain down.

the "trick within the system," is, I think, the fact that it's socially constructed. Mikage believed that on realizing this, he could simply remake the world as he wanted. he was allowed to do so for a time, when it was useful. when he ceased to be useful, he was dispatched with, because while he had operated within the system, he was not in control of it. and beneath his delusions, there was still a reality.

Mikage is the true Boy of the Black Rose: the true ghost, the true sacrifice, living in the desiccated world of a preserved flower. throughout the arc, he takes possession of Ohtori students who suffer from the same afflictions as him, and every time Utena defeats one of his duelists, another part of him is exorcised--another Black Rose Boy burned away. in the end, the only thing left of him is the ruin of Nemuro Memorial Hall, shown briefly in the final episode. he graduates at Ohtori, but only after losing absolutely everything. that seems to be the only way to step into adulthood: naked and shivering, like the day we are born.

[indigo-scarf]

“This is Crabbe and this is Goyle”: friends on last name basis?

How characters refer to one another is important in the Harry Potter books. The most blatant case for this is the main antagonist: Tom Riddle calls himself “Voldemort” to reflect his ambitions; his followers call him the “Dark Lord” out of reverence; the general wizarding population calls him “You-Know-Who” out of fear; Harry learns to call him “Voldemort” out of bravery; and Dumbledore keeps calling him “Tom” to dismiss his pretensions of grandeur.

Other examples include Lupin calling students by their first names because he’s the cool teacher; Lupin calling Snape “Severus” to be petty, while Snape calls Lupin “Lupin” to be petty; Draco calling his dad “Father” because he’s so posh; and of course, “Malfoy” and “Potter” highlighting the animosity between Draco and Harry.

In this context, the fact that Draco and the other Slytherin boys always call one another by their surnames serves to illustrate the kind of relationship they have, and to emphasise its contrast with Light Side friendships — an opposition integral to the story and especially to Draco’s character.

When Draco offers Harry his friendship, he introduces his colleagues and himself by their last names:

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.” (PS6)

This shows that even when Draco hopes he and Harry will have a good relationship, Harry is expected to call them “Malfoy”, “Crabbe” and “Goyle”. That is how Draco addresses his closest people (and reciprocity seems implicit):

“Crabbe,” [Malfoy] said. “Midnight all right? Well meet you in the trophy room; that’s always unlocked.” (PS9) “ — and he hit Goyle — look — ” (GF18) “I thought so,” [Malfoy] said jubilantly. “I heard Goyle’s trunk hit you.” (HBP7) “I would’ve had Crabbe and Goyle with me if you hadn’t put them in detention!” (HBP15)

Even when they think they have privacy, the Slytherin boys stay on last name basis:

“You know I haven’t, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?” snapped Malfoy. (CS12) “Azkaban — the wizard prison, Goyle,” said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief. “Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward.” (CS12) “So, Zabini,” said Malfoy, “what did Slughorn want?” (HBP7) “I wouldn’t bank on an invitation,” said Zabini. “He asked me about Nott’s father when I first arrived.” (HBP7) “Look, it’s none of your business what I’m doing, Crabbe, you and Goyle just do as you’re told and keep a lookout!” (HBP18)

And even in the most vulnerable moment in Draco and Crabbe’s relationship, when Draco is in shock over Crabbe’s death, it’s still:

“C-Crabbe,” choked Malfoy as soon as he could speak. “C-Crabbe...” (DH31)

Such choice of surnames over first names adds to the portrayal of Slytherin as a stand-in for British public schools (where even true friends might avoid first names), but specifically in the Harry Potter world, it also reflects a particularly cold dynamic.

It is established throughout the books that Slytherins are are allies at best, not friends. There are two scenes that tell us how Slytherins operate in their natural habitat, when they don’t know Harry is spying on them, and neither is warm at all.

In year two, Hermione says Crabbe and Goyle are “Malfoy’s best friends” (CS12), which suggests she assumes they have a relationship not unlike the Trio’s — but that assumption is raised only to be subverted.

When Harry and Ron are disguised as Crabbe and Goyle, they find out that Draco constantly insults them, “snaps” at them, and demands specific reactions to what he says (CS12). 

In year six, in the Slytherin train compartment, Draco and Blaise compete to out-haughty each other, and “Goyle and Zabini were snarling at each other” (HBP7).

They don’t befriend people they like; they associate with people who come from pure bloodlines, or who can offer some kind of advantage. They see the world in terms of hierarchies, and surnames label people according to their social standing — which is what defines how they should be treated.

On the flipside, while surnames are a marker of prestige, first names are a tool of humiliation. This is the only time in all seven books when one is used among Slytherin boys:

“‘Must mean’?” Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. “Who cares what you think? I don’t take your orders no more, Draco. You an’ your dad are finished.” (DH31)

The power of the “Malfoy” name was the reason Crabbe kept Draco company. Now that that power is gone, he’s just some guy called “Draco”, so Crabbe drops him.

Growing up in such a cold environment is an essential part of what defines Draco’s character: it shapes his personality, his relationship with Harry, and his role in the story.

Draco has never had connections based on anything other than boasting to elevate himself and being spiteful to diminish others — and that’s what leads to Harry’s initial dislike of Draco at Madam Malkin’s, as well as the pivotal handshake blunder.

After that, a huge contributing factor to Draco and Harry’s unshakable animosity is Draco’s envy of the Trio. Not only does Draco hate being rejected in favour of Ron and Hermione, but he also resents that he can’t have what they have.

If Draco had real, first name basis friendships, he probably wouldn’t dedicate his entire school life to being a hateful bully, and he might not be so desperate for truly fulfilling validation as to seek it from Voldemort.

[misfitwashere]

Political Violence

Reflections from the 1920s and 1930s

Timothy Snyder

Jul 14, 2024

What to make of the assassination attempt?

I am sharing a few thoughts about where we are, based on assassinations during the interwar period, the 1920s and 1930s.  It is distant enough that perhaps we can attend to the examples without too much emotion, and yet close enough to be useful.

We learn that violence that starts on one corner of the far right often ricochets.  We find that the important threshold is the enabling of the violence.  And we realize is what we do afterwards that counts the most.

None of this makes the outcome of a horrid act completely predictable.  But it does help us to see how some things that will predictably be said might be unhelpful and untrue. 

Some of Donald Trump’s supporters, including one right-radical senator and one right-radical congressman, were quick to blame the Democrats.  (This is also, of course, Moscow’s line).

Their reasoning might seem intuitive, and clearly did seem intuitive to many people. If a radical-right politician such as Donald Trump is the victim of an assassination attempt, should we not presume that the perpetrator is on the radical left?

No, we should not.

That sort of presumption, based on us-and-them thinking, is dangerous.  It begins a chain of thinking that can lead to more violence.  We are the victims, and they are the aggressors.  We have been hurt, so it must have been them.  No one thinking this way ever asks about the violence on one’s own side. 

And this way of thinking is also very often erroneous.  The history of the far right tells a different story, one in which violence often refracts within and around a political movement that endorses it.

This afternoon I passed by the Austrian parliament, where the chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, was assassinated ninety years ago.  Dollfuss had introduced political violence into the political system, and was very much ruling from the far right.  And he died by political violence nonetheless, by the hand of people who found him not radical enough.

In March 1933, Dollfuss dissolved the Austrian parliament, bringing electoral democracy to an end.  He transformed his political party (and a few other groups, and a right-wing paramilitary) into a new Fatherland Front.  The Fatherland Front government crushed the Left with armed force.  Dollfuss began to build a regime on the model of Italian fascism, defined in Christian nationalist terms.  That was not enough for the most extreme elements of the Austrian right. In July 1934 a group of Nazis dressed as policemen made their way into the parliament, shot Dollfuss, and let him bleed to death.

Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany a few weeks earlier than Dollfuss in Austria.  He too crushed the Left, grouping socialists and communists as “Marxists” and placing them in concentration camps.  He represented the extreme right in German politics.  On the streets, Hitler’s cause was pushed forward by the violent SA (Sturmabteilung), led by Ernst Röhm. Hitler’s rise to the office of chancellor was enabled by conservatives and militarists.  They believed, wrongly, that Hitler’s violent rhetoric would serve their interests.  In the “Night of the Long Knives,” Hitler had Röhm and many of his men assassinated, along with others who had helped bring him to power.

A drastic case of right-wing murderousness in the interwar period was among the various elements of the Romanian far right.  The twists and turns here would take too long to describe. In brief: the fascists who themselves glorified violence were attacked by others on the far right.

To be sure, not all would-be assassins of the period were on the right.  A German carpenter tried to kill Hitler.  A marble worker threw a bomb at Mussolini’s car. 

And the general point about how violence, once authorized, can turn in an unexpected direction, also applies to the far left of the 1920s and 1930s.  A number of Josef Stalin’s fellow Bolsheviks, who endorsed and applied political violence to come to power between 1917 and 1922, were then killed in the name of that revolution in the 1930s. 

That, if anything, just confirms the general point.  We might be tempted to think that violence against one side must come from the other side.  But the bloody genie, once unleashed, often stays close to home.  Those who have made violence normal are especially vulnerable, because they will always have colleagues or followers who think they have not gone far enough.

Of course, not all right-wing assassins killed their fellow right-wingers.  Eligiusz Niewiadomski murdered the centrist Polish president in December 1922.  Niewiadomski seems to have been an unstable personality, whose dreadful beliefs were brought towards action by the media around him. 

As far as we can tell right now, the man who tried to assassinate Donald Trump was a registered Republican gun enthusiast.  As more details emerge, the image will clarify.  Assassins are individuals, and their motivations can sometimes be surprising or turn out to be obscure and debatable.

At this point, it is just worth noting that it would not be surprising if the man who tried to assassinate Trump was, like Trump, a right-wing radical.  That would be typical of the United States, where most terrorist acts come from the far right.  It would also be historically normal.  Trump, like extreme-right-wing politicians in the past, has legitimated violence. 

Nothing in recent American political life resembles Trump’s call for “Second-Amendment people” to kill Hillary Clinton, his mockery of Paul Pelosi after an attempted murder, his belittling of Gretchen Whitmer after a kidnapping attempt, the stochastic violence he directs against critics to intimidate them and against his fellow Republicans to keep them in line, the brutal language of his rallies since 2016, his vocal admiration for leaders known to be mass killers, and his violent attempt to overthrow constitutional rule in January 2021.

What matters more than the action, though, is the reaction.  We should all condemn political violence.  We should all proclaim that this next election will be settled by the number of votes, rather than by threats, coups, beatings, or murders.  The media should not spread messages of hatred and baseless conspiratorial thinking.

And we should all be aware of the temptations of martyrdom.

Whatever actually happens in an act of political violence, there will be someone, somewhere, who claims that victimhood means innocence, and that innocence justifies more violence by hands that remain ever blameless.  This sort of logic is already all over the internet.  That move was made in all the fascist cases.  When the German Nazis took over Austria in 1938, they raised a monument to their martyrs.  The Romanian fascists killed to avenge theirs. 

Trump is of similar mind: he refers to the convicted criminals who stormed the White House as “martyrs” and makes them part of his rallies.  He constantly refers to himself as a victim.

One can only hope that he does not escalate such rhetoric, or direct blame where it does not belong.  Doing so won’t help him win an election, but it will make further violence more likely.

[agentrouka-blog]

It's weird how often Catelyn's virginity comes up in the books (LF telling the entire court for years that he took her maidenhead to the point where the Lannister brothers use it to downplay her vritue and honor .... disgusting man). I wonder how that is going to come into play with Sansa, since she now knows that Baelish believed he slept with Cat but actually took Lysa's virginity. Also crazy that one man's word has this much reach :(

What I find interesting is how irrelevant it ultimately is. No one is running a big smear campaign maligning the morals of the Tullys and the North or laughing at Ned. The biggest leverage that Littlefinger gets out of it is underscoring the level of trust and influence he may have over them. Catelyn is aghast at the moment Tyrion brings it up but doesn't spare it much thought beyond that.

So GRRM is introducing this idea not for itself but for the overall concept.

Sansa isn't shocked when she hears this or reflects on it later, either.

You said it was my mother you loved. But of course Lady Catelyn was dead, so even if she had loved Petyr secretly and given him her maidenhood, it made no matter now. (ASOS, Sansa VI)

Really, it reveals something about the flexibility of social mores in the right context. If pregnancy isn't an issue, a lady's virtue is mostly a matter of individual opinion. If everyone agrees it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter. If someone takes issue with it, it gains importance. The same subject comes up for Sansa with Mya Stone, for whom this lost virtue is more of an issue because of her bastard status and how public she was about her attachment to Mychel Redfort.

Brune would be a good match for a bastard girl like Mya Stone, she thought. It might be different if her father had acknowledged her, but he never did. And Maddy says that she's no maid either. [...] Mychel Redfort was the one. [...] Mychel was the best young swordsman in the Vale, and gallant . . . or so poor Mya thought, till he wed one of Bronze Yohn's daughters. Lord Horton gave him no choice in the matter, I am sure, but it was still a cruel thing to do to Mya."

This is, incidentally, the exact same scenario that Cat knew would come to pass back in AGOT, also not judging Mya. Cat never judged Lysa for her mystery affair, either. And, fittingly, neither girl withholds sympathy for Mya in this. Nor does Sansa judge Myranda for her affair with Marillion. Love and pleasure both are justification enough.

(Meanwhile, she doesn't make the argument to Littlefinger's molestation that it's immoral in terms of sexual conduct, but that he's a) married, and b) could have been her father, and c) pleading to be left alone.)

I think this is less important in and of itself than in what it implies about Sansa's view of sexual virtue, which is a great deal more liberal than some might expect in a world where physical virginity is officially prized and the mere act of copulation has the legal power to determine the validity of a marriage.

This is the same book where Margaery is subjected to a physical examination of her maidenly status - which everyone understands to be ridiculously devoid of sense, as a "maidenhead" is vulnerable to all kinds of physical activities, such as horseriding. But it becomes evidence in a case of high treason (adultery) where physical virtue is tied to matters of state.

The tension between official and legal expectations of virtue and tacit acceptance of indulgence - duty and love/desire - is likely to continue to play a role in Sansa's arc, and both in the sense of temptation and indulgence, and in the sense of hypocritical legal technicalities rearing their head.