#yeah they're so codependent that they would literally die for each other

[lucradiss]

Existing in more than one fandom space is like having more than one group of friends but both of them being so wildly different that any overlap at all would be like getting shot in the head

[weebsinstash]

I didn't notice vals coat was his wings until you mentioned it, but side note, val and vox were literally frenching it in the last episode, vox literally had vals spit all over his mouth wdym they're not dating???

Oh yeah, the wing reveal was an entire thing!

In episode 4, Masquerade, Charlie decides to put her foot down and use her authority as Princess of Hell to try and visit Angel at the studio to talk to Valentino, but, um, she cannot read a room to save her life, massively fucks it up, starts a small fire (not entirely her fault, that surge protector was a mess), and Valentino actually uses his wings and his weird smoke/pheromone powers to put out the flames (so also I've thought of him rescuing Reader from fires now because of course)

I'm not sure how the logic of the coat wrapping around his arms to form sleeves works but it fucks severely. then I also think, what are alternatives for a moth Reader? Someone sent in an ask about Reader being a silk moth so that you have the moth powers but you're ultimately helpless because you either don't have wings or they're too small for you to actually fly and escape ( because domesticated silk moths were bred to not be able to fly) and I think that would be great. Maybe Reader just has a tattoo of moth wings across their back, OR you have just, magical poofing powers where you can retract that shit back in, like Anthony's second pair of arms, and when they're hidden away, you have a tattoo. It leaves potential for hiding who you are from Val. This whole mystery of him chasing down some cute moth he sees in blurry footage from your first night in the afterlife and he doesn't realize the mysterious moth with rumors of a special dust that knocks you on your ass and makes you see stars is right next to him

I just. I keep thinking of butterfly/moth Readers and different powers they can have, like a silk moth Reader who can create silk and lowkey be Spiderman (or... bondage powers? 👀) , or the pheromone powers we mentioned before, or just a Reader who has their own fuck huge wings. Most moth species have female moths be physically larger than the males and I can just see like, a luna moth Reader who's wings are big and elegant and can become an evening gown or whatever, just a moth Reader whose wings become something pretty 😍 (ughhhh callback to my "Reader becomes an incognito Overlord called Big Blue" poeer fantasy except now I'm thinking of a Reader who's tall like Val and you're a blue morpho butterfly.

Reader being in the midst of being Val's weird pet slash forced partner, waking up and Valentino is sleeping beside you and he's just got those big ass wings open and they're draped all over the bed and they're covering you like a blanket while he squeaks in his sleep... you wind up as the filling in a VoxVal sandwich and those big red bitches are huge enough to cover everybody... also... what if Valentino used his wings lowkey like a tripwire so if you try to get up out of bed, you can't move without touching the wings, and he wakes up the instant you leave the bed, I'm talking you're 5 feet away still tippy toeing and you hear "you better get the fuck back here before I have to get you" and you're instantly scrambling back to his bed and now he's wrapping his arms around you so you can't leave again

I feel like Vivienne saying Val and Vox aren't dating is.... I saw someone phrase it as "dating is a really heteronormative concept and you'll have people be in domestic partnerships who aren't married" which is a good point and i also saw someone say "you've got two men throwing nasty hissy fits and probably having the world's best hate sex afterwards, you know Valentino isn't taking this man to dinner"

I feel like staticmoth IS sort of canon but it's not, explicitly like, they would DIE for each other or anything, idk. Maybe Valentino is only truly capable of loving himself and he loves the attention Vox gives him, and Vox is toxic codependent but he truly loves Alastor, who fucking knows, I'm still over here writing them both as my favorite problematic horny queers. Now I can just see Val and Vox fighting for "custody" of their shared darling, arguing who gets them which days, stealing them from each other, sabotaging each other's dates, just being selfish nasty evil obsessive gross dudes 😩❤️

[tciddaemina]

What is the weirdest, feralest headcanon you've had about a character?

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. fuck okay this takes some thinking. weird and feral, weird and feral, hmmm.

okay, i think i have one. i'm gonna preface this by saying that svsss is a story that brings out the weird in me - the characters are all so messed up and dysfunction and weird about each other and the world is so intense and strange that its very tasty to play with. like, both the characters, plot, and setting are all so chewy and crunchy, you can just sink you're teeth right in.

bc like okay (bingqiu and monsterfucking cw here, for anyone who would prefer to keep scrolling) Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe are so utterly weird and fucked up about each other. Like, full on dysfunctionally obsessed in a way that would be like horror story levels if they were with anyone but each other (yes, even Shen Qingqiu - he is literally so obsessed with PIDW and Luo Binghe that he dies mad over it, and then spends his entire new life orbiting Luo Binghe like a planet around a sun, knowing absolutely every detail of his would-be life and who he is and what his deepest inner thoughts and traumas are - like, unreliable narrator or not, Shen Qingqiu is every bit as messed up and intense about Luo Binghe as Luo Binghe is about him).

and that's something that's very fun to play with. like, their relationship is intense, codependent, obsessive, and like, a hundred other things that irl would be a red flag, but its fiction. i know some people don't like writing or reading about unhealthy relationships or stuff that in an irl situation would be concerning, but like tbh the fact that they're so messed up and intense is half the reason they're so fun to write for. (obligatory fiction =/= reality).

anyway so, yeah they have a messed up very obsessive relationship and one of the things that's sort of fun to play with is how far they'd go for each other. like, how far their affection stretches, and how that would influence their reactions to situations. and you know me, i'm a good fan of some of that eldritch and monster content.

bc right like, these two are utterly fixated on each other. just, utterly gone. and so yeah, headcanon, i feel like both of these guys wouldn't blink an eye at even the most weird, off the page monster-fucking you have ever seen, if the person was the other one.

okay so right - on Shen Qingqiu's side we already have some pretty eldritch stuff to work with. like he's literally a bodysnatcher who took over someone else who would have/did die, and assumed his identity and pretty much got away with it. and you can spin that up into something even more fun. like maybe Luo Binghe, being half demon and with heavenly demon blood, has a bit of idk, extrasensory perception or something like that. so he wakes up one morning in the woodshed to this immense feeling of just DREAD hanging over the mountain, which no one else seems to be feeling or reacting to. and it only gets worse when he's summoned to see his master, to the point where approaching the bamboo house is literally making him break out in a cold terrified sweat. and when he see's Shen Qingqiu he just freezes, because looming above his master's body is an immense faceless shadowy figure with a dozen arms, whose body is sewn through with bleeding golden thread, which runs down to his master's body, stitching the two together. and then the plot continues like normal, and this new not-Shen Jiu gives him the medicine, and Luo Binghe gets used to the feeling of immense eldritch dread and the plot plays out like normal with Luo Binghe still being like 😍😍😍 and still absolutely being dtf this terrifying towering shadow bleeding figure.

and its so tasty! because you can flip it around as well. Luo Binghe would 1000% willingly and enthusiastically monsterfuck for Shen Qingqiu, but Shen Qingqiu would also do the same for him (albeit with a bit more crisis about it, but only so far as him "not being gay" is the problem. the fact that Luo Binghe is a monster barely registers).

and so like - alright, another situation. Say Luo Binghe's demon heritage is a bit more intense than just 'gets a demon forehead mark and some demonic energy' and that when he gets hucked into the endless abyss and is forced to survive its brutal conditions, his human form can't tolerate it and the rest of his inheritance comes through. and you could play with a few things here - maybe something dragon-like (not in a, ooh this a sexy dragon person kind of way, but like, Luo Binghe is literally a dragon kind of way, scarred and fire-breath and dark edgy scales and all), or something a bit more demonic and eerie. but like, whatever you go with, the end result is that Luo Binghe is distinctly non-humanoid and deeply scary-looking. and so when Luo Binghe does claw his way out of the abyss, Shen Qingqiu is *shocked pikachu face* about it, because this didn't happen in the original. and idk, maybe Luo Binghe goes through a whole thing of visiting Shen Qingqiu in his dreams, and being very circumspect, and never actually turns up in person in front of him, bc Luo Binghe is deeply insecure and is certain Shen Qingqiu will be revolted or terrified and reject him as a monster (after all, he threw him into the abyss when he looked human, what would he do seeing Luo Binghe like this?). eventually it comes out and Shen Qingqiu ends up face to face with him, and Luo Binghe's trying to cringe and shy away and throw himself on his sword or whatever, and Shen Qingqiu is just like shut up! monster or not you're still my student! and anyway, Luo Binghe ends up staying with Shen Qingqiu again or something, and they do a dumb thing where they're basically speed running a long term relationship without realising (well, Luo Binghe realises, and he's tormented about it, bc on the one hand he wants all the affection he can get from Shen Qingqiu, on the other hand he's got paralyzing guilt about the fact he's sort of taking advantage) and it culminates in Shen Qingqiu finally cottoning on and having a panic about it (about the gay bit, more than the monster bit) before sorting it out and 100% being down to bang Luo Binghe anyway, despite him not being remotely human looking. And Luo Binghe is just dying, because like, you know a person really loves you when they love you even when you're a terrifying non-human monster, and Shen Qingqiu is discovering all sorts of things about himself, namely how little he bats an eye at the thought of doing some truly obscene monsterfucker shit - because it's Binghe, so of course its hot (nevermind that Shen Qingqiu is a bit too into monsters away, so is sort of also getting a kick out of it just for the chance to study monster!Binghe so up close)

And anyway this is how you get me idly considering story ideas like 'hey what if Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe got dropped messily into a scifi setting and Shen Qingqiu glitched on the way because of system and so ends up in a terrifying carnivorous!super-dangerous!mantis-monster-person!body, still dressed in his robes, while Binghe is still basically just a normal person who looks the same, and they get gently arrested by the galactic police who are like "holy shit what the fuck is this walking person-eater doing in the port, it's about to be a bloodbath" whereas Binghe, beside him is just like "don't you dare be mean to my husband, shizun is very gentle!" and anyway Shen Qingqiu diffuses things enough for them to get escorted to a fancy suite (jail cell) while things get looked into, and the poor people surveilling them have to watch in rapt horror/awe as Binghe goes about seducing Shen Qingqiu, who is sure Luo Binghe must be revolted by his terrifying new form, while Luo Binghe proves that absolutely isn't the case. Shizun is shizun no matter his body, and Luo Binghe loves every version of him, and is absolutely so so keen to get it on and explore this new body'

and so that's how i get to there, and then i have to think about the fact that the premise is so absolutely wild and out of the left field that i would have no idea how to justifying coming up with it or wanting to write it. so yeah, wild and feral headcanon - Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu are absolutely monsterfuckers, but only ever for each other

[marshmallowprotection]

Thank you Kait for the previous post! Honestly it baffled me a lot as well when I come across that kind of people. Saeran/MC will never be codependent in my eyes when this phone call literally exists on day 10 of his route. We're not even going through the AE yet. That's right people. He actually knows and learning how to make decision for himself/what he feels right instead of following other people's choices 😩😩

People want to believe what they want to believe, and at the end of the day, I don't want to waste my time or energy trying to convince other people that Saeran/MC isn't what they think it is.

If they don't see the way Ray Route and the RAE is setting up the clear narrative foils between V/Rika and Saeran/MC to show the differences between an unhealthy relationship where two people are obsessed with the idea of the other and run with that and a healthy one between troubled people who're trying their best to make sense of the world together and by themselves, I don't know if they will.

I'm not saying Mystic Messenger does the very best job at explaining many of these themes narratively, but I am saying if you read what's in front of you and think about it, the answers are there and it doesn't hide itself from you. If you're looking, you can see it.

However, I know a lot of people don't understand the complexities that exist between V and Rika, either. I get it, I know why people are fast to hate them for justifiable reasons, but if you don't understand the dynamics of their relationship, you gloss over a huge part of the story when it comes to what the game is exploring with Saeran and MC. I'm not telling people to care about V or Rika when I say that, I am saying that if you want to talk about toxic codependency, then your answer is V/Rika.

Maybe I have an easier time understanding the dynamic between V/Rika because there have been times where I've been like Jihyun, and that uncomfortable mirror has helped me become a better person. I am grateful to Jihyun for that. Someone wrote in my tags yesterday that V and Rika aren't about who is the perfect victim or the perfect abuser, they're two unhealthy people who are trying to cling to each other to cope in the most toxic way imaginable.

Neither of them will ever be wholly innocent as their actions hurt each other other and many of the people around them. Could we argue semantics on who did something "worse?" Yeah, you could argue that up and down because there's layers to the things both Rika and V have done. But the core of their relationship is built on unhealthy codependency. They cling to each other and as long as they do that, they'll continue to burn like a wildfire.

It's not healthy.

Jihyun even acknowledged how unhealthy it was in the RAE for him to shelter Rika. It's that awareness he has that makes me upset with him, because he'll destroy himself to keep his promise, and in doing so, destroys everyone around him because of it. Sometimes, you've got to understand that your dependency on another person isn't the healthiest thing. You have to make boundaries and start working on getting away from that dynamic, or you need to go and straight up leave.

Saeran and MC do not act and react to situations in the Good Ending the same way that Rika and V react and act to situations that they're thrust into. Saeran and MC are partners, they work together, confide in each other and make decisions based on trust. But, what they do is not based on what the other wants.

Your image shows that.

MC: Would you stop working with them if I asked you to stop? Saeran: To tell you the truth, no, I'll continue on. If it was before, I would've done what you told me to do, but, I want to persuade you now.

V and Rika don't communicate like that. V "shelters" Rika from what she has to face even though he knows it's wrong because he feels like that is the only way to prove he is giving 1000% of his life to ensure his mother didn't die for "nothing". Rika leans into the obsession she holds for Jihyun, continuing to view him as a God who will save her from her devil, even though she knows, deep down, he can't save her from her nightmares.

God. They drive me up a wall all the time but they are the ones we need to look at if we're going to talk about characters who have an unhealthy attachment to each other.

[pynkhues]

Sorry if you already wrote about your opinions on nicki's and lestat's relashionship but I'm confused about some interpretations I've seen here and on x. For reference the only book I've read so far is tvl and nicki seemed so tragic the whole time and his relashionship with lestat was obviously always doomed plus they didn't really understand each other.

I just felt sorry for both of them but I wouldn't call nicki abusive and say that he didn't love lestat at all. I don't know maybe I didn't get some subtext or was being too forgiving? But also I don't think they were childhood sweethearts/were solely wholesome either. And I really hope they do their relashionship justice because there is no reason to make them more toxic in order to uplift loustat because nicki literally doesn't exist anymore.

I wouldn't call him abusive either, anon, but I've seen a bit of it recently too which - - mm. I mean, I wish I could say that it surprised me, but honestly it doesn't? Their relationship is not a healthy one, and Nicki is extremely prone to jealousy with Lestat and can be cruel to him, to say nothing of the fact that he arguably forces Lestat to turn him, and then to give him the theatre, but they're two abused, traumatised young men who find, briefly, an escape in one another. There's a really unhealthy codependency in that emotionally, particularly when you add in Nicki's depression, but also with the fact that Lestat's very much relying on Nicki due to his own illiteracy (and it's explicit in the book - he needs Nicki to read the news to him and plays so he can memorise them, and he's his only way to communicate with Gabrielle through letters), and Nicki relies on Lestat to both leave in the first place with Gabrielle's money and to get work in Paris.

It's a complicated relationship - one that's actually, I think, a lot more complicated than it gets credit for being, and I do hope the show depicts that - and like you said, ultimately a doomed one, but not every unhealthy relationship is abusive.

I do think people probably point to the break-up a bit in this where Nicki tells Lestat that he doesn't love him and that he only went to Paris with him because he thought they would both die there, but I mean, the context of that scene is Nicki's reached a breaking point. There might be an element of truth to it - Nicki hates Lestat for being able to move forwards, for people loving him, for finding success in the way he's never been able to - for being, as he says! Filled with light when he is filled with darkness! - and I'm sure part of it too is that he thought that they might die in Paris - but we see over and over again in those first parts of the book that Nicki loves him, and if he meant them to die in Paris, he meant them to die together.

My read of that has always been that he says it to hurt him because Nicki's hurting. He's been so low for so long, and he thought being turned would make everything better and it's made everything worse, and it's just what like Louis tells Lestat that he did in their reunion - he wanted Lestat to suffer because he was suffering. In that sense, their relationships do have similarities, but Nicki's not Louis. Louis can find his way out of it, because at the end of it all, Louis' somebody who survives, even when he wants to die, and Nicki is not.

So yeah, this is all to say that I agree with you. Their relationship is just sad, but it has its moments of genuine beauty and love, that's part of what makes it both tragic and compelling. They're two traumatised boys escaping abusive fathers and an isolated, impovered, ignorant small town, who make it to the city with their hands clasped together, and the world opens up for them in ways that are both wonderful and terrible and only one of them survives it.

[squidkid15]

Challenge- rank your AUs macaque and wukong relationships from 'seconds away from killing each other' to 'best friends forever'

Oh dear god anon that's so many to rank and they also rapidly slide up and down the scale depending on the timeline (most of them end up besties cuz hawk and I love that sweet sweet reconciliation) but here we go. Higher on the list means they'll kill each other for a corn chip, lower means they'd die for the other at the drop of a hat.

Not gonna do them ALL because that's a WILD amount of them but here's the major ones.

Seconds away from killing each other

Early Hunter - hands down no question they're BRUTAL like second place is MILES behind them it's terrifying

Early/Mid Sanctuary - They hate each other. Macaque very much so, Wukong is just...kinda tired.

Early Daydreams - One-sided, Macaque would murder Wukong but it's not returned.

Early Wasteland - They’re not actively fighting physically but...the verbal abuse....is...is rough.

Early Core - tbh hardly counts because we don't spend much time with it. Basically canon hostility levels but it doesn't last long after the AU diverges, they reconcile pretty early.

Snapped - Kinda neither? Wukong doesn't know Mac exists and Mac avoids Wukong? Idk it's some secret third thing that doesn't really fit on this scale but it's here anyways.

Late Sanctuary - some things are....sorta settled? They're not at each other's throats but it's still a lil strained.

Late Wasteland - It's...something. They're never at each other's throats but it's tense for the most part. Not about to break out into a fight but it's more just...they don't AVOID each other but circumstances make things hard.

Ghost - I wouldn't use the word besties but they're close. It's more protective than friends?

Late Hunter - They're the friends that curse and swear and yell insults at each other constantly but like in a /fond kind of way you know the ones

Late Daydreams - also super close, but I wouldn't call them ride or die. TBH once you're down here on the list they're all super close and the rankings get less and less meaningful cuz Hawk and I just love them being close ahjgfbgf.

Tiny Man - Similar to ghost but a little bit more because both parties are like Fully There. More protective and a little bit parent-child and it's a lot of things but yeah they're close.

Godslayer - Not besties but a little more parent/child but also not. Red would do anything to keep MK safe because he won't let himself fail again.

Long Shadows (Lotus's, less shared) - Almost on a core level of codependence, they never had a huge fallout so they've had a long time to be close.

Late Core - literally cannot be any closer, they would literally do anything before they'd lose the other. And I mean literally as in the dictionary definition.

Literally ride or die besties

[powderrblue]

mutual canonically-a-genloser tell me all of your randy delusions right now (threat)

ohhhh theres so fucking many this is gonna take me a bit IMMA START WITH AUS

i have multiple of the aforementioned universes in my brain and mostly the only differences between these aus are the amount of children that him and henrik adopted and took from showfall, and sometimes that changes up the timeline in which things happen

i don't have one where it's just sneeg and charlie throughout the entire story even though i Should and it is absolutely something to consider

there is one with rgb and in this one he marries henrik in showfall and charlie and sneeg are the only ones there for the wedding. (the wedding is to me a Canon Event. this is spiderman) now this one has two possible endings that i have considered. either A) randy (and potentially henrik) die hours later and randy later saves ranboo after the box when charlie and sneeg are trying to escape with them or B) randy is revived unbeknownst to charlie and sneeg but they don't find out until after they've been out of showfall for years and randy escapes and finds them

now i have another one where randy and henrik have all five kids (rgb, niki, and hetch) and it's the version of the wedding i described where hetch officiates it but it's not quite as central of a plot point in this one. randy still dies but is reset and hetch, charlie, and sneeg dont know. but in this one they all escape during the end of generation 1. all the show up to the box happens, and randy and henrik manage to save all five and just leave. this one is probably my favorite because of all the dynamics and it's so fun to think about. i could go on and on about how they would all be so fucked up but still so so codependent and despite hating each other sometimes they still care about each other because they're quite literally the only ones in the world who can understand each other and they are so aware of that it makes me crazy and also i just love love love randy being the best girl dad (<- this one is the Fucked Up Showfall version of the delulu cabin au)

okay so moving on from au paragraphs, one thing about randy and ranboo interactions. to me at first he is genuinely pissed at them even though he knows he shouldn't be because they were not in control when they killed his kids. but it's the days when charlie and sneeg hate him for letting them die and watching niki be the only one willing to comfort him is when he starts changing his mind. and then one night ranboo comes up and apologizes to randy for what happened in gen 1 because they know hes upset at them for it and thats when it hits randy like "oh yeah okay im actually Emotionally Attached to this kid now"

also on a more silly note. we've recently brought up henrik being a hairdresser. he probably knows how to do makeup and nails too. i will bet you he taught randy how to paint someone's nails really well and he would do it with niki and ranboo. sometimes charlie and sneeg would probably join in too i think. hetch Might. if there were black

also this has been bouncing around in my brain for a couple of days but sometimes i imagine what if randy could play like four songs on the guitar. he barely knows anything outside of these songs but if someone genuinely asks him to play for them he will. and just imagining these seven people who just escaped showfall and they're in a shitty rv and huddled together because the windows dont close and just. falling asleep to it. im insane sorry

also to me randy drinks insane amounts of coffee. like Insane. its probably the reason hes so anxious half the time (i am Choosing to ignore showfall)

[bonesandthebees]

Chapter 22:

Wilbur blaming himself for cursing Tommy because he’s the one whose cursed and feeling guilty about it vs. Tommy blaming himself for getting curse because he told Wilbur to take of his blindfold and feeling guilty about Wilbur blaming himself and feeling like shit. (Probably also about stressing Phil and Techno out).

The resurface of Wilbur’s ‘death wise’. It’s not that he wants to die per se, it’s more that religious guilt and what he thinks he deserves + jumping to the worst conclusions any time he can. But we are in his head, everyone around him is not and therefore worried(TM).

Phil and Techno clearly being upset, but trying their hardest to not let it show because they know Wilbur and Tommy probably tried everything in their power to avoid this, so it’s not their fault and being angry at them won’t help. Also, Wilbur will (and did) that their frustrations as anger at him. (I just love their ‘parenting’ style, they are so chill whereas in other stories characters like these would get a very for plot, they are just here to be (mostly) reasonable.)

The codependency kicking in strong. Sleeping in the same room. Constantly being together and when they aren’t there’s always someone else with them, most often Phil and Techno. When one of them needs a 1 on 1 talk the other will always stay or escort the remaining member of the codependency gang. (Which is how we get Wilbur not noticing Techno is still with him at the end.)

Speaking of the end: Tommy is still the only person who knows that Wilbur used to be a street kid, so his little rant might tip Techno of to that. At which point Techno could suddenly understand why they get along so well. (At least I’m pretty sure Wilbur says that nobody cared about him on the street, I’m not going back to check).

Also, Tommy being very scared of dying even though he doesn’t really (fully) believe in the curse vs. Tommy not wanting anyone (especially Wilbur) to be worried about him (or get made at Wilbur). So he hides that he’s cursed and he’s so damn good in pretending he doesn’t feel like shit. But then the second he’s just with people who know he’s cursed, you can sort of see him unravel, because he’s still scared.

Also, Phil telling Wilbur that he’s going to need to decide if he still wants to be Pythia and soon is food for my ‘they are working together with Eret to take over and possibly using Wilbur as a gambling chip’ theory. There’s more to fuel that theory in chapter 23, so I’ll get to it.

And lastly, Phil pointing that Wilbur couldn’t have changed the vision is fuel of the ‘the Pythia can see the future, but never change it and maybe even help cause it’ theory. There’s also a bit with Tommy but I can’t remember which chapter that’s in, so I’ll put it in the next one.

-🌲

the totally not brothers are in a competition to out self-guilt each other

yeah I thought it was really interesting to show wilbur returning to that mindset even if it was just a brief moment. just showing that even though he's improved a lot, he's still got a lot of issues and some troubling mindsets that are ingrained into him which led to some very unhealthy thought patterns. he never wanted to die, but he's been made to feel like his life isn't worth much at all so if he's not serving his purpose and/or he's done something wrong, dying might be the best option

I think it helps that phil and techno are also literally worshippers of death. like of course they're worried and upset and don't want tommy to die, but they have a different view of death than most people do, which also lends itself to their more chill reaction. and like you said, they know wilbur and tommy definitely did everything they could to avoid this.

oh yeah the codependency is only gonna be kicked up higher with this whole situation. the brothers are attached at the hip and phil and techno can tell.

tommy IS scared yes!! despite worshipping death he's also an 18 year old who doesn't want to die yet. sure death isn't as scary for him as it is for most people, but he's not ready to go. tommy's actually got a really interesting internal struggle going on right now with his own religious beliefs conflicting with his fears of dying that I don't have much opportunity to show. but yeah he's got a lot of internal conflict going on with his belief in kristin right now

hmm theories theories theories :)

[crescentmoonrider]

Shipping ask game: Reigen X Dimple or alternatively KakaObi

[shipping ask meme]

oh man, a choice between a Very Popular ship I don't really care about, or the ship that got me back into Naruto ?

yeah imma do both

-

EkuRei : Meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why don’t you ship it?

Honestly, I don't really know. They just don't do it for me like that. I like them as shitty friends, and it's not like I mind seeing this ship around, I just... don't care.

What would have made you like it?

Well that's a hard one, uhhh..... I mean, I guess it would've been funny to see Reigen react to Dimple's humanoid form. I think a part of why the fandom's take on this ship usually doesn't do it for me is that they keep on involving that poor Security Guy from Claw, when Dimple has a Grotesque Humanoid Form right here.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'd probably enjoy it more if people weren't cowards and actually leaned into the monsterfucking aspect of this ship /o\

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I actually really enjoy their canon dynamic ! They have a grudging respect for each other, and they bonded over how much they each care (and refuse to admit they care) about Mob, and they just. Get each other.

And they're also really funny and sarcastic, and I always love me a good comedy duo.

Basically, platonic ekurei ? Hell yeah ! Romantic/sexual ekurei ? Eh..

-

KKOB : My Naruto OTP, Unfortunately

What made you ship it?

The fuckingng. Kakashi Gaiden. Like, I've said this before and I'll say it again, Kishimoto might have messed up a lot of things, but he did Not fuck around with the Gaiden, and I don't know if I can ever recover from the symbolism of Kakashi completing his signature technique by absorbing Obito's eye into himself, the very same way he will end up absorbing Obito's personality in the future.

Just. God.

Also later in the manga, the absolute Drama of the reveal of Obito being Alive and Evil and Kakashi's breakdown at seeing the guy he's idolized his whole life standing in front of him and calling him trash...

Look, I'm not joking when I say this reveal got me back into Naruto, I had actually jumped ship when Haku was brought back to life, but then I heard the Tobi-Obito Theory actually turned out to have been officially confirmed and I just. I had to see for myself.

Basically, I'm in it for the unhealthy codependency and the angst.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

Uh. See above for the main points ? /o\

But uh, yeah, of course there's all I've already talked about, but also like. The physicality of their relationship ? Is incredible ? They literally share a pair of eye and can sometimes see from each other's point of view thanks to it.

The fight inside Kamui with the flashbacks to their old sparring was also just. When Obito grabs Kakashi's hand and uses it to complete the signs for his jutsu ? Gay As Fuck. I've never seen a more homoerotic fight scene, and I've read all of Naruto.

And of course emotionally they're a complete mess. You can't talk about the one without mentioning the other. They're barely their own person anymore, with how much they're mixed together, especially because Kakashi's way of coping with Obito's death was by just never allowing him to die.

But also Obito literally stalked him just 'cause, so y'know. They both have a part in becoming uh, to quote from NBC Hannibal, "blurred".

Dumbass gay ninjas can't live with the person they've become and so they try to lose themselves into an idealized past, failing horribly : the relationship.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I literally do not interact with the fandom, except when I post stuff for my AUs. And the last time I narutoposted was uhhhhhhh in 2020.

I guess one thing that was common back when I still looked at some of the fandom's postings was Rin either being outright hated and treated like a nuisance, or given a Badass Girl persona that didn't actually fit with her canon personality (which is Radical Anti-War Revolutionary Who Respects Human Life, btw), probably because a lot of folks felt like she was "in the way" of KKOB. Which is *checks notes* fucking stupid.

So anyway my unpopular opinion is that Rin loves her boys and supports them no matter what, and in any world KKOB get together and Rin is around, there's no way Rin doesn't remain the two's best friend the same way she's always been. She is a part of the deal. Not necessarily as part of an OT3, but always as part of the platonic codependent Mess that makes up these idiots.

...... bringing in a third character probably isn't what's supposed to happen in this question. But like I said, I barely know what's going on in the fandom these days, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mcytnoodles]

Okay its been a day, still rotating morph au around in my head but tbh i'm just fucked up thinking about them all and trying to put it into something coherent dhshshsh

Like Bdubs & Cleo and Scar & Grian being so close its weird, and Impulse & Tango doing the opposite bc the crastle alliance got messy

Or even like, characters who we haven't really seen yet?? Like idk if Bdubs & Cleo are so close they basically refused to split up, then hows Ren going to cope without Martyn? Tbh hows Ren going to cope with any of it bc The Red King was a lot.

Also! Idk how u made the "being dead" part of third life work lore wise but i would like to know, because like, does Cleo know Bdubs betrayed Impulse (also i'm shaking abt that one to a point of its making me wanna try write fanfic for the first time in years), does Scar know Grian killed himself???

ALSO the 2nd and final deaths leaving a lasting mark i'm vibrating rapidly abt that one (i don't have anything coherent to say i just think thats cool as fuck)

Tldr i'm rotating morph au around in my head a lot <3

!!! yeah!! 3rd life as media had such a thing with relationships that were codependent to an unhealthy extent and it's so interesting because!! how do you go from "me and this other person need to be together at all times to protect each other or we would both actually literally die" to just. interacting with them like you do with a regular friend or even partner? it's definitely something I want to explore more in the future!

and. um. **looks over at the ren-centric chapter sitting in my google doc** funny story. the ren chapter was initially supposed to be much heavier, but I. um. had one too many breakdowns while writing it and had to make it lighter. (the Martyn oneshot is still a w.i.p but it. definitely exists. it'll hopefully be done by the time the current fic is all up!).

I don't want to talk about it too in-depth right now, since I want to elaborate on it in the future, but in my opinion ren and martyn arguably had the most codependent relationship of all the duos, so them being the only two to be separated...

no one knows what happened after their final deaths. so no, scar doesn't know and cleo doesn't know. I actually put a lot of thought into that part.

if you write anything for this au I would literally cry/pos, it sounds too good to be true almost.

ALSO, one thing I like about the scars is that for some people, they're not necessarily visible at a first glance, maybe some players would actively try to hide them, even, which just...I don't have a point, but the idea makes me feel things.

I, too, am rotating morph in my head. in the last couple of days I have actually been rotating the cursed morph timeline from when I tried to figure out how long 3rd life took. I am putting it in the microwave like a bowl of soup.

I am coping by drawing a mlp hermitcraft 8 au in my sketchbook, I am very stable as you can see\hj

LOVED this ask. thank u <3

[bradycore]

i think dean and sam should've been more codependent actually. i think that if the main conflicts throughout the series are due to what they're willing to do for each other, and if their codependency has been pointed out as a flaw multiple times within the show, it should have existed in a way that wasn't conditional and didn't cause conflict between them. like, dean left sam to die in the panic room?? sam didn't look for dean for a year?? what?? this isn't necessarily a critique, and ofc there are justifications for everything, i would just enjoy it more if they had less "yeah you're on your own" moments in between the "i'm going to sacrifice literally everything for you and we'll figure out the consequences later" moments. sure, the codependency is toxic, and maybe they hate each other a little for what the other is willing to sacrifice for them. that's the good stuff! i don't want the issue to be what the other did to them. so yeah i think the brothers should have been 100% devoted to each other actually.

[whetstonefires]

I see lots of potential with your Damian clones fic! I've always wondered how Damian and Tim would get along if Damian wasn't programmed to kill Tim. With your fic, you could explore the Tim-Damian dynamic 7 (or was it 6?) ways! I kinda imagine each clone representing a side/aspect of Damian (but ofcourse they're still characters in their own right). Plus the kids are hella cute

Thanks! And...huh, that’s an interesting thought. Tim and Damian’s relationship was very much defined by Damian’s relentless antagonism, so yeah, it would have been completely different if not.

And then you’ve got two options--Damian’s still an asshole as default interaction metric and just has no particular antipathy toward Tim for some reason, or Damian has a major personality overhaul and isn’t a dick just generally, which would change all his relationships.

...the fact that DC aged Damian up three years via retcon without changing his behavior or appearance or really how people react to him bugs me a lot. Ten to thirteen are really major years in the socialization process. A ten-year-old child who insults everyone he meets and throws food at the wall is considerably less likely to grow up to be a man who abuses his power over others than a 13-year-old who does the same thing. He’s not only got more time to sort himself out, he’s in a more plastic stage of identity formation.

(This is also why I feel like Bruce’s parents dying when he was 8 is more consistent with his characterization than 12. But I digress.)

The thing about these kids, though, is how much they aren’t Damian.

They’re going to have a lot in common, of course; they’ve got the genes for his sturdy build and precision of motion, for example, and I suspect a certain amount of the tendency toward drama is genetic lmao. And they share a frame of reference in the League.

But Damian and the septuplets had very different experiences of childhood in the League of Shadows. Damian’s entire upbringing centered around being special--the heir, the son-of. He was required to be a prodigy, and expected to perform to a high standard specifically in contrast to others, and to win. And his mother loved him, and it wasn’t explicitly a conditional love, but...

Meanwhile, the clones were not special. They were disposable, even. They weren’t anyone’s personal kids. They could die in fights or accidents, and no special efforts would be made to fix them. Nobody loved them. They were encouraged to view one another as rivals, but not all that hard and mostly in terms of how whoever was lowest in status at a given time was vulnerable to being broken down for spare parts. (This didn’t happen often, but it always potentially could.) They were expected to excel, but not to the same level, and not on an individual basis but to par with the group.

Even within the same overall conceptual framework, the contrast between being assumed to have value and having to maintain that status, versus being presumed to have very little value and having to avoid having none is actually considerable, and the difference between the primary risk associated with failure being loss of identity versus being literally trashed is greater.

It’s not that Damian’s life wasn’t occasionally seriously threatened during his training, but that was never the primary threat he was dealing with, more of a tactical goad, and it’s very much not what his anxieties center around.

This latter fact has been dealt with in canon mostly as a symptom of brash youth, but it also speaks to how Talia (and to a lesser extent Ra’s) very much wanted him alive, and he was secure that as long as this remained true he was probably fine no matter what. In spite of his various hardships, his childish sense of immortality remained intact.

(They do call her Mother but Talia very firmly and almost entirely successfully partitioned the clones as ‘not her sons,’ both because even though she did partly send Damian to Bruce to protect him she was not emotionally prepared for his rejection and is still reeling, and because they were literally made to be expendable, spare bodies, and her sense of self-preservation is too well-developed to allow herself to get attached. The same way if you work in the sheep industry you can’t get too sentimental about the lambs, because a certain number are meat.

She still didn’t like them getting hurt or anything but it was in the category of One Of Those Things, it wasn’t personal.)

One of the things this divergence has meant, in this case, is that unlike Damian the septuplets are very sensitive to adult approval from a survival perspective. So while they’re not actually submissive unless you give them no other options, they have a certain inclination to conciliate as a first resort.

While Damian, of course, is a provocative hellion, because making a point of his strength and importance was how he learned to register his value, and being ignored or disrespected constitutes an existential threat in the schema he was given as a child.

And yet, at the same time--because they didn’t receive focused personal attention from their caretakers, the cloneboys aren’t nearly as inclined toward emotional dependence on adults. They eventually, somewhat covertly, learned to depend on each other. That’s their security. They don’t bleed the need to be accepted. They’d benefit from stable adult attachment figures, even kind of want them to varying individual degrees, but they don’t need them, not acutely.

While both Damian’s parents and his favorite brother have a very easy time breaking his heart. So, the clones are much more cooperative than Damian, but also much harder to manipulate, and harder to secure the loyalty of.

And of course the effect gap of having your identity founded on singularity versus barely distinguished from peers is profound.

They are individuals, but they’re acutely codependent, so neither Tim nor anyone else can have a relationship with any one of them that doesn’t built on and influence the relationship with the group.

So, really, no matter where I take the story, Tim’s relationships with the individual clone kids are going to barely resemble any potential relationship he could have had with Damian in alternate timelines where Damian wasn’t one of codependent septuplets, which is...almost all of them, I presume. Sorry to disappoint on that front!