The original 'virgin vs chad' meme
I feel like everyone is sick of those stupid soyjack vs Chad "my opinion is good and based and correct, your opinion bad and wrong and stinky" memes by this point, as they're some of the lowest forms of current internet 'humor.' But precisely because those memes are so bad and also everywhere, I feel it's worth giving some credit to the fact that the original "The Virgin Walk / The Chad Stride" was actually a brilliant meme.
"The Virgin Walk" image showed up first, and it was standard 4chan stuff - which is to say, highly negative. Just a whole bunch of random small traits that people can have, bundled together in an accusatory way to try and make people insecure about them having "virgin" posture, by the kind of people who genuinely worries about being an "alpha male" (Or possibly pointing out their own flaws as a form of self-hatred, flip a coin when it comes to 4chan)
And then, on another thread, someone made the Chad Stride edit to go along with it.
It's a great piece of satire by how simple it is. Just by taking the traits listed in the original image, then inverting and exaggerating them, the result is an absurd caricature of a man who does not (and should not) exist. Through exaggeration, it demonstrates how the people who constantly worry about seeming 'Chad-like' are chasing after behaviour that is utterly unhinged and disconnected from reality.
I think this gif demonstrates it perfectly by putting it in motion:
Virgin is a normal, if insecure dude. Chad is an absolute fucking maniac. (Not to mention all the references to violence in the image)
So, while it did degrade into those awful soyjak memes we all know and hate because that is the nature of the internet, I feel like it's worth remembering that in the original image that spawned this entire trend, you're supposed to laugh at Chad. You shouldn't want to be Chad, because he's the menace to society
[ credit to the gif's creator: https://x.com/art_miguelito/status/1107313740033212417 ; thanks to @softwaring for linking it ]
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okay i don't have anything smart to add i just genuinely love that these seemingly trivial jokes are actually an important part of his character. we see it throughout the entire manga, how he pushes aside his own frustration and discomfort to accommodate everyone else's and avoid needless confrontation- another example off the top of my head would be the barometz chapter in which he slowly gets frustrated with izutsumi but still tries his best to talk some sense into her calmly and soundly.
and in contrast, there are very few times he expresses his anger and hurt towards others, and it usually takes a lot for him to finally lose his patience and control.
i mean, even with kabru he tried to be polite despite the circumstances until the guy said the one thing that triggers an immense sense of shame, hurt and rage in laios. and you know, the manga does say it quite clearly early on. when we are introduced to namari and then to shuro, laios acts all friendly and shows his respect and trust in them despite how things ended between them, and everyone else gets frustrated with him for acting so strange- why are you the one who tries so hard to pacify the rest when you should be the angriest?
and they don't understand him. they don't know him well enough to be able to understand, but we as readers get to see during the manga that they aren't wrong to question him- he does, in fact, feel all those ugly emotions. and it's when the winged lion finally confronts him that we see to what extent these feelings he buried so deep go, and suddenly all those funny little moments where he sometimes pretends to be mr nice guy speak volumes about his character. honestly, ryoko kui is a master at using jokes in order to define important character traits and this one doesn't fail to amaze me.
and laios's hatred and rage and deep scars he can't get over aren't shown explicitly during most of these moments i mentioned before, but now you realize there are 26 years of emotional baggage to all of them and they sting. he is angry but he can't say shit, what difference would it make? it won't make his friends choose him instead of themselves when he needed them most, and it won't help his party get any farther. of course, this logic doesn't apply to them- they are absolutely allowed to get angry and it's fine to get mad at him, he can take that.
so after finishing the series it's so clear that he tries his best to avoid clashing with others not just due to the current circumstances and him needing to be a reliable leader but also because he knows that people don't even like him when he tries to show his good sides and hide all the rest, so who the hell would tolerate his rage and despair? who would stay after realizing that he is so deeply flawed he doesn't even like his own being?
but he does get mad. he can't help it, and sometimes it gets out of control and now everyone knows. and it's funny, isn't it? that most of those moments ended up bringing him closer to others. shuro admitting he is envy of him and actually becoming the friend laios thought he was all along, fighting for his sake and waiting for him to come back- believing in him even after he turned into a monster and searching for him the way he couldn't bring himself to do for falin when he learned of what became of her- or kabru being pushed to just let it all out because he couldn't bluff his way out of this one and get to laios any other way, so now they are even. they are both horribly honest with each other and they both choose to stay. a weird way of getting to know each other, but it is what it is.
it's simply... the more laios let himself just be, the deeper his relationships grew. and there's intimacy in being your ugly, weak and furious self around someone and them not leaving you. feeling safe enough to let it be known you are hurt and angry. and he knows that now, too.
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Your World [ Wolverine x Reader ]
Summary: your Wolverine was your whole world.
A/N: I like writing angsty stuff and this movie provided me with the best possible scenarios <3 hehehe I love wolverine
Warnings: Cussing, mentions of blood
Marvel MASTERLIST Link here
SPOILERS BELOW
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It wasn’t an ideal love story that brought you back to Logan.
Being a mutant with incredible healing abilities and a broken heart made it so easy for Stryker to capture you. Your Wolverine had been the one to rescue you from the clutches of Stryker and the horrible fate that loomed over your head. All the days of experiments and cold rooms where you’d be injected with who knows what, it all lead to him.
But you always had to remind yourself that Logan had gotten you out, made you a X-Men, but found the brutal truth of how dangerous it was to be loved by you.
You loved deeply and endlessly, like a void waiting for eternity to be loved and to love. Logan was exactly what your heart desired for years.
Someone who could never die, never leave you.
Fighting alongside each other became a beautiful symphony. And God protect anyone who caused you harm, because Logan would only see red and slice them to pieces. It was a miracle none of the X-men had been torn to shreds, but Scott always came close.
The team would always joke about your relationship, saying how could an innocent soul be in love with such a brute like Wolverine.
But Logan knew the only way he could breathe was to be with you, to hold you, to kiss and love you.
He would always find his way to you no matter the circumstance.
Beast was holding you in the infirmary because he wanted to run tests? Logan was there.
Storm and Jean wanted to have a girls night? Logan was sitting outside the room in case anything happened.
Scott was training you in hand to hand combat? Logan was definitely there.
Your world consisted of him and him only.
And maybe that is why it hurt so much when he let your entire team die, because you had not made them your whole world.
You had been away on a mission by yourself when you received the news of their passing. You returned to a bloodied home, no sign of Wolverine to be found.
Life began to blur after what happened. You had to go into hiding, because people blamed you for what happened, too. And there was no one there to stop you from spiraling into a flurry of self hatred.
Hatred for what you had become. A love sick puppy so consumed with Logan only. Maybe if you had been there, maybe if you hadn’t put so much trust in him, maybe if you could have taken the hits for your team.
And the thought that stuck with you the most, if you had been there, screaming for help - would Logan had only saved you and left the rest to die?
Because the love you shared was slowly becoming so obvious to you that it was not pure or natural, but rather so simple it would have made you and Logan public enemy number one.
But you supposed that had already happened, too.
Your mutant abilities were the only thing you had left, so you consumed yourself in underground work. Becoming exactly what the X-men had fought against.
Shedding your uniform, you had to separate yourself from the X-men because people recognized you too easily. It was hard to find any work where people wanted a tainted mutant.
You tried your hardest to not let every moment be consumed by the thought of Logan. He had never reached out to you after the event, despite the grief between you so overwhelmingly strong. He couldn’t face you and love someone who would have stepped through hell and back for him.
He felt as if he didn’t deserve it.
So time continued to pass as the bond between the two of you was severed so deeply that it was suffocating to be apart.
But it wasn’t until Deadpool showed up to your apartment that you were finally addressing your past.
“Leave, now. I’m not hearing any of your bullshit.” You tried to close your door but he stopped it.
“Please, c’mon. I need you! Wolverine needs you!”
You tensed at the mere mention of him. “If he needed me so desperately, it is far too late for him to come back.”
“But you’re his one and only, for fuck’s sake! Every variant I’ve met of him has had a you stalking around like a lap dog. You know how many of you’s have beaten the shit out of me?” He rambled on, and you rolled your eyes.
“I don’t care to understand what you’re saying, so goodbye, Wade!”
Deadpool sighed before kicking the door in and stabbing you through the chest with one of his blades. You stared at him in shock and couldn’t register anything as he flung you over his shoulder into an orange portal.
You landed on a hard ground that pushed the blade out of you. “Wade, you’re a dead man.”
He stepped through the portal and leaned over your body. “Sorry about that, but I can’t die so you’re stuck with not only me, but Wolverine!”
Deadpool giggled and ran off, making sure to rip the blade out of your stomach. You winced but felt your regeneration cells working to stitch you back together.
Slowly sitting up, you spat out blood.
“I tried to tell him not to bring you into this.”
You froze at the voice you fought to forget, willing calm into your fast beating heart.
Sitting up fully only made your legs wobble and your head spin. But you had to look up into the eyes of the man you still loved.
Logan looked different, healthier and happier. It only made you feel sick.
“I’ve been busy.” He said it so casually that it made you want to slap his chest for the lack of greeting. “Wade gave me a second chance. I helped save his world.”
“You haven’t seen me in years and you choose to brag?” You scoffed, removing your shirt to assess the damage Wade had done to your shirt.
Logan sucked in a breath as he took in your battle worn scars. Despite your healing factor, you still kept every scar from every wound you had endured.
He remembered the last time he saw you, you only adorned a few on your chest and stomach.
Now it was littered with them.
“You’ve been busy too, I gather?” Logan said with a hint of sarcasm.
You glared at him. “Why am I here?”
“Wade thought that I needed you.” He admitted it with such ease, like he knew it to be true in his heart.
“And? Do you need me?”
He hesitated before answering. “I’ve always needed you… and I think that’s why I let myself go for so many years. Because I knew that no matter what I did or said to you, you would never forgive me. I would always be the one who let our team die… let you go.”
“Well you’re right, because I never would forgive you. Not after abandoning all of us,” you choked out, the tears beginning to creep into the corners of your eyes. “I loved you fiercely, Logan. All it would have taken was one call during those first few days and I would have been there for you. We could’ve been healing together. But you chose this life of despair for both of us, Logan.”
“I know.” He said, his own eyes watering.
“I despise you.” You said, but your heart was breaking, letting out the true feelings. It was bleeding for him and for him only.
Logan stepped closer and you did not stop him.
“I want nothing to do with you.” You said, your voice cracking.
“I understand.” He said, five feet away from you now.
“I hate you.” You began to weep, the blood in your heart revealing what you wanted truly.
“I don’t blame you.” Logan closed the gap between the two of you, holding you close to his chest. You cried into his shoulder, holding on for dear life. “I’m never leaving you again.”
All you could muster was a small nod, your tears staining his shirt. His own were dripping onto the top of your head.
And in the empty apartment, you and Logan stood, holding onto each other.
Holding your world together.
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a loving family, an unpalatable desire
reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
a/n: would anyone hear me out if i ever wrote romantic yan! bruce (ft. platonic yan! batfam AND romantic yan clark kent alongside the superfam ofc) with a neglected spouse reader... because uhm, i've been thinking about it lately just yk... so anyways PLSPLSPLS send in asks about this, ive been thinking about it so much lately.
imagine wanting to raise a family so badly with a man who adopts problem children as a side hustle. you're not some invasive spouse, you've always been good, always been loving, so... so accepting, never questioned where or how he picked them up from the side of the streets, never once complaining about the hickeys on his neck or the once neat tussles of his hair now tangled accompanying lipstick stains on his white suit.
you love your children, you tell yourself all the time. you love them, you love bruce— even if he doesn't love you. you said it in your vows, despite it being scripted, despite your family finally sighing in relief in the sidelines at finally being able to sell you off to one of the wealthiest man in the world, rather than being wasting off under their care— your vows are real.
you wanted someone to love you, unconditionally, so viscerally eternal that it eats you up.
really, all you wanted was to play that fantasy life of trophy house spouses. all you wished for was a loving, healthy relationship. the american dream: the picture perfect family frames, your husband kissing you on the cheek as he leaves for work, your children bickering at the dining room, with the scent of homemade meals wafting about the vicinity. all you wanted was the warmth in your chest to flicker like candlelights. all you dreamed about was that domestic life, an escape from the abusive household you were raised in.
yet the manor is too cold, too unforgiving for a soul such as yours.
the longer you stay inside claustrophobic, yet oh-so large hallways, the quicker you drown in a neverending pool of self-hatred.
but you're not allowed to show them your sufferings. they've been through much worse, you tell yourself. they've suffered more, and as what good spouses do, as what you're taught, you stay silent, enabling them to turn you into their own emotional punching bag.
you only allow yourself to cry at the dead of the night, under the sheets of your too-cold blanket and your too-hot pillows. when the manor is filled with deathly silence and a looming sense of dread and ill fitting thoughts of ifs and when they'll come back in one piece, will you grant yourself temporary respite; worry for a family who never even called you their parent.
yet you've always been so considerate. despite the pang in your chest every time bruce flirts with anymore potential love interest at a gala, you chose to instead monitor your chaotic children, who have always never bat an eye on you despite you always gazing lovingly at them.
you know of their interests, they don't know yours, yet you still give them extravagant gifts on their birthdays, with tired, yet glinting eyes, and a silent excuse to return to your room; one separate from bruce.
you know of bruce's hardships, but you don't push too hard, don't force him to talk, only provide him your silence and an offer to serve him dinner; all the time he refuses without looking at you. you give him comfort only if he ever allows you, only if he allows his walls to crumble— but not even his spouse can amount to a warm, crackling fireplace. to him, you're probably only a matchstick under the deadbeat glaze of the snow in a winter night.
maybe that's why you're such a ghost in the manor, stalking through the hallways, looking out for any of your children in case they come across you with any injuries. maybe that's why eventually your resolve weakened.
and maybe the absence of familial love led you to find comfort in another man's arm.
''til death do us part,' is such a tragic saying in your case, because you know it in your fragile heart that bruce's love for you was never alive in the first place. and yet you allow him to play you like a fiddle, allow him to slowly allow you to slip away from his nonexistent grasp.
and now, you're a stand-in parent for clark's son, jon, after the tragic loss of his wife. now, your world seems a lot less bleaker, as you play the fantasy of a loving house spouse, fully abandoning the life you left behind, a life you've never been gifted with until now. you want to feel guilty, you want to feel absolutely terrible but the heartache of neglect has become too much and all you do was allow clark to warm you up each night, kissing away your tears and spooning your deep-seated anxieties away.
you don't let the past eat you up, not when the present is too perfect, too freeing, too delusionally beautiful.
your son, jon provides you every joy a parent could have. parent's day gifts, heartfelt letters at every nook and cranny of your shared bedroom with clark— even reading him bedtime stories, allowing him to sleep in your lap after he slowly nods off, with clark knocking softly on polished wooden doors, greeting you with a loving kiss on the lips and a bouquet of your favorite flowers in hand—
it's everything a parent wants, needs even.
and you're everything clark, and especially jon wants, needs in their life.
so it's such a stupid mistake, really. a slip of the tongue, a too-enthusiastic smile, incredibly bright, shining eyes. it's not jon's fault, you still love him either way. but it's an error still— one a complicated matter at hand, so dreadful for you, that jon accidentally, all-too-suddenly, mentions you as his parent to damian.
a loving, wonderful parent, he says, with a picture of you in his wallet shoved right in front of his friend's face.
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