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waywardsalt · 3 months

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Can you please tell more about your redeemed Bellum that hangs around with the main cast in post-canon? Or, like, your hum!Bellum ideas in general?

Ooooh, I have a lot I could say about Bellum. I'll go a bit off this ask and just talk about him in the context of post-ph and some other aus, since he's fun and because most of them share the common thread of him being in human form often. This will probably be messy, but I'll divide it into sections to force myself to stick to one topic at once to keep this from devolving into what might as well be a transcript of a discord dms infodump.

(there should be a keep reading just under here- there are a few thousand words under the cut- if it's lower than it should be then idk, even while drafting this i had issues with it moving further down than i put it)

Human Bellum Basics (mostly design stuff)

It's less of a human Bellum au sort of thing, and more like a design for what if Bellum had a human form that he could change into. Kind of like Oshus having his human form while actually being a whale, it's the idea that Bellum can switch between his human form and his demon form at will, and I have spent... way, way too long trying to figure out this design.

I can't quite remember why I decided to give Bellum a human form (could've been anything from doing it for the hell of it to for shipping purposes) and it took AGES to decide on his final design.

Describing it would take a few paragraphs, so there's art! Commission pieces by @roskii specifically, he's great, he did great, check him out. (i dont know how to make these smaller :)))))) enjoy)

Half of it is directly taken from his demon design, he keeps the tentacles (not always present, he manifests them at will and tend to have much less reach when he's human), his eye, his teeth, his hair color (kind of), and half of it is more... brought in by ideas related to Bellum in general, with some vague references to that demon design; specifically him being scarred all over is a mixture of the idea of him as a violent and almost warlike creature, while also vaguely referencing the markings on his demon body (in the earliest drawing I ever did of a human Bellum design, he did just straight-up have those markings. That picture no longer exists, I'm sure).

As a basic reference, I suppose, in the second image, the character to the right of Bellum (Damien Fletcher) is an oc of mine, and therefore a character I designed (totally worth mentioning tho that with both Damien and Bellum while I did technically design them and gave roskii my notes for how they look, he also took some small liberties with their designs and... ugh theyre great im keeping them), so those two could provide some insight to my character design sensibilities, even if they're just a small fraction of the (mental) character designs I have.

Bellum is made up of pieces of his canonical design, pieces that I think make sense considering what we know about him, and just pieces of other character designs. He has more or less the same haircut as Joker/the protagonist from Persona 5. His hair has been like that for a while, but seeing Joker's hair helped me figure out specifically what I wanted.

It's been... hard, trying to give him a humanoid design, I've seen a bunch of other human Bellum designs, looked at other Zelda characters with both human and inhuman forms, took inspiration for what I could do and how and what parts could be carried over. His hair is easy to explain, it literally is meant to look like he does as a demon. Easy. It is absolutely directly inspired by that bitch from Tokyo Ghoul. I'm not looking up the character name I don't care about Tokyo Ghoul.

I keep him having sharp teeth, I've transposed those markings on his bodies as being scars (which I'll elaborate a little more on later), kept his eye and that he only has one main eye (there is nothing under the eyepatch. It's just smooth. If you've seen The Goonies, it's like what's going on with One-Eyed Willy. That's probably where I got it from tbh), the yellow and black color scheme is further kept with a yellow tank top-esque shirt and black pants and boots, and while they're not constantly present he still has access to his tentacles.

He's not human, just pretending to be.

Leading me to some other little details, such as his lack of ears. And nails. And. Other things not visible that he didn't bother with. He pretends to be human, but doesn't care enough to look truly human- though he can pass as human. When he does bother to actually look human, he does have nails and ears, and changes his eye to a human one, with a color of choice. He goes by 'Warren' when actually pretending to be human. It doesn't mean anything in particular it's just a play on how 'bellum' is latin for 'war'. But, most of the time, he's not really trying. A sense of lack of real care is something I try to communicate with his humanoid design, hence him having generally baggy and plain clothes.

The 'war' thing about his character I think is decently expressed in game with him having an army of sorts with the phantoms and him just coming off as sort of violent but strategic. He also seems very scrappy, mostly attacks with direct contact including just straight up running into Link, and seems to put a lot of stock into sheer force and just fucking killing you at any cost after a certain point, but seems genuinely wary and cornered once someone is shown to be capable of actually posing an actual threat. I like the idea of human Bellum being a bit of a brawler in a sense, fighting with his bare hands and just being incredibly violent when he fights like a human, really only breaking out his more supernatural abilities when he just wants to get shit over with.

Part of the fun with Bellum is that there isn't much to him, so I'm taking a lot of liberties with him. His loose clothes are something that won't really get in the way of him fighting and do the bare minimum, and the boots he wears have metal toes for just a bit of extra ways to hurt people. He's built but still soft in places, not intended to be a muscular as Damien, he's intentionally designed his own human form to be a bit unassuming, so I've kept that he's made of a lot of circular shapes, his face is meant to be a bit of a round shape, his hair gives a round shape, and though he's fairly tall (he and Damien are 6 feet tall btw Linebeck throws off every post-ph cast height comparison) I think of him being a bit... small? If that makes sense? His clothes help with that, they're slightly oversized, and his posture isn't great; He's a bit like a delinquent, starting fights intentionally for the sake of violence and putting little effort into his appearance.

His scars are technically cosmetic. They aren't results of injuries; technically nothing but the Phantom Sword and things like it can hurt him. His scars are references to the markings on his demon body, and just further reflection of him being a creature all about violence and conflict. They aren't totally consistent between the times he uses his human form, but some of the bigger ones are, most notably the scar across his face.

I'll be honest. My earliest human Bellum designs were some Tumblr sexyman shit and I've been trying to ditch that SO BAD ever since. I think I've done well. The scar across his face is a big one. An added imperfection, a massive facial blemish that isn't really conventionally great to look at. His nose specifically has been though some development stages, at first I kept switching between different full nose shapes, then brought in the facial scar and decided that he'd be missing a chunk of that nose, then, decided, fuck it! I can't decide on a nose shape, so he gets no nose at all. I think it works pretty well and I like it.

I really tried to get in a lot of his personality to the design, and I don't want to go into all of it in this section, so just keep in mind that a lot of his design has been influenced by the way I've decided to write him, and some stuff I've already mentioned might be made a little clearer when I get into that. As a quick aside, he's pale partially because I've intentionally made him look halfway similar to Link, and partially because I figure he does not get a lot of sun; you literally meet him in what is effectively a basement, and from the way he operates, probably hasn't made himself seen in a while by the time the events of the game happen. He can't get sunburns, but, as he cannot change a lot of extremely major things about his human form, he can't manually change his skin tone in a major way, and it's likely that when he was considerably younger and newer and spent time in the sun, his skin tone would be closer to Oshus's, so a bit more tan.

In the Context of Phantom Hourglass and Post-PH

Moving swiftly on, as there is pretty much no real info about Bellum's background, I have taken matters into my own hands and decided a lot of it for myself in headcanon; Bellum is technically Oshus's son. Not in the traditional sense, but he was created by Oshus and can very much be considered his child, and to an extent, Ciela, Leaf, and Neri are all also Oshus's kids due to them being created by him (yea even considering Ciela calling him 'grandpa', in her and my defense she lost her memories and he is old as a human), therefore making (in some terms) Bellum to be Oshus's son and the brother of the three spirits. I think it's an interesting dynamic, to have Oshus be the one responsible for Bellum's existence, and for the three spirits you travel with and help you defeat Bellum to be closely related to him.

Oshus himself (when you get the hourglass in ph) says that the sand of hours is made of force gems of the ocean king (whatever... that wording means)- which then suggests that at the end of the day, all sands of hours are derived from the power of the ocean king, and Bellum dissolves into that sand at the end of the game, and I am standing in front of a wild-looking conspiracy cork board trying to piece this all together. I find it interesting if Oshus was the one who created Bellum before he created the three spirits.

(This is a topic for another post/fic but Leaf and Neri were neglected so bad in ph and it would be interesting to see more of how they feel abt Ciela before she gets her memories back and how they feel abt... anything else ig. I think they're neat, too, and I like tying the spirits together with Bellum in this way)

In Phantom Hourglass, it's strongly suggested (mostly through dialogue) that it's been a decent amount of time since Bellum defeated Oshus and took over the Temple of the Ocean King and created the Ghost Ship (though I suppose it could be possible that the Ghost Ship's existence precedes Bellum taking over that temple and defeating Oshus), but things across that sea are relatively calm, despite the new influx of monsters and the Ghost Ship making most people too afraid to sail. No one knows it's Bellum, though, and people do know about the Ocean King, so I wonder if Bellum is known about at all by the general public, or is a being that's more or less completely unknown? My personal theory is that he's vaguely known in some sense, as an obscure deity, and that he was behind the collapse of the Cobble Kingdom, since they were aligned with the Ocean King and Bellum appears to be his direct enemy and would likely then target the allies of his enemy.

Bellum seems to do a lot of behind the scenes stuff, never been seen until the end of the game and not even being mentioned until halfway through. As I think I've said before, he's practically won by the time he comes across Link and Tetra, the Ghost Ship going out and collecting people for him while he sits at the bottom of the temple and drains anyone who might be heading directly for him. He doesn't even seem to concerned about hunting Oshus down for good, and I suspect he likely doesn't even know about Ciela being split apart, so (asides from my idea that gods/spirits/stuff like that only being able to be sealed away, only properly killed under certain circumstances) I bet there's a level of confidence that he's got things under tight enough wraps that he's good to do whatever he wants.

Aaaand then he panics when he realizes how much of a wrench in his plans Link is, throwing two sea monsters at him and causing earthquakes, he's a procrastinator, I think. That, or he underestimated this kid. Both are very possible. Either way, it's interesting to look at what he's done and caused, hiding away the spirits and beating back the Ocean King, taking over his temple, creating the Ghost Ship to roam indefinitely, screwing with the Yook and wiping out pretty much all of the Isle of Ember, and likely being the reason behind the increased number of monsters. If you really look into it, while most characters don't really seem to realize, things are kind of fucked at the start of Phantom Hourglass, and it's interesting how Oshus himself seems powerless and even dissuades Link from giving it a shot, even if he secretly wants him to go and handle things.

With my idea of Bellum being a sort of technical relative to Oshus and the spirits, it opens up a handful of new avenues for motivation beyond just being after securing control and a steady stream of prey, I enjoy the idea of it being a matter of him becoming more and more ambitious, far beyond the station he was created for; going off of his name and ability to create phantoms, I imagine Oshus created him specifically to be warlike, perhaps initially with the intention of having him as a more violent protector of the realm, maybe to keep monsters in check or maybe just as a secondary deity for the world of the ocean king; I'll admit, I'm still a little foggy on what Bellum would've been initially created for, the spirits are easy to figure out, but I do figure it was something not as passive as just representing something, I imagine it as a deliberate opposite to Oshus himself to account for his weaknesses. Either way, I figure a part of Bellum's motivation involves him wanting more than he was given access to by Oshus, and deciding to fully wage war against him in a sense. The short and silly version is that Bellum is Oshus' shitty disowned son. Oshus isn't entirely innocent in whatever I decide caused Bellum to turn on him and the spirits, but Bellum does suck: that is important. The Cobble Kingdom looks like it's been destroyed for a while, I figure that was Bellum's first major target when he started outwardly going after Oshus and hunting the humans of the realm.

In Post-PH, he's the group's pet evil squid on a very very very short leash until he starts behaving himself and having a character arc.

Effectively, Bellum doesn't die at the end of Phantom Hourglass, instead being broken down into the sand of hours he's made of and being sealed inside the Phantom Sword- after all, after the final boss, the sand Bellum turns into goes into the Phantom Sword. I imagine that the Phantom Sword, after breaking and restoring Oshus, turns into the hourglass for Link to keep, while Oshus and the spirits keep the remaining sands, therefore keeping a hold of Bellum. (A bit like Oshus just being left alone after Bellum defeating him, they can't really kill Bellum so they just keep an eye on him while he's in a weakened state) They kind of just keep him prisoner at the bottom of the Temple for a bit, and Oshus finally decides to send him to Link's world as a punishment, since he's at his weakest and Oshus wants to get him to learn some lesson, it's a work in progress. Bellum is grounded in Post-PH.

It's basically that 'the villain when you unlock him as a playable character' bit, where he's quite a bit weaker than he is in Phantom Hourglass, though mostly for the sake of keeping things balanced, so Bellum can't break everything for everyone. He's still powerful, he still accesses his demon form, can't be conventionally killed or injured, and move through walls and turn people to stone, the whole deal, it's just that his demon form's size is impacted (i hc that the size of his demon form can be manipulated at will, but the largest size is dependent of how much power/stored life force he has. he's small at the start of post-ph, but his human form isnt impacted at all. i imagine that for beings like oshus and bellum, their human form is a like a 'low power mode' kinda thing) So Bellum is the Post-PH crew's fourth member, the swabbie on the ship and pet sea monster when they need it and when he has the energy for it.

Bellum is kept mostly in line by a vague fear of Link and his general fear, respect, and curiosity about Linebeck. Linebeck is usually the one holding onto Bellum's leash. Bellum is decently civil with the group from the start, since he's weak and unable to return home until Oshus permits it or he gathers enough power to make that trip, and works mostly as a fighter- when he wants to. The earliest limitation I came up for him, since he's the member with the highest chance of breaking things, is that he will just straight-up choose not to help. He decides he's busy, decides it's not his problem, or other limitations, such as his involvement likely to cause more problems that they solve, since he's rather destructive when fighting.

He's the least sociable most of the time, for obvious reasons, but can pretend, and has the least... casual skills to offer to the group, hence why he gets stuck as swabbie (also general disrespect/as a punishment for the ph thing) and it takes a while for him to properly warm up to the rest of the group. He and Linebeck start off on decent terms and get closer through them just initially trusting each other, he and Link take the longest to get used to each other for... obvious reasons, it takes a lot of fighting together and seeing that they can rely on each other and they learn to be decent with each other just by existing in the same space, and things with Damien start off half decent, Damien was not present during Phantom Hourglass (obviously) and doesn't have the full context of how much he sucks, but it starts decent, gets worse when he learns what happened, and then gets good again because Damien's kind of amiable in general and sees that Linebeck thinks he's fine.

SO! To actually address your question about him being 'redeemed'- he does have a bit of an arc that I'm still mentally workshopping. He isn't entirely redeemed, as the group's general morality is a big off-kilter when Link isn't looking or is willing to get a little gray with things, and there's not really a whooooole lot of atonement Bellum can do in terms of the volume of bullshit he pulled in the past. It's less him atoning or w/e for the bullshit he's done, that's not entirely feasible, it's more him just. being forced to Be Decent and learn some actual kindness and think about more than just his own survival, he's essentially forced to actually appreciate life and the world, it's more him actually... experiencing the world for a reason other than consumption and war and conflict and doing what he's been told, he's effectively just on this long voyage with Linebeck, Link, and Damien, going with them from island to island and seeing what's up. I'm going to try and keep empathy out of it, so he's not really relating on a visceral level, more just choosing to be kind and take gentler paths to solving problems and interacting with others. He's also the group gremlin.

The way I write Bellum is definitionally inspired by other characters, Power from Chainsaw Man comes to mind in how he has a kind of shitty brat attitude at times, he'd fling vegetables across the room because he's a piece of shit who likes live meat. He's got his shitty messy delinquent loser side, where he causes problems and acts like some asshole teenager, and he's got his more serious, calm, almost professional seeming side that reminds the group that he's a few centuries old at the least and practically a god in his own right; generally outside of Post-PH I would pick one of these two sides to focus on for aus, but in Post-PH I need to figure out how the two of them work with how Bellum generally operates.

He's interested in Linebeck and initially decides to go along because he wants to figure him out, but grows to enjoy the rest of the group and that curiosity expands to involve the world as a whole; he experiences things like art and music, where he can't just brute-force his way into a satisfactory outcome and has to learn and find his own style, he reads books and listens to stories and sees the different ways humans live on the seas and I want his arc to, in some part, be about him just finding meaning in the world beyond what he does to secure survival, and the other members of the group introduce him to those other facets of life that he has access to, has had access to. The other part is the group getting Bellum to see most living things as more than just prey for him to hunt and consume, but that generally goes hand in hand with the prior point, as he actually enjoys life and figures out what he likes beyond the basic things he was created for.

He can't fall back on just smashing through everything or creating phantoms, since he's far too weak to do either effectively at the start, and I intend to just force Bellum into basically just being a human character with some unusually powerful magic at his fingertips, first just wanting to build himself back up to what he was in Phantom Hourglass, then just getting to see things in a new light. I'm not sure how to explain it or even what I'll want to do when I get to it, but that's the general gist of his arc, I think.

Other than that, he's just the fourth members of the crew with a serious knowledge of... a lot of things as a centuries-old demon and the hardest hitter in the group who can't and won't cook for shit and kind of just learns to actually live without constantly gunning for those bare necessities long after he's gotten them. I don't want it to be 'he learns to be human' because he... isn't human, but just him appreciating life and seeing some value in it, especially as something with as much power as Bellum, it's a bit messy and I'm still figuring it out, but I've got the general direction figured out.

Bellum is effectively the ship's best defender, and ends up fitting into the group as a friend and with his own specific role with the other individual members of the group. Linebeck kind of kickstarts his arc for him and connects with him the most and Bellum generally stays the closest with him, but Damien and Link help him see other little corners of life, as well as other characters he has to interact with, and I think I want Bellum's side of the story to have the most outstanding mundane-ity to it- there's absolutely meant to be a slice-of-life aspect to Post-PH, but I want the biggest points of Bellum's arc to be comparably the most mundane. It's the little things with him. The others have little things, too, but... I'm not sure how to express the difference, but I promise there is a difference.

Outside of Post-PH, though, when Bellum is present in a big way, his arc either tackles a similar idea in a different way, is just about something entirely different, or he doesn't have an arc at all, either due to not being a big enough part of the story or just straight up not being present.

In the Context of AUs

Bellum is only present in a handful of aus, either fully present as a character, halfway present, or just being referenced. When he is present in an au, he's usually some kind of major character, and he's notable in the crimson king au, the space au, the murder mystery au, and the horror au and one of my 'ruined hyrule' aus. (the horror and ruined hyrule au will be put together for this bc bellum's role in both are very similar) (for reference, here's my au explanation post)

In the horror au and ruined hyrule au, Bellum serves juuuust about the same role, just with different capabilities, contexts, all of that, but it's more or less the same thing. He's frequently present, but usually not acknowledged, and is very close to Linebeck in both, and the two of them pretty much rely on each other to live due to circumstances out of their control; they didn't really go into this whole thing liking each other, but have been more or less forced to become each other's friends due to proximity and just. Needing the others' presence in order to survive. In both, Bellum usually is a character who knows more than the others, but doesn't bother sharing that information since it's either not totally relevant or he just doesn't want to, and he tends to be protective of Linebeck, half because he needs him in order to live, half just because he's ended up liking him. (there is. more to say. but since i may actually write one of these aus [likely ruined hyrule bc the horror one has to be visual and it is VERY plotless rn] i'm not gonna go into much more depth since it would require spoilers lol)

Can't say a whole lot about the space au, either, since the story of that one is still a work in progress, and Bellum isn't particularly a major character, though he is important to some B-plot stuff. Without digging up too much world building and background and general story stuff and important plot bits, he's got a fairly close relationship to Linebeck in this au, as a general beneficiary and friend, and he actually tends to mind his own business and just wants to hold his own position; he's not really antagonistic or anything, but definitionally morally dubious even if he doesn't really directly do a whole lot.

In the Crimson King au, though, Bellum is one of the main characters, and a bit different than in ph-related stuff. He spends a lot of time in his human form, only switching to his little demon form a handful of times, and usually just for fun. He plays the role of Linebeck's closest friend and beneficiary, practically being the reason why Linebeck is able to do any of the things he does in the story, helping him from behind the scenes at times and balancing that business with Linebeck with his more outward appearance as a mostly normal guy working for the person who runs his section of the city... who also happens to be him. The vague politics in this au would take a bit to explain in full, but Bellum in this au spends a lot of time keeping his actual identity under wraps, the basic premise being that he's decided to integrate himself into current mortal society like a normal person to see what trouble he can cause, how he could sustain himself while keeping things stable, and to see just how far he can go- essentially, the only danger he faces is if others figure out what he is, but even then, he knows he could very easily cut his losses and go back to what he's done best.

He's not very active in the main plot, mostly giving Linebeck assignments and pulling strings behind the scenes in order to help and keep him safe, but Bellum does occasionally meddle directly in Linebeck's situation whenever it relates to him, when he needs something extra done, or, later in the story, when he gets a bit worried about Linebeck. His general arc is essentially him owning up to the fact that he does, in fact, care about Linebeck's well-being. Crimson King Bellum is fun, because he can't really just be 'violent demon', and I just like the supporting role I've got him in. He's Linebeck's rich friend who hires him to kill people for him. It's fun.

How I Like to Write Him With Linebeck

Of course, Bellum is going to have stuff with Linebeck, both in aus and in post-ph. Bellum has interactions and relationships with other characters, but the dynamic(s) with Linebeck tend to be the most diverse and important.

With aus: There’s usually a general sense that Bellum is above Linebeck, both in the power sense and in the sense that he’s typically his boss or in charge of him, but in a handful they are on equal footing (specifically, the modern school one, where they’re just classmates.)- the most common dynamic is usually along the lines of Bellum hiring Linebeck to kill people for him. Bellum is typically someone that provides Linebeck with things like payment or equipment or safety- in the Crimson King au, he gives Linebeck a fair amount of money, and supplies his equipment and gives him a place to live when he does jobs for him.

I like to imagine there's a level of... recognition? Not empathy, trying to keep that to a minimum... He's almost gentle with Linebeck, and is uncharacteristically merciful towards him. In post-ph, Linebeck survives being possessed and this marks him as notable to Bellum, since most people he possess die very soon after being released, so he's initially motivated by curiosity and a desire to observe Linebeck when he acts less violently- that curiosity is the biggest reason why he's cordial with Linebeck across my aus as well.

With Phantom Hourglass-centric stuff (which is what I'll mostly just talk about here, since it's kind of the 'base' for all other Bellum and Linebeck stuff I do), Linebeck and Bellum start on halfway decent terms, I'm planning a Bellumbeck fic sometime in the future, which is a bit less focused on that actual fight and more on whatever's going on between Linebeck and Bellum. I'm still trying to pin down exactly what I want with Linebeck and Bellum's dynamic.

I’ve fallen back into shipping them, (Still iffy on ship name lmfao, Bellumbeck is taken by the game and ‘Linebellum’ is lame imo, so I’ve been sticking with just ‘bellum x linebeck’) but it’s not really typically romantic/sexual, though there are some aspects of both, it’s still kind of abstract and easier to define with example stuff rather than just trying to explain it in a concise paragraph.

They both go out of their way to effectively research each other before properly meeting, starting as just trying to find advantageous information, but eventually just doing research out of curiosity, especially on Linebeck’s end, hunting down any material that so much as alludes to Bellum while Oshus refuses to say anything extra on the topic. They have a mutual interest and curiosity about each other.

With Bellum, its a similar curiosity with how Linebeck survives being possessed, and a general interest in him as a person, as Bellum doesn't really care much about the world beyond how it can serve him, but felt the need to look into Linebeck. A lot of the time, Bellum starts with the intention of exploiting Linebeck in some way, then ends up actually caring about him, he usually goes through variations of the same arc regarding Linebeck. It works with Linebeck for me since I tend to read and write him as fairly morally gray, so he's more willing to reciprocate Bellum.

(There's also the whole bit with Linebeck being kind of a monsterfucker and having a thing for being tied up and just a handful of like. sexual stuff on Linebeck's end, but we're talking about Bellum's perspective here we can't be focusing on Linebeck)

Bellum primarily operates with survival on the mind, and at odds with anything that might get in his way, and secondarily treats mortal creatures as something to study. When his attempt to use Linebeck fails, he shifts to that studying, and therefore has some respect for him due to his survival. They both focus quite a lot on survival, and don't have the most interest in making connections, seeing most relationships as transactional. They understand each other; Bellum sees Linebeck's mind when possessing him, and therefore knows a great deal about him.

There are similarities between them; not-great relationships with their fathers, a strong desire for survival at any cost, generally low empathy and a habit of mostly viewing others for how they can be used, curiosity about anatomy, a higher tolerance for things like blood, gore, things that would likely make others squeamish, they both hate Ciela...

(As an aside to that last one, an idea I've decided to integrate into my ph stuff and may touch on in a future fic is that Linebeck calling Ciela 'sparkles' gives her a strong sense of deja-vu before she gets all of her memories back; it's something Bellum would call her, when he was more cordial with the other spirits)

Bellum hangs around on the ship, and he hangs around Linebeck the most, to the point of being annoying, but learns what boundaries are and ends up respecting them decently. I lean more into... things just working out, Bellum more or less being put in a situation where he chooses to change things up and be a bit kinder, starting with the guy he's decided was the catalyst for all of this.

He gets along well enough with Damien (damien ends up in that shipping, too, considering that he's already dating linebeck by the time bellum sorts his own feelings out, so in post-ph, bellum ends up being a sort of on-and-off polycule member), he is eventually friendly with Link, often because Linebeck likes him as well. It takes a very long time for he and Link to warm up to each other, so they'll likely end up in situations where they must rely on each other at the start of things.

Bellum is… very not used to social stuff or acting human, and isn’t even very used to his human form at the start, so he does spend that time with Linebeck while he figures things out, as well. Linebeck's not the best role model for decent social interaction, especially since he works on dismantling his own mask and figuring himself out for a bit at the start of post-ph, but he's the only person Bellum tolerates and respects at that start.

Bellum eventually gets roped into helping Linebeck cook, follows him around for ship maintenance, watches him patch up wounds, and just ends up as a crew member that can kind of fill any basic role, but he’s not making it much further than swabbie.

I haven’t actually written a ton of interaction between them yet, but what I have written always comes off as casual, almost humorous, they joke around with each other and Bellum is detached and unserious at times, but very capable of switching to dead seriousness. A lot of the time, Linebeck tends to take things more seriously at face value, but Bellum is more prone to joking around due to the fact that very few consequences mean anything to him.

He and Linebeck are typically close in one sense or another in most things where they're included, and I generally consider all dynamics between them to fall under the ship umbrella, because I don't consider it strictly romantic (though it usually ends up being vaguely like that), just more that there's some kind of intimacy between them at some point. It's a relationship whose dynamic I think is interesting given the... lack of actual interaction between them, but with just enough interesting conclusions that can be drawn.

I guess it's similar to the general stuff I have about Bellum, kind of just scraping ideas together from canon and then following whatever threads can be connected to them, while trying to make sure it still has roots in that canon. It's similar to my personal 'design philosophy' or whatever for my aus.

I've also considered making their relationship parasitic in someway, as a sort of homage/callback/reference to their canonical relationship, but it's not entirely a direction I really want to go in, and I feel like some aus get decently close.

Final Points

I think Bellum's really neat, so considering the general lack of information or depth to him, I've been playing with expanded ideas and building up my own ideas for him, specific within the context of Phantom Hourglass and a post-ph setting, while many of my other ideas with him tend to then derive from that.

His (human) design is one I've spent a very long time figuring out, trying to mix his demon design in with more human traits, trying to keep him distinctive without getting too complicated, and trying to have that design represent him decently with a fair bit of reasoning behind a lot of that design. It's something Bellum himself controls to a certain degree, so it's in a bit of a crossroads between portraying him based on his character, and being something he uses to come off as generally innocuous.

I've got a decent idea of what Bellum's whole deal is in Phantom Hourglass and afterwards, and I use him in a fair number of aus, often in tangent with Linebeck, whom I often give him some kind of intimate relationship, be it romantic or some other form of closeness, based off of ideas for ways they would interact and why.

Bellum's fun! He's fun as he is, and he's fun to build off of and develop further than what we see in the game. And giving him the ability to shift into a humanoid shape gives even more room to play around in. I don't know when I first came up with the idea, but I've had ideas for a human form Bellum for quite some time now, I've just only recently really started solidifying a lot of it. Even between the time when I got the ask and finished it, I came up with new ideas.

But for now, these are the broad strokes! Not just about post-ph humanoid Bellum, just about my ideas for him in general, though it all really relates back to that one in particular, honestly.

He's surprisingly fun to speculate about! I didn't really expect Bellum to end up as one of my favorite LoZ characters, but I guess any character can end up as your favorite if you spend enough time thinking about him. At the end of the day I think he's funky, and he's fun to use in a post-ph setting.

#asks #goopi-e #bellum #long post #salty talks #linebeck #he's important <3 #phantom hourglass #post ph #i have like no excuse for why this took so long. initially it was bc i was waiting on that bellum commission but then like #the day i wrote this (+ the prior) tag i bought and played fallout new vegas for a few hours. it fell in with my other writing projects lol #i think rn myb iggest issue w/ post ph is that everyone seems to revolve around linebeck a bit much #idk if thats. terrible a breaker i mean hes their captain hes kinda the main character he's the one link (heh) between all of them #bellum probably has the biggest arc bc hes the shittiest at the start and everyone is already kinda partway through one #like i think links is gonna be abt him disconnecting from being a hero and just enjoying life on his own terms and doing non hero things #linebecks is uh. trauma recovery. among other things. like everyone has trauma recovery as a part of it but linebecks is the big one #damiens is... man idk hes just There i think his is gonna have smth to do with his relationship w/ linebeck and the others #damien is just some fucking dude hes not too terribly traumatized or has this huge place in the world he's jsut some trans guy #it kinda sucks that a lot of the stuff i think up for him relates to linebeck like i want him to have his own thing but i made him too...#hes too ok with things!!!!! hes just some fucking guy!!!! maybe i can have him just figure out his place in this larger world hes exploring #anyways bellum needs to be nerfed in a handful of different ways bc otherwise hes a get out of jail free card in a lot of contexts #ughhh this took too long im sorry but i just kept coming up with new stuff id practically classify this as a fic #this took a while to plan and this fucking thing is also so long and it still doesnt really cover everything #not even bc i havent fully figured out what i want to do with him like theres just stuff im uncertain on how to explain in a concise manner #the whole thing between link n bellum is kinda simple. they hate each other and then have to work together and decide that theyre decent #damien is just. pleasant most of the time. so hes kinda chill with bellum. he's had experience with minor gods n deities #his weird thing is that he is technically normal but he is on good terms with a lot of supernatural/godly beings #theres def a lot of random minor gods n spirits n supernatural creatures all over the great sea with the absence of larger gods' influence #kinda lost the point of the og ask so i hope thats ok

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hexados-on-a-string · 7 months

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spectragus dont get enough credit for being a sun and moon ship but like. destructive sun and moon ship. sun and moon ship but they're the forces of nature the sun and moon actually are. the sun is harsh and relentless and unpredictable in its evil but also it's kindness, the moon is sharp and cold and cruel, a harsh light that doesn't allow you peace, but can also guide you, a light in the darkness. even on nights with a new moon, with no light in the sky, the moon is always reflecting the sun, and it'll be that way until they come to their end.

#spectragus give me a dopamine high that any sort of drug couldn't even come close to giving me #its the loyalty. its the seeing each other at their worst and still staying.#its the being the only person still around who knows and understands what youve been through #its the being so important to each other's characters that u cant mention one without recognising the impact the other has on them #i dont rlly do shipping unless its funny but also im a huge gus fan so like. yea. plus my view on romance is a bit all over the place anyway #something something my skrunkles deserve complicated relationships that are more than romantic but something else #its the trust thats the most important thing to me. trust and loyalty and devotion and #im sorry but i would have exploded if i like. didn't write down these thoughts #anyways fucked up gay people who are a package deal and that is a threat thats them #ik the majority of my posts are hee hee funnie and i usually dont take things too seriously #but these two have taken up part of my brain permanently since i was 8. like. they just live there. rent free.#i am like rabid rn. i am feral and i am insane and i am crazy and there are so many things wrong with me #i cant even write down all my fuckin thoughts there's so many my brain is going to Explode pray for me #idk if u understand how important it is to me the times they show kindness even while at their worst #they're not good people but they have people they care about and they care abt each other and that matters SO much #i take 0 criticism on my posts i only take cash. however there is no possible criticism to be made bc i am RIGHT #also this all kinda sparked from me getting obsessed with a certain kh character who has a connection to the moon #who is also one of my favourite characters ever #and if u know who it is and u also like him ur very cool #im not tagging this w character tags. im like. very shy. but #i love gus i love spectra i love spectragus #anyways see u next time where i should hopefully have art maybe potentially #i found the brushes i used to use back when i did lineless art so i am rlly happy

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alphaketoglutaricacid · 1 month

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shuro notes

upon rereading some of dungeon meshi, I got a better grasp on his role in the story and why hes in the main supporting cast along w kabru (main protag of the suporting cast), namari, and mithrun (main antag of the supp cast) . Contrary to most of the characters disliking eating monsters, he seems to dislike eating, period. In his first appearance he refuses to eat maizurus cooking (with maybe some mermaid eggs sprinkled in..?). His refusal to eat ties into his extreme passivity. He seems to dislike how his father does what he pleases with no regard to how it affects others, and his fear of doing the same seems to play a huge role in how he lets other ppl walk all over him. He ignores his own desires, including his own hunger, because consuming means taking another life. To live means something else has to die, so to desire is to want to take from others. To try to live up to the image of an impassive leader he tries to not participate in this process at all! But bc hes a human being he has to eat, so instead of never taking from others, he starves.

With Falin, I think he realizes there is a way forward where he could be himself and face the ugly realities of what it means to want. To be unabashedly yourself while not hurting everyone in your life. His love comes from a deep place of admiration! I think part of the reason why he's so dead set on saving her is bc he wants to be her equal—she saved him from his nightmares without a second thought, and part of it is to repay her kindness and to be able to reciprocate it. I think he foils nicely w marcille bc he proposes to her (asks her to choose her future) while marcille doesnt want her to move on from the time they were both children. I think this plays a huge part in why marcille hates him, bc its a reminder of how the time will pass and also he aims to take falin away from her. Interestingly, she also became fairly distant and withdrawn after falin left and they both formed their relationship w her bc dirt and bugs r cool. They both are the party members in Laios squad that fly off the handle the most. Socioeconomically, they both seem to be in the least dire straits and kinda prissy abt things as a result. On re-read something else clicked into place.

After his fight w laios that starts w legit grievances and devolves into him hitting all of laios’ insecurities like a game of whack-a-mole, shuro says he’s returning to his home country and after that he would never see any of these ppl again. Even before falin got eaten, he knew he was going to have to leave the party but couldnt bring himself to tell them. The way the convo goes, it seems part of the reason why he proposed to her so suddenly is bc he wants to take a part of his time on the island back home with him—i.e. that hes not ready to say goodbye. That the prospect was taken from him so suddenly is why this is the first thing hes asked for or wanted for himself. Interesting parallels to how marcille is not ready to live the rest of her 1000 year life without her friends now, and how falins death is a catalyst that brings her fear to the surface—that for both of them, theyll live the rest of their lives never seeing the ppl they love from this island again. I think part of the reason he is so nasty to laios in particular is bc his entire worldview falls apart at laios' actions

Both desire wise and literally, Shuro is starving. And like a starving person getting his first meal in a long time, I think he gets a little greedy—when he gives Laios the bell, he says if the party somehow makes it past thistle, to ring it so they can all escape to the East--where he's headed. Likewise marcilles solution is to bring everyone with her to the 1000 year lifespan. Thats surprisingly childish of both of them! Also not a solution to the problem that suits anyone but themselves. Theres so many solutions to this. He could write. He could call. He could communicate view morse code using that bell instead of attempting to blink in morse code to communicate to laios how he doesnt want to be here. Falin voice: I’ll go visit you, okay? He could set foot on the island again. Honestly. This is so embarrassing for him.

But I think it gets at a core theme of the work. Marcille, Laios, and Shuro all say their greatest desire is to save Falin, but once u get down to it, theyre pretty basic-to not be left alone, to be w monsters who u feel a kinship with, to not have to leave. Namari says she left bc of money but later on goes u must never let go of your fear. Kabru says he wants to get to know laios to prevent utaya from happening again but its much simpler-he wants to be his friend. Our base desires are petty, but they are what keep us going day to day, just like how every living being has to hunger and eat to achieve the goals they set out for.

Lets talk abt his relationship w his retainers.

Hein- theyre childhood friends that have drifted apart in adulthood. By the familiar way she talks about him when hes not around, I think she wants to be close to him again. I think the distance between them is probably intentionally imposed by Shuro bc hes afraid theyll turn out like maizuru and his father. She thinks hes unreliable in a way i think u can only rlly get when u know someone for that long. I wonder if some of that I thought wed always end up together and I want him to like me even tho I dont like him back is wanting that closeness in friendship again

Maizuru- Good god whats happening here. she loves him but also treats him like a child even tho hes a 26 year old man. I think its got fun connections to how kabrus adoptive mom treats him like a child, how marcilles not ready to see falin n herself as adults, thistles relationship w degal. Now these are all relationships where differences in lifespan come into play, but w maizuru n shuro i think u see something real banal in why these elves cant let the ppl in their lives go. She coddles him bc she loves him and tells him at the end he doesn't have to eat the dragon if he doesn't want to, but he rebukes her and says he has to eat it to accept his own failures. So like he doesn't need to be coddled he needs ppl in his life to challenge him so he can grow. And at the end he realizes it tastes good--that even tho his journey had so much conflict and in the end he failed to save falin he made friends! He grew as a person! He starts reaching out to his retainers again! He got to harrass the elf cops and give them migraines! Ties a lot into laios speech to marcille that if falin didnt die they wouldn't have met all these ppl and gotten to eat all this food.

Its wild she put that hag curse on him. Poor kid cant even take a shit in peace. Actually the fact that he couldnt even have that time for himself n grew up constantly feeling watched explains a lot. I think the fact his father nonchalently burnt it and then roasted mochi over it without giving him any explaination made him think oh this is just what everyone goes through and im the weird one for being frightened. And it takes him 20 years to find out that no, its not normal to be haunted by a ghost that chases you with a knife. Pretty apt metaphor for how rules have defined his life without him fully understanding why they're in place. I'll give it a crack tho--it seems like the time period his homelands based on the sengoku period bc its a period of heavy civil war where ppl below upsurped the ppl above them. The strict hierarchy is probably an attempt to exercise social control in an extremely precarious situation.

Also side note: kinda impressive he can do magic when he was six. Probs a combination of maizuru being a talented teacher and his own skill. The fire cast… close but no cigar. Also interesting is how the magic he casts seems more elf-y in nature vs maizurus gnomic spirit magic. I wonder if hes his partys black mage- the occupation his party is pointedly missing vs the toudens missing their white mage and kabrus party being well rounded at all points. If so thats hilarious that when the toudens lost their previous mage and everyone was panicking he was like well… im just not gonna say anything #OnBrand. I do wonder if the bell he gives laios is his own magic tho.

Also shuros mother is mad at maizuru for being shuros dads mistress but gives her her children to raise…. Lets unpack this contradiction. Incidentally my tin foil hat theory is Shuros a bastard child. maizuru n his dad have been fucking since 4ever -> one of these children is not legitiment -> probs the one w a strange distance from the rest -> whys shuro succeeding his dad so up in the air when his competitions a 14 and an 8 year old. It's not important tho.

izutsumi + inutade: the fact that he doesnt speak up is his defining moment of moral cowardice. Its tied to his passivity! Hes scared of saying or doing the wrong thing bc hes afraid of hurting others, and he does basically attempt to torch his relationship w laios like it was contaminated w anthrax. Like the first time he tries to be active it went horribly, but his involvement moves the plot forward enormously—with him kabru would not have run into Laios, izutsumi would probably not have been able to run away, he raises the stakes of the journey by indicating they probs cant return to the surface so they have to keep going. And even tho its messy, ugly, and embarassing, he can still pick up the pieces afterwards. Nothing he does is as harmful as his passivity on inutade and izutsumis situations which unequivically, he knows is wrong.

Also w all the references to buying people, I looked it up bc i was like.... like slavery...? it seems to be a reference to retainership as a social caste where people buy your services and as a result you owe the estate your service. You get paid and you have rights, but it seems like you are bound to your station, but depending on the time period japan is supposed to reference, some ppl took on these positions for the sake of social advancement. Regardless, it seems the caste system is also less rigid than stated and ppl can move amongst the positions. There doesn't seem to be an exact cultural equivelent to this, but I think the closest concept is like, being a vassal. I was like if this is slavery this narrative portrays izutsumis time w the nakamotos too ambivenlently and hien going don't you feel any gratefulness for them taking you in makes no sense. But I still think theres something pretty rotten going on here.

Allegedly, as a ninja, you ascend the ranks based on your skill. And yet izutsumi and inutade are at the bottom, and hien, the person that was born into this role, is at the top! Izutsumi and Inutade aren't even considered human in the island of wa--this distinction is given to tall-men only. Theyre both from positions where I feel like the other characters are like they should be grateful they got from one horrible situation to this one thats a system based on merit and skill, but like out of everyone, theyre in the least position of power to say no, to even appreciate what other options there are for them in the world. Like its deeply coercive and wrong. Whats up w shuros father collecting ppl like theyre trophies man. So we can see a system allegedy based on merit is not one at all. Also I feel theres undertones of japanese imperialism with izutsumi being from the equivelent of central asia and having a soul of a child stuffed into her like some kinda of science experiment. Maizurus constantly trying to "civilize" her by teaching her ettiquite such as using your chopsticks. Like the rhetoric of the elves ape pretty directly to imperialistic sentiments, it would not surprise me if theres intentional commentary about japanese imperialism in how izutsumis treated bc japans kinda known in the east for their imperialism... theyve just done it so many times like my parents were like we left our families, our culture, everything we knew behind to go to america.... but we kept our death grudge against japan tho!! #lmfao. Honestly fair. anyways i think theres intentional parallels between how izutsumi is treated as both as a child and a feral animal by maizuru and how the elves treate other races as children that need toys taken away from them. But also how fundementaly, maizurus unsuited to take care of izutsumi bc the tools she has are not suited to izutsumis needs! She has no understanding of izutsumis life. Her hag curse turns from a highly questionable child rearing tactic on shuro to outright a slave collar on izutsumi. Teaching shuro ettiquate and being able to fight gives him the tools to survive in the postion he was born in but is erasing the culture izutsumi grew up in and has been taken away from before she even knew what it meant. Bc she was treated like a circus freak she never got to choose for herself! Tho providing the basic comforts to shuro is a privilage, it's not to izutsumi bc shes never been able to choose what she wants in life. It's why shes set up as shuros narrative foil like so:

This is his pensive look btw its a consistant tic that he lookes like hes glaring when hes deep in thought. Maizurus is both these people's strange mother figure who feeds them in liu of their actual mother. She smothers shuro in love and doesn't let him face actual challenges in life while she intensely disciplines izutsumi. Shuro reacts to this by aquiessing and never making demands of his own while izutsumi constantly refuses to conform. This is probably why he doens't get her.

In the early points of the story, shuro either says leave izutsumi for dead or leave her so she can pursue her freedom. The ambiguity is intentional, because i think in this part of the story we are not supposed to have a good read on him. But it's also because because of his passivity he doesn't do shit for her! So he loses out on having any type of relationship w her even tho they were tormented by the same curse. But crucially he may have learned from this w inutade, who he explicitly aknowledges how her situation is fucked up and her worship of his father is due to an insane power imbalance even tho he has no clue how to talk to her about this. And at the very end of the manga, he gets into an eating contest with her at her prodding as equals. So maybe there's hope he can do better. But I think its important that his relationship w izutsumi is non-existent as a consequence of his passivity despite the things they have in common bc theres no excuse for it. Thier relationship probs deserves its own post.

benichidori - very funny amongst all these complicated relationships these two just straight up dont know each other n r too shy to do so. Is what I was going to say but then I realized benichidori has taken shuros place as hiens closet friend and I wonder if theres any jealousy abt that. But also she shares a lot of traits w shuro and isnt that just interesting:

but even more interesting is her comic:

this is beat for beat shuros conflict w laios.

We only care about one thing: the crushing opinion of everyone in the universe.

I didnt get this on my first read even tho laios was like hes smart but he is incredibly sharp. Hes good at making useful deductions when things dont add up. It rlly reminds u hes trained in espionage.

He keeps kabru on his toes! interesting for such a smooth talker.

He gets kabru to open up about his motivations here and how it affected him and kabru actually shares some of his own feelings on the manner when usually hes holding ppl at arms length. I think him getting a chance to recite this helps prep him to talk to the caneries where notably, hes a lot more clinical about it.

Its nice all three of these ppl can challenge each other and support each other. I think it would be funny if kabru hits em up in the future like do u wanna start some shit for old times sake

able to tell chilchuck was not a child

is afraid of marcille which tbh fantastic call

Everyone else horrified marcille just killed a man but he's like yeah #tracks.

Other things that reminded me hes basically a fixer:

Spends his screentime evading the elf cops.

Refuses to talk to the canaries even under threat of being interegated for 50 years despite threatening laios party multiple times that hes gonna tell on them. instead spends his time going tbh i've never known anything in my life. I'm stupid like that :pensive emoji:

Incredible bit of manipulation on his part-he pretends to be thinking out loud to cast doubt on the canaries judgement to appeal to the ppl in the dungeon that are not motivated by the goodness of their hearts. Reminds me of namaris relatively selfish reasons for leaving the party--needing to get paid, which is a need she was ignoring for far too long and also laios was also not paying proper attn too when namaris in dire straits, and how she says she left the party after the dragon bc she remembered to never forget your fear. That selfishness must also drive you forward. Then he uses that doubt to twist the situation to say all their information could be false so maaaybe the situation is not as dire as they claim and they have other motives (social control). And he pretends hes talking to the caneries but this is directed to everyone else. He and namari pretend to pick a fight so the leader's distracted and everyone else uses this opening to scatter, which causes enough chaos that it breaks the control the elves have. Which is wild bc shuro knows the dungeon is dangerous bc kabru told him about utaya. He also knows laios party can be dangerous w the amount of collateral they cause w the dragon. He puts a lot of ppl in danger that do not need to be even though multiple times he worries about people getting hurt. At his core, tho, I think he wants to see laios and his party again and that selfish desire trumps everything else in this moment. Namari and shuro are so ride or die TBH.

He never shares any of this when not prompted. Except notably at the end he interrupts when ppl think laios might be dead. Which as an aside I think its interesting his biggest contribution to saving falin is not thru his fighting prowess, but through the simple fact he reached out to laios. His compassions his greatest strength. Laios frestrautes him and kabru, and they both punch him and complain that theyll never understand him, but I think they dont have to. Love requires compromise—it requires eating things you really dont want to, you clash and you hurt each other, but what matters most is that you keep reaching out to one another, that you keep on trying to understand each other. Living requires you to hurt and be hurt, to give and take.

Once again stuck in the middle of an insane and ancient beef

low key funny that he remembered the last time he was here and he was like u know what.... ill just sit this one out....

If my son told me he spent the last week pissing off the elf cops, Id be like yeah thats what the nakamotos are all about TBH

Theres pretty juicy stuff abt how laios is interested in shuro because hes exotic like a monster and his own relationship with being othered by ppl and the fact that shuro is constantly referred to as a foreighner even to ppl hes known and has risked his life for for two years + how to laios monsterhood is a type of freedom while being othered is a type of dehumanization for shuro + how hes trying to show some kind of solidarity to shuro but hes microagressing him thru his attemps + how laios just is being explicitly saying the racist beliefs everyone else implicitly holds just like how mithrun says other races are inferior races which horrifies the rest of the elves but its honestly what they believe but I'm tired and need to think abt it a bit more.

Why do shuro and his party from an island primarily composed of humans and other ppl sometimes not classified as humans but have similair lifespan bc of sociopolitical reasons imitate so many interracial dynamics despite being of the same race? It's to show how marcilles wrong about how the inequality between races exists bc of lifespan differences. Her own fears due to fantastical reasons of being a half-elf and unable to relate any of her insecurities to other ppl are not exclusive to her! Tall-men - Tall-men relationships run along the same lines and have the same conflicts. All the things she fears are things that make her human, that other people have also felt.

in conclusion:

think abt the messiest person u know. Its a man

jk its marcille #feminism

#Dungeon meshi spoilers #shuro #toshiro nakamoto

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random0lover · 1 year

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Hello !! Am I allowed to request for maybe all of 141 (If possible with your schedule !! I undestand if its not !!) or just Price and Ghost (separate) with a reader whos a military kid so theyre kinda just used to them going away for long periods of time with deployment. Bonus points if they werent aware of reader being a military kid till they break down and confess as to how abandoned and angry they feel when they leave :,)) Fluffy Hurt/Comfort thats SFW, please :)) Thank you ^^

TF141 x Gn!Reader That Was a Military Kid

Pairings: John Price x gn!reader & Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x gn!reader

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: Angst with Comfort, SFW, reader is mean, talk of parental death, crying, reader is called: sweetheart, love, dove. Hints at depression, John and Simon are both big softies for reader, established relationships. That should be it! Let me know if I missed any <3

Things to know: Some hc’s with mini fic parts. Should be Gn!reader as I tried to avoid talking about readers body or anything that could indicate anything other than gn!reader! Also POC friendly! If you notice anything that makes you feel otherwise please let me know! I never want anyone to feel excluded with/in my work ♡, Also a warning to anyone that decides to follow me- if you do not have your age in your bio or a pinned post I will block you… just a fair warning.

Notes: Thank you for requesting this anon! I loved the idea so much so I hope this does your request justice! I kinda went a little soft with the Price one because for some reason I can’t stand the thought of reader being mean to that sweet man (if you want though send me another request and I can write one that’s more angst filled 😊) although I did bring out the reader being angry in Simons. Another thing, I wrote this for Simon and not ghost but if you want I can write another one that has reader dealing with Ghost but be warned it will be angsty with lots of hurt from both parties! Sorry if the editing is bad I did try though lol and there will be more parts to this!

Tags: @homicidal-slvt (promised I’d tag you so here we are)

Price & Simon (You’re here!), Soap & Gaz, Alejandro, Rudy & König

(I will add the links as I post each part!)

John Price

-I feel like he may have wondered if you were a military kid since you didn’t seem to be phased by him having to leave so often

-There were other things that also made him wonder, like how you always made your bed in the mornings, how schedules were majorly important to you to the point that if you knew you were going to be late, you'd get majorly upset, and how you also seemed to understand military lingo up to a certain point. He never asked though since you didn’t talk about your childhood much so he just figured that if you wanted to tell him that you would -But he started to notice that lately, you started to seem off when you found out he would have to be deployed soon.

John had been awake since the early hours of the morning. He couldn't seem to get much sleep in the few days before his next deployment. He had left the warmth of your shared bed before even the morning birds could be heard outside, hoping not to wake you with his restlessness, but little did he know that you hadn't slept at all.

By the time you stumbled out of bed with bags under your eyes and your mind feeling exhausted from the lack of sleep and your own brain tearing itself apart, it was well past 10 a.m., which wasn’t the most unusual for you, but on the day before John would be deploying it was a little odd since usually you were up trying to help him get his stuff together and would make a huge breakfast since you both weren’t sure how long it would be until he would get to enjoy a home-cooked meal again.

You had hoped to get to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of coffee before seeing John, but he was standing at the fridge, putting groceries away from multiple brown paper bags.

You made your way to the coffee pot that seemed to have a fresh pot being made and got a cup from the cabinet before he started to talk, “I noticed we were getting low on some things so I thought I’d save you a trip to—,” he pauses, causing you to turn to face him, “Sweetheart?”

You were pressing your hands into your eyes, trying to relieve the aching pressure that was remaining consistent behind them, when he made his way across the kitchen and gently cupped your cheeks, “Are you feeling alright, love?”

You didn’t mean to do it, but you flinched away from his hands, taking a few steps back so that there was some distance between you both. You could see the hurt in his eyes before they were overcome with confusion and you hated that he was looking at you as if you were a skittish kitten that would run at the smallest movement.

He reaches an arm out slowly, as if to not startle you.

“Love, what’s wrong?”

You shake your head, pulling your arms tight around you, and try to focus on keeping your breathing calm, like your parents taught you when you were little.

He takes a small step forward so that his fingers are almost grazing your arm but stops when sees you curling in on yourself, “Sweetheart, something is obviously wrong. You're crying, and your body is shaking.”

“Hey,” you finally look up into his eyes, “you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but at least let me help you.”

Your heart breaks from the pain you can see in his eyes. In all the time you've been together, you’ve never pulled away from him like this. Usually, you were the one open about your emotions and what you were feeling while having to coax John into telling you what was going on in his mind, “Please, darling.”

You let yourself fall into his open arms at that point, sobbing into his neck. He presses you against his chest, gently speaking into your ear, assuring you that everything is fine, that he is here for you, and that he will always be there.

You mumble into his neck, causing him to gently pull you back so that he can hear you: “What was that, sweetheart?”

You try to concentrate on the sensation of his calm heartbeat against your chest before finally saying, "My parents promised me the same thing."

He pulls away, puzzled, and you notice him looking at you in the corner of your eye, so you burrow your face into his chest and say, "They were both military. They died when I was 14," you finish, taking a deep breath. “They were deployed together when it happened… They said that it was an accident, that my mom got stuck on a timed land mine, and my dad wouldn’t leave her no matter what.”

"Oh, love." You feel his body tense before relaxing.

He gently grips the back of your neck and pulls you back so that you're looking into his eyes; the softness in them is almost enough to send you running as far as possible so that you never have to feel the type of pain that you did the day that you found out your parents died.

“Love, I'm not going anywhere,” you go to speak but he shushes you, “You are my world, the person I’m fighting for.”

He brings his hand under your chin so that he is gripping it gently and says, “You are the reason I’m still alive. The reason why I feel like life is still worth living and fighting for.”

He tips his head down so that his lips are grazing yours, “I’ll always come home, love.”

You push forward so that your lips are fully pressing against his, then he pulls back, “Why don’t we go take a bath, get you feeling better?”

~~~~

The next morning you wake frantically looking around, hoping that he didn’t leave without saying goodbye, when he walks in carrying a tray of food, “John? I thought you had to leave this morning.”

He smiles gently, his eyes lighting up, “Called Kate, they don’t actually need me for another week, and I figured my love needs me a little bit more than my job at the moment.” He sets the tray down on the bed, and you jump into his arms with a happy squeal, “I love you, John.”

"I love you too, sweetheart," he says as he gently kisses you.

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

-So we all know Simon is amazing at reading people, but I don’t think he would know that you were a military kid. He could see all the signs that you may have had a difficult childhood, but he personally knows what it’s like to have a childhood you don’t want to talk about, so he never has and never will question you about your past. -Pasts are a hard topic for Simon in the first place, so I could honestly see him being a bit grateful that you didn’t share the bad parts of your childhood, meaning that he also didn’t have to share his. It was almost a silent agreement between you both to not talk about the negative parts of things unless one of you came to the other wanting to talk about it.

~~~~

Back to him being great at reading people: He could tell that over the past few days, your body language had been changing, becoming more standoffish. Not being as open to cuddling and kisses, not even wanting him to walk up behind you and wrap his arms around you, which you usually loved.

He figured that maybe you were just having a few rough days, which was normal for anyone; hell, he knew he had them quite often, and you were always there for him no matter how bad they got, so he wanted to do the same for you.

Today had been the worst day of all, though. You were almost refusing to talk to him completely unless it was one-word answers, which he was able to roll with pretty easily. You would move rooms almost every time he would come in, not even saying anything, just picking up your things and going.

This made him decide on leaving you alone for the most part, other than when he would bring you a fresh cup of tea or was just checking in on you. So he decided on cleaning up the house a little bit, he was going to be deploying again in a week and he wanted to help however he could, knowing that it was a rough transition from having him around to it being an empty house again.

He had just finished cleaning the dishes when he looked at the time and decided on ordering out for dinner, which would hopefully raise your mood a bit and it would also be an easy enough mess to clean up. He found you in the living room watching a movie on Netflix with a blanket wrapped tightly around you and stood in the doorway for a moment just admiring you when you paused it.

When you snap at him, "What do you want, Simon?" Your eyes aren't even on him but on your phone, which is on your lap.

He feels his eye twitch but he keeps himself calm and makes sure that it shows in his tone that your attitude is leaving him unaffected, “I was just goin’ to ask what you wanted for takeout, love.”

You huff and try to pull yourself up from the couch while also trying to unwrap the blanket from around you, almost falling, but Simon rushes forward and straightens you up, but you quickly pull away.

You look at him with fury in your eyes, “Can't you just leave me the hell alone?” Your voice is rising slightly, and your face is flushed with rage. “It’s what you constantly do anyway!”

You can see Simon's eyes widen, but you don't care; the words are just spilling out of your mouth before you can stop them, "You're never actually here when I need you, but when you are, you can't take the fucking hint of when I just want you to leave me alone!"

"Sometimes Simon," you pause, feeling the tears flood into your vision, making the floor blurry, "I wonder why I even stay when you are just going to end up hurting me exactly like he did," you whisper, staring hard at the ground, your chest puffing in and out quickly, trying to pull in air after your large outburst.

The words come out in a whisper, the room becoming so silent that you can almost hear the gears in his head turning, wondering who the hell you were talking about.

You hear him take a step forward on the wood flooring, his voice incredibly soft, “Dove.”

You look up through the tears and see his hands reaching out for you, and for the first time in all the time you two have been together, Simon Riley almost looks scared—not scared of you but as if his world was coming apart.

When his hand gently touches your arm, it pulls you out of your stupor, making you pull away, frantically shaking your head, “Don’t touch me.”

The words come out shaky and broken, but they make him freeze nonetheless, and you can see in his eyes that he’s trying to pull himself together, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do in a situation like this.

He takes a small step back, his gaze fixed on yours, and he holds his hands out in front of him, as if to demonstrate that he is not a threat. "Okay, I won't touch you." He comes to a halt, seeing the fear in your eyes, the look of a frightened animal ready to flee at any moment. "It's okay, love, everything's fine-"

He doesn't even finish his sentence before you're flying down the hallway, grabbing your bag from the hooks by the front door and bolting out the door, slamming it loudly behind you, leaving him standing halfway down the hallway, his mouth slack-jawed, unsure of what the hell just happened.

~~~

After nearly ten minutes of fast walking, you finally slowed down and stopped in the nearest store to clean your face of tear marks and, hopefully, make yourself look presentable. You sent a quick text to Simon, letting him know that you were safe and that you didn't know when you'd be back. You left your phone on long enough to see him read the message and the text bubble pop up before you shut the phone completely off and tucked it into the bottom of your bag.

You spent the next two hours wandering aimlessly, wondering if you'd just ruined your relationship with the only man you'll ever love, when you came across the small Italian restaurant where Simon had taken you on your first date. You remember the way you tried to pay for your half of the dinner, but he quickly slipped his card to the waitress before you could even argue, saying something about how if you decided not to go on a second date with him, you deserved to at least get a free meal from it, and you teased him by asking him if there was a reason you shouldn't want to go on another date with him.

The memories make your stomach queasy, making you want to kick yourself in the back for being so stupid, but you walk in and order your and Simon's favorite dishes and try to keep the food as warm as possible on your walk back to your shared home. One side of you hopes you’ll find him there, not an empty house, and the other side wants to avoid this conversation for as long as possible.

You walk up the steps, and most of the house seems to be dark except for the living room, where a single light is on. You unlock the door and try as quietly as possible to slip your shoes off while also trying not to drop the food.

You make your way towards the living room to find Simon sitting on the couch, his elbows on his knees, and his face buried in his hands. You look over to the coffee table and see bags with your favorite restaurant's logo tied off, trying to keep the heat in the bags, making your heart ache with the fact that he still thought of you after you treated him like complete trash.

He was the first man ever to treat you with so much love. Even while he was deployed, he was making efforts to show you that he cared, like scheduling a delivery of your favorite flowers to show up on your day off with a little note, paying for over a month's worth of your order at your favorite coffee shop, and bringing back little trinkets from the places he was deployed too.

You knew him being deployed wasn’t his fault; it was part of his job. You knew he wasn't your dad and that it wasn't Simon’s fault that the man who was supposed to love you treated you as if you weren't even his child but rather just another one of his soldiers.

It wasn’t his fault that your dad wouldn't be home for months on end; it wasn’t his fault that the last time you ever saw your dad, you told him you hated him for never being home; it wasn't his fault that the day your dad was supposed to come home from a four-month deployment, instead of hearing him come home, there were four hard knocks on the door; it wasn't his fault that two soldiers were standing at the door; it wasn’t his fault that they were holding a folded-up flag with your dad’s military dog tags on them.

It. Wasn’t. His. Fault.

Yet you treated him as if it were. You didn't know which was worse, the fact that he didn't already know about what happened to your dad or the fact that you wished he did so that he could have a reason to hate you for lashing out.

You step into the room, setting the food you got by the food he ordered. “Simon?”

He doesn’t move for a second, then he looks up at you, and you feel your heart shatter for the umpteenth time tonight. “Oh, Simon,” you whisper, moving so that you’re standing in front of him and drop down onto your knees, “I am so fucking sorry. I don't even have the words to tell you how sorry I am. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you… I should’ve just talked to you instead of letting it build up.”

You move your hands up to gently cradle his face in both your hands and connect your eyes with his molten ones, which usually provided you with comfort. Now, though, all you can see is the look he gave you after you yelled at him, “I— I never should have let my feelings bottle up about me being upset about you having to be gone. I know it's not your fault. I knew what I was getting myself into when we made things official all those years ago. I knew what your job would bring before then; I made the choice to be with you. I'll never regret that.’’

You move your eyes across his face, trying to gauge his emotions, but you get nothing.

“Si, baby?” you whisper.

His eyes move away from you. “Who were you talking about when you said I'm just going to hurt you like he did?’’

You look away, your eyes settling on a loose string on his pants. “I was talking about my dad.” You take a deep breath before continuing, knowing that you have to tell him, “H– He was military like you.”

His hand reaches out to gently lift your chin, bringing your gaze to his. “He died,” you continue, “He died and the last time I ever saw him, I told him I hated him because he was always gone. He…I let him go that day without saying goodbye or telling him I loved him, and the next time I saw him, his body was in a casket."

"Love," he says with a gentle frown.

"No, Simon," you say, shaking your head. Just because I’m scared—no, fucking terrified—of that happening again with you doesn't give me the right to treat you that way. I am so sorry.”

He leans back in the couch and pulls you up into his lap; once you're comfortable, he brings his hands up so that one is cupping your cheek and the other trails down your arm to hold your hand. "Dove, I know what it's like to lose family. I know what it can do to you. I understand that pain more than you know. Pain like that is unlike anything else.”

Tears well up in your eyes, and you blink them away quickly before they fall. "You've lost family, too?"

He nods gently, and you can see deep emotions that seemed to have been buried for a long time beginning to surface. “My mum, my younger brother Tommy, and his wife Beth.” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are filled with unshed tears. “My nephew Joseph.”

You can feel the back of your throat starting to burn from keeping your tears in, but you push your forehead against his anyway. “Simon.”

He looks into your eyes before whispering, “I wish I could tell you it would stop hurting eventually, but I can’t. I’m not going to lie to you and say I’ll always make it back home to you; that's not something I can guarantee, but one thing I can promise is that I will always try my damn hardest to make it back. I will always fight with everything in my soul to make it back to you.”

Tears are softly running down your face at this point, falling to land on Simon’s hoodie. “I love you so much, sweets. I never want to lose you.”

You let out a choked cry before you kissed him gingerly, and you could taste the saltiness of your tears mixed in with all the flavors that reminded you of Simon. Of home.

“I love you so much too, Si.”

He leans in to kiss you again with a light press of his lips to yours before he pulls away and looks at the forgotten food on the coffee table and lets out a light chuckle, “I see we both had the same idea.”

You let out a shaky laugh and nod your head before snuggling your head into the warm crook of his neck. He runs a large hand up and down your back, slowly stopping at the bottom to rub gentle circles into a spot that usually bothers you. "Well, why don’t we eat, and maybe in the morning we can talk a little bit more.”

Yawning into his neck, you pull back and ask, “Can we finish the movie I was watching earlier? It was just getting to the good part before I stopped it.”

He nods, and you excitedly get out of his lap to get your blanket and the TV remote before he pulls the coffee table closer to the couch so that he can start opening the containers. Once you start the movie, you look over to Simon to find him already watching you with a soft look, and all you can think is how thankful you are to have found a man who loves you through all your faults and you through his.

You were grateful for ever getting the chance to be loved by Simon Riley, a man who truly believed that he couldn’t love and that he wasn’t worth loving. You knew that it would probably take your whole lives to heal from the things you've both been through, but as long as you were together, that was all that mattered.

Hi my lovelies, I hope you enjoyed this hc for Price and Simon! Feedback is appreciated but not necessary. As always I hope you have a great day/night. <3

Requests are open so feel free to send in some! I cannot promise when or if I will write them, but I do prefer requests that are slightly more specific as I find them easier to write but it's not required. Thanks for reading my darlings! ♡

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aromantic-diaries · 3 months

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I'm so fucking glad I found out what asexuality and aromanticism is

I'm not either, but for a brief period of time I identified as both and let me tell you: your guys' community aided me in my Complex PTSD recovery (well "recovery" bc the symptoms arent gone, theyre just lessened and I am able to work around them but thats still a big deal!!).

Um. I can't spell. Autonormativity? That thing: it changed my life. Before I even knew the name for it.

For most of my recovery attempts in therapy, my therapists insisted that I needed to make sex and romance a part of my recovery. Like, I would make future goals and they would guilt trip me about not making having a sexual & romantic relationship be one of my goals. My goals were to be able to stop a panic attack when seeing sexual content, being able to have discussions about romance & sex without breaking down and crying, feel brave enough to discuss my boundaries regarding romance & sex to partners and friends, and some other personal stuff.

Only when your guys' community told me "hey, a lot of us live happily without sex, romance, or even both and it's perfectly acceptable to not want those things" was I able to give romance & sex a try again. Because it was no longer an obligation! It was no longer a "if you fail this, your life is over" type thing! I found out that some aromantics test out romance, don't like it, and go on to live happy lives anyways and it blew my world view to smithereens!

Now, I am a very sexual and romantic person, but even if I wasn't I know it would be okay. I look at my past self when I was a 8, 9, and 10 yr old and I was crying all the time about how scared I was of never getting a boyfriend (which then grew into disgust for romantic & sexual stuff). Which is silly and also kinda sad!! Why would anyone make a child feel that way!!

Anyways, I am a huge ally! And even if your guys' community didn't save my life, I would still be a huge ally! Thank you for listening!

I'm very happy that the aspec community was able to help you even if you're not a part of it, and congratulations on your journey! This was really nice to read

#anon #mail time

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vee-xxo · 11 months

Text

☆☆☆- random Katsuki Bakugou relationship headcanons of mine

PART TWO

Since ppl loved the first, here's more only for u 😍😍😍

Right so before u guys start dating this bitch does not know how to flirt

Call him "pretty boy" and he just tells you to shut the fuck up 💀

"Hey hot stuff~" "Eat shit and die."

This also doesnt change when ur dating sry

Except maybe he'll look away a lil shy

BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN HES FLUSTERED OR ANTTHING NOO NO☝️☝️☝️

He does actively like look for u

But he'll be VERY secretive n just so happens to be wherever u go

Not in a stalker kinda way, u know he does it

But god forbid anyone else figure that out

Tbh he's a huge show off

Which is not news at all BUT a big difference for him

Cus when he knows ur watching, in his mind he's all like "😈 muhaha they're losing their shit rn"

& when he's done he'll sideeye the shit outta u just to see if ur blushing or something

Imagine ur just like "🥱🥱"

He explodes

Just falls over & dies lmao

But only emotionally

Outside he'll be like

"Uhh fuckin uh idc uhh I don give a fuck"

But he was lying, he did give a fuck😔😔

HOW DOES HE KISS THO??

Hehe

He doesnt know shit

When u first kiss hes so fucking worried bro omg

Like it's just a lil peck, but uhh

It's probably rlly short

Unless u can keep him calm somehow, then it might actually be kinda nice

He'd last like 5 secs before quickly pulling away

After that he'll just stare at you like

👁👁 (imagine theres angry brows)

It's up to you to say sth cus his mouth is SHUT

Remember how I said hes private w his relationship?

If not, I said it riiiight here ;D

Yea so eventually ppl will know

ESPECIALLY the Bakusquad :DD

KIRISHIMA IS SO HAPPY FOR U GUYS💞💗💝💓💝💗💘💞💝💕💞💘💓💝

He'll be like "THATS acting like a man, Bakugou!" assuming u guys r healthy together ofc

The other three r also happy ofc

But theres one thing they all got on their mind more

"How tf is he dating someone before us??"

Good question tbh

Well it probably went somewhat like this:

"HEY DUMBASS!" You heard, angry footsteps approaching. "Bwuh?" You made a confused noise, turning to see Bakugou, in all his shitty posture. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, elbows locked and his head lowered, making his choppy bangs fall over his eyes. "You..." He rasped out, one hand rising up, pointing a threatening, naked finger directly at you. It seemed as though even the muscles in his fingers had tensed up entirely. 'Oh shit.' You thought to yourself. What did you do now? Did you say something wrong? Teased him one too many times? But your thoughts halted once his hand switched to show his thumb pointing at Bakugou himself. "I'M TAKING YOU TO THE ARCADE! THIS SATURDAY, TWO PM!" He barked out. You could see his face now. His jaw was clenched shut, his teeth pressing together in tension while his red eyes stared seemingly into your soul. Like he was trying to intimidate you, distracting you from what might be the sound of his heart pounding in his chest, like it was about to explode. "Uh." Was your first reaction. "O- Okay?" Was your second. "GOOD." He yelled. Shoving his hand back in his pocket, he turned around, snapping his head back down into its previous position as the stomped off. "DON'T BE LATE!" He added as he fled the interaction.

"Huh." You thought to yourself.

☆☆☆☆☆

HIIIII :DDD Thank u guys SO MUCH for all the support on my previous headcanons! I even added a little scenario for you at the end this time! I hope you enjoyed this post as much as the last! If you did, let me know and I might make a third ;))))❤❤❤

ALSO before I leave, I started writing a Bakugou x y/n slow burn, updates take a while, but I hope I can catch your interest enough to check it out! Thank you so much in advance!! <3333

#bnha x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha smut #katsuki x reader #bakugou imagine #bakugo katuski #bakugou katsuki #bakugou headcanons #katsuki bakugou x reader #fanfic

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darlinguistics · 4 months

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'its just IMPOSSIBLE to not be addicted to your phone nowadays its UNREALISTIC-'

heres some advice to being less chronically online. for gen z (and younger??) who dont even know how to start thinking about it and have only heard shitty advice from older adults who just genuinely do not get it, from a fellow gen z and my experiences so far.

*these are personal and may not all 100% resonate but its still good prompting to start thinking about things! PLEASE feel free to add your own stories/advice in the notes! support your fellow humans, dont gatekeep what youve learned, lets have these conversations! and no negativity/pessimism please <3

first thing is to make it a less scary thought, a more concrete idea and not a hypothetical. it doesnt have to be all-or-nothing, cold turkey, a huge announcement and a fundamental shift in your personality. the internet will be in your life for the rest of your life, this is an ongoing relationship you are trying to make healthier thats all! and it takes one step at a time and some self-compassion, but a true effort nonetheless. 'dont you think thats a bit too serious-' if youre my age you quite literally grew up and developed online, it is literally part of your psyche the way your childhood is, it IS serious, you deserve to treat it seriously.

dont save your login info/dont stay logged in for social media accounts, having to manually log in when you want to go on like youre on some elementary school chrome book is a really healthy and clear boundary to have between being logged off and logged on.

-> bigger challenge - uninstall it on your phone in general, only log on on your laptop/pc if applicable for you!

if youre motivated to, try to work on your posture too. i only say that because most of our bad posture is at least partially related to being on our phones a lot, and when i started wanting to fix my posture, completely separately and unrelated from trying to break my phone addiction, it made it easier to lose interest in my phone since i didnt want to ruin my progress with my posture. it made me start to have a mindset like 'well if you cant do this on your phone with good posture then dont do it' and 'if youre on your phone so long your posture starts to cave in, youve probably spent too long on your phone anyway'

listen to music more. its easier for me to kinda write off my phone and do other things if i just open music or a podcast or long youtube video on it. i know we all love long video essays, but i recommend music more specifically for me at least because im less inclined to pause music or scroll while listening to it for some reason? whereas using a show or video or podcast for white noise, im way more likely to also be scrolling on my phone and that is my activity lol. music for some reason i dont want to interrupt and instead of being on my phone i can clean or do something productive on my computer etc

this one is sooo hard but try to fall asleep with some distance between you and your phone, even just a couple feet. mine stays on the desk next to my bed which isnt that far but its better than on bed like it used to be. when you wake up you probably wont feel like reaching for it right away if its far and even better if you have to get up for it because then at least you stand and move your body first thing instead of looking at your phone first thing. and try to get more and more of your morning routine done before touching your phone over time.

-> for me, i started by just trying to at least wake up a bit in bed before touching it, then stand up before touching it, then stand and stretch, then going to the bathroom first, making coffee first, feeding the cat first, etc. its surprisingly helpful to have a specific chore/task in mind that is The requirement so that everytime you do it you get a lil dopamine rush for unlocking your phone from yourself lmao. when the weather was nice i used to make my Requirement being outside first before going on it and i LOVED that. esp as it got easier and i started doing more and more before going on it and finally walking outside with coffee and my phone felt like such a pleasant little reward.

find a hobby that uses your hands. example: i really need to get back into knitting because when i did it regularly so much time that wouldve been on my phone was spent knitting with music/podcasts/shows/(even online lectures! when i felt productive lol) playing. its the same amount of physical relaxing - barely moving lol - but uses a longer attention span and a much better dopamine hit than scrolling, i literally MADE things.

-> you might be thinking, 'but mindless knitting isnt better than mindless scrolling is it?' but that mindless feeling on your phone is just that, mindless. the mindless feeling you get when doing something like knitting is actually closer to a flow state, which is actually incredibly good for you, like a fulfilling nutritious meal as opposed to 'empty calories' or whatever

get a widget for your homescreen that shows your screen time. i have one and of course it doesnt always stop me but seeing that time go up all day the more i use it and the pride of keeping it low is really helpful

practice grounding. in general.

spend more time on anonymous activities and have more privacy and less attachment with your 'persona' - what i mean by that is, i consider things like scrolling through tumblr (for me personally!) to be relatively harmless because i dont try to like,, brand myself here. if youre a tumblr regular you know the jokes - 0 follows, 0 notes, screaming to the void, moots you dont talk to, blorbo pfp and urls, fake names everywhere, and we're having fun! basically targeting the 'everyone is famous now' thing with this one - embrace being a nobody with no personal stakes here

-> personally ive never kept up with having social media accounts that are actually just, me irl - like a facebook or main instagram, like a locals account yknow? but i think it goes for that too - stop spending so much time trying to further personalize your online presence in the hopes of it representing you perfectly - because it never will, and it shouldnt, and you shouldnt aspire for that. your social media presence is lighthearted and incredibly surface-level, treat it like that! thats not me bashing social media either, having that mindset will make it more enjoyable bc youll be using it as it should be used!

do following/followers or camera roll/files or app purges. this is also a soft launch type of way to practice easing into a better mindset. aside from just literally getting rid of junk, the process of trying to judge whether or not you need something is good practice in mindfulness! even if you dont delete everything you feel like you maybe should, thats fine, youll do other purges in the future too. eventually youll get better at parting with things and realizing when things that feel good in a moment are actually bad for you. and it forces you to regularly check in on your more long-lasting parasocial relationships online and how theyre serving you or not

speaking of parasocial - for actual friends, if theyre irl, think about how much you interact with them online vs in person and why you think that is and how it affects you. maybe youll wanna see them more irl if possible (i promise its better for your friendship), maybe youll realize you dont need to keep tabs on them anymore (old high school acquaintances lookin at you). for celebrities and fandom things - try to think about the bare minimum content from them you could do with. you dont have to unstan all your faves and stop enjoying things - but do you need their notifications on? do you need to have a stan account? do you need them on all the platforms? do you need to have all that saved content of them? are there aspects of this that you love that could be found elsewhere?

if youre of the genre of online where you just cant help yourself from getting involved in big discussions or discourse and arguments - i recommend journaling when you get upset by something online, articulating your feelings without the idea of someone ever reading it and without the goal of 'winning' or being the most correct and logical or even the most sympathetic and morally good. take away every audience aspect of it. what is this really about for you, and why would strangers online deserve to hear your personal well-thought out opinions? why would your thoughts deserve to be simplified and misconstrued and underappreciated the way they would be in this discussion? is there even an outcome to this where you feel truly satisfied? are their people who are more worthy of hearing your thoughts who arent part of this audience? is this a conversation that is best held online where so much communicative nuance is inevitably sacrificed?

in the end these are all just practices in remembering how in control you are. and that goes for if any of these are scary or too difficult sounding too! these all become less scary if you remember that as soon as anything becomes too uncomfortable or painful, you have all the power to stop doing it, make a change, and try again later. so much of advice for quitting bad habits can be intimidating because the pressure and the shame that would come from failing scares you out of the possible benefits of trying - just go ahead and kill that shame from the jump. of course youre going to fail! you are going to have setbacks! thats part of it! you have agency in this, always. the internet is not inherently or completely evil nor good. build trust in yourself to make the calls on when it is serving you and when it isnt on a case-by-case basis, and then give yourself permission to learn through trial and error.

and remember you are worth all of this effort. i believe in us <3

#phone addiction #screen time #gen z #chronically online #i have no clue if any of these are even real tags tbh #mental health #parasocial relationships #<- very risky tag i better not get dragged into some discourse somehow #i have 0 interest in arguments resulting from this post #i am peace and love rn <3 good vibes only lol #this is also in honor of like literally all my friends saying 'less screen time' as a new years resolution lol #🌟.txt #adhd studyblr #new years #new years resolutions

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crushedsweets · 10 months

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do you have any ej headcanons? his character tends to vary alot, sometimes he used to be human and other times hes just a monster in the woods

ive always liked the idea of him being like a big brother to some of the pastas mainly like sally, ben, and jeff

AAAAGREED . As per usual ramble under the cut about jacks relationship with everyone + I’ll post colored version of this in a sec

ok. ive already talked a good bit about jack being a normal med student before the sacrifice, spending a year in some rando possessed demon state, regaining clarity, finding refuge in slenders forest, etc etc. he sort of resembles like, a vampire mixed w ghoul from tokyo ghoul

and as per usual fandom antics, he's one of the typical medical resources for a lot of people in that circle . he absolutely was the eldest son of his family, maybe like 3 younger siblings, so going to university and getting away from a big family was really nice for him. until he lost everything and can never face them again</3

SOOOOO him being the resident 'doctor' and already having a brotherly instinct .. its real and true. especially with sally, but she doesn't come around much since sally stays w jane and jane doesnt need jack. sally def reminds him of one of his little sisters. its super super bittersweet for him. jane doesnt realize jeff gets help from jack so thats the only reason she even lets sally come around

in terms w his friendship w jeff and ben.. those two are close, and jeff def has to go to jack for medical attention. ben doesnt need it but he'll come w jeff just bc he can. for a while jack REFUSED to talk to jeff while treating his wounds bc he knows what jeff does. ((jeff isnt even protected under slenderman he just lies and jack has no idea LMFAO))BUT EVENTUALLY jeff starts bringing jack uhh. :| remains. as an extra thank you, which means jack doesnt have to do the killing. it felt like a huge burden lifted off his shoulders. so that kinda helped shift their friendship. ben also doesnt really kill he just haunts so jack didnt have severe issues w him anyway(plus ben actually IS protected under slender sooo)

ben and jeff are just kinda assholes but in the boyish brotherly way(for the most part). neither of them have past 8-9th grade education and will literally look at jack like hes stupid for making a catcher in the rye reference.

jacks just kind of a pathetic little asshat who misses being in school. sometimes he'll try to convince ben and jeff to actually pick up a book for once in their life, and they probably did it once. PROB WOULD ENJOY CATCHER IN THE RYE NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT. LMFAOO

he's not all too brotherly with like, masky and hoody since those two are older than him and are creeped out by him. but theyve gotten their fair share of medical attention from him, and he even taught hoody some more extensive first aid so now hoody kinda deals with the basic stuff toby totally still goes out of his way to see jack regardless of whether hoody could treat it or not. toby had nobody willing to talk to him growing up, so the fact that now he sort of has a circle of freaks thatll talk to him, laugh(marginally) at his jokes, and can take some crude remarks.... BROS TAKING ADVANTAGE.

clocky also isnt protected under slenderman, but if she comes to jack with a gash in her head or a stab wound in her leg, jacks gonna help regardless. clocky is also kind of a smartass so she'll actually read some of the books jack has and talk to him about it which is pleasant for them both, but they really have like... nothing else in common.

liu doesnt need 2 go to jack and wouldnt bc he has no reason to

im still lost on how i want ninas case to go, whether she actually kills or just committed an act of self mutilation that caught jane and lius attention, so idk if she would need jack . .

#ok yea the only ppl i focus on in my au are like #toby masky hoody ej sally ben jeff jane liu clockwork and nina..#basically the main 10 or so LOL #theres def others roaming around but i either dont know their story or dont have a 2015 nostalgic attachment to them #anyway thank u for this askkkkkk !!#ik i always kinda deviate from the ask as i ramble but i appreciate it LOL #hcs #eyeless jack #jack nyras #creeped

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the-s1lly-corner · 7 months

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hiii could i get J, P, Q an U for Slender? thanks! and i hope your day is going really well >_<

More Fluff Alphabet /w Slenderman but these letters!

my days been pretty okay! slow, but not terrible :O gonna be slow from tomorrow until next saturday so i might promote requests being open ponders not proof read!! though to be fair i dont. think i proof read any of my stuff

J (JEALOUSY)-

he can get rather possessive in general when it comes to you or his proxies so uh

don't like, try to make him jealous on purpose, it doesn't end well for anyone involved. actually don't try to tick off forest demons in general

i know i keep saying stuff like "oh god forbid someone make you uncomfortable" in these but like. slenderman is still this huge powerful creature, i know my interpretation on him is a bit silly n different but he still has roots in the 2010s fandom interpretation, you know?

there will be... a mess... is what im saying

in the case that someone is being weird with you, he's less jealous and more angry, though, of course not angry at you

though there will be hard boundaries set in place if you try to rile him up on purpose, he doesnt want to waste his time on someone whos going to toy with him like that. both in a "hey thats not really cool or healthy of you to do to me or our relationship" and also "im fucking slenderman im a old ass powerful demon, who do you think you are?"

P (PETNAMES)-

he calls you; love, darling, my dear

he likes being called; really anything under the sun, because as long as its something coming from your mouth hes pleased, because it ultimately means hes yours and youre his

q (QUESTION)-

for more context see this post! dives into lore stuff for my au/hcs but it'll help add context to this segment!:

here!

hope the link copied well enough </3 if not you can find it on my blog, titled "all entwined in one web" or something along those lines

anyways

some variant of "why do you stay"

you could have decided to be with literally anyone else, but you chose a solitary self loathing demon who eats people in order to survive, created for the sole purpose to cause issues and harm to humanity

on one hand he wants you to stick around and keep him company; but on the other hand he wants you as far away from him as possible so you can go out and live your own life without being in danger or having to put up with his whole deal

please give him lots of reassurance, its going to take a lot for him to stop asking those kinds of questions; assuming he stops asking at all

U (UPSET)-

i feel like him being upset is similar to the jealousy part of this post, but just more. broad. like hes not going to take shit if youre going to try to upset him on purpose

hes more patient if its accidental, though. diving into a previous fluff alphabet, if its an accident and something that can be helped in terms of future instances hes likely to work through it with you. he knows his time with you is short, if his partner is a mortal, and he doesnt want to waste that time

soft slenderman my beloved, let this man have complex emotions and desires and whatnot

kinda just. vanishes when he gets real upset, though, since he cant control his anger that well and generally just doesnt want you to see him like that- best way to help him like that is to just give him time

if youre the one upset hes going to listen to you, if you need someone to talk to. man of few words, advice can go fifty fifty

either gives good advice or not good advice; and thats on him being around for a long time but not really spending a lot of that time you know... interacting with others in a meaningful way

bonus if you still live at your place he's going to do a bunch of your chores for you. in. varying degrees of success, similar reasoning as above since he doesnt really have a home of his own to do like. dishes or laundry at. still bouncing between if im going to have the mansion be a part of this au of mine or not, and if so, how its going to tie in to everything

shrugs

#creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta x you #creepypasta imagines #slenderman x reader #slenderman headcanons #slenderman imagine #slenderman x you

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coffee-with-mint-syrup · 5 months

Text

Look, I didn't want to be "that" person

who criticizes something just because "it was different in the books".

But I love PJO just way too much to not feel frustrated at the tendencies of modern adaptations that I think new series is suffering from. And I feel much more frustrated because in others aspects the new show is great.

First of all, what's with this downplayed brutality of PJO world? The moment Sally started her speech about Perseus I smelled trouble. In her story, in her reasoning she named him after Perseus because of this beautiful story where happy ending is just something that happens. While in the books thats a huge deal that Percy is named after THE ONLY HALF-BLOOD HERO that had that happy ending. That fact is supposed to highlight the mortality rates and that for most of these demigods happy ending is pretty much NOT IN PROSPECT. Like, despite that rambling post I'm usually fine with some differences that are made in adaptations, most of them I usually can understand. But why do you need change the message of "I named you that way because I hope you will live happily ever after despite being in constant danger" to "I named you that way because it's a beautiful story about a mother and a son"? Especially when they absolutely could do both?

Secondly, the Gabe issue. You see, Percy Jackson books were great because they were able to discuss with children some pretty heavy themes without downplaying them - like domestic abuse. And that scene with poker players and Gabe getting from Percy money was brilliant because it showed that Gabe was so awful that he took everything he could even from a 12 y.o. There were also heavy implications that he beat Percy. But now Gabe is just your usual jerk who is lazy and doesn't have a good relationship with his stepson and argues with his wife all the time. Look, I know, that is awful too, I know that. But the point of Gabe that he was absolutely the worst. That he's the worst of the worst that's why he smells on this metaphysical level and is able to hide Percy. That he kinda deserved what happened to him in the end. And now I sure that we won't get that end because apparently that stuff is too brutal for kids. If they're afraid that much younger audience would get shocked by it they could at least do that in hints, you know. Old shows were great with things that you didn't understand as a child and then later while rewatching them you finally could get the message.

And what's with this Grover thing? Okay, I understand they probably didn't have the time for establishing why Percy would feel betrayed by his teacher but wanted to save this "low point" for Percy's character. But why? Why? How Percy as a character and we as viewers are supposed to feel that amazing friendship if it started for us with betrayal? That just sucked.

Also, personal flaw - they really could insert "This is a pen" line when Brunner gave Percy the pen. They really could and that would be so awesome. But they didn't.

And the sad part is that now I understand that there was no way they could include this important stuff in the series. Because Disney is too afraid to show domestic abuse. They afraid to show Sally Jackson that put up with heavy abuse just to keep her son safe. They afraid to show that literal children die in PJO world. That that half-blood stuff is no game - as Percy said in the very first minute of the series. For fuck's sake they didn't even mention him having ADHD! They implied that by saying that he was being weird! That was so so so so important that those things that kids with ADHD are struggling make them so special and strong in their own way. And now that message is gone too.

And all of that is because Disney doesn't have any balls left. It's like they sanitize everything they make into that 0+ versions of stories while sometimes the point of the story is in discussing something from a real, sad and unsanitized world.

The stuff I listed is just from the first episode and I don't know if the show will go that way, if this tendency of sanitizing the story will continue or not. I'm just really afraid that all of that means that they decided to leave out all the brutality that made Percy Jackson so iconic. It is like watching this new version of Harry Potter where he doesn't live under the stairs - that maybe doesn't change much story-wise but it's just not the same Harry Potter that way.

I want to like the show, I really do. Walker is so amazing is this role. Other actors are really great. I see the effort, I see how people tried to make this adaptation as close to books as they could. The show looks truly amazing. The fight with minotaur was absolutely stunning. Ending sequence is a masterpiece. I have so many good things I can say about it. But those little things they changed - they weren't little at all. A huge chunk of what made those books so special at least for me is gone (especially in comparison with Harry Potter books). And I can't help feeling sad.

#i'm really sorry for being bitter #i promise you i'm not one of those angry “it wasn't in the book!” fans #i feel alright with changes and sacrifices that were made for the adaptation #it's just the things they chose to change if this makes sense #that is saying something and i don't like the way it goes #maybe it will turn out fine in the end #i really hope so #no intention of hating something here #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #pjo series #percy jackson series #long post #spilled thoughts #sorry for rambling

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jack-kellys · 1 year

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west end question: i obviously love my brooklyn girls and would die for them all, but is it bad that it’s taken away the sprace dynamic for me? like i’m still 100% on board with a nowhere near canon ship and it shouldn’t affect me they’ve decided to have spot be a girl, but it lowkey has? and i feel kinda guilty about it? idk i love my proshot boys. but i am 100% here for all the uk newsies cast they are amazing and so talented and it’s definitely my favourite production by far!! idk if i’m making sense

ok part of me feels a litle baited actually because like. i feel like... im vocal abt mlm musical sprace not being a big vibe for me in the first place. so im a funny person to ask if you were looking for relief lmao. anyway here's my thesis below.

wait also if ur a white newsie fan a read-thru+rb of this would be much appreciated thank youuu (also yall have been eating up my character analyses anyway sooooo!)

TL;DR THESIS: if you're feeling genuinely let down that your ship did not see the light of day and a black girlsie spot conlon got to instead, then yes, you should reevaluate that.

followers, if you've been with me long enough, you know that i have quite strong opinions about how this show gets treated when it comes to interpretations and fandom/fanon. mostly, this is because i literally work in theater, and it's extremely backwards in my brain personally when shows get treated more like a movie or tv show than a performance piece.

im also one of the only ppl in this fandom that ever seems to dare speak on race (not the damn character smh). and anon, buddy, kiddo, this does have to do with race, gender, and sexuality.

firstly, what i think needs to be understood about newsies, is that it is theater, which means it is meant to be mutable. there is no one way. there should never be one way. it does not exist. secondly, theater does not exist in a fandom vacuum. its live every night, conceptually. theater is a live performance art.

interpretations change- it's the nature of theater. so i think asks like these really do illuminate the difference between fans of the show's content or fans of... i guess the show's culture's content.

this is a culture content ask.

one thing i really, truly, deeply need you all to understand: from an objective, script- and staging-based perspective, proshot sprace does not exist. they do not speak. they barely see each other. race does not even volunteer to go to brooklyn. the ship originates from the 1992 movie, where they do actually interact, which is why the ship has prevailed through the 90s to today. they're from the movie, not the musical.

of course, this doesn't bash the ship- it has history, and naturally fans want to create new history when they get a new source material (the musical). it's true for like every newsie ship lowkey (but also not lowkey because all the manhattan newsies do interact and sprace literally does not but thats a different post!!), which is something i do admire about the fandom- we do a lot of our own legwork here, we invent relationships and backgrounds from one-liners that could be given to tbh any frickin newsie. i respect the 30 years we have invented ships.

however.

when a huge, publicized, consistently sold out production comes along with spot conlon as not only a woman, but a woman of color (specifically black rn!) as the leader of the most feared group on stage, there becomes something much more important than a "sprace dynamic", which does not canonically exist in the musical anyway bro. you can't miss something that isn't there imo. often the story and casting within a story comes first, and goddamn if this isn't one of those times. lillie-pearl's spot brings bravado, swagger, confidence, and intimidation that is literally....fine maybe i'm being personal but it is slash gen incredible to see in technically a period piece! a black woman in leadership with that kind of assuredness! in such a popular musical! how is that not– automatically surpassing an often obsessed-over (yes i am. hinting at something here, straight girl fans) mlm ship?

and while i'm on the topic of the over-obsessiveness of mlm musical sprace, let me talk about uksies sprace. because what's also wack abt this ask is that sprace is not a hopeless case in this production- it literally has about as much 'evidence' as the proshot imo!!!!!

i got to hop over to 2nd row brooklyn seating for act 2 so i saw once and for all really close up, right. there's a moment when race is upstage letting the newsies in/down from the stairs. spot comes down and she does, in fact, share a look with him. race gives spot a nod and she keeps moving.

and like im gonna see the show again (every day i am counting my mf blessings fr), so if i'm wrong or they don't do it every time i'll correct myself, but that's what i saw with my own dang eyes on saturday. they do acknowledge each other in uksies.

and since they do, i really like. i have to ask. what is bothersome/unpopular abt uksies sprace, other than oh idk.... its not white/white mlm with a twink/manly bf trope? why can't race still love who spot is as a character, this strong and fearless ruler of brooklyn, in uksies? because tbh josh's racer...nahhhh because. this is such a side note now but they'd be so good together oh jesus am i gonna ship uk sprace. and it's not like they're 'taking away' from a queer ship because a) you can headcanon spot as a queer girl and race being trans is consistently popular and b) newsies has ten billion gayass ships bro we've been eatin for literal decades.

anon, i'm sure you didn't mean harm by this ask. i'm sure, honestly, that a lot of fans are feeling the same way as you and weren't quite sure how to put it in words. but, i'm also not surprised you sent an ask like this on anonymous specifically.

should you feel guilty about it? i don't think guilt is the right word. but i believe you should think more about how newsies is not.....static. it does not exist in one form, and it never will. if you're feeling genuinely let down that your ship did not see the light of day and a black girlsie spot conlon got to instead, then yes, you should reevaluate that. in theater, you should always question why something impacted you the way it did- a major point of theater is to discuss and think about it when you leave! i know this because ive spent three years literally studying it, to back up my thesis credentials.

thank you for reading this, newsies fandom. i do honestly say all this with love, and i hope it made u think !! ♥️

#i just. damn dude. im tired #sprace #race x spot #racetrack higgins #spot conlon #newsies #sprace newsies #newsies uk #uksies #newsies the musical #newsies live #livesies #west endsies #west end newsies #race higgins #race newsies #spot newsies #anyway josh's race would fall ridiculously in love with lillie-pearl's spot. like goddamn #i believe in them and you should too!! uk sprace!!!!

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scaredgirlsilly · 7 months

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Homestuck character who doesn't get enough love?

i have been stalking this ask, formulating my plan of attack, jumping from branch to branch of the canopy of trees, waiting for the perfect moment.

and that moment has finally come

spoilers for homestuck (merp. if you read this ill explode you with my mind im sorry im doing this but it has spoilers for all of homestuck so you arent allowed to read this JDKSKFJSH)

my answer is jade. am i biased?? absolutely!! but thats A Whole Thing so im gonna give some runner ups first before i get into all that

jake prob like idk whenever i see him in stuff its always either with dirk (and usually focuses on dirk kr their relationship) or its a family photo of john, jade, jane, and jake. but like. idk i dont think many people *get* what hes about (me included) but hes a great character and literally soooo aro coded its not even funny. i really should rotate jake in my brain more hes a very cool character

jane too theres some love for jane but i think the epilogues kinda fucked her

the dancestors too, but idk im not a huge dancestor fan cause they are all kinda assholes and the scene with cronus and mituna just makes my skin crawl

but ok BACK TO JADE

i think there are different aspects (most of them probably unrelated to what you untended for the question) that she doesnt get enough love, but lets start with what you were probably talking about, which is

how jade is treated by the fans

i think jade gets a fair amount of fan love. i mean just look at her!! who couldnt love her?? my main problem comes from how she compares to dave, specifically the fact that fans seem to apply an absolutely monstrous depth to daves character that isnt necessarily there in homestuck (like specificallyin regards to angst readings of his character. this is about fanfiction i should say that this is just my grievances when it comes to finding good jade fics). THATS NOT A BAD THING!! i fuckin love it actually and im not raggin on dave with this. its just that i think jade could do that as good if not better!! her life is fuckin dogshit if you treat it seriously, much like people do with daves life, and considering the fact that nearly every single fuckin dave fic i read touches on that topic, it sucks that jade fics like that are so hard to come by. she also doesnt have as many like prominent ships. theres some obv ones, like davepetasprite, or dave/karkat in a throuple (we will fucking get to that later), but yk some of the other characters even uf they dont have canon relationships, they have like. obvious ones yk. like john/vriska or john/terezi or june/rose or john/dave (fuckin j egbert gettin around kfhskshdh) or like jake/dirk or roxy/callie yk ships like those. whether you agree with em is one thing but they are obvious yk you dont gotta do alot of convincing to see them at least try it out.

but with jade, it feels like you gotta stretch it a little to get her with anyone. jade/rose is great (especially jade/rose/kanaya) but. i mean jade and rose barely talk in homestuck proper (we will GET TO IT) so its kinda a hard sell. and does jade like interact with any of the trolls alot?? like idk its been a while but im p sure most of her interactions with the trolls were negative. so that just leaves jade/davepeta which is a pretty good ship i will say, and of course, jade/dave ( + karkat sometimes) and it kinda sucks. like one of my fav ships, jade/vriska, literally started out as a joke!! but it grew on me when i started thinking out it, but it is already such a stretch that theres no fuckin way most people will see what i see (thats a whole seperate rant jdhsjdjsj this is already long enough and we have 3 other parts to get to)

SPEAKING OF THE OTHER PARTS!!

next part, prob the easiest,

jades treatment in the epilogues

do i even need to say anything??

this post is long enough ill try to speed through the other sections

NEXT PART!!

how she is treated in homestuck proper in the text (what literally happens to her)

literally lonliest girl alive has one day with her friends (that day is filled with horrible shit and thats the understatement of the century) before getting on a ship for 3 years, and like a week in having her brother and other friend die. she then lives in this ship in the middle of space, no contact to any of her other friends, no update on whats actually going on, just the company of the consorts and nanna sprite. she finally gets to the new session, meets god tier calliope who explains that that was all supposed to happen and john actually fixed everything, and also space players are just lonely thats just apart of the aspect :/

she then gets put to sleep so the condesce doesnt control her, where she misses all of the socialization that the other people have on the platform before the final fight.

she then has a convo with davepeta while she is dreaming where davepeta says "actually in the other timeline we dated and that stuff still happened to you cause of this thing called an Ultimate Self, a thing thats totally real and not at all bullshit. anyways bye!! *muah*"

she wakes up, chases a few god dogs around, gets puched in the face, and the end happily ever after!!!!!!!!

now obv this was an extremely bitter retelling and i actually cant seperate the 2 sections so this is also...

how jade is treated in homestuck proper, by andrew hussie

now. jade got ROYALLY fucked over. she started out as a mysterious figure that knows more than anyone, but extremely quickly she goes to the person who knows the least out of literally anyone. she barely talks to rose, seemingly one of her 4 childhood friends, throughout the whole comic (jade and rose say about 2700 words to each other over 5 conversations, one of them being a repeat from the others perspective. their longest convo is 571 words. for reference, this convo between dave karkat and john has 2100 words. almost 1500 words more than their longest convo and almost as much words as rose and jades entire convo history. heres a link to da sourse i used cause no way im counting that shit jdjsgsjshs tho they are doing it cause they dont like jade/rose or sumn?? idk i dont fucking care about that. anyways side tangent over!!)

SHE DOESNT EVEN WNTER THE GAME TILL ACT 5 ACT 2!!!!!!!! AFTER WE SEE THE ENTIRE TROLL SESSION!!!!!!!!

then, during the session idk shes cool i dont remember it much cause the beta kids session is a surprisingly short part of the comic jdkshdjshs but she has some cool moments and i love her ^u^

then the yellow yard. god. just fucking left there alone. why?? the entire point of johnfix is that the session could be changed for the better without worry of a doomed timeline. couldnt have even made john give her a heads up as to why her john and davesprite just fucking die randomly?? (before you say that john couldnt have cause he didnt know, motherfucker andrew hussie knew!!!!!!!! he could have just made some fuckin reason for john to know its not that hard)

then during the session she just gets ranted to about how actually its all apart of the plan and this was supposed to be this way and she just goes ":P okie dokie" and moves on like that wouldnt FUCKING KILL HER THAT SHE HAD TO BE ROYALLY FUCKED OVER FOR EVERYTHING TO GO RIGHT.

now obv theres an explanation why her role in the final fight is so passive. shes too op. she combined with bec and is a space player (and is shown using those powers to do some pretty bad ass stuff jfjsgsjdhd). thats fair i guess. im just salty that the way to solve that was to literally put her to sleep for most of it, then go fly around with some dogs and get punched in the face.

now. the rant is kinda over. jade i think is the most slept on character, but specifically she is slept on by one person. andrew hussie. i think that andrew hussie did not explore jades character like he did with other characters. i do not know why. im going to try to not act like i know why he did it (god its so hard HDKSKDHAGDJ). this rsnt is pure salt, pure fuckin cope, i am aware. this is not meant to be objective i just really like and relate to jade and wish she got more love in the work itself. but instead, i must dine on the scraps she gets on fuckin ao3 (did you know there are almost as many davekat fics as there are fics where jade is in it at all?? and thats not even including the fact that alot of the jade fics, shes not the main person. im not mad 🙃🙃)

anyways uhhhh sorry this probably wasnt what you were expecting 😭😭😭😭 i just have alot of incoherent thoughts when it comes to jade and homestuck in general. so uhhhh. THANKS FOR THE ASK!!!!!!!!

#sorry it took so long literally this ask has been in my brain rollin around picking up dust like a katamari ball #but i knew i was gonna get to it eventually!!!!!!!!#it was just whenever i had the energy to write. *this* JDKSLDHAFJDKSKF #anyways thanks 😁😁

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