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savantv · 2 years

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Boosting Insights and Creativity

Creativity may be the most valuable thing that our brains produce. Innovations in terms of solving problems and designing products have been a repeating hallmark of human history. The creativity of artists in visual, auditory, even culinary domains provides some of the greatest pleasures that humanity has ever experienced. Creativity also shows up in our individual daily lives, not just in terms of work, but even in terms of things like maintaining relationships. If an inter-personal problem arises in terms of things like finding a creative, maintaining relationships. Novel of solutions that works can be the key to making a relationship happy or even saving it.

Given the importance of creativity, you would think that cognitive neuroscience would have studied it a lot more. But only for the last few decades have researchers really tried to study creativity from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. The reasons cognitive neuroscience has been late to the game here have been largely pragmatic. You can’t just put someone into a FMRI scan and instruct them to be creative, starting now. While the work was delayed as researchers developed techniques, very creative solutions have been devised. And we’ve learned a tremendous amount about how the creative process works in general and how the brain implements it.

Want to bring more creativity into your life? to develop more creative solutions to the challenges that face you? There are many ways to do that. One of the simplest is to listen to happy music. For instance, if I give you a complex puzzle to solve, one that you’ve never seen before you’ll likely have to tap your creativity to come up with a solution. If thousands of people do the same puzzle, some will be creative enough to solve it, and some will not. The more creativity you have, the more likely you are to solve the puzzle. Studies of how listening to music influences creativity have taken this approach. One of the best studies of this effect, conducted by Gene Rowe and his collaborators, used a type of puzzle called a “. In every trial of a remote associate test, you’d would be given three words. Your task is to come up with a fourth word that’s closely associated with all three, a word that could form common phrases of two words with each. For instance, if I give you the words “cottage,” “Swiss,” and “cake,” is there a word that fits with all three of those? Cottage cheese, Swiss cheese, and cheesecake. This is a word puzzles, but they activate many of the brain processes involved in developing creative solutions to problems in general.

The PEBL Rat (Remote Associates Test) Task Video - https://youtu.be/uUvxBmqTHs8 (this will illuminate convergent thinking)

A big step in most creative processes is to think about how different pieces of information relate to one another. Say it was the 1800s, and I wanted to figure out how to make an incandescent light bulb last longer. I’d have to figure out how electricity flows through the bulb, and how that leads to both the production of light and the degradation of the filament material. I need to think about the properties of different materials and how they change when heated, in particular, how they oxidize. Eventually, like the Belgian inventor Jobard, I might have the insight that if I could take most of the oxygen out of the light bulb, that the filament would oxide less and last longer. In this creative invention process, I am using information from many different sources that are related, but only remotely so, and finding out how to draw new connections between them. [That’s exactly what you do with the remote associates test. You search for connections between the words that our remote, thus the name, remote associates test.] This may not be the whole process of creativity, but it’s an essential part of it. If we can make you better at finding remote associations, we will boost your creativity at the same time. Participants in this Rowe study were randomly assigned to one of three mood induction conditions- - positive, negative, and neutral.

In the positive condition, participants listened to a jazzy version of the “Brandenburg Concerto.”

youtube

Participants in the negative condition listened to Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsksiy, Rusa Under the Mongolian Yoke.” This depressing song was rendered especially depressing by playing it at half speed.

youtube

For the neutral condition, participants read a series of facts and figures about Canada. That’s my sound potentially negative to you or positive, that’s sort of the point. Reading facts and figures turns out to be pretty close to neutral. And taken together, these three methods have been used to induce different moods by other researchers in the past and they work. After 10 minutes engaged in one of these three tasks, participants in the positive condition gave higher ratings of their positive mood level. Neutral participants were in the middle. And negative participants moods were significantly lower. The participants then engaged in several tests, one of which was the remote associates task. As you might guess, the performance tracked with the mood level. People who listened to the positive music answered significantly more remote associate questions correctly. To the extent that this test taps into important aspects of creativity, we can conclude that listening to happy music significantly boosts creativity. A concern you might have is that perhaps people were just generally more motivated in the positive condition than in the other two, perhaps it’s not their creativity, but just their overall level of engagement that changed. That’s a possibility here, of course. It’s worth nothing that even if it is just a motivation booster, listening to happy music will still improve performance on a creative task. So the tip is listening to happy music.

Moreover, the experimenters obtained other evidence as well, other evidence that it’s not just motivation that’s influenced here. In fact, this experiment was mostly testing for how well participants can focus visual attention on a target and how well participants ignore extraneous information. A “flanker task” was also performed by participants in these three experimental conditions. In the flanker test, participants watch a computer screen and respond as quickly as possible to the appearance of a letter in the middle of the screen. For instance, is the letter is a K, participants press a key with their right index finger. If the letter is A, the participants press a key with their left index finger. This is a easy task, of course. Its even easier if you present more than one of the same letter. That is, participants are a little faster to respond to a K if it’s presented with another K on its left and a third K on its right. However, if you flank the target K the other target, the A in this case, then participants are slower to respond. The task is essentially to focus your attention on the one location on the screen and to ignore the flanker letters. Listening to happy music, it makes you worse at this task. Listening to sad music, however, improves performance on this flanker measure. The researchers argue that a happy mood broadens your focus of attention. It makes your brain more open to considering a wide arrange of different information. This happens in terms of your visual attention. We see this with the flanker task. It also seems to happen in terms of your general cognitive performance.

We see that broadening of scope with the remote associates test. If you want to focus your attention on one particular solution to a problem, and thus, to not be distracted by other information, listening to sad music could be a good thing to do. If, on the other hand, you want to open your mind to a wide range of potentially related information, to be able to consider that in creative ways, than listening to happy music will help.

What’s going on in your brain when all this happens? Some of the best work on this comes from the lab of, Mark Beeman, who studied brain activation during remote associates tests. Participants in his tasks would try to solve long series of these problems while laying in an FMRI scanner or while wearing an EEG cap. Remember, functional magnetic resonance imaging, an FMRI, precisely assesses which areas of the brain are activated during a task. Does this based on measurement of blood flow to those regions. The electroencephalogram the EEG, contains a large number of sensors that are placed on the scalp. The sensors pick up the tiny electrical activations maid in the brain under the region of each particular sensor. Keep in mind here that FMRI is very good in terms of “Spatial Resolution”. It can resolve changes down to a cubic millimeters of brain tissue. FMRI is not very good temporarily. Changes in blood flow don’t occur for several seconds after an area becomes active. The EEG has the opposite characteristics. It’s not so great in terms of spatial resolution. The sensors pick up the average signal produced by thousands of neurons located near the sensor. Even neurons located many millimeters away from the sensor can exert a small influence on the activity that it picks up. EEG, however, is excellent in terms of “temporal resolution”. It can record changes that take place within as little as a few milliseconds. Some of the best neuroimaging research involves a combination of these two techniques. Beeman’s work is a great example of this. Participants in both tasks would solve the problems while holding a button box in their hands. Beeman was very interested in that experience of insight. Often, it’s very sudden insight that we all have when we’re trying to solve complex problems. It seems that you don’t know the solution to a problem— for instance, one of those remote associates problems— and then seemingly from nowhere, eureka, you know it. In Beeman’s studies, whenever participants had this insight experience, they would press the inside button. Beeman’s analysis of the brain imaging data revealed a particular region located in the “Anterior Superior Temporal Gyrus” of the right hemisphere. It became very active shortly before this moment of insight was indicated with the button press. This area is one of the outward bulges located at the very top of the right temporal lobe. Now the cortex is like a thin, wrinkled sheet of neurons. Some of the wrinkles bulge out. We call a bump like this a “Gyrus”. A valley in the wrinkled surface is called a “Sulcus”. The area that Beeman identified is a Gyrus located in the top of the right temporal lobe. It seems to be critical in developing creative insights. The EEG data confirmed this funding. 3/10 of a second before participants that insight button, a bursts of high frequency activity is emitted from this anterior superior temporal Gyrus. The anterior superior temporal gyrus is associated with many tasks involved in integrating distant semantic relations, finding connections between information that’s only loosely related, exactly the sort of thing that’s needed for the remote associates test and for creativity, more generally.

Ancient Wisdom meets Modern Neuroscience: https://youtu.be/YTSQYNPbFv4

Gyrus Of The Brain - Learn in 4 Minutes: https://youtu.be/o4JbIotpras

Why should happy music affect this region? [Most research points to the relation between the sympathetic and parasympathetic portions of the autonomic nervous system.] When we find ourselves in threatening, potentially dangerous situations, we activate are “Sympathetic Nervous System”. This prepares our body for a potential fight or flight reaction, find at increasing the likelihood of survival. When we don’t sense a threat, our body activates the parasympathetic system and enters into what is often referred to as “rest and digest mode of activity”. Of course, we don’t just rest and digest in this mode. As we calmly considered problems, this parasympathetic system will tend to be activated. It might also be better to refer to it as a tend and befriend mode of processing. The body diverts its resources to general maintenance activities that while essential for long-term survival, aren’t particularly useful for battling or escaping from a threat. One of those rest and digest systems is general cortical activity, the activity associated with complex cognitive and creative problem solving. Sympathetic and parasympathetic system is often characterized in terms of its extreme responses. If an enormous, starling tiger suddenly jumped in front of you, you might be terrified, and a flight or fight feeling would come over you, and your brain. That said, when you’re a little stressed about something, a smaller, gentler version of that same flight or flight mode is engaged. When you feel happy, more of your resources released into your brain as a whole. Indeed, one general piece of advice for boosting creativity that’s been supported by many different studies is to be happy. If you’re depressed, sad, distressed, anxious, anything but happy, your creative abilities seemed to be compromised. Listening to happy music will boost your creativity while you listen to it and for at least a few minutes after. But in general, every day happiness will boost it on a more long-term basis. As you prepare to undertake a challenging task, one for which you want to marshal your most creative thinking, it’s worth starting by doing something that makes you happy. One task that’s associated with boosting happiness as well as creativity is walking.

Marily Oppezzo and her colleagues have explored this with other task that’s often been used to assess creativity— the “alternate uses test” which illuminates divergent thinking. In this test, participants are given four minutes to come up with as many different uses as they can for some common object. Let’s try it for a minute or two here. Think of as many uses as you can for a brick. You can use it as a doorstep, a paperweight. You can stand on it to reach up a little bit higher than you normally can. Anything else? Try to think of some. Some people get really creative with this test. For this alternative uses test, it would be performed for several minutes with a list of several additional objects— a shoe, paper clip, bucket, for instance. As with the remote associates test, this isn’t really the same thing as creatively inventing a new device or producing a work of art, but it taps a mental resources that is central to those real world creative processes. Oppezzo’s group had their participants complete the remote associates test and this alternative uses tests while participants in one of several experimental conditions. Some participants sat in the chair and completed the tests. Others stood up. Some went for a walk while completing the task. Some walked inside, some walked outside. Some were pushed in a wheelchair for that trip around the inside or outside space. Note that this last condition, or the last two conditions, are kind of clever. If a boost in creativity was found, it might not be the walking that mattered, but the stimulation of the charging surrounding that boosted the creativity. The wheelchair conditions tested for that. The short summary of all these different conditions in the study is that all of these changes significantly boosted creativity of the study participants. Walking helped a lot, so did going for a ride in a wheelchair. But walking boosted performance significantly more. Walking outside was best for creativity. But even walking on a treadmill was better than not walking. Many great thinkers have been regular walkers. Charles Dickens claimed that he walked about 30 miles per day while thinking about his writing. Darwin, Aldous Huxley, Winston Churchill— a lot of great thinkers have talked and written about mental benefits of walking. Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous philosopher, once wrote that “all truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” A tradition that goes all the way back to Ancient Greece, literally the “walking to school” founded by the followers of Aristotle.

Take your thoughts for a Walk | Marily Oppezzo: https://youtu.be/Psu14nsw9a4

The Benefits of Walking for Creativity and Research - https://youtu.be/hDFe2KRBoyo

So the recent research provides solid evidence for this belief. If you want to be a more creative thinker, take your thoughts and yourself out for stroll. While you’re on that stroll, even if you aren’t, it’s good idea to carry a pocket notepad and a pencil. The best creative thinkers tend to be people who engage in a wide variety of tasks. The evidence here is correlation in nature. In typical studies, researchers of surveyed participants about the variety of activities that they pursue. The participants then complete tasks like the remotes associates test and the alternative uses test. In general, the more varied the person‘s typical activities are, the more creative they tend to score on those test of creative thinking. There’s a tip here as well.

Tip: Stuck with a problem? Try something new for a creative solution. Going and trying something new can help.

Doing so can stimulate your brain in novel ways. Indeed this is probably the reason that going for a walk outside or even being pushed in a wheelchair outside boosts creative thinking. As your senses and body are simulated with a wide variety of different inputs, the internal state of your brains activation will tend to vary more as well. Finding a creative connection between two pieces of information will only happen if the brain circuits that encodes those two pieces of information are active at the same time or at least nearly the same time. If you increase the variety of ways in which your brain is simulated, this increases the chance of these unusual code activations taking place. A consequences of this is that your best ideas will not necessarily occur while you’re sitting at your desk or even when you’re working on a particular challenge. If it’s a truly fantastic inside that you have, it will be hard to forget. But it might not always be clear that it’s a great idea when you actually have it. By jotting this great idea in your notebook when it occurs, you’ll greatly increase the challenge chances that you’ll remember later.

Tip: Take some time to think about your goals before addressing them.

This is also good advice when dealing with procrastination. Ironically, here I am suggesting you do engage in a little delay in order to boost your creativity. Doing nothing for a little while is good advice for overcoming procrastination. But for the purposes of creativity, there’s good evidence that doing nothing can also help avoid the opposite problem, known as

procrastination; the tendency to begin work for the sake of getting it done. [Procrastination is the tendency to delay work even when delay is detrimental to success.] It might be that the best way to make progress on some large an important task is to wait for more important information about it. You could leap in and start doing but doing some more research or just some more thinking can sometimes lead to a better outcome. A few studies have found that so-called procrastinators often come up with more creative solutions to problems. They spend more time thinking about them, and so perhaps they’re not merely procrastinating. More thinking leads to more creative thinking in general. As with many things, the optimal strategy here seems to be to seek a balance. If you want to think about a project for a while before diving into the work of it, I think it would be hard to argue that’s a bad thing. On the other hand, when you’re thinking about the project, don’t panic. You are working on it. It can also be good to stop working and spend some time thinking in the midst of solving a problem or working on a creative project. Several studies have found evidence for something called the “incubation effect”. The general model of these studies is to give people a problem to solve, a hard one that will take several minutes.

The Four Stages of Creativity - Incubation: https://youtu.be/vCololBy5UI

Here’s a sample problem developed by Karl Duncker that’s been used in these types of studies. Participants are brought into a mostly empty room. On a table in that room, there’s a candle, a box of tacks, and a box of matches. The task that the experimenters give the participants is to figure out how to attach the lit candle to the wall in such a way that it won’t drip wax onto the table or floor. How would you solve this problem? Any ideas? Somehow, the candle has to be attached to the wall and then lit. When the wax melts, none of it can drip onto the table or the floor. What would you try to do first? I’m not asking for a total solution here, just the first thing that you would try to do. If you’re like most people, you consider how a thumbtack or perhaps several thumbtacks might be used to attach the candle to the wall. That won’t work, however. The wax is still going to drip onto the floor. Continue thinking, and I’ll tell you the actual solution in a minute. In an incubation study, half of the participants would be randomly assigned to a controlled condition and would be given several minutes to solve the problem. Some would solve it, some would not. The experimental group participants would be given half as much time to work on the problem and then forced to take a break. The experimenters would give them another task to perform during that time and specifically instruct the participants to not think about the problem during the break. The “filler task” would be challenging to minimize further work on the problem as well. After the break, these participants are allowed to work on the original candle problem again for a few minutes. At the end of this second work phase, both the controller and experimental participants would have had the same amount of time to work directly on that problem. In many studies of this situation, more of the experimental participants solve the problem than control participants. During the break period, the experimental group participants aren’t “explicitly” working on the problem, but many have argued that their brains may still be “implicitly”, unconsciously chipping away at it. The break period is often referred to as a time when the problem solution is incubating. Maybe the neuronal circuit is involved in solving the problem remain active, continuing to search for associations and possible ways that the problem can be solved. Across a wide range of different types of problems- - easy, hard, short, long- - taking a break and getting away from the problem seems to help in finding a creative solution to it. If you’re stuck trying to find a creative solution to something, the clear tip here is to work at it for a while, but then take a break. The actual solution to that candle problem is simple once you know it. You empty the tacks out of the box, dump them onto the table. You used the tacks to stick the box to the wall. Then you put the candle onto this little shelf you just made and light it. That’s it problem solved.

Several studies suggest that if you can include some sleep and some dreaming during that break time, the effects are significantly enhanced. If your incubation period includes a night of sleep, during which time you’ll dream. You’ll be even more likely to solve problems like this, for whatever problems you’re trying to address with your creative brain. Denise Cai and her colleagues presented sleep deprived participants with a set of remote associates test items along with challenging analogy problems. Some were answered correctly during an initial session, while others were not. The participants then took a nap or stayed awake while resting quietly for 90 minutes. Note that a full night of sleep is still best for maintaining optimal brain function. This was a research study to explore the effects of REM sleep on problem solving. This isn’t a lifestyle recommendation. Some participants in the nap group entered rapid eye-movement phase of sleep. This rapid eye movement phase is often referred to as R-E-M or REM sleep and it’s strongly associated with dreaming. The participants who produced REM sleep returned to the problems and perform significantly better then the quiet rest group and even the nap participant who did not exhibit that REM sleep. A variety of studies have shown that the formation of long-term memory is enhanced by REM sleep. These researchers confirmed that finding in this paradigm, actually. But the difference in long-term memory couldn’t account for the significant increases in creative problem-solving performance.

Tip: Sleeping, especially dreaming, enhances creative problem-solving.

There are a variety of famous cases in which great creativity has emerged from thoughts during sleep and dreaming. Friedrich Kekule is known for deriving the chemical structure of “benzene”. The ring structure of this molecule was hard to get from the data that Kekule had available at the time. The solution to his puzzle emerged not during an initial work session in the lab, but during a dream state. He described the solution as just coming to him as if out of thin air. Mary Shelley developed her ideas for Frankenstein after dreaming it. Salvador Dali occasionally described his great paintings as being pictures of things he saw in his dreams. Sleep research suggests that your brain enters the REM stage of sleep several times every night. We all dream almost every time we sleep for several hours in a row. During REM sleep, the brain partially replays experiences of the previous day. It’s consolidate them into long-term memories, and it seems to find abstract relationships between different sources of information. All of this is helpful for creativity and problem-solving. There’s one problem with it, however we often don’t remember our dreams. My last tip for boosting creativity is a tip to enhance your memory of your own dreams.

Discovery Of Benzene Ring | Snakes In The Dream - https://youtu.be/bzHOzVuSC2E

Tip: Try keeping a dream journal.

As during other times of the day, have a notebook on hand, next to your bed with a pen and a dim nightlight you can turn on in the middle of the night. Most people awake with a memory of a dream, at least sometimes. When that happens, grab the notebook and jot down some notes about the dream that you just had. Then go back to sleep. The experience of reading those notes in the morning can be just plain fun, which itself can be kind of a boost of creativity. Remember that the moment your dream ends, it begins to rapidly fade from your memory. The notes, clearly read invite you, but about something that you don’t remember in detail, is a strange thing. When I read my own notes in the situation, I occasionally get the strange feeling that someone else wrote them. Sometimes, the notes might not even make sense. But if you do this on a regular basis, you will tend to remember your dreams better. Sometimes, along with the entertainment of this, there are interesting insights to be had. The contents of your dreams, while occasionally bizarre, are not random. You tend to dream about the things that have been on your mind over the course of the previous day, thinking them through at a dreamish level can lead to a novel perspective. As we end our consideration of boosting creativity, I have to add one more suggestion. The tips presented here urge you to do things that promote that insight experience, that wonderful aha moment, when a solution appears as if from thin air. It’s a magical experience in many ways, but it’s the end of the creative process, not the beginning. In order to produce good creative work, you have to work sometimes, very hard. Most successful creative people are extremely disciplined about when they work and even where they work. Thomas Edison‘s noted for saying that genius is about 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Getting away from your work procrastinating, sleeping, going for a walk- - these all lead to boosts in creativity, but they’ll only be realized if you then return to focusing on your work. Most people think of creativity as unbridled thoughts, of waiting for an inspire solution to simply arrive. The tips I’ve described here will all help with your creativity, but they won’t work in isolation. If you listen to happy music, incubate your thoughts across a night of sleep, give yourself time to think before you start working, even if you do all those things. You still need to invest effort in searching for creative ideas and solutions. If you invest both your inspiration and your perspiration that’s creativity.

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some-kindofgnome · 3 years

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Hitoshi tests a more creative application of his quirk on you, his willing submissive.

characters: dom!pro hero!hitoshi shinsou/sub!f!reader

wc: 5.3k

warnings: smut (18+), aged-up characters, pro hero Shinsou (who is kind of a softie), hard BDSM and control dynamics, edging, consensual mind control, sex toys, praise kink, blowjob, unprotected sex, some loooong and tender aftercare/yearning

notes: the dynamic in this fic was partially inspired by We Wear Chains on the Weekend [ao3] and a conversation with @shadowworks about some fun applications of Hitoshi's quirk 👀 I hope you enjoy this horny little bit of fun! I enjoyed thinking about this dynamic with 'Toshi. He talks big, but we know deep down he's just as soft and squishy as us 💖

One more note: The dynamics and safety measures in this fic are the result of a little bit of research that I conducted. It is not meant to encompass EVERY BDSM experience, nor was my research exhaustive. This was just my little take on some kinky business with Hitoshi, so please let me know if there are any elements I've overlooked or misstepped!

(MASTERLIST)

Hitoshi will never forget the first night he spent in this house.

The little semi-detached in a quiet, trendy neighbourhood was one of the first things his pro salary earned him. Having the place to himself is still one of the biggest perks that salary ever provided.

Privacy, as he’s learned since, is paramount to the life he’s crafting for himself.

It’s Friday evening, and the early spring rain’s showing no sign of letting up when you ring his doorbell. The sound echoes through the house like the bells of Notre Dame- terrifyingly gothic, considering it was like that when he moved in, but not entirely out of character for him.

And his heart swells quietly every time he knows it’s you behind that door.

He pads easily down the polished steps, already showered and changed out of his work clothes. He likes to dress up for you a little, sporting a pair of dark slacks and a black button-down with the top four buttons undone. His hair, still damp from the shower, sits a little tamer and darker than usual.

No matter how good he looks, you manage to knock him on his ass with a single glance.

“Hey,” he greets with a quiet, familiar sort of warmth as he pulls open the right half of the double front doors. His smile slips a little at the sight of you, shaking the water out of your umbrella and soaked to the bone. You catch his gaze out your peripherals and start a little, shooting him a sheepish smile.

Something claws tight and possessive at the pit of his chest. You’re so cute, even water-logged like this.

“Getting worse out there, huh?” He quips, stepping aside to let you in.

“It’s not exactly prime umbrella weather,” you giggle, setting the dripping, half-broken monstrosity in the umbrella tray that he keeps by the door. “But I made it, didn’t I?”

He can’t help but reach for you, letting his fingers brush attentively at your clothes as he helps you out of your drenched coat. The dress you’re wearing looks devastatingly easy to remove, and his chest lurches a little with the urge to have you bare for him.

He resists. For now.

“Right on time,” he replies, taking your coat neatly by the collar and hanging it over the bannister. “Do you want to dry off a little before we go upstairs, or…?”

“No.” You answer suddenly enough to prompt his inquisitive gaze, and Hitoshi turns to look at you with a purple brow quirked perfectly.

“I’m just feeling a little antsy today,” you continue, and he watches the way your tongue darts out to wet your lower lip. “So, I’d like to get started right away, if that’s okay with you.”

You meet his eye again. Hitoshi’s starting to wonder if he’s the one who should be getting on his knees in front of you upstairs.

“That’s okay with me.”

He smiles thinly, making his best attempt at hiding the affection that’s bubbling shallow and steady in his chest. He reaches for you, uncurling his fingers to offer an eager palm.

You take it. The contact is breathtaking.

He climbs the stairs with your fingers grasped firmly in his. The suspense never fades.

Hitoshi keeps his bedroom a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and as he twists the knob and pushes the door inward, he can feel your palm relaxing in his. You’ve always liked it in here- warm and humid, from the house plants that line the windows and add lush splashes of colour to every corner.

It means more to him than you’ll ever know, that you find such comfort in a space so full of him.

He lets you slip in ahead, closing the door behind him and reaching for the colourful remote nearby. He dims the lights overhead, stroking his thumb thoughtfully over the rainbow buttons. He peeks at you through his peripherals, watching the way you glide your fingertips over the broad leaf of a money plant that blooms atop his dresser.

“What colour should we use today?” He pushes a button, and hidden strips of lighting illuminate in a deep shade of blue-green. The bed and walls are cast into a cool, oceanlike glow, reflecting blue off the room’s vegetation and creating a floating, almost aquatic sense of serenity.

“I like this one,” you confirm. “Keep it.”

“Whatever you like,” he promises, setting down the remote. “Today’s all about keeping you relaxed.”

He approaches you at last, cupping either side of your face in delicate palms. He tilts your gaze to his.

“You’re still up for it?” He asks, low and sincere as he searches your eyes. “What we had planned for today?”

“I am,” you confirm. He’s nervous that the rain may have upset things, but you’re clearly as ready as ever. “Been thinking about this all week.”

His shoulders drop a little, relief trickling into the fluttering cavity of his chest. “I’m glad to hear it.”

He bends, pressing a quiet little kiss to your forehead and smoothing his palms over the wet surface of your hair. He holds you there for a moment, staying close. He forces power into his shoulders and steps back from you, unbuttoning his cuffs. He breathes a deep sigh- focus, Hitoshi- and settles into the power dynamic you both can’t seem to stay away from.

He unbuttons his shirt and shrugs it off, depositing it neatly over the back of the nearby armchair. He nods toward you, slow and discerning.

“Strip.”

That dress is precisely as easy to remove as he hoped it would be, and he gets to watch as you slide each strap slowly down your arm, letting the fabric pool at your feet. His jaw gives an interested little tick as he gorges himself on the sight of you.

You’ve developed a nasty little habit of leaving your bra at home for sessions like this, as if he wouldn’t notice the way your tits sat beneath that loose silk, your nipples tight and hard from the wet chill outside.

You are delectable. Hitoshi feels infatuation crawling up the column of his spine every time he has you like this. But he’s about to take you even deeper, and while you’re more than ready, he’s not sure his heart can take it.

You’re wiggling out of your underwears now, exposing that perfect little patch of hair between your legs. What makes his cock throb even worse, though, is the way that you already know how he likes you. And so, kicking your underwear away and smoothing your hands down your sides, you don’t wait long at all before dropping to your knees and settling your palms on your thighs.

You lower your chin and go still.

For a minute, he lets himself admire you. He’s aching to touch you, but today will be all about patience. For both of you.

But he can’t take you, sitting so still for him like this. He caves to the warming in his chest and steps forward, tucking two fingers beneath the point of your chin and pulling your eyes to his.

“You sure about this?” He asks you. You lick your lips again, slow and thoughtful and torturous, now that he’s already so captivated by you. You’re giving it the honest thought it deserves. But when you purse your lips and nod into his palm, your eyes are certain.

“I’m sure.”

He’s been working you up to this for weeks. Exploring the unique possibilities of a relationship with him has always been in your contract, but it’s not something Hitoshi ever planned on rushing into. Only now, after months of playtime and weeks of careful preparation, does he feel ready to practice this with you.

“We left you your signals,” he reminds you, tenderly stroking the backs of his fingers from your chin up to your cheek. You’re staring up at him with such trust and admiration it’s hard to imagine anyone ever thought him a monster, for possessing such power. “You can come out of it whenever you want to.”

“Hitoshi,” you prompt, and the fall of his first name from your lips is enough to quell all his rising nerves. Despite the way you’re looking at him, memories of those poison words he’s been hearing all his life are flooding him. They’ve always served as a grim reminder of the damage he’s capable of.

But you wanted this. You’re ready for it. And he’s taken every precaution to ensure that you’re going to be safe.

So much reassurance, wrapped up in the three tiny syllables of his name.

It’s his turn to nod. He takes your jaw into his hand and drops to one knee in front of you, stooping to press his lips to the shell of your ear. Your sweet scent washes over him as he leans close, enhanced by the fresh rain on your skin and the rapid swell of your chest as you breathe.

“So you’re ready to drop, then?” He keeps his voice as low as possible, delighting in the way that you shiver in response. Your breath hitches against his chest, puffing quietly across his cheek.

“Yes.”

The word barely edges from your lips before the influence of his quirk fills every hollow in your ready bones. It’s a presence like nothing you’ve ever felt before, like the rising tide filling your lungs and weighing down your limbs. You take a deep, shaky breath to remind yourself it’s still possible.

Hitoshi’s used his quirk on you before. Preparing for this level of control, he tells you, takes practice. The more time he has to inhabit your mind, the better control he’ll have over what you experience and what you miss. The first time he ever used it on you is still a blank slate. But he only kept you under for a couple of seconds, building slowly over the course of many sessions toward the layered control he has now.

The sensation is thrilling. And yet, simultaneously, you feel completely safe. He will not misuse this power that you’ve so blithely handed over.

The sounds around you are muffled as Hitoshi gets to his feet, but when he speaks, his voice echoes in your mind like a bell.

“Can you understand me?”

Your body feels heavy and warm and semi-solid, but you manage a slow, clear nod.

“Good girl. Give me your hands.”

When he gives you an instruction, your muscles move without your consultation. You stretch your hands out toward him eagerly, and he takes both of them between his. He gives your fingers a sharp little squeeze.

“Can you give me your signals now?”

You cycle through them like clockwork. This is the part you had to work hard to develop, working through the specific layers of his quirk that might have been able to prevent such advanced thought.

With practice, though, here you are.

The system is one you’ve always used in parts of your arrangement where your ability to speak freely has been repressed. Hitoshi’s always been good at checking in with you no matter what, but thankfully he doesn’t push your boundaries too often.

You squeeze his hands in a slow progression, leaving long, deliberate spaces between each signal so that their distinction is clear.

One squeeze: keep going, all is well.

Two squeezes: slow down, I’m getting frustrated/uncomfortable

Three: STOP NOW

When you finish your stop signal and let your hands go still, Hitoshi’s fingers go slack in yours.

“Good girl, good,” he coos. “God, you’re so pretty like this. Look at you.”

He drops your hands, carefully letting them fall back to their neutral position on your thighs. There’s a pleasant tingle filling your dulled senses. In this state of mind, you can feel his gaze on you like a careful touch.

“I can do whatever I want with you,” he grunts. “Fuck, I can feel how much you want this.”

He’s moved away from you for a couple of seconds, but when he comes back he’s bare. Your vision is blurred about the edges, but you feel a wet little push he presses the tip of his cock, already hard and weeping, to the swell of your cheek.

“Don’t be difficult,” he purrs in your mind. “Open up.”

Your mouth drops eagerly open as you let your eyes fall shut. As he eases his hips forward, you let the flat pad of your tongue slip forward to cradle the tender head of his cock. Hitoshi groans low and soft, but the sound echoes through every nerve in your body, reverberating from within.

“That’s it,” he prompts softly. “So pliant for me, beautiful. Take it.”

He rocks slowly into your throat, letting sloppy drool slough from your tongue and coat his thick shaft as his fingers spread across the back of your head. He grips you tightly, keeping your neck in place as his tense thighs work to keep himself steady.

He eases himself onto your tongue and stops there for a moment. His pulse thrums in your ears, syncopating steadily with yours. He lets his head lull back as he lets out a deep, shaky sigh.

“Suck,” he commands, and you comply.

You bob your head eagerly back and forth, settling into a numbingly precise rhythm. Sucking Hitoshi’s cock has never been a chore for you, but in this state you’re conditioned to like it.

He grips you tighter as his hips begin to stutter a little. Every sound that leaves his mouth passes into your mind well before it reaches your muffled ears. You’re beginning to realize, in the deep, sunken place where your consciousness still rests, that allowing him into your mind has connected you more intimately than ever before.

You can feel his pleasure in the same way that he can sense your desire.

“So good,” he gasps, and the sound rappels down your spine. “Fuck, you’ve always been so good at this. I know how much you love it.”

He’s losing his cool now, thrusting against the barrier of your throat with more reckless abandon. But you’re numb to the feelings that might have stopped you before, swallowing him eagerly down to double his pleasure.

It shows. His fingers twitch against the back of your head as he grits his teeth and grunts, a breathy, feral sound with every rock of his heavy balls against your chin. Your eyes have slipped open again, but you don’t see him. Not really. All you can sense is his ecstasy, building to a rapid peak as he humps and pants and shivers into your needy mouth.

“God,” he rasps, “not gonna… t-that’s it… f-fuck!”

He rips away from you in one fluid stroke, that ecstasy boiling right to the surface before it’s halted in its tracks. He’s got one hand wrapped tightly around the base of his flushed cock and his pleasure’s dwindling.

He’s saving himself, to fill you properly later. While controlling your pleasure has always been a part of your games, Hitoshi’s taken to controlling his own as well. Lately, he doesn’t even let himself cum until you’ve seen your climax.

You’ve been trying not to let yourself read into it.

“Good girl,” he pants inside your head. “Come here.”

You’re a little shaky as you climb to your feet, but the numbness that you might normally get in your toes by now persists through your entire body. You close the distance to him in a handful of deliberate, steady steps, and he settles a hand on your hip to stop you when you’ve come close enough.

“Look at you,” he growls. “You’re still under, aren’t you? Incredible.” He takes one of your hands between both of his, dropping a kiss to your knuckles before giving your fingers a meaningful squeeze.

“Check in for me, sweetheart.”

In the receded depths of your on consciousness, you’re nothing but eager to continue. Hitoshi’s weighty cock in your throat sent spirals of aggressive arousal through your entire body. Your pussy is swollen and tingling, smearing the insides of your thighs with thick desire.

You give his palm one long, deliberate squeeze.

You need more.

“That’s what I like to see,” he purrs. He leads you to the bed and takes the liberty of lifting you into his arms. Your body collapses eagerly into his hold, and you let him deposit you gently onto the neatly made sheets. You stretch into the pillows, but your blank stare is always fixed on him.

“Okay, pretty girl,” he croons, and you’re still and stiff before he even finishes his thought. “Lie still for me, okay?”

He lifts one knee onto the bed and casts a gentle hand down the column of your belly, taking a gentle tilt to the left and sliding his fingertips along the column of your thigh.

“I’ve got your favourite toy here,” he croons, but you can’t respond. Instead, the buzz of nerves builds in the back of your skull, where your meager ability to feel has been preserved. Hitoshi wraps his graceful fingers around the toy in question- a sizeable wand vibrator in a deceptively pleasant shade of pale lilac silicone- and waves it in front of your eyes.

“Let’s see how much you can take, hmm?”

He leans closer, pressing a kiss to the point of your collarbone before tilting his chin forward to find the shell of your ear.

“Don’t cum,” he croons, sending a fresh thrill of terrified arousal into your veins, “until I say you can, alright?”

He slips the vibe between your legs and you feel it rumble to life. He knows your favourite settings easily by now, setting the toy to buzz low and hard between your legs in a series of long, rhythmic pulses.

Your body starts to pitch and tremble, but it cannot disobey his strict instructions to stay still. Your pleasure spikes the instant the vibrator’s soft, flexible head makes contact with your swollen clit. You want to press your legs together, whine with overstimulation and bat away the offending toy. But the influence of Hitoshi’s power is stronger than any physical restraint. Even as your muscles strain, you are powerless to move.

He holds you there, amusement lighting his features. You can feel the satisfaction thrumming in the back of his mind, building slowly. You know he can feel the unbearable sensations racing through your entire body. But he refuses to let up, even as desperate tears break from the corners of your eyes.

This vibrator has always been your favourite of his, thanks to its unshakeable ability to bring you to orgasm within the space of a minute. There’s something about the depth of the vibrations (and Hitoshi’s expert handling) that never seems to fail.

Tonight, that fact isn’t working in your favour.

Your pleasure reaches its peak devastatingly quickly. But every part of your body is under Hitoshi’s complete control. And he’s given you strict instructions not to reach that climax.

Your nerves are struck dumb as the pleasure bleeds into a desperate ache. You can feel the edge of your climax, dangling just out of reach. And the longer he keeps you on the edge, the more torturous the sensation.

The tears are coming faster now, streaming down your temples and soaking into your hair as you whimper and pitch, trying to shrug his control and force the vibrator away from your overstimulated pussy. He lets you thrash and struggle for a dozen heartbeats, picking up on your discomfort and pulling the vibrator away from your body as you gasp for shaky breath.

“That feels good, doesn’t it?” He coos, switching the vibrator off and laying a hand on the flat of your stomach. Your body’s gone slack, but the muscles in your lower belly are still twitching and fluttering, trying to make sense of your waning pleasure.

“I can feel you fighting me,” he continues, voice dropping into his chest. He rubs soothing circles into your tender skin, letting you catch your breath. “You know you don’t have to struggle, sweetness.” He leans in, dipping his forehead against yours and giving your mouth a soft little taste.

“Are you ready for my cock now?”

Yes, your mind screams, and he starts, pulling back to look at you in mild surprise.

He actually heard that. After the surprise fades from his expression, he lets the barest hint of a smile touch his mouth.

“Good.”

When he touches your thighs they fall limp into his palms. Any commands he’s given your paralyzed nerves are overridden by the force of his touch. So, as he kneels between your thighs and pushes them apart, you relent easily.

Your senses are still a hazy blur, but you feel it like a bolt of lightning when he swipes the tip of his cock over your sloppy folds. You give a sharp little yip and Hitoshi chuckles, with the breathy edge of pleasure slipping into his voice. He rocks his hips forward, grinding against your needy hole and grunting through his chest.

“Fuck,” he sighs. “Can’t hold on any longer.” He edges forward, prodding his thick tip against your entrance. As soon as he’s lined up he slides home in one smooth stroke, burying himself to the base with a shaky groan.

The pleasure is enough to prompt a quiet whimper from your absent mind as your body eagerly takes his stretch. Hitoshi’s cock has always seemed perfect for you in size and form. And he’s proven many times over that he knows exactly how to use it.

He fucks you with devastating precision, slipping one hand under your thigh to brace you against the mattress while he anchors himself by the knees and ruts against your body. He lets his hips slap ruthlessly over your skin, his weighty, spit-soaked balls swinging heavy against the curve of your ass with every thrust.

You’ve been well prepared for this moment, messy-wet and smearing his shaft with your slick. Every time he drives his cock into you, his groans are punctuated by the soft little whimpers that break from his control to escape your clenched jaw.

The pleasure is already unbearable for you. That peak you weren’t allowed to reach before is approaching quickly, and all you can hope is that Hitoshi will have the sense to let you release before he’s tumbling over the edge himself.

You have no choice at this point but to trust him completely.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” he gasps above you. Your pleasure is doubled by his sensations racing through your neurons, and you can tell before he speaks that he’s not going to last long at all.

“Don’t know how long I can hold out,” he warns anyway, and his hips are already beginning to stutter inside you. You could have easily cum two times over by now, but your body is held back once again, forced to linger on the edge of bliss until he decides to let you fall.

He shoves his hips against yours one, two, three more rough times before stilling abruptly inside you. His body’s stiff, straining against the threshold of his pleasure. But he catches his breath, and his next words ring clear as day among a sea of troubled sensations.

“Are you ready to cum for me?”

You let out a low, desperate whine, focusing every ounce of concentration you have left into amplifying those desperate emotions.

Please, your mind screams. I’ll do anything, please.

Hitoshi nods slowly, your body going slack when you’re sure you’ve been heard. He slips both hands under your thighs, stroking his thumbs lovingly along your flesh. He bends over your torso, dropping a kiss to your mouth and steeling himself as his lips trail to your ear one last time.

“Cum,” he orders, and you do.

All the pent-up tension and pleasure spirals from your body in the most powerful orgasm you’ve ever felt. What would normally send dull flutters into the pit of your stomach has deep, earth-shattering tremors wracking your entire body. You thrash into the pillows, crying out your pleasure in eager, greedy gulps, and your pussy seizes around his cock as tight as a fist.

Hitoshi curses against your skin, rutting his hips into your convulsing depths and matching your peak with a climax of his own. His balls draw up against your ass as he pumps hot spurts of cum into your needing cunt, fucking the fluid back into your body as your thighs clamp over his hips and the last tremors of your orgasm recede into dull trembles.

“That’s my girl,” he gasps. In the pleasure that overtook him, he’s de-activated his quirk. He lets you surface as he stays inside you for a couple long breaths, tasting the crook of your neck and rubbing sensation back into your limbs.

“That’s my good fucking girl,” he croons. “Come here. Give me your hand. Show me,” he prompts, and you’re far from surfaced but you know what he wants when he slots his fingers between yours.

You give him another long, deliberate squeeze. You can’t form words yet, but you’re okay.

“That’s okay,” Hitoshi prompts. He pulls slowly back from you, sliding out of your body and easing onto the pillows beside you. He keeps his movements slow and gentle, handling you with extra care while you’re still feeling delicate.

“You were so good,” he growls, reaching for you. “So good for me. My perfect girl.”

His touch is the first sensation that clears the fog in your mind. He pulls you tightly against his bare chest, and the sweet touch of his skin to yours is like a soothing tonic for your frayed senses. Skin-to-skin contact has always been a big part of aftercare for you, but tonight it hits so hard that it sends relieved tears to your eyes.

Hitoshi’s patient as a lamb with you, stroking slow circles into your shoulders, belly and hips as you cycle through the complex progression of emotions that stand between you and the surface of your consciousness. He keeps his lips nuzzled tight to the shell of your ear, speaking low and soft and constant, grounding you in him.

After a long few minutes, you blink a little faster and stir a little heavier in his arms. You’ve fought your way to the surface, like breaking out of a deep sleep, and the weight of all he’s put you through settles into your chest. Hard.

You shiver. “Cold.”

“Okay,” he promises, shifting both of you a little more upright. “I’ve got clothes for you right here. Let me just-” He lets go of you to reach for the drawers of his nightstand, and anxiety rushes hard and fast to the back of your throat.

You whine. Loudly. You reach for him without thinking about it, and he comes back to you in the span of a heartbeat.

“Okay, okay,” he soothes. “I won’t let go.”

You’re always clingy after a scene. But today you can’t bear to be parted from him. While he’s the one that sent you spiralling, he’s also the one who brought you down to earth again.

With you looped carefully in one arm, he scoots the pair of you toward his side of the bed until he can reach the nightstand with one hand still carefully draped over your middle. He dumps a pile of soft cotton fleece onto the sheets in front of you, then presses himself up tightly behind you to reach forward with both hands and unfold the garments.

“There,” he hums, showing you the sleeves of one, the cuffs of another. “Warm clothes. Can I help you put them on?”

You give a pouty little nod, so he slips you into the pants one leg at a time and pushes your arms gently into the hoodie, staying as close as possible and letting you keep the black hood pulled over your head. He finds his discarded undershorts and slips into those, too, prompting another defeated whimper from you when he has to pull away to find some clothes of his own.

Once he’s dressed (and you’ve cuddled him long enough to quell some of the pouting) he pushes the edge of your hood back and presses a gentle kiss to your temple.

“Do you want to visit the fish?” he asks. Your mood spikes and you cling tighter, but nod nevertheless.

The most prominent feature of Hitoshi’s lavish house is mounted into the wall in the upstairs hallway. During the day it’s surprisingly easy to miss, but now that the light has waned and the house is dark, it glows an ethereal blue that casts a liquid pool of light across the dark hardwood and ornate rug.

Lining the entire wall stands a massive tropical fish tank, maintained professionally and kept in impeccable order. It’s filled by a multitude of different species of tropical fish, darting in and out of live coral in warm splashes of vibrant colour. The pump in one corner sends a steady stream of bubbles toward the surface, and in the quiet, the bubbles make soft little gurgles as they break the surface.

Hitoshi brings you into the hallway cradled tightly in his arms. The moment your face is bathed in that pretty blue light, the last dredges of anxiety bleed from your chest. There’s something immensely calming about the gentle, rhythmic way the fish move. Some of the more curious ones even see you peering in at them, emerging from their little hideaways to swim up to the glass and investigate.

“Hi,” you croon softly, touching one fingertip gently to the glass where a bright yellow tang noses eagerly at its smooth surface from the other side. Hitoshi chuckles deeply into your neck, always charmed by how soft and quiet and vulnerable you get after a particularly tough scene.

This part, the tender healing that comes afterward, is half the appeal for both of you. But with every passing session you can feel yourself growing more deeply attached to him. You’re falling for him, despite everything you put into words- on paper for him- that said you wouldn’t.

Love was not what either of you wanted to get out of this arrangement. But when he handles your trust so delicately where so many others have failed, it’s hard not to fall.

It’s hard not to wish, watching over such a tiny, peaceful little underwater world, that you could belong in there, too. Maybe, if you’d been born a little blue surgeonfish, you wouldn’t have to deal with such complex feelings.

But then you wouldn’t have all the pain and all the joy of falling for someone like Hitoshi Shinsou.

After you’re satisfied with the state of the fish tank, Hitoshi brings you downstairs to the kitchen. He’s not letting you go home tonight, but you were prepared for that possibility. You have pills and a toothbrush in your purse, and he’s had extra clothes lying around for you from the moment you signed that contract.

He bundles you into the couch. Puts on your favourite sitcom without needing to ask. He brews your favourite kind of tea- liquid heat that warms you to the very core- and stretches out next to you for the rest of the evening.

You wake hours later, sleeping next to him in the wee hours of the morning. He is stretched out on his side next to you, spooning you lovingly with one heavy arm draped over your side. He’s always reaching for you, ready to catch.

In moments like this, it’s easy to believe he might love you. And in the deepest hours of doubt and vulnerability, you let that feeling lull you back to sleep, just as he might if he could soothe your restlessness.

#bnha x reader #shinsou x reader #hitoshi shinso x reader #bnha shinsou hitoshi #shinsou #bnha #tw dom/sub #tw mind control #my hero academia #gnomewrites

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evertriedsoywithyourpopcorn · 3 years

Text

5 Reasons Roman Is Infuriating (And Why I DO NOT have a crush on him)

(Logince with a bit of denying and pining) Read on AO3

My first fic, based on my Logince drawing (If someone ever wants to make anything based on my art, feel free to ask. Making content is hard and people fleshing out concepts is always fun.) Word count: 3641

Tw: Cursing, Food mention, Balloon popping, Remus being his authentic self

Character’s: Remus, Virgil, Janus, Logan, Roman (At the end), Patton (Mainly implied)

~~~

He had everything ready.

"Ahem."

Three heads turn to look at him.

"Logan, I really don't understand why you're doing this. You know I'm literally the Lord of the Lies, right? I can tell when you're lying."

"Falsehood. I am here specifically to prove to you three, the ones that have doubted me the most, what I think of Roman, so that you'll stop teasing me about emotions that aren't even there." Logan says, standing in front of a long classroom table. Virgil, Janus and Remus sit there, each maintaining their own postures and looking at him with disbelieving expressions.

"Logan, we can see your heart boner from here. You really think you can convince us with a slideshow presentation?" Remus picks his teeth, seemingly bored of the idea.

"That's exactly what I'm doing- What? Why would my heart have a boner? It doesn't have the proper parts to do that-" Logan looks lost, clutching the presentation button in his hand.

"It's an expression, Pocket Protector. It means you've got feelings for him." Virgil sighs.

Logan squints at him. "Of course I have feelings for him." Logan looks behind him, to the SmartBoard behind him. The board turns on, displaying the presentation title. "And those feelings are feelings of irritation. My name is Logan Sanders, and welcome to my Ted Talk."

There is a collective sigh from the others.

Logan takes a pointer stick (the one with the little hand on one side) from a holder on the wall, and points at the words on the screen. "This is 5 reasons why Roman is infuriating. And unlike your cognitive distortions may suggest, I DO NOT have a crush on him." He gestures with the stick where the same thing is written. "So, let's begin."

~~~

1. He likes to insist that he's the most handsome side, despite us all looking like Thomas.

It's ridiculous. All of their traits are reminiscent of Thomas's.

There are some mild changes they go through when they aren't summoned, but they are just slight shifts. For example, Janus and Remus both have different long hairstyles, and they all have a bit of a hair color change. Their features do shift too, emulating ones Thomas has seen over his lifetime that he'd associate with their personalities.

However, in person and in the mindscape, Roman really thinks 'he's the sh*t' (Virgil taught him that expression). He flaunts his beauty over everyone else's, strutting like the prettiest peacock in the flock. Sure, he's good looking, but the same level of good looking as all the other sides.

"You're all so handsome. But not as handsome as me." Logan recalls him saying in an episode.

He tries to use it to one-up the other's, even though they all know they look the same. He also enjoys flaunting his ego, attempting to emulate a lifestyle of the rich and famous when he feels like it.

It's rather ridiculous.

"You think he's good-looking?" Remus coos.

Logan glares, and changes the slide of the presentation.

2. He fights everyone all the time. (Except for Patton)

It seems that Roman has made the most rivals out of everyone.

He's rivals with his brother, he's got a rivalry with Janus but with more betrayal behind it, he's got his past rivalry with Virgil, even though now they're the closest friends, and despite making up several times, Logan is also his rival. Patton seems to be fine, despite their post-wedding event. Logan believes Roman is too worried of defending what he believes in against the literal embodiment of Thomas's morality.

"So, you two have tried making up, but have you considered... Making out???" Remus pitches, his smile all teeth.

Logan sputters a bit. "Puh- Wha- I don't think that would work."

Logan has in fact not thought of making out with Roman, thank you very much. Not even when they're so close, passionately arguing about who-knows-what in the spur of the moment, where it would be so easy to move just a little bit closer and connect his lips to the soft pink ones of the prince.

He has not thought about making out with Roman, because he does not have a crush on him. Period. End of story.

The two of them argue a lot. Whether it's how Thomas should spend his day, to the Chicken or the Egg dilemma (Logan knows he's right, by the way, Roman just won't see that the egg came first), to the ideal temperature for a heating pillow, to the best Crofter's flavor. They can range from productive, to stupid, and by the end of it they may just be fighting about nothing at all.

They jab at each other, come up with clever arguments, and although they're technically fighting, it sometimes feels more like a duel.

"Or a mating ritual." Virgil says under his breath.

"These points don't sound very negative." Janus adds, twirling some of his hair with his finger.

"It is negative. We fight a lot. He fights people a lot. Every issue seems to be a battle to him that he can outmatch, despite being better suited as a civil discussion." Logan stands taller, trying to defend his point.

"Well, that makes sense. I understand this point now. Go on." Janus waves his gloved hand in a dismissive gesture.

"Alright." Logan clicks his presenter button, and the slide changes.

3. He's loud. Super loud. All the time.

From singing to dancing to bantering, there never does seem to be a dull moment when Roman is around. Some may call it nice, but Logan would say that's a very polite description. It certainly isn't nice when Logan's trying to get work done, or watch a movie, or enjoy a peaceful breakfast, or most of the time really.

Logan has stopped working outside when he's trying to be productive because Roman will, without fail, come in singing, and then start a little fight with Logan that distracts him from his work and renders him unproductive for a long time because all he can think about is Roman.

"Hm... Wonder why that is." Janus interrupts, rolling his eyes.

"Well, you don't need to wonder. I said it was because of our fighting." Logan nervously adjusts his already immaculately placed glasses, resuming his point to his slide presentation.

It's odd, because sometimes even without leaving his room, he can still hear the sounds of Roman's voice in his head. He theorizes the absence of all that noise is making him subconsciously fill it in ( even though his mind also provides him with clear images of Roman's smile).

He can't escape the noise on movie nights. Roman will sing along to any song, scream at the most poorly-timed jumpscares, and no matter what, criticize the movie. Logan does participate in that last step from time to time.

During dinners, it depends. Sometimes, Roman will come in and do his thing, sometimes he'll make a dramatic entrance, grab a plate and then go off to work on something, and sometimes he won't show up at all, off on a quest in the imagination. Those particular meals are peaceful. Sometimes they feel empty, but so far, no one else has complained. Especially considering with Remus' and Janus' seats added to the table, dinner can be a wild event.

Sometimes, when Logan gets lonely, he'll bring his work outside. Every time, he can guarantee that Roman will be there eventually. He provides a healthy distraction, and he always feels much lighter after a bantering session.

But most of the time, he just can't stand it. How can one be so flamboyant for so many hours of the day? Logan had theorized it had something to do with overcompensation, his need for validation and attention, but then thought it was strange theorizing about his friends and went back to work.

Overall, not the worst trait, but it being applied to every scenario adds to the fact that he is infuriating.

"Hold on, can we circle back to the part where you said you thought of him smiling-" Virgil begins, only to be interrupted by Logan pointing his pointer at him.

"No, we will not. Next point."

4. He makes up stupid nicknames.

And he makes a lot of them. Even during serious talks, you'd think he had forgotten your name and was too scared to ask, so he supplies an abundance of back-ups to make you feel special. And they are quite varied, though all slightly jabbing. There are play-on-words, references thrown about... It would have impressed Logan, had all of his designated nicknames not revolved around him being a nerd.

"Hey Microsoft Turd."

"I need your help, Egghead."

"Listen here, Erlenmeyer Trash-"

"Calculator Watch."

"Oh Book Geeeerm~"

"Sure thing Specs."

Logan actually didn't mind specs, but his point still stands. All insulting, clever, but still stupid nicknames. Sometimes, he wonders if Roman keeps a book of them around. Somewhere in his room, filled with all the names he'll unleash onto his unsuspecting companions. Logan may have tried to come up with a list of his own in retaliation, but he couldn't think of anything Roman would think was clever. He spent almost a full night on it, hair a mess, glasses askew, head resting on his desk as he tried to come up with something at least remotely good enough. It interrupted his perfect circadian rhythm. Never again.

Except for the next night, where he tried the exact same stunt again, but that doesn't matter.

What does, is that all of those factors cause aggravation. He always feels weird when Roman gives him a nickname, varying from annoyance to a strange tingling.

"Are you saying he should stop?" Virgil interrupts, frustrated. "This point is going nowhere."

"I-" He's not sure. Although some of the insults are quite jabbing, Logan does want to support Roman's creative process. Not to mention, the nickname ‘specs’ oddly does hold a place in his heart.

"OoOoOoohhh, I have an idea!" Remus cackles. Although Logan is hesitant, he gestures to continue. "Okay, so pinky swear I won't try anything on you, but just close your eyes, and imagine how this nickname would make you feel if Roman said it."

Logan apprehensively closes his eyes, and Remus does nothing but lean slightly forward in his seat, and puts on his best Roman impression. Which is pretty good, considering they're twin brothers.

"How are you today, my love?"

Immediately, Logan flushes bright red from head to toe, covering his face in his hands and squirms. Remus's cackling intensifies by a tenfold, and the other two are poorly failing to contain their laughter.

"That's- That's- That's... N-not a nickname. Th-That's a p-pet name."

"Awww, but you're blushiiiing!" Remus squeals in amusement.

"Falsehood. N-no." Logan says, not enough bite in it to hold value. "We are going to move on now. That just... caught me off guard." He says, adjusting his tie several times, trying to compose himself. "The point is, his nicknames are stupid, and I don't like them- No, don't look at me like that Remus even that one- so it adds to his infuriating nature." Logan grabs the presentation button and clicks it aggressively to the next slide.

"And now, for my concluding point."

5. He is incredibly and willingly dumb.

Sometimes Logan thinks he wouldn't be surprised by the illogical things Roman would say. And then he gets proven incredibly wrong.

"Much like your... 'illogical feelings', mayhaps?" Janus drawls.

Shush, Logan is talking.

Granted, both Creativity twins have proven to be rather illogical, as they are embodiments of creativity, a force that knows only slight bounds to logic. Only with a defying mind can people push boundaries in the advancement of society. That doesn't mean however that those defying minds need to be intelligent.

"I believe Virgil specifically had called Roman a.." He takes out his special cards, flipping through them. " 'A Himbo'. Judging from his past and present behaviors and from the definition itself, it is safe to assume that yes, he is in fact a Himbo."

One instance he can remember is during a picnic in the imagination. It was Patton's birthday, and Roman wanted to do something special, so he set up a picnic for them all to attend. Logan doesn't enjoy visiting the imagination as much, as when he's there, things become more realistic and that makes him feel like a burden. Regardless, it was for Patton's birthday, and so he decided it would be polite to come along.

Everyone was guided by a trail of flowers to an opening in the forest, where a giant picnic blanket was laid out, pillows thrown around, and a large picnic basket stood in the center. There were many balloons of pastel pink and blue tied around, and the birds were chirping in a joint melody. It sounds almost like Happy Birthday.

Logan, as he approaches, hopes that his influence won't cause ants to emerge, because although that would be realistic, it would also be quite the nuisance.

He and the other's are just dressed in their usual attire, but as Roman emerges from the trees, he is wearing a shiny red party hat to go along with his prince outfit.

Roman immediately goes to serenading Patton and placing a party hat on top of his head, light blue with a little pompom on the top. He ushers him to sit on one of the largest pillows, and then goes around giving everyone else party hats. Logan stills when Roman gets to him last, a dark blue party hat with little stars in his hand.

"Do I have to wear that?" He asks. Although, sure, it does look nice, he doesn't want to seem ridiculous.

"Come on, you're in good company. Please? For Patton?" Roman bats his eyelashes at Logan, who sighs and lets him put the party hat onto his head.

Roman runs off to the birthday boy, and they all sit down. The time passes peacefully, songs being sung and Roman releasing a horde of puppies to the joy of the guests. By the time the food is out, everything seems to be going well, until they're all eating, and Roman pulls out an orange. As he's about to peel it, Logan speaks up.

"Roman, I would advise against that." Which may sound ridiculous to most people, but Logan is an expert on many logical things. ( Orange peels have a flammable liquid in them called limonene, and as both it and a balloon, made of latex, are non-polar, the liquid can dissolve the balloon, thus causing it to explode.)

"Against what?" Roman asks, but he does stop his attempt.

Logan adjusts his glasses, ready to explain. "Eating an orange near a balloon. As I cause the imagination to become more logical, doing so will most likely cause-"

"Oh puh-lease! I'm sure whatever wacky science things you're going to say don't actually work here! I mean, there is plenty of influence to go arou-" Roman, the spiteful side he is, gets even closer to the balloon, starting to peel it. Lo-and-behold, he can't finish his denying before the balloon right beside him explodes with a loud POP. The sound sends him jumping back in fear, screeching to the nine hells, and then falling backwards onto another balloon, scaring him again. Several sides laughed out loud at his pain, while Patton watched him, worried. Logan smiled internally at the karma, before getting up and making sure he was okay.

Roman did spend the rest of the party in a sulky mood, but the party was still a huge success. They had some good food, and while Logan made Patton a flower crown, he fed him forfulls of cake. It was a nice bonding moment. When everyone separated to return to the mindscape, Roman waved them all off from the imagination door. Logan turns back to look at him, but Roman makes no move to follow them all out.

"You're not coming back yet?" Logan asks, adjusting his glasses.

Roman sighs. "No, not yet. I'm afraid this dashing prince has a little bit of cleaning to do. And perhaps an adventure. You never know." He leans on the doorframe, smiling.

"Well, that is correct. I in fact do not know what you'll be doing." Logan nods to himself. "Do you need any help cleaning? I doubt I'll be much help with the adventure, but I do have hands." He gestures to his hands.

Roman looks quite surprised. "Oh, thanks for the offer, specs. I think I've got it all covered though."

Logan offers a hesitant smile. "Alright then. Let me know if that changes."

Roman quickly smiles back, a faint pink dusting his cheeks, and turns back into the imagination and shutting the door. Logan stands there for a moment, but not sure why. It's clear that Roman was not feeling all that great from the balloon moment. Even Logan, terrible at deciphering emotions, can tell that much. Perhaps he needs to let off some steam.

He just can't understand Roman most of the time. They do have so many similarities, being too proud for their own good, but it's almost like they're in two separate worlds. Logan, the learner he is, wishes he could explore Roman's own. Understand it. Understand him, and his way of thinking. Even though Roman is mostly dumb, he does make good points, and Logan tries to prioritize his input, as it's usually what Thomas is hoping and dreaming for as well.

~~~

The last slide shines back at them all. A concluding statement that makes the three watching sides snicker a little bit.

"And I believe he just doesn't understand how much we all think he's great. I swear, he's just so dense! It's so aggravating! How can he not tell that he's worth everything? Why doesn't he understand that we all care for him? That I care for him? He's wonderful, for god's sake! And that I don't mean to hurt him with my critiques. I want him to thrive! I-"

Everything stops. Logan takes a moment of silence. The three sides look at him, each with different degrees of anticipation. One looks pretty much ready to pounce out of his seat.

"...Oh."

And all at once, everything gets strung back into motion. Confetti literally falls from the ceiling as Remus jumps for joy, circling a very mortified looking Logan. Janus, the tired soul, rolls his eyes and lets out a slow, long clap. Virgil just rests his head in his arms.

"I can't believe this. You sit us all down for a presentation you probably double-checked and proofread, like a nerd, and only NOW you realize you were wrong all along? Why didn't you say anything, snake-face?" Virgil complains, sitting up just to glare at him.

"Wo-ow, it isn't as if I was saying that this whole time? No, it couldn't be." Janus deadpans, sarcasm spilling from his mouth like an old, worn, broken dam.

Logan doesn't move from his stand-still spot beside the projector, but Remus manages to bounce in circles around him, cooing. "Lo-lo's got a cruuuush! A crushy crush! A crushed crust of a crush! A crevice cracking ‘cause of the crushed crust-" He was going to continue, throwing expired banana peels around to substitute rose petals, until the sound of the door opening catches everyone's attention.

"Hey losers, Patton wanted to know if you-" Lo and behold, Roman walks in, regal as ever, smiling until he takes in the sight before him. The boring classroom look, contrasted by the amount of confetti that stopped falling as soon as he walked in. Janus and Virgil, wide-eyed and looking at him, completely still. Remus, caught mid dance, frozen in place with a smile. Logan, looking at him in the way one may look milliseconds after being caught stealing government secrets. Roman's eyes flicker to each of them, before settling on the projector.

"Roman. I-I can explain-" Logan starts, but Roman is already reading the words on the screen.

"... 'In short, he saddles me with unnecessary... feelings'? 'Unease, and uncertainty'? Who... Oh my god! Logan!" Roman looks at him, smiling in disbelief and amazement. "I know what this meanssss!" Filled with giddy delight, he sidesteps the table.

Logan gulps as Roman approaches, turning beet red as Roman takes his hands in his two own. "Y-Yes?" He practically squeaks as Roman looks him right in the eyes.

"Yes! Ohhh, this is so exciting!" The three bystanders watch, once again in anticipation, as Roman swings their interlocked hands.

"Yes?" Logan offers a small, tentative smile.

"You have a crush on someoooone! Oh Logan, you should've told me!" Roman smiles, completely oblivious to the internal facepalm of several present members.

"I-I'm sorry..." Logan looks down, slightly disappointed but still too flustered to say anything.

"God save the dense." Janus mutters, inspecting his gloves fingers.

"Don't be sorry! Come, we must make plans! I shall be your matchmaker! This is going to be perfeeeect!" Roman, sings, dancing out of the room and dragging Logan along by their still intertwined hands. The other sides watch them go.

After a moment of processing, Virgil sighs. "Well, I thought that was going to be resolved. Turns out they're both as dense as... dense people." He can't seem to think of any other similes.

"Welp, I'm just happy that they're one step closer to getting. it. on. romantically." Remus punctuates every word with some rather immature hand gestures. “And that they stop dancing around each other.”

"Who do you think Roman thinks Logan has a crush on?" Virgil asks, cogs turning in his brain.

Janus lounges backwards. "Well, let's see... Soooo many options. Either he thinks it's someone outside of Thomas's head, or the simple answer..."

Remus and Virgil both look at him, both with looks of realization.

"Patton."

~~~

#logince #logince fic #logan sanders #ts logan #remus sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #ts roman #implied patton sanders #tw food #oliver writes #i also snuck an ace attorney reference #i was going to wait but i'm just very excited to post this #5 Reasons fic

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shinsouskitten · 4 years

Text

Shinsou Hitoshi nsfw alphabet

damn kat back at it again with the thirst i hate myself

Idk how I haven’t done a nsfw alphabet for my KING yet but I’m disappointed in myself for it

this post was mostly finished before the whole ‘this cold makes me feel like im dying’ thing so i just had to add a few and it was ready for publishing (bonus points if you can tell which ones were added in my cold-induced craziness)

Warnings: you know it, you love it, the thirsting of a lonely writer

---

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Shinsou is a king when it comes to aftercare. Hot baths, massages, cuddles, you name it. You mean the absolute world to him, and he’ll go out of his way to show that, both in and out of the bedroom

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and their partner’s)

Shinsou can be pretty self critical, but if you pushed for an answer he’d probably say his hair, cause he knows how much you like it. For his partner, horny Shinsou would immediately go for your neck (literally too). He loves how a single kiss can turn you into putty in his hands, and he’ll leave marks in places he knows you can’t hide just to prove to the world that you’re his

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Inside you, on you, he doesn’t really mind. Whatever you prefer, he’s happy with. If you want to get messy, he’s more than happy to help, but if not he’ll keep you clean (ish). Although he’s unlikely to admit it, seeing you swallow his cum ignites a fire in Shinsou, and sets up quite a few more rounds so he can give you a reward for being so good

D = Dirty secret (pretty clear, a dirty secret of theirs)

Shinsou’s pretty open with what he wants, but when you first start getting intimate there’ll be a few things he doesn’t really want to say in case he scares you away (he could never, but he still worries). He wants to experiment, but he makes sure he knows your boundaries before he suggests anything too out there. The thing he keeps secret for the longest is the desire to wrap your neck in a beautiful collar emblazoned with his name, simply cause he doesn’t want you to think it’s weird

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He does his research, but hands on experience is pretty limited before you. It’s a learning curve, both of you learning what makes the other tick, what causes you the highest amount of pleasure, and what to steer clear of

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Loves to see you ride him. It gives you the power to control the tempo, but also gives him a beautiful view to tip him over the edge of ecstasy. More needy Shinsou (aka when he’s in hornball mode) likes doggy style, cause it means he can pull your hair or hold you up against him and kiss your neck

G = Goofy (how serious are they in the moment?)

He’s not going to whip out a joke book in the middle of sex, but he’s also not going to act like an uptight secretary who’s only able to follow the rules (well, not unless you ask 👀)

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Keeps himself trimmed, possibly even shaved. It’s no nonsense and means it’s also more enjoyable for you if you’re giving him head

I = Intimacy (how romantic are they in the moment?)

He’s an intimate guy, but he’s also not above teasing (though there’s another letter for that so I’ll keep on intimate for now). Like I mentioned in B, Shinsou can be pretty self critical, and sometimes he can get scared that you’ll leave him if he doesn’t prove how much he loves you, which to him means intimate sex and reassurance (aka, saying ‘I love you’ every two seconds)

J = Jack off (what are their views on masturbation?)

He does it when needed. He’s not insanely horny, so chances are if he is you’re there to deal with him. But if you’re not, and he’s especially needy, he’ll most likely call you up for a little phone session. The thought of you is incredible, but being able to see and hear you is even better

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

I think we all know the phrase kitty, right? Well inference leads me to believe that Shinsou would be down for trying out pet play. And yes, as I mentioned before, he would 100% have a collar for you with his name on it. I don’t take criticism for that one

L = Location (favorite places to do the dance with no pants)

More traditional. Sex between the two of you means intimacy, so he’d prefer privacy. You have yet to find a surface in your house he hasn’t tried to fuck you on. That being said, your comfort is of the utmost importance to Shinsou, so if he’s going to fuck you over the kitchen counter, he’s going to make sure you feel comfortable while he does it. So yes, that means he’ll take pillows off the sofa’s just to make you comfy

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going, etc)

You. Simple as. There are certain things that especially turn him on, such as you biting your lip or being extra attentive to him in what would seem like a normal scene to anyone else watching. Put your hand on his thigh when out at dinner and pay the price when you get home. Or maybe that was your plan all along

N = No (turn offs, something they wouldn’t do)

Shinsou never wants you to be in pain (well not unless you want to be in pain). He’ll leave hickies all over you, but that’s about as far as he’ll go with marking you. Maybe a spank here and there, but he won’t scar you or leave any marks that won’t be gone in a few days

O = Oral (do they prefer giving or receiving? how skilled are they?)

Shinsou prefers giving, but he’ll never say no to receiving either. He wants you to feel good, but if you decide to turn the tables he’s not going to deny you. Once you’re finished though, he’s repaying the favor tenfold. And just as a note, pull his hair when he goes down on you. He adores it

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Yes and yes. It all depends on the situation, his mood, the usual things. He’ll do whatever provides you with the most pleasure (while also allowing him to tease you)

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies)

He doesn’t love them, but if they’re the only way to get some gratification then he’s willing (only if you are though). He’s careful about location, he doesn’t want someone walking in and ruining the whole thing, even if the risk of being caught makes everything a little more exciting. Chances are he won’t engage in quickies unless he’s been to the place at least once before (he wants to know which wall you’d look best pinned to). He has to feel slightly comfortable in the environment

R = Risk (how risky are they willing to be?)

He’s down for a little risk, but nothing that would be too mortifying for you. If he’s going to screw you somewhere other than your home, he’s going to vet the place over a lot, and find the best place where you have the comfort of being private but the thrill of being caught if someone were to venture too close to your hideout

S = Stamina (how long do they last? how many rounds?)

Freaking hell where does he get it from? Like, he just doesn’t stop. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Most of the rounds consist of him pleasing you, and he’ll only give in and finally fuck you when your throat is hoarse from begging, or when he feels the smallest amount of pity at the tears rolling down your face (did someone say crying kink)

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them on a partner or themselves?)

Vibrating panties. I said he doesn't physically act on desires when in public, but touching a remote isn’t the same thing as touching you, so he makes an exception. He’s not insanely cruel. For him it’s more about teasing that mortification, so if someone senses something’s wrong, he turns off the remote until they give up. But the moment they’re gone, it’s back stronger than ever

U = Unfair (how much do they tease?)

*roblox oof sound effect*

Once Shinsou gains his confidence with you, he’s not going back. His teasing is often coupled with praise, telling you how good you’re being for him while he denies you pure bliss again and again. He’ll edge you to hell and back if you give him the chance, but don’t worry, it’s worth it in the end

V = Volume (how they sound, how loud they are, etc)

Small moans and louder grunts are the main sounds coming from Shinsou when he’s enjoying himself. He swears a lot, and it’s always easy to tell how close he is to the edge by how creative his swears become. As for his partner, he wants to know how well he’s doing. He wants to hear you whine and beg while he edges you, and the pornstar-like moans that fill the air when he finally gives in and gives you what you really want

W = Wild card (a random headcanon)

You think I forgot about his quirk. Ha, I could never. I said in my hcs that it takes a while for Shinsou to integrate quirk use into sex. As much as you assure him you’re in full trust, he’s anxious about the inability to say no when he has you under his control. The longer you’re together the more willing he is, but even when he does use it it’s usually a way to make edging even more dangerous, with you unable to resist his words when he tells you you’re not allowed to cum just yet

Okay maybe we have 2 wild cards this time cause I also wanna mention his capture weapon. Again, it’ll take a while for it to be available in a less-than-pg manner, but he’s more willing to use his capture weapon than his quirk. Main reason being, you can still use a safeword when tied up. But tying up goes both ways, so even if he prefers to be the one giving the pleasure, he’d never deny your wishes

X = X-ray (let’s have a looksee in those pants)

I’m trying not to be biased cause I love him so much but I feel like Shinsou’s kinda packing. A good 8.5-9 inches (no, I won’t take criticism) and on the skinnier side. But the amount of attention he gives you before his pants are even off means taking him is never difficult

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Not the highest, but when you’re around it increases significantly. He’s not going to fuck you every time he sees you (I mean, he thinks about it) but he also isn’t a nun. It’s a good level, cause most days you can walk, and then on the weekends you’re a little bedridden

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He’s a bit of an insomniac, so screwing the energy out of him is one of the best ways to get Shinsou tired enough to sleep. He likes to hold you, so once he’s satisfied with the aftercare, he’ll crawl in bed for cuddles until the both of you pass out

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #boku no hero #hitoshi shinsou x reader #hitoshi shinsou #hitoshi shinsou smut #bnha shinsou #Shinsou #shinsou x reader #shinsou smut #mha x reader #mha smut

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reds-burrow · 3 years

Text

Sorting Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

If you're unfamiliar with the Sorting Hat Chats system, check out @sortinghatchats and their WordPress, or this post by @wisteria-lodge.

Spoilers below. This really was Wenwu's movie though, so I may change my mind about Shang-Chi and Xialing's sortings if they get more development in future movies.

Xu Shang-Chi: Snake/Burnt Lion (recovers by end of movie) Throughout the movie it is his loved ones that spur him into action. In the bus scene, it's only when Katy is attacked that he decides to fight. After, he realizes his sister is in danger and rushes to hop on a plane to see her. Even his decision to save Ta Lo comes from his sense of responsibility for his father and a desire to protect the place his mother protected. As a kid, his father's unhealthy Snake primary dominated Shang-Chi's life, and he constructed his sense of right and wrong based on what Wenwu taught him, that a "Blood debt must be pain in blood." This led to the assassination, and the moment when Shang-Chi finally stopped prioritizing Wenwu's needs over his own. There is a pattern for unhealthy Snake primaries to latch onto someone and make them number one in their circle, above themself, especially if that Snake is young and is dealing with a parental or authority figure. Shang-Chi did this with Wenwu after the trauma of losing his mother and seeing the change in his father. The assassination was the first time Shang-Chi was on his own however, and the first time he was able to see himself and what his father had made him into. He finally found the strength to put himself first and ran away. His secondary burned, however, though only partway. When you look at how he solves single-player problems, particularly when he's fighting, he looks like a healthy Lion secondary. Watch in the bus fight, how he uses the bus itself as a weapon, bashing people against poles, using the elasticity of the articulated joint to jump and maneuver around people. Or in the scaffold fight how he knocks a guy down and uses the guy as a bridge. Shang-Chi displays some of the most creative Lion improvisational fighting we've gotten out of the MCU. But while his Lion was still healthy in single-player situations, it was burnt in multiplayer ones. He could no longer face his authentic self, something vital to the multiplayer part of a Lion secondary. He wound up finding Katy, who was experiencing her own secondary issues, and the two of them spent their days avoiding anything remotely hard. His journey to heal his Lion is a journey of accepting himself and what he did under the influence of his father, and after his time in Ta Lo with his aunt, he is able to reach that acceptance in time for the final battle. Both sides of himself, Loyalist and Constructed, reflected in the mixture of both his mother and father's style of martial arts, find balance.

Katy Chen: Snake/Snake

Katy is adrift when we first meet her. Her family and friends, aside from Shang-Chi, all push her to find a "real" job, to do something with her degree, to live up to her potential. But Katy just wants to have fun and admits that she tends to abandon things. This is a common thing in Snake secondaries, usually immature ones. As soon as something gets hard, boring, or if they feel they might get locked into it with no other options, they search out something new.

The only think Katy is unwavering in is her loyalty. She flies to a different country, enters another dimension, and puts her life on the line to fight for that dimension all because she is following her best friend. Even when Shang-Chi admits all the secrets he's been keeping, Katy's Snake primary doesn't falter. She refuses to abandon him, and if the mid-credit scene is any indication, Katy and Shang-Chi will be a package deal from here on out.

Xu Xialing: Snake/Badger

After her mother's death, Xialing was ignored by her father as he poured everything he had into revenge and training Shang-Chi. So, Xialing trained herself in secret, mastering the rope dart and a high level of martial arts. Her self-discipline and persistence helped her shape herself into a warrior, indicative of her Badger secondary. She also tells Katy that the way she managed living years alone with Wenwu was to keep her head down. When in survivor mode, Fluid secondaries may try blending in with the background, going invisible to avoid conflict. This is especially true of Badger secondaries who don't already have the extra armor that a mask can provide. Xialing describes this time of her life with distaste because she was essentially trapped and alone. Even so, she waited for years for Shang-Chi to return for her. Her loyalty to him is undeniable, and even as furious as she is for him abandoning her, she goes back to save him. Her founding of the Golden Daggers and later taking over the Ten Rings not only shows her ambition but comes back to the deep wound she was inflicted when she was rejected from training by her father. She wants a place where men and women can fight alongside each other because if she had had that as a child, she would have had a place to beside her father and brother.

Xu Wenwu: Snake/Bird

Wenwu is shown to be a collector of information, of old legends and maps. He's a collector of people, of warriors and even a jester. He collects Morris simply as proof of Ta Lo. His Bird secondary is in large part why he is able to hold power of a worldwide organization for over a thousand years. After living so long and experiencing so many deaths, he barely blinks when several of his men are killed on the way to Ta Lo. They were simply tools that served their purpose for as long as they could. Even so, he is undeniably a Snake primary. Everything he does in the movie is for Li. He gives up the Ten Rings, both the weapons and the organization, all for her, and after her death, everything is about revenge or bringing her back. While he is too consumed by grief and revenge to care for his children's emotional needs, he trained Shang-Chi because he thought his son needed revenge like he did and also to protect Shang-Chi. As he says, "I trained you so the most dangerous people in the world couldn't kill you." Conversely, he didn't train Xialing because she reminded him too much of her mother, and he didn't want her fighting anyone in the first place. As abusive as he is, he needs his children to be safe, which is why he had them tracked when they left. It is only when he sees that Li is living on through his children that he is able to find some semblance of acceptance and peace.

#hey look four of a kind #character sorting #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats

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memes-in-a-half-shell · 4 years

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Personalities

Guess I’ve never really did one post like this one, but I wanted to list out how I envision the guys to be like, generally. My creativity has been going down the drain lately, so hopefully that’ll boost me up a bit !

-- Leo --

Leo gives out that tough, serious vibe, mostly because he’s the leader and wants to show that he’s in control.

...

But in general, that dude does like to laugh and have some fun!

Don’t worry though, he knows when he has to be serious!!!! ... At some points he just has to relax, you know?

A Man of Culture ™ , he owns some bonsai trees and loves to meditate so he can have a clearer mind. Tranquility is his way to recharge his batteries (yes, I do see him as an ambivert, with a strong introvert side).

A comic books fan, shares that passion with Mikey! He’s more of a Marvel fan, personally - some of his favorites are Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, and probably a bunch of others).

Anger and strong emotions can hinder his leading choices. Anxiety rises in him, which can cloud his thoughts, but he’s working hard on that (and he’s kinda good at hiding his panic, generally).

Even if he doesn’t say it often - he does love spending time with his brothers! Watching basketball matches is definitely a must for those four.

A Leo in love is a smiling Leo. A true gentleman, he can turn into quite the passionate lover when alone with his s/o. He’s not much a fan of PDA, but his s/o shouldn’t worry much about that as the affection is multiplied tenfold later on.

Actually has a good singing voice, but he would prefer to die than to let people know.

Values Splinter’s opinion highly and often goes to him for guidance about many things - mostly regarding his leadership.

It’s a bit hard for him to let new people enter his life, since he’s scared for his family to be discovered and out in the open by any means possible, but he’s slowly starting to trust his instincts and his brothers’, knowing when it’s safe to let certain people in their world or not.

He’s an avid reader. Has a preference for classic litterature, but also enjoys horror, crime stories, and a bit of romance (if he really feels like it).

-- Raph --

Sir Raph bitchinson is in DAH HOUSE.

He’s not afraid to speak up and call out anything wrong in this household.

He and Donnie love to gossip and bitch around - you can’t change my mind. But they do that in secret though (wouldn’t want to hurt people with their judgements!!!)

Can be pretty much eloquent, when given the chance. He’s more street smart than book smart, but all knowledge is good knowledge.

He always likes to come up with some challenges for himself and his bros. Some sort of “friendly” competition amongst them, just to spice things up. He does consult Splinter sometimes to see what could be done in order to train certain skills.

Raph has a lot of love to give, but doesn’t like to show it plainly. He’s gotta show that big buff strong man attitude !!!!!!!!!! ... But he does have a big heart.

He and Mikey definitely do some music on the side - which has sparked the hilarious idea of a Hip Hop Christmas album. ... Mikey does call himself “MC Mikey”, but Raph is a better rapper.

Suprisingly good with arts and crafts (ex: woodcarving, knitting). Patience, precision, and carefulness are skills he has to work on often.

Training and lifting weights are his prefered ways to think back and analyze various things. That’s why when he’s angry, he goes out to train. It gives him the opportunity to calm down (somehow) and review the situation.

Even though his arguments with Leo can turn quite bitter, he knows he’d miss them if they were to stop. Butting heads with the leader is what brings them together (some would argue it’s not a healthy relation, but both are strong headed so it’s just always gonna be like that, you know~)

-- Donnie --

You know that shy, awkward, nerd stereotype? Throw that out the window, please.

Donnie sure is quiet when he first meets new people, but that’s only so he can observe them better and get to know how to interact with them better.

Once he’s starting to grow more comfortable, he’s probably one of the chillest dude you could hang out with.

Sure, sometimes he’ll start blabbering about his projects and throw out some complex terms, but that’s just because he’s always happy to include people into his things (IF the project is going well, that is...)

A patient teacher. Yes sometimes it’s tiring having to explain whenever he says a big word, but he doesn’t mind overall explaining and bringing forth new knowledge to those who seek it.

He’s not one to flaunt his intellect. He is not above anyone and he understands that not everyone has the same passions as him. Everybody can learn something new everyday - himself included.

Has a good sense of humor, mostly sarcastic. Is always up to doing some pranks around the lair with Mikey.

Donnie’s anger management could be described as “the calm before the storm”. He usually has a good control over his emotions, but if they ever get to explode, he can be quite ... “sharp”. He doesn’t hold his words and can be a bit judgemental when angry - but he’s quick to rectify the situation and apologize. Overall, when he’s facing a situation that displeases him, he is silent and thoughtful. ... A lot goes on in his mind.

When in love, Donnie’s heart is soft and he’s a big romantic/cheesy dork. He’s often caught gazing at his s/o, with a smile on his face. He’s not afraid to lay his feelings in the open and doesn’t mind some PDA, but when he and his s/o are alone together, you can say it gets cranked up a bit ;)

Listens to various music genres. Has a preference for 80′s-90′s rock, jazz, and various types of electronic music.

Sometimes does some remote tech support jobs on the side so he and his family can have some money to spend.

Loves to play videogames! The first one he ever completed was Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo (hence why he has a SNES controller with his gear - an object filled with good memories!).

The self proclaimed “handyman” of the lair. He loves tinkering around and find ways to upgrade simple things in the house. He’s always up for a good challenge! (May or may not have a suggestion box for his bros and his dad to drop ideas once in a while <__< !!!)

-- Mikey --

Searching for a litteral ray of sunshine? Look no further; Mikey is here.

For him, finding joy and positivity in anything is a must - at least, most of the time.

He knows his family is not of the ordinary kind with a normal house, but that doesn’t mean things have to be grim and miserable!

This mindset does come at a price though. It does happen for Mikey to have his morale drop considerably low, but in those moments he knows he has his family to support him and make him feel better.

In return he is extremely supportive of anything his family does and will always encourage them when they’re going through a rough patch.

He and Raph love to collect various human items. Mikey has a tendency to go for art related items, which sparked his interest in arts (painting, spray cans/graffiti, drawing).

He also developped an interest in cooking.

Both skills are well received by his bros and he loves to teach them some tricks here and there, along with providing creative inputs to anything (mostly Donnie’s projects).

He’s an empath and doesn’t mind when his brothers vent to him. He wants them to know they are heard and valued! The best medicine he can provide is humor.

He’s a big flirt. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and he’s not afraid to express his admiration.

A party needs to be organized? Leave that to him. He always come up with some cool playlists, lots of booze, various activities, and a theme (if needed).

Loves to reference a lot of movie quotes, popular stuff and such. And it’s never out of place too, which can be surprisingly clever!

#I'll maybe expend more at some point #but for now I am leh exhausteddddd #I love exploring their personalities 😊#and fsdjfbdj of course Donnie's has a lot of stuff LMAO #also I imagine Leo to have a similar level of anxiety to mine - so that's easy to imagine

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izzabeean · 3 years

Text

Chapter 9 : Anticipation

SUMMARY

Ushijima makes an appearance at your group outing, and you try to ignore his presence. But, of course, it’s easier said than done in this case.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 3,344

content : profanity, mild violence, depiction of injuries

tags : alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : Is the world so small that Y/N keeps running into Ushijima? Perhaps in this story, yes. This week has been a bit slow creatively for me, I don't feel my writing is the strongest in this chapter. But here we are, things are heating up and I'm happy to provide.

Post Thursday evenings PST, if not latest by Friday.

masterlist

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Everything feels so surreal as you lock eyes with Ushijima from across the table. He doesn’t smile or say anything, he just looks at you with his empty gaze like this is the first time meeting. Ever. Your heartbeat starts to thump faster conjuring up a lump in your throat that cannot be swallowed. Your breathing is shallow and your hands start to sweat as you dig your nails into your legs.

Why didn’t you turn around when your instincts told you to?

Why did you talk yourself into thinking this was a good idea?

However, for some reason, here you are. The sequence of events leading up to this point doesn’t make any sense. Even when you were dating, you wouldn’t run into him this much, so why now? Why all these dumb coincidences? There’s no room for you to heal when you keep seeing him like this.

“Hi,” you squeal, temporarily incapacitated by the confused looks from your other groupmates.

But your high pitch voice produces shockwaves through Oikawa’s system as you quickly introduce him and Iwaizumi to which Sara introduces Ushijima to all three of you. Then it becomes apparent that Ushijima hasn't said anything to Sara about you.

It’s sublime how quickly you push down the devastation bubbling at the surface and you wonder how it is even possible for you to force a smile in Sara’s direction. Clearing your throat you take a seat. Ushijima has stopped staring now and takes a swig of the chilled beer sitting in front of him. Your mouth feels dry from the nerves that are trying to drag your spirits down. If you were going to survive this torture, you’re most definitely not going to be sober. Grabbing the waiter's attention, you order yourself a beer as you feel yourself on the brink of a heart attack.

“You ok?” Oikawa mumbles knowing well that turning to your least favorite drink is a bad sign. It’s very clear to him this evening isn't going to go very well, seeing as you are already on edge from Ushijima’s surprise appearance.

“Mhm,” you hum shooting him a smile. “I’m fine. Totally chill.”

“You know, we can leave,” Oikawa whispers. “You’re not obligated to be here.”

And let him win? you think. I don’t think so.

“No, I’m fine,” you lie, biting your lip. It’s no time for you to concede, you just gotta ride this one out, show him how much better you’re doing without him. It’s the only thing to get back at him for everything so grossly unforgivable that he’s done.

The waiter returns with your drink placing it down in front of you. Nothing has looked so relieving and thirst-quenching before; the cold and crisp-looking glass filled to the top of light amber liquid with a dollop of airy foam. You pick it up and throw it back, chugging the heavy and sour alcohol. Then you think, maybe you shouldn’t have done that as you strike the glass down on the table. Licking your lips, you notice the startled looks everyone gives you at your uncharacteristic action.

“Should we order food,” Sara interrupts the weird tension which segues everyone back to talking amongst themselves.

Your stomach starts to swirl as you’ve come to realize that drinking that beer was probably the worst thing you could do while it’s empty. But as you study the menu, nothing seems to scream appetizing. Not when you can see in your peripheral Ushijima and Sara sharing a menu while discussing what they want to order. It makes you sick.

The restaurant is loud, but your thoughts are louder as you sit there wondering if anyone else can hear them. It hurts to see him here in front of you beside her. She most definitely doesn’t know about your history with Ushijima just by the way she’s acting around him. Sara doesn’t seem maniacal enough to do something so disrespectful to someone she barely knows. For god's sake, she invited you here. Why would she want you here if she knew? To rub it in that she’s Ushijima’s girlfriend. Doubtful.

Maybe Oikawa was right all along about Ushijima not being how you perceived him to be. Maybe, just maybe you honestly, you were blinded the entire time. And now you were finally seeing him for who he truly is.

You were scared to admit it. That if you did, your year together means nothing when it still meant so much to you. But in this case, actions speak louder than words and most definitely Ushijima’s actions are very clear.

“I'm going to step out for a smoke. Do you need some fresh air?” Iwaizumi asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Oh,” you reply looking at Oikawa sitting beside you who's chatting with one of your group members. "No, I better not."

"Alright, I'll be right back," he says sliding out of his seat.

You try to hide your face behind the menu so no one talks to you and your plan almost succeeded except for the open opportunity it gave Sara to sit beside you. Your face pales as she leans in to rasp, "I'm glad you could make it."

"Yeah," you exclaim a bit put off by how close she is.

"I honestly thought you weren't going to show."

It's hard for you to not flash a bitter smile, but you force yourself to continue the conversation, "It took some convincing but bringing Oikawa and Iwaizumi helped."

The silence stretches between the two of you as Oikawa's laugh fills the air. You take a glimpse at him, noticing one of your group members flirting with him. You roll your eyes while looking back at Sara who is enthralled in his aura.

"He seems really nice,” she compliments. "How long have you two been together?"

"Hmm?" It takes you a moment to realize what she’s asking as you realize she's subtly gesturing to Oikawa. And when it clicks you are filled with laughter. “Oh my god, did you just say that out loud?”

The thought of you and Oikawa remotely appearing to look more than friends from an external perspective makes you nearly piss yourself.

"Oh, I just thought, you'd both make a cute couple," she corrects herself with puzzlement written across her face.

When you realize she’s being serious, you pause. “No, we’ve just been friends for a while.”

"Oooh," Sara taunts giving you a very mischievous look. "You know that saying, love is friendship set on fire."

"It's not like that," you nervously chuckle at her comment.

"Alright, I won't pry," she jokes. "But seriously, I'm happy you're here!"

She gets up from her seat and walks back over to sit next to Ushijima. Your feelings are honestly a bit mixed from that conversation. You really wanted to hate her, but she just seemed so genuine.

------

You’re a couple more drinks in and feel a bit of a buzz as Sara goes into grave detail as to why she transferred to the university now . But you can’t force yourself to listen. Your attention shifts to Ushijima smiling softly at the way Sara bubbles with warmth. It’s funny to think that someone else can make him smile like that besides you because you know how hard it is to do so. But it seems so effortless for Sara.

The memory of meeting Ushijima for the first time flashes in your head. To the time in the library where he reaches over your head to grab the book, you were trying to get on the top shelf. Now you can barely remember as the image of Sara takes your place to retrieve the book from Ushijima's hands. She's the new you.

You know you're overanalyzing every single movement Ushijima makes. From where his eyes linger to where his hands are placed, you cannot stop looking as you stay in suspense to what he will do next. You’re close to being consumed by the sudden urge to lash out or cry. It feels like he’s trying to push your buttons as he leans over toward Sara. You're waiting for him to kiss her. Waiting for it to break you. And it makes you sick.

Suddenly you feel a hand on your knee and turn to Iwaizumi who is looking down at you with a soft gaze. It’s odd but you somehow feel this tension between the two of you. You should have known better in that moment, but your mind feels a bit hazy from feeling vulnerable and also the alcohol.

“Is everything ok?”

You feel anticipation fill your chest and you swallow thickly seeing as this is the closest you’ve ever been to him. You look at his hand for a moment, at his long fingers gently grip the top of your knee. You immediately remind yourself of his words the other day, wondering if he intended to friendzone you like that.

You nod, smiling.

“Let me know when you want to leave,” Iwaizumi whispers squeezing your leg.

His face dips down slightly and you don’t know why you do it and don’t know how you had the courage to. But you’re so caught up in your internal frustrations, you don’t think before you act. You lean in closer to Iwaizumi and plant a kiss on his cheek uttering a thank you.

As you pull back, his eyes widen. It takes you a second to process exactly what you’ve done.

“Um, sorry,” you say to Iwaizumi, you need to get out of there before you die of embarrassment. Quickly you excuse yourself from the table as you rush to the bathroom and you can still feel Iwaizumi watching you.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

But you find the bathrooms have a long line up and turn a corner as you burst through a door to outside. The cool air hits you making it much easier to breathe. Finally, you’re by yourself. Screaming wouldn’t even be able to help you let out the confusion you feel. This was definitely something you didn’t want to have happened. But here you are regretting your capacity to understand a situation. Honestly, you were definitely feeling vulnerable. This entire evening you were caught off guard and something it makes you do weird things.

“Can we talk?

Turning around, you see Ushijima standing in front of you. He gazes down at you with his unreadable stare that makes you want to cry.

“No,” you say a little unnerved walking away from him. But you’re stopped by him grabbing your wrist, the same wrist the creep outside the club grabbed you with. Still a bit bruised and weak from his grip. You let out a yelp, “Let go of me!”

“Just let me explain,” he begs.

But you’re not listening as you try to wiggle your wrist away-- it’s not a tight hold, but it’s enough that it still hurts.

“Please, let me go,” you express firmly.

He stares at you for a moment and with a deep breath exhales letting go.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you yell, grabbing your wrist. “Moved on already, what the fuck is your problem?”

“It’s not--”

“No, let me finish. You’ve already done enough. I can’t believe you. You could’ve just told me you found someone else, instead, I see you with her all cute and cuddly and now I have to fucking work with her? This is such a--”

But as you’re about to continue your rant, you’re interrupted by a voice.

“What’s going on here?” Oikawa asks, noticing Ushijima standing before you. He studies your face filled with rage while you’re clutching your wrist. “Did you hurt her?”

“What?” Ushijima replies confused.

Then Oikawa’s eyes turn dark, a look you’ve never seen before. And you never imagined what comes next. He grabs a fist full of Ushijima’s shirt pulling him close enough that they were inches apart, barely touching noses. You had to stop them before it went too far but you couldn’t move your body.

“After all you’ve been through this is how you treat her?” Oikawa yells.

“You don’t even know the whole story,” Ushijima booms, forcibly removing Oikawa’s grip from his shirt causing Oikawa to make an aching face.

“I know enough to see that you’re a complete dick. But we both know, I’ve known that from the start,” Oikawa hisses. His eyes are fixed on Ushijima shooting him a scowl while your hand is clasped to your shirt.

“Stop it,” you say, but they both ignore you.

“I think you need to get your facts straight,” Ushijima says staying calm and collected while Oikawa explodes with rage.

“Why don't act more like a man,” Oikawa protests.

Then time moves so quick you couldn’t even see Oikawa raise his fist to hit Ushijima square in the face. Because not even seconds after Ushijima retaliates. You rush over forcing yourself between the two men before a fight breaks, pushing your hands against their chest yelling at them to stop. Ushijima is the first to back away as Oikawa stays resistant trying to push by you. But you take both your hands and press them against him as Ushijima exits back into the restaurant.

"Why are you trying to protect him?" Oikawa cries. You look up at Oikawa whose face is glistening in the moonlight as his cheek starts to swell. His dark eyes lock on you as yours start to glaze over.

"Are you stupid? He could've really hurt you," you wail, trying to hide the fact you're physically shaking.

And he sees it.

"Don't ever do that again," you barked.

Then he gives you his signature shit-eating grin, a look that is nowhere near appropriate from just getting punched in the face.

“Told you he’s a dick,” he smirks, walking towards the front of the restaurant. “Let’s go home.”

“What about Iwaizumi?”

“He’ll take care of things,” Oikawa mutters. “He’ll meet us at home. Let’s go before that blockhead comes back out.”

------

Oikawa called a cab to get back to his apartment, you felt a bit bad for leaving Iwaizumi behind. Especially since you kissed him then left.

Things seemed to grow incredibly awkward between you and Oikawa as he sat in the bathroom cleaning the cut on his cheek from Ushijima’s punch. You weren’t really sure what Oikawa was thinking, but you didn’t really want to ask. As you gently press the cotton pad to his cheek, he squints his eyes while the burning sensation shocks him and exhales sharply through his nose.

“Sorry,” you mumble and he immediately forgives you with a smile.

He tries to pin his eyes to something that can distract the sting, but instead focuses his attention on the feel of your fingers against his skin. You’ve never been this close before and he wonders if you can hear how fast his heart is beating.

He’s thankful for your patience with him. Most certainly did he think you were going to be pissed, but your reaction was far from what he expected as you kept silent for most of the trip home and even patching him up. Oikawa looks at you to see your frown had deepened. “Are you mad? You look mad.”

You scoff. “No, I’m just tired.” You’re caught off guard by his uncharacteristic concern and almost recoil with the question.

Oikawa sighs, “Your face is screwed up like you’re mad.”

“Tōru,” you scolded, crossing your arm across your chest. You choke on your words before answering, “I’m tired, not mad.”

Oikawa holds his breath and continues to look at you as you continue to make that sullen look. He doesn’t believe you. The sight of you with defeat in your expression makes his heart break. He notices your bruised wrist, still purple and blue, and imagines it probably hurts after Ushijima grabbed it. Then he wonders if he could have done something better to help you in that situation. Even that night back at the club still haunts him. If only he’d answered his phone when you needed him the most then maybe things would be different than now. He can’t stand it. He can't stand that Iwaizumi was there to help you instead. And he's not stupid, he knows you like Iwaizumi. He wasn't blind when he saw you kiss him at the restaurant. Oikawa didn’t know why, but something stirred him that he never realized before and it became very unsettling.

You lay the gauze over the wound and tape it down.

“How’s your hand?” you mumble, checking if the ice pack he’s holding to his fist has subsided any bruising your swelling. The bruising was already darker by the time you got to his apartment and it definitely terrified you.

“It’s fine,” he replies.

At this point, you’ve turned away and started to clean up. There isn’t a lot of blood, but enough to make shivers go down your spine as the image of Ushijima’s fist colliding with Oikawa’s face flashes through your head.

You feel your breathing heave as you try to collect yourself from breaking down in front of Oikawa. But something stops you. Instead of your usual hiding, you feel yourself let go and come undone. One small tear rolls down your cheek.

And then another. And then another. And then another. Until you can’t urge yourself to stop them anymore.

Oikawa freezes as he hears you sniffling. This time you don’t hide behind your wide smile. This time you’re actually crying and honestly he doesn’t know what to do. His intention wasn’t to make you cry, he wanted to protect you. And now he feels guilty for even putting you in this position.

“I’m sorry,” you pant, your voice broken by stifled breaths. “It’s all my fault you got hurt. I should’ve never gone to that stupid dinner.”

There’s this nagging feeling in his head pleading to comfort you. To hug you, to tell you it’s not your fault. His consciousness is screaming at him to do something to help as he watched you come undone in front of him. But why is he so afraid to?

“You were right, you’ve always been right,” you continue. “I’m so so sorry Tōru.”

You pause wiping the tears away that tracked down your face feeling awkward from exposing your vulnerable side to Oikawa. Tearing your eyes away from the first aid kit, you turn to look at Oikawa. There’s pity written all over his face. Your hands curl into fists.

It’s painfully tense as Oikawa attempts to muster up the courage to stand up to comfort you. He doesn’t want to regret his decision but he still hesitates, considering you’re now gazing at him.

“I-- I just,” you stutter, partially because you want to fill the awkward silence someway, and partially because you’re worried you’ve scared him. “I was scared…”

You stare at him.

He stares back.

Your heart feels like it’s in throbbing pain under Oikawa’s gaze.

His stomach clenches as you revert to silence.

Suddenly you hear the front door unlock and Iwaizumi call out that he's arrived. You feel your face burn up as you revert eye contact and lean on the counter to see Iwaizumi in the doorway of the bathroom.

“What the fuck happened,” he yells, visibly unamused that you both ditched him at a restaurant with people he didn’t know. You look at him with glazed eyes unable to utter a single word then that’s when he notices Oikawa’s appearance. “Shit.”

Oikawa’s face turns in a smirk. “You should have seen the other guy.”

“I did!” He protests. “Not even a scratch compared to you. You’re fucking stupid.”

"He hurt Y/N," Oikawa protest.

Iwaizumi's eyes widened looking towards you.

"He didn't hurt me," you reassure. "He just grabbed my bruised wrist."

Iwaizumi sighs, shaking his head. "You have to stop running off like that."

Oikawa watches the intimate interaction of indescribable energy or chemistry that lingers in the air between the two of you. He didn’t like it. Not even one bit.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #ushijima x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #oikawa x reader #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

Text

On the other hand, and moving away from direct Mechanisms Discourse (which I prefer to not get over involved in tbh but also this ISN'T about that it's just jumping off it) - it absolutely is deeply classist to assume that somebody is illiterate or ignorant because of poverty/assumed poverty, and that's a huge problem. but also I think on a broader social level (at least in the UK) there is an idea in the left that it's classist to acknowledge the connection between poverty and illiteracy, while the truth is that illiteracy is a problem of poverty (poverty not in the sense of just Not Having Money but in the sense of system denial of adequate resources). Poverty doesn't = illiteracy but illiteracy is very much a problem of poverty - not a failure of a marginalised individual but a failure of the system marginalising them.

Adult illiteracy is a surprisingly large issue in eg both rural and urban Scotland, but it's not because poor people are stupid, ignorant or unwilling to learn - it's because schools are inadequate or inaccessible, classes are managed not taught, teachers are stretched thin and schools are underfunded so don't have resources to help struggling students, if you get to secondary school still unable to read and write you're completely locked out of the educational system unless you can access a school with the resources to teach you individually, and because of this, classism and a lack of support, poorer kids are more likely to switch off school as early as possible.

Social geography is also a big issue. In urban areas, schools in poorer areas get bad reputations, so they're underfunded, so they do worse, so they're funded less, etc, until they're a bare minimum of staff just trying to get through the day in collapsing buildings with no resources and five textbooks. Where better-funded schools can afford teaching assistants, 1:1 support for struggling students, decent food provision for kids, follow-up on children in need of support at home, more teachers for smaller classes, maybe counseling and psychological support, maybe Special Educational Needs classes for older kids to work on basic literacy and numeracy to catch up, worse-funded schools have one underpaid unsupported teacher trying to manage a class of 35 kids with wildly different needs. They don't have the resources to help support kids with issues that might affect their schooling, like parental abuse or neglect, trauma, a parent in prison, care responsibilities, hunger, homelessness, neurodiversities that affect their ability to learn in the prescribed way, learning disabilities like dyslexia, physical health issues including visual or auditory impairments...all things that when supported are highly surmountable but when unsupported often end up with children being perceived and treated as stupid, disruptive or evil. The problem then compounds itself because the kids are badly treated which makes them more disruptive and less able to learn, and more and more work is needed to help them which teachers continue to not have any capacity or resources for.

Rural poverty comes with its own schooling issues as well, in that poverty is generally correlated with remoteness. Poor rural communities are often hours away from population centres, so either you have tiny highly local schools serving a handful of families where a single teacher needs to invent lesson plans that somehow balance the needs of 11 year olds and 4 year olds of all abilities, or your kids need to somehow get into town every morning before you get to work, which may mean dropping them off at 6am, having to part pay for buses, taxis or ferries, sending them on their own, or leaving them with friends and family, and realistically the way that often shakes down is that they don't go. You teach them at home, and they may not even exist for the truancy office to know about.

Literacy is also connected to family culture. Both my parents were people with degrees from educated families, and my mum was a full time parent, and the result is that school didn't teach me to read - I was already a confident and enthusiastic reader. Even richer families may hire tutors for small children, pay for extracurricular learning, etc. The poorer a family is, the more likely neither parent is available to spend time reading with their kids, because they're working full time - at that economic level a single income household is almost entirely unviable so either both parents work or there's a single parent working extra hours or they're just exhausted from worrying about the bills and what's sold to them as a personal failure to look after their family.

One thing it's easy to forget is that while people in the UK still do drop out of school in their teens to work, a generation ago it was almost the norm for a lot of communities (especially the children of farmers, miners and factory workers) to have left school well before the end of compulsory education, both because of school being a hostile space and because of the need for an additional income. Now as well as then, a lot of kids drop out to work as unpaid carers, disproportionately in poorer families that can't afford private care or therapeutic support. Literacy aside, generations of leaving school with no qualifications doesn't tend to teach you that formal learning is as important as experience and vocational learning, and you don't expect to finish anyway so why put yourself through misery trying to do well? But it includes literacy. I grew up in a former mining area and a lot of people my dad's age and older were literate enough to read signs and football results, but took adult classes in middle age or later to get past the pointing finger and moving lips. and if you're parents don't or can't read, it's a lot harder for you to learn.

There's a lot of classism and shame tied up in the roots of illiteracy. Teachers and governments and schoolmates will often have vocally expressed low expectations of poorer students; a rich child who does poorly at school has problems, a poor child who does poorly at school is a problem child. They're often treated with hostility and aggression from infancy and any anger or disinterest in school is often treated not as a problem to be solved but as proof that you were right to deem them a write-off. Poorer or more neglected children (or children for whom English is a second language) will often be deemed "stupid" by their peers, and start at a disadvantage because of the issues around early childhood learning in families where parents are overstretched.

Kids learn not to admit that they don't know or understand something, because if you start school unable to read and write and do basic maths when a lot of kids your age are already confident, you get mocked and called stupid and lazy by your peers, and treated with frustration by your teachers. So kids learn to avoid people noticing that they need help. That means that school, which could help a lot, isn't somewhere you can go for help but a source of huge anxiety and pain - more so when you factor in the background radiation of classism that only grows as you get older around not having the right clothes, the right toys, the right experiences, my mum says your mum's a ragger, my mum says I shouldn't hang out with you because you're a bad lot - so again kids switch off very early and see education as something to survive not something helpful.

The same is very much true of adult literacy. A lot of adults are very shamed and embarrassed to admit that they struggle with reading and writing - a lot of parents particularly want to be able to teach their kids to read, but aren't confident readers themselves, and feel too stupid and embarrassed to admit out loud that they can't read well, let alone to seek out and endure adult literacy classes that are a constant reminder of their perceived failure and ignorance (and can also be excruciating. Books for adult literacy learning are not nearly widespread enough and a lot of intelligent experienced adults are subjected to reading Spot the Dog and similar books targeted at small children's interests). Adult literacy classes also cost time and also money, so a lot of people only have the space for them after retirement, if at all.

And increasingly, illiteracy (or lack of fluency in English) increases poverty and marginalisation, and thus the chances of inherited literacy problems. Reading information, filling out forms and accessing the internet in a meaningful way are all massively limited by illiteracy, and you need those skills to access welfare, to access medical care, to avoid exploitative loans, to deal with any service providers, etc. Most jobs above minimum wage and a lot below require a fairly high level of literacy, whether it's office work or reading an instructional memo on a building site or reading drink instructions in McDonalds. Illiteracy is a huge barrier between somebody and the rest of the world, especially in a modern world that just assumes universal literacy, and especially especially as more and more of life involves the internet, texting, WhatsApp, email, and so on - it's becoming harder and harder for people with limited literacy to be fully involved in society. And that means the only mobility is downwards, and that exacerbates all the problems that lead to adult illiteracy.

People who can't read after the age of 6 or so are treated as stupid. People who can't read fluently when they're adults are seen as stupid and almost subhuman. There's so much shame and personal judgement attached to difficulty reading, but the fact that illiteracy is almost exclusively linked to poverty and deprivation is pretty conclusive. Illiteracy isn't about the failure or stupidity of the individual, it's about the lack of support, care and respect afforded to poor people at all stages of their life. Being illiterate doesn't make you stupid - many people are highly intelligent, creative, capable, thoughtful, and illiterate. I know people who can immediately solve complex engineering problems on the fly but take ten minutes to write down a sentence of instruction. It isn't classist to say that illiteracy is caused by poverty - it's both classist and inaccurate to say that illiteracy says anything about the worth, intelligence or personhood of the poor, that it's a result of a desire to be ignorant, or that it's evidence that people are poor because they're stupid, incapable, ignorant or bad parents. The link between poverty and illiteracy is the problem of classism and bigotry, no more no less, and we deal with it by working against the ideas that both poverty and lack of education are a reflection of individual worth.

Illiteracy isn't a problem of intelligence, it's a problem of education, and that matters because education is not inherent. it's something that has to be provided and maintained by parents, by the state, by the community. you're not born educated. you are educated. except more than a quarter of the Scottish population isn't educated, because the system doesn't give a fuck about them and actively excludes them or accidentally leaves them behind.

#idl why i wrote this I'm just very angry about how we as a culture treat adult illiteracy in the uk #which is to say - we don't #we ignore it and think about it as a problem of the past or of other countries #and if we do encounter it we treat illiterate people as uniquely stupid and ignorant #as if it's a personal not systemic problem #26.7% of people in Scotland are either illiterate or have severe issues with literacy #16.4% in the uk as a whole #it's this invisible symptom of deprivation that nobody fucking talks about #less than half of people in prison have basic literacy and numeracy skills #and that's not because only stupid people end up in prison it's because illiteracy is a symptom of the poverty pipeline #and i don't think there's current data on this but I'd guess we're going to see an ongoing dip in literacy rates #correlated with austerity from 2010 on #because child poverty and child hunger in this country has consistently steeply climbed since then #and you don't. learn well. when you're hungry.#and also i anticipate a drop in literacy associated with Covid. it's two years where kids without existing literacy skills #parents who are home and consistent internet access have really been unable to engage with a lot of classes #and teachers have been even less able to offer meaningful personalised support #and two years is SO LONG in early years. being set back two years compared to other students can affect your education your whole life.

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it.

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one.

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately. Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about.

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives. Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about.

But alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it.

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse.

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears.

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened.

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

youtube

Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did.

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not.

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further.

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough.

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can’t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim.

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up.

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to.

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat, hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save.

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come.

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”.

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons. Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you.

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out.

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#star vs the forces of evil #tom lucitor #prince of wishful thinking #meteora butterfly #eclipsa butterfly #moon butterfly #rhys dharby #disney xd #disney channel #disney plus #reviews

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