#again I get this also encourages involvement from more people on the island | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

roronoaswifey · 1 year

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𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐉𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐘.

summary. luffy has an interesting way to show you the pirate empress meant nothing to him, despite your clear annoyance.

pairing. monkey d. luffy x f!reader

warnings/tags. unprotected sex, kinda drunk sex?? (not encouraging), penetration, oral (f), cunningulus, dry humping, overstimulation, past luffy and boa, kinda past grooming?? (again, not encouraging), spit as lube, handjobs, reader is kinda insecure but hides it behind a foul mouth, bestfriend-ish!zoro and he’s kinda a dumbass

wc. 5.7k

kazu’s note. no, i am not a luffy x boa shipper. leave me alone

you weren’t jealous. you couldn’t be. you had no right to be.

it’d been two years since you all last saw each other. you’ve all grown and matured into adults. maturity involved newly developed feelings— such as sexual needs. so it’s to no surprise that he of all people would also discover his libido and want to blow off that steam.

he did, after all, stay on an all-female island for years. naturally, that’d be any male’s ultimate fantasy. the women there must’ve been curious and excited for a young and fresh male to have arrived after so many years of being deprive of men.

and to top it all of, the ruler of that island was madly in love with him. it’s to no surprise she’d offer to be the outlet to his urges, and it’s no bigger surprise that he’d foolishly agree.

of course, of all fucking people, he had slept with the prettiest woman alive, boa hancock.

the very simple thought of boa getting to see luffy at his most vulnerable state, naked and willing, had you clutching at the gun in your hands tighter.

“fucking hell—” you cussed, switching the safety clip and pulling the trigger one, two, three times. the bullet landed neatly in the centre of the dart board, smoke following the release of the bullets.

luffy fucked her. luffy fucked her, not you. she had the pleasure of undressing him, had her lips on his, greedy hands all over his body, his dick plunged deep in her—

“godfuckingdamnit!” you groaned, pulling the trigger and hitting the same dartboard through the hole multiple times. you couldn’t help the anger bubbling in your blood.

you had no reason to be jealous. you weren’t his girlfriend, he wasn’t your boyfriend. the furthest you’ve gone was drunkenly kiss on the top of the sunny head figure under the stars. you once cherished the memory but you weren’t so sure if it meant anything at all anymore.

you were so lost in blasting the wall to bits (and you knew franky would have your head on a platter for the destruction) to notice the new and unwanted presence in the room.

“uh…” the swordsman trailed off, eyes shifting from you to your target, and back to you. he seemed almost regretful wanting to check up on the disruption.

you snapped your head to the side, annoyance clear on your expression as you scowled, “what?”

“you, um, good?” his question was ridiculous. everybody in the ship had their own methods to calm themselves down— sanji with his cigarettes, nami with isolation and zoro, himself, with training in the crow nest. your thing was to shoot walls, apparently.

you looked away from him, rolling your eyes and focusing back on your target ahead of you, “yeah.”

“okay…” he squinted his eyes in confusion, but chose not to press further. he knew better than to bother you when you were clearly not good, as last time it resulted with a bullet almost piercing through his skull.

he took a step back, ready to leave when you cut him off with a stiff, “wait.” he froze in spot, mentally cursing himself for even having bothered to show up. he did not want to deal with your mood swings.

“what is it?” he asked, much to his dismay.

“do you find boa pretty, zoro?” you squinted an eye, narrowing your field of vision as you pointed your glock once more forward. this time, however, you aimed at the dartboard pinned right above the previous one.

“uh…” he trailed off, brain trying to process the catch behind your question. as your best friend, he knew you’d most likely lash out at him for answering incorrectly and he really didn’t want to piss you off with a weapon at your disposal. “no?”

“are you gay or something?” you mumbled, digging into your pockets and reloading your clips.

“hah? all i said was no, how the hell did you—”

“who wouldn’t find the world’s prettiest woman alive pretty?” you sighed, your patience already running thin. you could tell he was lying to you, and wanted to please you with an answer that would free him away from you as soon as possible.

you quickly corrected yourself, “unless of course, you don’t swing that way.”

“i just said i’m not— fuck, okay, yeah she isn’t so bad on the eyes. there, happy?” he rolled his eye, hoping he’d be released now.

no, you were nowhere near happy.

“tch, of course you do,” you grumbled, gripping on the gun in your hands and proceeded to shoot at the dartboard once more. “of course you do, fucking dipshit.”

zoro gawked at the accusation, stunned at your sudden mood swing, “what— woman, you asked me a question?!”

“just go away before i blast your skull in,” you rolled your eyes, knowing you wouldn’t actually. you hoped it was enough to scare the boy, though.

“fucking gladly,” he left without hesitation. you sighed once the door closed, dropping the gun to the floor.

it wasn’t getting fun blowing the wall anymore. it wouldn’t change the fact that luffy had his hands all over her. it wouldn’t change the fact that no matter what, his virginity was lost to the pirate empress.

you’ve never had a problem with boa, and to some extent, you still don’t. although you’ve heard bad reviews on her attitude, it never really affected you in anyway since she was no important aspect in your life.

presumably it wasn’t her fault that luffy decided to sleep with her. and it wasn’t luffy’s fault either he wanted to sleep with her. you were simply insecure, and the idea that the only man that’s ever made you feel warmth in your chest and hasn’t taken advantage of you was busy pleasuring other women.

you crouched down, squatting as you placed your head in your hands, elbows resting at your knee caps. you needed to get a grip. you were overreacting, and the more the thoughts consumed you, the angrier you’d get.

his moans. his breaths. his whines. she got to hear all of it, she got to keep it a memory, gets to replay the memory over and over as she pleases.

did he… love her?

your fingers slipped onto your scalps as you tugged hard onto your hair, “fucking hell!”

•••

he was getting touchy again. the damn bastard.

you once loved his touchiness whenever he’d unintentionally get drunk. he’d always cling to you, arms around your waist, offering to dance, slipping a few kisses on your neck and always gave giggly laughs.

you loved having all of his attention, even if half the time you wouldn’t remember it all the next morning.

except now, you were in no mood to deal with it. you were tipsy enough as it was, and instead of being the usual, happy drunk you were, you were currently in a grumpy state, your hazy thoughts fucking with your mind as all you could remember was luffy having sex.

“y/n!” your captain whined, tugging onto your free arm as you chugged down the rest of your sake with the other. “let’s dance— wanna dance with you!”

“leave me alone, lu.” you were being childish, you knew. but in a sober state, you probably would’ve reacted differently. all self control you once had was immediately thrown away and you now would react simply as your mind wanted you to.

the strawhats seemingly noticed your odd behaviour, but chose to speak against it. you were clearly in a mood, and they wisely knew better than to provoke it.

zoro continued to drink his sake, nami and usopp pretended to engage in a conversation though clearly eavesdropping, sanji taking inhales of his cigs, chopper grinding on some herbs innocently, robin flipping pages through her book while sipping her wine, franky throwing random lyrics to brook’s out of tune violin melody.

“whyyy?” he complained further, now slipping an arm around your waist, pulling you closer in his embrace. a pout fell on his lips, “we always dance together…”

“not in the mood, ask somebody else,” you deadpanned. the disappointment and hurt in his eyes made you feel shitty. you felt bad, but the powerful emotion that was jealousy quickly washed it away.

“no, y/n, i want you and only you, always!” luffy was stubborn, and had now switched the hurt look to a determined one. he was frowning, lip twitching in anticipation, daring you to oppose him.

the strawhats simultaneous paused their actions, all throwing a glance at you both, curiosity eating them alive. luffy was always known for being expressive, but did he understand the depth of his words?

you only scoffed, and regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth, “is that why you went and fucked miss pirate empress?”

zoro spat out his drink. both nami and usopp gagged in shock. sanji inhaled too sharply and choked. chopper halted his movements. robin stopped midway through flipping her page. brook hit an ear-scratching tune and franky stumbled on his legs.

luffy only blinked at you. it seemed he was out of words, for once. good, you rolled your eyes, gulping down the rest of your booze and slamming the cup on the dining table.

“y/n, i—”

“i’m going to bed. night, guys,” you waved off into complete silence, dragging your seat behind you and standing up. luffy’s limp arms left your body, and you suddenly found yourself wishing they were around you a little longer.

whatever. your mind was buzzing and you felt lighter than usual. you probably shouldn’t have drank that much and quickly in such a short time.

slipping out of the kitchen, you sighed deeply, suddenly feeling a rush of blood flowing through your head. you leaned against the wall momentarily, attempting to catch yourself, before the door swung open and revealed none other than the one person you weren’t in the mood to see.

you visibly scowled, “no,” you lifted yourself off of the wall, ready to walk in the opposite direction— anywhere away from this conversation. it’s too bad his abilities interrupted your attempts, arm stretching to grab ahold of your wrist and holding you in place.

“y/n, what did you mean back there?” his eyes zeroed in on you, his usual childish glint now replaced with an unusual seriousness.

“exactly what i said, now let go.” you rolled your eyes, attempting to pry his grip off of you. your efforts were deemed fruitless, as it did nothing to remove him. you only kissed your teeth in agitation.

“leave me alone, luffy!”

“why’d you bring hancock into this?” he ignored your complaints, posing questions of his own. his grip slightly tightened, eyes slightly narrowing, “answer me, y/n.”

you didn’t want to. if you did, you fear you’d spill everything and make matters worse. you weren’t ready to confess to him just yet how terribly annoyed and jealous you felt at the thought of him sleeping with her. it was such a childish feeling, and as much as you hated it, you seriously couldn’t help but feel it.

“none of your damn business,” luffy might be stubborn, but so were you. you glared start him with as much intensity as he gave back, not letting up your front. “now fuck off, would ya?”

“you’re jealous.” the rubber boy simply stated. not even a question, no shred of doubt in his conclusion. he just up and did it, verbally accused you of a feeling you’d fought to hold back for weeks.

opting to result to your only defence mechanism and lie, your left eyebrow twitched in annoyance, “how conceited of you, captain.” you didn’t miss the way his body jerked at the title, though you were confused as to why.

he stared at you with an unreadable expression, dark obsidians scanning your face whole. you almost felt like cowering at the glare, though you held your ground. you were not gonna let him win.

after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, luffy finally spoke with clarity, “come with me, i got something to show you.”

your brows pinched in confusion, ready to object against his decision before warm hands were placed on your bare waist, pulling you off your feet and throwing you over his shoulder. it was all too quick, and your vision blurred slightly from the sudden switch of positions.

“wait— luffy! fucking let me go!” you complained using your arms to pry yourself off of him.

the raven haired pirate ignored you, proceeding to drag you around with ease. you hated how weak you felt, though deep down you couldn’t suppress the tingle of excitement sitting in your gut. you weren’t exactly sure what his plans were with you, but you were hoping it’d lead to him destroying your insides.

sooner or later, you ended up on the guest room’s bed, no thanks to luffy’s manhandling. you were ready to pull yourself up and cuss your captain out, until you found your hands pinned at the top of your head and a frowning luffy inches away from your face.

your eyes widened, in surprise at the sudden closeness. his wide eyes eyed you with so much intensity, you weren’t sure what the boy had going on in the back of his mind. your throat suddenly clogged, mouth dry as the words died at the back of your tongue.

you felt so open. legs spread with the boy placed between them, arms locked in therefore unable to do anything but submit to whatever luffy wanted from you. his breath fanned over your lips, and you were suddenly painfully aware of the warmth radiating from his pink lips.

you wanted to kiss him again, you gulped.

“she doesn’t mean anything to me.” he spoke the words with such clarity, no space for insincerity anywhere. luffy was no liar, he might’ve been the most honest man you knew, and for that sole reason you didn’t realize how desperate you were to hear that.

“what tells you i give a fuck?” you tried barking back, hating how he could read you so well. your face twisted into a frown when all he did was stare deep your eyes, subconsciously pressing himself deeper into you.

your pupils blown wide, your heartbeat raced quickly and butterflies roamed wildly in your stomach at the hard-on pressing against your heat. your teeth tugged at your bottom lip harshly, doing the best in your abilities to hold back to moan that threatened to release.

“do you feel that?” he mumbled lowly, leaning further into your space, this time adding more pressure into his thrust. you jerked up from the impact, and a whine unwillingly left your lips. he tightened his hold on your hands.

luffy gave you a feral grin, hips now profoundly bumping into yours, rubbing into your pelvic area, “it’s always been you, silly, don’t you know this?”

“not when you’re going around and fucking other girls,” you spat through gritted teeth, the slightest twinge of jealousy still lingering in your blood.

what should’ve annoyed luffy only made him chuckle darkly, releasing a hand from yours and lowering it down to your thigh. he picked it up, throwing it over his hips, the switch of position now deepening his humps. he continued to rub himself into you, eyes focused on the way you so desperately tried to hold yourself back.

“she doesn’t mean anything to me,” he repeated himself once more, tongue darting out of his parted lips and moistening them. a smirk returned to his mouth when a particular thrust against your clothed clit made you moan. “nothing, y/n.”

heat licked at your spine, stomach churning and yearning for more. the grip on your thigh was sickening— he purposely shifted your hips to angle you at a position that would drive you insane. his bulge repeatedly toyed at your clothed clit, and your mind fell to mush.

“say it, y/n,” he leaned closer, mouth now pressed on yours. you inhaled his breath, and it left your head dizzy. he worded his next sentence onto your glossed lips, “say it.”

what did he want you to say exactly? there were so many possibilities and to a majority of them, you’d rather bite your own tongue off than comply. did he want you to admit you had feelings for him? did he want you to beg him to fuck you? did he want you truly speak your mind?

it seems his patience was running thin, as a sudden hard bite to your lower lip pulled you out of your trance. the pain of his teeth plunging into your flesh turned you on more than you’d like to admit.

“don’t make me repeat myself.” he spoke darkly, only releasing your lip at the end of his command. he had an expectant look on his face, his eyes glossed with a look you’d never seen before.

you inhaled sharply, taking your best shot. you had tossed every shred of dignity and pride left in you, and since he probably wanted to hear, “fuck me, luffy.”

to your shock, your captain smiled at you. you frowned, confused at his sudden switch of moods, nearly blinded by the pearly whites he flashed, “not what i wanted to hear, though i was planning to already.”

you felt your face heat up in utter embarrassment. stupid bastard, what else did he want you to say? and what the hell did he mean he was planning to already? you weren’t opposing to the idea, but the nerve he had—

“fuck off, lu,” you rolled your eyes, shifting your gaze away from the man above you, too painfully humiliated to actually face him.

though, your actions were yet again fruitless as the hand that held your thigh now cupped your jaw, index finger beneath your chin and forced you to keep your eyes on him. his smile was replaced by his previous serious one, bug eyes staring deep into you.

“try again, y/n,” and before you could complain, for what felt like the nth time tonight, your words were cut off before given an opportunity to speak.

luffy pressed a deep kiss into your mouth, eyelids falling shut momentarily, inhaling your taste. you eagerly kissed him back, your free hand moving straight to his hair, tugging at the wild locks. he hummed appreciatively, nipping and nibbling at the plushness of your lips.

you’d only began engaging into the kiss, soft lips rubbing on yours so intoxicatingly, that you uncharacteristically whined when the boy pulled away.

he panted heavily, a cocky smile etched on his face. he was starting to piss you off now with his teasing, and his damned, “try again.”

“god— fine, fuck!” you complained, and gave it another try. you huffed, still in disbelief at the idea of it but decided to go with it anyway. “she doesn’t mean anything…to you.”

“well there we go,” he nuzzled his nose into yours, and you felt your chest flutter with warmth at the endearing action. “wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“you gonna fuck me or not?” your patience was at its limit. you wanted him and quickly, and wiggled your hips into his warningly, “or do i need to finish this off myself?

“no need, i’m here for ya!” he pulled himself up and flashed his signature smile, followed by his paired laugh. you wondered where he was going off to, but your question was soon enough answered by the harsh tug on your shorts, now discarded elsewhere onto the floor. you simultaneously removed your top.

he crawled onto his stomach, forcefully spreading your legs and now revealing your soaked panties. your bit your lip, eyes casted elsewhere as you tried your best to push your embarrassment aside. you were horny, and if the damp spot on your panties didn’t say otherwise, you don’t know what else could’ve given it away.

“all this for me?” he mumbled, stuck in a trance, and you weren’t even sure if he was speaking to you or himself.

still, it was embarrassing so with an attempt to close your thighs together that luffy stopped with ease, you kissed your teeth, “stop staring and do something already!”

“you smell so good,” he dragged an index finger up and down your clothed pussy, revelling in the way you threw your head back and whined so prettily. he couldn’t wait to wreck you.

“more, luffy…” you breathed out, and before you could beg some more, the boy tugged off your panties off, discarding them once more somewhere on the floor, and dove deep into your legs.

a loud moan was ripped out of your chest, hands gripping the sheets tightly as your captain made a mess of you.

legs hiked over his broad shoulders, his fingers gripped your plushy thighs, his tongue working wonders. he dragged the muscle up and down, left and right, rotating in circles and occasionally pushing past your walls and into you. the tip of his nose bumped against your clit so precisely, that the added stimulation had you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans.

luffy moaned shamelessly into your cunt, sloppily feasting on you as if it were his last meal. the vibrations of his voice sent pleasant shivers all across your limbs. your thighs began dripping with a mixture of your slick and his saliva, the result clear and smudged all over his mouth.

when luffy released your lips with a pop, you were forced to look down at the loss of attention on your aching pussy. though while looking down, you were met with an unimpressed frown.

“remove your hand, i wanna hear you.” he spoke sternly.

“but everyone’s still up—hnng, fuck!” a broken moan cut off your words, eyes rolling to the back of your head. pleasure buzzed all throughout your body at the spank luffy delivered onto your wet cunt, hips jerking upwards involuntarily.

“i said, remove your hand.” he warned you and wasted no time to dive back into your pussy. you decided to comply to his order, instead opting to hold back as much as you can on your moans.

it’s too bad he decided to switch the rhythm and plunge two fingers deep into your soppy cunt, lips now wrapped over your clit, sucking on it like candy.

“oh yes, fuck, yes luffy!” all hopes of remaining quiet gone. luffy fucked into you relentlessly. fingers precise, he curled, jackhammered, scissored your walls just right with the added stimulation of his tongue lapping over your clit with kitten licks.

your hands flew onto his scalp, tugging at the raven locks tightly, causing the boy below to moan shamelessly into you.

your body felt liquified as his fingering soon brought you to what you knew would be an orgasm. your toes curled, thighs squeezing around his head, nearly suffocating him though he didn’t mind.

“lu—luffy, oh god, ‘m so close, please!” you pleaded, desperate for the overpowering feeling of the tightening in your gut to release. you wanted to cum so badly, and because your captain was such a nice one, he switched the angle of his fingers, directly hitting your sweet spot, sending you over the edge.

“yesyesyes— fuck!” you squealed, legs shaking as he fucked you through your orgasm. back arching, you pushed him deeper into your cunt as you sprayed him with squirt, heels digging into his shoulder blades.

luffy greedily accepted everything you gave him, slurping on your fluids and moaning at the sweet taste of you. his tongue lapped at your juices, fingers never ceasing their movements, making sure you’d enjoy your orgasm the longest you could.

your vision blurred for a moment, eyes rolled back as your mind consumed the overwhelming pleasure of your orgasm. you’d never cum this— much less ever squirted, and the way luffy licked you clean even after your mess soon had you whining from the painful pleasure.

“too much, lu!” you complained, fingers most likely painfully pulling at his hair. the pleasure was getting too overbearing, and you’d freshly came and weren’t sure if you could take another right away.

“c’mon y/n, gimme another one,” he popped your clit out of his mouth, though his fingers never let up. he smirked at your trembling figure, his thumb now rubbing harshly over where his lips were once placed. “i know you can.”

you weren’t sure you could, but you didn’t want to disappoint him. the constant thrusts of his fingers at your sweet spot, the attention focused on your clit, your recent orgasm still lingering, the damn smirk he gave you— you soon felt the familiar pressure in your gut building.

“i—i’m, gonna, hnng, cummin’!” your words were slurred, not even certain if they were making sense, too focused on the way luffy stretched his fingers even further into your, fingertips dancing at your cervix.

“attagirl,” luffy grinned, reattaching his lips at your clit, eagerly awaiting for your juices.

his tongue moved at an unforgiving pace, vibrating rapidly while simultaneously hitting you dead-on deep in your cervix, and you swore you blacked out when you yet again emptied yourself onto him.

a much louder, wantonly moan ripped at your throat, tears staining your cheeks and drool pooling at the corner of your mouth. this time around, your entire body trembled in overstimulation, welcoming another orgasm, splurts of squirt decorating luffy’s swollen lips.

“mhm,” his pink tongue licked long stripes of your juices, licking you clean. you were too far gone to care about the prideful smirk on his face, attempting to ground yourself from this mind-blowing orgasm.

a few minutes later, you slowly managed to bring yourself back from your high, body melting into the mattress. you had no strength to pull yourself up and see what your captain was up to. though as soon as your vision focused, you were face to face with a boastful luffy.

hovering you once more, his hand rested at your jaw gently, thumb thumbing at your lip, loosely pulling your chin downward and parting your lips. you had no time to question his actions, your thoughts answered as he shoved his tongue deep into your mouth, licking into the roof of your cave.

you let your eyes fall shut, still too weak to properly kiss him back. he kissed you sloppily, tongue sloshing with yours eagerly, forcing your taste back onto your tastebuds. he tilted his head to the side, deepening the kiss, his tongue assuring to taste every inch of your mouth.

you were running short on breath, but you found yourself not minding if you went out like this. and so, a weak hand clutched onto his top, attempting to match his pace.

“gonna fuck you now,” he pulled away slightly, a string of both your salivas connecting at the tip of your tongues. “okay?”

you nodded wordlessly, arms wrapping around his neck as further approval. he grinned, tongue lapping at the trail of saliva that drooled down your chin, before placing a soft kiss at your reddened lips.

in swift movements, his pants and briefs were off, dick lubricated with his spit and precum, as he pumped his already hardened shaft a few times. you watched through lidded eyes his face contorted into a look of relief, a soft sigh escaping his lips. you wanted to give him that reaction.

and so, you lowered your own hand, grazing past your soaping pussy to gather a significant amount of slick left. shivering at the sensitivity, you leaned your hand closer to his own shaft and pumped his dick alongside with him, and nothing would prepare you for the whine he let out.

“mmh, fuck y/n, feels’good” he panted, bottom lip tugged behind a row of teeth. you tugged and tugged, rotating your wrists in circular motions, and eventually the boy let go of his own cock in favour of your hands. whenever you made it to his throbbing tip, your thumb would pay extra attention at his slit, attempting to multitask the same way he’d done prior to you.

“n-no more,” he groaned, hand firmly placed over yours and ripping it off. you frowned in discontent as the raven haired breathed hard, catching his breath.

his cheeks were flushed red, neck also tainted as he offered you a sheepish grin, “wanna cum inside your pussy. can i, y/n?” he leaned forward, pinning his hands at the side of your head for support.

you breathed out, “‘course you can, captain.” the title rolled of your tongue so naturally, you almost missed the feral glint in his eye. truly, you should’ve expected he’d react the way he did, but it still caught you entirely off guard.

one minute you’re laid down on your back, the next, your knees are folded at the side of your head, hips lifted off of the mattress, and luffy ruthlessly pounding into you.

you were already well spent from your two previous orgasms, but his fingers didn’t do his cock justice. he stretched you out so well, the tip of his cock slipping with ease into your cunt, the base of his shaft meeting your lips before quickly pulling out and reentering.

luffy was fucking you brutally. his hips were relentless— he rutted into you like it was the last thing he could do, the angle of his cock repeatedly hitting your clenching walls. he left you no time to breathe, thrusting into you so hard that your body bounced off his cock and into the headboard.

if it wasn’t for the way squeezed your eyes shut at the blissful sensation, you’d see the way your captain watched you with such want—such need that could only be expressed through his actions.

the point of contact of your bodies left sinful noises of squelches, slaps and the headboard banging on the wall. your moans overlapped one another, your voice far too broken to be heard as much as luffy’s whiny moans and praises,

“fuck, oh fuck y/n, you feel s’good!” he cried out at your gummy walls sucking him in. your cunt gripped greedily at his cock, wanting all he could give you. “pretty fucking pussy— gonna fuck you like this all the time, yeah?”

“yes, please captain!” you egged him on further, and when he released the beastly like growl, you knew you were done for. still, you were ready for whatever he had to throw at you, “harder, captain!”

and if he wasn’t fucking your brains out then, he surely was now.

a switch of angles was all it took for both him and you to feel your orgasms closing in. sweaty chests pressed against one another, your arms lazily wrapped around his neck, you sobbed and cried as you were yet again feeling the want to cum.

his stamina was insane. how he kept such a quick and hard pace and never lost tempo was beyond words. where had he learned all of this? who had taught him all of this?

you were met with a quick flash of annoyance at the thought of your previous emotions of jealousy, though it all ended the second luffy’s lips messily found yours. you were engulfed by the flavour of both him and you, the warmth of his lips and the taste of him taking over any prior thought you had.

“cummin— fuck, wanna cum inside you so bad!” luffy begged through your kiss, stealing your breath away. hips still jackhammering into your puffy pussy, he continued, “please lemme cum inside!”

“give it all t’me, lu!” you moaned, fingernails clawing at his skin. your own back arched, feeling the third orgasm of the night rolling out of you, a silent scream following your spasm. the force of clenching down on him midst orgasm drove him to his own, moaning like a pornstar into your mouth, loads of semen painting your insides white.

you both rode your orgasms out, his hips now stuttering while unintentionally overstimulating himself. you couldn’t take anymore, and so you whined and begged him to stop, and eventually came down to a halt.

the sex-scented air blended in with your pants, the both of you catching your breaths. there was a lot to unpack and you had no energy nor time to care as of the moment. you were fucked out, face a mess, body still trembling, and wanted nothing more than to fall asleep.

reluctant on staying inside you, luffy laid himself flat on your chest, nuzzling in the crevice of your breast. you brought a hand to lazily scrape at his scalp, the boy humming in content at the petting. you had finally slept with luffy, and damn were you impressed. it almost made you forget what led up to this situation— key word: almost.

as if he could read your mind, “i never actually fucked her, y’know.”

you did not know.

blinking, your hands paused their movements, ignoring the way he whined in protest. you leaned your head forward while frowning, wanting to meet his gaze and demand answers.

“the fuck? what do you mean?”

“what do you mean ‘what do i mean’?”

“luffy,” you deadpanned. “zoro literally told everyone you had sex with boa hancock during our two year interval.”

“zoro’s a dumbass,” luffy giggled, fingers absentmindedly tracing your soft skin. “while we did give each other head, i never actually fucked her. i was waiting for you.”

you gasped in surprise at his revelation. he was waiting on you? so that meant that these past weeks you’d been mourning at the idea of them potentially sleeping together pointlessly?

wait—

“i took your virginity?” you voiced out loud, still in complete shock. what the actual fuck.

“yup,” he shrugged, as if it weren’t a huge deal. he yawned tiredly, before flashing a smile, “felt really good. ‘m glad it was you.“

you felt stupid butterflies stomping in your stomach at his honesty. as much as you tried to suppress it, a smile overtook what was meant to be a scowl on your face.

“yeah, luffy, me too.”

ok but she still saw ur dick buddy 🙄

#roronoaswifey.exe #kazuha’s works 📂#luffy smut #monkey d. luffy #luffy x reader #luffy x y/n #one piece smut #one piece #one piece men #one piece fanfiction #smut #x reader

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yuri-is-online · 3 months

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Love and Deepspace Timeline: MC, Philos, and the Aether Core

Look I finished Xav's myths card. I don't regret waiting until I was done with it to post his timeline because the last two nodes have more to do with MC than him, but I am in a state so we are making this to cope.

This is all speculation and should not be taken as fact, I have done two other posts, one on Zayne and one on Xavier and I will not be doing one on Rafayel please see this reddit post by u/joonmin for relevant information about his myths card blah blah blah.

This post is less of a timeline and more here to answer questions you very likely have if you: A) decided to browse reddit and saw people saying Xavier feels like the "cannon ro" [this is a gacha game there isn't one] but have never read any of his memories, moments, or dates B) read chapter 8 and went "none of this makes sense I feel like I am missing something" or C) just generally are confused about L&D's world building and what's up with MC. I have answers for you. Wibbly wobbly soupy answers. This post also has a TL;DR in case you don't want to see me break out the string board and just want the relevant bits of information about MC you won't get from the msq.

SPOILERS FOR ALL IN GAME CONTENT UP TO CHAPTER 8, VARIOUS MOMENTS, AND ANECDOTES RELATED TO ALL 3 ROS, PROCEED WITH CARE.

Current Timeline MC (i.e. The one we are playing as)

The game starts with MC's graduation from the Academy and first day as a fully licensed hunter. We learn a few things in this first chapter, namely that MC is combat trained, has a rare heart condition known as Protocore Syndrome that has no known cure, and that her decision to become a hunter has something to do with what she experienced fourteen years ago during the Catastrophe when the Deepspace Tunnel opened and Wanderers started invading earth.

Specifically MC describes something burrowing itself into her heart. She feels helpless, like prey, and has a strong desire to never feel anything like this again. Which is unfortunate because I have a feeling a lot of someones are going to be on her trail sooner rather than later.

In Chapter 5 it is revealed that MC has an Aether core fused to her heart. This sort of human experimentation is highly illegal and it is unknown who did this to MC other than our beloved Grandmother was directly involved. Grandma appears to have taken MC away from wherever this happened after the tests started to threaten MC's life.

This is known to Dr. Zayne and Dr. Noah, though neither seem to know more than what Grandma told them. Neither of them seem to fully understand what an Aether core is or what it is doing to MC's heart. Zayne in particular seems to find this extremely concerning.

Uncovering the mystery of the Aether core seems to be what will be driving the first arc so we will not be discussing it at length here. I do want to note that Xavier absolutely knows what it is, while Zayne does not but does seem to know more of the technical aspects of how it is effecting MC, and Rafayel is at least aware of it being valuable and maybe why exactly the people in the N109 Zone want it.

At some point in the past MC met and made a promise to Rafayel. It is my personal theory that this likely took place on Hat Island during the field trip MC talks about due to some of the comments made in Chapter 7.

MC and Caleb were friends with Zayne in childhood. MC's exact age is a bit fuzzy, but the game does seem to suggest she is younger than Zayne. She does not know why Zayne disappeared from her life or what led him to become a doctor.

Comments in Chapter 4 suggests that Caleb encouraged MC to become a hunter. He seems to be very supportive of her, but Grandma seems more interested in trusting MC's protection to Zayne.

On the surface MC seems pretty normal. Her memories from before the Catastrophe seem to be gone, if she had a mother and father or other blood relatives, she doesn't remember them anymore.

Philos MC (i.e. What is Going on in the Myths)

It is revealed in Xavier's When Shooting Stars Fall anecdote that Philos is Earth in the distant future. This has confused numerous people in the notes of my Xav's timeline so I am going to be insufferable and attempt to assist with a graph:

The MC you play belongs to the game timeline, the MCs (plural each myths card features a different one) in the Myths cards come from the Philos timeline. I have tagged the Game timeline as a "potential tangent" as the events that take place in game are entirely reliant on the existence of the Deepspace Tunnel, which is created in the Philos timeline.

At some point in the Original/Philos Timeline, Earth's core ceases to function. Humanity replaces it with a new, artificial core that causes noticeable weather changes and fuses all of the tectonic plates together, and begins a new calendar counting forward from the years since Earth ceased to be and Philos was born. As a result, we don't know what exact year Earth's core giving out happened in the Original Timeline. The artificial core allows almost all humans to "live eternal." They seem to be like Tolkien's elves in the sense they can live for an eternity but they start to get tired after a while and give up on life. This is why there is a royal family that needs a line of succession. Xavier is the Crown Prince of Philos, he meets MC in school and learns she has a rare disease called Protocore Syndrome which will not allow her to live forever. He attempts to cure this by finding a specific protocore she mentions, but fails to reach her in time and is forced to watch her die. This all happens in the year 214.

At some point MC is reborn and assigned to the same teacher as Xavier. She is to train to become his knight and serve as the leader of the Lightseekers, an order tasked with killing Wanderers. At some point during or before Xavier's coming of age ceremony, he learns the truth about Philos: the planet is dying due to the artificial core never having been meant to sustain the planet this long. The Royal Family's solution for this is to occasionally feed humans to the heart of Philos in Starfall Forest. When they do this, it creates Wanderers. As if that wasn't bad enough, Xavier learns that his father and the royal family have found what they think could be a permanent solution: there is a girl who has achieved true immortality. She is the only person on Philos who can die and be reborn constantly, and while they don't seem to know why she does this, the royal family believes this girl is the life force of the planet itself.

This girl is MC and Xavier does not want this to happen. He has a plan that he does not explain to MC, but it involves traveling back in time. He says they have specific places in time picked out, but we know from Xavier's Passing By anecdote that something went wrong with his team's attempt at time travel and now there is no guarantee that the MC he left on Philos as its Queen is still there.

So now we have two timelines: Original/Philos Timeline and Game/Tangent Timeline. But all of that is just taking Xavier's anecdotes and Myths card into account... so what happens if we try to plug in the other two ROs?

Rafayel

In u/Joonmin's reddit post they mention two very important bits of information: 1) It has been 30,000 years since the sea dried up and 2) MC is a member of the royal family of Philos, not by birth but because "she has a heart that’s been blessed by the gods" and has "awoken from the depths." If all three myths cards take place in the same Philos timeline as the one Xavier leaves, we can reasonably place Raf's myths card after Xavier's backtrack mission.

So the Philos timeline would look like this. I have a note for Zayne's card there as well, but if I had to get picky with it I'm slightly tempted to place his Myths card between MC's first death and her being reborn to meet Xavier again. The other explanation would be that there are three separate Philos timelines created because the MC was successfully scarified to the Heart of Philos. In Xavier's Myths 6 MC briefly takes a dip in the space time anomaly at the center of Starfall Forest which could also explain MC scattering across different timelines, but the in game spacepedia makes a point to say that there is a chance that life still exists on Philos:

So it could simply be that MC over there has been stuck in the exact cycle of death and rebirth that Xavier was trying to prevent. It could also mean that when they add that mystery fourth love interest there is an explanation for a fourth possible myths card. Anyway all this information leaves us with a set of timelines that currently look like this:

This still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, if the Philos timeline is where this all starts, what version of it is? What caused Earth's core to give out in that original timeline? Is Rafayel and Lumeria's existence the consequences of clashing timelines or are mermaids cannon to this universe? What effect on the space time continuum did Xavier's actions have? And how much of this is actually going to be answered in game?

TL;DR

Philos is Earth in the future with an artificial core that started running out of power, and never should have been made in the first place.

The royal family fed some of their long lived humans to the anomaly in Starfall forest to keep the planet running, but then they found out about a girl who could constantly be reborn each time she died and had an idea.

An idea Xavier wasn't very keen on but who cares. They thought that "when the time was right" they would sacrifice her to the rift and leave her there to die and be reborn forever. They also did not think to ask her.

Oh yeah when they fed people to the rift they turned into Wanderers. So wanderers = people as mentioned in Zayne's Still in the Dark anecdote.

Whatever makes MC reincarnate might have something to do with Lumeria, or at the very least the Lumerians in Rafayel's myths card seem to think it does.

In game MC, current timeline MC knows none of this, and has no memories from her lives, past or future. This is consistent across all her incarnations.

Final Thoughts

The only reason why I think this way about timelines is because I watched Donnie Darko in a college theater class. People like to argue about that movie and how it is supposed to be interpreted, but generally speaking they all seem to think that Tangent Timelines and the Tangent Universes they spawn get deleted very quickly, so maybe that's why the game starts by talking about "being able to leave this loop" and why Xavier seems to think something bad will be happening to Linkon City soon.

Chapter 8 ends with Xavier attempting to send a message back through the Deepspace Tunnel to make contact with someone. Interestingly enough he calls this "Traceback II." This sounded familiar to me and sure enough the game starts by mentioning that exact same thing, it is going past a black hole and is what says that line "we are stuck in this loop."

I thought in previous posts that the Aether Core is what could cure MC... but now I think the Aether Core is likely what Philos's artificial core is called... so who created it in the first place? ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ)

The Deepspace Tunnel is a spacetime anomaly likely caused by Philos's existence since it was "never meant to exist." So why was it created? And by who?

#love and deepspace #l&d #love and deepspace xavier #love and deepspace zayne #love and deepspace rafayel #as a side note i hate how the reddit girlies are like #“just finished this myth card! can anyone tell me what to think of it?”#if you gave me the details of what happened yes i could otherwise please do not waste my time #i am autistic and cannot make you a spreadsheet without the data you are denying meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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electronicdelusionstarlight · 9 months

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You know, I was just thinking about the UA entrance exam.

Specifically, how terribly designed it is, but not for the reason they seem to give in the story itself.

Like, here's how it is: Aizawa is shown criticising the UA Entrance Exam once, during the Sports Festival. And the ONE criticism he makes, is that the use of Robot enemies during the exam would disproportionately affect people whose Quirk work against biological opponents, essentially.

His one criticism, is that the exam is not designed to also cater to people like him, and that's it. The way therefore it's set up, it'd be logical to assume he'd ask for a restructuring to the exam to remove the Robots and substitute them with live enemies, possibly Ectoplasm clones.

This is never brought up again, aside from maybe a stealth bring up during the mid term exams when they switch the exam from fighting robots to fighting teachers.

The exam is, and I just got to it myself while watching this video about how Copaganda paints police training and the relative risk police officers face on the job, set up in a very specific environment:

An empty town, where what is essentially a murder spree is taking place. The ONLY entities in the place, outside of fellow examinee, are robots that have been literally designed to attack everyone on sight, and that need to be destroyed to pass. The points granted from saving people are hidden, so they can be more "genuine" of course, and are, ultimately, also part of the problem.

Because here's the fucking thing.

When the fuck is that ever going to happen.

When the fuck, is a superhero, after their 5 years of Hero training in high school, then entering the work force without a need for a decree in higher education, ever going to find themselves in an environment where they can use LETHAL FORCE on civilian targets? With no restraint or care for collateral damage?

And where they are ENCOURAGED to kill as many criminals as they can, and NOT collaborate with other heroes? Because that's another thing, you need to steal points from other people to pass, by culling the number of limited robots, much like heroes are paid by the arrest and by popularity.

You do understand how fucked up that starts to sound right? The other, the enemy, is reduced as a caricature Droid from star wars, there only to kill and destroy, and against whom your only TWO methods of defeat are outright destruction or sneak attacks on their off buttons.

And here's the cherry on the shit too, because, AGAIN, when is that EVER going to be the case?

Do you know how many heroes show up in the first villain attack in BNHA?

Five.

Two are engaging a purse snatcher, three are doing crowd control, the Slime Villain, who may I remind you was guilty of robbery at a convenience store before he got the hostage, gets THE NUMBER ONE HERO, as well as those same FIVE heroes involved, of which only BACKDRAFT is actually doing anything.

Now, imagine you are a hero school, and you produce 40 heroes a year, just like every other hero school out there. How many of those heroes will see active duty, if the rate of crimes demand FIVE heroes to react to ONE criminal?

And people will say "but EDS, this mentality is later rewarded when All Might retires and it all falls to shit," Except NOT REALLY, because that's an externally forced situation caused by, and I can't stress this enough, a hundreds of yeas old NEET boomer who read too many Doctor Doom comics as a kid and decided to become a supervillain, the riots, the open air warfare, is only caused by AFO forcing the hand and inciting popular unrest, which is an unrealistic thing to expect off any society.

In one of the movies, Class 1-A is sent to open an hero agency on a small island with barely a village on it. 20 Heroes. Until the movie truly picks up, the best they do is help kittens from trees, and Bakugou, the sort of person for whom the Entrance Exam was designed, is useless, left in his tent like Achilles, the perfect cowboy cop who peeked in highschool and didn't realize just how much paperwork and dead time his dream job actually entailed.

So that's the ACTUAL Issue with the entrance exam. It take no account for any other mean to beat the robots but brute force, it takes no account for collateral damage, or the sanctity of life of your opponents, and it tests nothing but how good at ending lives you are.

Which is a problem when you're picking future heroes.

#mha critical #ua critical #bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #UA Entrance Exam #bnha critical

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magic-human-bean · 2 years

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Hello hello! Can you do a teen!reader G/T trope where they see the anicents as a parental figure wants to help/be like them?

Honestly who doesn't want to be like them?

But aright, let's go with a lost human teen that got somewhat "adopted" by the ancients.

Pure Vanilla Cookie : He did everything he could to make the human feel at home. The human has their own tent with a bed right next to the kingdom, and Pure Vanilla Cookie even lowered the floating island of his castle so he can speak to the human right from his window. When the human said that they wanted to be just like him, Pure Vanilla Cookie was beyond flattered. He's very, very eager to share his knowledge with a human, and he will 100% become a dedicated teacher. I have no idea if a human can do the same magic as cookies, but no matter, he'll still teach everything he knows anyway.

Hollyberry Cookie : She also would make a tent for the human right by the castle. When the human says they'd want to be like her, she's like "Daww, okay!" and makes sure to get the human involved in as many parties as possible. She wants the human to become confident around cookies (i mean, confident in general, but let's start with cookies) and help the human become comfortable in social situations. Good thing her attitude is super comforting! She's good at making people feel at ease. She'll probably encourage the human to go on adventures, too! Either with her or with Princess Cookie and Knight Cookie. Basically, she wants the human to make lots of good friends, while also teaching the human valuable lessons about confidence.

Dark Cacao Cookie : Ooh now that's a heavy one. He doesn't want to make the same mistakes he made with Dark Choco Cookie... Once he find out the human sees him as family and looks up to him, he'll probably feel scared about the responsibility. What if he messes up again and the human becomes even more dangerous than Dark Choco Cookie? No... He has to do better. He'll try to communicate better with the human, and teach them, not only about honor and the values of a warrior, but also teach them about the importance of family. He'll try to have some kind of tent built for the human, but... a kingdom with so little resources can only do so much... It's okay though, he'll personally teach the human how to make a fire to keep them warm through the land's shitty weather. Too bad he can’t teach sword fighting to the human because the human is too big to duel.

Golden Cheese Cookie : Listen, I personally don't think it's possible. From the only things we know about this character, she seems kinda narcissistic and selfish. But I know a lot of people love her so I'll make an attempt. If she ends up treasuring the human, this ancient could probably have a fucking temple built for the human. Maybe in this scenario, she's like "Yes, I’m gonna make this human the greatest treasure of my kingdom.” She’ll teach the human how to behave like true royalty (more like a deity, even). She’ll decorate the human in gold, and by gold we mean cheese (you don’t wanna wear cheese? too bad for you), and share most of her delicacies and privileges with the human.

White Lily Cookie : Weird one. She doesn’t have a kingdom, or much of anything. I guess her and her adopted human would travel and wander the world together, forever in search of knowledge and meaning... She’s happy she’s less alone now, though.

Dark Enchantress Cookie : Haha no you’re dead. Unless we’re talking about a super edgy teenager who’s willing to kill other humans, she will kill.

#cookie run g/t #pure vanilla cookie #hollyberry cookie #dark cacao cookie #golden cheese cookie #white lily cookie #dark enchantress cookie

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ofdinosanddais1 · 1 year

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I figured I should give a little more background to the four main characters in my book.

There's Maelyrra who is a mage attending the Arcane Academy of the East. She was born in Marene, a kingdom made up of three islands, on the island of Rela to a family of bakers. She attended school on Rela where she was shown to excel in magic and encouraged to attend the Arcane Academy. She is disabled. Her disability is rheumatoid arthritis (although, to keep it in line with this being a separate realm, it's simply referred to as arthritis) and she often switches between using a cane, forearm crutches, or a wheelchair. She loves children and is attending the Arcane Academy because of their program for midwifery magic. While other people typically use a staff to focus magic, she chose a wand because it's easier for her to use while using her mobility aids. Because she is at the top of her class, the Dean of the Academy chose her as one of the students to attend the Winter Summit.

Then there's Edea who is a stewardess to the Queen of Pelyra. She grew up in an industrial city in Pelyra called Para. One of her parents were arrested for treason and the other died in a bar fight leaving her to grow up on the streets until she was recruited into the Pelyran military at the age of 10. She graduated at 16 as a spy and was sent to Mimore, the capital of Pelyra. While there, she uncovered an assassination plot against the Queen. She tried alerting her higher ups who dismissed her as a kid exaggerating everything. Despite this, she successfully foiled the assassination plot on her own, saving the Queen's life. The Queen thanked her by hiring her as an attendant where, once again, she uncovered another assassination plot involving poisoning the Queen at a dinner with the Prime Minister of Mora. Everytime attempt to prevent the food from being delivered failed so she stopped the Queen and ate the poisoned food to prove it was poisoned. Luckily, she was able to be treated for the poison and the Queen promoted her to head stewardess and thus she attended the Winter Summit with her.

We also have Igor. He is known as the Last Dragon's Knight. He was born in the coastal city of Imsathyr in the Kingdom of Eshilan. He joined the Eshilan military when he was 16 and eventually joined the Peacemakers, a branch of the military dedicated to bringing peace by repairing infrastructure and ensuring the people of Eshilan have their needs met. When the Corruption began, Igor was visiting his home city where his sister Inna was the captain of the guard. Creatures crawled up from the bottom of the ocean and began attacking Imsathyr. His sister told him to go get help from the neighboring kingdoms while she protected the city. The closest kingdom was Dragon's Watch, inhabited by the last dragon Melusine and her clutch of fifty eggs. He reached Melusine's home where he explained what was going on. When she heard the description of the creatures, she explained that they were called Kadather and that they could be led back into the portal in the ocean where they came from and that it could be sealed by a dragon's power. She explained that she could not endanger her life because without her, her clutch would die and so all dragons would be extinct but that she could bestow her ability to seal portals onto him with the possibility that he could die. He accepted the risk and returned home with the power of a dragon. Upon hearing the plan, Inna gathered a crew to lead the Kadather back into the ocean. Then, he swam straight down to the bottom to seal the portal. He was able to successfully commence the sealing of the portal when he started to drown. One of the Kadather recognized he was trying to help them and brought him back up to the surface before it returned home. By that time, however, he was dead. His sister's crew somberly sailed back to shore where Melusine was waiting. She asked the magical forces within the realm to bring him back if he was worthy of life and the magic did bring him back to thank him for restoring balance. After his revival, he decided to retire from peacekeeping and moved to Melusine's Peak where he now focuses on bringing peace and unity throughout the kingdoms.

And finally we have Melusine, the last dragon in the realm. Melusine witnessed the abuse of power that existed among the Republic of the Dragons that led to the Dragon War; in which the dragons of the realm terrorized the people of Aesadell and the people decided to kill them all. While the other dragons certainly provoked the Aesadellians, Melusine did not want to hurt anyone and lived peacefully in Pelyra until the Rizarites (people from the kingdom of Rizaris) decided that all dragons must die. Pelyra, as well as Eshilan, Mora, and the Peninsulas guided her back to Dragon's Watch while they sent people to find as many dragon eggs as possible and to bring them back to Melusine. After the Dragon War concluded with a treaty signed by all the countries, Melusine concluded that the way the dragons lived before could not continue. She vowed to teach the next generation of dragons to be diplomatic and live peacefully alongside all Aesadellians.

And those are the four main characters.

#aesadell #fantasy writing #original characters #disabled character #original disabled character #actually disabled #writing #world building #fantasy world #fantasy world building #mass effect andromeda

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the-firebird69 · 1 year

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And I see him putting devices or trying to in places you shouldn't and now we have plenty of cover so removing all of them nobody went up with less and less of his b******* although he's trying to start another storm up and it's a ship off of Miami and is trying to run it up there to Port Charlotte again and get it out of here and really colleague is saying is for Mac to get his ass in gear or are we going to go through this again and we really don't want our stuff flying all over the place so he's had to start working on it and start doing stuff and use someone else's name and he and I'm putting it in now and they're approving it cuz we just don't want to go through it again you can't have him doing this stupid crap if we can stop and we're going to do it. And I'm down there ripping tons of stuff out and right now the ship's not doing that much but in the moisture is coming from ships going south but we're going to move it off and I tell you what he's a huge a****** about it says we gave him the idea and stuff so I'm going to start taking the stuff and your boys are coming up what we can do and Thor and Freya what we need and what we can do and it's terrific I'm getting some help now. And it's like the words in the stupid machine to come out wrong it's horribly annoying I do need lots and lots of troops and if you have some spare time then come on over we'll sign you up and we have a lot of stuff to do and it's more stuff we have a lot of maneuvers coming up and there have tea and they involve this place lots of them. And these guys doing a ton of stuff and we need we need people to sign up we need new troops because our troops now are stretched to the limit and we don't have a pool we're pulling from we're pulling from one place to the other and it's creating a problem

We have tons and tons of things to do and not enough troops. We need our people to sign on every single one of you and we need to have you talk to people who have not signed on and encourage them to gosh darn it you have to do it to save their lives you know what the plan is now. I mean pretty sure of it now I want you to tell you that it is your responsibility the same people you know or us or think of us and you need to have them cleared and I need you to go ahead and do that now even if you're not sure we want to be sure.

He says it's the best way to do it because people want to know about their friends they also want to pull for their friends if they think they're us and they've been checking for a long time and I do see how this is.

I have several of the comments that are very important. One is I discovered that these people are all kind of beating on our friend here and he's telling us the whole time they're doing this they're doing this they're doing this they're doing this hundreds and hundreds of times in an hour and we need to cut it down to nothing and these people are vulgar and they're rude and they need to leave ton of it is by morlock probably 80% of it part of it is Max trying to regain stuff I want some more like a route they'll see that the clones are doing it and they'll be engaged and it'll be different and it is the right decision because he's more like a useless they're crap okay and they're mean dangerous and go round and round all day long and tell me if it's one of them is the same stuff. It's vulgar it's meaningless it's rude and he's going to leave too. Right now there's a huge war going on and most of the more likes are going to check out it looks like almost all the bases on Earth of significant size or any size of theirs are gone except for Australia New Zealand and a few other Islands they say that the 20% left in the United States in South America the Americas is down to about 10% and it will be gone tonight and that the 5% left the Eastern area will be gone tonight as well even though it's daytime they still just want to get rid of them. And all their cloning will be gone at that time except for the two islands and slow going and they're not doing that great and they are evacuating and the number in the populace was about 10% and it just dropped to about 8% and that's a big drop and that's a lot of people and they're evacuating to Australia and New Zealand and that's the first wave of the fleet they're about 10 waves and they should all be out of here it's going to be a night of a lot of moisture and Tommy f thinks he's going to start a storm and he's got to be hit the guy needs to be hit a lot and Mac is up again from the fight and saw it and it's going to take him down and a lot of people want to fight him warlock and everybody so they're going to be helping to fight the guy and to leave and our friend here our boss really says as you're thinking about what you should do what you spend most of your time doing Tommy f has ships spaceships so and they're around here some of them so you can find him for those get the crap ass bastard out of here and go to Australia and or New Zealand with something and the King instead of a pawn and they like the idea

Duke Nukem Blockbuster

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chronocidalrage · 2 years

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It’s Been a Long Week

ESCAPE For the longest time, Atom was the best part of reality. He was the person who NEVER made me regret leaving my fantasy world. He was always one of the best and brightest parts of the real world. And then suddenly he was one of the hardest parts of the real world and that change was so crushing to me that all I wanted was to escape. Run so far away that I couldn’t come back. I don’t think I specifically wanted to “kill” myself, I just wanted to remove myself from the real world because I hated what it had become.

I’ve escaped off and on forever. My favorite people are the ones who escape with me. Atom did. I love getting Copeland with Susie because it’s like us escaping together.

I live the way I work. I do just as much as I need to in order to keep what I have and inch myself closer to getting more. But I don’t buckle down and focus on improving my reality.

SINCE WRITING THAT ABOVE, I talked to my therapist. I’m not escaping reality. I’m trying to escape my bad feelings. When I told her I write all the time she said “you analyze your thoughts? That’s as real as it gets.”

I guess for my survivor's guilt, I just need to know that Atom understood what I was doing. And I think he did.

It’s weird, I admire people who are in great shape, rather than people who work hard to BE in great shape. I admire the status of being a filmmaker, I don’t admire the work of filmmaking. I’m too obsessed with results instead of process.

THE OFFICE So I busted my ass today and cleared out the office (room needed to be empty to fix a leak). Only a fairly small amount of stuff is left here. I got a ton of shit done in a short amount of time. I feel good about myself. It wasn’t easy. It was a lot of shit, and lots of memories and shit related to Atom involved.

THE BATMAN I’m watching The Batman again. Fuck, I love this movie. This, Ambulance, the Northman, and probably Barbarian are probably my favorite movies of the year. They make me happy like movies used to.

This is not only the movie I wish Atom lived to see, but it’s the movie I need to see in order to move on. That end speech is perfect:

“Vengeance, won’t change the past. Mine… or anyone else’s. I have to become more. People need hope. To know someone’s out there for them. This cities angry, and scarred. Like me. Our scars can destroy us… even after the physical wounds have healed. But if we can survive them. They can give us the power. To Endure. And the strength to fight.”

And then he drives away from Selina. Not because he doesn’t want to be with her, but because it’s the right thing to do and they both know that, whether they like it or not. Two halves of the same person riding together and then going separate ways. I get it. Perfect.

That music is what I hear when I imagine leaving Atom behind me. I think I’ll choose to think of this movie as Atom talking to me through movies to tell me (via my favorite character) to move on. To keep fighting for positive change.

I also saw that movie PEARL. It was very good. Beyond that, it made me think about how I’m stuck in the past. It’s not quite that I’m trying to avoid reality, it’s that’s I’m trying to avoid the future. I want Copeland every night to keep things like they were when Atom was alive. I’m trying to either keep things frozen in time or move backwards. That’s why I want to do so many things but actually doing them scares me because those things mean change and new futures.

But as is the message in The Batman, I have to move on.

THE LAST CALL. I was thinking about my last call with Atom and I think in many ways, we said what we needed to say. I apologized for not being more supportive about the engagement. He understood. He shared a dumb story with me (the guy dancing on the corner), like we always liked to do with each other. He told me to draw more because I’m “so good.” He encouraged and supported me maybe moving to Rhode Island. Driving even further away from him, and he supported it. I asked him to meet up so we could catch up and he said he’d love that. I believe Laurie told me later that Atom was “so happy” after our call. Between that conversation and his call with Kerry, I think he knew everything he needed to know. I’m pretty sure we both said “I love you man” or whatever too. It may not have been a perfect last conversation but I think it was enough. I wish you didn’t have to end, but you did. And at least we got to say goodbye in a way.

I love you and miss you forever man. Thank you for every second of our 40 years together. I hope I made you even a fraction as happy as you made me.

MIDNIGHT MASS. I think I really liked Midnight Mass. I really like Mike Flanagan. I should see his movies I haven’t seen and watch the director’s cut of Doctor Sleep.

BUBBLES I think bubbles are technically normal and natural. The trouble comes when the bubble is too small or you’re not willing to leave it.

In the pre-Susie TSG days, my bubble was big. Sure, I was in a bubble I didn’t want to leave but it was a big enough bubble that I could live freely. I could feel excited. Good. Alive.

Now my bubble is effectively just my house, Susie, and Ruby. And Susie isn’t even always in it. She kinda comes and goes as she pleases depending on how well she’s handling her own struggles and/or how well I’m reacting to them (not her fault).

It’s exhausting only living in such a small bubble. Because you have to inspect everything. Clean it off. Check it for danger. People too. You only go into the world in a figurative “protective suit” which prevents real connection. You primarily interact outside the bubble remotely or through those “clean gloves through glass” things. It’s exhausting and restrictive.

I’m not exactly tired from life. I’m exhausted from trying to live a good life from within a tiny bubble while constantly being afraid and alarmed.

I need more of what I want. I just need to be smart and trust myself.

Hilarious. As I was writing all this “Come Alive” by Foo Fighters came on shuffle and it was weirdly perfect.

I was starting to get impulsive back then in the TSG days. And everything that went bad with Susie made me doubt my impulses. Now when I look at life, I don’t just screen it for my fears and dislikes, I screen it for Susie’s. Since she (somewhat accidentally) made me question my judgment. No wonder I get stuck in analysis paralysis.

I’m always exhausted from the process of screening every person, thing, or interaction in my life.

Part of the exhaustion comes from not only choosing what you let in, but agonizing over everything you let out. You can’t afford to lose things you need.

I think the reason I get so upset when Susie is upset with me is because my instinct is telling me she needs to be removed from the bubble. Like she’s a hostile invader trapped in the bubble with me.

ATOM Today (9/19/22) we cleaned out and started up Atom’s car and brought it to my old mechanic in Quincy, Don Hassan, to check out, maybe fix up and sell. I’m glad we did it, but man, it kinda fucked me up. I feel roughly okay but my chest is tight.

Sometimes I think the reality of Atom actually being gone forever is too much for my body to handle.

Went to Faxon. Went to that kinda secret rocky formation Atom and I found that first time (I wonder if it secretly reminds me of some old memory of Mount Watatic or something). Still really feels like Atom in that spot. More there than most other places. I remember standing there with Atom that time we explored the park for the first time. Maybe it feels like him there because it felt special to both of us in that moment.

Either way, had what felt like a “talk” with him (don’t judge me, grief is a crazy thing). All I could picture was him telling me to go. To move on. Telling me to not be sad. All I could picture was him refusing to let me hold on to the past. Pushing me out into the future. It’s true. That is what he would do now. Atom never wanted to hold me back, he just hated to see me go.

So I’ll go. I’ll move on. Because if I could see you or talk to you now, that’s exactly what you’d be telling me to do. It’d be like when you came into my room that day and made me apply for Newbury. You’d just push me and make me move on. Push me to find a good future. So I will. I’ll try.

Then I ended up listening to WALK by Foo Fighters and it felt right. I started crying as I sang along. Knowing that Dave Grohl came up with the song as he taught his daughter to walk made me think of Atom and everything he taught me. The song is about moving on after tragedy and finding reasons to look forward to life and it felt like Atom telling me to move on and be happy and how in many ways, that’s how I keep him alive.

I see myself one of two ways: as the scared, infatuated with the world kid who needed Atom. Or as the adult who still loves and appreciates Atom but is somehow amazing enough that he can survive without Atom. Because I’d have to be pretty amazing to somehow equal or even surpass Atom’s amazingness. I would have to be one of the greats, like Atom.

Oh Jesus, that’s it. I believe that in order to be able to survive without Atom, I would have to be at least as amazing as Atom. Which would require me to be perfect. At least perfect enough to be okay without Atom.

Oh man, and now I gotta be even better. Because I potentially have to be amazing enough to survive losing Susie someday. Or amazing enough to even deserve Susie in the first place. Man.

What you believe you deserve directly connects to what you think can survive.

We both saw me as the thing that filled the void in Atom, we just disagreed about how big that void was. To me, that void was tiny. So I was lesser. To Atom, that void was huge.

Because my calculation of what I like, versus what I have to do to be liked by others, is off. I think others have to work a lot less to be liked by me than I have to work to be liked by them.

Because I saw myself as this broken, useless thing that could only be made good and useful to the world by Atom because he was the greatest person in the world. He was perfect. He was the best part about me. I could only be great on his shoulders. So I would have to be as great as the greatest man alive to be great on my own and that seems impossible. I’m happy when I feel as great as Atom or when I was around Atom while he was being great.

I’ve been kinda miserable lately because I couldn’t be around him being great consistently and I couldn’t be as great as he would have been. I couldn’t help him the way he would’ve helped me. He would’ve saved me somehow, I know it. And I can’t stand that I failed him that way. (Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. Realistically, he probably wouldn’t have been able to save me either. He just would’ve been more likely to die trying).

I forget that Atom was a god to me. Just way above me. He was my hero and my idol. Even in recent years, he still was. He was still who I aspired to be. I didn’t see him as less while he was sick. His greatness was just hidden away.

Because we don’t exactly base love around what someone or something is every day. You tend to love and value them based on potential. What they can continue to give you. They may not have to be it every day. It’s all about the potential and severity of their ability to positively improve your future. They can be flawed.

Oh my god. That’s why I took it so much harder than everyone else. He was legit more flawed to them. He was more perfect to me. Not because I didn’t see his flaws, but because they mattered less to me because I could see his potential. Because I knew him better than anyone and saw his potential. I expected more than others. Even himself. And I should remember that’s also how he saw me. My potential was so great that the rest didn’t matter. We loved each other in that way. The endless appreciation for what we’ve done and what we can do.

Because Atom really was my first favorite thing. So I liked what he did and what reminded me of him and that’s where my concept of “good” started. I think I got scared of losing him when Rob Wakeham beat him up that time at camp. I was terrified. And I was powerless to help him, which I’m sure added to my feelings of being inferior. Because one of my first horrors was not being able to help him. And then it happened again.

So when I’m doing things that Atom couldn’t do.

ARGUING. Susie was raised by a lawyer. She was taught how to argue from childhood and I was raised by doormats. LOL.

COSMIC If we all come from stardust, then all the people and things out there are technically from the same stardust as Atom and Susie and Flash and Ruby. That’s crazy. Other things and people can be good too.

WATCHING SHIT It should be more instinct-based, rather than list-based.

One of the reasons I love horror and comedy is because they’re the genres that take the most chances with the biggest senses of “anything could happen.”

BEFORE I DIE I think I wanna:

Feel good enough about myself that I can walk naked by the Griffith Observatory in LA like the Terminator.

Play a concert (or record a live podcast or do stand up or something) to a room full of people (not strictly friends) who care enough to come and see what I’m doing.

LIMITS So I don’t know how to fight for what I want, so I tend to crumble if I hit a wall. Atom never got in the way of my happiness so I loved him for that. When I feel stuck between what I want and the people I love, I feel like I have to choose the people.

When I’m stuck between what I want and a person I want (not sexually, just in my life in general) I freeze. It’s easier to surrender to the person and the last thing I wanna do is lose them to my fight.

That’s why I never got into shape or made any of the shit I really wanna make. Because I never learned how to fight for me.

GOOD ENOUGH That’s all I ever want. To be good enough. For whatever. And I’m so tired of finding out that I’m not.

I was so confident back then in the TSG days. I finally thought I was good enough and Susie came in and pointed out things I never even considered to be part of my rating. And poked holes in what I thought the ratings were. I’ve never really recovered from that.

Where does Atom fit beyond him always thinking I was BEYOND good enough? That I was amazing? I guess I always believe he was the only person who was ever gonna think I was beyond good enough.

It’s all about being not good enough wow.

And unless I nailed it, I assume I failed it.

Food and movies make me feel good enough. They both feel like a reward for some sort of success, AND things that I don’t need to be good enough for. They’re so basic that I’m always good enough for them.

Why do I feel this way? Why don’t I think I’m good enough? I’m sure some of it was just me thinking Atom was the greatest thing ever. I think I also made a lot of dumb mistakes when I was young. Getting caught in that tree. The wasps. Riding across town on my big wheel. I think I just thought I kinda sucked.

Then the summer before 7th grade, I reconnected with Mike Wakeham (I think it was then), I had an almost thing with Amanda, my first non-platonic thing with a girl. I was suddenly even ALMOST good enough and that was enough for me to take a chance and try harder. EDIT: I also think middle school was when Atom was most distant. He was in high school and dating Phyllis and distracted by all that stuff so I felt the need to become my own person.

I’m lacking evidence to motivate me.

I think that also, with the death of Atom, there went the one person who always thought I was at LEAST good enough. I lost that. I lost my biggest fan.

But why do I think I’m not good enough? Because I don’t want to be overweight but I am. Because I want to be athletic but I’m not. I want to be an artist but I’m not. I want to be a singer but I’m not. There’s all these things I wanna be and the fact that I’m not quite those things makes me sad and feel like a failure, which ruins my motivation to try any of those things. Because I think I’ve already failed to be that thing, I don’t see the point in trying to do it. Like if I were meant to do that, I’d be able to. If I’m not good enough to do that thing NOW, it doesn’t matter if I COULD be good enough in the future.

Because I think I’m not good enough to want. Good enough to laugh with. Not good enough for some of my friends to invest in. Not good enough to get through to Atom or my family. If Atom wasn’t good enough to scare them and change their behavior, I certainly wouldn’t be.

To feel better, I should act how I would act if I WERE good enough. If I just imagine a situation like “I am good enough to do this,” it makes it way less terrifying. Because if I believed I was good enough, I don’t actually think I’d want or care about junk food. Interesting.

My decisions are based on my calculated rates of success, which are based on my inherent disgust with my low-skill existence.

Jesus that’s really it. I’m tired of not being enough. But in order to be tired of that, I have to actually believe that I’m not enough. I have to believe it’s true in order to be tired of it. That’s what fucks me.

So if I felt like I wasn’t good enough as a child, that oddly becomes my “normal” so I kinda seek it out even if I don’t like it. Inner child work? Be a loving dad to my younger self?

Because when I’m on the couch watching shit, that’s pretty much the only time I’m “good enough” for myself. But otherwise, I’m generally convinced it’s easier for me to be good enough for others than for myself. That’s why I feel like I have to come through for people. Sometimes I can trick them into thinking I’m good enough (they can be tricked, but I KNOW I’m not) or they want something easy. It’s like an addiction. Pleasing myself is harder unless I’m watching and eating, in which case that’s the easiest thing of all.

It’s really wild. Life is hard for me because I’m always doing that calculation: “am I good enough for X or Y? Can I do this? Will doing this cause me to drop the ball with something else?” I’m always trying to find the easiest path where I’m most likely to not be exposed as “not good enough.” Doing those calculations in my head every second of the day is exhausting. When I start running out of time in my day, I lose interest in challenging things, like working out, because I want to end my day feeling “good enough.”

And food, to me, is both a way to console me for not being good enough, AS WELL AS a reward for when I AM good enough. So no matter what, I always want to eat. Success or defeat, I feel compelled to eat. I guess the important thing is to stop seeing food as a prize (either consolation or grand). Eating for fun occasionally is fine and relatively healthy. But not to the extent that I do it.

And when Susie came around, she poked holes in things and I realized there was this whole world of ways I wasn’t good enough that I previously thought didn’t matter (like standing up for people, who needs ME of to stand up for them, you know?). I also realized some of the things around me weren’t good enough FOR ME. So I became less satisfied with the world around me (the bubble), which made me more sad and triggered my feelings of not being good enough. But I was so new to all the things I was trying to do that I kept feeling like I wasn’t good enough to have the better world/life I wanted. So ever since, I have been deeply unsatisfied. Nothing is good enough. Not me, not the things around me.

And art used to be something I did for fun. It was for me. And I avoided having it evaluated by others because that could ruin it. I eventually, in my overconfidence, decided to have it evaluated and I lost my shit when I found out I wasn’t exactly good enough in that world either. I haven’t really recovered from that.

The truth is, my confidence doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from seeing myself improve. Doing things I previously didn’t think I was good enough for. So the trick to feeling better, is to do new things.

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amarriageoftrueminds · 3 years

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Now now, we all know how Bucky's been in love with Steve (and known about his feelings) his whole life, but what about Steve? I've always swayed towards the theory 'Steve's been in love with Bucky his whole life as well, he only realised after Bucky fell from the train', but what if Steve's known he's in love with Bucky since their Brooklyn days? That would shed an entirely different light on his interactions with Miss Nazis Hirer and the whole 'right partner' talk

Going by canon, I think there must've been either: a declaration of mutual feelings, or; the first foray into a sexual relationship in their late teens, because one of Bucky's trigger words was 'seventeen', and Steve said he felt like a 16 year old again when he heard Bucky's name.

What's interesting is, at that time, and especially in that place*, there wasn't the idea that gay sex acts made you gay, because there were loads of 'straight' men around (eg. sailors.) going with other men just for sex. This was pre pill, pre sex-before-marriage for most, especially for Catholics like Steve.

So it might be that Bucky and Steve were doing the do with each other looong before either of them came to the realisation that they were also, coincidentally, in love.

I agree that Bucky, simply because he's exposed to dating women more than Steve is, has more of an opportunity to Realise before Steve. He'd have the benefit of being able to contrast his experience of feelings with Steve, with his experience of feelings for others, leading him to a lightbulb moment.

And he'd cover this up (and keep up the pretense of believing both he and Steve are really straight) by going out with girls in the meantime; in a period-appropriate gentlemanly way, not bedding them. Also to protect him and Steve from any potentially dangerous accusations.

I don't see Steve as not knowing precisely that he is in love with Bucky; I think he knew before the events of CATFA started, and it was a big part of his motivation for wanting to go to war.

But I do think it hadn't occurred to Steve that he might only be attracted to Bucky / men until after he got serum -- because, before then, his health would've been a limiting factor.

Before then, I can see him thinking 'well it's no wonder I have no libido like Bucky does around women, I'm just too unwell!' and not connecting the dots.

This would explain why he seems so panicked when sexual situations arise with women, after the serum; because he's realising 'oh shit! actually, I don't even like this when I have Perfect Health!' and hastily trying to backpedal himself out of an unwanted situation.

My HC is both of them thinking they're the only male-attracted one in the relationship and they're just engaging in sex acts together for convenience' sake but the other one's only going to keep doing it until he can get a girl.

So when Steve shows up all heterosexual-passing, looking like he can get any girl he wants, Bucky looks devastated because he thinks that signals the end of his physical (in his head unrequited romantic) relationship with Steve.

(But then between Peggy showing up and he and Steve going to the Continent together with the Howlies, Bucky mysteriously seems to perk up!)

By which point Steve, with his strong moral instincts and anti-Fascism, has come to the conclusion that if he's a physically perfect man, and he's still in love with and attracted to Bucky, then there must by definition be nothing wrong with feeling physically attracted to Bucky.

IDK if it makes it better or worse to imagine that they finally confessed to each other before the fall?

Maybe it'd be nice if they saved that for Post-WS, especially since Bucky might be then in even more doubt as to Steve's feelings for him. It's a common choice in fic for a reason!

There are two ways to read the 'right partner' talk Steve has with Peggy.

One is:

Steve's a straight man acting like an incel and attempting to pull pick-up artist tricks on Peggy which don't work, because she's not interested in him, and so doesn't take the bait (we only don't notice he's being a creep because Cevans and HA play it as benign, and because the writers, being themselves douchebags, don't realise what they've written; and probably wouldn't care even if they did.)

Two is: (particularly egregious if you flip the genders and imagine a woman saying this to a man)

Steve going out of his way to make it clear that he doesn't want to date, isn't interested in dating right now, while there's a war on, and finds women terrifying.

And yet as soon as he's fuckable, Peggy pulls a 180 and starts claiming she always liked him as he was, despite the fact that her actions directly disprove this; she didn’t ask him out when she had the chance and the encouragement.

Naturally, her arrogance leads her to the immediate assumption that if Steve is waiting for The One, then she must be the One to whom he was referring.

The fact that his wording either means he’s already found the One and is waiting for them, OR that he hasn’t met them yet, both exclude her from the running (since he’s known her a week) is... immaterial. She never asks if he has his eye on someone, does she? Would Steve being already married stop her?

(You don’t say ‘I don’t want to date because I’m waiting for the One’ to the person who IS the One, or whom you suspect may be the One. This ain’t rocket science!)

And hey, did you notice, that Peggy is just so important and special and perfect that her sudden interest in Steve means that Steve's stated wishes are now irrelevant?

The staggering hubris of waltzing up to him to go ‘hey, by the way, one day... when all this is over... I will allow you to date me.’ 😘😌

Too bad he didn’t ask!

The fact that Steve explicitly told her he isn't interested in dating and didn’t specify he’d be interested in her is invalidated by his new looks and her desire.

Sheesh. These Carter girls sure are rapey as hell.

(Also, in characteristic NOT-A-FEMINIST Peggy Style, the first thing she does upon seeing Big Steve is yank a t shirt out of the hands of a waiting nurse, because Saint Poppins is apparently so good at everything without training or experience that she can do nursing better than an actual nurse, too? (Could be she's also being characteristically territorial, pissing a circle round her chosen prey.) While simultaneously, out of nowhere, affecting a dumb ‘oh I’m so soft-and-feminine’ voice she didn’t have before?? Does that sounds like someone Steve ‘son of a nurse’ Rogers would admire? UGH.)

The irony of all this is ^ you can read Steve as 100% gay and not have to change a single piece of his characterisation or interactions with women at any point.

I've touched on this in other asks, but:

He never asks Peggy out when he has the opportunity; only when he knows it's too late and he won't be expected to follow through (due to him being dead.)

He never makes a move on any of the chorus girls or his female fans (no matter what those creeps M&M claim). Or Private Lorraine. Or Nat. He has to be nagged to make one on Sharon (while Peggy's body's barely had time to cool, and looks fine about never seeing her again lol!) But he goes out of his way to befriend Sam, and waay out of his way to get Bucky back.

Throughout all his films he's consistently assaulted by women, even friends, and never looks happy about it; he also never looks upset when he's rejected or cut off from women love interests, or when he's able to dodge flirting (by, eg. jumping out of a frickin' plane!?)

It's 'his choice', in his own words.

He seems his happiest with women in platonic situations, and only sad about them when it's a question of a shirked duty, a bereavement, or him feeling he's let them down; eg. when Nat dies, when his mother dies, when he's unable to deliver a promised dance to Peggy, etc.

(But it makes people uncomfortable to address this since many of his fans are female.)

But even marrying a woman (albeit the most OOC choice it's physically possible for a Captain America to make, not to mention that it involves abandoning our-Bucky alone in the future). It doesn't preclude Steve from being gay, since lavender marriages were hella common (doubly so for famous gay men).

He could be gay and still in a relationship with Bucky, and married to Peggy. I mean, he's guaranteed a wife who'll spend most of the time away at work, able to use her connections to squash any inconvenient press; and unable to out him or Bucky without ruining her own prestige. Perfect!

Still makes EG Steve a douchebag tho. 😒

*we know they frequented north Brooklyn, because Steve said 'I know this neighborhood!' while the Brooklyn Bridge was in sight behind him; but, they got the street angle wrong, cuz they made it look like the BKB has a street which looks right at it, when in fact the street with that famous view is of the Manhattan Bridge. The places Steve describes being beat up; a parking lot, alleyway, and diner, are also all places you'd go while you're Out, rather than where you live. So IMO Steve and Bucky lived somewhere near DUMBO, but not so far east that their view was of the Manhattan Bridge; either Brooklyn Heights or Downtown. So that puts them right in the heart of Gay Brooklyn (as in, Truman Capote had a house there, because Walt Whitman wrote a famous poem about there; that level of gay), next to the Navy Yard and Sands Street (gay cruising central) and they also frequented gay cruising mecca Coney Island (big burlesque hot spot).

#mcu meta #antipeggy #toAyourQ #hey nonny #steve meta #bucky meta #p*ggy meta #anti st*ggy #endgame steve is a skrull #antiendgame #dat's me #bucky barnes #meta #mcu #yet each man queues the thing he loves

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wutheringmights · 3 years

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I just read the newest chapter and I loved it! ♥ ♥ ♥ I was wondering if you had some hcs about the engineer that you could share?

Awww I'm glad you like it! I just spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what "HCS" meant before realizing I'm a tired idiot who can't read lol

But yeah! I got some headcanons for the engineer/Spirits I can share!

These headcanons are a mix of things I generally believe for any iteration of the Hero of Spirits and a few things exclusive to CTB. It's pretty obvious which are which.

Technically this is slight spoilers since most of this is not mentioned in-story, but Warriors is a such a self-centered asshole that I'm not sure when I can get him to explicitly ask about Spirit's backstory lol

This got super long and kind of just became me talking about Spirits's entire backstory, so enjoy:

Spirits is sixteen during the course of Spirit Tracks, mostly because that was the vibe I got from him when I first played the game (I made him younger for CTB)

He's not descendant from Wind (who I maintain disappeared instead of settling in New Hyrule); instead, he's Aryll's great grandson

His family name used to be Outset, but when everyone who originally immigrated from Outset island took on that last name, they changed it to Aryll to reflect the family matriarch

So Spirit's full name is Link Aryll, though there is a branch of his family that uses Macaryll instead

The Aryll/Macaryll family is huge; everyone has at least six aunts and uncles on all sides of the family and they can trace back how they are related to Aryll

"I'm Grandma Aryl's third son's second daughter's fifth child." -someone Spirits is related to, probably

He actually never met his great grandmother; she died before he was born.

Spirit's dad was full-blooded Lokomo while his mother was Hylian; his mother passed a few months after he was born after never truly recovering from childbirth while his father died in a fishing accident when he was eight

He went to live with an aunt and uncle who owned a general store; their relationship was polite at best. The aunt and uncle told Spirits upfront that they intended to give the store over to his cousin when he was older so Spirits needed to come up with his own life plan

Spirits didn't necessarily mind since he never wanted to work in a store for the rest of his life, but the ultimatum made it clear that they didn't care for him like a son

To this day, their relationship isn't strained and he doesn't hate them. But whenever they meet, he's overly polite; they're more acquaintances than family

He's cool with his cousin though. They have different interests so they aren't best friends, but they're okay.

Spirits also always had his spirit-sensing abilities. It's really like a sixth sense to him, as normal and automatic as seeing and hearing; he actually didn't realize this wasn't normal until he was a little older

His abilities at this point are limited to sensing vague ideas of a person's spirit (if they're light or dark, etc.), and seeing ghosts (which are really rare. You have to have a lot of power yourself to become one)

(Note: I'm not the only one who headcanons Spirits as having spirit sensing abilities; if you know who can up with the idea, please let me know so that I can tag/credit them!)

The elder of his village told him that select Lokomo had minor spirit sensing abilities, and those who did were traditionally made elders of their villages; being more of a follower than a leader, Spirits adamantly dismissed that idea and refused to be trained on how to hone his spirit senses. He also never learned any of the religion behind it

Which was a little worrisome since his abilities are way stronger than most

Besides, he's always liked trains and it's been his dream to travel around the kingdom as an engineer; being some town's elder would get in the way of that

Anyway, Spirits had to pass a written exam before being accepted as an apprentice engineer, so he's very studious and has a lot of drive (pun unintended?)

He went to live with his Uncle Niko during his apprenticeship in another town; Niko isn't related to him, but he's been a friend of the family for so long that everyone secretly thinks he's actually related to someone and they just forgot who

Niko is his real family, hands down. Those two are as thick as thieves and bring out the wild side in each other

A preteen Spirits used to think Niko was a little lame and kind of embarrassing, but now that he's older, he's all for Niko's weird old man-ness and has even picked up on some of his weird old man-ness himself

That being said, they're both disasters. Neither can clean or cook or do any kind of housekeeping and their shared house is cluttered with Niko's art projects and Spirit's half-finished tinkering

Growing up, Spirits had no idea he was related to the legendary Hero of Wind; Aryll died before he was born, but even in life she was filled with too much grief over her missing brother to discuss it often. Within the family, being related to the Hero of Wind is a rumor at best.

Of course, Niko knows but keeps it a secret from Spirits; once he got back from his LU-adventure, Wind told Niko about the curse of the Hero's Spirit. Then he went missing post-New Hyrule's founding, which really drove the terror of the curse home. Niko thought he could keep Wind's family from falling victim to it by not inadvertently encouraging them to follow in Wind's footsteps

So Niko kept it a secret

And obviously, that didn't work

Spirits' quest to save New Hyrule resulted in him realizing that he needed to embrace his Lokomo heritage and get a handle on his spirit powers; Anjean gave him a little training during his quest but afterwards he traveled around the kingdom to find as many people as he could with abilities like his

They were all really excited to teach him what they knew, especially the religious aspects of the abilities; Spirits is still not the most religious person, but he at least understands and embraces the cultural significance of what he is able to do

This is where he learned how to read a person's Spirit to get an idea of their life experiences and the kind of person they're like; he can also detect where a person is without having to put much effort into it

At Zelda's encouragement, he also got more sword training from the Castle Guard. She offered him a place among them, but he turned it down in favor of remaining an engineer. He still helps around as a swordsman when he can and will act as Zelda's body guard

Speaking of which, he and Zelda are 100% in love. Their relationship started out as puppy love but over the years as matured into a deep connection built on mutual respect

When he's working on designing new engines or parts for his trains, he occasionally brings his drafting materials to the castle gardens so that he can work alongside Zelda; sometimes she falls asleep leaning against his arm and he has to be careful not to shake her awake as he works

Whenever she need to go anywhere in the kingdom, she rides in his train and teasingly criticizes his conducting; he takes a lot of pride in his conducting, but he lets her get away with it since her critiques are objectively hilarious

He keeps a tiny pictograph of her taped to his dashboard

But there's a bit of a problem with their relationship, and it's that he doesn't know if he wants to be the prince consort or not. He does love her, but that would mean giving up being an engineer in favor of being stuck at the castle all of the time

Plus, he's doing great as an engineer; he's saving up to open his own garage that produces his own train designs

Eventually, he leaves for the War of Eras

His experiences with Warriors leaves him more sure than ever that he doesn't want to be the prince consort, resulting in him ending his relationship with Zelda shortly after he returns home

It hurts for a long time to be around her since all of his old feelings keep coming back, so he keeps his distance for a long time; it takes a few years for him to go back to hanging out with Zelda as friends

But now she's approaching marriage age, and he spends a lot of time when he's on body guard duty super jealous of these princes and ambassadors from foreign kingdoms who try to court her

But again, he knows he can't be in a relationship with her so he respectfully and silently pines over her (I'm just a sucker for pining, okay?)

Okay, more random headcanons that are a little less sad

Spirits likes super spicy food, but since he can't cook to save his own life, he just eats whatever he can get his hands on

He's super dirty all of the time, just the epitome of scrappy; there's always a smear of oil somewhere on his person

He actually really hates bathing and only keeps his curly hair in check to comply with train safety regulations

He's really polite and a little shy, but once he loosens up, he gets talkative and personable

He's also very contemplative; he likes conducting so much because he gets to spend long stretches of time alone with nothing but his thoughts

His trauma/stress response is to shut down; he goes quiet, loses energy, and sleeps for longer periods of time

He tends to gravitate towards socializing with people who are older than him, which gets him labeled as being no fun by his peers (despite having someone as cooky as Niko for a uncle)

Post-adventure, his best friend is Linebeck III. They're drinking buddies. Neither can really explain why they even like hanging out as much as they do

(I just like the idea of Linebeck accidentally getting attached to one kid and his whole bloodline getting forever tangled with Wind's; they're bros for multiple lifetimes)

Not only is Spirits good at designing and building new machinery, but he's great at tinkering; he can fix almost anything and will buy broken things on purpose just to have something to fix

No one really knows he's a hero; he doesn't like the attention and, at his request, Zelda did her best to keep his involvement with Malladus a secret

Because not many common people know about his adventure and records of New Hyrule are very rare, he's considered in Warrior's time to be a forgotten hero; some scholars believe that a Hero of Spirits may have once existed, but if he did, no one really knows who he was or what he did to serve the bloodline of Hylia

#god this got long but i hope you like reading them anon!#I just have a lot of thoughts about spirits #so many thoughts #linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu #lu headcanon #lu spirits #loz st #legend of zelda #spirit tracks link #zelink #ask #anonymous #me rambling #lu ctb #loz

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aj28gaming · 3 years

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Danganronpa messing up Nagito's character cuz apparently even they believe headcanons

Is it just me or is Danganronpa making Nagito worse?

Like at the start we have a socially intelligent and intuitive paranoid kid who hates despair and gets forced into a killing game that is filled with everything he hates and fears

So he clings desperately to hope as a coping mechanism to deal with everything

And then in the anime, we get a social outcast (for some reason even though people would've loved his hope talks like they did back in chapter 1 since no killing game happens and he is just speaking normally)

who bombs a school (forget his paranoia apparently) and nonchalantly allows himself to get out of the island and accidentally kill 40+ soldiers (again, ignoring his paranoia of his destructive luck cycle apparently)

And then in Danganronpa 2.5 we get a socially inept, clingy hope addict who apparently doesn't have boundaries?

(We seriously ignoring how much he pushes people away back in SDR2, is afraid of having friends due to his luck cycle, respects boundaries to the max, and how socially intelligent he is and his crazy empathy to know people's hopes and despairs?)

(And no even Mikan's motivations he understood, he knew she killed for despair because she literally killed for Junko, Mikan just says he doesn't understand because she doesn't count is as killing for despair, she counts it as killing for love)

And some of the fans defend this and says Nagito is hated or is supposed to have no boundaries because of his social ineptness or inability to properly socialize

Okay

WHEN?

WHEN HAS HE IN SUPER DANGANRONPA 2 ACTUALLY SUCKED AT SOCIALIZING OR WAS SOCIALLY INEPT OR OUT OF TOUCH?

NOT THE ANIME OR SPINOFFS, I AM TALKING ABOUT THE ACTUAL SECOND GAME WHERE HE FIRST SHOWED HIS FACE

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOW GONNA BASE ALMOST ALL OF MY POINTS ON HOW NAGITO IS AND ACTS DURING SDR2 AND THAT INCLUDES HIS FREE TIME EVENTS AND ISLAND MODE

NOT THE ANIME OR DANGANRONPA 2.5, JUST DANGANRONPA 2 GOODBYE DESPAIR

Bruh, the guy is hated sure, but boy was he awesome at being a people-person and gathering people during chapter 1

He encouraged everyone with his hope talks and Hajime even kept simping for the guy because of his positivity

And due to the guy's CRAZY HIGH EMPATHY AND UNDERSTANDING, he is able to understand the hopes and despairs of almost every freaking character

He knew Teruteru wanted to continue the culinary legacy and help his mom, that's his hope

He knew Imposter would want to protect everyone no matter what, that's his hope

He knew Mikan killed for Despair, that despair being Junko Enoshima

He knew Fuyuhiko's hope is Peko and that both of them care about each other very much

He knew how similar he and Hajime are and how they are both bystanders and lovers of Hope, for Hajime that Hope being Hope's Peak academy itself and/or having talent

The guy is crazy with how well he knows people, and he is definitely not socially inept at all

He respects boundaries, is able to read the room and the only time he seems socially inept is when he is either trying to purposefully annoy someone to get a reaction or when he is too obsessed with his ideas with hope

The guy is obsessed with hope, yes, but he is not socially inept

That is seriously downgrading how much empathy he has and how much understanding he has for every character

And Nagito does have empathy, the reason why it seems like he doesn't is because he treats the dead people like stepping stones for hope

He does have empathy tho, and too much that it takes a toll on his mental health whenever he sees dead bodies, so he clings to hope in order to cope and tries to pretend that it's okay if people die because there is always hope

(basically, deniability at it's finest)

It's not that the guy doesn't care, it's that he does a little too much

Which is why he laughs, laughing for him doesn't mean he is happy, it means he is surprised (he says this in island mode)

And seeing that his greatest fears are seeing people die constantly because of his luck cycle, wouldn't be surprised that he laughs like crazy in a literal killing game

And laughing out of stress or fear isn't unheard of, I mean there is also a thing called nervous laughter

And jesus christ, CAN PEOPLE STOP TRYING TO USE FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA SYMPTOMS TO EXPLAIN HIM?

What I mean is, yes he has dementia or is at least diagnosed with it

And I believe that he probably does actually have dementia (not saying he could've lied tho but he could've still been misdiagnosed)

But that doesn't mean he has all of the symptoms

I don't think we can confirm if he does or doesn't have dementia because he might just not have all of the symptoms

But I do know that using the symptoms to explain his character isn't a good idea especially since it usually undermines who he actually is

Like, let me explain

Behavior and/or dramatic personality changes, such as swearing, stealing, increased interest in sex, or a deterioration in personal hygiene habits

- No, and no not even when the killing game started. Yeah sure he laughs now, but that's no different from how he is normally since laughing for him is what he does when he gets surprised or stressed. He doesn't change much in the killing game, he still believes in hope and everyone else, still respects boundaries, still have crazy high intellect and empathy, still pushes people away

Socially inappropriate, impulsive, or repetitive behaviors

- not really, again the guy is a freaking gentleman even during the killing game. He respects boundaries, reprimands Teruteru for sexual assault during chapter 1, pushes people away and distances himself from others, isn't at all impulsive (usually quite the opposite really), and is usually planning and tries to remain calm and composed throughout the killing game (struggling tho cuz yeah killing game)

Impaired judgment

- here, I kinda disagree. I wouldn't say that Nagito is entirely in the right with everything he does, but I understand his views. The guy knows that no one is truly a bad person in the killing game because everyone was forced into it. He knows that even the blackened escapes and everyone dies, it isn't fully a bad thing because that means someone escapes and goes back home to their loved ones while the killing game ends

If a blackened succeeds, the despair would be of course everyone else dying and the blackened going through a lot of trauma, but the hope would be the end of the killing game and the blackened going home or to their loved ones or to their goal in life or whatever

If the blackened dies, the despair would obviously be the blackened dying and the killing game still continuing, while the hope would be everyone else still alive

Nagito isn't exactly wrong in wanting to help the blackened as well, of course, Nagito would want him himself to be the victim so another person gets a chance at escape and no one else would be the victim

Sadly for Nagito, that time never comes

Nagito doesn't want others to be killed, he wants to sacrifice himself instead as the victim instead of everyone else

Apathy

- .....big no. Nonononono. The dude is anything but apathetic.

"Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something."

Seriously, being a dude who is constantly supportive of everyone and their hopes in life and how passionate this dude gets about hope and despair, and the fact that he is the most stressed 24/7 about something bad happening due to his luck, this guy is seriously anything but apathetic

Lack of empathy

- No. If the guy truly lack empathy he wouldn't need to use Hope desperately as a coping mechanism, wouldn't care about the ultimates and their hopes and despairs, wouldn't constantly be thinking about helping the ultimates and overcoming despair, wouldn't be the most stressed out of everyone, and definitely wouldn't be in love with Hajime or even act the way he did in chapter 1

Decreased self-awareness

- You don't actually understand why you act the way you do.

A good indicator that you lack self-awareness deals with how well you understand your emotions, actions, and behavior. People who lack self-awareness often feel constantly off-kilter, anxious, or angry.

This is not Nagito at all. The guy understands his emotions and behaviors which is why he is able to do the things he does and is able to conduct plans based on how much he understands his own self and capabilities. The guy is actually the most self-aware out of everyone, he knows about how people don't understand him and constantly misunderstand him and his intentions, he is aware constantly of his inability sometimes to properly explain his goals to people.

The guy has a lot of self-awareness and isn't afraid to take responsibility for his actions. Actually, it's because of how self-aware he is of his own self and his destructive luck cycle that he constantly blames himself for anything bad that happens.

The guy is seriously self-aware as hell and it's scary sometimes

Loss of interest in normal daily activities

- Nope, he hasn't shown any sign of apathy towards anything and is usually pretty hyped about doing daily activities. He is paranoid though on the daily because he fears for what his luck cycle might do

Emotional withdrawal from others

- Emotional withdrawal involves bottling up your emotions. It involves cutting out the people who could help us, because we're so used to rejection that we've learned to anticipate it. Because we've learned to disconnect from others, we develop other unhealthy coping mechanisms

Emotional withdrawal is defined as pulling back emotionally or physically by bottling up your feelings or disconnecting from others. Emotional withdrawal can be far more complex at times. It is comparable to a breakup, in every way but physical.

Kind of? Yes, he pushes people away, but he is still willing to spend time with people, especially Hajime, when they really insist. He politely pushes people away, but he isn't opposed to hanging out with people either though it is sometimes rare

Loss of energy and motivation

- .... I already said it before, the guy is full of motivation and energy and passion that it is scary sometimes

Inability to use or understand language; this may include difficulty naming objects, expressing words, or understanding the meanings of words

-.....WHY IS THIS HERE? THE GUY IN THE JAPANESE DUB CONSTANTLY FLEXES HIS DAMN ENGLISH VOCABULARY DESPITE IT BEING A JAPANESE DUB

AND THE FUCKING ENGLISH WORDS HE USES ARE FANCY AND HIGH LEVEL AS FUCK THAT I FEEL SMART JUST READING THEM

Hesitation when speaking

- Definite no, the guy isn't afraid to voice his own opinions and never hesitates and can get very vocal about the things he is passionate about

Less frequent speech

- Again, definite hell no. I wouldn't be surprised if his voice lines are longer than the voice lines of everyone else combined

Distractibility

- Nope. The guy is focused on his goals constantly. No matter what he does, you can always be sure that it is for a certain goal. He pisses of Fuyuhiko? It was to get a reaction from him to confirm his suspicions about the true culprit. He lied about the rope? It was to see how Mikan would react and how the trial would go to confirm his suspicions about Mikan being the culprit?

The guy is focused like a damn soldier

Trouble planning and organizing

-.....do I seriously need to explain? This is Nagito we are talking about

Frequent mood changes

- Not really. He usually acts or reacts a certain way because something happened like someone died or something. He is actually pretty normal with how he acts and reacts and doesn't really change his mood rapidly that much

Agitation

- Yes and no? Sure the guy gets paranoid 24/7, but is still somewhat more chill than agitated to an extent. He is easy going and is just paranoid about what his luck would do, he is vigilant but not necessarily agitated

Increasing dependence

- No. The guy is independent to a fault and only relies on others when his plans call for it. He also usually does things of his own accord and rarely with a partner unless he really needs to or his goal is to help that person specifically, which knowing him is a usual thing

Unwillingness to talk

- Again, no. The guy talks a lot and while he pushes others away, he wouldn't turn down a conversation if the other person wanted one

Lack of inhibition or lack of social tact

- Again, no. The guy is a gentleman and respects boundaries and definitely gets stressed especially in the killing game. The guy is also paranoid 24/7 on a normal day due to his luck cycle

Obsessive or repetitive behavior, such as compulsively shaving or collecting items

- No? Sure he clings to hope but that is more of a coping mechanism. If he isn't in a stressful situation like a killing game he doesn't get that obsessive as much about hope since he doesn't need to desperately cling to it as a coping mechanism

Unusual verbal, physical or sexual behavior

- No? He isn't at all like this. It isn't unusual to panic or use a coping mechanism desperately when in a situation like a killing game, and he doesn't do anything unusual like this when it's a normal day. Sure the guy gets paranoid, but that's it

Weight gain due to dramatic overeating

- No? Actually, I don't really know how much weight he gains to be honest so idk

My main point here is, yes there is a chance Nagito does actually have dementia, but using the symptoms as a way to explain his character undermines who he actually is and can cause a lot of misunderstandings of his character

Especially since I remember being told that they only added in dementia to his character backstory a little late during his character development and creation

It isn't a good idea to use his symptoms because it usually gets his character wrong and sometimes makes them excuse a lot of the things he has done

The guy is self-aware, isn't socially inept, is a gentleman, and socially intelligent as hell

And I really hate how even Danganronpa itself seems to forget that

It's like they forgot who Nagito is, to begin with

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imreallyhereforkataang · 3 years

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You ever think about how rare Air x Water relationships probably were, even before the war? Like, I haven't read the Kyoshi Novels yet, so idk if they ever mentioned an Air x Water pairing, but I'm not surprised to hear about an Air x Earth pairing. Cause ofc the Air Nomads would be traveling around, going to visit different locations big and small (not sure if that's how Kyoshi's parents met specifically, but regardless), and I'd imagine the Nomads' voyages would be pretty reserved to the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. Those are the "mainlands" of the Avatar universe.

Meanwhile, unless for some specific reason, I wouldn't really expect that the Air Nomads headed over to the Water Tribes too often. Because of geography and climate and maybe even the amount of supplies they'd have to bring along, since it seems the majority of Water Tribe food is caught. I also think of Aang’s initial reactions to Bato’s setup in Bato of the Water Tribe.

Likewise, I'm not sure how often people from the Water Tribes would've left their homes to travel other parts of the world. The Water Tribes are known to have a deep sense of community that strengthens their ties to the land and the people living there. The NWT seems like it stayed completely out of the war unless to hold off invasions. Idk, they just appear to be usually isolated communities when they can help it. And for those who did leave their homes, as I’m certain some did, I'm not sure how likely it would’ve been for them to cross paths and fall in love with an Air Nomad.

Part of me suspects that Aang hadn't even been to a Water Tribe before he froze himself. I know his near-immediate line "Will you go penguin sledding with me?" suggests that he’d done it before, like how he might've ridden the elephant koi of Kyoshi Island before, but consider how Aang didn't question the fact that he recognized no one from the Southern Water Tribe. He didn't appear to wonder why the heck the village of the same location from where it'd been 100 years ago had become so small since the last time he was there. And maybe it's just me, but asking "Do you guys live around here?" the way he did sort of gives off that he himself was unfamiliar personally with communities in the South Pole. Like, I think he'd figure they came from the once-large village, if he visited there before, even if he didn’t recognize them. So I'm skeptical Aang traveled to the SWT despite not living too far from it.

Also, I wouldn't call this evidence, more like support, but Aang didn't know how to catch penguins, either. The apparently common tactic was to have a spare piece of fish on you, and I don't imagine Air Nomads would have caught fish for penguin sledding. Maybe they would've accepted fish like how Aang did from Katara, or used some other method, but Aang asked if Katara would "teach" him how, which sounds like he really didn't have any prior knowledge from watching other people do it.

So, after all, maybe Aang had only ever heard of penguin sledding. Maybe going with Katara was his first time. Again, since he didn't live too far from the SWT, I'm sure somebody would've mentioned the penguins to him. Or maybe the above paragraph is null and there's an explanation I don't know about, but my point is that it's very possible he never met someone from the Southern Water Tribe in the era before the iceberg.

And then it’s pretty clearly shown that Aang had never been to the NWT. The NWT probably doesn't look exactly how it did 100 years ago, but given how long-standing and traditional it was, older than the SWT, it wouldn't look so unrecognizably different, and Aang seemed pretty in awe when he went there with Katara and Sokka. Also the fact that, before he knew 100 years passed, Aang said to Katara, "There's another Water Tribe up there, right? Maybe they have waterbenders who can teach you." Obviously that sounds speculative.

Aang mentions in The King of Omashu and The Blue Spirit how he used to "always" visit his friends Bumi and Kuzon, from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. But he never mentions a friend from the Water Tribes or what the Tribes looked like in the previous era. Thus, if Aang had gone to the Tribes, it was few to no times, and it seems the Air Nomads didn't make trips there like how they did to the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation.

That's all to say, Air x Water probably wasn't a common relationship. And it's kind of cute to me to think how Aang very likely had the first set of grey eyes Katara ever saw, and, with the aforementioned in mind, it's possible that Katara had the first set of blue eyes Aang ever saw. But what’s much greater is how this realization about Air x Water’s rareness makes their coming together all the more significant, the joining of these two cultures through Aang and Katara, survivors of genocide, that much more powerful. Because even though they probably wouldn't have met under normal circumstances, fate had something different in mind for them.

The Water and Air cultures and how they went about day-to-day life appear drastically different. Water Tribes mostly hunted, Air Nomads grew and gathered. Water Tribes stayed mostly to themselves, Air Nomads traveled the world. Water Tribes are like one large, heavily-connected family. Air Nomads sought detachment and free spirit. But even when they have such contrasting traditions and approaches to life, their values have more in common with each other than at first glance. They're both loving, spiritual cultures, embodied in beautiful, fluid, life-giving elements that probably didn’t bend together often, but when they do, they work in synchrony, in equal amount to make something more.

It gets to me so much how the cultures Aang and Katara come from turn out to be so valuable and fulfilling to each other. Both of them have an anomalous inclination to the other person’s culture. In Aang's case, through Katara especially, the Water Tribes are like his second home. He lost everything he’s known, and the Water Tribe just seems like such a perfect community to welcome him with open arms, deem him a member of their resilient family, and encourage his connections with the people he’ll be protecting as the Avatar. For Katara, the Air Nomads lived a lost way of life, representing a peace within the world and themselves, that she’d been hoping and fighting for from a young age. Through Aang, that perspective and lifestyle is breathed back into this era, and he shares it with her firsthand. Really, it’s like there’s a bit of Water inside Aang, and a bit of Air inside Katara.

They lived such different lives at such different times, but they both came from the South, which would allow for Aang to keep close over the next century. Despite living those different worlds, they were nearer than they realized. Their cultures involve such different customs, but resonant essences. They’re more complementary than they appear, like Aang and Katara, and they keep balance that way, accepting each other wholly, not discouraging either one’s beliefs or history but instead learning and growing from those.

Air x Water feels so special to me, so representative of Aang and Katara and them joining forces to change the world, to confront their pain, to find their personal triumphs despite the tragedies unleashed on their cultures that few others can relate to. And after the war, they’d rebuild those cultures. Make new memories, start new legacies. Have a family together. Their relationship is SO important and meaningful. They found each other out of their harsh pasts, an Air and a Water meant to connect when their ancestors often did not, meant to help each other when they’d lost so much, and created something totally new, unique, and beautiful.

#kataang #kataangtag #im in my air x water feels #THE ORANGE AND BLUE #THE YIN AND YANG #stop sleeping on air x water please like they are SO different but they're actually NOT #they're different on the surface but their core is so similar. and it's totally aang and katara's. they just own it #that's the soulmatism folks #atla #avatar the last airbender #aang #katara

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Neverland, the role of “nostalgia” in Kiuzna’s narrative, and the 02 quartet’s unusual immunity to it

In general, the 02 quartet (my shorthand for the four human characters introduced in 02 who weren’t in Adventure, namely Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) have a position in Kizuna that you can call “shockingly favorable” in that they’re kept safely out of the most dangerous parts of the plot in ways the others aren’t. This especially sticks out when we get to the Eosmon incident reaching its climax, when Takeru and Hikari are placed in the same situation as their Adventure seniors, despite the movie and its surrounding media generally portraying them closer in line with the others in the 02 group than the Adventure group.

To be a bit blunt about it, the obvious main reason the story is set up this way is meta -- a lot of the climax’s effectiveness depends on the audience getting sensory impact via recognizing things from the original series (including 02 as well; how convenient it is that all of the international Chosen are in the positions 02 fans would recognize!), and so it’s obvious that said climax would evoke imagery related to the series that was Digimon Adventure, while the 02 quartet would be treated extra-kindly by the narrative due to the need to give them compensatory action screentime given certain real-life events. But just because the originating reason is meta doesn’t mean there isn’t also a story reason for it, especially considering the relevance of 02′s themes in Kizuna’s narrative, and the surrounding circumstances regarding both series.

Before we get into anything else, the first thing that needs to be established is that Menoa and Eosmon’s lure is pretty obviously depicted as working on a subconscious level. This is why everyone else in the narrative agrees that what they did is “kidnapping”, despite her insistence that she’s just doing what they wanted. While they can’t not admit to having moments of weakness, nevertheless, it’s likely that most if not all of the people Menoa kidnapped consciously knew better and had learned better lessons than this a long time ago; if Menoa had consciously offered Neverland to her victims, most of them would have probably said no! But as Daisuke said back in 02 episode 49 -- when he witnessed his own friends being subjected to something similar at the hands of BelialVamdemon -- there’s no sin in having feelings of worries or troubles (and, by extension, irrational feelings in general), and Eosmon’s abilities and Neverland happen to be able to directly target them. In fact, we ourselves got to witness this internal conflict when Menoa made her direct offer to Taichi and Yamato to join Neverland; they briefly considered it because of the circumstances, but were snapped out of it quickly with Agumon and Gabumon’s intervention, and were really, really mad at themselves for considering it shortly after.

We saw the process of how Ayaka became one of the kidnapping victims at the beginning of the movie -- it happened right after she complained that she wasn’t fond of the idea of becoming an adult at this point. So it does lend some truth to the idea that Menoa’s working off something with these cases, and that Eosmon did specifically target people who had those wishes to some degree. Moreover, note carefully how this kidnapping (and some others in the movie) is portrayed; Eosmon doesn’t actually emerge from the device in question (it’s obvious that nobody notices the giant butterfly monster), and the victim’s consciousness and partner are whisked away thanks to being caught by the device camera. In Ayaka’s case, because her phone was sitting on the table, pointed at her. The fact that this is not how the kidnappings are portrayed all the way to the end of the movie is a very significant point.

So let’s talk about Neverland and its construction. The whole thing is based on Menoa’s own very, very warped view of what “happiness” is. This means that Neverland is only an “ideal world” or “utopia” in a way that makes sense to her -- and once you learn the full extent of her backstory, it becomes apparent how she came to the mentality she did, and, more pertinently, how she ended up projecting that on everyone else. Hence, how she came to decide that she knew better and should decide for everyone, because she thinks she gets the right to decide on everyone’s happiness based on her own experiences. (She doesn’t.)

The way Neverland is constructed is that everyone has “their own places” -- their own individual islands that recreate “memories” of everyone being able to be together with their partner, forever. So in other words, it’s not just that everyone’s being turned into children; it’s that they’re being kept in an eternal loop of their best memory and unable to “move forward”.

Here are three very significant parts about this, which will be important to keep in mind as we go deeper into this analysis:

Menoa’s view of this utopia requires people to be separated -- for all she claims this is a utopia where people can play together, she discourages fraternizing and encourages everyone to stay only with their own partners. This is, presumably, to lessen complications with said memories, because what might be one person’s best memory might not be for another, and also because she thinks one person being alone with their partner is happiness enough in itself. As we’ll be seeing later, this is very much not the case for everyone.

A lot of these memories in Neverland -- and Menoa’s own mentality, as we eventually find out -- are heavily dependent on the concept of rose-colored nostalgia, or, that is to say, conveniently omitting or forgetting about all of the bad things about one’s past in order to portray it as such a wonderful thing that nobody should ever move on from. And in the end, that probably applies to real-life childhood in general, too; as much as it’s so often put on a pedestal for being a time when “everything was simpler”, you can also easily argue that it wasn’t actually all sunshine and roses, it’s just that the process of forgetting things or the grass-is-greener phenomenon makes you conveniently forget all of the bad things and frustration that came with it too.

Because the concept of needing to stay in the past forever is based on the idea that it’s preferable to growing up, these memories thus have a strong premise of “things you cannot do anymore” -- something that, bar going back to the past and never moving from it, you will never get back or be able to sufficiently recreate. It’s unlikely the islands themselves are one-to-one recreating their specific memories in the way they happened, but rather seemingly presenting them the opportunity to “constantly do over” things they want to recreate or do again, as long as those things are associated with a happy thing that isn’t as easily accessible anymore.

In the case of the five Adventure group members who were brought into Neverland, these “memories” that they’re seen trapped in are, of course, from Digimon Adventure.

It is of course foolhardy to pretend that the main reason for this wasn’t meta, since, of course, there’s a huge point to be made here about the relationship between Adventure and nostalgia, plus the simple fact that this is what we’re most likely to recognize and be nostalgic for, but it also makes sense within the context of the narrative; Menoa has an extreme bias towards the happiness of her childhood revolving almost entirely around her partner, and, of course, Adventure was when these kids first had their most formative meetings with said partners. (This is also probably the in-story explanation for why the other international Chosen from 02 appear at or close to their 02 selves; beyond the meta reason of it being a way to make them recognizable when we only knew them for such a short time, it also approximates when they met their own partners.)

On top of that, Adventure was not all sunshine and roses for its cast! After all, there was a ton of drama and emotional trauma and stress from running away from enemies trying to kill them, or trying to save the universe, and glossing over that is also foolhardy -- but this is also where our concept of “rose-colored” comes in. Menoa’s not offering the kids the entire adventure; she’s offering them a small slice of the moments when they were able to be happy, the moments that made them want to stay in the Digital World for a whole 110 years’ worth of time at the end of Adventure -- she’s basically offering them that very thing they wanted and had ripped away from them at the end of Adventure when the time dilation phenomenon stopped. Take out all of the bad stuff, and suddenly, the events of Adventure seem outright romantic -- it’s the whole school of thought that fueled Adventure’s inspirations of Two Years’ Vacation and Stand By Me, in which a lot of stressful stuff happened and yet you still can’t help but think there was something magical and romantic about it. (I cannot emphasize enough how much of a cultural impact Stand By Me in particular had in Japan, to the point where it’s considered the epitome example of a “coming of age story” and “summer adventure”.)

Let’s take a closer look at what’s on each of the Adventure kids’ personal islands:

Hikari is probably the one in the most unusual position among this group, since she didn’t join until over the halfway point, and the first arc she got involved in revolved around everyone wanting her and Tailmon dead. Thus, the memory we get to see her involved in is the Numemon factory in Adventure episode 49. Although this was in the middle of the Dark Masters arc (and, uniquely, very close to the end of the series where a lot of stress was involved), due to the limited amount of time she got to be in the Digital World, this was the one time she got to do something really cool and awesome and impressive for herself that had nothing to do with the others (again: see how the requirements for these islands require not fraternizing with friends and being isolated).

One thing that the Adventure kids got to do that wasn’t in play in 02 was that there were a lot of “romantic experiences”, involving strange adventures and things like phone boxes on the beach, and, very significantly, “Digimon friends” -- ones that the kids made a huge note of bonding with over the course of the series. This contributes to a certain sense of whimsy that was involved in this adventure that the 02 quartet ultimately never ended up getting to foster, because the lack of the time dilation phenomenon meant that they spent much less time in the Digital World overall (more on this in a bit), and once the time dilation stopped, it meant that these kinds of “whimsical” experiences were ones the Adventure group was permanently torn away from once that adventure ended. That dropping of the time dilation phenomenon not only cut that initial adventure short, it also prevented any future ones like it from ever happening again.

And, of course, this is an extremely rose-colored memory, because shortly afterwards, the Numemon ended up all sacrificing themselves for Hikari. But hey, when you’re in a space that can eternally loop good memories forever, everything’s fine as long as we conveniently never get to that part, right?

From this point on, you’ll notice that all of the memories that show up on these islands are from before the halfway point of the series, because after that, things started getting increasingly pear-shaped and much more difficult to disentangle the stress, mental breakdowns, and witnessing of deaths from. (Hikari’s probably wouldn’t have come from such a late incident if she hadn’t joined the party so late.) Although there still were looming threats around the horizon in the beginning of Adventure, they weren’t always immediately apparent to the kids at every turn, and in fact, the beginning of the series involved more of a “well, we’re in this situation and probably need to get home somehow” aura than it did a “the world is in danger and all of us might die” aura. (It’s also in direct contrast to the 02 group, who were given the details of the crisis and what they needed to do roughly from the get-go.) So in other words, if you want to have some rose-colored nostalgia about the romanticism of this adventure, these are some of the best episodes to pull from.

Takeru’s is obviously from the Village of Beginnings, corresponding to Adventure episode 12, when he and Patamon got to have a fun romp through the village, play together, meet Elecmon, and learn about how Digimon are born. It’s also very much something he did without the others, only with Patamon, and had a lot of “fun and happiness” associated with (later solo episodes with Takeru had a lot more upsetting events more intrinsically tied with it), and, again, it’s extremely rose-colored -- it wasn’t even a day later when Angemon died in front of Takeru’s eyes. But hey, that’s even more reason to pick a moment from before then to stay in forever! Can’t have trauma if that trauma never happens, right?

Also, note that Takeru is one of the few here who’s confirmed to be aware of the partnership dissolution issue at this point, and, unlike Koushirou, isn’t confirmed to have accepted a forward-thinking mentality about it yet -- this is a very, very prime time for his fears of being separated from Patamon again to have a nasty relapse.

Mimi’s is the closest to the midpoint of the series, from the affair with the Geckomon and Otamamon castle (from Adventure episode 25; the metal railings here resemble the stage railings from that episode). It’s from the period of time that was a “lull” -- when nobody actually knew about the encroaching threat of Vamdemon quite yet, and for all it was worth, there was no longer any danger. So Mimi got to live happily in the comfort of the castle and play around with the Geckomon and Otamamon...which, of course, also conveniently excludes the affair where she went on a power trip, made everyone miserable due to her selfishness, and immediately felt guilt over it.

Mimi’s associations with this incident are not entirely negative; she was clearly still having fun singing for them in the end (note how her clothing during that scene involved her regular outfit, which she has on here), and she still had a positive impression of her relationship with the Geckomon and Otamamon as per Adventure episode 47 and 02 episode 6 (and as per 02 episode 15, even though everyone’s initial encounter with TonosamaGeckomon ended badly, nobody actually has any lingering grudge against him). So if you filter out that whole affair with the power trip and the resulting embarrassment, it was a meeting with a bunch of fun Digimon friends, a romantic little castle, and a fun stage session where Mimi got to sing.

Jou’s refers to the Infinity Mountain incident in Adventure episode 7, and even from the get-go you can already see the level of rose-coloredness in Jou’s gesture -- in the actual incident depicted, Jou went to the mountain out of a sense of obligation and stress, and the initial climbing involved him having a bit of a bickering moment with Gomamon. But once they did get up there, it was actually their first time the two of them got to really “bond” -- and not only that, their encounter with Unimon had Jou even look on it with fascination, before the Dark Gear had ever come into play.

So in the end, Jou really would have found the incident enjoyable and worthwhile if not for that, and from there you can understand why it would be appealing for him to revisit that setting and finally get to have a bit of calm fun with Gomamon there -- especially since, again, the Neverland islands have a very strong preference for isolating the kids from others, and this was one of the few times Jou got to have a major moment of calm like this alone with Gomamon, with a slight reprieve from the constant feeling of stress and duty.

Koushirou’s most prominently resembles the “sealed room” in the factory in Adventure episode 5, and while Koushirou certainly continued to make a large number of exciting discoveries after that, this was the situation where Koushirou, with no one else but Tentomon to worry about in the immediate vicinity, got to have the largest sensation of “novelty” -- where he first came upon the fascinating discovery of data manipulating reality around him, and he actually got to see the world change around him by wiping things off a wall.

And, of course, there were other things going on like Tentomon confronting him with his first existential crisis, and how things quickly went south with Andromon...but we don’t have to remember that part for now, right?

An interesting thing about Koushirou: the circumstances of how he was “kidnapped” in the first place are actually somewhat obscured compared to the other four in this scene, since Menoa presumably needed him conscious in order to get his list out of him, resulting in his kidnapping scene also involving an emerging Eosmon and not having him be instantly taken the way we see Takeru and Hikari (more on this in the section below). It’s thus unclear whether he’d be in their boat had his position in Menoa’s plan not been unusual -- said memories in Neverland involved “gathering information and learning more”, something he still actively involved himself with even after the events of Adventure, and he’s also the first one to reach a forward-thinking mentality about the partnership dissolution phenomenon. Either way, once he was already dragged into Neverland, it’s natural that the place could find a good memory for him in the same way it did for the other kids who were “manually” dragged in, but the actual method of entry and whether Koushirou's post-Adventure life put him in a mindset similar to that of the 02 quartet (again, see below) is a bit ambiguous.

So here’s an interesting part about how the 02 quartet gets involved in this story: their own encounters with Eosmon happen during a part where the method of kidnapping has abruptly changed. As many have pointed out, this is also when the degree of the targets Menoa wanted had also suddenly escalated, because while her previous claims had involved the idea of kidnapping like-minded adults (who, indeed, were entertaining thoughts of nostalgia to even some degree), she was now kidnapping actual children, ones who weren’t even nearly at the point of the supposed drudgery of adulthood that Menoa claimed they would eventually have, and with her arrogantly deciding she knew better for all of them. The part that becomes particularly intriguing about this is that the exact same thing happens with Miyako -- she is explicitly stated to have connected her laptop to the Internet, resulting in an Eosmon physically emerging and chasing her instead of instantaneously snatching away her consciousness through a camera like her own fellow 02 group members Takeru and Hikari.

So in other words, the 02 quartet’s favorable position in this incident doesn’t just have to do with being lucky enough to have gotten Koushirou’s warning about the Eosmon early; they (or at least Miyako) also seem to have a certain degree of outright immunity to it, much like the young children who aren’t old enough to have nostalgia yet. (Also, keep in mind that Takeru was caught thanks to a security camera; “excess caution with electronic devices” alone wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed their safety.)

Recalling that, for the most part, Takeru and Hikari are usually treated more like 02 group members in the context of this narrative yet are, in this one case, treated as being potentially nostalgia-prone, it stands to reason that the main difference between the two of them and their fellow members in the 02 group is the fact that Takeru and Hikari went on the adventure in 1999, and the quartet did not. So in other words, the reason the 02 quartet isn’t as prone to this is not so much that they’re fundamentally different-minded people, as much as they have a distinct lack of an experience they can be attached to the way the Adventure group is to their own 1999 adventure. (Remember that Menoa’s kidnappings work heavily on subconscious feelings; you can’t blame anyone for having these kinds of feelings no matter how much they’ve consciously learned.)

As I said earlier, it’s foolhardy to pretend that Adventure was all sunshine and roses, and, likewise, it’s also foolhardy to pretend that 02 was nothing but suffering for everyone involved. Both series involved a lot of balancing of funny, silly moments to be treasured as much as they involved stress (which is why people are so attached to both, after all). So the question is not so much how happy they were in their childhoods as much as the nature of what that happiness came from, and what relation it has to their current lives. And when you look at what experiences the 02 quartet had back in 02, you might notice a thread of the fact that it is significantly harder to romanticize the events of 02 than it is Adventure.

Let’s put it this way: Let’s say that the 02 quartet was kidnapped into Neverland and placed onto islands that fit Menoa’s view of happiness. What, exactly, would you pick from 02 itself that would work? What kind of “happiness” did they have back then that’s so romantic, so impossible to replicate now, that they’d want to go back to because it’s better than their lives now once you disentangle all of the bad stuff?

...Not much. Not much at all, actually. Hanging out in the computer room together? Doesn’t seem like they cared that much about the computer room part as much as the fact the others were there bantering with them (which would put a huge nail in Menoa’s islands mandating isolationism). Going out on a picnic together? No reason they can’t just go on another picnic again (and if the BD box is to be believed, that’s exactly what they did, and they even added Ken to it while they were at it). Hanging out with their Digimon in real life and doing silly hijinks? They’re...probably still doing that now, actually. Getting to find true happiness at a Christmas party? That’s a party from the real world (again, something they most certainly continued to do thereafter), one where the happiness came not from the romanticism of anything that happened to do with some adventure, but just the happiness of being surrounded by true friends, which, again, Ken is still clearly getting to do by the time of Kizuna.

Once you look at the circumstances of what the “adventure” of 02 was to the 02 group, you may realize that it doesn’t really resemble the traditional romantic image of an “adventure” much at all. Sure, they were blessed with being able to regularly go back and forth between the Digital World from the get-go, but it meant that -- especially without the time dilation in play -- the Digital World became much less of a picturesque area associated with a one-time memorable adventure as much as something they had to squeeze in their after-hours while juggling it with their school. The circumstances they encountered their Digimon and the Digital World in were at a point where it had a certain level of “mundane” to them, compared to their seniors; it wasn’t a “fantasy adventure in the Digital World” when so much of the story also revolved around real-world events as well, and you can’t really find many “mysterious fantasy” events in 02 that resemble much of those in Adventure. The closest might be...Daisuke seeing Numemon pile out of a vending machine in 02 episode 1? (Not very romantic.) Daisuke getting chased around by a Tortomon in 02 episode 22? (Really not very romantic.) Iori getting to tour the ocean with Submarimon? (Implied to more about relief from how much he was holding himself back than the uniqueness of the experience in itself.) Ken’s long-time-ago flashback from 02 episode 23 about meeting Wormmon for the first time? (Defeating a Gazimon is hardly that impressive; the important part was him bonding with Wormmon, which he’s...uh...still doing now?)

There weren’t any lasting relationships with Digimon friends like the ones in Adventure, maybe encountering some civilians once and not seeing them much again after that, especially since the lack of time dilation meant not getting to spend as much time visiting them much at all (think about all of the really fun experiences that the Adventure group probably had that weren’t shown in the actual Adventure TV series, just because it probably didn’t have enough drama that would make a good TV episode plot). This means that there’s very little, if at all, of 02 that represents something this group would want so badly to recreate that they can’t already do now; everything from back then was either something comparatively mundane, or something they actually would not want back. Unlike with Adventure, where a lot of the kids had irreplaceable moments that only happened to be spoiled a bit later, a lot of the “really awesome accomplishments” from the first half of 02 were explicitly against Ken, someone whom they’d probably rather not dwell on fighting again because of how much they love him now; many of those good memories are “retroactively poisoned” because of that, and it’s much, much more difficult to make a rose-colored version of those memories disentangled from the bad, because of how fundamentally intrinsic that retroactive poisoning becomes.

And, when you think about it, the mandate of “you have to be alone on your own island” would pretty much break these four in particular, especially since the 02 group is portrayed as the type to need mutual support more than anything else, and so many of the events that represent “happiness” specifically involved the happiness of each other being present. It’s not to say that the 02 quartet had no moments of happiness when alone with their partners, but, rather, being with each other provided so much more fulfillment to them that Menoa’s offer of a memory of their past that requires them to be alone probably pales in comparison to anything they could do now in each other’s presence. Maybe, like with the other kids depicted in these scenes, they could be buttered up with something nice if you successfully got them into Neverland, but it’s not like they have any real wistfulness about anything from back then to the point that they’d be subconsciously drawn towards it instead of having to be dragged in kicking and screaming -- and especially in the case of Miyako, the same one who managed to evade an Eosmon here, who was offered a similar “chance to be alone” back in 02 episode 49 and didn’t take very long to decide she hated it because of how much of her happiness comes from getting to be with others.

By the time of the end of Adventure, the Adventure kids’ ideal situation was to have a romantic and fun 110-year adventure with the sights and fun of the Digital World, with all of the weird fantasy surrealism and less of the world-saving, and that’s something they never got to have (and that Menoa was inherently offering them). By the time of the end of 02, the 02 quartet’s ideal situation was...to find a way to get back to normal life and hope their friend feels a little better, and that “ideal situation” is still persisting even into the time of Kizuna, so it’s hard to imagine they really want more than that.

And, again, when you extrapolate this into what Kizuna’s trying to say about real life, adulthood, and nostalgia: it is true that Menoa’s projecting a belief that absolutely does not apply to everyone. While it’s true that many people feel that childhood had a certain kind of magic that you can’t get back in adulthood, there are possibly just as many people who aren’t really all that nostalgic to begin with, either due to trauma or something about their childhoods being miserable, or, even in the lack of such miserable events, simply enjoying the added freedom and expanded range of ability that comes with adulthood to the point they consider it to be more than worth the tradeoff. The 02 group basically represents this crowd -- Ken’s life right now beats out his past in pretty much nearly every respect, and while there are certain concerns about not being able to meet up as often, they’re finding the same ways to do the same kinds of over-the-top hijinks they did back in 02, with arguably even more range now that they get to exploit Digital Gates to do world travel and act without worrying about their parents. They’re basically like the adults who see Menoa’s creed of “childhood is better because adulthood sucks” and go “sorry, can’t relate.”

That said, remember: this isn’t because the 02 quartet is somehow mentally stronger or anything, but rather just a byproduct of what experiences they've had and haven’t had. Takeru and Hikari’s position is unique here -- for all intents and purposes their mentalities are portrayed as closer to the 02 group’s, but they did still have the experience their seniors had and are thus still capable of being close to their position in this one regard. In the end, everyone is different, it’s no sin to have feelings based on those differences, and “being able to relate” to one’s position is also an important key here; because the 02 group’s position is so alien to Menoa’s, it’s unlikely they could have tackled her problems nearly as intimately as their seniors could.

What we learn about Menoa’s backstory establishes that she forced her vision of nostalgic happiness on everyone based on her own perception of her past in such a warped, rose-colored manner. She conveniently omitted or forgot about details such as the fact that her life as a “child” involved feeling ostracized from everyone and that she herself was guilty of neglecting Morphomon. Not only that, she herself claims that she’s the only one who knows what this feels like -- that nobody relates to her -- and thus, you can see that she came to her conclusion that her experiences are universal by the power of sheer extrapolation, hence why she thinks everyone inevitably loses their partner upon reaching adulthood despite pretty significant amounts of evidence to the contrary. (For all it’s worth, the fact that she still considers herself as having “become an adult” at 14 just because she got into university at that time is pretty conceited.)

Menoa’s existence as being so starkly in contrast to the 02 quartet’s is very likely because her entire character was built up from the ground that way -- her entire backstory of skipping grades into university is heavily based on 02′s initial development premise and Ken’s own backstory, meaning she explicitly represents the path that Ken and the other 02 kids chose not to take, and the timing of certain events in her backstory seems almost deliberately engineered to prevent her from witnessing some of 02′s important answers to Kizuna’s conflict, most notably her inability to witness the final battle and the important lessons everyone present learned about following one’s dreams without restraint, and how that relates to one’s partner. Menoa’s mindset is basically that level of incompatible with 02′s themes of “moving on from the past” and “not caving to arbitrary societal expectations”, to the point her character could only get to this point by going out of the way to exclude her from 02′s story and events, because she’s fundamentally built as a character who started off on a very similar path as them (getting to integrate her Digimon partner into normal life, having a similar backstory to Ken) before veering off on a very different one.

Moreover, about that backstory, and the reason why 02 was conceived as such a criticism of the concept of “skipping grades into university”: the concern that someone in this position will be kept from making any friends their age. Menoa puts the moment of “being with one’s partner” on such a pedestal and considers herself to be “the only one who knows what this feels like” partially because she has a fundamentally warped view of friendship itself. Even the Adventure group, which may not have had quite the absurdly tight level of bonding the 02 group had, still broke out of the illusion via Taichi and Yamato reaching out to them, and Taichi and Yamato giving each other mutual support helped them make the decisions they did in the movie. The movie is titled “bonds”, and “bonds” doesn’t just refer to those between human and Digimon partner, but also bonds between each other; Taichi, Yamato, and Sora slowly drifting away from the others at the start of the movie has very strong relevance to their respective existential crises, and the role that Taichi and Yamato play in supporting each other, and Mimi’s in supporting Sora in To Sora and even beyond that, say a lot as to how they’re already expected to be much better off than Menoa was.

It’s not that adulthood is inherent drudgery; it’s that Menoa’s own circumstances really are that warped to the point where she sees her very unusual experiences as fundamentally synonymous with how life is supposed to work in general. She was so obsessed with “being independent”, “being useful to the world”, and “being on her own” that she had no mentality of making friends or connecting to others besides her own partner, and once her partner disappeared, she seemed to make no attempt to rectify that. So of course her life in university following that ended up being not nearly as fulfilling as she’d hoped, since she was getting no real emotional support from anywhere, and, as 02 itself also drove home, apparent “approval from society” only ever makes you as “happy” as a Dark Seed-implanted child if you’re not also being supported by your loved ones in the process. Her adulthood sucked, and she decided that everything about her rose-colored childhood meant that childhood is fundamentally superior in every way, and thus decided that keeping everyone else in it would be “saving” them from the terror it involves -- even though (even if they’re not aware of the specifics of everything) the 02 quartet is not the kind to be able to relate to this at all, and, eventually, Taichi and Yamato, who do understand her position a bit better due to their own experiences, are able to get her to reconsider a little.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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adventuresindolls · 3 years

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May Photo Challenge!!

Our next photo challenge, #Daisies and Daffodolls, will begin on May 1st! It’s a creative, for fun, non-competitive daily challenge for you to share pictures of your doll(s). There will be a new prompt each day, listed below to give you a month to prepare, and you can participate in as many or as few days as you’re interested in. There is no judgement whatsoever, so please share regardless of how complex your props are, and don’t worry about posting a prompt late.

First of all, thank you so much to @desertdollranch for helping with the prompts, especially those surrounding AG birthdays and holidays, and for getting this whole photo challenge thing started back in September! And a huge thank you to @lesbianelizabethcole for designing all 5 banners!

The ground rules are the same as in October and December, but I’ll reiterate them for anyone that might be new. Tag all of your prompt posts with #daisies and daffodolls - all three words, complete with spaces. This will allow us to better find and share each other’s posts. You can organize your own posts however you want, but I recommend including the day’s prompt somewhere for context. Also feel free to post on other social medias if you want.

This is not a competition, and there are no prizes, but it should be a lot of fun. Feel free to use any size and brand of doll that you have! American Girl is very popular on doll tumblr, but all other types are welcome as well, including both established (historical or modern) characters and OCs. This could range from 18-inch dolls to Barbies to handmade dolls or porcelain dolls or even paper dolls.

I’ll reblog this post weekly until the beginning of May, and then begin each week of May with the prompt list for that week. Please find a list of all prompts below the cut.

5/1: The first day of each photo challenge is traditionally for seasonal fashion. Does your doll have a favorite spring outfit? Is it cool and light, or are they still bundled in a sweater for the chilly mornings?

5/2: Spring is all about new beginnings. Is your doll learning a new skill or trying a new activity this spring? Or maybe they just met a new person who became important in their life?

5/3: Today is National Textiles Day. Kirsten’s friends gave her a quilt they made after she missed school to help her family. Does your doll have any clothes or other items that are handmade? If not, do they make any textile items themselves? This could be something sewn, knitted, crocheted, or quilted.

5/4: May the 4th be with you! Does your doll like Star Wars? Who is their favorite character? What about other stories? Pick a hero from any movie, show, or book that your doll loves and have them act out a scene as that character.

5/5: Friends are forever. Who are your doll’s closest friends and what do they do together? Maybe they like to play board games or go to the mall or play pretend. Or maybe your doll is planning something special for their friend.

5/6: As the weather gets warmer, it’s the perfect time to head outside. Does your doll play sports, or do they prefer casual games with their friends? Maybe they like picnics or quiet hikes through the woods.

5/7: Happy birthday, Maryellen! Maryellen often feels overlooked in her large family, and she works hard to stand out and show her unique personality. What makes your doll special and unique?

5/8: It’s career day! What does your doll want to do when they grow up? Show them dressed up for and/or acting out their dream job.

5/9: Happy Mother’s Day! Addy and her mother escaped to freedom together, Caroline’s mother ran a shipyard, and Kirsten’s mother encouraged her not to lose heart. Does your doll have a special bond with their mother? How do they celebrate Mother’s Day? If they don’t have a mother or don’t have a good relationship with her, consider today a free space to show us something you really want to but that isn’t included in these prompts.

5/10: Bugs are everywhere! We might avoid some of them, but others are welcomed. Lightning bugs, ladybugs, bumble bees, and dragonflies are a few happy spring bugs. Show your doll doing something bug-themed. They might take a net out to catch bugs or draw a picture of a bug or hold a ladybug they found. Be creative!

5/11: Parties are always fun! Is your doll going to any birthday parties or sleepovers this spring? Maybe they’re attending a wedding or some other celebration? What are their favorite party activities?

5/12: Spring weather can be a relief after the cold and darkness of winter. What is the weather like where your doll is? Foggy? Rainy? Bright and sunny? Show your doll interacting with their local spring weather.

5/13: Everyone needs mentors and heroes. Who does your doll look up to? What have they learned from them or how do they honor them?

5/14: It’s the last day of the school year. What’s your doll’s favorite extracurricular activity or aspect of school that they’ll miss until next fall?

5/15: Happy birthday, Luciana! Luciana loves learning about space and wants to be an astronaut and go to Mars one day. Getting to space involves studying many different things, particularly various fields of science. Show your doll doing something related to space or science.

5/16: Today is National Do Something Nice for your Neighbor Day. What does your doll do that helps others or makes the world a better place?

5/17: Let’s try something different today! If your (OC or non-AG) doll had their own American Girl-style book series, what would be the central theme? What sort of things would happen to them? Show us at least one scene from this hypothetical series.

5/18: Beaches and swimming are iconic activities as the weather gets warmer and people have more free time. Rebecca and her family went to Coney Island for a picnic. Does your doll enjoy picnics, sunbathing, or sandcastles on the beach? Maybe they like to swim for exercise or hang out at the pool with friends? (I do not recommend putting your doll in a public chlorine pool)

5/19: Happy Birthday, Kit! Growing up seeing the effects of the Great Depression on people around her, Kit is determined to report on important things happening to real people. How does your doll relate to current events? Are they involved in activism or spreading awareness? Is there an important social issue that affects them personally or that they feel is very important? Or is there something good happening in the world that they like to think about?

5/20: Spring is a great time for tea parties. What’s in your doll’s teacup? Maybe they’re drinking a fancy tea, or maybe they prefer a refreshing glass of juice.

5/21: Spring is full of baby animals. Show your doll interacting with some sort of baby animal. (Safely! Please don’t grab a real squirrel or bunny!)

5/22: In December we celebrated Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. I’d like to reprise that, but with a twist: this time, we’re headed into the future! The amount of time and what your doll finds in the future is completely up to you. What do they do while there?

5/23: Cakes and pies and ice cream, oh my! What is your doll’s favorite dessert?

5/24: There may be fewer holidays in spring than in December, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to celebrate! Does your doll celebrate Passover or Easter? Or maybe they prefer a more obscure spring holiday to liven things up? Show them participating in whatever celebration you like.

5/25: Yellow is the color of flowers and sunny days and ducklings. Show your doll wearing or using something yellow.

5/26: Happy birthday, Samantha! After her birthday party, Samantha hears Aunt Cornelia speak at a suffragette meeting in New York City. What is a cause that is important to your doll? Show them with a sign supporting or protesting something close to their heart. As an added challenge, use a cause unrelated to the current events prompt.

5/27: It’s summer vacation! What are some of your doll’s favorite activities now that they’re free from school? Alternatively, what are some of their favorite hobbies to do anytime?

5/28: Happy birthday, Cecile! For her birthday, Cecile’s brother Armand gave her a beautiful porcelain doll that looked like her. Does your doll have a favorite doll or toy?

5/29: Late spring and early summer is a great time to go on a road trip or vacation. Where is your doll traveling to, and what are they doing there? Or maybe their family chose a staycation this year - what new fun new things are they discovering close to home?

5/30: Today is National Water a Flower Day. Show your doll interacting with flowers or other plants.

5/31: What is your doll planning for this fall? What are they looking forward to when school starts again? Is a big change approaching as the seasons and leaves turn? What does the future hold for them?

#Daisies and Daffodolls #American Girl Dolls #Our Generation #dollblr

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some-kindofgnome · 4 years

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Kinktober #27: The Lake: Bakusquad

In which you and Kirishima take a trip to the lake for a little class reunion.

Characters: primarily Kirishima / f!reader, but also Jirou, Sero, Kaminari, Bakugou and Mina / f!reader AND background Kaminari / Jirou

Warnings: smut (18+ please!) aged-up characters, pro-hero Kiri, Bakugou, Denki, Jirou, Mina and Sero, group sex, polyamory, brief mentions of drinking, not a whole lot of attention paid to protection (sorry...)

Notes: Today’s prompt was “Orgy.” You can probably tell by how many fcking PEOPLE are involved lmao. I... had trouble with this one! This was tough. There are a lot of limbs to keep track of. But I wouldn’t be opposed to re-visiting this dynamic again soon, with more time to play around a little.

I know it says 1-A on the masterlist, but it really did turn out to be more of a Bakusquad thing, sorry!

Kinktober Masterlist

You’re folding one last sweater into your weekend bag and zipping it up when Kirishima swings by to pick you up.

After a very long, hot summer week at the office, your boss let you go a couple of hours early on a slow Friday afternoon- just soon enough to catch the early train home. It turned out to be very lucky indeed, since Kirishima’s already here and you’re just finishing up your packing.

Then again, it’s not your fault you’ve been agonizing over what to bring.

The buzzer by your door sends your heart leaping into your throat, but it only takes a quick peek out the front window to confirm that it’s Kiri. He knows that you’ll look before you head for the door, so he’s stepped back from the front stoop a little and shoots you a bashful wave with one hand shoved into his pocket.

You melt. He’s cute enough to put your nerves to rest.

“Good afternoon, milady,” he greets with a sweep of charming enthusiasm when you pull the door open for him. He bows playfully before stepping into your apartment. “I will be your escort this weekend. Show me to your luggage.”

“I don’t think there’s enough of it to be called ‘luggage,’” you giggle. You slip an arm around his neck and push a kiss against his cheek.

“Hi.”

He gasps, pressing his fingers to the spot where your lips touched.

“Such unprofessional behaviour. I’m going to have to report this, you know.”

“Shut up.” You bat at his chest. The bastard, in all his well-muscled glory, barely flinches. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

The threat’s playful, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t consider it, it in the darkest hours of the night before.

Every year, on the last weekend in July, Kirishima gets together with some old friends from UA. They rent a little cabin out by the lake, drink, party, and catch up. You’ve been dating just under a year, so you’ve never been to one of these before. Even though you’ve met everybody who’s going to be there individually, it’ll be the first time you see them as a group.

And Kirishima’s known them for ten years. You like to think you know him pretty well, but compared to them, you’re strangers.

“It’s not too late to,” he breathes, pausing to glance at you with a moment’s sincerity.

“No,” you brush. “No, I’m fine.” You put your hands on his forearms and squeeze gently. “Nervous, but… that’s what the drive up is for, right?”

“Yeah.” He flashes you a grin that steals your heart over and over again, sweeping you and your little suitcase out the door.

The drive is breezy and surprisingly quick, given the expected level of weekend cottage-country-traffic. You blast the radio and turn it down during the commercials. But you can’t help the sinking dread that pits in your stomach when the ETA in your navigation app drops from an hour and a half to forty-five minutes to five minutes.

The drive was supposed to be your chance to settle your nerves. You’re not ready to be here yet.

When you pull down the sloped gravel driveway of the cabin, there are already three cars there. You recognize Bakugou’s sleek Audi, but you can only assume that the other two belong to the rest of the crew.

So everyone else is already here. Makes sense. Nobody else works 9-5, so they probably cut off early to get here.

Doesn’t make you any less freaked out.

Kirishima insists on grabbing both of your bags. He shoulders his way into the cabin with excitement building in every muscle. You can see it from ten feet away. He’s thrilled to be here. That thought honestly helps, for a hot minute.

Until you hear the voices that drift from inside.

The whole cabin’s lit up with savoury, beautiful smells when you step inside. The kitchen’s crowded- Bakugou’s chopping vegetables and doing his best to shoo everyone out of his way while he sautés and chops and glazes and bakes.

“Jesus Christ. Finally. Will you get these assholes outta my way?” Bakugou snarls, waving his knife around as soon as he catches sight of the two of you.

Before you can even laugh properly at Bakugou’s temper, there’s a high-pitched squeal of your name from behind him, and he’s abruptly shoved against the edge of the counter as a bright pink blur streaks around the island and launches herself at you.

“Hiiiii,” Mina coos, pressing a kiss to your cheek after she’s given you a tight squeeze.

The rest of the party filters in around you- Sero and Denki crowding not-so-subtly around the new addition to their little crew while Jirou makes her way over at a respectful pace. It becomes obvious to you almost immediately that you’re the first girl Kirishima’s ever brought to one of these.

You want to let that feel special. Instead, the intimidation only spikes.

You need to relax.

“Here, babe,” Mina sighs, shooing the boys away from you. “Kiri’ll take your bags upstairs. Let’s get you a drink.”

She grabs your hand and drags you toward the bar cart in the living room. Kirishima disappears up the stairs, but before you know it, he’s re-appearing. So is everybody else. The smells from the kitchen are growing unbearably tantalizing.

Bakugou hollers when dinner’s ready.

He’s done glazed pork chops with some kind of gorgeous mango slaw- indulgent and delicious, but light enough that none of you will be too stuffed at the end of the meal. You sit between him and Kirishima and everybody catches up.

Mina and Sero are starting an agency together. Denki and Jirou found a place together just outside of the city. And Bakugou, of all people, has just taken on his first U.A. intern.

You feel sorry for the poor kid already.

Once the dinner dishes have been cleared, you’re starting to feel more at ease. The conversation flows easily between the group of you, and you’re kind of killing it with the one-liners. Even Bakugou gives a dull chuckle when you land a particularly good one.

But the real purpose of this weekend can’t be put off forever.

“Babe,” Mina coos eventually, leaning over Kirishima to settle a hand on your thigh. “I am so excited that you’re here. Do you know how long it’s been since we had anybody new to play with?”

“Mina,” Kirishima scolds. “Don’t scare her.”

“What?” Mina sits up. “You said you were gonna tell her before you brought her here. Kiri, tell me you talked to her.” She looked up at you with wide eyes. “He told you, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” you promise, holding your hands up to settle her. “He talked to me. I agreed to come knowing full well what we’re here for. But… I’m still nervous as hell over here.”

“Don’t worry,” Mina promises. “We’re gonna take good care of you, sweets. Besides, you and Kiri and Bakugou have before, right? So between them, it’s basically like you’ve already slept with all of us.”

She’s got a point. But that doesn’t change the fact that your cheeks are like molten lava just thinking about it.

Every year, on the last weekend in July, Kirishima gets together with some old friends from UA. They rent a cabin out by the lake, drink, party… and fuck. You’ve shrugged monogamy with him before. Mina’s right- Bakugou’s joined you on a few different occasions. But this is something you’ve never even thought of trying before.

Still, Kirishima makes you want to take risks. He’s always been good that way- encouraging you to push your comfort zone without compromising your boundaries. When you first talked about this weekend, he’d framed his little pitch with the promise that if you weren’t comfortable with it, he was happy to miss out on it, too.

But you know his friends. You know his character. You trust him.

So you jumped.

“She’s so cute when she’s embarrassed,” Denki chuckles, propping his chin in his hand. He’s got his other palm on Jirou’s thigh under the table. In fact, everybody’s starting to get closer, now that dinner’s been taken care of.

“Let me kiss her. Please, Kiri?” Mina leans over again, resting a palm on Kiri’s lap as she bats her eyelashes at you.

“You’re gonna have to ask her yourself, Mina,” Kiri chides. He folds his arms behind his head and leans back in his chair, ready for the show.

Mina purrs your name again, smiling indulgently as she leans a little closer.

“Can I kiss you? Pretty please?”

You’re suddenly bashful, biting your lip. But you want this. You do.

“Sure. Okay.”

You release your lip from your teeth as Mina leans forward. Her lips are soft and so plush, and she’s a careful kisser. Out your right ear, you can hear Kirishima give a little sigh as he watches, and he rests a hand on each of your backs, rubbing soothingly.

“Come on,” Bakugou grunts as the two of you break apart. His chair scrapes harshly across the tile when he stands. “Get your asses to the living room before shit gets messy.”

Before you know it, you’re in a tangle of bare and sweaty limbs. You started out between Bakugou and Kirishima- the two boys you’re most familiar with. You’re stroking both of their hard cocks while they kiss each other, then you, then each other again. All the while, in the background, Mina, Sero, Denki and Jirou are stripping each other down, sprawling across the couch, letting a symphony of moans and sighs drift across the living room to your ears.

Before long, you’re pulled backwards into Denki’s lap as he fucks diligently up into you. Your pussy’s sloppy, slick from Mina’s tongue, and she’s perched right next to you, riding your boyfriend’s cock as the two of you let your hands drift.

You can see that Kirishima has a tight bond with all of these people. But you feel no jealousy towards them. If he can be so closely bonded with so many from his past, then why not you, too? Every time he catches your eye, no matter how many bodies there are between the two of you, he shoots you a loving little wink.

And at the end of the night, it’s you who’s going to be falling asleep beside him.

At some point, Bakugou pulls up a nearby chair, stroking himself while he watches the six of you drive each other to the edge, over and over and over again. By the time you’re all finished, you’re certain at least two dozen orgasms have passed between the lot of you.

And it shows. You’re exhausted.

After sharing such intimacy, you’re reluctant to break from one another. But inevitably you do, separating into your respective beds for the night. As you get ready for bed Kirishima’s full of energy.

“Holy shit, babe,” he raves, grabbing you by the waist and pulling you in for a tight kiss. “That was so fucking hot. You did such a good job, god damn.” He cups your jaw between both his hands and pulls your gaze to his.

He looks down at you with the Milky Way lit up in his eyes, fathomless love all for you.

“You looked so perfect,” he confesses, kissing your forehead, “in the middle a’ all my friends like that.”

You fall into bed together, feeling sore and spent and very loved, and sleep better than you have in weeks.

The next morning, in a haze of woodsy dawn, everybody fights over what to make for breakfast.

#my hero academia #kinktober #kirishima x reader #eijirou kirishima x reader #bakusquad x reader #bakusquad #mha fanfic #bnha fanfiction #bnha #jbbkinktober2020

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Ducktales Comics: Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime or Weblena: The Preschool Days (Lena Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Shadow Into Light, My Lena Retrospective, which fittingly has now come to Women’s History Month! I sadly do not have anything besides this arc prepared for the month. This month is pretty packed for me with two shows a week to cover, as while there’s only two weeks of Ducktales left final space starts up right after to take it’s spot, two arcs to cover, and two time specific movie reviews: animal crossing the movie and the 1990 TMNT film. I will try to get more than the currently planned top 12 superheroines list out there... but this month is very tight as is, so if I do not I deeply apologize.

Now that’s out of the way, it’s appropriate we start Women’s history month on some likely lesser known parts of Lena’s history, with some comics stories focusing on our faviorite emo lesbian duck and her 87 counterpart. Before I get started on that though Kev my patreon pointed out something intresting a few weeks back i’ve been forgetting to get to and since we’re looking into Minima, I felt this was the perfect time to do so: Lena’s Concept art.

There’s quite a few things to gleam from this. For starters as pointed out in the reddit thread I got the image as a whole from this was made in 2015, meaning Lena was one of the first new characters designed for the series and was part of it from the VERY early stages, as evidenced by the fact that despite clearly having their new personalities established, Beakly and Webby still had the old designs.

The other notable change is that her first design was way more like both Magica nad Minima, a bit more modern, but clearly far more obvious who she was related to. She also had all black feathers making the shadow twist a bit more obvious and was likely done away with both to avoid giving that twist away, the same reason for the fake lestrange name, and to avoid accidently black coding her, as while Lena being black would’ve been intersting, it also would’ve invited a firestorm of controversy given that their one black character in season 1.. woul’dve started off as a homeless, manipulative antagonist, and none of that would play well nor was it something the progressive crew of this show couldn’t spot from a mile away. And even this early on they have an almost final design ready, simply changing the shirt to fit her personality more, and her hair to be pink because it honestly looked better She also had green eyes throughout, but for whatever reason they phased them out. That part I don’t quite get as they look nice but probably they were hard to translate to the reboot style once they settled on their own. Her purple eyeshadow and haircut though have stuck since and were good calls.

One last VERY obvious note.. Webby was gay for Lena from minute one. While Dana helped it is now VERY obvious they gay coded this relationship from the design phase, and the crew was entirely aware the whole time and I gave them less credit than I should have. They clearly had this in mind, and it’s very likely ONLY subtext because Disney, while making more and more progress, is very reluctant to have queer characters as Owl House was a struggle and since they have a tighter leash on properites based on the sensational 6, that means Frank knew they had the same odds of making Webby or Della queer in anything but subtext that a pig has of suviving in a slaughterhouse. I bring this up because I fear the series getting accused of queerbaiting somewhere down the road instead of doing what they could with a bad hand and hoping they could make the show as gay as they could. Penny is as out as they posisbly could get her, and Violet and Lena’s dad’s got a full apperance, if no speaking role that made it obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt their gay and did it in a plot important episode. So they did their best and I want them to get credit for that.

But while this is all intresting stuff, join me under the cut for the meat of today’s review as I dig into Lena’s only apperance in the tie-in comic that was never punished here, and the only apperance of her protoype Minima.

Spies Like Us: As I mentioned this comic was never published here which is doubly weird to me because of how I knew this story existed. Since I follow comics weekly and buy trades reguarly, I read the solicits companies put out eveyr month to see what new series are coming, what the ones i’m currently reading are doing, and what trades are coming out. That sort of thing, and it’s something I love. I know their basically adds.. but their well put together adds that really pull you into the books you like. The big two and the indies are all very good at it and sometimes i’ts the only way to know a comic is coming if the company dosen’t make a press release for it ahead of time.

So naturally given there are several comics I follow at idw, paticuarlly the TMNT comics, I read those solicits and found they were going to do an issue with Webby and Lena becoming spies, and was excited about it. I ended up forgetting about it and never really followed the Ducktales comic as it came out, and upon reading an issue or two recently, one for another comission by kev as one story, happy happy valley, was particularly terrible. For those who haven’t read the story or my review, it involved the family getting stranded on an island where their forced to partake in activites and smile..that somehow turned into an aseop about Louie wanting to be rich. It ended with this

Yes.. really. That actually happened. But even with this, I fully planned to cover the issue when I covered Lena, and brought it up to Kev when he commissioned the retrospective. He gave me the discord equilvent of a blank stare and had never heard of it. I soon found out why: the story was replaced as, and fair play to disney, it spoiled Beakly’s past from the agent 23 episode which wasn’t going to air in time. What dosen’t work is they never reprinted the story in The US.. didn’t put it in a future issue and just swap it’s place didn’t put it in the nothing. And the story was fully complete as we’ll see, with a cover and everything so they had no excuse whatsoever to NEVER use it, even with what happened to Lena in the season finale, this clearly took place before that and it was weird to just shelve it because of that. But thankfully when a bunch of the stories were reprinted overseas, this and another one, also webby centric got published overseas. But not in english.

Lucky for me, I was able to find an english translation of an english story which you can read RIGHT HERE. It was translated by @neopuff and I thank them for it as without them this review would not be possible and want to give them all the credit. So was it worth all their hard work translating it? Well let’s take a look.

We begin at the Manor where Lena is skulking around suspiciously.. though it turns out she and Webby are just playing hide and seek. Though Lena accuses cheating. The dialouge here is pretty flat though that’s not Neopuff’s fault at all. As I can attest from reading other stories a lot of the early IDW comics are just this flat in dialoguge no matter the writer as they were likely given character descriptions and basic info about the show they likely had written up for merchandising and Frank and Co were given no involvement and likely weren’t made avaliable to consult on the comics to help them be a bit more fleshed out. It’s very obvious to me Disney just tried to get these pumped out so they’d have a series in stores to tie in without carring about qualities and given Scrooge debuted in comics, their lack of care toward that side of things in general, but especially in the first american published original duck comics in a while, bothers me a lot. It’s inexcusable.

That being said the story isn’t half bad nor is the setup as the two hear a beeping and find it’s Beakly’s phone going off with a mysterious message from Q, Webby thinks she’s been reactivated, and is encouraged by Lena to go look after her while she stays along. While Webby says in response

It just feels grossly out of character for both. Lena is far more subtle about manipulation as shown five minutes ago and Webby blindly trusts her. Because she has a massive crush on her and is naïve about how the world works. It just seems very odd of her to get suspicious as she never does on screen, and again it comes off as Disney having barely given the writers any materials on them when i’m sure Frank or Matt would’ve been happy to write up a thing for them to help outside of the usual press materials they were given.

Though hte last line isn’t all that out of character and has an obvious answer as within a jumpcut Launchpad’s taking them to London and is told to blend in.. which he does with an australian flag and accent.. good gag.

So our heroines do some heroic breaking and entering and look for the package, but soon find while hiding it’s already in transit.. and had obvious bows on int. Whoops. Our heroes trie the old follow tha tcar bit and refreshingly, it dosen’t pan out as the guy stops and tells them to get out. A nice twist. Unable to follow, our heroes instead find launchpad lost, as his map is upside down

So Lena dares him if he can follow that plane, a nice bit of character for both. I will give Joe credit. While the dialouge’s a bit flat and there was that out of character moment.. for the most part he does nail the actual character down and does use it decently enough. He’s just not given enough page room or actual details to work with is all.

So while our heroes follow they end up having to crash as they run out of fuel.. lucky their with the expert but end up near home where the package is delivered to. Turns out this wasn’t a spy thing, this was just a thing with her aunt. That’s fine and a nice gag.. it’s just ruined by just sorta.. ending. Lena leaves disapointed and Beakly scolds webby for “playing spy” and she’s sad. That’s it that’s how it ends. Which dosen’t fit the characters, as while Beakly would defintely scold her, it just dosen’t FIT that she’d be that tearse or not appricate the effort or give her an actual lecture and it feels like Joe had no idea how to end this after the gag and just.. ended it.

Final Thoughts for Spies Likes Us: This was okay. It is a bit of a disappointment as for the only story not available.. i’ts just okay and not really above an average Ducktales comics story, with some nice character bits but feeling a bit weak overall, as do at least the first half of the idw comics. I haven’t read the later stuff to see if it got better. It’s worth a read if you like Webby and Lena as characters and it’s not BAD, it’s just not anything impressive and is a simple hyjinks filled misunderstanding story.

Dime After Dime:

So now we go back a bit to the original. I didn’t do these in chronological order because frankly, Dime after Dime is the better story of the two and the bigger one at that, so I have more to work with here. But the original also had comics and honestly from the few i’ve read much BETTER comics. I chalk this up to two things: The Ducktales 87 comics seem to have come out AFTER the series was already a hit, and since Ducktales is pretty close to the original uncle scrooge comics minus it’s own tweaks here and there, it’s easy enough to just write the stories like you would a regular uncle scrooge story, just with Webby and Launchpad added, whereas the idw writers were staffed with writing for all new versions of the characters with noticable differences without much to go on. It’s why to me with tie in comics you have two options: Wait long enough so you can put your story inbtween the episodes like the Steven Universe and Regular Show comics did or just make your own continuity entirely like the Adventure Time Comics and the Archie TMNT Adventures series did. The ONLY time i’ve seen a comic work like this is the Bravest Warriors comic, which had a talented writer and fit well enough in the margins until it sadly ended.. and honestly is BETTER in some cases than the series. I might get to it someday. The point is this comic shows why you need to have a deft hand adapting something instead of just falling your arms about and hoping it’ll work.

So today’s comic was part of some Disney Series called cartoon tales, which clearly repackaged comic stories from wherever, and put them together. I don’t know much about it and the only other issue avaliable collects the disney adventures adaptation of “Just Us Justice Ducks”, which I might cover at some point. This book does have two other stories which i’d be happy to do on comission or on my own at some point, one involving gladstone the other gizmoduck, but for now, i’m just sticking to the title story and the reason you all came here.

So we open with Magica gazing into her crystal ball from her Mt. Vesuvies base saying that Scrooge will never know what hit him I know exactly what and who wiil hit him thank you very much.

Scrooge is seeing Webby off to her first day of day camp, getting all teary eyed which is touching. Beakly apparently goes with her as the story never SAYS Sshe does but she’s not also not around when the story moves on, as Launchpad says it looks like rain. Scrooge dismisses him, though Launchpad turns out to be right. Scrooge had good reason for once though, instead of just being a dick good on you comic for making me not want to punch him in the face, trust me that is a high bar to clear with the scrooge comics, as the weather was fine just a minute ago. Naturally it was Magica All Along! Nothing scrooge can do now that eveyrthing has gone wrong! Her entrance though is sadly not a catchy earwormy tune, but .. this confusing line

I think your thinking of Gladstone. And he’s still single so.. have at that but no Scrooge is the one who values hard work over anything else and brags about THAT or being rich. I .. I don’t get this line and frankly I don’t want to. Even in stories where the dime is supernaturally lucky and the source of his wealth he dosen’t boast about it because he’s not stupid and dosen’t want everyone knowing how to bankrupt him instantly. This line will baffle me until I die, presumably, given my life’s tragetctory, after reviewing an episode of mighty ducks and slipping on some a jerky wrapper.

Scrooge asks what she wants...

No this isn’t that kind of story sadly. Her plan is to.. zap the bin with lightning and take the dime. Really just went with your first draft didn’t you magica? But as stupid as this plan is Scrooge has prepared for it. He installed a lightning rod on the bin to save on power, and to power his new super soaker traps. So all Magica did was save him money. She flies off and nothing is acomplished.

So we get back to Webby at the Teenie Weenie Day Camp.. and just so you don’t think that was a terrible joke on my part...

My theory for how this name got approved at all is the editor KNEW how that sounded and just wanted to see if Disney would actually print a comic with the phrase Teenie Weenie without getting what it means in slang or how hilariously inapproriate it is to namme a children’s camp after it.

Your probably wondering who that grown woman calling Webby a dweeb is. Well story wise, she’s SUPPOSED to be another kid at the camp around Webby’s age. In practice, she looks like THIS in closeup

So it looks and plays like a 30 year old woman snuck into the day camp and no one’s noticed she’s not actually a children. Or their just humoring her because she had a week to live. I don’t know. I do know she doesn’t get to judge on names.

Snippy Von Glitz, proof rich people really do hate their kids and this this comic is trying personally to give me material. Snippy is your average alpha bitch, taking a chair from Minma and being obnoxious and classist and all that jazz. Minima gets hers back by making the chair bouncy then returning it to normal so Snippy gets in trouble when she makes up things about the chair, with the lady in charge getting ready to call her Dad. You cannot convince me that her “Dad” is just what she calls her husband, this is how they both get off, and that the lady at the preschool only tolerates it because they pay her a lot and so far the kids haven’t noticed Snippy is 30. Webby likes minima finding her name pretty, proving that the ho yay is alive no matter the webby and magica relative, and Minma returns the favor by saving her from a block.

Minma is reluctant to make an actual friend, finding they aren’t worth anything and given most of the kids here apparently pick on her and her aunt is well.. Magica, it’s understandable why she’d be so cold. But Webby presses on and says something from Scrooge about friends. Which given Ducktales scrooge has none goes weird but it gets Minma to find out she knows and lives with Scrooge, so she cons webby into taking the dime for show and tell, showing that she can manipulate them with her powers, and that he won’t notice it’s missing, getting her with “I thought you wanted to be friends”

So let’s pause for a second and compare and contrast the two: Both are the niece, or at least sorta in Lena’s case, of Magica, both manipulate webby, and both are her first real friend: The 87 boys are little monsters and I don’t consider them friends or even brothers, while the 2017 ones are just that: brothers. Their her siblings in all but blood, not friends and have hteir own long complicated history.

But otherwise the two are vastly different. Lena is a far more complex character as she’s been abused her whole life, is a rebel because Magica hardly gave her agency, and while she starts wooing webby out of self interest it’s clear even as far as the first episode she cares. Lena would gladly be part of the world if she could and this whole scheme is to gain that choice.

Minma is still sympathetic but very different: She walls herself off because the other kids laugh and mock her for being herself and lashes out at them.. not unreasonably mind , but still feeling she needs no one else.. but as we’ll learn later she’s only helping Magica to finally feel accepted, to get all the fancy clothes and stuff that will make her popular instead of that grown woman masquerading as a kid for disturbing reasons. Minma is at her heart just a hurt kid desperate to fit in. And while Lena shares the desire for a place to belong.. it’s at it’s core much sadder. Lena.. wants a family. Someone to love her and to care about her and actually look after her. Minma has that she just wants to be loved. it’s similar but very diffrent and I can see why Lena evolved into what she did, as Frank and Matt ended up going in a far darker but ultimately more interesting direction. Minima is not a bad character at all though and without her I don’t think we would’ve had Lena, but at the end of the day the 87verse is just not that complicated, so the reboot needed something more and that more evolved into who we have now.

Both kids excitedly talk about their new friends, with their respective guardians being distracted. Scrooge is distracted by the fact his car is a bit bumpy and Launchpad offers to fix it up for free with some parts from a buddy, which given the sentence “This won’t cost you anything” makes him erect, Scrooge agrees. Magica meanwhile, whose watching Minima while her mom is away which raises a LOT of questions we don’t have time for like who she is, is she’s poes wife or does Magica have other siblings... it’s a lot of questions we’re never going to get answers to.

The next day Webby got the dime easy as Scrooge was distracted. so Minima swaps them while she’s distracted. But while swiping it was easy, which to be fair Webby is likely approved in his security so it woudln’t match her.. or the story just needed to progress. You make the call.

Magica does the logical thing and goes and get sthe dime and the story ends there.. and i’m shitting you, she of course brags to scrooge, reveals minima as her spy, and offers to RACE him for it shortly after he realizes he has a fake.

The only major flaw in this story is Magica’s overconfdience, which isn’t BAD persay, but here has gotten to dumbass proportions. She just can’t plan for anything and a CHILD has a better plan than her that only dosen’t work for reasons we’ll get to. And that plan is almost ruined by Magica taunting scrooge!

So a race is on but Launchpad has transformed Scrooge’s old Model T into this

Damn that’s cool. Scrooge of course dosen’t like it, but honestly you get what you paid for. Oh that’s right you paid nothing for something you NEED to use every day for transportation.

At the rickity thickity bridge, Steve Buschemi’s worst roll and her minion ask Webby to roll with them and Minima mistakes this for betrayal planning to soak them all.. only for Webby to DEFEND HER, pointing out minma’s her friend, how she dresses is fine and she loves her no matter what.. the last part’s implied. The 30-year old asshole and her minon leave Webby and Minma is genuinely touched, as no one’s done that for her before. She put up so many walls... she didn’t realize someone could ACTUALLY care about her, so obessed with thinking she had to be like that soccer mom in preschoolers clothing, she just had to be herself: kinda werid but in that fun adams family way. Webby says she knows Minma would do the same.. so while she prepares to let’s get back to the race. Magica realizes Launchpad’s roadster is actually gaining and spreads some tacks, but Scrooge counters with some money.. because of course he has a lot of money in the trunk. But Magica takes out the bridge and while scrooge awesomely JUMPS IT... he’s still too late.

As you probably guess though, Minima had a change of heart, and gave Webby the real dime back, and Scrooge confirms it. Minima TRIES to tell Magica, and Magica is horrified her niece is a goody goody “I”ll never hear the end of it at my astral aerobics class”.. I.. I want to see that. Let’s raise those spirit ladies and kick kick that soul, doge that shadow king punch them in the soul. Yes! Now eat it eat it and absorb it’s power!

We end on a button joke as Webby apologizes for taking the dime., Scrooge accepts it and Webby tells them magica learned to carpet and they gulp for some reason.

Final Thoughts on Dime after Dime: This story was decent. It has problems, some jokes don’t land and Magica is made horribly incompetent, but minima’s character arc is endearing, and Webby herself is precious as always and her winning Minima over feels genuine. And Scrooge is in prime adoring uncle mode with her and i’ts just so cute. And the roadster race is pretty awesome to watch honestly. It’s an exceptional and enjoyable tie in story.. and not the last ducktales 87 story we’ll be covering here. Wink wonk.

Next Time: Things get DARK as Lena and Webby head into the depths of Scrooge’s hidden bin and Lena heads into the depths of her own soul.

Tommorow: Woo-Ooo mofos as we go back to the very beginning of the reboot! A family restored, a lost city to explore, and a glomgold rises! Be here or be square.

#ducktales #ducktales 1987 #webbigail vanderquack #lena saberwing #weblena #minima de spell #magica de spell #bentina beakly #launchpad mcquack #scrooge mcduck #dime after dime #spies like us #idw #comics #animation #shadow into light

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