#aka the best one of them all 'now you're a family man.....////are you the hero of my dreamssssss'

[timbourinedrake]

This is literally their song and I'm so emotional about it-

#oh you thought i was off my brutalia bs??? #well i'm here to say its never left #i have to stop myself from crying about them when i listen to this song in public it's BADDDDD #They're literally so canon it hurts #there's just something about loving someone and cherishing the memories you have with them #but with a bittersweetness because you can never get back those moments #and that is what brutalia is all about #i could put so many more lyrics that fit them from this song #but i don't have the time to find comic panels to pair them with #aka the best one of them all 'now you're a family man.....////are you the hero of my dreamssssss' #brutalia #bruce wayne #talia al ghul #dc #batman

[symphonic-scream]

Here's a bit more about the Persona 5 Mech au, where everyone is and what they're up to

More Mech au

(title to make it easier for me to search)

Alright let's go

Here's some world stuff again to start

Schooling goes like, elementary for young kids, until they're about 15. After that it's either Pilot school or high school, though since pilot school only takes new applicants every 3 years, some starting pilots are as young as 12

Body augmentations are common. For non pilots, "replacements" are things you can buy to improve your life, originally created as an option for disabled people. For pilots, there is never a choice. When they sign up for pilot school, they sign a waiver that allows the government automatic consent to replace any part of them to keep them alive

Pilots dont pay for their food, lodgings, or Replacements. Medical too. They pay with their service, since the mortality rate is over 80%. They get a small weekly allowance for amusement spending, and any other money comes from their families

When they retire, there are two payment options. If they work outside the government structure or swear off working with them, they receive just enough to live in their chosen area. Otherwise, they're employed by the government for as long as they are able, and have access to standard amenities with decent pay

Character info under the cut! It's a lot so I don't wanna clog the tags with a mile long post lmao

Otherwise, tell me if you're interested in this one. Like my hero au it's gonna stick around a while, I like this one a lot! So feel free to send me asks!!

Joker (I use the name Akira for him but I usually just say Joker)

So, he's not human. A test tube baby too! He's a mix of human DNA and DNA taken from the monsters they've managed to kill. The "spirit" of the monster he shares DNA with was placed into the mech he tends to pilot most, Arsene

When Wakaba and her team created Joker, they used the most human parts for him. The excess was used to create unit M0N-A, aka Morgana. He acts as a companion for the pilots, and is the mascot for Pilot team 3

Joker was raised by a mix of head researcher Wakaba, and security officers Sojiro and Zenkichi (in the words of Cap, Old Man Yaoi). He was raised as Futaba's older half-brother, and is unaware that he is not human

Goro

An orphan, he joined the Pilot academy to make something of his life, to prove that he was worth keeping. One day he hopes to face his father and show him what he missed out on

He didn't have good sync scores with any pilots in his grad year, his closest to passing mark being a 61.23 with Makoto's former partner Eiko. However, he and Joker broke the national sync record by hitting a 95.89 on their first attempt, making them partners

He did nearly die around that time. In order to save him they used Joker's blood for a transfusion, and now Akechi's body is, doing strange things

He shares a quad dorm with fellow class 192 graduates Makoto and Haru, and class 193 graduate Hifumi. He gets along very well with Security officer Zenkichi, and is fond of having debates with head office staff Sae Niijima

He joined the Pilot academy after his orphanage was visited by a few members of Team 2 (the Persona 4 crew). He really looks up to pilot Naoto Shirogane

Ann

Her parents were against her becoming a pilot. They wanted her to inherit their business, which makes the sync suits the pilots wear. However, she felt a rush when she tried one on for the first time, and she doesn't let anyone stop her from reaching her dreams

She and Ryuji were sync partners in the academy, best friends from kindergarten too. Shiho joined their group in elementary school, and all three joined the academy together. Shiho's sync scores with both of them were just below theirs, and their teachers joked that they'd be the perfect team for a three pilot mech

Ann and Shiho fell hard for each other, and started dating at the academy. They planned to try to pilot at the same base after, maybe even actually become a true trio with Ryuji- so they could be together forever

But of course, the final exam is known for cutting pilot numbers down fast. By killing most and injuring the rest, leaving only the bravest to continue forward. Ann and Ryuji passed, though their training mech went up in flames. Ann had to have her left arm replaced, only up to the elbow.

However, Shiho was less lucky. Barely passing, she lost both legs below the knees. She decided to retire immediately, but vowed to stay by Ann's side even if she continued as a pilot.

And continue she did. Chosen for the elite Team 3, Ann got to stay in Central Base City, and married Shiho as soon as they were able to. She shares a room quad with Ryuji, Yusuke, and Joker

Her ultimate dream? To retire and live peacefully with Shiho, working on making better and better sync suits

Ryuji

Being a mech pilot was always his dream. His dad had been a deadbeat, and tried to hurt him and his mom. A pilot trainee had noticed and swept in and saved them, and ever since it was the only thing Ryuji wanted to do

He grew up besties with Ann, and eventually Shiho. He never minded third wheeling them, they never made him feel left out. His marks were always just barely good enough to pass, but his physical test results were always top of the class

During his final exam, his and Ann's mech caught fire. He lost his right leg, up to his hip. The replacement works well enough, but he always walks with a slight limp. Neither Researcher Wakaba nor Medic Tae Takemi know why, nothing shows up on his tests

He is the pilot that gets along the least with M0N-A, and goes off base once a month to stay with his mom for a week

Yusuke

He was the first student pilot to use a solo mech on the exam and pass. He also came out of the exam whole, since his Replacement eye came from a sneezing incident while he was sketching his precious mech

Yusuke's mom used to work at the Northern Reach base, which is where the infamous Pilot Team 1 was stationed. His art teacher was a corrupt man and tricked his ill mother out of money with the false promise of a new-gen Replacement for her liver

Orphaned once she died, Yusuke nearly killed Madarame in his rage, but two Team one members, Makoto Yuki and Kotone Shiomi, stopped him in time and took him in for a spell

He believes he owes the pilot program for his survival, and joined the academy the first chance he got. He was temporarily sync partners with Hifumi, but they could only reach a 65.20 sync rate. As such both were pushed into the test group for solo mech's due to their otherwise high test scores

Yusuke rarely pilots a dual mech because of this, but he has the most success with Joker (who is genetically designed to achieve high scores) and Haru. The highest sync score he's ever achieved was a 73.95, with Joker

He also is the one who sews on the patches to everyone's bomber jackets. Oh, cause they each have a Team 3 bomber jacket in their mech's colours. Yusuke made team 3 patches, as well as any other patches his teammates wished for and sewed them by hand

Makoto

A second generation pilot! Her father and mother had met through the pilot program, him as a pilot and her as a researcher, and they had Sae as, an accident. They were both young, maybe too young. It did keep him out of combat for a few years though

When their first daughter was about, 12-15, you know, pilot age, they found out they were having a second child. Sae didn't want to be a pilot, but she wasn't pushed that hard because well, her father was going to have a second chance for a legacy now

However, the mother didn't make it. Makoto was born during the first monster attack on Central Base City, and the complications with the birth meant only daughter survived. It was devasting for her father, but he sat in the loud, flashing hospital hallway with his baby daughter, his oldest tucked into his side and shivering, and promised to dedicate his life for their futures

With her father focusing on piloting, Makoto was mostly raised by her older sister and said sister's girlfriend, Tae Takemi. Still, she looked up to her father almost too much, and knew she was going to be a pilot no matter what

Even when he died. Even when Sae tried to rip up her pilot school application. Even when she legally died for a few minutes during her final exam.

Before the exam though, she was top of her class in all categories, competing for top spot with Goro. She was dating her sync partner Eiko, was good friends with another pilot named Haru, life was good

But you know. Her partner died during the exam, and Makoto nearly did too. Their mech shorted, sending electricity right through them, and lots of it. Makoto's heart was, well, fried. But Tae and the medical team got her in and successfully implemented the 22nd functioning organ replacement

She didn't retire though, and was paired with Haru and placed in Team 3. She always feels, less than human, and fears she'll lose her humanity without her heart

Futaba

Daughter of the lead researcher, Futaba was around mech's her whole life. Her mom is still alive! And she's doing great. She didn't want Futaba to be a pilot, but she also knew she couldn't tell Futaba no and expect her to listen

In her exam her copilot died, and her spine had to be replaced. They were, crushed. Literally. Futaba won't let that stop her though, and wants to keep pace with her big brother Joker

She is unaware that she shares more blood with her brother's partner than her brother

Both she and Makoto's Replacements require monthly check ups, whereas everyone else only has to go in every 3 months

Futaba has. Something, with Sumire. They were made sync partners when they were assigned Team 3, but there's. More. Neither will admit there are feelings involved though, so it's. A work in progress

Haru

Daughter of the owner of one of the big companies that fund the pilot program, Haru entered as a secret. Her father only found out when she was accepted, and by then it was too late to turn back

She was fond of her first sync partner, but from day one she was in love with Makoto. She was fine with the way things were, and kept trudging on. She was going to be a pilot, she was going to help

In fact, she was pretty damn good. Haru was one of few that survived the final exam without needing a replacement, yet her partner still retired. She was paired with Makoto when they were placed in Team 3, and it was like a dream come true. Only, her partner is as dense as a concrete wall

Oh well. She's already waited ten years, what's a few more?

Sumire

One half of the former Yoshizawa strike team. She and her twin sister Kasumi had record high sync scores, and were on track to be the best pilots of their generation.

You can probably guess what happened.

The final exam. Their mech was sliced in half, the core exploding from the stress. The left side was completely destroyed, Kasumi along with it. Sumire survived, barely

Her left arm, leg, part of her shoulder, some ribs and a chunk of hip were all replaced. She also feels like half her soul was ripped out. She did t retire though, vowing to be the best, for her sisters sake

Paired with Futaba on Team 3, there's. Something there. Along the lines of, friends with benefits? Maybe. Kind of. They're being, selective with the whole thing

Hifumi

And finally Hifumi! She payed for a brain augmentation, a processing chip, to be placed in her brain. So she can think and plan a lot faster, but she's still getting used to the whole thing

I don't have much for her compared to the others, she's otherwise full human and tends to be sent out the least of the Team 3 pilots

Anyways. ASK ME ABOUT THIS I HAVE LIKE THE WHOLE THING WORKED OUT

#persona 5 mech au #p5 joker #goro akechi #ann takamaki #ryuji sakamoto #yusuke kitagawa #makoto niijima #futaba sakura #haru okumura #sumire yoshizawa #okujima #makoharu #shuake #akeshu #tae takemi #sae niijima

[faeiapalette]

Just wanna drop some personal opinions. I. I swear to god i have heard people complaining for a thousand times about how Ayato’s LE route was “horrible” and all of them has the same reasoning being “it’s unfair”, so i came to share my point of view:

His route wasn't even that bad? 😅 Yall r pissed bc he got treated like shit in his route (yeah, bc he hurted his brothers. He blinded Laito and broke Kanato’s leg. Accidentally or whatever.) What everyone has already known is the S boys' relationship is trash from the begining, ofc they'll act like that? Kanato the one who will scream at your face and treat you with the "idc what tf your reason is i want YOU to take responsibility" and Laito who has grudges with Ayato all the way at the begining? Then comes Reiji who tried so hard for years to become the leader/ leader's right hand man just to serve a person he view as narrow and incompetent (bruh idk about Kanato but everyone else' has something that makes others respect them for. In the Sakamaki family. Shu's smart and know how to act like a big bro when needed, Reiji's a strategist and has been studying to be the heir for years, Laito's intelligent af, and Subaru is the purest among vampires, it’s will be pretty hard to explain this now but all i can say is “it’s smth related to politics in the DL world”), with the last straw being that one hurting his own people? And Ruki who longs for the king's title, who's as dedicated to Karl as Reiji, and is able to seethrough the same Ayato who's unfit to rule all along? 💀 girl. If you people's going to play blame game, blame everyone including Ayato then. He DID made a big mistake. Even it isn't his intention to do so. Try to walk in other people's shoes (in term of mindset and feelings cuz you're oh so capable to do so when it comes to Ayato in other people's route ^^.)

This IS the route suitable for smo with the title "main hero". Because it's different from every other routes. S boys have to deal with both personal problems and their leader position. Now, what kind of personal problem does Ayato have? ^^ Egomaniac, solved. Hatred for Cordi, done in DF. Hating his father? There are some, but not as much as Laito, cuz Laito’s a big personal grudge that can make him going from borderline suicidal to try everything in everyway to khs because he has to receive smth from Karl (No takesy backsy~ Your supplier Karl’s ded). Ayato doesn't. The writers tried their best to make a big ass personal problem for him ya know ^^. 5 other routes r pretty much… peas in the same pot, but Ayato got the element of surprise 👍 Wouldn't that make his route stand out from his brothers', like what a "main hero's route" will be? ^^ Talking about surprises,

Rejet's marketing strategy. Do you know what do Ayato's Daylight aka the most “well-liked daylight cd” and Ayato's LE route have in common? They doesn't follow the stream every other routes does. They stand out. Yes. Because what people like, isn't just sweet moments and fanservices. They long for new things. Creativity. Ayato's route has both of these. Decent amount of sweet moments with Yui, a tear he never shed. So not too much Overall, balance 👍.

II. “The M boys are so narrow-minded when they be like “Aristocrats this aristocrats that” to the S boys, S boys went through traumas too”

THEY-WON’T-KNOW?????? If the S boys don’t share????? Where do you think they’d get that information from? Karl casually telling his surbonates “I traumatized my sons”? The players, aka us, know about their pasts because Rejet puts them in every opening of the prolouge/ epilogues, so we can read their thoughts, sympathize with them, whatever, but can the M boys/ any other boys see them too? You finish the puzzle.

(Trivial matter, if my memories is correct M boys, (for example Kou) have been showing sympathy everytime S boys told them something about their past (in that drama cd where 2/3 of the triplet doing recalls about Cordi’s cooking)).

In conclusion, the “narrow-minded” one is the one saying the similar statement above. ^^

III. There’s no “main character” in otome games.

I don’t think i have to explain the reason, since someone has already said that out loud (“If there’s one “main character”, what are the other 12 for?”, i recall) And i thought everyone knows this already. Because there’s has already been a term for that in the otoge community, being “posterboy”. Yes. The one appearing in almost every posters, the one having the most screentime if the project has an anime adaption, whose cd is the 1st ever to be released. Ect. So. Let’s talk about Young Blood. I see a lot of people thinks that “Oh the story revolves around Ayato and Karl in this manga favors Ayato more than any other sons of his. He must be the main character. If otherwise, why didn’t they make 5 more mangas?” Have you ever thought about how making 5 more manga, with the same plot would spill the budget and no company is dumb enough to not realize that so they just do one that revolves around their representative aka the posterboy and let their audiences do the math that if we change to other boys’ perspective the story would go on the same way (with some tiny events/ details being changed?)

I hope people grow some perspective.

IV. Nothing much. I’m just a little disappointed on how most people i’ve seen here have nothing to say about but how “nice and helpful” the boys is (judging characters based on their moral. I mean there’s more to talk about than just that?)

V. Ruki along with Reiji, Kanato and Laito (idk about other boys) are the most misunderstood character in this fandom (Ruki alone, all because people doesn’t understand his action and try to rationalize them in their own one-way, tunnel-liked, logically wrong way of reasoning, causing the action to look totally stupid and meaningless. Even some resources of him are translated wrong causing even more misunderstandings. (By the way, Reiji fans, Kanato fans, please tag me in posts solving misconceives about your oshi please. I would love to read them. 😔) P/s: Oh and something about Ruki, ofc him killing that cat is wrong, no question asked 👍 Though “=> He should not be entrusted with a pet of all kind bc he’ll kill them” + “=> he hates cats” is also wrong (yall be paying too much attention to the cat and forgot about the bird scene. Those birds he refused to feed. Did he lay a hand on them may i ask?)

#diabolik lovers #personal opinion

[broke-on-books]

Hi Swishy!!! 👋😊 If you’re still accepting these:

☕️ + Gang origin stories (what you like/dislike/prefer in canon or fan-made origins for Mystery Inc)

Oh my gosh Cally you picked like the best question on the face of the earth for this ask wth okay

SCOOBY: This one's easy, and I'm sure you can guess it if you've been around my blog for more than five minutes. GRILLO'S PETS ORIGIN STORY!!!!!!! Love love love the Grillo's Pet Shop origin! If you're somehow unaware, this is the origin shown in flashback in Scooby-Doo Goes Hollywood (1979) aka my favorite movie ever. Basically the gang (as teens already) go to a pet store wanting to buy a dog. While there, a baby Scooby tries to shows off for them and makes a whole mess (as usual <3) but is so endearing they take him home anyways. This is by far my favorite origin for Scooby as here he's more than just "Shaggy's dog" but the gangs' as a unit. This origin has really great gang interactions in and about Scooby with Shaggy showing reluctance to get him in the first place! (As opposed the the besties since birth origin that's common in other adaptations, such as APNSD) I really love that detail as we get to see other gang members (especially Velma!!!! The Grillo's pets origin has some amazingggg Scooby+Velma interactions and screencaps) argue for Scooby becoming a part of their lives, and it also paints Shaggy in the family-member-who-didn't-want-a-pet-but-now-they're-best-friends role that often exists in real life (and which is just HILARIOUS for Shaggy and Scooby!)

SCRAPPY: Of the Scrappy origins I'm familiar with (those being the one from the SD&SD theme song, and the other the episode surrounding his birth [the one all the baby bonnet scrappy screencaps are from]) I definitely prefer the original theme song version much better. Some of that strong preference is likely because I've spent a lot of time thinking about how I would go about reintroducing (or redeeming [in the public opinion] as my blog title says) Scrappy Doo, and that's by doing an extended exploration of the box-in-the-mail origin story. I'm also just obsessed with what that origin means for Scooby's family life and his relationship with Ruby that she would send her son (who Scooby has never met!!!!) to stay with him for an indeterminate length of time without notice (by MAILING SCRAPPY IN A BOX NO LESS) while also having Scrappy arrive at Scooby with a full hero-worship situation going on. Like do you know how much potential that idea has?!?!?!?!? I could talk about the Doo sibling semi-estrangement (as it exists in my mind and nowhere else) for HOURS and what it means for Scooby, Ruby, and Scrappy like !!!!!!!!!!. Warner Brothers needs to hire me to rewrite this introduction ASAP

Shaggy: I'm not informed enough on the Rogers family lore to say too much about it, although I don't see Shaggy having too large of a nuclear family. He's someone I see with a lot of cousins though and aunts and uncles (and differing relationships with each, as seen in the 'I'm a man? Another first! Take that Uncle Dave!' or however it goes clip from bcsd) I can't evision what his parents would be like at all, although I'm sure they're very interesting people for naming their child NORVILLE of all things. After some quick googling, I've learned he canonically does have a younger sister, Sugie, which I could definitely fit into my image of him with a big enough age gap bet the two. Shaggy is someone I see as growing up pretty alone (without Scooby in the Grillo's origin though, which... ouch) but could definitely fulfill the youngest/er child niche within a large extended family.

VELMA: I like Velma as an older sister and I like Madelyn Dinkley. I don't have a ton ton to say about her origin other that I like the parts we've generally seen (especially the fear of clowns lol). Velma to me has always been a lifelong reader and I think that's something that's likely true for her parents as well. Not a huge fan of her SDMI parents, but I don't like any of the SDMI parents so that's not exactly a surprise here.

Daphne: For Daphne, lots of Scopby properties like to portray her family as pretty wealthy, and I think I'd agree on that assessment for her. However if I was going to pick between Daphne origins/family situations I'd definitely go with the BCSD one for sure. I like her as an only child much more than having a gaggle of sisters like in SDMI, and I think that tying into her quirks and how her family is rich gives a good explanation for many of her more esoteric skills. Basically what I'm trying to say is that she had lessons in almost everything under the sun growing up, no matter how weird or useless.

FRED: This is definitely the hardest one. Believe it or not I haven't gotten to the BCSD episodes with Professor Huh? yet so I know pretty much nothing but idk. LOVE how Fred has tragic backstories with villain!parents leaking out his ears that's sooo funny actually (THREE TIMES FRED. AT LEAST.) However. Idk. I'm a fan of Skip and Peggy. Like Fred's embarrassing overbearing normal parents is also so entertaining as well. So idk I'm pretty flexible with Fred. This man has no siblings though. When he was bored at home he talked to his nets or something

THE GANG: I don't have preferences really on how the gang as a unit came together, besides the edition of Scooby and Scrappy. It's just not an event that interests me a ton, mostly because I see it happening in very similar ways each time. Like either they're all friends and a mystery pops up and they solve it together and BOOM! Mystery Incorporated or they're mystery enthusiasts and a mystery pops up and BOOM! close friendship (and also mystery incorporated)

But anyways thank you so so much for asking this question actually this was a very good pick Cally (esp in regards to the dogs, I have Opinions about those two)

#blah #answered #cally-k #scooby doo #scrappy doo #shaggy rogers #velma dinkley #daphne blake #fred jones

[amethystsong]

If you're still doing the wip game!!!

Apron

Hallmark Tree Farm

TODOROKI SENSEI 👀🔥

Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Elegies!! I'm so sorry I didn't see this! Thanks for the ask!

Apron- Gen, Family Fluff

A holiday fic for my Uncle Jeanist series that is probably coming out soon because I am filled with baby Keigo feels after rereading the second fic where Keigo got adopted by Tsunagu! This one has baby Keigo inviting the Todofam over to make cut out cookies with him an Jeanist where Touya bullies Jeanist for the sock advent calender, puts way too much frosting on his cookies, Enji and Tsunagu have a gingerbread house competition, and Rei rocks some sweet mom jeans!

Hallmark Tree Farm-DabiKeigoTouya

Farmverse with the twins Touya and Dabi who have to defend Keigo's Christmas Tree farm from Gremlins and maybe Krampdaddy? And some sexy subby twin action later on in some holiday stockings probably and maybe some christmas light bondage.

HEHE TODOROKI SENSEI-EnhoHoen

Going to ramble for a bit because I'm legit so excited for this one.

Thief Takami injected Endeavor with Trigger as he was getting arrested and Enji nearly died, going to the hospital AFO/Garaki are connected to. Rather than spend time inflicting psychological trauma (too busy with little Tomura) they decide to "nerf" the Todorokis by telling Enji he has to give up being Endeavor or his heart will give out, and that he passed this genetic condition onto his children who will also die if they use their quirks extensively because of the extreme strain with the temperatures. He retires from being a hero, not wanting to die early like his own father, and Nedzu scoops him up. Touya comes to terms with things and becomes a private detective, Enji forbids all the kids from being heroes, but Shouto ignores him and joins UA hero course. Hawks is sent by the HPSC to pose as a part time teacher (teaches communications) (Enji does the older classes and teaches them how to run an agency/history) to spy on All Might and his rumored new protege. Enji's a dumbass teacher who doesn't realize his coworker is flirting with him and Touya wants to slip into a coma to avoid witnessing all this.

Have Your Cake and Eat It Too- TouKei Spy x Family Inspired

Pro Hero Twilight aka Touya Todoroki is asked to investigate a strange new housing development on a remote volcanic island that is suspected of engineering a new strain of Trigger and possible trafficking. But, in order to blend into suburbia he needs a family. He asks his best friend Keigo who owns his own bakery and moonlights as a vigilante called Mockingbird who totally hasn't been pining for him to pose as his husband and move in. On one of Keigo's vigilante missions he finds a recently orphaned owl heteromorph little girl who can read minds who was kidnapped by a shady business man. And well wouldn't you know it, they acquired a daughter now and can totally play house while investigating this suspicious suburbia.

#my writing #WIP Game #BNHA #Fanfics

[waiting-for-cas-to-save-me]

Bakugo x reader

I dont normally do two posts in one day but oh well

requested my my gf not on tumblr YET

promt https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/657975693823655936/when-you-were-seven-you-held-a-fake-wedding-by

This is also my very first my hero academiafanficSo please be gentle on me Sorry for shitty grammar and spelling I'm a fanfic author not Misha Collins

"Mawage. Mawage is what bwings us togethah today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dream!

Kacchan and Y/n have come here to make this tweasured agweement in front of their family and fwiends, pwomising their commitment in this holy and magnificent pwace, today and each day fowawd.

We would not be here today without wuv. Wuv, twoo wuv between these two. Twoo wuv will follow you forevah, so tweasure your wuv, Kacchan and y/n, always.

Do you Kacchan, take y/n to be your lawfuwy wedded wife"the small green haired boy spoke stuttering and stumbling over his words trying his best to sound like an official priest

" I do" came from the mouth of a blond haired child as he held on to his "brides " hands in the park under the pine trees behind the slide.

"Do you y/n, take kacchan to be your lawfuwy wedded huswand"the green haired child spoke one more

"of corse she does Deku just do the part" the blond got more angry

"she has to say I do kacchan!"

"I do" y/n said confidently

"you my kiss the bwide"

Y/n looked ant the blond in a state of panick not sure what to do after all her mother was watching this whole ordeal happen when the bloond kissed her cheek and forehead

" I pwononce you huswand and wife"

the other kids there threw wood chips at the two of you as your mothers laughed at the sight only two of them knowing this wasnt just "some play ground wedding" Bakugo Katsuki was now able to assend the throne one day and become the king when he came of age with Y/n as his queen.

Everyone at school respected their playground marriageI knew if anyone tried to touch her,He would use his quirk and turn them into a crispy sandwich.She needed anything deku was to be on it.He would have laid down his life for both of them.as he knew when the day came he would be the one that would have to retrieve His best friend's bride.

Katsuki ( aka Kacchan) and Izuku(deku) had to move away with little to no knotice given to his "bride".Y/n I thought her best friend and her playground husband were going to leave her forever.She would miss them.more than she would ever understand.every year right around the same time of the playground weddings anniversaryHer heart would grow heavy her face to tear laden and stained.Her mother told her after 2 years to understand that it was just a playground wedding it wasn't the real things sweetheart one day the right man will come along and he will sweep you off your feet you aren't actually married to Katsuki Bakugou.He and his family moved away.

You first had to get through the years of elementary school and learning how not to activate your quirk.Then came middle school. You didn't really talk about what had happened as a child anymore.It was just in the back of your mind a kid you thought you'd never see again.

Then came high schoolAnd you're 17th birthday When you heard from him then for the first time. But you didn't seek him out and I guess he saw you out. on your 17th birthday you received a letter with a wax seal on the envelope.You opened it.and found your name and words telling youThat's someone would be coming to pick you up but in the next two weeks to take you to the land that you've never even heard of.where you your wedding from when you were 7 years old underneath some pine trees behind the slide was legal in binding.How are you supposed to tell your mom and dad.You didn't know,But you packed up your essentials things you know you need on a regular basis.Your heart fluttered knowing you get to see him again.It made happier than it shuld have But one thing kept pulling at your heart knowing that you may never see your parents again.Why didn't he ever tell you he was a prince ?Why didn't his mother tell anyone about it?Was as if you are part of this ?There for so many questions that had to be answered but you had to wait for the messenger to come and retrieve you before you could ask any of them.When the day finally came lo and behold it was a man The 10 years ago you man and wife himself your best friend.First thing you did was not give him a hug .You in fact you sucker punched him right into that .Which pain in here is that especially for just up and leaving without saying goodbye or anything really.Just had to go.He explained some things on the way,Made it clear to you that bakugo is a really in love you.he wasn't just using you for the throne like most people would think. no he truly have deep rooted feeling for you even back then .And now He has come of age and was time to claim the throne with you by his side..After hours of travel correction days weeks of travelYou guess their parents have put a missing report out for you so eventually you'd have to call them or send them a letter.Explain what was going onB ut it can wait for now there was one hope and concern was getting to see him again.And when you did man were you surprised he had grown up into wearing bright red his body was very well taken care of some would even say ripped .That's the one thing that you been aiing to see was those red eyes .those red eyes We're softer then When you had looked into and said the words I do not knowing What it ment He thanked Izuku for finding youI'm bringing you home.He asked if you even remembered him to what she said yes,he said sorry for leaving so fast It was not the way he wanted itBut he was still a child just the prince. now he's ready to take his place with you by his side once and for all . his hands calloused and warm but still his hands. he didnt kiss your cheek this time he planted a soft kiss on your lips this time andoffered to take you hiself to the tailor to have your own new wardrobe and anything else you'd need made or brought to you.

Part 2?

_____________________________________________________________

Tag list @writing-prompt-s @french-vanilla-in-the-clouds

#my hero academy fanfiction #bakugou katsuki #kacchan #izuku mydoria #bakugou angst #bakugo x reader #bakugo katuski #bakugou x you #bakugou x y/n #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo

[jeriafterdark]

Is this the real life, is this just fantasy, CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIIIDE - (April 2, 2022 rant & JunZhe IRL drama)

So ok. SOMETIMES, being in this fandom feels like it's its own real life DRAMA. Like, first we all stanned SHL/WOH, where two adult men find each other after years of toil and trouble, fall in love, fight together against society and its expectations, and go live their merry lil lives.

And then I get pulled into the IRL drama - aka two adult men find each other after years of toil and trouble and go on 'secret' one night dates, and EXCHANGING rings, and DEFYING c-ent expectations by supporting each other even through the highly competitive c-ent branding industry (i.e. sharing the same LIPSTICK and LINK sales for Tom Ford),+

and living and LOVING and SINGING their love to each other LIVE ON STAGE with their whole on-screen family and OFFSCREEN FAMILY watching (and where we all collectively lost our hearts and minds to them FOREVER) +

and STANDING BY EACH OTHER through thick and thin, and always raising each other up by their own hands and REFUSING to unfollow each other even after the world crashes down around them (813), continuously giving hints and love that each of them exists and are healthy and whole ("Auntie" and fried duck intestines), and showing off that they are SUPER married please DO NOT APPROACH (GJ and his many ringed fingers) +

and finally feeling a breather when one Uncle, one man who saw wrongdoing and took it upon himself to help out one of these boys in his darkest times, only to hold onto each other and to truth and justice and LIGHT as tightly as possible. Things were looking up and police cases were getting FILED and public opinion TURNED.

And even solemnly professing and going on an RP walk to the very spot his husband/laopo went to and telling the world on VALENTINE'S DAY with full I LOVE YOU FOREVER kadian that nothing changes even after the world has fallen and the earth is threatening to swallow them up - with continuous anti-scandals/ZSJ scandals/MERCH scandals,

And then said Uncle gets muted and the TRASH COMES FLYING OUT from all corners of c-ent, a man comes out to try and impersonate one of them, an ex-music manager takes advantage of his image and brand while he's so muted he can only release small leaked audio clips of him affirming his goals, his own best friend is so LOST he thinks he's supporting his bro but he has ties to the very ex-music manager herself so WHO KNOWS where he's coming from, +

and meanwhile his husband, his LAOGONG subtly posts on instagram that it's so easy to accidentally post things on instagram woops! I guess sometimes you can't trust what's on someone's Instagram post! He meant to post that sunset photo for his drama what a silly gougou, BUT US, WE'RE USED to him being a 50G internet/tech savvy person and know he meant something by it because it's impossible to accidentally post photos on instagram during editing bc it makes you confirm several times that you're posting! He also surreptitiously proved this subtle point by posting and instantly deleting a black and white photo of his shadow overlayed on soft polaroid pictures - clearly he KNEW that he could just delete, he didn't HAVE to announce to the world that he made a "mistake" - AND THEN +

His husband/laopo's instagram is suddenly taken out of private mode and starts accepting followers at midnight and his logo is now CHANGED and a sudden OLD photograph of him is shown on it - what curious timing this is! Right when GJ posted an out-of-character comment on his own Instagram. TIN HATS ON? MAYBE. BUT ALSO, IT'S GJ he does this shit all the time, Mr. Colander.

So the drama continues, our heroes, our protagonists are now dealing with a new foe in C-ent, the ex-music manager, the confusingly loyal but misleading best friend, the IMPERSONATOR.

Who will come next? What can we expect on next week's episode of SHL / WOH: IRL edition?

(ok but forreal these two's love for each other (even if you're not a CP fan or you don't believe in love then gtfo why are you here, but even so you cannot deny how much they do for each other) - their love for each other AMAZES AND DISGUSTS ME AND MAKES ME CRY INTO THE VOID. YEET MYSELF INTO THE SUN and it'll still be less hot than their IRL romance ok done)

(THIS IS WHY I CAN'T GET OFF THE MOUNTAIN, THEY WON'T LET ME.)

#813 #twitter rumors #HOW DO I TAG THIS #junzhe #my rants #lld #zhang zhehan #get out if youre homophobic btw #this space is for celebrating their love #AND MY LOVE FOR THEIR LOVE #ajdflaskdlfald #also so much drama lately amirite #tales from the mountaintop

[miraculous-trinity-leo]

Whacky Gotham, Goofy New York, and Chaotic Paris.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8)

Chapter 6: Evade The Bats, and Beat The Crows

•—–—–·†·–—–—•

The girls are in the old living room setting up clues (that are absolutely... useless) around Gotham. One being a picture Harley and Multimouse took earlier that day.

"They might think to look here after they realize the clues are fake." - Steph

"Then where else would they not think to look?" - Maria

"W.E, I can get you and Harley in without them knowing easily." - Barbara said with a confident smile.

"But they'll have to go incognito... especially you Harley, no offense, but your outfit stands out just a tad." - Steph

"Ehhh, none taken, I'm sure I can tink of somthin' else tuh wear." - Harley

"I can help with that, but I'll need some clothes and some sewing supplies." - Maria said already thinking of what she could make.

Cass gave a nod and headed out of the room, after a few minutes she came back with t-shirts, jackets, sweaters, shorts, jeans, etc. and droped the pile of clothes infront of the group. She then handed Maria a sewing set she got from Alfred.

"Thanks Cass. I'll get to work on making our costumes." - Maria

"Let me help yuh wit' dat hun." - Harley said as she picked up most of the clothes for Maria

"Thanks." Maria

•—–·Let's see the Chaos shall we·–—•

"You never told us she could use magic!" - Red Hood looking under the table

"I wonder if she can infuse magic with coffee..." - Red Robin said looking in the cabinets for the third time.

"Stop looking for coffee!" - Red Hood

"She could've hidden in here." - Red Robin said while crabbing a mug

"I haven't had enough sleep to deal with this." - Selina then walked over and flopped herself on the couch and proceeded to fall asleep on impact.

"Maria get your tiny self back here right now or else!" - Tony

"Or else what? She Knows MAGIC! What else does she know that you haven't told us?!" - Red Hood

"... I never told you becuase it's meant to be a secret!" - Tony

"Oh, so now you agree with keeping things a secret?" - Red Robin grabbing the coffee

"What else can she do Tony." - Batman

"Well... she's great with tech, can kick butt in a LOT of different ways, has magic, and if she wants to, she can find and know where everyone or anyone is, but I think she gets massive headaches from a wide search like that." - Tony

"Anything else?" - Batman

(Tony thinkng of all the tiny gods she has in jewelery, and that she keeps Paris/friends and family safe on a daily basis, and that she is the well known designer MDC...)"No..." - Tony

As ivy was listening to them talk, she continued to search her garden, until one of her plants had a message fo her.

"Hello Ms. Ivy, please don't help Batman and Iron Man find us, we promise we'll be careful." - Maria

"Where are you?" - Ivy asked whispering into the plant.

After a few minutes Ivy got a detailed plan that Maria, Harley and the girls came up with to evade The IronBat group (Maria thought that would be better than ManMan group 'But it's Bat MAN and Iron MAN, so it has tuh be The ManMan group.' was Harleys defence, but Maria won that one.) and Ivy agreed to help as best she could.

•—–· Over to the Miraculous gang ·–—•

Plagg is cackling like there's no tomorrow.

"Guys something must be wrong, Plagg won't stop cackling, he won't even touch the cheese I gave him!!!" - Adrien

"There's no time for that, we need to find out where the hell Maria is!!" - Chloé

"Hahahaha, Ti- heheh Tikk- pffhaaaaaaahaha!!!" - Plagg

"He's trying to form words!" Adrien cradling Plagg in his hands "What is it my friend? Don't do this, you're to young...*sniff * you're to beautiful!"

"Hehehehe Shhhh- hahaha, she- she- haha...heheh- I'm so p-hehe-Proud wahahaha " - Plagg

"Proud?! She?! Where?! Who, is it Maria?!" - Chloé

"Hhhhhhhhahhaaaaaaaaaa" - Plagg

"Oh God he's wheezing!" - Adrien

"Hey guys, Peter and I got the snacks, found out where Maria might- oh kwami." - Alix walking into the room to a zombie looking Chloé, a panicked Adrien and the Kwami of death/bad luck/chaos laughing himself to death.

"Has he finally lost it?" - Peter

"She has become a true cat! hahahahahaaaaa heheheheeeeeee." - Plagg

Everyone in the room but Plagg "Oh fu-"

•—–· Over to the Batfam ·–—•

So everyone is panicking because for the past hour none of them could find Multimouse. Robin is sitting on the couch next to a now fully awake Selina, Red Hood and Nightwing are once again feeding each other the worst possible situation she could be in, Tony may or may not be hyperventilating, Red Robin is drinking coffee, and Batman is as stoic as ever... well on the outside anyway, on the inside, it's a warzone. Ivy is drinking her tea, slightly worried, but also hiding a small smile.

"What if we ask Oracle to try and help us find her?" - Red Robin

"... Right... Yes, ok let's do that... Bats you do it, I need to sit down." - Tony

•—–· Back to the girls ·–—•

The girls moved everything to the Bat-cave so they could set the route they would take, then the Bat-Computer started ringing.

"Hide!" - Steph

"Where, dere's nuttin' tuh hide behind!" - Harley

"Quick under the Bat-Computer." - Barbara

As soon as Harley and Maria hid under the Bat-Computer, Batman and the rest of the Batfam was on video call.

"Hey guys, what do you need?" - Barbara acting like nothing happened

"We need you to search for Maria, she's in a dark gray suit with pink accents, and she's with Harley." - Batman

"Ok, no prob, I'll contact you when I've found something." - and with that Barbara exited the call.

"Should we start heading out?" - Maria

"Yup, and here are your ID badges, don't lose them. I'll give our Batfam fake sightings, and lead them far away, then once you reach W.E I'll slowly start leading them closer to you." - Barbara

"Thanks, keep in touch if they decide to split up." - Maria

"Roger that." - Steph said giving a solute

•—–·–—•

Soon Multimouse and Harley are running over roof tops again, doing tricks, and stopping petty crimes, Barbara is leading the Batfam all over Gotham, and then they got to W.E, after Maria transformed back, they entered the building. Thanks to Babs, they entered without any problems and had free roam for the entire building, with some exceptions like new weapons designs, or the roof. They were hiding in the building for about an hour on the 7th floor when Barbara called in.

"Hey girls, you might want to be careful, I spotted some of Scarecrows goons a few blocks away, they seem to be heading in your direction, I'd say about 6mins tops until they reach W.E. Best to find a good room to stay in, or get out of there." - Barbara

"Thanks fawh de heads up Babs." - Harley

"Ok, we'll try to get out, let us know if we should turn back or not." - Maria

"Got it, and be careful." - Barbara

Maria and Harley then made their way back down, they were taking the stairs, because they figured it would be quicker, once they were on the second floor, they started to calmly make their way through the doors of the stairwell. That's when Scarecrows goons busted in, shouting for everyone to get down, Harley made sure to stay as close to Maria as possible as the goons gathered everyone to a wall. They were told to not move, talk, or do anything to anger them, once everyone was up against the wall, that's when Scarecrow came in. As he entered the room some of the employees started to look very scared, when Maria looked over to Harley, she saw her mouth 'it's ok', afterwards the goons had them all tied up and on the floor sitting down. Scarecrow scanned them before speaking.

"One of you will be testing my newest and most potent fear toxin as of yet. We can do this one out of two ways." He said lifting up two of his needle syringed fingers. "1. You can be a hero, and let yourself be my newest test subject, aka the boring way or 2. I pick whoever I want, aka the slightly less boring way. Now, who wants to go first?"

•—–· Over to Batman ·–—•

The Batfam was running around the other side of Gotham, now without Tony, because someone ( ehem Thor, ehem) was making a giant mess at Avengers Tower, and was fighting Loki... again. It was when they decided to call Oracle that things took another turn.

"Oracle have you foun- " - Batman

"They're at W.E. and Scarecrows there, I can't get in contact with them, and I can't get into the cameras at the moment, I need you to get your butts over there now!" - Oracle

"Wait you were in contact with them?!" - Red Hood

"Not the time! Just get over there before someone gets hurt!" - Oracle

"We're on our way." - Batman

They all then kicked it into high gear and were running to W.E, and out of everyone, Damian seemed to be the most visibly panicked, if him running twice as fast as everyone was any indication. At the speed they were going, they would be there in 20mins or less... hopefully.

•—–· Back to Maria and Harley ·–—•

So while Scarecrow was giving his little speech, Maria whispered into a plant to let Ivy know their situation, she wasn't able to get an answer before she and Harley were pulled away from the crowd.

"And what do we have here? Harley Quinn and a child. How interesting, well then, which one of you would like to test my new fear toxin?" - Scarecrow

"Eh, do me, I bet I got a lot o' trauma and fears from my time wit' Mistuh J. dat yuh would just love tuh see." - Harley

"... As tempting as that sounds I think I'll test it on your little friend here, after all, I know better than to mess with one of the Sirens." - As Scarecrow said that, one of the goons dragged Maria over to him. She didn't panic, she was actually really calm, which worried Harley even more because, remember all that emotional trauma she saw Maria had? Yeah, not the best match for the fear toxin.

As Scarecrow grabbed Maria, she locked eyes with Harley, and gave a brief smile before she felt a sharp jabbing pain in the side of her neck. Her vision went hazy, and from Harleys' point of view, she went a little limp from it.

As Maria started to see again she could hear screams, car alarms going off, and explosion in the distance, when she looked up, she saw them, her friends, her team... her family, they were all there lying infront of her... none of them moving, all of them were lifeless, looking as though turned into a gray husk of what they once were, and beside them were all the Kwamis, and their respective Jewelery, broken and shattered. She felt the tears fall as she looked around. Paris, the once beautiful city of lights, was now a wasteland, everything had a gray tone to it, people, animals, everything that had life... was dead.

And then she heard laughing, a sick disturbing laugh that was all to familiar... Lila. When she turned and saw Vulpina, she felt sick just looking at her.

"You have failed Maria, everyone you knew and loved is gone, all because you weren't here." - Lila

All she felt in that moment... was pure anger, she began to struggle, but somthing was holding her. She kept hearing that stupid laugh, and kept struggling harder and harder.

"You were never good enough, you were meant to always be our everyday Ladybug, but you never were, you never cared for us, and that's why, they're all gone, because you weren't good enough." - Lila

The last four words kept playing over and over in her head, until something clicked, she wasn't in Paris, so how did she get there? The last place she was at... was with Harley, she was in the W.E. building, and had fear toxin injected into her. As she came to that realization, she could hear the laughing fade just a bit, she closed her eyes and focused on finding everyone's souls, when she did, she saw that Scarecrow was right infront of her, a goon next to Harley, and a goon behind her, the other goons had left and were on the first floor. She snapped back when she heard Lilas' voice again.

"You always were stubborn and never accepted the real truth, as class president aren't you supposed to just roll over and do as you're told." - Lila

Maria was done listening to her, and decided to kick Lila in the face (since someone didn't think to tie up her ankles.)

"Just go rott in hell already you lieing fox!" - Maria

Maria didn't get any answer, all she knew was that she hit whatever was really infront of her hard. Maria then heard Lilas' voice morph into a heavier, more distorted voice.

"That's a first, guess I'll have to increase the dosage." - Scarecrow

She then felt another jabbing pain in her neck, all she could do was scream from the pain, her head was spinning, and all she could hear was laughing, sickening laughter that came from both Lila, and now Hawkmoth. One thing Scarecrow didn't account for, was the deep hatred Maria held for both individuals he made her see. Because soon after he gave her more fear toxin she got her footing, pushing back into the goon behind her before using the goons' grib on her to do a half backflip into kicking the guys face in, quickly knocking the goon out, when she stood back up she only saw Hawkmoth, surrounded by her lifeless team and family, she only saw red, and charge right at him. She kept punching and roundhouse kicking him, giving one final charge, ramming into Hawkmoth before she felt weightless. She never heard the panicked scream Harley let out, she never heard the shouts that came from the Batfam just reaching the second floor, before she hit something... something rapped around her holding her from falling any further, causing her to start thrashing around thinking it was Hawkmoth, before seeing he was also grabbed by something. She struggled ignoring the slight pain that went through her harms and legs. She slowly calmed down as she felt her feet touch the ground again, she then saw another Hawkmoth that was now mixed with Lila hug her, she tried to break free, but realized that it wasn't Lila or Hawkmoth... It was calming, and her voice was gentle, it was Ivy. She only heard a few words, that's when she felt something blow on her face, and after a few seconds, she lost conscientiousness.

Harley came sprinting down and was by Ivys' side in less than a minute. Ivy could tell Harley was worried and joined her in hugging a now sleeping Maria.

"I'm sawhry Ives, It all just happened so fast, and she was so awesome at kickin' Cranes @ss, I din't get her out of dere quick enough." - Harley said as she looked Ivy in the eyes, with tears threatening to escape.

"It's alright Harley, none of this is your fault." - Ivy replied comfortingly to Harley

As the two hugged Maria Batman came over.

"We'll take it from here." - Batman

"Hell no. We ain't leavin' her side." - Harley

Batman just let out a sigh, after he dealt with Scarecrow and his goons, Batman, along with his sons, Ivy and Harley, all headed back to the Bat-cave where the other girls and Alfred were waiting.

If anyone noticed Robin looking over to Maria with a concerned look, they just ignored it, and continued their way back home.

•—–·†·–—•

Chapter 6 complete! Hope you'll liked it, and are havin' a fantabulous day, stay safe and rock all those positive vibes. !BUG-OUT! 🐞💮🐞

〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜 Tag List 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜

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#miraculous ladybug #damian x marinette #marinette dupain cheng #damianette #marinette x damian #damimari #harley quinn #shenanigans #badass marinette #poison ivy #catwoman #batfam #miraculous fanfic #fanfic #mlb fanfic #class salt #fluff fic #gotham sirens #choas #mlb x dc #mlb crossover #mlb x marvel #mlb fanart #digital art #fanart #miraculous marinette #miraculous damian wayne #foryou #maribat #Whacky Gotham Goofy New York and Chaotic Paris

[girls-in-bikiniiss]

Tucked

You down your drink once more, kissing the ice as it clinks against the short glass.  You just got dumped by a pro hero—aka your high school sweetheart. You never made it pro, but you knew how to run a damn good agency. You met him after running into him after UA's school festival. He was bandaged up after being seen by the nurse. You remember turning the corner and both of you colliding into each other. After that, it was history. Even though the two of you were in separate classes, you were inseparable. It was like that until your third year and then he grew distant. His need to become the best hero overriding his love for you. You stayed with him, supporting him and accepting not being his number one anymore, but his happiness was too important. You never expected your downfall two more years down the road. Now here you are, twenty years old and sipping bourbon in a dimly lit bar, mascara smudged under your eyes from a fresh breakup.

~Earlier that day~ >Girl, you need to get back out there! He's trash!

You loved your best friend, you really did, but you knew she didn’t like how your ex had been treating you for the past two years. She was in your class and saw your entire relationship blossom.

>But I still love him...

>You're in love with a wannabe. He's not even a hero.

>He has an agency.

>mhm...

>Look, the best way to get over someone is to get under a new one. Who knows, maybe he'll hear about it and get jealous~

>I don't think that's a good idea -.-

>Look...I didn't want to tell you, but I heard he's been flirting with this hero at his agency (◞‸◟) >I'm telling you. Go get dressed up, go to a bar, and find someone mysterious and sexy.

You stopped responding to your friend and cradled your head in your hands. He's been flirting with someone else?? You wiped a tear away and made up your mind. Now you're sitting at the bar in a tight black dress feeling completely foolish for listening to your friend.

Until a man came and sat next to you at the crowed bar.

Wearing a leather trench coat, a tall and lanky man walked in, ordering a glass of whiskey. You watch him here and there, how he picks up his glass oh-so-carefully with four fingers, his pinky out. How refined.

"Will you need a refill, miss?" The bartender asked. You nod and look at the news on the silent TV  behind the counter. HIS face appeared on the screen in an interview and you groan. "Stupid super hero..." you mumble to yourself, earning a snicker from the man next to you.

"That sounded like disdain to me." His voice was raspy yet full of intrigue.

"That 'hero' is my ex boyfriend." Bitterness dripped between your teeth as you took another sip of your drink.

A flash of disgust showed through a quick sneer on the man's face.

"Tell me about it." You sigh, continuing on, "Who, just dumped me, mind you. Broke my heart without blinking." You look back to the TV, barely a murmur, "Instead of taking care of society all the time, why didn't you take care of those who loved you?"

"Yes, why don't hero's protect the ones they love over society?" The man mused. "In fact, why do heroes get to use their quirks and violence for the 'greater good' of society? Who determines that?"

You took a sip, listening to his nihilistic speech. "We once lived without superheroes on the streets. Superheroes have just created broken families, whether the realize it or not. But do they get reprimanded? No! They're praised by the same SHEEP who get broken apart."

You felt a nerve hit. You always hoped for a family with your ex, yet his desire to be the best superhero broke that dream apart. You felt this man's anger. "You know? I feel that." You slurred your words with pain emerging. "Why does society rely on heroes so much? Like, to the point where they wouldn't know what to do without them. We used to live without heroes. We used to not have quirks. I hate how much we rely on them. They can't even have their own family and be there for them. That stupid hero," you pointed at the screen, "just broke my idea of family apart because he wanted to get ahead in his career. How messed up is that? Being forced to choose between love or a career?"

"Stupid girl," he muttered, not reaching your ears, "He wasn't forced. He decided to have his ego stroked by fans. That's the issue on hand."

You took a look at the man next to you. Blue hair, ruby eyes, the cutest mole by his lip. He had bags under his eyes, but so did you from all the crying. You had never met someone so outspoken about their disdain of the superhero society. It was refreshing.

The best way to get over a man is to get under one, right?

"The name is Y/N Y/L/N."  You offered your glass to clink against his.

"...Tenko."

The evening grew late while you and Tenko slandered the hero's name. "I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Thank you. I really needed this." The liquid courage had run its course through your body and you were starting to sober up, but still feeling the effects. Tenko gave you a grin. He always loved meeting people scorned by heroes, their rose colored glasses fallen off. It made it that much easier to destroy the faith in a hero's society.

"I should get going. Oh shoot. I don't have money for a cab." You muttered to yourself as you rummaged your purse.

"Let me walk you home."

You looked at his face, scanning for anything sinister, but he seemed genuine. You nodded and paid the tab. You steadied yourself as you stood, only to have your eyes meet his collar bone.

This man was tall. You look up to see him smugly looking down at you, aware of the height difference. Yet his politeness charmed you to feel safe.

Out on the street your heels clicked against the asphalt, Tenko walking next to you quietly. "I appreciate you walking me home. I know I shouldn't have drank that much tonight; especially when I went alone. I didn't think about the walk home. Who knows what lurks in the shadows?" You rub the back of your neck.

Tenko chuckled while looking at his red high tops as he walked. Hands shoved in his pockets, he looked as if he could melt into the shadows himself. In fact, if you had not met him earlier, and saw him walking toward you, you were sure you'd feel frightened. But somehow, walking with him you felt safe, like no one was going to come up and mess with you.

You reached the door of your apartment and turned to him. "Well, home sweet home..." The best way to get over someone was by getting under a new one. Your friend's words rang in your head. "Would you like to come in? Maybe for one more drink?" Tenko looked at the building and then to the door, reading the number and smiled. "You have a nice night, Y/N." You shrug your shoulders and bid the handsome man goodnight.

You change out of your dress into the short nightgown and wash your face. Flipping the duvet over, you crawl into bed and get comfortable to scroll through your phone. A knock echos through your apartment. Who could that be? A mental image of your ex pops into your head but you do your best to waft that bubble cloud away. Getting out of bed you open the door a crack to see the blue haired man. "Tenko?" You opened the door wider. "On second thought, I'll take that drink."

A dark shade of lust covered his ruby eyes as he walked through the door, pushing you back. As if stalking his prey, Tenko neared you slowly all the way across the room. You felt your calf hit the back of your bed and you had to catch yourself before falling. A smirk reached his lips, looking like flustering you was exactly what he wanted.

His figure towered over you, reaching down to brush delicate fingers across your cheek. His hair covering his eyes as he dipped down to break your personal space. A tight knot in your stomach formed as he neared, his warm breath made your eyes flutter as his lips grazed your cheek. He ran a finger up and down your arm, his other arm beginning to snake around your waist, pulling you closer.

"Could your hero boyfriend make you feel like this?" he whispered in your ear.

A gasp reached your lips, and as soon as he heard it, he pushed you down against the white comforter on your bed, kissing your neck down to your shoulder.

You heard your phone ping, breaking you out of the trance. Looking to your phone on your pillow and back, Tenko had vanished. Confusion washed over your foggy mind.

He wasn't there.

A frustrated sigh steamed out and you buried your face in your pillow. At least you could keep this tucked away inside the back of your head.

#shigaraki tomura #shigaraki tenko #bnha #my hero academia #my hero fanfic #shigaraki x y/n #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki thirst #shigaraki fanfiction #tenko shimura

[jadelotusflower]

Robin Hood Rewatch: 2x08 Get Carter!

This is actually one of my favourite episodes of the season, partly because I really enjoy relationship angst, but mostly because we get multiple characters dealing with their trauma/grief. If we can't get these guys and gals into therapy, at least we get to see them talk (and hug) it out.

Also the best episode title they're had for a while - I have no doubt one of the writers is a fan, and Carter is so named only because they wanted to make this reference. The assassin seeking revenge for a dead brother is wholesale lifted from the plot of the film, and Joseph Kennedy almost has a passing resemblance to Michael Caine's look in that role.

"Get Carter - before Carter gets you!"

Carter is one of the only guest stars they actually will bring back later, and for good reason.

"Why don't you ever kiss my ring?" Vaisey, always making things creepy.

Marian is simmering with unrestrained anger, eager to get into the fight, while Robin is the one advocating for the watch and see approach, and it’s quite the role reversal.

The gang's reaction to her charging off is quite funny though, she knocks John over completely and Djaq throws her hands in the air.

Robin’s now getting a taste of what the rest of the gang have to put up with dealing with his recklessness.

Tying Marian up in the middle of a melee, however, is disgusting behaviour - while Marian was hot-headed throwing herself into the fight (nothing Robin hasn't done before himself), he knows that she can hold her own with a sword and doesn't need protecting. Tying her hands is the absolute worst thing he could have done, because how is she meant to defend herself? I can somewhat understand where Robin is coming from in this episode (even if he goes about it badly), but this is unjustifiable.

Clearly she gave that guard she clanked on the head amnesia, because he never reports back that Marian was fighting with the gang.

“I owe you my life”/“I won’t take it just yet.” Nice.

Scimitar is still missing in action.

Robin doesn’t want Marian to be seen in case she needs to return to the castle, when he’s spent the whole season urging for her to join the gang. I think he realises he made a mistake asking her to flee last episode without giving her time to deal with her grief, and wants to leave her options open. But telling her that she’s not ready to make the decision (about whatever she wants to go back), however correct, is patronising.

There's a fundamental conflict that Marian wants to be treated like a member of the gang, but doesn't want to cede to Robin's authority like the rest of the gang - in turn Robin expects her to follow his orders like the others, but isn't treating her like he would the others either - he would never tie them up to keep them out of a fight, and Marian has every right to pissed at him about it.

Djaq and Much having a little tête-à-tête about Carter - I just really enjoy that they’re often paired together in these gang scenes, they balance/play off each other so well. Just this pure platonic frazzled vs calm vibe.

Much just has this really great memory for faces - he was able to recognise fake Richard last season just from his profile despite wearing a helmet, and now he knows he remembers Carter's face from somewhere (or as it will turn out, Carter's brother).

Much really just does not let up, and I love that about him. "You'll be disappointed though, with uh, today's wound. I mean if you're planning to go back to the Holy Land and, uh, kill him." That not so subtle probing for information and Sam Troughton's delivery is always perfect.

"Wasn't me, was it?" Oh Much, so close.

“The crusty one” - lol

It's not explicit, but implied that Vaisey and Guy believe Edward was the one passing information to Robin, and Marian is cleared of any suspicion (paving the way for her return). Guess Guy never showed the Sheriff that hair dagger after all.

Vaisey is actually giving Guy some really good advice here, albeit laced with his usual cruelty and getting all up in Guy's personal space.

"Grow up Gisborne" - now I don't think it's deliberate on Vaisey's part to invoke a Marian parlance, seeing as she really only says this to Robin (and once to Much), but it's a nice little callback, however unintentional.

Marian asks for an apology (and deserves one), but Robin doubles down and doesn't come out of this exchange well.

Because his delivery is terrible, but he's otherwise quite correct - as skilled as Marian is, she’s used to relying on (and having to worry about) only herself and not work in a team, and look to a single point of command. But both of them have their backs up - they're two strong personalities and neither is going to give ground, reverting to the ideological clashes of season 1, except now in much closer quarters.

Robin's also not used to being challenged in this particular way, and in his frustration is reacting like a captain disciplining a soldier, not a lover helping their partner through their grief. I do wonder if the conversation would have gone differently if they'd been alone.

lol at the gang awkwardly standing around listening to Robin and Marian fight. Djaq trying to busy herself with her mortar and pestle as Robin and Marian argue around her.

A really great scene between Marian and John aka the camp dad. Marian really just needs someone to listen to her and appreciate what she's going through - Robin is too fixated on the dangerous way she's channeling her grief and not even trying to address the root cause. He trying to tell her what to do, not listen to what she actually needs.

On the other hand it's probably better coming from John, a neutral party without the emotional baggage she has with Robin.

Because Robin and Marian are really being driven by completely different motives - Marian by grief and therefore loss, and Robin by trauma and therefore fear. In her sorrow, Marian has lost all her fear of being discovered, in fact she wants to make it know she's with the gang, to finally be free to say which side she's on and fight openly, to make her father's death worthwhile, and can't understand why Robin is trying to stifle that.

"I thought you used to have your own men Little John?" So someone remembers Forrest and Hanton!

After Carter takes down the gang one by one, Robin takes down Carter in three seconds (including catching the long dagger Carter throws at him, and flinging it back) and it's lights out. Can you believe it's the first concussion of the season? (Notwithstanding the multiple head injuries Allan sustained last episode).

While Marian has been known to be punch-happy, the "he'll tell us more if he knows we're willing to hurt him" is just so (intentionally) out of character - it is however somewhat reminiscent of Robin in 1x08, wanting to get his punch and torture on with Guy. However rather than understanding where Marian is coming from, he pushes her away with the "go and cook something" jibe. This almost feels like he was going for familiar banter and miscued, but is also an asshole thing to say. When their positions were reversed in 1x08 Marian at least tried to reason with him - Robin is seems to be ill-equipped to do the same.

Allan just having a little snooze against the castle wall. He really seems defeated and depressed after last episode.

Marian's corset has a pouch to hold a dagger - or at least I hope there is because otherwise it's ouch time.

Leaving Marian at the camp is again a mistake on Robin's part - it excludes and isolates her from the gang, rather than trying to involve her so she can bond with them, engaging in their outreach to the peasants - who she helped as the Nightwatchman, but never really had the opportunity to come to know. It would remind her that they are not just fighting against the Sheriff but for the people, which in her frenzied grief she has perhaps lost sight of.

Instead, Robin's focus is on Carter, who he rather identifies with and so finds it easier to address his motives, and try and change them.

Carter is in many ways Robin’s dark mirror, what he could have become in the Holy Land if he chose a different path. It’s important that this happens right when Robin is backsliding - he’s trying to save his own soul as much as Carter’s.

Okay, let's talk about Marian’s forest gear - fashioned from the outfit she wore when she fled the castle the previous episode - but dear me it's awful. The grey culottes, rather than becoming trousers have now been turned into that corset, and her vest/skirt overlay have now become those trousers. Just baffling.

“I’m good with nuns” followed by Allan straight up knocking the Mother Superior over and stealing her ring is iconic.

Much gives Robin a sword to use going after Carter - still no scimitar.

I really love the confrontation/fight scene between Robin and Carter - it's very well choreographed and written, but we also see the best of Robin's character (after seeing some of the worst earlier).

Carter's brother is called Thomas - Allan's brother was called Tom. Lots of dead brothers in this show (including Djaq's).

The story of Carter's brother Thomas dying because he "stopped listening" and led a raid against orders is a little on the nose, but gives context to Robin’s fear for Marian’s safety in part triggered by his war trauma - someone charging in against orders and then dying in his arms.

But it shows Robin as a man who, even when Thomas' recklessness had cost not only his own life but others of Robin's men, was still moved to instruct the stretcher-bearers to make Thomas the hero, and himself the negligent captain, in order to comfort his family.

The fight is fairly even, and although Robin gets the upper hand in the end, it's only partly his skill - rather his true strength is in reaching the man inside the assassin, and then surrender and allow Carter to take his revenge if that's what he wants, and despite his fear, trust that there is good still in him, and that he can leave behind the life as a killer as Robin has done (tried to do).

This scene is the core of why I really love Robin as a character. He's riddled with PTSD and a reckless bravado, he's at time emotionally stunted with those he loves, makes terrible mistakes and often says the wrong thing, but he also has this great heart and compassion that allows him to reach people, to understand and help them, even at the risk of his own life. He's trying.

"He was a hero - just not on that day" is quite a poignant line.

Much and Djaq together again, just saying.

Robin finally finds out that Roger of Stoke was intercepted. I had assumed he'd figured that out once he knew Allan was a traitor but okay.

Poor Much crying out for Robin's attention - he's got his own trauma from the war and wants to talk about it, to commiserate with Robin about what they went though, but Robin can only cope by not talking about it, not even thinking about it.

Much makes a good point that Robin should have listened to him about recognising Carter, but it comes across as jealously over Marian and Robin misses just how deeply Much carries his hurt.

One of Robin's biggest flaws is that he's overwhelming in his affection, compassion, and understanding for strangers, but takes those he loves for granted - Carter's response to grief was the same as Marian's, but Robin listened to Carter, consoled and comforted him, while keeping Marian at arm's length. Perhaps because strangers don't ask for anything beyond that - it is the granting of kindness, but not the sharing of self. It's the latter Robin truly fears, but what Much and Marian deserve (although tbf Marian has problems with this as well).

“Either I’m part of your gang or I’m not” is a valid point, and Robin's still not happy even when she agrees to stay behind!

But she disobeys him, and saves his life. It's a rite of passage - almost all of the members of the gang have this.

Allan looking rather distressed as Guy is about the chop off Robin's head, and he makes a small movement just before the swing (as does Much).

Guy again pushing Marian past the point of discomfort - she left, wrote him a letter asking him to leave her alone, straight up told him to his face to leave her alone, and still he persists.

Her kissing Guy (to distract him from seeing Much and Will) is really the only time she sends mixed signals, but Guy's whole energy seems to be just to wear her down until she agrees to be with him and it's gross. It is however kind of amusing that he tries to be authoritative and forbid her from leaving, and she immediately walks away.

Robin and Marian are back in playful banter mode, although I wish there had been a deeper discussion (and that Robin had apologised in return). It doesn't quite feel like the conflict between them has been resolved, it really is just a "truce".

But I do like that it's Marian who reaches out to Robin at the end of this episode, because up until this point it's Robin who has been (somewhat) the one making overtures - asking her to join the gang, telling her he needs her, telling her he loves her, while Marian's been more reserved. This feels like her acknowledging that sometimes she needs to take the first step.

This was a long one - but as a I said, I really love this episode!

#robin hood bbc #robin hood rewatch #rewatch #2x08 #get carter! #long post #lots of rambling here sorry

[c4llm3h4ru]

The Restore of our Rotten Souls - Ch. 4 - I’m Magne’s kid

My name is Milli, 15 years old, quirk: Ventriloquism, my villain relative, Keiji Hikiishi, AKA Magne. And no, SHE is NOT my mother, but my aunt (I usually call her Tia, since a part of my family is latino), still she was the closest relative to my disowned ass. Thankfully UA still kept me after my parents told me: you're not Hikiishi anymore. Just because I CRIED due to Magne's death.

After that day, I promissed myself to be the best hero I could be, for her, since her ghost watches over me (some people says she haunts me, but I feel better with her around). But like any older sister, she still cares about the league, and I'm the only one who seems to care about her. So I swore that I'd save all of them.

But now... things are out of control...

A giant villain appeared kinda out of thin air and was with everyone Auntie Mag loves on his back. It was taking a lot of us to take him down... AND we failed... no surprise, not until Oumei started to tremble, pant and tear down:

 - Uh... San?

 - Puppeteer...

By her tone, I knew that something was wrong:

- I think... I need to go up there.

 - WHAT?! San, is there anything wrong?!

 - Oh yeah. Really, really wrong. He's coming, along with a near dead friend on his arms. We lost someone else today, along with your aunt.

"Another one?!" I was paralized, "who's coming?! Which one of us... or them... died this time?!"

 - YOU CAN'T GO THERE SENPAI! It's too dangerous!

Yaoyorozu, the class 1A vice-president suddenly shouted at us, trying to warn, but Oumei knows, as the top and the president of our class, our league's vice leader, and the one with special trainament, she also knows what she is doing:

 - I know, Creativi. But I bear some bad news for someone up there.

 - B-but... then at least, let me go with you!

 - Sorry, dear, but I need you down here, if he's still breathing, you're the one who's the best with first aids.

 - Huh?

But before she could get any explaining, Oumei was already flying to face whoever would recieve the bad news. Yaoyorozu was worried:

 - Puppeteer... who is coming?

 - Uh... I don't k-

At that moment, I was looking around, and I saw something moving in the woods:

 - Wait...

 - Wh-

 - Shh...

I slowly walked near the trees and tried to focus more:

 - Hello? Anyone there?

A long second of silence before I heard a snap close to where I was. At that moment, Auntie's ghost pointed from where she the sound was coming from.

At the pointed place, I saw a silhouete of a man with black suit and blonde messy hair carrying someone on his arms, who was looking really beaten up. I knew who they were:

 - HEY! OVER HERE!

 - Wha- Puppeteer! Are you crazy?!

 - IT'S ME, BUBAIGAWARA, MILLI! MAGNE'S NEPHEW!

 - Ok! He's gone nuts.

I could hear whet they were talking about me, but why in the world Twice isn't with the other... "Oh jeez..." that meant something was REALLY wrong.

I fell down on my knees, that alarmed my other classmates, Elijah Mio (The blind hero: Third Eye) and Nekoshi Hyotora (The night hero: Night Panther). They came to my side quickly:

 - Puppeteer?

Nekoshi started:

 - Why are you... (snif, snif) I smell... blood and... (snif snif) burned flesh... Hyuko!

 - What?! Night, are you sure?

 - I fear so, Inner Eyes.

 - What are we waiting for?

And as quick as the blink of an eye, Nekoshi transformed into a panther and they went after the two. But I was still in shock. Yaoyorozu touched my shoulder:

 - Puppeteer... who's hurt?

 - ... Hyuko... he went after Twice due to some personal reason that I don't know...

 - Milli...

 - I feel like... he made a self-sacrifice for Twice... I can't sense why and-

And shortly after Elijah and Nekoshi left, they came back. Bubaigawara and Hyuko were with them at the back travel. I slowly walked near him and:

 - Where is my Oumei? Where is Himiko?

He was crying, and holding Hyuko like a lifeline. It was clear that he wasn't able to say many words. As I was approaching him, his tears were overflowing even more, I knew why:

 - Thanks for bringing him here, Jin.

 - I-I... I'm... I didn't mean, I-

 - Don't worry, I'll take care of him from now, Okay?

 - That's not what I... I mean, this too, but... your aunt... it was my-

 - About that, have you ever heard of the spirit guides? They sat it's been more frequent supernatural events since the 3rd generation of quirks.

 - What...?

 - Actually, there is something I need to tell you later, now, Hyuko needs help.

 - Uh... okay!

But at the moment we were going to start the first aids, my radio was recieving a message:

 - Hello?! Hello?! Anyone on the line?!

 - Keep going, I REALLY need to answer! Hello?! Ushio?! Is that you? What's wrong?!

 - Puppeteer, did the giant crazy villain showed up?!

 - Yes, the heroes couldn't stop it yet, and-

 -  Listen! If there is ANYONE on their back, you must take them of immediately!

 - Wha-

 - YOU HAVE LESS THAN ONE MINUTE! MOTHER'S ON THE WAY! THINGS WON'T END UP PRETTY IF THERE IS SOMEONE ON HIS BACK! LONG STORY, NO TIME, JUST DO WHAT I ASK!

 - Okay! I'm on it!

As I was looking for a way to get everyone that was up there, Elijah said:

 - 5 people, I'll guide the threads.

I just need to attach one thread to be able to take someone's free will to move, and I can pull them like a ragdoll with a rope attached to their neck. I climbed a tree and deatached the strings from my fingers and threw them on the back of the giant creature:

 - NOW! Did I caught one?

 - The one of the mask! You got the spine right away.

This power that Elijah have does allow him to see silhouettes of people and their clothes, he describes as seing points in the middle of nowhere, since his actual eyes are blinded.

 - Go up and you'll get two more, and... San already got Toga for you!

 - GOT IT!

 - THERE! NOW PUSH! THE MOTHER IS COMING IN 5 SECONDS!

With the last drops of my arm's strenght, I pulled them, and to make sure I'd get everyone together, I tangled the strings in the air, and the moment in middle air, a giant dragon appeared and threw itself on the giant villain with all their strenght. The ground even shook with the impact:

 - MACHIA!!!!!!!

 - WHAT?!

The villains' faces were the best faces of "WTF, WE WERE JUST THERE!", but  I needed to get them down.

Since I didn't have any strenght left, to slow the fall, I hung the stings on a tree and slowly took thre strings off. Twice watched everything, and was really relieved. But when they saw him, the reaction was priceless:

 - TWICE?!

 - But you died! In front of me!

 - This must be a trick! It can't be real!

But Jin himself went to Himiko first  begging for forgiveness. It was clear she didn't know everything, until Oumei said:

 - At what moment I said that I was talking about my dad, Himiko?

Oumei's flashback

I pretty much had a tormented flight, but I got a clear spot to fall:

 - Himiko. Toga. You better explain yourself now!

 - What?! No! I don't have snything to explain to you!

 - Oh yeah?! Guess what?! I have some news to you!

I went close and pulled her by her sweater:

 - HE'S DEAD!! WHY DIDN'T YOU LOVE HIM ANYMORE?! IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT HE IS DEAD NOW!!

 - WHAT?! You think I'M the one who killed Jin?! COME ON! IT WAS THAT BIRD'S FAULT!!! HAWKS KILLED YOUR FATHER!!!

At that moment, Milli's threads appeared and were attaching to each one of the villains. Something was wrong, I could feel it. Then I ran and got two strings, to me and Himiko, and suddenly we were flying.

Back to Milli's POV

The scene was devastating, Twice was crying on Himiko's feet, unable to look her in the eye, repeating what Hyuko asked him to tell her:

 - ...and then, Hyuko, he asked me to bring his body back! I couldn't leave him! Not there!

He was already proclaimed dead when we were doing the first aids. But I wasn't crying yet. I was trying to think what should I do.

Suddenly I saw a baby blue light, I knew that baby blue light, Auntie Mag:

 - What are you doing here, Tia?

But then I saw the others, their faces, she was visible to everyone, as she was talking to Hyuko's body:

 - You still has a lot to live, young boy, but still, you did something amazing, not even holding a trace of grudge, but I guess, if it's your end, you need to prepare your sister for it.

The other members of the League were in shock, is not everyday you see a ghost, specially from a friend. When she saw everyone safe, she turned to me and smiled:

 - You did it! YOU DID IT!

She tugged and hugged me, but it wasn't cold, her ghost was wasm as if she was alive, this was scarying me, I felt like she was saying goodbye:

 - T-Tia? W-why do they see you? Why are you so warm?

 - My boy, it doesn't matter, thank you! Thank you for saving them!

 - W- well... that's my job... saving people...

 - Even the villains?

 - THEY ARE STILL PEOPLE! Like the two of us! I'm a boy in a girl's body, and you were a woman in a man's body, but we're still people!

 - Yeah, we are... Milli, could you promise me something?

 - I'm listening...

 - Take care of them for me? They're my family and-

 - No need to say anything more. I will. No matter what will happen, I'll do my best.

 - Heh... you're really like me.

Then she pulled back a bit, and kissed my forehead:

 - Take care, my boy...

And then she started to fade, and somehow I knew, she finally found her peace. But this made me so desperate, I started to cry:

 - T-Tia? I-I don't know if-

 - I know you can, and your friends will help y...

And then she were gone. I was a train wreck at that moment. But then a question, coming from the lizard man, Spinner:

 - Who the hell are you? And why could you talk and understand what that ghost? She was our friend!

I recomposed myself a bit, and with the strongest face I could manage, I answered:

 - I'm Magne's kid.

#oumei bubaigawara #jin bubaigawara #hyuko toga #class v #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #troors #the restore of our rotten souls #bnha au #alternative universe #himiko toga #league of villains #lov

[pynkhues]

Since you're a writer, I'm hoping you can shed some light on this. IMO the writers were chasing viewers in S2 and trying not to get canceled. Personally, I hate when writers toy with their audience, it means they don't have a clear picture of their characters and narrative. How do you feel about writers making it up as they go?

Ah, this post got really long, anon! Since you asked me as a writer, I’m answering as one (I hope you don’t mind! I also hope this doesnt come out as too Creative Writing 101 for people either. This is just lessons I’ve learned and use in my own practice, so I’m applying them here.) 

(Also I have drawn horrible diagrams on my very pink notebook paper - I am so sorry, haha)

So first thing’s first - no. I don’t think the writers were chasing viewers (at least not beyond the way any writer is wanting an audience), and I don’t think they were making it up as they go really, but I can understand why you would think that way! 

It won’t be a surprise to anyone that I love this show a lot, but coming from it as both a writer and editor - this show does have narrative problems, and the biggest ones, particularly in s2, are in execution, escalation and pacing. 

I think heading into the season they had certain character arcs they wanted to follow which married well with the story they wanted to tell. In particular, I actually think the writers have a very strong handle on the girls (I will say that I’ve had a few asks telling me Beth’s characterisation is all over the place, which I’m curious about, just because I personally find her very consistent, and when I’ve asked for clarification, I’ve never gotten any reply, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

I mean, look at their s2 arcs on paper, right? 

Ruby tries to negotiate Stan’s lowered opinion of her after the reveal of what she’s done, then has to negotiate him telling her to turn Beth and Annie in. She manages the situation painfully but pulls them through and they’re close again as Ruby navigates the increasingly lower depths of their crime life. When Stan acts to save Beth for Ruby and is arrested, it only escalates – the case on him driving Ruby to extremes to try and save him, including robbing a Quick Cash and using counterfeit money to bribe a lawyer. On top of that, she’s being targeted by an FBI agent who’s after her best friend who she gives up and then saves and then who tries to sacrifice herself for them. Ruby finishes the season the most morally compromised she’s ever been.

Annie gets back together with her ex only to find out that he’s gotten his not-quite-separated-wife pregnant. She splits up with him, but is heartbroken and it’s only amplified by the fact that they’ve been given a job by their Crime Boss to murder a man who tried to rape her but who’s grandmother she has a relationship with. Her sister can’t kill him, and Annie doesn’t get the chance as MP beats her to it. Upon disposing of the body though she endures a whole lot of pain as a result of both her ex’s new family and knowing she’s robbed a woman of her own. Annie goes on a guilt tour – tells her son, helps Marion, helps Nancy only to eventually find an absolver of her guilt in Noah, who builds her up and tells her she’s more than what life has given her. She lets herself have it for a while, before realising he’s FBI and there to trap her, and Annie tries to use him only to realise she can’t, and she finishes the season in a lot more hurt than she started it.

Beth struggles with guilt after getting Dean shot, gets the job to kill Boomer from Rio, can’t do it, gets support and encouragement from him (in various states of animosity), but in the end doesn’t have to find out if she can do it because MP does it instead. She’s rewarded by Rio in a way she probably never has been by anyone, her husband further subjugates her, so she has sex with Rio, starts to entertain a future with him, but he undermines her, so she seizes control from him. They work together. Dean forces her to break up with him due to jealousy, she struggles, goes back, but Rio’s stung, so unhelpful, and they play a little cat and mouse before he bails then kidnaps her and she shoots him.

With the exception of that very last sentence, I think all of those are narratively really strong pathways to have explored. Like I said above though, the issue is in execution, escalation and pacing.

But to talk about those things, I think I probably need to talk about story. 

SO!

Stories have a shape.

Kurt Vonnegut talks extensively about this, and while he’ll talk about a few different types of story shapes, they really all boil down to this bad boy here:

Look at this guy.

What a beautiful thing.

He’s a story.

It doesn’t matter if you’re reading Dr Seuss or Charles Dickens, when you read a story – when you strip away its words and its characters and its settings – this is what it looks like.

Or, well.

Not quite.

Really, it’s this guy:

But we’ll talk about him in a sec.

Right now, let’s talk about that first little inch: 

The Beginning

The fact that stories have a beginning is not a surprise to anyone. Stories need them. In some ways, they’re the most important part of your story. After all, the job of the beginning is to set up the world your protagonist is about to leave behind. That is essential in grounding a reader / viewer – orienting them to the world that they’re in, and getting them invested in the story you’re about to tell, if not the protagonist.

Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones are all excellent example of this (and frequently used in teaching) because in each of these cases it’s literal. Frodo leaves Bag End, Harry leave Privet Drive, Luke leaves Tatooine, the Starks leave Winterfell. There is a literal departure from the world before the crux of the story, and that departure is what signifies the start of the ‘hero journey’ aka the main part of your narrative.

Of course, it’s not always literal – in fact, it’s usually not. Usually that world is symbolic – it’s the single, uncertain world before the Bingley’s buy the house next door in Pride and Prejudice or the dry domestic sphere of Breaking Bad before Walt decides to make meth. It’s a marked shift, whether that’s internal or external.

In Good Girls, it’s internal.

The beginning is actually pretty perfect. The world it sets up that we’re about to (try to) depart is one of struggle and invisibility.

Beth’s in a loveless marriage promptly discovering that her husband is not only cheating but about to leave them destitute, Ruby’s getting ignored by the healthcare system and can’t afford to pay for her daughter’s wellbeing, and Annie is in a dead end job about to lose custody of her child.

Writing-wise – as a beginning, I honestly think 1.01 is close to perfect.

It sets up who these characters are, their personal conflicts, and the story world they share together, and the worlds they have on their own i.e. Ruby at the hospital and the diner, Annie at Fine and Frugal, Beth with Dean and Boland Motors.

Then:

BOOM

Inciting Incident.

The inciting incident is also often called The Point of No Return.

When I’m teaching, I personally like to call it the “You’re a wizard!” moment.

It’s when something happens that means everything set up in the beginning will be changed forever. It’s Romeo meeting Juliet, it’s Katniss volunteering for Prim, it’s Frodo deciding to take the ring to Mordor, it’s Jaimie pushing a child out a window, it’s Beth – deciding to take her little sister’s joke seriously and rob a grocery store.

(Again, I like to use Harry Potter because it’s literal – there is no return for Harry after hearing Hagrid tell him he’s a wizard. Everything is changed forever).

Inciting incidents are probably the most singularly important narrative moment, because they’re what everything else tumbles out of. Pretty much everything that happens in the story should be a direct or indirect result of the inciting incident. The inciting incident is ultimately the key of the story and what should unlock the overall arc.

When it comes to a series – whether that be a TV series, movie series or book series, each individual instalment (see: season of a show) should have its own inciting incident which – preferably – builds off the one established in the first instalment.

The Hunger Games does this really well. Katniss and Peeta being brought back into the games in Catching Fire is both an imitation inciting incident which allows the author to explore the story world further in an exciting way, and also an inciting incident that’s directly borne out of the first book / film – aka Katniss pissed enough people off during the first games that they’re going to try and kill her for real this time, which in turn gives us the opportunity to explore Katniss’ trauma, the ramifications of her actions in the first book on the broader story world, and to generate a new, compelling chapter based off of both.

Good Girls has a terrific inciting incident in s1 – which is Beth realising she’s about to lose everything.

That is our narrative point of no return.

And it works on a lot of levels – it establishes Beth as the driving engine of the story, fuelled by the chorus motivations of Annie and Ruby, rounding off both their collective and individual stakes, it sets us up for a strong narrative spine and solid characterisations.

Good Girls actually also has a terrific inciting incident in s2, which operates strongly on its own while also building firmly off the character arcs of s1.

The s2 inciting incident is Rio showing up on that park bench with Marcus, a gun and an order.

The story pivots here – giving Rio a lot of narrative thrust (get your minds out of the gutter kids), and making him a sort of secondary story engine. The core engine is still Beth, but her life is different now. She’s been traumatised and she’s exhausted, but Rio revealing his son to the girls (and tying their motivations up together in a neat little package) while forcing her to act, re-establishes her as the person who’s decisions are going to be the driving force of the narrative.

Ruby and Annie are, of course, story engines in their own right too, but they fall into line behind Beth usually, and their narrative push is actually usually away from the story throughline, but we’ll talk about that in a sec.

Rising Tension / The Middle

Okay, this is where things get a little tricky.

Do you remember this guy?

When we talk about stories, rising tension / the middle is the big guy. It’s the bulk of your narrative. It’s Where Things Happen. It’s where all the ugly stuff set up in your beginning and exploded by your inciting incident just - - grows a life of it’s own.

Or - -

Well.

Maybe not.

Forget about this guy.

Rising tension is this:

Rising tension is a series of ‘mini climaxes’ on the way to the main climax that raises the stakes, lets you know characters better, and pushes your characters onwards to the main climax.

Each of these little climaxes should be followed by a ‘narrative rest’. (that’s the dip after each spike)

Which - - I don’t know, might sound weird? I know when I started writing I was like ?? but it’s true! The closer you get to a big narrative climax, the more important rests are! Rests are – I personally think – one of the most important components of storytelling, because they re-ground an audience, remind them of what’s at stake, before thrusting everyone back into danger.

Again, Harry Potter is a gift in this sense because this is all really clearly paced out. Think about the first instalment – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s / Sorcerer’s Stone.

Harry and Ron save Hermione and Ron from the troll!!!

Then they become friends and enjoy school and quidditch.

Harry loses control of his broom during a quidditch game!!!!

He’s okay and then it’s Christmas and Harry gets the invisibility cloak and feels connected to his parents for perhaps the first time in his life.

Harry, Hermione and Ron go through the trapdoor to get the philosopher’s stone!!!

And - - okay, you get the point.

Each mini climax ups the stakes, but we feel those stakes upped because of the time we spend with characters during the ‘narrative rest’. For instance, while Harry and Ron saving Hermione from the troll might have sparked an interest in her, it’s the narrative rest scenes between that and her setting Snape on fire during the quidditch game that makes us invest in her as a character. 

This is where things get a bit hairy with Good Girls. Good Girls does a tremendous job of giving us both great climaxes and wonderful moments of narrative rest. The issue, for me at least, is that it’s not always the best at balancing them. When I talk about escalation and pacing, this is a big part of what I mean.

Remember how I said this was the shape of a story?

Well, I think Good Girls s2 looked more like this:

We had a lot of solid movement in the first half of the season that sort of flattened out into a lower stakes, more meandering middle (which gave us 2.08 through 2.12). Which - -

Look.

The story changed gear, and it didn’t work.  

Think of it this way:

2.01 – mostly character-based fallout from s1 + inciting incident of Rio handing them the gun

2.02 – almost entirely rising tension culminating with the girls bribing Boomer and Beth lying to Rio

2.03 – which thrusts us straight back into rising tension with the girls trying to kill Boomer and ‘succeeding’ via Mary Pat

2.04 – which gives us a very satisfying narrative rest as we explore Rio and Beth’s relationship outside of an overall narrative thrust – he gives her a key, she shies away from him, only to fall entirely back into him culminating in sex which itself brings about a new climax (no pun intended!) in the scene with Beth, Rio and Dean at the dealership. It’s also a strong character episode in closing certain plot threads – ending Annie and Greg’s relationship + ending Ruby lying to Stan about what they’re doing – while establishing major new threads – i.e. really colliding Turner and Mary Pat.

2.05 – and after the rest, we’re back to almost entirely satisfying rising tension! Building off of the threat of finding Boomer’s body and the new tensions that Rio and Beth’s intimacy brings.

2.06 – a mix episode! Very much building to the strong climax of Beth seizing power, but also an episode that plays around with character, has a lot of strong ‘rest’ moments i.e. the girls sorting pills and talking which gives us a lot of information as to state of minds, etc.

2.07 – again, very strong mixed episode which is focused on one single, extreme climax – Jane being missing, but building a very character-centric episode around it. Also introduces Noah though? Which is a mistake. He should have been introduced - I think, in 2.05, but that feels like a whole other post.

2.08 – narratively speaking the same as 2.07 in the sense of a single climax (the girls failing to get the money back / the Beth-Ruby confrontation), but has the added bonus of flashbacks.

2.09 – we have a slight narrative thrust with the robbery of the Quick Cash but it proves very quickly to be low stakes. This is an alllll emotional stakes episode, which means narrative tension is slowing.  

2.10 – again, a character-focused, narrative rest episode devoted to Beth struggling with getting square. A few small climaxes – Annie and Ruby in Canada and Turner at the dealership being the big ones, but both quickly prove toothless. The heft / strength of the episode again is in character moments, not narrative thrust. Again - slowing it down. 

2.11 – oh, what do we have here? Another character-focused, narrative rest episode? I love this episode – it’s one of my favourites of the show, but it’s intensely character focused. Very much centred in waving away the smoke around both Noah and Rio for Annie and Beth respectively. No dramatic climaxes. Slowing the story down even further. 

2.12 – another narrative rest episode. A lot of slow exposition of Mary Pat and Jeff, which is good to know, but I’d argue placed badly in the season. This season’s already been slowing down despite the narrative timeline tightening, but this episode only further pushes on the brakes for Dean’s new job, Beth and Dean’s divorce, Beth and Rio’s break up. Two very small climaxes - the lawyer telling Ruby he knows about the money and the Boomer reveal but - in the context of the season - actually pretty low stakes. Again. Slowing down the narrative. 

2.13 – A BIG CLIMAX EPISODE WHAT IS GOING ON???

What I’m saying in this is that the pacing in the back half of the season was, to me at least, fundamentally off. They hadn’t steered a strong enough narrative spine to take us through the season, and got heavily invested in character moments and not-entirely-thought-out-fallout in the back half of the season – it didn’t understand it’s own narrative thrust well enough to get us through. It also established a certain pacing with us in the first half of the season and shifted gears halfway through.

You can’t have your first three or six episodes be high-stakes-high-action, and then make the back end of your season same-stakes-low-action and top it all off with an explosive, poorly built-up finale in the way that they did.

There wasn’t enough thrust to push us through to the scene in Rio’s loft – neither narratively or in a character sense, and as a result, those last few episodes fall apart. Even beyond that though, the season escalated quickly then - - didn’t really know what to do with those escalations? It plateaued, which is indicative of bad pacing across the season. 

I actually do think it’d be a relatively easy fix? I’d bring the Noah arc forwards and actually fiddle with the Beth and Rio break ups - get one even closer the tinale and make it more painful. Make it a climax in itself. 

But anyway, haha: 

The Resolution

All stories have a resolution too of course.

The resolution can be 30 seconds or 30 minutes – it’s a time to tie up loose ends and to reassure your audience that the journey they’ve been on is worthwhile.

(After all – you’ll notice the story diagram is not symmetrical – we never finish where we began).

I’m not going to talk too much about resolutions because at the end of the day – resolutions should fall fairly naturally out of your beginning, your inciting incident, your rising tension. It should tumble out like the double wedding at the end of Pride and Prejudice, but I will say that the s2 resolution was...err, not good. In no small part because it didn’t fall out of what we’d been told all season. They’d established a certain throughline and then taken it back, and that was nagl to be honest. 

On the plus side though - it wasn’t a finale, so I have my fingers crossed they can fix it!

But yes, back to your ask, anon. 

No, I don’t think that the writers were pandering. I think they went in with a sketched outline and that they probably got lost in the back end of the season and weren’t quite sure how to drum up the final act, which meant that final act didn’t work.

Ah, this post got so long! I hope it wasn’t boring or too self-indulgent or silly, and that you got something out of it! I am, of course, always happy to answer writing questions, and I hope you liked reading my story ramblings ;-) 

#writing posts #gg season 2 #welcome to my ama

[under-sengoku-skies]

I'm back babey! This is it folks. Tomorrow's the day Ikemen Sengoku's Sasuke aka the love of my life gets his EN route. To celebrate, I wanted to look into the OG Sasuke. The mans our mans was named after.

In honor of this momentus route release and reaching 200 followers I will delve deep into the lore of the man, the myth, the legend: Sarutobi Sasuke.

The Sanada Ten Braves, aka juyushi (真田十勇士) or Ten Heroes of Sanada, are as you probably know after playing ikesen long enough a legendary group of ninjas that served Sanada Yukimura and were led by Sasuke. As for their names ya got...

Sarutobi Sasuke (猿飛佐助)

Kirigakure Saizo (霧隠才蔵)

Miyoshi Seikai (三好清海)

Miyoshi Isa (三好伊三)

Anayama Kousuke (穴山小助)

Unno Rokuro (海野六郎)

Kakei Juzo (筧十蔵)

Nezu Jinpaichi (根津甚八)

Mochizuki Rokuro (望月六郎)

Aaaaaaaand

Yuri Kamanosuke (由利鎌之助)

The story of the Sanada Ten Braves was first recorded in Tatsukawa Bunko (立川文庫), a series of children's books written during the Taisho period (大正時代, 1912-26). The stories that made up Tatsukawa Bunko were made up by professional storyteller Gyokushusai Tamada (玉秀斎玉田).

So anyways, when you get down to it the OG Sasuke's character was thought to be a fusion of historical and fictional accounts of Ninja and the literary hero from Journey to The West, Sun Wukong: the monkey king. HOWEVER, recently there had been a lot more room for doubt that Sun Wukong was chosen as a model for Sasuke. There's also various other theories about real-life figures that could've been an inspiration. Ya got ninjas like Kozui Sasuke (上月佐助): master of Iga ninjutsu, Sarutobi Nisuke (猿飛仁助), or Mikumo Sasuke (三雲佐助) who was an extant Koga-ninja (甲賀忍者) who worked under the Toyotomi family if you've read Sasuke's JP route or spoilers for it then you're probably also freaking about this little easter egg.

The original Sasuke wasn't a whole lot like our ikesen Sasuke. He fit the general genki stereotype character with some mischief thrown in there to keep things interesting, and was an anti-hero who used his powers for good. Said powers were crazy Naruto-style jutsu.

So here's how things went down for Sasuke:

Deep in the mountains of Shinano (信濃) (now Nagano prefecture) born and raised, playing with monkeys (I mean it suits him, sarutobi literally means monkey jump) is how he spend most of his days (also probably where he got his "monkey-like agility"). Then one day he comes across a mysterious ninja master of Koga ninjutsu (甲賀忍術), allegedly while he was practice sparring with a tree, who laughs at his tree fighting and agrees to teach him some mad ninja skillz. Later he meets a theif who knows ninjutsu: Kirigakure Saizo. Honestly, this Saizo is a lot like his slbp counterpart. A sharp contrast to this Sasuke, who's basically just your average shonen protagonist. Obviously, they gotta become rivals. They battle it out and Sasuke ends up winning. After that the two of them join Yukimura's ninja avengers (the Braves). Seriously. Yuki is the Nick Fury to their avengers. They all have Naruto-esque superpowers. Eventually they fought for the Toyotomi army against Ieyasu at the siege of Osaka, only to lose. What happened to Sasuke and the Braves? Their fates were never revealed. What a shitty ending. But fear not! There's an alternate ending!... In which Sasuke gets his foot caught in a bear trap while trying to infiltrate Ieyasu's stronghold. Then he...... Realizes he couldn't complete his mission and he.... Kills himself. No happy ending here I guess, only ones that remind me of that one lyric from actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf.

THIS DUDE. Has SO MUCH SHIT NAMED AFTER HIM. AND HE AIN'T EVEN REAL.

Tatsukawa Bunko began a ninja boom in Japanese pop culture. The forerunner of this was the character who would become synonymous with ninja: Sasuke. You've got...

Smol 80s Steven Universe Sasuke

Yu-Gi-Oh card robo-Sasuke

Mitsuhide-lookin Sasuke

The OG wipeout style game show was LITERALLY CALLED SASUKE

He is everywhere. There is no escape.

Disclaimer: I am not a historian, my japanese skills are mediocre at best, and I don't have access to like actual archives or anything. Pls correct me if anything I said here was wrong.

S O U R C E S

#halley's otome history notebook #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #ikesen sasuke #ikemen series #otome

[kaoru-takaida]

Shadowbringers chapter:

What Is To Be Undone...

*may contain Spoilers*

A big hooded figure runs along, carrying a long hempen sack over his shoulder. The Roegadyn man smiles to himself, the mask over the top part of his race concealing his joyful expression despite the chaos ensuing all around him. With this, he could help the Royal Family restore order to the Capitol. He could curry favor and ask for a position o the Court. With this, he could abolish any competition for reputation. "Oh, what luck I have." He says to himself, readjusting his grip.

He runs towards a safehouse, where he plans to wait till the morning to run to the Royal Palace. He sits the sack against the wall and seats himself on the couch, removing his flask from his pocket. He takes a swig of the alcohol and sighs with bliss at the taste. "Damn, how lucky am I?" He says, staring at the hempen sack. "To find you right as the Empire goes to shit? Had it not been for my position in prison transport, I wouldn't have spied you." He scoffs. "After that, it was as easy as mixing sleep potions into your food. And right as I planned on taking you from the prison, this chaos erupts just as I need a distraction." The man chuckles. "Just how lucky is that?"

"Yes..." A low voice growls. The Roe man chokes as a slender gunblade is rested on his shoulder from behind. "How lucky I am to find you here, and stop you before you doom the entire Garlean Empire." The Roe man scowls, instantly recognizing the voice. "You'd forsake the Empire for your own personal gain and power? How the times have changed..."

The Roegadyn man scoffs. "The times never changed." He begins. "You did... Gaius Van Baelsar." Gaius tightens his grip on the handle of his gunblade. "You think you can take my only ticket to curry favor with Lord Zenos?" He asks. "We all know that you'll never find a way back into the Empire. Even if you were to bring him the prisoner."

Gaius glances over at the hempen sack. "That prisoner isn't here to complicate Garlean affairs. They've completed their duty." He looks down at the Roe man. "Return the prisoner or hand them over to me. Those are your only options..."

The man scoffs. "Really?" He asks. After a moment of silence, the Roe man springs into action. He bats the blade away before pouncing forward, just as Gaius snaps the sofa to the side with a crash. As soon as his gunblade trains onto the Roe man, he stops. "Don't move!" The man has the prisoner revealed, the top of the sack undone to expose a small hooded figure, a knife to her throat. Under the hood, Gaius could clearly see Xeala horns and scales, despite the fact that her eyes were covered by cloth and her mouth was covered by a handkerchief.

"Coward." Gaius says.

"Coward?" He asks. "And what are you? A hero?" The man tsks. "Nooo. No, no, no. I'm doing what you never could have done. Bring a Warrior of Light to heel for the sake of the Garlean Empire." He points his knife at Gaius. "You'll never fool the Empire into trusting you again. And I'll be the one to-." Just before he could finish his sentence, a bullet shoots through the window behind him and through his chest. The man drops forward, lifeless, dropping the Xaela Prisoner Girl with it. Gaius releases a little sigh in relief. He walks over and kneels beside the prisoner.

He undoes the tie around the sack, and takes the bound girl into his arms. Moments later, he exits the safehouse, looking around the demolished area.

A blond woman steps out of the shadows, sniper rifle in hand. "I see you've found my 'prisoner'." Ingrid says, her blueish green eyes cautiously gauging him.

Gaius stops in his tracks. "Ingrid Zes Juvis... Daughter of Grendel Die Juvis. The Legatus of the Special Ops chapter." He scowls. "Tell me:" he begins, gripping the side of the girl's hooded robe. "Did you bring the girl here?"

Ingrid sighs. "Aye. That I did." She answers.

Gaius clenches his teeth. "For what reason would you bring her here?"

Ingrid scowls. "The Legatus was murdered. And we believed it was an Eorzean by the name of Alphinaud Leveilleur." Gaius's eyebrows shoot up when he hears this. "Ah. You know the name as well?"

Gaius takes a moment to answer. "Yes. I briefly traveled the Burn with the lad before this. I'm sorry to hear of your father's death..."

Ingrid nods towards the bound girl. "She came here and cleared Alphinaud Leveilleur's name." Ingrid says. "She found the killer and drew it out before slaying them. A killer you're all too familiar with." Ingrid says. Gaius knew the answer but waited for Ingrid to say it. "An Ascian..." Gaius can feel the rage swelling within himself. But the same rage comes across Ingrid's face. "Turns out, the vile creature had taken the skin of a newly fallen young Elezen cadaver. And the order given to it was to eliminate my father. Since he was a candidate to become elected Senator..." Ingrid clenches her fists. "Throw in some smoke and mirrors and a little magic. And they succeeded in convincing our order that the Eorzean had done it."

Gaius takes a moment to respond. He now looks at Ingrid. "You best return her to Eorzea. Garlemald is not safe for her as of late." Ingrid doesn't say anything. Gaius steps forward. "Is something wrong?"

"I can't do that." Ingrid says. He stops quickly. Gaius feels his stomach sink a bit. The tension begins to build in the space between the two. Gaius stands there, unwavering. "I can't in good conscience let a Warrior of Light simply leave." Gaius scowls at her. Ingrid inhales slowly before smiling at Gaius. "However... if a certain rebel could be a dear and arrange for her to be returned. That would be ideal."

A masked figure just around the corner of the building looks away. He tsks and crosses his arms before walking out of his hiding spot and into view.

Kaoru opens her eyes. She hears the gentle whirr of an airship. That realization rushes to her and she instantly jolts forward. She chokes, finding she's handcuffed to the seat. "Easy..." A voice says. She looks over to the right and spots the driver. A tan Lalafell man with long dark brown hair and honey highlights pulled back in a braid. He was wearing a mask but Kaoru could see freckles on his cheeks. "You've been sleeping for quite a while." He says. Kaoru doesn't respond. Only stares at him with a serious expression. "You're fine. I won't hurt you... I'm actually doing the opposite." Kaoru cocks an eyebrow. She looks out the front window and can see that they're almost to the Burn. She chokes, eyes widening a bit.

"How long?" She asks. The Lala gives her a "hm", looking over at her. "How long have I been asleep?" He frowns.

"I... cannot personally say exactly. But it's been nearly a few suns since the exchange with Shadow Hunter." He says.

Kaoru purses her eyebrows. (How long was I asleep before I was handed over to him? And how much time passed on the First?) She looks over to the masked Lalafell. (And how could I know if I can trust him?)

"You're wondering if you could trust me." He states. He looks over at Kaoru. "Or am I mistaken, of which, I rarely am."

"You've a mask on and I am restrained to a seat in a Garlean airship as we speak." Kaoru begins. "What am I to do than question you?" The man chuckles. Kaoru scoffs.

"You're restrained because I was told that you'd resist once I told you we're heading back to Eorzea."

Kaoru stands up quickly, straining against the shackles. "What?!" She scowls. "No! Take me back!" She demands. "Have you any idea just how badly it's gotten there?! The Empire's-."

"The Empire's affairs are just that." He interrupts. "The Empire's. Yes, Garlemald is about to be in for a rough time. That much is clear. But meddling in their affairs was something you were to be exempt from handling." He says. "According to the Lady Ingrid and Shadow Hunter himself. Or am I mistaken?"

Kaoru gives him a bitter look. "You... are not..." Kaoru's expression softens a bit. (He has the right of it... I was to return after Alphinaud's name was absolved of the accusations. And they have been for nearly a month.) She seats herself back in the seat. (Ingrid had been so fed up with my attempts to investigate into the Royal Family that she'd thrown me in the prison as a way to keep me contained...) Kaoru tsks. "Gods dammit..."

"I understand it's hard to accept right now. But we've bigger concerns as of late and I'm unwilling to stand idly by anymore." He looks over at her. "Something big is about to happen, Kaoru. And you need to be there when it does." Kaoru cocks an eyebrow.

"Mine apologies. Do I know you?" Kaoru asks. "What's about to happen? And why do you know my name?"

The Lalafell hesitates but looks away a second. "I cannot tell you why you need to be there, or what's about to happen..." He says. "But as to how I know you're name, I've a confession to make." The Lala takes a second. "I've been watching you and yours for a few years now." He looks up at her. "You, Tius, Hope... Even your friends the Scions." He nods at her. "I've watched your journeys unfold from the sidelines. But I can watch no more."

Kaoru scowls. "Who..." She begins. "Just who are you?"

The Lalafell removes his mask, revealing two eyes of different colors. The exact color of eyes as Kaoru, but rather his left eye blue and his right eye green. "I'm a summoner soothsayer. My name is Nilele Nile. Nil for short." He gives a worried expression. "And I am here to tell you that you're all in grave danger."

THE FATES OF MANY HAVE BEGUN TO UNWIND,

FATES THAT MUST BE UNDONE...

The beginning of the Soothsayer Arc begins in the Kaoru/Tius narrative... please look forward to it. ^.^

The introduction of a new character, Nilele Nile, aka "Nil" is coming as well!

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #kaoru takaida #gaius van baelsar #Ingrid Zes Juvis #final fantasy xiv fanfiction #final fantasy 14 fanfiction #ffxiv fanfiction #ffxiv fanfic #ff14 fanfic #ff14 fanfiction #shadowbringers #ffxiv shb #ff14 shb #final fantasy xiv shadowbringers #final fantasy 14 shadowbringers #post shadowbringers #post shb #Shadowbringers spoilers #shb spoilers #nilele nile

[margridarnauds]

Top five characters from literature (and why, if you're feeling chatty)

I tend to forget about literally everything I’ve ever read when I’m in a position to talk about it, so I’m going to do my best. 

(1) Bres mac Elatha - Cath Maige Tuired, Cath Maige Tuired Conga, and a load of other assorted medieval Irish myths. 

My boy. My son.

There’s a lot I could say about him, and a lot of it I wasn’t able to fit into my 45 page Capstone. Sometimes, in my (fairly short) life, I’ve been lucky enough to come across something that happened to be exactly what I needed at the time and, for my 14-15 year old self, that happened to be an obscure Irish deity who ends up choking on bog water. As you will. 

I didn’t start out liking him; it’s very, very easy to accept a simple version of the text where he’s just a moustache twirling tyrant, and even though it’s not an interpretation I AGREE with, seeing as it’s…boring, as a concept to me, it’s just as valid as anything, given these texts were meant to be interpreted and reinterpreted and transmitted and then rewritten from the ground up to suit the times. Cath Maige Tuired Bres is actually an anomaly; before that, he seems to have been an esteemed member of the Tuatha dé. 

Which, I suppose, is part of why I like him. There’s an ambiguity about him, a crossing of lines. Even in CMT where he’s at his most villainous, he’s fairly unique, having many of the traits of a hero and, I would argue, he is as much the protagonist of the text as Lugh is. He has the heroic birth with a missing father, the strange childhood, the trial by combat, etc. And yet, in the world of CMT, with the context of the Viking invasions, he just doesn’t have a chance. He’s a fundamentally doomed character from the beginning, with his own actions damning him in the end. 

His very existence in the tribe, the son born out of the most “proper” form of medieval Irish wedlock (seeing as there were nine, I hesitate to apply the term “bastard” to Bres, but the circumstances were NOT the ideal) to an unbetrothed noblewoman of the Tuatha (THE FUCKING SOVEREIGNTY OF IRELAND) and the king of a neighboring tribe, really warps the social structure, and it’s something he kind of carries throughout his life. He isn’t like Cú Chulainn, who is probably the one character who comes closest to him as far as his place in the tribe; he’s not content to serve the maternal side of his family as a champion, doing as he’s commanded. He wants power, and, when he’s removed from power, he takes desperate measures to take it back and, in the process, loses everything.

And, really, that essential liminality extends into his relationship with gender and power structures. While he’s supposed to represent order, as the king, he has no taste for the nobility; he makes them work (!!!!), he doesn’t give a bard due hospitality, he doesn’t give the warriors ale and meat. You get this image of him as this kind of distant, isolated figure in the tribe; not particularly JOYLESS, per se, at least in my interpretation of him (given we don’t see him happy all that often, the interpretation is open), but one who takes joy in things very, very different from the rest of the tribe, or at least from the men. Instead, his closest relationships in the tribe are to the women, who are the ones who elect him. His mother is his most constant ally, being willing to travel with him to see his father, even if it means leaving her own tribe to do it, and she’s the one he goes to IMMEDIATELY for help. And, when his mother addresses her father, it’s notable that SHE’S the one who takes control of the narrative, not Bres. Bres only confirms it when his father asks him. I wouldn’t say that he’s a feminine-coded character, specifically, though I think there are elements of that, but he definitely does not fit the expectations of how a medieval Irish nobleman is to behave with his own sex and with the opposite sex. At the risk of going full-on Pretentious Academic here, it reminds me of what Jeffrey Jerome Cohen wrote in his Seven Monster Theses, where he wrote, “By revealing that difference is arbitrary and potentially free-floating, mutable rather than essential, the monster threatens to destroy not just individual members of a society, but the very cultural apparatus through which individuality is constituted and allowed.” 

And, in other texts, I think there’s decent enough subtext to do a queer reading of Bres. Like, in Cath Maige Tuired Conga, which is a sort of prequel to CMT, Bres appears as the champion of the Tuatha dé, a completely normal part of the tribe, and he meets with Sreng mac Sengann, the Fir Bolg champion, and their meeting is…interesting to me, in how intimate it is, as far as two men from opposing sides sent to essentially size up the enemy. There’s a certain…familiarity with one another. They know that if their tribes go to battle, it’s going to be a bloodbath, and there’s really no personal dislike for one another. They even ask each other where they spent the night! (Which, it’s a common enough phrase that I’m not going to tie it to The Wooing of Emer, but…) And then, at the end of their meeting, they each give each other one of their sharp, pointy weapons to bring back to the tribe as a show of what the other tribe can do, and the text says, “They parted in peace after making a compact of friendship with each other.” It’s just…a very unusual scene, in terms of champions meeting up with one another, and it’s one that I think I could spend a lot more time with if I was given the opportunity. And curiously enough, they keep the vow of friendship! Throughout the rest of the fight, you see everyone being paired off against their equal, but Bres and Sreng never go head to head even when Sreng takes the arm off of Bres’ king. Instead, Bres goes for Sreng’s king. 

Personally, for me, he only really clicked when I was going over CMT again and I was looking over the scene where Bres meets his father for the first time and he says, “Do you have any advice for me?” and I was like…fuck. This is the first time he’s ever met his father, and the first words that his father’s ever said to him are essentially, “Why aren’t you leading your own people? What have you done wrong?” which is doubly painful when you realize that his father was one of the Fomorian lords who were raiding Ireland earlier. At the risk of going personal here, at the time when I read those lines and had them hit me, I was in the process of divorcing myself from my own father, who, like Bres, I had had a distant relationship with, as he lived across the country and was happier with the idea of having a picture on a mantelplace than a daughter who wanted something as inconvenient as his attention. Reading that, and thinking about my own situation, I was like, “Yeah, I get you” and, from then on, I really read him and the text in a wildly different light, especially when I started to think about the repercussions of, say, Bres having the growth of a 14 year old at the age of 7. Like, if you take this text realistically (which…you can or you can’t, because these texts are over the top by their nature), he never had a childhood. He was just moving from one stage of growth to another, with the tribe probably being all too eager to put a spear in his hand because Well, he has the growth for it now and That’s Just What a Man Does. Which is something that I ALSO understood, deeply, and is something that I wish more adaptations of CMT would take into account besides just forcing Bres into the role of “Entitled Brat.” 

Also, if my dissertation up there wasn’t enough: According to some genealogies, he’s The Morrigan’s nephew, given that both Eriu, Bres’ mother, and she are both listed as daughters of Ernmas. Like, if you don’t love him for the batshit insane, Extra antics he finds himself in (like the time the Dagda, his half-brother/father-in-law decides to distract the husband of the woman he’s banging by sending him on a mission to Bres), you’ve got to love him for his batshit insane, extra, goth family. 

(2) The Countess - Makt Myrkanna (AKA Weird Ass Swedish Dracula.)

This will hopefully be briefer than my little essay up there, mainly because there’s really not all that much information on her in text and it’s been awhile since I read her scenes (and even then, a lot of that was me rereading it so that I could write the Countess/Lucy smutfic that I am probably never, ever going to let see the light of day. Which. Vampire smutfic. Light of day.) 

BUT…why I like her. Makt Myrkanna is a very, very different work than the original Dracula, extending the scenes in the castle while condensing the rest of the novel to a truly dizzying extent, to the point where we have no idea whether Arthur Holmwood’s actually…alive by the end of the book given that the last time he was mentioned, he was stalking Lucy’s grave given that he thought she’d been buried alive. RIP Artie. To me, though, it really, really shows in the figure of the Countess, who is very different from the three women Jonathan meets in the original novel. There, even though there is a lot of subtext about what their relationship to the Count is, some of which might not have been printable in a Victorian novel (at least not one to be sold to the public), the brides really only have the two key scenes: Once when they tempt Jonathan and Dracula intervenes, and then again when they try to get Mina to join them and then Van Helsing goes down and stakes them. They’re probably one of the most memorable parts of the novel and certainly a BIG influence on the portrayal of vampire women in fiction, but they’re not…there all that often. 

The Countess, however, is a far more formidable figure. She does not seem nearly as pleased in her current position, seeming to be held in place by Dracula, who it’s heavily, heavily implied might have been her husband (?), though he also shows just as much disdain for the man’s actions towards her in life that it’s kind of hard to tell one way or another. (Like a lot of things in Makt Myrkanna, it’s toyed with and then never picked up again.) No matter what, he definitely wants to bang her and probably has on multiple occasions, given that he describes her, uh, attributes to Thomas while showing him his collection of dirty paintings. (Yes, Dracula has a porn collection in this one.) For the Countess’ part, there seems to be a certain…fear that the Count inspires in her, or at least a sense of caution with her quickly ushering Thomas Harker (inexplicably, Jonathan becomes Thomas in this translation) away. Obviously, she’s on Team Dracula in the end, she very much wants to eat humans, and she’s not a Broken Bird, but you do get the sense that she has some sort of agenda of her own and that, perhaps, there’s a sort of power struggle being waged in Castle Dracula that Thomas is more or less oblivious to (he’s a bit busy dodging human sacrifices). 

She also represents far more of a temptation than the original brides, who Jonathan…is interested in, with the reference to “almost wanting them to kiss me” (or something; I don’t have Dracula on hand and, if I spend too long searching, I know I’ll never get this done), but it’s still not…..in depth. Like, Jonathan loves and is faithful to Mina, even though he’s ashamed when he shows her his diaries because of that line. Thomas Harker, his counterpart here, though, reacts…very differently, trying to keep his calm but, “The moment she turned towards me and locked her incomparable eyes with mine, it felt as though an electric current surged throughout my body. I grabbed a nearby chair and held onto its backrest. She looked steadily into my eyes, and it didn’t even occur to me that I should have greeted her, or that my behavior was doltish. But evidently neither did she see a need for salutations. It felt as though we had already known each other for a long time and therefore didn’t need to explain ourselves.” There’s this hypnotic effect that she has on him, and unlike her three counterparts, she is perfectly willing to wait and talk with him for long periods of time.             

Also, unlike her other counterparts, we get her backstory detailed to us, with her being described as being just as ruthless and cunning as the Count even as a child, with her being described as, holding, “the hearts of men at [her] fingertips, playing with them as a child plays with grapes before sucking out the liquid.” And in her lifetime, she was powerful, with Dracula saying she, “Held the destinies of whole nations in her hands, though few suspected it. Heads of state, kings, and emperors, lay at her feet–or in her arms.” Ultimately, her only downfall was when her husband ended up locking her and her lover in the bedroom together so she could sex him to death. Literally. He jumps out a window. And then her husband had a funeral service performed but, given she’s walking around the castle, we can presume it didn’t stick.                                                                                                                                

(3) Asriel/Mrs. Coulter - His Dark Materials

I’m including both of them because it’s not necessarily the two of them I like as individuals; it’s their dynamic. I mean, I do very much like them as individuals, they are each favs in their own right, but their dynamic is essential to that as well. They both complement and bounce off of each other very well, having this kind of spark where, even though they absolutely despise each other for most of the trilogy, they are really the only two who match each other. They’re both incredibly magnetic; like, in his first scene at Jordan College, I was pretty blown away by Asriel’s presentation, in his confidence, his ruthlessness, his intelligence, his pride and his ambition, all of which are also mirrored in Mrs Coulter. They simply happen to have landed on separate sides, with Asriel trying to essentially tear down everything that Coulter stands for and Coulter seizing control in the Church because it’s the only thing she really has as far as options, since she lacks the privileges Asriel has as a man. 

They both do horrible things in the pursuit of their goals, including killing children, with Coulter being essentially the embodiment of Stranger Danger, and they both harm Lyra both physically and mentally. Still, when they let their guard down, on the FEW occasions they let their guard down, it is shown that they have some amount of love for Lyra, but they fundamentally don’t know how to be parents when all their lives have been spent in the pursuit of power and knowledge and all the ways those two intertwine. 

I’m not sure how much I fully believe in Mrs Coulter’s swerve to motherhood, whether it was the best writing decision, whether it leans into the overall weakening of female characters in the last book or so, with Lyra being another notable victim, but I do think there’s a tragedy in there, as far as her trying but failing. And there is something in the classic femme fatale, generally seen as sexual but cold and unmaternal, dangerous in her embracing of sexuality sans procreation and motherhood (and monogamy!) being allowed to HAVE those kind of feelings and to have a complicated dynamic with the father of her child who she still has obviously holds some feelings for. And for Asriel’s part, he WAS ready to sacrifice Lyra, but he was also HORRIFIED by it, and in the end, he does repeatedly show that he cares, I just think that ultimately he let his own lofty goals get in the way of that until it was almost too late. 

I really think that the best showcasing of them as characters tends to be with them together, such as in the third book when she steals the Intention Craft. She comes in there a prisoner, Asriel doesn’t WANT her there because he knows she’ll pull something, but she’s able to trap him in his own words by playing his commanders like a fiddle, and then she takes advantage over his desire to show off his new toy to get her an in, with Asriel then letting her go with one of his spies in the craft with her, knowing fully well what she’s going to do next and then going back to his improved prototype for more scheming. Like, they’re always trying to one up the other; it’s essentially a form of foreplay for them (as much so as you can get in a kid’s series about killing God), and I can only imagine what they were like when they were actually in a relationship, because they must have been terrifying and yet, for whatever reason, they both fell in love with each other to embark on a forbidden affair with each other, when she was married to a highly powerful man, risking everything. 

So, I’m going to be curious to see what the new BBC series ends up doing with them, both as individuals and as a pair. 

(4) Morgan le Fay - Like, a hundred different Arthurian adaptations 

I’ll be honest: Morgan le Fay in The Magic Treehouse was one of my first crushes. I was always strangely drawn to books with her in them, looking at the pictures for a while. 

These days, I have broadened my Arthurian knowledge significantly, though not nearly as much as I’d like to, but she’s still my eternal favorite. (Literally any book or film that tries me to root for Arthur over Morgan is going to fail miserably.) She is the embodiment of the Other in a woman, being otherwordly in her name and in her powers, but, like Bres and any other character from a long tradition, she is ambiguous in her presentation. Sometimes, she loves her brother and truly wants to expose the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere to save his honor. Sometimes, she wants to create destruction for destruction’s sake. Sometimes, she reconciles with her brother and gives up the fight, sometimes she only relents when she sees his dead body there. She is always powerful, but the way that power is applied and, at times, not applied is part of what makes her fascinating and why, I believe, she is still subject to so much study after all these years. 

 The backstory as far as her mother and Uther gives her VERY strong motivation for why she would be less than pleased with Arthur, though I tend to favor the story of her expulsion from Camelot for having an affair with a kinsman of Guinevere’s for the delicious, delicious irony involved. 

 She is more of a schemer than her sister Morgause who, despite the oddness of her family, tends to be a loving mother (who just…happens to take a lover many, many years her junior and pays the consequences) in works that don’t take off from sexist Victorian bullshit. (I have many, many feelings over the portrayal of Morgause, and they’re very complicated so I won’t vomit them out.) Like, she successfully steals the sheath of Excalibur, and came very, very close to killing both Arthur AND her husband with the whole Accolon thing. 

Also, she literally has a dude come into Camelot dressed in green so she could terrify Guinevere AT CHRISTMAS and then continues to troll her nephew for a year (and a day!) Like, name a greater icon. 

(5) Shiloh - Saving Shiloh

 A Very Good Boi. Doesn’t die at the end, unlike SOME literary dogs that I could mention whose authors thought that kids needed the slow, creeping inevitability of death forced into them. A+ pupper. 

#fey-and-sudden-and-unholy #about me