#also because Again there is absolutely no context provided for this and there's Needs to be context

[fiona-fififi]

have seen some people claim that that buck didn't want to/had no plans of calling tommy after their first date went wrong and only did it because eddie told him to and was wondering about your thoughts on that? (for the honesty hour thing, lol)

Hi, anon! This is an interesting question. To be honest, I haven't really seen any specific conversations about this, so I don't really know the context.

But just, personally, I think this is an interesting point to think about. I mean, first, I think the question of whether Buck wanted to call Tommy and the question of whether he planned to call Tommy are two very different questions.

In terms of wanted to, I absolutely think he wanted to call Tommy again. That boy was so smitten, even after their date disaster.

But while I think he wanted to call Tommy again, I don't know that I think he would have without Eddie encouraging him.

Because I think he had kind of resigned himself to the idea that he fucked up too badly and Tommy wasn't interested anymore and maybe he really wasn't ready. I think Buck struggles a lot with contending with his own feelings and sometimes feeling guilty for them, and I also think he probably didn't want to push Tommy’s boundaries, either, especially after the date had gone so bad when they'd run into Eddie.

So I do think Buck needed that push and encouragement to take that step to call Tommy again. And Eddie was probably the one he needed it from. Because Eddie has always provided a unique type of support for Buck. Because Eddie's primary concern when Buck is in his head about something is to make sure that Buck not only takes into account his own feelings, but also allows himself to feel them. Eddie asking Buck what he thinks? Asking him to consider his own feelings amid this new discovery about himself he's still working through? I think that was something Buck really needed to try to process what he was feeling and examining it probably helped him decide that it was worth at least trying by making that call.

So, yes, I do think Buck wanted to make that call. But no, I don't think he would have without Eddie's encouragement.

Honesty Hour, Ask me anything!

#i don't know if this is what you were looking for in an answer or if it really says much at all but this is where i stand on it #sorry for the delay i accidentally slept all day 🙃 #anon #asks answered #ask games #honesty hour #bucktommy #buddie #911

[spectresaurora]

This Too, Is Yuri

#i stole this from my private twitter #i spent an hour and a half rambling about deltarune theories and like a breakdown of ralseis character #but like in a mentally ill and deranged way #i know none of these words mean anything at all when strung together without context but im too tired to post the entire essay tweet for tw #anyways i mostly wanted to post this just for the this too is yuri joke #i was gonna post it on my main twitter account but i can explain myself in tumblr notes better than i can on twitter #also because it's funnier here #do i throw this in the main deltarune tag #i could #but then id have to deal with The Horrors #(being perceived) #also because Again there is absolutely no context provided for this and there's Needs to be context #hmmmmmmm #fuck it imma throw it in the main tag and deal with The Consequences tomorrow #deltarune #anyways im talkative when im sleepy as you can tell #it's five in the morning i should probably sleep now i have work tomorrow #also if you find this in the main tag and want context then i Might give it #later #when im awake #and it's not five in the morning

[romanoffsbish]

Carved With Love

Natasha Romanoff x Wife!R

Yelena Belova x Fem!R (The true love story 🥹)

Yelena’s in town for the holiday season, and who would she be if not wreaking havoc? | WC: 1,986

Warnings: Mentions of Neglectful Past | Siblings

Yelena was a menace; you knew that from the insight your wife gave you before she introduced you to her.

“Y/N, she literally blew herself up and said it was fun,” your wife had reiterated her stance, that being: Yelena was a complete and total maniac. “Sounds like she’d fit right in with you and your band of superheroes,” was all you’d said back while adding pasta to your cart.

The two of you had been together for nearly a decade when they found each other again, and though the blonde was wary of a meeting she quickly agreed after hearing that the two of you were married with kids.

——

You couldn't really blame her for wanting to meet them more, especially your daughter, the eldest, who shared a name with her. They clicked instantly. Then there were your sons that you carried back to back, Andrei and Aleksander, who were bonded like twins. It was like they gained a triplet with their aunt. Then there’s the latest, Flora, who was just turning six months old and who was absolutely in love with the blonde.

The group were nothing but trouble, you adored that.

When you met her, your heart had doubled in size as you realized she was just trying to forget, to be a kid. Something you knew she never got to be, so just like with your own children, you let her get away with it all.

Natasha didn't much appreciate that, well, truthfully she adored just how much you already loved her sister. But, she was a bit jealous that you were so lenient with her, even if she knew you weren’t with her because she needed the structure and redirection you provided her.

As of right now, she thought you were also insane, "Detka, I don't think you thought this through..." Natasha mumbled against your temple from behind, where she stood with you securely in her arms, and you shook your head and softly chuckled. "It's fine baby."

Natasha currently feared for everyone's safety as her sister held one of those little orange carving knives.

"Oh my gosh, Y/N Romanoff, look!" Yelena shrieked, and your wife sighed when she felt your body relax. There was no hope left, you were at her sister's mercy. Yelena held up a stencil and you smiled. "It's cute."

"No, it is badass!" Yelena corrected, only to be met with a glare from her sister. "Watch your language."

"Natasha," you scolded instantaneously, "Lighten up."

"But she —," Natasha went to defend her decisions but quickly cut herself off when you turned with a glare.

Everyone got away with murder, except Natasha. (Well, in this symbolic context that is…)

Yelena smiled smugly at her sister, she even stuck her tongue out to mock her as you weren't looking. The redhead flipped her off, and your daughter gasped. "Mama! That's the bad finger!" Your eyes widened. "Natasha! What are you now? Some sort of hypocrite?"

"Predateli'," Natasha grumbled, making your daughter laugh alongside her aunt who was taping the ghost cat on a zombie dog's head stencil to her large pumpkin.

(Traitors)

"You all behave," you scolded the entire room before leaving to the kitchen to collect the cookies. Natasha tried to follow you, like a hurt puppy, but you made her stay behind to make sure nobody had a carving crisis. 

Which was in vain because when you came back in the room you found Yelena had upgraded to your sharp carving knife, and you nearly dropped your plate.

"Yelena honey, that's too dangerous," you practically shrieked, but not really to avoid her hand slipping. Not that you didn't have faith in her trained hands, but you knew accidents could happen regardless of skillsets. The blonde pouted up at you, and Natasha watched you once again melt into her little sister's charm.

"I can't use the little orange one," she pleaded for your understanding, "It is too tiny and ineffective."

"Okay," you folded instantly and your wife's eyes widened with flashes of shock and betrayal. The one time Natasha had done the same thing years back, before your kids, you'd given her a safety lesson.

“This isn’t fair,” she grumbled to herself, but she also let it go when she saw you sitting with her sister, eyes focused in on the way she carved the pumpkin and mouth at the ready to give her advice or a light scold.

Natasha let her festering resentments go, and shortly after joined you all at the table so that the youngest member of the house could play with the guts. It was a perfect moment of domesticated bliss, and the redhead couldn’t help but to feel at peace in current company.

Then the following morning came, and you learned a few things. Yelena had a new favorite holiday, and in turn a hobby, carving, which piggybacked right off of her other, bugging her older sister as if it was her job.

"Natasha," you tried to calm her, your hands on her tense shoulder as you kept her from lunging at the blonde. "You need to calm down my love, I can..."

"No!" Natasha cut you off, "She will do it, not you."

"She's our guest," you reminder her, but she merely rolled her eyes—something she never did towards you. "More like a pest, Y/N/N, make her leave before I do."

Your eyes narrowed fast, and your wife cowered at the sheer intensity. "Apologize to her, right now Natalia."

The redhead held back a scoff. Yelena had carved a face only a mother could love into her favorite fall leather jacket, yet she was the one who had to apologize here.

"I'm sorry, parshivets," she begrudgingly spat at the grinning blonde across the room. "I accept, cyka."

(Brat / Bitch)

You sighed, and regretfully turned to face the smug blonde. This was partially your fault too for having let the girl get away with murder up until this point.

"Yelena, now it's your turn." Yelena frowned, but then she nodded and relaxed her features. "Sorry sestra," her tone was genuine, "I will buy you another one."

"No, you don't have to," you let the girl off the hook. "Yes she does." Natasha rebuked your words in a flash, then she intelligently rephrased, "No you don't."

You smirked and rewarded her with a kiss that she tried to melt into, but once again Yelena interrupted with a rumbling stomach. "Can we make pancakes?"

Natasha's hands harshly gripped your hips, and you smiled at her in understanding, she missed you. "How about you go get the kids up while we make breakfast?"

The redhead reluctantly let you go with a nod, but before she got too far you pulled her in for another kiss. "I'll be all yours soon, just have some patience."

Yelena was leaving after the holiday's event, and the kids were going to Wanda's for a spooky sleepover. You'd planned accordingly, and your wife smirked at the reminder, chastely pecked your lips then ran up the stairs with a reinvigorated pep in her once glum step.

"Get the chocolate chips," you instructed your sous chef, and she did so with a smile. Yelena was learning to cook from you, you never outright said it, but you worried about her eating habits. All she could make was mac and cheese and that was artery clogging if not met with a balance of other things besides takeout.

Yelena appreciated your concern, it was clear to her that you were the perfect match for Natasha, because you were an even better platonic match for her. The way you let her just be who she was, who she was discovering herself to be with her newfound freedom, meant the absolute world to her. You were a light that she found comfort in, and would never let go of.

Once you showed Yelena how to make the batter you let her ladle it onto the griddle. "Don't flip it yet," you instructed, your back was turned but you were aware of her piqued curiosity and she was enamored by your spy like skills. "You're like a super mom or something."

"It's nice to see my skillset is appreciated," you teased the younger girl as you returned to her side and gently bumped her hip. "I appreciate all of you, sestra."

It took you a second to reel in your emotions, you'd only been hoping that she wouldn't hate you, but it turned out that she actually liked you, and you didn't want to cry and make her reevaluate that judgement.

Instead you settled on hugging her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake as you showed her the indicators for flipping before finally letting her flip the pancake.

Just as you settled a pancake on the plate you heard an obnoxious scraping on the glass. "What the—." There before you was a focused blonde, the tip of her tongue rested on her lower lip as she carved your perfectly round pancake into a ghost cat. You shook your head with a fond smile, "You really love knives, don't you?" Yelena mirrored your expression and nodded as she now carved an eye into a pumpkin. "They are so cool."

"Natasha loves her guns the same." Yelena flinched, "Guns are too rigid, and loud. Knives are fun, you can do flip tricks with them and they're just as lethal."

You noted her clear discomfort with firearms, and filed it away in your mind as a later topic of discussion, and fortunately the kids came barreling into the kitchen. Yelena dropped the knife and, just like every morning, she greeted the little boys with the tickle monster.

Then came your daughter’s greeting, “Yelena Belova!"

Yelena then followed her lead, “Yelena Romanoff!"

You shook your head at their antics, then you returned to your task at hand, and began to set the table. You placed the blondes masterpieces in their designated spots, a pumpkin for each boy, the cat for her parrot, and the torn to bits pieces went to the toothless baby.

You were gifted two perfectly sized hearts, topped with fruit and whipped cream. Natasha got zero change to the shape, but instead, she was gifted icing words.

“I’m not eating that,” Natasha growled, and you bit back a laugh as you saw the script. “What’s it say?”

Natasha shook her head at you, and glared in her sister’s direction as you attempted to read the Russian out loud, “Tvoya zhena lyubit menya bol'she.”

(Your wife loves me more)

“Damn right,” Yelena teased as she sat in front of her own pancake, “Don’t worry sestra, she loves you too.”

“You two, knock it off and eat your breakfast,” your mom voice came out, and everyone was suddenly sat. You nibbled on your food while making sure your baby didn’t choke on hers as she gobbled it down like a cat (Liho and Bob) being fed at the normal time everyday.

Once breakfast was finished you sent the kids to the living room with their aunt to watch cartoons while you and your wife cleaned up the mess left behind.

As you were packing up the fruit you felt two arms snake around your waist, and a kiss placed on your neck that you instantly melted into. You felt her smirk but ignored her smugness as you lazily cleaned up.

"You're spoiling her," Natasha groaned, you shrugged and turned around to face her with a genuine smile. "I'm just giving her the same chances I did you."

Natasha frowned, "I hope it's not exactly the same."

"That’s disgusting!" Yelena groaned from the couch and you giggled into your wife's shoulder. Avoiding the question in your kids eyes, and leaving Natasha to answer it. The redhead smirked, throwing her sister a wink before she completely pulled you out of the room.

Two could play at this game…

—

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff fanfic #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x wife!reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #natasha x reader #natasha x y/n #natasha x fem!reader #natasha x you #gxg #yelena belova #yelena belova x you #yelena belova x reader

[soars22]

Alright, my lovely people. I’d like to give a little rundown of what a labor union is and what protections it provides for workers because I think that it’s context that’s important to the current situation. Please bear in mind that I am by no means an expert. I am drawing on my research and my own experience being in a union at a previous job to write this post. Please feel free to reblog with anything I’ve missed.

What is a union?

A union is a group of workers who have banded together in order to use their collective strength and voices to make a difference in their workplace. Many unions were formed due to dissatisfaction with exploitative or unsafe working conditions (look up Appalachian coal miners if you want to see an example).

What do unions do?

Unions are there to act on behalf of their workers; their entire purpose is to ensure that their members (and, often by extension, non-members) receive fair wages, proper breaks, safe working conditions, and many other benefits. They are made by and for workers.

What do unions NOT do?

Unions do NOT exist to break up companies. Unions are there to ensure that workers are treated fairly. Union leaders will first do everything in their power to obtain better working conditions by negotiating with the company on the behalf of the employees. Shutting down a business because of poor labor conditions will never be a union’s priority; they will ALWAYS be on the side of the labor force. The union may take the company to court and the company might later collapse as a result of that (whether because of court fees, public backlash, or other reasons) but the goal is to preserve the workers’ jobs while also making sure that the workers are treated fairly.

What does this mean for qsmp?

I don’t know. Do I think there are major problems? Yes, absolutely. Do I think that Quackity is working to address these problems? Again, yes. Do I-or anyone else for that matter-know what those solutions are or what they may look like? No, we do not!! I cannot see into the future; neither can Twitter. We need to have patience and understanding as we all wait to see what comes next.

I’ve seen a lot of doomposting here. I’ve seen a lot of anxiety and stress. If that’s where your mind is at, you might need to take a break from the internet for a bit; god knows I might. This situation isn’t going to be fixed by attacking the cc’s or the admins or anyone else who’s involved. That’s not our job; we’re only adding more negativity and stress to people who may already be at their limit.

Be kind. Be patient. Be a community. That’s what this server is all about, ultimately. It’s time to prove that. Hope this helps.

#qsmp #qsmp discourse #unions #I’m writing this on mobile so I apologize for the formatting or lack thereof #I didn’t mention union busting because that feels like it’s own post #and I’m definitely not qualified to talk about that #I just wanted to mention what I felt was relevant to the situation

[yzy-dragon]

I absolutely ADORED S2E9 "Three Stories" of Link Click and was a bit surprised to see the discontent here on Tumblr, and I totally understand the reasons why people didn't like it, especially in the context of the pacing of the rest of S2 (which I also have some opinions on but I won't talk about that here), but I also felt the need to just get my heart out why I love it so much. A bit of background, I'm Chinese American but have lived in and visited China numerous times.

Music and theater. As a western classical musician and an amateur Chinese opera singer enthusiast (I saw someone else post about the possible inspo this episode got from Chinese opera), I VIBED with the artistic direction of this episode SO much. The three-part structure was almost like a sonata/symphony (and remember that one scene where Qian Jin was air-conducting in a previous episode!!) or scene changes in a Chinese opera. Nothing needs to be said about the animation style that hasn't been said already, but I like how scenes from the three individual "stories" were interwoven and reused like leitmotifs. Especially that crazy, tortured laughter. Idk if any of the parallels were intentional on the part of the director, but it's what I got from it due to my personal experiences. I know that's a highly subjective takeaway though, which brings me to my next point....

Qian Jin's "tragic" backstory. I know a lot of people were upset that the extent of Qian Jin's tragic backstory was "oh his wife cheated on him", but I think the "basicness" of his struggles was the whole point (by the way, this segment displayed various attitudes towards work, family, marriage, individual pride, and life in mainland China so subtly but so well!). I also don't think sympathy was the main thing we were supposed to feel for him, although of course there is some. The whole "tragicomedy" aspect of Qian Jin's story is that it's not some horrible, terrible, rare thing that happened to him, but a common problem faced by so many hardworking but busy married men trying to provide for their families: infidelity. But Qian Jin sees himself as the main character of an elaborate play that rivals the great dramatic classics (which, funnily enough, often depicted very DRAMATIZED versions of a rather basic series of events). And his viewpoint is validated when....

Qian Jin meets the twins. That segment is still largely from Qian Jin's perspective, because we still don't really know how LTC and LTX even feel about him. But for Qian Jin, it's a stroke of fate and fortune that could only possibly happen in theater. He's very far removed from reality at this point. Reality is that a cop whose job it is to investigate violent crime comes across two kids who are the victims of a violent crime. Again, nothing particularly special or even coincidential. It's comical like that.

The fairy tale section.  Unlike the first two, I think this segment is from Xixi’s perspective, which not only justifies the cartoony artstyle but also makes it heartbreaking, due to her childlike innocence.  Like Qian Jin, she also perceives her reality as something it’s not, but unlike him, she doesn’t have delusions of grandeur of being a tragic protagonist.  It’s just a little fox trying to survive in a forest full of predators and hunters.  

All that tortured laughter. I’ve actually noticed in a lot of Chinese media that they like to use laughter as a way of signifying a person’s complete mental breakdown due to the tragedies they’ve suffered.  It’s a very internal thing that has people on the outside going, “WTF?”  In this episode we have a lot of characters crazily laughing together at the same time and it seems like they’re relating to each other, but in reality they’re all trapped in their own nightmarish hells and motivated by selfish purposes. 

Back to the topic of Qian Jin, even though he (innaccurately) may see himself as the hero of his own story, it's not enough for him. He wants to use Cheng Xiaoshi to change the past. He wants to become the director of the play.

I know a lot of people were disappointed this episode didn't advance the plot, especially in regard to Cheng Xioashi and Lu Guang's storylines, but I was actually prepared for a backstory episode and couldn't have been more satisfied. Again, I have other opinions on the rest of S2 but at least standalone, I think this episode was nearly perfect. And I really wasn't expecting this, but it's really elevated Qian Jin to one of my top characters.

#link click #shiguang daili ren #long post #link click season 2 #qian jin #li tianchen #li tianxi #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #most artistic episode #I stan!

[am-i-interrupting]

Alastor ideal type in partner headcanons? I've been thinking about this and your one of the few writers I see that write alastor as close to canonly possible as can be and I really appreciate that in your writing so I knew I'd get a pretty close and accurate answer on this😭 hopefully you can get to this when it's okay for you but when you do thank you so much!!❤️

Aw, thank you, I’m so flattered!

Now, we know Alastor is for sure in the ace spectrum in canon and potentially on the aro spectrum as well and as someone who is on both of those, I have thoughts.

I think that Alastor would fall under the aegosexual category and be slightly sexually repulsed. He’s not completely thrown off by the idea of sex but I don’t feel like he would be very comfortable viewing himself in a sexual light and even others.

As someone who relates to Alastor on several levels, I feel like he would have a similar view to sex as I do. Kind of the opposite of projection here because I do think it makes sense for his character. Where it’s less about the act of getting yourself or someone off and not even about pleasure but about the ability to cause a reaction from someone that not everyone can cause. That will obviously play into any sex life you may have and thus you’d have to be okay with him not viewing you sexually even within a sexual context and more like a test subject.

Then his possible aromantic orientation. Whoever would be with him would have to be okay with him saying the words “I love you” and not being able to describe what that means. Once again, less projection and more if I feel like this thing about me also fits him. The lines between romantic and platonic in society are so rigid and the things he feels fluctuate. He knows he loves you differently than say Niffty, Rosie, or Charlie but it wouldn’t necessarily be romantic, more so bordering on it, if that makes since. Again, hard to describe.

Now in terms of a partner, some absolute musts:

Must be willing to cause chaos.

Must test his limits/challenge him occasionally.

Must have a similar moral code to his own.

Must be able to find entertainment outside of modern technology.

Must be alright with not knowing everything about him.

Some preferences:

Enjoy jazz.

Knows how to dance or be willing to learn.

Join him in hunts/killings.

Be strong headed.

Have traditional manners.

I think generally he would like someone who is very stubborn which will both provide him with entertainment and cause him to become his own. To be challenged in how to do things or how he sees things.

He’d need someone who would be willing to indulge and encourage his behavior. But perhaps due to that stubbornness be able to also reel him in.

Alastor has been described several times I believe as having a moral code to his killings. Obviously this will be a strong moral code as it tells him who to kill. This is not something he would budge on and if you do not agree with his moral code you can say goodbye to being romantic with him.

Being able to find entertainment outside modern technology isn’t as hard as some people believe. Whatever happened between him and Vox was at least the final nail in the coffin for him about modern technology and it would not be allowed in any of his spaces or when he’s trying to be intimate with you in any form being emotionally or physically.

He will not tell you everything. Some things (like his emotions towards you) he cannot describe. Other things (like his deal) he will refuse to elaborate on if you even know at all. The same is true for you. He knows when to not push. He’s good at reading people but he also trusts you to come to him if you need help and he expects you to return the sentiment.

#alastor x reader #hazbin alastor x reader

[frozenjokes]

Another Much Needed Follow Up About Love and Aromanticism, Where It’s Time We Cleared Things Up. Oh, And Mumbo Is Here Too.

this fic can be read on its own as a one shot, but I would recommend reading this first, as the context provides a little more insight on why the characters are reacting the way they do to each other

Over the course of a couple weeks very little changed. Mumbo spent the majority of his time planted in one place, anchored somewhat in the shallows so he could lift his head and listen to what the humans were doing on the days they came around. As much as it pained Mumbo to be so still so much of the time, it was a necessary evil if he ever wanted to heal, and he very much did. It didn’t matter how little he moved his tail at this point, anything he did would only result in his condition worsening.

If it wasn’t for Scar, he would have left a while ago. The humans didn’t come every day anymore, but they came often enough, and they certainly noticed Mumbo’s lack of activity. Grian tended towards keeping his distance, which didn’t bother Mumbo at all, but Scar really went out of his way to be there; sitting close (a gesture Mumbo was beginning to mind less), bringing him human trinkets to look at and play with (always exciting), but most importantly Scar brought food, and a lot of it at that; Mumbo wouldn’t have been able to stay without it. He often wondered where Scar got the many bags of fish he brought; it wasn’t all very fresh, so it was probably supplied from a human stockpile, but regardless, Mumbo was grateful. He wasn’t often in the best of moods and didn’t speak very much despite the fact he was sure Scar would have been ecstatic to talk with him, but he hoped regardless that Scar knew how deeply grateful he was.

Today, Scar and Grian were sitting on the shore together, shoulder to shoulder as they bent over one of their human activities. The first time Mumbo saw them drawing together, he had asked to see (saying ‘What’ over and over again seemed to have gained several different meanings over the weeks), but Scar had showed him that the paper they wrote on got ruined in the water, ripping easily, so it wasn’t something Mumbo could learn about personally. That was okay though, he was content to watch.

“Okay,” Scar began tapping the writing utensil (‘pencil’) to his lips, “Do we have anything to revise about the list this week? I don’t think very much new has happened.”

“Read it again, will you?”

“It’s right here in front of your face, do I really have to?”

“We’ve been over this Scar, I’m conditionally illiterate. Like right now, you got me up early and I’m tired and the words are so far away and I don’t want to. Also your handwriting is atrocious.”

“I’m tired too! It’s not my fault my fish guy needed me to show up at 6 AM.”

“You have a car, Scar. And a license.”

“Oh hey! Look at this cool list!” Scar directed Grian’s attention back to the paper, Grian only rolling his eyes before letting Scar continue. “Well, I won’t go into detail on my notes about what he eats because that’ll just bore you, but to put it simply, basically everything that’s got meat on it. Fish, shellfish, red meat, chicken, mostly just fish is what I’ve been giving him though, since I’m assuming that's what makes up most of his diet. Want to make sure he gets all the proper nutrients, you understand, you understand.”

“Uh huh.”

“As for ‘Likes,’ we’ve got fish, human stuff, Scar, Grian-”

“Scar first?” Grian cut his friend off with a raised eyebrow. Scar blinked several times before answering.

“What?”

“Scar, Grian. You put your name before mine.”

“Well this list wasn’t meant to be in order, but if it was, my name would absolutely go before yours.”

“What! No it wouldn’t. He likes us equally. Mumbo and I have a mutual understanding that we do not want to be anywhere near each other most of the time. We respect each other. From a distance.”

Scar smirked, throwing Mumbo an amused look as if he understood anything that was going on. “You know if you wanted to you could also bring him gifts and stuff. Nothing is stopping you. You could even bring him his fish if you wanted to, he wouldn’t know the difference. I wouldn’t care. There’s really nothing to be afraid of, especially now when he’s so docile like this.”

“I’m not afraid of Mumbo.”

“No?”

“If anything, he’s afraid of me, Scar. I got him in that net, I’ve gotten close to killing him a couple times- he knows it, Scar, he knows. He knows what’ll happen if he steps out of line, that’s what. I told him. I told him all about it.”

“Did you now,” Scar chuckled, nudging Grian playfully, “Well in that case, I’m definitely sure he likes me more. And I’m sure you’re perfectly content with being feared, but if you ever change your mind, I’d be happy to help.”

Grian huffed, “I won’t. Continue though.”

Scar lingered for a moment, a gentle fondness etched on his features before turning back to the paper, reading, “Well, he plays around with those vines and roots and things sometimes, he clearly is very curious, he likes to learn, and I think he likes birds, but he might just be staring at them because he wants to eat them. I put bugs in our ‘Neutral’ category since every time I try to give him a bug he just eats it, but I can’t tell if he just eats bugs or if he’s scared of them or something.”

“I highly doubt Mumbo is afraid of bugs. I doubt he cares.”

“Well, you never know! In ‘Dislikes’ we’ve got nets, sleeping bags, being touched, fighting- actually this isn't super related, but I really want to set up a Good and Bad system with him. A thumbs up thumbs down kind of situation. I was thinking about it all last night- we aren’t very good at communicating what we like or don’t like, and this feels like a good solution, but I’m not exactly sure how to tell him clearly what I’m trying to do. How would he know thumbs up means ‘good.’ And vice versa? Maybe bad would be easier to start with, but at the same time he kinda seems like a bite first ask questions later kinda guy.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Definitely start with thumbs up. With any luck he’ll understand that thumbs down is the opposite and you can go from there. I think you could probably associate the gesture with things Mumbo likes. The tape measure, fish- he knows smiling is a positive thing even if he doesn’t smile himself, and he knows what ‘yes’ means as well. With enough of that, I think he’ll grasp the meaning pretty quick.”

“I think so too,” Scar paused for a moment, thoughtful, “You know, this doesn’t just have to be a me effort. You could come and speak to him as well. He would know you’re putting in the effort if you wanted him to like you more.”

“He likes me plenty!” Grian switched from relaxed to exasperated on a dime, throwing up his hands as Scar laughed. “He likes me, Scar.”

“I know he likes you. But I also know he doesn’t have the full picture. He doesn’t know how much time you spend brainstorming how to teach him things, or how to relieve his stress, or worrying when he’s not feeling well. I just want him to know you aren’t as distant as he probably thinks, especially if it bothers you. If you wanted to get a little closer and help me with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ gestures, that’d be a start.”

Grian was silent for a long time, brows creased tight above his eyes. “Maybe,” he said finally, almost quietly, “But not today. I’m too tired.”

“Yeah, me too,” Scar sighed, content, letting his head fall to rest on top of Grian’s, who squeaked, jumping so hard he accidentally jabbed at Scar’s chin with his shoulder. It must not have hurt though, because Scar didn’t seem to mind at all, unmoving. Slowly, Grian untensed, his head falling gently on Scar’s shoulder. Mumbo had a somewhat ridiculous pang of longing despite still holding a strong aversion to any human touch at all. They just looked so relaxed- anyone would wonder what it was like to be human. Though, while Scar closed his eyes, Grian didn’t quite look satisfied, something like conflict sitting across his features. He sat like that for a while, eyes moving, but not quite looking at anything at all, apparent restlessness building. Then he stopped. Closed his eyes. Opened them.

“Scar, are you aromantic or are you just fucking with me? Because I outright refuse to believe anyone is actually this clueless.”

Scar opened his eyes. Silence. “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh???” It was safe to say the two of them did not look relaxed anymore, Grian jerking away, “Scar, what does ‘uh oh’ mean. You can not just say ‘uh oh’ and nothing else.” Mumbo’s fins raised at the tone of his voice, but Mumbo cringed back when Grian whipped around to face him with an aggressive point. “No. You stay. Scar, I need you to say more right now.”

“I-Sleeping, I mean, we weren’t sleeping yet- but resting like- not friends? Not normal? Bdubs- I am going to strangle that man!”

“So you’re aromantic?” The words leapt off Grian’s tongue like an accusation, but he relaxed almost immediately after, sighing into his hands, “You’re aromantic. Okay. Good. Okay.”

“I- I mean I don’t love labels. I don’t really know, I don’t know much of anything at all, really. I’m sorry, Grian, I didn’t- did no one tell you I have a horrible track record for these things? Did you want me to ask you out? I still can.”

“Goodness, Scar, no! You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, you’ve just been sending incredibly mixed signals and I needed to know what was going on with you before my head exploded and my brains went all over the place and poor Mumbo would have to witness that and we don’t want that, do we? We don’t want that. This is fine, though, we just need to work out some boundaries.”

“What if I did want to though? To ask you out?”

Grian stared. Scar stared back.

“You do not want to.”

“I’ll have you know, I like you plenty a lot! I like you all sorts of ways, and if you also like me, then that’s cool! I’ll tell ya, when I had my little politics phase, my campaign manager was this great guy, Bdubs, we’re still friends, too, have you met him? Anyway, he’s a pretty touchy guy as well and he convinced me all sorts of things were totally normal friend stuff. Oh, we had this great cushy chair in our office and it was only really meant for one person, but sometimes we’d both be so tired and just squeeze into it and it wasn’t any sort of comfortable at all, but in a way it kinda was. Like inside. You know?”

“Scar, do you actually want to ask me out or are you just saying that because you think that’s what I wanted.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Not what I asked.”

“Well, Grian, it really doesn’t matter to me either way!” Scar gave Grian a big smile, like these words were the ones that would definitively solve their dispute, but the expression started to drop when Grian looked mortified. “Is..” Scar started, unsure now, “Something wrong?”

Mumbo had never seen such a wide range of emotions cross Grian’s face before his head dropped onto his knees with a soft thunk. “No. It’s fine.”

Scar stared for a long while, a gentle churning of thought moving behind his eyes. He relaxed, scooching to give Grian a little space before smiling again, the expression soft. “Can I tell you a story?”

“Sure, Scar.” Grian’s voice was muffled between his knees, and given his face was covered, Mumbo had no idea how he was feeling.

“So there was this one time in high school where I was good friends with this girl, and she was awesome, just the best, and we hung out like constantly, and y’know how people get sometimes all pushy asking about dating and stuff, but you also know high schoolers who can’t communicate if their life was on the line. So all my friends are like dude, you guys are literally dating, aren’t you? And I say no! I insist we’re not every time, I insist! Yes, we went out together often and we talked for hours and her family had some money troubles so a lot of the time I offered to pay, you know, normal stuff, it was normal, I promise, but one day I get this call, right? From one of her friends! And this girl just starts ripping into me, like, seriously! She’s telling me all this stuff I had no idea about- telling me my friend is so confused, that she doesn’t feel pretty around me, that I’m always trying to avoid intimacy- that I refused to kiss her! And I was like what, whoa there! No one has ever tried to kiss me! Why are we talking about kissing people? She thought we were dating, Grian.”

“I got that.”

“And then she dumped me! My first breakup, and I didn’t even know! I was kinda bummed, too, I had always kinda wanted to kiss someone, but I thought they’d tell me first! Y’know, that they wanted to. I would have been so ready! The worst part is I think my guy friends were trying to tell me we were dating, not just teasing me. They also thought it was funny though, so. Who knows.”

“Yeesh.”

“I know, right! And this other time in college there was this other girl- we had mutual friends and stuff and we were at a party and just absolutely wasted and she grabbed me by the collar and she said ‘SCAR,’ she yelled in my face, she said ‘I’ve been FLIRTING with you for WEEKS and YOU’VE been flirting BACK. ARE YOU GAY?’ And I said, drunk, ‘A little bit!’ And then we danced all night. It was awesome. She was so cool. That kinda stuff happened a lot in college, actually. Guys are a bit more direct, which I appreciate. I’m a little stupid, I need the extra help sometimes.”

Grian tensed where he was sitting, quiet for a short pause before speaking, “You’re not stupid, Scar.”

“I mean. A little bit.”

“No. You’re not stupid.”

Scar was silent for a long while, staring despite Grian’s head still being buried in his knees. “I don’t know about that.”

Grian lifted his head, shaking it ‘no.’ He blinked a couple times before shaking his head again, a little more forcefully. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I shouldn’t have done that, I should’ve just talked to you like an adult and told you how I was feeling. Sometimes you’re just really confusing, and that’s not your fault, you just.. go about the world in a different way. And it’s not a bad way either, it’s not wrong. If people can’t communicate exactly how they’re feeling to you, that’s a them issue. You’re not stupid. I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

“I didn’t mean to lead you on. I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know, Scar. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I really thought we had some sort of understanding- and I did mean it when I said we could give this a shot. I like dating, Grian, I always have a lot of fun! I can be- I know I can be- I have trouble sometimes, I just ruin good things-”

“Scar, stop, please. I don’t want anything you don’t want. Period.”

Scar didn’t seem to know what to do with that, staring uselessly at his own hands before looking back up. “I want it, Grian,” he stressed, his arms trembling, but Grian only stared, lips gently parted.

They both looked.. So sad. Mumbo longed to help, to sing, to do something, but he was stuck outside of their world.

Grian extended his arms. “C’mere, buddy.”

Scar collapsed into them, shaking as he did. Grian didn’t move, rubbing slow circles on Scar’s back while he cried. There was a certain focus behind Grian’s eyes, a certain calm as he held his friend close, and Mumbo.. well, it was clear Grian didn’t need Mumbo’s help. So that was the power of human touch.

He’d have to learn it one day.

#hermitcraft #gtws #goodtimeswithscar #grian #mumbo jumbo #hermitcraft fic #hermitshipping #scarian #desert duo #mumbomaid au #hermitfic

[tozettastone]

Five fun sized KakuHida one shot ideas—

ONE

Hidan has a deeply dumb business idea. Whatever it is, it is so so stupid. It makes zero sense in a rational market. It's also wildly successful anyway because Hidan is hot, and that's more of a superpower than being smart or having a bloodline limit and MAYBE more of a superpower than being functionally immortal. It totally defies Kakuzu's predictions (which were of course of failure and collapse). Hidan is a terrible winner. He's also gone and donated all his profit to an obscure monastery in the back hills off the swampy end of Hot Water. He says money makes you dumb, and also sinful. Mostly dumb. Kakuzu is going to kill him. Like, again. Harder this time.

TWO

Hidan and Kakuzu have been married in the secular (and thus meaningless) sense for tax reasons for several years now, but recently Kakuzu has realised he can get free food at all sorts of places if they pretend they're honeymooning. He has been 'honeymooning with Hidan' for eighteen months now. The rest of the Akatsuki are pretty evenly split on what the hell kind of relationship this is, which is why today Deidara has embarked on the incredibly fucked up mission of interrogating Hidan's severed head about his sex life, yeah.

THREE

Hidan is a nightmare travelling companion. He is variously: too cold (put a shirt on), bored, tired, sunburned (put a shirt on), hungry, sick (shouldn't have eaten that, then), dirty, damp and miserable... Kakuzu has killed him five times this week alone, and so far all it's done is make him complain that he's bloody and he needs another bath. The next time he slings the body over his shoulder and carries the head in the crook of one arm, mouth sewn shut and hands inaccessible. It does not help.

FOUR

Itachi and Kakuzu must work together when the Akatsuki is hired to defraud someone's insurance provider via a genjutsu that can fool the insurance adjuster. Kakuzu is bringing the knowledge and context, and Itachi is bringing the godlike genjutsu skills. Itachi-san is on time, polite, quiet, and absolutely professional. He respects Kakuzu's combat abilities and bizarrely complete understanding of insurance regulations. Kakuzu respects his genjutsu skills. They're nailing their mission, effortlessly! Also, just as an aside: it's been three days since Kakuzu last heard someone complain about blood in his hair or scream a hymn to suffering twenty minutes before dawn, and he thinks he's losing his fucking mind. He's... unstable. Mentally. Mentally unstable. That's the only possible reason. Obliquely he broaches this with Itachi, who is an actual foetus and who is definitely judging him. It doesn't help and it's mortifying.

(I think this one needs POV breaks where we switch to Hidan, who is bored out of his mind and driving Kisame to drink.)

FIVE

There's finally a bounty taken out on Hidan, which has taken a damn long time to arrive because a) nobody cares about shinobi from Hot Water, really and b) most of the time Hidan doesn't leave enough people alive for anyone to notice how much of a menace he is. Kakuzu is having an amazing week. He's handed Hidan's head and body off in two pieces at six different drop points this week alone. He just sits on a rock and counts his lovely, lovely money until his partner stumbles back down the road, covered in blood, holding his head on one-handed, and glaring and wildly annoyed about it. And then he just does it again. Kakuzu has made so much money. Finally, one weird trick that works.

#tozette.txt #naruto #akatsuki #kakuhida #hidan #kakuzu #fic ideas for a rainy day #fic ideas

[snakeautistic]

My neurodivergent friendgroup and I trying to provide like social/romantic advice to each other is so funny because we all have absolutely NO idea what we’re doing. It’ll be like,

Adhder friend: “Am I sending too many messages?? Is this annoying them? Does this text sound weird?”

Other friend: “wait, who are you talking about again?”

Me: “Well it really depends on the context… I don’t really know this person so it’s hard to say… maybe they want to talk today but also maybe not…? I need more information before giving any advice, I think…”

Adhder friend: “Well I just sent the message- why did you guys let me do that?”

#actually autistic #neurodivergent culture #neurodivergent community #autism #autistic #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #autistic things #autism spectrum #adhd #asd #neurodivergence

[agentmarvel]

nfsw alphabet - könig

afab!reader

mdni - 18+; minors and ageless blogs will be blocked

divider credit: @/cafekitsune

♡ a = aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

- Kö is v needy after sex. Between his younger years and his military career, he's admittedly incredibly touch-starved. The endorphin rush of intimacy is often followed by an intense crash for him - one he'd only ever experienced prior after a rather high-profile target was stamped out like a cigarette beneath his boot - and he just needs to hold you for a while.

♡ b = body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

- He absolutely adores your lips. They're a perfect compliment to his own. Where his are dry and scarred, thinner and mildly perpetually bruised, yours are soft and pillowy, unblemished by the atrocities of exposure. Your lips fit with his like lock and key. And your smile? Fuck. His day doesn't start until he sees that little quirk at the corner of your mouth. And don't even get him started on the things those lips do in the bedroom...

For himself, he's quite fond of his eyes. He likes the color, thinks it suits him well. Eyes are the window to the soul, so they say, and it's his reminder that he's still human. He's fallible. He will make bad calls sometimes, even when it comes to his relationship with you, but he's not immune to mistakes. When you look him in the eyes, he knows you can see his sincerity, whether he's telling you he loves you or apologizing for being too blunt on accident.

♡ c = cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

- König has an obsession with fluid strings. Regardless of whether he's pulling out of your mouth or your cunt after cumming, the milky threads of arousal that keep you connected just a few moments longer drive him to the brink of insanity. He's almost cum again immediately after just from the sight.

♡ d = dirty secret (pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

- He loves kissing you after you swallow his load. Something about tasting himself on you makes him violently feral. He's hard again within seconds, not that he ever really flagged to begin with.

♡ e = experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

- Painfully minimal experience. Frankly, you're the second person he's ever had sex with, and the first was a one-off hook-up when he was much younger. He's learning the things he likes with you, though, and that's better than any number of previous partners could've amounted to. Besides, his ambition and unwillingness to disappoint more than makes up for the occasional awkwardness.

♡ f = favorite position

- König loves any position that puts you on top. He's well aware that he's a lot to take - you're never shy about telling him just how fucking big he is - and he knows you'll take as much as you can handle. Eventually, though, he needs more. When you manage to take him to the hilt, blissed out above him, unable to control the pretty sounds coming from deep in your chest, that's his cue. He'll gather your wrists in one hand, pinning them to your lower back before pulling you down to his chest and using his long legs as leverage to fuck up into you brutally. You always end up practically screaming in his ear, and he's so into it.

♡ g = goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

- He tends to be more serious, but only because he's usually focused. The playfulness is still present, just not as prevalent as it is in less intimate contexts.

♡ h = hair (how well-groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

- Personally, I think Kö has lighter sandy brown hair, so the carpet is a bit darker. He keeps it neater when he's home, knowing how often that thatch of curls provides you with extra stimulation but not loving how patchy it gets between his pelvis and navel due to the plethora of scars. Less mass makes it clear the gaps are filled angry, raised lines. He's very self-conscious about things like that, despite knowing it doesn't sway your affections for him.

♡ i = intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

- The intimacy is always at 11. Love and sex are synonymous to him, two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. König LOVES the moment where he can switch to slow, deep strokes, making you look at him while he professes his adoration so wholly that he nearly has you tearing up.

♡ j = jack off (masturbation headcanon)

- Surprisingly, he isn't too keen on rubbing one out too often. He might have a mild masochistic streak because he would prefer to bottle it all up to increase the anticipation of coming home, even if his balls are full, heavy, and aching to be drained by the time he returns.

♡ k = kink (one or more of their kinks)

- Your beloved König is shy to admit, but he noticeably loses his mind when you're a little mean to him. He loves the way you edge him for hours, making him count out loud, the condescending fringe of your voice when you tell him to beg for what he wants, the tense grip you keep on a fistful of his hair while you ride his watering mouth. It does something to him that he can't quite describe. Maybe it's the relief of knowing he's safe in giving up control. Maybe it's the implicit trust that you'd never hurt him. Sometimes, that's just what he needs.

♡ l = location (favorite places to do the do)

- He's partial to the kitchen. The table and countertops are taller than standard to accommodate his height, so when he bends you over one, you're entirely at his mercy with your feet dangling just above the tile. He's not crazy about the bruises he's found on your hips after, but something about having you in that helpless state makes him cum that much faster.

♡ m = motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

- Cliché, maybe, but he's partial to the way you fuss over him after a mission. Doesn't matter how long or short, you're on him the second he gets through the door, smothering him in kisses and ready to check him for injuries and rub the knots out of his shoulders. You typically encourage him to discuss what he can, let him vent about the things that went wrong and hype of everything that went as planned. Really, his motivation is purely how much you genuinely care for him in all facets.

♡ n = no (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

- He firmly refuses breathplay and bondage. As someone who's been on the giving and receiving ends of literal torture, he's not fond of reliving any part of it with his partner. You're his safe haven. Elements of the darker side of his job stay far away from you.

♡ o = oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

- He's balanced on giving and receiving in terms of preference. He enjoys both equally. Eating pussy is something he'd never done before you, so there was a learning curve at first, but now, it's something he couldn't live without. He knows exactly how to get you off with his mouth, and he takes pride in that.

♡ p = pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

- There are perks to different methods, but König has a preference for going slow. Make no mistake, that doesn't mean he's gentle. Calculated, punctuated thrusts meant to reach deeper inside you than your fingers can, meant to mould your cunt around the shape of his cock so nothing ever feels this good without him.

♡ q = quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

- Kö is pretty ambivalent. He understands the necessity at times and will indulge whenever it feels right. You're in the shower, and he wants you before you leave for work? Perfect. Easy clean-up, and you won't be late. He has to head to the airfield, and you make it back from lunch with your mother with 10 minutes to spare? He's done in half that time, sated and heading out the door in a significantly better mood.

♡ r = risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

- Experimentation in the privacy of your home is fine with him, encouraged even. But he's really not big on risky business. He'd never chance getting caught; the thought alone curdles in his stomach like bad milk and makes him feel nauseous. It'd be embarrassing enough for him, but he'd be horrified on your behalf. Privacy is so important to him.

♡ s = stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

- Honestly, his stamina is cruel. He can go for around an hour before he needs a break. Short refractory period, which is fine because even now, he cums fairly quickly. He's stopped apologizing for it by now, knowing you really don't have a problem with it. But he's not a selfish lover by any stretch; he'll keep going until he knows you're satisfied.

♡ t = toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

- Toys are still something he's working up to. He's a big fan of the little high-frequency vibrator you have that kind of looks like an electric toothbrush. It's small but powerful. You've both used it to edge the other, often enough that you've had to buy two more after the previous couldn't hold a charge.

♡ u = unfair (how much they like to tease)

- Truthfully, he's not a huge tease. He's very up front with you about what he wants and when he wants it. Again, that lack of filter. Loves when you tease him, though.

♡ v = volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

- Kö definitely isn't quiet. He's constantly muttering praise, flopping between German and English, begging you for more, bitte, baby, bitte. If you move just the right way or deny him, you'll get those involuntary whimpers with his pretty eyes rolling back. His dirty talk is top-notch because he really has no filter when he's inside you.

♡ w = wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

- Cockwarming. Eating dinner, watching a movie, reading, he wants you planted on him constantly. Sometimes, it leads to sex, but more often than not, it's the added layer of closeness that he's after. Touching you is comforting, and that level of intimacy calms the savage beast in his chest that wails at the thought of losing you.

♡ x = x-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

- König is MASSIVE. He's so tall, broad-shouldered, with a narrow waist, deliciously thick thighs, and an absolute fuckin' wagon. All veins, muscles, and scars. I firmly believe he has a few hidden piercings beneath the hood and dozens of tattoos under his gear. No one will ever convince me that König doesn't look strikingly similar to Peter Steele.

9", uncut, too heavy to stand straight out when hard, slightly above average thickness.

♡ y = yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

- His drive is pretty moderate. Maybe 2-3 times a week, though that may just be so that you have time to recover.

♡ z = zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

- Kö falls asleep pretty fast after. It's a lot of exertion for him, and having you curled into his chest, tracing little circles on his skin, is so soothing for him. It puts him out like a match into water, eyes not cracking open until the sun rises.

#könig headcanons #könig x reader #könig x you #cod x reader #cod x you #konig x reader #konig x you #konig headcanons #jj writes

[toneelspeelster]

ethics of motherhood: the jane / charlie spring essay

ever since the release of the second season of heartstopper i've seen so many different opinions on jane spring as a parent; she's the absolute devil, overbearing, completely against understanding charlie and his relationship with nick etc. etc. but i would like to delve into why i think the way alice set up jane spring in s2 is a /great/ gateway into a deeper, nuanced storyline between jane and charlie because, quite honestly - it's clearly long overdue. once again, i'd like to use backstory from the comics to infer what might be happening to jane in the series and how, maybe a bit surprisingly to some - charlie is in some respects a lot more like her than you might think.

please note: this is not an apology, or an excuse to jane's behaviour as a mother to charlie; i just want to give her actions a context and i think, show the room for growth which I think would be a beautiful, very nuanced, storyline between parent and child to take on in charlie's mental health story in s3/4.

(tw for parental abuse, discussion of eating disorder)

one thing that really informs jane spring as a character and as a mother in general is her own mother. we see in the comics that her mother is a. physically abusive and b. does not allow jane to have any criticism against her and uses that as a reason for the abuse.

jane later tells charlie the following on her relationship with her mother, acknowledging the effect that her mother had on her - to an extent. she softens the things that happened to her.

jane knows this of her being a mother: she's overbearing, her mother was too, and she was also hoping to be very different to what her mother was to her.

now what i think is a vital thing to consider is the following: jane grew up in a household where she was physically and emotionally unsafe. she was hit for expressing normal teenage behaviour. it should be okay to sometimes not agree with your parents and pushing back at them. they should provide you with a safe method of communication for doing so but they never taught jane that. as a result, i think it's a very human response of people to try and make sure they deal with things differently when they get older; but that also can result in overcompensating behaviour.

my feeling is that jane is overly focused, i think unconsciously, on keeping in particular charlie safe, and in that sometimes loses sight on making him feel actually (emotionally) safe. because safe means to jane: performing well in school, not doing anything that might be dangerous, but also: keep in line with expected social behaviour. what is the safest thing, jane thinks? that your behaviour is perfect. because if you don't give others any reason to think you're being out of order (in whatever way), you will not get abuse. safe is being perfect, doing everything perfectly. you can and should control your life in such a way that it will be possible for things to be perfect.

and guess who feels that way too?

kids learn a lot more from their parents than they would think (or even like).

one of the most interesting changes from novel to tv series i think, is the change of having jane not being immediately supportive of nick from the get go; as it fits in quite well with jane's character trait of being focused on charlie's safety (and by extension julio's character, but he goes about this differently and quite honestly... can be quite of a wet wipe lol) and exercising control over his behaviour to make him safe in her own eyes. she wants him to be socially presentable ("please change out of your pyjamas to meet guests"), to focus on school work, and for him to listen to her when she says he needs to come home; in a sense i think she wants to be aware of where charlie is at a given time and not too stay out too late, because the night? that might be dangerous.

we have to remember that charlie was severely bullied only a year ago, and julio's constant reminders of charlie in s1 of please calling him when the situation gets out of hand with nick's circle of "friends", indicates to me that his parents were aware of the bullying, maybe being informed by ajayi bc i don't see charlie being able to tell that to his parents himself. so: nick's "sort" (tao mentions his circle as "exactly the sort of people who bullied [charlie]") are in jane's eyes boys to be weary of.

so when charlie tells his parents, jane doesn't totally trust it.

this is worsened when it turns out nick is also going on the paris trip. for charlie, that's not the only reason to on the trip at all, but the way the conversation goes with julio's comment that's the reason why he wants to go, this is where nick gets associated in her mind with charlie as something that she needs to be aware of and perhaps even intervene. to make sure he's safe. she needs to control the situation if it goes wrong.

which she does. almost immediately. when charlie shows behaviour out of the ordinary for him and the only cause she sees is nick; he's the new factor in all of this.

it's like she thinks if she doesn't completely nip this behaviour in the bud in a very hard way, all the bad things imaginable will come immediately. like charlie would flunk school within a few weeks. charlie, who's been a high achiever! julio's response is actually quite appropriate, i personally think: it's not a wonder that you're unfocused bc you have been spending time a lot (which we've seen! on screen!) but also i don't want ban you from seeing him completely, just set some boundaries.

interestingly enough, this is also due to charlie overly focusing his efforts on keeping nick essentially perfectly safe in his coming out as well; unfortunately, in that final scene shown above, he's just realised that he's got no control over nick's coming outs being perfect, as david has shown to be very biphobic and dismissive of nick in a way that neither nick or charlie had any say in or could even prevent from happening. jane has the option of trying to control things because she's his mother and has some authority over his life.

jane disappears in the show after this issue of charlie handing in his course work gets resolved for a while, so it does seem like she very much keeps to her word afterwards.

she comes back in time for some growth. tori rightly mentions that the family dinner is not something that their mum would totally enjoy bc tori has seen the criticism jane has regarding nick. but charlie does know nick, feels emotionally safe with him, especially after their convo in the louvre and nick being open about his dad, so charlie is right in saying nick, as a person not the idea that jane has of him by association, might convince her.

and he does.

nick can be trusted; nick has come out to his neglectful parent, chastised his older brother for being an asshole, mentions he feels happy with his life with charlie and living openly as his boyfriend and apologises to his mother for ruining the dinner (a sign of a well mannered boy!). and when sarah tells jane that this is something that she's never seen nick do and that must be of nick's deep care for charlie, jane thinks..

and comes around (a bit).

unfortunately, her overt focus on charlie's grades slipping being due to nick's influence in his life completely makes her neglect the signs that charlie is not eating well (that's something that is building up so gradually that i don't think she sees it as an option). there are some great metas on here by @ finnicksannie regarding this being one of the biggest reasons why charlie's grades are actually slipping.

all in all, i just want to close by saying this is a deeply traumatised mother parenting a deeply traumatised son and they both need time and therapy for a better understanding of the communication between them.

and i think the end of season 2 sets up a nice storyline about that quite nicely. jane accepts nick in their circle, but her communication with charlie has not been resolved; it's just a little tick towards her needing to trust charlie more. he's got good instincts. she's starting to realise.

this is all not an excuse. it's a set up for a responsibility on jane's part to work to communicate with charlie better. but life is life. and we're humans. sometimes we need to learn to grow.

and in the mean time, in the small moments, maybe with what you would say is the bare minimum, with not agreeing with charlie's self deprecation, jane does show her love of her son.

i don't think it's without reason that this was shown.

--

i have not read the novel solitaire / nick & charlie / this winter. feel free to add in comments if there's something in there too! but i do feel the series might incorporate jane's storyline maybe a little bit differently than from in the books; but it sounds like her controlling behaviour is a throughline to it all.

#heartstopper #heartstopperedit #heartstopper meta #charlie spring #jane spring #julio spring #nick nelson #narlie #my words #my edits #daddy issues the essay last season with nick's dad #mommy issues the essay now!

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

No, but it does give you back some control, Kaz. Which honestly is an understandable feeling to want to have. But thinking about it, what’s gotta be worse than being both grounded-and in excruciating pain with much less function than he had previously?

Loss of control.

Even if I go with my headcanon of the capture being an organized thing between himself and Ocelot-that doesn’t mitigate it being traumatic or bad.

(Which obviously, is just a headcanon/theory: nothing I say in any of these posts is 100% proven canonically, this is just my own thoughts after all from context we receive within the game).

Anyway.

Taking aside the other factors (artificial limbs aren’t a guarantee that it makes things better, or easier. Extra weight, difficulties etc) thinking of the kind of personality Kaz has; that of a high-strung man eager to find his place and exert power over others (and if not power, then something akin to it, or mingled with other elements) a core element in that is control.

Being the one in charge. Someone who has enough of a position of authority to exert his will unto others. Whether that word comes from himself or Snake, he’s at the helm somehow.

After Kaz is rescued, he’s open about exactly how he’s feeling-

And honestly, a single look at himself, or even just how much pain he has got to be in on a day-to-day basis would tell him that he really doesn’t need to focus on that in order to remember. Frankly, I think he’d have a much harder time forgetting. After all, it’s been 9 years since the attack, and he’s still fueled so strongly by hate and revenge that it’s on his mind 24/7. Nothing else occurs to him, ever.

Angry enough that even after weeks in captivity, he’s fuming and chomping at the bit to get going again.

Sir the only thing you should be right now is unconscious.

But there is really only so much vulnerability a single person can take. Let alone someone like him.

Kicks help away.

If he’s in pain, it’s more than just a reminder. It serves as the one thing he has left to master. To be in charge of. Pain meds wouldn’t take all of it away. But it would ease it. Bionics wouldn’t take all of it away, but it might (or might not) help him. If he says ‘no’ to all of this, then he’s the one with the final say. Logically, it doesn’t make the most sense. After all, you can’t think or function properly in pain the way you could out of it.

Believe me I know.

I rely on aids myself, from time to time. I was a daily cane user for most of university.

A wheelchair for another trip. 

And there’s absolutely an argument to be made, that if he did take assistance. Help. That if he did get himself in less pain then he’d actually be exerting more control in the situation because now he’s the one that’s got a handle on it. He’s the one that took it back and brought it back to himself. Into a place where it no longer dominates him, but he dominates it.

But the longer he’s in pain, the angrier he can stay. Not to mention it provides an excuse for the anger. Now he’s not just in control of himself (so he thinks anyway, I’d argue the point with him myself if he was a living thing I could speak too) but kept mad and spitting. Mad enough to kill Skull Face, mad enough to keep going and going. Fueling his fire with self grown coals.

Because without that pain, that anger. Also comes loss.

Grief is one of the central themes to MGSV (a whole other post to be honest).  Grief and anger often times go hand and hand. Kaz isn’t a good person with good morals at the end of the day. A man who was so eternally displaced with his position in the world from the day of his birth, and really until his death that his solution was things like nation states and war economies. But you don’t have to be a good person, or a saint, to have been wronged in some fashion.

He's never been shy about admitting exactly what kind of person he is (in this regard, anyway)

And is there not, end of day, a large element of control rooted in things like this?

These are the sorts of ideologies Kaz holds: in his own words.

Like this:

Or this.

His lead, and Kaz's. (Since it's Kaz talking here that is not what is outright stated, but it's clear enough what Kaz might want, within these situations).

(One could also argue this is just morally corrupt people taking care of other morally corrupt people but that’d be a derailment. Another post would have to delve into that as well).

When he lost everything-his home, his limbs, he lost key elements of his control that he worked so brutally to build. Whatever scrap of it he can cling to and maintain, he will.

Obviously, Kaz is in a different place (and undoubtedly frame of mind by the 90’s) but in the 80’s, he’s holding strong to pain, grief, anger, and loss. Because if he lets go of the things that keep him fueled and furious, then all that’s left is all-encompassing grief.

And that must feel a whole lot harder to deal with to him (I’d think anyway) than being raging and fuming.

#mgsv #kazuhira miller #nates headcanons #thoughts posts #character posts: kazuhira miller #yes im extending my tags kakjsdnjksa shhh #mgs #like i mean obviously take everything i say with a grain of salt this is just my own thoughts #i just enjoy thinking #perhaps far too much #revolver ocelot #diamond dogs #venom snake

[wazzappp]

I drew. a lot for this. Also heads up for non RE mutuals this is going to be. confusing for you. I'm going to do my best to annotate and provide context but you are in for a wild ride.

Anyway long ass lore post for how Lisa and Robbie go from fighting to working together in this AU.

In the RE8 cannon all of the Dimitrescu daughters are made at the same time but for the sake of ✨the situations✨ I am going to change that. Lisa lived the longest as a human before being assimilated into the mold with a Cadou (infecting extension of the Megamycite). Technically her 'sisters' are older than her, as they were assimilated a while ago. Lisa has been a member of house Dimitrescu for about 2 years now. This puts her in this. Weird middle child zone. She wants to make her 'family' proud but she's also aware that what makes them proud isn't really the most achievable thing in the world (expecially with Bela to contend with. Older sibling overachiever to the maximum). She's got a certain degree of distance from them and sometimes wonders if she wasn't better off before all of this. Her memories are fuzzy but still there for the most part. She cant remember faces or names but she remembers feelings and situations. She doesen't remember families being like this (she wants OUT).

Chasing prey brought in is fairly standard for her. It's some of the only entertainment she gets. So when she catches Robbie exploring around the castle she has no idea that he's special in any way. He's just some new guy she gets to mess with before eating and DAMN he's FUN. If she didn't know any better she could almost think that he has experience being chased around (he does. he very much so does. all of RE7's worth). What she ALSO doesn't know is that Mother Miranda (big bad. Different from Lady Dimitrescu, who she refers to as 'mother') is planning on using Gabe (who is replacing baby Rose in this) to try and resurrect her dead kid with a 'perfect vessel' and this requires. uh. disassembly (in the base RE8 gameplay the reason Ethan goes to each house is because uhhhhhhhh his infant daughter has been dismembered and stored in jars and he needs to collect them so he can put her back together.... yeah). Robbie intervenes before this can get going and is instead going house to house because if he wants to get out of this stupid fuckass villiage he needs to collect the key components to unlock the gate keeping him in here (i need him to have a reason. to kill everyone. its important to me ok).

When Lisa finds out this random, but fun guy, she's been chasing who she thought was JUST SOME NORMAL GUY killed one of her sisters she mentally goes 'Oh. OH. THERES A CHANCE FOR ME TO GET OUT OF HERE'. That in conjunction with discovering Mother Miranda is planning on FULLY DISMEMBERING A CHILD she uh. Makes some decisions.

What you have to understand about her plans of matricide is that neither Lady Dimitrescu or her sisters can actually really fully die. Sure, their bodies are gone, but their consciousness is stored in the hive mind and they can reform later after gathering their strength. If she has to put her kinda shitty found family in time out for the sake of getting herself out of here + keeping her newly revived conscience clean she's absolutely going to do it.

(fuckin. backgrounds. dialogue. fuck. why can things not just take place inside of the void. DUKE MY BELOVED WE LOVE AND RESPECT DUKE IN THIS HOUSE HES A REAL ONE fuck now I got it in my head that he keeps trying to play matchmaker for them and i need to. go draw that because its too funny not to.)

Lisas plan involves this lab I had her mention in the comic above. It's where Robbie needs to go to synthesize more poison for the dagger of deaths flowers, and SUPPOSEDLY where a medicine that might allow her to go outside again might be (enemies of Lisas type become SIGNIFICANTLY weaker in the cold. She could try to bundle up but its still really not a good idea). She would love to go there herself, but it's in an area of the castle thats exposed to the cold of the outdoors.

The Two of them make a fairly decent team and Lisa finds herself having a LOT more fun hunting with someone else than she does on her own. They balance each other out pretty well; Robbie works primarily with guns so he can watch Lisas back while she's up close wrecking any grunts they run into. It's also pretty helpful having someone who can turn into a swarm of flies for puzzle solving purposes.

After all this Robbies trust for her increases SIGNIFICANTLY. He's still not really sure about her, but she's moved out of the 'active threat' classification into the 'kinda helpful' zone.

Lisa's plan has three ways it could go:

They all fail miserably and get sent to mental and physical time out in the megamycite.

They win and get to go free but either the medicine isn't there or it doesen't work. In which case she's just planning on getting as many coats as possible and Try-or-Die-ing it.

The medicine is there and she actually gets to roam free

Luckily for her, the medicine IS there, it DOES work, and Robbies sense of honor / noticing her usefulness (its hard to wage a one man war on an entire community of mutants ok you cant blame him for appreciating having some ACTUAL HELP for once) all align for the best possible scenario.

The cold does still affect her; her healing isn't as quick as it usually is and her increased strength / speed is a bit reduced, but she can go!! outside!!

She decided to stick with Robbie in getting out of the village as a whole. She doesen't really know what the world outside is like but anything has to be better than here (plus if she stays here she's probably getting shoved into the Megamycite by Mother Miranda PERMENANTLY and that just. wont do).

Also yes Lisa being with Robbie for the rest of his adventures means that she is there for Heisenbergs 'proposal'. She uh. Does not like that much.

this all made. more sense in my head I hope it at least makes a little sense out loud.

#Ive been trying to write this out for 3 hours now. how do fic writers do this shit. HOW. #moose i thought i understood your 'brainworms of a different type'. i was w r o n g #my art #ghost rider re7 au #lisa (ghost rider) #robbie reyes #gabe reyes #sketch #RE!lisa

[thesaltwateremu]

I’ve seen a lot of people saying that norris and chester can’t be jmart because you’re able to listen to tmagp without any knowledge of tma. Here’s why I disagree

I feel like it’s fairly common for sequels to be written with the intention that it’s still understandable from an outside perspective. With movies especially this makes sense since i at least don’t think it’s uncommon for people to watch sequels without seeing the original (I mean really, how many of us have seen every marvel movie. Or with the new hunger games movie, a lot of my friends who watched it had never seen the original triology)

From a monetary standpoint, you want to make your sequel accessible to as many people as possible. With tma, there’s 200 episodes. That can be really overwhelming for someone unsure if they want to listen to protocol. By making it possible to listen to tmagp without having listened to tma, they are way more likely to listen, and might even go back and listen to tma. Marvel is a good comparison here: there’s a lot of marvel movies. It’s overwhelming for someone to have to watch all of them to understand the plot, so marvel makes their sequels work as standalones, while it is obviously more enjoyable if you’ve watched others. Same deal with hunger games. Also the friends I mentioned before who had never watched the original movies now really want to see them, bringing more money to the franchise

Jmart being in tmagp really wouldn’t be that alienating for new listeners. The main thing that would make tmagp difficult to listen to without context from tma is worldbuilding. However, this problem is avoided due to tmagp taking place in a completely different universe. Even original tma fans don’t have much world building to go off of. This is actually a big reason why I think the fears will be different in tmagp. It took so long for that world building to occur, it’d be boring for old listeners to hear the same thing again, and confusing for new ones to go on without it. Jmart is different because they’re just two characters. Sure, we’ll have a better understanding of who they are if we’ve listened to tma, but I feel like it’s not that difficult to quickly sum up their realtionship and their past in a way that’s understandable to new listeners. Plus we would need some backstory anyways since we don’t really know how they ended up in the tmagp universe

I almost think it’d be a missed opportunity if they didn’t have jmart or some other direct connection to tma in tmagp because one big reason for making sequels is bringing more attention to the original piece of media. Having a direct connection to tma, especially if it’s explained in a way that’s brief and intriguing could make new listeners more likely to go back and listen to tma

TLDR: tmagp could have jmart because it’s pretty common for movies and other media to make their sequels understandable for new viewers, and it wouldn’t take that much effort for there to be a quick explanation of who jmart is for new listeners

This wasn’t meant to attack anyone who’s been saying this, I’m just providing a counterpoint. If you disagree, that’s completely fine, I’m not here to start beef with strangers on the internet. Feel free to leave your thoughts agreeing, disagreeing, or otherwise, just be nice about it :) (this goes for all posts of people posting their thoughts and theories btw, we have so little info to go off of, just let people speculate without shutting them down)

(also I realize this post kinda sounds like I’m saying rusty quill is only making a sequel for money and attention. This is absolutely not what I’m saying, these are just often reasons that sequels are made, in addition to loving the story, characters, fandom, etc)

#back on my norris and chester are jmart bullshit #this isn’t me saying that jmart are for sure going to be in tmagp #ive just gotten annoyed with how many people think there won’t be any connection to tma because you can listen without context #was this post coherent?? #probably not #i do agree that jmart being the computers is a little obvious #feels like they’re trying to take our attention off something else #BUT LET ME INDULGE IN MY DELUSIONS OK #I need them safe :( #tmagp #the magnus protocol #jmart #chester tmagp #norris tmagp #norris and chester #tmagp theory #tmagp spoilers #This was a long post #i was having THOUGHTS

[hitlikehammers]

hitlikehammers' Hobbit-Birthday Fic-Giving Fest

So you know how Hobbits celebrate their birthdays by giving gifts, rather than receiving them?

WELCOME TO MY HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY FIC-GIVING PROMPT FEST!!!

wherein YOU prompt ME to write stuff, and to clarify from the outset: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE FOLLOWING ME TO PARTICIPATE. Did you find this at random? Via reblog? Just kinda want a fic but don’t want my babble regularly on your feed? I. DO. NOT. CARE. This is my birthday month (well, soon) and I want to be giving and gregarious and generous and generally positive about writing little gifts so: prompt anyway.

THE RULES

✨ You have THREE (3) choices for prompting

CONCEPT PROMPTS: basically Ao3 tags, or close enough—pick one, give me a little direction if you don’t want me to just write ~anything~, and then you’re all set SONG PROMPTS: pick a song, ideally also pick a lyric from the song, and if you want to give me some short direction for it go ahead; these are the largely-random choice of Spotify on shuffle; it got kinda moody and angsty on me and picked songs I was never huge into and some from legitimately years ago but: the algorithm prevails DIALOGUE PROMPTS: either inspiration or to be included in the fic, I cannot guarantee either way but if you have a STRONG PREFERENCE, you should point that out; and again, if you want to provide a couple words of direction: do so

✨ if I am already writing you a gift fic for something else: THIS IS DIFFERENT (also shorter so even MORE DIFFERENT)—ask again if you want to, you’re more than welcome, honestly it’s more a gift for me because…hobbity-birthday 

✨ you have to MESSAGE/ASK ME or COMMENT ON THIS POST with your prompt because I am going to miss it if you reblog or tag or whatever-other-means-of-telling-me that is not a message/ask/comment, and that would be v sad ✨ I will only be writing ONE FIC PER PROMPT, so if you like one? Grab it. If I haven't had time to edit the list (which is likely because timezones and my work schedule) and they get duplicated, I'll reach out to the second claimer for a new prompt.

✨ if you’re not okay with NSWF content, you need to state that in the prompting message; I’m not saying you’re going get NSFW stuff, but if you’re absolutely against it, gotta flag that in advance 

✨ because someone asked: if you want to attach one of these to one of my existing fics/‘verses, include that because that’s usually super fun and there are only maybe two fics I wouldn’t try to follow up with a tiny thing on request

✨ the default ship right now is my most currently active one: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson. If you want to prompt a ship that is not Steddie, note that and check if I’m familiar with it here, or take your chances; I’ll message you if it’s not something I write

SO: pick one of the prompt lists above and send it my way so I can start writing you words.

PROMPTS ARE OPEN THROUGH 31 JANUARY 💜

so...y'know. Prompt me. It's my BIRTHDAY 🎉

also if you hate links have all the prompts, here: below

✨

CONCEPT PROMPTS: pick one, a provide a little direction with 2-3 words, up to a sentence

Merperson/Siren AU

Monsterfucking

Wrong Number/Wrong Blind Date AU

Hurt/Comfort

Baked Goods (as in: prompt me with a pastry you’d like to be eating rn)

Secret Relationship 

Royalty AU

Established Relationship 

Dark AU

Near-Death Experience

Missed Connection AU 

Cocktails (as in: prompt me with how your mixologist knows you)

Misunderstandings

Pre-Season 4

Domestic Fluff

Creaturefic

[Character]-Has-Powers

Vampire AU

PWP

Famous AU

Presumed Dead/Emotional Reunions 

Soulmate AU

Whump

First Times

Warm Drinks (as in: prompt me using what you order from your barista)

Magic AU

Fluff

Meet Cute/Ugly

Nightmares

Angels/Demons AU

SONG PROMPTS: pick a song, ideally a lyric FROM the song and a word or two for context of your intended prompting

Never Tear Us Apart—INXS

I Will Wait—Mumford & Sons

Any Other World—MIKA

The Days Of The Phoenix—A.F.I.

Manhattan Skyline—a-ha

Jilted Lovers & Broken Hearts—Brandon Flowers

Why Can’t This Be Love—Van Halen

The Navesink Banks—Gaslight Anthem

Holocene—Bon Iver

Wicked Campaign—Modest Mouse

Follow—Brandi Carlile 

Jesus Christ—Brand New

Little Talks—Of Monsters and Men

Clever Meals—Tegan and Sara

Will Anybody Ever Love Me?—Sufjan Stevens

A Light On In The Dark—Darlingside

To Build A Home—The Cinematic Orchestra

sever the blight—hemlocke springs

These Things—She Wants Revenge 

The Light Behind Your Eyes—My Chemical Romance

Come Undone—Duran Duran

Song For Zula—Phosphorescent 

Last Words of a Shooting Star—Mitski

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)—Talking Heads

Majesty—Madrugada

Fake Empire—The National

A Dustland Fairytale—The Killers

Fast Car—Tracy Chapman  

At The Bottom Of Everything—Bright Eyes

The Trapeze Swinger—Iron & Wine

QUOTE PROMPTS: pick one, and if you have a context, I’ll take up to 3 words as direction

“That’s… not what that means.” 

”They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true.”

“…Why?” 

“Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it.”

“I’ve never felt this way before.” 

”So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard, and we're gonna have to work at this every day."

“What are you doing?”

“I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”

“I assume I deserve this, but can you tell me why you want to kill me this time?”

”We aren't here to make things perfect."

“You meant the world to me. I should have protected you.” 

"You're the first boy I ever kissed... and I want you to be the last."

“What? Like it’s hard?”

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”

“Who did this to you?” 

“I want to tell you with my remaining strength that I love you. I always have. I'll drift next to you every day as a ghost just to be with you. Even if I was banished to the darkest place, my love will keep me from being a lonely spirit."

“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”

”When I first saw you, I felt like I knew you, and I couldn't stop seeing my life with you, and building a family together. One that isn't stuck in the pain of the past. It's very pretty."

“You’re worth so much more than me.” 

“I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one.”

“This isn’t going to end well.” 

"Truth is, sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it."

“Please! You have to let me make this right.” 

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“You’re a monster.”

“You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”

“You don’t want this.” 

“You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love--I love--I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.”

“Why did you lie?”

”I don't want to sound foolish, but remember love is what brought you here. And if you've trusted love this far, don't panic now. Trust it all the way." 

#hitlikehammers v words #hitlikehammers writes #hitlikehammers' hobbit-birthday prompt fest

[stillness-in-green]

On Heteromorphs and Heteromorphobia (Arc XV - My Villain Academia)

(Skewing away from the wiki arc titles here, because come the eff on; everyone on god's green earth calls this My Villain Academia, not "The Meta Liberation Army Arc.")

At the request of a kind asker, I'm trying something different with footnotes this time; you'll find them at the end of the relevant bullet point, rather than at the bottom of the post. I've also flagged the numbers in purple, though I left the text itself the default color. I hope people find that a little easier to handle than having to scroll all the way to the bottom, have two tabs open, or wait until the end when they've forgotten the context.

Content Warning: Mentions of the KKK, as well as anti-Korean hate crimes/speech in Japan.

The My Villain Academia Arc (Chapters 218-240)

Chapter 218: 

Tsuyu’s weakness to cold is noted in-canon, rather than in a volume extra profile.   

All of the people featured specifically in the Detnerat commercial are heteromorphs—a four-armed woman, a walrus gent, and a little gelatinous boy.  Re-Destro pontificates about how people with these “newer types of bodies” struggled in the new era because they couldn’t find products that would meet their daily needs; mass production was not equipped—could never really be equipped—to handle the endless variety of body shapes and sizes that came about due to the Advent of the Extraordinary.  It recollects the mall scene back in Chapter 68—or, even further back, Ojiro’s character sheet and UA’s lack of varied desks—and calls the reader to consider, once again, the sorts of special needs that those with heteromorphic bodies might have, and how difficult it can be to meet those needs.    RD says that his company’s ability to rapidly customize and produce unique goods for every customer has made them #1 in their industry (lifestyle goods).  Assuming there’s at least some truth to the commercial shpiel—and the newscaster does at least call Detnerat “a big player”—it suggests that plenty of other companies are not so good at the rapid+customizable combination.  Of course, not all companies are trying to be all things to all people, but specialization costs money—as do speed and customization, really, and note that nowhere in the commercial is there a talking point about affordability!  So mainly what the commercial leaves me wondering is what degree of inconvenience is still felt by heteromorphs, especially those who are somewhat cash-strapped.    That strikes me as a particular hazard when it comes to child bullying.  Of course, Japanese schools have uniforms, but I wonder how available tailoring and alterations are for students with particular needs?  Is there a provided budget for that sort of thing?  Financial aid?  How much did Ojiro’s parents have to pay for him to have a full set of uniform pants with a hole for his tail in them?  How about Shouji getting all his uniform tops made sleeveless?  What arrangements had to be made for Shouto’s gym uniform to be fire retardant?    Even setting uniforms aside, there are also their social lives outside of school to consider.  Kids will absolutely notice when one of their number wears the same clothes all the time, or home-made clothes instead of name brand, or with obvious patchwork and repair.  As in real life, it’s at the intersections of more than one type of disadvantage—in this case, a heteromorphic body combined with a low-income family—that problems become more likely.

Here in 218, almost fifty chapters after the first mention of them, we finally get the proper introduction and explanation of the Meta Liberation Army.  Of course, they aren’t heteromorph-specific—the closest any of the named commander-types in RD’s inner circle get is Curious, with her bright blue skin and black sclera,[1] though certainly Re-Destro himself has drifted somewhat away from baseline compared to his ancestor.  Regardless, their foundational belief is the deregulation of quirks, stemming from a time when any deviation from the norm made meta-humans targets.  The compromise society reached—that quirks require a license to use—is restricting enough on those whose abilities are found with a baseline body, but, as I’ve brought up before, it makes life even more potentially fraught for heteromorphs.  That kind of thing is basically a pre-written excuse for heroes or police to stop and harass a heteromorph they don’t like the look of!  And while the evidence of that kind of bias has been pretty circumstantial thus far, it’s about to get way, way less so.    [1] Wacky hair colors being somewhat de rigueur in anime, we’ll give her a pass on the purple hair.

   Chapter 220: 

Here we finally hit the major leagues: the Creature Rejection Clan, or CRC.  The Japanese is igyou haiseki shugi shuudan, with igyou and shuudan being pretty straightforward—igyou is, of course, “heteromorph,” and shuudan is any sort of organized or self-identifying group of people, anything from a family unit to a business organization, even all the way up to a nation.  Haiseki shugi is the important bit, with shugi meaning “doctrine; principle” and haiseki meaning “rejection; expulsion; boycott; ostracism.”  Thus, “group whose doctrine is the rejection of heteromorphs.”[2]    Note that, in the Japanese, the word in the group’s name is heteromorph; they didn’t pick something more insulting or derogatory.  They didn’t really need to, since igyou is, as discussed back in the introduction to this piece, plenty derogatory all on its own.  So Caleb Cook went with a translation of igyou that would better get that derisiveness-in-the-context-of-a-hate-group across than his choice way back in Chapter 14.  Creature Rejection Clan is a fairly localized translation, but Cook was pretty frank in his Twitter thread on the chapter that he was thinking about the KKK when he made the decision.    And it’s not an unwarranted comparison!  Of course, I wouldn’t think to presume Horikoshi’s that up on the history of racism in the U.S., but combine the cod-religious trappings and the full robes and hoods with an explicit textual description of hate crimes, and it’s an extremely easy parallel to draw. [2] The Japanese also gives the abbreviation of CRC, with the databook eventually coming out and revealing that it really stands for the name they’ve chosen for themselves in English, the Curious Rejection Committee.

That established, it’s notable that Spinner, in describing them, says that they commit hate crimes against “people with heteromorphic quirks”—a nearly word-for-word translation of the Japanese igyou-gata no ningen.  This leaves aside the idea I’ve spent so much time talking about, that heteromorph discrimination is aimed broadly at those with heteromorphic bodies, and not only those with the more narrowly defined heteromorphic quirks.  Shortly, however, I’ll cover some evidence that Spinner is over-generalizing, or just misinformed.

In the meantime, take note of a few things the CRC guys[3] actually say here, starting with the fact that they call Spinner a lizard. Instantly, a word that was previously a snippy and dismissive little shrug in Dabi’s mouth takes on the weight and ugliness of a slur.    Further, they call the League of Villains “sins against nature”—or, in a more literal translation, “impure criminals.”  I provide the more literal translation there because it’s more specific.  My immediate question of the English translation would be whether the CRC judge the League as being sins against nature simply because of their criminality, or because of their association with Spinner, but the Japanese makes clear that there are two separate labels being flung there: the League are both criminals and impure.    This idea of impurity brings in a religious dimension to heteromorphobia, a dimension heightened by the line (dropped by the English translation) in which the CRC accuses the League of invading a sanctuary—in Shinto, shrines have to be kept pure.  The CRC calling their hideout a sanctuary, with the added context of, “They have a lizard with them.  How disgusting,” thus makes it pretty clear that the impurity is about Spinner’s presence, not just the League’s assorted crimes.  This spiritualistic justification for bigotry will later be made even more explicit in Shouji’s flashbacks.    [3] With skull masks right there on their hoods!  A real, “Are we the baddies?” moment, but given some of the other things we get on them later, it's possible the skulls are meant to contrast what e.g. Spinner or Koda’s skulls might look like: baseline human versus animalistic or “misshapen.” Credit to @codenamesazanka for connecting the dots on that!

Spinner also gives us here the line that I covered back in the terminology section at the beginning:

We’ll go with the official version this time.

So here we have the observation that the word absolutely everyone uses, the word that, as far as we know, academically defines an entire category of quirks, is an unpleasant, even rude word.  But what is the alternative?  We’re never given one.  Indeed, Spinner doesn’t suggest one; he says that the nice thing to do is “avoid” the word instead.  In other words, talk around it.  See again what I said at the start about all the difficulties baked into that prospect.

Later, we get the first drops of Spinner’s backstory, and hit again on the “lizard” thing, with the note that Spinner’s backwater, stuck-in-the-last-century hometown called him “the lizard freak.”  He grew up with it, grew accustomed to it, thought there was nothing he could do to change it—he might even have internalized it somewhat, though clearly by the time Chapter 160 rolled around he was ornery enough about it to complain.    It's perhaps also notable that Spinner knows who the CRC are.  Though we’ll later find out that their numbers have hugely diminished, he not only recognizes them, he’s not even surprised to see them—unlike many, Spinner knows the CRC never truly went away.  (Compare his lack of reaction to, for example, Shouji's unsuspecting classmates, who will later be shocked, just shocked, that this kind of ugliness still exists in their country.)    So just to state the obvious here, yes, the presence of active hate groups does irrevocably shift the lens on everything we’ve seen up to this point.  You can’t say calling a heteromorph an animal is harmless, a little insensitive at worst, maybe even meant as a cute nickname, when that same language is used by openly violent bigots.

The volume version gives us, at the end of the chapter, further notes on the CRC.  It’s full of relevant tidbits, so I’ll provide the text in its entirety:

Once superpowered society grew more stable and less chaotic, this group emerged, based around a lack of acceptance for those with body-altering quirks.  They started out with demonstrations and protests but eventually started committing violent hate crimes.  Most felt this was taking things too far, so the group saw a sharp decline in membership and a scattering of factions.  These days, one faction might only reject people with animal properties, while another focuses its hate on people with irregular heads.  These two, among others, have very few members left.  The faction that Tomura and the villains attacked was one that stood by the original group's fundamental tenets.

So what is there to gather from this?  Let’s break it down a point at a time.

“Once superpowered society grew more stable (...)”    If you’ve ever lived through a time of increasing acceptance for a marginalized group, particularly if that acceptance involves measures for legal protections being passed, you’ll recognize what this is.  Just to pick a few U.S. examples, the KKK didn’t exist until after the Civil War;[4] proactive federal bans on same-sex marriages didn’t start getting passed/proposed until individual U.S. states started legalizing them and civil unions.  When opposition to something is the norm, said opposition often doesn’t start organizing until they see that status quo being threatened; they weren’t organized before because they never imagined they’d need to be!  That’s what we see with the CRC: they didn’t formally declare themselves until it started looking like quirks—and especially non-baseline quirks—were going to find legal acceptance.    [4] Literally.  The last day of the war was May 26, 1865; the date the first Klan was founded was December 24 of the same year. Easily the most vile thing I learned in the process of writing this piece.   

“(…) based around a lack of acceptance for those with body-altering quirks.”   This is what I was referring to when I said Spinner's characterization of the CRC might be a little bit off: the CRC wasn’t founded because of a hatred for specifically heteromorphic quirks; they were founded because of a hatred for different bodies, a descriptor that could also apply to those with transformation-style quirks!  Those, too, are quirks that alter bodies, after all; it’s just possible for people to turn them off, which is not the case for those with heteromorphic quirks.  So Spinner was not quite on the mark before.    Further, note that the phrase “body-altering quirks” is used here—a phrase that’s similar in meaning and much less othering than igyou.  It doesn’t fully cover everything I use “heteromorphic” and “non-baseline” to cover, in that it’s still murky in situations like e.g. Cementoss’s, where his emitter quirk is entirely independent of his oddly shaped head, but it’s still a useful term!  Except for the small complication of where it isn’t found: anywhere in the actual story.  The fact that Horikoshi uses it in an author’s note, but it comes up nowhere in BNHA proper, puts it in an unclear place as far as in-universe alternatives go.  Has it just not come up because Horikoshi hasn’t thought to include it?  Or has it not come up because it’s not a phrase people in-universe use?

“They started out with demonstrations and protests but eventually started committing violent hate crimes.  Most felt this was taking things too far, so the group saw a sharp decline in membership and a scattering of factions.”    Confirmation here of what Spinner said about the CRC and hate crimes, but note what this doesn’t say: that the CRC was outlawed.  There are, I suspect, a couple of factors influencing that.   o Firstly, while Japan has legal methods to restrict undesirable organizations,[5] making it difficult for them to raise funds or engage in publicity, the country doesn’t actually de facto criminalize membership in such organizations.  That distinction is part of the legacy of violent crackdowns on labor groups and protest movements in the first half of the 20th century; people tend to get very loud about anything that whiffs of the government trying to give itself the power to get that heavy-handed again.    Assuming that the laws haven’t changed overmuch in HeroAca!Japan, then, I wouldn’t expect membership in the CRC to have been criminalized outright, but the volume extra doesn’t mention any kind of legal repercussions at all.  That, I think, may go more to my next point.    [5] The relevant laws are aimed mostly at terroristic groups or organized crime.      o Secondly, another thing Japan has very, very little of is hate crime legislation.  From my research, there are only two laws of any note: a federal law passed in 2016 and widely regarded as toothless thanks to it lacking any criminal provisions targeting offenders,[6] as well as a local ordinance passed in Kawasaki in 2019 that went as far as mandating fines against repeat offenders, among other measures.[7] [6] It required the government to start “implementing measures” to eliminate such speech/behaviors, as well as to “respond to requests for consultation” from victims, but did not directly mandate consequences for offenders. [7] I suspect from some of what I read that Osaka has picked up a similar ordinance, but I didn’t find anything detailing it specifically.  Osaka and Kawasaki are home to the largest and second-largest population of Koreans living in Japan. One major thing neither of these measures did, though—and something activists have been pressing for—is to establish standards for considering discriminatory motivations when issuing sentences against those who have committed violent crimes.  To pick an example that made the news last year, a man committed arson out of openly admitted hatred for the Koreans he targeted, but nowhere in the trial or discussion of his sentence did the prosecution ever bring up discrimination.[8]    [8] https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220829/p2a/00m/0na/015000c    Also, it’s worth noting that both of these measures were aimed at ethnic discrimination—speech and behavior targeting people living in Japan while being themselves, or being children of, people of non-Japanese ethnicities.  They did not address discrimination based on e.g. religion or sexuality.    Folding both of those points together, the image we have of the CRC is of a violent hate group whose existence is regarded as perhaps distasteful and extremist, but not actually illegal.  Even what few laws Japan has now wouldn’t have applied to anti-heteromorph discrimination, because, while they may look wildly different from a prototypical Japanese person, heteromorphs still are Japanese, and therefore not protected by a law based solely around ethnic discrimination.    Incidentally, the ordinance in Kawasaki laid out a number of specific examples of the kind of behavior it was looking to address, and one of those examples was likening victims to something other than human.  I know why that was included in the context of anti-Korean sentiments,[9] but it certainly does shade e.g. Dabi calling Spinner a lizard more harshly to know that there’s legal precedent for categorizing such dehumanizing language as hate speech.    [9] An extremely common form of anti-Korean hate speech in Japan is to refer/allude to Koreans as cockroaches.

“These days, one faction might only reject people with animal properties, while another focuses its hate on people with irregular heads.”     This is a good echo of the sort of factionalization you see in organized religion, wherein the minutiae of tenets that seem similar to an outside eye are the topic of vicious, vehement inter-group debate. More to the point, however, it provides an excellent illustration of the senselessness of bigotry.  They can’t even keep their own discriminatory dogma straight!    Probably the second most common complaint about the story’s use of heteromorphobia—after calling it retconned-in bullshit that didn’t exist until Chapter 220—is that it’s illogical, that it makes no sense to judge people because they look a little different in a world where everyone is now a little different from the way we see the world.    And I wonder if the people who say that are listening to what they’re saying.  “Illogical bias that has no foundation in reality is unrealistic?”  What do these people think bigotry is?  Racism, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, religious discrimination, all the many different shades of queerphobia: all of these are built on foundations of fear and hate for people who are fundamentally still as human as anyone else, yet they all exist, and have existed, and will go on existing for quite some many years still.  Because irrational hatreds are, by definition, irrational.  Heteromorphic discrimination is the most realistic societal dynamic in the entire series! That little rant aside, I also want to highlight the first group in the excerpt above—people with animal properties.  Check any talk on the theme of, “So you can believe dragons but not black people in fantasy?” and you’ll run into the ways people are much more ready to suspend their disbelief for full-on fantasy than for something that, rightly or wrongly, pings them as incorrect, and it’s easy to imagine animal-associated heteromorphs running into a similar issue: it’s fine for people to just look weird, but looking like an animal, that’s bad and unnatural.  A heteromorph who just looks like nothing in particular other than “non-baseline” is not evoking the baggage of animal anthropomorphization and cultural animal symbolism that someone who looks like a bird, a lizard, a dog, an orca, etc. is.   

Chapter 223: 

Shigaraki refers to Gigantomachia as a gorilla.  It’s debatable how much this is of a piece with Dabi calling Spinner “Lizard”—Machia’s only actual animal quirk is Mole, not anything simian, nor is Machia particularly ape-like in anything other than his large size—but it does stand out to me that Spinner, who we know to have strong opinions about animal epithets, just refers to Machia by name or as “the big guy.”

Chapter 224: 

Mr. Compress calls Machia “our pet gorilla”; see note above.

Chapter 226: 

Curious introduces the idea of quirk counselling, telling us that its goal is to align people to a unified understanding of how the world and society work, but that it’s flawed in that it winds up emphasizing peoples’ differences instead.  The advisor at the hospital raid will include quirk counseling in his litany of grievances, so I’ll discuss its possible utilization against heteromorphs more there, but for now, recall that I talked previously about how quirk-based behavioral tics might vary from person to person by comparing Hound Dog with Sansa.  With that in mind, it’s not a big reach that some heteromorphs might run into similar problems with quirk counselling.   

There are a good number of what appear to be heteromorphs through the Curious fight; whatever the MLA’s core views on quirk supremacy, the organization self-evidently makes ample room for heteromorphs, even if, like e.g. the red panda guy in the crowd jumping Toga inside the noodle joint, they don’t seem to have any other stand-out powers beyond the fur and fangs.   

Chapter 229: 

Twice notes in his flashback that something about his eyes always rubbed people the wrong way, scared them.  We’ll eventually see this same thing with Tenko on the street—a totally normal-looking child, but the look on his face scares people away even more than the blood.  And I can’t help but think, “If even a totally baseline person’s eyes can creep people out, how much easier—and more extreme—is that reaction for the more out-there sort of heteromorph?”   

Gori makes the tiniest of cameos in Twice’s flashback, playing backup off to the side when we will, in current times, find him having worked his way up to the interrogation chair himself.   

Chapter 230: 

Geten brings us quirk supremacy via his understanding of the MLA’s goals.  It’s hard to say how accurate this is, since the MLA leadership is inconsistent on what exactly their vision of Liberation entails.  Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t seem to dissuade the MLA’s own heteromorphs, though of course there’s a big difference between how e.g. Spinner or Ojiro versus Gang Orca or Mirko would fare in a societal quirk free-for-all.  Likewise, the MLA is a cult, so one can’t discount the likelihood of double-think in its members.   

Chapter 232:

Re-Destro talks about the state of the country in Destro’s infancy, a period in which metahumans suffered “constant abuse—blatant discrimination.”  Merely for speaking out that her child was just like everyone else—that his special power was just a quirk—Destro’s mother was killed by an anti-meta mob.  This gives us further evidence of the violence metahumans faced.  Of course, in that time, the hate wasn’t distinguishing between types of quirk, but with that being said, an emitter and a transformer can still hide the truth about themselves with far more ease than heteromorphs—recall All Might’s discussion about the early days of quirks back in Chapter 59, in which the panel showing four people with quirks contained only one baseline person.  It would be entirely unsurprising for an outsized number of the metahumans killed in those days to be heteromorphs.

Chapter 233: 

The confrontation between Trumpet and Spinner gives us Trumpet clucking about Spinner having a weak meta-ability—Gecko lets him cling to walls, and that’s about it.  It’s a striking contrast to someone like Mirko or Gang Orca, or even Tsuyu, all of whom have some combination of big power moves and a veritable fleet of sub-abilities.  We can see the way Hero Society prizes powerful, flexible quirks in this.  Having a strong quirk can help overcome the societal bias about heteromorphs, but if you’re stuck with a weak quirk and a weird face, you lack that metaphorical ticket out.[10]    [10] Incidentally, the fandom reflected some of that attitude as well.  There was a widespread assumption that Spinner’s quirk would be really useful or situationally powerful, otherwise why would Horikoshi have hidden it for as long as he did?  Then, after the reveal, there was a certain amount of complaining that Spinner was useless to the League, and why even bother with him?  Sometimes, life imitates art in some very unflattering ways.

Trumpet brings up that Spinner was a recluse, “mocked and pilloried,” and we see Spinner in his hikikomori days.  What we’ve gotten on Spinner up to this point suggests that the abuse he endured was mostly verbal, though one can imagine it was pretty rough when he was young enough to be the target of school bullies.  There’s a certain amount of temptation to minimize that in comparison to his response: most people who are bullied or targeted by discrimination don’t grow up to become terrorists.  But there was, we will eventually find, more visceral stuff going on—and parts of the country that were even worse than Spinner’s hometown.

Spinner spent most of his life trying to fit himself into the world around him; his strongest parallel in the League in this regard is Toga, as they were the two that held themselves back, let the world define what they were and how they should act, right up until they saw something that caused them to snap.[11]  Trumpet tries to do much the same to Spinner here (albeit probably less as an intentional psychological attack than Skeptic’s attempts on Twice), but Spinner, like Toga, is long past the point where he would swallow that abuse without fighting back.  When you tell someone they are something long enough, they eventually start to believe it—but if you aren’t careful, they’ll start to embrace it, at which point those weaponized words change hands.    [11] Shigaraki and Dabi, by contrast, pushed back harder, trying to get the world to accept them and never accepting it when their families (and particularly their fathers) told them to stop.  Twice was ejected without getting the chance to try to contort himself into a shape that fit the world, whereas Mr. Compress seems to have been raised to reject his society's accepted norms from the start.   

Chapter 234:

We see an image excerpted from Quirks and Us, a children’s book published by Curious’s outfit, that exhorts the reader not to judge people by their quirks.  It really, really begs the question, “If this is what’s being said in literature published to coax people towards anti-suppression radicalism, what on Earth is normal society saying?”    Regardless of that absolutely wild disparity, though, the fact that there are children’s books being published about quirk bias being wrong suggests that the world very much does have a problem with quirk bias.  Indeed, that much has been shown throughout the series, not merely in terms of anti-heteromorph bias, but also the bias against “villain quirks,” as well as the widespread idea that people with weak quirks—or no quirks at all—are weaker people overall, pitiable folk who lack the power to live their fullest lives or pursue their dreams unhindered.[12]    People on more than one of these axes of discrimination will, as in real life, be more likely to experience discrimination and violence. [12] Villains like All For One and Geten may say it more loudly, but it’s not only villains who believe it—perfectly good-hearted people like All Might and Midoriya Inko fall into that trap as well.   

Chapter 237: 

Nothing much to say about Shigaraki’s flashbacks save to note that, if people won’t stop to help a lost and bloodied (and baseline) child, they sure as hell won’t intervene in anti-heteromorph bullying.  Recall that Kirishima was accused of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong for trying!

-----

Thanks as ever for reading along, everyone! How was the new footnote format? Should I keep that up for lengthy meta going forward?

I was kind of expecting to be able to wrap this up (the main canon, at least) in one more post, but I underestimated the amount of writing I'd be doing for the first war arc. For next time, then, I'm looking to cover the Endeavor Agency, Paranormal Liberation War, and Dark Hero Villain Hunt arcs. See you all then!

#bnha #heteromorph discrimination plot #bnha worldbuilding #bnha meta #my writing #creature rejection clan #tw racism #tw hate crime #bnha spinner #iguchi shuuichi #meta liberation army