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nortsauce · 26 days

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HERE COMES NORT, YAPPING ABOUT FANDOMS THAT I’M NOT EVEN IN!

(And i’ll be typing the rest here because there are too many slides so read bellow)

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

My LONG ASS rant on how MHA (among other things) fails to present its ab*se victims in a good way,

Starring the todoroki family

So, i know literally no one cares but i feel like it needed to be said: but MHA has a BIG issue with victims of abuse being treated kinda shittily, to making whole arcs about their abusers.

This isn’t a HUGE thing, as the lack of sympathy for Hawk’s abusers was definitely there, but they still were portrayed in a semi-sympathetic light. This is not the main focus however.

I’m sure many could go on and on about Bakugou and Midoriya’s relationship, but thats not what i’m focusing on.

I’m focusing on the most OVERLOOKED and ABHORRENTLY handled dynamic of the Todoroki family

I will be going over each of the characters and why they suck in some way, but as a whole i have to talk about this: Each one of the characters of the family are all victims of abuse in some way, and represent the different ways that trauma affects the victim, i understand that.

All in all, they do a good job of portraying the different ways in which the people handle abuse,

Endeavor being one who never dealt with his past egotistical superiority complex and threw his baggage onto his family/children to live vicariously

Rei being the one who is emotionally/physically damaged to the point of a mental break

Touya being the ex-golden child, and the one who continued the cycle of violence (and misogyny but thats another topic for another paper)

Fuyumi being the one who holds onto an idealized version of a family that possibly only existed in her dreams, being codependent and longing/working to get those “happy times” back with her family, clinging onto smth that was possibly never there

Natsuo being the one who is (justifiably) angry at his abusers, cuts his family off and goes to pursue his own life/dreams

and finally shoto

the one who realizes his role as the golden child is only for his parents to live vicariously, breaks his cycle and is trying to figure out who he is.

These are all great representations of how people cope/handle trauma, and i believe that was on purpose, considering that it also speaks on abuse of children on baselines of being in a famous family.

However, certain aspects are clearly not handled properly; allow me to explain.

Shoto, the youngest of the family, is often seen as the architect of the abuse, as the family was actually quite “fine-living” (i’ll come back to this) before shoto was born.

There were obviously cracks in their family from the beginning, Touya being the golden child despite not being able to physically handle his own power without hurting himself (an allegory i’ll discuss), the fact that Enji (endeavor) basically bought his way into marrying Rei, and of course enji’s complex of being less than All-might.

However, many characters seem to blame the birth of Shoto for breaking the camel’s back, and starting the domestic violence that had already threatened to spill through.

It’s shown through the anime that shoto has a kind heart and never liked enji, due to the fact that he would harm him, his siblings, and his mother,

but for being the tritagonist of this show, we never get to see how he really feels. In all of this, perhaps we could see him feeling guilt for being the reason his family is broken, the possible resentment yet dependency he has for his father, the thoughts on how he feels conflicted yet guilty about his mother and continues to blame himself.

Its interesting how he never stops blaming his father, but regardless we only get his apathetic views on his father and no one else. Its saddening to see the sideline of the victim of abuse while his abuser gets a whole arc. But i’m not there yet.

Moving on we have Natsuo and Fuyumi. I grouped them together because they both have opposite ways of dealing with their trauma, as Aforementioned: Natsuo tries to cut all ties while Fuyumi tries to be a “normal” family with her remaining members.

Both of them have valid ways to why they act this way, and its tragic, however, the way they deal with their youngest sibling, shoto, is disheartening to say the least.

Both of them understand how Shoto was physically abused since he was 5, and neglect to form any sort of connection with him despite his better efforts in natsuo’s case, using him as leverage against his father and nothing more, while in fuyumi’s case, basically presents him in her fantastical version of him in their fantastical “perfect” family life, causing him to have multiple meetings with his abuser and forcing him to relive the trauma so she can have peace of mind.

In hindsight, this is all interesting heavy topics to explore in a character, and i was honestly curious to see how it would be handled

however it all faltered as soon as I saw the hospital scene.

SPOILERS:

After Dabi’s Dance, the todoroki family comes to visit Shoto and Endeavor in the hospital, both of whom are heavily bandaged and bed-ridden.

Despite this all, Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo force todoroki, who is burnt and recovering his voice, to get up and walk over to his father’s ward to speak to him.

Shoto, despite being unable to form full sentences, makes it FULLY CLEAR he does not want to be there, by closing the door to his ward, and attempting to leave. Despite his clear efforts, his family makes him go in to talk to him.

this 16 year old boy being forced out of RECOVERING, fully bandaged and barely able to talk, forced to visit his abuser to hear him cry about not being able to fight his own son, depsite also being his son and physically harmed by him since childhood.

In my opinion that wasn’t a good move on any of the family’s part.

Rei is a difficult subject to discuss. She is clearly a victim and has been for. while. She is mentally distant after being harmed for so long and spent time in a psyche-ward to handle herself.

Saying that she was a bad mother would be too far in my opinion, as she did her best to provide a nice life for her kids as well as defend them from her husband.

Not much is said about her, but from what we can tell she loved her kids very much, until the abuse started.

I feel the blame for shoto began with her, not being able to face her own son after the “death” of her first and the fact that his face reminded her of the abuse she’s faced from endeavor.

Her character is honestly an interesting one, but she is not safe from my scrutiny of the hospital scene. She was very brave for facing her abuser like this, however, she did not have to drag her bedridden youngest into the fray.

She is the DIRECT reason shoto has a scar on her face, (indirectly endeavor’s fault)

But i will never blame her for the abuse she faced for her children, by her husband and to an extent, her own son touya, which leads me into my next point

SPOILERS

Touya, aka Dabi, is the “Late” eldest brother who was originally Endeavor’s ticket into living vicariously to defeat all-might and be the number 1 hero.

I could go into the psychology of his character but he is ultimately very interesting. In all honesty the way he is presented as being the consequences of endeavor’s actions is palpable and honestly quite raw. At a young age, he was handling the pressure of being his father’s perfect creation, and the fame and fortune that followed as he sought his father’s approval. Soon, his quirk began to burn him every time he used it, a fact that endeavor ignored to pursue his goal. Touya’s power became self-harm at some point, an allegory for his disregard for his own life and well-being for his father’s dream which ultimately (literally) exploded on itself.

Touya’s story is interesting, from his abuse causing him to act like his father craving his approval, which lead him to act put against his mother and shoto, while laying his baggage onto his younger siblings, to losing his mind and realizing that he wanted his father dead and continuing the cycle of abuse further.

This is all a deep and interesting way to look at abuse and how the abused may become an abuser, HOWEVER.

MY critique here, is how sidelined his whole arc is, as his story is more portrayed of Endeavor’s past coming to haunt him, all for the watcher to sympathize with endeavor rather than understand how the abuse endeavor put onto touya made dabi. This whole arc was framed to be sympathetic towards endeavor, and to fear Dabi. Don’t even get me started on how Shoto’s feelings meant nothing in this arc, as well as being immediately cut off by a surprise cameo of a character that possibly discredited Dabi’s expose video on his abuser.

Finally, we get to talk about the elephant in the room: Enji Todoroki, endeavor himself.

What is there not to say about this man.

I feel I should start eith the obvious:

The forgiveness/sympathy arc for endeavor was quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen in the anime, and this is not subjective.

The whole arc is based around how Endeavor is a victim of his own mind and is trying his hardest to make up for being a terrible person.

Personally, i love to see character arcs of villains becoming a better person, but thats the very thing: Endeavor is trying to ask for forgiveness from his family, who he abused for 15 YEARS. This is no exaggeration as Shoto is now 16, and his cracks started forming as soon as he was born.

Endeavor had illegally married a woman that he basically bought his way into,

was illegally “breeding” (eugh) for quirk benefits,

Treated one of his son’s like a vicarious version of himself

Physically abused his son (age 5+) his wife, and verbally abused the rest of his children

isolated his son

treated his son like a weapon

and finally felt too prideful for any sort of meaningful apology.

This all adds up to a character who only felt sorry for his actions after the consequences started hitting him in the face, as he only felt remorseful when Shoto refused to be associated with him.

Now, some of you may be thinking: “A lot of characters are forgiven for more, why would he be the exception? It’s fictional why do you care?”

There are several reasons to why I care but i’ll speak in terms of framing for now. This show is highly influential to not only kids (as it is a KIDS SHOW) but to adults as well. May i direct your attention to the man who saved a woman from a murderous ex-boyfriend by blocking his machete hits all because My Hero Academia inspired him to take action and be a hero?

Or how about a murder that took place because the accused was inspired by an invader zim episode (the dark harvest)

Whether you like it or not, fiction HAS an affect on reality. Yes, we can determine what is real and what is fake, but you cannot deny that a lot of what media we consume helps us be who we are.

If the show promotes more sympathy towards an abuser than their victims, then people may find themselves sympathizing real world abusers over the voices of victims.

I wont speak on delicate subjects but I can already see affects of this happening, as people rally to defend famous people accused of being abusers rather than listen and provide support to the alleged victims.

In conclusion, These topics are definitely not easy to write, and I, for one, am NO expert and my word should not be used as gospel truth or a guideline on how to write these characters.

This is all simply my opinion on how the bias towards abusers in the show leads for the message to be skewed and marred in action.

I understand that no one is perfect, but if we only reward and sympathize with those who only seek redemption after they face scrutiny, then we lose the meaning of what makes someone worthy of forgiveness.

These topics are deep and interesting, but the way they are handled in this show is simply bad writing.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk and again: no shade towards the writers. Just critiques!

#nort speaks #media analysis #//abuse #mha #my hero academia #todoroki #the todoroki family #touya todoroki #shoto todoroki #rei todoroki #enji todoroki #endeavor #dabi #natsuo todoroki #fuyumi todoroki #dont expect me to suddenly start posting abt mha #im not arguing with anyone either #thesr are my thoughts 💪

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emimii · 22 days

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Share your mistoffelees brainrot?? ( ´ ▽ ` )

okay so sorry this took a while to answer anon had to let my thoughts simmer to make sense lol

first things first he has autism cause iii have autism. hes my fave so he gets to be projected onto (but tbf its already a semi-common hc i think)

like from the autism headcanon he tends to go non-verbal often esp when hes exhausted physically or mentally so like at the end of a long day some will try n talk to him and he just stares at them

the autism is genetic btw alonzo has it too but in a different flavour, i think like a difference between their spots on the spectrum is the misto is the hyperexpressive autism and his face is reaaaaally easy to read while alonzo doesnt tend to have his emotions show on his face and also has a more monotone voice

on the topic of alonzo and family im a big monochromatic siblings enjoyer i definitely think they r so so silly, i like to imagine that victoria is hard of hearing and so they’d all know sign language liek… jsl…. jellicle sign language

i mentioned in a couple posts too bustopher is their uncle to me!!! the way in the 1998 film mistos constantly tryn like touch him n everything is so cute hes so excited to see his uncle…

bustopher is like his rich cool uncle who stayed single and unmarried his whole life so hes got a bunch savings and excess cash that he just uses to get crazy gifts for his nephews n niece

i like to imagine misto (and also other magical cats in general) have their powers somewhat connected to the moon so like during the jellicle moon they can achieve crazier feats, like the amount of magic misto does at the ball is a lot more than his average and its also done more easily

i also think mistos one of the shortest if not the shortest cat w the exception of a handful of kittens, and out of pure spite hes always tryna make up with this fact by getting good at everything else

heavy lifting? got it he could princess carry tugger. climbing? easy he can climb on anything. running around? hes fast as hell u see him one side of the room and all of a sudden hes on the other side

i also wish people made misto like somewhat competitive more solely from the one 1982 old gumbie cat performance where he has a tap off with jennyanydots bcuz i think thats fun and silly

i feel like hes an extrovert and myyyy reasoning for this is that he loves talking to people and he craaaves interaction hes just not really good at it sometimes in contrast to tugger who is an introvert to me, just an introvert w unbelievable swag and charisma so everyones around him (which is why you see him off at the side away from everyone at times hes recharging!!!)

#i think ill stop there for now but like #i think abt him a lot.#hes my special mew mew #cats the musical #mr mistoffelees #emi’s asks

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torchickentacos · 1 year

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Every Opportunity Pokemon Missed by not having Drew in Destiny Deoxys: A Non-Comprehensive But Still Long-Ass list

Art above- credit to the lovely @salon-maiden-anabel ! So. This is a topic that, if my sister mentions, she knows I will go off about it at the dinner table while my mother stares on confusedly. This is a topic I feel very strongly about, and I decided to put it into words for this post-and I KNOW I'm not the only one with strong feelings about this topic! @raich-raichu I know you showed interest in this topic when I said I'd do it so hope you don't mind if I @ you! THIS GOES FOR EVERYONE: PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE REBLOG WITH YOUR OWN OPINIONS AND/OR ADDITIONS ON THIS. I thrive on hearing everyone's takes and opinions. Images are included which makes it kind of long, each number on my list has a corresponding image below. For funsies. Also, I imagine this happening right before the last grand festival, though I know that’s incorrect. It just gives me more developed characters to work with since advanced and battle frontier Drew are pretty different development wise. This is with late AG Drew.

Some background. Why do I think Drew should be in Destiny Deoxys (which will be referred to as DD for the sake of my carpal tunnel)? What is the connection? Why DD and not, say Temple of the Sea? The key is the location. Drew is canonically from LaRousse City. And DD is the ONLY time we ever get to see it. Connection has been established. So... what would he even do in the movie? I'm glad you asked! Let's get into it. A numbered list of every missed opportunity the writers had by not including him.

1.) Character building through backstory. We know little to nothing about Drew's backstory, and this would have been a really natural way to learn more about it. We could have had a scene where we learn, oh, this is the flower shop his mother worked at and he grew up helping tend to the plants or whatever. This is the garden where he met budew. Just little things here and there would have been fascinating, and this movie's setting was a PERFECT opportunity for it. Plus, here's the vision. We get a semi emotional, nostalgic scene with his favorite place as a child, right? Rare Drew emotional moment, maybe sharing it with May and co.? And then, later in the movie, we see that place destroyed by the conflict in the city and we get an emotional sad moment there!!!! And in the ending credits with the song??? WE SEE HIM AND HIS POKEMON STAYING BEHIND IN THE CITY AND STARTING TO REBUILD IT (after waving at Ash and co. on the train back to mainland Hoenn). Guys, my vision is CLEAR AS DAY. Greenhouse time.

2.) Seeing him interact with other characters. Drew isn't the most extroverted guy out there, and we only ever really see him talk to Ash, May, Solidad, Harley, and Brianna. Also, May is the only consistent one in that list. That's literally five people, for those of you keeping count at home. In DD? A large cast of interesting characters for him to interact with, possibly childhood acquaintances that know him! We have Rebecca, purple hair metagross trainer who likes her computer more than most people. Sid, a human golden retriever. Rafe, who's basically Drew but with brown hair and none of the redeeming qualities. The two twins, whose names are never spoken and are only in the credits as Audrey and Kathryn (one of them also has a masquerain iirc, or at least a Surskit!). And Tory, kid who is scared of pokemon and tbh I wouldn't change Tory's role or screen interactions much. I would, however, say the others have a lot of potential for interactions with Drew. Rafe taunting both Ash and Drew at the same time? Rebecca and Drew getting along well because they're the only two who appreciate silence as a form of hanging out? Audrey and Katherine taking little sibling roles, possibly? Tons of possibilities here.

3.) Shamelessly plugging the contestshipping agenda here, but why else do you all follow me? Anyways, Sid from Destiny Deoxys has a sweet but entirely blatant crush on May (who actually knows and does not give much of a shit, though they get along well anyways). Now, I usually do not like jealousy tropes. I think they're easy to do poorly and for them to come across as posessive, which I am not a fan of. HOWEVER, I am a fan of Drew being all moody and bitchy /affectionate. I can see it going either one of two ways: one, we get asshole Drew back from season one of Advanced, who makes snide remarks at Sid who would likely brush it off as fun banter, further annoying Drew who literally cannot get under Sid's skin due to Sid's overwhelming optimism, or two, we get the Drew that has all of his walls up, hiding behind this cool facade of professionalism and aloofness, sort of emotionally overcompensating for trying to hide how much it irks him. Either way, would have been fun. Could have been used for comedy, too, since May is dumb as shit with the guy who has genuine feelings for her, but clocks the puppy love crush from Sid immediately. Would I have trusted the pokemon company to do this trope well? No, but it could have been funny as hell in the right hands.

4.) On that note, THE PASSPORT PHOTO SCENE. May isn't the most photogenic person in the world. Does he tease her about it? Does he make some offhand remark about how he thinks she looks nice before aloof-ly and deftly moving on from the topic, leaving her with the rare compliment as she tries to figure out if he was serious or not (or was it for her beautifly)? Does he show her how to retake it? DOES SHE GENUINELY SMILE IN THAT RETAKE PHOTO, LOOKING AT HIM BEHIND THE CAMERA ROBOT THING???????ASDFGHJKL so much potential with this already gold scene.

5.) More location-based character building. LaRousse City is home to the (or at least a) Battle Tower, and no mention of contests. This means, likely, that LaRousse is a very battle-enthusiast city. Did this make Drew feel like an outcast as a kid, being interested in something different from his peers? Could have been interesting.

6.) Let Drew have his hero moment. Let's be honest- most of the times that we see him, he's being either a jerk (affectionate), head-over-heels in love, or pathetic (see: Who What When Where Wynaut drowning incident). And in what I would categorize as an adventure anime, he has remarkably... little adventuring, save for a traipse in the woods with On Cloud Arcanine. This can be his moment to actually shine! He's obviously a great battler, though he prefers contest-oriented formats. He beat Ash with a type disadvantage. He's a strong trainer- let him put it to use and try to hold off the Deoxys clones (bonus points if he's holding them off from May, not that she needs him to save her ass).

7.) Forced togetherness with the crew. We know Drew has no issue spending time with May, and he's at the very least quite tolerant of Ash. But... Brock? Max? Fun fact, Brock CANONICALLY does NOT like Drew. At all. Calls him nails on a chalkboard. Makes this face at him (pictured below). Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't want more of that. Tell me to my face that you don't want more of him having to socialize and of Brock being... like this. Shit's hilarious.

Look at him.

I need more of this in my life.

8.) The angst. He has his entire city destroyed, let him have a grieving moment for it. Hell, let him have a moment where May tries to reach out and he has to decide if he's going to let her in or shut her out. Does he snap, like he did in May, We Harley Drew'd Ya? Does he let her in, like The Unbeatable Lightness of Seeing? Do the other LaRoussians reach out to him and let him know, hey, we're in this together? DO THE PLUSLE AND MINUN TRY TO CHEER HIM UP??????

9.) Let him get separated from the group, or let the group get separated from him. Let him have panic, uncertainty, worry for his newfound friends. Humanize him a little bit for casual viewers who know him as 'that asshole with the roses'. You know how Pokemon loves shots of people reaching out to save someone? Give me that. Let him not reach their hand in time as Deoxys clones pull them away or as they get lost in a swarm of security bots. Give me a Drew that thinks he’s failed, that it’s his fault. It isn’t of course, I just like putting him through it. Then… give me a reunion scene. An “oh my god, you’re all safe, I thought I had lost you” scene. Did you guys know we don’t get a single contestshipping hug????? Ever???? No, her keeping him from drowning doesn’t count. I think that’s a crime and I think a “thank god you’re alive” hug, from either end, would be amazing. Ship mode activated. Imagine. May, spotting him from across the city plaza once the dust settles, and sprinting to him, nearly knocking him over with a hug that he hesitantly returns, before realizing he doesn’t want to let go. Alternately, the other way around: he lets his walls down long enough to hug her, to feel safe to break down for a minute in her arms because he was so fucking worried. May, short-circuiting slightly because wait, is this really the same rival that she accidentally threw a frisbee at and hated so long ago? Give me Sid reacting forlornly in the background too fhdhhf. I love Sid, he’ll be ok. (Also: Brock having a moment of “Oh. You’re still alive. Great.” Kidding, mostly.) also… Brock giving Sid a “yeah, I know how it feels” pat on the back???? Just a concept.

10.) More Roselia teasing him. She's the biggest contestshipper out there. I love this little green rose gal. We need more of her being snarky to her trainer. She had so much personality with so few appearances, I love her. GIVE HIS OTHER POKEMON PERSONALITIES TOO!!!! Give them time to shine! My own takes here, but I like to think Absol is over Drew's bullshit 24/7 and is the serious one of the group. Flygon? no thoughts head empty, like most reptiles. Ft. a picture of my own no thoughts head empty reptile, who made friends with a cricket in his cleaning bowl below under Roselia gif. The others, no idea but there's my takes.

#pokemon #pokeani #anipoke #pokemon drew #coordinator drew #destiny deoxys #taylor's tag #contestshipping

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in-a-slanted-outhouse · 2 years

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Ok so I’ve been thinking about Five and Delores recently and I honestly find the whole concept of Delores absolutely fascinating. I wanted to post this before season three in case I get contradicted and all of this work was for nothing

So today I present to you:

Why I think that Number Five can still be aroace and have loved Delores

An essay on comphet by me, a bisexual who is procrastinating the work he actually has to do and stayed up way too late for this

So I’m going to be talking about Five’s sexuality, a very controversial topic of which I could end up pissing off at least one person whilst discussing. So a little disclaimer: y’all don’t have to listen to a word I say. We can all have different headcanons. I just request that you please read the entirety of this before you reply

Anyways

Five does not have a canon sexuality as of when I’m writing this so it is therefore entirely up to interpretation

Here’s mine

A lot of people who argue Five can’t be aroace often point out that he had a romantic relationship with Delores or feel that saying Five is aroace undermines the relationship that he had with her. I’m here to say that that isn’t necessarily true. In fact, in my opinion, it could make their relationship more faceted and interesting if it wasn’t a romantic relationship

To me at least

Firstly, I don’t think Five ever explicitly states what his relationship to Delores was other than saying they were ‘together for over thirty years’ when Klaus has a brief discussion with him about romantic and sexual relationships. Now, this does heavily imply that they were in some sort of romantic relationship however, it could also be taken as them being partners in a more platonic sense because Five mentioning it seems more prompted by Klaus claiming him to have been alone (and Five feeling semi comfortable enough to take that as an opportunity to open up to him) more than anything else.

Secondly, (and here’s my main argument) their entire relationship will always be based off Five’s perception of how certain relationships work. If Five believes that him and Delores were in a romantic relationship then that can only be based on the way he perceives romantic relationships or more accurately, the way a sheltered thirteen year old perceives romantic relationships. And as Delores is an extension of Five himself, she will always have the same subconscious values and feelings that he has, as well as with him being trapped in The Apocalypse, he couldn’t have been told differently by anyone else.

All of how he sees romantic relationships is going to be based off the limited knowledge of what he saw around him. Majority of this would have been from late-nineties/early-2000s media as well as (and mostly) older literature that he was taught in class or burnt up books, magazines and newspapers in the wreckage of The Apocalypse.

Five didn’t have a very good model of what a healthy, loving, romantic relationship looked like, growing up. And he didn’t really have anyone that he could have fallen in love with other than his siblings (eek.) His two real life references for what a romantic relationship could look like would have been his father and robot mother; and his brother and sister unhealthily projecting their repressed puberty feelings onto each other due to their isolation from the rest of the world

Robot Grace was essentially a maid to Reginald and not a real romantic interest so I highly doubt that he ever saw them as being in a romantic relationship despite them both being his ‘parents’. This is backed up by the way that Diego reacts to finding out that real Grace and Reginald were dating in the 60s

Reginald (although I doubt that he would have wanted the Hargreeves to fall in love and distract from saving the world) seems like the kind of man to have very old-fashioned values that a man and a woman fall in love and then they get married. And all of the Hargreeves would have been influenced by that somewhat by what media he let them consume. As well as this, we have a very heteronormative society and back in 2002 the access to information wasn’t void but it wasn’t excessive either

Five, having a curious mind and always striving to understand everything, probably did have some idea on different relationships and sexualities but he still would have had limited access to those resources. He could very easily be aroace (or any other sexuality for that matter) but during his years at The Academy, had such little eduction on the matter that he couldn’t truly figure himself out. I doubt he would have known about sexualities other than being straight, gay or bi and could have had the thought process of ‘I’m not attracted to men, so I must be straight,’ or ‘I’m not attracted to women so I must be gay,’ or even ‘I’m attracted to both equally (equally not attracted) so I must be bi.’ He could have also had such little interest in romantic relationships that he just didn’t put that amount of thought into it/thought that everyone had the same internal nonchalance about it but that some people were just more externally excited about the prospect than others

His access to this kind of information would have decreased when he landed The Apocalypse, partly because there was no one else there to give him the information and partly because a lot of books containing said information would have been destroyed. That’s not to say they would have all been destroyed because obviously Viktor’s autobiography survived, but a large amount of them would have been destroyed.

Now, Five, as we’ve seen, is often described by the fandom as being a magpie in the way that he mimics the behaviour of those around him as a survival mechanism. Five, obviously knows what love is, and I have no doubt that what he felt for Delores was love, but for someone who, was separated from society at a young age and has a tedious reference for what romantic love looks like, it could be quite difficult for him to distinguish between romantic and platonic/familial love. Delores was very much created by Five as a coping mechanism to slow his impending insanity. It wouldn’t be far fetched for him to have created Delores and as he slowly slipped into believing she was real, he ended up developing a love for her -which could have been platonic/familial love- but based off of his knowledge of ‘when a man and a woman are in love they must be in a romantic relationship’ he analysed his own feelings of love and went ‘hey, this must be what romantic love is!’

And Delores wouldn’t be able to say any different because she wouldn’t know any different because she lives inside Five’s headspace

Essentially what I’m saying is that Five spending his teens (and entire life) in isolation with his only companion being a person who he made up, would realistically hinder his own sexual exploration and due to limited resources, could cause him to misinterpret his own feelings of platonic/familial love for romantic love. Meaning that with Delores he could have ended up subconsciously or maybe even intentionally mimicking the traditional heterosexual romantic relationship with his own interpretation of what he’s been taught is what happens when man and woman love each other, as a way of experience some semblance of the life he was missing/be able to live semi-in-denial of his suffering on occasion. Therefore, Five (and Delores by extension) could still be aroace and have been in a relationship

Five clearly loved Delores (and we know that he does love people in a platonic/familial way because his entire character/motivation is based off his love for family) and he clearly needed her but it’s never specified what their love entailed, and therefore their relationship could have been based off of a child’s misunderstanding of how romantic relationships work. They could have still been life long partners without loving each other romantically. Five could still love her deeply and strongly and in a meaningful way without loving her romantically. They could have still technically been in a romantic relationship if both parties (singular party technically) believed that they were.

Five could still not experience romantic or sexual attraction and still have loved Delores. He does it with his family every single day

And obviously this logic of Five not being able to explore his sexuality and having limited resources for that could also apply to him having any sexuality. I’m not denying that. I’m just using it as a way to show that him and Delores could still have loved each other and had a relationship that was just as important as a romantic one without it actually being romantic

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk

#reminder that yall dont have to agree with me on this #i just wanted to share my opinion and analysis #there arent any s3 spoilers in this btw #tua #the umbrella academy #five #delores #number five #five meta #louie says shit #aroace five #long post

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azira-fucking-phale · 8 months

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ong hiiiiiiii do u have a first name u use for quint?? :3 love getting to hear ppls thoughts on The Guy

Okay okay okay I have been Ruminating on this ask because I realized I genuinely don't have a first name for him. To me he is Quint. Like he is sooo fundamentally Quint to be. Quint Quintleston, if you will, but also I think some of the commonly accepted names like Bartholomew and Sam are pretty neat.

But.

Butttt I don't think they're RIGHT y'know?? It's hard to explain, but I have this very specific idea of how Quint grew up in New England that those names just feel Wrong. Bartholomew is a bit too British, and Sam is a bit too uninspired (sorry Sam enjoyers that was the only way I could describe my thoughts about it).

He grew up along the coast of Massachusetts, obviously, I can't imagine him growing up anywhere else, and was one of the older (but not oldest) siblings of his family. From my experience, New Englanders hate weird names. Not explicitly, but they always veer to the realm of safety and pick whatever's at the top of the list in 'most popular baby names.' That's just how it is-- the region is very traditional and conservative (not necessarily politically, but morally). So I would not be surprised if Quint had a very very boring and common name.

If we're going off Quint being the same age as Robert Shaw when he appeared in the film, then let's say he was born in '35, so the most popular names then (at least according to Wikipedia I didn't feel like looking at actual statistics) was James, Robert, John, Thomas, Donald, etc. I don't think he has those names specifically, but I think he had one that is SIMILAR to those names. A la ye olde blandness style. Obviously that list doesn't account for geographic location but oh well.

But this is the thing with New Englanders, specifically ones who are lower class: they will typically resort to these names because they are Biblical, and while not as religious as some other regions in the U.S., rural New England tends to be very Christian, and you’ll encounter more churches than actual people. I sort of believe Quint grew up in a semi-religious household. Not outlandishly so, but what I call “New England Christian levels,” where you say grace before dinner and go to church on Sundays. Definitely think he’s estranged from his family now and non-practicing, but now I’m getting off topic.

I think we've also got to consider coastal regions and families of fishermen and sailors and the idea of passing names on generationally from father to son, and my GOD do you get some cool names. Some regionally famous captains from where I'm from have some of my favorite first names, Ephraim, Reuben, Lewis, etc. I imagine Quint's family being involved in coastal work as an inherited job throughout the family, so it would make sense if they retained some of these naming conventions. I wouldn’t be surprised if Quint was named after a sea-faring forefather as part of carrying on the family name, and because I think he’s estranged from his family, it would make sense in the movie why he’s never referred to as anything other than Quint: he’s rejecting an aspect of his family and embracing a kind of ‘new identity’ for himself. Out of personal bias, I kind of vibe with this option more so because I grew up in a coastal fishing community and think some of the family names are cool as shit, but that's just me.

So there's kind of two alternatives for what Quint's first name COULD be in my mind: boring boring bland typical New England, or Olde Traditional Captain

Also I should say because Tumblr reading comprehension is so ass: when I say 'New England does x' "New England is y' I AM SPEAKING FROM PPERRSONALLLL EXPERIENCEEEEE (as in, I AM A LOW CLASS NEW ENGLANDER LEAVE ME ALONE) different areas within the region are VERY different from one another. Like I could talk about the coastal vs northern social differences for so long and that's just for the state where I live

#i have sooo many thoughts about quints history do not get me started #just apparently not enough about his name #if you read this whole thing? sorry!#quint #captain quint #jaws 1975

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sh3riffs · 2 years

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Empires’ Headcanons! (I deisided this will chronicalized all my headcanons) ;P

- The Ocean Queen was adopted by Mezalean nobility, and was the primary architect of the Ocean Empire, as she felt drawn to the Ocean and Seas..

- The Codfather was founded by the Cod Council, and was raised by them..

- Lady Katherine is originally from a highly respected family that lived in Gilded Helianthia..

- The part of Gilded Helianthia where Pearl rule was a city-state..

- Count fWhip and Wizard Gem are dragon-hybrids..

- Lord Sausage and Pearl are cousins..

- Katherine and Jimmy are cousins, due to their surnames being implied to be hyphenated, Elizabeth-”Gaming” and Solidarity-”Gaming”..

- Sausage and Shelby are haft-siblings, I just like their dynamic..

- Shelby and Pirate Joe are cousins as well..

- “Sausage” is his surname, as his character full name is “Mythical J. Sausage”.. (Basically he prefer to be called by his surname rather then his first name..)

- On the topic of surname, in goblins culture, they do not have legal surname, and are often differentiated by their occupation or status..

- Pearl is asexual aromantic..

- Jimmy is asexual..

- Sausage is aromantic, and Katherine is on the aromantic spectrum..

- Some of the gods Joel forgot about are Aeor, and Exor, as well as the Ocean Queen and the Codfather.. and obviously Pearl, who he remembers as “Peril”..

- Joel and Pearl are both mortals who ascended to godhood..

- The Copper King, Pixl was also a god, but never started out as a mortal, and his often seen as the God of Life and Resurrection, a foil to Pearl if you will.. (This can serve symbolism like, Pearl who lived in a fertile forest is the Goddess of Death, while Pixl living in a dry dessert is the God of Life, something something yin and yang..)

- The religion that worship Pearl is the main religion of the Empires’ World.. However she is seen differently depending on the Empire or Kingdom you in.. Offen seen as the Goddess of Harvest, Death and War or Combat..

- The Ocean Queen is seen as the Goddess of the Sea, while the Codfather is considered God of Swamps, Rivers and Streams, though they’re are often seen as a pair..

- Joel is seen as a God of Thunder, Lightning and Hurricanes or the God of Storytelling.. (Lore basically..)

- Gods are normally over 20ft with Joel being the only exception, as Queen Lizzie and the Codfather doesn't count, being demigods, and even being taller then other demigods, being sea creatures as well..

- When the other gods was still around they would shapeshift to Joel’s height or shorter to make him feel better, this combine with his canon bad memory, is why he have a false imagine of being average height, or taller then average..

- Hermes came to life with the mind and body of a 8-9 year old child..

- Hermes is semi-mute..

- Hermes started off as a shulker so they can shoot shulker bullets..

- The Empire Pixl is restoring was first constructed after the rapture, mainly by people of Gilded Helianthia and Mythland, but serve as a safe place for any citizen who Empire was destroyed..

- Lady Katherine help construct and was the first queen, of GlimmerGrove..

- Only non-human that are aloud in GlimmerGrove are fairies and anthropomorphic animals, even tho, the people are wary of them. Magic Users have take an oath, and promise not to use magic in the confined of the Kingdom, as they believe a witch or wizard might had somehing to do with the Queen having a “curse” baby..

- Lizzie is very keen on learning, and is very knowledgeable on history, mainly of the Ocean Empire, Codlands, and Lost Empire, being the citizen mainly descended from their..

- Lizzie wear crutches..

- Critter City is a city-state..

- Animalia is a communist country..

- GilmmerGrove have colonies..

- Katherine was raise to whole a racial bias against non-human.. Katherine herself had thought past this as she been isolated by her own kingdom for being “curse.” But still whole prejudices on other species..

- After meeting Katherine, Shelby started working out, trying to impress her..

- Not acknowledging the Ancient Capital.. Stratos and GilmmerGrove are the oldest standing Empires, with Stratos being the oldest..

- Not acknowledging False’s Empire, and Olipoligo, the youngest Empires are Animalia, Eversea, and the Evermoore, Animalia being less then 100 years old, with Father Floof still being alive, and Eversea and the Evermoore only just being built..

- Gem and fWhip is autism spec. while fWhip also have Adhd along with Shelby, with Shelby having more of the attention aspect and fWhip with more of the hyperactivity..

- Pixl is originally from Tumble Town..

- Everyone who was on Alsmp exist in the Empires’ Universe..

- Seapeekay reside in Animalia..

- Meghan and Mika goes to the Shelby’s Witch Academy..

- Lauren reside in Chromia..

- Gem is an Haft-Elf, a Sun Elf specify, and as Sun Elves are elitist, it can add onto Gem trying to fine her own identity, as well as contribute to why she may have a “Princess” title..

- fWhip, Lizzie, Jimmy and Shelby are the shortest rulers..

- Joey, Gem, Katherine, and Joel are the tallest rulers..

- False was isekai’d from the main Hermitcraft universe or the alternate universe where Mumbo became mayor..

- Shelby, Sausage, and Pixl descended from people of the Crystal Cliffs..

- Scott and Jimmy descended from people of Mezalea..

- Gem descended from the people of Mythland and Gilded Helianthia..

- Katherine descended from the people of House Blossom..

- The people of Sausage old Empires mostly descended from the Mezalea, Crystal Cliffs and Gilded Helianthia..

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zombinooo · 1 year

Text

🚨My RP Rules! Pls read if you want to rp with me ofc i will be reading urs as well🚨

~If interested like the post to lmk that you've read my rules and DM me~

1: No suicide or any kind of triggering jokes if I hear one joke I will be reporting you and leave the chat making jokes about depression/anxiety/addictions/trauma ISN'T fun! :)

2: No gender bender characters pls and thanks.

3: I'm semi lit but I can also roleplay in different styles including the one your used to just so you're comfortable while roleplaying with me so for me that's not an issue at all. ♡

4: OC x Canon or Canon x Canon is fine with me as long as we stay on the topic of the roleplay (Tokyo Revengers) I don't like mixing characters from different animes especially if they have absolutely nothing to do with Tokyo Revengers. Thank you.

5: When you roleplay with me keep in mind I'm on 24/7 unless I'm at work/asleep/if there's no Wi-Fi/or I have family problems/issues the thing I need you to understand is that my mental health is my number 1 priority everyone haves some kind of problems that you may not know about and we all need time to heal first the rest will come later. ♡

6: I DON'T ship the Haitani bros, the Kawata twins or any other siblings from Tokyo Revengers THEY ARE SIBLINGS and the relationship SHOULD STAY LIKE THAT don't even bother DM me if you ship siblings..

7: NO I repeat myself NO underage characters/OC's if your character/OC is under 18 there's no way I'll roleplay with you I also do NOT roleplay with minors keep that in mind please.

8: Yes i do NSFW rp

Kinks I'm into: choking, breeding, degradation, praises, rope bunny, being blindfolded, gagged, a lot of pussy teasing, cock-warming while not allowed to move, handcuffs, hair pulling, kitty 👅/teasing, begging, daddy kink, princess kink, aftercare

Kinks I will NOT do: piss/shit/food/vomit/anal/milking/sex during pregnancy/male impregnation (that's it for now if I remember something I'll make sure to inform you)

Feel free to share with me ur kinks/interests as well i won't judge

Triggers: mentions of p*dophilia, r*pe, being dr*gged without knowing/giving consent i do not mind the mentions/consuming of drugs as long as it is WITH CONSENT only that of course goes if we stick with the Bonten arc/timeline after all keep in mind that Bonten IS a criminal organization that is doing illegal activities

9: I understand that you have some work/university/family problems as well but if your planing on ghosting me simply because you are busy please give me 5 minutes of your time and tell me about it iI will understand and not throw a fuss about it....just don't let me wait for you to respond if you aren't going to respond it is not a very pleasant feeling. Thank you. ♡´･ᴗ･`♡

10: Please don't be weird, don't do weird stuff and don't control characters you aren't roleplaying as.

11: Please don't spam me with multiple messages at once I have a life outside of social media and sometimes would have a lot of things going on simply said I want the same respect back that I'm giving to you. Thank you. ♡

12: Don't make me be every single character I'm still trying my best in portraying males but I don't want all the work to be put onto me it'll probably make me want to stop roleplaying with you so to prevent that from happening in my opinion we should split the characters 50/50 if you know what I mean. Thank you. ♡´･ᴗ･`♡

13: Please try to write at least a few sentences because if you write only 1 or 2 sentences it's really hard for me to respond to your text and the fun of the roleplay just dies at least for me...simply said no I don't expect you to be 'perfect' no one is. Thank you. ♡

14: I do like angst but not too much or I might cry my ass off....also i don't mind different arcs/timeline's but i do prefer the Bonten arc/timeline....i mostly use my OC for that and some other male characters from TR as well

So far I've roleplayed as:

Kisaki

Hanma

Chifuyu

Baji

Mikey

Draken

Mitsuya

Kokonoi

Inui

Sanzu

Both Haitani brothers

All characters MUST be aged up meaning 18+ not only due to the NSFW part but also due to the fact I would feel uncomfortable knowing they are minors in the rp so i highly insist on aging them up!

15:If I say no about something once please don't push the topic any further. Thanks.

16: NO LGBTQ HATE! I myself am a LGBTQ member please let's simply respect each other and have peace not war! And NO racism please!

17: I'm pretty much down for a bxb and bxg I haven't done gxg yet I don't mind trying it out ofc

bxb ships I will be willing to do: Mikey x Draken, Mikey x Sanzu, Baji x Chifuyu, Hakkai x Mitsuya, Hanma x Kisaki, Sanzu x Mucho, Sanzu x H. Ran, Angry x H. Rindou, Kokonoi x Inupi, Izana x Kakucho

bxg: I have no idea tbh we can figure something out either with canon characters or OC's as I mentioned I don't mind OC's

gxg: I honestly don't know 😅

bxg: Pls keep in mind i only do double up roleplays when it comes to a oc x cc type of rp!

↓Example:↓

Ur oc x cc by ur choice

My oc x cc by my choice

The same thing goes for a cc x cc type of rp as well!

↓Example:↓

Ur chosen cc x cc ship

My chosen cc x cc ship

18: Ships I will NOT do: Mikey x Senju, Mikey x Izana, Mikey x Takemitchi, Draken x Takemitchi, Takemitchi x Yuzuha, Mitsuya x Yuzuha, Takemitchi x Toman/Tenjiku/Black Dragon/Bonten/Kantou Manji members, Takemitchi x Kisaki, Takemitchi x Hanma, Takemitchi x Naoto, Kazutora x Baji, Kazutora x Chifuyu nor Kazutora x Baji x Chifuyu

19: Also please keep in mind that my native language isn't English so I might make some mistakes here and there while writing please don't get mad I'm still learning. So to be clear I only roleplay in English. ^^

20: No overpowered OC's please not quite my cup of tea. Thanks.

#tokyo rev smut #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo rev rp #haitani brothers #haitani ran x reader #haitani rindou x reader #sanzu haruchiyo #sanzu x y/n #rp request #bxg #active rp #bxb rp #tokyo rev x y/n #bonten 18+#bonten #bonten smut #bonten trio #Spotify

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andy-the-8th · 1 year

Text

I'm gonna go on a little bit of an off-ish topic rant about So Weird for a second and do my best to keep this mostly positive (this blog is about old DCOMs so I'm going to say this is still on-topic, feel free to filter the tag "so weird" if this is outside realms of interest). I will also offer the caveat that I only watched the first two seasons and only ever intend to do so

One thing I actually enjoyed about this series (besides the fact that it was willing to engage with actual grieving and long-term effects of that on family dynamics) is that it was super casual about showing physical platonic affection

The main characters are all kind of a big family (I pitched it to my friend as "the X Files but instead of feds it's a 90s alt rock sort-of-throuple dealing with their blended teenager sibling group's shenanigans"

For the record I use the term "throuple" mostly for humorous brevity - I don't read Molly as having any actual romantic or sexual subtext with the Bells, but I would say they all kind of co-parent together to some extent or another

Platonic affection isn't presented as an uncommon thing between parents and kids, or between siblings/pseudo-siblings, and is casually shown in the series (I think it was the first or second episode that had Clu sleeping on the bus's couch, head on his mom's lap with her just stroking his hair, and this character's like 17 or 18)

I would even say that if you had to pick a single character relationship that the series is About, it's Jack and Fi's sibling bond and navigating that through the lens of having different responses to their father's death (the Mulder/Scully dynamic they have is sort of a whimsical translation of that). I think there's a reason that perhaps the scariest moment in the series is where the Will o' the Wisp is threatening to turn their relationship against them to trap Jack's soul forever, and the way he's defeated is essentially because he doesn't understand the love they have for each other even (or especially) under the ways they conflict with each other

Just in general siblings/parents hugging or casually sitting cuddled together is pretty regular. Maybe the characters are supposed to be just super comfortable being close with each other from sharing enclosed space so much, as 6 mostly adult-sized people literally living on a tour bus together, but it's nice to see

Which leads me to the topic of Carey's relationship with Molly once he replaces Clu in season 2 - I have seen some fans want to read some sort of subtext in there but honestly I find that incredibly uncomfortable. If anything he's just kind of reaching out to a close adult family friend he can come to about his struggles/music aspirations/etc outside his biological parents, and yeah because he's a hot guy in his 20s it reads a little differently than the younger teens, but I don't personally see any plus into reading that as having some kind of romantic/sexual tension

like we see expressly in the flashback scenes that Molly has been kind of a third parent-figure (and I use that intentionally openly; locking parental roles into a strict binary of "the mom" and "the dad" isn't what we're about here) in his life growing up, so shipping or semi-shipping that is extremely unpleasant and strange in my opinion

Same with shipping Clu with either Jack or Fi, or (I have seen it and it's rather repulsive) Jack and Fi together, it feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of the character dynamic

going to comment on fandom in general though, I notice sibling incest ships tend to arise in situations where actors have a lot of chemistry, and writers are channeling that into their family dynamic but it means that love interests feel kind of flat by comparison - it's sort of another side of the same fandom-discourse dodecahedron which posits m/m ships get popular because male characters tend to be written with more dimension than female ones, which gives fans more to be interested in and read into and simply enjoy as narrative devices. You engage more easily with a story and its parts when there's simply more to work with

Shipping as a primary means to engage with media is a thing, I get that, so like do what you want, thought crime isn't a thing and characters aren't real people etc etc etc. However, reading a positive portrayal of (often interestingly non-traditional) family affection as somehow sexual I think fundamentally misses key points of the whole story. The fact that there aren't really any obviously shippable characters in the main cast isn't a bad thing

mumbled aside about the moderate amount of frustration I have with the other fandom I write for where for some reason people feel the need to pair up the entire cast in some combination or another but not going to get into that here

Anyway I am not trying to start fandom discourse in a microscopic old fandom like this; I more meant this to positively comment on how open the series is with letting family members show affection and to give my two cents to the void on the Carey & Molly subtext interpretations

#so weird #disney channel #don't mind me I'm expressing Opinions on the internet #probably will delete this #incest mention

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propheticalleg · 2 years

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I have a problem with the way Billy Hargrove was written

Like, yeah, he's one of my favorite characters, of course i have a fucking problem with how the Duffer bros treated him. And i’m aware that this all was said before, but, you know, NOT BY ME

They could have fun with him. It could’ve been done in different ways.

1.The Redemption Arc

Well there is a couple points to address.

First, there are characters in the show who are: complicated - Jim Hopper; redimed - Steve Harrington.

With Hopper Duffers did surprisingly good job of showing us the good and the bad in him. We see that he cares a lot about El, but his way of showing it is a bit ~toxic~. And we know why he’s so protective of her. He lost a child before. Hopper doesn’t want to see it again. That’s the reason. But it’s not an excuse, is it?

And with Steve. Umm...well a bit of the confession i think Duffers dumbed him down just a tad too much. I get what they were going for. Lovable, bit of an idiot, with bite to his character and a heart of gold. And i praise and respect Joe Keery for his talent! Great job, not his fault. But i don’t think Duffers really respect Steve Harrington. It shows sometimes through the other characters. But anyway. Duffers redeemed Steve even though he was supposed to die a bully.

Second, the racism.

There is a definet reason people are divided on this topic. Is Billy racist or not? Well show accidentally made it up to interpretation. Duffers wanted to make a cliche 80s bully. They didn’t follow through, but more on that later. Also the show in general handels this topic weirdly

And then there’s Dacre Montgomery. If you’ve listened or read his interviews you know that this man understands that people are not cliches. And he chose not to play Billy as a racist. Whether you like it or not can read that through the screen.

Was Billy wrong with how he treated Lucas? Absolutely! Billy Hargrove fans are in fact not blind to this.

And that’s how you get mixed message instead of characteristic.

So, how this could be handled? First route (one that is popular with fans): Its Billys father who is racist and that’s why he doesn’t want Lucas around Max. Second route: Billy should be told that racism is in fact bad and get educated on the topic. Please, oh please, to tell him that he is wrong. Educate him. Let him digest and accept this. He is 17-18 years old, there is a high chance that he can change. That happens in real life.

And that could be historically realistic. You know that there should be more racists in Hawkins in the 80s. I know that the show is a work of fiction, but c’mon. Ah, well, already said that this topic is handled weirdly.

Third, Billys relationship with Max is written poorly, but the sentiment is there.

Their relationship is one of the biggest reasons why i like Billy.

At crisp age of ten a was gifted with sibling. I love them to death. I will become a sinner for them. But I didn’t want a younger sibling. Like. At all. So, I have very complicated feelings towards them that they are not aware off, cause they are ten. And believe me when i say it: getting a sibling at semi-conscious age when you weren’t planing on them is a traumatic experience, no matter how dumb it sounds. And the fucking frustration of having to look after them is real. There was a couple of years when i was THE fucking babysitter, really exhausting, very anger producing. Props to my parents for understanding and fixing this as soon as they could.

(also had a beef with fourteen year olds at school when i was 16-17,not to demonize twelve to fourteen y.o., but they can be the special kind of annoying)

Both antis and stans had a problem with how Max was written in season 4. For the same reason actually. Because Duffers.

In season two we see that Max and Billy don’t like each other. Ok, great. Then season three Max cares for Billy when he gets possessed and was seemingly very upset when he died. In vol.1 this continuous with the letter (the part that got antis upset) and then suddenly in vol.2 Max says that Billy didn’t deserve to live (where stans got upset). Well i was upset both times. I was upset since season three, because there were no explanation of how we got from one to another. We all understand that Billy and Max had complicated relationship and all of the above can exist! It can be the emotional swing that it is, but when you looking at a swig you can see how it goes from one high to another.

Verdict: rewrite them from the beginning. Show us more. Duffers that’s the visual entertainment you’re giving us. SHOW DON’T TELL

That’s mainly it with the redemption. I mean there is also a fight at Byers, but that;s pretty self-explanatory.

2. MAKE BILLY AN ANTAGONIST WE WOULD ALL LOVE TO HATE

Duffers, you could have made Billy an absolute legend of a asshole. You could make him ridiculous! Let him be not only cliche, but something worse. You have real monsters in your world. Your world has goofy heroes and they are realistic (Murray), why not make an entertaining antagonist?!

But, ah well, Duffers fucked up a cliche. I really don’t how they so successfully failed.

#stranger things #ST4 #Billy Hargrove #Max Mayfield #jim hoper #steve harrington

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wooahaes · 2 years

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hi daisy i know your semi-recent post wanted us to see how we felt about cheol’s leadership in the most recent chapter ! so here’s my thoughts from the chapter(i did have some random notes here and there) sorry it’s a bit long <3

ult spoiler’s (kinda) ?!!

not only cheol but i like that majority of the characters during the fight scenes where proactive in acknowledging both sides of y/n and seungkwan. rather than just picking one over the other.

for the fight (the honey & crumbs) jousha’s character did a nice job of the first point i mentioned. and i liked that he also didn’t coddle y/n just because they’re new.

for cheol (in the aftermath of crumbs argument) while y/n thinks its childish, his character made the right call in asking if they wanted to be separated for the day. (to prevent more petty arguments) and it gives the opportunity for the characters to kinda reflect about what just happened.

about y/n it was nice to read, their character explaining to josuha forcing an apology bc of “family” environment, bc it allows for genuine apologies from the characters

in reference to the (apple bruising fight) loved the line “It happens. I just need to know the whole story first before we can take care of this.” from the writing during this part cheol just wants accountability and like to explain its normal and fine to “fight” as long as there’s room for a solution.

AHHH the riverbed (if thats the right word) scene with them looking for the bracelet *chief’s kiss* both the verbal and physical reassurance from cheol, the vulnerability from seungkwan. yesss!!!

like i said earlier i do like how these characters are written to be able to cry and be vulnerable, i feel like ppl assume emotions are weak so i like reading it in literature it makes it feel more relatable &&& the small moments of physical acknowledgment from this chapter like the forehead kiss and head pats HESISNSOSM SO GOOD!

while i did get a bit off topic (sorry) overall i felt like cheol’s leadership in this chapter was good, it wasn’t harsh nor biased to either y/n or seungkwan.

time to read the updated version!

aaaaAAA LISTEN THIS IS A JOY TO READ AND I HOPE U KNOW THIS!!! brb screaming AND crying-

to address each of your points bc i want to

it was super important to me that every character during the fights acknowledged that both people had their sides. i think the only person who would ever blindly side w yn would be chan, and i think he'd only do it initially. it's 100% different in his eyes from when he and seungkwan bicker because for them it's more like a sibling squabble. with yn and seungkwan, it's elevated into something more and chan recognizes that.

shua's character was very important to me while writing this. while cheol is fully a leader of this group, jeonghan + joshua both have their roles as the oldest in keeping the peace and making sure people are comfortable. hope it becomes more apparent in their own parts about how deeply they trust cheol and try to do their own part to care for the entire group. there's a lot of people and cheol is only one person, after all. also its definitely important to me that shua not coddle reader at all because seungkwan did have a point about cross-contamination between foods. he took it a little far, but it's important that his side was recognized there.

oh cheol 100% made the right call. i think address yn thinking of it being childish is just showing that like... even if it does feel childish for someone to separate people after a fight, it's important.

ye ye!! i think i fully projected there that i think apologies should be genuine. like shua said: i think they would have already worked through emotions because cheol probably has a stance where they shouldn't go to bed with any ill will toward each other (although exceptions happen: sometimes you really do need to sleep on a problem and come back to it with a clearer head).

aaa thank u <3 fights happen in a group as big as this and i think pretty much everyone knows that? accountability was something very important for me throughout writing this. seungkwan might have started fights, sure, but i didnt want yn to be completely innocent in every situation if that makes sense? fights are going to happen. they're a big group, people don't always get along 24/7.

riverbed, riverside, river itself--it really makes no difference to me lol. not to be like "this is my favorite seungcheol moment i've written so far" but i think it really is? that's purely for writing and not planning since there might be one that tops it right now, but i'm glad his role as a leader really got to shine a bit.

hehe i love physical acknowledgement. little forehead kisses and head pats and hugs and reassuring hand holding... i think it's good for them to be able to cry and support one another and be vulnerable. i think that's the point i really wanted to push with this chapter (and with at least two more in the future): that it's okay to be scared and it's okay to be vulnerable with the people you trust and love. seungkwan was someone i felt really would put his happiness beneath others. he's not the only one, but those chapters will come out eventually.

thank you though for the long ask!!! i was really hoping cheol's leadership would be pretty solid since it was important to me that he listened to both sides and made sure everyone was cared for.

have fun <3 it's really not all that much, but just an expansion on one scene and an additional one where seungkwan gets to talk about his feelings with some people he really should have talked to.

thank u again for the long ask hehe i love getting super long asks and getting to talk abt my writing thoughts <3

#uts.spoilers #wooahaes.ask #strawberri-uyu

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ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole · 3 years

Text

Stories of Paris

Part 4

Part One Part Three AO3

Masterlist

................................................................

Damian was unhappy with the fact that with ‘strangers’ in *his* house their nightly activities would have to carefully navigated. His father nor Pennyworth had not explicitly said anything about it, but he assumed it was because they all knew what was expected. So, being told to line up in the entrance hall by his father went down like a lead balloon.

His pout turned in widening eyes of shock as he witnessed the tall wiry young woman (and a large man he supposed) exiting the car. SHE was his father’s babysitter. This was who oversaw the European branch of W.E. The person who owned the largest portion of shares of W.E (after the Wayne family that is). He was doomed. Damain watched as his father soften as he saw the woman.

“Mari! You never seem to age!” he exclaimed as she gracefully walked up to him and into his embrace.

“Mon cherie! It’s miraculous isn’t it,” she drew back slightly to look over his shoulder, “I see you have taken found family comment to the extreme, but I suppose you were never one to do things in half measures. It’s good to be back here after so long”

Looking at her like he was a child with pleading eyes, “You are staying here, right?”

With a gentle smile with a smirking edge, “Yes. If I tried to leave for a hotel, I’ll end up having the shadows watching me all night. Plus, this place always did feel like my home away from home.”

Damian glancing at his supposed siblings to see that they were also in shock. Probably not for the same reason. Panicking with it all, as he saw his father turn to introduce them to the woman, Damian drew his katana and aimed it at her.

“YOU were fathers' babysitter!!! But... what... you’re younger than him!!!! .... You’re the Grand Lady Guardian... I *refuse* to return.”

Damian vaguely recognised his name being shouted at him, but all his attention was on the Grand Lady Guardian of the Miraculous who stood, rolling her eyes, before him. He could feel her power radiating off, surrounding them all.

“Petit Tresor. I’m not taking you back there. Did you not learn anything from my teachings? Did you not learn to read between the lines? About looking deeper than the surface. You are with *your* found family. THEY are what is important. Bruce may have picked up a lot of my unhealthy habits about vigilantism, but he made a point of understand a good support network and the importance of chosen family. Despite how he enacts the teachings.”

The Monkey with her came to her shoulder and raised his eyebrow at Damian. He finally understood why he was always her bodyguard now rather than the Cat, being that he was her husband.

“You can stand down Petit Tresor. League and Court business will *not* be found here. The League know what will happen if they cross the Court, and I made it very clear after our last encounter when they tried to manipulate us to their advantage.”

Damian assessed the woman before him as he withdrew his katana from her and starting to become aware of the others around him again.

“Why has he got a chaos shard within him Bruce?” The monkey growled looking at him with a dangerous glint in his eye.

Everyone in the entrance hall was frozen in shock and panic. What was meant to be a happy reunion had been derailed but now, suddenly, somehow gained an even sharper edge. Marinette and her husband were aware of their nightly capers, and they also knew of the League, they were involved in something similar and aware of chaos shards.

Damian watched as his father gulped as he looked at the Monkey and the Guardian. It wasn’t often his father showed fear, but it was clear on his face as she arched her eyebrow at him. His siblings all looked on in surprise and uncertain of what to expect. Only Pennyworth and Todd seemed to be handling the situation with any sense of calmness. Surprising for Todd...

“Mari... his mother... the league...”

At the mention of the league the Guardians eye twitch so subtly you’d hardly notice it if not trained and with a minute flicker of her hand, the Monkey flipped his phone out and was walking out back outside to call someone... Damian straining his ears heard Peg and plan 42c being mentioned by the Monkey to whoever he had called.

“They were warned. Tsk, Assassin’s bullheadedness. Kim will sort this out for me for the present moment and we will discuss healing at a later point. Anyway, mon cherie, you were about to introduce me to your children. Petit Tresor I know, and I believe that that is Jason, mon rêveur, in the background though he has grown so much since our last meeting. So, I could guess everyone else, but why don’t you continue?”

The Guardian stated as if the topic of what just happened was over, much to Damian’s surprise. He sheafed his katana but still was wary of the woman and slightly in awe. He had a feeling that the chaos and downfall of his grandfather may have due to her in some way. Slight fear and dread for his mother was building as well. He finally starting to understand the reason for her over protectiveness when she taught him in the league now.

“Right. Mari, this is Dick, Jason who you already met in person? Cass and alongside her Duke, Tim who you meet briefly in the W.E. meeting the other month, Steph who has wormed her way into the family and Damian you who’ve also already met?”

With a polite cough drawing attention to himself, Alfred spoke. “Perhaps, instead of having a mother’s meeting in the entrance hall, we retreat to the drawing room where we can have some refreshments. I am sure that Ms Marinette and Master Kim are exhausted from their travels. It is most unbecoming to stand around loitering, wouldn’t you agree Master Bruce?”

Bruce muttered something as his ears started to tinge red, Marinette turned to Alfred and smiled as she drew him into a hug while Bruce collected himself.

“Yes, right, that sounds like a fantastic idea Alfred. Mari, shall we?”

Bruce offered her an arm which she elegantly took as the took off in the direction of the drawing room delving into conversation with Bruce leaving behind a shocked collection on children in the hall. Alfred slipped off to prepare the refreshments.

Damian cringed as Dick exclaimed, “YOU GUYS KNOW HER?!?!?!!” which echoed around the manor as he finally processed what had just happened.

______________________________________________

Alfred smiled as the atmosphere within the Manor shifted over the last few weeks. It now had a different air about it. Master Bruce became less sullen and slightly less repressed under Marinette’s watch and the Manor started to feel lighter again.

Alfred had found great amusement when he stumbled in on Master Kim lecturing Master Bruce on being dense especially the “I know I’m dense but kwami Bruce! You’re worse than me realising all the competitions I got Mare rigged into was because I wanted to impress her! Let’s start at the beginning, ok?!”.

He hoped that Master Kim might be able to knock a bit of sense into his wayward charge. He knew Ms Marinette, though full of good intentions wouldn’t be able to with Master Bruce’s strange ability to pick up on the wrong message being given.

The highlight of the week was when he entered the family living room to find all his grandchildren looking pale as Master Bruce acted semi child-like in front of Ms Marinette. It was a delight to see Bruce act like the child that he knew he was reawakened again. Even if it terrified the grandchildren.

The whole family discovered that Bruce had been very selective of the stories and information that he had told them about Marinette. She had taken great delight telling them all about what teenage Bruce really was like.

About the time Bruce had a fan induced panic attack on meeting the Jagged Stone. Alfred was slightly aware of something happened but not the details.

About the time Bruce decided to practice parkour in the Manor gardens and ended up stuck halfway up the side of the Manor unable to climb up further or climb down. Alfed was positive he was unaware that Marinette joined him and had to coach Bruce down.

About the series of times that Bruce attempted to prove to Alfred that he had ‘outgrown the kitchen ban’ and had ‘observed Mari’s baking skills sufficiently’ to be able to try again for only the attempts to go south fast. Alfred grimaced at the memories that that bought up. He was glad that he’d got a good working deal with local kitchen fitters and suppliers given the number of fires.

It became a daily breakfast occurrence that Bruce mortified Marinette in his outfit for the day. The breakfast entertainment became watching Marinette tear into his fashion choice of the day, drag up some past clothing or costume disaster. She ended up moaning that he had learnt nothing from her rantings about clothes over the years and stare forlornly into her coffee cup. It was providing the bat boys a wealth of black mail material that Alfred had to on numerous occasions reel Marinette from her tangents.

The only time he let her completely go to town with was letting her regale to everyone about Bruce’s dramatic and insistent argument on fighting crime in Lyca, wearing pants on top of tights and with a cape, that he really insisted that he didn’t need to use Kevlar (that decision didn’t last beyond a few training sessions and one patrol night). Alfred was pleased with her ability to rein that disaster in quickly.

It was in the comfort of the kitchen away from the antics that happened Alfred mused and reflected on his notional niece's visit. Alfred wished he had thought to bring Marinette over sooner as he witnessed that fraught relationships between the Waynes soften. Issues didn’t disappear but Marinettes presence, and ability due to dealing with Akuma, helped mitigate situations which typically would have blown up. Kim always by her side would help soothe, distract, or explain to the puzzled Bruce the techniques Marinette was using to stop the escalation.

She’d slowly began charming and connecting with his grandchildren. Be it by giving Tim pointers on how to manage W.E board members effectively and playing video games. It was eerily like how she warmed Bruce up to her.

By Sitting quietly reading with Jason or playing chess and talking in metaphors about life, death and balance. Slowly having ‘healing sessions to calm the pit madness’ with meditation and grounding sessions.

With Damian she seemed to remind him of alternate grounding techniques which she’d shown him in the league. They seemed to spend time talking in hushed whispers about other stuff that Alfred wasn’t currently privy too.

Duke was with poetry and music. Cass with dance and gymnastics, silent subtle conversations occurred but seeing Cass smile and edge towards being more tactile made Alfred glow with warmth inside. Steph and Marinette commanded the kitchen numerous times baking pastries, waffles and other treats.

Dick took the longest to warm up to the woman, having heard and known about her for over a deacade but never met it was understandable. Alfred wpould never knew what Marinette had done but one day the hostility and coldness disappeared. A joy, childlike smile appeared on Dicks face every time she was in the room, and he’d follow her round like a loat puppy. Watching and mimicking her techniques to calm his brothers down.

How his grandchildren acted with Marinette in the activities brought echoes of memories of her with Bruce to the forefront of Alfred’s mind.

Sighing, in the short time the Manor felt warm and like a family, a home should feel like. Much like before his friends’ death. Schooling his emotions, Alfred set about to serve the family and Parisians last dinner together.

______________________________________________

Bruce tried not to sulk. Tried not to revert to the mind set of when Marinette originally disappeared physically from his life. Especially in front of his children but it was hard. She somehow always managed to take the overwhelming pressure away from him, like he could breathe and be.

Alfred was his father, in all the ways that counted, but the burden of death and saving the world was something Marinette understood at a deeper more personal level. Having her here made it feel safe to feel, that he would always be caught. That she would save him from the consuming darkness. She was the light in the world shining out in the Gotham gloom.

As expected, his children adored her in their unique ways. Following her around like little ducks scrabbling for crumbs of knowledge and titbits of information. Bruce lips twitched as he witnessed them behaving much like he used to. Taking the gems’ she passed on to them and ferreting them away much like he did.

“Master Bruce, I expect better behaviour this leaving gathering than our previous party, please.”

With Alfred’s comments Bruce gave into the feeling of pouting. Why deny how he felt toward the situation where he wasn’t in control. He pointedly ignored the stares that his children were giving him. Again.

“Mon tresor! It’s not like you aren’t going to see or speak to me again. We speak regularly as it is. It’s not the same as it was last time. You know this.”

“But Mari, it's nice having you here. This is your home.”

“Is he always like this Mare, Cupcake? How is it that all the kid’s you’ve looked after end up demanding you live with them?”

Bruce choked at Kim’s statement and the Wayne clan burst into laughter. Alfred let a small smirk grace his face.

“Oui, Mon Amour, He wasn’t happy last time I left at all. Be grateful I learnt to resist kitten eyes or we’d never have reconnected. Manon doesn’t count. She’s practically family as well with how close Maman and Nadja are.”

“What about Elle, Etta and Chris? What about Ivan’s and Mylene’s sproglian? Fang? Jagged’s second round of terrors? Luka and Jules too really.”

“Hush, Mon Amour, circumstantial evidence.”

Bruce observed Kim stare at his wife in disbelief before waving his hand around the room.

“What about these then. Don’t give me that look Cupcake. I’m gonna end up needing to fight the whole batclan at this rate to get you on a plane with me! Maybe I should give Peg’s the heads up that I’ll need his help.”

“I can assure you Master Kim that you *both* are free to leave. The young master's understand that they cannot kidnap you. It would not be becoming of them OR look good for the company for the family to kidnap its own workers.”

Bruce and his family guiltily ducked their heads at Alfred’s comments. When Alfred turned away to start talking to Kim, Tim leant in close to Bruce to whisper to him.

“Do you think we have the power to move her to being director of North America rather than Europe? Mari would be closer then? Plus, the guy in charge isn’t all he’s cracked up to be so the board would likely approve it.”

Bruce stared at his son at the ingenious and simple solution and smiled, before ducking his head when Alfred pointedly looked his way.

“We’ll discuss that concept later.”

Bruce gave Tim a subtle nod as if he was approving the idea. Technically he was but Alfred didn’t need to know that. Nor did Kim really, as he would fight him if he found out and he’d rather not deal with an ex-olympian superhero, even when he pulled his punches they hurt far more than the average persons.

Bruce sat back into his seat and smiled as the conversation and chaos flowed around him. His whole family finally together and he cherished it. He knew it wasn’t going to last much longer with the impending flight looming but for now he had a potential and creative plan to work on. If he framed it right it could also become the prefect family bonding activity that both Marinette and Kim thought he needed to do more of outside of vigilantism. And if the end result was that she moved closer, well, that’s just an added bonus in his eyes.

With that in mind, Bruce joined in with the choas enjoying the moment with his complete family. Nothing could take this away from him.

Tag:

@neakco @corporeal-terrestrial @jayjayspixiepop @lady-bee-fechin @prettylittlebutterflie

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faulty-writes · 3 years

Text

This is a little different than most of my other works, but I'm trying to branch out and write for more of the secondary or minor characters. I actually adore the Todoroki family, especially Fuyumi and Natsuo. So I hope you guys enjoy this little appreciation piece featuring Natsuo who no doubt deserves more love considering he's a very interesting and complex character, at least in my opinion.

[ Natsuo is known as 'the nice guy' on campus despite also being recognized as a "Todoroki" and many knowing of the relation he holds to the number one hero, Endeavor. He's had plenty of experiences where people have used him because of this, but the latest one leaves him a tad heartbroken. What other choice does he have but to run to you? ]

The sound of his abnormally thick tears landing on the tiled flooring of the hallway faintly echoed as he continued on his way. Ignoring all the looks and obvious gossip that would come with the fact he was so shamelessly crying in the middle of a school day.

A sniffle came as Natsuo reached up and with some force, wiped his right eye with the end of his signature gray hoodie sleeve which he normally wore on campus. The very campus he had grown to love over the past year and the one Fuyumi had insisted he go to in order to study medical welfare.

It was funny, he could still hear her words echoing in his head, ‘Leave our family circumstances to me and go do what you want to pursue,’ and that he did. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised that his sister offered to take the brunt of their family problems and encourage him to do what made him happy.

But at the same time, Natsuo hadn’t originally wanted to leave his sister or youngest brother behind. He didn’t trust their well-being with ‘Endeavor’ around, despite his mother having long since recovered from the mental and physical abuse the so-called "number one hero" put her through.

Since the death of his eldest brother, Touya. He couldn't shake this protective and anxiety-ridden feeling that had been slowly growing inside of him. He'd be damned if anything happened to his remaining siblings, even if it meant he'd experience more emotional trauma in the long run.

Much like today. College was supposed to be a fun time, and while Natsuo understood that some enjoyed ‘experimenting’ and partying rather than studying. He was never much of the party type and while he knew he was attracted to other genders, he never outwardly acted on it.

Knowing how his father treated his mother was the one thing that drove him to desire a true romantic relationship and that was what he thought he had. Unfortunately, there was a cruel reality that came with being the son of Endeavor, and while he should be used to people trying to get close to him when they found this out.

He never thought they would sink so low as to try and date him on the off-chance they'd get to meet the number one hero. His fingers sunk into the front of his hoodie, twisting the fabric as a soft ache coursed through his chest.

Which he could only describe as a broken heart and despite wanting to go back to his own room, bury his face into a pillow, and hide under his covers. There was one person he wanted, no needed, to see. It wasn’t his mother or sister, not even his youngest brother. It was you.

Strangely, since the start of his first year in college. He seemed to gravitate towards you, at first he believed it was only due to the fact that you were also studying something related to the medical field. But as your friendship continued and he got to spend more time with you, he realized that he genuinely enjoyed your company.

The fact he found himself telling you things, secrets that he wouldn’t have thought of sharing outside of his family was a pleasant surprise. Maybe you were just easy to talk to? He wasn’t sure, but he did know that unlike most.

You weren’t going to use him just because of his relation to Endeavor, though he knew you were interested in hero studies. There was no worry in his mind that you’d use him for some hero-related advantage.

Another sniffle came before he reached up to once more wipe away his tears, even if his effort was in vain considering more just came. He took a deep breath, trying to both collect and center himself. ‘Man, this backpack feels heavy,’ he thought as he clenched his jaw and focused his attention on the floor.

Counting the familiar shapes in the tile that he knew would eventually lead to your room. The logical reason for his backpack feeling so heavy was due to the fact it was filled to the brim with various textbooks and a few notebooks that were scribbled with his writing.

He could feel the slight bitter sting of frost beginning to grow on his tear-stained cheeks which he ignored for the moment. Still, he wiped his eyes once more before picking up his pace. He soon began to speedwalk which turned into a jog which eventually led him to frantically running and accidentally stumbling into your door.

Once more, he seemed to get stares from the passersby. But in a way, he couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t even sure how he looked slumped against another student's door with his arms stretched above his head and his hands closed into fists.

His forehead was pressed against your door and his tears continued to slowly fall. His eyebrows came down and for a moment, he wondered what he was doing before the door suddenly opened. “Hel-” your sentence came to a stop when the white-haired boy stumbled forward and your hands instantly grasped his arms.

Your stance stiffening as you unconsciously seemed determined to stop him from falling. One of your legs was bent back, and the other bent forward. An awkward silence filled the air before you heard the soft sound of something hitting the wooden floor of your room.

It reminded you of water and a few seconds later, Natsuo lifted his head. You instantly noticed those tears and felt his hands curl into the front of your shirt, funny you hadn’t noticed or felt the pressure of his hands there before.

But in a way it made sense, Natsuo was always very gentle. Even when handling the few people who volunteered to pretend to be "patients" during his medical welfare classes. In fact, it seemed he was downright cautious when it came to others.

Never necessarily wanting to cause trouble and sometimes acting rather shy unless you happened to bring up a topic he didn’t like. You had long since learned the reason why he preferred to keep the topic of ‘family’ out of conversations.

Yet, you wondered if Natsuo was crying because of something related to just that. But you knew you shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. Still, you couldn’t help but look into those blue orbs of his. The look of hurt was clearly visible, not only in his eyes but also indicated by the way his face was twisted.

Then he leaned forward, allowing a soft whimper to escape in the process. Partly burying his face into the front of your shirt as he lifted his leg up. Then without warning, he slammed his foot against the floor. Which caused you to jump, but you didn’t dare release Natsuo.

Especially as his tears soaked into the fabric of your shirt, unlike most Natsuo's tears were always cold. You assumed it was due to his quirk, but before you could say anything the sound of Natsuo’s cracked and broken voice caught your attention.

“D-Damn it,” the stuttered words filled the air and you frowned, wanting nothing more than to run your fingers through that white snow-like hair of his before you glanced back up. Noticing a few people staring into your doorway, you honestly didn’t know why they were staring or why they weren’t minding their own business.

But you did know that something was clearly wrong with Natsuo and whatever that something was caused this reaction. You shot the bystanders a glare before focusing back on Natsuo. You opened your mouth to speak, but were interrupted by the sound of his voice once more.

“I...am so sick of this,” his words, of course only confused you. What was he sick of and how did it relate to his current state? You managed to straighten out your legs, however, Natsuo continued to cling to you.

His tears hadn’t ceased nor those soft almost desperately gasps for breath. “I’m sorry,” he suddenly said before he turned to look over his shoulder. His hands remained curled into the front of your shirt as he looked at the many people staring at the two of you.

Some seemed curious as to what was happening and others amused to see the almost grown man crying in the arms of his friend. With more strength than he intended, he once more lifted his foot and slammed your door shut.

The noise it created echoed through your room and though Natsuo felt guilty for having treated your door in such a manner, his chest was already aching profusely. When he turned back to face you, the fact he had small bits of ice underneath his eyes and on the skin of his cheeks didn't go unnoticed by you.

Your hands left their position on Natsuo’s forearms to gently cup his face, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he was cold to the touch. You knew that was yet again another semi-harmless side effect due to his quirk, despite the fact you had never actually seen him use it.

Part of you wondered why that was. Still, you couldn’t help but allow your thumbs to run over those specs of ice stuck to his moist cold cheeks and the desire to get a warm hand towel to clean his face was strong.

You weren’t sure if you wanted to ask what happened first or calm him down enough so he would tell you with as little of a fight as possible. Your touch was welcomed as Natsuo reached up and laid one of his hands over yours.

“Do you...want to sit down?” you questioned and Natsuo looked momentarily confused before he glanced away as if he were thinking about something. Sometimes when he acted like this, it annoyed you. You knew how guilty Natsuo could feel over things that he either shouldn’t or weren’t even his fault.

He was here crying into your arms, but you knew somehow he'd make up a reason to feel guilty about it. ‘Well, that isn’t going to happen today,’ you thought as you released his face and reached down to take hold of one of his hands.

Even though they too were always cold, you couldn't help but find some odd sense of comfort when you were holding him by the hand. Despite the fact, Natsuo was significantly larger than you. But, you assumed that was only due to the fact that he physically took after his father.

The fact he went to the gym daily only added to that overall intimidating stature of his. Regardless, you squeezed his hand in reassurance as you guided him towards your bed. He made no move to resist your guidance and once you had him sitting down, you gently laid your hands on his shoulders.

Those tears were now single drops that slowly slid down his icy cheeks and you'd be lying if you stated it didn't hurt seeing Natsuo like this. You took a deep breath. “Stay here,” you instructed, “I’m going to get a warm towel, you have ice on your face,” Natsuo seemed rather surprised and reached up to touch his cheek.

Using his thumb to glide along the skin and sure enough, he could feel the smooth surface of the small patches of ice. “Oh…” he said before a sniffle came. “Sorry,” though most would know not to apologize for something beyond their control.

Still, he couldn’t help but fold his hands into his lap. Squeezing them between his thighs. His feet were nervously tapping against the floor, creating a rhythmic pattern and if one listened carefully enough, they’d recognize it was the pattern of a standard heartbeat.

In a way, it was amazing how much subconscious knowledge you could obtain. Natsuo failed to notice the rhythmic pattern, but you could hear it clear as day even from the bathroom where you proceeded to ring out the warm hand towel.

A soft groan escaped him, and his thighs were the only thing keeping his hands in place. Else he would be running them through his unusual spiky hair and possibly pulling it out. ‘What am I even doing here man?!’ he frantically thought.

‘Y/n...is always the person I run to, I keep bothering them but I’d rather be like this than…’ his jaw clenched when the thought of Endeavor entered his mind and a soft growl rumbled in his throat before he heard your footsteps which prompted him to raise his head.

You noticed he was looking at the wet towel you held with an expression only a curious and slightly confused child would make. “Mm,” once more he looked away, feeling the guilt continue to build as you sat down next to him and laughed.

"Don’t tell me you’re feeling guilty again,” you stated, and not to your surprise, Natsuo turned his head to look at you. His tears seemed to be completely dry and you wondered if that was because he was here with you or that he simply overworked his tear ducts.

“Sorry,” he muttered, still focused on the towel you held and the small amount of steam that seeped from it. “I...get it's kind of crazy for me to keep running to you but-” you shook your head, quickly interrupting him.

“But nothing,” you replied as you leaned forward, “that’s what friends do and you and I have been friends since the start of our freshman year,” that had to count for something, right? You reached over, cupping one side of Natsuo’s face.

“Now stay still, I want to get that ice off your face, and then you can tell me what’s bothering you,” the words left your mouth almost like a friendly command. But like most of the time, Natsuo didn’t seem to take offense.

He simply nodded and gave you a look that you knew meant he understood. Very gently, you pressed the towel to his face. Applying some pressure to ensure the bits of ice chipped off and sure enough, you could see the clear cold pieces slowly begin to melt.

When you began to wipe his opposite cheek, you couldn’t help but raise the question. “Hey Natsuo,” you began, effectively catching his attention and the soft, “Hm?” he responded with. “I’ve never seen you actually use your quirk,” you pointed out.

“Is there a reason for that?” a gasp came when Natsuo suddenly jerked his head away from you. “Uh…” blinking once or twice. You lowered the wet towel to your lap and grasped onto it. Twisting the fabric between your fingers to allow the now lukewarm droplets of water to soak into the pajama bottoms you were wearing.

Maybe you crossed a line? Did this have anything to do with his family? As far as you knew, his mother possessed a rather powerful ice quirk. Was that the reason he never used it? You weren’t sure, but usually, when Natsuo acted in this closed-off manner it was related to his family.

“Sorry,” you said, “I didn’t mean to pry, I was just curious,” the explanation was simple and you hoped Natsuo would believe you. He took a deep breath and let out a sigh before bringing his hand up, running his fingers through his hair.

“It’s fine,” he replied, though you could tell his voice was a little strained before he turned to you. That’s when you saw the frown on his face and his eyes looked misted over as if he were going to cry again. You really didn’t want that.

“Natsuo are you-” though the answer was obvious, he wasn’t okay if he had come running to you in tears. But even so, Natsuo nodded. “Yeah…” he reached out, grasping the wet towel that you were previously holding before he got up.

You wanted to ask where he was going, but it was clear he was only heading to the bathroom. “It’s just…” you heard the wet plop of the towel landing in the sink before Natsuo walked back out and once more took his seat on your bed.

You reached out, laying your hand on his thigh. “You don’t have to tell me,” you offered with a kind smile, but Natsuo shook his head. “It’s fine,” he repeated yet again before allowing his hand to rest by his side.

“Big bro Touya and I used to play around with our quirks, but Touya was always so serious about his,” you watched as his expression grew dark and a clear hateful glance appeared in his eyes which seemed distant at the moment.

This was more than likely due to the fact that Natsuo was picturing his late brother alongside his father. “Uh…” you glanced down and watched as the hand that laid by Natsuo’s side began to curl into a fist, though you knew he would never actually raise that fist or cause harm to you.

It was just shocking how the subject of his family brought out this side in him, but you remained quiet and continued to listen. “Because of that...bastard and I hated seeing Touya like that!” he suddenly exclaimed, leaning forward as his fists began to tremble, and without much thinking, you laid your hand on his back.

"Natsuo…” you said, hoping your voice would bring him back out of the hateful moment he was in. His jaw was clenched and a shiver ran up your spine when you felt Natsuo’s trembling hand take a grip on your upper arm.

But there was still that familiar gentleness to it which indicated to you that even when Natsuo was temporarily blinded by this hatred, he was still aware of his surroundings and those that were important to him.

This was only confirmed when he lifted his head to look at you with a smile, though it was small. It was still present and seemed to put you at ease for the moment. “I’m okay but…” he once more turned away from you and a sigh escaped him.

“I convinced big bro to have fun with our quirks instead of doing what the old man wanted him to, but since he...died. I...I couldn’t bring myself to use my quirk again and I’m sure sis feels that way too,” your frown deepened, ah so that’s why.

Maybe he fears he’ll lose the memory of his elder brother if he were to use his quirk again? “What else happened?” Natsuo looked back at you, confused for a brief moment before, “Oh...right,” he said as if he had almost forgotten he ran to you in broad daylight with tears streaming down his face.

He turned, bending down to slip his shoes off before he slid his backpack onto the floor. Then he proceeded to climb onto the bed or rather proceeded to crawl over to your pillows and plop himself down.

Being surrounded by your familiar scent eased him as did the fact he could stretch both his arms and legs out. You looked at him all sprawled out and comfortable. ‘Well...I guess if it makes him feel better,’ you thought as you watched Natsuo stare at the ceiling.

His face twisting with a variety of emotions that made you wonder just what caused him to cry in the first place. He didn’t deserve that, or at least not in your opinion. “She broke up with me,” he suddenly said, his voice somewhat quick and you barely understood what he said.

“Who?” you questioned as you got onto your knees and pressed your hands into the mattress, looming over Natsuo much like how a dog or loyal companion would. "My girlfriend…” he muttered as he once again looked to the side, you assumed it was an attempt to look away from your gaze which was a mess of confusion.

“Why did she break up with you?” It was said that getting your heart broken was hard to handle, but there had to be more behind this. You sat on your knees, placing your hand on your hip as you looked down at Natsuo who slowly turned his gaze back to you but seemed to avert it just as quickly.

Despite his overall twisted expression that laid somewhere between sad and angry, you also noticed the faint pink tint to his cheeks. Was that from anger or embarrassment? You honestly couldn’t tell. But Natsuo normally didn’t get embarrassed around you and you knew he knew he could tell you anything.

‘It must be from anger,’ you concluded as you continued to wait patiently for his answer. “I’m so tired of it,” he said in a soft voice which prompted you to lean closer. “Tired of it?” you repeated, clearly not understanding where that was coming from.

“I’m sick of being recognized just because of the old man's last name!” he exclaimed once more, though his voice wasn’t raised too high. It still caused you to jolt back, then again you should have realized this whole thing had something to do with his family.

Natsuo turned to you and impatiently pressed his hands against the mattress so he could sit up. His jaw was clenched again and his eyebrows slit in anger and the way he kept his eyes locked on you made you feel a little uncomfortable despite the fact you knew his anger wasn’t directed at you.

Then a sigh came and Natsuo’s head dropped. You saw this often when he was trying to collect or calm himself down. It honestly worried you that he was always going between emotions, trying to keep himself in check for the sake of others.

His eyes were closed, but when he opened them once more you could see the absence of anger. “I wanted to study medical welfare to actually help people…” he confessed as he brought his legs up to his chest and you watched as he wrapped his arms around them.

Those long sleeves of his hood concealing the contraction of his muscles and biceps. He seemed to stare off into the distance once more. “I wanted to make a difference in the world so the name Todoroki could actually mean something to me, unlike the tie it has to that bastard,” he hissed and like a switch, that anger was back.

You could even hear that soft rumbling of a growl threatening to admit from his throat. “I don’t want to be recognized as a Todoroki just because of him!” you opened your mouth to speak, but all thoughts and actions escaped you when Natsuo turned to look at you.

Once more sporting that angry expression which was terrifying in its own way. But then, it slowly began to fade into sadness and he lowered his arms. Allowing his hands to fall back onto the mattress, you couldn’t help but glance down when you felt his fingers brush against yours before you looked back up.

“I don’t want people trying to get close to me because of him either,” Natsuo stated and you gasped when you felt his cold hand engulf yours, taking firm grip as if he was silently gesturing to you that he needed some form of physical comfort.

“But that’s exactly what she did,” you felt that hand begin to tremble and you quickly gave it a reassuring squeeze. “She used you to get to your father?” you questioned, a little confused but still showing an effort that you wanted to get the story correct.

Natsuo nodded. “She’s an inspiring hero I guess," he said with a shrug, "and wanted to get close to me so she could have the chance to speak to my father,” his tone sounded like he had given up as he tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling.

That ache in his chest returned, but somehow your touch prevented it from growing any further. “Guess I was more interested in caring for her that I didn’t see it,” he commented before tilting his head back down. “Just tired of it,” he repeated.

"I wouldn’t introduce my father to anyone I’m with...they deserve better than to be exposed to him!” you could imagine that’s how the rest of his story went then. His ex-girlfriend trying to pressure him into introducing her to Endeavor only for Natsuo to express his concern and reasons for why he couldn’t.

Then from there she must have gotten angry and confessed the truth. The whole situation was unfair and you could feel your own anger brewing, using people was one thing. But using them for your own personal benefit, pretending to love them?

That wasn’t exactly forgivable in your book. No wonder he was crying. “I’m…” would saying you’re sorry even do anything? You knew Natsuo wouldn’t take offense, but it seemed unfitting for the current situation. Instead, you found yourself leaning over.

Releasing his hand in order to wrap your arms around him, nuzzling your head against his shoulder as you embraced him. Natsuo while not overly shocked at your friendly gesture, crossed his legs and wrapped his arms around your waist before pulling you even closer.

Though your back slightly hurt, you didn’t mind. Natsuo, while not completely touch-starved, still melted into anyone’s affection. You felt his stiff body finally relax and the cool touch of his cheek against your ear as he nuzzled the side of your head.

“Thank you,” he whispered, despite the fact, there was no one else around to hear you two. “I know I keep bothering you whenever-” you reached up to tug on the back of his hair.

“You’re not a bother,” you said in a stern tone, “and you should be happy that girl is now your ex, you didn’t deserve what she put you through,” your arms tightened around him just before you pulled back and grasped his shoulders.

Making sure he was looking at you before you continued to speak, “No one deserves that, you’re a wonderful person Natsuo and I know there are others that won’t care that you’re a Todoroki or that will help you make it into a name you can be proud of,” you assured him and watched as the faintest expression of hope washed over his face.

Just that alone meant the world to you and while you knew Natsuo didn’t need any protection, you still wanted to try your best to be there for him. “Come on,” you insisted as you crawled over him in order to reach the opposite side of your bed.

Though Natsuo took up most of the space, you managed to lay down and offered him your hand. That smile of his seemed to grow and as expected, he gently grasped onto your hand as he laid down by your side.

“You can stay here if you want, it’s still daylight and I don’t have any more classes for today,” you insisted and hoped he’d take the bait because you didn’t exactly trust he wouldn’t get emotional again later.

Natsuo always seemed to overthink things and maybe that’s where his sense of guilt came from. “Hm?” he glanced away and you were quick to speak. Taking a firm grip of his hand, you slipped your fingers between his and gave him a stern expression.

“Don’t let your guilt tell you that you’re going to be a bother, I want you to stay,” your words were accompanied with another reassuring squeeze, and once more his gaze was directed back on you.“...Okay,” he replied, you smiled and turned your attention to the ceiling.

Allowing your intertwined hands to remain nestled between you. Your mind was free of any thoughts, unlike Natsuo who was debating how he could even thank you for everything you did for him. Just listening to him was enough, but you went the extra step to dry his tears and invited him to stay for however long he wanted.

Was it that you knew he found comfort in you, your scent, your presence? Is there any way he could express his gratitude? Suddenly his own words came back, echoing like thunder inside his head. ‘I...couldn’t bring myself to use my quirk again,’ he held his breath and slowly lifted his free hand, turning it so he could gaze at his palm.

The sound of his and Touya’s laughter now softly echoed alongside his words. ‘It’s been years,’ he thought before he turned to glance at you, but ended up flinching when he realized you were already looking at him.

“Are you okay?” you questioned, now that everything was off his chest he should be, right? Then again, you have been wrong before. Natsuo almost seemed to be in a trace, though his eyes hadn’t left yours and his hand remained lifted in the air.

‘Would I even know how to control it? I can’t risk hurting Y/n but if this proves how thankful I am to them then…’ he finally seemed to make a choice and he slowly turned on his side causing the bed to shake along with his movements.

“Can I see your other hand for a moment?” he questioned, knowing that if anything did happen to go wrong with his quirk that he could use the basic knowledge he learned from his medical welfare classes to hopefully undo any damage.

“Hm?” you seemed a tad confused by his request and why he was holding his hand up, but once more you reminded yourself that Natsuo had no ill intentions. You maneuvered yourself on your side much like him and slowly held your free hand out.

Natsuo smiled and carefully connected your fingertips, then he took a deep breath. Channeling his long-forgotten quirk to the center of his palm, though he could feel the cold rush. It came as a surprise to you. In fact, the sudden drastic drop in temperature coming from Natsuo's hand was an utter shock.

Even knowing quirks existed, this almost seemed impossible. “N-Natsuo?” you worried something was very wrong when you felt it, the cold rough texture of tiny ice crystals growing across your skin. You almost wanted to pull away as there came a slight pulsing pain with the bitter coldness that was Natsuo's quirk.

But instead, you looked to your hand, your jaw was clasped closed and your eyes were wide. Too focused on those ice crystals that continued to grow and slowly frost over the top of your fingers. You stared in amazement.

“I...b-but you…” your words were all jumbled together and you almost missed the fact that Natsuo’s palm was covered in a thick lining of ice and how red the skin surrounding it was. Still, even if this brought him some minor discomfort.

He couldn’t help but smile as he watched your reaction, the small feeling of heartache numb for the moment and replaced with a small dose of happiness. Partly due to you and partly because he was relieved he could in fact control his quirk even after years of refusing to use it.

“I just wanted to say thank you for being there for me,” he stated and though still astonished, you glanced back at him. Even though the small mishaps would more than likely continue to happen as well as people that would attempt to use him for their own personal benefits. You somehow knew he was going to be just fine.

#natsuo x reader #bnha x reader #todoroki natsuo

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munohlow · 3 years

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Ok real quick gonna propose an idea for that powerpuff girls reboot:

Don’t

But it if they really must (they shouldn’t!), there’s some better ways I think they could go about it, as well as what I’ve seen floating around (like don’t).

Pretty much all of these are assuming they’ll go the gritty reboot route because that’s pretty popular atm. A dark gritty take on anything is getting a bit tired, I think people are more open to weird and sincere stories, whether they’re adaptations or original. But recently a lot of comics (good comics!) 10+ years old are getting faithful adaptations (good adaptations!) and reviving that early/mid 2000’s taste for “what if Superman, but bastard?”

Aright one route they could go would be like that of Samurai Jack season 5 on Adult Swim. Written and animated by the original team and keeping to its truest nature while maturing it a bit along with the original fan base and maybe have an overarching plotline. The difference being that keeping it like the original ppg would create a stronger contrast with more mature and brutal violence, similar to Invincible’s friendly neighborhood Spider-man vibes and use of graphic violence.

This would be the second best way to adapt besides not doing it at all..... but that would also take more money and might not last beyond a season, ending with a solid conclusion like Samurai Jack did. Plus I’m semi doubtful the original team would be on board to drag out the girls’ story, especially like this.

Addressing the leaked script, a common comparison made was to the Netflix adaptation of The Umbrella Academy. Both are loose adaptations about child superhero siblings coming together after years of being apart, dealing with childhood trauma and their parent’s wrecklessness as adults.

And talking monkey.

Where Umbrella Academy made changes for the sake of depth and character development amidst the sci-fi madness, the CW Powerpuff Girls script attempted to be edgy and gross for the sake of being edgy and gross. They just want to be mature and topical while ignoring everything enjoyable about the original. It also just straight up sucks. I’m no writer but it seems like a lot of people who are writers are pretty pissed about paid professionals pushing this to the point of post-production. Well not post production, it was being filmed, but I enjoy alliteration. That’s also pretty far into development for something this bad, while it was rejected and is being reworked, it still got approved by enough people to shoot a pilot. If the leaked script itself isn’t a marketing ploy, I imagine that’s the real reason it was shut down. CW probably would’ve went through with it, otherwise. Maybe just keep it cancelled, yeah? Yeah.

This idea isn’t mine either but instead of the child star allegory, it could be more interesting to sort of see it carry on from where it left off, as the continued adventures of the powerpuff girls. Similar to the The Venture Bros. (a show I have not watched but know vaguely about, again this is someone else’s thought, I just think it sounds good) the girls can be grown up but start to realize they want to explore their lives and goals as individuals outside of heroism.

This at least appeals to me because you can keep the show’s status quo, keep the characters together, and have them grow into better more interesting characters as opposed to starting with a dour world where everyone is dead or just worse insufferable people. Instead, begin where audiences are comfortable and open to a new interpretation then let the characters realize there’s more to life and explore what kind of people they can become. (Or just don’t do it.)

Also just hear me out, but maybe, possibly? perhaps the professor was a good dad in the original cartoon? And let’s keep that? Let him remain a wholesome father figure? Is that okay? Don’t make this reboot? But if they do, keep him a nice loving parent?

Since this is the CW/ Warner bros who own DC comics, the best case scenario (cancelled) would be to make it more like the MANY SUPERHERO SHOWS THEY ALREADY MAKE. The good ones, anyway. I’m pretty sure the girls have crossed over with some DC characters in the cartoon already, why not make them canon DC characters? Maybe not. Could be cool! Better not, though. But they could still model the show after some of their better shows. Flash, Arrow, Supergirl are all not bad depending who you ask. I just finished Gotham, that was neat. Superman and Lois sounds like it’s pretty good so far. Powerpuff girls would better suit an earnest, straightforward, lighthearted take. Keep the humor, idk maybe up the violence to keep it dark and cool if that’s what people want (we don’t) and have it contrast with family drama like Invincible. All that to say that a darker, comical, well-written, DC-ish superhero thing they should look to for reference should be Doom Patrol.

This show fuckin litty. It’s like the better parts of Legends of Tommorow and Titans put together, as in it’s super weird and dumb but in a way that’s fun and moving. I recently rewatched season one as refresher before getting into season two and dammit if it didn’t get me in my feels amidst the quarantine. It’s about broken people working through their issues and pulling themselves together to help one another. Admittedly, it doesn’t have the best representation of those with disassociative identity disorder, as one character sometimes referred to as “Crazy” Jane has a different superpower with each of her alters. The character is very much a product of the 80’s but the writers of the show do their best to show that Jane respects the alters and their free will. But it also deals with topics of abuse, self-image, trauma, disabilities, homophobia, discrimination, and more in a way that gave me some catharsis while watching after all that’s been going on the past couple of years. Aside from all the comedy and action, it all flows together naturally, which is what you want in any series, not just your gritty superhero show. Doom Patrol is also batshit weird, every episode feels almost self contained/ freak-of-the-week while still following the main overarching plot, and Powerpuff Girls is very much like that, without the bigger plot or mature themes (as it should remain, let it be). Many will find it vaguely similar to The Umbrella Academy because GERARD WAY WAS INSPIRED BY DOOM PATROL TO WRITE THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. The og comics, not the show, but still.

Also let’s address this

The hell was this about?

Anyway Idk maybe I sound like “Old Man Yells at Cloud,” but this really isn’t the way to go. Don’t do it, CW. Leave it alone, CW. Just don’t do it. We don’t need more sequels and reboot cash grabs, there’s plenty of up and coming writers with good original ideas waiting for their shot. And even with all those new edgy shows and movies, some of which are actually not bad, not everything needs to be so grim. Like sure Teen Titans Go! is a goofy reboot but it’s still just a fun dumb cartoon, it’s not bad, I bet that other ppg show was also just fine. Maybe YOU are “Old Man Yells at Cloud.” But what do I know?

And all THAT to say you should go watch all those other things I mentioned and some old ppg episodes back to back, instead. Don’t fuckin do it, CW

#powerpuff girls #powerpuff cw #powerpuff bubbles #powerpuff blossom #powerpuff buttercup #the cw #samurai jack #invincible #the umbrella academy #venture bros #doom patrol #dc #gorillaz #more nerd shit #long post #umbrella academy #don’t do it

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casually-slips-into-coma · 3 years

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An Essay (sort of) Explaining the Many Grievances I Have With Debbie Gallagher

Once again, Debbie is the fucking worst.

I’ve been wanting to write out my feelings towards her character for a fucking minute now just so that I have a full concise list. Now, I can talk about how Debbie has a constant need for attention, or how her character has become someone unrecognizable in the past few seasons, or how she’s a terrible mother, but what I really want to focus on is the center of my issues with her: her sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to be a homophobic rant or anything. I just think her queer development has been written terribly and that should be addressed.

Too often I see people praising queer characters or relationships based solely on the fact that they are queer, and as a member of the community, I get it. I am also starved for representation. This, however, does not mean I’m going to settle for annoying, poorly written characters.

Why Make Debbie Queer?

The first thing I want to address is why suddenly develop a WLW storyline for her. Given that Debbie started as a little girl on the show, this gives the writers a lot of opportunity to give a character like that interesting storylines because she does not yet have a solid personality. It gives writers the liberty to take her story anywhere they want to without the constraints of established character because she, as a person, is still developing into adulthood. The show runners unfortunately dropped the ball with this.

From season 4 and onwards was when Debbie began showing interest in dating, sex, and romance having just turned the corner to puberty. From then up until season 9, she has shown exclusive interest in men. It isn’t until Alex the welder that Debbie deviates from this path. Alex is portrayed as a stud who confuses Debbie. I am inclined to believe that Debbie was originally attracted to her because she was masculine and therefore close enough to the people Debbie had previous experience with.

This arc was treated very much as Debbie experimenting with her sexuality, something that Alex also ends up realizing after Debbie tells her that having sex with a girl is “not that bad” and “like having sex with yourself” (S9E4). Once this storyline wrapped up (with Debbie shouting “you make me want cock again”) the writers powered through, adamant about Debbie now being a lesbian.

I have two theories as to why they’ve been fighting so hard for her queerness.

1) This was around the time that Cam was leaving Shameless. This obviously didn’t end up happening, but I was under the impression that the writers were freaking out at losing their token gay character and needed to fill that position. When Cam ended up staying, they were stuck with a queer Debbie storyline and decided to just go with it.

2) Shameless was planning on doing a WLW storyline regardless of Cam’s choice to leave and were originally going to give it to Fiona and her lesbian tenant that she had a close relationship and a lot of chemistry with, but Emmy Rossum wanted to move on from Shameless, and so they pivoted and gave the arc to Debbie, a character that was not supposed to be moved in that direction and so her new sexuality seemingly came out of nowhere. Fiona as a bisexual character would have made sense. Debbie still does not.

Shameless’s Awkward Relationship With Bisexuality

One of the biggest issues I have with Debbie is her insistence on being a lesbian. Lesbianism doesn’t come out of nowhere. Bisexuality, however, can. When you grow up being told that you are supposed to feel attraction to men, and you genuinely do feel attraction to men (which Debbie has expressed in past seasons/episodes) it’s easy to ignore your attraction to women and write it off as something that either isn’t a big deal, or something that isn’t there. It’s a lot more confusing than being strictly at one end of the spectrum. It would have been so much more believable if they had simply made Debbie bisexual. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t because the show has a history with bi erasure.

Bisexuality has been treated badly all throughout Shameless, used as a vengeful plot device back in the earlier seasons where Monica was only ever with women when unmedicated. Then in Season 7 when Ian’s boyfriend Caleb cheated on him with a woman (enforcing the stereotype of bisexuals being unfaithful) Ian, possibly acting out of anger or ignorance, said things like “only women are bisexual. When a man says he’s bisexual he’s really just gay”. The only semi positive bisexual representation on the show was Svetlana and Vee when they were in a poly relationship with Kev (though I also think that storyline wasn’t handled as well as it could’ve been).

This fight against the bisexual label in media is not a new one but it is also a harmful stance to take when writing a sexually fluid character. Debbie declaring that she is, in fact, a lesbian after waxing poetic about how Matty had a big dick and Derek had a great body and knew what he was doing is not the way to go.

You could argue that Debbie, like many other queer women, is an unfortunate victim of compulsory heterosexuality, but frankly I don’t think the writers are well versed enough in queer theory for that to be a possibility.

Debbie as The White Feminist

Debbie is the pinnacle of white feminism. It’s an unfortunate thought that has occurred to me a few times throughout the show. She talks a big game as a man hater and someone after the equal treatment of women but she herself participates in a lot of problematic and anti feminist behavior.

For one, she r*ped Matty back in season 5 when he was blacked out and unconscious. This was a point in the story that was glossed over and one where she suffered no repercussions other than Matty no longer wanting to be around her. It was explained in the show that Debbie didn’t realize what she did was wrong until after she was explicitly told so because she was maybe 14 when it happened (not 100% on the age Shameless is very inconsistent about timelines). It was treated as somewhat of a punchline, something that Shameless has unfortunately done more than once when referring to male sexual assault (Mickey’s r*pe, Liam in season 10 ((i think??)) and in this latest season, Carl) but that is a different topic.

There was also the time in which she lied to her boyfriend about being on birth control so she could trap him into a relationship with pregnancy (which also counts as r*pe!!) Good on Derek for getting out of that.

Debbie has also been pro-life in the past. Now I understand this was when Fiona was pressuring her into aborting her pregnancy, and as a pro choicer myself, I believe that Debbie was fully in her right to have bodily autonomy and go through with the pregnancy. This isn’t where the issue lies. It’s when Fiona finds out that she too is pregnant and tells Debbie that she wants an abortion that Debbie accuses her of “killing her baby”. Again, her behavior could be explained by her age given that Debbie was still a young teen during this time.

When her actions as a White Feminist become less excusable is mostly in the latest season. Her relationship with Sandy is one that I’m not really happy with because Debbie doesn’t deserve her.

Recently, it has been revealed that Sandy is actually married to a man and has a son. It’s explained that she was basically married off against her will at the age of 15 to a man twice her age. This implies that the product of the marriage, her son, was most likely conceived through dubious consent (or worse) at the hands of an adult when she was just a kid. Just because Debbie thinks that Sandy’s husband “seems nice” does not give her the right to try and make a victim of grooming feel bad about not wanting to be with her abuser. While I understand that Sandy’s son has no fault in how he came into the world, I’m still gonna side with Sandy when it comes to having to take care of a child she didn’t want and who is most likely a source of trauma for her. It’s not difficult to sympathize with Sandy and see that she’s clearly gone through something fucked up and Debbie, despite claiming to love and support her, AND despite her dumb white feminist arc about wanting equal pay and all that jazz, turns her back on the girls supporting girls aspect of feminism.

This isn’t even mentioning how shitty it was to just leave Franny by herself and assume that one of her siblings would take her to school and pick her up and stuff as if they don’t all have separate lives. She talks a lot about being a good mother but decided to “let off some steam” by fucking off to a gay bar to get loaded on coke and fuck a gay man (which wtf thats not a thing that really happens with casual coke but whatever I guess). Once she realized she fucked up, instead of taking responsibility she decided to paint herself as the victim as well as spew offensive bullshit about how she “probably has AIDS now” because of her sexual encounter with a gay man. No lesbian in their right fucking mind would ever say that because as members of the LGBTQ+ community, you are at least a tiny bit informed as to how devastating and tragic the AIDS crisis was for queer people.

(I also have an issue with how Debbie capitalized on her felony as a sex offender and her sexuality to start her Hot Lesbian Convict business but I think that’s enough said.)

Blame the writers

The show got almost an entirely new cast of writers after season 7 which is why the show feels more like a sitcom with low stakes and no consequences rather than a drama, but if there is a queer writer on the team it’s not very evident. Even the better half of the queer relationship story, Ian and Mickey, I don’t feel has really been done justice since the change in writers. It’s just become painfully obvious that the actress is a straight girl playing a gay character (not to mention I have never seen any chemistry between her and all of her female love interests). I don’t fault Emma Kenney (the actress) for this. I actually really like her as a person and I like the videos she makes about the cast and such, and I think she does her best with the script she’s given. My complaints with Debbie are targeted entirely towards the writers.

This brings me to my final point. I need them to let Debbie be alone. Her whole thing for the second half of the season has been that she clearly has abandonment issues and is afraid of being alone. It’s why she’s so adamant about keeping the house and fighting with Lip about it (I’m actually on Debbie’s side for that one but that’s besides the point). They had her and Sandy break up which leaves Debbie to spiral further into her loneliness. From a writing point of view, it makes sense to take this opportunity to give her an arc in which she can overcome that and feel comfortable with herself so that she can move on as an adult instead of jumping into a new relationship. This is especially true since this is quite literally the last season ever of the show and any character development needs to be wrapped up. Introducing a new character out of nowhere does not give the viewers enough time to actually get invested in the new relationship. It’s also unfair to Debbie’s character because her arc is going to feel incomplete.

Anyway,,,,,,uuuhhhhh,,,,,feel free to add on if u want lmao

#shameless #debbie gallagher #sandy milkovich #lesbian #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #terrible queer rep

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nostalgiaruinedme · 3 years

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Hey I love your fics and writing style and well since I've been meaning to start writing fics I wanted to ask you if you have some advice you'd give.

Ohhh advice? Sure, I can do that! I shall bestow all of my knowledge upon you now, but you gotta look below the cut. Shhhh, it's a secret~

Okay really I just knew this was going to be a really long post and didn't want to clog up everyone's dash lol. ONTO WRITING ADVICE

I kind of live by these rules in writing:

1. Know the rules before you break them 2. ANYTHING can be inspiration 3. Remember the doll 4. Use your resources 5. Don’t hold yourself back 6. Practice 7. Enjoy yourself!!

1. Know the rules before you break them

Pay attention in English class (or whichever class for the language you're writing in) and learn the grammar!! I don't always have perfect grammar in my fics and sometimes I consciously choose to ignore grammar rules to make it more impactful, but you HAVE to know the rules before you break them. Study those grammar lessons! Learn how to use the fun punctuation, like semi colons and em dashes and en dashes and all that good stuff. I know they're scary, but they're a lot of fun too.

ALSO PLEASE USE PARAGRAPH BREAKS IM BEGGING that's like, a HUGE problem I see with a lot of new writers. Paragraph breaks are not optional!! Change 'em when the main topic of the paragraph switches or when a new character is speaking. Overdoing it with paragraph breaks is better than underdoing it, I promise.

2. ANYTHING can be inspiration

Have you ever played Story Cubes?

If you haven’t, it’s essentially this game where you roll the cubes, they each land on a different image, and you gotta tell a story that uses all of those pictures. Some are literally just a question mark or a speech bubble and that’s what you have to use. Me and my siblings used to play the game a lot. And you know what? Some of those stories are the most creative ones we’ve ever come up with. When I say anything can be inspiration for a story or a character, I mean ANYTHING!

I based my Donnie design off of the vintage globes and journals I have in my bedroom.

My little sister threw a pillow at me and it inspired a funny scene I wanted to write in another fic

I designed two OCs off of Mars and Pluto and an ENTIRE 40,000 word fanfiction based off of a space documentary I watched

My NaNoWriMo story last year was based off of the concept of shadows and how cool I thought it’d be if they could talk

Me and my friend made an entire dystopian original story commenting on our world today. It was first inspired by a crack self insert Death Note RP we had at 13 years old. Not kidding.

Literally anything can be inspiration. Challenge your mind!! The best ideas come out of completely ordinary and unexpected opportunities, in my experience. You don’t need one of those super detailed and crazy expensive prompt books (though they are fun) to write a great story. Use music, use a color, use the sky, use your favorite food, use anything! Just find inspiration!

3. Remember the Doll

Remember Mulan?

We never got to see the Huns destroy the village and we didn’t get to see them kill anyone there either. But by showing that doll there, the animators took an entire battle full of death and destruction and summed it all up in one, heartbreaking moment. You don’t need to spend ten pages writing about how horrifying the bad guy was and listing everything he did from start to finish, nor do you need to write an analysis on why she’s bad. All you need to do is show one or two very meaningful ways they impacted the world... and you can do that with something as simple as a doll lying on the ground in a burning village.

Because the doll is there; the little girl is not.

There’s a quote that sums this up really well, and I have it written on the dry erase board by my desk.

“You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying in the road.” - Richard Price

And adding onto that, try to write more about what’s there, not what isn’t. Mulan didn’t say ANYTHING about the girl in that scene, but by showing what was there, it told us a story about what wasn’t. Focus on what is in the scene and it will tell your reader about what isn’t.

I do think writing a balance is good though, so I try and keep it around a 3/1 ratio of what is there vs what isn’t. Remember this is art though, not math; you can change the formula as you please just to make it feel right. It all depends on the scene and what you want.

4. Use Your Resources

You know how, in the artist community, there’s this sort of stigma around using references? And some artists have to make posts reminding others that there’s nothing wrong with using references and you even should use them?

It’s the same concept in writing!

There is NOTHING wrong with looking to other writers’ work or keep a thesaurus constantly open or bookmarking a reference page of other words to use than “said”. Nothing wrong with it at all! When I write, I always have two tabs open: my writing document and thesaurus.com. I have a folder on my computer bookmarks of ways to describe a smile and a body language dictionary. Before I write fanfic, I watch a “best moments of *character*” compilation video on Youtube to remind myself of how they speak. I watch fight scenes from The 100 or Avatar or Marvel while I write my own battles!

There are SO MANY resources out there for you to reference. Use them! And if you need some to start with, shoot me an ask. I have a ton.

5. Don’t Hold Yourself Back

One of the scariest parts of writing is the thought of “what will people think?” Creative writing is EXTREMELY personal, and you’re going to find a lot of you inside your work, including the thoughts you didn’t want anyone to know about.

People will discover how often you think about love. People will discover how dark your mind can get. People will discover the morals you hold that even you didn’t know about. They’ll discover that the person you swore you’ve moved on from is still on your mind. They’ll discover that the pain you swore you got over still hurts you.

“you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction” - Isabel Allende

This thought scared me a lot, and still does. I’ve let go of and forgotten about so many story ideas because they were just a little too personal. I could write it and not publish it, but what if someone still sees? Writing, like all art, comes right from the heart and reveals a lot about a person. That paranoia of being known kept me from writing so much.

But I promise you, your most powerful stories are going to be the most personal ones.

I wrote Hated Resemblance based on my thoughts about myself, and I wrote Dagger From the Mirror based on thoughts about myself too. A lot of it is dark, most is painful, and all of it is scary to show the world. But I wrote it anyways and it’s created something pretty amazing.

Hell, even now I’m wondering if I should post that lil anecdote, but I think it’s the best way to make this part of my point stronger. See? Writing about things that affect you is the best way to make them impactful, even for something as simple as advice.

And even if you want to write about light and happy stories- you’re still going to have to get personal.

This all got pretty deep but my point is this: Don’t hold yourself back. Write what you feel you need to and it don’t worry about what anyone will think. Don’t hide that one sentence because you’re scared who will read it because you’re scared to be known so deeply. Add it in even when it’s scary.

That’s something I’m still learning how to do, and it’s a slow process that has taken years... but it’s worth it, I promise.

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” - Natalie Goldberg

6. Practice

I started writing in 1st grade. I’ve written regularly since then, and this is my word count every month this year:

Most of that is fanfiction. Some are just random thoughts, some are really thought out posts or answers to your questions, and some are made up of original stories. That total words written number is since November.

You don’t have to write this much every month, I promise, I just don’t really have any other hobbies lol. My point is that practice is really really really important. Write a paragraph or even just a sentence every day. You’re gonna improve so quickly, I promise.

“Write every day. Writing is a muscle that gets stronger with use.” - Abbi Glines

But take breaks too!!! Don’t overwork yourself. Burn out is a real thing and you shouldn’t force yourself to write just because you’re scared you don’t write enough! Write at a pace that’s comfortable for you. There will always be writers out there who write more than you and even more writers who write less than you. That’s okay. Everyone has a pace they’re comfortable with, and you just gotta find yours. As long as you’re writing consistently, the numbers don’t matter too much. 50 words a day or 5000 are both good!

7. Enjoy Yourself!!

You’re here to have fun!

No matter what you’re writing (angst, romance, fix-it, AUs, hurt/comfort, fluff, ANYTHING), remember that fic writing is supposed to be fun!! You’re not getting paid to do this. On one hand, that sucks, but on the other hand it gives you the amazing opportunity to write literally whatever you want! Find projects you’re enthusiastic about, meet other writers, do collabs, make playlists for your story, create over powered OCs for the hell of it, ignore plot holes and write without regard to canon, or write the most realistic and in-depth canon-compliant book ever. Create the most self indulgent story you can think of!

Have fun. This is your story and you get to write the rules. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. Be proud of yourself. You can get all of the comments and feedback in the world, but if you’re not proud of what you wrote, it’s gonna be hard to look back on it with joy. Be proud no matter how many reads it gets—you made it!

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.” - Steve Martin

#can you tell I like writing quotes #I have a whole pinterest board full of them #asks #writing advice #writblr #fanfiction #meg rambles

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