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oh-my-moomin · 3 years

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NGE: You Deserve Love

This is an analysis based solely on the og NGE anime series and not the movie or rebirth series so I won’t be mentioning those.

NGE is a psychological horror/apocalypse story dressed up as a mecha. This farce is only totally dropped in the last 2, even 3 episodes. This can make the ending jarring and seem in cohesive, but ultimately my understanding is that none of the ‘plot’ really matters. Seele doesn’t matter, where the angels come from doesn’t really matter, and the final battle doesn’t matter. This is a story exploring loss, the need for connection, loneliness, and humanity. We see this through not only the interactions of the human characters but also through the angels.

THE HUMANS

The Children

A defining trait of all the characters is that they are lonely. The isolation from human connection is brought on both by the high stress apocalypse they all live in, as well as the personal demons they face. The characters all attempt to create bonds with other people, but are held back by their insecurities, fear of vulnerability, and past traumas.

Let’s start with Shinji, as the main character. Having lost his mother at a young age, and being abandoned by this father, he was never able to feel secure. Therefore he takes on a people pleaser attitude, constantly apologizing. His want for validation (particularly from adults in his life) causes him to continue to take action that he doesn't want to, including piloting the EVA. His self hate and insecurity makes it hard for him to make and trust his own choices. So he relies on others to guide him. When this fails, when he doesn't get the love and validation he craves he tries to quite entirely. But this often leads to the people he cares about being hurt. He's trapped between a rock and hard place.

Asuka was also abandoned, however rather than craving support like Shinji, she chooses to live for herself. She craves independence. She needs to know that she is no longer a child that can be hurt and vulnerable. This is largely shown through both her overt sexuality, and her piloting the EVA. She must be in control of the EVA, she must have power, she must be able to prove herself as the best, the strongest. Because inside she still feels like that hurt desperate child, and that is what she hates most about herself. Unlike Shinji, Asuka is brash and rude, and she expects others to give her the same. She barks and expects you to bark back, but can’t always handle it.

Both of these characters are constantly looking for connection, with both their peers and adults. While Asuka often pushes herself on to people, out of a need to be seen. Shinji cannot take active moves to make meaningful connections, and will shy away from people trying to connect. Asuka hates herself and needs to prove that others love her. Shinji hates himself and cannot imagine that people love him.

The Adults

One of the running themes in the show is motherhood. Typically it is the mother that is expected to love and care for the child, to raise them, show unconditional love, give unwavering support. None of the characters have had this, Shinji and Asuka search for validation that they lost in adults in different ways. Unfortunately for them, none of the adults present are suitable to be parents.

The show makes a point to show that the adult characters are all more complex than the children. They have lived longer and therefore had more time to make mistakes, to get stuck in toxic ideals, to ‘be problematic’. They are not concretely good or bad people (mostly), but rather the result of people who grew up in a post apocalyptic world, trying desperately to stop the salvage it, while also trying to make their own connections. Like the child characters, their past traumas make it harder for them to be more open, vulnerable, and weak, to form that human connection.

I am going to focus on Misato and Ritsuko, since they act as foils when it comes to human connection.

Misato being left as a lone survivor to a terrible accident has left her scared both physically and mentally. Before this she had issues with her parents, as her father seemed to abandon his family in favour of work, leaving her mother devastated. Misato doesn't want to become like her mother, abandoned by a loved one, and she also doesn't want to be her father, a slave to work. To counter this she looks for easy connections, but she never wants to get too close.

When her relationship with Kaji was beginning to feel too real, she began to find flaws. His resemblance to her father was terrifying, so she broke it off. Similarly, when in scenes with Shinji, talking about his insecurities or his want to give up, she is hidden by shadow. She cannot be seen as weak, she cannot offer comfort, she cannot be a mother figure to Shinji. Other ways her searching for easy connection is her drinking beer, or eating take out. She searches for the most basic ways to fulfill her needs, so that she can focus on her main goal of defeating the angels.

Ritsuko is also desperate to find human connection without vulnerability. By fully closing off the whole world she can have no weakness, something which she resents in Misato. She views herself as above the need for connection in that way, and would rather follow in her mothers foot footsteps as a scientist and a woman.

She loved and admired her mother, and hated her. She wants to follow in her footsteps but also would hate to fail in the same ways. She saw how her mother failed to actually mother her, and chose to completely reject that part of herself. Instead she cares for cats, and uses those as a surrogate to having a child. She continues her mothers work as a scientist, constantly striving to improve. And when it comes to the ‘woman’ that her mother was, she knew a stubborn woman who focused solely on one man. So Ritsuko also focused on him, to the point of giving up her cat to her grandmother. Both women tried to create an easy connection with him, both felt that they were his equal, and that they found the one connection that mattered. When it was proven to them that they were a second (third) woman this caused them both to break down. For Ritsuko this meant that even though she closed off the whole world, except for one man, she was still too vulnerable. And her only response was to completely shut down. Because she had no one else.

All of the characters are constantly searching for this connection, trying to show affection without getting hurt. Trying to make sense of the end of the world while also making sense of interpersonal relationships. Their own inner demons getting in the way of honest connection.

Rei

As a clone Rei is a particular case. She is aware that she is not a ‘person’, she isnt meant for human connection. Her isolation is so ingrained into her, planned before she is even ‘born’ so she feels no need to care for anyone except Ikari. She latches onto him, would do anything for him, and has no value in her life because she is aware that she is not real.

However, she still has a human source, Shinjis mother. A human person, who also needed human connection. Rei, when given the chance, does care for people. Shinji is the first person to see her as a peer, and to treat her with kindness. With this start of forming connections, she begins to feel more human, to develop a further need to connect. Even if it's hard to fully separate from the man who created her.

THE ANGELS

The angels act as a foil to the human need for connection. While all of the human characters are lonely and searching for connection with each other, the angels are also lonely and trying to learn what that even means.

There is no scene where the angels are working together, they are solitary, all having the same goal of reaching Adam, but incapable of planning together to achieve it. They instead try to create connection to humans, trying to bond and understand them, without knowing that their methods are harmful.

I believe this can be first seen with the 12th angel. When Shinji is absorbed into the EVA, it is safe to say that the angel was able to understand the merging of human and EVA. This connection allowed Shinji to control the EVA to break free of the angel's shadow. The following month where Shinji is trapped within his EVA, is our first insight into what the human instrumentality project will be like, as well as the goals of the angels.

Since angels cannot connect to each other, the 15th angel attempts to create connection by forcing itself into Asukas mind. It wants to understand her, her emotions, her thoughts, her connections, her love. For her this is a painful experience, akin to rape. She feels dirtied after it. But the attack is a beam of light, with holy music playing, what should be a calming experience. I believe it is fair to say that the angel cannot understand that it is putting her through pain, as it cannot understand any human experiences. Angels are incapable of understanding their own feelings/experiences/wants, and try to use humans as a study from which they can learn.

The following angel confronts Rei about her loneliness. Instead of breaking into her mind through light, it directly entered her body. While talking with her, it questioned what loneliness was, trying to understand its own pain and isolation through understanding hers. Its solution is to merge with Rei, as it believes this would solve both problems.

However, when she refuses, the angel then tries to find another source of connection. Rei cares about Shinji, as both a clone of his mother, and a friend as her own person. The angel can see that this connection is something that she finds precious and tries to take it for itself, as it cannot understand why Shinji wouldn’t feel the same. It cannot understand how complex human connections are, that it cannot simply take Reis form. However, it has learned what pain is, and how to communicate its own pain. As seen when Shinji attacks it. Whether this pain is physical or emotional doesn't matter, because it is the first pain that the angel could express.

The angels discovering what loneliness is acts as a way for the human pilots to begin to explore their own isolation in more depth. For better or worse.

THE FINAL MESSENGER

Our introduction to the final angel is him singing. He takes a human form, can fully communicate to other humans, and doesn’t immediately attack them. This is such a contrast to all other angels that it isn't immediately clear that he even is an angel. Kaworu's first words are (as per the netflix english subtitles)

“Arent songs great? Songs enrich the heart. They're the crowning achievement of Lilin culture”

He loves humans, human culture, human lives, and the human world. He is the first angel who is able to show this. His ability to understand humans allows him to form human connections, and he does so with Shinji.

Kaworu loved Shinji. He would seek out Shinji, take time to bond and communicate with him, and help Shinji open up. He wanted to be close with Shinji, and knew how to be gentle in ways that no other human or angel could. He was patient, because he had time. And Shinji was able to open up to him more than with any other character. Shinji was able to take the initiative to ask to stay with him, to try and form that connection.

All the human characters are struggling with their own demons, with an apocalyptic world. The whole earth is at war and Shinji is in the front lines, surrounded by adults who may want to help him but ultimately can't. Saving everyone is a higher priority to saving one kid, especially when that kid is your strongest soldier. Throughout the series Shinji is given conditional love. It is only when he pilots the EVA, defeats the angels and saves the day that people give him validation. Then comes this boy, who is gentle and kind, who listens. And it's easy, its comfort, its understanding and unconditional love, and its exactly what Shinji has needed for the whole series.

But as a messenger he could never stay, he's temporary and by the end of the episode he understands this. He still is driven to ‘Adam’, he has a mission, but instead he is confronted with Lilith. Kaworu understands that humans and angels cannot live together in harmony, only one can survive. Both Adam and Litlith were made in god's image, but only Adam could stay in the garden of Eden. Death and Life hold equal value to Kaworu, so he doesn't mind the sacrifice, he would rather die to protect humans, to protect Shinji. He can also understand that this is difficult, this is murder, this is killing a friend. So he says “thank you” and he waits.

In other episodes when in a battle, Shinji is constantly being yelled at, told what to do, under constant pressure. But here there is just the same patient understanding that Kaworu has always shown him. No rush for him to take action, just time to process and grieve. Because Kaworu knows Shinji will make the hard choice and he waits, and he smiles, and he continues to love Shinji.

The final angel came down as a messenger and said

“You are important.

I want to talk to you, to know you.

You are in pain, you are fragile and should be protected.

You are worthy of my affection.

I like you. I love you. I was born just so that I could meet you.

Our kind cannot survive together, one of us must die. And you deserve to live.

I will take this burden of death because you deserve a future.

I am glad I could meet you, thank you.

I know this is hard, and I know you need time. I will wait.

Thank you.”

That was the last message to humanity.

And because Shinji is human he says back

“We are the same. I love you too. If only one of us could have lived it should have been you. You are better than me. You should have survived.”

#nge #neon genesis evangelion #shinji ikari #nge analysis #asuka langley sohryu #misato katsuragi #rei ayanami #ritsuko akagi #gendo ikari #kaworu nagisa

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blu-joons · 3 years

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DATING MONSTA X HEADCANON A⇴Z ⇴ Lee Jooheon

A ⇴ AFFECTION

He enjoys using his tall frame to wrap you up in his arms, he’ll definitely use his height to his advantage and will often rest himself against you as he knows how much it annoys you. His affection is always very teasing.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING

It took a while for you to really pick up on anything from Jooheon, to begin with, you were a little confused by him when you first started working for the company, but over time you began to realise how nice he was. Jooheon loved spending time with you, and that was often made obvious by how he always requested you worked with the group.

C ⇴ CONFESSION

At the end of a shoot one day, Jooheon decided to make his move. Whilst you were busy tidying things up, he appeared beside you and made you jump. You thought he was just going to let you know that you worked hard, so when he asked if you were free and if you wanted to go to dinner with him that night, to say you were surprised would be an understatement. But of course, you agreed, and got to know more about him.

D ⇴ DATES

Your dates were often very different, one evening the two of you could be out in the city all day and night doing plenty of doing things, other times the two of you would barely move from the sofa playing video games and watching movies. The two of you were very casual with your time together, as nice as the finer things in life sometimes were, you both also appreciated that sometimes the best way to enjoy each other’s company was just by doing absolutely nothing and shutting yourselves out from the rest of the world.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE

He’d only ever really had a few relationships during his school days, but never since his debut. For a long time, he’d been very focussed on his career, but as he got to know you, and also that you worked in the company, he began to wonder if he was at a stage where he could begin to consider dating. He was nervous to begin with, for a long time, he was desperate to protect you as best as he could, the last thing he wanted to do was risk your career, but eventually, he began to realise that he had nothing to worry about.

F ⇴ FIGHTING

The two of you don’t argue often, but when you do, sometimes it can get quite heated. Jooheon is quite a passionate guy, and if he believes strongly enough about something, he won’t be afraid to raise his voice a little and get his point across. It often takes you by surprise when he gets fired up, you don’t tend to match his tone, you just sit back and let him go off. Once he’s done, and calm, he’ll be quick to apologise and admit that maybe he got a little bit out of hand. You’ll try and convince him just to forget about things, but when he raises his voice around you, it takes a little bit of time for him to be able to forgive himself.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY

He couldn’t wait to introduce you to his friends and family, he’d told them plenty about you which left them with no option but to like you. He was very quick to ease your worries in the build up to meeting them, and once you had met them, he took great delight in proving to you how wrong you were to ever worry about things.

H ⇴ HOME

Jooheon hated that he had to bring you to the dorm often, especially with the others around. Whilst he didn’t want to rush into moving out, he also didn’t want to wait too late and reach a point when you’d get up of being at the dorm. After a few months, he’d definitely start to think about finding a place for you both.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU”

He was the first one to say, ‘I love you,’ when you were giving him the silent treatment. He was running out of options, and whilst you doubted if he meant it, thinking he just said it to get you to talk, he was quick to ease your doubts and assure you that he said it because he meant it, and that you talking again was just a bonus.

J ⇴ JEALOUSY

There weren’t many occasions when Jooheon would get jealous, he was confident enough in himself to know that he could handle most occasions. If he’s feeling jealous, he won’t kick off or doing anything stupid, you’ll usually find that he just appears a little closer towards you, and if there’s space, then he’ll definitely move at least one of his arms so there around you. He won’t ever like to talk about it with you though, if you bring it up afterwards, he’ll do whatever he can to try and change the subject and drop it.

K ⇴ KIDS

He definitely envisions children in his future, and with you, he truly begins to think that it will become a reality. You’ve seen him around Olive plenty of times before, he’s more than proved himself to you as a great potential dad in the future. Similarly, he loves to see you around Olive, seeing how close of a bond the two of you have will definitely encourage him to start thinking about the future a little bit more.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER

There’s not much that Jooheon won’t do to try and make you laugh. His favourite thing to do to try and make you laugh is definitely aegyo. As much as it makes you cringe sometimes, it’s also a guarantee to get a laugh out of you. At times, he’s guilty of having a bit of an innocent sense of humour, a lot of your jokes will go over his head which will unintentionally make you laugh too. He doesn’t mind though, as long as he’s got you laughing, then he sees no reason to feel bad about not quite getting the joke.

M ⇴ MISSING

He’s another member that will pretend to be alright whenever he’s away from you. He’ll be a little bit colder around people to try and keep the act up that he’s not missing you. Just like with his jealousy, if someone brings up your name around the table or at a fan meet, he’ll try hard to change the subject otherwise he’ll find himself stuck in a loophole of thinking of you. Whenever the two of you call, he’ll take a little bit of time for himself after to recompose himself. It takes it out of him, being away from you, he never imagined that he’d miss anyone as much as he misses you. He always tries to be the one that can cope, but everyone, including himself, knows deep down that he struggles being away from you.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

With all the aegyo that he does, you’ll often call him ‘cute,’ or ‘adorable,’ anything that plays up to his habits of being sweet around you will do the trick and only encourage him to do it a little bit more to please you.

O ⇴ OBSESSION

He’s obsessed with your chest; he loves to lay against it when he wants affection from you and will often rest his hands there when he’s hugging you tightly.

P ⇴ PDA

If it’s appropriate, Jooheon is not afraid to be affectionate with you in public. He’s not too bothered about what other people might have to say, no one is going to stop him from being close to his partner if that’s what he wants to do. There have definitely been a few times when he’s gone over the top, but usually he knows when to draw the line.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS

When the two of you plan things, he’ll always make sure to ask what you want to do. He often pushes his own interests and wishes aside in order to make you happy, as long as you’re happy, that’s what is most important to him.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS

The moment the two of you moved out, Jooheon definitely began to drop plenty of hints about marriage. He’d often start calling you ‘wifey’ completely out of the blue, even around his friends and family. No one ever quite knew what to make of it when he’d call you it, most of the time even you were quite frozen in your reaction. He’d never really explain it, all he’d tell you was that he wanted to get some practice in for the future.

S ⇴ SEX

Jooheon loves to dominate, he loves to be the one to take control and lead you. He’ll wrap his body around you as best as he can during intimacy to make sure that you feel as safe and protected with him as possible. If he’s in a playful mood, he won’t be afraid to act cute around you in order to get what he wants. He knows what he likes from you, but he also knows exactly what you like from him too.

T ⇴ TEXTS

You receive texts quite a lot from Jooheon, usually voice notes. If he hasn’t seen you for a while, he loves to send you reassuring messages and encourage you to smile, letting you know he’ll see you as soon as he can.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE

He loves having someone around that he can really be himself around. He trusted you more than anyone, ever since he met you, he knew you were going to be a special part of his life, and you most definitely were.

V ⇴ VACATION

There wasn’t much time in his schedule for the two of you to find the time to go away, so when you did, Jooheon made sure to make it special. Whenever you spoke about holidays or places you wanted to visit, he’d pay close attention. So, when the opportunity came for some time off, he’d be able to make your dreams come true.

W ⇴ WHINING

His whining tended to consist of aegyo yet again. He knew that you found it irresistible, if he tried hard enough then he’d definitely get what he wanted from you.

X ⇴ XXXXX

Jooheon loved to kiss you as often as he could, whenever he had the chance to kiss you, he’d definitely make the most if it. He never cared where the two of you were, he’d kiss you, it didn’t matter where he could kiss you either, he’d kiss you there anywhere. Kisses were his way of constantly letting you know that he was there beside you and loving you without needing any other words to let you know his feelings.

Y ⇴ YOU

You were his mirror, the two of you together spelled out trouble for others.

Z ⇴ ZZZ

Every night, he’d always be the big spoon and make sure to hold onto you as tightly as possible. He loved to make you feel protected at night, his arms would always be around you, and his voice would often whisper you into a sleep.

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dreamsmp-au-ideas · 3 years

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Guess it’s good brother dream brain rot time now that we’ve pretty much canonized phoenix Tommy in it. I must now do my proper due diligence. Adding in my two cents and furthering the spread of my brand, phoenix Tommy.

When Tommy is a little tiny thing Phil does everything in his power to try and keep it quiet that Tommy isn’t a regular avian hybrid, but a phoenix. Things like phoenixes, dragons, or other mythical avians are extremely rare mutations that happen seemingly without any reason but will often reoccur within the same bloodline more often than not.

Phil is something mythical. Maybe a dragon, maybe a griffin, maybe even something a little less well known like the zhenniao, yatagarasu, or alicanto. Either way he’s something mythical, it runs in his blood. It ends up running in Tommy’s too. Phil is one of the few mythological avians who doesn’t hide his features because people are usually far too fearful of both him an Technoblade to do anything. Unfortunately, what people weren’t scared of was the idea of trying to kidnap a child.

There were attempts to steal away Wilbur when he was little. Before he started presenting and turned out to be just your regular avian. There were fewer attempts when it came to Tommy. There was unfortunately one attempt that ended up being successful, he was stolen from the cradle and subsequently lost in a skirmish when Techno and Phil caught up to the man who took Tommy.

Dream found baby Tommy floating along in the river, figured the kid was probably abandoned since he’d heard of orphaned children being floated down rivers and never seen again, and subsequently took Tommy in.

Everything was fine and okay for a couple years and Tommy was quickly accepted into the family. Unfortunately when Tommy turned five his traits started to come in and he nearly burned down the house. The family didn’t want to abandon Tommy but realizing he was a mythical avian was a problem to say the least. So Dream, having recently become an active admin, gathered up his things and left with Tommy. He didn’t blame his family for their worries but he wasn’t going to abandon his little brother either. Not when he’d found Tommy. Not when he’d been the one to practically raise Tommy.

Dream and Tommy were very distrustful of strangers still for obvious reasons and Tommy was pretty much stuck wearing the mask in order to protect himself, but Dream did what he could. Dream didn’t originally wear a mask actually, he decided they should match as a way to make Tommy feel bad for always having to wear the mask when he didn’t want to. He found private places that were safe where Tommy could practice flying and stretch his wings since Dream was super concerned early on about them atrophying and never being able to properly carry Tommy. Sure, it was too dangerous for Tommy to actively go flying often, but Dream didn’t want to accidentally ruin Tommy’s chances of ever being able to fly. The most important facet of their relationship is that he wanted to protect Tommy but never cage him.

When Dream first took control of the Dream SMP it was originally so he could make it a safe space for himself and Tommy, only allowing his few friends who knew about Tommy and what he was to join, like Sapnap and George who have a super good relationship with both Dream and Tommy in this au. Dream is still super jumpy and protective of Tommy and Tommy trusts people a lot less, but Tommy also acts as something of an ambassador in Dream’s interpersonal relationships, keeping Dream from becoming too jumpy and letting them decay. Similarly Dream taught Tommy to be a lot more cautious of strangers and this Tommy is a heck of a lot stronger having grown up with a pvp legend like Dream.

When other people started joining it was still a controlled enough environment that while cautious, Dream let Tommy “play” for lack of a better word. Three canon lives is a rule everywhere that everyone has to abide by, regardless of what admin you’re living under. The admin doesn’t get to decide what’s canon either, it’s something seemingly up to chance. Or maybe the gods. No one knows what makes being pushed off a cliff by your mortal enemy so different from falling off one by your own stupidity, but some people theorize it’s the intention of the action.

Obviously this isn’t a rule that applies to Tommy. They both know it, him and Dream. And here’s the thing. Some legends say that there are no draw backs to a phoenix dying. Others say that too many deaths too quickly will slowly harm the phoenix. Both of these are false. A phoenix needs deaths. Canon deaths. The same way that kids needs to be tossed in the air and spun around to help develop their brains as really little kids, a phoenix needs to die repeatedly for their brains and bodies to properly mature fully and in a healthy manner. It’s an actual necessity for them to die, in fact, too few canon deaths run the risk of a phoenix getting sick and dying permanently.

So when new people join the Dream SMP, Dream doesn’t hesitate letting Tommy side against him. It’s an unspoken rule between them. Good brother Dream goes pretty similar to canon up until Pogtopia actually. Dream doesn’t hesitate to take those two canon lives and Tommy intentionally misses during their duel. He ends up with way more canon deaths than just two, and he keeps secret what they are from the rest of the SMP, saying the two times Dream killed him were the canon two. Each time he dies his magic gets a little stronger, his feathers taking on an even glossier coat. He still gets pissed at Eret after the betrayal because everyone else doesn’t have unlimited canon lives, but Dream shushes and reassures him that if anyone does die permanently then he’ll help Tommy bring them back.

Phoenixes are creatures tied to the frayed and broken bridge that crosses life and death. Just like they can’t die and have dominance over flames, another power of the phoenixes is that they’re uniquely skilled when it comes to necromancy. Real necromancy. Not the human equivalent that brings back soulless husks with a tendency for destruction and malevolence. A phoenix is the only creature that can bring a soul back from the dead in tact. Tommy knows this by merit of instinct, and did it only once before for the sake of Dream. Regular people know this by merit of books like the one Schlatt tries to trade Dream.

So Dream and Tommy mostly put on an act while the war is happening but then act all buddy buddy and like actual brothers off the battle fields which confuses everyone (besides the already aware George and Sapnap) and mildly upsets Wilbur, but everyone just kinda gets used to it.

Until Pogtopia. Because we need some kind of conflict I’m giving Schlatt a very special role. Schlatt was a hybrid who got captured by poachers as a child and sold into the hybrid slave trade. He was one of the lucky few who turned the tables and managed to earn his freedom, ultimately turning towards being a poacher himself. Schlatt comes to L'manberg and becomes president with the intention of selling every hybrid in the country, in the Dream SMP as a whole, to his traders. The reason he chose the Dream SMP specifically? Well, wouldn’t you know it, he’s heard rumors that apparently there’s a phoenix hiding around somewhere. Not to mention the Dream SMP is absolutely loaded with hybrids because of Dream’s rather public policy about hybrid tolerance (he isn’t a hybrid, but he knows the affect being a hybrid has had on Sapnap and he still fears for Tommy so he tries to make somewhere that maybe one day Tommy can be open about what he is.)

Schlatt can’t immediately tell it’s Tommy who’s the phoenix because Tommy himself is an even rarer variation of phoenix called a soul flame phoenix, which is why his eyes and wings are a soul fire blue. Schlatt came in expecting crimson and our boy is out here with wings that look like the place where the sky meets the sea. Schlatt even dismisses Tommy initially and starts investigating some of the people who look human or avians with orange and yellow feathers. This is also why Phil can’t immediately recognize Tommy when he joins the SMP. While he can hide them with magic, Tommy usually has his wings on display since the Dream SMP is designed to be a safe space for hybrids. This Dream doesn’t have a ban on flying (he thought about it, maybe setting aside specific areas where winged hybrids could exercise, but it was quickly scrapped via Tommy repeatedly throwing himself off cliffs and then remembering he wasn’t supposed to be flying, immediately letting himself drop and die. Some of those ‘accidents’ were even canon and Dream just gave up on the rule.)

For this AU, I imagine that Dream would be a bit more in tune with people and empathetic so he’d probably call in Techno and Phil for help when he sees Wilbur starting to take a dive. Both out of worry for his own younger brother who’s sticking by Wilbur and consideration for the fact Wilbur himself took something of an older brother role. Sure he was a little jealous, but he understand well enough that everyone who meets Tommy either falls into one of two categories. They hate the kid and want him dead or they want to be his older sibling who’d burn down the world if he asked them to. George and Sapnap can both attest to the fact there are only two types of people in this world when it comes to Tommy and people usually start as the first before slowly becoming the second.

So Techno and Phil show up early which is really good because Schlatt finally reveals his true intentions and neither Techno nor Phil are very chill with them. I dunno how the reveal will go between them and Tommy yet. I don’t even know for Good Brother Dream if we’re having Techno be a family friend or older brother so hard to say.

Anyway, I think that’d probably be where the main plot kinda starts to kick off so I’ll stop there for now. If I go for too much longer I’ll just end up wanting to write it…

#dream smp #dream smp au #good brother dream au #philza #ph1lza #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #dream #dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #jschlatt #technoblade #submission #snapdragon & firefly

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mego42 · 3 years

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Hi, since you seem more positive/excited about the triangle possibility than a fair amount of people, can you talk more about why? I fall into "the not thrilled about the possibility, but have a little hope it could result in some good moments" group and would love some more reasons to not dread it. Thanks! And love your writing and love reading your tags :)

hey anon!! i am v sorry you are not thrilled and am always happy to shriek nonsense about why i’m excited (though idk how much it will help bc the tl;dr is more or less i’m hype for a triangle bc i am an incredibly messy bench who lives for drama and if you are not a similarly messy bench, ymmv)

don’t get me wrong, i super understand the trepidation, pop culture is LITTERED with absolute shite examples of love triangles but here is an incomplete list of reasons i personally think beth and rio are the perfect kind of disaster to set up a spectacular love triangle:

the existence of a triangle implies there are FEELINGS at the various points

the use of the descriptor "romantic" applied to said triangle implies ROMANTIC feelings

i am a simple woman and my pulse has already picked up

one of my absolute most favorite things about the toxic stew that is beth and rio is how completely balls to the wall obsessed they are with having and holding each other’s attention and focus

like straight up possessive nightmare people

now imagine wedging an actual rival for one or the other’s attention between the two of them

(something we have not reeeeeally seen before, 206 withstanding and i’ll come back to that, bc lbr beth doesn’t give a fck about dean and rio’s known that for sure ever since he walked LITERALLY RIGHT PAST THE GUY to rail his wife in a public bathroom at her invitation)

(the 204 proximity point has nothing to do with this list it’s just a source of endless delight and that was enough for me to justify adding it)

where was i

mmmmm feelings, possessive nightmares, OH RIGHT

they are also nightmares in the sense that it appears to be physically impossible for them to use their words with each other unless it’s like, ripped out of them which means they’re sitting on ALL THE BAGGAGE between them and it’s just stewing and boiling and

wait, let me back up

look, i want brio sex as bad as the next person

but even more than brio sex? i want them to fight

i mean like, Fight fight

i want the kind of knockdown drag-out brawl that brings Stuff to the surface and leaves them with a bunch of nasty, ragged, pieces dragged out into the light bc lbr they’ve both done some incredibly awful things to each other

(kind of like what 213 was looking like before it all went to shit tbh)

(i’m just saying, beth saying you put it all on me with that kind of jagged, disbelieving betrayal behind it? my catnip)

(it’s up there with rio at the picnic table in 306 telling her that ship sailed when she put three slugs in him)

i live for them being raw and honest and emotional okay

IF ONLY THEY COULD BOTH DO IT AT THE SAME TIME

bc here’s the thing, for the magnitude of horrifying shit between the two of them? i (personally) think that they like it because they are so! twisted! when it comes to each other and i love that for me, specifically

like no seriously a huge part of what i love about the ship is that whole i see your monster and it looks like mine thing they’ve got going on when they let themselves and i am full on foaming at the mouth feral at the thought of them leaning into that

i’m sorry i’ve lost the thread again

wait no that was the thread

okay so basically they’re both ticking time bombs of smothered angst and rage who are absolutely incapable of being normal about each other but are also keeping all of that locked tf down and the only time we ever really see it come out is when one o them is too emotionally overwhelmed to keep their iron grip

you know what brings emotions to the surface?

TRIANGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SEETHING MESS OF EMOTION THAT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BRING TO THE SURFACE??????

AND HOW UTTERLY UNEQUIPPED EITHER ONE OF THEM WOULD BE TO DEAL WITH ANY OF IT????????

AND HOW SIDEWAYS IT COULD EXPLODE???????????

like don’t get me wrong there is absolutely no way it’s gonna be pretty but i didn’t get on this busted ass carnival ride expecting nice things, i am in this to feEl stuFf and nothing makes me feel stuff more than seeing the two of them feel stuff and this is perfect set up for that

you know how they say the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference?

you know what’s not indifference? big messy emotions

but okay okay okay i am icarus and the sun looms large, lets say they don’t fight, that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna feEl stuFf on their own

do you remember beth’s face in the van when rio hugged dylan??? do you?????

and what did she do after that? went out and robbed him blind and held his shit hostage until he caved in what is one of my top 10 of all of their scenes

and god, idk if we’ve really seen rio really get jealous of attention lavished on beth yet but when i think about it i want it so bad my teeth hurt

and i know i’m not alone here bc i have i think 3 jealous!rio prompts in my inbox rn

(i’m not saying i’m working on it but i’m also not not saying it)

god i just

can you imagine how much fun it could be to watch rio seethe over having to watch someone else be into beth

WHAT WOULD HE DO?????????

ESP IF HE COULDNT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT DIRECTLY BC ITS SOMEONE HE CAN’T INTERFERE WITH

oh christ and if beth responded to it??????????

oh gOD thE mESS

idk even if it doesn’t lead to a confrontation (but i feel like??? it would have to????) just the idea of the kinds of feelings they’d have to grapple with and confront within themselves is D E L I C I O U S

also, to jump back to an earlier point: brio sex

i know some people are feeling like the sexy chemistry between beth and rio is lacking this season

you know what’s great for chemistry? fuel

you know what provides great fuel? messy emotional situations that tug at intimate connections and make people feel out of control

you know what’s a messy emotional situation that tugs at intimate connections and make people feel out of control?

you probably guessed it

A TRIANGLE

(and we know that neither of them does well with feeling out of control period at all even without the intimate emotional stuff mixed in so like oh boy)

listen i am just saying given where they’re currently at with each other i cannot think of any situation more ripe for an explosive hook up than one or both of them feeling driven to reassert their claim/mark on the other

would it be nice? no, probably not

would i care? not even a little bit

(don’t you judge like any of y’all are any better than me)

look. to quote marie kondo horrifically out of context: i love mess and the mess potential in a romantic love triangle with beth and rio as two of the three points is stratospherically high.

#i hope this helps! or makes sense!#beth x rio #nbc good girls #in defense of love triangles #(a thing i never thought i'd tag tbh)#also while this is probs not a popular stance and debatably helpful #it's worth mentioning that the stakes of this are at the end of the day not very high #it's a tv show #i'm here to enjoy myself and when i stop enjoying myself i'll walk away #i'd be sad sure #but life's too short to put this much energy into something that does not spark joy #so idk remembering that makes it easier to not get that worked up #i lean into what i love and know that i can bounce if it doesn't deliver #shut up meg #anon

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

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thoughts on Bela///Donna?

What a lovely can of worms you've placed in my inbox, dear nonnie. I cannot wait to open it and lose followers (regardless of what I actually say).

Since this is, uh, a subject of some debate among RE8 fans, I will be inputting my thoughts on the idea of the ship (and the possible controversy), as opposed to doing HCs or something for it (which I recognize might be what you were asking for, despite the excessive /s).

This is all based on my playthroughs of the game, as well as what I've managed to double check on the fandom/wiki for it. I know that a lot of people who read fanfic for the game haven't actually played it, likely having been lured in by Tall Vampire Milf, and so I hope that some people will be open to a reminder of, like, canon vs fanon? I've mentioned in a previous post that there's a lot of details for RE8 that are not made clear, and I feel the need to reiterate that in this post. Capcom left a lot of stuff up to people's imaginations, or kind of just hinted at in game or in concept art.

But more importantly, regardless of what game we're talking about, regardless of the conclusion I come to (and the one you come to) at the end of this post, I want to say that I absolutely understand the need/desire to have your own perspective/take on the characters from the game, as well as their dynamics. If a ship makes you uncomfortable because you see the characters as being family members, it's totally okay. Block the ship tag, or filter it out when you look through fandom stuff, don't follow people who post for it, etc, etc.

If you think of characters as being family-family (like, not just "we got married and are now a family" but, like, "we're siblings/parent and child") and still ship them? uh. sorry, bruv, maybe think of hitting that unfollow button. No, seriously, hit that unfollow button. This blog is anti-incest, thank you very much.

The last thing I'll say before putting it under a read-more (for both length and major RE8 spoilers) is that I recognize that I might have missed something, either in game or developers talking about things on social media, and so if you read through this and go "god, J, you're such a dumbass for forgetting *critical piece of media*" or even just "okay but have you seen *small but meaningful piece of media*?" please. Just. Please. Tell me. Link me to that shit. I WANT to know if I'm wrong. I've literally avoided talking about this for as long as I could in order to TRY and make sure I have all the context I need.

With that said, let's examine what context we are given for Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and their relations to each other. I will be leaving my personal thoughts on Bela///Donna at the very end of this, as somewhat of a conclusion, somewhat of just a "hey, this is what you technically asked me about".

Firstly, let me begin by explaining what I consider to be the 3 tiers of "canon"

In-Game/Direct: The highest, truest tier, the definitive canon. This is everything that takes place in game, excluding certain hallucination scenes (ex: Mia was not really in House Beneviento, but we can infer some things from what Donna made Ethan hallucinate about). Things either happen, or are directly stated by characters. There's some wiggle room for dialogue, as characters can lie, but overall we, as the audience, assume we are being told the truth. At the very least, games usually eventually make it clear when a character has been dishonest. Examples of Direct Canon include the following: Ethan is infected with the mold, Lady Dimitrescu drinks blood, Heisenberg wears sunglasses, Mother Miranda can shapeshift.

Concept Art/Developer's Notes/Indirect: Mid-tier and debatable, the "we think, but we're not sure" of canon. Resident Evil: Village contains lots of concept art that the players can browse through, all of which include notes from the developers about the game, characters, environments, and story. Sometimes the notes make something "direct", but oftentimes they do not specify whether the listed idea is still canon or if it was removed during development. This tier also includes information that is implied/can be inferred from tier 1 information, but is not directly stated. Examples of Indirect Canon include the following: Donna's mother died by suicide, Moreau was going to have his lover fused to his back, Duke was originally a fifth lord, Heisenberg was going to have a twin. As you can see, not all of the concept art ideas made it into the final version of the game, so it can be hard when some information seems like it might still be true (such as the matter of Donna's parents).

Fanon/"False": Sometimes collective ideas in a fandom become so widespread that people start interpreting them as actual canon. Sometimes it gets hard to remember what's just obscure lore and what's fanon. When we get a piece of fiction as overall vague as a lot of Resident Evil: Village is, there's bound to be some confusion over time. That's one of the main reasons I waited to talk about Bela////Donna until after I had recently replayed relevant sections of the game, as I wanted to remind myself of what we're actually told. Examples of False Canon are difficult to pinpoint, but might include things like: Hufflepuffs are good at finding things? The Avengers got along for awhile and all had their own rooms in the tower? There's a number scale for the danger level of ghosts in Danny Phantom?

For this post, I will be limiting the majority of my notes to the first two levels of canon, and will do my best to mark them as such. Now... let us... begin.

Alcina Dimitrescu:

Born no later than 1914, Alcina Dimitrescu was 44 years old when she was granted the Cadou by Mother Miranda. (1st Tier: Canon. Source: A note in the castle basement from a servant is dated 1958, and mentions both Alcina and her children. Secondly, Miranda's experiment notes state that Alcina was the 181st subject, and was given the Cadou at age 44. By doing math, we can then determine the earliest Alcina could have been born.)

Alcina refers to the other Lords as her family once without any disdain (when Ethan first arrives at the castle and is caught, Alcina says "you've escaped my little brother"). In a private journal (located near where she threw the infamous vanity) she insults the other Lords, and expresses anger that she is "treated like a sister to them". She argues with Heisenberg without any hesitation, and seems honest in her hatred of him (per Maggie Robertson's wunderbar performance). (1st Tier/2nd Tier: Canon with a sprinkle of interpretation for the last line)

Alcina openly refers to Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela as her daughters, and wrote in her experiment journal that she felt instantly connected to them (as mother and daughters). (1st Tier: Canon).

Bela Dimitrescu:

Likely born in the 1930's or 1940's, in order to be an adult by 1958 (the first dated appearance of the Dimitrescu daughters). (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Dialogue shows that all three of the daughters do love their mother, and reinforces the bond Alcina's journal mentions. (1st Tier: Canon)

We are not given any information about how Bela feels about the other Lords, or even what she knows about them. Once can assume that she shares the ideas of her mother, either because Alcina tells her things directly, or because Bela (who is eager to please her mother) picks up on them over time. (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Donna Beneviento:

No idea when she was born. If you've read one of my recent posts, then you know that it's almost entirely a matter of 2nd and 3rd tier canon.

Of the four lords, Donna seems to have the most story within the 2nd tier, and has very, very little in the 1st tier. Duke says she's somewhat isolated, and that her "playmates" never leave the house. Miranda's notes state that Donna is mentally ill, and the gardener's diary states/implies (bit of both) that Donna has severe social anxiety. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

Supposedly, her parents committed suicide while she was still a child. This is indicated in concept art/the attached developer's notes. However, the only part that's also directly stated in game is that her parents (specifically her father) died while she was young. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

While Donna only has one voice line in the game (and it's sad), Angie talks a fair bit. Angie seems to disapprove of the other Lords, or at the very least enjoys mocking them, as well as enjoys watching them fight with each other. As Angie is connected to Donna, and Donna has some level of control over her, one can assume that the two have similar (if not the same) opinions. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

Donna was adopted by Mother Miranda as an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Donna was, or what exactly Miranda did as her "mother", just that Donna was excited about it. (1st Tier: Canon)

Other Relevant Information:

Heisenberg refers to the other Lords as his siblings a minimum of 1 time. Similarly to Alcina, however, he openly insults them and seems to hate them. He just, you know, hates Mother Miranda the most. (1st Tier: Canon)

Mother Miranda does not actually give a shit about the four Lords, intended for them to die before the ceremony, and has been manipulating them for her own gain this entire time. Her notes and dialogue make it clear that she only cares about getting Eva back. Somehow mother of the year and worst mother ever. At the same time. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

It's unclear who treats Alcina "like a sister" to the other Lords. Were there cut lines of dialogue that cemented the idea of them being a "family"? Did Miranda call them a "family" as part of pretending she cared about them? I've done my best to dig around, but there's very little in game that treats them as a family of any sort.

As each Lord ruled their own section of the region, they don't have any mentions of interacting with each other outside of meetings with Mother Miranda. None of the notes for any Lord (and their relevant experiments) mention what the others are doing. In game, their environments are very separate, very well divided, though this is likely as much for gameplay as it is for story.

Conclusion:

I do not not believe there is enough in game evidence to suggest that Alcina and Donna consider themselves to be siblings. There's the possibility for a large age gap, Alcina was a fair bit older than Donna when she met Miranda, Donna is a social recluse whose closest bonds were with dead blood relatives and dolls, Alcina openly dislikes (if not hates) the other Lords, they seemingly lived very separate and distanced lives, and Mother Miranda does not enforce the idea of "family". Furthermore, the sheer contrast between how Alcina interacts with/speaks of the other Lords compared to how she interacts with/speaks of her daughters says a lot about her feelings. Even if Heisenberg takes the brunt of her anger, Alcina never once says anything remotely positive about anyone other than Miranda and her daughters.

As Alcina/Bela and Donna are not blood-relatives, the definition of what would count as "incest" does vary depending on who you ask. Personally, I do count non-blood relations as potentially incestuous. For example: Alcina "dating" one of her daughters would be incest, regardless of the fact that she's a mutated human and her daughters are weird swarms of flies.

Now, I do understand how popular the idea of the four Lords being a real, chaotic but still close family is. And as I mentioned above, it's totally valid to not like the Bela///Donna ship, whether it's because you think they're family or some other reason. I don't personally see them that way, even in my definitely-not-canon stories.

Do I personally ship Bela///Donna? Nope. Have I liked art for the ship? Admittedly yes, even if I thought some of it was, like, maiden x Bela because Donna didn't have her veil and I'm a DUMBASS who doesn't always remember to read tags. Would I ever write for it? Yeah, probably, assuming I didn't miss anything in game/that I don't eventually change my mind.

#*incredibly deep sigh*#*incoherent screaming*#it's 6 in the morning #i spent too long doing research #again feel free to send me links if you think I missed something #what do I even tag this as?#asks #anonymous #meta shit #i'm procrastinating on posting this because of anxiety #I'm worried 2 specific followers are going to unfollow me #and possibly one mutual #somebody just kill me already

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word-addict-lisette · 3 years

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How I got over procrastinating

Remember that fifth tip i promised y’all. Here it is. All the credits belong to my dad!

One thing I have to say before this is that every person is different and no everyone can get over procrastination the same way. Different people get over this in different time periods it took me five months to get over procrastinating after i figured out that i was procrastinating. But a lot of s might take whereas another lot of us might get over this comparatively faster. Whatever I’m writing down here is simply my experience. This are the few I think might help others the way they helped. And, btw... i ain’t no professional here.

Procrastination turned out to really bother me and my schedule(which i hardly follow). I used to skip tasks and instead do much different things like randomly scroll through apps then complete my homework. It sucked for me. really.

But then when my dad noticed that i was skipping tasks at hand, he decided that i needed a lecture on that topic... usually i hated the lectures i get from my parents, but this one actually helped me. It really did. So, that’s the reason i thought of sharing it today. Might as well put my dad’s lecture to use somewhere...

The fifth tip! Goals!

In order to stop procrastinating, you first need to set your goals, and then identify how procrastination will prevent you from achieving them. Once done with that, you need to create a plan of action based on that info, and then implement it(the implementing part was tough... i aint one to stick to plans). But one very important thing to remember while carrying out this plan is that you need to be ready to change it anytime depending on how things are going. You should be able to refine it later as per your needs.

Set your goals

‘The first step to overcoming your procrastination is to set your goals.’

When you do this, it’s crucial to make sure that your goals are as clear as possible, since you are more likely to procrastinate when it comes to goals that are vague, compared to goals that are clearly defined. This is true. Whenever you don’t have a clear mindset towards your goal ou will end up avoiding it more due to the uncertainty.

For instance, “be more healthy” is a relatively vague goal, and you are therefore more likely to procrastinate when it comes to pursuing it than you are when it comes to pursuing a more definite goal such as, “drink only water and avoid eating fast food for the next month”. Now this is a long term goal. A lot of us people are not able to complete or maintain long term goals either, so that’s the reason this clarity is needed. That’s the first step to making sure you know what you are up to.

Similarly, a goal such as “start exercising” is relatively vague, and is therefore more likely to lead to procrastination than a goal that is more defined, such as “go to the gym 3 times a week, and work out for at least 30 minutes each time”.

In addition, when setting your goals, you also want to make sure that those goals are achievable and meaningful:

‘Achievable’ means that your goals should be realistic enough that you can actually accomplish them.

‘Meaningful’ means that your goals should be substantial enough that they lead you to make notable progress.

This is indeed very important. It helps a lot. When it comes to achievable goals my father always tells me to divide larger tasks into smaller tasks and complete them step by step. That way your mind doesn’t think of the task as a big obstacle and completes it with ease. And when talking of meaningful tasks, it is very important that if we make progress, we also reward that progress. And that, is what is important. If you reward your progress, it makes the mind feel better and motivates it to finish more tasks so as to win more rewards!

but dividing tasks into meaningful and achievable isn’t always easy.

For example, the goal of writing 5,000 words for your thesis each day is meaningful but is generally not achievable, since most people can’t write at that rate, which is why such a goal should be avoided. But on the other side, the goal of writing 5 words each day is certainly achievable but isn’t meaningful, since it will take you too long to finish your thesis at that rate, which is why this type of goal should also be avoided.

In comparison, the goal of writing 500 words per day is both achievable as well as meaningful, which is why it is a better goal for yourself.

Of course, different people might choose different rates of progress, and there isn’t a single rate of progress that works for everyone. As such, the most important thing is to find the rate of progress that works for you, in your particular situation.

Overall, the first step to overcoming your procrastination is to set your goals. These goals should be quite well-defined, possible to accomplish, and significant enough to help you make progress.

Moving on to the next part.

Identify the problem

If you want to successfully solve your procrastination problem, it’s important to first understand the exact nature of the problem that you’re dealing with.

Three main things to remember when determining the nature of your procrastination are:

When you procrastinate. This involves asking yourself in what situations do you procrastinate. For example, do you tend to procrastinate more when you’re working from home compared to when you’re working in the library? Do you struggle to finish tasks after you’ve started them or do you struggle to get started in the first place?

How you procrastinate. This involves asking yourself what you do when you’re procrastinating. For example, do you browse social media, play video games, watch TV shows, go out with friends, or find small and unimportant tasks to complete?

Why you procrastinate. This involves asking yourself what’s causing you to procrastinate. For example, do you constantly find yourself being distracted, or do you feel so overwhelmed that you don’t know how to get started?

For an example of how to consider these factors, imagine a scenario in which you’re taking a class where you need to hand in a series of assignments throughout the semester.

Each time you get a new assignment you sit in front of the computer in your room (the ‘when’), but instead of working on the assignment you find yourself wasting time on the internet (the ‘how’), because the assignment is so boring that you can’t find the motivation to start until shortly before it’s due (the ‘why’). This is the kind of procrastination that i end up doing.

In this situation and in similar ones, you might often end up promising yourself that you’ll get started soon, or that next time will be different, despite the fact that the same thing happened in the past, and that you never really did anything much to change your behavior. The main reason i noticed why this happens is that people wrongly assume that procrastination is just about their willpower, while also believing that next time they’ll be able to exert more willpower and change their behavior, despite the evidence to the contrary.

However, by taking the time to clearly identify the nature of your procrastination problem, you can then figure out a way to deal with it, instead of just hoping that things will be different in the future.

A few things to avoid that i would suggest during tasks are as follows:

Rewards that are very far in the future.

A disconnect from your future self.

A focus on future possibilities, together with an unjustified optimism about the ability to achieve them.

Feelings of overwhelm.

Anxiety.

Perfectionism.

Fear of evaluation or negative feedback.

Fear of failure.

Self-handicapping.

A perceived lack of control.

Lack of motivation.

Lack of energy.

Task aversion.

Prioritization of short-term mood.

Distractibility.

If you’re not sure why you procrastinate, then you should read the guide on the topic and identify the reasons for procrastination that describe you the best, and then return here and figure out how to build a plan of action that takes these reasons into account.

Create a plan of action

Once you’ve set your goals and identified the nature of your procrastination problem, you can create a plan of action that will allow you to stop procrastinating and start getting things done.

To create a plan of action, you need to figure out which anti-procrastination techniques you should use, and how to use them. These techniques, which are listed in the next section, fall into two main categories:

Behavioral techniques. These techniques involve directly modifying your actions, by helping you instill positive behaviors and avoid negative ones. Examples of behavioral anti-procrastination techniques include breaking large tasks into smaller ones and removing distractions from your work environment.

Cognitive techniques. These techniques involve directly modifying your thoughts, by helping instill positive thought patterns and avoid negative ones. Examples of cognitive anti-procrastination techniques include visualizing your future self and focusing on your goals instead of on your tasks.

Some techniques can involve a blend of behavioral and cognitive aspects, and it’s not crucial to understand the distinction between these two types of techniques. Rather, the important thing is to understand the general idea behind anti-procrastination techniques, and specifically that you can overcome your procrastination by instilling positive behaviors and thought patterns while eliminating negative ones.

In general, each technique is likely to help you accomplish at least one of the following things:

Make it easier for you to get started. For example, leaving the document that you need to work on open on your computer before you go to sleep will make it easier for you to start working on it once you sit down at the computer the next day.

Make it easier for you to keep going once you’ve started. For example, putting your phone on silent mode and out of sight reduces the likelihood that you will be distracted by notifications while you’re working, which will make it easier for you to focus on your work.

Make it harder for you to avoid working. For example, turning off the WiFi on your computer and phone removes the temptation to procrastinate on social media instead of writing your paper.

You can use any combination of techniques that you want, and you should pick the ones that fit you best given your particular situation, since different techniques will work differently for different people, and will even work differently for the same person in different situations.

As such, make sure to identify the nature of your procrastination problem before figuring out which techniques you should use in order to solve it. As you go along, try to see which techniques are working for you, and then eliminate those that don’t, while experimenting with other techniques that you haven’t tried, in order to find new beneficial approaches.

Finally, keep in mind that if this all feels like too much at first, remember that imperfect action is infinitely better than no action at all.

As such, if you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just pick a single technique that you want to work on for now (if you’re not sure which one, go with the first one on the list: ‘My ultimate guide to avoiding procrastinating’).

Later on, once you feel more comfortable with the situation, you can choose to implement additional techniques if you’d like.

The link to my first and second post on procrastination are below!

The art of procrastination (Part 1)

My ultimate guide to avoiding procrastinating (Part 2)

#from liz's thoughts #procrastination #procrastinating #i procrastinate too much #important #part 3 #coping mechanism #how to get over procrastination #my life #my guides #this is my content #do not repost #reblogs are appreciated

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sepublic · 3 years

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Willow’s Unwanted Fan

While I don’t exactly think the two would be healthy unless after plenty of development... I am imagining Willow VERY hesitantly giving Boscha a chance as just an acquaintance, and... maybe Boscha makes an offhand remark or feels some frustration at Willow, who has it so easy in becoming popular once she applies herself because of how innately talented she is, how lucky she is- And meanwhile Boscha had to work so hard for fame.

Of course, Boscha doesn’t realize what this says about how toxic the coven system is, and how unfair it is because some people ARE blessed better than others; And the idea that people who are less well-off than others only have a lack of effort on their part to blame, is a faulty assumption that she defaults to, to justify cruelty and superiority. In the end, there’s a lot more to success than just hard work, there are plenty of factors that you just can’t control, so maybe a lack of success by others isn’t something you can fault them for...

Maybe Boscha accuses Willow of being ungrateful, of taking for granted the kind of power she has as a popular witch at school, citing some examples -such as herself- of how other kids really struggle to achieve this sort of fame... And Willow needs to recognize that she has a privilege, a luxury that she really needs to take advantage of and make the most of; She’s got a lot of potential, and Boscha just wants to help Willow achieve that!

Kind of like a parallel to how some kids feel pressured by parents and teachers to pursue major accomplishments in academia because of their potential, when really they’re content with the humble goal they normally desire... Perhaps Boscha will try to vicariously live out her lost power, or at least a talent and level of achievement she never had/will have, through Willow- Maybe repeating what her mother tries to do with her, even! And this’d be a particularly horrifying revelation to Boscha, who doesn’t seem to treat her mother with much respect and maybe even sees her as someone to avoid being like...

In addition, maybe Boscha is trying to replace Amity as a friend by having Willow as the powerful witch that Boscha looks up to and emulates... Though in this scenario, Boscha is almost consciously trying to mold Willow into that specific image of what she wants her role model to be, whereas with Amity she was mostly just projecting, and not recognizing Amity’s actual personality. I could see Boscha trying to get petty revenge against Amity, by making Willow so much more popular and cooler than she had ever been, especially since Willow is apparently more talented than the Blight girl,

So just as her mother uses Boscha’s achievement to show up Odalia and her kid, Boscha uses Willow to show up Amity by basically bragging about how her new friend is so much better; How Boscha is GLAD Amity left her, so the Blight girl is no longer holding her down, and Boscha can actually hang out with people who deserve it... And similarly, Amity is missing out on so much potential that Boscha could’ve supported her in reaching (just as Amity left Grudgby), and it’s all her loss!

Boscha finds an unusual resignation in not being the best, so she settles for latching onto the actual best, and making the most of them to spite those she feels ‘didn’t appreciate her enough’. Boscha is basically trying to convert Willow to be more like her, so she can actually live with Willow being better than her, and thus validate her own beliefs in a very roundabout way, by having the ‘best’ (AKA Willow) agree with them!

She can have Willow validate Boscha’s own choices and values in life, by making Willow reach the same ones... And so Boscha can have a role model who she looks up to, but also a friend who basically tells her that what she’s doing is right, and that Boscha isn’t doing anything wrong! Boscha doesn’t want to consider or self-reflect, she just wants someone to look up to, by providing a flattering world-view that isn’t challenging and only confirms what Boscha already believes in.

Regardless, Willow senses some toxicity brewing and she nopes out of there entirely, and/or completely shuts down Boscha’s train of thought. I think Boscha and Willow could have a very interesting dynamic later down the line, especially in regards to how Willow is possibly becoming more popular than Boscha, and having her greater magical strength acknowledged, particularly begrudgingly by Boscha herself... Although I hesitate to say that there’d be an outright positive relationship between the two, much less actual romance.

Goodness, what if Boscha was SO desperate to have some validation of her old role and beliefs, that she just... goads Willow into attacking her, under the satisfaction that if Willow beats her up, then it justifies her hierarchy of stronger witches being above the weaker ones! And even after being defeated, Boscha just trails behind Willow because she’s really accepting any retaliation as self-punishment for not being strong enough; That maybe she becomes SO devoted to the idea of a role model or a leader that she can follow, that she actively revels in being hurt because it’s part of some really sick and twisted concept of ‘suffering builds character’!

What I’m basically saying is, what if Boscha was like Jasper towards Lapis in Alone at Sea, fully accepting of any abuse from Lapis, because Lapis is SO strong that she’s fully justified in thrashing a weaker Jasper, and it gives Jasper some martyrdom satisfaction to serve and provide for someone who’s so much better than her, especially if it means having any taste or association of the kind of power she looks up to! Maybe Boscha just accepts, if not embraces, any retaliation from Willow as proof of her belief that strong witches should be above the weaker ones, etc., thereby validating Boscha’s loss because all IS right in the hierarchy, it just shifted!

Maybe Boscha even enjoys being hurt, because deep down it plays into some possible self-loathing at losing to Willow, while also acknowledging Willow’s victory and strength... And she keeps picking fights with Willow no matter how badly she gets hurt, because Boscha believes that with each battle, she’ll get better and better and maybe one day defeat the Park girl, so any injuries she suffers on the way are totally justifiable if it means getting back on top!

And Willow is in a dilemma where she can’t just smack Boscha away, because she doesn’t want to contribute towards that belief and justify it... She hates Boscha and won’t help her, but generally refuses to take the next step in harming the girl by entrenching her in her own ideas. Maybe we’d have a scene similar to Lapis taking her rage out on the other Lapises and thrashing them, reveling in her power over them; Only to realize that this isn’t strength, it’s just tyranny. And just as Lapis rejects Nice Lapis’ worship by admitting that her own retaliation went too far, maybe Willow does the same to Boscha...

...Of course. Even if Willow doesn’t want to outright harm Boscha, nor does she want to give her any satisfaction by playing by her game and rules; If Boscha were to threaten any of her friends, of course she’d punt Boscha into the stratosphere, no guilt nor hesitation. Because in that kind of situation, it’s just a pragmatic scenario of self-defense, where physical safety is prioritized above any ‘principles’ or ‘points’ that are trying to be made here. And Boscha is just someone Willow is going to have ignore, kick aside, and not waste time nor energy in... That yeah, if Willow hurts Boscha to defend herself, that sucks, especially if it contributes to Boscha’s toxic beliefs; But in the end, Willow’s own comfort is prioritized above all-else, and it’s Boscha engaging with Willow, that makes Willow’s happiness come at the cost of Boscha’s own recovery.

Boscha only has herself to blame for Willow choosing a painful option in that ultimatum, because she’s the one that set it down to begin with- Like when she made her friends choose between Boscha and King-Luz, and not letting them be content with both. Or of course, when Boscha makes the school choose between herself, or Willow... When both can be popular and beloved, this isn’t a pie to divvy up! Willow just might beat up Boscha regardless of whether or not she’s playing into the girl’s point or not, because Willow’s comfort comes before proving Boscha wrong- And it’s this apathetic disregard, that it’s meaningless to Willow whether or not Boscha is vindicated, that she’d rather not be bothered by the problem to begin with... That will show Boscha just how pointless her efforts have been, and how little they mean in the end.

If Boscha sometimes dismisses things or people as being ‘beneath’ her, then she’s about to be on the receiving end by none other than Willow Park herself...! It’s Willow’s out of sight, out of mind principle- Unintentionally playing by the game or not, it’s all inconsequential and interchangeable, it just. Doesn’t. Matter. Willow has more important things to worry about, because Boscha isn’t important, and she’ll do what she needs to do to get Boscha out of the way and out of her hair so she can focus on what Willow REALLY cares about.

And knowing how little she actually means to some, that she’s not the center of other people’s world like Boscha wanted to believe, that Willow certainly has no place for her that isn’t an afterthought; It would be quite the wake-up call. People have lives beyond Boscha, they don’t need her and thus they aren’t obligated to her; So don’t act like they are, Boscha, and don’t act like you can change this and force them to reciprocate by ‘earning’ that right in a challenge they never agreed to.

#the owl house #toh #the owl house willow #willow park #the owl house boscha #toh willow #toh boscha #speculation #meta

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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Considering how much you love the saporian au, I have a I guess alternative pitch to ask about. In Rapunzel's Return, if it was revealed that Cass was Saporian instead and still goes through with crossing the line in canon. So when Rapunzel and the gang gets home, do you think the Saporian invasion fight would've gone differently with this new information brought to light for her, especially since Varian is working with them now? Do you have any input on this?

why yes i do

so to start. let’s skip back to like august/september of 2019, which is when the tts hyperfixation kicked in but before s3 started to air. at this point in time my thinking was:

the separatists are definitely coming back in some capacity because the series made a point of putting their symbol on the book in RDO, signaling that andrew was not a one time deal.

there’s a press release that says raps will encounter an old enemy when she returns to corona and while it might be varian, my money is on the separatists.

cassandra encountered zhan tiri behind the door in the shell house and learned or saw something that soured her pretty hard on corona

i have been theorizing that cass is saporian since the first time i watched under raps, like, a year ago

i have also been theorizing that zhan tiri is saporian since she was introduced, mainly because it’s fun and it ties two great antagonists together

if cass IS saporian, and the separatists ARE the threat awaiting rapunzel in corona, these two things are probably going to end up intertwining down the line in s3.

sigh. [puts on my clown shoes]

a big part of the appeal of saporian!cass to my mind is that it gives cassandra an excellent reason, completely unrelated to rapunzel, to return to corona after she takes the moonstone. right? in my head, before s3 aired, my theory was kinda: zhan tiri got into her head and drew a connection between cassandra’s individual feelings of being neglected/overlooked/treated unfairly, and the systemic problem of saporians being oppressed/cast aside/treated unfairly.

and cass wants so badly to be a hero. she wants to be admired. she wants to be a protagonist, basically, and if cass is saporian that positions her perfectly to become the hero of the saporian separatist movement after she takes the moonstone. it fits so well!

so if, beyond just cass being saporian, this were the direction the series had gone with cass being saporian—and taking into account that this is a disney princess show and it is going to be pro-monarchy at the end of the day, and trying to stay within those bounds—i kind of imagine it playing out like this:

1) cass takes the moonstone and angrily lashes out at rapunzel, telling her about what zhan tiri told her in the HOYT (which boils down to ranting about how saporians in general and cass in particular are treated badly and she’s not going to take it anymore and this is my destiny, rapunzel). then she leaves, with CtL going exactly as it does in canon.

2) reeling, rapunzel returns home—only to find that it has been taken over by saporian separatists. talk about a punch in the gut! and then to make matters worse, varian is working with them. i think “rapunzel’s return” can still end with victory over the separatists in this version, but the separatists aren’t imprisoned at the end—they escape, swearing that it isn’t over. [the conflict itself plays out similarly, except for preference the separatists aren’t trying to glass corona, they’re just trying to stay in charge / drive team corona out. this allows for escalation later with zhan tiri and also doesn’t paint. people fighting back against their oppressors as pure evil,]

2a) varian and rapunzel still have their emotional conversation and sort-of apologies, but! varian doesn’t turn against the separatists yet, and when they escape, he goes with them. however, fundamentally their cause isn’t personal to him, and he’s now all conflicted because rapunzel doesn’t hate his guts like he’s been telling himself she must.

3) rapunzel frees quirin from the amber despite varian’s continuing betrayal, because it’s the right thing to do and also because she’s desperate for SOME sort of victory after all this. varian doesn’t find out about this until after his redemption.

4) the separatists continue to cause problems in B-plots throughout the first half of the season. someone (probably eugene?) tries to broach the subject of cass with rapunzel in the context of cass potentially joining the separatists and throwing the power of the moonstone behind their cause. rapunzel brushes this off on the grounds that no matter what cass is still her best friend. meanwhile we keep getting cass stingers, with cass struggling to control the rocks and zhan tiri helping her, except instead of driving her into rages at rapunzel, she’s focused on radicalizing cass to the separatist cause (although she does not spell this out at first).

5) BVA kicks off with zhan tiri dropping the bomb that she wants cass to join the separatists. cass is shocked (she knows how extreme and violent they are—and she’s not like that, is she? she hasn’t hurt anyone!), which triggers the burst of red rocks.

5a) in corona, the red rocks cause varian to have horrific visions of his father/all of corona trapped in amber, confronting him with his own guilt. he’s been sticking with the separatists mostly out of fear of being rejected if he tries to return to corona now—after all, rapunzel gave him another chance, and he threw it back in her face. but the visions are too much for him, and after he sees that they’re capable of petrifying people, he rushes straight to corona, sneaking in through the tunnels to warn rapunzel. she decides to trust him again, and they set off to the demanitus chamber to stop the red rocks a la canon.

5b) as varian and rapunzel emerge and see that their efforts paid off, rapunzel assures him that she’ll make sure everyone hears how he put himself in danger to warn them, and how he saved the day... and as varian is thanking her, he hears a very quiet “...son?” from behind them. he turns around, unable to believe his ears. it’s his dad. his dad is free. for a second he’s terrified this is some sort of lingering effect of the rocks but rapunzel explains that she found an incantation that she used to free quirin, and there is a BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENT as he reunites with his dad. because varian realizes quirin must know everything he did after his dad was trapped in the amber, and he’s so afraid his dad will be ashamed of him, but quirin is just like. no, son, you may have gone to a very dark place but you found your way back all by yourself, and you did the right thing, and i’m so proud of you. tears, and so on.

5c) BVA ends with cassandra and zhan tiri, rather than eugene and rapunzel, debriefing. cass reveals that she felt rapunzel’s fear of her during their moment of connection, and she is upset because even though cass hasn’t done anything, rapunzel seems to see cass as just as violent and dangerous as the separatists are, perhaps even moreso. and zhan tiri comes in with “they’ve already written you off as a monster” and “what do you think forced the separatists to such extremes? they tried to be reasonable, and they were persecuted just as you have been” and “really, what do you have to lose?”

6) and that is how cass gets on board with zhan tiri’s joining the separatists plan. [if cass doesn’t already know at this point, i think this would be the part where zhan tiri mentions that she’s saporian, too]

7) then we hit pascal’s dragon, and this is the episode where rapunzel starts really considering what cass being saporian means, basically using LBB as a proxy for working out her feelings about cass and ultimately coming to a sort of hopeful conclusion that maybe... cass being saporian is important to her and maybe—just like the enraged dragons that destroyed nigel’s village—the separatists have valid reasons for their anger... but also that a peaceful resolution can be reached if rapunzel doesn’t let fear consume her.

8) islands apart, then, becomes a little more focused on rapunzel trying to get the whole story out of the captain; how did he end up with a saporian kid, what do the separatists want beyond blowing corona up [he’s the captain of the guard, he must have dossiers on these people], and most importantly, what options are there for compromise? fresh off her own commitment to meet cass halfway, the conflict between rapunzel and the captain vis a vis fountain cass can also be nice and sharp.

9) in cassandra’s revenge!!! we just scrap the entire eugene surprise birthday proposal subplot. the first half of the episode is cass cruising into the separatist camp in the woods with the moonstone and ghost!ziti. she and andrew are immediately at each others throats because both of them want to be in charge but cass ends up winning by dint of a) having a magical rock with enormous destructive power at her disposal, and b) having a clear plan. she steals the scroll to distract everyone while the separatists in to steal [insert magical saporian artifact macguffin here] from the palace vaults, with the intention of using it to free zhan tiri.

10) cass’s part of CR goes very similarly to how it does in canon: team corona turns up to rescue varian, rapunzel tries to talk to cass about finding a viable compromise on the saporian issue, and cass, not wanting to hear it, goes berserk and attacks her. partly this is venting her very real personal anger at rapunzel (i like the idea of rapunzel reaching for her burnt hand being the thing that sets her off) and partly she’s just furious because rapunzel still doesn’t really get it. “nobody has to get hurt? saporians have already gotten hurt! i have already gotten hurt!” <- that kind of thing

10a) also!!! a “nothing left to lose” where varian is saying “i worked with the separatists and it wasn’t worth it!” and cass is saying “don’t you get it? i’m not like you, i don’t have other options, i’m saporian” would be sooooo goooood

11) in any case cass gets yeeted off the tower and injured, as in canon. team corona leaves. the separatists come back, find the tower in ruins and cassandra crawling back up from her ledge. they help her up, treat her injuries, and then reveal the bad news: the macguffin they were after, the one they need to free zhan tiri? it’s gone. corona sent it to the keeper of the spire for safe keeping.

12) race to the spire! is about cass and the separatists trying to retrieve the macguffin from the spire. and it is also about an extremely shaken rapunzel talking to xavier about all of this, realizing what the separatists were probably after when they broke in, freaking out (cass joining the separatists is one thing, but bringing zhan tiri back?!) and reluctantly turning to edmund and adira for help... because she thinks she knows where cass is going to go next.

12a) cue crazy cass + separatists + ghost ziti vs team corona + brotherhood battle at the spire. with all the canon insanity of the weird ass artifacts getting thrown into the mix. cass and the separatists win, possibly because ghost ziti advices cass to grab and threaten calliope to force rapunzel to cooperate and cass does it.

13) TOTS is now the freeing zhan tiri episode. and the gothel disciple backstory episode. because turns out! none of them really know how to do the actual jailbreak with the macguffin, so... they need gothel’s old research, from when she and the other disciples used the same artifact to free zhan tiri last time. rapunzel is in the cottage with a similar idea: she’s trying to learn more about the sundrop and its connection to the moonstone. loredumps, idk. maybe all this takes place in the ruins of the tower instead; i like the idea of gothel having a creepy little laboratory in the cellar or something.

14) rapunzel pleads with cass to think about what she’s doing. the separatists have a point—does zhan tiri? what is zhan tiri after, what’s her agenda, what is she, even? and it nearly works, she nearly gets through to cassandra, but then... cap shows up, and cass does not react well. cap is there to try to apologize for their last altercation, but she does NOT want to hear it and the whole situation escalates. team corona gets driven out of the valley, cass and the separatists do the ritual to release zhan tiri and wow things are really bad now aren’t they!!!

15) flynnposter... idk. cap recuses himself from the whole fighting cassandra thing because he cannot handle it and because everyone agrees he’ll be more effective at getting through to cass if he’s not showing up in the captain’s uniform, eugene gets put in charge... and zhan tiri is out to cause problems. i just think she should get an episode of zany hijinks all to herself. she deserves it. to keep the plot relevancy going let’s say she’s impersonating eugene-as-flynn because a) it’s funny and b) it masks her real agenda, which is, let’s say, wiping corona off the map, stealing the sundrop, and using it to plant/grow a new great tree on the ruins of the city. seems like a fitting vengeance against both demanitus (for banishing her) and rapunzel (for destroying the great tree), yes?

16) once a handmaiden. with zhan tiri now fully out and about cass has been sort of demoted to second in command and she is struggling with that, because it’s making the inferiority complex bubble up and bringing with it doubts that this is really the right thing to do, or even really what she wants. she slips away to clear her head, perhaps even using the cloak to disguise herself so she can wander around corona... and finds the nasty little magical traps zhan tiri planted earlier. she realizes that whatever zhan tiri has planned for the eclipse, it’s a lot worse than she’s letting on. (maybe some of this is connected to gothel’s research: gothel wanted to retrieve the sundrop from rapunzel, and cass recognizes ritual prep for that from gothel’s notes and is like. oh no.)

17) so... at a loss for what to do, she impulsively goes to rapunzel to try to... warn her? apologize? take her up on that offer to negotiate? cass is really not sure, and seeing herself in wanted posters and of course demonized in feldspar’s play does not. help. this part of the episode can go pretty similarly to canon, except that when cass is confronted by zhan tiri it’s a lot more cutting, with zhan tiri focusing how even now she feels like she needs to serve rapunzel at cost to herself, needling her about her lack of conviction etc etc, in addition to goading her with the news about project obsidian. cass angrily rejects her and goes to talk to rapunzel, publicly reveals herself on purpose because a) sometimes she’s not smart and b) striding onto the stage in the second act of feldspar’s terrible play to tell everyone in the audience that corona is in grave danger really seems like a good idea at the time and ziti is lying about project obsidian so everything will be fine right!!!!

18) everything is not fine

19) cass gets shot in the back with project obsidian courtesy of panicking guards and a teeny tiny bit of help from zhan tiri and, crushed by the realization that rapunzel must have authorized this, cass does the “no you know what? fuck you, i see all that talk about negotiation was just pretty words after all” thing and wrecks the place, while zhan tiri stands by watching like >:)

20) PLUS EST EN VOUS. im sorry anon this has gotten way longer than i thought it would. but i am Passionate About Saporian Cass. the situation is now dire! everyone in corona is hunkered down in old corona, frantically trying to draw up battle plans or like, any plans at all. corona itself is in ruins. it really looks like cass/the separatists have won... but rapunzel keeps thinking about how cass tried to warn them of some greater danger. she can’t give up on cass just yet.

21) so, desperate, rapunzel turns to the separatists. she takes... varian, because he knows them, and lance because he’s good at talking to people, and eugene, because she needs him with her. and she walks into the separatist camp and says look, i know that ultimately what you want is for saporia to be free to be its own country. that you only took over corona and tried to destroy it because you thought you had no other choice. and maybe under my dad’s rule, that was true. but i’m the queen now, and i can accept a declaration of saporian independence if i want to. so i’m going to do that right now, no strings attached. saporia is free.

22) and the saporians are like holy fucking shit

23) what brought this on???

24) rapunzel is like cassandra is my best friend. and i didn’t treat her well, and i made her feel like she couldn’t talk to me about how she was hurting, so she did all this. she’s angry and she’s right to be angry, but more importantly, she’s hurting and scared. and i want to make it right. and also i’m terrified that zhan tiri is going to hurt her, because she said something about zhan tiri going after the drops?

25) and like the best she’s hoping for here is for the separatists to drop out of the conflict and go build their kingdom back up again, but they huddle up and decide that a) cassandra is their friend / one of theirs, and if she’s in danger they’re gonna side with her over zhan tiri, and b) if they team up with rapunzel now and it turns out rapunzel was lying and this was all some elaborate set up to attack cass while she’s without allies, then they will be there to help cass hold the line

26) there are ABSOLUTELY NO MONKEY SHENANIGANS

27) cass sort of miserably is going along with zhan tiri’s plans but she’s also just kinda hoping rapunzel doesn’t show up for the eclipse.

28) rapunzel shows up for the eclipse with a bunch of separatists and cass is like rapunzel what the fuck

29) there is...an attempt by rapunzel/cass/the separatists to get everyone’s story straight which is interrupted by zhan tiri doing the “traitors to saporia pay with their lives” thing and just. going ballistic on the separatists and cass. and also rapunzel, except she needs rapunzel to not be smushed like a bug until after she retrieves the sundrop so she’s a little gentler.

30) cass and rapunzel team up to protect the separatists: with both of them using the full power of the drops, they can hold their own against zhan tiri (she is VERY POWERFUL and she PROVES IT during this fight by going toe to toe with both of them without breaking a sweat)... but things go from bad to worse when the eclipse hits, because the sundrop goes dormant, and zhan tiri pounces. gets the sundrop, and now it’s just cass trying to solo this demonic sorceress lady before the eclipse ends and zhan tiri gains the power of the sundrop. It Is Not Looking Great For Our Heroes.

31) zhan tiri stomps cass into the curb and is about to land the killing blow when the rest of the coronans + the brotherhood charge in (they were waiting on the mainland on rapunzel’s orders, not wanting to escalate the situation if it could be solved via talking, but it is now very obvious that rapunzel needs back up). zhan tiri deals with them pretty handily too, but her distraction is enough for rapunzel to shake off her depowered exhaustion/pain and help cass back to her feet.

32) raps, cass says, i’m so sorry. i never meant for any of this to happen, i just—

33) and rapunzel says, i know, it’s okay. i’m sorry too, for taking you for granted. i love you.

34) cass, tearing up, is like, i love you too. and i’m gonna stop this.

35) rapunzel is like ??? but there’s no more time because zhan tiri has finished smashing/immobilizing everyone else and cass is already charging at her, no longer trying to attack or defend, just get close enough.

36) as the eclipse comes to an end and the sundrop wakes up again, cass latches onto ziti, grabs the sundrop. and slams it against the moonstone still embedded in her chest. there’s a huge explosion, and when the dust clears... cass is in the epicenter, very dead, and there’s really nothing left of zhan tiri but a bunch of spasming vines and shadowy magic, burning slowly away in the brilliant light of the unified power. everyone else is pretty damn battered too.

37) horrified, rapunzel crawls out of the wreckage, grabs the unified drop. revives/heals everybody (except zhan tiri, rip), ending pretty much goes as it does in canon. except i like the idea of the epilogue / ending sequence of life after happily ever after (reprise) also being a montage of both corona and saporia being rebuilt, the countries now equals and allies... and also cass, when she leaves, is explicitly going out in search of saporians whose ancestors were displaced by the conquest, both to invite them to return to their ancestral home if they so choose and also to reconnect with her own heritage.

38) THE END!!!

#rta #W H E W ANON i got. i got carried away lKFLJKSDFJKLSDKJLF #anyway this is basically 'how i'd do s3 but saporian cass while trying to #color in the lines canon gave us and staying within the bounds of what feels plausible for a disney show'#Anonymous

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years

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Can you please tell us about the whole scenario where MC gets kidnapped and Comte rescues her? The one with the CG I mean.

Sure thing! I’ll do my best to relay the events accurately, as this is one of my favorite moments in his rt~

Sizable Comte rt spoilers below, pls don’t click if you’d like to wait for the ENG release!

Okay so some much needed context before I delve too deep. In the first few chapters of the route, MC debuts in French high society (introduced by Comte as a friend’s heiress from overseas). As such, the better part of the Parisian population knows MC as somebody of noble birth. This is important moving forward.

One day while she’s in town she goes out with a friend upon request (also of high rank, somebody she met and made friends with at her debut) and Sebas encourages her to have fun before meeting up again to return home. Problem is, there has apparently been a great deal of unrest among the people in the lower rungs of the social ladder. Joblessness has been a prominent issue, and so a group of men decide to target members of the elite in order to force them to give a damn about the problem. In their desperation, they choose to abduct MC and her friend and tie them up in separate locations.

The other young lady’s butler/servant is present when they’re taken, but is unable to do anything to stop them. Surprising no one, he races over to find Sebas and tell him what’s happened. Naturally, Sebas is beside himself and takes the man with him in order to alert Comte. And Comte.........well........let’s just say he does not take the news well to say the LEAST. He hears them out, goes silent and it shows his furious sprite, and he’s about to storm out when Leonardo appears out of nowhere after he says MC’s name raggedly. (Note: not that odd bc purebloods seem to be able to sense each other’s feelings easily, and it’s likely he was responding to Comte’s acute and sudden distress). Leonardo has to grab Comte’s shoulder and tell him to calm down before he collects himself again, and then he leaves with Napoleon and Jeanne to go find them asap.

Iirc, Sebas/the other residents take up the task of alerting the police and trying to find more information while the search party is underway. There is a hilarious tidbit I’d like to share, only because it’s uproarious and makes me laugh every fucking time I translate it fdkhdgdjfsf. So basically they’re all trying to figure out what’s going on, until Sebastian mentions the whole coalition of impoverished people looking to get back at high society for the financial inequities of the historic moment. Now Mozart, in a moment of brilliant word association, says “Oh, well yeah under those circumstances that would make MC the ideal target.” And I fucking. Isaac just turns around and is like. “Could you not. Say it like that. When our dad is hAVING A FUCKING MELTDOWN AND A DISPLACED HUMAN WOMAN IS IN MORTAL DANGER. COULD YOU MAYBE NOT???? JUST THIS ONCE.” And I just fucking lose it every time????? Like are those not the most Mozart-core and Isaac-core responses imaginable????? Mozart being so focused on the logic of the situation he just doesn’t seem to be able to read the room/keep in mind how upset Comte might be. Isaac being HYPERSENSITIVE to the emotions in the room and being MORTIFIED that Mozart wouldn’t word things more carefully.

Also a short note since I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. One parallel between Comte and Isaac I find utterly fascinating is that the two seem to share a formidable understanding when it comes to anxiety especially. Despite how composed Comte appears in the game, we later see more and more evidence of how deeply anxious he is when it comes to his future and the prospect of sudden loss. As a result, I feel like their biggest difference lies in the fact that Comte is a great deal older--so he has an easier time concealing/stifling/de-escalating his anxious responses. Even so, they seem to share difficulty in maintaining emotional distance. If Comte doesn’t exercise control, he gets too close to people, and the inevitable fallout (since they usually die first) is devastating. I think Isaac operates similarly, but his anxiety was so overwhelming he didn’t manage to get that close to most of the people in his time (Essentially, he doesn’t have the same charisma Comte possesses and he hasn’t lost as many people consecutively as Comte has).

Moving right along. So! Comte and our swashbuckling friends (the Baguettes, as I like to call them) pinpoint the location/bunkers where MC and her friend are being kept against their will. (They find them after they receive a tip as to where the two ladies were last seen in town.) I’d like to note that in Comte’s POV of this chapter, he continuously blames himself for everything that’s happened. Saying that if he had been more careful, if he had done the right/smart thing and kept his distance, then she would have been out of harm’s way. (I disagree in that, when trouble seeks to find you it’s usually more a matter of entropy). In the midst of his agonizing, his mind goes to the worst case scenario and he forces the terror down--desperately wishing that he isn’t too late.

So our bois split up into two groups, one being Comte and the other being Napoleon and Jeanne (yes this is Area 51 and Comte literally does Naruto run--but he doesn’t dodge the bullets bc they can’t kill him). Naturally our pureblood wonder manages to take out all the guards present and kicks down the door to where she’s tied up. The moment he sees her relief floods him and he rushes forward, untying her immediately. MC sees him covered in wounds--blood and torn clothing as far as the eye can see--and has a moment of genuine shock. She’s so used to the immaculate and ethereal appearance (not a hair out of place) that seeing him so disheveled and wild-eyed startles her. He asks her if she’s injured anywhere and she’s able to confirm she’s fine. He seems to be unable to register that she’s alright until she says those words, and he draws her close in his arms and starts shaking. She’s surprised again by his sudden proximity, but when she feels him trembling she hugs him back and strokes gently along his back, murmuring over and over again that’s she okay. She feels fine, she’s safe now.

In his POV, he speaks to the terror of her life lost that was weighing on him. He’s only able to verify that she’s alive when he feels her body heat, can feel her heart beat, can feel her arms moving--that’s why he hugs her; to have undeniable evidence that she’s still breathing. He hates himself for being so fragile, for being so needy, but melts under the gentleness of her touch.

Before the scene ends, MC hears his broken mumble at her shoulder: “Thank goodness...I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.”

And just to make it hurt even more! From Comte’s POV it reads (the brackets are his unspoken thoughts):

"I......I don't want to lose anyone.......anymore" [I don't want to lose you... She hugs me back and her hands stroke gently along my back, as if cradling my heart. Her hands are so warm, proof that she's alive. You're so strong.....and so, so gentle. I know I should be prepared to say goodbye. I know I shouldn't be doing this. But I don't want to let you go...]

;-; I just. Every single time I read those lines I just start sobbing. He’s so tired of being alone, so exhausted. He loves her so much!!!!!!! He just wants one moment of PEACE GOD DAMN IT, LEAVE HIM ALONE CYBIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYWAY the story then skips to the aftermath, where Comte is back to his usual collected self. He’s at his desk doing his work (as usual) when MC comes in asking about how everything's going. He explains that he was able to find work for the people who attacked her, citing once again the concept of “Noblesse Oblige.” (For those unaware, it means “noble obligation” in French and alludes to this notion that the wealthy/privileged parties of society have nothing short of an obligation to use their resources in service to the less fortunate.) MC starts gushing about how both her and the police are really impressed by his ability to forgive them and help them anyway. This is where Comte drops that L E G E N D A R Y line where he says “Forgiven them? I never said I had forgiven them. On the contrary, the only reason I’m doing this is because they left you unharmed.” with that chilling smile.

So like. Get you a fucking mans that has the ability to pretend everything’s fine when you get abducted, beat the shit out of your assailants to free you, have a panic attack after you’ve been secured, and then still manages to have the grace to help the people that put him through his literal worst fear imaginable/re-traumatizing him even if they didn’t know it. This was essentially the scene that made me fall 100% in love with him. It was one of the first moments of profound, undeniable proof that not only does he care about people--he cares so deeply it shakes him to the very core. There’s just something....so moving about the fact that no matter how hard he tries to pretend that he’s distanced from something/someone, beneath that persona you just find a veritable avalanche of compassionate feeling/love.

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp spoilers #ikevamp comte #comte rt spoilers #man i wish i could convey how hard this chapter shook me to the core #i think that's why i don't mind the whole hot and cold in the writing of his rt--it really WORKS rather than being annoying af #i mean its so easy to believe he's removed from it all bc he stays quiet #tries not to be irresponsible--tries to be mindful of her situation and respect her feelings #bc the reality is that they have an enormous power and life imbalance #even if he does sincerely love her--and I honestly have absolutely zero doubts he does--being too hasty would be dangerous #esp given what he wants: he's not looking for a fling--he wants somebody to be with for a long long time #but he also knows that his considerable lifespan has given him quicker insight into that #this doesn't make MC stupid by any means--but at twenty-ish there are plenty of things a person has not yet seen or can't yet recognize #honestly? i think his decision to hold off and only decide when MC was sure--when she had seen every aspect of what it means #to be a pureblood--was the most responsible move. even if he was sure of his feelings early on i like that he gives her time #yet i like that his self-control is also less than perfect; i think it proves the dual sincerity of his attraction and desire to protect he #idk if i can explain it adequately but he just feels so balanced; the perfect combination of mindful but also flawed #it's even more interesting to me bc his charisma seem to function on two levels; the first kind he exudes on a basic level #being attentive to what's important to people/replying to letters and keeping in touch/conversing at parties eloquently #its the kind that draws people in initially and can often be what keeps them in his orbit (kind of like with the workers)#the second is so gradual and masterfully honed that it gets to the point where he believes himself to be insidious #though idk if he actually means any harm i'd wager it's more that he knows what he wants deep down and inevitably acts in line with it #its fascinating bc he seems to deem it premeditated and wrong but even he doesn't seem to be openly aware of his feelings until later on #he's insatiable but also capable of recognizing that--tries to tone it down if it goes too far #or at the very least offer MC something in return: all of his love and anything her heart may desire #just as he says he really IS a mass of contradictions sometimes--which explains why he seeks out someone that's firmly grounded #somebody that knows what they want/what's important to them/and can help stabilize him when he gets a little lost #I LOVE HIM IF YOU COULDN'T TELL OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH FROM ME

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imaginationxlost · 3 years

Text

SO I was just inadvertently reminded that I need to talk about the setting of Sparks (and many other stories).

Very minor spoilers for uh... all of these ahead.

That out of the way, let’s begin!

I usually call the setting “Shadowed Dreams” as a combination of the two halves of it, Shadowed Souls and Dreams (which are themselves multiple stories coming together).

So the setting of Shadowed Dreams exists in five planes. (Also the separation of Shadowed Souls and Dreams is primarily whether the plot stuff is more related to up from Earth (Dreams) or down from Earth (Shadowed Souls))

Each plane has it’s own color of magic (mostly called Quintessence, or tessence on Earth; which is the term I will use from here on, even though other planes have different names) and each kind acts slightly differently.

They can also react with one another.

Purple and Black tend to mutually destroy one another, and they act really similarly and will supplant one another whenever possible. Black tends to be better at creating permanent effects versus purple and black is better at affecting the souls of living things. Purple on the other hand is better at quick changes, natural phenomena and mind affecting abilities. Both are very good at magical binding, whether it’s tying two souls together, or locking someone into a magical contract. It can be very tricky.

They also move similarly, but not quite identically. Both kinds of tessence travel through the air like a mist. Black acts like it’s a little ‘heavier’, but it’s slight. The similarity is why they tend to supplant each other when they end up in the same environment.

Yellow and Green tessence also react with one another as well, but rather than destroying and supplanting one another, they tend to repel each other. If forced together they’ll mutually destroy, but one has to force that.

Both Yellow and Green are particularly good at conjuration; creating something out of nothing. Yellow is also extremely good at illusions, and any and all magic related to the mind. Green is... VERY good at conjuration. Also at like... edict magic. Magical commands that one has to/is compelled to follow. And divinations. It’s very good at divinations. It’s also good at messing with souls, though not as good as black.

Yellow and Green tessense both spread through the air too, but green tessense tends to sink close to the ground and creep along like a heavy smoke, and yellow spreads out fast and always ends up scattered and thin if it’s not actively controlled or replenished.

Worth noting about all of these specialties is that they aren't hard rules. They’re just what’s easiest to do with each color by default. Technically there’s nothing that one color can do that the others can’t.

Movement between planes is possible, but not without rules. Without considerable magical power, it’s basically impossible to go more than one plane away from your native plane. That’s what the arrows on the image mean; it’s showing the possible travel.

Also worth noting is that tessense as a whole travels up between planes where it can. It usually can’t because there’s just too much of the native tessence for it to matter but it will be relevant.

“You skipped Orange-”

Orange is fucked. I’ll GET TO IT. Just know it hates all other kinds of tessense right this second. If you’ve read Sparks (and you’re not a specific friend I’ve talked about this stuff to) you’re probably a little confused because, uh, isn’t Earth Purple?

I’ll get to it.

Oh and a couple of quick side notes

~ All sapient denizens are humanoid to some degree. The weirdest is gets is the more powerful Angels and Demons. Angels will have more wings the more powerful they are, and demons will have like weirder legs or arms or whatnot. But still a bipedal creature with one head two arms, two forward facing eyes, etc. Also the fey have some variation (especially in size) but are never too far from the humanoid body plan.

~ Every plane has at least one ‘monarch’ sorta. It’s magical thing. They don’t have to have any political power (though they usually do; Earth excluded). The Monarch(s) are powerful individuals magically connected to the plane itself, and without the Monarch(s) the fabric of reality is less stable. This is a relevant fact. OKAY.

So let’s talk about these planes, from the top down.

The top plane is native to the Angels. It’s ruled by the King of Angels, and at any given time there are nine archangels in existence, though not all of them are in their home plane, since one of them has been banished down to Earth by the King. The King is the Monarch, though any of the Archangels could take that position if it was ever opened. He’s very paranoid about that possibility and rules the whole plane (or well, his planet in the plane; they all have Outer Space) with an iron fist to keep tight control and maintain his position.

He’s also in a long term war with the Demons, but it’s mostly In Name Only because it’s very rare that they can actually access each other. Hatred of demons is a very real thing in Angel culture though, especially after an archangel was killed by a demon on Earth (the fact that said Archangel was banished there by the King is conveniently left of of the narrative).

Next down is the Dreamers. Dreamland as as place is fueled and influenced by the thoughts and imaginations of the people on Earth. Yellow Quintessence is created by the dreams and ideas of Earthlings, rising up like magic and forming into the tessence on Dreamlands plane.

All of that is why the culture and magic in Dreamland is influenced by Earth’s.

There are five courts in Dreamland, each one having it’s own Monarch. Thematically, they’re each one of the french suits, as through Dreamlands history their courts have always built off of Earthly games, and as time went on the powers shifted and it slowly went from one monarch to five.

Five though, you might be asking? There are only four french suits; hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. And you’re right!

But before the french suits there were the minor arcana. And the major arcana. But as the french suits took over as the actual game cards, things shifted in Dreamland, and the Major Arcana court eventually became the star court, as a fifth suit.

But... saying Dreamland has five courts isn’t entirely accurate. It’s supposed to have five. That hasn’t been the case in a long time. The Diamond court ended up absorbed into the Heart Court, making the Heart Court the defacto court in control of all of Dreamland, and making the whole plane less stable and that’s a dangerous state to be in. It’s a good thing the Angels aren’t trying to take advantage of that /foreshadowing

Hoo boy. Earth. Okay. So Earth’s color is orange. A fact that I’m SURE confused any readers of Sparks.

Orange quintessence doesn’t spread. It doesn’t spread like, at all. It clumps together leaving it wide open for the tessence from below to flow up and spread on Earth, to the point of dominating and becoming the life energy everything on Earth, when on every other plane it’s their own native color in that role.

There aren’t very many magic users who use orange, and those who do... don’t consider themselves magic users.

See, orange Quintessence is more commonly called anti-magic. As used by hunters. You see it now, Sparks readers, Eh?

ACTUAL SPOILERS AHEAD THOUGH. Skip to Fey if you don’t want spoilers about a major villain + some other stuff

WARNING. WARNING.

So what about Earth’s Monarch? And for the readers of Sparks- what the hell is the Master? What are Mages? While those later questions are more related to the Fey, I’m going to answer them here.

The Master is the reincarnating soul of a deceased Monarch from the Fey world. When a monarch is killed by someone else who could magically hold that position it shunts the soul to a different plane. And it only reincarnates in the mages and into specific families a lot because... mages are descendants of Fey, and the stronger a family’s fey blood is, the more likely it is that the fey monarch would be born into, because magically it’s drawn to Like.

So... Earth’s Monarch.

Earth’s Monarch is Kevin Anderson. The only people who use orange magic are the organization of Witch Hunters, who actively hunt down and kill magic users, because orange destroys all other kinds of tessense, and isn’t mutually destroyed to the same extent as the other reactive colors.

Kevin Anderson is a name that has meaning to anyone who’s read Sparks though.

See, Monarch on Earth just reincarnates (common for monarch souls) whenever they die, and the Hunter Organization actively hunts the kid down every time, and due to how reincarnation works (with past lives acting as a base for a new personality to be altered and changed by a new lifetime) it’s slowly made them hateful and cruel across many lifetimes

Which lands on Kevin Anderson by the time the story starts. At first the characters only know him as a very powerful Hunter, but it’s a lot more than that. He’s extremely dangerous.

So about those Fey Monarchs. There’s three fey Monarchs. There’s supposed to be four, one for each Season.

The Winter Queen is dead though, killed by her own child (who was a literal CHILD and got banished to Earth for their ‘crimes’), and no one took that throne. The Autumn Queen grabbed up a lot of the Winter Courts people and power, but not all of it, so the power imbalance isn’t quite as extreme as in Dreamland.

It’s still not GOOD though. Especially given what goes on below them though.

Oh also all of the Queens are kinda terrible people.

Below them though? Well there’s the Demon King, and nine archdemons, mirroring the Angels in that. Frankly the King of Demons and the Angel King have more in common than they have different. They’re both old fools who are clinging to their throne at all costs and stoke hatred towards the other to maintain control.

But the King of Demons is doing more than the Angel King. He’s actively seeking to advance that war, damn all the people between them.

And what do you know, the plane between him and Earth is weakened for having a monarch missing, so his war starts against the Fey, but his plans go much further than that.

#worldbuilding #sequel: shadowed dreams #this was fun to actually write up #writeblr #writing #My writing

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lovelyirony · 4 years

Note

prompt: its a thin line between all this love and hate, for whatever ship you want ☺️

The Carbonell family and the Barnes family were two that vied for complete control over the city, and either side would do anything to the other in order to have it.

Maria Carbonell was a deceptive woman. She cared for the city deeply, but she would pull every underhanded move on the books in order to get what she wanted. She would watch houses burn down over coffee if it meant the Barnes slipped in control.

Similarly, Winnie Barnes had taken over her husband’s mantle after he died overseas, learning what needed kindness and who she needed to talk to.

Their children took to it like ducks to water.

Tony Carbonell was smart, blisteringly so. He could fix a flat tire in thirty seconds, repaired guns in half the time it took the usuals, and learned strategy from his Mama. Tony learned how to subvert expectations that others expected.

Bucky learned how to be the best shooter his side of the city and the Carbonell side, sweet-talked every single cop on duty, and knew how to use his weaknesses to his advantage.

They obviously hated each other.

And went to the same school.

They never talked, not really. Tony kept to himself and looked as far from a young, organized criminal as possible. He wore old jeans, cardigans, and had a habit of pushing up thick glass lenses set in a dark blue frame.

Bucky fit the part a tad better. Old white t-shirts, a leather jacket, and a penchant for challenging others, there wasn’t anything to the imagination. He roared in on a motorcycle, and sent glares Tony’s way any time he saw him.

Tony was unbothered. He had schoolwork to do, coffee to drink, and a rival to undermine. If Bucky wanted to glare at him and not get anything done, hell he was welcome to it.

“You need to actually do something,” Natasha tells Bucky. She’s already in with the family, dedicated to protecting others and making sure the more...unsavory things were kept out of the limelight. “Glaring at him isn’t gonna kill him.”

“Can’t do anything on school grounds, Ma forbade it.”

“Who said anything about killing him at school?” Natasha asks. “Do it elsewhere.”

“He’s gonna expect it.”

“Not if you fool him.”

Bucky isn’t an idiot. He knows that Tony will think about it. He knows that Tony won’t let his guard down. He’s a genius, everyone says so.

But hell, you gotta try. And Bucky has just the story.

Tony’s a sucker for poor cases. The ones that are the outlier, the longshot.

Bucky finds a freshman named Peter who needs a bit of encouragement, but he brings in his old, junkyard car to the Carbonell auto repair shop.

Tony immediately falls for it. He loves helping people, and Peter is no exception. Peter forgets to act, actually being the young, lovable, “take me under your wing” kind of guy.

And then Bucky walks in.

Tony doesn’t say anything, just takes Bucky aside.

“What are you doing here?!” Tony hisses. “You’re lucky no one shot you on sight, Barnes.”

“My cousin needed me to pick him up,” Bucky says.

“Peter’s your cousin?” Tony asks. He turns back to Peter, who is waving. “Bullshit.”

“Not bullshit. True. Thanks for taking care of him. I appreciate it. He’s not in this like we are.”

“Oh, so he doesn’t know that you’re part of a violent organization?”

“Like you aren’t.”

“He’s allowed here. You’re only allowed for pick-up,” Tony says, enunciating his words with a wrench bounced off of Bucky’s chest at each word. “And so help me God if you try to wreck something and I let Peter in, I’m going to make sure that I fucking destroy you.”

Part one is complete. Peter’s doing well, although he says he feels guilty.

“Tony’s nice, Bucky,” Peter says, squirming in the backseat.

“You can say that about serial killers, you think Dahmer fit the bill?” Bucky asks with a snort. “You’re helping family, Peter. Nothing more noble than that.”

Tony knows he’s an idiot. But Peter’s smart, and Tony knows that the Barnes family isn’t like that. They can shoot worth a damn, they can’t teach worth a damn. Peter needs someone who gets it. And he does.

What he doesn’t get is why Barnes comes to pick him up each time. He could send a driver and have common enough sense not to come over. Tony should have enough common sense to report him to his mother or someone. Maybe Rhodey.

But he doesn’t.

Because seeing Bucky Barnes smile down at his cousin, who talks a mile-a-minute, and talk a bit about how his day is going? It’s...refreshing.

This doesn’t mean anything, of course.

Tony can still go on hating Bucky and it’ll be fine. If he needs any reminders, all he has to remember is the time that Bucky had shot Tony’s knife out of his hand when he was up against Rogers.

As it turns out, there’s a more pressing matter to attend to.

Hydra was thought to have been thrown out out of the mix, exiled to have their tiny share in DC.

They couldn’t just stay away, and Tony and Bucky are both more than a bit stressed about what’s going to happen. Everything’s hanging on a thread.

It is when the two families meet that a solution is come up with.

“Look, we’re clearly getting nowhere trying to control one city,” Bucky starts out.

“Agreed,” Tony says. “We can pool resources and work together.” There are grumblings on either side.

“Hey,” Bucky snaps. “Either we disagree on both sides and waste resources or we work together to make sure someone worse taps out.”

“Temporary truce. We share territory, work together,” Tony says. “Team up. Sound good?”

“Fine,” Bucky says. “Just don’t get any ideas.”

“Well we know you won’t get any,” Tony remarks.

So it begins.

It’s off to a rough start when Tony finds out that Peter knew exactly what he was doing.

“Oh so you were playing the long game?” Tony asks. “Wanted to see if I would fall for your charm, Barnes?”

“That was pre-agreement, null and void,” Bucky says. “Be reasonable, sweetheart.”

“Do not sweetheart me,” Tony hisses. “You’re lucky I’m not across the table with a knife on your neck.”

“Dessert first with you?” Bucky asks, grinning. Tony whirls around, leaving the office.

Of course, they need to sell a truce. Everyone basically knows that Hydra’s looking to divide them, and it’ll be too damn easy if they both still hate each other.

Insert “team bonding.” Bucky hates it, it’s a bullshit term. But he’s facing off against Rhodes, Potts, and Banner.

“If you try to kill me I’m gonna put a fork in your knee,” Potts says off-handedly, pouring tea for herself and Banner.

“Not the worst done,” Bucky remarks. “Best you guys got?”

“Believe me after you see her with a fork, you’re gonna avoid spaghetti for a month,” Rhodes says. “A modern work of art, in some cases.”

She blushes at that. Bucky makes a note that she and Nat might get along.

They all actually...get along. Reasonably well. Enough to communicate when taking down Hydra operations on the docks, and to get shakes afterwards.

Tony’s oddly in a good mood with the company of the Barnes’, which he usually isn’t.

“We did good,” he says, stirring the strawberry shake. He has some on the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah, we did,” Bucky says. “Still more to come.”

Tony and Bucky learn more about each other over the next months. Tony doesn’t like planning in advance, and rarely follows one to a T. This annoys Steve to no end, and he threatens to bench Tony, which he actually can’t do because Tony’s essential to the missions succeeding.

“You’re gonna have to deal with it,” Bucky says, frowning.

“Since when have you defended him?” Steve asks.

“Since we’re fighting something bigger than our feud,” Bucky answers. “Now shut up and get your tux on. Sooner we can get out of it.”

If there’s one thing Bucky hates, it’s the political galas. They want to get the mayor sweetened up for some changes made in administration. There’s also the guarantee that Alexander Pierce is going to be there, and Maria and Winnie want to make sure that he’s taken care of fairly quickly.

Bucky just hates these damned suits. He hates having to be ready, dressed to the nines in shoes that squeak and his hair swept back neatly.

So of course Tony just has to show up looking sharply elegant. Dark, bloody red suit. Slight make-up. A dusty blush worked up. He looks handsome.

Fuck.

Bucky squirms with his tie.

“Who tied that?” Tony asks, zeroing in on it.

“Steve said it looked fine.”

“Literally no,” Tony swears. “I’m fixing this goddamned thing, come here.”

A.) Tony is short. Perfect height for his head to hit Bucky’s shoulders if he’s ever tired.

B.) This close....well. That’s certainly doing something.

Bucky can barely breathe, and it’s not because of the tie.

“Are you gonna come or are you just gonna stand there and rely on your looks?” Tony asks. “Because it’s not gonna work out as well as you always think it will.”

“That plan only works for you, sweetheart,” Bucky says.

And Tony doesn’t say anything about that. He takes him by the hand.

“United front and all that,” he explains. “If Pierce sees us together, it’s a stronger case for us.”

“Sure,” Bucky murmurs. “Save a couple spots on your dance card then.”

Tony blushes.

“I--sure. I will.”

#mob au #organized crime au #this went two different directions my b #lovelyirony writes #winteriron #this ask has been in my inbox for a LONG time and just now did i find something for it #so that is also my b #bucky barnes #tony stark #YES peter is still baby #peter parker

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ajokeformur-ray · 3 years

Text

~ Self-shipping ask game: Dracika🦇🩸 // Ashika🪓💙 ~

I asked @mutatedcrocuta for permission to use her self-ship questions and she very graciously agreed! Thank youuuu ~ 💜💜💜

Overall word count: 7, 664.

Dracula x Erika (Dracika) 🖤🩸🖤

Word count: 3, 179.

Date you got together? We met in September but we didn’t get together until November 14th 2020. I was scared of him until the middle of October and then it took some more time after that for me to work out what I wanted between the two of us. Dracula somehow knew what was going to happen and whenever I asked him to tell me, he would just smirk at me. He never said anything and he waited for me to make my own decisions on everything. Once I realised what I wanted, neither of us really... announced the relationship. It was just a... shall we try this? vibe which we both agreed to and we have yet to change our minds!

Favourite personality trait? His courage. My sweet vampire was terrified for 500 years about something which was never a threat to him in the first place. He spent all that time alone and afraid for no reason because he was always too afraid to test the things he thought he knew. I really admire his bravery, and as someone who’s scared of something very similar, I find that I can be just a little braver in my own fear, knowing that Dracula understands me on that basic level. Our fear brought us together and through that, we found love. He’s afraid of the light and I’m afraid of the dark and I don’t know about you, but that says “soulmates” to me!🥰💗

Favourite physical trait? Ohhhhh.... his eyes. His beautiful eyes which are so dark they’re like black coffee. Onyx, perhaps. They can be so soft when he’s talking to someone or they can be cold and calculating. When he smiles, they melt into pools of warm chocolate and I similarly melt when I look into his eyes. I also love that damned smirk. When he knows he’s five steps ahead of everyone in the room or when he suspects something which later turns out to be true... his smirk makes me feel weak in the knees even when I’m sitting down.

Couple song We don’t have a couple song. There’s not really... anything out there which I’ve found to resonate with the both of us. Like A Vampire by Catrien Maxwell is one I listen to when I want his attention, though, and it works like a charm! “So how does a vampire love, Erika?” was what Dracula said the first time I played it around him. I said, “I don’t know... why don’t you show me?” and... I’ll let his display be up to your imagination.😉

Pet peeves... Mine is when he feeds off someone. And leaves them to bleed out. On the floor. Like??? I just cleaned the carpet out from the last person who bled all over the floor. It’s irritating. Just like when he then flashes me that smirk and he’s got blood all over his chin, lips and lower part of his face like??? That’s your food, close your damn mouth. Are you five hundred or just five? 😂 I find it funny but also annoying; depends on my mood. Will I clean his face off, though, and leave a tender kiss on the tip of his nose? Oh, yeah! My vampire deserves love.🥺

Dracula’s is how jumpy I am. It irritates him to no end. He has long since stopped saying, “sorry, didn’t mean to startle you” and now I tend to get either an eye roll, a patient smirk or a, “you knew I was there, Erika”. It depends on his mood, but the one time he genuinely made me scared and it upset me, he was quick to apologise to me and he learned very quickly how to avoid doing that in the future. We’ve had to learn many a thing from each other in a short amount of time for things between us to be able to work.

Favourite outfit on them?

Picture source

He just looks... so warm and inviting but also so dangerous. There’s an obvious wall between himself and everyone else and I love the way he carries himself! It makes me want to sit on his lap, curl up and go to sleep asdfghjk🥺 and that hair.... the urge to mess it up is strong skkssk😂 I value my life, though, so I won’t... yet.😏 Dracula’s appearance is just so safe to me and he makes me smile just to see him, no matter what he’s wearing.

Favourite meal? Blood, obviously. Dracula has never drank from me. I’ve said he can many a time but “No. Not that. Not to you. You’re... too special a flavour, Erika. I wouldn’t dare to sample it. You’re exquisite.” is all I get every time I offer myself up to him. Maybe one day he’ll agree but for now, he’s more than happy to continue feeding off others. He’s careful with what he eats. I’m not, though, which may be why he won’t feed off me.😂

Early bird or night owl? Dracula’s nocturnal so our days and nights are reversed. As I get into bed, my darling vampire is just waking up. This means that I get goodnight cuddles and he gets good morning cuddles at the same time! It works well for us both and if I’m very lucky (or just really clingy or upset), he’ll stay with me for a little longer and eat into his day! He says “I love you” in his own ways and I’ve learned to hear them.

Snorer or sleep talker? Dracula doesn’t do either of these. If I get into bed too roughly and jostle him, he’ll hiss in his sleep but that’s about it. Me, on the other hand? Certified chainsaw snorer!😂

Do you have any pets together? We don’t! Dracula feeds off animals when there’s no humans around and my worst fear is coming downstairs in the morning to find that he’s fed on my animals in the night because his baser instincts took over and he couldn’t stop himself. I would never forgive him or myself if that happened, so no pets!

Pet names! (Both from them and yours for them)

I call him: Drac, Draccy, Draccy boi (he hates this one so I only do it when I’m deliberately trying to wind him up because those fangs, I - 🥵), my Drac, my vampire, my sweet vampire... my love, honey, Dracula if He’s In Trouble!

He calls me: luna bella (beautiful moon), my dear, my love, Erika if I’m In Trouble. Dracula’s not really one for pet names. He says what he says and that’s it.

How often do you fight? Never. We don’t ever fight. If there’s ever a line I’m about to cross, he will say my name very calmly and very quietly and the chill which runs up my spine is enough to keep me from crossing that line. With Dracula, he knows that if I ignore him, he’s close to crossing a line. We have warnings for each other, and that’s it. No fights. I can’t handle it and Dracula’s too old for that.

What starts fights? We don’t fight as I said, but those lines... for Dracula, those lines are insisting he drinks from me and refusing to back down on it (I did it once, in the early days, before I understood who he was properly), or when I won’t take care of myself in the way he thinks I should be. It’ll get me full-named with his chin dipped so that the shadows around him emphasise the lines of his face, and I’ll shiver and I’ll know I’m in trouble... so I’ll rectify it in the ways I know he wants me to, and then a hand will be laid on my shoulder so I know all’s forgiven. All it takes is my name spoken in a certain tone and he’s got me in the palm of his hand. But I’m safe, even then.

For me, I don’t have many lines at all but one of them is when I come home in the middle of the day or when I wake up and just walking through the house and then I trip over a body. Like, for fuck’s sake, Drac, do your dishes.😂 I don’t make a big deal out of it usually but once there were five or six bodies in one room because he’d gorged himself and I got pissed off because they were in my way and obviously I couldn’t get rid of them myself. So when he greeted me that morning I said nothing to him and I continued to say nothing until he’d gotten rid of his victims. He never sees what the big deal is, but I do.

We may not fight but we definitely have our differences!

Who apologizes first? We each apologise when we need to. If Drac crossed a line, he’ll apologise first. If I crossed a line, I’ll apologise first. It depends on who was in the wrong. Sometimes Dracula will give me a certain look and I’ll just instinctively say ‘sorry’. He doesn’t necessarily understand these moments, though, and he’ll ask me why I apologised and I’ll just say that I felt like I needed to because of the look he gave me. Dracula will frown but then he’ll crook a finger at me and I’ll be brought in for a hug. “You silly little thing. You never have to apologise to me. Not for anything. Do you understand?” and I try. I really do try.

Big spoon or little spoon? Dracula’s always the big spoon. If his back is to the door when I come to bed (he’s just waking up), then he will turn so that he’s spooning me because I sleep facing the door so I can see the room around me. Even with my lamp, I’m still wary and scared. I tried to have Drac as the little spoon once and within minutes we switched positions because he couldn’t stop chuckling at the seven inch height difference. I just... get to melt into him and he protects me. No harm will come to me when Dracula’s there and he loves the way he can fold me into him and keep me safe.

Dom or sub? Dracula’s the dom, definitely. The power he has is obvious and we’ll never truly be equal, not really... I mean, he’s five hundred years old and I’m twenty-three... I’ve been alive for the blink of an eye compared to his lengthy existence. I am definitely my own person and I have my own life but there’s an equality imbalance which we’re both aware of. He never plays on it, though. I trust him to not ever do that to me, and Dracula respects me too much for that. Other people are fair game in his eyes, but me? I’m his so that means I’m always under his protection.

What are their kisses like? “The kiss of a vampire is an opiate” as Drac states in episode two. So he can take me anywhere with just one kiss. He can make me feel sleepy, awake, aroused, in control... scared... He can make me feel anything when he kiss and most times he makes me feel relaxed, safe and he makes me feel his love for me. If I have trouble sleeping or if I’ve had a nightmare, he’ll kiss me and the next thing I know it’s morning and I slept solidly. During the times I doubt our relationship, he will kiss me and I feel all of his love for me. His kisses are fire but it’s... like basking in the sunlight. It’s passion, it’s love, it’s security... he kisses me like I’m the only one for him, like I’m the only one who’s ever gotten so close to him. He kisses me like he’ll die if he doesn’t and yet he’s in control the entire time. Whenever he pulls away from me, there’s a smirk on his face and the hands on my waist aren’t just to keep me close, but to hold me up, too... on some occasions he’s had to scoop me up to sit me down somewhere because I’ve gotten lost in the state he put me in.

What do they smell like? Ohhh... he smells like... Dracula. That’s so cliché, but his name is as good a descriptor as any. He smells like cedarwood, like spiced pear and there’s a metallic tang about him... blood. He smells dark and foreboding, but also safe. I would know his scent anywhere. Sometimes when I’m off doing my own thing during the day, I suddenly catch a scent on the wind and I know he’s with me.

What are their hugs like? To begin with, I hugged Dracula. I was never held back. I never received one from him. If I wanted one, I had to start it and I would have to finish it, too. He would just stand there and endure it. But then one day I dropped a knife and it landed on my foot and somehow I avoided stabbing myself. I wasn’t injured but Dracula scooped me up and carried me away from the knife... but he didn’t put me down right away. He stood there and he held me in his arms like I was precious cargo (I was, I know now), and when he set me down, he said that he liked “this thing you mortals call a hug” and now when he hugs me it’s with everything he has in that moment. He almost folds himself in half and his scent becomes all I can smell. He doesn’t breathe and he’s got no heartbeat so it’s quiet and it’s still and it’s warm... most often I become sleepy when he hugs me because I just relax. It’s like magic.

Who is more protective? We protect each other. In the day time, I protect him and in the night time, he protects me. We fear opposite ends of the same thing and there’s a lot of understanding and compassion in that. We’re equally protective of each other. In the day, I keep curtains closed especially if it’s sunny outside, I make sure that Dracula has places he can go and I make sure that he has food if he needs it. If anyone dares to disturb his peace within our home, I will step in. Curtains stay shut. Rooms are safe. And then at night... lights are turned on. Shadows are eliminated and Dracula stays close by. We give a part of our days to each other and in this way do we stay close to one emotionally. In our fears are we equal and through this, we found love.

Interested in children? To Dracula, “talk of children sounds like a miracle” but I would rather eat my own foot, toenails included, than have kids and he knows it.

Who needs the most TLC when sick? If either of us gets sick, then the other person gives them every amount of care which we can. Dracula only gets sick if he consumes blood which isn’t good; if someone’s dying or if they’re sick, then he gets sick. It’s very rare but he’ll expel it from his body all at once and then collapse. I clean his face, get him somewhere he can rest, and i stay by his side until he wakes up hours later. I hate it when he gets ill and thankfully it’s very rare because of how carefully he picks his food. When I get sick, which is also rare because, despite having an autoimmune disease I have a very strong immune system (yeah, I can’t work that out either), Dracula’s almost overbearing. He gets me everything I need and he is everything I need until I get better and he stays by my side through it all. Dracula and I do everything we can for each other at all times. It’s a part of our love language.

Who says ‘I love you’ first? This was also me. Dracula knew the entire time, from the day we met, what would happen between us, but he never said anything. He just... he waited. He waited for my nightmares to stop, he waited for me to approach him with increasing frequency, he waited for me to be brave enough to approach him... Dracula waited. About two months after we first met, I realised that I loved him. I invited him into my bed for the first time that night and I asked him to cuddle with me and he chuckled at me. He came into my bed, “well, this is a surprise.” and I grinned because... just wait ‘til I said what I wanted to say. So I did... I told him. He froze and then his entire body relaxed. He said, “finally.” and that was that.

Which of you is more accident prone? Definitely me!!!! I have a shitty centre of balance and honestly a lack of self-preservation so I’m constantly bumping into tables, walking into doors, tripping up or down the stairs... Dracula usually just laughs or smirks or otherwise ignores me because he’s so used to it but very occasionally I’ll actually do something which may well hurt me, and he will catch me with a shake of his head. “Careful, Erika. I won’t always be around to catch you, hm?” He’s lying. He will be.

Bed hog? Also me! Dracula tends to just lay on his back with his arms by his sides and if there’s not enough room for me beside him, I will lay on top of him and he won’t be able to move me. I sleep like the dead and I wake like them, too. As I go to bed, he’s just waking up so he usually ends up getting up later than he planned to because he had to coax himself out from underneath me.😂 I don’t make it easy on him, and why should I? I want my cuddles and I’ll get them whether he likes it or not. He does, though, he loves the way I love him, and he just pretends he doesn’t because he doesn’t like to admit his own heart. But I can sense it - his love language is a loud one and I quickly became proficient in speaking it.

Who loves the other the most? Me. Without a doubt, I love Dracula far more than he could ever love me. I’ve never been able to work out why he’s with me but I suppose it’s because we’re safe and understood in our fears by the other person and we’re teaching each other to be brave. He is capable of love, I know he is, but I think Dracula’s beyond that. When he loves, it’s beyond description or any kind of labels mortals could come up with. He’s fond of me, incredibly so, and I think that’s as far as it goes. That’s okay, though! It means the world to even know him.

Ash Williams x Erika (Ashika)🪓💙

I’ve used a GIF of young!Ash (mid-twenties) and then a GIF of Ash in 2015 (57-ish) because Bruce Campbell’s aged like a fine wine and omgggg ~ 🥵🥵 I just love him (Ash and Bruce lmao)🧡.

Word count: 4, 485.

Date you got together? Ash is my newest F/O even though I’ve known him since I was about eleven. We got together on the 10th December 2020. I was watching season two of the TV series and it just slammed into me how badly I wanted to protect him and how much I wanted to love him and give him the life he should have had. I asked Ash “how about it?” and he quirked an eyebrow and said, “let’s go”.🥰💗 I’ve known him for such a long time and I’ve always thought that there was more to him than I was able to understand when I was so young but I’m in a place now where I’m able to better understand him and I’m excited to dive into him and see where we go! I wish I could be with Ash for his whole life; from when he first goes to the cabin, helping him with the trauma after, then everything in the next thirty years and beyond. I love my Ashy🥺💖

Favourite personality trait? I looooooove ~ Ash’s “shoot first think never” motto. It’s his entire mentality and it means to just do it, to be in the moment. It’s also a literal motto, as in to shoot Deadites without thinking about it, but I appreciate the deeper meaning of it, too. I also love his courage and his bravery. He never wanted to be a Deadite killer, he never wanted to have to fight them for the rest of his life, but he does it and it’s honestly the only thing he’s good at. He’s shit at everything except fighting evil and he gives it his all and I love that about him. Ash really inspires me in a lot of ways. He thinks that’s ridiculous but that’s his tough-guy exterior. I know that he’s touched and just doesn’t know how to say it. So he’ll show me, instead, and if I’m not paying attention then I’ll miss it. he has a quiet and subtle love language and I’m quickly learning to speak it.

Favourite physical trait? Can I just say his everything??? I love everything about Ash🥺🥺🥺🥺 I do have a soft spot for his chainsaw hand, though. The noise it makes when he fires it up makes me smile; it’s so familiar to me. I like to kiss the stump of his hand when it’s just the two of us in his trailer; he went through literal hell and the strength it must have taken, physically and otherwise, to saw off his own hand is just... I could never be that brave. I try to be as gentle with him as I can be and I like to love on the parts of him no one else sees because I’m the only one to see them. There’s nothing about Ash I don’t love. Keep this last sentence in mind when you read the pet peeves section!

Couple song Back In Black by ACϟDC ... he plays this song in the Delta and we jam out together. It’s a light-hearted and simple moment between the two of us and let’s be fair, nothing hits like 70/80s metal. He and I don’t really have a set song, we just... listen to whatever’s in his player and make light-hearted memories from that which will get us through the worst of everything. Sometimes I’ll just ask Ash to sing with no music playing. He’s tone deaf but the sound of his voice alone is more melodious and comforting to me than the songs he likes to play.

Pet peeves...

Mine is that, honestly, Ash is kind of gross and I say that with so much love. He leaves his beer cans everywhere, he leaves his recreational baggies of drugs everywhere and there’s some questionably crusty socks on our floor which I am not picking up no matter how many times he waggles his eyebrows at me. He leaves dishes to pile high up in the sink and then asks me to do them for him “as a favour” while he’s at work (even though I have my own things to do🙄). He’s stuck in the 80s as far as his attitudes go and that does irritate me. He knows it and he thinks it’s hot when I get riled up... I’m 99% sure he says this stuff just to annoy me. I’ll do the dishes no matter what I say in the moment and he knows it. I can’t stand having food left out, especially in summer, and I have a phobia of sickness as well as health anxieties so whenever Ash comes home and I’ve already cleaned the kitchen part of the trailer, made our bed (and left those socks on the floor, thank you. I have limits to what I’ll do), fed Eli and now I’m at the kitchen table studying or writing, Ash makes sure to say thank you. He feels bad about it because we both know he would have done the dishes if I hadn’t, but I have a guilt complex on top of my fears and if someone asks me to do something I’ll do it even if I don’t want to because I feel bad for saying no.

“Ah, Erika, you didn’t have to do that, I was gonna do ‘em later on.”

“It’s fine, Ash, they’re done now.”

Ash will kiss the top of my head and then he’ll come and sit beside me, keeping me company while I do whatever I’m doing. I’ll get up automatically and crack him open a beer and I can see that Ash feels bad about the comments he made before he went to work, but he also knows that I would have gotten him a beer anyway. I want to take care of him and he’s been at work all day. In return, Ash will get up and make me a coffee even though I was also about to do that.

“Ash, you don’t need to - “

He’ll just give me a Look while he leans against the counter waiting for the kettle and I understand it’s his apology for what he said this morning (it’ll happen again tomorrow but that’s okay). Ash knows I really don’t mind doing the dishes, and I know that Ash never means for things to come across the way they can. The way I react to them is on me, not Ash. We do things for each other, it’s a part of our love language, and even though sometimes miscommunications like the above can happen, we still carry on with them because my traumas are mine and Ash’s are his and we work through them together.

Ash’s pet peeve is the way I put him before myself all the time. Sometimes he’ll come home and I’ve got a beer can ready in the fridge, dinner’s nearly done (he works late most days), the immediate chores are done and Ash will come in and I’m stressed out from all the work I’ve got to do because I took my time on stuff I did for him and left myself short. I say it’s fine but it’s not and we both know it. Ash will call me out every single time.

“For god’s sake, Erika, you knew you had to do ___ today, why did’ya focus on me?” He genuinely doesn’t understand why I love him so much and it breaks my heart every single time. He’s had such a horrible life and I just want to soften those edges as best as I can and give him something else to fight for. Ash will sigh, crack open the beer, and then when dinner’s done, he does the dishes while I catch up on my work and even though he doesn’t understand any of what I’m doing, he’ll stay beside me and keep an arm around my shoulders or my waist and make his gratitude, appreciation and concern known.

Favourite outfit on them? His blue shirt/brown trousers combo. It’s the only thing he wears in the franchise and I adore it. I often ‘borrow’ (steal) his shirts to sleep in or otherwise relax in (I’m a baggy shirt and panties only girl) and Ash thinks it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen. He’s 6′1 and I’m 5′7 so his shirts swim on me and I love that. So does Ash and it’s the quickest way to get him to... pay attention to me.😂

Favourite meal? Ash will eat anything. Usually tacos - he’d eat them every day of the week if I let him. With me having a wheat and gluten allergy and Ash not having any food allergies at all, the lucky bastard, it can be difficult but I always make Ash’s food first if it contains anything with wheat in it, and then I scrub the kitchen down and make my own. Ash says I should just make mine first and “I can worry about my own damn food”, but I consider that to be rude of me so I always do Ash’s first. It plays into the pet peeve thing and Ash is learning to just...let it go.

Early bird or night owl? Poor Ash has been through so much trauma in his life that he suffers from PTSD and nightmares. He usually just gets high or blackout drunk (or both, on a really bad night) so that he can grab a few hours of sleep before his own screaming wakes him up. He sleeps when he can and usually just runs on naps around his shifts at S-Mart. He’s up all hours of the day and night and he just sleeps when he can. Ash isn’t an early bird or a night owl... he’s a permanently exhausted pigeon 😂 I’m a night owl, though, and most nights I’ll stay up with Ash for as long as I possibly can. Sometimes I fall asleep in his lap because I’m so tired and I’ll wake up a few hours later and Ash has draped his upper body over me so that I’m caged in and protected while he rests. That hurts his back, though, so I massage it for him when he wakes up because I really don’t wanna wake him up when he’s asleep unless I have to. When I do have to, it’s with lots of guilt and apologies because he sleeps so little as it is. If I could give Ash anything, it’d be the ability to truly sleep with ease. He deserves that at the very least.

Snorer or sleep talker? Ash is a sleep talker. He usually says stuff like, “no, come back”, “I didn’t mean to”, “please, come back - “ after a nightmare it’s usually with a scream or with the name of someone he’s lost on his lips and it’ll wake me up and I’ll do my best to soothe him. I’m a snorer, though. Ash did once rip his chainsaw to life while I was asleep because he was repairing the trailer outside and not only did I stay asleep (I sleep like the dead), but also he could hear me over his chainsaw. So I’m known as the Chainsaw Snorer and when he introduces me to people... that’s the name he uses.😂 Charming, isn’t he? In Elk Grove, Michigan, he’s known (horribly) as Ashy Slashy and it sounds quite fitting with Chainsaw Snorer...I’m not saying we’re meant for each other, buuuut ~ 🥺

Do you have any pets together? I help Ash out with his lizard, Eli, sometimes, but other than that; no pets! There’s not really room for them in the trailer and I have my hands full with Ash anyway.😂

Pet names! (Both from them and yours for them)

Ash calls me anything - honey bunny (flirting), sweetcheeks (casual), hot piece of ass (that one gets him glared at and he’ll look away because he knows I don’t like being objectified. He’s only teasing but I still don’t like it), sweetheart (comfort), my delicious cookie (when he’s trying to wriggle out of doing the dishes. It makes us both cringe so I don’t know why he uses it), baby (comfort). My name is only used when he’s needing me or it’s Serious. It’s the quickest way to get my attention.

I don’t call Ash much - Ashy (comfort for either of us, depending on who needs it or when I miss him or when I’m super sleepy and therefore I have no filter). I’m unsure how he feels about Ashy because of how he’s known in his hometown but that’s why I call him “Ashy” - I took a name of fear and hate and turned it to love. He deserves that. Honey (casual), my love (casual), jefe (when we’re around Kelly and/or Pablo). I only call him Ashley (his full name) when I need him or it’s Serious. It’s the quickest way to get his attention.

How often do you fight? Rarely, if ever. Ash is very casual and chilled out about lots of things and he’ll just wave things off (though he’s quick to call out bullshit), and I can’t handle conflict of any kind at all. If tension is around, Ash will either go to work, the bar, or maybe even go for a drive in the Delta to give us both some space and I’ll shut myself in the bedroom and do some work. The trailer’s quite small so that can only add to the tension so most often we just go our separate ways until we’re calm enough to talk about anything which lingers.

What starts fights? Not much. Tension usually arises after an encounter with some Deadites. If Ash got injured, then he needs to sit his ass down and let me tend to those injuries. I can be quite firm when I need to be, especially if I’m worried. Ash doesn’t get what the big deal is, he came home, didn’t he? But I’m so scared of losing him that that can show itself in anger even when I’m relieved that he’s home. It’s the same with Ash - he’s so scared of losing me. Literally everyone he’s ever loved has died right in front of him and he is terrified of losing me. I can and I will throw myself in his way so that I take a hit meant for Ash and nothing pisses him off faster. Both of us know that anger often hides pain, it’s a secondary emotion, so when this happens, we just... we patch each other up, we cuddle and we apologise and we comfort each other and the anger quickly dissipates into what it actually is: tender love and fear of losing each other. Once the anger’s out of the way, we can get to the “good stuff”, as Ash puts it.

Who apologizes first? It depends on who messed up. It’s usually Ash, let’s be fair; he’s shit at everything except fighting Deadites and he’d be the first to tell you that. Most people’s apologies are followed by a “I won’t do it again” but this is Ash... he will do it again so apologies are almost redundant. Even so, he’ll say he’s sorry and then he’ll make up for it... letting me hold Eli or cuddling me while we watch some crappy TV together... Once, I messed up hugely by getting myself severely injured after a Deadite encounter and I bought Ash a new TV with all the premium channels - something he once asked a demon for. I also apologised with words and Ash was more than willing to forget it all! He did, however, finally teach me how to use weapons after that point and the both of us worked to help each other out a bit more.

Big spoon or little spoon? Ash’s tough guy exterior demands that he is the big spoon but he doesn’t actually like being the big spoon unless he can take the position into NSFW territory (he calls it “getting down to business”). He usually just wiggles against me, as if he can’t get comfortable, until I get the hint and turn around so that he is the little spoon... and then he melts. He buries his face either in the crook of my neck or my chest (he’s after my heartbeat) and I’ll stroke his hair and if we’re very lucky... Ash will actually go to sleep. Ash is always the little spoon; them’s the rules! If I need comforting or if I can’t sleep etc. then Ash will be the big spoon, but mostly he prefers to be the little one. I love the way I can then literally watch over him and protect him, though, so it works out well for us both!

Dom or sub? Ash and I typically assume whatever role we need to. Sometimes Ash is more in control and sometimes I am. We usually feed off the other person to work out what they need. On the days we both need comfort, then we switch and take care of each other in order to take care of ourselves. We live for each other🥺💗 Generally speaking, Ash is the dom, if only because he’s literally double my age and that’s just the dynamic we fell into.

What are their kisses like? Ash kisses me like it’s the first and the last time he’s ever going to get to kiss me. Any moment he could die, at any moment there could be a Deadite, any moment could something take me away from him and he truly fears losing the people he loves because that’s all he’s ever known. I always know when my Ashy is going to kiss me because he’ll get this... darker look in his eyes and he’ll grab me either by my waist or my shoulders and I’ll get tugged into him. He almost slams his lips into mine and then it softens into tenderness and reverence. His kisses are either slow and he takes his time or they’re fast and rushed because shit, he’s late for work but he can’t pull himself away... No matter where his hands start, they will finish on my face as he holds me to him. I am always left feeling dazed. No one kisses me like Ash.

What do they smell like? In the show Ash wears Pinaud Clubman, which is described as

It makes me feel so safe, though the metallic tang of blood which is practically soaked into Ash’s clothes, even when they’re clean, almost ruins that sense of familiarity and safety. Almost. If Ash is at work or if he’s out with Kelly and Pablo, then I might use some of it and ‘borrow’ one of his shirts just to feel him near me. I’m not saying I’m clingy, but... I do need to have some part of Ash with me during those long periods he’s not there, just to comfort myself and keep me focused on what I’m doing. I also have my own shirt which I bought which looks like Ash; though I rarely wear that now that I know I could have just... asked Ash for one of his shirts🥺

What are their hugs like? Ash hugs the way he kisses... like it’s the first and last time all at once. I don’t ever have to worry that I’m annoying Ash with how often I want to be hugged or held because he melts every single time. He’s touch starved and in a lot of ways so am I. When Ash and I hug we cease to be Erika and Ash. We just become this... human mesh where limbs and such are entangled and you can’t really tell who’s who. Ash is four inches taller than me so I disappear into him, especially if he rests his head on my shoulder, and we clutch each other like we’ll die if we let go. Ash does sometimes feel that way because his fears come straight up to the surface and I’ll stroke his hair and tell him that I’m there, I’m okay and I’m safe and so is he. Ash’s hugs centre me and they remind me of where I am and what I’m doing and Ash never pulls away first. Even if he hugs me first, he won’t let me go until I step away. Truthfully, we both find it hard to step away and sometimes we can stand there for up to thirty minutes, taking and giving comfort and love in equal measures. With one arm around my shoulders and one around my waist, Ash holds me to him. I always have my arms around his middle and my fingers will be knotted into his blue shirts. When we pull away, the middle of Ash’s shirt will be creased; it makes me miss him all the more. He’s been late to work on many an occasion because we both know that this hug could very well be the last and we want to make it count.

Who is more protective? This depends on the situation.

In general life and if there are Deadites involved, then Ash is the most protective person. To the extent where it’s almost overwhelming. If I go to the bathroom when there’s whispers of Deadites then Ash will literally stand outside the door or, at least, close by, and every thirty seconds or so I’ll hear him asking if I’m all right. I more than understand his concern though so I treat every check-up seriously. It means the world to me to be so important to him.

In Elk’s Grove, Michigan, when there are whispers of Ashy Slashy and of how he went mad and killed all his friends at the cabin back in 1983, I’m the protective one. I can and I will go head to head with people to put them right about my Ash. I don’t like conflict and I avoid confrontation like the plague, but for one of my loved ones??? Hold my coffee. Ash finds it really hot and that tough guy exterior comes out because Ash doesn’t know how else to handle the situation, but then when it’s just he and I back in the trailer or the Delta, his brown eyes soften and my Ash will thank me with a tight hug, whispers of love and a kiss so powerful I forget why he was kissing me in the first place.

Interested in children? Nope. I’d rather eat my own foot and Ash just... doesn’t want to. He does have a daughter, Brandi, from another relationship and I’m friends with her (she’s seventeen by the time he meets her for the first time), but beyond that, kids are a no-go!

Who needs the most TLC when sick? Both Ash and I work through our sicknesses by ourselves and we don’t bring all that much attention to it, but Ash is, as I’ve said, so scared of losing anyone he loves that when I get sick he almost buys out S-Mart’s pharmaceutical section. He’s almost overbearing when I get sick but the joke’s on him because I get my ‘revenge’ when he inevitably gets sick, too - the dumbass still kisses me when I’m ill so as I recover, he’s coming down with it.😂 I love my slasher himbo so much...

Who says ‘I love you’ first? Ash said it first. We were driving in the Delta to go back to the trailer and he had a cut on his cheek. He had taped it up with duct tape but I had some antiseptic wipes in my bag so I was attempting to patch him up on the way home and Ash just said he loved me without taking his eyes off the road. I said it back without even thinking about it and then Ash almost got us into a crash because he took his eyes off the road to stare at me. Luckily the other car honked just in time before Ash had to slam down on the brakes or his injury would have been so much worse. 😂 In day to day life, either of us will say it first and the other always says it back. Any time could be the last time and we’re both painfully aware of that fact, though Ash knows it far more than I do for obvious reasons .I get upset if an “I love you” isn’t returned because it can lead to insecurities and tears and Ash... likes to avoid waterworks because he never knows what to do.

Which of you is more accident prone? Ashhhhh ~ without a doubt! He’s forever coming back to the trailer with cuts, scrapes, bruises...even just at work in the housewares department, if there’s a way for him to injure himself then he’ll do it. Not on purpose, mind, but he’s as much of a klutz as I am and evil follows him wherever he goes. Many a time I’ve patched him up (sometimes he doesn’t even realise he’s got an injury because he’s so used to being covered in blood and gore) and then discovered one of my own and Ash has patched me up to return the gesture. I guess you could say we put each other’s broken pieces back together, though of course there’s nothing to be romanticised about falling apart.

Bed hog? I had to think about this one, but considering Ash rarely actually sleeps, I’d say it’s me. I once managed to fall out of a Queen sized bed because I rolled over too far. I’d been lying in the middle and I have yet to work out how I fell out. But I digress. If there’s a way for me to take up all the space in a bed, then I will whether I intend to or not. Ash usually just... climbs over me if he wants to get into bed or if he wants to get out of bed. I sleep and wake like the dead so he won’t wake me unless he actually wants to wake me. If Ash can’t move me then he’ll just lay on top of me and that soothes him to sleep quite quickly... funny how these things work themselves out...😉

Who loves the other the most? I’d say we’re pretty equal in this one, tbh. Ash has lots of fears which stem around losing someone he loves (again) and that can mean that he shows his love for me almost desperately in some ways, and nothing scares me more than my loved ones feel unloved by me, so in that way I’m quite an intense person, too. We both make sure the other person knows they are loved every second we can and that’s probably why we’ll be a couple which lasts through the ages.

#self-shipping #dracika #ashika

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yuki-carey · 3 years

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@ssongpyeon This is part 2 of answering your ask! I would reblog my first post but when I do so it removes it from the tags... So yeah...

So. I said I'd give my heavier headcanons. So warning, this could be triggering to some people, because Beyblade is extremely damn dark, and this is only darker. (Triggers in the tags.) They’re headcanons about the show because the manga is another pair of hands.

-I headcanon that Doji is his uncle (his mother's brother), actually. I think Reiji's parents were very busy because they are rich, but not the kind to just sit on their wealth and accumulate more wealth, unlike most ultra-rich people, they actually work, but they have a terrible work/life balance so they often ended up neglecting their child(ren), barely hiring nannies to take care of him (them). Doji, on the other hand, was jealous of his older sister getting most of the money and power (even though he still received plenty of money himself), and that, along with the fact he's an awful person, was what decided him to create the Dark Nebula to get more power. Except at first he didn't know L-Drago existed, so he spent years and years coming up with different schemes and plans to take control. Ryuga became part of his schemes after some time, but their 'collaboration' was still relatively recent. Reiji on the other hand has been a part of this very early on, ever since Doji offered to "take care of him" (when he was ‪around 7-9‬ years-old?), and his parents agreed because they thought it was still better for him to be raised by his uncle than by strangers. (I mean, his mom was dubious at first because she knew her brother, but she assumed he was trying to apologize for their tense relationship.)

Obviously, this was all very wrong.

Doji, indeed, had just cooked up a plan that was a bit more likely to succeed than the others, and he needed a pawn for it to work. Someone naive, someone who would trust him blindly, someone he could bend and break and reshape as he wished. And who better suited for that role than a child who knew nothing of the real world?

Especially a child who already knew about Beyblade, and to whom he wouldn’t have to teach EVERYTHING about how to play. (Even if Doji didn’t yet know about the dark power at the time, he had still noticed how incredible beys could be, and he was able to tell that something could be done with that.)

Indeed, thanks to his connection with his bey, (and also because he would spent a lot of time training on his own, since he didn’t really have anything else to do,) Reiji was already quite a good blader (well, not THAT good but like... Acceptable for a child. And Doji didn’t really have any other choice anyway, so he couldn’t be picky.)

So Doji took him under his wing, and tried to use him without him noticing. After all, why would a child have doubted him?

... Except Doji is the most suspicious person ever, and that Reiji already didn't trust people much, because it seemed very weird to him that someone he didn't know would just take him in and be nice. (I can only imagine that during his childhood, kids hated him because his parents were rich so they assumed he could have anything he wanted, and that if he refused to share, it was because he was mean. It wasn't.)

So anyway Reiji didn't trust Doji, to the point where it made Doji's entire plan fail. Also because it wasn't a solid plan (I mean, have you seen Doji's ideas? Seriously? The man can't think for more than two seconds to save his life. Anyone whose plan is ‘step 1. conquer the world! Step 2. ???‘ can’t think for more than two seconds to save their life.)

The whole failure meant Doji had to find a new plan. And as previously stated, Doji is bad at thinking up ideas.

So Doji kept scheming, but also trying to understand what to do with his nephew (he couldn’t pretend he couldn’t stand him as an excuse to give him back to his parents, since he might have needed him again later on). He also felt that he actually had to gain his trust, otherwise he wouldn’t manage to do anything.

And to do this, he would have to do something. To create Reiji Mizuchi, out of this lonely, quiet, useless kid.

So he staged the kidnapping.

/!\ Alright so I warned there would be some triggering stuff in there. THIS IS IT NOW. If you wish to proceed, it’s at your own risk. /!\

So my headcanon is that Doji... Got random goons to kidnap Reiji, lock him up in one of his mansions for a few months (which would later on become one of the Dark Nebula’s headquarters, where Reiji was obviously not allowed)... And to torture him by putting electrodes on his head and giving him shocks, as they forced him to listen to the same words being said over and over again each time he was shocked —positive words, encouraging words, determined words... In one word... Friendship. Everything about friendship.

Want to make sure someone will never, ever have any friends, who could interfere with your plans and actually save the person you’re manipulating? Make the very concept of friendship hurt them like Hell.

And that’s what Doji did. And that’s why during his battle against Kenta, when Kenta starts talking about winning for his friends, Reiji... Loses it. Starts clutching his head, saying “it hurts, it hurts! It really hurts!!” Why would he be faking this? He is actually hurt. My headcanon (theory?????) is that his mind now associates the words/ideas with being shocked, which is horribly painful, and that this is what makes him freak out, and start going crazy (crazier than he was at least). To disprove this theory, you may say that he wasn��t hurt because of Kenta’s words, but because Kenta was about to beat him. To which I say no. Because otherwise, he would have similarly freaked out during his fight against Gingka. And he didn’t. He was extremely scared, but not hurt. He didn’t, as Doji put it, “have to use his true power”. (Sorry if my retranscription of what they said in the episodes is approximative, I’m relying on my memory and while I basically know the French version by heart, I don’t know the English one as well.)

Soooooo there you have it. But that’s not over. After the torture, when Doji deemed he was “ready”, he showed up at the mansion with three or four other goons disguised as cops who “arrested” the “bad guys” in front of Reiji’s eyes. In other words, Doji pretended that someone else had kidnapped him, but that he had been looking for him the whole time and that now he had finally found him, everything would be okay.

All of this to both earn Reiji’s trust, make sure that he would not make any friends (who could have proved to Reiji that Doji was evil), and even give him a good reason to make Reiji stay put (his excuse for basically locking him up in his bedroom being “so it’s easier to protect you”).

It was also a way to encourage him to become a better blader, “so you can protect yourself”.

So that’s what Doji did, keep Reiji alone in his bedroom, slowly becoming crazier and even more brainwashed as everything he had access to was controlled by Doji, everything he was told was said by Doji, everything he could watch on TV (to analyze other bladers’ moves and both learn from their techniques, and learn to hate them since unlike him, they never had to suffer) was recorded and put there by Doji...

And that’s how Doji created the perfect little monster, the perfect little puppet.

Later on, when he learned about the dark power, and learned the Hagane family was the one in charge of protecting it, all Doji had to do was to tell Reiji that hey, after years of searching for the one behind your terrible-horrible-awful tragedy, we finally found him, and his name is Ryo Hagane.

Which makes Reiji want revenge upon him. And what better revenge, whispers Doji after he realizes that Ryo was less of a threat than he thought and Gingka is the one to watch out for, than completely destroying Ryo’s most precious possession? No, not his bey, though it would kill two birds with one stone... But his darling, darling son. Annihilated, right in front of his eyes, as he watches helplessly. He pretends to be dead, that traitor, but we know it’s not true. He is merely hiding, hiding from his sins, so his crimes will remain unpunished. But he made a mistake. He didn’t realize that you — the one he broke, the one he hurt, the one he tortured without an ounce of pity — would be better than them all. Would not be weak. Would be powerful enough to avenge yourself. So go, my child.

Avenge yourself.

—> Okay so I... Went a bit off-course... But you get the idea. There you go. That’s... My main theory about Reiji’s past.

So yeah, I definitely agree with you about Reiji actually being the key element of at least one of Doji's ideas. Which made him, yes, Doji’s plan B should plan A (using Ryuga to get L-drago's power) fail.

-Though, I mean, I do have another theory. It’s a bit less comprehensive, but I think it’s interesting nonetheless.

It once again mostly focuses on Kenta and Reiji’s fight in episode 44 because that scene of Reiji freaking the hell out lives in my head rent-free. And it doesn’t just live in my head rent-free (I mean, all of Reiji’s scenes live in my head rent-free, it’s nothing special). But this one... This one has a fucking castle in my head, with twelve swimming pools and three parks. This one has underwear made of gold and a crown made of cheese. Hot digitty dang darnit.

It’s about Reiji’s snake eyes.

See, usually, his snake eyes are like this. You probably already know it.

HOWEVER, when he starts screaming about being in pain, as you may have noticed, his snake eyes become like THIS.

It’s not a mistake, as they stay like that the whole scene, starting when he starts hurting and ending only when Gingka interrupts the fight. It’s on PURPOSE.

So we have two options. Either you are a normal person, so you say “oh, this is symbolic”.

Either you are a completely deranged madman, and you go “well OBVIOUSLY it means Reiji’s snake eyes are devices given to him by Doji, and that have been made to electrocute him so he’ll go on a rampage whenever they are activated because he doesn’t understand where the pain is coming from and mistakenly assumes it’s caused by his opponent, when really it’s just Doji pressing a button”. And, since during Gingka and Reiji’s fight, Doji wasn’t there because he was fighting Ryo... It makes sense that he couldn’t have harmed Reiji.

Okay. I don’t actually believe this theory/headcanon. Or rather I don’t really like it because I prefer my other one. (Not that I actually believe in any of my headcanons, I just think they’re neat.) But the snake eyes are looking at me and the explanation ‘it’s symbolism’ only half satisfies me.

Alright... So that was it for my theories... The rest of my headcanons are more ‘tame’... And just, logical... It’s just what happens after Battle Bladers.

-he’s still kind of scared of Gingka (he’s very prone to nightmares) but it’s getting better

-obviously most of his nightmares are rather about the Dark Nebula...

-he also doesn’t like televisions for obvious reasons.

-he still likes Beyblade because he likes his bey, but he doesn’t actually fight anymore, at least for a while. But he may start again in the future.

-sometimes in my “after Battle Bladers” AUs I headcanon that someone who was outraged by his treatment of Hyoma and Kenta destroys his bey, while he is busy going through the trauma of having just lost, and a bit of dissociation as he realizes that 1) if we go with my first headcanon/theory, he sees he could not avenge himself; but most of all 2) he is not the strongest so he is actually vulnerable and can be hurt at any moment. (This being represented by him turning to stone.) The trauma is obviously even worse when he sees his bey is destroyed. (Okay this is sad so uh... Let’s say it makes him realize destroying beys is awful, no matter the reason... So Gingka and his friends forgive him... And Madoka fixes his bey... Yeah LET’S GO WITH THAT.)

-the person he hates the most is Doji (don’t we all)

-ever since he understood Doji lied to him for about half of his life, he has trust issues... It slowly gets better as he meets kinder people, but it’s still something he has to fight.

#tw: torture #tw: electrocution #reiji mizuchi #headcanon #metal fight beyblade #mfb #reiji beyblade #ssongpyeon #I’m a 100% aware this is fan wank #and idgaf #i probably forgot half of my headcanons again #it’s fine #if i forgot I’ll remember eventually #for now I still have work to do... why am I like this #also sorry for the bad quality of the pic in the middle #I’m lazy as all hell

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firstumcschenectady · 3 years

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“On Being Pruned” based on 1 John 4:7-21 and John 15:1-8

While I was in college I lead a group of new freshman on an outdoor adventure trip. We were assigned to trail maintenance in a very remote part of Northern New Hampshire. It was a beautiful place and a wonderful trip, but it turns out that a lot of trail maintance is actually killing small trees so that they don't grown on the trail and I really deeply hated that. No matter how many times I reminded myself that by maintaining the trail and giving people a chance to experience that pristine wilderness I was PROTECTING most of the trees, I still felt uncomfortable with each one I killed.

Similarly, I'm not particularly good at pruning. I'm so afraid of going too far that I don't go far enough. It would be enjoyable to claim that this is related to the value, “don't hurt living things unless you have to” but that fails to notice that things you prune are things that NEED pruning. Pruning is a source of abundant life.

According to Gospel commentaries, grapevines are things that need pruning. The Five Gospels says, “Vines do not have branches, contrary to popular usage, but 'canes.' Each year canes are snipped from the vines and piled in the vineyard to be burned. … The vines will not bear good fruit, or fruit in abundance, if they are not pruned annually.”1 The metaphor loving writer of the Gospel of John suggests this is true of the followers of the way of Jesus as well. We too need regular pruning to “bear fruit.”

I suspect many of us feel similarly about pruning ourselves as I do about pruning any other living thing. It is uncomfortable, it is done with caution, we don't want to go to far. And that means that often we don't prune quite far enough.

This may feel like an unfortunate time to come across this Gospel, because the impact of the pandemic has been a desire to return to “normal” and profound objections to the ways our lives have been “pruned” from the outside beyond our control. But here is the Gospel anyway, and when we're honest we note that even this awful pruning has had SOME silver linings.

Now, in John's metaphor, God is the gardener, and God is the one doing the pruning. We are fairly passive to the pruning. We are definitely NOT in charge of self-pruning. :) Phew. Likewise, we are not in charge of fruit production. Fruit comes from being connected to Jesus, and well pruned by God, and we are mostly PASSIVE fruit bearers. Fruit or lack there of isn't really our fault. We are tended, rooted, and pruned to be the best fruit bearers we can be, and we can simply BE and God's goodness will work through us.

Nice.

While I think that idea is incomplete, I also think it is one worthy of consideration.

Many of us TRY REALLY HARD ALL THE TIME, and this suggests that we can let go and God's goodness will keep flowing. That is an important truth, if incomplete.

So if God is the gardener and the pruner, then who are we when we resist pruning? I suspect that we are vine “canes” that are holding on for dear life to canes that have already been snipped and berating ourselves that we can't bring them back to life. There are these dead, decaying branches and we're holding them in place willing them to grow again, and in doing so, missing the new life springing up within us.

Several years ago I watched a TED talk by Dan Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard entitled “The Psychology of Your Future Self.” Gilbert's ideas have stayed with me ever since. He opens his talk by saying:

At every stage of our lives we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we're going to become, and then when we become those people, we're not always thrilled with the decisions we made. So young people pay good money to get tattoos removed that teenagers paid good money to get. Middle-aged people rushed to divorce people who young adults rushed to marry. Older adults work hard to lose what middle-aged adults worked hard to gain. On and on and on. The question is, as a psychologist, that fascinates me is, why do we make decisions that our future selves so often regret?

I'm hoping you already see how this relates to letting God's pruning without fighting it! He states his thesis directly (don't you love that?), “What I want to convince you today is that all of us are walking around with an illusion, an illusion that history, our personal history, has just come to an end, that we have just recently become the people that we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives. “ As you might hope, Gilbert proves this point along the way, and then goes on to conclude:

Most of us can remember who we were 10 years ago, but we find it hard to imagine who we're going to be, and then we mistakenly think that because it's hard to imagine, it's not likely to happen. ...when people say "I can't imagine that," they're usually talking about their own lack of imagination, and not about the unlikelihood of the event that they're describing.

The bottom line is, time is a powerful force. It transforms our preferences. It reshapes our values. It alters our personalities. We seem to appreciate this fact, but only in retrospect. Only when we look backwards do we realize how much change happens in a decade. It's as if, for most of us, the present is a magic time. It's a watershed on the timeline. It's the moment at which we finally become ourselves. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you've ever been. The one constant in our life is change. 2

That is, pruning happens whether we want it to or not, and either we can make peace with it and let it be, or we can fight with it, but it won't change the fact that things change.

While I prefer it when I can read it with some verses missing, 1 John 4 is a very important chapter in the Bible for most people I know because it says the thing they believe most, “God is love.” It says it strongly too, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us. ...Those who say, "I love God," and hate their siblings, are liars; for those who do not love a sibling whom they have seen,

cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (11, 20). Perhaps this fits the idea that loving God and loving other people are two sides of the same coin, inseparable though they can appear to be different. These claims about God, that God is love, and that loving people is a way of loving God, are the lens through which I see the entirety of the Bible. I remain grateful that it is there, and available to be used.

John chapter 15 goes on to sound a whole lot like 1 John 4. The Vine and Branches metaphor morphs quickly to point out that the fruit that God is looking for is the practice of abiding in love. So both of them point the question: what impairs love and what encourages it? If we are being continually pruned by God, what helps us let go of what we're done with, and what helps us connect with what God is up to next? Or, in the metaphor, how do we let go of the pruned and dead branches so there is space for new growth?

Perhaps the best thing we can do for now is notice. We can notice what has been pruned, so we can let it go and we can notice what is growing so we can watch it growing. Perhaps this passage is exactly right for right now. We aren't the gardener, we aren't in charge, but we can – at least – stop impeding the Gardener's work and instead notice what it is.May it be so. Amen

1 Robert W. Funk, Roy W Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (HarperOneUSA, 1993), page 453.

2 Dan Gilbert, “The Psychology of Your Future Self” Ted Talk, found at https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_psychology_of_your_future_self/transcript?utm_campaign=social&utm_content=talk&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=soci al-science#t-308201 given on March 2014 accessed on April 29, 2021.

#Thinking Church #Progressive Christianity #FUMC Schenectady #Schenectay #UMC #Sorry about that homophobic UM #Rev Sara E Baron #Johannine community #God Is Love #Faith Statement #Easter Season #Pruning #Just be the branches #Notice

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