Tumgik
#but now that i'm dissecting it... there's a lot going on with why i had that string of thought
themagical1sa · 7 months
Text
"i like you and i blame you for making me feel this way" he said
i still think about it
#isa and the y/n experience#isa go to sleep challenge#except i Can't because i am going through a story arc for real right now#his squish for me evolved into a crush i think#like. romantic interest and alladat jazz. the whole shebang#i feel like this has been a long time coming and whatever happened last sunday was just his tipping point#i didn't want to assume anything (God. me and this specific sentence. I think we've found the theme for the story /j) so i just#let things happen first because i needed to be Certain (this mfing word too. guys I've figured out the plot theme /j)#im ngl i had an anxious voice in my brain going 'don't fall in love with me' for the past several months#but now that i'm dissecting it... there's a lot going on with why i had that string of thought#i'm very hyperaware of the dynamics shifting over time (especoally rn when i'm not enrolled for this semester)#not to mention my thing for crushie which has added conflict on top of the dynamics shift#we haven't interacted very much but i still have affection for him... yet on the other hand squishie's squishing me so hard i'm a crush now#the dynamics have changed#and then there's squishie's backstory that i will never detail so long story short: he's been on the receiving end of toxic relationships#and i've managed to become a major turning point that made him realize that he can be happy again#i've got a lot on my mind can u tell HAHA#i'm thinkin' abt alladis on top of wanting to be more objectively productive with my time off college AAAAAAAA#this wattpad fanfic shoujo manga webtoon morning romcom disney aitcom is getting too real @_@#shoutout to my besties especially seraph who contributed to that label#my life has never been the same since the moment classmate bestie clocked me as a living wattpad fanfic back in january 24#augh#anyway. i'm gonna... try to brainrot abt something else HAHA#shoutout to hug anon#if u're still here: bestie a lot of things have happened since u were last here#they were one of the og crushie/isa supporters from tumblr HAHA
6 notes · View notes
vetyr · 14 days
Note
hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT
Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.
When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.
Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.
For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.
Tumblr media
Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.
The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!
It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.
I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).
Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)
Tumblr media
2K notes · View notes
five-rivers · 24 days
Text
wandering heart
For @phantomphangphucker for phic phight!
.
.
.
The needle was bronze.  
The copper alloy stood out better against ectoplasmic flesh than it would have against red blood.  It dipped in and out of Danny's skin with machine-like precision, drawing a slender purple string in its wake.  Appropriate.  Clockwork was at least partly mechanical.
“You're getting close to my liver,” said Danny.  “Careful.”
“You are aware that these facsimile organs are not at all essential to the function of your body.”
“Sure they are,” said Danny.  He leaned his head back on the cushion Clockwork had provided him.  “That's why you're sewing me up.”
Clockwork's tower wasn't Danny's usual post-battle stop, but the fight had been nasty and it had been close. His other choices had been flying an hour to reach the Far Frozen and leaving an ectoplasm trail through the mad science lab dedicated to dissecting ghosts.  The decision had been easy.  
Clockwork had complained, of course.  Ninety percent of the time spent stitching had doubled as time spent snarking.  It was fun.  
“You have more than fake human organs in here, and losing that much ectoplasm is unhealthy for a ghost regardless.  You are friends with the doctors of the Far Frozen.  Perhaps you should avail yourself of their knowledge more frequently.”
“I already have one health class I'm failing.  Don't need another.”
“You are not failing your health class.”
Danny peeled back an eyelid that had fallen shut at some point during the exchange.  “Are you using your time powers to spy on my grades?”
“Hardly.”  Clockwork picked up a pair of ornate scissors and snipped the string he'd been stitching Danny up with.  “But even so, I doubt you would notice if I removed one of your so-called organs.” 
“You could try,” said Danny.  He closed his eyes again and leaned to the side until he was slumped over on Clockwork, who made an offended noise.  “You’re trapped now.  Stuck.”
“I am a shapeshifter,” said Clockwork.  “You cannot ‘trap’ me simply by leaning on me.”
“Can too.”
Danny was tired.  Sometimes, he could shrug off both fights and injuries like they were nothing, but unicorns were vicious and Technus was mean.  Electricity always took a lot out of him.  
Clockwork sighed heavily.  Danny smiled.  
“You aren’t nearly as charming as you think,” said Clockwork.  
“And yet, you are neither kicking me out nor stealing my pancreas or lower intestine or anything like that.”
“I could.”
“But you haven’t.”  Danny tucked his feet underneath him and snuggled more heavily into Clockwork’s side.  
The ghost groaned, but obligingly made room for Danny.  Yes, yes, exactly according to plan.  The evil one, where he made friends with Clockwork.  He figured he was already halfway there, if Clockwork was willing to sew him up, but with this it was definitely closer to three quarters.  
Having thought this, Danny promptly fell asleep.  
.
The front doors of Clockwork’s tower were not made to slam open, but Danny, fingers of one hand clenched over his chest and still wearing a Far Frozen medical gown, managed anyway.  He was resourceful like that.  
“Clockwork?” he called.  “Clockwork!”  He flew from room to room, only sticking his head in long enough to assess them for Clockwork's presence.  
Finally, he found him.  
“Clockwork!” he shouted, re-energized by the sight.  “Did you steal my heart?  My heart?  My actual heart from my actual chest?”
Clockwork stared blankly at Danny for long enough that his panicked doubled and doubled again.  This was, quite literally, his only lead.
“No,” said Clockwork, finally.  “I stole the replica of your actual heart.  From your chest.”
“That’s the same thing!”
“Is it?” asked Clockwork, smugly.  “After all, you didn’t even notice this one was gone.”
“Oh my god, I cannot believe you did this.”  Friendship plan canceled.  Or something.
“I cannot imagine why,” said Clockwork.  “After all, I told you exactly what I was going to do.  You even gave me permission.”
“I thought you were joking.  Who’s going to think that you’re serious about stealing a friend’s organs?  That’s a joke.  A joke.  Banter, if you would.  Not an invitation to steal my literal heart.”
“Even so, it has been done.”
“Well, can you undo it?  Put it back in?  You didn’t, I don’t know, toss it out with last week’s eggshells or something?  Stick it in the back of the kitchen junk drawer.”
“No, I know exactly where I put it,” said Clockwork.  
“And you can undo it, right?  It’s not, like, expired?”
“It is difficult to get more expired than a ghost’s heart.”  
Danny stared at Clockwork expectantly.  
“Yes, I can undo it.  It will be the work of a moment to return it to its proper place.”  
“Great, so…  Lead on.”  Danny made a forward sweeping motion with both hands.  
Clockwork’s eyes slid back towards his time screen.  “Can it wait?”
“No!”
“You haven’t had it for weeks.  You won’t miss it for a few more minutes.”
“Uh, yes, I will!  You can time travel.  Whatever you’re doing, you can do it later.”
“I suppose,” said Clockwork.  “Very well.  Follow me.”
Clockwork led him back, through narrow halls, into a towering closet with spiral shelves.  It was full of what could only be collectively referred to as stuff.  
“Wow, I wasn’t serious about the junk drawer thing.”
“Oh, please,” said Clockwork.  “This is hardly junk.”
“You’re a hoarder.”
“I resent that appellation,” said Clockwork, flying up and rotating slightly.  Danny kept his feet on the ground, slightly intimidated.
“The only reason you aren’t drowning in all this is because your house doesn’t have to exist in Euclidean space.”
“And yet, I am not drowning in it.” Clockwork continued to float upwards, a faint frown on his face.  
“You do remember where you put it, right?”
“Yes, Daniel,” said Clockwork, visibly rolling his eyes.  “I put it right– Ah.  Interesting.”
“Interesting?  What do you mean interesting?” demanded Danny.  He flew up to hover near Clockwork's shoulder.  “Did something happen to it?  Is it– It's not there?  You said you knew where it was!”
“I said I knew where I put it, which is rather a different thing altogether.”
“No, it isn't!  It's not like it has legs!  It couldn't have wandered off on its oooohhhhhhhh my God, it could have wandered off on its own.  That thing had more ectoplasm in it than a Christmas turkey.”
“It is, in fact,” said Clockwork, “entirely made out of ectoplasm.”
“If it’s moving around like that, can we put it back in?  Would it– Would it try to escape?  Like, escape my chest?  Is that a thing?”
“Unlikely.”
“As unlikely as it starting to move around in the first place?”
“Unlikely,” repeated Clockwork.  
“Where even is it?  Do you know?  Can you tell?  Obviously, your whole ‘I know everything’ shtick is a lie, but can you, like, rewind things so that it’s here?”
“No,” said Clockwork.  “We will just have to look for it.”
“In your hoarder cave?”
“It is not a cave.”
“Ah, but you don't dispute the hoarder part?”  He spun, head over heels, trying and failing to see the entirety of the not-really-a-closet.  “What if there are things in here?  Like, living things?  Could it have been eaten?  By, like… Clockroaches?  Do you have clockroaches here?”
“Media tends to grossly exaggerate both the aggression and size of temporal boggles–”
“They’re real?”
“Why would you ask about them if you didn’t think they were real?”
“I don’t know.  It turns out I don’t think through the things I say to you very well.”
“Clearly.” 
Danny arrested his motion.  “Where do we even start?  This place is huge!”
“That statement assumes that it is still in this particular room.”
“Oh my God.”
“Although, if we are to search this room, it would make the most sense to start from either end and work towards the middle.”
Danny flipped over.  “I can’t even see the other end.”  This was only barely an exaggeration.
“Then we had best get started soon.”
Danny rubbed his face.  “Am I even going to recognize it?  What will it look like?”
“Like the organ it was imitating, of course,” said Clockwork.  “Oh, and don’t touch anything.”
Danny groaned.
.
There was something quivering and green huddled behind a bank of jars.  Was that… it couldn’t be…  He formed a stick out of ice and went to poke it.  
“What are you doing to that poor frog?” asked Clockwork.  
“Holy– It’s a frog?”
“Yes.” 
Danny stared.  Clockwork was covered in splatters and streaks of ectoplasm from head to tail.  
“Why do you– I don’t even want to know.  Did you find it?”
“Yes,” said Clockwork, holding up a jar.  There was…  Well.  It was a heart.  “Are you sure you want it back?  Surely, the sentimental value cannot be that great.”
“Wh– It’s not about the sentimental value.  Open it up, put it back in!”
Clockwork’s sigh was incredibly put-upon.  “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He unscrewed the lid of the jar, and the heart, which had up until that point, laid quiescent on the bottom of the jar, flew out, smacking Danny in the face.  
“Augh!”
“Grab it!” 
Danny managed to get a hand around a ventricle, but ectoplasm and ectoplasmic muscle was slippery.  It escaped his grip.  It flopped-flew its way down to the bottom of the genuinely-not-a-closet and made for the door.  Danny dove at it, only to get a faceful of ectoplasm from an artery for his trouble.  
Danny wondered if this was what Skulker felt like.  He let ectoplasm dribble out of his mouth.  
“That, bleh, that tastes like my ectoplasm,” he said.
“That’s because it is,” said Clockwork, tiredly.  “I will refrain from asking you to elaborate on your ectoplasm-tasting experiences.”
“Look, when nature gives you a weapon, and afterlife gives you enemies, you use the weapon.”  He peered cautiously out of the door, wary of being sprayed with what was essentially his own blood once again.  “Where do you think it–”
He got another mouthful of ectoplasm.  
“Bleh,” he said.  
“I don’t suppose you saw it?” asked Clockwork.  “Which way it went, etcetera, etcetera?”
“No,” said Danny.  
“Then this will be a long night.”
“Can’t you just, like, stop time or something?  So it won’t move around while we look”
Clockwork gave him a look.  
“I’ll take that as a no.”
.
“I think,” said Danny, from where he was dangling from the ceiling, a tangle of clock chains wrapped around his ankle, “that we need help.”
“Unfortunately, I must concur,” said Clockwork, who was underneath a pair of couches even he’d been surprised at owning.
“Unless you want to use your totally awesome time powers to find it.”
“No.”
.
“I’m sorry,” said Sam.  “What did you lose?”
“My heart,” said Danny.  “And I didn’t lose it.  Clockwork stole it.”
“Is this some kind of Ice Queen situation here?” asked Sam.  “Are you going to lose all empathy and care for other people?”
“No,” said Danny.  “It’s just the, um, physical thing.  And only my ghost half’s physical thing.  Apparently.  Apparently, the ‘human organs’ I have in my ghost form aren’t functional, unless the functionality is, like, the functionality of being incredibly annoying and spraying ectoplasm everywhere.”
“So, what should we bring for this thing?” asked Tucker.  “Butterfly nets?  Bow and arrow?  Guns?  What’s the endgame?”
“You want to shoot my heart?”
“I don’t know what you want here, dude.  I’m still kind of reeling over the fact that the guy you were hanging out with literally stole your heart.  Do you need someone to give him a stern talking to, make sure he gets you home before curfew?”
“That’s disgusting.  He could probably be my great-great-great-great-great-great–”
In ghost form, Danny didn’t have to breathe all that much, so he was able to go on like that until Sam and Tucker joined forces to stuff socks in his mouth.  
.
“How in the world did things escalate to Clockwork stealing your literal heart?” asked Jazz.  
“Okay, yeah, I see how that’d seem bad, out of context, but you see, it isn’t actually my literal heart–”
.
Danny glared at Clockwork’s idea of ‘help.’ “I bring three completely reasonable and competent people, and you bring them?”
“From my point of view, I am the one with the reasonable and competent people,” said Clockwork, gesturing at the combined forces of Nocturne, Ghost Writer, and Skulker.  “You, meanwhile, have brought three teenagers.”
“Are you really calling Skulker competent?”
“If not, he at least has experience in being outsmarted by you.”
“Hey!”
.
“Alas,” said Tucker, “the heart wants what the heart wants, and what it wants is freedom.”
“Where,” said Sam, kicking at a puddle, “is all this ectoplasm even coming from?”
“Around,” said Danny.  
“Ooh,” said Jazz, “it’s condensing it from the atmosphere?”  She paused.  “What are you all looking at me like that for?  I can have scientific curiosity!”
“I think it’s more because of what’s happened to your hair,” said Ghost Writer.
“What’s happened to my hair?”
“You don’t want to know.”
.
“Danny, I think I hate you,” said Sam.  They were sitting on one of Clockwork’s couches.  Clockwork had a lot of couches.  A fact that Clockwork seemed both bemused and distressed by.  
“Oh, trust me, the feeling is mutual.  As in, I hate me too.”
Clockwork sat down on the couch next to Danny.  “Daniel, I must tell you that while hate is beneath me, I am seriously regretting my earlier decisions.”
“Does that mean that you’re going to time travel back to–”
“Absolutely not.”
Tucker ran past them with a butterfly net, chasing down a green blur.  
“That’s a blob ghost, isn’t it?” asked Sam.  
“I do believe so,” said Clockwork.
“Well,” said Danny.  “At least this all makes us friends, yeah?  Can’t go through something like this without being friends.”  At least he’d get something accomplished with all this insanity.  
“I wouldn’t call myself friends with Skulker.  Or Nocturne.  Acquaintances, more like.”
“I notice you didn’t say anything about Ghost Writer.”
Clockwork shrugged.  “He’s somewhat more tolerable.”
“And me?”
“I suppose.”
The heart fell straight down, into Danny’s lap.
“Are you serious–”
235 notes · View notes
samandcolbyownme · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
TRIGGER WARNING: This one shot will contain mentions of a knife. If you are at all uncomfortable with that type of thing - PLEASE SKIP THIS CHAPTER!
Summary: Anon request - "Jake smut with knife kink????"
Warnings: SMUT18+, KNIFE PLAY!, strong language, teasing, hair pulling, scratching, biting, dirty pet names, unprotected sex, begging, praising, use of a knife during sex, maybe some breeding kink, filth.
Word count: 3.9k | not edited
I will going off the 'trying every fast food fried chicken sandwich' video on Johnnie's channel, but I will be adding some stuff to make you fit into the story - but I did shorten it a lot to not make it as long. Enjoy !
You sat in the chair behind the camera as Jake and Johnnie prepared to start recording. You and Jake had plans to hang out, but he totally forgot he already had a date with Johnnie to rate chicken on a scale of one through five.
"Have you ever wanted a chicken sandwich-"Jake cuts Johnnie off, "yeah." Johnnie continues, "well now you can-"
Jake stares into the cameras trying not to laugh, "yes."
"Well today -"
Jake interrupts him again, " yep."
Johnnie says nothing else as he leans over and grabs, what looks to be the handle of a knife. You and Jake both stare at him as he struggles to open it. You watch as Jake closes his mouth and reaches over to take it from Johnnie's grasp.
In one swift flick, the silver blade pops through, revealing its sharpness. Johnnie raises his hands, "Okay. Okay. Take it easy."
You felt relieved that Jake was staring at Johnie while holding it because that gave you time to get your cheeks back to a normal color. That was one of the hottest things you've seen Jake do, even if it was just as simple as him opening that knife.
It still got your mind going and blood pumping a mile a minute.
Jake glances at you as he sets the open knife on the table and you smile at him, sitting up as he looks away because a nasty and dangerous, yet super sexy thought, sneaks its way into your mind.
You don't even know how Jake would react to what you just thought of, but you knew that you weren't going to stop thinking about it until you got an answer from him.
You pull yourself from your thoughts and wind up listening to a very strange, yet normal Jake and Johnnie, comment, "..and and we're gonna be putting lots of meat in our mouth and we're-"
Your weird look turns into quiet laughter behind your hand as you watch Jake's face change quickly into a caught off guard confused stare.
He blinks a few times and looks at you and just shakes his head as Johnnie continues to ramble on. Then, the conversation turns into dissecting frogs before Johnnie says something about his merch.
"I'm proud to be an Americas favorite lady.." Johnnie sings and you just stare, thinking about why you agreed to sit in on this when you knew it was going to be hard to be quiet.
.·:*¨ ✘ ¨*:·.
"Alright, the first one we're trying is- mm-blah- uh- fuck." Johnnie looks down and Jake points to him, "Ha. You stuttered this time. Ha, ha."
You watch as Jonnie stares at the table for a few seconds in silence before he reaches for the knife again, and your eyes instantly move to Jake.
Jake watches as Johnnie struggles again and you pull your bottom lip between your teeth as Jake reaches over, waiting to watch his thumb slide up to open it once again.
"It's got a child lock on it." Jonnie says right before Jake takes it from him, popping the blade out of the top.
You don't know why, but you are so turned on by Jake opening the knife. You thought the first time was bad, but the more he does it, the more you feel like you can't breathe.
Jake closes the knife and hands it back to Johnnie, watching as he finally figures out how to open it. Jake raises his hand as he laughs, "Okay, okay. Now I'm scared."
Jake glances over at you and back to Johnnie, "Now I'm scared."
"Who stuttered what?" Johnnie asks in a funny voice and you can't help but laugh.
"Let me see that." Jake says and your eyes snap back to his hand that's reaching out for it, "Let me see that."
"Wait wait wait." Johnnie says and Jake drops his hand, "Come on. It's not a toy."
"Well it's real, it's dangerous, and illegal." Johnnie says and that just fuels the fire.
You watch as Jake takes the knife, laughing as he sets it down. You look up, eyes meeting his as he sets it down and you tilt your head with a smile.
He squints his eyes, picking up that there's something going on with you and you cross your leg over the other as you lean back against the wall.
He smirks slightly before going back to doing the video.
Every time Jake laughs, you smile because it's like you fall in love with him all over again, even the weird comments, you can't help but love him more.
.·:*¨ ✘ ¨*:·.
You have your head resting on the wall, watching Jake do his reviews when all of a sudden your eyes go wide and your hand slaps over your mouth.
Jake looks at you, tilting his head before looking over his shoulder.
"Hello!" Johnnie, or as you call it, his alter ego, Timmy yells. Jake's eyes go wide and he snaps his head back to you, "Oh.. my god."
Jake covers his mouth as Johnnie walks up, grabbing the sandwich, "Chicken sandwiiiiich." He screams as he clings to it for dear life.
Jake's hand is still over his mouth, "Oh my god. No way."
Johnnie continues to scream before taking an obnoxiously loud bite. Your hand slowly moves off of your mouth as you try to contain in the laughter.
You were super turned on, ready for this video to be done, but now thanks to Timmy, you were no longer focused on Jake dragging a knife across your neck.
"Holy shit." Jake lays a hand on his chest and drags it down to drop it into his lap as Johnnie slowly walks up to him, "If I just sit still, he won't know I'm here."
Your eyes flick back and forth from him to Johnnie, "oh my god. This isn't real." You whisper into your hand, "Holy fuck."
It's quiet, all but the sound of Johnnie eating as he walks up to Jake. Jake's eyes are on you, fighting to not look at Johnnie.
Johnnie leans down, "Want eat?"
Jake laughs, "No." he turns his head to look at Johnnie, "Get back." Johnnie moves back and yells something that's muffled by the food in his mouth before touchdown slamming the sandwich onto the floor.
Jake's mouth drops as he leans over, looking at you for help. You shrug, "I don't know what you want me to do. We just have to.. wait it out."
Johnnie leaves the room and you sit there staring at Jake, "What the fuck was that?" You watch as his fingers drag on the table against the knife and he looks up at you, "I'm going to stab him."
You laugh slightly, "Oh my g- Jake. No you're not going to stab him. He can't help it." You hold back your laughter as Johnnie walks back into the room.
And that feeling you had before returns, all it took was for him to touch the knife.
"Anyways." Johnnie says walking back into the room, like nothing even happened.
Which makes it a lot funnier.
You lean back against the wall, falling back into your thoughts after Johnnie's little Timmy outburst.
.·:*¨ ✘ ¨*:·.
Johnnie picks up a hammer, holding it up and Jake quickly picks up the knife, giving you a quick glance. 
You bite down on your lip, watching as he brings it up and opens it with no trouble.
You wanted him. And you wanted him to play with it, press it up against your neck.
Drag it down your body.
You wanted him to tease you with it.
Do whatever he wanted to you with it.
You never thought you'd bring a knife into sexual pleasure, but hey. Things can change, right?
A short time later, they wrap up the video and Jake stands up, "I hope you know you're cleaning this up yourself."
"What? Why?" Johnnie groans with a laugh, "No, don't answer that. I had an outburst didn't I?" He hangs his head and sighs loudly.
"I swear to god you're schizophrenic." Jake shakes his head and turns to face you, "Ready to hang out?" You nod, "Yeah, but first.." you lean around him and grab the knife off the table, "Close this for me."
He gives you a confused look but complies, taking the knife from your hand, closing it with ease, "Can I as-"
You cut him off, "Not here."
He tilts his head, "You're being weird."
You roll your eyes, "If anyone's weird here it's-"
Johnnie lets out a random scream and Jake spins you around, "Let's get out of here before he sees us." He pushes you forward and you walk out laughing.
Jake lays his arm over your shoulder, "So are you going to tell me what's brewin' in that noggin of yours.. or do I have to guess?"
You bite your lip, resting your head back onto his arm, "I mean, you can guess."
"Does it involve sexy time?" He wiggles his brows and you laugh, "that's not a guess, but yes, babe."
He pushes open his door and walks you in, turning around to close it.
"Okay. I'm just.." you sigh, looking up at him, "I'm just going to say it because it's a pretty.. wild request."
He holds up the closed knife in his hand, "It doesn't have anything to do with this.." he dangles the knife in his fingers, "..does it?"
You bite your lip, locking your hands together behind your back, "I told you it was a wild request."
He purses his lips together, eyes moving to the object in his hand, "You.." he laughs slightly, looking back to you, "You want me.." he points to the knife, "To do.. what exactly?"
"I'm not asking you to stab me, Jake. Just.." you walk up and take the knife from his hand. You try to get it open, "there really is a child lock on this isn't there."
Jake smirks and takes the knife from your hand, holding it up between your bodies and he flicks it open.
Your eyebrows raise and you bite your lip, "Uh huh." You nod, "You are so hot when you do that."
He smirks, looking away and back to you with a smile, "Oh shucks." He raises his shoulders and tilts his head all cute.
You move closer to him, wrapping your hand around his wrist, "I just.." your eyes move from the knife in his hand, up to his eyes, "I want you to, I don't know, intimidate me with it.. tease me with it."
"Isn't.. this a little bit dangerous?" He stares down at you and you shrug with a slight smile, "I mean, yes it's dangerous." You grab his shirt and move closer to him, "But that's what makes it fun right?"
A smirk toys with his lips as he brushes hair from your face, "I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't. I trust you." You tilt your head back, "We don't have to if-"
The sudden gentle graze of the blade across your cheek shuts you up instantly.
Jake's eyes bounce from your eyes to the knife resting on your cheek, "You know.. you have such an angel face." He bites his bottom lip, "But these thoughts you have, baby.. they're the devils thoughts."
He bends down, quickly lifting you up. Your legs circle his waist and you look down at him, "Only for you, baby."
He smirks, "I sure hope so."
He walks you over to his bed, moving his hand with the knife before letting you fall backwards onto the bed, "What do you want me to do?"
You lean up onto your elbows, "You're holding the knife, babe. You're in control."
"Oh shit. Okay." He laughs slightly and twirls it in his fingers, "if I see blood." He points the blade towards you, "I'm stopping."
"Deal." You smile and lay back, watching as he moves in between your knees after taking off his shirt. He drops his hand, dragging the point of the blade gently down your fishnet covered thigh.
He reaches up to undo your jean shorts, slowly pulling them down your legs until they're off and dropped to the floor.
You watch as he picks up the knife, slipping the sharp side of the blade against each thin piece of fishnet, cutting all the way up to your hip.
He moves to the other side, "I hope you didn't like these."
"I have more." You glance up at him, biting your lip as you feel the loose fabric sliding off your legs. He moves up, leaning down to press his lips against yours.
"How do you-" you reach over, pulling his hand with the knife over, "Just.. like. This." You lay the blade against your neck, "Just enough pressure for me to feel it."
"You're fucking crazy." He smirks and you tilt your head back, "You love it."
"I love you." He pulls the knife away, crashing his lips into yours. Your lips move in sync as his hand slips under your shirt, a small moan slipping from your lips as his fingers twist and pull at your nipple.
"Please don't tease." You whimper out.
He sits up and pushes your shirt up. He reaches over picking up the knife and dragging it down your torso, "I thought that's what you wanted?"
You fight back a smirk, knowing he's right, "Mhm."
He smirks, slipping it into the thick band of the fishnets, "Thought so."
With a swift swipe up, the band splits. He finishes cutting the fishnets and pushes the loose pieces away.
He spreads your legs more and you bite your lip as you feel the blade rest against your clothed pussy. Your eyes lock onto his and he drags it down, "Jake.."
Your words are barely audible, "P-please."
Your adrenaline was pumping. Any second that blade could puncture your skin, but the amount of trust you have for Jake, especially when it comes to you, make it even better.
"Please what, baby?" He drags the knife gently down the inside of your thigh, "Where do you want it?"
"Anywhere.." You breathe out, "I just.." you whimper as he presses the flat side against your clit, tapping a few times. He tilts his head, continuing to tap, "You just what, baby?"
"I need you." You move your hips slightly, "Please."
He leans down, kissing up your torso, "Fine." He rolls over, sitting his back against the headboard, "But you're ridin'."
You sit up, slipping your shirt up over your head, "okay." You smirk at him, kicking off the torn fishnets before moving up to straddle him.
He reaches behind you, making sure to gently drag the blade down your spine. You arch your back slowly, pushing your chest out and he kisses in between your boobs.
"You are so fucking hot." His other hand moves to grip your ass, squeezing before sliding it around to pull the band of your panties outward.
He drags the knife over your hip before slicing the band of your panties. You watch as he moves to the other side, cutting it and letting it fall between your legs.
He looks your body up and down and slides his hand up your back, gripping the back of your neck before pulling you in for a kiss.
Your hands move to the sides of his neck as you grind down on him, earning a low groan.
Your hands slide down, undoing his jeans before moving off of him so he can kick them off. He moves his boxers down and pulls you back over, "I hope you know, I love watching you ride me."
He spits into his hand, moving it down to rub the outside of your pussy. You moan, gripping his shoulders as his fingers move to rub circles on your clit, "Fuck."
He moves his hand to hold his cock steady, "go ahead babe."
You let out a loud moan, clenching around him as you sink down onto him. Your moan is cut short by a gasp from the knife against your neck.
"Why didn't I think of this?" Jake groans as you slowly move up and down, "This is fucking.." he groans, eyes gawking at the knife pressing against your skin, "Do you like it?"
You moan out, "Yes, yes."
"Tell me what you like, babe." Jake moves his hips upward and you sigh, "I love how you hold this knife against my skin."
"You look so fucking hot." He drags the knife down your neck and over your boob. He moves with your motions, pressing it a little harder into your skin.
You let out an excited whimper as you dig your nails into his shoulders, biting your lip as you roll your hips into his, "Jake.." you moan out, "You feel so good." 
He tilts his head back and you act quick, taking the knife from his hand and pressing it against his neck. His eyes widen slightly as his hands move to grip both of  your hips, "Fuck." He swallows, keeping his jaw up, "You're such a demon." 
You giggle slightly, a moan following quick as you sink all the way down, letting his cock rest inside of you, "You're so hot." You lean in, pressing your lips to his as you gently drag the knife down his skin. You replace the blade with your lips, sucks a mark into his skin which earns a low groan from his lips. 
He slides his hands up to the front of your shoulders, pushing you back as he leans forward. He pins your wrist down by your head before he starts thrusting into you, "Fucking shit." 
You arch your back, moaning loudly as your legs tighten over his thighs, "J-Jake." You gasp, "So c-close." 
He slips his hand up, taking the knife back into his possession. He leans down, holding up his weight on his forearm as he drags the knife down the side of your torso, "Cum for me." 
Your breathing shutters as the knife grazes over your skin. Your eyes roll back as you tilt your head back, whining loudly as he kisses down your neck, biting and nipping at your skin. He proceeded to give you a matching hicky, groaning lowly as he feels you tense around him. 
You let out a loud moan, digging your nails into his back as you cum. His thrusts slow down as he guides you through your high and then come to a stop, "Hands and knees baby." 
Jake pulls out, sitting all the way up to watch you lazily roll over. He lays a hand on your hip, biting his lip as his eyes gaze down to your soaked pussy on display, "You're so fucking wet." He brings the knife up, dragging it down over your ass and tapping it gently against your pussy. 
You gasp, trying not to move. Your fingers ball up the comforter underneath you, whimpering as you grow more impatient for him to be inside of you again.
"Please.. you whimper out, "Jake.." your words are breathless and Jake loves it. 
"Please what?" He moves the knife up, dragging it down over your other cheek. 
You sigh, "I need you." 
He rises up to lean down, pressing his lips against your shoulder, "I want to cum in you so bad. Fill you up completely." He groans at his own words, "Fuck, you would look so sexy pregnant." 
Jake has never said anything like that before. You guys were always careful, you didn't think he was thinking about anything like that. 
"W-what?" You ask, making sure you heard him correctly. 
"You heard me." He leans up, dragging the knife down your spine as he moves his hips to rub the tip of his cock against your pussy, "Would you like that?" 
You push your hips back, biting your lip as you try and think, but your mind is so scrambled right now, "I-I-" you gasp as he thrusts into you, knife pressing into your skin, "Yes." 
"Yes what, y/n?" Jake reaches up, gathering your loose hair into his hand, "want me to cum in that pretty pussy of yours?" 
You nod against the hold he has on your hair, letting out a whine when he pulls harder, "Fuck, yes. Yes. Yes!" 
Jake bites his lip harder as he starts thrusting, groaning as he watches you push your hips back to meet his thrusts.
He drops the knife, moving his now free hand to grip your ass, "That's it."
He lets go of your hair, moving it back to lay on your hip, fingertips digging hard into your skin, “Fuck, I’m so fucking close baby.”
You moan in response, moving your hips up and down repeatedly until he grabs them, pulling you fully down onto him as he pushes all the way in.
You squeeze his cock, moaning as you feel him coating the inside of your pussy white.
“Fuck.” He sighs, “That was surprisingly fun.”
You laugh as you lay down on his bed, “It was.” You look back at him, watching as he picks the knife up to close it.
“Open it, again.” You bite your lip as you watch him smirk, switching the blade open, “Wanna see me do it again?” He jokes, but you nod, “I could watch you do it all day.”
“Really?” He asks with a laugh, “What’s so hot about it?”
You sit up, “Just you.. and that knife.. it just.. gets me going.” He moves to stand in front of you, resting the blade under your chin, “You know I can’t let Johnnie touch this again, right?”
“I would hope not.” You smile and lick your lips, “That would be kinda weird now that it’s been on .. places.”
Jake laughs and closes the knife, “Yeah, that’s going to the dresser drawer with its new friends.” He walks over, opening the drawer that you store all of your other sex toys in.
You shake your head, “I’m stealing a shirt.”
“Yeah, take whatever you want babe.” Jake smiles at you as he shuts the drawer. As you go through his closet, there’s a knock on the door, “Jake, where’s your knife? I want to practice opening it. I can beat that fucking child lock.”
You and Jake lock eyes and it’s instant laughter.
Johnnie is silent for a few moments, “You didn’t have to laugh at me, holy shit.”
“Sorry Johnnie.. that knife is out of commission.” Jake yells as he tries not to laugh.
“Aw, did you break it? Stupid fuck.” Johnnie yells and Jake sighs, “You’re the stupid fuck, but yeah I guess I broke it.”
Jake looks at you, shaking his head as he smirks.
.·:*¨ ✘ ¨*:·.
I know this was long awaited, so I thank you for being patient and for reading. I hope you enjoyed 🖤
Likes and reblogs are appreciated!
350 notes · View notes
feralgirlfeelings · 6 days
Text
★ what kind of music each love & deepspace boy would listen to! ★
hcs of zayne, rafayel, and xavier's music taste ♫꒰・◡・๑꒱
pairing: lnds boys x reader
warnings: none
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zayne:
he listens to classical music 90% of the time. it's not because he particularly likes it, but he just got used it after listening to classical music to focus while studying 12 hours a day as a med student. now, in pavlovian fashion, he'll play it while performing surgeries to really get him in the zone. the other 10% is, surprisingly, cutesy kpop girl group songs. think "russian roulette" by red velvet, "magnetic" by illit, and "only" by leehi. he doesn't go out of his way to find these songs, but he'll hear them in passing and get one stuck in his head. he's one of those people that'll get hooked and listen to a song over and over again, especially while he's working out or when he needs an energy boost. he's embarrassed about it, so he'll try to hide it from you, only listening to music with his earbuds in. but there's been times where you catch him:
"zayne, i didn't know you were into red velvet," you stifle a giggle. you hold his phone up to him, the song "russian roulette" on the lock screen. he crosses his arms, ears turning pink, "what's so funny about that? ...it's catchy." "nothing! i just didn't expect that from you," you laugh. you hand him his phone back, "i can teach you the dance, i know it by heart," you tease. "hmm," he raises an eyebrow, an amused look on his face. "i'd like to see that."
xavier:
he likes a few different genres of music, but he tends to like classic rock and alternative the most. some of his favourite songs are "little dark age" by mgmt, "eyes without a face" by billy idol, and "let it happen" by tame impala. he doesn't like to explore new music often and will usually just stick to what he already likes. he'll often blast music through his through his earbuds when he's fighting wanderers alone or when he's trying to stay awake. he's had a lot of time on earth, so his taste spans a lot of different music eras. there's been a few times when he's complained about how he "just doesn't get music nowadays." sometimes he'll show you a super old song and be surprised that you've never heard of it before:
xavier hands you an earbud, the other one in his ear. he shows you a song on his phone that you don't recognize. after a few seconds of listening, you shake your head, "i don't know this one." "really?" xavier looks at you shocked. "this song was huge in the 80s." you hand him back his earbud, "see that's why i don't know it, i'm not 40," you tease. "they just don't make music like this anymore," he sighs. you laugh, "xavier, that makes you sounds so old!' he smiles back at you, "i think those songs are just timeless."
rafayel:
he's into artsy stuff. he's one of those people who listens to a song or album multiples times to dissect and analyze every part of it, appreciating it as an art form. some of his favourite songs include "my love mine all mine" and "washing machine heart" by mitski, as well as "movement" by hozier. he plays music while working on paintings, because apparently, "listening to complex music helps with the artistic process." he also experiences sound-to-colour synesthesia, which explains why the music helps him paint. he has a really pretty singing voice and will often hum or sing his favourite songs, but will get shy when you ask him to sing for you. despite his usual pretentious music taste, he'll occasionally get hooked on some generic top 40s song, like something by drake.
rafayel had been humming the same song over and over again while working on a painting of you. you couldn't help but close your eyes and focus on the melody, "what song is that?" you ask. he pauses from humming, his concentration on his painting unwavering, "my love mine all mine by mitski." "it's nice, i've never heard of it before," you reply. "i'm not surprised, i have spectacular taste, you know," he boasts. you stare at him blankly, "wasn't your top song last year passionfruit?" holding back a laugh. his ears and cheeks turn bright red, "those are never accurate anyways."
220 notes · View notes
genericpuff · 1 month
Text
STAY OFF MY TERRITORY - Time Travel in Lore Olympus (feat. Springlock, our resident time traveller)
Tumblr media
AH YES. TIME TRAVEL. BUILDING COFFEE TABLES FROM IKEA. BOTH A MESS, BOTH SOMETHING YOU SHOULD NEVER ATTEMPT EVEN AS A GAG.
THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS IN THIS ANALYTICAL DISSECTION OF LORE OLYMPUS' TIME TRAVEL !!!
Let's establish the "time travel" in LO first of all - it's briefly introduced by Hecate, who says that Hades isn't in a 'where' but a 'when' , hahahaha i so love time travel jokes /s THIS ISN'T A LAUGHING MATTER-
Tumblr media Tumblr media
We had already covered this in the criticisms that Kronos' 'dream comas' would have been better allocated to his time travel abilities, and it seems now Rachel is trying to make that a reality at the last possible minute. I'm going to completely tear apart that reality to present to you why it doesn't work in LO.
Tumblr media
Aw, Kronos' time abilities are finite? Get on my level, sir.
Tumblr media
The caveat is the existential toll that time travel takes on the jumper, and the fact that in most cases, it's impossible to perform due to paradoxes. And Lore Olympus' time travel presents a lot of paradoxes. No wonder Kronos went crazy, I'm going crazy just thinking about everything that's wrong with this.
Tumblr media
So Hades is trapped 'somewhere' in time. This isn't something I haven't seen before, but the issue it presents is getting someone back to their present time, as it presents the first paradox -
PARADOX #1 - There are no accidents. If someone is to jump into a timeline outside of their own, even if by 'accident', that would still have to be predestined by the timeline itself. This is in line with the grandfather paradox, which I will let the almighty Google define for us all to keep things brief:
Tumblr media
You cannot travel back in time 'by accident'. If you were to travel back in time, it would have been written into the script of reality already, so any effects caused by your jumping would be purposeful, even if they seem like 'accidents' to you - such as becoming your own grandfather, Philip J Fry.
Moving on, in the most recent FastPass episode, Melinoe reveals that she was taken from her timeline by Kronos.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
PARADOX #2 - Which version of Kronos took her? Was it the present version travelling into the future to take her from her timeline into his present? Or was it some future version of Kronos who has escaped yet again at some point in the future and then travelled back into the past to interfere with the events of the current present, possibly in an attempt to rewrite the script? If it's the latter, this means that Hera and Persephone can't feasibly stop Kronos indefinitely, as to stop Kronos would mean that he wouldn't exist in the future to take Melinoe from her future timeline and thus this present timeline of events would cease to exist. If we want to get even more granular with it, 'present' Kronos is still 'past' Kronos as it's the Kronos from ten years ago who got his hands on a deity to help him mess with people's dreams, and that deity has been revealed to be Melinoe, who would have had to be ripped from some point in their future timeline. This falls in line with a temporal paradox, or as most people know it, the 'kill baby Hitler' paradox, which designates that one cannot go back in time to kill baby Hitler, as killing baby Hitler would remove all the subsequent events that would lead up to you deciding to build a time machine and go back in time to kill baby Hitler.
Melinoe claims she's only been here a few days. That would be all well and good, as time is funny like that - I've done my fair share of jumps into the distant past only to return a few minutes later - but what doesn't line up is the present timeline of events that would only work unless she's actually been trapped for longer than a few days.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
PARADOX #3 - So it's only been a few days, but Hades and Persephone have known about this child trapped in Tartarus for weeks, and we know Kronos has had her since the dream diving arc back near the end of S2. So unless Kronos is simply jumping to different points in time to cause shenanigans - which leads to even MORE paradoxes as you feasibly cannot travel to your own past to change it due to it creating a different future - then it can't have only been a 'few days' for Melinoe, it would have been at least a few weeks, giving some wiggle room to the past events of her appearing before Hades in his dreams due to her being the goddess of nightmares. Kronos escaping Tartarus after using Melinoe to put people to sleep and possess them was not something that happened in a pocket dimension, it was very real and very present.
Hades commits an even bigger sin, however, and the biggest issue with this 'time travel' plotline:
Tumblr media
PARADOX #4 - I truly hope 'home' means 'home point in her timeline' and not their literal home. Hades and Persephone cannot take Melinoe, for two reasons: they haven't had their daughter yet, and the future timeline versions of Hades and Persephone need their daughter back. If Hades and Persephone were to adopt this version of Melinoe in their present timeline, it would create a clone paradox, as they would have a duplicate Melinoe from the future, OR it would create the grandfather paradox if they opted not to try for a child knowing they already have Melinoe which would erase the whole sequence of events that led to future Melinoe's birth in the first place.
Ultimately Lore Olympus' time travel suffers from the same issue many time travel stories suffer from - not having consistent rules. It is choosing now , near the finale of the series, to introduce time travel, rather than establishing it back in Season 1 when Kronos was first hinted at. It's also still not clear in what Hades' role is in this, as him being taken to a 'when' could still be read as a dream sequence rather than actual time travel. After all, Kronos supposedly "exhausted" his time travelling powers centuries ago - surely as a way for Rachel to have her cake and cover for the fact that she's had Kronos in the series since S1 and never actually had him do what he's known for - but now she's trying to eat it too by just giving him his time travel powers again for no reason besides rewriting the dream diving finale from S2 but with ambiguous time travel instead.
It's all a huge mess and the best thing I can do for myself is simply not let it keep me up at night. I have enough time travelling problems to worry about as it is. I will be sticking to the Austin Powers method -
youtube
(I am not enjoying myself.)
179 notes · View notes
critter-of-habit · 4 months
Note
When I watched the new What If episode with Peggy & Nat I immediately thought of you, your art, and what your reaction would be. Especially since it was kind of a retelling of Captain America & The Winter Soldier.
What are your thoughts on the episode?
Seeing as you asked, I WILL TELL YOU MY MANY THOUGHTS. WITH PICTURES.
under the cut for length lol
First of all, as usual the animation, particularly the lighting, was incredible. Also the effects! The explosions, smoke, everything. Always blows me away how much effort and love these animators put in to What If.
I love that it's Winter Soldier based because by god do I love that movie - but I also love that it's so very different to my AU cos that means I can keep going with it lol.
Okay here we go with the highlights - Blatant flirting and showing off:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
This???:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Just how in sync they were with every fight scene - even in the Battle of New York when they had only known each other for a few hours.
HEY LOVELY. LOVELY:
Tumblr media
Angst. And how soft Nat is here:
Tumblr media
"Hey, Peg. I got you."
Natasha's inability to sit in a chair properly:
Tumblr media
Peggy making a star wars reference and Nat calling her out on it like .. Nat you RECOGNIZED the reference you're a nerd too
"You know I always wondered how you got all those GI Boys to follow a woman into war: question answered." ie. "I'm so into you right now":
Tumblr media
This Natasha stabbed Dreykov to death with a corkscrew and I love her for it.
Natasha instinctively putting herself in between Peggy and Steve even though they're both twice her size
Tumblr media
I've already mentioned but, the choice to focus on Natasha's face in this scene:
Tumblr media
Nat's face here:
Tumblr media
Natasha only getting taken down by the robots because her gay-Peggy-focused-ass gets distracted when Peggy runs off to protect Steve: (I'll come back to this point later as a negative)
Tumblr media
MELINA.
Was anyone else looking to see if Yelena was there
"Let's unpack that later, shall we?"
"I don't know whether to kiss you, kill you, or dissect you." "Let me guess, all three?"
I bet the Captain Carter film was baby Nat's gay awakening lol:
Tumblr media
Melina's glorious slo-mo "grandma, it's me, anastasia" coat drop:
Tumblr media
Peggy running to save Nat T_T
These shots:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Nat wearing the same outfit from Winter Soldier:
Tumblr media
Natasha "too-loyal-and-infatuated-for-her-own-good" Romanoff going along with Peggy again to look for Steve without even being asked. (in stark contrast to the end of Winter Soldier when Natasha did not go with Steve to look for Bucky, I might add)
New reaction image:
Tumblr media
Peggy and Nat calling and reaching out to each other when the portal opens and ALMOST making it - then Natasha punching the ground in desperation T_T
Tumblr media Tumblr media
These two look SO COOL and I can't wait for the 1602 episode.
Tumblr media
Negative points:
Rehashing Ste/ggy all over again - we already HAD that and it was endgame, why do it again?
As much as I adore Natasha's intense loyalty, it's very one sided in this episode and I'm wondering if that's intentional. Peggy is hyperfocused on Steve and leaves Nat behind to run after him multiple times, even though he is in an entire suit of armor and is FINE and Natasha is the one actually getting injured. Then she's leaving at the end without saying goodbye to go find Steve again (despite there being no reason to think he's alive? he EXPLODED??) even though Natasha just went through a trauma too and shouldn't be abandoned. Kinda feels like Peggy is taking Natasha's always being there for granted and I really hope it's addressed in following episodes (though I doubt it will be - it'll just be Steve focused again -_- )
Okay I think I'm done. This was a LOT I'm not sorry I've been waiting for more content for SO LONG I can't wait for the rest of the episodes to rip my heart out and stomp on it :3
197 notes · View notes
goodluckclove · 16 days
Text
I've been meaning to say something. (100 follower hot take)
Hey! Thanks for stopping by. I hope you've had a nice day. Why don't you rest with me for a while? I made some chocolate chip cookies - with shortening instead of butter, so they're very soft and very chocolatey. I made way too many and they aren't my wife's favorite, so I could use some help in eating them.
You're probably a writer, right? Or maybe you think about how you could be. Browse the tags here, or on other social media platforms. Maybe you used to write stories as a kid. I bet those were fun. Teachers might've thought they were impressive, or they dissected them line by line until the words didn't make sense in your head anymore. Either way, if you're here you're probably here for a reason.
(rant alert)
I dipped a toe in online writing communities on and off. My last attempt was forty-five minutes scrolling through the writing hashtag on Youtube Shorts (so TikTok, I guess? I don't know). I didn't like it. I really didn't. The thing that sticks out the strongest in my mind is one particular video where a woman claims that every story needs a second act plot twist.
Huh? Every story? All of them? Why? Since when? Who are you? What qualifications do you have to make a statement like that?
That's the common thread that makes a lot of writing spaces very uncomfortable for me. Successful writers are really only successful in their genre and for the given moment, so they don't have that much objective authority in the craft. And yet I see a lot of people deciding the things that you can't do in writing. Or the things you have to do, and how you have to do them. It was so much of Writeblr at first glance that I almost dipped out once again. I didn't, though, and I'm glad I didn't because now I get to watch some of the next great storytellers from across the world grow and examine and forge their way forward.
No one can teach you how to write. No, that's not true. Teachers teach literacy. Handwriting. Typing maybe - do schools still teach typing? Let me try saying it in a different way - no one, not one single person on this goddamned planet, has the right to tell you how to make a story.
I was supposed to get my MFA in creative writing before my first breakdown. My uncle stayed in the program I was meant to be in, and a few years after I dropped out he graduated. Recently I had the thought to look up his thesis novella, and as I searched I found myself regretting my decision to leave school. If I stayed and got to develop my writing in an actual class, with other writers and a knowledgeable professor, how much further along would I be than where I am right now?
It was bad. His novella was terrible. It was so bad I had a small existential crisis for, like, three days. He spent so much money on years and years of professional education and came out with a truly soulless story that read as if you prompted an AI to write the next Great American Novel. So if you think you need a writing degree to be a legitimate author, it could help connections-wise, but it ultimately won't be the thing that does the work for you.
Not all advice I see online on writing is bad. I find the people who are able to capture the "I" statements of therapy and phrase advice as things that have worked for them, or things that they personally enjoy, to be fine. Some writing advice can spark inspiration.
But if someone is the type of person to boil every story down to troupes and cliches, and then immediately say that every story that uses the trait they don't like is automatically bad for everyone? I'm dropping the kindness for a second - that's trash. That's a trash take and I see far too many writers use it as a reason to stop before they begin.
I don't like whump. I say my reasons in previous posts if you go back through my blog. But you will never hear me say that any story with whump in it is bad, because I don't know that. You might prove me wrong. I am an adult human being and I have the humility to admit that I can like something I didn't expect to. I genuinely enjoy the direction of The Human Centipede (only the first one) and if you cringed just now that probably means you haven't seen it.
There are so many types of books and movies and plays and comics out there. To enjoy a specific genre is fine, to ignore the existence of everything else is a really, really, really odd thing to do. Maybe someone will hate your story because they think everything should be Neil Gaiman, and therefore have no way to understand your epistolary high-Western. You are not the wrong end of that situation just for existing.
And at there is a definite threshold on how many writing tips you can gather before they stop being useful. If you find them interesting, that's one thing. That's fine. But if the culture of creativity online has made you feel like you need to educate yourself on every possible angle before you can write a story, you are actively harming yourself.
Imagine taking the level of structure you put on yourself in that way and putting it on children playing pretend in the backyard. Oh, Susie, don't you know that it's overdone for your Kitsune have dead parents? Xyler, shouldn't you ask someone else before you decide how Spiderman would react to this? It would make no sense and they do not need it. Kids will make a whole world out of nothing and it's the most fucked thing in my heart that at some point they get access to Reddit and dipshits start insisting that's wrong.
They aren't wrong and you aren't either. Your favorite creative influencer can't tell you your story, strangers on the internet can't tell you your story, your teachers and loved ones can't tell you your story. They can influence it, but they can't write it honestly the way you can.
You do that. That's the thing you do.
Man that makes me upset. I can't tell you how to make a story, either. If anyone sends me asks for writing advice the most I'll do is say what I've done before hopping into your DMs and starting a direct conversation. it's so personal to each individual artist, and I'd like to think that the people selling these classes and software and promoting these platforms haven't thought about that before. Otherwise it does feel manipulative. If you have a willingness to practice and imagine and really experiment with the possibilities, you are ready to write your story.
And if it doesn't work? Try again. That's what you do.
Stephen King has written roughly a thousand books and maybe five of them have decent endings. He is unimaginably successful.
I'm rambling now. I think I got that out of my system. I was really worried to say this out of fear of being too weird or somehow reverse-gatekeeping so hard that it circles back into also being a bad thing. I've just spoken to a lot of people who I still think of throughout my day, and I truly ache for them to get past the fear of creation. Because it's worth it. It's worth it and it's fun, even when it's messy and you're tired.
Let it Be just came on. Beatles. I haven't listened to The Beatles in a long time. Feels a little apropos.
I love you, reader. Reader, Writer, Colleague. Take care of yourself. Especially the little you, still sitting there in the backyard of your soul, bathing in the sun with their bare feet in the damp earth.
Consider joining them, maybe.
143 notes · View notes
enbyobeyme · 1 year
Text
MC Becomes A Child But Angst
Prompt: Mc becomes a child again, but they did not have a good childhood to begin with...
AN: This is also an old work of mine that I'm reposting before I delete my old blog, may be a bit dated. I may rewrite this. Takes place in OG game
TWs: Mentions of Child Abuse, Scars, ect. GN per usual. Cringe writing
Vague Edgy Intro For Background.
You remember it since you were young. The live vivisections performed on you, the practice of fusing angels and demons to create your “God”. You were sadly the perfect catalyst for their experiments.
You have seen horrors beyond comprehension, atrocities that show the worst side of man, the lowest point that mortals could hit. Cults were draining. Worship after worship, recruitment after recruitment, experiment after experiment. You had demon and angel prisoners that you befriended in the cult before they were dragged away and eventually killed or turned into some beast...
You grew sick of it- that’s why you ran. How you managed to fight off or completely avoid the Silent Hill-esque monsters but... You did. From that day on you hid any marks, stitches, scars, or tattoos on your body were hidden. You did everything to hide your past, getting rid of any tracker on you, even trying to drain yourself of any demon or angel blood they injected you with.
You weren’t going to be turned into any ‘God” any time soon. To think, that poor angel Lilith had her grave robbed for the blood that now runs through your veins… Despicable.
I can’t imagine how your MC felt to have been summoned by demons? There was at least some level of fear or anxiety, no? Either way, let’s skip past that. You don’t know how, but some type of spell has been cast onto you, turning you into a kid. The same fragile kid from all those years ago. It wasn’t as happy as the brothers hoped for.
Lucifer
Your eyes were dull as you sat in the corner, you didn’t look at anything but the floor like you were waiting for instructions. Your body shivered and you looked so broken. “MC? Are you okay?” No response, not even a glance at him. It was unnerving, to say the least.
He was by your side in an instant once he heard the news. The way you backed away from him warily though didn’t throw him off, at first, he was a stranger to you after all. It wasn’t until he got back to his office to work while looking after you.
You seemed to have something in your hands that you hid even more as he approached. You looked over at him miserably and started to shake more. You never talked much about any parents or any childhood memories- you often skipped over conversions where Asmodeus badgered you for pictures of your young self. Is this why?
His heart hurts a bit as he puts the pieces together. He notices your grip on whatever is in your hands, loosening, he leans in trying to see what it is. Lucifer is taken aback when you hold out a small rusted knife towards him, it was blunt and old, and shaking in your grip.
“P-Please, get away from me, You’re going to hurt me too! They’re going to hurt you!” Lucifer kneeled down showing his hands to you before offering one to you. “I’m not going to hurt you, please come with me…” You shook, eventually putting the blade away. Lucifer reached out slowly to cup your cheek.
You were soon on his lap as he worked. He noticed that you looked over at the stack of papers, grabbing the sheet he was finished with you added it to the right pile. “How do you know to do paperwork?” “I had to earn food by helping out with chores.” He frowned at that.
”Your parents made you work?” “I don’t think I have parents. The leaders said they made me. It all clicked at that moment. “You were- you are in a cult?” You nodded, going back to organizing papers. It was silent for a moment. “You’re a nice demon. I hope they don’t hurt you too.” “Oh? What do you mean?” “A lot of demons or angels that get summoned get hurt. Sometimes, they’re dissected, and I have to help.” Lucifer couldn’t help but hold you a bit tighter. He felt awful for what you were implying.
He tried to ask you directly about the cult, but all he got were soft ‘sorry I can’t tell you that, I’ll get hurt’s’ in response. Dinner soon came, you refused to go out to the table without panicking, and trying to pull away from Lucifer if he tried to walk you there, so he brought food to you. Your eyes lit up as if you couldn’t believe that you were allowed food, you wolfed it down before anyone can take it from you. Afterward, he was able to walk you to your room to rest. “Wait, Mr. Lucifer, before you go” Lucifer looked back as your small child self waddles up to him to hug him. “Thank you, I don’t want you to leave me alone again.” He offered to sleep with you, you nodded profusely.
In the morning, you were grown again. Lucifer asked if you remembered anything from your kid self. You were silent before nodding. “Don’t mention any of it, to anyone. I’ve already dealt with and accepted it.” Lucifer nodded. This will be your little secret.
Mammon
When he heard Solomon shout in surprise during your magic practice, he knew something was up because that bitch never made noise. When he entered the room he saw a small child pointing a blade at the sorcerer. “Where’s MC?! Are they okay?!” “That IS MC. They messed up the spell and got turned into a kid”
You backed up, pointing the blade in front of you, “H-how do you know me.” It came out more like a statement than a question. You overheard the white-haired man, ‘Solomon’ Excuse himself along the lines of ‘Oops, I have to be somewhere’ for some reason this felt familiar. And that is how you got stuck with Mammon.
It took him a bit to convince you to put down the boxcutter, and you only did because you can sense the dumbassery off this guy and you could read him like a book, it would be able to tell when he would want to hurt you. You hid the boxcutter.
Mammon seemed to be on the phone with someone named ‘Lucifer’ you kept your distance. You heard all kinds of stories about the Seven Deadly. For someone in the cult to be named after them, or for a poor demon that was summoned and called by the sin they were strongly associated with was someone important. Important people tended to be the cruelest.
Mammon didn’t know what to do with a kid. Kids like the outdoors, right? Maybe he can get you some icecream? He noticed immediately that you dragged behind even as he offered you ice cream. You were a strange kid for sure.
At the ice cream store you just looked down. “Don’t you want anything?” you shook your head, it’s a trick, a trap, no one would be this kind to you. Mammon could tell something was up, you seemed so scared and hollow, just looking down at the ground. Mammon put a hand on your shoulder, causing you to shrink away. Sometimes he would’ve done the same when he knows he pissed off Lucifer. Were you okay?
“Hey,” his voice was gentle, “it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you, come on, I got a coupon for a free ice cream anyway!” He didn’t but it might make you feel better. You felt like you had no choice, and zone out, when you zoned back in, there was an ice cream cone dripping onto your hand as you walked through the Devildom. A rare sweet treat that might be taken from you, you quickly lick it up, not knowing when an opportunity for food will present itself to you.
Mammon seemed nice, he talked to you and he even let you go up to an actual playground. You weren’t used to seeing a lot of kids together, especially so happy. It took a bit of Mammon coaxing you into trying to go down the slide. It was… fun. You asked Mammon to play with you.
After what seemed like an hour you both went home, for the first time in a while, you smiled. You were in Mammon’s room looking at all the shiny things in his room. “Thank you, Mammon,” you seemed to speak at a high level than other kids your age, Mammon noted, “I’m not really allowed to go outside.” Mammon frowned and asked, “Why not?” “The robed guys said people might see my marks and get me in trouble. And there was a big forest with all types of monsters.”
Robed guys, monsters? “Err, uhh. What kind of mark?” “Do you promise not to tell anyone?” “I promise.” You slowly pulled up a small part on the side of your shirt, exposing a long surgery scar going up your stomach, and a brand of sorts next to it. Mammon was taken aback. He pulled you close and examines you, on your chest were even more scars, some more brands it seemed like. You freaked out at him grabbing you and started kicking and crying. “Let me go! Let me go”
The box cutter from earlier came out of your pocket, into your hand, Mammon narrowly avoided it, catching your arm. “Woah woah woah! Chill, kid!” You dropped the box cutter and Mammon pulled you in for a hug. You were unfamiliar with it, but it felt nice.
You ended up falling asleep on Mammon. He wanted you to change back ASAP. There was a lot of things he wanted to ask you.
Leviathan
When you were transformed into a child, you just saw a white-haired man around a bunch of magic things and weird sigils. He looks like he was wearing a robe too, bad news. You looked around for something, anything that could help defend you, you usually always had a pocket knife on you and you felt in your pocket. Grabbing it, you knew it would a bad thing to fight, so you ran.
This house was big and had a lot of hiding spots, you ran up the stairs, knife in hand, sneaking around. Where was there to hide, you heard music from one place, chatting from the next, you saw an open door, peeking in, there appeared to be no one, it was definitely someone’s room though. Covered in strange aquariums and many odd… mini statues everywhere.
It was at least something to work with though, lots of things were in here. You closed and locked the door, barricading it with everything you could. There had to be something in here that’s useful, a key, a weapon, even some vents that may lead outside. Maybe the aquarium leads somewhere you can swim to. You began your search.
You opened every possible thing you can open, there had to be something, anything to help you, knocking over statue after statue, book after book. All you found were sewing needles and thread. You pocketed them, good for stitches. Soon you heard knocking at the door and some ramming into it. “What the hell?! Who locked my door. MAMMON YOU BETTER NOT BE IN THERE I’LL KILL YOU!”
Oh no. Oh no. No, nononono. You had a small pocket knife and NEEDLES. That wouldn’t be enough for a fight. Maybe you can hide in the pile of soft human-shaped pillows and sneak attack him? There was nowhere else to hide, you dived in. The door broke open, you held your breath and gazed at the intruder through the plushes. A demon. You know a demon when you see one. You hope he doesn’t recognize your smell. “Mammon! Where are you?! Ugh, you trashed my room! I KNOW you’re in here!”
You started to run out of breath, and let out the smallest exhale. A normal human could not have heard, but a demon could. “Found you.” Levi started to sift through the plushies. Now or never, the door was still open. You leaped out trying to make it towards the door. You were too slow, Levi leaped forward, shutting the door. You kicked at his ankle pointing your knife to him. “Leave me alone! Get away, demon! I’ll hurt you!” Your voice was raspy and you started to sob, swinging at Levi.
The commotion was heard by the other brothers, already informed about what happened by Solomon, the door opened, which squished you between the wall. Levi picked you up like an aggressive cat as you continued to kick and scream. “I-if you hurt me, the cult would never forgive you! They’ll hurt you too! Just put me down and I’ll leave you alone. Please!!!” You were handed to Satan, who actually understood how to console a child from his reading habits.
They were discussing something, you didn’t care. They were all outside Levi’s room. You couldn’t run anywhere but there. You bit Satan’s hand, making him drop you, as you book it back into the pile of plushies. Hidden once more, you can only hope they would leave alone. They did, kind of. Maybe they were waiting for you to come back out? It was hard to tell. You were hungry. Maybe there were some crunchy bugs in here- or maybe that tank had something in it. A goldfish. It was something.
Right as you came out of the plushie pile, Levi came back in. You ran back in and shook. “I don’t taste good! Leave me alone!!” Levi would have laughed if you didn’t sound so terrified and he couldn’t hear your stomach rumble. Levi crept in. This was his room after all. He searched around his shelves for something. “Hey, are you hungry, I have some Ruri-Chan crackers. Come on out.”
Nothing. They were sealed, sealed food was usually safe, you stuck out your hand, expecting him to toss it. You let out a noise of displeasure as he approached. He froze. Levi isn’t good with kids. He placed the pack down near the pile. He was too tired for this, he just wanted to play his Waifu games…
You grabbed the crackers pulling them into the pile and started to feast as Levi gamed. Levi hated the silence with you eating. Usually, you both would talk as you game, this felt wrong that he was ignoring you. Occasionally, as he played, he would talk to you. “This character kinda sucks, their DPS output is trash but they look so cute.”
After a while, you snuck out of the pile, slowly approaching him, and sitting next to him to watch the pretty colors on screen. Levi noticed and handed over a controller. “Want to play?” You hesitantly took it, as he told you what to do. You spent most night playing games until you passed out. In the morning, you didn’t mention anything from the day before. Shushing the demon if he mentioned anything.
Satan
He felt a spell fail. He knows that was never a good thing. He should check on you, you are always dragged into these things. He wasn’t expecting to see a mini-you having a standoff, boxcutter in hand with Solomon who’s clothing seemed to be ripped up from where you tried to protect yourself. You looked so serious.
“What the fuck is going on?” Solomon explained. Great, a de-aging spell. He would have to figure this out. Satan sighed and told Solomon to leave. You never talked about being a kid, sometimes excusing it when anything about it was brought up. As you saw the sorcerer leave and the demon try and calm you down, you pieced it together that he won’t hurt you. For now.
That’s how you ended up in his room surrounded by books. You backed up in the corner keeping your eyes on Satan as he tore up his bookshelves looking for something to reverse this. You watched from afar.
You decided to look around his stuff yourself. Lots of weird demon shit to start with. Most you recognized. You picked up an old tome with a seal that you’ve seen a million times, instinctually, you broke the seal and opened it. Usually, these tomes have something of importance in it. “Don’t touch that!” You dropped it immediately and cowered, expecting to be hit.
Satan froze seeing you cover your head, guilt rising. He noticed that the tome no longer had that damned seal he couldn’t break. How did you…? Satan rested a hand on your shoulder. “I’m not mad at you, MC, I was scared.” You didn’t seem convinced and just looked away.
Satan decided to change the subject. “How did you break the seal on this, hmm?” “I… I know that book.” “You know the book?” “Yeah, the leaders always put those seals on their tomes to protect what’s inside. Only other cultists can open it…” Satan took a glance inside, it mainly detailed a lot of illustrations and descriptions of demons, angels, captives… surgeries… ungodly experiments…
So you grew up in a cult? It must have been awful. Satan tries to change the subject for your sake, you must not want to talk about it. He lit a small, harmless flame in the shape of a small kitty and watched your eyes lit up. “Hey, want to help me out with some magic?” You nodded, shyly.
You were now in his lap, both drawing kittens and look at small photobooks of cats while he also read book after book, looking for some type of spell to reverse it. He glanced over to your drawings as they started to lean into darker territory. Drawings of cats turned into sacrifices of animals. The number 777 was drawn everywhere.
t was the same number as the mark on the back of your neck-wait. Mark on the back of your neck… He glanced at your neck, gently brushing your hair back to show the mark. 777. Huh… He looked back at the spellbook. Finally, a spell to reverse this shit.
A few minutes later, you were back. You and Satan stared at each other, no words were spoken as you went to go grab that damned book from the shelf. You sat next to Satan and skimmed through it, photo after photo, article after article. You see a good chunk of the book titled “The Experiment of Subject 777”
You tore out that chunk, ripping it up and throwing it in the fireplace, handing the rest of the book back to Satan. ”Burn it. Read it. I don’t care…”
Asmodeus
Asmodeus was thrown aback when Solomon called him, telling him what just happened. He zoned out at “Mc is now a baby!” and he was excited to see how cute you looked. He heard something along the lines of you’ll change back in a few hours.
Asmo didn’t care, he snagged you, cradled you, and carried you off into his room. He didn’t even realize the state you were in, afraid and once again covered in the old scars on your body from your childhood returned. He went off to his room putting you down and immediately going to the closet all while saying how much fun the two of you would have.
The smile dropped when he turned around and saw a poor broken child covered in scars of all kinds, surgery scars across the chest, what seemed like self-harm ones on your legs, and that doesn’t even mention the bruises. He remembered asking if you had any pictures from when you were a kid and how uncomfortable you seemed. He can recognize abuse easily.
“Oh, sweetie…” The demon invited you into his arms hugging you and rubbing your back. For some reason the kindness in his voice made you cry. You held onto him as he pats you back. “Come on sweetie, let it all out…”
After what seemed like forever, you had no more tears to cry. Asmodeus knew what could make you feel better. He started to get out some self-care stuff. Showed you facemasks, lip masks, lotions, creams.
He even got out some cucumbers to put over your eyes. You were completely spoiled. It was nice to actually be cared about. After a bit of coaxing, Asmodeus asked to see some of the scars on your body, there is a possibility that you could be injured.
Asmo felt sick. Surgery scars across your chest and stomach, brands across your back and collarbones. It was sickening how someone could do this to a child. Asmo has connections. He recognized the brands all across your body from the cult you were in.
He has seen their members raid the parties he was in, how they walked off with a bunch of intoxicated demons, or snag them using hooks into their wings and forcing them away. He’s heard of the torture demons had endured. Blood experiments. Fusion. The creation of a ‘god’. You were forced to be in there huh?
Asmodeus know that it is not a topic you would want to talk about. He decided that instead, you both should keep your mind off of it. Maybe a few hours of body-positive selfies and watching drama shows and doing makeup will keep your mind off of it.
Beelzebub + Belphegor
Belphegor was asleep as you and Solomon performed spells. He was woken up by a scream followed by crying. Anyway long story short, he ended telling Solomon to fuck off while pulling you away from him. He was too tired to try and ask how to undo the speel so he just went over to his twin’s shared room.
Beel saw a tiny child you and his eyes lit up at the sight of a child. It disappeared quickly when you fucking sucker-punched Belphie and gave him a swift kick into his gut. “Damn demon, get away from me. What are you doing?! Are you trying to die?!”
Belphie dropped you and you already prepared to fight, your body was telling you to scream- run away, get out. You stood your ground. You glared at them. The demons were both shocked. Beel approached you, grabbing you in one swift motion. You squirmed and thrashed. Nothing.
Beel saw the hatred in your eyes along with the hurt. Beel also noticed the brands across your body, he dropped you out of shock, before he caught you again. “Belphegor… Look” Belphegor had never seen his twin look so sad. He went over and looked at what Beelzebub was pointing at. A large cult brand covered your body.
That cult was linked to various disappearances around the Devildom. It has been around for ages as well. He had seen firsthand what they could do- hell Belphegor remembers how they tried to kidnap him when he was an angel. An angel.
Beel remembered the meeting with Diavolo discussing the disappearances and even massacres of their fellow demons. Seeing how they branded a child at such a young age. His stomach churned at the idea of your childhood.
They were snapped out of their thoughts when you smacked your head back into Beels, making him drop you on the floor. You pushed yourself under one of the beds, away from the twins. They couldn’t squeeze their whole body under here and their arms would never reach.
Belphegor lied down and kept trying to reach for you with an ‘ugh, come here brat’. You kept away. At some point, you fell asleep from all the adrenaline leaving your body. You woke up a bit later in someone’s arms. You overhead a conversation with another person.
“This spell should wear off soon, I’ll watch over-” “No, I got them.” Your eyes fluttered open and were met with the below view of Beel’s chin. He held you protectively and walked back to his room alongside Belphegor. Belphegor made eye contact with you.
“Hi…” “...Hey. Gonna kick me again, little-” “Belphie. Leave them alone.” Belphie scowled as Beel set you down on his twin’s bed. You sat up and shyed away. “...Thank you… for not hurting me.” Beel frowned and the overwhelming urge to crush you in a hug overwhelmed him, but he knew it would scare you.
Beel sat beside you, offering a snack, on your other side, Belphegor lied down and turned on the TV. You got to watch some DemonTV. As time went off your belly was full and Belphegor was a comfortable pillow for you. You all fell asleep in a sandwich.
When you woke up, you were back to normal, no more brands, no more scars. The twins looked over at you, you can tell that they pitied you to an extent. You know that they’re worried about you too. “No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
980 notes · View notes
jellyjays · 1 year
Text
come away, oh ghostly child... (pt 2)
( PT 1 <-) (-> PT 3)
For about 3 months now, there's been a ghost in Gotham. He's young, maybe 3 or 4.
The people of Gotham have come to accept this ghost (who says his name is Phantom) as a regular part of life, just like the heroes, villains, and other general weirdness surrounding Gotham. He has his own twitter and tumblr tags, #phantomwatch and #gothamsnewson respectively. He's as much a part of the ecosystem as the rest of Gotham.
She kept her promise, the city is his playground.
But Danny is lonely.
Maybe that's why he starts to frequent the heroes' haunts more often.
Nightwing is Danny's favorite. He's kind, more so than even his parents had been to him in his hazy memory. He's strong, too, and he protects people. And he's like Danny- he has a secret identity! Nightwing puts on a mask to keep himself safe, just like Danny.
The other vigilantes are the same, but some of them smell- literally. They reek of rotting, decayed, corrupted ectoplasm. It's gross. Icky. They're still fun to be around, but Danny wishes he could help. The one time he did try to approach one- Red Hood- to help, the vigilante had been busy.
That night, though, Gotham visited him in a dream.
"Danny, my lovely child, you are not my only. These Bats, they are my children too. They are your friends, your brothers. They are safe. They will keep you safe. I know you are lonely, little one. They will keep you company."
The night after that dream, he resolves to meet one of his new brothers. Nightwing is kind, surely he wouldn't mind!
And so, that night, he follows Nightwing! On the way, while Nightwing is resting, there is a churro stand. The smell is heavenly, and he's so hungry, so how can he resist?
So he approaches the churro stand.
"Hello, Mister. Can I please have 1 churro?"
The man running the stand doesn't take kindly to Danny's appearance.
"Back, foul demon! Evil Creature!"
The look on the man's face as he grabs a cross and exits the stand to go after Danny makes him remember his parents, chasing him with ecto-guns and weapons. It makes him cry. He sobs, his wails filling the street, echoing off the walls unnaturally.
"No, no, no! Stop, stop, please!"
The man does not stop his berating. Instead, he raises his cross over his head, intending to bring it down on Danny.
The man does not get that far, because Nightwing has grabbed his hand, and is saying something to the man that makes him flee back to his churro stand. Then, Nightwing kneels down to him.
"Hey, buddy. I'm sorry about that guy, are you okay?"
Danny wails, because he's scared, and he still remembers.
"Hey, hey, Phantom, can I touch you?"
Danny looks up at Nightwing, kind Nightwing, and nods.
Nightwing picks him up, and then they're flying, a different kind of flying than he's used to, and despite himself, he giggles because it's fun and feels funny.
They settle on a roof, and Nightwing moves Danny to his lap, carefully checking him over.
Danny reaches up to Nightwing's face, brushing his gloved fingers over the black mask.
"Yeah, that's my mask. It keeps me safe."
Danny knows all about that.
"I'll be quiet so you can be safe," he whispers, "They can't find out. That would- that would be very- very bad."
Danny wonders what Nightwing needs to stay safe from. He hopes it isn't right around the corner!
"Yes, shh, they can't find out. Very good, Danny."
Danny reaches a finger up to shush him, scared.
"Shhhhh! If they find us, they'll disstect us. Molcle by Molcle..."
Danny wants to cry again. He doesn't want Nightwing to be dissected!
Nightwing cups Danny's face with his hand, and suddenly, Danny feels a lot safer.
"It's alright, Danny. They can't get us up here."
They can't get us... Danny's safe. He's really safe!
Danny lets his ghost form fall.
Suddenly, he's very, very tired...
...
tags: @basilf1res @angelheartgamer @justgray15777 @terzatheunderscorerima @phantom120 @undead-essence @crazydoughnutlady @big-flrda-kys
(tell me if this works, im still very new to tumblr ;-;)
1K notes · View notes
noneorother · 7 months
Text
What if the Metatron is scared of Crowley?
The S2 brain rot is still going strong so I have to share my meta thoughts somewhere. I guess it's gonna be tumblr, isn't it? Would you like to spend a lot of time dissecting what the Metatron says with me? Okay here we go...
Tumblr media
So the full line here is "He always wanted to go his own way. Always asking damned fool questions, too." I think the "Always" and the ",too." are doing some pretty heavy lifting in this sentence. Because we've seen him asking questions before the fall (more on that in another post) we assume The Metatron is referencing that time before. But what if he isn't? What if he's referencing this scene from the opening of S2E1 where Crowley is seemingly now having an existential crisis that is weirdly never referenced again in the season.
Tumblr media
"But Crowley is always asking questions!" You cry. Yeah, he is. An the metatron is getting pretty f*&?ing sick of his shit. You want to watch another time he asks a question after this scene in S2E1?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Seems like Crowley is doing some mighty fine asking already this season! After finishing season 2 I really started wondering why The Metatron was interfering with our boys now? I mean, they were right there the whole time. The Metatron clearly knows where they are for years. Even though Crowley has been asking question for all time forever and clearly some part of heaven hates that, it seems like maybe these questions at this point in time might actually be very harmful to the Metatron's plans. Remember when Jimbriel says this in S2E1?
Tumblr media
Except Jim never gives Azirapalalah anything the whole season? The matchbox stays in heaven. He doesn't give him the box either. It stays outside and must be fetched.
Tumblr media
So when the metatron says "You're a leader, you're honest, you dont just tell people what they want to hear. It's why Gabriel came to you in the first place, I imagine." I think we can surmise that Gabriel was trying to come to Aziraphael to give him something important, but it never happened (OR DID IT? That's for another post...). So if The Metatron is breathing a huge sigh of relief here because he thinks he's confirmed Gabriel didn't give Aziraphael anything, the last thing he needs to do is separate the really good question asker from his will to ask any more good questions.
"But how does the metatron know Gabriel didn't give him anything? What does he have like a stupid spy camera or something inside the bookshop?" Guys the art direction in this show in bonkers, I'm telling you.
Tumblr media
OH LOOK. A WHITE GIANT FLOATING HEAD IN ALL THEIR CONVERSATIONS IN THE BOOKSHOP.
So my reading of the original line is something like : "Crowley wanted to not follow heaven, which caused him to fall with the guys. But also I've been watching him do reckless and annoying question asking right now. And that's currently ruining my plans and I've had enough. Get that idiot away from the bookshop."
253 notes · View notes
starry-bi-sky · 4 days
Text
I'm so annoyed. @kingcrow01 tumblr ate your ask about Danny's opinion on the League. tumblr i pressed 'save draft' why didn't you sAVE DRAFT.
ANyways I'm making a post instead. For everyone else, the ask was in summary:
What was Danny's opinion on the League now that he's left it? If he missed the familiarity of it, if he recognized the cult-like behavior inside it, and if he now detested his grandfather.
And to answer (again, grrr): It's complicated! We love complicated <3. Yeah, Danny does miss the familiarity of the League, it was still his home for the first ten years of his life and he has a lot of memories there. Plenty of good along with the bad, and while he's less homesick than he was when he was 10, it still hits him like a truck at random intervals.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz are great, and he likes the Drs. Fentons enough that he's contemplated murdering Vlad for his meddling, but if he wants to eat the same food his mother used to make him and Damian, he has to do it himself and he can't get the taste right. No one knows arabic so he speaks it to himself because he doesn't want to forget his mother tongue, and he has a few books too. Frankly? He genuinely misses training.
Getting to use Sam's gym helps with his restlessness, same with training with Maddie, but he has no one on or above his level to go against other than his mother. And he only sees her twice a year at most. He knows that he's getting stagnant and he fucking despises it like a bad itch he can't scratch.
He feels conflicted about missing the League, however, since by now he recognizes the flaws and what was wrong with it, and he recognizes that it was cult-like. But even that is kinda, hrm, complicated? If this was a fic I would be able to go better into depth about what he has and hasn't unlearned because cult deprogramming is hard and Danny's doing most of this on his own.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz have helped with the more obvious stuff: like the ecofascism, the disregard for human life, his emotional constipation; the more obvious stuff that shows in his behavior and personality. But none of them are professionals nor do they actually know the full extent of what Danny's life in the League was like. They only have snapshots since Danyal is very tight lipped about it. So they can only help with what they see themselves through Danny's behavior or word of mouth.
But in summary: He sees, for the most part, what's wrong with the League and disagrees with some of the stuff they do now. But he's very conflicted, and trying to dissect his feelings on the League confuses him. His protests about it whenever Sam and Tucker joke about it have at this point become mostly empty (altho it still causes him some discomfort), and its an inside joke between them three.
As for Ra's? Despises him. If only because Ra's wanted him to kill his little brother -- thinking about his motives with the League confuses Danny, cognitive dissonance and stuff, -- a lot of his hatred stems from "He wanted me to fight my baby brother to the death. I destroyed my relationship with Damian because of him, I had to fake my death and leave my home, and I will never meet my father or see my brother again because of him. Fuck that guy."
80 notes · View notes
roidepoison · 6 days
Text
Tumblr media
Reo Mikage is Actually Great BPD Representation- Some Thoughts
Tumblr media
So I had the extremely unfortunate experience of being exposed to Blue Lock (unfortunate because it's all my tiny pea brain can think about now), and while it is absolutely full of silly guys whose brains I want to pick, this little bugger really stood out to me. The second he came onto the screen, I KNEW I smelled the borderline on him. As I watched the series and read the manga, I noticed he is actually an incredibly well-written depiction of someone struggling with BPD. Reo is a super layered character and my favorite hobby is picking apart those layers and yapping incessantly about them, so here we are. I want to write this analysis for a few reasons:
1.) Too many people misunderstand Reo and categorize him as dramatic or childish without any elaboration and he deserves a proper character deep-dive. I think him being borderline explains a LOT of his reactions/choices throughout the story.
2.) Borderline representation is extremely important to me. I'm diagnosed borderline and have struggled with this disorder for around ten years now, so I get really excited when I spy BPD-coded characters (especially if they're likable people and not just ghoulish irredeemable villains or manic pixie dream girl characters). This disorder can be so isolating, especially when the majority of people will never even bother to research or understand it. I know that some people like to chalk Reo's emotional reactions up to him being a moody 17-year-old, but I think I have enough evidence to prove that this is undiagnosed BPD that's festering in his noggin. Not to mention, literally nobody else acts like this in the series. Reo is incredibly unique and distinct in the way he behaves through this narrative and I think it's way past the point of normal teenage angst. Regardless, believe what you want. He'll always be my borderline princess tho <3
3.) I have a master's degree in English and what good is that if I don't write long, painful, pointless essays on anime guys? Not that this is exceptionally well written, I just like to laugh at myself for getting a whole M.A and then this is the shit I publish online lmao
By the end of this, I hope I can shed some light on wtf is going on inside of Reo's silly little head. (I'm also obviously not a psychologist, don't use any of this to diagnose yourself pls I don't need the scandal)
If you want to read, buckle up, because this is gonna be a long one!
Tumblr media
First, let me define BPD- It's a personality disorder characterized by a long-standing pattern of instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, and self-image. At its core, it is a disorder categorized by emotional dysregulation (the inability to regulate one's emotional responses) People with BPD feel everything EXTREMELY hard. That's important to keep in mind IMO, because while their reactions may seem dramatic or extreme, what they're feeling IS dramatic and extreme. Everything they're feeling is amplified, so their reactions are amplified. Obviously from the outside, people assume it's an overreaction since they can't see what's going on inside the borderline's head. When you sit down and dissect the thought process of someone like Reo, it becomes a lot easier to understand why they react the way that they do to certain situations.
(Also, I'm not going to reiterate more than once that an explanation is not an excuse to treat people poorly. I cannot read ANYTHING on BPD without hearing every 2 minutes how the disorder isn't an excuse to hurt other people. We get it!! I'm explaining it, not excusing it. This enter essay is an analysis of why someone acts the way they do, not whether or not it's excusable)
So then, what behaviors/signs does somebody need to exhibit to receive a borderline diagnosis? The 9 diagnostic criteria for BPD are as follows:
1. Fear of abandonment
2. Unstable or changing relationships
3. Unstable self-image; struggles with identity or sense of self
4. Impulsive or self-damaging behaviors
5. Suicidal behavior or self-injury
6. Varied or random mood swings
7. Constant feelings of worthlessness or sadness
8. Problems with anger, including frequent loss of temper or physical fights
9. Stress-related paranoia or loss of contact with reality
Someone would only need 5 of these to receive a proper diagnosis. Just with the main story and the spin-off manga that is currently released, I think I have enough evidence to argue that Reo has 8 out of 9 criteria for a BPD diagnosis. For the sake of organization, I’m gonna group some of those together though, indicated by a + symbol. I also want to define a few important terms before I start yapping, so that y'all without BPD can understand wtf I'm even talking about.
Favorite Person (fp) - This is someone who holds massive significance in a borderline's life. They emotionally depend on this person a lot and to a certain extent, their worldview almost revolves around them.
Splitting- the change in perception of someone or something caused by black-or-white thinking or dichotomous thinking. It is the devaluation of someone who was once idealized and vice versa.
Mirroring (aka: the chameleon effect)- the constant, unconscious change in one's identity or sense of self by imitating another person’s behaviors, characteristics, or traits. It is common in people who have a vacant or distorted self-image which is a general symptom of BPD.
Now, time for me to break down the most prominent moments where Reo showcases borderline behavior. As I mentioned, I'm going to try and organize this under each criteria point (with some being grouped together)
Unstable self-image; struggles with identity or sense of self:
Before I delve into Reo's relationships, I want to start with his baseline sense of identity. It’s established early on that Reo is a very bored, empty, unsatisfied person. Nothing excites him, nothing motivates him, and everything is handed to him. He’s frustrated because his parents notoriously try and buy his affection even though he doesn't want anything. For most of his life up until the narrative starts, he's wandering through life empty and frustrated. That is, until he finally sets his sights on soccer and decides to dedicate his life to winning the World Cup:
Tumblr media
The wording, 'proves my existence' is interesting here. I think this is the first instance Reo has felt alive. So far, the only notable thing about him has been his family and his money. He hasn't achieved anything exceptional for himself, but now he has that opportunity. With this goal, he can really build something up from nothing and make it his own. It's almost like he's clinging to this dream to prove that he has some purpose in his life other than being the family heir.
Now, this dream changes when he meets Nagi, of course. I'm not gonna focus too much on their relationship in this section, but I will mention that meeting Nagi shifted Reo's entire dream, and not for the better. Through the narrative, his dream went from:
Winning the World Cup
Winning the World Cup with Nagi
Proving to Nagi that leaving him behind was a mistake
Improving himself and becoming a good striker on his own
Being a tool for Nagi to become the best striker
Had Nagi not come in and ask for Reo to come back to him, I think Reo could have done a great job at establishing his own sense of identity without Nagi. But no matter how much he works on himself, with Nagi in the picture, he's never going to value himself more than Nagi. Reo lets Nagi cloud his identity to the point where Isagi calls him out and asks what he's even doing at Blue Lock in the first place, since he clearly can't survive on his own, he needs Nagi with him.
After dealing with the turmoil of being abandoned by Nagi, Reo goes through a few stages. He starts with wanting to become somebody worthy of being beside Nagi, somebody that Nagi would want to choose. Devoting himself to becoming stronger and more versatile, his end goal is to have Nagi realize he made a mistake by leaving him behind. After a few more matches, Reo starts to realize that he needs to grow and change and become a stronger, better version of himself for himself and not for other people.
He decides that the fight was all his fault to begin with, that he should have never forced Nagi to play soccer and now he is going to get back to what his dream was originally, combined with his new desire to be a stand-alone player (and person, for that matter). Reo accepts the mistakes that he made, admits that he shouldn't have forced his ideals onto Nagi, and resolves to become a better person for HIMSELF. That's excellent!
Tumblr media
Of course, Reo can't be happy for TOO long. Nagi comes out of the woodwork saying that he can't beat Isagi on his own and asks for Reo's help. Reo does stand up for himself a bit, saying that Nagi is being inconsiderate of his feelings and mentioning how long it took for him to recover from Nagi leaving. Now, the BPD trait here is how Reo not only forgives Nagi and is jumping on him and hugging him THE NEXT PAGE, but he also just disregards everything he said in this sequence. In a matter of two minutes, he no longer wants to be a player that can fight on his own or improve for himself, he wants to improve for Nagi. He starts ruminating again about how hurt he was when Nagi left, but now he's saying all of it wasn't so that he could get stronger individually, it was so that he could be reunited with Nagi again. Nagi asking for his help and saying that now they can play together again motivate Reo more than anything we've seen so far. (Nagi notoriously throws Reo little affection crumbs like this that Reo eats up, but I'm not trying focus on that) Now, Reo's alright with being a tool for Nagi's success again. Everything that happened was supposed to make him stronger so he could be a better partner to Nagi, right? Reo also says as the chapter ends, to please let him be a part of Nagi's dream until Nagi becomes the world's best striker. That's literally so sad!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
He's also immediately back to the 'our' 'we' 'us' talk as well. If he can master his chameleon style in order to keep Nagi above the rest of the players, he wont get left behind again. If he devotes his time and energy into being a solo striker like the rest of these guys, Reo knows that he wont be able to keep up. This was always supposed to be his role, right? Building Nagi up to his full potential! :*)
I also like the detail that Reo is back to hugging Nagi and holding him, but Nagi never really touches him back. I think Reo's love language is touch for sure, not that it's incredibly relevant, but I do think it shows that Reo is back to being 100% comfortable around Nagi as if their fight never happened. I hear a lot of fans asking how Reo could have forgiven Nagi so easily, and I say this with my entire chest, it's the BPD. The black-and-white thinking combined with Nagi being Reo's fp and the excruciating pain of being abandoned by him in the first place ?? Of course he's going to take him back. Also, I've seen people blame Reo for not saying no to Nagi when he asks for help and I have to say that is an absolutely insane take. How are we gonna look at a panel where Nagi asks for help and then blame Reo for helping him?? I'm not going to focus on it too much in this post but in my opinion, it is crazy how little accountability both the narrative + fans give Nagi. Reo is pegged as responsible for both of their downfalls and it's nuts tbh.
Currently in the story, I think Reo's identity is still centered around Nagi. It's really easy for borderlines to structure their entire lives and personalities around their favorite person, but I can only hope that these two keep having open and honest discussions with one another. Hopefully, Reo will eventually learn that he can exist without Nagi and that he's more than just 'his arms and legs'.
Unstable or Changing Relationships:
The most notable relationship in Reo's life is Nagi. They're both each other's first real friends, which already sets up a less-than-ideal dynamic. Nagi has no idea how to communicate and he has pretty weak emotional intelligence. On the other hand, Reo is great at communicating, but he isn't used to regulating his emotions. For a lot of borderlines, they can go a very long time without experiencing any symptoms when they don't have a favorite person. When you think about it, the bulk of the disorder is shown through those interactions with other people. If Reo has never had a real friend in his life, I don't think he'd be used to the emotional turmoil that comes with having a fp.
The minute Reo meets Nagi, he's attached. All his classmates notice it, too. They question why Reo is suddenly so obsessed with this random kid who has no interest in him. Reo is ignoring everybody that isnt Nagi.
Tumblr media
Very quickly, Reo boils down his view of the world to being him and Nagi versus everybody else, and he makes that very clear. It also depicts something that I think is incredibly crucial to Reo’s character that a lot of people overlook; as Nagi develops to be Reo’s favorite person, Reo’s dream isnt ‘playing soccer’ anymore. It’s Nagi. It’s being with Nagi, playing soccer with Nagi, being useful to Nagi, taking care of Nagi, and being somebody important to Nagi. He doesnt teach Nagi the rules or how to actually play, he teaches Nagi how to play with him. He literally re-writes and re-structures the game so that it can center around him and Nagi. Nagi calls him out on this in the spin-off manga:
Tumblr media
Reo doesnt care about the structure of the game, he cares about Nagi. The other people on the field don't matter. The other team doesn't matter. He also starts to unknowingly put Nagi up on a pedestal, which is another borderline trait. He starts reiterating that Nagi is special, he's different from everybody else, he's destined to achieve great things. The more he raises Nagi up, the more he isolates the two of them in his mind, reiterating the idea that it's them against everybody else. His language reflects this too: Reo exclusively talks with 'us' 'we' 'our', insinuating that they're going to do everything together.
Tumblr media
When Ego says that there can't be two winners, Reo says that he'll make Nagi the best striker. His 'ego' will be making Nagi successful. Along with putting Nagi on this pedestal, Reo also very early on establishes the fact that he'd pick Nagi over himself any day of the week. He's the only person in Blue Lock who really couldn't care less about becoming a striker himself: his dream is to be a tool in Nagi's success. Or, in simpler terms, he wants to be useful and make Nagi happy.
These two were in trouble from the very beginning. Nagi is lazy as all hell, has 0 motivation to do anything, and his dream is to live a life of luxury and never have to work. Reo, being the borderline baddie that he is, is more than happy to do EVERYTHING for Nagi. Borderlines love extremely hard! It's one of our best traits and I think it's important to showcase that Reo is a massive sweetheart at his core. He clearly loves Nagi a lot and goes to extreme lengths to make sure he feels taken care of. To someone with BPD, NOTHING is too big of an ask for a person they love, especially if that person is their fp. I also disagree with the argument that Reo 'made' Nagi codependent. Nagi likes being taken care of, he says it all the time. If you ask me, I would actually argue that Nagi takes advantage of Reo a little bit because he knows that Reo will do anything for him. But regardless, I think that Reo starts to develop an unspoken expectation with Nagi that he'll provide him with everything he needs, and in turn, Nagi will stick around. I don't think he's doing this intentionally, nor do I think it's being done in a manipulative way. I just think that Reo has a dormant fear of being abandoned that he doesn't totally know he has yet.
It isn't just Nagi that Reo showcases having unstable relationships with, though. Zantetsu is another good example. Reo starts out disliking Zantetsu, he snaps at him a couple times, and calls him a moron more than once. He starts to warm up to him because Nagi tells him to. The favorite person has MASSIVE sway in the borderline's life. If Nagi likes someone, Reo likes them too. (This is, of course, on the condition that they aren't a threat, looking at you Isagi).
Tumblr media
In the immediate next chapter, Reo is acting like they're all best friends. He's climbing on top of them in their big bed, saying that the three of them are gonna win their matches, being a little pookie. He goes from not liking this guy at all to considering him one of his close friends super fast. Also on the topic of Isagi, when they're making up the teams for the second selection, Nagi doesn't initially want to tell Reo that he wants Isagi on their team bc he's worried Reo will be upset. But, when he does finally say it, Reo is literally fine with it because like I said, who Nagi likes, Reo likes! On the condition that they don't replace Reo, which clearly happened soon after.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Reo also shows how he can go from loving someone to despising him very quickly. After Chigiri and Kunigami tell him to get back up in the game post-Nagi's abandonment, we can literally see the switch flip in Reo's head:
Tumblr media
Suddenly, he hates Nagi. Nagi's a jerk who abandoned him; he never cared about him, and he threw him away. Dude literally says "Let's kill the bastards that betrayed us". This act of unintentional devaluing is called splitting. What Reo's essentially doing is going from one extreme to the other: if Nagi isn't his perfect treasure, he's the devil that broke his heart. There's no room for a grey area. The reasoning behind borderline's developing this black-and-white mindset is rooted in self-defense. If Reo devalues Nagi into being nothing more than a traitor, then he's stripping away the power that Nagi has to hurt him. If he looks at him like a rival or a villain, it's protecting him from being hurt by Nagi again.
That doesn't mean that he genuinely believes any of this, more so, he's trying to convince himself that it's true. We see that at his core, the reason he's acting like this is because he's hurt. I'll go more into it later on, but he's constantly thinking, what does Isagi have that I don't? What do I have to do in order to win Nagi back? This black-and-white thinking is an automatic self-defense mechanism that I think he's doing subconsciously. Regardless, the shifting he's doing here can cause a little whiplash, which brings me to:
Varied or random mood swings + Problems with anger, including frequent loss of temper or physical fights:
I can’t think of a better way to describe Reo's temperament than the wiki, so let me quote it: "Generally, he seems to feel every emotion with full force and is extremely aware of his own faults and shortcomings, which is evident in several instances of painful breakdowns shown in the spin-off manga. Due to his high emotionality, he can even get violent when he loses his temper."
Reo is characterized as being emotionally unstable. When he's happy, he's elated! When he's sad, he's miserable. There are a ton of scenes between the manga and spin-off manga that show how fast his emotions can flip, but this one was one of my personal favorites:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
In this scene, Reo has developed a little scheme in the dining hall where the guys are trading their side dishes. At face value, a throwaway moment. But, I think it's worth looking at because not only does this show Reo's emotional response being triggered in an opposite, semi-extreme direction, but the root cause for the reaction was that he felt rejected by Zantetsu. In his own weird way, he's asking Zantetsu to come over and hang out with him. He's not being exceptionally clear with that message, but I can still pick up on it. "You wanna join in, don't you?" He's extending the invite, making himself vulnerable, and Zantetsu shoots him down by saying nah, I'm fine with my noodles. Reo JUMPS on him like YOU KNOW WHAT? I TOOK THAT PERSONALLY! lol. Jokes aside, I think this moment is a great one to argue Reo's BPD tendencies because it's such a seemingly mundane interaction. Even Zantetsu is surprised by Reo's random outburst. This also sets up the fact that one of Reo's most obvious triggers is being rejected/abandoned/betrayed, an extremely common one between those of us with BPD.
Other instances of Reo having a bad temper are a lot more obvious. In the match against teams V and Z, Reo straight up elbows Raichi in the throat, and then tries to go throw hands with Kuon for hurting Nagi. He only stops because if he gets into any more fights, he’ll get thrown out of the game and won't be able to play with Nagi anymore. He’s visibly pissed though and calls Team Z a joke. Hell, even Reo himself can recognize on a certain level that he can't control his emotions: they control him. They cloud his judgment and make him react in ways that he wish he didn't.
Tumblr media
He is constantly plagued by these extreme emotional reactions that are out of his control. Not to say that people with BPD are unable to ever control their emotions, because we can! It takes time and therapy and practice though, which Reo hasn't had. His lack of regulation is also why he has such a dramatic and extreme meltdown when Nagi abandons him.
Fear of Abandonment:
Reo's biggest trigger and the cause of his inner turmoil throughout Blue Lock is his fear of abandonment. I mentioned before that I think he's had this fear dormant inside of him for a while as so many borderlines do, since he hasn't had the chance to experience it before. He alludes to it early on when they first arrive at Blue Lock:
Tumblr media
The thought of leaving Nagi for somebody else? Reo considers that heartless. They came together, after all. They're going to win the world cup together. Nagi could break both of his legs and Reo wouldn't leave him, because again, Reo isn't there to team up with the best player and become the best striker in the world: he's there to play with Nagi!! And, like I said, in Reo's mind it's him and Nagi vs everyone else-
Tumblr media
Reo exhibits a lot of signs early on of being jealous while they're playing in Blue Lock. I mean, as we discussed, everything should be focused around him and Nagi. When Nagi passes to Zantetsu in the team V and Y match, Reo pulls up like 'hey, why didn't you pass it to me?? ):' There are a lot of little moments like that, but Reo's jealousy is a lot more relevant to my argument after he gets abandoned by Nagi.
Let's talk about that word: abandoned. It seems dramatic, right? Reo uses that term constantly and exclusively. Every time he brings that moment up, he uses the word 'abandoned', or he'll say 'betrayed' or 'chose'. These are very definitive words. He’s not saying Nagi ditched him or flaked on him or blew him off, no; he has abandoned him. That word choice may seem disproportionate to the situation, but that's Reo's reality. This was the ultimate betrayal to him. The constant use of that vocabulary reiterates that in Reo's mind, there is no grey area. Either Nagi chooses him, or he chooses someone else. In choosing someone else, he abandons Reo. Reo is paranoid that Nagi isn't ever going to come back to him and it's because of something that Reo is lacking. How can Nagi like Isagi more than him, anyway?
Now, I do fault Nagi a bit for not communicating better at that moment. I understand that he's bad at communication, but I don't think Reo could have been more obviously upset if he tried. The dude was in TEARS. Nagi saw him devastated and then expected everything to be fine when he met him in the bathhouse? Idk. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't realize it would upset Reo to such an extreme: maybe he thought that they would miss each other, but Reo wouldn't take it personally. I'm doing my best not to harp on Nagi since this is about Reo.
Abandonment is detrimental to people with BPD. It causes extreme inner turmoil that we see with Reo as the story progresses because it is the only thing he can think about. If he isn't trying to cover up his hurt feelings with this idea of revenge, he's self-destructing over being abandoned. He becomes obsessed with wondering why Nagi chose Isagi over him. Was there something wrong with him? Isagi isn't that impressive, why would Nagi rather be with him? These thoughts torture him endlessly and fuel his desire to 'steal' Nagi back. He literally says to Isagi, that he's going to steal Nagi back. Much to his dismay though, Reo starts to notice that Isagi is bringing out some positive traits in Nagi. Nagi's entire vibe is different with Isagi. Nagi is having fun playing soccer without Reo. In fact, he's having more fun. He's making plays he's never made before. His face is visibly different; he's more excited than before.
Tumblr media
This is heartbreaking for Reo. Not only was he right that Isagi did have something to offer Nagi that he couldn't, but Reo is having a massive self-hate spiral during this point as well, so he's internalizing all of his flaws and mistakes while the thought is sitting in the back of his head: did Nagi actually have a good reason for abandoning me? Was I not enough to satisfy him? Did I only drag him down? This gets significantly worse the longer he watches Nagi and Isagi play:
Tumblr media
Everything is falling apart. Nagi is doing completely fine without Reo, and Reo is an absolute mess. We're circling back to Reo's lack of identity here as well. He's watching firsthand that he's losing Nagi to Isagi: what does he do? What happens to him if he loses Nagi, who is he without Nagi? He's overwhelmed during this match and at one point Reo literally screams that he's going to tear apart their connection. Jealousy is consuming him, but it's also those feelings of inferiority and wondering if he really did deserve to be abandoned. If Nagi is so happy without him, maybe he really did have a reason. These are the thoughts that are circling around in Reo's head. Not to mention, he is constantly tortured by the flashbacks of Nagi leaving him, which I think is a great detail. Some readers might say it's just pointless recapping but I disagree, I think it's depicting how traumatic that was for Reo. As a borderline, being abandoned by your fp IS traumatic. Reo relives that moment so many times because so many things trigger it for him throughout Blue Lock. He can't even look at Chigiri and Kunigami without thinking about him and Nagi. It's a really devastating experience that quickly deteriorates him emotionally.
Constant feelings of worthlessness or sadness + Suicidal behavior or self-injury:
One of my favorite things about Reo is the fact that he is self-aware that he's behaving somewhat irrationally, but he doesn't know how to stop. When we look at one of the several times that Reo is curled up crying over Nagi, he mentions how he really did want to tell Nagi to go and have fun, but he didn't. He couldn't. The visuals shift for this too:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Reo doesnt want to be acting this way, but he can't help it, and that's frustrating to him. It makes him start feeling ashamed of himself. His inner thoughts start to spiral and he feels weak and alone. He's reflecting here on what his true feelings really were at that moment, and how scared and lonely and weak he felt as a result of Nagi leaving him behind.
Tumblr media
These feelings quickly evolve into Reo feeling worthless and falling into bouts of self-hatred. He's so ashamed of the way he's feeling and behaving but it feels so out of his control. He says, "maybe if I hadn't gone to Blue Lock in the first place, I wouldn't have to experience this feeling." As I said before, borderline's feel things EXTREMELY intensely; the disorder is described as living with third-degree burns all over your body. Everything hurts. His feelings are so intense and all-consuming right now, it's all he can think about:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I saw some posts in the fandom reddit asking why Reo is acting like this. One in particular reads: "I get that he is betrayed and stuff but he is acting like it’s the end of the world, is it explained later why he acts like this? Is it because he doesn’t think he can win without Nagi?" Not to call this person out, I just want to answer the question in this post-
It has nothing to do with winning; it was never about winning. It was always about Nagi.
If we're looking at Reo through the borderline lens, it IS the end of the world for him. Nagi was his world. What's worse, he's fully aware that he's not acting rationally and he doesn't know why, which is making him feel ashamed and weak and embarrassed. Now I know why he's acting like this, but there are no Blue Lock psychiatrists sitting around to wack him with the mood stabilizers or the DBT handbook, so he's gonna stay feeling like a monster.
He lets these thoughts, along with the resentment and anger from being abandoned in the first place, fuel him for the second selection match. As he's watching the game play out, as Nagi is about to score the winning goal, Reo's mind starts racing with intrusive, negative thoughts.
Tumblr media
He's praying that Nagi fails, that he gives up, that he stops trying, anything to stop that solidifying moment where he scores the winning goal and proves once and for all that not only was Reo not strong enough to stop him, but Nagi doesn't need him anymore. He catches himself really quickly, because he realizes he's sounding just like his parents. Everything is spinning out of control so bad, Reo wants Nagi to end up in a vulnerable position so that he isn't the only one falling apart. As he catches himself thinking this, he's disgusted with himself. He calls himself 'utter trash', and as he watches Nagi score the winning goal, he falls to his knees, wishing he was dead.
Tumblr media
As he sits there decomposing in emotional turmoil and suicidal ideation, Nagi's team chooses Chigiri to join them, and it's the nail in the coffin. This is probably Reo's lowest point in the entire story IMO. Nagi comes up to compliment him on his plays and Reo shows us another classic borderline move: he's anticipating how bad it's going to hurt to be abandoned by Nagi again, so he's trying to push him away before it can happen. We see the dichotomy of his spoken words and inner thoughts here, where he's talking big game to Nagi, saying things like 'you clearly don't care about me anymore, you're throwing me away, if you're going to abandon me just do it properly', while internally he's thinking 'I'm the worst, I wish I was dead, please take this bait and break my heart so that I can self destruct in peace'.
Tumblr media
i LOVE the visuals during this moment. This is what Reo thinks is his last line of defense, the last thing he can do to preserve any part of his dignity is to make Nagi hate him so that he'll stop throwing these crumbs of affection at him. It's also really telling that despite his switch in behavior and the devaluing of Nagi, the root of all of that is STILL that he was so hurt by the abandonment.
Tumblr media
I don't think I need to analyze the suicidal ideation because he just straight up says he wants to die like three times in this scene but, aside from that, the visual of his inner thoughts vs what he's actually saying is so powerful. Not to mention the chameleon imagery which i'll geek out about in a second, this is another example of his black and white thinking along with the reiteration that being abandoned was literally traumatic for Reo: he says they can never go back to what they were before. Speaking as a borderline, this is painfully true. When people break my trust even in a small way, I can never view them the same as I used to. I can forgive them and let it go, but I'll never be as open with them as I once was. In Reo's shoes, he had Nagi up on this pedestal that he was perfect and would never do anything to hurt him, but he did hurt him (in the worst way possible).
Tumblr media
After Nagi tells him he's a pain in the ass and that he doesn't care anymore, Reo thanks him for 'finishing him off'. In his mind, they're done now and he can suffer in peace and quiet without dragging Nagi down anymore.
Bonus Point: The Chameleon Effect
I LOVE THE FACT THAT HIS THING IS CHAMELEONS AHHHH
Tumblr media
The chameleon imagery with Reo makes me INSANE dude. As I mentioned towards the beginning of this post, a part of borderline that is seldom talked about is the tendency to take on 'the chameleon effect', or mirror the people around them. REO'S ENTIRE THING IS CHAMELEONS LIKE BFFR ?? That image where he was trying to get Nagi to hate him, was before he even started using his chameleon style, it was just something the authors thought was necessary to include during Reo's mental breakdown. Aside from the cool imagery, his chameleon style is a reflection of his relationship with Nagi. He gets called a jack of all trades and a master of none early on in reference to how when he’s without Nagi, hes not really exceptional at anything. He never really took the time to master one specific thing because he was always so concerned with helping Nagi. This rings my BPD bell for a couple reasons: first of all, when you have no sense of identity and you’re worried it means you have no real personality ?? Steal one!! Take the closest person to you and copy that one. That’s something us baddies know VERY well. Also, think there’s something about you that your fp doesn’t like? Change it! You can morph into anything they want as long as it means they won’t leave you !! :*) Before he makes up with Nagi, he copies moves in hopes that it'll make him stronger and appear more desirable to Nagi. After they make up, he copies whoever he has to so that he can get Nagi to that goal and make himself useful, make himself somebody that Nagi wants to have around. It is a literal direct metaphor for him changing anything and everything about himself for Nagi and graaaahhhh it’s so cool
Reonagi ?? Some thoughts-
I want to close this yap session with my thoughts on Reonagi as a ship. I do think that they can work and I want to make that clear. I'm not on board with the 'borderlines arent capable of having loving and fulfilling relationships' crap. That being said, they both have to put in a bit of effort. Reo has already recognized a lot of his own issues. He admits that he was wrong for pushing his ideals onto Nagi, that he needs to let Nagi grow and be his own person, etc. Nagi really hasn't accepted any fault. I stand by the fact that Nagi needs to be more sensitive with Reo. Way too often when a relationship like this fails, all the blame is put on the one with borderline. I'm gonna be the outlier here and say that if Nagi cares about Reo, he needs to learn about Reo's triggers and be mindful of them. I'm not saying that since Reo is sensitive to abandonment that Nagi should just isolate himself from everybody else, but what I am saying is that when he's going to do something that doesn't involve Reo, he needs to learn how to communicate that he still loves and values Reo. "I'm gonna go play soccer with this person right now, but I haven't forgotten about our promise. When I come back, we can play together. I still love you and I'm not going to leave you for whoever tf I'm playing with rn." (sneaking that 'i love you' in bc like..they're literally canon at this point asdfghjkll) But, I do think that Nagi loves Reo and cares about him in his own way. The two of them just have to keep working on their communication skills. Nagi has the potential to have a hot rich husband who will literally bend over backward for him and buy him all the robux he could ever want, he's gotta put in a shred of effort!
I also like to think that Nagi didn’t totally get the fact that Reo doesn’t gaf about just playing soccer. Nagi thinks soccer is what they do together, it’s what makes reo happy, right? He’s always pushing him to train harder and take the game more seriously because he likes the sport, RIGHT? It would make perfect sense to go play with isagi so that he can get better at soccer and come back to reo a more improved player. Maybe that’s why he was surprised when Reo was so mad in the bathhouse, bc he wasn’t making the connection that Reo cares more about him than soccer. That Reo puts all that energy into him playing soccer because he thinks it’s something that they can have as their own, and once Nagi notices how good he is, he’ll start enjoying it and the two of them can hold hands and run around the soccer pitch!! I think Nagi missed that part tbh, and I don’t think he know that even now in the story. Maybe Reo doesn’t even notice it.
Anyway, a shameless plug to my reonagi playlist if that's your thing (i cooked with this one, i fear) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5CsvSqmuI4cxOl1nTaV4GJ?si=737a0f21e0bd482a
Closing Thoughts:
Reo is a bpd baddie and I love him very much. I think he's a sensitive guy with a lot of feelings who would benefit from taking time to work through his trauma and his emotions. I hope that he eventually is able to build an identity for himself that doesn't involve Nagi, but baby steps, I suppose. I think Reo is a great balance of positive and negative borderline traits and he reads as a really believable and sympathetic character. He is, however, definitely that friend that you have to slap to stop them from running back to their ex.
Jokes aside though, BPD can be extremely hard to live with, even more so when it's undiagnosed and untreated. If someone you love has BPD, take the time to read up on it and do your best to understand them. I promise you, it will mean the world to them.
If you managed to get this far, thank you for reading! This was a messy stream of consciousness and I appreciate your support by listening.
71 notes · View notes
pedge-stuff · 8 months
Note
I just had the worst and saddest possible day ever and all I wished was someone here, just to hug me under my cold covers. Can you please make something up with pedro and reader please?
I'm so sorry you are going through this?? I hope things have improved since you submitted this. Sending love your way.
—————————————————————————
okay (pedro pascal x gn/m!reader)
Tumblr media
a/n: same vague universe as “marked,“ per usual.
a little, plotless shorty for your troubles.
thanks, as always, for everything.
TW: a very brief mention of disordered eating
summary: sometimes, you just need to be held.
—————————————————————————
"I'm okay," you whisper. "It's okay, really. I just need a little bit."
Less than convincing.
There is a dip in the mattress behind you. Even with your eyes closed, covers pulled over your head, turned away from him entirely, you can tell he is settling against the headboard, atop the duvet.
Pedro doesn't speak. Doesn't touch you, either, but you're not really sure if you're grateful for that; sometimes, being touched when you're like this feels so intolerable, it takes your breath away. Other times, a soft touch feels like the only thing that can hold you together. Trial and error, involving a lot of shitty and unfair antagonisms, has taught Pedro to give you space before he gives you love.
This is why you suck, your brain supplies. Nothing more— your mind is too fucking tired to even dissect your insecurities properly. You just feel bad.
Not without reason; at least, not today. Three missed calls from your mother, with whom you are barely speaking to, anyways. (It turns out being engaged to Oberyn Martell is about the only thing that could cure her passive aggressive homophobia. A bit too late to be water under the bridge, at any rate.)
Three missed calls, and some really shit news.
So, you're in bed. Under the covers, hiding, as if 8:30 is a totally normal bedtime.
And things are decidedly not good.
The tears come, silent and steady.
A warm press of lips to the back of your neck startles you; hot puffs of breath where his nose is buries into the hair curled at your nape, just a moment, before pulling back. It does not feel as bad as you'd feared.
"Sorry," you croak, blindly reaching behind you; squeeze what feels like his knee, in what you hope is a marginally reassuring gesture. "I'm fine, baby, you don't have to sit here with me." Pedro is early to bed— neither of you are really night owls— but not this early.
He makes no effort to move. "Can I..." A tentative hand, between your shoulder blades.
You can't help the thin whine that accompanies your shaky exhale. Fucking pathetic. But you turn, slowly, rolling over to face him. You'd assumed he was up against the headboard, but he's shifted down now, head on the pillow beside you.
Smiling, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Wordlessly, he tucks an arm over your waist. He's always been strong, biceps as thick and sturdy as tree limbs, but the Gladiator training has added a layer of muscle just about everywhere. (Including his stomach. Abs are slowly stealing the small belly there, and while you're proud of the work he's putting in, you secretly miss the softness.)
"I don't know what you're thinking," Pedro whispers, mouth brushing against the top of your head. "But I'm so sorry, honey." He rubs the length of your spine, brow furrowing at the feeling of unfamiliar protrusions. Stress and an irregular schedule has sent good eating habits by the wayside; your body is shrinking, while his grows.
It's been the shittiest fucking month. He's been gone, you've been busy, and neither of you have gotten enough of the other. Back in New York three days now, but this is the first night you've been able to stay in together— and, of course, you've ruined it.
"Just happy to be with you," Pedro says, as if reading your mind. "Maybe this strike'll last forever, and I'll never need to go back to Morocco. Sorry, Paul Mescal."
You laugh, despite yourself, thick with tears. "I'm gonna miss the fan selfies, I think. What're they calling you? Pee-paw?"
Pedro groans, punishing you by pulling you tighter against him. Your face is squashed against his chest. Not a hardship. He smells clean, spiced. Familiar. Comfortably, and safe.
"You're engaged to the oldest man on the internet," he laments. "In Twitter years, I'm dead."
The squished hug is short-lived, breaking as he rolls back, gently, to get a better look at you. Cups your face, puffy and wet and gross; brushes twin thumbs over your cheeks, with a fond smile.
"There you are," Pedro whispers.
"I'm okay." Another sniff, but the threat of tears seems to have subsided. Today was shit, but it's over now; you're here, together, with nothing but time and sleep ahead of you.
"It's okay that you're not, sweetheart."
But you are. You're with him.
386 notes · View notes
meraki-yao · 22 days
Text
RWRB: The Awardist Podcast Interview Thoughts
Alright after listening to the podcast giddily while aggressively stomping on the cross-ramp machine to work out my extreme happiness and excitement to the point that I burnt through twice as many calories than usual and soaked through my shirt, I'm here with thoughts
Pippin @pippin-katz, who sent me a voice message at 3 am my time to tell me to brace myself and be prepared for what's happening and what I'm going to wake up it, did their own version of a summary+thoughts with timestamps here, go check that one out
So my list of thoughts is gonna be a little more all over the place
Immediately burst out laughing with the "mouthful" joke, even more so when the boys both caught it lmao
"I am not happy to see Taylor's face" and "I have a Post-it I'll stick it over your face now" that is peak bestie behaviour
Nick honey I love you but I... do not believe you don't look through online stuff lmao we literally caught you likely fan content and edits you posted two Henry edits and referenced another one
I love how unintentionally in sync they are??? For the first question they started talking at the same time, and for the second they both started nodding and stayed silent forgetting this was an audio interview
"mate, mate, mate, MATE" and the last one being said in sync oh my god this is so much fun
The whole comment on the signing wars: what Pippin said, we were literally calling Taylor "that little fucker" yesterday when he started taunting us with more BTS (EVERYONE KEEP VOTING PLEASE)
"What possessed you? What have you got against me?", the same energy as "Why do you dislike me?"
Taylor's explanation of signing on Nick's face and how it started made me laugh and scoff a little because I translated that fucking moment: the first time it happened, Taylor was in China, it was the firstprince PR photo not the GQ magazine, he was on a boat, and he was the one to ask for the photos to sign lmao
Again, need to see them sign stuff in the same time and space: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! :D
"Take it Nick" Nick's little snicker in response
A little heavy and personal but I wish I could talk to them and tell them how much the book, the movie, the characters and the boys mean to me and how it kept me somewhat afloat last October when I was drowning every single day, and how this story made me want to change myself and break out of my status quo
I know I've been saying Taylor knows Casey's pronouns and he gets them wrong when he's nervous, and I stand by that, but God the sigh of relief I let out when he used they/them
"Right Nick?" is so oddly comforting?
Oh my fucking God the "Top to Bottom" joke was a low-hanging fruit but it made me laugh
Also even the order was right! "Top to Bottom", "Taylor and I" (jkjk lmao) 😜
I really fucking hope that the "that's what I'm known for now, doing intimacy work on screen" is an offhand joke and that people don't genuinely label Nick as that
"Why don't you speak for this, Taylor" again, unexplainably comforting
"Seeing my mate at all these awards shows" made me remember a Chinese phrase "頂峰相見·", literally "meeting again at the peak", meaning "I'll see you when we're both at our best"
Nick's burst of laughter at the "who's a better kisser" comment
Taylor I swear to God 🤣 he combined the "is nick a good kisser" and the "who has your heart joey or Nick" questions together and said "I don't know, I don't know how to answer that question, I have no idea" DUDE YOU LITERALLY ANSWERED THE GOOD KISSER QUESTION WITH "YOU KNOW WHAT HE IS A GOOD KISSER WE HAD TO PRACTICE A LOT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT" WITH ZERO HESITATION (that answer, on that day, was first thing in the morning for me, and I lost my sanity for the next two hours)
I'm so fucking happy and Matthew comes from a theatre too, speaking as a theatre person and someone who has been dissecting this film since its release
I really think there's gotta be more improvised scenes? Or at the very least stuff like the morning after V&A that was a last-minute decision to add in and wasn't in the script, or maybe scenes where there wasn't specific lines written and they just reacted and spoke based on the scenario? Or even little moments, the shoulder kiss or something?
"Tay" OH MY HEART
Ok I can make an argument on both how Nick is like and not like Henry, but Taylor is so ACD that he basically fell out of the book? How does he not see that? (personally think Taylor's very similar to Alex with a bit of Marco?)
Oh my god the whole segment of the DNC/getting caught scene and Taylor's ass
"I will take this one" "yeah"
"I love working with her, we both love working with her" That's sweet- hang on Nick you just have this one scene with her
I have so many more questions about this scene: Was Nick actually in the closet for that one shot? How many takes did it take?
Taylor referencing a detail in Bottoms from like a 30-second scene in the movie!!! Yes!!! We love seeing friends being supportive of each other (suddenly want to hear Taylor's opinions on M&G lmfao)
"And I'm not even going to get into M&G"
The text question is kind of the only question that made me think "Why would you ask that?" because that was definitely more of a directing/editing thing
Nick really freaking loves the cake scene, he mentioned that as his favourite scene three times at this point, all times on audio, twice on video
Aw Taylor's story about Jack... 🥺
But somehow everyone knowing it lmao, and Taylor's fucking awful British accent
And at this point Nick starts swearing lmao
Awww Nick's compliment to Taylor
Tangent: what the fuck is a fuel museum?
Oh I just love hearing them finishing each other's sentences when one of them forgets the word
Lmao imagine just recovering from Covid and then needing to make out for two hours
"Next to a witchcraft shop" What the fuck lmao
Tangent again but I could write a sociology essay on what Taylor said about architecture and history
I swear to God, Nick's "go on Taylor" somehow being softer, you can fucking hear that that little shit is smirking
Taylor saying that he wants a second book from Casey and me immediately going "BOTH OF YOU QUIT YOUR FUCKING JOBS" (I have complicated feelings about the bonus chapter)
"What-if world" exactly!
Taylor pulling out the stats about the queer population: did he fucking calculate that on the spot or he just casually have that information in his head?
the little wrap-up by the hosts was so sweet but somehow talking about Taylor's ass again oh my god (his body hair being digitally edited, it was minx right?)
"it's so sweet and nice and we need more of this in our lives right now" YES WE DO, WE FUCKING DO
"he's gonna be second-guessing his booty" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever hear but here we are
Culture shock moment: the number to call the podcast/American phone numbers is 3-3-4 which caught me off guard for a second cuz here it's 4-4
And that's it for now! God, I need so much more of this, like, if this is what we get out of a half-an-hour podcast interview what would press and promo be like?
Now that we're back for awards I really freaking hope these new RWRB content will be coming back, maybe like once a week or something
WE'RE BACK WE'RE FUCKING BACK WE'RE FUCKING WINNING
EVERYONE GO VOTE GO VOTE GO VOTE
53 notes · View notes
raedshadowlegends · 10 months
Text
Why Lore Olympus and Miraculous Ladybug are the Same Thing but in Different Fonts
Good evening, good day, hello and howdy. I am INCREDIBLY bored and I'm here to go on a nonsensical tangent about two pieces of media that I hate and have dedicated a vast amount of my free time to. This is all in good fun and all of my rudeness is intended to be satirical and/or comical unless indicated otherwise.
Now just to preface, if you know me then you know how much I dislike Miraculous Ladybug. Folks in my circle got to watch as I descended into madness writing a 64k word review on season 5. So I've spent an uncomfortable amount of time dissecting this show.
I have also spent an uncomfortable amount of time engaging with the shitshow that is Lore Olympus. And now my ass is gonna try and compare the two because there's a lot of shit going on here.
None of this is going to matter and it's all in good fun. Like I said, I am bored. And sometimes it's fun to compare stuff you hate.
Now let the insanity ensue. FP spoilers and MLB s5 spoilers below the cut btw.
To get a major difference out of the way, Miraculous Ladybug is a tv show. Lore Olympus is a webcomic.
But mediums aside, these two things still have a lot in common. So for the first comparison, I'd like to talk about the insecurity in both properties.
Insecurity
What I define as insecurity in this context is a piece of media that is too afraid to commit or adhere to a certain tone, story, style, etc. In short-- they don't know what they want to be.
Insecurity in Lore Olympus is a bit more obvious than with Miraculous so I'm gonna rant about that first.
Lore Olympus just straight up does not have a story to tell.
There are too many random ass plots being added and discarded on a whim for it to be a coherent story. A good way to explain it is kinda like this-- In this episode of LO, something cool new and interesting is set up and you have to keep reading to see what happens! And then nothing ever happens. Or it happens because the audience won't let the author forget so there's a half-assed attempt to wrap up that plot point.
LO is so insecure about what it is, it feels the need to add more and more to make it actually something. But what it is is a hollow story that lacks substance. So all of these new random plot points are kinda like bandaid solutions if that makes sense.
There are so many unfinished/under-utilized plot points that if you were to count out each and every one, you'd probably keel over dead before you finished. There's that many.
It's too insecure to commit to any one of them in the grand scheme of things.
I don't know how coherent all of that was so here's a shitty tl;dr
LO doesn't know what it wants to say anymore so it's just adding more shit to keep the reader "invested."
Yeah ok I think that makes more sense. As for Miraculous...
God. I fucking hate Miraculous.
It's insecure as hell and you can smell that shit from ten miles away. It's insecure with it's premise, I think.
If it just kept to the simple "monster-of-the-week" formula, I do not think I would have written so many words on it's fifth season.
Miraculous (apparently) had a grander story to tell beyond the "monster-of-the-week revert back to the status quo each episode."
But we don't see any of that in full swing till season 3, really. Which is a long ass time to get the ball rolling imo.
It's a little jarring to see the show go from the stupid kid status quo adventures to a heavy and emotional story??? And I say heavy and emotional with the most sarcastic tone possible because the only emotion I feel watching this shit is rage.
Despite wanting to make that shift to a serialized type of show, Miraculous was too scared to stray from the successful status quo format.
To explain a bit more I wanna talk about my review of the season.
While it is mostly filled with rude jokes and incomprehensible jargon, I bring up a lot of points in it regarding the state of things.
One of those things being the show's hesitancy to move the story along.
The fifth season was supposed to be a grand final battle and a conclusion to this story arc. But it was too scared to commit to that so there's way more episodes that are nothing but shipping fodder.
There are many episodes that season that just... feel the same. Just with different coats of paint. "Marinette is trying to date Adrien but she's awkward and clumsy and oh no! shenanigans ensue!" We've been doing this for 8 years.
If they want to tell a serialized story then they need to grow some balls and cut the shit we've seen a million times before.
Their insistence to stick to the status quo makes the writing exceptionally weak downright painful to sift through. It was too scared, too insecure, to stray from its formula.
That's a part of the reason why I think the season is paced so bad. There's so little time spent on the interesting parts of the story because they had to cram in as much shipping shit as possible. So by proxy, there was less time to tell a good story.
Both of these stupid ass properties don't know what they want to be. There are too many things being added and not enough balls to commit to any of them.
Now with both LO and MLB, we can all agree that the writing is pretty shit. Nothing new there. But shitty writing often bleeds into the characters and making them shitty by exposure. Almost like a spill of toxic waste, infecting anything near it and turning into a rotten pile of sludge and chemicals.
So yeah, the characters are ass as well. But I only wanna complain about the female leads for both of these things.
But just to mention Adrien and Hades, they are pretty similar. I won't go into detail but the short of it is, "Character with deep seated issues that could have been interesting, has a lot of potential, but is just kinda garbage in the end."
At least Adrien Agreste isn't monetizing death and has a bunch of shades in his basement doing his work.
Persephone and Marinette
So I always say that I don't like using the term 'Mary Sue' to describe a character. But as it turns out, I use that term a lot. So I'm not gonna lie about that anymore.
These two characters are Mary Sues.
Persephone first
Oh my god I hate Persephone a lot. She just ticks every box on my list of 'THINGS I HATE IN A CHARACTER.'
Which is funny because her character had a lot of promise and heart in the beginning.
I related to her a LOT when I picked up this comic before my frontal cortex developed. I related with her character and her struggles. Especially after the Apollo incident. That really stuck out to me. It was so powerful.
But all of those tiny things I liked about her character were stripped away. Her ambition to study in school? Poof, gone. Her charm? Not charming anymore. That kindness everyone in the story gushes about? I don't even think it was there in the first place.
Truth be told, I do need to reread this comic because the beginning is fuzzy as fuck in my walnut-sized brain. But I can tell you for certain that the way she was in the beginning is not who she is now.
And this isn't the case of a character going through an arc and developing and changing. She's just getting worse and the narrative treats it as a GOOD THING.
"Oh yeah, Persephone trashed Leuce's apartment instead of talking to her husband like an adult. She threatened to kill this nymph but you're supposed to find that endearing." Like, what??? I will not have a story try and get me to believe this is a good thing.
If this were a good story, Persephone's actions in that episode WOULDN'T BE REWARDED. But she's rewarded with sex for being a fucking psychopath towards a random nymph. Wow.
And that leads into my next point-- she can never be in the wrong ever.
AOW? Retconned, not her fault. It wasn't her fault she killed all those people. It's actually Eris' fault because she gave her wrath.
Trashing Leuce's apartment? She was in the right for that, apparently.
Killing people in a famine during the 10 year banishment? That's never explored, we just know she killed people, burned a library or something, and probably shot the president too. But it's fine, she's the good guy.
And most recently (and potentially the most frustrating);
Persephone causes winter.
Not her mother, Demeter, no fuck the myths. Persephone is the one who caused winter actually. AND SHE DID IT ON ACCIDENT SO TECHNICALLY IT IS NOT HER FAULT CAUSE SHE DIDNT MEAN TOOOO UWU She also probably killed a million flower nymphs in that snap freeze but its ok it doesn't matter.
WHAT?
WHAT THE FUCK? CMON NOW.
She's not going to receive any consequences for anything because she is just too perfect.
She's smarter than Athena, prettier than Aphrodite, better than her mother in every way, all the boys want her, she has a perfect body, she's pink, her eyes go red when she's angy, she has the most power of everyone in the world, she's a super rare fertility goddess, she has all the gifts, all the blessings, and none of the development.
It almost feels like a wattpad fanfic.
"My mom doesn't like me so she sold me to one direction and then I became queen of the underworld."
Yeah, I don't like her.
And the same can be applied to Marinette!
A character who is so blatantly perfect, the narrative fucking BENDS TO HER WILL.
She's a creepy ass stalker and has done some weird ass things to get close to this random famous white boy and it's all excused.
It's literally excused.
There is a rule about character backstories. They are supposed to provide an explanation for a character's behavior, not an excuse for it.
In season 5, episode 14 - Derision, we see a bit of Marinette backstory. Some stupid bullshit happens and Marinette essentially says she isn't going to say 'I love you' to anyone unless she knows literally everything about them.
She says a lot in that stupid ass scene but it's basically just saying that all of her stalking and creepy behavior is justified. Which it is not.
Marinette can do no wrong. The narrative won't allow it.
She's perfect in every way. And even when SHE is in the wrong, characters somehow find a way to apologize to her. Either that or she turns a situation about someone else into one about her self.
She's just the perfect character who ends up saving the world.
Fuck having Chat Noir face against his dad in the finale, Marinette has to girlboss all over the place and save the day but then actually lose because the "plot" demands it.
Oh yeah and she's probably never going to tell Adrien that his abusive dad was the villain they had been fighting for months. Do you think that's a good choice? I'll give you a hint; it is not.
It makes Marinette look like a HORRIBLE character but it's painted in a way that makes the viewer believe this is the right decision.
I don't think I need to get into specifics as to why that is wrong and disgusting.
If I had to make a prediction for this show going forward, she isn't going to tell him. It's going to be forgotten and she's going to be painted as the hero.
No flaws, no accountability, nothing.
Garbage character. Fucking hate it.
Both of these characters will never see consequences for their actions. Their bad actions are either excused or retconned out of existence. And that's not how you write a character btw. If you want them to be real, give them consequences. The world should not revolve around them. They should have flaws and issues that should be explored. But apparently that's too much work.
It's funny how both of these properties claim to be about feminism and somehow completely miss what feminism is
Miraculous thinks that feminism means "Girl power! Girls are better than guys in every way!" And Lore Olympus makes no attempt to be feminist at all. Women hate other women, and they don't get a lot of opportunities to explore and express themselves.
I could get into the whole purity culture shtick but that's a shitty rant for another day.
I've been ranting about this for a while and I got the big ones out of the way, methinks. I do want to get into the creators of both of these things but that is also a rant for another day.
Cause if I got into that now, we'd be here a while.
So let me just make a final comparison and wrap things up here. I don't think any of this makes a lot of sense but I hate both things and I'm passionate about it so I'm gonna keep rambling.
Miraculous Ladybug and Lore Olympus never attempt to grow as stories. They are both scared to try new things and to stick with it. Most of the time this results in rushed writing and horribly done characters.
It's so clear that both of these things are desperate to be something great but they just can't put in the work to get there.
Honestly, they both feel like the product of a team of yes-men. Bad decisions and errors slip by WAY too often and it's kind of embarrassing.
These are popular pieces of media and they have the resources to be great but they just aren't.
They're both too insecure to make something of themselves.
It's honestly really sad and I don't want this for either of these things. I want LO to be stunning and retell the myth of Persephone with the respect it deserves. I want MLB to be a serialized show with focus on the lore. Sure it can start as episodic but it can ease us into a deeper story and intrigue the viewer. But I want it to flesh out the world and be an entertaining experience.
It's sad but it's the way it is.
Who knows, maybe MLB season 6 will be good. And maybe LO will have a 4th season and it'll fix all the problems it has.
I dunno.
Thanks for reading this incoherent nonsense.
150 notes · View notes