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#but you would have no real reason to bc there’s no main story beat over there it’s a very quiet area
goldensunset · 3 months
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amazes me that people can remember information about routes in pokémon games. like ‘i loooove route 217 ❤️’ ‘route 209 has such a banger theme!!!’ ‘have you made it to route 225?’ ‘you can find this rare pokémon on route 210!’ bestie those are numbers. those are just numbers to me how do you remember which area is which. i think i have a general idea of most of them but i still have to look them up every time i need to refer to them in conversation
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stardustdiiving · 8 days
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Hi!! Hello!! I've just been passively listening to your blog for a bit and I just have to say. auauua you actually giving Nahida the spotlight she deserves is so refreshing! I love Wanderer in all his forms, but the lack of character studies/general brainworms about Nahida is so sad to me D: She's an archon!! You'd think people would talk about her more in the general fandom... Idk, personally, she's a pretty relatable character in the way of having to become an adult for the people around her (in her case, becoming a knowledgeable god despite having the mind of a child for the sages) like!! She is smart, but she is a KID. Haven't a fair number of people experienced that? And justifying the behavior too- like I (personally) think that Nahida tries to make the horrendous behavior of generations of sages seem Less Bad bc 'oh, they were probably so lost without the Greater Lord.. and I wasn't what they were looking for' Because admitting that you were hurt for a reason that was entirely NOT YOUR FAULT actually feels Really Bad. LOCAL BABY GOD IS RELATABLE TO THE MASSES!! (Could be a bad take, I do need to rewatch the Sumeru quests.. it's been so long.. my little guys..) BEFORE I GET TOO SIDETRACKED UH. yeah. Thank you for the Radish Thoughts they are really really appreciated by someone who also thinks Nahida is Pretty Neat!
WTF UR GONNA MAKE ME CRY IM SO GLAD. I love Nahida I’m glad it resonates. Tbh i think that take isn’t bad at all bc I actually also had a similar interpretation of her downplaying her neglect in the same way she downplays her worth as an Archon bc obviously there’s overlap between the two
Assortment of screenshots I feel go along with this , starting with how the Sages’ treatment of her is discussed textually:
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When we learn she’s being imprisoned for the first time in the AQ, Nahida’s response is quite literally her justifying why the Sages’ decision makes “rational” sense because (like u said!) she’s not Rukkhadevata and by extension isn’t a “real enough archon”
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Nahida internalizes the “my existence has little meaning” to the point she justifies beating herself up as an inferior archon over Dunyazard’s presumed death as “rationally observing the distance between herself and a real archon”:
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And also the first thing she does when we set her free is apologize for letting the Sages neglect her. We also get her basically saying she was never angry about what was done to her until she was being rescued:
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She goes onto say she’s going to punish the sages harshly, but then it’s noted by multiple characters they think she wasn’t harsh enough with her punishment. Which is a haha aww Nahida doesn’t have it in her to be harsh. But it’s also like haha aww. Nahida doesn’t have it in her to be harsh even to the people who dehumanized her and kept her in a cage for generations Zjsjmxkxjnsj
Nahida as a person seems to be someone who clings to a sense of personal control , my main reasoning for this is it’s directly stated in her character stories the reason she gives up her Gnosis to Dottore for information would be to have more knowledge and therefore control over a situation:
With one Gnosis still in her hands, Nahida could not help but hesitate. She barely knew more about the Gnoses than she knew the "truth" of the world. […] Shaking hands in bargain means an equal compromise for both sides, a far cry from any victory. On the other hand, turning down the bargain indicates a certain type of "ignorance," which, obviously, would more easily invite a loss of control. Thus did the "God of Wisdom" instantly find her answer...
So her rationalizing her own neglect or Anything Bad That Is Done to Her to me is a way of asserting a sense of control over her situation when she has none, just as u said!
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justatalkingface · 9 months
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Unsure if I mentioned this here but I do think Izu and Shig backstory dont make whole lot sense.
Izu wants to be a hero bc...bc why not? I know you said how he may he brainwashed to propaganda but the thing is we dont know for fact. Yes, Izu saw one video of Am saving everyone but thanks to Hori...it seems only Izu is a fan of AM.
And he was abused for no reason. Now, I like heroes who come.from the bottom and work their way up but usually it has a sense, a logic here. For example. Naruto wants to be a hokage but the village hates him bc of the ninetail fox who is sealed in him. Its works as to explain people in the village dont like him and why he wants to be hokage.
Izu wants to be hero bc.....who knows?
Izu is abused bc .....why not?
Shig is the villain of the story. Was taken by afo and trained to be a big deal...except not. Afo gives 0 fucks about shig and seems to loathe Nana for some reason and he ignores Shig.
He let Shig lives in a bar(a seedy one) and we, as a reader dont get Shig. He speaks "I will end all the heroes" but we see him chilling and gamming. Why? Why not?!
He gets an army out of nowhere.
He has no real conviction and all he has is a sad backstory (which I think it is lazy) and a cool power.
Thats it.
I do see Shig in canon as a npc who waits for afo to follow instructions. The part I say it makes no sense is why Shig obeys afo and why he is so dead set in destroy all heroes. Why?
Why not?
And he has no real developement same as Izu but the villain stans love to pick fights with others fandoms to say "Shig is the most complex character ever"
(Legit! I'm not making this one up. Some fans do picked up with the JJK fandom bc of the Shig's speech in the war that was aired at the same volume as a character from JJK who made a speech akin to "I care for my friends")
Izuku wants to be a hero because a mess of things: part of it is he simply wants to help people. Part of it is that he wants acknowledgement from others, to be deemed as 'worthy'. I'd bet actual money that there's more than a few dreams of just being strong for once in his life there as well, as compared to feeling weak all the time, because the costumes we saw in his notebook were as much fantasy (all All Might, all the time!) than anything realistic.
All of these things are things that can be achieved outside of heroism, true, but there is where the propaganda kicks in (along with more than a little learned helplessness, more fantasizing, and so on): Izuku thinks, emotionally, that being a hero is the only way he can achieve them.
It's interesting, because that first chapter shows him putting aside those dreams, so he's intellectually aware of the impossibility of them, among other things, and since he's not an idiot he probably realizes that he can save people without being All Might, but it's clear that's settling for him all the same, and on some instinctive level those facts aren't clicking for him.
In all honesty, Early Izuku's dream of being a hero is just that: a dream. Something unrealistic, something that isn't going to happen.
(And, yes, I realized that with what we've seen of heroism for most of the story, a Quirkless person could actually perform all the various heroic duties as well as most Quirked individuals; that's not the point. The main reason he can't is the systematic prejudices about the Quirkless and heroes that say that they can't, to the point where such a thing is literally unpreceded. On top of that, said prejudices have been used to beat down Izuku so damn hard that he doesn't have the guts to actually try for it, which, again, isn't actually his fault; when the world tell you, 'fuck you for living', over and over and over and over again it makes it hard to do anything, but if Izuku was actually trying for heroism in a real way, he would have been in a lot better shape then he was at the start of canon.)
It's something he realizes, but the point of Izuku's dream of being a hero, for Izuku, isn't about achieving it, per say, it's about getting through the day. It's the fantasy he falls back on when his life is shit and horror and he has no real hope left, that dream of being a hero, of standing next to the greatest of all, All Might! It's not a goal, it's a mental escape.
All of this, of course, rapidly gets complicated for him when he meets the real All Might, who in the span of a few hours both destroys and then reaffirms said dream.
Shigaraki, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. It was complicated, at first, since we didn't actually know what AFO's end game was with him; he did seem to be pushing for him to be an actual successor there for awhile, and him ending up as insane all-destroyer if said plan failed probably amused AFO as a sort of back-up plan.
The thing is with Tomura, though, is he was never meant to actually stand on his own two feet and be a villain properly; he was there there to be AFO's vessel, with some snazzy upgrades. Thematically, he's supposed to exact opposite of Pinnochio: rather than a puppet raised to be a real boy, he's a real boy raised to be a puppet.
The reason why he's kind of a clusterfuck of a person, why he doesn't seem to know how to function normally, why he doesn't earn so many of the things he has rather than having them all handed to him, is because doing all those things right, achieving them, means he'd have a stronger sense of self, a will, a foundation to stand on as a person and a human being.
All For One doesn't want that; he doesn't actually want an heir, he wants an NPC, one who will mindlessly say, 'Yes, Sensei', and hand his body over when the time comes.
For almost the entire story, AFO has kept him in a very controlled environment, feeding him only the information he wants to grow his hate, strong and yet unfocused.... and this, admittedly, is where his plan's logic falls apart, because honestly the idea of, 'If I hate hard enough I can hoover up OFA' is kind of nuts in and of itself, and the idea this guy can no longer feel real emotions is a both a cop out and also nuts, but that is the stated logic of the plan.
I cheerfully ignore late-game stuff for my meta when it feels right, because so much of it is bad, but I'm keeping it here because it puts Tomura's entire situation in perspective in a needed way; I've never felt AFO raising him as his actual heir makes sense because, as you've pointed out, Tomura's situation is fucked up and ineffective for just about anything other than random violence and murder, much less a criminal overlord to rule over all crime and bring down society. His raising doesn't work for that... but at the same time, he also put a lot of work into developing Tomura emotionally, which, for a future vessel that he's supposed to inhabit, sounds.... unideal, to say the least. Giving your future body ideas is exactly the reason AFO is in the situation he's in in canon, after all, so it made me wonder; is he actually going to be his heir? Is this not a trick after all?
Trying to figure out what he/Hori was going for with Tomura is something that frustrated me with MHA for the longest time, you can't even imagine.
But, if he has a reason for that, it clicks: the idea behind how convoluted and bizarre Tomura's situation is is that AFO is threading that line; he needs that raw emotion, he needs it to be grown and to fester in on itself, so he can get OFA, which is something he apparently wants so damn bad he's willing to risk control of his future body over (and yet doesn't count for the emotional requirements...? Honestly, this shit sounds like something the Sith would do in Star Wars (and we know he loves Star Wars) (...or maybe Kingdom Hearts; this honestly gives me some real Terra and Xehanort vibes, if done by a fucking amateur), but Hori is trying to explain why the hate is needed without the Force... badly), but he needs a hate that's hollow, so there's no resistance to him.
Think of Tomura like... a bonsai. A bonsai is a fundamentally unnatural thing for a tree to be, but with careful, careful nurturing, and a lot of time and patience, you can get this tiny tree in a shape no real tree would ever grow into. There's no natural way to have a body that is both strong enough in desire to get OFA and pliable enough to be used to house AFO's mind, so AFO decided to make one instead, carefully growing and neutering him, while making sure he stayed within his designs.
TLDR: the whole point of Tomura's everything is he wasn't actually raised to be a person, he was raised to be a mass of unfocused resentment in the shape of a person (which is why I'm inclined to give him a break the way I do no other villain when it comes to questions like, why don't you do literally anything else to achieve your goals, or why don't you approach things from a less aggressive angle, and so on: the man literally doesn't have any context for that kind of thing.)
(I'm going to digress a little here, because I've complained about how late-game Tomura worked, and yet here, I'm saying that it makes sense. Well, that's the thing: broadly, it works. But, with so many things, both in general and in MHA, the devil is in the details.
If the overall goal was always to make Tomura a vessel, than literally his entire arc after AFO's fall, until the War, doesn't make sense, because he was guided into all these situations, left alone to have confrontations and challenges, often in a controlled kind of way... but the thing is, all of those things helped him grow as a person. This is, remember, the exact thing AFO didn't want, and presumably Garaki knew about that.
This begs the question, then: why did it happen? Why did Garaki lead him to fight again Gigantomachia? Why did Tomura have all this time to roam about on his own, largely unsupervised beyond some doctor given objectives, if they didn't want him getting those pesky ideas?
If the goal was to give him hate, give him a stronger body, then yeet AFO into him, then after AFO fell they should have made plans to do that shit right the fuck then. If he needed to be stronger physically, rather than fighting a giant to get a minion, and again, being out and about, lock him in a training room somewhere and say, 'AFO said so'.
Tomura's situation before AFO fell makes sense for the Hate Vessel idea, mostly. Tomura's situation after AFO falls makes sense for the Heir concept. The fact they did development for the heir idea, only to pivot back into the vessel concept out of nowhere, is why it works so badly for me; they developed his story in the wrong way for that to make sense.)
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epickiya722 · 10 months
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I really wanted to say something abt it, as you brought up how ppl seem to want Toga and Ochako to fight over Deku.
It reminds me of when some bkdks say that "If one of them was a girl, nobody would bat an eye and say that they are canon right away", and while i think that's true to some degree, i think things wouldn't change that much if Katsuki was the girl, specifically. At least, not when it comes to this group.
Bc, Kacchan is somehow controvertial over him being a schoolyard bully and insicure kid, and the fandom blowing it WAY out of proportion. I think that would happen the same way if he was a girl, but now added a much thicker layer of mysogyny.
Bc then they would most definitely pit him against Uraraka, just like they do to Toga, and be as horribly sexist as one can possibly be. Bc just like Toga, he wouldn't fit the perceived "perfectly sweet, wholesome submissive wife" role that they want Uraraka to be in so badly.
I'm saying this reminds me of what you said, bc this group, (made all basically of men), don't hate togachako and bkdk just bc they're homophobes, no, they actually hate any ship that have these two with other characters.
Bc they also have a twisted want for mha to insert in some harem shit between any girl Deku has a any interaction with so they can project onto him as the protagonist surrounded by women, and in the end be satisfied with seeing Uraraka become the pretty, submissive housewife bc that's her job as the nice main girl.
So if anyone else has a genuine shot with Deku or Uraraka, it breaks that illusion that this is what they are going to get, no matter what. And that's what they are used to getting.
Absolutely agree, Anon!
I feel like if Katsuki was a girl, there would be that group of people who would call her a bitch and "she and Izuku wouldn't work out" and definitely would view Katsuki as too "dominating" due to personality.
I hate this for several reasons because if you're shipping IzuOcha because you view Uraraka as the "perfect, submissive little wife" and that's it, you are not a true fan of her.
Like no one who is a genuine fan of her would look at her as just some "wife" for Midoriya because she's "meek and sweet".
First off, she's not "meek and submissive". Uraraka isn't a shy character. She's a lot more outgoing and social than Midoriya himself is. This is the same girl who even decided to do her internship with GUNHEAD, a Pro Hero named GUNHEAD.
Yes, she is a sweet soul. Yes, she is kind. But Uraraka isn't meant to be a girl that should be viewed as submissive because she is a nice girl. On Midoriya’s part, it's like saying he must be with her because "that's what a real man would do". He can't be with a guy, he can't have emotions. He can't cry. It's the only way some of these "fans" will actually like Midoriya. If he "gets his girl" at the end. Even though the story never was about them like that. Hell, if it was, Uraraka would have been introduced in the first episode and Midoriya would have some monologue about liking her or she is seen admiring him from afar behind some trees.
They don't care for his or Uraraka's characters like that.
Sexist and misogynistic, indeed!
Second, damn, can these kids like finish school first? We really need a timeskip where they're married? Like they can't beat the bad guys first?
Like I want a graduation timeskip! Ain't this story about how Midoriya and the others become great heroes? Last time I checked, marriage isn't needed for them to be good heroes. If it was a requirement, All Might would have been married.
And the harem thing? Ooooh, the amount of headaches I have probably gotten from going into certain tags on AO3 and here and seeing Midoriya being shipped with every single female character before I can get to the filter and exclude buttons.
I just can't sometimes, Anon.
I know a lot of Shonen and other genres in anime and any other media have certain tropes they use over and over, but sometimes it's nice to break away from said tropes.
Off topic kinda, but speaking of harems and girls, I love how in canon that they girls don't harbor romantic feelings over Midoriya and fight with each other. I also love that while they express Todoroki's pretty boy status, they don't fight over him either. They mention he's handsome and move on. Like I love that right there.
When some common tropes are taken and twisted into something a little more tolerable or feels not so played out.
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kishimotomasashi · 2 years
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Complaining about the ninja show fans:
One thing I'm never gonna understand it's why S4kura continuing to go after S4suke (in Shippuden, novels aside) is treated differently than N4ruto doing the same. Idk why y'all think S4kura went after him in Shippuden just so they can be together, her reasoning is almost identical to N4ruto's.
It's so weird bc when it comes to ess en ess, y'all can look at it perfectly well through a storytelling lens and focus more on the themes and emotional beats, but when it comes to S4kura suddenly she's a real person and this has real consequences and her refusing to give up on S4suke is unethical.
Like maybe it's just me but if we want to look at both cases through a "judging these characters through what would happen irl" way, "N4ruto going after S4suke bc technically S4suke still cares about him too much so it doesn't matter if S4suke frequently says no" is a very flimsy justification for why that's okay and on the other hand S4kura is an insensitive aggressor.
Yes, in both her love confessions to S4suke she asks him to stay "if he even cares about her" which is a bit self-centered, but in both cases she was speaking in desperation!! Do y'all put N4ruto threatning to break every bone in Sasuke's post to drag him back to the village in the same way? Or when he thought to himself that maybe he was the only one who thought they were friends even though that's a strange thing to think because up til their first fight at the VotE, S4suke had been the main person initiating the acts of actual friendliness??? Or his murder-suicide speech in the Land of Iron in which he doesn't acknowledge S4suke's anger at K0noha beyond "I get what you're feeling" and thinks dying is better than condemning the village responsible for his supposed best friend's suffering???? Ofc y'all don't bc y'all correctly acknowledge that those moments are less about the actual ethics and more about the emotional significance and how it fits into the grand story of N4ruto and S4suke's relationship!! Bc y'all get that it's a tragedy!!!!!
So why isn't that same lens for analysis given to S4kura? Bc she fits within the tragedy that is Team 7, three kids who liked each other and did their best but couldn't fully appreciate this newfound relationship they'd made bc of external circumstances and the way the shinobi system destroys lives. She was someone S4suke cared about as well, and she, like N4ruto, just want them all together again bc they treasure that relationship they'd built so much.
That S4suS4ku was a clusterfuck really doesn't work as an argument either bc the ending fucked literally everyone over. N4ruto and S4suke's final fight was just N4ruto going "you're wrong, I'm right" over and over, and N4ruto quite literally tiring him out until he finally capitulates. N4ruto barely has any character development at all throughout the War Arc where he's just there to be the Saviour Messiah figure and bring everyone to his side, and yet when S4kura also gets little character development y'all give her more shit for it. It's kind of insane.
I mean whatever!!! You don't have to agree with me at all but this is something that will always annoy me.
I feel like y'all could just say that y'all think N4ruto and S4suke was done in a better and more emotionally fulfilling way than S4kura and S4suke, which I don't disagree with. I just hate when y'all bash S4kura unnecessarily for it.
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danothan · 2 years
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im hoping i didnt misread your tone reading the tags and you do want to hear violyn shippers out but if u were /gen the reason that they appeal to me so much is the fact they are very different in every single way down to how they were raised but at the same time they are very similar with their motivations and goals in life they both want to help people and do good and while they certainly have quite a few hurdles to jump over they work together well and clearly trust each other very much despite their contrasts and differences and how they do have to jump a few hurdles to have a strong bond and might not click instantly but that doesn't mean the potential isn't there. also yeah youre right im a basic bitch and like tropes when ur a lesbian you gotta settle sometimes when it comes to rep. anyway hope u enjoyed the rant because it was a struggle to not make this longer
yes i was being genuine! i like getting other ppl’s perspectives, esp if it’s on smth i don’t understand. warning tho, i get pretty negative and definitely wordy underneath the cut
i think “potential” is the keyword here. i get the whole oil vs water metaphor in concept, but the execution leaves more to be desired. like you said, they’re fundamentally opposed in their upbringings and values. i mean after all, the first scene in arcane is the destruction caused by enforcers, ending on a shot of young vi glaring at them as she’s being carried away from her dead parents. that’s the kind of thing that sets the tone for the rest of the show, so it makes me wonder why we never feel the weight of that trauma after act 1. you’d think being wrongfully imprisoned for 6-7 years would make vi’s resentment grow even MORE, but i feel like she’s just toned down from her younger self if anything. before, she’d have a shouting match with vander over his betrayal of making deals with enforcers. couple episodes later, she’s teaming up with an enforcer herself? what changed?
i feel like they don’t have many shared goals either, esp not anything to bond over. so far all they really have in common is that they want to find jinx (for very different reasons) and they want to stop silco, which isn’t very romantic common ground lol. i’m not even sure i’d agree that they have the same motivation to help people bc vi is completely out of touch with the current political state of zaun and pretty much only has tunnel vision for finding her sister. and while caitlyn definitely wants to help people, she isn’t willing to listen to vi or ekko’s criticisms bc she gets too defensive over the idea that she might be part of a corrupt system. they’re barely ever on the same page
you say they clearly trust each other despite their differences, but i don’t think they should given this history. OR, if they did, it should be like my bookclub partner said and have vi fall headfirst into the relationship. and if this were to be the case, it would have to lean into vi’s emotional immaturity + lack of experience and give caitlyn growth + more awareness of their situation. but neither of these options happen, so caitvi toes the line without being able to commit to either side. it makes their relationship feel inconsistent and trivial to me
my bookclub partner and my sibling also brought up separate but enlightening points on the portrayal of their dynamic. f0r mentioned how they would be generic and frustrating to watch if the main conflict of their relationship was internalized homophobia, so it was a good writing choice to not include homophobia/sexism as a part of their society, and i agree with this. it’s an overdone trope used in place of actual substance, fantasy bigotry being a 1-to-1 with the real world just feels lazy. then my sibling noted that even though they technically don’t use this particular trope, their dynamic still carries the same story beats. their struggles and resistance towards each other feels subjective instead of being based on core themes of the story, like it’s a personal issue or a difference in personality and not the fact that they represent opposing sides of a class war?? this is why i don’t get what the big deal is over their break up. it felt like forced tension bc i wasn’t all that convinced they were in love after a few days, not to mention the breakup didn’t even last, so narratively i don’t see the point of having them separate if they were immediately going to get back together
again, if you’re going to use the oil vs water metaphor, lean into their differences. it shouldn’t be brought up when drama calls for it (“what, you don’t have parents?”), it should be the foundation of all of their interactions. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, jayvik represent the oil vs water metaphor better with the way external forces play into the difference in their values and create a divide between them despite their history and compatibility. hell, i feel more of that zaunite vs piltovan conflict between cait and jinx bc at least jinx’s trauma is written into their interactions
it almost feels like they’re having fun on their secret mission until vi remembers she’s supposed to hate cait. it’s the whole forbidden lovers trope that doesn’t actually feel forbidden bc there are no consequences for them being together. everything is just inferred because, well, they’re supposed to be opposites! so of course they’re on-and-off! but drawing conclusions from character fun facts is not the same as seeing those elements being purposefully utilized. this is what i mean when i say shippers have to rely on speculation. ultimately, caitvi is an underdeveloped on-and-off relationship that doesn’t commit to being either enemies OR lovers. it just feels like a messy high school love story in the middle of more interesting politics, found/unfound family, xenophobia/classism, magic, drugs, and terrorism
it’s a shame you say you have to settle, especially in a show like arcane where they don’t pull their punches for heavy and nuanced subjects. i feel like they set the bar too high to settle for a basic shipping trope. the other relationships in this show are intrinsic to and enhanced by the plot, and vice versa: you know they love each other but external forces play into their personal values and dynamics. caitvi deserves the same complexity and chemistry given to these other relationships
and for the record, i like both characters individually. i can see myself enjoying their relationship as it gets more developed. i think they have a lot of good moments in the show. but as of right now, based on canon only, caitvi is the weakest part of arcane’s writing
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bumblyburg · 11 months
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ted lasso finale thoughts
Need the richmond women's team spinoff NOW!!!!!!!!!!! And it better have LESBIANS i swear to god!!!!!!!
As always the strongest part of this ep was the team dynamics. Roy joining the diamond dogs. Isaac with the penalty kick!!!! The fucking dance sequence callback T^T theres no place like afc richmond <3 Them winning the match but losing the whole thing was a good balance of success vs realism. I didn't know enough about football to predict it beforehand LOL but that probably worked in my favor bc i genuinely didnt know whether they would win or lose. Rebecca and ted's friendship was heartwarming as always. I was living in fear that they'd become a couple even though i knew that wasn't what the writers were going for, so I probably need to rewatch to fully enjoy it.
Tedependent lost RIP. it would have made sense but at the same time im kinda glad they didn't, at least this season. trent was still very much a side character and i just don't think the story beats were there for tedtrent endgame. the story would have had to been constructed differently, or it would need another season. I also liked how the main focus was ted & rebecca's friendship rather than either of their romantic relationships. I love a good romance but its not what this story is about.
Thats part of the reason why the dutchman return felt cheap to me lol. Sorry rebecca im always rooting for you but i just wasn't feeling it. Another part of that is probably because Ted and Trent had a much stronger foundation and we still didn't get to see even their friendship develop as much as i would have liked. Maybe ive been spoiled by all the trent this season idk. but i was just hoping for a little more. After all, it's not lost on me that we only got one confirmed gay couple at the end (we don't even know anything about Michael!!! Ugh sorry Im a michael hater he's so boring.)
Speaking of boring, I simply do not care about ted's family. So him moving back was... not really compelling for me. like none of the kansas characters are fleshed out at all. i wish they had done something more interesting with them so i could actually get invested. There was something there with michelle dating their couples therapist, but it ended up falling flat imo. Also Michelle being a teacher is a total copout, I would have preferred if she had an unexpected job that revealed a new side to her. Give her a personality outside of being a wife/mother/caretaker please and thank you.
I did like how Royjamie was left openended!!! thats the ship i care most abt and i knew it wasnt going to *actually* happen so im satisfied with what we got. I am in the (im assuming) minority of royjamie enjoyers that is against roykeeleyjamie. This episode really hammered it in why roy and jamie are not good for keeley LOL, but the signs have been there all along. Keeley needs to be her own boss for a bit! Roy and jamie are just not at her maturity level (lovingly), and they've got some misogyny to work through.
(I need to think on it more, but I'm pretty sure that I liked the way this episode/season handled the Roy And Jamie Are Lowkey Sexist subplot. Like the whole fighting over a woman thing is soooo trite atp, and i still dont know how i feel about them physically fighting over her or whatever. but the story was realistic about how these asshole male footballers are going to have some weird views about women, while still shutting that down those views. like not even giving them the time of day. Keeley literally shoos them out without a word LMAO. So idk need to think about it more but at least keeley didnt end up with either of them).
Hey you know who DOES deserve each other.... and makes each other better people, as represented by their football training arc.... the student is the teacher and the teacher is the student etc etc…… Anyways royjamie is real TO ME!!! (And brett goldstein and phil dunster, number one royjamie warriors. phil dunster wrote royjamie smut I will never get over that)
Overall im sad to see ted lasso go. i think i need to sit with all 3 seasons a bit more before forming my full opinion, but s1 will always have my heart. Mostly because evil jamie and evil rebecca are so so fun to watch.
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lastoneout · 2 years
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I haven’t played Coral Island yet bc it’s midterms and I’m not allowed to buy new games until exams are over but I’ve had it wishlisted for years and I feel… really disappointed that it’s getting so many bad reviews for being a farming sim that isn’t Stardew, so thanks for putting it into words better than I can.
I love Stardew and I’ve played Harvest Moon and Rune Factory for years (still have an og copy of Rune Factory 1 that I love and play to this day) and I’ve been trying Wylde Flowers on Apple Arcade bc I love this genre! And it’s so sad to see that new games in this genre we love are getting hate just for being a part of the genre.
To be completely fair, the negative reviews are def in the minority, at least on Steam anyway. The main reason those few stuck out to me was just because of how ridiculous they were and how clear it was that the person who posted them had never played another farming sim before and assumed that Stardew was the first to come up with even the most basic standard gameplay mechanics and story beats of the entire farming sim genre. (I mean I wasn't kidding there were actually people claiming that you upgrading your tools and buying seeds at the general store was stuff copied from Stardew. Like...seriously?? SERIOUSLY???)
Also a couple of the reviews were just annoying, like one that had a stuck-up tone as it implied that Stardew was the "original" that "perfected" the genre and everything else was derivative trash and we should all go support ConcernedApe because he was clearly being unfairly robbed by a "bigger studio", then another that claimed Coral Island was "just Stardew Valley with better graphics" which irritated me because Stardew doesn't have bad graphics!! It's intentionally using pixel art as its style!!! Legit made me offended on Stardew's behalf like literally please stop talking forever.
And it's frustrating because I do agree with one of the neutral reviews I read that points out the actual flaws in the game as it is right now! I think there's a lot of value in talking about the issues and I also agree that honestly the game kinda isn't really worth $24 right now given how many critical features are missing. Yeah, it's in early access, but currently there's no accessibility options or controller support, you can't rebind keys(which lord is annoying lemme tell ya), there are a LOT of game-breaking bugs, the characters start to feel really bland really fast cuz of how much dialog is missing, seed and crop prices are unbalanced so it's hard to make money that way, they don't always make it clear when something actually isn't available yet which leads to frustration(especially around the festivals, which basically don't exist at all even though the game keeps prompting you to go to them), stuff like that is worth talking about!! People SHOULD know all of that going in so they don't spend $24 on something they aren't going to enjoy(or even be able to play) yet!!
But instead of bringing up any of that the negative reviews are all just "blah blah it's copying Stardew Valley" which isn't helpful or even really true! And hell even when there is some stuff that's a little too close to Stardew for comfort the reviews ignore that and instead just complain about all of the stuff that's true of like, every farming sim ever. Like let's critique how the General Store is closed on Wednesdays instead of how the farming sim is, you know, about farming??
But anyway, I really do like Coral Island so far even though it does have a lot of problems that need working out(I've already sunk like 18 hours into it lmao), and I think once they do work all of it out it's going to be a really, REALLY fantastic farming sim that is just as beloved as Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, and Rune Factory. I just also wish that people who clearly don't know anything about farming sims would stop complaining that it's a Stardew clone and instead talk about the real issues or even just shut up entirely.
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surely-galena · 1 year
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Hey Galena!
Much much much much thoughts on your status quo post so imma drop this all in an ask and not discord because.... well, no reason.
//cn spoilers
You are so right something is shifting right now bc in current main story the nxx is drifting apart and the boys are pushing Rosa away and frankly, all around sussiness (i haven't read it, i've only read my friend freaking out about it)
For main 5 traitor route, disregarding Vyn's status as sussy, I actually see Marius and Artem as traitor more because they have more at stake here. It's just 1) so interesting to see them!! Traitors!! and 2) I want to see what would happen that Marius can't manipulate out of a situation and turn traitor for some reason or even better, what would happen to cause Artem to become a traitor.
What's more interesting than Kiki though: If Darius has some important information we don't know about.
YES. JEROME. 5TH LI ROUTE. JEROMEEEEEEE (thank you for the shoutout). Jerome 5th LI makes so much sense, man's got a whole illustration dedicated to him, a whole new outfit, lore, hotness, and he's the black hair LI we need in ToT and the only reason Marius enemies to lovers route isn't real is because they had to save it for Jerome (coping)
If Zangr was right all along though, it could be interesting for Hoyo to put a bit of horror into it. What if this point gets explored in the "mls figured out Rosa was being controlled by some unknown entity... ". For instance... Us. The player. The manipulator. The puppeteer dragging Rosa around on the string.
I once had an idea with Rosa time looping except she was consciously aware of it and sets out to change her fate. (Context: she died episode 6 with the air tank thing) I never completed it :'D but the idea is she finds herself time looping over and over again whenever she dies and slowly unites NXX and tries to prevent repeating prior mistakes
OH MY I DIDN'T READ YOUR POINT 6 WHEN I WROTE POINT 1 BUT YES YES YES YOU ARE SO RIGHT
Alternatively, what if we're not hearing all of her thoughts? We think we know Rosa pretty well because of what we read about her, but what if that's just a small peek into her psyche, enough for us to think we know her, when in reality we know nothing about her?
I love outsider POV stories. It's always so interesting to see something major - for instance, a time travel story - but everyone else's POV is shown except the time traveler's. Also I think Baldr is a joke because well, Rosa POV and we always beat her. But it'd be so interesting to see everything from a Baldr POV and show that they aren't the losers we see them as. Maybe we get a Baldr POV story and we find out they have deep ties with Heirson, NXX, and holds a lot more power than we thought. Then we head back to NXX POV and we're freaked out about what we've learned... that the team doesn't know. (I am playing a game rn where we go through the story from our team's POV, then after the chapter is completed, we unlock a shorter Hidden Story for that chapter, where we get backstory & depyh on the events of the chapter we just played, all from an outsider POV. Devs have used this to break my heart with antagonist lore several times hfjksahjkfs - did we literally just beat up the antagonist only to get smacked in the face with her backstory and find out that the place we fought her at is her home and she's never going to be able to return again? Yes. - and while I love Anomaly THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING. For instance, we get a look into Pedro's psyche and guilt as he sabotages Grandpa Vern, someone he once thought of - and possibly still thinks of! - as a grandparent or his acceptance of his fate after, with a "I deserve this" mindset.)
I don't know if the story will have a happy ending - it really depends on if the prologue is also the actual ending with Luke, Artem, and Marius gone and Vyn being the only one remaining. Which would make me cry so hard but at the same time... what happened?
Oh gosh Rose I'm sorry answering this took so long!
1. Is that so about the main story? That's an interesting turn because they were never that close in the first place, it was only because of MC + Nosta + other team events that they started to grow closer. So for them to grow apart again might be an interesting development. It is, however, mildly funny for them to push MC away because although it's most likely for her safety, it also sounds like they want her out of the picture because she does the team building, she brings them together -- and they don't have to function as a cooperative group if she's not around!!
2. I agree that Artem would be an interesting option because of how connected his character is to the law. To have him resort to perhaps more underhanded tactics, perhaps for Neil, would be an interesting twist.
3. Yeah, that's fair about Darius! The NXX would barely be able to make the important arrests without him, so to have Darius not entirely on their side would definitely change things up.
4. Jerome has a lot of potential for an enemies-to-lovers route, so if canon doesn't do it, I'm sure fanon will eventually come up with something XD
5. Ahh, referencing / talking to the player! That one is fun, too, although the developers would have to be careful because you don't want to attack the player or make it so abrupt that you rip the player from their immersion.
8. Exactly! It would be such a twist if we weren't hearing all of MC's thoughts. It would be the unreliable narrator all over again and it would dramatically change the way we saw MC.
9. That's a really great concept, actually. I like the Anomaly levels, too, but having Outsider POV or side stories would really flesh out the world of Stellis so that it feels more like an actual place where people live and struggle and work. I think it's great that the NPCs aren't entirely discarded (e.g. MC running into them in certain events), but it would also be very cool to hear from their perspective.
10. I like to think there would at least be a hopeful ending, because that seems to be a recurring theme in the game. I hear hyv does have a pattern for tragic stories, however, so while everything might not be completely okay in the end, I think the main cast will have to be in a relatively stable place. This sort of links back to the otome aspect -- because there aren't multiple endings, that means there's only one true ending per love interest, and as such, they would all need to be okay so they can live happily with MC in their respective routes. The prologue being the ending would be very interesting for the circular effect, though!
Thanks for discussing this with me! Again, I apologize that this took me so long to get to!
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the-acid-pear · 9 months
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Took me three days to finish the Salt Route concept video and god i'm gonna be such a hater im gonna put this under the cut but i don't want my poor ex to hear me complain so yall must suffer on her place
LIKE, MAN. I'll start off by saying the technical stuff was okay. I really enjoyed the music (gonna try find the fight song), the animations weren't perfect but were good enough and the random drawings were nice I liked those jumpscares. There's things like the shaking textboxes and Queen's fight background changing color which were Something but it was fine.
WHAT WAS NOT FINE WAS THE FUCKING LAG. THAT WAS SO FUCKING ANNOYING WHY ON EAAARTH DID THEY ADD LAG⁉️
Anyway even if you overlook the lag, the real problem of this video is the story on its own, which is arguably the most important part.
(also there were some issue with the pacing but more on that later-)
This recreation respected the main story beats but added sooo much in between. And some of it was alright! I loved the fucking Roulx bit so much and the Swatchling dying was cool too, but... Most other additions felt like so much.
Like, the problem really lies in the fact that you cannot forget what the source material is like. Even during Snowgrave this game remains goofy! Look at Spamton NEO's fight, the dialogue is so sad and yet so funny. HE EVEN TELLS YOU TO GO PLAY MINECRAP AT SOME POINT!
You cannot ignore the sheer goofiness in Spamton tagging along with Kris because he lost his goddamn keys. The video took itself way too seriously, when there was so much comedy to play off on! Roulx at least did his part for that 🙏😔
Unfortunately the absence of goofiness translates as an over presence of edginess. And with edginess comes out of characterness. And lord did this get kind of edgy. Like, I get it, snowgrave, manipulation and whatnot, but they ramped it waaay up to the point it just made Kris seem evil for no reason!
Because we sure as hell started this route but Kris was the one to continue it. Like when they tied Spamton up. What was up with that? Or hell, THE SOLID MINUTE BEATING HE TOOK. The player didn't instruct them to do any of those, Kris did it on their own. And it's almost fucking hilarious to see, but it's played completely straight, it's Narmy as fuck !!!!
Kris wasn't the only OOC tho, Spamton was too. Sure Kris has him at the foot of the canyon doing all the murdering himself, and the Addison bit was edgy but I can excuse it bc 1) I have a soft spot I'm not all hate 2) it was in the dream, but this puppet would NOT care about killing so many. His ass did not FLINCH when giving you the thorn ring. He was soooo okay with you freezing everyone, to act like this would be any different is just untrue.
And!!! And, another thing. The heart ripping off part. I have very mixed feelings about that... I mean, i think it's meant to have some Deeper Meaning? As to justify Spamton's ending? More on that in a second btw; but like, I think Spamton was just huffing copium to justify getting his ass handed by a 13 yo. So it's like... It's the same as I said with Spamton's reaction, Kris wouldn't care more about this than they cared about Snowgrave.
UNLESS they just tried to rip their heart out bc they fucking hated Spamton and couldn't stand being around his annoying ass any second longer, in which case the beating is justified too, but that's just a possible interpretation 👍 KEHEMDHNDDB
Like, so much would've had improved if this video stuck to the stablished in Snowgrave and in the og post, going not for physical abusive but psychological one. I'm sure the post said you had to CONVINCE Spamton, that would've been way more fitting to see! And it makes Kris neutral while we are evil.
But, hey, it wasn't all bad, so let me point out some bits I REALLY liked that I haven't pointed out yet like: the boat ride pic. The little comment as they pretended to be friends about it not being genuine was so good. The Swatchling dying and Queen trying to interrupt also was sick. Roulx, cannot stress that enough... SWATCH'S LIL GOOFY ASS LETTER, SAYING TO NOT BE BLUE. Also Swatch (or a Swatchling but I think it was the bird themselves) jumpscared me hard when they went behind the door. God, and the queen fight too, that was so faithful.
But! It segways me perfectly into my last complain which is ! The pacing of this video was so over the place omfg. There's so many scenes that did NOT need to be that long. Like c'mon, we already had deviations from the original gameplay, you don't need to make fights like 5 minutes long.
Wild to see how good the op was at some very hard attacks but how bad they were at others.
OVERALL 👏 no hard feelings toward the creator I fully encourage you watching the video and agreeing or disagreeing with me but man, how I wish it had been sillier. That's my final review of the salt route concept video 👍
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mouse-fantoms · 3 years
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Let me just appreciate Jatp for how they write their characters for a quick second bc it is amazing.
Like Carrie, even though she’s an antagonist (rn), I love her.
I love that with Carrie and Julie it’s not “mean girl is mean to main character bc she’s mean girl” like NO. That one simple line of Nick saying “You two used to be friends.” means sooooo much.
There’s that layer of history that’s there. There’s this whole other story to Julie and Carrie that we haven’t seen (yet). It makes them feel like actual real people, that we aren’t watching this story be written for the first time, that there’s this history to the characters that makes them real. They are real high school girls who had a falling out and who, bc of school, still interact with each other one a daily basis and have to deal with that. Sure, we don’t know exactly what happened specifically with them to cause a fall out, so that gives us (as fans) room to speculate, but there’s still that rich history to them that make them feel like actual real teenagers.
It makes totally sense for Carrie to be upset at Julie for her “upstaging her” at the spirt assembly. For the past year, Julie has been this reserved, hasn’t been able to do anything music at all related, person since her mom passed. That’s the Julie that everyone’s known for the past year. It just so happens that the day before Carrie’s group (who’s been an established group for probably awhile which means that Carrie has been used to just her group) is to perform, three guys fall into Julie’s life who completely change hers and bring music back to her. It just so happens that when the guys play their instruments they all can be seen, but Carrie doesn’t know that.
She is completely taken aback to see Julie of all people, her ex-best friend and the girl who hasn’t been able to do anything music related for a whole year, have these three guys playing instruments on stage with her just appear. An effect like that, completely out shines the performance of Wow that was just done.
“I worked hard on that routine Nick.” Yeah, if I worked my butt off, like I have been this whole time, and then suddenly a girl has these guys magically appear on stage with her as they are singing, which gets the whole crowd to be intrigued by that instead of the performance I worked my fucking ass off to perfect, ...I’d be mad too. Especially with the added layer that they’re ex-best friends, it can be seen as an attack on Carrie, which we know it isn’t but Carrie doesn’t know that.
Then when Dirty Candi and Julie and the Phantoms (the band) perform at Eats & Beats, Carrie signed up Dirty Candi and knew they were last on the sign up (there’s a sticky note on the sign up sheet to presumably block other people from signing up). She knew they were last. Legit sings “I never open cause it’s my show, my show.” Meaning that she thought they were the last group for the night, that they would close the night out, they would be the last group everyone remembered.
But then, Julie’s group gets called up bc Luke put their name on the sign up sheet after the sticky note was placed making them the last group of the night. Meaning that Dirty Candi opened for them. The exact thing she sang that she never does she just did.
It’s like the spirit assembly all over again, Julie’s “upstaging” her again, she worked her ass off to only be forgotten about again. She watches the band’s performance of Finally Free with distaste and distain. Carrie thinks that Julie signed her band up, that Julie deliberately signed up right after Carrie, she thinks it’s an attack on her again, to completely blow her group out of the water.
Maybe the first time, at the assembly it could have been a one time thing. But for “Julie” to sign the band up at Eats & Beats (a hotspot for mangers, where Carrie performs presumably all the time at). That means it wasn’t just a one time thing. Carrie fees like Julie is deliberately trying to upstage her bc that’s what it looks like from any other angle (we know that’s not the case bc we know how things happened bc we saw it but Carrie doesn’t).
It’s not until Julie’s band performs at the Orpheum on their own. Where Carrie truly appreciates and realizes what is going on. Dirty Candi isn’t performing, there’s no reason for Carrie to be “upstaged”, she can sit back and watch the performance. She can sit back and realize that that’s Julie up there, the Julie who everyone knew for a year, would never be able to be up there doing that like she is now, but she is up there. Carrie can see the sheer fun Julie is having on stage with her boys. Carrie can see the smile on Julie’s face that hasn’t been like that for a year.
Maybe even when Carrie and Julie were little they talked about performing at the Orpheum together. And now one of them is up there, doing exactly that, after what she’s been through for over a year. So what does she do? She claps slowly while a smile on her face bc it’s taken her this long to realize that Julie hasn’t been upstaging her. She’s in a band and she loves it. The girl who hasn’t had music in her life is IN a band. It just took her some time to realize it.
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xtodorcki · 3 years
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“Sacrifice” Reader x Adult Trio
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Prompt: simply something were to happen on a mission w/ adult trio and one of you has to be the sacrifice.
Warnings: none just sad bc I’m sad
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• Hisoka:
You had begged Hisoka to let you come with him on this mission, it had been a while since the both of you worked together and he couldn’t deny that you two made a good team but the more time went on, the more he got over protective with you and letting you come with him was like him having to babysit and do the mission all at once and he couldn’t risk losing you, not under his supervision.
When you finally went on the mission, you realized how hard it actually was until it came down to one last option at the back of your head. You didn’t want to think about it, you couldn’t so you continued to get up and fight with everything you had in you. Hisoka was trying his hardest to keep his eyes on you while also battling the main boss behind the whole operation you two were trying to take down. Hisoka simply thought this would be a fun interesting battle that he could probably easily win but with you here, he had to make sure you were safe above all.
Minutes passed and you were on the ground heaving from how exshaunted and beaten down you were. Your body ached but your heart broke more when you took a glance at Hisoka and seen how hard he was trying- for you. You knew in that second you had to do what you were thinking about earlier. Sacrificing yourself for Hisoka’s safety. Your power that was held inside of you was a deadly weapon, he knew that but what he didn’t know was that the power you held all these years can easily kill you. You kept it locked away for as long as you could, your past with your powerful family was traumatizing and you refused to use the power your abusive father passed on to you but the look on Hisoka’s face, the look you’ve never seen before was fear.
In that moment, it clicked and you knew you had to use it for this and knew you had to keep him alive at all costs. You couldn’t care less about yourself or your own life but Hisoka, you cared for his more. You never knew you could love someone this much that it made your heart ache. You slowly stood up, wiping the blood mixed with tears off your face and had used everything in your power to grab onto the boss and held on as you took everything you had in you to absorb the both of you with the intense power, practically burning you both alive.
Hisoka got knocked down from the sudden explosion, his eyes wide and strands of hair rested over his bloody forehead. He ran over to where you were, his heart racing and panic filled his head. Once he had seen your body, he knew what you did for him. He kneeled down and scooped up your lifeless body, emotionless. He didn’t know what to feel or what to think, you were all he had left. He had pushed the small strands from your face, sighing as the tears threatened to fall from his eyes.
“Thank you, darling.” Was all he said, carrying you away from the scene and through the woods, bringing you back home.
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Chrollo:
Chrollo had known you for quite some time and once you joined the spiders, the relationship between you two had blossomed rather quickly. It was unexpected, you had only joined to get revenge on the spiders for stealing precious items from the small town you came from but the more you had talked to Chrollo, the more you realized how much in common you two had and after that it went all downhill.
Your judgment was clouded, the only thoughts left in your brain was of Chrollo and you disappeared from your town years ago to stay with him and be wherever he was but the chain user had gotten to him in ways you didn’t want to believe and the chain wrapped around his heart had prevented him from speaking to the spiders and that had broken you down heavily.
It’s been months since you seen or heard from him and it had sent you in a spiral of sadness and rage to the point where you had gotten into a murderous rampage throughout the city, ripping apart people and burning places to the ground. Feitan had tried his best to look after you but it was no use considering how powerful you truly were and he noticed that there was no hope to tame a wild animal without their alpha, it was pointless.
Chrollo finally got light of what you were doing and it had made his heart ache more and more until finally he decided to do what was needed to be done. To see you. He didn’t bothering caring about the rest of the spiders nor the judgment chain that wrapped around his heart, preventing him from seeing you but as broken as you both were, he wanted to make this sacrifice just to see your face one last time.
He had made the arrangements and made sure he had written letters out to everyone in the troupe and one especially for you before he made his way to the city you were in causing chaos. Once he stepped foot in the city, he was having second thoughts. Did he want to kill himself just to see your face one more time or should he wait until he could get the chain off, would you handle waiting for that long? He wasn’t too sure but his love for you was huge and deep, it was endless and he knew he had to see you and make you stop this madness.
His feet made their way around, trying to find the exact location you were staying at before settling inside and waiting for you. His hair hung over his face and the clothes he wore were just a plain t-shirt and jeans. He was nervous, his hands were actually sweaty for the first time since he first met you. Suddenly, the door opened up and he saw a glimpse of your face and his heart began to race. You both made eye contact and you didn’t think twice before clinging yourself onto him. The hug was tight, your chests pressed against each other before your lips had met.
He knew he had to speed up this process, he knew it was coming in a matter of minutes so he quickly pulled back and made sure to cup your cheeks to keep you in place.
“Listen to me, I don’t have much time. I couldn’t handle not seeing your face or not being able to touch you and I finally realized that my last breath should be with you. You’ve made me open my eyes and see the world in a much better light, for that I’m forever grateful and I want you to live a long happy life, even if it’s without me. Got it?” He had rushed everything out, wiping the tears that had slipped and rolled down your cheeks.
“Chrollo- why,” Suddenly his eyes went wide for a second, the chain stabbing him clean in the heart and the whole time he kept his eyes on you, never letting go and you had to catch him as he fell, gasping for breath as his last seconds were kept focused on you.
“I love you, don’t forget that.” He barely managed to speak before his heart stopped beating and the life drained from his eyes.
You had sat there, holding his lifeless body close to yours as you tried to gather your thoughts and take in what had just happened. He risked his life to see you and for some reason you couldn’t handle that or process it. You knew you couldn’t manage without him and he wanted you to try. You had thought about years ago to when you two first met and had much he’s changed you, definitely made you crazy but in ways you didn’t mind.
Questions flew around your mind, are you going to be fine without him? Look around the city and look at what you did for him being gone for a few months and now he’s- gone forever. You felt stupid, it was your fault he came here and the pain thag swelled up your heart was so painful that it could kill you. It took you hours of holding onto his body to finally come up with a conclusion. As much as you loved him, you didn’t bring yourself to read the full letter he wrote to you, most of it consisting of living on for him and leading the Troupe but deep down Chrollo knew while writing it that the end of this story would be similar to Romeo and Juliet, the both of you dead inside the hotel room and he also accepted that fate.
As you got up from the floor, picking up a knife from your jacket pocket that was on the bed, you made your way back to lay beside him. The ache in your heart grew and grew more as you laid there before finally you made a sacrifice and that was to be with Chrollo. You pushed the knife in your chest, the sharp objecting instantly hitting your heart and your eyes rolled to the side to take one more look at him before the life drained out of you.
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• Illumi:
Illumi was never the type to be openly affectionate or caring towards other people. It had actually taken him years to even begin to show you that side and openly admit to somewhat feeling a different way when he was around you.
He was a quiet but gentle soul, that’s what you thought anyway but on the outside he was very cold and mysterious and that’s what you liked about him and that’s what drew you in.
He was very good at his job to say the least, never messed up and never ruined anything, he always got the job done and went back home or went back to wherever you stayed at. This time it was different, he had pushed himself a little too far and put his trust into your hands and had let you come along with him to do a job, assassinate a big well known man.
Illumi had repeatedly told you to stay close and to not get into any trouble and he would do the job, you were basically just a puppy following behind him and kept yourself tight on his trail until you had turned your attention away from him for a second, just one and that’s all it took for you to get yourself caught up in a ugly situation.
The people had taken you in as hostage and tried to use you against Illumi but you knew better than to put your life into his hands, he would leave you if it had to come down to his life. As much as you never said it aloud or wanted to admit it, he was afraid of losing you and didn’t want to put you in any danger.
You had met eyes with his, the cold stare on his face was making it hard to tell if he had any real emotion and if he was actually upset at the situation you got caught in. Your brain had wondered endlessly and you knew that you would be dead and you’ll have to be dead for him to do his job right and get out of here without a scratch.
Your eyes glanced around, trying to pick up the courage to try to fight the guys that held you hostage and you ignored the endless screaming of them threatening to shoot you if you didn’t stop but, you didn’t stop. You kept going, pushing them more and more until the gunshot echoed throughout the building.
Illumi’s eyes stared at you, taking the chance to kill everyone in seconds while they were distracted with you but he was a little too late as he seen your body limp on the cold floor, the bullet killing you instantly.
Illumi was never the type to sacrifice his life for someone else or care for someone but when it came to you, the amount of warmth he felt when he was around you was something new. It was thrilling yet scary in his eyes but he couldn’t shake you off, even when he tried and tried- you always came back.
The emotionless stars upon his face had stayed still, a small frown forming as he stared at you not knowing what to do, what to say. He ruined this mission, maybe if he had trust his gut to not take you and leave you back then you would still be alive. Now he was back to being alone and cold. The feeling of warmth he never felt from anyone, not even his own parents, was swept away in an instant along with your life.
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Send requests plssssss
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wewinbees · 3 years
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“you only saw me as a weapon!” an in-depth analysis of tommy and techno’s relationship /rp
a mild focus on techno’s thoughts since it’s his speech, but not one or the other is in the right here. a lot of this might have been said, but this is a BIG collection from pogtopia to doomsday to address as many angles as possible. to preface, i don’t think tommy sees techno as a weapon and nothing else, but the point remains that techno feels like he does, and that’s important.
this is from like january btw lol
we’ll start with “the blade” tommy’s nickname for techno, which got adopted by a lot of the server (as tommy’s nicknames tend to be). most other people have the Big [X] format, but techno gets this specialised nickname. i think the reason he developed a negative association with it was because of when it was used; when they need him for fights. the most important would be the vault reveal, with wilbur getting everyone to victoriously chant “we have the blade!” to boister morale. this would have been fine in and of itself, if it weren’t for the events of the rest of the day and what that name would come to represent. it ends up becoming a taunt to him, because that’s what people get close to him for. his use to them as the blade rather than his friendship to them as technoblade
tommy’s always very happy to call in techno for help, and techno usualy sorts it out with... minimal effort required. i do see this more as a blend of tommy’s pride in knowing techno and smugness at having that kind of upperhand in a fight over him viewing techno solely as a weapon to use, but this still ends up being detrimental to their friendship because of how much it happens. remember, the entire reason techno joined the server was to help wilbur and techno form pogtopia. techno doesn’t mind helping tommy out, but at some point it’s going to be frustrating, being called in for any and all minor struggles. but in the end of the day, it’s fine, because they’re brothers under the same cause. destroying manberg. Oh Wait.
the main issue came after the festival, with that faith and trust tommy had in techno being shattered; rightfully so, because watching tubbo get murdered was traumatic for him, because for tommy the pit was no way to settle that conflict (which reminded, wasn’t techno’s suggestion, it was proposed and pushed onto them by wilbur). since tommy sees technoblade as unbeatable, he couldn’t understand why techno was so easily peer-pressured by manberg. he was threatened by how many people were against him, he was stressed dealing with the voices telling him to do it, he didn’t see any other way out, he wasn’t getting any support from his only other allies even though he was looking right at them and they still did nothing.
but tommy didn’t understand because he thought techno could have won. techno did try to stall as well, but without orders from his friends he ended up following schatt’s, and once he realised he had the power to kill everyone on stage, he just gave into that power. the miscommunication during the pogtopia arc was why techno felt as betrayed as he did, and why the victim complex argument annoys me so much, since he was kept in the dark for that long while grinding resources for the army. also, since techno wasn’t there for l’manberg’s peaceful days or the start of the disc saga he would never understand how important those attachments were to people, so he’d feel little remorse blowing them all up (especially since he knew that was the backup plan for pogtopia anyway, and just because people were unhappy about it didn’t change the fact that it was a plan)
a lot of people say that techno should have known that pogtopia’s goal was to form a new government, that at some point he should have overheard the real plan. everyone agreed to ‘destroy manberg’ (as in the government not the land) but somehow techno never found out about the ‘restoring l’manberg’ part of the plan. how that happened, who knows, but in the end of the day, the writers chose for that miscommunication to happen for the story. it’s not a how or a why, it’s just a fact that was written in. he didn’t find out until it was right in front of him, and he was bound to feel betrayed by that, enough that he was driven to do something irrational. my personal theory is that techno was mainly following wilbur’s orders, and because wilbur was the real traitor, chances are he never mentioned any forming of a new government since he knew that would lose techno’s support. wilbur was probably using techno as a weapon, that was his mentality for a lot of people back then, but since he was the leader of pogtopia then that negative transference carried on to the rest of the members for techno, most of all tommy as he was the other key founder, and not as underhanded about getting techno’s help. i’d say wilbur’s address of techno during the final speech was the a key reason as to why techno doesn’t feel as used by him than he is with tommy, solidifying the anarchy bros before dying, meaning anything else could be revealed.
after the war, the bedrock bros were completely alienated from eachother. tommy started to blame everything about l’manberg’s destruction on techno, since wilbur died and ghostbur isn’t really at fault for anything. techno distanced himself from everything, going into retirement for the unforeseeable future because he felt like his violent anarchist tactics were futile and grew tired of constant conflict. he talked to tommy a few times during retirement, and every single time, he asks tommy how the government was working out for him. when he was at risk of being exiled, just before being exiled and immediately after exile. he wanted tommy to see the government in the same light as he did, because when l’manberg sold him out he realised they were the same. they’d both been betrayed by the government and from that point on he fully believed tommy would be better off away from l’manberg. but every time tommy said no, because he believed in the original dream wilbur had for l’manberg and because he trusted tubbo’s leadership. techno was smug when he was proved right because of course he was he’s technoblade. plus, they did view eachother as enemies at this point, so it’s not unacceptable for them to argue with eachother right now.
that brings us to the execution. traumatising! the refusal to run a fair trial and the dehumanising treatment from his old allies in pogtopia hammer this home, but importantly they rope philza into the chaos this time. ALSO it’s important to mention that techno was killed; he just got an extra life from the totem. he was actually killed and his character experienced that pain as punishment. he was pushed out of retirement, which was unjust in his eyes, since he believed he had genuinely changed. it didn’t help that quackity explicitly told him it wasn’t actually punishment for the withers, but instead a move to consolidate power, furthering his view of the cabinet as corrupt. from that point on he left retirement. he’d been doing well without violence, building connections with new people like vikk and lazar and finding a fragile form of peace, but in the end this shattered it. he’s back to being the blade, speaking with violence, because l’manberg made it clear there was no other way for him to be heard at this point. so he’s going to destroy them, even if he has to do it alone.
enter stage raccooninnit.
tommy taking refuge in techno’s house because he knew techno was rich enough for him to steal his resources and strong enough to defend him from dream is... interesting. he couldn’t go back to l’manberg, but he took refuge with a man who he viewed as a villain. this probably doesn’t help techno’s opinion of him, since he is quite literally using him for his resources, but in the end of the day tommy was desperate and quite literally on the verge of death, so he seemed to take some kind of pity on him. the exile period of their relationship is definitely the most important part of this argument, because it was just the two of them: no wilbur or pogtopia as an external force (though the pressure of dream and l’manberg still affected things) but in the same way ultimately doomed to fail. they fight for a moment, but ultimately settle as ‘business partners’. which quickly evolves back into a friendship like the one they had before the festival.
my least favourite take is that either one of them never valued the other at this point because this is just.... violently not true. they started off working for mutual benefit; tommy explicitly agreed to do minor terrorism in l’manberg and to help techno get his weapons back in return for techno’s help getting the discs back and taking refuge in his house. from the start both of them stated their limits:
techno was always planning on getting revenge on l’manberg for what happened on the day of his execution
tommy never wanted to upset tubbo, and wanted to put getting his discs back first
should note that tommy changes his mind on the disc’s priority later on, but at the point of their alliance he does make it clear that’s what he wants out of the partnership. the issue is that from the start both of them went in with blind optimism. neither of them lied to eachother or forced them to change their viewpoints but in the end of the day they could never be on the same side as long as l’manberg was involved. (note, i think some people think he wasn’t but techno was actually planning on helping tommy getting the discs back, with him getting annoyed at tommy letting tubbo give dream the disc because that made both of their jobs so much harder, but it was more of a long term goal bc he knew dream was hard to beat. plus before his execution, he visited tommy and strongly implied he would be willing to help with the discs, and that he would be a better ally in those personal aims than NLM were)
i don’t understand the ‘techno was only using tommy’ accusation here because like... how? what would he have to gain by having tommy on his side? he could definitely have blown up l’manberg without his help, so why bring him in at all? it was a very mutual agreement of ‘we’re using eachother’ that developed into genuine friendship. i’ve always seen it as a teaching experience: techno knows tommy had been wronged by NLM, and by extension tubbo, and by taking him on these minor terrorism trips, he’s showing tommy the worst of l’manberg. look, look at this execution stand, look at what they’ve done. and in doing this, he’s trying to prove to tommy that what he’s going to do to l’manberg is right. and in showing him the worst of NLM, he’s neglecting all of its good parts, but again, techno cant see any positives in l’manberg, and is trying to show tommy that everyone, especially tommy, would be better off without it. and tommy had criticisms of l’manberg before he was exiled, especially in regards to tubbo. he told ranboo the reason he chose wilbur to be president instead of tubbo was because he was worried the presidency would ruin their friendship, and Look At Exactly What Happened. techno highlighting the flaws of the country to tommy was easy because it WAS flawed and it hurt both of them. and techno’s hope was that tommy would join him in the eventual destruction of it, because he wanted to share his revenge with tommy and for him to get his own justice against l’manberg. but it... didn’t quite work out that way.
they both tried to make it easier for the other; techno told tommy he didn’t need to fight against l’manberg if he didn’t want to, but tommy came with him to the festival anyway to confront dream, despite techno’s mission being against the government in that situation. tommy started to view tubbo’s cabinet as corrupt for the execution and neglecting him during exile, and ended up helping techno out around the base and even toning down the purposeful annoyance (per techno’s ooc request). and the day before the green festival, he told techno he would help to destroy l’manberg (not knowing how quickly things would escalate the next day, since doomsday was fairly spontaneous) but in the end they would never be able to find a full compromise: techno would always be an anarchist and tommy could never hurt tubbo.
people accuse techno of not caring for tommy, which really annoys me because it’s not?? true??? if anything he shows more outward affection than tommy did. he didn’t have any benefit from taking in tommy, but he still did it. it’s not really basic decency either, given that they were technically enemies beforehand. he picked up on tommy’s fragile state around dream and defended, hid him despite the fact that he owed dream, he kept him away from logsted and the final control room after realising how upsetting they were. he exchanged the christmas presents, he jumped in to defend him against the rest of the server and when tommy betrayed techno, he was genuinely hurt! he was wrecklessly impulsive in a way the calculated blade usually wasn’t, almost blowing up half his house (including almost killing his villagers) because of the negative association with dnret.
that’s not to say tommy doesn’t also get absolutely crucified for betraying techno because of all of techno did for him. again it was somewhat inevitable. tommy said it himself, he was turning into someone he didn’t want to be, he was hurting people, and it was somewhat because he was living with technoblade. he was so powerless under dream, and he liked the feeling of power he got from teaming with techno, so much so that it drove him to cruelty, with even techno telling him he went too far with fundy. in the end, it’s probably for the best that he set that boundary and left to go back to l’manberg, but ultimately it was upsetting to both of them. techno felt betrayed because he genuinely thought tommy was his friend, only to be turned on last minute once again, now surrounded alone by enemies he was trying to protect tommy from. to him, allying with dream was just as bad as tommy allying with l’manberg. a betrayal for a betrayal, absolute reciprocity.
we all know the doomsday speech, with techno’s arguments being consistently stronger than tommy’s and much easier to defend, but we can’t just dismiss him. tommy had a lot of emotional input that day, and was angry at techno for a Lot of reasons, so he was more focused on shouting than making sense. he was more accusatory, while techno had fairly focused rebuttals (which, fair, i’m pretty sure that was techno’s first big addressal of most of that with other characters). it ended with tommy calling techno selfish for destroying l’manberg and techno coldly shutting tommy out for the betrayal.
betrayal was the driving force for techno’s “weapon” speech. tommy used him in pogtopia, tried to use him to stop dream exiling him and terrorising NLM) which he laughed at when told in character) and used him for getting the discs back. tommy wasn’t just using him, he genuinely felt like they had built a relationship beyond that, but when techno acted under his own ideals that went against his, then it was over. because tommy doesn’t value techno’s ideals, because they’re ‘selfish’ to him since he’s one of the only ones who believes in them. in turn techno sees that as making tommy selfish and as such they’re unable to compromise.
living with techno was an important part of tommy’s recovery process, which is still ongoing now. he saw immediate changes from his time with dream, claiming he felt “more me-ey” around techno and genuinely valuing his company. but he viewed techno’s alliance with dream as a betrayal, and he viewed the nov 16th incident as a betrayal. because he see’s techno’s belief in anarchy as selfish. something i never hear people point out is that tommy ADMITS he betrayed techno. after doomsday*, he says “all this time, technoblade told me i was betraying him. and you know what? (whispered) i was.” he’s guilty about it, and he understands that techno’s hurt. but he still can’t see him as being in the right, because techno took l’manberg forcefully and violently, and because tommy was hurt by their separation too. techno was powered by revenge more than anarchy during doomsday, which i think is important to point out. tommy had focused in on the threat of dream, and forgotten all the trauma techno went through with l’manberg, and left techno to rejoin l’manberg.
BOTH of them have explicitly stated “i viewed him as a friend but he never viewed me as one” and that’s just... devastating. at one point we can only hope that they have an in-canon conversation to actually settle all of this, but for now their storylines are separate and we’ll just have to live with that.
if anyone has anything they’d like to ask/clarify, or additions from any side i’d love to see it bc character analysis of dsmp characters is what’s keeping me going rn lmao. i said betrayal so many times here i am very sorry for clogging up the tag bc my readmore isn’t working yet (edit SAVED)
*i actually think this speech from tommy is very important, and not looked at as much as other stuff so im gonna link it here [55:52].
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darthkruge · 3 years
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Anakin Skywalker x Emotionally Exhausted Reader Headcanons 
Warnings: Like one use of language, Reader is just very drained, Anakin is soft and comforting (duh), uhh comfort angst? I think that’s how I’d categorize this? But I tried to go heavy on the comfort and like less heavy on the angst bc my last fic was angsty too lmao
Words: 1.3k
A/N: i didn’t plan on writing this week but i wanted to capture what im feeling rn. and anakin is my comfort character and i cope with things by trying to think of what he’d do to help me, as any normal person does. so this is me rambling and basically just… emotional exhaustion is real and please be gentle with yourself if you’re feeling it. i tried to keep my language very neutral in this, as emotional exhaustion can come from a myriad of situations and manifest in many ways. but yeah taking time to recover after stressful and draining situations is completely valid and okay. in fact, i encourage it :) 
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If Anakin knew you had a stressful week or day or just went through anything that was tough for you, he’d make sure to be there for you in the aftermath. 
The first time, he’d probably want to run right over and congratulate you for getting through whatever it was that stressed you, which you definitely appreciated, but he could tell something was off. Your eyes didn’t light up like they normally do, your smile didn’t reach your eyes. He knows you so well and he’d definitely pick up on it. 
And sometimes when you’re drained, he’ll come home and see you awake but still and completely spaced out. It worries him, he hates seeing you looking so lifeless. In these moments, his main goal is making sure you’re taken care of.
He knows you have no motivation to do shit yourself, so he does it for you. He doesn’t mind being that person for you and he knows you’ll do it right back for him. So he’ll make you any food you want and bring it to you with some water to ensure you’re still getting some nourishment. 
He’s aware that you have a tendency to just zone out for hours on end. You logically know you have to go to the bathroom or shower or something, but it feels insurmountable and you can’t physically bring yourself to move. So he’ll gently pick you up. And he carries you over to wherever you need to go. And he’ll stay. He always stays. 
Very soft encouragement as he takes care of you. “You’re doing so good, angel.” “I know you’re exhausted; please just do this for me and then I’ll take you back to bed and you can rest again, alright?” “Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
Also he’s so proud of you for getting through whatever you’ve gone through that’s exhausted you to your very core. He’ll frequently say things like, “You’re amazing, my love.” “You got through it, you can rest now.” “You never need to think about it again, okay? It’s done, beautiful.” 
He knows you’ll recover from it. He has complete faith in you, of course. But just because he knows you’ll eventually be okay doesn’t mean he’ll neglect you in the meantime. 
He’s always touching you, too. He knows you like constant, slow motions because they remind you he’s with you. It grounds you. So he’ll be stroking your thighs, running his thumb across the back of your hand, weaving his fingers through your hair, etc. 
He talks quietly, too. You sometimes have headaches when you’re drained and he would hate to make them worse. He always makes sure the apartment is dark as to not strain your eyes, as well. If the headache is really bad, he rubs your temples and places small kisses on them to help ease the tension. 
Anakin is kind to you when you don’t have the energy to talk. He knows that sometimes, all he’s going to get is a hum or nod of approval if he asks you or says something. On occasion, you’re so far gone that he won’t even get that. But then he’ll look in your eyes and the love and appreciation you hold for him is clear. He’s not going to doubt all you have or be frustrated if you occasionally can’t voice it. 
If he sees you start to go too far in your own head and get panicky or stressed, he’ll distract you immediately. Again, he knows you so well; he can 100% tell. When you start overthinking about whatever drained you, whether it be something with your family or friends, your studies, your work, something seemingly random, or something immensely abstract, he doesn’t judge. He’d never make you feel dramatic for being affected by it. 
If you want to talk about it, he’ll listen. Sometimes you feel frustrated; you got through it, why are you still feeling the effects? If you want logic, Anakin explains that your body had been producing an intense amount of adrenaline for a long time and now that the “threat” has passed, all of that adrenaline has suddenly dropped off. That, in itself, is an exhausting process; it makes sense that it took it out of you. But if you just want understanding and empathy, he’s quick to give that to you, as well. 
If whatever the situation was didn’t go the way you wanted or if it brought up some bad memories, he’s a shoulder to cry on. He wants you to get it out, knowing holding in those emotions is never a good idea. He tucks you into his chest, normally placing his head atop yours and just, simply, lets you cry. 
He’s very patient with your moods always, but especially in those moments. If you accidentally snap at him he’s never angry. He knows you don’t have the energy to fully regulate your emotions and everything’s just in overdrive; it’s overwhelming. Of course, you apologize later when everything comes back to you because you feel horrible on the off chance you're not the kindest with him (which is quite rare). He’ll just kiss you, smile softly, and tell you not to worry, it’s in the past. 
And if you’re in that drained, barely conscious state, he brings you blankets. It comforts you and he likes seeing you all bundled up and safe. 
And if you want cuddles? Yes. He’s there, no questions asked. He’ll just pull you into him and let you rest. He knows that you’re sometimes not physically tired enough to sleep, so he just holds you. You might draw patterns on his chest or just stare off silently. Whatever you have to give, he’s more than okay with. 
If you want, he’ll sing to you. The soft melodies always keep you at peace and you can feel the vibrations in his chest when you’re pressed into him. 
Or sometimes he’ll tell you stories. Whether it be from childhood, old missions, the future he wants with you, or something completely random, it’s nice to listen to. He has an amazing mind and you could listen to him go on forever. 
Eventually, you’ll drift off. And he holds you through the entire night.
When you wake up, you’re normally feeling better. You’re still feeling it a little, but being with him really helps revitalize you. Now, you usually have enough energy to actually hold a conversation. The first two things you tell him are almost always “thank you” and “I love you.” Then, you’ll feel guilty for making him help you so the third sentence you utter is an apology.  
Anakin, as always, assures you that’s unnecessary. Then he checks up on you. He doesn’t treat you like a hospital patient because he knows you’re a bit embarrassed, but he does check to see if you’re feeling shaky at all. And, if you are, he’s quick to get you some food and water. 
And he makes sure no one disturbs you. You don’t like it when someone sees you when you’re in that drained state because you’re immensely vulnerable. The thought of anyone other than him seeing you brings you extreme unease. So he quickly reassures you that it’s just the two of you. He’s not going anywhere. 
Also, if your stress was caused by someone else, Anakin takes a quick little mental note. He’s not going to leave to go beat them up because you need him right now. You’re his priority. But he tries to keep you away from them in the future or, at the very least, make them stop or lessen whatever it is that made you so nervous. 
Basically, he’s kind, understanding, and gentle. He thinks you’re amazing for always pushing yourself so hard. But expending a lot of energy, especially in the emotional sense, wears you out. He’s quick to tell you you’re not weak and that this is normal. He makes sure you listen to your body and just rest. He’s there for whatever you may need.
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beneaththemasks · 3 years
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Analyzing Atsushi and Akutagawa pt.1 (I have a lot to say so there's gonna be a part 2)
CW: Dazai hate
first of all I want to clarify that I don’t think any of this is going to happen but it’d be really nice if it did... however, since BSD is a fiction story and my analysis is based on what would be ideal in the real life I don’t think it’s too likely for this to happen.
I think Atsushi should leave the ADA and Akutagawa should leave the Port Mafia.
To begin with, I’d like to tell you how I came up with this idea; 
The thing is that in the BSD fandom there’s this (sadly too popular) discussion about Atsushi being a good, strong and entertaining main character or not. Many times I’ve seen people discussing this as if it was simply and wholy a matter of yes or no and the more the discussion grows the more angry I get (but i get angry too easily so don’t mind me).
In my opinion Atsushi is not weak, I actually don’t think any character in BSD is tbh (I mean they’d beat the shit out of me even if they don’t know how to fight because all ever do with my life is sit on my tiny piano and play my silly little mozart). But leaving the physical strenght aside, I still don’t think he’s a weak/strong or boring/entretaining character. I think the charm of Atsushi as a MC lies elsewhere.
Yes he’s pretty, he’s kind, he has an e-boy haircut and I’d let him step on me with those worn-out dirty boots.
But he’s also a common person living among prodigies and demons.
(Really, I feel like standing up and appaluding Asagiri for choosing Atsushi as the mc and writing him the way he did because there’s nothing that could make my shitty life better than knowing that the protagonist of my favourite story in the world is someone I can relate so much to that I actually ended up learning more about myself through him.)
And yes, we’ve seen this happen many times in countless stories (yes yes haikyuu for example) where the plot worked as good as any other even though the MC took longer than the rest to get to where they were but managed to do so in the end (unlike the typical shonen mc that levels-up overnight) plus what people mostly criticize about Atsushi as a MC are his constant war flashbacks and how much he self-doubts himself.
So I came to the conclusion that it's not really Atsushi and his journey as a MC but his unresolved trauma what seems to annoy the audience instead.
And that’s how I came up with a fiction-breaking answer to your problems; If you want Atsushi to stop suffering over and over again for the same things, he has to leave the ADA and get some real therapy.
(Don’t misunderstand me, even if I accept him and love him as he’s now, I’d still love it if this were the real final for him bc it hurts me to see him suffer all the time.)
Think about it, Atsushi is just a poor boy, abandoned by hell itself and thrown into the street in the worst conditions a human being could be just to end up running into a maniac manipulator with a good heart that offers him a roof over his head on the condition he accepts a job that Atsushi himself says doesn’t want and is too afraid to be a part of and that he tried to leave once but failed to do so and then felt too guilty to try again because he eats guilt and remorse with milk for breakfast so now he has no choice but risk his life, face his archenemy physical pain to beat his enemies and constantly fear that he might not be doing what’s right or being good enough while having a huge responsibility on his bare shoulders.
As it stands, his situation can only be explained by that famous saying “it’s not that you don’t want to grow/heal, it’s that the environment is not apt for you to do it”. Yeah, no wonder he hasn’t made any progress overnight and feels so hopeless at times.
I love everyone in the ADA (not you Dazai) and their found family made out of scraps and angsty love is all I ever whish for, but just because he’s finally found people to rely on that care about him doesn’t mean it’s enough to heal so much damage (suprise suprise your family and love won’t always be enough to heal trauma). Atsushi won’t overcome his fears by facing them head-on nor will he become more independent by fighting on his own (actually we all know he hates fighting alone and that’s because he’s not in a place where he can trust in himself yet) instead, it’s very likely he’ll end up pushing himself to the limit to get “stronger” faster and end up loosing sight of himself.
And here's where Akutagawa enters.
The reason why I also mention him is because Akutagawa for me is the perfect example of why Atsushi has to stop now before it’s too late. 
Akutagawa has been past the point of no return for a long time now, he’s fought so hard to get "better" faster for the sake of being recognised by Dazai that he stopped recognising what’s real and what’s not. Akutagawa is already strong enough and has everything he needs but can’t recognise it because he works in a place where the more and faster you kill the better you are, so even though he’s the most feared member of the PM he doesn’t believe it because he hasn’t heard Dazai saying it.
To me it makes perfect sense that Dazai insists so much on making them face each other, I mean, Atsushi has everything Akutagawa wants and Akutagawa has everything Atsushi wants and as long each they stay blinded by their own unrealistic expectations they’ll keep risking their lives for something they will never accomplish under those circumstances, it turns into a vicious cycle where Dazai seems to be the only one benefiting from this since he now has two UltraRare awakened subordinates to fight for the sake of his book or whatever he wants. (but don’t let me get too excited about this topic ‘cause I could talk about Dazai for 3 days)
Yes I know I know, it was a very good thing that Asagiri decided to break that toxic vicious cycle and made one of them think for both to finally make Atsushi challenge Akutagawa to stop killing for six months as a condition to fight with him (that's called GROWTH, breaking out of the cage, abandoning the nest, etc).
But unlike Atsushi, Akutagawa doesn’t have many people to rely on when the time all of his enemies show up -after mori has beaten the fuck out of him for not showing results and lowers his rank to the same Oda had- to make him pay (let’s be honest the mafia couldn’t care less about the errand boy).
Basically, Aku has to leave the Port Mafia in order to stay safe, gain perspective and find a reason to live of his own rather than sit and wait for dazai to approve of his every move (the same goes for Sushi, he has to stop throwing himself off of high buildings to save people and stopping bullets with his mouth to be validated by his peers). 
But yeah, Akutagawa is probably not going to leave the PM and Atsushi is probably not going to leave the ADA but as someone who really wants to see them doing some real growth and barely stands this “just forget your trauma and fight” thing that’s going on I had to say it.
I mean, look at Dazai, it was no untill Oda told him he clearly wasn’t going to find a purpose to live that he decided that mayyyyybe the PM was not a good place to try spiritual healing.
What’s more, I’d say almost every single character in BSD is too fucked up to be able to heal in the kind of environmet they work at and that they must have let the pain sink or whatever bc they jsut don’t want to change their lives but idk man that’s fine if it makes them happy. 
:)
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aclosetfan · 3 years
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the pet peeve/pettiest opinion i have abt this fandom is how sometimes ppl portray the blues w/o any substance and/or any sort of depth like they do the greens and reds🤝
I don’t even think this is petty, it’s just true 🤷‍♀️ it seriously irks me to no end. I’m so glad you brought this up!!! lmaooo short response is I 100% agree with you.  unfortunately, I agree with you so much I wrote a whole freaking essay, which can be found under the cut. I could rant about this all day long. I don’t even care. The blues are such a disappointing couple :( I wish fic writers would cut out the cutesy pure bs that you find so often with these two.
I really think that the biggest problem with the blues (and Boomer) is all rooted in Bubbles’ characterization. I think she’s the most difficult for people to write because she’s the least “problematic.” And a lot of people don’t know what to do with her because no one can relate to unproblematic. She’s written as (excuse the annoying early 2010s expression, but it fits) the perfect cinnamon bun and there’s no conflict if a character doesn’t have some kind of internal conflict, they’re boring! They get tossed to the side!! Blossom is often written struggling with leadership and perfectionism. Buttercup is often written struggling with impulsiveness and aggression. People relate to them because they’ve “gone through things” most people have experienced themselves. Fic writers like writing Bloss and BC for the same reason because you can only write what you know! But shoot, writers still got to place Bubbles in somehow! So she’s either an airhead, or a crybaby, or too innocent/naïve, or the uwu character, which is good for a few laughs but 🤷‍♀️ it gets pretty 2D and old real quick. Her biggest issue in the show was people babying her, but usually, that conflict is written off in fics with one simple “OH so she’s actually a badass” scene and that’s like it?? It’s never visited again?? (Even though all her solo episodes focus on her accepting who she is despite what others think so idk if badass scenes actually do her justice. She’s a lover not a fighter at the end of the day tbh.) It’s understandable though. I struggle with Bubbles because I’m not as optimistic as her character, and I certainly don’t relate to being “the joy and laughter.” It’s hard writing someone whose fanon character is interpreted as practically flawless. In ppg fics you’re also juggling a big group of characters, so it’s advantageous to rely on the simpler archetype tropes. So, I think it’s easier for people to set Bubbles up in a relationship than explore her more thoroughly since she’s the sensitive one who would be into the lovey-dovey stuff. Further, if you want to give readers a break from the heavier themes of your main plot, having a cute side pairing is a good safe escape. Not a lot of thought is needed to make those relationships work. And since Boomer’s just there and also underdeveloped, they get paired together. And because people (rightly) want to stray from the predator/prey trope because Bubbles is just so Pure(tm) and the trope feels assault-y, writers make Boomer inherently good. But now you’re just stuck with two good, cute characters. That’s it. And because their plot in the story revolves around their romantic relationship, it's their relationship that is the only thing that aids in their character development. The blues make up the lighthearted B-plot (but probably more like C-plot because the greens are usually B-plot material) The blues seem to follow two tropes: 1. Pure childhood crushes—Boomer was always good and wants to do good by Bubbles and she wants to “protect” him from his “mean” brothers 2. Bubbles “fixes” Boomer, but he really doesn’t need any fixing in the first place because he was good all along, he just needed encouragement. (Weird side note, have you noticed how Bubbles is always like “Boomie you’re NOT stupid” and then all the sudden it’s like the boy has a PhD) And I'm not faulting anyone for having a b-plot relationship with the blues. If it’s done right, being in a relationship does wonders for people! But relationships are work and without the blues having their personalities developed OUTSIDE the relationship, there’s no “work” to be done. They’re just the Perfect Couple and it’s boring. Don’t get me wrong, I like the pairing (it’s v cute), but what’s nice about the greens and the reds is that each individual character has usually been personalized (Butch not so much, in my opinion, his character generally revolves around BC, but bear with me for argument's sake), which makes their relationships with other characters fun to read. The greens and the reds are flushed out because their most basic archetypes are the most relatable and easiest to write. The Blues, though, just seem to get together. Bubbles is a hard character to write, so by default, so is Boomer. They have no conflict outside each other that would trigger character development. They flirt, sometimes Bubbles resists, then they’re together. She’s the cutest thing ever and he’s a simp for it. Easy, fluffy, they fade to the background because now that they’re together what happens to them next?? Irl people either get married or they break up. Most of these fics are high school AUs, so they can’t get married, and no one wants the cute ones to break up, so they just start to enter and exit the story as convenient segues. And that’s disappointing because individually they could be so interesting. Bubbles has to struggle with the fact that people infantize her. Her ideas are often dismissed, people treat her like a ditz, and her ability to be a hero is often called into question because she’s the one who seeks peaceful alternatives, and when she DOESNT seek those alternatives, people in the show freak out and become scared. Like I said before, most bubbles centric episodes focus on her accepting her sensitive side and using it to overcome a conflict. Also, HIM’s like her main villain in all her episodes. and, shit, one of her nicknames is literally Chubbles. She’s been called fat a few times. There’s so much a writer can do with her conflict-wise. Optimism and sensitivity don’t equal naivety, we don’t have to make her Pure. In fact, it’d be way more fun to see her trying to show everyone that she’s no longer a child but a young woman. And Boomer has like 3 episodes, right? Maybe 4? Literally in all of them, he’s a bratty little boy. He carries slugs in his pockets. He’s bad at trash talking. Easily distracted. Fights with his brothers. Dumb and chaotic. Good at spitting. He doesn’t put Bubbles on a pedestal. He wants to beat her up. He’s not a good guy. Bubbles thinks he’s cute. That’s literally all we know about him lmao. He wouldn’t be soft so why would what we know translate into a boring unproblematic underdeveloped boy?? You can write him unfulfilled. You could write him stuck in his brothers’ shadows. You could write him as a weirdo who’s obsessed with bugs (to match bubbles animal obsession). In my head, if Brick’s the smart one and Butch is the strong one, I make Boomer the charming one. And charming boys are dangerous boys 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️he probably had to charm his way out of plenty of dumb situations. I also make him unluckily lucky since he gets captured by the girls in one episode, but he still makes it out just fine. Everything bad that could happen happens to him but Boomer’s like “eh 🤷‍♀️ It’ll blow over. Lol already died once. What can ya do?” So you've got a girl who is never taken seriously and a boy who takes nothing seriously and yall really think their relationship would be unproblematic??? Individually, these two characters could be fun to write if the fic author plans it out correctly! Idk why their relationship wouldn't be either. If you want a compelling romance, you’ve got to make compelling characters. 
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