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eldritch-spouse · 2 months

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How would the TCE boys hold up in a zombie apocalypse?

Putting aside the fact that Krulu and Miara would never let that happen.

[A zombie apocalypse setting is very intriguing, because you have to ask yourself a series of questions here. Are there only human zombies or monster zombies too? What properties do monster zombies have in particular? What has started the apocalypse? How does it spread?? It'd take so incredibly long to piece this all together coherently. So I'm going to go with something quite generic.]

TW: Mild gore; Unsanitary acts; Mild angst.

Morell has a very unique skill in this bleak scenario. Provided the zombie isn't too old, Morell can probably cook it in a way that still provides some type of nourishment and doesn't infect you. Or maybe it does... Just a little bit at a time. Maybe that's why he's been a little more bloodthirsty and twitchy lately. Is that a dark patch spreading around his cap? Zombies have began to avoid him, perhaps because he's a freak even to them. A zombie that eats zombies...

Grimbly is not having fun. But for one reason only mostly. Undead blood doesn't taste good, and it hardly sustains him. Depending on the scope of the invasion, he may die of starvation, or simply have to target survivors. Otherwise, he'd likely have an easier time avoiding zombies due to his speed, and killing them likely isn't that big of a hassle either. Grimbly could make a living wiping out groups of zombies for people and getting paid in blood.

Gallon would move to water bodies and mostly remain there. Zombies are sluggish in water generally. Slimes can remove nutrients from a surprising amount of things, so his biggest fear Iis only getting distracted enough to get bitten, and that the infection starts rotting his slime too fast for him to regenerate in time. He's so alert he's going vastly insane and extremely murderous towards most.

Santi is... Existing. He fucked a few zombies, don't judge him! Some of them are entertaining and clean, others just kinda... Well. He doesn't really find them to be ideal meals. Especially when he has to crush their jaws and break limbs so they don't infect him during coitus. He doesn't exactly feel threatened, but he does feel lonely and always a tad hungry. He's waiting to attach himself to someone and gain a steady stream of food, preferably someone weaker so he can act as their guard dog. Please he's so tired of limp zombie dick and lumpy pussy. They can't even suck.

Vinnel is getting a little too silly with it. Zombies can't pierce his suit, it was made by a God, after all, no rotted teeth and claws can ruin it. So he just floats around, picks some of them up and performs for absolutely no one but himself. The jester has put clown makeup on at least five zombies. They have names and they're his best friends! Except Pogo, the little shit keeps tearing the tutu off. Ungrateful fuck. Not everyone has the privilege to look good during the apocalypse, Pogo. Vinnel is also always starving to a degree. He doesn't kill survivors anymore out of desperation for genuine conversation. Most people just run from him.

Nebul, as an undead, has nothing to worry about. He will actually weaponize large hordes of them using his abilities as a wraith. Nebul is a creature to be feared during an apocalypse. He's likely the mastermind behind organized zombie attacks. His goal? To establish control of sizable portions of land and inflict total submission on those living he comes across. It may devolve into an apocalyptic cult. He's having a grand old time really! You may find him walking around with several bare humans in leashes crawling by his side. Somehow, someway, Purpur can eat zombies and be perfectly fine.

Patches, likewise, is not a target. Except he's less preoccupied with domination and more so trying to fight his instincts to put the living dead back into their graves. It's strange, his dullahan instincts don't usually react like this to other undead... He's holed up somewhere like a hermit, trying to study the source of the infection and keeping Stitches from exhausting himself in an effort to kill all zombies. Curiously, the sound of his yelling as a dullahan causes great confusion and fear in these particular types of undead. He has succeeded in controlling at least one zombie, but killed it shortly afterwards.

Belo is devastated, like any angel ought to be watching the Earth get populated by corruption that Dorem ought to have fixed. He kills most zombies he comes across and cannot be infected as far as he knows. Zombies avoid him, actually. Belo spends his time finding groups of survivors and attempting to help them fortify their bases. After all, they're all that's left... Even if they're demons, anything is better than those rotting husks. In a way, Belo feels as if he's been abandoned a second time, his existence is vastly miserable.

Sybastian is having a strange time. The zombies that have a fainter sense of smell don't pick up on him when he mimics them, the rest do, forcing him to be very careful. He's not having an easy time considering his method of dispatching zombies is very physical and he could get bitten in zones of his body that he fails to harden. Sybastian has lost many a mimicling to the apocalypse and lives mostly to protect the remaining ones, who have managed to survive alongside him. He too wants to find a group, in spite of adult mimics not being pack species.

Fank-e is having a... Boring time, mostly. He's not a target, in fact, he's loud and grating enough to drive zombies away. He doesn't need food or water. But he does need maintenance, so it's imperative he finds someone who can work in robotics minimally well or he'll perish eventually. Truth of the matter is he can't exactly die from battery loss, he may just lie dormant collecting moss and dust until someone with enough resources finds him. It's just as likely that he'll get torn into pieces and reused as armor or plating for other important machinery.

#Morell oc #Santi oc #Gallon oc #Fank-e oc #Patches oc #Nebul oc #Vinnel oc #Sybastian oc #Belo oc #Grimbly oc

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super-paper · 1 month

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How do you think AFO would be taken out?

Hard to say! All the heroes uniting against him as ~the ultimate evil~ might seem satisfying on some level, but it also plays directly into AFO's toxic comic book narrative and it doesn’t really "engage" with his character in a totally satisfying way, if that makes sense. I'm firmly on team "afo shouldn't get what he wants, Ever" so I'm not a fan of any ending that merrily sends him off into his next life as a "demon lord" instead of actively trying to rip that mask from him. Hori hasn't really let me down on this front, yet-- and as I suspected, it does seem as though chapter 419's AFO is more or less picking up where body!AFO's character arc left off. AFO's core desires as a human and the immensely fragile "heart" he's hidden away are both things that are being directly challenged in the most recent chapter, too:

Izuku, the hero, constantly inspires others to come to his aid because he doesn't hide his humanity, his identity, or his struggles from others-- people see him fighting for his life and realize that he is "just like them," and that motivates them to rush to his side and offer help. Meanwhile, AFO finds himself completely alone because he wont let go of the demon lord role and accept his own humanity. Something something We Still Need To Know His Name smthing sm.

With all of that in mind, I still think the most appropriate way of defeating him involves forcing him to confront his own humanity + weakness in all its ugliness (which Hori has already been doing at a pretty steady rate this arc!) and ultimately forcing him to take responsibility for Yoichi's death. This might seem like a massive leap from the person AFO is right now, but depending on how things go, I do think Hori could pull it off.

Anyway, as for what I would like to see:

Personally, I would like an end where he willingly lets Yoichi go (and by proxy, finally lets Tenko go). Not because I think this would redeem him (it wont) or because I want him redeemed (i don't), but because I do feel like something along these lines would be the natural conclusion to his character arc and the best way to symbolize him accepting death/his mistakes. He came into the world desperately gripping onto Yoichi, and was unable to ever truly live or truly die due to his obsession-- so it makes sense to me that AFO will only be able to leave this world when he finally lets Yoichi go. Like.... even now, we see him stubbornly persisting with the idea of conquering the world even though he feels it's totally pointless-- with the implication that he's doing this because the demon lord role and the captain hero comics are literally the only thing he has atp that still connect him to Yoichi in some capacity.

If I end up being right and the OFA embers now exist within Tenko's body, then ideally, I still want some sort of conversation + resolution between the brothers before Yoichi finally passes on with the rest of the OFA embers. I'll admit that I've never been 100% fond of the idea of reading Izuku & Tenko's story as Yoichi/AFO's "good ending", simply because so much of Tenko's story is about reclaiming his own identity (+ detangling himself from his abusers) and so much of Izuku's story is about finding his own identity-- which is why I feel the final resolution to the OFAFO plot needs to be between AFO and Yoichi, not Izuku and Tenko.

I actually don't want Tenko to kill him! I think I've said this before, but I feel this outcome would be only satisfying to folks who want Tenko to have very surface-level revenge on his abuser w/o thinking about the effect this act would have on Tenko himself. I personally feel it wouldn't do Tenko any favors, mentally, since the crux of AFO's abuse involved convincing Tenko that he only exists to destroy. And people really hate to admit it, but-- Tenko sincerely loved AFO and I don't want him to have to repeat the tragedy of being forced to kill someone he loved all over again (even if they don't deserve that love by any stretch of the word). Like, a lot of people want Tenko to take AFO out the same way he took Kotaro out, but I feel this would only emphasize how Tenko and AFO are trapped in an endlessly repeating cycle.

side note: Kotaro coming directly from AFO's stomach/womb during the 270's vestige realm sequence feels extremely intentional now, what with the constant cannibalism and pregnancy imagery surrounding AFO and Tenko. MHA continues to be a masterful example of visual storytelling and Horikoshi continues to be a straight up freak for no real reason /positive!

A big part of Tenko's healing was always going to involve him confronting his feelings for Kotaro, specifically-- all of his love and disappointment and wishes and anger. And with that in mind, it feels like Hori is setting AFO up to act as a sort of Kotaro proxy for this next stretch of Tenko's character arc (even TomurAFO's current hairstyle and facial structure reminds me of a mix of Kotaro x AFO x Toshi.... Hori really said "Tomura's final character design is gonna be a mish-mash of every potential father-figure who has ever let him down byeeeeee :)" and he was sooooo sick for doing that wtf). Anyway, I know people like to joke about AFOtaro, but honestly, the narrative itself really does justify the read of Tenko being AFO and Kotaro's traumababy lmfao...., 😭

Also worth mentioning is that this iteration of AFO/TomurAFO has pupils, despite there being no Tenko component to his personality at this time. AFO's lack of pupils are textually/canonically meant to convey his inability to "see" others as people, so I'm very interested to see where Hori intends to take things from here.

#mha spoilers #all for one #shimura tenko #midoriya izuku

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class1akids · 29 days

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Some thoughts about Ch 419 - character agency and origin

I'm way behind, but wanted to add my 2c on the debate relating to the AFO "twist" and what it means for Tenko to have AFO at the core of his existence. It made me think once again of the Shouto-Shigaraki parallels .

I didn't take it quite as bad as some of the fandom, because:

we kind of already knew AFO was behind it, we just didn't know the full extent

unlike a lot of people, I didn't think that Tenko being saved by vestige magic hugs, sidestepping Tomura's adult personality and going hand in hand with child!Izuku to fight the big bad would have been a good conclusion.

I also don't think that Tenko not having any agency is necessarily a bad thing. You see, my favourite character, Shouto is a lot like Tenko. His birth, his quirk, the loss of his family, every trauma that shaped him as a child leads back to Endeavor. He's born to be his weapon to use as he wishes.

His lack of agency doesn't make him a boring character. In fact, I find it fascinating how the story shows us Shouto clawing back his agency, identity inch by painful inch, until he's able to stand firm and say - so I can AFFIRM the reason for being born. So let's look at saving Shouto, because I do think it's kind of a blueprint not only for saving Tenko/Tomura, but to Tenko/Tomura rising to save others.

And if we remember Shouto's journey - yes, it starts with a moment of a hero reaching out to him, reconnecting him to his child self who was told that he can choose who he wants to be, he can be a hero.

Notice though how being reconnected to his child self, is not an insta-save. Baby!Shouto doesn't just take over UA!Shoto and erase his personality or past mistakes. Shouto himself has to do the work. He has to face his own shitty choices, like giving the cold shoulder to Inasa or not seeing his mom for a decade and try to reconcile who he is NOW after the abuse, grooming and being driven by negative feelings. Taking ownerships of his mistakes (even if the source is Endeavor) is one of the ways to emancipation.

But it's also not a straight path. Shouto experiences being faced with his childhood dream as a nerf (just like Tomura did now lose to AFO) because of the trauma and doubts he carries. He momentarily loses his will to fight.

For people who never had agency in their lives like Shoto or Tomura, the simple truth that you get to make choices is hard to internalize and the constant doubt whether it's a choice you make by yourself or are you just walking down the path your "creator" set out for you remains.

And how could it not? Shouto wants to be a hero and wants to be not like his father who is the No 1 hero now. It's a contradiction, no? And it takes Shouto 200+ chapters to come up with an answer to reconcile the tension - he wants to be a reassuring hero - something Endeavor never was. Having this goal in his mind, he's able to accept more and more of the tools his father gave him - his quirk, Endeavor's techniques, even gear that looks like his father's - because as long as he's rooted in his own will, his own goal, he gets to keep his own identity, he gets to affirm his reason.

This is why I want not some idealized child Tenko to vanquish AFO. I think it's much more powerful if the person who makes a return is Tomura (who is also Tenko, but I use Tomura as a shorthand for his adult self, the person who he has become).

And while it's undeniable that AFO is deeply at the core of Tenko's origin (just like Endeavor is for Shouto), I also think he's gaslighting Tomura when he says Tomura never made a choice. And I'm talking about the League here specifically.

The bonds Tomura created with Touya, Toga, Spinner, Compress, Twice, Magne, etc - are fully choices he made. AFO let it happen - but the League (a place for outcasts to be accepted) are Tomura's choices.

Just as for Shoto the friends he made are instrumental in him earning his agency, being able to affirm his existence and not crumble from tragedy, the LoV is the key for Tomura to start to claw back his own.

And that's why I think it's narratively desirable for them to be part of Tomura's endgame (also to mirror Deku who would be fully an OFA/All Might creation if not for the friends and allies he made for himself and who all come to his aid in the end).

The League is also the place where the Tenko/Tomura faultlines can be reconciled into a whole. Tenko's desire to be heroic (to play with the outcasts) and Tomura's desire to stand with his allies/friends (the villains). So it boils down into a moment of wanting to be the Hero of the Villains. That's Tomura affirming himself right there. This is not AFO's path for him, but it's him reintegrating everything he has become, his truths and understanding of the world, his bonds that shaped him into that childhood dream. (It's like Shouto's "reassuring hero" moment).

And I think Tomura losing himself to the trauma, PTSD, etc. momentarily is ok too. He lost the rage that drove him forward (like Shouto in the final of the Sport Festival) and is untethered right now. He will need to find a positive emotion to become his drive to take him forward.

But his power will surface with the right trigger, just like Shouto showing up at the Stain fight wielding his newly liberated fire to help Deku was the real pay-off for their Sport Festival fight. (But only after Shouto digged deep inside himself and went to face his mother, face the existence he was given and the hurt it caused to his family with the actual reality.).

I think Tomura will also need a "deep dive" to compare his perception of the world to the current reality. Is society as passive and worthless as his perception of it? The heroes all fighting together, the civilians pitching in feels like there is a change compared to the passive hero society he remembers. But I think the real trigger should be / will be the LoV coming in. Because is it true that AFO made him choose them?

The LoV despite their bonds being real and deep couldn't save each other because they were all spiralling deep in their own traumas. But now Toga and Touya also had their own moments of reconnecting with their child self and having that child's original desire fulfilled (for Tenko - a hero came, for Touya - his family watched him, for Toga - someone accepted her as normal) but of course it's not a magic solution.

Because that moment would have saved the child they were, but not enough for their current selves. They will also have to make their own choices going forward. I think all of them can find the reason to face AFO now - Toga still wants to protect the things she likes, Touya maybe able to move beyond his father's reasons and look for his own, but not from a revenge perspective, Spinner is loyal, Compress I think will also come.

How, you ask? Well, Kurogiri is still black with bits of white. He still has in him the conditioning to protect Tomura, but also infused with Shirakumo's genuine care. I think just like Oboro helped the heroes to round up everyone, Kurogiri will round up Tomura's allies.

And once they are there, Tomura will rise up to them and will be the hero of the villains, joining forces with Deku and everyone to finally finish off AFO (and maybe save his friends). Because even with the little agency he had over his life, those choices were his alone, and he will be able to root his identity in that.

#bnha meta #bnha 419 #tomura shigaraki #lov #todoroki shouto #afo #shouto shigaraki parallels #bnha parallels #shimura tenko #class1a reads bnha

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popawritter12 · 2 months

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How about Yandere Kuai Liang x female reader, where Kuai Liang is jealous of the reader's relationship with Smoke and kidnaps the reader so he could be with her? Smoke finds out about and rescues the reader.

Yandere! Kuai liang x Female! reader

Author's notes: Sorry if it took too long, I had a creative block. But we're back to our old ways! I hope you like this one-shot (although it has a little surprise at the end <3)

Yandere Character: Kuai Liang

From the videogame/movie/serie/manga/anime: Mortal Kombat 1

Case: Jealousy, kidnapping, intent of rescued and a a poorly narrated fight.

Warning: Nothing.

Finished: Yes

------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was his brother, he had never understood why he felt that way, especially about him, after all he was his best friend, he was the person he trusted the most; even more so than his blood brother.

But that fear always existed in him in the depths of his soul, he knew and knew very well the fact that he was willing to harm others if necessary, especially that feeling emerged much more strongly when Tomas was close to her, when he was so close to his darling.

That's why he had to resort to this; He never knew if this was right or wrong, many nights he wondered if he was really doing the right thing, if he was right to lock her up like this, to keep her away from everyone and especially from that gray-haired man who had caused him so many problems.

In his head, there was the constant struggle of whether he could have done everything differently, but he couldn't help it. Every time he tried to get close to her, there was him. It didn't matter where he was, it didn't matter the time, nor the time, it was as if he knew when to act. And the thought that her dearest brother was acting on her mind to keep her all to himself and keep her away from him, and who knows how many other horrendous things!

She was in danger, but no…, he was his brother, a man who was raised under the same ideals as him, and who was willing to honor his clan with the same intensity as him, who had to give his life for the clan. If necessary, he had to be disciplined, kind, and give his best.

But then, if he had ended up committing such horrendous crimes, what would stop Tomas from doing the same?

And why doesn't he care better about Bi-Han? I mean, he could hurt her for angry issues.

No, Bi-Han doesn't want to be with someone, and he didn't care in the slightest about her existence, much less the infatuation that was in Kuai Liang's heart.

Bi-Han couldn't care less about his (Name)!

But Smoke…, he was that person who had so much hindered her approach to him. The one who was always closer to her, closer to her, and who had her as his damn best friend.

He was always one step ahead of him.

But that wasn't the important thing now! He already had (Name) in his arms, why worry about Tomas?, and it was obvious that he was not interested in knowing what Tomas wanted to do about her disappearance, and although he seemed worried, it was just a fake felling, something fake like a mask he had formed especially for this situation

Even as his stomach turned as he comforted the man who was called his brother, his heart and mind only thought of one thing; the excitement he felt knowing that she finally belonged to him, the thought that he should no longer worry about him because it wouldn't be necessary to harm him, much less kill him.

He was different, he just wanted to be with her and he smiled every time he saw her near him, he never wanted her as a partner, he only wanted her to have her as his best friend; He always smiled and felt safe around her, however that generated a lot of distrust in his brother. It was ironic to know that it was Smoke who had introduced her dear friend to him, introducing her as one of her best friends, a person she had met outside of Liang and Bi-Han and the Lin Kuei home.

That's why he felt too disgusted with the idea of feeling so bad seeing him around her, but his heart had the thought that he was to blame, that he never left her and was too stupid to find the answers for the feelings that his brother had for her.

Yes, it was Tomas fault, it wasn't his for having fallen in love… after all he was human too!

It was his fault for not noticing it and not for having taken caution when seeing how other people around her disappeared.

It was his fault for not realizing how much Liang longed to have her close to him.

It was his fault for refusing to stay away from her when he simply asked if he could keep his distance from her.

It was all his fault!

He didn't want him to be happy with her!

But that's why he was afraid, that's why he thought that he knew this, that his brother knew what he had done, the sin he had committed and all the crimes that were behind him, but it was never like that, and yet that feeling of uncertainty always remained within his heart, even now with her beneath him asking over and over again what he had done why he was hurting her like this.

And now, it all comes down to this.

—Let go of me now, Liang, —the woman threatened, her gaze meeting that of the man in front of her.

—Honey, I can't do that. —he said, worried.

—Why you can't? Your reasons literally make no head or tail.

—It's not that, (Name), I know you won't understand, at least not now. —He mentions, the pads of his fingers playing with each other.

—There is nothing I don't understand! —The woman raised her voice—, you are the one who doesn't understand that this is just so fucking evil.

The man snorted, still feeling that fervor of hope that she would accept this relationship, longing to receive her warmly in her arms and provide him with that comfort that he always wanted to give her.

—Please, (Name), you have to understand, I can't just…

He hears the door open abruptly.

The familiar shadow enters the stage, at the same time that heavy, protesting gasps resonate with his abrupt arrival; Tomas had finally found them, or rather he had found where his dear brother had the woman he considered his best friend and almost his sister from another mother at large.

—So you had hidden her here, right? —The gray-haired man joked, an attempt at mockery going slightly unnoticed in his appearance—don't you think this place is a little… awkward for a woman?

It was a dusty room from a house that the world vaguely knew about, since the Lin Kuei clan had discovered this ruined place a few years ago and had never taken it into account due to the lack of need to resort to acting on it. same house, so Kuai Liang was surprised to notice that his brother had indeed been found earlier than expected.

It was more than obvious that this was not the place where his darling belonged, —and it was never going to be— since it was simply a temporary hiding place until things had calmed down and he could take her somewhere a little safer and away from the crowds; but it seemed his lie had been discovered faster than he could have expected.

On the contrary, the woman was happy, a smile adorned her face when she heard that man's voice, knowing that at least during that time she had the possibility of waiting for him to rescue her, that he could took her to a safe place away from this man who said how much he loved her that he had only kidnapped her for love.

The discussion was increasing in intensity as the tension grew in the air, neither of the two was willing to give in to the other, which led to a fairly obvious conclusion for both the woman and the two men present.

Tomas knew from the beginning that there was a possibility that he would have to fight with the person responsible for the disappearance of the woman he loved so much as a friend, but he did not expect to have to fight with his own brother, and not with Bi-Han, where even though it was more justifiable because of how badly he treated him, no… it was with Liang, his brother, the person who received him kindly with the simple fact that he liked him. That feeling destroyed him mentally, but at that moment he was not there to talk about his feelings.

—I don't want to fight you, Liang —Smoke clarifies, —, but I can't accept that you want to do this to (Name)."

—You don't understand this, even if I explained it to you. —Liang's tone of voice changes, a seriousness in his voice appearing as he shifts his focus to Tomas.

—You're the one who doesn't understand it.

Tomas tries to approach Liang, his arms lowered, a look that only reflected tremendous disappointment, a disappointment that in turn was a wish, a longing for him to repent and accept his mistake, but in his mind, he was determined to do anything to keep his best friend, his- (Name), safe.

—There are other ways to solve this.

—Do those ways include you taking (Name) away from me?

She, confused but with her heart pumping blood with pure fervor and adrenaline, knew that she would only be able to struggle against the rope. So, out of obvious intuition, her hands began to move abruptly. She tried to be silent, and in turn, Tomas heard the sound of the rope moving a little, so he knew that she had to distract Liang.

—Why do all your thoughts orbit around the idea of me taking you away from her? —Tomas tries to stay close to her brother —, I won't take you away from her, I just want to help you.

Liang looked unfriendly, his frown resembling that of her brother Bi-Han, which reminded her somewhat of him.

And the mere thought of Liang ending up on Bi-Han's side made him sick, made him feel like his chest was sinking into her chest just by thinking about it.

—I don't want to hurt you, I know you can take another path, be you again. You could even...—Tomas pauses for a second, his thoughts darkening at the thought of him even wanting to be close to her again—..,you could try dating other people.

And those words, those measly words ignited that anger inside Liang, and hearing the accidentally loud noise of the rope giving a little to his grip ended up overwhelming his mind, finally leading him to remember the reason for the actions. her.

He didn't do it for his own pleasure, or because he loved seeing (Name) suffer.

He loved her, he wanted her, he wanted to be close to her and touch her skin, to be able to receive affection from her and provide protection and a lot, a lot of love to that woman who caused so many things in his nervous system—Or body in general—.

Tomas could barely see the cut on his cheek coming.

He had aimed at his eye, his damn left eye.

Blood gushing from the wound, and he took several steps back.

The chain approached him quickly, and he knew there was no other way.

Oh sweetheart, there could be no other way.

It was more than obvious that the first advance was made by Liang, rushing his body towards Smoke, and even if he tried to avoid attacking him, it was impossible to always escape from him, and when he felt the skin of his arm being burned, he knew that he was willing to treat him as his damned enemy. Maybe it was fate that knew how to play with the mind of the adopted young man, or at least that was what crossed his mind to condemn him to one of his worst nightmares; fighting with the brother he loved most and with whom he had —or he thought he had— an almost unbreakable brotherly relationship. It is then that given the intention of the situation, both of them decide to attack. The sound of clashing weapons accompanied by the brutality of the blows and techniques that were used in this situation managed to generate more uncertainty in the woman who was at the mercy of anyone who wanted to harm her. And her perfectly tied ropes made her wonder how long had been practicing Liang to be able to tie such a good knot.

It is here where she asks herself why, what is the need of that man to have resorted to that? And it wasn't because the idea of love was stupid for her… no, it was because she knew very well how to differentiate between unhealthy obsession and honest love. And this, for her, was living proof that an honest friendly affection was different from one full of obsessions, and mainly, of dark desires to harm, to distance, and mainly, to possess, to possess someone until consuming their life and that they can only think of one thing: loving them and living for them.

However, at the same time that she was fighting against the ropes that hurt and bruised her skin, there was a reality that neither of the two members of the Lin Kuei wanted to know, or rather understand; both of them were equal. Both power and determination to keep (Name) safe, and even in both of them there was a certain pain to fight, but they thought that it was the only way, that there could be no other resolution to this horrendous situation. But even with all the fierceness that was presented in combat, and with the violence behind hitting or intentionally harming the other, Tomas tried to resonate with him, but every time he tried to do so his brother only responded by trying to hit him with serious ferocity, where he The gray-haired man will understand that Liang was not willing to dialogue, and was even less willing to negotiate the freedom of his dear darling.

However, in that mere distraction that Smoke had intentionally caused, a small-sized blade, looking more like the size of the palm of an adult human hand, falls from his pocket, curiously close to the woman.

One of her feet miraculously reached the blade, caressing the sharp area before managing to draw it quickly. It took a few seconds of bearable stretching—although it caused a little pain—in her body.

But a pebble fell on the sole of her head, causing some disagreement. When she raised her head a little, she noticed that the thunderous blows and use of techniques collided against the delicate and sensitive grayish walls that generated a certain smell of dust in the environment; but they were ignored due to the smell of fire burning skin and cloth, and blood spilling on the ground.

—Tell me, Tomas —Liang mentions at one point, before roughly taking her hand, forcing her wrist to twist, but without breaking a bone or tearing a muscle —, you want her too, right?

The gray-haired man gasped in protest, managing to kick out, barely landing the blow due to the speed with which the other moved away from him.

He could have broken his arm, but he didn't. And it wasn't because he had decided to be pious that day.

As soon as the ropes softened their fierce grip and she felt her wrists being released she had little time to think about what was happening, both Smoke and Liang were not in the best state after the fight, and the situation was so violent that she inevitably. She noticed the number of bars and parts that were falling apart due to the fight, announcing in an almost conclusive way that the building was about to collapse if they continued with that fight.

She tried to break the ropes on her feet, but it was difficult because the stones fell more regularly, and while the breaking of the stones could be heard, the pieces became larger and larger, increasing in size with each fall. It wasn't going to take long for the walls to fall.

She already had the option of trying to stop them, trying to save her friend or simply observing the situation. So this is where I turn to the question, what is the

true decision that is correct here. Escape; help Tomas; or try to save both.

Even if she tried to scream, her heart was pounding too hard, and a fear grew with every second she saw the danger she was in.

Anyone would know that this decision would not be easy and the fact that these were two people that she appreciated with all her heart, if it were one more than the other, caused her intention to become increasingly heavier, taking on the weight of conscience that all her heart over and over again without stopping for a second.

It's here where you readers decide which of the 4 endings that I have planned in my mind to act on. Be free to vote for the one you think is the most interesting or best for you!

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(5 failed tries later i understand that i need to put the mf choose in ANOTHER PUBLICATION so please go right there and vote :3)

#yandere #obsessive love #poppa thoughs #yandere x you #yandere male #poppa things #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #mk kuai liang #yandere mk #yandere mortal kombat #Yandere Kuai Liang #mk1 x reader #fem reader #tw kidnapping #kuai liang #Yandere x reader #yandere writing #yandere blog

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ficsinhistory · 10 months

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Spider sense and bonds - A meta about the bond of Miles and Gwen.

Hello, hello, tumblr fellas! The final scene where Gwen senses Miles in danger even in another universe has been rent free in my head for the past month, so I've tried to think of how that works.

(If you want to comment on something here, please do! I love hearing what others have to say!)

Let's go! Let's start with what we know. Spider Sense is in the movies:

Just like in the comics, I'm assuming that Spider Sense exists thanks to the Web of Life and Destiny.

(Beatiful, isn't it?)

Being a clairvoyant power of certain level, it works with what can happen and the most relevant will be warned to the spider. In we have -

a. A danger sensor, be it yours or a loved one of the spider in question. Like Miles and Jeff in the spot fight at the beginning of the movie.

Or Pav and Gayatri in the bridge scene.

b. A sort of sensor for other spiders. In the first movie, that's how Miles and all the other spiders were able to connect and recognize each other.

However, this does not happen so often in ATSV, with just Margo and Miles at Society HQ

(Remember this information, it is important.)

Which brings me to my theory.

Spider sense works as a connection and communication between the Web of Life and Destiny with the spider, which studies all the possibilities that can happen and warns and guides the spider to the event.

Most often with imminent danger.

In the case of Miles and Gwen, like bonds of compatibility, guiding them since they met and only deepening over time.

Gwen felt Miles even in completely different universes because they are the multiversal soul mates most appropriate to each other among the possibilities of the Web of Life and Destiny.

And don't get me wrong, they don't have that connection because they're a couple written in stone by some higher force. Because the Web, the Spider Sense, doesn't work with anything written in stone (including that's where Miguel made a mistake).

If they had never met, they could fall in love and live happily with other people. But they are each other's ideal people. The best compatibility of each other. And that it would only be enough: for them to coexist, to have the possibility of seeing each other, and boom! This connection so strong that it could exist was put to roll.

That's why Gwen was taken to Visions even before Miles was stung. That's why she feels Miles universes away. Of the probabilities in entire realities, they are the ones that work the best. The multiverse judged it that way and guided them and guided them, because they looked alike and because they worked, not because they were destined to do so.

(After all, the whole theme of the movies is about fate is bs and it's more about the odds and your actions on things, so...)

And you must be wondering: why Miles then doesn't feel Gwen the same way? And got that instant hookup vibe with Margo instead?

Here comes the fun part.

Our Gwen from Earth-65 is the best match for Miles Morales, the boy from Earth-1610. And Margo with Spider-Man from Earth-42. Miles from Earth-42. And as Miles was bitten by the spider from Earth-42, Margo and Miles felt that residual connection. (And so I call Prowlerbyte in Beyond)

Remember I said it's not Destiny? Our Gwen and Miles work, but not all versions of them will work. Some are, some aren't (yes, Earth-8 can still be a thing, no worries.)

And that's their fun!

They fall in love, love each other, because they are the best for each other. Because they, just like in real life, found each other and clicked.

They are soulmates because they love each other, and they don't love each other because they are soulmates.

#across the spiderverse #Gwiles #Ghostflower #miles x gwen #gwen stacy #miles morales #Spiderverse #Meta

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arkiwii · 7 months

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Saria and Kristen when they were younger they were a healthy couple but sometime after Rhine Lab was established and built their relationship started to show cracks. Before all that I like to believe that Kristen wagged her tail behind close doors when Saria was around, just a slow wag. What do you think of Saria and Kristen?

oh boy, Saria and Kristen huh. rubs hands with malicious intents. I have, some THOUGHTS about them, i want to study their relationship under a microscope alright

to start with "they were a healthy couple", it's something that i can question. i mostly think about how Kristen lost her parents at the age of 10, and of her conversation with Saria about the subject in the manhwa:

Saria "always protected Kristen", and she said that since she lost her parents, "not many have been willing to defend her family's reputation". which means, Saria was pretty much the only person Kristen could rely on, and if she was able to continue and go on, it was thanks to Saria. once again, she lost her parents early, she was very likely alone all this time, and for a child, it can create a huge hole in their heart, one that Kristen probably and definitively tried to fill with Saria. she followed her, Saria was like a lighthouse for Kristen; and that's why it couldn't be healthy.

because of Saria's views, her beliefs on how emotions are a bias to scientific avancement, Kristen very likely followed these, but to an extreme. to the point of going against ethics to fullfill her ambition and continue her parent's legacy.

this is not to say Saria ever agreed with this, maybe even before Ifrit, if she knew about it, she would have stopped it. but it's to say that Kristen used this belief to feed her ambition, to see it as an open door to push the limits of what is allowed.

once rhine lab was created, once it became succesful, and Kristen was at the top of it all, she had no need to "use" Saria anymore. their relationship fell apart because Saria could not "defend" her anymore, now that Kristen was in control. she doesn't need anyone to defend her now.

so now, i'm not saying that Kristen never had any consideration for Saria. people in these situations may not even realize that what they are doing is wrong, that they may hurt someone. and i do believe that Kristen cares about Saria, and in fact, she truly does;

she doesn't want Saria to be hurt, she actually did nothing that would hurt Saria. but is it the present Saria she cares about, or the past Saria? when Saria met Ifrit and Silence, she opened her heart to emotions, she who never had a family who cared about her, she saw this child being hurt, mistreated, alone, and she wanted to protect her. the present Saria may still struggle, but she discovered what it is to feel loved, which she probably never discovered with Kristen before.

but Kristen, she wants the Saria who is ready to step on boundaries, to ignore emotions, to achieve scientific avancement. she wants the Saria who protected her, who stood by her side when she was alone and hurt.

but, she knows that this Saria doesn't exist anymore and she knows that Saria would never have agreed with her, she knows Saria would have tried to stop her. she studied Saria, her way to fight, her Arts, and she literally created a barrier in her office that cancels her Arts, she created power armors who can also neutralize Saria's calcification. that means one thing, Kristen was afraid of Saria. she knew she fucked up.

of course, Kristen would ALWAYS be ready to welcome Saria with open arms, she doesn't want Saria to go away from her, she never accepted that she left Rhine Lab. maybe Kristen is idealizing a Saria who is like her.

their relationship is MMWAH chief's kiss I LOVE psychology and character development. what i say can work even if their relationship is purely platonic, but i enjoy the little twist it gives if it was romantic, which means that Saria had experienced something toxic and it made her afraid of love above all emotions, which fullfill my evil thoughts about Saria x Silence

#so so many thoughts about them alright #not normal #kiwi crying and analyzing character's psychology again #cant wait to see how fucked up lone trail will show their relationship #arknights #askiwi

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merge-conflict · 2 months

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thinking about Goro ever leaving Arasaka is such a fun but heartbreaking thing to think about because like– what would truly make him leave? what would destroy his faith and his loyalty so utterly that he'd walk away from his identity? because it's not just a job, being a soldier is who he is, and he's specifically an Arasaka soldier. when he expresses any doubt about the life he's had or what he really wants it's always with an air of inevitability that Arasaka will exist and continue to exist. what's the alternative? he asks V, because he truly doesn't believe there can be one. he can't believe it, or if he does he has to believe it's not worth the cost, because otherwise what has his life been in service of?

but while he's stubborn and loyal, he isn't stupid. he'll deflect v or get angry when they dismiss corporations entirely not because he thinks they're shining forces of good but because he sees fighting against them as naivety. the world is hard, but that's how it is, and fighting against it will only cause more suffering.

and yet. and yet. he is blind in a particular way, that I think comes from his success and the reward for his hard work. certainly there are plenty of people like him, who were smart and worked hard and came from nothing but were never rewarded for that because they didn't do it in quite the right way, or they weren't liked, or they were simply one among hundreds and thousands, just a number on a spreadsheet– they were never someone noticed personally by Saburo Arasaka. he's absolutely conditioned to believe that the system works because it worked for him.

so to come back around to the question– what could shake his faith in that so entirely that he can start to see the lie he's pledged himself to? that this empire, this corporation is truly no better than any other, and is just as disgustingly hypocritical and pathetic when threatened as any other power?

I can see a lot of possible answers to the question, and though I'm a romantic I can't say the answer is just love– he could deny himself that, I'm sure, and any personal sort of happiness. he could tell himself anyone he loved deserves someone who can give their full attention (and how could he ever give Arasaka less than everything he has? even for his suicidal revenge he means it as a warning, a rallying cry, for Arasaka to save itself from those who would destroy it).

but! the thing about corporations is that they will tell you the rules, and their ideals, and they will enforce them. and you at some point will become a representative of that corp and make promises according to those ideals, and the corp will make a liar of you. whatever trust you've built, whatever standards you hold yourself to in order to maintain your reputation? meaningless. and that more than anything is something I think that Goro would be unable to accept, that something that was his responsibility and his promise was broken without remorse or even consultation. perhaps he could counsel himself through that doubt, and remain in the fold, but it would be one of those moments where he is truly vulnerable to break away, and certainly a reason to shake his faith.

even then– even then I don't think he could see it all at once. he's in too deep, and he wants to believe that Arasaka can work so badly, that he's blind to the reality of its existence. so even if he does break free, then what? and I think the answer to that is that he will always want to believe that if juuust a few things were fixed Arasaka would be on the right path, or would be redeemed.

and that deprogramming will take forever to undo, if he ever lived long enough to try it.

anyway I started writing this post because I'm writing that initial break from his pov where he's struggling with it and internally he's just thinking: Maybe if I kill myself righting this wrong Saburo will understand and Arasaka will go back to being something I can feel proud of! and I want to chew through the drywall why doesn't he get it (I know why)

#goro takemura #this is a VERY long ramble under the cut please be warned #the one question every goromancer must ask: what about his obligation?#you can take the soldier out of Arasaka but you just can't take the Arasaka out of the soldier #anyway not to make another parallel between him and Johnny but they are both Believing so hard it gives them brain worms

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ctrl-alt-cel · 2 years

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when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways.

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them.

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me.#its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing)#anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx'#fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you.#you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

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splatsvilles-fashionista · 1 year

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I Can't Stop Thinking About Mr. Grizz In Space

I'll preface all that I am going to say with the fact that Return of the Mammalians as a story has a lot of problems. Its pacing is kind of wack and basically all of the actual plot happens literally at the end. I think I like it more than most, certainly more than a lot of other high-profile Splatoon blogs here, but there's no denying it has a ton of flaws.

It did, however, leave me with a lot to chew on, and perhaps one of the things it has had me thinking about the most is actually just a little gag in the credits

About three minutes into the credits, Mr. Grizz is shown slowly orbiting around earth, given so little thought that the credits roll right over him, but I genuinely think this is one of the most poignant and evocative images in the whole game.

Now, Mr. Grizz wasn't handled very well in this game, primarily as a consequence of that whole "all of the story happens in the ending sequence" thing, but I think that conceptually he is about as perfect of a villain as they could've made for the supposed "finale" of the story they've been building up to now.

One of Splatoon's primary themes, especially with its villains, has been the dangers of clinging to the past. Octavio is a bitter old warlord stoking the flames of a long-gone conflict mostly to satisfy his bruised ego. Commander Tartar is obsessed with an idealized version of the past and seeks to remake the present when it can't live up to that ideal, even when that ideal never existed. Splatoon 3 even went further, revealing that inklings, octolings, and all the other land-living sea life are in fact humanity's truest successors, and Tartar tried to wipe them all out anyway.

Mr. Grizz continues this trend and takes it maybe as far as possible because he doesn't just want to reshape the present, he sees it as something unnatural and wrong on a base fundamental level, a mistake that can only be resolved by restoring the status quo, giving the planet back to the mammals. Coming as close as possible to literally turning back time. With Splatoon's focus on youth culture and pop media, it's hard not to read this theme as an allegory for the ways that older generations can cause immense harm in rejecting the new and in making futile attempts to grasp a world that once was but never can be again.

But Splatoon isn't trying to tell us that the divides between us are unmendable, far from it. Over the course of the first two games we see how inklings and octolings grow closer and closer until it's a complete afterthought in the third game, and even Octavio, when push comes to shove, is willing to bury the hatchet for the greater good. Calamari Inktantation 3MIX is perhaps the purest expression of this, a mix of old and new, a traditional folk song turned into a pop song, complemented by three artists that each pull from completely different cultures (Frye = India, Shiver = Japan, Big Man = Brazil) all mixed together by a 100+ years old DJ. Calamari Inktantation is old and new, pop and traditional, Inkopolis and Splatsville, octoling and inkling (and manta ray), in a chaotic, messy, beautiful swirl of sheer ecstatic joy. As a song, it is peak Splatoon, clear and simple.

But this isn't about Calamari Inktantation 3MIX, as excited about that song as I am, this is about Mr. Grizz, and after spending so many games exploring the dangers of clinging to the past, Splatoon 3 uses him to show us what happens when you cannot let go.

Mr. Grizz could not accept the present he found himself in. To him it was wrong, it was offensive, and he fought tooth and claw to bring it back with him, into the past, to the glory days, and he fails. Of course he fails, you can't stop time, much less turn it back, and the people of the present will always fight to protect their future. So where does that leave him?

Alone. Gazing down at a planet he was born on but can no longer recognize. From his orbit, he can see thousands, maybe millions, of little lights along the coastlines, each one an entire city, buzzing with life and all of its eccentricities. It's a world that would probably welcome him, if he gave it the chance. But he didn't. He rejected it and sought to return to a time and a place that no longer existed, and in so doing, all he achieved was isolating himself. And now, as he circles the world, all he can do is watch as it moves on without him.

#splatoon 3 #return of the mammalians #mr grizz #return of the mammalians spoilers #rotm spoilers

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cometzblitz · 1 year

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HIHI

could you do a yandere alphabet for wally? (BTW I LOVE YOUR WRITING STYLE ITS JUST SO RIENRKEKDJDKDMFKSKFNSK)

Your So Kind Omg😭

Im Glad You Love My Writing Style!

And Yes Of Course! Ill Try My Best:]

Yandere Alphabet: Wally.

A: Affection.

How Affectionate Is Wally With His Darling?

He Is So Affectionate To His Darling So Long As You Allow Him To Give It. You Want To Hold Hands? No Problem! You Want To Stay In Home And Just Cuddle? While Not The Best With Hugs, Sure! Not To Mention He Loves Peppering Your Face In Kisses,On Your Nose, Your Forehead, Cheeks, Lips! He Loves Doing It.

B: Blood.

How Bloody/Messy Is Wally Willing To Get For His Darling?

Wally Isn't A Messy Person Therefore He Isn't Very Messy When It Comes To His Darling. It's Only Him, The Other Neighbours And You So He Has An Image To Up Keep When Dealing With The Other Neighbours. After All! He's The Most Friendly And Approachable One Right? When It Came Out You And Wally Were Dating Non Of The Neighbours Disrespected That So He Never Had To Do Anything. But If There Was A Scenario Where He Felt Particularly...Threatened By A New Face For Him And His Darling He'd Be More Then Willing To Make A Mess. He'd Play The Blood Of As Red Paint Anyhow:)

C: Cruelty.

Once Taken, How Would Wally Act Towards His Darling?

Very Loving And Affectionate.

He's Just So Happy To Finally Have You Within His Grasp! And He Certainly Has No Plans Of Letting You Go Any Time Soon, That Would Just Be Silly. If You Were To Act Out Though And Reject His Affection He Just Resorts To..Isolation, He Never Wants To Lay His Hands On His Darling So He Figure's Some Time To Yourself In The Basement Of Home Would Do You Some Good.

D: Darling.

Apart From The Abduction, Would Wally Do Anything Else That's Against His Darlings Liking?

Apart From The...Occasional Stalking When Your Out And About And Just Constantly Watching You Like Your A Prized Piece Of Art, Wally Is Likely To Never Do Anything Against His Darlings Liking. He Likes Seeing You Smile, Laugh! Everything About You And He Wouldn't Want To Ruin That By Doing Something Against Your Wishes. That's Only If Nothing Threatened To Take You Away From Him.

E: Exposed.

How Vulnerable Is Wally When It Comes To His Darling? How Much Of His Heart Does He Expose To You?

God Wally Is So Vulnerable When It Comes To His Darling, He'd Worship You! Shower You In Love, Give You Everything You Want[Apart From Freedom Of Course] So If You Were Smart You'd Use That To Your Advantage And Run. Because You'll Only Have One Chance Before He Begins Watching You Like A Hawk!

F: Fighting Back.

How Does Wally Act When His Darling Fights Back?

At First Wally Finds It Amusing When You Fight Back, Your Fighting Spirit Is One Of The Many Things He Loves About You! But When Your Continuously Fighting Back Against His Love? He Gradually Gets Annoyed, Why Couldn't You Accept His Love And Affection? He Knew Better Then To Lash Out And Get Upset, That Would Scare His Darling Wouldn't It? It'd Be Better To Be Patient That Way You Can See Just How Much He Loves You And How Much He Really Means When He Say's He Wont Hurt You.

G: Game.

Does Wally Think Of This Whole Thing As A Game?

Not At All! The Love He Has For His Darling Is Not A Game, It's Genuine Feelings! Sure His Darling Can Act A Little Funny At Times When Your Out Of It But He Doesn't See It As A Game. What He Does Find A Game Is When You And Him Play Hide And Seek! He's Upset He's The One Constantly Seeking Though...

H: Hell.

What Would The Darling's Worst Experience Be With Wally?

Probably The Isolation In The Basement? Again Wally Would Never Want To Lay His Hands On You In A Negative Way So There Would Definitely Be No Physical Harm. Being Locked In A Dingy Basement In Complete Silence While Wally Refuses To Acknowledge Your Existence Till You Accept His Love. Home On The Other Hand Is A Whole New Story.

I: Ideal's.

What Future Does Wally Wish To Have With His Darling?

The One Thing Wally Wishes To Have Is Just To Have His Darling Stay With Him Forever. He Wants To Wake Up To See Your Beautiful Face Every Morning, Wants To Show Off His Portraits Of You, Wants To Take You On Silly Little Dates, Something Like A Picnic! Or Spend Rainy Days With You. If He Could, He'd Give You His Stuffing Heart If That Keeps You With Him.

J: Jealousy.

Does Wally Get Jealous? If So How Does He Handle It?

Wally Very Rarely Get's Jealous, He Knows You Belong To Him! And No One Can Take That Away. Though There Are Moments Where He Can Be Jealous When You Pay Much More Attention To Someone Else Then Him. He Wouldn't Mind If He Were Given More Attention? But If You Pay More Mind To Someone Else And Basically Ignore Him And Only Acknowledge Him Every Now And Then, That's When He Can Be Jealous. When That Happens He Often Prevents You Leaving For A Day Or Two, Him Clinging To His Darling, Cuddling And Peppering Them In Extra Love To Remind You Just Who You Belong To.

K: Kisses.

How Does Wally Kiss His Darling? What's His Favorite Place To Kiss?

Wally Is Willing To Kiss His Darling Anywhere, The Nose, Cheek, Lips, Over Scars Anywhere! He Does Enjoy Kissing Your Knuckles Quite Alot Though, It's What Happened In Some Of Sally's Plays And He Quite Liked It! His Kisses Are Very Gentle, Always Treating His Darling Like Fragile Glass, If There Is Any Chance He's Rough With His Kisses, It's When He's Being Quick And Peppering Your Face With Kisses.

L: Love.

How Does Wally Go About Expressing His Love To His Darling?

Well Before The Whole Abduction, He'd Constantly Spend Time With You! Give You Little Gifts And Trinkets, Hell Sometimes He'd Send A Cute Little Love Letter Confessing Just How Much He Loves His Darling Before Giving It Off To Eddie To Deliver. After He Has You In His Grasp, Constantly Holding His Darling's Hand Is To Be Expected Or A Scarily Growing Amount Of Portraits He's Painted Of You With Little Love Message's On The Back Of The Canva's He Leaves For You To Find.

M: Mask.

Does Wally Hide How He Acts Towards His Darling Infront Of Others?

No, He Has No Need To!

The Only Thing He Hide's Is That The Relationship Was Forced From The Start..But Now You Willingly Love Him! So Why Does It Matter? All The Other Neighbours Know Your In A Relationship So He See's No Need In Hiding The Love He Has For His Darling.

N: Naughty.

How Does Wally Punish His Darling Once They Act Out?

Again, Wally Doesn't Ever Want To Lay His Hands On His Darling So He Never Does Anything Physical. Only Ever Resulting To Isolation, Constantly Telling You How Much He Loves You And How No One Loves You As Much As He Does. He Just Locks You Up, Gives You Time To Think To Yourself! The Real Thing That'll Do Damage Is Home, Ever Try To Leave The Home Without Wally Knowing Or While Your Currently Under Punishment Can Result In The Door Slamming Back On Your Fingers, If You Were To Try And Leave Through The Windows? The Window Slams Down Too, Harsh Enough To Bruise For Some Time.

O: Oppression.

How Many Rights Would Wally Take From His Darling?

You've Most Definitely Lost The Right Of Ever Being Alone, He Is Always There With You. Of Course That's A Different Case When Your Being Punished, That's When You Ever Get A Chance At Being Alone. He's Fine With You Going Out And Socialising! But He'll Be There When It Happens, So Make Sure To Pay Attention To Him Too.

P: Patience.

How Patient Is Wally With His Darling?

It Depends, At Time's He's Very Patient. Understands That His Darling Needs Time To Adjust To The Changes Therefore He Is More Then Patient. But At Other Time's He Wanted Nothing More Then To Shower You In The Love You Deserve So Much! You Rejecting It Annoys Him So Much.

Q: Quit.

How Would Wally Act If His Darling Had Passed/Successfully Escaped? Would He Ever Move On?

Move On? Oh God No Never! If His Darling Was To Somehow Escape He'd Never Stop Searching, He'd Have To Be Just A Pile Of Stuffing To Stop Searching For His Darling. If His Darling Passed However, Still He'd Never Move On, He'd Grieve Your Loss Greatly. He'd Continue To Paint Portraits Of You Just So He'd Never Forget What You Look Like.

R: Regret.

Would Wally Ever Regret Taking His Darling? Would He Let Them Go?

No He Doesn't Regret It And He Doubts He Ever Will. He Just Loves His Darling So Much And He Wants Nothing More Then To Love You Forever! Is That So Wrong?

So It's Doubtful He'd Ever Let His Darling Go.

S: Stigma.

What Brought This Side Of Wally?

Just His Darling Themselves! The Way They Smiled At Him, Treated Him Ever So Kind...Didn't Even Freak Once You Had Realised Home Was Alive! You Still Treated Him Normally, So Kindly. Your Kind Nature Really Is Just What Drew Him Towards His Darling. That Isn't All Though..Your Personality, Your Looks, The Way You'd Get Excited When The Topic Of Your Hobbies Came Up, He Loved It All! And He Just Knew He'd Have To Keep His Darling To Himself Before Anyone Else Tried To Take Them Away From Him.

T: Tears.

How Does Wally React When His Darling Cries/Tries To Isolate Themselves?

Wally Loves It When You Cry, You Just Look So Pretty! It Were Like Your Tears Were Gems. Given He Never Left You Alone Unless For A Punishment, His Darling Would Be Unsuccessful With Trying To Isolate Themselves. He'd Be There Right Next To You, Trapping You In A Very Loose Hug Just Comforting You. Sometimes He'll Even Make His Darling Rest Their Head On His Lap And He'd Gently Stroke Their Hair.

U: Unique.

Does Wally Do Anything That The Typically Yandere Wouldn't Do?

Not Really? He Stalks, Gets Jealous, Is Willing To Get Messy For His Darling..He'd Do Just About Anything The Normal Yandere Would Do.

V: Vice.

What Weakness Can Wally's Darling Exploit In Order To Escape?

Wally Practically Holds His Heart Out To His Darling. He's Willing To Get You Anything If You Ask Him To! So With Some Words And Some Gentle Kisses, You Could Probably Convince Him To Go Out On A Quick Walk Or Something. You'd Have To Be Quick Though, The Moment Wally Is Aware Your Trying To Leave, You Wouldn't Ever Get A Chance Like That Again.

W: Wit's End.

If Wally Lost All Patience Would He Ever Snap?

He'd Get Upset Yes, He'd Never Lay His Hands On His Darling Though. His Smile Could Be Twitching Like He Wanted To Frown, If He Had Veins There's A Chance They Could Be Bulging. He Might Raise His Voice Abit, But It's Highly Likely He'd Apologise For That Later, Explaining That He Had Simply Lost His Patience.

X: Xoanon.

Does Wally Worship His Darling?

Absolutely He Does.

He Treats You Like A Goddess/God Who's Blessed Home. Wally Even Has A Little Shrine Of You! You Don't Know Of It's Existence But It Is There! He Most Definitely Would Pray To You If He Could. But He Settles On Loads Of Gifts, Trinkets And Love.

Y: Yearn.

How Long Does Wally Yearn For His Darling Before Snapping And Just Taking Them?

He'd Be Waiting For So Long, Waiting For His Darling To Return His Feelings. If Completely Oblivious He'd Try And Make It Obvious But If Still Nothing He'd Just Have To Take You! He Couldn't Keep Waiting Now Could He? Wally Just Had To Have His Darling Within His Grasp! If You Rejected His Feelings Right Away? Tough Luck.

Your His Now!

Z: Zenith.

Would Wally Ever Break His Darling?

No, He Couldn't Bring Himself To Do That. Your Personality Is One Of The Many Things He Loves! And Breaking You Would Just Remove One Of The Most Obvious Thing He Loves About You.

I Hope You Like It Anon!

Sorry It Took Some Time To Get Out.

#wally darling #welcome home #welcome home arg #welcome home puppet show #welcome home wally #yandere wally darling #yandere wally darling x reader

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performativezippers · 1 month

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Could you share your thoughts about beats in writing, please?

OKAY HERE WE GOOOOO this is going to be long but honestly it could have been so much longer so oops!

tl;dr: Beats are when things in the story happen.

So in a mystery novel, for example, when does the crime occur? when do they think they've solved it, but they're wrong? when do they realize they were wrong? when is their life in danger? when do they know who did it? when does the reader know who did it? when is the b-plot introduced and when it is resolved?

These typically happen in a similar place in each mystery novel, because of course it wouldn't make sense if it went: (1) you think you know who did it, and then (2) the crime is committed. Right? or if the very first person they suspected did it and they catch them immediately! that's never what happens because then what's the other 200 pages of the book?

so there is relative order, and you know it even as a passive reader, so then the question is how spaced out are those things throughout the fic or manuscript?

in a romance, it's the same. typically we see:

meet cute/first meeting/first canon meeting (the pilot) e.g. alex meets maggie at the airport and they fight over jurisdiction, or jane and maura work a case together as usual but it's the first one where jane is scared, aka a new start to their existing relationship

why aren't they together off the bat? (aka why is this a romance novel and not a romance sentence?) e.g. alex thinks she's straight and they're good friends, or maura dates elon musk types and jane is, you know, not that

complication e.g. alex comes out and then asks maggie to be her gf but maggie says no because alex is fresh off the boat, or maura starts dating jane's dumbass brother

false high (if there is a third act breakup, this is the happy time before that) e.g. alex and maggie get together and are very happy kissing the girls they want to kiss, or maura dumps tommy because her life with jane is more important to her

low point (this is often the 3rd act breakup, but doesn't have to be) e.g. alex freaks out when family conflicts with romance and dumps maggie, or jane kills maura's dad

KISS KISS KISS (aka the happily ever after) e.g. alex apologizes and sanvers stays together forever because the show was cancelled, or jane performs surgery on maura in the woods and then they kiss forever because the show was cancelled

SO, all of those things have to happen, and beats are when. you can of course put your plot points whenever you want them. it's your life and your art and your hobby!! have fun! but if you want to learn "craft" or whatever, or get traditionally published, you need to know when the conventional beats for your genre are, so that you can show you know what you're doing.

You've noticed beats even if you haven't thought about them. Sometimes a fanfic feels like it's going on too long or ending too abruptly, which is because they didn't place their beats carefully. Maybe it's taking forever to get past the set-up, and then the ending feels rushed. Maybe they got to the end of the plot but kept writing little one-shots or vignettes that don't have any tension in them. Almost all pacing problems can be solved by beats!

There are two main beat sheets I use for writing romcoms, Save the Cat and Romancing the Beat. There are book and workshops for both. My spreadsheet I use for every book uses Save the Cat beats, which was originally developed for screenplays. Here's a screenshot of that from the spreadsheet i use religiously:

I try to focus on

inciting incident at 0 or 10% (catalyst)

fun and games 25-50%

mid point high right around 50%

Things get bad from 50-75 until dark night of the soul from 75-80%

Redemption 80-90%, climax around 90%, final snippet less than 1,000 after end of climax

I do the math on my word count and ideal final word count to reverse outline where i am. in my book that's going to be published, i was really struggling with how to fill the 50-75% chunk; it was perfectly paced up until the shattering of the false high at 50%, and I knew what would happen after the dark night of the soul at 75%, but my project was to figure out how i could keep the plot driving forward and interesting while the MC's mood and situation tanked for a full 25% of the book. It turns out in the most recent draft, that stuff is 52-86%, and is stuff i really love. i was able to work in other plot points earlier that had time to breathe and got the space they needed in that portion, as well as find the balance between 20k of boring moping and maintaining tension while the romance was tanked.

it's very very hard to use beats in a fic you're posting as you're writing it (which is most of the fics i post), but even having it in the back of my mind helps. For the Ultimatum fic i'm writing and posting now, i knew before i started posting what the midpoint false high would be, plus the dark night of the soul, plus the endgame. it's important to make sure any b-plots, or in the case other couples, get their shit resolved around the same times as Kacy does, so that we don't need too much wrap up/exposition after the kacy climax.

what other questions or thoughts do you have about beats and plot pacing? send them to me!

#ask zipps #writing advice #writing fiction #writing fanfiction #writing original fiction #writing beats #save the cat #romancing the beat

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what-aboutno · 6 months

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Making a part 2 to this post since people on twitter really didn't understand the post and I'm feeling petty

(I have to emphasise I am not saying you can't refer to earlier cOwen as maze Owen to explain cOwen at different periods of his life. I'm saying when we really look at it, maze Owen doesn't exist since they're the same person)

'maze' Owen doesn't exist bc it's a way that cOwen has come up with to justifying to himself how he could have cared for demons without shattering his ideals.

This is confused with cOwen have distinct personalities and missing how his character hasn't changed from the start with his idea of protecting everyone.

In his final moments he says a few important things to note. The first being "I was a tool. I was trained. Should I have... I should have." And then right after "I can't think in my head it's split in two"

It seems some takes this as 'maze' Owen coming back and fighting with cOwen on should he have killed cApo and the others. However rather than 'maze' Owen coming back it's this internal conflict he has with himself and his ideals.

Before he says this he's getting flashbacks to the early maze days where he showed kindness to demons. Something he would never let himself do in the past outside the maze. And something he would never do after remember it all.

Then he says to the voices "Is that who people trust? Old Owen" while those memories are playing. The voices respond saying they miss that Owen and he replies "Yes? That wasn't me" this is possibly where it further adds to the whole 'maze' Owen is a different person thing.

But what people miss is he's trying to seperate those memories as a different person. Rather than facing the fact his ideals fall apart as soon as he accepts that demons are not these creatures that betray and kill you at any moment.

His thinking comes from the manipulation and propaganda he's been feed. In his final episode we get these quotes which show just how much his thinking revolves around protection and also showing what years of training did to him.

He understands he was a tool that was used. He's well aware everything he is doing may not have a purpose and get he still plays this part. He can't break away from that thinking because if he lets himself he has to face the fact that his whole life had no true meaning and he was as he realised a tool. This is where we get these lines from him though.

"I did what I had to do I served my country and this is the thanks I get"

"I don't understand I was meant to..."

"I can't think... They trusted him but not me"

They're such interesting lines from him because he still feels like he has this duty to protect everyone. And then he can't understand why they would trust the Owen that was so easily fooled and trusted than himself right now who is still trying to protect them and has seen the dangers as what they really are.

While he has this internal conflict with himself the main reason we have this 'maze' Owen thing is from the scene when cMagic comes to see him.

And I think when you have this much context it doesn't make sense that this is a seperate persona? Identity? He has.

Right before it we are shown how conflicted he feels about a part of himself he'd rather seperate than accept is him. So he tells cMagic "I hurt my best friends please" and "it wasn't me I'm sorry"

He's still seperating his own actions to two people because he can only accept he did these things if it wasn't him. The idea that has to be a different Owen who cared for a demon because it really does make him face everything he's done.

So when people seperate cOwen into these two parts it's just falling for the lies he tells himself because this maze owen never existed.

Who he is after the reunion is still the same person as before. But what changes is this dramatic shift in those ideals we've seen from him since the start. Because now demons are not included and since the beginning of the series cOwen has been close to a lot demons, it triggers memories and he enjoys their company. So when he starts killing the people closest to him automatically we believe he has changed a lot. And yes he has! But you can't miss that he does these things to protect everyone else in the clearing.

When he remembers everything in his mind he doesn't need to protect demons. Since they are a threat. There are moments people try to argue where 'maze' Owen peaks through such as his hesitation before chasing after cApo in the reunion. But it's really cOwen understanding his hatred towards demons may have been nothing. Was he really going to throw away everything for the past? And so he doesn't change. He continues this path he can never return from.

Everything he has worked for doesn't matter anymore. And cOwen cannot accept that so he once again he plays the role to exterminate them. But by doing so he has to seperate his old self so it doesn't conflict with what he desperately wants to be true.

Which is his whole life had a purpose.

#zara rambles #outsiders smp #outsiders smp spoilers #owengejuicetv #owengejuice #so uhm #im rambling here #its 3am if this seems repeative or it doesnt make sense just know its because i had to drive the point that he is one character #because the people on twitter really pissed me off with their responses that completely miss the point sjsjdjs #hope you enjoyed my return on being obsessed with cOwen #believe it or not i can go way deeper about him i just dont have enough quotes to do it yet so you get this

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