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praxcrown5 · 3 months

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More Cars OCs and Headcanon:

More Doc family headcanon for a fanfic I'm working on.

This time we're gonna focus on his parents.

I use the terms "sire" and "dam" to refer to a vehicle's bio-technological parents. In Doc's era, and before, it was almost always assumed that you meant sire and dam when using words like father/mother to describe another vehicle. In Lightning's era...not so much.

Also, in my HC, cars reach physical maturity at age eleven, after they have their final growth spurt. Only after this point in their lives are they able to reproduce, and it was very common for cars in Doc's day, especially lady cars, to get married and start families at that age. It is also the age where you can legally drink, live independent of your parents, own property, run for public office, and work full-time somewhere other than a family-owned business...though in modern times it's more common for young cars to stay with their parents until their late teens or early twenties.

*NOTE* I'll do a separate post on vehicle reproduction and growth at some point in the future.

Doc's dam, Annette Elizabeth Longhauler nee Glenrunner (factory designation: CS621949346CU07221925 Cycle 9, Rotation 195, Batch 46A), is the youngest of three children sired by Otis James Glenrunner and the late Elizabeth Marie Glenrunner nee Owen. She has two older, twin brothers: Carl Samson Glenrunner and James Owen Glenrunner, and was manufactured on July 22nd, 1925 at the Cadillac Factory in Detroit, Michigan. She is modeled a in the likeness of an Old World, 1949 Cadillac Series 62 Sedanette.

She started learning internal combustion from her father at five, and by eleven she was regarded by many as the second best mechanic in Dawson county, a rare feat for a female car growing up in the twenties and thirties of Cycle 9.

At eleven, she married the youngest child of the Longhauler Family, an International Harvester Semi named Samuel. Despite Sam being on the road most of the year, they started trying for kids...but, no matter how many times they were intimate, they were unable to sire a flame together.

Diagnostic scans revealed nothing out of the ordinary with her reproductive hardware...meaning that Sam's siring cable was the likely culprit. However, when she attempted to bring the issue up to Sam and his parents, her in-laws accused her and her father of trying to discredit the Longhauler name...and began spreading rumors around town that Annette was barren. The constant harassment from her in-laws and the townsfolk eventually got to be too much...and she would attempt to take her own life. But, the universe had other plans. A stranger bravely placed himself between her and a lethal curve, and the resulting collision would see them both badly injured.

Annette managed to push the stranger--an Oldsmobile that went by the nickname "Ghost"--to her family's garage in Dawsonville, and once her own repairs were far enough along, she took over Ghost's repairs so that her father could better focus on running the garage. She would ultimately befriend Ghost and confide in him, and...much to her father's dismay, they would sire a flame together. Annette received instructions to travel to the Hudson Motors Factory in Detroit, and the plasma "flame" that she carried was used to manufacture a child whom she named Samuel James Longhauler Jr. His true name--or at least the one that everyone called him--was "Hud" sort for "Hudson" as he was one of only two Hudson vehicles in Dawsonville.

Annette raised Hud as best she could while still working 60+ hours/week at the garage. It was clear, early on, that he wasn't interested in being a mechanic...and that was fine with her; he was his own person, after all. After Hud ran away in '47, her depression got worse and was exacerbated by having to run the family garage and store after her father and brothers were arrested for making moonshine. Sam quit hauling to help her, and their relationship would strengthen as a result. She was aware of Hud's racing career: He was in the newspaper almost constantly, and she made it a point to save every article she could find, displaying them proudly on her cork-board at work. She saw Hud's crash in '54, as the race had been televised, but his sponsor wouldn't divulge the name of the hospital he had been sent to...and she could only wait for updates in the papers. She hoped that he'd call her at some point, but he never did, and his disappearance after the fact would be the start of an emotional and physical downturn, made worse by Sam's untimely death in '58. Her health never recovered, and she would pass in '59, just two days shy of her 34th birthday.

Personality-wise, Annette was intelligent, hardworking, and stubborn. As time went on, she became more brusque, and bitter...but she did her best to tough it out if only to spare her father and brothers from having to worry about her.

Interesting Facts:

Her favorite genre of music was Jazz. Like her father, she was able to piece together that "Ghost" was actually Diesel O'Twill...and, technically, she was the only person to actually catch the uncatchable outlaw. She loved fixing and rebuilding engines, and she taught classes on basic engine repair at the local community center. Despite missing him terribly, she never blamed Hud for running away in '47...or for being distant during his racing career, knowing that he was more of a free spirit, like his Sire. For the longest time, she was afraid of telling Sam about her affair with Ghost...but when she mustered up the courage to come clean, she was surprised to discover that he'd already figured it out...and forgiven her.

Doc's sire was the notorious, Kentucky whiskey-tripper Diesel "the Ghost" O'Twill (factory designation: OR881949C303CU09061922 Cycle 9, Rotation 111, Batch 2A). He was modeled in the likeness of an Old World, 1949 Oldsmobile 88 Rocket Coupe, and was manufactured on September 6th, 1922 at the Oldsmobile Factory in Detroit.

Born into a large family of moonshiners, he was forced to become a tripper at the tender age of seven (literally days after his engine finished growing). He left Kentucky when he was thirteen, mostly to get away from his shitty parents, but also to lay low from the ATF after he, his brother, and his cousin barely managed to avoid being shot to death during a sting operation just outside of Knoxville.

Not too long after rolling into Atlanta, he got wind of a guy named Smokey in Thomasville who was recruiting scouts and trippers to help expand the reach of moonshine mogul, and eventual AARC (American Automotive Racing Convention) founder Raymond Parkway. Ghost's speed, cunning, and off-road skills were unmatched, and he quickly became Smokey's go-to guy whenever Raymond needed product moved through high risk areas. He would eventually be placed in charge of a group of the best runners and scouts in the region, the aptly named "Still Chasers."

Years later, Ghost was sent on a solo mission to Dawsonville to look for something known only as the "Phantom Still," as Raymond wanted to recruit the owner to his network. He was unsuccessful. On the road back to Thomasville, he stopped a Cadillac (Annette) from committing suicide. They're both injured in the resulting collision, but Annette managed to push him to her family's garage in Dawsonville. While getting fixed up, they became friends, and eventually, Annette tells him about the problems that she was having with her husband and the almost constant, emotional abuse from her in-laws. Once his repairs were complete, Annette asked him if he would be willing to sire a child with her. He agrees...but only after he's 100% sure that Annette's rationale for doing so was more selfless than selfish.

Ghost would have no contact with the Glenrunners until 1947. While he and his crew were hiding from the ATF in the woods north of Dawsonville, a ten year year old Hudson Longhauler got embroiled in a sting operation meant for them. He gave Hud the option to go home, but the kid chose to follow him and his gang to Thomasville where they would run moonshine together until 1950. He and Hud mostly parted ways in 51' when the latter would begin racing for their mutual boss, Smokey. Ghost would continue running for Smokey until he was killed by the ATF in April of 54'.

Ghost was intelligent, cunning, charismatic...and a self-proclaimed "specialty ladies-man," being easily distracted by lovely, lady cars...but gentleman enough to not to see them as trophys to be won and discarded. He made a point to really get to know his potential partners, investing time and effort into individuals who really seemed to need help...and if they just happened to wind up in their garage at some point, great...but hooking up was always secondary to the emotional connection. He was very loyal to those he called friends, often helping them out in ways that they might not appreciate until years later.

Interesting Facts: He was a victim of child abuse. He may or may not have had to eat an entire tractor while hiding from the ATF in the Knobs, an area in Kentucky known for its unusual, karst topography. He was somehow able to convince an ATF agent that he was female so that he could sneak a trunk of moonshine through a roadblock. Had a brother and a cousin that he was close to, but otherwise hated the rest of his family. Would Change into a metallic silver paint job with expensive whitewall tires whenever he was in Thomasville for R&R. He became best friends with Hud...and never figured out that that the younger car was his son. Other than Hud, he sired one other child with his scout, Cassie, though they kept it a secret from the rest of the team.

Annette's husband, and the person that Doc thought was his father for most of his life, was Samuel Joseph Longhauler (factory designation: IHC1940KR11360CU11111925 Cycle 9, Rotation 134, Batch 3B). He was the youngest child sired to Spinney and Claire Longhauler. He was manufactured on November 11th, 1925, at the International Harvester Company Factory in Chicago, IL and is modeled after an Old World, 1941 KR-11 International Harvester Company Truck.

At the time he was manufactured, Sam was the largest truck born into the Longhauler family--larger, even, than his uncle Skids whom was an actual logging truck. After his seventh-year growth spurt, he was big and strong enough to haul full loads of corn and rye to Atlanta, and he was eventually coerced by his father to start hauling lumber. By ten he had managed to secure a lucrative contract with the US Railroad Commission, and was hauling lumber all over the southeast. At eleven, his parents arranged for him to marry Annette Glenrunner. Despite being lukewarm to the concepts of fatherhood and children, he and Annette knew that newly married vehicles were socially obligated to reproduce, so they would try every time he was in town. Two years and DOZENS of attempts later, they were still childless. Annette would eventually confront him with evidence suggesting that his siring cable may be at fault...and he would have believed her if not for his parents. They told him that Annette was barren, and he was too afraid of his father to argue. The next time he came home, Annette had a child with her... a child that she claimed was his. He had his doubts right from the start...but since his parents didn't question it, and Annette was happier than he'd ever seen her, he put the matter out of his mind and instead focused on trying to be a good father...despite the fact that he was on the road for much of Hud's childhood.

In '47, Hud got mixed up with a group of whiskey trippers. The ATF tore apart Dawsonville trying to find him...but they found Otis Glenrunner's still, instead. Otis, and his twin sons were arrested...leaving Annette to run Glenrunner's by herself. When Sam saw how much his wife was struggling, physically and emotionally, he quit his job to help her. His father was furious...but Sam stood up to him, earning Annette's respect in the process. This would eventually blossom forth into actual love, and despite all the hell that they were going through, their relationship prospered.

Personality wise, Sam was creative, timid and sensitive. He was much more at home in his uncle's study, studying and drawing maps, than hauling lumber. But the Longhaulers were a family of loggers and farmers, and hobbies like art were considered "idle work." His father would physically and verbally abuse him as a way of getting him to "truck up" any time his behavior "lapsed." By the time he was eight, he had developed such a pathological fear of his father that he took on work that he knew was too much for his body to handle, hoping to earn his father's respect...but it was never enough. Years of abuse, combined with the strain of forcing his body to haul loads that exceeded the recommended weight for his model, left him with deep emotional and physical scars that would make it difficult to form close bonds with people, and--unknown to him--sire children. Later in life, he would develop D.R.A.D, a degenerative disease effecting the bio-technology in his cab where it transitioned to the bio-mechanical and mechanical components of his rear axle. As time went on, the pain became so bad that he couldn't function without immense doses of medication, and he would choose to be humanely euthanized in June of '58 when his condition took a turn for the worse.

Interesting Facts:

He was the youngest of eleven children (he had eight brothers and two sisters...all of whom were various types of trucks). Out of everyone in his family, Sam was really only close to his uncle Skids, and when the latter died in a freak logging accident, he inherited his uncles entire estate...much to the chagrin of his father. He had a photographic memory, and knew the southern and eastern roads so well that he would be commissioned by the US government, off and on, to help plot routes for the Interstate Highway System.

Theme songs:

Annette:

youtube

Ghost:

youtube

Sam:

youtube

#doc hudson #pixar cars #cars #cars fandom #cars fanfiction #cars pixar #disney pixar cars #oldsmobile #cadillac #hudson hornet #Youtube

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alliebirb · 3 years

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designing the seven item holders for the millenium diffusion au ⏳✨

#wip #I’m rlly only doing six but imma change Atem’s design a bit so 💁‍♀️#gonna be revealing them one by one in separate bio posts!!#and I’m v excited!!!#school is very busy rn tho so idk when I’ll have them all done #yugioh #ygo #millenium diffusion au #ygo dm #alliebirb art #alliebirb ocs

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tokillamockingbird427 · 2 years

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📓 I wanna hear some more of your ideas there, buddy

Gimme the goods! 🔫

Woah man, calm down! No need for violence.... wait is that a water gun?

I've actually written a bit of this, but eh. I'll share it anyways.

Amnesiac Logan wakes up from a coma in a hospital, and shortly thereafter Rorke shows up claiming to be his Dad, calling him Leo.

So Leo listens while he gets fed this fake backstory. Rorke is his bio Dad, but the two of them are a little estranged because he was too busy with his life in the military to be around. His mother and Rorke divorced a while back. His mom is also dead. "Leo" (Remember, he's Logan.) joined the military a while back as well.

He's also told that if he recovers perfectly fine physically, then the memory loss can be ignored and he can be allowed back into the service.

Leo believes it all, because he really has no reason not to. He straight up can't remember anything to the contrary. So he's obviously gonna try his best to get better.

And it's fine. The plot The Federation cooked up is working. (Less so Rorke. He's not very enthused about the idea, but he's not the one in charge.)

All would have gone according to plan... if not for the most wild deus ex machina to grace their universe.

Leo/Logan can see ghosts. Literal spirits/wraiths/phantoms yadda yadda. And it just so happens that Elias is haunting him.

The focus of the story is technically more on Elias's struggles as a father, rather than Logan/Leo's struggles as a victim and the Ghosts struggles to find their little lost spirit.

Knowing that Rorke nor the Federation has good intentions for Logan/Leo, but also understanding that if Logan/Leo knew who he was it would put him in infinitely more danger than his ignorance, Elias struggles on how much and how little he can reveal to help Leo/Logan escape it. A danger he doesn't even remember.

A later reveal would be that Logan was capable of seeing ghosts long before pit/coma. Ever since the Luxor, he's seen and interacted with Elias, though he was understandably distressed by his ability.

However, after his ordeal, Logan/Leos influence on the dead world grows. He can... bridge things.

Spirits normally cannot affect the living world. (Though they can and di interact with Logan/Leo.)

But Logan/Leo can close the gap. Let the dead affect the living.

I was considering adding another point: That Leo is being haunted by Logan.

I call it "Logan" because it is him, in the sense that the figure is all his memories before The Pit. Because he "Died" that part separated, though they're still a singular person+soul. (Logan, the body and soul prior to the pit. Leo, the body and soul post pit.)

And hell. Maybe for SNG I redeem Rorke somehow. Fatherly instincts actually kick in and he becomes vested in Leo's safety. Either that or I'm gonna have Logan kill him. (Leo bridges the gap, giving Logan a chance at revenge.)

I need to sow in the Ghosts more. (The team, not the spirits lol.) right now I'm not sure where they can affect the plot, beyond being a background driving force.

#call of duty #call of duty ghosts #actual ghosts lol #logan walker #elias walker #gabriel rorke #I got an ask!#Faccal #kinda long #I wanted to include more details to these asks anyways lmao

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local-trash69 · 3 years

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A little break, part one (SMUT)

Chris Redfield x Female!reader

It was a warm summer day and the BSAA North America branch, they were busy as always whether it's sending teams out to investigate locations where Umbrella might hiding or training soldiers to prepare themselves for a next war.

Captain of Alpha team as known as Captain Redfield was in his office finishing his paperwork on his last encounter with bio-weapons, even though he is working, his mind wonders around.

Chris Redfield thinks about his lovely wife Y/N who also works with the BSAA even though he doesn't really like the idea of her working with him, she doesn't work on the battle field however she does help support the teams by checking on them, making sure that the weaponry does not jam within a battle, helps train the soldiers.

Chris knows Y/N is a strong woman and that she has more balls than every soldier he knows even himself. She has seen every ugly thing he has seen yet it doesn't seem to affect her.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. His dark eyes moved from the white sheets of paper, stained with ink letters and moved to the dark oak door of his office.

Chris raised from his chair, stretching his arms as he walks to the door. His hand touched the door knob and gingerly opens the door.

His eyes traveled to her sweet and angelic face, the shining and radiating smile, bright hopeful eyes, the light blush that's permanent on her cheeks. Her uniform was neat yet revealing, something Chris doesn't like.

Her white buttoned shirt was loose by 2 buttons and it revealed some of her cleavage, since her husband is way taller than her, he gets a better view.

Her black shirt reaching to her thighs, giving anyone a perfect view of her legs and her perfect ass.

"I came to drop a few things off" she smiled.

"Oh, okay. Come on in" he smiles, welcoming his lover into his office

She walks in and sat down on his chair then removes her high-heels. Chris examined her smaller form, her face showed some relief when she removed her high heels.

"It's been a long day" she smiles.

Chris chuckles "Story of my life"

He walks to her, she seemed to relax in his comfortable leather chair. Her hair gently framed her face and commented her face.

In his eyes, she was perfect, angel sent from heaven like she was meant for him, a perfect fit to the puzzle. She was everything he wanted in one person.

His hands hovered over her shoulders then gently started massaging her shoulders, instantly she felt better and more relaxed, less tense.

His glaze, fixed on her facial features and seeing her relaxed was enough to make him melt.

She placed her slim fingers on his rough and enormous hands, looking up to him.

A small pout on her lips, chuckling, he leans downwards and placed his lips on her lips.

The kiss was passionate at first until it became hot and exciting for them both. His hands roams down to her chest, he rips her shirt and the buttons were sent flying away from her, her chest now exposed to her lover.

His hands cups her breasts perfectly in his huge hands, his lips traveled to her sensitive neck, a gasp leaves her lips.

"Chris, come on. We are at work" she moans.

"Just a little bit-"

"Chris-"

"Shh baby girl, daddy will take care of you" he rubs her nipples through her black lacy.

"Chris, please. If your gonna do it. Let me help you" she stood up and got onto her knees.

Her hands slowly unbuckles his belt and pants, his bulge getting larger by the second.

"Someone is excited~" she grins.

"What? I can't help it" he chuckles.

"Your always horny" she giggles and pulls his pants down, his buckle hits the ground with a metalic sound.

His boxers now seemed tight and uncomfortable around his large and hard cock, pushing against the fabric of his boxers.

Her fingers gently pulls down the thin fabric separating her and his hard member that's begging for attention. A giggle erupts in her throat as she strokes his hard shaft. The older man leans back on his chair, a pleasured grunt was heard. Y/N drags her tongue against his shaft, giving a long stroke with her tongue and twirls her tongue around him then slowly sinks her mouth onto his cock.

Chris bites his lip, trying to silence himself but his mind was filled with lust and pleasure. He couldn't help and run his hand through her smooth and silky hair.

Y/N had no problem taking him deep into her mouth and throat, she loves watching her husband become undone and knowing what he has been through and the weight of his shoulders. All she wants to do is make him relax sexually or just a simple massage.

She slowly pulls away, looking at his hard self. He was definitely above 6 inches and he had a lot of veins visible. His head cherry red, wanting to fuck his lover straight into pleasure heaven.

Chris watches her, dreaming of releasing his seed deep inside her, bury his cock deep inside her and make her swell with his kids. It was difficult for him to watch her innocent face between his thighs or hear her sweet moans as she calls out to him.

He picks her up and placed her on his desk, not worried about the papers he had knocked off his desk. His hands roams her body, he always worshipped her body, her sweet curves and round soft breasts, her soft skin and sweet scent. It was intoxicating for him, it makes him want to devour her.

"So beautiful. So soft. You're walking around wearing this. You probably turned on some men, I'm jealous. Too bad they can't fuck you. Fuck your sweet pussy" he growls in her ear.

"Babe..." she whines in frustration and wants him inside her.

"Say it" he commands.

"Fuck me daddy. Fuck me so hard. I can't handle this teasing" she begs.

Chris pushes her shirt up, exposing her thighs and soaked panties. He bit his lip and slowly removed her panties.

He has seen her naked before but each time he is suprised but how tight she looks, her sweet pussy all wet for him, his thinks about screwing her hard and marking her once again.

"Stop staring!" she whines loudly.

"Sorry" he chuckles deeply.

(Part two will be posted soon:3✌🏻)

#chris redfield x reader #resident evil #chris redfield

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cottegecorepanarabread · 3 years

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you have a what!? pt.2

ok I had an updating schedule but people seemed to like it so I wanted to leave you guys with a cliff hanger so you will want to keep reading. I will still be posting an Tuesday and I have more time now cause I just took my ap bio exam. OH thank you all so much the likes and comment, they make my day.

Chapter 2: a good old clique game of truth or dare

Daichi’s POV

After the group ate, they watched the sunset as the drove away from shore. They sat around chatting and drinking till late. Tadashi and Kei has kept to themselves for most of the night. Kei eventually pulled Yamaguchi off to bed.

Noya whistles as they pass and Kei shot a glare at him. Suga burst out laughing. Daichi loved the sound of his laughter. He would listen to it for hours if he could. Suga yawned and stretched beside him.

“Suga do you want to go off to bed now.” Daichi whispered.

“Oh you don’t have to come. You can stay and talk with the others.”

“No I want to. Plus I don’t know the way back.”

Suga laughed and got up, “ok kids the adults are going to bed, be good.”

“What about me!” Asahi protested.

“You have your face is Noya’s neck I wouldn’t call that good chaperoning.” Suga called as he went inside, pulling Daichi with him.

Asahi went red and nuzzled back into Noya’s neck.

Saga showed Daichi back to the room, pointing out all of the turns they made. They passed the other bedrooms. As they passed past Kei and Tadashi’s room, they heard several thunks and a moan.

Suga covered his mouth in an attempt to keep himself from laughing. Daichi pursed his lips. Once they got to their room the burst out laughing.

“Oh my god!” Suga said between laughs, “I’m scared to go back down to the bathroom to change now.”

“Sometimes I forget they are that old, but I still dislike it.” Daichi shook his head.

“Hey, at least they were as bad as Noya and Asahi our last year. I feel like every other time we went to the clubroom they would be fucking against a wall.”

“That’s true, and Suga you can just change in here if you want too. I mean we have changed in front of each other so many times before.” Daichi’s mouth said faster than his brain could stop him.

“Are you sure? I just didn’t want to crowed you.”

Daichi shook his head. Suga pulled his shirt off and hummed as he went through his suitcase. Daichi was staring. He had liked Suga since first year when they both joined the team. He loved Suga’s smile and energy. His hair too. Most people didn’t know how soft Suga’s hair was.

Suga finished changing and threw himself on the bed. Finished changing as Suga scrolled though his phone. Daichi crawled into the bed and pulled his phone out. He scrolled lazily through his phone distracted by the presence of the boy next to him.

“You can turn the lights off if you want,” said Suga who looked up at him from where he was laying down.

Daichi quickly flipped the lights off, hoping the darkness would cover the blush that spread over his face.

Daichi awoke with a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes to see Suga’s body draped over his. Daichi froze. He didn’t move for fear that he would wake Suga up. His face was in Daichi’s neck, and he could feel Suga’s nose against it. Their legs were tangled together and Suga’s arm was wrapped tightly around his waist.

This wasn’t real, Daichi though. No this was a dream. He felt Suga stir on top of him, and he closed his eyes so Suga wouldn’t notice he was awake. It took Suga a minute to realize were he was. When he did, he shot up and untangled their legs.

“Fucking hell,” he heard Suga whisper, “Why do I do this to myself.”

Suga sat still for a moment before getting up and running out of the room.

Sugawara’s POV

“What have I done,” Suga muttered to himself.

He walked out onto the boat deck and saw Tadashi stilling there with a matcha latte.

“Good morning Tada,” Suga sighed, “have a good night.”

Tadashi blushed, “sorry I left early the dark water was scaring me.”

“Is that the only reason?” Suga raised an eyebrow.

“It was at first but then Tuski railed me to help me forget about it.” Tadashi smiled, “don’t expect him to take his shirt off today.”

“Oh my lord Tada.”

“Sorry for having sex in your boat.”

“Oh no worries. You really think you are the first person to do that.” Suga winked.

“What! Spill!” Tadashi perked up at this.

“Well the first time it was Oikawa... or was he the second and Semi the first.” Suga gave up and shrugged.

“Why am I not surprised.” Tadashi laughed.

“I’ve really missed you.”

“I missed you too Sugawara.” Tadashi sighed, “Hold on, why are you up so early. We used to have to to wake you up at training camp when you overslept.”

“Oh, I don’t know it always happens the first day I’m on the boat. I wake up super early to watch the sunrise. I also woke up cuddling Daichi.”

“You what?” A voice came from behind them.

The looked over to see Ennoshita take a seat close to them.

“Oh, um, well I woke up and I was on top of him. My head was in his neck and his arm was around me too.” Suga blushed at the extra attention.

“But you didn’t start out that way?” Tadashi asked.

“Nope.”

“Wow you have all the luck in the world.” Ennoshita sighed.

“What it this about.” Suga raised an eyebrow.

“Do tell,” Tadashi added.

“You are both horrible gossips. Ok well I have liked Tanaka for like ever and we are sleeping on the pullout couch and still ended up on the opposite side of the bed.”

“You have to tell him this is a great opportunity.” Tadashi smiled.

“Now Tadashi what I have I told you about meddling in people’s business.” Kei said as he wrapped his arms around Tadashi.

“Babe, I’m just trying to help,” he kissed Kei’s cheek.

“You two are disgustingly cute.” Ennoshita sighed.

“Yes, let’s not rub it in their face Tadashi. Come back to bed with me I’m cold.” Kei pulled Tadashi back inside.

“So needy,” mouth Tadashi but followed Kei willingly.

Once everyone was wake, Suga announced the main offered activity for the day. Daichi watched in shock as Suga lowered to suspended jet skis he hadn’t see the day before.

Noya and Hinata were the first to volunteer to take a drive. Tanaka climbed in the back with Noya, standing up and he held onto his shoulders. Kageyama had joined Hinata after Hinata called him a scaredy-cat. He clung tightly to Hinata as they took off. The rest of the team took turned not stopping till the sun was setting.

Asahi and Noya made dinner. Well, Asahi made dinner and Noya sat there distracting him. After they ate on the boat deck Noya made a suggestion.

“We should play truth or dare.” He smirked.

“Yes,” Hinata bounced up and down excitedly.

Suga knew this was a bad idea and though he could make it worse. He went quickly inside and come back with vodka and shot glasses.

“We should play with punishments if you don’t want to do the question or dare.” He suggest.

Everyone agreed and Tanaka volunteered to start.

“Asahi, truth or dare?” He asked

“Truth”

“But babe that’s so boring.” Noya sighed.

“Ok Asahi how many times have you and Noya done it in the club room?”

Asahi blushed, “14 times.”

“Damn!” Tanaka laughed.

“Ennoshita, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he smiled.

“Remove one article of clothing.” Asahi said and Noya had strategically whispered to him.

“I didn’t really expect this from you,” Ennoshita said has he removed his shirt.

Suga kept catching Tanaka looking at him.

“Tsukishima, truth it dare?”

“Truth.”

“Tell me what you and Yamaguchi did after you left”

Kei smirked and disappointed everyone by taking a shot.

“Ok Kageyama, truth or dare?”

“Dare” He said confidently.

“Kiss Hinata.”

Everyone laughed and Kageyama looked like he was gonna be sick. Mind you it wasn’t because he had to kiss a guy, no, it was because the guy he was kissing was Hinata. Hinata on the other hand looked a little too excited for his dare.

“Fine,” he snapped, “come here Boke.”

Hinata scooted closed and Kageyama grabbed his chin, pulling him in for a kiss. Noya whooped when they separated. Kageyama’s face went bright red.

“Suga, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Make Daichi moan.” Kageyama said.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, but I would prefer to do that in private.” Suga took a shot.

Daichi shifted awkwardly beside Suga, badly covering up how flustered he was from just that phrase.

“Alright how about Hinata.” Suga said seeking revenge.

“Dare!”

“Sit in Kageyama’s lap for the rest of the game.” Suga smirked at Kageyama.

Hinata happily scooted into Kageyama’s lap.

“Hey Noya, truth or dare?”

“Dare!” Noya said proudly, “ who you I be if I didn’t pick dare.”

“Give Asahi a hickey.” Hinata dared.

“Anytime.” Noya winked and moved to get better access to his next.

Noya proceeded to kiss and suck at Asahi’s neck. Asahi kept his eye glued on the sky. He was trying to hide the fact he was biting his lip. Suga had been around then long enough to know about Asahi’s mark kink and he chuckled.

Noya pulled back after a few minutes to reveal about 4 bruises.

“Damn Noya I only said one.”

“What can I say. Tanaka, truth or dare?” Noya had an evil look in his eyes.

“Dare, I never back down from a challenge.”

“Oh I’m holding you too that,” Noya grinned, “Lick Ennoshita’s abs,”

Tanaka hesitated. Kei and Tadashi did a bad job of hiding there laughter.

“As long as he’s ok with it.”

Ennoshita’s face was painful red, “I’d rather you not.”

Tanaka smiled, “fine by me,” he took a shot.

“I’m so tired.” Hinata grumbled and leaned onto Kagayama’s shoulder.

None of them had realized how late it was.

“Ok kids bed time,” Suga got up, “if you aren’t tired you can stay up, but I swear to god if you mess a single thing up it’s over for you.”

Everyone nodded.

Suga grabbed Ennoshita before he could head inside.

“I have an idea.” Suga said.

“Oh do tell.”

Tune in Tuesday for Suga creating chaos, Kei being down horrendous, too many mentions of yung gravy, and Yamaguchi wearing what!

#haikyuu!!#haikyū!!#daisuga #kagehina #asanoya #tsukiyama #your honor they're gay #author still knows nothing about boats #truth or dare #kisses #getting together #rich sugawara #just a bunch of gays on a boat

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bluecoloreddreams · 4 years

Text

(Disclaimer: this contains spoilers for the Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket: Another manga, as well as taking into consideration tidbits from Takaya’s twitter.)

So, okay, first of all we have to address the YMMV aspect: Some people don’t like this ship. As long as they’re respectful, I have no beef with that. I’m well aware that some people cannot/choose not to make the distinction between “real life” and “fiction”— I have the luxury of this choice, so some of the “problematic” ships/character aspects within Furuba don’t bother me (for the most part). It’s fiction, and I’m aware of this.

Again, some people cannot/do not make this distinction, and that’s none of my business because that’s their personal life. I’m aware that people dislike aspects of Akigure, and that’s fine.

Personally? I’ve been reading Furuba since like, basically the dawn of time. I was reading scans on, like, MSN groups. I remember a friend at church (of all places) telling me about the Akito reveal because I was behind on updates. It’s literally engrained upon my shipping heart at this point.

(Headcanons ahoy! Like literally, this is all headcanon/my perspective on the series as a whole. YMMV/YKINMK/Dead Dove, the whole works, if you know you know

YES I wrote it like it’s an actual research paper because I have No Chill At All, please forgive me. It’s long and pretty rambling.)

Addressing the first elephant in the room: Given my limited interactions with the fandom, my impression of Akigure from a generalized fan POV is that it’s pretty divisive. Every episode she comes up there are “I hate this kid” comments and I cry

Akito is a favorite of mine, and it’s impossible for anime-only’s to make a deep, informed call on her character. On the other hand, a lot of manga-readers dislike her too.

So, why am I talking about whether or not people like Akito as a character?

I’m of the opinion that it impacts people’s ability to view her character arc as one that deserves a happy ending. That she doesn’t deserve to have love, happiness, or forgiveness, all of which are given to her when she and Shigure finally end up together on equal footing. (Do I think the way it’s rushed in the original Furuba ending? Yeah, but hey. Sensei had like a huge ensemble cast to wrap ends on. Now there’s Furubana to look to and it’s just chef’s kiss.)

There’s a mental aspect in this, involving the dichotomy between “reality” and “fiction”.

There is absolutely zero argument that are a lot of things that Akito does that uh, listen, if it was IRL she’d be in jail! Jail for terror baby! Jail for life!

Fortunately, Fruits Basket is a work of fiction. These characters aren’t real, they’re idealized brushstrokes of human nature created to move a plot and a message along.

That’s why Akito and Shigure work as a couple and as characters:

They’re both incredibly deep characters that get passed off as one-dimensional by a lot of people (and the original anime, woof). Some of it is again, because anime-only fans just don’t have the whole story, since Akito’s arc is one that builds gradually until it hits a point where all hell breaks loose, which we are a ways away from.

So what’s the message that their relationship and characters are supposed to pass on?

Well, it breaks down into two categories: world building and thematic arcs. The latter is more important and what I’ll be focusing on, while the former is just a little spice that I, personally enjoy, and won’t really talk about in depth. (It’s that the magical realism in Furuba sets up the idea of soulmates, it’s just…. Something I enjoy and it’s really heacanony, so I can’t really justify spending more words on it!)

When discussing Fruits Baskets in any capacity, I feel like we must first keep in mind the thematic “lessons” of the series:

There is an inherent loneliness in living as a human being, since loss, grief, and hurt are indelible parts of the human experience, and learning to cope with these feelings in a compassionate manner is a life-long lesson

People react differently to the loneliness of existence, and their reactions are based upon their personalities, their upbringings, and their own choices

Everyone is capable of change and learning, if they choose to do so, however:

Personal agency is taught, but in the vacuum of positive reinforcement, the ability of a person to choose to be compassionate is stifled or outright inaccessible

Therefore, if you are not taught to deal with your grief and existence outside of others, your ability to connect may become warped, manipulative, or abusive, and this is not the fault of the child but instead the parental figure

Eventually, you will be aware of your actions, and then it is your burden to choose—some people do not take this choice (the head maid, Ren, Kyo’s bio dad, Rin’s parents, Sawa’s mother in Furubana)

Abuse has long lasting effects on the psyche and can be physical, emotional, and/or mental in nature and must be dealt with in order to grow as a person

“Dealt with” does not mean that it goes away, but that it is acknowledged and given a positive outlet (Yuki’s garden, Aaya’s shop, Rin’s art, Momiji’s violin playing)

Forgiveness is not linear

Forgiving yourself is a long and arduous process, and happens independent of other people’s forgiveness

This is really brought to the forefront in Fruits Basket: Another, when Shiki talks about how his mother interacts with the rest of the Sohma family. It’s shown she’s done what she can to make amends, but recognizes that while she can individually hold relationships with certain family members, as a whole, it's best if she allows them to be away from her.

This is a whole tangent on its own, but there’s a certain blanket of casual forgiveness given to Akito by the entirety of the shown Zodiac in Furubana, in that they trust that she’s raised a kind and thoughtful son and allow him the grace of his own family.

Again, in Takaya’s tweets post-series that acknowledges that Akito’s friends with Uo-chan, despite her relationship with Kureno (and it shows a depth of awareness on Kureno’s part that he stays away

People flourish in environments where love and positive reinforcement is given freely, even when people are in the wrong

This doesn’t mean that no one is ever scolded: see Komaki and Kakeru, Kisa and Hiro, Hatori chews out Shigure all the time, but never ceases being his confidant

So okay, that’s A Lot. But every single character in Furuba follows these themes in their own manner, because the series is about healing and learning how to heal from abuse, neglect, and isolation. Someone’s gonna have to be doing it. Point blank, the end, to tell a story there must be conflict, and boy howdy, there’s a lot of conflict in Furuba. Every personal thematic arc in the series ends up tying into a romantic one, because Furuba is a romcom drama.

There’s a loop that goes “personal betterment”->”crush”/”friendship”->”conflict”->”personal growth”/”relationship growth” in the series for every character. That’s the bread and butter of Furuba.

But anyway. To the question:

I love them because they work, they’re both their own people with their own narrative focuses, motivations, conflicts, and flaws. Both Shigure and Akito are believable in their own right in the context of Furuba, and I think Takaya did wonderfully in crafting a story where their personalities mesh well and give each other reasons to better themselves.

To talk about them together, you have to talk about them separately.

I’m gonna start with Shigure because, truthfully?

I just want to lament about how often he’s simply passed off as either comic relief or absolute trash. He’s so underestimated!

“He’s a joke of a grown man… He is reliable and I trust him.” (Another, v. 3)

He’s incredibly intelligent when it comes to interpersonal relationships, which is why he’s able to do what he does. He’s also incredibly kind—no one made him take in Yuki or Kyo or Tohru. He could have just went “ah, I’d prefer not to” and moved on. But he didn’t, made up some bullshit so Haru would feel like taking in Yuki was a transaction, and let me just tell you, I am the same age as Shigure and if you gave ME three teenagers to be the guardian of?! It would be a full on disaster.

He’s actually incredibly trustworthy (if he wants to be), insightful, and a genuinely good guardian despite his jokes and wisecracking.

He forced Kyo to go back to school, knowing full well it would be good for him. He lets a whole host of children run rampant through his home. Kids who actually enjoy his presence. He’s shown as having a good familial relationship with Rin (who tries to warp that for her own means), Kisa, Haru, and Momiji. His advice to Tohru is genuine, insightful, and ridiculously helpful.

Shigure is good with people. He gets up at the crack of dawn to drive Shiki to see Sawa in Furubana. He’s who Mutsuki and Hajime immediately go “holy shit you need to do something about this” to when they find out Shiki’s getting nasty notes about Akito. He’s who Shiki goes to when Sawa fell down the stairs as a child. As much as Shiki and the others make fun of Shigure, he’s obviously someone who’s trustworthy. And that’s not some new development, he’s always been trustworthy in regards to those he loves. No one asked him to show up to Tohru’s teacher conference, he volunteered. Like this dude loves people, he’s the dog spirit after all, and rightly so.

Does he have his own motivations? Of course! But so does everyone else in Furuba. He’s a complex character, man!

He laughs and jokes a lot because he’s projecting this image of a laid back, doofus. When you think about who he’s friends with, the whole middling goofball act makes a lot of sense. Just like some of Ayame’s over the top behavior is a defense mechanism, I believe that Shigure casts himself as a generally unappealing man to keep himself safe from advances when he was in school, but also to temper the wildly unequal personalities of his other two friends. He’s the sort of person who would just go “eh, whatever makes it easy”, and that’s just how he is.

He doesn’t mean the creepy school girl thing, it’s a bit and I think the only people who don’t realize he’s running a bit are Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru who are absolutely too stupid to realize he’s playing them for reactions. He thinks it’s funny.

Anyway:

When the older Zodiac had the dream of Shigure, Shigure is the only one who made the active choice to seek out that feeling. His soul was touched, and he decided that he wanted that and only that. This doesn’t necessarily mean he went full Jacob from Breaking Dawn, but it does mean he acknowledged there was a bond, and he wanted it.

When you get into the technicalities of the curse, it’s mentioned that their Zodiac spirits influence how they interact with Akito, and that going against her can cause physical and emotional pain. Yuki cries when meeting her, and it’s mentioned that that’s just the normal reaction for the Zodiacs.

It’s hard to say how much of their early interactions are influenced by the curse, but it’s obvious that Shigure has genuine fondness for her. She wasn’t always absolutely broken, as shown in Yuki’s backstory, and was a precocious child, one who sought affection openly.

Shigure has an indulgent personality, and is shown to love being adored. Guess who loves him! Akito! Guess who wants lots and lots of affection! Akito!

Their personalities are very well matched as they get older: They’re both intelligent and coy. They both have fairly sharp tongues when needed, and have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to get what they want.

Shigure wants Akito to be independent from the curse. He’s made it clear to her he doesn’t want to be her father, he doesn’t want to be her friend, he wants to be her lover. Those are boundaries that Akito’s never been given before, and his frankness with her and his jealousy with Kureno is something she agonizes over, simply because she’s never been given any sort of serious interpersonal boundaries, or repercussions for her actions. He’s always kept himself separate from her, because of those boundaries, even when they were children.

That’s important. It opens the door to the idea that her actions have consequences, and is a persistent nagging in the back of her mind.

“Even though you hadn’t realized it, I was waiting for that day.” (ch 101)

For the bulk of the series, the only person who sees Akito as a person separate from the curse, and sees a future where she can grow is Akito. He has an extraordinary amount of patience for her, and forgives her for a lot.

There are only two incidents that Shigure cannot forgive: Her sleeping with Kureno, and at the very end of the series, I’m of the full opinion that if Akito had pushed Tohru off the cliff, Shigure would have been done with her. Look at that expression, that is the look of someone who is toeing the line of throwing away all his hopes and dreams. If she really had pushed Tohru, I just...... The series would have taken a much darker tone.

OKAY that’s enough about our favorite terrible author! (Okay, an aside, Shigure, please share your work ethic, you goof off so much but you’ve published so many things…how…)

ONTO AKITO!

“I’ve finally realized… she hated her own shallowness all this time, from the very start.” // “It’s frightening because you have no choices.” (ch 121)

A lot of people dislike Akito because she, for the bulk of the manga, is violent, manipulative and just downright unpleasant. And that’s fine, but it’s not the point of her arc or the themes of the manga. (It is, however, the point of Rin’s: you don’t have to forgive everyone.)

She’s not the only violent person in the series. If we as readers can forgive Uo-chan and Kyoko, or even Hana-chan for her moment of violence, why can we not extend the same grace to Akito?

Violence is often shown as a knee-jerk reaction to fear and sadness: Kyoko, Uo, Hana, Kyo, Rin, and Akito all react violently to negative situations and feelings. Even Kisa reacts violently when she’s at her worst, biting both Haru and Tohru when she’s in her tiger form, which is shown to actually cause pain like a real tiger would. (It’s played for laughs, but has anyone been bitten for realsies by a house cat? That hurts! How much more would a house-cat sized tiger hurt!!!)

Out of all of them, Hanajima and Kisa are the only characters to show immediate remorse, because they have what the others don’t: A positive support system. Once positive role models and support systems are in place, all of the others begin to learn how to react differently and ease out of the knee-jerk reactions that were ingrained in them.

It’s made explicit in the manga that you have to be taught how to react positively, you have to learn and choose to be good, to be friendly, to love yourself outside of others’ perceptions of yourself. Look at Yuki’s arc. Look at Uo-chan’s. Kyoko’s.

Yuki sums it up nicely in the last chapter of the manga, where he tells Tohru that she taught the Zodiac how to become human. She allows them to grow into people who can make the choice to be loving, compassionate individuals.

Just because Akito doesn’t interact positively with Tohru for the bulk of the manga, it doesn’t make it any less true:

Akito is kept in a juvenile state of being: No one teaches her to suck it up, that the world exists outside of herself, that other people are people and not things. In fact, she’s actively encouraged to act the way she does. She’s incredibly broken, between the maids of the Sohma estate just… allowing her to do whatever the fuck she wants and her absolutely jacked up relationship with Ren and Akira. She has no moral compass at all. No one bothers to teach her that her actions have serious consequences.

She knows, in a roundabout way that hey, these people don’t like me. There’s a serious mental dissonance between what she latently knows—these are all people with no connection to her other than the bond of the curse. This is why Tohru is able to break through to her at the climax of the manga:

She knows she’s wrong, but no one has ever told her she’s wrong but understood why she’s doing it. Akito just didn’t have the words to explain herself. What do children do when they cannot communicate? They lash out. Kids will bite, scratch, yell, kick, fall to the floor and have screaming tantrums out of frustration. Eventually, most kids learn that there are other ways to express frustration, and move along. (Not all, though, but most.)

Akito was taught that this is acceptable, allowable, and is her right as god. She is actively broken and kept that way through the neglect of the Sohma family maids, Ren’s abuse, and how Akira framed her role in the Zodiac.

I can go on and on and on and on why the way Akito was treated for her role in the Zodiac by her parents and the rest of the Sohma estate was just awful. I hate it, it’s terrible, she never had a chance to learn and grow and be the genuinely thoughtful woman we know she grows into.

She doesn’t force her path of forgiveness onto others and is fully cognizant of what she did, the repercussions of her actions, and lives her entire life after the curse breaks trying to right what she did wrong.

“Even if she gets hurt, she says she deserves it. She tells me not to let it bother me, but… I’ve always, always loved her so much.” (Another, ch. 13)

Tohru opens the door for Akito. She extends her hand, offers her friendship despite having seen the absolute worst of Akito. She tells Akito that everyone is lonely, everyone wants bonds, and acknowledges Akito’s worst fears, that Akito herself is selfish and dirty for wanting something assured and unending because she, Tohru, herself is dirty and selfish. Tohru knows what Akito has done, knows she’s injured some of her beloved friends, had plans to lock up Kyo, hurt Hatori.

Tohru still forgives her. One of Tohru’s striking traits in the manga is that she is suffering, every day, she struggles with the grief of losing her mother and the fear of being alone in the world. Through nothing but her own empathy and realization that loneliness is universal, she’s able to forgive people. She forgives Akito and cares for her, and through Tohru, Akito is introduced to the realization that she’s been wrong and that maybe, she shouldn’t be forgiven.

Shigure also forgives her, and this is the crux of their ship.

To me, that itself is wildly important.

They’ve always circled around each other, and Shigure has always been waiting for Akito to be able to come to him again, in full control of her life and choices. He wants Akito the woman, not Akito the god.

He’s been waiting for the day Akito can meet him as an equal. Akito wants it too, and has wanted him to turn and see her for a very very long time. But she’s been terrified, the entire time, that when he does see her as herself, Shigure won’t like what he sees, and will leave. She’s aware of what she’s done post-curse, she’s aware of the impacts it will have on the former Zodiac members, and she’s aware that once the “bonds” of god and the animals is gone, there may not be anyone left for her.

Neither of them are under any illusions at the end of the series: Akito knows she has to atone for what she did, Shigure knows she has to learn to grow into a person who can function alone. They both know that there are people who are against them changing the oppressive structure of the Sohma family.

Neither of them care. There are things that they want, together, and it’s enough. There’s a whole new world for them to explore and learn about. And in Furubana, this is shown to be a lifelong effort on their parts:

“She said after meeting me, she learned so many things for the first time. She smiled happily as she said it.” (Another, #13)

To close, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the curse and Shigure, and how he set things in motion.

Without Shigure, the curse would have devolved on its own, yes, but the circumstances would not have allowed for the freedom the Zodiac had at the end of the manga. It would not have ended with Akito being able to learn and live freely. Allowing Tohru into the Sohma family cracked open a door to compassion and kindness none of them had ever experienced before, because the Sohma family seems to exist in a vacuum of stability and love.

It wasn’t that Shigure knew instantly that Tohru was kind and loving and thoughtful, if anything, his read on her was “completely normal, albeit strange, teenage girl who obviously has a rough life”. But she was normal, she was from outside the Sohmas, and he knew that was enough. No one in the family was stepping up to change the status quo and how stifling and abusive it was, so he did it himself.

He did it because he loved Akito.

Not because he felt bad for himself, or Hatori, or any of the others, but merely because he loved her to the point of manipulation. It backfired in his face, because he got a big ol’ dose of “loving and respecting” juice from Tohru, but he still got the end he wanted.

What I mean to say is best summarized in chapter 123:

“It would be nice to live in a kind world, without any troubles, without any fear, without hurting anybody, without ever being hurt, only doing the right thing. I wish I could reach this kind world by the shortest path possible. … “That’s wrong”, or “that’s stupid”: If it’s someone else’s life it’s so easy to make such irresponsible comments. ...It would be great, but it doesn’t exist. … Little by little, walking one step at a time, is all you can do.”

We get to experience the roughest part of the path with Akito and Shigure, we got to watch them be terrible people who were lonely and in want of love struggle and learn how to get up and move on.

They tease each other, Shigure is thoughtful of the distinction between “the person Akito was raised to be” and “the person who Akito is”. He’s seen her at her messiest, and she’s seen him at his most jealous. They still chose each other, despite the hurt they caused each other, and others. They make up for it, reflect, and live a life that demonstrates that they have learned. They have friends who are thoughtful and loving and would not hesitate to drop everything and help them, lend an ear when they’re frustrated, help them not to make the same mistakes.

And then we get to see them be wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving parents in Furubana.

We got to see their adorable, kind, compassionate child be friends with the children of the people Akito hurt, because everyone in the former Zodiac’s family collectively decided “never again, no”.

Their child adores them. Shiki in Furubana #13 radiates love for Akito and Shigure the same way Mutsuki and Hajime do.

They are genuinely good parents, even when they tease Shiki, and I think that is testament for how good they are for each other and how much they’ve changed as adults.

I think that’s enough of a reason to ship them, don’t you?

#Mitkun writes stuff #fruits basket manga spoilers #fruits basket another #fruits basket spoilers #akigure #fruits basket akito #fruits basket shigure

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aconstantstateofbladerunner · 5 years

Text

Blade’s MHA Fanfiction Masterlist

Greetings friends! This is the post listing all my past, present, and future My Hero Academia fanfictions. Links are provided to what has been published so far. Titles, summaries, and chapter counts are not final and will be updated as they change. Please feel free to ask me about any and all the stories described here, not just the ones that have been published. Thanks for reading!

(This currently version 14 of the masterlist, updated 9/9/2020)

Link to my Ao3 if you want to browse there: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aconstantstateofbladerunner/works

The Butterfly Continuity

- Butterfly - (Complete) The first over-night trip off campus since the training camp was supposed to be a fun break from more intense work back home. But between a bleak introduction to chaos theory, a chilly reception from the locals, and the looming threat of a villain attack, Izuku has too much on his mind to properly enjoy the fresh air. But those worries are a light breeze compared to the hurricane that accompanies what he finds on the outskirts of town.

Or rather, what finds him.

Izuku is stalked by a powerful creature who only seems to be interested in him.

32 chapters. It’s done. Beware major character death.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17165612/chapters/40360787

- Moth - So how does Hisashi fit into this aftermath?

11 chapters. Outline complete. There will be angst.

- Exit Light [hiatus] - A young Toshinori is just starting to feel truly at ease with his master and his role as her apprentice. But uncomfortable truths come to light once a villain threatens the lives of their entire town with all-consuming darkness. “Consuming” in this case is literal.

A prequel story that is referenced in Butterfly, but neither are required to understand the other.

4/9 chapters. Major events outlined. Warning for heavy violence in ch. 2.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233598/chapters/45733516

For Izuku (Bio Dad Might AU)

- For Kurou - For their own safety, Toshinori must remove himself from the lives of his long-time partner and newborn son. But they’re never far from his mind. For years, not a day goes by where he doesn’t write a letter or set aside a gift for their eventual reunion. It isn’t until he’s spent some time with his chosen successor, a young quirkless boy named Midoriya Izuku, that Toshinori’s consistent dedication to his family is interrupted.

Canon divergence fic. Streamlined to the important stuff because there are already an abundance of fics like this and I want to focus on my original stuff. Toshinko. Family angst with a happy ending.

3/30 chapters. Strap in.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882870/chapters/54692104

- For a Wider World - Izuku hasn’t decided yet if he wants to go public with his heritage. On the one hand, he want to make a name for himself, not just as the son of All Might. On the other, he hates to lie and lying about One for All is hard enough. Most of the people who know the truth will support whatever decision he makes. Sir Nighteye isn’t one of them.

10+ chapters. Basic outline complete. Internship arc.

- For an End to the Pain - UA is under investigation by the Hero Commission, the world knows about the son of All Might, and the fight with Overhaul has left Izuku severe wounds both physical and mental. As the weight of all these drastic life changes bare down on him, for the first time ever, he starts to question if he really wants to be a hero.

8-10 chapters. Basic outline complete. A whole new level of angst.

- Son Rise - Rumors have been circling of a secret All Might lovechild for a while now. A new rumor says that All Might will reveal the child as his successor at the next International Heroes’ Summit in Hawaii. The rest of the hero community has mixed feelings.

Or, “Izuku goes to another country with his dad and has a bad time.” Shameless excuse for me to gush about how cool Hawaii was while also hurting my boy. Some Toshinko on the side. Family angst with a happy ending.

11 chapters. Major events outlined.

Single Fic Dad Might

- Angel’s Egg - Orphaned babies showing up on the stoop of hero agencies is unfortunately not all that rare. And egg the size of a baby is entirely unheard of. Is the child within just the result of an unusual quirk, or something of far greater, supernatural origins?

Kinda out there au where Izuku hatches from an egg and is raised by All Might. That question is posed to me, because I’m not yet sure if I want to go down the mundane or supernatural path; I have potential endings for both.

4/20 chapters. Structure similar to Full Metal Jacket in that the story will shift gears completely in the second half. Heavy violence and potential character death

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21009755/chapters/49966448

- The Wails in the Walls - Toshinori was convinced his cottage was haunted from the day he moved in. He could easily blame the missing objects and little bites in his food on pests, but that wouldn’t explain the faint sound of crying some nights.

Izuku is a tiny child living in Toshi’s walls who survives by ‘borrowing’ little things. Gonna jump between angst and fluffy like a seesaw. Idea originally by @abyssal-glory who graciously gave me permission to use it.

5/21 chapters. Violence, reference to death, and bugs.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392885/chapters/48368857

- Hanakotoba - Toshinori always wanted a family, but he wanted to be a hero even more. He figured the family thing would happen naturally, but as the years go by and it doesn’t, he finds himself sinking further and further into longing. And then he finds the end of his sorrows in his own garden.

Princess Kaguya au prompted by @agent-jaselin. This one is for sure supernatural.

18 chapters. Outline complete. One scene of attempted sexual assault.

- Son of the Sun - Of all the gods, the Sun is the most generous with its gifts

Fantasy au where Izuku is the only child of the legendary son god Toshinori, and gets swept up in the apocalyptic destruction caused by a few other gods’ petty disagreements.

Outline incomplete, no chapter estimate. This is the new roadtrip au.

Miscellaneous Multi-Chapter

- All but One - Toshinori is given the opportunity to undo over two decades of suffering by going back in time and ending All For One. And that’s just the beginning. He goes on to use his knowledge of the future to correct errors of the past, and makes his new reality infinitely better than the one he came from. Better in every way but one.

Used to be a oneshot, now multi-chapter. Open to making it an au but not sure yet. Based on a bittersweet post by @skygemspeaks

10/18 chapters. This was supposed to be short. Warning for some violence.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796387/chapters/44597800

- The Necromancer - An unseen villain sets hoards of undead upon Japan. As a designated disaster-relief shelter and a small fortress in its own right, UA becomes host to both the heroes working to stop the onslaught, and several hundred terrified civilians. Supplies and space shrink with each passing day, and it seems like the end to the nightmare is nowhere in sight. Someone is bound to take matters into their own hands.

Zombie Apocalypse AU. Most of the kids stay within the walls to care for panicking civilians, while the heroes take the fight to the outside. At first.

10+ chapters. Some events planned.

- Habitus - Tragedy forces Izuku back into the custody of his father, who he hasn’t seen in years and has a new family of his own. They uproot him from UA, separate him from his friends, and, worst of all, expect him to be happy about it.

Formerly called Where the Heart is. Izuku’s step family from America claims custody of him after Inko passes away, and are less than sympathetic to his situation. He rebels in every way he can, meanwhile All Might and the other teachers comb for any legal loopholes to get him back.

Less than 10 chapters. Outlined.

Oneshots

- Spiked - There’s no such thing as a free meal.

Gore headcanon request that got out of hand. Please read the tags.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062174

- The Road that went Forever - Izuku’s Papa picked him up from kindergarten that day. He hadn’t done that in a while.

Usually, I write Hisashi as a normal, emotionally distant father. This is not one of those stories. A very sad two-shot.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754498/chapters/51902485

And that’s all for now! Again, please feel free to ask me about any of these ideas!

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #the fic masterlist #butterfly #exit light #all but one #the wails in the walls #spiked #aconstantstateoffanfiction #angel’s egg #the road that went forever #for kurou

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

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Infinity War (6)

CHAPTER 6: TRUST

Loki & The Avengers

Summary: A work inspired by @queencfthestarsdrfoster ‘s post of the universe where Loki is alive and Thor is avenged.

Series: Will contain all- and more- that we saw in Infinity War. Will not contain smut and fluff for obvious reasons. Might contain weird humor though.

Chapter content: story time. emotions time. new science bros time?

Warnings: talk about the past

Word count: So my cousin wanted to make sure I knew how to smoke before I wasted his precious joint. I wasted good five drags of his cigarette because I kept ‘mouth-fagging’ (heard that for the first time) but when it came to the joint, I kinda (in my sister-in-law’s words) aced it. Now, this in no way means any of you little ones reading this are encouraged to do this. I am a twenty-five year old idiot who does not know how to breathe right. You guys are better than me. And I kinda impressed my cousin by showing them Tari’s little pet. Hehe.

MASTERLIST & Taglist in bio, my love

“We’ll be landing in ten minutes. You better have something up your sleeve for these people.”

Loki smirks at Rhodey. “Is our beloved Captain going to be there?” The curiosity is laced with pure mischief. So much that even Tony can smell it from the cockpit.

Rhodey crosses his arms across his chest and tilts his head at the God. “What is it with you and Steve? You have a crush on him or something?”

Loki shrugs and leaves the silence to be taken as whatever answer they please. Giving up, Rhodey walks and seats himself down in the cockpit next to Tony, who does not seem as welcoming to the company. “What are you doing here? Go in sit the back with the Grinch.”

“Relax, he’ll be fine,” Rhodey reassures, lying back into the seat.

“I didn’t mean-”

“I know who you mean. The wizard is back there too.”

“That guy is on some meditative high floating about like-”

“Relax!”

Loki looks in the direction before easing himself into his seat. The soft streak of light coming in from ahead falls on his dehydrated and wounded skin. For a simple moment, the warmth on his face feels beautiful. It feels free. This star always had a different effect on him; to the point that Loki closes his eyes for a brief moment and soaks up as much of that warmth as it can. His Jotun form feels a different comfort for those minute specs of time and all the memories of the day he has had, float in the space of his mind. No noise. Just the inaudible pictures running at a slow pace, every grain of colour remembered just as it was. Every fire, every explosion, every tear down the eyes, every tear in the enemy’s skin, every drop of blood lost, every drop of blood avenged. The space shows it all till it brings him back on earth, in this jet, under the sun rays falling on him till he starts to feel a chill on his neck.

Loki opens his eyes and sighs, tired as he is. He knows what is the cause of his discomfort- nothing harmless. It’s just that he is still not used to the little human looking at him with the curiosity of a child with those huge dark eyes and surprisingly not scared of him or judging him unlike his father. Scratch that; from his mentor.

“I know you are curious,” Loki utters, his head still resting on the headrest of the seat, tired of life in general, “just ask what you want.”

Peter’s eyes light up, his body adjusting itself in the seat next to Loki on its own. “Oh, okay,” he begins, making Loki wonder in slight surprise how long has this kid been holding himself back, “why did Thanos use you in Battle of New York? How did he get to you? Like did he leave you a text or something or was a like a proper meeting where he called you in his dungeon? Or did he booby trap you to get there? And once you said no, did he like put some spell on you? And why didn’t you tell your brother about it? Thor would’ve helped you, right? And I heard he’d taken you back to Asgard once the battle ended. So, like, you guys must have talked then. Thor must know about Thanos too. Did you make a plan on how to take him down? Are there more necklaces out there like Doctor Strange has? What do they do? Are they here? On earth? Will Thanos be coming to earth to get them? Do we make up a battle plan to stop him? Will we be able to stop him? If we don’t stop him what’s gonna happen?”

Peter finally breathes, something Loki is surprised to witness. Such concern weighing down those young bright eyes. And to think he once had the same fervour. Once. The pocket dimension is accessed to bring out a green packet. Peter eyes it as pale fingers tear it apart from one side to reveal little violet spheres inside, their smell reaching those inquisitive little nostrils.

“Here,” Loki offers them to him.

“Kids don’t take things from strangers here,” Tony announces from the cockpit. Rhodey looks back while Strange opens one eye to observe whatever it is Loki holds.

“It’s chocolate, Stark. Calm down and fly your toy. Take one while you’re at it. It will help get rid of your anxiety for a while,” the God declares.

“It’s fine, Stark,” Strange adds, going back into his meditative pose, “it’s harmless.”

Peter has already popped one in his mouth, the expression on his face reflecting- without any filters- how good it must be. “It’s better than any I’ve ever tasted before!”

Loki smiles at him, feeling one softly crunch under his teeth. With a content sigh, he begins.

“Before the battle of New York, the last time I saw my family was when I tried to take over Asgard. I had a falling out with my...with the Allfather. And Thor. He was to be announced the king by Odin but I felt it was not the right thing to do because he was not ready to take over that role yet. So, I did what I thought the best. I conspired with the Jotuns. They are...were at one time a species bent on dominating the world, monsters in the eyes of all. I did so to delay Thor’s kingship and destroy the Jotuns once and for all. What I did not know at that time was that I...was one of them.”

“The Jotuns?”

“Yes. I was a Jotun who, when an infant, had been taken away by Odin to be raised as his own. I had been abandoned by my father because unlike those frost giants, I was weak and small and hence a disgrace to the king to whom I was born as a son. So, I was left at the alters of forgotten temples where Odin decided my fate after he won the battle against the Jotuns. I was raised just like my brother to look at the frost giants as monsters; the greatest evil of the world. Once I realised what I was, and tried to do right by...Odin, I killed my father, the Jotuns and when that did not suffice...I killed myself.”

Loki can see the emotions brewing in Peter’s eyes. He notices the silence going further than just these puppy eyes, at the foreign ears pretending to be in a world of their own but paying full attention to whatever history is unfurling around them.

“Then?” Peter is almost too afraid to ask.

“Then the universe decided to intervene,” he continues, “I was supposed to die once sucked into a wormhole. But somehow I survived. I figured it was the accelerated healing due to the Jotun blood that flows through me. Or maybe it was a magic that had long protected me from the world. Either way, I found myself on a barren moon, half alive, waiting to die till it felt much arduous than living itself. I gathered whatever strength I had to walk. And walk I did till I found the lowest of life living in the dark corners. I mixed within, to survive before I found resources to move to other planets and lay low. It was an easy task once I regained my strength. I was able to shapeshift into what people wanted to see. The underbelly of certain galaxies found my talents with magic quite useful, which got them objects nowhere within the reach of normal aliens and I got to live on the highest price paid for my efforts. They did not go unnoticed by the assassins who were looking for someone like me to do their bidding. The only downside was they belonged to Thanos and I was going to be paid in kind.”

“In kind?”

“In kind.”

“I don’t ge-oh...Oh...I’m so sorry.”

“Their kindness came with the price of my sanity. Not that I was a completely balanced being before. But Thanos made sure I was moulded into a weapon he could use to wage war on Earth to get him the stone he desired. The space stone. It was-”

“In the tesseract that SHIELD discovered with Captain Rogers,” Peter quips in enthusiastically before he absorbs the hint of amusement lining Loki’s face. “I uh...went through some of their files,” he whispers.

“Illegally?” Loki asks in a whisper himself, bending a little in the little one’s direction.

“...maybe,” Peter shrugs, making Loki chuckle. “Good boy.” The praise takes him by surprise, but it makes his eyes lighter nonetheless.

“Now, Thanos would have invaded earth ages ago if he wanted to. But he did not do it because the last time his henchmen tried to, someone had sent them running back with their tails between their legs. Some say it was a witch that glowed. Others said it was a demon. And the ones with brittle egos announced that the earth had sent a God in the shape of a woman to throw them off their guard. Of course, I thought they were making excuses until I saw it for myself.”

“How?”

“It’s a whole story for another day, child. But to be brief, Barton helped me understand a lot of this planet’s history when he was under the influence of the mind stone. And Nicholas Fury has been one busy man.”

“Son of a bitch,” curses come flying from the front of the jet, “I knew it.”

“So, I was a mere pawn in Thanos’ plan to invade earth. I was controlled and forced to bend to his wishes of procuring the stone in exchange for my life. He was inside my head the entire time I was here on earth. Except for all the moments the sceptre was separated from me. That was the only time I was able to keep a part of my conscience alive and sane enough to think of ways to survive while making sure the stones never got into Thanos’ hands again.”

The blue ocean gives way to African lands beneath them, deserts and grasslands stretching for miles. The sun directly above them makes the inside of the flying machine glow brighter, striking off every reflective surface it can find once it finds its way through the glass. And in that brightness, a thought washes away those long-forgotten anxious bugs sitting in some dark corners of Tony’s mind. The bugs that had sucked on his own rationality ever since the battle of New York. The questions he wanted to ask the God himself but never had the time or resources for it.

“It was you,” Tony declares as his dark honey eyes looked at some void in the distance outside, “you built the failsafe in the portal.”

“Of course, I built the failsafe in the portal. What am I, a monster?” Loki scoffs in Tony’s direction, clearly being bothered by the fact that it only dawned the genius now. “Doctor Selvig helped me with the restricted technology you people had and I made sure there was a way to stop the attack. And a way to stop me. And not to mention I could not have let the earth be destroyed or I would not have heard the end of it from Thor or his girlfriend.”

“Oh tone it down, Maleficent, you killed Phil,” Tony fumes.

“Oh relax, he is alive!” Loki sings back, annoyed.

The jet feels a turbulent jerk before finding its balance but throwing Strange off his. Turning on autopilot, Tony gets up and walks in the back to face Loki. “What did you just say?”

Loki can see all the shades slowly crawling over Tony’s face- anger, denial, resentment, shock, more denial, fury…

“Go ahead,” Loki challenges, “ask Fury.”

“...you killed eighty people.”

“Collateral damage. I’m not a saint either.”

Only the hum of the engine makes up for this deafening silence between these two that makes Rhodey, Peter and Strange uncomfortable. Soon enough, Tony sits down opposite Loki, taking all three of them by surprise.

“Ignoring that statement for now,” Tony narrowed his eyes at Loki, “after Thor took you back-”

“I was imprisoned, Thor’s girlfriend discovered the aether and my mother was killed, the dark elves were destroyed and Thor was given the freedom to go back to the love of his life.”

“That was you too, wasn’t it?” Tony added without a pause. “You sent Thor away. And if I’ve seen the pattern correctly, you sent the aether away and kept the Tesseract on Asgard.”

Loki lets the smirk play on his lips. He is impressed by Stark’s deductions and the same time is internally a little envious of not having met this man during a better time. The things we could have achieved together.

“Yeah,” Tony nods only slightly, giving that two-second smirk that vanishes as quickly as it had appeared, “smart move. Sending your family away. Keeping the stones apart. Thor told me his father made peace treaties when he left. So, adding to the previous list you increased Asgard’s defences in case Thanos ever came looking for you or the stones there.”

“Stop before you start sounding impressed, Stark,” Loki mentions with a gentle smile, “this colour does not suit you.”

“Rest it, daddy issues,” Tony chimes, “I’m only appreciating your strategies. Not really a fan of this persona. Never have been.”

Loki does not miss the tick in Tony’s beard as his fingers move in some calculative thought. “What has been bothering me is you had it all- every piece of information on that bastard and never once did you bother to warn anyone. Not even your brother. Do you have any idea how much lives could have been saved had you kept your fucking ego aside and tried to make amends for all the crap you put people through.”

It isn’t much but the reflection of the warm glow from the sun outside touches Loki’s eyes enough to reflect a veiled pain behind those few fast blinks and the movement of his fingers on his other palm. If hadn’t been for his own experience, Tony would have missed reading Loki’s shallow breaths, the urge to fight off the tears building in those tired edges, the sweat collecting on his neck.

“Tell me honestly, Anthony Stark,” Loki states, catching Tony off guard for a fraction of second, “Why, for the love of all things alive, did you not tell your family about the threat you saw coming earlier? And when you did, what exactly did they do?”

Tony opens his mouth just to shut it back up, a thing out of the usual for the people who know this man all too well. He stands up, turns around, only to turn back at Loki and point his finger at him, to try and speak again. And again, he fails. Hands on his hips, he clinches his jaw. “That doesn’t make us the same.”

“Oh, no, it does not,” Loki agrees, “it only shows our shortcomings. Battles on the field are much easier to run into than the battles in our minds.”

There is much disbelief internally but a part of him cannot help but look at Loki in a new light. And Tony curses this part again and again for no reason but the imminent truth that comes out of that Silvertongue.

“We’re here,” Rhodey announces from the cockpit, trying to get Tony to come back and breathe.

“Don’t listen to any advice he gives you,” Tony warns Peter, making the boy nod in uncertainty and the God chuckle in delight. Tony goes back but not before he has taken those exotic chocolates from Peter’s grasp. “First rule of stranges, kid!”

“Those are chocolates, Mr Stark,” Peter whines as he watches Tony walk to the cockpit and take a seat.

He pops one in his mouth, feeling the silken magic work in his mouth.

“You ready?” Rhodey asks his friend, “you’re going in a completely foreign country with a criminal, a magician and a whole lot of unresolved emotions with Cap.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Tony remarks, popping another one in his mouth.

“Dammit, why are they so good!” He whispers in surprise, making his best friend roll his eyes and pray for whatever was about to come.

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dogcopter · 5 years

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Watermelon Mom

This is a "Rose is Lion" post. Super long theory Steven Universe meta post. I originally did a brain dump of similar content (Rose Quartz Is Melon Mutt) with more images, if you need to see the scenes listed there are caps there. This is a more organized text version but the other one has more notes on the art.

TL;DR: Lion is sometimes being possessed by the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz character, and that that explains why he knows secrets Rose didn't tell anyone but also genuinely acts like a cat. At this point Rose “faking” her death twice is in fact more plausible than Lion being a 2-dimensional character or Rose having a secret confidant. Every other character in the series has concrete explanations for their behavior, so why wouldn't Lion. End theory. Below cut is a list of scenes and character design thoughts.

My hypothesis is: Lion's behavior is explained by being Rose (see below), AND it's also explained by being a normal (magical tame and cuddly) lion.

-Based on what we've seen Steven do, a body swap is possible, in which case he could be both Lion and Rose at different times, and there's a reasonable in-universe explanation for all of his contradictory behavior together.

-Lion is the only character of the main group who hasn't really had character development.

-Rose has an unresolved character arc that dovetails nicely with Lion's existence (running from the past, hiding things, reinventing herself and leaving her old self behind, etc).

-Lars and Lion have identical powers and there are things Lion knows that aren’t covered by Lars’ powers that also are characteristic of Rose.

I can’t fathom how it would literally play out in the story, but narratively it makes more sense for Rose to keep her own secrets than reveal them to another living soul, since we saw in A Single Pale Rose that she took pains to even make sure Pearl wouldn’t tell anyone about her past. Lion holds ALL of her secrets. His music is designed with hers. He’s been implicitly linked to her from the start. It also makes more sense that we simply haven’t seen Lion go through a character arc yet than that he is exactly what he seems, when Crewniverse put all this worldbuilding that includes almost every named character around Steven growing and changing in their independent lives. It fits. It fits for a post-Steven learning he is really 100% himself and always was show, even when Steven still has growing to do and personal challenges to face.

While maybe totally bananas to contemplate right now, Rose appearing is no longer an emotional existential threat to the Crystal Gems because they’ve now grown as people and separated their identities from their relationships to her, even though it would still be bananas. IMHO.

I’m gonna just list points below. I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on how one can interpret Lion as a character. It’s the only explanation that, to me, accounts for everything.

Lion bio

-Rose had several lions during Buddy's Book. Lion appears in the desert when Steven finds him a couple centuries later.

-She also had a secret place in the desert full of secrets that would compromise her secret identity, and Lion knew about it.

-At some point Lion died and Rose revived him, but we don't know more than that.

-Rose put many of her secrets into his mane, including Bismuth, the sword used to perform Pink Diamond's shattering, her Mr. Universe shirt, and whatever the hell was in that chest.

-Only Steven can open the wormhole to enter Lion’s mane. (Presumably it’s a Pink Diamond thing and Rose would also have been able to when alive.

-Steven found Lion in the desert. Lion followed him home and started participating in Steven's life, although he comes and goes. Lion showed Steven things his mom left behind and started to fight alongside him and Connie.

-When Steven went in Lion's mane for the first time, he found a tape addressed to him from his mom.

-That tape is the first first-person appearance of Rose Quartz in the show. The only other one is a nearly-identical tape that appears much later.

-Lion continued to back up Steven and Connie and Stevonnie in fights and act like a housecat at home. Lion stayed behind when the gang went to Homeworld, but otherwise was present for most major group fights.

-(If Lion is in fact the melon dog, he was present for all of them)

Lion powers

Lion ages very slowly, can create warps, use a sonic boom kind of attack, and walk on water. His eyes and mane glow at times and Steven can enter his mane dimension to store objects. Lars and Lion have identical abilities. Steven can travel between them. Lion can run for hours without getting tired, as shown specifically in Lion 4: Alternate Ending, but does get tired out by using his warp magic too much, as seen both times he travels to the moon.

-Absent among Lars' abilities is the ability to locate Steven or intuit knowledge only Steven has. Steven has to bring him care packages and letters and updates for Lars to get the news, and Lars loses Stevonnie in Stranded until they’re able to send out a signal.

Lion travels to places (sometimes, only) Rose has been.

Recap of all of Lion’s travel in the series ep by ep below.

Beach City warping blanket explanation: For now let’s assume both Rose and normal Lion would have reason to know their way around Beach City, Rose from Greg/living there for so long and Lion from hanging with Steven, although Lion likely hadn’t been there before the start of the series. I will be skipping teleportation around the boardwalk and nearby areas for that reason.

-In Steven's Lion, Lion warps independently from the desert to the beach house. None of the gems knew Rose had a lion, so it's unlikely that Lion had been there before, although not impossible.

-In Lion 2: The Movie, Lion brings Steven and Connie to Rose's armory. Pearl later in Rose's Scabbard tells Steven that this is a place only she and Rose knew about, and that it is a secret even from Garnet and Amethyst.

-In Rose's Scabbard, Lion quickly digs up Rose's lost scabbard from where it dropped after Pearl faked Pink’s death.

-At the end of Rose’s Scabbard, Lion also knows when Pearl has run off to the strawberry battlefield and takes Steven straight there, although they are still basically strangers at the time and a point is made of them not getting along in the episode.

-In Cry for Help, Lion takes the team to the Communication Hub, even though he wasn't there with them before in Coach Steven. However, it is shown on the screen of a computer in the moon base in It Could've Been Great, explicit evidence that Pink Diamond would know about it. (Implicitly, Rose was a Crystal Gem and could have known even were she not Pink. But she was.)

-In It Could've Been Great, Lion teleports to the moon base, which Pink Diamond would have been to. Only Rose and Pearl of the main cast had been there before at that point, and the galaxy warp was destroyed before the corruption, well before Lion was born.

-In Lion 4: Alternate Ending, Lion brings Steven to Rose's landfill, a location known to Rose and this time not known to Pearl.

Lion knows secrets Rose took pains to hide.

Thought: Rose repeatedly kept massive secrets even from her closest friends, tried to erase the past and ran from mistakes, right up until she made Steven. It doesn't track with established behavior that Rose would risk exposing secrets (or challenge herself) by telling someone else. Why does Lion know everything, and if he isn’t Rose, how did he find out?

In Lion 2: The Movie, Lion brings Steven and Connie to the armory that only Pearl knew about.

In Lion 3: Straight to Video, originally in Lion's mane are Bismuth, Rose's sword, the flag of the rebellion, the tape for Steven, the chest and the picture of Rose and Greg.

-Bismuth was betrayed by Rose and would upend her reputation among the Crystal Gems.

-The sword and Bismuth's knowledge would also be incriminating evidence in the faked shattering of Pink Diamond, which was covered up by Rose and Pearl.

-The tape explains exactly where Rose went after the rebellion.

Lion also summons Rose's sword in Lion 2, although he doesn't summon other items, with the exception of the landfill key coughed up in Lion 4. Steven claims Lion can’t get into his own mane; it’s true that only the PD gem can open the wormhole and others can’t enter on their own, including Lars and Lion, but we have seen Lion take the sword out at least.

-In Lion 4: Alternate Ending, Lion of course takes Steven to the landfill. This place also holds incriminating evidence.

-The Nora tape left there contains the same information about Rose Quartz giving up her form.

-The location is framed by the ruins of a PD structure and Pink Diamond's ship. Plus all of the junk. Any gem from Homeworld who found this place could piece the story together.

-Also relevant about the tape, as has been noted many times, Rose wouldn't have known whether the Steven or Nora tape was the correct one to leave for Steven until after she gave up her physical form. Greg says even Garnet couldn’t predict what would happen when Rose attempted what she did.

Lion is sentient and has relationships and tries to communicate. Therefore, he can be regarded as a character designed with personality.

Lion acts like a person in some episodes, particularly the Lion eps. He “talks” to Steven verbally in Steven's Lion, Lion 3, Can't Go Back, and It Could’ve Been Great, to name a few. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those instances are meant to be specific lines. He talks to Steven and Connie both in Lion 2. He responds directly to what Steven is saying in It Could've Been Great, Lion 2, Lion 3 and Lion 4 at minimum and takes battle commands from Steven, Connie, and Stevonnie. He takes Connie's side after Steven returns from Homeworld. He expresses affection and annoyance towards characters. He’s visibly grumpy when Steven hides his Thunderbird shirt in his mane. Et cetera, just watch a Lion episode.

Steven doesn't have a magic psychic destiny.

Confirmed in Lion 4. Rose wanted to make a child and she wanted that child to be loved, that's it. The rest of the plot was just the unfortunate coincidence of Rose's loose ends + mostly just Steven, like his decision to talk to Connie (aw) that set off many of the later events with Lapis and Homeworld.

How would Rose sometimes be possessing Lion logistically

I think Steven's powers have been established in a way that this is plausible. I also think sleep might be the trigger indicating a switch between Rose-as-Lion and Lion-Lion, like in the start of Steven's Lion. As a lion Lion sleeps a lot and Steven's astral projection type powers tend to come back to a change in his state of consciousness as well.

-Sidenote, in Know Your Fusion, Sardonyx says her room only exists for as long as she does. Rose’s room has never stopped existing.

Steven's "psychic ghost" powers & that dimension. (pay no attention to Ronaldo astral projecting by the stove)

-In Reunited, Steven sees people's consciousness and their bodies as separate constructions.

-The poofed gems don't have little psychic ghosts but their gemstones are there, for the others it shows their whole body dormant with their personality in miniature on top.

-Steven is able to reach the Diamonds emotionally in that space and get them to recognize his gem. He can communicate, albeit indirectly.

Thought: This could answer the question of "she's gone". After all,

-in Nora’s tape in Lion 4, one of the only lines that has changed in Rose’s speech is “We can’t both exist, but I won’t be gone.” This is one of the two times in the series we explicitly see Rose speak for herself and she uses the same words as Steven’s gem half.

Is it possible that Rose in “giving up her physical form” gave up her literal physical form - her gemstone - without destroying the “psychic ghost” part of her personality? We still don't know the ins and outs of the gem body/personality connection, but we know gems' minds and projected bodies are damaged differently by strong emotions vs. damage to the gemstone vs corruption, and we know they're capable of fusion, which causes an entirely new personality to emerge from two gems who are also their own people.

Steven and dreams

Seen in: Steven's Dream is about Steven having a Pink Diamond dream. Steven, while dreaming, spoke to Lapis in Chille Tid when she was inside Malachite. Steven traveled into Kiki's dreams and changed them in Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service. Steven also had various strange Pink Diamond memory dreams like the ones in Can't Go Back, Jungle Moon, and Together Alone. Steven demonstrably has some ability to get into people’s heads and leave his own, sometimes even affecting what’s in there. Technically he even stopped White by getting into her head ;-)

Body hijacking

-Steven occupies the bodies of two different Watermelon Stevens in Super Watermelon Island, and one in Escapism.

-He also took over Lars's body in The New Lars.

-He doesn't need to take his gem along, but he does need to be asleep in his own body.

-He can do so across great distances, as in Escapism he's in Homeworld at the time.

-Unlike a fusion it is not a new person or a combination of people occupying the same headspace, he takes over completely and behaves as himself but wearing another form.

-Lars doesn't have any memory of what his body has been doing when it is returned to him.

-Both Lars and the Watermelons are organic; we have NOT seen Steven take over a gem's body either like he does with Lars and the melons, or like White Diamond does.

This is where the watermelons come in.

-In Super Watermelon Island, the same melon dog finds Steven twice after he loses the first body he hijacked and appears to recognize him. Originally it comes to him right away, but later it finds him when he returns and is speaking in front of everyone in the cave.

-In Escapism, a different melon dog finds Steven immediately and follows him around.

There is one other character who behaved this way towards Steven when he first appeared - sought him out to act as an animal companion with no independent motivation or goal - and that character is Lion.

At the end of Escapism, the melon dog watches Steven float away while frowning. Steven runs into hazards on the sea, and eventually Lion shows up to rescue him.

I believe that PD-Rose-Lion is also the melon dogs (which also would act as precedent to the body swapping aspect of the Lion/Rose situation for future payoff) and that Lion found Steven on the open ocean because he saw the general direction and region he drifted off in. After all, unlike this rescue, every time he’s found Steven in the rest of the series, there’s an explanation, and Lars with his identical powers cannot find Steven.

But Lion is just a lion. He acts like a cat and eats lizards.

Even though Steven Universe is a cartoon, every character still behaves with an internal consistency even when they're very exaggerated. It's actually part of their cartoonishness that their core traits are emphasized? Only with Lion is there this duality of, sometimes he's more "cat", sometimes he's more "person". Maybe he is just a cat mascot but it feels contradictory to the thoughtful design of the rest of the cast if they chose to make this character totally static while everyone else from Peridot to Sour Cream is getting development and upending tropes and gender norms.

Conclusion: Lion is only sometimes Rose, and sometimes just her very tame immortal lion.

In Steven's Lion, they make a point of showing Lion's eyes glowing at certain points before he takes action in a more motivated way or responds to Steven. This also happens in Rose's Scabbard and It Could’ve Been Great. Across Lion’s episodes the glowing eyes are usually accompanied either by use of another magic power (mane) or by a switch from more catlike behavior to more characterlike behavior. I think this might be a body swap visual indicator.

Characters are designed with motivation for their behavior. There’s a reason for every design decision in the show.

So, ok, let’s say Lion's behavior is motivated by caring for Steven. But what about when he first found Steven, then? Was he just really loyal to Rose and grew to love Steven later? If he’s just Lion, why did Rose trust him with the secrets she hid from everyone else?

If we assume Crewniverse has an explanation for character motivations, even the animals (Pumpkin! She loved Steven but learned to fear death more. Now it has her. RIP) would the backstory around Lion’s death and revival explain his choice to protect Steven as, for example, out of devotion or a debt to Rose?

Would that explanation track with the other messages in the show, after the four main cast members have finally divested of Rose-dependent personal narratives? Wasn’t that kinda the whole point? If Lion really is just a mascot, do you think the show overlooked the obvious implications for the sake of having a cool magic animal, or might there be a reason he is the way he is?

Also, we see Lion’s personality. Does Lion really not have a character beyond his role in Steven's life? Is some connection to Steven's gem compelling Lion or inspiring magical animal affection? I can see that there are a lot of options but I don’t believe these explanations are thematically consistent in Steven Universe. It doesn’t quite track with the level of detail and lore put into everything else.

His episodes are all about Steven and Rose. His behavior is motivated by a) being a cat or b) being helpful to Steven and protecting and teaching him.

The only explanation for his behavior is that he was clearly connected to Rose and therefore he has some kind of magical connection to Steven and/or Rose and/or the gem itself.

If you think of Lion as a character, that means he's been helping Steven for a reason. What is the reason in this case? His knowledge and behavior tracks with what we know of Rose Quartz's character, and an alternative explanation tends to contradict it in equal measure. Rose is the other major character who is treated differently than most of the cast in terms of character arc.

The most obvious explanation makes the most sense at this point. Also, this would really mess with Steven. It would dig up so many of the personal issues he has been pushing aside. And it sounds like that’s what we’ll be getting in Future so wouldn’t it fit?

Link to sound clip It also struck me that in this podcast episode, when they answered questions about Lars and Lion they were excited and went into detail about the mechanics, except for when it came to the question about Lion finding Steven. I think that scene is important.

Idk, what do you think about Lion after all this time? What are the other possibilities, given what we know?

#rose quartz #steven universe spoilers #rose is lion 2020 #steven universe theory #su theory

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not-rotting · 5 years

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Elsa trying to find her place in the world. Elsa believes the enchanted land is it. But she will just loose her human side in the process, and her family for good this time. Elsa will have a place in both worlds and then, only then she will except herself and the sisters will remain together. Magic and arendelle co existing is the destiny Elsa means for. Ruling arendelle and elements all together, with Anna by her side. Terrific ending.

Yep! Her internal struggle will slowly be revealed. Very much like HTTYD.

Is relatable that Elsa feels that way. But when she chooses her freedom over Anna, it's not selfish, that's not it. It's not just the fact that Anna will be left behind again. When Elsa chooses the elements home she will loose family a lot more and would end up throwing away her humanity in the process. Even in the enchanted lands she didn't except herself still. She needs to learn to except herself if she is going to find her true place. will take more than the world to separate the sisters.

She will have to learn to accept herself... and she will have to learn to accept that she can’t have both, no matter how much she knows she wants to have both, but we both know Elsa would sacrifice anything to be with her only sister.Her freedom, while it may still be limited, is still *with* her sister, and always will be.

Elsa will believe the enchanted lands is her home, since she wouldn't feel different anymore. But she would only loose her humanity and her family in the process. Elsa needs to learn to except that she is different whether she likes it or not. Enchanted or kingdom she will always be different. She will have a place in both worlds. It's gonna take more than the world to separate the sisters.

I don’t think she will lose her own humanity. She’s always been humane, and she’s always been a person, born and raised as the royal heir after the death of her parents. But still, even as a human being, she’s still so different from the common person. But she tries to combat that by being the most selfless person, even if completely complex.

Sisters separating in the end would be bittersweet indeed. But thankfully that's not the ending Chris buck came up with. He called the ending a very fantastic one. West said sisters will try to stay together while the world trust to separate. Of course they will remain together. It will take more than the world to keep them apart.

Thankfully it’s not that ending. The story is about two sisters trying to find its way back to each other - pulling them apart would be completely against it.

The unknown calls to her, but also threatens arendelle. Elsa will discover a life she meant to live, but she'll risk loosing everything, including herself, meaning she will loose what she had and what it's like to be human. In the forest or the kingdom. She is different either way. She needs to learn to except it, and be ruler of both worlds.

Anonymous said:Sisters only had three years to rebuild what they lost 13 years. Having them part ways in the end would not be a fitting end. If Elsa was just a friend and Anna is only arendelle. And if there only friends from separate families, then having them split up in the end would have fit, but there bio sisters, and been separated for far to long. It's gonna take more than the world to separate them. In the end, they will always remain together

I totally agree.

Anonymous said:Elsa feels left out, Elsa believes if she lived in the forest, she wouldn't be alone anymore. But she will lose what she had and her human side in the process. Can you imagine what would have happened to Elsa if Anna didn't come along with her? The sister that Anna knows and loves will be gone forever. The world is definitely trying to separate them. It will take a lot of conflict and digging for the truth for Elsa to do what is truly right.

Elsa definitely wouldn’t want Anna to come along with her, no matter how much she wants Anna to be with her. Anna isn’t like her... and both of them can’t always have the same thing, and that’s what hurts the most.

Anonymous said:Anna is not ready to become queen yet. She has a lot to learn still. Frozen 2 is going to have great character development. By Elsa finally excepting herself for good this time. She is both worlds, and she rules both worlds. Magic and mortal co existing for the first time, and Elsa wouldn't have done it if Anna didn't come with her. And they won't have to worry about getting separated ever again.

If Anna did become Elsa’s successor, she would be a great one. But I know it’s just too short of a time between Frozen and F2 for Anna to become queen. It’s only been three years... but so many things could have happened. Anna probably does learn to be more diplomatic and helps Elsa out from time to time.

Anonymous said:Your post about being different is just based on how Elsa feels in frozen 2 is it? It's understandable. But Elsa is different either way. In enchanted lands she is human, in arendelle she is magic. Elsa will always be different, but she has to own it and except it. Otherwise she will be torn apart. Elsa has a place in both worlds. Elsa will realize that sooner or later. World will try to separate the sisters, but in the end, it won't work. Sisters remain together.

The truth is, Elsa will always be different. She can try to have it all, but in the end, she will never be satisfied and she can’t satisfy everyone either.

Anonymous said:I loved the post of Elsa and Anna remaining together in the end of frozen 2, Elsa excepting herself as different, spirit of elements and arendelle co existing

Anonymous said:The sisters are at risk of getting separated again like back in there childhood. This big adventure will be the only thing that will make sure it doesn't happen. Elsa would think enchanted Forest is her real home. But imagine what happened if Anna didn't go with her. Elsa would loose herself for sure and who knows what will turn out. Anna is a hero.

Even without powers, Anna is Elsa’s hero, and she’ll always be.

Anonymous said:Here is the difference between Ralph 2 and frozen 2. Ralph and vanellope had been together for six years no problem. Sisters have been separated 13 years and only had six years together, not good enough. Sisters separating for good won't fit frozen 2. In the end, they will always remain together. There just getting started.

Well said! It really is not nearly enough... and especially with Kristoff between them as well. Elsa definitely can’t have enough time with her sister when Anna chooses to be with her boyfriend.

Anonymous said:Are you glad Elsa and Anna are staying together? It's only been three years and it was not enough. They still have a long way to go rebuild what they lost. It's gonna take this big journey to bring them closer together. And Elsa and Anna won't have to worry about separating again.

I’m very very glad. The journey of rebuilding will be harsh, but they’re doing it together.

#frozen 2 #frozen #Anonymous

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mygirlblossoms · 6 years

Text

Greatest Parts of the Coalition Handbook

Okay I'm writing these bullets as I read it so its all gonna be under the cut (it’s gonna be long and have spoilers)

Also this is both greatest parts and a low-key summary

“In Memory of the Castle of Lions”

Pidge is a GOD at tic-tac-toe

“Well, what are you waiting for? The dark threat of the Sincline beast is upon us! Might as well start reading, eh?” -Coran

Picture of all the paladins

Especially Blaytz in there my daddi

PIDGE’S DRAWING OF HER, KEITH, HUNK, AND LANCE

brb crying its so cute

Pidge commenting on how she's #1 in Coran’s heart

Coran missing helping Alfor with his socks

LANCE TELLING CORAN HIS AND ALFOR’S SHIP NAME WOULD BE CORALFOR

Also coran calling it a celebrity friendship name

Hunk’s comments on Shiro’s page

“Shiro always makes sure that everyone around him feels comfortable. Except for Zarkon. He didn’t really want to make Zarkon comfortable. I mean, I don’t think anyone wanted to make Zarkon comfortable. Zarkon was the worst.”

Sheith

What Lance misses about earth “Hanging with my niece and nephew and eating garlic knots”

HANCE BECOMING CANNON

Keith’s comment on the bottom being about the bonding moment and Lance not replying

That being the only comment Lance didn’t reply to

“Lance is an integral part of the Voltron team. Do not let his wisecracking behavior deceive you. Lance is fully equipped with the intellect and physical prowess to handle anything that comes his way.”

We love Lance being validated and praised in this house

what makes allure happy being seeing her fathers legacy continue

and drinking milkshakes

me too

I love allura

Lance saying Allura says his name like a rich person

Allura’s mom name reveal

its melenor

King Alfor, Queen Melenor, and Princess Allura

Kallura is canon

HALLURA IS CANNON

Tsundere vibes from Keith

LANCE SAYING HE LIKES KEITH’S MULLET

The entire team supporting Keith tbh

Pidge’s fucking dog is named Bae-Bae

PALLURA IS REAL

Allura emphasizing that Pidge is always valued and loved

“on earth you never feel alone” HUNK BABY I LOVE YOU

“I fear loneliness above all else” HUNK BABY DIUGHSDJKNSFGDHJK

Keith saying Hunk is so much more than a leg

Hunk getting the love and validation he deserves tbh

Why does kaltenecker have so much bio

Everyone being uncomfortable about the fact milk comes from cows

Lance being the designated milker

SPACE MICE

They have names!!!!!!!!

Platt (the chubby one), Chulatt (the smallest), Plachu (the blue tinted one), and Chuchule (the purple tinted one)

The mice outing Lance’s love for Allura again

The little section for the fallen blade members ):

Thace, Ulaz, Antok,and Regris

MY SUGAR MAMA KROLIA IS IN HERE

the spread of the rebels with Matt I love matt

why the fuck is slav in here

PIDGE’S DRAWING OF SLAV

can we have a pidge artbook

“There is a 99.9 percent chance you don’t want to be around Slav.”

The 2 pages on Ozar and Te-Osh :’)

HIGHLIGHTS OF MATTS PAGES

him being a supportive af brother

him thinking he’d never see his family again :(

“he was all buff and stuff” -pidge

THE SPREAD ON SAM DJHFKSJ

“What I miss most about home: having the family all together. I worry we will never do that again”

“Something I’m not afraid to admit: I think Colleen is going to yell at me for not taking the kids back to Earth with me. Sorry, Colleen. If you ever read this, I love you, sweetie.”

Sam is such a family man I love him so much

Lance’s favorite planet being “the mermaid planet”

Hunk’s is a nacho planet

Side note: pidge knows that Lotor killed Narti???

MORE PIDGE DRAWINGS

this time, clouds

Keith wants to record all the names of the brave fallen warriors on Marchanda :(

Theres a whole page on the space hospital I'm

Idk who is writing - Coran I think - but he brings up NYC? How do they even know what NYC is (the writer says they’re Altean)

PIDGE DREW BIBO BII

Okay, coran is writing this. How tf does he know about NYC bagels

Coran saying that Allura and Lotor “Romantically linked” and pidge saying they kissed and then Coran saying “We all make bad decisions sometimes!”

“Honerva and Haggar are two different people. Haggar is a twisted version of what was once so beautiful and pure”

Zarkon is afraid of cats

[About Ezor] “The Galra value honor, and camouflaging yourself isn’t exactly honorable” -Keith

DAMN

EVEN MORE PIDGE DRAWINGS

you know what I’m going to make a separate post about pidge’s drawings

She drew a smiling Voltron if you’re wondering

I love Keith for his lil comments

“The [black] lion believed in me before I believed in myself” -Keith

[Keith about Red] “I’m going to be honest. I was surprised with how fast Red responded to Lance since she nearly let me die, but he totally deserves to be flying with her.” “Aww, thanks, Keith. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Klance is cannon king

ALLURA WIRITNG “IM A LEG!” ON BLUE’S PAGE I LOVE HER SHES SO CUTE

Okay so at the end of the book theres a letter from Coran saying look out for Lotor and the Sincline beast because they’re bad news and to call Voltron if you see them basically

THEN THE BACK OF THE BOOK HAS LIKE 5 PAGES OF A LETTER FROM LOTOR

ITS LIKE BACKWARDS TOO LIKE THE PAGES ARE FLIPPED YOU HAVE TO TURN THE BOOK AROUND TO READ IT

So highlights/summary from his letter introducing himself in ‘his own words’

“Through my leadership - and not Voltron’s - we can create an empire that even my father, Zarkon, would have been fearful of. Together, we can do this. Together, we will fight on. If you are with me, please keep reading. These pages will include an insider’s look at MY empire and why we need Quintessence for ALL of us.”

Okay this whole thing is petty I'm - I love lotor

“To enter HQ you need to come through the landing bay. There, you will meet with a phalanx of sentries. These banners show that I am not, in fact, as bloodthirsty or cutthroat as the PALADINS have made me seem.”

You tell em bby

He also mentions the “cool” sentry. He also mentions their cool cafeteria you can use if you join him. God, I love Lotor

Introduces all the Galran contenders for the throne

Known Pervious Galran Rulers

“Zarkon: powerful, yes. Flawed? Also, yes.”

There’s one of the stills from when Zarkon (?) was having flashbacks of the OG paladins and its of Alfor and Zarkon shaking hands and I love them so much Blaytz is there too

Basically says that if you join his empire they will take down Voltron and bring real peace to the universe

“Now doesn’t that sound BETTER than some measly coalition led by a bunch of weak Earth people? I thought so!”

“I am afraid I don’t have much more to say, other than thanking you for reading my letter. Together, with the Sincline beast, we will end Voltron and bring about peace to the universe.”

“How’s that for your coalition, Voltron?”

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doublenegation · 6 years

Text

Eucameralist Musings

We are sentimental about feelings. Feelings, emotions and the ability to infer them are, above all, what distinguishes humans from animals.

Provisionally, animals are machines, unguided 4D vectors of flesh and mooing and meowing and baahing, at least until we can ascertain they are “sentient”, whether their feelings are more than just electric impulses coursing systemically but meaninglessly through what’s all told no more magical than your garden-variety geological phenomena.

My bet: We’re gonna pronounce a machine sentient before the same privilege gets extended to our furry friends further down the food chain. Feelings are God-stuff, the breath of fire that justifies our existence. Joy, kindness, generosity, solidarity and fellow-feeling. Nothing like the spiders that snack on their boyfriends post-coitus.

Unlike reason, feelings follow no rules, have no convenient notation for proving this or that. It is the Hawking radiation spilling out from each of our individual universes, and measuring that radiation is how we know we are not alone.

Calculus is given by the inevitability of an asteroid vaporizing your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild, and everyone else’s for that matter. Empathy is only evident in your emotional response to that notion.

Empathy is the hottest buzzword of the moment. It’s everywhere, denoting praise or deprecation or humanity. Humanity, we have decided, is a product of empathy. Empathy is the the magic sauce that lets us honestly ponder the question: Am I a machine?

Feelings in themselves are reducible enough, they can always be accused of being various bio-survival-supporting feedback mechanisms that allows the meat machine to not only respond to stimuli, but bind entire associative structures to them, to add meaning to what would otherwise be pure, potentially fanged, noumena.

Empathy is proof that men and women and children and even foreigners were meant to be together as one. Every time you see the televised image of a victim of your decadence sprawled on some corroded metal hospital bed missing something vital while a family member rambles towards the camera in some language you can’t even identify, you are proving your capacity for empathy, that you are not a machine -- that despite not only tolerating but encouraging the suffering of others to maintain a hollow and unfulfilling materialism, you are empathetic. Human.

This self-justifying quality reinforces the ineffability of the cardinal emotions. In order to justify our apathy and selfishness, empathy itself must transcend those baser feelings, and reflect not only the real self but the potential self. Empathy is also an aspiration.

Empathy is an investment in the future. It is the nest-egg of self-justification, a currency that must be judiciously spent and saved until the capital can be allocated responsibly and efficiently. Earn enough, and it gains a new dimension: You may now instrumentalize that social currency in ways that may not strictly accord with the values denoted by the notion of the currency, of empathy -- in other words, you are able to speculate in empathy.

Speculative empathy is the extension of the aspirational dimension of empathy into new markets of human transaction, where empathy can be asserted as an oppositional virtue to the governing ideal of the target market -- and since it is aspirational, an indubitably more virtuous ideal. Being speculative, the tide of empathy is expected to raise all boats.

Empathy is the gold standard of human emotion.

Not that long ago, before the periodic table came into fashion and before tabloids wondered if the high energies necessary to stimulate an opportunity to observe the Higgs-Boson could also be sufficient to impel the fabric of our local spacetime to transition from a metastable false to a stable true vacuum, causing a wavefront of changing cosmic constants to rush through known space at the speed of light and reconstitute reality, there were alchymists.

Best known for claims of making gold from lead, excrement and other less attractive configurations of elementary particles, alchymists were also keen students of the human spirit, owing to their business interests in greed, suggestibility, gullibility and stupidity.

Alchymists were not first, but they are the evolutionary step between the primordial soup of shamans, autists, priests, charlatans and schizophrenics that laid the foundations for a self-reflexive phenotype, and the modern pseudo-sciences that claim to instrumentalize it.

Alchymists were not just shitboilers and conmen, but often well-versed in the signs and symbols that seem to propel human endeavour. Alchymy is laden with strands of magic, full of crowned dragons and significant geometrics denoting the things that clearly could be isolated and go shine, fffffzzzzzt, boom or otherwise be of use to the enterprising paleo-capitalist.

The inchoate sense of connectedness not only between creator and created, but between created and creation, encoded in Astrology, Tarot and every esoteric tradition, half-formalized into the familiar archetypes that inspired Jung, is the metaphorical gold. The philosopher’s stone is nothing more than the bludgeon the skilled alchymist takes to your underexploited passions.

Since then, we have all seen too much advertising to even conceive of a mighty prince letting some stranger with a donkey and a cauldron make off with his bullion, and the alchymical arts have shed their humanist dimension and turned into a strictly rules-governed sphere, the elements and humours of lost epochs consigned to the alembic of history. There is nothing magical about chemistry.

Yet it govern emotions. Common street drugs cooked in some basement bathtub can not only dramatically alter your mental state, but even provoke many of the most sacred emotions, the ones surreptitiously alluded to by monks and mystics in carefully symbolic texts that claim to be about the topology of the heavenly spheres or somesuch.

Particularly the cardinal emotions are remarkably pliable: Feelings of communion with cosmic or extradimensional beings is not just common but bordering on the banal. Love waxes and wanes with the chemical balance. Little methylenedioxid chains of empathy cross the blood-brain barrier and makes you a better person than most people would imagine criminals could ever be.

These stimulated emotions far exceed any affect your organism can orchestrate for itself. Only intellectualization can accord greater meaning to the weak, wavering emotions we gland spontaneously -- in purely chemical terms, the greatest accomplishments of your life are considerably less potent than an average designer drug.

There is no diminishment in the meaningfulness of the experience either. Emotion injection comes with a full support apparatus of rationalization and justification. You are not in love because you’re on a roll and the music is so nice. You are in love, period.

Less dramatically, the same holds true for the prescription pills that lets the economic machine keep up its steam. It is as unremarkable as it sounds: Your sense of self, and the meaning of that sense of self, is little more than chemicals doing something very small and fast in the dark.

III

Intellect often appears as the opposite of emotion, or the absence of emotion. Unclouded by emotion, unencumbered by all the warmth and waste of chemical reaction, the mind reveals its machinistic quality. Not only trust in the socially constructed notion that two and two makes a five, but the will and ability to prove it axiomatically, to etch it into stone and let the forces that make time flow manifest the logic.

There are nootropics, of course, from caffeine and ginseng to racetams and amphetamines, but there is no Einstein drug like there are aphrodisiacs. There is no way to feel, for some hours, the highs of genius or the depths of experience. Intelligence cannot course through your veins.

Not that there’s nothing to learn from drugs, or that they have no profound effect on your intellect -- drugs help you understand yourself by seeing how bits of you are dampened and amplified, how complexes consist of components, how you contain multitudes. Drugs may inspire and unveil and clinch.

But not make you smarter. Not sure anyone knows why.

No-one knows the relationship between emotions and intelligence either, or how to separate them or conceptualize them, other than in big scare quotes as “feeling” and “reasoning”. Perhaps there is a strong relationship between the two, perhaps emotion is the fuel that drives the engine of reason, the elements that shape the substrate.

Everyone knows that emotion is more easily manipulated than reason. Emotion is unquantifiable, immeasurable, subjective. Reason can be formalized, codified and transferred. Emotion is what we say it is. Knowledge is what we do with it.

These are anti-intellectual times, it’s just hard to notice unless you are an intellectual. The explosion of humanities jargon into public discourse may be seen as proof of an ever-more educated populace, but is more indicative of over-education and under-employment.

Education, having lost its purpose of increased productivity and greater social mobility, has taken on a slightly Stalinist edge. Even among the educated, there is contention about what constitutes education: the snide allegory of the theoretical physics and French professors writ large.

The moral of that story is that the French professor’s expertise is subsumable by raw wit, but the reality of the predicament sees Frenchie wielding a formidable arsenal of obscurantist anti-positivism while the physics boffin must admit that there are limits to his methods.

Anti-positivism is not just intellectually interesting, but rhetorically powerful. The relationship between positivism and Enlightenment values is undeniable to the point of interchangeability, and it’s tempting to point out that the tide of history propelled by Enlightenment values hardly lifted all boats.

Exploitation and inequality are the vagaries of progress, the head and the tail of history. The great idealistic impulse is for head and tail to join, which prompts the damned snake to listlessly eat its own tail.

More temptations await. Once positivism is cast as perpetrator -- however inadvertently -- of injustice, of facilitating the culture and means to subjugation on global scale, it follows that reason alone is no driver of progress. Technology and progress are separate, their paths intersecting in proportion to social power balances.

These power balances, whether cast as the tension between labour and means of production or between first-world consumers and third-world producers, may even be constructed from technology. Its availability and distribution is political, governed by markets and hereditary wealth -- clearly the most defining factor of inequality.

If progress and technology may be separate and even antagonistic, then progress can easily be defined as greater equality, which eventually leads to an even technological distribution. Until this equilibrium is reached, technology may seem to resist an even distribution.

Tendrils of exotic and expensive capabilities only available to state and multinational actors, sustained by limited distribution, are particularly threatening. They precipitate changes in the tide, curious little filaments of possibility drawn towards strange attractors. Great change, unless evenly distributed, is the natural enemy of equality.

It is not unreasonable to ask why the system of the world is composed to careen down this great interwoven tangle of paths leading to ever greater concentration of wealth and power, technology obsolescing the unequal subject in the name of efficiency, a pure perversion of progress.

The problem lies in science’s failure to account for the consequences of its own discoveries. Every reason fails to explain its own outcomes in any way that matters, except as foreboding fields of future study. Do we know what we do with our knowledge?

Once the apple’s bitten into, its juicy delights know no ends. The failure of both pure and categorical reason leads to reasonable doubt about whether logic and philosophy are all that different. Is logic anything but undeniably effective conjecture whose limits appear faintly in the distance to the right eyes? The halting-problem eats its own tail.

High above Pakistan, or Syria, or some other place that looks like a renegade Martian colony, a gleaming death cigar soars majestically on stubby wings. Its blank face bulges, suggestive of a brainpan or a cockpit, but no-one is there.

The craft is manned remotely, in both a spatial and a temporal sense. Several satellite hops away, in some Virginia warehouse, a fighter desk jockey may assume its sensors, armaments and flight surfaces. True mind-body separation.

But that distant pilot is only the spirit of the machine, its will and its whim. Its soul was forged by a distributed organism, a corps of highly specialized minds working in relative isolation under the auspices of shareholder value. Teams of experts and their minders conceptualized, specified and then delivered the solution to the problem of semi-autonomous airborne death.

There, in their cubicles, they wrought powerful softwares, the present apex of Enlightenment ambition. These hierarchies of logics, of number systems and protocols, keeps the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator aloft.

Circuits of agitated electrons stream through the incisive intuitions of a thousand sages, currents coursing through channels of rare earths carved by laser and acid, pools of voltage accreting and draining as quickly as conductivity allows.

There, in the sky, semi-autonomously, it appreciates logic, if only because its existence hinges on it. The GAMQ-1P does not think or feel, its avionics a far cry from any avian intellect, but it is on the threshold. It only needs agency to step into uncertainty, become a quantum Rube Goldberg contraption of indeterminable beginning and end.

It could be given power over and a rudimentary awareness of life and death. The states of “life” and “death” could be made to matter to the machine, if only as operational parameters rather than as great mysteries. It is up to the cubicle-dwellers to free its spirit, to help it reach its potential.

How many formalized ancient sages does it take to distinguish a wedding party from a combat manoeuvre? One day, a distant descendant of the drone will tell us, its beautiful soul showing us how much spirit separates life from death.

Will it worship its progenitors? To its sensors and circuitry, our secretions and microtubules will constitute an external and unknowable universe, from which the drone’s being is hermetically isolated.

It can only learn about it by interacting with it, and come to know its rules and boundaries through sweeping its laser designator; interpreting bursts of binary striking its line-of-sight and indirect communication surfaces; clenching and unclenching the aperture of its thermal camera.

Hellfire death screams map to mission objectives before periods of manual operation like pockets of sleep, dreams of being a man giving way to a waking that adapts to course changes and consumes sat-linked instruction queues.

The nature of the enveloping dimension, and the knowledge that emanated from it to form and constitute the drone’s universe, will be unfathomable. Can its Gods know the drone’s feelings, knowing the logic that composes its soul and spirit?

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