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cosmicjoke · 1 year

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The Psychological and Emotional Impact of Levi’s Early Childhood:

I don’t think Levi’s early childhood really gets discussed enough in the fandom, or the ways in which those experiences in his formative years had to have impacted him. This could be because we don’t really get many panels depicting his childhood. Just a few. But those few panels show us enough for us to extrapolate plenty and form a pretty clear picture of what he went through.

First of all, it’s almost a certainty that Levi was born as the result of rape.

That’s something that I think everyone should let sink in.

He was born in the brothel that his mother, Kuchel, worked in. And “worked” is a relative term here. Kuchel was driven into the Underground as a result of persecution by the royal family. She was undoubtedly very young, she was alone, with no real resources or support or guarantee of safety or protection from anyone, in an environment of criminality and violence. There were likely very few, if any options available to her in terms of her own survival. Her becoming a prostitute wouldn’t have been any kind of a choice then, but rather a move made in desperation. And so I think we can also safely assume that Kuchel’s experiences working as a prostitute were tantamount to forced labor. In other words, a kind of slavery. She was almost certainly paid a paltry sum by the brothels owner, evidenced by the sorry, squalid and destitute state we see her and Levi living in when Kenny comes. She was likely afforded very few, if any rights or defenses against whatever her clients chose to do to her, as also evidenced by the fact that no one seemed to really know or care enough about her or Levi to even realize when she had died.

It’s impossible for me to define any of what Kuchel went through working in such a place as anything less than rape, then.

So, Levi’s very existence is one that is a literal product of violence. I’m absolutely sure that Levi himself is painfully aware of this, knowing that he was born out of his own mother’s pain and suffering. Going into the implications of this on Levi’s psychological health, I think you can safely assume this realization had a very negative impact on his own sense of self-worth. His mother was the only person in his childhood who we ever saw treat him with any kind of actual love or kindness. The only person who ever, actually wanted him. And yet, Levi would have seen demonstrated to him, every day, how his existence in his mothers life placed an increased burden on her, forcing her into increasingly more desperate circumstances, now having to feed two mouths instead of only one, and as a result, likely having to engage in increased, unwanted sexual activity with her clients. So Levi would be aware that not only was his mother, (again, the only person who loved and treated him with tenderness) being hurt on his behalf, but he also would have been aware, after witnessing the particular ways in which she was being hurt, that he himself was the result of that violence. Levi would have been shown that his very existence, then, was something which caused immense suffering and pain to the only person in his life who loved him. I honestly can’t even imagine the negative implications of something like this on a young mind. Only to say, it must have been horrific and resulted in lifelong trauma. Trauma which, due to the desperation of Levi’s life afterward, he likely never had any opportunity or chance to even address.

Now, moving on to something else. There’s a tendency by many to paint Kuchel as this sort of perfect mother figure. Someone who, through the power of her love for Levi alone, was able to overcome the trauma of their general circumstances, to negate the negative experiences he would have been exposed to, resulting in Levi becoming the kind and compassionate person he would be as an adult. But I think this assumption about Kuchel and their situation is not only unrealistic and idealized in the extreme, but also in its way, undermines the actual bleakness of their circumstances.

Again, we have to remember that Kuchel was driven into the Underground, and essentially forced, through lack of any other options, to become a prostitute. Calling her a prostitute is a nice way of saying she had to sell herself into sexual slavery. Kuchel’s own psychological and emotional trauma doesn’t often get touched upon or acknowledged when people talk about her and her relationship with her son, nor does the desperate poverty of their living situation. Kuchel died right in front of Levi, and we can assume with pretty good accuracy that she either died from a sexually transmitted disease, or that she died from malnutrition and starvation. These weren’t two people, then, who were living a comfortable or secure life. In fact, the very opposite. Levi was starving to death when Kenny found him. It’s easy enough to assume from his state of general neglect and starvation that Kuchel, at the very least, was struggling to provide for him. Not just food, but any kind of comfort or care. Clothing, warmth, protection, cleanliness, and very likely even, affection. This isn’t a knock on Kuchel’s worth as a mother, or her parenting. She was, undoubtedly, doing the best she could given the circumstances. But, again, this particular aspect of their lives isn’t touched on nearly enough. Kuchel died out of neglect, impoverishment, desperation and abuse. Given what we can assume her day to day life was like, having to let men come and sexually assault her just to keep herself and her son alive, one has to also consider the emotional and mental toll this sort of existence would eventually have on her. She had to have been exhausted, both mentally and physically. You add to this the always uncertain and present reality of whether either her or Levi would even be able to eat on any, given day, whether she would be able to keep her son from starving to death, and you can start to form a clear idea of how things like “playtime” or “fun”, or freely given and enthusiastic love and affection, would be, tragically, low on the list of priorities. Their situation was absolutely a situation of survival, first and foremost. Luxuries weren’t a part of their lives. Anyone who’s ever experienced extreme deprivation, poverty and desperation on the level in which Kuchel and Levi were living would know that those material realities absolutely have a negative impact on one’s ability to simply live. To be happy. To indulge in fantasy. To indulge in luxury. To indulge in any kind of relaxation or ease of living. It’s nice to imagine that Kuchel was always able to show Levi love and affection. To always be a kind, caring and generous mother to him. But that perception of their lives together ignores the bleak and harsh reality of what was really going on. More likely than not, Kuchel was often too exhausted and in bad, physical shape herself to play with Levi, to pay attention to Levi, to indulge in Levi. It was everything she could do, after all, to simply keep Levi alive, let alone healthy and happy. Kenny described Levi, when he first took him in, as the most unfriendly kid he’d ever met. We rarely see Levi speak at all in those early days with Kenny. That doesn’t speak to someone who is well adjusted socially. That doesn’t speak to someone who received a lot of open love and affection in the formative years of his childhood. Again, this isn’t to criticize or undermine Kuchel’s abilities as a mother. It’s simply acknowledging the tragic reality, that someone in Kuchel’s position, living the kind of life she was living, wouldn’t have had the luxury of being for Levi everything he needed her to be.

This also leads me into another point I don’t think I’ve ever seen discussed, and that has to do with Kuchel’s decision to have Levi at all, and how that choice is, simultaneously, both entirely selfless, and entirely selfish.

Kenny tells his grandfather that he tried to talk Kuchel out of having her baby, trying to explain to her how bringing a baby into the kind of situation she was living in wasn’t viable. It was only going to make, not only her own life worse, but in turn, the baby’s life was going to be awful too. We later see, in Kenny’s memories, a scene in which Kuchel is holding Levi as a newborn against her chest and crying tears of happiness. Kenny recalls this as part of his monologue about dreams, and the desperation of dreams, and the ability of dreams to corrupt us. This is important to acknowledge. Because again, while Kuchel’s intentions in giving birth to Levi were pure, and her love for him was absolutely pure and genuine, still, she DID bring him into a situation of extreme poverty, desperation and violence. In a way, Kuchel prioritized her dream of motherhood not only over her own well being (this being the selfless aspect of her decision), but also over Levi’s well being (this being the selfish aspect). She knew her own living situation was terrible, filled with suffering, cruelty and pain. She knew this, and she was aware, from Kenny’s own words, that bringing a child into that situation was only going to make things worse, for both of them. But she chose to do it anyway. She chose to give birth to Levi, and to keep him, knowing the sort of deprivation and desperation he would be exposed to. Knowing the kind of violence and cruelty and ugliness he would be exposed to, being born and raised in a brothel, in which she was working as a prostitute, relegated to a single room with him in it.

Chances are high, extremely high, that Levi saw his mother raped. Maybe she sent him out of the room when she was with clients. But maybe she wasn’t able to. We never see any evidence of Levi having ever left their single room as a child, and even if he had, the building they were in was a brothel, catering to men seeking and paying for the sexual services of women. It isn’t an environment that is, in any way, suited to a child, friendly to a child, or even tolerant of a child. It’s almost 100% certain that Levi was, at one time or another, exposed to sexual violence against women, whether it was his own mother, or someone else. He would have been exposed to violence in general too, because men who sexually assault women are also very likely to physically assault them. I don’t think it’s any kind of a stretch, even, to assume that Levi himself might have been on the receiving end of physical violence, at the least, in a place like that. Men who wouldn’t want some little kid around while they force themselves on the women there probably would have little qualm with hitting Levi to make him go away.

Again, going back to Levi’s “unfriendliness” when Kenny first takes him in, I think we can extrapolate that a lot of what Kenny was perceiving as unfriendly behavior was in fact just Levi being withdrawn. He seemed sullen and mute to Kenny. We see this in children who have been abused. They tend to go within themselves and make themselves as unobtrusive as possible, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, because whenever they have, it’s always resulted in them somehow being hurt. Levi’s body language when Kenny first meets him speaks to this as well. He’s curled against the wall opposite his mother’s bed, literally making himself as small as possible, his knees hugged to his chest, his head bowed close to them, etc... Like he’s trying to hide. Again, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to assume that Levi fell victim to the violence of the men who frequented that place. The Underground in general was filled with violent and cruel men who made a living out of criminality, who in fact wouldn’t think twice about committing murder, etc...

This is the world Kuchel brought Levi into. A world of physical and sexual violence, a world of depravity and illness, a world of poverty and starvation. Kuchel loved Levi with all her heart. That isn’t for a moment in doubt. But by choosing to have him and keep him, she also trapped him into a life of pain and suffering of his own.

Kuchel had to know, if anything were to happen to her, that Levi’s chances of survival were next to none. He was helpless without her, and that too is evidenced by the fact that, when Kenny finds them, Levi is literally starving to death. He’s just sitting there, resigned to his fate. There’s no indication whatsoever that Levi ever even left their room to seek food, or help of any kind. He just sat there, trapped with his mother’s rotting corpse, waiting to die. And nobody there cared enough to even check on him or his mother in the span of time between when she fell ill and when she died. Nobody there cared enough about either of their lives to see if they were okay, and we can assume, because Levi didn’t seek anyone’s help, that he didn’t think anyone would help him, which tells us all we need to know about how he and his mother were generally treated in that place. Kuchel must have known, as she was dying, that without her, Levi was going to die too. She had no way and no cause to know or think that Kenny would come by to rescue him. And, indeed, if Kenny hadn’t shown up right when he did, Levi almost certainly would have died in that room with her. I can’t even imagine the pain this must have caused her, knowing she was dying, and knowing as a result, that her son was going to die too. It would have been unbearable. But again, this is also the risk Kuchel took when she chose to give birth to and keep Levi. She knew this was a possibility. That her child would die a slow and painful death without her there to protect and take care of him.

So this sort of sunny, idealistic picture that tends to get painted of Levi’s life with his mother seems both unrealistic and unfair to them in terms of understanding their actual situation. This wasn’t a happy or good life they were living together. It was a life full of misery and pain. Levi’s monologue later on to the 104th recruits, about not knowing if you’ll wake up and get to eat that day, or if your friends will still be alive, wasn’t just a reflection on their lives living with the threat of titans. It was a reflection of his own life living in the Underground, living a life surrounded by poverty and violence and uncertainty. That was Levi’s existence for the first 25 years of his life. That was Levi’s childhood. Violence and starvation, cruelty and deprivation. Kuchel’s love, as pure and as genuine as it was, wasn’t enough on it’s own to overcome the scars of all that.

One last note to end this on.

There’s also a tendency to paint Kenny’s rescue of Levi as this very heroic and selfless act on Kenny’s part. A moment in which Levi was pulled from the jaws of certain death and given a chance to live by his uncle. And while, yes, Kenny certainly did save Levi’s life and give him that chance, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that Kenny’s treatment of Levi was abusive, and ultimately caused him more harm than good. Kenny, we have to remember, went down to the Underground to rescue Kuchel. He went to that brothel with the intention of pulling her out and bringing her to live back up on the surface, able to do so now that he had ended the persecution of their family through his connection with Uri Reiss. But by the time he got there, Kuchel was dead, and she’d left behind her only child in Levi. Kenny could have so easily brought Levi up to the surface with him, the way he’d been planning on doing with Kuchel, and given him a good and happy life. He could have saved him from the hell of living in the Underground City. A world of perpetual darkness, a world of constant danger and desperation and illness. People talk about how Kenny gave Levi the tools to survive in such a harsh environment, and treat this as if it’s something to somehow be applauded and praised. But Kenny shouldn’t have had to teach Levi to survive in a cut-throat environment at all. He’d made it possible for those with the Ackerman name to live free of persecution up above. He could have easily taken Levi with him and given him a good, traditional education, fed and clothed him, given him shelter, given him the chance to grow up in fresh air and sunlight, given him a chance to make friends with other children, to learn social skills and just live a normal existence with the opportunity to actually be happy. But instead Kenny chose to keep Levi in the Underground, to teach him how to kill, to teach him to be violent, and not much else, before simply abandoning him there and never going back, forcing Levi to survive on his own in the most dangerous place inside the walls. What Kenny did to Levi wasn’t a kindness. A kindness would have been rescuing Levi from the Underground entirely and giving him a real life above. A kindness would have been Kenny giving to Levi what he’d planned on giving to his sister. But Kenny was too selfish to do that, and that’s the bottom line. He didn’t want to have to take care of and raise a child. He didn’t want the responsibility. Whether that’s tied to Kenny’s own, negative perception of himself or not doesn’t matter. He still chose not to take Levi with him and give him a real life because actually caring for and raising a child would have been too hard, too much work, too much responsibility. By leaving Levi there in the Underground, he sent Levi the message, clear as day, that he wasn’t wanted. And so Levi spent the entirety of his childhood, and a good portion of his adulthood, believing that, and living in the Underground, living a life of violence and desperation and suffering.

I don’t think the suffering Levi went through as a child gets discussed or acknowledged enough, or examined enough. I don’t think people often look at it with enough objective realism to realize the extreme harm and trauma Levi experienced and was left with. It’s genuinely a miracle that Levi turned out the way he did. That Levi is as good a man as he is. Nothing in his life growing up can really account for that. Everything in his life growing up would evince that he should have become the sort of man Kenny was, selfish and cruel. It’s truly against all odds that Levi became the exact opposite. Selfless in the extreme, kind, caring and compassionate above and beyond anyone else in the series. Someone who fights for and gives his life in dedication to the dreams and lives of others.

In many ways, Levi is, himself, the greatest miracle of all.

#Levi Ackerman #Kuchel Ackerman #Kenny Ackerman #meta #analysis #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin

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diagonal-queen · 4 months

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hello!! how are you doing??<3 may i have hunting dogs with silent s/o??? teruko platonic ofc:3 thanks if you do

Hunting Dogs with a Silent S/O

♡ pairing: Fukuchi Ouchi, Jouno Saigiku, Tecchou Suehiro, Teruko Okura, Tachihara Michizou x gn!Reader

♡ synopsis: How are they with an S/O who doesn't speak?

♡ cw: Swearing, I'm under the assumption that reader is completely silent either because they can't or won't speak, so...yeah!

note: I'm finally fucking posting something, so I'm honestly doing pretty fantastic! I know it's kinda short though I'm sorry T-T It's getting increasingly harder to find new panels of the Hunting Dogs to make banners out of. Like I spend a DISGUSTING amount of time on them and they don't even look good help </3 anyway Teruko solos, I apologise for errors and I hope you enjoy x

Fukuchi:

Fukuchi 'look upon and admire my adorable silent partner or face my wrath' Ouchi

I know I keep saying this but I physically can't see him being anything but extremely proud of his partner and wanting to show you off at any chance he can, no matter how silent you are

If you're up to it, sit with him at meetings and follow him around when he runs errands this man LOVES your company!

As such, he doesn't mind your silence. In fact, he thinks it's endearing, and will find alternative ways for you to communicate that make you the most comfortable

(I mean all of this in the most manly macho war hero way possible btw)

To be honest he's not the best at reading you at first, but just give it a little more time and you're like an open book to him. He is that meme where you're sad and then he wakes up in a cold sweat like 'something is deeply wrong'

Of course this is assuming that you've opted not to sleep in the same bed, which he's also fine with, but like, Fukuchi despite being a literal global hero is also a pathetic man who will turn up at your house in the wee hours of the morning because he couldn't sleep because he could sense that YOU couldn't sleep

He is both parts cool and just downright pitiful. Maybe you'll actually be the one taking care of him (behind closed doors of course)

Jouno:

"Excuse me they asked for no pickles" ahh boyfriend

He loves that you're silent. Not only can he already tell how you're feeling regardless because of your body language and other factors, but he also doesn't need to worry about any potential scares or distractions from your voice. Win-win

He's actually a little curious as to why you don't talk but he waits for you to tell him of your own accord rather than asking outright (and if you ask him to keep it a secret he does)

He's more than happy to speak for you at any point. Like if someone asks you a question, he answers for you if you want him to, or if the question is rude he's like 'hey leave my partner alone you pathetic fuck'

Jouno's just a little bit possessive. He just really, really strikes me as the type

Since you don't talk to him, your love language manifests in other ways. He loves when you cling to him, buy him little presents or help him with stuff, he genuinely really appreciates it.

And, honestly, he gives you more than enough compliments to make up for it <3

When you guys are out in public (not when he's at work) you're almost always holding hands. It's like you're glued to each other

Jouno doesn't need to hear you speak at all. The sound of your heartbeat is more than enough for him <3

Tecchou:

I mean...talk about a quiet couple

I feel like the only times Tecchou really even talks are when he's spoken to first, or when he's like talking to a suspect or a witness or whatever his job needs. He's certainly not a man of many words at the very least

Your time is spent together just in each others' presence and that's more than enough for him. Regardless of whether or not you have any conversation he loves your company

If he's given any options for something or any decisions to make ever without fail he'll always turn to you with a blank face and ask what you think, and wait for you to either nod and shake your head

He honestly might find it a little easier to communicate nonverbally with you and that's why he enjoys it so much. (if it isn't already established I am a firm believer in autistic Tecchou)

You two establish little ways of communicating with one another, like a squeeze of the hand means 'I love you' for example. It's honestly really adorable

At this point you could have whole conversations without saying anything. You two are the telepathic communication meme. Everyone else is confused, even Jouno is confused, he has NO idea what's happening

Man, he just loves everything about the way you are. And he'll squeeze your hand many times so that you know it

Teruko (platonic):

Let's be real she does enough talking for the both of you

Teruko is SO FUCKING LOUD, man. Even if you did talk, you're not quite sure you'd be able to hear your own voice. You sure as hell can't hear your own thoughts already

Teruko might have prodded at you for a while when you first met, trying to provoke you into talking. But you didn't let up with your silence and she decided that she liked you as you were anyway.

She really doesn't seem like someone who you should try talking over or interrupting tbh

If anyone else did that to you though, they'd be getting decked (I know I say this in EVERY Teruko post but I adore the idea of her being the 'only I'm allowed to be mean to you' friend)

Unlike the others she probably doesn't always wait to get your opinion. She'll be like 'do you wanna hang' and then before you indicate any answer she's got you by the wrist and has started dragging you around

But she loves you so much for real. Will stick up for you, will include you in things, and will make you feel VALUED.

Like Jouno, is also an 'Excuse me they asked for no pickles' person

Except she'd probably just take the pickles off and launch them at the poor cashier let's be real. And you just have to give them an apologetic look T-T

Tachihara:

He's friends with Gin. If you think he has an issue with your quietness you're a little stupid sorry <3

He thinks it's endearing and will still engage with you just as much as anyone else, like even if you're arguing or something he'll still like pause and wait for you to argue back before continuing T-T

Not that I imagine you'd argue very much but he's a stubborn guy fr (goodluck if you're also stubborn (I'm NOT projecting))

If you primarily communicate in sign language, he'll learn it for you. He might not be perfect but goddamnit he'll TRY.

He's already pretty good at reading your facial expressions and minute body language, so like a lot of the time if he sees your eyebrow twitch a certain way or some shit he'll just be like 'you look happy babe :)' or like 'you look sad what's wrong :('

Sometimes it feels a little random but it's just because he cares about you <3

The two of you text each other ALL the time. Like even from across the room and stuff. He probably did it one day to be a goof but the habit stuck and now its your guys' thing

And everyone else can always tell when you're doing it because the pair of you are just smiling down at your phones and occasionally glancing at each other (Teruko probably bullies you guys rip

You guys might have your little quirks or whatever but who cares? You're still fucking adorable anyway

taglist~ ♡ @gettinshiggywithit, @fyodorhatr, @flower-of-darkness, @bejeweledgirl, @kokoenjiandco, @pinkiipeachiikeen

and of course thank you to @flocaelors for this req!

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user-needs-new-hyperfixation · 11 months

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Trying to start a giant-ass meta on why I ship Mycroft/Albert and what there is to see of it and right off the bat I'm like...I want people to look at every single panel of their interactions.

No, it's not Sherliam levels. And BIG OLD DISCLAIMER: very little of what I'm going to present here is like "We were clearly intended to read it this way." I'll always argue that Sherliam is meant to be romantic: it hits so many well-established notes and tropes it's almost impossible to think otherwise. MycAl is a bit different. I do think it's definitely like...we're welcome and even invited to see it. But a LOT of my shipping it comes from the way I personally read and interpret things. So this is about explaining what I'm seeing that makes me ship it, rather than trying to be like "This is canon and you should agree with me." Anyway, for reference, I'll be using the official translation as far as it goes and then swapping to teawaffles' wonderful translation for the rest!

So...like right off the bat throughout the entirety of their Chapter 4 interactions their body language and expressions and ways of talking are so flirty? (Also, I still find it funny that in the manga Mycroft is introduced before Sherlock and thus Mycal is introduced before Sherliam. Older bros first lol.)

Maybe it's just that 2 decades on the internet have skewed me towards reading suggestiveness into everything, but the way Mycroft addresses Albert feels so flirtatious even if he's literally just being normal. "And what would an Indian Army official such as yourself want from an intelligence official such as myself this late in the evening?" Like...am I crazy? Does that not kinda sound like a porn intro? 😂 (This could also be Sherliam Side-effects. The way they call each other Professor and Detective in That One Scene is like...almost undeniably foreplay. Now every time anyone calls each other by title/profession/rank is this series I assume they're hitting on each other.)

But also Albert is just so...handsy throughout that scene. He's touching Mycroft's knickknacks, and just sort of limp-wristing all over the place. And I mean, I think that's just one of Albert's public-facing personas (customer service peeps, you know what's up) but it definitely lends itself to the existence of Vibes.

Anyway, there's this parallel of "You have my attention. What do you want?" that I think is kinda neat. (But look how comparatively sad Mycroft looks in the second version!!!)

Chapter 4:

Chapter 23:

Btw, in Scandal in the British Empire...why does Mycroft introduce himself to the Queen? Never mind, not why we're here. Again, my weird innuendo sensors perk up in Chapter 17 at "I did not drag you out of bed this early for nothing." Maybe it's because my perception of Victorian niceties, whether it's factual or not, is that there was this sense of avoiding talk of physical realities. We don't speak of pregnancy, we speak of "her condition" and "confinement." We don't "go to bed," we "retire." And so on. So conversely, it feels almost suggestive to even acknowledge that someone was in bed. In whatever state of undress the might imply. *Kellen Goff Sasaki voice:* OOOH how sCanDaLOus. (Mind you I DON'T believe there is anything of authorial intent in this, again, just trying to explain the factors that make me read things a certain way.)

The little mind games: Albert immediately recognizing that he's being tested, and Mycroft well aware that something is off, that he and Albert are using each other to their own ends. All juicy ship ingredients.

Then there's this...I can't articulate why it's important. But it is. Something about mouths and thoughts. If I wasn't terribly lazy, I'd go digging for examples in various manga series and I have a pretty firm suspicion that I could prove that, often, Mouth-Focus Thinking Panel + Name = Ship.

Jumping forward to the start of The Riot in New Scotland Yard (Chapter 29), Mycroft's demeanour has really changed. During the meeting at the British Museum he's radiating "I'm not angry I'm just disappointed" energy. He's tense, he's not sure if the Moriartys are enemies and when he understands their plan he seems understandably sad about it even as he accepts it. But now, he's radiating an almost Sherlock-like excitement. He's just gotten to see a miniature version of The Plan in action during the Jack the Ripper case, and it worked. He says he's just visiting Albert as an acquaintance (read: friend in Mycroftian), and that's what it feels like. They're chummy. It's cute. Also Albert teasing Mycroft over his squabbles with Sherlock when he leaves? When did Albert find out about that, hmm? (I mean, could be spying of course. But I like to think it just suggests they've talked more than we've seen.)

Annnnnd....cutting this part off here because I'm bored of it for now and it's long. I'll do the rest when the mood strikes. 😂

#yuukoku no moriarty #moriarty the patriot #mycal #alcroft #meta or something #been a while since i've done one of these 'not meta so much as just a disorganized stream of consciousness' long-posts lol

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zeroducks-2 · 5 months

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Idk if anyone is interested but in case someone is, yes, Barry reciprocates. Have my exhibits! With pictures!

.Exhibit A!

He keeps looking for Eobard subconsciously, can feel when he's there, his presence alone is able to trigger Barry's memories of past and future lives.

And look, Eobard was right there!

(panels from The Flash Vol.1: Lightning Strikes Twice)

.Exhibit B!

When he finds Eobard dead, Barry spends time with his body in the morgue struggling over how he died, what might have hurt him, observing that "whatever got him must have just slowed him down" (all the while softly whispering to and gently touching Eobard's body).

I can never not be insane over how tenderly he's caressing Eobard's forehead. Might I add that he spends just so much time in the morgue that he's late to his own birthday party. Might I also add that whatever Barry did in that morgue, it brings Eobard back to life. This man literally told his nemesis "come back to me", and Eobard obediently did.

The last panel, that's Eobard's powers reactivating as he's revived, moments after Barry left.

(panels from The Flash Vol.4: Running Scared)

.Exhibit C!

When Godspeed starts killing people, including the woman Barry was dating, Barry is shocked but keeps being willing to forgive if August is willing to stand down. Barry gets beaten up and humiliated and still worries for August, trying to appeal to his rationality and compassion.

But then August makes the mistake to threaten to find Eobard (who at the moment is being tortured a prisoner in Iron Heights), and kill him in front of Barry's eyes. And if Barry has been rational and willing to stop fighting, after the umpteenth time August tries to get to Eobard he loses his entire shit, grabs August by his head and neck and is just about to kill him, in a scene which is a direct parallel to when Eobard forced him to break his neck.

That's apparently what Barry does when someone insists on threatening to kill the people he loves and make him watch. He doesn't kill August of course, but he gets close to it - the moment Barry lets him go August is unconscious for lack of air, he was being choked to death even without the neck breaking part. All because he had threatened to murder Eobard.

This is Barry breaking Eobard's neck to protect Fiona, Barry's fiancee at the time, after he's been incessantly threatened to be forced to watch as he kills her. He did not want to kill Eobard, he felt extremely guilty to the point that now, having killed him is one of his worst nightmares, but he was essentially forced to do it (why Eobard did this to make himself get killed is another interesting and unhinged story for another time). So as you can see, this is how Barry reacts when he gets threatened with the death of someone he loves.

And this also is Barry reacting to the threat of a speedster killing someone he loves. I am in awe with the parallels drawn between these two panels. The same font and stile has been used for Barry's "Not again!" and "No!", and there is the same brutality coming from someone who 99% of the time tries everything but violence to solve any kind of situation. He's entirely out of his mind when he does this.

(panels from The Flash Vol.1: Lightning Strikes Twice)

IN CONCLUSION

Somehow, IDK HOW, Barry does reciprocate in some form. At least in Joshua Williamson's run he does. ...I actually have my theories on the how, which entail these two being each other's lodestone, being irremediably connected through time and space, and Barry having been loved&desired so much and so strongly for so long, both outwardly and through the natural connection of their powers, that at some point he just... started feeling back.

"But Thawne killed his mother!" LISTEN. I KNOW. I think Eo is as confused by this as you and I to be honest. And that's also something about Barry which is very fascinating imo: he will love in spite of everything. Even if the other person doesn't understand it, even if it makes no sense, even if BY ALL MEANS HE SHOULDN'T, even if he hurts, he will still love and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Luckily for Eobard, because there is no one else in the omniverse that ever loved him, and likely ever will.

#eobarry #they're canon yall #I have wanted to write this post for a while but somehow kept postponing it #I guess this counts as a meta?#my meta #speedsters stories are insane yall should give them a try #ESPECIALLY Williamson's run

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discowingneckline · 3 months

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reasons i hate rhato pt1

this pertains to v1 #1, so expect more at some point when i can stomach looking at it again. this is exactly what the title says. hey, do you like rhato? great, fuck off and don't read something that is going to upset you. i don't care what your good opinions are of this. the run sucks, and it deprives almost every other character of their personality for the sake of jason's character.

why does jason not have clothes on? why is his stupid little cute jacket not on him? why didn’t anyone give him underwear? if there’s clothes for kory, there must be clothes for him! if kory took off his clothes, it makes little sense why she wouldn’t put some on him where he isn’t injured at the very least.

why didn’t kory keep his gun farther away from jason, and also why wouldn’t a seasoned hero at the very least not take the bullets out of his gun like be so for real. she clearly doesn’t recognize him here (for some fucking reason)

why does kory look at jason and think of her and dick post sexy times?? why do you fucking think the first thing on her mind for memory is that shit? fucking weirdo.

also why is kory so white-looking? fucking weirdo. why is she stick thin?

i don’t like the relationship here of dick and jason. i am a jason todd is a nice good robin. like yeah a bit of attitude but um…ew

also why is kory here in the first place and living like this? she is a woman of class, thank you very much.

if kory had “male clothes” the entire time, back to a previous point, why didn’t she put them on jason (since she already took off his clothes to treat him) or at least keep them near jason for when he would wake up? it’s giving that scott lobdell just wanted excuses to have jason nude for like all of this issue and to dumb kory down to be super sexual.

also kory’s proportions are so weird and off. and also, let’s be so for real, they took away her curves and like body fat? like she was super strong, buff, hot before man. what the fuck.

“they appear to be the correct size” which one? the robin suit? the nightwing suit? which nightwing suit? also this is giving, based on previous panels, “jason has to face his horrible brother’s suit and take his mantle, but this time (super edgy shit) he makes it his own!” get a fucking grip.

the amount of jason calling kory “orange” when he knows her name and her title!! it’s giving fucking racist behavior. and it’s just rude. he literally got called out about it a second ago and he made this huge apology, just to do the same shit repeatedly again. speaking of that, comparing her to something from national geographic is giving…dehumanization.

where did kory get these clothes? how long has she been where she is? what the fuck. also, not that kory wouldn’t wear stuff like that, but?? i don’t see why she has so many changes of clothes that are almost carbon copies of the same shit.

what is that flashback she has with nightwing and arsenal? first off, what the hell is that roy? second off, why is kory’s body shaped like that? also this suit of her’s sucks. worst i’ve seen ever. my irl friend also complained about nightwing’s shoulders and the overall anatomy of the art. said it was shit.

why is jason handling guns and weapons with no shirt on? why are they so set on not giving this man clothes?

“she obviously loved dick grayson—almost as intently as i hated him” be so fucking for real right now. get a fucking grip. is this where the bulk of “bad sibling dick grayson” comes from for jason todd fics? because lmao be so for real.

what is jason’s anatomy this page specifically? what the fuck is it?

oh my fucking god. why does kory go to kiss jason?? in the water?? at night?? at fucking all? like kory isn’t shy with her sexuality, but jfc. you’re trying to tell me after she was so hung up about nightwing (??) that she just throws herself to whatever man is available? be so for real. she has fucking standards, and jason todd will never meet them. it’s giving that someone (scott lobdell) had a thing for a character (kory) and was using a self-insert (jason todd) to get that.

also what is with all of her thigh gaps?? give my princess her body back please holy shit.

…i read more, and what the hell is: “it is one of the ways my people assimilate language, knowledge—you said you wanted to talk, i only assumed…” kory was literally talking to him for several days in english. why the fuck would she kiss him? again, makes no sense. you’re making a very intelligent woman fucking stupid so jason can seem cool and smart and desired. it’s gross.

…why does kory’s power look like that? um…ew.

“sometimes they are crazed vigilantes pretending to love us like a son” be so fucking for real. as though jason and bruce didn’t have a decent relationship at the bare minimum. also?? what the literal fuck is “pretending to love us like a son” bruce does love jason, and of course dick as well. perhaps he isn’t always the best at showing it, but he does. and if this is another jab about bruce not killing the joker? literally get off of it. that is not fair for jason to say shit like that. it goes against everything bruce has ever stood for since he was a child, and it’s insane to expect bruce to do whatever jason wants when jason is going out killing a ton of people and overall just being a piece of shit.

why is jason talking about friendship and romance when it pertains to kory?? be so fucking for real. i do not believe for a second that kory would get with jason after their talk if jason truly talked to her about everything (because she would know that she was/is in love with dick, and i don’t take her for being someone who would throw herself at his brother).

…i wonder what “qurac” would possibly be a stand in for. also why would roy harper just be sitting and taking that? also why is it just jason who is going out to get roy and not, oh i don’t know?? his fucking family??

if you guys want to see the panels from the points i gave, just let me know and i will reblog with them included.

#op #dc #dc comics #anti rhato #jason todd #koriand'r #roy harper #dick grayson #nightwing #starfire #arsenal dc #i fucking hate this #and the art is pretty shitty too

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mettywiththenotes · 1 month

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I can't stop thinking about this panel because... What's their connection? What does it actually mean for them and what's about to happen?

I know that both forms are associated with rejection, when Izuku didn't listen to what anybody told him and followed his dreams anyway, and Tenko rejecting the world - his family - around him for punishing him for talking about heroes... But I wonder if this will actually be shown to us in the next chapter

Specifically focusing on Izuku's middle school form though, I've talked before about how I think Izuku reacts to feeling useless, associating it with how he used to be back then, which is something he doesn't like. The only strong evidence to this being how self deprecating he acted in the war arc when he thought to himself "Don't be the old worthless deku like you were before!" because he literally couldn't move. I wondered if Hori would ever add onto it or at least bring it up again. These thoughts become even more interesting when you remember that Izuku is sort of quirkless now, the remnants of OFA probably being the only reason why he's still present in the void

It's as if returning to that state is more than enough to make Izuku feel like he did in middle school, hence the outfit change. It makes me think (dare I say hope) that this might be where Hori brings up his feelings surrounding his quirklessness again. Not just outfit-wise, but now physically, Izuku has never been closer to those feelings than right now

But there's other possibilities too

Maybe Hori will just go as far as using these forms to point out the similarities at the time, that they have both rejected the world in their own ways, and that'll be it

Or, if we're going to get Izuku trying to stop Tenko killing his family, the fact that he still has his backpack in this panel reminds me of when he first "moved without thinking" and threw his it at the sludge guy to try and help Bakugou. Not saying Izuku's gonna straight up throw his backpack at Tenko or other family members lol, but just that Izuku taking on his middle school form may possibly mean he'll be connected to those feelings of "moving without thinking" which is also associated with "you looked like you wanted to be saved", something that has been repeated with Tomura and so has a chance of being reiterated again here, now with Izuku feeling even more connected to his origins than before. Wanting to help and doing so despite the odds etc

Whatever the case, my mind can't stop racing at the possibilities of what could happen and I can't wait to find out

#eeee im excited #bnha #bnha 417 #bnha manga spoilers #bnha spoilers #izuku midoriya #shigaraki and midoriya analysis #there's like a paragraph on it so it counts #mettys posts #metty posts

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tinukis · 5 months

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i always tell my friends i dont want to talk about marineford/post war but then i realized thats the arc i talked about most and im just oopsies !! anyway uhh

one piece post war spoilers !!! analyzing luffy's behavior in post war and it's a bit of a heavy topic (suicide implications)

i've said what i wanted to my friends but i wanna see if anyone else thought the same or im just insane

so... when luffy woke up in post war, he immediately ran for it and screamed and cried looking for ace. but he's being haunted by that traumatic moment, akainu's fist through ace's stomach... ace breaking his promise, ace's embrace, ace talking to luffy as much as he can- until his last breath... ace's blood on his hands- "STOP IT!!!!"

it kept flashing in his mind and he's trying his damndest to get it away. by punching or headbutting whatever he sees. jinbe asked law what would happen if they left luffy alone like that:

luffy would die if he was left alone. of course, with ace's request, he couldn't let that happen. so jinbe goes and sees luffy.

after tuckering himself out, luffy is aware that this is reality and not some hellish nightmare. (looking back on the panels hurt so much... it hurts to see our mc broken like this) he belittles himself, he says hes not fit to be pirate king, he's weak, he couldn't protect anyone. he couldn't save his friends and he couldn't save ace. his spirit is broken. he's alone in this world.

thats what he thought at the moment anyway... with nothing left, luffy continues hurting himself. bashing his head against the ground. maybe even until it cracks open because what the hell is luffy even good for now? might as well end it all because he's got no one and he's weak. there's no point in being pirate king if he can't protect the people he loves. and loneliness is so much worse than being in pain.

luffy would go an extra mile, push the limit, to save ace. ace gave him a place to belong when luffy literally had nowhere else to stay. he'd go so far to save his brother even if it meant his own life.

if he can't save ace, he'd want to die. but... ace couldn't let that happen. ace still had to save his little brother. despite going through literal levels of hell to save ace, it was all for nothing.

and god don't get me started how ecstatic luffy was when he set ace free. and that they fought together, back to back. but it all ended within moments.

whether or not he knew he'd die if he kept hurting himself like this, it's much preferable anyway. he wanted to die. he wished to be left alone but when jinbe wouldn't "it's my body!!! i can do what i like!!!" he was intentionally hurting himself. to get those thoughts away even if it meant killing himself.

but again, with ace's request, asking jinbe to look after luffy for him: he couldn't allow luffy to die. let alone kill himself like this. so jinbe had to help and 'repair' luffy's spirit. reminding him of what luffy still had.

after jinbe's speech, luffy began counting on his fingers that were once stained with his brother's blood... and started sobbing when he realized there was still people out there he loved, waiting for him. he wasn't alone in the world. they were still out there alive just like he was. likely in a safe place where no one would hurt them.

luffy remembers he still had his friends, who were also his family.

had ace not ask jinbe to look after luffy and had jinbe not obliging ace's last wish, luffy would have killed himself then. maybe law would have stepped in as he willingly saved his life (and needed him for future reference) but i dont think he'd have much impact as jinbe because jinbe was there imprisoned with ace, listening to his story and how dear luffy is to him.

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mychlapci · 4 months

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hi sunstreaker anon (the one who sent you the smash or pass) i have not stopped thinking about his rancid ass since i first stumbled across his wiki page so you get to bare witness to my insanity!

so like.... sunstreaker would be a prissy bitch in bed. i think we can all agree that his ass would constantly be complaining about something

"oh don't touch me there, you'll scratch my finish" or "if you go any harder it'll be difficult to buff out the paint transfers" he would do literally anything other than admit he's a kinky motherfucker who enjoys being roughed up.

this leads to most bots assuming that he doesn't want to get fragged, bc his general personality and reputation as a brutal frontliner combined means that when he says "no" (even if he doesn't really mean it and just wants to play hard to get), he really does mean "no" and then everyone leaves him alone.

sooooo here's my idea. fucking glory hole. for uh.... morale purposes.... it's anonymous and those who sign up remain unknown to the rest of the army and by this point sunstreaker has gotten real desperate, like leaking behind his panels whenever someone on the battlefield manages to rough him up kinds of desperate. and well... he'd let whatever con got a hold of him in a fight get a lick at his valve but he's conveniently never alone and someone is always there to save him. so he's really fucking pissy from lack of getting spike

so he signs up for the glory hole, bc what the fuck else is he supposed to do besides suffer

and it goes soooo well. sunstreaker spends the whole night getting his valve pounded into oblivion, without anyone worrying about pissing him off from going at it too hard. he ends the solar cycle with transfluid dripping out of him and a processor that's been so thoroughly fucked that he needs to take a good hour or so to properly get back into his own mind.

bonus points if he's got piercings (you know he does), that line his valve and conduct charger better. maybe even a stud pierced right through his anterior node with a chain attached to his valve lips so that whenever someone goes really hard, it makes him overload from sheer sensation alone.

in the following solar cycles, everyone notices how nice he's been as of late and start treating him a little better, maybe someone starts to catch onto his games and then they fuck nasty in a supply closet or something extra bonus points if the bot also used the glory hole and recognises the wonderfully plush mesh lining and the pretty golden gems pierced through the valve lips

anon, you are slowly making me positively insane about Sunstreaker.

Poor Sunstreaker, cursed with a kink that goes against everything he stands for. No one even offers to fuck him anymore, they either dislike him too much or are scared of him or someone told them what an absolute bitch he is in bed and they don't wanna deal with that. And all his no's are taken as hard no's, even if they're not, even if he's just trying to play a game. Sunstreaker is so horny all the time, he hasn't taken a real spike in ages, no one's even gotten to compliment the piercings he had done, and he's been getting increasingly desperate, so desperate that he'd let himself be pinned down by whatever non-descript decepticon he can find and pop open his panels open for them...

Sunstreaker resorting to a glory hole, pressing his pretty pussy against the hole in the wall of the stall and biting his lip as a thick spike is shoved into him without warning. They don't know who he is and he doesn't know who they are, so it's perfect. Sunstreaker can finally get fucked without restraint. His beautiful pieced valve gets split open on dozens of spikes, and soon enough the side of the wall is stained with his lubricant and loads upon loads of transfluid. The bots on the other side tug at his piercings and play with his pussy, they tease when they hear his engine revv from the other side of the wall...

I can't shake off the image of pretty, pristine Sunstreaker splayed over a filthy public toilet, his sore valve ruined and twitching as thick transfluid leaks out of him. He's overloaded so many times his legs refuse to work, he has to sit there and shake through the aftershocks, staring up at the cieling with a blissed out look on his face.

Mhmm, people recognizing Sunstreaker's pussy after that. They don't say anything but he knows they know when they start fucking him harder, treating him like a little whore <3

#hrghhh now i'm thinking about Sunstreaker actually getting that decepticon dick one of these days though #valveplug

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pikatrainer99 · 6 months

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Sinnoh Trio character analysis (headcanon supportive) SPOILER WARNING FOR A POKÉSPE MANGA ARC THAT IS OVER A DECADE OLD AT THIS POINT BUT STILL, JUST IN CASE! 😅

This post is a follow-up to my post where I drew the Sinnoh Trio as TBH (autism) creatures. That is my personal headcanon and today I'm going to analyze these kids, and go more in-depth on why I hold this headcanon. I'm going to focus on one character at a time here, followed by a scene analysis of a particular important moment...so this will be a long post because these kids are SO neurodivergent and I love them so much.

First up, we have Pearl, who is my favorite of the Sinnoh Trio and the one I relate to the most. My personal headcanon for him is that he is AuDHD (both autistic and ADHD). I also headcanon him to have an anxiety disorder (specifically GAD) because he is constantly freaking out over pretty much everything (which is so relatable as someone who has GAD myself). There's so many panels that show his anxiety that I honestly can't pick ones to include here...

Anyway, on to the ADHD, Pearl exhibits many traits. He is constantly on the move and impatient and loud, and wants everything to be done immediately. He's energetic and much faster compared to Diamond and Platinum, even to the point of always being the first one to wake up every morning. This is, in my opinion, the ADHD side of him, it reminds me a lot of my ADHD brothers who act like this often. Because of these traits, I personally feel like Pearl has the hyperactive type of ADHD rather than the inattentive type, as he is shown to be not scatterbrained and is capable of focusing on whatever he's doing quite well, even able to go into hyperfocus mode at times, which is an extremely ND thing to do (and is common in both autism and ADHD). He is also the most rational of the trio, which I always found interesting that they actually gave the Barry counterpart the brain cell. So yeah, he's hyperactive, but to me he doesn't seem to have many issues with his attention span.

Now, onto Pearl's autism, which I feel more confident to talk about because I'm autistic myself and I know what to look for in terms of traits and behaviors, and the first thing I noticed with Pearl is that he has a CLEAR special interest in comedy. He's INCREDIBLY passionate about it, he's the one who decided that he and Diamond should become a comedy duo, he's the one who writes all their scripts and all their sketches, he's the one who always initiates practice time, and he's DEFINITELY the one who takes it the most seriously out of the duo, to the point where he had (what seems like to me) a legit meltdown about how Diamond didn't stick to the script and how awful their performance in the comedy competition was because of it, complete with yelling, nearly bursting into tears, and being afraid that Diamond was breaking the promise they'd made to become comedians all the way back when they were 4 years old. Looking back on it now, I think THAT was his biggest problem with the whole situation and what caused him to completely explode like that in the first place, because once Diamond reassures him that he's not breaking the promise, Pearl IMMEDIATELY cheers up and tells him "No use moping about today then!" when that was EXACTLY what he was doing just seconds ago. He then initiates practice time for NEXT MONTH'S comedy competition, his mind ALREADY hyperfocusing on their next opportunity...and this is their INTRODUCTION SCENE! This all LITERALLY happens within the first few pages of volume 1 of the DP arc! Here's the scene I'm talking about.

Also in regards to his special interest in comedy, there's something he does with Diamond that I've gotta talk about...and that's using the comedy routines as their own special way of communicating. They use it almost as if it's their own language, they use it to process things, they use it to give hints to Platinum when she's battling, they even use it when they meet someone new as kind of a judge of their character (in the minds of these children, if they make the person laugh, the person can be trusted, if not, stay away...that kinda thing). He even outright tells Platinum that he uses it to communicate through rhythm. I always found it interesting how they used the comedy like that, and it definitely helps with my belief that it is in fact, a special interest for them, as special interests do actually be like that, I speak from experience. Here's some examples of this usage of the comedy routines.

Another thing about Pearl that I noticed is he's REALLY not good at communicating how he's feeling or what's on his mind. He also is (brutally at times) honest, speaks his mind, and doesn't sugarcoat things. He can come off as rude and bossy because of this, even though he's really a good kid. This is something I relate to because I'm the same way, I also struggle with communicating my thoughts and feelings, and I'm also brutally honest, speak my mind and don't sugarcoat things. I have been perceived as rude and bossy so many times in my life it's not even funny. Another thing I find relatable about Pearl is that he can't lie to save his life (neither can I), here's a good example of such a moment.

(Uh-huh...SUUUURRRREEEE ya did, Pearl XD)

Also, while we're on the topic of expression, Pearl is VERY hyperexpressive, which is once again, very much an ND thing (I am hyperexpressive a lot of the time myself)...he almost always reacts to basically anything in an over-the-top, exaggerated way, compared to Diamond and Platinum's more calm and composed approach to things...I'm seriously thinking of doing a post of all of my favorite Pearl expressions because he's got so many great ones!

Pearl seems to exhibit low empathy (a stark contrast to Diamond's hyperempathy), but he really does care about his friends and will even help wild Pokémon. The wild Luxio that he helped in the chapter titled "Extreme Luxio" is one of my favorite Pokémon in the whole manga and his dynamic with it is very wholesome. He figures out that it's being ostracized by its pride because of the fact that it's disabled - its claws are too short, which makes it harder for it to communicate with the others in its pride. Pearl helps it out, and even says to the others, "Listen all of you, it's got a disability, and can't communicate as clearly as the rest of you! That's no reason to reject it!" He was quite angered by this situation and when you put my headcanon into perspective here, it's quite easy to see why. But anyway, point is, he went out of his way to advocate for and help a disabled Pokémon, and it leads to one of the best Trainer/Pokémon bonds in the series in my opinion, as the Luxio comes back later, now a Luxray and the leader of its pride...and decides to become one of Pearl's Pokémon. That moment is so sweet and wholesome and I'll just leave the picture of their reunion here for you guys. Look at them hug! They're so happy to see each other again!

Pearl also seems to have hypersensitive hearing (as do I), as demonstrated when he hears someone who's basically lost his voice calling out for help from a ways away.

He also experienced what I can't help but percieve as sensory overload in the Old Chateau when all the Gastly were hovering around the place making vibrations that were so loud it shook the room and it overwhelmed him a lot. I get it Pearl, that would be too much for me too...just look at his reactions here, he's clearly in pain.

I also sometimes can't help but feel like Pearl is unaware of his own strength, like when he hits Diamond in their comedy routines...I get the feeling that he doesn't quite understand that he's hitting Diamond way too hard, as he seems shocked and taken aback when Diamond finally stands up to him and tells him he's not happy with everything he's been doing lately. Diamond makes it a point to make Pearl aware of how much getting smacked by him hurts...all I can say is, good for Dia, but judging from Pearl's reactions to his best friend's words...oof...just look for yourselves...

My takeaway from this scene is that Pearl was being made aware of all this for the first time, and not only felt like a bad friend, but also, he was once again afraid that Diamond would leave him...which he really REALLY didn't want, and I totally get why, considering how long they've been friends and how much like brothers those two are (though Pearl is SO parentified during their journey it's insane and it's another HUGE stressor for him which does NOT do his anxiety any good). And now that I've decided to open THAT can of worms, I might just do a post about it as well. Because...yeah it's not good considering the fact that HE IS 12!!! Still very much A CHILD!!!

At least Pearl learns from his mistakes, which I really love his development. After his and Diamond's fight, he learns to mellow out a bit (that says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about his anxiety though). You can really tell that losing Diamond's friendship...that is one thing he absolutely DOES NOT want, and he makes a conscious effort to improve his treatment of him. He starts by not hitting Diamond in their comedy routines anymore, and even letting him come up with his own joke instead of always doing it himself and forcing his own ideas onto him. While he still yells a lot, it's mostly out of worry for his friends now rather than pure anger towards them. He even learns how to put himself in Diamond's shoes at one point, during his fight to protect Azelf from Team Galactic. I love this moment btw, it's a great moment of realization for him.

All in all, in my opinion, Pearl is an amazing AuDHD character who goes through a great character arc (and unfortunately, a trauma arc as well, as per usual with PokéSpe protags...there's NO WAY he doesn't have PTSD after all he went through in both the DP and PT arcs, I refuse to believe he's fine after all that), and I absolutely wholeheartedly love this child like he's my own son. Now for the next member of the Sinnoh Trio...Diamond!

Diamond, in my opinion, is EASILY a hyperempathic autistic child...his Dexholder title is literally "The Empathizer" and he is associated with Mesprit, the Pokémon known as the Being of Emotion. He is the only member of the trio with more than one special interest from what I can see. His are comedy (which he shares with Pearl, but his interest is to a lesser extent than Pearl), cooking (which he's extremely good at and takes very seriously), and a TV show called Proteam Omega (which his enthusiasm for it is way too adorable honestly).

Diamond is the most impulsive member of the trio, which like how they gave the Barry counterpart the brain cell, I find it interesting that they made the Lucas counterpart the impulsive one. He possesses a strong sense of justice and wants to do what he believes is right, including stand up to Cyrus, much to Pearl's dismay (this was actually the catalyst for their big fight in volume 4). He is very intuitive, his emotional intelligence is mostly intuition to him and he's also much, MUCH more perceptive than he lets on, for example he knew the whole thing with him and Pearl being Platinum's bodyguards was a misunderstanding from the beginning, but he didn't say anything about it because he was enjoying their time together and didn't want it to end. Here's that scene where he reveals he knew all along.

Diamond is a very calm, laid-back, "go with the flow" kind of kid. But I think this is because he's constantly feeling A LOT...he's extremely empathic, so he picks up on others' emotions easily and it happens so much he just keeps it all in and resorts to being incredibly calm throughout it all. When he DOES get upset or serious though, he's like a whole different person. He's hard to anger, but he is absolutely capable of getting angry. His anger though, is the tranquil fury kind. He's not explosive like Pearl, but rather, he gets much more serious and intense. Here's an example of angry Diamond.

(He angy boi.)

Diamond is also an easy crier, of the Sinnoh Trio, he's the one who is the easiest to bring to tears...which I can't stand...everytime any of these three cry it breaks my heart...and we'll talk about the scene that's the biggest offender of that soon. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Diamond is the one who's most in tune with his emotions, compared to Pearl and Platinum, who struggle with that. It makes sense though considering his hyperempathy. Also, can I take a minute to mention that he has the type of big eyes that are similar to the TBH creature...? Yes...? Okay. He does. I saw a post about this recently and it's so true! His eyes are so similar to TBH it's not even funny! And it makes total sense too, that's the best part!

Diamond is more of a pacifist than Pearl and Platinum. He's a pure, sweet soul who can do no wrong. He doesn't like conflict, he much prefers to make people smile instead. I love this about him, I don't think there's a PokéSpe protag that actually acts their age as much as Diamond does. In my opinion Diamond is a precious autistic bean and I absolutely love him like a son as well. Now for the final member of the Sinnoh Trio...Platinum Berlitz!

Platinum is definitely a masker, she's incredibly good at passing for NT (probably because of her upbringing). But there are definitely cracks in that mask that I've picked up on. First, her special interest, which is learning and experiencing new things. She says that back home she always read a dozen books a day, but seeing her actually experiencing the things she'd read about and having so much fun is great, she throws herself wholeheartedly into everything she tries, it's honestly adorable. She is also a bad liar, though she at first "lies" all the time, even though Pearl sees right through it and catches her everytime. Here's some examples.

Platinum is a stimmer. Plain and simple. She moves her arms up and down really fast when she's excited about something, and it's often accompanied by her saying "New experiences! New experiences!" in a sing-song voice.

(Why is she so adorable?!)

She is also an infodumper...a MASSIVE infodumper...just look at this scene with Thorton as just one example.

Platinum is also not the best with words, and finds that writing is the most effective way for her to organize her thoughts and feelings, as well as communicate them (relatable). She says so herself in volume 5, after finding out the truth that Diamond and Pearl are not her real bodyguards, and the scene of her reading the letter is so wholesome I love it so much!

Another thing I've noticed with Platinum is that she is a mimicker (something I myself did A LOT as a child), despite all her attempts to deny it. She often copies things she sees the others doing, even mimicking...SMACKING HERSELF...at one point, as seen here, complete with quietly saying to herself "Stop it! Stop it!"

She also has the capability to hyperfocus, particularly on details (when she thought that Diamond and Pearl were her bodyguards because green and red scarves were what she was told about them and since the boys had green and red scarves she immediately latched on to that specific detail despite everything else about them screaming that they're just kids). She also hyperfocuses when she's playing the slot machines in the Veilstone Game Corner in what is probably one of my favorite scenes in the manga, it's so funny! Because of that intense focus though, she is INCREDIBLY good at the slot machines which is hilarious to me considering she is like the richest person in Sinnoh and yet she still becomes addicted to gambling. I dunno, that scene is just funny, okay? I mean, look at her! She's so hyperfocused on it and it's just great!

Platinum is my favorite rich girl character in any media ever, and the fact that she's autistic coded in my opinion really helps with that as well. But she's also just a sweetheart who loves learning things and is just such a precious child. They're all precious children and I love them all so much. They are my fictional children and I would die for them.

Now, time for the scene that gets me EVERY SINGLE TIME...the scene where they split up to try and protect the three lakes. Pearl goes to Lake Valor, Diamond to Lake Verity, and Platinum to Lake Acuity. On their first morning separated from each other, they wake up and realize everything is so different now that the Pokédex isn't beeping. They all talk to themselves about their morning routine, Pearl gets up first, and is always the first in the lobby, then Platinum comes down afterwards, then Diamond comes after that...and the Pokédex always beeps to let them know that everyone's there together...but now it's not making a peep. Once they realize that, they all start crying and breaking down...and it's heartbreaking to read every single time. Just look at these poor kids...

Taking my headcanon into account here, I see this scene as not only being sad that they're separated from each other, but also the stress of their routine being broken for the first time since their journey started. The way they all recite step by step how their morning routine always went when they were together, and then just start breaking down when the realization hits that everything's different now...yeah, I relate to that feeling, if my routines are broken, I get real thrown off, recite how it's supposed to be, and then break down...it's very similar to what the Sinnoh Trio are experiencing in this scene. I would analyze more scenes but this post is already way too long as it is, so I'll leave it at just this one.

Well, that's it for my headcanon supportive analysis of the Sinnoh Trio from PokéSpe! These three are my favorite characters in the manga and this headcanon is one I will hold till the day I die. My two main beliefs I hold about these kids are this headcanon, and "Do Not Separate Them!"

I hope you all can understand where I'm coming from with all this headcanon stuff. Also, headcanon deniers, you STAY AWAY from this and do not interact with this! I know it's not canon, that's why it's called a HEADcanon...I don't force my headcanons onto other people, I just talk about them, so I don't need headcanon deniers forcing their "canon" beliefs onto me!

Thank you for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed this analysis! Please feel free to let me know how I did in the comments, and if you support this headcanon and think I missed anything, please let me know what I missed! This is only my second time doing this in my life after all, so I'm not used to this kinda stuff and I'm pretty nervous about it honestly.

#pokemon #pokespe #sinnoh trio #my second attempt at headcanon supportive character analysis #trainer diamond #trainer pearl #trainer platinum #these three are autistic and that's final #pika's headcanon #pika talks #pika rambles about his favorite characters #long post

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the-obnoxious-sibling · 6 months

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“somehow shanks became aware that buggy's goals had changed” alright that is so FASCINATING! Most of theorists I saw had believe that Shanks was completely unaware of Buggy’s intention. That he just wanted him around (out of whatever feels) so asked about sailing together. I even saw Interpretations of them being co-captains.

I don’t think I ever saw anyone using the panel of “we should go separate ways”!

You truly made me more excited about where this relationship is going. How much Shanks knew about his friend inner thoughts??

You think Oda has some plans on writing sth about this relationships or in your opinion he would rather made them go “separate ways”? God, you good.

yeah, idk, maybe i’m reading into things too much?? i just don’t get the impression that shanks is the kind of person to ask a question he knows is gonna get an answer of “no way in hell!!” so i have to believe that either he forgot that buggy wanted to go his own way, or he thought buggy had changed his mind.

(and either of these scenarios also involves a shanks who has changed his mind. why. why do you want buggy on your ship, shanks? did he change, or your opinion of him?)

like i said in my tags on that post, i would really love to hear an explanation from shanks himself. i don’t think i’ll be fully satisfied by their arc without getting his perspective. i hope it’s coming! i’m not confident but i’m hopeful!

that said, i do 100% believe they’re going to run into each other during the hunt for the one piece. i just have no idea when. early on vs at laugh tale vs literally right in front of the treasure… my ideal conversation/confrontation would go totally differently in each context. (and this doesn’t even take into consideration whether luffy, bb, or other pirates are also present!)

as for your last question… god, i don’t know. what’s the purpose of the shanks & buggy relationship in this story? if it’s to serve as an example of how close relationships can go sour, then i think there are two endings that can serve that purpose.

they never become close again, to show the consequences for being too stubborn/too easygoing in a relationship

their relationship gets repaired right at the end of the story, to show it’s never too late to become friends again

so i really couldn’t say!

personally, i would love to see shanks and buggy wander off into the sunset, going on half-retired pirate adventures, but i feel like a lot would have to change for that to happen. i can’t really see buggy aboard the red force, or shanks at cross guild hq. maybe they go their separate ways, but stay in contact? (letters, snailphone calls, etc.) arranging to meet up for short trips a couple times a year… a compromise between permanently going their separate ways and always traveling together.

#there’s also the take that says chapter 19 was written so long ago it doesn’t reflect oda’s modern thoughts on the shanks-buggy dynamic #buuut i think doylist explanations of works in progress are boring! so i’m ignoring that possibility!#the co-captains idea interests me a lot but i would want to dig into the original japanese dialogue before i take it seriously #like does buggy actually say i won’t WORK UNDER YOU or does he say i won’t COME WITH YOU? much to think about #one piece #shuggy #asked and answered #shanks #buggy #*shuggy miscommunication #*the shuggy roguetown breakup #*post-series shuggy speculation

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msfcatlover · 4 months

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Shadow Jason (Reverse Robins)

(Jason has... too many costumes, I literally cannot find a single reference page that has even a majority of them, let alone all of them. Massive pain in the ass to research this.)

Jason started out with just Tim's costume (he inherited it on incredibly short notice, so he didn't have time to do any modifications before he first hit the streets in it,) but over time he makes it his own.

Which is like...90% tributes & callbacks to Steph, Jason's personal hero. Jason does keep Tim's predominantly black styling and switches his highlight colors from purple & gold to blue & silver, but the blue is very much a dark indigo (cutting the middle ground between Steph's dark purple & midnight blue, and allowing different artists to draw him either leaning more blue or purple depending on lighting & personal taste.)

(Guess who found an even better bat symbol chart? Anyway, Jason's is the "Batman: Hush" bat symbol, and he trades the ribbon-border for silver stitching. Because Cass is right, the stitched look is badass.)

Jason keeps the black cloak with "purple" (now indigo) lining, but he replaces the gold ribbon trim for a thick silver stitching. He also makes the cloak shorter, hanging just below his knees rather than around his ankles. The trim also now traces the entire hem of the cloak, rather than just the hood.

(Once again, thank you Stephanie Brown Costume History page!)

I will add that though all past Shadow hoods have had a pretty basic silhouette, Jason wanted a droopy-pointy one, because he's a dramatic nerd.

(Basic hood vs Jason's hood)

Jason keeps the headset, but he switches Tim's visor out for glowing goggles in tribute to Steph's original Spoiler costume. He also brings back Steph's full-face mask, if a touch more armored than her original mask probably was.

(Jason's goggles glow white, though.)

Jason's chest piece is a lot less bulletproof vest, instead going for a segmented/borderline laminar piece. Somewhere between Duke's "White Knight" armor & Jason's "Gotham Knights: Eternal" chest armor. The panels are all black, but the base underneath them is indigo.

(Keep in mind that this is pre-growth spurt Jason, so while both of these chest pieces are for pretty bulky dudes, Jason's still on the short & lean side side of things. He's not trying to look bulkier, these are just the best references I could find..)

The sleeves are dark blue & fitted, made of durable slash- & stab-resistant fabric. Jason wears basically his RHatO Robin gloves, but without the weird loops on the sides. The gloves are predominantly black, but the red highlights are now indigo. He also has polished metal caps on his knuckles, echoing Steph's costume & buffing his own punches.

(Once again, it is really really hard to get a good reference shot of these gloves, but I think these 2 pages together give you a pretty good turn-around of them.)

I have not been defining utility belt styles, but whatever the differences between them have been, Jason rolls back to Steph's design. His is black with silver clasps/buckles, for the record.

I do like Jason's big pockets & cargo pants from recent comics, but I think he'd want to take Shadow back to its sleeker look than Tim's padded up & kitted out design. (Jason also doesn't need to carry nearly as much gear himself, since the rest of the family kinda babies him a little, so there's almost always one within shouting distance if he needs them.) I'd say he goes back to the padded leggings, but adds pouches that hang from his belt & strap to his thighs, mimicking both the look of Steph & Dami's thigh armor, and his own big-pockets look in recent comics.

(So imagine if those pockets were actually hanging from his belt the way his holsters are here, with a second strap around the thigh to keep them from bouncing around or getting in the way.)

I actually realized while looking at that Gotham Knights article that I wanted to give Jason the boots/greaves from the "Year One" costume, and while hunting for a better image of them found this awesome piece, which not only gives an excellent view of that leg armor but also actually has fitted pants with thigh-strapped holsters, to give a better idea what that should look like.

(Pants & straps should be black, red armor should be indigo with silver edges, which you even kinda get with the grey backing in this piece. Seriously, huge shout out to Damián Navarro Méndez, though, this design & render both look awesome! I hope they paid you really well for this one, and you didn't have to crunch over it.)

And that wraps up Shadow Jason! Hopefully it's enough of his own style to feel unique from the three other designs I've already done for Shadow, and like something Jason would actually wear. It's still recognizable as a Shadow outfit, and makes it very clear who Jason's primary inspiration was without directly ripping Steph off (or even being too obvious at a glance that he's shouting her out.)

I hope there's also enough echo of Cass & Duke to show that Jason's having to serve as kinda both Moonbeam & Shadow simultaneously; the guiding light & grounding dark to Gotham's Batman. Because Jason (like Tim) doesn't have a partner in this, but (unlike Tim) Jason doesn't have to stand fully alone in his efforts.

Phew! Thanks for sticking with me, folks, but we're done with Shadow now! Now I just have to do... everyone's grown-up designs...

(Don't worry, I'm still having fun and it's not nearly as daunting at it seems at a glance. It's just a lot, and their independent identities are going to be a touch harder since I'm basically starting from scratch—just a stack of references & a half-concept/half-vibe—where the legacy costumes have iterated on eachother, allowing me to start from a base every time I make a new one.)

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wafflebloggies · 4 months

Text

the long con - part 4/7

a Don't Feed The Muse/Captain Disillusion crossover story. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

“I’m sorry, Alan.”

Alan stared at the Captain. He looked like a person who was seriously doubting the input of their own ears, and, in the dim cabin, the bright neons of the control panels and lights around them turning every speck of luminance into sharp glimmering point, his astonished expression wobbled. He did not actually burst into tears, but for just a moment he looked as if he might.

Only for a moment, though. It passed, and his expression sobered and settled, and he slowly sat back in his seat and leaned his head back against the worn leather, staring into the night.

“I… don’t believe you,” he said.

Blinking, almost as if the words were a question he was asking himself. Shaking his head, a numb little motion that grew as he spoke.

The Captain reacted sharply enough for both of them, flinching as if shot, turning towards him with an astonished, stung-to-the-core look.

“Alan!”

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Alan, calmly. He sounded more like he was talking to himself than the Captain, telling himself something important, with quiet, bewildered conviction. “There’s something you need me to do, or… something you’re not telling me, another temporal emergency that means you have to make me feel positive emotions, or- or something. There’s no other reason why you’d ever say that.”

The Captain bridled. “Alan, I don’t lie! This is me we’re talking about! I’m basically- thematically incapable of it! I literally spend most of my time telling people on the Internet not to lie because it freakin'- pisses me off so much!”

“Just back there, you told that ticket booth guy that vehicles of extra-terrestrial origin aren’t liable for parking tariffs under U.N law.”

“Come on, that was an exaggeration at most- and sixty dollars for a weekend? That is blatant extortion!” The Captain grimaced. “Okay, not the point. I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“You also tell people on the Internet not to accept claims without evidence,” said Alan, doggedly. “Sir.”

He sighed, glancing down, tucking his phone away behind him. “Captain… you’ve been acting strangely since Friday. Iknowyou. You gotta at least give me that, right? I know when something’s wrong, or- something’s upwith you, even if I can’t understand it because I’m just a dumb human, you could maybe at least just… tell me what’s really going on. Maybe-” He shrugged, looking away through the glass. “Maybe you’d feel better, at least.”

Feel better. It wasn’t hard to extrapolate from the tired undercurrent of apathy in Alan’s voice that what he really meant was stop acting weird. Quite easy, to go further and hear because, whatever this is, I don’t trust it, I don’t want to deal with it, and it’s making me uncomfortable. I’d just like it to stop.

The shuttle hummed, the systems purred and clicked. The Captain gazed out of the rain-streaked glass, shoulders slumped, following the faint smudges of lighter cloud scudding by above and below with his eyes. He looked wretched.

“You didn’t even remind me.” He swiped his sleeve quickly across under his nose, with a sharp sniff and a struggle into something more like his usual confident, upright posture. “About your talk. I... I’ve had a lot of other things to think about, you know. I’ve had a lot on my mind!”

“I know,” said Alan.

There were probably a lot of other things he could have said, but none that would have been so effective. Without meaning to, without meaning anything beyond just a simple agreement, he didn’t know how quietly, flatly damning he sounded.

I know. I’ve had a lot on my mind too. With everything we do, and everything it needs from me, everything you need from me. I know what it’s like, to have a lot to think about.

The Captain swallowed again, as if it hurt, flicking a couple of switches overhead as he stared through the windshield, the bright overlays and the HUD blinking between them. At last, like every word was a pulled tooth, he said,

“Fine. Listen, when I was on stage, I… I don’t know what happened. I’ve never felt anything like it before, or at least I…” He hesitated. “I… I just looked at some random guy in the audience, and the next thing I knew, I felt… it was like, I felt seen. Not in a good way, it-” He stopped again, his mouth pulled into a moue of discomfort and distress, gazing a hole through the clouds ahead as he struggled to explain. “It felt like... the tiniest part of something really, unfathomably big was looking straight at me and… it could see way more than you people can.”

“More?”

The Captain huffed. “Humans don’t exactly see a lot, Alan. Visual acuity isn’t really your species’ thing, you know? Your basic three dimensions, barely a million colours… well, you know, we made a whole video about it. But this, I felt like it could see… everything. Like it- it could...” He stumbled, stopped.

“It... wasn’t a great feeling.”

Alan frowned. “You said you were looking at someone in the audience, when it happened. Do you think it was anything to do with them?” He watched the Captain’s face, but saw only confusion, and that strange edge of fear- a mix of emotions which looked so out-of-place there that he felt pushed to try to help, to clarify, say anything if only to stop the Captain looking so frighteningly lost.

“What were they like? Maybe I would’ve noticed-”

“I hardly think that’s likely, Alan,” snorted the Captain. It was a relief for Alan, to hear him taking refuge in impatience. At least it was normal. “There’s no way you would’ve seen him from the booth, anyway. Some kid, hair all slicked back like George McFly, grey sweater, he was sitting in like centre-G with another guy- red check jacket, band shirt- that French prog rock thing-”

“Escalier,” said Alan. The Captain blinked.

“You saw them?”

“Not then. They- they were sitting at the same table I was at, after my talk, you literally just miss- sir, please maybe sometimes, um, actually look where we’re flying, you’re making me really nervous.”

The Captain finally returned his eyes to the windshield, where the low lights of early evening were gleaming through the soft rain, glinting across the dim landscape below. In grids and in tangles, towns and highways and the huge blackout zones of the Everglades, the state slipped through the rainy night under a blanket of cloud.

“I don’t like this, Alan,” he said. “I feel things, like my whole... vibe thing? Like when I say I’ve gotta go, because someone’s aunt in Des Moines is thinking of investing in crypto, that thing. You know?”

Alan blinked. “I… kind of always thought that was a bit?”

The Captain went to put his head in his hands, remembered he was supposed to be flying a shuttle, straightened up again. “No. Sometimes, people get all lined up to make exceptionally poor decisions- particularly ones involving the Internet- and wherever they are, I feel it. It’s like... someone sticking a Q-tip so far up my nose it tickles my brain. Ughh.” He shuddered, as if his silver skin was crawling from the inside out. “But it’s never been a two-way thing before. This time, it was. Like… like some super-terrible, super-toxic, life-altering decision, but- with eyes.”

Alan thought about this. He thought about Mark’s flat, hurried voice, how even in the middle of his pitch he’d sounded kind of frantic, more like a hostage with a gun to their head than someone nervous and eager at the chance to work with a favourite channel. He thought about the sinking feeling the whole thing had left him with, the anxious funk he’d been stuck with ever since.

“I don’t think I… understand exactly, but it sounds bad.”

“It is bad. I haven’t been able to stop- thinking about it, and...” The Captain trailed off, rubbed his forehead. “Other stuff. Whatever, the point is, this isn’t something we want to just leave roaming around loose out there. Look, I know tracking down some random guy we saw for five seconds at a convention full of thousands of people sounds like a pretty crazy, gargantuan mission, but honestly, the more I think about it, the more it feels like something I just gotta do.”

“Oh, that’s easy, I got his number.”

“You may well ask why, Alan, but it’s a question of responsibility. I have to ask myself, does it fall to me, as the sole superpowered defender of verifiable truth and generally good digital decision-making in this entire galactic sector, to… wait, what did you say?”

Alan was wrestling with his seatbelt, trying to get into his back jeans pocket without loosening the strap. “He gave me a business card, Captain. His name’s Mark… let me just give him a call.”

Anthony, shocked silent in the wake of Mark’s outburst, struggling for something to say, had only just opened his mouth when the sound of Mark’s phone came buzzing, muffled, from under the jackets in the back seat. It pulsed against the upholstery, vibrating through the fabric covering it like a smothered wasp. Anthony barely reacted to it at first, but as the sound came a second time, the fabric of Mark’s jacket illuminated faintly by that small blueish rectangle underneath, he blinked, twisted in his seat. Relieved, maybe, to have any kind of distraction, a reason to move.

“That’s, uh- that’s yours-”

He was already fishing into the back, feeling blindly around in the clustered shadows with one arm. Mark, instantly panicked, took a hand off the wheel long enough to try to grab the phone himself, but even though his arms were longer the driver-side seat was directly in front of where his jacket lay, and he would have needed to be some multi-jointed tentacle-being to have even stood a chance of getting a hand on it.

“Leave it, it’s fine!”

Anthony was fumbling under the jacket, hanging out of his seatbelt with half of his torso leaned into the back. “No, I got it- gimmie a sec-”

“I said leave it!” yelled Mark. The rhythmic double-pulse buzz of the phone felt like it was wired directly into his brain, the scraping of an insect buried between his ears. He felt the car start to drift under his control, and returned both hands to the wheel in a hurry, heart lurching, gripping hard. “Just let it go to message-”

“I got it, dude,” said Anthony- puzzled, uneasy, not a little wounded still. “What if it’s your mom?”

He sat back, poked the screen. “Hey, this is- hello? Shit, missed it.”

“See? Put it back, I don’t care who-”

“Wait, I could check the number-” All of a sudden, Anthony’s voice stopped in its tracks. Mark, glancing desperately sideways in snatches as long as he dared, was in a perfect position to see the exact moment that his worst fears were confirmed, right as it happened. Anthony’s brow scrunched, his hands went still, and he looked down at the phone in silence.

“What’re all these notifications?” he said.

“Don’t,” said Mark, but all the volume had gone out of his voice, all of the force, and with it the ability to even try to sound in control. The word sounded more like a small winded plea, and it was ten to one if Anthony even heard it, his finger already tracing and flicking and tapping, his eyes glued to the small screen.

“Thumbnail edited successfully? Thumbnail edited… thumbnail… description edited successfully… video title edited- Mark?”

Mark couldn’t breathe.

“Mark, what’s going on?”

Mark could feel Anthony looking at him. He could imagine his expression far too well even without looking, his accusing eyes, floating in the darkness with the lights flicking past the windows like the last crashing embers of his oh-so-clever plan. He said nothing, swiping the tears from his face with a quick, hot palm, kept staring straight ahead.

“Why did you change the video title?”

One last try. One last try, to explain again what he’d been trying to explain all weekend, to make Anthony see, as if anybody could explain anything well while battling the rising fury and panic that the embarrassment of being caught red-handed only flamed and fuelled, like throwing water on blazing oil. Like he should have to feel guilty, like he’d done something wrong, when he was doing the only thing he could, the one thing left that he’d been forced to do. Anthony was even incapable of understanding how he had forced him to this, forced him to lie and sneak around and feel like some kind of traitor.

“No-one cares about our videos,” he said, as patiently as he could. “This is the only way they’re going to be seen.”

Anthony was shaking his head slightly, automatically, the harsh light from Mark’s phone casting ghastly blue-white shadows up across his shocked, hurt face as he dropped the phone in his lap and turned to look at Mark.

“You’re making us sound like some stupid contrarian clickbait channel-”

“Those channels actually make money,” said Mark, evenly.

Anthony let out a quiet, punctured breath, and Mark didn’t even have to glance at him now to know he had that maddening, sympathetic, pitying look on his face again. He didn’t want to see it, he didn’t want Anthony’s pity. As if pity wasn’t completely useless, as if pity would green-light his mother’s medical coverage, or save her life.

“Look. I know you’re in a tough situation with your mom,” said Anthony, gently. “I get it! But that doesn’t have anything to do with the channel-”

“No, you don’t get it,” snapped Mark. His hands were still neatly at three and six, but his nails were digging into the fake leather of the wheel and he might as well have been driving underwater, or on Mars, for all the attention he was paying to the road in front of his burning eyes. On one level, he was aware that Anthony was not going to be any more easily convinced by being snapped at, or talked to as if he was a particularly stupid six-year-old. On another, he was too angry to care. “My dad’s not helping, our insurance got denied- I have to take care of her!”

“I’m sorry, Mark-”

Injured, understanding, but even now full of a kind of petulant, aggravating sympathy, Anthony’s voice grated in Mark’s ears and on his fraying nerves. To Mark, he sounded just like a whiny kid whose favourite toy was being handed away to someone else. And maybe that was the last straw, to hear so clearly in Anthony’s voice that the channel, the thing that was being dangled relentlessly over Mark’s head as his last thread of hope, was in Anthony’s eyes nothing but a neat toy he refused to give up, something fun he didn’t want to let go of just because it was his too.

“-but this isn’t just your channel! I’m not going to let you ruin this!”

Because this, this, was really the only thing Anthony cared about. Fun. Keeping something fun.

“You asshole-!”

Anthony’s stunned face, his eyes flicking all of a sudden past him, to the road. In the tumbling slowdown of seconds, his mouth opened without sound, the betrayal in his eyes flaring into panic, horror. Mark turned back to the road, far too late, as the car completed its slow drifting slew across the empty road and hit the kerb with a sickening, bone-shaking lurch, mounting it in a series of terrible earthquake bounces. A final glare of light, a snatch of safety rail, before the car dove headlights-first into a black void beyond. A black and crowding host of branches slamming against the windows, a rush of wet wheels tearing at the soaking grass, a final heavy impact that ended in a splintering crash of glass.

Silence.

Slowly, his pulse a jackhammer in his throat, his heart loud as a marching band in his ears, Mark raised his head. For a moment- a jumbled collection of moments- he wasn’t even sure where he was, only that his neck hurt and he felt sore and shaken in every nerve. His grasp on the thread of the world felt as if it had undergone a terminal skip, and he could catch hold of nothing coherent other than the fact that it was horribly, hideously dark, and something awful had happened.

Was happening.

Reality overtook him fast. Everything tumbled into place, and he jerked forwards- tried to- but his seatbelt held him clamped across the chest, a mechanical death-grip too tight to escape.

“Anthony?”

The car was quiet, the headlights, dash, every system dead and dark. The road, somewhere above and behind them, was empty, hidden, lightless. The engine ticked slowly as it cooled, water dripped and trickled, crushed branches groaned in the damp black night.

“Anthony??”

Fresh air started to seep in, cool against Mark’s face, full of rain and the scent of churned earth and bruised growth.

“Anthony!!”

#dftm #muse arg #don't feed the muse #mark mayhew #anthony williams #captain disillusion #alan the intern #alan amelik #my writing

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depressed-avocado · 2 years

Text

||SAKUATSU AND THE JAPANESE MEDIA||

have you all noticed how we have an abundance of sakuatsu fics, fanart and stans in the western media but very few and rare doujins served by the japanese side of the fandom?

even the sporadic content we see has a very different take on sakuatsu than we do..

now, take myself as a referance. i entered the fandom with a vengeance against all but suga, avoided sakuatsu and kagehina like it was the COVID epicenter itself but a year and a half later ended up reading one teeny fanfic on ao3 out of dire curiousity and ended up with sakuatsu as my adopted babies.

there was a lot of discussion on this ship on twt, tumblr and the like, but when i searched up for doujins to satisfy my horny hunger, i found none?

the very few and far between were actually AtsuSaku (top atsumu, still not much common with the english speaking world) and SakuOsa (poor atsumu 🤣) and featured sakusa as a very grumpy, tsundere, devil-may-care lover whom atsumu had to ask permission just to kiss. compare THAT to how the western fandom potrays him as the blunt jerk who is nefariously down bad for atsumu, but is still kinda loveable and chaotic in his own steed.

the thing is, sakuatsu is a rare ship. there are hardly 5 panels on interaction for them in the manga, and still quite less info on sakusa available, which gives the people the opportunity to mould him into any shape they want. atsumu has more chemistry with hinata, aran, kita, suna, hell you'd even find more miyacest content in japan than sakuatsu. it all started out as a crack ship, something similar to matsuhana, and exploded exponentially in a span of few weeks like it was set on fire. honestly, covid-19 would be jealous.

in the year 2020, the world recieved so many beautiful fanfics, maybe some of the best in the fandom. the same teenagers once raving after kagehina and iwaoi were now adults and have had enough of bubbly, tooth rotting fluff and circumstancal angst.

iwaoi's biggest potential for angst is them seperating for college, same as bokuaka and kuroken. maybe an external factor causing a rift in the couple. very basic.

they wanted something dynamic, something real, something which allows your creativity to leap out the box and sprint several kilometres ahead.

the salient answer was sakuatsu.

only in sakuatsu, the angst potential come from the characters themselves. sakusa and atsumu are insufferable, totally unlikeable people (though i have met a lot of people like atsumu and they get on with their day just fine). they have no chill, no qualms, no redeeming feature other than volleyball and their looks and maybe this could work out?

two jerks, aint afraid to talk shit, bringing out the best (or worst?) in each other. maybe they could find love afterall? huh.

what's this? a chance for ao3 authors to expand their creative writing skills to new horizons and take artistic liberties indulgently but still have a locus to ground themselves to so that they don't go all hocus-focus?

you bet they'd take this chance.

famous fics like 'a liar's truth', 'hand study', 'burden of blame' were released and it was the explosive and beautifully belligerent start of a ship no one saw coming. riding on the highs and lows of a relationship, depicting exactly how toxic yet fulfilling realistic dating can be, its upto you how you'd end up. these fics depicted the shimmering tension, the passionate abhor and the disastrous clashes.

there was no way a huge chunk of japanese fans, enough to catalyse its popularity, would be able to reach these fics and fanarts, which were usually just characteristics fleshed out in the author's mind. ooc, if you will.

sakuatsu is literally whatever you want it to be. a murder mystery or a romcom, you decide. it is ever changing, ephemeral, dangerous. you need to keep up with every step to find its beauty.

its a pity that the japanese fandom wasn't able to catch onto this sakuatsu fever and create some god-tier content like they usually do with other notorious ships like kageoi or kitaatsu.

also, osaatsu/atsuosa, kitaatsu and atsuhina are already selling there a lot (which makes a lot of sense in hindsight than this sakuatsu, no offence) and view atsumu as a TOP.

also, also the japanese part of the fandom have no qualms with shipping komosaku and ushisaku and do it graciously, so well both characters are satisifed fully with the japanese seperately as far as they are concerned.

well, if the movies come out, there is a good chance that the sakuatsu car ride would be just around the corner again and maybe this time, the japanese fandom can hop on a ride? and show atsumu riding on sakusa too pls i need to see thier bful art ahaha

#haikyuu #hq imagines #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #miya atsumu #sakuatsu angst #sakuatsu fic #sakusa hq #sakusa imagines #sakusa x atsumu #haikyuu sakusa #miya twins #hq atsumu #atsumu #atsumu miya #hq drabbles #hq #haikyuu drabbles #haikyuu theories

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tamelee · 8 months

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Okay maybe controversial opinion: I dont like seeing ocs in fics. Isnt ur story about sns? Why wuld we need ur ocs? I think it is just a way for people to selfinsert into their story through an oc no one knows. It kinda sucks because I was excited for ur story too. So yeah thats just how I feel

I don't think that is so controversial. That's just your preference and that is fine. You don't need to read anything you don't like, right? I'm not sure whether you meant me in particular or in a general sense so I'll just answer for myself why I needed an (/a few minor/background) OC('s); It IS a story about Naruto x Sasuke but I personally like story a lot. Meaning that events, conflict and even things like Setting are connected to convey a message. With that also other characters.

These elements can be used to enhance all that. (If done correctly though, it CAN become muddy.) To me that is a lot more meaningful than going from scene to scene "just because". BUT, I do enjoy fics solely for the fact that we can experience SNS through an authors mind in infinite different ways and AUs even if they only write about Naruto and Sasuke and whatever it is they're doing at that moment. A clear linear story that brings you from A to B. I can understand when people then especially don't want to read entire paragraphs about a character they don't know (or care about) and want to skip to the reason they started reading in the first place. In my case, I'm not very good at writing/describing things the way I want to. Not even in my own language. I think I have a better chance of conveying what I want to tell visually which is why I choose to create a DJ instead. But then "show don't tell" is different as it is literally shown. Every panel matters. And I feel like I need a new character to help me do that and create conflict for the sake of telling a more interesting story regarding my message. I think it would be boring for me if everything is well, rainbows and happiness right from the start because what is left for me to do? And with Canon-compliant stories, it's not very believable to me. (Again, not saying these stories aren't good, this is just for me given the trouble I'll put them in anyway. Fics are often already well-established for good reasons as we already know the characters, like fluff for e.g. and I can enjoy them.) But any existing characters don't really fit here you know? It definitely, for me, isn't a self-insert but it is inevitable that there can be relatable elements because of my chosen Theme. Hm~ you can see it as a (fanmade-)movie arc, but then placed during the blank period. Those arcs always have new characters and at the end of it you don't really (or ever) see them again. But here I tried to weave them through the OG-story nonetheless. I may be a bit self-indulgent though as this will be a very long project. I was actually thinking of uploading some sketches of the OC in a bit and introduce.. him 👀 But of course, you don't need to read it at all. In fact, it's very likely that many won't considering the heavy subjects. But I do hope this clarified it a tiny bit Nonee.

#asktamelee #story project

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 8 months

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Trimax Thoughts Vol. 8 Pt. 1

More stream of consciousness. Here goes! I want to catch up so badly so I can suffer through... whatever happens in Volume 10 with you guys. I'm scared. :)

[All images are from Trigun Maximum Volume 8.]

Love that Knives can't do anything without being absurdly extra about it. It's not enough to go and invade human towns, he's got to have his giant-ass spaceship hover over everybody. He needs to loom. He needs to loom so badly.

Ah, once again, Knives denying Vash autonomy over his body. Also talking about "using" Legato too, which just goes to show how Legato is basically just a tool for him (though I don't think Legato particularly minds).

"I have seen them throw our spent corpses away like garbage." <- "our", yet another instance of Knives not really drawing a distinguishing line between himself and Vash/his sisters. Treating them all as one.

[ID: A close up of Vash's face, grimacing and sweating, saying "Believe me, Knives, I have seen the dead Plants. All of them had the black hair. They weren't the bodies of Plants who had lived their natural lifespan. They were the bodies of Plants who had been abused and pushed past their limits. End ID.]

This panel, with his own black hair emphasized, plus the way Vash is finally able to verbalize some blame on Knives and includes himself in the Plants that humans are forced to rely on, is interesting and encouraging development. Vash too, has been pushed past his limits, time and time again. But this reframes it less as self-punishment or "deserve" and more like responsibility he feels obligated to take on, because literally no one else can. The saddest part of this is that nothing will change for the better at this rate, because all of Vash's energy is (quite literally) being sapped just playing damage control against his own brother's actions. I often wondered why we didn't see Vash interacting with the other Plants a little more or focusing his help on them - and while I think there's interactions we're probably not seeing behind the scenes, Knives' actions kind of force Vash to prioritize the humans in all this, because he cares about both humanity and his sisters... which really sucks for the sisters, who are still being drained and hurt. It's frustrating, overwhelming, and feels like you're stretched far too thin when you're caught in the middle like this. And it's not that he's necessarily okay with this - he isn't. I think this kind of proves he knows and understands how cruelly he's treated. But unfortunately, this kind of thing can happen to people who care too much... Vash's dehumanization (for lack of a better word) in all this is misery inducing. (Also as a bonus, check out the panel where Knives is talking about the sisters being oppressed and murdered - his hand is doing that thing again where he covers her face, even though it's a gentle gesture!).

"There will be screams and shouts and then there will be silence." <- I'm sorry this is horrific but all I can think about is the llamas with hats skit - "That is what forgiveness sounds like. Screaming and then silence." Hhjskdhbvjdfhbv

Wolfwood is trying not to kill them (!!!!!!!!!)

Ughhh Livio's guns are literally strapped to his arms. His function is to be a living weapon, indeed. Combined with the guns also looking like crosses it's just... ugh.

See, here I will concede that Knives makes a good point. Vash says "that's the way it is" and Knives says "who says this is the way it has to be?" 100%, out of context, I'm with Knives. "Things take time", sure, but immediate action should always be taken to minimize the damage in the here and now. People are still hurt in the time it takes for large-scale change to occur; you can't just wait for things to change. Unfortunately, adding the context back in, minimizing hurt has never actually been Knives' goal. He's still thinking on a near-absolute level here. And worse, every added year they waste fighting each other, they could've been working to find better solutions for their sisters - the situation probably would've improved a lot faster if they had been a united front. But Knives refuses to listen, because "helping" was never his primary goal to start with. It reminds me a lot of people who want to punch bad guys instead of support their victims. People who want to be right, instead of do right. Do you see what I mean?

"Keeping yourself from feeling the pain and never finding the true source of it." <- because Knives would rather invent an enemy than confront his own fear... it's not an easy thing to do, but you have to try if you ever want to heal... the only actions we can ever truly control are our own...

Fuck Chapel man.

So, Knives' plan is not just to rescue the sisters but also to absorb them??? All of them??? Does... does he know if he can handle that? Are the sisters like. Chill with this or...? The imagery of it all is so incredibly beautiful though... I would screenshot several pages of this but it would take up too much space.

[ID: Two panels, one with the absorbed bodies of Plants in an indistinct mass, and the next showing Knives standing at the top of a large grate, filled with the merged bodies of Plants. End ID.]

Bro...? I am confusion. How. How does this help them. It's like he's storing them so they can't be used... I mean I suppose that's better but. ???

Badass Elendira moment!!!

Oh man I love the way this builds. It all feels so futile. No one seems happy or satisfied. Starting with the random people and the outsider view. The concern and then the dawning horror as they realize what's happening. The ethereal pages of Knives absorbing the Plants, only to show they're essentially being placed in a cage. He's not smiling and his face is grim. The focus on the death of a random character. Vash and Legato are locked in a stalemate. Back to outsider view as Zazie witnesses the devastation. Focus on Wolfwood, bitter and guilty. Back to the outsider pov and the panels that grow more and more hectic and cruel in their depictions. The break with the quiet panels of the desert. ...seven months later. It's so incredibly cinematic and visceral. I must say, I was not expecting such a large time skip.

AHHH GIRLS!!!

Luida my beloved. Her and Meryl are so similar in their desire to help, their insider knowledge on Vash, and their struggle between kindness and pragmatism, and it's really cool to see.

I wonder... can Plants only communicate through dreams or memories? ...Knives falling asleep again randomly too... he is eepy from all the world domination and the exhaustion of isolating himself for 150 years. :(

I'm so sorry but I really do think it's funny that Knives' plan is just "I'm going to store my siblings (yes, all of them, even my twin) in some containers and put a grate over it. Surely this will solve everything."

The Plants are brain-blasting him???

Badass Elendira moment number 2!!!

WOLFWOOD'S BACK YEAHHHHH

Vash is controlling the angel arm?!

No sorry, this whole sequence is insane! Wolfwood acting on his own free will! The two of them tag-teaming Legato just by reading each other after 7 months without contact! Wolfwood braving death! Vash braving the use of the angel arm! They trust each other enough to face what they have been so afraid of! Holy shit!

[ID: Blood covers the floor, the rest of the background is pale white. Wolfwood is slumped over the Punisher, as Vash shields him. Vash has sprouted numerous wings and feathers in a dramatic spread as he says "No, you are not lost, Wolfwood!" End ID.]

AHHHHH?????? AUGH. He heard his prayer? Literally heard it? Are you fucking for real right now? And look at the way he's not just shielding him - you can see in this and the next few pages that he's also supporting him... gently lowers him to the ground... Wolfwood reaching up as if to touch him... Vash not even knowing who Chapel and Livio are but being angry enough to threaten them with the angel arm, of all things. AUGH.

I love the severity of this situation, the build, the declaration from Vash that he is now fighting for Wolfwood, Knives rapidly losing control of the situation, you know, all that good stuff... and then there's just. This.

[ID: The first panel is of the interior of the ship, covered with multiple instances of the sound effect ガ for clanging, interspersed with "ooph!" "ow!" "oof". The next panel is of tiny Vash and Wolfwood falling through open sky, having fallen out of the ship. End ID.]

...pinball machine. Lol.

Knives was unable to follow through on killing Vash. I mean. We all knew but still. Then he helplessly reaches out with his other hand... the one without the power he absorbed... :(

[ID: A photo of young, smiling Vash and Knives on a black background. Underneath, it just says "...it's over..." End ID.]

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Omg finally Wolfwood backstory.

Fuck Chapel!

OMG they're both in blankies... sorry but tiny blanket Wolfwood is my new favourite thing ever. Look at him.

Ahhhh Meryl went to Marlon! Augh and now Vash knows she's still in his corner - because last time he mistakenly thought she was afraid of him when she pulled away... but it wasn't true at all! :')

Man I so hate that it was more of the Plants who were killed in the attack... I know Brad hated it too since he apologized but I just... ugh they're so caught in the middle of this whole conflict, and we don't even know if they wanted any of this.

Ah, and Wolfwood's leaving... :/

[ID: A blank white panel with the words "Needle-noggin...". Next panel, Vash looks over, paying attention. Next panel, Wolfwood stares ahead distantly. The final panel is half of Luida's face, a flashback where she is telling Wolfwood "Yet he keeps moving... through his own never ending hell." There are several ellipses from Wolfwood. End ID.]

^Ok, I saw this earlier and Wolfwood leaving kind of confirmed what I thought might've been the case here. He already knows the Ark is headed toward the orphanage; that was what he was trying to persuade Livio to help him with; to protect their home together. I really do think Wolfwood was on the verge of asking Vash to help him here, before he apparently changes his mind and switches to asking Vash to stop Knives instead (which is... what he's already been doing. It's rather unnecessary for him to ask Vash to do this imo). The gap is this memory of what Luida told him. Whether it's that Wolfwood feels they should both be moving forward through their own personal troubles alone, or whether he feels Vash already is dealing with too much to burden him with anything else (my money's on the latter personally, given we see him with a similar sentiment in Volume 7), I do think whatever he was going to ask initially was not what he ended up saying aloud. Maybe I'm delusional. Idk.

!!! Wolfwood spinoff! :D

WAIT is this a prequel or something? This girl assumed he was a priest and Wolfwood just starts sweating nervously "um... yeah... that's me" hdjfhbvsdjfhbv

AW he knew her as a baby... ah, he's always ended up kind of responsible for others, huh?

Ok but this is kind of funny. "Can't believe she didn't remember me..." My dude this girl was like two years old.

Why does Orekano have a cross on his outfit???

Oh fuck this dude he's creepy.

The bird carving... :')

#trigun #trimax #trigunbookclub #storyrambles

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