#i can also see why him being old would explain like aspects of his behavior

[deadbeandrop]

i can for sure imagine lumpus as being Old and it even feels more "right" to me but it also frustrates me a little bit while trying to figure stuff out... a few ramblings about this under the cut

there's genuinely just no way for me to make it work with stuff like him being childhood friends at camp with slinkman without making them AND jane (!) the same/similar old age... which i Could very well do! but i'd probably cap it at like 50 and i already have important dates organized and even designs made according to the timeline i already had, so it'd kind of overhaul... everything. i think it'd leave me with some stuff that actually makes more sense, and even more that makes less sense... but. i'd have to write things out and think about them. and the thing is that i can probably see slinkman being in his late 40's as well, but jane, on the other hand, not so much... and their history together is important to things to me too! so it's like i'm being tugged in a few directions and if i were to alter something at this point in time it would likely end in a sacrifice. so i would make lumpus a bit older if i could but all of this is the most important thing to me...

so, its really itching my brain right now just due to the Shape of my thoughts, which isn't a good way to go about things, but its sort of become apart of my process and i have to sort of just... deal with it. (most of the time it helps me decide on things and overall has me more satisfied with it, but at other times, it's really not based on anything and ends in situations like this...)

in a way, there's almost like two different versions of things i could go with:

1. lumpus and slinkman meet as adults, with lumpus being a good deal older than him, and lumpus is stuck working the job because nothing else will take him + weird power trip + he comes from a line of scoutmasters.

i can see myself thinking about this version of events too cus i do think it's perfectly solid on its own and fits the more casual tone of the actual show. i might even like how this one is "shaped" a bit more. if i wanted, i could have this be how i view the show's canon timeline (which would include a lot more of the episodes than i personally do) so i can at least have/explore those ideas somewhere as well...

(additionally, chris had some alternative ideas for how dead bean drop could still work with that, and i can imagine playing with that to some degree)

but then there's 2. my version of things in my own version of the show, where lumpus and slinkman (and jane!) attend camp as kids, and there isn't anything like lumpus' family history of scoutmasters.

i think this in itself sort of lends everything to be very character driven, where things like history over time and the characters' general psychology and motivation contribute to themes and more complexity in the stories that wouldn't work as well with the base source material. in my version of everything, i am aiming a bit higher than the average person, after all, to imagine something that's more than only building off of the source material. the main difference of what drives them all back to camp ends up more tied up in those sorts of things, where lumpus is mostly here of his own volition despite hating everything (+ the weird power trip stuff). there's a lot more there to dig into which is more interesting and fun to me personally, and his relationship and close with slinkman i feel almost hinges on this sort of set-up because of how everything ends up tying together, as discussed here. for what i'm doing, it all simply hits harder with the emotional backing if i have it like this, and because of how things are already set up, that means i do still have to make some decisions like the topic of today's post where lumpus is a bit younger than i'd imagine him to be as well

while the first option is perfectly suitable for the actual show, a lot of the elements just don't work for what i'm trying to accomplish, and that's okay. i gotta be okay with that! and to allow myself to do More than one thing if i want, because "canon" is being made subjective and malleable here anyway. we are all just playing around and i'm allowed to play around in multiple ways if i want to as well

end the end, i don't think i even use any lore from episodes like the bean tree in the first place, but, it is sort of crazy when you think about it that its equally as canon that we went from "teenagers at camp 15 years ago" in dead bean drop to slinkman implying lumpus is like way older in the bean tree, but i guess there's really something for everyone here depending on how you want to go about it

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hi! I'm not sure if you've expanded on this but could you explain Malleus' mental age? I fully believe that he's still quite young because of a few of Lilia's lines, but i hear other things from other people as well.

Mmm... I don't think the answer to this is very clear-cut? I think, if asked this question off the bat, I would that that I also lean more toward the "Malleus is mentally young" because he acts in very immature and oblivious ways that are characteristic of a middle or high school student. For example, he is very egocentric (+ fails to consider other points of view) and doesn't think ahead about the consequences of his actions. He just does whatever is natural and most convenient for himself, and his Dorm Uniform vignettes are a perfect encapsulation of this behavior that we see repeated many times over in the main story (books 5, 6, 7), events (Glorious Masquerade, Endless Halloween Night, Vargas Camp, etc.), and other vignettes (his birthday ones, Lab Wear, etc.). We additionally see that he has attachment issues and has trouble when faced with change, something that usually arises in one's teen years. There's also the fact that Lilia tells us that dragon fae are still considered children at age 200 and adolescents at 500, and Malleus is 178 years old (which is way below those values). This implies that the mental capacity of fae works on different scales based on their life expectancy, which varies from species to species.

Based on in-game dialogue, it also seems to be that fae physically develop slower than humans. For example, human toddlers start to walk at around 10-18 months, but Malleus states that it regularly takes a fae 30 years to achieve the same milestone and that he was an “early bloomer” that started to walk at 20 years old. Normally, mental development lines up with physical development, so this would imply that even at 178 years old, Malleus may still be regarded as a child in terms of his thinking, attitudes, and behaviors.

Buuut, as I've said earlier, the answer isn't really that simple and gets muddled by a ton of other factors which are hard to isolate from Malleus's maturity. For one, how do we know that he isn't mentally and emotionally stunted because of his isolated upbringing and training to become a king someday? How do we know it's not his privilege and limited life experiences that explain why Malleus seems to be behind his peers in some aspects? For another, he certainly doesn't speak like a normal high school student, nor does he act like one in some cases. Sometimes he demonstrates wisdom that can only come with the age or mentality of a far older person, like when he imparts wisdom onto his fellow students (book 3, Riddle's Suitor Suit vignettes, etc.). Lilia is also so old compared to Malleus that him "babying" the prince isn't saying much, considering that Lilia considers pretty much everyone else in the cast children or mere babies next to him. Malleus also refers to his peers as “like babies” to him, so he seems to consider himself more mature than them, not less. He also insists to Lilia that he is “not a child”, so it seems that Malleus views himself as an adult or, at the very least, a teenager.

It should also be noted that the development cycle of humans and fae are not exact. For example, while you could probably cleanly line up 12-15 months for humans and 30 years for fae just to learn the skill of walking, their dietary needs differ even when they are roughly the same age. A human infant can only take mushy foods after milk, but dragon fae babies can already eat seafood and meat on the bone, implying that dragon fae’s teeth come in much faster than that of a human baby. This is a point against the idea that humans and fae age similarly and have similar developmental benchmarks.

So... It seems to be that Malleus is immature (and thus falling in line with the developmental expectations of your average dragon fae), but that immaturity is tempered by him being raised in an environment that demands that he take on more responsibilities. At the same time, growing up with a focus on his future and being granted few opportunities to step outside of his usual environment also means that Malleus has a very limited worldview that keeps him from growing to some extent. I think, overall, I'd still consider him pretty young mentally, but not much younger than a typical high school student. If he actually had the mental capacity of a child, then surely he’d be in elementary school and not high school. Malleus can comprehend the specialized high school level material presented in many of his classes, so this definitely doesn't make him come off like a child to me.

[theoriginalbylergod]

Mike Wheeler is important and there's nothing wrong with analyzing him

Since y'all wanna be insufferable bitches about it I'm gonna explain to you why he's important, why Will loves him, why his struggles should be acknowledged, and why his character depth is pivotal to byler endgame being a satisfying conclusion for both Mike AND Will. Deal with it!

We are not seeing smoke where there isn't a flame. We are seeing smoke where there is a literal fucking forest fire.

Starting off with something a lot of people aren't ready for but I've seen more people talking about: Mike is the main character of s1 at the very least. He is the character that brings us into the world of stranger things. He is the character that the writers chose for this. Mike is the main character of s1 and it was an instant hit. The writers love Mike. Contrary to popular belief, giving a character an arc where they are struggling and their behavior changes from what is normal for the character we know and love does NOT mean the writers hate that character. It means they deliberately chose to give that character complexity and depth. Your inability to like characters that do anything wrong ever is not the fault of the writers. Your decision to act as if a character is not important is not reflective of the actual narrative because it in fact is in direct opposition to the narrative. So just to be clear, if you genuinely believe that Mike isn't important, or that the writers hate him, or don't care about him, or that his story "takes away" from any other character's - ESPECIALLY WILL'S - you are simply wrong.

In s1 and s2 Mike is established as an extremely caring person. He's loving, loyal, brave, intelligent, and trying his best. He is also established to be hot headed, someone who speaks without thinking quite often, someone who is capable of hurting his friends despite that being the last thing he wants to do. He is all of these things and more. He is a human. He is a kid. So in s3, when suddenly he is entirely different, it is completely logical to assume that there is a reason for that. He did not just wake up one day and decide he wanted to be an asshole, push Will away, make his friends feel abandoned, and echo the same sentiments their bullies held. Something is happening with him. He has so much going on in his head and it is painfully obvious. He's holding something in, he's hiding from everyone and from himself. We see glimpses of what he's trying to hide after Will calls him out on his behavior. Will gets through to him. Mike is usually unresponsive to tough love, except for when it's coming from Will. After their fight, it is obvious that he's trying to be better. But he still doesn't wanna face certain things, and he doesn't know how to navigate that. Because he's 13 years old.

There is a reason for all of that internal conflict. There is a reason it comes pouring out of him at certain times. He's crumbling. He is quite literally falling apart because he's holding on to too much. It's not a stretch to assume that, it just takes basic media literacy. Why would the writers have Mike act this way if he was just supposed to be a one dimensional character? Why would Finn be directed to portray Mike the way he does if there was nothing more going on? There are times where Mike looks like he's in physical pain because of his internal conflict. There is a reason for that. And acknowledging that DOES NOT mean people are taking away from Will. That's the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. Do y'all seriously not understand that more than one character can have emotionally complex storylines? Genuinely asking, is this a new concept for you?

Will's love for Mike

Will is head over heels in love with Mike. That is very much established. So when you're dismissing the emotional depth of Mike's individual arc because you think acknowledging it "takes away from Will" you are actually diminishing the significance of a huge aspect of Will's emotional arc. By taking away the significance of Mike, you take away from the significance of Will.

Let's do a quick recap of the very significant role Mike has played in Will's entire life:

Mike is Will's first friend.

They have grown up together and it can be assumed that they've reached important milestones together.

Mike has always been a safe person for Will. He's been a constant in Will's very chaotic and unfair life. Until the summer of '85, Mike had always been something good in Will's life. (That's not to say he is no longer something good, but it can be assumed that the summer of '85 is the first time Mike has been a causal factor in Will's unhappiness)

When Will went missing, Mike did not hesitate to search for him. It wasn't even a question of if. The moment he knew Will was missing he knew exactly what he'd be doing that night. He spearheaded the search amongst the party. He was the leader.

When Will came back, Mike was the only person that didn't treat him like he was gonna break. He cared for him, and he was there for him, but he didn't treat him differently; Will tells us as much. Which means we can infer that the way Mike was with Will in s2 - how gentle and loving he was - was nothing new. He had just always been like that.

When Will was possessed, Mike stayed by his side. Even when it was scary, even when it could've gotten him killed, he stayed. Because once again, for him, it wasn't even a question. That's just where he knew he needed to be. He was in the shed when they were trying to get through to Will. He was set apart from Lucas and Dustin, but he also wasn't equated to family. And his retelling of the story of the day they first met was the final push Will needed to find a way to communicate.

After a year of things being "weird" between them, Mike tells Will that he didn't deserve to be treated the way he had been. Mike tells him that he wants them to be okay again, and for the rest of the season he puts in the work.

Things get rough in s3, and at the beginning of s4, and despite all of that, Will confesses his love (albeit veiled). In a moment where Mike is feeling awful about himself, he tells him that he loves him and needs him, and he tells him why. And to him it doesn't matter that he's breaking his own heart to do it, because it's Mike. Mike, who makes him feel like he's not a mistake at all, and that he's better for being different. For Will, there was no other option. The person he loves was hurting and he knew how to help, and so he did.

Mike is the first person Will tells about Vecna still being alive. Because they're back to being a team. He knows he can trust Mike, and Mike seems to be very determined to prove him right.

SO.

These are all real and canon aspects of Mike's presence in Will's life. Will falling in love with Mike isn't something that just happened for no reason. Will fell in love with Mike because of who Mike is. When you acknowledge that, and when you acknowledge the reasons they've set out for why Will loves him - the reasons Will literally told us - you can better understand Will. But when you dismiss all of these things about Mike, you are dismissing a large portion of Will's emotional and romantic arc. You aren't being a Will Warrior. You are erasing so much of him and his feelings and his lived experience. That is not the hill you wanna die on.

Will loves a person. Not a feeling. Yes, he says that Mike makes him feel like he's not a mistake and that he's better for being different. But that's not why he loves him. He feels that way because he loves him.

Mike is a fully fleshed out character with his own feelings and struggles and fears and traumas and motivations. He's not a plot device. He's not just an accessory to Will's arc. He's not a character that was written only to be Will's love interest. He's Will's love interest because he's Mike.

If Mike didn't matter, and if Mike didn't play a significant role in byler, then they would be able to write in a love interest for Will in s5 and have it be somewhat satisfying. But they can't do that. Will's love for Mike has so much depth because Mike has so much depth. It is genuinely crazy that this has to be stated and that I have to back up this claim because it is simply a canon fact.

So yes, the rain fight affects Mike's character development and his involvement in it is important. Yes, the van scene literally could not exist without Mike and therefore his involvement in it is incredibly important. Yes, every single byler moment has an impact on Mike, and Mike has an impact on it because they are BYLER moments. Yes, Mike will have a lot of significant moments - with Will AND on his own - in s5 because his arc deserves and needs as much attention as Will's in order to execute byler endgame in a satisfying way.

No, none of these facts negate Will's importance or take away from his story. If anything, they add to it because Mike and Will's arcs are corresponding and intertwined.

Mike's struggles

To name a few

Dysfunctional family

Has been bullied his entire life

Extreme self worth issues

Inferiority complex

Hero complex

Lack of self preservation

Suicidal ideation (has been on display since SEASON ONE)

Internalized homophobia

To get this out of the way: Mike's internalized homophobia is allowed to be discussed. Discussion of it is not the dismissal of Will's internalized homophobia. Surprise surprise, two queer kids in the 80s have internalized homophobia! Who'd'a thunk it?! Their internalized homophobia presents in different ways but it is there for both of them. I personally relate to the way Mike's is portrayed way more than I relate to Will's. So why is it that we can't discuss it without being accused of erasing Will's experience? Or without people saying that we're "copy and pasting" Will's story? Because quite frankly, that feels dismissive of my - and likely many others' - real and lived experience. So please for the love of all things that are good just stop with this talking point because it will never hold up.

Moving on

I'm not gonna do a full breakdown of all of Mike's issues. Because contrary to popular belief, there are a lot. And that would be exhausting and I'd get carried away and it's not the point of this post. The point of this post is to defend the acknowledgement and mere existence of them.

If you're a byler that for some reason thinks Mike only exists to be Will's love interest and his trophy as compensation for his trauma, let me ask you this: Have you considered how awful it would be to have a queer character's individuality and emotional depth completely ignored for the sake of focusing on the queer character that "really matters"?

If Mike's own issues, with his queer identity and otherwise, aren't thoroughly explored... What's the point of all this? If Mike really is insignificant in this storyline and his individuality has no effect on it.. where's the emotional payoff? If his perspective doesn't matter... Why have the writers gone to such great lengths to ensure we don't have that piece of the puzzle yet?

Analyzing Mike and understanding Mike is very important to understanding byler. Once again, I think it's crazy that this needs to be said.

I also think it's important to note that characters can have similar struggles. There's no rule against that. Just like real life. Characters having similar struggles is not a bad thing, and acknowledging that their struggles are similar is not dismissive of either character. We're talking about STRANGER THINGS. Jonathan and Nancy's thing is "we've got shared trauma". They have literal matching scars. Shared experiences are some of the main building blocks for this show's romances. Byler has a TON of shared experience, basically their entire lives. We already know that. So wouldn't it be so beautiful for them to learn that they've been struggling with the same thing this whole time? That the entire time they felt alone in what they were going through when really they had each other and they never even knew it? Wouldn't it be so beautiful for Mike's acceptance of Will and Will's love for him was also a step toward accepting himself? Wouldn't it be beautiful for Will to learn that his love makes Mike feel like he's not a mistake? None of that would be in the realm of possibility if Mike didn't have emotional depth and if his individuality wasn't important.

And that leads me to my concluding point...

A satisfying execution of byler endgame hinges on Mike's individual emotional arc being handled well

God I hope this isn't controversial to say. I sincerely hope most people haven't forgotten that.

Here's a hypothetical:

Imagine season five has been released. You're watching it, and you notice that Mike has been relegated to just a supporting character for Will. We don't get any of his perspective. We don't get any explanation for his s3 and early s4 behavior. His breakup with El doesn't have any real tangible effect on him, it's really just used for El's character development. We never see him pining for Will like we saw Will pining for him. And then suddenly Mike is learning about the painting and then suddenly he's confessing his love and then suddenly byler is canon and official.

Now wouldn't that just be awful? Wouldn't that be unfair to the audience, to Mike, and to Will? For us to never learn just how much Mike had to go through to even be able to say it out loud? For Mike to never get the chance to prove to himself through word and action that he is the heart? For Will to never get an explanation for why things did get so "weird" between them? It would leave us with one big, nagging question: What was the point of everything Mike has said and done throughout the entire show if his conclusion is that lackluster?

Disregarding Mike for a moment (I know that's incredibly ironic given what the entire point of this is but just bear with me) - how would that be a satisfying conclusion for Will? I mean, Will's s4 arc was basically dedicated to showcasing his struggle with his sexuality and with his love for Mike. We were shown just how deep that love is. We were shown how patient, unselfish, unwavering, and beautiful that love is. So how would it be satisfying for Mike's love for him to not be shown with just as much depth? How would it be satisfying for Mike to just be a one dimensional character whose s5 arc is essentially "break up with girlfriend, wait to find out best friend is in love with him, say he loves him back, then they live happily ever after"? I think Will deserves for his love to be returned with the same intensity at which he gives it. And I think it should be clear to the audience and to Will himself.

Back to Mike!

Mike has been through so much shit. I don't think anyone that is denying that actually believes he hasn't been through shit. Because you'd actually have to watch the show on mute and with your eyes closed to think this kid hasn't had just the worst time. It's so ignorant to act as if this stuff hasn't affected him. There's stuff we've seen but there's stuff we also haven't seen. There are issues he has that date back to his childhood pre-canon. Just like Will, Mike has been a queer kid growing up in 80s smalltown conservative america. Acknowledging the pain he 100% carries because of that is so important. His perspective has been withheld from us, not because it's unimportant, but because it's the final puzzle piece. If we had Mike's perspective in s4, byler wouldn't be a "will they won't they" (even though we all know they will). If we got his perspective in s4, byler would be a "100% certain without a doubt they will". But the thing about his perspective is that it's so much more than just loving Will. It's fear. It's pain. It's insecurity. It's doubt. It's the belief that his happiness just doesn't matter all that much. All of that has to be explored. All of that has to be laid out in the open for us in order for byler endgame to feel earned. Mike's emotional payoff will lead to byler's emotional payoff.

Mike has known he loves Will. In s5 we will see him make a deliberate and active effort to overcome the things keeping him from doing something about it. And then he will do something about it.

And so when it finally happens. When both Mike and Will finally know that their feelings are requited, and when their arcs end with us knowing that they will face whatever life has in store for them together, that will feel earned. That will feel like the logical conclusion for both of them. Not just for Mike. Not just for Will. For both.

And Mike is just as important to that conclusion as Will is.

And one last thing...

Some people are going to talk about Mike more. Some people are going to talk about Will more. Because newsflash, people have preferences. Some people just relate to Mike more, or they find his emotional arc extremely compelling, or they just like him. It isn't an attack on Will or any other character. No one is saying Mike is more important than any other character (I'm sure there are people that say that but they are a vocal minority and they are simply wrong). We are just saying that he is important. If you wanna engage in media analysis, please understand that "main character" or "central character" does not mean "only important character" and "only character that should be analyzed". If you wanna talk about Will and only Will, that's fine. But you don't get to act like people that talk about other characters are doing a disservice to your fave, because that's not how any of this works.

[autumnmobile12]

Expanding on the Endeavor: Physical Strength vs Emotional Strength post I made because I finally have the wording for it, this is my more in-depth take on where Endeavor ended up in the finale.

In a twisted way, I’m glad he survived, and the reason for that is I’m personally a fan of the ‘live in despair’ trope.

Endeavor is a character whose identity lies heavily in his own physical capabilities.  Physically, he’s a very strong and imposing character, and all his life, he has used that strength both in the positive manner of fighting villains and protecting the public and in a negative manner to abuse and intimidate his family. His ties to his physical strength is a core aspect of his personality.

But another factor that might be in play is I actually think Endeavor suffers from depression. If that's the case, he has been dealing with it for years. And I don't say that as an excuse for everything he's done because accountability and all, but it would explain a lot.  Let’s face it, therapy and medication might’ve done this guy and his family a world of good.

Depression in men often presents itself as anger compared to women who experience it more commonly as stress/sadness. This is due to a combined factor of social expectations for men and a possible difference in brain chemistry between men and women. Symptoms of depression in men can include:

Aggression

Irritability

Controlling/abusive behavior

Overworking to avoid addressing negative feelings and overworking to the exclusion of any other hobbies/interests. (Does he even have a life outside of work?)

Isolation (He doesn’t really go out of his way to interact with co-workers, peers, or anyone in his family aside from Shouto.)

And if you really think about it, Endeavor's career-long status of second place in his profession did probably have ties to his own self-worth, so add in the 20+ years of feeling like he was never good enough that he projected onto Touya.

There's also the fact his oldest son died in a horrible accident that could have been prevented and he knows it. Touya’s death probably exacerbated his depression because I don’t think Endeavor is the sort of person to take a month off to mourn. I think he went right back to work to distract himself from it and never addressed his son’s death and he certainly never confronted his own part in it. That should have been a personal turning point for him to self-examine and re-evaluate some life choices, but see the post in the link above for the analysis on why he didn't. In short, no wonder Dabi chose the war path.

...

On top of all that, there's the aforementioned societal pressure that men are supposed to ‘tough out it’ because being sad/vulnerable is viewed as weakness, and Japan in particular does have a societal stigma against mental illness, so those two factors alone would mean Endeavor probably never considered he had depression or sought treatment for it even if he did. And so he used the intense physical activity of his job to overwork himself and further avoided actually confronting the emotional turmoil going on within himself and his own household.

But the finale:

Endeavor is crippled, he is missing an arm, he can’t walk by himself, he can’t dress himself, his former outlet of overworking himself is an impossibility, and he is now dependent on Rei’s care for the rest of his life, which is a subversion of her being forced to remain financially dependent on him for the majority of their marriage.  Everything that made him the strong, independent person that he was before Final War has been stripped away.  One of his children is dead because of him, one has all but disowned him as a parent, and the remaining two have limited contact with him.

This is in no way close to the dignified retirement he probably had in mind.

Endeavor didn’t die and ‘rest in peace.’

And now he gets to sit in his wheelchair and dwell on the choices that put him there for the rest of his life and, reminder, he's not an old man. He's middle aged, so he's got a few more decades of this to look forward to. He spent his whole life chasing after a goal that was egotistical, he ruined his own life and the lives of his family, he achieved his goal in the most hollow victory imaginable, and it all came crashing down.

It might not be legal justice for the abuse and mistreatment he put his family through, but I do see it as karmic justice. In all, it's a sad and pathetic end to a sad and pathetic life. The guy lives, but he lives in despair.

[kryptonbabe]

Superman: Earth One (2010) by J. Michael Straczynski & Shane Davis: A Review

Clark Kent is a reserved young adult, he's leaving his familiar Smallville for Metropolis, looking to find himself, build a life. With an anguished demeanor and sad eyes he navigates the big city unscathed, but never satisfied. There's a veneer of trauma to the story, Clark talks more with his dead father, Jonathan, than to anyone alive in the book. While his parents are pumped to have a superhero son, Clark just wants to give his mother a good life, after his father's passing, and to belong somewhere, anywhere.

This had so much potential bringing this different perspective to the Superman mythos, exploring all these heavier feelings we are more used to seeing in the origins of characters like Batman or Hulk. The thing is that while Batman and Hulk earn their angst, Clark's behavior feels unjustified. It's never clear how his otherness can be an obstacle, his abilities are always described as achievements, he's easily accepted everywhere he goes. He could be depressed and that would be interesting (what to expect when the most powerful being on the planet is not evil, but isn't hopeful at all?), but that is never really mentioned.

Clark's feelings are exposed in dialogues and monologues, but his wallowing seems out of place, his father's death is not traumatic, he had a healthy relationship with his parents, he's a genius, he's super strong, he can make a lot of money really fast, but hmm, I guess everybody always asks where is Superman, but no one ever asks HOW is Superman. He's just sad, and we must embrace this.

There's also a kind of mall goth / 2010s emo to this art style and dialogue, the moodiness, the angst, the aversion to primary colors, the Welcome to the Black Parade palette of the underdeveloped villain. As an emo kid myself, I'd probably have a much better time reading this in 2012, when all was new and darkness was inherently exciting. But now, as an elderly decaying millennial emo, I just feel like I need more than aesthetics to make me interested in a story, invested in a character.

The freezing cold take of "Clark Kent is the costume of Superman" was already old in 2010, this view was popularized by the Kill Bill vol. 2 movie, released in 2004, and it's an oversimplified perception of the character, one that considers certain aspects of his history while ignoring several others, lacking the nuance a character as old as Superman deserves. It's jarring to hear this coming from Clark's mother, at this point in the story he is not Superman yet, he doesn't even know if he will someday choose to wear the cape. When Martha says "the mask is what you'll have to wear the rest of the time" she's disregarding Clark's humanity, the life he lived so far, the bonds he might develop when he's not in Smallville anymore. All of this belittled in front of the bigger goal: to turn Clark into a Superman.

In the flashbacks the couple seem slightly manipulative, Jonathan and Martha's only subject with Clark is about him becoming Superman, which might explain why the boy feels so on edge, as if deep down he's trying to run away from this fate of becoming an all achieving force of nature their parents want him to become. It's his parents who give him the Superman name, the costume and the idea to become a superhero. Clark has so little agency in this story, acting resigned, his intentions vague, it's frustrating.

On a positive note, I really liked the fact that Superman destroys a giant spaceship on board his baby ship, (even though, how exactly he stops a world invasion happening in multiple locations with multiple vessels by destroying only one single ship is never explained), overall the baby ship was a nice touch, the science fiction logic of it was very interesting too.

Superman Earth One felt like a very hopeless post-9/11 Superman story, surface level deep, moody and often bleak, without any of the positive emotional impact of the character. The art is nice though and emo Clark is cute. But I need to cheer up now. Thanks for reading this!

[missielynne]

CBS Ghosts Review- St. Hetty's Day

First off, I did like this episode a lot. And unlike the last couple of episodes, even though there were a few plots, they finally let the main plot about Hetty's ghost power be the strongest one.

I love Hetty's ghost power but I sort of hope that we have more to learn about it and it's not only on Saint Patrick's Day that she can be seen, no matter how much it makes sense. It's taking a really cool power and sort of wasting it if we can only have one episode for that a year and the rest of the time we just have to know that she's sitting on this great power with no way to use it.

I love that it was an opportunity for Jay to see Hetty and meet her for real, and I love his poor cousin. It was nice to see Hetty connect with someone who valued her more old-fashioned qualities and liked her just for being Hetty, which is an interesting part of her arc where growth involves her becoming more modern and feminist and unlearning beliefs and behaviors that just aren't good by modern standards. Sunil seemed like such a nice guy and I really felt bad for him when he found out Hetty was a ghost (although I have to say his reaction to it was hilarious.

As I talked about with @jmagnabo92, it would be nice to see Sunil and Bela be able to talk about their experiences with the ghosts at Woodstone (I do love Jay wondering aloud why the ghosts always have to fall in love with his family) or even discover that there's some big reason why that is, like they all see ghosts when they're young like Hetty did. That would be an interesting story point for Jay, I think, and do even more to bring him into the narrative.

Watching Isaac try and get Chris' attention gave me A LOT of second hand embarrassment, because it makes it very apparent (again) that he has no idea how to flirt or initiate relationships and has LOTS of learning to do in that regard. (But I do like the Ice nickname and I hope it keeps being used.)

I know there's been a lot of frustration about how the sexual aspect of Flower's character is so front and center, but I think (virgin-shaming aside, especially now that everyone's doing it) it was actually put to good use for Isaac this episode (and the reenactment of bears eating her corpse was both funny AND weird.) But I really did like Flower and Trevor doing their darndest to try and teach Isaac how to initiate a relationship without being too much, even though Isaac needs a lot of work to make him successful. Especially if they want to start him out casually, I would love to see a Flower/Trevor team up to make that happen, especially since their advice was relayed very seriously compared to how they usually talk about stuff like that. It was nice.

At first I thought the twist was that Chris was gonna be with Nigel instead, and while I still feel that Nigel's running off to be with Jenkins so soon after that facepalm at Christmas was a misstep on his part, I do feel like Isaac has put him through a lot, and if there had been a plot twist where Nigel and Chris were the pairing, I would have been okay. (And watching Chris deal with Jenkins would have been so fun, not gonna lie.)

But as it turned out, he's gonna be one of the ghosts that pops in and out like Crash, Steph, etc, which makes me really interested to see how they're gonna do his character and how he's gonna fit in at Woodstone. Will he disappear like Pete if he stays away too long in spite of his power being immune to boundaries? At his next appearance, will we see him pull himself through the front door with one arm and one leg while Pete is waiting for him to come and explain everything? If that's the case, I think it would be very interesting to see Pete and Chris bond over their travel powers so he's not JUST the guy who flirts and leaves.

I do like that even though there was nothing really romantic done with Nigel and Isaac this episode, it was nice that they could be in the same room and talk after everything. And it was also nice to see Isaac be so concerned for Nigel when Chris told him he was just taking off without telling Nigel so much as goodbye. Could this be part of Isaac being able to/wanting to move forward eventually?

And I do think Chris, like Trevor, is way too well-adjusted to his death and the afterlife. He's probably not gonna be around enough for us to explore him in real depth, but I wonder if he has trauma that he's hiding like Trevor did with his parents, and if so, just what the heck it is.

[lovecaitlined]

What a roller coaster. My thoughts on KaySun in episode 61. 🖤 (semi-rant, read at your own risk).

But here’s the gist—the show may excel in writing certain characters properly, but writing for other characters is inconsistent for the sake of the plot. I’m framing it from the perspective of psychology and writing. I wish the writing in the show would better explain Suna’s actions because it shows unnatural character behavior written under the guise of supposed mental instability that only conveniently appears when it furthers the plot (much like Ferit’s on-and-off again diabetes).

1. I personally think Kaya has been written very consistently thus far, he has just been framed badly. He was never going to hit Suna; Ferit just stopped him, but if Ferit hadn’t stopped him, Kaya would hit the wall. I just hate how they made Suna flinch because she’s never done that. Love how he apologized and reaffirmed his love for Suna, so when she implodes (and I fear it is coming soon), she will have him to turn to.

2. I personally disagree with people saying Suna is not being OOC. I still think she is being OOC. I never expected Suna to be mentally well; she definitely is not over her wedding rejection with F, and she has trauma and anxiety and a whole lot of insecurities. However, her being brain dead and acting like a zombie intent on getting Ferit due to a fortune teller is crazy. She is not THAT crazy, and it is so OOC for the girl who loves her sister and supported SeyFer (to the point of scalping Ferit’s mistresses) will be so weird about this. Mind you, she was looking at Kaya with heart-eyes in that one ep before becoming crazy due to Ferit.

The fact that Suna was able to point out 1) the fact that her father Kazım did not change, but just changed tactics and 2) lead Kaya to believe what she was doing with Ferit was due to Seyran and hide aspects from him (because she knows it’s WRONG) screams clearly logical and sane to me. Now if old Suna from S1 pulled crazy stunts like this, it would’ve been understandable. But I don’t believe she can regress this quickly after so much character development, so I really think they are making Suna OOC and dumb for the plot. She is way too inconsistent, and not in an impulsive way. You cannot switch insanity on and off, so I choose to believe she is just badly written and OOC.

3. A moot of mine, Raj, pointed out that it is possible that Gunger has ego problems and is trying to undo everything Leyla did. He hates women anyway so I believe this, lol.

4. I do think the FT plot will be revealed soon to Kaya and he will confront Suna about it. However, I also feel like Suna is bound to implode soon. There is a reason why there was a public KaySun fight where Suna vehemently denies anything and Kaya is made to look paranoid. That way, when Suna implodes (they better not make her cross that line, and no I will not write what I think will happen) in front of the mansion and gets humiliated and punished, the audience will not blame the people living in the yalı for what has happened to her. In fact, they’ll think she lied and went against her own words, and that she deserves it.

5. This parallels a lot of Gunger’s writing. He always makes women say sht and do the opposite. For example, Seyran and Gulgun used to say they’ll never return to the mansion and their husbands, but they do it anyway and look like clowns. Imagine if Suna publicly denies something and then crosses a line with Ferit? 💀

6. I just like how they made Kaya consistently in love with Suna so he won’t abandon her, and if she implodes he will take it back. Ngl I wanted Suna to beg and confess and even get jealous—but whatever, I’ll take what we can get for KaySun endgame.

7. No one come for me, but I would prefer Pelin and Pırıl back so long as the former will mess with SeyFer. The way I see it now, there are no obstacles for SeyFer except for Suna, which is OOC af. Pelin or Akın can be the villain in their story, just leave my girl Suna out of this and let her be happy together with Kaya.

Anyway, thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far! Lmk what you think. ✨

[augment-techs]

I think I will take advantage of the ask box now :) I'm curious as to your thought/head cannon for Lord Drakkon. I like to get other perspectives on his behavior and motivations.

Why do you think Drakkon was the only one to return to Rita? And when/how did he decide to do away with her and run the show himself?

Based on your story 'All Our Injuries Rhyme', what are Drakkon's goals and motivations? When he had Jason in the dungeon before the Lone Tower Apartments, you wrote he used to sneak in Jason's cell at night like a disease and grab the hair at the back of his head. Was that just to visit him to torture or interrogate? Was he displaying any sexual attraction/lust at that time?

Having the contract with Jason, does that lead to him not raging at Jason and physically harming him when he has 'difficulties'? What exactly does he want from Jason? Just orgasms and relinquishing control? Does he want Jason to be afraid, fearful, angry, or does he expect him to remain in control, confident, or develop/show affection like a relationship?

In regards to his difficulties, like you mentioned with his tastes and food and potentially rotting on the inside, is that what is causing him to lose it? Or is he having any emotional reaction to what he is doing?

Has he always felt this way towards Jason in regards to getting him in bed? Or was keeping him alive purely for tactics and strategies like he claimed? Just a trophy? Or did he expect more from their interactions before he made Jason a house pet?

Does he always want Jason to be in control and 'do to him' all activities? Does he want to do anything specifically to Jason?

Loved the AO3 update by the way! I will get on and give it a proper review but definitely made my day!

Depending entirely on the continuity, Drakkon himself returned to Rita because, while he was on the streets and hiding from his problems and the aftermath of what he did while under mind control, he realized that he was not comfortable in his own skin and also was unfortunate enough to see some of the worst aspects of humanity. Rita offered up at least something like safety when she found him, and when she told him about her old ally General Drakkon, the Tommy Oliver that was found something to cling to that would put him in her good graces and also slowly separate him from the humanity that he was beginning to detest (fear). He did away with her eventually because--by that point--he was fully aware that he had learned everything from her that he could use for his own and did not like the idea of being in the service of someone who had a habit of doing away with anyone that disagreed with her and also was willing to submit instantly to her father. Basically his Mommy Issues clashed with her Daddy Issues. That old chestnut about hidden kindness and sociopaths that is incredibly dated, but rings a lot of bells whenever I reread the comics. Also his impulse control and addiction compulsion were starting to show enough that Rita was questioning him a little bit. Motivations for that are tricky to explain since I'm still getting to the meat of things and don't want to give everything away, but the long and short of it is that Drakkon just...does not know what he wants, except something that can make him happy. He is an individual shaped by many hands, by trauma, by abandonment, by confusion, by magic, and by Grid energy. He was inducted into matters beyond his ken when he was 15-16 and therefore still forming a personality beyond "survival" and "getting used to every new place he had to move for his mom's job" and that's left him with parts missing. He knows what 'want' is, at the very least, and feels that verily when in contact with either Jason or Kimberly. That has special significance that I'll get into down the line, but the very simple answer to the dungeon thing is... He was being creepy. He can't perform under pressure, but he can be gross and he can use his mouth. Also he likes using words to set Jason off so he can hear the man's voice. If he happened to use his hands here and there, well, it's not like Jason could do much but flinch back. He will not physically injure Jason. With his own hands, he will not bruise, batter, bend, or break the Red Ranger. He will, however, get loud and verbally malicious if things go south from what he may or may not have intended from one day to the next. This is a big part of why he has his Slayer and his Sentries on hand if it is required for someone to clean up a mess that he made or...other things. What he expects from Jason is something along the lines of what Green wants from Red, which is to be their opposite and show them how to be outside of themselves; but that gets swerved and squiggled a bit because of White being attached to the signals. He will not admit it, but they are something of equals, and he is instinctively drawn to that--as opposed to, say, Kim, who his instincts say is BETTER than him, or Skull who sets Green on edge. Adam is Black but also Something Else that makes White send little nudges his way, and Drakkon recognizes these traits and keeps them in orbit to keep an eye on them, and also keep Jason...content. Because he doesn't want him to hate him, not really, and he knows he can't be happy, but he can be content.

Oh, he is absolutely an emotional wreck, and a big part of that is because of his physical deterioration doing things to him that he can't control and doesn't realize is made worse by a genetic predisposition he doesn't know about. Think of it like when a person gets turned into a vampire and a lot of the tropes that come along with it; light usually hurts them, things smell MORE, taste diminishes until only a very specific thing carries into something like nourishment and there are parts of the brain being rewired. Part of this is because of the Chaos Energy of the Dragon coin, some of it is from the White Light being corrupted, and part of this is his own body. His emotions are there, but they are either too much or too little, depending on the day. Okay, I'm going to let something out a little early that I have perfectly outlined in my head but might not make it in: Jason sat in front of Tommy in four different classes in high school. Jason was the leader of the rangers and in the front of the pack at all times. Jason beat him in that martial arts tournament. And Drakkon REMEMBERS THAT. The impression he was left with was very confusing and I cannot put it more succinctly than Olivia Gatwood, "You know that feeling when you don't know if you wanna be someone, or if you wanna fuck them?" He wants to do everything to Jason. In the beginning with Kimberly, he wanted to at least test the waters of his control on somebody that couldn't say no--which, fun to realize in the act, he cannot do if he thinks that person is better than him. But he just thought it meant he wasn't a good fit with women (regardless if he found them attractive). So he switched tactics when Jason got moved to the tower; thought things would get better if he had permission with only most of the power. Which works until he tries to be the one penetrating as the dominant in any way. Servicing Jason, being submissive to him, is delicious and something he never thought he could enjoy; he's just really pissed that something inside of him won't let him do more.

@ajgrey9647

[anamericangirl]

I'm not confusing them and I think it's pretty obvious if you understand the difference.

Taking toys away, as direct discipline and punishment, is not part of gentle parenting. I'm watching someone gentle parent their child and there are aspects of it that I can appreciate and think are really beneficial for growth and development but gentle parenting does lack adequate discipline. It doesn't lack the natural consequences of behavior or communicating with children that there are natural consequences, which I think I acknowledged in my response and I think that is one of the good things about gentle parenting, but it does lack children experiencing parent implemented punishments for genuinely bad behavior.

Like, for example, at my sister's house they have a small christmas tree that is barely taller than my five year old nephew and he likes to try to play with his toy cars in the tree. My sister set a limitation on this behavior, which is one thing that permissive parenting doesn't do, by telling him not to put his toy cars in the tree and explained that doing so would cause the tree to fall. Well, lo and behold, he continued to use his cars in the tree and the tree fell. And he was so worried about the tree falling over because he understood it had happened because he was playing in it that he didn't want to tell my sister or her to walk into the room and see it. But he did end up telling her while saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" and they cleaned it up together as she explained to him that "see, this is why I told you not use your toys in the tree - but hey, now we get to decorate the tree all over again." And I think that's an example where gentle parenting really gets it right and was incredibly effective because he experienced the natural consequences of not listening to his mother in that situation and it didn't require behavior correction with punishment or discipline.

But I have also seen him openly disrespect both his mom and dad by barking commands at them which they adhere to because they are "treating him like a person" and the most they say is "well ok I will respect your wishes but that really hurt my feelings" without actually addressing or correcting the fact that he was disrespectful to them.

Gentle parenting may take toys but it doesn't take them away as a direct punishment so that the child understands he/she is being punished for disobeying or doing something they know is bad because they got upset. It takes them away to distract them from their bad behavior because gentle parenting is non-punitive.

And I spoke very clearly in my response about how it's non-punitive without ever mentioning punishment that requires physical force so that's obviously not what I meant by saying it avoids punishment.

The fact is you can teach kids why they shouldn't do something by explaining why they shouldn't do it, which I think absolutely should be done, but children are going to disobey. They are going to be disrespectful. They are going to behave badly. And there has to be something set in place for when that happens. They need to understand that sometimes when a parent says "no" they just have to obey.

Sometimes children do things that need a punishment. Now the punishment should fit the crime but if you see someone say gentle parenting "avoids punishment" and automatically assume they're talking about hitting children maybe you don't fully understand the concept yourself.

We live in a society that punishes bad behavior and in fact it's a tradition as old as humanity. It's actually a necessary part of living in a community with other people. Bad behavior gets punished. And if kids don't learn that from their parents, they will learn it the hard way when they are out living in the real world.

What's wrong with gentle parenting?

The main problem I have with the concept of gentle parenting is that it's a feelings first oriented way of raising a child.

It supplements the teaching that there are right and wrong behaviors with the idea that you shouldn't do x, y z because it makes the child or the person the child is interacting with unhappy in some form. It doesn't help children learn that the reason you don't hit people when you're upset is because that is wrong to do, it teaches them we don't do it because the person you hit might not like it.

I think there are some good things about gentle parenting, like giving your child the chance to express themselves and helping them work through their feelings and not getting frustrated because they're crying too much and stuff and genuinely listening to them and giving their thoughts and feelings respect like you would to give to any person, but the things gentle parenting lacks and doesn't do well I think are things that are vital to living and growing as a human being and two of those things that it lacks are

1 discipline and consequences for outright bad behavior

2. respect for authority

Like it's one thing to confront your child gently and explain there's reasons we don't behave certain ways but when they are just behaving badly or being deliberately disobedient then that's where the child should experience some discipline.

For example, if a young child is playing too rough with their toys and starts throwing them around take your gentle parenting approach if you want and say "hey let's not throw our toys ok, be gentle with them." Then if they don't stop try again and say "Don't throw toys, ok? You could hurt someone." And then they still don't stop throwing them the gentle parenting approach (at least from what I've witnessed) is "I see you're still throwing your toys. What is making you want to do that? Maybe you're tired of playing with those toys let's try something else." And I think in that instance that does damage to the child. I think a more appropriate response if you tell your kid three times not throw toys and they deliberately disobey you that's a time to go "Hey I told you to stop throwing that toy and you didn't so now I'm taking that toy away from you." Distracting a child from their bad behavior doesn't address the bad behavior. The child needs to understand the reason they lost the toy is because they disobeyed. They need to associate those two things.

As for the respect for authority, this is one of the things that really irks me about it. And the way I've witnessed it made it really hard to for me to bite my tongue in those moments. The relationship of the gentle parenting method sets the child and their parents up as equals when that's not what they are. As people yes, they are equals but not in status. There's no concept there of I'm the mother or I'm the father so I'm ultimately in charge and you have to listen to me it's more like "you listen to me and I'll listen to you."

Like one thing I saw was a mother walk up to give her son a hug while he was playing and he says to her "stop it mommy go away." And the mother's response was "ok you did say stop so i'm going to stop because when people say stop we need to listen." And I'm just like. wow. Like yes it's important for a child to understand that concept but also they need to understand that speaking disrespectfully to someone, like a parent, isn't ok. And that's just not something that gentle parenting is good at teaching.

And this may not be such a big deal when the kid is four or five. Like my nephew is one of the sweetest children ever but I think the repercussions of being raised that way will be evident when he's older.

He is being raised without having real discipline or consequences for his behavior and he is going to be thrust out into a world that does and he will have to learn it the hard way.

If he is driving one day and gets pulled over the policeman isn't going to sit there and explain why we don't speed. He's going to get a ticket. If he gets mad and hits someone when he's an adult the police aren't going to gently tell him hitting people isn't ok, he's going to get arrested.

If he goes to college and doesn't study and do his work the professor isn't going to say "Maybe you're tired of studying for this class why don't you do something else?" He's going to fail.

Kids, just like all people, need to understand that some laws and rules just have to be followed not because not following them makes you or others feel stressed or anxious or unhappy but because it's the right thing to do and that if you don't follow them there are very real consequences for it.

[demonsandco]

Smut Alphabet - Lucifer

All the letters for Luci have been answered now, so here's a post compiling them all together!

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

When he’s the one in charge, Luci acts like the king of aftercare. As much as he loves seeing his partner fall apart, he always makes sure to put them back together in the end. His go to thing is running a hot bath for his partner, letting him clean them up while also giving him a reason to hold them close and relax for once. After the bath, he’s pretty much at their beck and call, willing to run out and get them anything they need until they're ready to go to bed. It’s one of the only times when Luci won’t put up a fight about going to bed at a decent hour, instead opting to snuggle under the covers and pulling his partner close to his chest.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

For a long while, Lucifer’s favorite parts of him were his wings, but now they carry too many memories for him to view them with the same light. Now, his favorite body part would be his hands. He has long fingers and a firm grip, perfect for grabbing his partner’s wrists with one hand and pinning them down.

When it comes to his partner, Lucifer’s favorite body part of theirs is their neck. It’s such a vulnerable part of their body and it’s his favorite place to leave marks. It’s a trust thing for him, as well as something that makes him feel powerful. Knowing that he could kill them in a second with his sharp teeth pressed to their throat, yet they trust him not to hurt them excites him to no end.

(cont under the cut)

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Lucifer cums a pretty average amount, but he can do so quite a few times in a row. His favorite place to cum is in his S/O’s mouth or on their face. Marking them in such a way feeds into his pride, and he can’t help but admire how wonderful they look covered on his seed. He would never force them to swallow it when he does this, but if they choose to, he is left feeling awed and even hornier than before.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Lucifer is more than prepared to take this secret to his grave, but he has, on more than one occasion, fantasised about having a pact master use their pact with him during sex, with consent of course. It’s the idea of trusting his partner to the point where he puts his life in their hands and gives them complete control that gets to him. He’d be able to just lay back and stop thinking for once, while they use him however they see fit, without him needing to make a single decision. If his actual S/O ever suggests something like that, he’d be overjoyed internally, but he plays it off as simply playing along with their idea. He refuses to let anyone know how much he enjoys the thought because of how embarrassing he finds it.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Lucifer has quite a bit of experience, but only when it comes to sex involving BDSM dynamics. He doesn’t mind hooking up with someone if he has the option to have complete control for the night. The type of sex he’s used to is very much lacking in emotional connection. He’s left feeling a bit unsure of himself when it comes to more vanilla sex, being the submissive one, or just sex that involves emotions. He knows what he likes and he’s very skilled in the physical aspect, it just takes him a bit of time to get into the flow of things with a partner that he actually cares about. Especially when emotions are involved. He desperately wants his partner to know how much they mean to him, but he’s not quite sure how to translate his emotions into actions from the very start.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Lucifer’s favorite position is surprisingly vanilla in nature. Call him old fashioned or cliché, but he’s very fond of the missionary position. It doesn’t matter to him who’s on the top and who’s on the bottom, he’s fine with filling either role. He enjoys the closeness that it offers, pressing his chest against his partner’s and feeling each time they take a breath. Plus it offers so much versatility! He’s in the perfect place to kiss his partner as much as he wants, but he can also bury his face in their neck, leaving kisses and love bites, while also muffling his moans.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Lucifer very much prefers to take things seriously. He likes keeping the mood sensual and heated, and goofiness gets in the way of that. Some playfulness or teasing is perfectly fine, and even encouraged by him, but outright humor or jokes is something he’d rather avoid. If his partner insists on being humorous, he’d see it as them being bratty, and won’t hesitate to gag or punish them if they don’t listen to his warnings. It makes for a very easy way to rile him up, if that’s what they’re looking to do. His only focus in the moment is their pleasure (or pain) and his behavior reflects that.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

As with anything to do with his appearance, Lucifer takes meticulous care of his body hair. He constantly keeps it trimmed and short, even if he doesn’t have a partner who would be seeing it at the time. He’s prideful of how he looks and puts a lot of time into looking well put together in all aspects, even if no one will see it. He has a nice amount of body hair in general, though, his pubes leading up into a thin happy trail and a light dusting of hair over his chest. It’s all black in colour, just like the base of his hair.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Surprisingly, Lucifer is very intimate in the moment. He considers sex itself to be an intimate and romantic activity. He needs to trust his partner quite a bit to feel comfortable letting them see him in such a potentially vulnerable position and that really shows. Even if he’s acting rough and dominating, he still can’t help but let a bit of softness and love seep into his words and actions. It’s one of the only times where he can voice his emotions easily, without his pride getting in the way.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Despite having a very high libido, Lucifer rarely takes the time to take care of his needs. He usually puts it off in favor of working, until he suddenly realises just how long it's been, and how needy he feels. It leaves him feeling so pent up and tense, not to mention unbearably sensitive, but getting himself off just doesn’t leave him feeling satisfied enough to be worth the time. He would much rather get off with a partner than on his own, and he’s willing to stay all worked up until then.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

This comes as a surprise to no one, but Lucifer loves bondage. Having his partner tied, watching them wiggle helplessly, unable to escape his touch, never fails to excite him and make his heart race. However, not only does Lucifer enjoy tying up his partner, he also loves to be the one getting tied up. The feel of tight ropes biting into his skin as he squirms under their gaze sends blood rushing straight to his dick. Especially when he thinks about how much trust he’s putting in them. He’s leaving himself open and helpless, yet he knows that they’ll never do anything he genuinely dislikes, just as he would never do that to them

On a similar note, Lucifer is also very fond of temperature play, especially when combined with bondage or even sensory deprivation. He likes the subtle blend of pain and pleasure that comes with it, alongside the anticipation of not knowing which will come next. He could spend hours teasing his partner like this, watching their reactions and listening to their cries. Of course, he’ll also let them return the favor, tying him up and teasing his senses with ice cubes and hot wax. He’ll hold in his reactions for as long as possible, and it’s hard to break him, but if they know where to target, they’ll have him begging soon enough. The span of his back, as well as his thighs are extra sensitive and dripping wax across his spine while sliding some ice over his inner thighs will leave him desperate and begging in no time.

Unsurprisingly, the Avatar of Pride has a huge praise kink. Lucifer craves praise from his partner, enjoying the feeling of pride coursing through his body when his partner tells him how good he feels and how well behaved he is. He strives to please them as much as he can, and the validation that he’s a good boy sends pleasure coursing through him. Of course, Lucifer also gets pleasure out of giving his partner praise, too, when he’s the one in charge. He wants them to know how proud he is of them when they’re being good.

On the opposite hand, Lucifer gets a weird amount of pleasure out of being humiliated. He isn’t fond of humiliating his S/O, being humiliated? Having a mere human exert that much power over him? It excites him to no end and he can’t explain why. If they treat him like he’s a lesser being, spit in his mouth, step on his cock, anything like that, Lucifer finds himself cumming so embarrassingly quick. He has to be in a specific headspace to enjoy it, but when he is, having his pride crushed in such a way feels like such a thrill.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Lucifer is a very private man and refuses to risk being caught in the act. The riskiest he’ll get is his office, but more often than not, it’s going to take place in his room. He prefers to take his time with his partner anyway, and that's much easier to accomplish on a comfortable bed, rather than somewhere else. He has more than enough self control to avoid doing anything too sensual outside of his room, where he feels safe.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

He’ll never admit it, but seeing his s/o acting bold or taking charge never fails to excite him. It makes his mind wander and Lucifer can’t help but imagine them acting that way towards him, disregarding his rank and power and taking control of him. He’s almost ashamed of having such fantasies, but that just serves to excite him further.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Exhibitionism of any level is a big no for Lucifer. He has a hard enough time showing regular affection in public, and anything even remotely sexual in nature crosses his limits. He considers what he shares with his partner to be very personal and vulnerable and he refuses to have anyone else see him in such a state. He’s also not fond of anyone having a chance to see his partner in a disheveled state. In his mind, their body and reactions are for his eyes only. No one else even comes close to deserving to see them like that.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Lucifer very much prefers giving oral over receiving, and he’s damn good at it, too. He loves the amount of power it gives him, allowing him to control exactly how much pleasure he’s giving his partner. He knows exactly how to use his mouth to get specific responses from them. He’s also a quick learner and adapts to his partner’s preferences very fast.

While Lucifer doesn’t hate being on the receiving end, it takes some time for him to be open to the idea. Letting his partner have so much control over his pleasure leaves him feeling vulnerable and he has a harder time controlling his reactions. It takes every ounce of control he has not to grab the back of their head and set the pace himself, but he finds that it’s more worth it in the end to give them complete control.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Lucifer’s pace heavily depends on the mood of the night. If both he and his partner are stressed and need some relief, he’s more than happy to go hard and rough. He does enjoy taking his time, though, and if his schedule allows it, he’d much rather keep things sensual and slow. Intimacy is a very important part of sex for him, and a fast pace feels like it brings things to an end too quickly for him to fully enjoy it all the time, but he still likes the roughness of it. Regardless of who’s in control of the pace, he enjoys it best when there’s a healthy balance, starting out hard and fast, before gradually slowing down and letting some romance seep in, only to speed up once again as he and his partner get close to finishing.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Lucifer is a very busy demon, meaning that sometimes all he has time for is a quickie, but that doesn’t mean he likes them. When he’s with his partner, he wants to be able to take his time with them, keep a slow and sensual pace, but he often can’t find the time for it. He always thinks a quickie would be better than nothing, but they often just leave him feeling even more pent up and desperate.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Lucifer isn’t the most open person when it comes to experimentation. Mostly because he’s already had experience with many kinks throughout his long life, and he feels that he’s got a very good idea of what he’s into. There are very few things his partner could suggest that he either isn’t completely against or that he hasn’t already tried. If they do manage to find something that he’s unsure of yet, he’s more than happy to try it out for them, as long as it’s in a controlled environment. His partner has a much higher chance of getting him to experience something new if he’s the submissive one for the night. Chances are he’ll end up enjoying it, even if he was a bit unsure at first. He thrives off of pleasing his s/o and they’ll quickly find that he has very few limits.

Lucifer is very fond of everything being safe and controlled, regardless of who is in charge for the night. He outright refuses to do anything he’d consider obscene anywhere that someone else could walk into. He wants anything that happens to stay between him and his partner, and his not a fan of risking that in any way.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Lucifer has quite a lot of stamina, when he's not exhausted and overworked, at least. He's not exaggerating when he says he'll keep his partner busy all night long. He can take a few more rounds than the average human, but they last for ages. He's skilled at holding off his own orgasms, capable of making his partner cum on his cock a couple times at least, before finally letting go himself. He uses this to his advantage often, wanting to make sure he completely satisfies them before reaching his own peak.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Lucifer has a rather impressive collection of toys, or perhaps tools would be more accurate. He doesn't own anything like dildos or vibrators, but he has everything from different styles of restraints, to paddles, to whips. He has no qualms using some of the… less extreme tools in his collection on his partner, and he's not opposed to adding some more commonly seen sex toys to the mix, as well. If they show interest, he's more than happy to switch roles and lend them his tools, but he greatly prefers the feel of his partner's body, rather than a plastic toy.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Lucifer is a huge fan of teasing his partner, but he’s very easily swayed by begging. He could genuinely spend hours teasing them and finding new ways to make them react, but as soon as they beg him for more, he loses all semblance of patience and control. Hearing his partner beg feeds straight into his pride, and he’s always weak when it comes to their wants and needs.

Lucifer himself is rather fun to tease as well. It may not be his favorite thing, but he enjoys it from time to time. It takes a lot of practice and patience to actually break him, though, but it’s more than worth it in the end. What’s better than seeing the Avatar of Pride crying and groveling, pleading for his partner to let him cum?

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Lucifer purposefully keeps himself quiet, doing his best to avoid making any sort of embarrassing noises. It works pretty well for him at first, the most that’s coming out of his mouth being soft gasps or groans from behind his clenched teeth, but the closer he gets, the less controlled his voice becomes, letting sweet, delicate moans slip out. He’s still not the type of person to be extra loud or talkative, but it’s not uncommon to hear soft words of praise in between the whiny noises he can’t seem to silence anymore.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Despite the sadistic and domineering persona he puts on, most of the time, Lucifer actually prefers to be the submissive one. He spends every waking moment of his life feeling like he needs to be in control and trying to take care of everything, that what he really craves is to just lay back and have someone else take the reins. It takes a huge amount of trust for Lucifer to admit this, but once he does, he’s willing to let his partner do whatever they want to him.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Lucifer's dick is an impressive sight, but isn't too intimidating. He has a lot of length, more than the average human, and just enough girth to provide a stretch, without requiring extensive prepping. His skin flushes easily, making his a cock a pretty pink colour when he's hard. The thing that stands out the most, though, is that he has piercings down there. There's three to be exact, all lined up on the underside of his cock, forming a Jacob's ladder. They match the nipple piercings that he also keeps hidden under his clothes.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Lucifer’s sex drive is pretty high compared to the average human, but it really isn’t very high for a demon. He’s always so pent up, however, that you’d never be able to tell that. He’s always busy, and when he does have time to spend with his S/O, he wants to do something romantic with them first, constantly pushing aside his need in favor of something else. By the time he’s finally alone and in the mood with them, he's so desperate and sensitive that he comes across as constantly horny, when he’s actually just denying himself until he can’t handle it anymore.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Lucifer has a horrible sleep schedule and struggles to get some rest even when he’s tired. The chances of him falling asleep before his partner are extremely low, even if they wore him out. Even if he doesn’t have any work he feels pressured to finish, chances are that once he finishes taking care of his partner, he’s still going to stay up. He’ll stay in bed if they ask him to, but he’ll find something to read or put on some soft music to keep him busy for a few hours, until he finally feels like he can rest.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

riddle's post-ob flashback in the light novel

Like the Leona post, I’m going to discuss the extended detail that the light novel goes into with Riddle’s backstory, then integrate it with what we know of him from the game. It looks like this is going to be a trend for the light novel, so I’ll most likely do similar analyses for the other OB boys as more volumes come out!

Anyway, read on if you’re curious 👀

Okay, so 🤔 from what we can observe from Riddle’s in-game post-OB flashback sequence, his mother has been dictating almost every aspect of his life, from what and how much he eats to his lengthy, rigorous study routine. As recently as Riddle’s Broomquet vignettes, we learned that even at 5 years old, he had already started and become accustomed to his intense studying. When Riddle fails to complete a task sufficiently, his mother has him redo it or study more until he finally succeeds.

This was Riddle’s “normal”, and he completely bought into it. In the game, this is explained as Riddle having trust in his mother due to her reputation in their community as a competent and well-respected medical mage. "After all, she was the most accomplished mother in the city, and therefore, the most correct." Riddle associates "correctness" with "accomplishments", and we see this attitude carry out in other aspects of the main story. He talks down to Yuu for lacking magic and brags about his own standing as top student to Azul, who regularly fluctuates from 2nd to 10th place. The light novel, however, grants us new perspective as to why Riddle tries so hard in his studies and seeks to please his mom. In turn, we can see how this domino effects into his struggles to connect with others.

In the light novel, Riddle notes that his mother would always tell him "everything is for you". "Everything", in this context, I'm assuming refers to all the time and effort Riddle is putting into his studying, the tight control of his life, etc. His mother has framed all of this as being beneficial to Riddle, and that she herself is pushing him to engage in these things because she loves and cares for him. This is something that Riddle then interprets as meaning she must love him the most in the entire world, something that he tells himself to justify her own actions in his own mind. It becomes a piece of "proof" that, later down the line, will make it difficult to reconcile with his complicated feelings on her once he realizes how toxic her child raising tactics were. (I go into more detail on this topic in this post!)

Riddle also says that if he responds with "yes, mother" then he will be praised for it. This, you'll notice, is a phrase that is very similar to what he demands his own dorm members respond to his orders with: "yes, dorm leader". It implies that Riddle is used to deferring to her judgement and authority, and so expects the same obedience of others when he is in that position of power. This agrees with his behavior in book 1. As Ace points out, Riddle is just acting like a miniature version of his own mom, right down to the angry reactions and shouting when things don't go his way.

Right after that, we get another short but telling line. Referring to his mother's affection, Riddle comments that he "doesn't need anything else", and decides to forgo asking for strawberry tarts ever again. He was willing to give up something he was curious about trying just to continue receiving praise. To me, this illustrates that the love of Mrs. Rosehearts was conditional: if you perform to her expectations, you get her love. If you don't perform to her expectations, well then, it's back to the books for you until you can. (Reminder: this does NOT confirm that Mrs. Rosehearts yells at Riddle or degrades him for not being “up to par”; there is just a sense of disappointment at this.) It implies that Riddle became used to a cycle of receiving the love and attention he wanted only when he behaved in a very specific way that his mother desired—otherwise, she withheld that affection. This is why Riddle believes following the rules will make him happy; it’s a result of what he has learned is the “norm” from his mother’s conditional love.

The light novel also shows us how this unhealthy mother-son relationship spills over into Riddle's other (potential) relationships. When Che'nya and Trey first approach him to invite Riddle to play with them, Riddle automatically says that he can't. He had the answer prepared for them, the response already deeply ingrained into him and likely already told to other children that tried to talk to him before. But even though Riddle rejects them, prioritizing his mother's praise over all else, he still feels a twinge of sadness about it. He even expects that he "let them down". "Let them down"? Now isn't that a funny statement. Why would Riddle be concerned about disappointing total strangers he has zero attachment to? Unless... he's so isolated that he just assumes everyone will treat him the same way his mother will. That they'll withhold love and attention if he doesn't act how they want him to. Thus, Riddle appears to associate failure to perform as resulting in rejection and lack of social acceptance.

This plays perfectly into one of the most chilling lines in Riddle's post-OB flashback: "But Mom... Why? Why does my heart hurt so much? [...] Tell me, Mom, please... What rule do I need to follow to make this pain go away?" These lines indicate Riddle finally coming to the realization that, deep down, he has always desired affection. A desire to make friends and to play with them, to have deeply intimate relationships. All he knew before was his mom was happy when he did well in his studies, so that was what he chose to excel in. Things changed when he was exposed to what unconditional love is like through Trey and Che'nya. Riddle's childhood friends are the ones who will love and accept him no matter what he's like, no matter what fuck-ups he makes or how socially awkward he is with them. He started to recognize that painful emptiness in him that never went way, no matter how many of his mom's rules he followed. Alas, Riddle was never able to come to terms with that sinking feeling because his mom had just torn him away from Trey and Che'nya not too long after learning that he had been skipping independent study time to play and eat a strawberry tart. He would not meet Trey again until enrolling at NRC, and by then, they've spent so much time apart (and, let's be real here, traumatized by Mrs. Rosehearts losing her temper over the tart incident) that her staunch mindset has clawed into Riddle's brain once more. His whole life, the main models of relationships he has to go off of are his mom and his dad, who don't appear to have a happy marriage (implied in his Suitor Suit voice lines). It's no wonder why making friends and truly opening up is difficult for him, even following the events of book 1. What else does Riddle have to reference? Crossword puzzles and textbooks? In Endless Halloween Night, the guy barely knows what a scavenger hunt is or how you'd find joy in it...

Unlike Leona, Riddle already had a pretty fleshed out backstory from his flashback. Instead of expanding on his motivations (as the light novel did with Leona), what the light novel does for Riddle is give us more information that implicates what his home life was like. It's still not that much, but it certainly better explains some of Riddle's oddly stringent viewpoints that we still see in the present day.

I know that this post was kind of a shorter read compared to the Leona one I did, but that's in part because I've already written at length about the complexities of Riddle's relationship with his mom, dad, and Trey. Those posts are bolded and linked, so if you're interested in more, then I'd recommend those readings!

[cookinguptales]

wwdits tarot: the emperor

The second of my twinned Empress/Emperor cards. Like I said in the last post, I've already talked about Empress & Emperor a bit, but here’s the long version.

If The Sire was my Empress, the mother of my deck — well then, The Baron has got to be the father.

Let’s get into IV. The Emperor.

It was always clear to me that the parents of this deck would be The Sire and The Baron. I went into my logic for how to separate out the two a bit last time, but now I’ll take some time to talk about The Baron as father and leader.

So The Emperor is often known fondly as the father card, of a sort, of the deck. This doesn’t have to be literal; it’s enough to have someone functioning as paternal. Like The Empress, gender matters less here than behavior.

The Baron, for all that he’s, well, barren, is the closest thing to a parent that our group of idiots currently possesses. While high off their asses on drug blood, our vampires declared that they would be his children in sentiment if not blood.

(This is complicated, I’ll admit, by the fact that Laszlo and Nadja are constantly having sex with him, but like. I’m not here to ask them to explain their daddy issues.)

I love it, actually, that The Baron’s function in the show has become “that weird uncle that will go on weird adventures with you but also officiate your wedding.” Or maybe that’s just what fatherhood is to three vampires who aren’t all that good at it.

Just being parental isn’t enough to make The Baron The Emperor, though. What differentiates him from The Sire is that The Baron is a ruler, and he is used to his decrees being obeyed.

The Emperor is a card of paternal leanings, but it’s also a card that indicates a sense of law, order, wisdom, and authority. This is an elder card, one that’s seen quite a bit of life and is now the wiser for it.

The Baron has such a sense of age to him, doesn’t he? At the beginning of the series, he wasn’t just a threat; he was a symbol of the old ways. And while he’s come to modernize himself a little, The Baron still occasionally clings to the past. He believes in vampiric dominion and the fierce power of deadly force. There’s a reason why they were so scared of him in season 1.

But... he's also really come to like the modern world as well. He's happy to learn about this world that he's secluded himself from for all these years, and while he and The Sire still seem to be homebodies, they're also learning to use technology, new languages, new clothing, etc.

So you’ve got this character who is used to taking power by force, who wears his age like a cloak, but who is ultimately willing to learn from his children in turn. And as he does, the ravages of time have fallen away from him. He even looks like his old self.

I think this really is where the wisdom comes in; he’s knowledgeable of the old ways but is open enough to accept the benefits of the new ones as well. He still exerts authority over other vampires, if admittedly in a far more chill way, but also a sense of guidance. They listen to him and care about his opinion — and he sees their troubles far more clearly than others do.

(Yes, Nandor. He sees exactly how this marriage is going to go. But he’ll still give you away.)

Like many old-school vampires, The Baron was very concerned with status, power, and authority — like any good Emperor would be — but he’s mellowed in recent years, much like a father who has discovered marijuana in his twilight years.

This is why I ultimately chose The Baron for The Emperor. He symbolizes all of the fierce, stern aspects of the card — the authority, the power, the adherence to old rules and power structures, the willingness to spill blood to protect his dominion. But he also has the card's gentler side. The wisdom to dispense guidance and advice to those who need it. The somewhat exasperated affection he has for his children.

The Baron is firm when necessary, but can also be very easy-going when it benefits him. And hey. History has seen worse emperors.

Now, onto the imagery.

Like I mentioned before, I am terrible romantic and I would twin these cards. The Sire in his wasteland of blood and old dead trees is facing to the left. And in his throne, The Baron will be facing to the right. Like The Sire, he will be raising a chalice of his own blood (which runs through Laszlo and Nadja) to toast his roommate and companion.

they're. in. love.

What of the rest of the card, though? In the Rider-Smith-Waite card, The Emperor sits upon a stone throne. It is carved with rams, symbolic of his astrological connection with Aries and Mars, and he is draped with a red cloak and shining armor. That symbolizes his strength and ability to go to war — but the ankh scepter he holds in his right hand also symbolizes his dominion over life, the orb in his left his dominion over kingdom. Behind him, stark mountains are in the background, indicative of his stern and immovable character.

I think, like The Sire, I would put The Baron in one of the comfortable chairs from their “airbnb”, and like The Sire, he would be toasting with his chalice. But beyond that, the cards will be a bit different.

The Baron is still resplendent in his red robes, but both his globe and ankh lay forgotten at his feet, left discarded along with pieces of his armor. He still possesses them should he desire to pick them up again, but his priorities have shifted in recent years. He is no longer interested in dominion over life; he just wants to live it with those around him — and he has become willing to let his own armor, his emotional defenses, drop in order to achieve that.

Behind him, there are still craggy mountains with a river of blood snaking its way through them; like The Sire, his blood has trickled into every corner of the world. Black Peter can even have a little cameo in those mountains as a nod to the rams on the RSW card.

Finally, like The Emperor, his expression should be stern, I think… but there should still be a ghost of a smile about those lips.

wwdits tarot masterpost

[rintezukas]

ok so i beat it and now i get to go off on a masturbatory rant about it

pikmin 4 main story final boss spoilers

it was bad it was bad it was so fucking bad to the point where i actually doubt i was ever engaging with it properly. im going to split this up into three sections not because im under any delusion anyone who bothers to read this is going to care particularly if its organized but so i can like. keep myself from going too hard on any one aspect and forget the others The Story

SUBSECTION LOUIE ok so the postgame sets louie up as this like... fucked up amoral force, barely present as a character or reachable by character interaction other than violence, he says maybe like 30 words total across like 15 text boxes. its like hes in a fucking fugue state and they never provide literally ANY explanation for his behavior even after you beat him. maybe the fucking. side story has something about this but i doubt it because olimar was surprised louie was there too so probably he didnt factor into that. louie just goes around kidnapping people and like... trying to turn them into fucking aliens or something. this is literally fine, dont get me wrong, i think this is an interesting way for a character to be, but given that louie is an established character who didnt behave like a fucking. bizarre evil caveman in the two previous games he showed up in (in 3 he did bad shit but it was like. just normal selfish guy bad shit and had clear motivations behind it) it comes off as like... fucked. this guy is supposed to be a lazy and childish food genius forced into treasure hunting work and instead hes like if a tornado could be an asshole. this is literally not what i set out to talk about anyway SUBSECTION THE DOG

despite legitimately falling in love with oatchis character design and behavior and shit i actually hate the presence of dogs in the story of pikmin, or more specifically like the needless wrench they throw into the series, but thats mostly something that goes in implications. why it's relevant to bring this up at all is that it pissed me off extra hard that the big culmination of the pikmin 4 storyline is a big inexplicable dog. its more or less stated to not be from the planet (or it would have been born with pikmin traits - see implications) but also it has a human artifact around its neck and has clearly been here for long enough to get old and grey and scraggly. i think its design is... on this weird line between cute and ugly that i think i could have fallen in love with it too if not for its presence in my life being one defined by misery. you are probably wondering why ive lapsed back into implications, and that's because i have absolutely fucking nothing to say about the dog's presence in the story, because it has none and i think that's bad, i think it's bad for the final boss of the game to be a guy with no clear motivations riding an animal with no clear origin or presence in the world.

or, like, at least its bad for pikmin? this could be more interesting in a different kind of game but for a long-awaited returning franchise having an endboss built almost completely out of the New with a little side detail that sort of character-assassinates the Old is like. its sure as fuck a bold choice and not one i feel worked out.

The Gameplay

The gameplay of Pikmin 4's final boss is, i feel, difficult to talk about without first explaining the circumstances under which i came to it.

Cavern for a King is, for the first 95% of it, honestly one of my favorite parts of Pikmin as a franchise. Not the favorite! Not my favorite. But it's up there. You start off at kind of the height of your power - i maintain that making you gradually restore the pikmin cap to 100 over the course of the game was fucking insane but by the endgame when youre working with a serviceable cap of 60-80 and you finally get to 100 it feels like an actual power boost and not an "i should have had this from the beginning because pikmin is about swarms" thing. having 100 feels like a big deal, and as you progress through the opening segments of this 20 floor boss rush it makes a lot of otherwise scary shit feel like a breeze.

eventually you hit your first hurdle, and attrition begins to take hold. if you're smart, you start making increasingly cowardly decisions. if you are instead stupid like i am, you also start doing that, but fuck up, and by the middle section youre having to come up with new behaviors on the fly to clear totally new bosses with fewer pikmin than youve had in a long, long time. you keep waiting for reinforcements youve been trained by previous caves to expect that never come. i am kind of a lameass, and my first impulse when encountering difficulties is to chalk it up to bad design unless i really tell myself not to fucking do that. i didnt even feel that here though! going through floors 1-17 of Cavern for a King was exhilarating and fun. i think i had to engage the baby-mode turn back time thing like twice, which was fine, whatever. on floor 18, which has you fight an extra-large emperor bulblax in terrain that it can stomp to turn into water, i was out of blue pikmin and made the decision to go back up and get more pikmin, and i realized that i was kind of approaching it as a marathon when it could have been a series of much less grueling sprints. you get to go back to floors youve reached previously, to be clear, unlike in pikmin 2, but i was enjoying the challenge and felt sad to leave it. i cleared floor 18 easily with only a few losses, was met with an eerie, pleasant rest stop at floor 19 - no new pikmin, but plenty of candypop buds to redistribute my population to face whatever boss was coming up next, and continued to floor 20, where

PHASE 1

i came face to face with a big stupid dog that was the easiest fight in the entire game, except that its health was noticeably pretty high. i had time to remark, like, what, did they want to draw THIS out? or i guess it probably has phases but this is taking a long fucking time for the warmup.

PHASE 2

oh okay i guess they gave it ice powers, for some reason? it shoots balls that you have to avoid or you get rolled up and potentially separated from your pikmin. annoying because i had already spent a lot of time on the first fight. PHASE 3

now it shoots spinning electricity spike balls that sort of spin and make you jump over the lines of electricity they draw on the ground. if you have any yellow pikmin, you can kill the balls, but it took an embarassingly long time for me to intuit that and also it takes a long fucking time for them to kill them such that the dog will probably jump on and eat them and they quickly build up so the arena basically becomes unusable until you manage to knock the dog over by navigating through the fucked up awful laser mess and managing to hit the dog's tail with enough pikmin at once, which clears all of them and makes the dog vulnerable so you can do like 2% of its life in damage before the cycle begins again. this is where that old thought pattern that this might be bad game design and not my fault creeps in, but the embarrassment from earlier tamps that down. i am almost certainly approaching this wrong.

PHASE 4

similar shit but with fire and shockwave patterns to jump over instead of spinning electricity balls. honestly pretty manageable, and since this was the third element of the traditional pikmin trio - water-electricity-fire - i was riding high on the notion that i was about to be done with this, at least. nonetheless, my train of thought at this point is about vicious, horrible shit that i hope the devs suffer for putting me through this, etc etc. this is about how i react to any circumstance i don't like if it goes on for long enough and i am not proud of that. i strike the final blow and make a noise like a snake dying.

PHASE 5

The dog turns green, starts flying and begins to fire particles that coat the floor in a sort of purple-red smoke that instantly kills any pikmin that touches it at all, including while they're on the dog, and including white pikmin because this isn't poison it's some other shit that you couldn't have accounted for no matter what. All of its attacks are now this - move wrong, and you lose most or all of your squad instantly. Navigate between these randomly placed AOEs, place 15 weight on the dog's tail, and deal as much damage as you can while it's vulnerable before the cycle continues. Later on in this fight, the dog will begin using a "fear scream", which scatters your pikmin randomly. They will run into the AOEs and die, so make sure this attack never hits you even once too. If you throw your pikmin wrong while trying to hit the tail, they will likely land in an AOE and die. Do this more times than you know numbers for, as far as you fucking know. You will not be counting because you will be focused on doing the other shit.

i would like to echo back to the earlier thing about this being a series of sprints rather than a marathon, because that point holds true to this fight as well. as i discovered after giving up and resolving to do better in the previous phases in case having more pikmin on this one would make it doable, you can go back up and get more pikmin, and it will stay on this phase, and it doesn't matter at all because all of its attacks can completely deplete your squad or at least leave you with like 10 pikmin, and sometimes a purple pikmin isn't among those ten so you can't win anymore and have to press the rewind. i pressed the rewind a lot because i didnt care about any kind of self-imposed challenge for this thing anymore. if there was a menu option to make it die i would have pressed it.

after this phase it dies, and then you win the game. pikmin 4 is very, very good, because despite the bad experience i had i actually still think it's my favorite entry in the franchise. The Implications

so like are dogs from the fucking planet or not? whats up with moss? why was there pointedly so much shit implying theyre from the planet if they arent? are dogs just a constant of the pikmin universe, and pikmin on pikmin planet have learned to parasitize them? if they arent from here, what the fuck was the big dog doing there? what was moss doing there? why did they unambiguously say "pikmin parasitize organisms to create leaders" (hi jasper - if you somehow read this far, they directly say that and youre smart as fuck for figuring it out having not played 4 yet) and then not put bulbmin in the game? why were they so wishy washy on something as simple as "what planet are dogs from", and why, despite that, did they place so much emphasis on the question in the story?

I dont think the final boss of pikmin 4 is very good at all!

[sokkastyles]

What's with this common perception of K//taang as this "pure, wholesome, vanilla ship" when it actually has a lot of problematic and misogynistic elements to it?

Part of the reason is that people love to make simplistic dichotomies, which is odd for a show which has a major theme of breaking down dichotomies, but there it is.

At first glance zutara has a lot of the same beats as other enemies to lovers and hero/villain ships. Especially those involving a villainous male character and a heroic female character. And a lot of the appeal for THAT comes from the death and the maiden trope, which is as old as dirt. See Hades and Persephone. There’s also some Beauty and the Beast vibes. These are old, old tropes and they endure despite or because of the way they tap into darker aspects of the human psyche and desire. In a lot of these types of ships, the darkness is the appeal.

And zutara has some of this, which I suppose explains the popularity of the whole “I’ll save you from the pirates” thing, but really, if you were looking for that kind of ship, zutara isn’t really the one you would go for, because it’s like, the lightest possible version of this type of dynamic. Because Zuko at his most menacing is never really that threatening to the gaang, and most of the good shipping material for zutara happens after Zuko stops being such a jerk.

The appeal of any ship involving Zuko is really more of the appeal of the redeemed rival. Despite Zuko’s redemption, though, a lot of people still try to position zutara as the “dark” ship in comparison to KA, partly because the show does this in some ways - although in doing so, they kinda shot themselves in the foot, see episodes like “The Southern Raiders” and “Ember Island Players” which try to push the Zuko vs Aang thing in terms of their relationship to Katara but end up making Zuko look better in comparison.

There’s also the stigma around abuse victims that I’ve seen in other fandoms. Zuko is the “dark” option because he’s “damaged.” Even though his ending is one of hope and healing, a lot of the anti discourse reads as victim blaming, particularly when people say that Mai is a better option for Zuko because she “handles” him or puts up with him. Which is horrible for both Mai and Zuko.

I would also argue that it’s just regular old misogyny. We as a society are taught to view female desire itself as dark, which is why a lot of these types of love triangles follow the same pattern. The plucky good guy in pursuit of the girl who is attracted to a good-looking “bad boy” who is no good for her. By the end of the story, the girl will learn that the guy who is pursuing her is the one she should have chosen all along. This is the reason the myth of the Nice Guy persists. And the show creators themselves have used these words to talk about KA vs ZK, despite Katara never actually expressing attraction to Zuko in the series itself. But the idea that she could be is definitely present in the series. It’s also present in the way the fandom talks about these two ships.

And this is what really sours KA for me, too. I’ve seen SO many posts about how you have to ship it because “Aang is so nice.” And, um??? No, you don’t. In general, being “nice” is such a bizarre criteria for romance, that’s what so-called Nice Guys don’t understand. People who call themselves nice guys also usually aren’t that nice, but that isn’t the whole issue. The issue is that being nice doesn’t entitle you to a relationship.

And once you consider yourself a nice guy, you can justify all sorts of nastiness and entitlement. That’s the main difference between how KA is presented and how Zutara is presented. KA begins with the assumption that eventually Katara and Aang will get together, so every obstacle they face is just a bump in the road. Aang is, after all, so nice. He would never really hurt Katara. Therefore, if Katara feels hurt by Aang, it probably wasn’t as bad as she thought. Aang’s so nice, after all.

Which is...not actually all that wholesome at all. It has nothing at all to do with how nice Aang actually is, but the very fact that no relationship should be built on the assumption that one partner is infallible or “earned” a relationship due to being nice. That’s not how it works.

Contrast that with a guy who knows that he is capable of mistakes, who knows he’s capable of hurting others but is also capable of admitting it and apologizing and working to correct that behavior. That’s actually way more wholesome in reality.

I’m not talking about a situation where an abusive partner acts like they’re entitled for their partner to take them back because they’re sorry. In that situation there’s a likelihood that the abusive person will do the same thing again, whether or not they are actually sorry. But the beauty of Zutara is that Zuko never expects anything from Katara. He doesn’t change for Katara or the promise of her love or friendship. He changes himself, by himself, and it’s only then that Katara accepts him.

The reality is that anything that is presented as pure and wholesome is probably something you should immediately question. This is true wrt relationships, institutions, authority, and the discourse you read on the internet. People who are truly good don’t have to convince you that they’re pure. People who are truly good know that they’re fallible, and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise probably has an agenda that you should be wary of.

That’s why Iroh says that Zuko is pure, truly pure, at the end of the series. Because he’s been through the darkness and come out a better person for it. I’ll take that any day of the week over idealized vanilla white bread with misogynistic undertones.

[vrishchikawrites]

Could I have a prompt? 🥺🥺 So WWX is taking bath in the Cold Pond to heal from the wounds by the discipline paddle (which I assume he was punished being clothed in his Black robe or in his Gusu Lan disciple robes or Head disciple Jiangs robes whichever fits). Before going to CR, wwx is whipped by mdm yu and LWJ notices wwx’s raw red scars and many scars across his back kinda overlapping and not yet being healed because maybe MDM yu sealed his core or something. LWJ, or with LXC saw WWX’s many crisscrossing scars and realize they’re still raw and kinda risking for infection because when mdm yu unseals his spiritual energy before going to CR, WWX never thought of healing it. Cue LWJ and LXC gets horrified and ask WWX why he had many scars on his back (or other parts of his body can also be included!) no pressure 💕 I love your writing! ❤️❤️

Anyway, it is set during the period in which WWX studies at CR. Lån Qiren, who is obviously not eyeing Wei Wuxian just in case the boy creates some trouble ends up realizing that he is too non chalant about  not eating (because the food there is for rabbits) and WWX is like "Oh, yeah. Nah its fine, I've been worse".

This one has trigger warnings for child abuse, negligence, and issues related to eating habits. Keep that in mind before proceeding. Nothing graphic, but I wanted to warn nonetheless.

I've merged two prompts here.

Please remember that prompts are closed. Also, remember I do not write self-deprication. All prompts that require WWX to have low self-esteem are not going to be written, apologies but the subject is very uncomfortable for me and I don't believe it is canon accurate anyways.

On to the prompt fill.

"That Wei child is entirely too careless." 

Lan Qiren closes his eyes and prays for patience. That boy has been a menace ever since he stepped into Cloud Recesses. Brilliant but wily and mischievous with absolutely no regard for rules. 

"What has he done?" He asks gruffly, reading over the reports from the kitchen staff. Cloud Recesses always monitors the food intake of their guests to make sure everyone is well-fed and no one is consuming more than their due. It wouldn't do for young cultivators to fall ill in their care, after all. 

The primary healer, a matron of some age, had brought the reports instead of the kitchen manager, which was quite unusual, "He forgets meals. Goes without food for days. Survives on small bits of fruit."

Xichen, who has been working on his own reports, raises his head and looks concerned. 

Lan Qiren crosses his arms, feeling a growing sense of ire, "He dislikes our meals." He's not the first one to skip meals because he considers them 'bland' and 'boring'. It's likely the child has been sneaking down to Caiyi town to have more extravagant meals. 

"I checked with our ward team. When he goes days without eating, he doesn't make any trips to Caiyi town either."

Lan Qiren pauses and studies her. Lan Mingyun nods curtly, "When I first noticed this behavior, I immediately put him on my list." Her list of children with food-related issues, he assumes, "His eating habits are very erratic, erratic enough that I wish to assign one of our senior disciples to keep an eye on him."

"You're that worried?" Lan Xichen asks in surprise while Lan Qiren frowns. It isn't unusual to do so but he wonders if it is really necessary.

"As far as I know, the child lived on the streets for quite a few years," She says and Lan Qiren narrows his eyes, inwardly reprimanding himself. He had forgotten about that aspect of Wei Wuxian's history, "The link between early childhood trauma and behavioural problems are well known to us."

Lan Xichen frowns, "I'll ask Wangji to keep an eye on him."

He glances at his nephew sharply, "Why Wangji?" He demands because surely someone else would be better.

"From what I understand, Wei-gongzi will not welcome an assigned senior. He seems to be someone who brushes injuries or illnesses off. He likes Wangji and will be more willing to accept his company."

While the argument is reasonable, Lan Qiren is loath to involve his precious nephew in this. He's already so bothered by the boy. 

But.

He thinks of Wei Wuxian with his sharp eyes and lingering smile and nods. 

---

Wangji listens to Xichen patiently even as his fingers curl into fists under his sleeves. 

He doesn't like Wei Wuxian. The boy is too disruptive, too bold, too distracting-

Too beautiful.

He doesn't like him, but that doesn't mean he's content to ignore his well-being. When Xichen asks him to keep an eye on Wei Ying's eating habits and general behavior, Wangji agrees. 

It will be taxing for him, but he agrees.  

What he doesn't anticipate is… everything that follows. When he starts consciously looking for them, the signs are alarming. Wei Ying doesn't just skip meals whenever he gets too distracted, he picks at the food even when he is eating. While Wangji is comforted to know the boy frequently seeks something richly flavored at Caiyi Town, he doesn't do it often enough to compensate.

There are also some concerning behaviors in the Jiang contingent. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that while Wei Ying does break the rules, the other Jiang Sect disciples are often complicit. Including Jiang Wanyin. 

They not only let their da-shixiong take the blame for all of their actions, but also encourage it. Wei Ying seems disconcertingly accustomed to it. He makes a scene while being punished but seems alright within an hour. 

Jiang Wanyin encourages mischief and reprimands him in turns. 

Wangji doesn't understand this.

"Xiongzhang, I am concerned," Xichen looks up from his tea, his attention immediately on Wangji, unwavering and comforting, "Wei Ying," He takes a moment to form his thoughts, "I am uncertain. I believe he is in an unsafe environment."

Xichen sets his tea aside, "How so?"

"I happened upon a conversation," He grimaces because it is eavesdropping even if his intentions are noble, "Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang requested and encouraged him to get alcohol into Cloud Recesses. When he complained about the punishment, Jiang Wanyin said 'at least, it wasn't Zidian'."

His brother sucks in a sharp breath, "Zidian? Madam Yu? Spiritual weapon? A high-grade weapon typically used against enemies?"

Wangji dips his head. 

"I'll ask uncle to stop assigning corporal punishments." Lan Xichen says, "They won't have the desired effect in any case and we don't want to damage him permanently. Tomorrow, ask him to practice Cultivation in the Cold Pond as punishment."

Wangji nods, "I'll assign Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang proper punishment as well."

"Wait until we have a better grasp on the situation." Xichen says solemnly, "If we act too quickly, things will escalate and may cause more harm to Wei-gongzi."

Wangji is reluctant because his sense of justice is not satisfied. He remembers how the Jiang disciples encouraged Wei Ying to accept punishment on their behalf. And then to know Jiang Wanyin was also complicit…

"We must approach this cautiously, Wangji."

He nods.

---

Red, irritated, scarred.

Wangji swallows as he sees the state of Wei Ying's back as the Jiang disciple steps into the Cold Pond. There are so many whip scars on his back, so many that have barely begun to heal, that he feels nauseous. 

"Wei Ying," He struggles to keep his tone neutral, "Your back." He cannot imagine the agony that Wei Ying would've suffered when he took more punishment on it the other day. 

Wei Ying glances at him and grins, "Aiya, Lan Zhan, is that concern I see on your pretty face?" He asks, spinning around eagerly, "Concern for little old me?"

His back is out of sight and the way Wei Wuxian is leaning towards him is meant to distract and fluster.

Wangji… suddenly understands. Wei Ying is naturally playful and mischievous, but he uses his personality for disguise and manipulation as well. Not maliciously, but in a way that harms him.

"Wei Ying," Wangji refuses to be moved. There is a significant shift in his mind. He no longer feels annoyed by the person before him. If anything, he feels furious. 

He feels protective.

"Wei Ying, your back."

The Jiang disciple shrugs, "Punishment, you know how it is." 

"For what?" He demands, catching Wei Ying's elbow and turning him around. The willingness to touch him stuns Wei Ying momentarily, enough for Wangji to get a good look at the brutal devastation written on Wei Ying's back. 

Wei Ying clears his throat and shrugs, "It's more of a preemptive punishment? Madam Yu knew I would cause trouble here, of course." He chuckles.

"Preemptive punishment?" He asks softly, the very notion troubling him. 

Wei Ying shrugs again but doesn't attempt to explain when it is clear Wangji isn't willing to indulge him.

"Wei Ying,"

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying starts to move towards the shore, "Don't worry about things that don't concern you. Your head will forever be burdened if you do."

Wangji feels something in him recoil at such a blunt dismissal. 

"Doesn't concern me? How can it not concern me?" He wants to ask but is unable to. 

Wei Ying has made him very uncomfortable with his forward personality and near constant teasing, but Wangji has seen the genuine offer of friendship underneath it all. 

He has always spurned it. 

As Wei Ying climbs onto the shore, his wounds red against his naturally pale skin, Wangji makes a decision, "Would you not feel concerned if it were me?" He asks but he already knows the answer.

He already knows this man enough.

"Of course," Wei Ying says and shrugs on his robes, hiding a wince but unable to help his body's reaction to pain, "But you and I are different." He glances over his shoulder at Wangji, "I consider you my friend," He says, "But you don't consider me yours."

His breath stills at the acceptance in Wei Ying's tone.

"And that's alright." The Jiang disciple waves and walks away, "Don't worry too much, Lan Zhan. This one isn't weak. The wounds will heal within a few days."

---

"The facts are these - Wei-gongzi is punished preemptively with Zidian, often enough that there are deep scars on his back," Lan Xichen explains, "I assume it is his Golden Core keeping him from sustaining permanent damage."

Lan Qiren is still bristling at the very thought of preemptive punishment. What a ridiculous notion! Of course, the child doesn't care about rules and upsetting people! He has already been punished enough to excuse everything but outright treason.  

How is such a method effective? How does it correct a child's misbehavior? 

"The Jiang Sect disciples are accustomed to their da-shixiong being punished in their stead. They actively encourage it. Jiang Wanyin has asked Wei-gongzi to sneak in alcohol. And he refused to come forward when Wei-gongzi was punished." Xichen takes a deep breath, "I believe any lingering issues he may have because of his early days as a street orphan-"

"Are ignored," Lan Qiren concludes grimly, "It is no wonder the child has such strong cultivation. He is facing strife constantly."

"Is there a way to rescue him?" Wangji asks after being grimly silent for the entire meeting, "Get him away from the Jiang Sect?"

Lan Qiren eyes him, "Wangji, the situation is complicated. He's still the Jiang Head Disciple and sects don't just part with their high ranking disciples."

Xichen smiles sympathetically, "We'll find a way to pressure Jiang-zongzhu into taking action. He'll lose face if the other Sects know how his lady is treating their Head Disciple." He shakes his head at Wangji's expression, "Let us think about it. Meanwhile, you just need to be there for your friend, Wangji."

Lan Qiren arches a brow, "Friend? Wangji, I thought you disliked the boy."

Wangji purses his lips, a stubborn light entering his eyes, "Wei Ying is my friend." He insists, resolve lining his every word. 

He looks at Xichen, who just looked amused, "According to Wei-gongzi, he considers Wangji a friend and will be very concerned if Wangji was in a similar situation," He huffs, "But Wangji doesn't consider Wei-gongzi his friend, so there's no need for Wangji to worry."

Lan Qiren closes his eyes and rubs his forehead in an uncharacteristic display of frustration, "That boy is a singular menace."

---

Wangji pursues friendship with all the dedication in his being. He learns to cook savory dishes and gives them to Wei Ying every day. Wei Ying, unable and utterly unwilling to deny, eats it all. 

He glares the Jiang disciples into submission whenever they attempt to draw Wei Ying into mischief. The Jiang Head Disciple is fully exempt from corporal punishment. Instead, he spends hours in the library either copying rules, rewriting classics, or transcribing Buddhist texts. 

All of these activities prove to be much more effective punishments.

Meanwhile, Lan Qiren attends a Discussion Conference and has word with Jiang Fengmian. 

The response is a gentle order from the Jiang-zongzhu for Wei Ying. He asks his disciple to remain in Cloud Recesses for Musical Cultivation training. He also mentions it is time for Jiang Wanyin to take up Head Disciple responsibilities and learn true leadership. 

Wei Ying eyes the smiling Lan Xichen and impassive Lan Qiren sharply but doesn't say anything.

In two years time, the distance between Wei Ying and the Jiang Sect grows. The distance between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan ceases to exist. 

Just like that, Wei Wuxian's destiny changes.

[scuttle-buttle]

What's One More?

WC: 3204

Rated: M

Tags: brief mentions of crime/mental illness/child abuse and neglect/substance addiction/theft, fluff, family dynamics, mentions of aging, mentions of difficult pregnancy, softness, anxiety attack

🧠

The harsh vibrating of a phone on the nightstand breaks your slumber. Still half asleep you toss your arm back to thump against your sleeping husband's side. With a groan he answers. You try to settle back into your pillow and the warmth of the blanket. Whoever has the balls to call at this hour has another thing coming - but later because your priority is going back to sleep.

He can't have been on the call more than fifteen seconds before he sits up in bed suddenly, turning on the bedside lamp; his movements grab your attention. You roll over. The light blinds you and you rub at your eyes to adjust. You can't make out what's being said. Looking at the clock to see that it's barely 4 am you know something bad has happened. Quietly you slip out from the covers.

Making your way down the hall you peek into your daughter's room, grateful that she's still fast asleep. Her soft snores punctuate the calm. Your nerves abate knowing she’s safe. By the time you get back to the bedroom Laszlo is up and getting dressed. "What's going on?"

He doesn't answer at first. You wait until he's finished buttoning his shirt to ask again. "Sara was called to consult on a triple homicide case - she's asked for me to come down to the police station. I don't know much yet, but it's something involving a young boy and she wants me to speak with him."

“Did he…?”

“No. He was not directly involved, that much we know.”

You nod, leaning against the door frame. This wasn't the first time that Laszlo had been called in by law enforcement and social services to assist with children and teens that needed psychological help. He had become more active around the time you graduated with your doctorate. After Sophia was born Laszlo helped fund an after school program for kids that focused on support for mental health and behavioral issues. He was so passionate about being able to help these kids. But it was never at this ungodly hour. "You'll call or something when you know what's up?" you ask through a yawn.

"Of course, Bärchen." He gives you a chaste peck. Gently he guides you back towards your bed and sits you down. "Go back to sleep, there's no need to worry. I love you." With that he left.

Your sleep is fitful with him gone. You worry over things that you aren't even aware of, over who is hurt, over how severe a situation it could be to have been called in the middle of the night, over the poor boy that needs Laszlo’s help. When your daughter tiptoes into the room around 6 you welcome her into the bed with open arms.

"Why are you up, baby bug?"

"Where's Papa?" She climbs up on his side of the bed and rubs his cold pillow. On her face is a deep frown.

"He had to go help some very important people early this morning. He'll be back to see you soon, I promise."

"I miss him. He always helps me with my shoes."

You can't help the smile that crosses your face. "I know, baby. But it's still early so let's take a nap before we have to get ready, hmm?" The two of you snuggle under the covers. With her curled into your side you do find rest, even for the short time before your alarm chimes.

The day moves sluggish as you wait for word from your husband. Little work was to be done today at the museum, so there wasn't much to keep your mind off the wondering. You considered calling. You considered texting. But you knew that when the time was right he would let you know. No news is good news, you think.

Finally the day came to a close. You picked up Sophia and stopped by the store on the way home to grab supplies for dinner. She insisted that she carry one of the bags inside - little miss independent that she was. “Careful not to drop it, okay? Use those muscles of yours to hold the bag tight.”

“Mama I know, I help Papa carry all the time,” she explains matter-of-factly.

The townhouse is quiet as you begin to unpack. You do a quick glance into the dining room and parlor to no avail. "Laz, honey? You home?" A few seconds later you hear movement from the stairs.

Your husband rounds the corner into the kitchen, swooping down to scoop your daughter into his left arm, peppering her face in exaggerated smooches. Her giggles light up the room from the dim atmosphere. He perches her on his hip. “How was your day my little dove?”

“So good Papa - I practiced my counting today at school. I can get the biggest in the class! Mommy said I must be the most smartest," she prattles on.

“Wunderbar!” he praises her before turning to you. “I didn't hear you come in." Laszlo kisses you.

Pinning him with a look you say "you also didn't call me today? You said you would and I've been worried all day."

Sophia crosses her arms and harrumphs from her father's hip; "me too Papa." He quirks an eyebrow at her before speaking.

"Yes… there is something I wished to speak with you on but didn't think it was suitable for the phone." You raise your own brows but continue to put away groceries. "I do not wish to discuss certain aspects of the case in present company-" he nods towards Sophia minutely "-but we do have a houseguest for the foreseeable future."

"Oh?" Your brows dip in confusion. This is not what you were expecting.

Laszlo peeks around the doorway and calls out "Stevie, would you come join us in the kitchen please."

Stevie? You don't know a Stevie...

A moment later a lanky boy with scruffy dark blond hair shuffles into the room. He can't be anymore than 15. His clothes are too big on him and his shoes are worn beyond belief; nevertheless he gives you a slight smile. “This is Stevie Taggert, he’s going to be staying here with us in the guest room for now.”

“Good evening Mrs. Kreizler,” the boy says nervously, his voice cracking.

You spare a look at your husband before turning to the teenager with a smile. “Ah, no need for that, kid. You can just call me by my name instead. And welcome to our home. You like spaghetti?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Awesome! And I’m certainly not old enough to be a ma’am,” you give him a wink. You set up a pot to boil the water for the pasta. Laszlo excused himself to spend some time with Sophia, leaving you and Stevie in the kitchen.

He clears his throat behind you. “Would um… is there anything I can do to help?”

"I would love that, thank you."

The two of you get to work on making dinner. Stevie doesn’t say too much, but he is very polite and does his best to be useful. Once the food is nearly finished your family has returned ready to eat. You send Stevie and Sophia to set the table.

“Should I be worried?” you ask Laszlo quietly, watching the doorway the two left through.

“I don’t think so. I just felt that I would rather he have a familiar face to adjust with instead of being placed in a group home like many end up.”

You study his face. “You’ve taken a liking to him haven’t you?”

“Well…" his face reddens at your question. "He reminds me a bit of myself when I was his age.” The conversation is cut short by the kids returning.

The rest of dinner and the evening goes smoothly. You make it a point to not bring up any questions that could trigger the teenager, especially before you’ve spoken with Laszlo about the situation at hand. When Stevie nearly eats his weight in pasta you say nothing, wondering how long it's been since he's had a good home cooked meal. He insists on helping clean up the dishes afterwards. Without even knowing what the boy has gone through your heart aches for him.

You set him up in the small renovated basement downstairs while Laszlo puts Sophia to bed. Handing him one of your husband’s old Harvard t-shirts to sleep in you tell him “I’m sorry you’ll be down here by yourself, but if you need us for anything don’t be afraid to come get us - no matter what time it is, okay? And if you get cold there’s an extra blanket right here for you. I know it's July but….” you shrug. “Tomorrow after I get home from work we can go to the store and get you some stuff to use, some more clothes, that kinda thing.”

“Yes ma’am.” At the teasing look you give him his ears burn red with his mumbled “right sorry.”

“Alright Stevie. We’ll see you in the morning, sleep well.”

Laszlo is in bed reading when you enter the room. Nothing is said as you ready yourself for bed. Slipping under the covers you face him. He sighs and closes his book.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I became caught up in the day and only arrived home with Stevie maybe half an hour before you did.” He sighs a second time. “Most of the case I cannot talk about, but what I can say is he was living with his mentally ill father, whom was also an addict. He missed the last few weeks of the school year and has been regularly stealing food to get by. He has no other family. I just… it didn’t feel right to let him process his experiences away from someone properly trained to deal with these sorts of things, in addition to how traumatic entering foster care at his age can be. I spoke with those in social services and was granted temporary custody until we find another more permanent solution.”

“Of course.”

He takes hold of your hand. “You aren’t upset with me?”

“I mean it would’ve been nice to have a bit more warning… but I get it. He can stay as long as he needs to. He’s a sweet kid,” you reassure him. “I told him that I would take him shopping after work tomorrow, so if you could pick up Soph from preschool that would be great.”

“Perhaps instead we can all go? I was thinking that I would bring him to the university with me so that he’s not alone all day. You could get her and then we could meet somewhere, get dinner afterwards?”

You lean closer to him to curl around his arm and rest your head on his shoulder. He always thought so much about others, especially children. Laszlo had such a heart of gold and it honestly left you in awe of just how much he was willing to give so that others could find peace and happiness. Like the older he got the more he had to give. The thought warms you. “How are you literally the best person I know? And to think you used to be so worried about being able to be a good father and now you’re the best of all of us.” He huffs a little as you nuzzle into his chest.

“I have you to thank for that, Bärchen.” He drops a kiss to your head. “But it’s getting late and I’ve been up all day. We should get some sleep.”

Soon after you're both dreaming.

___

Stevie had been with you for three weeks. It only took him a few days to start to settle in, and you discovered that he was quick with his wit and far smarter than he let on. He was a little bit of a sarcastic smart-ass at times, but all in good nature. He was endlessly entertaining. Laszlo sat down with him almost everyday to talk about what he was feeling, the things he experienced, and ways to deal with the loss of his family. Already you both saw improvement.

Even Sophia got on well with him. Most teenage boys wanted nothing to do with little kids, let alone a 4 year old that loved playing 'spaceship barbie'. But not Stevie. On his fifth day you'd found him sat on the floor playing with her and going along with her childlike imagination. When she insisted he play the barbie that needed saving he went along with it, high pitched voice and everything. He even encouraged her to pick up her toys before bed - a feat you and your husband struggled with at times. It struck you how much Stevie became a big brother of sorts to her.

Laszlo grew even more fond of the boy. He wasn't really one for TV, but every evening he sat and watched some show on Netflix about racing with the teen and didn't complain once. Laszlo had tried to explain the role of adrenaline in racing drivers as a psychological function, but Stevie just brushed it off and said it was the driving so fast that made it "cool".

The two did bond over an unlikely subject - punk rock. When you got home from work two weeks into his stay and heard the music blasting in the parlor you worried someone had broken in. Whipping into the room you saw Laszlo in his chair tapping his foot to the intense guitar and singing; Stevie nodded along to the music as he held an old album cover. It didn't take long for Sophia to start jumping along to the music too.

"What is this?" You yelled out over the bass - you couldn't recognize it and it clearly wasn't English.

"Die Toten Hosen, a band I listened to growing up in Germany. Stevie found the record and asked to listen."

"Listen? I think you mean blow out your eardrums!" Even with needing to shout to be heard you had to laugh at the situation. How your husband had a secret love for German punk you'll never know; yet you would never let him live it down.

And when Stevie came and woke you both up in tears three nights ago you made him hot chocolate while Laszlo sat down with him. He confessed that he had never been treated or cared for like he was in your home. How he wished he could stay because he felt wanted. Your heart broke for the boy. To be so young and so lost, craving someone to simply be there for him.

Yet everyday he grew more open. He broke out of his shell. He had goals and ambitions; he wanted to amount to something bigger than he had thought he ever could. It almost shocked you at how much fire was within him.

At how much he fit in with your little family.

At how it was like he was meant to be there.

___

Laszlo was oddly quiet when you got home. Sophia had run off to find Stevie, and you tracked your husband down to his office. He listened as you talked about your day for a good ten minutes; he said almost nothing the whole conversation.

You move closer to him. Placing the back of your hand to his forehead you check to see if he's feverish or sick. He didn't feel warm. "Laz, are you feeling okay?"

He gently pulls your hand down and leaves a kiss on your palm. "The department of social services called this morning to inquire about what we want to do with Stevie. This would be the third time they have asked."

He hadn't mentioned it to you at all that they were calling already. "Okay. What do you think we should do?" You pause for him to continue.

"I told them I would need to speak with you before any further decisions were made regarding him…" His fingers tap against the wood of his desk. "I'm not sure I have an answer for them. Nor for you." He swallows. "I'm afraid of what might become of him should he go into the system. Or that he will not get the support he needs given his past. Any option involving allowing him to stay for a bit longer is a commitment I won't make without your full support, of course. I could never ask that of you." As he speaks you can hear the frustration pouring from him, feel the irritation radiating through the room. "I refuse to give up on him- I- I just don't have the answers on what to do without them hounding me and he deserves better than this, dammit."

"He does… Do you remember on your 50th birthday, what you told me?" Laszlo looks up at you confused. "You said that you had wished you were ten years younger so you had the energy and time to do all of it again. That if you were younger we would've had a whole gaggle of kids - brothers and sisters for Sophia."

"Wishing I was younger doesn't make a difference in helping Stevie-"

"Laszlo - let's adopt him." Your words stop him in his tracks. You had decided not to have any more after your daughter was born. Laszlo was nearing 50 and the pregnancy had been hard on you. But regardless you knew that you both had the means and the love to give another child, probably five or ten more children if you really wanted to. So why not start with one that's already wormed his way in to the family? "I've seen how fond you are of him already. You've taken him under your wing as if he was your own. And how good he is with Sophia? Hell I couldn't ask for a better older sibling for her - and she loves him already. And honestly, Laz, I do too."

"You think we should adopt Stevie?"

"I think we should ask, yeah. He deserves a good home and a strong father figure that's going to put him first. He looks at you like you hung the stars, Laszlo. He needs us, and truthfully I think we need him. So yeah - what's one more added to this little shindig we've got going for us?"

"Have you-"

"-thought it through? Yes. Completely."

You can see the smile he fights to hold back. "We should call tomorrow and see what the protocol is for stating our intent to adopt and getting the paperwork."

"Um…" You shuffle your feet. Nose scrunched, you confess "I may have already called them. On the way from work I asked about what would need to be done if we wanted to pursue that route, but since they already know who we are from you working with them for years it can be fast tracked." You pull him out of his chair to stand before you. "All we have to do is say 'go'."

He has no hesitation.

"Go."

Laszlo doesn't hold back his smile or his laughter as he spins you around his office floor. You're certain your children downstairs can hear your giggles.

Tag list

@hardlyinteresting @lorna-d-m @livvyshmiv @somethingthatsaysbubbles @greeneyedblondie44 @unbeatablecurlgirl @apparrio @marchingicenotes7 @anteroom-of-death @bruhidaniel @lemairepstuff @thehuiabird @zemosimp05 @alindeluce @iamnotthecatladynextdoor @laura-naruto-fan1998 @trelaney @boneheadduluc @i-am-dead-inside-666 @fictionlandslanddreams @that-one-fandom-kid @hb8301 @fandom-princess-forevermore @foggycandywitch @creme-bruhlee @andy-rocks @nonamec0s @everythingbeginsineternity-blog @uncomfortablebagel @rachelicouss @wisia02