#i just think “meanwhile the side characters” while the main characters are hiding a secret relationship is so funny

[i-like-books-and-women]

Welcome back to the bits of soup I deem good enough for the public:

Angel 100% thought Zach and Ruben were dating for a hot second. It would've been like somewhere in between after the talent show and before canon starts. But either way I think it went something like this.

Ruben: yeah so there's this guy

Zach: ooh guy?

Angel: oh do you guys have an open relationship?

Zach & Ruben: what-

Angel: aren't you dating?

Zach: i mean ruben's an amazing person but I'm straight-

Angel was then confused about this for the next like month. After this interaction he ran it by Jon and Jon was like "bro what planet do you live on?". Then after Zach and Ruben came out to Jon and Angel, Angel pulled Jon aside and was like "fuck you I knew it I was right".

Secondary thought. After Zach and Ruben got their shit together but before Jon and Angel knew (that's a time window of like 2 weeks right??? I don't remember lol) they like put together that something was going on and were trying to make the math math. Eventually Angel got to "they've gotta me a thing man no way they aren't" which was very "I've connected the dots. You didn't connect shit. I've connected them.)

[sc-intothedarknightofthesoul]

Gonna go ahead and tag you guys real quick since y'all asked for the same character, but I'd feel bad answering to only one of you: @soulofamy @mommahoodie @ank3kur0

Also, I got a bingo! Yay!

I'll be honest, what if I told you I didn't like Grøh at first?

Shocking, considering I gush over this guy time and time again, but let me explain.

I'll admit I played the Main Chronicle first before Libra of Soul and one of the first things he does is come out of nowhere to ambush Kilik, and putting myself in Kilik's shoes, I'm just as confused as to what the fuck just happened and why he straight up attacked him.

But the thing I learned about Grøh from that scene and the one where he meets the Conduit in Libra of Soul is that he doesn't exactly give off the best of first impressions: he's stand-offish, cold, and blunt (some will call him pessimistic, like I did at one point, others will say he's telling the cold hard truth no one at the time wanted to hear), didn't stop to think about the feelings of others and would rather push them away.

So what made me go a complete 180° on my mind about Grøh?

One simple answer is that, unlike Taki in that story, Grøh does come back to help Kilik and Xianghua get to Nightmare hiding out in Ostrheinsburg Castle, which ultimately made me curious about him that his Soul Chronicle became the first one I watched after completing the Main Chronicle.

The complicated answer is that I actually sort of relate to Grøh in the sense of, "I act aloof and cold at times without meaning to, I've made people cry because I get blunt as a sledgehammer when I thought it was me being honest with them, and I tend to push people away in favour of protecting myself and others from harm."

Point is, it took time, patience, and a bit of looking in the mirror to get me completely on board with Grøh's character.

Then I watched his Soul Chronicle and we got hints as to why he acts the way he does, something I have sort of expected all along: The Malfested took his friends, family and home from him, Nightmare took away his squad and a part of his humanity away and made it ten times harder to be himself without the fear of his Malfested side taking control over him, Azwel basically gave Grøh the worst kind of emotional whiplash imaginable by saving his life and then forcing him to fight and kill his best friend Curtis when he revealed his secret to him, meanwhile also having Orzal, his teacher and probably the closest thing to a father figure in the Aval Organization, killed during Azwel's defection.

Then I finally get to Libra of Soul and I see him slowly open up to the Conduit and soften his heart for them and it's just...

...If Project Soul's definition of slow burn is not only having him and another character bond over time, but also having you, as the player, bond with him over time, then that deserves a chef's kiss from me!

Also, Grøh ends up standing between the Conduit and danger coming for them TWICE, if not THRICE. First being Valtro when we see his Malfested self for the first time, second being an attempt to protect them while they were sick but he messed up his footing in his attack before Taki came out of nowhere to finish the Berserker off, and then finally standing between them and Azwel in that cutscene in the Shrine of Eurydice before reckless succumbing to his Malfestation and throwing Azwel and himself off a goddamn cliff.

Like guys, one time is an instance, two times is a coincidence, and three or more times ends up becoming a pattern.

Also to add to what I said in the previous post about the final fight with Azwel being cathartic because you're making him pay for what he's done, I also fought Azwel in the name of Grøh knowing how much he suffered because of that fucker and that I felt was fulfilling a promise.

So it's no surprise that at the end of the Soul Calibur/Good Route, I cried when Grøh looked back to the camera, to the Conduit, and gave a smile, something that is a first in this game mode. It felt to me that not only is he thanking the Conduit for basically saving his life and bringing back his humanity, it's like a very emotional thank you to the player for playing Libra of Soul.

I also finished the Soul Edge/Evil Route a while back and yeah, it felt gut-wrenching having to fight him with Soul Edge, and just like that, a piece of me died when Grøh died.

So yeah, I can fully say without a shadow of a doubt that I fell in love with this character in a fashion I didn't expect to.

Regarding his design, I'm not too deep into the lore of King Arthur and the Knights of Avalon, but I do enjoy people's take on the lore (Quest for Camelot was one of my favourite movies growing up). Plus, I am also a sucker for Norse mythology and I liked how he kinda looked like Odin with the eye patch and the fur on his coat and the fact that he's from Norway. And the way they basically combined the two is very interesting to me. I also fuck with the punk aesthetic he's got going on.

One headcanon that I see a lot of people use and one I agree with a lot is that since we don't know how old he is or when his home got attacked or how long he's been part of the Aval Organization, I figured he probably was rescued and raised by the Aval Organization when he was really young, which would sort of explain why the Oath he took about taking on the Malfested, or Outsiders, is deeply ingrained into his mindset and why he follows his orders to the letter.

It also saddens me that he doesn't get a lot of love in the fandom or isn't as remembered as much as the other characters, to the point where there was a time a friend thought he was an OC of mine, granted she didn't know he wasn't cos she doesn't participate in the Soul Calibur fandom, but still.

But yeah, just gonna wrap up these asks and say that I love Grøh a lot as a character and I think is an underrated gem.

And maybe an analogy that Grøh is like a shy, distrustful yet lovable guard dog that I adopted at a shelter, while (to add to the previous post) Azwel's the chaotic cat causing mayhem in everybody's wake that I found in a dumpster in an alleyway one Monday morning.

[languidlotus]

QL Favorites Tag Game

I've wanted to do this one and @shortpplfedup tagged very liberally, so here we are. I tried to give some varied answers and not do all of it from the same show(s). These answers might also change depending on my mood.

Favorite Thai QL: Moonlight Chicken. A grown up queer story with layers, different generations, comments on the queer experience, and amazingly told in a gorgeous setting and with experienced, comfortable actors/pairings.

Favorite pairing: EarthMix and Jaeyoung/Sangwoo & WinTeam Actor-wise: EarthMix. Connected to my first answer, lol. They're comfortable and comforting and know what they're doing. They give strong, believable, mature performances regardless what story they're in. Moonlight Chicken and A Tale of Thousand Stars are two of only about 7 shows I've ever given 10/10 to and they are a big part of that. Character-wise: Jaeyoung/Sangwoo, Semantic Error, & WinTeam, UWMA and Between US. I had to go with two here because I like them for very similar reasons. It's the push and pull of personalities that aren't similar at all, yet the eventual realization that they blend super well and are better together than apart. Jaeyoung and Sangwoo are entertaining and funny and an exploration of what it means to be wrong about someone. (So wrong that you actually fall for the person you loathed initially.) Their story is told expertly. Meanwhile WinTeam is such a comfort to me. I think this is the first sidepairing I ever really got invested in - complete with reading fanfic before I'd even finished UWMA - and watching their story unfold in Between Us was one of the highlights of 2022 for me. They banter and fight and yet find comfort in each other. What started out as meaningless turned out to be oh so important for both their lives.

Favorite main character: Nozue, Old Fashion Cupcake. I almost went with Wen from Moonlight Chicken here, because he's good and relatable and (I am incredibly fond of Mix)... However, if I mention relatable then it has to be Nozue from OFC. I'm giving away my age here by admitting I can see myself in him. (I'm not quite that age yet, but I'm certainly not high school or university BL level...) Watching him discover himself and grow made me so happy.

Favorite side character: Milk from Choco Milk Shake. Initially I thought the premise of this show sounded ridiculous, but it turned out to be glorious and sweet and slightly painful. Just the way i like it! And obviously the cat who fell in love was my favourite one. Other faves: Tiw from My School President, RJ from My Tooth, Your Love, Sky & KaoJao from Secret Crush on You, and Tankhun from KinnPorsche.

Favorite scene in a QL: Bad Buddy. The bedroom scene where Pran finds out Pat (thinks he) has feelings for Ink. Nanon's acting still tugs at my heartstrings to this day. The quiet, pained realization in his eyes and posture. The way he hides it from Pat while tears threaten to escape because of the disappointment. You can perfectly see the hope - maybe Pat won't actually have feelings for Ink, maybe he could like Pran, maybe... - fade and make way for heartache Yeah, that will forever be one of the best.

Favorite line in a QL: Recently, the one that resonated with me the most was 'I thought you felt the same way' from La Pluie. I explained why here.

Most anticipated QL (& why): Love Upon a Time Look, I adore historical BLs - a result of me watching and loving so many cdramas - and since Bed Friend I've been 100% on board with NettJames and their chemistry. And no, not just the steamy bits. They're very good and comfortable together, have a believable tension between them, and they're just stunning people that I can't help but draw constantly. Combine this with a good story, a beautiful setting, and I already can't wait! Similarly, I am also excited about I Feel You Linger in the Air and Man Suang.

Healthiest relationship in a QL: KingUea from Bed Friend. With the exception of one scene, King was a walking green flag throughout this show. He had a lot to deal with and yet he managed incredibly well to be understanding and supportive. Both him and (especially) Uea had a lot of deep, painful issues and a lot of pressure from the outside world, yet he stayed strong and loved Uea the way he deserved to be loved even when Uea wasn't ready to let him yet. And he didn't cross any of Uea's lines! Quick nods of appreciation to WinTeam from UWMA and especially Between Us, and PluemKevin from Ghost Host, Ghost House.

Most toxic relationship in a QL: PrapaiSky, Love in the Air. I could go with TharnType or one of the KinnPorsche pairings, but honestly when I think of toxic I think of PrapaiSky. Yes, they're cute when they're actually together, but the getting there bothered me so much that I actually wrote angry posts about it. And I usually avoid talking in great length about things I dislike about shows I'm watching. It's also because TharnType and VegasPete (or even KinnPorsche and KimChay) are at least acknowledged to have toxic elements to them by their fans, whereas I've seen a lot of attempts at defending PrapaiSky. So, yeah. I could also have gone with both the pairings from Cutie Pie.

Guilty pleasure series: I Will Knock You. Is it the best series out there? No. But is it adorable and cute and something I enjoyed way more than I initially expected? Yes. (Do know that it's a BL that takes a while to actually BL. However when it does you'll adore it.)

Most underrated series: My Only 12% I thought this show was so cute and deep and it had me crying sad and happy tears. It told the story of incredibly close childhood friends who are forced apart by one of them moving abroad. When they're reunited they finally become more than just friends. Basically, 2023's favourite plotline, but done in 2022. It's also a lot deeper than it sounds. Watching one of the main characters realize he is queer and in love with his best friend was a beautiful yet torturous scene. Earth is so good and the setting was so comfortable and soft. (While telling a painful story of feeling left behind and finally recognizing your feelings.) And the pairing is adorable.

[armentas]

Ok ok ok considering I have an actual (though very basic) outline written for Haven's new concept, I need to give very major updates and eventually update my pinned post.

The details:

Haven is now going to be a second person perspective piece of interactive fiction!

Haven's new plot: You, as Heather, find a way to go back in time after the suicide of your older brother, Beau — both to relive your brighter childhood years, and to try to prevent the circumstances leading up to his death. Meanwhile, Beau's starting to get a nausea-inducing sense of deja vu... Focuses on suicide prevention, balancing taking care of yourself versus others, and the lie that is nostalgia: no matter what you think, you don't actually want to be a kid again. Additionally, it will have a mechanic to mimic what it's like living with an anxiety disorder, and 4 different endings, one meant as the "canon" ending. Lord help me.

Ever since I first became a writer, I've generally assumed that even once completed, I'd just keep all of my stories private, outside posting some info and excerpts online. With Haven, it's different! Since it's a game, after all, I do fully plan on making it public, that way others can play and enjoy! I might be in the beginning phase right now, but I'm still SO pumped about all of this. It now has me considering my other projects becoming public when they're complete, too. We'll see :)

In Haven's previous concept, I was working with some extra characters: Skip, Milo, and Josie. The issue with them is that they kind of had their own story going on that didn't relate much to Haven's plot, so they do still exist, they're just being given their own WIP. I haven't developed much about it yet since it's low priority, but Skip's the main character, Milo's his love interest, it's largely about their baggage and growing dynamic as delinquent kids in the early 2000s, and the story's currently called The Day You Left or TDYL for short.

New(ish?) characters and WIP! (Celio and his backstory are old and repurposed; Finn is new.) Once again, not too developed yet, but here's the general concept I'm working with: Loosely Victorian esque theocracy fantasy world. Filler title is The Tower. Celio is a priest hiding a lot of baggage, Finn is a poor religious scholar looking to learn. They become romantically involved in secret, eventually developing an unhealthily codependent relationship while simultaneously only really manipulating each other for their own ends. Lots of murder happens, very doomed by the narrative — Celio's run from the guillotine stopping as Finn lovingly coaxes him back to it. My sort of controversial opinion on media is that I don't care for fantasy most of the time, and honestly? I'm not too great at writing it either LOL, so this will definitely end up an experiment to see if I can successfully stretch the required creative muscles, or if it'll just be another plot tossed to the side. At the very least, I really love Celio as a character and his so painfully clear, inevitable fall from grace. He's probably the most complex character I've ever written, and he only really suits a fantasy plot, so it's worth trying to do him justice!

And, finally, Delora and Stasia are still doing about the same, living their best lives. If you don't count the misery I put them through, of course.

[pachecodayanna]

English Project

Story: a description, involves a main character who pursues a specific, measurable goal that provides the audience with a means of gauging progress from the time the goal is made clear until the outcome of its pursuit is expressed clearly in terms of success or failure.

tale: is a narrative that is typically shorter than a story and often involves elements of folklore, mythology, or legend. It may be fictional or based on real events, and is often told to entertain or educate the audience.

Science Fiction: a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme,etc.

I wake up at 6, and then get up five minutes later. However, for the first time, I fell down of bed. Consequently, I woke up saying, "What happened?, Maybe it was a nightmare, that happens to anyone."

I wanted to have breakfast in some restaurant, but I had no money. Therefore, I went to prepare breakfast. I defrosted a pizza and put it in the microwave. While waiting for it to be ready, I saw through the window how the sky was strange. On one side, it was sunny, and on the other side, it looked like a tornado was approaching. Perhaps it was the climate change that caused that sky to color.

While I was eating on the sofa, I turned on the TV to watch the news. There, they were reporting that the level of water had fallen off. As a result, I said, "It can't be!. Could it be that I am dreaming?" My brother Franklin woke up in a happy mood. Meanwhile, I was processing the information, so I dish up him a yogurt with fruit. Until our babysitter named Lucy arrived, she said people were like crazy because there was no water. For this reason , she told me, "We should get out of here!". Hearing this, my brother jokingly said, "To a magic world?" Being in his 20's, I did not find his comment funny, knowing the situation. Nevertheless, we could only do one thing to travel in time.

Therefore, my family kept a secret under the house, a lair. My parents were scientists and inventors persecuted by the FBI because they had built a time machine. Then, I had to tell the truth to my brother and our childhood nanny. As a result, we made the decision to travel from 2023 to 2000.

As soon as we arrived, we tried to warn people about the consequences in the future. So, I was able to have an appointment with the president. When we met and I explained the situation, he told me, "You are crazy." In response, I told him, "You will regret what you just told me." He called his guards, and until a community believed us, we did campaigns, surveys, everything.

Finally, we came back to the present knowing that there would be a change. Consequently, that is how we realized that not always the person we think will help us does, and that a small community can make a global change.

I used a website called Picsart to create this picture with artificial intelligence. To get this image I used the statement ''Siblings and babysitter hiding".

Rueff, R. (n. d.). The difference between a story and a tale | Discovering the soul of your story. https://soulofyourstory.com/the-difference-between-a-story-and-a tale/#:~:text=the%20other%20side.-,Simply%20put%2C%20a%20%22story%22%20involves%20a%20main%20character%20who,related%20to%20an%20overarching%20goal 

Manaher, S. (2023). Story vs Tale: Deciding Between Similar Terms. The Content Authority. https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/story-vs-tale

Science fiction Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com. (2021). In Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/science-fiction

[violetmuses]

Play No Games - Rick Flag (18+ MINORS DNI)

TITLE: “Play No Games” (18+ MINORS DNI) || Rick Flag 

FANDOM: “Suicide Squad” Film Universe

CHARACTER: Rick Flag

PAIRING: Rick Flag + Female Reader 

MAIN STORYLINE: That one night actually meant so much more…. 

Author’s Note: Hey! This project has been written as a direct sequel to “Met Him Last Night.” As a warning, the One Shot includes SMUT content. (18+ Minors DNI) Adult themes, strong language, etc.

Met Him Last Night - 18+ MINORS DNI 🖤

Main Masterlist 💜

J Krew: @nerdysuperchick @a-reader-and-a-writer @babblydrabbly @lacontroller1991 @shadowkittybucky @loverhymeswith @justin-hammers @weallhaveadestiny @xoxabs88xox @katjnordstrom96   @mayhem24-7forever @fangirl0917 @skvatnavle @sociiallydiisoriiented @heresathreebee @alieninoklahoma @bewitchedignition @maddu-oliveira @reveluving @sugapapichulo @hodgepodge-of-rog @ijustthinkrickflagisprettyneat @ed-baldwin

__________

2021

Unfortunately, back in 2016, both of you swore that whatever “action” taking place in his office that night didn’t mean much. It was only a physical moment between strangers. Even on the following Saturday night, having dinner was just courteous. 

Once Mondays rolled back around, you resorted to being strangers for the sake of professionalism. You nod. He nodded back. You wave. He waved back. Nothing happened that night. Absolutely nothing. Both of you kept that secret since. 

Now, five years later, Colonel Rick Flag has resigned from ARGUS. One life-threatening Task Force mission that occurred in Corto Maltese had woken this man up. Waller acted ruthless for years, but Starro determined the final straw.

Rick turns off the radio mid-song and parks that truck. He’s only been sitting in the official ARGUS headquarters lot for just a few minutes and all around him, other vehicles crowd space. 

Before long, it doesn’t take much for Rick to be thankful that he’s hiding. For all he knows at this point, Amanda Waller herself could spot him and end up reinstating work. 

Ahead, that forsaken building looms in the distance, almost mocking Flag in silence. Even his access lanyard still rests in the glove compartment and credentials feel like a relic that he can't get rid of. There’s no other choice. Six years is a long-ass time. 

Before Rick can change his mind and leave this parking lot instead, his mind flashes to you out of nowhere. 

He scrambles out of that truck, grabs the old lanyard, running into this building quickly. 

His thoughts soon hope that everyone is crowded and busy inside to keep him hidden. Flag needs to stay in the shadows of this place until further notice. 

Last go round, he remembers that you don’t have your own office, sharing desks with other staffers. Still, while lurking between people in the building, Rick doesn’t see you working near those cubicles right away. Maybe you’re out for coffee or sick. 

Sighing, just before he glances towards his watch and plans to leave out for good, he looks up to finally see you walking down the hallway. 

If it wasn’t for his own quick thinking, you would definitely ignore Rick’s presence altogether. 

“Hey,” His Southern drawl almost whispers towards you and your own steps pause mid-stride as soon as you notice him. 

“Hi, what’s going on? I thought you quit.” You briefly smile toward Flag with respect and soon corner yourself to speak with him. Neither one of you want to disrupt other people, especially coworkers. 

“I did.” Flag clips the reply and crosses both arms while facing you. He’s sporting another windbreaker jacket now, but blondish hair sweeps to the side, rather than showing that military buzz cut. 

“Then what are you doing here, Flag? Ready for round 2?” You tease him, somehow keeping your words close to him. Meanwhile though, Rick slyly wants to kiss your fingers as soon as you form the number “two” with your hand. 

“Don’t do that.” Flag hitches that warning, intoxicated by the memory of thrusting inside of you. 

“All right.” You scoff, brushing off this moment, planning to walk away and swinging those gorgeous hips. God, your hips. 

Of course, Flag is still respectful enough not to slap your ass in public, too, but the temptation lingers. 

“Bye,” Rick starts waving goodbye towards you, but you turn around and catch his palm, holding hands. 

“Will you come back home with me?” You can’t lie to yourself anymore. At least Rick knows what’s really happening if he turns you down. 

“Yes.” He answers and ghosts his lips back towards you, fighting the strongest urge to kiss you in this hallway. 

_______

It’s not enough to hook up again in another office this time around. By nightfall, both of you agreed to meet at your home. 

As soon as Flag reaches this main bedroom, he shuts the door and grabs your face once more, whimpering into the kiss almost immediately. For the second time, you backpedal with him into the rear wall and keep going, desperate just like before. 

You squirm again, trying find another round of friction before Rick’s belt buckle loosens up. 

“Look at me.” His words are different now. He wants you to face him this time as he unfastens the belt. You whimper again, remembering the past already. You’ve thought about him every day since, no matter how unprofessional that night was. 

He cages you, breathing against your neck over and over again. You nearly melt after taking off your panties and realize just how slick you both are for each other. 

“Please.” You beg Flag as he kisses your neck, tasting the sweat that has already loomed on your own skin. As you look down  for a moment, his erection stand up, waiting for you. 

Flag is still respectful and hurries to slip on a condom before he could traction with you now. Even then, this man just might explode if he must wait any longer to be inside you again. 

Lining himself up with your entrance, he reaches out and holds the back of your head, prompting immediate eye contact. His hazels bore into your soul and you nearly want to sob. He’s so damn pretty. 

You cry out loud as soon as he fills your core, shutting both eyes in the name of pleasure. 

“Shit.” Rick furrows his brow, overwhelmed by this very concept of you returning to him. You still feel so deliciously tight, no matter the position. 

And yet, the way you look at him up close only makes tonight worse. Your eyes are lidded, taking his dangerous thrusts like a good girl once again. 

“Baby…” You forget his name, calling him anything out of desperation. Rick wants to cry, knowing that he never should’ve brushed you off five years ago. 

“Look at me, Darlin’. Fuck!” Holding the back of your head once more, Rick can’t hold eye contact with you much longer either, already moving closer and closer towards this proverbial edge. 

You spill first while that condom protects each of you. Rick then only ends up stuttering the pace of his own hips for this second time, giving you warmth. 

“Hi,” You greet him, cooling down. 

Once you decide to look at him, Rick smiles coyly and still runs capable his fingers through your hair. 

“Hey,” Flag repeats to you, just like down in the hallway back at ARGUS. Silence falls in your bedroom otherwise, but neither one of you feel uncomfortable. 

___________

That next day, sunlight beams from every window as Rick wakes up in bed with you. His famous kisses now move along your bare neck, open-mouthed and ready because he wants to make you smile again. 

“Mornin’, His finger gently pinch your chin and he leans inward to kiss your lips, forever yours without words. 

You smile against his lips once he stops and looks into those hazel eyes again, feeling grateful. 

No more games. It’s just you and him until the end of time. 

[ninja-muse]

Slowly chipping away at my TBR pile this month! As in I read two instead of my  usual one, and both of those last week, when I realized I’d yet to tick that goal off for the month. Plus I managed to read four things off my ARC stack and cross a few anticipated releases off my list as well! Feeling pretty good about all of that, honestly, but also a little burned out on reading. I’m hoping The River Ki will be the reset I need!

And as always, in order of how glad I am to have read them:

Passing - Nella Larsen Irene reconnects with an old friend who does as she pleases. A study of identity, belonging, and how best to be Black in America. - Black cast, Black author,  #ownvoices - warning: colourism, racism including slurs, death

Seasonal Fears - Seanan McGuire The old monarchs of the seasons have died, sparking a competition for the thrones. Melanie and Harry do not want to be part of it, and yet. - protagonist with heart condition, Latin secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author - warning: murder

The Grief of Stones - Katherine Addison Thara Celehar is petitioned to solve the murder of an elderly noblewoman, which leads to all manner of other dark secrets. - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist - warning: references to child sexual abuse and abuse materials

Love in the Time of Serial Killers - Alicia Thompson Phoebe is a spiky loner writing a dissertation on true crime while packing up her father’s house. Sam, the guy next door, is really nice—but maybe that’s just what he wants people to think. - fat protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character, Indian- and Korean-American secondary characters - warning: references to dysfunctional/abusive family dynamics, body shaming

The Sandman, Vol. 4 - Neil Gaiman with various illustrators Morpheus must return to Hell to free a woman he once imprisoned. This cannot end well. - 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters, Black and Japanese secondary characters

The Marriage Portrait - Maggie O'Farrell At fifteen, Lucrezia is married to the Duke of Ferrara against her will. At sixteen, she dies mysteriously. This is her life. Out in September. - warning: child abuse and neglect; domestic abuse, including gaslighting, physical violence, confinement, and less-than-consensual sex

A Lady for a Duke - Alexis Hall When Viola reconnects with her best childhood friend, she finds him broken and grieving her death. Clearly she must help him back to himself, but that threatens to awaken feelings better left alone. Women like her cannot marry dukes, after all. - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 author

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals - Steve Brusatte The evolution of mammals, from the Triassic to the present day.

The River of Silver - S.A. Chakraborty Deleted scenes and other side stories from the Daevabad Trilogy. Out in October. - Middle Eastern and Egyptian cast, Muslim author

Witchmark - C.L. Polk When a witch-in-hiding dies in his care, Miles is drawn back to the world of magic he fought hard to escape. Meanwhile, his solider patients are exhibiting disturbing and violent symptoms. - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 love interest, Black secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 and Black author, 🇨🇦 - warning: family annihilation, mild homophobia

Aces Wild - Amanda DeWitt Jack and his asexual friends decide to take down the casino owner who put Jack’s mom in jail. Out in September. - 🏳️‍🌈 main character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters, Deaf secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author, #ownvoices

The Carpet People - Terry Pratchett When the force Fray destroys their village, the Munrungs must cross the Carpet to find safety. There are mouls in the hairs, though, and they’re up to something.

Tread of Angels - Rebecca Roanhorse When her sister is accused of murder, Celeste has two days to prove her innocence. Out in November. - 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters, Black and Pueblo author - warning: racism, classism, colonialism

Mint Chocolate Murder - Meri Allen Riley’s hired to serve ice cream at a gallery opening at a local estate, only for the star photographer to be found dead in the dungeon. - major Black secondary character

Currently reading:

Rogues - Patrick Radden Keefe Long-form true crime journalism. - warning: mass shooting, plane bombing

The River Ki - Sawako Ariyoshi with Mildred Tahara (Translator)    The lives of three women living along a Japanese river during the first half of the 20th century. - Japanese cast, Japanese author, #ownvoices

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories - major disabled character

 - warning: colonialism, racism

Stats


Monthly total: 14
 Yearly total: 104 + 1
 Queer books: 4
 Authors of colour: 3 
Books by women: 9 
Canadian authors: 1
 Off the TBR shelves: 2 
DNFs: 0

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[melohax]

I’ve seen some people who finished Omori talking about how they don’t understand the game’s plot, what happens in the good ending or why the protagonist even decided to change his ways. So then, here’s my thoughts on Omori’s story.

Warning: SPOILERS AHOY. Only read this if you’ve already finished the game and seen the good or true ending. Or if you don’t plan on playing the game at all but still want to know the whole story.

I’ve seen some people around the internet talk about how Sunny’s character isn’t clear to them or how they feel Sunny doesn’t deserve a good ending. Here’s some thoughts I have on why I think Sunny’s growth was well depicted.

There’s two main routes you can go through in the game: the “Reality” route and the “Hikikomori” route.

In the “Hikikomori” route, Sunny stays in Headspace forever and we get to learn many additional details about him. Sunny’s parents are implied to have known what Sunny did to Mari all along. It’s also implied that Sunny’s mother covered the whole thing up and chose to present it as a suicide as well cus, in her own words, she can’t bear the thought of losing both of her kids.

Sunny’s mother insinuates her son isn’t a “good boy” even though she begs him to be good but she still sees him as her little boy (as seen by the overly-sweet and positive messages she leaves around the house and her voice mails) and needs him alive so she can survive her own grief. Sunny’s father is shown cutting down the hanging tree and telling Sunny he isn’t his son, presumably disowning Sunny. The father keeps being absent forever afterwards.

Fast forward to the present and the “Reality” route, Sunny’s moving in 3 days. He knows his time is up in the real world and the biggest catalyst for his personal growth is that he’s finally seeing his old friends in the REAL world after 4 years of only seeing their loving, idealized child version in dreams. For the first time, he gets to witness the collateral consequences of what he did to Mari in his now teenaged friends: Aubrey spirals into delinquency after feeling like she was thrown aside by everyone she loved. Hero is guilt ridden, can’t even go near Mari’s grave and gives up on his dreams of being a chef. Kel wants to make things better but feels powerless, useless and like a screwup. Basil lives in a miserable state of almost constant fear and psychosis.

Sunny finally gets to see the huge toll his lie took on his friends’ entire lives as they keep blaming themselves for not knowing about Mari’s supposed suicidal ideations. He’s finally forced to face reality and he still tries to hide in dreamworld but he can’t. The inhabitants of Headspace are all people or fictional characters he knows or likes in real life (that he changed in his dreams, like how Kim’s brother is a sweet gentle giant and Sweetheart looks just like the candy shop owner at the supermarket) and their quests end up leading him to events where he’s reminded over and over again his dreams will end soon (the end of the underwater highway, the tree near the whale, the shadows of Mari and Basil) and that he needs to delve into Blackspace.

This shows how his own subconscious mind knows well what needs to be done; he’s putting the mental and emotional effort of making himself face what he’s done, shown through the contrast between the whimsical nature of Headspace and the dark surrealism of Blackspace.

As this happens in Sunny’s psyche, in the real world he can try to “atone” a bit by doing good things for his little community like completing requests people around him have. He still has a lot of trouble being near Basil in the real world but considering his entire subconscious mainly revolves around finding and rescuing Basil, he wants and needs to face Basil sincerely before he runs out of time.

We’re shown through memories that Sunny’s personality was always quiet, wary, a bit distant and very bad at dealing with pressure. Some people even describe him as cowardly or mediocre but he was just a small kid who’s entire world ended when he was 12. Since then, he never left his house, spending most of his days asleep rather than awake. It’s no wonder his personality isn’t as developed as his friends. His friends, although they were also in immense pain, at least still continued to live beyond Mari’s death. Sunny didn’t. He only lived through sleep.

Subconsciously, it’s shown Sunny both loves and hates Basil. This is seen in Blackspace with the dialogue he has with the “strangers” walking in the void. They talk about how Sunny (as Omori) does horrible things to Basil in the darkness of Blackspace because he struggles with facing the truth of his own actions. It’s also revealed through datamine of Blackspace’s metaphorical photo album that Basil, in his attempts to save Sunny from the judgement of others and to get him to come out of catatonia, was the one who come up with the plan to hang Mari.

Sunny describes Mari as looking as if calmly asleep when he drags her up the stairs. Her eyes remained peacefully closed until Sunny and Basil hung her. Then, Sunny turned back to look at Mari’s corpse, her previously closed eyes were wide open. She might have even been still alive, might have opened her eyes during or after the noose was tied to her neck. Or the belief he saw her eyes open could have been a manifestation of Sunny’s guilt, instead.

Either way, the horrifying possibilities surrounding Mari’s death lead to Sunny handling his emotional pain by subconsciously taking it out on Basil. It’s why Basil in Blackspace is shown constantly suffering and dying in many different ways. It’s the only way Sunny has been able to deal with himself; by forcing Basil into the darkest corners of his mind, his perfect colorful dreamworld can’t be ruined by the ugly reality Basil’s mere presence represents. It’s less painful to try to forget Basil and to forever blame him for both of their sins.

Still, even with all these conflicted feelings, Sunny’s tried to come to terms with love he still feels for Basil many times before. The shadows point out how this isn’t the first time he’s tried to save the Flower Boy; how all the previous times before ended in Sunny failing to find redemption and so his mind turns back to torturing the Basil of his dreams instead.

However, one of the Blackspace shadows also mentions a very important detail that changes almost everything this time around: his time is almost up in the real world. Whether this means he’ll commit suicide or move away, it’s almost time for him to leave the friends he’s always loved so much behind.

Sunny is forced to do a lot of internal work and self-reflection in what little time he has left. It’s shown through his dream actions, the surreal imagery surrounding him and the characters with all the sub plots his subconscious makes up.

In the route to the good ending, he traverses Blackspace and manages to listen to every harsh truth Basil’s shadow has to tell him. His attempts to save Basil mean he’s fighting his own mind, forcing himself to accept the truth.

To achieve redemption for his greatest mistake, Sunny needs to start with accepting Basil entirely; he has to stop making Basil take the brunt of their combined regrets. It means being willing to finally face the REAL Basil instead of permanently burying him in the most painful place within Sunny’s mind.

So basically, it’s obvious to me that Sunny is forced out of his “comfortable” hikikomori misery the moment he opens the door to meet the REAL Kel.

Sunny and Basil have a confrontation in the real world. When Sunny entera Basil’s room, we see poor Basil suicidal and at his limit. He’s clearly in the throes of a psychotic episode and at the mercy of hallucinations and delusions he can’t escape from (“There’s no way out of this is there, Sunny?”). Basil attacks you in an attempt to save you by killing the “thing behind you” but as we know, there isn’t actually something behind you.

There was never any monster to take the blame for Basil’s regrets, nor yours. It’s always been just you.

Meanwhile, Sunny is trying his best not to completely lose his shit so he can save Basil and stop him from potentially killing the both of them. Sunny likely loses an eye in the fight, shown by the blood coming from your socket and the bandage over it in the hospital.

Incidentally, the eye you lose is on the same side as the eye that can be seen peeking through the hair of Mari’s face as she’s hanging from the tree.

In the good ending, the song at the end talks about how even after confessing the truth, Sunny is alone once again, so it’s not actually clear if Aubrey, Kel and Hero actually forgave him. I feel like this is deliberately left up to interpretation by the writers. The lyrics then continue on to say Sunny still finds it hard to wake up, still finds himself plagued some days with lingering regret, but that he still tries to take it all one step at a time to carry on living.

With the song’s lyrics in mind, the end scene that shows Basil and Sunny smiling at each other while Mari’s shadow leaves them doesn’t mean they’re completely fine all of a sudden. Whether their friends forgave them or not, they at least finally have the relief of honesty. The burden of their unbearable shared secret is now off their shoulders. It’s finally out in the open, which means they both can now start healing and working to find the redemption Sunny was looking for in Blackspace. It also means they can go back to loving each other again without the crushing pain they both felt in each other’s presence.

I agree that Aubrey and the gang get pretty left out in the good ending, though. I wish there was more of them and their reactions to the truth BUT I think it’s sadly a deliberate choice by the writers to leave their reaction up to the player’s interpretation. This can feel extremely unfulfilling to many people (me included, I hate when authors do that tbh) but also to many others that’s a good thing cus they get to apply their own personal meaning and feelings.

I personally feel like the friends forgiving Sunny and Basil right off the bat would be incredibly unrealistic. I think they would need a lot of time (especially Aubrey) for them to forgive the lie that wrecked their lives for years. Forgiveness isn’t impossible but it would probably come in the form of a slow, difficult, heartbreaking process. Bittersweet.

Redemption isn’t just about forgiveness, anyway.

Even if a person is never forgiven by the people they’ve hurt, they can still find redemption for their actions through doing good for the people around them and the world at large. An example of this is shown through what Sunny can do on his last days in his neighborhood. The gratitude and additional flowers he receives in the hospital from each person he’s helped are proof he can still do good for others even after something as horrible and unforgivable as accidental murder. In a way, it’s proof that his life is still worth living.

But ultimately that’s just my own interpretation of the ending and I understand other people would interpret it all differently. Some see forgiveness as a given in the story while there’s also others who think Sunny doesn’t deserve forgiveness or those who think Sunny is a sociopath/psychopath or that Basil is the true villain of the game. I think this is why the ending was left so open, to favor all the different interpretations people have of it.

ETA: Here’s a different take on Sunny’s parents. This post argues that, despite the initial implications, they actually didn’t know about the attempted coverup. It’s a really good writeup explaining the whys and hows and has me reconsidering that part of the story!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OMORI/comments/kr9nvx/major_spoilers_regarding_sunny_his_parents_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[itadorisgf]

— the lyre’s tune

⤷ 🦋 nonnie suggested: sending love songs to ur s/o

edit: it’s more like jjk characters as love songs im sorry 😭😭

note: im a sucker for music shit <33 send me song recs and we will fall in love.

ft. fushiguro megumi, gojo satoru, itadori yuuji, kugisaki nobara, nanami kento, sukuna ryomen.

warning: light angst, but overall it’s very fluffy

⤷ main page

— fushiguro megumi.

now playing: when i look into your eyes (feat. lanie) by khaki dreams

to put it bluntly, fushiguro sucks at emotions.

he’s often been told that he’s too cold or unfeeling.

it’s through no fault of his own that he doesn’t exactly have the greatest grasp on emotions and feelings.

but it is the reason why he has such a difficult time discerning what he feels for you.

your relationship is platonic, but is fushiguro content with that or does he desire more?

fushiguro isn’t exactly against the idea of love, but it’s not like he’s actively searching it out.

due to the low number of first years, you’re a tight knit group. you’re all close to one another, however your personality meshes best with nobara and itadori.

as fushiguro attempts to figure out his feelings, he unconsciously pulls away from you. he doesn’t hangout with you as often and is much more quiet than usual, which is saying something.

nobara tells you that fushiguro’s just been fushiguro when you mention how he seems more closed off than he normally is, but you’re concerned for the divide he’s creating between the two of you.

meanwhile fushiguro is undergoing his own emotional turmoil.

fushiguro pulls away so much from you that you end up confronting him. you express your worries for him and question if everything’s all right with him.

and when fushiguro lifts his head to meet your gaze, he knows where his feelings lie.

in that moment, fushiguro realizes that he wants to be more than a friend to you.

— gojo satoru.

now playing: 505 by arctic monkeys

gojo satoru is like a thorn in your side that you just can’t seem to get rid of no matter how hard you try.

you’ve known each other for so long that your relationship with the man is certainly complicated to say the least.

you’d tentatively say that the two of you are currently friends, but it’s difficult to be friends with someone who was once your everything.

you had been friends with benefits for awhile before you two became lovers. dating gojo was a natural progression of your relationship and it came so easy to the two of you. it was nice. for awhile at least. before it all came crashing down.

you became fed up with how he treated your feelings so lightly as if they didn’t matter. so you broke up with him.

the break up took a toll on you, but it hurt more seeing how gojo appeared to be so unaffected by it.

but enough time has passed since then that you can say your current relationship isn’t as bad as you would’ve thought considering you’re coworkers with your ex-boyfriend.

gojo is still as flirty and charming as ever.

you truly believe that it’s this man’s mission in life to bother you.

it’s not that you don’t still have feelings for gojo, but you don’t want to get hurt like you did last time.

your feelings aren’t something to be played with and you refuse to let gojo in again just for your relationship to wind up like it did before.

gojo knows that his actions affect you even if you pretend they don’t. he notices the way you stumble over your words before quickly composing yourself when he accidentally brushes his hands against your lower back. the way your eyes widen before you glare at him when he makes a sexual innuendo in front of your shared students.

but what gojo didn’t know is how bad the breakup affected you.

gojo never stopped loving you, but you were the one to break up with him. if you didn’t want to be with him that was fine, he would just act like he was completely okay with that. gojo was able to keep up the appearance that he was okay after you left, but he missed you a lot.

and when you break down in tears in front of gojo asking why he’s messing with your head when you know he doesn’t love you anymore, gojo’s heart drops.

a serious expression crosses his face when he gently places his hands on your cheeks to tilt your head up to meet his eyes. with his thumbs he wipes away your tears and asks, “who said i didn’t love you anymore?”

— itadori yuuji.

now playing: whoa by snoh aalegra

itadori’s crush on you is so apparent to everyone.

but it’s not like he’s attempting to hide it at all.

the way he trails after you like a puppy confirms that.

he tries to spend as much time with you as he can and hangs off of your every word.

most of the time he’s not actually listening to you though. he really does try to follow what you’re saying, but then he gets distracted by how nice you look in the sunlight and how you look really good in your uniform that he’s startled when you jog him out of his daydreaming.

he flushes and apologizes for getting distracted and asks if you could repeat what you said. you don’t get mad when that happens and just laugh it off, and itadori is so captivated by the sound of your laughter that you ask if something’s on your face with how hard he’s looking at you.

so it’s no secret that itadori harbors a crush on you. everyone is aware of that fact except one person: you.

it’s not you haven’t been told that before. nobara along with a couple of your upperclassmen have confirmed that itadori does indeed have a crush on you, but you just don’t believe it.

how could itadori have a crush on someone like you? you’re sure he doesn’t view you as anything more than a friend.

nobara bluntly tells you that itadori literally never shuts up about you, but you’re still adamant that he only thinks of you as a friend.

it’s not that you don’t like itadori, it’s quite the opposite.

you like him a lot. how could you not? he’s cute and kind and does dumb stuff to make you laugh.

it’s a bit silly, but being by itadori’s side fills you with confidence. you feel like you could exorcise any curse if itadori’s with you. maybe it’s because itadori has so much confidence in you that you can’t help but feel the same.

but you’re convinced that itadori doesn’t like you in that way and itadori can’t seem to tell you that he does.

your friends are sick of your pining dumbasses.

but before they can formulate a plan to get the two of you together, you and itadori figure it out for yourselves.

you’re hanging out like usual, relaxing outdoors after a long day of sparring. you’re staring up at the clouds floating through the sky while itadori lies beside you. he’s admiring the slope of your nose and the curve of your lips when you turn your head to meet his gaze.

your eyes widen when you realize that itadori’s already looking at you, but you don’t say anything. you part your lips open to say something when the silence lingers for a bit too long, but itadori beats you to it.

“can i kiss you right now?”

itadori looks shocked that he said that. you blink once, trying to comprehend what itadori just asked. you blink again before nodding. your voice cracks a little when you respond with “y-yeah.”

— kugisaki nobara.

now playing: cloud nine by beach bunny

nobara is confident in herself. she prides herself on being independent and never searching for validation in the form of other people.

she knows her own worth and won’t let anyone else diminish it or tell her otherwise.

but she must admit that there is no feeling comparable to when she’s with you.

others have complained to her before that she’s loud and self-absorbed. nobara’s never really cared for what others thought of her.

but she’s happy that you don’t think of her that way.

nobara doesn’t have to worry about how she comes across because you love her for who she is.

you love how blunt she can be. you love how she always sticks up for herself and how unafraid she is from backing down.

you love how she won’t let others talk bad about you either. you insist that she doesn’t have to and that you can handle it yourself, but nobara just tells you that “nobody gets to talk shit about my s/o.”

your favorite thing ever is when you manage to catch nobara off-guard with a compliment. normally when you compliment her, she replies “i know,” with a grin on her face, which makes you fall even further for her.

but sometimes when you’re feeling particularly soft, you tell her something along the lines of, “you’re so beautiful and i’m really lucky to call you mine.” nobara goes red and will only manage a shaky “s-shut up,” in response as she tries to hide her flush.

to say the least, you are completely and utterly whipped for nobara. not that you’re complaining about it.

it’s safe to say that you adore her.

nobara loves you just as much in return.

if her confidence ever falters, all it takes is you gently squeezing her hand, reminding her that you’re there beside her, for any doubt to fade away.

because when you’re around, nobara knows she can face any challenge that comes her way. she’s not alone and she has you to support her through anything.

— nanami kento.

now playing: care by sonder

nanami and you both have busy lives.

as sorcerers, you don’t exactly have a lot of down time. you make it work, though.

lately it seems you’ve been running yourself ragged.

you’ve been assigned more missions as of late and nanami’s barely seen you in the past week.

the only prolonged period of time he’s spent with you is when you’re both asleep and even then, you slip into bed late into the evening.

besides that it’s a rushed kiss here and a quick i love you there.

he’s concerned for your well-being. it’s not healthy to be working so often especially in your line of work, which requires you to be in top mental and physical condition.

so when you come home from your latest mission, nanami’s there to greet you at the door.

you’re surprised to see him waiting up for you considering it’s late at night.

he’s dressed in more relaxed clothing, and laying on the couch, thumbing through a book.

when he hears the front door creak open and sees you stumble inside, nanami places the book down and looks at you.

“i ran a bath for you already. after you get dressed, you can eat the dinner i prepared.”

you give him a tired, but grateful grin in return and cheekily ask him to join you in the bath.

nanami denies your request, but he does sit on the edge of the bathtub to keep you company. he’ll wash your hair and your back for you, and the tension in your shoulders melts away when nanami drags his hand in between them.

he hands you a towel to dry off along with one of his t-shirts and a pair of sleep shorts for you to change into.

after you change into your clothes for the night, you drag yourself into the kitchen and come up behind nanami, wrapping your arms around his middle and nuzzling your face into the space in between his shoulders.

“thank you, kento,” you sleepily tell him, pressing a kiss to his back.

nanami turns around in your hold to press a kiss to your forehead, “always, my love.”

— sukuna ryomen.

now playing: hold me down by daniel caesar

sukuna loathes how he feels for you.

it’s pathetic that the king of curses harbors any sort of fondness for a mortal.

you drive him mad. he cannot fathom what it is that draws him to you.

but sukuna finds it oh so amusing that you like him.

you’re painfully obvious about your little puppy dog crush on him.

he loves popping up while itadori is talking to you and will insert himself into the conversation.

he aims to fluster you and revels in the way your words will falter and you’ll start tripping up on what you were saying.

although he likes teasing you, sukuna enjoys it even more when you respond with a quip of your own.

it makes you even more interesting.

you’re intriguing to sukuna.

you don’t approach him with the same fear that other sorcerers do. instead, you approach him with almost a child-like curiosity. you often ask him questions that others never have before like you’re actually interested in what he has to say. you’re a rather strange human, he thinks.

once sukuna accepts that his soft spot for you isn’t going away at all, rather it seems to be getting larger, he gets so possessive. you’re his little human now.

sukuna loves hearing you say that you love him. will make you repeat yourself over and over again. it’s like a boost to his ego.

you tease that he’s your favorite curse, but sukuna’s response is something like “obviously i am.”

you’re the only thing that sukuna has any sort of attachment to so he’s very protective over you.

will not hesitate to strike anyone down that even contemplates harming you because you're his.

[spiderling-space]

Henlo Liho-san~! A new follower of yours uwu May I ask for hcs of how the dorm leaders would react with having an f!s/o who is mostly respectful and polite, suddenly about to throw hands with someone as they may or may not have said or complained about the dorm head they were dating. It was not a compliment in any way or form- I hope I didn't cross over any rules! But if I had to pick 5 out of 7 of them, it's Riddle, Azul, Idia, Kalim, and Vil. Thanks a bunch if you notice this~! Good Luck!!♡♡

Hey yo Nocturne! I know of you from liking I and Brew’s OC (twisted-whimsies): Mozerella Trein and a couple TW related posts of mine.

Prefects and Vice Prefects are exception from character limit.

After finishing this, I realized I wrote something between a ficlet and headcanon. I hope you’ll like it though 💕

My German knowledge is bugging me to write Vil’s surname with ö instead of o yet my order-loving side is telling me to stick to how it’s written in TW

Before I start I’m gonna add a quote from a fandom of mine 👀 one look at my OG blog would reveal which fandom it is.

“Fallaces sunt rerum species”

Meaning: The appearances of things are deceptive

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle can handle himself. At least he could before his overblot episode. No body dared to talk behind his back.

But now he holds back, not using his unique magic frequently anymore which caused some students think he became too lenient and a couple students started to abuse this leniency

Every time someone tries his patience he counts to 10 internally or just ignore them. Don’t get him wrong, he still sticks to rules and makes his dorm follow the rules but he cannot force people to stop talking about him

Today is going to one of the days when he would ignore any bad mouthing because he is with (Y/N), the sweetest person he ever met

(Y/N) already saw at his worst when he overblotted. He doesn’t want her to see any more incidents such that.

He and (Y/N) decided to take a walk in Rose Gardens as a date. Then decided to get into Rose Maze, holding hands strictly for to not get lost.

“Prefect Rosehearts became such a softie. He is no longer fit to be our prefect.” “He never was. Mommy Issues needs to go back to kindergarten.”

(Y/N) and Riddle were in East side of Rose Maze when they heard 2 Heartslabyl students talking which made (Y/N) stop in her track. Riddle tugged her hand to move on but she didn’t budge.

“Riddle, honey, either push away those bushes or I’ll climb over it and have a nice chat with them.”

“There is no need.” — “okay then I’m climbing”

And she did. Riddle didn’t know how but she managed to go to other side of bushes by climbing to them.

“Hey jackasses! Would you like to say that again?” The two students were shocked to see Riddle’s girlfriend jump from above. “Wh- what?”

“I asked if you wanted to say those to my face.” And no answer.

Meanwhile Riddle was on the other side of bush walls, listening what’s happening.

“Did Riddle or did he not manage to increase Heartslabyl’s average grade?” “He did...” “Did he or did he not helped your dorm to have better ranking at Magift?” “He did...” “Did he treat you unfair ever since he fixed how he acted?” “No...” “Then what makes you say he is unfit? Is it because he is more tolerant on rules? Is it because he cares how his dorm mates feel?” No answer again. “I hope you come to your senses now because next time I hear something like this will be the first and last time you taste my wrath. Are we clear?” — “Yes ma’am!”

(Y/N) climbed over the bush again and landed in front of Riddle. With a kiss to his cheek, “Just because you give less punishment doesn’t mean you need to let people bully you. If anyone else acts this way, I’ll have a talk with them.”

She held his hand and pulled him into the maze again. Meanwhile Riddle was still wondering how his girlfriend climbed over a maze’s wall.

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁

Leona Kingscholar

Leona is used to people bad mouthing about him back in his palace. While in Savanaclaw, his dorm mates respected him and didn’t dare to oppose him. That is until they saw his vulnerable side during his overblot accident.

He heard a couple dorm mates say “He can’t do anything by himself.” “Good for nothing.” “All that lazy lion does is sleep.” “He must have lack brains to repeat the same year over and over again.”

He is used to ignoring them and sleeping it off. And his favorite pillow, (Y/N), helped him to dismiss their thoughts.

Leona only asked (Y/N) out because he figured she would be great body pillow. Certainly not her lively and cheerful attitude, nor her bright smile.

Leona asked (Y/N) out for a night date in Savanaclaw. It’s because he wanted to nap in his dorm. It’s absolutely not that Savanaclaw lounge looks romantic at night.

When (Y/N) arrived, she unfortunately heard those.

Leona tugged her arm to lead her to where their date suppose to take but no avail.

“Hold my purse, kitten.” (Y/N) handed her purse to Leona and went where those dorm members stand.

“Hey there is something in your face!” The main jerk looked up “Huh?” Proceeded with a punch to his face. “It was PAIN!” And ended with the guy falling to ground, holding his nose.

“Does anyone else have something on their faces?” The remaining ones shook their head in NO. “Good.” She turned on her heels and went to Leona’s side.

All Leona could do was admire her right hook. He did not think how she wouldn’t feel out of blue in Afterglow Savannah if she were to live there because women in his hometown are strong and fighters.

🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙🐙

Azul Ashengrotto

(Y/N) first caught Azul’s eye when she sat down for 7 hours to read every single detail in his contract and demanded a change in certain conditions. Azul refused to make contract with her then offered her a job in Mostro Lounge.

With persuasion from the twins, Azul gathered courage to ask (Y/N) out. And she accepted.

They often stayed late hours in Mostro Lounge to spend some alone time.

After their quick date followed by closing of Mostro Lounge, Azul walked arm in arm with (Y/N) until the mirror passage. As they were walking, 2 Octavinelle student were messing around.

“Look at me! I’m the crybaby who hides behind two eels!” — “No one is making contract, I’mma cry now!” — “Maybe I can turn my crying into money. I can sell all the ink I cry!” “Nice one dude!”

One look to Azul’s face, (Y/N) understood he would deal with them either personally or the twins would play with them.

Not today Satan!

(Y/N) let Azul’s arm go and slowly approached the duo. “I am (Y/N), you can’t insult my boyfriend like that; prepare to die... socially I mean...” — “What are you saying?”

“I don’t have patience, time nor crayons to explain this to you but I’ll let you on a secret. Sometimes a nasty rumor, which doesn’t have to be true, can ruin someone’s entire school life. Maybe telling everyone your secret wish that you once asked from Azul or you offering a different type of payment to teachers to pass the grade.” — “You can’t do that!” — “I can and I will unless you cut the crap, ask for forgiveness and work for free in Mostro Louge for a week.” — “It’s a deal!”

Azul came to (Y/N)’s side as the two boys run away. Azul once again saw his angelfish using her wits to get what she wants. He knows she didn’t need to do that but he is flattered by the fact that his girlfriend wants to protect him.

🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Kalim Al-Asim

Kalim asked (Y/N) out after spending time together after Jamil overblotted.

He is still the sunshine bean that brings smile to everyone’s faces. (Y/N) is as cheerful as Kalim and that’s why he hit it off

Kalim took (Y/N) to another carpet ride as a date. She loves the feeling of wind on her face on top clouds.

As they returned to the dorm, they heard a couple students talking.

“I don’t care what Jamil did. He was right! Kalim is unfit to represent us. After he became prefect, we became the last at everything.” — “How many Kalim can change a light bulb? None because he is too idiot and too incapable to change one. Hehehehe”

(Y/N) saw tears building up on Kalim’s eyes then she snapped. She made carpet to fly over them in law altitude then she jumped down in front of them. “Surprise motherfuckers!” Before anyone can understand what happened. (Y/N) kicked the one that made bulb joke between his legs then held and twist the ear of the other two. “You have 10 seconds to reconsider what you just talked. I suggest not to waste time.”

The trio tried to dismissed what they said but the glare they received made them comply. “Prefect Kalim, we are sorry to make fun of you.”

Kalim as the personification of sunbeams forgave them. Then turned his attention to his beloved. He was impressed by how she jumped down and was ready to protect him without any hesitation. He never thought someone as kind and happy person as her could hide a fighter in her. Not going to lie, he loves seeing this side of hers

👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑👑

Vil Schönheit

Being with Vil is exhausting. Don’t get her wrong, it’s not him (Y/N) is complaining. It’s the people around them.

(Y/N) started paying more attention to her appearance

(Y/N) was waiting for Vil to get ready, sitting on his bed. Vil had free time that day and they were going out.

As they went out of the room, whispering ensued as always but this time, for the first time, a Pomefiore student bad mouthed about Vil.

“He is compensating his wretched personality with his looks!”

Vil isn’t someone to care opinions of a no-mark but (Y/N) is

“Hold my earrings, my love.” (Y/N) took out her earrings and handed them to Vil. “I’m going to snatch his wig!” — “He’s not wearing a wig...”

“I take it you weren’t burned with overabundance of schooling. You think you’re a Gucci but you’re not even Lacoste. Now apologize before I think your face needs a makeover.” — “Gucci? Lacoste?” — “And I suggest hide your jealousy better. You can’t get near Vil as a fan and you try to make up for it by talking about something that you have no idea on. Honestly I am jealous of people who haven’t met you.”

(Y/N) waves back the boy, going back to Vil’s side then putting her earrings again.

Vil is quite pleased what has occurred. Not only he saw how (Y/N) can destroy someone with just words but he also saw a glimpse of what she thinks of him. Maybe he should hire some people to insult him so he can see this side of hers again.

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Idia Shroud

Idia tries everything he can to stay in his room but there is an anime con that he and (Y/N) are going so he needs to get out of his room.

Idia and (Y/N) dressed up as his favorite anime couple.

Idia left his room voluntarily without any compulsory reason! It became a quick hit topic in Ignihyde.

Idia and (Y/N) went to anime-con and Ortho tagged along to record the ordeal.

They had to return early because some drunk in the con spilt juice on (Y/N).

So they returned NRC then Ignihyde. Ortho left for somewhere as Idia and (Y/N) walked in Ignihyde lounge.

“He doesn’t even go Dorm meeting but doesn’t have a problem with going a stupid con! Idia is an embarrassment to Ignihyde! All he does is play games and ramble about them!”

(Y/N) coughed gathering attention from the group.

Idia freaked out by being in highlight, hand pulled his chest, eyes widened.

“Baby, get behind me.” (Y/N) stepped in front of Idia and strutted to the Ignihyde student that was shit talking. “Pick a God and pray.”

The boy gulped. “Wh-What?!”

“Did I stutter?”

“I don’t know what—“ He threw his hands to air in frustration. (Y/N) grabbed his wrist, twisting and pulling his arm. The momentum caused the boy to fell face forward. (Y/N) still holding his arm twisted, “Now, dear, you’ll apologize and promise that you’ll never speak of Idia that way. Then get out of my face or else..” — “Yes ma’am!” The boy did as he was told.

Idia couldn’t guess in a million years that his goody two shoes girlfriend was capable of pulling this stunt. What he saw right now made him think the fighter beautiful ladies in anime. It was like a dream come true for him.

🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉

Malleus Draconia

People feared Malleus for a really long time that he couldn’t remember anything else.

People avoided and tend to talk behind his back yet those didn’t reach insult level.

Who was stupid enough to dare that?

Malleus asked (Y/N) if she wanted to explore Diasomnia dorm and hear about the gargoyles of Diasomnia.

Of course she would love it. She loves when Malleus goes on about gargoyles for hours. And she is the only member in his club. Plus nightly strolls are their dates.

“He has no friends and no body loves him. For goodness’ sake, his intimating aura makes rest of dorm unapproachable! Can’t he just be gone already!?”

No genius is needed to know who that Diasomnia student was talking about.

Malleus’ mood turned sour immediately. He could curse that boy but this would only prove those wretched rumors.

(Y/N) finds Malleus’ sulking face extremely attractive (he is too attractive to be real) but no one has any right to upset her beloved.

“I’m about to end this man’s whole career.”

“Dear, wait me here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Off (Y/N) went to defend Malleus’ honor.

“Hi there! Couldn’t help but hear you. Have you ever thought you have no friends because you’re an ass?” — “Who do you think you are? Oh it’s you.” — “It’s me Mario!” — “Huh???”

“Now now, let’s talk shall we? All you do is complain yet you don’t do anything to improve anything. You hold others accountable when you fail while there is no one but you to blame. You’re so wrapped in your tiny bubble that you can’t see outside world. That’s what small minded people do. Whoever told you to be yourself simply couldn’t give you any worse advice.” The guy was left speechless, gaping like a fish out of water. “Close your mouth or else you might swallow a fly.”

(Y/N) went back to Malleus side, winking at him. His heart skipped a beat, thinking this was such a queen act. Defending her beloved with her words. To be fair, Malleus finds everything (Y/N) does a fitting trait for a queen, the way she rambles, snorts, breaths, smiles...

Malleus only wishes he met (Y/N) ages ago.

[shipcestuous]

I recently finished the second book of the Hollow Star saga (which is all that’s come out so far) and it’s an absolutely delightful urban fantasy series full of fae, Furies, and family feels.  Warning: there are some fairly big spoilers up to the end of the second book, but it’s impossible to discuss these relationships without spoilers.

To start out, there’s a canonical (although one-sided) crush between unknowing half-brothers.  Prince Vehan is the crown prince of the Seelie Summer Court, and he has a long-running admiration for the high prince of Unseelie Spring (the court that’s currently in charge of all the others), Celadon.  Celadon has an in-universe fandom (“the Celadom”) and Vehan is part of it.  Celadon was his first-ever crush, Vehan still has posters of Cel all over his walls, he reflects that Celadon has definitely played a role in a few secret fantasies over the years…

Except here’s the thing that Vehan (and basically everyone else) doesn’t know: Celadon’s dad and Vehan’s mom had a long-running affair. They were childhood friends, and as their courts’ respective Heads, it was forbidden for them to have a relationship, so they married other people—but kept seeing each other.  Celadon’s biological mother isn’t his father’s wife, but Vehan’s mother Riadne.  Queen Riadne pretended her child died at birth, while Celadon’s stepmother pretended he was hers at his father’s request—all of this in order to keep Cel alive, since a child with all the powers of both Courts would have a target on his back if anyone knew.

In the second book, Celadon stays at the Seelie Summer Court over the summer with his cousin (more on them later), and Vehan lowkey freaks out at having his celebrity crush living with them.  He has to hide all his Celadon posters, of course—though one of his friends tells Celadon that Vehan has posters anyway.  There’s also a misunderstanding where Vehan thinks his best friend/guard/love interest is involved with Celadon, and he’s pretty jealous of both of them.

Meanwhile, Celadon starts putting together the pieces outlined above about his real mother during the book.  He’s horrified because he’s always disliked Queen Riadne and thought the feeling was mutual, but once he realizes she’s his mother, part of him wants a relationship with her even if he doesn’t trust her and knows she wants to harm his dad/family.  (And she does—more on that later—but in her evil plan, she does go out of her way to make sure Celadon won’t be hurt.  She seems to genuinely care about him, even if it’s in a twisted way.  Their relationship is also fun.)

But anyway, as Celadon figures out his parentage, he’s also peripherally aware of Vehan having a celebrity crush on him.  There’s a moment where he worries that, if his suspicions are true, Vehan’s crush is just going to make things more complicated/awkward.  At the end of book 2, Vehan doesn’t know he has a brother yet, and there are more important things going on than telling him.  Still, Celadon likes Vehan well enough as a person, especially as Vehan has become a good friend to his favorite cousin.

Speaking of that cousin—onto my favorite familial relationship in the books, Celadon and Arlo.  It’s non-canon, but they interact frequently and it’s blatant how much they care about each other.  Arlo is the main character and Cel’s cousin on his father’s side.  As half-fae/half-human, she’s ignored or rejected by a lot of their family, but Celadon has always been there for her.  For all of their lives until the series starts, they have been each other’s only real friend.  There’s several sweet passages of Arlo reflecting on how much he means to her and vice versa.  They’re inseparable, unwavering, each other’s favorite person in the world, and despite having two actual siblings (other than Vehan, who he doesn’t know yet at this point) Celadon considers Arlo his sister and the only healthy sibling relationship he has.

And their closeness is well-known and well-documented in Celadon’s fandom, too.  (Before Vehan became friends with Arlo, he knew who she was because she often showed up in pictures with Celadon.)  Even if there are no canon feelings between the cousins, there ARE rumors in Cel’s fandom that he has an “incestuous fixation” with her.  He’s well-aware of these rumors, but he’s never let it stop him from spending time with her whenever possible.  (It’s also noted in these rumors that it wouldn’t be the first time that fae nobility “kept it in the family,” so to speak.  Which in itself implies that there’s been notable cases of royal incest in the fae world like in the human world.)

Even though Arlo is finally able to make other friends as the series goes on, she’s still close to Celadon, and he’s still delightfully protective of her.  He comes to the Seelie Summer Court with her in the first place out of that desire to keep her safe.  (And he’s also keeping a huge secret about her human father’s lineage in order to protect her.)  He gives her a bracelet of his that can teleport her to safety, even though that means he’s without that safety net.  There’s a really cute moment near the end of the second book when they’re about to go to a fancy event and they both comment on how nice the other looks, that really wouldn’t be out of place in a scene about love interests.

Regrettably, that event goes horribly awry.  (Back to Cel and Vehan’s mother’s evil plan, mentioned before.)  She gets Celadon and Arlo’s whole family together at this event with the intention of killing them, and basically forces Arlo to choose one family member to keep alive while having to watch the rest of them die.  Even Arlo’s mother is there, who Arlo really loves—but even so, at the end of the day, she chooses to keep Celadon alive over anyone else.  (The queen laughs at her because, as mentioned, Riadne had no intention of letting her son die, but there’s no way for Arlo to have known that.)

And that’s about the point where the second book leaves off.  Geez, that ending took a sledgehammer to my heart… and the third book won’t be out for at least a year!  Still, you get why Arlo and Celadon have my favorite relationship in the books.  They just love each other so much.

I do want to note that (like Vehan) Arlo does have a canon love interest.  And I love that relationship too—it’s well-written and sweet, and I also love that fact that said love interest (Nausicaä) and Celadon highkey don’t trust each other a bit at first, but they end up allies because they both care so much about Arlo.  You love to see it.

Speaking of Nausicaä, I do have a bit to say about her and one of her sisters, as well.  Nausicaä was once a Fury, alongside her two sisters, Megaera and Tisiphone.  Her favorite of those sisters, Tisiphone, suffered from depression and, after being manipulated and callously dumped by a mortal man, she ended her own life (in front of Nausicaä).  Nausicaä flew into a righteous rage, went out and killed that man and his corrupt friends, and was exiled from the immortal world because of it, forced to live in the mortal world.

All of this happened over a hundred years ago, but Nausicaä is still full of rage and grief over the death of her sister.  She’s still angry at herself and their fellow immortals for not understanding how to help Tisiphone or save her.  She’s traumatized by her sister’s death and tries to shut everyone out of her life.

This changes when she first meets Arlo—but the reason I’m talking about this is because, when they first meet, Arlo reminds her of Tisiphone, both in looks and personality in some ways.  Although Nausicaä comes to care for Arlo as her own person, the reason she’s drawn to her in the first place is because Nausicaä is reminded of her sister.  And it’s noteworthy that the person to finally start getting through Nausicaä’s emotional walls is someone similar to Tisiphone.  Idk, it’s just… interesting.

Tl;dr: a prince accidentally gets a crush on his half-brother; cousins are each other’s favorite people and they’re cute af; a girl falls in love with someone who reminded her of her dead sister; local incest shipper has a field day.  Sorry for the long write-up, lol

----

This sounds like a really fun universe with some really interesting court politics. Vehan's celebrity crush on Celadon is hilarious, the fact that's a canon crush on his own brother unbeknownst to him is just too much.

The Riadne/Celadon relationship fascinates me. I hope book three dives into it more.

I love the Arlo/Celadon relationship. I love seeing cousins who are really close, even if it's not canon. I just love seeing those extended family connections being really meaningful.

And Nausicaa/Tisiphone is so sad! But sounds shippy too.

Thanks for sharing this recommendation with us! I'm sorry about the long wait for the next book, that's the worst!

[chibinekochan]

For Luke's birthday and I have something where Luke meets MC's little sibling of possible, please and thank you.

I made the sibling around toddler age just because I thought it's cute.

-

"I'm so sorry to call you on such short notice but I have to cancel today's plan. My parents had an emergency and now I'm taking my little sibling to a movie." You looked forward to going to the zoo but it can't be helped.

"Aww too bad but I could still come. What are you going to watch?" Luke is open to ell change of plans.

"The Angel Michael. It's a children's thing that is very popular right now." You read the title of the program.

"Wait, I think I have heard of it. I mean I'm way too old for it, of course, but the title made me curious." Luke seems to be a bit embarrassed by the knowledge.

"Oh, that's awesome so you want to come? But be warned, my sibling is very excited to go." You already have to wrangle them while being on the phone.

"Ummm...well it's not like I have other plans and I'm kinda curious about your sibling anyway. So I'd tag along if I'm not a nuisance." Luke also wanted to watch the movie anyway but it seemed childish to him.

"You are very welcome to tag along. Are you okay with meeting in front of the cinema?" You still wrangle your sibling, who insists on dressing as the title character.

"Sure, I know where it is." Luke was there before and he is somewhat glad you aren't insisting on picking him up.

"Great, meet you in a half hour. Hey, get down from there! Sorry gotta take care of the whirlwind here. See ya!" Meanwhile your sibling had tried to test the wings by jumping off the table. Definitely a case of over excitement.

Luke sighs, wondering if this is really a good idea.

Just a bit later you meet.

Your sibling is still running all over the place. Pretending to fly.

"Hey Luke. Please just ignore them if they are too annoying. They are all over the place today. Just too much excitement." You shake your head, sighing.

"Hey, it's alright. They really must look forward to the movie." Luke watched them carefully. Now he sees why you get so well along with the demon brothers.

"They do. Michael is their favorite. I mean he is the main character so it's no wonder." You keep a careful eye on the little one.

"I can understand that Michael is very great. Though seeing him as a child character is somewhat strange." Luke admires the real Michael a great deal after all.

This catches the attention of your sibling. "Michael is the best isn't he?" They stand with bright eyes in front of Luke.

"He really is. Even when he is strict sometimes, but he is very great. I want to be like him one day." Luke talks about the real Michael of course.

"Same here. What do you say to my wings?" The little one twirls around, showing the full outfit off.

"They look very good. Of course the real Michael has more wings but in the show he has only two right?" Luke still tries to hide the fact that he also watches the show.

"Yeah. I wonder if they show us when he gets more wings but you almost sound like you know the actual angel." Your sibling giggles.

"Well…" Luke nervously looks at you, he really doesn't like lying.

"We need to buy the tickets so let's get in line." You try to change the subject, lucky enough it's a success.

Your sibling is now standing between you and Luke.

At least they calmed down a little bit.

"What do you like most about Michael?" Your sibling starts to prove Luke some more.

"That's hard to say. He has so many great qualities. He works very hard but still cares about everyone. If I ever become a high ranking angel I want to become just like him. Though I also admire Simeon a great deal. I guess it's not bad to have two role models." Luke doesn't even realize what he just said until your siblings' eyes start to shine brightly.

"Wait, you are an actual angel aren't you? Don't worry, you can tell me! I can keep a secret." They whisper loudly.

You side glance at them and lean over to Luke. "Don't worry, my parents know about whereI really go to school and accept it. Everyone else will just think they have a vivid imagination. They called their babysitter an angel too." You speak in a very low voice.

"I'm an angel but only a low ranking one. I'm nowhere near Michael." Luke admits it in a low voice.

"Wow, so cool!" They jump up and down being super excited. They start to ask countless questions about the celestial realm until you finally buy the tickets.

"It's so cool that you are an angel. I need to sit next to you!" They don't even ask anyone.

"Is that okay with you?" You look apogetily at Luke.

"I don't mind…" He feels actually pretty flustered by the sudden interest in his person but it doesn't feel bad. Never has anyone looked at him with such admiration.

"Yay. Oh, we need to get the special Michael popcorn bucket." Your sibling suddenly spots the special item.

"That's a pretty big bucket but if we split it it would be okay. What do you say Luke?" You wanted to get popcorn anyway, not like your sibling needs more sugar but still.

"Sure, I will pitch in." Luke proceeds to take his wallet out.

"Let me pay for it. Just pay for your drink. I will get them caprisun and I will have some soda." You have no intention in letting Luke pay for it.

"Alright if it's okay for you." Luke feels a bit guilty but he sees that the main reason for the bucket is your sibling anyway.

You all stand in line for a while.

Behind you is another child with his mom. Eyeing a cute bag of candy. They ask for it but it seems the mother does not have the money for it. It's a bit sad.

Before you can think about it too much it's your turn. You and Luke go separate. You notice that he got himself an extra treat. A bag of candy. You figure that he probably wants to check some human treats and pay no mind to it. Just being glad to be done with the purchase.

"We should look for our seats and we also should go to the bathroom before the movie starts." You especially look at your sibling at the last part.

"Yeah that's true. Can you hold on to my drink for a moment? I will be fast." Luke suddenly seems distracted.

"Of course. We will be waiting here." You just think he might have to go badly.

Your sibling seems busy watching previews on a small screen nearby while you wait.

"Luke really is kind." They say that seemingly out of nowhere.

"He is." You agree with a smile, even when it seems a bit random.

"You know he gave that mom a bag of candy." Your sibling looks at a scene behind you.

You turn and only see Luke walking away, the kid from earlier now happily holding the bag from earlier.

"That was very nice of him." You can only agree with your sibling.

"I think he is right I can have more than one role model." The stars in their eyes grow bigger yet again. Seems like Luke earned a fan.

"That's nice but when will you see me as a role model?" You act offended.

"I consider it when you stop playing with demons." They stick their tongue out and you laugh and ruffle their hair.

-

My Obey me! Masterlist

[stillness-in-green]

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Four and Conclusion)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front Introduction and Part One Part Two Part Three

PART FOUR: Thematic Problems

For all that portions of the Western fandom look at the MLA and see Evil Quirk Eugenicists and Hypocritical Ultra-Rich, they had legitimate complaints, and their goals, while overly radical if taken to their logical extremes—see Geten[51]—still offer a way to address a huge number of the problems this society faces. Locking them up and throwing away the key is shutting off one of the most prominent angles on addressing those issues. Consider:

The Problem of Heroics

Quirk-based prejudice is real, and a huge amount of it is based in the hero/villain dichotomy. This isn’t surprising; when you set up a group of people as “heroes,” it follows logically, linguistically, naturally that the people they fight must be villains. Villains are bad, are evil, are black-and-white figures with no motivation worth considering. Toss them in jail; who cares? They earned being in there with their Bad Actions. But that kind of thinking is insidious—it spreads.

If someone looks like a villain, if someone has a bad quirk, they may well be a Bad Seed. And if they aren’t, well, the responsibility is on them to rise above that prejudice, to become better than the people around them think they can be—but no one asks the people around them to maybe stop being so damn prejudicial all the time.

A horrifyingly stark example shows up in Chapter 310, in which a woman is being attacked by a group of three men for no reason save that they think she looks like a villain, so they assume she must be a villain. Her obvious villain trait? She’s a heteromorph—unusually tall, with a vulpine face. That’s it. She’s not dressed in a threatening or antisocial style; she’s not aggressive or angry. She’s just a heteromorph who didn’t go to a shelter right away because she thought things would calm down if she waited it out.

Love Midoriya following this up with, “I bet they were just scared too.” Way to chase an aggression with a micro-aggression there, hero. (Chapter 310)

Of course, tensions are running high right now, higher than would ever be the case under normal circumstances, but even in “normal circumstances,” this uncomfortable bias persists. Consider Class 1-A’s Shoji: Shoji wears a mask because he's a gentle soul who doesn’t want to scare small children, but maybe instead, people should be teaching their kids not to judge by appearances? Then maybe their kids wouldn’t grow up to be the kinds of people who attack others for looking a little scary and not going to sufficient pains to hide it?

As far as bad quirks go, meanwhile, Shinsou is the classic example on the hero side. He was told by classmates, laughingly, that he had a good quirk for a villain; he carries himself at all times like he’s got something to prove. I suspect the only reason he’s at U.A. and not running with the League of Villains is a supportive home life,[52] but either way, people are all too ready to apply a villain label to him based on an ability that was nothing but genetic lottery, and that’s because the existence of heroes defines itself by the existence of villains.

Of course, the otherization of villains and people-who-kind-of-seem-like-they-might-be-villains is only part of the problem. The other and frankly larger issue is the effect that limiting quirk use to heroes-only has on the cultural mindset—heroes, villains, and civilians alike.

Japan in real life fosters a sense of community support so profound that children as young as four can be sent on small errands[53] around the neighborhood, safe in the knowledge that if they need help, they will be able to get that help. It’s far more common for young children to walk or take public transit to school than it is in the U.S. Another example is the country’s enthusiastic embrace of publicly available AED machines, complete with easy-to-understand printed and audio instructions about how to use them on people suffering heart attacks, a movement that has saved the lives of many who might not have otherwise survived long enough for an ambulance to arrive.

In My Hero Academia’s Japan, though?

You wind up with people who don't even particularly want to become heroes enrolling in hero schools anyway because it's the only way they can imagine contributing to society. Uraraka and Gran Torino are obvious examples—Uraraka becoming a hero less because she felt a calling to and more because it seemed like the best way to ameliorate her family’s hardscrabble lot in life; Torino getting a hero license not because he cared about being a hero at all, but because he was in on the One For All situation and needed to be able to use his quirk freely to help fight that secret war.

An even more telling case is that of the main character himself. Midoriya desperately wanted to “save” people, and from all the evidence we have in the early manga, as far as he was concerned, the only way for him to do that was to become a hero. He never even considered e.g. signing up for any volunteer programs around his neighborhood or joining the police. It’s like he never even considered the possibility of helping people via other channels.

And this is a consistent issue! People who don't think that they can become heroes train themselves (and are trained by society) into believing that they are powerless, that it isn’t their responsibility to help when they see trouble, leading to things like Shimura Tenko's “long walk,” where countless people look at a child of five, bloody and alone, and then make the conscious decision to look away, because “a hero will help.”

Hell, it even spills over onto actual heroes, who in the first chapter stand around like chumps waiting for “someone with a better quirk” to come and do something about the sludge villain, because they don’t have the perfect quirk to solve the problem themselves, so they don’t even try.

Of course, even if they did try, it might not be welcomed. Consider cases where people wanted to do good, like Gentle Criminal or Vigilantes' Koichi, but had their road to heroism blocked—this led them to villainy or vigilantism, which in turn can lead to arrest and possible prison time, with all the attendant stigma.

Restricting quirk use to heroes-only has impacts beyond just how it distorts people’s desire to help, too. Evidence in the manga suggests that some people feel a stronger biological drive to use their quirks than others. What options do those people have, then, if their quirks—or their personalities—don’t seem naturally cut out for heroism?

In Tamaki Amajiki’s flashback in Chapter 140, a teacher tells his class, “People make fine use of their quirks at any number of jobs. Being a hero’s not the only option. How will you be useful to society in the future? That’s what we’re here to explore in quirk training.” This is the scene in the manga that most explicitly tells us that other avenues for quirk use exist, but we’re never once shown what those avenues might be. At best, this suggests that those avenues are drastically limited (e.g. only available to those whose quirks are deemed “useful to society”) and/or poorly explained to people in-universe—else why would Uraraka have chosen heroism despite her lack of interest in it if she could have just gotten some kind of job license for her quirk? At worst, it’s an example of Horikoshi throwing in a line that contradicts the surrounding canon. Either way, we’re left with people who feel a strong drive to use their quirks being pressured into heroism or straying into villainy for lack of other acceptable outlets.

All of these issues could be mitigated by less draconian restrictions on quirks—which Destro's followers are the only characters in the manga we've actively seen pushing for, rather than just heard about second-hand—and by not using an ideologically charged word like “heroes” to describe a glorified independent police force. Allowing people to freely use their quirks[54] means fewer people being pushed into a heroics job they're unsuited for, means fewer people being pushed into villainy, means a more rounded view on how quirks can be used, leading to less quirk-based prejudice and less—well, let’s talk some about false dichotomies.

All For Nothing, Nothing For All

Shigaraki stands as a fundamental accusation of the way the hero/civilian dynamic exacerbates the Bystander Effect, making people think of themselves as powerless, while at the same time putting untenable pressure on heroes to be perfect victory machines who don't experience pain or doubt or weakness. He further attests that this dynamic pushes out people who don't fit either category—victim or hero—making them villains. This is one of the fundamental thematic conflicts of the series—is one hero enough? Are heroes themselves enough? What are heroes, what do they fight, and what should they be fighting? Who deserves to be “saved” and what does it mean, anyway, to “save” someone? What happens to the people who aren’t saved? How will the world grapple with the consequences, the resentment, that stem from that failure?

In his work Underground, written to grapple with and criticize the way Japanese media covered the sarin gas attacks, author Murakami Haruki talked about the response to the incident being to call the members of Aum Shinrikyo evil, insane, diseased, other. They were spoken of as a monstrous fringe that could not have been predicted, about which nothing could have been done, rather than examined as bright, well-educated young people who by all accounts ought to have had good futures ahead of them but instead spiraled down into a doomsday cult. Murakami asserted that, because the Japanese public was unwilling to ask how and why that happened, was unwilling to self-examine, the country was locking itself into a repeating cycle. Memorably, he wrote, “Most Japanese seem ready to pack up the whole incident in a trunk labeled THINGS OVER AND DONE WITH,” to describe this resolute incuriosity, the strong aversion to looking into the face of evil and trying to find the humanity within it.

In this post and its follow-up, tumblr user @robotlesbianjavert discusses the problems that stem from that exact tendency as portrayed in My Hero Academia. She says, “Only making decisions that benefit the greater good is not the real solution that the narrative is rooting for. Not so long as it fails to recognize and address the needs of the victims that still come of it.” Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

I would also like to highlight her point—which I hope she one day posts her own full essay on—about the way All For One and One For All serve as two extreme poles of equally unsustainable visions for society. This dynamic is all over the manga.

There are the characters of AFO and his younger brother themselves, each forever locked in battle to prove the correctness of his own way of thinking, and forever talking past the other even when they’re face to face.

There’s the contrast of heroes, giving their all to help strangers even when it hurts the people they love, with villains, giving their all to help the people they love even when it hurts strangers.

The flaws in the One For All model can be seen in the multilayered ravages it inflicted on All Might physically, emotionally, and socially. Thus, one for all is not always ideal.

The strengths of the All For One model can be seen in a team of heroes and police combining their efforts and will to help one single person—Eri. Nighteye even highlights this with his speech about everyone’s efforts coalescing into Midoriya and helping him to “twist fate.” Thus, all for one is not always about selfishness.

Once you start looking for it, this duality shows up everywhere, and I think—I hope—it’s an angle Horikoshi is conscious of. The obvious solution is that the extremes of this society are all undesirable—that total selflessness and total selfishness are equally unsustainable, and both are, ultimately, damaging. A more holistic approach is needed, yet if a holistic approach is what the manga ultimately proves to be seeking, it makes the mass arrest of the PLF particularly problematic, if it’s allowed to stand unchallenged. You cannot just choose not to see 115,000 dissatisfied people—some way or another, you have to reckon with them, and if you don’t do it in a way that actually helps them address whatever their core problem is, you’re just setting yourself up for more of the same further down the line.

The MLA believed that they were fighting for a just cause, for freedom, for the future. They absolutely had issues—Geten’s words indicate that much—but they were issues that would have been much better addressed by actually challenging them openly, rather than suppressing them. If they couldn’t get society to agree right away that the use of one’s quirk should be as unregulated as the use of one’s hands, maybe they would have accepted a tiered license approach to quirk use as a good starting compromise. If they wanted totally unhindered quirk use, such that people could murder with impunity? Well, that would never have gotten past the House of Representatives, but maybe a bill declaring that crimes committed by quirks should be treated no differently than crimes committed via any other means would have. A weeklong debate on the Diet floor would have stood a much greater chance of e.g. addressing the needs of the quirkless than the MLA alone would have bothered with.

The MLA didn’t get to have that kind of debate. Instead, they ran headfirst into Shigaraki Tomura, who made them far more dangerous. And yet… For all that Shigaraki twisted them, he didn’t change them so much that Re-Destro couldn’t still see the light of his ideals within them. Furthermore, even though the PLF didn’t win the battle we call the War Arc, it may be that they’re well on their way to winning the actual war.

“The Seeds Are Already Sown”

So what did the PLF actually want? Well, we have a few sources on that—Shigaraki’s desire to destroy “everything,” the cloned Re-Destro’s vision of liberation through “order without order,” and so forth. But a very instructive place to look is Hawks’ doomsaying in Chapter 258. While the PLF is a bit too scattered or imprisoned to appreciate it, a shocking number of the things Hawks laid out for the audience have actually come about, even if they didn’t happen exactly as the PLF planned. Consider:

Bring down the status quo by annihilating all heroes. Heroes—a number of whom died the day of the raid—are retiring in mass numbers. As the manga describes it, they are “being put through a sieve.” They certainly haven’t all been annihilated, but the ones remaining are having to do the work with little in the way of thanks or glory—the false heroes Stain spoke of have left the table.

They plan to attack all major cities at once throughout the nation. Gigantomachia stampeded over more than twenty cities in the space of less than an hour. A bunch of them were surely not major cities, but all the same, it was a rampage that caught the heroes almost completely off-guard (because they were all tied up arresting the PLF and didn’t think Machia would be an issue), leading to massive collateral damage and unspeakable loss of life.

With society brought to a lawless standstill… Thanks to AFO’s prison breaks, a bunch of villains are now out there raising hell to their hearts’ content, and there aren’t enough heroes around to always respond in a timely fashion. They’re having to open up schools as shelter zones, evacuating entire cities, which the common people respond to predictably poorly, leading to groups of people who were not previously villainous deciding to take the law into their own hands.

…Re-Destro and the Hearts & Minds Party will storm the political world. In Chapter 297, the less openly fascist guard worries that the remaining factions of the HMP[55] will still be stirring up trouble on the political front, especially given the enormous wave of brand-new complaints about human rights violations that he doubtlessly figured were incoming.

They will distribute weapons and extol the virtues of self-defense, calling it true freedom. Whether Detnerat picked up the pace of its black-market support goods sales, bankrolled Giran doing the same, or some other groups—yakuza, perhaps—stepped up, we already know that there are weapons and support goods circulating throughout society, and that people are using them for self-defense.

These people will throw the world into chaos and enthrone Shigaraki atop the rubble. The second coming of All For One. Far more so than anyone in the PLF would have wanted, this one has come horribly true with the AFO vestige’s possession of Shigaraki.[56]

While it is perhaps karmic that the PLF is in no position to enjoy the fruits of their villainous efforts, it’s striking how much of what they wanted has come about anyway. And how much of this can really be undone or wound back? Complete societal breakdown isn’t the kind of genie you can easily rebottle, and this, I think, is particularly illustrated by the civilians Yo and Tatami encounter in Chapter 307.

I’d like to wind this essay down by zooming in on that encounter somewhat.

The group of people the Ketsubutsu pair encounter in 307 are not nice, but neither are they violent. Having, like so many others, lost faith in heroes to protect them, they want only to protect their hometown and for heroes to leave them be. They’ve fended off a few small-time villain attacks and are bluntly uninterested in cooperating with condescending heroes (an impression Yo is not helping to mitigate) who have done nothing but disappoint them.

The spokesman in particular feels to me like someone who’s suffered a significant personal loss. The shadow over his eyes here is telling. (Chapter 307)

When Muscular shows up, they are 100% ready to put their lives where their mouths are. They are all in the process of charging outside, first to stop their town from suffering more damage, then to back up a hero kid they just got done telling to buzz off. And you know? It’s possible—probable, even!—that Muscular would have murdered every last one of them, and them charging in to fight him would have led to a horrific tragedy, one more to stack atop the pile.

And yet, while the narrative doesn’t allow them to actually assist,[57] neither does it entirely rebuke them, in the end. When all is said and done, the civilians agree to hear Tatami and Yo out, and they help Tatami get Yo inside for medical attention. The leader is a little abashed, but he doesn’t bow his head and admit to being wrong; his group doesn’t meekly submit to being herded to shelter. And that’s because the narrative is—wisely—unwilling to say that they’re wrong.

After all, how could it?

Midoriya Izuku and the jaded civilian's instincts. (Chapters 1 and 307)

For a last comparison, remember that in the first chapter, Midoriya Izuku—quirkless, untrained Midoriya Izuku—dove into a fight he had no way of winning, no way of even affecting. All he was doing was endangering himself and making the sludge villain even harder to target. Still, All Might and the narrative alike praised him for his action, because it was driven by a “desire to save.” In Chapter 307, a group of undertrained civilians witnesses a high school boy being attacked by the highest tier of villain their society knows, a Tartarus escapee, a gleeful and unrepentant serial killer with a devastatingly powerful quirk. Their response is to gather up their weapons and numbers and dive in to try and help. Regardless of the weakness of their quirks, regardless of their lack of training, regardless of the danger to their lives, their instinct is the same as Midoriya’s was back then—“the desire to save.”

How could the narrative possibly tell us that they're wrong?

And if they aren’t wrong, this group of people who are so very close to the vision the PLF had for the world after their revolution, the narrative simply cannot expect to retain the slightest hint of credibility if it tries to tell us that the PLF are worth nothing more than an authorial handwave and the slamming of a cell door.

Conclusion

What we are seeing in the manga now is a society that is fumbling towards a new way. It isn’t perfect; it has a lot of wrinkles to iron out. Yet in some ways, if this is a society that has gone back in time, it is also a society that has a chance to chart a different path forward than it did before, a more inclusive path, a more balanced one. Heroes can still exist in the same way that surgeons and emergency responders exist, but that doesn't mean people throw their first aid kits in the garbage.

People protest that untrained civilians using their quirks leads to collateral damage, and that's true. The same would be true, however, if a nation that relied solely on public transit suddenly faced the total breakdown of that system and found that, if they wanted to get anywhere farther than walking distance, they had to get behind the wheel of a car and drive there themselves with no previous experience handling a motor vehicle. With some basic training, or perhaps a test and associated license that is as ubiquitous as a driver's license, how much of the collateral damage caused by civilians fighting might be reduced? How might people feel more empowered to act when necessary?

I very much want to see that future in the manga. It will feel terribly bitter, however, if the people who always believed in that future the most don’t get to see it themselves.

Bit characters are bit characters, I know. Terrorists in fiction don’t typically get to walk away scot-free. But numbers aren’t just numbers, even in fiction, even when they’re villains. If all Horikoshi wanted was a sufficiently large, scary threat to throw his heroes up against, he should have stuck with mindless Noumu or maniacal robots. He didn’t. He chose to make that threat human. He cannot now choose to dehumanize the threat, just because those humans are no longer convenient to his story.

Or at least, he can’t make me look at his doing so as anything other than appalling—ahistorical, absurd, and unsustainable.

Come back next time for sources and further reading.

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

[51] And yes, as always, I do think that Geten-whose-name-means-Apocrypha is a radical, not a reliable barometer for the MLA norm.

[52] Contrasting Toga, the standard-bearer for bad quirks on the villain side.

[53] We don’t know if that practice—so widespread it became the subject of a long-running TV program—survived the Advent and raised crime rate, but if it didn’t, that only further suggests that kids wandering the streets unattended are probably in need of assistance.

[54] Within the same bounds other freedoms exist, e.g. they’re not unduly burdening others.

[55] Small political parties in Japan merge and fragment all the time, particularly in times of crisis, so it’s not surprising that the HMP has some sub-groups. I am somewhat surprised that these factions themselves weren’t dissolved as well, given the heavy-handedness on display everywhere else. This is about the only thing that suggests that the arrests might not be as totally over-the-top as is otherwise implied, though really, if that’s the case, it just brings us back to the problem of all the people who probably slipped the net if the HPSC did opt to undercompensate.

[56] Another enormous thematic issue I have with tossing away the PLF like this is that it renders Shigaraki and the League’s hard-fought victories in My Villain Academia all but meaningless—worse than meaningless, since settling into the villa instead of staying on the run or bunking up with Ujiko wound up losing them Twice—but that’s more a problem with the writing of Shigaraki’s arc than the themes of the series as a whole. Certainly, fumbling Shigaraki’s arc will have a nigh-incomparable impact on the themes of the series as a whole, but there’s time to salvage his situation yet, so I’m crossing my fingers and reserving judgement on that for now.

[57] It should have.

[crylockchaos]

No, Tellexx; I Will Not Simply Follow Along: Part One of a Reading of Razzmatazz’s Story

Razzmatazz stands out for many reasons.  Since the band takes the “concept album” to a new level by creating a “concept band” through lore Razzmatazz stands out, in my opinion, because of the compromised role between writers and readers. There are many ways to look and interpret the story behind the songs, if readers choose to see the songs as telling a story.  I’m going to share my own interpretation.  This “reading” is influenced by “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes, and “Interpreting the Variorum” by Stanley Fish.  I find that the album critiques ideas of Marxist theory and mocks the industry that fuels modern music as seen by the nods to Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Walter Benjamin; but relies on the reader to create the story more than the use of satire.  The album cannot work because the text “disappears” (Fish 485) without reader interaction.  Weekes and Seaman cannot fully control how readers “read” their work, which I think is something they encourage through the ambiguous nature of the text. Through reoccurring symbols in the songs and videos the story unfolds in subtle ways, encouraging the listeners to not simply follow along, but to engage with the lore to understand what is happening to the narrator.  I will go through, in order of each piece, enabling the “birth of the reader” (Barthes 521) to tell the story in the way I interpret it.

The story begins with “Leave Me Alone”.  The characters, Dallon and Ryan enter the corporation in 2020 based on the use of masks and safety precautions taken for the real events taking place.  The “volunteer pairing” (“Indoctrination” iDKHOW) takes their first step in working for the corporation Tellexx.  Ryan is clear in his resistance towards the means and ideas of the company, hence why he is wearing a mask more often.  To prevent rebellion, Tellexx separates Ryan from Dallon using isolation boxes and masks him to force him into compliance.  They do this with Dallon too, but to a lesser extent because if Tellexx wishes to spread its influence Dallon needs to use his voice.  Ryan’s rebellion is stifled easier because of his role as percussion by wearing a mask, but that does not mean he is powerless.  He strongly opposes Tellexx’s ideas to the point where the company views him as a threat, so they attempt to stop him from communicating through isolation and forced muting with a mask.  But it doesn’t stop him.  His lack of face expressions and movement within each video show his rebellion.  What at first comes off as unusual and perhaps humorous allows Ryan to hold the role of a Byronic Hero.  His rebellion comes through his intelligence and outward appearance.  Instead of parading around playing a role, Ryan goes against Tellexx’s wishes and simply does not do anything.  Tellexx views him as a direct threat and minimizes his role strictly to percussion, but that does not stop him, which I will return to later.

Dallon is much more subtle with his pressure, but the Tellex workers suspect rebellion based on lines such as “the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don’t” (Weekes 2020) or “mad as a hatter with a dagger and a dollar sign” (Weekes 2020), where Dallon exposes the knowledge that Tellexx will dispose of them if they no longer create profit.  As I have mentioned in the past, there are two voices within Dallon; which makes this song the origin of the split between the Warner (the side working against Tellexx) and the Threatener (the side working for Tellexx).  The Warner’s voice in “Leave Me Alone” is Dallon’s rebellion through his knowledge of the sinister means.  Both Dallon and Ryan do not trust Tellexx’s values and know that the corporation wishes to spread its influence in music through time and space for more capital in the created industry.  Yet there’s a split created by Tellexx during the experimentation in the video.  Dallon changes from animated and active while singing to still and threatening when he says “go fly a kit until you’re tangled in the hang tree” (Weekes 2020).  This change is the initial incident that sparks the main conflict in this reading: man versus self- Warner versus Threatener, Dallon’s good versus Dallon’s bad. Tellexx controls a part of Dallon, allowing him to freely sing and move around without being attached to anything. “Leave Me Alone” in the story proves to Tellexx that the pairing is suitable under these conditions, and they are sent into time, meanwhile Dallon’s internal conflict grows.  

“Indoctrination” is a flashback.  This piece serves the purpose to enlighten the audience of Tellexx’s means and plan, while also revealing exactly what Dallon and Ryan are resisting.  Calling the section indoctrination reveals the malicious side of Tellexx as we hear the literal brainwashing the corporation uses on the “volunteer pairing” (iDKHOW 2020).  This aspect of the piece gives listeners insight to what Dallon and Ryan have faced regarding thought reform and Tellexx’s corporate agenda.  This part of the text reveals the side of Tellexx that listeners are suspicious of, confirming it as the antagonist against I Dont [sic.] Know How But They Found Me.  By having the piece say that the pairing and Tellex will “work together to decode and / exploit the secrets of time and space for our benefit” (iDKHOW), it uses negative connotation to create rebellion through the verb “exploit”. Listeners side with Warner Dallon and Silent Ryan because we understand that Tellexx seeks the secrets of time for selfish matters: to spread their influence and create an industry that they control.  It works alongside “Leave Me Alone” to initiate the two major conflicts: the internal conflict within Dallon, and the band versus the corporation.  Through this, White Shadow character and the Threatener have clear origins.  Both were created to “be sure that the company’s interests maintain the highest priority” (iDKHOW).  This includes the White Shadow following Dallon and Ryan to prevent rebellion and acting in a way that places pressure against Mechanical Reproduction and the industry, and the Threatener acting as a character of Thought Reform within Dallon who is trying to eliminate the Warner’s awareness.  This allows White Shadow to serve as a metaphorical reminder of failures of the past and would allow the Threatener to coax Dallon into serving Tellexx’s needs.  Since Threatener is made by Tellexx, this side of Dallon uses an underlying fear to control Dallon and force him to continue working for the corporation.

Warner can see Tellexx’s malevolent goals.  This side of Dallon, the narrator, uses his voice to create awareness of his opposition and to alert listeners, making “Mad IQs” an internal monologue.  The song is Warner’s rebellion since Dallon is free to sing without a mask on, using voice to reveal the malicious intent behind the corporation’s goal to exploit time and space for capital.  This aspect of the narrator exposes Tellexx as a toxic corporation that is taking over Dallon’s mind and being, hinting that this side of him is aware of Threatener’s presence.  Through themes of controlling entity and voluntary ignorance, Warner is admitting that Dallon is losing himself inside the corporation by working for them.  The brainwashing from the memories associated with “Indoctrination” has allowed Dallon to become the “voluntary victim” (Weekes 2020) and give up his sense of right and wrong, and his own identity, making him view himself as a being of Tellexx.  The song alerts listeners that voluntary ignorance has led Dallon into a trap, one that he cannot escape.  Warner attempts to alert listeners of the situation, hinting at ideas of Mechanical Reproduction with “replace you with machines” (Weekes 2020) and “paralyzed by the sum of your parts” (Weekes 2020) to hint that Dallon’s entity is controlled, making both Warner and Threatener’s voices compromised and unreliable; which would explain why Dallon is constantly moving around and is energetic during the video performances, because Threatener is telling him to do so for the benefit of the corporation.

This would explain Dallon’s disappointment at the end of “Nobody Likes the Opening Band”.  This piece is the band’s first attempt at spreading influence and it’s a failure.  The piece acknowledges how the band is only starting in the industry.  By saying “chances are they won’t go far / career is sure to end” (Weekes 2020) the piece reveals that the industry discourages artists with different thoughts.  Tellexx scorns those who go against their ideas, and make sure that industry develops in a way that benefits only one way of thinking, making Warner appear in the wrong as he tries to assist Dallon in making original music.  White Shadow’s disapproval at the end of the video reveals that Dallon has failed to act and perform in a way that benefits the company, pushing his fear into reality.  This enables Threatener to take control and hide Warner, further placing Dallon’s entity in the hands of the corporation and forcing him to lose himself just to be successful.  This fear and idea of failure pushes Dallon to go to 1964 to begin spreading the band’s influence in “Do It All the Time” and then “Social Climb” in 1977, in which both are successful in spreading Tellexx’s ideas and values.  However, this song’s video does more than highlight Dallon’s fall; it also reveals more of Ryan’s rebellion.  By stepping away from the stage to scorn Dallon, Ryan further separates himself from Tellexx.  His actions and moody facial expressions highlight his silent rebellion, one that Tellexx cannot fully control.  If he’s not doing anything technically wrong, they cannot punish him despite their indoctrination strategies.  He is watching what Tellexx is doing to Dallon and resists their attempts to control him by staying silent and using minimal actions.  Doing this gives Ryan power over his entity and self, revealing to readers that his actions are reliable.  

Ryan uses his autonomy in “New Invention” to drag Dallon out of Tellexx’s control and diminishes the grasp Threatener has on him.  He takes Dallon to where Tellexx first created the split to return his entity to him.  The video and song start off with the idea of a devil on the shoulder, which implies The Warner’s awareness of his own instability. He knows that Tellexx is still controlling him to a degree, and how this had created a split.  The Warner knows that The Threatener is attacking him and is desperate to make listeners aware of what happened after “Leave Me Alone”. “You’ve got the devil on your shoulder” (Weekes 2020) implies the light/dark contrast that reoccurs in the other songs. The following line is directly from The Threatener because of the sudden shift: “you better shut your mouth just like I told ya” [sic.] (Weekes 2020).  The Threatener uses it as a threat, implying that unless The Warner is quiet, he will intervene and take full control. The overlapping vocals at the end of this song would show the full conflict between the two sides.  The Warner is having “bad dreams” (Weekes 2020) and can’t get away from the Threatener, even when asleep; meanwhile the Threatener is saying that Dallon is an invention created by Tellexx.  Ryan’s attempt to restore Dallon’s mindset highlights the unreliable nature of Dallon’s character because of the indoctrination and experimentation from the past.  With his identity compromised, Ryan knows that he is the only person who can push the conflict and create resistance.  He resets Dallon not only to return his autonomy and identity, but also to give listeners a reliable narrator since he is still limited by Tellexx.  Ryan cannot use his voice, but his actions speak for him throughout the video and song.  Through Ryan’s actions, Tellexx’s control over Dallon is minimalized, yet the Warner and Threatener are still in conflict.

 I’ll continue this as I can.  School is about to restart for me.

[mlqcconfessions]

MLQC Headcanons - “Are you jealous?”

Because Tumblr likes being a butt, the ask sent by nonny was DELETED before I could answer it! But I did manage to read the request in my notifications. Sorry to the anon if it’s a little different than what you had asked 

Characters: 4 Main Guys X MC

Prompt: Jealousy over someone getting a little too close to you

Warnings: FLUFF OVERLOAD

Victor

Your relationship with LFG’s CEO was still secret

Of course, you were the one who suggested the idea (he could care less what the press thinks, but didn’t want to compromise your privacy)

You’re actually kind of sad that he puts distance between you two during work (I know I said that, but even when we’re alone in his office?)

He makes it up by kissing you in the elevator (Goldman doesn’t understand why you’re standing so far away from Victor and honestly he doesn’t want to know)

After a few weeks of this “secret dating”, you’re so deprived of Victor that you’re less energetic

He notices this, obviously, and actually feels bad about it

Decides to bring some pudding along with him

He drives up to your company to pick you up, but notices you talking with someone (he lowers the window slightly to hear)

Doesn’t think much of it until he hears the guy asking for your number

And you willingly give it to him? 

“This idiot....!”

Victor gets out of his car and walks up to the two of you, hand on your back, and escorts you to the passenger seat (shoots a quick nod back at the guy)

You notice the small bag under your seat and open it, surprised by the small containers filled to the rim with pudding (you waste no time in opening one)

Unbelievable, do I have to ask her myself?

“I never realized you were this careless, MC” (you look up from your pudding)

“What do you mean?”

“Giving your number to a stranger like that? I knew you were a dummy, but to this extent?” (his eyes are fixed on yours as the light turns red)

“Well, he’s going to need his boss’ number, isn’t he? And plus if anything goes wrong with the projects, I’ll need to know” 

“....boss?” (Victor nearly misses the turn)

“Yeah, remember Minor? The newly hired one? I thought I told you already...” (your words drown out in his head as he pieces everything together)

“Wait, Victor...are you being jealous right now?” (he doesn’t like that your eyes are lighting up of all times for her to be observant)

He stops at another red light and leans over to lick the pudding off on your cheek (this guy!)

“So what if I am?”

Kiro

You had asked him if he could come for a segment on your show (modeling for some products)

You ask, he answers

Poor Savin has to clean up the mess after Kiro cancelled his ENTIRE schedule

“Miss Chips NEEDS me!” (if you weren’t Kiro’s girlfriend, Savin would’ve destroyed you)

In between shots he always appears at your side with snacks

“You need to be energized, MC!” (actually just needs an accomplice against Savin)

You’re amazed at the 180 difference of this sunshine when he’s with you vs. when he’s filming (he knows you’re amazed)

One of the cameramen calls you over to discuss the recent shots

The two of you discuss how to bring out the best in Kiro (he was fantastic as is, but there was a spark that just lacked)

He notices you slowly inching towards the cameraman, hands on the back of his chair (sunshine boy is pouty; why can’t you notice that your coworker clearly has interest in you?)

You ponder over how this shoot can be better, unaware that Kiro was staring at your every move

“Maybe someone else can be in the shot with him?” (you suggest, looking up to meet his radiating eyes)

“Great idea! MC, you do it!” (he gets up to grab your hand, and leads you to the front of the studio)

“No...I possibly can’t...”

Your arguments are useless as Kiro calls his team over to help you get prepared

3. HOURS. OF PREPARATIONS.

But you step out, beautifully dressed, catching the eyes of everyone in the room, including the very cameraman (this is NOT what Kiro wanted!)

He quickly pulls you towards him, “Trust me, MC” (stops to look at the cameraman before focusing on you)

He stages these elaborate poses to capture your best angles (Kiro, have you forgotten who this shoot is for?)

He sees that the cameraman is at a loss for words at your beauty (can’t blame him, but still)

For the last shot Kiro leans down and softly blows into your ear, causing you to profusely blush

He looks at the cameraman one last time before leaning down again to whisper

“Don’t be so cute in front of other guys, you’re making me jealous”

Lucien

He’s used to having students come up to him and flirting with him

Of course, it doesn’t faze him at all (but he does enjoy seeing your reactions when he flirts back)

Never thought the tides would turn against him

He sees another student walking up to you during lecture

“Is this seat taken?”

“No, go ahead!”

Lucien’s gaze lands on the student, his face flushed while pulling out the chair to sit next to you (......interesting, of all the seats?)

He looks around the room to find the tens of empty seats in the hall (you were oblivious to his advances that’s my girl)

He resumes the lecture with this in mind, his eyes occasionally darting to you

Obviously the student had no interests in the lesson, but just towards you

But you offer to lend your textbook to him, since he didn’t bring it (learning wasn’t his intentions, after all)

He leans closer to you as you push your hair behind your ears

Nothings gets past Lucien’s eyes (It’s the boyfriend radar in him)

“Mr. Smith, can you please explain the effects of rejection on the brain and its relations to physical pain?” (his lips curl to form a smile his eyes definitely weren’t smiling)

The student immediately understood the context, and scoots away from you in embarrassment “I...I don’t know, professor”

You glance back and forth between the student and Lucien, the latter having a look of satisfaction before continuing the lecture

“Jealousy is an unpredictable emotion. It can cause a person to become irrational and............dangerous”

The clock hits 5 PM, and the student darts out of the room as quickly as he came in

“Well, I suppose that’s the end of today’s lecture. Have a safe trip home, class”

You pack your stuff to leave when he calls your name

“Ah, Miss MC? Please stay for a bit. I need to talk to you about......preventing misunderstandings”

He locks the door

You don’t get out until 7

Gavin

Your frequent visits to the STF headquarters make yourself famous within the other evol agents

Everyone eyes the two of you as you drop off his lunch

You actually enjoy this situation very much (make his lunches EXTRA cute on purpose He blushes everytime he opens the box)

He is called in by one of the mission leaders to discuss their next plans

He squeezes your hand before heading over to a conference room

You stare at his deliciously chiseled back, unaware that Eli has appeared behind you

Ever since your first meeting with Eli, the two of you have grown considerably close (all you talk about is Gavin, after all)

He often updates you about Birdcop: what he's doing on missions, if he's well, if he got hurt (actually undermines any injuries he sustained during battle)

Eli knows how scary you can get

In return, you tell him about Gavin's cute moments

Like when he got drunk a few nights back and got jealous because you took a selfie with Sparky AND NOT WITH HIM (Eli adds this to his "How to Make Fun of B-7" list)

"I love him more than you do, MC"

"No Eli, he's MY boyfriend!"

The two of you, in your own world, laugh away as the argument over who gets custody of Gavin heats up

Meanwhile, Gavin notices the two of you through the one-way mirror in the conference room

You're laughing? Laughing the dorky, adorable giggle you only showed me? To Eli?

He's unable to focus for the rest of the meeting

He wants to storm out of the room and separate the two of you, but he knows his limits (he doesn't want you to see him acting so unprofessionally)

As soon as the meeting is adjourned Birdcop literally FLIES out the door and hides you behind his back

You're slightly annoyed because your "Things Gavin Says in His Sleep" discussion with Eli was interrupted

Then you realize the small barrier of wind blocking Eli from coming close

“Gavin...are you jealous?”

That was the first time Eli saw Agent B-7 flushed from head to toes (he secretly took a picture, and later showed it to the other agents)

We all love a good fluff

Whose imagine did you enjoy the most? For this post, I honestly can’t choose XD

[sepublic]

I’ve been binge reading all your amazingly thoughtful analyses and I was wondering, if you could give the Blight Twins their own episode, (like separate one for Edric and one for Emira because I’ve seen how twins don’t want to bunch together all the time and be their own person) what would you want it to be about?

           OH-HO, this is SUCH a flattering ask and I really must thank you for it! It means a lot…

           With Emira, I hate to be obvious, predictable, main-stream, and pick a low-hanging fruit… But I want her to meet Viney. Emira is someone who is concerned the most of the two about having an actual identity on her own, and this likely includes making friends… So why not go get to know the Detention Kids, who are already rebellious in their own way, but while still managing to flex their individuality?

           Just imagine an episode of Emira getting to know Viney, maybe wanting to be close… But Viney, well. She’s someone who’s defensive because she’s been hurt in the past, and after what she’s heard of the Blights and Emira’s penchant for illusions, she is rightfully going to be suspicious. So we’ll have Emira possibly wanting to abuse the Secret Room of Shortcuts for pranks, but then Viney wants to preserve it mostly as an educational tool, and Emira doesn’t CARE for education…

           And this could lead to Em perhaps being too dismissive and even harsh towards Viney, because she seems like someone who while she tries to self-reflect, she sometimes doesn’t fully realize when she’s just parroting her parents’ abuse. And so we have Emira learning to be more mature and straight-forward, to cease the pranks and mind Viney’s feelings and uncertainty… Being truthful and tender to lower her guard, and Emira actually having to openherself to another person that isn’t Edric.

          Perhaps Em admits WHY she’s like this to Viney, who also introduces her side of the story… And they get to be actual friends! Emira learns to respect who Viney is as well as her interests, Viney gives Em a chance and lets her in figuratively AND literally… Maybe Emira even discovers an actual enjoyment of certain classes beyond Illusions! Or she doesn’t, but either way she may not be too much like Viney, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be friends! And not being like someone she’s close to is… HONESTLY what Emira was aiming for, only now she can still respect these differences too!

          As for Edric…

          Edric is a dude who prioritizes companionship over all-else. But he’s also kind of a goofy kid sometimes, and that’s worth noting. Depending on how Lilith’s character development goes, and how she ALSO was someone who was clingy towards her own sister and didn’t respect Eda’s autonomy as an individual to be her own person, insisting that being together mattered most… I’d LOVE to see Lilith perhaps give Edric a few pointers on this, maybe here them talk about their feelings of crippling loneliness! Let Ed get to be a dumb kid sometimes while Lilith isn’t sure what to make of his antics while Luz just enables him. It’d be amazing to see Lilith and Edric talk about their respective relationship towards Amity…

          Ed knowing this is the lady Amity looked up to, having had reservations because she was a bootlicker; But then Lilith threw it all away –albeit not entirely willingly- for Eda and Luz! So, maybe she IS good for something after all…! Meanwhile, Lilith possibly knows of Amity’s occasional issues with her twin siblings…

          And she thinks of her own time with Eda. So, she decides to impart some wisdom to Edric, about how you should always love your sibling and never go too far, while still letting them be a person… And somewhere along the way, Edric realizes this wouldn’t just apply to him and Amity, but him and Emira too.

          Then Lilith and Edric form a found-family bond, maybe Ed accidentally calls her Mom as well… Maybe even Lilith lets him have fun with King and Owlbert, because the kid wanted pets as a child but never got them because of his strict parents! Not sure how King would feel about Edric though, but I could also imagine them getting into some WEIRD antics alongside Luz! And come to think of it…

          Maybe a pet WOULD help Edric’s issues, though unfortunately I can’t really see Lilith being able to help by getting in a good word with the Blight Parents given her, um, employment status. And if Edric could just get away with hiding a pet through illusions, he’d have probably done it by now, so. On another note, Lilith and Edric both wear glasses (or at least Lilith used to), so I’d LOVE to see the two become more comfortable about doing that around each other.

          For either twin, maybe both, I’d also like to explore their thoughts on Willow… They knew she was Amity’s best friend, but did they know WHY Amity cut ties? They seemed legit concerned in Lost in Language over the way ‘Amity treats people’, so I think the twins had worries about Amity pushing away her best friend like that, potentially because of their parents (though to what degree they had no idea)! Not to mention, how do the Twins feel about Boscha…?

          Boscha is ALSO a trouble-maker, and a bit of a bully herself; Though I don’t think to the same extent as Ed and Em were, and arguably without as much of a reason for it. This was someone Amity hung around with for years, do they know it was against her will? Surely the Twins realized how little Amity smiled around Boscha and her posse, did they have concerns that Amity was being too cold to them, not realizing Amity was forced to hang out with them to begin with?

          How do they feel about Boscha and Amity being on bad terms, about the former breaking the latter’s leg… And what was Boscha’s perspective on the two, and how Amity disliked them? Maybe Ed and Em are harsh towards Boscha for the Grudgby incident, but then they also seem pretty open-minded when it comes to people outside of their family… So maybe they consider Boscha’s side of the story and how Amity WAS cold to her and the others. And maybe the twins learn about what their parents ordered, and tell Boscha to give some peace of mind for her, to give closure…

          Sure it hurts for Boscha to hear Amity never DID like her, but in this case, it really IS for her own good. Maybe it’ll be like Understanding Willow, only instead of Luz it’s Ed and Em, and instead of Willow it’s Boscha; Perhaps we learn more of Boscha’s background, and we get to see her and Amity reconcile, perhaps with Boscha finally learning to respect Willow and Luz on Amity’s behalf… Or they at least acknowledge that both were put into a messed-up situation, a false and thus unhealthy friendship, and decide to leave without any grudges. Who knows?

           I’d honestly love to see Ed and Em perhaps act as like… surrogate older siblings to Boscha, because now they get to make more friends outside of the family (and at least their parents can’t disapprove of Boscha), and they talk about their own mutual concerns and thoughts of Amity, with the twins vouching for Amity while at the same time considering what Boscha has to say and relaying that… Maybe the twins, who are willing to be self-aware, even if they’re not the best at it, tell Boscha to cut out the bullying, that she doesn’t need to be on top or be beholden to what anyone else says!

          I think it’d be sweet, honestly, and I’d love to see more of Boscha’s friends for that matter! Because we know that while Amity was never close to any of them, she’s still an inherently good person and thus felt bad about injuring them in Grudgby; Especially since to Amity’s perspective, she’s no doubt been ‘lying’ to Boscha about their friendship, even if it wasn’t her fault!

          But, yeah… Sorry for getting a little off-topic, but given how much this show stresses relationships and found family, and blood-family being obligated to RESPECT the found family of their relatives… I just think it’d be fascinating to see, on top of Emira and Edric having their own personal journeys of self-discovery! Because as we see with Luz, being your own individual doesn’t mean cutting ties from everyone else, and arguably…

          Making new connections can HELP one make an identity! Because you still choose to make connections not out of obligation, need, and situation… But because it’s what you want and it’s all YOU as a result, because desires are a reflection of a person! And maybe then, Emira and Edric can go back to being Twins and closest friends, now closer than ever in a healthy sense, because now they’re still their own individuals and respect one another as such, and are fine with letting each other be people!

          That they know who they are, and so the Twins don’t need to worry about losing sight of that identity whenever they hang around, because in the end… While MAYBE some of their closeness came as a result of having no one else and needing companionship against their parents, I really do believe that Emira and Edric, despite potential fears suggesting otherwise, DO love and enjoy one another’s company and always will, perhaps more than they do others’! And as long as they’re their own people, that wouldn’t even be a bad thing, honestly…

          Just, the idea of Emira and Edric trying to figure out who they are separate from one another, and in learning so, their bond with each other becomes even stronger and healthier! That they become more comfortable, and more close, because they can afford to be truly honest without worrying about losing the other and having nobody else!

          Once the confusion of who they are is cleared, the Blight Twins can go back to enjoying one another unconditionally, neither worrying about being different nor the same! Just natural sibling love…! No more concern about losing oneself amidst the other, because Emira and Edric are truly their own people now, and thus they aren’t dependent upon one another and can be fully healthy to each other!

          Maybe by the end of their respective journeys, Emira and Edric learn to respect the wishes of one another, while still staying the same… With Edric realizing that he can’t hold onto Emira possessively, and Emira recognizing Edric’s genuine love and concern for her, that she doesn’t need to ‘cut ties’ to be her own person!

          …Look, I just have FEELINGS about these twins, because they’re the children of the Blight Parents and that alone implies issues, but we already SEE a few concerning things, and I just want them to reconcile after Grom and heal from the pain of rejection! Them being stood up is the last we see of Emira and Edric both in terms of official content and chronology, I demand CLOSURE and emotional reparations for these kids!